Court Liaison Program of the Baltimore Police Foundation

Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward Norris, during a winter 2000 panel discussion focusing on promising criminal justice programs, singled out a small and under-resourced initiative, the Court Liaison Program, as highly effective. Noting this, the Foundation approached the Police Department to learn more about the program.

It learned: the Court Liaison Program was established in 1998 at Baltimore District Court, with the primary purpose of addressing two major problems that were seriously compromising the effective and timely processing of cases at the District Court, and causing unacceptably high overtime costs for the Police Department. One problem was a lack of the most basic technology linking the court system with the Police Department (computers, cell phones, fax machines), frequently resulting in inadequate scheduling and untimely notification of police appearances at court. The second was the archaic system of court summonses for officers in Baltimore: the summonses originated in Annapolis, were picked up weekly, transported to Baltimore, and parceled out to the nine police districts. Such an inefficient process did not ensure timely or accurate scheduling of officers' court appearances.

Despite the fact that the Court Liaison Program was understaffed and lacked the requisite technology, it still managed to cut down significantly on no-shows by officers (which can result in cases being nol prossed--dismissed by the court) and needless appearances at cases being postponed (which adds to officers' overtime costs). Encouraged by the program's effectiveness-- albeit limited--the Police Department approached the Foundation for funding to acquire the needed technology that would allow it to expand and fully equip the District Court Liaison program and provide computers and printers to enable the summons process to go on-line.

The case was made to The Foundation that expanded and updated electronic communications capability between Annapolis and Baltimore would transform an outmoded and inefficient summons system to a potentially very efficient one. In the summer of 2001, the Foundation awarded the Police Department $78,000 for one-time equipment costs to support the Court Liaison program's two primary goals: to eliminate needless officer appearances at court, and to significantly reduce officers'’ failure to appear.

After five months of operating the Court Liaison Program with expanded technological capacity, the Police Department reports significant savings in officer overtime and an increase in the number of officers whose street patrol duties were not interrupted by unnecessary court appearances.