Addressing Racial Disparities

We seek to document and address racial disparities in the justice system.

The Center for Justice Innovation is committed to studying and reducing racial disparities in the justice system. This effort includes bringing together experts to examine the role that race plays in risk assessment instruments; documenting public perceptions of justice among communities of color; advancing culturally responsive programming for domestic violence survivors and their families; and examining how restorative justice might help reduce the racial impacts of disciplinary measures in schools.

Given that nine out of ten people being held in jail in New York City are Black or Latino, we recognize the urgent need for action on a local level. In response, we are taking active steps to reduce the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on communities of color by helping the city to remove hundreds of thousands of summonses from the criminal process, diverting low-level cases prior to any criminal adjudication, and offering alternatives to incarceration to thousands of defendants every year. We are adapting lessons from this work to aid the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce the use of jail across the United States and the disparate impact of incarceration on people of color. Through Project SAFE, we're also working to improve the services offered justice-involved Black and African-American women who are survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault.

Initiatives

Bronx Community Solutions

Bronx Community Solutions provides community-based alternatives to jail, restores community relationships, and helps participants avoid further criminal justice involvement.
Brooklyn Justice Initiatives

Brooklyn Justice Initiatives seeks to improve how the centralized criminal court in Brooklyn responds to misdemeanor and felony cases.
MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge

The MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge seeks to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails.
Past Price of Justice Work

The Price of Justice Initiative helps jurisdictions address the disparate impact of fines and fees on defendants who cannot afford them.
Project SAFE

Project SAFE works to improve the services offered to criminalized black women who are survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
Rethinking Rikers Island

By providing support to the Independent Commission on Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, we're aiding in the effort to reduce New York City’s jail population and close Rikers Island.

Publications & Digital Media

Video
The Tulsa County Domestic Violence Court - Videos

The Tulsa County Domestic Violence Court in Oklahoma is a criminal court model that handles misdemeanor and felony domestic violence cases and coordinates with family court in an urban setting. Learn from the court and stakeholder team about this specialized domestic violence court and how it tackles offender accountability, working collaboratively, and victim safety.

Aiding Survivors, Addressing Racial Disparities, Gender and Family Justice, Strengthening Families
Audio
Restorative Justice is Racial Justice

by Matt Watkins

Restorative justice is about repairing harm. But for Black Americans, what is there to be restored to? This special episode of New Thinking features a roundtable with eight members of our Restorative Justice in Schools team. They spent three years embedded in five Brooklyn high schools—all five schools are overwhelmingly Black, and all five had some of the highest suspension rates in New York City.

Addressing Racial Disparities, Restorative Justice, Youth Initiatives
Publication
Bail Reform Revisited: The Impact of New York’s Amended Law

by Michael Rempel and Krystal Rodriguez

Our analysis of the revisions passed in April 2020 to New York State’s bail reform projects they will lead to a 16 percent increase in New York City’s pretrial jail population, relative to the effects of the original law. However, even the revised statute makes an estimated 84 percent of cases ineligible for bail. The analysis also weighs factors, including the COVID-19 emergency, that could produce a culture change in pretrial decision-making—in the direction of less, or more, reliance on detention.

Addressing Racial Disparities, Bail Reform

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News

Starting Off Strong: Centering Parent-Child Relationships in Family Court

Family courts have an important role to play in breaking cycles of trauma. The Strong Starts Court Initiative shows how.
Reframe, Redesign, Reinvest: Building Housing Justice After Redlining

An interactive exhibit called “Undesign the Redline” walks participants through the history of systemic racism that has shaped America’s housing landscape while inviting us to imagine our role in designing a better future.
Why Eviction Prevention Is Vital For Justice

As the nationwide shortage of stable, affordable housing has come into sharp relief, an important question is ringing out in cities and neighborhoods across the country: How can we help people stay in the homes they already have?

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