Brownsville Community Justice Center

staff giving supplies to child and parent

The Brownsville Community Justice Center works to reduce crime and incarceration, and strengthen community trust in justice in central Brooklyn.

The Brownsville Community Justice Center is a multi-faceted initiative that seeks to prevent crime by investing in local youth and improving the physical landscape of the neighborhood. The Justice Center also seeks to forge better responses after crime occurs, offering meaningful alternatives to incarceration.

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Highlights

  • Legal Hand

    Legal Hand empowers community residents to support their neighbors with the legal information they need.

  • Project Reset

    Project Reset diverts people out of the justice system with a proportionate, restorative, and effective response to low-level arrests. 

  • Youth Impact

    Youth can be transformative leaders, addressing inequity in their communities and the factors that lead to youth involvement in the criminal legal system.  

Photo Gallery

Brownsville Be on Belmont Festival
Be on Belmont

The Be On Belmont festival celebrates a community-led revitalization of a historic commercial corridor. The transformation was recognized with an Excellence Award from the Center for Active Design.

Brownsville Community Justice Center as Media Center
Community Engagement Through Tech

At an NYC Media Lab panel, John Bryant explains the Justice Center's use of in-house designed technology to solve community problems and engage young people. You can also listen to a profile of the tech lab from WNYC.

The Brownsville Photography Program
A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

The Justice Center's Brownsville Photography Program allows students to explore the power of visual imagery under the tutelage of professional photographers.

Publications & Digital Media

  • Video

    Community Justice Is... Music and Dance

    “When Brownsville wins, everybody wins.” The [B]Live Music and Arts Festival has brought thousands of community members together over the years for music, dance, creativity, and connection in Brownsville, Brooklyn. A celebration of Brownsville’s resilience and talent produced by young people from the neighborhood, it’s a powerful example of what Community Justice can look like. Organized in partnership with BRIC, this year’s [B]Live featured delicious food, art exercises, local service providers, and performances from iconic artists like Dave East, Cassidy, and Jesse Royal.

    Community Justice, Reducing Violence

  • Publication

    Community Justice Today: Values, Guiding Principles, and Models

    The idea of community justice encompasses a diverse and growing range of evidence-based initiatives which seek to reduce crime by strengthening communities and redressing longstanding inequities. In recognition of the ways in which the approach has evolved over the years, this publication presents a new set of guiding principles of community justice and offers inventive models for putting them into practice, both inside and outside of the courtroom.

    Community Justice
See All Publications and Digital Media →

News

  • Giving Thanks for Community

    This Thanksgiving, our teams and community partners are working together to make sure everyone has delicious meals to share with family and friends.

  • We Don’t Have to Choose Between Safety and Justice

    For far too long, we’ve been told that we must choose between justice and safety, that those two goals are in direct competition. Community Justice challenges that false dichotomy, providing a path forward in divided times.

View Archive →

Looking to Implement a Program in Your Neighborhood?

Find out more about how we can help you.
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Partners

The Brownsville Community Justice Center has been endorsed by former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and numerous local partners such as the Brownsville Partnership, Community Partnership Commission Association, SCO Family Services, the Brownsville Recreation Center, and the Brooklyn Clergy Task Force. Support for planning and programming has come from a number of federal, state, and local agencies, including the City of New York, the; U.S. Department of Justice, the New York State Unified Court System, and several private funders, including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Robin Hood Foundation.

Related Areas of Focus

We rely on the generosity of supporters to do the work we do.

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