ABSTRACT
Planning for the future and predicting future directions for the courts are components of modern court management that are gaining prominence in the American judicial system. The planning process, the length of planning cycles, and the strategies for planning future needs, however, experienced enormous changes between 1970 and 1990. Building on the broadened scope of planning that emerged in the 1970s, another shift occurred in the 1980s. Studies of the future of law enforcement, prison and parole, and criminal justice systems dominated the professional literature. Hawaii became the first state to incorporate studies of the future into its court's planning process, and to vest them as a court management function. One state judicial system began an unprecedented approach to planning in the 1970s. Building on traditional and strategic planning studies, Hawaii's judicial system expanded its planning strategy to begin forecasting a variety of social and economic trends in areas.
