Think Justice Blog

Give Progress a Chance

Less than one year ago, Louisiana passed a historic Justice Reinvestment Package (JRI), with the goal of finally shedding its infamous title of incarceration capital of the world. With help from the analysis conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew), the bi...

For Mental Health Month, a New Initiative Focused on Serving Safely

In their role as first responders, police officers interact frequently with people with mental illnesses and/or intellectual and developmental disabilities.  It is conservatively estimated that up to 10 percent of calls to police involve persons with a serious...

Common Justice launches new digital series “Ever After: Stories of Violence, Accountability, and Healing”

Common Justice has launched the digital series “Ever After: Stories of Violence, Accountability, and Healing”. This project is a series of short videos with people who have survived or committed violence in order to elevate new and more complete stories about ...

Series: Two Societies

Education: The Key to Equality

In 1968, the Kerner Commission’s landmark report acknowledged that black Americans faced persistent “economic and educational barriers.”  It revealed that, on average, black Americans completed fewer years of education and were twice as likely to be unemployed...

Prison Education Saved My Life and Stopped an Environmental Cycle of Incarceration

Studies have shown that expanding access to postsecondary education for people in prison improves their chances of securing a job upon release.  This in turn decreases the likelihood they will reoffend and equips them to become productive, tax-paying members o...

Reckoning with America’s History of Lynching and Racial Terrorism

As I was weaving through a six-acre field recognizing over 4,500 black people who were lynched and tortured in America from 1877 to 1950, I realized, as a person of color, that I was more indebted to the black Americans that came before me than I ever imagined...

Series: Two Societies

Contemporary Models of Equal Access to Housing

A key area of focus of the Kerner Commission was equal and high quality access to housing.  The authors of the Kerner Report saw clearly how the huge shift in American culture from city dwelling to suburban homeownership left behind many Americans—mostly peopl...

Dignity for All

As I sat in the lobby at the Vera Institute of Justice last November, awaiting my interview for a communications internship, I felt horribly unprepared.  My hair was combed, I had arrived 15 minutes early, and I was even wearing a tie. But there was still one ...

Series: Two Societies

Improving Quality of Justice by Reducing Jail Populations

More than 50 years after the findings of the Kerner Commission were released, its recommendations for justice reform are even more relevant today than they were in 1968. The impact of President Lyndon B. Johnson and other politicians’ repudiation of the commis...

Beyond Second Chance Month

More than 600,000 Americans return home from prison each year across the country to rejoin society with a desire to rebuild their lives.  Yet, too often we close doors to this entire population as they grapple with the challenges that come with reentering thei...

Series: Addressing the Overuse of Segregation in U.S. Prisons and Jails

Non-traditional Allies Reforming Restrictive Housing in Utah

When it comes to restrictive housing (also known as solitary confinement and segregation) there is undeniable evidence of its damaging effects, but no evidence that the practice actually makes prisons safer.  So, it is no surprise that support for greater safe...

Series: Two Societies

50 Years of Police Militarization Against Communities of Color

“Police practices” topped the list of deeply held grievances named by the individuals and communities interviewed to compile the data for the landmark Kerner Commission Report, published in 1968. After protests erupted in 1967 across the country in communities...