From the 2005 News Archive

School of Law receives $500,000 Crane Foundation grant to support community justice

The Charles Crane Family Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the University of Maryland School of Law to support community justice work in its Clinical Law Program.

"This grant can be transformative in evaluating and supporting a number of initiatives we're involved in to help end violence," said Dean Karen Rothenberg. "It's a real collaboration across clinics that will look at solving complex problems."

Community justice is a model of violence and crime reduction that seeks to support a community's involvement in trying to repair the harm done by a offense. Community partners work to knit together an array of support services and dispute resolution strategies to address criminal activity -- as an alternative to the traditional criminal justice system. The School of Law plans to develop a community justice center focusing in southwest Baltimore and building on many strong partnerships already in place. A major conference in fall of 2006 will share project results and result in papers disseminating project models.

"The new program is about weaving the fabric of a safe neighborhood," said Professor Brenda Bratton Blom, Director of the Clinical Law Program. "It is about seeing what role legal tools can play in assisting communities to construct a neighborhood where violence is the exception rather than the rule.

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