Freedom Community Center

Missouri | St. Louis

“We have chosen a punitive way because it is the only option we know but when you give folks (survivors/victims, judges, prosecutors, others harmed) involved in the legal system alternatives, people will choose other options.”  - Mike Milton, Executive Director of Freedom Community Center

Organization Description: Freedom Community Center is a Black-led restorative justice organization in North St. Louis devoted to dismantling the policing system, the criminal legal system, and other systems of oppression that inflict trauma on Black communities. By giving adults and young people the space, time, and resources to heal, to address their immediate needs, and to dream of alternative approaches, Freedom Community Center develops solutions to harm that promote public safety, accountability, and compassion. 

Program Description: Freedom Community Center offers a variety of programming and opportunities for young people. Some of their offerings include:  

• Alternatives to Incarceration Process: This program offers bail assistance and wraparound services for people facing pretrial detention and provides an early alternative to carceral systems to intervene in and reduce the harm of the juvenile legal and criminal legal system. 

• Restorative Justice Process: This program uses restorative justice principles to support individuals dealing with harm before or at the beginning of the criminal legal system process. Freedom Community Center provides access to mental health services, financial support, food assistance, counseling, and other necessary supports to help adults and young people heal, repair harm, and find a path toward community-based accountability that promotes true public safety and prevents further harm. 

• CourtWatch: Freedom Community Center also engages in CourtWatch and periodically publishes community observations reports of the criminal legal process (particularly bail hearings). 

• Storytelling: Freedom Community Center collects and provides a platform for stories of liberation and healing from those who survived the violence and pain of the criminal legal system.

Services Offered:  

• Counseling and Mental Health Services
• Court Watch
• Financial Assistance and Cash Stipends
• Food Assistance
• Peer Mediation and Conflict Resolution Training
• Restorative Justice
• Storytelling and Narrative Change
• Youth Activities and Leadership Development

Last Updated July 2026