Roundtable Breakfast - Urban Peacemaking: The Red Hook Community Justice Experience in Brooklyn

Monthly

NYC-DR Roundtable Breakfast

Urban Peacemaking: The Red Hook Community Justice Experience in Brooklyn

Coleta Walker

Peacemaking is a traditional Native American approach to justice that focuses on healing and restoration rather than punishment. Although peacemaking varies across Native American tribes, it generally brings together the disputants, along with family members, friends, and other members of the community to speak about how the event, crime, or crisis affected each person. The goal of peacemaking is not only to resolve the immediate dispute, but also to heal the relationships among those involved and restore balance to the community.

The Center for Court Innovation peacemaking program is being piloted at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, in Brooklyn, New York. Conceived by the Center’s Tribal Justice Exchange, the peacemaking program uses traditional Native American practices to resolve disputes that originate in either the justice system (in the form of a court case) or in the community. Peacemaking sessions, which are facilitated by trained peacemakers from the community, are designed to enable those affected by the dispute to “talk it out” and reach a consensus agreement for restitution and repair. In court-referred cases, the agreement is put on the record in court. Depending on the unique circumstances of each case, one or more peacemaking sessions may be required to reach a consensus agreement. This session will discuss in detail the program and its operations.