As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, the Center for Court Innovation created this video in which staff take a moment to reflect on the Center’s history, how the Center has changed over the years, and some of their proudest moments on the job.
A fact sheet summarizing the results of a needs-assessment survey of the costumed characters, ticket and CD sellers, painted women, and panhandlers who work in Times Square. Beginning in the spring of 2016, these workers have had to conduct their business in “Designated Activity Zones” or risk a criminal penalty. The Midtown Community Court handles violations of the new activity zones.
Since the spring of 2016, people soliciting tips, selling tickets and CDs, and panhandling in Times Square have had to conduct their business in “Designated Activity Zones” or risk a criminal penalty. This report presents findings from a needs-assessment survey of these workers. Implications for programming at the Midtown Community Court that handles violations of the new activity zones and recommendations for policy reforms by regulatory bodies are discussed.
For a justice system to be truly just, it must be accessible to all individuals. However, litigants may face challenges when courts are not responsive to their cultural identity. For survivors of domestic violence, these challenges present additional barriers towards accessing justice and obtaining fair outcomes.
For a justice system to be truly just, it must be accessible to all individuals. However, litigants may face challenges when courts are not responsive to their cultural identities. For survivors of domestic violence, these challenges present additional barriers to accessing justice and obtaining fair outcomes. Watch Building a Culture of Justice and read the viewers' guide to learn how justice-system staff and stakeholders can serve litigant needs by implementing culturally-responsive practices in courts handling domestic violence cases.
In this New Thinking podcast, Harvard Law School Professor James Greiner talks with Aubrey Fox about why he launched the Access to Justice Lab, which has researched topics as varied as how to provide self-help materials to defendants involved in civil debt collection cases to the effectiveness of commonly used pretrial assessment interview tools in criminal court. Greiner also discusses what he sees as a strategy for improving the legal profession's openness to evidence-based thinking.
Undertaken to inform the work of the Center for Court Innovation’s Legal Hand project, this street-intercept study in Crown Heights, Brooklyn documents the most common civil legal needs facing the community, and how, if at all, community members address these needs.
This study examines the validity of the COMPAS with offenders who have a serious mental illness. A widely used risk-needs assessment tool, the COMPAS was found to be a good predictor of re-arrest with this population, although it was more effective in distinguishing low-risk offenders from all others than in identifying those who pose a medium as opposed to a high risk of re-arrest. Overall, approximately two-thirds of study-participants were classified as low risk.
In this New Thinking podcast, Raymond H. Brescia, associate professor of Law at Albany Law School, speaks with Aubrey Fox and Robert V. Wolf of the Center for Court Innovation about the role lawyers can play in addressing poverty and eviction, why New York City has been dramatically expanding funding to provide lawyers to respondents in Housing Court, debt collection cases as the next great issue for public interest attorneys, and how a good lawyer is like a patronus from a Harry Potter book.
The Red Hook Community Justice Center serves as a hub for an array of unconventional programs. This video highlights the unique and multi-faceted roles that the Justice Center plays in the lives of its community members. The common thread is that the Justice Center is changing lives every day.
