NYU’s Center for Violence and Recovery Receives $2 Million Department of Justice Grant

New York University’s Center for Violence and Recovery (CVR) has received a five-year, $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a pilot program to implement restorative practices that respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. 

“The Office on Violence Against Women's support is a testament to the groundbreaking work CVR has done over the last two decades,” says Krystal McLeod, CVR’s executive director and a senior research scholar at the center, who is the project’s principal investigator. “I am especially enthusiastic about the potential this has for CVR’s 2030 Vision: our commitment to reimagining the mission and vision of the center over the next six years. Part of this vision includes providing training and technical assistance to communities in all 50 states to build restorative programs that address various harms and crimes—progress that will broaden our national impact.”

The grant, bestowed by the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, is under the Restorative Practices Technical Assistance Pilot Program. NYU is one of three institutions to receive an award under this program. 

The project will also help the recipients identify best practices, create victim-centered and trauma-informed restorative practices, promote culturally relevant restorative practices, and understand a victim’s experience after undergoing a restorative process. 

Founded in 2004 by NYU President Linda G. Mills, the Center on Violence and Recovery is a center grounded in research and practice that has spent the last two decades reimagining our nation’s response to domestic violence treatment. 

CVR has spent the past two decades developing Circles of Peace, the country’s first and only rigorously tested restorative justice program to address domestic violence crimes. The Circles of Peace model has evolved as a best practice for domestic violence treatment, with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victim advocates, and others advocating for this approach. 

Based on the success of the center’s model, CVR is now working with communities in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Oregon to establish restorative justice programs. CVR also recently launched a 13-part webinar series, “So, You Want to Create a Restorative Justice Program,” in partnership with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to inform and assist criminal legal system stakeholders considering the implementation of an restorative justice program.

McLeod, an advocate for utilizing restorative justice to address the root causes of violence in American society, began her tenure at CVR in December 2023. As head of the center, McLeod leads a multidisciplinary team of practitioners, scholars, researchers, social workers, and activists whose aim is to reform the nation’s criminal justice system. 

In 2022, McLeod was one of 15 young transformative leaders to be invited to meet the 14th Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamshala, India. McLeod is also the co-founder of Vanity’s Truth LLC, an organization focused on the well-being and recovery of Black women who have survived and been impacted by violence. 

McLeod holds a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School and a BA in Politics from NYU’s College of Arts and Science. She has also been named as a Dalai Lama Fellow, a Truman Scholar, a Compassionate Leadership Fellow, and a Senior Humanity in Action Fellow.