FINAL REPORT
May 24, 2002 Understanding
Community Justice Partnerships: Assessing the Capacity to Partner
Caterina Gouvis Roman, The Urban Institute Gretchen E. Moore, The Urban Institute Susan Jenkins, Caliber Associates Kevonne M. Small, Caliber Associates
Submitted to the National Institute of Justice. Prepared Under Contract Number OJP-99-C-010 (T005) for the National Institute of Justice.
research for safer communities URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center Acknowledgments
This report was written by Caterina Gouvis Roman and Gretchen Moore of The Urban
Institute, and Susan Jenkins and Kevonne Small of Caliber Associates. Adele Harrell facilitated
the focus group, provided significant assistance with the outline, and offered insightful
comments on report substance and editing; we thank her for her advice and tireless support. We
also thank Dan Felker, Caliber Associates, and Cornelia Sorensen, National Institute of Justice,
for their assistance throughout this project.
The authors acknowledge the contributions of the focus group participants, Sarah Bryer,
Catherine M. Coles, James Copple, David R. Karp, Phyllis McDonald, Susan Motika, Shelli
Rossman, Carol Shapiro, Arnold K. Sherman, and Avis Vidal. We thank them for their thoughtful participation in the focus group and their time spent providing comments and suggestions on a previous draft of this report. We also would like to thank Dennis Rosenbaum who provided comments on the draft report, and the anonymous peer reviews, who provided comments on the final report. We thank Dionne Davis for helping with the meeting coordination to bring everyone together for the focus group.
We especially thank Elizabeth Griffith at the National Institute of Justice for supporting this work.
Acknowledgements CONTENTS
Executive Summary ...... i PART I. ASSESSING THE CAPACITY TO PARTNER...... 1 CATERINA GOUVIS ROMAN AND GRETCHEN E. MOORE CHAPTER 1: Introduction...... 1 CHAPTER 2: Defining the Key Concepts ...... 7 What is community justice?...... 7 Community as an Active Partner ...... 8 Problem Solving ...... 11 Capacity Building ...... 11 Community-Level Outcomes...... 14 Restorative Justice Orientation ...... 14 What is community? ...... 15 What is a community organization?...... 17 What is a partnership?...... 18 Who are the stakeholders? ...... 18 Summary...... 19 CHAPTER 3: Community Organizations Within the Community Field...... 20 The Community Justice process and outcomes...... 20 The Role of Organizations ...... 21 Organizations and Theory...... 22 Levels of Organizations...... 23 Types of Community Organizations...... 24 Institution-Based Organizations ...... 25 Issued-Based Organizations ...... 25 Membership-Based Organizations...... 26 Sample Classification of Organizational Placement ...... 27 The Community Field ...... 28 The Community Context ...... 31 Summary...... 31 CHAPTER 4: Community Organizations as Partners ...... 32 Leadership...... 33 Defining Leadership Styles and Skills...... 34 Transformational Leadership...... 34 Leadership as a Process...... 35 Quantifying Leadership ...... 38 Resources...... 40 Human Resources...... 42 Financial resources ...... 43 Technological resources ...... 43 Quantifying Resources...... 44 Organizational Orientation towards traditional power holders...... 44 Quantifying Orientation...... 46 Other Organizational Characteristics ...... 47 Formality of Structure...... 47 Organizational Mission...... 48 Outreach and Pre-existing Networks ...... 49 Products and Services...... 50 Summary...... 51
URBAN INSTITUTE The views expressed are those of the authors, and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Justice Policy Center 2100 M STREET, NW WASHINGTON, DC 20037 www.urban.org
CHAPTER 5: The Partnership...... 52 Dimensions of Partnerships...... 53 Community Readiness/Orientation...... 54 Impetus for the Partnership...... 54 Community Structure ...... 55 The Importance of Local Organizational Partners...... 57 Existence of Politics or Turf Wars...... 57 Collaborative History ...... 58 Funding History and Current Funding Uncertainties...... 59 Partnership Over-Saturation ...... 59 Willingness to Change and Evolve...... 60 Measuring Readiness...... 61 Partnership Intentions ...... 64 Structural Complexity and Leadership ...... 65 Networks Across Organizations and Among Levels ...... 66 Action, Advocacy and Membership...... 68 Resources...... 70 Summary...... 70 CHAPTER 6: A Framework for Understanding Partnership Capacity ...... 72 Framework Component I: Partnership Members ...... 73 Organizational Structure...... 73 Leadership ...... 74 Resources...... 75 Orientation...... 75 Framework Component II: Partnership Characteristics ...... 75 Lead Agency Type...... 75 Structural Complexity...... 76 Readiness...... 77 Vertical and Horizontal Integration ...... 78 Additional Resources...... 79 Human resources ...... 79 Financial resources ...... 80 Technological resources ...... 81 Framework Component III: Partnership Goals ...... 82 Problem Domains ...... 83 Objectives...... 84 Component IV: Activities ...... 84 Framework Component V: Outcomes...... 86 Outcome levels ...... 86 Community Level...... 86 Individual and Family...... 87 Systems Change ...... 87 Short term, Intermediate and Long Term Outcomes...... 88 Applying the Framework to a hypothetical partnership ...... 88 ABC Comprehensive Community Partnership ...... 89 Component I. Member Characteristics ...... 89 Component II. Partnership Characteristics ...... 92 Component III, IV, and V: Goals, Activities, Outcomes ...... 94 Summary of Partnership Example ...... 96 PART II. COMMUNITY JUSTICE PARTNERSHIPS: A CATALOG OF JUSTICE AGENCY INVOLVEMENT, PROGRAM TYPES, GOALS AND ACTIVITIES...... 97 SUSAN JENKINS AND KEVONNE M. SMALL CHAPTER 7 ...... 97 Types of Community Justice Partnerships ...... 97 Community-Police Partnerships ...... 100 Community Partners...... 100 Initiative Types...... 100 Community-Court Partnerships ...... 107 Community Partners...... 107 Initiative Types...... 107
Table of Contents Community-Lawyer/Prosecution Partnerships ...... 112 Community Partners...... 112 Initiative Types...... 113 Community-Corrections Partnerships...... 115 Community Partners...... 115 Initiative Types...... 116 Comprehensive Community Partnerships (CCP)...... 120 Community Partners...... 120 Initiative Types...... 120 Multi-Justice Initiatives...... 121 Non-Justice Federal Initiatives...... 124 Foundation Initiatives...... 126 Summary...... 127 PART III. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 132 CATERINA GOUVIS ROMAN, GRETCHEN E. MOORE, SUSAN JENKINS AND KEVONNE M. SMALL CHAPTER 8: The Conceptual Framework Revisited: Summary and Research Recommendations ...... 132 Summary...... 132 Future Research ...... 135 Conclusion ...... 138 References ...... 140
Appendix A
Appendix B
Prepared under contract # OJP-99-C-010 (T005) from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table of Contents Executive Summary
Over the last few decades, research has focused on juvenile and criminal justice agencies working with communities to reduce and prevent crime. Demonstration programs across the nation have proliferated as new and innovative models aimed at community crime prevention have been developed. Many of these demonstration programs have been evaluated. As a result, the research literature on “best practices” of particular programs grows daily. However, few of the evaluations have focused on understanding the capacity of communities to be strong partners in crime reduction and prevention. Little is known about how community organizations mobilize to reduce and prevent crime and engage in community justice activities with criminal justice and other government agencies. With the nation’s rapidly growing interest in initiatives that give more voice to citizen concerns and promote community restoration alongside public safety goals, it becomes critical that we ask where and how community organizations fit within community justice initiatives.
The Urban Institute, in collaboration with Caliber Associates, has synthesized the current knowledge regarding the capacity of community organizations to engage as partners in strategies to prevent crime. The goal of this project is to review what is known about the role of community organizations in partnerships, and the myriad of contextual issues—social, economic, political and spatial—that challenge or foster their ability to effect positive change within partnership initiatives. This review will assist us in answering the following questions: