Research

Publications

Procedural Justice From the Bench: How Judges Can Improve the Effectiveness of Criminal Courts

By Greg Berman and Emily Gold

Judges willing to rethink the way they talk in the courtroom might consider these recommendations from the authors of this paper (originally published in The Judges' Journal): Appear approachable and accessible by addressing defendants by name, adapt courtroom language to eliminate legal jargon like “complaint” and “cross examination,” engage defendants in dialogue, and show respect for busy lives by calendaring cases to minimize wait times.

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Publications

Minding the Elephant: Criminal Defense Practice in Community Courts

By Julian Adler and Brett Taylor

One of the enduring critiques of community courts is that they are perceived by some to deny defendants their constitutional guarantees of due process of law. Furthermore, it is often alleged that a less-than-zealous defense bar is complicit in the denial of these protections. Responding to this line of criticism, this paper, originally published in The Judges' Journal, contends that community courts can actually enhance defense practice by providing opportunities for heightened advocacy and individualized case resolutions on lower-level criminal matters.

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Publications

Reducing Juvenile Detention: Notes from an Experiment on Staten Island

By Nancy Fishman

This article discusses the origins and development of the Staten Island Youth Justice Center's Respite program in the context of New York’s effort to reduce the number of youth in preventive detention. It describes Respite’s first year of operations, including some detailed case studies of youths who have gone through the program and identifies some of the challenges of and lessons learned from putting this model into practice. Published in the New York Law School Law Review (56 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev.

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Publications

The Impact of Adult Drug Courts on Crime and Incarceration: Findings from a Multi-Site Quasi-Experimental Design

By Michael Rempel, Mia Green and Dana Kralstein

This article reports findings from the National Institute of Justice's Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation concerning the impact of drug courts on crime and incarceration. The study found that drug courts reduced the number of criminal acts by more than half over an 18-month tracking period. The study also found that while program graduates faced little or no incarceration time, those failing received longer sentences than members of the comparison group (resulting in no net impact on incarceration). Published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, Volume 8, Number 2 (2012), and available from SpringerLink online at http://www.springerlink.com/content/q555w562154l4011/.

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