The event is a three-part session that explores objectives developed by community stakeholders that define ways a new justice facility can support a sustainable and resilient Miami community. The Restorative Justice Visioning Event will demonstrate how to pursue objectives that best support sustainable, resilient communities and maximize the potential of individuals.
Restorative Justice Visioning Event Sessions
RJVisioning Part 1: A 2050 Vision (Friday 11/20, 9:45 am – 11:15 am)
RJVisioning Part 2: Goals and Actions (Friday 11/20, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm)
RJVisioning Part 3: Defining Values and Success (Saturday 11/21, 8:00 am – 12:30 pm)
1. What two main outcomes can we expect from the event?
Well Amineh… between you and me, the Visioning Event is a bit of an experiment. But If we can achieve two main outcomes— to define a new Comprehensive Justice Center’s potential impact on civic life and to demonstrate how visioning can facilitate that outcome, I think we can declare it a huge success.
More specifically, we intend to create a forum with representatives from the community, justice system, project leadership, local environmental specialists and restorative justice advocates that provides a safe and inspirational environment for envisioning viable goals for a new Comprehensive Justice Center that will sustainably serve the community and a restorative justice system well into the future; and b) our goal in sharing the event with AAJ conference attendees is to demonstrate an approach to broad and inclusive visioning that effectively shapes facility development.
2. Can you give some background information on how the idea for a Visioning Event evolved and what was involved in its planning?
The Sustainable Justice Committee had a great workshop during last year’s conference in St. Louis. We invited Mary Ann Lazarus, AIA’s Resident Fellow for Sustainability (she’s now our COTE liaison to justice) focusing on “design resiliency” and what it means to justice, social cohesion, individual health, community design and building design—and how we can incorporate these concepts into our sustainable and restorative justice philosophies. Following the workshop, Melissa Farling, a co-Founder of the Committee, and I shared a cab to the airport and brainstormed next steps for the committee to implement resilient concepts and take the sustainable justice advocacy to the next level. By the time we arrived at our departure gates we also arrived at the idea for a mock planning exercise and the Restorative Justice Visioning Event was born.
But it took us several months to find a viable project that would provide a broad foundation for the visioning conversation and bring relationships with leadership in the local justice system. Thanks to Steve Carter, we learned that a new Comprehensive Justice Center was in early stages of planning. We also needed to engage local interest groups and leaders within the community. AIA Miami connected us with Urban Impact Lab (UIL), an interdisciplinary group that cultivates civic innovation and they in turn engaged Miami community groups focused on progressive urban planning. We then added local specialists in resilient design and geographical challenges unique to the Miami area as well as other practitioners and justice specialists to our stakeholder roster.
The next step involved obtaining a grant to fund UIL’s services, finding a venue, and several other logistical details and the AIA and AAJ really stepped up with support and guidance. Adapting the visioning exercise, which is typically experienced in a small group within an intimate full-day working session into short, segmented conference sessions with an instructional format and with a much larger group of people required creative flexibility and innovation. As usual, the planning of an event like this took a lot more time, effort, collaboration, and preparation than anticipated especially as it it started as one thing and blossomed into something much greater. We’re breaking ground to incorporate a unique program like this into the conference curriculum so maybe what we’ve learned will help pave the way for future similar events.
3. A brief bio of yourself and any others who were involved:
The Event is hosted by the AAJ Sustainable Justice Committee, which I’ve chaired for the previous six years (although stay tuned because we are announcing new chairs this year!) I am a justice planner and architect, practicing in San Diego. Several partners in the Committee and the AG and AIA contributed considerable effort and brainpower to the Visioning planning but I want to specifically acknowledge my co-planner, Erica Loynd (also a justice architect with HDR in Seattle), who has been in the trenches with me for the past six months despite a demanding work schedule—we wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without her support.
We are developing an insert for the conference brochure that will present all of the event facilitators and stakeholders who were specifically chosen for their expertise or specialized interest and generously volunteered their time and participation. Most people come to the conference with a pretty good idea of which sessions they’re interested in attending but we’re hoping the detailed flyer will bring additional interest.
4. What discussions do you hope to trigger from the topic that is being presented?
We worked very hard to engage specific stakeholders with broad and diverse perspectives but are also closest to local issues unique to the Miami-Dade County community and justice system, so that we can drill down to a tailored approach to project planning for their new facility. Visioning is supposed to be personal. The process itself is expected to glean information that only those most familiar with the community and the justice system can provide. And then it’s up to us—as planners and architects—to be catalysts of innovation, bridge inspiration and actionable goals and empower communities to not only imagine what’s possible but create it.
We will also use the Sustainable Justice Guidelines as a framework to target restorative goals and help identify specific benefits the CJC can bring to the community and improve delivery of justice:
-
We have engaged Commissioners, Judges, the Clerk of the Court, Court Administration, Public Defender, Department of Corrections and a mental health care provider who are interested in exploring opportunities to increase efficiencies in the justice system and can speak to the context of broader master plan objectives.
-
Community groups include Catalyst Miami, Community Justice Project, Mom's Clean Air Force, Concerned African Women, Children of Inmates, Florida Rights Restoration, Spring Forward, Engage Miami and Power U—a student group. I also invited Shaka Senghor and Matt Haney with DreamCorps (our Friday plenary panelists) and other national restorative justice advocates will participate as stakeholders and bring inspiration from exemplary restorative justice application in other parts of the country.
-
Representatives from local environmental specialists like Sea Level Rise Task Force and an architect with AIA’s Emergency Assistance Task Force have been invited along with a local urban planners to speak to Miami’s coastal vulnerabilities and provide context for resilient solutions in urban development.
