Community Justice Programs

What is Community Justice?

The term community justice has been used generally to describe a preference for neighborhood-based, more accessible, and less formal justice services that, to the greatest extent possible, shift the locus of justice intervention to those most affected by crime. According to one definition, community justice includes

Community justice is best illustrated in practice by a variety of related initiatives in law enforcement, courts, district attorney's offices, corrections agencies, schools, and neighborhood organizations. Community policing, community prosecution, victim support and services, community courts, community corrections programs, and a variety of related reform initiatives are, following the above definition, properly described as examples of community justice to the extent that they include the community in active working partnerships with the criminal justice system in which responsibility [Page 263]for public safety is no longer seen as resting solely with justice professionals. A community justice mission for criminal justice agencies and systems is grounded in a commitment to the community as primary client or customer of the justice system. So criminal justice agencies must take seriously neighborhood concerns about disorder, crime, and quality of life issues that may seem only vaguely related to the crime rate or to formal criminal justice functions. Consistent with the definition above, outcomes pursued in criminal justice focus on goals beyond those associated with simply changing the behavior of individual offenders and seek ultimately to build or strengthen the capacity of community groups to prevent and control crime.

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