Source: (2003) Contemporary Justice Review. 6(2):133-142.
Restorative justice concepts and principles transformed by fearful response to a local homicide into anger at ‘disembodies community’. Drawing on conversations with residents and newspaper accounts, I analyze the social arrangements in Charleston, Illinois (10,000 population, 20,000 during the academic year) that conspired to isolate neighbors from each other while nurturing the intimidating behaviors of Anthony Mertz, the person arrested for killing Shannon McNamara. I also explore how the implementation of community dialogue guided by restorative justice practices and peacemaking criminology precepts would have created a different social context, a context less likely to have produced the murder in the first place. (author’s abstract)
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