A qualitative analysis of a specialized court process: The Philadelphia Lead Court

Objectives: This study evaluated whether the Philadelphia Lead Court, modeled after Tuberculosis Court, is effective as an innovative law enforcement strategy in enforcing the existing city health code. Established in 2002, the Court handles cases where the property owner has not responded appropriately to orders from Philadelphia Health Department to remediate lead hazards found in the homes of young children with elevated blood lead levels. Methods: This presentation will give results from a qualitative analysis that examined this specialized court process through interviews with Lead Court participants from the Court, and Philadelphia's health and law departments. Respondents were asked to provide detailed information regarding their experience with the court process, including use of fines and tailored court action forms, and asked to identify why and how the court functions well and ways in which it could be improved. Results: Initial results show that during interviews with 14 key Lead Court participants as to how effective Lead Court was, the response was a mean of 4.5, a median of 4.0 and range of 4-5 as responses (1=not effective to 5=extremely effective). By contrast, the effectiveness of pre-Court enforcement strategies received a mean of 1.4, a median of 1.0 and range of 1-2. Other study questions will be presented. Conclusions: Lead Court is judged to be very effective, compared to pre-court enforcement strategies, according to key court participants. This model of a specialized court as an innovative strategy for enforcing city health codes could be replicated in other cities with similar problems.