Center for Court Innovation

Teamwork

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:08:00 +0000

On Friday, we had a big meeting at the Center to discuss the technology application that is used by many of our operating projects to manage cases and track compliance. It could have been a contentious meeting. After all, it brought together people from different departments (research, technology, administration, operations) to discuss frustrations with the information system. And certainly there were moments of disagreement. But the spirit in the room was respectful and non-defensive and collaborative.

It made me think about the recent New Yorker piece by Jonah Lehrer on teamwork. Lehrer suggests that traditional brainstorming, in which individuals are taught not to critique each other's contributions, doesn't really work.

How do you establish an institutional culture that encourages creativity? How do you mold teams that put the talents of individual stars to use for the greater good of the whole? I'm not so arrogant to believe that I know the answers to these questions, but I do think about them a lot.

Here are my three favorite (sports) teams of all time:

1991-92 Washington Redskins: A truly dominant team that finished 17-2 and beat its opponents by an average of nearly 3 touchdowns a game on the way to winning Super Bowl XXVI. I had the pleasure of going to the game in person since it happened to be played in my wife's home state of Minnesota. While this team deserves to be remembered alongside the '86 Bears, '08 Patriots, '90 Niners, and the '93 Cowboys as the best of my lifetime, I fear that they will never receive their due because they lacked superstar players. Instead of Manning or Brady or Montana or Favre, they were led by Mark Rypien. In all honesty, Rypien was nowhere near as good as these hall-of-fame QBs. In fact, he was kind of goofy and awkward. But for one season, he was truly great, particularly when it came to throwing deep to Gary Clark. Go back and check the videotape if you doubt me.

2004-5 Arsenal: In 2003-04, Arsenal went through the entire league unbeaten, the first and only time that's ever been done in England. And while I have deep affection for that team, I find that it is the following year that sticks in my mind. Arsenal brought back basically the same squad in 04-05, but added two great young players to the mix: Robin van Persie and Cesc Fabregas. While they won the FA Cup, they finished 2nd in the league and were eliminated by Bayern Munich in the early stages of the Champions League. So I think you could argue that they probably were under-achievers in the end. Still, they played unbelievably beautiful football and had great chemistry on the pitch with players like Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Viera seemingly reading each other's minds. They also moved from defense to offense as quickly as any team I can remember. The highlight for me was the home victory over Middlesborough, when they somehow managed to go 3-1 down only to score 4 brilliant goals in the last quarter of the game to transform a nail-biter into a laugher.

1998-99 New York Knicks: This was the Knicks team that finished 8th during the regular season and just squeaked into the playoffs before going on a magical run that ended with defeat to the Spurs in the NBA Finals. The appeal of this team was that it was a classic underdog story, succeeding in the face of long odds. Patrick Ewing was their best player, but he was often injured so the team had to rely on Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell for points. (This also gave the team a comeback angle, since Sprewell had recently been suspended for physically assaulting a coach and was viewed as a pariah in many quarters.) The thing that tipped the scales and made me love this Knicks team was their coach, Jeff Van Gundy, who was almost unfailingly smart and funny in his interactions with the media. In a weird way, Van Gundy embodied that Knicks team: he was underrated by many (including the management of the Knicks, who wanted to fire him) because he wasn't a big-time player when he was younger and he looked more like Woody Allen than Pat Riley. Still, at the end of the year, there was no denying his quality.

The Run Up to Community Justice 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:32:00 +0000

We are less than a week away from Community Justice 2012, the international conference of community courts that we are convening in Washington DC along with the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Featured speakers include drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson. I'm looking forward to a number of the presentations, including an address by David Weisburd, who recently won the Stockholm Prize for Criminology. Weisburd writes extensively about the relationship between crime and place. While most of his work deals with policing, I think it is directly relevant to community courts.

Response to the conference has been encouragingly strong: we had to close registration more than a week ago and now have a waiting list of about a hundred people. I'm sure I'll write more about the conference next week.

In the meantime, here are links to two articles that I enjoyed this week:

Harvard Business Review blog that argues that Governor Cuomo has over-reacted in his effort to curb non-profit salaries.

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker reviews a handful of recent criminal justice books, with a focus on American correctional policy.

Dignity and Respect

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Two great judges came to visit us this morning: Matthew D'Emic from Brooklyn and Marcia Hirsch from Queens. Both are long-time friends of the Center for Court Innovation -- D'Emic from his work in domestic violence court and mental health court and Hirsch from her work in drug court and mental health court. Their appearance at our monthly staff meeting was a somewhat rare opportunity to hear directly from judges about the joys and challenges of their work.

What struck me was that Hirsch and D'Emic clearly have different personalities on the bench. To give just one small example, D'Emic spoke about how he frequently uses bench conferences to communicate directly with defendants, while Hirsch said she almost never engages in the practice.

For all their differences in approach and temperament, what D'Emic and Hirsch both share is an outspoken commitment to treating each defendant with dignity and respect. In this way, they embody the work that we have been doing on effective courtroom communication and procedural justice. Speaking of which, we have created a new area on our website devoted to the topic. Check it out.

Assessing Risks and Needs

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:40:00 +0000

The highlight of my day yesterday was a meeting with some of our friends at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and the National Drug Court Institute. One of the things we talked about was the research that Doug Marlowe has been doing about risk and needs assessment and the importance of placing offenders in appropriate interventions. (There are dangers in putting low-risk/low-need individuals in intensive treatment modalities just as there are dangers in putting high-risk/high-need individuals in low-intensity interventions.) For those who are interested, I encourage you to check out Marlowe's work, which is consistent with a lot of what our research team at the Center for Court Innovation has been producing of late.

Budget Season in New York

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:07:00 +0000

Budget season is upon us in earnest here in New York. Everything is very much in a state of flux as we wait for negotiations to unfold between Governor Cuomo and the legislature. It is way too soon to say whether the budget for the upcoming state fiscal year will be good, bad or indifferent for us.

There were at least two encouraging pieces of news coming out of Governor Cuomo's office this week. The first, as the Center for New York City Affairs reports, is the state is continuing its effort to reduce the use of incarceration for juveniles and is interested in creating new alternative programs for New York City kids in particular. Also of note is the news that Governor Cuomo has made favorable noises about the judiciary's budget submission -- this wasn't the case last year.

A few other quick hits:

The Red Hook Star-Revue reports on the Justice Center's new program to serve 16 and 17 year old criminal defendants.

The National Law Journal on the spread of community courts in Washington DC, featuring Julius Lang from the Center. (Behind a pay wall, I'm afraid.)

Corrections Sentencing 2020 blog on Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform.

Planting Seeds of Optimism

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:13:00 +0000

If you missed it this weekend, here is a link to a New York Times story on Brownsville. The title of the article accurately conveys its substance: "Where Optimism Feels Out of Reach.” This passage is emblematic:

So many of the civic successes heralded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg...might have happened in Lithuania for all the effect they have had (or could have) on the lives of people in Brownsville, in northeastern Brooklyn. Even the mayor’s claim that the city is exceedingly healthy and safe meets grim rebuttal in Brownsville: the neighborhood maintains the highest infant mortality rate in the city, a rate about the same as Malaysia’s. While the murder rate in the crime-ridden Morrisania section of the Bronx, where the mayor delivered his speech, fell 25 percent from 1998 to 2011, in Brownsville over the same period, it declined not at all.

We've been working for a little more than a year in Brownsville, attempting to lay the groundwork for a community court that will tackle some of the conditions described in the Times article. Here are a few quick links to various items that describe what we are up to in Brownsville:

New York Juvenile Justice Corps blog on "Safe Surrender"

Brownsville Youth Court

Neighborhood probation in Brownsville

New York City Cleanup crews in Brownsville

Community survey of Brownsville residents

Chicago Policy Review

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Here's a link to an interview I recently did with the Chicago Policy Review. Thanks to Katy Welter for making me sound reasonably articulate.

News and Notes from the New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:10:00 +0000

I'm back again and ready to blog after a short break spent in Minnesota visiting my in-laws and entertaining my brother's family in Brooklyn. It feels like the new year is off to a good and productive start here at the Center for Court Innovation (famous last words, I know). Here are a few highlights from my in-box at the moment:

Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes talks about his vision for Brownsville, including plans for a new community court.

Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson steps down as the head of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs.

The Crime Report counts down the ten most important criminal justice stories of 2011.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance hosts a webinar on community justice featuring speakers from the Center for Court Innovation and the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

Finally, I managed to spend an hour yesterday reading a scholarly essay by Tracey Meares and Dan Kahan entitled "Laws and (Norms of) Order in the Inner City." Meares and Kahan write persuasively (at least to my mind) about how the justice system might make a positive impact on the culture and social organization of crime-plagued communities. I hope it is not just self-flattery, but I think that the work we are doing in places like Red Hook, Harlem, and Brownsville actually puts a lot of Meares and Kahan's ideas into practice.

A Farewell in Red Hook

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:07:00 +0000

Yesterday, the Red Hook Community Justice Center hosted a farewell party for Leroy Davis, a court officer who retired after more than a decade of service in Red Hook. Since the very start of the Justice Center, Leroy has been an important part of establishing the culture of the place. There's an old aphorism that you never get a second chance to make a positive first impression. Leroy, and the rest of the court officers who guard the building and keep inhabitants safe, seem to take that wisdom to heart. At the door to the Justice Center, they help set a tone that is both secure and friendly, welcoming and no-nonsense. But Leroy's role at the Justice Center was never confined to his job description; he always went above and beyond, particularly if kids were involved. To get just a little bit of the flavor of the man, it is worth checking out the short Red Hook video. We wish him well going forward.

The GAO on Drug Courts

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:08:00 +0000

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends its money. In a new report, the GAO declares that drug courts reduce recidivism. The GAO study is based, in part, on the multi-site adult drug court evaluation that we conducted along with the Urban Institute and RTI International. According to the GAO, “This is the broadest and most ambitious study of Drug Courts to date; it is well done analytically; and the results, as they relate to the impact of Drug Courts, are transparent and well described.”

Honoring Joel Copperman

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:54:00 +0000

Last night, Youth Represent honored Joel Copperman, the executive director of CASES, at their annual benefit. It always makes me happy to see good work rewarded. There's much to admire about Joel -- his affability, his decency, his commitment to CASES' clients, etc -- but the thing that stands out for me is his longevity. Joel's been running CASES for more than twenty years, through good times and bad, and I can discern no dimunition whatsoever in his zeal for the work at hand. CASES is lucky to have him, as is New York City and the field of alternatives to incarceration.

NeON in Brownsville

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:07:00 +0000

This morning saw the official launch of the New York City Probation Department's Neighborhood Opportunity Network initiative (or NeON for short) in Brownsville. It was a feel-good event, headlined by Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs, Probation Commissioner Vinny Schiraldi (pictured above in a grainy shot taken on my cell phone). Along with the Brownsville Partnership, we will be core partners in the NeON initiative: in the days ahead, our Brownsville Community Justice Center team will be located side-by-side with a team of probation officers dedicated to serving Brownsville residents. Together, the hope is that we can improve service delivery, making it easier for probationers to get the help they need to get their lives back on track. In his remarks, Commissioner Schiraldi was particularly gracious toward the Center for Court Innovation, saying that the idea for neighborhood-based probation was partly inspired by our community courts.

Kelling at John Jay

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:31:00 +0000

I spent this morning at John Jay College at a standing-room only lecture by George Kelling hosted by the National Network for Safe Communities and David Kennedy. Kelling has said nice things about the Midtown Community Court in the past and was even generous enough to blurb my book Good Courts, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I found his speech fascinating. Kelling essentially provided an overview of criminal justice policymaking in the U.S., with a particular focus on policing over the past two generations. One of the themes that he returned to again and again was the importance of establishing and maintaining legitimacy among agents of social control. Two of his lines struck a chord with me: "police are the people and the people are the police" and "in a democracy, you cannot police citizens unless they consent to be policed."

Kelling's focus is obviously the police, but his thinking resonates with our work within court systems and the lessons we are learning about the importance of procedural justice. In talking about the transformation of the New York City subway system in the 1990s, Kelling credited police with clearly articulating their enforcement strategy and then rigorously following through on that strategy. The more I look around, the more I think that this seemingly simple idea -- purposeful communication combined with a focus on implementation that encourages the system to live up to its intentions -- underlies many of the most intriguing innovations of recent years (HOPE Probation, the drug market intervention, community courts, etc.)

Lessons from Greenlight

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:19:00 +0000

The latest issue of the National Institute of Justice Journal contains another look at Project Greenlight by James A. Wilson and Christine Zozula.

For those who don't recall, Greenlight was an effort to produce better outcomes among those leaving prison in New York by providing specialized programming in the months immediately preceding release to the community. An initial evaluation, which tracked participants for 12 months post-release, found that Greenlight actually increased re-arrests. Full credit to our friends at the Vera Institute of Justice, which helped to conceive and implement Project Greenlight: they have been remarkably forthright about these results and have sought to help the field learn from their experience.

Wilson and Zozula return to Greenlight, re-assessing the project's impact over a longer period of study (30 months v. 12 months) and looking at the results through the lens of risk. In particular, they sought to tease out whether Greenlight might have had different impacts depending upon the level of risk posed by participating offenders. They found that Greenlight participants still performed worse than the comparison group at 30 months, regardless of the risk level. Somewhat counter-intuitively, they also found that Greenlight performed best with low-risk offenders, despite the fact that, in general, intensive correctional programming seems to work best with medium- and high-risk offenders.

Kudos to NIJ for another interesting issue of NIJ Journal.

My Uncle Warren

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:53:00 +0000

My uncle, Warren Gelayder, passed away yesterday. Warren grew up with my mother in Newark, New Jersey and spent most of his life in the jewelry business. I will remember him mostly for his affability. He never took himself too seriously and always seemed to be in a good mood. I think his sense of humor was one of the things that made him such a good father. He was truly a family man -- I always admired his commitment to his wife and kids. He will be missed.

Even before he fell ill, I often found myself thinking of Warren when I visited Newark Community Solutions. Mostly what I thought about is how our individual lives intersect with the lives of the cities we inhabit.

My family's story on my mom's side is fairly typical of the American Jewish experience. My grandmother Loretta moved to the U.S. as a small child. She came with her family from the town of Lwow, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire (after a brief spell as part of Poland, the city is now part of the Ukraine and called Lviv). Like many Americans, their immigration had roots both economic (the search for a better life) and political (the search for a life not defined by anti-semitism).

My grandmother, who became a U.S. citizen in the 1950s, ended up marrying Max Gelayder. (As an aside, the family name "Gelayder" is apparently an Americanized version of the Russian "Galaida.") For many years, my grandfather presided over a jewelry store at 519 Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn. My uncle Warren followed him into the business. The picture above captures Warren in front of the store in the 1960s.

Alas, the family business in Brooklyn didn't last forever. Nor did the good times in Newark: like many Jewish families, the Gelayders ended up moving to the suburbs. If the forces of history pushed my uncle out of Newark and Brooklyn at the end of the last century, those same forces are pushing me in the other direction: I find myself living in Brooklyn and working in Newark (albeit only occasionally). I enjoy the symmetry. And I wonder what my daughters' relationship will be to these places that have helped to define our family, for both good and bad, for nearly 100 years.

A Trip to Prison

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:04:00 +0000

I spent the bulk of the day today at Cheshire Correctional Institution in Connecticut. I visited because I recently joined the advisory board of the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education, an initiative that offers college-level courses to incarcerated students. Today's class was a political philosophy seminar devoted to Albert Camus' "The Rebel." Much of the conversation focused on a passage towards the end of the book in which Camus writes that the task before humanity is "to learn to live and to die, and, in order to be a man, to refuse to be a god." From this jumping off point, the students discussed religion and the nature of justice, bringing in earlier readings from Nietzsche and other philosophers. It was a pretty typical Wesleyan class: an interesting professor challenging a room full of highly engaged, thoughtful students. The only thing different really was the setting: we were behind bars in a windowless classroom and the students had all been convicted of serious crimes, including murder. I left feeling proud of my alma mater for sponsoring such a program -- and with my faith in liberal arts education, and its ability to teach both context and empathy, bolstered. For more information on the Center, check out this New York Times article.

Bronx Defenders

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:07:00 +0000

Last night, I attended the annual fundraiser for Bronx Defenders. Great event, great organization, and great honoree -- the event honored Herb Sturz, who helped establish the blueprint for innovative criminal justice non-profits when he founded the Vera Institute of Justice a half century ago.

Institutional partnerships between non-profits can be a challenge given the realities of politics, personalities, and the competition for limited resources. That said, we have been fortunate to establish a long-standing, mutually-beneficial (I hope!) relationship with Bronx Defenders. We aren't on the same side of every issue, but there is a basic foundation of respect and understanding between the two agencies that has enabled us to work together on projects like Bronx Community Solutions and the Center for Holistic Defense. We've also tapped Robin Steinberg, the head of Bronx Defenders, to be on numerous task forces, including our initiative to improve communication in criminal courts.

Video Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:07:00 +0000

Interrupting Violence in Crown Heights from NYC in Focus on Vimeo.

I spent the end of last week in Washington D.C. speaking to an inter-agency gathering of federal officials with an interest in substance-abusing offenders that was convened by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. While I was gone, several videos featuring Center for Court Innovation projects started making the rounds:

The above video, which describes our anti-violence work in Crown Heights, comes from NYC In Focus.

Last week's Brownsville Youth Court graduation was captured on film by one of the participants' parents. The results can be seen in this You Tube video.

The good folks at NYC Community Cleanup have created a neat time-lapse video of a graffiti removal project.

The Daily News

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:09:00 +0000

Two recent articles in the Daily News caught my eye. The first, about gang violence, includes this quote from Brookyn DA Charles Hynes about the Red Hook Community Justice Center: “That court helped transform Red Hook from a place you wouldn’t enter without the 3rd Marines into one of the five safest neighborhoods in New York.”

The second, an op-ed about violence in Brownsville, cites our research into community attitudes about crime and highlights the efforts we are making to address gun violence in Crown Heights.

Still More From England

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:58:00 +0000

Reviewing my notes, here are a few selected moments that struck a chord with me from the US-UK criminal justice summit that our Centre for Justice Innovation put together with Policy Exchange last week:

Nick Herbert, the minister of policing and criminal justice, saying that it is time for the UK to break out of "stale thinking" about crime and that he welcomed the creation of the Centre for Justice Innovation to aid in this process.

Kit Malthouse, MP and deputy mayor of London, nodding toward our trial and error work, saying "we have to recognize that part of innovation is failure."

New York City Probation Commissioner Vinny Schiraldi, highlighting the differences between the US and the UK in terms of how government policy is made and how that may help to stifle innovation: "You can't fail small in the UK, you have to fail big."

Chris Watler of the Harlem Community Justice Center, encouraging criminal justice reformers to be more aggressive in getting their messages out to the public and the media: "We are a storytelling species."

More From England

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:35:00 +0000

I've returned to New York after half a week in London. As part of the release of From the Ground Up, we helped to organize a two-day summit on criminal justice reform that brought together a select group of American and British innovators. About 100 people attended the public portion of the event, which was held at London City Hall. These included a mix of frontline practitioners, national bureaucrats, foundation people, and academics.

I think the report and the event helped us to solidify our role in England. After more than a year of exploratory work, it has become clear that our niche in England will be to promote criminal justice reform by aiding and abetting demonstration projects in a variety of fields -- probation, courts, corrections, etc. This will take several forms: research, convening, technical assistance, and behind-the-scenes advocacy with central government.

While there are numerous capable non-profit organizations in the UK, I am pretty confident that our Centre for Justice Innovation can make a real contribution. One of my principal takeaways from the summit has to do with the differences in the playing fields between the US and the UK. Because of the nature of the government (national as opposed to federal), the politics (crime is a top national concern and a key partisan issue in England), and the media (i.e., relentless national tabloids), it is much, much harder to be creative and test new ideas in the UK than it is in the US. In this environment, criminal justice reformers need all of the help they can get. I hope in the days ahead that we will be able to help strengthen the hands of both frontline practitioners and policymakers who are interested in doing new things.

Culture Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:04:00 +0000

A few things I've been enjoying of late:

Everlast's guerilla street art video for "I Get By"

"Attack the Block" -- easily the best horror/sci-fi/social commentary/comedy film I've ever seen

A new compilation of Billy Bragg downloads called "Fight Songs" includes several songs that rank with his best work

Taylor Branch takes down the NCAA in a lengthy, but entertaining, Atlantic Monthly story

From the Ground Up

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:22:00 +0000

I'm in London this week for the release of From the Ground Up, a new publication that our London office put together with our friends at Policy Exchange. The book is basically a meditation on the value of demonstration projects as a reform strategy. As part of the book launch, we convened a two-day event that brought together innovative criminal justice officials from England, Wales and Scotland with their counterparts from the US. I will try to write more expansively when I get home and have access to a proper computer, but for now I will just say that the gathering was a huge success and really underlined how far we have come in a relatively short time in the UK. Much praise is due of course to Aubrey Fox, who has been leading our London efforts. Aubrey has had a fair amount of help of course. Credit is also due to Policy Exchange (particularly Blair Gibbs), the Young Foundation (particularly Anton Shelupanov) and Gavin Lockhart, who co-wrote From the Ground Up with Aubrey.

Brownsville Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:05:00 +0000

The centerpiece of my day today was a meeting with James Brodick and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to discuss Brownsville. In the aftermath of last week's horrible shooting, we are re-doubling our efforts to advance the idea of a community justice center for the neighborhood. Under James' leadership, we've already got a fair amount going in Brownsville, including a youth court that just held its 100th hearing and an array of community service projects. To this, we will soon add "Safe Surrender," a joint effort with the Brooklyn DA's office, the New York court system, the Legal Aid Society and local clergy to help local residents clear up outstanding warrants without having to schlep downtown to court. We also plan to convene a local task force to look at juvenile reentry issues. And we are hoping to raise money to attempt a Ceasefire-style gun violence project. While NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman have both endorsed the idea of a community court for Brownsville, the realities of New York real estate and raising capital dollars mean it is going to take some time before we have a vibrant courthouse in the neighborhood. But I think we can still do a lot of good in Brownsville in the meantime. The bottom line is that I think we don't have to wait for a courtroom to open the Justice Center.

P.S. A couple of interesting invitations hit my in-box today. The first is for a lecture, hosted by David Kennedy's Center for Crime Prevention and Control, by George Kelling at John Jay College on December 6th. One of the originators of the "broken windows" theory, Kelling has been a hugely influential criminal justice scholar for more than a generation. The community court model certainly builds on his insight that the justice system needs to take minor offending seriously.

The second invite comes from Youth Represent which is honoring Joel Copperman, the executive director of CASES at their upcoming event on December 8th. CASES is a wonderful organization that runs alternative-to-incarceration programs (among other things) and Joel is one of the true class acts that I have met in the world of justice reform.

Change at the Top

noreply@blogger.com (Center for Court Innovation) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:29:00 +0000

Yesterday came news that Ann Pfau had stepped down as the chief administrative judge of New York. While this position is mostly invisible to the general public, it is hugely important inside the justice system. Reporting directly to the chief judge of New York, the chief administrative judge is responsible for overseeing the third branch of government, which includes thousands of employees, millions of cases, and hundreds of tough policy calls each year. Today, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced that Pfau will be replaced by Gail Prudenti. In the Law Journal story covering the announcement, Judge Prudenti said this: "I want to work with the Center for Court Innovation and look for partners that have the same goal of equal justice for all."