Source: (2002) In, Elmar G.M. Weitekamp and Han-Jurgen Kerner, Restorative Justice: Theoretical Foundations. Deon, UK: Willan Publishing. Pp. 143-176.
Bazemore and McLeod observe that restorative justice proponents often suffer from a problem of ‘disconnect’ in the discourse of mainstream debates about juvenile justice policy. Proponents tend to focus on restorative justice as a more satisfying process for individual victims, offenders, and their supporters. In contrast, policymakers and juvenile justice administrators, while they may be interested in restorative justice, want to know how restorative justice connects with the larger juvenile justice agenda and with general public concerns about community safety, sanctioning and censuring of crime, fairness, and justice. In particular, Bazemore and McLeod point to the need to strengthen community capacity for informal social control in response to youth crime. Hence, they argue for a restorative justice ‘model’ or guiding philosophy of intervention that would connect restorative principles and informal social control at the policy level in that arena of juvenile justice generally referred to as diversion. In pursuit of restorative justice at this policy level, they discuss diversion in American juvenile justice, libertarian and interventionist approaches to diversion, informal social control, social support, and a restorative justice approach to diversion.
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