Award Abstract # 2228588
CIVIC-PG Track B: Bridging the Rural Justice Gap: Innovating & Scaling Up Civil Access to Justice in Alaska

NSF Org: CNS
Division Of Computer and Network Systems
Recipient: REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Initial Amendment Date: August 19, 2022
Latest Amendment Date: August 19, 2022
Award Number: 2228588
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Sara Kiesler
skiesler@nsf.gov
 (703)292-8643
CNS
 Division Of Computer and Network Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: October 1, 2022
End Date: March 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $50,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $50,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2022 = $50,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Michele Statz (Principal Investigator)
    mstatz@d.umn.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
2221 UNIVERSITY AVE SE STE 100
MINNEAPOLIS
MN  US  55414-3074
(612)624-5599
Sponsor Congressional District: 05
Primary Place of Performance: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
200 OAK ST SE # 224
MINNEAPOLIS
MN  US  55455-2009
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
05
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): KABJZBBJ4B54
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): S&CC: Smart & Connected Commun
Primary Program Source: 01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 042Z, 9102
Program Element Code(s): 033Y00
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

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.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

In the U.S., underfunded rural infrastructure and corresponding inequities in employment, health care, and education put individuals at high risk for civil legal problems. Yet many rural regions have few if any attorneys, and prevailing access to justice supports tend to neglect the complex challenges posed by rurality. The resulting gap between common civil issues like debt collection, domestic violence, and eviction on the one hand, and access to legal assistance on the other, is profoundly consequential to community resilience and quality of life. These consequences are amplified in Alaska, where only 1.13 attorneys are available for every 10,000 Alaskans in poverty, and where addressing the civil legal needs of Alaskans falls almost exclusively on the Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC). In response, ALSC recently developed the community justice worker (CJW) program, which trains individuals already embedded in Alaska's rural communities to provide formal legal advocacy and practice insights. The CJW program thus holds dual promise: It is a replicable, scalable delivery model for rural access to justice, and a catalyst for technological and regulatory innovation that will allow civil legal services to meet unmet need at local and national levels. Though a number of the building blocks are already in place in Alaska, social scientific and policy expertise is now needed to systematically address emergent civic priorities. 

Through Stage 1 CIVIC Innovation funding, in November, 2022 our team traveled to Anchorage and rural and remote regions in Alaska to meet with stakeholders, prospective and current CJWs, and community members; build relationships; and gather insights necessary for scaling up the CJW model in a responsive, culturally- and linguistically representative, and accountable way. In February 2023, we also conducted a workshop with representatives from Indian Legal Aid organizations across the U.S. to further evaluate goals, feasibility, and wise practices for operationalizing the CJW model across a variety of socio-spatial and jurisdictional settings. 

Based on our research findings and design insights from Stage 1, we identified four key civic priorities for the CJW model: 1) Develop formal training, supervising, and credentialing processes for CJWs; 2) Grow best practices for recruiting and retaining CJWs and for workforce development more broadly; 3) Test short- and long-term sustainability models for CJW infrastructure; and 4) Create a framework for evaluation and evidence-based practices. In response, we've proposed a Stage 2 pilot project that leverages research and policy insights, regional expertise, and strong local relationships to develop a hub and spoke model of access that advances a Community Justice Worker Resource Center (hub) and regional anchor institutions (spokes) to effectively close the loop on rural and Indigenous justice gaps.

Intellectual Merit: Our Stage 1 project draws on and augments a broad range of interdisciplinary scholarship on rural poverty, infrastructure, community health, climate change, and identity. To specifically theorize how rurality influences efforts to access and mobilize justice, it opens a novel analytic dialogue between literatures on legal empowerment and legal capability; access to justice; and rural place. Not only does this approach help address the persistent rural neglect of prevailing law and socio-legal scholarship (Pruitt 2014), but it also stretches the usual bounds of analysis by underscoring diverse rural individuals' own expertise and experiences of rural space and civil legal needs. 

Broader Impacts: This project benefits society by directly engaging the expertise and full participation of Indigenous and rural community members; scaling up a proven anti-poverty intervention that provides access to justice for tens of thousands of Alaska Natives and other rural populations in Alaska; contributing to legal empowerment and workforce development in multiple regions; and centering collaborative partnerships across civic agencies, tribal and state governments and academia that in turn will lead to enhanced research, educational and social services infrastructure. 


Last Modified: 04/28/2023
Modified by: Michele L Statz

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