“Protecting Communities: The Public Safety Role in a Restorative Juvenile Justice.”

Source: (1996) Paper presented at the American Society of Criminology Conference, Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 20-23, 1996.

The ultimate, macro goal of restorative justice is restoring victims and offenders into safe communities where disputes can be peacefully resolved. Juvenile justice systems have been forced to adopt a reactive position in which their contribution to community safety is defined in terms of offender incarceration. Restorative justice would define a new proactive public safety role for the system focused on neighborhood capacity building and restorative preventions. This paper describes a range of strategies and practices to promote public safety which range from the preventative to risk management of known offenders and which target citizens and community groups as well as offenders for involvement and change. Approaches to engaging the community in the juvenile justice process are also described.