Examining State Spending Trends, 2010 - 2015
From the early 1970s into the new millennium, the U.S. prison population experienced unprecedented growth, which had a direct influence on state budgets. In recent years, however, lawmakers in nearly every state and from across the political spectrum have enacted new laws to reduce prison populations and spending. This report, which builds upon the...
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...
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: ...
More Incarceration Will Not Make Us Safer
For the Record Evidence Brief Series Despite its widespread use, research shows that the effect of incarceration as a deterrent to crime is minimal at best, and has been diminishing for several years. Indeed, increased rates of incarceration have no demonstrated effect on violent crime and in some instances may increase crime. There are more effect...
Responsibly Interpreting Statistics on Violent Crime
For the Record Evidence Brief Series With a few hyper-localized exceptions that require targeted attention, violent crime rates are lower today than they have been at any point over the past four decades. However, this era of public safety has been misrepresented by some media reports and public commentary concluding that violent crime increases in...
An interview with Prof. Andrew Papachristos on using network science to understand neighborhood and gun violence. Prof. Papachristos was at the Vera Institute of Justice as part of the Neil A. Weiner Research Speaker Series. You can learn more about his talk here.
The Growth of Jails in Rural America
America’s 3,283 jails are the “front door” to mass incarceration. But for too long, county jail systems have operated and grown outside of public view. Vera’s Incarceration Trends data tool, launched in 2015, illuminated the growth in local jail populations over the last 40 years. This report and accompanying data visualization explores one of the ...
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...