To submit ideas for future issues, suggest names for our mailing list or learn more about the Center for Court Innovation's Upstate office, contact Aaron F. Arnold, director, Upstate office, at aarnold@courts.state.ny.us or Tel (315) 671-2094; Fax (315) 671-2092.

Syracuse University Law Conference Focuses on Problem-Solving Courts

The Family Law & Social Policy Center of the Syracuse University College of Law hosted a multidisciplinary conference entitled “The Impact of Problem-Solving Courts: Are They an Effective Response to Social Problems Affecting Families and Children?” The one-day symposium in October 2006 featured experts from law, social work, medicine, and the social sciences who explored the purpose, function, effectiveness, and fairness of problem-solving courts.

“The idea for this conference resulted from a lecture about problem-solving courts by the former director of the Upstate office of the Center for Court Innovation to one of my classes,” said Sarah H. Ramsey, professor of law and director of the Family Law & Social Policy Center at Syracuse University. “It seemed like the right time to bring together a number of experts from different disciplines to look at the changes taking place in the courts and how they affect each of our roles.”

Judge Leonard Edwards of California’s Administrative Office of the Courts delivered the keynote address. He was followed by panel discussions on “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Problem-Solving Courts,” “The Impact of Family Treatment Courts,” “The Impact of Integrated Domestic Violence Courts,” “The Importance of Multidisciplinary Collaboration to Successful Intervention with Families,” and “The New Model Guardianship Court.” Administrative Judge Sharon Townsend, of the 8th Judicial District, Judge Patricia Henry of the Brooklyn Integrated Domestic Violence Court, and Greg Berman and Liberty Aldrich from the Center for Court Innovation served on the panels with judges, attorneys, law professors, social service providers, and medical specialists.

According to Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation, “An increasing number of law schools and graduate programs are introducing courses on applying problem-solving principles and methods in the judicial system. This is an important step in educating the next generation of attorneys, social workers and policymakers.”

To learn more about academic interest in problem-solving courts and the class piloted by the Center for Court Innovation at Fordham Law School, visit
http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=629&currentTopTier3=true

Upstate Office of the Center for Court Innovation Receives Federal Grant

The Upstate office of the Center for Court Innovation in Syracuse was recently awarded a two-year $240,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund a unique partnership to prevent violence on campus.

At the core of the partnership is a program called Mentors in Violence Prevention, which will train peer educators in 16 fraternities and sororities at Syracuse University and the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Founded at Northeastern University in 1993, Mentors in Violence Prevention seeks to empower students to assume leadership on problems that have historically been considered women’s issues: rape, battering, sexual harassment, and homophobia.

Staff from the Center for Court Innovation are working with the colleges and Vera House Inc., a community service provider for survivors of rape and domestic violence, to adapt the program, originally developed for high school and college athletes, for members of college fraternities and sororities. Each year, staff from the Center, Syracuse University, and Vera House will train peer educators from 16 Greek chapters, who will in turn present the six-hour program to their fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. It is estimated that over 800 students will participate in the training over a two-year period.

Researchers from the Center for Court Innovation will examine student attitudes about gender-based violence before and after the training to assess the impact of the program with fraternities and sororities, since this is the first time the Mentors for Violence Prevention program has been used with student leaders other than athletes.

Free Training Offered on Domestic Violence Topics

As part of a federally-funded training and technical assistance initiative, several Upstate domestic violence and integrated domestic violence courts have hosted training workshops on two important topics: children's exposure to domestic violence and sexual assault in intimate relationships.

This training is being provided by the Center for Court Innovation as a free resource to interested agencies, courts, and communities statewide. Trainer Kathryn Ford tailors each workshop to the needs of individual courts and communities. The workshops include overviews of topics and discussions of best practices, with the goal of improving responses to these complex issues.

The multidisciplinary audiences have included judges, advocates, probation officers, mental health professionals, substance abuse treatment providers, child protective services personnel, batterers’ program staff, police officers, and supervised visitation providers. Attorneys can receive continuing legal education credit. Participating Upstate courts include Binghamton Domestic Violence, Steuben County Integrated Domestic Violence, Monroe County Family Court’s Domestic Violence Intensive Intervention Part, Oswego County Integrated Domestic Violence, Schenectady County Integrated Domestic Violence, and Newburgh Domestic Violence.

In addition, the Law Guardian Office of the 4th Department previously sponsored similar training in Monroe, Allegany, and Niagara/Orleans counties for law guardians in those jurisdictions. Cayuga County Integrated Domestic Violence Court, Franklin County Integrated Domestic Violence Court and Albany Domestic Violence Court have scheduled interdisciplinary training events for early 2007, and several other upstate courts, including Rensselaer County Integrated Domestic Violence Court, are in the process of doing so.

For further information or to schedule training, please contact Ford at (212) 373-1692 or kford@courts.state.ny.us

Drug Court Professionals to Hold Conference

The New York Association of Drug Treatment Court Professionals will hold its 9th annual conference in Buffalo from February 28 to March 2, 2007 at the Adams Mark Hotel. February 28 will feature both plenary sessions and breakout sessions on “Spirituality in Recovery.” The sessions on March 1 and 2 will be devoted to “Reaching Our Potential: Building and Sustaining Drug Courts.” The conference will include sessions exploring how traditional Native American practices and culture can educate and inform New York’s drug court practitioners. The conference will also include a track for pre-trial services and its role in drug court operations.

To register for the conference, visit http://nyadtcp.org/Registration.html For exhibitor information, e-mail nyadtcp@detailsdetailsevents.com.

Documenting Results: Research on Problem-Solving Justice

The Center for Court Innovation’s new book, Documenting Results: Research on Problem-Solving Justice, analyzes the impact of a broad range of problem-solving initiatives in New York State.

The book is divided into four topical sections. The first looks at adult drug courts, the oldest and most extensively researched experiment in problem-solving justice. The second section examines court responses to domestic violence. The third section is devoted to community courts. The final section looks at several newer experiments, including a mental health court, a reentry court, and experiments seeking to implement problem-solving justice practices in mainstream courts.

For ordering information, send an inquiry to info@courtinnovation.org. All of the chapters in Documenting Results are adapted from original research reports published by the Center for Court Innovation and available on the research publications page of the Center’s web site at http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=document.listDocument&documentTopicID=39&documentTypeID=6.

Report Documents the Perception of Fairness in a Community Court

Judges play a critical role in shaping defendants’ perceptions of fairness, according to a new study from the Center for Court Innovation.

The study, The Impact of the Community Court Model on Defendant Perceptions of Fairness, examines defendant perceptions of fairness at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The report documents the importance of clear communication in the courtroom and the critical role of the judge in determining whether or not defendants experience the treatment they receive as fair. In addition, the report proposes how both traditional and problem-solving courts can enhance defendants’ perceptions of fairness.

This study, which was released in December, provides the first-ever evaluation of the success of a community court's ability to improve upon the traditional court’s capacity to ensure that defendants leave court believing they were treated fairly.

The study is available for download at http://www.courtinnovation.org/_uploads/documents/Procedural_Fairness.pdf.

Study Provides Insight into Brooklyn Mental Health Court

The Brooklyn Mental Health Court has achieved its goals of improving the court system’s ability to identify, assess, and monitor offenders with mental illness, according to a new study from the Center for Court Innovation.

The study, The Brooklyn Mental Health Court Evaluation: Planning, Implementation, Courtroom Dynamics, and Participant Outcomes, also found that the court successfully linked offenders with appropriate mental health treatment services and produced improvements in a number of categories, including homelessness, substance abuse and recidivism.

The evaluation covered the court’s planning process and its first 28 months (from March 2002 to June 2004). The report describes key features of the court’s model, assesses the planning process and presents the results of participant interviews conducted one year after their enrollment. Additionally, the report provides lessons for other mental health courts.

The evaluation examined changes in participants in several categories, including homelessness, substance abuse, hospitalizations, recidivism, psychosocial functioning, and service utilization. Participants showed significant improvements in several outcome measures and a tendency toward improvement in nearly all other measures.

The encouraging results, coupled with an unusually high one-year program retention rate of 83 percent, suggest that the Brooklyn Mental Health Court has a meaningful positive effect on participants. The complete report is available at http://www.courtinnovation.org/_uploads/documents/BMHCevaluation.pdf