On June 10, 1920, several hundred Delawareans met at the old Wilmington High School on Delaware Avenue to enact a bold reform agenda for corrections in the First State: the creation of a detention home for untried prisoners, a separate women’s prison, a satisfactory probation and parole system, and the abolition of the whipping post. The Civil War and slavery were still living memories for some of them, just as lynching and Jim Crow were contemporary realities. As the struggle for civil rights evolved and intensified over the next hundred years, so did the mission and scope of the Prisoners’ Aid Society they founded. 

Today’s Delaware Center for Justice carries on the tradition of strong, non-partisan policy advocacy that’s been in our DNA for over a century, most recently resulting in the historic passage of 11 legal system reform bills in the first half of the 150th Delaware legislature. We’re about to launch our boldest agenda yet. DCJ believes it is our individual and collective responsibility to co-create a community that values equity, transparency, safety, and healing. Compelled by the stories of those impacted by structural injustice, DCJ is re-committing to a vision of justice for all Delawareans like we’ve never known before.