The birth of a problem-solving court.

• Position: New York - Panel Discussion

PANELISTS

Rolando Acosta Harlem Community Court

Anne Swern Office of the District Attorney for Kings County

Lisa Schreibersdorf Brooklyn Defender Services

Gloria Sosa-Lintner New York County Family Court

Rolando Acosta Harlem Community Court

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge two individuals who work with me at the Harlem Community Justice Center and who deserve recognition for a lot of the work that we do together. Obviously, the judge gets to take some of the glory, but I'm probably one of the ones who does the least work. So I want to introduce my Court Attorney, Joe Zeyes, and Hostas Sanchez, who is the Resource Coordinator.

As you know, I am the Presiding Justice of the Harlem Community Justice Center, which is a multi-jurisdictional problem-solving court serving the communities of East and Central Harlem here in New York.

The Justice Center, which opened in May of 2001, currently handles landlord-tenant proceedings in certain Upper Manhattan Zip Codes, and also juvenile delinquency proceedings that arise from arrests made in certain specified precincts in Upper Manhattan. We also have parole reentry proceedings for certain parolees who live in the community, and also have small claims actions involving residents in the community. The Justice Center also houses a Youth Court.

Now, before I begin to talk to you about the birth of the Community Justice Center, I wanted to just take a few minutes, as the first speaker, just to lay out some basic facts about the nature of a problem-solving court and the events that I believe have led to their proliferation, at least in New York.

Essentially, problem-solving courts have emerged as the result of a response to a recognized failure of the court system to effectively deal with certain types of difficult cases--that is, those cases characterized by a confluence of social, legal, and human problems.

Two prominent examples are drug cases and domestic violence cases. Problem-solving courts attempt to handle such cases differently by doing several things: seeking to achieve more tangible outcomes; relying upon the active use of judicial authority and involvement to solve problems; employing a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to resolve the case; and improving the quality and quantity of information available in the courtroom.

While some have argued that we have been experimenting with justice delivery since the 18th century, it is undeniable that a paradigm shift has taken place in the last few years, a shift which recognizes that we have a problem in our court system. The question has become really whether problem-solving courts offer resolution to that problem.

In New York, this paradigm shift has been spearheaded by the Chief Judge herself, who is clearly unwilling to put up with what she properly terms the "revolving door of justice." As the Chief Judge has stated:

In many of today's cases the traditional approach yields unsatisfying results. The addict arrested for drug dealing is adjudicated, does time, then goes right back to dealing in the street. The battered wife obtains the protective order, goes home, and is beaten again. Every legal right of the litigant is protected, court procedures follow, yet we are not making a dent in the underlying problem. Not good for the parties involved, not good for the community, not good for the courts. So problem-solving courts--or, more accurately, a problem-solving approach--is one of the Chief Judge's many answers to these difficult cases which have heretofore been proven unsolvable by the traditional approach to dispensing justice.

The Harlem Community Justice Center opened its doors in May of 2001. I know that it is always exciting to talk about the actual birth of a problem-solving court--you know, the opening ceremony, doing things differently, trying out exciting different things, trying to deliver justice differently, but what I really want to focus upon in the little time that I have remaining is not so much the actual birth of the Justice Center in Harlem, but the events and planning that led to the birth of the courthouse; that is, the embryonic stage of the Justice Center, as it were.

Although the courthouse opened in May of 2001, the actual planning began several years before that after the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone funded a study to assess the process for establishing a community-based court with on-site social services in Upper Manhattan.

The Justice Center later received generous funding from the Empowerment Zone, as well as funding from other private foundations and the state and federal government.

Both of those things were very, very important, as many of you know, the funding commitment as well as the preliminary planning prior to the birth of the problem-solving court.

Also, in Harlem the planning team understood that the success of the Justice Center was going to be largely dependent upon the full support of the community in which the Center would be located. The community itself had to buy into the innovative community-based approach to dispensing justice.

Accordingly, as part of the assessment, the planning team prior to the actual birth of the Justice Center aggressively sought out and obtained the input of various community stakeholders in Harlem--that is, elected officials, community leaders and activists, service providers, local residents, and the courts and the community. These community stakeholders knew the Harlem community a lot better than many of us did, and they identified for the planning team exactly what was needed in Harlem and what exactly would work.

You know, the truth is that in the past decade Harlem has been undergoing a remarkable period of redevelopment and economic growth. New housing construction is on the rise in that area of town. Brownstones are being restored and renovated on every other street. New businesses are opening up all over the place. Most of you know that even a former President decided to locate to 125th Street.

So, economic growth aside, Harlem also has a rich cultural history and a vibrant infrastructure of civic and religious groups. Indeed, some have, accurately I believe, referred to this extraordinary growth in Harlem as the "Harlem renaissance."

Now, the problem is that in the shadow of this wonderful renaissance are pockets of pervasive poverty, deteriorated buildings, youth crime, and widespread drug use, all of which really threaten the extraordinary growth that Harlem is experiencing. And, of course, these were the very issues which were identified by the community stakeholders with which this planning group met. And indeed, those were the same issues that were first expressed by the stakeholders, which ultimately became the priorities or the priority areas for the Justice Center.

As a result, we now have a problem-solving court in Harlem which seeks to eliminate some of the remaining obstacles to Harlem's revitalization. We are addressing youth crime, drugs, and housing, problems which, unfortunately, continue to plague the community.

Now, the Justice Center works with young people. There are two components to the work that we do with young people. The first is the Juvenile Intervention Court, where I hear cases involving neighborhood teen-agers that have been arrested for non-violent offenses. The idea of the court is to focus on young offenders at the earliest stages of delinquency, responding swiftly to offenses and linking young people to a comprehensive set of services early on in the process.

The second component is the youth-run court, where cases are presided over by a true jury of peers, other teen-agers in the neighborhood who have been trained to perform the role of judge, jury, and attorneys. The Youth Court encourages young people to take responsibility for their actions and recognize how their behavior undermines the local quality of life, thereby promoting accountability and leadership.

The other major component of the Justice Center is the Housing Court, which handles landlord-tenant proceedings in two Harlem Zip Codes, as I mentioned earlier. The Housing Court seeks to increase the stability and improve the overall health of the housing stock in Upper Manhattan, or at least in these two Zip Codes.

We do that by linking tenants to service and benefit providers, to city and state government and other local service providers. We do that to ensure that the landlord gets his rent, which moneys will hopefully be reinvested in the buildings themselves, thereby improving the housing stock. But, of course, we also seriously monitor compliance with Building Code violations or otherwise ensure that the landlord is repairing conditions as required by law.

As I said, we opened the Justice Center in May of 2001. But you should know that we implemented the various components in different stages. And indeed, we are still in the process of implementation. I really think that is the prudent way to proceed, one innovative component at a time.

I think most of you, given the audience that we have here today, understand that the problem-solving courts are going to be a work in progress. Problem-solving courts are different, they are innovative, and you have to be open to readjusting your original plans or your original timetable. Clearly, we have had to do that in Harlem a great deal. Sometimes, it may simply just turn out that the original innovative plan is not working, and you have to be open to fine-tune and adjust that plan.

Anne Swern Office of the District Attorney for Kings County

My name is Anne Swern. I am counsel to the District Attorney, Charles Hynes, of Brooklyn.

I was thinking before this morning about the name of this segment, "The Birth of a Problem-Solving Court." I was thinking about that, and I said, "You know, there are many parallels in the birth of this court to the birth of a child." I kept thinking about these parallels throughout the time that I thought about what I'd say.

I thought...