NEIGHBORHOOD JUSTICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTROL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM: A PERSPECTIVE.
Item
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Title
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NEIGHBORHOOD JUSTICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTROL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM: A PERSPECTIVE.
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Identifier
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AAI8319770
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identifier
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8319770
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Creator
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HOFRICHTER, RICHARD.
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Contributor
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Mike Brown | William Kornblum
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, General
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines the meaning and derivation of decentralized, informal, government-sponsored neighborhood dispute resolution (NDR) forums in the United States that have been developed over the last decade. These institutions use third-party mediation techniques to handle interpersonal neighborhood conflicts, civil and criminal. The central thesis is that NDR forums are primarily institutions of social control which emerge indirectly from class conflict. In contrast with the liberal legal reformist perspective, which views NDR as a managerial solution to problems with the courts and access to judicial institutions, NDR is here interpreted as paradoxical and only fully understandable when analyzed within a political and economic analysis of American capitalism.;Chapter I describes the phenomena of NDR briefly, indicates trends, paradoxes, and activities, and offers a critique of the dominant perspective for interpreting the derivation and significance of NDR.;Chapter II presents a detailed analytical framework establishing the political-economic context within advanced capitalism through which NDR arises and situates the institution within the judicial apparatus of the capitalist state. Subsequent to describing the basis of class conflict, it considers how certain forms of disruption to the social order in the workplace, urban communities, and the judicial system impede capital accumulation and the reproduction of the labor force. These impediments influence the restructuring of social control. This restructuring is characterized by planning, the expansion and intensification of state power, and new modes of integrative control.;Chapter III examines specific features of NDR as a form of social control connected to the reproduction of American capitalist social order presented in Chapter II. It explores the ways in which NDR forums manage and institutionalize particular disputes and simultaneously provide a basis for challenge to its fundamental practices. The central elements of informal dispute resolution are presented, followed by a discussion of how they parallel the emerging elements of social control analyzed in Chapter II. Within this context, the chapter considers the interests of NDR planners and their promotional appeals to the public. It also explains how informalism regulates the lives of individuals, and the ways in which the mediation experience potentially incorporates citizens into a system of social control by presenting the appearance of disputant control, defining conflict as interpersonal, and resolving disputes by consensus and accommodation.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
