In This Issue:

• Recent Events:
  Justice Reinvestment at the Local Level Initiative Website Launch
  
• Center Highlight: Evaluability Assessments of International Anti-Trafficking Programs
• JPC Launches New DNA Project
• JPC on the Hill:
  Director La Vigne Testifies at Two Congressional Hearings
• Publications:
  Safe City
  
  Life after Prison: Tracking the Experiences of Male Prisoners Returning to Chicago, Cleveland, and Houston
  

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The Justice Reinvestment at the Local Level Initiative recently launched its website, justicereinvestment.urban.org. Justice reinvestment employs data and collaborative decisionmaking to help jurisdictions reduce criminal justice spending by controlling growth in correctional populations while ensuring public safety. The overarching goal of local justice reinvestment work is to reduce county, city, and/or tribal criminal justice costs and reinvest those resources to yield a more cost-beneficial impact on public safety and community well-being. With funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, JPC is working with three jurisdictions – Alachua County, Florida; Travis County, Texas; and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania – on justice reinvestment activities. JPC Director Nancy La Vigne is the project’s Principal Investigator, Research Associate S. Rebecca Neusteter is the project director, and Research Assistants Allison Dwyer, Carey Anne Nadeau and Pamela Lachman are site liaisons to Alachua County, Allegheny County and Travis County, respectively.

Between February and May 2010, JPC researchers Bill Adams, Meredith Dank and Colleen Owens traveled to Cambodia, Sierra Leone and the Philippines to conduct evaluability assessments of four anti-human trafficking programs funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP). Evaluability assessments examine the degree to which programs serve a sufficient number of clients and have the documentation of program inputs, outcomes, and impacts necessary to support rigorous evaluation. Researchers will present preliminary results of their evaluability study at the State Department’s Third Annual Conference on Program Evaluation which will be held in Washington, DC on June 8-9, 2010.

Next month, JPC Senior Fellow Julie Samuels, joined by researchers Allison Dwyer and Pamela Lachman, will begin work on a new DNA project: Examining the Policies, Practices, and Implications of Collecting DNA from Arrestees. Twenty-three states and the federal government have enacted legislation requiring the collection of DNA from arrestees, and similar legislation has been introduced in many other states. Yet little is known about the implementation of these laws, the public safety benefits of collecting DNA from arrestees, or the associated fiscal, legal, and logistical challenges of doing so. This research aims to fill these information gaps by examining the experiences of states that have implemented laws collecting DNA from arrestees.

JPC’s research was featured prominently in two congressional hearings this month. On May 5th, Nancy La Vigne testified before the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia on "Housing D.C. Code Felons Far Away from Home: Effects on Crime, Recidivism, and Reentry", chaired by Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). Successfully reintegrating prisoners into society hinges on connecting them to jobs, housing, substance abuse treatment, faith-based institutions, and other resources, Dr. La Vigne told the subcommittee. Reaching that goal is made more difficult by the long distances that often separate incarcerated men and women from their families and communities. District of Columbia felons are typically incarcerated hundreds of miles from their families, potential employers, and post-release services. As much as 20 percent are housed more than 500 miles from their homes.

On May 11th, La Vigne testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security H.R. 4080, the "Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act of 2009," and H.R. 4055, the "Honest Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) Initiative Act of 2009". City and county governments, caught between escalating and costly criminal justice populations and strapped budgets, are searching for ways to control costs without compromising public safety. In her testimony, La Vigne explained how justice reinvestment – a process for identifying the drivers of criminal justice costs and developing new ways of reinvesting those scarce resources – can benefit localities.

Safe City Evaluation

Nancy La Vigne, Colleen Owens and Samantha Hetrick

This report presents results from an evaluation of the Safe City Initiative. Launched by the Target Corporation in 2003, the goal of Safe City is to partner local law enforcement with retailers and community leaders to increase public safety. The evaluation, which employed surveys of businesses, difference-in-differences analyses of reported crime data, and cost-benefit analyses, found increases in perceptions of safety among businesses in the designated Safe City area and cost-effective reductions in crime in two of the four sites. In one site, however, crime reductions were limited to specific crime types and coincided with increases in other categories of crimes.

Life after Prison: Tracking the Experiences of Male Prisoners Returning to Chicago, Cleveland, and Houston

Christy Visher (University of Delaware), Jennifer Yahner (Urban Institute)
and Nancy La Vigne (Urban Institute)

This research brief describes the experiences of 652 male prisoners in Illinois, Ohio, and Texas, who participated in the Urban Institute’s longitudinal study of prisoner reentry, Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry. The men were surveyed shortly before release from prison and interviewed two times following their release—at two and seven months after release. This research brief describes characteristics of the men and their reentry experiences—including program participation, housing, family relationships, substance use, employment, reoffending, and reincarceration. The brief also summarizes findings from previous Returning Home reports regarding predictors of reintegration outcomes.