In recent years, New York City has seen a steady and alarming increase in traffic-related fatalities. In 2021, the city saw over 50,000 traffic-related injuries and 273 traffic fatalities, marking a record high in fatalities since the Vision Zero NYC legislation was launched in 2014. Traditional legal system responses to driving-related incidents such as fines or incarceration not only fail to address the root problems but also frequently result in increased socioeconomic and racial disparities.
Circles for Safe Streets, a pilot project of the Center for Court Innovation in partnership with Families for Safe Streets, provides a restorative justice response to vehicular crimes resulting in serious injury or death. The program builds on the Center’s work in both Driver Accountability and Restorative Justice, offering an avenue to support both victims and drivers.
These guiding principles were created as part of the Abusive Partner Accountability and Engagement Training and Technical Assistance Project, an initiative funded by the Office on Violence Against Women. They are designed to inform abusive partner intervention programming (APIP), also known as battering intervention, at all stages of intervention—development, implementation, and evaluation. The goal of the principles is to enhance not only programs but also the broader community response to accountability and engagement for people who cause harm through intimate partner violence (IPV).
The Center for Justice Innovation’s Guide to Safe and Equitable Communities shares the principles and practices that we believe underlie the creation of a long-term, resident-led approach to community safety. This approach focuses on community-led, collaborative solutions that build on developing the prerequisites to neighborhood safety—such as education, economic mobility, quality housing, mental health supports, safe public spaces, and opportunities to improved trust both between residents and local systems and among neighbors.
“I got you.” Three little, but powerful, words that mean the world to the community residents that Yvette Rouget serves in her role as program manager at our Housing Resource Center at Brownsville Community Justice Center. As someone who also lives in the community in which she works, she takes her job and role as a good neighbor seriously. Often starting conversations with residents with just a simple greeting, it’s not long before she’s asking, “What do you need?” or sharing resources and support.
This fact sheet describes the Community Engagement Program offers voluntary resources and mentorship for participants of Bronx Community Solutions. Together with local providers, specialists or “credible messengers” provide support to participants and the Bronx community.
New York City has committed to closing its notorious Rikers Island jail facility by 2027, a seismic shift that would reorient the city's approach to incarceration. The plan envisions a citywide jail population of just over 3,000 people. But the population at Rikers has been growing for months, and Rikers itself is engulfed in crisis amidst a historic spike in deaths. On a roundtable episode of New Thinking: what are the prospects for finally getting Rikers closed?
In this episode, Melanie Thompson is joined by Audrey Morrissey, associate director of My Life, My Choice Boston, to speak on their experiences of transitioning once a case has closed and the potential challenges and feelings that youth may experience. They also discuss resources to help with this transition, strategies for navigating relationships within systems, and the importance of providing youth with consistent and stable relationships.
A companion to the Center for Court Innovation’s podcast episode exploring strategies for abusive partner intervention programs within the LGBTQIA+ community, this document discusses the differences between intimate partner violence in cis-heteronormative and LGBTQIA+ relationships.
Together, Nikki Bell, survivor activist and the founder of Living in Freedom Together, and Melanie Thompson talk about trust in the context of both the criminal legal and child welfare systems. They examine some of the challenges around privacy and confidentiality and trusting those who work in the system while also outlining ways young people can become confident in their own voice and power.
