Developing and Evaluating Courthouse Security and Disaster Preparedness Plans

Description

The workshop objective is to help jurisdictions develop or revise their courthouse security and disaster prevention and recovery plans based on national expertise and experience about court security and disaster recovery. The curriculum involves a two and one half day workshop for multi-disciplinary interagency teams. The workshop combines information from the NACM Mini-Guides on courthouse security and disaster recovery with lessons from jurisdictions that have experienced a catastrophic event. The format includes interactive plenary sessions and group exercises that develop teamwork and problem solving skills as well as beginning the process of assembling or revising plans. Teams usually include judges, administrators, local courthouse security providers, and local technology and facilities managers. Recent events continue to illustrate the importance of planning. Advance planning can reduce the impact of an event, minimize injuries, damage, and losses, and allow the court to restart priority functions and shorten its recovery time.

JMI's Experience with this Curriculum

The complete curriculum, including both courthouse security and disaster recovery modules, was first presented at a workshop for five teams from across the country. JMI has also presented the disaster recovery portion of the curriculum in a two-and-one-half day tuition supported workshop for individuals and teams in one state and a two day regional workshop presented to teams in another state. The curriculum was written by JMI staff. Development of the current version of the curriculum and presentation of the five team workshop was underwritten by a grant from the State Justice Institute.

Adapting the Curriculum for Your Jurisdiction

The core curriculum, including materials and exercises, is fully developed. JMI faculty and facilitators are available to present the workshop. In order to adapt the curriculum to your laws, practices, and nomenclature JMI suggests working with a committee of representatives of the sponsoring organization and of the likely attendees who can assist in fine-tuning the plenary sessions and exercises.

Presentation Options

The workshop is designed for multi-disciplinary, inter-agency teams from a jurisdiction. The two-and-one-half day version of the curriculum includes two role play exercises. Excluding the role plays could reduce the presentation time. Half day and two hour sessions on security issues or disaster recovery issues have been presented to justice system groups. JMI uses a set of videotaped presentations by court managers describing their actual experiences responding to disasters. Local presenters could be substituted if available. The curriculum developed with SJI funding included representatives of the U.S. Marshal's offices as team members.

Contact

Elaine Nugent-Borakove at enugent (at) jmijustice.org