Masculinities, Violence and Communitarian Control

iolence is gendered: it is in considerable measure a problem and consequence of masculinity. Contemporary state interventions to control violence are no less gendered: structures of response, from arrest through imprisonment, glorify tough cops, celebrate adversarial relations, and construct a virtuous "protective" state by incarcerating or, in some countries, killing "the bad guys". What alternatives are possible in an apparently closed system, where masculinity and masculinist structures are both the cause and putative cure of violence? In this essay, we consider men's violence toward women and ways of responding to it. Recognising the failure of traditional justice system responses toward violent men, we outline a more promising approach, one compatible with the principles and visions of republican criminology (Braithwaite 1989; Braithwaite & Pettit 1990). This approach uses a community conference strategy adapted from the Maori culture in New Zealand as a key element in an overall regulatory ideal that repudiates exploitative masculinities (see Mugford & Mugford 1992). We elucidate the community conference, discuss its