The sitting Justice of the Peace in Precinct 2, Place 2, has been in the seat for over 35 years. In these years, our community has felt the impact of rising eviction rates, a lack of access to social services, and a continuous struggle to close the school to prison pipeline.
No student should feel silenced within the education system, because truancy intervention programs should be more intentional and focused.
No family should feel like eviction is inevitable, because the judge “just wouldn’t listen.”
No one should feel the burden of entering the court room without a translator, because everyone should be able to self-advocate in the language that feels most comfortable for them.
It’s time to get to work, reinvest in youth, prioritize community resiliency, and bring humanity back into the courtroom.
The current Justice of the Peace system was imagined by King Edward III in the fourteenth century as rural populations began to grow – The position became necessary “to decentralize the administration of justice so as to bring justice to every man in sparsely settled communit[ies].” The goal was to settle the disputes among neighbors and to prevent friction where possible.
In short, it was “to keep the peace.”
