The Lindsay Fellowship recognizes promising New York City leaders who have been elected to the city and state legislative bodies in the past four years and introduces these leaders to experts across a variety of policy areas and provides a space for ongoing dialogue and learning.

As the extensive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, many municipalities—including those participating in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) — implemented emergency measures to reduce their jail populations. This brief describes how those measures influenced jail populations in SJC sites between February and October 2020—and how jail populations and racial and ethnic disparities changed during the pandemic’s early months.

Building on significant momentum for evidence-based reforms to local justice systems, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation provided $18 million in grants as part of its Safety and Justice Challenge, a national initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. In this report, we measure and describe the effectiveness of strategies to reduce jail populations over the first three years of the initiative.

Named for Jay L. Kriegel, long-time chief of staff to New York City Mayor John Lindsay, the Kriegel Fellowship is a leadership and professional development program for chiefs of staff of city and state legislators serving the New York City area. The program aims to support and empower legislative chiefs of staff to excel in their current positions, and grow confidently into the next generation of elected officials and public service leaders. In this news release we announce the inaugural class of fellows.

Our leadership and staff have decades of on-the-ground public service experience and have led the Lindsay Fellowship in Government Leadership and Practice—for New York City and State elected officials—since 2017. Based on research and interviews with NYC and NYS legislators, we launched the Kriegel Fellowship for Public Service Leaders to support and empower legislative chiefs of staff to excel in their current positions, network with other chiefs of staff and experts, and grow confidently into the next generation of elected officials and public service leaders. Here we provide more information on the mission and vision behind the initiative.

On April 1, 2019, NYS passed comprehensive criminal justice legislation representing a major shift. Most notably, the legislation eliminates money bail and pretrial detention for the majority of misdemeanor and nonviolent felony defendants, but these reforms will also usher in major changes for law enforcement. Arnold Ventures committed $5.5 million to help four expert organizations document how statewide changes to the criminal justice system are implemented — and how effective they are — amid a challenging landscape.

With support from Arnold Ventures we announced the selection of 10 jurisdictions to participate in the Reducing Revocations Challenge, a national initiative dedicated to transforming probation supervision and reducing the number of unnecessary failures. The Challenge was launched in response to the growing recognition that those failures are a major contributor to mass incarceration, responsible for almost half of state prison admissions nationwide, and need urgent reform.

The Reducing Revocations Challenge was announced as a national initiative dedicated to transforming probation supervision and reducing unnecessary failures that contribute to mass incarceration. The Challenge will address these issues by supporting action research in up to 10 jurisdictions around the country to better understand why revocations occur and how they can be prevented, with the goal of informing specific policy and practice interventions that can be piloted and tested in a potential second phase of the initiative.

Along with Brooklyn's District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, we announced a Data and Transparency Initiative that will improve the Office of the DA’s ability to track and analyze its data, allowing for better evaluation of prosecutors’ decision-making, enhanced transparency, and an increased ability to assess the effectiveness of its policies. The partnership represents an important step in fulfilling the recommendation of DA Gonzalez’s Justice 2020 Committee to “establish a data/analytics team to drive metrics, best practices, and reform.”

Arnold Ventures announced the launch of a new grant-funded community dedicated to reducing unjust and unnecessary pretrial detention. As an Arnold Ventures grantee, we joined the National Partnership for Pretrial Justice (www.pretrialpartnership.org), a group of more than two dozen research, technical assistance, policy, and advocacy organizations that will work to advance pretrial justice nationally and in more than 35 states across the country.

Seventeen recently elected members of the New York City Council and State Legislature were selected as 2019 recipients of the Lindsay Fellowship in Government Leadership and Practice. Named for former Mayor John Lindsay and launched in 2017, the fellowship engages promising New York City leaders who have been elected to the city and state legislative bodies in the past four years. The program introduces these leaders to experts across a variety of policy areas and provides a space for ongoing dialogue and learning.