Skip to main content

More News from the Adolescent Diversion Pilot

This week's issue of neighborhood paper the Red Hook Star Revue has a lengthy profile of our role in the Adolescent Diversion Part (ADP) pilot, which is part of a statewide initiative to divert 16 and 17 year olds from criminal court and connect them to social services while allowing them to avoid the collateral consequences of a criminal record.

Every Wednesday afternoon, staff from the Justice Center head to the Kings County Criminal Courthouse in downtown Brooklyn to participate in a collaborative process in which cases are first heard downtown by Judge Joseph Gubbay. After their disposition downtown, teens are sent to the Justice Center to meet with our clinic staff and fulfill any social service or community service requirements, or get connected to long-term treatment. Red Hook's Judge Alex Calabrese is then responsible for assessing their progress.

All of the players involved in the pilot have worked tirelessly to ensure that the process is producing the best outcomes for the teens involved, and because of the spirit of collaboration are able to make necessary changes quickly to bring it closer to that goal. Kings County DA Bureau Chief Gerianne Abriano notes that "it is common sense that the various players should be working toward the shared goals of reducing crime and especially recidivism among young people. 'For me one of the most important things is that it's not assembly line justice.'"

To read the full article, click here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Peacemaking in Red Hook

Raymond Deal, Traditional Program Specialist, Shiprock District Court, Navajo Nation and Gloria Benally, Program Coordinator, Navajo Nation, train future Red Hook Peacemakers After an intensely trying period in Red Hook in the weeks following Hurricane Sandy, building, strenghtening, and healing relationships between residents and organizations has become crucial. This past weekend, we took a step towards preparing the neighborhood for the hard work ahead with a two-day workshop with peacemakers from the Navajo Nation for residents we are training to serve as peacemakers here in Red Hook. A new project from the Center for Court Innovation's Tribal Justice Exchange , peacemaking is a traditional Native American approach to justice. While the exact form peacemaking takes varies among tribes, it usually consists of one or more peacemakers—often community elders—who gently guide a conversation involving not only those directly involved in an offense or conflict but family

Supporting the Staten Island Youth Justice Center at "Inside/Outside Legislative Theatre" Performance

On June 4th, a group of the Red Hook Youth Court members and staff went to see the "Theater of the Oppressed NYC" performance at the New School. Before attending this event, the youth court members had no idea that anything like this went on! While there, we learned that 12 different legislative laws were changed through something called "Legislative Theatre." The audience members get to be "spect-actors," which is great because the actual audience members got to participate in the play themselves and share their ideas. The performances last night were put on by members of the Staten Island Youth Justice Center (part of the Center for Court Innovation Family). These two plays dealt with real life issues such as getting stopped for not paying your bus fare, arriving late to school and getting sent to the principal's office because of the "zero tolerance policy," getting into fights at school, not knowing one's rights, and being raciall