Source: (2000) Relational Justice Bulletin. October (8): 6-7. Downloaded 15 May 2003.
In this essay David Faulkner considers the choices facing public servants as they try to create communities of justice. Toward this end, he looks at the current state of crime and criminal justice in England and asks what issues and questions face those who work in the criminal justice system – as professionals, public servants, and citizens. The government’s policies for crime and criminal justice, Faulkner says, are a hybrid of the liberal, supportive, and inclusive on the one hand, and the conservative, authoritarian, and exclusionary on the other hand. Other policies, neither potentially inclusive or exclusive in themselves, reflect the government’s desire for central direction and efficiency. All of these policies depend for their effect on how public servants put them into practice. In this context, Faulkner reflects on a text from chapter five of Saint Matthew’s gospel –You are the light for all the world. A city that stands on a hill cannot be hidden.– to identify principles of justice, especially relational justice, that should inform the perspectives and efforts of public servants in building local communities of justice.
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