The Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) Research Year-in-Review is a roundup of the latest research from sites across the initiative. The Review is compiled by CUNY ISLG, which serves as the primary data and analytic partner for the SJC, as well as the manager of the SJC Research Consortium. This edition of the Review summarizes research activities that took place throughout 2025, including updates on newly funded work, recently published research products, and work to synthesize findings across the SJC.
Select Research Highlights
2025 SJC Synthesis Publications
Ten Years of Advancing Safety and Justice: A Research, Policy, and Practice Insight Hub, December 2025
As of December 2025, the portfolio of SJC research and analysis includes over 96 publications, and hundreds of findings on critical pretrial policy and practice questions. This brief synthesizes these findings to identify key takeaways, themes, and gaps in knowledge to date in each of the SJC's research agenda priority areas, with the goal of sharing lessons and learnings that will help practitioners and policymakers innovate and improve the fairness and effectiveness of pretrial decision-making and outcomes.
All research findings reported in this summary brief are derived from SJC-funded work, and it includes information on effective strategies, racial and ethnic disparities, public safety, case processing, COVID-19, and practitioner decision-making.
From Policy to Practice: How Operational and Administrative Decisions Perpetuate Racial and Ethnic Disparities, December 2025
Many jurisdictions have implemented strategies to reduce their jail populations by providing supportive programs and services, alternatives to incarceration, and expedited release initiatives. To identify the appropriate target populations for each type of approach, stakeholders have carefully designed eligibility, enrollment, and participation criteria to align with individuals who they believe will be best served-often dependent upon programmatic approach, risk/need profiles, and charge types, among other considerations.
This microbrief details how several SJC-funded studies have shed light on how operational and administrative decisions surrounding eligibility, enrollment, and participation/completion criteria may exacerbate racial and ethnic disparities through barriers at these key stages of the process.
2025 SJC Research Publications from ISLG
10 Years into the Safety and Justice Challenge, Data Continues to Show No Link between Jail Population Reductions and Violent Crime, CUNY ISLG, April 2025
For the past four years, CUNY ISLG has used a mix of individual-level jail data and county-level crime trends to assess the relationship between pretrial release and crime in SJC jurisdictions across the country. This year's analysis is built on reports published in 2023 and 2024, and affirms past findings that violent crime and recidivism-the rate that people returned to jail after release-remained the same before and after reforms were implemented.
The Changing Use of Jails in Safety and Justice Challenge Counties, CUNY ISLG, October 2025
This report analyzed individual-level jail data from five SJC counties-Allegheny County, PA, Charleston County, SC, Palm Beach County, FL, New Orleans, LA, and Pima County, AZ-to explore trends in who gets booked into jail, how they are released from custody, and how long they stay. Findings showed that compared to pre-SJC, fewer people were booked for lower-level or administrative charges, pretrial release increased, and people booked for felonies had shorter stays. However, racial and ethnic disparities persisted as bookings declined.
Looking Forward in 2026
2026 will be the final year of the SJC Research Consortium as it currently operates. The Consortium staff at CUNY ISLG will work to see the remaining projects through to publication, take stock of the work done over the past decade and plan for the next phase of research utilizing the wealth of data produced through the SJC. As all ongoing Consortium projects will end in 2026, we expect several report releases. Furthermore, the MacArthur Foundation is committed to celebrating the achievements of the last decade and making SJC information and research findings accessible. To that end, CUNY ISLG is in the process of selecting a subcontractor who will produce a legacy website to categorize and share all of the SJC strategies, research, and lessons learned from this work. Additional legacy plans include efforts to continue to utilize the unique and vast SJC data archive for future research, with more details to be shared in 2026.
In 2026, we expect to solicit smaller scope "Rapid Research Projects": unique, four-month studies with a primarily quantitative focus that leverage the SJC case-level data that CUNY ISLG collects for the initiative to generate timely insights and quickly explore important SJC research questions in at least one SJC site. Consortium members will be invited to submit "Quick Pitch" (QP) proposals for Rapid Research Projects to a dedicated Box submission site through March 1, 2026. Quick Pitches will be 1-page proposals describing key research priority areas and questions, brief outlines of research design, methodology, key deliverables, anticipated timeline, and budget (up to $50,000 maximum). Additional information for these Rapid Research projects, requirements for QPs, and the review process for these proposals will be shared with Consortium members in early 2026. These will be the last grants for the SJC Research Consortium and must start and finish in 2026.
Finally, in 2026 we will continue to produce a series of synthesis products and host the second and final Research Symposium.
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Julia Bowling
Research Associate
CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance
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