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 decision to establish the Midtown
Community Court grew out of a belief that the traditional court
response to low-level offenses was neither constructive nor meaningful
to victims, defendants, or the community. 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.
This study was designed to compare case processing
and case outcomes between the Midtown Community Court and the downtown
court in light of six key decision points: (1) whether defendants
given a Desk Appearance Ticket showed up as scheduled, (2) whether the
case was disposed at arraignment or continued, (3) whether disposition
was through dismissal, adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, or
conviction, (4) whether the sentence involved an alternative sanction,
traditional sentence, or no sanction, (5) whether jail sentences were
imposed, and (6) whether sentenced offenders complied with alternative
sanctions. 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.
Random sampling.
All nonfelony arraignments in Manhattan from October 1992
to September 1994.
Court cases (with one defendant per case).
The Criminal Justice Agency, New York City and the
Department of Criminal Justice Service
administrative records data
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.
Not applicable.
None.