Research on the implementation and early effects of the Midtown Community Court over its first 18 months found that the project achieved its key operational objectives: to provide speedier justice; to make justice visible in the community where crimes occur; to encourage enforcement of low-level crime; to marshall the energy of local residents, organizations, and businesses to collaborate on developing community service and social service projects; and to demonstrate that communities are victimized by quality-of-life offenses. Research also found that the court had a significant impact on the types of sentences dispensed at arraignment, more than doubling the frequency of community service and social service sentences and reducing the frequency with which the "process was the punishment" for misdemeanor offenses. In addition, the project increased compliance with community service sentences by 50 percent; substantially reduced local quality-of-life problems, including the concentration of street prostitution, unlicensed vending, and graffiti in the court's target area; and increased community confidence in the court's ability to provide constructive responses to low-level crime.
Dispensing Justice Locally
NCJ Number
179620
Date Published
1997
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the implementation and effects of the Midtown Community Court in New York City, a demonstration project designed to test the ability of criminal courts to forge closer links with the community and develop a collaborative problemsolving approach to quality-of-life offenses.
Abstract
Date Published: January 1, 1997