Ethics and values for community boards to apply in resolving neighborhood conflicts not only facilitate the resolution of conflicts brought before them but also provide a model of community values for resolving future disputes.
One ethical principle applicable to conflict resolution is that conflicts are part of life's experiences and have positive value. This principle encourages disputing parties not to suppress or harbor negative attitudes about their disputes but to view them as positive experiences to be pursued and resolved in a constructive framework. This principle contrasts with justice and mental health views of conflict as expressions of deviancy and criminality. A second ethical principle is that the peaceful expression of conflict within the community is a positive value. This principle involves advocacy of the peaceful expression of conflict in the community. Again this encourages the open expression of conflict within a peaceful structure of behavior. A third ethical principle is that individual and community acceptance of responsibility for a conflict is a positive value. Under this principle, the neighborhood demonstrates its responsibility by making available a forum of competent and trained community residents to deal with community conflict. Within this forum, responsibility for the expression and resolution of the conflict is placed on the disputants. This contrasts with the formal justice system, where professionals and the state assume responsibility for resolving the dispute. Other ethical principles are that (1) the voluntary resolution of conflict between disputants is a positive value, and (2) neighborhood diversity and tolerance for differences are positive values. These principles also contrast with the justice system, where conflict resolution is generally involuntary, and diversity is discouraged under a uniform application of the law.