Evaluating Family Group Conferences1

THE FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCE HAS BEEN MUCH DISCUSSED SINCE 1989, when legislation made the process a key part of the New Zealand juvenile justice system. The process was adopted in Australia in 1991, when police in the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga began to use family group conferences as part of their "effective juvenile cautioning scheme". The relative merits of the two schemes one national, the other local were subsequently debated at a memorable conference on juvenile justice held in Adelaide late in 1992. It was clear by this stage that the family group conference was a very powerful process. It also represented a radical break with traditional practice in juvenile justice for two fundamental reasons. First, in the family group conference, problems caused by offending behaviours of young people are dealt with collectively rather than by targeting isolated individuals. Secondly, these problems of juvenile offending are dealt with not only at the level of rational debate but also at the level of the emotions. The conference process engages both the head and the heart. Despite some significant procedural differences between the use of the family group conference in New Zealand and its use in Wagga Wagga, proponents of the two models remain in agreement on these two points. The family group conference deals with juvenile offending as a collective problem and it engages the emotions of those seeking a collective solution. Because the process represents such a radical break with existing criminal justice systems in general, and juvenile justice systems in particular, it is open to criticisms from defenders of these systems. The chief legal concern is that the family group conference represents a potential threat to the individual rights of young offenders by undermining due process. Critics of a more utilitarian bent question the efficiency of the process. How do we know it works? Addressing these criticisms requires two separate approaches. First, a normative model is required, a model that justifies a collective and emotional