NCJ Number
181245
Date Published
2000
Length
216 pages
Annotation
This report aims to clarify the links among three major reform movements: community policing, including problem-solving policing; community justice; and restorative justice.
Abstract
The discussion emphasizes that a coherent response to crime and public safety requires a strategy that balances the acknowledgment of local evolution with a recognition that local change must rest on broad principles if national concerns are to be addressed. Community policing has become a significant feature of modern policing, yet its meaning and implementation vary. The future of community policing could be vulnerable to any sudden increase in the crime rate or the removal of funding support. However, challenges such as violence and intercultural conflict require efforts to think broadly and even more creatively about the future. Therefore, policing needs analysis in the context of how crime is defined and how the criminal justice system frustrates victims, alienates whole communities, and fuels skyrocketing financial and moral costs of punishment. Current developments in community justice and restorative justice are helping shape ideas about the future of policing and the administration of justice. The emerging paradigm of restorative justice can gradually make a major difference in how community policing is discussed, promoted, and practiced. Needed steps are to regard crime in broader terms than the legal definitions, to acknowledge that crime harms people, to transcend conventional thinking and practice of justice, and to focus on strengths and goodwill rather than fear and punishment. The police have a crucial role in supporting change through examining the current situation and thinking about the future. Their exposure to restorative justice could signal a commitment to long-term change that promotes peacekeeping and the prevention of crime. These strategies have always been the core of community policing and could become the core of the practice of community policing in 20 years, thereby truly redefining the meaning of policing. Figures, appended resource list and epilogue, reference notes, and 116 additional references