Problem Solving Courts and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Theorizing Community Justice Through Community Courts

Source: (2003) Fordham Urban Law Journal. 30: 897.

Jeffrey Fagan and Victoria Malkin write that community justice practitioners hold that the justice system has long ignored its biggest clients: citizens and neighborhoods suffering from the consequences of high crime levels. One response to this lack is ‘community justice.’ It consists of a set of court innovations and new practices: for example, problem-solving courts (drug courts, mental health courts, domestic violence courts, and the like); the inclusion victims and communities in the sanction process; community policing; and alternative models of dispute resolution. However, community justice goes beyond problem-solving courts to create legal institutions that bring citizens closer to legal processes. Fagan and Malking report on a community court in Brooklyn, New York: the Red Hook Community Justice Center. Through this particular example, they consider sociological perspectives in the development of community justice, a theory of social regulation and control in relation to community justice, and theoretical frameworks of community courts.