Community Justice Centers Work

Because the Justice Center is in the community, collaborates actively with community partners, sends offenders into the community to perform community service, and runs all kinds of proactive programs to keep adults and kids involved (for example, in addition to the Youth Court mentioned above, the Justice Center also coordinates a highly popular youth baseball league), the Justice Center has changed public attitudes about justice. Before the Justice Center opened, only twelve percent of community members approved of local courts. Today, more than seventy-five percent view the court favorably, according to a recent community survey.

But even more importantly, crime in Red Hook has dropped—dramatically. 2006 marked the second year since the Justice Center opened that there was not a single murder in Red Hook. The first time this happened was in 2003—the first time Red Hook had seen no homicides in thrity years. Not only that, other categories of crime have also been dropping. 2006 alone saw a sixteen percent decrease in crime, with massive drops in burglary reports, muggings, and car thefts. And everyone seems to agree that the Red Hook Community Justice Center has played an important role in that reduction, along with the police, prosecutors, church groups, schools, community leaders and ordinary citizens.

People used to think that prison building was the only means to keep communities safe and decrease crime. But that’s utter nonsense. We have been able to establish in Brooklyn that recidivism reduction is the key to public safety—that if you contain recidivism, you maintain public safety.

And one very effective way to deal with recidivism is by establishing a community justice center. These centers represent the way of the future. If we can prevent people from getting involved in the commission of another crime, if we can get offenders back into the job market, who benefits? The offender. The community. And the justice system. You eliminate the cost of future prosecution and the cost of incarceration. You improve safety and public confidence in justice, you increase the tax base, and you can turn a life around. Everyone comes out a winner.