Community justice initiatives: Issues and challenges in the U.S. context

Source: (2001) Federal Probation 65 (1, June): 28-32. Downloaded 8 March 2005.

Altschuler notes connections and overlap between ideas such as ‘community justice,’ ‘restorative justice,’ ‘community restorative justice,â€? and ‘balanced and restorative justice’ in principles, aims, and practices. The emergence of the community justice movement itself in the 1900s aimed to bring less formal justice processes into local communities and to increase citizen involvement in crime control. Altschuler analyzes issues relating to the conceptual consistency of community justice, and to the specificity and concreteness of measures required to achieve the aims or desired outcomes. He raises questions about how balanced community justice is when it is incorporated into the legal codes of the juvenile justice system and put into practice. He also points to critiques that community justice may actually do more harm and not reduce recidivism. Additionally, cultural complexities among the parties involved may make the practice of community justice exceedingly difficult.