Think Justice Blog
SubscribeThis Mental Health Month and Beyond, Collaboration Helps Police Serve Safely
People with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities are more likely to encounter police than get medical help when they’re in crisis. Lapses in communication—an individual in crisis struggling to understand an officer’s command, an officer misinterpreting that struggle as willful noncompliance and countering more aggressively, exacerbating ...
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Jackson Beck
All Posts
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Peter J. Koutoujian
How a Massachusetts County is Transforming Jail for Young Adults
I believe that a successful criminal justice system is one that, among other things, prepares people who are incarcerated for a successful reentry into the community.
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Megan O'Toole
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Mawia Khogali
Vera’s Policing Program Releases Seventh 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...
For Many, Second Chance Pell Offers a First Chance Opportunity
April marks the start of Community College Month and Second Chance Month. Yet, for many who are incarcerated, access to education has been fraught with obstacles for too long. That may be changing. On April 4 and 5, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) hosted...
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Mahsa Jafarian
Our 10-Year Strategy to End Girls’ Incarceration Nationwide
“In a lot of places, girls are treated very unfairly by systems. Most of the time they end up there because of things that happened to them such as trauma and abuse—things that were not their fault in the first place. We need to end girls' incarceration everyw...
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Elizabeth Swavola
More Progress is Needed to Recognize the Dignity of Incarcerated Women
As this Women’s History Month comes to a close, there are encouraging signs of a growing movement to uplift the dignity of women (including those who identify as LGBT/ GNC) who have come into conflict with the law. In New York, after a decade of tireless advo...
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Christian Henrichson
Incarceration Trends: Complexity and Continuous Improvement
In 2015, we created the Incarceration Trends data tool to fill a critical gap: the lack of a comprehensive resource with historical jails data for every U.S. county. It was around this time that Vera decided to focus on jails as a way of addressing mass incar...
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Lauren Jones
Manafort’s Sentencing Highlights Problems in the Criminal Justice System—But Not In the Way Many Claim
There has been widespread outcry over Paul Manafort’s sentencing. Earlier today, Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to three and a half years in prison for two conspiracy charges. In another case last week, Judge T.S. Ellis III sentenced Manafort—con...
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Lindsay Rosenthal
The Road to Freedom for Cyntoia Brown Was Much Longer Than 15 Years
I recently had the opportunity to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama with board members and staff of the Vera Institute as part of our ongoing effort to address racial equity as an organization. The ...
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Genia Wright
We will Not Settle in Our Pursuit of Racial Equity
“Something is better than nothing.” This is what we say to ourselves when we know the remedy provided is not enough. For many black people, myself included, the celebration of Black History Month falls squarely in this unsatisfying space. I am overwhelmed w...
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William Snowden
“Don’t Steal These”
I’m outside a coffee shop taking a work call on my laptop. I have headphones in my ears and I am wearing a buttoned-up shirt, slacks, and dress shoes. A white lady, also dressed up in business clothes, comes out with lots of to-go boxes and stacks them on a w...
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Nicholas Turner
Acknowledging Black History Requires Uncomfortable Honesty
At the Vera Institute of Justice, we are committed to ending mass incarceration and ensuring equal justice for all. However, achieving these commitments—and ensuring we don’t simply repeat past mistakes—cannot be done without an explicit commitment to ad...
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Rebecca Neusteter
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Mawia Khogali
Vera’s Policing Program Releases Sixth 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 su...
Blog Series
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Dispatches from T.R.U.E. -
Dispatches from W.O.R.T.H. -
Dispatches from Germany -
Addressing the Overuse of Segregation in U.S. Prisons and Jails -
Beyond Innocence -
Breaking Point: New York's Mental Health Crisis -
Gender and Justice in America -
It Takes a Village -
Justice in Katrina's Wake -
My Brother's Keeper -
Police Perspectives: Building Community Trust -
Unlocking Potential: Perspectives on Education in Prison -
Two Societies: The Haunting Relevance of the Kerner Commission’s Report