The NCJA Podcast

This episode of the NCJA Podcast examines the ways in which restorative justice practices and models represent a paradigm shift in justice making. Listen as NCJA Program Manager Amanda Blasko speaks with Dr. Lindsey Pointer, an assistant professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School and the principal investigator of the National Center on Restorative Justice. They discuss the benefits and importance of restorative justice practices, the key pillars and principles and how restorative justice models and practices fit in to larger discussion of equity within the criminal justice system.

This episode of The NCJA Podcast focuses on how to meaningfully engage with tribes, how to build trust, and other important components for consideration in working with tribal nations. As tribes are all diverse, and not monoliths, the main intention of the episode is not to generalize too broadly but rather to serve as a starting point for individuals who want to intentionally engage with tribes. Join Program Manager Amanda Blasko, Melody Delmar, special projects coordinator for the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department and Interim Chair for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives task force and Reycita Billie, PSAP supervisor for the Navajo Police Department and temporary MMIP Liaison for this engaging conversation.

In Episode 22 of The NCJA Podcast, NCJA Senior Program Manager Simone Greene speaks with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services' Senior Program Manager Terrence Spain and Kelly Perry, Senior Manager of Child and Adolescent Crisis Services. Learn about Oklahoma’s youth mobile crisis response system: how it started, how it functions, and how the state responds, even in rural counties, within one hour. Additionally, Kelly and Terrence discuss how the youth mobile crisis system feeds into the larger network of Oklahoma Systems of Care and provide advice on where to start in the creation of a crisis response and stabilization system of this scale.

In this episode of the NCJA podcast, Program Manager Amanda Blasko discusses priority setting with Allison Badger, program director for the Center for Justice Planning. This conversation highlights the importance of setting priorities within the strategic planning process, pinpoints the integral components of stakeholder engagement and data, and provides advice on navigating board and stakeholder dynamics and the impact of long-term grantees on this stage of the strategic planning process.

NCJA Program Managers Amanda Blasko and Amir Chapel discuss community engagement: what this phrase really means, and how to engage individuals and organizations meaningfully. Topics covered in this episode include challenges and barriers to engaging the community in terms of process and thinking outside the standard box of practices, how to engage individuals and/or organizations from marginalized communities who have been historically shut out of grant and government processes or were not engaged in a productive way and engaging those with lived experience.

In this episode, Joseph Popcun, Executive Deputy Commissioner at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services discusses the state of New York’s new violence reduction initiative Project Rise: Respond, Invest, Sustain and Empower.

Project Rise is a $28 million statewide community violence prevention and community empowerment program to reach the people and places most impacted by the increase in pandemic-era violence. A unique program and funding model, Project Rise brings together community stakeholders to respond to gun violence, invest in solutions, sustain positive programming, and empower communities. Project RISE is meant to be a “grassroots” or “bottom-up” strategy to listen, learn from, and lift up the communities by directing resources where they are most needed.

To provide context, this episode also discusses the history of violence prevention and reduction efforts in New York as well as how Project Rise fits into the larger scope of work to help communities build capacity to implement and sustain programming to address the underlying factors contributing to violence in the community and enhance responses to violence within the community through increased community partnerships and programming with a healing and equity lens.

In this episode, NCJA Program Manager Gillian Caplan speaks with Shakyra Diaz, Chief of Federal Advocacy for the
Alliance for Safety and Justice and Stephen Massey, Director of the CitiLookout Trauma Recovery Center in Springfield, Ohio about the innovative and life-changing work of Trauma Recovery Centers and how they are providing critical resources to victims of violent crime.

Trauma Recovery Centers (TRCs) are a transformational model of care for survivors of violent crime that removes barriers to health and stability in order to heal communities as well as interrupt cycles of violence and connect underserved and vulnerable populations to needed services and resources quickly and efficiently. The TRC model is specifically designed to reach those who have fallen through the cracks of traditional support services.

By the spring of 2020, 35 TRCs were implemented nationwide from California to Georgia and this episode discusses the different components and strategies to building the centers to better support victims of violent crime.

Following the release of the Byrne JAG Solicitation, this episode will feature Tarasa Napolitano from the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) who will discuss the Byrne JAG areas of emphasis and priority areas for this administration and how these should be considered by SAAs as they develop their Byrne JAG strategic plans and applications for potential subawards. This episode will provide insight into the development of the solicitation as well as helpful information on new areas of criminal justice states can explore as they conduct their strategic planning process. Finally, this episode will discuss new requirements to the application process and resources for states as well as additional funding and projects SAAs can engage in through BJA such as Project Safe Neighborhoods and the National Public Safety Partnership in an effort to encourage and promote braided and blended funding.

This podcast episode highlights Maryland Governor Hogan’s New Executive Order to tackle the impacts of Adverse Childhood Effects (ACEs). Glenn Fueston, executive director of the Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services, provides a general overview of ACEs, the impacts on young people and the community at large, and the importance of addressing these impacts head on. This episode specifically reviews the Handle with Care program, launched by the Governor’s Office in 2018, one of the first programs in the nation to specifically address ACEs. Also discussed is how the data from this program has assisted Governor Hogan to support additional initiatives such as Project Bounce Back.

Finally, this episode discusses how the Governor’s Office has used Byrne JAG funding to launch these programs and how they plan to ensure this work is sustainable and institutionalized through exciting new initiatives.

In April 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration announced historic investments in Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programming to combat the gun violence epidemic. In an effort to support communities seeking to implement or expand programs in this area, NCJA has released ‘An Overview: Community Violence Intervention Strategies,’ a fact sheet with tangible examples of four of the main types of CVI strategies. This resource provides Byrne JAG State Administering Agencies and other partners a foundation of understanding for supporting existing or new CVI programs. Gillian Caplan, the author of the fact sheet, discusses the four types of CVIs and how they fit into the current justice landscape.

San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office’s Project Navigate Constructive Change (PNCC) diverts justice-involved youth away from deeper system involvement and promotes thoughtful life choices with participants engaging in education, counseling, employment assistance and life skills coaching. PNCC was started in 2015 using Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funds and has since relied on Byrne JAG funding to grow the program.

In this episode, NCJA’s Gillian Caplan interviews Deputy Director Ricardo Goodridge from California’s Board of State and Community Corrections and San Joaquin County Chief Deputy District Attorneys Jeff Derman and Ken Puckett about how the program works, the importance of justice system and community partners and the upcoming introduction of a restorative justice component.

In June 2018, the WORTH (Women Overcoming Recidivism Through Hard Work) unit was founded in the York Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s sole female-only prison. NCJA’s Gillian Caplan interviews Under Secretary Marc Pelka, Warden Trina Sexton and Captain Anna Lussier as they discuss the history, approach and successes of the innovative unit. 

Funded initially with Byrne JAG dollars, WORTH is a specialized housing unit within the facility that serves an adult female population with approaching release dates. The progressive curriculum was largely developed by the program’s founding members and is designed to help women acquire and maintain the necessary skills to become successful following their release. The women participating in the WORTH Unit are aged 18 to 25 and live with older incarcerated mentors. Together, they are given wide latitude to implement the program themselves.

This podcast was created with the support of Grant No. 2016-YA-BX-K002, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the SMART Office, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.