Supporting Stakeholders’ Efforts to Promote Public Safety: The Criminal Justice Innovation Lab

About the Lab

As a UNC School of Government faculty member, Jessie Smith, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Government, worked with state and local leaders to understand issues and innovate solutions. “A neutral, evidence-based approach creates space for stakeholders to better understand issues and collaborate on solutions,” said Smith. She decided to focus on and expand that work. In 2019, Smith founded the Criminal Justice Innovation Lab (the Lab), and remains the Lab’s director to this day.

The Lab’s mission is to support evidence-based criminal justice policy that promotes public safety, a fair and effective system, and economic opportunity for all. Importantly, the Lab’s role is a supportive one—stakeholders identify the issues, and the Lab helps them develop, implement, and evaluate legal and evidence-informed solutions.

“Stakeholders direct our work,” said Smith. “They might make a request for specific data to better understand an issue, they might want us to evaluate a new initiative that they’ve developed, or they may need a new process to address a problem. Through research, pilot projects, and our ready-to-use tools and roadmaps, we are here to help. And as always, we apply our core values of non-advocacy, non-partisan, and responsiveness.”

The Lab engages in a wide variety of work; here are some projects that the Lab is working on now.

Policing & Responding

The Lab is working with the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police, local police departments, and county officials to evaluate the impact of alternative responder programs. Effective alternative responses to crisis calls are a priority for North Carolina police leaders. Officers often lack the tools and training to most effectively address behavioral health and related crisis calls. Alternative responder programs involve new approaches to addressing these calls, like having a behavioral health specialist co-respond with police. With support from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, the Anonymous Trust, and Orange County, the Lab is evaluating two alternative responder programs: the Burlington Police Department’s Law Enforcement Crisis Counsel Program and the Orange County Crisis Assistance, Response, and Engagement Program. This work also includes surveys of rural police chiefs and a rural community case study to ensure that findings are relevant for the state’s rural communities.

“Law enforcement has identified this as a top priority, and we’re working hard to produce data to help them make evidence-informed decisions,” said Smith. “There’s some national research on this, but it’s mostly in major cities. Mayberry, however, is different from Miami and Memphis. We need to work in smaller communities to produce research that’s relevant and useful to them,” said Smith.

Indigent Defense

The Lab is working with North Carolina Indigent Defense Services to understand best practices for having social workers support public defender teams. Defenders use these team members to help address the reasons people enter the system—like substance use—and the consequences of their system involvement, with the goal of improving outcomes. With support from Arnold Ventures, a national foundation, the Lab offered a workshop for public defenders and social work staff and is conducting an implementation evaluation to help it develop a rigorous methodology for evaluating the impact of social work staff.

Data Dashboards

The Lab’s popular data tool, the Measuring Justice Dashboard, helps stakeholders better understand North Carolina’s criminal justice system at state and county levels. “In some cases, the Dashboard provides eye-popping data that are changing the way people think about the system,” said Smith. The Dashboard lets users identify successes and points for improvement. Initially developed with support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, new support from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust has allowed the Lab to add new metrics and update data, keeping it timely and relevant.

In response to stakeholder requests, in July 2024, the Lab produced a new Record Clearance Dashboard, showing how many people would be impacted by various criminal record clearance policies. On the interactive dashboard, users can select policy parameters and see the number of people affected by their chosen policy initiative.

Court Appearance Project

In 2022, the Lab completed the North Carolina Court Appearance Project, an initiative funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. It involved working with three counties to help them examine and develop solutions to address court appearance issues. That work led to the creation of an online Court Appearance Toolbox, also funded by Pew and filled with practical tools and resources for stakeholders nationwide. Now, in 2024—again with support from Pew—the Lab is supporting a new project with the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts to look at the issue at the state level. The Lab is supporting a statewide committee as it examines jail and other data and considers whether solutions developed in the Lab’s earlier work can be helpful statewide. “In many ways, this is the best of what we do,” said Smith. “We started with a pilot project in three counties, and now their solutions are being considered at the state level.”

The Lab Team

The Lab has four interdisciplinary full-time team members, a senior research associate, and four graduate student research assistants. For data needs, the Lab is supported by UNC’s Research and Data Management Core, and the Lab has partnerships with academic experts at UNC and around the nation.

The Lab also is supported by its Advisory Board, with advice on strategic priorities and emerging opportunities. The Lab’s Advisory Board members include, among others, judicial system, law enforcement, and business leaders.

Mission-driven work

The Lab’s multi-disciplinary team uses research to help stakeholders understand and identify issues, develop solutions, and measure outcomes—all with the goal of promoting public safety, a fair and effective system, and opportunities for economic prosperity.

“What’s more fundamental to improving the lives of North Carolinians than helping to create safe communities where people can flourish?” said Smith. “That’s what motivates us every day.”