Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education
College in prison communicates a simple, transformative idea: people leaving prison have futures we should value and great potential we should encourage and tap. The Vera Institute of Justice launched Unlocking Potential: Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education in 2012. Supported by five national foundations, the demonstration project gave ...
12 New Orleans Neighbors on Ending Money Injustice
Prison in America causes individual, community, and generational pain and deprivation. Built on a system of racist policies and practices that has disproportionately impacted people of color, mass incarceration has decimated communities and families. But the harsh conditions within prisons neither ensure safety behind the walls nor prevent crime an...
The Role of Police in Ending Mass Incarceration
Police in America arrest millions of people each year, and the likelihood that arrest will lead to jail incarceration has increased steadily: for every 100 arrests police officers made in 2016, there were 99 jail admissions, up from 70 jail admissions for every 100 arrests in 1994. Ending mass incarceration and repairing its extensive collateral co...
Meeting Guardianship and Decision Support Needs in New York
In 2005, the Vera Institute of Justice and New York State’s Office of Court Administration initiated The Guardianship Project (TGP) to serve as court-appointed agency guardian to a vulnerable, largely indigent population—elders and persons with disabilities lacking family or other supports—thus enabling them to live as independently as possible. Th...
A Review of the Literature as it Relates to Policing
Police spend an inordinate amount of time responding to 911 calls for service. While most of these calls are unrelated to crimes in progress, police often respond with the tool that is most familiar and expedient to them: enforcement. This exhausts police resources and exposes countless people to avoidable criminal justice system contacts. There i...
Highlights of the 2019 Bail Reform Law
In April 2019, New York passed legislation on bail reform to update a set of state pretrial laws that had remained largely untouched since 1971. The relative lack of fanfare over the passage of New York’s new bail law belies its historic and transformative potential to end mass incarceration at the local level. What exactly comprises New York’s new...
State Financial Aid for Incarcerated Students
Postsecondary education in prison puts people on a path toward a brighter future by disrupting the cycle of poverty and incarceration. But it has not been offered at scale due to the numerous barriers—including the 1994 ban on Pell Grants to people in prison—that prevent students and postsecondary institutions from accessing state and federal fundi...
Stories based on interviews with clients and their families
Global Citizen sat down with Vera’s New Orleans director, Will Snowden, to discuss ending money injustice in New Orleans. The short video that came of that discussion describes how money bail and conviction fines and fees are unnecessary, unlawful, and undermine safety and equity. It points to a better way, set out in Vera’s report, Paid in Full: A...
A Sentinel Events Approach
Suicide is the leading cause of death in jails across the country. At a time when the public is paying closer attention to local jails and their primary role in mass incarceration, it is critical to shine light on the problem of jail suicide and the steps jails can take to prevent future deaths. This report is the second from Vera that frames suici...
A Strategy to End Long-term Restrictive Housing
The practice of restrictive housing—where a person is held in a cell for 22 to 24 hours per day with minimal activity or human interaction—has come under increased scrutiny from researchers, advocates, policymakers, the media, and corrections agencies themselves. Recognizing this, corrections departments around the country have begun exploring ways...
Benefits to business community of postsecondary education for people in prison
Access to postsecondary education for people in prison and Fair Chance Hiring have the power to change individual lives and entire communities. On May 14, 2019, The Bank of America, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Corrections to College California, and the Vera Institute of Justice held a briefing on the importance of and significant benefits ...
A Plan to End Money Injustice in New Orleans
The role that money—in the form of bail, fines and fees—plays in criminal justice systems has come under increased focus. These practices have long plagued New Orleans, driving jail incarceration and costing struggling families—most of them black—millions. Two federal courts recently ruled that judges cannot lawfully impose money bail or enforce co...
Findings and Recommendations to Partner Agencies
After decades of misuse and overuse, the role of solitary confinement in United States jails and prisons is now being addressed. In recent years, this practice—also known as restrictive housing or segregation—has been the subject of increased scrutiny from researchers, advocates, policymakers, media, and the government agencies responsible for peop...