Sentencing & Corrections

Close to Home seeks to improve reentry outcomes when people return to the community from jail. Program staff will partner with jails, community-corrections agencies, and community-based organizations in two jurisdictions to help them apply a family-focused approach to reentry planning. The project's lessons are expected to be applicable to jurisdictions throughout the country.

Common Justice offers an alternative to the traditional court process for youth charged with felonies such as assault, robbery, and burglary. Project staff bring together people immediately affected by a crime to acknowledge the harm done, address the needs of the harmed party, and agree on sanctions other than incarceration to hold the responsible party accountable. The project, which is based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, seeks to repair harm, break cycles of violence, and decrease the system’s heavy reliance on incarceration. It operates with the generous support of the Blue Ridge Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Viola W. Bernard Foundation, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, the Stoneleigh Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Vera’s Washington DC Office is partnering with four jurisdictions around the country—two states and two large counties—to help them improve oversight of their jails and prisons. The project draws on lessons from the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons regarding the importance of strong oversight of correctional facilities.

The Vera Institute is helping the Ohio Department of Youth Service (ODYS) develop and refine tools to establish and implement a family-oriented approach in its policies and practices. The Family as Partners project is a natural next step, given that ODYS worked with Family Justice to help develop the Juvenile Relational Inquiry Tool (a series of questions that help identify young people’s social supports when they are involved in the juvenile justice system). The partnership will enhance Ohio’s ability to serve young people in its juvenile justice system and their families. It will also advance an approach other jurisdictions can use to work more closely with youth and their social networks. The project is supported by the Public Welfare Foundation.

The Federal Sentencing Reporter was launched more than two decades ago by legal experts and scholars Daniel J. Freed and Marc L. Miller, in collaboration with the Vera Institute of Justice. It is the only academic journal in the United States that focuses on sentencing law, policy, and reform.

Vera’s Washington DC Office is working with the congressionally mandated National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC) to develop standards to detect, prevent, and respond to sexual assault in jails, prisons, lock-ups, and immigration, juvenile, and community-corrections facilities.

Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections (CSC) is working with the New York State Division of Parole to provide supervision officers with additional tools to help people complete conditional releases from prison. The project seeks to improve parole oversight so that fewer people return to prison solely for violating the conditions of their release.

The Ohio Green Prison Project (OGPP) aims to enhance the economic and ecological sustainability of the state’s prisons and provide incarcerated men and women with training that can lead to gainful “green-collar” employment after their release.

Vera's Center on Sentencing and Corrections is working to help Alabama officials meet their goals of reducing the prison population and controlling corrections costs, while ensuring public safety.

The goal of the Reducing Correctional Segregation project is to help the states of Illinois and Maryland decrease the number of prisoners they hold in solitary confinement. The project will adapt methods used to significantly decrease segregated populations in Ohio and Mississippi. The Vera Institute of Justice is collaborating on this project with Dr. James Austin, a leading national expert on incarceration, to work with the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Los Angeles County has asked the Vera Institute to study its criminal justice system, identify inefficiencies, and recommend strategies to make better use of jail space. Vera staff will analyze the county’s jail data, examine policies and processes that affect the jail’s population size, and recommend steps the county can take to alleviate jail overcrowding.

The Family Justice Program’s Reentry Is Relational initiative is training staff at two prisons in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and at their corresponding probation and parole offices, to help incarcerated people draw on their social networks as they transition from prison to parole. By enhancing case management practices at the facilities and promoting more collaboration between prison and parole staff, it seeks to improve reentry outcomes for people coming home from prison. To sustain changes in practices and policies, the initiative also provides these institutions with technical assistance and evaluation support.

Staff from the Center on Sentencing & Corrections (CSC) are working with a Chicago-based nonprofit, Chicago Metropolis 2020 (CM2020), and the independent, bipartisan Criminal Law Edit, Alignment and Reform (CLEAR) Commission, to improve criminal justice policies in Illinois. This is part of ongoing work funded by the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States.