Executive Summary

The Detroit Justice Center is founded on the belief that we cannot lift families out of poverty and build cities that work for everyone without remedying the impacts of mass incarceration. DJC uses a three-pronged community lawyering approach--rooted in defensive and offensive fights for racial justice and economic equity--to serve individual clients, build power, and catalyze systemic solutions.

DJC starts by removing legal barriers like warrants, suspended licenses, and fines that prevent justice-involved individuals from participating in the economy; after identifying their clients’ most pressing needs, DJC advocates for systemic changes to shrink systems of harm. DJC then goes on the offense by providing legal support to community groups that are building solidarity economies and realizing community-led visions for neighborhood development through community land trusts, worker-owned cooperatives, and enterprises led by returning citizens. Finally, DJC introduces and normalizes alternatives to punitive justice by piloting restorative justice, community reinvestment, and narrative shifting programs.

Since opening their doors in 2018, DJC has fast become a national leader in the criminal legal field: they have served more than 8,000 clients, won transformative policy reforms that have impacted millions of Michiganders, and have scaled their work with national trainings on their “Just City” model to build cities not only free of aggressive policing and incarceration, but animated by justice.

DJC envisions a future where society has shifted its abundance away from policing and into true community safety; where affordable housing is the norm; and there is a thriving, solidarity economy and community-driven development.

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