Bethlehem Police Family Group Conferencing Project

The Bethlehem (Pa.) Police Family Group Conferencing Project is a restorative justice program designed to deal more effectively with young first-time offenders by diverting them from court and involving their extended families and victims in group conferences. The cases deemed eligible for the program are property crimes such as retail and other thefts, criminal mischief and trespassing, and violent crimes including threats, harassment, disorderly conduct, and simple assaults. Offenders who previously had been involved with the juvenile probation system were excluded from the study, as were felonies, drug/alcohol crimes, sex offenses, weapons offenses, and cases in which there was no direct victim.

The goal of this program is to divert young first-time offenders from court and into conferences where they can negotiate solutions with their families and their victims.

The evaluation used a randomized experimental design and determined that violent offenders in the treatment group were significantly less likely to be rearrested in a 12-month period than violent offenders in the other two groups. Researchers found that juveniles in the decline group had the highest rates of rearrest. There was no treatment effect for property offenders.