The Community Needs and Services Study is a community-sited, multi-method study investigating the American public's experiences with problems that fall within the purview of the civil justice system. The study focuses on a core set of commonly experienced problems surrounding issues such as personal finances, housing and family relationships. These problems are carefully selected to be those that have civil legal aspects, raise civil legal issues, and have consequences shaped by civil law. The study has three components: (1) The Public Survey, an in-person survey of a representative sample of adult residents of the study city inquiring about the incidence of the selected problems, responses to such problems, and how such problems affect the people who experience them; (2) The Provider Survey, a survey of both legal and non-legal organizations and programs that may provide people with information or advice about, or services for, civil justice problems; (3) The In-depth Interview Study, a series of in-depth follow-up interviews with a subsample of respondents to the Public Survey.
The study considers the wide range of ways that people respond to their justice problems, the variety of resources they may draw upon, and the broader impacts of law on people's lives.
The Community Needs and Services Study (CNSS) explores experiences that the American public has with common situations that have civil legal aspects, raise civil legal issues, and have consequences shaped by civil law. The study focuses on these experiences, the legal and non-legal resourses available to assist people with them, and how people think about and handle them. The study reveals that these events are common in the lives of Americans and can be severe in their impacts. The CNSS is sited in a middle-sized city in the Midwest region of the United States. It employs a unique research design that pairs a survey of the justice experiences of the public (the Public Survey) with a survey of the wide range of resources that people report turning to for information or assistance with these situations (the Provider Survey). A further planned part of the study is a small series of in-depth interviews (the Interview Study). The CNSS is the first to combine an investigation of public experience with civil justice situations with an exploration of the network of resources available to assist people who face such situations. The Public Survey has been completed; the Provider Survey will be fielded in early 2015. The Public Survey finds widespread incidence of events and situations that have civil legal aspects, raise civil legal issues and are potentially actionable under civil law. Most commonly, people handle these problems on their own, without seeking assistance or information from anyone. When people do reach out, the most common source of assistance is family members of friends. Those who seek help from third parties outside their social networks reach to a wide range of sources of assistance, including city agencies, national membership organizations, community organizations, and clergy. However, this variety masks a powerful consistency: most situations are handled outside the context of the formal justice system. People experiencing these situations rarely seek assistance from lawyers or courts. In 2013, two-thirds (66%) of a representative random sample of adults report experiencing at least one of 12 different categories of civil justice situations in the previous 18 months. For the whole sample, the average number of situations is 2.1; for people who report situations, the average number reported is 3.3. The most commonly reported kinds of situations involve bread and butter issues with far-reaching impacts: problems with employment, money (finances, government benefits, debts), insurance, and housing. Poor people are more likely to report civil justice situations than are middle-income or high-income people. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to report such situations than Whites. People report that almost half (47%) of the civil justice situations they experience result in at least one significant negative consequence such as feelings of fear, a loss of income or confidence, damage to physical or mental health, or violence or threats of violence. Adverse impacts on health are the most common negative consequence, reported for 27% of situations. Just as experiences with civil justice situations are unequally distributed, so are the negative consequences of these situations, with low- income people in particular reporting more negative consequences from civil justice situations than do other groups. Typically, people handle these situations on their own. For only about a fifth (22%) of situations do they seek assistance from a third party outside their immediate social network, such as a lawyer, social worker, police officer, city agency, religious leader or elected official. When people who do not seek any assistance from third parties outside their social circles are asked if cost is one barrier to doing so, they report that concerns about cost are a factor for only 17% of reported situations. A more important reason that people do not seek assistance with these situations, in particular assistance from lawyers or courts, is that they do not understand these situations to be legal.
