Research Foundation of the City University of New York

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (CUNY) is the fiscal agent for the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (the Institute). Created in 2013, the Institute’s mission is to improve the structure, financing, delivery, measurement, and evaluation of critical public services. The Institute serves as the project manager and coordinator of performance measurement and technical assistance for the Safety and Justice Challenge Network. The award continues support for the Institute to manage the Safety and Justice Research Consortium (Consortium) to ensure the coherence of the policy and practice research agenda and the quality of individual research projects. The Consortium provides a mechanism for ensuring the quality and integrity of the research at all stages, including the development of requests for proposals that advance the Challenge research priorities, management of a competitive application process, quality assurance review of proposals, and oversight of the work. Because of its deep knowledge and involvement in its efforts, the Institute is uniquely positioned to advance the Challenge’s goal to contribute to the evidence base to promote systems reform and the spread of best practices nationally.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (CUNY) is the fiscal agent for the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (the Institute). Created in 2013, the Institute’s mission is to improve the structure, financing, delivery, measurement, and evaluation of critical public services. Since 2014, the Institute has served as the technical assistance coordinator and resource hub for the Safety and Justice Challenge Network (Network), the competitively selected jurisdictions seeking to safely reduce jail incarceration at the center of the Foundation’s initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. This award continues support for the Institute to assist in project management support, collect and manage data and performance measurement activities, and coordinate and oversee the consortium of experts providing technical assistance to the Network. The Institute provides the infrastructure for not only tracking and monitoring performance of Network sites, but it also works directly with sites to help them build and use data capacity in ways that both inform and sustain system reform efforts and maximize their potential for success in safely reducing jail population and racial and ethnic disparities over time.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (CUNY) is the fiscal agent for the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (the Institute). Created in 2013, the Institute’s mission is to improve the structure, financing, delivery, measurement, and evaluation of critical public services. The Institute serves as the project manager and coordinator of performance measurement and technical assistance for the Safety and Justice Challenge Network. The award enables the Institute to establish and manage the Safety and Justice Research Consortium (Consortium) to ensure the coherence of the policy and practice research agenda and the quality of individual research projects. The Consortium provides a mechanism for ensuring the quality and integrity of the research at all stages, including the development of requests for proposals that advance the Challenge research priorities, management of a competitive application process, quality assurance review of proposals, and oversight of the work. Because of its deep knowledge and involvement in its efforts, the Institute is uniquely positioned to advance the Challenge’s goal to contribute to the evidence base to promote systems reform and the spread of best practices nationally.

The Center on Media, Crime and Justice (the Center), housed at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, trains and educates reporters and editors across the country in emerging issues of criminal justice, and brings the media together with practitioners, scholars and advocates to nurture and develop journalism that can inform public debate and drive policy change. This award enables the Center to fill a critical gap in reporting on local criminal justice issues in rural communities, providing training and support for up to 30 journalists from rural and smaller jurisdictions. The journalists,selected from areas with rising jail populations, participate in a year-long program aimed at helping them use data and research to investigate the issues driving jail growth in their communities and to identify appropriate jail reduction policies and practices. The overall aim is to give journalists the tools, resources, and capacity to cover local criminal justice well, thereby increasing public awareness of the problem of jail misuse and overuse, stimulating interest in and demand for solutions, and contributing momentum for change.

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, fiscally sponsored by the Research Foundation of the City University of New York, operates the Violence Reduction Strategy for Chicago. Initiated in Chicago in 2011, the Violence Reduction Strategy strives to reduce shootings and retaliatory actions by engaging directly with those who are most likely to commit or be targeted by violent acts. The program hosts meetings between these Chicago residents, police officers, and community and faith leaders. The meetings deliver a message about the consequences of committing violence, combined with morally based arguments in favor of choosing non-violent paths. The latter is reinforced with the offer of social services and job training. With this award, the Violence Reduction Strategy adds customized outreach to individuals, as well as weekly “shooting review” meetings among police, prosecutors, and community members to respond swiftly to gun violence and prevent retaliation.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (CUNY) is the fiscal agent for the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (the Institute). Created in 2013, the Institute’s mission is to improve the structure, financing, delivery, measurement, and evaluation of critical public services. A previous award established the Institute as the technical assistance coordinator and resource hub for the Safety and Justice Challenge Network (Network), the competitively selected jurisdictions seeking to safely reduce jail incarceration at the center of the Foundation’s initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. This award continues support for the Institute to assist in project management support, collect and manage data and performance measurement, and coordinate and oversee the activities of a consortium of experts providing technical assistance to the Network.

The City Univeristy of New York (CUNY) was established as a vehicle for the upward mobility of disadvantaged residents in the City of New York. It operates 24 campuses across the five boroughs of the city. With this award, the Research Foundation of CUNY supports research into the economic and fiscal impact of young, undocumented immigrants who reeived temporary lawful presence, and permission to work, under the federal program called Deferred Action for Chilhood Arrivals (DACA). Research products include assessments of the educational trajectories and outcomes of DACA recipients; this data informs policy debates at the federal level over whether the program will be retained or terminated.

Founded in 1965, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York (John Jay) is a leading center for learning and innovation in criminal justice fields. After five years of support, this award would provide final funding for the Chicago site of a national police reform demonstration to respond to high levels of gun violence in city neighborhoods and transition the program and staffing to a permanent site. Additional funding for the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy (VRS) would allow John Jay to provide technical assistance to the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to complete expansion of the program citywide and collaborate with criminal justice agencies as they grow the VRS-coordinated and intensified law enforcement strategies to a mature state and integrate them fully into CPD and local law enforcement. VRS is the principal suppression component of the Foundation's anti-violence program, which aims to achieve an immediate and ongoing reduction in violence in Chicago.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (CUNY) is the fiscal agent for the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (the Institute). Created in 2013, the Institute's mission is to improve the structure, financing, delivery, measurement, and evaluation of critical public services. A previous award established the Institute as the technical assistance coordinator and resource hub for the Safety and Justice Challenge Network, which will be composed of 20 competitively selected local jurisdictions committed to finding ways to reduce unnecessary jail incarceration safely and sustainably. The Safety and Justice Challenge Network is at the core of the Foundation's initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. The award continues support for the Institute to provide centralized project management, coordinate performance measurement, and oversee the activities of a consortium of experts taking a team approach to technical assistance.

This grant will establish the City University of New York Institute for State and Local Governance as the resource hub and technical assistance coordinator for the Safety and Justice Challenge, the Foundation’s initiative aimed at reducing the overuse and misuse of jails nationwide. In this role, the Institute will support a network of competitively selected sites that are committed to changing the status quo relating to jails, and addressing the imbalance between incarceration and other responses to crime and social disorder.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York is the fiscal agent for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the nation’s leading institution of higher learning focused on justice-related education. It will use this grant to convene an Interdisciplinary Roundtable to examine the high rates of incarceration and use of harsh and punitive sentences in the America’s criminal justice system. The Roundtable will set the stage for future research and scholarship on the issues and help inform the Foundation’s continued refinement of its proposed strategy to address the problem of over-incarceration in the United States.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York will use this grant to deepen the work of the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which was created to analyze the extent of state fiscal challenges and identify viable strategies for improving state financial conditions. In the initial phase, the Task Force produced an in-depth diagnosis of the principal threats to fiscal sustainability in six representative states, including Illinois. The Research Foundation will engage researchers, policy experts, advocates, and policymakers to identify solutions to structural problems and highlight the tools necessary to ensure improved budget management, transparency, and long-term fiscal sustainability.

The National Network for Safe Communities (the Network) is a coalition of police chiefs, prosecutors, community leaders, mayors and others from more than 60 cities dedicated to adapting a successful gun-violence reduction model piloted in Boston and Cincinnati. Founded in 2009 by The John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, the Network encourages that these policing and prosecutorial methods become the norm for law enforcement and criminal justice responses to violence. This renewal funding supports services to Network member cities such as direct technical assistance, publications, conferences, and other meetings.

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York is the fiscal agent for John Jay College, home of the Research and Evaluation Center, which assists public and private agencies by conducting research and evaluation studies. The Center will use this grant to hold a roundtable meeting with academic researchers and juvenile justice experts and produce a white paper on the feasibility of a national system for monitoring the progress and impact of juvenile justice reform.

Founded in 1965, and led since 2004 by Dr. Jeremy Travis, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York is a leading center for learning and innovation in criminal justice. This grant supports the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy, a national police reform demonstration addressing high levels of gun violence in city neighborhoods. It will be used to provide technical assistance to the Chicago Police Department and collaborating criminal justice agencies as they develop and implement the Initiative’s coordinated and intensified law enforcement strategies, which are the principal suppression components of the Foundation’s anti-violence program.

The Research Foundation is a task force co-chaired by former Lieutenant Governor of New York Richard Ravitch and former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker that will study the causes and implications of growing state structural deficits, and champion its findings and recommendations to policymakers and stakeholders. The study will quantify the structural deficits in five representative states; document the ways in which their fiscal and budgeting systems foster widening revenue/expense gaps that put essential investments and services at risk; and develop and promote budgeting and fiscal management practices that would improve states’ long-term fiscal performance.

In support of the Chicago Violence Reduction Initiative.

To support a police reform demonstration project in Chicago.

To support the National Network for Safe Communities (over three years).

To support a police reform demonstration project in Chicago.

To support the National Network for Safe Communities (over three years).

In support of a conference examining the role of university scholarship in promoting public understanding of terrorism and responses to terrorism.

To produce, publish, and desseminate a book of research findings.

To support historical research on the life of Senator Paul H. Douglas.