COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN

RURAL AMERICA

FOUR EXAMPLES

AND FOUR FUTURES

COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN

RURAL AMERICA

FOUR EXAMPLES

AND FOUR FUTURES

C OMMUNITY J USTICE S ER

Monograph
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street NW.

Washington, DC 20531

John Ashcroft

Attorney General

Office of Justice Programs

World Wide Web Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance

World Wide Web Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

For grant and funding information contact

U.S. Department of Justice Response Center

1–800–421–6770

This document was prepared by the Center for Effective Public Policy, under 

97–DD–BX–K002,awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance,Office of Justice 

Department of Justice. The opinions,findings,and conclusions or recommendat

in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the o

or policies of the U.S.Department of Justice.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs

includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juv

and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN

RURAL AMERICA

FOUR EXAMPLES

AND FOUR FUTURES

February 2001

NCJ 182437

Prepared by Walter J. Dickey, Professor of Law, University of 

Wisconsin-Madison, and Peggy McGarry, Principal,

Center for Effective Public Policy 
Much of what has been reported about grassroots community justice

efforts has focused on initiatives in urban areas. As a result, little is known

about community justice in rural areas. Has community justice taken root in

rural and isolated towns? If so, what quality-of-life issues are driving it? Who

in the community and local justice system is involved? Are traditional actors

in justice systems that serve rural communities resisting change? And what

is the likely future of community justice in rural America? Will communities

see their efforts fade away, be co-opted by the system, or evolve into vehicles for collaborative problem solving that transform the relationship

between government and citizen?

To find answers to these questions, the Bureau of Justice Assistance funded a project by the Center for Effective Public Policy to study rural communities in which community justice is thriving. This monograph reports what

the center found. The communities selected for this study—Boise County,

Idaho; Jefferson County, Oregon; Monroe County, Wisconsin; and Burlington,

Vermont—have different cultures, crime and quality-of-life concerns, and

assets. But each shares a desire to look beyond remedies traditionally offered

by the justice system for solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

Each community highlighted in this monograph provides an example of

how community justice grows in response to the unique needs it serves. In

Boise County, for example, the catalyst for community justice was the lack

of adequate dispositions available to the juvenile court. In Monroe County,

the spark came from the former chair of the county board, who questioned

the desirability of building a new jail in response to overcrowding in the local

corrections system.

We offer this monograph as a starting point for judges, prosecutors, public

defenders, law enforcement chiefs, and other local leaders searching for

examples of how frustration can be transformed into action, even in isolated

communities with limited resources.

Bureau of Justice Assistance

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE iii

Foreword
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE v

Contents

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

II. The Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Boise County, Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 

Jefferson County, Oregon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Monroe County, Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 

Burlington, Vermont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

III. Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Beginnings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 

Problem Solving and the Desire for Civility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Tensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The Future of Community Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

IV. Choosing the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

V. For More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 1

Much of what we know about

community justice in the United

States is the result of efforts in

neighborhoods across the nation in

cities like Austin, New York, and

Portland. We know much less about

how community justice looks in

small towns and rural areas.

With that in mind, the Bureau of

Justice Assistance (BJA) funded a

project by the Center for Effective

Public Policy to learn about rural

communities in which community

justice flourished. We wanted to

understand the contours and shape

of their activities and how they

began, and we sought to nominate

some as resource sites to which

others could look who are involved

or developing an interest in community justice. 

We found projects in various

stages of development. All had 

different starting points, and all

existed in varying landscapes. All

had varying assets, liabilities, and

cultures. Yet, each shared the

potential to improve the lives of

community residents. Indeed, we

found that a key quality of community justice is the unleashing of a

community’s energy to respond

more effectively to its problems.

The four communities described

in this monograph are but a few

examples of the small towns, rural

areas, and Indian reservations in

which community justice is flourishing. We visited many on the recommendations of BJA staff and others

with an interest in community justice. These four are not closer to

being “state of the art” than others;

all are works in progress. But each

offers a different example of the

shape of community justice, a different way that it has grown in

response to the community where 

it began. We then suggest the significance of our observations, identify the most important unanswered

questions about rural community

justice, and describe four distinct

possible futures for it. We offer

these examples as starting points

for self-examination by communities pursuing their own community

justice initiatives and as suggestions

of how these impulses can manifest 

in concrete action.

It is not possible here to tell fully

the story of community justice in

Boise County, Idaho; Jefferson

County, Oregon; Monroe County,

Wisconsin; and Burlington, Vermont.

We have sketched the story in each

place, emphasizing, for illustrative

purposes, the experiences of Boise

County, Idaho. 

I. Introduction
II. The Sites

Boise County, Idaho

Boise County is a geographically

large, rural mountain county that

adjoins Idaho’s largest city, Boise.

The county’s population of 6,500 is

concentrated in three small towns:

Idaho City, Horseshoe Bend, and

Garden Valley. The scenic mountainous terrain makes these towns

more remote from one another and

from Boise than the 50 or so miles

between each suggests. The county

is poor, with pockets of people living in remote places without electricity and running water.

The spark for community justice

in Boise County came from the

county’s magistrate judge and juvenile probation officer. Concerned

with the impoverished array of 

dispositions available to the juvenile

court, they convened a series of

meetings throughout the county to

discover residents’ attitudes toward

the justice system in general and

the juvenile justice system in particular. These initial efforts resulted 

in the creation of an electronic

monitoring program, a community

service program, and a juvenile

diversion program called the

Accountability Network, or ICAN.

Through ICAN, juvenile offenders

work with panels of adult volunteers

to agree on contracts in lieu of sentences. The volunteers monitor the

youth’s progress in following through

on the contract terms.

(In three of the four counties 

profiled here, the court has only 

one or two judges who necessarily

handle all cases—criminal, juvenile,

family, civil, small claims, child

abuse, and neglect, among others.

It seems no accident to us that the

judges are key sources of energy

for community justice, given the

breadth of their judicial experience,

their strong feeling of connection to

and responsibility for the people in

their respective counties, their belief

that progress is possible, and their

willingness to gather people to solve

local problems.)

The judge and juvenile probation

officer also helped create a community justice committee, made up of

citizens from Idaho City, Horseshoe

Bend, and Garden Valley. Initially

serving in only an advisory role, the

committee has since become active

in identifying community problems,

setting priorities for community justice efforts, and identifying and

invoking resources to address community problems. Although it has

no legal status or authority, it has

become an important steering committee for community justice efforts.

The committee held public meetings in all three towns to identify

problems in each community.

Although these meetings yielded

expressions of concern about matters that might fairly be called, in

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 3
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

4

conventional terms, criminal justice

issues, their thrust turned out to be

related to the widespread belief that

a valued way of life is slipping away

from this rural community. Community members want to preserve this

way of life, if they can, or to at least

manage or come to terms with

unavoidable changes in a more satisfactory way. Specific concerns

about the behavior of children and

juveniles were most common,

although by no means was the referenced behavior necessarily delinquent. For example, one member of

the committee, the owner of a local

restaurant, said she wanted teenagers who come into her restaurant to treat her employees and

restrooms with respect. This theme,

that a shared sense of values was

being lost, recurred in all four sites.

The committee has achieved an

energy, passion, and vision that is

hard to capture or convey in a simple description of its activities. Its

members are determined, and their

energy is contagious.

The second stage of Boise

County’s community justice program was decidedly noncriminal

justice in nature. Drawing on the

collective instincts of the committee

and the experience of the justice

system, the project created a

Healthy Families Program to visit

each pregnant woman in the county

and to prepare those most in need

of help (primarily unwed teenage

mothers) to be parents. This foray

into work with families led to the

creation of an even more ambitious

Parents as Teachers Project, which

provides information and training

about parent-child interaction as a

crucial part of school readiness. The

committee started a program to

work with the public schools on

reducing the frequency of student

expulsions from the schools and on

the nagging problem of truancy

throughout the county. The juvenile

probation department became the

Community Justice Department,

and, with a grant from the Albertson

Foundation, created the first

preschool programs in the county.

Boise County is now the only county

in Idaho to offer preschool to all

children in the county. The programs are located within the public

schools, further cementing the collaboration of these public agencies.

The third and continuing stage of

Boise County’s effort is community

problem solving. An example of this

effort is the community justice committee’s response to the “dog problem” in a development of 67 homes

in a remote part of Boise County.

Several members of this development allow their dogs to roam freely,

believing it is their right to do so.

Several dogs have gathered in

packs and, according to some residents, terrorized adults and children

in the development. After several

calls to the police failed to yield satisfactory interventions, a community

member poisoned two dogs after

warning their owners that they

should be controlled. 

The owners demanded that the

district attorney prosecute the man,

4
The Sites 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 5

who admitted poisoning the dogs,

for felonies. The prosecutor instead

charged him with two misdemeanors,

expressing serious doubt that a Boise

County jury would convict the remorseful defendant because of the

underlying circumstances. The

defendant, however, a federal civil

service employee, is very concerned

about the consequences of conviction for his employment and retirement, fearing that he will lose both if

convicted. The dog owners are dissatisfied that the most severe consequence that can be exacted by the

criminal justice system is prosecution of a misdemeanor. 

If the case goes to trial, the dog

owners are likely to be unhappy

with either outcome, an acquittal or

a conviction for the misdemeanors.

Although the defendant will likely

feel relieved if the verdict is not

guilty, a trial will be costly and put

his family’s future at risk. For both

parties, the outcomes offered by the

criminal justice system seem unsatisfactory, and the prospects for

healthy community life in this development will remain dim unless these

issues are resolved in a satisfying

way.

Boise County’s community justice

committee is mediating this dispute.

The committee has identified community members who are respected

by the parties. They are working

with the participants to reach a 

sensible resolution that will allow

them to live together in peace.

Accomplishing this will require a

measure of shared responsibility

and accountability. Having “imagined” what a sensible resolution to

the matter might be, the community

justice group is trying to move the

participants toward it without dictating its ultimate shape and detail.

This is the most dramatic community problem the committee has

mediated, but it is not the only one.

As a result of one of the community

meetings, a group is trying to bridge

significant gaps in expectations and

priorities between one town’s police

chief and its citizens. Other groups

are working to create circles of parents who can share information

about and better supervise their

teenagers’ activities, and to create

more recreational opportunities for

youth. 

The contagious energy and vision

of the community justice committee

have been taken up by new groups

in these towns. Their efforts are likely the beginning of many possible

community-building initiatives in

Boise County.

Jefferson County, Oregon

Jefferson County is a high desert

county on the eastern side of the

Cascade Mountains, east and south

of the city of Portland. It is the only

county in Oregon in which whites

do not compose the majority of the

population. One-third of the population is white, one-third is Native

American, and one-third is Mexican

American. The reservation of the

Confederated Tribes of Warm

Springs, which operates its own 
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

6

tribal police and courts, is located

in the county.

The impetus for community justice in Jefferson County came from

two judges in the county’s judicial

district. Their initial concern was the

adequacy of dispositions available

to them in juvenile cases. They

responded by creating a peer jury

program that relies on young people

to “sentence” juvenile offenders in

diverted cases. The judges created a

merchant accountability board for

first-time retail theft offenders that

forces them to confront the consequences of shoplifting and take

responsibility for what they did. In

partnership with the district attorney’s office, the judges successfully

advanced a domestic violence initiative to strengthen and speed up the

county’s response to domestic violence. This effort includes additional

resources for the prosecution of

domestic violence cases, education

and outreach programming, and

diversion for low-level offenders.

The judges also created a drug

court for adults and a community

service program for juveniles. 

Like their counterparts in Idaho,

the leaders of Jefferson County’s

community justice initiative soon

turned to noncriminal justice matters. They broadened the base of

people involved in community justice by working effectively with the

Hispanic, American Indian, Anglo

Bureau for Love and Advancement

(HAABLA), a community group

dedicated to interracial understanding and harmony. They created an

education program for divorcing

parents to advance understanding of

the repercussions of divorce on children. They created a small-claims

and eviction mediation program that

relies on citizen panels to resolve

disputes more informally and rapidly than the courts. They were instrumental in bringing a Boys & Girls

Club to Madras, the county seat, to

create more recreational opportunities for young people. 

An example of more robust 

community-building efforts in

Jefferson County is the bicycle program, created as an incentive for

children to attend school regularly.

The program was developed by

HAABLA and involves various 

businesses, public officials, and

agencies. Of particular concern was

the high dropout rate of Native

American students in the county.

Each student signs a performance

plan, which includes a contract to

attend school and do his or her

schoolwork regularly. The prize for

each successful child is a reconditioned bike or rollerblades and

instruction on their safe use. 

The circuit judges in Jefferson

County have worked closely with

the tribal judges in nearby Warm

Springs Reservation in their efforts

to incorporate restorative measures

into the tribal courts’ dispositions.

Among the contemplated outcomes

is the transfer from circuit court to

tribal court of low-level offenders

who are from the reservation as part

of a diversion program. The judges

are working with a local state 
The Sites 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 7

legislator to explore the possibility

of introducing legislation to allow

some nondiverted cases to be handled in tribal court, a more appropriate site for handling many

matters. 

As the judges succeed in broadening the involvement of this diverse

community in their efforts, the possibilities for expansion of community justice in Jefferson County seem

strong. The participation of the

Warm Springs tribal government

and courts may also lead to new

dimensions in the programs that

might be of interest across the

country.

Monroe County, Wisconsin

Monroe County is a rural county

in western Wisconsin. It is primarily

agricultural, and its rolling hills and

forests combine with its large dairy

farms to create stunning scenes of

rural life. Although Monroe County

has a community justice coordinator

and a 14-member countywide criminal justice coordinating council, its

community justice efforts were less

developed than the other sites we

visited. The spark for the program

came from the former chair of the

county board, who questioned the

desirability of building a large new

jail in response to overcrowding in

the current facility. She created a

citizens committee to study the 

need for a new jail and alternatives

to confinement in some criminal

cases.

The committee recommended the

creation of a broad-based effort to

examine the criminal justice system and to look more closely at 

prevention-focused activities. This

effort led to the creation of a community justice coordinator position

and, more recently, a court service

worker to help implement initiatives.

Among the most important initiatives currently under way are an

adult electronic-monitoring program; an effort to create pretrial

services for people otherwise held in

the jail; the creation of a community

service program, including juvenile

intensive supervision and electronic

monitoring; and a restorative justice

program.

The coordinating council, working

closely with the county’s human

services department, has also created an initiative to respond comprehensively to those convicted of

drunk driving. Although the coordinating council is dominated by people from the criminal justice system,

strengthening prevention services is

becoming a high priority for the

community. A large meat-packing

plant has drawn many MexicanAmerican workers to the county,

creating racial tension. The integration of these newcomers into the

community has been filled with

challenges, and resolving the cultural differences and tensions remains

difficult. The coordinating council

has begun a process of community

meetings to expand the range and

ownership of the activities.
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

8

Burlington, Vermont

Burlington, with a population

of 35,000, is the largest city in

Vermont. It is enthusiastically engaged in several community-based

efforts. The impetus for community

justice efforts came from various

sources, and the most predominant

were from outside the criminal justice system. The mayor’s office had

a variety of neighborhood projects

under way and believed that neighborhood disputes, public concern

about juvenile behavior, underage

drinking, and the desirability of

more robust juvenile justice dispositions should be matters of government priority. Nearly concurrent

with these activities, the Vermont

Department of Corrections made

funds available to communities

throughout the state to create citizenrun reparative probation boards as a

dispositional alternative in low-level

criminal cases. 

The city hired a community justice coordinator and located a community justice center in downtown

Burlington. Through the guidance

of the coordinator, the Burlington

Community Justice Center has

become the hub of various activities

loosely defined as community justice. Like the other sites, Burlington

moved from criminal justice concerns to broader social, educational, and civic concerns. Whereas the

center is administering the Department of Corrections Reparative

Board process in Burlington, most

of its activities do not focus on criminal justice. 

The center created a focus group

of formal and informal minority

leaders to help develop effective and

respectful outreach strategies to

communities of color in Burlington.

The center produces a bimonthly

public access television show to

inform the larger community about

its activities and to air relevant justice issues. The center also supports

the Neighborhood Action Project,

the goal of which is to develop

preadjudicative neighborhood solutions, such as community mediation

panels and group conferences, for

neighborhood problems and lowlevel crime. The center hopes to

learn from these efforts and to move

such activities into all neighborhoods in the city as an alternative to

use of the criminal justice system. 
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 9

III. Analysis

It is tempting to suggest that

some model for community justice

exists, but such a characterization

would not do justice to the developmental and fluid nature of communitybased efforts in rural America,

which might take an entirely different shape in areas not discussed

here. It seems best then to embroider the factual stories with our

analysis to tell more fully the stories

of the four communities we visited.

We see three distinct phases to

community justice developments in

the four communities discussed in

this monograph. The first is the

effort to create more nuanced sentencing dispositions. In the second,

the community seeks to address

underlying social problems. Their

greater exposure to the realities of

offenders and their offenses through

the sentencing process fuels the

desire to prevent later delinquency

and to create the possibility of better lives for its citizens, especially

its young people. Inherent in this

phase is explicit recognition of the

desire to preserve a way of life, to

re-create a kind of community that

nurtures, protects, and holds its

young accountable. We call the

third phase community problem

solving. It is directed at specific

community problems (not always

well defined) and is a more immediate response to the desire for a better life now for all citizens of the

community.

Beginnings

Community justice initiatives

often begin because people are dissatisfied with the criminal justice

system. In each rural community,

frustration with traditional remedies

fuels a desire for a more nuanced

and appropriate set of consequences. This need for alternative

dispositions explains the creation of

restorative justice programs, community service projects, merchant

accountability boards, peer juries,

and electronic-monitoring efforts.

The principals’ desire for more

robust dispositions leads them to

invite citizen participation, in part

because citizen involvement is

thought to be powerful in creating

satisfactory outcomes. For example, it is thought that teenage

offenders are more attentive to the

judgments of a peer jury and that

those juries identify sentences that

are experienced more powerfully 

by young people. Community 

service projects and restorative 

justice meetings between victims

and offenders are also thought to

advance the purposes of sentencing

more effectively than conventional

methods.

However, there are other reasons

for dissatisfaction with the criminal

justice system in these communities. The system is viewed as slow

and formal, unable to cope with
matters, particularly low-level

offenses, that demand rapid and

informal responses. Diversion programs are created to speed up the

justice system’s response and to

allow for more measured, individualized approaches. 

Clearly, participants in these communities’ criminal justice systems

believe that many of the matters

that come into the system would

be addressed more appropriately

through alternative sanctions.

Truancy, for example, is a problem

in at least three of the four communities. Truancy tickets, although a

common response, seem particularly unlikely to be effective, especially

when truancy’s diverse underlying

causes are understood. This problem may yield instead to specific

problem-solving approaches such

as dealing with bullies who scare

kids away from school, devising

ways for children to get ready for

school when their parents are not

at home in the early morning, and

demonstrating the value of education to parents.

Another reason for dissatisfaction

with the criminal justice system 

is its perceived unfairness. One 

sheriff noted that the only kids who

receive underage drinking tickets

are the truthful ones. It is impossible, he said, to “convict” a youngster for underage drinking in many

cases unless the youngster confesses. In his view, the system teaches

young people the wrong lesson.

Frustration with the criminal justice system’s capacity to respond

effectively to large-scale underage

drinking parties and domestic 

violence is substantial in all four

communities. Enforcement of the

problem, cited in each county as

intransigent, is regarded as ineffective. In some instances, efforts to

crack down seem to exacerbate 

the risks of drunk driving, fights,

sexual assaults, and property 

damage by driving parties to 

more remote spots.

In response, each site began a

discussion of how to implement

more carefully crafted approaches

that reduce specific harms. For

many sites, an important goal is

to bring some measure of selfregulation to the drinking parties

by reducing or eliminating drunk

driving and by educating youth, 

parents, and other guardians. In this

example, there is movement away

from ineffective law enforcement

and toward control of harms.

Judges, prosecutors, and probation officers in the four sites see

children who have behaved inappropriately in juvenile court and believe

their misbehavior is explained in

part by their dysfunctional upbringing. The participants, foreseeing

wave after wave of similar kids in

the future, wish to improve parenting from before birth through the

high school years. 

To confront these problems, the

four communities look to social 

service and health programs that

COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

10
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 11

strengthen families. They have 

created parenting, teen pregnancy,

and healthy families programs that

respond directly to important community needs. Making these programs

available is not conventionally thought

to be the business of the criminal

justice system. However, because

the four sites are struggling with

problems they feel are the product

of social and family defects, they

believe it is critical to seek broad

community involvement in these

programs.

In all of these efforts, the official

actors in the criminal justice system

are not blind to its shortcomings,

which explains in part why they

seek to invent new responses. There

is implicit recognition that the system as presently configured cannot

deliver the outcomes desired.

Instead, these actors seek methods

of social control that rely on relationships among people rather than

those imposed by government

through the formal system.

Problem Solving and the

Desire for Civility

In every community, increased

community participation led to a

broader inquiry about community

needs and desires. Many community

members stated, in various forums,

that a cherished way of life was

changing for the worse. Their robust

sense of community was shrinking,

and their belief that they knew their

community’s values and shared

them was being undermined. They

desired a shared sense of rules that

the community should live by, consequences for violating those rules,

and incentives and opportunities for

those who lived by them. They also

desired a better and more harmonious quality of life. 

Most of the disharmony people

were concerned about had to do

with young people and the perceived failure of parents to raise

them properly. They did not believe

that government and the criminal

justice system could return their

communities to the “state” they

believe once existed but were determined to improve the conditions of

their communities.

We believe, then, that community

justice is a condition of life that 

people desire, a condition in which

people agree to, know, and play by

the rules. There are negative consequences for not abiding by the rules

and rewards for playing by them,

the most important of which is 

the opportunity to have a fulfilled,

fully realized life. The condition 

also requires solving problems that

the justice system does not seem

equipped to handle—to see to it that

young people are properly socialized, for example, or to ensure that

the places people inhabit are safe

and secure. Most people feel that

the criminal justice system alone

cannot create this condition and

that substantial progress requires

community-based involvement to

create and preserve it. 

If community justice is to be created, two things must happen: The

Analysis 
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

12

criminal justice system’s relation to

the community must be realigned,

and community members must

work to create civility. Realignment

gives the natural forces of social

control (personal and work relationships, for example) a more vital role

in dealing with problems that yield

to such involvement. The creation of

civility is everyone’s responsibility,

especially individual community

members.

It is important to emphasize that

these words—civility, harmony, and

condition—are the authors’, not

those of the community members

with whom they worked. However,

when offered these characterizations

and this overall analysis, the community members viewed them as

a fair characterization of what they

want and are in the process of doing.

When we discussed this realignment of responsibility with the communities, we used examples to

inquire how community members

understood relative roles. We offer

them here to sharpen this point.

Example 1. Most communities

would agree that a serial rapist

should be isolated from the community, ordinarily through imprisonment. Such a response provides

punishment, promotes safety,

reduces fear, and creates the possibility for healing and restoration of

individual victims and the community. Other measures also might be

invoked to provide some of these

values. Therefore, the primary

responsibility for imprisonment lies

with government, although more

complex approaches that include

community involvement may be

needed to promote healing and

reduce fear.

Example 2. Imagine a fight

between two 14-year-old boys in

which a teacher intervenes. Unless

there is something extraordinary

about the boys or the incident, the

teacher would probably call the parents of the boys, explain what happened, and expect the parents to

deal with the behavior. Ordinarily,

we would hope that the relationship

of the parents to the two boys, the

desire of the boys to live within their

family and community norms, and

the boys’ need for their parents’

understanding and respect would

lead to informal, natural forces

working to restore order and teach

lessons about living together. The

exact content of the social control

exerted might vary, but some

degree of accountability, healing,

and restoration directed toward the

individuals and the community

could be expected. An important

objective would be for the youth to

learn from the event and not repeat

it. Ultimately, the goal of “fully realized” people and communities

would be paramount.

Although government plays a 

role in this example, it is minor

compared with government’s role 

in dealing with the serial rapist.

Natural forces of social development

and control probably would likely 

be much more powerful in the 

lives of the two boys than would
Analysis 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 13

government in the form of the juvenile justice, child welfare, or criminal

justice systems.

Example 3. Imagine that there 

are frequent fights in a particular

tavern. Several responses are possible. One would be to arrest the 

participants after each occurs and

punish them, which is how the 

justice system would respond in

most communities. A more robust

response would strive to repair the

relationship of the two individuals

and repair the harm they have 

done to the community. 

Another response would be to

examine the sequence of events in

the tavern to learn more about the

fights, the time and place they

occur, the participants, and why

fights are occurring with such frequency. This response would invoke a combination of formal and

informal social controls to prevent

fights in the future and to deal constructively with those that had

already occurred. We can imagine

arresting some participants. We can

also imagine educating the bartender about how to stop fights

when disagreements occur, when to

refuse to serve drinks so that people

do not become so intoxicated that

they fight, and how to manage

crowds, lighting, and other events in

the bar that might contribute to the

outbreak of fights. In addition, we

can imagine threatening civil action

to revoke the owner’s liquor license

if disorder persists.

In this example, government

activity and natural forces could

work together to advance important

private and community interests.

The configuration of government

and natural forces most likely to

achieve the purposes of the community and be most appropriate is

difficult to determine. Individual circumstances, customized evaluations

of assets and liabilities, and, ultimately, customized approaches

must be considered. At the heart of

community justice is the process

of deciding what this configuration

of government and natural forces

might be, who will decide it, and

how it will be decided. Greater 

clarity and specificity about what

communities are engaged in, what

assets and liabilities they have, what

values they hold, what they want,

and why they want it will greatly

advance that process.

Our observation is that people are

more likely to be in the condition

they desire if they are doing something about its creation. This seems

like an obvious point: that the

“doing” itself contributes to the 

condition, in part because it gives

people the feeling they can do

something for themselves and their

communities. Coming together to

share concerns, to look for solutions, builds confidence in shared

values. Once the problem has a

name, its dimensions are understood, and the possible strategies

for dealing are suggested, there is

a feeling of relief, and of energy.

People think that together they can
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

14

do something. So they do. And the

“doing” satisfies. It helps create the

condition of community justice.

Tensions

Of course, everything is not all

sweetness and light once community energy is released and directed

toward solving community problems. We identified several tensions

that affect the shape and progress

of community justice efforts.

One readily identifiable source of

tension is that many participants in

the criminal justice system are stuck

in their roles. They are law enforcers,

prosecutors, defense lawyers, and

judges. They arrest, prosecute, defend, and sentence. They are not

necessarily problem solvers. This is

by no means true of all the participants we observed, and, to be fair,

being stuck in the role is not necessarily by choice. Some police officers, for

example, believe that enforcement

alone will not solve the problem of

underage drinking, but feel they

have few options absent support for

a more nuanced approach. Simply,

they are not always appropriate

or sufficient to solve community 

problems.

A second tension revolves around

the definition of community. In

everyday use in the sites, the term

means those not part of government. However, each place implicitly understands that there are distinct

communities within a rural county 

because of their history, geography,

size, culture, assets, and liabilities.

When assessing a problem and taking action, people know their differences and tend to define community

according to their perception of who

contributed to a problem, is affected

by it, or has a role in solving it.

A third tension is the question of

how to spur communities to act. We

expected to hear that the spark was

an incident or event that galvanized

action. Although such events occurred in the communities we 

visited, the spark really was the

accretion of dissatisfaction over

time. For the spark to become a

flame, however, the right mix of

grassroots action and leadership

must be present. Top-down efforts

to galvanize communities alone

seem insufficient, but without leadership, grassroots efforts may

become muddled. Ironically, the

leadership comes from government,

participants in the system who see

the limits of what they have the

capacity and authority to do. 

A fourth tension involves the

human instinct to reach for solutions

readily at hand. Doing otherwise—

defining problems in terms of

unknown or unavailable solutions—

would be daunting. Fortunately,

communities can learn from one

another when their problems are

similar. However, each community’s

assets, liabilities, and culture are 

different, requiring local strategic

thinking to solve problems.
Analysis 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 15

The Future of

Community Justice

What is the future of community

justice in rural communities? The

experiences of the communities

studied for this monograph indicate

that success will be dictated by

three factors: value, capacity, and

authority. Community justice is

unlikely to develop and flourish

unless it develops outcomes that

have value in the community.

Development requires capacity—the

will, means, and skill to create value

in the world. Finally, there must be

authority to act. The authority can

be legal (the court’s authority to

fashion dispositions, for example) or

informal, with its legitimacy derived

from its popular approval.

Community justice initiatives now

in place have four possible futures.

Some communities will see their

efforts fade away. In others, community justice will become a minor

adjunct to the system or a conventional prevention-focused effort.

Finally, a few will transform their

efforts into ongoing problem-solving

endeavors.

Fade away. Community justice

could fade away for several reasons.

The conventional criminal justice

system might discourage and stymie

efforts to reorder its relationship

with the community. Or the requisite

leadership or communal sense of

urgency may not be present. If the

participants in the criminal justice

system lack the imagination to

see beyond the system’s available

solutions, they will likely only give

lip service to greater community

involvement. Because the community justice movement lacks legal

authority, it relies on community

demand for its power and legitimacy. If such support is lacking, the

movement will be unable to survive

resistance from the criminal justice

system or indifference from community leaders and members. In this

future, the community justice movement is likely to wither. 

Adjunct to the system. The community justice movement typically

starts in low-level cases, in efforts to

create more robust dispositions,

divert appropriate cases, and

enlarge community involvement in

the dispositional process. Manifestations include community service,

peer juries, and reparative boards. A

second possible future for community justice is that it will continue as

an adjunct to the criminal justice

system. Although it may appear that

this development will relieve the

system and communities of business that ordinarily is processed

through the criminal justice system,

this is not necessarily so. The availability of more dispositional alternatives may lead to more business for

the system because more dispositional alternatives are available to it.

Although most efforts to enlarge

dispositional alternatives through

community justice clearly are not

designed to increase business, they

surely have this potential. 
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

16

Prevention. A third possibility for

community justice is that it will

focus efforts on prevention. In several of the communities we observed, the community justice

system devoted energy and attention to the creation and delivery of

social services, particularly in the

areas of teen pregnancy and healthy

families. Most, but not all, such

efforts quickly became government

programs and no longer relied on

the energy of community members

for their continued existence. In this

future, the efforts become institutionalized while continuing to create

great value.

Community justice as problem

solving. A fourth possibility for community justice is that it will evolve

into a community problem-solving

effort. The basis for this conception

of community justice is the notion

that community justice signals a

reordering of the relationship between government and its citizens

and that natural forces of social

control that exist in ordinary human

relationships have more power than

does governmental authority. The

community effort to solve the dog

problem in Boise County, Idaho, for

example, shows that informal influences on human behavior may be

more apt to yield value, satisfactory

solutions, and stronger communities

than the criminal justice system. In

this future, communities become a

nearly inexhaustible supply of informal possibilities for social control.

This energy can be brought to bear

and may be more effective and satisfying than current efforts.

Some proponents of community

justice see its ultimate goal as the

building of stronger communities.

Stronger communities can be built

on more robust dispositional alternatives (the starting point), but this

approach seems unlikely unless

efforts at prevention and problem

solving that contribute to justice and

civility also occur.
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 17

IV. Choosing the Future

Reflecting on the experiences of

the communities we have visited,

we offer the following conclusions

about creating conditions in which

community justice thrives.

Creating opportunities and

rewards. Communities are built on

shared values, and community justice exists when those values are

honored and their rules upheld. Our

current justice system stresses the

interdiction and sanctioning of rule

violations and ignores the necessity

of rewarding abiding by the rules.

Community justice is a vehicle for

creating rewards and reminding

government of the need for careful

attention to the availability of

opportunities for achieving a 

decent life.

Honoring differences while reinforcing shared values. From

Vermont to Oregon, every town in

America, no matter how small,

holds within it a rich diversity of

cultures and ways to lead a fulfilling

life. Community justice thrives when

those differences are acknowledged

and celebrated. The process of

building community justice will succeed when opportunities are created to fully explore what values are

shared and what outcomes are

desired. However, community justice will be neither just nor community based if it signals a way to

enforce one group’s notion of propriety on everyone else. 

Creating opportunities for participation. The value of community

justice to the whole community will

likely be greater if the process by

which it is built includes ample

attention to who is involved and

how they are involved. Where meetings are held, at what time, and

with what support (such as child

care and transportation) all affect

who can participate. How the meetings are structured and how voices

are acknowledged affect the power

of the participation. Faith institutions, workplaces, schools, coffee

shops, barber shops, and social

clubs are but a few of the places

where different parts of the community gather and can be reached.

Making use of private resources.

The addition of resources from nongovernmental sources, whether

grant funds, office space, staff time,

or goods and services, can play a

vital role in changing the balance of

influence between government and

the community and in keeping governmental participants committed

to the process. When private and

public resources are joined in

response to problems identified collaboratively, the value of each is

enhanced.

Using the power of position.

Frequently, those who sit in the

highest positions in the justice system have the clearest view of their

community’s problems. That view,
COMMUNITY JUSTICE IN RURAL AMERICA: FOUR EXAMPLES AND FOUR FUTURES

18

when backed by a desire to go

beyond the limitations of their 

position in the system, can be

an important impetus for starting

community justice efforts. Judges,

prosecutors, sheriffs, and police

chiefs can call on others to begin

conversations, plan, and take

action. Typically, they are also in a

position to seek assistance from

state or federal sources or from their

own professional associations.

Supporting community justice.

Foundations, professional associations, and state and federal government agencies have roles in

supporting the development of 

community justice. Providing funds

for courts to create community service programs or teen courts, funding a staff position in a probation

agency to do home visits, or offering training in mediation, dispute 

resolution, and community organizing are ways that outside organizations can help. However, subtler and

simpler ways exist. Public officials

engaged in building community justice need the endorsement of the

highest officers within the state,

including the state supreme court

or the attorney general. State officials must encourage their agents

to think differently about their roles,

adopt a more problem-solving

approach, and then lead discussion

of these approaches at official meetings and conferences. At a national

level, professional associations can

offer training, materials, and ideas.

Individuals need the support of

communities to lead safe and

decent lives. Communities need

leadership, resources, and support

to achieve community justice.
For more information about community justice initiatives, contact:

Center for Effective Public Policy

8403 Colesville Road, Suite 720

Silver Spring, MD 20910 

301–589–9383

Fax: 301–589–3505

Bureau of Justice Assistance

810 Seventh Street NW.

Washington, DC 20531

202–514–6278

World Wide Web:

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

V. For More Information

Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Clearinghouse

P.O. Box 6000

Rockville, MD 20849–6000

1–800–688–4252

World Wide Web: www.ncjrs.org

Clearinghouse staff are available

Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.

to 7 p.m. eastern time. Ask to be

placed on the BJA mailing list.

U.S. Department of Justice 

Response Center

1–800–421–6770 or 202–307–1480

Response Center staff are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m. eastern time.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 19
Bureau of Justice Assistan

Information

General Information

❒ Mail

P.O. Box 6000 

Rockville, MD 20849–6000

❒ Visit

2277 Research Boulevard 

Rockville, MD 20850

❒ Telephone 

1–800–688–4252 

Monday through Friday 

8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

eastern time

❒ Fax

301–519–5212

❒ Fax on Demand

1–800–688–4252

Callers may contact the U.S. Department of Justice Response Center for general 

tion or specific needs, such as assistance in submitting grant applications and inf

on training. To contact the Response Center, call 1–800–421–6770 or write to 11

Vermont Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20005.

Indepth Information

For more indepth information about BJA, its programs, and its funding opportunit

requesters can call the BJA Clearinghouse. The BJA Clearinghouse, a componen

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), shares BJA program infor

with state and local agencies and community groups across the country. Informat

cialists are available to provide reference and referral services, publication distrib

participation and support for conferences, and other networking and outreach act

The Clearinghouse can be reached by

❒ BJA Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

❒ NCJRS World Wide Web 

www.ncjrs.org

❒ E-mail

askncjrs@ncjrs.org

❒ JUSTINFO Newsletter

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