CIVIC-PG Track B: Bridging the Rural Justice Gap: Innovating & Scaling Up Civil Access to Justice in Alaska

CIVIC-PG 轨道 B：缩小农村司法差距：创新

• 批准号: 2228588
• 负责人: Michele Statz
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2023-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2228588&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CIVIC; PG; Track; Bridging; Rural

Under-resourced rural infrastructure, including health care, employment, and education, put individuals at a high risk for civil legal problems in the United States. Yet many rural communities have few if any attorneys, and access to justice supports often neglect entrenched barriers for people living in rural areas like distance or inconsistent broadband. Research shows that these "rural legal deserts" leave individuals with unmet civil legal needs like debt collection, domestic violence, and eviction with little chance of achieving a just resolution. The consequences of this are enormous—particularly in Alaska, where only 3.52 legal aid attorneys are available for every 10,000 Alaskans in poverty. A new program in Alaska may offer a model that will address rural justice gaps in a more sustainable and culturally responsive way. In 2020, a community-based justice worker (CJW) program was developed to train community health workers already embedded in Alaska’s rural communities to provide formal legal advocacy, informal assistance, and monitoring across agencies and court systems. The program holds dual promise: it is a replicable delivery model and will provide innovations in technologies and regulation that enable other civil legal services to meet widespread unmet need. The project team seeks the full participation and knowledge of underrepresented groups in STEM fields as well as healthcare and law. The broader impacts of the Stage 1 activities and the vision for the Stage 2 pilot include: 1) scaling up a regional model of rural access to justice; 2) transforming national efforts to address the access to justice crisis; 3) contributing to legal and economic empowerment; and 4) enhancing rural infrastructure via partnerships across civic agencies, tribal and state governments, and academia.The project team includes the Executive Director of Alaska Legal Services, an expert on evidence-based access to justice policy, and a leading researcher in rural access to justice. The researchers will partner with an Advisory Committee comprised of members with regional tribal, state, and institutional perspectives. Stage 1 activities will focus on building relationships and regional knowledge, eliciting additional civic priorities, and ensuring a comprehensive, fast-paced, and actionable plan for the Stage 2 pilot. This will occur via in-person and remote convenings in Anchorage and in three "hub" communities that are access points for hundreds of distinct tribal villages. This project will draw on and contribute to diverse theoretical perspectives on legal empowerment and legal capability, access to justice, and rural places. It will address the persistent "rural neglect" of relevant scholarship and underscore diverse rural individuals’ own expertise in understanding the effects of rural legal deserts. This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track B. Bridging the gap between essential resources and services & community needs—and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

资源不足的农村基础设施，包括医疗保健、就业和教育，使个人在美国面临民事法律问题的高风险。然而，许多农村社区几乎没有律师，而且获得司法支持的机会往往会忽视农村地区人们面临的根深蒂固的障碍，比如距离或不稳定的宽带。研究表明，这些“农村法律沙漠”使个人的民事法律需求得不到满足，如追债、家庭暴力和驱逐，实现公正解决的机会微乎其微。这造成了巨大的后果--尤其是在阿拉斯加，每10,000名阿拉斯加贫困人口中只有3.52名法律援助律师。阿拉斯加的一个新项目可能会提供一个模式，以更可持续和更符合文化的方式解决农村司法差距。2020年，制定了一项基于社区的司法工作者(CJW)计划，以培训已经深入阿拉斯加农村社区的社区卫生工作者，以提供正式的法律宣传、非正式援助以及跨机构和法院系统的监测。该项目具有双重承诺：它是一种可复制的交付模式，将提供技术和监管创新，使其他民事法律服务能够满足广泛的未得到满足的需求。该项目团队寻求STEM领域以及医疗保健和法律领域代表不足的群体的全面参与和知识。第1阶段活动和第2阶段试点设想的更广泛影响包括：1)扩大农村诉诸司法的区域模式；2)转变解决诉诸司法危机的国家努力；3)促进法律和经济赋权；4)通过民间机构、部落和州政府以及学术界的伙伴关系加强农村基础设施。研究人员将与一个咨询委员会合作，该委员会由具有地区、部落、国家和机构观点的成员组成。第一阶段的活动将侧重于建立关系和区域知识，引出更多的公民优先事项，并确保第二阶段试点的全面、快节奏和可操作的计划。这将通过在安克雷奇和三个“枢纽”社区的面对面和远程召集进行，这些社区是数百个不同部落村庄的接入点。该项目将借鉴和促进关于法律赋权和法律能力、诉诸司法和农村地区的不同理论观点。它将解决持续存在的对相关学术的“农村忽视”问题，并强调不同的农村个人在理解农村法律沙漠的影响方面的自己的专业知识。该项目是对公民创新挑战计划的响应-轨道B-弥合基本资源和服务以及社区需求之间的差距-是NSF、国土安全部和能源部的合作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。