UPDATE: Read highlights about the exciting events our 2022 AJN Convening here.
The Aspen Institute’s Criminal Justice Reform Initiative (CJRI) will convene members of its Justice and Governance Partnership (JGP) initiative on September 11, 2022, for an inaugural meeting of the Aspen Justice Network.
JGP is the signature program of CJRI. Focusing on mid-size and rural jurisdictions, JGP works to transform community safety and promote justice reforms at the local level by joining together data-driven and community-informed policies and practices in a new rigorous, collaborative approach. This process uncovers punitive crisis management-based approaches to governing and reveals options for new solutions that bring forth greater community safety and opportunity.
In JGP jurisdictions, CJRI provides communities funding over four years, as well as technical assistance, beginning with a comprehensive planning period that launches a local justice collaborative. Over time, JGP will comprise of up to 10 jurisdictions and will generate a steady increase of data-driven, community-informed policies and practices that will improve the lives of community members and reduce public costs, producing lessons that ultimately the whole country can learn and benefit from. (Learn more about JGP here.)
Initial communities engaged in JGP and invited to the first Aspen Justice Network convening are:
- The Grand Rapids, MI region
- The Birmingham, AL region
- Portions of Rural South Carolina (17 counties)
The Aspen Justice Network convening will feature local and national experts on criminal justice issues and on building multi-sector collaboratives. Selected convening plenaries include:
Our Current and Future Work Together: analyzing and visualizing data
Speakers: Dr. Douglas E. Wood, Director, Criminal Justice Reform Initiative, Aspen Institute; Eric Cadora, Director, Justice Mapping Center; Charles Schwartz, VP Technology, SimplyAnalytics
Strategies for Supporting Employment for Returning Persons in Communities
Speakers: Kenyatta Leal, Executive Director, Next Chapter Project; Natrina Gandana, Sr. Program Manager, Slack for Good; and Philip J. Weiser, Colorado Attorney General (this plenary is part of our Rework Reentry initiative)
The Importance of Now: maintaining momentum in criminal justice transformation
Speakers: Erica Bond, VP, Social Justice Initiatives, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; and DeAnna Hoskins, President and CEO, JustLeadershipUSA
Data-Smart Solutions for Cities
Speaker: Stephen Goldsmith, former Mayor of Indianapolis and Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy and Director of Innovations in American Government Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School Government
Introduction to Community-Based Participatory Action Research
Speaker: Dr. Brett Stoudt, City University of New York, Graduate Center
