The Bureaucratic Violence of Alternative Justice

Bibliographic Data

ID18960826
AuthorsA J Reinke (0000-0001-9184-2032, Georgia College & State University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume4
Issue1
Pages135-150
Publication date2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueConflict and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2164-4543 • E-ISSN: 2164-4551
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/arcs.2018.040111
OpenAlexW2898471352
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited18

Alternative justice—conflict resolution outside formal law—seeks to alleviate pervasive social issues, such as the school-to-prison pipeline. Alternative justice practitioners increasingly seek to transform the legal system and the violence it perpetuates from within by implementing programs and processes in collaboration with formal law and legal actors. However, this collaborative approach requires practitioners to create bureaucratic processes and procedures such as memoranda of understanding, complex filing systems, and data tracking. Multisited ethnographic research in the United States (2014–2017) reveals that there is little consensus among these practitioners as to whether this bureaucratization will benefit or harm their work. The bureaucracy of processing case work, implementing standardized procedures, extending training requirements, and cost barriers are viewed positively insofar as they gain legitimacy for the field. Is bureaucratization necessary to achieve legitimacy, or does it restrict practitioners’ ability to fulfill client needs and the principles of their justice paradigm

Bureaucracy · Economic Justice · Engineering ethics · Harm · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Prison · Public relations · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Engineering · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal Education and Practice Innovations

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