The Center for Justice Innovation—and our operating programs—are regularly featured in the media. Here is a sampling of the press coverage of our work.
Monica Morales profiles how teens at the Ingersoll Houses are now giving back and saying "thank you" to the community groups and leaders that helped them with mentorship, programming, and business development. "Gifts from Within" is the name of this initiative that recognized both the Business Playbook and the Mayor's Action Plan for their work through a colorful mural painted by the local teens.
The "6a" portion of New York state law allows the release of some incarcerated people, those with less than a one-year sentence, into a work release program. "Inherently, jail sentences are not a public safety reducing practice," Mike Rempel, our director of jail reform says. "They tend to lead people to become homeless, lose their job, create trauma, which increases recidivism afterwards."
Citing our research, Gothamist looks at the role of pretrial decision-making in fueling the crisis on Rikers Island where the jail population has been rising steadily for months. “The research overwhelmingly indicates that releasing people reduces recidivism in the long run, and pre-trial detention increases it,” said Michael Rempel, our director of jail reform.
In their first semester, students from Pratt’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) worked with our Brownsville Community Justice Center to come up with youth-focused economic development on Belmont Avenue. The students learned about the systemic disinvestment in the community and developed a framework for investing in and keeping resources in Brownsville while empowering the community to drive its economic development.
In Priya Parker's essay, the author of "The Art of the Gathering", the Red Hook Community Justice Center is cited as an early example of a place that rethought how meetings work and serves as an inspiration for the current discussion about how workplaces can rethink the when, who, and how of meetings.
Expounding on the many challenges when addressing housing insecurity, this New York Times article features the work of Community First, an initiative of our Midtown Community Court. The goal of Community First is to build trust with homeless populations in order to get them into longer-term housing and support. As program director Lauren Curatolo states, “We want to support you so that you eventually want to have a bed in a space.”
With shootings on the rise in cities across the U.S., our staff spoke with Brian Lehrer about the reasons young people carry guns, based on their report "Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood in New York City." Lehrer interviews Research Director, Rachel Swaner Deputy Research Director Elise White, and community-based Research Coordinator Basaime Spate, about the year-long study in NYC.
In an effort to bring the community together, over a dozen mothers, grandmothers, and other family members are creating more green space at their NYCHA development. Thanks to funding from the Mayor’s Action Plan and working along with Neighborhood Safety Initiatives, the “Harlem Garden Ladies” are expanding and adding more green space to the Polo Grounds Towers in Harlem. If you were to ask them, these women say "they are planting seeds and then watching the good in the community grow."
The Redondo Beach homeless court has its roots in a growing national movement to respond differently to the misdemeanor prosecutions that often send homeless people to jail, and instead make services and long-term support the goal. “While it’s a model with principles and best practices, every jurisdiction is doing this differently to be responsive to community needs,” says our senior program manager, Caitlin Flood of this specialized court.
