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The Courting Justice Ohio Discussion Guide was developed to encourage dialogue on the nuances of the issues that create the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor and to generate solutions that could be used to drive policy change.

This guide provides insight on what resources are needed to conduct a successful dialogue, a sample agenda, guidelines for discussion facilitators, and video clips from the televised forum with accompanying prompts to generate dialogue.

A template for documenting the dialogue is also included.

Download the guide now.

Further Community Conversations

Throughout the year, ideastream will be partnering with other community organizations and stakeholders involved in criminal justice to get their perspective on the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor. Scroll below for video documents of those conversations. We will post them here as they become available.

Law Students Forum at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

This forum took place Thursday, March 23rd 2017 in the Moot Court Room at Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. More information on this forum and the participants can be found here.

Northeast Ohio Municipal Judges Forum

This forum took place Friday, April 7th 2017 at The Idea Center at Playhouse Square. More information on this forum and the participants can be found here.

Forum at the Centers for Families and Children

This forum took place on Wednesday, April 12th 2017 at the East Office of The Centers for Families and Children. More information on this forum can be found here.

Forum with Stakeholders of the Ohio Tranformation Fund

This forum took place on Monday, May 15th 2017 at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry's Richard Sering Center. More information about the forum and the participants can be found here.

Northeast Ohioans have donated several semi-trucks worth of supplies to aid Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

But now organizers of the aid effort have a big challenge: how to get all those goods to the people who need them. For now, the bottled water, canned food, diapers and other supplies sit on pallets at the IX Center.

This morning Irvin Maldonado oversaw volunteers cataloguing donations and readying them for shipment. By his count, there were about 420 pallets worth of goods.

“We have drivers that have donated their time, their trailers, their trucks, and they’re willing to get it to Miami, to wherever we have to go with it,” Maldonado said. 

Transporting the supplies from Florida to Puerto Rico is a different question. Maldonado said two people from the Cleveland area have traveled to the island to work out the logistics.

In the meantime, Maldonado said he’s looking for help from anyone who can lend it: local leaders, corporations, churches in Puerto Rico, even celebrities with a private plane to spare.

“I wish I could replay phone calls to you that we’ve gotten from there, when they’re able to get a signal,” he said. “It’s nothing nice. You know, they’re crying. You know, ‘we’re starving, there’s no water, there’s no food.’ That breaks our hearts.”

Juan Molina Crespo, the executive director of Hispanic Alliance, said it’s still difficult to reach parts of the island outside the capital, San Juan.

“There’s going to be more of a dialogue in terms of how do we get these commodities from the docks into the municipalities,” Crespo said. “That is starting to happen, but it’s your major cities that are receiving the bulk of the donations now. The interior of the island is still devastated.”

Experts in humanitarian relief recommend giving money, rather than supplies, so that professional aid groups can buy what survivors need most.

Crespo said the Cleveland aid effort will begin emphasizing just that. Local community organizations plan to start fundraising this week with the help of the Cleveland Foundation. The money will go to the Puerto Rico Community Foundation and will be designated for hurrican relief.

“Because some commodities have a shelf life,” he said. “If the stuff starts sitting backlogged, either here on the stateside, or in Puerto Rico, and it’s not getting out, well, there’s a certain amount of damage that’s going to occur.”

As recovery work continues on the island, Crespo said community leaders should take up another project: resettling displaced Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens by birth, in Northeast Ohio.

“I think that we should, with open arms and very assertively, send a message to Puerto Ricans everywhere that Cleveland wants Puerto Ricans to come here,” he said. 

In honor of Black History Month, ideastream is hosting Living Black History at Lake View Cemetery in the Westfield Insurance^TM Studio Theatre located in the Idea Center^® at Playhouse Square. This February, four inspiring lectures will showcase the lives of prominent African-Americans buried at Lake View Cemetery. These programs will engage high school students and the community while developing their appreciation for the African-American experience. Moderated by Dee Perry, the presentations will be held every Wednesday throughout the month of February at 10am. 

This event will be rescheduled: Wednesday, February 7 at 10am: Zelma George — Presented by Anisi Daniels-Smith

Wednesday, February 14 at 10am: Lethia Cousins Fleming ­­— Presented by Vivien Sandlund, Ph.D.

Wednesday, February 21 at 10am: Fannie Lewis — Presented by Megan Altman, Ph.D.

Wednesday, February 28 at 10am: William Otis Walker — Presented by Charlotte Rodabaugh, Ph.D.

Distance Learning Programing: All four programs will be streamed live at ideastream.org/distance. Schools may interact by emailing questions prior to or during each program. Please send questions to John Ramicone at john.ramicone@ideastream.org. Each program will also be recorded and placed on ideastream’s distance learning website at ideastream.org/distance/special-presentations.

Presented by the Lake View Cemetery Foundation in collaboration with Hiram College, the History Center at Western Reserve Historical Society and ideastream. Sponsored by The Tecovas Foundation, Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation and KeyBank Foundation. CMSD Schools Transportation Funded by Lake View Cemetery Foundation.

Needle exchanges, synthetic opioids with devastating power, people cycling through rehab, families in crisis... all of these things speak to the powerful, direct impact the opioid epidemic continues to have on our nation. But addiction doesn’t just affect those who are addicted. Addiction to opioids and heroin is indirectly influencing local government budgets, schools, courts, neighborhoods, and more.

On April 9-13th, an ideastream special series called Opioid Crisis: The Ripple Effect will look at the people and issues indirectly affected by the opioid crisis and make the case that the epidemic’s ripple effects touch many of us.

This public media collaborative series will examine the crisis here in Ohio, but also will feature stories from partners at Oregon Public Broadcasting and WXXI in Rochester, New York.

We’ll compare how these communities are feeling the ripple effects of this national crisis, all while asking the pressing question: why should everyone care?

On Saturday, June 9 at 11am in the Westfield Insurance^TM Studio Theatre, ideastream will participate in the Arts & Humanities Alive! Festival in partnership with Cleveland State University. In its second year, the AHA! Festival will fill downtown Cleveland with a weekend of words, music, dance and art.

As part of the AHA! Festival, ideastream will present Al Letson, host of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. This popular radio program and its award-winning journalists are known for revealing the “story behind the story.” As the host of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, attendees will witness his one-man show. Find out how Letson found himself lying on top of a far-right provocateur, shielding him from violence at a 2017 political protest in Berkeley. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear him present this story, what led to it – both personally and politically – and reveal how similar encounters affect a nation. 

Letson, a playwright, poet and actor, will take festival attendees on a compelling journey through Reveal’s signature journalism. 

Click here to find out more about the AHA! Festival and register today.