We work to improve access to justice, with a particular focus on ensuring that low-income individuals have the tools they need to solve problems.
Our community justice centers work to render the justice system more transparent and responsive, actively engaging residents, merchants, and others in the process of doing justice. Legal Hand trains community volunteers to offer their neighbors free access to legal information. We work to improve the cultural responsiveness of courts in domestic violence cases and assist parents in child support cases. And our research department documents the legal needs of specific neighborhoods and produces recommendations for streamlining cumbersome legal processes, such as the payment of bail.
Initiatives
Legal Hand
Legal Hand empowers community residents to support their neighbors with the legal information they need.
Price of Justice Initiative
The Price of Justice Initiative helps jurisdictions address the disparate impact of fines and fees on defendants who cannot afford them.
Housing Resource Centers
Through housing, financial, and legal assistance, we help tenants navigate housing court to resolve critical repairs and prevent evictions.
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations and institutions to shift to operating remotely, disparities driven by the digital divide became a shared problem across major cross-sector systems important to a community’s well-being. The Health, Housing, and Justice Alliance sought to eliminate inequities of fully virtual legal, healthcare, and social services through the creation of pop-up navigation centers and court hubs throughout Newark, New Jersey.
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.
"On every anniversary of Gideon, liberals bemoan the state of indigent defense." On this 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision granting a lawyer to every poor defendant facing prison time, there is much to bemoan. Yet as the harms of the criminal legal system come into sharper relief, there is a larger question: even if Gideon's promise was fulfilled, how much would that change who principally suffers under the current system: the poor and people of color?
Center executive director Courtney Bryan joined CBS News to talk about the growing backlog of court cases since the onset of COVID-19 is slowing the progress of hundreds of thousands of cases and people across the country.
"These are not just cases or case files. These are people. Most who are sitting in jails around the country haven't yet been convicted of a crime. Because of this crisis, [they’re waiting] for much longer than they were prior to COVID. And in New York City, that means folks are sitting in Rikers Island, a place renowned for violence and horrible conditions."
She also shared outcomes from a 2019 pilot program by the Center and New York Office of Court Administration that succeeded in reducing felony case backlogs in Brooklyn Superior Court.
The Center’s Syracuse Peacemaking Center will continue operation for another two years, thanks to funding from the city’s Common Council. Program ambassadors are working with community partners and guest speakers to provide residents a safe place to talk and connect them with mental health services. Our Leah Russell tells WAER how the program has “seen firsthand how housing concerns are exacerbating mental health issues.”