Shane Correia

In March 2007, the Scottish government announced its plans to open the country's first community justice centre and community court in Glasgow. The center, which is expected to be up and running in 2009, will be based on the Red Hook Community Justice Center and Midtown Community Court in New York and the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre in England, but be adapted to suit the needs of the Scottish criminal justice system and local community. The center aims to improve justice services, speed up court processes and strengthen the court's relationship with the local community. It will be led by a single judge who will regularly engage the community in discussions about local crime issues and how offenders can pay back the community swiftly and visibly through community service. Typical sentences will involve a package of measures designed to make offenders pay back the community for their crimes and tackle the underlying problems that led to their offending, with support such as access to housing, drug treatment, employment and mental health services. In one example, an offender might be required to perform community service as well as attend a drug rehabilitation course and receive help to address debt problems. "Smart options, not soft options," as Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson put it, "the kind of approaches which I have already seen delivering real results for people in New York." While some community courts only deal with cases once the accused has pled guilty, the Glasgow court will deal with as many local cases as possible whether the accused pleads guilty or not. Currently, local government leaders are working to identify suitable sites, consulting the community on the location as community involvement will be vital to its success. "Crime in Scotland is falling," says Jamieson. "However, we also know that persistent offenders—even where small in number—can drag a whole community down. The community justice centre, through its unique problem-solving approach, will help us take a further step towards tackling that."  

In an effort to assess the impact of the Justice Center on defendant perceptions of fairness, the Center for Court Innovation conducted a survey of nearly 400 misdemeanor defendants, who had their cases handled at either the Justice Center or a traditional, centralized criminal court.

While South Africa is one of the most prosperous African countries, it also faces high crime rates. In response, the government has embarked on an ambitious, country-wide community justice program. Seventeen (soon to be 18) community courts are currently in operation around the country. Community policing strategies are being employed throughout the national police force. And, in 2006, the National Prosecuting Authority launched a community prosecution pilot program in each of the country’s nine provinces, in areas that together account for some of the highest crime levels in South Africa.       The nine sites were selected for their high crime rates or persistent levels of minor crime, as well as for their potential for social and economic development. If the model works at these diverse sites—two urban, six peri-urban (township), and one rural—it will work nearly anywhere in the country, justice officials believe. The approach is targeted and aggressive: prosecutors have been sent into each community to begin working on reducing and preventing local crime at the community level, and each site is being rigorously evaluated through data collection, questionnaires, workshop discussions, site observations, photographic documentation, and formal and informal interviews. “This is a very exciting initiative as we explore the role of the prosecutor in crime prevention and community justice,” says Shamila Batohi, Director of Public Prosecutions for KwaZulu-Natal province and the senior prosecutor responsible for coordinating the project. “We face enormous challenges in our beautiful country, but we are optimistic that the community prosecution initiative will help us move closer to the achievement of the National Prosecuting Authority’s vision: ‘Justice in our society so that people can live in freedom and security.’” According to researcher Richard Griggs of Independent Projects Trust, successes to date have been palpable. In Windsor East, for example—an urban area troubled by drug sales, organized crime, and transient populations—a joint operation between the community prosecutor and local police resulted in the arrests of 15 drug syndicate members. A number of illegal immigrants, whose presence in the community had led to a noticeable increase in criminal activity, have been arrested and deported. The arrests of dozens of other offenders have helped clean up Windsor: drug dealers who were previously visible have retreated from the streets, and it is no longer common for landlords to rent to illegal immigrants or for businesses to hire them. Community prosecution efforts have helped drive brothels out of the area, while negotiations with businesses and community members have brought the crime-ridden King’s Pub area, notorious for drug activity and wild behavior, under control. In another, very different example, community prosecutors have had some early success in the rural North West Kudumani, where cattle theft had been a significant problem. A major clamp-down on rustling in 2006 led to a significant reduction in cattle theft, which is now negligible in the area (previously up to 40 cases had been reported per day ). The community is no longer engaged in vigilantism, and proper facilities—including fenced grazing camps, branding, and veterinary services, all of which prevent cattle theft—are being developed. With the arrest of police members who were participating in livestock theft, police-community relations have improved. The community prosecution project is still being piloted and monitored. Any early findings discussed here are tentative observations pending the full evaluation that will be undertaken from mid-June 2007 and released by September. Due to these initial successes and the government’s commitment to reducing crime, justice officials are spreading the lessons learned from community prosecution. In February 2007, a two-day National Prosecuting Authority conference on Community Prosecution and Restorative Justice was held in Cape Town, with the audience consisting of the 250 most senior prosecutors in the country (with a spotlight on the nine community prosecutors). As results are gathered from around the country, researchers are examining a number of key questions, including what kind of models might fit any given location, and how community prosecution as it exists in South Africa, with its unique history and problems, can be defined in the present and shaped for the future. UPDATE: In March 2008, an extensive independent research report on the South African pilot sites was released. The report found that partnerships between community prosecutors, municipalities, local communities and police can significantly help reduce crime rates. To read more, click here.  

  Sex offense cases often present challenges to the police who investigate them, the district attorneys who prosecute them, the judges who adjudicate them, and the probation officers who supervise them.  Unfortunately, the traditional criminal justice system approaches each of these pieces of the puzzle working in relative isolation, with their own protocols and procedures.  In many instances these protocols and procedures are rooted in tradition and practice rather than on best practices and emerging research on sexual offenders. In order to change this, dedicated sex offense bureaus in district attorney’s offices, special victims units in police departments, and, most recently, specialized sex offender supervision units of probation departments have been developed in many jurisdictions.  Courts, however, have yet to explore the benefits of specialization.  This is unfortunate because the problems with applying a generalist approach to the adjudication of sex offense cases are many: lack of specialized knowledge for decision-making, lack of adequate communication and coordination between the court and stakeholder agencies, lack of system accountability, and the resulting dissatisfaction of many victims with the criminal justice process.  Judges lack adequate information to guide them in making critical decisions about specialized conditions of probation.  Victims follow and track the criminal cases from courtroom to courtroom, judge to judge.  Probation officers lack the tools to safely and effectively monitor offenders in the community and report violations and Assistant District Attorneys faced with an untrained judiciary sometimes plead cases down to non-sex offense, non-registerable, charges in order to secure convictions.   In light of the aforementioned frequent and complex challenges, the Center for Court Innovation and the Office of Court Administration spent several years examining the issues presented by sex offense cases to look for ways to improve the court response.  The Center for Court Innovation is a nonprofit public-private partner of the New York State Court System and serves as the independent research and development arm for the Courts.  The Office of Court Administration is the administrative arm of the New York State Court System responsible for supervising the administration and operations of the trial courts.  Center for Court Innovation staff interviewed judges, probation officers, victim advocates, prosecutors, defense attorneys and sex offense treatment providers. Additionally, the Center for Court Innovation reviewed data on sex offense arrests and dispositions and sentences.  In the three pilot sites, many felony sex offense arrests resulted in misdemeanor convictions, and of those convictions 63% received community supervision as part of their sentence.   In reviewing court practices, the key questions we asked were:    Is there a way for the court to be involved in enhancing public safety? Is there a way to increase uniformity in how sex offense cases are handled by the court? Is there room for improvement in coordination and communication among interested agencies in sex offense cases? With those questions in mind, the Center for Court Innovation and the Office of Court Administration partnered to plan and implement the nation’s first three pilot specialized Sex Offense Courts.  In January of 2006, Nassau, Westchester and Oswego Counties became the first three jurisdictions in the country to pilot specialized Sex Offense Courts.  To ensure that the most effective court practices possible were in place, court administrators and local stakeholders planned a unified approach to management of sex offense, relying on best and emerging practices in the field of sex offender management, with an emphasis on promoting offender accountability and public safety. The mission of New York State Sex Offense Courts is to promote justice by providing a comprehensive approach to case resolution, increasing sex offender accountability, enhancing community safety and ensuring victim safety while protecting the rights of all litigants.  The two main purposes and functions of the Sex Offense Court model are to promote best practices in the resolution of sex offense cases and to facilitate and enhance coordination and communication among relevant stakeholders. Best practices in New York Sex Offense courts include the following core components: Keeping victims informed Scheduling cases promptly Dedicated, trained Judge Supervising defendants continuously Implementing additional judicial monitoring of cases post-conviction/plea Building strong relationships with service providers Coordinating with probation departments Convening regular meetings with criminal justice agencies and service providers Providing court personnel and partners with education and training The New York Sex Offense Courts incorporate all of the above listed core concepts, and are designed to work with key stakeholders such as defense attorneys, prosecutors, probation, victim agencies, sex offender-specific treatment providers, and polygraph examiners.  The Sex Offense Court model handles all cases that include a felony level sex offense charge or where the court has determined that the underlying facts of a case warrant the inclusion of the case in Sex Offense Court.  The Courts hear cases from their inception and early identification through disposition, and monitoring.    As important as it is to say what the New York Sex Offense Courts are, it is also important to point out what they are not.  Sex Offense Courts are not designed as alternatives to incarceration, they are not diversion courts, and they are not treatment/rehabilitative courts.  Instead, Sex Offense Courts are more akin to domestic violence courts; defendants do not opt-in but rather all cases of a certain nature or charge are automatically routed for their entire processing and adjudication.  Sex Offense Courts, like domestic violence courts, emphasize the need for accountability of the offenders and the increasing of public/community safety. As mentioned, one of the key elements and best practices of Sex Offense Courts is education and training for judges and non-judicial personnel.  Judicial training is integral to enhancing the court’s ability to handle complex sex offense cases in a consistent and comprehensive manner.  By understanding patterns of offending behavior, the prevalence of crossover behaviors, and effective interventions, such as the containment model of sex offender management, judges and lawyers can make informed decisions and appropriately assess special conditions of probation. Another best practice feature of Sex Offense Courts is the use of judicial monitoring.  Court monitoring includes rapid calendaring of cases on probation, immediate communication of compliance or non-compliance of court mandates, swift response to violations of conditions of probation and SORA, and consideration of a graduated sanctions scheme.  Given the reality that many sex offenders are sentenced to community supervision, Sex Offense Courts work with probation and parole departments to increase their participation, enhance coordination and communication between the court and the supervision agents, to promote the use of pre-sentence tools (investigations, risk assessments, polygraph, etc.) and utilize special sex offender conditions. The Sex Offense Courts work closely with local service providers to facilitate victim access to advocacy, counseling and other social services.  Best practices dictate that a victim-centered approach is key to any sex offense containment strategy, and should guide the framework for sex offender management and the development of a Sex Offense Court.  The Sex Offense Court model was driven in part by the involvement and input of the victim agencies who expressed interest in specialized court practices and quicker resolution to cases and violations.  In some jurisdictions, a sex offense case could be transferred back and forth between and among multiple courtrooms before several different judges throughout the duration of the case; making the process all the more confusing and frustrating for victims.  The Sex Offense Court model eliminates this concern and is designed to address the needs of the victims, and includes the victim advocacy agencies in ongoing training, planning and operations meetings. Because the New York State Sex Offense Courts are the first of their kind nationwide (with the notable exception of the few Juvenile Sex Offense Court models), research and evaluation plans are in place to determine the effectiveness of these new strategies.  The Center for Court Innovation has worked with the New York State Court System to design a court application tool to be used in all Sex Offense Courts.  Cases are tracked and data is collected to allow for a future in-depth evaluation of court procedures.  We hope to provide answers to the following research questions: How were sex offense cases handled prior to the implementation of the Sex Offense Courts? What the process was for developing and implementing Sex Offense Courts? What are Sex Offense Courts ‘best practices’? What is the impact of the Sex Offense Courts on victims? By utilizing best practices and current research on sex offenders, we are optimistic that the Sex Offense Court model will improve case outcomes, including victim and stakeholder satisfaction with the criminal justice system response and will provide for increased accountability of sex offenders in New York and, as a result, increased community safety.