Research plays an essential role in court innovation. Through research, innovators can evaluate whether new initiatives are successful or not, identify areas for improvement, and document lessons that can be shared with other jurisdictions locally and nationally. The Center for Court Innovation rigorously examines the results of all of its demonstration projects, asking what works, what doesn’t, and why. The Center is committed to an “action research” model, in which researchers develop performance benchmarks in close coordination with project staff and then provide regular, data-driven feedback to identify successes and challenges, and spark changes in practice. The Center also conducts independent research on problem-solving innovations across the country.

Recent publications include:
What Makes A Court Problem-Solving
Do Reentry Courts Reduce Recidivism?
A National Portrait of Domestic Violence Courts
Testing Community Court Principles in the Bronx Centralized Courthouse

Click on any of the following core research areas for a bibliography of our available publications:   Problem-Solving Justice, Drug Courts, Domestic Violence, Community Justice, Juvenile and Family Justice, Mental Health Courts, Youth Engagement

Defendant Perceptions of Fairness at the Red Hook Community Justice Center
In an effort to assess the impact of the Red Hook Community Justice Center on defendant perceptions of fairness, the Center conducted a survey of nearly 400 misdemeanor defendants, who had their cases handled at either the Justice Center or a traditional, centralized criminal court. The goal was to evaluate the effects of court location (Red Hook or the traditional court), defendant background (race, ethnicity, sex and socioeconomic status), the outcome of their current court case (dismissed or required to return to court; required to attend drug treatment or not), and the stage of their case at the time of the survey (arraignment or subsequent court appearance). Structured courtroom observations supplemented the results of the survey and helped to generate richer explanations about why different defendants might have perceived their court experiences as fair or unfair.

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Carol Weiss is Professor of Educational Policy Emerita at Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches courses on evaluation, organizational decision making, and research methods.  Her ongoing research deals with educational policymaking, the uses of research in policymaking, and the influence of ideology, interests, information, and institutional rules and structures on policy.

Does failure play a role in evaluation research?
Not as much as it should.  I have written four books and about 60 articles on the subject of the effects of research and evaluation on decision making.  In the early 1970s, I proposed establishing a journal called Null, which would publish articles about programs that had no effect.  Nobody would support my idea!  There’s all this knowledge about what doesn’t work that is not getting out there.  The problem is that people tend to repeat what sounds appealing without knowing if it works in the first place.  For example, in last 20 years in education, things have changed so fast, the old things come back and get another shot! 

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