PHILADELPHIA COMMON PLEAS COURTS, with a perennial backlog of cases, is the city's principal judicial forum. It has an information center that takes calls from the public, and is touting Courtroom 625, its first high-tech courtroom. Features includes "a Smart Overlay mounted on a plasma screen allowing the easy marking of digital evidence by a Witness," as well as a teleconference system and a videoconferencing system that "provides remote witness appearances from anywhere in the state, country or world."
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY provides information, advocacy and intervention services to Pennsylvania prisoners, ex-offenders and the families. Programs include: Prison visitation, crisis intervention, pre-and post-release planning and support, public education on criminal justice issues, parenting education, and assistance with education expenses while incarcerated.
PHILADELPHIA CITIZENS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH calls itself the region's leading child advocacy organization, through research, mobilizing and "informed advocacy." One of its priorities is to improve the juvenile justice system.
THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF PENNSYLVANIA is a privately-funded citizens' organization devoted exclusively to the protection and promotion of individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
THE JUVENILE LAW CENTER is a nonprofit, public interest law firm which advances the rights of children involved with public agencies by working for the reform and coordination of the child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and mental and physical health care systems.
RUTGERS-CAMDEN LAW SCHOOL has scholars of the court system. One, a leading authority on East European law, has written widely on comparative and criminal law. Another is a specialist in the American legal profession, the history of judicial ethics, and federal court history.
THE CITIZENS CRIME COMMISSION OF DELAWARE VALLEY is an independent nonprofit that operates in conjunction with area businesses and law enforcement organizations to prevent crime and enhance public safety. It runs a "TipLine" for crime tips and a variety of safety seminars.
WITNESS TO INNOCENCE is an advocacy group that challenges the "fatally flawed criminal justice system" and capital punishment. It presents talks by former death row prisoners who have been exonerated and released from death rows across the United States
THE LEGAL INTELLIGENCER is a daily publication which covers all cases listed for trial in courts sitting in Philadelphia, as well as the disposition of those cases after trial, plus filings in the court system and other news and information of interest to attorneys, banks, insurance companies, accountants, real estate persons and credit persons.
