I do, by the way, think it’s fair to ask how personal relationships between public officials may influence how critical they are. It’s one of the things I admired about Serpas — that his personal acquaintences never influenced his first duty to serve the community, and when necessary, to take disciplinary action against those who weren’t serving with respect and integrity.

Turning Point Partners, now in its fifth year of operation, is confronting major challenges as a result of the changes in its environment caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Its mission had been and remains to develop and establish restorative, strength-based systems in schools, courts, and communities. Inherent in the mission statement is the need to have healthy systems with members healed from the trauma of their daily lives made worse by the natural disasters.
Description:.

The Turning Point Partners’ approach focuses on the talents and gifts of young people and their families to overcome the high-risk conditions under which they live and it draws upon the inherent power of communities to facilitate systemic change. TPP integrates three powerful models –Community Building Circles, Mindful Communication/Nonviolent Communication, and Restorative Justice to design and implement innovative programs that model systemic change.,

Our initiatives:

* Provide training for community leaders and caregivers faced with members who have experienced trauma
* Facilitate alternatives to incarceration initiatives for adjudicated youth
* Develop Victim Impact & Reentry programs for youth offenders. The programs include Victim Impact Panels, Victim Offender Conferencing and Reentry Conferencing
* Offer education and training workshops in Restorative Justice, Restorative Discipline, and Mindful/Non-violent communication for the public, justice systems and all levels of educational institutions
* Sponsor Community Building Circles for public and private agencies
* Promote Defense-Based Victim Advocacy

We are looking at best practices educational and rehabilitative services instead of warehousing many inmates, who, even before the storm, were destined to be released in worse situations than they were in prior to incarceration. In collaboration with the courts, we will be starting a court-based educational program within the next month. Other ideas are being actively discussed and planned.

We meet every two weeks, on Saturdays. Please e-mail me and I will add you to our mailing list.

Cory Turner
coturner1@aol.com

That is the idea of a neighborhood-level Citizen’s Crime Board, to present propsoals to the NOPD for a neighborhood, and then push those proposals through.

Is there anything our local government can do about that? Is there anything we can do about that as citizens?

Kathleen Fischer