Kalea Fischer of Sandy went to Clackamas County Community Court a week ahead of her scheduled appearance to ask the judge for an extension on her case. She had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing and third-degree theft in exchange for admittance into the community court’s diversion program.
In Clackamas County, this means that if she successfully completes a plan that includes both community service – for accountability in the form of giving back to the community – and social service programs – to help her break the cycle that led to her crimes in the first place – then she won’t face jail, fines or probation. For first-time offenders, the charges are dismissed upon graduation. The program is only available to people facing low-level, quality-of-life-type crimes.
Between the time Fischer entered the Holman Building, where community court is held, and the time she left a couple of hours later, she had filled out paperwork for getting photo identification, received assistance from a vocational rehabilitation program, signed up for community service and learned about getting financial aid for college – in addition to appearing in court.
It was July 11, the first day of a six-month pilot program that brings service providers into the same building where community court is held. The idea is that by creating a one-stop shop, there will be fewer barriers to engaging with services and completing tasks, which can be excessively burdensome to those who have busy schedules or who rely on public transportation to get around.
“Everyone was so helpful and so kind,” Fischer said afterward. She said having service providers on site made meeting her obligations more accessible.
The court’s so-called service mall is also open to anyone in the community who wanders in off the street to seek services on Thursday afternoons, when the weekly community court is in session. Participants don’t have to have a case pending in order to get easy access to multiple forms of assistance all in one place.
Services include programs to help with self-sufficiency, such as getting signed up for food stamps or Social Security benefits; mental health and addiction counseling referrals; and help with resumes and getting into Job Corps and workforce training programs. Organizers are working to add a connection to housing resources, as well.
Because service providers are able to see the day’s court docket in advance, they’re prepared to provide services on an individualized basis. Representatives from the Oregon Department of Human Services alerted two people who came to court during the service mall’s debut that their SNAP benefits, or food stamps, were about to run out. Those recipients avoided a gap in services by completing the renewal paperwork on the spot.
Angele Whinn was on site offering peer support on behalf of the Mental Health and Addiction Association of Oregon. She sat on a chair near the entrance, there to walk people through the service mall if they wanted help from someone who can relate to their struggles, or to simply give them “a hug or high-five,” she said.
This pilot project was implemented through a partnership between the Homeless Solutions Coalition of Clackamas County and the county’s District Attorney’s Office.
Deputy District Attorney Bill Stewart, a driving force behind the service mall, said, “I’ve been doing this 17 years, and I’m tired of seeing the same people come through the system.”
He believes easier access to services as part of the holistic approach taken in community court will help to make the community safer.
Stewart said the new program is modeled after the service mall that’s been operating alongside Eugene’s community court since September 2016. That program recently was criticized for not tracking its outcomes while claiming to be effective, but Stewart said while that criticism may be well founded, that’s not the point.
“What else are you going to do with homeless folks who violate the law?” he asked.
Eugene’s municipal court administrator, Cheryl Stone, told Street Roots, “Having multiple providers in one room creates synergy among the providers so they can more easily work together with a single client.”
Like Clackamas County’s, Eugene’s service mall is also open to the public.
“The consistency of being in an extremely accessible location on the same day of the week, same hours, often means people will show up regularly to access services, rather than having random appointment dates set out several weeks,” Stone said.
While a portion of participants will fail to meet their requirements and wind up with a conviction anyway, the program can have a positive impact on those who graduate. Clackamas County is tracking the success of the service mall and will re-evaluate the program when the pilot ends in December.
The rapport between the defendants and Judge Colleen Gilmartin, who’s presided over Clackamas Community Court for about a year, was apparent.
She told one defendant that she appeared to have “untapped potential.” The defendant said she was excited to come to court that day to tell Gilmartin that she obtained a 40-hour-a-week job.
Another defendant who graduated that day, Samuel Houston, said community court saved his life. He was spending his nights in a sleeping bag on a sidewalk in Old Town before going through the program. Gilmartin walked out from behind the bench to shake the hand of each person who completed the program. To others, she said things like, “I’m glad you’re here today” and “How are things going with you?”
“The level of engagement with the presiding judge, I think, does make an impact and difference with the success of the court,” said Kati Tilton, social services supervisor for Clackamas County.
Of defendants accepted into the court over the past year whose cases are now closed, 65% successfully graduated. Thus far, 16% have been revoked and faced punitive sanctions, such as fines or jail time.
Taking the idea of holistic court a few steps further, The Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit agency in New York, provides its clients with not only an attorney but also a team that includes a social worker and advocate. These professionals stay with a person after their initial criminal case is closed, helping them remedy circumstances in their life that contributed to their intersection with the criminal justice system in the first place.
A 10-year study published in January in the Harvard Law Review tracked the success of this public defender agency alongside a typical public defender agency operating in the same jurisdiction. It found the team approach most significantly affected client outcomes. The chances of receiving a jail sentence dropped 16%, and in cases where a sentence was still issued, the likelihood of receiving the expected sentence length dropped 24%.
Recidivism rates were nuanced. While the study showed no increase or reduction in a client’s likelihood to reoffend, because they were less likely to be in jail – and therefore free to commit new crimes – it could indicate a reduction, but more analysis is needed.
Multnomah County Community Court
When Multnomah County Community Court was established in 1998 as the second such court in the nation, it was modeled after Midtown Community Court in New York. That court, the first of its kind in the U.S., worked with businesses and social service providers in the community to establish a program that combined community service and social services, such as addiction and mental health treatment, that were available on site.
According to the Center for Court Innovation, which helped launch the Midtown court, the “compliance rates for community and/or social service mandates were 81% and 85%, respectively” in 2016. It handled close to 7,000 cases that year.
In the early 2000s, when Multnomah County Community Court had three locations – two of which were embedded in the community on the east and west sides of town – social services were available on site, just like at the court it was modeled after, Metropolitan Public Defender Jane Fox said.
“There were resources in the form of treatment providers present at the community court, so people would leave engaged in treatment,” she said.
In 2003, budget cuts forced the closure of the two community-based locations, and it began to operate solely out of the Justice Center downtown, where the jail is. A short-lived satellite location at Bud Clark Commons 10 years later was shuttered after it was shown to have little effect on the court’s high rate of missed court appearances among the city’s homeless population.
Fox, one of two attorneys that represent clients going through Multnomah County’s community court program, said the court continues to try to help people get their needs met, but not everyone shows up. She said the failure-to-appear rate has increased since the courtroom moved from the Justice Center to the sixth floor of the Multnomah County Courthouse a couple of years ago.
Circuit Court spokesperson Rachel McCarthy said that while the court has discussed tracking the number of failure-to-appears in community court, it hasn’t.
Today, Multnomah County Community Court has one social worker on site at a time, but no services readily available for people to engage with on the spot. Nor is the feeling as intimate as in Clackamas County. A judge who rotates every four months sits far from defendants in a large, stadium-like courtroom.
The only question the judge asked participants – outside of obligatory legal questioning – on the day Street Roots observed proceedings was whether they enjoyed their community service assignments.
That’s another substantial difference between the programs. In Multnomah County, defendants have the option of choosing social services or community service, rather than working through a combination of the two. Fox said despite having the community service option, a majority of her clients choose social services due to the circumstances of their lives.
But no agency in Multnomah County – not the court or the District Attorney’s Office – is tracking the number of cases heard in community court, the number of defendants who complete either community service or social services assignments, or any other data related to the court’s outcomes or effectiveness.
“We’re aware this is a deficit in our ability to collect data,” McCarthy said.
In April 2016, the District Attorney’s Office told Street Roots that 52% to 68% of community court defendants failed to complete either their assigned community service or treatment program each month over the prior six months. According to the county’s Department of Community Justice, when it last took referrals for community service from the community court during the first quarter of 2017, about 55% of participants completed their hours.
Critics say that Multnomah County Community Court strayed from its original intent when it receded from the community, and that ongoing budget cuts to the court system have rendered it less intentional.
Clackamas County’s community court accepted just 70 cases last year. While the number of cases heard in Multnomah County’s community court is not tracked, it’s likely much higher. It hovered around 6,000 per year in 2007, although that number is not likely representative of cases heard in the court today because the program has since undergone many changes.
Phyllis Bergin, who evaluates court defendants for services upon their acceptance into Clackamas County Community Court, said that it’s about meeting people where they are at and that the service mall furthers that objective.
John Haub, Clackamas County Community Court’s public defender through Metropolitan Public Defenders, said that most of his clients are homeless and that many have no means of transportation, so having the mall gives them better access without having to travel all over the county and wait in line again and again.
“Those who graduate,” he said, “often have medical care, an ID card, knowledge of 211 and a chance to give back to the community through service work. It’s a great opportunity to help people.”
Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites.