Archived Research
-
Funding Sources Toolkit
Compiled by Meg Duffy, with research assistance and graphic design by Jacqueline Lantsman At the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, our mission is to create pathways to membership and participation for those society has long excluded and find ways to identify and amplify their voices in crafting and implementing public policy. To fight structural and systemic racism, we envision a society in which residents in communities of color in the United States are supported as they enact programs and propose policy changes to benefit the communities they call home. This is our vision of community justice. We…
-
Abolitionist Principles & Campaign Strategies for Prosecutor Organizing
The organizations that came together to develop this framework were Community Justice Exchange, CourtWatch MA, Families for Justice as Healing, Project NIA, and Survived and Punished NY. This document is a new resource for organizers involved in prosecutor organizing. We participated in developing this framework through our work with CourtWatch MA. A webinar was held about the Abolitionist Principles on November 4, 2019: Sign on to the principles here.
-
Rhetoric, Not Reform: Prosecutors & Pretrial Practices in Suffolk, Middlesex, and Berkshire Counties
On October 3, 2019, we released a groundbreaking report with Families for Justice as Healing and the Massachusetts Bail Fund under the auspices of our joint abolitionist project, CourtWatch MA. The report evaluates the efforts at pretrial reform in three different prosecuting offices in Massachusetts: Suffolk County (DA Rachael Rollins), Middlesex County (DA Marian Ryan), and Berkshire County (DA Andrea Harrington). There’s a lot of talk about progressive prosecutors, good prosecutors, reform-minded prosecutors. As an abolitionist project, CourtWatch MA cares about how people are treated in court and, ultimately, eliminating the prosecuting office. We also want to do everything we…
-
Disabling Punishment
-
Independent Lens: Toward Transparency, Accountability, and Effectiveness in Police Tactics
Since the 1980s, many police departments have operated according to the notion of community policing — a philosophy that emphasizes close relationships characterized by mutual trust between police and communities as the foundation for proportionate, efficient, and effective police work. This emphasis on mutual trust notwithstanding, high-profile incidents of misconduct, high levels of complaints against police, and costly settlements and litigation have highlighted the divisions that exist between police and citizens and have spurred a national conversation on policing and police-community relations. This Report focuses on the viability and implementation of measures aimed at mending the evidently fractured relationships between…
-
The High Cost of ‘Free’ Photo Voter Identification Cards
by Richard Sobel June 2014 Obtaining a “free” voter identification card can typically cost an individual between $75 and $175. When legal fees are factored in, the cost can increase to over $1,000. These are two of the conclusions drawn from an analysis of actual expenses incurred by individuals who needed to obtain identification cards in three states that had recently passed new voting requirements. The High Cost of ‘Free’ Photo Voter Identification Cards, a new report authored by Richard Sobel and released by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, notes that, even…
-
Adjusting Our Focus: Current Communication Practices and Patterns in the Criminal Justice Sector
HOUSTON INSTITUTE AND FRAMEWORKS INC. RELEASE FIELD FRAME ANALYSIS MAPPING COMMUNICATION PATTERNS AMONG INFLUENTIAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ORGANIZATIONS February 21, 2014 The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, with support from FrameWorks, Inc. released a Field Frame Analysis today entitled Adjusting Our Focus. This report examines current communication practices and patterns among influential organizations working to promote criminal justice reforms. It is part of a larger multi-year project being conducted by the two organizations. The long-term goal of this project is to develop evidence-based strategies to communicate about the challenges facing America’s criminal justice system and the reforms…
-
Things I Have Seen and Heard: How Educators, Youth Workers and Elected Leaders Can Help Reduce the Damage of Childhood Exposure to Violence in Communities
Candice Player and Susan Eaton Even as violent crime declines across the nation, children who live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty continue to be exposed to high levels of violence in their communities. Not until fairly recently, though, has a research consensus formed to help us understand far-reaching effects of neighborhood violence exposure and direct us toward promising solutions to reduce its damage to young people. This brief from the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice summarizes and translates this research into usable form. We offer concrete recommendations and action steps for the many men and women committed…
-
Federal Support for School Integration: A Status Report
This brief reviews existing federal policy related to education and civil rights and assesses current support for racial and/or economic integration in schools. It evaluates competitive grant programs, a legal guidance issued by the Department of Justice, and other initiatives.
-
We the People: Race, Ethnicity and Citizenship in the United States 150 Years After Dred Scott v. Sandford
This report surveys the most current data available to assess the state of citizenship in the United States 150 years after the Supreme Court’s famous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. In this 1857 case, the Court denied citizenship to blacks, even free blacks outside the South who had voted and fought in our wars. The High Court in Dred Scott reasoned that, at the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, blacks had been considered “as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far…