Fighting Crime Through Community Justice

Research indicates that the best crime-fighting strategies take place on the streets and that over 50 percent of violent crime occurs at about three percent of addresses.

Community justice is defined as putting more police, probation officers and parole officials in these tough neighborhoods.

Citizens will be more motivated to give officers crime tips that they used to keep to themselves.

It also decreases criticism from neighborhoods, particularly high-crime minority areas, where police-community relations may already be poor.

Another component is restorative justice - defined as a system which confronts offenders with the damage they do to their victims - face-to-face when appropriate.

Perpetrators are forced to accept personal responsibility for their acts, make retribution and are monitored before and after their sentences are complete to determine if they are prepared for reintegration into the community.

Unlike the courts, restorative justice involves community participation focused on the solutions that repair harm from the crime.

The process empowers neighborhoods and people to solve their own problems, rather than bringing in highly expensive and busy professionals - lawyers and judges.

To promote community justice and restorative justice, state government will empower local communities with financial and technical assistance to fight crime in the Colorado's most dangerous neighborhoods.

Finally, building on last year's success, we should to ensure that Colorado's local law enforcement officers have access to DNA samples of all violent felons.

Collecting this information will make it possible to establish even more links between crime scenes across the state and nation, more quickly identifying offenders.

Catching more offenders faster will also prevent many future crimes from being committed in the first place.

This comprehensive agenda will help make Colorado the safest state in the nation.