Center on Community Safety, Policing and Inequality
Law schools have a crucial role to play in the nationwide transformation of policing. The premise of our criminal justice system has long been that crime prevention, whatever its cost, is the overriding priority. The mission of this center is to question that assumption—and to provide advocates, officials, and community members with the tools necessary to effect meaningful change.
Featured Advocacy
Opposing Mandatory Pre-Trial Detention in Connecticut
Opposing Mandatory Pre-Trial Detention in Connecticut
Criminological research is clear: harsh pre-trial detention—whether in the form of cash bail or mandatory confinement—is not an effective tool of community safety. Furthermore, it tends to exacerbate race- and class-based inequality in the criminal justice system. In view of these empirical realities, many jurisdictions, over the last decade, have been moving steadily away from pre-trial detention. Connecticut should as well.
Research Projects
Felony Murder
Felony murder laws—which hold people criminal culpable for deaths they did not directly cause—have long been controversial. Supporters say that such laws are an important tool for deterring risky criminal conduct. Detractors maintain, by contrast, that felony murder laws enable grossly disproportionate punishment. What has largely eluded the debate so far is empirical evidence: how do prosecutors use felony murder laws on the ground? What patterns do we see, in aggregate, in the charging and conviction of felony murder by contrast to other crimes? This project uses Connecticut’s prison population — the roughly 175 people currently serving time for felony murder — as a window into these questions.
School Safety
School Resource Officers (SROs), sworn police stationed in schools, are now commonplace. But does their presence actually increase school safety? Dispute the widespread use of SROs, many believe that the answer is “no,” and that SROs spend much of their time and energy responding to minor disciplinary issues. We seek to test this hypothesis empirically. Through an inter-district study, focused especially on districts that have seen success without SROs, we will examine how how different actors—school administrators, teachers, parents—conceptualize “safety,” and the alternatives that exist for securing that ideal.
Learn more about our JEDI award to study this question.
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