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Abstract

While many aspects of the criminal legal system have been criticized for the harm judicial institutions inflict on communities, a unique legal initiative is garnering praise from observers across the nation. What started as a local effort to help residents withdraw bench warrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic has blossomed into four independent legal service centers in three separate Midwest metropolitan areas called Tap In Centers. The primary mission of the Centers is the recalling of bench warrants issued when criminal defendants fail to appear for court or pay a fine; however, the needs of the individual and the community guide specific Center services. This Article explores a Tap In Center program that is incrementally restoring justice in communities by examining the unique collaboration that organized the program.

The Article also explores the deep negative impact bench warrants have inflicted on both individuals and neighborhoods. Municipal and other low-level courts have used bench warrants to extract revenue from nonaffluent populations and control racialized residents. The Article views Tap In Centers through a lens of structural violence where courts use bench warrants as a tool of human submission.

This Article further discusses the evolution of the Tap In Center movement and examines how the first center originated from a collaboration of diverse and sometimes antagonistic organizations. What is unique about this initiative is how it began as a partnership between jail administrators and jail abolitionists, between prosecutors and public defenders, and between librarians and community activist. This work of scholarship outlines the seven values that each organization brought to the collaboration and how those seemingly conflicting beliefs evolved into seven organizing principles. These principles are enumerated to aid policymakers planning new criminal justice programs in disinvested communities.

The Article also explores Tap In Centers by examining their limitations and considering how their existence may delay the reform of oppressive criminal legal institutions.

I. Introduction

II. The Tap In Center Model ... A. Responding to Overcrowded Jails, Pandemic, and Racial Reckoning ... B. Bench Warrants Disproportionately Impact Poor and Black Communities ... C. The Tap In Center Model and the Initial Impact of the Center ... D. Tap In Center as Panacea Slowing Meaningful Reform or an Incremental Step in Reducing Community Harm

III. A Blueprint for Collaboration and Sustainable Change ... A. Evolving Values into Organizing Principles ... B. A Community-Led Humanitarian Approach Void of Hierarchy ... C. Restoring Justice Back into Communities with the Power of Saying “Yes” ... D. Client-Centered Representation Meets Safe Community Re-Engagement at a Center for Participatory Justice ... E. Creating and Coordinating a Diverse Professional Network Founded on Trust and Void of Hierarchy

IV. Conclusion

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