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Data Undermines “Tough on Crime” Narratives, Showing the Success of Efforts to Safely Reduce Jail Populations
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 Our work as part of the The Safety and Justice Challenge has been analyzed in new reports from CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG) and the JFA Institute (JFA) to measure the public safety impacts of criminal justice reform strategies before and during the pandemic.
New data released recently from criminal justice researchers at the JFA and the ISLG indicate that efforts to reduce the misuse and overuse of jails have occurred alongside an overall decline in crime rates.
Taken together, these new studies are compelling evidence against those who argue we need to choose between keeping our community safe and transforming our justice system to be more fair, just, and equitable. The research also reinforces the importance of historical trends, rather than year-over-year data; crime continues to be significantly lower now than decades earlier.
Rather than return to policies that caused our mass incarceration crisis and disproportionately harmed communities of color, we must advance a definition of public safety that protects those most harmed by an unjust system and continue to transform our local justice system to be more safe, effective, and fair for all.
This research is supported by the Safety and Justice Challenge, a $252 million national initiative funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to support collaboration among local leaders and communities to reduce over-incarceration and eliminate racial disparities in local criminal justice systems by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. JMI has been a partner in the Safety and Justice Challenge since its inception and is proud to have worked with many of the participating jurisdictions.
You can read these two reports here: http://bit.ly/publicsafetyreport and http://bit.ly/covidandcrime
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CJCC Efforts to Address Hate Crimes
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Efforts are underway nationally to reduce anti-Asian hate crimes, including the recent anti-hate crime legislation signed by President Biden last month directing federal law enforcement to address the increase in violent attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Incidents such as the FedEx and Atlanta-area spa shootings are just the latest in a surge of attacks against Asian Americans across the country over the last year. There has been a 169 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in a study of 16 jurisdictions in the first quarter of 2021, including New York with a 223% increase, a 140% increase in San Francisco, 80% in Los Angeles, and 60% in Boston.
Criminal justice coordinating councils (CJCCs) provide a unique opportunity for local stakeholders to collaborate to address important issues such as an increase in hate incidents. In Los Angeles, the increase in hate incidents has prompted a coordinated effort across systems within the city and county to address the problem, including through their CJCC. (Read more)
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