The Center for Court Innovation - Community Prosecution

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OVERVIEW

Community prosecution is founded on the idea that prosecutors have a responsibility not only to prosecute cases but to solve public safety problems, prevent crime and improve public confidence in the justice system. Around the country, prosecutors are taking on new responsibilities that reflect this shift—working out of neighborhood offices and collaborating with others (including residents, community groups and other government agencies) in the development of problem-solving initiatives. In many cases, community stakeholders actually help to set the crime-fighting agenda and participate in the solutions. Definitions of success are changing as well. Rather than simply tallying cases won or jail sentences imposed, community prosecutors are measuring the effect of their work on neighborhood quality of life, community attitudes and crime.

INTERVIEW

Since taking office in January 2008, Thomas P. Zugibe has made community prosecution a guiding principle of the Rockland County (N.Y.) District Attorney’s Office. Prior to his election, Zugibe worked for two decades in private practice with an emphasis on personal injury and commercial litigation. Between 1981 and 1987, he served as a prosecutor in the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office, where he directed the Narcotics Division and Major Offenses Division and was eventually promoted to executive assistant district attorney. Zugibe began his legal career as a special assistant attorney general in the Office of the New York State Deputy Attorney General for Medicaid Fraud Control. In December 2009, he spoke with Robert V. Wolf of the Center for Court Innovation about his approach to community prosecution.

Q: How do you describe your approach to community prosecution?
We’re taking an intelligence-led approach to public safety through community policing, community prosecution, and community partnerships. We’ve divided the county into four areas and have partnerships with all 10 of the various local police departments. Every month we have a Compstat meeting in one of the four areas and invite people from any agency that’s relevant to the problems we’re addressing. The meetings have been attended by representatives of Housing and Urban Development and the New York State Labor Department. But our version of Compstat is a little different than what’s being done in New York City in that our meetings are being driven by the District Attorney’s Office rather than the police.

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ARTICLE

Testing Community Prosecution in England and Wales
LONDON, December 2009 — The Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales has launched a year-long community prosecutor pilot initiative in sites across the country.

The initiative is described in “Engaging Communities in Criminal Justice”, a consultation paper released by the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales in April 2009. The paper “sets out the government’s proposals for transforming criminal justice from a system that does things to communities into a true service that does things for and with communities.”

The proposals in the paper are built around four primary aims:

Achieving stronger, community-focused partnerships that draw together activity across criminal justice services and other relevant agencies to secure effective, two-way communications between the Criminal Justice System and local communities;

Building on the success of community justice projects and the problem-solving approach to enhance the visibility of the Criminal Justice System, solve problems for the community, and reform offenders and enable them to make amends;

Increasing the intensity and visibility of community-restitution efforts;

Keeping the public informed by improving the information the public receives about case outcomes and, in this way, helping ensure that the public sees a connection between the crime and the punishment meted out in response.