Title: Overcoming Obstacles to Community Courts: A Summary of
Workshop Proceedings.
Series: Community Justice Series Monograph
Author: Bureau of Justice Assistance
Published: November 1998
Subject: Courts
18 pages
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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
810 Seventh Street NW.
Washington, DC 20531

Janet Reno
Attorney General

Raymond C. Fisher
Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson
Assistant Attorney General

Nol Brennan
Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Nancy E. Gist
Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs
World Wide Web Home Page
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance
World Wide Web Home Page
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

For grant and funding information contact
U.S. Department of Justice Response Center 
1-800-421-6770

This document was prepared by the Center for Court Innovation under
grant number 96-DD-BX-0090, awarded by the Bureau of Justice
Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the
National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

-------------------------------

Overcoming Obstacles to Community Courts: A Summary of Workshop
Proceedings

November 1998

NCJ 173400

From the Director

The movement to make our nation's local justice systems more responsive
to the citizens they serve is clearly one of the most important
developments in criminal justice in recent years. At the heart of this
movement are two innovative tools: community policing and community
courts. These tools are bridging the gap between the ideal of
responsiveness and the hard, daily work of meting out justice in America's
cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

The Overcoming Obstacles Workshop described in this BJA monograph,
the first in a new series on community justice, offers us the rare
opportunity to listen in as representatives of eight cities discuss how they
have adapted the community court model to their neighborhoods' unique
needs. Their conversation is valuable because it is frank. Community
courts challenge traditional thinking about how the criminal justice system
best functions. The inevitable resistance to this change, from both inside
and outside the justice system, has created obstacles for community court
planners at every stage of the process. 

The discussion in this monograph explores these obstacles and how cities
have responded to overcome them. Community court planners in New
York City and Hartford, Connecticut, for example, have found new ways
to address the common problem of finding adequate funding for a court
within their local justice systems. Their experiences offer important
lessons for other justice systems just beginning to consider alternative
funding sources. Other critical issues examined at the workshop include
navigating local politics, deciding the kinds of cases the community courts
will accept, reaching out to allies within the system to overcome
resistance, and ensuring that the community is genuinely involved in the
court's operations. 

It is our hope that this monograph stimulates innovative problem solving
for court planners who are working to create and improve community
courts. The nation's first community court planners must be counted
among our most important pioneers in community justice. Their
experiences will be a valuable source of guidance as we prepare America's
criminal justice system for the 21st century.

Nancy E. Gist

-------------------------------

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Obstacles and Issues
Politics: Neighborhoods and the City
Funding
What Kinds of Cases?
System Resistance
Community Service and Social Service
Jail Space
Specialty Courts
The Community

III. Selected Remarks of Workshop Speakers

-------------------------------

I. Introduction

"When the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Center for Court
Innovation first decided to hold a workshop with the theme 'obstacles,' the
idea was not warmly received," John Feinblatt, director of the Center for
Court Innovation, remarked at the outset of a December 1997 conference
in New York City on implementing community courts. Court planners told
him they would prefer a workshop that focused on communities' successes
in establishing community courts. Focusing on obstacles, however, turned
out to be a good idea. The Overcoming Obstacles Workshop brought
together an extraordinary group of people from across the country who are
confronting similar problems. This report, the first in a special BJA series
on community justice, is a summary of their discussion.

The Center for Court Innovation's Overcoming Obstacles to Community
Courts Workshop was held December 4 and 5, 1997, in New York City.
The workshop's participants comprised representatives of six major urban
centers (Baltimore, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; Minneapolis,
Minnesota; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; and St. Louis,
Missouri) and two smaller cities (Hartford, Connecticut, and Hempstead,
New York) that are working with the Center to develop a common vision
of the role of community courts in the criminal justice system.

Also in attendance were New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye, U.S.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nol Brennan, Bureau of Justice
Assistance Planning and Policy Director Timothy J. Murray, and members
of the Center for Court Innovation staff.

Representatives from the eight cities expressed similar reasons for needing
a community court in their community. All recognized the serious
problems caused by quality-of-life crimes such as shoplifting and other
thefts, panhandling, prostitution, and low-level drug possession. The
incidence of such crimes is increasing in cities across the country, and the
traditional court response to them has been ineffective. Offenders cycle
through the court process--arrest, arraignment, ineffective sanctions, return
to the streets--and little or no impact is made on either the individual
offender or the overall incidence of low-level crime. Most jurisdictions are
by now familiar with some form of community policing; prosecutors are
increasingly interested in finding more creative ways to deal with
low-level offenses. For more and more communities, community courts
look like the logical next step.

The workshop attendees have similar goals for the courts they are planning
to create. They seek a court process that imposes immediate, meaningful
sanctions on offenders, is visible to the community, and has the capacity to
address the social problems that underlie minor crimes. They believe that a
court should be deeply involved in the community it serves and that
community residents should have a continuing role in court operations.
Specifically, they want to make social services available onsite or through
ongoing arrangements with providers who can enroll clients immediately
after court disposition.

Moreover, they would like the court to develop relationships with
businesses, civic groups, and universities. Some have plans for formal
community advisory boards to monitor court activities, participate in
setting court policies, and help develop appropriate sanctions for crimes
committed in their neighborhoods. Workshop attendees also expressed
interest in the computer database of the Midtown Community Court in
New York, recognizing that sharing information quickly is essential to the
success of any community court. 

On other issues, however, the cities represented at the workshop differed.
While the six large cities envision community courts that are based in
neighborhoods, Hartford and St. Louis are planning centrally located
courts that will serve the entire city. Hartford has a population of 125,000,
the size of a big-city neighborhood, and St. Louis has a population of
400,000.

And while all of the court planners at the workshop saw their courts
handling criminal misdemeanors, the Hempstead, Indianapolis, and
Portland teams had a civil role in mind as well. Neighborhood disorder,
the Indianapolis team pointed out, arises from problems that are better
addressed through civil law. Two common examples are infractions of
health and safety code violations and landlords who rent to drug dealers or
otherwise allow properties to turn into public nuisances. The Portland
team proposed combining a criminal court for quality-of-life offenses with
small claims and landlord and tenant courts to deal with disputes among
neighbors that sometimes escalate into crimes. The Hempstead team
suggested involving the community court in juvenile and housing court
matters as well as cases normally filed with the criminal court.

Other differences in approach stem from cities' varying jail space
capacities. In New York, the Mid-town Community Court has jail beds
available onsite and uses the threat of incarceration as a "hammer,"
pushing offenders into community service, drug treatment, and social
service-related sentences. Several cities have modeled programs after
Midtown's approach.

However, in other cities that face shortages of jail space, notably Hartford,
Minneapolis, and Portland, the credibility of the "hammer" approach is
eliminated by court orders requiring automatic release when the jail
population reaches a certain threshold. In St. Louis, limited jail space for
female offenders has created such a problem for prostitution arrests.

-------------------------------

II. Obstacles and Issues

Politics: Neighborhoods and the City

In theory, the location of a city's first community court should depend
upon the living conditions, needs, and level of criminal activity in the
city's neighborhoods. Where are the concentrations of arrests for offenses
the community court has targeted? How do these arrests coincide with the
existing boundaries of police precincts? Locating a community court near
high-concentration crime areas facilitates the quick arraignments, 
sentences, and assignments to community or social service programs that
distinguish community courts from traditional courts. It also makes the
court more accessible to the public it serves.

Despite this logic, all of the workshop participants agreed that court
planners must deal with funding issues and local politics that may be the
deciding factors in determining the location of a city's first community
court. For example, although the prototype Midtown Community Court
had plenty of quality-of-life crimes to deal with in its Times Square
neighborhood, it benefited greatly from the concurrent desire of powerful
business and political interests in the city to clean up the area. Community
courts looking for federal funding may be best located in a neighborhood
that qualifies for funding from the Weed and Seed Program. The location
of a city's first community court may reflect a compromise between ideal
and reality. The goal should be to preserve enough of the ideal so that a
successful first court can serve as proof that the concept works.

As the community court concept gains a positive national reputation, it
becomes hard to site a city's first court in one neighborhood without
incurring the resentment of others suffering from similar problems. The
resentment grows, especially during periods of scarce public resources,
when it becomes apparent that the new community court is benefiting
from substantial startup funding that might have been put to other uses.
Such pressure prompted the St. Louis planners to declare that their
community court will serve the entire city. "In St. Louis, the factor is
politics," explained the leader of the St. Louis team. "If we were to say,
'It's going in this neighborhood because it has big problems,' we'd get into
a scrap with people saying, 'We have those problems too.' Doing it
citywide is a way to get around politics."

Other workshop participants disagreed with St. Louis' approach. "I find it
hard to see how you can call it a 'community court' if it is citywide," said a
court planner from Indianapolis. "Such a court," he said, "is just another
specialized court downtown." 

Some participants observed that other courts with special missions--drug
courts, housing courts, and domestic violence courts--are beginning to
proliferate. A downtown community court with citywide jurisdiction may
duplicate services provided by other specialized courts and begin to be
superfluous. With no distinctive geographic base, it could find itself at a
competitive disadvantage for resources from private funders and the court
system. Those at the workshop who felt strongly about locating a court in
a neighborhood and limiting its jurisdiction to that community suggested
ways to get around politics. They suggested starting small, without much
citywide publicity, and emphasizing the experimental nature of the first
court with the promise of replication in other neighborhoods if the
experiment proves a success.

The St. Louis team said that its court will distinguish itself by its
approach--swift and immediate consequences that combine punishment
with help--rather than its location. "If people see that there's a difference as
a result of this approach, that's what matters," a St. Louis planner said.

The leader of the team from Hartford, where the community court will
also serve the entire city (although Hartford is about one-third the size of
St. Louis), said that his group sold the court by emphasizing that it will
operate outside the present judicial structure. In that way, they
distinguished it from the failed approaches of the past. 

The workshop did not resolve whether it is possible to have a community
court that is not located within a community. The experiences of Hartford
and St. Louis may provide the answer.

Funding

Community courts may cost more than traditional courts because they take
on expanded roles and responsibilities. To the extent that they operate
more efficiently, moving offenders from arrest through arraignment more
rapidly and imposing alternative sentences that cost less than jail, they
may realize some savings. But the increased investment in such courts also
promises larger dividends, notably greater public confidence in the courts
and criminal justice system, an improved environment for economic
investment in distressed neighborhoods, and possible reductions in crime.

Community courts can seek funding from a wide range of sources,
including some that are not usually involved in criminal justice. When
searching for funds, planners need to determine who would be interested
in the project, who has a stake in the court's success, and how much they
can contribute. In particular, the strategy should be to seek out
contributions and grants from respected sources and then use those
commitments to persuade others to participate. Greg Berman, a member of
the New York team, described how the Center for Court Innovation found
funding for a second New York City community court in the Red Hook
section of Brooklyn, an area with neither an affluent business community
nor a powerful political constituency. By first attaining a planning grant
from the city's public housing authority, the group was able to secure
funding from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the City of New
York. The effort reflected "good analysis of who are the stakeholders,"
Berman said.

Funds may be available from federal programs that do not explicitly target
community courts, such as programs that promote public health or fight
substance abuse. Cities may also be eligible for money available through
the Executive Office for Weed and Seed by locating community courts in
Weed and Seed neighborhoods.

Some court planners at the workshop recommended beginning with
government funding sources because private donors will likely ask why
they should pay for a criminal justice function that ought to be financed
with tax dollars. If public funding becomes an issue, participants
suggested ensuring that private funds would be allocated only for capital
and startup costs that the city cannot currently afford.

Private funders may also be approached with the compelling argument that
the community court is an aid to economic development. Such a court
would focus intensively on a community's panhandlers, drug dealers,
prostitutes, and shoplifters, who create a hostile environment for retail
business and real estate investment. Court sanctions would put them to
work, cleaning up the neighborhood and making it safer. The court would
also use its considerable power to push offenders into programs that would
help them improve their lives, potentially eliminating them as sources of
trouble in the neighborhood. 

In addition, the court would be deeply involved with community members,
including private funders, and would seek out their help in identifying the
community's most urgent problems and devising practical ways to address
them. Foundations, citywide business groups, civic organizations, real
estate and merchant's groups, and others interested in criminal justice
reform and the city's quality of life would likely respond to such a
partnership, and local institutions could serve as an important source of
nonfinancial resources such as cleaning and painting supplies for
community service crews.

A member of the Hartford team reported that he developed a strong
relationship with an important local institution, Trinity College. Its
president pledged to provide student interns, computer resources, and
fundraising assistance. In many communities, forming a partnership with a
college or university could provide a low-cost way for a court to conduct
research and evaluations to help it shape an ongoing program and
document its progress for funders, the criminal justice system, and the
public.

What Kinds of Cases?

All of the planning teams participating in the Overcoming Obstacles
Workshop expect their city's community court to handle low-level,
quality-of-life crimes, but they also acknowledged that the term "quality of
life" is broad. Planning requires careful choices. Should the court focus its
resources on prostitution? Street drug deals? Public intoxication? Petty
theft? When making such critical decisions, the court must involve the
community. A basic principle of community justice is that a
neighborhood's perception of its crime problems should be taken as
seriously as the priorities established by law enforcement professionals.

Court planners need to find allies in police departments and prosecution
offices who understand the importance of ceding their traditional crime
analysis strategies to one based more on research into community life as it
is actually lived by residents. For example, although crime reports show a
concentration of petty thefts or vandalized cars in a community, residents
may be more concerned about aggressive panhandling and prostitution that
creates a sense of menace on the streets. To conduct such research, the
court's planner should meet with business owners, landlords, tenants'
associations, and civic organizations. However, these groups are likely to
see the court's inquiries as an opportunity to pursue their own agendas, and
the court may want to convene its own meetings with residents or even
conduct door-to-door surveys. These tasks could be turned over to a
college class as a social research project, or a local market research firm
could be persuaded to make a pro bono contribution of professionally
conducted consumer surveys and focus groups.

While every team at the workshop realized the importance of carefully
deciding what types of cases a court should focus its resources on, one
planner cautioned that too much time and effort could be wasted on one
issue. "It's okay to start small, to go somewhere with a magistrate, a
prosecutor, and X number of cases," he suggested. "Just start doing it
somewhere in a community by identifying a manageable number of cases
that resonate with the neighborhood."

System Resistance

With its efficiency and focus on accountability, a community court is
likely to disrupt the culture of traditional courtrooms, where lawyers long
ago found ways to turn inefficiencies to their clients' advantage. A good
computer database and information-sharing system may shift power from
the prosecutor or the defense attorney to the judge. People who sense that
they are losing power and influence usually find ways to undermine the
institution that seems responsible. Police officers, meanwhile, may object
to an unfamiliar court routine and an emphasis on crimes that they do not
consider serious.

Workshop attendees suggested a number of strategies to overcome or at
least minimize such resistance, including:

o Make the rational case. Defenders of the status quo typically do not
admit that they are simply trying to protect their turf. A traditional court's
failure to have an effect on quality-of-life crimes should be easy to
document with statistics about dismissals, sentences to time served, and
the return of offenders to lives of low-level crime. "The way to get people
to accept change," one participant said, "is to hold up a mirror to them, let
them see where the gaps are, what the problems are."

o Build on existing understandings and informal arrangements. In
traditional lower courts, prosecutors and defense attorneys often find
themselves striking deals for probation dependent upon community
service or attendance at drug treatment or other social service programs.
They can be persuaded that the community court provides a structure for
getting such results more often with a greater level of accountability.

o Find good allies. Most police officers and prosecutors are now familiar
with the principles of community justice. In many precinct stations, it is
possible to identify a few officers who respond to the idea of community
policing and pursue it with energy and imagination. Young prosecutors are
often appalled by the conditions they find in traditional lower courts and
are intrigued by the possibilities of a more creative approach. Such people
should be brought into discussions of the community court at an early
stage, both to win their support and to take advantage of their knowledge
of the neighborhood and the criminal justice system. They may respond
positively to the idea of participating at the ground floor of an innovative
project that promises success and recognition.

o Understand how the court will change the culture of the local justice
process and sell the idea to people who could benefit. A community court's
fast pace and information technology may enhance the power of its
presiding judge. These features could become important selling points
when recruiting a good judge. Police officers may object to the idea of a
court that provides speedy arraignments because it promises fewer
lucrative hours of overtime. Police managers, however, are likely to
endorse the idea for exactly the same reason. Community patrol
supervisors could be shown how a court willing to provide social service
referrals and neighborhood work crews can become an invaluable resource
for community policing.

Community Service and Social Service

Traditional courts have a long history of sentencing offenders to
community service. Should a new community court depart from this
tradition? If existing community service programs are rigorous and
relevant to the community, the new court may not need to depart from
them at all. But if, as is often the case, compliance rates for traditional
community service programs are low and the work assignments mainly
benefit downtown public agencies, the court should invest its resources in
a new approach. What this really means is identifying work the
community would like done--cleaning up a park or empty lots in the
neighborhood or washing graffiti off buildings. The Midtown Community
Court went so far as to set up an onsite community service project in the
form of a letter-stuffing and mailing shop that puts offenders to work for
the benefit of neighborhood organizations. Community service projects in
the courthouse or nearby in the neighborhood make immediate
assignments possible. Instead of being told to report back in a few days to
start work, the offender may be escorted by court officers directly from
sentencing to the office of the person scheduling community service. As
resources permit, the court may want to consider fielding its enforcement
officers to follow up when offenders fail to appear for community service
assignments. 

In every community court, accountability is crucial. From the beginning,
the community court must track community service compliance rates not
only to keep pressure on the program to maintain compliance, but also to
justify continued financial and political support. 

The community court's need for immediacy argues strongly for developing
an onsite social service capacity, despite the need for space and staff that
this activity may create. John Feinblatt, director of the Midtown
community Court, told workshop participants that Midtown's planners
invested considerable time in getting to know potential service providers
and learning about what might be possible. Moreover, discretion was
necessary in selecting partners. "Some we turned away," Feinblatt said.
"Some we decided to use on a referral basis, and some we asked to set up
shop at court." Because many of the agencies involved did not receive
budget supplements to pay for their work with Midtown, the court
supported them in other ways, including providing free office space,
computer access, subway tokens for clients, and other amenities. In New
York, Feinblatt said, social service agencies working in traditional courts
were treated as "stepchildren working out of closets. We tried to reverse
that to make them feel appreciated."

As for the types of services a community court should offer, Feinblatt
indicated that the Midtown Community Court addressed the problem with
research early in the planning stage. Midtown's planners conducted focus
groups with drug treatment center residents and then developed an
assessment questionnaire for their intake workers that was tested on
offenders arrested in the neighborhood for the kinds of crimes the court
would handle. Even with this assessment system, Feinblatt reported that
the court made some mistakes. The onsite services for homeless and
runaway youth were dropped after learning that these youth are not a
significant part of the court's business.

Jail Space

How should community court planners cope with the common problem of
lack of jail space? Some workshop attendees said they would use the
enticement of deferred prosecution when court orders prevented the
credible threat of jail for offenders who do not complete their community
or social service obligations. Feinblatt challenged that idea, pointing out
that this activity prohibited any ratcheting up of sentencing alternatives for
people who do not comply with their sentences or who re-offend.
Communities may not be willing to accept a court that puts offenders to
work in their neighborhoods if it is not prepared to jail them when they
re-offend.

A Hempstead planner suggested assigning a range of hours of community
service, permitting the court to increase the number of hours for offenders
who do not comply with the initial assignment, followed by jail for
repeated noncompliance. A Hartford planner suggested using
electronically monitored house arrest when jail cells are not available.

Tim Murray, Director of Planning and Policy for the Bureau of Justice
Assistance, argued that community court planners should not assume that
the jail-space problem is insurmountable. "I have been listening to all of
you attack these humongous problems and try to make some inroads," he
said. "But when you get to crowded jails, you say, 'Oh, we can't do
anything about that.' The fact is, all of these jail crowding problems can be
resolved. You can find ways to save space. You are making extraordinary
progress for courtrooms and prosecutors' offices. Why not think about
doing the same for jail space as well?"

Specialty Courts

Some workshop participants noted that specialty courts, including drug
courts, housing courts, domestic violence courts, and environmental
courts, are now common in communities across the country. Specialty
courts use their power to address the serious unmet needs of troubled
communities instead of simply disposing of criminal cases. They also
encourage the judiciary to rethink its role. Some workshop participants
looked forward to setting up community courts that could coordinate
efficiently with existing specialty courts, finding rational ways to share
resources. An abandoned building that has become a hangout for a gang of
juvenile drug dealers, for example, could be a focal point for a community
court, a juvenile court, a drug court, and a housing court to work together
with prosecutors, city police, and federal marshals.

At the same time, however, the proliferation of specialty courts causes
some court planners to worry about their uncoordinated expansion, with
camps forming around juvenile courts, drug courts, and others, all with
different agendas. Because specialty courts tend to cost more than
traditional courts, there is a real danger that competition for the court
system's finite pool of resources will restrict useful cooperation. Also,
where some court administrators see an opportunity for coordination and
synergy, others may see the potential for wasteful duplication of effort.
How, for example, should a community court and a drug court divide up
responsibility for misdemeanor drug offenses?

At what point does a jurisdiction have too many specialty courts? To what
extent are community courts similar to other specialty courts and how do
they differ? Can proliferation of specialty courts ever eliminate the need
for a community court? How should such issues be handled? Although
workshop participants did not arrive at clear answers to these questions,
they all agreed that they are important questions and merit continued
discussion as the community court movement expands. 

The Community

All of the teams recognized that community courts will fail if the public
sense of community involvement is not genuine and does not continue
after the court's opening. They discussed a number of ideas for
maintaining strong ties to the community, including:

o The court's physical setup and operating style should be inviting, not
intimidating. Lobby security measures should move visitors through metal
detectors and into the courtroom with minimal hassle. The judge should
acknowledge visitors' presence and explain the proceedings. Computer
terminals should give members of the public access to public areas of the
court database and allow visitors to submit queries and comments to
judges and court administrators. (A Hartford judge reported that he had
already set up an "Ask the Judge" e-mail address.)

o Concern for the court's ongoing relationship with the community should
shape the community service program. Community service sites and tasks
should be developed in consultation with neighborhood groups.
Community service work crews should wear identifying jackets or vests.
Community service job-site developers should look for opportunities to
put offenders to work alongside community residents on neighborhood
projects. Attendees with experience managing community service
programs said that they had found this approach to be successful in terms
of compliance and positive community response.

o The court should establish formal structures to keep the community
involved. Some attendees proposed creating a full-time community liaison
position and discussed establishing community advisory boards that would
meet regularly with court officials to discuss crime problems in the
neighborhood and the court's possible responses to them. Workshop
attendees emphasized, however, that the court may have problems with
these groups if the relationship is not treated carefully. The court should
invite ideas from the advisory board on possible community service sites
and possible sanctions for certain kinds of offenses, but it should not give
the advisory board the idea that it can tell a judge what sentences to
impose.

Ultimately, the success of an ongoing community relationship may depend
on the personalities of the court's administrator and judge and how they
deal with community leaders.

-------------------------------

III. Selected Remarks of Workshop Speakers

During the course of the workshop, four speakers addressed the workshop
participants. The following are summaries of their remarks.

Judith Kaye, New York State Chief Judge, proposed some themes for the
workshop. First, New York does not regard the Midtown Community
Court as "the answer" for all jurisdictions. It would not be appropriate, she
said, to take the Midtown Community Court example and simply
transplant it to other jurisdictions. Instead, she hoped that attendees would
take ideas developed in New York and adapt them to their circumstances.

Second, she noted that Midtown's planners do not view the court as static,
a work that has been completed. "We are constantly challenging
ourselves," she said, "to revisit what we are doing, to make it better." In
the past year, the court has begun providing health care, job training
programs, and outreach services to the homeless.

Third, she said, the idea of the court is an occasion for us to question the
role of judges and the role of courts and to ask ourselves whether we can
do things better. And if so, how?

Fourth, she reported that the Midtown Community Court has already
yielded lessons that can be applied elsewhere--specifically, with domestic
violence courts and drug treatment courts. New York court planners hope
to move the Midtown Community Court model into the family court.

Nol Brennan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and coordinator for
community justice initiatives in the DOJ Office of Justice Programs, said
that community justice is about rethinking the criminal justice system and
developing practical, problem-solving models for the delivery of justice.
"What is most exciting," she explained, "is that this has encouraged
partnerships between traditional and nontraditional participants in
addressing crime and promoting public safety."

Creating community courts will engender partnerships and planning
among the local judiciary, law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, public
defenders, corrections officials, and faith-based and nonprofit groups
engaged in the delivery of social services and organizations involved with
substance abuse and mental health treatment. She reminded participants
that Attorney General Janet Reno has emphasized the importance of these
partnerships in how we do our work. Through these partnerships, it is
hoped that communities will continue to strategically plan for the delivery
and administration of justice at the local level.

"You are making the concept of community justice a reality," Brennan
said, commending the efforts of the workshop participants for taking the
steps to develop community courts as an innovative model for community
justice in their respective cities. 

Julius Lang, Director of Midtown Community Court, described the court's
new Street Outreach Services Program, in which caseworkers work with
community patrol officers in outreach teams that seek out homeless
people, prostitutes, and others who might benefit from the court's social
service programs, inviting them to come into the courthouse for help.
"Some of these people have been arrested before," Lang said. "Some of
them no doubt will be arrested again. What we are doing is trying, together
with the police, to convince them to come back to the court and accept
services."

People ask, he said, Why is a court doing outreach? Do you not have
enough business? According to Lang, while a traditional court's mission is
to process the cases that are brought in and move them on, a community
court has the broader objectives of preventing crime and solving problems
in cooperation with the police and the community. With these goals in
mind, community court outreach makes sense.

The Street Outreach Services Program has increased contacts with police
officers at all levels, which Lang believes has helped to create a strong,
positive relationship between the court and the police. The police now
appreciate the program because it enhances their interaction with the
community as well as with the court. At public meetings, Lang said,
people in the community are asking, What are we doing about
homelessness? The police are able to point to this program.

Tim Murray, Director of Planning and Policy, Bureau of Justice
Assistance, argued that the Midtown Community Court is at a "dangerous"
point because, as it attracts attention, it inspires ill-considered imitations.
"Avoid the temptation to replicate what has been shown to you as a
model," Murray said. "When you look at the model, look hard, because
what you're seeing is not a courtroom in a theater district. What you're
seeing is a new way of involving partners to address problems."

Murray told the story of a Midwestern prosecutor who learned from other
law enforcement officials about a six-block neighborhood with a high
incidence of street robberies. He proceeded to put together a task force of
local, state, and federal law enforcement groups to deal with the robbery
epidemic. When he convened a meeting of neighborhood residents to
explain the plan and enlist community cooperation, he was met with
questions about used condoms littering the streets of the neighborhood
because of prostitution activity. "What about the street robberies?" the
prosecutor asked. The residents told him that they would get to the street
robberies, but first they wanted action on the prostitution problem. As a
result, the prosecutor shifted strategies and formed a task force on street
conditions, whose organization and work came to resemble a community
court project.

"We have this huge temptation to be smart," Murray said, "because public
officials think the public expects them to know what to do. Unfortunately
that attitude often prevents officials from listening to the communities they
are supposed to serve."

When the planners of the Midtown Community Court visited Miami's
drug court, Murray recalled that they told him that they did not think the
work of the Miami court addressed the issues and concerns they faced in
Manhattan. But they still found the visit useful. 

"They didn't see a judge dealing with addicts to try and get them clean and
sober," Murray said. "They saw the power of the court applied to problem
solving. They saw that you could get together with a public defender, a
prosecutor, a judge, and service providers, and sit down until everyone
reach-ed consensus on a common goal." 

That's the lesson of Midtown: by engaging the very people we purport to
serve, we do a better job.

-------------------------------

Bureau of Justice Assistance Information

General Information

Callers may contact the U.S. Department of Justice Response Center for
general information or specific needs, such as assistance in submitting
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