adminOrganization promotes neighborhood accountability boards for Northeast
May 30, 2012
With a tally of more than 40 homicides this year, Kansas City is in need of some conflict resolution.
Recently, the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City awarded a $30,000 grant to the Community Mediation Center (CMC) to provide conflict resolution and training to Kansas City area residents.
“We are just thrilled they (Health Care Foundation) saw the need and stepped up to help us with that,” said Annette Lantz-Simmons, co-director of CMC, based in Independence.
The grant funding will allow CMC to offer its services to more citizens throughout Kansas City, including Northeast, Lantz-Simmons said.
CMC, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, has been operating since 2000 and provides mediation services, facilitation and training to organizations and individuals.
“Our goal is to empower people to solve conflict in their lives, giving them lifelong tools they need to find peaceful solutions,” the CMC website states.
Last year alone, CMC served more than 10,000 people, Lantz-Simmons said.
CMC receives a number of referrals from area schools, police departments and the court system. In addition, they’ve worked with Kansas City’s 3-1-1 Action Center and Kansas City’s Neighborhood and Community Services Department to resolve issues like tenant-landlord disputes and neighborhood issues.
“At least 30 percent of the referrals that come from the Kansas City officers are in the Northeast area,” she said.
Historic Northeast is one area they’re hoping to reach through neighborhood accountability boards. Don Ivans, CMC mediator and co-chair of the Northeast HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Public Safety) Public Safety Committee, has been approaching Northeast neighborhood associations about the possibility of establishing neighborhood accountability boards.
A major focus of accountability boards is providing a “restorative justice process,” Lantz-Simmons said.
“It brings the victim and offender together to resolve the problem,” Ivans said.
Through a proactive discussion, the victim and offender would discuss what happened and how the offender’s actions affected the victim. Together, they would determine a solution to remedy the problem.
CMC would train a group of Northeast residents in each neighborhood to lead the neighborhood accountability boards and the discussion. Issues could range from graffiti to property damage to a neighbor’s barking dog to individuals causing issues in the neighborhood, among others.
A neighborhood accountability board isn’t a court system and doesn’t add to an offender’s criminal record, Lantz-Simmons explained.
Instead, it’s a system that allows neighborhoods to “take responsibility for what goes on in their neighborhood and have the offenders actually see the human consequence of the harm they did,” she said. “It’s very impactful and life changing for kids and adults, too.”
“The track record of the program in other areas has been very successful,” Northeast HELP Executive Director Michael Seward said. “But, it takes a strong commitment from the neighborhoods because it requires training and dedication to see it through.”
One of the entities that’s seen success is the Clay County Juvenile Office.
Clay County uses a similar program geared toward juveniles called a Community Justice Board (CJB).
Since establishing the board in 2008, Clay County has seen a tangible success. Eighty-five to 90 percent of youth recommended for the program complete their restitution and the recidivism rate is only one to two percent, said Bird A majority of the cases involve shoplifting, vandalism and arson.
“This has a serious impact on offenders and keeps them from penetrating deeper into the system,” Bird said. “They (offenders) get to hear the viewpoint of the victim and how their actions affected the victim. A lot of times these kids aren’t thinking how this offense affected other people.”
One juvenile who participated in the program learned how siphoning gasoline from a gas tank affected an entire family. During the process of siphoning, it damaged the gas tank, requiring it to be replaced. It left the family without transportation.
“When a butterfly flaps its wings, it affects the whole universe. We try to give them some more insight into that,” Bird said.
Determining restitution is usually a joint decision between the youth and the board, she said. Agreements can range from community service to letters of apology to counseling, among others.
Whether or not charges are dropped depends on the situation, she said. For some youth who complete the program, their charges are dropped. For others, participating in the CJB is simply another facet of their rehabilitation, she said.
Bird called the process respectful, uplifting and one that parents of the youth appreciate.
“Most parents say they love this because they’re getting the backing from community members. They write about how well the program’s going and how it helped their child,” she said.
For Northeast, neighborhood accountability boards could be geared toward youth and adult offenders, Ivans said. Several neighborhood association presidents are on board with the idea, but implementing the program will require neighborhood participation.
“I think it would be a good thing for the neighborhoods,” Independence Plaza Neighborhood Association President Lee Lambert said of the neighborhood accountability boards. “I think it’s a good idea – it’s just getting people to buy into it that’s the hard part.”
Katie Greer, president of the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association, also voiced support for the neighborhood accountability boards.
“I definitely think it has advantages,” she said. “The reason I would love to see it get started in Northeast is I think people lose sight of the goal when someone does something illegal. The reaction is the police need to arrest them and throw them in jail, and I’m like, ‘What is the goal?’ Is the goal to throw them in jail or is the goal to get them to not do it again?
“I think if we could get people to talk to each other a little more and if the people who were committing the illegal acts could see the effects of their behavior, maybe that would help them see the error of their ways and make them not want to do it again.”
To find out more about neighborhood accountability boards or to make an appointment with a mediator, call CMC at (816) 461-8255.
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