What's the most effective way to reduce the chance of an arrest in the future? A new study suggests it's shrinking the size of the justice system in the here and now. Boston D.A. Rachael Rollins and the director of NYU's Public Safety Lab, Anna Harvey, talk about the benefits of not prosecuting low-level charges—an almost 60 percent reduction in recidivism—and the challenges, even with data in hand, of bucking the conventional wisdom.
The verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin is a rare instance of police accountability, but we have more work ahead to build anti-racist and community-led alternatives to policing.
Delays in processing criminal cases—long endemic to New York City's courts—drive up jail populations and impose harm on people detained before trial and on crime victims. A recent pilot project we implemented in Brooklyn succeeded in significantly reducing felony case delay. The project offers important lessons for New York's efforts to durably reduce its reliance on incarceration.
Amid a dramatic surge in gun violence across the country, some public officials are blaming the spike in New York City on the state's recent bail reforms. This research brief, bringing together publicly-available data and research, suggests that is unlikely to be the case.
One year into New York State’s sweeping restrictions to the use of bail and pretrial detention, the reform has produced sustained reductions in the reliance on both. But, at least in New York City, the reform’s impact has been significantly diminished—most notably, by an unexpected mid-year spike in bail-setting by judges.
