Things to do whiile waiting for Trump to go away: Restorative justice & community courts

In Oakland schools, restorative justice is working

Alternatives to incarceration

Bringing justice down to the community

A court that works

How community courts work

Bringing justice down to the community

HELEN W. GUNNARSSON, ILLINOIS BAR JOURNAL "The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world," said the Pew Center on the States. . . Even more disturbing than these numbers is the report's conclusion: all that money, and all of those nonproductive person-hours in jail cells, are doing nothing to reduce the crime rate. Instead, the authors say, throwing people in jail is simply "saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime."

Given this dismal conclusion, interest in alternatives to traditional prosecutions and incarceration is understandably increasing. The Pew Center report cites diversion programs for nonviolent offenders with drug addictions or mental illnesses, also known as specialty courts, therapeutic courts, or problem-solving courts, as among the promising alternatives to jail time for Treating the underlying cause. . .

in 1993, [Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation] said, a community court was created in Manhattan to address quality of life crimes such as prostitution, drug possession, and vandalism. Instead of jailing nonviolent offenders, the court worked with community organizations to require restitution of the offenders.

Simultaneously, Berman said, the court used its resources to link the offenders with services such as drug treatment, mental health treatment, job training, and counseling in the hopes that in addressing offenders' underlying problems, they would curb recidivism. Statistics showed that these problem-solving courts were highly successful in achieving compliance with their orders, improving local perceptions of the justice system, and reducing recidivism, Berman said.

Today, there are thousands of problem-solving courts in the country. Most, if not all, are part of state criminal court systems, including community courts, drug courts, mental health courts, and domestic violence courts. . .

The Illinois Association for Drug Court Professionals lists 26 counties in Illinois with drug courts. Cook County has multiple sites with drug courts. . . Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons reports that he is participating in the planning stages for a mental health court in his county, which also boasts a domestic violence court. And Tazewell County began a pretrial diversion program through its state's attorney's office in 1974, long before the term "therapeutic jurisprudence" was coined. . .

Lake County's drug court and one-year-old mental health court, officially known as Therapeutic Intensive Monitoring court, provide a good illustration of how specialty courts work. . .

Team members meet every week to review the files of the TIM or drug court subjects, and all share information and ideas to craft appropriate, individualized treatment plans for each subject. Additionally, participants receive the benefit of services from outside professionals who may include the county jail doctor, a private therapist or counselor, a psychiatrist or psychologist, a job placement counselor, and/or a linkage worker who helps subjects find and participate in other community programs to meet their needs. . .

Offenders must . . . be amenable to treatment in order to be accepted into TIM or drug court. "Someone who denies a need for treatment, says she won't take her meds, or doesn't want to be labeled" won't want to be in TIM court - nor would she be accepted into the program, says Bishop. "Acceptance of responsibility is an element of participation in the program. Denial won't work.". . .

TIM or drug court subjects spend far more time in court than do offenders in traditional criminal courts. Initially, they're required to appear every week in court. As they show that they can comply with the specialty court team's requirements, the time between court appearances lengthens, first to every other week, then once a month. . .

Participants who violate the specialty court's orders or restrictions suffer consequences that are agreed on by the court team. Says Fabbri, "Violations are usually addressed incrementally." Someone may spend a weekend in jail, for example, he says. "Consequences will be a lot swifter and more severe than regular probation violations. These people are on our radar screen more and see the judge more.". . .

Mark Kammerer, a psychotherapist by training who's director of treatment programs for the Narcotics Prosecutions Bureau of the Cook County State's Attorney, confirms . . . hopes for specialty court graduates. In a memo . . . Kammerer cites encouraging statistics for Cook County's drug court graduates.

Kammerer first compared the criminal activity of the 443 drug court graduates . . . in the year prior to entering drug court to the year following graduation and found that felony arrests decreased by 92 percent, total arrests decreased by 83 percent, and 87 percent had no felony arrests at all. Further, felony convictions decreased by 86 percent, total convictions decreased by 80 percent, and 91 percent had no felony convictions at all. 91 percent of the graduates had no drug crime convictions and 93 percent had no felony drug crime convictions. . .

Kammerer comments on a similarity between the drug and mental health court populations: "If these people could have gotten their problems under control - could have broken the vicious cycle - by themselves, they would have by now. With the support and coercion of the court, people who couldn't do it on their own can do it." Specialty courts, he says, "are addressing specific issues that the criminal justice system has not been able to address."

THE CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION is a leader in community justice programs One of its projects, the Red Hook Commnity Justice Center, has helped crime in the Brooklyn neighborhood drop 62%. Bronx Community Solutions has placed more than 18,000 misdemeanor offenders into blended punishment-assistance programs. An internal study finds a 71% drop in recidivism in its drug courts. There are now some 2,500 community courts nationally and more than a dozen in Britain and South Africa. The Center is working with officials in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

[Bragging rights: Greg Berman, executive director of the CCI, was once an intern at the Progressive Review]

BRONX COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS - "When I came to Bronx Community Solutions I was labeled a criminal and now I am getting a trophy and being called a champion." That's what one of the members of the Bombers said while Bronx Community Solutions celebrated the first season of the our basketball league. The trophies were shining and the young men were smiling as the celebration took place: as they collected their trophies everyone enjoyed food, drinks and praise for these young men changing their lives. . .

"I enjoyed playing basketball instead of spending time getting in trouble"

"I enjoyed playing against the police instead of being arrested by the police"

"It was a lot of fun with giving back to the community . . . "

This pilot program was aimed at changing police and community youth perceptions of each other from antagonist to comrades. Officer Warren Thompson of the 46th Precinct received a plaque for his help in organizing police officers for the Bronx Bombers to play against and expressed how eager he was to participate in the next season. . .

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL - In order to tackle the homelessness problem in a more comprehensive fashion, the establishment of a Community Court should be considered for Skid Row. This is what New York City did in 1993 to help stop the deterioration of Times Square and the theater district in midtown Manhattan. Such a Community Court would deal with quality of life crimes - public intoxication, illegal panhandling, public nuisance - committed in that area, and would link the people committing those crimes to needed services and housing and/or offer alternative sentences like community service to improve the area.

This unique problem-solving court was developed by the Center for Court Innovation as a new and more effective way to deal with the special problems in New York. It has been highly successful for a number of reasons. First, it is located within the area where the quality of life crimes are committed and is accessible to the defendants so they can respond to their citations. A single judge plays a critical role in ensuring the success of the court, so there is a more meaningful outcome from the criminal justice system and more individual accountability and responsibility by the defendant. The typical revolving door does not exist.

The city or district attorney, public defender and court coordinator work as team to determine what is in the best interests of the defendant and the community. Justice is swift and alternative sentencing or referral to service and treatment is made to fit the needs of the individual person.

The city of Santa Monica and the Los County Superior Court have established such a court in Santa Monica thanks to the help of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In its first 10 months, the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court has achieved the following outcomes for 70 participants: 31 (44 percent) received an emergency shelter bed; 25 (36 percent) engaged in drug/alcohol treatment; seven (10 percent) placed in permanent housing; 13 (19 percent) accessed mental health treatment; 34 (48 percent) had citations or warrants dismissed upon program completion. . .

As Malcolm Gladwell reported in his 2006 New Yorker article "Million Dollar Murray," in the early 1990s Dennis Culhane, who is now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the foremost researchers in the field, found that New York was spending at least $62 million dollars annually to shelter 2,500 chronically homeless people. Boston Health Care for the Homeless, a leading service group for the homeless in Boston, has tracked the medical expenses of 119 chronically homeless people. Over five years the group, minus a few who died or were sent to nursing homes, accounted for 18,834 emergency-room visits at a minimum of $3,000 per visit. Researchers at the University of California-San Diego Medical Center followed 15 chronically homeless inebriates and found that over 18 months those 15 people ran up bills that averaged $100,000 per person. The 10 years that Murray, a chronically homeless man from Reno, Nev., spent on the streets cost $1 million.