Community court

In the United States and several other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa, a community court is a neighborhood-focused problem-solving court that applies a problem-solving approach to local crime and safety concerns. Community courts can take many forms, but all strive to create new relationships, both within the justice system and with outside stakeholders such as residents, merchants, churches and schools. Community courts emphasize collaboration, crime prevention, and improved outcomes, including lower recidivism and safer communities. Community courts are also sometimes referred to as community or neighborhood justice centers.

In Australia, a community court is the name given to “indigenous court” proceedings conducted in the Magistrates Court of the Northern Territory. Australia also has a Neighbourhood Justice Centre in Collingwood, Victoria, based on the U.S.-style community court.

The first community court in the United States was the Midtown Community Court, launched in 1993 in New York City. The court, which serves the Times Square neighborhood of Manhattan, targets quality-of-life offenses, such as prostitution, illegal vending, graffiti, shoplifting, farebeating, and vandalism.

Operated as a public/private partnership among the New York State Unified Court System, New York City, and the Center for Court Innovation the court initially opened as a three-year demonstration project, designed to test the ability of criminal courts to forge closer links with the community and develop a collaborative problem-solving approach to quality-of-life offenses.

The Midtown Court experiment was born of a profound frustration with the conventional response to quality-of-life crime. Supporters of the initiative, which included justice system innovators, business leaders and neighborhood residents, felt that the justice system did not take community concerns seriously. They also felt that a court could use its leverage to more effectively address the causes and conditions that contribute to crime.

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