Program Profile: Red Hook Community Justice Center: Criminal Court for Adults

This is a problem-solving community court that seeks to prevent crime. One component of the program, the Criminal Court, hears misdemeanor cases and seeks to provide quick and meaningful sanctions to defendants in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The program was rated Promising. The program had a statistically significant impact on recidivism rates for defendants.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals

The Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) is a problem-solving community court that seeks to prevent crime by addressing its underlying causes, while also aiming to improve the quality of life in the Red Hook neighborhood. The RHCJC functions as a multijurisdictional court, combining the following four parts: 1) a criminal court, which handles adult misdemeanor cases along with some felony arraignments; 2) a summons part, which handles minor violations of the law; 3) a family court that hears juvenile delinquency cases; and 4) a housing part that handles tenant–landlord disputes.

Target Population

Red Hook is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, with a population of approximately 200,000. The median income is less than one third that of New York City and over 30 percent of the working-age men are unemployed. Red Hook is also considered a high-crime neighborhood, with multiple drug-related crimes and shootings. At the RHCJC, a single judge hears cases from three police precincts in Brooklyn (72nd, 76th, and 78th).

Program Components

The primary function of the RHCJC Criminal Court is to process misdemeanor or minor felony cases arising from arrests in the RHCJC catchment area between Sunday afternoon and noon on Friday (these times are set because the RHCJC is not open on the weekends).  Defendants arrested between 12:00 p.m. on Friday and 12:00 p.m. on Sunday are arraigned at the borough’s primary criminal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn.

Upon arrival at RHCJC, a representative from the New York City Criminal Justice Agency interviews the defendant and prepares a recommendation for the court regarding pretrial release. In addition to the standard questions used throughout New York City to assess defendants, Red Hook defendants are also asked questions that are specifically designed to identify their social service needs and match them with appropriate community service projects. If the defendant does not have an attorney, the Legal Aid Society is appointed to represent the defendant. At arraignment, the defendant and defense attorney appear before the judge, and the defendant can either enter a plea or plead not guilty. If the defendant enters the plea, the judge then imposes the conditions of the plea or may dismiss the case. Alternatively, if the defendant pleads not guilty, the judge must make determinations regarding pretrial release.

The goal at arraignment is to resolve cases by assigning and enforcing meaningful sanctions that serve as a deterrent to criminal behavior. Unlike other community courts, which adjourn cases to a traditional criminal court if the case is not resolved at arraignment or if the defendant does not accept treatment, the RHCJC Criminal Court for Adults keeps misdemeanor cases on the docket through final disposition. RHCJC’s goal is to replace the case dispositions that require no further obligations from the defendants with those that assign meaningful sanctions, even for minor offenses. Additionally, the RHCJC seeks to ensure that defendants begin serving the social and community service sentences as quickly as possible.

Social service sanctions may include educational programs on topics such as “What to Do When Stopped by The Police” and “Treatment Readiness.” Community service sanctions are typically administered by the RHCJC staff. Defendants register for these programs immediately after exiting the courtroom, and the court follows up with the defendant if he or she fails to show up for the assigned session.  Furthermore, defendants are typically required to appear in court to demonstrate compliance with the terms of the court’s mandate. Both the immediate onsite registration for service sanctions and the monitoring of the defendant’s compliance offered by the RHCJC are practices that contrast with those in other New York City criminal courts. 

Program Theory

The RHCJC is founded on the community court model, which holds that the court should be an integral part, as well as an agent of change, in the community. The community court model aims to relocate justice out of the large, centralized courts and into the local community courts. It is believed that by doing so, not only can the court address the underlying causes of crime, but it can also increase the community’s perception of procedural justice (Lee et al. 2013).

The RHCJC Criminal Court also uses the deterrence theory as its framework for reducing crime and improving the quality of life in the Red Hook neighborhood. Deterrence theory is founded on the belief that people make rational choices about whether to engage in criminal behavior, that they weigh the costs and benefits of the action, and that potential lawbreakers will be less likely to commit a crime if they believe they will be caught and receive a severe punishment (Lee et al. 2013). The RHCJC uses the deterrence theory by ensuring that a defendant receives a meaningful sanction for even minor offenses, and that these sentences are served as quickly as possible. 

Study 1

To investigate the impact of the Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) on recidivism for Criminal Court defendants, Lee and colleagues (2013) used a quasi-experimental design that compared cases processed at RHCJC (treatment group) with similar cases processed at Kings County Criminal Court in downtown Brooklyn (comparison group). Given that the RHCJC only operates on weekdays, the defendants arrested in the RHCJC catchment area on the weekend are routed to Kings County Criminal Court; this created a natural comparison group. To be eligible for inclusion, cases from both courts had to be processed during the same period and the arrests had to have been made in the three police precincts that feed the RHCJC (72nd, 76th, and 78th).  

The 1,564 cases processed at the RHCJC were compared with the 1,563 cases processed at the Kings County Criminal Court in downtown Brooklyn, all of which reached a final disposition in 2008. Using propensity score modeling, there were no significant differences between the two groups on baseline demographics. The treatment and comparison groups were predominately male (82 percent), had an average age of 32 years old, and were 53 percent Hispanic/Latino, 24 percent Black, 17 percent white, and 6 percent Asian. Approximately half of the defendants in both groups had a prior arrest record.  

A simple comparison of rearrest rates was used to assess the impact of case processing at the RHCJC on the risk of recidivism among adult misdemeanor defendants. Recidivism was defined by the occurrence of a new arrest. The recidivism data used in the analysis was a comparison of the RHCJC defendants and the downtown comparison group defendants who were rearrested within 2 years after arraignment on the initial offense.  It is also important to note that the groups differed primarily on the time of arrest. The downtown defendants were arrested mostly between 12:00 p.m. Friday and 12:00 p.m. Sunday, when the RHCJC does not accept defendants for arraignment. 

Lee and colleagues (2013) calculated the marginal costs of jail usage, property victimization, and personal victimization between the Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) Criminal Court (for adult misdemeanor defendants) and the downtown comparison court, as well as the marginal value of community service work between the two courts. These benefits or avoided costs were then compared with the RHCJC program costs, fixed and variable combined, to determine the cost efficacy of the RHCJC. Defendants processed by the RHCJC had lower recidivism rates for property and violent offenses than defendants processed in the downtown comparison location. According to the speculative cost-efficiency analysis, the RHCJC appears to have avoided approximately $4.5 million from reduced property offending. Similarly, the RHCJC appears to have avoided $10.7 million from reduced violent offending.

Additional Outcomes

In addition to examining the impact of the Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) Criminal Court program on the recidivism rates of misdemeanor defendants by using quantitative data, Lee and colleagues (2013) also looked at how the RHCJC might impact the perceived fairness of the court by looking at qualitative data. As they found in the community survey, interviews, and in courtroom observation, defendants perceived a high level of procedural fairness in the RHCJC’s decision-making process. The authors note that these qualitative findings indicate that procedural justice may be a critical factor in RHCJC’s success in reducing recidivism (Lee et al. 2013).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Rehabilitation Programs for Adults Convicted of a Crime

This practice includes programs that are designed to reduce recidivism among adults by improving their behaviors, skills, mental health, social functioning, and access to education and employment. They may become participants in rehabilitation programs during multiple points in their involvement with the criminal justice system. This practice is rated Promising for reducing recidivism among adults who have been convicted of an offense.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?