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Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University

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Tackling Inequalities in Criminal Justice

Tackling Inequalities in Criminal Justice

As a professor of justice administration at Texas Southern University (TSU) in Houston, Howard Henderson had long wanted to create a criminal justice research center. The nation needs research on issues ranging from overcrowded prisons to racially biased sentencing, and TSU—a historically black institution—could analyze data through a culturally sensitive lens. “There are questions we can ask that others haven’t thought about, or that they may be politically inclined not to ask,” he says.

Henderson’s vision became a reality this past January when TSU opened the Center for Justice Research, funded with $2.7 million from the Center for Advancing Opportunity, an initiative supported by the Charles Koch Foundation, Koch Industries, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

The center brings together researchers in criminal justice, law, forensic science, neuroscience, and computer science and has already launched numerous research projects that analyze data from Houston and the wider Harris County, the nation’s third-largest county with a population of more than 4.5 million. Analyzing local data rather than just national data makes the center’s work distinct. “Few people look at issues on a local level, which is where the majority of criminal justice takes place,” says Henderson, the center’s director. “You can’t just say African-Americans and Hispanics are overrepresented throughout the system. You have to understand the why. That’s the piece we never talk about and what we’re trying to answer,” says Henderson.

The center is also examining how to improve strained relations between the police and the community. One project researchers are undertaking is to study cases where county police used deadly force to help predict future incidents. And they are looking closely at racial disparities within the system. Instead of studying only conviction, incarceration, and sentence length rates, the data points that are traditionally analyzed, the center is also examining the relationship between judicial demographics and sentencing decisions at the federal level.

To reduce mass incarceration levels, the center is focused on the prosecutor’s role in justice reform. “We need to get people out of jail who do not pose a threat to public safety,” says Henderson. As part of this work, researchers are evaluating the impact of programs, policies and tools already in place, including:

Once the center has data evaluating their effectiveness, it will offer its recommendations on moving forward.

The center has already shared some of its findings and recommendations with members of the Harris County criminal justice system. The recommendations include creating the Office of Performance Improvements and Innovation and the recommendation to create an open access data program.

Henderson’s interest in the criminal justice system was sparked by his own experiences growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. During the crack cocaine epidemic of the ‘80s and ‘90s, he saw people arrested for drug possession and slapped with mandatory sentences, some for as long as twenty years. “They weren’t bad people. They just got caught up in the socio-economic trap of the war on drugs,” he says. “I saw the cycle of what happens when families can’t afford to retain counsel.”

Henderson was raised by a single mother who worked as a custodian to support her three children. She emphasized hard work and repeatedly told her kids, “Graduate and stay out of trouble.” Henderson listened, becoming the first in his family to go to college. After earning his Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University, he received his masters of criminal justice from Tennessee State University and his PhD in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University. He feels fortunate to have found such a meaningful career.

“I don’t see it as work,” he says. “I do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Click HERE for Original Article Published on 7-25-2018

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The next frontier of #CriminalJusticeReform : County jails | ⁦@thehill⁩

The next frontier of criminal justice reform: County jails

Those who pose a danger to others should be kept off the streets, but locking up nonviolent defendants and the mentally ill is expensive.

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Our Dr. David Rembert tours the Iowa Medical and Classification Center during the Higher Education Policy Advisory Council Meetings in Iowa City, Iowa. Find out more about the prison education research program of @IHEPTweets https://t.co/AY3JjagJ7W @davidarembert @TexasSouthern

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11 Dec

Congrats to our very own @DrJasmineDrake for being selected in the inaugural cohort of fellows for the future by the @500womensci | #womeninstem @TxSouthern_AJ @TexasSouthern @HBCUDigest @HBCUBuzz @gerard_924 @tmcf_hbcu

Congrats to our very own @DrJasmineDrake for being selected    in the inaugural cohort of fellows for the future by the @500womensci | #womeninstem @TxSouthern_AJ @TexasSouthern @HBCUDigest @HBCUBuzz @gerard_924 @tmcf_hbcu
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Last year today we launched the #Fellowship4TheFuture. Today, we are excited to announce our inaugural cohort of Fellows for the Future! #WOCinSTEM

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11 Dec

See how we collaborated w/ @TXCivilRights on solitary confinement in this recap video. We shine light on those who have lived through solitary confinement & present evidence of solitary confinement’s negative consequences. @bjmlspa @texassouthern

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11 Dec

“Nearly a third of the roughly 2.3 million individuals currently on #probation every year fail to successfully complete their supervision requirements and wind up back in prison again, often not even for committing new crimes.”

Changing the Culture of Community Supervision | The Crime Report

America’s probation and parole systems were originally conceived as a channel for providing “rehabilitation and mercy.” For our spec...

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10 Dec

Great presentation on the Impact of FInTech on the Community Reinvestment Act by Ms. Siedah Robinson, who is a graduate student in the Public Administration Program, at the SOPA Research Forum today! @bjmlspa

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The Center for Justice Research is a nonpartisan research center devoted to data-driven solutions for an equitable criminal justice system. The primary focus is to produce innovative solutions to criminal justice reform efforts by utilizing an experienced group of researchers working to understand and address the current challenges of the criminal justice system.

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  • Home
    ▼
    • About Us
    • Brochure
    • Images
      ▼
      • Distinguished Lecture Series
      • Thanksgiving 2019
    • Press Releases
      ▼
      • Criminal Justice Reform in Tennessee
      • Intersection of Forensic Science and the Criminal Justice System
    • Podcast
      ▼
      • Changing Police Culture with New Message and Data
      • Limitations of Prosecutor Research
      • Criminal Justice Reform in Tennessee
  • Research
    ▼
    • Advancing Police-Community Relations
    • Prosecutorial Decision-Making
    • Risk Assessment
    • Pre-Trial Justice
    • Parental Incarceration
    • Forensic Science
  • Researcher Development Program
  • Our Team
    ▼
    • Staff
    • Faculty Research Fellows
    • Research Fellows
      ▼
      • Affiliated Graduate Research Fellows
  • Our Funders and Partners
  • Re-Entry Dashboard
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