Criminal Justice
Thinking about criminal justice has undergone a major
transformation over the past decade. At the core of the shift has been a rediscovery
of the importance of community. "Community policing" has become the byword
of police departments in numerous cities big and small. Many observers argue that these
new police methods--which, among other things, emphasize the importance of order in public
spaces and rely on stronger cooperation between police and neighborhood communities--bear
at least part of the responsibility for the recent significant declines in crime.
Communitarians have long stressed the importance of the
community as a powerful "third force" operating in the middle terrain between
the individual and the government. Community norms can often be more effective than laws
in regulating conduct. Indeed, without the support of the community’s "moral
voice," laws and law enforcement can often be unavailing. Transforming a high-crime
neighborhood into a livable community usually requires more than police action. The
community itself must will a change.
The concept of community policing grew out of an important
article by political scientists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling called "Broken
Windows" (see below). In recent years communitarian-oriented sociologists and
political scientists have contributed to the development of a broader concept of
"community justice," which integrates insights from criminology with
communitarian themes. An important collection of essays on the emerging concept of
community justice was edited by David R. Karp, formerly of the Institute for Communitarian
Policy Studies and now an assistant professor of sociology at Skidmore College.
For Further Exploration
Harris, George C . "The Communitarian Function of the Criminal Jury
Trial and Rights of the Accused." Nebraska Law Review 74 (1995): 804-42.
Kennedy, D. M. "Pulling Levers: Chronic Offenders, High-Crime Settings, and a
Theory of Prevention." Valparaiso University Law Review 31 (1997): 449-84.
Massaro, Toni M. "Shame, Culture, and American Criminal Law." Michigan Law
Review 89 (1991): 1880-1944.
Sampson, Robert J. "The Community." In Crime, eds. James Q. Wilson and
Joan Petersilia. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1995.
Sampson, Robert J., S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls. "Neighborhoods and Violent
Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science 277 (1997): 918-24.
| 
