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Strategies for Court Collaboration With Service Communities

Many of today’s court cases—such as divorce, custody, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, juvenile delinquency, drunken driving, guardianship, drug possession, and a variety of misdemeanor quality-of-life offenses—involve individuals with medical, psychological, and social problems. These cases are increasing in number and pose particular challenges for courts. Traditional court processes were designed to make specific decisions; they were not designed to address the underlying social and psychological problems that lead these cases to court. Consequently, the decisions that courts craft based on law and precedent are not always effective. Although individual cases are disposed, they are not truly resolved because the underlying issues are not addressed. The result is that the problems often resurface as new cases.

In response, courts are experimenting with a variety of innovative programs that focus on closer collaboration with the service communities in their jurisdictions. These programs vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and by different types of cases within a jurisdiction, but they all stress a collaborative, multidisciplinary, problem-solving approach to address the underlying issues of individuals appearing in court.

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