“Facilitating Innovation in Community Justice: The Role of the Center for Court Innovation in the Community Court Movement: The Technical Assistance Role of the Community Justice Assistance Project.”

Source: (1999) Crime and Justice Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA.

This report reviews the Center for Court Innovation’s technical assistance activities related to community justice and community courts during the Center’s first 2 years of formal operation carried out by the Crime and Justice Research Institute and funded by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance in October 1996.

The Center’s goal was to promote the principles of community justice and to support efforts to change the traditional role of the courts to one that would serve the community directory and play a part in positive social change. The center has distributed information and has offered a wide range of technical assistance services to jurisdictions at various stages of interest, planning, or implementation of community justice and community courts. It has also developed publications; made site visits to the Midtown Community Court in Manhattan, New York City; and developed Internet information resources. The Center has fielded 1,573 requests for information from 202 jurisdictions since July 1996. The Center focused on generating interest in community courts in its first year of operation; the second year saw an expansion of targeted assistance efforts. Thus, the Center for Court Innovation has been able to provide a wide scope of support services in a relatively short period of time and has received positive feedback on its services. Footnotes and appended lists of information sources and 14 references