A Management Note on: The Costs of Case Processing in the Florida Criminal Courts

Abstract

Increasingly, courts influence the spending decisions of other public agencies. Yet, financial and cost accounting techniques have only recently been applied to improve judicial management practices. Using the unexpected influx of Cuban Marier refugees in the early 1980s as a case study, this article examines case management problems in the criminal division of a large urban court. Results confirm the need to better integrate criminal justice information systems and develop means of estimating court costs. Further, the application of cost accounting techniques commonly used in the private sector may be limited by the unique financial and budgetary environment of the courts. Conclusions urge more research before judges and court administrators have the necessary analytical tools to manage information, evaluate programs, and control costs. Courts in our era commonly experience budgetary pressures. On one hand, administrators will testify that courts, like other public agencies, too frequently experience budgets inadequate to accommodate expanded workloads, particularly in an environment of cost increases for essential public services. On the other hand, because of taxpayer expectations that public agencies be administered efficiently and effectively, courts, like other public agencies are being asked to manage information, evaluate program effectiveness, and control costs (Hoffman, 1982). Responding to public demands for lower taxes, judges, state's attorneys, court administrators, and public defenders must monitor expenses more closely, analyze the relationship between budgets and expenditures, and develop independent measures of performance based on predicted expenditure levels. Agencies may also consider adopting procedures prevalent in the private sector which provide an objective basis for selection of projects, a rational allocation formula for scarce resources, and a verifiable basis for forecasting future service needs. Without such