David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of this part of the meeting is to have a discussion on the feasibility of the introduction of a community courts system. Members will recall that the committee invited written submissions on this topic. The format of the meeting is that each group will be invited to make an opening statement which will be followed by questions from members. I welcome the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the first citizen of Dublin, and thank him for his attendance. I am also very pleased to welcome Mr. Julius Lang from the Center for Court Innovation in New York who has come a long way to be with us today. I thank him for his attendance. I welcome Mr. Philip Bowen from the UK Centre for Justice Innovation; Mr. Justice Michael Reilly who chaired a committee on this topic a number of years ago; Mr. David Brennan, Dublin City Business Association; Mr. Tony McGillicuddy from the Bar Council of Ireland; Mr. Ken Murphy, an old friend of ours, from the Law Society of Ireland; and Ms Maura Butler, chairperson of the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, ACJRD. I expect the Minister to arrive shortly, as he wishes to listen to the proceedings.
By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the joint committee. If they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
I ask that all mobile phones be switched off completely, as they interfere with the sound system. I invite Mr. Lang to make his opening statement.

Mr. Julius Lang:

It is a pleasure and an honour to be invited to make a presentation to the joint committee today. I am representing the Center for Court Innovation in New York and am accompanied by my colleague, Mr. Phil Bowen, from our UK-based affiliate, the Center for Justice Innovation. Ours is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organisation. If we had a tagline, it would be "research and development for justice reform". In practice, our work falls into three categories, the first of which is demonstration projects such as community courts which are created in our role as the external research and development arm of the New York state court system. The second category is research. We have 15 social scientists on our staff who support our demonstration projects with action research and study the impact of other justice interventions in the United States and internationally.

The third area of our work is technical assistance, both in the United States and internationally. This is the part of the organisation in which Mr. Bowen and I are chiefly involved.

In the time we have been allotted, I will speak about our experience with New York's longest-running community court, while Mr. Bowen will cover replication of the original model and evaluation of results. In New York, community courts have endured and, in fact, thrived since the first one was created in Times Square in 1993. I was reminded of the Midtown Community Court's staying power just a few weeks ago as our newest mayor was preparing to take office. The court was planned and opened under Mayor David Dinkins, who was followed by Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. While those three mayors had differing positions on many issues, each was enthusiastically supportive of the community court. Twenty years after the court opened its doors, our newest mayor, Bill de Blasio, has also embraced the community courts model. In fact, he chose the Red Hook Community Justice Center, a Brooklyn-based replication of the Midtown model, as the location to announce his appointment of the new police commissioner, Bill Bratton, in December.

The fundamental idea behind the Red Hook Community Justice Center's work, as Mayor de Blasio explained, is that the way to fight crime is with the community. That idea has been epitomised to great effect in New York, and it is an idea that animates my entire view of public safety and how we can move forward as a city. The incoming mayor called the justice centre an "extraordinary institution" that "epitomizes what I believe in terms of a progressive approach to public safety". The Midtown Community Court was opened under the then New York State Chief Judge, Judith Kaye, and has been just as strongly supported by her successor, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, through good economic times and bad.

The bottom line is that crime, although it can be politicised, is not really a political issue. More often, except in the case of career criminals, it is a combination of complex social, economic, health and other issues and, as such, it defies easy solutions. The crime problem facing Times Square back in 1993 is a problem that afflicts many urban centres. It was a type of crime that did its damage through an accumulation of relatively small but constant insults to the social fabric. Times Square had gone slowly but surely from a jewel of the city - home to theatres and fine dining and one of New York's two central business districts, along with the Wall Street area - to a mecca for the small and ugly, including street prostitution, open-air drug dealing, drunken brawling, assaults, shoplifting, and illegal street trading. Many offences were relatively small but their collective impact was to ruin the quality of the experiences of workers, tourists, residents and everyone who passed through the neighbourhood.

New York's traditional response to this kind of lower-level offending had become something of a treadmill or, in an oft-used cliché, a "revolving door". The police officer would issue a ticket or make an arrest, the accused would go downtown to a massive anonymous courthouse where all cases, large and small, were heard, and would typically get a short-term jail sentence, a release without conditions - known in New York as a "walk" - or a fine that was rarely paid. In the words of the frustrated supervising judge of the time, sentencers had only two choices, namely, brain surgery, meaning prison, or a band aid, meaning the other options. The problem was that many of those cycling through the system were habitual offenders with very complicated lives, facing minimal accountability while the neighbourhood continued to be victimised.

In setting up the Midtown Community Court, the justice system was proposing something different, a way of administering punishments that were meaningful and might actually serve as a disincentive to further offending while also being proportionate to the crime. It was also about helping offenders get on a better life track. Thus, what we call the community court model was born - a court with a geographic focus which would harness the power of the justice system to work with the community to solve local problems. Instead of an overnight in jail, the Midtown Community Court's typical punishment consists of a combination of a community restitution assignment and mandated social services. These responses are delivered quickly, not days or weeks after the fact, often on the same day or next day after sentencing.

Research has shown that swift and certain responses make more of an impact on re-offending than the severity of the sanction itself. A day of community restitution might consist of a team, under the supervision of a court staffer or partner agency, going out into the neighbourhood to paint over graffiti, clean a local park or even stuff envelopes for a non-governmental organisation. Key social services are housed on-site. Drug and mental health counselling, even job training and fatherhood classes, take place on the sixth floor of the building, a few flights above the courtroom. These sanctions are meaningful because, unlike a fine or a night in jail, they seek to address factors associated with underlying behaviour.

The local nature of the response is important. Community courts are usually, although not always, based in the neighbourhood they serve. The Midtown Community Court is on West 54th Street, a few blocks from Times Square and right in the middle of its catchment, which is actually slightly larger than Times Square. Its location makes it easier for members of the local business, residential, faith and academic communities to come in and volunteer. They can serve on advisory boards, work with court participants and can even access the same services as the court's clients. In other words, the court also serves the law-abiding members of the community. That is the Midtown Community Court in a nutshell. I thank members for their time and will be glad to answer any questions they might have.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Mr. Lang. I invite Mr. Bowen to make his opening remarks.

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.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Bowen for being so concise and precise in his remarks. I welcome the Minister and thank him for being present to observe our deliberations. I invite Mr. Justice Michael Reilly to make his opening remarks.

Mr. Justice Michael Reilly:

I am pleased to come before the joint committee to give my views - they are my personal views and not representative of anyone else's thinking - on a possible worthwhile initiative, namely, discussing the concept of community courts in an Irish context. First, I congratulate the Chairman on taking such an avid interest in this matter. I also pay tribute to the Minister who, when publishing the last of my reports, on the Dóchas Centre, made significant comments on his desire to see change. I have no doubt that there is such a desire.

I would like to share with the committee my experiences in the criminal justice system over more than 45 years, first, as a solicitor, then, from 1982 to 2008, as a judge and for the past six years as Inspector of Prisons. I will then try to place in context community courts in 2014 in the criminal justice system.

The Minister knows as well as I do, if not better, that for countless generations the criminal justice system stood still. Judges had very few options, but they did not need them because they could imprison or fine people or let them off with a caution. In other words, they could apply the Probation Act. In the mid-1980s the concept of community service was introduced. This was the first time in this jurisdiction that offenders were obliged to make some form of reparation and it worked. As a result, judges had a further sentencing option. Even in the 1980s there was a clear distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. What was unacceptable was criminal behaviour, in respect of which the forces of law and order could bring offenders before the courts to be dealt with. At the time the criminal justice system was adequately equipped to deal with whatever came before it as a result of the limited range of options available. While they were limited, they were adequate.

Towards the end of the 1990s Ireland, in common with other countries, experienced a huge change that had been brought about by the abuse of drugs and the consumption of alcohol and nobody knew what to do about it. As judges, we were seeking guidance because it was obvious that the criminal justice with which I, among others, had grown up was ill-equipped to deal with certain of the new challenges in the aftermath of the advent of drugs. At that point the drugs court was established. This was a modern, innovative approach to endeavour to deal with the drugs issue. Those who established and operated the court deserve great credit. However, it could only deal with one aspect of the problem. The drugs scourge brought all sorts of other problems with it.

It has been apparent to me, as I am sure it has to all of society, that the scale of the drugs problem has brought with it other difficulties. I refer to people shoplifting and petty thieving in order to fund the purchase of drugs. In addition, there is begging on the streets. I am aware, however, that not all begging is drug-related. There is also anti-social behaviour on the streets which comes from a culture of drug taking and impacts on the quality of life of ordinary people. Then there is the homelessness associated with this chaotic life. I could go on in this regard.

What do we do? We could introduce severe penalties and mandatory sentences, build extra prisons and increase the strength of the Garda in order to ensure all of the people whom society believes to be a nuisance could be brought to court and taken out of circulation by being imprisoned. That might be easy were it not for the fact that 99.9% of people who are imprisoned leave prison at some stage. Most of them leave after quite a short time and the entire cycle begins again. When these unfortunate individuals come to court, the judge will be told of their sad history and background. On numerous occasions I have been asked to direct that a psychiatric or psychological report or assessment of an individual be produced before imposing sentence. One must then ask where such a report or assessment should be procured. If someone's doctor wants to obtain an expert opinion, he or she will send him or her to the relevant expert, probably in a hospital. However, we do not find them there. Therefore, what do we do? What option do I, as a judge, have? My only option is to send the person to prison. Why would one send a person to prison in order to obtain a doctor's report? Would it not be better to ask an expert who is available to the court to produce such a report? In every single case in which I requisitioned a report, it recommended options. However, the option of prison was never recommended. Why then should the individual involved have been sent to prison in the first instance? Similarly, if a person has an addiction to drugs or alcohol, as a judge I may want to know what options are open to me. I know what I can do, namely, send the individual to prison and he or she will receive certain help there. If he or she has underlying problems, however, the three or six-month sentence I hand down might not be sufficient to allow him or her to address them in prison. If I seek advice, I doubt that it would be recommended that the person involved be sent to prison.

This is where the concept of community courts first came into my mind and I have been reading about it. It is a new concept, but it could quite easily sit side by side with the existing system. I have seen these courts in operation in Red Hook in Brooklyn, Midtown Manhattan, Philadelphia and Liverpool. As members are probably aware, I chaired a sub-committee of the National Crime Council which examined community courts in an Irish context. Its report which dates from 2007 is freely available. As Inspector of Prisons, I have also seen at first hand the plight of those with mental disorders, addiction, family and housing problems. These individuals, as a result of their difficulties, have ended up in prison. If they had received help and judges had options, they might not have been imprisoned. It is probably fair to say that if people in society need help and receive it, a high proportion accept that help and usually change as a result. We know this from everyday life. A community court-type system would be a place in which that change could start. I have listened to many people who have talked about this complex issue. It is one that needs a great deal of consideration.

There are many players who are important in this matter. These players range from the Judiciary to the ordinary person who really has no qualification but who may be a helper in the court and befriends an individual who comes before it. Community courts will involve an element of community service work, but that is something of which we are all aware.

It will take a reforming mindset to take the step of looking again at the concept of community courts. As there are so many necessary elements and so many necessary players in this, it would be wrong for any one of those players to decide they were the most important. It must be a collaborative approach among everybody. In that regard, I welcome the initiative taken by Dublin City Business Association in starting the discussion in the open. I can elaborate on any of this at a later stage.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. I invite Mr. David Brennan from the Dublin City Business Association to make his opening remarks.

Mr. David Brennan:

I am thankful for this opportunity to speak here today. In business, perception is reality. In reality, here in Dublin we have had considerable media coverage of quality of life and anti-social crime in the city centre. The perception of the streets of Dublin is not what it should be. Low level offences such as vandalism, anti-social behaviour, being drunk in public, criminal damage, drug use and drug dealing, assault, threatening and abusive behaviour and theft erode the quality of life for the inhabitants of our city. This creates an atmosphere in which serious crime flourishes. We have a situation where we continually have drug-addicted people on the streets of Dublin. These unfortunate individuals, in the main, no longer take any interest in society at large and behave in a manner that disturbs and intimidates many passing citizens, not to mention tourists. Workers and shoppers alike pass comment regularly on how unpleasant this makes the city centre.

We have one of the safest capital cities in the world. This is borne out by the actual crime statistics. The perception, however, is that our city is violent, which is not based on the facts.

The Dublin City Business Association, DCBA, is a not-for-profit voluntary association which has worked tirelessly for just under 40 years for the restoration, development and promotion of Dublin City. The majority of business people in Dublin will spend a large portion of their lives within the city centre. The DCBA engages daily with the authorities of the city, Dublin City Council and An Garda Síochána. We interact on the streets of Dublin with our members and are involved with many committees that concern themselves with the good running of the city.

In 2004, the DCBA set about creating a new entity for Dublin, namely, the Dublin business improvement district structure. On our site visits to the USA we took a keen interest in the concept of community courts. I have been asked why a business organisation would take the considerable time and effort in promoting the community courts concept. The DCBA as a business organisation accepts its moral responsibility to partake in the good governance of Dublin. The aim of the association has not changed in that we seek a system of law that manages the individual and not the process. We wish to see community courts established in the State that would have problem solving judges and that would be problem solving courts that work more closely with the community, that deliver and develop a collaborative problem solving approach to quality-of-life offences such as shoplifting, vandalism, street level drug possession, and so on, that provide quick acting justice and visible justice in the area where the crime took place, that can be seen by the community at large to be working, that are well planned, well thought-out and well researched, and that actively work to guide and assist defendants back into a meaningful role for them in society.

In regard to those who have substance abuse problems and many family and personal problems, we look for a court that actively works to guide and assist these people to deal with their problems and the underlying reasons for re-offending. The goal of community courts is to address the multiple problems and needs that contribute to anti-social behaviour. Both criminal justice officials and the community share a deep frustration about the criminal courts processing low level offences and the high level of repeat offenders. The community courts, through their structure, could address offences such as those I mentioned.

Some years ago, in 2001, we had a far-seeing initiative with the setting up of a drug court in Dublin. Following the work done by the drug court, the DCBA would see the community courts as a natural progression in dealing with low level offences and anti-social behaviour on our streets.

The city requires a perception that encourages citizens and businesses to grow and prosper. We need active change on the streets. Tourism is vital as it brings new, extra money to the State. The offering of our city and the reality of our streets impinges directly on tourists and on their essential wish to revisit Ireland. Thankfully, we had an increase of 7.2% last year in the number of tourists coming to Ireland. While that is great news, we need to build strong annual increases in the tourism sector to bring new money into our city. Community courts are a very real tool to give us a better city with better streetscapes. This will affect the ordinary person in the street going about his or her daily life. It will improve the environment of the streets which in turn will engender increased and improved business and this will bring jobs to our city.

Every capital city has similar problems to the ones we have in Dublin. The DCBA seeks to improve the way we deal with quality-of-life crimes. We support the view that minor crimes should not necessarily draw a defendant into the majesty of the adversarial criminal justice system. We believe a speedy system that is firm with low level repeat offenders but seeks to help the individual promises much to our society. As Albert Einstein said, we cannot solve the problems of today using the same thoughts that created the problem in the first place. Community courts have been established in jurisdictions other than the USA, where the initiative started in 1993, for more than ten years. They have grown, have been developed and have adjusted to the need in the society in which they operate.

The DCBA asks that we in Dublin would look at a system that has successfully reduced crime in countries that operate community courts, as this would be of great importance. Community courts have substantially reduced the rate of re-offending. While reducing the crime, it has also helped defendants regain parts of their lives. These two factors, over time, will benefit our society. While we believe it may help the State in fiscal terms, we strongly believe it will help the agencies of the State that deal with these problems to operate more effectively.

In a court where the defendant pleads guilty the resources of the court are put to better and more practical use. The citizens see swift justice at work and the community service working in their area. The services of the State that deal with abuse and housing see their resources employed to better effect and more returns with positive results for their spend. If community courts are planned and implemented properly, I believe there is a win-win for all - a win for the citizen going about his or her affairs in our capital, a win for business that will see job potential and new opportunities, a win for those who have lost control of their lives, and a win for the Exchequer in that the systems will operate better. We need change and we in the DCBA believe that setting up a community courts system in Dublin will bring about that change. As George Bernard Shaw said, some people say, "Why", and I say: "Why not?"

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Brennan for that. I invite the Lord Mayor to make his contribution.

Mr. Oisín Quinn:

I am thankful for this opportunity to speak to the committee about the possibility of introducing community courts. As Lord Mayor of Dublin, I receive correspondence from those who visit our city and they recount their experiences, both good and bad. One of the common negative experiences surrounds anti-social behaviour which affects the quality of life for those living and working in the city. Issues such as drug use and drug dealing on our streets, theft, alcohol related crimes and graffiti are ones which some may perceive as relatively minor in comparison with other major crimes. However, these have a huge impact on the lives of those living and working in the city and they can also give a negative perception of the city. A perception of the city not being safe can undo all the good work done by organisations such as Dublin City Council, the Garda, business associations and tourism groups. In addition to caring for the quality of life of all our citizens, Dublin is the capital city and the economic driver of Ireland. It is in all our interests for Dublin to do well and to be seen as the ideal location to set up business or to come to visit.

As Lord Mayor, I chair the Dublin city local business policing forum which addresses issues within the city centre from a business and-or policing point of view.

One of the main topics raised is the low level crimes described. Numerous possible solutions have been discussed, one being community courts. The Dublin City Business Association, DCBA, has outlined to us examples of how the system works in the United States and the United Kingdom. The option of having an instant reaction to a crime and an integrated approach to addressing both the crime committed and the issues of the person who has carried out the act is one which is of great interest to the forum. In some cities in the United States this has led to a reduction of 82% in the number of repeat crimes, as defendants are referred to the services they require and start to turn their lives around. Their sentences are also ones which assist the community, leading to those in the relevant areas seeing swift justice.

The Dublin city local business policing forum has recently commenced an outreach team initiative between the city council, the Garda and the Ana Liffey drug project. The aim of the initiative is to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour on the streets of central Dublin on a practical case by case basis. The pilot phase of the initiative was carried out in late 2013 and initial reports indicate a co-ordinated approach by the Garda and Dublin City Council, including homeless services and the drugs centre, would be beneficial to provide a speedy response for those in need. With different agencies supporting the initiative, it would be possible to provide advice and support in areas such as housing and drug addiction at the same time. An additional function of the outreach team in time could be to attend and assist community courts to give quick support to those in need.

A former Lord Mayor, Mr. Andrew Montague, produced a report by a commission on anti-social behaviour during his term of office in 2011 to 2012. Representatives from a wide range of stakeholders took part in the commission, including elected members of Dublin City Council, the Garda, the Department of Justice and Equality, the Probation Service, the HSE and drug treatment centres. One of the main themes was the speed of the criminal justice system. All crime statistics show that where crime is dealt with swiftly, it has a longer lasting effect on the perpetrator. The use of community courts would mean that fewer people who have committed low level crimes in the city would have to go through the District Court and prison system. The benefits would include a collaborative approach by relevant authorities; the courts and prison systems being used for more serious offenders; and citizens seeing community service in action in their neighbourhood. In addition, by supporting the defendants at that point it would assist them in turning their lives around and reduce the ongoing legal and criminal costs to the State.

We already have clear recommendations for the establishment of community courts in Ireland from the National Crime Council in its 2007 report, Problem Solving: Justice – the Case for Community Courts in Ireland. It gives an outline of community courts, including research from community courts in the United States and the United Kingdom. One of its recommendations is that a community court be established in the inner city of Dublin to deal with quality-of-life offences committed in the Store Street and Pearse Street Garda stations catchment areas and that when convincing evidence of their success emerges, community courts be extended to other centres, subject to necessary refinements.

The city centre would be an ideal pilot area for community courts. In the Store Street and Pearse Street catchment areas we have the main shopping, tourism and transport centres of the city. A huge volume of people pass through the city centre every day. Last year 27 million people passed through O’Connell Street and only 16 minor assaults were reported to An Garda Síochána up to the end of November. However, this is not what the perception of the O’Connell Street area would lead one to believe. A community court in the city centre would ensure the visible targeting of low level crime in the city centre and lead to multiple benefits for the city in terms of quality of life for those living in the city, satisfaction in the business community and an increase in the number of tourists.

I call on the Government to consider establishing a working committee to set up a pilot scheme for community courts in the capital. I would be happy to assist in any way I could.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Lord Mayor. I very much appreciate his presence and contribution. I now invite Ms Butler to make her opening remarks.

Ms Maura Butler:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation. I also wish the Minister, the Lord Mayor and everyone else a good evening.

The Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, ACJRD, is an organisation which has been involved in research and collaboration with members of the criminal justice community for quite a long time. We are in regular communication with more than 700 individuals who include staff from the main criminal justice agencies, related Departments, academics, students, members of the legal community and community and youth service providers whose work intersects with that of the criminal justice system. More than 250 of the people concerned are our members. It is important to say, however, that even though we have all of these Government agencies among our membership, the views expressed in our submission and today are those of the ACJRD in its independent capacity, not those of the ACJRD member organisations or their employers. It is my privilege to be the voluntary chairperson of the group.

In making our submission we made 25 recommendations. I am sure those present will be delighted to hear I will not attempt to go through all of them. It has been difficult to extrapolate those on which it would be best to focus. Suffice it to say we support what has been said. We have very much taken on board the 2007 research conducted by the National Crime Council and cited it in our submission. Similarly, we have made reference to the Midtown Community Court experience and that in north Liverpool. We see a lot that can be learned within the Irish jurisdiction on that basis.

The ACJRD has undertaken quite an amount of research on the Children Court and women ex-prisoners and runs conferences on various matters. The most recent conference was very much apropos of this discussion and the results will be launched this month. It was entitled, Preventable Harm: Criminal Justice, Communities and Civil Society. We have been having discussions since last October with the organisations involved and various working groups have expertise in various areas, including mental health, one of the areas we cited in the context of the submission. For purposes of this meeting, however, I will distil the information and say the expertise we have honed and presented in the context of the concept of restorative justice is extremely important given the community aspect of the proposed community courts. As an aside, if we go back to the 7th century in Ireland, the Brehon laws offered a community solution for community problems where everyone in the area came together and ensured restitution, as mentioned.

The collaboration within the membership of the ACJRD pulls together all of the agencies involved in the criminal justice system. We have found such collaboration to be an extraordinarily rich resource and would see the community court system as almost like an analogous implementation of that type of collaboration. As has been pointed out by my colleague from the United Kingdom, we must learn from the Liverpool experience. It is very important that we do so. I will focus on that point first. It is really important to ensure the aims and objectives of a community court are specifically laid out and that there is not too disparate a purpose given to the community court. I am open to correction, but in the Liverpool example I understand the judge was dealing with both summary and indictable matters, with both the trial process and sentencing. That is far too much and the community court system really ought to be focused on sentencing.

I do not have a citation, but it can be found. The generally accepted statistics are that when it comes to District Court business in Ireland, approximately 80% of those who come before it plead guilty. One would not think this when one hears media reports on the really bad cases. That being the case, potentially that amount of people could, in theory, be dealt with within a community court structure. The attractiveness of the structure would be that one would have all of the necessary services available. In an ideal world it would be great to have them all on the same premises in order that an accused person who has been dealt with could knock on the door of the mental health service and the Probation Service, for example, in the same building. Having them in close proximity might be more realistic from a resource perspective. Having a sentencing court only would be our recommendation.

It is obvious to state it is necessary to have legal representation available to anybody who comes before a community court. Such legal representation should not necessarily be confined to the actual process within the court but should be available to somebody who chooses to plead guilty for the purposes of going into the sentencing court. All the usual due process principles in the criminal justice system ought to apply. It is fair to say the criminal court system operates efficiently and is very advanced in some of the facilities available and that applies to the service provided, in particular, within the Irish Prison Service but also by the Probation Service.

The mental health aspect is very important. Research that the ACJRD has undertaken and conferences we have held indicate that a huge proportion of people who come before the criminal courts have a mental health difficulty.

That is a welfare issue. The issue of people being dealt with in a criminal justice context when they should be in a health care context must be the primary focus in any research done in preparing for this type of court case. Also, a person does not cease to be mentally unwell once a sentence has expired; therefore, some provision must be made for ongoing health services in circumstances in which the only reason the person is coming before the court is a breach.

We recommend that the community court be stand-alone and a pilot programme. We believe the goals of the community court should be cohesively designed and clearly stated. The design of an Irish community court should have a legislative provision mandating a review of the operation of the community court within a specific time period. Provision should be made for appropriate data collection for the review, having regard to the goals of the court. Steps should be taken to ensure that this data collection is implemented appropriately, if necessary requiring early commissioning of the review or consultation with the evaluators involved in that process. Notwithstanding the stand-alone nature of the court, when this review is carried out it should have regard to whether the community court experience can inform practices that are generally applicable in the District Court system. Community court business should be limited to sentencing only, and the community court should only hear the sentence matters which do not merit the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence.

Regarding support services, we indicate in our submission that these should include alcohol and drug addiction assessment and counselling. By way of an aside, alcohol addiction tends to have much more impact within a criminal justice context than is often recognised. When we discovered that we had a huge drug problem within our criminal justice system in the mid-1980s, the eye came off the ball in regard to alcohol addiction and how that can impact on many people who end up in court.

Other services could include education and literacy courses, pre-employment and other training programmes, family housing and other social services, parenting programmes, anger management courses and so on. Those people skills could possibly be given by the community in a mentor capacity.

Depending on where this development goes, the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, ACJRD, would be more than happy to facilitate any of the necessary research, collaboration or meetings that might be necessary to assist the process. I thank the Chairman for the opportunity.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Butler for that thought-provoking presentation, which I appreciate. I invite Mr. Ken Murphy from the Law Society of Ireland to make his opening remarks.

Mr. Ken Murphy:

Chairman, members of the committee, Minister, Lord Mayor, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the Law Society of Ireland welcomes the opportunity to submit its views regarding the possible introduction of a community courts initiative in Ireland. The society commends the Oireachtas joint committee on its initiative in dusting down the 2007 report of the National Crime Council, Problem Solving Justice: The Case for Community Courts in Ireland. The success of community courts in parts of the United States and in England and Wales justifies a serious examination of whether community courts could be successful in Ireland also.

The society would welcome the opportunity to participate fully in an implementation group as recommended in chapter 5 of the National Crime Council’s report. Solicitors who practice in criminal law have valuable experience and insights which they would happily make available to such a group.

While the welcome is genuine and warm, there are elements of caution that the society believes should be expressed also. First, we believe that consideration of the community courts model should be based also on an analysis of the impact of any such changes on criminal procedure in Ireland and the avoidance of any potential weakening of the constitutional rights of the accused. Echoing Mr. Bowen's comments about England and Wales, and his quotation from the United States, it is not just in the US that the constitutional rights come first. Second, we also believe that the review should be on the basis of evidence-based research. Third - this is a theme I fear has not been sufficiently emphasised in the discussion so far - such an initiative must be adequately resourced.

On the model, I quote from the National Center for State Courts in the United States, which states: "Typically, a community court is a problem-solving court that addresses quality of life or 'nuisance' cases and takes a more proactive approach to public safety." It further states that there are several different models for community courts, that all the courts are experimenting with different ways to provide appropriate services and sanctions, and that there is no simple model to be adopted and recommended in Ireland.

We must recognise also that many elements in community courts are already known in the Irish justice system. In the National Crime Council's description of the community courts concepts it states that the community courts evolved from the drugs courts in the United States, the first of which was established in 1989. I had the experience of being a member of the working group in a courts commission chaired by the now Chief Justice, Mrs. Justice Susan Denham, in the late 1990s when we were getting presentations from the United States about the drug courts. The drug courts concept is known in Ireland. Also, there is the restorative justice initiative that is being followed in Ireland, in respect of which Judge Michael Reilly was a pioneer in Nenagh. A further pilot project was introduced in Tallaght and has now transferred to the Courts of Criminal Justice in Dublin.

Some of the themes of community courts are not entirely unknown in Ireland. The concern solicitors have is that the resourcing of those initiatives has not been all that it could be. Some would see that there may be elements of panacea in the adoption of a community courts initiative now, but we are certain that would not be the case. The drugs courts, for example, by narrowing its focus to the treatment of drug problems and focusing on the problem that caused the criminal conduct, look to the underlying problem of which often the criminal conduct is only a symptom. To address deep-rooted social problems of that kind, resources have to be put in place.

Less than an hour ago I spoke to the chair of the criminal law committee of the Law Society, who said that in her view the Probation Service in Ireland is at breaking point. If there are to be initiatives that will draw on further involvement of the Probation Service, the courts system or the health system in support of community courts, resources will have to be found to make them work. Our major reservation and concern is that this model might be followed and an initiative put in place without adequate resources to ensure its success. Undoubtedly, there is great value in the concept of community courts and we should seek to learn from the experience, which, as Mr. Bowen pointed out, has not all been positive in other jurisdictions. He cited the north Liverpool experience.

The concept of seeking to address the underlying problems of which the crime is often merely a symptom has to be followed. The Law Society, the solicitors' profession and the practitioners in the criminal courts who are solicitors would be very happy to engage with and support a model of this kind, provided all the elements required to make it a success are present.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Murphy and appreciate his intervention. I call the last speaker, Mr. McGillicuddy.

Mr. Tony McGillicuddy:

Chairman, members of the committee, Minister, Lord Mayor and other distinguished guests who have made presentations, what can I add to what has been said? Many of the points have been covered but I will give the committee some of my thoughts. To echo what previous speakers said, something that would be different about community courts - this is one of the reasons the Bar Council is generally supportive of the concept - is that instead of sanctioning people it would be a case of sanction plus remedies, not just remedies for society in general but also for the offender who is before the courts. That person might be suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, mental health difficulties or undiagnosed educational disabilities.

I practice in criminal courts, and it is not unusual to have clients on serious charges in the Circuit Criminal Court, where relevant reports are obtained and something that has lain undiagnosed throughout the person's life is diagnosed and can be seen as a root problem of criminal offending. There are difficulties concerning homelessness, family difficulties including abusive relationships, and poverty difficulties that lead to prostitution or begging. These are the matters on which offenders come before the courts. At present, the system's only ability is to refer these people to the probation service and for the Probation Service, with its excellent staff who do huge work in difficult circumstances and with limited resources, to co-ordinate facilities and services to try to get these people out of the basement and on their feet again.

In the context of the system we have, with recidivism and a cycle of offending, the chances of a breakdown for these people are very large and the chances of their succeeding are rather low. The community court concept can provide remedies for them, which would be integrated, and deal with them on a sophisticated basis. This is something the Bar Council supports. In respect of sanctions, the Bar Council supports the community court, the sanction of restorative justice, working in the community and adapting the community service provision so that they apply in this context for people to work in the community from which they come. This means there is community support. Just as the community courts model should not be imposed without planning, it should not be imposed on the community in question without the community seeing something positive to be gained. The offenders come from the same communities and if they can give something back they can gain an element of pride that they are doing something positive in their community. The community can see itself as being supportive rather than seeing something imposed by people on the south side of this, or any other, city as some kind of solution without the community seeing something it can partake in.

The Bar Council and practitioners in the area, of which I am one, are supportive of the concept. This means there is a wider remit of remedies, solutions and sanctions available to meet the ends of punishment and rehabilitation. If the community court concept to is to be followed through on, it should be explained to the public at large so that it can fulfil both roles and so that it is not imposed without proper planning and communication with the community and the community at large.

In respect of how it operates in practice, I must echo the comments of Mr. Murphy about resourcing it. I draw on the experience of practitioners and colleagues I have spoken to. I sampled the knowledge about the drugs court, a court in which I only practised briefly. Members of the committee may not be aware that solicitor firms engage barristers on a frequent basis to take cases in the District Court where they have clients and are dealing with cases in other courts. Barristers in Dublin find themselves in the District Court, particularly in their younger years. When it was in operation, the drugs court was one of those courts. My sample of colleagues who participated, and my experience, is that there were uneven results in the drugs court for different reasons. Part of it, which was touched upon by one of the speakers from New York, is that other services were not available in the building. It was housed in the Richmond building. If a judge said he wanted someone to access the Probation Service and access housing services and return at 2 p.m. to say that appointments had been made, the services were not on site for the person to access them directly. We must look at it through the prism of someone who is homeless. They may have an appointment with the Probation Service in Smithfield but it is easy for the person to lose a piece of paper or lose a phone. If a service is on site, the person can queue up and meet someone that day. The person can return to that building and does not have to go anywhere else. If the person is not turning up for appointments, it is easy for the Probation Service to report it to the judge. It means things are integrated. This might seem like a building issue but we need things under one roof. We need that for the person but also for the system to work.

Another thing that had an impact on the ability of the drugs court to work well was the changeover of staff. Trained staff from different services, including education services, a psychiatrist who can give an initial assessment for mental health problems, and housing services, should be under one roof so that they are integrated. People detected unevenness. We also need positive participation by the person in question. Other speakers alluded to the importance of legal representation so that an accused person can make an informed decision to plead guilty or not guilty. Secondly, the solicitor who has dealt with the person over a long period of time, or the barrister a solicitor has engaged to represent the person on that day, are the only friends the person has. When we have our final dealing with clients being sentenced to a prison term, as barristers we say that we hope things will go well. If we ask them what they will do when they come out, the answer is that they have nowhere to go when released after the sentence. The Prison Service may give the persons a small sum of money to pay for the bus fare but they have nothing. In that regard, the role of the lawyer is to advise on options and, if the person pleads guilty, it is important that the lawyer can advise that the community court is a good thing to engage in. The lawyer is the only friend the person has. Legal representation is important for the protection of the person's rights and to inform the person of options. The legal representative is the only person who can do that at the start in a proper way.

Advanced planning, advanced education and advanced communication with communities in question and the public are vital. There must be integrated services that are on site and well resourced. The probation service, due to resource difficulties over the past number of years, cannot do drug testing. Everyone is cognisant of the position the State is in. People must be referred to a general practitioner. The service must be well resourced, there must be legal representation and there must be community involvement. We should look back at the drugs court initiative, look at the positive aspects and also see the problems that arose, where it fell down and learn from it before the community courts concept is introduced. We are generally supportive once there is an element of integration. The Bar Council will play a positive role in any working groups with the committee, the Department or any other group required to work positively for the implementation of the idea.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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That is an interesting submission. We are only beginning the conversation and the debate on the issue today. A number of speakers have made the point that it is important not to rush into it and to prepare and plan properly with further discussion and debate. Someone mentioned that we had dusted down the earlier report.

We have half an hour or thereabouts for questions and interaction with members. Deputy Finian McGrath has indicated that he has a number of questions. He might indicate who they are for.

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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On some of them delegates might want to come in from different angles. I warmly welcome them and thank and commend them for their submissions. They have offered some sensible suggestions and solutions to the crime problem as a social issue. As somebody who represents the north side of Dublin, I assure Mr. McGillicuddy that we are open to the community court proposal.

Is the bottom line that all groups represented see community courts as saving money and reducing the level of reoffending by 15% to 20%? In the 40 jurisdictions in the United States of America, Canada and Australia is that the bottom line, that they save money and reduce the level of reoffending?

Mr. Lang has mentioned that the way to fight crime is with the community. As somebody who represents a constituency that has many disadvantaged communities, I totally agree with him. Yesterday, for example, I was at a community meeting in a part of my constituency where the community was in crisis. The experience of the Garda and residents was that there was so much fear and intimidation in the community that victims would not even report crimes to the Garda. How does one respond where a community is in crisis?

We all know that crime is a complex social issue. In my previous job I worked in a disadvantaged area on the north side of Dublin and always used to say one should not expect a five year old boy living in a drug-fuelled house and experiencing major violence and intimidation to grow up to be normal. Such a boy will either explode on society or damage himself; his self-esteem will diminish and he will end up either dead or commit suicide. Before one even gets to a community court, surely the first part of the solution is to intervene early. Early intervention has to be stage one of the process in that regard.

The law abiding citizen living in these communities that are in crisis often says nobody ever wants to help him or her. That is what most Deputies will tell us. These are the people who turn up at our clinics and they are looking for support from gardaí and social workers.

These are the issues on which I want to touch. Perhaps the delegates might want to respond individually or collectively.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Does Mr. Lang want to come back in on whether the bottom line is to save money and reduce the level of reoffending in communities in crisis?

Mr. Julius Lang:

A number of issues were raised by Deputy Finian McGrath, on all of which he was thoughtful. We should be clear that there have been evaluations. Every single community has not been independently evaluated, but there have been evaluations, including the ones to which Mr. Bowen referred, that have uniformly found cost savings, primarily through avoiding victimisation. What one is doing is spending up-front in pushing resources to the front end of the system, with the goal of reducing the level of reoffending and costs, about which we heard from Mr. Justice Reilly, at the back end of the system, whether in prison or in increased crime rates. To clarify, I would say a 10% reduction in offending was a more realistic expectation.

Fear and intimidation are fundamental to what we call community justice, of which community courts are a part, but so are community policing and other community movements. I am reminded of a different project on which I work with a health foundation, the goal of which is to promote public health approaches to law enforcement. The public health experts with whom I am put together in that context talk about how good health is not achieved in a hospital or doctor's office but in communities where people eat healthily, exercise, take preventive measures, live healthy lives and only using medical services when they need to use them when something breaks down. The same is true in the case of public safety; it does not happen in police stations or prisons but in communities where informal social controls keep them safe. When communities have a sense of crisis and these informal social controls have broken down, one of the notions of community justice is to ask what the formal justice system could do to help strengthen these informal social controls that at the end of the day keep a community safe. By involving community members in community justice, the community court model is trying to address what Deputy Finian McGrath is talking about, in a case where the fabric of the community has been torn and the informal social controls are not keeping the community safe. We do not have a lot of time and I do not want to go on, but I love that question.

Ms Maura Butler:

On early intervention, as the committee is probably aware, the Child and Family Agency has recently undertaken a pilot project in Limerick. I had a conversation with a member of the board, Ms Sylda Langford, who pointed out they had seen amazing results through intervention at an early age by having a speech therapist in the school. That is analogous to what we were talking about recently .

There has also been some comprehensive research conducted through NUIG with CDI Tallaght which was sponsored by Atlantic Philanthropies. Enormous work has been done in the Tallaght area on restorative practice. For example, in schools children would ordinarily have engaged in fisticuffs if there was a dispute, but they have learned conflict resolution skills. There are a lot of data which show how early intervention can be positive. Obviously, one has to be in it for the long haul for it to work.

On communities in crisis, that is as bad as it gets for anybody in the criminal justice system. In a previous part of my career I was a criminal defence lawyer and can empathise with my colleague from the Bar on the tensions felt. I was always struck by the fact that sometimes one just had to start a conversation. Similarly to Mr. McGillicuddy being a friend to the client, sometimes clients will say one showed them respect. Respect is something a member of the committee and I accept as the norm, but in some parts of society that are damaged, where no respect is ever given, having that conversation and showing that respect can be the germ for the kind of collaboration which could ultimately lead to a community court context.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I am anxious to allow others in. Deputy Niall Collins has a question.

Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everybody who made a presentation. I have three questions and do not mind who replies.

If, for example, we were to establish a footprint or network of community courts across Dublin, has anybody worked out how many we would be talking about? Would the goal be to cover the entire city or would it be envisaged that they would cover particular areas, hot spots or black spots? How would they be identified?

My understanding of how community courts operate, based on these presentations is that they predominantly deal with what we call low level crimes or - if this is the correct phrase - petty crimes. What would be the threshold above which the community courts would not operate?

I hear the comments on the probation service and the level at which it is operating.

Could I have an example of the practicalities of dealing with an offender who pleads guilty and goes through a community court? Is there a one-to-one arrangement whereby a member of staff from the probation and welfare service would accompany an offender to remove graffiti? Who would supply the paint? Is there a public liability consideration when an offender is on a mission he is required to undertake by a community court? Could we have an example of what occurs in Liverpool and New York?

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I invite Mr. Justice Reilly to respond on the number of courts and the threshold, and Mr. Bowen might give us an idea of the one-to-one arrangements.

Mr. Justice Michael Reilly:

When I examined this issue in 2006 and 2007 when I chaired the committee, I knew very little about the practicalities of community courts. The one point that came across forcibly was that community courts can work only in communities. First, the communities must be asked what the issues are that annoy them. In Southill in Limerick, for example, there might be a very different annoying matter than in inner-city Dublin. In inner-city Dublin, one would have to canvass the views of the community, which comprises a large body of people. I refer not only to the indigenous community but also to the business community and everybody else. One must determine the low-level offences. An offence might be shoplifting in one place, prostitution in another and low-level drug dealing somewhere else. While there are models all over the world, each community court would be adapted to provide for the needs of its community.

The next thing one has to have is the community court. I agree absolutely with the two lawyers that the community court is a sort of one-stop shop. Consider what would occur if I overindulged my son and he had too much money and got into trouble some night owing to having too much drink, for example. Let us assume he has no underlying problems to deal with and has a good job. He would plead guilty during the community court proceedings and his case would be dealt with on the day. He would probably be doing community service the next day. The response would be proportionate and his service would be in the area in which he would have been annoying people.

Where a person has underlying problems, one must find out what they are. Rather than giving the person a letter to go to the social welfare office or elsewhere, it is a question of having staff who can take a statement or history from the offender and evaluate and assess the underlying problems. This can be done in the area in question. I agree with what Mr. Ken Murphy said in this regard. Alongside the arrangement I have just described, one must have facilities to help the offender. There is no point in assessing a person as having a chronic drug problem and telling him he will have to go into rehabilitation on receiving a letter stating he has been accommodated because he will probably have changed house four or five times before the letter arrives, if it ever arrives. There should be instantaneous help for such people.

I was asked how many courts there should be in Dublin. I would have believed the best approach would be to have a pilot project and evaluate how it works. One would learn from the pilot arrangement. One would learn from the failures in places such as Liverpool. One learns from failures in addition to successes. To have this conversation, one has to have all the main players on board. It is good to see all the people around this table singing from the same hymn sheet, albeit with different concerns. One must examine the feasibility first and then the practicalities of setting up the model. There is no point in trying to set up a community court while sitting in Leinster House, the Department of Justice and Equality or the Law Society as one must take account of what is on the ground and know one will have the required services. If the services are available, one is on the right kind of road.

With regard to the crime threshold, the committee I chaired that brought out the report in 2007 went to great lengths to identify levels of crime and the type of crime in a geographic area of Dublin that could be considered as one that could be dealt with in community courts. The list is not exhaustive but an indication of the types of crimes. The types of crimes might change from year to year. If one got rid of shoplifting – one probably never would – there would not be much point continuing to have it listed. One could take on something else that might have become a serious matter for the community.

There is no real top threshold. Clearly one cannot have people who commit violent crime in the community court; it would not be appropriate to have them there. One could have a changing system whereby a community court in one part of Dublin would have a specific remit and another court in another part of Dublin dealing with another type of crime.

Mr. Philip Bowen:

I will give the committee two examples that show the contrast between different jurisdictions. In 2006 and 2007, I was working in the Bronx community court project that the Centre for Court Innovation runs in New York. The threshold was such that people were generally facing jail sentences of between one and ten days. The mandates people were getting involved a couple of days of social service or community service, or a combination of both.

Having all the services on-site and having community service crews relatively close by, we found that it was a matter of ensuring proper compliance and getting people onto orders. The thresholds of the cases were primarily well below the New York City probation threshold. The authorities in the latter system were addressing much more serious offenders. The sort of people we were seeing were responsible for the possession of small amounts of cannabis, low-level drug dealing and the sorts of quality-of-life crimes we heard about today.

The community court in Plymouth, England, focuses primarily on low-level crime, such as street drinking. It seeks to divert people who would otherwise get conditional discharges or fines that they would never pay. Magistrates essentially said they were sick of these offenders coming straight through the courts time and again for the non-payment of fines issued a week previously. The services are primarily to refer offenders to other services. In some ways, it is like an information desk. People are lost through attrition.

In both examples, we see there can be a need for one-to-one work or group work. In both cases, it is a question of liaison with probation services but not necessarily a question of taking up probation resources, which in England and Wales are geared towards the higher end of the caseload, as they seem to be here. Therefore, I believe the point Mr. Justice Reilly made, which is absolutely right, is that if there are to be community courts in Dublin, they need to be geared to this jurisdiction and the sorts of cases that arise in the courts here. They should be geared towards addressing the way in which cases flow around the system. This requires testing and refining, which is why I endorse the idea of piloting the approach first.

A point that is coming out strongly in the research is that while the modality of the services, sorts of services on offer and extent to which they are delivered well are important, community courts' ability to reduce the level of re-offending seems to be driven primarily by offenders' perception that they are being treated fairly. I refer to the notion of procedural fairness.

That suggests the process people go through in the community courts feels fairer to them than the process they go through in regular courts and that seems to be a powerful predictor of re-offending. The reason I bring that up is that I think service delivery is incredibly important, as are the types of sentences people get and the types of services they get referred into. We should not forget that one of the things community courts have done is to create a fairer and more respectful process, to which offenders feel they can relate, and that seems to have driven reductions in re-offending.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their fascinating presentations. The debate has been stimulating and will help inform our deliberations on this matter. I was interested to hear Mr. Lang speak about New York. I visited New York as a teenager in the 1980s and I well recall the intimidating atmosphere there where petty crime effectively took place in front of one's face. When I visited the city again in my 30s, I saw a city transformed. It felt so safe. I never experienced such a contrast in a relatively short period of time. As Mr. Lang said, this would have been done in 1993 and it was some time later than that when I visited. I would have high hopes for us achieving the same thing, in particular when one hears that the business community and the Lord Mayor of Dublin would like to achieve something similar in Dublin city and in other cities around the country.

I am interested to hear why this succeeded in New York and about the type of resources, which were alluded to by Mr. McGillicuddy and Mr. Murphy, required for people who fall between the cracks. Were additional resources put in in New York? Where did that funding come from? What type of investment was required?

In regard to what Mr. Bowen called the outlier in Liverpool, has detailed analysis been done on why that did not succeed? Would it have had anything to do with what Mr. Justice Reilly referred to as the stakeholder consultation, or community consultation, and how important it is to get buy-in?

Mr. Julius Lang:

Ideally, in creating a community court, what we recommend to jurisdictions is to figure out the problems their client population have and document that, identify the providers in their jurisdictions which are available and make the case to them that this is an opportunity to deploy resources more smartly and to co-locate with other providers and with the justice system, which is giving a kind of extra push to link the staff to the clients they are intended to assist, and when there are gaps, to figure out a way to fill them.

The Midtown community court was the very first project to take this approach. Probation from the get-go said it could not deal with that level of stuff as it was so under-resourced. Probation in the United States is always facing cuts. The public finds it very hard to support the work of probation which, as we know, is so important. Probation was not an option. A number of other agencies were willing to come on board, such as the New York City education department which was willing to offer adult education classes for people who had dropped out of high school, and the health department, which was willing to send staff. Different agencies were willing to listen to that argument about being able to co-locate.

However, what was required was co-ordinating staff. Somebody had to run it. I acted as the co-ordinator for five years. That needed to come from somewhere. Community service supervisors were a combination of staff who had to be paid for as well as agencies that were co-operating. Local agencies would contribute in kind by supervising participants doing community service. There needed to be a handful of other case managers who could run groups and provide services on site when other agencies were not there. In that particular instance, that ended up costing about $1.2 million per year to run.

During the pilot period, the sources for that - we are going back a long time here - were a combination of the court budget, the City of New York and a number of foundations and local businesses which chipped in to help fill out the budget. The only caveat I would mention is that people were very careful that private money was not going to fund the core court functions, such as paying for the judge or the clerks or anything like that. It is important that any private money is used for non-traditional purposes.

Mr. Philip Bowen:

Moving to north Liverpool, it is important to put on record is that its success or failure is not binary. Very few social innovations are total successes or total failures. Even though it has shut, there were some notable successes. The evaluation, which came out in 2012 from the Ministry of Justice, suggests that when the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre opened in 2005, there was a fall in crime in north Liverpool and it fell to a greater degree over that period than across England and Wales more generally and, indeed, over the whole of Liverpool. We are not quite sure of the association between what the court was doing and the relationship that had to crime. Although it shut, there were things around re-offending that did not quite work but there were other really positive results.

The question is, why? If I was to offer one observation as to why north Liverpool has not quite been able to translate into a sustainable court, it is that community courts require good thorough planning which understands the local make-up. That can be hard to pull off when one has a national pilot being driven from Whitehall, London that is trying to make a difference to something in north Liverpool. That is a very important part of the picture as to why north Liverpool is not currently running.

When the Ministry of Justice set it up, it put within the courts relative high fixed costs but when one has a declining caseload, that makes every case look very expensive. That was part of the model created in 2005 when times were slightly better. When one moves to 2012 and court budgets are being cut by 37% over the next five years, I totally understand where the Courts Service is coming from when it has something which, in cash terms, is quite expensive. The other community courts in which I have been lucky to work and observe, seem to have had a more sustainable financing model around their operations.

For many reasons, north Liverpool remains the outlier. The point made by somebody earlier was that learning lessons is not just something one does from total successes or total failures but also from things that have mixed messages.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for being a little late. I chair another Oireachtas committee and we had a clash of schedules. However, I have had a chance to catch up on some of the presentations. Our committee finalised a report last year on penal reform. We made five key recommendations, most notably a de-carceration strategy within our prison system of one third over the next ten years and to look at community service alternatives for minor, non-violent offences. There is some good news in that the fines legislation will mean that in the near future, people will not go to prison for the non-payment of fines. Our committee is open to alternatives, in particular looking at the issue of recidivism.

Recidivism has a corrosive impact on the community’s faith in the criminal justice system. Without being terribly presumptuous, the committee would be open to the proposal from the Lord Mayor on having a pilot project in Dublin city.

On community buy-in, the witnesses spoke about a culture change. What is the advice, as well as the lessons to be learned from New York and other places that have implemented these courts, to facilitate this move from one court culture to this new approach? The Law Society raised the issue of people’s rights under the Constitution to, for example, access to a lawyer. How will this be dealt with to ensure the person is clearly aware of his or her rights before making a decision to plead guilty?

For these courts to be successful there is an issue around resources. In Dublin city, there is one recovery bed for every 400 drug addicts. We have a real problem with homelessness. There are issues, as raised by figures such as Fr. McVerry, about supports for those coming out of prison. Mr. Tony McGillicuddy pointed out the lack of supports for prisoners coming back into society. To get community buy-in with this system, one in which I believe, we need to ensure resources and alternatives are there for dealing with probation, housing, drug addiction supports and counselling. If we are to take these people away from a life of societal failure - God knows what they have gone through in their own lives - to a path of recovery which helps with community healing, then resources need to be in place.

Mr. Julius Lang:

Community buy-in is about involving the community in planning on an ongoing basis. It should be a high-maintenance relationship. As in any kind of relationship, one does not get to coast after a certain period. If one has the right to access a lawyer in the legal system, community courts do not change that because they are part of the system.

In every jurisdiction with which we have worked over the years, people began by saying their resources were maxed out. Nobody ever felt they had excess capacity. However, we found there was a total lack of communication among the different agencies and services involved. They truly operated in silos with no perfect information shared about capacity or what was happening with a particular client. Sharing information and collaborating are free. All it takes is someone to co-ordinate this, a co-ordinating hub. The way to balance the challenges in resources is to sprinkle in information-sharing and collaboration to see what it does to the picture.

Mr. Oisín Quinn:

What was striking to me, particularly during the September-November phase, when meeting different groups of people running businesses in the city centre was that they would be delighted with any new initiative. Such was the level of desperation, I had people saying they would contribute money to a solution.

The value of such a scheme for Dublin is significant. The Grow Dublin task force, on which I also sit, has projected that if we could grow tourism in Dublin by 7% for the next six years, it would be worth €1.2 billion to the economy along with 20,000 jobs. There is significant willingness to get behind this initiative.

On resources, I echo Mr. Lang’s point about co-operation. Since October on the policing forum, we have started to co-operate with the outreach teams, homeless services and the Garda. While it will report in February, the feedback already is that it is making a difference. We are doing it on a small scale with one person at a time. It frees up gardaí if there is a trust between them and a homeless person so that they can say they do not want to arrest them but have them call into Tony Duffin the following day. Co-operation can lead to extra efficiencies.

Mr. David Brennan:

The DCBA, Dublin City Business Association, works with various agencies of the city council. Three years ago a policing forum was set up by the then Garda assistant commissioner. I have had a retail business in Dublin city centre from the 1970s. Despite the media comment, I have not seen such an effective committee as the Lord Mayor’s. The reason it is effective, as mentioned by members, the Lord Mayor and other guests, is communication.

We have a serious problem with communicating. We tend to operate in silos. The business community is under much pressure. If one does not pay one’s bills, one closes. That is it; there is no fairy story. Accordingly, businesspeople will look at a problem, go over the top of it, around its edges and straight through it. If they do not, they fail. Businesspeople, many who may not see eye to eye, regularly come together for the common good. For some reason, we do not do this socially. I do not understand why but I suggest we must all work together in a much better fashion because we have gone through five years of pretty hard stuff. The retail sector has really had the stuffing knocked out of it.

The point has come up, particularly from Mr. Julius Lang, is that there were people doing a good day’s work in this area but there were three other organisations doing the same job. We need to communicate more. I am extremely pleased that the Lord Mayor referred to the new initiative by the Garda assistant commissioner, John Twomey, and the assistant city manager, Brendan Kenny, because it is working. It is the first time in my long years working in the city an initiative has actually worked.

Anne Ferris (Wicklow, Labour)
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I welcome the delegations, especially the two gentlemen who have travelled far to get here. I found the presentations very interesting. Last year, I had the good fortune, along with the Chairman, to visit Midtown Community Court in New York, and meet the directors and teachers of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. One of the directors informed me that when he Googled my name, he found out we both went to the same primary school as he was also born and reared in Dublin.

I saw the operation of the community court at first hand with people called by their docket number, appearing before the judge, hearing their crime and how they were dealt with.

As Mr. McGillicuddy said earlier, they were not sent off to a probation officer with a phone number but were told to go up to the sixth floor straight away. We visited there afterwards and met the people who are running the operation where these people were queuing up. We met the counsellors, the lawyers and probably some interns and heard about the community services that people are given. I was blown away with optimism about this system. Deputy Niall Collins asked earlier where they get the paint if somebody is sent to take graffiti off the wall as part of community service. This is where the business community comes in. We listened and talked to business people there who told me it had cleaned up huge areas. Their businesses had blossomed, new businesses were coming in and it had rejuvenated the centre of the city. It was absolutely wonderful. I came back full of ideas.

We are talking about restorative justice, fines, sentencing and mediation and how it can work. I am sure Mr. Justice Reilly is sitting there saying "I've been saying this for the past 20 years and you're only listening now." However, I think we have it in all strands now. Everybody is on board. The idea of the one-stop shop which I took away from the centre is the important thing. People should feel they are not being sent out the front door and have to find somewhere else to go. People should know that they will go somewhere else within the building, will be met and will sit down with people. It relates to the person or people in respect of the crime they have committed. It is absolutely fantastic to have this in the courts system and I know the Minister is completely committed to doing this. I am sure resources have to come from somewhere for it to be a success. It involves the courts system, lawyers, the business community and local community, as the Lord Mayor has said, because local communities are often affected by the crime so they must be dealt with as well.

Outreach is another issue. We received a very good submission from Tiglin in my constituency in County Wicklow about rehabilitation. This is probably for more than just the quality-of-life crimes. We are coming together and moving in the right direction and we have the Minister pushing it for us. We are right behind him.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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There is nothing like visiting, seeing and meeting people as we did.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I apologise for my late attendance. Unfortunately, I had to lead for my grouping in the Seanad on a debate. I appreciate, as do all the members, all the witnesses coming here to speak with us about this. This is an issue about which I feel very strongly, as do the Chairman and Vice Chairman, who have been lyrical and eloquent about the benefits of the community courts structure, having visited New York. We are all very excited about the prospects. We really appreciate it and thank the witnesses for their time. It is also great to see the Minister here with us.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. It is a first.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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It is not the first time I have been here but it is great to be on this side. I apologise to members of the committee. They were stuck with me from 9.30 a.m. until about 1.00 p.m. as we were dealing with the justice and defence Estimates. I know the Chairman has very kindly asked me to deliver a short address during the course of the dinner we will have. It is bad enough hearing me once without hearing me twice. This is something I have a lot of excitement about. I empathise with Mr. Brennan and Mr. Justice Reilly in particular because they have a record of looking for change in this area and have done very significant work. Having the opportunity today to look at it from an international perspective helps to broaden the insights we may have as to how things work in practice and what works and does not work. It is also very important for the committee to think through issues that need to be thought through. I will say much more later but I wish to make two particular points.

In advancing this project, we need to look at how we do this - obviously involving communities - and look at it in a manner that brings a slightly different perspective. I would see an initial project in the city centre as a pilot project in which the Department of Justice and Equality, the Courts Service, Dublin City Council and other services engage in a partnership to progress what I think will be a very important development in conjunction with the local business community. The local business community has a very important role to play. I am very conscious that for this to work, which is something I firmly believe in, it must be a fully integrated project. I was pleased to hear people saying this. It does not work as a post box; it does not work where a judge with limited supports recommends that individuals go to a range of other agencies, none of which are part of the infrastructure of what is there. We have seen this in microcosm in dealing with the district family court in the city centre, where the mediation service is in the same building and where people come in to possibly go to war on a child custody or access issue and are first given the opportunity to have a conversation about the possibilities of mediation. That is working to deflect people from unnecessary litigation and to deal with matters in a less contentious atmosphere. The one-stop shop concept is of huge importance. We will come back to that. I will come back to what I think is worth exploring in the context of the business community and how it may perceive this. We were dealing with our Estimates earlier and I am very conscious as Minister that I have fewer and fewer resources each year, but we can use resources very wisely and effectively. A partnership that includes the business community, which may assist in the provision of some of the services that are not normally associated with our traditional courts structure, will be of great value.

I thank the Chairman in particular. I know this initiative is very dear to his heart and this feeling is one that we share. This has been a really valuable afternoon. It is great to sit here and not have questions thrown at me. I should do this more often. It is fantastic watching other people in the hot seat and I think they have done really well. I know Mr. Murphy would be really disappointed if I did not mention him. One of the difficulties associated with being Minister is that while I was listening a dozen other things were happening that I must deal with, and these were being communicated to me.

I would not like the wrong impression to arise, and I appreciate the very constructive contributions made by Mr. Murphy on behalf of the Law Society and Mr. McGillicuddy on behalf of the Bar Council, but there was one thing Mr. Murphy said that I would not like to leave unchallenged. He used the phrase "the Probation Service is broken". I assure him that it is far from broken. It is doing extraordinary work at the moment under the leadership of Vivian Geiran and is engaging in innovative projects. For the first time in the history of the State, we have a joint strategic programme between the Prison Service and the Probation Service. Rather than not being able to cope with the work coming to it, we are looking at how we expand that work, again in the context of using resources wisely. The Probation Service is particularly engaged in a very innovative way now. In the past, when we released people from prison, we sent them to see their probation officers if they needed to remain under supervision. The Probation Service is now engaged within the prisons and deals with people in the period prior to their release, looking at the supports that are required and what the service can do to ensure there is less re-offending. There is a lot of very important work being done in that area and in the context of community service projects. The Probation Service is working not just in the context of community service orders made under the original 1983 Act as amended over the years but in dealing with early releases under the new programme within the Prison Service.

Approximately 500 prisoners have now been released earlier under this programme than would have been usual, in circumstances where they have been assessed as posing no risk to the community, have been of good behaviour in prison and have agreed to do community service in return for early release. This is proving to be a very important and beneficial project. We are discovering that fewer of those who are released in these circumstances are returning to crime or reoffending in the short term because they are doing something instantly meaningful upon their release. They are not left in a position whereby they are effectively unemployed. In excess of 100 people are currently on release under this scheme and the probation service is doing extraordinary work. I realise Mr. Murphy may have not meant the phrase in the way he put it but I would not like the word to go out that this is a problem. Like every Minister, I would love to have more resources and more people working in the service but the people who currently work in the service are doing an extraordinary job.

Mr. Ken Murphy:

I did not say the probation service was broken. I said it was at breaking point, which is a different concept.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I would hate to disagree on that point.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank all who contributed to this useful and informative exchange of views. I thank the Lord Mayor of Dublin for giving up his valuable time to be here. His attendance indicates the importance of this issue to Dublin City Council and the citizens of Dublin. I also thank the Minister for engaging throughout our discussion. I thank Mr. David Brennan and the Dublin City Business Association for the work they have been doing on this issue over a considerable period of time. Mr. Brennan is to be commended for the passion he brings to his work. Mr. Justice Reilly has been an advocate of this approach for quite some time. Mr. Lang has come a long way to be with us, while Mr. Bowen has had a shorter journey. I thank both of them for their contributions. We have met our friends from the Law Society and the Bar Council on previous occasions and we know we will meet them again. Ms Butler has been a great advocate for community courts and I was highly impressed by her presentation. I also thank the people in the gallery for their patience in following our deliberations and members of the committee for their contributions. We have also received submissions in writing.

I can safely say this concept has a fair wind behind it. A considerable amount of work remains to be done to set up a pilot project in Dublin. Collaboration and co-operation will be required from all stakeholders is this project is to be implemented properly.