Young Adult Alternative to Incarceration: Overview of Services The following services are available to defendants in APY-2 or general AP parts, who are between the ages of 16-24 years old arrested on misdemeanor charges. Charges involving intimate partner domestic violence are not eligible. Services are provided at either Brooklyn Justice Initiatives (BJI), the Brownsville Community Justice Center (BCJC), Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC), or at community-based providers. All services are rigorously monitored by BJI or BCJC staff, regardless of if the service is provided on or offsite. All services can be mixed and matched, if appropriate and necessary. An * indicates no cost.
Individual Social Services Clinical Youth Assessment *(60-90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16-24, located at BJI and RHCJC) A young person meets with a social worker to complete a comprehensive evaluation in which the clinician gathers a psychosocial history and completes a needs assessment. Key life areas addressed include, but are not limited to: education, employment, mental health, and substance abuse. The assessment also explores the client’s trauma history and, if applicable, the impact trauma has had on the client’s life. A supervised urine drug toxicology is submitted as protocol for completion of the assessment. Following the assessment, the social worker discusses the case with a supervisor to craft a recommendation for appropriate clinical services. Court parties are able to discuss and negotiate these recommendations to come to an agreed upon mandate. Case Management *(45-60 minutes, between one (1) and six (6) sessions dependent on client’s needs, ages 16-24, located at BJI and RHCJC) A young person meets with a clinician to address any and all service provision needs, including social services, mental health, job and internship opportunities, and educational planning. The case manager or social worker will create a treatment plan with the client to work toward clinically appropriate goals, such as entering a GED program, enrolling in a parenting program, addressing recreational marijuana or alcohol use, conflict resolution, etc. The court may also note if there is a specific area to be addressed during case management. Case management can be offered as a stand-alone service or be coupled with another intervention.
Short-Term Services These services are typically reserved for those cases not requiring lengthy interventions. Any defendant who is mandated to short term services must complete a brief 30-minute intake, offered onsite at BJI’s office. The process allows staff to gather collateral contact information and learn more about a young person, including imminent needs and their future goals. Conflict Resolution Group *(60 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16-24, located at BJI) Conflict Resolution addresses the origin and different types of conflict, ways of identifying social and environmental triggers, and coping mechanisms. It guides participants in identifying their own triggers by exploring how they have handled conflict in the past and the emotions experienced as a result of conflict. Participants complete a series of activities that promote engagement with one another through creative expression (i.e. describing and acting out emotions) and dialogue (i.e. identifying alternatives to addressing conflict). This group is predicated upon a strength-based approach specializing in adolescent development and growth. The goals of this group are: Identifying Conflict Identifying Individual Triggers and Feelings Determining Alternative Responses/Coping Mechanisms
Employment Readiness Group *(60 minutes, two (2) sessions, ages 16-24, located at BJI) Session One: In an effort to break down the barriers of labels and projections as hindrances to finding employment, participants engage in activities that build upon their strengths and self-confidence. Through a series of activities facilitated by a Brooklyn Justice Initiatives staff member, participants explore the concept of projection and gain self-awareness regarding the ways that self-image affects future success. Participants also map resources, which will aid in finding internships, community programs, and employment opportunities. The goals of Session One are: Building Self-Confidence Setting Goals Mapping Current and Future Opportunities Session Two: Participants identify future goals and participate in activities that teach concrete skills, such as resume building and interviewing. Participants also identify barriers, both at the individual and systematic levels, that may prevent them from reaching their goals. During the second session, participants are encouraged to determine ways to overcome those barriers and identify specific application opportunities with which the facilitator can assist. The goals of Session Two are: Identifying Barriers to Achieving Goals Building Resumes Honing Interpersonal Skills Up & Out Group *(60 minutes, three (3) or five (5) sessions, ages 16-24, located at BJI) Up & Out is a group intervention designed for justice system-involved individuals. It is an interaction curriculum grounded in three core sets of evidence-based practice principles: procedural justice, risk- needs-responsivity, and trauma-informed care. It is also designed to help participants reflect on environmental and neighborhood-level factors that can impact the decision-making abilities.
Bridges to Employment (Job Readiness) Group *(60 minutes, three (3) sessions, ages 16-24, located offsite at the Red Hook Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library) Participants learn and practice the skills and techniques necessary to obtain an internship or job. Youth learn how to write a resume, search for job openings online, and basic interview skills. Drug Education Group - CSEDNY *(90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16-21, located offsite) This workshop is facilitated offsite by the Counseling Services of the Eastern District of New York (CSEDNY), a well-respected OASAS licensed drug treatment provider, located in downtown, Brooklyn. CSEDNY has a range of services onsite, with expert-level staff providing strengths-based and trauma informed services. This workshop was created specifically for the court involved youth population. With a focus on providing psychoeducation and information about substance use and addiction, participants are engaged in a meaningful discussion about a range of substances, how peer pressure can affect decision making, as well as identifying triggers. Staff are also able to work individually and voluntarily with participants and their families who are in need of ongoing substance abuse treatment. The goals of this group are: Gaining Understanding of the Effects of Substance Abuse Learning How Substance Use Affects Decision Making Identifying Triggers
Community Service *(typically ranges between 5-25 hours, session number dependent on mandate, ages 16-24, located at various sites across Brooklyn) Youth mandated to community service complete restorative community service projects in community settings. There are a variety of service sites located throughout Brooklyn, including, but not limited to: Groundswell Community Mural Project, Red Hook Community Justice Center, NYC Parks Department, as well as Red Hook and the surrounding community. Some sites can accommodate after school/work and weekend hours. Activities include graffiti removal, food distribution at food pantries, assisting with maintenance of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, and other community beautification projects.
Consultation with Educational Liaison *(Time dependent on youth’s need, one (1) session, ages 16-21, located at Brooklyn Criminal Court) Participants and their families work with a liaison to the school system in order to examine the youth’s current educational environment. With the liaison, youth also explore other educational options, such as transfer schools, GED programs, and alternative schools.
Mediation *(2 hours, at least one (1) session, ages 16-24, located offsite) Mediation is a conversation between people in conflict, facilitated by a trained mediator from the New York Peace Institute. Mediation provides participants the chance to settle their differences in a safe, confidential, and efficient manner. This service is ideal for cases involving familial and neighbor disputes and cases involving cross complaints. Parental consent is required for a minor’s participation.
Conflict Coaching *(90 minutes, at least (1) session, ages 16-24, located offsite) Conflict Coaching is a one-on-one process between a trained coach and a person who is involved in a dispute with one or more individuals. It is designed to help the participant make decisions about his/her situation and to manage conflict more effectively overall. A typical meeting lasts for 90 minutes and can be completed in one session. Participants have the option of attending additional sessions on their own accord. There is no charge for this service.
Peacemaking *(60 minutes, between one (1) and four (4) sessions, all ages, located at RHCJC) Peacemaking is a traditional Native American approach to justice that focuses on healing and restoration rather than punishment. The session(s), which are facilitated by trained peacemakers from the community, are designed to enable those affected by the dispute to “talk it out” and reach a consensus agreement for restitution and repair. **Please note: a brief screening is required to ensure that defendants are appropriate.
Young New Yorkers Fall Diversion Program *(Three hours, seven (7) sessions, once per week, females ages 16-18, located offsite) Young New Yorkers Fall Diversion Program is a series of intensive hands-on workshops designed to assist participants in understanding the concepts of transformative justice, choice-impact, de-escalation, violence interruption, and leadership. Throughout the sessions participants design a public art installation that expresses a positive social message of their choice. Central to the curriculum is the concept of taking responsibility for past actions as a necessary step before becoming valued members and even leaders of their communities. Each workshop is framed by a relevant theme: community; choice; accountability; responsibility; contribution; leadership. **Please note: a brief screening is required to ensure the program is a good match for the client.
Young New Yorkers (YNY) *(Three hours, one (1) session, ages 16-18, located offsite) This workshop is facilitated by Young New Yorkers staff and focuses on choice, consequential thinking, and self-esteem. Young New Yorkers provides arts-based transformative justice programs to court- involved young people in Brooklyn, with the ultimate goal of empowering them to transform the criminal justice system through their own creative voices.
RECESS Assembly *(Two hours, four (4) sessions, ages 16-24, located offsite) The core curriculum for Assembly’s arts programs will focus on visual artists’ methods of creative problem solving and techniques of storytelling and performance, with the goal of developing tools to challenge the dominant narratives that surround youth and the justice system. Storytelling workshops in particular will call out the problematic social structures that affect each individual and the choices they make. Throughout these programs, participants will learn directly from the artists about the choices they make in their work, and participants will have the chance to assert their own creative agency in exercises and conversations.
Youth Court *(60-minutes, one (1) session, plus sanctions determined by Youth Court, ages 16-18, located at RHCJC) Youth Court trains local teenagers to serve as jurors, judges, and advocates, in order to handle a range of low-level offenses committed by peers. The goal of Youth Court is to use positive peer pressure to ensure that young people who have committed minor offenses pay back the community and receive the help they need to avoid further involvement in the justice system. The actual youth court hearing is typically followed by the completion of a brief sanction (i.e. letter of apology, restorative community service, or an essay).
Group Sessions offered at Red Hook Community Justice Center
Motivating 101; Motivating 102 *(ages 16-21) (60 minutes, one (1) session) This interactive workshop is designed to identify negative behaviors and encourage positive change. It explores the different ways youth cope with stress and overwhelming feelings that can lead to getting into trouble. It addresses healthier ways to cope with life experiences.
Young Adult Anger Management *(90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16-21) Anger Management *(90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 22+) In this workshop, clients identify conflict issues and triggers and work to understand how they can handle them. The session also helps the clients identify how their approach to conflict can be improved, set goals related to conflict skills, and practice skills to improve their responses. Anger Management is also offered in Spanish.
Marijuana Group *(2 hours, one (1) session, ages 22+) This group addresses the reasons for marijuana use and identifies alternative ways of coping. Through discussion, the group explores the negative impacts of use on clients’ goals, futures, and families.
Treatment Readiness Program (TRP) *(90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 22+) This psychoeducational workshop addresses substance use, addiction, and triggers, as well as increasing motivation to change substance use behaviors. Facilitators also assist clients with voluntary referrals to ongoing treatment as needed. Offered in English and Spanish.
Driver Accountability Program (DAP) *(90 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16+) Facilitated by Justice Center staff, this group takes a restorative approach to solving the problem of risky driving in our community. Participants engage in meaningful self-reflection of their own driving beliefs and behaviors, which is used as a framework for a broader discussion of what constitutes risky driving and why. Participants then identify specific driving behaviors they are committed to changing and the concrete steps they will take to do so, thereby empowering participants to become agents of their own change.
Quality of Life (QOL) *(30 minutes, one (1) session, ages 16+) Facilitated by Justice Center staff, the Quality of Life group is for participants who have been charged with Quality of Life offenses. The group is designed to educate participants on Quality of Life offenses so as to not violate those laws again.
Better Decisions; Better Outcomes *(60 minutes, three (3) sessions, ages 16-21) In this gender-based group, youth learn practical information about common responses to violence and trauma that they can apply to their own lives. In each session youth practice a new coping skill to help them manage stressful situations and negative emotions more effectively.
Long-Term Services & Sanctions Such services are typically utilized for cases requiring more intensive treatment, as determined by clinical staff following a full clinical assessment. Brooklyn Justice Initiatives has relationships with a number of community-based agencies located throughout Brooklyn and other boroughs and works with each young person to determine which provider would be the best fit. All services are rigorously monitored throughout the duration of the mandate.
Individual Counseling (located offsite at numerous outpatient mental health clinics; payment is required, either through a sliding scale or insurance coverage) A process wherein youth engage in weekly individual therapy with a licensed mental health professional in order to explore a variety of issues including, but not limited to: stress, relationships, trauma, bereavement, and depression.
Mental Health Assessment (located offsite at numerous outpatient mental health clinics; payment is required, either through a sliding scale or insurance coverage) Generally conducted as part of the intake process at an outpatient mental health clinic, youth are assessed by a psychiatrist, and where appropriate, given a diagnosis for a mental illness. The psychiatrist may also determine if the youth requires psychotropic medication.
Mental Health Treatment (length and frequency determined by clinical staff; located offsite at numerous outpatient mental health clinics; payment is required, either through a sliding scale or insurance coverage) A service designed by clinical staff to address a client’s mental health needs. Clients are assessed by a psychiatrist, and where appropriate, given a diagnosis for a mental illness. The psychiatrist may also determine if the individual requires psychotropic medication.
Drug Treatment Services (modality and length determined by clinical staff; located offsite at numerous drug treatment providers; payment is required, either through a sliding scale or insurance coverage) A service designed to address a young person’s addiction to substances. Depending on a client’s clinical need, drug treatment can be in the form of outpatient, residential, detoxification and/or rehabilitation.
Vocational and Internship Opportunities (located offsite with a variety of different providers; typically, no payment is required, but there might be specific eligibility criteria in order to be enrolled) Depending on a young person’s interests and goals, clinicians can connect a youth to one of many community-based organizations that provide robust vocational training and internship opportunities. Referrals may vary depending on a young person’s skills, interest, starting ability, and program location.
Batterer Intervention Programs (length varies between 12, 16, 26, and 32 weeks, located at RHCJC and offsite at various community providers) Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs) are educational programs for abusive partners, focusing on taking responsibility for abusive acts and exploring the effects and impact of intimate partner violence. BIPs are not typically covered by insurance and have a very strict attendance policy in an effort to enhance accountability for a participant’s actions.
Brownsville Community Justice Center BOLTS *(four month cycle, two times per week, with open enrollment) BOLTS is a group program designed to increase life skills, leadership qualities, and the development of civic engagement for youth. The group includes actual hands on civic engagement.
Brownsville Girls Collaborative *(four month cycle with closed enrollment) This is a gender specific group that is designed specifically for young women and focuses on holistic self- empowerment and leadership development. The group incorporates aspects of Spoken Word, Tribeca Teaches, and Social Media Activism.
Brownsville Project Runway *(four month cycle with closed enrollment) Project Runway is an internship opportunity where youth learn to focus on basic design and sewing skills culminating in a fashion show.
Sounds of Brownsville *(four month cycle with closed enrollment) This internship opportunity teaches all aspects of music production. Youth make their own musical beats, have a space to write music, have the capacity to record music, and produce an album.
How the Model is Being Adapted Across the United States
Bureau of Justice Assistance U.S. Department of Justice author year about this publication
Julius Lang 2011 This project was supported by Grant No. 2009-DC-BX K018 award - Director, Technical Assistance ed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Center for Court Innovation Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Julius Lang is director of technical assistance at the Center for Court Innovation. Research, ideas, and text were also contributed by Greg Berman, Elvita Dominique, and Robert V. Wolf of the Center for Court Innovation, and Kim Ball and Danica Szarvas- Kidd of the Bureau of Justice Assistance. This publication is an update of an earlier version entitled “Community Courts: An Evolving Model,” authored by Eric Lee. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 1
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE
The Midtown Community Court was created in 1993 to respond more effectively to street prostitution, vandal - ism, shoplifting, drug possession, and other quality-of-life offenses that had tarnished—some thought perma - nently—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. In the years since the Midtown Community Court opened, some three dozen community courts have opened in the United States, 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 con - flicts, to drug addiction, chronic homelessness, and sex trafficking. While the various community courts are organized differently—some focus on one neighborhood, for exam - ple, while others serve an entire city or county—they share a common approach. All seek to impose immediate, meaningful sanctions on offenders, truly engage the community, and help offenders address the kinds of prob - lems that often underlie criminal behavior. Community courts have posed a new set of questions about the role of the court in a community’s daily life: What can a court do to solve neighborhood problems? Is it possible to forge new and creative responses to low- level offending instead of relying on incarceration as a default setting? What roles can community residents, businesses, and service providers play in improving justice? And how can the answers to those questions be applied beyond the community court itself to the wider court system? The Bureau of Justice Assistance supports the efforts of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and other local leaders who are interested in exploring concepts of community justice. For example, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has collaborated with the Center for Court Innovation to establish a network of regional mentor com - munity courts to provide technical assistance to reformers across the country. This publication offers a short review of community courts in the United States. The goal is to help innova - tors learn about community courts and decide whether the model might help them achieve the goals we all seek: a fair and effective justice system that enhances safety, supports victims, and protects our rights.
Denise E. O'Donnell Director Bureau of Justice Assistance Office of Justice Programs U.S. Department of Justice 2 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? INTRODUCTION Over the past decade and a half, cities and towns across the United States and around the world have sought to test the proposition that courts can play a role in solving complex neighborhood problems and building stronger communities. Since the 1993 opening of New York City’s Midtown Community Court, dozens of cities have created their own community courts. At their outset, each court must address the following set of questions:
• Can courts assume a problem-solving role in the life of a community, bringing people together INTROaDnUd CheTlIpOinN g to craft solutions to problems that communities face? • How can courts’ sentencing strategies address the effect that chronic offending has on a com - Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut munity? laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullam - • Can local voices—residents, merchants, community groups—play a role in the administration of corper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit justice? in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan • How can courts best link offenders to the services they need to avoid re-offending? et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. • Is it possible to craft meaningful alternatives to incarceration—and ensure that there are swift Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod exerci tation consequences for non-compliance? ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Community courts answer these questions in different ways. Although many community courts focus on one nDeuiigsh abuotrehmoo vde,l seeuvmer ailr ijureis doicltoiro nins heanved rcerreiat tiend vcuoluprutsta tthe avte slietr evess ae wmidoleers teier rciotonrsye, qsuomat,e vtieml ielslu emve dno alonr e netuir efe cu i-ty goria ct onuunlltay. fSaocimlisei sc oamt vmeruon eitryo sc oeut ratcsc wumersea bne egtu inu satso cooduirot -dleigdn iinsistimati vqeusi, bwlahnildei to tphrearess ewnetr leu ipntiattiualmly zczhraiml dpeiloenneitd by aloucgaul ep rdousiesc duotolorsr,e etxee fceuutgivaei tb nruanllcah f alecialdiseir. sNhaipm, olirb ceorm temmupnoirt yc uamcti vsiosltus.t aM naonbyi sc oemleimfeunnd iotyp ctioounr tcso hnagnude len iohnilly icmrimpeirndaile tc adsoems, ifnogc uids iqnugo ldar mgealyz iomn pqluaacelirtayt-o ffa-cliefer pooffsesnimdi nags,s usumc.h as shoplifting, graffiti, illegal vending, and pros - tituLtioorne.m O tihpseursm ta dcoklloer a s bitr aomadeetr, rcaonngse cotef tcureimr aindiapl icsacsinesg, esluitc, hs eads dauiatmo t nheofnt,u lmowm-lye vneilb fhe leouniys mdroudg t ipnocsisdeusnsito unt , lsataolrkeientg d, oalnodre a mssagunlta, walhiqiluea smti lel roatth veorslu atdpdatr.e Usst nwoinsi- cernimimin aadl mainttiemrs ,v ienncilaumdi, nqgu ijsu vneonsitlreu de elixneqrcuie tnactiyo, nh ouullsaimng cor - pisesru seus,s ceinpviitr loonbmoretinst anli sclo udet avliioqluaitpio enxs ,e oar c oofmfemndoedro r ceoenstreyq. uCaotm. Dmuuisn aituyt ecmou rvtesl eevuemn hiraivuer et hdeo lcoarp ianc ihtye ntod rceormit binine vuunldpeurt aotnee v reoliot fe as sneu mmoblers toief csopnecsieaqliuzaetd, vceolu irlltu dmoc dkoetlos.r eIn e ua nf eeuxgpiearti mnuelnlat fianc Oilirsaisn gaet vCeoruo netryo, sC eatl iafoccrnumia,s a nc oemt mu - inuistyto c oudriot idnicglnuidsessim an q uadi ubllta nddruitg p croauesrte,n at mluepntattaul mhe zalztrhil cdoeulretn, iat acouugrute f odru itsh odsoel ocrhea treg efedu wgaitiht ndurilvlain fga cuilnisdie. rL othrem ipnsfluumen dceo lofr aslict oahmoel,t ,a cvoentesreacntest’u ceoru ardt,i pai sdcoimnge setliict, vsieodle dnicaem c onuornt,u amndm ay hnoibmhe eleusis mcooudr tt.i n cidunt ut laoreet dolore WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 3
Given the differences in court structure and focus, responses to offending vary. Typically, however, all com - munity courts take a problem-solving and community-focused approach. In criminal cases, community courts combine punishment and help, requiring offenders to pay back the community by participating in restorative community service projects while also participating in individualized social service sanctions, such as drug treat - ment or mental health counseling. In civil cases, such as housing disputes, community courts bring new resources to help create long-lasting solutions; the Harlem Community Justice Center in Manhattan, for exam - ple, houses a resource center to give both tenants and landlords the support they need to pay their rent on time or make repairs, thus avoiding more problems in the future. These variations reflect a central aspect of community courts: however they are organized, they are designed to respond to the particular concerns of individual communities. Moreover, community courts are shaped by the unique political, economic, and social landscapes in each community. The Center for Court Innovation, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, has provided technical assistance to many community courts and has helped to document the emer - gence of this field. This monograph provides a snapshot of existing community courts in the United States and explores emerging issues in their development.
OVERVIEW When it opened in 1993, the Midtown Community Court represented a bold departure from “business as usual” in the court system. By mid-2010, some three dozen replications had opened across the United States, from California to Connecticut, Texas to Minnesota. Even more projects based upon community court principles are currently operating outside the United States in places like Australia, Canada, England, Singapore, and South Africa.
While these projects have many differences, in general they all rely on a set of common principles and practices:
• Enhanced Information : Using better staff training (about complex issues like drug addiction and mental illness) combined with better information (about defendants, victims, and the communi - ty context of crime) to help improve the decision making of judges, attorneys, and other justice officials. • Community Engagement : Engaging citizens to help the justice system identify, prioritize, and solve local problems. • Collaboration : Bringing together justice players (such as judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, and court managers) and potential stakeholders beyond the courthouse (such as social service providers, residents, victims groups, schools) to improve inter-agency communi - cation, improve trust between citizens and government, and foster new responses to problems. 4 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
• Individualized Justice : Using evidence-based risk and needs assessment instruments to link offenders to individually tailored community-based services (e.g., job training, drug treatment, safety planning, mental health counseling) where appropriate. • Accountability : Employing community restitution mandates and regular compliance monitor - ing—with clear consequences for non-compliance—to improve the accountability of offenders • Outcomes : Collecting and analyzing data on an active and ongoing basis—measuring outcomes and process, costs, and benefits—to evaluate the effectiveness of operations and encourage con - tinuous improvement.
The effectiveness of these principles and practices at the Midtown Community Court has been well-docu - mented (see, e.g., Sviridoff, M., Rottman, D., Ostram B. and Curtis, R. 2000. Dispensing Justice Locally: The Implementation and Effects of the Midtown Community Court. The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers). Planners in other jurisdictions have made significant departures from the Midtown model, reflect - ing both the distinct needs of their communities and the practical realities of local resources. The following sec - tions examine common questions that planners have asked as they designed their community courts and how they resolved them.
How Does Community Court Planning Get Started? Community courts are complex projects that involve rethinking court operations, identifying significant resources, and building partnerships inside and outside the justice system. In the U.S., the impetus for kicking off the planning of a community court has varied from state to state. Judges or local court administrators have sparked the planning effort in some 15 of the U.S.’s 37 operating courts. (Unless otherwise indicated, the numbers cited below refer to courts in the United States only). Planning for at least another 15 courts was first suggested by the local district attorney or city attorney. Notably, community prosecution programs existed in 12 of these jurisdictions; in many places, the interest of local prosecutors in community court was a response to questions raised by their constituents about whether the justice system could pay closer attention to quality-of-life problems. The local mayor’s office or a countywide criminal justice commission was involved in initiating the community court effort in at least seven jurisdictions. Many projects recognized early on that a dedicated planner—in some cases a full-time coordinator, in others a staff person who dedicated a majority of his or her attention to the project—would be needed to move the com - munity court from conception to implementation. This approach reflects the complexities of identifying resources, building community participation, developing an appropriate menu of court mandates, and establish - ing partnerships. To ensure that the partnerships necessary for success were established early in the planning process, most jurisdictions convened formal planning committees. The committees typically included represen - tatives from the courts, local prosecutors’ offices, defense bar, police departments, social service agencies, and WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 5
communities. In the projects that did not create planning committees, lead planners worked informally with project stakeholders. The scope of the community court project, the readiness of local players to support the concept, the extent of any necessary construction, and the planners’ success in garnering funds and in-kind support all affected the length of the planning process. The average planning period is around two years, although some jurisdictions used less than a year to create a community court.
Which Communities Should Be Served and Where Should the Court Be Located? The first community court was established to serve the central business district of America’s most populous city. One question asked by planners of subsequent projects was whether the community court model is applicable to smaller cities and other types of neighborhoods. The community court approach has been recognized as a meaningful response to quality-of-life problems by many different communities. Today, many of the U.S.’s 37 operating community courts serve inner-city residen - tial neighborhoods facing serious problems, including high crime rates, property abandonment, and chronic conditions of disorder. Some courts are located in suburban areas. At least four community courts serve down - town areas and tackle the low-level crime and public disorder issues that can be barriers to civic revitalization. Finally, at least nine projects are testing the idea of a community court that serves an entire county or medium- size city. Another decision planners have faced is selecting an appropriate facility in which to locate the community court. The decision involves balancing community court goals such as visibility and accessibility to the public with the need to find sufficient space for on-site partners. Expense and the logistical issues of case processing are also important considerations. Community courts have arrived at a variety of solutions. At least 18 courts operate out of separate neighborhood-based facilities, while at least 13 courts currently operate within centralized court - houses. Several projects have come up with creative approaches in an effort to get the best of both worlds. For example, in Washington, D.C., the East of the River Community Court is based in the central downtown court - house but focuses on a single set of neighborhoods cut off from the rest of the city by the Anacostia River. The types of cases community courts accept vary depending on the communities that they serve. Courts in residential neighborhoods are more likely to address housing, environmental issues, and youth crime, whereas those in downtown areas prioritize issues such as homelessness and disorderly conduct.
How Should the Court Use Alternative Sanctions? A core feature of the community court model is linking offenders to social services. Of the 37 community courts now operating in the United States, at least 14 provide on-site services such as case management, drug treat - ment, counseling, or assistance with entitlements. At least five sites provide referrals to social services plus ongo - ing case management; and at least nine provide referrals only. 6 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
All of the U.S.’s community courts are experimenting with the broad use of alternatives to incarceration (and, in most instances, alternatives to fines). There is mounting evidence that mandating defendants to social servic - es can help reduce recidivism. Most community courts tailor the mix of community service and social service mandates to the circumstances of each case; some defendants might be required to perform only community service, others only social services, while still others a combination of both. Some community courts have sought to standardize their sentencing practices. In Seattle, for example, all mandates include a requirement to meet with one or more designated social service providers as well as perform community service. Most community courts seek to engage defendants immediately by requiring them to meet with a communi - ty service coordinator the day of sentencing. Many courts share a building with social service providers, giving defendants easy access to the help they need. The Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, New York offers within steps of the courtroom a host of services, including job training, high school equivalency classes, and mental health counseling. In Red Hook and in other community courts, on-site services are available not only to defendants but anyone who walks in off the street. In this way, community courts are true community resources, strengthening neighborhoods by opening their doors to all comers. It’s worth noting that while the Red Hook Justice Center invited social service providers to share space in its newly renovated courthouse, the opposite was true in South Dallas, where the 20 year-old Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center made room for the community court. In both cases, however, the result is the same: the court and social services providers work hand-in-hand to increase access to key services that help strengthen communities and reduce offending. While most community courts hear primarily adult criminal cases, some community courts are exploring ways to expand their mandates beyond these case types. These experiments range from a judge in one court - room hearing criminal, civil, and family matters, to judges hearing matters such as housing and environmental code violations, to courts doing special reentry calendars once a week to assist the reintegration of offenders into the community. At least six jurisdictions are exploring ways to handle youthful offenders at community court.
What Role Should the Community Play? All community courts must grapple with how and when to involve the community. More fundamentally, they must ask themselves: Who is the community? In general, community courts seek to cast a wide net, reaching out to residents, social service providers, neighborhood institutions (such as schools and faith communities), jus - tice partners (such as police and prosecutors), and local merchants. Planners use a variety of tools to establish community participation, including attending neighborhood meet - ings and conducting interviews with a broad range of stakeholders. Most community courts created some sort of community advisory group during the planning period and held community meetings to determine local priori - ties. Many also held focus groups to better understand community members’ concerns and recommendations. In Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, community members were involved in recommending WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 7
sanctioning options. In Brooklyn, New York, community members helped to choose the location of the court. In Liverpool, England and Melbourne, Australia, community members were represented on the panel that selected the community court’s judge. Since opening, each court has taken a different approach to involving the community. The most common approach is convening a permanent community advisory board, which at least 17 have done. Other courts have also developed specific mechanisms for soliciting community involvement in making community service assign - ments, such as a telephone hotline like the one created by the Hartford Community Court. Other practices involving the community include: regular attendance at community meetings; community impact panels that bring together low-level defendants and local residents for facilitated dialogue; using volunteers to conduct door- to-door surveys to determine public safety concerns and priorities of neighborhood residents; and producing a newsletter to give community members visible evidence that the court is accountable to the community. Another central way community courts open their doors to the public is by recognizing that defendants are not the only ones in a community who could benefit from educational, job training, and counseling programs. A community court can be a resource for anybody who needs assistance, providing referrals for drug treatment to anyone who walks in off the street, or offering its space for Alcoholics Anonymous groups or English-as-a-sec - ond-language classes, for example. Some community courts even give local stakeholders a role in overseeing community restitution. For exam - ple, AmeriCorps volunteers, who undergo specialized training, now do most of the supervision of the communi - ty service workers at the Seattle Community Court.
Are Community Courts Creating System Change? Community courts encourage key changes in court procedures. By emphasizing the value of information, they’ve pushed the development of new strategies and resources. For example, defendants in most community courts are screened for problems before seeing the judge. Psycho-social assessment tools are used to determine defen - dants’ individual needs and suitability for customized social service sanctions. In addition, many community courts have developed management information systems to facilitate rapid and up-to-date information sharing among the judge, lawyers, court staff, and social service partners. In this way, community courts—like the Downtown Community Court in Austin, Texas, which has a goal of going paper - less—raise the standard of accountability for court-ordered sanctions, link together numerous key partners, and ultimately enhance both informed decision-making and immediacy. Immediacy is also encouraged by placing punishment and help—that is, both community restitution and social services—within easy reach. For many community courts, this means housing social services and commu - nity service coordination on-site, thus ensuring that defendants begin fulfilling their sentences promptly after leaving the courtroom. Immediacy is supported in most community courts by someone filling the role of a “resource coordinator,” serving as a liaison between the courtroom and service partners. 8 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
In the two cities where community courts have been open the longest, New York City and Portland, the les - sons of better information, immediacy, and community involvement in the administration of justice have begun to spread to the rest of the system. In Portland, the success of the first community court convinced justice system officials to serve every neigh - borhood in Portland through special calendars on designated days of the week. In New York City, the success of Midtown Community Court led to the development of two other neighborhood-based community courts, encour - aged greater use of community service and social service sanctions throughout the court system (for example, the centralized court nearly doubled its use of alternative sanctions since the Midtown Court opened), introduced the role of “resource coordinator” to other courts, started the trend of problem-solving courts throughout the state, and led to the establishment of a not-for-profit organization to be an engine for ongoing court innovation. Significantly, it also led to the opening in 2005 of a project—Bronx Community Solutions—that applies core community court principles throughout a busy urban courthouse serving an entire county. More recently, the NYC Community Cleanup project was created to apply the lessons learned through community courts to com - munity service mandates throughout New York City’s criminal courts. By emphasizing the importance of immediacy, community courts have helped encourage jurisdictions to shorten the arrest-to-arraignment time and the lag between arraignment and engagement in community restitu - tion and social services. For example, through the efforts of the Hartford (Connecticut) Community Court, that city has been able to reduce its citation-to-arraignment time from two weeks to just two business days. Community courts have modeled the value of rapid and thorough assessment of defendants, encouraging entire court systems to use state-of-the-art tools to assess defendants’ needs (as is now done in the entire bor - ough of the Bronx for tens of thousands of misdemeanor offenders a year.) And as leaders in the use of court - room technology, community courts have inspired others to adopt new information systems to enhance commu - nication and accountability. In New York State, for example, the technology applications originally developed for community courts have informed the design of a statewide case management system set to begin rollout shortly. In many places, community courts are explicitly seen as laboratories where ideas can be tested, whether they be new links to social service providers, new community restitution protocols, or new ways of engaging the pub - lic. Much of this work has been underwritten by external resources—ranging from state legislative and city coun - cil appropriations, to federal grants, to contributions from private foundations and corporations. At least 10 com - munity courts have secured some level of private funding to help support their work. Some community courts have relied on non-profit organizations to coordinate planning and implementation of their projects; some have also relied on non-profits to help with operations, develop new technology, promote public awareness of their work, and raise funds. In Atlanta, the Restorative Justice Center helps the Atlanta Community Court to raise funding and public awareness. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 9
SELECTED COMMUNITY COURT PROFILES The following profiles provide a sense of the diversity of the community court movement.
Midtown Community Court Launched in 1993, the Midtown Community Court targets quality-of-life offenses such as prostitution, illegal vending, graffiti, shoplifting, fare beating, and vandalism in midtown Manhattan. Often in such cases judges are forced to choose between a few days of jail time and no sentence at all—results that fail to impress the victim, the community, or the defendant that these offenses are taken seriously. In contrast, the Midtown Community Court sentences misdemeanor offenders to pay back the neighborhood through visible community restitution projects while offering them help with problems (addiction, homelessness, lack of job skills) that underlie their criminal behavior. Many social services are available on-site at the Midtown Court, providing the judge with a range of services to include in a mandate, such as drug counseling, health education classes for prostitutes and “johns,” and employment training. For defendants with a long criminal record and a history of substance abuse, the court offers a special alternative-to-incarceration program that sentences defendants to long-term drug treatment. Many defendants return to court voluntarily to take advantage of on-site services, including high school equiva - lency and parenting classes. Community involvement is extensive at the Midtown Community Court. A community conditions panel, comprised of representatives of the criminal justice system, as well as the business and residential communities, meets every month to keep the court abreast of local problems and emerging hot spots. To enhance accountability, the court uses an award-winning computer application to monitor individualized sanctions for each offender and respond swiftly to noncompliance. One of the hallmarks of the court is a commitment to responding to emerging problems. For example, the court has launched various initiatives to address the problem of homelessness. Project Reconnect, a collaboration between the Midtown Court and the city’s Department of Homeless Services, helps individuals clear warrants that hinder their ability to secure permanent housing in exchange for completing a series of tailored social serv - ice sessions. Shop Talk is an on-site psycho-educational group designed to motivate homeless offenders to take the necessary steps to access more permanent housing options. In 2009, 87 percent of defendants at Midtown completed community service mandates, compared to 50 per - cent of the defendants who were processed at the downtown criminal courts. Supervised defendants from Midtown can complete around 18,000 hours of community service in a year, or roughly the equivalent of $130,000 of labor, including painting over graffiti, stuffing envelopes for local non- profit organizations, and cleaning the streets of Times Square and surrounding neighborhoods. For a detailed description of how the court operates, see How It Works: A Summary of Case Flow and Interventions at the Midtown Community Court , described in the “Further Reading” section of this publication. 10 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Hartford Community Court The Hartford Community Court has its roots in the federally-funded Comprehensive Communities Partnership program that sought to improve coordination among criminal justice agencies and Hartford communities. The program initially focused on community policing and anti-gang initiatives, but community participants wanted something to be done about low-level crime as well. Planning for the community court began in 1996 and included enacting state legislation to mandate alternative sentences for ordinance violations. The Hartford Community Court serves the entire city. To ensure that the court is responsive to local concerns, the court works closely with problem-solving committees in the city’s 17 neighborhoods. The court sends com - munity service crews to every neighborhood and, when possible, assigns offenders to perform community serv - ice in the neighborhood in which they were arrested. In recent years, the court has expanded its jurisdiction to include cases from neighboring suburban communities. On average, approximately 15 percent of the court’s annual caseload comes from suburban communities. A member of the bail commissioner’s office screens defendants for arraignment. This interview serves as a criminal background check and is the first line of inquiry for social services screening. After speaking with the state’s attorney in court, if the defendant accepts a plea agreement, the judge issues a sentence that includes community service and/or social service mandates. Upon completion of the mandate, the defendant’s case is dismissed 30 days later without the defendant having to reappear in court. If the defendant refuses the plea offer, the case stays with the judge. The judge hears bench trials at the community court; cases that are eligible for jury trials are transferred to superior court. Each defendant is required to meet with the court’s social service team, which includes staff from the city’s Department of Human Services, the state’s Department of Social Services and Department of Mental Health and Addiction, and the Capitol Region Mental Health Center. The interview covers issues such as substance abuse treatment, education services, health care, and housing options. Defendants are then linked with necessary social services. The Hartford Community Court regularly employs mediation in resolving criminal cases. Mediation is volun - tary, requiring the willing participation of both the victim and the offender. If an agreement is reached between the parties and restitution is required, the judge will make the mediation agreement part of the court’s order and continue the case until the restitution and other terms of the agreement are fulfilled.
Red Hook Community Justice Center The Red Hook Community Justice Center was born out of tragedy. In 1992, a beloved elementary school princi - pal, Patrick Daly, was shot in broad daylight by local drug dealers. In the aftermath of his slaying, local criminal justice officials sought to create an innovative local justice center to improve public safety. Operating in the heart of a low-income Brooklyn neighborhood, the Red Hook Community Justice Center hears cases that ordinarily are heard in three different courts—civil, family, and criminal. This model did not emerge by accident. Community stakeholders interviewed during the planning process stressed that the WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 11
problems faced by local families do not conform to the jurisdictional boundaries of the justice system. By having a single judge handle matters traditionally heard by different decision makers at different locations, the justice center offers a coordinated response to the problems that bring local residents to court. The Red Hook judge can use an array of sanctions and services, including community restitution projects, on-site job training, drug treatment, and health counseling—all of which are rigorously monitored to ensure accountability and to encourage individual responsibility. State-of-the-art technology helps the judge monitor compliance. The courthouse—a refurbished Catholic school—is the hub of an array of programs that engage local resi - dents in “doing justice.” These programs include mediation, community service projects that put local volunteers to work repairing conditions of disorder, and a youth court where teenagers resolve actual cases involving their peers. Through these initiatives, Red Hook seeks to engage the community in aggressive crime prevention. The Justice Center’s planners see this strategy working in two ways: by solving local problems before they become a court problem and by helping knit together the fabric of the neighborhood. The Red Hook Community Justice Center has incubated numerous new crime prevention programs over the years. In 2004, the Justice Center piloted an HIV/substance abuse prevention program that trained Red Hook youths to educate their peers. In 2008, the Justice Center ran a youth engagement program that engaged teenagers in public housing in creating education campaigns that addressed issues such as drug dealing and dropping out of school. Each year, the Justice Center contributes approximately 70,000 hours of community service to Red Hook— about $500,000 worth of labor. The percentage of residents who say they feel safe in local parks or on the street has risen significantly—from 45.6 percent in 2004 to 73.5 percent in 2010 (parks) and 40.8 to 54.5 percent (street). Confidence in the courts has also increased among neighborhood residents—94 percent rate the Justice Center favorably (compared to only 12 percent who rated local courts favorably before the project opened). Indeed, door-to-door surveys have documented improved trust in police and prosecutors as well. And defendants in the Justice Center are significantly more likely to perceive their experience in the court system as fair than defendants in traditional court. Red Hook is a safer, more prosperous neighborhood today than it was when the Justice Center opened. Once notorious for drugs and crime, the neighborhood is now home to the safest police precinct in Brooklyn.
South Dallas Community Court The city of Dallas has three operating community courts. The South Dallas Community Court was the first com - munity court to open in Dallas and began hearing cases on October 1, 2004. The community court originally started as an initiative of the Dallas City Attorney’s Office and works closely with the community prosecution program as well as the city’s municipal court. 12 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
The South Dallas Community Court serves a high-poverty neighborhood and is housed in the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. The community center had been open for some 20 years, and already housed approximately 25 programs such as workforce development, a public library, and a gymnasium. Partnering with a vibrant community center allowed Dallas to start a community court on a modest budget, and an existing com - munity prosecution program accelerated the pace at which community input could be included in the court’s planning process. The South Dallas Community Court has initiated a number of creative partnerships, including a weekly reen - try docket to tackle the challenges faced by individuals returning to the community from jail, a community serv - ice program for truant youths, and collaborations with law enforcement agencies, faith-based organizations, and social service providers to work with prostitutes and combat active drug markets. The success of the South Dallas Community Court spawned the opening of a second community court in West Dallas (opened November 2008) and a third community court in the South Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas (opened April 2010). The two newest community courts are using the model established by the South Dallas Community Court: a courtroom in an existing community center.
Seattle Community Court In 2002, the Municipal Court of Seattle opened its doors in a new downtown Seattle Justice Center, which includes a resource center containing social service providers and a day care center. As time went on, the court and its justice system partners found that having service providers in the building presented a unique opportuni - ty to adapt the community court model. Launched in 2005, the Seattle Community Court, with an original jurisdiction limited to the downtown busi - ness area, has sought to demonstrate how community court principles can be implemented to address the prob - lems of defendants who are chronically homeless, frequently suffer from multiple addictions, and often have a co-occurring mental illness. The Seattle Community Court expanded its jurisdiction in January 2007 to include the entire city of Seattle. With the increased caseload came a greater need for community service projects. Originally the community court had two community service partners, and the community service workers were supervised by the partners them - selves. Today, the community court has more than 16 community service partners. AmeriCorps volunteers, who undergo specialized training, now do most of the supervision. The grant manager for the community court, an employee of the city attorney’s office, is responsible for coordinating which workers will be at which sites and making sure all the community service partnerships are running smoothly. The caseload of the community court has risen from 228 defendants in its first year of operation to nearly 900. In addition to helping to oversee community service, AmeriCorps volunteers help to conduct community out - reach, including the production of a quarterly electronic newsletter and web-based community satisfaction sur - veys. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 13
Bronx Community Solutions Launched in 2005, Bronx Community Solutions seeks to provide judges in the county’s central criminal court - house with increased sentencing options for non-violent offenses such as drug possession, prostitution, and shoplifting. By combining punishment with help, Bronx Community Solutions seeks to reduce the Bronx’s reliance on short-term jail sentences and build public confidence that the system is holding offenders accountable and offer - ing them the assistance they need to avoid further criminal conduct. The project builds on the lessons from community courts in the Red Hook, Midtown, and Harlem neighborhoods of New York City. Bronx Community Solutions is testing whether core community court features—enhanced sentencing options, community service, increased accountability, and community engagement—can be applied in a large central court that serves a population of nearly 1.4 million people. Rather than working with one judge or a sin - gle courtroom, Bronx Community Solutions provides all judges in the Bronx with a broad set of sentencing options, including drug treatment, job training, family services, and mental health counseling. Offenders are assigned to community service work in neighborhoods throughout the Bronx. Project staff work with residents and community groups to create community service options that respond to local problems (for example, trash in a local park or walls marred by graffiti). By quickly assigning offenders to social service and community serv - ice sentences, and rigorously monitoring their compliance, Bronx Community Solutions sends the message that community-based sanctions are taken seriously. Bronx Community Solutions invites community groups and local residents to play a number of concrete roles in ongoing operations, including identifying hot spots and eyesores for community service projects, and partici - pating in a neighborhood advisory board. Since the project’s inception, key program staff have documented the experiment through a frequently updated blog, “Changing the Court.” Bronx Community Solutions handles approximately 12,000 cases per year.
Orange County Community Court A one-of-a-kind experiment in Santa Ana, California, the Orange County Community Court brings under one roof a number of specialized court dockets that would typically be scattered over several courtrooms in a central - ized courthouse. This includes an adult drug court, a mental health court, a court for those charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, a veterans court, a domestic violence court, and a homeless court. Each docket is heard on different days of the week. Participants enroll in the court—housed in a former department store decorated with Mexican tiles and a vin - tage floor-to-ceiling mural—either through a court mandate or on a walk-in basis (a sandwich board out front promotes the free services available inside). The drug court and mental health court currently have an active caseload of about 200 participants and the homeless court close to 400. 14 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
The community court opened in August 2008 (many of the specialized court projects were already in exis - tence). Judge Wendy Lindley was a natural choice for the program, having presided over the Santa Ana Drug Court and an earlier version of the homeless court. Significantly, Judge Lindley also spearheaded the court’s community planning process, which included one- on-one interviews with 30 key stakeholders, focus groups with social service providers, faith-based groups, and criminal justice professionals, and town hall meetings open to the public (one of which was conducted in Spanish). One example of Orange County’s innovative approach is the veterans court, which started in November 2008. Based on the pioneering example set by the Buffalo Veterans Court, Judge Lindley seeks to link returning veter - ans suffering from problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, or other mental health conditions to long-term treatment. The court works closely with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has assigned a full-time case manager to the project. Orange County’s outreach court is designed to address the unique issues posed by individuals who are home - less. The program clears up arrest warrants issued for homeless people who are unable to pay fines accrued when they are cited for low-level offenses like sleeping outside or urinating in public. The idea is to reduce both inefficient and costly short-term jail sentences (if enforced, warrants often result in a few days jail), while remov - ing barriers to self-sufficiency (an arrest warrant can prevent an individual from obtaining a drivers license or job). In the outreach court, Judge Lindley sentences individuals to drug rehabilitation or parenting classes as an alternative to a fine. In addition, Judge Lindley conducts outreach court in homeless shelters, where residents are encouraged to bring warrants to the court’s attention.
CONCLUSION There are currently 37 community courts in the United States, with more planned in the days to come. The local nature of community justice means that each court tells a different story. In Portland, community court was a natural outgrowth of the neighborhood prosecutor program launched by Multnomah County District Attorney Michael D. Schrunk. In Hartford, Connecticut, the community court emerged from a process designed to solicit greater community involvement in setting law enforcement priorities. Community members urged the justice system to focus attention on quality-of-life crimes. No matter what the initial motivation, community courts in the U.S. have sought to bridge the gap between courts and the communities they’ve served. Along the way, they’ve taught practitioners lessons about improving the visibility and transparency of the work of the justice system and responding creatively to community needs. Community courts have produced documented cost savings through the reduced use of incarceration and through community service work performed by defendants. Community courts have also helped boost public confidence in justice. Just as important, community courts across the country have served as laboratories, provid - ing local criminal justice officials with the space to experiment with new approaches to public safety. At the end WHAT IS A COMMUNITY COURT? | 15
of the day, this commitment to innovation—to testing new ideas and evaluating their effectiveness—is the last - ing contribution that community courts have made to justice reform in the United States.
FURTHER READING For more information, visit the Center for Court Innovation’s web site, www.courtinnovation.org , which contains dozens of articles, interviews, research reports, and other materials for community court planners. All of the materials listed below are available for free download:
Building Support for Justice Initiatives: A Communications Toolkit by Jimena Martinez A manual to help justice practitioners communicate about their work with the public and key institutional stake - holders.
Community Courts: A Review of the Research Literature by Kelli Henry and Dana Kralstein A review, updated in July 2010, of the basic findings from the most notable community court evaluations con - ducted to date.
Community Justice Around the Globe: An International Overview by Robert V. Wolf A review of community court and community prosecution programs around the world. Originally published in Crime & Justice International.
Defining the Problem: Using Data to Plan a Community Justice Project by Robert V. Wolf A look at how community justice initiatives across the county have used concrete data to define local problems.
Engaging the Community: A Guide for Community Justice Planners by David Anderson and Greg Berman Tips for community justice planners about how to build stronger connections between neighborhoods and the criminal justice system.
Examining Defendant Perceptions of Fairness in the Courtroom by M. Somjen Frazer An article highlighting the major findings of a study of defendant perceptions of fairness at the Red Hook Community Justice Center. Originally published in Judicature. 16 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
From the Margins to the Mainstream: Community Justice at the Crossroads by Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox An edited transcript of a discussion about community justice among a small group of leading practitioners and thinkers.
How It Works: A Summary of Case Flow and Interventions at the Midtown Community Court A detailed description of how cases move through the Midtown Community Court.
Red Hook Diary: Planning a Community Court by Greg Berman How a planner for a neighborhood-based court in Brooklyn negotiated some of the early challenges of the proj - ect, including community needs assessment, fund-raising, and program design.
The Principles of Community Justice: A Guide for Community Court Planners by Greg Berman A discussion of the principles underlying community courts. Center for Court Innovation The winner of the Peter F. Drucker Award for Non-profit Innovation, the Center for Court Innovation is a unique public-private partnership that promotes new thinking about how the justice system can solve diffi - cult problems like addiction, quality-of-life crime, domestic violence, and child neglect. The Center functions as the New York State court system’s independent research and development arm, creating demonstration projects that test new approaches to problems that have resisted conventional solutions. The Center’s demonstration projects include the nation’s first community court (Midtown Community Court), as well as drug courts, domestic violence courts, youth courts, mental health courts, reentry courts and others. Beyond New York, the Center disseminates the lessons learned from its experiments in New York, helping court reformers around the world test new solutions to local problems. The Center contributes to the international conversation about justice through original research, books, monographs, and roundtable con - versations that bring together leading academics and practitioners. The Center also provides hands-on tech - nical assistance, advising innovators about program design, technology and performance measures.
For more information, call 646 386 4462 or e-mail [email protected]. Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York 10018 646 386 4462 Fax 212 397 0985 www.courtinnovation.org
Bureau of Justice Assistance U.S. Department of Justice
U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance Office of Justice Programs U.S. Department of Justice 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20531 202 616 6500 Fax 202 305 1367 www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ BJA
Lessons from Community Courts
Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney by Brett Taylor
Bureau of Justice Assistance U.S. Department of Justice This publication was supported by Grant No. 2011-DC-BX-K002 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to the Center for Court Innovation. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the U.S. Department ofJustice.
Author Brett Taylor Center for Court Innovation
Acknowledgments This paper owes a debt of gratitude to the Red Hook Community Justice Center for allowing me to practice law the way it was meant to be practiced and to my clients who had the courage to try something new. I also want to thank Robert V. Wolf, Kim Ball, Julius Lang, Gerald Taylor, and the Hon. Alex Calabrese.
2016 1 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Introduction: Idealism Confronts Reality
I first met Robert in New York City in 1993. I was his public defender on a drug possession case. He was one of a seemingly countless sea of drug-addicted people caught up in the criminal justice system in Brooklyn back in the early 1990s. Due to New York’s harsh drug laws and Robert’s previous drug-related convictions, he was facing a minimum of two to four years in prison for possessing about a half-dozen $10 bags of heroin. He was barely 24 but looked much older as a result of years of drug use. After several court appearances, we were able to get a plea to a sentence of one year in jail, of which he would only serve about eight months. Robert was excited to take the deal and we both considered the resolution of the case a success. Growing up in a blue-collar town, I encountered many people like Robert—people who got into trouble with the law as kids on minor offenses and began cycling in and out of the justice system. I saw how ineffective the justice system was in many cases. Instead of breaking the cycle of addiction and criminal behavior, the justice system was either too harsh or too lenient; some would receive the proverbial slap on the wrist while others wound up with stiff penalties. Judicial decisions sometimes appeared to be arbitrary and inconsistent. 2 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
When I made it to law school, I decided, like many other idealistic future lawyers, that I was not going to repeat those mistakes. I was going to protect people’s rights and keep the justice system working like the textbooks said it was supposed to operate. Unfortunately, I lost my idealism pretty quickly. My experience was typical of many public defenders. I found myself in a state court system juggling a large caseload, dealing with multiple cases in multiple courtrooms each and every day. Nearly every case was plea-bargained and many times little to no formal investigation of the case occurred. At arraignments decisions were made in minutes, but the repercussions on the defendant often lasted a lifetime. And what happened to those big, glorious cases in which I imagined I’d be righting the justice system’s wrongs? I learned that the reality is that most cases in state court systems are low-level, non-violent cases that are almost always resolved with plea-bargained sentences ranging from “time served” to a few months in jail. Defendants often ask for these deals since they know that the trial process can take many months and pleading out their case allows them to get out of jail quicker—and for those suffering from substance use disorder, a quicker return to getting high. Robert was a typical case for me. Drug courts were in their infancy back then, and receiving social service- related sentences was not the norm in criminal court, especially for low-level offenders. What was the norm was harsh collateral consequences from plea bargains. A conviction often impacted jobs, housing, the right to drive, or the ability to receive student loans. I found it frustrating to work on cases where my clients’ problems—like problematic use of drugs and alcohol and mental illness—were obvious but were never addressed by the court. 3 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Red Hook Community Justice Center
When I heard that an experimental project called a community court was set to open in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the Spring of 2000, I asked to be assigned there. Many colleagues asked why I would want an assignment that would consist primarily of misdemeanor charges and not trying cases before a jury. The answer was pretty obvious to me: the new court promised better outcomes for my clients, ones that went beyond adjudication and punishment to offer my clients tools to help them lead healthier, safer, and law-abiding lives. I knew the impact of these outcomes would go far beyond my clients: if you improve the life of one person, you’re also improving the lives of that person’s family and ultimately their community. These were the very things that I, as an idealistic law student, hoped to achieve when I entered law school. The Red Hook experiment was inspired by the example of the Midtown Community Court, which opened in Manhattan in 1993 as the first community court in the U.S. Like the Midtown Court, the Red Hook Community Justice Center wanted whenever possible to replace short-term jail sentences with community restitution assignments and mandated participation in social services.1 In the past, a client who pleaded guilty in New York City’s centralized court system to charges like trespass and simple possession of drugs usually received three days in jail. In the new Red Hook court, however, he was given the opportunity by the judge hearing the case to spend a day with a court-supervised group of defendants cleaning a local park and two days participating in short-term drug counseling. Obviously, two days of counseling won’t change a life—but it’s more meaningful than sitting in jail. During those two days of counseling, a client might muster the incentive to continue treatment on his or 4 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
her own (an option the court encourages and facilitates for anyone interested). Whereas the only thing two days in jail ever did for my clients was let them rest up so when they returned to the street they could keep doing whatever they were doing that got them in trouble in the first place. 5 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Robert Returns
As luck would have it, a couple years after I started working in Red Hook, I ended up representing Robert again. It was 10 years after our first meeting. He’d been picked up for another drug possession case and had been in and out of jail many times since our first encounter. We remembered each other. He said he was expecting something in the six-month range as a sentence and was unprepared for what the offer turned out to be: long-term drug treatment. Although he had been in and out of jail for more than a decade, Robert had never been given an opportunity to enter treatment. After we discussed all his options, Robert chose to enter treatment for a year rather than seek out a shorter jail sentence. If successful, charges would be dismissed by the prosecutor. What a difference a decade makes and what a difference the community court sentencing options were for Robert. A successful outcome was now measured in real opportunity for change rather than the shortest possible jail sentence. Today there are more than three dozen community courts across the U.S. that have adopted the model exemplified by the Red Hook Community Justice Center. I have since moved on to work at the Center for Court Innovation, which helped develop the community courts in Midtown and Red Hook and several other community courts in New York in collaboration with the New York State Unified Court System. As part of the technical assistance team at the Center for Court Innovation, I have helped spread the word about the Red Hook Community Justice Center’s approach to justice, which has been shown through a recent evaluation by the National Center for State Courts to contribute to reductions in recidivism and neighborhood crime.2 What I’ve seen and learned firsthand—and what a growing body of research confirms—is that many of the practices that community courts have developed 6 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
and honed can improve outcomes for offenders, victims, communities, and court systems. This is good news in and of itself; but even better news is the fact that mainstream courts are beginning to adopt these approaches. This means that whether or not a jurisdiction opts to create its own separate community court, its court system can still benefit from community court concepts. For instance, an administrative judge in Newark, N.J., told me that he was initially reluctant to start calendaring cases for compliance hearings, fearing they would further clog already overburdened calendars but he came to see the long-term benefits, including a reduction in the number of warrants issued. And if a defendant is out on a warrant, the judge reasoned, there was the distinct chance he or she was getting into more trouble, harming the community and making work for the justice system. 7 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Key Community Court Lessons
In the pages that follow, I highlight key community court takeaways that any court system can apply to lower-level cases to improve outcomes for communities, victims, and offenders alike.
1. Using Assessment and Screening Tools One powerful way that community courts attempt to solve problems is by connecting offenders to services. To make informed sentencing decisions and match offenders to appropriate interventions, community courts have incorporated screening and assessment tools to evaluate defendants’ individual needs. I’ve found that many people are confused about the difference between an assessment tool and a screening tool, so let me define them.
—— A screening tool is a set of questions designed to evaluate an offender’s risks and needs fairly quickly. It usually takes no more than 10 or 15 minutes and is administered early in the justice system process. If a screening tool indicates that the defendant is at high risk for further offending, it’s important to dig a little deeper. That’s where an assessment tool comes in. —— An assessment tool is a more thorough set of questions administered before an offender is matched to a particular course of treatment or service.
Taken together, screenings and assessments provide court staff, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges with specific information about risk levels for different behaviors—specifically, the risk of failing to appear or the risk of re-offending. In community courts, cases are often adjudicated at arraignment, so immediate screening and assessment 8 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
are essential. Even when a case is adjourned, community courts often mandate services in lieu of bail as an effective way to ensure that the defendant returns to court. Defendants are often more willing to engage in services immediately following an arrest rather than months later when a final sentence is issued.3 The best thing about using screening and assessment tools is that courts can accurately target their responses. For instance, someone arrested on a drug charge might not be a problematic user of drugs. Requiring that defendant to participate in drug treatment would be a waste of resources. We’ve learned from experience and research that screening and assessment tools should be validated for accuracy. Validated tools help eliminate subjective bias. They can tell court staff who needs treatment most and who is at highest risk of offending, thus ensuring that scarce resources are reserved for those who need them most. (Check out ‘Evidence-Based Strategies for Working with Offenders,’ for more information on using validated tools.4) Most validated assessment tools used by courts today were developed for felony offenders. Community courts around the country have identified a need for new and more flexible validated tools, especially ones customized for courtrooms handling a high volume of misdemeanor cases. To fill that gap, the Center for Court Innovation is developing a brief risk-need screening tool: the Criminal Court Assessment Tool, designed to help judges, attorneys, and others make more informed decisions about the use of alternatives to detention and incarceration in high-volume criminal justice settings (e.g., a short screener for arraignment settings and a somewhat longer tool for assessment post-diversion). This tool is a valid predictor for general offender populations and is the first tool piloted and
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validated for use with a misdemeanor population. This project addresses a significant gap in the field since misdemeanor offenders constitute about 70 to 80 percent of cases in urban courts. The Center has been testing this tool, with the support of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, with misdemeanor populations in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. With this tool in hand, staff in any court will be able to identify which offenders are low-risk, and which have social service needs. Community courts are also helping develop tools adapted to particular populations. The Red Hook Community Justice Center, for example, has added a trauma scale to its regular screening tool. The tool identifies those coping with both substance use disorder and trauma and allows Red Hook staff to match them to service providers best equipped to treat them. The South Tucson Community Court is developing a tool for addicted offenders living in a border area. Other tools are being created specifically for mentally ill populations.
2. Monitoring and Enforcing Court Orders When I’ve asked about compliance monitoring, more than one judge has said to me, “I’ve already told them what to do; they should just do it!” Community courts take a different approach. They recognize that courts have unique leverage to ensure that orders are carried out—and they’ve learned to use that leverage in ways that don’t make unreasonable demands on either court resources or defendants. The main monitoring tool community courts use is compliance hearings, in which participants are periodically required to return to court to provide updates on their compliance. Sometimes they meet only with court staff; sometimes they appear before the judge. Either way, community courts require that
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service providers supply the court with accurate and timely compliance information so that they can hold defendants accountable. Compliance hearings don’t need to take a lot of time. Research has shown that their power isn’t in their length but in something called the “black robe” effect. This refers to the power of the judge. With just a few words of encouragement (for those doing well) or an expression of disappointment (for those doing poorly), judges tend to have an outsized impact on the offender’s behavior.5 This research confirmed my own first-hand impressions as a defense attorney working in the Red Hook Community Justice Center. It was clear to me that my clients felt more satisfied with their court experience when the judge and other court staff remembered them and showed that they cared about their fate. In fact, I always made a point of praising my clients who followed court orders and did well in treatment and offered whatever encouragement and help I could to those who were struggling. Recently, a former client of mine stopped me on the street. I didn’t recognize him at first but he told me how much he appreciated the pats on the back when he appeared in court. He told me that he looked forward to those pats on the back and it helped encourage him to continue with his treatment. He thanked me for saving his life and I told him that he had saved his own life, that those of us in the court system merely pointed him in the right direction. Judge Victoria Pratt, who presides over Newark Community Solutions, a community court in New Jersey, says former court participants will sometimes return to court voluntarily just to say hello and let her know how things are going. Former clients in Red Hook frequently walk in to show staff a paycheck, a diploma, or to report on other positive news in their lives. 11 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Many judges have told me that compliance hearings have an energizing effect on their work and job satisfaction. When a judge sees a defendant only once, he is little more than a docket number. But when the judge sees a defendant over a period of months, watching him eventually succeed at fulfilling his requirements (even if he has a few backslides along the way), the judge can feel that she is finally having an impact on someone’s life. A couple of years ago, Washington, D.C. re- organized its misdemeanor calendars to implement the community court model in all seven Metropolitan Police Department districts. As a result, more D.C. judges have experienced presiding over a community court, and many have asked if they can stay longer in their community court assignments because they find their interactions with participants so rewarding.
3. Using Sanctions and Rewards The judge can do more than offer mere words of praise or disapproval. He or she can also issue more tangible rewards. Some might offer a round of applause in the courtroom. Judge Alex Calabrese in Red Hook will ask a defendant who is doing well to approach the bench so he can offer a handshake. Other community courts motivate defendants by giving away items ranging from coupons to local restaurants to movie tickets to a piece of candy from the courtroom candy bowl. The judge can also issue sanctions. For instance, he or she can require defendants to return to court more frequently or submit to more drug testing or lengthen their amount of treatment. Jail sanctions are also an option but many judges prefer to use community-based sanctions if possible. I’ve heard plenty of people scoff at the idea of applauding a defendant, but they often change their mind when they see the effect that kind of affirmation
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has. Many people coming through the courts have never been recognized for their successes or achievements. When they get praise from a judge or hear a roomful of applause, their faces light up with an ear-to-ear smile. Community courts have also learned the importance of being flexible. A court may require someone with a warrant history to come back the next day to show he signed up right away for services, whereas it might give someone without a warrant history a week to prove his compliance. For example, initially, due to his record and never having done treatment, my client Robert had frequent compliance-monitoring court dates. As his attendance became more reliable, and as he stayed sober, the time between updates increased. Community courts also test strategies for keeping defendants engaged. Sometimes it isn’t possible to find an appropriate treatment program right away. But to wait too long increases the chance the defendant will fail to comply. Staff at the Orange County Community Court sometimes have the defendant participate in community restitution projects while waiting to start drug treatment—this is done to keep defendants engaged and to prepare them for the new routines he or she will follow once they begin treatment. Yes, it takes a little extra time to conduct compliance hearings. But it pays dividends in the long run when courts don’t have to issue warrants, law enforcement doesn’t have to track down AWOL defendants, and the defendants don’t commit new crimes. In other words, rigorous monitoring might require the defendant to visit the court a few more times than normal, but if that increases the likelihood that a significant number of defendants will be successful with their mandates and not reoffend, it can save resources over the long haul.
4. Promoting Information Technology Community courts have promoted the use of technology to improve decision-making. Technology planners 13 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
created a special information system for the Midtown Community Court to make it easy for the judge and court staff to track defendants. The Midtown Court’s software was so innovative that it won Microsoft’s Windows World Open in 1995. How does technology improve decision-making? The key is the first initial in that acronym, IT. The “I” stands for information. Information that’s reliable, relevant, and up-to-date is essential for judges to make the wisest decisions they can. Many of the problem-solving courts in New York State now use technology that builds on the prototype created for the Midtown Court, and courts far and wide— including in Cook County, Illinois, New Orleans, and San Francisco—have adapted similar systems to their needs. The technology allows all players involved in a case— judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, clerk, court staff, and on-site social service partners—to access and update information so that files stay current. Privacy settings can be created to limit who can see and update the files. With Robert, his case manager regularly updated information about his progress in treatment in the court computer system. I could access his information from my office, but only the case manager and court clerk could input or change anything in the file. Having access to that information helps all the players in the justice system do their jobs better and more efficiently. Technology allows court staff to record the results of drug screens and track compliance so that when a defendant stands before the judge, the judge knows immediately his or her status. I remember once in Red Hook, a defendant with a long criminal record was participating in drug treatment. The program said he’d refused to have his urine tested for drugs, but the defendant claimed he’d complied with all the program’s requests. When the judge accessed the latest information through his computer terminal—which is within arm’s reach on the bench—he found that the defendant had, in 14 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
fact, been in consistent compliance and had never missed a test since the start of his case. When the defendant realized that the judge was giving him the benefit of the doubt—based on concrete, up-to-date information—it was like a cloud lifted. The defendant’s demeanor visibly changed, and he went from being agitated and angry to feeling positive about the program and upbeat about his ability to finish. With a computer terminal on the bench, many judges find it easier to keep personal notes. This allows them to individualize their responses to defendants and follow up on news and information gleaned during an offender’s previous appearance. Defendants are often stunned when a judge asks them about milestones in their lives—a job interview, a child’s birthday party, a move to a new apartment. This kind of personal interaction makes a defendant feel like the court cares about them as a person and in turn promotes procedural justice. Sophisticated data collection systems also make it easier to measure outcomes and track results. Some of the questions a data system can answer are obvious: How many defendants are currently in treatment? How many are in compliance? How many have successfully completed treatment? But they can also answer more complicated questions: Which demographic group fares best in certain kinds of treatment? Which kinds of rewards and sanctions produce the best results? Answers to these questions can help everyone—including judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney—to fashion the most effective sentences and procedures.
5. Enhancing Procedural Justice In the mainstream court, judges usually talk to the prosecutor and the defense attorney. Although the judge is usually talking about the offender, she hardly ever talks to the offender. Things are different in community courts. Judges often speak directly to the offender, 15 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
asking questions, offering advice, issuing reprimands, and doling out encouragement. This reflects an approach known as procedural justice. Procedural justice has attracted the attention in recent years of both practitioners and researchers. Its key components, according to Yale Professor Tom Tyler, are voice, respect, trust/neutrality, and understanding.6 At the Center for Court Innovation, we’ve interviewed judges about this different way of relating with offenders and virtually all of them say it’s an improvement over business as usual. Here’s what two judges in California said about this:
Judge 1: … There is such a thing as a “black robe effect.” The mere fact that an authority figure shows … caring and kindness can have a positive impact that is intangible but still [real]. Judge 2: If the person is doing well, I am going to tell them they are doing well.… It is the first time in their lives anyone ever told them that they were doing well, and it makes a difference.7
When we studied what factors shaped defendants’ perceptions of fairness, we found that the judge was the most important factor. Defendants who perceived that the judge treated them with respect, helpfulness, and objectivity were more likely to say their experience was fair overall. Sometimes, procedural justice can take the form of a judge inquiring about a family matter the defendant had mentioned on a previous court date. One client in Red Hook was heard saying in the hallway to his friend, “That judge really cares about you. He asked about my kid’s school.” A good example of procedural justice occurred during Robert’s case in Red Hook. After a few early struggles, Robert was doing well and had about nine months of his one-year mandate completed. He had received a job offer and asked me to request that the court allow him to complete his treatment in an outpatient setting. The 16 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
judge approved his request. Robert successfully completed his treatment, had the case dismissed, and is currently working a fulltime job. This is an example of allowing a defendant to have some input, or voice, on how to resolve a case in a manner that, satisfies the court, the attorneys and the defendant. Community courts have shown that procedural justice can take place both inside and outside the courtroom. In an effort to communicate concern and care, the San Francisco Community Justice Center has a “Client of the Week” who gets a $5 Starbucks card as a reward for good attendance and clean drug tests. By giving the community a voice in shaping restorative sanctions, a community court opens a dialogue with its neighbors. A community advisory board can offer residents an institutionalized mechanism for interacting with the judge and court administrators. By allowing local residents to be heard on matters that impact their neighborhood, it also increases community trust in the justice system. Community courts have also developed useful strategies for making courthouses more welcoming. For instance, they’ve learned a lot of lessons about signage. All too often, visitors to a courthouse can get lost or feel intimidated. The Red Hook Community Justice Center recently installed new easy-to-read signs to make the building easier to navigate. Clear signage—sometimes in multiple languages, depending on the makeup of the community—goes a long way to improving visitors’ experiences in the halls of justice. Beyond signs, many community courts encourage everyone on staff to be friendly and welcoming. Judge Alex Calabrese at Red Hook Community Justice Center always says that procedural justice starts at the front door. And it doesn’t end there. I’ve seen court officers give defendants pep talks after their cases are heard. They say things like, “Don’t worry. Things will work out. You’ll be doing fine with this in a couple days.” 17 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
People always used to tell me that things are different at Red Hook. They’d say things like, “Court officers are way nicer here.” I’m a big believer that simple kindness leads to a huge increase in compliance with court mandates. The good news for courthouses everywhere is that being nice doesn’t cost anything. It’s a low-tech, no- cost strategy that increases people’s confidence in the justice system. I’ve seen officers in many big-city courthouses act brusquely toward both defendants and the public. They might yell, be impatient, tell folks to go elsewhere to have their questions answered. And I understand why: they’re busy, tired, unappreciated. That sort of thing can happen to the best of us. But if court officers infuse a bit of procedural justice into their daily routine—take the time to answer questions, offer a smile, make every effort to treat visitors with respect—then people will be friendlier in return, tensions will ease, and everyone will feel that the court system is more fair and legitimate. As a defense attorney, I always tried to ensure my clients were treated respectfully in the court process, but it was challenging. In some courthouses, there wasn’t always a private place to confer or the time to explain things as thoroughly as I would have liked. At the Red Hook Community Justice Center, the judge gave me as much time as I needed to make sure my client understood what was going on so he or she could make informed decisions. Procedural justice has a way of infusing even the busiest courthouse with a small-town feel, and that’s a good thing. At Newark Community Solutions in New Jersey, staff has made a point of reaching out to everyone in the building so that they know how the program works, and the services it provides. This has reduced the chance that participants in the community court will get lost and
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increased the chance that courthouse staff might refer those in need to the court’s many voluntary programs. In Washington, D.C.’s six community court calendars, procedural justice is becoming a way of life. After an evaluation found a 42 percent reduction in recidivism among community court participants, the entire Superior Court underwent training in procedural justice. But lessons learned in community courts about procedural justice go well beyond the courthouse. In Spokane, Wash., the police officers have a script they read to the defendants when they issue citations. They tell them all about community court and what it offers and give them the choice of going there or proceeding through the traditional court. One of the first defendants to appear in the Spokane Community Court said he appeared because of how the police officer treated him. He felt he was treated respectfully and in turn he wanted to show respect to the officer by showing up to court. Procedural justice works at every level of the justice system. Police in Portland, Ore., have been working on a plan to offer people with housing or homelessness issues immediate assistance by voluntarily taking them to a service center ahead of their scheduled court date so they can access services right away. When a criminal justice official shows signs of respect, the impact can be hugely positive. Judge Toy White of the Ventura Homeless Court is getting people on citation cases—the equivalent to a summons or other non-criminal charge—to engage in drug treatment not with legal leverage but with the power of her words. She will simply tell a problematic user of drugs, “You’re going to die if you keep this up.” And then her staff will offer assistance connecting to social services. The judge has told me that many defendants respond positively to this and appear to be moved
19 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
that a judge cares about them as a person rather than merely looking at them as a defendant.
6. Expanding Sentencing Options With jails overcrowded and government budgets stretched to their limits, everyone is looking for better, smarter, and more cost-effective sentencing options. Community courts have been using alternatives to incarceration for decades and are ready to share what they’ve learned with anyone who will listen. In addition to providing long-term drug treatment for those in Robert’s situation, community courts have also made use of shorter interventions. Community service is an important sentencing option in community courts. Community courts believe community service fulfills several functions by:
—— Providing an opportunity for positive engagement between the justice system and the defendant.
—— Addressing neighborhood disorder.
—— Reconnecting defendants with the community by making them feel as if they had contributed something back to the community.
—— Strengthening links between the justice system and potential collaborators.
I learned first-hand that community service can do more than punish when a client said to me that community service was the “first time I felt part of my community again.” Sure, many clients are bored or resentful when they’re required to clean a park or paint over graffiti. But many become engaged in the work and proud of what they accomplish. On many occasions I’ve heard clients insist on finishing a project they had
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started, even when the shift was over—asking to stay longer so they can paint the last couple of park benches, for example. Community courts have learned that this feeling of ownership over the work is more likely to occur when offenders feel the work is meaningful. The Aneth Community Court in the Navajo Nation officially became part of the “adopt-a-highway” program near their community court and now sends community restitution crews to do cleanups there. Court staff and regular community members will work alongside the Aneth Community Court’s clients, which sends a clear and positive message that this isn’t “make work” and that it is important to the community as well. The Seattle Community Court has done something similar by sending offenders to participate in neighborhood cleanup events. I once spoke to a neighborhood resident who was participating in the cleanup alongside court clients. He told me, “We don’t care what they did, but we’re here to work with them and we’ll tell them, ‘We’ll treat you like a member of our community, and we expect you to act like a member of the community while you’re here.’” The neighborhood volunteers told me that they were very happy with the program and welcomed the extra help. Community service isn’t just a feel-good exercise. It has the practical side-effect of connecting the offender with agencies where they’re performing the community service. In Washington, D.C., many providers love their connection with the court because they not only get the benefit of a community restitution crew but many of the crew members are potential clients. The Hartford Community Court sometimes sends defendants to perform restitution at an urban horse stable and one of the workers performed so well that the stable hired her as a permanent employee. Vancouver’s Downtown Community Court sends clients to work at treatment centers that, according to 21 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
their screening and assessment tools, are a good match if the client if chooses to pursue services voluntarily. Another community court judge even allows continued attendance at a treatment program to be counted as community service on certain cases. Community courts will also incorporate treatment directly into a sentence. With appropriate assessment tools, they can determine clients’ needs and require them to participate in services that can help them address obstacles—like a problematic use of drugs or mental health issues—to a law-abiding life. Community courts have learned that having access to on-site experts to help connect defendants to services as soon as possible after the point of arrest is the best recipe for long-term success in treating chronic addiction issues. Mainstream courts can also learn something from community courts about cultivating realistic expectations. After working with thousands of clients, community courts have a realistic grasp on what mandates can accomplish. Despite all the great things I’ve described, community courts expect that many offenders will eventually recidivate and return to court, so they plan for it. Because mandates in a community court are usually short (they need to be proportionate to the low-level nature of the offenses), court staff try to think long- term. They know they can’t address all of a client’s problems in a single intervention; after all, no one is going to solve 20 years of problematic drug use in a two- hour counseling session. So community courts try to find ways to deepen the interventions each time a client returns to court. At the Red Hook Community Justice Center, for example, a first intervention might include getting the client an identification card. That way, if the person returns to court again on a new charge, it will be easier to link him or her to services. 22 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
7. Engaging the Community Community courts emphasize working collaboratively with the community, arguing that the justice system is stronger, fairer, and more effective when the community is invested in what happens inside the courthouse. But engaging with the community is a useful strategy for all justice players, including conventional courts. Courts are one of the pillars of our democracy and only function well when their activities are transparent, their buildings welcoming, and their activities respected. It is not enough to point out that courthouses are public. That fact doesn’t address the distrust or lack of interest that so many communities direct toward their courts. If you think about it, how many members of the public really know what goes on inside a courtroom (other than what they see on TV)? When people get jury duty notices, do they race to the courthouse to participate or do they tend to do anything they can to avoid service? When people are called as witnesses to crimes, especially in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods, are they eager to take the stand or do many prefer to keep their mouths shut and their stories to themselves? Too often I’ve attended community meetings around the country where people will say things like, “I don’t know what the courts do.” Or they’ll complain that a particular criminal who was arrested one day is back on the street the next—which is a reasonable concern but shows a lack of understanding about how court systems work. This lack of understanding contributes to diminished confidence in the justice system. Community courts have learned how to reverse some of these attitudes by building trust. One way they do this is by sending court representatives, including judges, to community meetings to listen to people’s concerns and explain court operations. In Red Hook, Judge Calabrese might explain why someone is still on the street following an arrest, this way: “Just because you see 23 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
him on the street doesn’t mean he isn’t complying with court sentencing, dealing with issues, and that we aren’t watching him carefully.” Community courts also go out of their way to communicate outcomes, including social service and treatment success stories. For over a decade, the Hartford Community Court has been publishing newsletters that document the results of community service work and how many hours of labor defendants have performed in the community. The newsletters are archived on the court’s website, serving as a resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the court. Community courts also use their powers to solve problems. When a community court judge asks representatives of organizations and agencies to attend a meeting, people usually show up. This convening power allows the community court to play a role in coordinating multi-agency solutions to neighborhood problems. In the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., garbage had collected at one spot for more than 15 years, creating a mound more than 10 feet high and 20 feet long. Staff of the Brownsville Community Justice Center identified the problem by regularly meeting with local residents and business owners to ask them about their concerns. The Justice Center staff brought together all the relevant players—the owner of the lot, the city’s Sanitation Department, the Police Department, New York City’s public housing authority, homeless advocates (a mentally- ill person was living among the debris), and concerned citizens—and were able to coordinate a removal of the trash, a total of 7 tons. Community courts can also help generate enthusiasm for solving problems. The homelessness problem in Spokane, Wash. wasn’t getting a lot of attention until the community court came along. They convened a group to brainstorm solutions. Over time, members of the planning team offered to tackle an aspect of homelessness. For example, one organization offered 24 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
to coordinate job training; another offered to bring free lunches to court days. Slowly, the group raised awareness about homelessness. Now, rather than think of homelessness as a problem to ignore or tolerate, there are concerted community efforts underway to tackle it. There are numerous ways that community courts actively assess community concerns. The Midtown Community Court hosts a monthly panel where representatives of government agencies (police, transit, education, for example) and local organizations (including providers of mental health services, shelters, faith groups, and civic groups) discuss their concerns and brainstorm solutions. Sometimes the problems are more obvious. After the devastating flooding in low- lying areas of Brooklyn caused by hurricane Sandy, the Red Hook Community Justice Center played an active role in coordinating relief efforts. Although this isn’t a traditional responsibility of a courthouse, it went a long way toward building good will for the justice system— not to mention that it may have contributed to the remarkable absence of crime the during those weeks of distress and hardship. 25 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney
Conclusion
The last time I ran into Robert was at an outdoor community event about four years after his case had been dismissed. We both smiled upon seeing each other, and he told me he was still working the same job, and had his own place. He said to me a bit excitedly, “You need to tell people about that court. It saved my life. They need to have more courts like that.” As he walked away I couldn’t help but think about how many Roberts are still languishing in the criminal justice system. Some critics of community courts say that helping people with substance use disorder, mental health issues, and other social service needs is not the job of courts and should be handled by other entities. In a perfect world, I would agree. However, in the reality of the world today, people with social service needs continue to end up in the courts. Court systems across the country have realized that if defendants with social service needs are not given treatment options, those defendants will be stuck in the revolving door of justice and continue to clog the court system. By employing some of the tools and practices outlined in this paper, courts can help those cycling in and out of the court system to achieve stability and become contributing members of society. In other words, people like Robert. Although it may not comport with the vision of success that many defense attorneys had upon entering this work, I can tell you that nothing beats seeing a sober, healthy person approach you on the street and hearing, “Thank you for helping me get my life back on track.” 26 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Endnotes
1. Residents of the neighborhood played a role in planning the Justice Center and have continued to be involved. 2. C.G. Lee et al., A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Red Hook Community Justice Center (Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts, 2013). 3. G. Leigh, A. C. Ogborne, and P. Cleland, ‘Factors Associated with Patient Dropout from an Outpatient Alcoholism Treatment Service,’ Journal of Studies on Alcohol 44:4 (1984): 359-362; M. Rempel et al., The New York State Adult Drug Court Evaluation: Policies, Participants, and Impacts (New York, NY: Center for Court Innovation, 2003). 4. This document can be downloaded at http://www. courtinnovation.org/research/evidence-based-strategies- working-offenders. 5. S.B. Rossman, et al., series editors, NIJ’s Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 2013); P. Holcomb et al., In Their Own Voices: The Hopes and Struggles of Responsible Fatherhood Program Participants in the Parents and Children Together Evaluation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). 6. Voice: Offenders have an opportunity to be heard, either directly or through their attorney. Respect: Offenders are treated with dignity and respect. Trust/neutrality: Offenders perceive decision-makers as neutral and competent and their decisions as unbiased and accurate. Understanding: Offenders understand decisions, including the reasons for those decisions, and understand any future responsibilities they have to comply with court orders. See, Tom Tyler, ‘Procedural Justice and the Courts,’ American Judges Association Court Review 44:1&2, available at http://aja.ncsc.dni.us/courtrv/cr44-1/CR44-1- 2Tyler.pdf. 7. Donald Farole et al., Collaborative Justice in Conventional Courts (Phase One): Opportunities and Barriers (2004), available at http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/ collaborativejustice.pdf. 27 Lessons From Community Courts Strategies on Criminal Justice Reform from a Defense Attorney Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 P. 646.386.3100 courtinnovation.org Advancing Community Justice
The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn by Greg Berman Based in New York City, the Center for Court Innovation is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization that seeks to reform the justice system by creating operating programs that test new ideas, performing original research, and providing technical assistance to reformers around the world.
For more information, please visit www.courtinnovation.org.
“Advancing Community Justice” is based on a speech delivered to the Low Income Investment Fund in October 2015. Portions of this document also appeared in “How the Justice System Can Transform NYC’s Murder Capital,” The Crime Report, October 29, 2015.
2015 1 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
The New York Miracle
It has been a head-spinning couple of years for those of us who work in criminal justice in New York City.
Not long ago, if you asked the question “who is responsible?” in criminal justice circles, most people would think you were asking about who deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the “New York miracle.”
When I was growing up, the chattering class wondered whether New York was fundamentally “ungovernable” and urban crime was akin to the weather—beyond the scope of human intervention. The films of the ’70s and ’80s reflected a grim view of the city—movies like “The Warriors,” “Fort Apache the Bronx, and “Escape from New York,” which imagined that the entire island of Manhattan has been transformed into a maximum security prison. In the real world, many people were indeed making their escape from the city—from 1970 to 1990, New York lost nearly 600,000 residents.
We all know what happened next, although the why and the how remain hotly contested. New York City experienced dramatic improvements in public safety, with murders falling from a high of more than 2200 in 1990 to less than 335 in 2013. 2 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Depending upon who you listen to, the cause of these gains was CompStat or broken windows or improved medical care or a booming economy or the end of the crack epidemic (or, more provocatively, the legalization of abortion or the decline of lead poisoning of children). Whatever the cause, New York was transformed from the Ungovernable City into (in the words of criminologist Frank Zimring) The City That Became Safe.
Contrary to the general trend in the U.S., these crime reductions were accompanied by significant reductions in the prison and jail populations. At its height, the daily census on Rikers Island was about 22,000 people. Today, it is less than 10,000. New York City elected officials and criminal justice agencies understandably took enormous pride in these numbers and argued over who deserved most of the credit.
Of course, the “New York Miracle” is no longer the dominant story about criminal justice in this city.
Today, asking the question “who is responsible?” at a criminal justice conference would summon angry finger pointing rather than warm pats on the back. The past two years have been dominated by names like Kalief Browder and Eric Garner—as well as growing public concern about the conditions on Rikers Island and the tactics employed by the NYPD, particularly a commitment to a “stop-and-frisk” policy that felt a lot like racial profiling to many on the streets of New York.
Brownsville, Brooklyn is in many ways the fulcrum between these two competing New York City narratives— one of triumph and progress and one of despair and outrage. 3 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
‘Never Ran, Never Will’
Brownsville is a community with a well-earned reputation for toughness. “Never ran, never will” is the unofficial neighborhood motto. Brownsville’s toughness can be seen in the resilience of local residents, including hard-core rappers like M.O.P. and boxers like Riddick Bowe and Zab Judah.
Brownsville’s toughness can also be found in the material conditions of the neighborhood, which is home to more than a dozen separate public housing developments. According to the Brownsville Partnership, 44 percent of the local working age population is out of the workforce.1
It is true that Brooklyn’s 73rd precinct, which contains 86,000 residents, shared in some of the public safety gains that New York City as a whole experienced over the past generation. From 1993 to 2010, murders in Brownsville dropped 62 percent. Other categories of offending behavior experienced similar reductions.
And still.
And still Brownsville is profoundly unsafe.
DNAinfo recently called Brownsville the “murder capital” of New York; the neighborhood ranked dead last (out of 69 communities) for per capita homicide rate.2 In a 2010 survey of 800 local residents, 80 percent of respondents identified guns, gangs, drugs, and assault as the top community problems in Brownsville.3
So crime remains one of the defining features of Brownsville.
Another defining feature, unsurprisingly, is the prevalence of incarceration. 4 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
More than a third of New York’s prisoners come from just five neighborhoods—the South Bronx, East New York, Harlem, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville.4 According to the Justice Mapping Center, the state of New York spends 40 million dollars a year incarcerating people just from Brownsville.5 And these numbers don’t include the thousands of Brownsville residents who are held at Rikers Island each year.
So Brownsville is a high-crime, high-incarceration community. It is also a community with a history of disenchantment with the justice system.
The criminal justice system is not an abstraction in Brownsville—it is a daily fact of life. A juvenile detention facility is located in the community. Thousands of local residents are under probation or parole supervision. And police are a visible presence: an eight-block area of Brownsville had the highest concentration of stop and frisks in the city, according to a 2010 New York Times report.6
It is safe to say that familiarity has not led to fondness. The justice system enjoys depressingly low levels of community support in Brownsville. To give just one example, in the 2010 community survey, only 16 percent of local residents characterized their relationship with police as positive.
The New York Times summed up the general sense of despair about Brownsville in a think piece a couple of years ago. The article was headlined: “Where Optimism Feels Out of Reach.”7 5 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
What Can the Justice System Do?
How might we begin to turn things around in Brownsville? What might we do differently in an effort to enhance public safety, to reduce the use of incarceration, and to improve public perceptions of justice?
Or to ask the question in a different way, what does a safe and healthy neighborhood look like? And what role can the justice system play in facilitating neighborhood safety?
We know that safety cannot be produced by the justice system alone. After all, our safest neighborhoods, whether rich or poor, don’t feel like police states, with officers lurking on every corner. As Jane Jacobs articulated in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a crucial element of neighborhood safety is the availability of responsible “eyes on the street” and the willingness of neighbors to enforce local social norms and address conditions of disorder. More recently, Robert Sampson of Harvard University has documented the importance of what he labels “collective efficacy”— essentially, a neighborhood’s social infrastructure and capacity for joint action on its own behalf.
As currently constructed, the criminal justice system does precious little to encourage collective efficacy or social cohesion in high-crime neighborhoods. Indeed, as we have seen in Brownsville, a great deal of conventional practice (over-aggressive enforcement and the misuse of incarceration in particular) tends to undermine the very elements that Jacobs and Sampson have identified as crucial to healthy neighborhoods.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that in recent years a new set of reforms have emerged that, if properly 6 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
implemented, have the potential to reduce offending, reengineer the relationship between the justice system and the public, and help activate a neighborhood’s capacity to help produce safety for itself. Broadly speaking, these reforms fall into four categories:
1. Problem-solving Justice
By this point, the problems of mass incarceration have been well documented. Reducing the footprint of our jails and prisons is going to be a massive undertaking that will involve significant change both by legislators and by practitioners (particularly prosecutors) on the ground. Driven by reformers like New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, many court systems have already made significant efforts to change their practice, promoting meaningful alternatives to incarceration. These “problem-solving courts” are offering more humane (and community-based) responses to drug offenders, mentally-ill defendants, victims of human trafficking and other defendant populations, linking them to treatment and other services in an effort to reduce recidivism.
2. Prevention
If it hopes to help produce safer neighborhoods, the justice system cannot simply react after crime occurs— it must make a deep investment in crime prevention. This means supporting targeted violence prevention efforts like the violence interrupter model pioneered in Chicago and the group violence interventions and “call-ins” promoted by the National Network for Safe Communities. It also means supporting diversion and youth development initiatives that are designed to provide teens that are apprehended for minor offenses with positive, pro-social activities (including mentoring,
7 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
education, arts programming, leadership training) instead of punitive responses.
3. Place-based Interventions
Research tells us that, even in high-crime neighborhoods, offending behavior does not spread evenly. Rather, it tends to cluster in identifiable locations. For example, a study by criminologist David Weisburd documented that between 5-6 percent of street segments in Seattle generated over 50 percent of the crime incidents each year. This insight has profound implications for how the police target enforcement efforts. It also underlines the importance of focusing other types of interventions on neighborhood hot spots and eye sores. There is also growing interest in deterring crime through environmental design; the idea is that public safety can be improved by addressing visible conditions of disorder, enhancing street lighting, and improving the visibility of potentially dangerous areas.
4. Procedural Justice
Whether they are a victim, a witness, or a defendant, many people find the justice system a cold and unfeeling bureaucracy. Indeed, much of what goes on in a typical criminal court is intelligible only to the lawyers involved; it is not unusual to see defendants leave court with no idea what just happened or what the implications are for their lives. Scholars like Yale University’s Tom Tyler have found that it is crucial to the long-term success of the justice system to treat individuals with dignity and respect and to communicate with them in language they understand. The research suggests that by doing these things, criminal justice agencies can not only improve public perceptions of justice, they can actually reduce crime. After all, people are more likely to comply with the law 8 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
when they believe in the fairness of the process and the legitimacy of justice agencies. Community Justice in Brownsville
No single program or idea offers a silver-bullet answer for the problems that plague neighborhoods like Brownsville. But taken together, the types of initiatives described can create significant change.
That’s why my agency, the Center for Court Innovation, is attempting to create a community justice center in Brownsville.
The Brownsville Community Justice Center will be a branch of the New York State Court System, handling misdemeanor offenses from the 73rd precinct in Brownsville. Rather than relying on short-term jail or fines (or nothing at all) as the primary response to minor offending like shoplifting, vandalism, and minor drug possession, the Justice Center judge will have
access to an expansive menu of alternatives, including drug treatment, job training, and counseling. The goal will be to change sentencing practice for thousands of Brownsville residents each year, reducing the use of incarceration by increasing the use of other sanctions. At the same time, all of the courtroom players will be trained in the principles of procedural justice and encouraged to communicate clearly with defendants.
Beyond a problem-solving courtroom, the Justice Center will be home to an array of youth development and crime prevention programs designed to serve everyone in the community, regardless of whether they have a court case. This will include a teen-led youth court that will offer leadership training to local young people. This will include an anti-violence program that will engage local residents in spreading a message of peace. This will 9 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
include the Belmont Revitalization Project, which seeks to beautify and redesign an area that has been a magnet for crime.
Using a variety of tools, the Brownsville Community Justice Center will attempt to address the three problems that have plagued the neighborhood for generations: crime, over-incarceration, and distrust of government. This agenda has been endorsed by the Brooklyn District Attorney, the Chief Judge of New York, and the Mayor of New York City as well as the New York Times editorial board and the local community board.
One reason these voices have signed on to the idea of community justice in Brownsville is that they have seen it work before. Community justice centers are already in operation in several places, including Red Hook, Brooklyn. According to independent evaluators, the Red Hook center has succeeded in reducing both recidivism and the use of jail while changing public attitudes toward the justice system.
We are a few years away from fully realizing the vision of a community justice center for Brownsville—the project has to go through the city’s land use review process before construction work can begin on a $24 million state-of-the-art courthouse. But in the meantime, we are implementing the crime prevention and place-making elements of the project. With any luck, Brownsville will soon be a living example of a new kind of New York miracle—one that not only reduces crime and incarceration but engages the community and bolsters the legitimacy of the justice in a place where it has been badly tarnished. 10 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Endnotes
1 “Community Solutions: The Brownsville Partnership.” Website. Available at https://cmtysolutions.org/ brownsvillepartnership. 2 “DNAinfo Crime Safety Report: Brownsville.” DNAinfo. 2010. Available at http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/crime-safety- report/brooklyn/brownsville. 3 Hynynen Suvi. 2011. “Community Perceptions of Brownsville.” Available at http://www.courtinnovation.org/ sites/default/files/documents/Brownsville%20Op%20Data%20 FINAL.pdf. 4 Marks, Aaron. “These 5 Neighborhoods Supply Over A Third Of NYC’s Prisoners.” Gothamist. May 1, 2013. Available at: http://gothamist.com/2013/05/01/these_interactive_charts_ show_you_w.php. 5 Haverty, Natasha. “What If 10 Percent of Your Neighbors Went to Prison Downstate?” North Country Public Radio. April 1, 2014. Available at: http://www. northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/24479/20140401/ what-if-10-percent-of-your-neighbors-went-to-prison- downstate. 6 Weiser, Benjamin and Joseph Goldstein. “Mayor Says New York City Will Settle Suits on Stop-and-Frisk Tactics.” The New York Times. Jan. 30, 2014. Available at http://www.nytimes. com/2014/01/31/nyregion/de-blasio-stop-and-frisk.html. 7 Bellafante, Ginia. “Where Optimism Feels Out of Reach.” The New York Times. January 14, 2012. Available at: http://www. nytimes.com/2012/01/15/nyregion/new-york-citys-optimistic- tone-feels-out-of-reach-in-brownsville.htm 11 Advancing Community Justice: The Challenge of Brownsville, Brooklyn
About the Author Greg Berman is the director of the Center for Court Innovation. His written work includes Reducing Crime, Reducing Incarceration (Quid Pro Books), Trial & Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure (Urban Institute Press) and Good Courts: The Case for Problem- Solving Justice (The New Press). Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York 10018 P. 646.386.3100 F. 212.397.0985 courtinnovation.org UPNEXT
A Model for Increasing Financial and Emotional Support by Bo Twiggs Author Bo Twiggs UPNEXT Program Director Midtown Community Court
Acknowledgments The UPNEXT program and this paper describing it would not exist were it not for the energy, ideas, and efforts of Jonathan Monsalve, Gabriella DeMarco, Jeff Hobbs, Dipal Shah, Courtney Bryan, Linda Steele, Becca Chodos, Danielle Malangone, Genna Marku, Cara Camacho, Sebastian Bullock, and Darwin Garcia.
To learn more about UPNEXT, visit www.upnext.org.
2016 1 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
UPNEXT
UPNEXT combines intensive fatherhood support and workforce development for low-income fathers, many of whom are involved in the justice system. UPNEXT empowers participants and increases their engagement with their children through job preparation, parenting support, and cognitive behavioral therapy. By supporting both fatherhood and employment, UPNEXT increases the likelihood of success in both areas.
Context
Greg was born and raised in Harlem’s Drew Hamilton Houses, his home for many of his 48 years. After graduating from high school, he tried hard to make an honest living but soon found himself making money through drug sales during the crack epidemic in New York City in the 1980’s and 1990’s. A four year prison sentence followed. Upon his release in 1998, he found short-term, fast food jobs. Limited income led to inconsistent financial support of his children. He saw his six children irregularly and his relationships with their mothers were fragile, to say the least. Greg grew determined to break this cycle. “I couldn’t stay stuck in a rut of going from one fast food place to another,” he said. “On a fast food salary, there wasn’t much to go around.” 2 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Like Greg, millions of men have trouble finding employment.1 Unemployment rates for African-American (8.8%) and Latino (6.2%) men remain well above the national average (4.8%), even as the economy recovers.2 Nonresident fathers (defined as fathers not living in the same home as their children3), who are more likely to be men of color and of limited educational attainment, have been hit particularly hard.4
Another factor in labor-force participation for African- American and Latino men is incarceration.5 African- Americans and Latinos are overrepresented in jail and prison populations,6 a fact that has long-term impacts on employment prospects.
Unemployment can impact the stability of families and entire communities.7 It also contributes to poverty and helps to explain why African-American and Latino poverty rates far exceed the national average of 14.5%.8
Unemployment also complicates child support. In 2011, $37.9 million was due in support payments to custodial parents.9 These payments have become ever more crucial to low-income families in the wake of cuts to social programs.10 The failure to pay support has wide-reaching impacts not only on the custodial parents and children, but also on the non-paying parents and justice systems attempting to enforce the support orders.11
In spite of robust collection efforts, many low-income parents find themselves in significant debt due to unpaid child support.12 This is particularly common among incarcerated parents, whose arrears will on average double while they are in custody.13 Enforcement strategies have often relied exclusively on punitive measures, without consideration of the underlying factors that contribute to missed payments or nonpayment.14 Non-paying parents, most of whom are 3 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
fathers, are subject to driver and professional license suspensions, high interest rates, property and income tax liens, and even incarceration as they accrue support debt.15 Despite the severity of these sanctions, they often do not result in payments to either the state or the custodial parent.16 Situations in which support goes unpaid or not fully paid are associated with a host of negative outcomes related to effective co-parenting, father engagement, and child success.17 Inability to pay child support can result in a “stay away” effect that has been associated with short- and long-term impact on children’s school performance, substance use, and cognitive and psychosocial development, among a host of other indicators of wellness.18
UPNEXT is part of an emerging group of programs that combine workforce development and fatherhood services. Since 2011, the program has served over 1,000 fathers, helping more than 300 of them connect with permanent employment and nearly 450 make measured increases in their emotional engagement with their children. Free family activities and trips around New York City have provided noncustodial parents and their children with opportunities to connect. This monograph describes how the UPNEXT model was developed, explains how it works, and describes in greater detail the impact it has had. How It Works
Since his release from prison, Greg had stayed out of trouble. He was not making enough to take care of his children the way that he wanted to, but he was making money honestly. In late 2010, he caught a break: his wife connected him with a job at a hotel through her union contacts. He felt like he had finally found a way off of the low-wage treadmill and onto a career pathway. This new job would allow him to get health benefits and begin saving for retirement. He would be able to buy his 4 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
children the things that he had not previously been able to afford. But he was fired within two weeks. Then he got another hotel job. This one lasted a week. Both terminations resulted from arguments that were not really about anything serious but had gotten out of control. Two blown opportunities later, Greg found himself wondering if he needed a different kind of help if he hoped to get out of fast food jobs and into a career.
UPNEXT is located in the heart of Manhattan inside the Midtown Community Court. The Midtown Community Court seeks to test a new and more effective response to low-level crime, including community restitution projects and social services.
“Unemployment is one of the toughest nuts to crack when you think of the problems experienced by justice- involved populations,” said Julius Lang, who formerly directed the Midtown Court. “The court always knew this would need to be addressed sooner or later. After discussions with its advisory board, the Midtown Community Court made the decision to provide this service directly rather than through a partner agency.”
The initial approach was a social enterprise, Times Square Ink. The program was a fully operational copy and print shop in which trainees filled orders for neighborhood businesses and nonprofits, which also provided internships and jobs for program graduates.
Over time, Times Square Ink moved from a social enterprise model to a more standard employment readiness program in which participants were given assistance with resume preparation and interviewing, trained in “soft” workplace skills, and connected with employers open to hiring candidates with convictions. The program took on a more customer service-oriented approach, preparing participants for employment in New York City’s vast retail sector with a National 5 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Retail Foundation certification in customer service. A job developer worked to generate opportunities for job seekers with various levels of criminal justice involvement. These criminal histories increasingly included more than just low-level crimes as the program began to rely more heavily on referrals from probation. The program found itself beginning to work with individuals who had dropped out of transitional work offered by other programs or who were unable to move into permanent employment.
This population presented a different challenge than Times Square Ink’s initial clients. “We were seeing people who needed help in understanding how their attitudes, beliefs, and ways of interacting with people impacted their abilities to connect with and retain meaningful employment. These were job seekers who needed more than a new resume and a couple of mock interviews,” said Genna Marku, clinical manager. The program turned to the National Institute on Corrections’ Thinking for a Change cognitive behavioral therapy curriculum. The curriculum’s emphasis on preventing negative outcomes like job loss, re-arrest, or interpersonal conflict was a good fit for a program looking to improve interpersonal skills.
Along with cognitive behavioral therapy, services for fathers became an established component of the program. A new group, Dads United for Parenting, had been conceived as a safe space for fathers to come together to share their struggles while receiving services to empower them to increase their financial and emotional engagement with their children. “We started it so that men would have a place to get together to get support, vent, connect with opportunities … and to learn from each other. It was also a place to heal,” recalled the program’s founder, Jeff Hobbs. 6 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
The program centered around the fathers “breaking bread” as a group and learning about topics like effective discipline, managing child support, and navigating the family court system. Dads United for Parenting also fostered connections between the participants and their children through shared events, including trips to Coney Island, holiday celebrations, and graduation ceremonies at which the families of the participants were welcome.
As Dads United for Parenting staff members worked with the fathers to increase their financial contributions to their children and the children’s custodial parents, they found themselves helping the men secure employment.
There were additional synergies that brought Times Square Ink and Dads United for Parenting together. The participants in both programs were facing the same barriers to employment: criminal justice involvement, gaps in employment history, and limited educational attainment. “It was a ‘eureka’ moment!” said Courtney Bryan, then the project director of the Midtown Community Court. “We realized there was this huge overlap in who needed the services of the two programs. It registered as an opportunity to do something special.” Participants who became actively engaged in both programs were more successful—retaining employment through Times Square Ink and increasing their parental engagement through Dads United for Parenting. Fathers were more committed to their search for employment when they knew they were working toward providing for their children; they were able to more readily reach family engagement goals when they got help finding work. In 2011, Times Square Ink and Dads United for Parenting merged. UPNEXT was born. 7 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Program Overview
UPNEXT delivers intensive fatherhood, employment, and cognitive behavioral therapy programming over a six-week period. Participants come to the program from probation, parole, family court, substance abuse treatment facilities, and through the word of mouth of alumni. Staff works with each participant who comes in to identify needs and begin working on them immediately. Many participants arrive at UPNEXT overwhelmed by mounting child support arrears and distressed that they cannot see their children. Those who need (and are motivated enough) to engage in comprehensive services attend pre-programming sessions and then join the next six-week cycle.
The chart below describes how these program elements are delivered from initial engagement with participants through program participation and post-graduation.
Foundational Services Reflection and Redefinition Stability and Ongoing Growth Pre-Program Cycle Engagement: Six-Week Program Cycle: Post-Cycle Engagement: • Intake • Fatherhood Support • Transitional Employment • Assessment • Employment Readiness • Permanent Employment • Fatherhood Network • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy • Ongoing Career Development • Case Management • Family Activities • Alumni and Family Activities Understanding Child Support Managing Child Support Meeting Child Support 1-4 Weeks 6 Weeks Obligations 1 Year and Beyond
Staffing Structure The program model requires high-energy, committed direct service and administrative staff. UPNEXT features six full-time staff members. Three staff members are exclusively dedicated to delivering programming, while one staff member has a dual programming and 8 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
administrative role. Each client-facing staff member is trained in motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy. Fathers can access support and resources from anyone on the team.
Engaging Dads The UPNEXT model prioritizes client engagement. This engagement is grounded in three principles: immediacy, respect for clients’ autonomy, and focus on clients’ personal strengths. Immediacy Fathers often come to UPNEXT in material or emotional crisis. It is essential that the goals clients feel are most urgent are identified shortly after the first point of contact. Staff members want clients to recognize the program as a place where their needs are valued. These immediate needs are wide-ranging, but often involve connections to resources like food stamps or shelter or addressing unmanaged child support obligations. “Fathers come to UPNEXT with goals and find staff members who are ready to turn them into plans of action. This motivates them to keep coming back,” said program associate Darwin Garcia.
Respect for Clients’ Autonomy Staff treats participants as adults coming to the classroom for a service, who are free to exit the program at any time of their choosing, even if they are mandated. In these cases, staff members are transparent about their obligation to report to referral sources about attendance and participation. They also communicate that the choice to attend and follow advice is a participant’s alone. The goal is to avoid the adversarial relationship clients may have experienced with law enforcement, community supervision, or court personnel, giving clients an opportunity to grow. Staff members strive to maintain a welcoming environment in which men are encouraged to speak their minds and explore change. 9 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Focus on Clients’ Strengths UPNEXT acknowledges that the journey to participation in the program is one that often involves some combination of poverty, incarceration, long-term unemployment, and separation from loved ones. It also regularly involves negotiation of underground or low-level employment activity. The program recognizes the resilience required to navigate these experiences and staff works actively with fathers to leverage their strengths in working towards future employment and fatherhood goals.
Family Focus and Safety One of the initial challenges in working with fathers was making sure that their progress translated into improved outcomes for children and families. The team learned that it needed to emphasize the theme of working towards success for the whole family, even in cases where fathers are separated from their children and the children’s mothers. This value may seem self- evident, but actually requires a delicate balancing act. Class sessions about positive co-parenting and managing child support can be dominated by the angriest voices in the room if facilitators are not deliberate in setting up a family-focused discussion.
Staff grew adept at providing opportunities for participants to share frustrations while redirecting that energy to create positive momentum towards goal- setting and achievements that benefit the entire family. This focus on family is reinforced by the facilitated opportunities that the program provides for fathers to engage with their children, such as trips to sporting events, attractions, and restaurants.
Initial efforts to provide an environment that made fathers feel comfortable and supported sometimes went too far. Program staff sometimes intervened on behalf 10 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
of participants in relationship disputes and found themselves in the middle of conflicts. UPNEXT’s clinical manager, Genna Marku, recalled that safety for the rest of the family “wasn’t really something that we were focused on. We were listening to the dads, hearing their struggles, their goals, and making the assumption that they would only want what was best for their kids. We learned that this wasn’t always the case.”
Now, UPNEXT takes a “safety-first” approach to supporting fathers. All participants are screened for domestic violence history and orders of protection. In cases in which previous history of domestic violence or orders of protections exist, fathers must agree not to engage in violent or coercive behavior and to abide by any orders of protection to remain in the program.
‘Thinking for a Change’ UPNEXT has sought to develop an approach to participants that breaks from the standard approach of institutions such as correctional facilities, substance abuse treatment facilities, and family court. UPNEXT and its staff had to register as different if participants were going to stay, share, and change. In this spirit, staff members engage and motivate clients through inquiry and conversation, using evidence-based motivational interviewing techniques to elicit talk from fathers about changes they hope to make.
This approach continues in the program’s implementation of Thinking for a Change. Participants are invited to see the social skills and risk-mitigation processes as tools that they are free to access or discard as they please. Through the course of 25 sessions, participants learn and practice social skills (such as asking a question, giving feedback, or apologizing) and are given strategies for recognizing and reducing risky thinking, feelings, attitudes, and situations. Fathers 11 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
get ideas from their peers as they join each other in role playing the different situations that they bring to class. In addition to teaching fathers to recognize risky situations, these activities provide the fathers with an opportunity to process anxiety. The role plays, in particular, provide individuals who exhibit self-control issues with a chance to practice behaving in ways that may be more conducive to success. “It provides the dads with insight into what hasn’t been working and a safe place to practice new behavior that they can use at home and at work,” Marku said.
Participants in UPNEXT meet with employment, fatherhood, and outreach specialists to collaborate on short- and long-term goals. Staff members employ the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound)20 goal format to facilitate realistic goal- setting. They may encourage fathers to set incremental goals. For example, an incremental goal for a father who would like to win custody of his child but who has not seen the child in several months might be to see the child once in the next month.
The chart below illustrates this trajectory of goal-setting and attainment. Basic, stabilizing needs are attended to first, creating the buy-in from clients to engage in further reflection and growth.
Engagement Stabilization Exploration Redefinition Ongoing Growth
• Career Stability • Engagement • Self-Reflection • Non-Conflict and Growth • Assessment • Goal Refining • Role Problem Solving • Engaged, • Goal Setting • Connection to Refinement • Professional Flexible • Rapport Resources • New Skills Presentation Parenting Building • Accountability 12 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Learning Environment The program operates in a classroom setting designed to emphasize productivity and simulate a work environment. At each morning check-in, staff facilitates a brief sharing of “highs and lows” for the day from each participant. Pastries donated by a local café are served with coffee to create a welcoming environment. Participants are required to arrive before 9:30 a.m. and remove hats, sunglasses, etc. upon entry. Mobile phones must be switched to vibrate and used only in the case of necessity or during breaks. Fathers are also held to a standard of workplace-appropriate language: derogatory terms, even if used jokingly or as slang, are not acceptable. Special emphasis is also placed on respect for women, including female staff members and the participants’ co-parents. Participants come to the classroom with a specific purpose for each visit; it is not a “drop-in center.” This includes attending the current six-week programming cycle, meeting with a specialist for an appointment, participating in post- cycle programming, or taking part in special events. Participants and alumni can access the new computer lab and the program brings in expert guest speakers from organizations ranging from the Office of Child Support Enforcement to the Museum of Modern Art. Programming is developed and executed with a specific emphasis on interactivity and adult learning styles— passive participation is limited.
Job Search The program equips participants with the skills and tools necessary to successfully navigate their online job searches and begin building their careers. The program’s state-of-the-art computer lab is used to provide fathers of all levels of computer literacy with the skills required to locate employment opportunities, respond to postings, and expand their professional networks. A resume clinic and weekly mock interviewing sessions 13 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
prepare participants to market themselves effectively to employers. Program staff members provide continuous feedback to current cycle participants on their job search strategies, working with each father until he finds employment.
Financial Empowerment Participants often come to UPNEXT with limited income, damaged or non-existent credit, and significant debt. UPNEXT seeks to restore and build financial wellness for each client—and the people he needs to support. “Fathers often join the program with significant apprehension around navigating their finances,” said employment specialist Cara Camacho. “Once they get concrete information and action steps, the anxiety starts to decrease.” Through UPNEXT, participants work to assess their current financial standing, including issues with child support or credit, and receive comprehensive support in rectifying any issues. The goal here is to increase the likelihood of long-term financial health once they are back at work.
Connection to Opportunity The program has worked to forge connections to private employers and create transitional work opportunities. Creating these relationships includes educating partners on the value of working with individuals with prior criminal justice histories and cultivating a mutual investment in restoring the individuals’ abilities to succeed as men and fathers. Anecdotes and statistics are provided on the strengths of these men as potential employees. Potential partners are also invited to see the program in action. These visits have translated into employment opportunities for UPNEXT fathers on many occasions. Time and time again, guests have seen the program in action and have left wanting to be a part of what is happening. Relationships with employers and opportunities for transitional work have steadily 14 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
expanded since 2012. “When guys work with us to set and achieve clear goals, UPNEXT is able to open doors for them,” says Sebastian Bullock, the program’s former outreach specialist.
The first iteration of transitional work at the program was a six-week internship with the facilities department at the Midtown Community Court. In 2013, another transitional work opportunity was added in the form of a three- to six-month temporary position with the sanitation department of the Times Square Alliance Business Improvement District. More than half of the transitional workers placed at the Times Square Alliance were hired as permanent workers during 2014.
The UPNEXT Community UPNEXT seeks to create a community even after participants graduate. Alumni engagement is a critical component of this and is made possible through family activities, program events (such as holiday parties), and opportunities for alumni to speak to current participants about how UPNEXT helped them to achieve lasting success. On family outings, such as trips to the zoo or professional baseball games, fathers and their children are provided with travel, food, and admission. These events are made possible through strategic partnerships with organizations like Most Valuable Kids, a group that provides tickets to sporting events. Staff members from UPNEXT are present to provide support and, if necessary, guidance to a father as he interacts with his children. Participants and graduates are also on hand to lend peer support and mentorship. The intention is to form a network of like-minded men who are constantly working to overcome obstacles encountered with family, at work, and throughout life.
15 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
The first few days of the program were tough for Greg. He knew that he needed some help, but was not sure that he needed to be in a classroom four days a week. As the program cycle progressed, though, Greg found himself enjoying the discussions and learning a few things, too. He started to see patterns in how he had lost previous jobs. A connection between his employment difficulties and difficulties working with his co- parent started to reveal itself. He realized that his thinking in stressful situations was leading him to react in self-destructive ways. When an opportunity arose with the Times Square Alliance, Greg was invited to interview. He was hired, but he had been down this road before. The real challenge would come when he started the job and had to navigate stressful situations with supervisors and colleagues. This time he was ready: “With Times Square Alliance, I’m working in the street ... dealing with multiple personalities and attitudes. And, of course, there is always that time when one of those attitudes gets you to where you are ready to react without thinking. But, through UPNEXT, I learned to step back and think about what I want to say and think whether it is the proper thing to say at that time.” For Greg, a big part of this was cultivating empathy: “When people start in right away arguing and instead of me arguing right back, I would listen to what she said and I would think, ‘What is it that she wants to come out of this?’” Before responding, he said, he would remind himself, “Ok, let’s work at getting what you want to come out of this.”
16 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Results
Since 2011, UPNEXT has engaged 1,081 nonresident fathers in services. Most of these men were African American (69%) or Latino (25%). Only 25% had higher educational experience than a high school equivalency. Thirty-five percent reported no income at all and nearly all 96% reported income at or below the Federal Poverty Level. The overwhelming majority of these fathers also reported that they were not engaged with their children to the degree that they wanted to be.
Since 2011, almost 450 fathers in the program have shown a documented increase in their emotional engagement with their children. This is measured in time, attitudes, and activities with children. Nearly 50% of enrollees demonstrated increased financial contributions to their families. Hardly a day goes by in the classroom without a father sharing that, were it not for the skills gained through the cognitive behavioral therapy component or the support of staff, he would have found himself in the same arguments (or worse) that have separated him from family and from employment opportunities through much of his life. Dipal Shah, the project director of the Midtown Community Court, explains that “the impact of UPNEXT doesn’t stop at the door of the UPNEXT classroom. It continues into the father’s home, to his children’s school, his workplace, and hopefully, for the many years that follow.”
17 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
On a warm day in September, Greg hosted a barbeque at his family’s home in Brooklyn. As he worked the grill he shared stories with a rotating cast of listeners. Not all of his children could make it, but those in attendance were happy to spend the time with their father. It was a big change from how things were a few years ago, when Greg’s children used to see him as someone who could not be relied upon. Today, Greg is in the union and making more than $20 an hour. He’s even planning for retirement. “Everything is going good. July 30th will make four years on the job. Doors keep opening up for me. My family sees that I’m not a slouch anymore. Good fortune has made its way to me and it just keeps getting better!”
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Endnotes
1. Wilson, 1996 2. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016 3. Mincy, Jethwani, & Klempin, 2015 4. Cammett, 2005 5. Hout & Cumberworth, 2012 6. Schmitt & Warner, 2010 7. Linder & Peters, 2015; Nichols, Mitchell & Linder, 2013: Reid et al., 2007 8. Gabe, 2015 9. Grall, 2013 10. Heinrich, Burkhardt & Shager, 2010 11. Bartfield, 2003 12. Sorensen, Sousa and Schaner, 2007 13. Realistic Child Support Orders for Incarcerated Parents, 2012 14. Heinrich, Burkhardt & Shager, 2010; Maldonado, 2006; Hatcher, 2012 15. Cammett, 2005; Heinrich, Burkhardt & Shager, 2010; Maldonado, 2006 16. Maldonado, 2006 17. Bartfeld, 2003; Mincy & Sylvester, 2005; Turetsky, 2005 18. Child Support and Parenting Time: Improving Coordination to benefit Children, 2013; In Their Own Voices: The Hopes and Struggles of Responsible Fatherhood Program Participants in the Parents and Children Together Evaluation, 2015 19. Performance Development: SMART Goals, n.d. 19 CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION 20 NOTES 21 NOTES Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 P. 646.386.3100 courtinnovation.org How Community Advisory Boards Can Assist the Work of the Justice System
Community engagement is an essential component of a well-functioning justice system. By stra- tegically engaging the public, justice agencies can foster trust and mutual understanding, build partnerships, and solve local problems. Through community engagement, the justice system can also access local resources, including community volunteers. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 This fact sheet focuses on a single community engagement strategy: community advisory boards, TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 providing guidance to justice practitioners interested in creating one. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 Community advisory boards provide community members with a forum to air concerns, learn INTRODUCTION 5 about the justice system, and steer new initiatives. They bring in voices and perspectives that are FINDINGSsometimes 8 overlooked. And they send a strong symbolic message about accountability.
RECOMMENDATIONS 13 Although creating and sustaining a board can be rewarding, it can also be a challenge. Justice A.system IDENTIFYING administrators AND DEFINING should beTHE thoughtful ISSUE when deciding on whether to develop a community 14 B.advisory CONNECTING board. ATTENDANCEStart by determining TO FUTURE if a OUTCOMES community advisory board is the best way to engage 17 the community or if another method of community outreach more appropriately fits your needs. C.In doingADDRESSING so, evaluate STRUCTURAL if a board BARRIERS will complement TO SCHOOL your ATTENDANCE organization’s mission. Next, decide if your 21 D.organization PROVIDING is INTERVENTIONS prepared to dedicate FOR YOUTHS the time AFFECTED needed BY, to OR operate AT-RISK a FOR,successful CHRONIC board. ABSENTEEISM Finally, de - 26 cide if you are able to balance the differing views, interests, skills, and commitment levels of com- CONCLUSIONmunity members with the needs and limitations of the justice system. 33 WORKS CITED 34 If you decide to create a community advisory board, be realistic about what it can and cannot YOUTHachieve. JUSTICE Community BOARD advisory MEMBER boards AND STAFF can backfireBIOGRAPHIES if they are not managed properly or if members36 APPENDIXfeel like they 1: RESEARCH are being DESIGNused rather than truly consulted. 40
APPENDIX 2: THE YOUTH JUSTICE BOARD PROGRAM 42 This fact sheet is based on a survey of 20 small, mid-size, and large jurisdictions across the United States currently employing community advisory boards. It provides guidance on establishing goals, a review of practical considerations, and examples of accomplishments from around the country.
This publication was written by Danielle Malangone and Carmen Facciolo of the Center for Court Innovation. The publication was supported by Grant No. 2011-DC- BX-K002 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance U.S. Department of Justice Department of Justice. Published May 2014.
1 1. GOALS THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING A COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD IS TO DEVELOP CLEAR GOALS.
These are some goals community advisory • Help recruit volunteers boards across the country have adopted: • Inform priorities
• Identify public safety and other community When developing goals, think about why problems you are creating a community advisory • Provide feedback on operations and board and how you will define success. Goals policies should be realistic, achievable, and measur- • Identify community resources able. They should be reevaluated regularly so • Access funding that the board does not lose focus and stays • Brainstorm solutions to challenges true to its purpose. 2. MEMBERSHIP DECIDING WHO WILL BE A PART OF THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD IS THE NEXT STEP IN THE PLANNING PROCESS.
The survey of 20 community advisory decide on requirements of new members, in- boards found that members included: cluding how long members may serve on the community advisory board, whether mem- • Judges bers must be interviewed or provide refer- • Public defenders ences, and if members should have to sign • Police, sheriffs, and other members of law some type of formal commitment letter. enforcement • Elected officials Tip: When recruiting members, do not focus • Community residents solely on titles. Think about including mem- • Representatives of faith-based bers who have strong but informal connec- organizations tions to the community, in addition to people • Staff of other relevant government who hold formal positions within communi- agencies, such as education, transit, and ty-based organizations. health departments • Prosecutors Tip: During the membership selection pro- • Court managers cess, be clear about the role of community • Probation/parole employees advisory board members. To manage poten- • Community residents tial members’ expectations, remind them of • Representatives of social service partners the board’s goals and limitations, and the • Representatives of the business community types of problems that are appropriate for • Civic organizations the board to address. • Staff of other non-profits and community institutions Tip: Think long and hard about the size of the board. Large boards can be difficult to After deciding on who will be a part of your move toward consensus. Small boards inevi- community advisory board, you may wish to tably exclude important perspectives.
2 3. FORMAT WHEN DESIGNING THE FORMAT OF THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD, PLANNERS CAN USE THE FOLLOWING SIX QUESTIONS AS A GUIDE.
• Will meetings be open to the public? less convenient for staff). To accomplish • Where will meetings occur? this, many community advisory boards hold • When and how often will the board meet? meetings in the evenings, before work or • Who will lead the meetings? during lunch hour. • How will meetings be run? • How will the board be publicized? Consider how frequently your board should meet, balancing your own needs with the Public vs. Private community advisory board members’ needs. Meetings that are open to the public can Check to see that your meeting does not offer the opportunity for non-members to conflict with other community meetings in speak and share ideas. This allows wider order to maximize attendance. community participation, but depending on the goals of the meetings, may make cer- Chairing the Board tain topics inappropriate or require lengthier The convening agency or a community meetings. Meetings that are not open to member can lead the community advisory the public lose the opportunity to hear new board. The San Francisco Community Jus- voices, but may allow for more in-depth tice Center Advisory Board is chaired by the problem-solving when discussing sensitive judge who presides over the justice center’s information. Non-public meetings are gen- court calendar, whereas the New York City erally shorter than public meetings. Always Police Department Precinct Community check with local law to determine whether Councils are led by an elected president and community advisory boards are subject to board members rather than law enforcement “public meeting” requirements. personnel.
Meeting Place Running Meetings If possible, hold meetings at a location that Create protocols for the community advisory is central and convenient to the board’s board. Having a written agenda, establishing members. Architecture matters - where a timeframes, and capturing and disseminating meeting is held can determine whether it minutes are crucial tools for running efficient is productive or not. Does the room have and constructive meetings. These tools make windows? Air conditioning? Is it viewed members feel invested in the process and as neutral territory by all participants? For prevents members from feeling as though example, the Newark (NJ) Community Solu- the meetings are not meaningful or a waste tions Community Advisory Board holds its of time. meetings at a local law school because this location is more convenient than the central- Tip: If meetings include time for receiving ized courthouse. community input, be clear about how and if the feedback will be used. Managing the Timing community’s expectations will improve their Think about holding meetings at a time that trust in the community advisory board and is most convenient to the members (even will open lines of communication between if this sometimes means that they will be community members and the justice system.
3 Publicizing the Community Advisory Board Tip: Consider offering food during commu- A website or newsletter can publicize meet- nity advisory board meetings. Small items ing dates, agendas, and minutes. Creating an such as snacks or beverages may entice annual report allows the community advisory members to attend meetings, especially dur- board to publicize the board’s accomplish- ing breakfast or lunch hours. Just as impor- ments and set goals for the upcoming year. tant, food can help create atmosphere and set a welcoming tone for the gathering. 4. ACCOMPLISHMENTS COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARDS CAN FOSTER IMPROVEMENTS WITHIN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM.
These improvements should respond to the communicate new legislation’s impact on needs and concerns of community members the community. For example, when a recent and may range from enhancing responses to immigration law was passed that affected a persistent problems to opening communica- specific group of constituents, the advisory tion lines between justice agencies and the boards met with local residents to ease fears public. Here are some examples of achieve- and misconceptions about the law. ments from community advisory boards across the United States: Securing Resources Community advisory boards provide ac- Creating New Programming cess to new resources, such as funding and Community advisory boards can play an partnerships. The community advisory board important role in creating new program- of the Indianapolis Community Court helped ming – such as community service projects, identify organizations to provide on-site victim-offender discussion panels and crime services. Services that have been added at prevention strategies. After members of the suggestion of advisory board members the Midtown (NY) Community Court Com- include: providing flu shots, securing birth munity Conditions Panel expressed concern certificates and ID Cards for community over the number of illegal street vendors in court clients, and brokering relationships Midtown Manhattan, the court developed the with addiction counseling, housing, and em- Vendor Education Program, which educates ployment training providers. unlicensed vendors about city regulations and offers resources to help them access Planning Community Events services and gain legitimate employment. Local community events can be coordinated The conditions panel was instrumental in the by the community advisory board. The Over- implementation of the program and help- land Park (OR) Community Court’s Commu- ing to research and write a manual that the nity Advisory Board collaborates with local court distributes to those charged with il- law enforcement to plan and host the com- legal vending. munity’s annual National Night Out Against Crime, an event that is aimed at celebrating Improving Communications crime reduction and an improvement in the Community advisory boards can facilitate quality of life in the neighborhood. communication between the community and the criminal justice system, improving Identifying and Tackling Persistent Problems public trust in the justice system. The Mesa Community advisory boards can assist the (AZ) Police Department Chief’s Community criminal justice system in identifying persis- Advisory Boards hold town hall meetings to tent public safety problems that negatively
4 impact the community. After a member of Tip: Communicate both your accomplish- the advisory board at Bronx (NY) Commu- ments and your failures to the community. nity Solutions noticed that the Bronx was ex- Failures provide important lessons about periencing an influx of young people being public policy, helping inform the public arrested for trespassing, a partnership was about which strategies and programs work developed with the Bronx Borough Presi- and which don’t. Willingness to discuss dent’s Office to create a trespassing aware- failures in public also helps build the court’s ness curriculum in schools to deter young credibility. people from committing this crime. Tip: Consider holding a strategic planning Tip: Be creative and realistic about what the exercise each year to set the community community advisory board can accomplish. advisory board’s priorities. Keep it fresh so that the board’s projects do not become routine, especially if the board has been in existence for several years. FURTHER READING Engaging the Community: A Guide for Com- Engaging Stakeholders in Your Project munity Justice Planners www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/docu- www.courtinnovation.org/research/engaging-communi- ments/engaging_2010.pdf ty-guide-community-justice-planners ‘The Public Wants to be Involved’: A Round- Red Hook Planning Diary Excerpt: Engaging table Conversation about Community and the Community Restorative Justice www.courtinnovation.org/research/red-hook-planning- www.courtinnovation.org/research/public-wants-be- diary-excerpt-engaging-community involved-roundtable-conversation-about-community- and-restorative-justice
CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
The winner of the Peter F. Drucker Award for FOR MORE INFORMATION: Non-profit Innovation, the Center for Court Center for Court Innovation Innovation is a unique public-private part- 520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor nership that promotes new thinking about New York, New York 10018 how the justice system can solve difficult 646 386 4462 problems like addiction, quality-of-life crime, [email protected] domestic violence, and child neglect. www.courtinnovation.org
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Procedural Justice Through Design | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
author date about
Raphael Pope-Sussman 2015 This publication was supported by Grant No. 2011-DC-BX-K002 Senior Writer awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to the Center for Center for Court Innovation Court Innovation. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opin - ions in this document are those of the author and do not necessari - ly represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Photos by Michael Falco and Emily Gold LaGratta. DRUIMGSP,R COOVUINRTGS C AONUDR TNHEOIGUHSBEO SRIGHNOAOGDE S | 1
IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE: PROCEDURAL JUSTICE THROUGH DESIGN
INTRODUCTION Few government facilities are lauded for their welcoming atmosphere. Picture the typical motor vehicle department or post office with long lines, grey walls, and a cold, institutional feel. Courthouses pose particular challenges to user-friendly design given security concerns and a tradition of imposing architecture. But what if the physical atmosphere of the justice system is actually working against one of its fundamental goals? Could a more accessible and respectful atmosphere enhance the legitimacy of the courts?
Over 20 years of sociology research suggests that the answer is yes. The concept of “procedural justice” has been examined in a variety of contexts—from courthouses to corporate workplaces. The research shows that when people feel they have been respected and understand the process, they are more satisfied and more likely to accept decisions, even ones they might view as unfavorable. In the justice system, minor adjustments like helping court users to navigate a courthouse may translate into increased compliance with court orders and enhanced perceptions of legitimacy. Yet courts often remain unwelcoming and opaque to those who pass through.
A recent experiment at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn set out to test how graphic design strategies and new signs could change the look, feel, and navigability of a courthouse—and improve perceptions of fairness along the way.
RED HOOK COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTER Launched in 2000, the Red Hook Community Justice Center is a neighborhood-based court that seeks to improve public safety, reduce the use of incarceration, and promote public trust in justice. Operating out of a refurbished Catholic school in the heart of a geographically and socially isolated neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn, the Justice Center seeks to solve neighborhood problems using a coordinated response. A single judge 2 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
hears neighborhood cases from three police precincts (covering approximately 200,000 people) that under ordi - nary circumstances would go to three different courts downtown—Civil, Family, and Criminal.
In 2013, an independent evaluation conducted by the National Center for State Courts documented a range of positive results in Red Hook, including decreased use of jail and reduced re-arrest rates for participants com - pared to those whose cases were processed in a conventional court. The evaluators asserted that procedural justice might be responsible for these wins, citing the respectful interactions between the presiding judge and defendants, helpful staff, and an environment that is more welcoming than the larger, more anonymous downtown court.
As encouraging as these results were, the evaluators noted opportunities for improvement. Among their recom - mendations was providing better instructions for people entering the courthouse and information about appro - priate courtroom behavior. While the Justice Center, a 26,000 square-foot building with a single courtroom, is far smaller than many courthouses, it is home to a range of services and organizations, which visitors may not be familiar with or may have trouble finding.
“The evaluators pointed out that for a court program that was so good on the procedural justice front, we were missing an opportunity to extend this thinking to the physical plant,” says Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation.
Based on the findings of the evaluation, staff from the Center for Court Innovation set out to redesign the sig - nage at the Red Hook Community Justice Center. What follows is a description of the planning, implementation,
The security desk at the Red Hook Community Justice Center before and after the signage initiative. IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 3
Previously, visitors entering the Justice Center passed by a blank wall. That wall is now adorned with a prominent Red Hook Community Justice Center logo and the message “A Community Court Since 2000,” a reminder that this is not a traditional courthouse. and evaluation process of the signage initiative. By highlighting how this process unfolded, we hope to encour - age like-minded jurisdictions to experiment with their own signage improvement projects.
PLANNING The first step was to assemble a team. Emily Gold LaGratta, who leads procedural justice efforts at the Center for Court Innovation, identified a core group of Justice Center staff and representatives from partner organizations to help guide the project. LaGratta knew that the project would require input and buy-in to be successful. A year earlier, she had attempted to help the Milwaukee Circuit Court implement a similar signage renovation project, but red tape stalled the initiative.
Identifying needs The planning team wanted the signage initiative to focus on two primary elements of procedural justice: treating people respectfully and helping them understand key procedures.
Over several weeks, the planners spoke with a broad cross-section of the court community, including judges, attorneys, and court personnel. LaGratta says these consultations were critical for gaining early buy-in. “I think the various stakeholders were enthusiastic about this project because they really got to shape it—and saw that, in some cases, it would make their jobs easier,” she says. “People are much more amenable to change if they feel they have a seat at the table.” 4 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Questions the planners asked included:
• Are there opportunities to explain the mission and function of the Red Hook Community Justice Center to court participants? • How can courtroom rules be efficiently and respectfully explained to all court users? • How can resources be made more accessible and identifiable throughout the building? • What key terms or places need definitions or explanations? Are there words or phrases currently being used that could be rephrased to improve clarity and understanding?
The team also conducted walk-throughs of the Justice Center. While Red Hook is viewed as a national leader in community justice, the interi - or of the courthouse was less than welcoming in places. Many signs in the building were home - made, either handwritten or printed hastily on plain paper. Hallways and doors were dirty and in need of a fresh coat of paint. “The messaging coming across through the signs and environ - ment didn’t seem to match the mission of the court,” says LaGratta.
To document these conditions, the planning team took high-resolution photographs through - out the courthouse, focusing on heavily Before the signage initiative, handmade signs were a frequent sight at the Justice Center. trafficked areas like the lobby and the corridors near the courtroom. The team arranged for researchers to conduct a two-week survey of court users about their experiences in the building.
These data points would serve as a useful reference throughout the planning process and as a baseline for com - parison after the installation of the new signage.
According to LaGratta, “We began the process with some initial ideas, but we needed to understand the experi - ences of the entire spectrum of courthouse users. The Justice Center staff know the building—what’s confusing or frustrating and what’s working well—and they were able to talk about common complaints or questions from the public.” IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 5
Choosing a design partner The next step in the process was to look for help with design. The planning team wanted a graphic designer who shared their vision and understanding of improving perceptions of fairness, and who could offer innovative designs that were appropriate for the context of the justice system. Flexibility and a willingness to work collabo - ratively and iterate were musts. The views of stakeholders would have to be incorporated, and the New York State Office of Court Administration would need to sign off on the final designs.
Several local design firms submitted proposals for the project. The team selected Zago, a New York-based design shop focused on social impact. Zago had previously designed the Center for Court Innovation’s website as well as several printed publications for the Center. The designers understood the challenges and were willing to work within a relatively modest budget. Zago proposed using paid design interns as the primary workforce for the project, with supervision provided by the firm’s director.
Helping court users navigate the courthouse was a priority. Here, the cashier and court clerk window before and after the signs went up.
Setting goals To begin the design process, the planning team brought the designers to the Justice Center for a guided tour. Based on the results of their information gathering, the planning team and Zago identified three initial priorities for improving procedural justice through improved signage: create a welcoming atmosphere at the courthouse, help court users navigate the building more easily, and communicate rules and procedures Photo: TK clearly and respectfully. TK. 6 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Create a welcoming atmosphere: The Justice Center strives to improve confidence in justice, and to make the justice system more accessible, so one focus was making its mission more apparent before vis - itors even walk in the door. The simple, elegant architecture and the human scale of the building, for - merly a parochial school, feels more welcoming than traditional courthouses. But the planning team felt that additional logos and welcome signs would more clearly represent the Justice Center’s commitment to procedural justice.
Help court users navigate more easily: Improving navigability centered on two primary tasks: re-design - ing building directories and designating clear pathways to the facility’s most frequented locations. The building’s prior directory was on the main floor only. Etched in glass, it was beautiful but difficult to read and prohibitively expensive to edit, rendering it obsolete shortly after it was installed.
Communicate rules and procedures clearly and respectfully: A courthouse necessarily has many rules. Staff had developed an array of self-made signs over the years in response to frequently asked questions, as well as rules frequently broken by visitors. Flagging areas that are off-limits to the general public was another recurring need. On the first floor, many doors had a handmade “Restricted Area” sign. Changing these signs seemed like an easy opportuni - ty to respectfully articulate expectations for behavior in the building.
The project focused on adhering to fundamental design prin - ciples such as the use of a consistent, legible font type and size and placement of signs at eye level. Special care was also given to ensuring that the signs matched the existing brand - ing of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, including the use of its signature shade of red.
On a practical level, the planning team wanted the new signs to be simple, replicable, and cost-effective. Signage materials were chosen with durability and adaptability in mind. The new signs would need to be tough enough for a high-use set - ting, but affordable and easy to modify in response to changes in programming. The team also wanted designs that New signs outside the courtroom politely and clearly present rules for courtroom behavior. could be adapted for use at other local projects. IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 7
Adhering to a budget The planning team wanted the signage project to be ambitious and to visibly change the Justice Center, but they also knew they weren’t going to be able to give the entire building a makeover. A signage project was uncharted territory, and both time and money were limited. (A preliminary proposal had called for a budget almost triple the amount that was ultimately spent.) The team, with Zago’s help, sought to use affordable materials and restrict the scope of the project to control costs.
Defining parameters There were serious obstacles to changing certain kinds of signage. For example, one need identified during the information-gathering stage was the holding cell area in the basement. The planners felt that the holding cells would benefit from better messaging to The old etched glass directories were attractive but presented limited information and could not detained offenders. But they ultimately decided that crafting appro - be updated. priate messaging for these offenders would be too complex for the initial phase of the project. Addressing holding cell signage later on would allow the planners to draw on lessons from Phase One and give them more time to get the messaging right. The holding cells are also under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department, so approval would have required yet another layer of review, which might have further delayed implementation.
Dividing the work into phases After LaGratta’s experience with the Milwaukee signage project, she wanted to aim for achievable, realistic wins to start. “This was particularly important with time and money in short supply, but also to gain some credibility with key stakeholders through a ‘baby steps’ approach,” she says.
Thus the project was divided into phases. The first phase would focus on four primary tasks: re-designing building directories, des - ignating clear pathways to the facility’s most frequented locations, making the building entrance more welcoming, and creating user- New directories were made out of vinyl, which can be removed from the wall and updated easily friendly signs about building rules. Issues that could not be and inexpensively. 8 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Prominent labels were added to doors and hallways throughout the building.
addressed in Phase One, such as the signage for the holding cells, were documented, to be considered for inclu - sion in a later phase.
DRAFTING Once the planners and Zago had agreed on a rough scope for the project, they began the process of testing out designs. An early proposal included designs as well as explanations of font and color choices. The color scheme was drawn from the colors already in use around the building—the greens of the doors, the blacks and reds of the floor tiles, and the whites of the walls—to create a cohesive theme. Zago also provided maps of the court - house, as well as illustrations and renderings of the building with the proposed signage.
Consulting stakeholders The planning team carefully examined Zago’s draft designs, seeking input from relevant stakeholders when nec - essary. For example, initial drafts included a welcome sign translated into three languages other than English: Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic. The planners reached out to interpreter staff in the court system for suggestions on other languages to include on the list, based on data showing annual interpretation requests for the court. But the interpreters pointed out that given the linguistic diversity of the city—particularly in southwest Brooklyn—including languages beyond English and Spanish might grow the list to 10 or more languages. The IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 9
sign was revised to include only English and Spanish, an imperfect but necessary compromise that prioritized clarity over inclusivity.
The planning team also consulted agency partners with offices located within the Justice Center, including the Legal Aid Society and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Both requested tailored messaging for their respec - tive offices to address their specific needs. While this messaging was crafted by each agency, the tone and for - matting were consistent with the rest of the building’s signs.
Rethinking language As the project progressed, the planners identified and documented smaller challenges that needed resolving before the larger goals could be achieved. Redesigning the directories revealed that some of the room names were inherently confusing and could be improved. For example, the room that all defendants must report to after seeing the judge to complete community-based sanctions was called “Alternative Sanctions” (or “Alt Sanc” for
An important facet of the renovation was making language clear and comprehensible to visitors. The “Alternative Sanctions” depart - ment was renamed “Intake.” 10 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
short). While this name was perfectly logical to court staff, it was somewhat of a mystery to court users, particu - larly those with limited English proficiency. After much deliberation, the room was renamed “Intake”—a short and accurate description of the room’s purpose.
Some changes were controversial. Toni Bullock-Stallings, assistant deputy chief clerk at the Justice Center, pointed to a signage change in the clerk’s office. An area that had been known as the “Housing Resource Center” was relabeled “Help Desk,” even though a housing specialist still sat behind the desk. “This sign is too generic because people see it and think they can ask for help with any problem,” says Bullock-Stallings. Project planners had favored the change because the building lacks a dedicated and designated place to direct questions. “The alternative was that court users would have no one designated to answer questions, or would simply never ask questions,” says LaGratta. “Having the housing specialist triage the situation and make any necessary referrals was much more in line with the mission of the Justice Center.”
Revising along the way Originally, project planners had identified signage in the courtroom as a central focus of the first phase. They discussed creating signage that would communicate the rules of the courtroom and the goals of the Justice Center and explain to visitors frequently used terms and the role of each person in the courtroom. However, they found the process of drafting language far more complicated and freighted than they had originally envisioned. To keep the project moving forward, the team ultimately decided to limit their intervention in the courtroom to the list of posted rules, with the understanding that further changes could be explored in a later phase.
Over the course of the project, the planners reviewed and revised several drafts from the design team, offering comments, line edits to language, and suggestions. Midway through the process, stakeholders, including repre - sentatives from the Office of Court Administration, had the opportunity to offer feedback.
The original Zago proposal had suggested a timeline of 8 to 12 weeks, plus fabrication time; the project actually took much longer.
Julian Adler of the Center for Court Innovation admits that the planners’ original timeline was overly ambitious. “To do this right, we needed to have several layers of review—by Justice Center staff, partners, and the court sys - tem,” he says. “If we had skipped any one of those steps, we would have faced the possibility of our signs being removed as soon as they went up.”
FINALIZING After all of the iterations and fine-tuning, project planners and Zago brought a proposal back to the Office of Court Administration for approval. This was the final green light needed before printing. IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 11
The printing process was straightforward. The team bid out the job to three signmakers, pricing out different materials— vinyl versus plastic—for signs that would be frequently touched, such as those in hallways and on bathroom doors.
INSTALLATION The installation was scheduled over a few days. To prep the space, walls and doors were painted and old signs removed.
By the end of the first day of installation, the new signs had transformed the look and feel of the Justice Center—which presented a bit of a shock to some staff. Throughout the The old handmade signs were flimsy and the text was process, planners had been in communication with the staff often wordy and difficult to read. in the building, but some seemed initially put off by the new signs.
While the planning team had scheduled the installation for certain dates, many staff members were caught by surprise when the installation team arrived. Some expressed frustration at what they perceived as a failure of communication. “The problem dissipated once staff got used to the changes, but we definitely missed an opportunity to review the planning process and explain how staff could provide feedback going forward. We overlooked one the key tenets of procedural justice that motivated the entire project,” LaGratta says.
EVALUATION Two months after the signs were installed, researchers con - ducted a follow-up survey of court users to measure the signs’ impact. One key finding: court users were five times more like - ly to report that they found their destination using signage. Nearly one in four court users attributed feeling welcome in the Justice Center to the building’s signage, compared with just The new room signs are made of durable hard plastic and 7 percent before. communicate information through the use of simple labels and crisp, legible lettering. 12 | CENTER FOR COURT INNOVATION
Judge Alex Calabrese, who has presided over Red Hook’s courtroom since it opened in 2000, says the signs have made the Justice Center run more efficiently. He believes they make life easier for visitors, changing their per - ceptions of the court process. “Reducing confusion helps people understand that they are important to us,” Calabrese says. “These signs underscore our mission to treat everyone with respect.”
CONCLUSION The Red Hook signage project represented a new approach to procedural justice. The Center for Court Innovation had previously applied the concept to courthouse architecture, training, and program development, but it had never attempted to use signage to create a more welcoming atmosphere for visitors. In the days ahead, the Center hopes to refine its approach to courthouse signage and to look for new opportunities and new loca - tions to improve.
The new signage mirrors the Red Hook Community Justice Center’s commitment to procedural justice. IMPROVING COURTHOUSE SIGNAGE | 13
Center for Court Innovation The Center for Court Innovation is a non-profit organization that seeks to help create a more effective and humane justice system by designing and implementing operating programs, performing original research, and providing reformers around the world with the tools they need to improve public safety, reduce incarcera - tion, and enhance public trust in justice.
For more information, call 646 386 3100 or e-mail [email protected]. Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York 10018 646 386 3100 Fax 212 397 0985 www.courtinnovation.org
APRIL 2017 NEW YORK CITY’S
CINDY REDCROSS PRETRIAL SUPERVISED MELANIE SKEMER DANNIA GUZMAN RELEASE PROGRAM (MDRC) An Alternative to Bail INSHA RAHMAN JESSI LACHANCE (VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE)
cross the United States, criminal justice policymakers, practitioners, and advocates have raised concerns about the large number of peo- ple who are detained in local jails while waiting for resolution to their criminal charges. While some defendants are held because they are Adeemed likely to flee or commit additional crimes if released, many others do not pose a significant risk and are held because they cannot afford to pay the bail amount set by a judge.1 Incarcerating these relatively low-risk defendants is costly to taxpayers and disrupts the lives of defendants and their families, many of whom have low incomes and face other challenges. To address this situation, some jurisdictions are experimenting with new approaches to handling criminal cases pretrial, with the overarching goal of reducing unnecessary incarceration while maintaining public safety.
New York City’s large-scale Supervised Release (SR) program is an innovative example of this trend. The SR program gives judges the option to release some defendants who would oth- erwise have been detained due to their inability to make bail. These defendants must report regularly to a nonprofit organization in the community, from which they may also get referrals to various services based on their needs. In June 2016, the City of New York contracted with MDRC and its research partner, the Vera Institute of Justice, to conduct an evaluation of the
1 By New York statute, the only legally permissible consideration when determining bail is securing a defendant’s future appearance in court. Some jurisdictions consider other factors, including risk to public safety. BOX 1 EVALUATION OVERVIEW ing, located in the courthouse of each of the city’s five boroughs, to be arraigned in criminal court. The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and the New York At arraignment — when an arrestee is formally City Center for Economic Opportunity contracted with charged — nearly half the cases are resolved with MDRC and the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct a a guilty plea or dismissal.2 For those cases that process and impact study of the Supervised Release continue past arraignment, the judge determines (SR) program. whether to release the defendant on his or her The overarching goal of the process study is to under- own recognizance (ROR), without any financial stand and describe how SR operates in each of the five conditions; set bail as a financial assurance that boroughs of New York City. Research activities include the defendant will return to court; or remand the arraignment court observations and interviews with defendant pending trial (detain without the option judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, SR provider of bail). Approximately 70 percent of defendants staff members, and clients. in New York City receive ROR at arraignment — far more than in many jurisdictions across the The impact study will assess the effects of the pro- country3 — and when judges do set bail, the bail gram on key outcomes of interest, such as failure to amounts tend to be lower than the national appear rates, pretrial rearrests, pretrial detention, and average.4 case dispositions and sentencing, in order to determine whether the program is achieving its primary goals of Despite these relatively progressive bail practices ensuring clients’ appearance in court and maintaining in New York City, only a small proportion of public safety, while reducing the use of pretrial detention defendants for whom bail is set are able to come and reliance on money bail. The impact study will rely up with the money at arraignment. Those who are on administrative data from a variety of local and state not able to post bail are detained in jail until they agencies and will employ a quasi-experimental design. can or until their case is resolved, a process that takes an average of four months.5 On an average day, just under 10,000 inmates are incarcerated in New York City jails; over 75 percent are pre-
SR program. This brief introduces the SR program and its evaluation and provides some early find- 2 Criminal Court of the City of New York (2016). ings; Box 1 gives an overview of the study. More comprehensive evaluation results will be presented 3 New York City Criminal Justice Agency (2016); Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (2017). in future publications. 4 The median bail amount citywide was $5,000 for felony cases and $1,000 for nonfelony cases (New York City Criminal Justice Agency 2016). THE ORIGINS OF THE SUPERVISED The median bail amounts nationwide are around RELEASE PROGRAM $10,000 (Council of Economic Advisers 2015).
5 New York City Criminal Justice Agency (2016). As shown in Figure 1, after an arrest in New York Defendants may also be released on their own City, a case is processed in one of two ways: A recognizance at later court dates while awaiting person may be released from the police precinct resolution of their charges. For cases that proceed with a notice to appear in court at a later date, or to trial, the time to disposition exceeds the overall case average of four months. the individual may be brought to central book-
2 NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL FIGURE 1 1
PATH OF A CRIMINAL CASECASE ININ NEW NEW YORK YORK CITY CITY
Traditional path of criminal case in New York City
Path of criminal case with Supervised Release Final case outcome program implementation Released on (e.g., guilty plea, own acquittal, Released with court recognizance dismissal) appearance date
Bail set Court Case continued appearances Arrest Remanded Arraignment (detained Trial without bail) Case disposed (guilty plea or Court dismissal) Released receives under compliance supervision updates
Participant check-ins and Charge- Permission Interview service eligible Risk score from with referrals cases calculated defense defendant identified attorney
trial detainees, most of whom are incarcerated if they are detained in jail pretrial.8 In response to because they are unable to pay their bail.6 Regard- the low number of defendants able to post bail at less of the amount of bail set, over 40 percent arraignment, the New York City Mayor’s Office, of defendants cannot produce that amount and in partnership with other city agencies, imple- remain incarcerated for the entire time it takes to mented the SR program citywide in March 2016 as resolve their case.7 Being held in jail pretrial can an alternative to bail and an additional option for have far-reaching consequences, not only in areas judges at arraignment. such as employment and housing, but also on the outcome of a criminal case, as defendants are more The citywide SR program builds on a pilot pro- likely to plead guilty and receive harsher sentences gram that was started in 2009 by the New York City Criminal Justice Agency in Queens and expanded to Manhattan in 2013. The program,
6 Estimates are from the first half of 2016 (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice 2017).
7 New York City Criminal Justice Agency (2016). 8 Stevenson (2016).
NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL 3 which served defendants charged with selected By the end of summer 2016, SR providers were nonviolent felony offenses, operated for several staffing every arraignment court shift across the years with the goal of reducing reliance on money city, including those taking place at night or on bail and decreasing the number of people detained weekends, in order to screen potential SR cases and pretrial, while seeking to ensure high rates of accept referrals. return for defendants’ postarraignment court dates. Initial data from the beginning of 2016 showed that 86 percent and 83 percent of defend- SUPERVISED RELEASE SCREENING ants placed on supervised release in Queens and AND ENROLLMENT PROCESS Manhattan, respectively, completed the program successfully.9 Additionally, a misdemeanor-only Upon arrest, defendants are arraigned in front of supervised release pilot program was operated a judge within 24 hours. Before the arraignment by the Center for Court Innovation in Brooklyn hearing itself, the defendant is brought to cen- beginning in 2013. tral booking for processing; charges are filed in a criminal complaint by the district attorney’s office; In March 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a rap sheet (a report of the individual’s criminal a citywide expansion of the SR program to allow history) is generated; the defendant is interviewed eligible defendants in every borough the option by a staff person from CJA to determine employ- of release under supervision. The Mayor’s Office ment, school enrollment, and family or commu- convened a steering committee of key court nity ties; and the defendant meets with his or her stakeholders and administrators, including judges, attorney.10 The criminal complaint, rap sheet, and public defenders, and district attorneys from each CJA interview report are made available to pros- borough. The committee provided early input on ecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, who often how best to structure the expanded SR program rely on these materials to inform their arguments and continues to meet regularly to monitor the and decisions during the arraignment hearing. At program. The expansion of SR adds over 2,000 arraignment, it is determined whether the case will program slots to the pilot, resulting in 3,000 total be resolved via a plea or dismissal and, if the case slots citywide. The Mayor’s Office developed is continued, whether the defendant will be ROR’d, contracts with three nonprofit organizations with have bail set, or be remanded. Because this hearing extensive experience providing services through can resolve a case or determine whether an indi- the New York City courts to deliver SR: vidual will fight the charges from home or from inside jail, it is often considered by defendants • Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) in Queens and their attorneys to be one of the most critical moments in a criminal case. • Center for Court Innovation (CCI) in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island
• Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employ- ment Services (CASES) in Manhattan 10 This role played by CJA citywide is not related to the agency’s operation of the SR program in Queens. Defendant interviews take place in an area of the criminal courthouse known as the “pens,” a 9 New York City Criminal Justice Agency (2016). location separate from central booking.
4 NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL The new SR process added a few additional steps gives judges some assurance that defendants who that take place during the 20 or more hours that a may be at moderate risk for failure to appear in defendant is waiting to be arraigned (as illustrated court will be supervised in the community by a in Figure 1). Exact approaches vary slightly by social worker from one of the provider organiza- borough, but during an arraignment shift, charge- tions, be reminded of court dates, and potentially eligible cases, including nonviolent felonies and receive assistance with their needs. misdemeanors that do not involve domestic violence, are identified. Defense attorneys have A defendant who is assigned to SR meets with the option of requesting that SR providers screen a social worker from the provider agency, who charge-eligible cases using a risk assessment tool conducts a comprehensive needs assessment and developed specifically for SR that incorporates determines a check-in schedule based on supervi- data from the defendant’s rap sheet and the CJA sion level. As shown in Figure 2, supervision level interview report. The assessment is based on is determined based on the risk score calculated at risk of felony rearrest during the pretrial period. arraignment, charge type (misdemeanor versus fel- It considers eight factors, including age, num- ony), and an assessment of any aggravating factors, ber and type of prior arrests and convictions, including defendant characteristics such as having warrants, open cases, and full-time activity (for an out-of-state criminal record, unstable housing, example, employment or school). Individuals or serious mental health or substance abuse prob- whose risk is assessed as high are not eligible for lems. Participants are then required to meet with SR. If a defendant is eligible based on the charge the social worker in person one to four times per and SR risk assessment score, the SR provider, month and maintain regular phone contact (shown with defense attorney permission, interviews the in Figure 2). Social workers can also provide defendant to verify community ties and full-time referrals for community programs and services activity and to gauge the defendant’s interest in and encourage their use, although such services participating in the SR program. are voluntary for participants. The court receives regular progress reports from the SR provider at At the arraignment, the defendant appears before each court appearance. If an SR client does not the judge, and the prosecutor and defense attor- comply with the SR reporting requirements or is ney make bail arguments. The judge then decides rearrested, the provider must report this noncom- whether to ROR, set bail, remand, or, with the pliance to the court within 48 hours. introduction of the SR option, grant the defendant SR. Defendants released on their own recogni- zance leave court and can remain at home, as long SUPERVISED RELEASE ENROLLMENT as there are no new arrests or failures to appear at AND CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS subsequent court hearings. If bail is set, defendants must either pay bail or be detained in jail while From program launch in March through Decem- their charges are pending. Before the citywide ber 2016, a total of 2,402 clients entered the SR implementation of SR, ROR and setting bail were the two primary options available.11 The SR option number of very serious cases. In 2015, just 1 percent of cases that continued past arraignment were remanded (New York City Criminal Justice 11 In New York City, remand is used only for a small Agency 2016).
NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL 5 FIGUREFIGURE 2 2 SUPERVISION LEVEL DETERMINATION AND SUPERVISION LEVEL DETERMINATION AND CONTACT REQUIREMENTS CONTACT REQUIREMENTS
Supervision level guidelines Misdemeanor Felony with with aggravating aggravating Risk category Misdemeanor factorsa Felony factorsa Low 1 2 1 2 Medium low 1 2 1 2 Medium 2 3 2 3 Medium high 2 4 3 4 High Ineligible
Monthly contact requirements by supervision level
Level 1 Types of Contact Call/text message Level 2 reminders for court dates Level 3 One phone call
Level 4 One face-to-face meeting
Note: Only selected misdemeanor and nonviolent felony offenses are eligible for Supervised Release (SR). aAggravating factors include defendant characteristics such as having an out-of-state record, unstable housing, or serious mental health or substance abuse problems.
program. As shown in Figure 3, this number they believe the defendant is likely to be ROR’d, or represents just under half the defendants screened for other reasons. by providers and determined to be eligible based on their charge and risk assessment score; nearly Figure 4 shows the distribution of enrollment in all other eligible defendants were ROR’d or had the SR program across the five boroughs of New bail set. Defendants enrolled in the SR program York City. More than half the SR clients citywide are not representative of all cases flowing through were enrolled in the program in Brooklyn and the New York City criminal courts. As explained Queens (30 percent and 25 percent, respectively). above, eligibility criteria for the program auto- Defendants in Manhattan and the Bronx each matically exclude high-risk defendants and those constituted about one-fifth of the city’s SR case- charged with violent felonies. Even defendants who load. Staten Island, the least populous borough, are charge-eligible for SR may not be selected for accounted for about 7 percent of all SR clients. screening by defense attorneys and providers if These figures are proportional to the total number
6 NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL FIGUREFIGURE 33 ARRAIGNMENT ARRAIGNMEN TOUTCOMES OUTCOMES FOR FOR PROGRAM-ELIGIBLE PROGRAM-ELIGIBLE DDEFENDANTS,EFENDANTS, MARCH-DECEMBER MARCH-DECEMBER 20162016
Defendant eligible
5,271
Arraignment/Court appearancea
Released on own Supervised Release Bail set Case resolved/ Unknown/Other recognizance Disposed at arraignment 1,444 (27%) 2,402 (46%) 1,169 (22%) 165 (3%) 91 (2%)
a In rare circumstances, defendants may be released to the Supervised Release program at a later, postarraignment court appearance.
FIGURE 4 4 of arraignments in each borough in 2015, allowing for some variation. SUPERVISEDSUPERVISED RELEASE RELEASE PROGRAM PROGRAM ENROLLMENT ENROLLMENT BY BY BOROUGH,BOROUGH, MARCH MARCH-DECEMBER-DECEMBER 2016 2016 Figure 5 shows the characteristics of clients enrolled in the SR program, which are similar to Bronx the demographics of all defendants arraigned in 18% New York City.12 Over half were adults 30 years 436 Manhattan old or older. Over one-third of SR clients were 20% between 20 and 29 years old and approximately 489 10 percent were between 16 and 19 years old. Just Queens 25% under half of SR clients identified as non-His- 593 panic black (47 percent), with another 36 percent Brooklyn identifying as Hispanic of any race and about 10 30% percent as non-Hispanic white, with the remainder Staten 712 Island identifying as non-Hispanic multiracial, Asian, or 7% other. The vast majority of SR clients were male (82 172 percent). As for housing status at program entry, Total enrollment citywide = 2,402 over half of SR clients lived in market-rate rental
12 See New York City Criminal Justice Agency (2016) for more information regarding the characteristics of those arraigned citywide.
NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL 7 FIGURE 5 FIGURE 5 FIGURE 5 SUPERVISED RELEASESUPERVISEDFIGURE CLIENT 5 CHARACTERISTICS, RELEASE CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS, SUPERVISED RELEASE CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS,MARCH-DECEMBER 2016 SUPERVISEDMARCH RELEASE-DECEMBER CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS, 2016 MARCH-DECEMBER 2016 MARCH-DECEMBER 2016
Age at program entry Age at program entry Age at program entry 40+ 31.531.5 40+ 31.5 3040+-39 22.4 31.5 30-39 22.422.4 30-39 22.4 2030-2939 22.4 35.635.6 20-29 35.6 1620-1929 10.0 35.6 16-19 10.0 16-19 10.0 Percentage Percentage Gender Percentage Gender Gender Male 81.8 Male 81.8 81.8 Male 81.8 FemaleMale 16.8 81.8 Female 16.8 16.8 FemaleOther 0.6 16.8 Other 0.60.6 Other 0.6 Percentage Percentage Percentage Race/ethnicity Percentage Race/ethnicity Race/ethnicity Hispanic of any race 35.6 Hispanic of any race 35.6 35.6 Hispanic of anyBlack race 35.6 47.4 Black 47.4 Black 47.4 47.4 WhiteBlack 9.5 47.4 White 9.5 9.5 MultiracialWhite 1.3 9.5 Multiracial 1.31.3 MultiracialAsian 1.32.2 Asian 2.2 Asian 2.22.2 OtherAsian 2.24.0 Other 4.04.0 Other 4.0 Percentage Percentage Percentage Housing status at program entry Housing status at program entry Housing status at program entry Housing status at program entry Private or market-rate housing 54.9 Private or market-rate housing 54.9 Private or marketAffordable-rate housing 28.6 54.9 54.9 Affordable housing 28.6 Shelter orAffordable transitional housing living 10.6 28.6 28.6 Shelter or transitional living 10.6 Shelter or transitionalStreet homeless living 1.2 10.6 10.6 Street homeless 1.2 UnknownStreet homeless or Other 1.24.7 Unknown or Other 4.7 Unknown or Other 4.74.7 Percentage Percentage Percentage
housing or owned their own homes, and more The SR program was designed for defendants at than one-fourth resided in affordable options such moderate risk of pretrial felony rearrest. Thus it as public or Section 8 housing. About 10 percent is not surprising that at program entry, most SR lived in transitional or supportive housing or shel- clients were assessed at the medium (34 percent) ters. An eligibility criterion for SR is the confirma- or medium-high (36 percent) risk level for pretrial tion of a residential address or community contacts felony rearrest (Figure 6). Approximately one-fifth through whom clients can be reached. This may of clients were assessed at a medium-low level help explain why fewer than 1 percent of SR clients and a much smaller proportion (8 percent) were were “street homeless,” or unsheltered. determined to be low risk; a probable explanation
8 NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL FIGUREFIGURE 66 SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM ENROLLMENT SUPERVISEDBY RISK LEVEL, RELEASE MARCH-DECEMBER PROGRAM ENROLLMENT 2016 BY RISK LEVEL, MARCH-DECEMBER 2016 The extent to which courtroom stakeholders, espe- cially judges and defense attorneys, subscribe to SR can be measured through the take-up, or usage, of Medium high the program. As mentioned above, the program’s 8% Medium funding allowed for 3,000 annual slots citywide; it was expected that the program would not be 36% Medium low 21% operating at full capacity until its second year of Low operation. Between March and December 2016, the first ten months of operation, approximately 34% 2,400 participants enrolled in the program. That figure, along with reports from each of the pro- viders about the program’s capacity, indicates that take-up is higher than anticipated. In fact, provid- ers have reported needing to hire additional staff members sooner than originally planned. While the enrollment numbers suggest that the program for this small proportion is that low-risk defend- is well utilized, some stakeholders would like to see ants are more likely to receive ROR at arraignment. it used more frequently or argue for an expansion By program design, high-risk defendants are not of the eligibility criteria. eligible for SR. Judges ultimately decide which cases end up in the SR program. Judges with whom the research STAKEHOLDER AND PARTICIPANT team spoke had generally positive impressions PERSPECTIVES ON SUPERVISED of the program and believed that it added value RELEASE by providing them with an additional option for defendants whom they did not feel comfortable Information gathered by the research team simply releasing, but for whom they also did not through stakeholder interviews and site visits to want to set bail. Judges are enthusiastic about the the criminal court in each borough and to each case management services being offered to cli- of the SR providers’ community-based offices ents, believing that many could benefit from these provides an early sense of how the program is services. being integrated into arraignment processes, how supervision and case management are operating, In general, defense attorneys expressed positive and how stakeholders and participants view SR.13 opinions of SR and said they appreciated having This section gives a brief overview of these early the program as an option to help their clients findings. avoid pretrial detention. However, while sup- portive of the program overall, some defense attorneys expressed concern that some judges use SR when ROR would be more appropriate. This 13 The research team interviewed a total of 68 phenomenon, referred to as “net widening,” places individuals, including judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, provider staff members, and defendants at higher risk because they could face participants. consequences for failing to meet the SR reporting
NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL 9 requirements. Some defense attorneys also said the courtroom so that their organizations earned they believed that the SR eligibility criteria should respect from judges as well as other key parties be less restrictive, particularly in regard to charge in the courtroom. If the providers are not viewed eligibility. In sum, while some defense attorneys as having the capacity to ensure high rates of favor changes to the program, for the most part return to court, judges may be reluctant to assign they view SR as a necessary program that offers them cases in the future. For this reason, they additional opportunities for their clients. have to be careful to enroll people they believe they can work with effectively within the confines On the other side of the courtroom, prosecutors’ of the program. Case managers report different responses to the SR program were more mixed. challenges, such as high caseloads that make it Some prosecutors did not see a need for it, believ- difficult to handle the cases as thoroughly as they ing that defendants would either return for their would like. court dates or not, and that participation in the program would have no effect on this outcome. Participants who were interviewed by the research Others were more receptive, recognizing the team expressed universally positive views of the SR program’s role in reducing detention of indigent program. The vast majority believed that without defendants charged with less serious crimes. the program they would probably be in jail and Some prosecutors expressed interest in being part expressed appreciation for the opportunity to of the screening process and wanted to have the continue with their lives and face their charges option of requesting SR when they believe it to be “from the outside.” They valued the support case appropriate. managers provided, including reminders about check-in appointments and court appearances, as Provider staff members, including both court well as help understanding the status of their cases. representatives who screen defendants in arraign- A number of interviewees mentioned SR providers’ ments and case managers who supervise clients willingness to work around their schedules and to after SR has been granted, saw the SR program as lend a sympathetic ear. While not all participants a way to help prevent low-income people who are were interested in additional help, some reported facing criminal charges from being unnecessarily receiving referrals to needed services, including detained. They further focused on SR as a vehi- employment support and treatment for substance cle for providing many of these individuals with abuse and mental health problems. When asked needed supportive services. However, both court whether he felt that supervised release had any representatives and case managers reported expe- negative consequences, one participant responded, riencing challenges in performing their duties. “No, not at all. Everything is just to keep you on For example, court representatives must establish your Ps and Qs. You could’ve been in jail. You only and maintain good working relationships with have to do this once or twice per month. I’m cool judges, defense attorneys, and, to a lesser extent, with my social worker. I am glad I got [her]. She prosecutors in order to get their cooperation and, actually helps me.” ultimately, for the program to operate effectively. This effort requires building trust and carefully An emerging sentiment among stakeholders is the balancing the competing demands of each of idea that there is a “sweet spot,” or specific type, of these stakeholders. Several court representatives case that is best suited for the SR program. How- pointed to the need to maintain legitimacy in ever, there is disagreement about which types of
10 NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL defendants and cases fall into this category and ent’s next scheduled court date to see whether the how best to identify them, including the balance of client comes back into compliance to immediately responsibility for doing so. As highlighted above, issuing a bench warrant for the client’s arrest. the various stakeholders who are involved in the SR screening and program implementation pro- Finally, to the extent that implementation practices cesses have different priorities and goals, resulting differ across boroughs, the types of cases enrolled in a complex dynamic, which later reports will in the program may also differ. These variations explore further. in case characteristics and implementation could be important in understanding differences in the impacts of the SR program. Future reports will VARIATION IN PRACTICE ACROSS continue to examine the variation by borough in NEW YORK CITY BOROUGHS the implementation of the SR program.
Although the New York City Criminal Court is a citywide entity, courtroom culture and practices NEXT STEPS differ across the five boroughs. Similarly, while the SR program is overseen by a single city agency and The evaluation includes a comprehensive process has specific guidelines that apply universally, the and impact study. While some preliminary find- program is operated by three different communi- ings are shared in this brief, a process study report, ty-based organizations that have their own unique scheduled for release in late 2017, will include more cultures of practice and experience. detailed information about the implementation of the SR program. The impact study will address The process for screening cases for SR eligibility whether the program is achieving its intended goal is one key area of variation across boroughs and of reducing pretrial detention while maintaining providers. In one borough, provider court rep- court appearance rates and public safety. A report on resentatives appeared to take a more proactive the impact study findings is expected in mid-2018. screening approach, reaching out to defense coun- sel to request permission to interview charge- and risk-eligible clients whom they had prescreened, REFERENCES rather than waiting for the attorney to request that a client be screened, as was more common in other Council of Economic Advisers. 2015. Fines, Fees, boroughs. and Bail: Payments in the Criminal Justice System That Disproportionately Impact the Poor. Issue brief. Washington, DC: U.S. Executive Office of the There are also key differences in noncompliance President. reporting practices. In one borough, the pro- vider must formally appear in front of the judge Criminal Court of the City of New York. 2016. 2015 Annual Report. New York: Office of the Chief at a hearing to report that a client has missed a Clerk of New York City Criminal Court. Website: check-in, while in other boroughs an email to the www.nycourts.gov/COURTS/nyc/criminal. court will suffice. Across and within boroughs, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. 2017. “Safely response to noncompliance can vary depending Reducing the New York City Jail Population.” on the circumstances and the judge’s discretion. Accessed March 20. Website: www.justice-data. Responses range from simply waiting until the cli- nyc/safely-reducing-the-jail-population/.
NEW YORK CITY’S PRETRIAL SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BAIL 11 New York City Criminal Justice Agency. 2016. Annual The project would not have been possible without Report 2015. New York: New York City Criminal the support of several individuals and organizations, Justice Agency. Website: www.nycja.org/library.php. including Miriam Popper of MOCJ and Parker Krasney of the Center for Economic Opportunity, the project Stevenson, Megan. 2016. “Distortion of Justice: How officers overseeing the program and the evaluation. the Inability to Pay Bail Affects Case Outcomes.” Additionally, the authors would like to extend our University of Pennsylvania Law School Working gratitude to the many individuals, including judges, Paper. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Law prosecutors, defense attorneys, provider staff, and School. Website: www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/ participants, who gave generously of their time to research. help us learn about the Supervised Release program from their varied perspectives. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors thank Dan Bloom and Gordon Berlin from MDRC and staff from MOCJ for their helpful comments on this brief, as well as Jennie Kaufman This project is supported by funds provided by the for editing and Carolyn Thomas for layout and design. District Attorney of New York and administered through the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ).
Dissemination of MDRC publications is supported by the following funders that help finance MDRC’s public policy outreach and expanding efforts to communicate the results and implications of our work to policymakers, practitioners, and others: The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Ford Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Daniel and Corinne Goldman, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc., The JPB Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and The Starr Foundation.
In addition, earnings from the MDRC Endowment help sustain our dissemination efforts. Contributors to the MDRC Endowment include Alcoa Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Anheuser-Busch Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Grable Foundation, The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation, The New York Times Company Foundation, Jan Nicholson, Paul H. O’Neill Charitable Foundation, John S. Reed, Sandler Foundation, and The Stupski Family Fund, as well as other individual contributors.
The findings and conclusions in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders.
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NEW YORK CALIFORNIA 16 East 34th Street, New York, NY 10016-4326 475 14th Street, Suite 750, Oakland, CA 94612-1900 Tel: 212 532 3200; Fax: 212 684 0832 Tel: 510 663 6372; Fax: 510 844 0288 Intimate Partner Violence as a Community Problem
Community Perspectives from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
By Suvi Hynynen Lambson and Warren Reich
520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York 10018 646.386.3100 fax 212.397.0985 www.courtinnovation.org
Intimate Partner Violence as a Community Problem: Results from a Community Research Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
By Suvi Hynynen Lambson and Warren Reich
© January 2017
Center for Court Innovation 520 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York 10018 646.386.3100 fax 212.397.0985 www.courtinnovation.org
i Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice (Grant #A-4-7-002-07-50).
First and foremost, we would like to thank the people in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn who so generously participated in the community survey and focus groups. They are the true experts on this topic. Thanks to Hailey Nolasco, planner for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Anti- Violence Project for her dedication to this project. Thank you also to the surveyors: Angela Aris, Ernest Belgrave, Robert David, Jeff Drouillard, Shauna Frederick, David Grant, Gordon Halloy, Bianca Hamilton, Nicole Hinkson, Courtland Hoower, Karen Koag, Jonah Levy, Shaquan Moody, Owinosa Odia, Ginny Orue, Shneaqua Purvis, Keaunna Quick and Fawwaz Schon; and to the Police Athletic League of Bedford-Stuyvesant for providing space for the focus groups.
At the Center for Court Innovation, thank you to Nida Abbasi, Liberty Aldrich, Katie Crank, Amy Ellenbogen, Juan Ramos and Jillian Shagan for their work on this project and feedback on research instruments and this report. Thank you to Lenore Lebron, Amanda Cissner and Michael Rempel from the Research Department for their feedback and support.
Any opinions and interpretations are those of the authors or, where attributed, research participants. Moreover, where not otherwise attributed, the opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
For correspondence, please contact Suvi Hynynen Lambson, Center for Court Innovation, 520 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10018 ([email protected]).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements i Executive Summary v
Chapter 1. Introduction 9
Chapter 2. Survey Findings 13 Survey Methodology 13 Salience of IPV as a Community Problem 15 Responding to Violence 17 IPV Tolerance 18 Consequences of IPV 19 Consciousness-Raising 21
Chapter 3. Focus Group Findings 24 Focus Group Methodology 24 Understanding of Intimate Partner Violence 25 Causes of Intimate Partner Violence 26 Community Norms on Violence 28 Law Enforcement Intervention 31 Community Violence 35 Increasing Community Awareness 35
Chapter 4. Discussion 37 Victim-Offender Overlap 37 Education about IPV 37 Sex Differences 38 Cultural Norms 38 Mistrust of Police 38 Next Steps 39
Bibliography 40
Appendices 42 Appendix A. Community Survey 42 Appendix B. Focus Group Protocol 53
Executive Summary
In 2016, the Center for Court Innovation was awarded a Byrne Criminal Justice Award to study intimate partner violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Specifically, the project targeted an 18-block area surrounding the Marcy and Tompkins public housing projects. This report presents findings from a community survey and subsequent focus groups with Bedford-Stuyvesant residents. Methodology
Community Survey From April to July 2016, researchers conducted 309 surveys with residents from the target area within Bedford-Stuyvesant. Most surveys were completed in the Marcy and Tompkins Houses. Respondents were nearly evenly split by gender and were primarily black (68%) and Hispanic (22%).
Focus Groups Three focus groups were conducted with community members who expressed interest in further discussing intimate partner violence during survey collection. Focus groups were organized by respondent type, with one group for women only, one for men only, and one for female survivors of intimate partner violence. The group discussions included personal experiences of participants as well as their experiences within the community, norms surrounding intimate partner violence, and potential remedies. Findings Survey respondents did not consider intimate partner violence to be as pervasive as other forms of violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant, yet most believed that intimate partner violence is a problem that affects the community. Witnessing violence of all kinds was relatively common in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Ranking Community Problems: Gun violence was rated as the most pressing community problem with 70% of respondents rating it a “big problem.”
Executive Summary v Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence: Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents identified intimate partner violence as a big problem, and 52% saw teen dating violence as a big problem. Female respondents were more likely than males to report being personally affected by dating violence and/or intimate partner violence. For that matter, female respondents were more likely to report that they had been personally affected by 16 of 18 public safety problems on the survey.
Perception of Intimate Partner Violence as a Community Problem: More than half of the respondents (63%) believed that fights between intimate partners have an impact on the greater community at least some of the time. By contrast, 41% believed that such fighting is “nobody else’s business,” with men more likely to characterize intimate partner violence this way (50% v. 34% of women).
Tolerance for Violence: Statements reflecting norm tolerance toward intimate partner violence were generally not endorsed by survey participants, with the exception of one: two-thirds of survey respondents (67%) endorsed the view that it is acceptable to hit someone if they hit you first. Most respondents also deemed threatening someone (88%), insulting someone (79%), and yelling (64%) examples of violent behavior, although according to focus group participants, these were commonly-observed and widely- accepted behavior.
Contributing Factors: Focus group participants further identified factors that contribute to intimate partner violence in their community, including drugs and alcohol; the exacerbating involvement of other people, including friends, family members, and even strangers on the street egging on a fight; power dynamics; and pressure felt by under- employed or unemployed men.
Cycle of Violence: Several participants in the focus groups also spoke of a cycle of violence, noting that they had experienced violence at different stages of life, from childhood at the hands of parents or other adults, to later in life with intimate partners and their own children, both as a victim and as a perpetrator.
Victim-Offender Overlap: Additionally, some focus group participants identified themselves as at times having been both a victim and a perpetrator of physical and verbal abuse in intimate relationships. They saw this as something distinctly different from traditional intimate partner violence; rather, participants attributed physical (and other)
Executive Summary vi forms of abuse in some of their relationships to a lack of positive communication techniques and thus they resorted to what they had seen growing up or experienced in other relationships.
Involving Law Enforcement in Intimate Partner Violence: Most respondents (82%) said they knew what to do if they saw someone experiencing intimate partner violence. Most commonly, respondents reported they would call the police (80%). Responses varied by group: Women (91% v. 71% of men) and older respondents (84% v. 67% of those 24 years or younger) were more likely to report that they would call the police if they saw someone being hurt inside the home by someone they knew. While focus group participants expressed willingness to call the police, they did not think that the police actually did much to resolve the abuse in the long term.
Legal Ramifications of Calling the Police: Arrest was the likely outcome of calling the police, according to one-third (34%) of survey respondents. Another 23% of respondents believed there would not be any legal consequences of calling the police. Even among those who felt an arrest was likely, many (28%) did not believe any long-term consequences (e.g., prosecution) would result from the arrest. Women were more likely than men to believe that both parties would be arrested as a result of involving law enforcement; women were also more likely to believe that police involvement would be traumatizing for children.
Community-Police Relations: Some participants said that they did not trust the police and would therefore turn to others—such as family members—for help responding to intimate partner violence. Survey findings reflected general mistrust of the police, as only 20% of respondents rated community-police relations positively.
Consciousness-Raising: Responses suggest that intimate partner violence is not typically discussed “out in the open.” When it is, it is seen as a “women’s issue,” since women are more likely to talk about and receive information about intimate partner violence. People were generally at least somewhat comfortable talking about a variety of violence-related topics, including intimate partner violence. Focus group participants were familiar with intimate partner violence (though they were more familiar with the term “domestic violence”), but felt that a public awareness campaign could help to educate the community about all kinds of intimate partner violence, including verbal and emotional violence.
Executive Summary vii
Discussion Based on the results of the community survey and focus groups, we identified five specific considerations in creating an intervention to address intimate partner violence in the targeted area in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
1. Victim-Offender Overlap: Based on survey and focus group discussions, some intimate partner violence in the community appears to be “traditional,” with a clear, targeted victim and perpetrator, while other instances are “situational,” which means that the same person can sometimes be the victim and at other times be the perpetrator of violence. These shifting power dynamics may be due to the intergenerational cycle of abuse, as well as community norms that tolerate aggressive behavior. These two different dynamics both deserve to be addressed but most likely will require different interventions.
2. Education about Intimate Partner Violence: While many people recognized physical violence as intimate partner violence, other forms of intimate partner violence (e.g. emotional, verbal, financial abuse), are not necessarily viewed or treated as abuse when witnessed in the community. This finding suggests that it may be worthwhile to explore models for increasing awareness and bystander intervention through a public awareness campaign.
3. Sex Differences: There were differences between how men and women were personally affected by intimate partner violence, what they viewed as acceptable behaviors, and how to address intimate partner violence. These differences are worth considering when planning a community intervention; different messaging may be more or less effective for specific groups.
4. Cultural Norms: Prior research suggests that neighborhoods in which violence is more acceptable have an increased likelihood of intimate partner violence (Pinchevsky and Wright 2012). One finding suggested normalization of retaliatory violence and support for the privacy of family disputes. Accordingly, interventions should seek to change cultural norms about violence in the target area.
5. Mistrust of Law Enforcement: Findings indicate a community sense of mistrust of the police. Any intervention created to address intimate partner violence in the target area must consider the existing relationship between the community and law enforcement and either make an effort to improve police-community relations or create a community- based prevention program with limited or no police involvement.
Executive Summary viii Chapter 1 Introduction
On the Wednesday after Labor Day 2016, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and then- Police Commissioner William Bratton touted the preceding summer as the safest since the police department started keeping detailed records, twenty years ago. The summer months tend to be the city’s most violent, but violent crime was down in 2016, continuing a general decrease in crime over the past few years. While this was certainly good news for New Yorkers, there was one stubborn exception to this generally positive trend: intimate partner violence (IPV). Official crime statistics reveal that domestic violence has remained prevalent and intransigent, despite efforts to combat it. The New York Police Department (NYPD) reports a 34% decrease in violent crime since 2001 but only a 13% decrease in domestic violence over the same period. Thus, domestic violence represents an increasing percentage of violent crime overall.1 Furthermore, domestic violence incident reports have increased among residents of New York City Housing Authority’s public housing (NYCHA), doubling from 809 reported incidents in 2009 to 1,642 reported incidents in 2012 (Pazmino 2014). While an increase in reports of domestic violence may result from a variety of causes—for instance, increased presence of law enforcement, improved community-police communications, willingness to report—such a sizeable increase merits further exploration.
In 2016, the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence identified Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn as one of six neighborhoods with particularly high domestic violence indicators—including domestic violence-related homicide, domestic violence incident reports to the NYPD, domestic violence-indicated child abuse investigations, and domestic violence-related homelessness. As of early December 2016, a total of 4,990 Domestic Incident Reports (DIRs) had been filed by officers in the 79th Precinct (Bedford- Stuyvesant). However, rates of victim services utilization by community members were disturbingly low—only 360 victims from the 79th Precinct visited the OCDV’s Brooklyn Family Justice Center in 2014, representing just 7% of the district’s DIR filings that year.2
1 Statistics provided by the NYPD and the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence. 2 Statistics provided by the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence. It is possible—indeed, likely—that at least some of these 360 victims had repeat incidents of violence
Chapter 1 Page 9
During the same period,3 a total of 280 domestic violence incidents (6% of all DIRs in the precinct) had been filed in just the Marcy and Tompkins Houses, up 36% from last year. Of those arrested, 55% had a prior domestic violence arrest.4
Since a great deal of domestic violence is never reported to police, existing interventions— such as batterer programs and specialized community supervision—reach only the small number of abusers who are reported, arrested, convicted, and sentenced to such interventions (Catalano 2007). This is especially true in neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn where there is entrenched distrust of the police. Given the limited reach of justice system imposed offender programs, it is unreasonable to expect that these interventions will affect community norms or overall rates of domestic violence. Norm change and general prevention will require other strategies that reach much larger proportions of the community.
The Center for Court Innovation was awarded a Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation award from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 to plan a culturally appropriate, neighborhood- based and community-led approach to reducing domestic violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The first step was to research the feasibility of applying a community violence prevention model to the problem of domestic violence. Evidence based practices for preventing violent offending and changing norms around violent crime—such as “call-in” forums and the Cure Violence model—have rarely been implemented or evaluated with domestic violence offenders.5 In addition, domestic violence prevention and intervention work has largely been isolated from place-based strategies; community accountability and support have generally not been brought to bear with domestic violence offenders. Toward this end, the current project seeks to inform the development of an appropriate intimate partner violence
during this time period and are involved in more than one DIR. The 7% figure does not account for multiple victimizations; the actual percentage represented by these 360 victims may be higher than 7% of all DIRs. 3 As of December 2016. 4 Statistics provided by the NYPD, 79th Precinct. 5 There is one program, in High Point, NC called the Offender Focused Domestic Violence Initiative that implemented “focused deterrence policing” (first introduced by David Kennedy) for domestic violence cases and recently evaluated the program, finding some positive results in reduced recidivism and fewer DV calls in the area. The program was replicated in Lexington, KY with similar results (Sechrist 2016).
Chapter 1 Page 10
intervention drawing on existing community violence prevention models and specifically incorporating perceptions of IPV among members of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community.
This exploratory research includes more than 300 community surveys conducted within the limited catchment area (described further in Chapter Two), as well as more in-depth feedback provided through three follow-up focus groups with community members. Resident participants were asked their perceptions of domestic violence, including community norms, thoughts on prevention, challenges to addressing domestic violence in their community, victim needs and existing resources.
The current chapter concludes with a description of the project catchment area. Chapter Two describes the methods and findings of the community survey. Chapter Three describes methods and findings of focus groups with members of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. Chapter Four provides discussion and summary of findings and recommendations for implementation. Project Catchment Area The current catchment area for this project is an 18-square block area within the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. To date, the surveys were collected from
Chapter 1 Page 11
residents living in this area, mostly in the two large NYCHA housing developments. The focus group participants were also recruited from the prescribed catchment area.
The area is bordered by Nostrand Avenue to the west, Flushing Avenue to the north, Throop Avenue to the east, and Myrtle Avenue to the south. Two large NYCHA public housing developments are located in this area: Marcy Houses and Tompkins Houses. In 2014, the Tompkins Houses development was identified as one of the most violent housing developments citywide. As such, Tompkins Houses—along with 14 other NYCHA projects—was included in the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety. Announced in June 2014 by the de Blasio administration, this long-term, comprehensive plan dedicated $210.6 to making neighborhoods safer and reducing violence crime in NYCHA development “through more targeted law enforcement efforts, immediate physical improvements, aggressive community engagement and outreach efforts, and the expansion of work and education programs” (Fact Sheet, 2014).6
In total, the population of the catchment area is 11,241, 64% of whom live in public housing (4,389 in Marcy Houses and 2,841 in Tompkins Houses) (Performance Tracking and Analytics Department, 2016). The majority of the population within the catchment area is black (53%) or Hispanic (43%); the remaining population identifies as multiracial (2%) or other (2% - including white, Asian, American Indian). The catchment area represents about 8% of the total population (136,280) of Bedford-Stuyvesant; the population of the catchment area includes more black residents (53% v. 20%) and fewer Hispanic (43% v. 67%) and white residents (0% v. 9%) than the neighborhood overall. Nearly half (46%) of Bedford- Stuyvesant residents receive income support in the form of TANF, SSI, or Medicaid. The median income in Bedford-Stuyvesant is $39,131—considerably lower than either the city ($59,369) or borough ($44,850) medians. Median incomes in Tompkins Houses ($20,500) and Marcy Houses ($27,328) are even lower (2010 Census Data).
6 A total of 15, or 5% of all NYCHA housing developments, account for nearly 20% of violent crime in public housing were targeted through this initiative.
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Chapter 2 Survey Findings
Survey Methodology The community survey was developed based on prior community surveys conducted by the Center for Court Innovation, but adding specific questions about intimate partner violence (IPV) in the community (see the final survey instrument in Appendix A). The survey did not ask for details about personal experiences with IPV, though respondents were asked whether they had been personally affected by IPV (either experiencing it themselves or having someone close to them experience it). The overall purpose of the survey was to gauge community perceptions of IPV (e.g., nature, extent, tolerability). All questions related to IPV were reviewed by members of the Center’s Domestic Violence Programs department. The survey also included general questions not related to IPV, in order to provide a snapshot of neighborhood quality of life and potentially provide greater context for understanding results related to IPV.
In all, 309 residents completed surveys. Researchers conducted all surveys within the catchment area using a convenience sample. Potential respondents were approached at local residences, at area businesses, and on the street. Researchers went door-to-door Monday through Saturday, weather permitting and as long as volunteers were available over the course of three months to recruit survey respondents. Surveys were conducted at varying times of day in order to capture a more diverse sample. Potential respondents were provided with a general overview of the study and were told the survey would take approximately 20 minutes to complete. All survey respondents were at least 18 years of age. No personally identifying information was collected as part of the survey. Respondents were informed that participation in the research was voluntary and that they could end their participation at any time. Surveys were conducted in English and Spanish. Below are the survey results.
Sample Characteristics Table 1 provides demographic and other background characteristics of the 309 residents who completed the community survey. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 84 years old. Compared to the actual population of the catchment area, black and white residents were overrepresented in the survey responses; Hispanic residents were under-represented (26% of survey respondents v. 43% of the population). Most respondents lived in Bedford-
Chapter 2 Page 13
Stuyvesant; only 7% had a strictly professional relationship with the neighborhood. Three in four (75%) lived in public housing, and of these, 42% lived in Tompkins Houses and 31% lived in Marcy Houses. Nearly all respondents reported that English was spoken in 94%, and Spanish in 21% of households (note that respondents could select more than one language). Both this finding and the under-representation of Hispanic residents in the respondent population may be a function of project staffing; one of the 18 researchers conducting the community surveys were capable of conducting the survey in Spanish. Nearly four in ten (36%) were either married or in a serious relationship. Table 1. Survey Sample Characteristics Total Sample Size 309 Average Age 38 (range: 18-84) Male 45% Race Black 68% White 6% Hispanic 22% Other 4% More than one race 6% Relationship to Neighborhood Live 85% Work 7% Live and work 8% Languages Spoken in Household English 94% Spanish 21% Other 3% Housing Public housing (NYCHA) 75% Private home or apartment 23% Homeless or shelter 1% Relationship status Single/never married 56% Married 20% In a serious relationship 16% Divorced/separated 4% Widowed 4%
Note: Respondents could select more than one race or language.
Chapter 2 Page 14
Salience of Intimate Partner Violence as a Community Problem
Let’s talk about some issues that may exist here. After each issue I state, tell me if you think it is a big problem, minor problem, not a problem, or you don’t know in your neighborhood, and then if you feel like it is something that affects you personally. - Public Drinking - Drug Use - Gangs - Drug Selling (Public) - Drug Selling (Private) - Theft - Assault - Sexual Assault - Mugging - Gun Violence - Fighting - Bullying - Streets Need Repair - Dating Violence - Child Abuse - Prostitution - Building Repairs - Intimate Partner Violence How does your neighborhood compare to surrounding areas in terms of street violence? In the past 12 months, how often have you seen someone threatened with a weapon? How safe do you feel inside your home?
Figure 1 indicates the percentage of respondents who categorized each of a series of potential community safety concerns as a “big problem” in their neighborhood (see blue bars). In addition, the orange bars in the figure represent the percentage of respondents who reported that the problem affects them personally.7 The most frequently cited issues were gun violence, street repairs/lighting, drug use, and building repairs; each was identified as a “big problem” by 60% or more of the sample. Of these, street repairs, gun violence, and building repairs were said to affect 60% or more of respondents personally.
We further examined respondent personal experiences by sex. Female respondents were significantly more personally affected than males across 16 of the 18 problems included in the list (the two exceptions were gun violence and gangs). The largest sex difference was for fighting, with a 23-point difference between women (54%) and men (31%). The mean
7 The term “affects me personally” was used in the question so that a survey respondent would not feel like they had to disclose their own prior or current victimization to the interviewer in a setting where privacy could not be guaranteed. However, that does mean that responses to this question have limited use, since we don’t know if someone has personally experienced IPV or knows someone else who has.
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difference between females and males was 14% across the 16 problem; both dating violence (16% difference) and intimate partner violence (15%) fell near the mean. That is, female respondents were significantly more likely to have personal experience with dating and intimate partner violence.
Figure 1. Respondents Who Rank Issues as a “Big Problem” and One that Affects Them Personally
In general, IPV did not rank highly in the list of issues as an important problem: only 38% identified IPV as a “big problem” and just under one-third (30%) claimed that it affected them personally. More of survey respondents identified dating violence as a “big problem” in their community (52%). Less than half (44%) reported being personally affected by the combined dating violence/IPV issue. About as many respondents reported being personally impacted by fighting and bullying; more respondents were personally affected by gun violence and street and building repairs.
Residents were asked about their feelings of safety in their homes and in their neighborhood. The majority of residents (79%) felt that street violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant was comparable or lower than in surrounding neighborhoods. In past 12 months, 27% reported seeing someone threatened with a weapon at least once per month, with an additional 17%
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when the time span is extended to the past six months. Only 7% (9% of women; 3% of men) felt unsafe (“somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe”) inside their homes.
Responding to Violence
How likely would you be to contact the police if you saw someone being hurt? How likely would you be to contact the police if you were hurt inside your home by someone you know? If you saw someone being hurt in the neighborhood, the first thing you would do is… Call someone from a local community organization Call the police Call family and/or friends Nothing, not any of my business How would you characterize the relationship between the community and the police in the last year? Do fights at home between intimate partners (people in a romantic relationship) ever affect the greater community or spill outside? Would you know what to do if someone told you that they were experiencing abuse from their partner or if you were experiencing it yourself? What would you do?
Survey participants were asked how they would respond to violence both on the street and in the home. Most (81%) would be “somewhat” or “very likely” to contact the police if they saw someone being hurt (82% if they saw someone being hurt inside their home by someone they knew). More than six in ten (65%) indicated that calling the police would be the first thing they would do. Results to these questions varied by gender and age: Women were more likely than men to report that they would contact the police if they saw someone being hurt (89% v. 70%), or being hurt inside the home by someone they knew (91% v. 71%). Women were also more likely than men to indicate that calling the police would be the first thing they would do (75% v. 54%; men were more likely than women to call family or friends, 12% v. 5%). Older respondents were more likely than younger respondents to report that they would call the police. Nearly seven in ten (67%) of those aged 24 years or younger, compared to more than eight in ten (84%) of those 25 and older, would “likely” or “very likely” call the police if they saw someone being hurt in their neighborhood. More than half
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of respondents (63%) believed that fights at home between intimate partners “sometimes” or “often” affect the greater community.
When it came to responding to intimate partner violence, 78% of respondents (81% of women, 74% of men) indicated that they would know what to do if they or someone they knew was experiencing partner abuse. Open-ended responses to this question varied but the modal response (38%) involved calling the police or some other authority (e.g., abuse line, Safe Horizon); few (11%) said they would take action themselves, and very few (3%) would contact someone other than authorities (e.g., family). While many of the respondents indicated that they would call the police if they witnessed or experienced violence, only 20% of the sample felt that community-police relations were “good” or “very good.” This issue is explored in greater detail in the following chapter.
Intimate Partner Violence Tolerance
How much do you agree that fighting between romantic partners is a private matter? How much do you agree that fighting between family members is a private matter? How likely would you be to report a case of intimate partner violence to authorities? How much do you agree with these statements: A person who walks away from a fight is a coward or “chicken.” It’s okay to hit someone if they hit you first. It is sometimes OK for a woman to hit her husband or partner. People should not interfere in violence between romantic partners. It is sometimes OK for a man to hit his wife or partner. Is yelling a violent behavior? Threatening to hurt someone? Insulting someone?
Figure 2 shows that of the five statements reflecting a norm of tolerance toward IPV, only one (“It is OK to hit someone who hits you first”) was endorsed by more than half of respondents (67%). Just over one-third (36%) agreed that others should not interfere in violence between intimate partners. Few agreed that walking away from a fight is cowardly or “chicken;” men were more likely than women to find fault with walking away (15% v. 8%). Men were more likely than women to believe that fighting between intimates is a private matter (50% v. 34%); 41% of all respondents agreed that “fighting between romantic partners is nobody else’s business.” Yet, as noted earlier, 38% of respondents said that they
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would contact the police for an IPV incident. In addition to the questions about use of physical violence, respondents were asked whether verbal aggression qualifies as violence. The majority viewed threatening someone (88%), insulting someone (79%), and yelling (64%) as examples of violent behavior.
Figure 2. Percent Agreeing with Statements Reflecting IPV Tolerance
Taken together, results from these first sections reflect a degree of ambivalence toward IPV as a community problem. Intimate partner violence was not considered as serious or personally relevant as other forms of violence (especially among men), yet most believed that it is a problem that affects the greater community. Witnessing violence of all kinds was relatively common, and reporting violence to the police was the most common response, despite findings that police-community relations were strained. Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence
If you reported intimate partner abuse to the police, what do you think would happen?
Figure 3 shows respondents’ perceptions of the consequences of calling the police to report IPV. Respondents were allowed to select multiple responses. It is noteworthy that separation
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of the perpetrator from his or her family and cessation of abuse were deemed least likely outcomes, next to eviction. Arrest was believed to be the most probable consequence, with a total of 34% believing that an arrest would follow reporting. However, 28% believed that the arrest would ultimately not result in prosecution or other consequences. Another 23% believed that there would likely be no consequences of a report to police. Women more than men believed that calling the police would result in both parties being arrested (23% v. 16%), and that doing so would be traumatic for the children (20% v. 11%). Other anticipated responses did not significantly differ by respondent sex.
Figure 3. Anticipated Consequences of Police Notification of IPV
Respondents’ answers suggested an underlying ambivalence on the nature of IPV, similar to findings discussed above. A majority endorsed retaliatory aggression, yet believed that walking away from a fight does not make one a coward. Few thought it was acceptable to hit a spouse. Most believed one should interfere in violence between intimate partners—most likely by calling the police—and few endorsed wife-to-husband (or partner) or, especially, husband-to-wife (or partner) hitting. Threatening, insulting, and to a lesser extent yelling were also seen as violence. Yet it was not clear what respondents were likely to do if they saw intimate partners insulting or yelling at one another or hitting in retaliation. Approximately eight in ten respondents indicated they would call the police for IPV (see page 19), but respondents were uncertain of the consequences of such a call, or whether the
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consequences would be beneficial. Perhaps this reflects a lack of faith in the criminal justice system as an effective means of addressing IPV. Perhaps it reflects the general weakness of police-community relations discussed above or an underlying feeling of futility in addressing IPV, regardless of the intervention. Consciousness-Raising
Who have you heard talk about intimate partner violence? Who do you think should be responsible for talking about intimate partner violence? In your opinion, are people comfortable talking about violence between partners or in the home? How comfortable are you talking about potentially sensitive subjects (e.g., intimate partner violence, police, racism, drugs, guns)? Have you ever received any information that helped you to understand more about intimate partner violence? How likely is it than a campaign to stop or reduce intimate partner violence would actually do so?
Planners were particularly interested in finding out who in the community, if anyone, was speaking about intimate partner violence, what they were saying, and how information was disseminated. Figure 4 shows where respondents have heard about IPV. No source on the list was cited by a majority—in fact, about a quarter of respondents (27%) did not report hearing anyone discuss IPV—but by far the most common response among those who had been
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exposed to discussions about IPV was “mostly women” (38%). Younger respondents were more likely to hear parents talk about IPV. Most respondents believed in the potential effectiveness of a campaign to reduce IPV (68%) or gun violence (65%).
Figure 4. Who Have You Heard Talking About Intimate Partner Violence?
Figure 5. Percent Indicating “Very” or “Somewhat” Comfortable Discussing Sensitive Topics
Few (27%) respondents believed that other people generally are comfortable talking about IPV; yet most respondents reported feeling comfortable talking about IPV, drugs, police, racism, and to a slightly lesser extent, guns (see Figure 5). Women and men reported to being equally comfortable discussing these topics.
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Figure 6. Sources of Information about Intimate Partner Violence
Figure 6 shows the most common sources of information about IPV. Pamphlets (35%) and presentations (27%) were most common. Women were more likely than men to have received information on IPV in a presentation, pamphlet, or an IPV helpline. Open-ended responses tended toward vague references or “I don’t know” when it came to naming resources in the community to address IPV.
Yet there was some optimism about the capacity for change. Nearly seven in ten (68%) said that they believed that it was “somewhat” or “very” likely that a campaign to stop or reduce IPV would actually have a positive impact.
Taken together, our results revealed a recurring theme among respondents, namely, that IPV is not typically “out in the open.” When it is, it is usually seen as a “women’s issue,” albeit one that impacts the entire community. Women were most likely the ones to talk about, and receive information on, IPV. But responses also suggest a potential for mobilizing community action toward open discussion, consciousness-raising, and programmatic responses to violence, including IPV.
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Chapter 3 Focus Groups
After completing the community survey, researchers and program planning staff invited community members to take part in a series of four focus groups. Participants for the focus groups were selected from those survey participants who indicated that they would be interested in discussing the topic of intimate partner violence in greater depth. A total of 114 survey respondents expressed willingness to engage in further discussion.
The researchers planned four focus group sessions: (1) a female-only group; (2) a male-only group; (3) a group for survivors of intimate partner violence; and (4) an LGBTQ+ group. The LGBTQ+ group was ultimately cancelled due to lack of interest. In total, nine community members participated in the focus groups: five women and four men. All of the survivors (4) were female. While male respondents were typically older, female participants represented a wider range of ages. All focus group participants were residents of the catchment area; some had lived there their whole lives, while others were more recent transplants. All had lived in the area for more than one year. All but one of the participants lives in NYCHA Housing; that individual was also the only non-black focus group participant.
Each group was about 70 minutes long. Sessions were staffed by at least one researcher and planning staff member.8 All sessions were conducted in English. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed; analysis was conducted with the qualitative analysis software Dedoose. Each participant received a $20 cash stipend for their participation in the study. The focus group discussions covered domains including identifying IPV, underlying causes of IPV, violence in the community, responses to IPV, the role of law enforcement, and community needs. Findings are summarized below.
8 In the first session, an additional researcher was present to facilitate the focus group. The remaining sessions were facilitated mostly by one researcher, with support from an intern.
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Understanding of Intimate Partner Violence Each session began with facilitators asking participants about their understanding of intimate partner violence (IPV).9
Types of Abuse While participants usually initially cited physical violence, they were also quick to note verbal abuse as being visible in the neighborhood.
Physical abuse All of the female participants acknowledged experiencing some kind of physical violence, from hitting and choking to one participant whose partner beat her so badly that she lost an eye. Three of the women also reported that they had been physically abusive toward their partner first, with one respondent pushing a partner down the stairs and another slapping her partner. While none of the men indicated that they had personally been involved in a physically abusive relationship, they had all witnessed or heard of physical abuse among people in the community, and had been asked to intervene in at least one instance.
Threatening Both male and female participants (one male and two female) talked about being threatened with violence at some point in their relationships. Participants seemed to believe that these were legitimate threats to their safety, prompting fear.
Verbal and Emotional Abuse All of the participants reported witnessing verbal and emotional abuse in the community on a regular basis. This took the form of partners yelling and arguing with each other in public, as well as public criticism, humiliation and name- calling. Focus group participants reported that both men and women participate in this behavior, though they felt that they saw women verbally abusing their partners in public more frequently. They also expressed that they did not know how to help a man who was
9 For the purpose of the focus groups, the term domestic violence (DV) was used interchangeably with IPV, as participants seemed more familiar with that term. In general, domestic violence is a broader term that may also include violence against non-intimate family members (e.g., child abuse, elder abuse). However, in this context, it is used to refer to violence between intimates either currently or formerly in a romantic relationship. Elsewhere in the report, IPV is preferred as the term of art.
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being verbally abused, while if they saw a woman verbally abused by her partner they would intervene.
Sexual Abuse Four of the five female participants mentioned being raped at some point during the focus groups. Two were sexually assaulted by a partner; the other two were sexually assaulted by a family member when they were adolescents. Aside from their personal experiences, they did not talk about the prevalence of sexual abuse in the community in general.
Location Participants mentioned the following locations where they had experienced or witnessed violent interactions between individuals whom they believed to be intimate partners.
At Home Nearly all of the female participants said that they had been victims or perpetrators of abuse inside their own house or apartment.
In Public A few participants said that they had heard shouting and fighting on the street right outside of their apartments. One participant said that she was afraid for the sake of her children with the level of violence she heard outside of her window since she was right on the first floor and there could be shooting. It was not clear whether the shooting concern was directly related to the incidence of intimate partner violence. Others noted that they frequently witnessed couples fighting on the street and in stores, especially over money.
Overheard in Others’ Homes Participants noted that they could often hear yelling and fighting coming from open windows when walking through the Marcy Projects (the only housing complex mentioned by name). Participants also reported overhearing fights between intimates from neighboring apartments, even when their own doors and windows were closed. Causes of Intimate Partner Violence Asked to identify some underlying factors that might contribute to intimate partner violence, participants pointed to drugs and alcohol, exacerbating involvement of outside parties, and power and control.
Drugs and Alcohol Multiple focus group participants had witnessed incidents where they felt that alcohol or drug consumption led to or intensified violence. Participants suggested
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that impairment could make someone more likely to abuse, or create a potentially violent argument about the substance use.
It’s little things that trigger [arguments] more now; if the man’s drinking, if he have a drug problem, that would trigger it off even more.
[O]ne of my sisters was in that … her husband was a drinker. So that was when he want to fight, when he drinking... Sometimes it’s the woman who wants to fight. Women argue too … her husband used to be a violent guy, he drank and she don’t know how to cool him down ... [Drinking is] one of the main problems with them fighting.
Egging on by Others In two of the three focus groups, participants noted that sometimes, rather than calm a situation, the people around actually contribute to it by encouraging insults and fighting. This may not be specifically connected to intimate partner violence, but does suggest that sometimes being in a public space, among other people can potentially exacerbate a potentially violent incident.
I was at an event and a young lady was speaking about … a personal thing that … she shouldn’t have spoke[n] openly about … so the security there, they kind of quieted that down, but it escalated after the event was over … and then the police get involved with it … And then you had a whole lot of little agitators that were around her, was getting involved with it, and they was creating that situation to get mad and it worked.
Control One defining characteristic of intimate partner violence is the use of violence to exert power and establish control in the relationship (Benson et al. 2003). In each of the focus groups, participants described such use of violence or the threat of violence to prevent victims of IPV from leaving the relationship.
We had our little ups and downs and stuff, but never no hitting. This [violence] came as a shock to me. But he always said if I leave him, he’s going to kill me. I never pictured he would try to kill me for reals because [if I thought the threat was real], I would’ve got out of it.
The woman is already afraid of the man because he has put the fear in her, like you know what, I’ve been beating you ten years, why should I stop now?…
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Because a man has no problem striking a woman because he feels that [is] the only way that he can control a situation. It’s sad to say but most men use their power and fist fight judgement to controlling a woman.
Community Norms on Violence In general, participants in the focus groups expressed disapproval for perpetrators of intimate partner violence. All of the men and some of the women mentioned that it is not okay for a man to hit a woman, supporting survey findings. Participants in the men’s group brought up examples of highly-publicized incidents of intimate partner violence committed by men against women. They expressed condemnation for the men who were revealed to be abusers. However, the men also expressed hesitance to intervene in aggression between the partners, who might not respond positively to the intervention.
Cycle of Abuse One woman in the focus groups initially identified herself as a perpetrator of IPV. However, as she continued to talk, it was evident that she had also been a victim of abuse when she was younger.
I was the aggressor .... [I]t all started when I was 15, because I had a stepfather who abused me, so I hated all men, but I knew I was attracted to them. So you know, I get a boyfriend and it wasn’t on purpose that I would find out that he was weaker than me and it wasn’t in the case of being weaker, they was just raised not to hit women, so I took advantage of that. So a lot of times, and most of it started verbally, I would start cursing them out, belittling them, saying all kinds of crazy stuff and thinking it was cute, especially when I got in front of my friends. I would belittle him and say things and he’s say something and I would smack him, like really hard … I would hit him at least 15-20 times a day. Like hit him. Whether smack, sometimes I would trip him. It was really ridiculous. But it wasn’t towards him. It was a lot of aggression that I had growing up with my stepfather. When my stepfather would choke me or slap me or beat me I wouldn’t cry … I wouldn’t show him weakness … It stopped me from feeling empathy because I just felt like I had to be on the defensive. And then I would do this too because I thought that all men were like him. So it was like, you know what, when I first met you, I’m gonna let them know that I’m in charge ... and being in charge for me … was physically hitting somebody. If somebody say something I don’t like, what happen? You got slapped, you got hit. That was a way of
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keeping people in line. That was what I grew up seeing, that’s what I grew up knowing and I just put it into my relationships.
Participants also spoke about the level of violence or aggression within families and the in the neighborhood that contributed to intimate partner violence. A number of participants identified that when they were growing up, their parents beat them and beat each other, so that aggression became an acceptable resort (as noted in the quote above). Some participants still believed this was an appropriate lesson to teach children, though there were others in the group who disagreed with that perspective. Participant feedback reflected a base level of daily violence accepted in the community. One participant put it especially well:
You go outside to play and all the other kids is pushing and mushing and we ready to fight ... And then you go to … some suburban neighborhood where John and Billy and Bob and Susan and they don’t have that same interaction. And that’s something that I noticed years later, but as a kid you don’t know any better. It’s just what you know. Your mom beats you for twisting your mouth, your dad beats your mom for talking back, and it’s just a never-ending cycle. So by the time I had my son, yes I had been abused by his father, yes I had been abused in other relationships prior, but I also been the one to smack somebody and would get so angry and didn’t know how to express it verbally or in any other way then I would express it physically.
…A lot of my girlfriends to this day [ask], ‘Should you be beating your kids?’, ‘Should you be spanking your kids?’ And I’m always that voice saying, ‘No! What’s happening is, you’re teaching them aggression.’ And they’re like, ‘What do you mean?’ And they go into this whole spiel about how they need to spank in order to somehow effect change in their child as if their children, these little people, are somehow unable to be reasoned with, which is like baffling to me! Because I was smart as a kid, you didn’t have to beat me! ... I loved my mom and I wanted her approval, but that’s what she knew … She was a 15-year-old wife, 18-year-old mother of two. By the time she was in her early 20s she was a mother of three…[S]he was abused. And I think a major issue is that a lot of us don’t even recognize abuse. We think it’s normal! We think it’s normal to grow up in an environment where you get spanked for having an opinion. We think it’s normal to step outside and get accosted because you’ve earned enough money to buy nice things and how dare you walk the streets and think you can show it.
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Yeah you deserve to get your ass beat for wearing Jordans. What is that disconnect where we become so comfortable with just physically attacking one another?
Another explained:
Because honestly, it’s a cycle. My mom used to beat us in a way it wasn’t about discipline, it was her frustration, you could see it. We would get beaten.
And it’s something that you get used to, even in the same regard with your mates … I’m telling you, I’ve seen people outside the community say, ‘What in the hell? You want to beat me up? You want to fight me over a seat?’ It doesn’t make sense. Really? We must seem foreign. Why are we doing this?
I think that’s the main thing. We learn … all we know is what we see when we’re growing up. If we see mom and dad being this way, to us, that’s the right way, that’s all we know. So if our dad is yelling at our mom like crazy, we may start doing that until someone teaches us that there’s a better way to live.
Some of the focus group participants identified themselves at times as having been both a victim and a perpetrator of physical and verbal abuse in intimate relationships. They attributed this to a lack of positive communication techniques, and while part of the problem of IPV, also distinctly different from the dynamic in a relationship with one primary offender and a primary victim.
Pressure on Men In the men’s group, financial pressure and the stress of not having a job were particularly salient topics. Participants emphasized the importance of being able to provide for a family as part of the role of a man. When the men are not able to perform this role, they feel a lot of stress and pressure at home which can then lead to abuse, according to the participants in the men’s focus group.
[D]omestic violence can be peer pressure—if the man’s not making any money and there’s no food in the house, there’s no money generated to pay bills—that can drown the man or the woman into depression. I just told a story last week about the same thing, where there was the woman beating the man because he didn’t have a job and couldn’t provide for the family.
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A woman in the survivors group also spoke about the pressure faced by men of color in general:
There is, I believe, an attack on everything of color and because of it, it doesn’t just exist outside [our homes] … You have a man who you can never possibly question his manhood otherwise he’s going to lose it, because he’s being questioned every day. His manhood is being questioned every minute of every day when he’s not able to provide, when he’s not able to walk into certain arenas and he’s not able to do certain things he thinks most men should be able to do. Just on the basis of his skin tone. It’s something that, when you recognize that you can’t ignore it. You can’t act like he’s just a bad guy or she’s crazy, you have to see where it’s coming from. And until the bigger picture is somehow changed … we’re always going to have this level of hostility that exists in our homes. Law Enforcement Intervention Survey respondents were asked what they would do when confronted with intimate partner violence. Focus group participants were asked similar questions about how they had responded in the past or what they thought should be done when confronting intimate partner violence. Many reported that they had called the police for help; either for themselves or for others if they overheard fighting and worried that someone might get hurt.
Participant: When a man and a woman are fighting, I call [the police]. Facilitator: What point does it have to get to for you to call them? Participant: If he’s being like really aggressive towards her, yes I’ll call. I’m really sorry, I don’t care, call me a snitch, call me whatever you want to call me … If he yells, that’s none of my business. Physically abusive, that’s something different.
Even when participants called the police, it did not always resolve the situation.
Participant 1: If the yelling is extremely aggressive, and if there is anyone who hits … especially a kid, I won’t hesitate to call the cops. I might protect myself and not get in the middle of it, but I will go where I feel safe. Participant 2: I always call and say I feel anonymous. Give a name, no. But I’m telling you need to get over here.
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Facilitator: And what do the police do then? Participant 2: They come to the area and most of the time they keep arguing, fighting. Facilitator: So the police don’t really stop it? Participant 2: They’ll break it up but it tends to go right back to the same situation.
Retaliation Calling the police could also make things difficult for the person who makes the call.
The police knock on the … door [of the person who called police]; right after the police knock on the door, the perpetrator or the friend of the perpetrator go knock on the door too.
You have to understand also that, when you are calling the police on a domestic violence situation, you don’t know the relationship between those two people. Because sometimes you may call the police and you have both parties turn against you, [wanting you to] mind your own business.
Victim Reneges Particularly in the men’s session, participants expressed frustration that even if the police were called and the perpetrator went to jail, victims themselves frequently opted not to support prosecution or even defended perpetrators in court.
Participant 3: At least 70% [of victims] who put you in that situations [are] down in court, waiting for the judge to release [the perpetrator]. Participant 4: That’s right. They ain’t gonna press charges, they drop charges. Participant 3: … The answer is: [When] they get arrested, that’s your way out. Pack up and get out. Because if you don’t, when he comes home, he’s angry that he went through this. And the system makes him angry even more because now he’s trying to call you to drop these charges and he can’t reach you and he doesn’t know what you went downtown and told the DA ... Participant 4: You can go down to the courtroom and you can see all the cases—domestic violence—dropped, by the spouses. Being that I’m a community leader, a lot of people they call me about domestic violence. I say, ‘I’m not going to touch that. Ya’ll work it out, I’m not gonna get involved with that.’ Because by the time
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I get involved in that, [the charges have been] dropped. So I stay out of it.
Effect on Family Going to jail impacts not just the perpetrator, but also the victim and other family members. Focus group participants expressed concern that a man going to jail might lose his job, in turn hurting the financial stability of the family. Both partners and children witnessing violence might want the abuse to stop, but not want the abuser to be arrested or the criminal justice system to be involved. One man in the focus groups shared an experience he had recently with an elementary school-aged child who told him about some abuse in his home.
I only found this out through an 11-year-old kid, but he put his trust in me to not to go to the police, but to go direct to speak with his mother [the perpetrator] … I sat down with her and I explained to her. ‘[Child] told you what’s going on?’ she said. … I said, you know, beating your husband is not the answer. He doesn’t have a job, you gotta remember, this man was once working for sanitation because he got hurt … Beating him every day because he can’t provide for the family, that’s not the answer or the solution. I said I’m not going to call the police, I’m asking both of you guys to go get help because … I don’t think it’s so much the violence, [but] that you’re angry and you get into an argument, I think it’s more there’s no food in the house, there’s no bills getting paid, you’re going back and forth to court for your rent. And I say, pressure can lead to violence, the same as drugs and alcohol … And they coming to me and put this trust in me, I felt like that was a stepping stone in the right direction. And then I asked [the perpetrator], well let’s go sit down and let’s go talk to a domestic violence officer, and I explained to the officer ... I’m asking you as a personal favor, I’m trusting you as the domestic violence officer, I’m asking you please talk to both of them … I checked on them last week, so far so good, they’re going to the program, they are both participating.
No Trust in Police Another reason participants who were victims of intimate partner violence do not report it to police is that they do not trust the police because of the experiences they and those close to them have had in the past. For example, one woman mentioned that she had been raped and her treatment by the investigators made her feel revictimized.
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[T]he cop literally said … You were asking for it. You deserved it. I wasn’t even talking, I completely shut down.
Another participant felt that community members had had too many bad experiences with police to trust the justice system to do the right thing. The respondent was particularly concerned about providing alternative community resources for kids, who worry about what will happen to their family if police get involved in violence at home.
[K]ids have fear and they don’t like to share it with people that they don’t trust … Trust is not in the community anymore ... I have some kids who come to me and talk to me about their situations and I try to deal with it accordingly because, once you break a trust with a kid, they’ll never trust you again … And you can also see the fear that what [telling someone about violence] might cost, the consequences. What might happen not only to you, but to your parents, to the boyfriend, to the girlfriend … ‘If I call on my mother or my father, what’s going to happen to me?’ … The community is afraid … The community don’t mind helping out the police, but it’s the way the police structure themselves and go about doing things and about, if somebody could come up with a greater plan how to protect people instead of the police officers making a collar and the police officers going about their business.
One participant was especially adamant that she would not call the police on a man of color because of the way that men of color are dehumanized by the justice system. The participant sought alternative options to address violence.
I don’t think the first interaction should be always be: ‘Let’s get the police in here—who don’t give a damn about men of color or people of color in general— and let them handle it.’ I don’t think so. If I can interact in some way before calling the police—meaning calling his mom, calling his sister, calling his brother, calling someone within our circle who can gently in some way reason with him, I’m gonna do that … I would prefer to not see another man of color or person of color put in jail … I will never readily call the police. Never. Because I knew what would happen: They would see a black man who is aggressive and nervous and go right into being aggressive with him and that doesn’t solve anything… It doesn’t help … It’s not like they arrest them and put them in
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counseling and help them grow as human beings. They just put them in a box among other criminals.
Accountability Despite the mistrust and concerns about systemic racism expressed by several respondents, one woman was clear in her belief that perpetrators of intimate partner violence must be held accountable. Consequently, she reported that she would always call the police in such an instance.
Forget [not calling the police because you’re] a black man. You can be a white man and [if] you hit me, you’re going down. Case closed … Everybody got a mind and they can think ... They know what they’re doing and if you’re doing something wrong, you should be held responsible for your actions. It’s no if, ands, or buts ... I don’t care what color you is. You can be green or purple, figure of speech. You do something wrong, you’re supposed to be penalized ... You gotta put a stop to something. We gotta stop making excuses. Community Violence As the survey pointed out, the majority of respondents view gun violence as big problem in the neighborhood. When focus group participants were asked about the intersectionality of guns and intimate partner violence, most participants did not readily see a connection between the two. One participant reported that her ex-partner was a shooter and pulled a gun out at her during a fight. Another participant recounted an experience where he was going to threaten his ex-wife’s new partner with a gun but ultimately decided not to do so. However, one focus group participant expressed that gun violence and intimate partner violence were part of the same norms that enabled violence throughout the community.
I think it’s that level of aggression [that] we’re teaching each other as kids, as adults. I think that we were told that other individuals were not worthy or worth the respect or common courtesy to not be beaten, not be shot. And it’s kind of become a normalcy again to just pull out gun. It’s just another level of aggression ... Before they had the infiltration of like guns, it would still be little fights and the same form of aggression. It’s just escalated. … It’s still aggression and I think that it’s always going to be there unless we change the root and we teach each other from youth on how to interact.
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Increasing Community Awareness While the term intimate partner violence was unfamiliar to many of the focus group participants, they were all familiar with the term domestic violence. As described above, focus group participants could fairly accurately define domestic violence, including non- physical types of abuse. Participants mentioned several sources of information about intimate partner violence and made recommendations for increasing community awareness around the issue. Understanding how people have obtained information about intimate partner violence in the past can inform future interventions.
Media: Focus group participants mentioned news stories about IPV in both the national as well as the local news. In the men’s group, there was a discussion about the football player who hit his fiancée on camera (NFL player Ray Rice in 2014). The bulk of this conversation focused on the fiancée defending Ray Rice and still marrying him, despite the abuse. Participants also described an incident where a woman posted a picture on social media of the man who beat her daughter in order to publicly shame him. This was lauded by the men as a suitable consequence for the abuser and they indicated that the individual should be avoided.
Publicly Speaking Out: Focus group participants who had personally experienced IPV said that they tried to speak out about their experiences with others with the hope of helping them to avoid a similar situation.
School: According to focus group participants who interacted frequently with children, schools are teaching about IPV and school staff asks children if they are experiencing abuse in the home. Students are taught to identify IPV, but—at least according to the adults in the focus groups—they are hesitant to tell their teachers if there is violence at home, because they fear their parent might be arrested. The survey results suggested that younger people (18 to 24) were more likely to feel like it was appropriate to intervene in a dispute between romantic partners as opposed to older people (67% v. 57%), which could suggest a change in attitudes towards IPV.
Public Awareness Campaign: Participants suggested that it would be helpful to have a public awareness campaign to educate the community about what exactly IPV is and that it also includes verbal and emotional abuse.
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Chapter 4 Discussion
Based on the results of the community survey and focus groups, along with discussion about the findings with planning staff and community stakeholders, we have identified five specific considerations in creating an intervention to address intimate partner violence in Bedford- Stuyvesant. Victim-Offender Overlap Due to a cycle of abuse and community norms that condone aggressive behavior, it may be difficult to label one person as the “victim” and one as the “perpetrator” in the traditional sense. Instead, power dynamics between partners are often shifting. This phenomenon has been described elsewhere in the literature and, notwithstanding ongoing debates about sex symmetry in violence perpetration, there is some support for understanding some intimate partner violence as “situational,” or gender-neutral violence in response to a specific conflict that spins out of control (e.g., Pinchevsky and Wright 2012, Tillyer and Wright 2014). However, there are also instances of IPV in the community, where one partner exercises exclusive control in the relationship and uses tactics such as severe violence, economic subordination, and threats. Focus group participants identified times when they had been the victim of intimate partner violence, but also talked about times when they had been the perpetrator or the dynamic had been fluid. These two different dynamics of intimate partner violence in the community both deserve attention, but different interventions are needed, as well as a mechanism for deciding which intervention might be most appropriate. For example, a controlling perpetrator might use a restorative justice intervention such as a peacemaking circle as yet another avenue for intimidating their partner, while parties experiencing situational IPV might benefit from such an approach, where they can discuss problems and be supported by family and friends. Education about Intimate Partner Violence While many people recognize physical violence as abuse, other forms of intimate partner violence (e.g., emotional, verbal, financial abuse) are not as commonly recognized. Behavior such as insulting, yelling, and public criticism are reportedly regular occurrences in Bedford- Stuyvesant. A public awareness campaign that identifies and defines intimate partner
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violence and abuse in clear terms could go a long way towards undermining community normalization of violence and encouraging new types of communication. Survey results suggest that respondents ages 18-24 were more likely than older respondents to intervene in incidents of intimate partner violence. These findings suggest some positive impacts of programming targeted at raising awareness of intimate partner violence among young people. The New York City Department of Education has implemented a variety of prevention and social-emotional learning programs in recent years; the survey findings suggest it would be worthwhile to explore models for increasing awareness and bystander intervention throughout the community. Sex Differences The survey found that female respondents were significantly more likely than males to be personally affected by intimate partner violence (38% v. 22%). There were also sex differences in terms of what women and men viewed as acceptable behaviors. While there was some overlap, male and female focus group participants also expressed different perspectives on both the causes of intimate partner violence and ways to address intimate partner violence. These differences are worth considering in developing a community intervention; different messaging may be more or less effective for specific groups. Cultural Norms Previous studies examining the role of cultural norms surrounding violence have found that neighborhoods in which violence is more acceptable have an increased likelihood of IPV (Pinchevsky and Write 2012; Wright and Benson 2010). While cultural norms can be difficult to measure, this work focuses on whether or not family violence is deemed acceptable and/or considered a private issue. Cultural norms promoting the privacy of family matters—such as fighting—are a significant predictor of nonlethal intimate partner violence. The survey findings reveal that 41% of respondents (34% of women, 50% of men) consider fighting between intimates to be a private matter; 36% of respondents would not interfere in others’ intimate partner violence. The survey also revealed that the majority of respondents (67%) viewed retaliatory violence as acceptable. Furthermore, the focus group discussions suggested that verbal abuse was common in the neighborhood and that physical violence, while not officially condoned, was experienced by many respondents from a young age. Mistrust of Police Both the survey results and the focus group discussions confirmed that there is a sense of mistrust of the police in the community. For some, that mistrust stems from prior
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mistreatment by the police and leads to a hesitancy to turn to police for help, especially when the situation could be resolved with the help of family or friends. For others, unwillingness to call the police was due to concerns that once called, the perpetrator would be arrested and put on a path in the criminal justice system that could lead to unintended consequences (e.g., job loss, financial hardship for the family). Finally, some felt that the police were ineffective and the problem would not actually stop the abuse. People did indicate that there was a line that, if crossed, they would definitely call the police—for instance, if they witnessed a man physically assaulting a woman. However, even in cases of extreme physical abuse, focus group participants reported that they had not called the police in response to their own abuse.
Research on procedural justice has found that if police officers fail to treat citizens with respect, politeness, and fairness, citizens will lose trust in police. This has real consequences, because when citizens do not trust the police, they are less likely to cooperate with law enforcement and more likely to retaliate when they are victimized (Nix et al. 2015). Any intervention created to address intimate partner violence in the target neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant must consider the existing relationship between the community and police officers and either make an effort to improve police-community relations and provide police interventions that do not necessarily lead to prosecution, or be entirely community- based and exclude law enforcement involvement. Next Steps The next step for program planners is to use the research findings as a basis for evaluating the appropriateness of various evidence-based interventions to address the issue of intimate partner violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Planners originally considered various community violence interventions that had not yet been tested in an intimate partner violence setting as possible options. Based on the research findings, we conclude that a community violence- based program could be an appropriate intervention for addressing intimate partner violence. In the both the surveys and the focus groups, community members expressed interest in addressing intimate partner violence and building healthy relationships and improving communication. There was a mistrust of police, so a restorative justice approach which addresses community norms, rather than a top-down, call-in model would be more appropriate for addressing the problem. In addition, the intervention should also include some public education about intimate partner violence.
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Bibliography
Benson, Michael L., Greer L. Fox, Alfred DeMaris, and Judy Van Wyk. 2003. “Neighborhood Disadvantage, Individual Economic Distress and Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 19(3): 207-235.
Catalano, Shannan. 2007. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“Fact Sheet: Making New York City’s Neighborhoods and Housing Development’s Safer.” 2014. http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/336-14/fact-sheet-making-new-york- city-s-neighborhoods-housing-developments-safer#/0. Accessed 15 December 2016.
Miles-Doan, Rebecca. 1998. “Violence between Spouses and Intimates: Does Neighborhood Context Matter?” Social Forces 77(2):623-45.
Nix, Justin, Scott E. Wolfe, Jeff Rojek and Robert J. Kaminski. 2015. “Trust in the Police: The Influence of Procedural Justice and Perceived Collective Efficacy.” Crime & Delinquency 61(4): 610-40.
Pazmino, Gloria. 2014. “Report: Domestic violence key reason for rise in NYCHA crime.” Politico, http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2014/10/report-domestic- violence-key-reason-for-rise-in-nycha-crime-016570. Accessed 13 December 2016.
Performance Tracking and Analysis Department. 2016. NYCHA Development Data Book 2016. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/pdb2016.pdf. Accessed 15 December 2016.
Pinchevsky, Gillian M. and Emily M. Wright. 2012. “The Impact of Neighborhoods on Intimate Partner Violence and Victimization.” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 13(2):112-132.
Sechrist, S. M., Weil, J. D. L., & Shelton, T. L. (2016). Evaluation of the Offender Focused Domestic Violence Initiative (OFDVI) in High Point, NC and Replication in Lexington, NC. Final report for Community Oriented Policing Services, cooperative agreement number 2013-CK-WX-K028. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Bibliography Page 40
Tillyer, Marie Skubak and Emily M. Wright. 2013. “Intimate Partner Violence and the Victim-Offender Overlap.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 51(1): 29-55.
Wright, Emily M. and Michael L. Benson. 2011. “Clarifying the Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage and Collective Efficacy on Violence “Behind Closed Doors”.” Justice Quarterly 28:775-98.
Bibliography Page 41
Appendix A. Community Survey
FOR SURVEYORS: Date of Survey: ______Closest Intersection/Zone:______
Survey on Community Violence
Introduction script Hi, my name is ______. I'm a volunteer with the Bedford Stuyvesant Anti-Violence Project. We're conducting a survey to learn about the feelings and attitudes of Bedford Stuyvesant residents towards domestic violence and other forms of community violence. We want to know what you think! Participation in this survey is completely voluntary. If you do participate, your responses will be kept confidential; I don't even need to know your name. This information is for research purposes only. The survey will be about 20 minutes, and it is only for adults over 18 years old, who are residents, business owners and/or who work or go to school in Bedford Stuyvesant.
Eligibility
1) How old are you? ____years (If the person is under the age of 18, they are not eligible for the survey, thank them and move on)
2) Do you live or work in this neighborhood? Yes, live in the neighborhood Yes, work in the neighborhood only Yes live AND work in the neighborhood No (if No, person is not eligible for the survey, thank them and move on)
(if respondent is 18 or older AND answered YES to Q2, then proceed with survey below)
Demographics
3) What kind of housing do you live in? Public housing (NYCHA) Private home or apartment
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Shelter/transitional Homeless Other: ______
4) If NYCHA (public) housing, do you live in any of the following buildings? Marcy Houses Tompkins Houses I do not live in any of these buildings: o If some place other than one of these buildings, what is the closest intersection to where you live?
______and ______
5) What is your sex? Male Female Other
6) How would you describe your race/ethnic background? (check all that apply) Black/African American Latino/Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander White/Caucasian Other:______
7) What languages are spoken in your household? (check all that apply) English Spanish Other: ______
8) What is your relationship status? Single/never married Married In a serious relationship, unmarried Divorced/separated Widowed
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I am going to now begin the survey about your feelings and attitudes towards intimate partner violence and other forms of community violence. For reference throughout the survey when I say Intimate Partner Violence I mean violence that happens when one person in a romantic relationship (dating, living together, married, etc.) abuses the other. Abuse can be physical (hitting, slapping, choking), but it can also be verbal (making threats, using put downs), emotional (telling the other person they are worthless, isolating them from family or friends), or even financial (not allowing the person to control money, access money, etc.).
Community Problems/Safety
First I’m going to ask you some questions about some issues in the neighborhood. Let’s talk about some issues that may exist here. After each issue I state, tell me if you think it is a big problem, minor problem, not a problem, or you don’t know in your neighborhood, and then if you feel like it is something that affects you personally.
Big Minor Not a Don’t Affects Problem Problem Problem Know me personally
9) Public Drinking 1 2 3 4 Y/N
10) Drug Use 1 2 3 4 Y/N
11) Gangs 1 2 3 4 Y/N
12) Drug selling in public 1 2 3 4 Y/N
13) Drug selling not in public 1 2 3 4 Y/N
14) Theft 1 2 3 4 Y/N
15) Assault 1 2 3 4 Y/N
16) Sexual assault 1 2 3 4 Y/N
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17) Mugging 1 2 3 4 Y/N
18) Gun violence 1 2 3 4 Y/N
19) Fighting 1 2 3 4 Y/N
20) Bullying 1 2 3 4 Y/N
21) Street needing 1 2 3 4 Y/N repairs/poor street lighting 22) Violence between 1 2 3 4 Y/N teenagers in dating relationships 23) Child abuse 1 2 3 4 Y/N
24) Prostitution 1 2 3 4 Y/N
25) Building repairs (i.e., 1 2 3 4 Y/N broken doors, poor lighting, etc. – NYCHA only) 26) Intimate partner violence 1 2 3 4 Y/N
27) In terms of street violence (fights or confrontations that happen outside or on the streets), how do you think Bed-Stuy compares to other neighborhoods in Brooklyn? Better (less violence) Worse (more violence) About the Same
28) In the past 12 months, how often have you seen someone threatened with a weapon in the neighborhood? Almost every day Once a week Once a month Once every few months Once every six months Rarely
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Never
29) How safe do you feel inside your home? Very Safe Somewhat Safe Somewhat Unsafe Very Unsafe
30) How likely would you be to contact the police if you saw someone being hurt? Very likely Somewhat likely Somewhat unlikely Very unlikely
31) How likely would you be to contact the police if you were hurt inside your home by someone you know? Very likely Somewhat likely Somewhat unlikely Very unlikely
32) If you saw someone being hurt in your neighborhood, the first thing you would do is … Call someone from a local community organization Call the police Call family and/or friends Nothing, not any of my business Other (please specify): ______
33) How would you characterize the relationship between the community and the police in the last year? Very Positive Positive Neutral Negative Very Negative
34) Tell me how much you agree with this statement: Fighting between romantic partners is nobody else’s business. Strongly Agree Agree Disagree
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Strongly Disagree
35) Tell me how much you agree with this statement: Fighting between family members is nobody else’s business. Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
36) Do fights at home between intimate partners (people in a romantic relationship) ever affect the greater community or spill outside? Often Sometimes Never Don’t know
37) How likely would you be to report a case of intimate partner violence to authorities? Very Unlikely Unlikely Likely Very Likely Don’t Know
For the next statements, please tell me whether you: Strongly Disagree; Disagree; Agree; or Strongly Agree.
Question Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly (Vol) (Vol) Disagree Agree Don’t Refused Know A person who walks away 1 2 3 4 0 9 from a fight is a coward or “chicken.” It's okay to hit someone 1 2 3 4 0 9 who hits you first. It is sometimes OK for a 1 2 3 4 0 9 woman to hit her husband or partner. People should not interfere 1 2 3 4 0 9 in violence between romantic partners. It is sometimes OK for a 1 2 3 4 0 9 man to hit his wife or partner.
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For the next few questions, please indicate whether the best answer is: Yes, No, or whether you are Unsure.
38) Is yelling at someone an example of violent behavior? Yes No Don’t Know
39) Is threatening to hurt someone an example of violent behavior? Yes No Don’t Know
40) Is insulting someone an example of violent behavior? Yes No Don’t Know
Questions about intimate partner violence
41) Would you know what to do if someone told you that they were experiencing abuse from their partner or if you were experiencing it yourself? Yes No
42) What would you do? ______
43) What are common beliefs about intimate partner violence in your community? ______
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44) Who have you heard talk about intimate partner violence? (Mark all that apply) Clergy or other people at church Police officers Community organizations (specify: ______) Parents Other family members Mostly women Mostly men Other: ______
45) Who do you think should be responsible for talking about intimate partner violence? ______
46) In your opinion, are people comfortable talking about violence between partners or in the home? Yes No
47) Why or why not? ______
How comfortable are you talking about the following subjects:
Very Somewhat Not Avoid comfortable comfortable comfortable altogether
48) Intimate partner 1 2 3 4 violence 49) Police 1 2 3 4
50) Racism 1 2 3 4
51) Drugs 1 2 3 4
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52) Guns 1 2 3 4
53) Have you ever received any information that was helpful for you to understand more about intimate partner violence? (Mark all that apply) Presentation on Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence Pamphlet on Safety Planning Intimate partner violence helpline Information about what is intimate partner violence Other: ______
54) If you reported intimate partner abuse to the police, what do you think would happen? (Mark all that apply) Nothing The abuse would stop Police would arrest the person responsible Police would come but would not arrest the person responsible Both parties would get arrested Police would arrest the person responsible but they would be back in a day or so and things would just continue Calling the police would make the situation worse Calling the police would lead to eviction Calling the police would lead to the person responsible not being allowed to see his or her family It would be traumatic for the children Other: ______55) In your opinion, how likely is it that a campaign to stop or reduce gun violence (such as community action and events) would actually help stop or reduce gun violence? Very Likely Somewhat Likely Somewhat Unlikely Very Unlikely
56) Why do you feel this way? (Please write clearly) ______
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57) In your opinion, how likely is it that a campaign to stop or reduce intimate partner violence (such as community action and events) would actually help stop or reduce intimate partner violence? Very Likely Somewhat Likely Somewhat Unlikely Very Unlikely
58) Why do you feel this way? (Please write clearly) ______
59) What kind of help do you think a family experiencing intimate partner violence really wants? ______
60) What kind of resources currently exist in the community to address intimate partner violence?______
Thank you!!
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Note to researcher: Please separate this page from the rest of the survey.
Would you be interested in participating in a focus group about intimate partner violence in your community?
No Yes Name: ______
Telephone: ______
Email address: ______
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Appendix B. Focus Group Protocol
BED-STUY INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE FOCUS GROUP PROTOCOL
INTRODUCTION, CONSENT, and QUESTIONS: Thank you all for taking the time to meet with us. My name is ______and this is ______. [Facilitator(s) give participants time to read consent form and sign and return it to facilitator. Collect all forms and excuse individuals that choose not to participate.]
If you are willing to participate in the research at this time, I would like to remind you of your rights as a research subject before we begin:
I want to remind you that your participation is completely voluntary and will not affect any services you may be receiving from victim service programs. Keep in mind that if you participate, you may stop participating in the focus groups at any time, you can refuse to answer any question that is asked, and we will keep everything you tell us and all other information we collect in the strictest confidence. It will not be told to anyone not directly involved in the research. No part of our discussion that includes names or other identifying information will be used in any reports or presentations on this research. I also want to remind you that you all pledged to keep everything that was said today in this room—please do not repeat anything that was said to anyone else. To thank you for participating in this research, you will receive a payment of $20 whether or not you stay until the end of the group or contribute to the conversation.
Do you have any questions?
If you have any other questions about the study, or wish to receive a summary of the study when it is completed, you can call Lenore Lebron at the Center for Court Innovation (646-386-4383), who is in charge of the study.
INTRODUCTIONS: To get us started, I’d like to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves. When it’s your turn, please say just your first name. I’ll start. My name is (Name). [Go around the circle.]
(Start recording now)
We’re here to talk about intimate partner violence in this community. I know that this can be a sensitive topic and some of the things said during this conversation might be a trigger for you, so
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if you need to take a break, feel free to do so. You do not have to answer any questions you do not feel comfortable answering. We will also have a social worker available to talk to you outside.
Let’s get started.
1. Tell me what you think of when you hear the term domestic violence or intimate partner violence a. What does it look like? What forms can it take? b. Who are victims? c. Define IPV if needed
2. How visible do you think IPV is in Bed-Stuy? a. Is it something that is seen or unseen? How do you know it is occurring? b. Is it something that people talk about? Why or why not? Who is talking about it? Where does it occur? (Probe – home, outside, school?) c. Have you been affected by it?
3. What would you do/have you done when you’ve seen IPV? a. How do you recognize it? b. Is there a point when you would call the police? Why or why not? How do you decide? What happens when police are called? Is it effective? What do you think should happen? c. Are there other ways that you think you could intervene? d. What is your responsibility if you see it?
4. Aside from the couple involved, does IPV affect anyone else? How? a. What are the consequences to individuals, families, children, neighbors, etc.? Schools, jobs, churches…
5. What do you think leads to IPV? a. Are there attitudes that people have in your community that make it more likely to happen? b. In a typical case, is there an underlying source of conflict? c. Are there norms that make it more or less likely? Where do those come from?
6. Are men affected differently by this issue than women? Why is that? a. Do women and men have a different perspective on it?
7. What do you think is the message that children in this community are getting about IPV? a. Who is talking about it? What are they saying? Probe – community groups, churches, individuals, police? b. Who do you think should be talking about it? What should they be saying and why? c. What are non-verbal messages that people are sending about IPV in this community?
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d. Do you think that the message can change?
8. What do you think could be done to prevent IPV in your community? a. What resources are needed? What are the needs of victims? b. Do you think there is a way to reach men/women about this topic?
9. Is IPV connected in any way to gun violence in your community? a. Why do you think so?
10. Conclusion: Is there anything else you would like to talk about concerning IPV in your community?
DEBRIEF AND CLOSE:
Thank you all for participating today. I want to say again that what you have shared with us is confidential. No part of our discussion that includes names or other identifying information will be used in any reports or presentations on this research. I also want to remind you that you all pledged to keep everything that was said today in this room—please do not repeat anything that was said to anyone else.
Do you have any questions for me about the study we are doing?
Ok, well then we are all finished for today. I want to remind you that if you want to talk more about any of the topics we discussed today, ______. The information for your guidance counselor is on the first page of the form you signed. Thank you and have a great day! [Give each participant an envelope with $20 and have them sign the stipend log.]
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