Although community dispute resolution can refer to a wide range of initiatives aimed at addressing community conflicts and undertaken by many very diverse local entities (Auerbach 1983), since the early 1970s the phrase has become associated with a variety of eclectic, innovative community-based centers that focus their attention on how to better manage conflict situations involving citizens in their respective local communities.
Known by many different names, such as community mediation programs, restorative justice programs, neighborhood justice centers, community peacemaking programs, community justice programs, victim-offender mediation programs, dispute settlement programs, and conflict or dispute resolution programs, all of these efforts aim to provide local citizens with more accessible, less adversarial, more appropriate, less time-consuming, and less expensive or even free services, handling an extensive variety of conflicts, many of which would otherwise be handled by the legal system. In many instances, these centers are closely associated with the civil and criminal courts, from which they receive referrals. The community dispute resolution centers also partner with other components of the criminal justice system, particularly the police, for access to cases that come to their attention or to conduct conflict resolution training.
Community Dispute Resolution and Mediation
Central to most community dispute resolution initiatives has been the use of mediation and related collaborative problem-solving processes such as conciliation and facilitation. Mediation, the best known and most widely used process, relies on a third party known as a mediator, who assists disputing parties to resolve their differences. Through face-to-face meetings, parties have an opportunity to exchange information and work through their differences voluntarily (Moore 2003). Mediation is viewed as especially useful in those situations where parties have an ongoing relationship.
Key recognizable characteristics of the mediation process are self-determination by the parties, impartiality by the interveners, and confidentiality of process (Association for Conflict Resolution 2005). Self-determination means that the parties are empowered to make informed choices about their situation and can choose to terminate the process at any point. Mediators do not make decisions for parties. They use techniques and skills to help the parties share their perspectives, clarify concerns, generate possible options, and craft a working arrangement for the future. Impartiality refers to the need for mediators to pay careful attention to any conduct implying any partiality on their part. Their actions should not show any biases or preferences. Confidentiality assures the parties that they can speak candidly in a safe, respectful setting. It means that information exchanged during the mediation sessions will not be discussed with others or used in future court or administrative hearings. Depending on the context, there are some exceptions to the confidentiality provisions. A few widely recognized exceptions include child abuse, domestic violence, or imminent harm to a person.
While it is generally understood that mediation is a process in which parties are assisted to work through their differences, there is no one way to do it. Mediation reflects the mediator’s personality, styles, training, and philosophy as well as the context in which the mediation is being conducted. Despite mediation’s sensitivity to nuances of practitioners and milieu, as its use has expanded, several dominant styles have evolved. The style most common to community dispute resolution is facilitative, in which facilitative mediators ask questions to identify, reframe, and analyze issues and options. They rely on the parties to play an active role in identifying their needs and interests and shy away from making recommendations or expressing opinions.
The Development and Growth of Community Dispute Resolution Centers
Community dispute resolution centers have flourished since the early 1970s. The growth of these centers has been attributed to a number of factors. Chief among them are dissatisfaction with the cost, slowness, and inappropriateness of the traditional adversarial processing of cases and the desire for greater social justice (Wahrhaftig 2004).
Because community dispute resolution centers are very decentralized and highly dispersed, comprehensive and accurate data about them are elusive. Despite the paucity of available data, what is evident is that community dispute resolution centers have proliferated throughout the United States (McGillis 1997). Although there were only a handful of such centers in the early 1970s, by the end of that decade the U.S. Department of Justice had begun formally funding experimental neighborhood justice centers in Atlanta, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. According to estimates made by the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM), the number of centers has swelled to more than 550. NAFCM also reports that over the years more than 76,000 citizens have been trained as mediators and that each year more than 97,500 disputes are referred to community dispute resolution centers (NAFCM 2005).
Increasingly, community dispute resolution centers have focused on restorative justice, an umbrella concept that refers to a variety of responses to criminal wrongdoing, including victim-offender mediation, circle sentencing, community reparative boards, and family group conferences. Restorative justice involves rectifying harm and restoring relationships by providing victims, offenders, and community members with an opportunity to actively participate in the justice process.
The best known of the restorative justice efforts is victim-offender mediation, which formally began in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1974 and increasingly has been adopted in a variety of communities and contexts worldwide (Umbreit 2001). As an informal, nonadversarial process bringing victims and offenders together face to face, victim-offender mediation allows the victims to share their concerns about the impact of the crime, the offenders to give information about the offense, and in some instances, community members an opportunity to participate. This approach to community dispute resolution assists the victim to recover and the offender to be restored to the community. Minor criminal matters such as vandalism, theft, burglary, and minor assaults tend to be referred to victim-offender mediation by the courts. However, violent crimes are also mediated, usually when so requested by victims or by a surviving family member (Umbreit 2000).
Finally, hybrid versions of community dispute resolution centers have emerged. For example, community or victim impact panels provide offenders with an opportunity to meet face to face with members of the community, not necessarily the victims themselves, to discuss the impact of their offense on the community. In New York City, the offenses brought to impact panels consist of those involving quality of life offenses, where a summons from the police has been issued for a misdemeanor crime or violation.
The Eclectic Community Dispute Resolution Landscape
Community dispute resolution centers can be quite diverse (McGillis 1997). In general, they tend to be operated by nonprofit organizations and funded by a variety of sources, including government, private foundations, fund-raisers, and fees from special services such as training programs. They tend to be low budget centers, providing the bulk of their services gratis, for a nominal fee, or on a sliding scale basis. Program costs are kept low since virtually all of the centers utilize volunteer citizens who are trained to mediate cases. The citizens come from very diverse backgrounds in each community, often mirroring the local population.
There are no universally accepted guidelines for training mediators. As a result, training is quite varied, ranging from little formal training to precisely defined criteria identifying specific topics and activities. New York State, for example, which has one of the nation’s most comprehensive statewide community dispute resolution networks, has identified standards and requirements for community mediators. To be certified by a local dispute resolution center, mediators must attend a thirty-hour basic mediation training program that includes skills practice and ”role plays,” followed by an apprenticeship with two role plays, the observation of one actual mediation, the mediation or comediation of at least five cases with an experienced mediator, and the mediation or comedia-tion of one case that is debriefed by staff or through a self-evaluation instrument. Additionally, each year, mediators must participate in at least six hours of continuing education and mediate or comediate at least three mediations. Finally, mediators who mediate any special cases must complete additional training (New York State Unified Court System 2003).
The types of cases handled by the community dispute resolution centers are quite varied and reflect local context. Generally speaking, they process both civil and criminal cases, including neighborhood conflicts involving noise, barking dogs, lifestyle differences, family conflicts over custody disputes and parenting, landlord-tenant complaints about leases and repairs, business disputes about consumer complaints, and minor criminal matters such as harassment, assaults, and trespassing.
The community dispute resolution centers have been viewed as providing a wide range of benefits. Some of the benefits widely attributed to the centers include highly satisfied parties, faster and less expensive processing of cases than in conventional court processing, and creative outcomes defined by the parties.
Ongoing Challenge: Need for Rigorous Research
While community dispute resolution centers have proliferated throughout the country and are staffed by very enthusiastic mediators, these centers are significantly underresearched (Hedeen 2004). Most of the data are dated, filed in the wide range of local program reports and newsletters, or based on fragmented anecdotal and descriptive accounts from program staff and participants. Information is needed to fully understand what works, what does not, and why the centers are underutilized in their respective communities. Since virtually all centers are staffed by volunteers and run by nonprofit organizations operating on very limited budgets, research is particularly important for funding and policy-making purposes. Of particular note, research could also help shed light on questions regarding the specific role of the community dispute resolution centers vis-a-vis the criminal justice system.
