NCJ Number
95280
Date Published
1983
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This paper focuses on the alternative justice movement and the limitations and potential it offers.
Abstract
The 'agency-mediation' model interrelates a criminal justice agency's case referral procedures to a specific mediation program. The intent of the model and of the resulting programs is to provide another layer of State-sponsored social control beyond the direct application of traditional justice theory or practice. One of the most explicit State-sponsored, noncoercive, extra-judicial mechanisms is the Polish Social Conciliatory Commission. These commissions flourished from the early 1950's to the beginning of the 1960's, when the legal profession encouraged their development as part of the local governance structure. Instead of 'spontaneous movements' to establish commissions, the law authorized the All-Polish Committee of the Front for National Unity to establish and administer them. The Polish state's cooptation of the spontaneous commission movement largely eliminated independent and competitive justice authorities. In contrast to state systems is the Community Board model, which advances a community-based normative justice system. The boards emphasize community and individual referral of cases to neighborhood justice panels composed of three to five local residents trained in value building, communication, and conciliation skills. The boards are not extensions of the formal justice system or of the state's recordkeeping apparatus. The principal failure of the alternative justice system has been its agency focus and its expansion of justice agencies into the civil or social areas of community life. Six references are included.