Red Hook Justice - Your Community. Your Court.

“You were just doing something, right? Let me take [these pieces] for now, until I get to something simple. But real strategists don’t think like that…the first thing I did was figure out the whole game…If you don’t know the strategy, nothing’s going to help you. You’re going to lose.”  Yesterday afternoon, the Justice Center welcomed International Grandmaster of chess Maurice Ashley to teach the first session of our new chess program, " Think Before You Move , " an  innovative new initiative designed to  teach critical thinking and decision-making skills to young people through the medium of chess.  A group of teens ranging in age from 12 to 17 years old and drawn from both the South Brooklyn area and our adolescent diversion and family court programs, channeled their energy and focus on deconstructing the strategy behind a series of short games. Mr. Ashley challenged his students to look beyond the simple rules he had laid out for them in order to see how br...

The Red Hook Community Justice Center's JustArts initiative is partnering with   Kentler International Drawing Space 's K.I.D.S. Art Education Program to present  Make Your Mark!  this fall. Last week, youth age 11-13 from our catchment area began working with teaching artist Meghan Keane to develop their drawing skills, learn to express themselves through drawing, and craft a personal style. Take a look at our slideshow of the most recent session of  Make Your Mark!  in which students worked on a project based on the gallery's current show, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black in the Age of Obama":

The Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) is partnering with International Chess Grand Master Maurice Ashley to run an innovative chess initiative called “Think before You Move” for Brooklyn Teens. The program will run for four weeks starting Oct. 25. The goal of Think before You Move is to teach critical thinking skills to young people through the medium of chess. Research has shown that chess instruction helps develop these thinking skills and prepares students to better approach problems, strengthen their personal discipline, counter negative peer pressure and exhibit greater self-control. Learning these skills through chess also helps enhance the students’ self-esteem as well as promote success in the classroom, the work-place and their personal lives. The program is open to local teens age 12-18. The program will also be an alternative diversion program for teens that have committed minor offenses and need to improve their decision making skills. Abou...

Monday was a very special night for eight court-involved Brooklyn teens. As participants in the Young New Yorkers program, these young people were given the opportunity to fulfill their court requirements by participating in a restorative justice arts program. Through a partnership with the Justice Center's Adolescent Diversion Program (ADP)--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--this group of young people participated in a series of workshops centered around a c urriculum designed to develop the emotional and behavioral skills of the young participants while facilitating responsible and creative self expression.  A participant shares his experience The workshops culminate in the design of a public art installation that gives voice to the otherwise voiceless and voteless adolescents being tried in New York's adult cri...

The Justice Center played host yesterday to two celebrations of the amazing young people that we have worked with this summer. Our first event was the graduation of sixteen interns from our High School Summer Internship Program.  The seven-week program involved two weeks of training at the Justice Center in skills like resume and cover letter writing, interviewing, and other skills necessary to succeed in the working world. For the following five weeks, interns were placed in a variety of sites throughout our catchment area including the Groundswell Community Mural Project , Community Board 7 , The Diamond Law Firm, The Red Hook Star Revue , Youth Made Media , the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation , Fireflies New York, Caselnova Restaurant , Beth Elohim Summer Camp , and SUNY Downstate Medical Center . Family, friends, internship supervisors, and Justice Center staff all came together to congratulate the interns on their hard work. A highlight of the event was hear...

For the past six months, the Justice Center has offered free monthly workshops to enhance neighborhood safety, improve the local quality of life, and address community concerns.  We kicked off our Community Education Workshop Series by partnering with the Legal Aid Society for a “Know Your Rights” workshop on the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) at the Red Hook Community Justice Center. A Legal Aid attorney provided attendees with crucial information about what their housing rights are in their dealings with NYCHA.  Next, we prepared for tax season by partnering with  H & R Block  and  Sovereign Bank  to host a workshop on financial and tax literacy at the Justice Center. We also held a resume workshop  in partnership with the Red Hook branch of  the Brooklyn Public Library   at a neighborhood school, P.S. 15 . Attendees participated in a host of relevant job-related discussions, including how to write a resume, what a resume sh...

On Tuesday, June 19th, the Red Hook Community Justice Center hosted an end-of-season Photography Exhibit for the Spring 2012 JustArts: Photography program, in partnership with the Brooklyn Arts Council . The students showcased their best work based on their perspectives on the “Culture of Brooklyn,” and presented a video about their experiences in the program. The JustArts Photography Program is part of the Red Hook Community Justice Center’s Positive Youth Justice Initiative, which reframes the conversation about juvenile delinquency.  Instead of pathologizing court-involved youth and adolescent behavior, the Justice Center works to serve all young people within a positive youth development framework, drawing on their strengths as well as their potential to contribute to their communities.  Funding is provided by the  New York State Council on the Arts  and the  Robin Hood Foundation . Teen participants create a portrait studio at the...

Today the Justice Center received a visit from students at P.S. 15. The Patrick F. Daly School, a elementary school in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The Justice Center and P.S. 15 have a long history of working together to improve the neighborhood for some of its youngest residents. The students presented Justice Center staff with a check from their annual Penny Harvest fundraiser to help the Justice Center continue to provide programs and services to keep their neighborhood safe. To make the donation, the students voted on the issues that most concerned them and safety was one of their top choices. Thank you P.S. 15 and we’ll continue working hard to ensure Red Hook is safe and wonderful community to grow up in. Red Hook Community Justice Center Chief Clerk, Toni Bullock-Stallings; Deputy Project Director, Jessica Colon; and Judge Alex Calabrese with P.S. 15 students and their teachers.

For the past seven months the members of the Youth Advisory Board have been working with a team of graduate students from the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School and a New York Juvenile Justice Corps member from the Red Hook Community Justice Center to explore issues faced by young people in southwest Brooklyn. During this time the members of the Youth Advisory board have been identifying and investigating important questions about high school graduation rates and gang involvement in southwest Brooklyn. Throughout this process they have conducted interviews, handed out surveys, taken pictures and told their own stories. On Tuesday, May 29 th the members of the Youth Advisory Board screened a short video they made about these issues and presented the findings of their research to Justice Center staff, youth programs participants, faculty and administrators from The New School University , and community members. Teen members of t...

Thanks to a partnership with the Groundswell Community Mural Project  and the hard work of a group of dedicated youth artists, Red Hook's Youth Justice Programs room now has a beautiful new mural, "Transform." To read the story of a teen who became involved in the mural project as a result of a community service requirement assigned to him by the Red Hook Youth Court , click here . Take a look below at photos of the final product as well as the work in progress.

Saturday, April 28th marked the opening of the 15th season of the Red Hook Youth Baseball League. The beautiful spring morning began with a ceremony of short speeches and traditional first pitches by honored dignitaries and supporters of the league, including: Kings County District Attorney Honorable Charles J. Hynes, Council Member Sara M. Gonzalez, Felix Palacios, Community Liaison for Speaker Christine Quinn, 76th Precinct Police Captain Jeffrey Schiff, John McGettrick, President of the Red Hook Civic Association, and Honorable Judge Alex M. Calabrese of the Red Hook Community Justice Center. The ceremony concluded with a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem sung by Pat Sones, a Red Hook resident and longtime friend of the League. Immediately following the ceremony, exhibition games commenced in which Hynes' Heroes defeated the Defenders, and Southern Trucking defeated Gibbs' Brooklyn Youth Association Royals. The League rec...

Last week’s spring recess from school filled the Justice Center with kids doing community service through our Adolescent Diversion Pilot (ADP) program. On Thursday, April 12 th, Red Hook’s Community Service team partnered with the Department of Transportation for a special community service project to prime and paint 600 feet of wall space on the bike path leading up to the Manhattan Bridge. Bike path before ADP youth community service work Many of the teens began the day reluctant to take time out of their vacation to tackle such a large and daunting task, but after encouragement and motivational one-on-one talks from staff, they began to encourage each other to complete the project. As the day progressed, youth shared their experiences with each other and discussed lessons they have learned from their contact with the criminal justice system.  By the end of the day, youth were able to go home proud of completing a meaningful project on a highly visible and utilized bike pat...

At the Red Hook Community Justice Center, we are always working to identify meaningful community service projects for young people – mandatory and voluntary. This is often easier said than done, with a lot of false starts and hiccups along the way.   However, we are fortunate to have some incredible community-based organizations to assist us in this endeavor. Our longstanding collaboration with one such partner, Groundswell Community Mural Project , is featured this week in a local arts-oriented paper, the Brooklyn Rail. The article traces the story of a high school sophomore who was connected to Groundswell to fulfill the community service requirement assigned to him by the Red Hook Youth Court , after a conversation during his hearing about his interest in art. We also hear from a teen artist about the process that goes into designing and creating the mural that will soon go up on a wall in the youth programs space at the Justice Center: “We started ...