N = Night Court

Sometimes 26 Weeks has led me to places I would love to revisit and other times the journey has taken me to places I'm glad to have experienced but thankful not to go back - this week was exactly that.

Night Court takes place every day of the week from 5.30pm-1am at the Criminal Courts building on 100 Centre Street, lower Manhattan. Under state law, the city only has 24 hours to get a criminal before a judge and with a juicy amount of crime going on in this crazy City, a virtual round-the-clock prosecution system is in order.

You enter the courts through security then walk down a long hallway to two rooms, we were told 130 was the one with the most action. However, we walked a little too far and were stopped and redirected by a nice security guard who told us "we were walking straight into jail", hmm must listen to directions better.

We quietly slipped in and sat in the visitors benches, sadly all the other people there seemed to be friends and family waiting to hear the outcome for their loved ones, there were all strikingly young and had a few unhappy and fidgeting kiddies in tow.

After a lot of sitting around waiting 4-5 men were brought out from the jail and the judge speedily went through each case. We had to strain our ears to hear what was going on and I had to remind myself this was real court, not TV or movie court, they don't have microphones handily dotted around so you can hear their every word and there's no sudden outbursts or dramatic explosions from the audience. Hollywood this most definitely was not.

The most dramatic case was for two brothers being tried for cocaine dealing, they looked about 17 years old, their girlfriends were watching from the benches, one had a newborn baby in her lap.

The least dramatic case was for subway fare dodging, we heard the man was homeless, I imagined him trying to get warm for the night but with no cash he thought he'd try and get in to the subway. I'm sure jail for him actually meant a meal and some shelter, I resolved to try and do more to help the homeless this year.

As we headed out into Chinatown afterwards to grab some dinner we noticed all of the bail shops around the court. One had a big flashing neon light screaming "ANY NYC BAIL ANY NYC JAIL CALL 212-608-6200. GET OUT OF JAIL FAST!" Now that's a little more Hollywood.