Community Justice discusses concepts of community within the context of justice policy and programs, and addresses the important relationship between the criminal justice system and the community in the USA. Taking a bold stance in the criminal justice debate, this book argues that crime management is more effective through the use of informal (as opposed to formal) social control. It demonstrates how an increasing number of criminal justice elements are beginning to understand that the development of partnerships within the community that enhance informal social control will lead to a stabilization and possible a decline in crime, especially violent crime, and make communities more liveable. Borrowing from an eclectic toolbox of ideas and strategies - community organizing, environmental crime prevention, private-public partnerships, justice initiatives – Community Justice puts forward a new approach to establishing safe communities, and highlights the failure of the current American justice system in its lack of vision and misuse of resources. Providing detailed information about how community justice fits within each area of the criminal justice system, and including relevant case studies to exemplify this philosophy in action, this book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of subjects such as criminology, law and sociology.

Past methods of probation and parole supervision have largely relied on caseworkers who monitor their "clients" as well as they can. But, as numbers of "clients" increase, studies indicate that this model is ineffectual. The time has come to significantly rethink the approaches to community supervision. As described in What Is Community Justice?, the aim of the new efforts is to explicitly integrate the community and the criminal justice process in probation programs. There are five key goals that this book addresses to achieve this end: The building of partnerships between community supervision agencies and the community Expanding the "client" definition to include the victim of crime, the family of the offender, and the community itself Focus on places: agencies must take into account important local differences in neighborhoods Preventing problems between the community and the client rather than reacting to them Adding value to community life This book addresses the specific ways of achieving these goals by presenting six case studies of probation programs that represent a practical side of the community justice ideal. What emerges is a provocative and enlightening new approach to the problems of probation and parole.

This book examines the phenomenon of Community Justice Centres and their potential to transform the justice landscape by tackling the underlying causes of crime. Marred by recidivism, addiction, family violence, overflowing courtrooms, crippling prison spending and extreme rates of incarceration, the criminal justice system is in crisis. Community Justice Centres seek to combat this by tackling the underlying causes of crime in a particular neighbourhood and working with local people to redesign the experience of justice and enhance the notion of community. A Community Justice Centre houses a court which works with an interdisciplinary team to address the causes of criminality such as drug addiction, cognitive impairment, mental illness, poverty, abuse and intergenerational trauma. The community thus becomes a key agent of change, partnering with the Centre to tackle local issues and improve safety and community cohesion. This book, based on research into this innovative justice model, examines case studies from around the world, the challenges presented by the model and the potential for bringing its learnings into the mainstream. This book will appeal to academics in law and criminology as well as psychology; it will also be of considerable interest to people working in the criminal justice system, including the police, government policy advisers, psychologists and social workers.

Past methods of probation and parole supervision have largely relied on caseworkers who monitor their "clients" as well as they can. But, as numbers of "clients" increase, studies indicate that this model is ineffectual. The time has come to significantly rethink the approaches to community supervision. As described in What Is Community Justice?, the aim of the new efforts is to explicitly integrate the community and the criminal justice process in probation programs. There are five key goals that this book addresses to achieve this end: The building of partnerships between community supervision agencies and the community Expanding the "client" definition to include the victim of crime, the family of the offender, and the community itself Focus on places: agencies must take into account important local differences in neighborhoods Preventing problems between the community and the client rather than reacting to them Adding value to community life This book addresses the specific ways of achieving these goals by presenting six case studies of probation programs that represent a practical side of the community justice ideal. What emerges is a provocative and enlightening new approach to the problems of probation and parole.

Community Justice discusses concepts of community within the context of justice policy and programs and addresses the important relationship between the criminal justice system and the community in the USA. Taking a bold stance in the criminal justice debate, this book argues that crime management is more effective through the use of informal (as opposed to formal) social control. It demonstrates how an increasing number of criminal justice elements are beginning to understand that developing partnerships within the community that enhance informal social control will lead to stabilization and possibly a decline in crime, especially violent crime, and make communities more livable. Borrowing from an eclectic toolbox of ideas and strategies – community organizing, environmental crime prevention, private–public partnerships, and justice initiatives – Community Justice puts forward a new approach to establishing safe communities and highlights the failure of the current American justice system in its lack of vision and misuse of resources. This book is essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students of criminology, law, and sociology. It provides detailed information about how community justice fits within each area of the criminal justice system and includes relevant case studies to exemplify this philosophy in action.

Over the past quarter-century, U.S. politicians have responded to the public's fear of crime by devoting ever more resources to building and strengthening the criminal justice apparatus, which as a result has grown tremendously in size and cost. Policymakers have also taken steps to toughen procedures for dealing with suspects and criminals, and broaden legal definitions of what constitutes crime, which has led to the incarceration, under harsher-than-ever conditions, of a record-high percentage of the U.S. population. Yet public confidence in the criminal justice apparatus is, if anything, lower than ever before, and fear of crime continues to be high.In recent years, some activists, scholars, criminal-justice officials, and politicians have begun to call for a reexamination of "get-tough" crime policies. A more sensible approach to crime, they argue, would focus on "community justice"--that is, on building healthy communities in which criminality cannot take root, and on making citizens and criminal-justice into partners rather than adversaries. In this thought-provoking study, Todd Clear and David Karp provide both a broad theoretical analysis of this ideal, and a close examination of a range of attempts to put it into practice in communities throughout the country. They conclude that by making the criminal justice system and the public into partners rather than adversaries, community-justice strategies for dealing with crime are both more effective and more resource-efficient than the failed "get-tough" approach.