This study maps the current landscape of police-led pretrial diversion programs. It presents the results from a survey on diversion given to a representative sample of law enforcement agencies nationwide along with case studies of eight promising police-led programs, including programs targeting mentally-ill individuals, juveniles, and low-level or first-time adult defendants. Funded by the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office of the Department of Justice, this report explores why these programs were created, how they work, and where they differ.
An audio portrait of Make It Happen, our program working with young men of color in Crown Heights, Brooklyn affected by violence. Through interviews with participants and practitioners, the episode explores the intersections of trauma, involvement with the justice system, and the lived experience of race. This episode was originally released in April 2018.
Meet the teenagers of the Newark Youth Court. These young people fill the roles of judge, bailiff, advocates, and jurors, hearing low-level cases involving their peers. The sentences are always restorative, meant to provide a positive experience for the respondent and avoid a criminal record.
Just because smaller communities generally have fewer resources doesn’t mean they aren’t innovating or taking new approaches that others can learn from and emulate. In Pulaski County, Virginia, home to about 35,000 people, Judge H. Lee Chitwood and Court Coordinator Jaime Clemmer have implemented a number of changes to better address domestic violence.
In Misdemeanorland, Issa Kohler-Hausmann argues the lower courts are no longer primarily concerned with whether people actually committed the offense they’ve been accused of. Instead, the focus is on future behavior: upholding social order through managing and assessing—often over long stretches—everyone with the misfortune of entering Misdemeanorland. It's an argument that forces us to rethink what justice should look like in low-level cases.
On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, an introduction to the origins, programming, and community impact of Neighbors in Action, formerly known as the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center. Neighbors in Action works to make the central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant safer and healthier for all.
At Legal Hand, our trained community volunteers provide free legal information, assistance and referrals to help members of low-income communities resolve issues that affect their lives, in areas like housing, family, immigration, divorce, domestic violence, and benefits and try to prevent problems from turning into legal actions.
The video, From Defendant to Survivor: How Courts Are Responding to Human Trafficking, profiles three courts that have forged new responses to sex trafficking. This guide is designed to help viewers understand the key principles of court models that effectively divert human trafficking and prostitution cases from prosecution.
Survivors of sex trafficking are usually treated as criminals rather than victims. But some courts have begun to recognize that those arrested on prostitution charges are often victims of coercion, violence, and trauma. Our video, From Defendant to Survivor, profiles the innovative approaches being taken by courts in Los Angeles, New York City, and Columbus, Ohio.
About two out of three people in local jails are being held awaiting trial, often because they can't afford bail. What if a mathematical formula could do a more objective job of identifying who could be safely released? That's the promise of risk assessments. But critics call them "justice by algorithm," and contend they're reproducing the bias inherent to the justice system, only this time under the guise of science.
