Photo of the panel with a projected slide behind them with the session title and speaker names
The final plenary session, "Artificial Intelligence and the Justice System: Challenges and Opportunities," features a panel from the TN Bureau of Investigation, @microsoft.com, the American Leadership Forum, and @statecourts.bsky.social. #RethinkJails
Thank you to everyone who attended our public defense research panel! It was great to see some familiar faces and meet new ones. Thank you to Diana Spahia & @cunyislg.bsky.social, Shannon Magnuson (JSP), and Sean McNulty (Toledo Legal Aid Society) for your work to make this happen! #RethinkJails
Photo of Deanne Benos speaking on the panel
Photo of a projected slide reading "Looking Beyond: #See Her, #Hear Her, #Believe Her, #Free Her"
Photo of a projected slide titled "Opportunities Matrix: Cutting the Women's Prison Population 50%+ and Beyond"
Benos discusses the Women's Justice Institute's goals and process of identifying and addressing the problem of women's mass incarceration, incorporating data collection, process mapping, data integration, and redefinition of false narratives. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide with the session title and speaker names
Photo of the panel
Now we have a panel discussion with Cheryl Wilkins (@columbiauniversity.bsky.social Center for Justice), Deanne Benos (The Women's Institute for Justice (Chicago)), and Stephanie Akhter (@counciloncj.org), facilitated by NeAngela Dixon (@macfound.org). #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide titled: "THE STUDY: An 18-month mixed-methods, intersectional exploration of the experiences of women with jails"
Photo of a projected slide titled "Initial Community Insights" discussing pathways to jail
Photo of a projected slide titled "Initial Community Insights" discussing women's experiences in jail
Photo of a projected slide titled "Initial Community Insights" discussing women's needs at the point of reentry
Lenore Lebron (Center for Justice Innovation) reviews a study of women's pathways into jail, with insights on impacted women's experiences and needs and system professionals' policy responses.
E.g., women are more likely than men to have child custody revoked upon incarceration. #RethinkJails
Photo of Bryn Hill speaking at the conference with a projected slide behind her titled "Women in Jails"
Photo of a projected slide titled "Women are more likely than men to be booked for certain charges"
Our next plenary session is "Understanding and Disrupting Women's Pathways into the Justice System." Bryn Hill (@cunyislg.bsky.social) discusses the data on how women's jail populations have increased relative to men's, and women are being charged with more felonies than before. #RethinkJails
Tia Strozier (CJI): Be aware of power dynamics in racial equity work. Name it and be intentional about leveling the table in equity discussions. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide with the session title "Operationalizing Equity: Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities" and speaker names: Nida Abbasi, MacArthur Foundation (facilitator); Tia Strozier (Center for Justice Innovation); Guisela Marroquin, Pretrial Justice Institute; Kevin Beckford, Pretrial Justice Institute
Photo of the panel
Photo of a projected slide titled "Cohort Racial Equity Strategies"
Our next panel with the Center for Justice Innovation and the Pretrial Justice Institute is discussing the work of the SJC Racial Equity Cohort, a group of sites testing racial equity strategies in their criminal legal systems. #RethinkJails
Photo of Brian Lovins speaking at the conference with a projected slide behind him titled "What Do We Know?"
Photo of a projected slide at the conference titled "Why Might Disparities Exist?"
In our opening general session, Brian Lovins (Justice System Partners) discussed challenges in addressing racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system, noting that any progress will be made one step at a time. #RethinkJails
The final day of the final in-person @macfound.org Safety & Justice Challenge convening is underway! If you're at the SJC Research Symposium, I'll be speaking on the "Defense: Constraints, Caseloads, and Change: The State of Public Defense" panel at 11:30am. Come check it out! #RethinkJails
Photo of Sharone Mitchell, Jr. speaking on the panel.
Mitchell: Staffing is a key issue for case processing. Cook Co. Pub. Defs. were lucky not to have the staff attrition crisis that other PDOs have had recently. Doorbell cameras & body-worn cameras have exploded time to review discovery. Staff training in mental health is also a factor. #RethinkJails
Photo of the panel
The panel for the closing plenary features perspectives on case processing from Judge Toria Finch (Harris Co. TX), Mary Moriarty (County Atty, Hennepin Co. MN), Sharone Mitchell (Chief Public Defender of Cook Co. IL), and Ashley Wojslawowicz (Charleston Co. SC). #RethinkJails
Photo of the session
Photo of the session
Photo of a projected slide at the session with final remarks from the speaker
The final plenary session of the day, "Efficiency, Equity, and Due Process: Rethinking Case Processing," looks at trends in case filings, dispositions, and time to disposition. #RethinkJails
Photo of Renee Danser speaking on the panel
Judge Timothy Kuhlman (Lucas County, OH) and Renee Danser (Access 2 Justice Lab) discuss implementation of a diversion program aimed at reducing racial and ethnic disparities, along with a randomized controlled trial study of that program. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide reading: "CONTEXT MATTERS: What contexts matter in exploring the most effective strategies to reduce jail population?"
Brian Lovins (JSP) discusses the importance of context in strategy implementation. e.g., pretrial strategies in Harris Co. (TX) worked differently after the O'Donnell decision on early access to counsel; pretrial risk assessments don't change outcomes if not integrated effectively. #RethinkJails
*alongside
Photo of Diana Spahia speaking on the panel with a projected slide behind her displaying a bar graph titled "SJC Coty and County ADP Reductions" with data from Philadelphia, Lucas County, East Baton Rouge Parish, Allegheny County, Multnomah County, and New Orleans Parish
Photo of a projected slide with a table titled "Strategies Implemented"
Diana Spahia (@cunyislg.bsky.social) reviews data from the SJC Practice Inventory, 337 jail reduction strategies implemented in 26 SJC sites nationwide. The most successful sites in reducing jail population addressed mental/behavioral health alongsidr probation or case processing. #RethinkJails
Photo of the panel
For the first round of breakouts, I'm in "Jail Reduction in Practice: Conditions and Context Critical to Strategy Success" with panelists from Bennett Midland, @cunyislg.bsky.social, Justice System Partners, Lucas County (OH), and the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law. #RethinkJails
Photo of Everrette Penn speaking on the panel.
Everette Penn (Prairie View A&M) decries the trend of criminal legal systems getting input from impacted individuals but not involving them in policy decisionmaking.
He encourages systems to consider HBCUs as research partners, as they are more affected than others by these policies. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide with session title "Beyond Reform: Shaping the Next Era of Criminal Justice Practice and Research" and panelists: Jocelyn Fontaine, Black and Brown Collective (Facilitator); Nancy Rodriguez, University of Texas; Nancy LaVigne, Rutgers University; Everett Penn, Prairie View University; Virginia Ryan, New Orleans Parish; Nicole Barton, Harris County
Photo of the panel at the conference
Our next plenary session, "Beyond Reform: Shaping the Next Era of Criminal Justice Practice and Research," features a panel of researchers and practitioners from SJC sites discussing how to continue and expand the progress of the past decade. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide with a bar and line graph titled "After 20+ years of steady increase, a 24% decline in jail population rates since 2007."
Photo of a projected slide weigh a bar chart titled "After 40 years of growth, a 24% decline in prison populations since 2010."
Photo of a projected slide of a line chart titled "After 20 years of growth, a 73% decline in youth prison population since 2000."
Photo of a projected slide with a line chart titled "A 72% increase in immigration detention since January 2025."
Jeremy Travis (@cunyislg.bsky.social) reviews jail reform from 1961 to the present. He highlights how "tough-on-crime" policy changes in the '70s and '80s ballooned jail and prison populations, and how ICE incarceration factors in. We need more impacted voices in policy decisionmaking. #RethinkJails
Photo of Reagan Daly speaking at the conference
Reagan Daly (@cunyislg.bsky.social) notes that ISLG is working with @macfound.org to create an online archive of SJC data, research, and policy products in a way that will be more easily accessible to the general public, not just SJC sites and partners. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide at the conference with a line graph titled "The population of women in jail is increasing faster than men since the pandemic"
Another takeaway: there is still more work to be done. In addition to continuing racial and ethnic disparities in jail populations, gender disparities have sharpened since the pandemic, with women's jail populations growing faster than men's. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide with a line graph titled "Declines in White Incarceration Rate Outpace Declines in Black Incarceration Rate"
Among notable takeaways from SJC data is that general decarceration strategies will not achieve racial equity without specific effort to address racial and ethnic disparities in jail populations. #RethinkJails
Photo of a projected slide at the conference reading "SJC Research Consortium"
Photo of the opening general session at the conference
Photo of Jenn Ferone speaking at the conference
Photo of Stephanie Platz speaking at the conference
Our opening plenary session reflects on the SJC Network's accomplishments in its decade of work and looks ahead to how data and progress from SJC sites will be carried forward in the years to come. #RethinkJails
Photo of Broadway in Nashville at night with honky tonk neon lights on either side of the road.
Photo of some guy with a sculpture on Music Row
Photo of Union Station Hotel in Nashville at night
I'm at the final convening of the @macfound.org Safety & Justice Challenge, the SJC Research Symposium in Nashville. Looking forward to discussing the role of public defenders in criminal legal system research on the "Defense: Constraints, Caseloads, and Change" panel tomorrow morning! #RethinkJails
Hoping that the people of Iran have a brighter future ahead. Rotten process yields rotten results, though. Trump will certainly cause more pain and death through yet another illegal war aimed more at improving poll numbers and stealing resources than nurturing democracy and long-term security.
Good riddance to Khamenei. People shouldn't be ruled by dictators, by totalitarianism, or by religion. Our current government would do well to keep that in mind.
Trump interrputed diplomatic negotiations by starting a war that will kill untold hundreds to thousands of people in Iran, Israel, and across the Middle East. As with his use of the military in the U.S., cruelty will be a feature, not a bug. Our war-mongering president needs to stop. #NoWarWithIran
OCASIO-CORTEZ STATEMENT ON TRUMP'S COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAN "The American people are once again dragged into a war they did not want by a president who does not care about the long-term consequences of his actions. This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic. "Just this week, Iran and the United States were negotiating key measures that could have staved off war. The President walked away from these discussions and chose war instead.President Trump flippantly acknowledged the possibility of American casualties, stating "that often happens in war.' "Mr. President: this was not an inevitability. This is a deliberate choice of aggression when diplomacy and security were within reach. Stop lying to the American people. "Violence begets violence. We learned this lesson in Iraq. We learned this lesson in Afghanistan. And we are about to learn it again in Iran. Bombs have yet to create enduring democracies in the region and this will be no different. "In moments of war, our Constitution is unambiguous: Congress authorizes war. The President does not. I will do my part to uphold our Constitution by voting YES on Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie's War Powers Resolution. Every member of Congress must join us in rejecting this aimless war.
My statement on President Trump’s combat operations in Iran⬇️
