With support from the Clinical Scholars Program, a national health leadership initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Newark Community Solutions convened a group of cross-sector service organizations and community members as part of the Health, Housing, and Justice Access (HHJ) project. The goal was to increase equity and accessibility for virtual health, social service, and court proceedings during the pandemic.
Domestic violence cases involve serious safety concerns that make monitoring compliance especially difficult. Abusive partners may continue to harass and coerce their intimate partners without the knowledge of the justice system. For courts seeking to ensure compliance and support behavior change among people who abuse their partners, strong communication and collaboration with probation departments is key.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, abusive partner intervention program (APIP) providers across the country have adapted their services to help promote healing and foster accountability during these unprecedented times.
Drug courts face an obligation to rethink some core practices, chiefly the focus on abstinence and the use of jail. Our publication argues the best way for the courts to evolve is to integrate the principles of harm reduction—a person-centered, anti-racist approach to reducing the harms related to drug use. The authors offer 12 strategies to help drug courts re-align with their original mission: a therapeutic, health-based alternative to jail.
The Center for Justice Innovation, in partnership with the New York State Unified Court System, Office for Justice Initiatives, Division of Policy and Planning, and the Office of Addiction Services and Supports, created this report, which identifies ways for opioid courts and other drug treatment courts to improve access to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD).
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.”
Our Queens Community Justice Center recently moved to a new location and is planning to open a new office in the Rockaways. The Justice Center is dedicated to supporting people both in and outside the justice system, providing a range of services and opportunities for civic engagement for people of all ages. In this video, see the new space and hear our staff share how expanding services will build a stronger community for the residents of Queens.
Our national survey of tribal justice systems—conducted with partners at the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes—found limited use of risk-need assessment tools, despite the expansion of such tools in other jurisdictions and pressure to increase their use across the country. The survey identified a need to develop risk-need responsivity tools built specifically for tribal justice systems, to validate existing tools with Native populations, and to create affordable tribal-owned technological solutions.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, over 500,000 people a night in the U.S. lived without shelter, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. During the pandemic, those numbers rose even higher. Afraid they might contract COVID-19 in a shelter and lacking safe alternatives, many more people than usual sought warmth and safety in transit hubs.
New York City's promise to shutter its notorious Rikers Island jail complex hinges on reducing the number of people in city jails—the overwhelming majority held awaiting trial. This report from the Independent Commission that called for Rikers' closure in 2017 and the Center for Court Innovation lays out a series of concrete, data-driven strategies to produce sizable jail reductions while prioritizing public safety.
