A "virtual roundtable" of experts answers questions about community prosecution.

What are some ways the community gets involved in community prosecution programs?

Dr. Catherine Coles
Researcher and Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Prosecutors can work with the community at different levels. They might work with a neighborhood, cultural or ethnic groups across different neighborhoods, the faith community, business interests, a chamber of commerce or business improvement district. These all represent interests within the community. I think the community can be defined in different ways at different levels from very small at the neighborhood level to a much larger level where you don’t have involvement of every single person in that community. 

Roxann Pais
Chief Community Prosecutor
Dallas City Attorney's Office
Dallas, Texas
One of the things that became quite clear to me when I got out into the neighborhood and attended different community meetings—neighborhood association groups, crime watch groups, faith-based meetings, school meetings, etc.—is that they all wanted a safer neighborhood but weren’t working together to make it happen. I also noticed that while each neighborhood had an assigned fire inspector and code inspector and housing inspector and various assigned police officers, they didn’t work together, either. In fact, they didn’t even understand each other’s roles. So I had a government and I had a community of people who weren’t communicating amongst or between each other.

So I created ACTION (All Coming Together In Our Neighborhood) teams, and now each one of our target neighborhoods has a government ACTION team and a citizen ACTION team. The government ACTION team consists of all those people I told you about—street, fire, police, probation, parole, crisis intervention teams, all the people who are assigned to work in that neighborhood. They come together once a month to strategize about a particular problem property or problem issue. They share neighborhood intelligence with each other and develop strategies by which they can work together to solve problems. It is phenomenal. It is why community prosecution grew as quickly as it did.

Susan Motika
Former Director of the Community Prosecution Division
Denver District Attorney’s Office
Denver, Colorado
The Community Justice Councils draw together a broad cross section of neighborhood residents to help shape the law enforcement response to crime and neighborhood problems. These are residents that are part of official civic associations but also informal leaders who have tremendous respect in the eyes of other community members.

But a Community Justice Council doesn't stop there. We also look at recruiting other people who have a stake in creating a safe neighborhood, the community center directors, faith leaders, public school teachers, community police, business leaders, community prosecutors and elected city and state representatives. We bring them to the table because very often community organizations may identify quality-of-life problems and have an idea for a solution but then ask, ‘How do we get this funded? Maybe the businesses could fund it or maybe the community center could stay open longer? The benefit of the Community Justice Councils is that those key people are already at the table and not being called later. They're all working side by side. When you have all these people working side by side month after month, the barriers and expectations they have about what it means to be a business leader or City Council member break down and people tend to work in a collaborative, less hierarchical way. 

Rosemary Lehmberg
First Assistant District Attorney
Austin, Texas
[We organize] Neighborhood Conference Committees [in] neighborhoods [that] come to us and want to start dealing with juvenile crimes. What we usually do is help them with the structure. We help recruit, we help with the first meeting, we tell them what the juvenile system is like and then they, with the help of a case manager and a coordinator, get together in panels of three and they consider cases we send them of juveniles who either committed crimes in the neighborhood or live in the neighborhood. There has to be some tie to their area... And the neighbors decide what those kids ought to do to make it right. And they kind of have him on neighborhood probation for a while. And he has to do things: He has to do community service, he has to write papers and do apologies and those kinds of things.

I think we’re heading toward a place where we hope that neighborhoods have everything to say about the people who are offending in their neighborhoods. And that they have the ability to set the priorities for police, prosecutors, city workers, about what they want the quality of life in their neighborhood to look like. It’s pretty idealistic.

How can a community court fit into a community prosecution strategy?

Roxann Pais
Chief Community Prosecutor
Dallas City Attorney's Office
Dallas, Texas
We opened our first community court on October 7, 2004, in one of the nine target neighborhoods. We have a municipal court judge who is now the community court judge, and we renovated a beautiful area in one of our community centers that houses about 25 different social service agencies. So the way I see it, community policing was step one, before we ever became involved. Then community prosecution was step two, and now our community court is step three. It would not surprise me if our community courts grow just as quickly as our community prosecution program did.

Scott C. Newman
Former Marion County District Attorney
Indianapolis, Indiana
I think that community courts are really the next step in power sharing with the community: it provides visibility for community prosecution and policing and encourages accountability for quality of life in the neighborhoods. It's a way to involve the courts and get their buy-in. Frankly, it's a way to make sure that we have the right kind of judges, who are community-minded, who aren't afraid to put a criminal case, even a low-level criminal case, in context, and to think a little more strategically in their sentencing. 

Charles J. Hynes
Kings County District Attorney
Brooklyn, New York
Look at Red Hook [a neighborhood in Brooklyn] after the anger and frustration people felt after [local school principal] Patrick Daly was killed [by drug dealers in 1992]. I went to the wake and the funeral and I spoke to a lot of people, and they kept telling me, ‘You don’t care about us. We got cut off years ago, with that horrible monstrosity [the Gowanus Expressway] that divided us from the city.’

Today ... if you speak to any people of color in this county, they will tell you that when justice moved downtown, they became suspicious of it. You’ve got to break down that suspicion. You’ve got to have people see what a justice program looks like. And that’s why Red Hook [Community Justice Center] works so well. You’ve got talented people like Gerianne [Abriano, chief of the prosecutor’s Red Hook Bureau] and Judge [Alex] Calabrese. He’s incredible. 

Bart Dickinson
Former Community Prosecution Coordinator
Frayser County Community Court
Memphis, Tennessee
[In the Frayser County Community Court] we ask that people who have been in violation of the city or county environmental code sign a court order to keep the property in compliance. If they let their property fall out of compliance again, then at my discretion, I can file a motion for contempt based on the court order. And if they are guilty of contempt then the judge can actually sentence them to jail time. Sometimes we use community service but very rarely because … we are having them do community service for themselves in picking up their property and bringing it into compliance.

Neighborhoods can almost completely turn around when you have people who have for years tried to get someone to do something about their neighbor who keeps their property in disarray and creates a nuisance and now all of a sudden they have been ordered to keep their property up. 

Robyn Gregory
Prosecutor, Portland Community Court
Portland, Oregon
The neighborhood district attorneys are the community courtroom deputies. The neighborhood D.A’.s, as a group, have done a lot of the planning for the Community Court. They're the ones who sat down and figured out the sentencing grid, the negotiation policies and the eligibility requirements. So they have worked on this project a lot. 

Tom Becht
Former Coordinator, West Palm Beach Community Court
West Palm Beach, Florida
The traditional roles are changing. [In the West Palm Beach Community Court, ] the prosecutor—assistant state attorney—advocates substance abuse treatment and community service. They will frequently waive community service if the defendant agrees to go into treatment directly from court. The assistant public defender does not try to just get their client off but to advise them to get help that is being offered. The judge acts as a social worker and coach in frequently persuading a defendant to go into treatment rather than opt out and plea not guilty. The defendant is always advised of their legal rights and options but all are working as a team to point the defendant towards treatment and help.

What are some of the challenges of planning and implementing a community prosecution program?

Scott C. Newman
Former Marion County District Attorney
Indianapolis, Indiana
We stick to what we're good at. That's another piece of direction I always give to the unit. There's a tendency to expand the charter or engage in what I call mission creep, where you want to do everything for everybody and if another agency isn't doing their job you want to do their job for them. If we expand, and get outside what we're really good at, I think we start to lose credibility and we spread ourselves too thin. So I try to remind people, ‘Don't do other agencies' jobs for them. Try to collaborate with them to get them to do a more effective job. Leverage your resources and remember what kind of things prosecutors are particularly good at and uniquely situated to do and emphasize those things.

A broader obstacle has been that many judges are reluctant to contextualize a problem. They take a very narrow view of what sentencing should be about in low-level criminal cases and they're very reluctant to find out the importance of a particular case to a particular neighborhood to place it in context. When we try to submit neighborhood impact statements, for example, some judges will disregard them and categorically refuse to hear that kind of evidence.

I think my fellow prosecutors who either have programs or are thinking of starting them need to keep an eye on the fact that local law enforcement block grants may be shrinking or going away. We need to start looking at institutionalizing what community prosecutors do and selling that to our local city/county councils and other officials because in the next few years it may not be so easy to fund a community prosecution program. I would issue a warning to prosecutors to start to measure what your units are doing because you're going to have to start to market this to get continued funding. 

Dr. Catherine Coles,
Researcher and Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
I guess the biggest concern for me in talking and thinking about the community and the work that prosecutors do within the community is the danger of excluding. The community that prosecutors work with, for the most part, needs to be an inclusive community that does not seek to exclude any particular group. 

Susan Motika
Former Director of the Community Prosecution Division
Office of the Denver District Attorney
Denver, Colorado
A big obstacle is resources and funding. This work is very time intensive. To lay the foundation right you don't just go in and announce the results of your burglary task force and leave. When you're building a proactive partnership you have to have an ongoing relationship with people that involve continued research and follow through on a consistent basis. So when people talk about community prosecution, they might underestimate the time it takes to do that.

I think that with community policing and community prosecution, we're dealing with institutional changes in large organizations that haven't been structured to respond to the community in this way. So having these organizations understand the community prosecution mission and the community justice mission is an important goal. You have to change your institution and make this a way of life, and it doesn't happen overnight.

Thomas K. Cullen
Former Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney
Alexandria, Virginia
The main thing is you’ve got to have some sort of connection with the community. If you attend only one community meeting every other month, you’re doing better than you’ve ever done. But the main tip is that when you go to those meetings, most of the people are going to want you to be the man or the woman in charge and run the meeting. You become the focus, and that’s a mistake. The focus has to be on the people. So you have to make it clear, “I’m just here to listen today. Maybe at the end of the meeting if you have some particular questions I can answer, that would be fine.” If it becomes apparent that one of the questions that they have constantly is what’s happening with cases, what you do is talk to the police department and ask them if they can send an agent over there to give them a rundown. Again, that takes the focus off you, so that you can do the listening.

How do you measure the effectiveness of a community prosecution program?

Thomas K. Cullen
Former Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney
Alexandria, Virginia
It’s a big challenge. We have a lot of anecdotal stuff from city agencies, from the community groups that have formed and from individual citizens who’ve written letters who say thanks for doing what you’ve done. One of my colleagues has statistics that show that the failure to appear rate for witnesses is way down, so people are starting to come to court. We also have more calls for service from the community, and that’s one of those good and bad things. Someone might say: “Wait a minute, the calls for service are up. You’re not doing a good job.” But when you had none before and now there are some, and one of the main problems was the fear and distrust of government and now the community is calling government, I think it’s a good sign. We also track the number of contacts we have of people coming to the office.

Mike Kuykendall
Former Manager of the Community Prosecution Program
American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI)
Alexandria, Virginia
The hard thing, like so many programs in criminal justice, is that people want to know, 'Did crime go down, and if so, was it because of this program or that program?' And that's one of the most difficult things we deal with. The mark of a successful community prosecution program isn't necessarily a drop in crime numbers; the numbers might actually increase because citizens are more involved, and reporting more crimes... There are a lot of other measures of success; the most important is the overall feeling of safety and security in the community and you can measure that easily by surveying the community before and after your program has been implemented. You can also quantify the number of meetings your prosecutors attended, the number of citizens involved in crime prevention committees, etcetera, to determine if your office has met its goal of more community input into public safety concern.

Susan Motika
Former Director of the Community Prosecution Division
Denver District Attorney’s Office
Denver, Colorado
We’re doing recidivism studies on Community Accountability Boards [where juveniles who commit offenses meet with their victims and representatives of the victimized community to develop sanctions that are restorative to the victim and community as well as being constructive for the offender]. We are going to re-administer a community justice survey we did at the inception to measure attitudes about safety and the criminal justice system. This will allow us to compare two years ago to today. We’re also working on developing outcome measures. 

Scott Newman
Former Marion County District Attorney
Indianapolis, Indiana
For now, the results are largely anecdotal, but they're powerful anecdotes. For example, in a particular neighborhood called Meridian-Kessler, the deputy prosecutor identified residence burglaries as a major neighborhood problem. The street level prosecutor in that area brought together detectives who had each investigated separate burglaries to identify distinctive modus operandi of these groups of burglaries. These diverse detectives from different agencies found commonalities and developed the threads into probable cause for search warrants. We were able to convict three major burglars working on the north side of the city. One of them was a heroin addict who confessed to some 200 residence burglaries. We immediately reduced burglaries in this neighborhood by about half. It was staggering what taking these three burglars of the streets did and it wouldn't have happened if not for the community prosecutor.

Another example would be a gang on the west side called the Ponds. It was the kind of gang that was scaring residents in a couple of apartment complexes but it wasn't big enough or bad enough to come to the attention of a metro gang task force. A young man was being pressed to join that gang and his mother went to her apartment complex manager, who is also a local minister, to express concern about that. Well, he knew our west side district prosecutor and went to her. We were able to get with this mother and child to help them relocate, to debrief the young man about the activities of that gang and were able to disassemble that gang through conventional vertical prosecution. It made a big difference in that neighborhood.

We have blocks of the city reporting that they sleep better at night, that they hear less shooting. You may call these anecdotal ways of measuring success, but I would just say we are measuring new things. We're taking less of a ‘911’ approach and more of a quality-of-life approach, measuring the number of evening walks a couple can take in a neighborhood, for example.

Charles J. Hynes
Kings County District Attorney
Brooklyn, New York
The easiest thing we do is put people in jail. That is not a difficult thing, if you’ve got your prosecutors trained well. The real challenge is to keep public safety at a level that is acceptable to the people you represent, and I believe that fundamentally you do that by recidivism reduction. Every time you reduce recidivism you knock down another layer of crime problems.

Complainants in domestic violence cases have unique needs, so the prompt and effective provision of services to victims is of paramount importance. What follows are key principles for ensuring victim safety gleaned from the operation of domestic violence courts in New York.

One of the guiding principles of domestic violence courts—misdemeanor, felony, and integrated—is victim safety. Complainants in domestic violence cases have unique needs and concerns; they are often dependent economically on their assailant, have children in common, and may be threatened by the defendant or the defendant’s relatives during the course of a case.  Therefore, the prompt and effective provision of services to victims is of paramount importance.

What follows are key principles for ensuring victim safety gleaned from the operation of domestic violence courts in New York:

Provide victims with immediate access to advocates. Every victim should be given immediate access to an advocate who can provide safety planning and explain court procedures. Comprehensive victim advocacy should include access to counseling, job training, immigration services, child services, and other programs aimed at improving self-sufficiency. A victim should remain paired with her advocate throughout the case (i.e., from police response through post-disposition).

Quickly link victims with social services. Advocates should  link victims with social service agencies, emergency shelter, food, and civil legal services, as necessary. This makes sense in human terms (providing people in crisis with help as soon as possible) and in terms of improving court outcomes. Studies have shown that when victims receive assistance early in the court process, they are much more likely to remain engaged in their cases. Victims are also more likely to follow through with a case when they clearly understand the legal process.

Keep victims informed. In addition to providing general information and referrals, advocates should provide victims with up-to-date information on their cases. This reduces the burden on the victim to constantly reappear in court to learn the status of her case, and ultimately reduces her chances of being placed in further danger. It also gives the victim the feeling that the system cares about her welfare; this may, in turn, persuade the victim to do all she can to participate in the prosecution.

Schedule cases promptly. Another way to enhance victim safety is to schedule domestic violence cases promptly so that victims can get an order of protection quickly. The longer the victim must wait for legal action, the longer she is at risk. The sooner a case can be heard, the sooner assistance can be provided. In Westchester County, for instance, felonies are transferred immediately to the domestic violence court after the initial filing of an indictment. This allows for the rapid issuance of orders of protection, and sends the message to defendants that the case is being taken seriously. It also allows the court to link victims to services as early in the process as possible. Experience indicates that delays give the batterer more time to convince the victim to become uncooperative.

Create safe places within the courthouse. Court planners should provide security and comfort for victims. Design elements can include providing private space to speak with advocates and separate waiting areas near the victim services office. The Bronx Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Court, in fact, has a separate safe waiting area staffed by victim advocates; victims are escorted to and from the courtrooms when they need to testify.

Recently, the Center for Court Innovation conducted a study at the Bronx Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Court to track the actual impact of judicial monitoring in a high volume court. The study focused on compliance and recidivism for 439 cases mandated either to: (1) batterer intervention alone; (2) batterer intervention with substance abuse treatment; or (3) substance abuse treatment alone.

The Bronx Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Court hears over 5,000 domestic violence cases each year, making it one of the busiest domestic violence courts in the New York state. It is a multi-faceted complex with three court parts—one courtroom for pre-trial appearances, one for trials and one devoted to monitoring defendants' compliance with court orders. Like a growing number of domestic violence courts, the Bronx typically includes a program mandate as a condition of sentence—whether for a batterer intervention program, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, or other program. 

Court administrators have begun to question whether a defendant's likelihood of benefiting from a program and monitoring could be assessed and made a factor of sentencing. Recently, the Center for Court Innovation conducted a study at the Bronx court to track the actual impact of judicial monitoring in a high volume court. The study focused on compliance and recidivism for 439 cases mandated either (1) batterer intervention alone; (2) batterer intervention with substance abuse treatment; or (3) substance abuse treatment alone. 

The study found that initial non-compliance was a strong predictor of ultimate failure. That is, if the defendant was non-compliant at the initial judicial monitoring date, the defendant was at increased risk of complete non-compliance.

Non-compliance with court orders
What does this study mean for domestic violence courts? One lesson appears to be that judicial monitoring, particularly in the early stages of a case, can help reduce non-compliance with court orders.  Here are some concrete steps a court can take to ensure swift response to non-compliance:

• Create standardized forms for compliance that can be faxed or e-mailed to batterers programs.  These forms should include a deadline by which the defendant must contact the program for intake.
• Develop relationships with key stakeholders.  Regular communication between the court, the District Attorney’s Office, defense attorneys, victim advocates and the mandated batterers program will reduce the opportunities for offenders to “play the system.”
• Have a separate compliance calendar and schedule early and regular compliance dates.  This sends an early message to the defendant that the court takes monitoring seriously.  It also allows the court to swiftly sanction a non-compliant defendant.  Having a set time for compliance also accommodates stakeholders who may need to send representatives to the court.

A Judicial Hearing Officer Shares His Experiences with the Harlem Juvenile Reentry Network
by Chris Watler 

As the judicial hearing officer for the Harlem Community Justice Center’s Juvenile Reentry Network, I see first hand the difficulties faced by young people returning from placement to their community. I also see the challenges faced by our juvenile justice system, which is struggling to do right by these kids and the communities they live in.

Open since August of 2003, the Juvenile Reentry Network serves juveniles recently released from state placement. Participants and their families are linked to an expansive network of services and monitored by an aftercare counselor and partner agencies under my supervision. The Juvenile Reentry Network is not Family Court, nor is it technically part of the judicial system. Rather, it acts as an administrative court within the New York State Office of Children and Family Services to enhance the supervision of youth in aftercare. Some of its innovative elements include a high level of family engagement, a strength-based approach to case management, youth development programming through three Boys & Girls Clubs in Harlem, access to mental health and drug treatment services, and intensive court monitoring.

I work with juveniles and their families every other week in the court. The highlights for me include working with a committed group of partners, and with kids and their families. The lives of these young people tell a story of hope and struggle in the face of family dysfunction, poverty, negative peer pressure and institutional neglect.

How does a young person returning from placement find the motivation and discipline to live a constructive life free from further offending? The Juvenile Reentry Network attempts to answer this question, but it is not easy. Gang involvement, learning disabilities, conflict at home, lack of resources (money and people), and low expectations are all part of the context within which these kids operate.

While in placement most of these kids attended school, obeyed rules, were drug free, and engaged in positive activities. Returning home afterward presents a set of incredible challenges that strike at the core of their identity in their family and in their neighborhood. Asking them to trust that a court will work with them to create change in their lives, and convincing them that change will involve creating a new identity, choosing new friends, and developing better habits and a rigid routine is daunting. Yet the alternate option of doing nothing to address their needs is a sure formula (and an expensive one) for failure.

I want to briefly describe two cases that highlight the challenges. The first case was a young woman who had been caught shoplifting at Macy's twice and brought to the Midtown Community Court. Her mother had been complaining that the child was leaving the house after curfew late at night and sitting in cars in front of the building. From her counselor at the Boys and Girls Club we learned that she was being called constantly by a male "acquaintance" who indicated that he wanted her to leave the Club to go "earn some money." Through these various conversations, the picture that emerged was of a female participant being lured into prostitution.

On the first occasion when she was caught shoplifting she was sanctioned to community service. She was failing to complete the community service when she was picked up the second time. Her aftercare counselor and I confronted her about our suspicions during a sidebar conversation. We informed her that we were going to send her to a residential program that helped young women understand the risks and realities of prostitution and helped teenage prostitutes get out of the business. We also talked to her mother at the hearing about our deep concern for her. It was during this process that the participant re-offended (the second shoplifting offense) and had to be sent back into state placement.

Normally, this case might have looked like a typical parent-child conflict with curfew violations and minor re-offending. The suspected prostitution, a more troubling issue, would most likely have gone unnoticed, but we were able to connect the dots by using information from the partners, and from the information gleaned from conversations in court with the participant and her mom. This young person is now back before me again, having been released from placement, and is applying to college and has an interview for a job. My last meeting with her in court included a mock interview from the bench. I had her practice responding to interview questions and gave her feedback. In the long run, we are hoping to get her on a different track that will increase her sense of self worth and empower her to see the possibilities for her life away from crime.

Another case involved a 16-year-old girl who had previously failed to complete aftercare four times. She was referred to Juvenile Reentry Network last fall and was returned to placement within four weeks! On her second go round with Juvenile Reentry Network (and her fifth time in aftercare) she was placed on electronic monitoring for the first four weeks of her release and given a tighter curfew. From January through May her school attendance improved, she was more engaged in Boys and Girls Club programming, and she participated more in the hearing process. Her mother indicated that she made it this far because of the Juvenile Reentry Network. Through the intense attention and structure she was given through the Network, she was able to complete the program and end the cycle of recidivism. She continues to attend her Boys and Girls Club program.

It is still much too early to say if the Juvenile Reentry Network will reduce recidivism among program participants. However, what we are seeing in the program is highly encouraging—over 90 percent of hearings involve a parent or guardian, all Juvenile Reentry Network kids are engaged in youth development programming, and we are better able to respond quickly and accurately to problems as they arise. And, with respect to recidivism, what we can say at this early stage is that, as of September 30th, 2004, only 22% (eight of the 36 program participants) have been removed from the program and returned to placement.

Strengthening Communities: Mediation in Crown Heights

The Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights is home to an Orthodox Jews, African-Americans, and Caribbean-Americans. Unfortunately, these communities have not always co-existed peacefully. In addition to occasional misunderstandings among residents, the community endured several days of well-documented unrest in the early 1990s. Since then, Crown Heights has become a national symbol of a community struggling with issues of cultural diversity.

In an effort to create a lasting infrastructure for resolving neighborhood conflicts, the City of New York asked the Center for Court Innovation to create the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center. “Community members didn’t want to be force-fed co-existence,” said James Kornbluh, a member of the Center for Court Innovation’s planning team. Instead, they were looking for something more concrete and more modest—something that would address their pressing everyday concerns and disputes. The result was the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center, which opened its doors in 1998.

Why Mediation in Crown Heights?
The Crown Heights Community Mediation Center follows a model of community-based mediation and uses it to address community conflict in Crown Heights. “Having a forum where [community members] can go to air their differences can relieve a lot of the tension that might otherwise build up,” Maureen O’Connor, a volunteer mediator, explained. “Even when the mediation session doesn’t end in a reconciliation, … it can diffuse a lot of antagonism.”

In community-based mediation, community volunteers help parties in dispute reach mutually acceptable agreements. The entire process is voluntary; both parties must agree to meet and one party cannot compel the other to come. Accepting an agreement is also voluntary. The mediator has no authority to enforce an agreement or to impose sanctions. For individuals that don’t want to go to the court or the police, mediation offers a viable alternative. “Mediation is much more inviting [because] there are no guards and no officials,” Kornbluh explained. “Because there is no coercion involved, many people who might otherwise never seek outside intervention are open to the idea of mediation.” 

A mediation session typically involves one or two mediators. Paper and pencils are available for parties to take notes, although no record of the mediation is kept for confidentiality reasons. The mediator begins by explaining her role and reminding the parties that the entire process is both voluntary and confidential. Parties are then asked to respect each person’s turn in speaking and not to interrupt. The party that brought the dispute to mediation goes first, and the respondent goes second. After that, the mediator acts as a facilitator. If she feels it necessary, she may pull aside individuals to have one-on-one private discussions during the session. The goal is to have both sides come up with an agreement. It may include specific tasks, like paying a set sum of money or returning a borrowed good, or it may include more intangible resolutions, like promising to communicate more often. A typical session lasts about two hours, and a dispute may take several sessions to be resolved.

Solving Problems
An early case in Crown Heights involving three households that shared a common landing demonstrates how mediation can relieve tensions. An African-American woman was complaining that the children of her two Jewish neighbors had been littering and making noise while playing on the landing. Meanwhile, her Jewish neighbors accused her of insulting them and using “unfortunate” language during the Passover holiday. With tensions mounting, the three heads of households decided to give mediation a try.

At the mediation session, the two sides were able to identify the core issues and talk more openly about their feelings. When the African-American woman revealed that her children played on the landing as well, the mediator was able to shift the focus of the conversation from noise and litter to the children of the three families. The woman mentioned that sometimes she felt hurt by the fact that her neighbors would not let their children play with hers. It was clear that the issue was not so much about noise as it was about kids playing together, and once the parents began to understand that the children were at the heart of their dispute, the dynamic of the conversation changed. “It was a cathartic moment,” says Chris Watler, who mediated the dispute. “Everyone started saying, ‘You know, we can do things differently,’ and they started making proposals.”  In the end, the three families agreed to supervise their children more closely and to consult each other on an ongoing basis about problems.

Most of the cases at the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center do not involve cross-cultural disputes, however. When a 10-year-old boy started skipping school and acting out, for example, his mother arranged for a mediation session. At the mediation, the boy expressed frustration at the fact that his father was incarcerated. His mother, in turn, admitted that she sometimes scolded him unfairly. Through mediation, the mother and son were able to reach a new level of understanding. In the end, they agreed to communicate more often and even commit to having Sunday morning breakfasts together.
 
Those most familiar with the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center—the volunteer mediators—say it is a great alternative to turning to the police for help. “Calling 911 can be a long process,” Jackie Drayton, a volunteer mediator, explains. “[With mediation], I can help solve a problem. [We] sit down and talk about it. … There are no guns, no arrests, no jail.” 

Since 1998, the Mediation Center has handled more than 2,000 mediation cases. Over 1,500 youth and adults have received conflict resolution training from the Mediation Center, including over 150 residents trained to be community mediators. Over 20,000 people have been served through the Mediation Center’s services, including a free summer recreation program for neighborhood youth, in-school leadership programs, resource referrals and mediation services.

A number of challenges exist for a parolee just leaving prison, and the newfound freedom of a parolee can be overwhelming. The Harlem Community Justice Center helps parolees make the transition from life in prison to responsible citizenship.

About a week before Debra left prison, she learned that she would be part of a new reentry program involving frequent court appearances and participation in a drug treatment program, among other activities. Debra had never heard of parole reentry before. “At first I was really mad,” she says. “I had never done parole in my life, but I knew you weren’t supposed to go to court or in front of a judge. I was really angry that I had to go every week.”

Six months later, she completed the program and had an entirely new perspective: “Putting me in the parole reentry program was the best thing they ever could have done for me and my life,” she says. “I think they should put more people in it. If you’re coming home to do the right thing, it’s the place to be.”

Debra was the first female graduate from the Harlem Reentry Court, which began as a joint pilot project of the New York State Division of Parole, the Division of Criminal Justice Services, and the Center for Court Innovation. Since opening in June of 2001, the court has averaged about 80 new cases each year.  Debra’s experience is typical. “Many parolees are resistant at first,” says clinical director John Megaw, “but there’s a huge change by the time they complete the program.”

A number of challenges exist for a parolee just leaving prison. While incarcerated, inmates are told what to do and when to do it, and the newfound freedom of a parolee can be overwhelming. Parolees may have difficulty adjusting to the world at large. “It’s not always a smooth sail,” Megaw says. “People slip into the patterns of behavior that got them into trouble in the first place.”

For those returning to society from long prison sentences, the world can be completely different and require a daunting number of adjustments. “It’s almost like coming back from war,” Megaw says. It is no surprise, then, that a large number of parolees return to prison, especially given the strict set of guidelines they need to follow as conditions of release.

Recent numbers show that two-thirds of parolees return to prison within three years (see Bruce Frederick's Factors Contributing To Recidivism Among Youth Placed With The New York State Division For Youth. Albany, NY: New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services). The Parole Reentry Court in Harlem attempts to address this problem by helping parolees navigate the world outside the prison walls.

For Debra, the program helped her stay focused: constant supervision, a rigid schedule, job training, and a group of people intent on seeing her progress provided a strong web of support. As she describes it:

It gave me a good start in life, it really did. Because I’m still doing good. They sent me to a class when I first came home, where they teach you how to get jobs, and though I got a job on my own, I was glad for the experience they gave me. Eventually I just started enjoying going over there. I was from Harlem, and when they told me they’d help me with any problems that occurred I was already going through a lot of problems. And I had hard things with them and hard times but I needed that. I had a social worker over there, I had my parole officer. At first I really didn’t care about the drug treatment program they sent me to, but I finished it, and I think it’s great. I think it’s the best thing they ever came up with.

Direct relationships—the constant contact and face-to-face meetings—are crucial for keeping a parolee on track. The intense supervision allows the court to intervene as soon as problems appear. One of the basic principles that drives the reentry court is that all actors in the criminal justice system (police, courts, institutional and community corrections) play a role not only in offender processing and control but also in long-term offender change and reintegration into their communities. The more eyes watching the parolee, the more likely he or she will succeed. And criminal justice agencies can’t do it alone—they must engage families, community-based service providers, faith- and community-based organizations, and other sources of formal and informal support in reintegrating offenders.

Judge Brigitte Fortune, who presides over the Harlem Reentry Court, talks about the importance of creating opportunities for the parolees—and constantly paying attention to what works and what doesn’t in each case. This personalized, concentrated attention leaves room for dialogue and negotiation as well. Debra, for example, had a hard time with the drug treatment program, and initially found herself at odds with the judge over it.

I was really having a hard time with this program because they wanted me to quit my job and be an inpatient in the program. They were persistent. I understand that they want you to come to their program, but I was working at the time and it was really important to me because it was a struggle in my household. I was living with my mother; she’s a senior citizen and it was really a struggle for me to go to this program every day. And they weren’t paying my car fare, and that was the only problem I really had with the reentry, was the drug treatment program they sent me to.

Our first confrontation we had, the judge and I, we were going word for word in the court, because she really didn’t understand that my job was really important to me, and she wanted me to stay and go to the program every day or become a resident in the program and she’s telling me, what is more important to you, the program or the job? And I’m telling her, well my job is more important to me. The program is more important for y’all, but I need this job! And we had it out but eventually came to an agreement, where I’d go to program twice a week and work the other days. And then I felt much better.

As Judge Fortune puts it: “The idea is to set up a program that best suits you and that’s going to give you the best chance of succeeding. So it’s intensive, it’s more personalized, it’s flexible, and that to me is the best part of the reentry program. When you have all this focus on you, everyone can see what’s going on, you can get adjustments at any time during your supervision while you’re in the program, to give people that chance to succeed.”

From Can Innovation be Institutionalized? Problem-Solving in Mainstream Courts by Don Farole, Nora Puffett, Michael Rempel and Francine Byrne

As specialized problem-solving courts continue to proliferate throughout the U.S., interest has begun to surface in applying problem-solving court practices outside the specialized court setting. The question is: can the core principles and practices of problem-solving courts be productively applied throughout court systems?

In a 2004 study, Center for Court Innovation researchers partnered with the California Administrative Office of the Courts to conduct focus groups and interviews with judges in California in New York, two states at the forefront of testing new problem-solving court models. The research team worked with the California court system and the New York State Office of Court Drug Treatment Programs to identify judges with experience serving in both a problem-solving court and in conventional courtrooms. A total of 35 judges participated in the research. 

Among the questions participants attempted to answer was: Which problem-solving principles and practices are more easily applied in conventional courts and which are less easily applied? Five principles and practices emerged as easiest and/or most appropriate to apply to general court calendars.

1. Problem-Solving Orientation of the Judge
Focus group participants generally agreed that the proactive role of the judge in problem-solving courts could be applied to other cases and calendars in various ways—asking more questions, seeking more information about each case, and exploring a greater range of possible solutions. The information gained might lead judges to craft highly individualized, unconventional court orders—one judge gave the example of mandating an offender to visit the morgue and write an essay on what he saw. The proactive, problem-solving orientation was deemed widely helpful outside of the problem-solving court setting, particularly in negotiation situations. Judges mentioned Matrimonial Court, Family Court, or other civil assignments as particularly appropriate venues. One judge claimed to have become known, after leaving a problem-solving court, for “thinking outside the box” in civil negotiations.

2. Direct Interaction with the Defendant/Litigant
Direct interaction with the defendant/litigant was deemed a prerequisite for effective behavior modification, enabling the judge to motivate individuals to make progress in treatment, bringing to light the most crucial needs of parties in civil cases, and laying the groundwork for positive solutions. Judges regarded this as one of the easiest practices to apply in conventional courts, perhaps because it requires no additional resources. While some expressed concern that, in criminal cases, defense attorneys would not allow such interactions for fear clients would incriminate themselves, several judges reported that they routinely address defendants directly, with few objections from the defense bar.  Several judges drew attention to specific aspects of their interaction with defendants that were deemed to have value both inside and outside the problem-solving court context—treating defendants with respect, showing compassion, having faith in their ability to improve, and seeing them as potentially law-abiding citizens.

3. Ongoing Judicial Supervision
Requiring defendants, particularly probationers, to report back to court for treatment updates and judicial interaction was identified as one of the least controversial and most effective practices that could be applied in conventional criminal courts. Judges in all focus groups, however, expressed concern about the limited time available to devote to supervision in conventional courts. Time limitations may force judges to select only a subset of cases for supervision. And the lack of clinical staff means that judges often cannot obtain the kinds of thorough treatment reports that could better inform their interactions with defendants. Nonetheless, many judges acknowledged that they had instituted enhanced supervision in their conventional court with at least some cases.

4. Integration of Social Services
Many judges reported that service coordination was a valuable tool in any court—especially for litigants with addiction, mental illness, or vocational/educational needs. However, referring parties to treatment or other services was seen as more difficult in conventional courts, because they lack the additional staff/case management resources typically available in specialized problem-solving courts.

5. Team-Based, Non-Adversarial Approach
Judges discussed the extent to which they could adopt a team-based, non-adversarial approach in general court calendars. While there was less consensus and greater skepticism about this than other practices, judges identified opportunities to adopt such an approach, particularly in juvenile or family law settings, where rules often explicitly foster a problem-solving approach—seeking the “best interests of the child.” Most focus group participants believed the judge plays a critical role in determining the extent to which an individual courtroom can and will adopt a non-adversarial approach. However, most also stressed that others—particularly attorneys—can enable or derail that approach, and gaining the trust and participation of attorneys greatly facilitates judges’ ability to practice problem solving. It was generally agreed that the players tend not to act as a team until they develop trust, and that takes time.

As suggested above, focus group discussion extended to particular types of cases and calendars most ripe for problem-solving solutions. Appropriate case types were characterized in part as those in which a problem that can be resolved by court intervention and lack of services contributed to the defendant’s criminal behavior. Unsurprisingly, problems identified as appropriate included drug addiction, domestic violence, mental illness, DUI—all issues for which specialized problem-solving courts have been created. Criminal cases involving younger defendants were also cited.

Crimes of serious violence were virtually the only matters that a significant number of judges suggested as inappropriate for problem solving; yet it was also observed that violent offenses are staples of some problem-solving courts (primarily domestic violence but sometimes mental health courts as well). In fact, some judges conceded that if violence were tied to an underlying problem such as substance abuse, a problem-solving response might be appropriate.

Judges also identified specific stages in the criminal justice process—most notably bail and sentencing—as points at which problem solving was both appropriate and easy to implement. Although judges in several groups extended that to include plea negotiations, at least one judge objected on the grounds that plea bargaining is “a negotiation for what kind of punishment … they are going to receive, which is not a [problem-solving] court model and is probably inappropriate.”

Criminal trials were also generally seen as inappropriate for problem solving. In addition to criminal matters, other court calendars were also discussed extensively. Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency courts were widely cited as appropriate venues for problem solving, particularly for practices such as addressing the problems that contribute to recidivism, using a team-based approach, and interacting directly with all parties.  In the California focus groups, Family Court—like juvenile courts—was perceived as inherently more problem-oriented, and as allowing greater flexibility and discretion than other courts. Judges in California also cited the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (commonly known as Proposition 36) Courts, which administer court-mandated treatment programs for a wide range of drug possession offenders, as particularly appropriate for problem-solving approaches.

Finally, probation—not a court calendar, but a court-imposed sentence—was widely regarded as an excellent vehicle for problem solving. Setting probation conditions, monitoring compliance, and responding to violations were all activities in which judges reported using problem-solving techniques.

It can take many forms, but at its core, a community court is about partnership and problem-solving.

What is a community court? It can take many forms, but at its core, a community court is about partnership and problem-solving.  It's about creating new relationships, both within the justice system and with outside stakeholders such as residents, merchants, churches and schools.  And it's about testing new and aggressive approaches to public safety rather than merely responding to crime after it has occurred.

Here are six principles, derived from the experience of the Midtown Community Court, to keep in mind as you plan a community court:

• Restoring the Community
• Bridging the Gap Between Communities and Courts
• Knitting Together a Fractured Criminal Justice System
• Helping Offenders Deal with Problems That Lead To Crime
• Providing Better Information
• Designing a Physical Space to Match the Court's Goals

Restoring the Community

Recognize that communities are victims, too.

Quality-of-life crime damages communities, often more so than individuals. If left unaddressed, low-level offenses erode communal order, leading to disinvestment and neighborhood decay and creating an atmosphere where more serious crime can flourish. A community court acknowledges this reality.

Use punishment to pay back the community.

Standard sentences – jail, fines, probation – may punish offenders, but they do little to restore the damage caused by crime. A community court requires offenders to compensate neighborhoods through community service.

Combine punishment with help.

Encouraging offenders to deal with their individual problems honors a community's ethical obligation to people who break its laws because they have lost control of their lives. Social service programs also have practical crime control value as they can permanently alter the behavior of chronic offenders.

Give the community a voice in shaping restorative sanctions.

A community court can open a dialogue with its neighbors, enlisting them in the effort to develop appropriate community service projects. A community advisory board can offer residents an institutionalized mechanism for interacting with the judge and court administrators.

Give the community a voice in shaping restorative sanctions.

A community court can open a dialogue with its neighbors, enlisting them in the effort to develop appropriate community service projects. A community advisory board can offer residents an institutionalized mechanism for interacting with the judge and court administrators.

Give the community a voice in shaping restorative sanctions.

A community court can open a dialogue with its neighbors, enlisting them in the effort to develop appropriate community service projects. A community advisory board can offer residents an institutionalized mechanism for interacting with the judge and court administrators.

Give the community a voice in shaping restorative sanctions.

A community court can open a dialogue with its neighbors.

In addition to books written by Center for Court Innovation authors, numerous books feature content about the Center for Court Innovation.

Problem-Solving Courts: Justice for the Twenty-First Century? (Praeger) is a collection of essays about the movement toward problem-solving justice. Edited by Paul Higgins and Mitchell Mackinem, the book examines both the promise and potential perils of problem-solving courts. The book begins with an essay by Center for Court Innovation director Greg Berman and numerous Center publications and projects are referenced throughout the text.

James Nolan, a professor at Williams College, has written several books on problem-solving courts. His latest, Legal Accents, Legal Borrowings (Princeton University Press) documents the spread of problem-solving justice internationally. Nolan’s book begins with a look at the Red Hook Community Justice Center and goes on to examine problem-solving courts in England, Canada, Australia, Scotland and Ireland – all countries where the Center for Court Innovation has provided consulting services.

A Kind of Genius: Herb Sturz and Society’s Toughest Problems (Public Affairs) by Sam Roberts tells the story of Herb Sturz, one of New York’s leading social entrepreneurs. Over the course of five decades, Sturz has helped shape public policy in New York, playing a number of important, behind-the-scenes roles in government, the non-profit sector and the media. A Kind of Genius contains a chapter describing Sturz’s role in the creation of the Midtown Community Court and the subsequent development of the Center for Court Innovation. 

Other books about the Center for Court Innovation include:

The Improvement of the Administration of Justice (ABA Press)
Resolving Family Conflicts (Ashgate)
Judging in a Therapeutic Key (Carolina Academic Press)
Judicial Politics (CQ Press)
Peter F. Drucker's Next Management (Verlag Sordon)