October 2021 | Executive Session on the Future of Justice Policy Towards A New Framework For Achieving Decarceration: A Review Of The Research On Social Investments

Recent calls to decarcerate - to reduce reliance on the criminal legal system as a means to surveil and punish - have only grown louder during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reducing the number of people housed in jails and prisons is a necessary step, but it is not enough to effectively and permanently decarcerate; we must proactively resource social services. By conducting a scoping review of the recent research literature, the authors identify interventions in access to housing, education, employment, healthcare, and social support programs that have been empirically proven to reduce interaction with the criminal legal system. They found that comprehensive early childhood investments, such as nurse-family partnerships and preschool with wraparound family services; gainful employment and transitional career support; and multisystemic therapy all had rigorous positive effects. Importantly, the team also found a dearth of knowledge in this field, demonstrating a failure to adequately consider or evaluate decarceral interventions in the community: of the more than 23 thousand papers reviewed, only 53 studies were found to fit the review criteria. The authors recommend additional long-term investment to identify effective decarceral interventions with intergenerational gains in well-being.