New Thinking, from the Center for Justice Innovation

New Thinking, from the Center for Justice Innovation


Latest Episodes

The War on Drugs Returns to Oregon
March 19, 2024

Three years ago, Oregon broke with the War on Drugs, decriminalizing the possession of most illicit drugs. The measure promised instead a "health-based approach." But the legislature has just ended th

Gideon at 60: Deconstructing Mass Supervision
December 16, 2023

Vincent Schiraldi used to run probation in New York City; now hes asking whether it should even exist. Schiraldi says some of the roots of mass supervisionand its connection to mass incarcerationca

Gideon at 60: Uncivil Justice
November 16, 2023

A profile of the fight to secure lawyers for people facing eviction and the radical impact that is having in Housing Court. With its 1963 Gideon decision, the Supreme Court guaranteed a lawyer to any

Gideon at 60: The Unfunded Mandate
April 04, 2023

As the legal scholar Paul Butler wrote ten years ago, "On every anniversary of Gideon, liberals bemoan the state of indigent defense." On this 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision g

When Young People Go to Prison for Life
February 14, 2023

April Barber Scales was a pregnant 15-year-old when she received two life sentences; Anthony Willis was 16 when he was sent away for life. After more than 25 years behind bars, they each received some

Emphasizing the Harms
November 04, 2022

A recent two-day training for Manhattan prosecutors was a drumbeat on the harms of incarceration; hardly the typical message prosecutors receive. The training was part of a wider effort by D.A. Alvin

Evicting Evictions
June 28, 2022

Housing is a human right. What if we designed our systemsbeginning with Housing Courtto embody that? Given the current eviction crisis, it's a far-off concept, but there's work to make it a reality

Reform and Its Discontents
May 09, 2022

Nominated for a Media for a Just Society award, revisit New Thinking's conversation with activists Victoria Law and Maya Schenwar. In their book, Prison By Any Other Name, Law and Schenwar contend tha

Why Data Doesn’t Stick
March 24, 2022

Efforts to reform the justice system often tout they're "evidence-based" or "data-driven." But at a moment when a national increase in crime, likely triggered by the pandemic, seems to have put the re

Can We Close Rikers?
January 25, 2022

New York City has committed to closing its notorious Rikers Island jail facility by 2027. That could dramatically reorient the city's approach to incarceration. The plan envisions a citywide jail popu