The Association for Conflict Resolution
of Greater New York
and
The CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College
Monthly
NYC-DR Roundtable Breakfast
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
Urban Complexities, Race and Police Community Relations
Reinaldo Riviera, Jr.
National Program Manager
US Department of Justice
Community Relations Service
Caring about neighborhoods and communities requires respect for human dignity, commitment and dedication. Doing ‘business as usual’, simply will not do.
This presentation will invite us into a conversation about police-community relations in the multi-layered context of race, color and the working poor in an urban setting. This context for change occurs when community engagement and empowerment are seen as both guiding principles for progressive action and foundational cornerstones. The other two cornerstones for sustainable change are police-community dynamics and institutional accountability.
The presentation will highlight the strategic goals, design and implementation of a unique collaboration by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the United States Department of Justice.
Reinaldo Rivera, Jr. is the National Program Manager of the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS). The Community Relations Service, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, is the federal government’s “peacemaker” for community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Mr. Rivera was appointed National Program Manager in 2014. Prior to that he served as Regional Director of the Northeast/Caribbean Region of CRS.
With more than 46 years of public service leadership in dispute resolution, mediation, and peacemaking, Mr. Rivera is dedicated to crisis management work in multi-cultural contexts. Prior to joining CRS, Mr. Rivera served for more than ten as a senior faculty member in the Antioch University Graduate Program in Cambridge, MA. He has also served as the Coalition Resource Advisor to fight the harms of substance abuse in cities for Join Together, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, at the Boston University School of Public Health. Mr. Rivera has been recognized for Outstanding Leadership and Public Service, by the Lincoln-Filene Center, at Tufts University, Medford, MA. Mr. Rivera holds advanced degrees in Social Policy from Harvard University and a B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology from Middlebury College in Vermont.
