Problem
Current criminal justice reform practices for youth populations have shown to be ineffective. Data clearly points out that criminal justice reform indoctrinates vulnerable youths to a life of regular involvement with the legal system. In our current system, there is an emphasis placed on punishment rather than reform. As a result, the rate of recidivism regularly exceeds 75%. Furthermore, 17-24 year-olds only comprise 11% of Texas’ population, yet they account for over 29% of state-wide incarcerations. Their probation is revoked three-times more frequently than older adults. Moreover, people of color within this age range are arrested at nine-times the frequency of their Caucasian counterparts. It is evident from these statistics that the existing system perpetuates an already high incarceration rate for young adults that will likely carry over throughout their later adult life, perhaps multiple times over for people of color.
Lone Star Justice Alliance (LSJA) is a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to improving the lives of these youths and emerging adults, ages 17-24, in the justice system through the utilization of developmentally appropriate responses to behavior, treating youth and emerging adults with equity and dignity to promote resilience, conservation of costs, and increased public safety practices.
Solution
A customized version of the/path has been designed to bring together the LSJA’s team, the court systems, district attorney’s offices, and community organizations to support an intervention for young adults through a values-based approach, referred to as an individual’s “spark,” and accommodate other needs of the care model specific to this project. Their care team, judges, and community partners can closely track progress and outcomes, determine resource availability and needs, make referrals, manage the intervention workflow, and analyze data in one consolidated platform.
Research partners of this project include the University of Texas Health School of Public Health, Texas A&M Public Policy Research Institute, and Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab. The academic institutions are involved to design and conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) in order to track participants’ health and criminal justice outcomes. By pioneering this study, the collaboration aims to establish a new standard of transformative justice, health, and social practices that are driven by data and evidence-based outcomes, specifically health and criminal justice outcomes, cost-benefit analysis, and process evaluations in the Transformative Justice Program.
Results from the RCT will be disseminated to stakeholders in these counties and to researchers and experts at local, state, and national conferences in order to inform changes in policy that could reduce the state’s incarceration rate, while promoting public safety and the effective use of the state’s limited resources. This is the first study of its kind in the United States since the mid-1960s, and it has the potential to provide the most comprehensive evidence in favor of treatment over incarceration.
To learn more about this project, visit the LSJA website at https://www.lonestarjusticealliance.org/
