Restorative and Community Justice Paper Example

Describe how the case study illustrates the five basic steps of criminal justice systems assessment. Give one example of each of the following steps.

Mapping the system

Community Justice and restorative justice has provided new ways of viewing crime. The system needs to surrender the monopoly over crime responses to the community, the offender and the victim to involve neighborhood residents in decision-making, address local social problems and conflicts and prevent crime. Therefore, the community can be strengthened if the community is involved in crime response, which is also tailored to the needs and preferences of the offenders, local citizens and victims. For example, the community justice and restorative justice can be sufficiently achieved if a partnership is build among the criminal justice system, the government and the community in attempts to address crime issues in the society.

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Documenting and assessing current policy and practice.

There is no doubt about restorative justice appeal as most advocates believe that crime not only involves defiance of government authority or criminal law, but also it disrupts the relationships between the offender, community and victim. This means that the major goals should be to heal and repair the harm caused to the victim and the community. Therefore, all these individuals need to be considered when determining the response to crime. The government and criminal justice agencies can add new restorative, community justice, and community programs to help solve the problems. Rigorous evaluation of the programs should be encouraged to increase their effectiveness. For example, to successful measure and document the impact of criminal justice and restorative justice, the offender and victim satisfaction level, victims' and offenders' quality of life, and levels of community action should be considered.

Gathering information on the offender population.

Community Justice and restorative justice can help the criminal justice system to change the manner in which they interact, listen and work together with the offender population to prevent or solve crime related issues. The government agencies can optimize crime prevention and maximize public safety when they work on an equal basis with the community. The connection between the community and the police provide critical information that can help to prevent crime or arrest criminal offenders. There is always a strong force of guardianship, bond and stake in when the criminal justice system partner with the community to prevent crime from flourishing. For example, the police can get intelligence information on a crime activity and prevent it before it happens.

Identifying sanctions, services, and programs.

Crimes can be prevented through sanctions, services, and programs such as victim-offender mediation. Victim offender mediation is a form of restorative service and program aimed to discuss the implication of the crime on the life of the victim and offender, to discuss the feelings and concerns, and work together to find the best solution or agreement. The sanction involved always provides emotional growth and healing especially for the victim. Family group conferencing is another form of service, and programs aimed to take a collective responsibility between the family, friends, coworkers, and teachers to address the wrongdoings. For example, family group conferences can be developed to take a collective responsibility, where offenders, victims, and other participants are involve reaching a solution to a critical issue. Sentencing circles is also a form of service, and programs aimed address the underlying causes of crime and reach a consensus agreed by both the offender and the victim. For example, a Community Justice Committees can help to handle administrative and organizational tasks through discussions that lead to a final decision of acceptance or sentencing plan for the offender. A community court can also be used to sentence the offender to work on projects in the local neighborhood. Thus, the community is greatly involved in ensuring and shaping the community and restorative sanctions.

Identifying community resources

The primary community resources involved in community justice and restorative justice is the information and individualized response to crime. Community members can voluntarily help to incorporate community justice principle by striking a balance by ensuring participation, early intervention, and correctional efforts restoration of victims, crime prevention, and restoration of victims. For example, the community can be voluntarily involved in crime prevention and reduction by fostering offender accountability after a sentence or sanction has been made.

Assume now that the following hypothetical circumstances occur: Identify "driving forces" and "restraining forces." Try to identify at least two of each.

The Force Field Analysis can help to make challenging decisions that can improve the chances of success or increase the quality of decisions. The analysis can maintain the equilibrium between driving forces for change and restraining sources for change as seen in the figure below. For the restorative and community justice to become the preferred process the driving forces must be strengthened and the restraining forces must be weakened.

Driving Forces

Victim -offender mediation- The restorative and community justice will be important in restoring harmony between the offender and the victim. It means the offenders taking responsibility, regaining dignity and confronting shame while for victims it means restituting their emotional losses and tangible losses.

Rebuilding the relationship- The restorative and community justice involves a direct, face-to-face dialogue among the community, offender and victim with the help of the criminal justice agencies. This build relationship between criminal justice agencies and neighborhoods and between the offender and the victim address complex social problems underlying crime. The partnership optimizes crime prevention, and maximizes public safety.

Restraining forces

Not suitable for violent crimes: The assumption of restorative and community justice is not suitable for serious crimes such as sexual or violent offences are a concern. Serious crime require permanent correctional service programs

They do not respect the tenets of equality and proportionality- The practice of restorative and community justice may not be fair enough since they involves individualized responses to crimes . Fairness requires comparable crimes, which should also be punished equally without discrimination. Thus, they do not provide comparable sentences for comparable offenses responses to crime will be inconsistent and different when restorative and community justice are implemented.

References

Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2010). Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16(1), 39.

Boutellier, H. (2001). The convergence of social policy and criminal justice. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 9(4), 361-380.

Drake, E. K., Aos, S., & Miller, M. G. (2009). Evidence-based public policy options to reduce crime and criminal justice costs: Implications in Washington State. Victims and offenders, 4(2), 170-196.

Welsh, W. N., & Harris, P. W. (2016). Criminal Justice Policy and Planning: Planned Change. Routledge.