Panelists: shifting from criminal‑legal responses to a public‑health approach requires new tools and provider capacity
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Summary
Panelists at the ICJIA webinar said the criminal‑legal system’s limited tools and gaps in provider readiness are key barriers to moving toward a public‑health model of violence prevention; they recommended trauma‑informed, culturally responsive practices, sustained training and inclusion of people with lived experience.
Avik Das, executive director of the Cook County Justice Advisory Council and member of ICJIA’s ad hoc Violence Prevention Committee, said the statewide plan offers a framework for shifting from a punitive criminal‑legal approach toward a public‑health model but warned of two systemic challenges: the limited tools available within the criminal‑legal system and the need to build health‑care and community provider capacity to serve justice‑impacted people.
“The traditional criminal legal system is a hammer that is often too quick to view the communities it touches … as a nail to drive down with prosecution and incarceration,” Das said. He argued the response should expand available “tools” so systems can “center the well‑being of people as opposed to reacting to crime.”
Dr. Blair Lewis, North Region manager at the Advocate Trauma Recovery Center, described what trauma‑informed, healing‑centered practice looks like in operation: ongoing training rather than one‑off sessions, active inclusion of people with lived experience to bring qualitative context to data, cultural tailoring of interventions to community faith and language, and systems of accountability to ensure strategies are implemented. “You really need to incorporate aspects of the culture of the people that you're serving,” Lewis said, and added that healing‑centered work focuses on strengthening people, not just building resilience: “Healing birth[s] forth joy.”
Panelists recommended concrete steps to make the shift feasible: invest in trauma‑informed training that is continuous, create partnerships between criminal‑legal and health systems so justice‑impacted people can access care, and use mixed methods—focus groups and protected, ethical data systems—to collect actionable data without penalizing communities. Lewis emphasized data systems must be “ethical and secure” because they often contain sensitive information.
Speakers said the plan provides a policy umbrella but that implementation will require workforce development, funding for sustained training and program adaptation, and trusted partnerships with community practitioners who have lived experience.
