Editorial
| Author | Dr Brian Stout |
| Pages | 1-5 |
1
EDITORIAL
Guest Editor Dr Brian Stout, Associate Professor of Social Work, University of Western
Sydney
It is my privilege to present this special Australian edition of the British Journal of
Community Justice (BJCJ) and to introduce such a high quality collection of articles. The
task of editing an Australian edition of this community justice journal d oes raise the
question: what is understood by community justice in Australia? This introduction will set
out some thoughts on how community justice can be understood in Australia before
briefly introducing the papers comprising the special edition.
Community Justice is a familiar term but is not straightforward to define, not least
because it brings together two widely used but widely contested terms, ‘community’ and
‘justice’. In defining community justice it is possible to determine two strands in the
term’s use and understanding, which can simplistically (and perhaps, slightly reductively)
be characterised as an American understanding and a British understanding. The
American discourse of community justice is dominated by the work of Todd Clear and
David Karp, separately or together, and focuses on community, as it is understood in local
neighbourhoods (see, for example, Karp & Clear, 2002; Clear et al., 2011). This
interpretation of community justice is primarily about local neighbourhoods taking control
back from the state and the criminal justice system and resolving offending acts in a local
way. Although it is a deliberately narrow understanding of community justice it is deep,
clearly articulated an d deals with such fundamental concepts as the nature of justice, the
work of criminal justice professionals and the role of the state.
Community justice in the UK is sometimes used broadly so as to seem to encompass
almost everything in the criminal justice system outside of custodial settings (see, for
example, Win stone & Pakes, 2005). Community justice as a term has been in wide use
over the last two decades – including its u se in the title of degrees and training
organisations such as the Community Justice National Training Organisation (CJNTO).
There have be en attempts to unpack it and define it, in the pages of this journal and
elsewhere. Williams (2003), launching the BJCJ, characterised community justice as a
democratic, not authoritarian model, signifying an intention to practice criminal justice in
a particular way, including an engagement with communities and neighbourhoods.
Williams (2003) identified the roots of this co mmunity justice model as being in Clear and
Karp’s American work and Christie’s (1977) conception of conflicts as a for m of property
that should be returned from the state to their owners. Nellis (2005) suggested th at
community justice could be a way of expressing humanistic valu es within the criminal
British Journal of Community Justice
©2014 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 12(2): 1-5
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