Freedom Reads harnesses the power of literature to counter what prison does to the spirit. In the recognition that reading affirms our dignity, strengthens our sense of self and lets us access our authentic interests, Freedom Reads is placing 500-book Freedom Libraries in prisons across the country.

Through a series of public events, a new course offering, cutting-edge scholarship, and a special issue of The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the Justice Collaboratory in conjunction with the Solomon Center for Health, Law & Policy is placing a special focus on addressing the epidemic of gun violence in America.

This project involves a qualitative evaluation of gun violence prevention services in New Haven, utilizing a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) model. Its goal is to explore: (1) How do individuals and communities impacted by gun violence understand its underlying causes and experience its effects? (2) How do individuals and communities experience gun violence prevention work?

Twitter launched a project called Birdwatch which allows some form of community governance. Using this data we want to examine the success of Birdwatch.

The Community Vitality Study (CVS) is a series of research surveys of police officers and the residents of US cities. The primary goal of the CVS is to better understand the views that both residents and police officers have on police-community relations and other local public policy issues.

We have partnered with Nextdoor to test alternatives to punitive governance mechanisms.

The Justice Collaboratory explored the influence of school-based policing on adolescent safety and wellbeing, as well as on juvenile perceptions of the criminal justice system.

The Justice Collaboratory conducted a community study on behalf of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), looking into New Yorker’s engagement with the city government.

With the support of the William T. Grant Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we are working with several large district attorney’s offices to understand the causal impacts of misdemeanor prosecution. Misdemeanor cases make up over 80 percent of the cases processed by the U.S. criminal justice system, yet we know little about the causal impacts of misdemeanor prosecution.

On October 5-6, 2017, the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School hosted the Moving Justice Forward conference, which convened scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss how to advance reforms of the criminal justice system in the absence of progressive federal leadership.

This convening, sponsored by the Justice Collaboratory, explores how policing in the United States will and/or should be affected by the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent nationwide protests.