From 1985 to 1987 the Home Office funded four experimental schemes in mediation and reparation for criminal cases in the UK. Tony Marshall of the Home Office Research and Planning Unit made arrangements for groups of independent researchers to monitor these schemes and for other researchers to carry out studies on other schemes within the UK. This book gathers together their substantial empirical research findings into a single coherent narrative. It is much more than a simple history of the progress of the four experimental schemes. It is a fully documented, carefully argued account of some important innovatory work and an eloquent analysis of the concepts and promise of reparation and mediation.