OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

TO COMMUNITY COURTS

A SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS

Monograph Monograph

C OMMUNITY J USTICE S ERIES

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

TO COMMUNITY COURTS

A SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS
Raymond C. Fisher

Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson

Assistant Attorney General

Noël Brennan

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Nancy E. Gist

Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs

World Wide Web Home Page

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance

World Wide Web Home Page

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

For grant and funding information contact

U.S. Department of Justice Response Center

1–800–421–6770

This document was prepared by the Center for Court Innovation under grant number

96–DD–BX–0090,awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance,Office of Justice Programs,U.S.

Department of Justice. The opinions,findings,and conclusions or recommendations expressed 

in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position

or policies of the U.S.Department of Justice.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also

includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
OVERCOMING

OBSTACLES TO

COMMUNITY COURTS

A SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS

November 1998

NCJ 173400
sive to the citizens they serve is clearly one of the most important develop

ments in criminal justice in recent years. At the heart of this movement are

two innovative tools: community policing and community courts. These

tools are bridging the gap between the ideal of responsiveness and the

hard, daily work of meting out justice in America’s cities, suburbs, and

rural areas.

The Overcoming Obstacles Workshop described in this BJA monograph,

the first in a new series on community justice, offers us the rare opportunity to listen in as representatives of eight cities discuss how they have

adapted the community court model to their neighborhoods’ unique needs.

Their conversation is valuable because it is frank. Community courts challenge traditional thinking about how the criminal justice system best functions. The inevitable resistance to this change, from both inside and

outside the justice system, has created obstacles for community court

planners at every stage of the process. 

The discussion in this monograph explores these obstacles and how cities

have responded to overcome them. Community court planners in New York

City and Hartford, Connecticut, for example, have found new ways to

address the common problem of finding adequate funding for a court within

their local justice systems. Their experiences offer important lessons for

other justice systems just beginning to consider alternative funding sources.

Other critical issues examined at the workshop include navigating local politics, deciding the kinds of cases the community courts will accept, reaching

out to allies within the system to overcome resistance, and ensuring that the

community is genuinely involved in the court’s operations. 

It is our hope that this monograph stimulates innovative problem solving

for court planners who are working to create and improve community

courts. The nation’s first community court planners must be counted

among our most important pioneers in community justice. Their experiences will be a valuable source of guidance as we prepare America’s criminal justice system for the 21st century. 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE iii
II. Obstacles and Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Politics: Neighborhoods and the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Funding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

What Kinds of Cases?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

System Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Community Service and Social Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Jail Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Specialty Courts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

III. Selected Remarks of Workshop Speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE v
Assistance and the Center for Court

Innovation first decided to hold a

workshop with the theme ‘obstacles,’ the idea was not warmly

received,” John Feinblatt, director

of the Center for Court Innovation,

remarked at the outset of a December 1997 conference in New York

City on implementing community

courts. Court planners told him

they would prefer a workshop that

focused on communities’ successes

in establishing community courts.

Focusing on obstacles, however,

turned out to be a good idea. The

Overcoming Obstacles Workshop

brought together an extraordinary

group of people from across the

country who are confronting similar

problems. This report, the first in a

special BJA series on community

justice, is a summary of their 

discussion.

The Center for Court Innovation’s

Overcoming Obstacles to Community Courts Workshop was held

December 4 and 5, 1997, in New

York City. The workshop’s participants comprised representatives of

six major urban centers (Baltimore, Maryland; Indianapolis,

Indiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota;

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 

Portland, Oregon; and St. Louis, 

(Hartford, Connecticut, and Hemp

stead, New York) that are working

with the Center to develop a common vision of the role of community courts in the criminal justice

system.

Also in attendance were New York

State Chief Judge Judith Kaye, U.S.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Noël Brennan, Bureau of Justice

Assistance Planning and Policy

Director Timothy J. Murray, and

members of the Center for Court

Innovation staff.

Representatives from the eight

cities expressed similar reasons 

for needing a community court in

their community. All recognized the

serious problems caused by qualityof-life crimes such as shoplifting

and other thefts, panhandling, prostitution, and low-level drug possession. The incidence of such crimes

is increasing in cities across the

country, and the traditional court

response to them has been ineffective. Offenders cycle through the

court process—arrest, arraignment,

ineffective sanctions, return to the

streets—and little or no impact is

made on either the individual

offender or the overall incidence of

low-level crime. Most jurisdictions

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 1
2

community courts look like the

logical next step.

The workshop attendees have

similar goals for the courts they

are planning to create. They seek 

a court process that imposes

immediate, meaningful sanctions

on offenders, is visible to the community, and has the capacity to

address the social problems that

underlie minor crimes. They believe that a court should be deeply

involved in the community it

serves and that community residents should have a continuing

role in court operations. Specifically, they want to make social services available onsite or through

ongoing arrangements with providers who can enroll clients

immediately after court disposition. 

Moreover, they would like the

court to develop relationships with

businesses, civic groups, and universities. Some have plans for 

formal community advisory boards

to monitor court activities, participate in setting court policies, and

help develop appropriate sanctions

for crimes committed in their

neighborhoods. Workshop attendees also expressed interest in the

computer database of the Midtown

Community Court in New York,

differed. While the six large cities

envision community courts that are

based in neighborhoods, Hartford

and St. Louis are planning centrally

located courts that will serve the

entire city. Hartford has a population of 125,000, the size of a bigcity neighborhood, and St. Louis

has a population of 400,000.

And while all of the court planners at the workshop saw their

courts handling criminal misdemeanors, the Hempstead, Indianapolis, and Portland teams had a

civil role in mind as well. Neighborhood disorder, the Indianapolis

team pointed out, arises from problems that are better addressed

through civil law. Two common

examples are infractions of health

and safety code violations and

landlords who rent to drug dealers

or otherwise allow properties to

turn into public nuisances. The

Portland team proposed combining

a criminal court for quality-of-life

offenses with small claims and

landlord and tenant courts to deal

with disputes among neighbors

that sometimes escalate into

crimes. The Hempstead team suggested involving the community

court in juvenile and housing court 

matters as well as cases normally

filed with the criminal court.
3

mer,” pushing offenders into community service, drug treatment, and

social service-related sentences.

Several cities have modeled programs after Midtown’s approach.

release when the jail population

reaches a certain threshold. In 

St. Louis, limited jail space for

female offenders has created such

a problem for prostitution arrests.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE
BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 5

and the City

In theory, the location of a city’s

first community court should depend upon the living conditions,

needs, and level of criminal activity

in the city’s neighborhoods. Where

are the concentrations of arrests

for offenses the community court

has targeted? How do these arrests

coincide with the existing boundaries of police precincts? Locating

a community court near highconcentration crime areas facilitates the quick arraignments, 

sentences, and assignments to

community or social service programs that distinguish community

courts from traditional courts. It

also makes the court more accessible to the public it serves.

Despite this logic, all of the

workshop participants agreed that

court planners must deal with funding issues and local politics that

may be the deciding factors in

determining the location of a city’s

first community court. For example, although the prototype Midtown

Community Court had plenty of

quality-of-life crimes to deal with 

in its Times Square neighborhood,

it benefited greatly from the concurrent desire of powerful business

and political interests in the city 

to clean up the area. Community

may be best located in a neighbor

hood that qualifies for funding from

the Weed and Seed Program. The

location of a city’s first community

court may reflect a compromise

between ideal and reality. The goal

should be to preserve enough of

the ideal so that a successful first

court can serve as proof that the

concept works.

As the community court concept

gains a positive national reputation, it becomes hard to site a

city’s first court in one neighborhood without incurring the resentment of others suffering from

similar problems. The resentment

grows, especially during periods 

of scarce public resources, when 

it becomes apparent that the new

community court is benefiting 

from substantial startup funding

that might have been put to other

uses. Such pressure prompted the

St. Louis planners to declare that

their community court will serve

the entire city. “In St. Louis, the

factor is politics,” explained the

leader of the St. Louis team. “If 

we were to say, ‘It’s going in this

neighborhood because it has big

problems,’ we’d get into a scrap

with people saying, ‘We have those

problems too.’ Doing it citywide 

is a way to get around politics.”
he said, “is just another specialized

court downtown.” 

Some participants observed that

other courts with special missions—

drug courts, housing courts, and

domestic violence courts—are

beginning to proliferate. A downtown community court with citywide jurisdiction may duplicate

services provided by other specialized courts and begin to be superfluous. With no distinctive geographic

base, it could find itself at a competitive disadvantage for resources

from private funders and the court

system. Those at the workshop

who felt strongly about locating a

court in a neighborhood and limiting its jurisdiction to that community suggested ways to get around

politics. They suggested starting

small, without much citywide publicity, and emphasizing the experimental nature of the first court with

the promise of replication in other

neighborhoods if the experiment

proves a success.

The St. Louis team said that its

court will distinguish itself by its

approach—swift and immediate

consequences that combine punishment with help—rather than its

location. “If people see that there’s

a difference as a result of this

approach, that’s what matters,” 

a St. Louis planner said.

emphasizing that it will operate

outside the present judicial structure. In that way, they distinguished it from the failed approaches 

of the past. 

The workshop did not resolve

whether it is possible to have a

community court that is not located within a community. The experiences of Hartford and St. Louis

may provide the answer.

Funding

Community courts may cost

more than traditional courts

because they take on expanded

roles and responsibilities. To the

extent that they operate more efficiently, moving offenders from

arrest through arraignment more

rapidly and imposing alternative

sentences that cost less than jail,

they may realize some savings. 

But the increased investment in

such courts also promises larger

dividends, notably greater public

confidence in the courts and criminal justice system, an improved

environment for economic investment in distressed neighborhoods,

and possible reductions in crime.

Community courts can seek

funding from a wide range of

sources, including some that are

not usually involved in criminal

6
should be to seek out contributions

and grants from respected sources

and then use those commitments

to persuade others to participate.

Greg Berman, a member of the

New York team, described how the

Center for Court Innovation found

funding for a second New York City

community court in the Red Hook

section of Brooklyn, an area with

neither an affluent business community nor a powerful political

constituency. By first attaining a

planning grant from the city’s public housing authority, the group

was able to secure funding from

the U.S. Department of Justice

(DOJ) and the City of New York.

The effort reflected “good analysis

of who are the stakeholders,”

Berman said.

Funds may be available from

federal programs that do not

explicitly target community courts,

such as programs that promote

public health or fight substance

abuse. Cities may also be eligible

for money available through the

Executive Office for Weed and

Seed by locating community courts

in Weed and Seed neighborhoods.

Some court planners at the

workshop recommended beginning

with government funding sources

because private donors will likely

ask why they should pay for a

costs that the city cannot currently

afford.

Private funders may also be

approached with the compelling

argument that the community

court is an aid to economic development. Such a court would focus

intensively on a community’s panhandlers, drug dealers, prostitutes,

and shoplifters, who create a hostile environment for retail business

and real estate investment. Court

sanctions would put them to work,

cleaning up the neighborhood and

making it safer. The court would

also use its considerable power 

to push offenders into programs

that would help them improve 

their lives, potentially eliminating

them as sources of trouble in the

neighborhood. 

In addition, the court would be

deeply involved with community

members, including private funders, and would seek out their 

help in identifying the community’s

most urgent problems and devising

practical ways to address them.

Foundations, citywide business

groups, civic organizations, real

estate and merchant’s groups, 

and others interested in criminal

justice reform and the city’s quality

of life would likely respond to such

a partnership, and local institutions

could serve as an important source

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 7
relationship with an important local

institution, Trinity College. Its president pledged to provide student

interns, computer resources, and

fundraising assistance. In many

communities, forming a partnership with a college or university

could provide a low-cost way for 

a court to conduct research and

evaluations to help it shape an

ongoing program and document its

progress for funders, the criminal

justice system, and the public.

What Kinds of Cases?

All of the planning teams participating in the Overcoming Obstacles

Workshop expect their city’s community court to handle low-level,

quality-of-life crimes, but they 

also acknowledged that the term

“quality of life” is broad. Planning

requires careful choices. Should

the court focus its resources on

prostitution? Street drug deals?

Public intoxication? Petty theft?

When making such critical decisions, the court must involve the

community. A basic principle of

community justice is that a neighborhood’s perception of its crime

problems should be taken as seriously as the priorities established

by law enforcement professionals.

Court planners need to find allies

in police departments and prosecution offices who understand the

concentration of petty thefts or

vandalized cars in a community,

residents may be more concerned

about aggressive panhandling and

prostitution that creates a sense of

menace on the streets. To conduct

such research, the court’s planner

should meet with business owners,

landlords, tenants’ associations,

and civic organizations. However,

these groups are likely to see the

court’s inquiries as an opportunity

to pursue their own agendas, and

the court may want to convene 

its own meetings with residents 

or even conduct door-to-door surveys. These tasks could be turned

over to a college class as a social

research project, or a local market

research firm could be persuaded

to make a pro bono contribution of

professionally conducted consumer

surveys and focus groups.

While every team at the workshop realized the importance of

carefully deciding what types of

cases a court should focus its

resources on, one planner cautioned that too much time and

effort could be wasted on one

issue. “It’s okay to start small, 

to go somewhere with a magistrate, a prosecutor, and X number

of cases,” he suggested. “Just 

start doing it somewhere in a 

community by identifying a 

8
y, y 

is likely to disrupt the culture of

traditional courtrooms, where lawyers long ago found ways to turn

inefficiencies to their clients’ advantage. A good computer database and information-sharing

system may shift power from the

prosecutor or the defense attorney

to the judge. People who sense 

that they are losing power and

influence usually find ways to

undermine the institution that

seems responsible. Police officers,

meanwhile, may object to an unfamiliar court routine and an emphasis on crimes that they do not

consider serious.

Workshop attendees suggested 

a number of strategies to overcome or at least minimize such

resistance, including:

• Make the rational case. Defenders of the status quo typically

do not admit that they are simply trying to protect their turf. 

A traditional court’s failure to

have an effect on quality-of-life

crimes should be easy to document with statistics about dismissals, sentences to time

served, and the return of offenders to lives of low-level crime.

“The way to get people to accept

change,” one participant said, 

“is to hold up a mirror to them, 

courts, prosecutors and defense

attorneys often find themselves

striking deals for probation

dependent upon community

service or attendance at drug

treatment or other social service

programs. They can be persuaded that the community court

provides a structure for getting

such results more often with a

greater level of accountability.

• Find good allies. Most police

officers and prosecutors are now

familiar with the principles of

community justice. In many

precinct stations, it is possible

to identify a few officers who

respond to the idea of community policing and pursue it with

energy and imagination. Young

prosecutors are often appalled

by the conditions they find in

traditional lower courts and are

intrigued by the possibilities of a

more creative approach. Such

people should be brought into

discussions of the community

court at an early stage, both to

win their support and to take

advantage of their knowledge 

of the neighborhood and the 

criminal justice system. They

may respond positively to the

idea of participating at the

ground floor of an innovative

project that promises success

and recognition.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 9
gy may enhance the power of

its presiding judge. These features could become important

selling points when recruiting a

good judge. Police officers may

object to the idea of a court that

provides speedy arraignments

because it promises fewer lucrative hours of overtime. Police

managers, however, are likely to

endorse the idea for exactly the

same reason. Community patrol

supervisors could be shown how

a court willing to provide social

service referrals and neighborhood work crews can become

an invaluable resource for community policing.

Community Service and

Social Service

Traditional courts have a long

history of sentencing offenders to

community service. Should a new

community court depart from this

tradition? If existing community

service programs are rigorous and

relevant to the community, the 

new court may not need to depart

from them at all. But if, as is often

the case, compliance rates for 

traditional community service programs are low and the work assignments mainly benefit downtown

public agencies, the court should

invest its resources in a new approach. What this really means is

onsite community service project

in the form of a letter-stuffing and

mailing shop that puts offenders 

to work for the benefit of neighborhood organizations. Community

service projects in the courthouse

or nearby in the neighborhood

make immediate assignments 

possible. Instead of being told to

report back in a few days to start

work, the offender may be escorted by court officers directly from

sentencing to the office of the person scheduling community service.

As resources permit, the court

may want to consider fielding its

enforcement officers to follow up

when offenders fail to appear for

community service assignments. 

In every community court,

accountability is crucial. From the

beginning, the community court

must track community service

compliance rates not only to keep

pressure on the program to maintain compliance, but also to justify

continued financial and political

support. 

The community court’s need 

for immediacy argues strongly for

developing an onsite social service

capacity, despite the need for

space and staff that this activity

may create. John Feinblatt, director of the Midtown Community

Court, told workshop participants

10
“Some we turned away,” Feinblatt

said. “Some we decided to use 

on a referral basis, and some we

asked to set up shop at court.”

Because many of the agencies

involved did not receive budget

supplements to pay for their work

with Midtown, the court supported

them in other ways, including 

providing free office space, computer access, subway tokens for

clients, and other amenities. In

New York, Feinblatt said, social

service agencies working in traditional courts were treated as

“stepchildren working out of closets. We tried to reverse that to

make them feel appreciated.”

As for the types of services a

community court should offer,

Feinblatt indicated that the Midtown

Community Court addressed the

problem with research early in the

planning stage. Midtown’s planners

conducted focus groups with drug

treatment center residents and 

then developed an assessment

questionnaire for their intake workers that was tested on offenders

arrested in the neighborhood for

the kinds of crimes the court would

handle. Even with this assessment

system, Feinblatt reported that the

court made some mistakes. The

onsite services for homeless and

runaway youth were dropped after

y 

planners cope with the common

problem of lack of jail space?

Some workshop attendees said

they would use the enticement of

deferred prosecution when court

orders prevented the credible

threat of jail for offenders who do

not complete their community or

social service obligations. Feinblatt

challenged that idea, pointing out

that this activity prohibited any

ratcheting up of sentencing alternatives for people who do not

comply with their sentences or who

re-offend. Communities may not

be willing to accept a court that

puts offenders to work in their

neighborhoods if it is not prepared

to jail them when they re-offend.

A Hempstead planner suggested

assigning a range of hours of community service, permitting the

court to increase the number of

hours for offenders who do not

comply with the initial assignment,

followed by jail for repeated noncompliance. A Hartford planner

suggested using electronically

monitored house arrest when jail

cells are not available.

Tim Murray, Director of Planning

and Policy for the Bureau of

Justice Assistance, argued that

community court planners should

not assume that the jail-space

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE 11
anything about that.’ The fact is,

all of these jail crowding problems

can be resolved. You can find ways

to save space. You are making

extraordinary progress for courtrooms and prosecutors’ offices.

Why not think about doing the

same for jail space as well?”

Specialty Courts

Some workshop participants

noted that specialty courts, including drug courts, housing courts,

domestic violence courts, and

environmental courts, are now

common in communities across

the country. Specialty courts use

their power to address the serious

unmet needs of troubled communities instead of simply disposing 

of criminal cases. They also

encourage the judiciary to rethink

its role. Some workshop participants looked forward to setting up

community courts that could coordinate efficiently with existing specialty courts, finding rational ways

to share resources. An abandoned

building that has become a hangout for a gang of juvenile drug

dealers, for example, could be a

focal point for a community court,

a juvenile court, a drug court, and

a housing court to work together

worry about their uncoordinated

expansion, with camps forming

around juvenile courts, drug

courts, and others, all with different

agendas. Because specialty courts

tend to cost more than traditional

courts, there is a real danger that

competition for the court system’s

finite pool of resources will restrict

useful cooperation. Also, where

some court administrators see an

opportunity for coordination and

synergy, others may see the potential for wasteful duplication of

effort. How, for example, should a

community court and a drug court

divide up responsibility for misdemeanor drug offenses?

At what point does a jurisdiction

have too many specialty courts?

To what extent are community

courts similar to other specialty

courts and how do they differ? 

Can proliferation of specialty 

courts ever eliminate the need for

a community court? How should 

such issues be handled? Although

workshop participants did not 

arrive at clear answers to these

questions, they all agreed that they

are important questions and merit

continued discussion as the community court movement expands. 

12
13

does not continue after the courts

opening. They discussed a number

of ideas for maintaining strong ties

to the community, including:

• The court’s physical setup and

operating style should be inviting, not intimidating. Lobby

security measures should move

visitors through metal detectors

and into the courtroom with

minimal hassle. The judge

should acknowledge visitors’

presence and explain the proceedings. Computer terminals

should give members of the

public access to public areas 

of the court database and allow

visitors to submit queries and

comments to judges and court

administrators. (A Hartford

judge reported that he had

already set up an “Ask the

Judge” e-mail address.)

• Concern for the court’s ongoing

relationship with the community

should shape the community

service program. Community

service sites and tasks should

be developed in consultation

with neighborhood groups.

Community service work crews

should wear identifying jackets

or vests. Community service

job-site developers should 

look for opportunities to put 

approach to be successful in

terms of compliance and positive community response.

• The court should establish formal structures to keep the 

community involved. Some

attendees proposed creating 

a full-time community liaison

position and discussed establishing community advisory

boards that would meet regularly with court officials to discuss

crime problems in the neighborhood and the court’s possible

responses to them. Workshop

attendees emphasized, however,

that the court may have problems with these groups if the

relationship is not treated carefully. The court should invite

ideas from the advisory board

on possible community service

sites and possible sanctions for

certain kinds of offenses, but it

should not give the advisory

board the idea that it can tell 

a judge what sentences to

impose.

Ultimately, the success of an

ongoing community relationship

may depend on the personalities of

the court’s administrator and judge

and how they deal with community

leaders.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE
15

During the course of the workshop, four speakers addressed the

workshop participants. The following are summaries of their remarks.

Judith Kaye, New York State

Chief Judge, proposed some

themes for the workshop. First,

New York does not regard the 

Midtown Community Court as 

“the answer” for all jurisdictions. 

It would not be appropriate, she

said, to take the Midtown Community Court example and simply

transplant it to other jurisdictions.

Instead, she hoped that attendees

would take ideas developed in 

New York and adapt them to their

circumstances.

Second, she noted that Midtown’s

planners do not view the court as

static, a work that has been completed. “We are constantly challenging ourselves,” she said, “to

revisit what we are doing, to make

it better.” In the past year, the

court has begun providing health

care, job training programs, and

outreach services to the homeless.

Third, she said, the idea of the

court is an occasion for us to question the role of judges and the role

of courts and to ask ourselves

whether we can do things better.

And if so, how?

Fourth, she reported that the

Midtown Community Court has

already yielded lessons that can 

be applied elsewhere—specifically,

with domestic violence courts and

drug treatment courts. New York

court planners hope to move the

Midtown Community Court model

into the family court.

Noël Brennan, Deputy Assistant

Attorney General and coordinator

for community justice initiatives 

in the DOJ Office of Justice

Programs, said that community

justice is about rethinking the criminal justice system and developing

practical, problem-solving models

for the delivery of justice. “What 

is most exciting,” she explained,

“is that this has encouraged partnerships between traditional and

nontraditional participants in

addressing crime and promoting

public safety.”

Creating community courts will

engender partnerships and planning among the local judiciary, law

enforcement personnel, prosecutors, public defenders, corrections

officials, and faith-based and 

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE
16

Reno has emphasized the importance of these partnerships in how

we do our work. Through these

partnerships, it is hoped that communities will continue to strategically plan for the delivery and

administration of justice at the

local level.

“You are making the concept 

of community justice a reality,”

Brennan said, commending the

efforts of the workshop participants for taking the steps to develop community courts as an

innovative model for community

justice in their respective cities. 

Julius Lang, Director of Midtown

Community Court, described the

court’s new Street Outreach Services Program, in which caseworkers work with community patrol

officers in outreach teams that

seek out homeless people, prostitutes, and others who might benefit

from the court’s social service programs, inviting them to come into

the courthouse for help. “Some of

these people have been arrested

before,” Lang said. “Some of them

no doubt will be arrested again.

What we are doing is trying, together with the police, to convince them

to come back to the court and

accept services.”

on, a community court has the

broader objectives of preventing

crime and solving problems in

cooperation with the police and the

community. With these goals in

mind, community court outreach

makes sense.

The Street Outreach Services

Program has increased contacts

with police officers at all levels,

which Lang believes has helped 

to create a strong, positive relationship between the court and the

police. The police now appreciate

the program because it enhances

their interaction with the community as well as with the court. At

public meetings, Lang said, people

in the community are asking, What

are we doing about homelessness?

The police are able to point to this

program.

Tim Murray, Director of Planning

and Policy, Bureau of Justice

Assistance, argued that the Midtown Community Court is at a

“dangerous” point because, as it

attracts attention, it inspires illconsidered imitations. “Avoid the

temptation to replicate what has

been shown to you as a model,”

Murray said. “When you look at 

the model, look hard, because

what you’re seeing is not a 
17

western prosecutor who learned

from other law enforcement officials about a six-block neighborhood with a high incidence of

street robberies. He proceeded to

put together a task force of local,

state, and federal law enforcement

groups to deal with the robbery

epidemic. When he convened a

meeting of neighborhood residents

to explain the plan and enlist community cooperation, he was met

with questions about used condoms littering the streets of the

neighborhood because of prostitution activity. “What about the street

robberies?” the prosecutor asked.

The residents told him that they

would get to the street robberies,

but first they wanted action on the

prostitution problem. As a result,

the prosecutor shifted strategies

and formed a task force on street

conditions, whose organization 

and work came to resemble a

community court project. 

the communities they are supposed to serve.”

When the planners of the Midtown

Community Court visited Miami’s

drug court, Murray recalled that

they told him that they did not

think the work of the Miami court

addressed the issues and concerns

they faced in Manhattan. But they

still found the visit useful. 

“They didn’t see a judge dealing

with addicts to try and get them

clean and sober,” Murray said.

“They saw the power of the court

applied to problem solving. They

saw that you could get together

with a public defender, a prosecutor, a judge, and service providers,

and sit down until everyone reached consensus on a common goal.” 

That’s the lesson of Midtown: by

engaging the very people we purport to serve, we do a better job.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE
General Information

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Rockville, MD 20849–6000

❒ Visit

2277 Research Boulevard 

Rockville, MD 20850

❒ Telephone 

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Monday through Friday 

8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

eastern time

❒ Fax

301–519–5212

❒ Fax on Demand

1–800–688–4252

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

on training. To contact the Response Center, call 1–800–421–6770 or write to 1100

Vermont Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20005.

Indepth Information

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requesters can call the BJA Clearinghouse. The BJA Clearinghouse, a component of the

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), shares BJA program information

with state and local agencies and community groups across the country. Information specialists are available to provide reference and referral services, publication distribution,

participation and support for conferences, and other networking and outreach activities.

The Clearinghouse can be reached by:

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http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

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http://www.ncjrs.org

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