The Justice Collaboratory brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and researchers at Yale University and elsewhere to work on issues related to institutional reform and policy innovation and advancement. We infuse theory and empirical research in order to achieve our goal of making the components of criminal justice operation simultaneously more effective, just, and democratic.

Justice Forward is the Justice Collaboratory’s vision for rethinking and reforming the criminal justice system. We are forging a new path grounded in the idea that if we are to build a fair and effective system, we must 1) arrest the persistence of inequality and draw down the concentration of criminal justice exposure that itself can become criminogenic, 2) focus on mobilizing and engaging members of the community as co-producers of justice, and 3) be mindful of the fact that offending and victimization are concentrated and intertwined within the same small social networks. The Justice Collaboratory will pursue this vision through the production of innovative and collaborative research, policy engagement, training, and outreach.

For more information about the Justice Collaboratory, please email Molly Aunger.

Or head over to our Twitter, @JCollaboratory.

Access our most recent Justice Collaboratory Newsletter.

Project Highlight: Portals

Our Portals Project now has a new web site.

In the aftermath of Ferguson, MO as well as a series of collective protests to police violence across the country, there was an outpouring of narratives from those in communities where police activity is concentrated. These narratives have highlighted the stark contrasts between the formal legal empowerment and right to be free from state interference and the daily, lived experience of citizens in poor communities.

Despite these prevalent narratives, current research is ill-suited to help us understand how the Michael Browns of America come to experience the police and state authority more broadly. Theories of how communities perceive the police and how these perceptions affect identity, relations among residents, and political action are underdeveloped. This important work requires a better way to measure these dynamics across communities. The Portals Policing Project aims to do just that.