In 1992, Patrick Daly, a principal at an elementary school in Red Hook, was accidentally murdered in a drug-related shoot-out. In the months following his death, Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes began to speak out publicly about public safety in Red Hook, saying that the neighborhood would be an ideal location for a community court.

In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

In 1992, Patrick Daly, a principal at an elementary school in Red Hook, was accidentally murdered in a drug-related shoot-out. In the months following his death, Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes began to speak out publicly about public safety in Red Hook, saying that the neighborhood would be an ideal location for a community court. His remarks started the ball rolling. There were other factors that made Red Hook an attractive site. Most important was the neighborhood’s isolation—it is one of the few communities in New York with easily identifiable borders. In such a well-defined community, it is easier for a demonstration project like a community court to have a concentrated impact. It is also simpler for researchers to measure that impact.

One of the very first things that happened after I accepted the job as planner was a series of focus groups with Red Hook residents. The Brooklyn D.A.’s Office helped put the groups together, bringing in an outside consultant to facilitate the conversations. We held separate discussions with community leaders, social service providers, young people and single moms. Red Hook is small enough—it has less than 11,000 residents—that we were able to get just about all of the major players in the neighborhood to come, as well as reach beneath them to talk directly with their constituents. More than 50 people attended the groups, which were held at the Red Hook Public Library. Participants were asked a series of fairly simple questions: What are the major problems in Red Hook? How might a community court help address them? What should be the court’s priorities? The conversations were extremely lively. I remember that once people started talking it was difficult to get them to stop—several of the groups ran well over their allotted times.

I learned a couple of important things from the focus groups. The first was that despite Red Hook’s reputation for drugs and serious violence, the way that local residents talked about their community was not markedly different from the way that residents of Midtown Manhattan talked about their neighborhood in focus groups held before the creation of the Midtown Community Court. Quality-of-life conditions—graffiti, littering, noise violations, loitering—weighed heavily on the minds of those who participated in the focus groups. I remember one participant saying, "Violations do not receive any priority. ... We need a [better] quality of life. Even the schools are not safe." Another expressed the feelings of many when he said, "The court system has failed us. ... [Offenders] go through revolving doors."

But low-level offending was not the only thing on the minds of the focus group participants. Red Hook residents had problems that took them to Family Court and Civil Court as well as Criminal Court. These included disputes with landlords, small claims cases and domestic violence issues. Several participants lamented the jurisdictional boundaries of New York’s court system. One person said, "You can’t divide a person up. You have to have a comprehensive look at the whole person. The community court could do that." Comments like this one confirmed our initial hunch that a community court in a neighborhood like Red Hook should be multi-jurisdictional, that it should attempt to address the full range of legal issues faced by local residents, not just criminal matters.

Finally, participants in the focus groups urged the court to be as aggressive as possible in providing social services. One recommended that the court look at "the total picture—spousal abuse, victim services, teenagers, mentor programs, mock court, parenting skills." From comments like these, we began to fashion a notion that the court should provide services not just to defendants, as the Midtown Community Court does, but to everyone who is touched by crime in Red Hook—defendants, victims and those in the community who were simply concerned about public safety. It was not long after the focus groups that we decided to call the project a "community justice center" instead of a community court. We thought that "community justice center" better signified our intention to build much more than just a courtroom in Red Hook.

Given its history, it is fair to say that many Red Hookers were understandably hesitant about ambitious new government initiatives. In attempting to win community support for the Justice Center, this attitude would prove to be planners' largest obstacle.

In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

The focus groups were productive sessions, unearthing a treasure trove of valuable data about community attitudes and expectations. At the same time, they were a useful tool for building neighborhood support, as I discovered in the days that followed.

Red Hook is a neighborhood with a deep skepticism about government initiatives, a skepticism that is rooted in a history of government neglect and unwanted intervention. Many Red Hook residents feel that their community is home to a disproportionate number of undesirable government projects. They point to the neighborhood’s methadone clinic and waste transfer station as prime examples. They also feel that their neighborhood’s character was forever changed for the worse by Robert Moses, the master builder of New York, who essentially cut the neighborhood off from the rest of Brooklyn when he constructed the elevated Gowanus Parkway in the 1940s.

Given this history, it is fair to say that many Red Hookers are understandably hesitant about ambitious new government initiatives, no matter how good they sound on paper. In attempting to win community support for the Justice Center, this attitude would prove to be our largest obstacle. We got off to a good start in overcoming it with the focus groups. Almost by accident, we had sent a powerful message to Red Hook residents by convening the focus groups. And that message was: your voice counts. The focus groups were a visible sign that we intended to consult the community at each step of the process. This was not lost on participants.

Over the next several months, I met individually with every stakeholder that I could think of: business owners, clergy, tenant leaders, elected officials, police officers, Housing Authority administrators, local social service providers and others. As an outsider to the community, I took pains to emphasize that I was there to learn from them, that my job was to help translate their concerns and their ideas into concrete programs. In general, people were generous with their time and grateful to be asked their opinion.

I also went to as many public meetings in Red Hook as possible. At some, I spoke about the Justice Center. At others, I went just to listen. This sent the message that I wasn’t coming to the community as a carpetbagger, that I was interested in more than just selling a bill of goods. 
 
What I learned from all of these encounters was that there is no substitute for face time. In other words, it is impossible to build meaningful relationships with people without investing significant time and energy. As the months passed, I found my connections with community leaders deepening. I met their children, attended their church services, wrote them letters of recommendation, ate dinner with them, and supported several of their neighborhood charity efforts. These ties would serve the Justice Center well when it was necessary to mobilize neighborhood support for a grant proposal, a newspaper article or a public meeting.

To my surprise, my outreach efforts revealed very few concerns about the Justice Center. The few issues that did come up were less about the concept than about process: Who would direct the Justice Center once it opened? What were we doing about jobs for neighborhood residents? Would the Justice Center have a community advisory board?

Given these concerns, we decided to create a formal vehicle for community input. For the last 30 years, New York City has had a network of 59 "community boards" that are responsible for advising the city’s administration about land use and other neighborhood issues. Several dozen community representatives sit on each board. Early on, Community Board 6 in Brooklyn, which includes Red Hook, agreed to convene a special task force devoted to the Justice Center. During the first years of planning, this task force functioned as a de facto advisory board for the project. They convened public meetings about the project every three months or so. These sessions were a valuable opportunity for community residents to stay informed about the Justice Center and for us to keep our fingers on the pulse of the neighborhood.

In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

I was not alone in trying to build community support for the Justice Center. From the start, I enjoyed the active partnership of the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office. Two attorneys in particular—Gene Lopez and Carl Thomas—were instrumental. Their presence, and the D.A.’s early endorsement, lent the project immediate credibility.

I think it is important to note that the partnership with the D.A.’s office is not a make-believe or paper partnership, but a real-world relationship fraught with real-world tensions and conflicts. Although we share a common goal—creating a neighborhood justice center—we both have our own organizational agendas and pressures outside of Red Hook. Inter-agency collaboration takes patience, but in my experience it is well worth the effort. The D.A.’s office has helped enrich the planning process, bringing additional resources—and a different institutional perspective—to the table.

While the relationship with the D.A.’s office was the most intimate, it was by no means the only partnership that was forged in the early days of the project. Another crucial partner was Victim Services, New York’s largest victim assistance agency, which runs programs throughout the city’s neighborhoods, including Red Hook.

Bringing Victim Services into the planning process made perfect sense; Red Hook is a community in which nearly every resident is at immediate risk of being a crime victim. Similarly, many residents know someone, either a friend or relative, who has been the perpetrator of crime. In this environment, a community justice center must be aggressive about providing victims with assistance and giving them a voice in the justice process. Victim Services has been instrumental in helping us think through these issues.

n 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

Siting a new project is almost always a tricky business, particularly in a city like New York, where real estate is an extremely precious—and political—commodity. Thankfully, Red Hook offered one major advantage in this regard. Because of the dramatic population and business flight out of the neighborhood over the preceding 25 years, Red Hook has a number of vacant and abandoned properties. After investigating all of the city-owned sites in the neighborhood—and inspecting several privately-held properties as well—eight sites emerged as viable options. Each was close to public transportation and each was large enough to house both a courtroom and social service programs.

In an effort to narrow the list further, we organized a bus tour for local community leaders from the Community Board 6 task force. After looking at all of the possibilities, their clear first choice was Visitation School, a vacant parochial school that had closed its doors in the 1970s.

Visitation struck their fancy for several reasons. First, it was located in between "the front" and the "the back." In Red Hook parlance, "the front" signifies the public housing projects. "The back" is the area closer to the waterfront, which is composed of single-family row houses that are occupied primarily by Italian and Irish Americans. Visitation, in effect, is situated in neutral territory—it "belongs" to neither the front nor the back. This is an important political consideration in Red Hook. 
 
On an emotional level, many residents were drawn to Visitation because it had once been an important community resource. They looked at the Justice Center as an opportunity to bring back to life a magnificent old building. And magnificent is precisely the word to describe it: built at the turn of the century, Visitation School has the kind of dignified street presence that you might expect from a neighborhood courthouse. And, as it turned out, Catholic Charities, which owned the building, was willing to lease it to us for a reasonable price and play an active role in making the project happen. End of story, right? Wrong.

Visitation was not without its drawbacks. Although the structure itself was in good shape, the interior was a disaster. Asbestos and lead paint were major problems. The roof needed to be replaced. None of the windows were worth saving. It took several months to investigate the building properly—conducting tests, analyzing results, meeting with engineers and construction managers, preparing preliminary architectural drawings. After all was said and done, we got the bad news: it would cost several million dollars to renovate the building.

In 1994, Greg Berman was hired as the lead planner for the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The following are excerpts from his Planning Diary, which he wrote as a record of how he negotiated some of the challenges of early planning, including community needs assessment, fundraising and program design. To read the entire document, click here.

Many good ideas founder on the shoals of poor fundraising. No program, no matter how well-intentioned or creative, can survive without adequate resources. I won’t lie about this: raising money for the Justice Center was not easy. There were days, even months, when I thought that the project would wither on the vine as we waited for grant proposals to be reviewed.

The initial planning of the Justice Center was underwritten by small grants from a couple of sources—the Fund for the City of New York, the Schubert Foundation, the Scherman Foundation and, in what might have been a first in this country, the local housing authority. While this was enough to keep me employed, it was not nearly enough to support a multi-million dollar renovation project. The question quickly became: where do we find that kind of dough?

The answer came at the end of 1996. After several months of conversation, site visits and proposal writing, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance agreed to pay for the soft costs associated with renovating the Visitation School—primarily fees for architects, engineers and renovation managers. With this money in hand, we were able to make a much stronger case to the Mayor’s Office in New York City. Red Hook all of a sudden had attracted the interest of the federal government, which had shown its commitment to the project by making a two-year, $1.2 million grant. Would the city step up to the plate as well?

The decision was made at the highest possible levels: New York State Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and New York City Mayor Rudy W. Giuliani were personally involved in the conversations. Finally, after more than two years of reaching out to the community, building the concept and developing the site, in December 1996 the City announced that it would cover the full cost of renovating the school.

Before developing a community court project, planners need to define the major problems a neighborhood faces. This article breaks down that process into six steps.

1. Ask Residents What They Think

Purpose:
To get an understanding of the community, and the issues residents feel are important; and to identify community assets that could help in developing solutions.
 
How to do it:
The basic techniques of community engagement—stakeholder interviews, focus groups, attending community meetings, administering community surveys—will help you get the information you need. Some helpful tips are:

• Engage a broad spectrum of local voices, including youth.
• Seek out those with special knowledge of the community, in addition to the average citizen.
• Ask people to identify possible solutions as well as problems.
• Find out what people think of the criminal justice system.
• Make firsthand observations and assessments of the neighborhood.

2. Gather Hard Data About the Problem

Purpose:
To obtain quantitative data that will sharpen the understanding of problems identified by community members. 

How to do it:
Relevant numbers are available from an array of sources, including the United States Census Bureau, the state and local court systems, police departments, district attorneys' offices, welfare agencies, departments of education, health and social services, housing authorities and other government agencies. You can also collect your own numbers by:

• Observing court proceedings and recording dispositions over a week or a month to understand how judges respond to particular cases.
• Polling defendants held prior to arraignment to find out what kind of problems they have.
• Talk to system insiders who might be able to accurately estimate numbers that are otherwise unavailable.

3. Analyze the Current Response 

Purpose:
To understand what is working and what is not working with the current ways of addressing local problems. Planners must study the current procedures in-depth, identifying weaknesses, gaps in service, inefficiencies and unsatisfactory outcomes.

How to do it:
You can interview key players in the criminal justice system (police, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, court clerks, probation officers, etc.) and outside the criminal justice system (social service providers, health care staff, etc.) who might have valuable insights. You can also review statistics with system insiders and undertake first-hand observations of key processes.

4. Share Idea with the Community 

Purpose:
To ensure that all stakeholders understand what problem or set of problems the project will address, and that there is a general consensus that this is the right approach.

How to do it:
This step not only helps focus the planning effort, but it also demonstrates to the residents that the community is a real partner in the project. You can get the word out by:

• Drafting a problem statement that can be circulated among key stakeholders.
• Conducting follow-up community meetings to share what the data revealed.
• Sending letters to stakeholders.
• Checking in with key stakeholders by phone.
• Contacting elected officials and fill them in on what you're doing and learning.

5. Develop Solutions 

Purpose:
To craft concrete solutions to the local crime and public-safety problems identified by the community and criminal justice stakeholders.

How to do it:
Once the problem is defined, planners can start brainstorming potential solutions. No doubt some ideas are already in hand. More can be found by talking to system players, such as judges, attorneys, cops, parole and probation officers, court officers and service partners. Ideas often come from other jurisdictions that are handling similar problems in creative ways. Planners should also find out what's been done in the past—what worked, what didn't and why?
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6. Monitor Results 

Purpose:
To study the effectiveness of the project as it moves to implementation and to continue to identify new problems and appropriate solutions on an ongoing basis.

How to do it:
The most successful projects pursue reflection and self-improvement on a regular basis. This requires collection of data for self-evaluation and can be done a number of ways. Here are some ideas:

• Survey community members regularly.
• Form a collaboration with a local university to engage in ongoing research of your project.
• Devote project resources and personnel to monitoring program results.
• Develop and maintain on-going communication with the community your project serves through newsletters, formal and informal meetings, and involvement in your program.

 “Talk to everybody. Get the vision of the stakeholders, community boards, the business community, cops, every single block association and everybody in and out of the system.”

– Michele Sviridoff, deputy director for research at the Center for Court Innovation

Whether it originates out of the local police department, prosecutor’s office, probation department or court system, a community justice project must be tailored to the neighborhood it serves. And since the focus of all community justice projects is solving local crime and public safety problems, one of the foremost tasks for planners is to identify the key problems that the neighborhood in question faces.

Planners can go about that in a number of ways, starting with direct outreach to local stakeholders. Planners should talk with both community leaders and a cross-section of average citizens. In addition to individual conversations, focus groups, surveys and attending community meetings are excellent ways to take a community’s pulse. It’s best to ask a broad range of questions, covering general attitudes about the neighborhood and issues related to crime, safety and youths. Planners should also ask people to identify a community’s assets. Planners can round out their picture of the community by walking through the neighborhood.

Planners need quantitative data to sharpen their understanding of the issues identified by the community. Planners find it useful to know the number of people in the catchment area; profiles of residents, as well as offenders, including their socio-economic status, ages, level of schooling and employment; types and locations of crimes; types of housing; the annual number of violations, misdemeanor and felony arrests and case outcomes.

Once the problems have been clearly defined, planners start generating solutions. By this stage, many good ideas have probably already surfaced; others can be harvested by talking to local members of the criminal justice system, and by turning to other jurisdictions that are handling similar problems in creative ways.

For more, read Steps to Defining the Problem, which breaks down the process. 

As difficult as it is to engage the community in defining problems and articulating priorities, the hard work really starts here. How do you turn all of this into a concrete plan?

Drawing up a budget isn't easy. There are a lot of things to keep track of: Staff costs, rent, supplies, consultants, insurance, etc. Planners of community justice projects face an extra challenge: Identifying all the non-traditional items—from research to social services, from community outreach to technology—their project will require. To help with that task, here's a list of some of the things that planners might want to consider when making their budgets.

Personnel

Program Administration

• Project Coordinator
  Include staff time for overall project coordination, administration and fund-raising. If the project is complex, a full-time coordinator may be a worthwhile investment.
• Researcher/Evaluator
  Project evaluation can be done by collaborating with independent evaluators, linking with a professor from a local college, or by hiring in-house staff to measure the effectiveness of the project.
• Community Liaison
  Build in staff time to ensure consistent communication with community members.

Social Services

• Clinical Director
  If social services are a major part of an initiative, having professional on-site staff and office space for social service partners is important. Even when a social service agency is providing social workers, it may be a good idea to hire a clinical director to oversee delivery of services and maintain quality control.
• Social Worker(s)
  Social workers on staff can handle a wide-range of functions, performing psycho-social assessments to help link participants with appropriate services, performing intensive case management, communicating with on-site and community-based social service partners and counseling victims.

Alternative Sanctions

• Alternative Sanctions Coordinator
  Many community justice projects use alternative sanctions or diversion programs. Intensive monitoring is necessary to ensure compliance and promote confidence among criminal justice professionals and community members.
• Community Service Supervisor(s)
  Coordinating schedules for community service crews, troubleshooting the day-to-day issues that arise as offenders perform community service and finding new community service projects are crucial to making community service an effective sanction.

Information and Resource Coordination

• Resource Coordinator
  Allocate resources for efficient information and resource sharing among partners. For example, if a probation officer refers a young person to a job-training program, how will the officer get information on their progress? A resource coordinator, or information manager, can fill that role.
• Spokesperson/Communications specialist
  Community justice programs communicate regularly with stakeholders, explaining their work, soliciting feedback and generally trying to foster trusting and productive relationships. A communications specialist can help by putting together newsletters or brochures and speaking at community meetings. The person can also handle media inquiries, ensuring that accurate information about your program is disseminated to the public.

Other than Personnel Services

Contracts with Service Providers
This might include contracts with drug treatment providers, mental health and other service providers, such as GED programs and English as a Second Language instructors.

Consultants
Community justice programs often hire consultants for a number of tasks, including:
Computer program development

• Strategic planning
• Facilitation of focus groups
• Architectural or design services

Community Service
If your program has a community service component, don't forget to budget for:

• Community service supplies (e.g., overalls, vests, paint, gardening equipment, brooms, etc.)
• Food for participants
• Transportation, including insurance, gas and maintenance of a vehicle

Community Engagement
Community engagement is crucial to the success of any community justice project. Keep in mind the things you'll need to do it effectively, such as:

• Meeting space
• Refreshments
• Child-care arrangements
• Parking facilities
• Printing and postage for community outreach materials (newsletters, articles, event invitations)

A successful search for funds is supported by three things: solid research of potential funding sources, a compelling project and old-fashioned networking. Planners should look beyond the traditional sources of criminal justice funding—is there, for instance, a foundation that might be interested in neighborhood beautification? Is there a local elected official with discretionary funding that might be enticed to support community service projects? Is there a hospital that might fund drug prevention efforts? Networking is also key because cultivating relationships with funders—as opposed to simply responding to requests for proposals—helps you stay abreast of new funding opportunities and keep your project in the spotlight. Here are some other tips from planners who have found money for their community justice projects:

1. Seek local funding
Take a close look at any institution—banks, businesses, government agencies, foundations—that has a stake in the success of your neighborhood or your project. It is usually easier to make a pitch to someone with a vested interest. The most important thing is to find someone—anyone—to take that initial leap to invest in your ideas. Once you get the ball rolling, other funding is sure to follow. For example, a grant from a community foundation can fund a planner who can then seek additional support for the project. Local funding, even if modest, demonstrates that there is local commitment to the project—a feature many national and federal funders look for.

2. Look for grants from the U.S. Department of Justice
The Department of Justice provides funding to community justice initiatives through the divisions of the Office of Justice Programs, including the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Community Capacity Development Office. For example, BJA in the past has had solicitations for community justice, community courts and community prosecution initiatives. On a regular basis, review their web sites, program plans and press releases. A significant portion of federal money is now distributed to the states through block grants. The Bureau of Justice Assistance, for example, provides criminal justice support primarily through two avenues, the Edward Byrne Memorial State Grants and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program. Find out what state agencies are responsible for the distribution of these funds so you can apply for them.

3. Seek out other federal funding sources
Community justice initiatives often have goals that may be of interest to funders outside criminal justice. These may include youth development, job training, violence prevention, or economic development. At the federal level consider these strategies:

• Set aside five minutes each day to review The Federal Register on the Internet. The Federal Register provides a daily compilation of federal documents. This is a great starting point to review both federal agencies’ grant opportunities and to learn more about agencies' policies, procedures and future program directions. The Register also provides links to federal agencies.
• If you’re tackling crime in a neighborhood with a large public housing population, explore opportunities with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Also, investigate funding opportunities available through the Department of Health and Human Services if violence prevention is a project goal. Projects that have a youth focus should review funding opportunities available through the Department of Education.

4. Build partnerships
Explore filing joint funding applications with other programs or agencies. There’s often strength in numbers. Many funders look for creative collaborations as a way of leveraging resources and getting the biggest bang for the buck. In addition, sometimes your partners will have access to funding sources that you won’t.

5. Get noticed
At the end of the day, the most successful fund-raising strategy is to run a high-quality program. Funders, whether they’re local or national, respond to results. Unfortunately, a successful program doesn’t always speak for itself. Often it is necessary to aggressively get the word out. The best advice here is this: don’t be shy. Send out newsletters and press clips to foundations and elected officials. Launch your own web site. Make every possible effort to communicate with the public—you never know when a letter or a press release will catch a funder’s attention.