The Department promotes the use of conflict
resolution strategies for deterring crime, promoting economic growth,
and enhancing quality of life.
Resources
The Community
Capacity Development Office (CCDO) helps communities help themselves. The
goals are to foster mutual respect between police and communities,
to provide young people with the skills to resolve arguments peacefully,
to encourage partnerships that build on diversity, to prevent crimes
of hate and bias, to offer victim-offender and community mediation,
and to engage greater citizen participation in local decision-making.
Learn more about these resources by visiting the Community
Capacity Development Office site.
The Community Relations Service (CRS) is the Department's "peacemaker" for
community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color,
and national origin. Its services are provided to local officials and
leaders by trained federal mediators on a voluntary and cost-free basis.
The kinds of assistance available from CRS include mediation of disputes
and conflicts, training in conflict resolution skills, and help in developing
ways to prevent and resolve conflicts. Contact your CRS regional office for help in your community.
Many Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) disputes can be resolved
successfully through informal methods. Through its ADA Mediation Program, the Department
refers appropriate ADA disputes to mediators at no cost to the parties.
The mediators in the Department of Justice program are professional
mediators who have been trained in the legal requirements of the ADA.
If you want to work with a mediator and the other party to resolve an
ADA dispute through the Department's program, you can follow the usual
procedure for filing a complaint (title II (public entities), title III (private entities)) with
the Department and note on the complaint that you want to take your
dispute to mediation. While we cannot guarantee that everyone who wants
mediation will be able to participate in the program, the Department
will make every effort to comply with requests for mediation.
The Office of Dispute Resolution coordinates the
use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) for the Department of Justice.
The office is responsible for ADR policy matters, ADR training, assisting
lawyers in selecting the right cases for dispute resolution, and finding
appropriate neutrals to serve as mediators, arbitrators, and neutral
evaluators. The office also coordinates the Interagency ADR Working
Group, an organization that promotes the use of ADR throughout federal
executive branch agencies, which was created by the President and is
chaired by the Attorney General.
Links
Publications that can assist individuals and communities
deal with problem situations can be found on the CRS site.
For more information about the Department components that are most
active in this area, consult the Community Relations Service (CRS), Community Capacity Development
Office, and Office of Dispute Resolution web sites. |