FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

May 22, 2025

Contact:

media@vera.org

NEW YORK, NY – Today, the Vera Institute of Justice, a 64-year-old national justice reform organization, teamed with a coalition of nonprofit and community organizations to file a class-action complaint intended to offer relief to hundreds of impacted organizations.

In addition to Vera, the named plaintiffs—the Center for Children and Youth Justice, Chinese for Affirmative Action d/b/a Stop AAPI Hate, FORCE Detroit, and Health Resources in Action—are asking a federal court to stop the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) from unlawfully terminating these grants that save lives and make communities safer. The coalition is represented by Democracy Forward and Perry Law, and the case is Vera Institute of Justice, et al. v. United States Department of Justice, et al.

In April 2025, OJP abruptly terminated 373 multi-year cooperative agreements and grants awarding $820 million in essential funding for community violence intervention, victim services, and youth and criminal justice reform. Five of these were cooperative agreements awarded to the Vera Institute of Justice. The Department of Justice's stated justification for the funding termination is that Vera and its co-plaintiffs' work “no longer effectuate[s] the program goals or agency priorities.” Vera programs and services endangered by these funding cuts include:

• making prisons across the country safer for both officers and incarcerated people;

• sending trained civilian specialists to behavioral health crises so that police are not the only option in these situations; and

• training police and law enforcement to better serve Deaf survivors of violence.

The lawsuit is challenging these illegal grant terminations on behalf of the people Vera serves who will be harmed by these cuts, including:

• hundreds of corrections staff and incarcerated people in two jurisdictions who will no longer benefit from Vera’s technical assistance to improve prison operations and culture so that safety and dignity are core tenets of their operational approach;

• thousands of Deaf survivors of crime and those with disabilities who will no longer benefit from language access services that make it easier for law enforcement to serve them;

• hundreds of people facing prosecution who will no longer benefit from diversion programs that address the underlying drivers of criminal conduct, like substance use, a lack of employment and housing, and unmet mental health needs; and

• two cities that have lost more than $700,000 in subaward funding to launch or expand their programs to respond to behavioral health crises and to prevent and intervene in gun violence.

“For over sixty years, Vera has worked in partnership with community and government leaders across the entire country—spanning geographic and political lines—to solve some of the most intractable problems in the criminal justice system. We bring the data, evidence, and solutions needed to end mass incarceration and ensure dignity and fairness to everyone touched by the system, including those who work in it. Our goal is for all communities to be safe, healthy, and just,” said Nick Turner, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice. “The arbitrary termination of Vera's federal funding and those of our essential partners and peers, totaling $820 million across 200+ organizations in more than 35 states, undermines the very programs and services that save lives and make communities safer.”

Vera is in this fight not only for our own organization but also for the hundreds of other organizations that have lost critical funding for their work to reduce violence, protect survivors of crime, and keep countless people in communities across the United States safe.

Read the complaint here.