Initial Funding From Ford Foundation, New York Community Trust Supports New Council on Criminal Justice
A research and advocacy organization whose founder bills it as a new “center of gravity and crossroads” for criminal justice policy was set to launch Tuesday with a roster of prominent members from multiple disciplines across the ideological spectrum.
The Council on Criminal Justice will use its invitation-only membership to form ad hoc task forces that study and recommend model policies rooted in a data-driven, nonpartisan approach, with the goal of fixing a system that “is not producing enough safety or justice,” says Adam Gelb, the Council’s founder.
Gelb, who left Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project last August to begin recruiting members and donors, said the Council’s dual mission as a think tank and policy advocacy organization will give it a unique voice in the world of criminal justice.
“There’s not any institution or organization right now that is a dedicated criminal justice organization” unaffiliated with any ideology and undiluted by partisan policy agendas, Gelb told The Crime Report.
“The idea is for leadership of the field to be able to recognize opportunities where they exist, and be flexible and nimble enough to jump in and do work when we think an opening exists to get something done.”
The specifics of what gets done depends on the issues agenda set by the members and then hashed out in working groups, Gelb said.
The Council’s governing board of directors and advisory board of trustees will reflect the areas–many of them interconnected—that are now at the heart of current debates over justice reform: corrections officials and law enforcement managers, prosecutors and defense lawyers, violence interventionists and victim advocates, sentencing and reentry reformers, governors and the formerly incarcerated, and a host of others with current or former posts at all levels of government...