Community Justice and a Vision of Collective Efficacy: The Case of Restorative Conferencing

One of the most visible manifestations of recent efforts to develop a more active and empowered role for both community groups and citizens in the justice process can be seen in the recent emergence of a variety of informal community decisionmaking models now being implemented with some frequency throughout North America and the world. This paper examines restorative conferencing as a case study in the involvement of crime victims, offenders, and other citizens as active participants in a nonadversarial sanctioning response to youth crime, generally focused on repairing harm. The purpose of this paper is to link conferencing both to a broader vision of the citizen and community role in a more effective response to juvenile crime and to a larger effort to build community “collective efficacy.” After describing the origins of restorative conferencing and its potential application to a range of crimes, offenders, victims, and communities, I outline a general theory of conferencing and then contrast emerging “theories-in-use” associated with various conferencing models. Finally, challenges to implementing these decisionmaking approaches, especially in the current juvenile justice context, are presented along with a general strategy for moving forward within a vision that explicitly links these microconflict resolution models to broader efforts to build community capacity and to expand the role of citizens in the justice process. POLICIES, PROCESSES, AND DECISIONS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM