A snapshot of the work we’ve done this past month.

The 2026 Safety and Justice Challenge Research Symposium was an opportunity to reflect on the meaningful efforts and results of participating cities and counties, and dug into the expansive knowledge of what worked, what didn’t, and what should come next.

In March 2026, ISLG partnered with the CUNY Graduate Center to convene leading researchers and practitioners to discuss how the police can us everyday interactions to strengthen trust and enhance public safety.

Studying real, case-level data from cities and counties reducing their jail populations has led researchers to a conclusion: pretrial reforms made through the Safety and Justice Challenge did not lead to rising rates of crime, violent of otherwise. Two new analyses show this trend on both a initiative-wide and county-specific level.

A snapshot of the work we’ve done this past month.

The timely resolution of court cases is a responsibility of the court system. But many criminal courts struggle to resolve cases in reasonable timeframes, with case processing times increasing even when court filings decrease.

A snapshot of the work we’ve done this past month.

Amid mixed results to date, policymakers can insist on better implementation of New York’s discovery reform, provide prosecutors with whatever tools they need, and steadfastly avoid sacrificing the due process rights of people facing charges. This joint piece is a collaboration between two of CUNY’s preeminent research organizations to get us there.

A snapshot of the work we’ve done this past month.

Across New York City, Community-Based Restorative Justice Initiative organizations are using RJ as a framework for youth services, from elementary to high school and afterschool programming. “Instead of it being something that we use for conflict and peer-to-peer mediation, it's more an overall form of communication, a way to bring the community together.”

When work is grounded in data, community context, and collaboration, projects can pivot and address solutions to all the problems that arise along the way. This is what happened when CUNY ISLG researchers worked with Fulton County partners to launch a Center for Diversion and Services.