Bronx Community Solutions provides community-based alternatives to jail, restores community relationships, and helps participants avoid further criminal justice involvement.
With offices in the Bronx’s centralized criminal courthouse and the south Bronx community, Bronx Community Solutions works to improve the quality of justice Bronx-wide. We do this by offering meaningful alternatives to the traditional justice system, centering the needs and dignity of our participants, and building lasting connections with the community.
Enhanced Sentencing Options
Research shows that providing alternative sentencing options to judges reduces the reliance on jail. Judges in the Bronx are provided with a broad set of people-centered options addressing issues such as substance use disorders, employment and family service needs, and mental health. Bronx Community Solutions' staff use evidence-based screening tools to ensure participants are connected to resources and interventions responding to their specific needs.
Early Diversion
Police and prosecutors are empowered to divert low-level cases from criminal court through Project Reset: Bronx Community Justice, a diversion program that is proportionate, effective, and restorative. Through the program, participants avoid the possibility of a criminal record by completing community-based restorative justice programming.
Bronx D.A. Darcel Clark explains how Bronx Community Solutions has helped her office develop alternatives to incarceration.
Community Service
Participants make meaningful contributions to transformative projects within their community throughout the Bronx. Our staff work with residents and community groups to identify neighborhood projects that respond to local needs. Our partners also offer our participants resources and new points of community connection.
Accountability
By quickly connecting participants with social and community services and monitoring their participation, Bronx Community Solutions sends the message that community-based services and speedy case resolution are taken seriously.
Community Engagement
Community groups and local residents play concrete roles in our operations, including identifying new transformative community-based projects, participating in restorative justice programming alongside clients, and sitting on our community advisory board.
Each year, Bronx Community Solutions handles upwards of 5,000 cases. In 2013, New York City credited the program with contributing to a more than 40 percent reduction in the number of jail sentences for defendants convicted of misdemeanors in the Bronx.
Bronx Criminal Court Supervising Judge George A. Grasso says Bronx Community Solutions offers him a "real-time ability to deal with problems."