Red Hook Community Justice Center: Youth Justice Initiative

The Justice Center will work with South Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer high school for young people who have left other schools, and with John Jay School for Law, a traditional high school in Brooklyn. Both schools predominantly serve low-income students of color. The Youth Justice Initiative aims to prevent violence and improve school climate through embedding restorative justice and equity practices into school culture. The Youth Justice Initiative will achieve its goal by: (1) replacing punitive approaches to discipline with restorative approaches, including restorative circles to address infractions; (2) training staff on practices and topics that will inform and improve staff student interactions, including information on race equity, restorative justice, violence prevention, trauma informed care, and social-emotional learning; (3) training a select cohort of students each year who will become peer ambassadors for restorative justice in the schools; and (4) connecting members of the school community to social services to address underlying, unmet needs. With the aim of reducing school-based violence by 25 percent over a 3-year period, each year the Youth Justice Initiative will train 10 staff and 30 students and will engage 20 youth through restorative justice practices.