Institute Intelligence, March 2025: Celebrating the Women of our Working Group, Researching Nonprofits' Role in Addressing Hate Crimes
By Carla Sinclair, Senior Communications Associate
Welcome to the March edition of Institute Intelligence. As spring begins, we're looking toward the year ahead—there's no doubt that state and local governments, and their pubic sector partners, have a busy year, with challenging questions to answer and plans to make. We're looking forward to supporting them however we can, whether through data-driven analysis, building community partnerships, or developing needed infrastructure.
Today, we're sharing the work we did toward those goals this month, including a research project tapping into public sector partnerships to prevent hate crimes and helping develop resources to support incarcerated students transition to college after release.
We're also taking time to celebrate Women's History Month by highlighting the amazing women of our Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Project Working Group. All this, and more, below.
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Optimizing Governments & Institutions
Celebrating the Women of the Gender-Based Violence Project Working Group
In New York City and other communities across the country, government agencies and nonprofit institutions are tasked with supporting survivors of gender-based violence who have had contact with the legal system. However, many survivors, including women and gender non-conforming survivors, face widespread barriers to accessing important services.
The Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Project was created to tackle this issue, as well as shed light on the ways that service organizations are already successfully supporting survivors. At its core, the GBV Project is community driven and comprised of a Working Group of ISLG staff and consultants with lived experience in the fields of gender-based violence and criminal justice. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting the women who make up the Working Group and their significant contributions on our blog.
“A lot of people don't really know what happens to survivors that are struggling in the systems and entrapped. So to be a person with lived experience, with first-hand knowledge, you're going to give a raw picture of what exactly happens to women in these systems, and how domestic violence is constantly overlooked. I want to be a voice for those women in prison, those women suffering in silence that sometimes can't speak up.”
Q&A with NY State Assembly Chief of Staff Anna Myers
“You're a visionary for your district, because you've heard what constituents want and need; you're a visionary for what can be better, where things can be improved.”
Legislative Chiefs of Staff have a tough job. They're policy experts, project managers, strategists, and supporting their elected official in whatever needs to get done that day, week, or year.
We sat down with Kriegel Fellow Anna Myers, Chief of Staff to New York State Assembly Member Alex Bores, to discuss her path from working in tech to serving the public, and what it looks like to be "strategic, a problem solver, and a project manager all at once.”
Seeking M/WBE-certified business owners for focus groups on their experiences doing business with the City
We’ve partnered with the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) to better understand how businesses do work with the City, what barriers exist, and how they might be overcome.
As part of the study, we’re hosting focus groups to learn about the experiences and insights Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE) NYC business owners have on working or attempting to work with the City of New York, its prime contractors/vendors, and private sector entities.
Insights will help inform improvements to the City’s contracting process and business resources, and as a thank-you for your time, you’ll be entered into a raffle to win one of 20 $100 gift cards. Are you or is someone you know a business owner? Share and sign up here.
Promoting Opportunity
Supporting College-in-Prison Students Pursue Higher Education After Incarceration
Increasing access to education in prison is beneficial for both individuals and their communities, opening doors to opportunities during and after incarceration. However, many incarcerated students don’t finish their degree before release, meaning they have to continue their education in the community to earn their degree.
Complex systems, competing priorities, and other barriers often stand in the way of reenrollment and graduation. This is why we’ve partnered with Public Policy Lab, NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, the SUNY Office of Higher Education in Prison (OHEP), and others to launch the Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined (HERR) to ensure service providers have the tools and partnerships to address the complex needs of this population and make it easier to return to higher education in the community.
On our Blog: See how HERR is collaborating with formerly incarcerated students to enhance partnerships between reentry service providers and higher education institutions on our blog from Evan Goldstein, ISLG Senior Policy Associate.
From Prison to College: Navigating the Transition to Campus
[ICYMI] In the News: “New York's College-in-Prison Prospects… and Challenges” by former ISLG Senior Research Associate Pavithra Nagarajan and SUNY OHEP’s Senior Rachel Sander in RealClear Education.
Advancing Justice
Leading a Community-Driven Hate Crimes Research Project in NYC
Hate crimes are widely underreported and unaddressed, making it difficult to grasp the full extent of their impact on victims and communities. Community-based organizations (CBOs) are a promising means of hate crime reduction because they offer a channel for preventing, reporting, and responding to hate crimes with a known, knowledgeable, and trusted resource. Yet, CBOs’ approaches in this work are not widely known or understood—including the strategies they use and the ways they work collaboratively to protect their communities.
To fill this gap, CUNY ISLG is the leading research partner for the Collaborative for Hate-Crime Incident Research, Response & Prevention (CHIRRP). Consisting of a partnership between us, government agencies, and nonprofits, CHIRRP is conducting a mixed-methods study to better understand the existing pathways for hate crime reporting and how community approaches—particularly CBOs and cross-agency coordination with government institutions—can help increase reporting, support survivors, and ultimately reduce hate crime perpetration.
On our Blog: At the core of its design, CHIRRP aims to center community voices through partnerships with CBOs. Researchers Aimee McPhail and Neal Palmer explain how it works.
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