Krontiris on Mobile Justice

Kate Krontiris of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the MIT Sloan School of Management — and a member of our community — has released two new posts on the topic of “mobile justice”: Mobile Justice in 500 Words, and On the Many Manifestations of “Mobile Justice,” on her tumblr.

In the first post, Ms. Krontiris defines “mobile justice” as “the idea that mobile technologies, broadly defined, can be used to extend and improve access to justice.” She states that the term “includes initiatives such as virtual courts in Kenya, live-streamed court proceedings in Massachusetts, and SMS-sharing of legal judgments in Ghana”; and that mobile justice efforts are being undertaken by governments, civil society organizations, and businesses, and “almost always require the strong collaboration of all of these stakeholders.” The post goes on to discuss how mobile justice initiatives are being used in the reform of judicial processes, and may contribute to improving the rule of law and human rights enforcement in many jurisdictions.

In the second post, Ms. Krontiris discusses private mobile justice providers. The post focuses on Crimefighters, a “[c]onfidential information hotline” — offered in Ghana by mobile phone company MTN — that enables citizens to report crimes via mobile phone, free of charge. With MTN as an example, the post discusses “the emerging role of private actors in resourcing public” justice information and communication services.

These posts follow on Ms. Krontiris’s 2010 post on mobile justice, Using Technology to Bridge the Gap, at the U.S. Department of State’s DipNote blog, and her 2010 post, On the Potential of Mobile Justice, at Huffington Post.