The effect of restorative juvenile justice on future educational outcomes

In this article, we study the effects of a Dutch restorative justice program for adolescent first-time offenders on early school leaving and years of education attained. Causal statistical estimates are presented using data from a randomized experiment, in which 944 adolescent offenders are randomly assigned to the experimental condition, and by linking these data to registration data that track the educational careers of all adolescents in the Netherlands. We found that the program reduces early school leaving by 6 percentage points and increases years of education attained by 0.29 years. The findings show that restorative juvenile justice programs have signicant educational benefits and should be considered as a tool to reduce early school leaving and increase educational attainment.