The Committee on Law and Justice of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene a two-day workshop to explore models of prosecutorial programs and practices. The aim of the workshop will be to highlight implications for public policy and priorities for future research.
It will:
• Highlight practices, programs, and policies, including gun and violent crime diversion, that show promise as alternatives to incarceration and reducing racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice outcomes;
• Discuss how prosecutors can improve their capacity to build community confidence in criminal justice institutions, particularly among historically marginalized communities (e.g., by addressing community safety, transparency in decision making, sustainability in reforms);
• Discuss policies, practices, and programs that show promise of building continuous, quality improvement and accountability in prosecutors' offices, particularly those that hold promise for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice outcomes and reducing incarceration; and
• Discuss what data and methodological gaps in the research need to be filled in order to address existing gaps in the evidence base.