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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
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Results for community prosecution
4 results foundAuthor: Nugent-Borakove, M. Elaine Title: Exploring the Feasibilitiy and Efficacy of Performance Measures in Prosecution and Their Application to Community Prosecution Summary: How is success measured in prosecution? Is it conviction rates, the outcome of a single high profile case, a low number of plea bargains, or less crime? What information can prosecutors look to justify funding requests, respond to vague criticism of office performance, or to make management decisions? Until recently, prosecutors lacked any empirically-based guidance that adequately addressed the need for a menu of performance measures that can be used to answer these questions. In 2003, with funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), the research and development division of the National District Attorneys Association, began to tackle this issue by convening a group of experienced prosecutors, policymakers, economists, and academics to develop a performance measurement framework for prosecutors. The resulting Prosecution for the 21st Century performance measurement framework, shown in Exhibit 1, identifies measurable goals and objectives for prosecutors that are linked to a series of possible performance measures. Unlike previous attempts to define performance measures for prosecutors, the performance measurement framework is built upon a comprehensive set of goals and objectives that take into account the many different roles prosecutors undertake in their day-to-day activities. Both the traditional case processing and sanction setting roles form the foundation for the first goal to promote the fair, impartial, and expeditious pursuit of justice. Newer roles relating to more proactive problem-solving efforts and community-based prosecution are addressed largely in the second goal, to ensure safer communities. Finally, the idea of the prosecutor as a leader in the judicial system is the basis for the final goal to promote integrity in the prosecution profession and coordination in the justice system. The three goals are defined in a manner to capture the intended results of all the various functions of the local prosecutor—case processing, crime prevention and intervention, and the overall administration of justice—respecting the unique role of the prosecutor and accounting for the continual evolution of the prosecutorial function. Related to each of these goals is a series of objectives from which a menu of performance measures was generated. The framework is intended to provide a guide for performance measurement in prosecution that is tailorable to the unique situations of individual prosecutors’ offices but also broad enough to suggest appropriate measures for more large scale research on prosecution. The performance measures shown in the framework are intended to represent a menu of possible measures that an office might use depending on the office’s specific policies and practices. For example, if an office does not place defendants and/or offenders into treatment programs, measures related to placements in treatment programs would not be appropriate. Details: Alexandria, VA: National Prosecutors Research Institute, 2009. 82p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 20, 2010 at: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/227668.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/227668.pdf Shelf Number: 120028 Keywords: Community ProsecutionCourtsPerformance MeasuresProsecution |
Author: Kralstein, Dana Title: A Comprehensive Community Justice Model: An Evaluation of the Baltimore Community Justice Initiative Summary: This report evaluates an ambitious and comprehensive new community justice initiative implemented in two communities of Baltimore, Maryland beginning in late 2004. The initiative, funded by the Crane Family Foundation, aims to reach adults and youth alike, and seeks to incorporate a broad array of justice system agencies and community-based organizations. An important question is whether such a comprehensive model can produce a large and sustainable impact, both within its target communities and in the Baltimore City justice system as a whole. There were three principal components of the Baltimore Community Justice Initiative: focus on the justice system; school conflict resolution; and youth advocacy. Community Justice – Prosecution, Capacity-Building, and Collaboration This component encompassed three goals. The first goal was to develop a community prosecution project in the Hargrove District Court servicing the communities of Cherry Hill and Pigtown – and perhaps to lay the groundwork for a community court at some point in the future. The second goal was to strengthen the capacity of community organizations to become significant contributors to the ongoing discussion about justice in Baltimore. Lastly, the initiative intended to create a network of justice system and community stakeholders. During the evaluation period, from January of 2006 through August of 2007, the initiative team established a citywide network of almost 200 contacts throughout the criminal justice system as well as in the communities of Pigtown and Cherry Hill. This network met on a quarterly basis as a Task Force to discuss common issues. The team made inroads in the criminal justice community in Baltimore regarding support for the idea of a community court and gained the commitment of a State Senator to sponsor any legislation that might be required. Perhaps most significantly, the initiative helped to foster an environment that enabled other community justice projects to emerge throughout the city, including a prostitution task force, a community prosecution project, a community defense program, and the creation of the Office of Problem-Solving Courts within the Maryland judiciary. Lastly, a national symposium was held in March of 2007 at the University of Maryland School of Law to discuss community justice, engaging both local and national participants. The School of Law established itself as an effective convener. School Conflict Resolution As part of the community justice initiative, the Center for Dispute Resolution at the University of Maryland School of Law (C-DRUM) proposed to implement a demonstration project in conflict resolution at one specific school, the Southside Academy of Cherry Hill. The program was to consist of a peer mediation program, coupled with efforts to spread the philosophy and practice of alternative conflict resolution throughout the school. Beginning in the fall of 2005, C-DRUM staff began to implement the peer mediation model in Southside. The first mediation session took place in February of 2006, and a small number of other sessions were held in the course of the spring semester. Despite the efforts of C-DRUM staff, however, the peer mediation program never received the level of institutional support that was necessary from Southside Academy. In the spring of 2007, C-DRUM broke away from the Southside Academy and turned its attention to the Baltimore Freedom Academy (BFA), a high school that seemed more receptive to conflict resolution efforts. In March 2007, C-DRUM staff held a training for 13 students at the Baltimore Freedom Academy to become peer mediators. The mediation sessions began almost immediately, and 18 mediation sessions took place the first month of implementation. The students who participated in mediation sessions were surveyed at the end of the school year, and the results were mostly encouraging. In addition, a teacher survey was distributed in the spring of 2007, and teacher feedback was positive about the use of conflict management techniques within their classrooms. C-DRUM currently has plans to continue the peer mediation program as well as implement a more comprehensive conflict resolution program in the Baltimore Freedom Academy during the 2007-08 school year that would incorporate teacher training in classroom management techniques. Youth Advocacy The final component of the Baltimore Community Justice Initiative involved the piloting of a youth advocacy program within a school environment. The Community Law in Action Center (CLIA) at the University of Maryland School of Law planned to recruit a small number of teenagers to be trained in advocacy. This group of teenagers would then accompany CLIA into the Cherry Hill community to identify a specific youth safety concern on which to focus their advocacy project. Concurrent with the youth advocacy piece, CLIA would help the Southside Academy set up a youth court and a student government. However, late in the spring of 2006, the entire youth advocacy plan was rebuffed by the administration at the Southside Academy. In January of 2007, CLIA staff put together a new plan with three components: • The Youth Media Showcase was hosted by CLIA at the National Symposium on community justice at the University of Maryland School of Law. Youth from around the country were invited to send in video tapes of their vision of violence and self in the community. The youth media showcase was the opening event for Beginning in the fall of 2005, C-DRUM staff began to implement the peer mediation model in Southside. The first mediation session took place in February of 2006, and a small number of other sessions were held in the course of the spring semester. Despite the efforts of C-DRUM staff, however, the peer mediation program never received the level of institutional support that was necessary from Southside Academy. In the spring of 2007, C-DRUM broke away from the Southside Academy and turned its attention to the Baltimore Freedom Academy (BFA), a high school that seemed more receptive to conflict resolution efforts. In March 2007, C-DRUM staff held a training for 13 students at the Baltimore Freedom Academy to become peer mediators. The mediation sessions began almost immediately, and 18 mediation sessions took place the first month of implementation. The students who participated in mediation sessions were surveyed at the end of the school year, and the results were mostly encouraging. In addition, a teacher survey was distributed in the spring of 2007, and teacher feedback was positive about the use of conflict management techniques within their classrooms. C-DRUM currently has plans to continue the peer mediation program as well as implement a more comprehensive conflict resolution program in the Baltimore Freedom Academy during the 2007-08 school year that would incorporate teacher training in classroom management techniques. Youth Advocacy The final component of the Baltimore Community Justice Initiative involved the piloting of a youth advocacy program within a school environment. The Community Law in Action Center (CLIA) at the University of Maryland School of Law planned to recruit a small number of teenagers to be trained in advocacy. This group of teenagers would then accompany CLIA into the Cherry Hill community to identify a specific youth safety concern on which to focus their advocacy project. Concurrent with the youth advocacy piece, CLIA would help the Southside Academy set up a youth court and a student government. However, late in the spring of 2006, the entire youth advocacy plan was rebuffed by the administration at the Southside Academy. In January of 2007, CLIA staff put together a new plan with three components: • The Youth Media Showcase was hosted by CLIA at the National Symposium on community justice at the University of Maryland School of Law. Youth from around the country were invited to send in video tapes of their vision of violence and self in the community. The youth media showcase was the opening event for Beginning in the fall of 2005, C-DRUM staff began to implement the peer mediation model in Southside. The first mediation session took place in February of 2006, and a small number of other sessions were held in the course of the spring semester. Despite the efforts of C-DRUM staff, however, the peer mediation program never received the level of institutional support that was necessary from Southside Academy. In the spring of 2007, C-DRUM broke away from the Southside Academy and turned its attention to the Baltimore Freedom Academy (BFA), a high school that seemed more receptive to conflict resolution efforts. In March 2007, C-DRUM staff held a training for 13 students at the Baltimore Freedom Academy to become peer mediators. The mediation sessions began almost immediately, and 18 mediation sessions took place the first month of implementation. The students who participated in mediation sessions were surveyed at the end of the school year, and the results were mostly encouraging. In addition, a teacher survey was distributed in the spring of 2007, and teacher feedback was positive about the use of conflict management techniques within their classrooms. C-DRUM currently has plans to continue the peer mediation program as well as implement a more comprehensive conflict resolution program in the Baltimore Freedom Academy during the 2007-08 school year that would incorporate teacher training in classroom management techniques. Youth Advocacy The final component of the Baltimore Community Justice Initiative involved the piloting of a youth advocacy program within a school environment. The Community Law in Action Center (CLIA) at the University of Maryland School of Law planned to recruit a small number of teenagers to be trained in advocacy. This group of teenagers would then accompany CLIA into the Cherry Hill community to identify a specific youth safety concern on which to focus their advocacy project. Concurrent with the youth advocacy piece, CLIA would help the Southside Academy set up a youth court and a student government. However, late in the spring of 2006, the entire youth advocacy plan was rebuffed by the administration at the Southside Academy. In January of 2007, CLIA staff put together a new plan with three components: • The Youth Media Showcase was hosted by CLIA at the National Symposium on community justice at the University of Maryland School of Law. Youth from around the country were invited to send in video tapes of their vision of violence and self in the community. The youth media showcase was the opening event for the Symposium and was attended by more than 100 people. • Teen Leaders for Change was created in Cherry Hill by recruiting five to ten high school seniors from a different school, the New Era Academy, training them in advocacy, and then paying them to work in the community. CLIA taught the teens mapping skills and sent them out to survey the Cherry Hill neighborhood. They also linked the youth to a community-based mentoring program for kids at risk for gang involvement. • CLIA also recruited a group of youth for Pigtown advocacy. The youth were charged with walking the community streets to identify code violations, writing up their work into a report and giving a public presentation of their findings. Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2007. 67p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 18, 2012 at: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/Baltimore_Eval.pdf Year: 2007 Country: United States URL: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/Baltimore_Eval.pdf Shelf Number: 125670 Keywords: Community Justice (Baltimore)Community ParticipationCommunity ProsecutionCommunity-Based ProgramsCriminal Justice SystemsDispute SettlementYouth Advocacy Programs |
Author: Giblin, Matthew J. Title: Understanding Influence Across Justice Agencies: The Spread of "Community Reforms" from Law Enforcement to Prosecutor Summary: Within the last few decades, police departments and prosecutors' offices innovated with new policies and practices, particularly those stressing the community (i.e., community policing, community prosecution). Although organizational innovation has been empirically researched within the discipline of criminal justice, most of these studies focused on the police in isolation from the other components of the criminal justice system. These valuable studies have identified several factors that are associated with innovation including those both internal and external to organizations, but researchers have rarely considered the influence of the policies and practices of other criminal justice agencies. Police and prosecutors, even though interconnected and part of the same system, are studied individually and the cross-component effects of other agencies within the criminal justice system have not received much attention in the literature. This study explores the innovation of community prosecution using organizational predictors typically associated with innovation while also including measures of community policing within the jurisdiction of the prosecutors' offices. Community policing practices of the agencies within the jurisdiction are potentially powerful influences on community prosecution. Using data from the 2001 and 2005 waves of the National Prosecutors Survey and the 2000 and 2003 waves of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, analyses show that community reforms are not connected across system components. Several possible explanations are offered to account for these findings. Details: Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2014. 87p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 19, 2014 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/245945.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/245945.pdf Shelf Number: 132523 Keywords: Community JusticeCommunity PolicingCommunity ProsecutionCourt ReformPartnershipsProsecutors |
Author: Tallon, Jennifer A. Title: The Intelligence-Driven Prosecution Model: A Case Study in the New York County District Attorney’s Office Summary: Designed and implemented by the New York County District Attorney's Office (DANY), the Intelligence-Driven Prosecution Model (IDPM) is a novel prosecutorial strategy rooted in the rigorous collection of background information about the people, places, and problems driving crime in specific neighborhoods. Through enhanced information gathering— including close coordination with local law enforcement and robust community outreach— the IDPM intends to facilitate improved prosecutorial decision-making. Though technologycentered intelligence collection concerning the specific people and places driving crime adds a unique dimension to data analysis, the model is better understood as a logical extension of earlier community prosecution initiatives dating back to the late 1980s and 1990s. With funding from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, this study aims to document how the IDPM operates, and explore the model's implementation and effects in New York County, known more widely as the borough of Manhattan. Study methods included intensive document review, interviews with key District Attorney's Office staff and community stakeholders, a quantitative survey of assistant district attorneys regarding their knowledge and use of intelligence gathered in connection with the model, and an impact analysis concerning the effects of the model on bail recommendations, charging, case disposition, and sentencing outcomes. Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2016. 92p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2017 at: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/IDPM_Research_Report_FINAL.PDF Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/IDPM_Research_Report_FINAL.PDF Shelf Number: 147377 Keywords: Community ProsecutionCriminal ProsecutionIntelligence-GatheringProsecution |