[PDF] What Is A Community Court eBook

Author : Christine Zozula
Publisher : Temple University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,96 MB
Release : 2019-06-21
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781439917398

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Community Courts are designed to handle a city’s low-level offenses and quality-of-life crimes, such as littering, loitering, or public drunkenness. Court advocates maintain that these largely victimless crimes jeopardize the well-being of residents, businesses, and visitors. Whereas traditional courts might dismiss such cases or administer a small fine, community courts aim to meaningfully punish offenders to avoid disorder escalating to apocalyptic decline. Courting the Community is a fascinating ethnography that goes behind the scenes to explore how quality-of-life discourses are translated into court practices that marry therapeutic and rehabilitative ideas. Christine Zozula shows how residents and businesses participate in meting out justice—such as through community service, treatment, or other sanctions—making it more emotional, less detached, and more legitimate in the eyes of stakeholders. She also examines both “impact panels,” in which offenders, residents, and business owners meet to discuss how quality-of-life crimes negatively impact the neighborhood, as well as strategic neighborhood outreach efforts to update residents on cases and gauge their concerns. Zozula’s nuanced investigation of community courts can lead us to a deeper understanding of punishment and rehabilitation and, by extension, the current state of the American court system.

Author : Greg Berman
Publisher : Quid Pro Books
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 37,43 MB
Release : 2015-12-03
Category : Law
ISBN : 1610273311

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Presented in a new digital edition, and adding a Foreword by Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge of the state of New York, Good Courts is now available as an eBook to criminal justice workers, jurists, lawyers, political scientists, court officials, and others interested in the future of alternative justice and process in the United States. Public confidence in American criminal courts is at an all-time low. Victims, communities, and even offenders view courts as unable to respond adequately to complex social and legal problems including drugs, prostitution, domestic violence, and quality-of-life crime. Even many judges and attorneys think that the courts produce assembly-line justice. Increasingly embraced by even the most hard-on-crime jurists, problem-solving courts offer an effective alternative. As documented by Greg Berman and John Feinblatt—both of whom were instrumental in setting up New York’s Midtown Community Court and Red Hook Community Justice Center, two of the nation’s premier models for problem-solving justice—these alternative courts reengineer the way everyday crime is addressed by focusing on the underlying problems that bring people into the criminal justice system to begin with. The first book to describe this cutting-edge movement in detail, Good Courts features, in addition to the Midtown and Red Hook models, an in-depth look at Oregon’s Portland Community Court. And it reviews the growing body of evidence that the problem-solving approach to justice is indeed producing positive results around the country. Quality eBook features include linked Notes, active TOC, and proper formatting.

Author : Gordon Bazemore
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 28,14 MB
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1437755674

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An anthology of original essays, this book presents debates over practice, theory, and implementation of restorative justice. Attention is focused on the movement’s direction toward a more holistic, community-oriented approach to criminal justice intervention. Discussion questions provoke thought, review and discussion.

Author : Julius Lang
Publisher :
Page : 20 pages
File Size : 15,14 MB
Release : 2011-04-02
Category : Court administration
ISBN : 9781457845451

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The Midtown Community Court was created in 1993 to respond more effectively to street prostitution, vandalism, shoplifting, drug possession, and other quality-of-life offenses that had tarnished midtown Manhattan’s reputation as a capital of tourism and entertainment. Researchers subsequently documented that the Midtown Community Court’s approach — combining punishment and help by linking defendants to community restitution projects and on-site social services — made a difference, helping to reduce crime and improve public trust in justice. Since then, some three dozen community courts have opened in the U.S., and many others are operating abroad. Designed to address local concerns, these courts handle a wide range of issues — everything from quality-of-life crimes, truant youth, and landlord-tenant conflicts, to drug addiction, chronic homelessness, and sex trafficking. This pub. offers a short review of community courts in the U.S. The goal is to help innovators learn about community courts and decide whether the model might help them achieve the goal of a fair and effective justice system that enhances safety, supports victims, and protects our rights. This is a print on demand report.

Author : Bonnie Carol Dicus
Publisher :
Page : 181 pages
File Size : 32,86 MB
Release : 2010
Category : Courts
ISBN :

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This research examines what contextual elements shape a community court. In the past several decades, the court system has lost trust with the American public. Citizens thought the courts were too complex, expensive, didn't address the issues of crime, and were out of touch with their communities. A movement called community justice began to grow in the 1990s. As part of this movement the concept of problem solving courts grew. Community focused courts were part of this. Community courts are unique in that the courts reach out to the community to help solve problems identified by citizens, businesses, and others in that area. Various stakeholders are involved in the planning, implementation, and operation of these courts, working together to address issues that arise from those who commit a crime and come before the court. Four community courts were examined using the case study method, examining the literature and conducting interviews, and a model was developed based on these courts. Two additional courts were examined, having been established after judges from their respective communities had attended a national seminar on community focused courts. These two courts were then compared to the model. Based on the model, areas most likely to develop a community court were identified. Additionally, the model can be utilized to indicate how these courts can be successful or fail. Other issues that were examined were how community courts differ from traditional courts and how this could impact judicial impartiality and independence, and the traditional adversary system.

Author : James Eisenstein
Publisher :
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 46,53 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Law
ISBN :

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The Contours of Justice provides a framework for describing and understanding criminal courts throughout the United States by depicting the functions of criminal courts in nine middle-sized counties in three states. It integrates concepts from each of the three traditional theoretical approaches to court analysis: the individual, organizational, and environmental approaches. The authors approach the courts as communities composed of judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys rather than as "legal institutions" applying formal law. They analyze the differences in culture, technology, physical setting, the customary ways of arriving at guilty pleas, as well as other aspects of the courts. The authors also incorporate information about the political and economic characteristics of the communities that the courts serve, along with the basic functions of scheduling cases and assigning personnel to cases. The portraits of the nine courts present the day-to-day activities of judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that lead to the decisions about the fates of the defendants brought to the courts. This comparison not only provides a vivid picture of actual court function, but allows an assessment of the process that leads to ideas for reform.

Author : Todd R. Clear
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 22,94 MB
Release : 2002-01-28
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780761987468

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Past methods of probation and parole supervision have largely relied on caseworkers who monitor their "clients" as well as they can. But, as numbers of "clients" increase, studies indicate that this model is ineffectual. The time has come to significantly rethink the approaches to community supervision. As described in What Is Community Justice?, the aim of the new efforts is to explicitly integrate the community and the criminal justice process in probation programs. There are five key goals that this book addresses to achieve this end: The building of partnerships between community supervision agencies and the community Expanding the "client" definition to include the victim of crime, the family of the offender, and the community itself Focus on places: agencies must take into account important local differences in neighborhoods Preventing problems between the community and the client rather than reacting to them Adding value to community life This book addresses the specific ways of achieving these goals by presenting six case studies of probation programs that represent a practical side of the community justice ideal. What emerges is a provocative and enlightening new approach to the problems of probation and parole.