The Dual Nature of Justice
... criminal conduct. Community development involves a longer lasting prescription to either criminal or compliant behavior depending upon the duration of exposure to a community’s particular environment. Status among the community such as shame, prestige, and family have been found to be the main ingredient in a person’s willingness to conform to society’s standards of behavior. It is not surprising, that a recent university research project that was funded by the United States government, acknowledges that indeed “strong parental attachments to consistently disciplined children (Hirschi, 1995) in watchful and supportive communities (Braithwaite, 1989) are the best vaccine against street crime and violence”.1 In this same report a person’s social standing was also found to be more of a guiding influence in the compliance to the standard of ethical behavior than fear of consequence. “Informal controls threaten something that may be far more fearsome than simply life in prison: shame and disgrace in the eyes of other people you depend upon.” 2 It has been said that the family is the foundation of any community. It is no wonder with the levels in which crime in America has escalated, that there is a growing momentum in the attention that “family values” has been generating in the United States government as well as leading universities. This revived awareness is in part, caused by the recognition that a societies’, regardless of size, foundation rests on the survivability of the family. Government programs alone cannot accomplish what they themselves have tried to assume, the responsibility of properly raising a family. The conclusion of this report by the University of Maryland’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice D...