Think Justice Blog

Series: Dispatches from Germany

Can We Learn From Our Past?

There were trees and grass everywhere. The sun was shining. You could hear the wind rustle through the leaves—that’s how quiet it was. There was solemn in the quiet, forcing me to be with my own thoughts.  I wasn’t walking through a park—this was a former Nazi...

A Different Type of Night Court Is Keeping People Out of Jail

In one Arizona county, a new justice initiative allows those with minor offenses to face a judge and resolve outstanding warrants without facing time. It’s also significantly reducing the local jail population.

Finding housing is hard—but for people leaving prison and jail, it’s almost impossible

Too often we have closed the doors that would lead to a better life for a whole segment of our community—people who are formerly-incarcerated. One of these doors is housing. Each year, more than 600,000 people return to society from prison—and 11 million peopl...

Exclusive First Listen: 70 Million, a New Podcast about Justice Reform

As a staff writer at The Atlantic covering criminal justice, I often experienced a mix of fascination, rage, and sheer awe at the levels of dysfunction embedded in the overlapping criminal justice systems in the United States.  In my reporting, I wrote about p...

Why Temperatures In Prisons and Jails Matter

In the past month alone, 41 heat records were set across the country with temperatures as high as 112 degrees. Who is bearing the brunt of this? The 2.2 million people living in over 6,000 jail and prison facilities across the United States. Temperatures insid...

Vera’s Policing Program Releases Fourth Volume of “Emerging Issues in American Policing” Quarterly Digest

Emerging Issues in American Policing is a quarterly digest tailored to practitioners and community members interested in policing. It is designed to elevate new and innovative research on policing practices and strategies by providing readers with succinct sum...

Fewer People are Going Back to Prison—But that Doesn’t Paint the Entire Picture

Fewer people are going back to prison, according to a new study from Pew Trusts.  The number of people sent back to state prison three years after being released dropped by nearly a quarter over a seven-year period. The study, which analyzed short-term and lon...

Series: Dispatches from W.O.R.T.H.

How Young Women are Building Promise in a Connecticut Prison

The sound of laughter must have roused the curiosity of the corrections officers.  One by one they popped their heads around the corner, with a slight smirk or quizzical look on their face, as if they felt like they were missing out and wanted to take part in ...

Series: Gender and Justice in America

Why We Need to End Girls’ Incarceration

When I was 13 years old, skipping school and breaking curfew were two behaviors that I engaged in often.  If anyone would have asked me why I was skipping school and staying out late, I would have told them that I’d been running away from home after arguments ...

American Jail

On Sunday evening, CNN will premiere American Jail, a documentary film by Roger Ross Williams that explores the modern tragedy of mass incarceration from both a very personal and a political angle.  Williams, who grew up in and then fled Easton, PA, a small ci...

Vera’s Policing Program Releases a Special Edition of “Emerging Issues in American Policing” Quarterly Digest

Recent efforts to develop and expand alternatives to enforcement highlight research-informed strategies to more effectively promote public safety and decrease police agencies’ reliance on arrests.

Beyond Money Bail

A sign for Free Me Bail Bonds Connection in New Orleans. Photo: William Widmer for The New York Times. | See, When Bail Feels Less Like Freedom, More Like Extortion.