Defining the Legacy and Ongoing Impact of the Safety and Justice Challenge
By Carla Sinclair, Communications Project Director
The Safety and Justice Challenge helped more than 60 cities and counties across 36 states reduce unnecessary jail use while keeping communities safe. CUNY ISLG served as the initiative's primary data and analytic partner and intermediary, working directly with local agencies while tracking systemwide trends for the field. Now, in partnership with MacArthur, ISLG is supporting the SJC's next phase, solidifying and building on this legacy through several new avenues.
For the past 10 years, the Safety and Justice Challenge has helped communities across the United States rethink their criminal legal systems. Through this “Big Bet” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, more than 60 cities and counties across 36 states developed and implemented locally responsive, data-informed strategies that reduced unnecessary jail use. And did so while keeping communities safe.
Since its inception, CUNY ISLG has served as the primary data and analytic partner for the initiative as well as an intermediary between the SJC jurisdictions, external researchers, and the network at large. This meant ISLG staff worked hands-on with local agencies to build their data capacity while simultaneously working systemwide to track trends and distill findings for the larger field.
Now, we’re supporting the SJC as it enters a new phase. In partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, CUNY ISLG is working to solidify and build on the legacy of this decade-long national effort to rethink the use of local jails and create safer, more just communities. This work will happen through a few avenues.
In partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, CUNY ISLG is working to solidify and build on the legacy of this decade-long national effort to rethink the use of local jails and create safer, more just communities. This work will happen through a few avenues.
A New Website for a New Phase, with the Same Goal
This new website will take a refreshed approach to synthesizing and archiving comprehensive findings, analyses, and insights from 10 years of work. This site will feature new data visualizations, takeaways, and functionality while serving as an interactive library for the 100+ published SJC resources, enabling new and returning practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and members of the public to use the expansive SJC insights to make their own local justice systems fairer and more effective.
CUNY ISLG, the MacArthur Foundation, and other SJC partners are working with a website development firm to build the website, which will have the same URL as the existing one, and launch in early 2027.
A Data Archive for Public and Specialized Use
Set for launch in early 2027, the SJC Data Archive will be an expansive, publicly available database of criminal justice data collected from participating jurisdictions throughout the initiative. The archive will include data already available to the public on Measuring Progress as well as a subset of site-approved deidentified case-level data that will be available to qualified researchers through a restricted access portal.
The SJC Data Archive will be housed with the University of Michigan’s National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (which is part of Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [ICPSR]).
Justice Innovation Research Competition for Emerging and Early-Career Researchers
To showcase the depth and breadth of the SJC Data Archive, the MacArthur Foundation is funding the Justice Innovation Research Competition, which CUNY ISLG will launch and oversee in 2027. The Competition will connect up to 30 emerging and early-career researchers to the new SJC Data Archive and support six-to-nine-month research projects that explore questions important to practitioners, policymakers, and communities.
The Competition will generate new research, practical briefs, and other products that can help highlight the innovations, lessons learned, and long-term impact of SJC sites while expanding the national evidence base for criminal legal system reform.
“The Safety and Justice Challenge has been a historic investment in making communities across the country safer and more just in the long-term. We’re honored and ready to work with both longtime SJC partners and new collaborators to ensure the findings, data, and stories of the SJC live on.”
- Jennifer Ferone, Deputy Research Director, CUNY ISLG
“The Safety and Justice Challenge has been a historic investment in making communities across the country safer and more just in the long-term,” Jennifer Ferone, Deputy Research Director, ISLG. “We’re honored and ready to work with both longtime SJC partners and new collaborators to ensure the findings, data, and stories of the SJC live on.
Photo by Wangkun Jia on Adobe Stock.