In December 2013, The California Endowment funded the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) and Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc. to conduct a feasibility study on restorative community conferencing (RCC) to better understand its potential for a Pay for Success (PFS) project. An analysis of available data gathered since 2012 has revealed that of the young people who completed Alameda County’s RCC program, 26.5% were rearrested compared with 45.0% of a matched sample of youth whose cases were processed through the juvenile justice system.
In December 2013, The California Endowment funded the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) and Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc. to conduct a feasibility study on restorative community conferencing (RCC) to better understand its potential for a Pay for Success (PFS) project. An analysis of available data gathered since 2012 has revealed that of the young people who completed Alameda County’s RCC program, 26.5% were rearrested compared with 45.0% of a matched sample of youth whose cases were processed through the juvenile justice system. Notably, only 11.8% of the RCC youth were subsequently adjudicated delinquent— that is, determined by the court to have committed another delinquent act—compared with 31.4% of the matched sample of youth whose cases were processed through the juvenile justice system. Of participating crime victims, 99% stated they would participate in another RCC. This program also carries significant cost-saving potential, as these lower rates of reoffending combine with a one-time cost of $4,500 per RCC versus $23,000 per year for a youth on probation. With such promising data, NCCD and Third Sector sought to better understand how RCC could be scaled through a PFS project and what capacity building would need to take place for such a project to be feasible. The results of this analysis are detailed in the feasibility report.