Agency Report

1. Agency Report Delaware Center for Justice

2. Mission • Delaware Center for Justice (DCJ) is a local non-profit organization that deals with preserving justice. DCJ is dedicated to making Delaware a safer place by seeking to achieve and preserve a high quality of justice. DCJ is concerned about justice for victims as well as justice for ex-offenders.

3. Mission Continued • DCJ focuses on issues and actions related to the criminal justice system. These include: conditions of confinement, alternatives to incarceration, reentry initiatives for incarcerated populations, more cost-effective and efficient use of limited corrections resources, legislative reform as it pertains to creating a higher quality of justice, meeting the needs of victims of crime, and crime prevention programs.

4. Demographic Information-Elderly Victims • Older adults are more likely to be emotionally abused by family members such as partners/spouses (twenty-five percent), children/grandchildren (nineteen percent), and other relatives (thirteen percent). • When older adults are physically mistreated fifty-seven percent of the time it is done by partners or spouses, ten percent are children/grandchildren, and nine percent are other relatives. In nineteen percent of elder abuse cases acquaintances are the perpetrators of physical mistreatment.

5. Demographic Information-Prison Reentry Population • There are a disproportionate amount of black and Hispanic people in prison. Blacks and Hispanics also have a higher rate of recidivism than white people do, they are more likely to be rearrested and resentenced to prison. • Most of this population struggles with substance abuse and mental health issues.

6. Demographic Information-At-risk youth • Most at-risk youth come from low-income families which can include children from single parent homes and children in foster care. • Youth from low-income families engage in more risk behaviors in their youth than youth that come from middle-income families, and high-income families.

7. Policies and Procedures • Two important policies that DCJ’s employee handbook addresses is: • Protecting Whistleblowers • Personal relationships in the workplace

8. Structure and Governance

9. Funding • United Way of Delaware • Government Grants • Fundraising

10. Relationship to other agencies • Government Organizations • Community-based Organizations

11. Strengths, Trends, & Challenges-Elderly Victims • One of the trends that the elderly victims’ population faces is that most of the victimization is done by a family member either directly or indirectly. • Elderly victims are usually lonely. • DCJ’s strength in dealing with this population is that they offer one-on-one assistance and empathy to their clients.

12. Strengths, Trends, & Challenges-Reentry Population • One of the big trends for the prison reentry population generational crime. • Charges in New Castle County are predominately drug or weapon related. • This population is often dependent on the system for housing, food, and clothing assistance. • DCJ’s reentry staff is multi-cultural, offer face-to-face assistance, and always follow up with clients who have left the program.

13. Strengths, Trends, & Challenges-At-Risk Youth • It is hard to communicate with this population. • This population is transient. • A strength that DCJ has involving youth is that their programs revolve around youth advocacy. They really rely on the voice of the youth.

14. InternRole • Half of my time at my internship site is spent at the front desk. • The rest of my internship is spent attending meetings, observing case management, learning about the organization, and doing specific assignments that my site supervisor gives to me.