U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Assistance

MONOGRAPH

Community

Prosecution Strategies

A u g u s t 2003
This document was prepared by the Crime and Justice Research Institute (under the working

title Community Prosecution Strategies: Measuring Impact), under grant number

1999–DD–BX–K008, 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.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street NW.

Washington, DC 20531

John Ashcroft

Attorney General

Deborah J. Daniels

Assistant Attorney General

 C. Camille Cain

Acting Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs

Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance

Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

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.

NCJ 195062
Community Prosecution Strategies 

by 

John S. Goldkamp 

Cheryl Irons-Guynn 

Doris Weiland 

August 2003 

Community Prosecution Strategies

iii

Acknowledgments 

Arizona 

Phoenix City Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Kerry Wangberg for his staff’s 

help in preparing our report. We also wish to thank division head Arron Carreon-Ainsa for 

taking the time to describe the program in depth. 

Pima County Attorney’s Office: We are thankful to Hon. Barbara LaWall, Pima County 

Attorney, for allowing us to speak with her staff. We greatly appreciate the assistance of 

Deputy County Attorney Christine Curtis, who responded enthusiastically to our requests 

for information. 

California 

Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks to Hon. Gil Garcetti, former 

Los Angeles County District Attorney, for the cooperation provided by his office. We are 

grateful to Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lidamore for taking the time to answer our 

questions and provide information. 

Oakland City Attorney’s Office: We greatly appreciate the kind invitation to visit the office 

of City Attorney John Russo. We are very grateful to Paralegal Sandra Marion for 

providing us with insight into the process of starting up a community prosecution program 

and taking us on a tour of the pilot site in Oakland. We also thank Deputy City Attorney 

Charles Vose for his informative presentation at the Community Prosecution 

Conference−2000, for taking the time to respond to our followup questions, and for 

facilitating our observation of the pilot site. 

Placer County District Attorney’s Office: We thank Hon. Bradford R. Fenocchio, Placer 

County District Attorney, for the cooperation provided by his office. We wish to thank 

Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Gazzaniga for her cooperation in spending valuable 

time answering questions about the unique elder-abuse target of their program, and sending 

written program information promptly. 

Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office: We wish to thank the office of Hon. Jan 

Scully, where Assistant District Attorney Karen Maxwell generously shared her time and 

expertise on their community prosecution program. 

Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks to Hon. George Kennedy, Santa 

Clara County District Attorney, for the gracious attention of his office. Our observation of 

the Santa Clara Community Prosecution site was eye opening. Deputy District Attorney 

Chris Arriolla was generous with his time and provided an invaluable glimpse of 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

iv 

community prosecution at work. We are grateful to Assistant District Attorney Marc Buller 

for his kind invitation to observe, and the answers and information provided. 

San Diego District Attorney’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation received from the 

staff of San Diego District Attorney Casey Gwinn. We are grateful to Assistant District 

Attorney Joan Dawson, head of the community prosecution program, who provided 

valuable indepth information. 

Colorado 

Denver District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks to Hon. William Ritter, Denver District 

Attorney, for the cooperation of his staff. We appreciate the assistance of Susan Motika, 

Director of the Community Justice Unit, for providing written information and taking the 

time to discuss the program. She and her staff did an admirable job of hosting APRI’s 

Community Prosecution Workshop in April 2000, giving us an opportunity to see Denver’s 

community justice program in action. Our thanks to Community Justice Advocate Erin 

Sullivan Lange and Community Justice Coordinator David Mrakitsch for answering our 

questions. We also thank Christine Talley, co-chair of the Capitol Hill Community Justice 

Council, for welcoming us to observe the council in action and answering our questions. 

District of Columbia 

U.S. Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the 

District of Columbia, for the assistance we received from her staff. We thank Assistant 

U.S. Attorney Clifford Keenan for providing written materials and valuable information on 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office community prosecution program in Washington, D.C. 

Florida 

Brevard/Seminole County State Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Norman 

Wolfinger and to division head Phil Archer for the indepth interview and materials they so 

generously provided in response to our many questions. 

Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office: Our thanks to Hon. Barry Krischer, Palm 

Beach County State Attorney, for the cooperation of his staff. Assistant State Attorney 

James Martz volunteered considerable time answering our questions and explaining the 

process and policies of COMBAT. Our thanks also to Assistant State Attorney Terrance 

Nolan for the informative discussion. 

Hawaii 

Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu: We wish to thank Hon. Peter 

Carlisle, Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu. Our first contact with 

a community prosecution site was with staff member Claire Merry, whose enthusiasm 

about the project and responsiveness to followup calls were very helpful. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

v

Illinois 

Cook County State’s Attorney: We are grateful to Hon. Richard Devine, Cook County 

State’s Attorney, for the courtesy of his staff. Conversations with Assistant State’s 

Attorney Neera Walsh provided information about community prosecution in Chicago 

today, and insight and contacts for background research on the original project from the 

1970s. We are indebted also to former Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, Hon. 

Nancy S. Salyers and Ray Grossman, Esquire, for describing what we believe to be the 

first community prosecution effort in the United States. 

Indiana 

Marion County Prosecutor’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Scott Newman, Marion 

County Prosecutor, for the assistance provided by his staff. We especially appreciate the 

time and information provided by Program Supervisor Diane Burleson and former 

Supervisor Melinda Haag. 

St. Joseph’s County Prosecutor’s Office: We thank Hon. Christopher A. Toth, St. Joseph’s 

County Prosecuting Attorney, for the cooperation we received from his office. Khadijah 

Muhammad, co-director of Strategic Prosecution, took the time to explain the startup 

process of their project, and in a later conversation, its implementation. 

Maryland 

Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office: We thank Hon. Marna McLendon, Howard 

County State’s Attorney, for the time she took to discuss community prosecution generally 

and her project specifically. Her insights were invaluable. 

Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office: We are grateful for the assistance and 

cooperation of the staff of Hon. Douglas Gansler, Montgomery County State’s Attorney.

We also appreciate the assistance and cooperation of Assistant State’s Attorney Tom 

Eldridge. 

Massachusetts 

Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation of the staff of 

Hon. Michael Sullivan, Plymouth County District Attorney, and particularly Assistant 

District Attorney William Asci, who responded so promptly to our calls. 

Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office: We extend our thanks to Hon. Martha 

Coakley, Middlesex County District Attorney. We also appreciate the help provided by 

Assistant District Attorney Kerry Ahearn, who explained the structure and functioning of 

the distinctive program operating in her county. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

vi 

Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office: We thank Hon. Ralph Martin, Suffolk County 

District Attorney, for the courtesy extended by his office. The dedication of Deborah 

McDonnah, head of Community Affairs for the community prosecution project in Suffolk 

County, was evident in our discussion. 

Michigan 

Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office: We are grateful for the assistance 

provided by the office of Hon. James Gregart, Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney. 

Senior Neighborhood Prosecutor Karen Hayter was extremely helpful and informative, 

both in phone conversations and in person. 

Minnesota 

Hennepin County Attorney’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation of the staff of Hon. 

Amy Klobuchar, Hennepin County Attorney. The time spent with us by Martha HoltonDimick, Ericka Mozangue, and Terri Froehlke, assistant county attorneys, provided great 

insight into the life of a community prosecutor, and the types of issues that arise in the 

field. 

Missouri 

Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation of the office of Hon. 

Robert Beaird, Jackson County Prosecutor. Chief Trial Assistant Kathy Finnell’s 

knowledge about community justice and her commitment to the community were evident 

in our conversations, and we appreciate her input. 

New York 

Bronx District Attorney’s Office: We thank Hon. Robert T. Johnson, Bronx District 

Attorney, and Susan Sadd, Director of Planning and Analysis, who provided us with 

valuable information. 

Erie County District Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to the staff of Hon. Frank J. Clark 

for taking the time to describe community prosecution as it is practiced in their office. 

Thanks to Assistant District Attorney Michael Drmacich for patiently answering our many 

questions. 

Kings County District Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Charles J. Hynes, Kings 

County District Attorney, for the information given by his staff. We thank Lee Hudson, 

Director of the Community Relations Bureau, and Deputy District Attorney Michael 

Vechionne, for providing information about Kings County’s program. 

Manhattan, New York County District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks go to Hon. Robert 

Morgenthau, New York County District Attorney, for the cooperation we received from 
Community Prosecution Strategies

vii

his office. We would like to thank Executive District Attorney Kristine Hamann and 

Community Affairs Department Head Connie Cuchiarra for information about 

Manhattan’s project. 

Nassau County District Attorney’s Office: We are grateful to Hon. Denis Dillon, Nassau 

County District Attorney, for the assistance provided by his office. We appreciate the input 

of Assistant District Attorney Rene Fiechter, who spent a great deal of time answering our 

questions, on more than one occasion. 

Westchester County District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks go to Hon. Jeanine Pirro, 

Westchester County District Attorney, for the courtesy of her staff. We extend our 

appreciation to Community Justice Coordinator Yolanda Robinson and Assistant District 

Attorney Robert Maccarone, with whom we engaged in several discussions about 

community prosecution generally and their program specifically. 

Ohio

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation of the staff of Hon. 

William Mason. Assistant Prosecutor Richard Neff generously shared his time to answer 

all our questions. 

Oregon 

Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office: We are indebted to Hon. Michael Schrunk, 

Multnomah County District Attorney, for the cooperation provided by his office, and to 

Deputy District Attorney Jim Hayden for answering our many questions about the 

pioneering program in Portland. Our thanks also go to Staff Assistant Judy Phelan for her 

help. 

Pennsylvania 

Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office: Our thanks go to Hon. Andrew Jarbola III 

and to Christine Tocki for taking the time to describe community prosecution as it operates 

in their office. 

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office: We wish to thank Hon. Lynne Abraham, 

Philadelphia District Attorney. We are grateful to George G. Mosee, Jr., Deputy District 

Attorney and Chief of the Narcotics Division, for inviting us into his office to learn about 

community prosecution in Philadelphia. 

Tennessee 

Knox County District Attorney General’s Office: Our thanks go to Hon. Randy Nichols, 

whose staff generously took the time to describe community prosecution in their county. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

viii 

We appreciate Program Coordinator Rhonda Garren taking the time to share her expertise 

with us. 

Texas 

Travis County District Attorney’s Office: We appreciate the cooperation of the office of 

Hon. Ronnie Earle, Travis County District Attorney. Assistant District Attorney Meg 

Brooks provided us with valuable information about community prosecution in Austin. 

Washington 

Seattle City Attorney: We are grateful to the office of Hon. Mark Sidran for taking the time 

to speak with us and to Criminal Division Chief Robert Hood for his kind cooperation. 

We are extremely grateful to Barbara Boland and Catherine Coles, pioneers in community 

prosecution research, for generously sharing their knowledge, insights, and extensive 

research into community justice. We also wish to thank Cynthia Tompkins, then-project 

manager and senior attorney at the American Prosecutors Research Institute, for 

welcoming us to the first APRI-sponsored Community Prosecution Workshop and APRI 

Community Prosecution Program Director Michael Kuykendall for his interest in our 

efforts. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

ix

Contents 

Executive Summary..........................................................................................................xi

Introduction................................................................................................................xi 

Prosecution and the Community................................................................................xi 

Emergence of Community Prosecution................................................................... xii 

Typology of Community Prosecution Strategies.................................................... xiii 

Summary Descriptions of Community Prosecution Sites ........................................xv 

Measuring Impact: Challenges of Community Prosecution Strategies ............... xxvii 

Introduction........................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1. The Prosecutor and the Community.............................................................3

Community and Criminal Justice ...............................................................................4 

Relevance of the Community Justice Movement .......................................................5 

Community Prosecution as a Community Justice Strategy........................................5 

Chapter 2. Emergence of Community Prosecution Strategies......................................9

Chapter 3. Chicago’s Community Prosecutions Unit: An Early Community 

Prosecution Prototype ............................................................................................15

Chapter 4. Common Elements of Community Prosecution Strategies: A Working 

Typology ..................................................................................................................19

Target Problems........................................................................................................21 

Target Area ...............................................................................................................25 

Role of the Community ............................................................................................28 

Content of Response to Community Problems.........................................................30 

Organizational Adaptations in the Prosecutor’s Office ............................................32 

Case Processing Adaptations to Community Prosecution........................................33 

Interagency and Collaborative Partnerships in Community Prosecution .................35 

Chapter 5. Community Prosecution in the United States: Descriptive Overview of 

Sites..........................................................................................................................39

Limitations of This Preliminary Overview...............................................................39 

Purpose of the Preliminary Overview of Sites .........................................................40 

Manhattan, New York ..............................................................................................40 

Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon....................................................................41 

Kings County (Brooklyn), New York ......................................................................44 

Middlesex County, Massachusetts............................................................................45 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.......................................................................................46 

Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana ....................................................................48 

Suffolk County (Boston), Massachusetts .................................................................49 

Los Angeles County, California ...............................................................................51 

Seattle, Washington ..................................................................................................52 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

x 

Howard County, Maryland.......................................................................................54 

Plymouth County (Brockton), Massachusetts ..........................................................55 

Washington, D.C., United States Attorney’s Office ................................................56 

Denver, Colorado .....................................................................................................57 

Erie County (Buffalo), New York ............................................................................58 

Phoenix, Arizona ......................................................................................................59 

Santa Clara County, California.................................................................................60 

Pima County (Tucson), Arizona...............................................................................61 

Jackson County (Kansas City), Missouri .................................................................63 

Honolulu, Hawaii .....................................................................................................64 

San Diego, California ...............................................................................................65 

Kalamazoo County, Michigan..................................................................................67 

Cook County (Chicago), Illinois ..............................................................................68 

Nassau County, New York .......................................................................................69 

Knox County, Tennessee..........................................................................................71 

Travis County (Austin), Texas .................................................................................72 

West Palm Beach, Florida ........................................................................................73 

Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota ...........................................................74 

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio .......................................................................74 

Brevard/Seminole County, Florida...........................................................................76 

Montgomery County, Maryland...............................................................................77 

Sacramento County, California ................................................................................78 

Placer County, California .........................................................................................79 

St. Joseph’s County (South Bend), Indiana..............................................................80 

Lackawanna County (Scranton), Pennsylvania........................................................81 

Westchester County, New York ...............................................................................82 

Oakland, California ..................................................................................................83 

Chapter 6. Community Prosecution: Thinking About Evaluation.............................95

A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Community Prosecution.........................95 

Identifying the Roles of the Prosecutor and the Community ...................................98 

Using the Typology To Organize Evaluation Questions..........................................98 

Distinguishing Between (Early-Stage) Implementation and Outcome Questions ...98 

Target Problems........................................................................................................99 

Target Area...............................................................................................................99 

Role of the Community ............................................................................................99 

Content of Community Prosecution Strategy.........................................................100 

Organization of Prosecution...................................................................................100 

Collaboration and Partnerships in Identifying Problems and Effecting Solutions.101 

Conclusion......................................................................................................................103

References ......................................................................................................................105
Community Prosecution Strategies

xi

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Community prosecution strategies signal a major milestone in changing the culture and 

role of the prosecutor by developing partnerships and collaborative, problem-solving 

approaches with the community to improve the quality of life and safety of citizens. The 

most innovative community prosecution initiatives pose fundamental questions about the 

function of the prosecutor, the ways in which the prosecutor seeks justice, and the 

organization and operation of the prosecutor’s office. These strategies suggest an important 

shift in traditional prosecutorial philosophy, as prosecutors emphasize community-focused 

crime strategies and adapt values and methods of other community justice innovations, 

particularly those relating to community policing, court, corrections, and restorative justice 

initiatives. 

This monograph describes the emergence of community prosecution strategies. It identifies 

some of their common elements in a working typology based on features of innovations 

operating in diverse settings in the United States. This discussion of community 

prosecution strategies draws on examples from 36 sites across the nation. The monograph 

concludes by proposing a conceptual framework for evaluating and describing some of the 

challenges posed by community prosecution strategies for assessing impact and measuring 

performance. 

Prosecution and the Community 

Since the 1960s, the concept of community, variously defined, has continued to surface as 

an important criminal justice element. For example, community corrections, a concept 

dating back more than a century, was important in correctional innovation during the 

1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (Harris, 1995). In the late 1960s, the relationship between the 

community and the police became a primary focus of justice reform strategies (President’s 

Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, 1967; U.S. National 

Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, 1970). Problem-oriented and 

community-policing initiatives of the 1980s and 1990s were developed to ensure that 

community concerns were fully addressed by police agencies (Davis, 1975; Goldstein, 

1990; Rosenbaum, 1994). 

More recently, the traditional posture of the courts, purposefully aloof from the problems 

of the community, was challenged with the establishment of the Midtown Community 

Court in 1993. The Midtown Community Court sought a closer working relationship with 

the community and served as a catalyst for diverse community-oriented justice initiatives. 

All of these and other community-oriented crime and justice foci form the background 

against which current community prosecution strategies have emerged and can be 

understood. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

xii 

Emergence of Community Prosecution 

Community prosecution has been described as a “grassroots approach to law enforcement 

involving both traditional and nontraditional prosecutorial initiatives” (Weinstein, 1998: 

19). In several jurisdictions, community prosecution initiatives were sparked by the 

implementation of community policing and were logical, complementary extensions of the 

focus on community issues to the prosecutor’s function (Hankins and Weinstein, 1996). In 

locations without community policing programs, community prosecution strategies were 

developed to respond to community crime and public safety issues that the police were not 

sufficiently addressing. 

In many instances, community prosecution involves deploying prosecutors or nonlegal 

staff in the community to identify residents’ concerns and invite their participation in 

developing strategies for addressing problems of crime and social disorder that are their 

highest priority. Prosecutors involved in these outreach efforts often find that community 

residents do not share the traditional prosecutor’s concern with the prosecution of serious 

crimes. Although the community may assume that such matters always will be a priority, 

their immediate concerns more often focus on the nuisance or quality-of-life crimes that 

make life in the neighborhood unsafe or unpleasant. In short, prosecutors have 

discovered—like policing and community court leaders—that problems identified by 

residents as most important to them in their daily lives are generally not the serious crimes 

that the criminal justice system appears most ready to handle. 

The emergence and diffusion of community prosecution as an innovation is difficult to 

reconstruct because many prosecutors have been dealing with community issues in various 

ways for some time. A good historical case can be made that community prosecution 

preceded rather than followed from community policing reforms, drawing its substance 

instead from the community organization innovations of the 1960s. The establishment of 

Cook County State’s Attorney Bernard Carey’s 1973 community prosecution program in 

Chicago predates the first community policing program and was clearly influenced by the 

active community organization initiatives in Chicago in the 1960s. 

Current estimates vary as to the number of prosecutors’ offices in the United States that 

have adopted some version of a community prosecution strategy. Certainly, the problems 

thrust on the criminal justice system by drug crimes and drug enforcement during the 

1980s and 1990s forced creation of new strategies to cope with the overwhelming criminal 

caseload, including ways to free neighborhoods of the problems related to crime. In 1985, 

for example, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau instituted a communityfocused approach through a Community Affairs Unit in response to the advent of crack 

cocaine in New York City, sending an experienced nonattorney employee into the 

community to improve community relations and gather intelligence to better prosecute 

drug crimes. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

xiii

The origin of the contemporary community prosecution movement in the United States is 

most often traced to the pioneering efforts of Multnomah County District Attorney 

Michael Schrunk. In 1990, he established the Neighborhood District Attorney Unit in 

Portland, Oregon, in response to the concerns of business leaders that quality-of-life crimes 

impeded development of a central business district (Boland, 1998a). Other communityoriented prosecution innovations followed in 1991 in Kings County (Brooklyn), New 

York, under District Attorney Charles J. Hynes and in Montgomery County, Maryland, 

under then-State’s Attorney Andrew Sonner. Both initiatives involved major 

reorganization of the prosecutors’ offices along geographic lines and established new 

working links with the communities in each area. Also in 1991, the Community-Based 

Justice Program began operation in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and in 1993, the 

Street Level Advocacy Program was instituted in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana. 

After the early 1990s, the innovation was adapted in additional jurisdictions and spread 

more rapidly. Table 1 lists community prosecution sites and the years they began 

implementing community prosecution. 

Typology of Community Prosecution Strategies 

The forms that community prosecution has taken across the United States are evidence that 

there is no one-size-fits-all community prosecution model. As with other community 

justice innovations, community prosecution strategies have taken different forms in 

response to the needs and circumstances of specific localities. They have been tailored to 

the problems of neighborhoods, commercial districts, or other specific geographic 

locations within cities and rural areas. Despite their diverse approaches, however, 

community prosecution strategies share some underlying dimensions. 

This monograph proposes seven critical dimensions focusing on common features that 

appear to define community prosecution strategies and to provide an organizing framework 

or working typology of community prosecution strategies. They include: 

• The target problem bringing about the need for the community prosecution strategy. 

• The geographic target area addressed by the initiative. 

• The role of the community in the community prosecution strategy. 

• The content of the community prosecution approach to the community problems 

addressed. 

• The organizational adaptations made by the prosecutor’s office for community 

prosecution. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

xiv 

Table 1: Chronology of Community Prosecution Sites 

Manhattan, New York 1985 

Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon 1990 

Kings County (Brooklyn), New York 1991 

Montgomery County, Maryland 1991 

Middlesex County, Massachusetts 1991 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1991 

Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana 1993 

Suffolk County (Boston), Massachusetts 1993 

Los Angeles, California 1993 

Seattle, Washington (City Attorney) 1995 

Howard County, Maryland 1996 

Plymouth County (Brockton), Massachusetts 1996 

Washington, D.C. 1996 

Denver, Colorado 1996 

Erie County (Buffalo), New York 1996 

Phoenix, Arizona (City Prosecutor) 1996 

Santa Clara County, California 1996−97 

Pima County (Tucson), Arizona 1997 

Honolulu, Hawaii 1997 

Jackson County (Kansas City), Missouri 1997 

San Diego, California (City Attorney) 1997 

Kalamazoo County, Michigan 1998 

Cook County (Chicago), Illinois 1998 

Nassau County, New York 1998 

Knox County, Tennessee 1998 

Travis County (Austin), Texas 1999 

West Palm Beach, Florida 1999 

Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota 1999 

Seminole County, Florida 1999 

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio 1999 

Sacramento County, California 2000 

St. Joseph’s County (South Bend), Indiana 2000 

Placer County, California 2000 

Westchester County, New York 2000 

Oakland, California 2000 

Lackawanna County (Scranton), Pennsylvania 2000 
Community Prosecution Strategies

xv

• Case processing adaptations. 

• Interagency collaboration or partnerships relating to community prosecution initiatives. 

By focusing on the core ingredients of community prosecution strategies, this framework 

can illustrate the shared structural elements of these initiatives and highlight significant 

variations or differences as common elements are adapted to meet local needs. 

Table 2 details common elements that fall under these critical dimensions. 

Summary Descriptions of Community Prosecution Sites 

By the end of 2001, the Crime and Justice Research Institute (CJRI) identified and 

contacted 36 prosecutors’ offices that appeared to be operating community prosecution or 

community-oriented strategies (see table 3 on page xvii).1

 The full report briefly describes 

the features of these programs. The descriptive overview illustrates the differences among 

community prosecution strategies on dimensions identified as critical in the working 

typology of community prosecution sites. The description of community prosecution 

initiatives is inclusive. We defer, for now, discussion of whether community prosecution is 

an umbrella concept for all prosecutorial activities directed at crimes located in the 

community or whether it has a narrower meaning tied to a new, collaborative, and 

problem-solving relationship with the community. 

The summary in the full report is illustrative and descriptive rather than complete. We 

identified prosecutors’ offices involved in what appeared to be community prosecution 

strategies from lists of grants awarded, available literature, participants and presentations at 

conferences, and word of mouth among prosecutors involved in community-oriented 

innovation. After candidate programs were identified, representatives were interviewed to 

determine what sorts of community prosecution initiatives were under way, if any. The 

descriptions presented in this monograph rely on self-reported interview information 

provided by representatives of each site. 

The 36 highlighted community prosecution sites are described for two principal reasons. 

First, the summaries illustrate common key ingredients of diverse community prosecution 

strategies and provide the fundamentals of a community prosecution model. Second, the 

descriptions serve as a draft accounting to the field of current community prosecution 

programs for soliciting feedback and additional information from sites that have been 

included and others that have not. In short, we expect to develop more complete 

descriptive summaries with supplemental and critical input from community prosecution 

sites, whether they are in planning or operational stages. 

 

1

Since an earlier version of this report (under the working title Community Prosecution Strategies: 

Measuring Impact) was released in February 2000, CJRI has contacted and profiled nine additional 

community prosecution initiatives, which are included in this monograph. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

xvi 

Table 2: Critical Dimensions of Community Prosecution Strategies 

1. Target Problems 

• Quality-of-life offenses. 

• Drug crime. 

• Gang violence. 

• Violent crime. 

• Juvenile crime. 

• Truancy. 

• Prostitution. 

• Housing and environmental issues. 

• Landlord/tenant issues. 

• Failure of the justice system to address community needs. 

• Community alienation from the prosecutor and other justice agencies. 

• Improving community relations for better cooperation of victims/witnesses. 

• Improving intelligence gathering for traditional prosecution of serious cases. 

2. Target Area 

• Urban/inner city. 

• Rural/suburban. 

• Business districts. 

• Residential neighborhoods. 

3. Role of the Community 

• Recipient of prosecutor services. 

• Advisory role. 

• Core participants in problem solving. 

• Core participants in implementation. 

• Community justice panels. 

• Sanctioning panels. 

• Ad hoc. 

• Targeted. 

4. Content of Response to Community Problems 

• Facilitating community self-help. 

• Crime prevention efforts. 

• Prosecution of cases of interest to the community. 

• Receiving noncriminal as well as criminal complaints. 

5. Organizational Adaptations/Emphasis in Prosecutor’s Office 

• Field offices staffed by attorney(s). 

• Field offices staffed by nonattorney(s). 

• Attorneys assigned to neighborhoods. 

• Special unit or units. 

• Officewide organization around the community prosecution model. 

6. Case Processing Adaptations 

• Vertical prosecution. 

• Horizontal prosecution. 

• Geographic prosecution. 

• Community prosecutors do not prosecute cases. 

7. Interagency and Collaborative Partnerships in Community Prosecution 

• Police. 

• City attorney. 

• Housing authority. 

• Community court/other court. 

• Other justice agencies (probation, pretrial services). 

• Other social service agencies. 

• Other regulatory agencies. 

 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 

Site Manhattan, NY, 1985 Multnomah County, OR, 1990 Kings County, NY, 1991 Agency Community Affairs, New York 

County District Attorney’s Office 

Neighborhood DAs, Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Kings County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Drug-related crime. Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Target Area Business districts, inner city, 

urban. 

Business districts, rural, suburban, urban (entire county). 

Business districts, inner city, urban, (entire borough). 

Community Role Recipient of service, advisory 

role. 

Advisory role, participants in problem solving and implementation. 

Recipients of service, advisory role. 

Program Content Nuisance abatement, Narcotics 

Eviction and Trespass Affidavit programs, projects Focus and Octopus, school programs. 

Drug-free zone, responsive problem solving. 

Nuisance abatement, formal Trespass Affidavit Program, legal education programs for students and adults. 

Case Processing Adaptations Vertical prosecution by trial team. NDAs rarely try cases; 

prosecutions by trial team. 

Trial teams geographically assigned to zones, vertically prosecute cases. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, housing 

authority and transit police, federal and local agencies. 

Community court, community police, FBI, U.S. Attorneys, city attorneys, state and local agencies. 

Community police, community court, schools. 

Program Location Main office and one pilot office. Field offices. Main office. Community Prosecutor’s (CP) Office Organization 

Six general trial teams handle cases from all over the jurisdiction (randomly assigned), attorneys with expertise assigned to cases of community importance. 

NDAs rarely process cases, but handle uncontested misdemeanors in community court; mainly involved in community outreach and problem solving.

Trial attorneys and community affairs perform outreach in assigned zones. 

Staff Ten nonlawyers provide 

community outreach. 

Seven attorneys, two legal assistants. 

Trials division performs community outreach in assigned areas, seven nonlawyers and supervisor supplement community outreach. 
xviii 

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Philadelphia, PA, 1992 Marion County, IN, 1993 Suffolk County, MA, 1993 Agency Public Nuisance Task Force, 

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office 

Street Level Advocates (SLAs), Marion County Prosecutor’s Office 

Safe Neighborhood Initiative (SNI), Prosecutors in Police Stations, Suffolk County District Attorney 

Target Problem Nuisance properties. Drug-related crime and public 

safety issues. 

Violent crime. 

Target Area Inner city, urban. Business districts, rural, 

suburban, urban. 

Business districts, suburban, urban. 

Community Role Recipients of service, advisory 

role. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory role, some participation in problem solving. 

Program Content Nuisance abatement. Prostitution initiatives, nuisance 

abatement, narcotics eviction programs. 

Juvenile programs: Operation Nightlight, CBJ. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys try few cases from 

their assigned area; vertical prosecution by narcotics trial team for serious drug cases only. 

SLAs screen and file charges for most felony cases, carry a small caseload, prosecuted vertically. 

SNI and PIP attorneys handle many cases from their assigned areas utilizing vertical prosecution; cases not handled by SNI and PIP attorneys are assigned to the trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, liquor control board, 

health department, license and inspections, city attorneys. 

Community police, community court, sheriff’s department, government agencies. 

Community police, attorney general’s office, mayor’s office. 

Program Location Main office. Staff stationed in police 

departments within site. 

Neighborhood offices and police districts. 

CP Office Organization Attorneys involved mainly in 

outreach and civil nuisance litigation. 

CP attorneys try few cases, main responsibility is to handle community outreach and problem solving, advise police. 

Attorneys split time between litigation, community outreach, advising police. 

Staff Six attorneys. Six attorneys, four paralegals, 

one investigator, nuisance abatement coordinator. 

Six SNI attorneys, three PIP attorneys, four nonattorney staff persons, community affairs chief. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Seattle, WA, 1995 Howard County, MD, 1996 Plymouth County, MA, 1996 Agency Precinct Liaison Program, Seattle 

City Attorney’s Office 

The Community Justice Program, Howard County State Attorney 

Safe Neighborhood Initiative, State Attorney General and Plymouth County District Attorney 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime, nuisance 

properties. 

Quality-of-life crime, especially youth issues. 

Gang and drug crime. 

Target Area Urban. Rural, suburban, urban (entire 

county). 

Urban. 

Community Role Advisory. Recipient of services, advisory 

role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory role. 

Program Content Good neighbor agreements, 

neighborhood action team. 

Initiatives to respond to problems are created as needed, Hot Spot Program. 

Abandoned housing project, landlord training and notification letters, and juvenile outreach. 

Case Processing Adaptations Some CP attorneys try cases, 

most litigation handled by trials division and civil unit. 

One attorney designated liaison for each county district, carries full caseload, not necessarily from assigned district, priority prosecution-selected misdemeanors, vertical prosecutions of felonies, Hot Spot attorney assigned to highest crime area. 

SNI attorneys carry caseload of targeted felony and misdemeanor cases of interest to the community, utilizing priority prosecution-expedited case processing, remaining cases tried by trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, social and human service 

agencies, department of corrections. 

Police, Department of Juvenile Justice, parole and probation, social service agencies, schools, governor’s office. 

Attorney general’s office, state and local police, Boys & Girls Clubs, mayor’s office, community and government officials. 

Program Location Field offices. Main office. Main office. CP Office Organization Two CP attorneys do not try 

cases, perform outreach, and act as liaison between community and trial attorney; two CP attorneys carry full caseload from assigned area and perform outreach. 

Entire staff of attorneys involved in community outreach and litigate cases; cases randomly assigned, felonies prosecuted vertically; Hot Spot attorney primarily involved in outreach, carries reduced caseload. 

SNI attorneys carry full caseload, perform community outreach, and administer problem-solving programs. 

Staff Four attorneys. Entire office, 23 full-time and 2 

part-time attorneys, involved in CP, 1 Hot Spot attorney. 

Two assistant attorneys general, two assistant district attorneys. 
xx 

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Denver, CO, 1996 Erie County, NY, 1996 City of Phoenix, AZ, 1996 Agency Community Prosecution 

Program, Denver District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Erie County District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Phoenix City Prosecutor 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life misdemeanors. Quality-of-life misdemeanors, 

urban blight. 

Target Area Urban. Residential, urban. Residential, urban. Community Role Core participants in problem 

solving. 

Advisory, participate in problem solving. 

Advisory, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Community justice councils, 

community accountability boards, community safety forums. 

Prostitution task force, nuisance abatement. 

Prostitution initiatives, nuisance abatement. 

Case Processing Adaptations Attorneys assigned to CP are 

also assigned to a major crimes unit; they carry a full caseload in their specialized areas, but cases are not geographically assigned. 

CP attorney will prosecute selected but substantial caseload of cases important to community, overflow cases randomly assigned to trials division. 

CP attorneys try selected cases of community importance, most litigation handled by trials division: criminal cases prosecuted vertically, civil cases randomly assigned. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, city attorneys, 

liquor licensing, nuisance abatement, Mayor’s Office of Employment and Training, drug court. 

Police, corporate council, Office of Community Development. 

Neighborhood services, police, health department, housing and planning department, fire department. 

Program Location Attorneys in main office, 

community justice advocates located in their assigned neighborhoods. 

Main office. Field offices. 

CP Office Organization Community outreach mainly 

handled by nonattorney employees. 

CP attorneys main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

CP attorneys main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

Staff Director, community justice 

coordinator, neighborhood justice coordinator, three community justice advocates, eight attorneys, and CAB coordinators (who must reside in the community). 

Two attorneys. Two attorneys. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Pima County, AZ, 1997 Jackson County, MO, 1997 Honolulu, HI, 1997 Agency Community Prosecution Unit, 

Pima County Attorney’s Office 

Neighborhood Justice Team, Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office 

Community Prosecution Program, Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime, nuisance 

properties. 

Quality-of-life crime, drug related crime, nuisance properties. 

Quality-of-life crime. 

Target Area Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Rural, suburban, urban. Business district, suburban, 

urban. 

Community Role Advisory, participant in problem 

solving. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory, participant in problem solving. 

Program Content Nuisance property eviction 

programs, Operation Spotlight. 

Child abuse, truancy, nuisance abatement. 

Antiprostitution initiatives, youth antiviolence and prevention, school-based programs. 

Case Processing Adaptations CPs do not try cases; felony 

cases randomly assigned to trials division, divided into major crimes, by crime type; misdemeanor cases handled by the city attorney community prosecutor. 

Attorneys carry reduced caseload consisting in cases of community importance, originating from their assigned areas, trials division handles overflow cases. 

CPs litigate most serious cases and cases of community priority vertically—each handles specialty cases, not necessarily for their assigned area, trials division, organized according to crime type, handles overflow cases. 

Collaborating Partners Police, probation, attorney 

general’s office, city attorney. 

Local, state, and federal agencies and prosecutors; probation and parole; drug court; area businesses. 

Community police, community court, drug court, federal prosecutors, juvenile probation, schools. 

Program Location Attorney maintains office space in 

main office, spends majority of time in field office. 

Attorneys split time between main office and field office. 

Main office. 

CP Office Organization Does not try cases, primary focus 

is outreach and problem solving, some civil litigation. 

CP attorneys’ main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

CPs try many cases, CP attorneys are each assigned geographic area for outreach but try cases from all three areas. 

Staff One full-time and one part-time 

attorney. 

Six attorneys. Three attorneys. 
xxii 

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Kalamazoo County, MI, 1998 Cook County, IL, 1998 Nassau County, NY, 1998 Agency Neighborhood Prosecuting 

Attorney Program, Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney 

Community Prosecution Program, Cook County State Attorney 

Community Crime Prevention, Nassau County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Target Area Commercial, residential, urban. Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Suburban, urban. 

Community Role Recipient of services, advisory 

role, participant in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Truancy and curfew programs, 

nuisance property programs. 

Summer Opportunity Program for kids; hate crimes unit. 

Rising Star, trespass/eviction. 

Case Processing Adaptations Neighborhood prosecutors carry 

small caseload of cases important to the community, prosecuted vertically, majority of cases litigated by trial teams. 

CPs vertically prosecute a substantial caseload important to their assigned community, track cases, and advise trial attorneys on overflow cases. 

CPs handle misdemeanors from their sites in community court, trial attorneys try CP cases with input and guidance from community prosecutors. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, city agencies, 

Boys & Girl’s Clubs. 

City services, local officials, city attorney, police, parks authority, school board, social services. 

Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brothers/Sisters, police, schools, social services, local officials, community court. 

Program Location Field office. Field office. Main offices. CP Office Organization Neighborhood prosecutors focus 

on community outreach. 

CPs divide time between litigation, community outreach, and problem solving. 

CP attorneys primarily responsible for outreach and administering community-based programs. 

Staff Two attorneys. Eleven attorneys, including two 

supervisors and prevention coordinator. 

Five attorneys. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Travis County, TX, 1999 West Palm Beach, FL, 1999 Hennepin County, MN, 1999 Agency Neighborhood DA program, 

Travis County District Attorney 

COMBAT, Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Hennepin County Attorney 

Target Problem Felony level quality-of-life cases. Drug- and vice-related crime. Felony level “livability” offenses, 

juvenile crime. 

Target Area Urban. Inner city, urban. Residential, urban. Community Role Advisory role, participate in 

problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Community justice councils. Nuisance abatement, narcotics 

eviction, legal education and mentoring programs in the schools. 

Restorative justice, nuisance abatement. 

Case Processing Adaptations Neighborhood DA screens cases 

from assigned area; prosecutes small caseload of cases important to the community; tracks and provides assistance upon request of trial attorney for majority of cases. 

COMBAT attorneys vertically prosecute a reduced caseload of cases important to their assigned community; major crimes trial unit tries overflow cases with input from CP attorneys. 

CPs vertically prosecute a full caseload originating from their districts, except violent and drugcrime cases, which are handled by specialty trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, social service providers, 

law enforcement officials. 

Community police, community court, state and federal agencies, schools. 

State and local law enforcement and social service agencies, schools, community court. 

Program Location Field office. Field office and main office. Field office. CP Office Organization Trial attorneys are randomly 

assigned to try CP cases with input from CP; CP attorney screens cases from her area, acts as liaison to trial attorney, primary focus is outreach. 

CP attorneys litigate, participate in police investigation, screen community cases, and perform outreach and problem solving. 

CP attorneys divide time between litigation and community outreach. 

Staff One attorney. Five attorneys, one paralegal, 

one secretary. 

Four attorneys; attorneys divide time between litigation and community outreach. 
xxiv 

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site 

Brevard/Seminole County, FL, 

1999 Cuyahoga County, OH, 1999 Westchester County, NY, 2000 

Agency Neighborhood State Attorney 

Initiative, Florida State Attorney’s Office 

Community-Based Prosecution, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Westchester County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Quality-of-life, urban blight, drug 

crime, juvenile issues. 

Quality-of-life, juvenile issues. Quality-of-life crime, focus on 

youthful offenders. 

Target Area Residential, rural, urban. Urban. Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Community Role Advisory. Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Problem solving. Neighborhood centers, truancy 

center. 

Youth programs. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys primarily handle 

outreach, may carry caseload of community impact cases, most litigation handled by trials division, felonies assigned randomly. 

CP attorneys carry slightly reduced caseload, prosecute vertically, overflow cases assigned randomly to trials division, must consult with CP attorneys for advice on CP cases and approval of plea agreement. 

CP attorney will vertically prosecute selected cases of community importance, overflow cases assigned to trials divisions. 

Collaborating Partners Police, coalition group of 

volunteer social and human services and faith based organization representatives. 

Police, social and human services, state and local agencies, school officials. 

Community police, schools, social service agencies. 

Program Location Field offices. Field offices. Branch office. CP Office Organization CP attorneys mainly responsible 

for community outreach and problem solving, focus on identifying major crime issues. 

CP attorneys primarily concerned with outreach, assisted by nonattorney outreach coordinators. 

Primary responsibility community outreach and problem solving. 

Staff Three attorneys, three 

paralegals. 

Six attorneys. One coordinator, one attorney to 

be assigned. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Lackawanna County, PA, 2000 Placer County, CA, 2000 Sacramento County, CA, 2000 Agency Community Prosecution 

Program, Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office 

Community and Agency Multidisciplinary Elder Team, Placer County District Attorney 

Community Prosecution, Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Poorly maintained 

buildings/absentee landlords, drug crime. 

Elder abuse. Poorly maintained hotels, qualityof-life crime, drug crime. 

Target Area Urban, rural. Entire county. Urban. Community Role Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Advisory. Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Program Content Criminal justice councils, 

community advisory panel, school-based justice program. 

Collaborative community education and prevention program. 

Good neighbor agreements, community forums, legal education classes for the community. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys carry reduced 

caseload consisting of low level crime arising from their assigned communities, overflow cases assigned to trials teams. 

CP attorney vertically prosecutes all cases of elder abuse. 

CP attorneys vertically prosecute reduced caseload from assigned neighborhood, overflow cases assigned to trials division, must provide updates to CP attorneys on CP cases and instructions about cases are included in each file. 

Collaborating Partners Police, HUD, schools, social and 

human service agencies. 

Police, mental health, public guardian, adult protective services, health care providers, probation. 

Police, city council, social and human services agencies. 

Program Location Field offices and main office split 

time. 

Main office. Field offices. 

CP Office Organization CP attorneys perform outreach 

and handle limited low-level litigation. 

Not applicable. CP attorneys primarily involved in 

community outreach and administering problem-solving programs. 

Staff Six attorneys. One attorney, one investigator. Six attorneys. 

 Community Prosecution Strategies

xxvii

Measuring Impact: Challenges of Community Prosecution 

Strategies 

The problem of measuring the impact of community prosecution—particularly given its 

diverse adaptations—begins with understanding what the innovation is (and is not) and 

what it proposes to accomplish. The community prosecution “model” represents a 

philosophy as well as an innovation. The shared philosophy seeks to connect the 

prosecution function more directly with the community, to develop a new and more 

collaborative working relationship, and to be more responsive to the community’s crimerelated concerns. The form this idea takes varies considerably from location to location and 

from prosecutor to prosecutor along the dimensions outlined in the working typology of 

community prosecution strategies. 

Many of the elements of community prosecution—attorneys dispersed to different 

geographic locations, vertical prosecution, cases assigned to reflect the geography of the 

community, considerably more time spent interacting with the community—represent 

notable departures from traditional modes of functioning, depending on the level of 

commitment a prosecutor’s office has to the philosophy, and raise difficult questions about 

impact and resource allocation. Prosecutors who lead these efforts and their funding 

sources have begun to demand evaluation of whether and how community prosecution 

works. The challenges for research in measuring the strengths and weaknesses of 

community prosecution are commensurate with the challenges posed by communityoriented strategies to traditional prosecution functions. 

This monograph proposes a multidimensional framework for conceptualizing community 

prosecution evaluation measures that recognizes the distinct and joint roles played by the 

prosecution and the community and, in addition, defines areas of impact based on key 

dimensions in the typology shared by community prosecution initiatives across the nation. 

The framework differentiates between measures appropriate for assessing the implementation 

of community prosecution and measures reflecting outcomes or impact of community 

prosecution programs, after they have been effectively implemented (see table 4.) 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

xxviii

Table 4: Conceptualizing Measures of Community Prosecution Impact 

Elements of Community Prosecution Innovation Key Dimensions Prosecution Function Community Role Interaction of Both 

Target Problems 

Implementation Types/number of 

problems identified. 

Input in defining 

problems and designing 

strategies. 

Collaboration in 

identifying and 

addressing problems. 

Strategies implemented to 

address. 

Participation in 

implementing strategies. 

Outcomes Outcomes per problem 

area. 

Community 

improvement. 

Accountability. 

Problems successfully 

addressed. 

 Community 

satisfaction/ownership 

with outcomes. 

Target Area 

Implementation Services, actions added 

per geographic areas. 

Cooperation and 

assistance. 

Defining, agreeing to 

area. 

Outcomes Improved measures of 

targeted problems in 

geographic areas. 

Improved working 

relationship. 

Role of Community 

Implementation Types/methods/frequency 

of involvement. 

Types/method/ 

frequency of 

involvement. 

Access to government 

and policy formulation. 

 Problems identified. Community access. 

 Suggested strategies. Suggested strategies. 

Outcomes Improved community 

links. 

Improved community 

access/participation. 

More effective 

communication on 

crime and related 

problems. 

Improved satisfaction. Improved satisfaction. Ownership. 

Better impact on targeted 

problems. 

Impact on targeted 

areas. 

 Improved accountability. 

Content of Community 

Prosecution Strategy 

 

Implementation Specific programs, 

components, services 

instituted. 

Specific role, 

cooperation, participant, 

and recipient of services. 

Project-specific 

functions. 

Outcomes Impact of specific 

programs (youth, drugs, 

graffiti, nuisance, 

prostitution, etc.). 

Community view of 

impact and success. 

Measure of success 

and impact. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

xxix

Table 4: Conceptualizing Measures of Community Prosecution Impact (continued) 

Elements of Community Prosecution Innovation Key Dimensions Prosecution Function Community Role Interaction of Both 

Organization of 

Prosecution 

 

Implementation Geographic assignment. Organization and 

representation. 

New partnerships. 

Reorganization. Areas/neighborhoods. Improved prosecution. 

New procedures/staff, 

assessment/values. 

Access to prosecutor/ 

other agencies/ 

resources. 

New programs. 

Outcomes Office effectiveness, 

efficiency. 

Effectiveness of 

procedures for 

participation. 

New procedures for 

collaboration. 

Relative costs. 

Culture change/ 

acceptance. 

 

Impact of new 

procedures. 

 

Improved reputation. 

Prosecutor Workload 

Implementation Content of workday/ 

lawyer. 

 

Contact with 

community/outreach. 

 

Identification of problem 

areas. 

Litigation/vertical. 

 

Outcomes Community contacts. 

Problems identified. 

Strategies decided. 

Matters addressed/type. 

Resolutions/cases/types. 

Staff satisfaction. 

Collaboration/ 

Partnerships

 

Implementation New working relations 

with agencies and 

organizations. 

New overall working 

relationship. 

New planning, problemsolving role. 

Expanded planning. 

Added multiagency 

services. 

 

Outcomes Impact of collaboration 

on services and 

outcomes/problems. 

 Routinization and growth 

of relationship. 

 Community Prosecution Strategies

1

Introduction 

With increasing frequency over the past decade, prosecutors across the United States have 

been developing community-focused strategies to address crime problems, using methods 

that depart dramatically from their traditional roles. Taken at their most challenging, 

community prosecution strategies may signal a major milestone in changing the culture 

and role of the prosecutor by developing partnerships and collaborative problem-solving 

approaches with the community to improve the quality of life and safety of citizens in their 

neighborhoods. The most innovative community prosecution initiatives pose fundamental 

questions about the prosecutor’s function, the ways in which the prosecutor seeks justice, 

and how the prosecutor’s office is organized and operated. These strategies suggest an 

important shift in traditional prosecutorial philosophy, as prosecutors emphasize 

community-focused crime strategies and adapt some of the values and methods of other 

community justice innovations that relate to community policing, court, corrections, and 

restorative justice initiatives. 

This monograph describes the emergence of community prosecution strategies. It identifies 

some of their common elements in a working typology based on features of innovations 

that are operating in diverse settings across the United States. Discussion of community 

prosecution strategies is illustrated with examples from sites across the nation.2

 The 

monograph concludes by describing some of the challenges posed by community 

prosecution strategies for assessing impact and measuring performance. 

 

2

Officials in the following 36 locations were interviewed about community prosecution programs: 

Manhattan, New York; Portland, Oregon; Kings County, Brooklyn, New York; Montgomery County, 

Maryland; Middlesex County, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Marion County, Indiana; Suffolk 

County, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Seattle, Washington; Howard County, Maryland; Plymouth 

County, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Denver, Colorado; Erie County, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; 

Santa Clara, California; Pima County, Arizona; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kansas City, Missouri; San Diego, 

California; Cook County, Chicago, Illinois; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Nassau County, New York; Knox 

County, Tennessee; Bronx, New York; West Palm Beach, Florida; Hennepin County, Minnesota; 

Brevard/Seminole County, Florida; Cuyahoga County, Ohio; Sacramento County, California; Providence, 

Rhode Island; St. Joseph’s County, Indiana; Placer County, California; Westchester County, New York; 

Oakland, California; Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. Additional sites are included in this report based on 

written materials and/or information provided at conferences or workshops. 

Chapter 1 Community Prosecution Strategies

3

The Prosecutor and the Community 

Traditionally, a local prosecutor’s office would have little direct contact with the public. Its 

work focused on preparing criminal cases generated by arrests for formal adjudication in 

court. Neighborhood-level crime problems were not an immediate focus of the 

prosecutor’s staff. The family, neighborhood, and institutions such as churches and schools 

normally exerted effective social control over nuisance crime problems. Law enforcement 

was called on primarily to deal with the more serious matters (Pound, 1930). A substantial 

body of literature on American cities documents that, for various reasons, neighborhoods 

changed because of larger social changes in family structures and institutions, gradually 

exercising less informal constraint on the behavior of their residents. As early as 1930, 

Roscoe Pound described a theme that has pervaded criminal justice thinking until recently, 

the unreasonable expectation that formal criminal justice agencies should somehow be 

responsible for social order and replace the informal mechanisms (e.g., family, church, 

school) that had become less effective. 

According to Pound, “This complete change in the background of social control involves 

much that may easily be attributed to the ineffectiveness of criminal justice, and yet means 

only that it is called on to do the whole work, where once it shared its task with other 

agencies and was invoked, not for every occasion, but exceptionally” (Pound, 1930: 14–

15). 

For more than 2 centuries, the prosecutor’s role has been transformed from a rather 

unimportant one—as a judicial adjunct presenting cases to the grand jury, filing 

information, dismissing cases filed by the police, plea bargaining, and prosecuting cases at 

trial—to a powerful executive branch function with considerable discretion in the 

contemporary justice system (McDonald, 1979; Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1987; 

Jacoby, 1980). Although police have traditionally taken criminal complaints from victims, 

investigated crimes, and interacted with the community, the prosecutor’s role grew to 

include the power to investigate. This power evolved particularly during the early 20th 

century (Pound, 1930: 182; National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 

1931: 12) with a rationale dating back to a 1704 statute in Connecticut, the first state to 

codify the office of the prosecutor. That statute provided that the county attorney should 

prosecute criminal offenders and do “all other things necessary or convenient . . . to 

suppress vice and immorality.” Whether through historical interpretation of the 

prosecutor’s evolving powers or the prosecutor’s broad discretion in pursuing justice, the 

rationale for a community prosecution function can be traced to an interpretation of the 

prosecutor’s role to include responsibilities to suppress or prevent crime. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

4 

Community and Criminal Justice 

The topic of “community” has long been at the core of crime theory and criminal justice 

policy, variously defined in a substantial body of literature in terms of location, physical 

environment, residential or commercial land use, class, race, and ethnicity (Massey, 1985; 

Anderson, 1990; Squires, 1994; Taylor and Covington, 1988). From the earliest days of 

criminology the connection between community and crime has been an important theme, 

from Ferri’s (1896) discussion of “telluric” and environmental causes of crime, through the 

work of the Chicago School in considering the urban environment’s relation to crime (Park 

et al., 1925; Burgess, 1926; Shaw and McKay, 1969 [1942]), to current discussions of the 

relationships between crime, social organization, and physical attributes of communities 

(Newman, 1980; Sampson and Grove, 1989; Bursik, 1986; Taylor, 1995, 2000). 

The emphasis on community in discussions of criminal justice administration and policy 

also has a long history. In the early part of the century, Pound argued that one of the most 

important problems of criminal justice in the United States was to “apply and enforce law 

in a heterogeneous community, divided into classes with divergent interests, which 

understand each other none too well, containing elements hostile to government and order, 

containing elements ignorant of our institutions . . . where conditions of crowded urban life 

and economic pressure threaten the security of social institutions” (Pound, 1913: 311). 

Pound argued that the administration of justice should be based on “thorough knowledge 

of the social conditions . . . for which law must be devised and to which it must be applied” 

(1913: 327). 

Since the 1960s, the concept of community, variously defined, has continued to surface as 

an important criminal justice focus. For example, community corrections, a concept with 

origins dating back more than a century, was an active area of correctional innovation 

during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (Harris, 1995). During the 1960s War on Poverty, 

empowering the poor in the United States was a principal focus of community organization 

strategies that dealt with fundamental societal and community justice issues (Brager and 

Purcell, 1967; Kramer and Specht, 1969). As the civil disorder and urban riots of the late 

1960s manifested the alienation and disenfranchisement of poor and minority 

communities, the relationship between the community and the police became a primary 

focus of justice reform strategies (President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the 

Administration of Justice, 1967; U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention 

of Violence, 1970). Problem-oriented and community policing initiatives of the 1980s and 

1990s were developed to better ensure that community concerns were fully addressed by 

police agencies (Davis, 1975; Goldstein, 1990; Rosenbaum, 1994). More recently, the 

traditional posture of the courts, to be less connected to the problems of the community, 

was fundamentally challenged with the establishment of the Midtown Community Court in 

1993, which sought a much closer working relationship with the community and was a 

catalyst for increasingly diverse community-oriented justice initiatives. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

5

All of these and other community-oriented crime and justice foci form the background 

against which current community prosecution strategies have emerged and can be 

understood. Attempts to characterize, analyze, or measure the impact of this emerging 

innovation will have to consider the specific meaning of “community” for community 

prosecution, including how the community is involved and how the prosecution focus on 

the community differs both from other approaches in criminal justice and from traditional 

prosecution. 

Relevance of the Community Justice Movement 

Community justice innovation has taken many forms across the country and is spreading 

across different governmental agencies. It has resulted in the development of innovative 

programs that include community policing, probation, courts, and prosecution, all sharing 

the goal of making the justice system more relevant and accessible to the community, and 

making better use of the community as a resource to address the crime problem. Starting 

with community policing, the criminal justice system has reoriented itself to seek contact 

with, and input from, neighborhood residents on issues of importance to them and to 

address issues of civil disorder. Foot patrol, which had been discredited by criminal justice 

officials since the 1940s (Wilson and Kelling, 1989), reemerged as a sound policing 

method when special units were created to solve community problems. Community 

policing has gained such popularity that a majority of America’s police departments have 

reportedly adopted some version of the approach (Peak and Glensor, 1996: 68, in Karp, 

1998: 5). Many of these programs have garnered the favor of community members, 

reduced fear of crime, and purportedly contributed to reductions in crime (Wilson and 

Kelling, 1989). 

Community justice issues began to be addressed by courts as an indirect result of the 

establishment of drug courts in the early 1990s, but they were the fundamental emphasis of 

the Midtown Community Court experiment when it began operation in Manhattan in 1993 

(Sviridoff et al., 2000). The creative reforms and leadership demonstrated in the Midtown 

Community Court have been adapted by jurisdictions across the country as localities tailor 

community court approaches to quality-of-life offenses and related issues that community 

members identify as disruptive to their community. The collaboration between judicial 

leaders and the community that is at the core of the community court model has 

demonstrated techniques and strategies that are valuable for a variety of community justice 

initiatives, including community prosecution. 

Community Prosecution as a Community Justice Strategy 

Community prosecution has been described as a “grassroots approach to law enforcement 

involving both traditional and nontraditional prosecutorial initiatives” (Weinstein, 1998: 

19). In some jurisdictions, community prosecution initiatives were sparked by the 

implementation of community policing and were logical, complementary extensions of the 

focus on community issues to the prosecutor’s function (Hankins and Weinstein, 1996). In 

locations without community policing programs, community prosecution strategies were 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

6 

developed to respond to community crime and public safety issues that were not being 

addressed sufficiently by the police. In several locations, community prosecution strategies 

are linked to community court initiatives. 

In many instances, community prosecution involves deploying prosecutors or nonlegal 

staff in the community to better identify residents’ concerns and to invite their participation 

in developing strategies for addressing problems of crime and social disorder that are their 

highest priority. Prosecutors involved in these outreach efforts often find that community 

residents do not share the prosecutor’s traditional concern with the prosecution of serious 

crimes. Although the community may assume that these matters will always be a priority, 

their immediate concerns more often focus on the nuisance or quality-of-life crimes that 

make life in the neighborhood unsafe or unpleasant. 

As other community justice initiatives have revealed, this community focus on crime 

issues differs strikingly from the general orientation of the justice system. Scarce resources 

and an increasing volume of serious, particularly drug-related, criminal cases have caused 

law enforcement agencies to try to handle the most serious matters, by default deemphasizing 

the more numerous minor offenses in the community. With this focus on punishing serious 

crime, few deterrent measures have been available to address nuisance-level offenses, for 

which jail sanctions are usually inappropriate and generally not imposed. As with policing 

and community court leaders, prosecutors have discovered that problems identified by the 

community as most important to them in their daily lives are generally not of the seriouscrime type that the criminal justice system appears most ready to handle. 

As an example, even when community leaders are concerned with drug dealing in the 

neighborhood, prosecution of the dealers has little immediate impact on the neighborhood. 

As the slow process of adjudication of their cases is carried out, drug dealers are often back 

on the street, or new dealers quickly take their place. Even if prosecution is successful, 

community residents may be frustrated because of their perception that law enforcement is 

not responsive to their calls for help (Boland, 1998a: 253–54). Community prosecution 

strategies have grown as the result of a need, partly political, to be more responsive to 

community issues and to expand the prosecutor’s role beyond its traditional one of 

prosecuting cases. 

As prosecutors’ offices have attempted to devise strategies that are more responsive to 

community concerns, problem solving has become a major focus of community 

prosecution programs. From developing plans to clean up and better maintain public parks 

to using civil sanctions to attack nuisance issues, many prosecutor’s offices have 

implemented procedures that depart from their traditional focus on prosecuting criminal 

cases to seeking ways to prevent and reduce crime. These community-oriented strategies 

have in common a new collaboration with community members in identifying problems 

and devising solutions. The value of this collaboration has been demonstrated in successful 

community prosecution sites and other community justice initiatives, empowering the 

community to define its problems, participate in solutions, and bring informal social 

control mechanisms of the community into play in ways that complement the efforts of law 
Community Prosecution Strategies

7

enforcement and the justice system. Both prosecutors and police derive benefits from a 

collaborative partnership with the community. The community’s respect for, and trust in, 

official agencies is enhanced; potential witnesses for trial may cooperate better; and 

residents may be more helpful in providing the intelligence needed to address serious 

crime problems. 

The collaboration that characterizes community prosecution initiatives is not limited to 

new working relationships with community partners. It extends to new working 

relationships with other government and social service agencies outside the criminal justice 

system with responsibilities in areas that affect community crime and quality-of-life 

problems. The resolution of problems identified in various jurisdictions has involved 

agencies with responsibilities in areas such as street lighting and repair, licensing and 

regulating bars, housing and building code enforcement, parks and recreational services, 

drug treatment, health care, mental health care, childcare, and family and indigent services. 

In jurisdictions focusing on youth-related issues, schools, juvenile justice agencies, and 

other organizations that serve the needs of young people have also become involved.

Chapter 2 Community Prosecution Strategies

9

Emergence of Community Prosecution 

Strategies 

The emergence and diffusion of community prosecution as an innovation is difficult to 

reconstruct with accuracy because many prosecutors across the nation have been dealing 

with community issues in various ways for some time. A good historical case can be made 

that community prosecution preceded rather than followed community policing reforms, 

drawing its substance instead from community organization innovations of the 1960s. The 

establishment of Cook County State’s Attorney Bernard Carey’s community prosecution 

program in Chicago, in 1973, predates the first community policing program and was 

clearly influenced by the active community organization initiatives in Chicago in the 

1960s. 

More recently, although in many jurisdictions the prosecutor’s office took the lead in 

initiating community-oriented strategies, in others the success of local community police 

programs nearly demanded prosecutorial changes. In Indiana, Marion County District 

Attorney Scott Newman has indicated that the favorable relationship he saw growing 

between community police and the residents of Indianapolis challenged him to change the 

organization of his office. He feared that if he did not make direct and favorable contact 

with the community, residents would focus on the prosecutors as the “bad guys” 

responsible for any system failures (Coles and Kelling, 1999: 74). In discussions of his 

groundbreaking innovations in Portland, Oregon, beginning in 1990, Multnomah County 

District Attorney Michael Schrunk stressed the importance of community policing reforms 

in catalyzing his community prosecution initiatives. 

Although community prosecution strategies have adapted some of the same principals and 

techniques seen in community policing, the prosecution focus on community strategies 

adds a distinctive dimension to community justice initiatives. Ronald Goldstock (1992: 3, 

49) argues that the prosecutor’s office is best suited to take the lead in creating criminal 

justice policy based on problem-solving methods for a number of reasons. One is that the 

prosecutor’s legal expertise is needed to make use of civil methods such as forfeitures, 

injunctions, and civil damage actions, which can be effective alternatives to criminal 

prosecution in addressing a wide range of neighborhood problems. Another, Goldstock 

suggests (1992: 8–9), is that because the jurisdiction of most prosecutors’ offices is 

geographically broader than that of individual police or other law enforcement agencies 

(sometimes encompassing many police precincts or districts), policy set by prosecutors is 

likely to have a more widespread impact. In addition, prosecutors have greater access to 

and political influence on judges and legislators than do police and their support is 

essential to creating and implementing policy changes. Finally, as elected officials, 

prosecutors have greater power to “sell” alternative, nontraditional responses to crime to 

the public (Gramckow, 1997). 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

10 

Estimates vary as to how many prosecutors’ offices in the United States have adopted 

some version of a community prosecution strategy.3 Certainly, the problems thrust on the 

criminal justice system by drug crimes and drug enforcement during the 1980s and 1990s 

forced prosecutors and other officials to think of new strategies to cope with the 

overwhelming criminal caseload. This included ways to free neighborhoods of problems 

related to drug crime, dealing, and use. In 1985 for example, in response to the advent of 

crack cocaine in New York, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau instituted a 

community-focused approach through a Community Affairs Unit that sent an experienced 

nonattorney employee into the community to improve community relations and gather 

intelligence to better prosecute drug crimes. 

The origins of the contemporary community prosecution movement are most often traced 

back to the pioneering efforts of Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk. In 

1990, Schrunk established the Neighborhood District Attorneys Unit in Portland, Oregon, 

in response to the concerns of business leaders that quality-of-life crimes would impede 

development of a central business district (Boland, 1998a). Other community-oriented 

prosecution innovations followed, in 1991 in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, under 

District Attorney Charles J. Hynes and, in 1992 in Montgomery County, Maryland, under 

then-State’s Attorney Andrew Sonner. Both initiatives involved major reorganization of 

the prosecutors’ offices along geographic lines and established new working links with the 

communities in each area. Also in 1991, the Community-Based Justice Program began 

operation in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and, in 1993, the Street Level Advocacy 

Program was instituted in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana. After the early 1990s, 

additional jurisdictions adapted the innovation and it spread more rapidly (see table 1). 

Recognition that the prosecutor’s responsibilities should or could include a crime reduction 

or community crime prevention function is not new. Discussion of the importance of the 

prosecutor’s responsibility to work to prevent crime and to address problems associated 

with minor crimes has been in evidence for much of the last century, considerably earlier 

than the quality-of-life emphases of recent community justice initiatives. In the National 

Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement: Report on Prosecution of 1931, Alfred 

Bettman indicated that the more serious cases were not “necessarily, from the point of 

view of crime reduction or crime prevention, the most significant” (Bettman, in 

Wickersham, 1931: 82–83). Bettman cited the 1922 report of the Cleveland Crime 

Commission which noted that “[T]he general peace and security are more dependent on 

society’s treatment of the regular flow of ordinary crimes than on the results of the few 

great murder cases which attract public attention and create public excitement” (Fosdick et 

al., 1922). 

 

3

The American Prosecutors Research Institute reports that about one-third of prosecutors responding to a 

national survey indicated that they were doing community prosecution. APRI estimates that 80 sites in the 

United States are operating some type of community prosecution program, 33 sites received targeted federal 

funding in 1999–2000, and 176 jurisdictions have pending applications for funding (see www.ndaa.org/apri/ 

Community_Prosecution). These estimates do not include city attorneys’ offices that are running such efforts 

in some jurisdictions. Some operating programs have gotten under way without federal funding specifically 

targeted toward community prosecution, using Local Law Enforcement Block Grants, open solicitation 

grants, or other sources that make them more difficult to identify. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

11

Table 1: Chronology of Community Prosecution Sites 

Manhattan, New York 1985 

Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon 1990 

Kings County (Brooklyn), New York 1991 

Montgomery County, Maryland 1991 

Middlesex County, Massachusetts 1991 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1991 

Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana 1993 

Suffolk County (Boston), Massachusetts 1993 

Los Angeles, California 1993 

Seattle, Washington (City Attorney) 1995 

Howard County, Maryland 1996 

Plymouth County (Brockton), Massachusetts 1996 

Washington, D.C. 1996 

Denver, Colorado 1996 

Erie County (Buffalo), New York 1996 

Phoenix, Arizona (City Prosecutor) 1996 

Santa Clara County, California 1996−97 

Pima County (Tucson), Arizona 1997 

Honolulu, Hawaii 1997 

Jackson County (Kansas City), Missouri 1997 

San Diego, California (City Attorney) 1997 

Kalamazoo County, Michigan 1998 

Cook County (Chicago), Illinois 1998 

Nassau County, New York 1998 

Knox County, Tennessee 1998 

Travis County (Austin), Texas 1999 

West Palm Beach, Florida 1999 

Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota 1999 

Seminole County, Florida 1999 

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio 1999 

Sacramento County, California 2000 

St. Joseph’s County (South Bend), Indiana 2000 

Placer County, California 2000 

Westchester County, New York 2000 

Oakland, California 2000 

Lackawanna County (Scranton), Pennsylvania 2000 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

12 

In the 1971 draft “Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Prosecution 

Function and the Defense Function,” the American Bar Association discussed the 

prosecutor’s crime prevention function, as well as the prosecutor’s accountability to the 

public in noting that “[T]he prosecutor is the leader of law enforcement in the community. 

He is expected to participate actively in marshalling society’s resources against the threat 

of crime” (American Bar Association, 1971: 18–21). 

In the same year, Evelle Younger, then-Attorney General of California, wrote of the 

prosecutor’s responsibility as a community leader in directing and enlisting the community 

toward the goal of crime prevention and order maintenance. According to Younger, “A 

prosecutor worthy of the position must use the mantle which has been placed on his 

shoulders to assume a role of leadership in the entire community and help bring what has 

been characterized as a ‘sick community’ back to a condition where decent people can live 

peacefully in the enjoyment of their rights and property without the fear of molestation or 

attack from the criminal element . . . . The prosecutor must encourage citizen participation 

by convincing the people in his community that the war on crime cannot be won until all 

responsible persons become involved . . . . There is a great untapped resource of public 

activity which, if properly guided by a prosecutor who is a true leader, can accomplish 

much more in suppressing crime than a series of arrests and successful prosecutions . . . . 

The district attorney . . . is challenged by that responsibility to take affirmative steps to 

marshal the community resources and actively work at crime prevention” (Healy and 

Manak, 1971: 4–6). 

Younger also believed that the prosecutor must be willing to innovate and experiment and 

“must constantly be on the lookout outside the traditional scope of the prosecutor’s office 

for new ways to improve the system and to suppress crime” (Healy and Manak, 1971: 4–

5). 

The use of civil remedies as a crime prevention weapon seen in some contemporary 

community prosecution strategies also has earlier origins. The report of the American Bar 

Foundation (Miller, 1969: 241–252) devotes a chapter to the use of civil sanctions as a 

more effective tool for addressing certain types of crime. It discusses the civil procedure of 

padlocking premises, combined with securing injunctions to prevent property owners from 

performing similar illegal actions in the future, as a method for nuisance abatement. “Law 

enforcement officers have pointed out that prostitution, gambling and liquor violations are 

not controllable if the only control device used is arrest of the violators followed by 

prosecution, even if convictions are relatively easy to obtain. The sentences are so light 

that the violators are not deterred from returning to the same type of illegal conduct . . . . 

To prevent the necessity for those arrests and prosecutions in the future, the alternative of 

padlocking the premises is utilized” (Miller, 1969: 242). Other civil sanctions long in use 

by prosecutors as alternatives to prosecution are forfeiture of vehicles used in crime and 

revocation of liquor licenses to prevent future illegal conduct in establishments where 

alcohol is sold. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

13

Like many police agencies in the aftermath of the 1960s, some prosecutors specifically 

incorporated community relations sections into their offices during the 1970s. In 1977, 

Harris County, Texas, District Attorney Carol Vance, who also served as president of the 

National District Attorneys Association, wrote an article discussing the importance of the 

relationship between the prosecutor’s office and the community (Vance, 1977: 131–43). 

Vance stressed the importance of positive community relations and emphasized the need to 

educate the community about what the prosecutor’s office does. 

Vance’s office implemented community-oriented educational programs in Harris County 

targeting middle and high school age children and adults. These efforts included speakers’ 

bureaus through which prosecutors were sent to give talks at schools on criminal justice 

issues. Vance used the press to encourage public participation in anticrime programs. In 

addition, a citizen advisory committee was formed in his community, made up of former 

grand jurors, minority community leaders, the board of the Chamber of Commerce, 

criminal justice professionals, church leaders, and other concerned citizens who were 

representative of the community. The committee was kept informed of office activities 

through a semiannual report that described major accomplishments and the operations of 

each division in the office and was used as a sounding board for office priorities. For 

example, Vance writes, “the reaction of the committee to pornography indicated the vast 

majority wanted our office to aggressively prosecute in this area” (Vance, 1977: 140). 

Vance stressed the value of interagency collaboration as part of a community focus. He 

noted the importance of coordinating the operations of law enforcement agencies to 

achieve mutual goals, conduct effective interagency operations, and enhance public 

confidence in the entire law enforcement community. His assistant prosecutors provided 

training for the police on issues of law and procedure. Vance also discussed the importance 

of positive relations with the Governor’s office and the legislators in the interest of 

promoting anticrime legislation. 

Chapter 3 Community Prosecution Strategies

15

Chicago’s Community Prosecutions Unit: 

An Early Community Prosecution 

Prototype 

Possibly the earliest direct precursor to current community prosecution initiatives was the 

Community Prosecutions program created in 1974 by Cook County State Attorney Bernard 

Carey in Chicago, Illinois, to respond to particular citizen complaints.4

 Many of the 

elements found in community prosecution programs today were evident in Carey’s 

pioneering initiative. The Cook County State Attorney’s program focused on ways to work 

more closely with the community and to improve relationships between the criminal 

justice system and the citizens it served. It provided residents with more direct access to 

the prosecutor’s office and the criminal justice system, and improved the effectiveness of 

the prosecutor’s office in responding to the crime problems in the community. 

The Cook County program appears to have been the first community-oriented prosecution 

program to geographically assign to community offices attorneys committed to spending a 

large proportion of their working day in community outreach, attending community 

meetings and problem-solving sessions with community groups. This unit provided 

educational presentations for the community, used vertical prosecution, and demonstrated a 

commitment to having unit attorneys handle cases of importance to the community in 

addition to acting as liaisons for the community in cases handled by the traditional case 

processing units. 

Carey believed that consumer fraud was a particular problem for the community and, in 

1973, established pilot offices staffed by consumer fraud attorneys assigned to take citizen 

complaints in the three Chicago neighborhoods of Northside, Westside, and Southside. The 

residents in each of these areas, however, asked instead for attorneys who could deal with 

other types of neighborhood crime problems. In 1974, Carey placed a second attorney in 

the Northside office, along with the consumer fraud attorney, to provide full felony and 

misdemeanor prosecution for cases that were significant to the community, initiating what 

was probably the first community prosecution program. On March 1, 1976, due to the 

success of the pilot program, the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission began funding the 

offices and, by May, supported four criminal attorneys, two at Northside and one at each of 

the other two offices, as well as three administrative assistants and four clerks. In 1977, 

one of the Northside attorneys was designated program supervisor but continued to work in 

the Northside office and a part-time fifth attorney was added to the Northside staff. By 

 

4

Information on the Cook County program was obtained from Chicago, Cook County Criminal Justice 

Commission, 1978, Section V and from interviews with the Honorable Nancy S. Salyers, presiding Judge, 

Cook County Municipal Division, District 2, and Skokie and Ray Grossman, Esquire, both of whom were 

assistant state attorneys in Cook County assigned to the Community Prosecutions Unit between 1974 and 

1983. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

16 

1978, a staff of four full-time attorneys, a program supervisor, and four clerks were needed 

to build on the success of the pilot effort. 

As a harbinger of later community prosecution initiatives, Carey’s approach featured 

vertical prosecution of cases of particular concern to the communities served and a 

commitment to focus more closely on issues relating to the experience of crime victims 

and witnesses in the criminal justice system. In addition, the Chicago prototype featured 

close collaboration with community groups and other criminal justice agencies to 

maximize successful prosecution efforts. The Carey program also anticipated the 

community prosecution programs of the 1990s in its consideration of lesser criminal 

matters. Although 70 percent of the cases prosecuted by the community units involved 

felony charges, misdemeanor cases were also considered important because “the volume of 

misdemeanors in these high-crime communities demoralize and decay communities when 

left unattended” (Chicago, Cook County Criminal Justice Commission, 1978: V–11). 

Because each community office was able to handle only a small portion of the cases that 

came from its area, cases were pursued selectively, based on consideration by the program 

supervisor of their impact on the community. The selection was influenced by input from 

community groups on which types of cases would be most important to their 

neighborhoods and included cases related to gangs, drugs, arson, hate crimes, and crimes 

against elderly victims. 

A brief evaluation of the Chicago community prosecution prototype drew on interviews 

with officials, community members, and police who served those districts (Chicago, Cook 

County Criminal Justice Commission, 1978: V–10). The response from community 

members was supportive, affirming that the community prosecution unit targeted cases that 

were important to each neighborhood, was responsive to referrals from residents, and 

aggressively prosecuted cases worthy of prosecution. The evaluation also reported that 

police characterized the efforts of the unit as productive. An analysis of case processing 

statistics in the evaluation indicated that felony cases handled by the unit resulted in a 

higher conviction rate (82 percent) than cases handled by the office in the traditional 

manner (57 percent) and that cases were dropped at a lower rate by the community 

prosecution unit (Chicago, Cook County Criminal Justice Commission, 1978: V–11). The 

report cited a “revival of neighborhood faith in the criminal justice system as a process that 

responds to community needs” resulting from Carey’s community-focused efforts 

(Chicago, Cook County Criminal Justice Commission, 1978:V–11). Interviews with 

community groups indicated that they felt that the community prosecutor was “their” 

attorney, representing their rights and interests in court. 

According to the evaluation, the Chicago program used less experienced attorneys who 

rotated through the units for limited periods. This rotation inadvertently became a problem 

when neighborhood residents became attached to individual prosecutors whom they 

viewed as “their” lawyers. However, in recent interviews, two attorneys who were 

assigned to the unit in the 1970s indicated that, although they had had little previous 

experience when they were assigned, each stayed with the unit for at least 3 years, gaining 
Community Prosecution Strategies

17

critical experience.5 These former community prosecution attorneys described their close 

relationship with the community, which resulted in access to information about 

neighborhood crime problems and criminals which the office had never had before. The 

attorneys also found that having large groups of residents present in court for trials and 

sentencing hearings made a strong impression on judges. Such a showing alerted the judge 

to the strong feelings of the community about a particular criminal or crime. 

Nonlawyer office administrators, who became adept at referring citizens to the appropriate 

agencies to obtain the assistance they required in noncriminal matters, performed an 

important problem-solving role for community members, much like the roles ascribed to 

community policing and community court staff in later community-oriented justice 

initiatives. The Community Prosecutions Unit also established a mediation unit to deal 

with community issues such as disputes between neighbors and between landlords and 

tenants to prevent them from escalating into criminal matters. When funding ran out, many 

of the functions of the unit were incorporated into the larger Cook County State Attorney’s 

office, including an expanded victim/witness program, a unit focused on crimes against the 

elderly, and strong advocacy against hate crimes and support of hate crimes legislation. 

 

5

The Honorable Nancy S. Salyers, presiding Judge, Cook County Municipal Division, District 2, Skokie and 

Ray Grossman, Esquire. 

Chapter 4 Community Prosecution Strategies

19

Common Elements of Community 

Prosecution Strategies: A Working 

Typology 

Since the early 1990s, principally fueled by the innovative efforts of Multnomah County, 

Oregon, District Attorney Michael Schrunk, the adoption of community prosecution 

strategies has gained considerable momentum and now represents a movement for change 

in prosecution in the United States. In the same way that community policing reforms, 

drug courts, and community courts have grown in number and have become central 

features of the criminal justice landscape in jurisdictions of all descriptions and sizes, 

community prosecution has grown from a handful of programs to scores across the 

country. 

Considering the forms that community prosecution has taken, it is evident that there is no 

one-size-fits-all model of community prosecution. Like other community justice 

innovations, community prosecution strategies have taken different forms in response to 

the needs and circumstances of specific localities, tailored to the problems of 

neighborhoods, commercial districts, or other geographic locations in urban and rural 

areas. Despite their diverse approaches, however, community prosecution strategies share 

some underlying dimensions. 

Table 2 proposes seven critical dimensions focusing on common features that appear to 

define community prosecution strategies and provide a framework or working typology of 

community prosecution strategies. They include: 

• The target problem bringing about the need for the community prosecution strategy. 

• The geographic target area addressed by the initiative. 

• The community’s role in the community prosecution strategy. 

• The content of the community prosecution approach to the community problems 

addressed. 

• The organizational adaptations made by the prosecutor’s office for community 

prosecution. 

• Case processing adaptations. 

• Interagency collaboration or partnerships that relate to community prosecution 

initiatives. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

20 

Table 2: Critical Dimensions of Community Prosecution Strategies 

1. Target Problems 

• Quality-of-life offenses. 

• Drug crime. 

• Gang violence. 

• Violent crime. 

• Juvenile crime. 

• Truancy. 

• Prostitution. 

• Housing and environmental issues. 

• Landlord/tenant issues. 

• Failure of the justice system to address community needs. 

• Community alienation from the prosecutor and other justice agencies. 

• Improving community relations for better cooperation of victims/witnesses. 

• Improving intelligence gathering for traditional prosecution of serious cases. 

2. Target Area 

• Urban/inner city. 

• Rural/suburban. 

• Business districts. 

• Residential neighborhoods. 

3. Role of the Community 

• Recipient of prosecutor services. 

• Advisory role. 

• Core participants in problem solving. 

• Core participants in implementation. 

• Community justice panels. 

• Sanctioning panels. 

• Ad hoc. 

• Targeted. 

4. Content of Response to Community Problems 

• Facilitating community self-help. 

• Crime prevention efforts. 

• Prosecution of cases of interest to the community. 

• Receiving noncriminal as well as criminal complaints. 

5. Organizational Adaptations/Emphasis in Prosecutor’s Office 

• Field offices staffed by attorney(s). 

• Field offices staffed by nonattorney(s). 

• Attorneys assigned to neighborhoods. 

• Special unit or units. 

• Officewide organization around the community prosecution model. 

6. Case Processing Adaptations 

• Vertical prosecution. 

• Horizontal prosecution. 

• Geographic prosecution. 

• Community prosecutors do not prosecute cases. 

7. Interagency and Collaborative Partnerships in Community Prosecution 

• Police. 

• City attorney. 

• Housing authority. 

• Community court/other court. 

• Other justice agencies (probation, pretrial services). 

• Other social service agencies. 

• Other regulatory agencies. 

 
Community Prosecution Strategies

21

By focusing on the core ingredients of community prosecution strategies, this framework 

illustrates the shared structural elements of these initiatives and highlights significant 

variations as common elements are adapted to meet the needs of localities. 

Target Problems 

Most community prosecution initiatives have been developed in response to crime 

problems that affect particular neighborhoods or otherwise defined geographic areas within 

a larger jurisdiction. Ideally, the problems targeted are those community members perceive 

to be the most detrimental to their sense of safety and well-being. Almost as a matter of 

principle, recent strategies have been designed from the start to address problems not 

normally the focus of prosecution. In most instances they involve quality-of-life or lowlevel offenses, constituting what Taylor (2000: 5) has recently termed social and physical 

incivilities that contribute to a sense of disorder and lack of safety in particular 

neighborhoods. The former may include acts such as loitering, street prostitution, public 

drinking, and public urination; the latter may include graffiti, trash, and abandoned and 

decaying properties. 

Community prosecution programs differ in how they have identified their target problems. 

In some, the community has approached the prosecutor’s office with issues for which they 

are seeking help. Such was the case in Multnomah County’s pioneering community 

prosecution effort in 1990, when business leaders were concerned about the impact of lowlevel crime on the development of a downtown Portland business district. In other 

instances, the prosecutor’s office has set its own agenda, often reflecting more traditional 

concerns with drug offenses or gang violence, but recognizing the value of community 

support and involvement in addressing them. The latter approach has sometimes 

encountered resistance when community members perceive their most pressing crime 

problems to involve less serious issues that nevertheless make life intolerable in a 

neighborhood. 

This is what happened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1991, the Philadelphia District 

Attorney’s Office implemented the Local Intensive Narcotics Enforcement (LINE) 

program in an area of Southwest Philadelphia that was troubled by drug trafficking and 

drug-related violence.6

 The office sought the aid of the community to prosecute serious 

drug offenders. When assistant prosecutors began attending neighborhood meetings and 

talking to residents, they discovered that for residents the problems that contributed to the 

disorderly, unsafe, and blighted condition of their neighborhood were equally pressing. 

They wanted help in closing down nuisance bars and the convenience stores that sold malt 

liquor and were a focus of public drinking, public urination, street fights, and similar 

offenses. They wanted help with neglected properties that attracted drug activity and made 

the neighborhood unsafe and unattractive. The Philadelphia prosecutors found that by 

mobilizing city resources—such as the City Department of Licenses and Inspections and 

the Liquor Control Board—to address these issues they could simultaneously improve the 

 

6

George G. Mosee, Deputy Chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Narcotics Division. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

22 

neighborhood and gain the cooperation of its residents in their original objective of 

fighting drug crime. 

Washington, D.C.’s community prosecution program similarly began with the goal of 

more effectively prosecuting major drug offenders to stem the rising tide of violent crime 

in the District. These community prosecutors also found that, to more effectively meet this 

traditional prosecutorial goal, they had to gain the community’s confidence and support. 

They did this by paying closer attention to the cases that were important to residents and 

soon were dealing with “tagging,” nuisance properties, and other issues that affected the 

residents’ quality of life.7

Community prosecution programs have been implemented to address a wide variety of 

target problems in an equally wide variety of settings. In Placer County, California, with an 

estimated population of more than 200,000 inhabitants, the district attorney’s office created 

a community prosecution unit early in 2000. It focused primarily on elder abuse—crimes 

committed against individuals ages 65 or olderand crimes against dependent adults ages 

18 to 64 involving the infliction of pain or mental suffering, endangerment of health, theft, 

or embezzlement of property.8

 Elder abuse was chosen as the target problem because of the 

county’s large and growing elderly population and because elder abuse crime had 

increased over the past 5 years from about 12 cases per month in 1997 to about 40 new 

cases per month. As the county experiences growth in the number of nursing and assistedliving facilities as well as retirement communities, the prosecutor’s office has identified 

elder abuse as a problem that had to be dealt with through a more effective, communityoriented approach. 

Often, juvenile issues have emerged as important elements of the problems targeted by 

community prosecution. The crime prevention aspect of community prosecution is seen as 

particularly appropriate in dealing with youthful offenders and at-risk youth, and a large 

number of community prosecution programs focus on youth to prevent and respond to 

juvenile crime. Jurisdictions that devote substantial resources to juvenile issues include 

Middlesex, Suffolk, and Plymouth counties in Massachusetts; Howard County, Maryland; 

Denver, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kalamazoo County, Michigan; Nassau County, New 

York; Brevard/Seminole County, Florida; Knox County, Tennessee; Cuyahoga County, 

Ohio; and Hennepin County, Minnesota. 

Some of these initiatives have targeted the more serious problems associated with gang 

violence. In Middlesex County, Massachusetts, the district attorney’s office administers the 

Community Based Justice (CBJ) program, implemented in 1991 to respond to violent 

juvenile gangs.9

 The CBJ task force is a collaborative effort that includes prosecutors, 

 

7

Community Prosecution Program in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia: Building Better 

Neighborhoods and Safer Communities (January 2000), U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, 

District of Columbia (Draft). 

8

Information is based on an interview with Assistant District Attorney Susan Gazzaniga, and Placer County’s 

grant application proposal, “Planning a Partnership” (1999). 

9

Jacoby, 1995. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

23

police, school and juvenile probation officials, and neighborhood leaders, who meet 

weekly at participating schools or police stations. The group identifies a priority 

prosecution list of violent juveniles to receive special attention, including graduated 

sanctions for those who continue to offend, and discusses children believed to be at risk of 

entering the juvenile system. The purpose and strength of the task force is that members 

share information from various perspectives about school-age offenders and children at 

risk, which allows informed decisions on interventions that take into account the behavior 

of the youth in various settings, including school and the neighborhood. The decisions of 

the task force on appropriate interventions or sanctions depend on the level of a child’s 

involvement, and the ability of the school, parents, and other support systems to supervise 

and manage the youth’s behavior. The prosecutor’s office has about 50 attorneys who have 

been trained to work in the CBJ program. The program also has been adopted by Suffolk 

and Plymouth Counties. 

In Los Angeles County, California, gang crime is a major problem and the focus of the 

community prosecution effort. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office operates two 

programs with community-based orientations. The Community Law Enforcement and 

Recovery (CLEAR) program is a collaborative, community-based program in which the 

district attorney’s office is mainly involved with targeted case processing. Prosecutors play 

a broader role in the Strategies Against Gang Environments (SAGE) program, which 

officials characterize as targeting gang violence, drug dealers, and other public nuisance 

problems that destroy neighborhood quality of life. Administered through the Hardcore 

Gang Unit of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, SAGE started in the city of 

Norwalk with a gang injunction in 1993. In 1994, the program was given its name and has 

continued to evolve over time. Today, SAGE has five sites, with one assistant district 

attorney located at each, generally in a city-owned building such as a city hall or a police 

station. The sites are located in unincorporated cities outside the city of Los Angeles, but 

within the county. Here, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has jurisdiction over 

misdemeanor offenses in addition to the felony caseload it normally handles within the city 

of Los Angeles, where the city attorney has jurisdiction over misdemeanors. These cities 

pay most of the expenses for the programs in their locations. SAGE attorneys are primarily 

problem solvers and try cases only occasionally. One SAGE attorney works with the city 

attorney, focusing exclusively on gang injunctions wherever they are needed in the county. 

SAGE uses civil injunctions to prohibit gangs from engaging in activities that create a 

public nuisance. For example, members of drug-dealing gangs are prohibited from carrying 

pagers or cell phones and congregating in public places. SAGE attorneys support trial 

prosecutors by providing them with intelligence about gangs and their members, helping 

law enforcement agencies with prefiling issues, reviewing arrest reports, and evaluating 

problem cases. They also coordinate training for police on special issues, organize curfew 

sweeps, provide case law and training for judges on gang-related issues, coordinate 

information sharing among agencies, assist with information and training on the relocation 

of endangered witnesses, and help draft gang-related legislation. Projects include drug 

abatement; antiprostitution efforts; school truancy programs; legal education for 

elementary school children; and public nuisance projects (including researching and 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

24 

drafting ordinances) that target issues such as public drinking and urination, gambling, and 

loitering, in addition to coordinating an antigraffiti project. The attorneys’ community 

outreach efforts include preparing training materials about gang prevention, intervention, 

and suppression for community-based organizations, meeting with Community Police 

Advisory Boards to help develop community-based antigang strategies, and assisting with 

planning and training sessions regarding antigang measures that community members can 

use. Because the attorneys are stationed in the neighborhood, they can establish a rapport 

with the community and other criminal justice and social service agencies.10

Kalamazoo County’s Neighborhood Prosecuting Attorney Program targets domestic 

violence, substance abuse, housing issues, and youth problems, working with schools, 

community organizations, and other government agencies to enhance community safety. 

All program goals are set by the neighborhood. One of the first projects identified the 

owners of deteriorating rental units in the neighborhood and enlisted the housing authority 

to handle the problem. Criminal prosecutions were also initiated and landlords were court 

ordered to sell the properties that they could not afford, or had no desire, to repair. 

Youth issues revolved around truancy and curfew violations, with youth hanging out in the 

neighborhood drinking, using drugs, and making noise. A curfew/truancy program was 

created in 1999, known as the Center for Leadership Options for Community Kids 

(CLOCK) and operated through the Boys & Girls Club. Police cite young violators of state 

curfew laws and repeat truants, take them to the club, and contact their parents and/or 

teachers. The center operates a voluntary diversion program. Youth who refuse the 

program are referred to juvenile court. Program participants are assessed for personal, 

school, family, and employment issues, and are referred to appropriate agencies for help 

with these issues. Participants are taught leadership skills and provided with positive 

activities. Youth who stay out of trouble for a period of time are able to avoid formal 

involvement with the juvenile justice system. 

Drugs and youth issues are the focus of the community prosecution strategy being 

implemented by the district attorney’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of the 

problems the program seeks to address is a deeply entrenched drug trade that has involved 

some of the area’s families for several generations. Another is a high level of heroin use. 

An important objective of the Santa Fe program will be to find recreational outlets for 

young people, whose quest for “something to do” frequently leads them into trouble. 

One of the focal points of community prosecution in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a prostitution 

abatement program. In Waikiki, the tourism industry was suffering because of the 

prostitution problem. The prostitution abatement task force filed a nuisance abatement 

action to impose geographic restrictions against known prostitutes in the Waikiki district. 

Upon conviction, prostitutes are banned from the area as a condition of probation. The 

prosecutors also introduced legislation to prohibit prostitutes from the district, which was 

 

10Information is based on an interview with Assistant Head Deputy Nancy Lidamore, and on descriptions of 

the CLEAR and SAGE programs provided by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

25

passed in 1998.11 In addition, women who want to leave the profession can enter a 12-

week prostitution intervention program. Free workshops are held on topics related to 

health, building self-esteem, and access to community resources.12

Target Area 

Another common feature of community prosecution strategies is that their target problems 

have a geographic component. Target areas, like target problems, may be identified 

through careful planning, needs analyses, and feasibility studies. They also may be selfselecting, such as when community residents or other stakeholders approach the 

prosecutor’s office for help. How the target is configured geographically has important 

implications for the logistics of the initiative, such as how the community will be engaged, 

how the office will be organized, and how the objectives will be measured. 

The nature of the target area—urban, suburban, rural, large city, or small city—may have 

important implications for both resource needs and the resources available to the 

community prosecution strategy. The challenges and logistical choices faced by 

community prosecution efforts targeting inner-city neighborhoods in large, densely 

populated urban areas may be quite different from those of smaller, rural, or suburban 

jurisdictions. With high levels of the serious crimes that are still the business of 

prosecutors’ offices, the resources that can be dedicated to community prosecution may be 

limited and require careful definition of the target area. 

Suburban and rural jurisdictions are facing many of the same problems that many 

community prosecution strategies have been designed to respond to in the inner city. These 

problems occur in commercial and residential neighborhoods and include both serious, 

often drug-related, crime and the less serious quality-of-life criminal matters. 

The Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office has targeted an area of more than 7,000 square 

miles with a permanent population of only about 125,000 residents (and the sizeable tourist 

population of Santa Fe). The area encompasses the primarily rural counties of Santa Fe, 

Los Alamos, and Rio Arriba, and includes several small towns. The town of Chimayó, 

straddling the Santa Fe-Rio Arriba county line, leads the nation in deaths from heroin 

overdose. According to Santa Fe District Attorney Henry Valdez, Chimayó is a rural 

community with city problems (Santa Fe and Rio Arriba together are designated a High 

Intensity Drug Trafficking Area). Madrid, a small town south of Santa Fe, was an 

abandoned mining town that was repopulated and rebuilt in the 1960s to become a thriving 

community. Residents now find their quality of life declining because of growing drug use 

and violence. Although Santa Fe’s community prosecution initiative faces target problems 

related to drugs and youth that are not so different from many urban programs, it faces the 

additional challenges of a rural setting. The large geographic area and the dispersed 

 

11Hawaii Revised Statutes, Section 712–1207. 

12Information is based on an interview with Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Claire Merry and a report, 

“Special Report: Community Prosecution Program,” Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, City and 

County of Honolulu (January 2000).
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

26 

population make community outreach one of the greatest challenges faced by the program. 

Canvassing residents and getting them involved is literally a door-to-door effort. The 

involvement of three counties presents additional logistical issues, such as the inability of 

the various sheriffs’ department vehicles to communicate with each other due to 

incompatible communications equipment.13 

Sites also vary in their selection of business districts or residential neighborhoods, or a mix 

of both, as targeted areas for community prosecution strategies. In Kalamazoo County, 

Michigan, the first community prosecution site was in Edison, one of its oldest cities. The 

neighborhood has both residential and commercial zoning, with factories and businesses 

located near homes.14 In Portland, Oregon, three of seven Neighborhood DA units serve 

areas that are primarily residential. The pilot Lloyd District is a mix of commercial and 

residential properties, and the West District is commercial. One unit serves Tri-Met, the 

Portland public transit system.15

The community prosecution program in Santa Clara, California, has three sites within its 

jurisdiction. One is located in the San Jose/Burbank area, which has a mixture of 

commercial and residential properties. Its population is primarily Hispanic, most of 

Mexican origin or descent, and long-time Caucasian residents. Its residents range from the 

very poor families who live in high-density, substandard housing with numerous code 

violations, such as open sewers and nonfunctional plumbing, to the very wealthy residents 

of Rosemont. 

The target area presents some unusual challenges to the community prosecution effort. 

Approximately half of it, although located within the boundaries of San Jose/Burbank, is 

unincorporated, that is, not legally a part of the city of San Jose and therefore not governed 

by city ordinances and zoning regulations, nor subject to law enforcement by the city’s 

police force. In addition, the unincorporated pockets of the San Jose/Burbank area have 

less access to services such as trash collection, and provision and maintenance of street and 

traffic lights. These areas have no parks, playgrounds, or other recreational areas. Teens 

hang out on the streets, many of which have no sidewalks and pose a safety hazard. The 

children who live in the unincorporated area attend a high school located several miles 

away, despite a “Blue Ribbon”-designated high school located in the center of their 

neighborhood but open only to city residents. The area also has a serious gang problem, 

which has resulted in numerous fights, assaults, and a homicide. 

The unincorporated areas were farmland when the city was founded, and the residents did 

not want to be included in it. To this day, residents resist incorporation. They prefer to be 

left alone because they do not trust the city government and, specifically, the San Jose 

 

13Information was provided by District Attorney Henry Valdez, Program Coordinator Synthia Romero, and 

community leader Bruce Richardson at a BJA-sponsored workshop conducted by APRI for BJA community 

prosecution grant recipients in Washington, D.C., in February 2000, through presentations, discussions, and 

unpublished written materials. 

14Interview with Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Karen Hayter. 

15Neighborhood DA Unit Projects Update, March 1998, www.multnomah.lib.or.us/da/nbda.html. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

27

police. The local sheriff’s office polices these areas with officers from the neighborhood 

whom the residents have known for years. The office is far too small and ill-equipped to 

handle the gang activity, drug dealing, and prostitution that plague the area. With no 

zoning ordinances, commercial establishments such as liquor stores are located on 

residential streets, attracting teens, alcoholics, and drug dealers to the neighborhood. There 

are no ordinances to limit “red-light” types of establishments, such as strip clubs, many of 

which are on the main road that runs adjacent to residential housing and attract prostitutes 

and drug dealers.16

In Kalamazoo County, Michigan, residents were concerned about where the pilot 

community prosecution site would be located. The prosecutor held an open forum to invite 

community input into the targeting decision and presented comparative crime statistics to 

aid in making the decision. Subsequently, residents formed a neighborhood coalition to 

represent the residents’ concerns. The coalition requested that the site be located in Edison, 

where 60 percent of residents rent their homes. It has a red-light district and one of the 

highest crime rates in the county. However, the community also had business and 

neighborhood associations, and it enjoyed a positive relationship with two community 

police officers assigned to the neighborhood. It gave the County Prosecuting Attorney’s 

Office a solid foundation on which to build a relationship with the community. 

In Multnomah County, Oregon, the business leaders of the Lloyd District in downtown 

Portland approached District Attorney Michael Shrunk about providing law enforcement 

support for this newly created commercial district. The district was struggling to attract 

customers in an environment plagued by quality-of-life crimes that were largely 

attributable to a nearby vacant area populated by transients. The area, known as Sullivan’s 

Gulch, is public property adjacent to a highway that had become a haven for homeless 

people. “Residents” of the Gulch often wandered into the Lloyd District where they 

panhandled in an aggressive manner and urinated in public, frightening off prospective 

customers and threatening the efforts to create a new downtown area (Boland, 1996; 

1998a: 259). The Lloyd District served as a pilot effort and a point of departure for similar 

service to other areas of Portland. Although the private funding (by the business 

community) of a county prosecutor to serve one neighborhood’s special needs was viewed 

by critics as a “hired gun” approach to justice, other neighborhoods saw the positive 

impact and wanted their own neighborhood prosecutor (Boland, 1998a: 257). 

The question of where to start can be complicated when competing locations are in great 

need, or when the best candidate area from a crime perspective offers little community 

support, interest, or infrastructure. Although an area is identified as critical from a citywide 

perspective, its involvement may not be viewed enthusiastically by the residents 

themselves, presenting the prosecutor’s office with the added task of overcoming 

community resistance. This resistance may stem from a mistrust of public institutions in 

general and perhaps law enforcement and the justice system in particular. It may also 

reflect that some communities perceive being targeted as a problem area as stigmatizing or 

 

16Information is from an interview with Deputy District Attorney Christopher Arriola. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

28 

respond negatively to the term “community prosecution.” Therefore, some jurisdictions 

have chosen to use the term “community justice” rather than “community prosecution.” 

Target areas may be delimited in various ways. In Washington, D.C., community 

prosecution zones were matched to police Patrol Service Areas, greatly enhancing the 

ability of community prosecutors to serve not only a particular neighborhood, but also to 

work effectively with the Metropolitan Police Department’s community policing teams 

within those service areas.17 In other jurisdictions, such as Denver, community prosecution 

target areas are defined by neighborhoods, whose residents tend to share some ethnic and 

socioeconomic characteristics and are also likely to have a sense of community and 

common interest.18 Multnomah County, Oregon, has Neighborhood District Attorney units 

linked to seven Portland districts variously defined. Some, like the East Portland District, 

comprise several neighborhoods. East Portland was originally served by the southeast 

Neighborhood District Attorney, but the area was too large to be served effectively. The 

Gresham District, a separate city within Multnomah County, is served by one unit, and the 

Tri-Met transit system district covers a three-county area with various law enforcement 

agencies.19

Role of the Community 

It is perhaps too obvious to state that community prosecution strategies are defined by their 

emphasis on, and the nature of their involvement with, the community. Kurki (2000: 257) 

takes the view that, although “community empowerment and participation” are a basic 

premise of other community justice initiatives, community prosecution initiatives have 

continued to take a fairly narrow, traditional view of the role of community members, 

limited to “giving information and providing extra eyes and ears.” Certainly, in many 

jurisdictions, enlisting the eyes and ears of the community to more effectively carry out the 

traditional business of the prosecutor’s office is seen as a benefit, if not an explicit goal, of 

community prosecution. Initiatives differ in the extent to which they “act upon” the 

community based on some assessment of problems and needs or “act with” the community 

in identifying problems and devising solutions to be carried out jointly. Prosecutors’ 

offices that are merely reorganizing how they assign cases on the basis of geographic area 

may have little contact with the community except to solicit information or testimony from 

community members in particular cases. Other community prosecution efforts, however, 

directly involve and collaborate with community members in a wide range of functions 

from problem identification to problem solving, as well as crime prevention and 

improvement efforts in the neighborhoods. Nevertheless, sites differ not only in how they 

define the role of the community but also in terms of who will become involved as 

representatives of the community. 

 

17Community Prosecution Program in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia: Building 

Better Neighborhoods and Safer Communities (January 2000), U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s 

Office, District of Columbia (draft). 

18Based on site visits to two of Denver’s community prosecution sites, Capitol Hill and Globeville. 

19Neighborhood DA Unit Projects Update, March 1998, www.multnomah.lib.or.us/da/nbda.html. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

29

In some jurisdictions, community activists play an important role in identifying problems 

and calling for effective responses, but the prosecutor’s office largely orchestrates the 

response, often in conjunction with community police or other agencies. Prosecutors in the 

three New York City jurisdictions of Manhattan, Kings County, and the Bronx have 

created community affairs bureaus headed by nonattorney community organizers. These 

individuals do most of the community outreach. They attend community meetings and 

interact with residents, neighborhood leaders, and community stakeholders to determine 

the issues and priorities for law enforcement within their areas. They act as the link 

between the prosecutor’s office and the community and facilitate a direct connection with 

prosecutors and other governmental agencies to address specific issues. 

In other jurisdictions, the community plays a direct and critical role in assessing its 

problems and needs and in planning strategies for addressing those problems, with the 

assistance and resources that the prosecutor’s office can bring to bear. Denver’s strategy 

offers a dramatic example of central engagement of the community in its efforts.20 The 

Denver District Attorney’s Office does not have enforcement jurisdiction over the majority 

of quality-of-life crimes targeted by its Community Justice Unit; rather, the City 

Attorney’s Office (renamed to shift the focus from prosecution and punishment to more 

comprehensive solutions) handles most of these cases. Nor does the Denver community 

prosecution program provide vertical prosecution for cases, in which community 

prosecutors follow cases through all stages of processing. Denver’s effort instead focuses 

on citizen and community involvement to develop problem-solving strategies that are 

community driven. To achieve this, Denver’s community prosecution attorneys primarily 

facilitate a process that involves neighborhood-based Community Justice Councils of 

individuals who have a stake in the community. There are currently two such councils, in 

the Globeville and Capitol Hill neighborhoods, each consisting of 20 to 35 members 

chosen by community prosecutors through indepth interviews. 

The work of a Community Justice Council begins with identifying target problems. 

Council members list their concerns, which may be anything from stray dogs and 

inadequate street lighting to street corner drug dealing, and select the three issues that they 

consider to be of highest priority for the community. The councils meet on a monthly basis 

with community prosecutors and representatives of other relevant agencies to educate 

themselves and begin to craft and implement strategies to resolve these issues. Many are 

neighborhood quality-of-life issues that may, if addressed early, be prevented from 

escalating to criminal prosecutorial issues. The community prosecutors’ role is to facilitate, 

provide legal expertise, and bring to bear the city and county resources that are at their 

disposal in a process that is largely carried out by and within the community.21

In still other jurisdictions, the prosecutor’s office establishes neighborhood offices or 

assigns staff to the community and attends community meetings to become familiar with 

the neighborhood concerns. In Multnomah County, Oregon, the first Neighborhood 

 

20Observation based on site visits to Globeville and Capitol Hill. 

21Description of the process is based on observation of a Capitol Hill Community Justice Council meeting 

and conversation with members and site officials. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

30 

District Attorney was stationed in the Lloyd District, where he was able to hear about what 

troubled neighborhood residents and experience the problems firsthand (Boland 1998a: 

259). By contrast, community prosecutors in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, are 

assigned geographically by police district but are stationed in the central office. 

Community prosecution initiatives differ in their approaches to problem solving and the 

ways in which the community is represented in that process. In sites such as Multnomah 

County, prosecutors identify problems as they arise through their contacts with the 

community and attempt to craft solutions with the help of the community. Some problems 

may require long-term strategies, others can be fairly short-term efforts, and still others 

may be amenable to quick fixes but ultimately also require longer-term approaches.22 The 

list of target problems is long and the solutions are varied, creative, and always 

collaborative. For example, in response to residents of neighborhoods plagued by open-air 

drug dealers, Neighborhood District Attorney Wayne Pearson worked with the city 

attorney to create Portland’s drug-free zones. The Drug-Free Zone ordinance provides that 

anyone arrested for a drug offense within a drug-free zone may be prohibited from entering 

that zone for 90 days preconviction or up to 1 year postconviction, under threat of a 

criminal trespass charge. In an area of Southeast Portland, merchants complained of the 

problems caused by skateboarders—graffiti, litter, loitering, public urination, and unsafe 

riding. Rather than try to keep out the skateboarders, the Neighborhood District Attorney 

helped the merchants and skateboarders form a partnership with mutual rights and 

responsibilities that resulted in a public skateboarding park. Skateboarders enforce the 

rules on their peers and take responsibility for keeping the park clean. Merchants paid for 

signs and provided a place to store cleaning equipment. The city provided a toilet facility. 

Merchants and skateboarders now peacefully co-exist and business patrons appear to enjoy 

the performances. 

In Denver, the approach of the community justice councils is to set as their agenda the 

three or four issues of highest priority to the community. Denver’s organizers have 

determined that this is the best way to set manageable goals and be assured of some 

successes, which will sustain the process. The problem areas defined in this process may 

be broad and multifaceted, such as drug sales, crime related to alcohol abuse, and domestic 

violence (the actual target problems of Denver’s Capitol Hill Council), and addressing 

them may require long-term strategies.

Content of Response to Community Problems 

Community prosecution initiatives differ in the response they deliver to the community, 

however they define the target problem and however they conceive the community role. In 

some locations, a principal response is to successfully prosecute cases that have been 

problematic for particular communities. These can include cases that involve certain drug 

dealers, bars where prostitution is centered and nuisance behavior often occurs, absentee 

landlords whose premises are used for crackhouses or by vagrants, or illegal vendors who 

 

22Based on information in Neighborhood DA Unit Projects Update, March 1998, from 

www.multnomah.lib.or.us/da/nbda.html. See also Wolf, 2000. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

31

disrupt access to legitimate enterprises. In Santa Clara, California, one of the Community 

Prosecution Unit’s most visible achievements was a civil nuisance abatement suit brought 

by the district attorney against an adult movie theater on the main street in San Jose just 

around the corner from a residential area. Residents complained about prostitutes 

conducting business in the parking lot and alleys near their homes and finding used 

condoms and drug paraphernalia left by theater patrons. The suit accused businessowners 

of creating a public nuisance by permitting unlawful sex acts on the premises that carried 

over into the streets. Ultimately, the owners voluntarily closed the business after they were 

unable to correct serious building code violations within the deadlines set by code 

inspectors, who were partners in this effort. The media publicized the closing of the theater 

(San Jose Mercury News, March 23, 2000: 1B, 6B), and residents’ response to the effort 

was extremely favorable. Similar suits have been filed against slumlords who rent 

substandard one-bedroom properties to poor residents at rates as high as $1,500 per month. 

Because these residents cannot afford such rents, two or more families generally share one 

unit, which further exacerbates the problem. These properties are closed until the owner 

can prove that the necessary repairs have been made.23 

In other instances, the community prosecution response involves establishing an 

empowerment process that centrally involves community residents in specific efforts to 

prevent crime or improve services. In Indianapolis, the Street Level Advocacy Program 

engages the community in problem-solving strategies. A problem identified by residents of 

one neighborhood was open prostitution. The Patronizing Diversion program was created 

to address this problem by targeting prostitutes’ customers in an Eastern District business 

area. First-time offenders could avoid conviction by admitting that they had patronized a 

prostitute, doing community service, and participating in an impact panel. The panel 

consists of volunteers from the neighborhood, who are given the opportunity to confront 

the offenders and to air their feelings about the damage that prostitution does in their 

neighborhood. A community member helped design the program, which demonstrates to 

offenders that prostitution is not a victimless crimeit is the neighborhood that is 

victimized. 

In Hennepin County, Minnesota, the community is drawn into both the identification of 

community problems and the sanctioning process in diversion programs in at least two of 

the sites. In the third precinct, a community council has been created, which includes local 

stakeholders and neighborhood representatives who provide insight into community 

concerns, encourage neighborhood participation in cases of community importance, and 

help decide where community work squad projects should be done. The fourth precinct 

uses restorative justice through sentencing circles for minor juvenile crime, allowing the 

community to have a say in sanctions meted out for juvenile offenders, and facilitating 

face-to-face meetings between victims and offenders. 

 

23Information was provided by Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Arriola. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

32 

Organizational Adaptations in the Prosecutor’s Office 

Depending on the size and resources of the prosecutor’s office, a community prosecution 

program may be run by one or two prosecutors, by lay employees, or by a unit containing 

many community-oriented prosecutors, investigators, community relations specialists, and 

clerical staff. Since 1997, in Pima County, Arizona,24 one prosecutor has been assigned to 

address the problems in the community. A former civil attorney, she has created several 

programs using civil remedies, such as forfeiture and eviction procedures, to deal with 

nuisance properties, and has teamed up with local criminal justice agencies and citizens to 

identify problems and create legal strategies to deal with them. The prosecutor attends 

neighborhood association meetings and participates in Operation Spotlight, which teams 

the probation department, the community, local police, and the county attorney’s office. 

The group meets once a week to discuss community issues and develop solutions, 

participate in team training sessions on problem-solving techniques, and share information. 

The prosecutor’s involvement in officer training at the police academy helps solidify her 

relationship with the officers in the target area. Accompanying police on “ride-alongs” 

further facilitates her relationship with both the community and the police. Through these 

collaborative relationships and community outreach, one attorney has been working to 

have an impact on the quality-of-life issues in the community. 

Many programs began with a single site operated by a single attorney or staff person and, 

after some initial success, they were able to expand. District Attorney Michael Schrunk 

started the Neighborhood DA program in Multnomah County, Portland, Oregon, in 1990 

with a single prosecutor assigned to the Lloyd District. The pilot effort was so successful 

that a second neighborhood office was established the following year and others soon 

followed. By 1996, Portland had seven community prosecutors, with almost total coverage 

of the county (Boland, 1998a: 258). 

In some locations, the community prosecution concept has served as a framework for 

organizing the prosecutor’s office. District Attorney Charles J. Hynes started his 

community prosecution program in 1991 in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York. He 

divided the borough into five geographical zones based on police precincts, each zone 

encompassing four or five precincts, and assigned teams of attorneys to handle the cases 

that originated in each zone. 

In both Howard and Montgomery Counties in Maryland, community prosecution has been 

implemented throughout the prosecutor’s office. In these sites, community prosecution is a 

philosophy that governs the conduct of all business coming through the prosecutor’s office 

rather than merely a single program or geographic reorganizational framework because of 

the impact the focus on specific community areas has had on overall operations. The 

reorganization of some prosecutors’ offices according to geographic areas has often 

reflected a new perspective on the overall aims of prosecution and changes in the 

 

24Information on community prosecution in Pima County comes from an interview with Deputy County 

Attorney Christine Curtis and from the “Civil Remedies Outline 1999–2000,” Pima County Attorney’s 

Office.
Community Prosecution Strategies

33

perspectives of individual attorneys rather than just an organization of criminal caseload 

responsibilities. Howard County State’s Attorney Marna McClendon institutionalized the 

community prosecution philosophy in her office by rewarding the successes of her 

community prosecution attorneys within the office. She makes it clear that the community 

prosecutor position is a valuable one. These attorneys are offered rewards and promotions 

when they complete a satisfactory period as community prosecutors. In addition, it is not 

assumed that office attorneys possess the skills to create effective relationships with the 

community. Individuals assigned to community prosecution are trained to reach out to the 

community and to deal with community issues. According to McClendon, they are not the 

least experienced prosecutors in the office. Community prosecutors must have enough 

experience to understand what the office has to offer the neighborhood and to be skilled in 

litigation. 

Case Processing Adaptations to Community Prosecution 

Community prosecution programs may differ in the way they prosecute cases from 

targeted neighborhoods. Cases may be referred from neighborhood units to the central 

office for prosecution, or the neighborhood prosecutors themselves may prosecute them 

“vertically” (one prosecutor manages the case from beginning to end). In Kings County, 

New York, all attorneys are located in the central office to facilitate their ability to handle 

their trial caseload efficiently, even though the office caseload is divided into geographic 

zones that correspond to the organization of the court system. Geographic assignment is 

desirable in a community prosecution strategy because it allows trial assistants to become 

familiar with their assigned area, whereas random case assignment tends to isolate 

attorneys from the communities they serve. It is not practical in every jurisdiction, 

however, particularly in locations where the organization of the court system is 

incompatible. When court clerks control the assignment of cases to multiple criminal 

courtrooms on a random basis, it may not be possible to use geographic case assignment. If 

a prosecutor has no control over which cases are called in which courtrooms, a trial 

assistant may be assigned to cases in different courtrooms at the same time. Organizational 

strategies such as assigning trial teams to handle the cases in a certain courtroom without 

regard to their geographic origin may be the only efficient way to handle the caseload. 

Both Howard County, Maryland, and Denver, Colorado, cited this as the reason that their 

community prosecutors are geographically assigned to work with certain communities, but 

do not necessarily prosecute the cases that arise from them. 

Community prosecution strategies also differ with regard to whether the prosecutor 

assigned to the community actually tries cases. In jurisdictions such as Multnomah County, 

Oregon, and Pima County, Arizona, the community prosecutors do not try cases 

themselves. Instead, cases are assigned to the trial division for litigation, with the 

community prosecutors acting as liaisons between the trial attorneys and the community 

residents. This leaves the attorneys free to immerse themselves in the community, 

participate in neighborhood meetings and affairs, and create responsive problem-solving 

strategies as their primary responsibility. At the opposite extreme, in other jurisdictions, 

the attorney assigned to the community carries the same caseload as any other attorney in 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

34 

the office and must handle outreach and problem solving in addition to these 

responsibilities. Offices in Howard County, Maryland, Hennepin County, Minnesota, and 

Denver, Colorado, are structured in this manner. The majority of the jurisdictions noted in 

this report fall somewhere between these extremes, assigning to community prosecutors a 

reduced caseload of cases that are important to the community. The cases that these 

attorneys cannot handle are assigned to the trials division. 

Community prosecutors who retain a significant caseload may find that they are 

overwhelmed by the demands of the position. The trial caseload requires a great deal of 

case preparation time during the day, and much of the community contact must be 

accomplished in the evening hours when neighborhood residents are not at work. 

Community meetings are almost always scheduled during the evening, so community 

prosecutors may find themselves working long hours and feeling as if there is not enough 

time to deal with the issues that are brought to their attention. Offices with smaller 

caseload demands or more financial resources may have the ability to relieve these 

attorneys of their case processing responsibilities so that they can devote all of their time to 

community outreach and problem solving. Offices with large caseloads or less financial 

backing may not have enough personnel to afford this luxury. 

Vertical prosecution is a case processing strategy that has been adopted by many 

jurisdictions in their community prosecution efforts.25 It appeals to the public because a 

single assistant prosecutor manages criminal cases from beginning to conclusion. The 

process is reassuring because of the belief that an attorney’s familiarity with a case will 

translate into a greater commitment to achieving a successful conclusion. Theoretically, an 

attorney’s interaction with community members and the knowledge that residents are 

closely following the progress of a case will increase the prosecutor’s feeling of 

accountability. Some anecdotal evidence supports this perception. For example, Palm 

Beach County Prosecutor James Martz, who heads the Palm Beach Community-Based 

Anti-Crime Task Force, recounted that an assistant community prosecutor in West Palm 

Beach resigned after losing a case, because he felt that he had let down the residents of the 

community.26

In some offices, vertical prosecution is not practical because of limited resources and it is 

not viewed as an efficient use of attorneys’ experience and talents. Later stages of 

prosecution require more experience and expertise than the initial filing of a case. Having a 

seasoned attorney handle all stages of prosecution, despite its intuitive appeal to observers, 

may not increase the probability of a successful result. In urban jurisdictions with large 

caseloads, vertical prosecution simply may not be feasible. 

 

25Vertical prosecution is part of community prosecution strategies employed in Manhattan and Kings County, 

New York; Middlesex and Suffolk Counties, Massachusetts; Los Angeles and Placer Counties, California; 

Howard and Montgomery Counties, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kalamazoo County, 

Michigan; West Palm Beach, Florida; St. Joseph’s County, Indiana; Cuyahoga County, Ohio; and 

Sacramento and San Diego, California. 

26This incident was related at an APRI/BJA community prosecution workshop in Washington, D.C., in 

February 2000. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

35

Interagency and Collaborative Partnerships in Community 

Prosecution 

In most community prosecution jurisdictions, community problem-solving strategies 

involve initiatives that do not fall strictly within the prosecutor’s domain or involve 

solutions that are only marginally related to criminal justice. Community prosecution 

programs differ in the degree to which they collaborate in multidisciplinary planning, 

enforcement, and service delivery strategies, and the extent to which they cooperate or are 

integrated with the related efforts of other agencies and community-focused initiatives 

such as community courts or community policing. 

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been the driving force in creating 

numerous community-based initiatives in Austin, Texas, including the community court 

and drug court programs, and programs focusing on preventing juvenile crime and truancy. 

He recently added a specific community prosecution program which takes an individual 

prosecutor directly out into the community. In Austin, representatives of various agencies 

that support the community justice initiatives interact cooperatively to accomplish the 

similar goals of various programs that draw the public into the business of crime 

prevention. 

In many locations, community prosecution and community policing go hand in hand. They 

are encouraged by federal policy and funding to coexist and work collaboratively.27 For 

community prosecutors, police support in their efforts provides the enforcement support 

and, at times, a measure of safety in situations that even a seasoned prosecutor is illequipped to handle. For community police, the prosecutor can provide the legal expertise 

and authority to bring creative policing solutions to fruition. In Multnomah County, police 

noted that before the advent of community prosecution they often failed to act on 

promising ideas because of uncertainty about their legality (Boland, 1998a: 275; Wolf, 

2000: 1). 

Depending on the target problems they have sought to address, community prosecutors 

have found it helpful and necessary to get other agencies involved in community 

initiatives, combining forces that community members would only access piecemeal. 

Community prosecutors have become creative in their reliance on the special roles of other 

agencies. For example, they may involve the civil justice system and housing and licensing 

agencies in nuisance abatement proceedings. Philadelphia’s Local Intensive Narcotics 

Enforcement (LINE) program was implemented in 1991 as a pilot program in one 

Southwest Philadelphia police district that prosecuted serious drug offenders. When 

assistant district attorneys with the LINE program learned of the issues that really troubled 

community residents—nuisance bars, neglected properties, crackhouses, houses of 

prostitution, and “weed stores”—they called on other city agencies such as the police, the 

Bureau of Licenses and Inspections, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the 

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the Department of Public Health, the City Law 

 

27The Clinton Administration’s Law Enforcement Strategy: Combating Crime With Community Policing and 

Community Prosecution, March 1999 (www.usdoj.gov/dag/pubdoc/crimestrategy.htm). 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

36 

Department, and the Philadelphia Legislative Delegation to help address these issues and 

gain the cooperation of the residents. They found what other community prosecution 

efforts have also discovered, that nuisance abatement using civil remedies such as housing 

and licensing code enforcement can be effective in crime reduction.28

Some of the community prosecution initiatives are purely collaborative, functioning as part 

of a task force with other agencies. The CLEAR program in Los Angeles, California, 

which was created in 1996 by an interagency gang task force, is a collaboration of law 

enforcement agencies, public officials, and community residents that addresses the 

community’s gang problems by targeting geographic areas or specific gangs, using 

suppression, intervention, and prevention tactics. The program was created by statute under 

Penal Code Section 14000, and includes five funded partners on the originating task 

force—the police, the sheriff’s department, the district attorney’s office, the city attorney’s 

office, and the probation department. The CLEAR program is headed by an executive 

committee made up of representatives from these agencies, who meet monthly to set policy 

and make budget decisions. Each agency has a different role to play. Police and sheriffs 

take the lead in enforcement and intelligence gathering and make tactical decisions for 

certain enforcement programs. The district attorney is responsible for vertical prosecution 

of serious gang-related felonies, advising police on investigations when needed, handling 

probation violations, and providing input on community impact teams. 

The CLEAR strategy is proactive, targeting the most active gang members and 

aggressively filing probation and parole violations and gang enhancements. The city 

attorney vertically prosecutes gang-related misdemeanors and uses nuisance abatement to 

address quality-of-life issues. Probation officers track members of targeted gangs who are 

on active probation to ensure compliance and ride along with police to arrest gang clients 

observed in violations. There is also a community impact team consisting of businessowners, 

residents, and stakeholders, who meet regularly with the team to share concerns and notify 

them about hotspots in their neighborhoods. 

CLEAR operates in six sites throughout Los Angeles County. Prosecutors are located 

within the community, sometimes in space donated by local businesses. A city attorney is 

assigned to each office to handle quality-of-life misdemeanors. The goal is to locate all of 

the partners in one office space. The attorneys handle as many cases from their areas as 

they can, giving priority to serious felonies and cases that are of special significance to the 

community. Office trial teams covering that particular geographic area take cases that 

cannot be handled by these attorneys. 

Denver’s neighborhood Community Justice Councils, organized by the district attorney’s 

office as part of that city’s community prosecution initiative, often identify target problems 

that involve misdemeanor offenses that do not fall within the jurisdiction of the district 

attorney’s office. Denver’s program therefore not only brings the district attorney’s 

 

28Information was provided by George G. Mosee, Jr., Deputy District Attorney and Chief of the Philadelphia 

District Attorney’s Office Narcotics Unit, in an interview. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

37

community prosecutors to the table but also calls on the city attorney to help 

neighborhoods craft solutions.29

Community prosecutors also collaborate with agencies that have civil or regulatory 

responsibilities to eliminate crime problems in particular neighborhoods. Operation 

Crackdown, a project of the U.S. Attorney’s Community Prosecution Unit in the District of 

Columbia, involves the community in targeting absentee landlords whose property has 

become a public nuisance.30 Private attorneys who donate their time pro bono are 

authorized to file lawsuits on behalf of established community or civic groups against 

landlords who own houses where illegal drug activity is occurring. District of Columbia 

Act 12-395 allows the U.S. Attorney, the District of Columbia’s Corporation Council, or a 

community-based organization to file an action in D.C. Superior Court to enjoin, abate, or 

prevent a drug-related nuisance. The attorneys send out notices of potential lawsuits to the 

landlords. Landlords are forced to spend money on legal fees to respond to the notices, 

which undermines their motivation—their profit margin being cut—to look the other way 

when illegal activity takes place on their property. 

The District’s nuisance law is a potent weapon for community prosecutors against 

landlords and drug dealers because, unlike forfeiture actions, there is no legal defense. If 

there is a nuisance, the landlord is required to fix it. Because these types of cases are costly 

to defend, they almost never go to trial and are generally settled without a hearing. 

As a remedy, the court can order the source of the nuisance to leave the property and never 

return. The attorney is not seeking money damages, but is instead seeking to force a more 

immediate response, such as eviction, or the issuance of a court order requiring that the 

landlord fix the problem. One of the District’s cases addressed in this manner by the pro 

bono attorney was filed against a landlord whose property was abandoned. Instead of 

spending the significant amount of money needed to make the repairs, the landlord deeded 

the property over to the community group, which made the repairs and used the property as 

a community center. 

The cause of action lies with the community or civic group. It can build up a record to 

support the nuisance action by keeping a log of the traffic in and out of the location, 

especially noting out-of-state license plates on cars owned by the individuals frequenting 

the location as indicative of drug sales. The action can be brought on behalf of “friends of 

the neighborhood” or in the name of the law firm to protect the identity of the residents 

involved. This deflects the anger of the subjects of the lawsuit over to the law firm, taking 

the pressure off the community. The individual affidavits that are the basis of the action are 

filed under seal until the hearing to protect the residents. Police also play an important role 

in building the record by supplying a history of the calls for service at the location and the 

 

29Based on observations and information presented at a Capitol Hill Community Justice Council meeting on 

April 11, 2000. 

30Community Prosecution Program in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia: Building 

Better Neighborhoods and Safer Communities, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office (January 

2000): p. 6. (Draft). 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

38 

number of arrests that were made there. To have standing to bring the action, the 

community group, which need not be incorporated, must live in the affected area or within 

8 to 10 blocks of it. After the statutory requirements of notice to the landlord have been 

met, he or she is presumed to have knowledge of the nuisance, and no additional proof is 

required of whether he or she knew or should have known of the drug-related nuisance. 

The burden of proof that the nuisance exists is a preponderance of the evidence. Although 

the U.S. Attorney is also authorized by statute to file suit against the landlord, the pro bono 

lawyer is focused on that particular property and can generally get the work done faster.31 

In most jurisdictions, the prosecutor does not have primary responsibility for civil 

prosecutions. In Oakland, California, the city attorney has this responsibility and 

prosecutes drug nuisance actions, lawsuits against landlords who own substandard 

properties, and lawsuits against liquor stores and hotels that permit prostitution activities 

on their premises. The Oakland City Attorney’s Office recently received a community 

prosecution implementation grant from BJA and that effort is in its early stages. The city 

attorney has long managed Oakland’s Weed and Seed efforts and in that capacity has 

played a vital role in crime prevention strategies and developed a collaborative relationship 

with the Oakland police in several nuisance abatement programs. The city attorney drafted 

seizure and urban blight ordinances, which the Oakland Police Department enforces 

through its Beat Feet and Beat Health programs. Beat Feet implements a new ordinance 

that declares vehicles used to purchase narcotics or to solicit prostitutes to be a public 

nuisance and conducts reverse sting operations targeting drug buyers. Police undercover 

officers station themselves in high drug crime areas, “selling” marijuana and cocaine. The 

buyers are arrested and their automobiles are seized. The city attorney then files civil suits 

that result in either forfeiture of the vehicle by the owner or steep fines that the owner must 

pay to recover the vehicle. The Beat Feet operation is well publicized and drug buyers 

know that if they purchase drugs in Oakland they risk losing their vehicles. 

The city attorney also acts as the civil prosecutor in actions that involve nuisance 

properties and has a unit within the police department that deals exclusively with these 

matters. A recent collaborative effort with the police department’s Beat Health program 

resulted in the closing of a poorly maintained hotel within the community prosecution 

target neighborhood that was the site of both drug and prostitution activities. 

 

31Information based on a presentation by William Lawlor, Esquire, National Community Prosecution 

Conference, sponsored by APRI, September 25–27, 2000. 
Chapter 5 Community Prosecution Strategies

39

Community Prosecution in the United 

States: Descriptive Overview of Sites 

By mid-2001, the Crime and Justice Research Institute had identified and made contact 

with 36 prosecutors’ offices that appeared to have community prosecution or communityoriented strategies in operation. (For a list of these sites, see table 1.) This section briefly 

highlights these programs in chronological order according to the date they were reported 

to have started operation.32

The description of these initiatives is meant to be inclusive and does not depend on a 

narrow definition of community prosecution. Some community prosecution advocates may 

argue that certain sites do not represent community prosecution initiatives according to 

some stricter understanding of the key ingredients of such strategies. We defer discussion 

of whether community prosecution is an umbrella concept for a broad variety of 

prosecutorial activities directed at crimes in the community or whether it has a narrower 

meaning denoting a new, collaborative, and problem-solving relationship with the 

community. 

Limitations of This Preliminary Overview 

In presenting this descriptive information, we acknowledge and emphasize several 

limitations. First, this summary is illustrative and descriptive rather than “complete.” We 

were not able to conduct a formal nationwide survey of all community prosecution sites. 

Because no one authority has a complete list of all community prosecution sites—with new 

programs being initiated at a rapid pace—we began with a more exploratory, preliminary 

investigation. We cannot be certain that we have identified all sites. It is likely that we 

missed some. We are confident that other sites have begun operation while this report was 

being produced. 

We identified prosecutors’ offices involved in what appeared to be community prosecution 

strategies from lists of grants awarded, available literature, participants and presentations at 

various conferences, and word of mouth among prosecutors involved in communityoriented innovation. After we identified candidate programs, we interviewed 

representatives to determine what sorts of community prosecution initiatives, if any, were 

under way. It was not feasible to visit or make firsthand observations of all 36 locations. 

Although firsthand observation is desirable and should be done in the near future, the 

descriptions presented in this report rely primarily on self-reported interview information 

from representatives of each site. Finally, the information we obtained through interviews 

is uneven. Some sites gave us a great deal of information, but we had more difficulty 

arranging full interviews in other sites. In some sites, the community prosecution 

 

32Please note that this discussion illustrates differences among community prosecution strategies on 

dimensions identified as critical to the working typology of the community prosecution sites just described. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

40 

initiatives had been in operation for years; in others, the initiatives were quite new and staff 

were still discovering implementation issues and solutions. 

Purpose of the Preliminary Overview of Sites 

With these limitations in mind, we present a descriptive overview of community 

prosecution sites for two principal reasons. First, these summaries illustrate common 

ingredients of a diverse collection of community prosecution strategies and provide the 

fundamentals of a community prosecution model (hence the working typology described in 

chapter 4). Second, we offer this draft accounting of current community prosecution 

programs as a work in progress to solicit feedback and additional information from sites 

that have been included and others that have not.33 With this input, we expect to develop a 

more complete description of community prosecution programs in the United States, 

whether they are in planning or operational stages. 

Manhattan, New York

In 1985, New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau created a Community 

Affairs Unit in his office to respond to the dramatic effects of the crack cocaine epidemic 

in Manhattan.34 The unit was originally established to improve relations with the 

community and to facilitate collaboration on problem-solving strategies with other 

government agencies. The office is now staffed by 10 nonattorney community affairs 

associates who work with citizens and community groups in designated geographic areas 

that overlap with Manhattan’s 22 police precincts, and who focus on drug crime, nuisance 

properties, and low-level quality-of-life offenses. Associates attend community board and 

police precinct meetings to become aware of neighborhood complaints and issues, and 

network with community police officers to help fashion alternative legal responses to the 

traditional arrest/conviction track. A community-oriented information system is used to 

manage information received from the community and other sources, track contacts made, 

and detect crime patterns. 

The Community Affairs Unit provides a steady flow of information between the 

community and the trials division, where attorneys with various levels of experience are 

assigned to six general trial bureaus, each with attorneys who specialize in specific major 

crimes. Cases are assigned to trial bureaus on a random basis or by crime type to specific 

prosecutors. Morgenthau’s approach is premised on the belief that nonattorney personnel 

who are trained to perform outreach and respond in a timely fashion to community 

requests are able to address community needs more efficiently. Unit attorneys become 

involved when legal expertise, investigation, or litigation skills are needed to handle 

 

33Please contact Cheryl Irons-Guynn at the Crime and Justice Research Institute at cheri.ironsguynn@cjri.com to provide comments or additional information. 

34Information on the Manhattan Community Affairs Unit was obtained from interviews with Executive 

District Attorney Kristine Hamann and Community Affairs Unit Director Connie Cuchiarra; “Building 

Partnerships Among Communities, Police and Prosecutors,” New York County District Attorney’s Office, 

September, 1993; and Boland, 1998b.
Community Prosecution Strategies

41

community problems. The attorneys also give talks to community groups and teach classes 

in the schools on criminal justice issues. Unit officials estimate that half of the community 

problems they deal with can best be handled through means other than litigation, often by 

drawing on other government agencies or social services. By design, the Manhattan 

District Attorney’s Office assigns attorneys with specific expertise as problems require. 

This approach gives the office more flexibility in devising appropriate responses to 

community crime issues than if one attorney with generalized skills were assigned as 

community prosecutor to a specific geographic area to handle all types of problems. Once 

the attorneys are involved, the unit employs vertical prosecution, allowing attorneys to 

become sufficiently familiar with the neighborhood from which the case originates, its 

issues, and the witnesses and victims involved. Another rationale for the approach is that 

attorneys are insulated from the ethical issues that arise if they are too closely tied to the 

community. This strategy prevents residents from viewing the attorneys as “their lawyers” 

with expectations of free legal advice. In addition, residents are less apt to inadvertently 

volunteer incriminating or inappropriate information and place an attorney in a position of 

conflict if a community resident must be charged with a crime. 

Two programs have been created in association with the Community Affairs Unit to 

respond to specific types of community crime issuesthe Trespass Affidavit Program and 

Project Focus. With collaboration from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the 

U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Trespass Affidavit Program targets landlords of apartment 

buildings that have been taken over by drug dealers. The buildings are posted with “No 

Trespassing” signs and landlords supply police with building keys and current tenant lists, 

so that patrolling officers can ascertain who belongs in the buildings and arrest loiterers 

(drug buyers) for trespass. Project Focus trial assistants proactively focus in an area of the 

34th police precinct because of its large volume of violent crime and drug activity. 

Prosecutors are assigned to areas corresponding to community police officers’ beats. 

Project Focus prosecutors use information gathered from the community, local police, and 

the Community Affairs Unit to identify the area’s crime patterns and active criminals and 

to design a plan to address them, often employing civil remedies as well as traditional 

prosecution. This program has been replicated as Project Octopus on the Lower East Side 

of Manhattan in an area with a large concentration of public housing. Project Octopus 

attorneys work with the housing authority police. The targeted crime problems extend 

beyond more than one police beat so the attorneys are not limited by beat boundaries and 

are deployed on the basis of the crime problems. 

Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon 

Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk initiated the Neighborhood DA 

program in 1990, in Portland’s Lloyd District, in response to requests from business 

leaders who were trying to develop the area as a center of commerce and were concerned 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

42 

about the impact of low-level crimes.35 In an unusual arrangement, the business leaders 

offered to pay the salary of the first neighborhood prosecutor and to provide office space. 

Schrunk agreed to the initiative as a pilot effort, further agreeing to fund its expansion to 

other neighborhoods if it was successful. A newspaper article that criticized the office for 

allowing the “rich” to “buy” the services of a prosecutor led to calls from other Portland 

neighborhoods that wanted their own Neighborhood DAs, rather than to public outrage. 

Since then, the program has expanded to cover the entire county, with seven Neighborhood 

DAs (NDAs) funded mostly by public money. The additional sites include various settings 

and present different types of problems. They include the primarily residential areas of 

North-Northeast and Southeast Portland; the East District, which was split from the 

Southeast District because it was too large for one NDA to handle; Gresham, a city in 

Multnomah County but separate from Portland; the West District downtown business area; 

and the Tri-Met District which encompasses the local transit system. Partners include the 

community police, who predate the community prosecution program, the community 

courts, the city attorney’s office, state and local social service and other noncriminal justice 

agencies, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

NDAs maintain offices in their assigned neighborhoods. Through collaboration with local 

police and neighborhood groups, NDAs become aware of problems and seek innovative 

solutions to them. An important part of the process is empowering residents to help in the 

problem-solving effort. They can provide information needed to get a search warrant for a 

property where drug dealing is suspected, or help keep watch on an area that has been the 

subject of an intervention to ensure that the problem does not recur. Often, the NDA’s role 

is to provide the legal expertise needed to activate a plan proposed by residents or the 

community police. 

NDAs generally do not screen cases and rarely prosecute them. Their primary obligation is 

to be available to the community, the police, and governmental agencies as a resource, and 

time spent in court would take them away from the community. However, attorneys in the 

West and Lloyd Districts do some screening and carry small caseloads. No official policy 

has been set by the office; each site has been allowed to evolve as the assigned attorney 

saw fit. NDAs do, however, handle cases that are heard in Portland’s three community 

courts, which are plea courts with jurisdiction over misdemeanors. Felony cases 

originating from community prosecution sites are assigned by crime type to the felony trial 

unit, where they are vertically prosecuted. Misdemeanor cases that are not heard in 

community court are randomly assigned to the misdemeanor unit, where only domestic 

violence and cases of special significance are prosecuted vertically. NDAs help 

investigating police officers prepare their cases, and assist felony trial attorneys with grand 

jury presentations and trial preparation by facilitating interaction with witnesses and 

obtaining case-related intelligence from the community. 

 

35Information relating to Portland’s Neighborhood DA program was obtained from interviews and 

discussions with former Deputy District Attorney Michael Kuykendall, now a Senior Attorney at APRI, and 

Deputy District Attorney James Hayden; from Boland, 1996, 1998, and Wolf, 2000; and the Multnomah 

County District Attorney’s Office web site.
Community Prosecution Strategies

43

The first important NDA project involved cleaning up Sullivan’s Gulch, the area adjacent 

to the Lloyd District where homeless people and transients routinely camped. The area was 

littered with trash, and its vagrants wandered into the downtown area, broke into cars, 

urinated in public places, panhandled aggressively, and generally engaged in behavior that 

drove away business. No concerted effort to eliminate the problem had ever been made, 

and annual cleanup costs exceeded $40,000. The solution came when the NDA got the 

residents and affected businessowners to patrol the gulch, post signs against trespassers, 

pick up trash, and remove and store property left behind at a location far from the gulch. 

Within a year, the gulch became a clean stretch of parkland. 

Another innovative response to a neighborhood problem resulted in the first drug-free zone 

in 1992. Certain Portland neighborhoods had problems with drug dealers selling on their 

streets. Because jails were overcrowded, arrested dealers were quickly released and 

returned to the area. The district attorney, working with the city attorney, crafted an 

ordinance to create drug-free zones in areas of high-volume drug dealing. To have an area 

designated as a drug-free zone, a statistical showing must be made that the area generates 

substantially more drug arrests than other comparable areas. Consequently, the zones are 

primarily located in the two community prosecution sites where drug activity has been 

inordinately high. 

If a person is arrested for the sale or possession of drugs in a drug-free zone, the police can 

issue a 90-day notice of exclusion from the zone. If the person enters the zone within that 

period, for reasons other than to travel between specific destinations such as home and 

work or school, he or she can be arrested for criminal trespass. These cases are heard in 

community court, and the offender is mandated to perform community service in the 

neighborhood where he was arrested, providing the community with visible proof that 

something is being done about the community’s problems. Once arrested and released on 

bail, dealers are no longer free to resume business as usual, which drastically decreases 

drug sales in the areas. 

NDAs consider the community courts, the first of which opened in 1998, one of their most 

important tools. An NDA from each community appears in court to handle neighborhood 

cases at least once a week. The court handles the majority of the misdemeanor quality-oflife offenses that arise from the community in an expedited fashion. Offenders agree to 

enter a plea to the charges and receive nonjail sanctions that include community service to 

be performed in the neighborhood where they committed the offense. Each defendant is 

assessed to determine what, if any, social services are needed, and may be mandated to 

receive those services or complete a program as a part of the sentence. Most first-time 

offenders are eligible to have their charges dismissed upon satisfactory completion of their 

sentence. (Offenders brought in for domestic violence, assaults, and misdemeanors that 

involve firearms or injury to victims are not eligible for dismissal of their charges.) Failure 

to complete the sentence results in a 3-day jail sentence. Repeat offenders receive 

increased community service hours and are not eligible for dismissal of the charges. In 

addition to disposing misdemeanor cases, the community court also handles violations of 

drug-free zone restrictions, which are charged as misdemeanor criminal trespass. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

44 

The community courts are used by NDAs in another significant way. In Multnomah 

County, the prosecutor has jurisdiction over code violations,which can be charged as 

misdemeanors. In addition to citing landlords with code violations for failing to maintain 

their properties, actions that are likely to be ignored, these landlords may be charged with 

misdemeanor offenses and required to appear in community court. This arrangement has 

several benefits. Violators cannot overlook the criminal matter as easily as a civil citation, 

the hearing is expedited and requires a quick response, and the community can see that the 

landlord is being made to answer for the violation by performing community service and 

making repairs to the property. Neighborhood prosecutors continue to seek novel ways to 

use this power over code violations in community court. 

Kings County (Brooklyn), New York 

Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes started the community prosecution 

program in 1991 to address neighborhood quality-of-life and public safety issues in 

Brooklyn.36 He assigned teams of attorneys to the borough’s five judicial zones, each 

consisting of four to five police precincts, to handle the cases that originated there. The aim 

of this arrangement was to ensure that attorneys would become familiar with the 

community to which they were assigned and the types of crime that occurred there. At the 

same time, the community attorneys could develop a working relationship with the 

community and the precinct police to address public safety goals of principal concern to 

the community and to encourage neighborhood support in the prosecution of criminal 

cases. The attorneys met regularly with residents and listened to their concerns about crime 

and quality-of-life issues. An underlying rationale of the program was that prosecutorial 

assignments corresponding to the same geographic zones as the courts and grand juries 

would make judges more aware of community concerns, by dealing with community 

prosecutors in the courtroom on a daily basis. 

Attorneys assigned to each zone are located in the central office rather than in 

neighborhood offices. Because the office serves 2.5 million people spread out over 70 

square miles and prosecutes approximately 85,000 felony and misdemeanor cases each 

year with a staff of more than 500 attorneys, field offices are not seen as the most costeffective deployment of legal staff. It is felt that the zone attorneys spend sufficient time in 

their assigned neighborhoods to obviate a full-time presence. Felony cases are prosecuted 

vertically from grand jury indictment through disposition. Misdemeanors are prosecuted 

vertically from arraignment through disposition. 

In addition to assigning attorneys to zones, Hynes created a Community Relations Bureau 

with seven nonattorney personnel and a supervisor who are responsible for community 

outreach on behalf of the attorneys. These individuals are each assigned to an area that 

includes four police precincts and three community relations boards (community groups 

that represent more than one police precinct and include representative community 

members and stakeholders). They too are located in the central office. For logistical 

reasons, their assigned areas do not necessarily correspond to the zones the attorneys 

 

36Boland, 1996 and 1998; Wolf, 2000. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

45

cover. Meeting times and days may make it impossible to cover all meetings located within 

a zone, some community boards represent precincts that are not within the same zone, and 

specific skills such as proficiency in Spanish may make some staff more suitable 

representatives in certain communities. Although zone supervisors attend community 

meetings and police precinct councils, each staff person is responsible for knowing area 

leaders and stakeholders, attending community meetings, keeping track of the problems 

and issues that arise at the meetings, and communicating problems and information to the 

appropriate zone attorneys or agency. An information log on community contacts is 

maintained on a computer, but planning is under way for a more sophisticated information 

system that will flag information for the appropriate users so that it can be transmitted to 

the attorneys more quickly and efficiently. 

The office operates several legal education programs. Programs include Legal Lives, 

which assigns attorneys to specific schools to teach fifth graders about the law; The 

People’s Law School, which provides information for adult residents about the criminal 

justice system and how to handle specific problems in their neighborhood; and an 

afterschool youth law school that provides older children with legal information relevant to 

them. The Formal Trespass Affidavit Program is similar to the New York County program; 

it targets apartment buildings where criminal activities take place and engages landlords in 

monitoring these activities. 

Community partners include community police and the Red Hook Community Court, 

which has jurisdiction over a small portion of Brooklyn (three police precincts) that falls 

within three different attorney zones. A single attorney handles all community court cases. 

Middlesex County, Massachusetts 

The Community-Based Justice Program (CBJ) was created by Middlesex County District 

Attorney Martha Coakley in 1991 to respond to violent juvenile gangs.37 The Middlesex 

County District Attorney’s Office has a core staff of about 50 attorneys who are directly 

involved in the CBJ program, which has been implemented in all 54 cities and towns in the 

county. In addition to their work with the program, CBJ attorneys carry a regular criminal 

caseload, which includes both adult and juvenile cases. (The county has no separate 

juvenile court facility; rather, each court sets aside days to handle juvenile cases.) The 

entire office, including CBJ, is organized geographically, with three trial teams assigned to 

different regions. (Exceptions to this organization are specialized divisions that handle 

child abuse, white-collar crime, and domestic violence cases wherever they occur.) CBJ 

cases are prosecuted vertically. 

The target of the CBJ program is high school students who have been charged with 

delinquent or criminal offenses. Although juvenile jurisdiction ends at age 17 in 

Massachusetts, many youth are still in high school at that age so offenders targeted by CBJ 

 

37Information on the Middlesex County Community-Based Justice Program was obtained from an interview 

with Assistant District Attorney Kerry Ahearn and from Community Based Justice, No Time to Wait, No 

Time to Waste, Middlesex District Attorney’s Office (1994); and Jacoby, 1995.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

46 

are not necessarily juveniles. CBJ task forces include prosecutors, police officers, school 

officials, juvenile probation officials, and, in some cases, neighborhood leaders. They meet 

weekly to share information about these youthful offenders. Prosecutors are better prepared 

to handle and dispose of their cases in an appropriate manner because they have access to 

information about the background and behavior of youth in the community and in school. 

CBJ maintains a priority prosecution list, with graduated sanctions imposed on those who 

continue to offend. It includes violent juveniles who are then singled out for special 

attention. The list identifies approximately 1,700 juveniles who are monitored on a regular 

basis and is updated to include current information and to identify new youth who need 

intervention. Efforts are made to avoid removing the offenders from the community. In 

appropriate cases, both the youth and the family are given support through social services 

and creative probationary terms. A major emphasis of the program is the sharing of 

information among committee members about youth in trouble or at risk of becoming 

involved in serious crime. Without shared information, none of the agencies involved 

would know how serious the youth’s issues were in time to intervene and perhaps 

constructively deal with the problems. 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Public Nuisance Task Force38 was created by 

District Attorney Lynne Abraham in 1992 and assumed the role of an earlier communityoriented prosecution effort, the Local Intensive Narcotics Enforcement program, which 

was implemented in 1991 by former District Attorney Edward Rendell in Philadelphia’s 

18th Police District. The LINE program was an effort by the District Attorney’s Office 

Narcotics Division to enlist the help of neighborhoods in prosecuting serious drug 

offenders, identified by the office as a high-priority issue for that area. Discussions with 

area residents convinced the prosecutors that problems with nuisance properties were a 

higher priority. 

When funding ended for the LINE program, the Narcotics Division continued nuisance 

abatement efforts under the Public Nuisance Task Force, a program created to engage the 

community in efforts to close crackhouses, nuisance bars, houses of prostitution, and 

“weed stores.” The Public Nuisance Task Force program primarily targets nuisance 

properties related to drug and alcohol violations. Six attorneys are assigned to geographic 

areas coinciding with detective divisions. The attorneys are based in the main office, but 

spend much of their time in the community and are required to attend community meetings 

to gather information from residents about problem properties. The Public Nuisance Task 

Force attorneys try some criminal cases and litigate civil cases, including property 

forfeitures. The Narcotics Division prosecutes the more serious and complex cases, using 

vertical prosecution. The unit also assists the community in becoming more organized, by 

 

38Information on Philadelphia’s Public Nuisance Task Force is from an interview with George G. Mosee, Jr., 

Deputy District Attorney and Chief of the Narcotics Division, Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and 

from Community Guide to Drug and Alcohol Related Nuisance Enforcement: Public Nuisance Task Force,

published by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. The Juvenile Division also engages in some 

community prosecution efforts, including a truancy program. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

47

helping residents form groups such as Communities That Care and training interested 

citizens to lead them. 

The Public Nuisance Task Force operates in collaboration with other city agencies, such as 

the Philadelphia Police Department, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the Liquor 

Control Board, the Philadelphia Health Department, the Department of Licenses and 

Inspections, the City Law Department, and the Philadelphia Legislative Delegation. They 

work closely with community police and the Narcotics Enforcement Team, a decentralized 

division of the police department that handles cases geographically. 

The nuisance abatement process begins with a complaint initiated by citizens. The assistant 

district attorney assigned to the region generating the complaint sends a warning letter 

informing the property owner that a violation of the drug act has occurred on the property 

and that it could be seized and sealed. An investigation of the property is conducted, which 

may include any or all of the partner agencies mentioned above. The assistant prosecutor 

then seeks to abate the nuisance through civil injunction, asset forfeiture, condemnation of 

the property, or negotiation with the owner. Community residents are kept apprised of the 

progress of the case and may give information or testimony about the property. 

The Public Nuisance Task Force relies primarily on three pieces of legislation to address 

nuisance properties: 

• The Nuisance Drug Law, 42 PaCSA, Sections 8381–8392 (1992), authorizes the 

district attorney’s office, the city solicitor, a resident living within 1,000 feet of the 

nuisance property, or a community-based organization to go to Common Pleas Court to 

stop drug-related nuisances taking place on any property where drugs are regularly 

used or sold. The court may seal the property at the owner’s expense, order repairs, 

revoke licenses, force the owner to pay damages and civil penalties of up to $10,000 

and court costs incurred by the community, or order the premises secured. 

• The Pennsylvania Liquor Code, Section 6-611, states that any licensed liquor 

establishment that serves minors, drunks, known alcoholics, known criminals, persons 

of known intemperate habits, or otherwise violates the code is a public nuisance. 

Unreasonable conduct that is disruptive to community life, such as littering, violence, 

or noise pollution, also creates a public nuisance. The district attorney’s office is 

authorized to join neighborhood groups in making a request to have the court close 

down such an establishment. 

• Philadelphia Code, Sections 19-2600–2602, empowers the district attorney to join 

neighbors in requesting the court to close down establishments that unreasonably 

interfere with the public rights of three or more people through any illegal activity. 

The Task Force has a hotline number, so citizens can reach them easily. Much of the 

funding for the unit comes from revenue generated through forfeiture proceedings. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

48 

Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana 

The Marion County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office began planning for the Street Level 

Advocacy Program in 1993, and the effort was expanded when Scott Newman took office 

as Marion County Prosecutor, in 1995. 39 Currently, one part-time and five full-time deputy 

prosecutors, assisted by four full-time paralegals, are assigned to the program. They work 

directly with all five Marion County police departments and the surrounding suburbs. The 

effort has resulted in significant improvements in the working relationship between police 

and prosecutors, who previously had blamed each other for cases that “fell through the 

cracks.” Street Level Advocates (SLAs) screen and file all felony cases presented by police 

officers from their districts except drug, homicide, and sex crime cases, which are handled 

by special divisions. SLAs select four or five cases to prosecute personally that are of 

particular importance to the local community, and provide assistance to police on legal 

issues 24 hours a day. They also update officers on new developments in criminal law. The 

program includes a full-time nuisance abatement coordinator and an assistant investigator. 

Marion County’s approach emphasizes information sharing and improved communication 

among criminal justice agencies and the community. It employs a combination of vertical 

prosecution and strategies to prevent crime in the neighborhoods. 

SLAs attend community meetings and help organize community events. The prosecutor’s 

staff believe that direct contact with the community has facilitated a more positive 

relationship between residents and the prosecutor’s office, resulting in greater community 

involvement in, and support of, prosecutor-led initiatives. Community residents help set 

the agenda for SLA initiatives by identifying issues of highest priority. One program 

created in response to community input is the Patronizing Diversion Program, which 

targets customers of prostitutes in an Eastern District business area. First-time offenders 

can avoid conviction if they admit to the charge, perform community service, and 

participate in an impact panel during which neighborhood residents can air their feelings to 

the offenders about the damage that prostitution does in their neighborhood. 

Other Street Level Advocacy efforts include: 

• The Nuisance Abatement/Narcotics Eviction Program: Police or residents identify and 

target properties used in drug or other illegal activities. Landlords are assisted in 

abatement efforts and, failing this, are assisted in evicting tenants who have been 

involved in documented criminal activity. Collaborative efforts involving various 

agencies, including city council and municipal services, as well as code inspectors 

from the fire, zoning, and health departments, can result in heavy fines to offending 

property owners, as well as eviction of problem tenants. Multiagency sweeps, targeting 

properties that have been the source of community complaints, are conducted every 2 

months. 

 

39Information on the Marion County Street Level Advocacy Program is from interviews with Deputy 

Prosecuting Attorney Diana Burleson and Catherine Coles, J.D., Ph.D.; Wolf, 2000; and Marion County 

Prosecutor’s Office, Street Level Advocacy Unit, Marion County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (January 12, 

2000). 
Community Prosecution Strategies

49

• Case Watch: SLAs notify trial attorneys of cases that must be watched and track cases 

of importance to the community. Community residents are alerted to watch for the 

return of defendants with stay-away orders so that police can enforce these orders. 

• Curfew Sweeps: The idea behind curfew sweeps is to reduce crime by reducing the 

presence of unsupervised youth in public areas after certain hours. In response to 

community input, SLAs coordinate these sweeps in cooperation with juvenile 

probation officers and the police. 

As a result of the improved relationship between the prosecutor’s office and the 

community, citizens have become more confident about reporting criminal activity and 

take a more active role in developing solutions to crime-related problems. The prosecutor’s 

office has also led the development of a community justice center and a community court, 

which will handle misdemeanors, quality-of-life crimes, and health and housing code and 

ordinance violations. The community court will impose sanctions and provide services that 

focus on the offender’s problems and community restoration. 

Suffolk County (Boston), Massachusetts 

The community prosecution strategy of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office 

involves three major components: the Safe Neighborhood Initiative (SNI), Prosecutors in 

Police Stations (PIP), and Community Based Justice (CBJ).40 Each of these programs 

represents a proactive prosecutorial effort to address crime problems on a community 

level. 

Safe Neighborhood Initiative 

Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph Martin created the first SNI in Dorchester in

February 1993. Since then, the program has been expanded to include three additional 

inner-city neighborhoods—East Boston, Chelsea, and Grove Hall—to enhance public 

safety in these high crime areas. SNIs began as a partnership among community residents, 

the Attorney General of Massachusetts, the Suffolk County District Attorney, the police, 

and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, based on the belief that a collaborative 

effort among these agencies was necessary to have an impact on escalating violence. 

District courts in Boston were already decentralized, giving judges the opportunity to 

become familiar with the neighborhoods in the areas they served. The organization of the 

district courts provided a practical basis for assigning community prosecutors 

geographically. At least one prosecutor and one assistant attorney general (who is 

empowered to try cases on behalf of the district attorney) are assigned to each SNI to 

handle cases arising from that area and bring neighborhood concerns before the bench. SNI 

staff have access to office space in these locations. The attorneys attend all SNI meetings, 

screen and prosecute cases, and work closely with police. They also network with residents 

and attend community meetings to stay familiar with community crime problems. In 

 

40Information about Suffolk County is from Deborah McDonnah, who heads Community Affairs, and Coles, 

1997, Appendix B.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

50 

addition, one nonattorney staff person is assigned to each SNI to coordinate activities and 

handle projects that do not involve law enforcement. Selected area residents and 

stakeholders sit on an advisory board that meets with SNI officials to identify local issues 

and, in some cases, participate in creating strategies to address those issues. In East 

Boston, for example, residents identified underage drinking and the local liquor stores 

supplying alcohol to minors as important quality-of-life problems. SNI staff sent letters 

notifying the merchants of the new zero tolerance policy for supplying minors with 

alcohol. This notice was followed a month later by a reverse sting operation and a 

subsequent meeting with the merchants to ensure that they were aware of what was 

required of them. 

Prosecutors in Police Stations 

The Suffolk County community prosecution strategy also places prosecutors in police 

stations (PIPs). PIPs are assigned to the three busiest police stations to work directly with 

officers, screening incoming cases, reviewing applications for search warrants, and 

providing legal assistance for the police when needed. PIPs also target and prosecute highprofile community interest cases, including felonies. PIPs often work nights, riding along 

with police in targeted areas. Because these attorneys are often out in the community, they 

develop relationships with residents, become familiar with community issues and 

problems, and develop a better working relationship with the police. PIP attorneys are 

directly involved in the investigation of cases before arrests are made. They sometimes use 

a “John Doe Grand Jury” to encourage cooperation from otherwise uncooperative 

witnesses and victims. A John Doe Grand Jury may be convened to investigate a serious 

case before an alleged offender has been identified, and the witness or victim is 

subpoenaed to appear and testify. Witnesses or victims who fail to cooperate may be cited 

for contempt. This tool often enables the prosecutor to obtain information about a crime to 

which the police might not have access. PIP staff also ensure that the witness or victim is 

provided with services, such as compensation for injuries. This care facilitates a 

relationship of trust with the witness or victim early on in the case. Cases not handled by 

SNI or PIP attorneys are assigned to the trials division. 

Community Based Justice Task Force 

The third major component of the Suffolk County community prosecution strategy is the 

Community Based Justice Task Force, which was adapted from the first such program in 

Middlesex County. CBJs have been implemented in many Suffolk County schools, where 

they provide a forum for community-level information sharing among officials dealing 

with court-involved and at-risk youth. 

A nonattorney employee heads the district attorney’s Community Affairs Unit, which 

develops and implements programs to respond to community issues. This individual 

interacts with the community and creates linkages with government agencies and social 

service providers to bring together potential problem solvers to develop innovative 

solutions to problems. The unit was developed to prosecute cases of domestic violence, 

elder abuse, and child abuse and uses a holistic approach to support and prepare victims in 

these sensitive criminal cases. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

51

Los Angeles County, California 

Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti created Strategies Against Gang 

Environments (SAGE) in December 1993 in the city of Norwalk.41 The program responds 

to the problems of gang violence, drug dealing, and public nuisance crime. Assistant 

district attorneys are located in five SAGE sites, with offices generally in a city-owned 

office building such as a city hall or a police station. SAGE sites are in unincorporated 

cities in Los Angeles County, outside the city of Los Angeles, where the Los Angeles 

District Attorney’s Office has jurisdiction over misdemeanor offenses and felonies. (In the 

city of Los Angeles, the city attorney handles misdemeanors.) These cities pay most of the 

expenses associated with the SAGE program. 

SAGE attorneys are intended to be community problem solvers. They do not try many 

cases. One SAGE attorney works with the city attorney to focus only on gang injunctions. 

This attorney is not located at a particular site, but rather seeks injunctions wherever they 

are needed within SAGE areas to stop gangs from engaging in activities that create public 

nuisances (e.g., members of drug-dealing gangs are prohibited from carrying pagers and 

cell phones and congregating in public places). SAGE staff support trial prosecutors by 

providing intelligence about gangs and help law enforcement with prefiling issues, as well 

as reviewing arrest reports and evaluating problem cases. SAGE staff also coordinate 

training for police on special issues, coordinate curfew sweeps, provide case law and 

training for judges on gang-related issues, facilitate information sharing among agencies, 

and help with information and training on the relocation of endangered witnesses. In 

addition, they help draft gang-related legislation. 

SAGE projects include drug abatement, antiprostitution efforts, school truancy programs, 

legal enrichment classes for elementary school children, an antigraffiti program, and public 

nuisance abatement efforts. In the area of nuisance abatement, SAGE staff carry out 

research and draft ordinances, targeting such problems as public drinking and urination, 

gambling, and loitering. SAGE attorneys are also engaged in community outreach, the 

preparation of training materials for community-based organizations on gang prevention, 

intervention and suppression issues, meeting with community police advisory boards to 

help develop community-based antigang strategies, and assisting in planning and training 

sessions related to antigang measures for community members. 

The Community Law Enforcement and Recovery program (CLEAR) was created in 1996 

by an interagency gang task force. CLEAR is a collaboration among law enforcement 

agencies, public officials, and community residents working to address the community’s 

gang problems by targeting geographic areas or specific gangs, and then using suppression, 

intervention, and prevention tactics. The program was created by statute (California Penal 

Code, Section 14000), and includes five funded partners: the Los Angeles Police 

 

41Information on the Los Angeles initiatives is from an interview with Nancy Lidamore, Assistant Head 

Deputy, Hardcore Gang Division; from the “CLEAR Program Manual,” prepared by the CLEAR 

administrative office and Lodestar Management/Research, Inc. (January 21, 2000); and Strategies Against 

Gang Environments (S.A.G.E.), Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Hardcore Gang Division. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

52 

Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s 

Office, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, and the Los Angeles County Probation 

Department. CLEAR’s executive committee of representatives from these agencies meets 

monthly to set policy and make budget decisions. 

Each agency plays a distinct role. Police and sheriffs take the lead in suppression and 

intelligence gathering, and make tactical decisions for certain programs. The district 

attorney is responsible for vertical prosecution of serious gang-related felonies, advising 

police on investigations when needed, handling probation violations, and providing input 

on community impact teams. The approach is proactive, targeting the most active gang 

members and aggressively filing probation and parole violations and gang enhancements 

when they are appropriate. The city attorney vertically prosecutes gang-related 

misdemeanors and uses nuisance abatement strategy to address quality-of-life issues. 

Probation staff track members of targeted gangs who are on active probation to ensure 

compliance with probation conditions and ride along with police to arrest violators. 

CLEAR deploys a community impact team of businessowners, residents, and other 

stakeholders that meets regularly with CLEAR staff to share concerns and notify them 

about hotspots in their neighborhoods. 

There are six CLEAR sites throughout the county of Los Angeles. The first site was 

established in the northeast section of the city in response to the gang homicide of a small 

child hit by gunfire directed at her family’s car as the family drove through gang territory. 

Depending on the caseload, up to three attorneys are assigned to each location. The 

attorneys’ offices are located in the community, with a city attorney also assigned to each 

location to handle quality-of-life misdemeanors. CLEAR’s goal is to locate all of the 

partner agencies in one office space. 

CLEAR attorneys handle as many cases from their assigned areas as they can, giving 

priority to serious felonies and cases and defendants that are of special significance to the 

community. The primary focus is to remove the most violent offenders from the 

community. The central office trial teams that cover that particular geographic area take 

cases that cannot be handled by these attorneys. The program also includes intervention 

and prevention components designed to prevent at-risk youth from replacing gang 

members removed by CLEAR. For example, there is a mural program to eliminate gang 

graffiti, a Safe Passages program to prevent gang intimidation of children on their way 

home from school, as well as truancy and legal education programs for elementary school 

children. 

Seattle, Washington 

The Seattle City Attorney has criminal jurisdiction over misdemeanors and responsibility 

for handling ordinance violations, nuisance abatement, and forfeiture matters, in addition 

to the civil responsibility of acting as legal council for the city and its agencies. The office 

employs approximately 80 attorneys, 35 in the criminal division and 45 in the civil 

division. The city of Seattle is an urban area measuring about 60 square miles. It has a 
Community Prosecution Strategies

53

population of approximately 580,000, including about 70 percent white, 10 percent 

African-American, 10 percent Asian, and 7 percent Hispanic residents. 

Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran created the Precinct Liaison Program in 1995.42 He 

assigned one attorney to an office in each of four police precincts to improve 

communication among the citizens, city attorneys, police, and other city departments; 

reduce crime and enhance the quality of life; and develop a more effective response to 

public safety problems. Each prosecutor carried a full caseload in addition to performing 

community outreach and helping the precinct police. The difficulty of performing both 

roles effectively led the office to seek additional funding. BJA funding was used to free the 

attorney in the West Precinct of her caseload to allow her to devote all of her time to the 

community and to hire a part-time clerical assistant. The success of the newly defined 

position led the office to create a second full-time outreach position with an attorney 

dividing time between the East and South Precincts. There are plans to convert the position 

in the North Precinct as well. Misdemeanor cases filed in the South, East, and West 

Precincts are generally assigned to the Vertical Prosecution Unit or to a trial division 

attorney, with the liaison attorney facilitating cooperation between the trial attorney and 

the community. The Civil Unit handles nuisance cases. 

Liaison attorneys were assigned to police precincts to take advantage of police advisory 

boards in each precinct, as well as to facilitate a more positive relationship with the police. 

Each advisory board has about 225 members consisting of representatives from 

neighborhood organizations, local businesses, and the chamber of commerce, as well as 

individual citizens. Each board works with the local police to identify community 

problems and safety issues, and is kept informed about policy decisions. Target problems 

have also been identified by community organizations, using crime mapping and 

examining crime data for crime type issues. Hospital admissions data are reviewed to 

identify hotspots and develop intervention strategies. Target problems include drug 

paraphernalia sales, prostitution and low-rent hotels, and nuisance clubs located close to 

residential neighborhoods, which are a source of criminal activity and late-night noise. 

The updated community prosecution effort initially focused on the West Precinct, which 

encompasses the downtown business district as well as some residential neighborhoods 

and presents a mix of problems representative of the city’s major issues. The crime rate is 

relatively even among the precincts, but each has particular issues—high major crime rates 

in the East and South, car theft in the North, and inner-city problems such as drug activity 

in the West. 

As members of advisory boards and local community organizations, citizens have input 

into the prosecution priorities set by the city attorney’s office. Community members are 

kept apprised of new policies and initiatives, and of the progress of cases of interest to 

them. Citizens are often asked for their feedback on the impact of criminal behavior in 

their community. One example of neighborhood engagement is the joint effort of the 

 

42Information about the Seattle City Attorney’s Precinct Liaison Program was obtained from interviews with 

Criminal Division Chief Robert Hood. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

54 

community and the liaison attorney in the West Precinct to deal with a nuisance club. The 

attorney set up a meeting at which the community confronted the club owner. It resulted in 

a “Good Neighbor Agreement,” a document created by the civil department, between the 

community and the owner, who consented to change troublesome business practices. 

Although not legally enforceable, these agreements document the owner’s awareness of the 

problems and can be used in court as evidence of knowledge of illegal practices as required 

by most ordinances. They also evidence efforts made to work with a businessowner who 

has agreed to make changes but failed to do so, providing the city attorney with leverage in 

court. Citizens are enlisted to monitor compliance with the agreements, and are able to 

present evidence on specific violations in court, if required to abate a continuing nuisance. 

Collaboration among local agencies is an additional asset. The Neighborhood Action Team 

Seattle includes the city attorney, the police, and city agencies on Sector Service Teams in 

each of the four police precincts to handle chronic neighborhood public health and safety 

problems. The city has funded a full-time management position to oversee program 

implementation and evaluation. 

Howard County, Maryland 

The Community Justice Program was created by Howard County State’s Attorney Marna 

McLendon in 1996 as a school-based pilot program, Caring for the Community, in two 

sites.43 The State’s Attorney’s Office created a steering committee that included police, 

parole, probation, and juvenile justice officials, citizen services representatives, and 

representatives of the Department of Social Services in the selection of target areas and 

issues to be addressed. The state’s attorney held focus groups in the schools to obtain input 

from children about their problems. The program was expanded in January 1999 and now 

operates countywide, involving the entire staff of 23 full-time and 3 part-time attorneys, in 

addition to a full-time community justice coordinator. 

Nineteen attorneys have been assigned to 19 zones as liaisons in the community. They 

meet with community organizations, attend council meetings, ride with police officers, talk 

with school officials, and attend community events to identify the criminal justice issues 

that residents find most disruptive. Because these attorneys also carry a full caseload, the 

time that they have available in the community is constrained. Nonetheless, they are 

expected to attend at least one community meeting per month. Felony cases are prosecuted 

vertically, but because of the organization of the two criminal courts, which are located in 

two separate buildings and control the scheduling of cases, it is not practical for cases to be 

assigned to the prosecutors on a geographic basis. As a result, the attorney liaisons do not 

necessarily try cases from their zones. The community prosecution initiative is 

supplemented with an additional attorney responsible for the Hot Spot program, a statelevel initiative promoted by the governor’s office. The Hot Spot attorney, whose salary is 

 

43Information on the Howard County Community Justice Program is from an interview with State’s Attorney 

Marna McLendon; from “Prosecutor Program Wins Grant,” Baltimore Sun, Howard Edition, page 1B 

(August 2, 2000); and from the Community Justice Program pamphlet published by the Office of the State’s 

Attorney, Howard County, Maryland.
Community Prosecution Strategies

55

paid through state funds, is able to devote full time to community prosecution in two high 

crime areas selected by the governor’s office. She carries a reduced caseload of cases 

important to the community and shares an office with the Hot Spot team. 

The community justice program has both a reactive and a proactive component. The 

reactive component targets defendants who are arrested for crimes that are a significant 

concern to the community, giving them high priority even if the actual crimes committed 

would ordinarily be considered relatively minor. These cases are tracked through the trial 

process, and citizens are encouraged to attend sentencing hearings or to submit statements 

to be used at sentencing to inform the judge about the impact of those crimes on the 

community. The goal of the proactive component is to develop solutions, in collaboration 

with the police and the community, that are outside the traditional arrest and convict 

strategy by understanding the neighborhood’s specific crime issues. 

Plymouth County (Brockton), Massachusetts 

Community prosecution in Plymouth County has been operating since 1996 when 

Plymouth County District Attorney Michael Sullivan implemented the Safe Neighborhood 

Initiative (SNI).44 SNI provides residents and other local stakeholders with direct access to 

the district attorney’s office and other government officials, with whom they meet 

regularly. Two assistant attorneys general and two assistant district attorneys have been 

assigned to do community prosecution in Brockton, a city of many different immigrant 

groups. Each attorney carries a caseload that is handled using targeted, priority 

prosecution, which expedites case processing. District court cases, which include 

misdemeanors and low-level felonies, are tried within 60 days. Superior court cases, which 

include the most serious felony trials, are also expedited although not quite as fast. 

(Because there are more cases than the three attorneys can handle, the rest are randomly 

assigned to the trial attorneys.) SNI attorneys partner with the state police, who also have 

targeted Brockton with intensive patrols and proactive undercover operations, using a zero 

tolerance approach to gang and drug crime. A strong relationship with community 

residents familiarizes prosecutors with the details of the neighborhood where the crimes 

are committed and builds a better understanding of criminals’ histories and how they relate 

to quality-of-life issues in the neighborhood.45

Programs run by the district attorney’s office include the Abandoned Houses Project, 

created by the 1993 Receivership Statute.46 The statute empowers the district attorney or 

other public agency to bring an action requesting that a receiver be appointed to oversee 

the rehabilitation of a residential property that has been the subject of persistent code 

violations. After repairs have been made, the cost of the renovations is assessed against the 

 

44Information on Plymouth County is from an interview with Assistant District Attorney William Asci of the 

Brockton Safe Neighborhood Initiative and from the Plymouth County District Attorney’s web site, 

www.magnet.state.ma.us. 

45For a more complete description of the Safe Neighborhood Initiative, see Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 

46Massachusetts General Laws, Section 1271, Chapter 111 (1993). 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

56 

owner of the property as a priority lien. Should the owner fail to pay, the receiver may 

foreclose on the property to pay the debts and transfer ownership to a responsible landlord. 

The district attorney notifies landlords of drug activity on their property and informs them 

that, under state law, landlords who allow tenants who have been violating drug laws to 

remain in their buildings without attempting to evict them face possible civil action and 

criminal prosecution. The district attorney’s office also collaborates with Boys & Girls 

Clubs of Brockton to offer programs targeting at-risk youth, including a Peer Mediation 

Program and the Gang Prevention through Targeted Outreach Program. 

Washington, D.C., United States Attorney’s Office 

In June 1996, U.S. Attorney Eric H. Holder, Jr., created a pilot community prosecution 

program in the Fifth Police District, geographically assigning 19 assistant U.S. attorneys to 

patrol service areas (PSAs) in that district, to handle matters relating to that community.47

Trial attorneys in the community prosecution unit prosecuted cases assigned to them 

vertically. Two attorneys did community outreach only and did not try cases. 

In August 1999, the program was expanded to cover the entire city. Adaptation of the 

community prosecution philosophy to cover this area required several office adjustments. 

The Community Prosecution Major Crimes Division (CPMC) was created. Six teams of 

prosecutors, headed by a district chief, were assigned to handle major crimes and crimes of 

importance in the seven police districts. The Grand Jury/Intake Division, which evaluates 

cases brought in by police, was divided into teams of prosecutors assigned to police 

districts and each headed by a senior prosecutor. These attorneys are responsible for 

spending time at their district police station and in the community, working with residents 

and police directly. This division now makes initial screening decisions for community 

prosecution cases and ensures that these cases and the information elicited during 

interrogations and briefings are forwarded to the CPMC division. Designated attorneys in 

the misdemeanor and narcotics divisions work within the police districts, in effect, as 

members of the CPMC division. In addition, seven community outreach specialists and a 

supervisor have been assigned to and physically located at each police district as the liaison 

to the police and the community. They perform a problem-solving role, taking complaints 

and making referrals to appropriate agencies. The civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office also plays a role in problem solving, working with the forfeiture unit in the 

narcotics section and with law enforcement generally to identify nuisance properties that 

could be subject to abatement or forfeiture. Finally, a drug-related nuisance task force has 

been created consisting of assistant U.S. attorneys from the civil and criminal divisions and 

community outreach specialists to help address drug-related nuisances in the city. 

 

47Information on the Washington, D.C., community prosecution program is from materials supplied by 

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Clifford Keenan and DeMaurice Smith. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

57

Denver, Colorado 

Denver District Attorney William Ritter established the Community Prosecution Program 

in 1996 to be more responsive to the concerns of Denver’s residents over low-level crime 

that was affecting the quality of their daily lives (Wolf, 2000: 1).48 The program is staffed 

by a director, a community justice coordinator, three community justice advocates, and 

eight deputy district attorneys, two assigned to each targeted neighborhood. In addition to 

community work, these attorneys also carry a full caseload from their own prosecution 

units.49 They collaborate with the juvenile diversion program, the victim services unit, and 

the Weed and Seed program. (Geographical prosecution is not practical in Denver because 

of the manner in which the court system controls case scheduling.) 

A community justice advocate is assigned to each target area to perform community 

outreach and to act as facilitator for the Community Justice Councils that represent 

community interests in Globeville and Capitol Hill. The attorneys attend community 

meetings and work on specific neighborhood projects with local organizations and 

community police. The goals of the division include developing community capacity, 

involving the community in problem-solving partnerships with justice agencies, 

developing crime prevention and intervention strategies, coordinating law enforcement 

response to community crime problems, and focusing prosecution resources where they are 

most needed (Ritter and Motika, 1999). 

The Community Prosecution Division has established Community Justice Councils of 

neighborhood stakeholders. The councils meet once a month to identify neighborhood 

crime and quality-of-life issues, and to develop and coordinate strategies for dealing with 

them. They voice community concerns for community prosecutors to address. Residents 

are surveyed and interviewed to identify their principal concerns, which are prioritized by 

the councils. There are currently 2 councils, consisting of 20 to 35 members chosen by 

community prosecutors through indepth interviews.50 The first council was formed in 1997 

in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood, an area that has a number of risk factors, including 

high unemployment, a large minority population, and a high percentage of children living 

in poverty. Through group exercises on community problem identification, lack of parental 

supervision was identified as a high-priority problem in Globeville. Several strategies were 

created to address the problem, including the establishment of a special summer school for 

at-risk youth. The Globeville council also identified speeding as a pressing problem. 

Council members agreed to keep a log of information on speeding hotspots, identifying 

times that were most problematic as well as the age range of the drivers and the vehicle 

types involved. The information was to be analyzed and used to support the deployment of 

enforcement strategies such as selective use of radar. The information was also to be 

 

48Information on Denver’s Community Prosecution Division is from an interview and materials provided by 

Susan Motika; site visits to Capitol Hill and Globeville in April 2000; discussions with Community Justice 

Coordinator David Mrakitsch and Community Justice Advocate Erin Lange; Wolf, 2000; “The Denver 

District Attorney’s Office: Community Prosecution in Denver” (June, 1999); Ritter and Motika, 1999.

49Wolf, 2000. 

50The process is described by Susan Motika in “Best Practices” on www.communityjustice.org and Wolf, 

2000. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

58 

assessed to determine if the violators were primarily residents, which would require a 

change in community norms in addition to any proposed law enforcement response. 

The Community Prosecution Division also has established Community Accountability 

Boards (CABs), which are focused on restorative justice, or repairing the harm caused by 

crime. The boards connect juvenile offenders who have committed property crimes with 

their victims and members of the affected community to develop appropriate strategies for 

holding youth accountable for their actions and for repairing the harm they have done.51

Juvenile diversion and probation programs at the municipal and state levels may refer a 

juvenile to a community group conference. The juvenile, his or her parents, and CAB 

members attend the conference. The juvenile must admit to the charges, and the board 

imposes age-appropriate and community-based penalties. An assets worksheet is 

administered to the juvenile prior to the conference to elicit his interests and talents so that 

they can be incorporated into the community-based solution, if possible. CAB is staffed by 

a community justice coordinator (program director) and a full-time neighborhood justice 

coordinator, who is a resident of the community served. The CAB program increases 

community involvement in the justice system by recruiting neighborhood residents to 

conduct the conferences with juvenile offenders. 

Community safety forums are held in response to community requests for information 

about certain issues. One such request was for community education on nuisance 

abatement. The forums were held on Saturday mornings in the four targeted 

neighborhoods, each drawing between 50 and 100 neighborhood residents. Forums on 

graffiti and municipal code violations and enforcement have also been held. 

Erie County (Buffalo), New York 

Former County District Attorney Kevin Dillon started community prosecution in Erie 

County in 1996, with funding from New York State, to join with a community justice 

effort started by the Buffalo police.52 The Erie County District Attorney’s Office, which 

employs 92 attorneys, has jurisdiction over misdemeanors and felonies (the state attorney 

general handles civil matters, including forfeiture and nuisance cases). Erie County is 

primarily urban. The city of Buffalo, chosen as the first community prosecution site, has a 

diverse population that is more than 30 percent minority, as well as a large percentage of 

low-income residents and the highest crime rate in the county. 

The objectives of Erie County’s community prosecution program are to engage the 

community in identifying neighborhood problems and creating and implementing 

strategies to solve those problems, and to improve community relations. Two experienced 

prosecutors are assigned to these tasks, each with more than 14 years in the office. Their 

 

51The process is described in Ritter and Motika, 1999: 2 and Wolf, 2000. In 1998–1999, the Colorado 

General Assembly passed H.B. 99-1156, which provides for the use of a restorative justice process in the 

juvenile justice system (Ritter and Motika, 1999: 2). 

52Information about the Erie County District Attorney’s Office community prosecution program was obtained 

from interviews with Assistant District Attorney Michael Drmacich. 
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59

offices are in the city court building in Buffalo and are accessible to neighborhood 

residents. Although most contacts are by phone, citizens can drop in to speak with the 

attorneys at any time. The community prosecutors attend an average of two community 

meetings per week. Block club representatives attend hearings to monitor the progress and 

outcomes of cases of interest to the community, as well as to alert the judge to community 

concerns. 

The attorneys focus on misdemeanor quality-of-life offenses, the most pressing of which 

include car break-ins, prostitution, and nuisance properties. Although community outreach 

is their priority, they carry a reduced (but significant) caseload of about 350 cases per year 

involving misdemeanors of community importance, most referred to them by the 

community or the police, or involving repeat offenders or crime types that have been 

troublesome to the area. Prosecution is generally not vertical. Misdemeanor litigators 

handle most preliminary hearings and community prosecutors receive cases at a later stage. 

Felonies and overflow misdemeanor cases go to the trials division, where community 

prosecutors act as liaisons between the neighborhood and the trial attorneys. 

The police, the corporation counsel, who represents the city on civil matters, and the Office 

of Community Development are the main agencies that collaborate with the community 

prosecutors on a regular basis. The community prosecutors are legal advisors to the police 

and facilitate the relationship by teaching courses at the police academy and occasionally 

sitting in on police operations. 

The community prosecutors work alongside police on a prostitution task force. They 

administer the Johns School, a 1-day class for individuals charged with soliciting a 

prostitute. The faculty includes the prosecutor, who educates participants about the legal 

issues involved, former prostitutes, a public health nurse, and community members who 

talk about the impact of the crime on their community. First-time offenders who participate 

may ultimately have their charges dismissed upon satisfactory completion of the program. 

The Magdalene Program, for prostitutes who are first-time offenders, provides drug 

treatment and screening for social and human service needs. The court mandates 

participation in recommended programs and satisfactory completion may result in 

dismissal of the charges. 

Phoenix, Arizona 

The Phoenix City Prosecutor’s Office employs 65 attorneys, and has jurisdiction over 

violations of city civil ordinances, state misdemeanors, and nuisance and forfeiture cases. 

Phoenix, the city with the sixth largest population in the United States, is an urban area of 

about 450 square miles. 

The community prosecution program was created in 1996 under the leadership of City 

Prosecutor Kerry Wangberg.53 Community input helped determine the selection of the four 

 

53Information about the Phoenix City Prosecutor’s Office community prosecution program was obtained 

from interviews with Director of Community Prosecution Arron Carreon-Ainsa. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

60 

target sites. Prosecutors attended community meetings to inform residents of their 

intentions and to find out about community perceptions of crime and the type of help that 

was needed. The first site was located in Westwood, in a donated office space shared with 

community police officers. Westwood, the most densely populated area in Phoenix, was 

selected because it had an active neighborhood association, a viable association of rental 

property owners, and a strong link with the Department of Neighborhood Services. It also 

had the first or second highest crime rate in Phoenix. The prosecutor’s office organized 

meetings, listened to problems, and made plans to combine the resources of the 

community. One problem was that many of the area’s 171 apartment buildings were in 

disrepair. Community prosecutors teamed with the police department and the 

Neighborhood Services Department to turn them around, advising property owners to 

make necessary repairs or face prosecution. 

A second site, Palomino, had a Safe Neighborhoods grant from the U.S. Department of 

Housing and Urban Development. Neighborhood leaders sought community prosecution to 

complement their community justice effort. The site operates from a storefront office 

rented by the city, which also houses other community service agencies. The third site was 

opened in Granada, housed in what was once a residential treatment facility. The fourth 

was placed in Garfield, in combination with an existing Weed and Seed program. It shares 

space with several neighborhood associations and the local community police. 

The role of the community consists of identifying problems and helping to create solutions 

and carry them out. Residents testify at hearings for cases of community interest and help 

plan search warrant execution in their neighborhoods. They are instrumental in an 

antiprostitution project, where they testify on the terms of release for patrons arrested in 

their communities. Sentences often include exclusion from the neighborhood, and fliers 

with photographs of the offenders and details of their arrest are posted so residents can 

notify the police if they spot an offender. 

The five community prosecutors try few cases, but they do handle cases of importance to 

their neighborhoods. Most litigation is handled by the trials division, which also handles 

forfeiture and code enforcement cases. Criminal cases are prosecuted vertically. Phoenix 

community prosecutors collaborate mainly with neighborhood services, local police, 

developmental services, the city health department, the housing and planning department, 

and the fire department. 

Santa Clara County, California 

The Community Prosecution Unit was created by Santa Clara County District Attorney 

George Kennedy between 1996 and 1997.54 It is staffed by seven experienced prosecutors 

who are placed in each of the five districts in the community to work with local citizens, 

 

54Information on the Santa Clara community prosecution program comes from interviews with Deputy 

District Attorney Christopher Arriola and Assistant District Attorney Marc Buller, Supervisor of the 

Community Prosecution Unit, and from the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office web site, www.santaclarada.org. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

61

businesses, and county and city agencies. Specific issues addressed by community 

prosecutors include youth crime prevention, graffiti, gang and drug problems, and school 

safety. The attorneys divide their time between the central office and field offices located 

in community justice centers in their assigned neighborhoods, which also house other 

criminal justice agents such as public defenders and probation officers. They generally do 

not try cases; their main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. On 

cases of special interest to their communities, the attorneys act as liaisons between the trial 

attorney and the community, providing intelligence to the trial attorney and keeping the 

community informed about the status of the case. Community prosecutors also review 

cases filed by local police and try to detect crime patterns using crime mapping and other 

strategies. 

Prosecutor-initiated community programs include Operation Spotlight and the Restorative 

Justice Program. Operation Spotlight was created in collaboration with the probation 

office’s Restorative Justice Project and joins community prosecutors with a technical team 

of representatives from other city and county agencies. They focus on a selected small area 

within the community prosecution site, generally about four blocks, to identify 

neighborhood problems and develop strategies to solve them. Meetings and events are 

scheduled by the prosecutor in the spotlighted area and bring together the prosecutor, the 

technical team, the probation office’s community coordinator, and the community. 

Neighborhood-selected block captains act as liaisons between the community and law 

enforcement. The technical team wraps the community with services as part of a plan to 

clean up the area, improve services, and rally the neighborhood to take action to help 

themselves. 

Restorative justice in Santa Clara County is a three-pronged effort consisting of 

community protection, offender accountability to victims and the community, and 

competency development. The program is run cooperatively by the community prosecutors 

and the Juvenile Probation Department as a diversion program that targets first-time 

offenders charged with low-level offenses. Neighborhood Accountability Boards have 

been created, consisting of residents who have been trained to handle the cases and assign 

appropriate sanctions. The offenders must face their victim and members of the community 

to deal with their offenses. The probation office also evaluates the offenders to determine 

their needs and provide services, including educational and vocational assistance and 

counseling to deal with family or drug and alcohol issues. 

Pima County (Tucson), Arizona 

The Community Outreach Unit was created in 1997 by Pima County Attorney Barbara 

LeWall.55 It is staffed by one full-time attorney who maintains offices both in the field and 

in the main county attorney’s office. This attorney is responsible for the outreach and 

problem solving that takes place in the community. The staff also includes a part-time 

attorney who administers the Communities Addressing Responsible Gun Ownership 

 

55Information on community prosecution in Pima County is from an interview with Deputy County Attorney 

Christine Curtis and from “Civil Remedies Outline 1999–2000,” Pima County Attorney’s Office.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

62 

(CARGO) program, which promotes gun safety and responsible ownership through 

presentations at schools and community meetings. The community prosecutors do not try 

cases. Felony cases originating from target areas are randomly assigned to the trials 

division, which is organized by major crimes according to type. Misdemeanors are handled 

by the city attorney’s office, which has its own community prosecution unit, with whom 

the county community prosecutor maintains a working relationship. 

The community prosecution initiative originally targeted Pueblo Gardens, an urban 

residential community with serious crime problems but with some community organization 

and a relationship with community police. It has since expanded to cover adjacent 

suburban, residential, and commercial areas that include the city of South Tucson, which is 

surrounded by and separate from the city of Tucson. The community prosecutor’s 

involvement in officer training at the police academy and “ride-alongs” with patrol officers 

helps to solidify her relationship with the police officers in her area. Her immersion in the 

community through attendance at community meetings and involvement with 

neighborhood organizations and associations enables her to operate effectively despite the 

size of the area and the demands on her time. She considers the community to be the most 

important element of her efforts, acting as her eyes and ears in the neighborhood and 

offering input on shaping program priorities and problem-solving strategies. In response to 

community issues, the community prosecutor implemented Operation Spotlight in South 

Tucson. It is a collaborative effort with the probation department, the community, and 

local police to monitor and share information about offenders released on probation in the 

area. The program supports reentering offenders through community-based probation and 

services intended both to help them succeed and to protect the community from those who 

do not. The group meets weekly to discuss community issues and develop solutions. They 

also have team training sessions on problem-solving techniques. 

In addition, the community prosecutor addresses nuisance property issues by using civil 

law to force property owners to take responsibility for what takes place on the premises 

they lease. Four specific civil remedies are available to help the community solve problems 

and play a more active role in the criminal justice process. These remedies are not limited 

to the community prosecution areas, but rather are used throughout Pima County. 

Crime-Free Multihousing/Storage/Condominium Program 

The community prosecutor has trained the police in conducting a program that provides 

landlords with assistance in maintaining crime-free properties. Landlords receive step-bystep written instructions on how to evict tenants who break the law. They also are given a 

crime-free lease addendum, a written agreement by tenants not to engage in, or allow on 

the leased premises, any criminal activities, such as prostitution, drug sales, and gangrelated activities. Violation of the agreement is a lease violation and grounds for eviction. 

A record is made of the eviction and is accessible to any future landlord who screens 

prospective tenants. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

63

Crime Property Abatement Law 

This law defines residential property used for criminal activity as a nuisance. A nuisance 

action can be filed in civil court by the attorney general, the county attorney, the city 

attorney, or a resident affected by the nuisance. The owner, manager, or any other party 

responsible for the property can be sued. Once notice is given to this party that a nuisance 

exists, failure to take reasonable steps to stop the activity gives rise to the cause of action. 

Remedies include civil penalties of up to $10,000, closure of the property, damages, court 

costs, and attorney’s fees. The community prosecutor provides the community with written 

instructions on the steps that must be taken to set up a successful nuisance action. 

Forfeitures 

Arizona law provides for the forfeiture of property used to commit or facilitate the 

commission of various offenses. Owners are subject to forfeiture of their property if they 

know that criminal conduct is occurring or is likely to occur, and fail to take action to stop 

it. If the landlord is involved, even if he or she is acquitted of the underlying charge, the 

court may still uphold the forfeiture of property. 

Victims’ Rights 

Community prosecution is further aided by Arizona law, which allows neighborhood 

associations that are registered with the city to invoke the same rights afforded to an 

individual victim with regard to tracking a criminal case and having a voice about it in 

court. These include the right to be notified of certain court proceedings relative to the 

alleged crime, the right to be present at court proceedings, the right to make a statement at 

juvenile disposition or adult sentencing hearings, and the right to privacy. The latter shields 

witnesses who testify at the hearing from answering questions about their home address 

and telephone number. 

Jackson County (Kansas City), Missouri 

Jackson County Prosecutor Claire McCaskill created the community prosecution program, 

the Neighborhood Justice Team, in Kansas City in 1997 to address quality-of-life crimes.56

The program is funded by the Community-Backed Anti-Drug Tax (COMBAT), a county 

sales tax enacted by voters in 1990 to provide funding for antidrug programs and drug law 

enforcement initiatives. Six prosecutors are assigned to cover the city, which is divided 

into six geographic areasfour in urban Kansas City and two in suburban and rural areas. 

The attorneys spend most of their time in field offices located in the police bureaus in their 

assigned areas, but they also have offices in the main district attorney’s office. They work 

with the community, which provides them with input about community issues and 

problems, participates in the criminal justice system by testifying at trials and sentencing 

hearings, and is involved in the creation and implementation of problem-solving initiatives. 

The attorneys carry a reduced caseload that focuses on the community they serve. The 

 

56Information on the community prosecution program in Jackson County is from an interview and materials 

provided by Chief Trial Assistant Kathy Finnell and from Coles, 1997.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

64 

remaining cases are assigned by crime type to appropriate units of the trials division, which 

is organized according to major crimes. Only sex and domestic violence crimes are 

prosecuted vertically. 

The neighborhood prosecutors focus a considerable amount of their time on problem 

solving, engaging all levels of government agencies, business coalitions, religious groups, 

and virtually any individual or group with resources and a stake in the community, to 

respond to community issues. All programs and resources generated by COMBAT are 

available, including programs such as the Drug Abatement Response Team (DART) and 

the drug court, a diversion and treatment program that was created in 1993 for druginvolved offenders without a history of violence or possession of drugs in large amounts 

for distribution. Civil remedies, through state nuisance and eviction laws, provide 

opportunities in addition to criminal convictions to rid the community of drug dealers and 

other problem situations. 

In 1997, the prosecutor’s office led a COMBAT-funded antidrug initiative representing 

property owners; community and neighborhood organizations; local, state, and federal 

officials; city, state, and federal prosecutors; HUD; and the FBI. The initiative cleaned up a 

15-block area called the “Passeo Corridor,” one of the worst crime areas in the city using 

lease/agreement regulations, demolishing abandoned buildings, and using landlord/tenant 

laws to expedite evictions for drug-related crimes in both private and public housing. 

Officials reported a 50-percent reduction in crime within the first year, and statements from 

residents that they felt safer. 

Honolulu, Hawaii 

The community prosecution program in Honolulu was implemented in 1997 under 

Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle to reduce crime and fear by creating partnerships with 

the community, law enforcement, and governmental agencies to address quality-of-life 

problems.57 The program is operated by the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney using 

three full-time attorneys who work out of the main office in downtown Honolulu. Each 

attorney is assigned to one of three community prosecution sites, located in urban and 

suburban areas, and is responsible for community outreach. In addition, each has a legal 

specialty (domestic violence, juvenile prosecutions, and drug-related or general cases) and 

is responsible for prosecuting cases that involve that specialty emerging from any of the 

three sites. Community prosecution attorneys carry caseloads of 50 to 200 cases. However, 

they are unable to cover all of the cases that are generated by the community prosecution 

sites and generally take the more serious or complicated felony cases, and/or the cases of 

greatest significance to the community. The intake division screens incoming cases. Cases 

originating from community prosecution sites are flagged and passed along to the 

community prosecution supervisor, who then makes the case assignments. Overflow cases 

are assigned to the office’s trial teams, which are organized according to major crimes 

 

57Information on the Honolulu community prosecution program is from an interview with Assistant 

Prosecuting Attorney Claire Merry and “Special Report: Community Prosecution Program,” Department of 

the Prosecuting Attorney, City and County of Honolulu (January 2000). 
Community Prosecution Strategies

65

rather than geographically. Cases in each specialty are randomly assigned to the 

appropriate team. Vertical prosecution is used for all criminal cases, with the exception of 

petty misdemeanor, nonjury trial cases. Community prosecutors collaborate with 

community policing teams, federal prosecutors, and citizen groups. 

Division projects include narcotics and prostitution abatement programs, in which 

prosecutors mobilize community residents and train them in abatement techniques. In 

Waikiki, the tourism industry was suffering because of the prostitution problem. The 

Prostitution Abatement Task Force filed a nuisance abatement action to impose 

geographical restrictions against known prostitutes in the Waikiki district. Upon 

conviction, they are banned from the area as a condition of probation. The prosecutors also 

introduced legislation to prohibit prostitutes from the district, which passed in 1998. In 

addition, a 12-week prostitution intervention program is available for women getting out of 

the profession. Free workshops are held on topics related to health, building self-esteem, 

and access to community resources. 

The prosecutors are involved in the Weed and Seed program in Oahu. A special Weed and 

Seed court fast-tracks cases and the Honolulu Drug Court also handles appropriate cases. 

Preliminary results of Weed and Seed indicate that the majority of misdemeanor cases 

were disposed of early with no contest pleas. 

Honolulu has received a BJA community prosecution grant for a new project, which is a 

partnership between the prosecutor’s office and the school district to prevent and reduce 

youth violence. A community relations specialist will be hired by the prosecutor’s office to 

assess violence on school campuses and develop strategies to address this problem. This 

individual will be a liaison among educators, families, community organizations, and the 

prosecutor’s office on youth violence issues. One need that has been identified is for 

schools to know about adjudicated youth who are being returned to classes. Information 

must be shared among the agencies that deal with these young people. The community 

relations specialist will also provide training for school faculty and staff in areas such as 

identifying children at risk, handling the delinquent child in the classroom, and making 

referrals to the juvenile justice system. Teachers will be educated about the resources 

available to address these children’s issues. 

San Diego, California 

The San Diego City Attorney has jurisdiction over all misdemeanors committed within the 

city, provides legal advice to city agencies, represents them in civil matters, and handles 

civil litigation such as nuisance abatement and forfeitures. The city attorney’s office 

employs 65 attorneys and prosecutes approximately 40,000 misdemeanor cases each year. 

San Diego City Attorney Casey Gwinn created the Neighborhood Prosecution Unit in 

1997.58 Two attorneys worked citywide on projects identified by the community police and 

 

58Information about the San Diego City Attorney’s Office Neighborhood Prosecution Unit was obtained from 

interviews and information provided by Neighborhood Prosecution Unit Division Head Joan Dawson. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

66 

vertically prosecuted cases generated through the Problem Oriented Policing Program 

consisting of quality-of-life crimes such as loitering for prostitution and racing cars on city 

streets. In July 2000, the program was restructured. There are currently four attorneys 

involved in the community prosecution effort including the head deputy city attorney, who 

supervises the program, and a second attorney who is engaged full time as the coordinator 

for the community court initiative. Two neighborhood prosecutors have been placed in 

field offices in police substations where they walk the beat with community police, attend 

community meetings, and vertically prosecute a reduced caseload of cases selected for 

their importance to the community. The city is divided into eight police districts, including 

the pilot sites of Mid City and Central. Mid City, an area undergoing revitalization, was 

selected because of its high crime rate. The Central site, which includes both downtown 

and residential areas, has a diverse population. Its residents speak more than a dozen 

languages. Target problems include prostitution, graffiti, vandalism, and drug-related 

crime. Problem-solving initiatives include the Prostitution Task Force, Community Safety 

Initiative, and community service centers. 

Prostitution Task Force 

This initiative combines the efforts of the city attorney, the police, and the community to 

respond to prostitution in two ways. First, a community impact panel of residents, 

businessowners, and representatives from community-based organizations meets with 

individuals who have offended in their communities to inform them of the impact that 

prostitution has on their neighborhoods. On the panel are former prostitutes and patrons 

who share their experiences with the offenders. Second, various social service agencies and 

programs are brought together to work on getting prostitutes off the streets and providing 

them with needed services, such as drug and alcohol treatment, vocational training, 

counseling, and help in finding affordable housing. The task force meets on a monthly 

basis and is chaired by the neighborhood prosecutor. 

Community Safety Initiative 

This is also a collaborative program, teaming the police, city attorneys, schools, and 

community groups to increase the understanding of middle school-aged youth about the 

criminal justice system. The 8-week program includes instruction from criminal justice 

officials, tours of the criminal courthouse and local police station, and a mock trial in 

which the students participate as attorneys, witnesses, victims, and jury members. The 

neighborhood prosecutor acts as the judge. The program began in Mid City and has been 

expanded into schools in the Central district. 

Community Service Centers 

Fourteen community service centers have been set up in locations around the city to 

decentralize city agency service providers, with neighborhood prosecutors acting as 

liaisons between agency representatives and the community. Monday through Thursday, 

residents can meet with representatives from these agencies in their neighborhoods rather 

than having to travel into the city. Each center has space available to residents for 

community meetings. To further facilitate problem solving, neighborhood prosecutors have 
Community Prosecution Strategies

67

developed a resource guide that details where residents can go with problems that are 

outside the prosecutors’ range of expertise. 

Kalamazoo County, Michigan 

The Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office created the Neighborhood 

Prosecuting Attorney Program in 1998 under Prosecuting Attorney James Gregart.59 The 

program focuses on quality-of-life issues and crime prevention, specifically targeting 

domestic violence, substance abuse, and juvenile violence. The neighborhood prosecuting 

attorney acts as a community liaison. Two community prosecutors in this office are 

presently assigned to field offices in two neighborhoods. The attorneys vertically prosecute 

a small number of select cases that are of particular importance to their communities. The 

remainder of their time is spent networking with the community to solve problems. 

The first site was located in Edison, one of the oldest cities in Kalamazoo County, where 

60 percent of the residents rent their homes and the crime rate is one of the highest in the 

county. The community already had some business and neighborhood associations. In 

addition, community police officers assigned to the neighborhood already had a positive 

relationship with residents. Program goals, which were set by residents, identified housing 

and youth problems as high priorities. Some of the rental units in the neighborhood were 

deteriorating because of landlords’ neglect. The community prosecution attorney identified 

the owners of these buildings and brought in the housing authority to handle the problem. 

Residents were trained to testify at hearings and informed of the type of information that 

was needed. Criminal prosecutions were initiated. As a result, the court ordered landlords 

to sell the properties that they could not afford or did not want to repair. 

Youth issues involved truancy and curfew violations. Youth were hanging out in the 

neighborhood after-hours drinking, using drugs, and making noise. In 1999, the problem 

was addressed by creating a curfew/truancy program operated through the Boys & Girls 

Club, known as the Center for Leadership Options for Community Kids (CLOCK). Police 

now cite young violators of state curfew laws and repeat truants, take them to the club, and 

contact their parents and/or teachers. The center operates a voluntary diversion program. 

Youth who refuse the program are referred to juvenile court. Program participants are 

assessed for personal, school, family, and employment issues and referred to appropriate 

agencies for help. They are taught leadership skills and connected with other positive 

activities. If the youth stay out of trouble for a period of time, the charges against them are 

dropped and their cases are not referred to juvenile court. If a juvenile gets into more 

trouble, the charges are referred and the youth ends up in the justice system. This fairly 

sizeable and ongoing program seems to be having the desired impact (Reifert, 2000, and 

Karen Hayter, personal communication). 

A recent evaluation of the program indicates that the Edison site has experienced a 17- 

percent reduction in Part I crimes since the community prosecution program was initiated, 

 

59Information about community prosecution in Kalamazoo County is from interviews with Senior 

Neighborhood Prosecutor Karen Hayter and Reifert, 2000.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

68 

in contrast to the 4-percent reduction experienced in the rest of Kalamazoo County 

(Reifert, 2000). 

The success of community prosecution efforts in Edison led to the opening of a second site 

in the North Side community in October 1999. Residents were complaining about an openair drug market, and the office brought in an undercover drug team that uses special tactics, 

such as reverse stings. Users caught in the investigation receive a special sentencing option 

providing substance abuse treatment and dismissal of charges if they successfully complete 

the program. 

Cook County (Chicago), Illinois 

Although the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had a community prosecution 

program as early as 1973, officials consider the current program, created in 1998 by Cook 

County Attorney Richard A. Devina, to be an unrelated effort.60 The catalyst for the 

current initiative was the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategies (CAPS) program, 

established by the Chicago Police Department in 1992. CAPS placed officers in 

communities to encourage residential involvement in crime prevention strategies and 

participation in the prosecution of cases in court (Skogan and Hartnett, 1997). CAPS 

encouraged the formation of citizens groups and successfully created networks of 

cooperation in many neighborhoods. As the police sought to address community problems, 

the need for the legal expertise of the prosecutor’s office to devise and implement solutions 

became clear. In addition, residents suggested that minor quality-of-life problems that most 

affected neighborhoods were being overlooked or not handled effectively by the 

prosecutor’s office. As residents’ needs became clear through CAPS, the state’s attorney’s 

office began to respond to them more effectively. It was in the neighborhoods where CAPS 

had created networks with residents and community organizations that the county state’s 

attorney’s office began its community prosecution efforts. 

Today, 11 prosecutors are dedicated to the community prosecution effort, including 2 

supervisors and a prevention coordinator. Two attorneys are assigned to each of four 

community prosecution sites in Cook County. The pilot site began on the ethnically 

diverse North Side of the city in the 20th Police District. The community prosecution 

office was staffed by two prosecutors, an experienced attorney to handle felonies, and 

another attorney with 2 to 3 years of experience to handle misdemeanors. 

Community prosecutors use a vertical prosecution strategy in cases of importance to the 

community and focus on crimes committed by repeat offenders. They track the cases 

prosecuted by other attorneys, providing assistance and background intelligence for the 

trial attorneys to facilitate communication with the community, victims, and witnesses. 

These overflow cases are randomly assigned to the general trials teams and the major 

crimes divisions by crime type. The community prosecutors spend mornings in court 

handling their sizeable caseloads and afternoons in their offices doing paperwork and 

 

60Information on Chicago’s community prosecution program is from an interview with Deputy Supervisor of 

Community Prosecution Neera Walsh.
Community Prosecution Strategies

69

responding to community concerns. The office is accessible to neighborhood residents, 

who are free to walk in and speak with the attorneys. Prosecutors meet with community 

groups and attend meetings approximately two evenings per week to discuss issues and 

problem-solving strategies. 

A steering committee was created in each of the four community prosecution sites to 

facilitate problem-solving efforts. Members of the steering committees include local 

aldermen, representatives of city services, the parks authority, the school board, social 

service agencies, the police, the City Attorney’s Office, and large community-based 

organizations. The participation of this full array of organizations strengthens efforts to 

respond to neighborhood problems that are beyond the direct control of the prosecutor. 

Liquor Store Owners Rights and Responsibilities Program 

There were numerous liquor stores in the poor neighborhoods targeted; their owners sold 

single serving portions to patrons and encouraged them to loiter outside their stores to 

drink. This practice was banned. Owners were informed of the rules of operation in the 

community, their rights, and the help they could expect from police and prosecutors in 

implementing these policies. 

Summer Opportunity Program for Kids 

This program was started in response to complaints from the community that youth were 

hanging out on the streets during the summer. The youth told community prosecutors that 

they wanted summer jobs, so businessowners were persuaded to offer jobs and internships. 

Opportunities were provided for the youth to talk to criminal justice officials, especially 

police, to discuss issues and problems that were resulting in confrontations between 

groups. 

Hate Crimes Strategy 

The community prosecution program handles hate crimes, prosecuting these cases 

vertically and educating police on their proper handling. Prosecutors give talks to school 

children about such crimes and what is being done about them. This emphasis on hate 

crimes was triggered by an incident that occurred during the Fourth of July weekend in 

1999, when an individual went on a shooting spree, targeting minority victims. Four 

people were killed, and others were wounded before the assailant killed himself. 

Nassau County, New York 

Although Nassau County, on suburban Long Island, has one of the lowest crime rates in 

the nation, crime problems have developed in lower income urban and suburban areas of 

the county where the population includes a high percentage of adolescents. In 1998, 

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon implemented a proactive strategy to reduce 

crime and improve life in the county and established the first community prosecution site 
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70 

in the village of Hempstead.61 He hired a community prosecutor who began to create 

relationships with residents, citizens’ associations, and local stakeholders by attending 

community meetings and publishing a community newsletter. Dillon hosted meetings with 

leaders from the minority community and civic and religious organizations to find out 

about areas of concern. He formed a community advisory group of residents and other 

stakeholders to facilitate communication and provide feedback on existing programs and 

propose new strategies to respond to community issues. 

One problem was a lack of afterschool programs that left many youth unsupervised and 

resulted in elevated levels of juvenile crime. To address this concern, Dillon created a 

partnership between his office and the Boys & Girls Club, Big Brothers and Sisters, local 

police, and the public schools to develop afterschool and mentoring programs aimed at 

intervention and prevention. The Rising Star Program is the product of this partnership. 

The office coordinated the program using forfeiture monies, which were supplemented in 

1999 with a grant from BJA. Beginning in 1998, a summer program for at-risk youth from 

Hempstead was offered in one of the public schools. A soccer program was started for 

children in grades one through eight. A free summer camp provided soccer training for 8 

weeks, and more than 150 youth participated. A sports mentoring program was established 

which offered guidance and training in boxing and lacrosse, and a golden gloves boxing 

team was established in Hempstead Village. 

Nuisance properties were another community priority, specifically rental properties used 

for drug dealing. Trespass/eviction procedures were put in place to evict tenants who used 

their homes to distribute drugs. Procedures were set up with landlords and police to 

compile resident lists for apartment buildings, so that individuals who were neither guests 

nor residents of the building (drug buyers) could be arrested and charged with trespassing. 

Due to the success of the pilot project, four additional sites have been created in Roosevelt, 

Westbury, New Cassle, and Freeport. Four attorneys have been hired to cover them. The 

community prosecutors do not try cases. Their main responsibilities are community 

outreach and community-based programs, as well as prosecution of misdemeanor cases 

from their assigned locations that qualify to be heard in the Hempstead Community Court. 

They track cases that originate from their community and help trial attorneys assigned to 

those cases with preparation and community-generated intelligence about neighborhood 

issues. 

The Nassau County District Attorney was primarily responsible for creating the 

community court, which opened in Hempstead on June 16, 1999. Court operations have 

expanded from 1 to 3 days per week, adjudicating misdemeanor-level quality-of-life 

crimes that originate from the five community prosecution sites. It is a disposition court 

modeled after a drug court, meaning that the offender must agree to plead guilty to 

 

61Information on Nassau County’s community prosecution efforts is from an interview with Assistant District 

Attorney Rene Fiechter; the district attorney’s newsletter, Rising Star, Volume II, Number II (2000); Rising 

Star, Office of the District Attorney, Nassau County (August, 1999); DA Newsletter, Community Crime 

Prevention Update (March 1998); and the web site, www.nassauda.org. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

71

participate. The plea must be to the top count charged in the indictment, and the defendant 

is placed on probation for up to 1 year. Successful completion of the probationary terms 

and conditions may result in the withdrawal of the plea, with a conviction entered to a 

lower-level charge, or an outright dismissal of charges. Sanctions generally include 

community service. The court also offers many types of social services, including 

treatment programs for offenders with drug, alcohol, or mental health problems. 

Knox County, Tennessee 

Tennessee Sixth District Attorney General Randy Nichols implemented a community 

prosecution program in Knox County in 1998.62 His office employs 40 attorneys and has 

jurisdiction over misdemeanor and felony crimes occurring in Knox County. The county 

encompasses a mix of urban/inner-city, suburban, and rural areas and is characterized by a 

high degree of diversity. The population of approximately 360,000 is about 79-percent 

white, 20-percent black, and 2-percent Hispanic. Income levels are also diverse, ranging 

from high levels in the suburbs to an estimated 80 percent of inner-city families who are 

under the poverty level. 

The office received a BJA enhancement grant in 2000 to hire an attorney and make 

improvements to a program that focuses on truancy. Truancy was selected as the target 

problem because research indicates that it is a precursor to crime, and also because it was 

repeatedly raised as an issue at meetings of various community organizations. The truancy 

program has been instituted countywide in more than 100 schools. The target population 

consists mainly of elementary and middle school children, with whom, it is believed, there 

is a better chance of effecting behavioral change than with high school children. 

The school district defines truancy as 5 or more days of unexcused absence. When a 

student has been truant for 15 days or more, the district attorney becomes involved. The 

child and parents are notified that they must attend a Parental Responsibility Truancy 

meeting at the school, which is also attended by an assistant district attorney, the school 

superintendent, and representatives from social service agencies and the juvenile probation 

office. The child and parents are instructed on the implications of adult life without a high 

school diploma, as well as the possibility of criminal charges being brought against the 

parents (or the child, if he or she is over age 16) should the truancy continue. The grant 

was also used to add a second component to the program, a truancy review board 

consisting of representatives from the school, school psychologists, security staff, police, 

and social service providers. Should the truancy continue after the parental responsibility 

hearing, the family will be referred to a review board and assessed to determine whether 

services are needed to address problems that may underlie the truancy issue. There is 

followup to ensure that the parents follow through on any referrals that are made. If the 

child persists in being truant, a warrant will be filed requiring the parent and/or child to 

appear in court on a misdemeanor charge (punishable by up to 1 year in jail in the State of 

Tennessee). The parent may receive a sentence of up to 250 hours of community service 

 

62Information about the Knox County community prosecution program was obtained from interviews with 

Community Prosecution Coordinator Rhonda Garren. 
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72 

and be placed on supervised probation for 1 year. Should a parent violate probation by 

allowing continued truancy, the parent may be detained in jail for 10 days. 

Efforts to engage the community include a community advisory board that is currently 

being developed, which will include community residents who will provide guidance and 

advice on the truancy issue. The prosecutor’s office will conduct a media campaign to 

promote parental awareness of the truancy issue and implement a truancy hotline, which 

citizens can call to report truants. An assistant district attorney has been hired to manage 

the program, with the assistance of a paralegal. The attorney will handle all court cases 

generated by the truancy initiative, facilitate the truancy review board, attend parental 

responsibility meetings, and generate program statistics. This attorney maintains an office 

in the juvenile courthouse and devotes all of her time to the truancy program. 

The prosecutor also uses a truancy center, staffed by the police and social service agencies. 

Any children of school age found on the streets during school days are taken to the center. 

The parents are contacted, an assessment is made as to whether the child or his family is in 

need of services, and appropriate referrals are made. 

Travis County (Austin), Texas 

In 1999, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle created the Neighborhood DA 

Program, one of several community justice initiatives that include the Austin Community 

Court, community justice councils, neighborhood conference committees, and sentencing 

circles.63 One attorney has been assigned to a pilot location in an urban area in Northeast 

Austin, which was experiencing problems with gangs, violent crime, and general disorder. 

The site is also a designated Weed and Seed location, so some community organizations 

were already in place. 

The community prosecutor is assigned to a field office located in the police substation that 

is responsible for the Northeast site, which has helped to build a strong working 

relationship between the agencies. Community outreach consists mainly of attending 

community meetings several times per week to learn about local issues and seek citizen 

input on possible solutions to the problems. The attorney spends the majority of time in the 

community and is accessible to the residents. This attorney screens the cases that are 

generated in the Northeast community and carries a small load of felony-level quality-oflife cases (the district attorney does not have jurisdiction over misdemeanors). The trials 

division, through random case assignment, handles the majority of cases. Important cases 

that the community prosecutor cannot handle are flagged to alert the trial attorney to 

special issues or to provide neighborhood-generated intelligence. The community 

prosecutor is also available to sit as second chair on these cases or to help with trial 

preparation. The clerk of courts schedules cases on a random basis, which makes vertical 

or geographical prosecution impractical. 

 

63Information about Austin’s community prosecution program comes from an interview with Meg Brooks, 

Assistant District Attorney; and from “Austin, Texas ” on the Community Justice Exchange, Best Practices 

web page (at www.communityjustice.org).
Community Prosecution Strategies

73

Earle’s office drafted the state law that created community justice councils. The councils’ 

mission is to empower neighborhoods and citizens to create and maintain a safe 

community, and to increase public safety and reduce crime through working groups and 

committees of criminal justice officials, private citizens, and social service providers. 

West Palm Beach, Florida 

Palm Beach County’s Community-Based Anti-Crime Task Force (COMBAT) was 

implemented under State Attorney Barry Krischer.64 It grew out of existing communitybased initiatives in the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, most notably Weed 

and Seed, to which two prosecutors had been assigned. In July 1999, the program 

consolidated Weed and Seed and the Vice Department’s narcotics nuisance abatement unit 

into a community prosecution program. Five attorneys are currently assigned to the 

program, along with one paralegal and a secretary. The attorneys are geographically 

assigned to specific areas within West Palm Beach, where they maintain field offices in 

addition to their offices in the main building. Attorneys are responsible for community 

outreach in their assigned districts and carry a reduced load of cases that are important to 

the community, ranging from major felonies to less serious crimes. Prosecutors work with 

the police on investigations, screen cases that originate in their district, and vertically 

prosecute the cases that are of priority to their community. Residents are encouraged to 

appear at sentencing hearings to give their input on the damage caused by defendants in 

these cases. 

The neighborhoods that the program covers are mostly in the inner city, with a poor 

minority population. Many community outreach avenues were already set up through the 

Weed and Seed programs. As a result of the organizing that now takes place, residents in 

many areas have formed crime watch groups that patrol the streets at night to prevent drug 

dealers from doing their business. Attorneys are required to meet with residents in their 

neighborhoods, attend community meetings, and give talks when requested to do so. The 

attorneys also go out to schools and teach classes about the criminal justice system, 

something that had been required of all attorneys even before community prosecution. The 

community prosecution unit uses problem-solving strategies that include nuisance 

abatement and narcotics eviction. In one instance, the unit successfully closed a nuisance 

bar, which the city then bought and turned into a community center. 

Community partners include the community police and a community court that also 

opened in summer 1999. The relationship between them is a positive one and the attorneys 

train the police on legal and procedural issues. The community has been receptive to the 

community court, which is responsive to issues of importance to them, processes cases in 

an expedited fashion, provides social services to defendants and residents alike, and 

requires defendants who commit quality-of-life offenses to pay something back to the 

community. The COMBAT unit coordinates all multiagency projects that require 

assistance from state and federal agencies. This has resulted in cooperative relationships 

 

64Information is from an interview and materials provided by Assistant State’s Attorney James Martz, Chief 

of the Community-Based Anti-Crime Task Force. 
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74 

among agencies, each with a single point of contact, which have gained enough credibility 

with one another to get an immediate response when one is needed. 

Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota 

Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar created a community prosecution program in 

1999 to ensure that the criminal justice system would be responsive and accountable to 

county residents by building stronger connections between the courtroom and the 

community.65 The county has three community prosecution sites in racially and ethnically 

diverse residential areas, focused on addressing felony-level livability crimes including 

arson, burglary, and auto theft. These sites include the Third Police Precinct, where a fulltime prosecutor works with local police and the community; the Fourth Precinct, where 

three prosecutors, including two juvenile prosecutors, handle problems that the community 

identifies as most serious; and Bloomington, where a full-time attorney handles all juvenile 

cases that arise there. The attorneys are located in field offices and carry a full caseload, 

which they prosecute vertically. Violent crimes are handled by the violent crimes section 

of the office and drug crimes are addressed at the drug court. In addition, attorneys act as 

liaisons with every law enforcement agency and school in the county. 

In the Third Precinct, a community council of local stakeholders and neighborhood 

representatives provides insight into community concerns, encourages neighborhood 

participation in cases of community importance, and decides where community work 

squad projects should be done. The Fourth Precinct uses restorative justice principles 

through sentencing circles for minor juvenile crime, allowing the community to have a say 

in sanctions meted out to juvenile offenders and facilitating face-to-face meetings between 

victims and offenders. The office takes nuisance properties and felony-level damage done 

by graffiti seriously. The county also has a community court, which devotes separate days 

each week to hearing adult community prosecution cases from the Third and Fourth 

Precinct sites. 

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio 

Cuyahoga County encompasses the city of Cleveland, where approximately one-third of 

the county’s 1.4 million residents are found, along with 60 percent of the crime. The 

County Prosecutor’s Office employs 200 attorneys, has jurisdiction over felony cases, and 

represents city agencies in civil matters. The office shares responsibility for misdemeanor 

cases with the Municipal Prosecutor. 

County Prosecutor William Mason created the Community-Based Prosecution (CBP) 

program in 1999.66 The city of East Cleveland was selected as the target site because of its 

 

65Information about community prosecution in Hennepin County is from interviews with assistant county 

attorneys Martha Holton-Dimick, Ericka Mozangue, and Terri Froehlke and from materials found on the 

county attorney’s web site, www.hennepinattorney.org.

66Information about Cuyahoga County’s Community-Based Prosecution Program was obtained from 

interviews with Assistant County Prosecutor Richard Neff. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

75

high crime rate and low economic status, and because its mayor said that the city needed 

the program. A survey of residents and feedback from community meetings indicated that 

the community would be receptive to the prosecutor’s help. Three attorneys were assigned, 

each to a specific category of crime—adult, juvenile, and gang related. In July 2000, two 

additional sites were opened in Cleveland, where two attorneys each were assigned to the 

First and Sixth Districts, because of a rising crime rate resulting from the displacement of 

crime caused by CBP in adjacent East Cleveland. 

The CPB program is described as “law and order based” in the sense that its partnership 

with the police is of primary importance. Attorneys maintain field offices near police 

stations and have benefited from existing relationships with the community created by 

community policing. The attorneys are veteran prosecutors who maintain caseloads only 

slightly smaller than those of traditional trial attorneys, consisting of cases from their 

assigned areas that are of community concern. These cases are prosecuted vertically. 

Community cases that CBP attorneys are not able to handle are randomly assigned to 

felony trial attorneys, who are required to consult with the CBP supervisor for advice and 

approval of plea agreements. CBP attorneys are required to get out into their 

neighborhoods and attend community activities and meetings. Recognizing the difficulties 

of effectively and efficiently handling both of these duties, the prosecutor has hired 

community activists and neighborhood residents as outreach coordinators. They act as the 

eyes and ears of the attorneys in the community, supplementing their efforts by 

coordinating community-based activities and attending community meetings. Residents are 

engaged in CBP efforts through membership on the citizen advisory board and input from 

the board at community meetings. The board meets monthly to discuss quality-of-life 

issues and develop strategies to address them. 

CBP collaborates with state and local agencies to meet residents’ needs. The relationship 

between the prosecutor’s office and the police, which had been strained, has been greatly 

improved by the interaction between the agencies that has resulted from CBP. Social 

service agencies have been drawn into the effort. Their representatives are stationed in 

neighborhood centers run by a nonprofit organization that provides services, such as 

mental health and family counseling, to community members who had difficulty accessing 

them. A partnership with school officials has created a truancy center and the Truancy 

Reduction Alliance to Contact Kids (TRACK) program. This effort combines personnel 

from the East Cleveland police department and the school district, social service providers 

from the Neighborhood Center, and parents to reduce truancy in the city. The center 

provides a convenient location for police officers to drop off truants that they find on the 

streets during school hours, where they are assessed to determine whether they need social 

services. School officials and parents are notified of the child’s whereabouts, and parents 

are responsible for picking their children up and returning them to school. If a parent is 

unable to transport the student, center staff will deliver the child to the custody of a school 

official. TRACK also includes a diversion component for first-time offenders. 
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76 

Brevard/Seminole County, Florida 

Brevard/Seminole County State’s Attorney Norman Wolfinger, whose office has 

jurisdiction in misdemeanor, felony, civil public nuisance, and forfeiture cases, created the 

Neighborhood State Attorney Initiative (NSAI) in 1999.67 Titusville was chosen as the 

pilot site for NSAI. The NSAI attorney is stationed in a field office along with 

representatives from most of the community and social service agencies. Services available 

there include a juvenile crime prevention/intervention program, an AIDS support program, 

independent living and mental health programs, and a food bank. Titusville is low income, 

urban, mostly residential, and has one of the county’s highest crime rates. It is divided into 

three zones, one of which is the primary community prosecution focus. Titusville was 

chosen because it has its own court, with one judge who handles all felonies and one who 

handles all misdemeanors committed in the city. A chief committed to community justice 

leads the city’s police department. A strong community structure was already in place, 

with active organizations that cared about the city. The community prosecution initiative 

targets quality-of-life issues such as blight, deteriorating housing, and code violations, 

which, together with the high crime rate, have contributed to the closing of many area 

businesses. One of the goals of community justice is to stimulate the economy and attract 

businesses back to the city. 

Two other community prosecution sites are Altimonte Springs in Orlando, 15 to 20 miles 

outside of Disney World, and Palm Bay. Altimonte Springs has a high concentration of 

residential subdivisions and businesses in an urban setting. The target problems are mainly 

code violations and drug dealing. Palm Bay was a rural area that has recently begun a 

transformation to residential usage. New, low-cost, single-family housing developments 

have attracted residents from the North, but there is no infrastructure or sense of 

community. Although Palm Bay has 80,000 residents, only after years of bussing are 

schools being built to accommodate children within the neighborhood, which prosecutors 

believe is a factor in the area’s primary issues of juvenile crime and gangs. 

One attorney and one paralegal are stationed at each site. The role of the attorneys differs 

from site to site. They attend community meetings and engage community residents. They 

also take on as large a caseload of community impact cases as they can manage without 

compromising community outreach. Overflow cases are assigned to the trials division 

alphabetically and, except for Titusville, are randomly assigned to four judges at the 

centralized courthouse. Only specialized trial teams (sex crimes and career criminals) and 

the misdemeanor division prosecute cases vertically. 

The role of the community is primarily advisory. Surveys were conducted at community 

activities to identify problems and receive input on possible solutions. Focus groups of 

residents, community leaders, and other area stakeholders such as private and nonprofit 

agencies and businesses were also used to identify problems and brainstorm solutions. 

Businessowners have been supportive, volunteering time and funds. Other community 

 

67Information about the Brevard/Seminole County State Attorney’s Office NSAI was obtained from 

interviews and information provided by State Attorney Phil Archer. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

77

partners include area police, the North Brevard Coalition of volunteers from social and 

human service agencies, and faith-based organizations. 

Montgomery County, Maryland 

In 1991, Montgomery County State’s Attorney Andrew Sonner created a community 

prosecution program to complement a new community policing program he had begun. 

The office was reorganized and the attorneys were divided into five teams, each assigned 

to one of the five police districts. Although this pilot effort ended about 1995, it served to 

pioneer the concept in Montgomery County. A new program was created in July 1999 by 

newly elected County State’s Attorney Douglas Gansler, which again entailed restructuring 

the prosecutor’s office on the basis of police districts.68 All 59 attorneys in the office have 

been assigned geographically to cover the county’s 5 police districts to address 

neighborhood crime more effectively. 

Each trial team is staffed in proportion to the number of cases that arise from its district, 

and includes attorneys who specialize in juvenile crime, family violence, and economic 

crime. The attorneys are stationed in the central prosecutor’s office. The objective was to 

have dedicated teams of prosecutors who were familiar with community problems and who 

had developed positive relationships with local police, residents, and other community 

stakeholders. Each team has a team captain who bears primary responsibility for 

community contact. Cases originating in the district are prosecuted by the team working in 

that district. All felony cases are prosecuted vertically. The community prosecutors work 

with police and community organizations to solve crime-related problems. They also work 

with every public and private school in the area. Community partners include police, 

sheriffs, schools, civic groups, faith-based organizations, chambers of commerce, 

apartment and property managers, and county attorneys. 

The most recent BJA grant has been used to place three senior attorneys into the three 

busiest police districts to do more community problem solving and to use office resources 

more efficiently. They screen citizen complaints, which in Maryland account for 

approximately 50 percent of the criminal cases filed. An early screening process routes 

cases appropriately, diverting some to mediation or other alternative processing and 

removing those that do not belong in the system before time is wasted on them. The 

attorneys carry reduced caseloads of no more than five or six cases that are important to the 

neighborhood, enabling them to spend most of their time in the community. They meet 

weekly with members of their teams to keep them apprised of community issues and to be 

informed on the progress of cases. 

 

68Information on Montgomery County’s community prosecution program is from an interview with Assistant 

State’s Attorney Tom Eldridge; from “Community Prosecution-Implementation Grant Program Narrative,” 

State’s Attorney’s Office, Montgomery County, Maryland, November 4, 1999; and from Jacoby, 1995: 299–

300.
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78 

Programs operated through community prosecution include nuisance abatement and use a 

Maryland statute to shut down nuisance properties, especially drug houses. An elder abuse 

task force targets offenders who take financial or physical advantage of the county’s 

elderly residents. 

Sacramento County, California 

Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully created the community prosecution 

program in 2000.69 Seven attorneys are assigned to field offices in six areas of the county. 

Most of the field offices are in community police posts, and many share a storefront office 

with code enforcement and probation officers. 

Sacramento is an urban county with a racially and ethnically diverse population of 

approximately 1.2 million. The district attorney has jurisdiction over the city and county of 

Sacramento and handles felonies, misdemeanors and code enforcement litigation. The 

office also has civil jurisdiction, and is responsible for nuisance abatement and forfeiture 

matters. 

The community prosecution attorneys attend community meetings, bring together 

community resources, and coordinate problem-solving efforts. The program uses only 

attorneys in its outreach efforts because officials believe it is important to send into the 

community personnel who have the power to make binding decisions and the ability to 

create strategies to deal with community issues. The attorneys vertically prosecute a 

reduced caseload of matters important to the community. Cases they cannot handle are 

assigned to the trials unit. Case files generated by the community prosecution unit contain 

tracking forms, requiring that the unit be updated on progress and outcomes, and provide 

special instructions on how community prosecutors and neighborhood residents would like 

the case handled. 

Although target problems differ from one site to another, common to all are the rundown 

hotels that serve as apartments for the borderline homeless population. These hotels do not 

meet code standards and landlords have failed to make necessary repairs, despite the fact 

that the city pays them to house the homeless. The community prosecution unit is involved 

in efforts to shut these hotels down. Additional problems include prostitution, traffic, drug 

houses, and issues with the homeless. Some of the problems are addressed using nonlegal 

strategies, such as placing speed bumps in the road in areas with traffic issues and 

installing armrests on park benches to discourage the homeless from sleeping on them. An 

8-hour training program has been developed for landlords of nuisance properties, which 

instructs them on landlord-tenant law, code enforcement, screening tenants, and spotting 

drug dealers. Landlords who have been successfully prosecuted for maintaining nuisance 

properties must attend the program as a condition of probation. 

 

69Information about the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office Community Prosecution Program was 

obtained from interviews with and information provided by Community Prosecution Chief Karen Maxwell. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

79

Community prosecutors also solve problems through collaborative relationships with other 

agencies. The Nuisance Response Team, combining the efforts of agencies such as the 

California Highway Patrol, city council, and social service agencies, meets monthly to 

discuss community issues and plan joint responses. 

The community is engaged in the community prosecution effort in several ways. 

Community forums are held to discuss specific crime problems, such as a nuisance 

property where a crime has occurred. The owner is invited to a forum where residents are 

given the opportunity to let the property owner know what impact his business has had on 

the community. The forums often result in “Good Neighbor Agreements,” informal 

contracts that summarize the responsibilities that the owner agrees to, as well as the role of 

the community and local agencies in ensuring compliance. Although not enforceable, these 

documents offer a clear understanding of what is expected of the property owner and 

pressures compliance to avoid further alienating the community. The attorneys are trained 

in mediation so that they can handle community forums. The prosecutor conducts periodic 

needs assessments to remain in touch with community issues and feelings about public 

safety. Surveys are distributed at community meetings and to neighborhood groups at least 

quarterly to stimulate feedback and generate the information that is used to set office 

priorities. The office also provides legal educational classes on gun violence for school 

children and organizes group meetings for adults on topics such as graffiti, school 

attendance, and vice crime. 

Placer County, California

In July 2000, Placer County District Attorney Bradford R. Fenocchio laid the groundwork 

for the Community and Agency Multidisciplinary Elder Team, a community prosecution 

effort to address elder abuse.70 Elder abuse was chosen as the target problem because 

Placer County has a large (19 percent) and growing elder population (projected to reach 25 

percent by 2040), and elder abuse crime has increased significantly in recent years. In 

1997, Adult Protective Services opened 12 new cases of abuse per month, on average; by 

1999, the number had increased to an average of 40 new cases per month. Because many 

nursing and assisted-living facilities and retirement communities are being located in 

Placer County, the office has had to respond to the escalating victimization of this 

population. Elder abuse is defined as crimes committed against individuals age 65 or older, 

and crimes against dependent adults ages 18 to 64, involving the infliction of pain or 

mental suffering, endangering health, and theft or embezzlement of property. 

Placer County’s initiative involves a partnership of the prosecutor’s office with local 

police, residents, government agencies, the courts, judicial officers, victim advocates, and 

health-care providers. The program involves one assistant district attorney working out of 

the main office as a vertical prosecutor on all elder abuse cases throughout the county, and 

an investigator who is the program coordinator. 

 

70Information on Placer County’s community prosecution program is from an interview with and materials 

supplied by Assistant District Attorney Susan Gazzaniga.
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80 

The county plans to have this multidisciplinary team educate personnel from agencies that 

deal directly with the elder community on the causes of elder abuse, methods to prevent it, 

and the proper handling of abuse cases. In addition, the district attorney’s office will 

develop a plan to increase community awareness of abuse issues, focusing community ties 

and involving community youth in the effort. Finally, the office seeks to enhance its own 

effectiveness in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting crimes against the elderly. 

St. Joseph’s County (South Bend), Indiana 

In August 2000, St. Joseph’s County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher A. Toth started a 

community prosecution program in South Bend, Indiana.71 There are three sites in the 

county, staffed by prosecutors who are stationed in new community justice centers that 

also serve as community meeting places. The program’s nuisance abatement officer and a 

program coordinator move among the three sites. All of the sites have significant minority 

populations and are located in urban areas with both residential and commercial land use. 

After the sites were selected, the police chief adjusted his sectors to coincide with the sites. 

The target problem in each area is quality-of-life crime. 

The attorneys’ responsibilities include screening and charging cases filed by police for 

their areas and prosecuting a reduced load of cases that are most troublesome to the 

community. Overflow cases are randomly assigned to the trials division, which is 

separated into misdemeanor and felony units, and are prosecuted vertically. A small 

number of attorneys specialize in certain types of crimes and cases falling within their 

specialty are assigned mainly to them. Community prosecutors track cases that they do not 

handle personally and help prepare them for trial and sentencing. 

The program engages the community through meetings of attorneys with community 

organizations and residents, and through the community justice teams in each site which 

includes businessowners. The teams meet monthly to help prosecutors identify community 

issues and develop strategies to respond to them. A large steering committee consisting of 

partners in the community prosecution effort initially helped set overall policy for 

community prosecution and continues to participate in problem-solving initiatives that tap 

into its members’ areas of expertise. 

The community prosecution unit runs a pretrial diversion program aimed at first-time 

misdemeanor offenders. Sanctions assigned to these offenders include community service, 

often performed for area nonprofit organizations that request workers at community justice 

meetings. Efforts are made to assign offenders to work sites in the areas where they 

committed their crimes or near their homes. 

 

71Information compiled on community prosecution in St. Joseph’s County is from interviews with and 

materials provided by Assistant County Prosecutor Khadijah Muhammad, Project Codirector. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

81

Lackawanna County (Scranton), Pennsylvania 

District Attorney Andrew Jarbola III initiated community prosecution in Lackawanna 

County in 2000.72 Lackawanna is a largely urban county, populated primarily by lowincome white and a growing percentage of Hispanic residents. Economic growth has 

slowed and many people have moved away to find better job opportunities. 

The district attorney’s office employs 26 assistant district attorneys, who handle 

misdemeanor and felony cases. Before the community prosecution program, the county 

operated an initiative called the School-Based Community Justice Program. An attorney 

was assigned to each of the county’s 11 school districts to represent the district attorney’s 

office at meetings of school officials, crime watch groups, community- and faith-based 

organizations, and social and human services representatives to discuss both general school 

issues and specific youth identified as being at risk. To combat the county’s significant 

drug problems, the group implemented a countywide school drug policy. They also 

developed a program through which students volunteered to clean up trash in the 

community. The community prosecution program was created partly as a result of the 

positive impact of this program, and some of the assigned attorneys are now community 

prosecutors. Two attorneys are assigned to field offices in each of three sites. 

To select the initial target sites and identify the issues of greatest importance to the 

community, surveys were distributed at community organization meetings, senior centers, 

and schools. The three targeted areas have the county’s highest crime rates but also have 

fairly strong community organizations that care about the neighborhoods. An issue 

common to all three is absentee landlords. The Hill Section is mainly residential but is 

located near a college, where formerly single-family homes are being rented to college 

students who have no stake in the neighborhood. Poorly maintained buildings, trash, and 

low-level crime are principal issues for the neighborhood. The South Side site has seen an 

influx of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom do not speak English, creating a language 

barrier between them and city agencies. Only one police officer is fluent in Spanish. 

Housing is inadequate and many of the homes are poorly maintained rental properties with 

absentee landlords. Crime is primarily related to driving under the influence. A third site, 

Carbondale, has experienced an increase in drug-related criminal activity, mainly in 

properties owned by absentee landlords. A community action plan has been developed for 

each of the sites. 

The role of the community prosecutors consists of community outreach and litigation of 

low-level, quality-of-life crimes, including third-degree misdemeanors and summary 

offenses. Overflow misdemeanor cases and felonies are assigned to trial teams, organized 

by major crime type. 

The community is engaged primarily through criminal justice councils of residents chosen 

by the community to identify crime issues that the community wants addressed and to craft 

 

72Information about the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office community prosecution program was 

obtained from interviews with Christine Tocki. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

82 

solutions. In addition, an advisory panel of community leaders, a state senator, 

representatives of human service agencies, and faith leaders meet annually to discuss the 

progress and goals of the project. 

Westchester County, New York 

Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro began planning and implementing a 

community prosecution program in 2000 with a planning grant from BJA.73 The target area 

selected was in Yonkers, an area with a significant minority population that includes both 

African Americans and Hispanics, and a combination of residential and commercial land 

use. The target problem is quality-of-life crime, primarily committed by youth. The area 

was experiencing difficulties with gang rivalries, drug-related crime, and prostitution. 

Another crime problem involves attacks on Hispanic day laborers, who are beaten and 

robbed of their day’s pay. These victims are unlikely to turn to law enforcement for help. 

The district attorney is seeking a Weed and Seed designation as well as an implementation 

grant to help address the many issues in the area. 

One of the factors that has been identified as contributing to youth issues is the lack of 

supervised afterschool and summer activities. The local Police Athletic League program is 

completely filled and part of the plan is to open a community center, where children can 

play and hang out, and where services can be offered. It is hoped that the center will 

provide a neutral zone where gang turf issues will not interfere. The community center is 

part of a 3-year plan focused on reducing neighborhood crime. 

One attorney will be hired to implement the program, whose primary responsibilities will 

include community outreach and problem solving, in addition to carrying a small load of 

cases of community importance, which will be prosecuted vertically. The remainder of the 

misdemeanor cases will be assigned to trial attorneys in the Yonkers-based branch of the 

district attorney’s office. Felonies will be randomly assigned to the felony trials unit in the 

main office, or to specific major crimes divisions according to crime type. The community 

prosecutor will maintain an office in the Yonkers branch. 

Community partners will include community police, who have a relatively good 

relationship with the district attorney’s office but have experienced some tensions with the 

community. The school district also must be a partner, although the district presently has 

an interim superintendent whose authority to make long-term decisions is limited. The 

district is acting under a long-standing desegregation order that stems from a 1980 lawsuit 

filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Yonkers 

population was effectively segregated, resulting in segregated schools that provided poor 

education for minority students. A combination of busing and housing programs aimed at 

integrating the community has created a more equitable situation. Thus, the schools have 

their own issues to deal with, but it is hoped that they will be able to collaborate with the 

district attorney’s office to address community concerns. The community will be engaged 

 

73Information on community prosecution in Westchester County is from interviews with Community Justice 

Coordinator Yolanda Robinson and Assistant District Attorney Robert Maccarone.
Community Prosecution Strategies

83

in an advisory capacity, identifying issues and problems, and creating and participating in 

crime-solving strategies. Once the strategy is established, the community should be able to 

sustain the effort on its own. 

Oakland, California 

The Oakland City Attorney’s Office, under City Attorney John Russo, recently received a 

community prosecution grant to start a pilot program within its jurisdiction, which includes 

civil proceedings on behalf of Oakland.74 Oakland is a relatively old city, and the 

community prosecution site contains many older homes, primarily tenant- rather than 

owner-occupied, as well as some commercial properties. The population is largely African 

American. The target area was selected for its poverty, high crime rate, prevalence of 

substandard housing, poorly maintained businesses, and graffiti. 

In Oakland, the city attorney has primary responsibility for civil prosecutions, which will 

constitute an important element of the planned community prosecution strategy. Through a 

Weed and Seed grant, the city attorney has long played a vital role in community-based 

crime prevention strategies. The city attorney drafted both seizure and urban blight 

ordinances and prosecutes civil cases, such as drug nuisance actions, suits against 

landlords who own substandard housing, and suits against nuisance businesses such as 

liquor stores and hotels that permit prostitution on their premises. In conjunction with its 

management of Oakland’s Weed and Seed efforts, the city attorney’s office has 

collaborated with the Oakland Police Department to enforce nuisance abatement 

ordinances. 

The city attorney makes effective use of Oakland’s seizure ordinance, which permits 

vehicles that are used to purchase drugs or to solicit prostitutes to be declared a public 

nuisance. A criminal conviction is not necessary to have the property seized. This is done 

on the spot at the point of arrest. Seizures often are done through reverse sting operations, 

in which police decoys come into contact with those seeking to purchase illegal goods or 

services. Vehicles that are ultimately forfeited are sold to produce revenue for community 

projects. Even if the vehicles are not forfeited, the process generally takes a long time so 

the possibility of forfeiture can be a strong deterrent against the consumers of these illegal 

goods and services.75

The “blight” ordinance applies to abandoned or rundown residential, commercial, and 

industrial properties that attract illegal drug activity and prostitution. These properties are 

often located in or near residential areas and bring numerous citizen complaints. They 

contribute to urban blight, pose a public health risk, act as a magnet for crime, and can 

 

74Information on the Oakland community prosecution program is from a site visit and interviews with 

Paralegal Sandra Marion and Deputy City Attorney Charles E. Vose and a presentation at the National 

Community Prosecution Conference, sponsored by APRI, in September 2000.

75The seizure ordinance was challenged by the ACLU, but was upheld by the First District Court of Appeals. 

A petition is pending in the State Supreme Court but, if it is heard, agency officials believe that it will be 

upheld.
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

84 

bring a neighborhood down quickly. A unit from the city attorney’s office has been placed 

in the police department to deal exclusively with nuisance properties. Property owners are 

first notified that the city requires them to make repairs and that significant fines and fees 

will be assessed if they fail to comply. The ultimate remedy is closure of the property. 

An example of successful use of the blight ordinance was a suit against a rundown hotel 

that charged $400 a night and was frequented mainly by prostitutes. The rooms had no 

doors, the toilets did not work, and the halls were full of trash. The hotel was located in an 

otherwise fairly well-maintained neighborhood. The property owner was alerted to the 

conditions and compelled by the court to make repairs. A suit was filed under the blight 

ordinance and ultimately the property was closed down. After a closure is ordered, the 

property may be placed into receivership and a third party placed in control of the 

rehabilitation effort. If rehabilitation is possible at a reasonable cost, the property can be 

repaired and the owner will be assessed the cost of the repairs. If the owner fails to pay, the 

property may be sold. 

The community prosecution program will be staffed by an attorney and a paralegal. The 

groundwork for the program was laid using a survey mailed to area residents that requested 

their views on neighborhood crime issues and information on problem locations. The 

survey was brief and anonymous to encourage residents to respond. Interns were sent into 

the neighborhood to retrieve completed surveys, supply new forms to residents who did 

not have them, and wait while they were filled out. The form contained a hotline number 

for anyone who had a specific problem or needed help. Of 1,500 forms distributed, 

approximately 300 have been returned. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 

Site Manhattan, NY, 1985 Multnomah County, OR, 1990 Kings County, NY, 1991 Agency Community Affairs, New York 

County District Attorney’s Office 

Neighborhood DAs, Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Kings County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Drug-related crime. Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Target Area Business districts, inner city, 

urban. 

Business districts, rural, suburban, urban (entire county). 

Business districts, inner city, urban, (entire borough). 

Community Role Recipient of service, advisory 

role. 

Advisory role, participants in problem solving and implementation. 

Recipients of service, advisory role. 

Program Content Nuisance abatement, Narcotics 

Eviction and Trespass Affidavit programs, projects Focus and Octopus, school programs. 

Drug-free zone, responsive problem solving. 

Nuisance abatement, formal Trespass Affidavit Program, legal education programs for students and adults. 

Case Processing Adaptations Vertical prosecution by trial team. NDAs rarely try cases; 

prosecutions by trial team. 

Trial teams geographically assigned to zones, vertically prosecute cases. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, housing 

authority and transit police, federal and local agencies. 

Community court, community police, FBI, U.S. Attorneys, city attorneys, state and local agencies. 

Community police, community court, schools. 

Program Location Main office and one pilot office. Field offices. Main office. Community Prosecutor’s (CP) Office Organization 

Six general trial teams handle cases from all over the jurisdiction (randomly assigned), attorneys with expertise assigned to cases of community importance. 

NDAs rarely process cases, but handle uncontested misdemeanors in community court; mainly involved in community outreach and problem solving

Trial attorneys and community affairs perform outreach in assigned zones. 

Staff Ten nonlawyers provide 

community outreach. 

Seven attorneys, two legal assistants. 

Trials division performs community outreach in assigned areas, seven nonlawyers and supervisor supplement community outreach. 
86

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Philadelphia, PA, 1992 Marion County, IN, 1993 Suffolk County, MA, 1993 Agency Public Nuisance Task Force, 

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office 

Street Level Advocates (SLAs), Marion County Prosecutor’s Office 

Safe Neighborhood Initiative (SNI), Prosecutors in Police Stations, Suffolk County District Attorney 

Target Problem Nuisance properties. Drug-related crime and public 

safety issues. 

Violent crime. 

Target Area Inner city, urban. Business districts, rural, 

suburban, urban. 

Business districts, suburban, urban. 

Community Role Recipients of service, advisory 

role. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory role, some participation in problem solving. 

Program Content Nuisance abatement. Prostitution initiatives, nuisance 

abatement, narcotics eviction programs. 

Juvenile programs: Operation Nightlight, CBJ. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys try few cases from 

their assigned area; vertical prosecution by narcotics trial team for serious drug cases only. 

SLAs screen and file charges for most felony cases, carry a small caseload, prosecuted vertically. 

SNI and PIP attorneys handle many cases from their assigned areas utilizing vertical prosecution; cases not handled by SNI and PIP attorneys are assigned to the trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, liquor control board, 

health department, license and inspections, city attorneys. 

Community police, community court, sheriff’s department, government agencies. 

Community police, attorney general’s office, mayor’s office. 

Program Location Main office. Staff stationed in police 

departments within site. 

Neighborhood offices and police districts. 

CP Office Organization Attorneys involved mainly in 

outreach and civil nuisance litigation. 

CP attorneys try few cases, main responsibility is to handle community outreach and problem solving, advise police. 

Attorneys split time between litigation, community outreach, advising police. 

Staff Six attorneys. Six attorneys, four paralegals, 

one investigator, nuisance abatement coordinator. 

Six SNI attorneys, three PIP attorneys, four nonattorney staff persons, community affairs chief. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Seattle, WA, 1995 Howard County, MD, 1996 Plymouth County, MA, 1996 Agency Precinct Liaison Program, Seattle 

City Attorney’s Office 

The Community Justice Program, Howard County State Attorney 

Safe Neighborhood Initiative, State Attorney General and Plymouth County District Attorney 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime, nuisance 

properties. 

Quality-of-life crime, especially youth issues. 

Gang and drug crime. 

Target Area Urban. Rural, suburban, urban (entire 

county). 

Urban. 

Community Role Advisory. Recipient of services, advisory 

role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory role. 

Program Content Good neighbor agreements, 

neighborhood action team. 

Initiatives to respond to problems are created as needed, Hot Spot Program. 

Abandoned housing project, landlord training and notification letters, and juvenile outreach. 

Case Processing Adaptations Some CP attorneys try cases, 

most litigation handled by trials division and civil unit. 

One attorney designated liaison for each county district, carries full caseload, not necessarily from assigned district, priority prosecution-selected misdemeanors, vertical prosecutions of felonies, Hot Spot attorney assigned to highest crime area. 

SNI attorneys carry caseload of targeted felony and misdemeanor cases of interest to the community, utilizing priority prosecution-expedited case processing, remaining cases tried by trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, social and human service 

agencies, department of corrections. 

Police, Department of Juvenile Justice, parole and probation, social service agencies, schools, governor’s office. 

Attorney general’s office, state and local police, Boys & Girls Clubs, mayor’s office, community and government officials. 

Program Location Field offices. Main office. Main office. CP Office Organization Two CP attorneys do not try 

cases, perform outreach, and act as liaison between community and trial attorney; two CP attorneys carry full caseload from assigned area and perform outreach. 

Entire staff of attorneys involved in community outreach and litigate cases; cases randomly assigned, felonies prosecuted vertically; Hot Spot attorney primarily involved in outreach, carries reduced caseload. 

SNI attorneys carry full caseload, perform community outreach, and administer problem-solving programs. 

Staff Four attorneys. Entire office, 23 full-time and 2 

part-time attorneys, involved in CP, 1 Hot Spot attorney. 

Two assistant attorneys general, two assistant district attorneys. 
88

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Denver, CO, 1996 Erie County, NY, 1996 City of Phoenix, AZ, 1996 Agency Community Prosecution 

Program, Denver District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Erie County District Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Phoenix City Prosecutor 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life misdemeanors. Quality-of-life misdemeanors, 

urban blight. 

Target Area Urban. Residential, urban. Residential, urban. Community Role Core participants in problem 

solving. 

Advisory, participate in problem solving. 

Advisory, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Community justice councils, 

community accountability boards, community safety forums. 

Prostitution task force, nuisance abatement. 

Prostitution initiatives, nuisance abatement. 

Case Processing Adaptations Attorneys assigned to CP are 

also assigned to a major crimes unit; they carry a full caseload in their specialized areas, but cases are not geographically assigned. 

CP attorney will prosecute selected but substantial caseload of cases important to community, overflow cases randomly assigned to trials division. 

CP attorneys try selected cases of community importance, most litigation handled by trials division: criminal cases prosecuted vertically, civil cases randomly assigned. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, city attorneys, 

liquor licensing, nuisance abatement, Mayor’s Office of Employment and Training, drug court. 

Police, corporate council, Office of Community Development. 

Neighborhood services, police, health department, housing and planning department, fire department. 

Program Location Attorneys in main office, 

community justice advocates located in their assigned neighborhoods. 

Main office. Field offices. 

CP Office Organization Community outreach mainly 

handled by nonattorney employees. 

CP attorneys main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

CP attorneys main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

Staff Director, community justice 

coordinator, neighborhood justice coordinator, three community justice advocates, eight attorneys, and CAB coordinators (who must reside in the community). 

Two attorneys. Two attorneys. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Pima County, AZ, 1997 Jackson County, MO, 1997 Honolulu, HI, 1997 Agency Community Prosecution Unit, 

Pima County Attorney’s Office 

Neighborhood Justice Team, Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office 

Community Prosecution Program, Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime, nuisance 

properties. 

Quality-of-life crime, drug related crime, nuisance properties. 

Quality-of-life crime. 

Target Area Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Rural, suburban, urban. Business district, suburban, 

urban. 

Community Role Advisory, participant in problem 

solving. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Recipient of services, advisory, participant in problem solving. 

Program Content Nuisance property eviction 

programs, Operation Spotlight. 

Child abuse, truancy, nuisance abatement. 

Antiprostitution initiatives, youth antiviolence and prevention, school-based programs. 

Case Processing Adaptations CPs do not try cases; felony 

cases randomly assigned to trials division, divided into major crimes, by crime type; misdemeanor cases handled by the city attorney community prosecutor. 

Attorneys carry reduced caseload consisting in cases of community importance, originating from their assigned areas, trials division handles overflow cases. 

CPs litigate most serious cases and cases of community priority vertically—each handles specialty cases, not necessarily for their assigned area, trials division, organized according to crime type, handles overflow cases. 

Collaborating Partners Police, probation, attorney 

general’s office, city attorney. 

Local, state, and federal agencies and prosecutors; probation and parole; drug court; area businesses. 

Community police, community court, drug court, federal prosecutors, juvenile probation, schools. 

Program Location Attorney maintains office space in 

main office, spends majority of time in field office. 

Attorneys split time between main office and field office. 

Main office. 

CP Office Organization Does not try cases, primary focus 

is outreach and problem solving, some civil litigation. 

CP attorneys’ main responsibility is community outreach and problem solving. 

CPs try many cases, CP attorneys are each assigned geographic area for outreach but try cases from all three areas. 

Staff One full-time and one part-time 

attorney. 

Six attorneys. Three attorneys. 
90

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Kalamazoo County, MI, 1998 Cook County, IL, 1998 Nassau County, NY, 1998 Agency Neighborhood Prosecuting 

Attorney Program, Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney 

Community Prosecution Program, Cook County State Attorney 

Community Crime Prevention, Nassau County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Quality-of-life crime. Target Area Commercial, residential, urban. Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Suburban, urban. 

Community Role Recipient of services, advisory 

role, participant in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participant in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Truancy and curfew programs, 

nuisance property programs. 

Summer Opportunity Program for kids; hate crimes unit. 

Rising Star, trespass/eviction. 

Case Processing Adaptations Neighborhood prosecutors carry 

small caseload of cases important to the community, prosecuted vertically, majority of cases litigated by trial teams. 

CPs vertically prosecute a substantial caseload important to their assigned community, track cases, and advise trial attorneys on overflow cases. 

CPs handle misdemeanors from their sites in community court, trial attorneys try CP cases with input and guidance from community prosecutors. 

Collaborating Partners Community police, city agencies, 

Boys & Girl’s Clubs. 

City services, local officials, city attorney, police, parks authority, school board, social services. 

Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brothers/Sisters, police, schools, social services, local officials, community court. 

Program Location Field office. Field office. Main offices. CP Office Organization Neighborhood prosecutors focus 

on community outreach. 

CPs divide time between litigation, community outreach, and problem solving. 

CP attorneys primarily responsible for outreach and administering community-based programs. 

Staff Two attorneys. Eleven attorneys, including two 

supervisors and prevention coordinator. 

Five attorneys. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Travis County, TX, 1999 West Palm Beach, FL, 1999 Hennepin County, MN, 1999 Agency Neighborhood DA program, 

Travis County District Attorney 

COMBAT, Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Hennepin County Attorney 

Target Problem Felony level quality-of-life cases. Drug- and vice-related crime. Felony level “livability” offenses, 

juvenile crime. 

Target Area Urban. Inner city, urban. Residential, urban. Community Role Advisory role, participate in 

problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Community justice councils. Nuisance abatement, narcotics 

eviction, legal education and mentoring programs in the schools. 

Restorative justice, nuisance abatement. 

Case Processing Adaptations Neighborhood DA screens cases 

from assigned area; prosecutes small caseload of cases important to the community; tracks and provides assistance upon request of trial attorney for majority of cases. 

COMBAT attorneys vertically prosecute a reduced caseload of cases important to their assigned community; major crimes trial unit tries overflow cases with input from CP attorneys. 

CPs vertically prosecute a full caseload originating from their districts, except violent and drugcrime cases, which are handled by specialty trial attorneys. 

Collaborating Partners Police, social service providers, 

law enforcement officials. 

Community police, community court, state and federal agencies, schools. 

State and local law enforcement and social service agencies, schools, community court. 

Program Location Field office. Field office and main office. Field office. CP Office Organization Trial attorneys are randomly 

assigned to try CP cases with input from CP; CP attorney screens cases from her area, acts as liaison to trial attorney, primary focus is outreach. 

CP attorneys litigate, participate in police investigation, screen community cases, and perform outreach and problem solving. 

CP attorneys divide time between litigation and community outreach. 

Staff One attorney. Five attorneys, one paralegal, 

one secretary. 

Four attorneys; attorneys divide time between litigation and community outreach. 
92

Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site 

Brevard/Seminole County, FL, 

1999 Cuyahoga County, OH, 1999 Westchester County, NY, 2000 

Agency Neighborhood State Attorney 

Initiative, Florida State Attorney’s Office 

Community-Based Prosecution, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office 

Community Prosecution, Westchester County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Quality-of-life, urban blight, drug 

crime, juvenile issues. 

Quality-of-life, juvenile issues. Quality-of-life crime, focus on 

youthful offenders. 

Target Area Residential, rural, urban. Urban. Commercial, residential, 

suburban, urban. 

Community Role Advisory. Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Advisory role, participate in problem solving. 

Program Content Problem solving. Neighborhood centers, truancy 

center. 

Youth programs. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys primarily handle 

outreach, may carry caseload of community impact cases, most litigation handled by trials division, felonies assigned randomly. 

CP attorneys carry slightly reduced caseload, prosecute vertically, overflow cases assigned randomly to trials division, must consult with CP attorneys for advice on CP cases and approval of plea agreement. 

CP attorney will vertically prosecute selected cases of community importance, overflow cases assigned to trials divisions. 

Collaborating Partners Police, coalition group of 

volunteer social and human services and faith based organization representatives. 

Police, social and human services, state and local agencies, school officials. 

Community police, schools, social service agencies. 

Program Location Field offices. Field offices. Branch office. CP Office Organization CP attorneys mainly responsible 

for community outreach and problem solving, focus on identifying major crime issues. 

CP attorneys primarily concerned with outreach, assisted by nonattorney outreach coordinators. 

Primary responsibility community outreach and problem solving. 

Staff Three attorneys, three 

paralegals. 

Six attorneys. One coordinator, one attorney to 

be assigned. 
Table 3: Highlights of 36 Community Prosecution Initiatives in the United States, 1985–2000 (cont

Site Lackawanna County, PA, 2000 Placer County, CA, 2000 Sacramento County, CA, 2000 Agency Community Prosecution 

Program, Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office 

Community and Agency Multidisciplinary Elder Team, Placer County District Attorney 

Community Prosecution, Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office 

Target Problem Poorly maintained 

buildings/absentee landlords, drug crime. 

Elder abuse. Poorly maintained hotels, qualityof-life crime, drug crime. 

Target Area Urban, rural. Entire county. Urban. Community Role Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Advisory. Advisory, participate in problem 

solving. 

Program Content Criminal justice councils, 

community advisory panel, school-based justice program. 

Collaborative community education and prevention program. 

Good neighbor agreements, community forums, legal education classes for the community. 

Case Processing Adaptations CP attorneys carry reduced 

caseload consisting of low level crime arising from their assigned communities, overflow cases assigned to trials teams. 

CP attorney vertically prosecutes all cases of elder abuse. 

CP attorneys vertically prosecute reduced caseload from assigned neighborhood, overflow cases assigned to trials division, must provide updates to CP attorneys on CP cases and instructions about cases are included in each file. 

Collaborating Partners Police, HUD, schools, social and 

human service agencies. 

Police, mental health, public guardian, adult protective services, health care providers, probation. 

Police, city council, social and human services agencies. 

Program Location Field offices and main office split 

time. 

Main office. Field offices. 

CP Office Organization CP attorneys perform outreach 

and handle limited low-level litigation. 

Not applicable. CP attorneys primarily involved in 

community outreach and administering problem-solving programs. 

Staff Six attorneys. One attorney, one investigator. Six attorneys. 

Chapter 6 Community Prosecution Strategies

95

Community Prosecution: Thinking About 

Evaluation 

The problem of measuring the impact of community prosecution—particularly given its 

diverse adaptations—begins with an understanding of what that innovation is (and what it 

is not) and what it proposes to accomplish in its own terms. In the earlier chapters of this 

report, we have traced the origins of community prosecution strategies, identified key 

dimensions in a working typology that permits classification of diverse approaches, and 

highlighted the attributes of existing community prosecution initiatives to illustrate the 

scope of the movement today. It is clear from these discussions that the community 

prosecution model represents a philosophy as well as an innovation. The shared philosophy 

seeks to connect the prosecution function more directly with the community, to develop a 

new and more collaborative working relationship, and to be more responsive to the crimerelated concerns of communities. The form this idea takes varies considerably from 

location to location and from prosecutor to prosecutor along the dimensions we have 

outlined in the working typology of community prosecution strategies. 

Many of the elements of community prosecution—dispersion of attorneys to different 

geographic locations, vertical prosecution, organization of case assignment to reflect the 

geography of the community, considerably more time spent interacting with the 

community—represent notable departures from traditional modes of functioning. They 

reflect the level at which a prosecutor’s office commits to the philosophy and raise difficult 

questions about impact and resource allocation. Prosecutors who lead such efforts and their 

funding sources have begun to demand evaluation of whether and how community 

prosecution “works.” The challenges for research in measuring the effects of community 

prosecution, its strengths and weaknesses, are commensurate with the challenges posed by 

community-oriented strategies to traditional prosecution functions. 

A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Community Prosecution 

Table 4 proposes a multidimensional framework for conceptualizing community 

prosecution evaluation measures that recognizes the distinct and joint roles played by the 

prosecution and the community. It defines areas of impact based on the key dimensions in 

the typology shared by community prosecution initiatives across the nation. In addition, 

the framework differentiates between measures appropriate for assessing the 

implementation of community prosecution and measures reflecting outcomes or the impact 

of community prosecution programs, once they have been effectively implemented. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

96

Table 4: Conceptualizing Measures of Community Prosecution Impact 

Elements of Community Prosecution Innovation Key Dimensions Prosecution Function Community Role Interaction of Both 

Target Problems 

Implementation Types/number of 

problems identified. 

Input in defining 

problems and designing 

strategies. 

Collaboration in 

identifying and 

addressing problems. 

Strategies implemented to 

address. 

Participation in 

implementing strategies. 

Outcomes Outcomes per problem 

area. 

Community 

improvement. 

Accountability. 

Problems successfully 

addressed. 

 Community 

satisfaction/ownership 

with outcomes. 

Target Area 

Implementation Services, actions added 

per geographic areas. 

Cooperation and 

assistance. 

Defining, agreeing to 

area. 

Outcomes Improved measures of 

targeted problems in 

geographic areas. 

Improved working 

relationship. 

Role of Community 

Implementation Types/methods/frequency 

of involvement. 

Types/method/ 

frequency of 

involvement. 

Access to government 

and policy formulation. 

 Problems identified. Community access. 

 Suggested strategies. Suggested strategies. 

Outcomes Improved community 

links. 

Improved community 

access/participation. 

More effective 

communication on 

crime and related 

problems. 

Improved satisfaction. Improved satisfaction. Ownership. 

Better impact on targeted 

problems. 

Impact on targeted 

areas. 

 Improved accountability. 

Content of Community 

Prosecution Strategy 

 

Implementation Specific programs, 

components, services 

instituted. 

Specific role, 

cooperation, participant, 

and recipient of services. 

Project-specific 

functions. 

Outcomes Impact of specific 

programs (youth, drugs, 

graffiti, nuisance, 

prostitution, etc.). 

Community view of 

impact and success. 

Measure of success 

and impact. 
Community Prosecution Strategies

97

Table 4: Conceptualizing Measures of Community Prosecution Impact (continued) 

Elements of Community Prosecution Innovation Key Dimensions Prosecution Function Community Role Interaction of Both 

Organization of 

Prosecution 

 

Implementation Geographic assignment. Organization and 

representation. 

New partnerships. 

Reorganization. Areas/neighborhoods. Improved prosecution. 

New procedures/staff, 

assessment/values. 

Access to prosecutor/ 

other agencies/ 

resources. 

New programs. 

Outcomes Office effectiveness, 

efficiency. 

Effectiveness of 

procedures for 

participation. 

New procedures for 

collaboration. 

Relative costs. 

Culture change/ 

acceptance. 

 

Impact of new 

procedures. 

 

Improved reputation. 

Prosecutor Workload 

Implementation Content of workday/ 

lawyer. 

 

Contact with 

community/outreach. 

 

Identification of problem 

areas. 

Litigation/vertical. 

 

Outcomes Community contacts. 

Problems identified. 

Strategies decided. 

Matters addressed/type. 

Resolutions/cases/types. 

Staff satisfaction. 

Collaboration/ 

Partnerships

 

Implementation New working relations 

with agencies and 

organizations. 

New overall working 

relationship. 

New planning, problemsolving role. 

Expanded planning. 

Added multiagency 

services. 

 

Outcomes Impact of collaboration 

on services and 

outcomes/problems. 

 Routinization and growth 

of relationship. 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

98

 Identifying the Roles of the Prosecutor and the Community 

The evaluation framework incorporates separate as well as joint consideration for the roles 

of the prosecutor and the community. As we have understood the movement, community 

prosecution cannot be grasped as an in-house reorganization plan, for example, that is 

strictly limited to what the prosecutor does to or for the community. Instead, the concept 

suggests a new working relationship between prosecutor and community that takes many 

forms in the different sites, but does not merely amount to better prosecutor-public 

relations. Because the community prosecution concept itself suggests new goals, roles, and 

desired outcomes for both prosecutor and community, measurement of the impact of 

community prosecution needs to take both critical components into account. One of the 

challenges for evaluation is that the community and prosecution roles in community 

prosecution strategies are viewed both as agents of change (the community prosecution 

innovation being implemented) and the targets of change (as they are transformed by the 

innovation into a new justice function). 

Using the Typology To Organize Evaluation Questions 

The separate and joint roles of prosecutor and community are examined in this evaluation 

framework on each of the key dimensions of community prosecution strategies outlined in 

table 2. In the earlier discussion of the key ingredients of these strategies, the purpose of 

the typology was descriptive, to characterize diverse initiatives according to common 

themes or functional components. In table 4, the purpose is different. The descriptive 

elements of the typology help establish categories of presumed impact that measures of 

community prosecution should tap, taking into account the parts played by prosecutor and 

community. 

Distinguishing Between (Early-Stage) Implementation and 

Outcome Questions 

The evaluation framework illustrated in table 4 builds in one other important dimension. It 

divides impact measures into implementation and outcome categories. The distinction is 

important for two reasons. First, it is difficult to gauge the impact of an innovation if it is 

not implemented. Thus, the first type of evaluation measure we propose measures the 

extent of implementation. By this, we mean that when a community prosecution initiative 

promises to introduce certain services or procedures in specific areas to accomplish certain 

effects (crime reduction, fear reduction, improved civility), a first task of evaluation is to 

measure the extent to which these services or procedures were put into place. 

Second, because many community prosecution programs are young and evolving, 

evaluation should consider a program’s maturity or stage of development. A program in its 

first year would not expect to produce the same measurable results as a program 

completing its third year of operation. In the younger program, evaluation questions would 

logically focus more on measuring the extent to which the promised innovation has indeed 

been implemented, services delivered, and changes made. In the older program, after 
Community Prosecution Strategies

99

implementation of the innovation elements is confirmed, evaluation could more reasonably 

examine the impact of new actions, services, or procedures. In short, evaluation of 

community prosecution needs to examine its success in implementation, as well as the 

results the program produces once effectively implemented. Stated another way, it is not 

possible to assess the impact of community prosecution if it has not been well 

implemented. 

Target Problems 

By way of illustration, table 4 suggests that an assessment of community prosecution 

focusing on the role of the prosecutor would seek to identify the types of problems targeted 

by the initiative and the strategies that are formulated to address them. The prosecutor 

would want to measure impact in each of the target areas, particularly relating to the 

prosecution function. Implementation measures would also focus on the role of the 

community in defining target problems and measure the extent of participation or 

collaboration that produced agreements. Outcome measures would focus on community 

improvement and increased community satisfaction in specific areas, and would hold the 

community prosecution initiative accountable for the goals it promised. 

Target Area 

Because community prosecution initiatives target specific geographic areas, 

implementation measures related to the prosecution role would examine the extent to 

which new services, procedures, or activities were set in place in the target areas. This 

would include the extent to which representatives of the community in specific areas 

participated in those strategies and became involved in a new way. Because community 

prosecution initiatives focus on particular parts of a jurisdiction, measures of program 

impact have to be organized by geographic area (in an “impact per area” measurement). 

Thus, community prosecution aims such as reducing prostitution or disturbances associated 

with nuisance establishments would be measured per targeted geographic area. This 

geographic dimension calls for new measures and new uses of available data, such as 

police calls for service, arrests, frequency of patrol, graffiti, or other relevant observation 

measures that can help evaluation frame results by geographic area. 

Role of the Community 

The community role in community prosecution is to be both an agent of change and a 

target of change, an impact that can be measured. The innovation proposes to involve the 

community to bring about better community conditions, but also promises to change the 

role of the community as a result of the strategy—making measuring impact a little 

confusing. A measure of community prosecution implementation would examine how the 

community role was defined and brought into play, how the prosecution encouraged the 

new role, and how the community responded. New procedures put into place might also be 

considered outcomes or accomplishments of the strategy. Thus, evaluation should 

characterize the new community-prosecutor problem-identification and problem-solving 
 Bureau of Justice Assistance 

100

process as both an implementation and an outcome question as the new working 

relationship becomes institutionalized, and an “effect” as well as a cause. The community 

should experience measurable results, ranging from increased satisfaction with the 

prosecution function to perceived positive results in targeted problem areas. 

Content of Community Prosecution Strategy 

Most sites include various functions under the heading of their community prosecution 

initiative, depending on the type of problems the initiative addresses. The list of specific 

programs or activities sponsored by the sites is long and highly individualistic, ranging 

from juvenile intervention programs, to targeting drug offenders, to eliminating nuisance 

establishments and addressing housing problems. An evaluation framework will need to 

examine the impact of these programmatic elements of site community prosecution 

strategies, again from both implementation and outcome perspectives. Assessment should 

measure how well the specific programs were put into operation (implementation) as well 

as the extent to which they brought about desired results (outcome)—both from a 

prosecution and community perspective. In this category as in others, measuring successful 

prosecutions may or may not be relevant to the full scope of the activities put in place and 

the objectives pursued through the particular programs. 

Organization of Prosecution 

Depending on its form, community prosecution may involve significant changes in the way 

prosecutor’s offices are organized. As an implementation measure, evaluation would 

examine the extent to which the strategy resulted in changes in office organization and 

function. Some offices have reorganized minimally, instituting a special unit to carry out 

community prosecution functions, while others have restructured their offices and 

workloads along geographic lines—some with offices in satellite locations, some covering 

geographic assignments from a central office. How well these changes are put into place is 

an implementation question. How this is accomplished with community involvement—for 

example, linked with community councils or other organizations—is also an 

implementation stage concern. After the new organization and procedures are in place, 

evaluation can address their impact in the targeted areas and their effects on the operation 

of the prosecutor’s office and on its relationship with the community. 

Prosecutor Workload 

Some advocates of community prosecution have argued that, taken at its most challenging, 

adoption of community prosecution represents a change in the “culture” of prosecution. 

Whether or not this proves to be so is one of the fundamental research questions about the 

impact of community prosecution. In their implementation stage, community prosecution 

initiatives change what prosecutors do. Depending on the model, the prosecutor may spend 

more time in the community meeting and problem solving and less time in court. When in 

court, the prosecutor may specialize in certain types of cases (some even involving civil 

actions) or in various cases selected because of their importance to the target location. In 
Community Prosecution Strategies

101

some locations, the community prosecutor may serve more as a legal facilitator than as the 

actual attorney in all cases. 

The new or nontraditional workload of the community prosecutor will require other 

measures than those normally employed to evaluate attorney performance in the office. In 

addition to successful outcomes in the cases that do go to court, measures of impact can 

include the number of community contacts made, and the number and type of matters 

addressed and resolved, many using other means than the criminal process. Evaluation 

research would also examine the impact on the prosecutor’s office of the institution of a 

community prosecution function, measuring the extent to which the overall office 

workload has been affected, and the use and allocation of resources. Adoption of a new 

prosecutor role also raises questions about professional satisfaction and career 

advancement for staff who accept such assignments. One of the chief difficulties 

confronted by community policing initiatives has been acceptance of the new function by 

other police officers. In a parallel way, a measure of the impact of community prosecution 

should include assessment of the perspectives of other prosecutors on the new specialty. 

To the extent that the community prosecutor is not viewed as a “real” prosecutor, good 

candidates will not pursue such assignments without concern for career advancement. 

Collaboration and Partnerships in Identifying Problems and 

Effecting Solutions 

In many of the community prosecution sites highlighted above, the prosecutor has worked 

with community organizations to address crime-related, quality-of-life problems through 

approaches involving multiagency collaboration and partnerships with agencies such as 

housing and licensing, streets, police, and schools. The nature and type of partnerships 

brought about through community prosecution represent measures of an important 

dimension of the innovation. The results of those collaborative strategies, services, or 

special actions are outcome measures relating to problem resolution that would not have 

been possible without community prosecution. 

Community Prosecution Strategies

103

Conclusion 

This report has traced the origins of community prosecution as a component of the 

evolving role of the prosecutor and the prosecutor’s need to deal more directly with the 

crime-related problems of specific communities. At the same time, community prosecution 

represents another element in the growing repertoire of community justice initiatives 

responding to the needs of communities not addressed by traditional criminal justice 

methods. The new philosophy has taken on different forms and adopted different emphases 

in various settings across the United States. In this report, we have tried to discuss the 

implications of community prosecution strategies for evaluation, as the increasing number 

of programs across the nation underscores the need for rigorous assessment of their impact. 

The evaluation framework we have described begins with an attempt to identify the key 

ingredients of the community prosecution innovation or model, commonalities that are 

shared by diverse applications of the concept across different settings. The proposed 

schema is not intended to be authoritative or definitive, but rather serves as a working 

typology that can be refined and improved upon through feedback from community 

prosecution jurisdictions across the United States. Using the working typology of 

community prosecution strategies, we illustrated the model by briefly sketching programs 

in 36 sites. As noted, we are certain that this is an incomplete list, as efforts are ongoing 

and sites are identified through various means. 

With the community prosecution typology and site illustrations, we have also organized a 

conceptual framework for evaluating the performance and impact of community 

prosecution initiatives that incorporates the multidimensional aspect of the goals and 

methods of the innovation. We propose this evaluative scheme to identify the principal 

dimensions of concern in measuring impact. We also hope to elicit feedback and comment 

from jurisdictions about how evaluations can be developed and carried out. We looked to 

established sites to provide the necessary data to assess the relative strengths and 

weaknesses of different elements and approaches in a way that can contribute to the 

development of best practices and inform the growing number of jurisdictions participating 

in community prosecution undertakings across the nation. 

Community Prosecution Strategies

105

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