This month, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) released its annual report celebrating their 60-year anniversary and library of work to transform justice systems, end overcriminalization, and reduce mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and people experiencing poverty. Supported by the U.S.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance released a "Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) Compliance Guide" this month to offer support to PIECP certification holders. First instituted in 1979, the PIECP encourages state and local governments to create work opportunities in prisons that aim to place justice-involved individuals in real-world environments that encourage meaningful employment opportunities upon release.
In October, the Council of State Governments Justice Center released “Action Points: Four Steps to Expand Access to Housing for People in the Justice System with Behavioral Health Needs.” According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, affordable housing is scarce nationwide and especially among people who have been involved in the justice system or disproportionately face additional societal or systemic barriers including Black and Latinx communities.
This past November, the Council of State Governments Justice Center in collaboration with the National Police Foundation published “Creating Buy-In: Best Practices for Collaborating with Referral Sources for Crisis Stabilization Units.” Crisis stabilization units (CSU) provide law enforcement officers and mobile crisis teams a safe space to bring individuals during a behavioral health crisis.Buy-in from referral sources, particularly law enforcement agencies, is crucial to ensuring that people are suitably connected to the appropriate CSU.
In September, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention released an analysis conducted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Infant Abductions Program. Often, the most challenging task at hand upon the receipt of a missing child report is identifying the key factors surrounding the case. This crucial assessment of the initial facts will determine what actions the responding law enforcement agency will perform.
This month, the National Institute of Justice released a study conducted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) using the first-ever national sample of bias crime perpetrators collected from the Bias Incidents and Actors Study (BIAS) database.
In accordance with the Crime Victims with Disabilities Awareness Act, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released this month a report on the violent victimization rates of persons with and without disabilities using 2008-2019 National Crime Victimization Survey data. In 2019, the rate of violent victimization to persons with disabilities was nearly four times the rate of persons without disabilities.
This month, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) released a white paper that shares successful international interventions that have been initiated to foster desistance. Since the mid-1990s, there have been regularly sustained research efforts to expand global knowledge of why people stop offending, which have been instrumental for increased awareness of desistance causes. However, a critical gap remains of practical strategies for implementation in crime-prevention practices and sentencing procedures within the criminal justice system.
In August, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention conducted a literature review of national evidence-based research on restorative justice for juveniles. The framework has long been debated on its differences to more traditional interactions with justice-involved individuals. By uniting victims, justice-involved youths, community members, and other key stakeholders, restorative justice programs seek to help youths understand the implications of their actions and offer opportunities for community reconnection and harm reduction.
This year, AEquitas released a guide for preventing and responding to violent crime by enhancing prosecutors’ ability to build safer communities through increased collaboration with community leaders. As key members of the criminal justice system, prosecutors can play an important role in uniting community leaders to create and implement policies, practices, and initiatives for sustainability and the reduction of violence.