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By Heather Knight
San Francisco Chronicle
Originally Published August 7, 2007
After stalling for a few months, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s controversial plan for a new community court to prosecute quality-of-life crimes in the city’s core has taken a big step forward.
Newsom and Superior Court judges have signed off on a plan for the court, dubbed the Community Justice Center, which was written by judges and presented to the mayor Friday.
The plan includes some major changes to the mayor’s initial idea, including not handling infractions such as public urination and public drunkenness.
Instead, the court will focus on misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, most of which are expected to be drug crimes. Other crimes likely to be handled at the court include car break-ins, repeated shoplifting, the passing of bad checks and other more serious offenses.
"They convinced me, at this stage, this is the right way of going," Newsom said Monday. "I’m very enthusiastic."
Newsom and the judges also agreed to the court’s jurisdiction: the Civic Center, Tenderloin, South of Market and Union Square.
A trial run for the new court will likely begin in September or October at the Hall of Justice, according to Superior Court Commissioner Ron Albers, who along with Judge Harold Kahn is leading the planning for the court and will likely hear many of its cases.
A new committee to oversee the court is due to be in place Dec. 1, and the permanent location of the court is due to be decided by Jan. 1, Albers said. The front-runner is an annex of the Superior Court on Polk Street near Turk, and it should be fully operational within six months, Albers said.
"We’ve made an enormous step forward," Albers said. "It’s just going to be a wonderful adventure that we’re undertaking together."
Newsom visited Manhattan’s Midtown Community Court in the spring and returned to San Francisco saying he wanted to open a similar courthouse as soon as this summer.
In the Midtown courthouse, which is credited with helping to clean up Times Square, people committing quality-of-life crimes are often given sentences mixing community service to pay back the neighborhood and social services to address their underlying issues, such as alcohol or drug addiction.
Newsom said the model could help rid the Tenderloin and South of Market areas of blight - such as graffiti, urination and defecation - that bothers neighbors.
But under California law, those who commit infractions cannot be picked up by police officers and taken to court. Instead, they are given citations to appear at traffic court within 45 days. Typically, the citations are thrown out.
Albers said Monday he thinks dealing with more serious crimes will still address residents’ top concerns and help rid the neighborhoods of blight.
For example, someone using crack in the Tenderloin may also be the same person loitering, engaging in disorderly conduct and urinating in the streets. Addressing the drug problem would address the other problems, too.
He said that meetings with everybody from police officers, to housing advocates, to residents themselves have shown that drugs are the top concern. Alcohol abuse and mental health issues also top the list, he said.
He stressed Monday that providing social services will be a key part of the court’s mission, and he is working on finding ways for police officers and social workers to work together to approach people committing certain crimes and get them immediate help.
Julius Lang of New York’s Center for Court Innovation, which created the Midtown court and helps other cities create their own community courts, said a community court prosecuting nonviolent felonies is rare.
But he said Brooklyn’s Red Hook court has done it effectively. A key distinction, he added, is that many drug crimes are classified as misdemeanors in New York but felonies in California.
Lang, who is consulting on San Francisco’s plan, said that if residents and advocates in the city’s core think drug crimes are the priority, that’s a big consideration.
"That’s a key thing about community courts," he said. "They’re a function of the community that they serve and the issues in that community."
The move away from infractions also addresses the main concern of those who have fought against Newsom’s proposal. Advocacy groups, including the Coalition on Homelessness, argued it wasn’t fair to criminalize people simply for being poor, sleeping on streets and urinating in public.
Jennifer Friedenbach, organizing director for the coalition, on Monday praised the court’s focus on misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.
"It’s great," she said, noting that the group would likely not continue to protest the court’s creation. "If there’s no infractions directly linked to someone’s housing status, then it’s outside our purview."
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