Supervised Release is as effective as bail at ensuring people make their court appearances, sparing them the documented harms of pretrial detention and allowing them to receive supportive services in their community. This fact sheet of results from the first five years of the program finds its outcomes remain stable, despite its expansion last year to cover a larger, more charge-diverse population.
Justice reforms often exclude people with charges involving violence, even though these are the same people most likely to be incarcerated and to be in the most need of the programs and treatment reform can bring. But a felony court in Manhattan is offering alternatives to incarceration, regardless of charge. Can a treatment-first approach be brought to scale inside of the same system responsible for mass incarceration in the first place?
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.
The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, funds a training and technical assistance initiative to support the protection of constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment. The training and technical assistance initiative is a unique project aimed at enhancing the capacity of state and local governments to uphold Sixth Amendment rights. This 2021 Program Overview describes the work of the Center for Court Innovation (the Center) and its partner, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA).
“This job has really shown me our deep ability as human beings to be connected to one another.” Kellsie Sayers is the director of restorative practices where she oversees the design and implementation of restorative justice programming. Kellsie joined the Center for Court Innovation four years ago to lead the restorative justice in schools project, a four-year pilot looking at the impact of restorative practices on school culture.
On New Thinking, an audio snapshot from an emergency rally demanding immediate measures to release people from New York City’s Rikers Island jail facility. Fourteen people have died in the custody of the city’s jail system this year as the chief medical officer for NYC Jails warns of “a collapse in basic jail operations.”
Families in our Strong Starts Court Initiative, which supports young children and their families who are in New York City Family Court due to allegations of abuse or neglect, have fewer subsequent child welfare petitions than families not receiving enhanced support.
In this episode, our host Juan Carlos Areán is joined by Dr. Charvonne Holliday, assistant professor in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, attorney Casey Gwinn, President of the Alliance for Hope International, and Dr. Chan Hellman, professor at the Ann and Harry Zara School of Social Work and Director of the Hope Research Center of the University of Oklahoma. The group discusses the science of hope and how it can be applied to intimate partner violence.
