[From Our Partners] The Impact of Jail Reduction Strategies on Community Safety
The impact of criminal legal reforms on community safety is a topic of much debate. Critics often suggest they are to blame for the high rates of violent crime observed across the country in the period immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. While all crime—and violent crime specifically—has decreased in the following years, concerns continue to shape national conversations around the role of criminal legal systems.
Local jail data can provide answers. As part of the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), New Orleans, Louisiana and Lucas County, Ohio implemented tailored strategies to safely reduce jail populations. These strategies included implementing a validated risk assessment (the Public Safety Assessment [PSA]), diversion programs, pretrial detention alternatives, and expanded treatment options. The Center for Justice Innovation examined whether implementation of the PSA managed to reduce jail populations without sacrificing community safety. Specifically, the research answers the following questions:
Booking Trends: Did the types of incidents that led to a jail booking look different over time? Did the profile of booked individuals change over the SJC implementation period?
Crime Rates: How did overall crime and violent crime rates change over the SJC implementation period?
Recidivism Trends: Did repeat criminal behavior increase or decrease over the SJC implementation period?
Criminal Trajectory: How did time to new charges and recidivism patterns change over the SJC implementation period? Were there identifiable subgroups of individuals based on criminal history and, if so, are there differences in recidivism for these groups?
The research adds to a growing evidence base that jail populations can be safely reduced without negative consequences for community safety. Key study findings include:
Incarceration can be avoided without negatively impacting public safety. The study found that implementation of SJC strategies was followed by declining jail bookings without an increase in crime.
In fact, recidivism rates generally decreased following the implementation of SJC strategies in both sites, including felony and violent recidivism
Less time spent in jail means greater public safety. The results show that shorter jail stays were associated with lower recidivism risk. By limiting the time individuals spend in jail, it may be possible for sites to reduce recidivism. In both sites, the proportion of individuals who spent no time in jail on the initial case increased over the life of the SJC initiative
Racial disparities in jail bookings persisted. While booking trends declined among both white and BIPOC1 individuals throughout the study period, bookings were twice as likely to involve BIPOC individuals than white individuals in both sites.
ABOUT THE SAFETY & JUSTICE CHALLENGE
In 2015, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation launched the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), a multi-year initiative to reduce populations and racial disparities in American jails. To advance knowledge development grounded in a research agenda that explores, evaluates, and documents site-specific strategies to safely and effectively reduce jail populations and address racial and ethnic disparities, the Foundation engaged the Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG) at the City University of New York (CUNY) to establish and oversee an SJC Research Consortium. Consortium members are nationally renowned research, policy, and academic organizations collaborating with SJC sites to build an evidence base focused on pretrial reform efforts.