LOS ANGELES — A new agency in Los Angeles County called the Justice, Care and Opportunities Department serves as a hub to unify efforts to help those impacted by the justice system.

Under the leadership of Judge Songhai Armstead, the organization looks to provide the missing link for those who she says just need specific resources. They hosted their first annual summit to bring justice-impacted individuals together with county departments, politicians, grassroots organizations and philanthropists in a meeting of the minds to create lasting solutions and new models for justice reform. 

After 20 years in California’s justice system, the largest in the country, Judge Armstead said she saw a significant lack of resources. 

“I would watch people come into the system early,” she said. “They really struggled. And I’m like, ‘This person just needs XYZ.’ I could not find X, Y, Z. Then I would see them a year later [or] I’d see them six months later, [or] I see the next time they come in and I’d watch people completely lose their lives over a period of time when... if they just had X, we could have done something different with their lives. And I’m trying to create the X that I didn’t see.”

One organization at the summit was Creative Acts, founded by Sabra Williams. She started the social justice arts and tech organization that uses VR and the arts to reach inmates in solitary confinement and youth across the LA County Juvenile System.