Empirical research in juvenile justice has not kept up with the central momentum of 'restorative justice' reforms. While there seems to be growing support for the restorative notion of various initiatives like victim-offender mediation and conferencing, there has been relatively little systematic research on the effectiveness of such initiatives. Recognizing the need for systematic evaluation of these types of initiatives, the Queensland Department of Justice commissioned an evaluation of its 'community conferencing' pilot project.