‘Justice in the Community’ in The Netherlands

Abstract

‘Justice in the Community’ in The Netherlands promotes the cooperation between criminal justice and other organizations. It increases the visibility of the Public Prosecution to other partners and has an important symbolic function for citizens in multi-problem urban areas, which the state has not left alone with their problems. The scheme also promotes the use of more integrated and extra-judicial reactions to crime and, by using a range of mediation methods, more attention is paid to the position of victims of crime. ‘Justice in the Community’ creates more rapid interventions and settlements of criminal cases. However, there is no evidence that ‘Justice in the Community’ results in a higher levels of ‘objective and subjective safety’ in the neighbourhoods concerned. Some fundamental issues with regard to ‘Justice in the Community’ are discussed, for example, the blurring of boundaries between organizations and their responsibilities, the legitimation of the exchange of information between the participating organizations and the question to what extent the introduction of ‘Justice in the Community’ should be understood as the symptom of a process of juridification.