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.
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 new 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.
This study highlights the voices of justice-involved individuals describing experiences with procedural justice. Findings suggest those surveyed do not view the justice system as legitimate or fair, and that those opinions are largely shaped by individual interactions with system-actors, as well as by broader perceived factors such as institutional racism, the over-policing of minor crimes, and a lack of accountability of all criminal justice agents.
Kim Foxx's unexpected 2016 victory in the race for State's Attorney for Cook County (Chicago) helped to ignite the movement to elect prosecutors promising something other than being "tough on crime." As part of our series on prosecutor power, Foxx explains the reforms she’s put in place, her struggles with being the face of a system that continues to fail so many of her constituents, and offers her take on the “incredible” gains made by the movement to elect a new kind of prosecutor.
