Allegheny County, Pa., home to Pittsburgh, has reduced its jail population, but racial disparities persist, a trend
reflected in jails nationwide. The issue was discussed this week at the national research conference held by the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which was held in Pittsburgh with the theme of
“advancing justice through science.”
The Pennsylvania county has poured millions of dollars, often grant funding, into criminal justice reform efforts. In early 2023, the MacArthur Foundation awarded the county $1.17 million to support efforts to reduce the jail population—a follow-up to the foundation’s $2 million investment in Allegheny County in 2018.
The county’s has a robust criminal justice data analytics infrastructure that informs its criminal justice decision making. It has taken steps to limit the amount of time jailed people must wait before the disposition of their cases, and has worked to provide legal representation at initial bond hearings which increases the likelihood of a defendant's release.
NIJ director Nancy La Vigne lauded the county for its investments in research and evidence-based
strategies, calling it a “unicorn” of a county.
Speakers on a panel discussion were clear that Allegheny County still has work to do.
In December 2023, a report for the county by the RAND Corporation and RTI International showed that even as the county took steps to reform its criminal justice system, racial disparities actually increased.
In 2016, though Black residents make up just 13% of the county population, those incarcerated in the Allegheny County Jail were 49% Black. Yet in 2023, Black residents made up more than two-thirds of the county jail population.
The report included 29 recommendations to narrow the gap, such as police considering issuing citations
rather than criminal charges for minor violations.
The conference included sessions dedicated to exploring innovations in the field that could reduce racial disparities in jails and prisons.
In a session on reducing racial disparities, Renee Danser of the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School explained that the citation in lieu of arrest strategy warrants more research, as police officers often consider citations to be no more serious than warnings.
Danser said a pilot of the strategy in North Carolina found that many officers were not following the new policy, which demonstrates “concern about how you’d get [strategies] implemented" because many officers were arresting people when they could have simply issued citations.
Basaime Spate, co-director of the Center for Justice Innovation’s Street Action Network, discussed leveraging research about youth and gun violence when planning prevention efforts, emphasizing the importance of root causes of violence.
Qualitative research with young gun carriers in New York found that these youth “experience extra high rates of exposure to violence, which creates a climate of fear” for themselves and their families, Spate said. That fear drives gun carrying and morphs it into “an act of resilience and assertion of agency,” he said—an understanding that could redesign gun violence prevention efforts.
Spate recommends bringing in those involved in "street networks" themselves to help design prevention programs, leveraging the support systems such youth already have in their communities, and given the widespread fear of police, minimizing the role of law enforcement.
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