In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

I was not alone in trying to build community support for the Justice Center. From the start, I enjoyed the active partnership of the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office. Two attorneys in particular—Gene Lopez and Carl Thomas—were instrumental. Their presence, and the D.A.’s early endorsement, lent the project immediate credibility.

I think it is important to note that the partnership with the D.A.’s office is not a make-believe or paper partnership, but a real-world relationship fraught with real-world tensions and conflicts. Although we share a common goal—creating a neighborhood justice center—we both have our own organizational agendas and pressures outside of Red Hook. Inter-agency collaboration takes patience, but in my experience it is well worth the effort. The D.A.’s office has helped enrich the planning process, bringing additional resources—and a different institutional perspective—to the table.

While the relationship with the D.A.’s office was the most intimate, it was by no means the only partnership that was forged in the early days of the project. Another crucial partner was Victim Services, New York’s largest victim assistance agency, which runs programs throughout the city’s neighborhoods, including Red Hook.

Bringing Victim Services into the planning process made perfect sense; Red Hook is a community in which nearly every resident is at immediate risk of being a crime victim. Similarly, many residents know someone, either a friend or relative, who has been the perpetrator of crime. In this environment, a community justice center must be aggressive about providing victims with assistance and giving them a voice in the justice process. Victim Services has been instrumental in helping us think through these issues.

n 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

Siting a new project is almost always a tricky business, particularly in a city like New York, where real estate is an extremely precious—and political—commodity. Thankfully, Red Hook offered one major advantage in this regard. Because of the dramatic population and business flight out of the neighborhood over the preceding 25 years, Red Hook has a number of vacant and abandoned properties. After investigating all of the city-owned sites in the neighborhood—and inspecting several privately-held properties as well—eight sites emerged as viable options. Each was close to public transportation and each was large enough to house both a courtroom and social service programs.

In an effort to narrow the list further, we organized a bus tour for local community leaders from the Community Board 6 task force. After looking at all of the possibilities, their clear first choice was Visitation School, a vacant parochial school that had closed its doors in the 1970s.

Visitation struck their fancy for several reasons. First, it was located in between "the front" and the "the back." In Red Hook parlance, "the front" signifies the public housing projects. "The back" is the area closer to the waterfront, which is composed of single-family row houses that are occupied primarily by Italian and Irish Americans. Visitation, in effect, is situated in neutral territory—it "belongs" to neither the front nor the back. This is an important political consideration in Red Hook. 
 
On an emotional level, many residents were drawn to Visitation because it had once been an important community resource. They looked at the Justice Center as an opportunity to bring back to life a magnificent old building. And magnificent is precisely the word to describe it: built at the turn of the century, Visitation School has the kind of dignified street presence that you might expect from a neighborhood courthouse. And, as it turned out, Catholic Charities, which owned the building, was willing to lease it to us for a reasonable price and play an active role in making the project happen. End of story, right? Wrong.

Visitation was not without its drawbacks. Although the structure itself was in good shape, the interior was a disaster. Asbestos and lead paint were major problems. The roof needed to be replaced. None of the windows were worth saving. It took several months to investigate the building properly—conducting tests, analyzing results, meeting with engineers and construction managers, preparing preliminary architectural drawings. After all was said and done, we got the bad news: it would cost several million dollars to renovate the building.

In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

Many good ideas founder on the shoals of poor fundraising. No program, no matter how well-intentioned or creative, can survive without adequate resources. I won’t lie about this: raising money for the Justice Center was not easy. There were days, even months, when I thought that the project would wither on the vine as we waited for grant proposals to be reviewed.

The initial planning of the Justice Center was underwritten by small grants from a couple of sources—the Fund for the City of New York, the Schubert Foundation, the Scherman Foundation and, in what might have been a first in this country, the local housing authority. While this was enough to keep me employed, it was not nearly enough to support a multi-million dollar renovation project. The question quickly became: where do we find that kind of dough?

The answer came at the end of 1996. After several months of conversation, site visits and proposal writing, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance agreed to pay for the soft costs associated with renovating the Visitation School—primarily fees for architects, engineers and renovation managers. With this money in hand, we were able to make a much stronger case to the Mayor’s Office in New York City. Red Hook all of a sudden had attracted the interest of the federal government, which had shown its commitment to the project by making a two-year, $1.2 million grant. Would the city step up to the plate as well?

The decision was made at the highest possible levels: New York State Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and New York City Mayor Rudy W. Giuliani were personally involved in the conversations. Finally, after more than two years of reaching out to the community, building the concept and developing the site, in December 1996 the City announced that it would cover the full cost of renovating the school.

Before developing a community court project, planners need to define the major problems a neighborhood faces. This article breaks down that process into six steps.

1. Ask Residents What They Think

Purpose:
To get an understanding of the community, and the issues residents feel are important; and to identify community assets that could help in developing solutions.
 
How to do it:
The basic techniques of community engagement—stakeholder interviews, focus groups, attending community meetings, administering community surveys—will help you get the information you need. Some helpful tips are:

• Engage a broad spectrum of local voices, including youth.
• Seek out those with special knowledge of the community, in addition to the average citizen.
• Ask people to identify possible solutions as well as problems.
• Find out what people think of the criminal justice system.
• Make firsthand observations and assessments of the neighborhood.

2. Gather Hard Data About the Problem

Purpose:
To obtain quantitative data that will sharpen the understanding of problems identified by community members. 

How to do it:
Relevant numbers are available from an array of sources, including the United States Census Bureau, the state and local court systems, police departments, district attorneys' offices, welfare agencies, departments of education, health and social services, housing authorities and other government agencies. You can also collect your own numbers by:

• Observing court proceedings and recording dispositions over a week or a month to understand how judges respond to particular cases.
• Polling defendants held prior to arraignment to find out what kind of problems they have.
• Talk to system insiders who might be able to accurately estimate numbers that are otherwise unavailable.

3. Analyze the Current Response 

Purpose:
To understand what is working and what is not working with the current ways of addressing local problems. Planners must study the current procedures in-depth, identifying weaknesses, gaps in service, inefficiencies and unsatisfactory outcomes.

How to do it:
You can interview key players in the criminal justice system (police, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, court clerks, probation officers, etc.) and outside the criminal justice system (social service providers, health care staff, etc.) who might have valuable insights. You can also review statistics with system insiders and undertake first-hand observations of key processes.

4. Share Idea with the Community 

Purpose:
To ensure that all stakeholders understand what problem or set of problems the project will address, and that there is a general consensus that this is the right approach.

How to do it:
This step not only helps focus the planning effort, but it also demonstrates to the residents that the community is a real partner in the project. You can get the word out by:

• Drafting a problem statement that can be circulated among key stakeholders.
• Conducting follow-up community meetings to share what the data revealed.
• Sending letters to stakeholders.
• Checking in with key stakeholders by phone.
• Contacting elected officials and fill them in on what you're doing and learning.

5. Develop Solutions 

Purpose:
To craft concrete solutions to the local crime and public-safety problems identified by the community and criminal justice stakeholders.

How to do it:
Once the problem is defined, planners can start brainstorming potential solutions. No doubt some ideas are already in hand. More can be found by talking to system players, such as judges, attorneys, cops, parole and probation officers, court officers and service partners. Ideas often come from other jurisdictions that are handling similar problems in creative ways. Planners should also find out what's been done in the past—what worked, what didn't and why?
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6. Monitor Results 

Purpose:
To study the effectiveness of the project as it moves to implementation and to continue to identify new problems and appropriate solutions on an ongoing basis.

How to do it:
The most successful projects pursue reflection and self-improvement on a regular basis. This requires collection of data for self-evaluation and can be done a number of ways. Here are some ideas:

• Survey community members regularly.
• Form a collaboration with a local university to engage in ongoing research of your project.
• Devote project resources and personnel to monitoring program results.
• Develop and maintain on-going communication with the community your project serves through newsletters, formal and informal meetings, and involvement in your program.

 “Talk to everybody. Get the vision of the stakeholders, community boards, the business community, cops, every single block association and everybody in and out of the system.”

– Michele Sviridoff, deputy director for research at the Center for Court Innovation

Whether it originates out of the local police department, prosecutor’s office, probation department or court system, a community justice project must be tailored to the neighborhood it serves. And since the focus of all community justice projects is solving local crime and public safety problems, one of the foremost tasks for planners is to identify the key problems that the neighborhood in question faces.

Planners can go about that in a number of ways, starting with direct outreach to local stakeholders. Planners should talk with both community leaders and a cross-section of average citizens. In addition to individual conversations, focus groups, surveys and attending community meetings are excellent ways to take a community’s pulse. It’s best to ask a broad range of questions, covering general attitudes about the neighborhood and issues related to crime, safety and youths. Planners should also ask people to identify a community’s assets. Planners can round out their picture of the community by walking through the neighborhood.

Planners need quantitative data to sharpen their understanding of the issues identified by the community. Planners find it useful to know the number of people in the catchment area; profiles of residents, as well as offenders, including their socio-economic status, ages, level of schooling and employment; types and locations of crimes; types of housing; the annual number of violations, misdemeanor and felony arrests and case outcomes.

Once the problems have been clearly defined, planners start generating solutions. By this stage, many good ideas have probably already surfaced; others can be harvested by talking to local members of the criminal justice system, and by turning to other jurisdictions that are handling similar problems in creative ways.

For more, read Steps to Defining the Problem, which breaks down the process. 

As difficult as it is to engage the community in defining problems and articulating priorities, the hard work really starts here. How do you turn all of this into a concrete plan?

Drawing up a budget isn't easy. There are a lot of things to keep track of: Staff costs, rent, supplies, consultants, insurance, etc. Planners of community justice projects face an extra challenge: Identifying all the non-traditional items—from research to social services, from community outreach to technology—their project will require. To help with that task, here's a list of some of the things that planners might want to consider when making their budgets.

Personnel

Program Administration

• Project Coordinator
  Include staff time for overall project coordination, administration and fund-raising. If the project is complex, a full-time coordinator may be a worthwhile investment.
• Researcher/Evaluator
  Project evaluation can be done by collaborating with independent evaluators, linking with a professor from a local college, or by hiring in-house staff to measure the effectiveness of the project.
• Community Liaison
  Build in staff time to ensure consistent communication with community members.

Social Services

• Clinical Director
  If social services are a major part of an initiative, having professional on-site staff and office space for social service partners is important. Even when a social service agency is providing social workers, it may be a good idea to hire a clinical director to oversee delivery of services and maintain quality control.
• Social Worker(s)
  Social workers on staff can handle a wide-range of functions, performing psycho-social assessments to help link participants with appropriate services, performing intensive case management, communicating with on-site and community-based social service partners and counseling victims.

Alternative Sanctions

• Alternative Sanctions Coordinator
  Many community justice projects use alternative sanctions or diversion programs. Intensive monitoring is necessary to ensure compliance and promote confidence among criminal justice professionals and community members.
• Community Service Supervisor(s)
  Coordinating schedules for community service crews, troubleshooting the day-to-day issues that arise as offenders perform community service and finding new community service projects are crucial to making community service an effective sanction.

Information and Resource Coordination

• Resource Coordinator
  Allocate resources for efficient information and resource sharing among partners. For example, if a probation officer refers a young person to a job-training program, how will the officer get information on their progress? A resource coordinator, or information manager, can fill that role.
• Spokesperson/Communications specialist
  Community justice programs communicate regularly with stakeholders, explaining their work, soliciting feedback and generally trying to foster trusting and productive relationships. A communications specialist can help by putting together newsletters or brochures and speaking at community meetings. The person can also handle media inquiries, ensuring that accurate information about your program is disseminated to the public.

Other than Personnel Services

Contracts with Service Providers
This might include contracts with drug treatment providers, mental health and other service providers, such as GED programs and English as a Second Language instructors.

Consultants
Community justice programs often hire consultants for a number of tasks, including:
Computer program development

• Strategic planning
• Facilitation of focus groups
• Architectural or design services

Community Service
If your program has a community service component, don't forget to budget for:

• Community service supplies (e.g., overalls, vests, paint, gardening equipment, brooms, etc.)
• Food for participants
• Transportation, including insurance, gas and maintenance of a vehicle

Community Engagement
Community engagement is crucial to the success of any community justice project. Keep in mind the things you'll need to do it effectively, such as:

• Meeting space
• Refreshments
• Child-care arrangements
• Parking facilities
• Printing and postage for community outreach materials (newsletters, articles, event invitations)

A successful search for funds is supported by three things: solid research of potential funding sources, a compelling project and old-fashioned networking. Planners should look beyond the traditional sources of criminal justice funding—is there, for instance, a foundation that might be interested in neighborhood beautification? Is there a local elected official with discretionary funding that might be enticed to support community service projects? Is there a hospital that might fund drug prevention efforts? Networking is also key because cultivating relationships with funders—as opposed to simply responding to requests for proposals—helps you stay abreast of new funding opportunities and keep your project in the spotlight. Here are some other tips from planners who have found money for their community justice projects:

1. Seek local funding
Take a close look at any institution—banks, businesses, government agencies, foundations—that has a stake in the success of your neighborhood or your project. It is usually easier to make a pitch to someone with a vested interest. The most important thing is to find someone—anyone—to take that initial leap to invest in your ideas. Once you get the ball rolling, other funding is sure to follow. For example, a grant from a community foundation can fund a planner who can then seek additional support for the project. Local funding, even if modest, demonstrates that there is local commitment to the project—a feature many national and federal funders look for.

2. Look for grants from the U.S. Department of Justice
The Department of Justice provides funding to community justice initiatives through the divisions of the Office of Justice Programs, including the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Community Capacity Development Office. For example, BJA in the past has had solicitations for community justice, community courts and community prosecution initiatives. On a regular basis, review their web sites, program plans and press releases. A significant portion of federal money is now distributed to the states through block grants. The Bureau of Justice Assistance, for example, provides criminal justice support primarily through two avenues, the Edward Byrne Memorial State Grants and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program. Find out what state agencies are responsible for the distribution of these funds so you can apply for them.

3. Seek out other federal funding sources
Community justice initiatives often have goals that may be of interest to funders outside criminal justice. These may include youth development, job training, violence prevention, or economic development. At the federal level consider these strategies:

• Set aside five minutes each day to review The Federal Register on the Internet. The Federal Register provides a daily compilation of federal documents. This is a great starting point to review both federal agencies’ grant opportunities and to learn more about agencies' policies, procedures and future program directions. The Register also provides links to federal agencies.
• If you’re tackling crime in a neighborhood with a large public housing population, explore opportunities with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Also, investigate funding opportunities available through the Department of Health and Human Services if violence prevention is a project goal. Projects that have a youth focus should review funding opportunities available through the Department of Education.

4. Build partnerships
Explore filing joint funding applications with other programs or agencies. There’s often strength in numbers. Many funders look for creative collaborations as a way of leveraging resources and getting the biggest bang for the buck. In addition, sometimes your partners will have access to funding sources that you won’t.

5. Get noticed
At the end of the day, the most successful fund-raising strategy is to run a high-quality program. Funders, whether they’re local or national, respond to results. Unfortunately, a successful program doesn’t always speak for itself. Often it is necessary to aggressively get the word out. The best advice here is this: don’t be shy. Send out newsletters and press clips to foundations and elected officials. Launch your own web site. Make every possible effort to communicate with the public—you never know when a letter or a press release will catch a funder’s attention.

All the important facets of a community justice collaboration can be enhanced through the use of technology. Here is a list of commonly asked questions about the subject.

 

Q: I want to develop an information system for my community court. How do I start?

A: Here are some steps to take if you are developing or adapting an information system:

• Identify the key players in your community court who will use the information system. At a minimum, these probably include the judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, on-site clinical staff and treatment providers.
• Ask the key players: What information do you need? When do you need it? How would you like to see the information displayed on the computer screen? Also ask about the functionality they need from an information system. For example, how will the information system alert community court staff if a defendant is not in compliance? Does the judge need to be able to record comments on individual cases? How many people need access to the system?
• Based on these conversations, decide what information you need in your computer application. Is it already being collected? Who's collecting it? How are they collecting it? Determine which data are not being collected and if it is possible to develop the procedures to begin collecting it.
• Write a design document, which is a memo describing your information needs. Include information on community court case flow and caseload (e.g. approximately how many cases will the information system need to keep track of?); a list of data fields; functional requirements, sketches (hand-drawn is fine) of what the computer screens should look like; and any ‘business rules' (e.g., specifications about who has access to different pieces of information).
• Enlist the help of an information systems professional to help you conduct an analysis of what type of information system you need. The analysis should answer the following questions: Based on your needs (as outlined in the design document) and budget, should you build your own information system or should you adapt an information system developed by another community court? What will be your software and hardware needs? How long will it take to develop or adapt an information system? What will be your ongoing maintenance needs?

Q: How much does it cost to develop a community court information system?

A: Below are some of the items to include in a budget for a community court information system. The actual costs will vary depending on the size and scope of your community court and our technology needs. You will have a good understanding of this once you develop a design document (see previous question).

• Project Management. Because of the number of people and steps involved in the development of a community court technology system, it is wise to designate one individual to manage the entire project.
• Programming: Whether you build your own computer system or adapt an existing system, you will have initial programming costs. It is also likely that you will have ongoing programming costs for modifications and/or enhancements once the initial programming is complete.
• Maintenance: Ongoing maintenance of a computer system usually requires a system administrator who can handle matters such as account additions or changes.
• Hardware: This may include personal computers for individual users and a server computer and related hardware to house the computer application.
• Software: A community court technology system typically consists of an underlying database and a front-end application that allows the users to see or edit the data. Depending on the level of sophistication necessary for your community court, these two components may be included in one software package (e.g., Microsoft Access) or may be different software packages (e.g., Sybase database software and Powerbuilder software for the front-end application.)
• Training and Technical Support: Users typically need both initial training and ongoing support to use the information system correctly.

Q: How do community court information systems handle issues of confidentiality and access to client information?

A: All community courts should become familiar with federal and state regulations governing the release of information about an individual's criminal justice history and participation in substance abuse treatment programs. For treatment program participants supervised by the criminal justice system, confidentiality regulations usually allow the exchange of treatment-related information between affiliated community court agencies, or with other criminal justice or community agencies. Once consent for release of information is provided within the criminal justice settings, it generally cannot be rescinded until the participant completes or leaves the program. Individuals who receive confidential information may disclose and use it only to carry out their official duties with respect to the release. Once rules about who has access to what set of information are understood, they should be clearly stated in a written document. The system administrator can use the written document to create security procedures for the information system. These usually involve setting up tiers of access and controlling access to the different tiers through individual accounts with passwords.

Q: Will community court staff require training to use the community court information system?

A: Yes. Once the information system has been developed, you should schedule training sessions for community court staff who will use the system. The training will ensure that all users understand the features of the information system and have an opportunity to ask questions. You should keep training and support needs in mind when designing the information system. If the system is clear and easy to use, you will spend fewer resources on training and support.

Q: Are there best practices in the community court information systems that my system can adopt?

A: These are some of the features that can make community court technology easier to use:
Use colors that make intuitive sense to the users. For example, when displaying compliance information use green for good outcomes and red for bad outcomes.
Flashing buttons can attract the users attention to important information.
Visual displays can make it easier to digest information, especially in a busy courtroom. For example, a picture of a beaker next to a date can indicate a drug test.

Q: Are there other issues we should be thinking about as we design a community court information system?

A: These are some additional items to think about early on:

• Performance (i.e., processing speed)
• Protection against data loss (i.e., system back-ups and contingency plans)
• Screen appearance varying from PC to PC depending on local Windows settings.

 

The following guide is a starting point in addressing the planning, development and implementation of community court technology.

Network vs. Stand Alone

Determine if the information system will be housed on a network or on a stand-alone desktop PC. Influencing your decision will be such things as the size of the court, its caseload and whether you're sharing technical resources with a larger court system. An information system specialist may need to help decide how best to proceed.

Integration

Does your community court need to retrieve information from existing legacy data sources? Your management team should determine early on if you need to integrate with an existing data source like a mainframe or enterprise wide system. If you do, what scope of integration will meet your community court's informational needs? This requires analyzing whether you need a system that responds immediately to data processing (known as real time) or one that uploads data based on a series of commands (know as batch file processing). Alternatively, you may be able to achieve what you need without building a costly new system. The appropriate strategy may be to interface with existing information systems within your community court.

The above two points will largely shape the scope of your project. For example, network-based client-server system with read/write capabilities to a legacy data source is a very large undertaking requiring a significant financial, operational a physical resource outlay. On the other hand, a stand-alone system that operates on a few PCs in the drug court requires substantially fewer resource outlays.

Physical Infrastructure

Conduct a detailed survey of your location's technology infrastructure. Know what types of computers, server (s), network (LAN) are in place. Also, develop partnerships with the individuals or departments responsible for purchasing and supporting this infrastructure. They will be key to the success of the community court technology.

Partnerships

Recognize the importance of building partnerships with entities that have a stake in the community court. In many cases, partners can bring critical resources to the table for the developing new technology. These partners can be vital in leveraging resources both financially and operationally.

Budget

Establish a bottom-line dollar figure you can spend on planning, development and implementation of the community court information system. Understanding your budgetary limits will further help define the scope of the project. If your court is working with a budget of $100,000 and you would like to develop a client server based system that runs on the network to be used daily, it is safe to assert that your costs including programming and equipment will exceed the available budget. In this case, you would need to raise additional funds or modify the scope of your project.

Needs Assessment

Identify the specific information/data needs of our project. Reach out to all partners to assess their needs, especially those relating to evaluation.

Identify the information key community court players want. You'll want to find out, among other things, how the data is currently being collected, if there is any data entry operation, and what reports will need to be created. Once these questions have been answered a formal proposal or design document outlining your community court's needs should be prepared.

Application Functionality

Develop a detailed plan for application functionality, which would address issues including user access, security and defendant confidentiality. It might help to examine what community courts nationally are doing in this area.

• Learn which federal and state regulations apply to the release of information and confidentiality about defendant's criminal history and involvement in substance abuse programs.
• Incorporate visual displays that make the information accessible and easy to understand.
• Establish rules and guidelines regarding data access and write them up for community court staff.
  Appoint someone to administer the system and to create a security protocol based on the user access guidelines.

Project Management

A community court may fail to achieve its stated technology goals because it has not closely managed the project. To avoid this, designate a person, or if the scope of the project is large, a group of people who will oversee the information system development process. The project manager will be responsible for coordinating all planning and development activities, including:

• staffing, organization and management of the project team;
• troubleshooting;
• assessing project needs;
• training;
• designing documentation and procedures to assist the project team.

Build vs. Adapt

Understand the advantages and disadvantages between building a new information system and adapting an existing community court information system.

The disadvantage of building a new system is that it's expensive to customize software scratch. The advantage may be that your community court can build a system tailored to its specific needs.

Understand that technology is not static and is constantly changing, as will your community court's needs. For this reason, you should plan for on-going costs including maintenance, protection against data loss, expansions, upgrades, modifications, programming, training and technical assistance.