It just takes one high-profile crime to scare visitors off the Las Vegas Strip — and chill the tourism that drives the entire Nevada economy. 

But hospitality leaders’ proposed solution — bringing back a now-dissolved Resort Corridor Court to deal with crimes exclusively from the Strip, often using the tool of “order outs” that ban people from an entire district for months — has reignited questions about efficiency, effectiveness and whether the arrangement is too heavy-handed on homeless people.

“It's literally just a plea factory for homeless people to put them in jail for longer and longer sentences,” said Erica Webb, an attorney with the Clark County Public Defender’s Office.

Proponents, however, see it as a crucial tool to preserve a feeling of safety key to people coming back again and again. They backed a last-minute amendment in this year’s legislative session to revive the court, and are behind a push to bring up the idea again if the Legislature convenes for a special session in coming months.

“The ability for our tourists in the entertainment capital world to be able to feel safe and move around freely on the Strip is critical,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union Local 226. 

Here’s a look at the debate over the court and what might happen next.

History of the court

Despite crime being down on the Strip in the last year, hospitality leaders say they are concerned with the safety of visitors and workers — as well as the economy of Las Vegas and the rest of Nevada if tourists are fearful of crime in the area. In 2023, Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson noted that negative reviews about Las Vegas were showing up on travel websites. 

The Resort Corridor Court was established by Clark County Justice Court in 2023 in an attempt to curb repeat offenses on the Strip and prevent those cases from getting lost in the justice system, said Melissa Saragosa-Stratton, a retired judge who was the first to preside over the court. A second judge, former judge Joseph Sciscento, was later added to handle the caseload. 

Saragosa-Stratton said the idea behind establishing the court was that a single judicial officer would be able to see which people were consistently committing crimes — such as petty theft, assault, drug offenses and loitering — in the resort corridor near and along the Strip.

“What we envisioned in the court was to identify these repeat offenders who may need intervention through county resources,” Saragosa-Stratton said. 

The court lasted a little less than two years, from January 2023 to November 2024, before it was discontinued, with court officials writing at the time that they wanted to adopt a successful model that involved the City of Las Vegas and allocate resources more efficiently across more courtrooms. In recent interviews, former judges have said they also struggled with a lack of resources for defendants, such as housing and transportation, which were allocated by the county.

It’s a unique program — other large tourist destination cities such as Los Angeles or New York City do not have corresponding courts that only deal with one geographic area. One parallel might be the District Court for Yosemite National Park, a courthouse in the Eastern District of California that only deals with crimes that occurred in the national park.

According to proponents, the Resort Corridor Court was successful in keeping habitual offenders off the Strip through “order-out” provisions, a legal ban that prohibited that person from being in the area for a specific amount of time. 

However, critics see the court in a different light. 

Critics say penalties too harsh

In a group interview, a team of defense attorneys from the Clark County Public Defender’s Office who handled cases from the court spoke of an overloaded, ineffective system that did not do much to reduce crime or provide preventative measures — such as housing or a diversion program — to keep people off the Strip. 

One of the attorneys, Brennan Bartley, said his understanding was the court was an “administrative nightmare” due to the high volume of petty misdemeanor cases. Although full case statistics were not available by deadline, the court issued about 300 stay-away orders in its first three months of operation, according to KLAS-TV.

Another attorney, Assistant Public Defender John Piro, said the court was an attempt to criminalize homelessness by sending people to jail for offenses such as littering, loitering or trespassing. 

“There was nothing special about this court … It did not reduce crime. [The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s] good work on the Strip reduced crime,” Piro said. “Basically, it functioned to imprison homeless people in the Clark County Detention Center at taxpayer expense.” 

Without proper resources, the attorneys said it was hard to enact substantial change for the individuals shuffled through the legal system. The attorneys said penalties were often harsher with each charge so that sometimes people would serve as much as six months in jail for a string of nonviolent petty crimes. 

“I have never felt so despondent as I was coming out of there,” Webb said. “I would cry sometimes, because I was like, ‘What the hell are we doing?’”

Limited resources were a concern for people working within the courts as well. In a statement to The Indy, current Chief Justice Judge Melisa De La Garza defended the Justice Court’s decision to disband the court, citing a responsibility to effectively use funding. 

She added that other specialty courts such as the Community, Drug and Mental Health courts were more effective and provided more support than the Resort Corridor Court. 

Despite the challenges facing the court, some say efforts were abandoned too soon. In an email to The Nevada Independent, Clark County Commission Chair Tick Segerblom said he supported attempts to revive the Corridor Court, but it would take collaboration and potential additional funding. 

“We need more navigation centers and transitional housing, and maybe we need to implement the court for all unhoused, not just those on the Strip,” Segerblom said. “I know the judges wanted to provide housing and services for the people who they [sic] were being sent to the Corridor Court. I’m not sure if those were budgeted.” 

Saragosa-Stratton also said the court shouldn’t have been abandoned as soon as it was, though she said the structure was challenging. Mostly, she said it was a struggle to connect repeat offenders with the resources they needed in an easy-to-navigate way. 

“Just in terms of resources, it was really hard,” Saragosa-Stratton said. “These people have enough life challenges, and if we can't get them connected with resources, then we're not doing anything to rehabilitate them, to keep them out of that area.” 

New life for the idea?

A bid to reestablish the court surfaced at the end of the 2025 legislative session when Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) tacked a last-minute amendment onto Gov. Joe Lombardo’s crime bill, which did not pass. 

“There were a lot of moving parts with the crime bill, and I was proud of the work I was able to do on it, and ultimately we weren't able to cross finish line," Scheible said in an interview with an Indy reporter. 

However, even if the Legislature had passed a bill seeking to reinstate the court, judges in the justice court would have to vote on the decision in order to create the court anew. 

Hospitality industry leaders such as Virginia Valentine, CEO of the Nevada Resort Association, and Pappageorge worked with lobbyists and legislators to try to reestablish the court, offering examples of people who had been trespassed dozens and even hundreds of times and assaulted hotel security officers. 

“We have to remember that the Strip is the engine, the major economic engine, for not just Las Vegas, not just the county, but the entire state of Nevada,” Pappageorge said. “The ability for our tourists in the entertainment capital world to be able to feel safe and move around freely on the Strip is critical.” 

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson argued that the court was working as it should when it was disbanded — protecting the Strip’s visitors and employees. Wolfson said he would support a special legislative session to bring the court back. 

“We've had a number of employees that have been assaulted, battered and victimized,” Wolfson said. “The resort corridor court caused a significant positive change in the atmosphere in that area.”

Hospitality industry leaders allege that crime is a pervasive problem on the Strip mitigated in part by the Corridor Court. However, data from the FBI illustrates that crime dropped within Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s (LVMPD) jurisdiction from roughly 14,400 incidents of violent crime in 2015 to around 7,400 in 2024. 

More localized Metro statistics show that crime within the command area that includes the Strip  has fallen substantially in the last year — a period that mostly consists of time since the court was disbanded. Between July 2024 and July of this year, arrests for violent and sexual crimes in the area are down around 17 percent, property crimes are down almost 25 percent and nonviolent offenses such as drug and prostitution-related charges plummeted by roughly 43 percent. 

Calls for service to the command area before and during the court’s operation show a bit more fluctuation: Though the area saw about 87,000 calls in 2022, before the court was established, calls jumped to almost 95,000 in 2023 and then dropped to about 70,000 calls in 2024, according to LVMPD annual reports. 

Though she commended LVMPD for its efforts, Valentine said the data from the police department does not paint a full picture of the situation. 

“Many criminal offenses go unreported, particularly in the tourism areas,” Valentine said in a statement via email. "Visitors frequently forgo filing reports to avoid disrupting their trip, because they doubt stolen items will be recovered, feel embarrassed, or worry about legal entanglements … While understandable, these experiences can still sour a visit, influence whether a guest returns and fuel negative perceptions when shared with friends, family or online.” 

Valentine said high-profile incidents could deter visitors and put the economy in jeopardy. Violent crime on the Strip made headlines in June after two people were shot and killed next to the Bellagio Fountain after a long-standing social media feud escalated to violence. 

“When the Resort (Corridor) Court was in operation, serious misdemeanor crimes by habitual offenders were declining due, in part, to the consistent and equitable use of the order out,” Valentine said in an emailed statement. “Now that the Resort Court has ended and the order outs are not being utilized in the same fashion, we are seeing certain criminal patterns reemerge as some offenders see our tourism areas as places of criminal opportunity.” 

Valentine said order-out provisions were a successful crime prevention measure, and noted that they were dropping, from 2,560 active orders in July 2024 before the abolition of the court to 402 order-out mandates in June of this year. 

The provision, however, is not without controversy. Athar Haseebullah, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, called order-outs unconstitutional as they restrict people’s freedom of movement. 

He added that order-out provisions are still used by judges in the legal system. That’s one reason he was surprised by the proposal to reintroduce the court in the Legislature.  

“They don't have to have a separate court that's located on the Strip to be able to handle this, and they certainly don't need order-out provisions,” Haseebullah said.