NCJ Number
84189
Date Published
1982
Length
51 pages
Annotation
This series of papers on neighborhood justice centers supports such centers as an alternative to dispute processing in the costly and overloaded formal court system, and recommendations are offered for planning and structuring such centers.
Abstract
The justice center concept offers opportunities for the disputants to become directly involved in determining an acceptable resolution of their problem by allowing them to explore the underlying factors that created the problem by avoiding the communication restrictions of formal adversarial processing. If a justice center is to be effective, it should involve community leaders and criminal justice professionals and be demographically representative of the community it serves. Evaluation criteria should be developed from the outset and procedures established to ensure that evaluation occurs. Mediation programs, particularly those which handle criminal matters, should develop procedures for determining types of cases appropriate for mediation. Participation in and support of mediation is appropriate for lawyers, because it is often in the client's interest and can improve the legal system. Lawyers, however, should not participate directly in the mediation, since this would violate the intent of mediation as a problemsolving rather than an adversarial proceeding. Some potential dangers of the justice center approach are that such centers would end up being largely the dispute resolution institution for the poor and that they may become crippled by overbureaucratization.