Sharing the Keys to the Courthouse: Adoption of Community Prosecution by State Court Prosecutors

• NCJ Number: 215787
• Journal: Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 22 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2006 Pages: 202-219
• Author(s): William Scott Cunningham; Brian C. Renauer; Christy Khalifa
• Date Published: August 2006
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined features in the change from traditional concepts of prosecution to the adoption of community-based prosecution, which involves focusing prosecutorial resources on problems identified by the community, rather than those identified by the prosecutor's office using criteria set in isolation from the community.

Abstract

The study found that prosecutors' offices that were larger, more decentralized, specialized in work structure, and more formal were the most likely to adopt features consistent with community prosecution. In attempting to explain these findings, the authors suggest that large prosecutors' offices that organize their work in complex ways are more likely to adopt additional elements that assist in achieving a variety of goals; however, if it is true that responding to community needs and inputs is but one of a number of ways in which prosecutors' offices structure their work under various specializations, then it cannot be said that the office as a whole has adopted a community-based philosophy and structure for all of its work. Determining the extent of community-building and problem-solving in community prosecution or types of community-prosecution models and their connection to public safety and community quality of life should be addressed in future research. One source of data for this study was the 2001 National Survey of Prosecutors, which was distributed to the 2,341 prosecutors' offices within the United States, yielding a 96-percent response rate. A second source was the 1990 and 2000 Census Summary File 3. Drug arrest data were obtained from the 1994-1999 Uniform Crime Report county arrest datasets. The final dataset for the analysis included 749 counties. The dependent variable was a measure of community prosecution elements. Independent variables measured were organization size, the structural complexity of prosecutors' offices, and uncertainty in both the internal and external operating environment. 2 tables, 27 references, and appended correlation matrix