Exploring the Neighborhood Justice System: An Australian Case Study

This case study examines the Neighborhood Justice System in Australia, established in 2007 in Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, as a community justice initiative. It integrates social justice with the criminal justice system, aiming to improve community living conditions through restorative practices and alliances. The system collaborates with local businesses, schools, and government to mitigate social disadvantage and harmful events. It operates on three core principles: advancing community life, addressing offenses, and upholding procedural rights while prioritizing social justice. The system comprises various courts and offers services like legal representation, police action, and community correctional facilities. Its staff possesses expertise in community justice, crime prevention, and communication. The Neighborhood Justice System provides a range of services, including meditation, drug and alcohol treatment, employment assistance, and mental health support. The system organized music festivals to celebrate indigenous traditions and foster relationships between retailers, indigenous communities, and the police.

Neighborhood Justice System

NEIGHBOURHOOD JUSTICE SYSTEM
Neighborhood Justice System is the community justice system, situated in Australia. This system
was established in the year 2007 and provides their services in the city Yarra, Melbourne,
Victoria (DELIVERING FOR ALL VICTORIANS 2017). This justice system is the combination
of social justice with the criminal justice system. The primary objective of this system is to
enhance and improvise the living conditions of the community (Ross, 2015). The neighbourhood
justice system reinforced their activity through restorative and alliances, practices based on
solutions with the other connected aspects.
For the mitigation of social disadvantage and harmful events, this system is working with native
business, local schools, local people and the government. The staff of the system is continuously
engaged in to deliver justice in an effective manner (Miller, 2017).
The neighbourhood justice system provided services as an international mentor court and
supports the law creator and policymaker, developer of society, and professors of Australia,
which leads to enhancement of the community justice system of their community.
All the activities of the neighbourhood justice system are based on the main three standards that
assist the advancement of the community life, mainly associated with a significant level of
offences and drawbacks in law. At the time of preserving the customary procedural right and
equivalence in front of the law, the neighbourhood justice system considers the vital aspects of
social justice to the criminal justice program. Further, while addressing the criminal issue, this
system builds up the community to avert offensive and destructive performance from arising at
the first site.

There are several parts of the neighbourhood justice court. However, it mainly includes four
parts namely, the court of the magistrate, the court of children (criminal division), Victims of
criminal tribunal and victoria civil and administrative tribunal. Further, the independent group of
this justice system also offers several services such as legal representative, police action,
community correctional facilities and other related services. The staff of the justice system
possesses the extreme knowledge in the field of community justice education and
communication, prevention of the crime and community justice so that they can adequately
provide their advice on the related matter (Ansaloni, and Tedeschi, 2016). The neighbourhood
justice system offers a broad variety of services as compared with any other justice system of
Australia. All the services provided by the justice system help community to address the given
problem of reducing criminal behaviour and to represent those persons who are not able to
present in court and to help them in living the life in a better manner. Some of the services
provided by this justice system are, meditation, drug and alcohol treatment, employment and
training assistance, mental health clinical support and many more related services.
On the basis of the above analysis, it has been seen that creative and collaborative solution is the
basic principle on which the activity of the justice system is based. With this aspect, this justice
system, in the year 2013 organizes the music festivals for the people to rejoice the indigenous
traditions and community life. By this festival, the relation among the retailers, people of the
indigenous sector, and police improved (NEIGHBOURHOOD JUSTICE CENTRE 2019).

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Ansaloni, F. and Tedeschi, M., 2016. Ethics and spatial justice: Unfolding non-linear
possibilities for planning action. Planning Theory, 15(3), pp.316-332.
Miller, A., 2017. Neighbourhood justice centres and indigenous empowerment. AILR, 20(1).
p.123.
Ross, S., 2015. Evaluating neighbourhood justice: Measuring and attributing outcomes for a
community justice program. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, (499), p.1.
Online
DELIVERING FOR ALL VICTORIANS (2017). Retrived from
<https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/neighbourhood-justice-centre-celebrates-10-years/>
NEIGHBOURHOOD JUSTICE CENTRE (2019) . Retrived From
<https://www.neighbourhoodjustice.vic.gov.au/>