The opening remarks will discuss objectives of the final SJC Research Symposium with emphasis on the SJC legacy and carrying the values of empirically-driven policy and practice beyond the SJC.

This session is both about looking back and looking ahead. It will discuss legacy planning and what’s to come for 2026/27, an overview of a decade of findings and lessons learned, and leveraging what the SJC has built.

Jeremy Travis is a nationally recognized justice reform leader whose career spans research, philanthropy, academia and public service, including roles at CUNY ISLG, the Columbia Justice Lab, Arnold Ventures and 13 years as president of John Jay College. He has advanced work on pretrial detention, police accountability, community safety, prosecution and defense, humane prisons and reintegration, while earlier launching a national reentry research program at the Urban Institute and expanding federal support for criminal justice research as Director of the National Institute of Justice. His government service includes senior positions in New York City and on Capitol Hill, plus an early clerkship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg that surely set the bar high for the rest of us. He chaired major state and national efforts on juvenile justice and mass incarceration, co-edited the influential report on the growth of incarceration in the United States, and has written widely on justice issues. A graduate of Yale College with a JD and MPA from NYU, he is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice and the National Association of Public Administration.

Facilitated panel discussion exploring the future of criminal legal policy, practice, and pathways for research that will include conversations about how to leverage data, research, and lessons learned over the past 10 years.

SJC sites had varied results when it came to reducing jail populations. Research shows that combinations of programmatic and policy strategies appropriate to local contexts are the key to successfully and safely reducing jail populations, and this session will center this finding by providing an overview of what we’ve learned and the relative impacts of different strategies.

Jail reduction can be done safely. Several types of SJC strategies will be discussed, along with empirical evidence that crime rates have not been adversely affected by their implementation.

This roundtable will be centered on discussing what kind of role the SJC data infrastructure could play for the field.

This brief presentation will provide learnings and best practices for how data can be used as a tool to effectively and succinctly share and disseminate progress toward goals and objectives and gain support for reform efforts.

Attendees will participate in an interactive exhibitor session where site data analysts and researchers will demonstrate how they have used data to increase transparency and drive good governance and decision-making.

This session will outline the role of case processing in length of stay trends, findings of research in this area, and best practices to alleviate case processing challenges.

This session highlights how SJC-affiliated sites and researchers can continue to work towards achieving racial equity goals. It will describe key ways to be intentional in equity-driven approaches aimed at reducing disparities.

Recent studies have shed light on what some common women’s pathways to jail are, including “tough on crime” policies, prior victimization, poverty, and chronic health/mental health issues. In addition to researchers describing recent findings in this area, practitioners will weigh in on how we use this information to slow the growth of the population of women in jails.

This workshop will discuss the role of public safety communications personnel, how they may influence law enforcement decision making, the realities of the work they perform, and why it is important to include them in formal policies and practices aimed at first responders.

This session will cover successful changes sites have implemented that are defender-led initiatives.

This workshop will review ideal jail metrics SJC-affiliated cities and counties should be continuing to collect and share with decision makers and the public. It will explore key issues regarding what metrics should be kept internally to support public-facing metrics, and how to dive deeper into emerging trends with data initiatives.

This workshop will review ideal jail metrics SJC-affiliated cities and counties should be continuing to collect and share with decision makers and the public. It will explore key issues regarding what metrics should be kept internally to support public-facing metrics, and how to dive deeper into emerging trends with data initiatives.