ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the community justice model by considering the social obligations of a community for the prevention of crime. The pursuit of equality as a guiding principle is justified when it increases the sense of community among individuals. Most important for community justice is the correlation of neighborhood disadvantage and criminality. Each member of the community is to be given the opportunity to participate in community life, to have a voice in community affairs. From the perspective of control theory, crime is committed most by those who have the greatest freedom and the smallest stake in the community: young, unemployed, unmarried, urban, nonwhite males. Stewardship is the final principle of egalitarian community justice. Stewardship might make the strongest claim of all these principles on members of the community. A community justice approach tries to cultivate voluntarism in community members and prioritizes service to victims and the community as an appropriate sanction to criminal offenders.
