Priorities for New Initiatives and Interventions

Serial failures to redress social, legal, and economic injustice and structural racism underpin violence and disproportionally shape politics, policing, and judicial systems around the world. Yet bold reforms in different jurisdictions suggest that cross-cutting interventions can be cost-effective and foster more humane, inclusive and healthier societies. What can we learn, share and take to scale for long-term results?

As part of a major multi-year initiative – Global Innovations on Youth Violence, Safety and Justice – this meeting will bring together all participants of the focus group meetings, which examined enhancing community safety and cohesion, reducing violence, crime and incarceration, and transforming judicial and prison systems, in order to set priorities for new initiatives and interventions.

Participation in this program is by invitation only.

In many countries around the world, including the United States, there is growing recognition among policymakers and reform advocates that effective criminal justice reform must look beyond the toolkit and institutions of the criminal justice system itself. In a growing number of settings, innovations based on community-centered, cross-sectoral approaches and socially integrative methods of engaging young people and violent offenders before, during, and after they encounter the criminal justice system, are proving to be more humane, just, and effective.

To catalyze global research-based exchange to tackle youth violence and promote youth safety and criminal justice reform, including the seeding of new strategies in the United States, Salzburg Global Seminar is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the David Rockefeller Fund on a major multi-year initiative.

The initiative will address the current structural, legal, economic, and social weaknesses and inefficiencies of judicial and custodial systems across multiple countries and jurisdictions. Working with diverse stakeholders from around the world, including young adults, it will identify the most innovative and effective approaches, tools, and technologies, in and outside the criminal justice system, to enhance public safety and community cohesion, reduce crime and incarceration, and help transform judicial and prison systems.

Key trends and drivers that will influence the future of reform efforts worldwide include:

Changing demographics
Decolonization and contested legacies that drive demand for diversity, equity, and inclusion in policing, judicial, and law enforcement structures
Climate change and migration
Unequal representation and access to justice
Constraints on public justice system budgets and shrinking resources for legal aid
Political and societal determinants of (in)justice
Rapid and unequal urbanization with increased spatial and social segregation
Uses and abuses of new technologies
Radical changes in the labor market and future economic opportunities
Measures introduced as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic

Date

Jan 28, 2021

Session no.

Session 703

Location

Online

Contact

Charles Ehrlich

Director, Peace and Justice

Antonia Boemeke

Program Development Associate, Salzburg Global Seminar, Salzburg, Austria

Content overview

Program Format Goals & Outcomes Participants Staff Partners

Program Format

Format

This all-participant group dialogue is part of Phase 1 of the multi-year initiative, Global Innovations on Youth Violence, Safety and Justice. Please see the ABOUT section in the main menu for a full description of the format of the initiative.

In each focus group, a small group of stakeholders (see PARTICIPATION) will be asked to:

Identify select stakeholders and relevant institutions to join, collaborate, and build a wider community;
Generate ideas, critical questions, and research outputs on pertinent topics;
Appraise measures and interventions along a continuum of radical innovation, gradual reform, and/or maintenance of the status quo; and
Set priorities and build visibility for Phase 2 of the initiative.

This group dialogue will bring together all participants from the three focus groups to set priorities for new initiatives and interventions.

Participation

This initiative will bring together a diverse, cross-sector, international and intergenerational group of stakeholders, including young people, formerly incarcerated people and victims/survivors of violence.

Participants in the initiative will include community representatives, educators, social entrepreneurs, activists, and leaders from public health, sports and culture; members of communities facing racial, ethnic, economic, and other forms of structural injustice; mayors, public officials, and policymakers; judges, prosecutors and public interest lawyers; police chiefs, prison governors and probation officers; formerly incarcerated persons; academics and researchers; and media/communications innovators.

Participation will be inclusive and non-transactional, using an iterative process that can engage thought leaders, practitioners, people with experience of incarceration, victims/survivors, and others with unique perspectives who are identified as the initiative evolves.

The initiative will first focus on the United States and selected countries in Latin America and Eurasia. Additional jurisdictions may be added to integrate specific examples and experiences of criminal justice transformation.

Goals & Outcomes

This multi-year initiative aims to:

Enhance community safety and cohesion
Reduce violence, crime and incarceration
Transform judicial and prison systems

In addressing these three goals, the initiative aims to accelerate systems change and lasting result at three levels:

Individual lived experience by enhancing community safety and cohesion
Individual/community interactions with systems of authority, law and order by reducing violence, crime and incarceration
System/institutional mandates, funding, staffing, metrics and accountability by transforming judicial and prison systems.

For each level of intervention, the participants in the initiative will identify and evaluate approaches, tools and technologies in four specific fields:

New intervention points that could have long-term benefits for reducing violence, injustice, racism, and implicit bias/prejudice in and outside criminal justice systems.
Multi-country comparisons, focusing initially on national/subnational jurisdictions that have pioneered successful approaches in criminal justice policy and practice.
Direct engagement of people and communities of color and other marginalized communities to learn from and amplify their voices.
New initiatives to change attitudes, behaviors, and investments, responding to racial and social justice protests in the United States and around the world and to risks and demands driven by the pandemic.

Salzburg Global, partners and participants in the initiative will communicate and disseminate the most promising research-based strategies to reduce rates of violence, incarceration, and recidivism to policymakers and communities in the US and globally through publications, media, products, video interviews/documentaries, targeted recommendations, and a future cross-sector research agenda.

Goals & Outcomes

This multi-year initiative aims to:

Enhance community safety and cohesion
Reduce violence, crime and incarceration
Transform judicial and prison systems

In addressing these three goals, the initiative aims to accelerate systems change and lasting results at three levels:

Individual lived experience by enhancing community safety and cohesion.
Individual/community interactions with systems of authority, law and order by reducing violence, crime and incarceration.
System/institutional mandates, funding, staffing, metrics and accountability by transforming judicial and prison systems.

For each level of intervention, the participants in the initiative will identify and evaluate approaches, tools and technologies in four specific fields:

New intervention points that could have long-term benefits for reducing violence, injustice, racism, and implicit bias/prejudice in and outside criminal justice systems.
Multi-country comparisons, focusing initially on national/subnational jurisdictions that have pioneered successful approaches in criminal justice policy and practice.
Direct engagement of people and communities of color and other marginalized communities to learn from and amplify their voices.
New initiatives to change attitudes, behaviors, and investments, responding to racial and social justice protests in the United States and around the world and to risks and demands driven by the pandemic.