In January 2023, the Center for Court Innovation changed its name to the Center for Justice Innovation. While work done in 2022 was done as the Center for Court Innovation, and may be referenced as such in reports, videos, or press clips, we will refer to ourselves by our new name throughout this annual report, published in 2023.

2022 was a year of transition—for the Center for Justice Innovation and the world. The country was moving out of full-time pandemic-mode into a new so-called “normal,” although no one knew for sure what form the new normal would take. Some people and workplaces were eager to return to in-person work; some places closed their regular offices and embraced virtual work. We are guided by a simple rule: go where we are needed, whether it be a courtroom, a community office, or a virtual hearing. 

Another transition was invisible to outsiders but nonetheless an important milestone. In May, we parted ways with the Fund for the City of New York, an umbrella organization that had provided administrative support since our founding in 1996. Since leaving the Fund, we have found new ways to support our staff, diversify our funding sources, and positively impact justice policies and the communities we serve. And for the first time, we also have our own governing board, which gives us new opportunities to grow strategically.

Also in May, we marked our 25^th anniversary with a celebration, where we honored leaders of innovation in four areas—JPMorgan Chase for corporate innovation, the Tow Foundation for philanthropic innovation, artist Shaun Leonardo for community innovation, and retired New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman for a lifetime of innovation. It was a chance to reflect on our impacts and achievements, which strike at the core of how justice is delivered.

Our work encompasses many systems. We work in both criminal and civil settings. We have programs in courthouses and in communities. When developing a new program or response, we bring everyone to the table to get the best ideas and best outcomes. By our nature, we thrive in the middle, bridging gaps and forging new partnerships.

At the beginning of 2023, as this annual report was being written, we announced another transition—to a new name. By replacing “court” with “justice,” we are reminding the public that our work is built on people-centered values—equity, fairness, humanity, and community empowerment. Justice also reflects our holistic approach to the legal system, an approach that recognizes the system as a continuum. The more we invest at the very beginning—in community resiliency and crime prevention—the safer and healthier individuals and our communities will be. 

The name change also better reflects our work. When we were founded in 1996, our primary focus—in partnership with the New York State Court System—was introducing new ideas to the courts. But over time, we’ve expanded our collaborations to encompass the entire justice system and the communities most impacted by crime and disinvestment. As a result, we have as many staff today working in or with the justice system as we do building initiatives hand-in-hand with communities to empower local residents to define and achieve safety on their own terms. Our evolution as an organization requires a name that reflects our wide range of programs and research.

When I started working as a judge in Newark in 2009, I encountered people every day who needed help more than they needed punishment. I recognized that with services, like substance-use treatment or skill-building, many of the people who came before me would have a genuine chance of staying out of the system once and for all.

I was fortunate to become a judge when Cory Booker was our mayor. He had visited the Red Hook Community Justice Center and wanted the people of Newark to benefit from the same innovative approaches in Red Hook that were helping reduce crime and empower the community in Brooklyn.

I learned that the people of the Center for Justice Innovation do magic. When the Center team came to Newark, they gathered ideas from everyone—those who worked in the justice system, a wide array of community members, and those who’d been through the system. They took all our ideas and brought ideas of their own and then helped launch Newark Community Solutions, which today runs programs that reduce incarceration, engage young people in leadership activities, and offer something that is too often in short supply in our justice system—hope.

I was honored to be asked in 2017 to lead an advisory board for the Center. The position allowed me to contribute my first-hand knowledge of the justice system and experience of the Center’s impact to help advance reform far beyond Newark. On May 1, 2022, the Center transitioned from being a part of the Fund for the City of New York to becoming its own independent non-profit, and we went from being a Board of Advisors to a full-fledged Board of Directors, charged with providing oversight and accountability, as well as helping the Center meet fundraising needs, forge new partnerships, and provide strategic advice. Like the Center, which employs experts from a wide range of fields, our Board members are experts in diverse areas, including government, non-profit management, finance, philanthropy, urban planning, social justice advocacy, and international development.

At the beginning of the year, New York’s moratorium on evictions, which had been in effect during the height of the pandemic, came to an end. While the moratorium provided temporary relief to many tenants, we recognized the need to work towards more long-lasting solutions. In August, we organized a resource fair in Harlem that connected residents to a host of agencies and providers to help them access key services, such as rent relief, critical home repairs, and legal services to fight evictions. The resource fair was also an opportunity to begin addressing the long-neglected needs of those who were unable to have their housing concerns heard while in-person proceedings were suspended in many courts.

In Red Hook, meanwhile, we helped hundreds of residents understand their rights as tenants and learn how to navigate an often overwhelming Housing Court system. With the help of our housing resource center, 170 tenants in Red Hook were able to file cases in court in 2022 to seek repairs and assert their rights to safe, quality housing. In Brownsville, we assisted 95 residents with their housing needs, from home repair to rent relief, helping tenants secure aid for over $82,000 in rental arrears that they were unable to afford themselves. In June, we heard first-hand from our housing team in Red Hook, as well as the tenants they serve, on an episode of our New Thinking podcast.

Despite resource challenges imposed by the pandemic, including limited access to some of the courthouses that serve as home base for many of our programs, we continued to provide our clients and communities with a wide range of services and resources through both in-person and virtual options.

In October, we opened a New York State-supported virtual court access project in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The initiative aims to make the justice system more accessible by enabling individuals to file court papers closer to their homes using online tools, rather than forcing them to travel long distances to file them at court in person. The three virtual access terminals we began operating in Red Hook allow community members to remotely file papers in both Family Court and Housing Court.

While many of our programs now offer virtual programming, we recognize that remote services are not always appropriate or accessible. In Manhattan, we forged a partnership with a non-profit service organization, the Stanley M. Isaacs Center, where participants with a community service mandate helped to prepare meals and distribute them to those in need, enabling them to build a deeper connection to the community. This option was especially valuable for those who may not have had access to technology or a strong enough command of the English language to take part in virtual programming.

Our experts, who work with jurisdictions across New York and around the country, advised and supported practitioners as COVID-19 required them to innovate and improvise. In 2022, we studied these experiences to provide lessons and guidance for improving justice system practices and policies.

When many courts across the U.S. were shut down, our Gender and Family Justice team hosted regular office hours that allowed practitioners handling cases of domestic violence to share their experiences and brainstorm strategies for addressing the pandemic’s challenges. Those sessions informed a report that the team released in August on the impact of the pandemic on survivors of domestic violence and lessons learned from courts’ responses to the crisis. Consistent with our broader efforts to preserve the option of remote access to services and court appearances, the report highlights the ways in which virtual hearings can improve both trust and safety for survivors of domestic violence even outside of pandemic-imposed limitations.

At the beginning of the year, we published our guide to cultivating safe and equitable communities, which places communities front and center in identifying neighborhood challenges and prioritizes community-driven solutions. Among the strategies we advocate are participatory action research—in which community members are not just research subjects, but equal partners in designing and carrying out research projects—and a commitment to racial equity. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, we place decision-making power in the hands of communities to determine what is right for them.

From January to November, we engaged 20,563 residents of public housing sites across all five boroughs in approximately 215 public events. Some events focused on participatory design and placemaking, giving community members the opportunity to participate in the design and transformation of shared public spaces. Others focused on needs assessments and empowering residents to draw up community action plans to address common challenges.

Press Highlight

Vital City spotlighted our work cultivating neighborhood safety by organizing community-driven initiatives to transform, design, and breathe life into public spaces that have seen the effects of disinvestment.

At the beginning of the year, we opened a new justice center in the South Bronx. Its goals include helping to transform neglected public spaces, generating investment in local Black and Brown-owned businesses, empowering younger generations to take on leadership roles in their communities, and organizing grassroots campaigns to prevent violence.

In the Bronx, we engaged 139 young people in internship opportunities, work readiness and certification programs, and leadership training. In one initiative, we mobilized a team of 20 young people to collaboratively design a shared neighborhood space that has often been negatively impacted by violence and disinvestment, cultivating a greater sense of safety and belonging in the area. Young people were also given the opportunity to engage in internships, leadership development programs—including a leadership retreat attended by 45 youth—and entrepreneurship programs, where participants could develop and launch their own product lines. Over the course of the year, three groups of 35 young adults in the Bronx took part in our entrepreneurship programming, fostering creativity and crucial professional skills.

Since 2011, when we launched the first violence interruption program in New York City, the Center has been involved in addressing gun violence with community-based responses. Our gun violence prevention initiatives in the Bronx and Brooklyn make use of the Cure Violence model, a public health-informed approach to defusing conflicts that could lead to gun violence. Credible messengers—people from the community with first-hand knowledge of street and gang life—serve as violence interrupters, directly working with individuals at risk of engaging in violence. In Brooklyn, we engaged nearly 80 people in violence interruptions in 2022.

Preventing violence also means working with community members on employment readiness, job training, and reentry programs; educational and leadership opportunities for at-risk young people; and placemaking efforts that engage communities in revitalizing public spaces. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, we created three healing spaces for anyone in the community to find moments of calm and respite, release tension or negative emotions, and engage in personal healing. These spaces were featured in Streetscapes for Wellness, a collaborative report published by the NYC Public Design Commission, documenting how designing human-centered streets and public spaces can increase public health and safety.

Press Highlights

• A three-part series published by The Guardian in June looked at the role that our community-driven work in Brownsville has played in the unparalleled fall in shootings in Brooklyn. 
• ABC7 New York also covered our work engaging young people at risk of interpersonal violence in the Bronx.

In collaboration with the New York City Law Department, the Legal Aid Society, and the N.Y.C. Department of Probation, we operated a special diversion program in Midtown Manhattan for young people, ages 14 to 17, arrested for weapons possession. The program linked youth participants to case managers who helped them to create an individualized program plan, setting clear educational, emotional, and social goals. Relying on credible messengers from the community, peer support groups, and other resources—including family engagement sessions and career readiness coaching—the program gave young people the opportunity to avoid prosecution and all of the long-term consequences of a criminal record, while addressing the underlying needs that brought them into contact with the justice system.

2022 also marked the two-year anniversary of the Opportunity Youth Part, a special courtroom in New Rochelle for young people, ages 18 to 24, who have been charged with an offense. Since the program’s launch, the Center has assisted with planning and provided guidance in its effort to place youth participants in contact with crucial community-based services and resources from which they had been disconnected, allowing them to avoid incarceration and justice system involvement while receiving support for areas of need.

As part of our efforts to advance procedural justice and make the legal system more accessible to people experiencing it, we worked with Native authors and illustrators to design and distribute materials to support Native children living in Tribal communities who are navigating the justice system. Our Child Witness Materials project, created in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, published developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive, and trauma-informed graphic novels to help children who are victims of or witnesses to crime feel informed, supported, and empowered.

In 2019, New York City adopted the recommendations of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform—which the Center for Justice Innovation helped research and draft—committing to closing Rikers Island and replacing it with borough-based facilities by 2027. Closing Rikers depends upon reducing the city’s jail population to 3,300 or lower; with the population at nearly 6,000 at the end of 2022, there is more work that needs to be done. This is especially urgent in light of the life-threatening conditions of the jails on Rikers Island. In 2022, 19 died during or shortly after their time in the jail complex; in 2021, 15 people had died. 

Our partnership with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has been instrumental in our effort to make incarceration a last resort in New York City. This year, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office opened its Pathways to Public Safety Division to reduce the use of incarceration through alternatives such as mental health and substance use treatment, restorative justice, and housing and employment services, in collaboration with our specialized mental health and problem-solving courts. The District Attorney’s Office has also expressed support for our Community First program, which takes an innovative and trust-building approach to bringing immediate assistance and long-term services to unhoused people in the Times Square area. In 2022, Community First provided over 2,000 immediate services—from physical necessities like food and clothing, to referrals to local service providers—to over 470 people in need.

The Center works closely with the New York State Unified Court System and other justice agencies to provide jail alternatives for a particularly vulnerable population—people with mental health diagnoses. In 2022, the mental health court we staff in Brooklyn took in 99 new participants—many of whom had previously been detained on Rikers Island—and oversaw 82 program graduations. Since it opened as the first mental health court in New York City in 2002, the court has seen nearly 1,300 participants graduate, with a 46 percent reduction in the likelihood of re-arrest compared to those who face conventional justice system responses.

In 2022, we opened new mental health courts for people charged with misdemeanor offenses in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and Midtown Manhattan. Participants have the opportunity to take part in voluntary services—such as counseling, substance use treatment, and housing and employment services. Upon completion, their charges are reduced or dropped.

The majority of people in New York City jails are awaiting trial, many there because they cannot afford bail. Supervised Release, which we operate in Brooklyn and on Staten Island, provides an alternative to bail. In Brooklyn, we completed 44,000 check-ins for Supervised Release participants in 2022. We hosted employment workshops throughout the year, helping participants to build resumes and referring them to potential employers. In partnership with MetroPlus, we also connected individuals to health insurance and food stamps. 

In addition to implementing programs and conducting original research, the Center for Justice Innovation has been providing hands-on assistance to justice practitioners across the country and around the world for over 25 years. We have offered evidence-based, context-sensitive guidance in areas involving problem-solving courts, drug courts, Tribal communities, intimate partner violence, family treatment courts, and veterans treatment courts.

This year, we hosted an online Community Justice Conference to share ideas, information, and strategies with other practitioners aiming to develop more effective and humane responses to issues of crime and safety. Attorneys, judges, social workers, and people with lived experience in the justice system shared their knowledge and perspectives at the conference. 600 individuals, including people from 37 different U.S. states and 15 different countries, registered for our two-day virtual conference. We also welcomed a new cohort of 10 community court sites to which we began providing assistance and guidance under an initiative of the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

In 2023, we will continue to advance positive change by sharing new ideas, conducting research, and supporting practitioners. We will also use our unique experience to bridge the divide between government and communities, fostering communication, understanding, and trust.

We plan to hold a series of convenings to spark new thinking on important topics, such as reentry and public defense. These convenings will bring together experts representing different fields, geographic areas, and perspectives with the goal of seeding innovation and finding solutions that even those with seemingly opposed views can agree upon. 

Our Gender and Family Justice team will be expanding its capacity to address the needs of children and their caregivers in the justice system with its new Young Parent Initiative. With funding from the Human Resources Administration’s Office of Child Support Services, we will be connecting young parents, ages 18 through 24, to economic and social support networks in their communities and helping them to navigate the child support and child welfare systems. The initiative will promote positive development for children of young parents and prevent legal system involvement wherever possible.

In Staten Island, we look forward to launching the borough’s first Family Enrichment Center in Stapleton. The center will be co-designed with community members themselves, who will have the opportunity to take on positions of leadership and play an active role in deciding what services and resources will be offered at the space. Also in Staten Island, we will be launching our Justice Scholars Network program through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, providing support to the Eagle Academy for Young Men of Staten Island to reduce and prevent school violence through training and engagement programs for both students and school faculty.