Safe Cities and Communities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 447

12﻽5﻽2﻽2 Faster Justice

Courts in many cities have been encouraged to provide faster dispensation of jus-
tice, especially for minor crimes, which has occurred in some large cities in the U.S.
by courts with a mandate of reviewing and sentencing within 24 h. Although effec-
tive, civil rights advocates maintain that such policies run the risk of not allowing
defendants time to prepare their cases, leading to miscarriages of justice.

12﻽5﻽2﻽3 Specialized Reviews of Behaviour and Crime

These are being developed to deal with specific crime problems. For example,
Community Courts in local areas are increasingly being used to judge young, first
offenders, dispensing curfews, rehabilitation and community service in place of
jail for young offenders. Such approaches, at least for minor offences, give them a
chance to reflect and transform their criminal behaviour and the courts are staffed by
local residents who have been trained in judicial procedures. New Drug Courts have
been developed in the United States in particular to deal with those apprehended of
drug charges, in which the emphasis is placed on reducing drug use through restor-
ative measures, not jail time, which those charged have to maintain. This change is
linked to the realization that addiction is a medical and not necessarily a criminal
matter. In Britain the creation of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO) in 1998
were designed to reduce incivilities and vandalism, behaviours which might not be
criminalized, but cause fear among residents and if left unchecked often escalate
to criminal behaviour (Flint and Nixon 2006 ). Behaviours, such as drunkenness,
rowdiness, playing loud music at night, threatening or lewd actions do not neces-
sarily lead to breaking any law so police interventions are limited. This led to the
creation of an ASBO process which has three stages: warnings to offenders about
their behaviour by a home visit from police and social agency staff; formal meetings
in police stations or ASBO centres if the behaviour persists; finally the charging of
persistent offenders under the new laws, which could lead to major fines or even
custodial sentences for major offences. In general the policy seems to have been
successful, although some youths in gangs treat the award as an ASBO as a mark of
acceptance by their anti-social groups and there has been a lot of reporting of trivial
offences by some neighbours. In addition there are considerable variations in the
ASBO orders between various police areas, which show that there are differences
in the degrees of tolerance and policing between jurisdictions.

12﻽5﻽2﻽4 Post-Crime Actions

One of the problems associated with the sentencing of convicted offenders is that
there are disproportionate numbers of people in prisons who come from partic-
ular ethnic groups and areas. Hence there have been attempts to find alternative
approaches to dealing with some of these groups, such as a return to traditional