Collaborating with the Puerto Rico Judicial Branch’s Office of Courts Administration to enhance access to justice programs – initiatives to improve fairness and reduce barriers in the justice system.
A research team of FOS affiliates is collaborating with the Puerto Rico Judicial Branch (PRJB)’s Office of Courts Administration since 2018 to investigate how innovations within the judiciary shape the courts’ effectiveness in fulfilling their core functions and the delivery of such crucial public services.
As the agency overseeing a system serving upwards of 3 million individuals via 40 courts across the territory’s 13 judicial regions, the PRJB sought to establish this partnership to examine how systemic programmatic reforms could reduce barriers in individuals’ access to justice, particularly among those from vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
To-date, the partnership has undertaken a cutting-edge research project studying the consequences of the large-scale implementation of a system of specialized domestic violence courts (SDVCs), an innovation in access to justice programs for potential victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and offenders. In addition to documenting the consequences of the initiative for victims’ judicial protection and offender recidivism, the partners collaborated in the design and implementation of an innovative survey of all active judges presiding over domestic violence cases to provide a more detailed picture of the attributes of judges that might influence case decisions. This work is only the beginning of more initiatives to come, including joint research on the links between the wellbeing of members of the judiciary and their decision-making.
