13THWatch on Vimeo
Documentary · Netflix
13TH
Featuring Co-Executive Director Kyung-Ji Kate Rhee in Ava DuVernay’s Netflix original documentary. Academy Award nominee, Best Documentary Feature.
Center for NuLeadership on Human Justice & HealingFrom
From criminal justiceto Human Justice.
We end mass incarceration by directly resourcing our people and our communities—not prisons, not police.
Who we are
- 2011Inspired by founder Eddie Ellis, we create the Human Justice framework.
- 2012Our vision becomes “from criminal justice to Human Justice.”
- TodayWe invest directly in people, land and community, not prisons or police.
Continued spending on “better jails” or “better policing” does not change community conditions. Improving those conditions is the best way to stop incarceration and recidivism.
“We will never achieve justice if the starting point is criminal.”
The framework
One equation. A radical outcome.
When communities have their rights met and the means to grow, incarceration stops making sense.
Human Rights
We provide Human Rights such as guaranteed income, housing, healthcare, childcare, food, transportation, and all of the things every one of us needs to survive and live well.
Human Development
We provide Human Development opportunities such as land ownership, land stewardship, pathways to home ownership, community-led education and training on history, politics, cooperative business development, and organizing and advocacy.
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Human JusticeMoving from criminal justice to Human Justice is about recognizing that continued spending of resources on systems reform (“better jails” or “better policing”) does not change community conditions. Ultimately, improving community conditions is the best way to stop incarceration and recidivism.
The choice in front of us
Resource the people and places, not the prisons.
$100M
spent surveilling, criminalizing, and incarcerating people in Bed-Stuy, Brownsville and East New York.
From 2000 to 2020. Research informed by NuLeadership’s Seven Neighborhood Study showed the city and state spending millions incarcerating residents from the very same blocks. Each square is one million dollars.
Economic justice is public safety
The block is where it starts. The neighborhood is what we invest in.
For decades, public dollars have policed and incarcerated residents of the same blocks, while the human, institutional, economic and physical infrastructure of those neighborhoods stayed chronically underinvested. We flip that equation. The blocks that cost the most to incarcerate become the first places we build.
- Million Dollar BlocksIt cost $11,839,665 to incarcerate people from 11 blocks.
- Step 1: People’s Bail OutHousing, food, care and court support from day one home.
- Step 2: Guaranteed Income & StabilizationUnconditional income so families can stabilize and plan.
- Step 3: CommuniversityKnowledge and skills for community ownership and cooperative economics.
- Step 4: Community OwnershipHomes, land and businesses owned by the people of Brooklyn.
- Step 5: NuLegacy NeighborhoodsFarming, camping, healing, retreat and housing.
From financing incarceration to building the infrastructure of lasting safety.
People
Sustained income, education, healing and professional development for residents and the families, caregivers and neighbors around them.
Places
Homes repaired and preserved, trusted neighborhood institutions made permanent, and land held in common.
Pathways
Local businesses, cooperative ownership and paid work so residents shape and benefit from their own neighborhood economies.
Human Justice programs
Four ways we resource the people and the places.
Each program turns the Human Justice equation into daily practice — in Brooklyn and on The People’s Land.
- Heal · Land-based healing
NuLegacy
We connect Black, Indigenous, Queer and Trans New Yorkers whose lives have been devastated by incarceration to the regenerative power of nature and land.
- 100+
- system-impacted families introduced to camping, farming and land-based healing
- 20
- acres of “The People’s Land” in Enfield, NY
- Transform · Interrupting the arrest and incarceration cycle
Village Takeback
We engage, train and hire formerly incarcerated people to design and implement community-led public safety and conflict mediation — without police or prosecution.
- 150+
- youth and young adults diverted from the criminal legal system
- 300+
- people given post-bail support: food, housing, rent, care, work
- Build · Building community generational wealth
Village Apprenticeship Program
We invest in the growth of BIPOC-owned small businesses and help them hire from our local community — transforming the employer-employee relationship toward co-ownership.
- 70%
- of the first cohort secured part- or full-time work after a 6-month apprenticeship
- $30,000
- in seed investments to three Black-owned businesses
- Learn · Transforming communities through political education
Communiversity
An inclusive, barrier-free, no-cost learning space for the community — building resilience, agility and leadership rooted in cooperation, not rugged individualism.
- 19
- courses taught, from People’s History to Mutual Aid
- 18
- instructors — organizers, scholars and artists
Wear the work
Human Justice is built, not branded.
Design your tee with the words of Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer and more. About half of every shirt goes straight back into the land, the classroom and the community.
Design your tee
Impact to date
Not reform. Results.
- 150+
- young people diverted from the criminal legal system
- 300+
- people supported home after bail
- 100+
- families reconnected to land
- $1M
- raised for guaranteed income & ownership
Our current campaign
Homes for People and AnimalsRegenerative Farming on The People’s Land
From the Hood to the Woods — building permanent homes, regenerating land, and creating paid opportunities for young people from New York City and the Finger Lakes.
$200,000campaign goal · The People’s Land, Enfield, NY
Permanent homesBuilt by the Village, for land stewards, families and guests on The People’s Land.
Regenerating landRegenerative farming that brings soil, animals and food back to life.
Paid opportunitiesPaid work for young people from New York City and the Finger Lakes.
From the hood to the woods
Walk The People’s LandReconnecting to the land helps us heal from the trauma and atrocities of genocide and slavery.
Watch the films
See Human Justice in action.
Rooted in the land
From the hood to the woods.
Six decades of Human Justice
A lineage that started inside.
From the Black Panther Party to the Green Haven Think Tank to 20 acres of land — follow the line.
- 1960sThe Panther yearsFounder Eddie Ellis joins the Black Panther Party and co-founds the New York City chapter.
- 1970sTargeted, and thinkingEddie is targeted by COINTELPRO and sentenced to 25 years to life.
- 1980sOrganizing from insidePrison construction booms.
- 1990sComing homeEddie comes home and founds the Community Justice Center in Harlem.
- 2000sA think tank of our ownEddie proposes a policy think tank staffed by formerly incarcerated people and receives a $250K grant from Open Society Institute.
- 2010sHuman Justice is namedThe Human Justice Theory of Change launches publicly at 1199 with Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Gus Newport.
- 2020sResourcing the peopleCNHJH raises $1M for guaranteed income, pathways to home and land ownership, and community generational wealth.
Follow the work
@centernuleadershipCenter for NuLeadershipFollow From the land, in real time.
Harvests, classes, builds, and the people making Human Justice real. Follow along on Instagram.
- People’s LandRaised beds going in on the People’s Land.
- ReelInside the greenhouse this season.
- CommuniversityCommuniversity circle: who should education serve?
Hood to the WoodsFrom the Hood to the Woods crew on morning chores.- BuildBuilding the infrastructure, one frame at a time.
- The LandTwenty acres in the Finger Lakes.
- See more on Instagram@centernuleadership
Life in the Village
Harvests, classes, builds — and the people making it real.
Real moments from Communiversity, Village Takeback and The People’s Land.
In the media
