CTC Session Articles
Education Session Article
This article was written in support of a presentation given at CTC6 in 1999.
New Technologies for Courthouse Planning
By Keith T. Fentress
Introduction
Society today places enormous demands on our nation’s courthouses. Increased crime and litigation have led to backlogged court dockets, overburdened personnel, and overcrowded court facilities. Court fragmentation, operational space shortages, and security risks are just some of the serious problems common to American courthouses. To deal with these concerns, many courts have developed long-range plans to assess current and future space and facility needs.
A forerunner in this movement, the Federal Courts of the United States have implemented perhaps the most extensive courthouse planning program. The program, called the Long-Range Facility Planning Process, began in 1988 in response to concern over the quantity and quality of court space. Through this program, 767 court facilities have been planned, spanning every U.S. state and territory. Of these, 157 facilities have been identified as critically in need of new construction to meet current and future space demands. To help the federal courts manage the planning results, the process was designed so that plans for individual courts could be compiled into a national capital development plan, called the Five-Year Courthouse Project Plan. This courthouse construction program--labeled the "largest in U.S. history"--has sparked more than $10 billion in new court construction.
To support this extensive program, many state-of-the-art tools were developed to manage current space inventory and project future growth. In part due to these technological applications, and in recognition of its continued success and innovation, the federal courts’ planning program won the U.S. General Services Administrations’ (GSA) coveted Achievement Award for Real Property Innovation, commonly known as a "Best Practices Award," in October 1998. The U.S. Courts’ Long-Range Facility Planning Process was the first program of its kind to receive such a distinction.
Background on Federal Court Space
Before discussing specific technologies used in the planning process, it is important to gain perspective on the existing federal court facilities in the United States. The majority of federal courthouses in use today were built during two major historical construction periods. The first construction period took place during the aftermath of the American Civil War to signify the expanding presence of the federal government in the reunited union. During this construction phase, small courthouses were built in the South and West to accommodate one to three judges.
The second construction period occurred in the 1930s through New Deal public works programs. During this phase, many of the buildings were constructed as hybrid post office/courthouse facilities. The purpose of these "hybrid" facilities was to combine federal services into a single building to reduce construction costs and increase convenience for the public. Facilities built during this era were "pared-down in attempt to stimulate a depression-ridden economy through major building campaigns."
After the New Deal era, the trend changed from building courthouses to constructing multi-purpose federal office buildings. The construction of these federal office buildings occurred mostly during the 1950s through the 1970s. In these facilities, the federal courts were housed alongside many executive branch agencies, including service-oriented (i.e., Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service, etc.) and law enforcement agencies (i.e., Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Agency, etc.). The office quality and character of these facilities often caused great concern to the court. This concern is apparent in the words of Chief Judge William H. Timbers, who successfully spearheaded an effort to stop GSA from moving the federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, to a federal office building:
The proposed federal office building...would not be a courthouse. The courts would be treated as some sub-agency of an executive department. Such treatment of the courts would be fatally damaging to the public impression of, and confidence in, an independent judiciary.
The two prior courthouse construction eras and the multipurpose building era left the federal courts with facilities that were undersized and not properly designed for the administration of justice. Concerns over the quantity and quality of space compounded during the1980s and 1990s due to the explosion in workload and personnel.
During this time frame, two workload trends stand out. First, Congress expanded the criminal jurisdiction of the federal courts, which caused rapid growth in criminal filings (76 percent growth between 1982 and 1998). Furthermore, the availability of quick credit, paired with bankruptcy law changes, generated an enormous increase in bankruptcy filings (290 percent growth between 1982 and 1998). These trends, coupled with a steady growth across all workload categories, increased the need for personnel. Between 1982 and 1998, federal judiciary personnel grew approximately 90 percent. The growth in personnel appropriately resulted in the need for additional space throughout the judiciary.
As a result, critical space shortages developed in the courts as the acquisition of space failed to keep pace with the growing space demand. In the early 1990s, federal courts throughout the nation lacked an average of 30 percent of the space needed to properly house current personnel and operations. When additional space was acquired, it was either "shoehorned" into existing facilities or provided in leased space away from the main courthouse. This further exacerbated space problems, causing inefficiencies in court operations and increased security risks. In worst case scenarios, district court judges were split into separate facilities. This situation necessitates duplicate security, prisoner processing, and file management and interferes with the ability to share conference rooms, libraries, and other court facilities.
Judges throughout the court system voiced complaints about space problems. However, prior to the implementation of the planning process, there was no systematic way of determining the magnitude, scope, or impact of space concerns on the courts. Recognizing this problem, the Judicial Conference of the United States directed several initiatives to address space concerns in the late 1980s. One of these initiatives was the implementation of a courthouse planning program to evaluate existing court facilities and forecast the future housing needs of the federal judiciary.
The Planning Process
The following is a brief overview of the Long-Range Facility Planning Process. The goal of the planning process was to perform a needs assessment on every federal court facility across the nation. A needs assessment both evaluates existing court facilities and forecasts the need for future space. Existing facilities are evaluated to determine their ability to meet current and future court needs. The evaluation includes a physical assessment of the building to determine: (1) physical/structural condition; (2) quantity and quality of existing space; and (3) existing security arrangements.
The planning process is based on the premise that an increase in workload leads to an increase in personnel, which leads to an increase in the need for space. This logic forms the foundation for facility planning; however, it is deceptively simple. Growth in the courts involves many factors, including changing demographics, economics, policies, procedures, and laws. Without a crystal ball to see the future, the planning process must rely on a combination of statistical methods and insight from judicial officers and managers at each court.
The planning process was uniquely designed to combine quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (focus groups and participant interviews) information to create a logical and defensible plan that forecasted space needs 5, 10, 20, and 30 years into the future. The 30-year time frame was selected because it represents the economic life of a building in both the public and private sectors.
The process was designed to answer the following questions for each court: When will the court family outgrow the available space? How much space will be needed in the future? What special issues may impact space needs (i.e., automation and technology)? What options are available for meeting future space needs? If a construction project is necessary, what size should it be and how much will it cost? The end result of the planning process was to provide a defensible projection of future space needs that could be used to make decisions about both the existing facility and its future.
After completing courthouse planning throughout the United States, the federal courts reached a shocking conclusion:157 facilities were identified as either out of space or projected to be out of space by the turn of the century! The estimated cost to construct new facilities or annexes in these 157 locations is approximately $10 billion. As a result of these findings, the planning process has ushered in the largest federal courthouse construction program in U.S. history.
After realizing how many projects were needed, the next issue faced by the U.S. Courts was to develop a national capital development plan for communicating the courts’ urgent construction needs to Congress and GSA. The Five-Year Courthouse Project Plan was developed as a way of prioritizing court projects and establishing a proposed yearly funding schedule. The Five-Year Plan is updated on an annual basis to remove funded projects and add new projects.
The maintenance of the individual court plans and the national Five-Year Plan has been accomplished through data management and the development of space management tools. The remainder of this report will address several of the technologies used in the courthouse planning process.
Courthouse Planning Technologies
During the 11-year planning program, many state-of-the-art space management tools have been developed. Three of the more notable tools include: (1) CD-ROM on court design standards; (2) forecasting models for predicting future caseload, personnel, and space; and (3) geographical information systems (GIS).
Court Design Standards on CD-ROM
The U.S. Courts Design Guide is a document offering guidance to judges, court administrators, and architects on design standards for federal courthouses. It has been recognized in recent years that the Design Guide is not a static document, but rather a "living" document flexible to change. Federal court design standards change from Congressional funding pressures and lessons learned from newly completed court facilities. As a living document, the paper version of the Design Guide has undergone four revisions since 1991.
In producing the 1997 edition of the Design Guide, the federal judiciary considered the development of a CD-ROM to supplement the printed version. Such multimedia applications are growing in popularity as they engage users by allowing them to interactively manage and extract information. The U.S. Courts Design Guide on CD-ROM was developed with this concept in mind. It expanded on the traditional, static notion of a design document into an interactive user-friendly tool that contains many documents relating to federal court construction.
The CD is a "one stop shop" for federal court design standards. The CD contains not only the U.S. Courts Design Guide, but also more than 20 supporting documents on topics such as GSA criteria for federal facilities, security by the U.S. Marshals Service, public laws influencing court construction, court technology guidance, and case studies on completed court projects. All documents are linked together via hypertext features with the ability to search for text and phrases.
The CD also contains a pictorial tour of new federal court facilities, including courthouses in Boston, MA; Long Island, NY; Shreveport, LA; St. Louis, MO; and many more. Sample video clips are included to help users visualize court design features. Overall, the CD is an effective tool for organizing the vast amount of information involved in the design of a federal courthouse.
Forecasting Models
Another technology developed to support the planning process was the creation of forecasting models to predict workload, personnel, and space. As explained earlier, the courthouse planning process assumes that an increase in workload leads to personnel growth, which leads to a greater demand for space. For each of these steps, an application was developed for the federal courts.
Caseload Forecasting - To produce 30-year caseload forecasts, a 40-year historical database was developed containing data on court caseload, including criminal cases and defendants; civil cases; bankruptcy filings; and other major workload indicators. To forecast the caseload for all 94 federal court districts, a model was developed to automate the process and enhance its accuracy.
The statistical method used in the model to forecast caseload is Box-Jenkins Time Series Analysis, also called Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling. This forecasting method was selected because of its ability to process time series data and discern patterns within historical data (i.e., seasonality and lag terms). The U.S. Courts have developed a state-of-the-art neural network for specifying ARIMA models, and have created an experience-based expert system for evaluating the resulting forecasts. Once a forecast "passes" the expert system evaluation, related reports and graphics can be generated automatically. The neural network portion of this forecasting system has received recognition from SPSS, Inc., a leading developer of PC-based statistical analysis software.
Personnel Forecasting - Once the caseload has been predicted, personnel formulae are used to translate the caseload forecast into future personnel needs. The U.S. Courts are very diverse in terms of workload volume and growth rates. Taking this into consideration, the federal courts developed a series of workload to personnel ratios based on the size of the court and other distinguishing characteristics. These ratios are called growth models.
Growth models are groupings of courts with similar trends across a range of demographic, economic, workload, court personnel, and facility-related variables. The models are calculated using cluster analysis, a statistical technique that identifies groups with similar characteristics.
The growth models divide the 94 federal court districts into ten categories based upon size. These ten categories can be broken down into four general groups: (1) small; (2) mid-sized; (3) large; and (4) large and complex. In general, small districts are more rural, less populated, often cover a large geographical area, have less facilities, and typically have staffing formulae that reveal a lower caseload to personnel ratio than other growth models. Large/complex districts typically are very large metropolitan areas with dense population, racial and ethnic diversity, and many court facilities and, in general, have higher caseload per personnel (reflecting economies of scale and resource allocation). Mid-sized and large districts fall somewhere between the small and large/complex districts in their trends and patterns.
In general, the larger the district the more workload per personnel and the faster the growth rate. For example, in a small district there could be an average of 380 criminal and civil cases per district judge, while in a large and complex district there could be an average of 550 cases per judge. This pattern in no way indicates that a small court judge works less, since many other factors impact a judge’s workload, such as the number of cities where a judge holds court, administrative responsibilities, venue practices, type of cases, etc.
Each growth model contains different formulae used to predict future personnel for member districts. This method recognizes that the federal courts are so diverse, that one set of formulae would do an inadequate job of forecasting personnel across all court locations.
Housing Projections - After caseload and personnel have been predicted, the final step is to forecast space. To do this, space is assigned to each projected personnel position to create a space forecast. The space assignments are derived from the U.S. Courts Design Guide.
To interpret the design standards consistently and fairly for all courts, the AnyCourt Model was developed. The AnyCourt Model is a computer application that contains specific formulae for each personnel position and court office. Projected personnel are placed into the model, which creates a detailed housing statement for each individual court.
The AnyCourt Model provides an important service because the application of design standards is always open to interpretation in some respect, since it is impossible to fully describe a set of standards that covers all situations. Thus, the AnyCourt Model was developed to ensure that the space needed for each individual project starts from the same baseline. Another benefit of the model is the ability to change as space standards change. Since the U.S. Courts Design Guide has been revised four times in nine years, it is important that the model can adapt to changing design trends.
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
The final technology to be highlighted is geographical information systems (GIS). GIS is an extremely useful tool for analyzing court trends geographically, as well as managing facility information. Because each court is located at a specific address, almost all court trends can be analyzed using GIS.
The federal courts’ GIS is capable of mapping and analyzing many trends associated with courthouse planning, including:
- Economic - housing, employment by industry, unemployment, business growth (by type of business), and income per capita.
- Infrastructure - prisons, military bases, national parklands, reservation lands, proximity to U.S. border, major highways, international airports, and deep-water ports.
- Law Enforcement - workload and personnel trends in investigative agencies, U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons.
- Court Workload - type of case, case growth rates, and volume of cases.
- Personnel - total count and types of personnel.
- Space - rental rates, space quantity, physical condition of facilities, potential site locations for court expansion.
The above variables provide a sample of the data used in planning courthouses. From the list, it is clear that data availability and management are strong determinants of an effective GIS. One way that the federal courts have used GIS is to develop an automated tool that can automatically map and print current and projected demographic and economic trends at the county level for any district in the nation.
Another way GIS is being used to enhance courthouse planning is the development of a comprehensive Courthouse Asset Management System (CAMS). This system coordinates all planning-related data under the umbrella of GIS. CAMS allows users to perform analysis at the national level, then "drill down" through various geographical levels (circuit, state, district, county, city, etc.) to an individual court building. For example, users can query the system by pinpointing on a national map a wide range of variables, such as "courts with the fastest growth in workload during the past five years." Users can then "zoom in" on a particular county to see how many jobs are predicted in the future by industry type. They can also view current and projected population figures for the particular county, zip code, or census block group. Geo-coded photographs embedded in CAMS allow users to see aerial views of existing court facilities, assess potential sites for expansion, and view new court locations in the surrounding area.
CAMS’ powerful features are further enhanced by animated maps showing moving trends over time. This feature allows users to "watch" trends evolve over historical and predicted periods. Another useful tool is the ability to blend trends together to pinpoint "hot spots." For example, the blend of facility rental rates and court growth trends can help in budgeting and identifying cost effective opportunities for court expansion.
As shown in the examples above, GIS is an effective tool used by the federal courts to manage, analyze, and display information. When used in conjunction with analytical models and forecasting, GIS is an ideal technology for use in courthouse planning.
Conclusion
This paper provides an overview of federal court facilities and the federal courts’ Long-Range Facility Planning Process. To support the planning process, many cutting-edge technologies have been developed. Multimedia court design standards help coordinate and educate participants in the process of designing new court facilities. Forecasting models automate statistical methods to predict court workload, personnel, and space consistently and reliably. GIS allows users to view and analyze court-related trends. Although this report focuses on the federal court experience, all the tools and techniques described can easily be adopted to other jurisdictions.
Keith T. Fentress
Contact:
Keith T. Fentress
President
Fentress Inc.
Sykesville, Maryland
Phone: (301) 854-4885
Fax: (301) 854-4886
E-mail: keith@fentress.com
Biographical Information
This biographical information may date from as far back as 1999. Please keep in mind that it may no longer be accurate.
Keith T. Fentress
President
Fentress Inc.
Sykesville, Maryland