Getting Started with Neighborhood Accountability Boards:
Is Your Community Ready?
How do you know if your community is ready for a Neighborhood Accountability Board?
The community is important in the Neighborhood Accountability Board process because it
supports victims, monitors offenders, is involved in crime intervention and prevention,
collaborates with police, and shapes policy. By looking at these factors, you can
determine your community's readiness to have a Neighborhood Accountability Board.
Using an "Asset Map" (see page 14) will help you determine who you already have available
right in your own community that can help.
Supports the Victim:
Under restorative justice, there is a recognition that the justice system cannot meet its
objectives entirely by itself. Rather, the community retains a vital and expansive role.
One of these roles includes the support of victims. Members of the community provide direct
and comprehensive support for victims when one of their neighbors falls victim to crime. The
support includes, for example, emotional encouragement, reassurance, safety assistance,
listening, and practical help, such as bringing over meals, watching a family's children
while the victim attends to court, or helping with other obligations.
Supports the Offender:
As with victims, the community has a responsibility to provide direct services to offenders
through such means as monitoring, supporting, and providing opportunities for integration back
into the community's good graces. Community members who volunteer to hold the offender
accountable to the agreed-upon conditions gain a fuller understanding of the difficulty in
changing behavior and of the need for community support. Relationships are developed, which
increases the longer term potential for the offender to want to stay connected to the community
in a prosocial way. Examples of community support include family group conferencing, one-on-one
friendship programs for institutionalized offenders, community monitors and mentors.
Community Stakeholders are Involved:
For the community to own its responsibility and provide the necessary support and direct services
for victims and offenders, community stakeholders such as businesses and faith communities need
to be involved. These institutions provide critical resources and messages that support
community-based efforts. The best solutions to individual cases or general programs and policies
often come from the community. For those solutions to be viable, community stakeholders need to
be willing to assist by contributing their knowledge, resources, and commitment.
Community Members Participate as Volunteers:
Community members can participate in a variety of ways, through direct services within a
correctional agency, advisory councils, or policy development. The use of trained volunteers
not only assists those benefiting from the service, it also helps an agency avoid isolation from
community guidance, values, and input.
Communities Collaborate with Local Police:
Community policing and problem-oriented policing have significantly improved the relationship
between police and citizens and have enhanced policing outcomes. Better information exchange
occurs, and efforts to improve the conditions that cause crime are advanced as communities become
more involved and are asked to assist. Police and other justice system resources can be prioritized
and targeted to address those issues deemed most important to local citizens.
Community Members Can Set Justice System Priorities:
For restorative justice to work properly, the justice system cannot develop policy in a vacuum.
Ongoing dialog is needed between justice system personnel and community members to establish
acceptable levels of risk, set resource priorities, and target activities. The justice system
that views the community as its ultimate customer will want to know what is important to citizens
and be responsive to their needs.
The Community is Involved in Prevention:
Community responsibility does not center solely on individual case resolution, but rather is
broader in context. Community members recognize their responsibility to prevent crime and to
address quality-of-life issues, which, if left unmanaged, can create an environment whereby crime
conditions can fester. The act of dealing with victims and offenders can produce a
community-building effect, which increases the community's capacity to deal with other issues.
Examples of community involvement in crime prevention include prevention councils; cleanup
campaigns; neighborhood block parties, newsletters and association activities; and economic,
recreational, and health promotion activities.
