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2018-12-04
RTI International;
In 2015, MacArthur Foundation launched the Safety and Justice Challenge—an initiative to tackle over-incarceration, one of America's greatest social problems. The over-use and misuse of jails disproportionately impacts communities of color, people with low-incomes, nonviolent offenders, and those with mental illness. The Challenge supports systems change efforts aimed at safely reducing incarceration and racial and ethnic disparities in jails.
In 2015, the Foundation engaged RTI International to develop an evaluation framework focused on learning. The evaluation of the Safety and Justice Challenge is at the initiative level, thus it does not examine a single program or set of programs but instead seeks to understand how the Safety and Justice Challenge activities contribute to long-lasting and sustainable change within participating jurisdictions' criminal justice systems. Rather than looking at all aspects of the initiative, the evaluation examines the elements that will provide an understanding of what is and isn't working and why and the extent to which efforts are resulting in meaningful change across the multiple jurisdictions and levels of the initiative.
The evaluation design uses quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis techniques and includes activities to measure the outcomes and impact of the initiative. Outcome evaluation activities assess the effects of the Challenge on criminal justice measures within the funded sites relative to a series of comparison sites. Impact evaluation activities document contributions from the Safety and Justice Challenge toward broader national changes in jail populations, increasing public awareness of jail misuse and overuse, and support for systems reform.
2018-08-03
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
This report presents the findings of the Parole Exits and Revocation Knowledge System (PERKS) Project. What follows includes, but is not limited to, a consideration of the following: a) a review of existing prac-tices of states that are using structured revocation decision-making models, b) an assessment of enhanced risk, need, and responsivity tools to consider what personal and social capital or crime desistance variables would improve post-prison decision making by the Board, and c) a summary of suggested modifications of relevant policies and procedures
2018-08-03
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
Nearly one million people are released or supervised under conditions established by state paroling authorities each year. The appointed members of those paroling authorities determine whether and when individuals are released from prison, how they are supervised post-release, and the punishment (including reincarceration) they may face for violating the conditions of their supervision. The power over an individual's liberty exercised by paroling authorities is vast, in some respects as much as sitting felony sentencing judges, more in some jurisdictions. How paroling authorities carry out their responsibilities matters to those sentenced, their families and their victims at the individual case level, as well as in the aggregate through the collective impact these decisions have on the key goals of managing criminal justice system costs, reducing recidivism and increasing public safety.
2018-05-04
Vera Institute of Justice;
The evidence for racial disparities in the criminal justice system is well documented. The disproportionate racial impact of certain laws and policies, as well as biased decision making by justice system actors, leads to higher rates of arrest and incarceration in low-income communities of color. However, there is no evidence that these widely disproportionate rates of criminal justice contact and incarceration are making us safer. This brief presents an overview of the ways in which America's history of racism and oppression continues to manifest in the criminal justice system, and a summary of research demonstrating how the system perpetuates the disparate treatment of black people. The evidence presented here helps account for the hugely disproportionate impact of mass incarceration on millions of black people, their families, and their communities.
2018-05-01
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
The Robina Institute recently completed work with the Kansas Prisoner Review Board to improve and streamline their revocation process by reducing the number of offenders revoked on post-release supervision and reducing the time revoked offenders spend in prison. Dr. Edward Rhine, Assistant Professor Ebony Ruhland, and Dr. Julia Laskorunsky examined multiple decision points in the Kansas system to provide technical assistance and policy recommendation to the Board.
2018-03-28
Rights4Girls;
Both nationally and in the District of Columbia, boys have made up a vast majority of the juvenile justice population. Consequently, research, best practices, system reform efforts, and policies have been primarily based on the male population. In the past two decades, overall rates of youth involvement in the juvenile justice system have declined, yet the share of girls arrested, petitioned to court, placed on probation, and placed out of home has steadily increased. Due in part to a historical inattention to the unique drivers for girls into the juvenile justice system and the specific needs of justice-involved girls, jurisdictions around the country are seeing an increase in the rates of girls' involvement in the juvenile justice system. Over the past decade, Washington, D.C. (D.C.) has seen a significant increase in the share of girls in its juvenile justice system. This brief serves as a starting point to understand what is causing girls' increased contact with D.C.'s juvenile justice system, to highlight distinctions between girls' and boys' involvement in D.C.'s juvenile justice system, and to identify information gaps that must be addressed in order to reduce the number of system-involved girls and ensure that those girls who are already involved are receiving appropriate services and interventions. Major findings: Girls today make up a larger portion of system-involved youth than in previous years. » Over time, the proportion of 13 to 15-year-old girls entering the juvenile justice system has grown at the greatest rate. » Eighty-six percent of arrests of girls in D.C. are for non-violent, non-weapons related offenses. » In D.C., Black girls are significantly overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
2018-03-19
Sentencing Project, The;
For decades, the United States of America has employed mass incarceration as a convenient answer to inconvenient questions. These policies have produced dramatic rates of incarceration, with a particularly disproportionate impact on communities of color. In addition to the range of harmful consequences to people of color, mass incarceration has been a failed policy in regard to public safety outcomes. Research has documented that the effect of imprisonment on crime rates has been modest, and that at current levels the scale of incarceration is well past the point of diminishing returns for public safety. Mass incarceration has diverted resources from prevention and treatment initiatives that could have produced far more effective approaches to crime reduction.In recent years, the U.S. government has addressed some of the glaring racial inequalities that permeate every aspect of its criminal justice system, but these efforts have been relatively modest in scope. The government continues to both foster and perpetuate inequalities in clear violation of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as other international agreements.The proliferation of racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system has a profound impact on the lives of people of color. Behind each statistic lies the face of a young black man or woman whose potential has been cut short by a harsh prison sentence mandated by draconian drug laws. Behind each percentage point lies the face of a Latina child who will only know her parents through hurried, awkward visits in a prison visitation room. Behind each dataset lies a community of color bereft of hope because its young people have been locked away.It is the human face—a face of color—of the racial injustice of the United States criminal justice system that is the most compelling reason for reform. It is time for the United States to take affirmative steps to eliminate the racial disparities in its criminal justice system.
2018-03-13
NYCLU;
Across New York State tens of thousands of New Yorkers are held in city and county jails, not because they have been convicted of a crime, but because they cannot afford to pay for their release while awaiting trial.
The harms of unaffordable cash bail are unequivocal: people lose their jobs, homes and families while detained. People also forfeit their rights to trial when pleading guilty in exchange for release. Yet little has been known about how many people across the state have been locked up because they did not have the means to pay bail, about the charges they faced or how long they were kept in jail.
To better understand the impact of bail practices in New York, in 2015 the New York Civil Liberties Union sent Freedom of Information Law requests to a sample of eight small, medium and large counties across the state asking for five years of data. The information we received offers a stark glimpse into what New Yorkers have had to endure.
2018-03-12
Community Science;
Note: This evaluation is accompanied by an evaluation of the National Campaign for this initiative as well as introduction to the evaluation effort by MacArthur's President, Julia Stasch, and a response to the evaluation from the program team. Access these related materials here: https://www.macfound.org/press/grantee-publications/evaluation-models-change-initiative.
This report summarizes the findings of the Evaluation of the Models for Change Legacy Phase andreviews what has been achieved thus far to create fairer, more effective, and developmentallyappropriate justice systems throughout the United States; documents the progress that has been madein specific goal areas; and assesses current capacity to sustain and grow these efforts in the years ahead.
2018-02-23
Bipartisan Policy Center;
The Bipartisan Policy Center's review of law enforcement agencies in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Denver, and Los Angeles shows that the actual operation of local law enforcement agencies and their work with immigration enforcement agencies is more complex and nuanced than is often reported in the public debate.
2018-02-01
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
Massachusetts' original sentencing commission was formed in 1994, and proposed sentencing guidelines in 1996 that were never adopted by the legislature. Massachusetts re-activated its Sentencing Commission in 2014. Its mandate is to "consult with national scholars, gather data on current sentencing practices, and research best practices across a range of sentencing options." Massachusetts has an indeterminate felony sentencing system in which courts impose both a minimum sentence (which determines parole eligibility) and a maximum sentence. The Commission accepts written comments and held a public hearing in October 2016 order to "formulate recommendations for sentencing policies and practices." Massachusetts was the first state in the country to develop a parole supervision system. The state passed a law authorizing parole in 1837. Under the original legislation, parole officers duties' "included assisting released prisoners in finding jobs and providing them with tools, clothing, and transportation at state expense." The current structure and function of the Board was enacted in 1955.
2018-02-01
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
Sentences imposed in Kentucky are for a specific number of years (i.e. "three years"); referred to as a "fixed" sentence in state statute. Kentucky does not have sentencing guide-lines or a sentencing commission. Parole was first authorized in Kentucky in 1888. In 1900, the Board of Prison Commissioners was granted releasing authority. A full-time parole board was established in 1962 and, most recently, was expanded to nine members in 2010. In 2011, HB 463 (the Offender Accountability Act) passed; as a result, parole release now requires risk and needs assessment, parolees can complete some correctional programming in the community, and many other changes have been made. In 2012, some provisions were modified by HB 54, a bill that allowed the Department of Corrections to set special conditions of parole based on risk assessment. Finally, in 2015, SB 192 modified parole release for some serious heroin offenses and now requires cost calculations for reentry services for those with opiate or other drug addictions.
