Author: Matt Davis

If they go to jail at all, most people in America only do so once. But in communities across the country, there is often a small group of people who account for a large number of jail admissions. They also account for a large portion of total jail expenditures. A new two-year research project sought to better understand this population in three communities and makes policy recommendations from which others can learn. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation funded the study as part of their Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce jail populations.

How Did the Researchers Work and What Did They Find?

The study incorporated quantitative and qualitative methods. Researchers drilled into at least eight years’-worth of data from each of three communities to identify and describe the population of people with frequent jail contact. They also conducted interviews with 27 practitioners across a range of service sectors and 23 people with lived experience. Finally, they used both the quantitative and qualitative data to examine the strategies used by each community participating in the study to reduce jail contact.

The research found people with frequent bookings accounted for about one-half of all the bookings that occurred during the study period. Across communities participating in the study, people with frequent jail contact account for a majority of bookings, but account for a minority of the people booked. People of color and people with behavioral health needs are overrepresented. The study’s findings also emphasize complex interrelationships between race and ethnicity, gender, and behavioral health needs. They point to potential disconnects between the perceived and actual characteristics of people with frequent jail contact.

Different communities used different strategies to aid people with frequent jail contact but most did not have strategies intended for that exclusive purpose. Rather, they implemented strategies intended to aid everyone. All participating communities selected diversion strategies for people with behavioral health conditions as their primary intervention for the study’s focus. And the study found that behavioral health diversion strategies may improve outcomes for people with frequent jail contact. More broadly, the study findings underscore the importance of comprehensive community-based resources to support the success of behavioral health diversion programs. Findings also show the need for strategies that cross many systems and levels of policy and practice.

Policy Recommendations

Based upon the study findings, the researchers have nine policy recommendations:

1. Create a Data Sharing Ecosystem

To meet the complex needs of people with frequent jail contact—especially individuals with behavioral health challenges—criminal legal and behavioral health systems need a common data sharing language and platform. Ideally, the common language and platform would extend to other systems as well, such as social and emergency services.

2. Establish Formal, Jurisdiction-Specific Definitions

Jurisdictions should develop formal definitions or criteria to support the consistent operationalization and identification of people with frequent jail contact. These definitions should drive the development and implementation of related policies.

3. Use Validated Behavioral Health Screening Tools

Consistent with the standards for health services in jails and prisons, universal screening using validated screening tools should take place during the intake process at each door into and away from the criminal legal system.

4. Implement Psychiatric Advanced Directives

Psychiatric advance directives are intended to enable self-determined treatment, and effective and clear communication from a past and competent self, for individuals who are at risk of losing decisional capacity at some point in the future.

5. Facilitate Jail In-Reach Programs

Trust and engagement are key to successful reentry for people with frequent jail contact. Jail in-reach programs allow practitioners to meet with people in the jail before release, assess their needs when back in the community, develop a plan to meet those needs, identify how community providers can assist, and provide coordinated support as people transition into the community.

6. Increase Peer Support Programs

Peer support programs should be a key feature of policies designed to reduce frequent jail contact. While the focus is typically on lived experience with behavioral health systems, people with lived experience of the criminal legal system, specifically, share a common understanding of the challenges and resources necessary for successful reentry.

7. Improve Access to Housing

Affordable housing is scarce in most communities. Providing safe, sustainable, and supportive housing for people involved in the criminal legal system with behavioral health conditions can be a challenge, but it is critical to reducing frequent jail contact.

8. Increase Utilization of Community-Based Services

When possible, people should be given the necessary supports in navigating the continuum of care. In addition to warm handoffs from one service provider or program to another, other examples include a shared video chat with a new provider or engaging peer support services during transitions.

9. Center and Evaluate Efforts for Racial Equity 

Evaluations suggest that efforts to reduce frequent jail contact have had limited success in improving racial equity in this population, likely due to multiple, intersecting factors. Communities should work to mitigate systemic racism through the operations of their criminal legal and behavioral health services for people with frequent jail contact and examine the success of these efforts through formal evaluations.

A new study–“At The Intersection of Probation and Jail Reduction Efforts”–is a building block in understanding how probation, jail, and housing challenges intersect, and how providing transitional housing support can help reduce jail incarceration.

Probation populations have been a major driver of prison and jail incarceration in the United States through arrests for new crimes and technical violations, contributing substantially to mass incarceration. One recent national analysis found that a third of all people in jail were on probation at the time of arrest; 27 percent of the people in jail were there due to technical violations of probation. There are also substantial racial and ethnic disparities in probation sentences and outcomes.

Housing instability is also a major issue for people on probation and a serious factor in criminal-legal involvement, though there is limited research on this topic. One 2018 report found that formerly incarcerated people are nearly ten times more likely to experience homelessness than the general public. The increased risk of criminal-legal involvement, especially incarceration, can be particularly salient among people serving probation, who are required to report and maintain a valid address as a probation condition. Failing to do so can result in jail incarceration.

Our study came about as part of a national effort to lower jail populations. Pima County, Arizona has made reforms to address probation-related drivers of jail incarceration as a community participating in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC). The SJC aims to safely reduce jail populations and eliminate racial inequities in incarceration.

Analysis conducted by Pima County found that, in 2016, over 500 people who had two or more bookings in the county jail in the prior year also lacked a permanent housing address. The county’s various subsequent reforms addressing probation-related drivers of jail included strengthening transitional housing support for people on probation to address the pervasive housing challenges.

The Urban Institute partnered with the Adult Probation Department (APD) in Pima County to study probation-related pathways to jail incarceration and system-level trends in jail incarceration for people on probation. The study also looks at the effects of providing transitional housing support to people on probation, particularly in terms of jail use. Urban analyzed administrative data on people in jail and on probation, conducted interviews and reviewed probation case files for this study. The final research report is accompanied by a research brief focusing on the transitional housing work.

Looking at the Probation Population and Pathways To Jail

The study found that on average, probation sentences in Pima County were between three and four years long. Compared to the county’s overall population, the Hispanic and Black populations were overrepresented among people on probation. Hispanic people accounted for 39 percent of the county population but 43 percent of the probation population, and Black people accounted for 4 percent of the county population but 13 percent of the probation population. Roughly 10 percent of all jail bookings in Pima County were due to probation violations, representing an overall low portion of admissions to jail. However, average length of stay in jail for people with probation violations was 66 days, which is nearly three times as long as that for the pretrial population (25 days) and five times as long as that for the sentenced population (13 days).

Through the study, the research team identified the major ways that people on probation were ending up in jail. First, they can be detained in jail before their probation violation disposition. Second, people on probation can be held in jail as a formal non-revocation sanction, like for example a short-term stay for a failed drug test. Finally, in cases of more serious violations, people on probation can have their probation terminated and be sent to jail for probation revocations or coterminous sentences. The main probation violations resulting in jail stays are commitment of serious, new offenses and/or absconding.

The Effects of Transitional Housing

Between January 2020 and June 2022, 331 people serving probation in Pima County received financial assistance to access transitional housing. The Adult Probation Department prioritized people with higher risk of violating probation and more critical housing needs when making decisions around funding for transitional housing. Accordingly, people who received financial support to access transitional housing were more likely to be charged with a felony at the time of original sentencing, classified as higher risk based on criminogenic risk scores, generally had more formal violation petitions filed against them, were on the Intensive Probation Supervision caseload, and have sentences that entail both incarceration and probation terms.

Based on an analysis of administrative data, the research team found that the odds of jail incarceration upon violating probation conditions were not significantly different for people who received Adult Probation Department funding for transitional housing from those who did not. Yet, it is important to note that these null effects can be due to the small number of people served and limited data available on people who received transitional housing support, given that the program is in its early stages of implementation. Additionally, interviewed stakeholders perceived transitional housing support for people on probation to be a crucial stabilizing force and meaningful to their well-being. For example, they claimed that it helps with securing employment, attending programs such as those related to substance use or financial literacy, opening a bank account, and securing more permanent housing. Based on this multi-faceted definition, multiple housing providers posited a success rate of around 70 percent for their residents who were on probation. Transitional housing can be crucial in providing people immediate (albeit temporary) stability, instilling accountability, and reducing the likelihood of absconding among people experiencing housing instability.

Transitional housing can be a crucial part of a multifaceted approach to providing stability to people serving probation, but it may be insufficient in and of itself. A person receiving transitional housing support while serving probation said: “If I don’t have a place to live, then [probation authorities] would send me back to prison while I was on probation. Your probation officer has to have a place to visit you. Also, [housing provides] protection from the weather. If there was more help, then there would be more success. This should come from APD. The housing providers’ job is to maintain the house and that is already difficult enough for them. APD should be required to help them find jobs; It’s not just about housing, it’s about employment and helping them integrate back into society.”

What’s Next?

If the goal is to reduce incarceration nationally, it is imperative that communities like Pima County continue to build on its efforts to reduce its overall jail population and further constrict the pathways from probation to jail. While its efforts have already reaped significant results – in terms of a smaller overall probation population in recent years, and only a small proportion of the probation population having jail-related outcomes – jail is still one of the main response options for people on probation, particularly individuals experiencing housing challenges or struggling with mental health or substance use issues. This jail use should be further reduced as part of broader efforts to deal with housing, mental health and substance use issues through non-punitive, non-carceral and more rehabilitative means. The county should also address broader, more structural issues such as the dearth of affordable and accessible housing and treatment facilities.

The county’s various jail population reductions, particularly its housing programs, are therefore a step in the right direction. Even though the quantitative assessment did not provide statistically significant evidence of improved outcomes, the qualitative findings show that stakeholders perceived the transitional housing support to be extremely meaningful to the wellbeing of beneficiaries, and it is important to continue developing interventions to tackle this important topic. Moving forward, Pima County and other communities can use this analysis to not only examine but also reduce their jail populations, limit the pathways from probation to jail and strengthen housing support as part of their push towards improved public safety. As the transitional housing program expands, and more data is collected and made available, an impact assessment of the program could provide more robust estimates on its efficacy on probation outcomes.

The last several years have ushered in a seismic shift to Los Angeles County’s criminal justice landscape. Home to the world’s largest jail system, LA County achieved an unprecedented 25 percent decline in its jail population–the largest in the nation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the overall number of people in jail decreased, the percentage of people of color and people with mental health needs behind bars in LA increased. This changing composition mirrored a national trend and illustrated a key lesson: without a parallel effort to promote racial equity and provide safe, community-based care for people who need it, reducing jail populations may actually worsen disparities.

To address this, LA County—a grantee in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge—announced a new vision of “Care First, Jails Last” and deepened its investment in community-based support for vulnerable populations and alternatives to incarceration. LA County also launched the Justice, Care, and Opportunities Department to consolidate most of these efforts under one roof.

As members of the Center for Justice Innovation (The Center) team, we are technical assistance partners in the Safety and Justice Challenge and worked with LA County to expand their alternatives to incarceration with particular emphasis on equity. Inspired by the learnings from this work—and grounded in our long history of launching and operating diversion programs—our West Coast Initiatives team authored a new report. The report offers concrete insights to inform the development of equitable diversion programming around the country. For practitioners seeking to create diversion programs, this document offers advice on designing early alternatives to incarceration, leveraging data to identify and connect with target populations, and working towards racially equitable outcomes.

We collaborated with LA County to launch two initiatives—the Rapid Diversion Program, which is court-based, and the Prefiling Diversion Program, which is based in law enforcement stations. Both programs aim to reduce the use of jail by connecting participants to safe, appropriate, and community-based care.

While successful diversion programs can safely reduce the use of incarceration, special care must be taken to ensure that these programs are carried out in an equitable way. We hope the insights of the report can provide guidance for developing diversion initiatives that bridge the gap between legal systems and communities while caring for vulnerable populations.

The first section of the report offers tips for developing the essential components of an early diversion program. Recommendations include:

• Create infrastructure to divert people at the early stages of a case.
• When determining eligibility criteria, prioritize the client profile over charges. When creating diversion programs, justice partners typically determine charge types to include and exclude in programs. Instead, we suggest program partners determine the profile of people they want to serve—for example, mental health, people with three or more arrests/system contacts, young people, race and ethnic groups that are disproportionately represented, etc.—and let that guide program development.
• Make charge-based exclusions (sex offenses) presumptively instead of categorically ineligible. This means that instead of having categorical exclusions based on what people may be charged with, presume people are eligible for programs and, when someone is facing a presumptively ineligible charge, allow for discussion on a case-by-case basis.
• Even within the same municipality, recognize that each diversion site may operate differently and have a distinct culture.
• Seek out cross-sector collaborations and expertise in the program planning phase.

The opportunity to provide community-based care to people with unmet social service needs can happen at stages that far precede a criminal conviction—any time before a criminal case is adjudicated, and indeed, even before criminal charges are filed. For example, LA’s Prefiling and Rapid Diversion Programs utilize police stations and courts as potential off-ramps from the traditional legal system path.

Both programs pursue a common objective: to expand early interventions for people with unmet needs rather than continued detention or release without any supportive resources. To accomplish this, LA located behavioral health care professionals in the jails and courthouse. For Prefiling Diversion, this meant physically converting unused breathalyzer rooms and offices into spaces for care by placing service navigators in the station. Service navigators find programs and help people enroll in them and understand how to get connected to the program (i.e. when and where to go for intake, whom to call for questions). The Rapid Diversion Program embedded pairs of service navigators and clinicians in courthouses.

Four roles can improve the diversion infrastructure:

• Mental Health Clinician—screens candidates for behavioral health conditions and appropriate level of services for the behavioral health program someone will need.
• Service Navigator—identifies healthcare and social service needs, finds local programs and providers, and connects participants to these organizations and services.
• Case Manager—supports participants one-on-one. Often the main point of contact for program participants, case managers provide referrals for continuing needs, such as education, employment resources, benefits, and housing, and help participants stay engaged in the program.
• Driver—takes participants to their agreed upon destinations, oftentimes directly from the police station or courthouse to appointments, referred services, and future court dates. This is especially important for jurisdictions where transportation equity is a challenge. Although the driver’s primary role is to transport program participants, the driver frequently interacts with program participants and serves as an additional level of support.

Building these roles into any diversion program—and locating these professionals at the booking station or courthouse where possible—can help ensure that people with specialized knowledge connect participants to resources in a coordinated way. Interactions with program staff are also supportive touchpoints, which is made possible by hiring staff who understand the needs of participants and want to help. This includes people with lived experiences (including families impacted by the criminal justice system), previous program graduates, and people with clinical backgrounds. Remaining intentional about including and staffing each role, especially case managers and drivers who interact with participants frequently—can make even the mandatory components of diversion programs motivational.

The second section of the report includes recommendations for using data to promote equitable practices for diversion. The report stresses the need for prioritizing data collection as a critical tool in ensuring equity. Data analysis can help to identify underlying needs and shape the design process prior to program launch. After launch, a consistent flow of data among partners is necessary to sustain the program and gives planners the ability to adjust the program as needed.

Recommendations include:

• Use relevant and detailed data at the planning stage to ensure equity and effectiveness of programming.
• Review program performance data on an ongoing basis to ensure the right people are being served.
• Make data planning a team effort.
• Clarify roles and responsibilities around data management.

When launching a program meant to achieve equity, program planners should learn how to meet the needs of the desired population. Instead of looking at the types of charges to divert, examine who is being charged and any trends that can inform the demographic to serve (e.g. people who are unhoused but arrested for quality of life offenses, or people arrested on a drug offense but who are excluded based on prior drug convictions). Having a better understanding of common issues—not just charges—that people face can radically shape programming.

In addition to using data on the front end of design, the report recommends reviewing program performance data on an ongoing basis to ensure program efficacy and equity. Recurring reviews should include program staff who can speak to participants’ growth in the programs, especially to help the program collaborators understand ways to improve and sustain the program so it continues to have its intended impact.

Many partners in Los Angeles County make the Prefiling and Rapid Diversion Programs possible, including the LA County’s Justice Care, and Opportunities Department,the Offices of the Los Angeles County Public Defender and Alternate Defender, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, and Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the Department of Mental Health, Project 180, and Exodus Recovery, Inc.

Three new policy briefs have major implications for Latinos in the justice system, including in American jails, based on data and research from sites supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. The briefs explore how to better track Latino involvement in criminal justice systems, the role of language accessibility in criminal justice systems, and the value of adopting a nuanced approach to immigration enforcement policies at the local level.

A Review of Data Collection Practices and Systems-Involvement

The first brief, “Exploring Latino/a Representation in Local Criminal Justice Systems,” is a review of data collection practices and systems-involvement in local criminal justice systems, with a focus on Latino/a representation. It examines how local agencies in participating sites capture racial and ethnicity information. It also explores the involvement of Latinos/as in local criminal justice systems, including racial and ethnic disparities at the front door, in pretrial outcomes, and in criminal case outcomes. Its findings shed light on the development of much-needed data-driven reforms to the system to further racial equity.

Today, nearly one in five people in the U.S. self-identify as being of Latino origin. Remarkably, despite the size and diversity of the Latino population in the U.S., we do not know how many Latinos are arrested. That’s because we are still not collecting the data in enough detail.

How Latino and Hispanic ethnicity data is stored in local criminal justice systems is inconsistent and inhibits system-wide understanding of racial and ethnic disparities across local jurisdictions.

Even where fields exist to capture ethnicity information within a database, the data is not always consistently collected for all cases passing through key criminal justice system points. Even where agencies have the capacity to capture Latinos’ ethnicity, low rates of reporting and high proportions of missing data impedes accurate measurement of Latino outcomes.

At the front door to the justice system—arrest and jail booking—Latinos in all four sites—Charleston County, South Carolina; Harris County, Texas; Multnomah County, Oregon; and, Palm Beach County, Florida—make up a smaller proportion of those arrested or booked compared to their countywide population. Conversely, Black and Indigenous individuals were over-represented in arrests and jail bookings, relative to their countywide populations.

Latino and White rates of justice involvement were similar—and in many cases rates of Latino involvement were lower than that of Whites. However, Black individuals—particularly young Black individuals—were subject to substantially elevated rates of arrest, jail booking, and court convictions (and dismissals), demonstrating a considerable concentration of justice system contact for the Black community.

The brief makes several policy recommendations to address these disparities and disproportionalities. They include improving data collection practices, developing a standard set of categories to facilitate clear standards for data sharing and data translation between systems, encouraging regular examination of outcomes by race, ethnicity, and age group, and promoting community engagement and collaboration to identify ways to reflect the Latino/a population more accurately in local justice systems.

Establishing, Implementing, and Maintaining a Language Access Program

The second brief focuses on language accessibility in criminal justice systems, specifically focusing on the SJC. Language barriers can negatively impact legal representation and outcomes for non-English speakers in criminal cases.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires federally funded agencies to provide meaningful access to their programs and activities. This brief surveyed several local criminal justice systems and discovered significant gaps in the availability of language services for those who are LEP despite the provisions of Title VI. The report finds that while organizations and agencies within local criminal justice systems often receive federal funding, and are therefore mandated to provide language services, specific practices and the extent to which services are made available in these systems remains relatively unknown.

Key findings from the report include:

• Data around language needs and services is inconsistently collected. Less than half of respondents reported collecting data on how frequently language services are utilized, and about half reported making efforts to address language access complaints beyond a case-by-case basis (e.g., regular reviews of complaints and outreach to specific language minority groups).

• Despite the existence of bilingual and/or multilingual staff, most are not formally equipped to provide interpretation services. Approximately 94 percent of respondents reported that they have bilingual and/or multilingual employees. However, less than half of these employees are certified translators, and less than half offer pay differentials to employees who use their language skills on the job.

• Translated content is lacking in digital spaces, written materials, and public signage. Less than half of respondents said their official website contains translated content, and less than half reported that public notices are translated into a language other than English. Despite more than half of all respondents reporting that they have translated materials, there are some languages for which no written translation is provided by any of the respondents. 

The report recommends that every individual who meets local criminal justice systems has access to services in their primary language. It makes the following policy recommendations:

• Facilitate the hiring and training of bilingual and/or multilingual staff and interpreters and prioritize pay differentials for staff that are certified to use their language skills on the job.
• Consistently collect and analyze data to better understand the language needs of local populations and assess whether the language capacities of the organization are sufficient to meet the identified language needs.
• Ensure that all written content is translated, or can be quickly translated if needed.

It is important to note that language accessibility in criminal justice systems is not only about providing interpreters. It also involves the ability of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing and those who have cognitive disabilities (e.g., intellectual disability) to communicate effectively with criminal justice system actors. In addition, individuals must be able to understand the legal process and make informed decisions about whether they want an attorney or to represent themselves without being coerced by others.

Immigration Enforcement Policies and Detainer Trends in SJC Sites

The third policy brief outlines the landscape of immigration policies across four SJC sites— Harris County, Texas, Los Angeles County, California, New York City, New York, and Cook County, Illinois—and illustrates how jail populations intersect with immigration enforcement policy.

Key findings include:

• Specific attention on immigration is required to address racial inequities in local justice systems. The findings indicate that pursuing policies designed to lower jail incarceration and improve racial equity do not by default include an assessment of how immigration policies impact the system involvement of Latinos/as and undocumented persons.

• Jurisdictions restrict and permit collaboration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to varying and inconsistent degrees. While 70 percent of sites enacted limitations on some type of immigration enforcement cooperation, nearly 78 percent of jurisdictions lack a formal policy on ICE detention contracts; the absence of clear policy may permit further collaboration.
• A majority of jurisdictions lack formal policies regarding the use of state and local resources to enforce federal immigration law. The majority of sites have no formal policy. However, 18 percent of sites restrict the use of funds for immigration enforcement, while 6 percent of sites expressly permit the use of local resources.

The brief includes policy recommendations for SJC sites:

• Restrict the use of state and local resources to execute policies that enforce federal immigration law and contribute to racial disparities.
• Limit local data sharing and collaboration with ICE.
• Limit the outsourcing of local jail beds for immigration detention purposes.
• Identify how local immigration policies are impacting the system involvement of Latino/as and undocumented populations

Nuanced criminal justice reform is needed around immigration policies at the local level. Future research should examine the intersection of immigration policies and the policing of Latino communities to offer insight into the treatment and justice system outcomes of Latinos/as and undocumented immigrants.

Collectively, I hope these three policy briefs will form the basis for deepening the national conversation about racial equity in the criminal justice system—particularly through a Latino/a lens.

It has been three years since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Mr. Floyd’s murder energized an international movement for racial justice with many pledging to change the role of law enforcement and more.

But what has changed? We asked individuals involved with the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) to reflect on the landscape for criminal justice reform.

Chandra Tyler, Safety and Justice Challenge Equity Inclusion Consultant for Mecklenburg County

As we approach the three-year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal death, I sit in deep reflection with both heaviness and hope. The devastating tragedy on May 25, 2020, which ignited an enormous blaze of protests, policy changes and social movements, appeared to be the long overdue awakening that so many fought and prayed for. Fast-forward to present day. America’s sense of urgency and progressive efforts has slowly lost its fire.

“It feels more like a Superbowl commercial. It came and it went,” Gemini Boyd, a member of the Mecklenburg County Community Engagement Task Group recently told me.

Though disappointing, these are the moments that remind us why we continue this race. Mecklenburg County Criminal Justice Community Engagement Task Group is just getting started. With intentionality and vision, we are mending the relationships between community and systems, pouring into our youth, and identifying gaps and resources needed to build a viable, sustainable, and equitable greater Mecklenburg County community. Through our 3 E’s: Engagement, Education, and Empowerment, our mission is to lead with collaboration and improve policy and practice changes in the criminal justice system. In honor of George Floyd and countless others, we press on. The marathon continues!

Wilford Pinkney Jr., Director of the Office of Violence Prevention at the City of St. Louis

The murder of George Floyd was a catalyzing moment. It created a window of opportunity, but sustaining the momentum is the challenge. The key to sustaining reform is collaboration, a comprehensive approach and sustainable infrastructure.

Since 2020, St. Louis has enacted numerous policies related to reimagining public safety. We did not have to look far for solutions. Numerous reports were published in the last nine years that created a comprehensive picture and outline for a strategic focus. The reports promoted collaboration and pointed to the need for a comprehensive approach to address existing inequities in order to create safe and healthy communities. The challenge was not ideas; it was action. Collaborations were created in 2020 that started the process of better aligning resources and redesigning systems, structures, and policies. We started building the infrastructure for a new system of public safety.

In 2021 Tishaura Jones was elected mayor on a platform of using national models of public safety and rejecting the false choice between being “tough” on crime and addressing the root causes of violence. This approach garnered support from diverse stakeholders ranging from the elected leaders and community organizations to residents in the cities most impacted neighborhoods. Under Mayor Jones’ leadership the Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) was created by ordinance and seeded with ten million dollars which ensures it is a permanent part of the city’s government structure.

The mayor’s comprehensive approach to public safety also includes policies aimed at designing safer streets, offering down payment assistance and guaranteed basic income to low-income residents, and year-round jobs for youth. St. Louis has the model for sustaining reform, a committed chief executive, a strategic focus, support from a diverse group of stakeholders, and sustainable strategies.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons, Founder and Executive Director of Why Not Prosper, Inc.

George Floyd’s death brought people’s awareness of racism back to life. People have a new lens on since it happened, and it’s still an intense change in how we are all looking at the world. There needs to be a differentiation between the understanding of racism and this focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, though, because it’s different. The city of Philadelphia has done a lot to intentionally focus on DEI. And funding has shifted because of it. But there does need to be that deep commitment to focusing on racism.

In Philadelphia, specifically, the advocates and the organizers are taking no stuff. We’ve got commissions for jail, the police, parole, the prisons, and probation. Because the funding is there and people are sick and tired of the historical racism, all those things are coming together. And you can’t miss out on the anti-violence work either. People are more aware of things now. I feel our justice partners are coming around. They’re used to the same old systems. But they’re starting to pull back the curtain on racism and realize how they can change things. They’re just beginning to pull the curtain apart and say, “Now let me see what this is about, and how I might help.”

Lisa Varon, Deputy Director of the Office of Criminal Justice at the City of Philadelphia

In the three years since the murder of George Floyd, there has been a shift to focus on community strength instead of community suffering. In Philadelphia, an innovative sustainability plan is in place to bring in more meaningful community involvement and to continuously engage justice stakeholders in actionable reform efforts. To date, the city of Philadelphia has made an annual commitment north of two million dollars in the General Fund to support a wide range of initiatives and related personnel, that supplement the series of investments made through SJC. This work has three major components: experiential learning opportunities for criminal legal system stakeholders, several capstone-focused workgroups (all with a racial equity focus), and the eventual merging with the county Community Justice Advisory Board (CJAB). 

The experiential learning opportunities are an imaginative way of breaking down some of the silos that exist in the various criminal legal systems sectors. The learning opportunities look like robust pieces of training in racial equity and implementing reforms, site visits to local community-based organizations, and chances to explore the criminal legal system by learning how people travel through the legal system and identifying where people are most likely to get caught up in the system. 

As previously mentioned, sustainability efforts in Philadelphia have already begun. There are five SJC-focused workgroups that are continuing to propel this work forward: jail reduction strategy, data, community engagement/ racial and ethnic disparities, pretrial, and the common pleas case processing workgroups. All these groups have two things in common: dedication to the sustainability of promising practices and a commitment to have racial equity built into the reforms the groups hope to produce.  

Lastly, when we think of how far we have come in criminal legal system reform in the three years since the death of George Floyd, the most important thing to do is look forward. The work of the SJC will only be ending in name in Philadelphia. Strategic workgroups will continue to convene through the Philadelphia CJAB with the expectation that they will produce actionable recommendations for change in the local system. In addition, we are maintaining our commitment to bring the necessary City resources to sustain these efforts and outcomes as a long-term investment strategy in our community.