At this week's Round Table, Inica, Isaiah, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Sherene Crawford and James Brodick from the Center for Court Innovation about their visionary criminal justice reform work. They are both very mission driven: Sherene sees criminal justice as the civil rights issue of the 21st century and James is compelled by conviction that we are all one and thus must drive community change together, focusing on those who have been most poorly served by the systems we currently have. They both feel strongly that community based organizations are a critical bridge between communities and courts--and the best way to inspire community problem solving. We talked about their work finding more holistic alternatives to the broken system of incarceration, the challenges of solving problems when there’s a lack of trust across stakeholders, the pendulum swings of responses to crime, the importance of holding government accountable for doing well by all who are impacted by the carceral state, and their hopefulness about the rise in progressive prosecution. They encouraged us to think about reform from within the system as well as outside of it. We honed in on the fact that we ALL want the same outcome: safer communities. The friction is around HOW to do it. We are inspired by the fact that there has been serious progress made in reducing incarceration—AND we still have a long way to go. Thank you for joining us!
