Growing pressure on the ACT's successful restorative justice programs will force the government to consider more funding for the scheme, the Attorney-General has said.
Shane Rattenbury on Tuesday said an evaluation of restorative justice applying to domestic, family and sexual violence offences in the ACT had shown the scheme was generally working well.
The Australian Institute of Criminology's review made 10 recommendations to the ACT government, including shortening the waiting list and addressing concerns the scheme amounted to "soft justice".
The government said it was actively considering the recommendations.
Mr Rattenbury said people who had not been involved in a restorative justice conference might consider it a soft option, but this was not the reality.
"It can be very confronting, having to sit there and have your victim tell you the impact you've had on their lives, the trauma that's caused them, how unsafe they feel in the community," he said.
"Now, those sort of things are, you know, important for perpetrators to hear and the research and evaluation shows it does have a powerful impact on the perpetrators in terms of reducing reoffending."
Mr Rattenbury said restorative justice processes were often valuable in family violence situations when the relationship between a victim and perpetrator would continue.
"These are relationships that we actually want to rebuild over time. And so there's a point where restorative justice processes can be really powerful in enabling families to continue to function together into the future," he said.
ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates said the evaluation findings showed restorative justice had a real potential to address challenges of current criminal justice system processes.
"The evaluation tells us that victim survivors have been able to make careful informed, supported decisions about whether restorative justice is the right pathway for them," Ms Yates said.
"They have reflected that they feel their safety has been carefully taken account of in the process and perhaps most importantly that they have been given the dignity of voice and the ability to explain what happened to them and the impact of that in their own terms."
Mr Rattenbury on Tuesday convened a roundtable to discuss restorative justice with the Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate, the acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Yates, and other stakeholders.
Mr Rattenbury said the evaluation would also enable other jurisdictions to consider the ACT's restorative justice processes.
"We are at the forefront of much of this work and it demonstrates that this is a valuable alternative that adds to the range of models that are available for people through these sort of matters, particularly when it comes to family and domestic violence," he said.
The ACT first introduced its restorative justice scheme nearly two decades ago, with an expansion to cover domestic, family and sexual violence offences in 2018.
Since then, the ACT's Restorative Justice Unit has convened five conferences - involving five offenders and six victims - for matters involving sexual violence offences.
"Serious domestic, family and sexual violence matters (generally considered punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than 10 years), can only be referred after a plea or finding of guilt," the government said.
"Less serious domestic, family and sexual violence offences (generally punishable by a term of imprisonment of 10 years or less), can be referred prior to a plea or finding of guilt, but only where exceptional circumstances exist (usually a dynamic assessment based on risk)."
