COMMUNITY MEDIATION IN THE UNITED STATES: REFLECTIONS ON A QUARTER CENTURY OF PRACTICE*

Country:
U.S.A.

Language:
English

Where We've Been: Our Roots

Community mediation in the United States has evolved along two different paths -- generally parallel, occasionally merged, often philosophically divergent. One path evolved out of the social and political activism of the 1960s, primarily as a response to the urban disorders of that time (Bush and Folger, 1994). The other evolved out of efforts, both within and outside of government, to reform the justice system. The potential of community mediation, and the challenges that might impede this promise, can be found in these dichotomous roots.
The court-focused movement was largely a response to the perceived inefficiency of the court system. In 1965, a presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice focused national attention on our country's overburdened judiciary (President's Commission, 1967). Its findings helped build consensus around the need for reform and experimentation in and around the court system, with particular focus on minor criminal cases involving neighbors, relatives and other acquaintances. These views were reinforced nearly a decade later, in 1976, by the National Conference on the Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice (American Bar Association, 1976).

Early programs included the Philadelphia Municipal Court Arbitration Tribunal (1969); the Columbus Night Prosecutors Program (1971), which used law students to mediate cases in 30 minute time slots; the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Manhattan (1975); and the Miami Citizen Dispute Settlement Program (1975) (McGillis and Mullin, 1977).
The goals of these court reform programs still sound familiar to us today (McGillis, 1997):
· divert cases from court case loads;
· provide more appropriate processes for selected types of cases;
· provide more efficient and accessible services to citizens;
· reduce case processing costs to the justice system; and,
· improve citizen satisfaction with the justice system.

On the other path, the more community-focused centers were established as an activist response to the urban disorders of the late 1960s. Community conciliation mechanisms were viewed as an opportunity for citizens to participate in the prevention and early intervention of conflicts as an alternative to institutional mechanisms. At the heart of the early community mediation movement were principles of democratic participation, drawing on citizen rights and responsibilities and the involvement of networks of community organizations. (Shonholtz, in this issue).

Bush and Folger observe that proponents of the early community mediation movement expected that the mediation process would have a positive impact on living conditions in urban centers by affecting underlying levels of inter-group and interpersonal conflict. Not only could mediation afford participants a sense of power and control over their lives, but it could also "humanize people to each other, help them to look beyond their assumptions and see each other as real persons with real human concerns and needs, even in the midst of disagreement - it can evoke recognition" (Bush and Folger, 1996, p. 51).
Mediation was viewed as "an empowerment tool for individuals as well as communities to take back control over their lives from a governmental institution (the courts) that was perceived not only as inefficient, but also as oppressive and unfair" (Hedeen and Coy, this issue).

Early community-based models include the Rochester American Arbitration Association Community Dispute Service Project (1973), which was a broad-based response to conflicts in the community resulting from changing racial balances; the Boston (Dorchester) Urban Court Program (1975), a court-connected but storefront urban neighborhood justice center in a rapidly integrating Irish-American neighborhood with growing racial tensions and fear of crime; and the San Francisco Community Board Program (1977), founded by Ray Shonholtz.
These programs shared some of the same goals as the court reform programs in developing more appropriate and accessible forms of dispute resolution, but went beyond that to:
· seek to encourage decentralization of the control of decision-making in communities;
· create a parallel, community-based justice system that addresses disputes well before they enter the formal legal system;
· develop indigenous community leadership;
· work to reduce community tensions by strengthening the capacity of neighborhood, church, civic, school and social service organizations to address conflict effectively;
· strengthen the ability of citizens to actively participate in their local democratic processes for effective self-governance. (McGillis, 1997; Shonholtz, 1984).

Issues and Challenges

How well has the field of community mediation achieved the diverse goals of these dual paths of development? Twenty years later Dan McGillis' retrospective review of community mediation (McGillis, 1997) observes that the field has fulfilled its promise in several important ways. Not only has community mediation grown from a handful of programs to more than 400 in every major city and almost every state, but there is also an increasingly diversified range of dispute resolution services offered by those programs.
Also impressive are the state-level support mechanisms for community mediation in a number of key states, including New York, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas and California. A few other states, such as Massachusetts and North Carolina, have non-governmental state-level support organizations. Further, the comparative research findings on program impact suggest that community mediation programs are perceived by disputants to deliver a high quality of justice, and when compared to court case processing, tends to be viewed more favorably.

Despite community mediation's gains, the field faces significant challenges. The dual development path of community mediation is expressed today in some of the tensions and competing directions in the field. Community mediation centers have had a long and significant relationship with state and local court systems. Nearly half of the member centers of the National Association for Community Mediation receive over 50 percent of their case referrals from their court systems. Partnerships between community mediation centers and the courts have allowed citizens to participate in the justice system as volunteer mediators and enhanced justice services. However, a host of issues emerge in these partnerships, such as the appearance of coerced participation and the pressures of institutionalization.
Assisting to resolve interpersonal disputes, and the ancillary benefits that befall court systems, is an important core function of many community mediation centers. But centers that view such activities as their primary - or only - function will find themselves marginalized if they ignore or fail to engage in broader community dispute resolution functions.
An informal survey of a number of executive directors of successful community mediation centers about the challenges of the future are yields some mixed responses. These include:
· In a case management level, getting disputants to the table to maintain case load volume
· Need to strengthen and professionalize staff and organizational capacity.
· Funding
· Need of community mediation to project the appropriate image of a quality provider of dispute resolution services.

In our view, if community mediation is to achieve its original goals and thrive as a significant force in our communities in the new century, it must meet four critical challenges:
1. Create mechanisms for quality assurance;
2. Expand the capacity of community mediation to fulfill its community building
goals;
3. Ensure that center staff, boards of directors, and mediators reflect the diversity
of the communities they serve; and
4. Strengthen leadership and organizational development capacities of centers.

Quality assurance. Quality assurance is a significant challenge identified by many center directors. Harry Boertzel of the Oakland Mediation Center in the state of Michigan, notes that "community service does not license mediocrity." Indeed, one of the most pressing challenges of the community mediation field is to agree upon appropriate approaches to the adoption of standards and quality control for centers (not individual mediators). In a first effort to address the issue of standards and qualifications, the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) developed a policy statement about quality assurance that was circulated to membership and others in the field (NAFCM, 1996). This statement focused not only on mediator performance, but also on quality of mediator training, monitoring, and organizational competence as indicators of quality service delivery. During the next three years NAFCM will take the next step of developing a mechanism for center assessment and/or certification.

Community building. As dispute resolution organizations in the U.S. confederate and merge, NAFCM has chosen to maintain its organizational autonomy (as of January 2000) because of its unique community mission. Ray Shonhotlz, founder of one of the first community mediation programs in the U.S., asserts that the heart of the community conciliation movement has been its democracy-building mission, drawing on citizens as dispute resolvers of conflicts before they reach institutional dispute resolution processes. Shonholtz' early vision of community mediation was based on citizens and community-based organizations joining together to prevent and reduce interpersonal and community conflict, an exercise in civic responsibility and meaningful democratic participation. As the mediation field evolves and as more programs and practitioners affiliate with courts, many community mediation advocates want to preserve this early vision.
Diversity. Ensuring that citizen mediators reflect the diversity of the communities they serve is one way to accomplish the community building goals of the field. Community mediation centers must engage in community building, work to bridge cultural, racial and class differences, and be willing to be adaptive in structure as well and dispute resolution processes.
Given the growing diversity in American communities and the interests of diverse voices in participating in decision- making, community mediation should expand its role to include change management for broad social and community issues. Centers are already being called on to intervene in a spectrum of public issues, from race relations to the use of national forest lands. With the 'devolution' of government to the local level, opportunities are emerging for centers to ensure that decisions involving the use of public funds and other resources involve the meaningful participation of all citizens. While centers are already engaged in this work across the U.S., the field needs to improve its documentation of what collectively has been accomplished. Case studies and discussions of process and best practices need to be published, and opportunities to exchange information need to be created on order to advance the practice.
Leadership and organizational development. If community mediation centers are to take on an increased role in assisting communities to resolve complex public disputes, it is imperative that staff and volunteers receive additional training and mentoring to assume this role. Indeed, leadership development in general is critical if community mediation is to advance its historic mission. As some of the oldest and most respected centers transition to second and third generation leadership, it is imperative that the new directors have skills in organizational change management. It is equally important that they understand the foundations of the past in order to weave them into the fabric of new challenges that community mediation faces in the new century.
Community mediation centers are uniquely positioned to assist communities with many of their most pressing challenges, such as violence in our schools and families, issues of growth, diversity and change, and enhancing citizen participation in local decision making processes. They can energize neighborhoods and communities by strengthening relationships and building connections and understanding between people and groups, and create and manage processes that make communities work for all of us.

References

American Bar Association. Report of the Pound Conference Follow-Up Task Force, August 1976.

Bush, R.A.B., and Folger, J.P. The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

McGillis, D. Community Mediation Programs: Developments and Challenges. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 1997.

McGillis, D. and Mullen, J. Neighborhood Justice Centers: An Analysis of Potential Models. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977.

National Association For Community Mediation (NAFCM). The Community Mediator, Summer 1996. Washington, DC.

President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. Task Force Report: The Courts. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1967.

Shonholtz, R. "Neighborhood Justice Systems: Work, Structure and Guiding Principles." In J.A. Lemmon (ed.), Community Mediation. Mediation Quarterly, No. 5. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.

Scott Bradley and Melinda Smith were the Co-Chairs of the founding Board of Directors of the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM). Scott Bradley is the Executive Director of the Mediation Network of North Carolina. Melinda, the former Executive Director of the New Mexico Center for Dispute Resolution, is an associate of the New Mexico Consensus Council and the Public Decisions Network, a U.S. consulting group.

* A slightly different version of this article appears in Mediation Quarterly, Summer, 2000.