Deanna Van Buren Biography

Deanna Van Buren is the design director and co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) an architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration by building infrastructure that attacks its root causes: poverty racism unequal access to resources and the criminal justice system itself.
Unlike the traditional adversarial and punitive architecture of justice—courthouses prisons and jails—the Oakland-based DJDS creates spaces and buildings for restorative justice rehabilitation and community building. Examples include restorative justice centers which bring offenders and victims together to repair the relationship breach caused by a crime and build pathways to reconciliation; mobile resource centers which deliver economic educational and social resources to under-resourced communities; and re-entry housing for people coming out of incarceration.
Van Buren’s most notable projects include: the Near Westside Peacemaking Center in Syracuse New York; Restore Oakland (opened July 2019) a multi-use hub for restorative justice and workforce development in East Oakland created in collaboration with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United); Pop-Up Village a mobile event that brings a constellation of resources to under-resourced communities; and The Women’s Mobile Refuge Center a mobile overnight space for women who have recently been released from incarceration or are seeking refuge from human trafficking.

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