The healing spaces of Creative Justice

This community arts organization gets young people involved with social-justice themed art — and out of the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Creative Justice: An alternative to incarceration that inspires and empowers social justice.

Homelessness, gentrification, poverty, drugs — these are a few of the heavy issues youth tackled head-on through photography and poetry at a recent pop-up art exhibit produced by Creative Justice. The result is a personal, raw look at a side of Seattle rarely seen or promoted in the mainstream media.

Creative Justice opens an alternate path.

“Courts are an adverse childhood experience,” says Judge Wesley Saint Clair, Chief Juvenile Judge of the King County Superior Court. “The more community-based options we can have, the less kids are impacted by things courts do to them.”

Creative Justice, A New Public Art Program, Offers Alternatives to Jail for King County Youth

"We’re hoping to change the direction of our justice system both locally and nationally," Aaron Counts told me. Counts is Creative Justice's Lead Artist. For years, he's been a writer, educator, and counselor in Seattle, "but my heart is really with those young folks that are experiencing the most oppression in our schools and our legal systems."

Poetic justice

“Sky so high, I can lift you up, Together we can get there.”

These lyrics are to a song that won’t appear on top 40 radio, though their quality may suggest otherwise. It’s a track with a lot more gravitas than the latest Drake hit, with stories recounting struggle and opportunity over a bass-heavy beat.

Twelve of King County’s youth wrote and produced the tune at the 2312 Gallery in Belltown. They met every Tuesday and Thursday for 12 weeks to create music, poetry and visual arts.