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Red Hook Community Justice Center (RHCJC) is a community court with many other services in an isolated, low-income area of Brooklyn. It encompasses not only a municipal court, but a set of community outreach programs including a neighborhood "safety corps" (AmeriCorps), youth court, school, and others.
Red Hook CJC is housed in a rehabilitated formerly abandoned parochial school building with historical significance and character. It has been designed to be welcoming to the diverse group of community residents and others from the area who come to the center to avail themselves of services and/or for court related activity.
Red Hook Community Justice Center represents an innovative approach to community stabilization and revitalization, using the court system as a means of intervention directed to improving the quality of life in a troubled neighborhood. The goal of its multi-faceted approach to community justice is to make the community a safer and better place to live, at the same time improving participants' and community members' perception of safety and of the justice system.
RHCJC is founded on the believe that bringing the court and the community together to solve local problems such as drug use, juvenile delinquency, and family dysfunction, will help to address fundamental questions at the community level about the fairness and accountability of the justice system. Most importantly, RHCJC seeks to allow the court to address the issues that bring people before it (on mostly relatively minor offences) through rehabilitation and a resulting reduction of recidivism; to be a laboratory for new ideas; and to apply those that work to the New York court system and beyond.
The Selection Committee recognized Red Hook for having significant positive impacts on its community in a number of ways. They felt it was important in empowering community members to deal pro-actively with the issues that affect the community. They also noted that Red Hook provides services aimed at moving people from poverty to self-sufficiency, and that together with Midtown Court,l (a sister project by the Center for Court Innovation), Red Hook serves as a model for change throughout the court system and abroad.
[Visit Project Website]
[Read the Bruner Foundation Case Study]
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