NCJ Number
189643
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 28-32
Date Published
June 2001
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The "community justice" movement that gained popularity in America during the 1990's is a multiform movement characterized by such programs as victim-offender mediation and reconciliation, conflict resolution, family group conferencing, circle sentencing, restitution, reparative probation, and victim services. This article clarifies goals and values that underlie these diverse approaches, identifies inconsistencies and contradictions among them, and suggests points of divergence that may cast doubt on the usefulness of the term "community justice."
Abstract
The ultimate issue regarding any of the community justice approaches is just how balanced each one is with respect to achieving accountability, public safety, and competency development for the offender. Given the distinctions and incompatibilities mentioned in this article, policymakers must ask how much of a balance between the three goals is feasible. If equivalency among the three goals is not realistic in practice, which of the goals is more likely to overshadow and dominate the others? Does this overshadowing of one goal at the expense of the others tend to occur more with particular types of community justice, certain kinds of offenses, or particular groups of people on the basis of their demographics? In the final analysis, the potential for each type of community justice to provide either balanced, restorative, or rehabilitative justice requires close examination and rigorous research. If particular sanctioning approaches offer a more realistic potential for balancing the goals of accountability, public safety, and competency in a community context, then it would make more sense to focus on these approaches. 1 table and 34 references