As I hope our website makes clear, the Center for Court Innovation is a unique institution. We are a team of researchers, planners, technologists, attorneys, social workers and others who have come together to advance a simple idea: that the justice system has an important role to play in aiding victims, changing the behavior of offenders and improving public safety.
We are committed to helping judges and other key players—defense attorneys, probation officials, prosecutors, clerks, police officers, and community groups—test new approaches to the delivery of justice. And we are committed to the value of rigorous research. We use data to measure the effectiveness of new programs, documenting what works, what doesn’t and why.
In short, the Center stands at the crossroads of action and reflection, doing and thinking. Our job is to dream up new ideas and then go out and test them in the real world.
We currently operate more than a dozen demonstration projects here in New York, each of which is experimenting with new solutions to difficult problems like drug addiction, mental illness and neighborhood disorder. These range from large-scale reform efforts like the Red Hook Community Justice Center that handle thousands of cases each year to smaller experiments like the Brooklyn Mental Health Court that work intensively with a few dozen offenders at a time. Our projects also cover a wide range of topic areas, from juvenile delinquency to felony-level domestic violence crime.
What unites all of our projects is an underlying philosophy that we call problem-solving justice. This is the idea that the justice system should do more than simply process cases, it should actively seek to address the problems that bring people to court.
All around us is evidence that the reforms that the Center for Court Innovation promotes are gaining traction. Here are just a few snapshots:
- In 2010, we hosted a visit from drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, who cited the Red Hook Community Justice Center as an example of "effective and efficient" government.
- At the end of 2009, the Center was named the winner of the Peter F. Drucker Award for Non-Profit Innovation.
- The New York Times hosted a briefing on the international expansion of community justice.
- Our 10th Anniversary celebration at the New York City Bar Association was attended by more than 300 people, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
- The Center’s work has been featured on the front pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and other periodicals.
- By airing "Red Hook Justice," a documentary film about the Red Hook Community Justice Center, PBS brought problem-solving justice into living rooms across the country.
- With the help of the U.S. Department of Justice, we've embarked upon a major study of failure, examining criminal justice reforms that did not achieve their goals. The idea here is to promote experimentation by creating a climate that acknowledges the realities of trial and error.
- The New Press published Good Courts, the first-ever trade book about problem-solving courts. The book has been used in several graduate school courses and has been reviewed in numerous publications.
- The U.S. Department of Justice has affirmed its commitment to problem-solving justice by supporting 10 experimental projects around the country. The Center was named the official technical assistance provider for this initiative. In addition, the Attorney General recently credited New York's drug courts with helping to reduce crime.
- Jonathan Lippman, the Chief Judge of the State of New York, has been a vocal proponent of both the Center and problem-solving justice.
As proud as we are of these accomplishments, we are not resting on our laurels. In recent days, we have studied the lessons to be learned from criminal justice reforms that did not achieve their goals, an effort that includes a book on failure published by Urban Institute Press. We have worked with criminal justice officials in South Africa, China, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Japan, Canada, England, and other countries, helping them plan their own problem-solving innovations. And we continue to launch new demonstration projects, with a particular focus on improving New York's troubled juvenile justice system.
As these projects suggest, we are interested in exploring the boundaries of problem-solving justice, testing the extent to which the ideas that we have pursued here in New York—stronger connections between courts and social service providers, aggressive community engagement strategies, a reliance on data to improve accountability—can be transported to other settings and used outside of the specialized court context.
These are complicated challenges, to be sure, but we look forward to working on them in the days ahead alongside our government and non-profit partners. I will keep you posted as we proceed. In the meantime, you can also keep track of our work on:
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Greg Berman
last updated 5-18-2010
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BOOKS
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Trial & Error in Criminal Justice Reform:
Learning from Failure
A book that highlights crucial lessons to be learned from failed reform efforts.
Good Courts: The Case for Problem-Solving Justice
Good Courts is the first book to describe the problem-solving court movement and features in-depth looks at Center for Court Innovation projects.
Documenting Results: Research on Problem-Solving Justice
This collection of research reports, written by Center for Court Innovation staff, analyzes the impact of a broad range of problem-solving initiatives launched in New York State and nationwide over the past decade.
A Problem-Solving Revolution: Making Change Happen in State Courts
In this collection of essays Center for Court Innovation staff identify and address some of the most challenging questions faced by states as they seek to reform their court systems, moving beyond the implementation of specialized pilot projects.
Drug Courts: Personal Stories
Through this book, drug court graduates and staff from across New York State recount the travails and triumphs of the addicts who have, often after many years of law-breaking and personal tragedies, finally pulled their lives together.
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