Building the Research Base: An Evaluation Blueprint for Community Courts

Community courts provide a flexible, tailored approach to justice in local communities. There are many diverse community courts ranging from peer-to-peer courts, mediation, restorative courts, and more. Some function on their own and some complement traditional courts. Their high adaptability, however, makes it hard to evaluate them. To address this gap, the Center for Court Innovation released “Building the Research Base: An Evaluation Blueprint for Community Courts.” This publication lays out a blueprint to guide more robust research and to encourage development of evidence-based practices related to evaluating community courts.