National Institute For Criminal Justice Reform

Gvrs - in fy24, nicjr supported 20 jurisdictions in planning, implementing, and refining data-driven, evidence-based gvrs. Examples of this work included: indianapolis: nicjr continued to support the city's implementation of its gvrs throughout fy24. A team of four to five nicjr team members visited indianapolis for a full week every month to provide training, ta, assessment, and support, including training street outreach workers, intensive life coaches, and violence interrupters hired by the city. These efforts are paying off. By the end of cy23, the city had experienced a 30% reduction in murders since the implementation of gvrs, with further increases through the end of fy24. Knoxville: in june 2023, nicjr began providing comprehensive training and ta to support knoxville's implementation of gvrs. This has included conducting a cost of gun violence study and landscape analysis, providing ongoing support to the office of community safety and engagement director and staff, and delivering life coaching trainings. Nicjr also facilitated an oakland site visit where representatives from knoxville were able to gain firsthand insight into oakland's gvrs. Additionally, nicjr has supported the city in establishing and refining shooting reviews and coordination meetings and strengthening their data tools and processes and have begun work with the city and key cbos to develop and implement an intensive life coaching program. Nicjr has also provided $35,000 in nicjr giving initiative funding to the cbo leading this work. In cy23, knoxville saw an impressive 33% year-over-year reduction in homicides, with continued reductions through the end of fy24.

Justice system reforms - community-based alternatives to youth incarceration initiative (cbayi): in late 2022, nicjr was chosen to serve as the ta provider for the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention (ojjdp) cbayi initiative. Nicjr and its partner catalyze justice hosted a seven-month community of practice for government officials from 11 jurisdictions to learn about effective models for increasing community-based alternatives to youth incarceration. Nicjr and catalyze justice also hosted a march 2024 site visit to new york city, where participants visited innovative youth facilities and heard from community and government leaders. As an extension of this work, nicjr also developed a brief highlighting innovative practices to support jurisdictions looking to minimize the use of juvenile detention and secure residential placement. Nicjr also provided some level of individual training and ta to sites. For example, nicjr completed sites visits to puerto rico and hawaii to better understand their needs and developed a memo for the new orleans office of criminal justice that provided recommendations on allocation of $4.45 million in american rescue plan act funding for juvenile justice programming and services. Neighborhood opportunity and accountability board (noab): in fy24, nicjr continued to grow and refine the oakland noab. As of june 2024, the program had received a total of 108 referrals from the oakland police department at the point of arrest in lieu of system involvement and another nine referrals from other sources such as the district attorney's office or oakland unified school district. Notably, at the end of cy23, over 90% of youth referred to the noab had participated in noab hearings and adhered to their service plans, and more than 65% of noab participants who were referred more than a year ago either completed or were still enrolled in a youth development program. Nicjr also continued to partner with the american institutes of research, who is conducting a rigorous, mixed-methods, four-year evaluation of noab's program implementation and outcomes and a quasi-experimental study of program impacts. Nicjr will utilize these findings to further strengthen the noab model and inform the broader field of juvenile justice reform. In late 2023, the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention (ojjdp) chose nicjr as one of four youth violence prevention program (yvpp) awardees. This $250,000, three-year award will support nicjr's work to strengthen noab in oakland, allow nicjr to provide ta to other bay area communities as they establish their own noabs, and work toward building a more regional approach to noab across sites. Advocacy: nicjr is funded by the california endowment to carry out advocacy work focused on juvenile justice reform in california. Within the scope of this grant, in fy24, nicjr continued to actively participate in several advocacy coalitions that bring together grassroots organizations, advocates, and impacted individuals to work toward justice reform. Nicjr also made significant progress in a major research project entitled just and safe that will support advocacy efforts in california and beyond. Nicjr has now analyzed calls for service and police staffing and budget data for 10 california cities and 11 additional cities throughout the us. Nicjr also began to analyze staffing, budget, and other data for a mixture of adult and juvenile supervision agencies across the us. In addition to these analyses, nicjr completed much of a thorough literature review highlighting proven and promising alternatives to traditional justice system structures that can increase community safety and reduce violent crime, in line with nicjr's reduce, improve, reinvest framework. As an initial step toward disseminating results, nicjr developed a breakout report for oakland and alameda county that was released in early 2024.

Other programs - direct programming, advocacy, ypoc, novpn, school-based services, training and development, the giving initiative, reserach and data, cvipi.