Young offenders may face justice from neighbours

No, not a prescription for vigilantism, rather a sensible and tested restorative justice approach. This is the article: Young offenders to face justice from neighbours | Society | The Observer: The salient points seem to be summed up at the end
"'Young people are more likely to give up crime if they face up to communities and victims to pay back for their crimes and tackle the causes of offending,' Oppenheim said.
Adam Mansky, a founder of the centre, said overall levels of crime in the area had declined faster than in the rest of New York, partly because offenders were more willing to comply with alternatives to custodial sentences.
'Before the Red Hook Centre opened, only 13% of local residents approved of the court system; within two years of its opening, approval for the justice centre stood at 78%,' he said."
Regular readers will already know that I think we should be doing this more often, not least because of the relational nature of human beings. Restorative justice also enables the dignity of being able to try to right, to some degree, wrongs as well as properly enabling a sense of the costs of offences to the victims. Much crime, I believe, relies on precisely the exclusion or denial of effects on victims who are in effect dehumanised or rather un-personed in the perpetrator's thinking. Once empathy is brought into the picture, real restoration can begin.