The Center for Holistic Defense is a national training resource center located at The Bronx Defenders and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Center provides in-depth technical assistance to defender offices across the country, hosts site visits to The Bronx Defenders, provides training opportunities to interested practitioners, participates in conferences and symposia, and, more generally, seeks to influence public policy around issues of crime, punishment and the provision of indigent defense services.

We are entering our fourth year of providing training and technical assistance to defender offices across the country. Last year we worked with three offices:  the Maryland State Public Defender; The Mecklenberg County Public Defender (Charlotte, NC); and the East Bay Community Law Center (Berkeley, CA). This year we have expanded our efforts and will be working with six new offices in Alabama, Missouri, California, Tennessee, and Georgia.  We have also recently completed a 30-minute, documentary-style educational film about holistic defense.  In addition, we continue to host site visits to The Bronx Defenders for defenders and advocates from all over the country and the world and we speak at many conferences and symposia about holistic defense.

This project was supported by Grant No. 2012-DB-BX-K011 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the SMART Office. Points of view or opinions on this website are those of The Bronx Defenders and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.