Evaluation of the Midtown Community Court in New York City, 1992-1994
Description
In October 1993, the Midtown Community Court opened as a
three-year demonstration project designed to forge links with the
community in developing a problem-solving approach to quality-of-life
offenses. The problems that this community-based courthouse sought to
address were specific to the court's midtown New York City location:
high concentration of quality-of-life crimes, broad community
dissatisfaction with court outcomes, visible signs of disorder, and
clusters of persistent high-rate offenders with serious problems,
including addiction and homelessness. This study was conducted to
evaluate how well the new court was able to dispense justice locally
and whether the establishment of the Midtown Community Court made a
difference in misdemeanor case processing. Data were collected at two
time periods for a comparative analysis. First, a baseline dataset
(Part 1, Baseline Data) was constructed from administrative records,
consisting of a ten-percent random sample of all nonfelony
arraignments in Manhattan during the 12 months prior to the opening of
the Midtown Community Court. Second, comparable administrative data
(Part 2, Comparison Data) were collected from all cases arraigned at
the Midtown Court during its first 12 months of operation, as well as
from a random sample of all downtown nonfelony arraignments held
during this same time period. Both files contain variables on precinct
of arrest, arraignment type, charges, bonds, dispositions, sentences,
total number of court appearances, and total number of warrants
issued, as well as prior felony and misdemeanor
convictions. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of
offender.
Resources
| Name |
Format |
Description |
Link |
|
0 |
ICPSR02311.v1 |
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02311.v1 |
Tags
- misdemeanor-offenses
- courts
- homelessness
- quality-of-life
- case-processing
- addiction
- communities
- offenders