The Family Healing Project uses restorative practices to offer supportive spaces for individuals and families, after incarceration. Evidence shows that strong social support is positively correlated with stable housing and that stable housing greatly reduces the risk of re-arrest amongst formerly incarcerated people. Yet support for people coming home is often narrowly focused on material needs, while heads of households, primarily women of color, shoulder the emotional, psychological, and spiritual challenges for all.
Efforts to reform the justice system—including our own—often tout they're "evidence-based" or "data-driven." But at a moment when a pandemic-era spike in crime seems to have put the reform movement on its heels, New Thinking asks: why do arguments based on data rarely seem to win the day? Christina Greer and John Pfaff—two scholars working at the intersection of data and politics—explain.
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations and institutions to shift to operating remotely, disparities driven by the digital divide became a shared problem across major cross-sector systems important to a community’s well-being. The Health, Housing, and Justice Alliance sought to eliminate inequities of fully virtual legal, healthcare, and social services through the creation of pop-up navigation centers and court hubs throughout Newark, New Jersey.
Many schools have adopted a form of restorative justice, but there are few rigorous evaluations of its effects. Our study of an ambitious project in a handful of New York City schools returned a mixed result: widespread perceptions of an improved school climate, but little movement in our primary metric—the use of suspensions. Should future researchers prioritize outcomes more aligned with restorative justice's overall goals?
Jail populations can be reduced swiftly and humanely—where the political will exists. That is the primary lesson to emerge from our study of New York City’s Early Release Program. Quickly constructed as the pandemic first hit Rikers Island in March 2020, the program helped drive the city's jail population to its lowest level in 75 years. With the curtailment of those efforts, the population has since increased by 60 percent.
Kristina Singleton works on diverting people from court into supportive or educational programming. Among the programs she works with at the Midtown Community Court are Project Reset, which offers those charged with a low-level crime the chance to avoid court and a criminal record by completing community-based programming, and a recently launched youth gun-diversion program for young people who have been arrested on gun possession charges.
The Staten Island Justice Center (SIJC) offers an array of programming for both youth and adults in Staten Island, focusing on engaging those with current or past justice involvement. The Justice Center provides meaningful early diversion, supervised release for people awaiting trial, and alternative sentencing options. In addition, the Justice Center offers a range of programs for local youth and families on Staten Island with a goal to keep young people in school and out of the criminal legal system, while inspiring community safety and healing.
A Coordinated Community Response brings together a diverse group of community partners to develop a shared vision to collectively and consistently address the widespread impact of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and provide multiple pathways to support, healing, and accountability for families.
Our analysis of New York City misdemeanor cases shows the system rarely results in criminal convictions but inflicts "process is punishment" effects as people experience arrest, detention, and daylong waits for brief court appearances. We also found stark racial disparities in who is prosecuted. Following from our findings, we offer statewide legislative recommendations for shrinking misdemeanor prosecution.
The first mental health court in New York City, the Brooklyn Mental Health Court seeks to craft meaningful responses to defendants with mental illness. Addressing both treatment needs and public safety concerns, the court links defendants who have serious and persistent mental illnesses (such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) or Neurodevelopmental disorders (such as Autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, and ADHD) who would ordinarily be jail- or prison-bound to long-term treatment in the community.
