University of Maryland Law Professor Terry Hickey discusses Baltimore's new Prostitution Court and other
community justice initiatives.ROBERT V. WOLF: This is Rob
Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. I'm here today with Terry Hickey, who is
adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and is deeply involved in an interesting project that
they have been collaborating on, called the Community Justice Initiative. Terry, welcome to Brooklyn and the Red
Hook Community Justice Center. TERRY HICKEY: Thank you
very much. Good to be back. It's my sixth time with the law school, I think out of eight times we've come.
WOLF: I thought maybe a way to start off is to ask you to explain to me, what
is the Community Justice Initiative? HICKEY: Sure. Well I think you
guys know that one of the big questions everybody asks when they leave here is, gee, can we do this at home? The
Community Justice Initiative I think started on that wave length. What can actually be done in Baltimore, you know,
with our politics, with our government, and you know, within our judicial system and how big do you start? The law
school at the University of Maryland had a clinical program where law students get a chance to practice real law
with real clients, both individuals and communities. Professor Brenda Blom, who was the founder of the concept of
the clinic wanted to see if there was some way we could take this community lawyering concept, marry it to problem-solving
justice, create this community justice initiative, use law students, use resources from the law school, combined
with all of the different agencies within the justice system, within our communities, bring them actually all together
to the same table, and actually finally answer that question, can we do this where we are? WOLF:
I assume the answer is yes, it can be done because you've been doing it for many years. So I wonder if you could
maybe describe to me how it's manifested? HICKEY: Sure. It started
by developing what we call the Community Justice Task Force. All told, I think there were over 100 plus entities,
government agencies, and people involved in the task force. Building off of years of community discussion around
prostitution, which has been epidemic in Baltimore, the law school, the task force, and many others that are actually
on this trip now to Red Hook, were able to get together and form an advisory committee for the formation of a prostitution
problem-solving court. We're probably within the last two months of being able to kick this off. A judge is
being selected. The group has received funding for a full-time social worker to be the gatekeeper and the idea is
to start out, literally, with the top three or four police districts for concentration of prostitution cases will
be redirected to this court. The whole idea is to get offenders who plea into the court to be put on various tracks,
to provide them with housing, job assistance, drug treatment, in exchange for going through that path, your case
would not be included in record or would be dismissed. While at the same time enlisting the health department to
start a Saturday school for johns, for instance, and to bring back programming in which neighborhoods can report
license information and descriptions so the police department can send letters to the registered owner of the vehicles
letting them know that their vehicle was seen in a high prostitution area, sending the message that communities are
being proactive. So that's the community side of community justice. And then the court becomes the justice side
of community justice. What's been amazing about this, and I think this is what community
