The courts and community justice
Of the three main divisions of the criminal justice system – police, courts, and corrections – the middle justice function, the courts, has the furthest conceptual distance to travel to become community oriented. As we shall see, one reason for this is that the natural subject matter of the courts i...
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Published in | Community Justice pp. 71 - 103 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Book Chapter |
Language | English |
Published |
United Kingdom
Routledge
2011
Taylor & Francis Group |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Of the three main divisions of the criminal justice system – police, courts, and
corrections – the middle justice function, the courts, has the furthest conceptual
distance to travel to become community oriented. As we shall see, one reason for
this is that the natural subject matter of the courts is the problems in criminal
cases, not the problems of diffi cult places. Another reason has to do with the way
the courts work, processing defendants through what looks a bit like an impersonal assembly line of decisions, from charging to sentencing. And yet another
has to do with the traditional values of detachment and impartiality in the courts,
which tend to disconnect judges and lawyers from their clients and the communities in which they live.
Despite these impediments, the courts have been in recent years a setting for
enthusiastic experimentation with community justice concepts and strategies.
After decades in which change was very slow in the courts and traditional models
of court processing remained virtually undisturbed by pervasive changes elsewhere in the system, courts have become a beacon for community justice thinking, especially with regard to the handling of vexing problems that seemed
intractable under the usual methods, such as drug abuse or minor crime.
In this chapter, we explore the way the courts have embraced major concepts
of community justice and particular strategies of community-oriented court practices. We will see that innovation in the courts has resulted in fundamental changes
in the way the court system relates to citizens, including victims, offenders, and
their families. As extensive as these changes have been, however, we will also see
that some advocates call for even more far-reaching reform, and the courts have
only barely begun to address the needs of multiproblem communities. |
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ISBN: | 0415780268 9780415780261 9780415780278 0415780276 |
DOI: | 10.4324/9780203855805-7 |