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Courts are not immune
from the events and forces that change the world. Court
leaders acknowledge the importance of being aware of
trends but commonly have little time and few resources
devoted to their study. Recognizing courts’
difficulties in this area, the National Center for State
Courts understands its mission to include helping courts
to anticipate and manage change so as to better serve
the public. One way that the National Center has long
served this purpose is by publishing an annual Report
on Trends in the State Courts, a document that
profiles recent issues and developments of varying
degrees of maturity, explains how these may be relevant
to the courts, and presents examples of how courts might
deal with them. Although the Trends Report remains
one of the National Center’s most popular products, it
is, by itself, inadequate to support the courts’ needs
in the area of futures studies and strategic planning,
being too nearsighted for use by planners in forecasting
and not offering comprehensive instruction for how best
to anticipate and manage change. The courts need more.
Beginning
with this edition, the Trends Report becomes part
of a broader and deeper commitment by
the National Center to support courts with efforts
involving court futures and strategic planning. New
publications and new educational offerings will extend
the horizon for those studying what the future
may hold and provide instruction for how courts may
better shape and meet that future. One of
these new publications is An Environmental Scan for
the State Courts, 2002, prepared by the National
Center’s Knowledge and Information Services Office and
Glenn Hiemstra of Futurist.com. Like
the Trends Report, this new publication attempts
to identify events, trends, and developments, or
drivers, shaping the future; however, the new
publication looks further into the future and seeks to avoid focusing too
narrowly on what has immediate relevance to the justice
system. In recognition
that the contents of An Environmental Scan may at
first seem too “far out” or alien for some
in the justice community, the new role for the articles
of the Trends Report is to complement the
scan by demonstrating the relevance of selected ideas or
issues, elaborating upon developments
that are related to the scan but of more immediate
import to the courts. The two publications
are linked online and have been published together in
print.
At
the close of 2002, long-term global patterns include
continuing migrations of workers and their dependents
from developing nations into the world’s
industrialized nations; mounting concerns about
pollution and environmental degradation; and
proliferating trade agreements linking world economies.
More immediately, most nations are experiencing an
economic slump; within the United States,
governments at all levels are concerned about the
adequacy of their budgets to continue basic
operations and special programs. The United States
remains preoccupied with issues of homeland
security and with the dangers of global terrorism and
proliferating weapons of mass destruction.
Federal initiatives emphasize linking the resources of
agencies concerned with public safety
and law enforcement. Technologies continue to advance,
offering unprecedented abilities for accessing
and sharing information, identifying individuals, and
doing business but at the same time raising
concerns about privacy rights and the vulnerability of
records. The influence of these forces upon
the state courts is neither uniform nor universal, but
the forces of change are real. For some courts,
there are opportunities; for others, threats. Within
this edition of the Trends Report, the National
Center offers its latest take on what is happening and
what the courts should know.
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