Carbon County's court is a busy place.

On any given day, the judges can be found overseeing dozens of cases.The Carbon judicial system is composed of three active judges, a senior judge, four magisterial district judges with one vacancy, three senior magisterial district judges and 69 court employees.Together, these people operate the courthouse on a $4,743,894 annual budget.Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein last week highlighted the state of the county courts by Roberta Brewster, court administrator.Juvenile cases decreaseThe report showed that the juvenile delinquency filing has decreased from 140 in 2014 to 103 in 2015. This averages 76 clients supervised per month.Of the total number of juveniles assigned to community service work, the county juvenile probation department also has a 90 percent success rate of the juveniles assigned to complete community service work.Four juveniles were placed on home electronic monitoring, which resulted in a net savings of $45,225 in placement costs.Nothstein spoke about these rates following the commissioners' action to approve an electronic monitoring service agreement with BI Inc. for the electronic monitoring program for juvenile probation. The rental charge per day, per unit is 85 cents and monitoring service charges range from $1.80 to $2.65 per day, per unit.Nothstein said the decrease goes against the overall trends of the court system, noting that he and James Dodson of Juvenile Probation, feel that early intervention programs in the county like the SHINE Afterschool program and Right From The Start result in fewer numbers of juveniles coming through the courts."It is programs like these that help reduce the strain on our system," Nothstein said. "Hopefully we can continue trends to reduce cases through adult probation and the courts."But overall, the courts are seeing increases in cases handled annually on most levels.Over the past few years, the courts have seen a change in the clients coming through the courtroom doors.According to the State of The Carbon County Judiciary, "Societal changes continue to place additional burdens on the judiciary. Violent and more serious crimes continue to rise, as do the number of repeat offenders. The erosion of the nuclear family, the relative flat economy, the constant strain on governmental, corporate and personal budgets, the recurrent decreasing state and federal moneys and a mindset to sue for anything and everything has strained judicial resources to the bursting point."The courtsIn 2015, the county judicial system handled 1,524 new criminal cases, 279 percent higher than 2014; and disposed of a total of 1,385 criminal cases.Of that number, 353 were DUI cases, while 362 were drug-related cases.In addition, there were 6,816 statutory offenses by adults and 610 by juveniles; a total of 56 summary appeals and 932 hearings that went through the system. A total of 918 guilty pleas, six criminal jury trials and four bench trials were also heard, and 329 defendants were admitted into the ARD program.The public defender's office also provided representation for 605 adult cases and 81 juvenile cases.The use of video conferencing for 421 individuals resulted in an approximate savings of $106.60 per inmate per conference since transportation by the sheriff's department was not required.The four district judges' offices are also not showing any signs of slowing down in the near future.Last year, 14,911 traffic citations, 2,415 summary and nontraffic citations, 1,219 civil matters and 1,777 criminal cases went before these judges.In addition, they disposed of a total of 21,030 citations and cases; bound 214 over for court; and waived 1,265 into court.Their offices collected $2,784,396.26. Of that total, $419,255.34 remained in Carbon County, $211,835.41 went to municipalities and the remaining $1,756,984.72 went to the state.Adult probationIn adult probation, the report states that the number of cases handled by each officer continues to grow.Last year, the department supervised an average of 1,702 clients a month, which averages to 243 cases per officer but can range between 40 and 411 at times.An audit conducted by the state in 2014 showed the need for additional staffing in adult probation, as well as the need for an assistant chief. Carbon County also ranked second among six-class counties for total caseloads and fifth in the average total caseload per probation officer.Of those in probation, 29 new clients were supervised under the Intermediate Punishment plan of electronic home monitoring, which resulted in these people serving 1,101 less days in the county prison; and people using inpatient treatment resulted in 4,114 fewer days in jail. Because of these two alternatives to incarceration, Carbon County saved taxpayers a total of $328,545 in 2015.A look at 2016The report also pointed out that the first quarter of 2016 is showing a "substantial increase in criminal filings, from 321 last year to 400; but civil cases are showing a slight increase in the areas protection from abuse matters and divorces, and larger increases in custody matters. Cases in mortgage foreclosures; civil tort cases involving motor vehicle, premise and product liability; real estate matters and credit card cases all showed slight decreases.As the year continues, the court is hoping to implement a central court to deal with the increased caseloads; and has begun looking at alternatives to incarceration for those who come through the system as a result of drug-related charges.