The Center for Justice Innovation—and our operating programs—are regularly featured in the media. Here is a sampling of the press coverage of our work.
The researchers behind our report on young gun-carriers in Brooklyn, New York—Basaime Spate, Elise White, and Javonte Alexander—walk through their study on Brian Lehrer’s radio show for WNYC. They touch on the themes of vulnerability and trust, central to understanding the reasons young people carry as well as their relationships with police. “This research here really opened the door…to be able to have those conversations, those vulnerable conversations that they wouldn't normally have when they are out on the block because of the hypervigilance that they are always in,” said Spate.
NPR’s WSHU Public Radio gives an overview of Connecticut’s Moving Justice Forward project, a blueprint for meaningful reform we helped create in partnership with the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin and Deputy Chief John Russotto speak about the importance of the work and the many people—judges, prosecutors, and justice-involved people—whose input helped to shape it.
Connecticut Public Radio gives a brief outline of the Moving Justice Forward project, which we helped develop in partnership with Connecticut's Division of Criminal Justice. Alternatives to incarceration, robust training for prosecutors, and concerns about wrongful convictions were among the topics discussed at a July press conference on the initiative—highlighting the urgency of efforts to create a fairer, more effective legal system for all.
Expanding diversion options prior to prosecution is vital to keeping youth and other people out of the legal system and in community-based services. FOX 61 discusses these options with Louis Mattei Jr., one of the community voices behind Moving Justice Forward—our project with the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice to identify areas of improvement within the state’s justice system. This segment gives a preview of the ten-point action plan for reform we helped to create, and features statements from prosecutors and other stakeholders who worked on the project.
The Hartford Courant details the months-long process and mission behind Moving Justice Forward, a collaboration between the Center for Justice Innovation and the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice to improve fairness and efficiency in Connecticut’s justice system. “Transformation comes with reflection and urgency,” said Theron Pride, Managing Director of National Initiatives and Research at the Center. The article touches the goals of the report and draws a connection to other recent efforts to promote a fair and effective legal system in Connecticut.
On Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast, Emily Bazelon discusses our recent report on why young people in Brooklyn, New York, carry guns. In the show’s “cocktail chatter” segment, Bazelon touches on the four types of gun-carriers identified in the study, the pervasive sense of fear that drives some young people towards guns, and other insights from the report.
The first in a series of studies into the roots of gun-carrying in four major cities, our recent report identifies fear as the main reason young people in Brooklyn, New York say they carry a gun. Only by specifically addressing this population’s needs—and building trust with respected community members—can gun violence prevention programs hope to achieve their goals.
“It’s not about being cool or being tough. It’s just more about being safe.” In-depth conversations we had with 103 young gun-carriers in Brooklyn, New York (ages 15 to 24), reveal that they primarily carry guns out of fear. In its daily bulletin, The Trace discusses our new study—entitled “Two Battlefields”: Opps, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture—and explores how its findings tie into other recent research on guns in youth culture.
Amid a spike in violence among youth, a team of researchers from the Center spoke to 100 young people living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, about why they carry guns. Their answers singled out fear—for their own lives and the lives of their loved ones—as the main factor driving their gun-carrying. The New York Daily News quotes one 19-year-old boy who spoke with our researchers in the landmark study: “My biggest fear is somebody coming for me and they can’t get to me, they try to get to my family.”
Gun violence spiked during the pandemic in 2020, making headlines, but little is known about why young people carry guns in the first place. In a new study exclusively previewed by Gothamist, our researchers worked to change that, asking 100 young people from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, why they carry. Hear from the research team about how they gained these young people’s trust, the fear that drives youth towards guns, and what policymakers can learn by listening to young gun-carriers.
