CASE STUDY
Brooklyn District Attorney
LOCATION
New York, NY
ACTIVE
2018-2021
This project, supported by Arnold Ventures’ National Partnership for Pretrial Justice and the William T. Grant Foundation, built capacity for data-driven decision-making to promote equity in prosecutorial decisions at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Challenge:
The Justice 2020 Initiative was launched by Brooklyn District Attorney (DA) Eric Gonzalez in 2018 to increase community safety, fairness, and equal justice by transforming the District Attorney’s office culture. The plan centralized a shift toward implementing community-based alternatives as the default response and focusing resources on the cases presenting the most harm—all while engaging the community as partners throughout the process. Those objectives demanded a range of approaches, including strategies to facilitate a culture of data-driven decision-making and transparency in the Office, which DA Gonzalez recognized as a critical component of both advancing effective reforms and public accountability. Like many prosecutors’ offices, the Office had lagged behind other criminal legal agencies in building the data infrastructure needed to regularly monitor trends related to safety, incarceration, and other outcomes, and to use this information to promote accountability and inform decisions and practices.
A systematic assessment was needed to uncover where racial and ethnic disparities in prosecutorial decision-making existed, where they were most pronounced, and what factors drove them.
In addition, since equity underpinned every facet of the Justice 2020 plan, a systematic assessment was needed to uncover where racial and ethnic disparities in prosecutorial decision-making existed, where they were most pronounced, and what factors drove them. With a data-driven process to develop those insights, DA Gonzalez could create informed and effective mitigation strategies.
Approach:
With funding from Arnold Ventures’ National Partnership for Pretrial Justice and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Brooklyn DA’s Office partnered with CUNY ISLG in 2018 to launch a Data and Transparency Initiative comprising two phases of work. The first phase comprised a one-year capacity-building project: we helped the Office identify and implement measures to improve its ability to track, analyze, and apply the data that support its most important policy and practice goals. In line with the recommendations of the Data and Transparency subcommittee established by DA Gonzalez in the early planning stages of Justice 2020, this work began with a diagnosis of data, systems, and practices to identify whether and how existing capacity supported operational, measurement, and evaluation needs; what gaps existed; and what steps could be taken to fill those gaps. We then delivered recommendations about how to implement the steps most critical to informing robust decision-making among the Office’s prosecutors. The recommendations included guidelines for monitoring and evaluating the Office’s highest priority questions, including those related to Justice 2020 progress and outcomes.
This work began with a diagnosis of data, systems, and practices to identify whether and how existing capacity supported operational, measurement, and evaluation needs; what gaps existed; and what steps could be taken to fill those gaps.
In the second phase of the project, CUNY ISLG launched a mixed-methods study to identify and explore disparities in prosecutorial decision-making, using the Office’s administrative data supplemented by a review of approximately 300 case files. The research established a baseline understanding of existing disparities against which Justice 2020 progress can be measured and identified opportunities for intervention. The study focused on five decision points where prosecutors have the most discretion and/or influence: case acceptance, charging, pretrial release and bail decisions, disposition and sentencing, and plea bargaining. By examining racial and ethnic disparities in a holistic way for the first time, the research uncovered the factors driving disparities, allowing leaders to target mitigation strategies that promote equity across decision-making.
Progress:
We began Phase I of the project with a diagnostic assessment to evaluate the data challenges experienced by the Office, across staff levels and across various bureaus and units, to better understand data needs. Findings from that exercise were presented to the DA and his leadership team in February 2019, and an Implementation Committee was launched to help guide a planning process to put data and analytic capacity-building recommendations into practice based on Office priorities. Over several months, we worked with the Implementation Committee and four sub-committees focused on the roll-out of a new case management system, technology training and enhancements, reporting, and research and performance management. By fall 2019, we provided the Office with a roadmap to continue implementation efforts, particularly as a new Research Director was hired and onboarded—a position that grew directly out of the diagnostic recommendations.
In October 2021, CUNY ISLG released a report detailing the findings from a study on racial and ethnic disparities across various points in the prosecutorial process. This study, Justice in Decision-Making, was the culmination of research drawing on the Office’s administrative data from 2016-mid 2019, in addition to a review of case files to supplement that analysis. An internal advisory group was convened to weigh in on project findings to ensure that the work was grounded in the context of office operations, policies, and practices. Additionally, we outlined a set of high-level recommendations the office might consider to mitigate the racial and ethnic disparities identified through the analysis.
For more information, contact Jennifer Ferone at jennifer.ferone@islg.cuny.edu.
