Judging in a Community Court: How to Demonstrate Procedural Justice to an Attentive Public

Introduction: The Emergence of Community Courts  

Community Courts are of interest to trial judges for two main reasons.  First, they significantly improve court outcomes such as recidivism rates and failure to appear rates.^[i] Second, they can build successful and enduring court/community engagements that result in higher levels of public trust. Both the better defendant outcomes and improved public trust are largely attributable to the role of the procedural justice principle in their design and operation.

Community Courts began as a way of redressing some of the problems created by 20^th Century reform. Consolidation and centralization of trial court systems distanced trial courts in most American cities from where people lived.^[ii]  The ambitions of trial court reformers were largely realized as courts became more efficient and more user friendly. But public opinion surveys dating back to 1977 show no corresponding increase in public trust in the courts, or even awareness the reforms had occurred.^[iii]

What Makes a Court a Community Court?

Community courts take on multiple forms.  Some are stand-alone courthouses located in specific neighborhoods to address local concerns. Others operate out of the jurisdiction’s main courthouse, although they might have links to specific geographic areas. 

What they share is the presence of: 

• Community Engagement: Initially through a process for identifying and prioritizing the problems the new court should give this a priority in its design. Once established, a community court continues to give voice to the community in revising its focuses and assessing its successes and failures.
• Collaboration: Bringing together justice players (including prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, and court managers) and potential external resources from groups such as social service providers, residents, victims’ groups, and schools) to improve trust between citizens and government. 
• Judicial Buy-In: The judge should be someone open to the methods and purposes of a community court, comfortable with its intention and methods, and willing to serve as the public face of the court. 
• Individualized Justice:  The adoption of evidence-based risk and needs assessment instruments to link offenders to individually tailored community-based services (e.g., job training, drug treatment, safety planning, mental health counseling) where appropriate. 
• Offering social and treatment programs in the court building and, if possible, open to use by local residents. 
• Accountability: Employing community restitution mandates and regular compliance monitoring—with clear consequences for non-compliance—to improve the accountability of offenders.

My review of the process by which courts are planned and evaluated is based on the experiences of two community courts that were appraised in an in-depth multi-year, multi-method, multi-organization evaluation. They are: The Midtown (Manhattan) (opened in 1993)^[iv] and the Red Hook Community Justice Center (opened in 2000 ).^[v] Both courts continue to meet their founders’ intentions and they are identified here as MCC and RHCJC, respectively.

The Planning Process

Both Community Courts opened after lengthy and intensive efforts to determine the needs and priorities of the residents and businesses, criminal justice agencies, along with consultation with locally based service providers. Both courts located treatment and other service providers within the courthouse. Both courts in their sentencing practices took advantage of existing programs designed to serve the community and residents in need of treatment or social services.

The differences between the two communities shaped each court’s planning and evaluation processes.  Both had specified geographic areas to serve: MCC serves the middle-class residents and retail businesses in Midtown and RHCJC serves an area in which 80 percent of residents live in public housing. 

A.             Planning 

MCC: Through discussions and independently guided focus groups the preferences of the commercial community emerged as street prostitution, illegal vending, and quality of life issues.  Local and city-wide media were used to spread the word about the reasons for opening a community court in Midtown.  Owners of business located on the main commercial avenues near the court were individually visited by a representative from the court. Teams of urban ethnographers were engaged to monitor the responses to the court by those involved in criminal activity. 

RHCJC: A lengthy consultation process found that the residents were concerned particularly with housing (80% of the residents live in public housing), juvenile crime, and minor drug offences. Planners and court officials met regularly with an array of community groups and local service providers to obtain their perspectives on what the court should be doing. Randomly selected residents were interviewed face-to-face by participants in a youth outreach program in advance of the court’s opening. The planning process led to the criminal court judge to being cross assigned to hear housing and juvenile matters in addition to a standard docket of low-level misdemeanors.

B.              Evaluation 

MCC convened a second round of professionally guided focus groups approximately one year after the court opened, asking many of the initial round questions. The focus groups then added new questions looking at community change, knowledge of the court, approval of the main features of the court, and the public’s willingness to pay for the court’s innovative features. Where possible, the participants in the first round of focus groups participated in the second round. Approximately three years after MCC was opened a professional survey outfit interviewed randomly selected residents in the communities where the court was established to serve.^[vi]  

The RHCJC project team spoke several times with local leaders about their experience with the court and what they and their neighbors thought about it. The same team of urban ethnographers used by MCC was asked to find out the “word on the street” reactions to. and opinions about, the court from residents who were likely to be involved in or knowledgeable about illegal activities. Analysis of arrest records found that arrest levels were unchanged much over the court’s initial 10 years, in marked contrast to the neighboring areas where arrest levels increased. Interviews and observations indicated the Community Court judge, who had presided since the court opened, was widely known because of his frequent appearances at local events and at public meetings, and frequently seen walking through the neighborhood, especially at lunchtime. Several times the judge adjourned a housing case so he could personally see the state of the apartment in a lawsuit that pitted a resident against the NY Housing Authority.^[vii]

Implications for Judges

The evaluations of the Community Courts point to directions for how courts and individual judges can signal to the general public that they are respectful, neutral, careful listeners, and benevolent decision-makers, thus satisfying the four elements of procedural justice.^[viii] Few courts will be able to devote the time and money required to replicate the planning and evaluation processes used in MCC and RHCJC.^[ix] But judges and court administrators can benefit from materials produced by and for those courts to obtain practical insights and ideas for what is possible and desirable in their jurisdictions. The Executive Summaries of the independent evaluation reports are a good starting point. Both the Center for Justice Innovation and the National Center for State Courts can provide information and assistance to any court interested in exploring the potential of a Community Court in their jurisdiction. Judges currently or previously assigned to a Community Court can be contacted to answer questions for judges that a group of evaluators, nearly all non-lawyers, might not have considered. 

Other help is available. The Community Court experience resulted in preparation of toolkits and guidebooks that offer step-by-step guidance on everything from deciding whether a Community Court is viable in your jurisdiction to evaluating the court once it is opened. The potential payoff is large. The RHCJC quickly came to be regarded as a community institution, in sharp contrast to how the local police were viewed. More importantly, the judge and the court came to be seen as local institutions, not as a part of a large and distant central courthouse. It was their court. Both courts through their planning and evaluation processes demonstrated that a court planned and operated using procedural justice principles leads to higher levels of public trust by the public-at-large. 

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^[i] Rottman Court Reform agenda 

^[ii]  Michael Willrich (2003), City of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago, Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law), describing how hundreds of local courts were consolidated into a single downtown location. 

 [iii] Court Outreach to Minority Communities: Methods Used, Lessons Learned, and Transitioning from Outreach to Engagement

^[iv] D. Rottman, “Court Outreach to Minority Communities: Methods Used, Lessons Learned, and Transitioning from Outreach to Engagement,” Briefing Paper for the National Advisory, Community Engagement in the State Courts, October 2015. 

M. Sviridoff, D. Rottman R. Curtis, Center, (2000) Dispensing Justice Locally: The Implementation and Effects of the Midtown Community Court. New York: Routledge.  

Tyler, T and J. Sevier (2014), “How do courts create popular legitimacy? The role of establishing the truth, punishing justly, and and/or through just procedures. Albany Law Review 77, 1095-1137 (“Legitimacy can motivate engagement and thereby help communities to build themselves socially and economically,” found on page 1030. 

^[v] C. Lee, F. Chessman, D. Rottman, R. Swaner, S. Lambson and  R. Curtis (2013). A Community Court Grows in Brooklyn: A Comprehensive Evaluation  of the Red Hook Community Justice Center: Executive Summary, National Center for State courts and the Center for Court Innovation.