An unusual alternative court -- too bad there are not more

Sounds like a really good idea to improve quality of life. Would

also be within the scope of the broken windows concept.

Karen Heller: No holidays for Nuisance Court By Karen Heller Inquirer Columnist It's Good Friday for bad behavior. Nuisance Court convenes at 7 p.m. at the 17th Police District in Point Breeze, Judge Dan Anders of Family Court presiding with the assistance of Sgt. John Massi, sometimes known as Pitbull. Established in 1996, Nuisance Court is a movable feast of questionable comportment, rotating through districts to address the various and sundry crimes that debase a neighborhood's overall quality of life, such as drinking, loitering, and the ever-popular doing both on a stoop other than your own. "If they plead guilty, I give them community service, seeing as most individuals can't pay the fines," says Anders, one of a dozen judges who serve voluntarily. Though it's Holy Week, offenders aren't taking time off for good conduct. The cops pick up eight men Friday, some still pickled. In Nuisance Court, an altered state of consciousness prevails. "Given that the community organizations are right in the area, individuals are more likely to comply" with the sentence, Massi adds. "And you see the results while they give back to the neighborhood." It's inspired logic: Do time with service in precisely the place where offenders originally disturbed the peace. Instead of jail, offenders will pick up parks, rec centers and churches. It should happen more often. Time and misdemeanors On Good Friday, everyone pleads guilty, though not before telling some stories and dramatically rendered half-truths. Ranging in age from juveniles to senior citizens, the offenders are overwhelmingly male. The beverages are overwhelmingly beer and malt liquor. The issues of contention border on the surreal. Judge Anders: "You were found with a 20-ounce can of Red Bull Malt Liquor?" Defendant: "No, sir. That's not correct, your honor. It was a 24-ounce can." The 17th runs from Lombard to Moore, Broad Street to the Schuylkill, only 1.66 square miles but heavily populated and diverse, comprising the gentrifying neighborhood surrounding Graduate Hospital, Grays Ferry, and the Tasker Homes. Most nuisance cases are collared by the 17th's bike cops, Officers Lippi, Bartolo, Moran and Kubiak, who know the district well. Theirs is police work on a personal scale. Jimmy Lippi, 11 years in the 17th, is known as the Icon, featured in the mural gracing the station's west exterior wall. "Sometimes you've got to start little, cleaning up crime," he says. "I love the 17th. We've got a little bit of everything, but it's not a bad neighborhood." That would be the district that led the city in juvenile shootings in 2007. One of tonight's offenders was once a serious gang menace. Then he got shot up. He's 21 now. He looks twice that. "They're good kids that got caught up in the wrong environment," Lippi says. "See that family? They hate me because at some point I've locked up almost the whole family." Night court in Point Breeze Tonight, these family members don't seem so angry. After a pair of juveniles is ordered to perform 20 hours of community service, one mother announces, "Good. He needs community service." Anders shakes his head in disbelief. Point Breeze has been home for five decades to neighborhood activist Rita Wheelings. She's on the mural, too. Wheelings remembers when a magistrate was assigned to the 17th and adjudicated petty crimes right then and there. "I was locked up as a kid and never did anything bad ever again. Same with my son," she says. "I think it's great. Let's scare them straight. This is exactly what we need. We have to start somewhere." At Nuisance Court, justice is swift, 31 cases decided and sentenced in 90 minutes. Ordered to 20 hours, an older man frets that he won't be able to perform them without losing his job. "You help me," Betty Beaufort of Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze tells him, "and I'll help you." Contact staff writer Karen Heller at 215-854-2586 or kheller@phillynews.com.

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