Salt Lake City's take on criminal justice captured international attention this week as the city's restorative-justice program was a finalist for a World Leadership Award.

Mayor Rocky Anderson, city prosecutor Sim Gill and police Chief Chris Burbank were in London this week because the program was one of three finalists in the award's law and order category. Anderson said the program tries to target the root cause of criminal behavior rather than simply seeking out "tremendous humiliation and punishment" for offenders.

Salt Lake was on the short list, along with Madrid and Stuttgart. At a ceremony Wednesday, Stuttgart's Partnership for Safety and Security was named the winner.

The Salt Lake restorative-justice program is an "astoundingly successful and very cost-effective means of dealing with those who offend against the law," Anderson said before leaving Salt Lake City last week.

The program consists of a host of efforts that offer rehabilitation rather than incarceration for such offenses as domestic violence, misdemeanor drug use, prostitution and soliciting prostitutes, public sex, crimes committed by homeless individuals or the mentally ill.

In most cases, convictions can be dropped from a person's record after successful completion of the rehabilitation programs.

Anderson said the programs, which he began instituting shortly after taking office in 2000, aim to make things better for offenders, victims, taxpayers and society as a whole. The city has saved money under the program because of reductions in prosecution and incarceration costs, he said.

"There's been a major transformation on how we've approached criminal justice over the last seven years," Anderson said.

Last year, Salt Lake City won a World Leadership Award in the environmental category for the SLC Green program.