As casinos and lawmakers seek to protect the Las Vegas Strip’s reputation and ensure tourists feel safe, some are reportedly considering reinstating the Resort Corridor Court. Others are saying that the program fails to address the Strip problems at their core.

The Program Sought to Tackle Strip Crime

Between 2023 and 2024, Las Vegas ran the Resort Corridor Court program, which was tasked with managing Strip-related crime. During that time, a record-breaking number of order-out orders were issued.

Order-out orders prevent recipients from entering certain places, lest they risk trespassing charges. In 2022, a Clark County ordinance allowed judges to leverage such orders, banning former Strip offenders from the area for up to a year. This is exactly what happened to many people, especially homeless residents.

As it turned out, the chief reason for receiving such an order was trespassing, followed by violating an existing order-out order.

The Resort Corridor Court program ran for two years before it was eventually dissolved. However, some lawmakers are now calling for its return. The Las Vegas Review-Journal analyzed what that could mean and how people feel about it.

Resorts & Prosecutors Advocate for the Program’s Return

According to the Review-Journal, multiple homeless people have been arrested for knowingly or unknowingly entering the Strip while having an active order-out order. The news outlet pointed out that the past few years have seen 4,100 such orders issued, according to Las Vegas Justice Court data.

One homeless person who was arrested for violating an order-out order said that every other homeless person he knew got one, too.

Gambling industry stakeholders, including the Nevada Resort Association, have ardently supported the now-defunct Resort Corridor Court since they believe it protected the Strip’s image. Local prosecutors have also advocated for the program’s return.

In the meantime, Gov. Joe Lombardo recently confirmed that he planned to call the legislature back to finish its unfinished work. The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its sources believe that the Resort Corridor Court program will be discussed.

Some Say the Program Failed to Address the Core Issue

Not everyone’s on board with the idea, however. Opponents of the Resort Corridor Court program argued that it unfairly targeted homeless people and violated civil rights. At the same time, they asserted that the program failed to properly address the causes of on-Strip crime.

Assistant Public Defender John Piro said that the initiative is akin to creating a justice system that exclusively serves the resorts. He also argued that the Resort Corridor Court ended up prosecuting homeless people for homeless-type offenses and “putting them in jail at taxpayer expense.”

We have equal justice under the law. I don’t understand how the wealthy and powerful can direct the court to do their bidding.

Deputy Public Defender Olivia Miller, a former member of the Resort Corridor Court, noted that the program did not properly address the root of the problem. She argued that on-Strip crime was primarily sparked by people experiencing homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction, or a combination of these factors – things that the Resort Corridor Court didn’t help with.

Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, on the other hand, emphasized that an overwhelming majority of order-out orders were not related to a violent offense. While supporters of the Resort Corridor Court argued that smaller crime usually leads to serious crimes, Haseebullah admitted that, to him, it feels as if resorts are targeting people whom they find undesirable.

Others questioned whether the 2022 ordinance was constitutional in the first place.