Source: (2002) In What is community justice? Case studies of restorative justice and community supervision, ed. David R. Karp and Todd R. Clear, pp. 61-86. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
Much attention has properly been given to the victim’s role in community and restorative justice, and to the interaction between victims and offenders, and between victims and community members. In community justice, in addition to this concern for the victim, there is a focus on the relationship of the offender to the community, oriented toward offender recompense, reintegration, and acceptance. Karp studies Vermont’s Community Reparative Boards as a paradigm of citizen or community involvement in criminal justice, one of the cornerstones of the community justice model. A community reparative board is a citizen tribunal that adjudicates minor offenses – with all stakeholders to the offense given a voice in the hearings. The determination of the board becomes the actual sanction for the offender. Hence, the community reparative boards provide a concrete instance for examining the offender/community encounter.
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