Abstract
California counties closed over 50 courthouses between 2008 and 2014, the time period known as the Great Recession. The closure of a local courthouse required individuals who would otherwise go to their closest courthouse to travel farther to the next closest courthouse to conduct legal affairs. Thus, travel distances to courthouses increased for many Californians. Difficulties of distance and transportation impacted the ability of citizens to engage effectively with the court system to resolve legal problems during the recession, according to legal stakeholders, including judges, lawyers, litigants, and the media. Primarily anecdotal evidence existed to describe the impacts on citizens. This study aims to provide quantitative data measuring the increase in citizens’ travel distances, determine the reasonableness of the travel distances required for attending court and accessing judicial resources in 2014, and identify any geographic patterns of the courthouse closures with geographic information systems (GIS) technology, specifically ArcMAP 10.6.1. The California Courts Directory and Fee Schedule, 2008 and 2014 Editions, provided information about courthouse locations. California road network information came from Environmental Systems Research Institute or ESRI. I obtained census tract boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to operationalize citizens’ travel origins. Courthouse closures impacted 28 out of California’s 58 counties. The number of people who lived beyond a 50-mile or 90-minute drive to their closest courthouse increased from 183,927 people across 37 census tracts in 2008 to 247,265 people across 54 census tracts in 2014. Given that California has 8,057 census tracts and a population of 38,066,920, percentage-wise, the increases ranged from 0.46% to 0.67% in census tracts and 0.48% to 0.65% in population. Northern and Southern California were equally affected in terms of the county impacts of courthouse closures. Southern California had more population impacted by courthouse closures. This study is the first of its kind to look at courthouse accessibility with GIS technology, and therefore, it is the first to offer quantitative GIS data as point for future planning of courthouses for California’s counties.