Andree Mattix, director of social services at Orleans
Parish District Attorney’s Office, discusses how a customized technology application helps her staff
track data and clients in the D.A.’s diversion, victim-witness, and domestic violence programs.

ROBERT
V. WOLF:  Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation, and today’s New
Thinking podcast is focusing on technology, specifically how the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office in New
Orleans uses technology to implement programming and track data. With me on the phone is Andree Mattix, director
of social services at Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office. Thanks for joining me today.

ANDREE
MATTIX:  Thank you for having me, Robert.

WOLF:  I understand that a few years
ago you found out about the data management systems that our technology team here at the Center for Court Innovation
developed for several of our programs, and you asked our technology experts to help you guys adapt the system for
your own programming. So I thought maybe you could give a little background. What is your programming like and what
kind of technology were you looking for?

MATTIX:  I came into the District Attorney’s
Office shortly after this particular district attorney took office, which was at the end of 2008, and when we came
into our offices—this was post-hurricane Katrina—we really didn’t have an office at that time. We were trying to
put our office building back together and trying to figure out what the previous administration had, didn’t have.
And one of the things that I found in my divisions, which are victim witness, diversion, and domestic violence, was
that there was no way of tracking data. There was no database at all. No technology was being used, it was all paper
and pencil files and I had come from a world where that was just not okay. So I had done a lot of reporting to the
federal government with the drug court program I was with and I knew that we were going to be looking at expanding
all of our programming, and that we would need a way to track our data for programming purposes, but also for funder
purposes and for anything that we would need in the future, as well as what we were doing right now. So that’s when
I started researching possible ways that we could do that. We also had no money to do it. I started looking into
Red Hook’s system so I reached out to CCI and I said, you know, is that something we could possibly get in on? 
So we figured out a way that we could do it for very little money.

WOLF:  So that was
the system that was being used at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, New York, which our team here
at the Center for Court Innovation helped design. So they adapted that program for you?

MATTIX: 
They did. They were able to work with me and my staff. We went back and forth a lot about what parts of that program
would be really good for us, and what parts of the program weren’t really necessary. We were able to take some things
out and they were able to extract New York’s data, an allow for us some new data fields that we would need, and create
a system that I was able to keep separate for each of the three programs, but still was pretty much the same system.
But I had special things that were needed in each one and CCI was really good about coming in and working with me
about the special needs for the different programs while still keeping it similar, and it wasn’t a huge undertaking
to create, you know, three different programs.

WOLF: Maybe you can give me a sense of what the
program does for you that you find most helpful?

MATTIX:  Probably the intake component,
especially with my diversion group, is definitely the most utilized for sure, and diversion uses all aspects of the
program. The most, I would say, without question. The other two programs, victim witness and domestic violence use
it for tracking out clients, tracking our client contacts, and for establishing the demographic information and being
able to kind of pull that out when I need to report to different people about what’s going on with the system and,
you know, funders as well as to city council, the mayor, governor’s office, legislature, anybody who needs to know
how many victims are we serving, what’s the domestic violence problem like in New Orleans. But they use it as well
in somewhat the same capacity as diversion does, is that same information is entered so that we have a way to quickly
find an individual, find their addresses, find their phone numbers, the case manager or the counselor having to actually
be here.

WOLF:  And were there any challenge to bringing the technology into your work?

MATTIX:  Obviously there were some changes, but there were a lot of changes happening at the same
time, so there was kind of a culture of change around here. So because of that it was a little easier. A lot of the
staff coming in were a lot more friendly with technology than some of the longstanding people that had been around
for awhile. So it still was a little bit teaching them, but it’s a fairly user-friendly program.

WOLF: 
Did it help you track results, compliance?  Can you come up with figures and sort of summarize outcomes
in that way?

MATTIX:  I can and it’s particularly useful with diversion because we do
look at the number of people who successfully complete the program, as well as the people who do not complete the
program. And then I have different tracks of that program, so we’re comparing one program to another on the outcomes.
And then we’re able to take the successful completion, the information that we get from there to actually run recidivism
through another, you know obviously it’s through a police computer, but we use the demographic information from JCA
to be able to get the successful completion demographics to run the recidivism. So that’s been really helpful because
we do have fairly low recidivism rates and we’re very excited about that, because we believe that shows that what
we’re doing is working.

WOLF:  And just for our listeners, JCA stands for…

MATTIX:  Justice Center Application. It’s just you all’s name, not ours, and that’s what we call
it.

WOLF:  Are there any challenges around confidentiality?  Does it have to
be – are the names blanked out, or is that not necessary?

MATTIX:  It’s not necessary
because only the people in my division have access to the database, so the attorneys in the office don’t have access
to my database. Secretaries in the office don’t have access to my database. Only the counselors and social workers
under my three different divisions actually can access it, and they can’t – so for instance, victim witness can’t
access diversion, and domestic violence can’t access victim witness, and that’s done for the sake of confidentiality.

WOLF:  Is that all password protected?  Is that how it works?

MATTIX: 
It is, and it actually prompts us to change our password very frequently. It just gets challenging to keep thinking
of new ones, but I think everyone’s kind of got a system now.

WOLF:  The whole world
has to come up with new passwords all the time.

MATTIX:  Yeah, but there are so many
everywhere, so we all know to keep track.

WOLF:  So just overall, how has technology
improved your work?  I mean does it save you time?  Does it save money?  Has it allowed
you to know certain things, or measure certain things that you couldn’t do very easily before?

MATTIX: 
Absolutely. There is no – I can’t even imagine us being able to do the volume of work that we do without this system.
You know, when I first came in, we only had 200 people in diversion and now we have almost 1,000 people in diversion.
So being able to do statistics on 200 people is a lot different than on almost 1,000 people. So being able to get
that data very quickly, at our fingertips, has just been critical to being able to do our quarterly reports, as well
as being able to provide just anyone in the community with information about our program. And the same thing for
victim witness, and domestic violence. Our victim witness program is over 2,000 people at any given time. There’s
just simply no way to do that by hand.

WOLF:  And just to give me a sense of what your
diversion program is like, who are the clients that you have?  What are they being asked to do and what
are the charges that they had been facing?

MATTIX:  We have two tracks of diversion.
Our track one program is designed for property offenders. It is for people who have really never been in trouble
before. They have to pay restitution, their restitution can’t be over 1000 dollars. They are with us, usually, from
nine to 12 months, and they typically cannot have substance abuse or mental health problems to be in track one. They
can still be in diversion, but they have to move to track two, and track two is – and these are all felony offenses,
that’s all we deal with. We don’t deal with misdemeanors in my diversion program. So track two is primarily substance
abuse related offenses, and it is a two year program. They come in, they work with their counselors. I have master’s
level counselors and social workers. We provide individual case management counseling, as well as we do group counseling
four days a week in our office. So some clients come to those groups, some clients go to outside groups, some clients
are in residential treatment. It really just kind of depends on the individual’s needs. But they come in, we do an
assessment, and part of that assessment is built into JCA so we’re able to ask those questions and get that information
up front while we’re doing that intake, so that we can kind of assess where we’re going to need to send this person,
what is this person going to need to be successful in the program. We will help them with employment, with school,
anything that is going to help them stay on the right track. And so JCA is going to be logging their drug tests,
it’s going to be – we have them for drug tests too. It’s going to be logging each of the individual visits, and it’s
also when they come for group counseling, that’ll be logged in there as well.

WOLF: 
Wow, so it’s really keeping track of a lot of clients who, it sounds like, are involved in a lot of different possible
treatment options.

MATTIX:  Oh yeah. Our program is pretty extensive.

WOLF:
Well thank you very much. I think you’ve given a clear picture of how the Justice Center Application works in your
office, and how you’ve adapted it to your particular needs, there at the Orleans Parrish District Attorney’s office.

MATTIX:  Thank you for giving me a chance to speak with you about it.

ROB WOLF: 
I’ve been talking with Andree Mattix, director of social services at Orleans Parrish District Attorney’s Office about
their technology application that they use to track their participants in their various social service programs.
I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. To listen to other New Thinking podcasts,
please visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org. You can also listen to our podcasts on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

(October 2013)

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Judge Michael
Bordallo of the Family Violence Court in Guam discusses his specialized court, including challenges and
opportunities faced by the court and stakeholders. The judge also offers a unique perspective on responding to domestic
violence in an island community. (September 2013)

KATIE CRANK: 
Hi, this is Katie Crank, from the Center for Court Innovation’s domestic violence team.  Following
is a New Thinking podcast with Judge Michael Bordallo of the Guam Family Violence Court.  The conversation
was recorded in September of 2012.

CRANK:  Hello, I am here in Guam as part of the national
training and technical assistance that our office provides through the Office on Violence Against Women’s Court
Enhancement and Training Grant funding stream.  Today I’m speaking with Judge Michael Bordallo, who
presides over the day to day operations of Guam’s Family Violence Court.  Thanks so much for taking
the time to speak with me today.

JUDGE MICHAEL BORDALLO:  You’re welcome and welcome
to Guam.

CRANK:  Thank you.  So Guam is a U.S. territory in the Western Pacific
Ocean with a population of around 160,000 and you have a diverse culture here with a mix of native Chamorro residents,
Filipino, Pacific Islanders, Asian, white, and we’re wondering if there are any specific issues that are really
a challenge to the court in addressing domestic violence with these populations. 

BORDALLO: 
Well I think the biggest challenge when we have the diverse cultures is language.  For the local, for the
Chamorro population it’s not as big an issue because most of us speak English and all the schools, everything
is conducted in English, but the rest of the Asian Pacific Islander population, and to some extent even for the Filipino,
and we have some Koreans and Chinese, a lot of them speak little to no English.  So those groups are a little
bit harder.  With the Pacific Islanders, we have enough of a defendant population that we can actually bring
in, for instance we conduct groups in Chuukese, which is their native tongue, so we’re fortunate enough to have
counselors who speak the language – and unfortunately there’s enough of them to form a group and so that issue
is addressed there.  I think the harder ones would be, for instance, even the Filipino or the Chinese or
the Koreans, where then we need to have translators for each of those defendants.  So language is the primary
issue.  There are some cultural issues – to what degree is family violence defined?  Whether it’s
acceptable or not acceptable, and those form part of the counseling issues that are addressed.

CRANK: 
Can you tell me a little bit more about the specialized docket that you have, that’s dedicated to domestic violence
or family violence cases?  Your court, as we mentioned, is the recipient of an OVW Courts Enhancement and
Training Grant, and in a lot of domestic violence courts and calendars on the mainland, those courts handle misdemeanor
criminal domestic violence cases, or civil orders of protection, or they’ve created an integrated domestic violence
court.  So can you tell us just a little bit more about your family violence court and some of the procedures
that are particular to your work here in Guam?

BORDALLO:  I think our work here would
be defined as an integrated domestic violence court.  For instance, my docket would include all civil protection
order cases, which we’ve designated as protective order cases, and those used to be defined by cohabitants,
so you had to have lived with the respondent.  Now it’s been expanded to include almost any kind of
family relationship, whether they’re living together now or not.  I also would handle all of the civil
restraining orders, which is even broader in terms of relationships.  It’s integrated so any domestic
case between the same parties, for instance, in a protective order case, whether that domestic case was filed before
or after the civil protection case would also be assigned or reassigned to the court, so it’s one family, one
judge, and then obviously all of the domestic violence misdemeanor as well as felony cases are assigned to this court. 
So basically I’m doing almost 100 percent domestic family violence, either in the criminal setting or the civil
setting, just about all my docket time.  We’re general jurisdiction judges, so I still have my own
share of regular domestic cases, regular civil cases, but all [of my] criminal cases are family violence cases.

CRANK:  Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to preside over this specialized family
violence court?

BORDALLO:  Our system here on Guam is that we have seven superior court
judges and we rotate assignments.  So prior to coming onto this, I was in charge of the adult drug court. 
So we serve, right now we serve three year rotations, so I’m in the first year of a three year rotation on family
violence.  And so in the past we’ve just drawn at random which assignment the judges will take with
the understanding that everybody rotates around so that you do all the different assignments.  And we have
several treatment courts.  We have a mental health court, we have a drug court, we have this, we have the
juvenile drug courts, and we have started a DUI court, but we’re still finalizing some of the aspects of that.

CRANK:  Then shifting gears a little bit, can you tell me how the resource coordinator assists
the family violence court?

BORDALLO:  She’s been on for two and a half – or two years,
almost, I think, and I’ve only been on for a year so she is in charge of everything with the Family Violence
Court.  She’s my liaison to the community.  She’s also in charge of reviewing and processing
the program that we provide to the clients, ensuring to the greatest extent possible that we are using the latest
available evidence-based techniques, whether it’s in terms of, for instance, things as little as how the plea
agreements – we’ve just had a recent, I think pretty substantive change in law where we’ve gone from a
diversion to a deferred plea, so she has to coordinate that.  She also spends a lot of time reporting to
people on our progress.

CRANK:  Can you tell us what’s an example of a lesson learned,
just in your experience in the year that you’ve been on the Family Violence Court, what’s a lesson learned?

BORDALLO:  Well I think, you know, number one the biggest benefit that I have received is in terms
of training.  And that again goes, that’s part of Siiri’s[kc1] 
role as the coordinator here, is to make sure the judges are up to date on the training and, and I think the number
one thing is the approach and understanding, first of all, of your knowledge of what a family violence case involves,
and the dynamics.  And I gave an example – there’s a conference going on out here and I gave just a
really simple example of that, just in terms of protective orders.  You know, normally in court if somebody
keeps reappearing before you, you tend to say listen, if you appear before me one more time, I’m just not even
going to grant your request.  And one of the basic things we learn from our training is to ensure, for example,
victims of domestic violence – I don’t care if you keep dismissing the case.  I want you to know that
the court is always open and you are free to come back and ask again for the restraining orders because, for instance,
I think one of the studies pointed out that it normally would take somewhere between five and seven incidences before
a victim would even have courage to seek assistance of the court.  So it’s just learning about the
dynamics in a family violence case that has been the biggest benefit.  So the training is just, is just
crucial because for the most part – I’ll be honest, it’s not going to be the way you normally think about
cases, or you normally think about incidences.  Without that knowledge you never, I think for the most part,
would understand how these cases work. 

CRANK: That’s very true.  And didn’t
you also attend a National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges training that was specific to running a domestic
violence court docket?

BODALLO:  Absolutely, and the trainings – I think I’ve actually
gone to two already in San Francisco and in Chicago, and again – like I said, the best thing was you learned the
realities behind domestic violence.  You can read a declaration that just says, oh, he slapped me and then
he pulled my hair, and not really understand the dynamics behind what happened.  All that’s gonna show
up on a piece of paper is he pulled my hair, but you have to understand what the dynamics are behind the intimidation
and things of that nature.  And I think the training really pointed out, you just don’t think about
how these cases are, and so it’s good to understand that, and then also very important – the treatment aspect
of it, and how you can, you work to make the defendants and the perpetrators change and making sure that you hold
them accountable, but more importantly, you provide them the resources so that they’re not set up to fail.

CRANK:  What would you say your biggest challenges are, in terms of offender accountability and
victim safety, and how does the domestic violence court or the family violence court work to address these?

BORDALLO:  Well I think in terms of victim safety, our biggest challenge, like everywhere else,
is whether the community as a whole has the ability to provide the resources and supports to the victim so that issues
that affect their behavior are addressed.  And for safety it’s things like, okay, can the community
or does the community have the resources to meet their housing needs, their financial needs, their support needs?
 because what I’ve learned from training is that all those needs greatly affect whether [00:09:24.21]
or not they’re gonna say, I want to see the defendant or not, whether or not I’m gonna want to see the
person who just beat me up or not.  And they affect it so much more than you analyzing it, whatever you
believe.  I mean the number one question I think off everybody’s lips, when they hear of this type
of crime is, why didn’t she run?  Why didn’t she just leave him?  So he supports you,
that’s no reason to stay.  I mean those are the – and it’s the natural, in some ways it’s
a natural response, but the reality is you learn that those are very real needs, you know?  Children and
taking care of the kids, and providing a house, those are very real needs that people are willing to compromise their
safety for.

CRANK:  In closing, if there’s a jurisdiction like yours which is relatively
isolated and perhaps has fewer resources to create a domestic violence docket, or domestic violence court, what would
be one or two words of advice that you might give?

BORDALLO:  My first piece of advice
would be that judge has to attend a training session.  because if you’re going to start a family violence
court, just as if you’re going to start a drug court, whoever’s in charge has to have that understanding
of those cases before him.  I was a judge for 13 years and I was a lawyer for 10 years before that. 
I was amazed at how much I learned, just attending one training session.  And then the second thing you
need is you need to have the ability to marshal whatever resources you have in that community and it really has to
focus on two areas, and it has to focus on treatment of the defendant, and it has to focus on support of the victim. 
And those are kind of the two areas.  But you know, we’ve learned that there are a lot of tools that
are inexpensive.  For instance, the lethality test and lethality assessments, those are 20 question, 25
question sheets that your victim advocates can use, that go a long way in assisting you in just narrowing the odds,
putting the odds in your favor when you make the decision.  Yes you can have contact or no you can’t
have contact.  So there are resources out there that are inexpensive and any jurisdiction can access through
organizations such as yours, and STOP grants, and even if you don’t get grants but you can access them for resources
to assist you, so that you make the best decision possible.

CRANK:  Great. 
Well thanks again, Judge, for talking with us today.

BORDALLO:  You’re welcome and
I hope you enjoyed your time on Guam and looking forward to working with you in the future.

CRANK: 
Most certainly.  Thanks again.

CRANK:  We just heard a New Thinking podcast
with Judge Michael Bordallo, recorded in September 2012.  To hear more you can follow our podcasts on iTunes
or visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org.  

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The National Drug Court Online Learning System at www.drugcourtline.org
offers free training modules on a wide range of topics by national experts. In this podcast, Valerie Raine and Dennis
Reilly, both of the Center for Court Innovation, explain how drug courts can use the system to educate new employees and keep their teams
up to date on developments in the field. (August 2013)

VALERIE RAINE:
Methamphetamine is not an issue for eastern drug courts. It’s a huge issue for Midwest and Midwestern drug courts.
So we have a session on methamphetamine. That won’t be applicable or probably of much interest to the Manhattan
treatment court, but it will be of enormous interest to treatment courts in Arkansas.

ROB WOLF:
I’m Rob Wolf, director of Communications at the Center for Court Innovation. Welcome to another New Thinking
podcast. Today we’re going to talk about a new tool to help drug court practitioners. And for people who, perhaps,
don’t know what drug courts are, they work with drug addicted offenders and link them to treatment using rigorous
evidence-based practices. Specifically today we’re going to talk about the National Drug Court Online Learning
System, which is available at www.drugcourtonline.org. It is a new initiative created by staff here at the Center
for Court Innovation with the support of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance. I’m speaking
with Valerie Raine, Director of Drug Court Programs at the Center for Court Innovation and Dennis Riley, the Deputy
Director of Drug Court Programs at the Center for Court Innovation. But rather than have me explain it, I thought
maybe you guys could just start off talking about, you know, what is the National Drug Court Online Learning System?

DENNIS RILEY: Thanks, Rob. The National Drug Court Online Learning System has been a long time coming. There’s
been plenty of opportunities for remote learning using webinars and conference calls, but this is really the first
time we’ve taken online learning to a new step with drug courts nationally. And the intent is to present information
on adult drug courts, which is able to be replicated on a frequent basis, used with individuals for individual learning,
and also with teams. The elements of the National Drug Court Online Learning System includes an adult drug court
course which has multiple lessons around the critical elements of drug courts. It also includes virtual site visits
of rural, urban, and suburban drug court locations as well as practitioner perspectives on some of the most important
issues to drug court practitioners.

ROB WOLF: And just so people get a sense of how it works,
they visit the website and then they can click on topic choices and what do they get? Videos? PowerPoints?

DENNIS RILEY: Well, first when you go to drugcourtonline.org, you have to create a free account. This is
a free system supported by the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance. Once you’ve created an account,
you receive an email confirming that a password has been created, and you can log directly into the Adult Drug Court
course. From there you see a listing of courses and lessons which include video presentations from national experts
on various drug court topics. You can also see the virtual site visits, practitioner perspectives, there’s also
a resource library that includes all the PowerPoint presentations that the experts are providing, as well as written
resources on drug court issues.

ROB WOLF: And just a sense of what those topics that they might
find address.

DENNIS RILEY: The topics range from psychopharmacology to sanctions and incentives,
confidentiality, constitutional issues.

ROB WOLF: So Valerie, let me ask you how did the National
Drug Court Online Learning System come about? What was the reason, the motivation for creating it?

VALERIE
RAINE: Thanks Rob. Originally, and this goes back several years, as drug courts, established drug courts started
experiencing significant turnover in team members—there’s a new judge, there’s a new prosecutor, there’s
a new treatment provider. And even in the sort of more luxury days of funding, you couldn’t hold a four day
training institute every time a team got one new team member. And so the motivation for it originally was to deal
with transitional team members, so that they could come onto a team, take these courses, and at least have some kind
of foundation in drug court practices, drug court operations, and so forth. And that continues to be one of the systems
primary functions. There are, however, other functions, other audiences that are being served as both federal and
state budgets suffer severe setbacks. State drug court administrators can not afford to send new or established drug
court practitioners to live training. It also takes time away from the operation. People have to travel, they’ve
got to close down the court. The federal agencies who have supported drug court training that was live, and was excellent
training, are increasingly concerned about their budgets, and increasingly interested in the potential of remote
learning to, if not replace, at least ameliorate the sort of downturn in live training.

ROB WOLF:
So it sounds like the initial impetus was there are new people coming on – let’s give kind of a primer in how
drug courts work. But you’re saying now the online learning system really has something for everyone—both the
mature practitioner as well as the new arrival to a drug court.

VALERIE RAINE: Exactly. And we
intend to keep this a very dynamic site. As new developments emerge, new evidence-based practices are realized and
implemented, new changes in the law. We, in fact right now, are concluding the development of a module on veteran’s
tracks that specifically targets those drug court practitioners who want to set up a veteran’s court or a veteran’s
drive.

ROB WOLF: I’ll just throw this open to either one of you. Is this the new normal?
Can we expect that trainings going forward for drug court practitioners as well as perhaps in other areas—it’s
gonna be online? Or is this a temporary make-do because budgets are constrained?

VALERIE RAINE:
Well, Rob, I think that online learning is certainly part of the future and I think it’s here to stay regardless
of budgets, because I think it serves a very important need that live training can’t, because it’s not
immediately accessible and accessible 24/7. That said, there is no real replacement for live training. Live training
offers interpersonal contact, opportunities to network, opportunities to talk with one another about what you’re
learning throughout the day, throughout the week. So I certainly hope that live training is very much a part of the
future, along with the opportunities and benefits that online learning offers.

DENNIS RILEY: There
are some certain benefits to having training online. It’s convenient, it’s self-paced. When people don’t
have a lot of time, they can actually consume potions of the content during a lunch break and then restart at any
time that they have some additional time. But we don’t think that this actually replaces live, in-person training.

ROB WOLF: So this is a national system that anyone in the country can access, but presumably every jurisdiction
has unique needs, unique resources, so I wonder how people can take advantage of what the system has to offer, but
also perhaps adapt it to their local circumstance.

VALERIE RAINE: First of all, in the virtual
site visits we did tours of urban courts, rural courts, a suburban court that’s a DWI court, so that when people
tour a court, they’re not saying oh, well that doesn’t apply to us because we’re rural. The other
area where we’ve tried to address different needs is, for instance, in the actual presentations. So methamphetamine
is not an issue for eastern drug courts. It’s a huge issue for Midwest and Midwestern drug courts. So we have
a session on methamphetamine. That won’t be applicable or probably of much interest to the Manhattan treatment
court, but it will be of enormous interest to treatment courts in Arkansas. The third way is that teams may not need
to review the entire curriculum that we have offered on the online learning system. They may do some kind of self-assessment
or just realize themselves that there are shortcomings in various pieces of their program. They might realize, oh
they’re getting a lot of false positives on their drug tests, the protocols don’t seem to be being followed,
you know, we need to sit down as a team and look at the drug testing module and make sure that we’re actually
following the sort of industry standards when it comes to that. So it can be a—and that could be the same for a session
on cultural competency or team members—a whole bunch of new team members come on and they don’t really seem
to get the concept of addiction as a disease. We need to go look at Steve Hanson talk about the psychopharmacology
of addiction, the affect on the brain, and what it actually does to the body.

ROB WOLF: And if
people are doing this and they have questions?

DENNIS RILEY: Not only is there technical support,
but there’s also a content helpline which goes to our desks so we can either identify an answer to a particularly
difficult question, or reach out to that expert who gave the presentation to get the answers for people.

ROB WOLF: How many drug courts are out there now?

DENNIS RILEY: Well, there’s over
2,700 drug courts across the United States, and typically when I go speak at the National Association of Drug Court
Professionals Conference and ask people how long they’ve been sitting in their drug court, half of the attendees
will often raise their hand and say they’re new to the drug court team. This is our response to that issue.

ROB WOLF: I know how hard you guys have worked on this system. It looks great, it’s amazing, it’s
got so much going on so I hope people do take advantage of it, and do visit www.drugcourtonline.org. I’ve been
speaking with Valerie Raine, director of Drug Court Programs at the Center for Court Innovation. Thank you, Valerie.

VALERIE RAINE: Thank you Rob, for this opportunity.

ROB WOLF: And I’ve also been
speaking with Dennis Riley, the deputy director of Drug Court Programs at the Center for Court Innovation.

DENNIS RILEY: Thanks, Rob. We look forward to this new future of training.

ROB WOLF:
I’m Rob Wolf, director of Communications at the Center for Court Innovation. To listen to other podcasts you
can visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org, and you can also listen to our New Thinking podcasts on iTunes.

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Chief Magistrate Judge Berryl Anderson of DeKalb County, Georgia discusses the lessons she
has learned over the course of 21 years as an attorney and 13 years as a judge about working with victims of domestic violence and improving
the justice system’s response to intimate partner violence. July 2013

SARAH SCHWEIG: Hi, I’m Sarah Schweig, and today I’m speaking with Chief Magistrate Judge Berryl Anderson,
who has been leading a domestic violence court project in DeKalb County, Georgia. She’s here in New York to participate
in the domestic violence open house here at the Center for Court Innovation, which is the office on Violence Against
Women’s comprehensive technical assistance provider for its courts program. Thanks for speaking with me today.

JUDGE ANDERSON: Well, I am honored and delighted to be here.

SARAH SCHWEIG: First I’m
going to ask you a bit about your background. Your extensive experience in the courts includes representing victims
of domestic violence with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and I was curious how did this inform your understanding
of how courts grapple with the complexities of these cases?

JUDGE ANDERSON: Well there are a lot
of complexities, as you know, in cases dealing with domestic violence, and last year I celebrated 21 years as an
attorney, and this year I’m celebrating 13 years on the bench. As a legal aid attorney, working with the Atlanta
Legal Aid Society, I got to work very closely victims of domestic violence and what I suddenly realized is the victims
present with multiple issues. So they’re not just dealing with domestic violence. They have housing issues, consumer
issues, perhaps access to credit issues. And so they present with multiple issues that inform their decisions and
their ability to be autonomous in the decisions that they make. And often times they just want the violence to stop.
They don’t necessarily want a divorce or to split up their family, or to move their children out of their local community
into another community. And the particular office that I worked in, which was the DeKalb County office, we also represented
clients in a neighboring jurisdiction, Wynette County. I got an opportunity to see that there was a little bit of
lack of uniformity from one courtroom and from one jurisdiction to the next. Now all the judges were applying the
law, but it just seemed like the process could be streamlined a little bit better in domestic violence cases, particularly
in those cases where victims were trying to get protective orders.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So as a judge,
how do you kind of come to see that you had a role in responding to domestic violence cases beyond that kind of business
as usual approach?

JUDGE ANDERSON: Well there are a couple of things that really—I think Oprah
calls them “a-ha moments”—so there were a couple of a-ha moments that I had as a judge and one of them was early
on, I took a course with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court judges called Enhancing Judicial Skills
in domestic violence Cases. It’s a three day workshop where judges get together, and it’s okay to be vulnerable and
talk about what you don’t know. And it’s an opportunity to hear what some of the best practices are around the country,
and it really inspired me to be creative and innovative, and to draw on the strengths in our community, and in our
judicial system, and in our courthouse. And every courthouse has a culture. So I realized that we had a lot of great
systems in place and a lot of great relationships, and it encouraged me and inspired me to build on those relationships
with community partners. And another thing that sort of merged with this is my participating in fatality reviews.
It is something that we usually conduct on an annual basis. It is just a very sad, very sobering reality of how terribly
things can go wrong when victims of domestic violence don’t get what they need on the front end. It’s taking a look
at every level of system contact that that particular victim had and each contact with the system is an opportunity
to better serve that victim. And so we look at it from a lens of how we can better serve victims. And what went wrong?
And not in a finger-pointing way, but where are the gaps in my system? And if you recognize gaps in your system,
and you can’t be thin-skinned about this process but it really is about saving lives.

SARAH SCHWEIG:
You’re a recipient of an Office of Violence Against Women grant to develop your domestic violence court project.
Can you give me a picture of how that project developed and how it operates now?

JUDGE ANDERSON:
you know they say that people practice medicine or they practice law, and I feel like I’m practicing this domestic
violence thing, and you know, you never get to the point where it’s perfect. And so I like to take a critical look
at my court on a regular basis. And this process actually evolved out of taking a look at what we already have in
place. Fortunately, my court is a recipient of a two-year grant to establish a compliance project. DeKalb County
Magistrate court handles temporary protective orders for our cases and there is a portion of Georgia law that says
if you’re a respondent and you have a 12-month family violence order entered against you, then you have to take a
family violence intervention program, a 24-week class. Well judges were issuing orders and the respondents were walking
out of the courtroom, and we had no way of knowing whether or not they were surrendering their weapons, whether or
not they were taking the family violence intervention classes. And so, fortunately, as a recipient of an OVW grant,
we’re allowed to set up that compliance project where I was able to hire two compliance officers. And immediately,
upon a judge issuing a 12-month protective order, the respondent leaves the courtroom and goes into an adjacent room
to meet with a compliance officer who will have the respondent—first of all, talk to them about weapons and we work
with our sheriff’s department to have those weapons seized and have them hold onto those weapons during the time
that the protective order is in place. We’ve also worked collaboratively with our probate court to make sure that
a respondent under a 12-month order doesn’t go to probate court to apply for a weapons permit. So we’ve got the compliance
officer who’s able to monitor this behavior, and the compliance officer makes unannounced visits to make sure that
the respondent’s actually not just showing up for class, but also participating in class. You know, if you’re victim
of domestic violence and you go to the criminal courthouse, and you may have to take a bus and a train to get there,
and then you’ve got this application to fill out, and you’re also upset because when the officer came to the scene,
perhaps he didn’t believe you or for whatever reason he didn’t arrest the batterer, so now you have to try to maneuver
the system on your own. So fortunately in many cases we’ll have an advocate from the Women’s Resource Center there
to assist the victim with the application process and to kind of sit with her when she talks with a judge. Now if
a judge believes that there is probable cause for a warrant to issue, then a warrant can issue at that time. But
if the judge believes there’s not quite probable cause, I need to, you know, I need more evidence, then it will be
set up for a warrant application hearing, which may happen 10 days to two weeks later. We have two courtrooms where
we conduct the warrant application hearings simultaneously, and in each courtroom you may have as many as 60 or 70
people. So it’s a little chaotic and the domestic violence cases are not separated from a neighbor dispute. They’re
not separated out from those other warrant application hearings. And so I realized that that was a service gap that
we have. And it’s great to have an advocate from the Women’s Resource Center there, but that advocate is going back
and forth from one courtroom to the other and trying to identify who’s there for a domestic violence case. So I realized
that there was a system gap and where with this courts training and improvements grant, that we’re able to improve
on the process that we have in place now. And what we will do is have a standalone warrant application hearing process
for victims of domestic violence. We’ll have judges who have the specialized training from the National Council of
Family and Juvenile Court Judges hear these cases. We will have an advocate in the courtroom with them, and the advocate
is no longer running back and forth. We will have sheriff’s department there to monitor courtroom security and will
make sure that the victims are on one side of the courtroom and the perpetrators are on the other side of the courtroom.
And then if a warrant actually issues as a result of that hearing, then the judge has an opportunity to impose special
conditions. And if there are violations then we can deal with that and perhaps revoke the bond and have the defendant
sit in jail until the case goes to trial.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So they know that there’s a real consequence—

JUDGE ANDERSON: There are teeth and there are absolute consequences. And this way we’ll be able to give
a lot of special attention to victims of domestic violence.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So what lessons would
you share with other judges who may be struggling with similar issues, or who might be interested in starting a support
program?

JUDGE ANDERSON: Well if I had to pick one word, it’s about relationships. It’s about
relationships with other judges and other trial levels of court. It is important to develop and nurture relationships
with community stakeholders. Coordinated community response—it’s not just something that sounds good. You need to
actually put it in action, and as judges I think that we are, we have the inherent ability to call a meeting and
people will come. I meet quarterly with the advocates, with the sheriff’s department, with the prosecutors, the public
defenders. You need to do a little bit of research to find out what’s available in your community. And you have to
want to do this work. It is incredibly stressful. The proceedings can be very long. They can be very emotional. There’s
something called vicarious trauma, and judges suffer from it, as well as advocates and other people who deal with
domestic violence cases. You’ve got to learn a little bit about self-care. You’ve got to take care of yourself, whether
it’s walking, or running, or cycling, or swimming. Find something that you love to do that has absolutely nothing
to do with court, and nothing to do with domestic violence, because this work can absolutely consume you.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I’m Sarah Schweig and I’ve
been speaking with Chief Magistrate Judge Berryl Anderson of DeKalb County Georgia, about building relationships
to fight domestic violence in the community. To find out more about the Center for Court Innovation, please visit
www.courtinnovation.org. Thanks for listening.

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Co-authors Michael Rempel and Suvi Hynynen Lambson discuss the findings of their study, The Adolescent Diversion Program: A First Year Evaluation of Alternatives to Conventional
Case Processing for Defendants Ages 16 and 17 in New York. The study examines the Adolescent Diversion Program, finding that diverting youth to services does
not increase recidivism rates and, in fact, reduces recidivism for high-risk participants.

[Opening
Music]

MIKE REMPEL: When you give intensive treatments to high-risk individuals, they tend to
be effective. When you give intensive treatments to low-risk individuals, you actually increase the chances that
they will re-offend.

WOLF:  Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center
for Court Innovation, and this is another New Thinking podcast. Today I’m with Mike Rempel, who is the director of
research here at the Center for Court Innovation, and Suvi Hynynen Lambson, who is a senior research associate at
the Center for Court Innovation, and they are both co-authors of a new study that looks at the Adolescent Diversion
Program, which is a response to a unique situation we have here in New York.

New York and, I understand,
North Carolina are the only two states that do what?

REMPEL: They’re the only two states that
treat 16- and 17-year-olds as criminally responsible adults. All other states in the country treat them as juveniles.

WOLF:  And so the Adolescent Diversion Program, which was implemented at the behest of the chief
judge of the state of New York, Jonathan Lipmann, in January 2012, is an attempt to bring New York in line with the
other 48 states.

SUVI HYNYNEN LAMBSON: Yeah, it’s a first step in that direction.

WOLF: 
So your study looks at the first six months of the implementation of this program. So before we talk about the results,
how does the Adolescent Diversion Program work and how is it implemented?

LAMBSON: The Adolescent
Diversion Program is a pilot program that was implemented in nine different sites throughout the state. There’s a
general program model that each of them applied, such as they have a specialized track or court part. The judges
are trained in adolescent development. The third thing that all of the programs have are expanded sentencing options.
This would include treatment or social services options or community service that’s especially geared for the 16-
and 17-year-olds. The interventions vary in length: two to five days compared to three to six months more common
in Queens, Nassau, Westchester, and up to 12 months, which you sometimes find in Erie [County]. Upon completion of
the program, the case would be dismissed or the charge would be reduced. And participation is, of course, voluntary.

WOLF:  What kinds of cases were these nine pilot sites seeing?

LAMBSON: 
So most of the pilot sites were seeing exclusively misdemeanor cases. Two of the sites do accept some felonies, but
I don’t believe any of them accept violent felonies, and some of them do include violation cases as well.

ROB WOLF: Meaning lower than misdemeanor?

LAMBSON: Meaning lower than misdemeanor. So
there actually wouldn’t be a criminal conviction attached to that; a violation conviction isn’t reflected on a criminal
record.

WOLF:  When you looked at these first six months of the program, what are the
characteristics or the outcomes you were looking at?

LAMBSON:  Well that’s a great question,
Rob. We actually have nine different research questions. I won’t go over each of them in detail, but generally speaking
we were looking at how many 16- and 17-year-olds were there in these nine sites?  How many of those were
actually eligible for the program?  Did they comply with their assigned court mandate?  The impact
on criminal convictions, the impact on case outcomes, and, of course, the impact on recidivism.

WOLF: 
So let’s try to move through some of these results quickly.  

LAMBSON:  There
are about almost 14,000 16- and 17-year olds who went through courts in these nine sites. Sixty percent of them were
eligible to participate in the program, but actually only 15 percent of them did end up being in the ADP pilot intervention.
And the volume varied greatly from site to site. The Bronx and Queens had 4 percent and 6 percent, respectively,
of the eligible cases, while Nassau and Erie had 62 percent and 69 percent.

WOLF:  Is
there something to be learned from that?  Why there was such a broad difference?

LAMBSON: 
I think so. I mean at least if we look at the case of Nassau, we know that they really tried to implement this to
the broadest extent possible, probably the way we had envisioned it being implemented throughout the state if possible.
Nearly everyone was eligible except for violent felony offenders, and they had a universal screening assessment that
they used with everyone.

WOLF:  And what did you learn about compliance?

LAMBSON: 
We were able to look at four sites on their compliance and found out that on average they had an 80 percent compliance
rate, which is really good.

WOLF:  So now let’s talk about case outcomes. What did you
find there?

REMPEL:  First of all, we were interested in whether the ADP initiative reduced
the collateral consequences of conviction by reducing the percentage of 16- and 17-year-olds that received a criminal
conviction. What we actually found was that because the program was largely focused on a misdemeanor population,
they did not have that affect. That population is not in large numbers in the first place ending up getting a felony
or misdemeanor conviction.

Now a lot of the 16- and 17-year-olds who don’t receive a criminal
conviction, receive something called a youthful offender filing, which is a form of conviction, but it doesn’t create
a criminal record, or they get convicted for a violation offense, which you mentioned earlier—it s a conviction,
but it’s not a “crime” and again the case is sealed so it doesn’t create a criminal record.

If
you take all of these categories together, we found there is not any change in one direction or another, although
we found some interesting variations from site to site. We found that Nassau actually reduced any of these outcomes
that involved some sort of guilty plea by about 30 percentage points—from about 45 percent to about 15 percent. And
then we found in some of the other counties it fluctuated more closely to what it had been. Use in jail is something
that is often discussed. We found that the net across all of the sites we looked at, there was not an effect, but
we found a few places where jail was reduced. Nassau was one of those places, which actually reduced jail to zero
from 4 percent.

WOLF:  So if I understand correctly, you’re saying overall, statewide,
although a goal ostensibly of the Adolescent Diversion Program was to reduce some of these punitive outcomes like
a criminal record or jail among the 16- and17-year-olds, overall statewide it didn’t really do that, although it
did in some particular jurisdictions, such as Nassau County.

REMPEL:  That’s correct.
And going into this research we had two sets of expectations. Those who planned the ADP pilot desired a reduction
in the collateral consequence of conviction. Those who were leery of the pilot were concerned about the problem of
net-widening, where these new pilots might take 16- and 17-year-olds who, in the old system, would have had their
cases dismissed, and end up leading them to now plead guilty. So we found that none of those expectations or concerns
were ultimately the case. Things stayed about where they were and with that in mind we then go forth and look at
other outcomes.

WOLF: Other outcomes such as, for instance recidivism. What did you see there?

MIKE REMPEL:  Okay, so let me say when we look at—our measurement was re-arrest. When we look at
any type of re-arrest, with some differences looking at the sites combined. We also looked at felony-level re-arrest.
When we looked at more serious criminal behavior, we actually did find that overall the sites reduced felony recidivism.
We also found that they significantly reduced violent felony recidivism. We also found some interesting variations
by site. In a nutshell, two of the sites—the Bronx and Queens—tended to reduce re-arrest. And Queens particularly
reduced felony-level re-arrests. I believe it went from 19 percent to three percent. We saw that Erie County increased
re-arrests.

WOLF: So why don’t you tell me why these results varied from site to site.

LAMBSON:  Well, I think that the main conclusion that we found was that it’s really related to
risk level, that the people who were at the highest risk of re-offense actually ended up with the best outcomes when
they received these targeted services, and those people who had the lowest risk, if they got services, they actually
performed more poorly.

REMPEL:  And Rob, this is actually something that is often surprising
to practitioners, but it reflects a consistent finding across the years of research across multiple kinds of interventions,
that when you give intensive treatments to high-risk individuals, they tend to be effective. When you give intensive
treatments to low-risk individuals who, in the absence of an intervention would likely not have re-offended, you
actually increase the chances that they will re-offend. Why? Because the intervention will probably involve things
like putting them into groups where they are spending a lot of time right next to high-risk peers who can then have
contaminating influences.

So when we go back to those site-specific findings that we mentioned
earlier with respect to Erie seeming to increase re-arrest rates, and the Bronx and Queens seeming to decrease re-arrest
rates, once we adjust for the fact that Erie tends primarily to serve a low-risk population, and the Bronx and Queens
tend primarily to serve a high-risk population, we actually fully explain that finding. It’s not so much that it’s
something about the services in Bronx and Queens that are more effective than the services in Erie, it’s that the
Bronx and Queens are doing a better job serving the kind of target population that research says they should serve:
a high-risk population that will benefit from an intensive intervention.

WOLF:  Well
thanks so much. It’s really been great talking to you and learning about the results of your study, which listeners
can download from our website at www.courtinnovation.org. The study is called the Adolescent Diversion
Program: A First Year Evaluation of Alternatives to Conventional Case Processing for defendants ages 16 and 17 in
New York. I’m speaking with two of the report’s four authors, Mike Rempel, who is the director of research,
and Suvi Hynynen Lambson, senior research associate here at the Center for Court Innovation.

BOTH: 
Thanks Rob.

[Closing music]

WOLF:  I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications
at the Center for Court Innovation. You can listen to more of our podcasts on our website or on iTunes. Thanks for
listening.

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Family Court judges should consider the impact of violence on families when making decisions about child custody
and visitation, according to Kristine Lizdas, a managing attorney at the Battered Women’s Justice Project. In this podcast, Lizdas discusses the
Justice Project’s four-part model for helping judges make more informed decisions.

Kristine
Lizdas, left, of the Battered Women’s Justice Project and Robyn Mazur of the Center for Court Innovation confer
after Lizdas’ presentation at the Center’s Domestic Violence Court Open House for Office on Violence Against
Women Court Training and Improvements Project grantees.

KRISTINE LIZDAS: 
[While introductory theme music plays] This person, the person they’re abusing, could be bringing a great deal,
could be wonderful caretakers for their kids, and could be providing so much for their kids, if it were not for the
battering.

ROBERT V. WOLF:  [As introductory theme music ends] Hi, I’m Rob Wolf,
director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation.  Welcome to another New Thinking podcast.
Today I’m speaking with attorney Kristine Lizdas about domestic violence cases and their impact on child custody
and visitation. Christine serves as managing attorney for the Legal Policy Program of the Battered Women’s Justice
Project, which is a national resource center on domestic violence legal policy issues. Welcome to New York and the
Center for Court Innovation.

LIZDAS:  Thank you very much.

WOLF: 
You’re based in Minnesota, but you’re here today at our open house. The Center for Court Innovation serves
as the Office on Violence Against Women’s comprehensive technical assistance provider for its courts program, and
today and tomorrow, recipients of grants have come here with their multi-disciplinary teams to observe model domestic
violence courts in New York, and hear from experts like you on topics related to planning and implementation of domestic
violence courts. So I know you’re here today speaking to the group this afternoon about custody and visitation,
and I thought a good way to start our conversation was just to ask what makes custody and visitation cases that involve
domestic violence a challenge, or more complicated than the average case?

LIZDAS:  We
have, in the battered women’s movement, done a lot of work in terms of reforming the criminal justice system
so it handles the crime of domestic violence better, as a crime, as a wrongdoing of the violation of a right. Talking
about domestic violence in the context of family court is more complicated.

The way family court
is structured and set up is not conducive, does not allow for an assessment of how domestic violence operates—meaning
how is it used in the family, and to what effect? And what impact does it have on the parenting capacities of both
parents? What impact is it having on the kids?  Family court is designed to kind of divvy things up. 
Family court is not designed to say, “This is our situation. How do we kind of move forward from here, given who’s
involved in this family and what the family’s history is?”

WOLF:  Maybe you can
just offer an example of how that can impact a particular family.

LIZDAS: In families where domestic
violence exists, or domestic violence is alleged, there can be violence that has been very isolated, that the children
have been very sheltered from it, but there are going to be other situations in battering violence and coercive and
controlling violence where the kids are brought in more deliberately, either because they’re being exposed to
the continuum of violence going on in that family, or because they are being used to either participate in the abuse
of their spouse, or the same sort of demeaning or controlling, or crazy-making behaviors that a batterer might perpetrate
in a domestic violence situation, is being perpetrated against the family as a whole. 

The
kids are going to have a variety of reactions—everything from no reaction at all, to feeling very aggressive toward
the abused parent, feeling very protective of the abused parent.  It’s going to manifest in problems,
you know cognitive and behavioral issues that come up for the kids, and until we really have a handle or understanding
on really what’s happening to the kids, we don’t know what kind of separation agreements, what kind of
parenting schedule, what type of supervision, or what types of programming or services are appropriate for that family.

WOLF:  How are you recommending that family courts address that issue, because it does sound like
it’s very complicated?

LIZDAS:  We engaged in this project several years ago to
develop a framework for family court practitioners so that they can better identify, they can better understand,
and then account for the context and the implications of domestic violence in child custody cases, and in parenting
time and visitation determinations. 

At this stage of our project, we are recommending
a four-part analysis, which is very simply that we need to institute tools into various parts of our family court
systems that help us to better identify the existence of domestic violence, whether alleged or not, that we have
implemented protocols within the family court system and help us better understand the nature and the context of
the violence. Who’s using the violence to what end? What impact is it having on the family? 

And
then the hardest part, the third step of this four part framework. is then to determine the implications of abuse
and research is emerging on how to recognize that, how to screen for it, how to identify it. If kids are having trouble
with sleeplessness or trouble with school, or are showing strong attachments to either parent, to understand which
of those behaviors, which of those responses are a response of the coercive and controlling violence, what might
be the response of other things going on with that family. 

And finally, the fourth step
in our framework is then, indeed, to account for the abuse in our decisions in court and in what we do in the parenting
plans going forward.  It would be our proposition that if you have identified actual coercive and controlling
violence or battering violence in a family, it’s very likely that some of that coercive and controlling violence
is going to continue post-separation, that the dissolution and the parenting plan doesn’t put a stop to it. 

Some judges, some court practitioners do see that perpetrators will be motivated by their kids, and access
to their kids. So family court judges and family courts have this opportunity, and the proper motivation, to get
perpetrators into services and into programs, to keep an eye on that perpetrator—to be like a mentor, to be a coach,
to be a motivator to keep that perpetrator from using coercive and controlling violence, and they can order graduated
visitation, graduated parenting time.

WOLF:  So the judges can use this leverage—access
to the children, basically: “You can get thus and such visitation under these conditions if you receive these services,
if you engage in this particular program?”

LIZDAS:  Yes, and it’s not only that it is
an effective motivator for change, but its also completely logically tied to what is best for the children. We do
want children to be able to have healthy relationships with both parents and it’s in the children’s best interest
if we are able to figure out how to work with the perpetrator over time and help them develop their parenting capacity. 
I think it’s been the observation of a lot of people who work with parent batterers that they really aren’t aware
of how their battering and coercive and controlling violence affects their kids. And in the current court system,
we provide motivations for parents to attack each other. We put them in this sort of adversarial system that encourages
them to sort of undermine each other’s parenting capacity, and we don’t have enough of a mindset or framework in
family court to say that what we need to be doing, really, is supporting each other’s parenting capacity and if you’re
violent toward your partner, if you’re committing coercive and controlling violence, you know, you’re taking
something away from your kids and we need to be drawing that connection, obviously.

WOLF: 
That point you just made, that was a much broader point about any family court case involving custody or visitation.

LIZDAS:  It is, that’s true, and it would apply in cases that we technically, or traditionally
call high-conflict cases, which is jargon in the family court system, which is applied very broadly to any parties
that don’t seem to be able to settle on their own, or fail in alternative-dispute resolution.  So that is
a message for high-conflict parents that you need to understand better how your conflict is impacting your kids. 

In battering situations, or course, or controlling situations, where we really want to focus is on the person
perpetrating the violence—make sure they understand how this person, the person they’re abusing could be bringing
a great deal, could be wonderful caretakers for their kids, could be providing so much for their kids if it were
not for the battering.  What’s concerning is the family court system that doesn’t have a sophisticated analysis
is going to look at battering cases and they are going to call it high conflict—and then they’re targeting and directing
their messaging to both parties, and their messaging’s not really the appropriate messaging either. It’s “Get along.” 
It’s “Get along or you’re going to hurt your kids.” That’s not the message that’s appropriate if one person is using
coercive and controlling violence against the other.

WOLF:  So if people want to find
out more about these issues or some of the skills that you’re developing, what should they do? 

LIZDAS:  They should contact our office, the Battered Women’s Justice Project.  Our website
is www.bwjp.org, and our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-903-0111,
enter prompt 1 to get to our office where the custody project is based.

WOLF:  I’ve
been talking with Kristine Lizdas about domestic violence cases and their impact on child custody and visitation. 
Kristine is the managing attorney for the Legal Policy Program of the Battered Women’s Justice Project. Good luck
with your presentation this afternoon.

LIZDAS:  Thank you very much.

WOLF: 
[While theme music plays] I’m Rob Wolf, director for communications at the Center for Court Innovation. 
To listen to this podcast or others, you can visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org
 or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

June 2013

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Shannon M. Carey
of NPC Research discusses
the impact of the Rockefeller Drug Law Reform, which in 2009 eliminated New York’s mandatory prison sentences
for most felony drug offenders. According to a study she co-authored, court-ordered treatment enrollment after the reform
was implemented in 2009 increased by 77 percent. Also, the study estimated that there would be a potential $2 of
newly available resources after five years for every taxpayer dollar invested.

May 2013

ROB WOLF: Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation.
Today I’m with Dr. Shannon Kerry, and executive vice president and senior research associate at MPC Research,
which is based in Portland, Oregon. Today we’re talking about a study. The proper name of the study is Testing
the Cost Savings of the Judicial Diversion Program. And if I understand correctly, what this
study is looking at is the impact that that passing of the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms in April 2009 had on judicial
diversion. In other words, drug addicted offenders who were going through court. How many were now being diverted
to alternatives to incarceration. So I thought maybe we could begin with the parts of the study which really looked
at the impact on treatment and on sentencing outcomes.

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Sure. So
the first question that we looked at was, as you said the impact on treatment and what we found was quite a bit of
an impact. There was a 77 percent increase in enrollment into treatment programs, and so people are being diverted
into treatment instead of being incarcerated. The actual numbers went from 1,801 participants in the one year before
to 3,192 people in the one year after October 7th, when it was implemented. So that’s, again, a 77 percent increase
in enrollment in treatment.

ROB WOLF: And that’s statewide in all of New York?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: That’s all the state, right.

ROB WOLF: So 77 percent increase.
So it really, by giving the judge’s discretion, which is essentially what the law did—freed them up from a mandatory
jail sentence, many of them took advantage of that, clearly.

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Right. And it
did vary by geographic location. So some places increased up to 500 percent, and in other places there wasn’t
much difference.

ROB WOLF: The other issue was—

DR. SHANNON KERRY: The second
question was what kind of sentences to people receive for the same charges? So Article 216 is the name of the actual
legislation. And people who are eligible for Article 216, we wanted to see what their sentences were before and after
it was actually implemented. Before the implementation, 100 percent of the people who had an Article 216 eligible
charge were convicted. Afterwards, it was about 81 percent of the people. So 19 or almost 20 percent of the people
after Article 216 had their cases dismissed. So if they successfully completed the program, they never had a conviction.
As far as sentencing outcomes, we found that people spent less time in jail and less time on probation, and about
the same time in prison. And then community supervision was also lower after implementation.

ROB
WOLF: Well let’s move on to the cost benefit part of the study. What costs were you looking at, and what benefits
were you actually measuring?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: The first question we looked at was what was the
cost of a judicial diversion case in itself before the new law was implemented and after. What we found was the cost
of judicial diversion, including the program with treatment, was about $18,500. The cost of the case that was eligible
for judicial diversion, but before judicial diversion, the actual cost of processing that case was about $13,000.
So it was fairly expensive per offender to process them anyway. And the difference in cost was about $5000, a little
bit more than $5,000 per offender. So judicial diversion does cost more, and the majority of that additional cost
is due to treatment.

ROB WOLF: I see. And so the $13,000, before the law was passed involved all
the sort of non-treatment aspects that take place in a case before someone’s going to jail. Before the actual
sentence is implemented?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Right. So then the next question we asked was about
the sentence for that judicial diversion eligible case, so what we’re calling the instant case. So what kind
of sentence did people get before, and what kind of sentence did they get after? So earlier we talked about the finding
we had about the sentencing practices is that people after judicial diversion spent less time in jail and less time
on probation, and about the same amount of time in prison. So that translates into cost if they spent less time in
jail and less time on probation, then they’re going to cost less. With prison being basically a wash, there
wasn’t a big difference between them, there was a total savings due to judicial diversion of about $5,500 per
offender.

ROB WOLF: So in that case, you’re simply comparing the amount of time spent in
jail, prison, or probation for both these groups?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Correct.

ROB
WOLF: And so this is where you saw some savings, because there was less time spent in prison and on probation for
those involved in judicial diversion after the implementation of the law?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Right.
So those people who were spending less time in jail were spending a lot more time in treatment. So that treatment
cost we talked about earlier, $5,000, is kind of made up for by them not spending the time in jail.

ROB
WOLF: So what else did you look at?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: The other thing that we wanted to look
at was the impact of being in judicial diversion on their future criminal behavior. So did they get rearrested less
often because they went through treatment or not? Because Article 216 wasn’t implemented until 2010, October
2010 we didn’t have enough time to look to see if people who were literally sent through the new judicial diversion
had lower recidivism outcomes. When we were doing the study it was 2012. Most of the people were still in the program.
So what we did was we took another study that CCI is just in the midst of completing, and they looked at people who
went through drug court and people who didn’t, and they selected out the people who had Article 216 crimes.
And then they compared the comparison group to people who went through drug court for a three year period, looked
at their recidivism outcomes. And then we put costs to those recidivism outcomes. What we found was over three years,
the cost of someone who went through judicial diversion was just under $20,000, so $19,000. The cost of their time
in jail, prison, their court cases, their new rearrests. Altogether over three years came to just under $20,000,
$19,589 specifically. While the cost in the comparison group, people who were eligible for judicial diversion that
didn’t go was $25,787, so almost $26,000 which results in a savings of just over $6,000 per offender. We then
extrapolated over a five year period. It comes to about $11,000 per participant, a benefit of $11,000 per participant.
And then if you include victimization costs, which anybody who committed a person crime or property crime, there’s
a victim involved. So when we included the victimization costs as well, it comes to just over $18,000 saved, per
offender, for that time period.

ROB WOLF: And what is that associated with? The victimization
cost? That’s actually the value of the stolen goods?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: It’s a whole
combination of when there’s a victim involved there’s often, you know, injuries and the property, and the
damage, fixing the damage. It’s all those things combined.

ROB WOLF: But it doesn’t
include things like pain and suffering? It just includes the tangible injury? Like if someone was injured, it’s
the medical costs. Is it also their lost wages?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Yes. And we pull those from
a national study of victimization, so those are ones that were calculated specifically for New York.

ROB
WOLF: And when you look at benefits, do you also calculate things like someone is now re-employed, and therefore
contributing taxes to the economy, and that sort of thing?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: We do include that
when we can, but for this study we were looking specifically at taxpayer savings due to criminal justice costs. So
they didn’t include the employment costs.

ROB WOLF: So overall what was your finding? There’s
clearly the money that goes into any case involving judicial diversion, but then there’s also money saved. So
when you compare those two, what’s the overall conclusion?

DR. SHANNON KERRY: Well what we
found is that as far as investment goes, there’s kind of a net investment of just over $5,000 per offender.
And then if you look at the people afterwards, their recidivism, we found that there’s a net savings of about
$10,000, a little over $10,000 per offender. So basically the net benefit is a little over $5,000, which is a cost
benefit of 1:2. So for every dollar you spend investing in the program, you get $2 back.

ROB WOLF:
That sounds like a substantial, or meaningful, at least, return on an investment.

DR. SHANNON
KERRY: It is pretty good.

ROB WOLF: Well I want to thank you very much for taking the time to
explain your work on this study which is an impressive piece of work. People can download it from our website, and
from MPC Research website, which is—Shannon, if you don’t mind telling me?

DR. SHANNON KERRY:
It’s www.mpcresearch.com.

ROB WOLF: Great, well I’ve been speaking with Dr. Shannon
Kerry, and executive vice president and senior research associate at MPC Research based in Portland,
Oregon. We’ve been talking about the recent study that she was involved with along with the team here at the
Center for Court Innovation that looked at the Cost Savings of the Judicial Diversion Program, here in New York,
after the passing of the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms. I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center
for Court Innovation. You can download this and other podcasts at our website, www.courtinnovation.org and also on
iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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Acting Supreme Court Judge Kelly O’Neill Levy discusses her transition from Bronx Family Court to the Harlem
Community Justice Center, where she applies problem-solving strategies to both family and housing cases. May
2013

Judge Kelly O’Neill Levy discusses a case with her law clerk and resource
coordinator.

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL
LEVY: Always remember that the person who is before you—that the problem they’re coming to court with could
be the most important problem they have in their lives.

ROB WOLF: Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director
of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. Welcome to another New Thinking podcast. Today I’m in
the Harlem community Justice Center with acting Supreme Court Judge Kelly O’Neill Levy, who came to the justice
center in January of 2013, just a few months ago, from the Bronx Family Court, where she was handling child abuse
and neglect cases. I thought we’d sit down and talk a little bit about the transition to her new position and
her vision for the work that she’ll be doing here, and has been doing here the last few months. So welcome to
New Thinking.

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: Thank you, Rob. It’s a pleasure to be able to sit
down and talk with you about the Harlem Community Justice Center.

ROB WOLF: Transitions sometimes
pose challenges as well as opportunities, and I was wondering what you’ve seen so far as far as your challenges
and opportunities as you’ve made the transition from a more conventional New York City family court to a community
court setting, where you’re hearing both family and housing cases, as well as interacting more with the community.

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: There have been challenges as far as getting up to speed. We’ve worked really
hard to get up to speed, but many of the issues that are facing the litigants that we have in Bronx Family Court,
or the issues that are underlying people’s concerns here in housing court are the same. And what is wonderful
about what we are doing here is often you hear when you’re listening to a litigant, other problems—unrelated
necessarily—to non-payment. And the beauty of the Harlem Community Justice Center is we have resources right here.
We have people to assist these litigants in the underlying problems, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s
adult protective services.

ROB WOLF: So it sounds like it’s a more holistic approach.

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: Yes. It’s the holistic approach and we’re thinking of all different
ways that we can be serving this community in our court. One of the things that we are going to be launching in the
next few months—custody and visitation cases that will originate in the Harlem Community Justice Center. Litigants
will have an opportunity to choose whether they want to commence a case for custody and visitation in our case, or
go downtown and commence the case in the downtown family court. I’m also going to be doing Article 78 cases,
which are appeals for an administrative body. So if somebody has an appeal based on a decision that the New York
City Housing Authority has done, they have, in the past, had to go to Supreme Court and do an Article 78 case based
on an administrative decision that has taken place in, for instance, a NYCHA case. Now if I am the judge who’s
handling the landlord-tenant case, I will also be handling the administrative appeal. And that also is a holistic
approach because unfortunately what has happened in the past is sometimes the Supreme Court judge was unaware of
what was going on in the landlord-tenant case, and the person could have possibly gotten a victory in Supreme Court
but by the time that case was heard, they may have already been evicted because that judge was unaware of the status
of exactly where the landlord-tenant case was at that time.

ROB WOLF: So it sounds like there
are a lot of advantages to brining the cases here to the Harlem Community Justice Center. It’s local for the
litigant. They don’t have to travel as far. It’s more comprehensive because you have a fuller understanding
of all the aspects of the case, and there’s also services here like the housing resource center that can support
litigant and landlords as well.

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: We’re very fortunate, because we
have this resource center right in the building. So both tenants and landlords can go to the resource center and
get assistance on how to navigate the process, which can be very intimidating, as we all know.

ROB
WOLF: So let’s talk about community engagement. That’s a guiding principal of a community court like the
Harlem Community Justice Center. Why do you think community engagement is important, and how is the justice center
giving you opportunities to work more closely with the community?

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: It’s
essential that we have community engagement because we are here to serve the community and it’s given us many
opportunities. We have the resource community in the courtroom. She is able to reach out to the service providers
that are in the area that are assisting our litigants to see what they need and how we can assist them better. We
also have a church that’s right across the street that is hosting programs for our reentry program, which assists
people formally incarcerated to get back into society.

ROB WOLF: We’ve talked a lot about
your housing cases, but I know you also handle family court cases. Maybe you could tell me a little bit about what
those case are and how the Harlem Community Justice Center does things maybe a little differently?

JUDGE
KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: We handle juvenile delinquency cases and custody and visitation cases. The things that we do
differently is that the custody and visitation cases, there’s mediation to help parents work out the conflicts
that they’re having. And with regard to the juvenile delinquency cases, we have the services here in order for
these families to be able to work through the juvenile delinquency justice process. Each child, they are living at
home and they meet with the social worker in the court to assist them in making the changes they need to make in
order to ensure that they don’t have any re-arrests in the future. Do they need drug treatment program? Do they
need counseling? And one of the things we just started, somewhat based on the work that I had done in Bronx family
court, is to recognize that the parents play such a critical role in making sure that the child is able to make those
changes. So we’ve started a parent support group. Some of the parents have been able to really turn things around,
assist in transferring their children’s school, helping to enforce curfew, and what we wanted to do was have
those parents be able to assist the other parents who may be having struggles with getting their child to adhere
to a curfew, or navigating the process of transferring them to a different school. The other component to the parenting
group is just an education of what the whole juvenile delinquency justice system is about, and what they can expect.
And we think that this is really a helpful new component that we’ve implemented in the Harlem Community Justice
Center.

ROB WOLF: You’ve had a chance to learn about the community so I wonder what have
you learned and seen so far?

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: Well this has traditionally been an underserved
community and one of the things that is great about this court is that the size is less intimidating for people than
a traditional court. We are on a much smaller scale because there is only one courtroom, there is only one judge,
and that gives us an opportunity to do exciting things which can, we hope, build confidence in the justice system.
One of the things that we are doing is we are translating pre-printed stipulations of settlement and right now many
attorneys come to court with pre-printed stipulations of settlement that they, then, negotiate with tenants and insert
the applicable numbers and time frames that a tenant would have to comply with in order to resolve their case. And
there are many Spanish-speaking litigants who would not have the benefit of leaving the courthouse with a document
that they could truly understand. And so what we have started is a process of getting the pre-printed stipulations
of settlement translated into Spanish. Of course the document that I would review and sign would all be in English,
but the Spanish speaking litigant would have a reference when they left in Spanish. And I think that that alone would
be one step in assisting public confidence in our justice system.

ROB WOLF: That translated stipulation,
other judges could use around the city because it’s a uniform language, I assume?

JUDGE KELLY
O’NEILL LEVY: Yes, certainly. If some of the larger firms who may practice in other boroughs in the city, they certainly
could use that translated stipulated if they find that they’re having that same issue.

ROB
WOLF: So do you have a philosophy of judicial leadership? I know you’ve only been here a few months so far,
but what does it mean to you to be a community court judge?

JUDGE KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: If I had
any philosophy of judicial leadership, it would be to always remember that the person who is before you—that the
problem they’re coming to court with could be the most important problem they have in their lives. And to always
make sure that they feel that they’ve had an opportunity to be heard, and that they’ve had a fair adjudication
of their case. And so one of the things I really enjoy about being a community court judge is that I am able to give
people that opportunity to be heard, and I am able to consider whatever their issues are, and really try to solve
their problems.

ROB WOLF: Well I want to thank you very much for sharing some of your experience
with our listeners. I’ve been speaking with acting Supreme Court Judge Kelly O’Neill Levy, about her experience
here as presiding judge over the family and housing cases at the Harlem Community Justice Center.

JUDGE
KELLY O’NEILL LEVY: Thank you, Robert, it’s been my pleasure.

ROB WOLF: I’m Rob Wolf,
director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. To listen to this podcast and others, visit our website
at www.courtinnovation.org or iTunes. Thanks very much for listening.

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Christine H. Lindquist, a senior research sociologist at RTI
International, talks about reentry
courts, recidivism, and what she’s learned so far from a multi-year study funded by the US Department of Justice. April 2013

CHRISTINE LINDQUIST: Reentry courts really have a talent in terms of delivering all of the needed services
to a diverse population.

ROBERT V. WOLF: I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the
Center for Court Innovation, and on this New Thinking podcast we’re talking about reentry courts with Christine
Lindquist, a Senior Research Sociologist at RTI International. She just completed the first phase of a multi-year
study of eight reentry courts around the U.S. Welcome to New Thinking, Christine.

LINDQUIST: Thank
you so much for having me.

WOLF: We should be clear about what we mean by the word reentry. So
what is reentry referring to?

LINDQUIST: Reentry refers to the process of a person leaving prison
after incarceration and reintegrating back into their community.

WOLF: You worked on an earlier
evaluation. So I thought maybe we could start off, if you talk a little bit about some of its highlights and how
they may have prepared you for this one.

LINDQUIST: Sure. So the multi-side evaluation of the
Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, or SVORI, which is a little easier to say, was a large multi-year
evaluation and we looked at recidivism and other outcomes for individuals who received enhanced reentry programming
through SVORI, as well as a comparison group of returning prisoners who received treatment as usual. And basically
in the SVORI evaluation, when we looked at short term effect. And by short term effects we mean recidivism within
two years and then other outcomes such as drug use, employment that we looked at during shorter periods, such as
three months after release, nine months and 15 months. We found some short term effects when looking at some outcomes.
So, for example, for some employment outcomes, people who received enhanced reentry programming did better than those
who received treatment as usual. However, when looking at recidivism, we didn’t really find strong short term
effects. But interestingly, when we looked at longer term recidivism through another grant that we received, we did
find positive effect for recidivism, and by this we mean reductions in arrest, a longer average time to first arrest
following release, and longer time between arrests for the SVORI group compared to those who received treatment as
usual. So I think one thing we learned from the SVORI evaluation is that recidivism effects took longer to observe,
and that suggests the need for longer follow-up in evaluations in order to detect those. And then also we found that
it’s really important not to just assume that all services are helpful. Some services may be more effective
for certain types of prisoners than others. For men, we found that services that promoted individual change – such
as anger management programs, or programs that help with personal relationships, or criminal thinking, were associated
with longer times to first arrest following release. For women, having a case manager and receiving life skills training
were associated with reductions in recidivism. So it just appears that there’s a lot more to be learned about
the effects of different services and that they may be different for men and women.

WOLF: That’s
very interesting. Let’s move on to your current evaluation that you are working on. Now this study focuses on
a particular model called the reentry court. So maybe you could take a moment just to talk about what a reentry court
is?

LINDQUIST: Sure. Reentry court grew out of a larger national movement towards problem solving
courts. And problem solving courts and the drug court model is the most common and well known of these programs,
are courts that combine judicial authority with rehabilitative services. The reentry courts are specialized problem
solving courts specifically focused on recidivism. So they combine judicial oversight, which includes court hearings
in which a returning prisoner would have his or her status reviewed on a regular basis, and if they’re doing
well they would receive praise or other types of rewards, such as advancing through the program. If they’re
not doing well, they would receive graduated sanctions. So it combines this judicial oversight with the provision
of enhanced reentry services.

WOLF: So in the case of a drug court, the ultimate graduated sanction,
if you take it all the way to end would be a jail sentence. In the reentry model, people have already served their
time. So what is, in fact, the leverage that the court has?

LINDQUIST: In almost all of the sites
that are participating in this evaluation, reentry court is established as a condition of supervision. So if someone
isn’t doing well in the reentry court, if they’re not doing what’s expected of them, then the leverage
that the court has is that their supervision would be revoked.

WOLF: And then return to prison,
in other words, because there’s still time on their formal sentence?

LINDQUIST: That’s
right. They could be returned to prison.

WOLF: Well let’s talk about the current study you’re
working on. It’s a collaboration among researchers at your organization, RTI International, which is based in
North Carolina, and NPC Research, which is based in Oregon, and the Center for Court Innovation here in New York.
It’s the first in a series of evaluation that are going to look at what particular aspects of reentry courts?

LINDQUIST: Yeah, it’s actually a single evaluation, but it’s a multi-component evaluation that
includes a process study, an impact study, and a cost effectiveness study. So in the process evaluation, we’re
documenting the start up and ongoing implementation of the eight reentry courts included in the study over several
years in time, looking at what the implementation challenges were, what the context in which the courts are operating
is, what some of the interagency partnerships look like. And then also, as part of our process evaluation, we want
to see what some of the common elements are among the eight programs, to try to see if we can develop a true reentry
court model similar to what we have for drug courts, you know, with the 10 key components. And then for the impact
evaluation, we’re looking at how effective these reentry courts are at reducing recidivism and affecting other
important outcomes. In all eight of the sites, we’re planning on using administrative data to look at rearrests
and reincarceration outcomes, using a masked comparison group design. And then in four of the eight sites, we’re
doing a prospective impact study where we’re interviewing clients who enroll in the reentry court program, and
we’re also interviewing a comparison group of comparable individuals returning from incarceration. And that
allows us to measure employment, family re-integration, community involvement, mental health, substance abuse. And
then we’ll also be able to document personal characteristics that maybe associated with program effects, such
as readiness for change, risk, need for services, and other measures like that. And then finally, we have a cost-effectiveness
analysis where we’re going to be documenting what the costs are of implementing a reentry court, and then also
looking at what the overall cost savings is, if any. So those are the three components of our evaluation, and the
report that we just released is the summary of our first year’s work in the process evaluation.

WOLF:
Given these, that you have eight sites and so many different factors, I mean it seems to me that that’s very
challenging and I wonder if you could talk about some of the challenges of making sense from so much information—eight
different sites, so many different variables.

LINDQUIST: Yeah, the variability is actually not
a problem for the process evaluation. It actually makes it more interesting because we’re really characterizing
how the courts fall on a variety of domains. It’s really interesting to highlight the sources of variability
as opposed to the sources of commonality. What is challenging, though, is for the impact evaluation because when
you have a diverse set of programs, it’s very difficult and often times it’s impossible to pool the data
across the sites. When there’s too much variability, we’re forced to look at site-specific impacts, which
means that effects on recidivism would have to be very large for us to be able to detect those using analytic techniques.

WOLF: What are the most significant findings so far?

LINDQUIST: Well, at this stage I
don’t think we can identify any promising practices or evidence-based practices that seem to be associated with
program effectiveness. What we know so far is that reentry courts are very diverse, unlike drug courts which target
a specific population—people with chemical dependencies. Reentry courts don’t typically target a population
with a specific need, and as a result, reentry courts really have a challenge in terms of delivering all of the needed
services to this diverse population. Another interesting finding, I think, is that you know when reentry courts were
initially conceptualized they were really conceptualized to have a heavy pre-release and post-release component,
such that ideally the person would be identified at the time they were initially sentenced, and that the reentry
court would maintain contact with that person throughout their incarceration. But what’s interesting is that
there really isn’t a major emphasis on pre-release services. A lot of courts don’t have the capacity to
reach in and work with clients while they’re incarcerated. Someone could get sent to prison three hours and
some reentry courts aren’t even sure who is actually going to be coming out on conditional release.

WOLF: You know I’ve really enjoyed hearing about the study and I look forward to seeing it progress.

LINDQUIST: Well thank you. I really enjoyed speaking about our study. We’re excited about our initial
findings and look forward to getting further into this evaluation.

WOLF: Well let me let everyone
know that they can download a copy of the year one study, that’s formal name is the “National Institute
of Justice’s Evaluation of Second Chance Act Adult Reentry Courts – Program Characteristics and Preliminary
Themes from Year One.” And they can download it from our website at www.courtinnovation.org. I’m Rob Wolf,
director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation, and I’ve been speaking with Christine Lindquist,
a Senior Research Sociologist at RTI International. Thank you, everybody, for listening.

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Tania
Sourdin, a professor of law and dispute resolution at Monash University in Melbourne, explains how the
Australian Centre
for Justice Innovation, which she directs, supports reform through research and experimental projects.

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