It opened in March at a cost of $2.7 million. Few defendants showed up and most cases were dismissed, prompting some city officials to call it a pricey waste of time.
But on a recent afternoon, 115 defendants filled the standing-room-only court, and 76 percent of defendants are now appearing for their assigned court dates. Albers says that in traditional courtrooms, 20 percent of defendants picked up for committing low-level crimes appear in court.
A unique approach
But the Community Justice Center is anything but traditional.
“How are you today?” Albers asked 38-year-old Tenecia Gippson-Kent.
“Great,” she answered, beaming.
“I would say you’re blessed,” Albers said, asking the room to give her a round of applause.
Gippson-Kent was arrested this fall for passing a bad check. She’d been in and out of jail, mostly on drug charges. She said a cocaine addiction led to her losing her four kids and sleeping on the streets.
Since coming to the Community Justice Center, she’s been assigned a case manager. She’s taking parenting classes, attending substance abuse support groups and seeing a therapist, and she has a bed in a shelter.
It’s all part of her sentence, handed down by Albers in exchange for no jail time and the charge being wiped from her record if she follows through. She checks in with him regularly.
“I love this judge,” she said after discussing her progress with Albers. “It just boosts me like, ‘Keep going. Keep going.’ I think I’m going to become a real success.”
Defendants like Gippson-Kent have the right to choose whether to participate in the Community Justice Center or have their case handled at the Hall of Justice and face jail time.
Those with the most serious charges – drug dealing, grand theft and assault – overwhelmingly show up at the CJC. But Albers said he’s still bothered that so few of those arrested for the lowest-level crimes – which was how the court was marketed when the mayor first proposed it in 2007 – appear. For example, only two of 37 people cited for sleeping in a doorway since Oct. 1 have showed.
“The culture in the street is if you get a citation for one of those offenses, you can ignore it,” Albers said.
Funding fight ahead
Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed the Tenderloin court after touring the Midtown Community Court in Manhattan, which is credited with helping to clean up the nearby Times Square area. The idea, replicated in cities worldwide, is to assign defendants social services to solve their underlying problems and community service to pay back the neighborhood for their crimes.
But despite fighting for the court for two years, Newsom has never visited the Polk Street court. His spokesman, Joe Arellano, said the mayor wanted the court to begin “without his interference” but would stop by soon.
Funding the court has long been a fight between the mayor and skeptical supervisors who say there’s little point in funding the court since the social services it assigns defendants have seen their city funding slashed during budget problems over the past few years. With a $522 million deficit predicted for the city in the 2010-11 fiscal year, the court is once again expected to be a focus of budget battles.
Arellano said the mayor would ensure the CJC is fully funded next year, but Supervisor John Avalos, chair of the budget committee, said, “I’m still not clear what the court’s merits are.“
Another wrinkle has been Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s withdrawal from the court, saying budget cuts from City Hall left him without the attorneys to staff it.
Instead, private defense attorneys paid by the Superior Court are staffing the CJC, which has created budget problems for the Superior Court. But at least one of the private defense attorneys is having a blast.
“I haven’t had as much fun since I was in law school,” said George Beckwith, a criminal lawyer with offices just steps from the CJC. “It’s baby steps – it’s alcoholics and junkies trying to cope, and they really are trying.”
By the numbers
A six-month study of the Tenderloin Community Justice Center by the Superior Court found:
Clients engaged in treatment services: 400
Hours of community service performed by clients: 500
Turnaround, in days, from arrest to court date, down from 45 days at the Hall of Justice: 2
Portion of caseload that is felony cases: 60%
Clients who are male: 75%
Overall appearance rate: 76%
Appearance rate for felony drug offenses: 86%
Appearance rate for low-level misdemeanors: 22% [SFGate.com]
Filed under: Activism, District Six, SF Tenderloin, Tenderloin, Tenderloin crime, What's Going On? | Tagged: community justice center, Crime in the Tenderloin, John Avalos
Daly is pretty much anti-matter. Do the opposite of whatever his goals are, and you will succeed. Align with him and you’re doomed for the status-quo shitshow.
I work for SF Collaborative Courts. Thank you so much for your recent post about our newest (and perhaps most politically charged) program the Community Justice Center. I would like to invite you to post the dates of our upcoming Town Hall and Advisory Board Meetings- as these meetings are open to the public and are a valuable forum for community members to discuss what’s happening in regards to crime and public safety. The next Town Hall will be held on January 12th at 5:00; location TBD. Please contact me for further information. Thank you for what you do!