Drifting Between Worlds: Delinquency and Positive Engagement among Red Hook Youth
By Rachel Swaner and Elise White
This study sought to understand how teenagers in a low-income and geographically isolated area of Brooklyn think about and engage in delinquent behavior. Using individual interview, focus group, and survey data collected in 2008 and 2009, the findings show that delinquency in this neighborhood is not rooted in desires to resist middle-class values or to adopt an alternative "subculture"; indeed, many of the youth embrace middle-class cultural values. These young people do not see delinquent actions as cool or oppositional, but as the result of boredom stemming from the scarcity of resources in their community or growing out of financial or social necessity. Many of those interviewed and surveyed were involved in low-level crime while simultaneously working to positively change their community, thereby drifting between delinquent and conventional worlds.
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I Got Arrested! Now What?
By Members of the Youth Justice Board
During the 2009-10 program year, Youth Justice Board members designed this comic book for young people involved in the juvenile justice system. Members collaborated with staff from the Center for Urban Pedagogy and graphic artist Danica Novgorodoff to create this guide, which provides readers with information about the juvenile justice process and is being distributed to teens by the New York City Department of Probation .
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Blueprint for Change Executive Summary
By Liberty Aldrich, Greg Berman, and Shirley Dobbin
Blueprint for Change Executive Summary
By Liberty Aldrich, Greg Berman and Shirley A. Dobbin
The Blueprint for Change outlines a step by step process to build on the reforms underway in New York City Family Court by institutionalizing the problem-solving approach.
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Building Support for Justice Initiatives: A Communications Toolkit
By Jimena Martinez
A manual to help justice practitioners communicate about their work with the public and key institutional stakeholders. Includes 10 key steps for effective communication, extensive links to on-line resources, and guides offering sample logos, brochures and flyers as well as practical tips for communication strategies like "Crafting a Core Message."
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A Full Response to an Empty House: Public Safety Strategies for Addressing Mortgage Fraud and the Foreclosure Crisis
By Robert V. Wolf
An overview of law enforcement and government responses to mortgage fraud, foreclosure, and abandoned property, drawing on focus groups sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance in January 2009. The focus groups brought together representatives from Indio, CA, Dallas, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and Miami, as well as researchers, policymakers, and advocates from financial, housing, and law enforcement organizations.
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Drug Courts: Personal Stories Toolkit
The Drug Courts: Personal Stories Toolkit is a short curriculum to help schools educate youth about the important work of drug courts and to promote understanding of the justice system. The Toolkit uses excerpts from Drug Courts: Personal Stories to prompt students' exploration of two critical questions: "What is the connection between substance abuse and crime?" and "How do the courts promote community safety beyond punishing offenders?" The toolkit is comprised of two parts: classroom lesson plan and an optional panel discussion with a judge and drug treatment court graduate, and, if possible, other stakeholders such as attorneys, treatment providers, and community members.
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Educator’s Portfolio
Judges, other court system professionals, and the New York State Court System produce a range of publicly available materials that provide crucial information about the court system and the law. This portfolio gathers and organizes information that may be of particular interest to educators, either as background or in the classroom.
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School Visits Toolkit: Resources for New York State Judges and Educators
This Toolkit provides resources to help maximize the impact of school visits by judges, including tips, suggested activities and materials for students.
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Establishing a Model Court: A Case Study of the Oswego Sex Offense Court
By Juli Ana Grant
An in-depth look at the establishment of the first designated sex offense court in New York State. In partnership with the New York State Office of Court Administration, the Center for Court Innovation helped design the specialized sex offense court model to enhance the oversight of offenders and the provision of services to victims.
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Recommended Practices: New York State Adult Drug Treatment Courts
A comprehensive resource guide for drug treatment courts, meant to promote quality and consistency in drug court policies, procedures, and operations. Informed by literature reviews, structured site visits, practitioner interviews, drug court observations, outcome data from the Universal Treatment Application , the New York State Adult Drug Court Evaluation , and results from a survey of all drug treatment courts in New York, this document catalogues the best of what is known about the drug court model and the substance-abusing offender population. Written by an Advisory Committee of drug court professionals with editorial oversight from the staff of the Center for Court Innovation, the recommendations were formulated with New York State's drug court professionals in mind, but will also help inform the work of drug court practitioners across the U.S. as they seek to improve program outcomes for the participants and communities they serve.
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What Makes A Court Problem-Solving: Universal Performance Indicators for Problem-Solving Justice
By Adam Mansky, Rachel Porter, and Michael Rempel
Faced with the recent explosion of initiatives seeking to address the underlying problems of litigants, victims, and communities, there is an urgent need for guidance in how to assess court effectiveness at problem-solving. This report establishes a set of universal performance indicators against which to judge the success of specialized problem-solving courts. Supplemental indicators draw particular attention to the tracking needs of drug, mental health, community, and domestic violence courts. This report also seeks to assist traditional court managers by establishing a more limited set of performance measures, designed to capture problem-solving activity throughout an entire courthouse, not only within a specialized court context.
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Addressing Foreclosed and Abandoned Properties
By Roxann Pais and Robert V. Wolf
This fact sheet offers an array of ideas to address vacant and abandoned properties. The strategies in this guide—which have been culled from real-life approaches across the U.S.—are intended to assist law enforcement and government agencies seeking to prevent property abandonment and lessen problems—such crime and increased demand for municipal services—when abandonment occurs.
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Community Perceptions of Red Hook, Brooklyn: Views of Quality of Life, Safety, and Services
By Rachel Swaner
This report provides the results of a regular community survey focusing on perceptions of neighborhood quality of life, public safety, and criminal justice agencies in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a geographically and socially isolated neighborhood that is home to the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The findings show many positive changes since previous survey administrations. For instance, 65 percent of respondents reported a good or very good quality of life, much higher than the 26 percent in 2004. Additionally, positive feelings towards a community court in the neighborhood increased from 57 percent in 2002 to 78 percent in 2004 to 94 percent in 2009.
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Do Reentry Courts Reduce Recidivism? Results from the Harlem Parole Reentry Court
By Zachary Hamilton
A growing number of jurisdictions nationwide are seeking to adapt the drug court model to returning ex-offenders. First conceived by Jeremy Travis in 2000, the Reentry Court model was created to address the risks and needs of returning offenders during the riskiest time of reintegration the period immediately following release. In a first-ever rigorous test of a specialized reentry court, the Center found that the Harlem Parole Reentry Court produced a significant reduction in re-convictions for new crimes, yet also led to increased parole revocations for technical violations. While these results indicate a promising court model, policy implications regarding "supervision effects" (seen in higher technical revocation rates) are discussed as well.
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Annual Report: 2009
Highlights of the Center for Court Innovation's accomplishments in 2009.
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A National Portrait of Domestic Violence Courts
By Sarah Bradley, Melissa Labriola, Samantha Moore, Chris O'Sullivan, and Michael Rempel
This study explores the goals, policies, and practices of criminal domestic violence courts nationwide. Based on in-depth visits to select sites and a national survey completed by 129 domestic violence courts, results point to strong national convergence around the fundamental goals of victim safety and offender accountability. However, the study identifies other goals about which there is less agreement (e.g., offender rehabilitation or case processing efficiency) and reveals wide variations in court policy and practice. The ultimate goal of the study is to lay the groundwork for future information exchange and cross-learning among these courts.
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A National Compendium of Domestic Violence Courts
By Staff of the Center for Court Innovation
This compendium serves as a companion document to A National Portrait of Domestic Violence Courts. The compendium provides contact information for 208 criminal domestic violence courts in the United States as of December 2009. These courts handle criminal domestic violence cases on a separate calendar or assign criminal domestic violence cases to one or more dedicated judges or judicial officers.
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Responding to Human Trafficking: Lessons from an Experiment in the Bronx
By Liberty Aldrich and Robyn Mazur
With funding from the State Justice Institute, the Center for Court Innovation sought to test whether it was possible to create a court screening tool capable of efficiently identifying victims of trafficking and engaging them in needed services. This short report summarizes the implementation of this experiment and offers lessons for other jurisdictions interested in improving their response to trafficking.
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Lessons from the Battle over D.A.R.E.: The Complicated Relationship between Research and Practice
By Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox
An examination of the controversy over D.A.R.E., one of the most well-known and widespread crime prevention programs in the country, which has thrived despite research showing less-than-inspiring results. To its critics, D.A.R.E. is a cautionary tale of how criminal justice programs can live on despite evidence of failure. To its defenders, D.A.R.E. is a case study of resilience in the face of adversity. This paper unpacks the complicated relationship between research and practice, drawing lessons for future programming.
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The Drug Court Model and Persistent DWI: An Evaluation of the Erie and Niagara DWI/Drug Courts
By Amanda Cissner
An impact evaluation of two hybrid DWI/drug courts designed to address the issue of persistent driving while intoxicated (DWI). The results suggest that DWI court participants have slightly lower re-arrest rates than a matched comparison group; but the differences are small and non-significant. The evaluation reports other positive outcomes for court participants, including low rates of alcohol use during the period of program participation and high program completion rates.
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