Launched as part of Prison Visiting Week for Vera’s Reimagining Prison initiative, this explainer video focuses on alternative approaches to incarceration in use by countries such as Germany. Comparatively, “tough on crime” practices in the U.S. have been ineffective. We spend $80 billion on incarceration per year, yet more than half the people who ...
A Report of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons
The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons—a national group of civic leaders, corrections administrators, scholars, advocates, police officers, religious community members, and former prisoners—authored this report following a year-long study of jail and prison conditions in the U.S. The Commission, finding high volumes of violence and ...
Through research, mentorship, and hands-on learning, Vera’s Justice Scholars are exploring the criminal justice system—and discovering their own power to change it.
The U.S. criminal justice system is vast and opaque; imagining new ways of doing things—and knowing where to start—can be a daunting task. The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera)’s Justice Scholars program is a paid summer internship for rising high school juniors and seniors interested in the history of policing, prosecution, and corrections. But t ...