ABSTRACT
Before assessing the impacts of the Court on case outcomes, community conditions and community attitudes, it makes sense to examine whether difficulties in implementing components of the project impeded the Court’s ability to reach its operational objectives. As highlighted in Chapter 1, much of the early debate about the project gave rise to predictions that the Court would have little impact. Critics argued that there would be too few cases to justify the establishment of the Court; that defendants’ ability to “forum shop” for more lenient outcomes would make it difficult to change sentencing patterns; and that too few defendants would comply with community service sentences to affect community conditions. Before the Court opened, there was considerable speculation among outside observers about whether the project would be able to implement its extremely ambitious agenda.
