Since 1970, there has been a nearly five-fold increase in the number of people in U.S. jails—the approximately 3,000 county or municipality-run detention facilities that primarily hold people arrested but not yet convicted of a crime. Despite recent scrutiny from policymakers and the public, one aspect of this growth has received little attention: ...
Building Trust in a Diverse Nation
According to the 2010 Census, 37% of the U.S. population reported their race and ethnicity as something other than “non-Hispanic White alone.” The numbers of people of color have increased by almost 30% between 2000 and 2010, and by 2060, they will make up nearly 60% of the country. Our country is diversifying rapidly and, despite their best effort...
Developing Quality Postsecondary Education Programs in Prison
With its July 2015 announcement of the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program, the U.S. Department of Education ushered in what could be a new era of expanded opportunities for postsecondary education in our nation’s prisons. The Second Chance Pell Pilot makes students incarcerated in state and federal prisons eligible for need-based financial aid in a l...
While people with disabilities make up nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population, they remain largely invisible to society at large, and victim response systems in particular. And despite growing public awareness of violent victimization, it excludes the victimization of people with disabilities, who are at particular risk of serious violent crime, i...
Vera Institute Eleventh Annual Gala
On Thursday, April 20, 2017, justice reform leaders and supporters joined the Vera Institute of Justice for Vera’s 11th Annual Gala, Reimagine Justice. Honorees discussed approaches to criminal justice reform and the future of the movement in a very different federal climate. Samuel David Flores Murillo, a client of Vera’s recently expanded New Yo...
Vera Institute Eleventh Annual Gala
The Fight of Our Lives
With law and order rhetoric coming from our nation's capitol, we're in the fight of our lives to keep the promise of criminal justice reform alive and strong. From working to keep immigrant families together, to reforming a bail system that criminalizes poverty, to ending the use of solitary confinement and reimagining justice with human dignity a...
An Alternative to Bail
Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly raising concerns about the large number of people being held in jails pretrial across the US. The supervised release program (SR) in NYC is an example of a new approach to handling cases pretrial. SR gives judges the option to release some defendants who would otherwise be detained due to their inabil...
New Trends in State-Level Policing Reform, 2015-2016
The work of law enforcement involves countless and risky low-visibility duties. Over the last three years, however, members of the public have brought increased attention to incidents of police-community conflict, violence, and misconduct, sparked by several high-profile deaths of people of color, many of them unarmed, during seemingly routine poli...
Evidence-Based Opportunities for Reform
Jail in New York City: Evidence-Based Opportunities for Reform examines the key decision points within New York City’s criminal justice system that drive people into the jail. The report uses rich data on case processing, pretrial decision-making, bail decisions, and case disposition to understand how decision makers can impact the size of the jail...
Vera @ Chicago Ideas - Part III
The Vera Institute of Justice teamed up with Chicago Ideas to reenvision the American prison system and imagine a society in which prisons serve as rehabilitation facilities for communities and citizens, rather than as crippling institutions. The conversations combined performance, first-person testimony, and compelling dialogue that looked into no...
Vera @ Chicago Ideas - Part II
The Vera Institute of Justice teamed up with Chicago Ideas to reenvision the American prison system, and imagine a society in which prisons serve as rehabilitation facilities for communities and citizens, rather than as crippling institutions. The conversation combined performance, first-person testimony, and compelling dialogue that all looked int...
Vera @ Chicago Ideas - Part I
The Vera Institute of Justice teamed up with Chicago Ideas to reenvision the American prison system, and imagine a society in which prisons serve as rehabilitation facilities for communities and citizens, rather than as crippling institutions. The event combined performance, first-person testimony, and compelling dialogue that all looked into not o...
March 2017
The Guardian Reporter is the newsletter of The Guardianship Project (TGP), a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice. In this newsletter you will learn about TGP staff and how the project is expanding in New York City. Readers will also learn about issues affecting adult guardianship as a whole, such as Falk’s Law, and the Elder Abus...