Mr. Philip Bowen:

Thank you, Chairman. It is a great honour to address the committee. I will take up where Mr. Lang left off by dealing with two important issues, namely, replication of the community court model outside of midtown Manhattan and, second, what we know about results.

On replication, one of the key features of the community court model is flexibility. Community courts have "community" in their name for a reason: because they put community first. They are all about local concerns, local stakeholders and local collaborators, and because of their emphasis on the local, the model has been adaptable in all kinds of settings. We now find community courts in some 40 jurisdictions throughout the United States and in a number of international locations, including Canada, Australia and England. Each replication is unique, but all share a strong commitment to community engagement, collaboration between agencies and problem-solving.

What do we know about results? In New York, independent evaluators have found that the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn reduced the use of jail sentences by 35% and issued alternative sanctions to 78% of offenders, compared with 22% in the comparison group at the centralised courthouse. Compliance with court mandates at the Midtown Community Court has remained at or above 75%, the highest in the city. Evaluators concluded that, in conjunction with police initiatives and local economic development, Midtown Community Court can be credited with a 56% decrease in prostitution and a 24% decrease in illegal street trading. At Red Hook, a recent evaluation found a 10% reduction in re-offending among adults and a 20% reduction for juvenile offenders. Finally, a key finding of the Red Hook evaluation was a saving of some $4,756 per defendant through avoided victimisation costs. The conclusion was that the overall savings outweigh costs by nearly 2:1.

While an evaluation report on Vancouver's Downtown Community Court's impact on re-offending is still pending release, we do have results to share from an independent evaluation of Melbourne's Neighbourhood Justice Centre. Among key findings, researchers found an increase in compliance with community-based orders from 65% to 75%, and an average completion rate of 105 hours of unpaid work compared with a statewide average of 68 hours. In addition, the evaluation found a decrease in re-offending of 7%. Significantly for policy makers, benefit-cost modelling showed that for every $1 invested in the community court, the expected return would range between $1.09 and $2.23.

However, not all evaluations have been so positive. In the case of the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre, for example, the results were mixed. On the one hand, researchers found that the community court processed cases more quickly and was more likely to respond to non-compliance. So far so good. On the other hand, evaluators were unable to conclude that the project reduced re-offending at any greater rate than the United Kingdom average. The justice system recently announced plans to transfer the justice centre's practices to the centralised magistrates' court because of a low caseload.

While Liverpool is the outlier among community court evaluations, it serves as a cautionary tale for us all that good results do not automatically come with the adaptation of the community court model. That is why Mr. Lang and I put such strong emphasis on good planning and implementation.

I mentioned the importance of the word "community" in the phrase "community court". It would be remiss of me not to stress what we might call the model's surname, "court". As one of the most prominent community court judges in the United States is fond of saying, "The constitution comes first and problem-solving comes second. Period." This means that the constitutional rights of the accused - not to mention the independence of the judiciary - are sacred concepts in a democracy. However, as expressed so well by that judge, community courts believe that while the constitution certainly does come first, it is definitely reconcilable with a strong dedication to solving individual and community problems.

I again thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to address it.