Restorative Justice Youth Design Summit

Restorative Justice Youth Design Summit

Contents History + Purpose

2

Organizing + Programming

5

Engagement + Design

6

Summary of Responses to Guiding Questions

6

Summit Team Responses

7

Summary

16

Next Steps

17

Partners

17

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History + Purpose In 2010, Wayne County officials approved $300 million to build a new 1,200-bed jail in downtown Detroit. That project was halted in 2013 due to cost overruns. For five years, the site sat unfinished, costing Wayne County an average of $1.2 million every month to secure and insure. This site became known as “Fail Jail”.

Project site at the city scale

In 2014, the “Fail Jail” site began to attract the interests of private developers, and two years later Wayne County issued a Request for Proposals to restart and finish constructing the jail. By that time, $120 million had already been spent constructing the new jail downtown. In 2017, with limited community input, Wayne County negotiated a deal with Rock Ventures LLC, a collective of companies owned by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, to build a new $533 million Criminal Justice Complex. This new site would include a 2,280-bed adult jail and 160-bed youth jail outside of downtown Detroit.

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Project site at the city block scale

Concurrently, Detroit is continuing to struggle with ongoing socioeconomic challenges and disparities. More than 60% of Detroit’s children aged 0-5 years are living in poverty.1 Twenty-six Detroit public grade schools rank in the lowest-performing 5% of schools in Michigan.2 More than 100 public schools in the Detroit system have closed since 2005, with 25 closures in 2017 alone.3 Over the past three decades, state and local government expenditures on prisons and jails have increased approximately three times as fast as spending on elementary and secondary education.4 The Detroit Justice Center developed the Youth Design Summit as a way of exploring how the “Fail Jail” site could become a model for community-driven solutions that promote safety and well-being—and perhaps even express the tenets of restorative justice through physical design and urban planning. The Detroit Justice Center (DJC) sought to amplify community voices and bring forward ideas for restorative investment by engaging young Detroiters to imagine other options for the site.

The concept of restorative investment builds upon the framework of Restorative Justice. Under the banner of “divest/invest,” communities across the country are calling for a shift in public resources "Detroit city's plan to tackle child poverty | Child in the City." 7 Mar. 2018, https://www.childinthecity.org/2018/03/07/detroit-citys-plan-to-tackle-child-poverty/ 2 "Detroit's Community Framework for Brighter Futures - Hope Starts Here." 17 Nov. 2017, http://hopestartsheredetroit.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/HSH-Full-Framework_2017_web.pdf 3 "Detroit parents angry, heartbroken over possible school closures." 20 Jan. 2017, https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2017/01/20/detroit-school-closures/96828112/ 4 "State and Local Expenditures on Corrections and Education: A Brief ...." 1 Jul. 2016, https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/expenditures-corrections-education/brief.pdf 1

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away from incarceration and towards other types of infrastructure and services that promote safe, vibrant communities. Just as restorative justice can help promote healing and accountability at the individual and community level after a harm has occurred, restorative investment can help to repair the harms of decades of government investment in criminalization, punishment, and incarceration (which took place alongside divestment from education, health services, social services, and public transit). Restorative Justice (RJ) is already used in schools across the United States and in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to decrease suspensions and to prevent or mitigate conflicts in schools. Restorative Justice is also used increasingly in the criminal legal system. An RJ approach addresses conflict and harm by focusing on the root causes of a situation and prioritizing healing. Rather than focusing on punishment, RJ centers the needs of people who have experienced harm and creates a pathway for accountability and repair by the person who caused harm. When people who have been harmed, people who have caused harm, and community members work collaboratively to explore options for healing, the results can be transformational.

One of the guiding questions for the Youth Design Summit was: how might Detroit and Wayne County utilize the resources earmarked for the jail complex to invest in the community in a way that negates the need for jails? Facilitators asked youth participants to imagine how they would spend $533 million to create a safe, just, and healthy Detroit.

The Detroit Justice Center partnered with Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS), an organization based in Oakland, CA, to create and facilitate a youth-led visioning and planning session in September 2018. Forty young Detroiters, ages 13-18, gathered to envision what viable alternatives to jails might be, and how to change the circumstances that lead people to be incarcerated. The summit provided a forum to incubate positive developments young people want to see while learning about the profession of urban planning and architecture. Participants were charged with envisioning their communities as places of healing where there is opportunity for economic prosperity and residents feel safe and supported.

Youth Voices Matter The planning and development of new infrastructure in our city takes time and the impact of these decisions often lasts for generations. Because public infrastructure endures for decades, it is imperative to seek the input of young people about what we are building for them and future generations. Young people also use public space more than adults—many are in public schools all day, ride buses and walk on the sidewalks, and hang out in parks and other public spaces. By asking young people for their input, local leaders can become better stewards of the built environment and of communities.

As Wayne County proceeds with construction of the new Criminal Justice Complex, there is a sense of urgency to present viable alternatives. The Youth Design Summit used evidence-based methodologies to thoughtfully develop ideas for physical spaces and geographic locations to be sites of restorative justice, safety, healing, and general well-being. The intention was for the Youth Design Summit to be an initial step toward reimagining Detroit as a city without jails and prisons.

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Organizing + Programming In July 2018, DJC and DJDS met with several local, prominent youth organizations to deepen partnerships and create a process for young people to learn how to design safe, just, and healthy communities. These organizations included 482Forward, Teen HYPE, and Detroit Summer.

Four main goals were developed for the process: ●

Promote youth civic awareness and activism around restorative and social justice

●

Teach spatial planning and design as a tool for young activists so that they may increase their understanding of how the built environment affects the lives of individuals and communities

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Provide a space and process for young people to co-create design solutions that aspire to heal and economically improve underserved and under-resourced communities in Detroit

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Develop and train youth leaders who have an understanding of the relationship between policies and outcomes within the context of the built environment

The process also included three distinct phases: Phase 1: In the weeks leading up to the summit, the youth organizations were encouraged to build a basic understanding for the youth participants about the guiding principles of restorative justice, urban planning, public safety, and civic engagement. The participants were learned about these principles through short videos and discussion.

Phase 2: After the videos and discussion, each organization’s youth members worked collaboratively to answer the following questions: 1. What is the purpose or intent of jails/prisons?

2. What do safe spaces and places look or feel like to you?

3. How would you invest $533 million in your community?

The questions were intended to help guide the imagination process with regard to the impact of the criminal legal system on young people, their families, and their communities. Facilitators encouraged the young people to identify the specific qualities of environments in which they feel safe. Building upon those qualities, the young people were invited to imagine how they would use a large sum of money to create a just, safe, and healthy community.

Phase 3: DJC and DJDS brought together all the participants to collaborate on alternative ideas for the “Fail Jail” site. The young design activists used the process of schematic design and programming to create posters to present their ideas to the larger group.

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Engagement + Design

In this exercise, participants were encouraged to focus on enhancing growth, prosperity, and safety through a Restorative Justice design lens. Facilitators revisited the three main questions above to create a baseline platform for the teens to understand all the issues they see in their communities stemming from the prison industrial complex. The discussion allowed the young people to focus on how they wanted to approach improving their communities through new programming, policies, places, and buildings.

Summary of Responses to Guiding Questions Each team collaborated to come up with refined responses to the three main questions based upon their earlier discussions with their home organizations and within the peer teams.

What is the purpose or intent of jails/prisons?

Four key phrases were consistent across most of the groups’ answers about the purpose of jails and prisons: dehumanize people, slaves, control, and punishment. One group summary stated, “Incarceration is intended to dehumanize or punish people for their actions. … It creates pain and emptiness and essentially destroys the person and their family.” Another group added that jails and prisons exist “to punish those who commit crimes or simply to store those who do not fit in or conform to society. It can be a safe haven for those in poverty. It is also a form of control, to ‘set an example’ and to collect modern-day slaves.” Other participants expressed the view that jails and prisons as places for punishment, that they are also places that diminish people’s value, used to ostracize people, and used to force people to conform to laws while separating incarcerated people from their families and communities.

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What do safe spaces and places look or feel like to you?

The major themes across the groups’ responses were that safe spaces are ones that are familiar, with people who comfort us and are trustworthy. Additionally, participants described places that are calming, filled with natural light, that allow people to express themselves authentically without fear of judgment or reprisal. Participants suggested that these sites should provide opportunities to learn and gain education and skills that will serve individuals, families, and communities. They said that spaces should include courses in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as well as history and social studies to supplement the lack of these classes within the local public schools. They said safe spaces like this should include workshops on how to obtain scholarships for college and travel opportunities, as well as college preparatory classes.

How would you invest $533 million in your community?

Participants emphasized the need for more health and wellness services, educational resources, public spaces for youth, and support for homeless and unstably housed persons. A new building typology emerged, The Mental Health Spa, which was described as a destination where the community could find holistic resources to address trauma and support the healing process.

Mental Health Spas would include alternative medicine and therapy services and provide access to a variety of ways to achieve personal calm for all age groups. Participants also suggested creating more resources for youth such as youth-led community centers in all Detroit neighborhoods to provide a safe place to socialize. Many participants said they wanted to increase access to food and shelter to help to reduce homelessness and food instability. Participants said they wanted their teachers to be paid more, and that the water pipes in their schools should be fixed. They also said they wanted investment in public transit that would allow people to move easily from one part of the city to another.

Summit Team Responses Inspiration Over the course of the workshop, key design themes emerged for the physical spaces that the groups would create. The goals of the spaces would be to nurture creativity, community, and love, while striving for personal and collective innovation. The groups gravitated toward a modern, simple design aesthetic, featuring wood, stone and glass materials to define the space’s look. A neutral color palette with accents of red and direct connections to nature and green spaces would be used to create an overall feeling of calmness and relaxation.

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Creating the Story of the Community Facilitators led the youth participants in creating a collective ‘story of community’ to guide the design process. This story conveys the group’s core values, explains how certain dynamics in the community came to be, charts out how they wish to solve their problems, and what they hope for their community: The improvement and redesign of communities should benefit all ages, youth through seniors. The inequity of resources, including the lack of youth-friendly and educational spaces, causes some members of the community to turn to gun violence to obtain the resources they need. This preventable violence and aggression creates unsafe travel routes for public transit and walking. The community members who are placed in jail or prison are not necessarily to blame for these behaviors as they have had limited options to improve their quality of life.

We can solve our issues as a community by developing opportunities for youth; they need adults who will support and mentor them now and as they continue to grow. Providing programs to obtain jobs and after-school programs and sports activities will keep them off the street. Young people in Detroit have limited options for safe spaces to connect and talk about the issues they face. Protected places will provide the opportunity for them to unite and create a future where they will prosper and uplift themselves and their communities.

24-hour vibrant and spacious community centers with support services that include counseling, self-care areas, and a restorative justice center with expungement services would help to create the comfortable, safe, and loving environment young people are seeking. The centers would act as second homes by providing food and housing, feature lots of natural lighting in the learning hubs, with classrooms, study spaces, and recreation areas that have a direct connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. Community-based businesses, job training opportunities, and jobs at the center would start to decrease criminal activities.

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Spatial Layouts The workshop participants divided into six teams to develop unique site plan layouts. The teams were given colored shapes with defined spatial categories (e.g. plaza, parking lot, housing) to work with, and could also create their own types of spaces. Retail Space was the most used category shown on every plan, making up 25% of all spaces allocated on the site between all the schemes.

The retail spaces used were banking, beauty salon/barber, and grocery store. Community Serving Space was the second most used category at 20%. This included restrooms, social services, community centers, and WiFi. The third most used category at 13% was Open Space, including gathering spaces, green space/garden, and plazas. The fourth most used category was Restorative Justice at 12%. The other five categories were all in the single digits.

Most of the teams filled the entire jail site with activities, uses, and unique places. The ​313 Central teams and ​The Dream Center team spread their activities and uses across both the adult and youth jail sites to create an even larger restorative development.

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Team 1: 313 Central The 313 Central team created a community recreation center to help prevent gun violence and harmful behavior by providing sports teams, clubs for kids, a gym, pool, relaxing space, and counseling. The recreation center will provide people with job opportunities by developing their social skills. The vision for the center is a big open space full of color and lots of natural light.

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Team 2: Dream Center The Dream Center is for youth, adults and senior citizens. This building is designed to resolve inequity, violence, and colorism and provide better resources for students and parents. The center will provide supportive programming, meetings, and conferences to make people aware of issues in the community. The center will provide large vibrant spaces with smaller specialized rooms dedicated to Restorative Justice training and education. Free work and study spaces will be provided for both youth and adults. A self-care center will support community members who lack easy access to healthcare. Performance and entertainment spaces are creative areas that can be part of afterschool and weekend programming. A play area for younger kids is near the aesthetically pleasing commons area with food options.

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Team 3: Community Youth Center The Community Youth Center creates an active community development. One will enter the site at the new gateway to pedestrian pathways that lead you to the central plaza with retail services and a café. Another gathering space is along Gratiot Ave with a technology center and library on either end of the garden.

An educational hub and small performance space connect to the museum. A food court is surrounded by another outdoor gathering space, and a combined recreation and community center with a large performance space.

Social services include a health clinic and small Restorative Justice center.

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Team 4: Unite Detroit Center The Unite Detroit Center is focused on uniting the community around culture, history, and shared values. At the center of the site is the commons area, a green space surrounded by retail, a small grocery store, cultural spaces, and a community center. The commons is easily accessible by new walking paths.

Cars will park on the edge of the site near the health clinic. There will be a small school and library along Clinton Street and retail along Saint Antoine Street.

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Team 5: The Detroit Living Center The Detroit Living Center will provide much needed affordable housing in the downtown area. Between each housing building there will be small scale community retail. Behind the housing will be a garden and play space for the residents. The main public park is next to the residential park. This team added a new street to provide better access to the housing, the large gathering space, and the Restorative Justice Center in the middle of the site. The team placed many activities on the site so the community will want to use the services, shopping, and entertainment spaces.

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Team 6: Restorative Justice Center This team designed a Restorative Justice Center with different specializations, including an expungement center. They have improved the bus stop to resolve the issues of transportation for all age groups. The mental health spa and the garden park space next to it will help community members manage and reduce their traumas. The affordable housing on the site is next to the community center so families have easy access to additional services.

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Summary The youth participants produced an immense amount of insight and ideas in the weeks leading up to the summit and at the workshop. The thoughtfulness and creativity of the summit participants demonstrated that youth have the capacity to be leaders in developing holistic solutions for the city that could benefit and support all community members. Many youth participants expressed feeling an increased sense of self-importance and value to their community.

The participants of the Youth Design Summit repeatedly expressed that they feel as though they are missing the resources and support systems necessary to survive and thrive. A community’s values can be measured by how they mentor, nurture, and educate their children. Over the course of the summit, the 40 youth participants coalesced around a very clear vision for how they can thrive and the resources they need. Those resources include:

● Locations that are dedicated to empowering people and improving the lives of Detroiters.

These include recreation centers and community spaces such as the most popular idea of the day: The Mental Health Spa.

● Afterschool and weekend programming to help keep youth safe and reduce involvement with the criminal legal system.

● Spaces where Detroiters can address their trauma, engage mental health services, and start the process of recovering and healing.

The Detroit Youth Design Summit and this report were made possible by the generosity of the Skillman Foundation.

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Next Steps 1. Disseminate this report along with short videos of the summit.

2. Contact Wayne County officials, Rock Ventures LLC, and Dan Gilbert to propose alternative uses of the $533 million and share the ideas of the Youth Design Summit participants as alternatives to the proposed Criminal Justice Complex.

3. Pilot participatory budgeting programs in collaboration with Detroiters and other Wayne County residents to explore the feasibility of existing ideas while continuing to imagine new alternatives to incarceration.

4. Continue to deepen partnerships with local organizations working to address violence and promote safety, such as Detroit Life is Valuable Everyday (DLIVE), to operationalize various ideas.

5. Expand the Just Cities Lab at the Detroit Justice Center as a permanent incubator for ideas to create a more just Detroit.

Partners We would like to thank the following organizations for their valuable contributions to this endeavor and to the success of the Youth Summit:

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