Bronx Child Trauma Support provides trauma-informed psychotherapy, crisis intervention, and court support to children and teens who have been victims of or witnesses to sexual assault, intimate partner violence, community violence, child abuse, and homicide. In the wake of violence, young people frequently experience debilitating fear and anxiety, difficulty sleeping and concentrating in school, depression, and increased risk of further victimization.
Eyal Press contends there are entire areas of life we've delegated to "dirty workers"—functions we've declared necessary, but that we strive to keep hidden. In his new book, Press points to the transformation of jails and prisons into the country's largest mental health institutions. He calls the people struggling to offer treatment in those settings "dirty workers"—not because their work isn't noble, but because collectively we've put them in a situation where it's impossible to practice ethical care.
While eviction is a universally stressful event, people with mental health conditions can face unique obstacles with housing retention for reasons related specifically to their disability. This guide provides a review of housing settings and specific risks of eviction for individuals with mental illness before focusing on housing court and the challenges these individuals and court personnel face therein and identifies junctures at which supportive, problem-solving interventions can ensure the necessary community supports and legal representation.
Youth Impact: Bronx is a youth leadership program that offers a restorative approach to issues that young people face. Volunteer members develop and pilot projects to promote community change, lead restorative circles for their peers, and take actions to address the underlying issues causing youth contact with the criminal legal system.
In this episode of In Practice, Rob Wolf discusses the history, trends, and current innovations in the abusive partner intervention field with Juan Carlos Areán, program director of Children and Youth Programs at Futures Without Violence. They highlight the Abusive Partner Accountability and Engagement Training and Technical Assistance Project, a collaboration between the Center for Court Innovation and Futures Without Violence to help communities enhance their responses to people who cause harm through intimate partner violence.
Rural communities face unique challenges in responding to incidences of domestic violence, due to geographic isolation and a lack of resources, among other factors. Such challenges make it difficult for survivors in rural areas to seek safety. These 10 practices for criminal courts in rural communities offer strategies to protect survivors’ safety and well-being, engage with abusive partners and hold them accountable, and collaborate within the community.
A national survey of almost 100 coordinated community responses to domestic violence suggests judges are generally not substantial players. Yet, as our study found, the absence of strong judicial leadership can weaken the effort to holistically address victim safety and offender accountability. The study also includes three case studies of jurisdictions that draw on strong judicial leadership.
Hurt people hurt people. That's not an excuse for harm, but it fuels much of the criminal justice system. At 19, Marlon Peterson was the unarmed lookout on a robbery where two people were killed. Peterson spent a decade behind bars. He writes about those years, and the childhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, that preceded them, in his new memoir. I made my own choices, Peterson says, “but I also did not choose to experience the type of things I experienced.”
Specialized domestic violence courts centralize resources and trained staff to handle a dedicated domestic violence docket. Domestic violence courts operate in jurisdictions across the country, adapting to local laws and court structure, available resources, and community-specific needs. While there is no one model for a specialized domestic violence court, they rely on some common strategies and goals to ensure victim/survivor safety, a robust coordinated community response, and accountability and engagement for those who cause harm.
In this episode, our host Juan Carlos Areán is joined by Mary Case, Manager of the Legal Advocacy Project for Survivors at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Cat Shugrue dos Santos, Deputy Executive Director for Programs at the NYC Anti-Violence Project. They discuss the importance of applying an intersectional lens when intervening on intimate partner violence within LGBTQIA+ communities.