Community Prosecution

History of Community Prosecution

To understand community prosecution, it is necessary to locate it within the broader philosophy of community justice. The 1960s were marked by a series of urban uprisings and civil disobedience that reflected a growing distrust of government and the criminal justice system. As a response to this breakdown in community relations, police departments developed a series of reforms to return officers into the community. These reforms had various labels: team policing, problem-oriented policing, and, more recently, community policing. Some innovations, such as team policing, were abandoned, although the major criticisms of team policing concerned implementation and not the viability of the concept itself. The only apparent differences between contemporary community policing efforts and those of the past are that contemporary efforts are receiving considerably more resources, are occurring on a larger scale, and are being implemented with renewed vigor and support.

Following on the heels of community policing, community prosecution is the most recent addition to this loosely constructed philosophy of community justice. Toward the end of the 1980s, a number of district attorneys across the country, working independently, began developing their own innovative responses to crime problems. The aggregation of these individual efforts became known as community prosecution.

These efforts began because prosecutors were increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated in their jobs and in their inability to halt the revolving door of offenders who plagued their jurisdictions. The concurrent emergence of the crack-cocaine epidemic hastened these efforts because there was a growing perception that residents were losing control of their neighborhoods.

The first attempt to formalize community prosecution occurred through a series of focus groups held in 1993 and 1995 by the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI). Those groups led to the development of the following definition: “Community prosecution focuses on targeted areas and involves a long-term, proactive partnership among the prosecutor's office, law enforcement, the community and public and private organizations, whereby the authority of the prosecutor's office is used to solve problems, improve public safety and enhance the quality of life in the community” (APRI 1995: 1).

Community Prosecution in Action

Although the design and operation of community prosecution initiatives vary across cities, the common thread is that prosecutors are out in the community promoting the initiatives and working closely with local community groups to identify the most salient problems facing individual neighborhoods. After the problems are identified, a prosecutor partners with residents and business owners to establish a baseline of information that they can use to identify the most effective responses. Often the most important concerns for residents turn out not to be criminal matters. For example, abandoned lots and buildings, apartments in disrepair, unsupervised youths, and aggressive panhandling are often identified by residents as their most important concerns.

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