Pictured L to R: Yasmine Arrington Brooks, Joanne Archambault, Rhonda Kuykendall, Ron Sorensen, Maya Markovich, Jeremiah Booth, and Christina Miller

Foundation for Improvement of Justice's 2023 Paul H. Chapman Award Winners

ATLANTA, GA, UNITED STATES, October 5, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Increasing access to justice was a recurring theme at the 2023 Foundation for Improvement of Justice’s 37th annual awards banquet. The following winners of this year’s Paul H. Chapman Award were honored for their innovative approaches to improving justice for victims, self-represented litigants, and children impacted by the criminal justice system.

Joanne Archambault, a former sex crimes police sergeant and the Founder of End Violence Against Women International, expanded reporting options for sexual assault victims by creating an online program – SEEK THEN SPEAK. This tool demystifies the police interview by explaining the process and empowering survivors to preview investigative, trauma-informed questions. Survivors use the self-paced program which creates a time stamped PDF report which can be downloaded and sent directly to the police department. The tool preserves their recollections of the assault so it can be used as corroborative evidence. It has increased access for people from communities who may have less trust in the police, therefore enhancing equity for survivors.

Hope for Justice battles the global crisis of human trafficking and modern slavery. They use a four-pillar approach to address the trafficking epidemic: preventing exploitation, rescuing victims, restoring lives, and reforming society. Prevention efforts focus on training people to spot the signs of human trafficking. They use campaigns, social media and their podcast “Let’s Talk About It" to highlight the problem and educate ordinary people. They work closely with law enforcement to help rescue victims and help survivors through tailored support to allow them to rebuild their lives in freedom.

Justice Technology Association’s collaborative work supports and promotes technology to reduce the costs of access to justice for consumers. This mission-based organization brings like-minded entrepreneurs together to make the legal system more accessible, efficient and fair. They do this by creating a centralized justice tech ecosystem, by educating the public on how technology can empower consumers and address the justice gap; and by supporting and clearing roadblocks for justice tech companies to scale positive impact.

Rhonda Kuykendall, an outspoken advocate for child victims of sex trafficking, leads legislative reform efforts on behalf of these children. Rhonda successfully lobbied the Texas legislature to abolish the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse victims. She persisted for more than five years and two legislative sessions to help enact this new law. Rhonda has worked on passing over a half dozen bills which strengthen human trafficking laws and provide resources for child victims.

ScholarCHIPS has a novel approach to reducing the cycle of incarceration by providing access to higher education to young adults who have been impacted by having incarcerated parents. Yasmine Arrington Brooks created ScholarCHIPS while she was a junior in high school. This organization has awarded over $450,000 in college scholarships to young adults with incarcerated parents. The program has expanded to include laptops, continued professional development, mentoring, mental health support, networking, public speaking and advocacy opportunities for the scholars and alumni.

Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation & Technology Lab (LIT Lab) pioneered technology which closes the access to justice gap by creating free, smart, mobile-friendly court forms that walk self-represented litigants through complex legal documents. These forms adapt to the answers provided and offer information in context that explains the choices the litigant can make and the law relating to a specific legal problem. An AI-powered issue spotter identifies the most likely legal issues from a layperson’s description of a legal situation. These forms improve access to justice because they are easy to understand, and they can be filed anywhere, anytime from the convenience of a personal device. Their forms are open source and can be used in multiple states.

The Tucson Family Advocacy Program (TFAP) recognizes and resolves the intersecting issues of legal needs and health care by identifying a wide range of civil legal matters which affect health (insurance, public benefits, advance care planning, disability related matters, and Medicaid issues). TFAP reaches patients who are not accessing legal services elsewhere because of income barriers, disabilities, or lack of information. They train healthcare and legal teams to work collaboratively, and they provide legal assistance to patients. TFAP resolves legal crises such as identifying a loophole where patients were being dropped from the state Medicaid program inadvertently.

Shawn O'Connor
Foundation for Improvement of Justice
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