Community Justice and Public Safety

This Brookings commentary examines the controversy surrounding the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—known by critics as “Cop City”—and raises questions about its role in advancing public safety.

This Brookings report introduces a comprehensive Police Reform Tracker designed to monitor legislative and policy actions related to policing across all 50 states. Developed by Rashawn Ray and Robyn Moore, the tool evaluates states on the strength and scope of reforms passed since 2020, with a focus on accountability, transparency, training, and community engagement.

This Brookings article explores how police violence—both fatal and nonfatal—impacts public health, erodes trust in institutions, and contributes to long-term social and economic harms. The commentary argues that the consequences of aggressive policing extend far beyond individual incidents, reshaping community well-being, especially in Black and Brown communities.

Our study described below addresses how two “tough on crime” laws–Three Strikes and Truth in Sentencing–may have impacted birth outcomes of Black women between 1984 and 2004. While research exists on the role state incarceration policies play in increasing mass incarceration in the U.S., their role in shaping population health and health disparities have remained largely unknown.

This report examines the far-reaching consequences of justice system involvement on mental health, physical health, and well-being.

This study examines the effects of two significant state incarceration policies from the 1990s—three strikes and truth in sentencing—on birth outcomes for Black and White infants. The research employs a difference-in-differences event study design to capture the dynamic effects of these policies over time.

This study examines the impact of North Carolina’s House Bill 318 (HB 318), a state law that preempts municipal protections for immigrant communities, on the health and well-being of Latine immigrants.

A unique partnership in Minnesota is linking data about health, human services, housing, and criminal justice to increase our understanding of risk factors and protective factors for children entering foster care. But how do we ensure we tailor our research approach to fit the complicated lives of real parents, caregivers, and children?

Housing in the United States is in bad shape. There are not enough units, and where there are units, they are often not affordable, and not in the right places. These problems are a result of the U.S. housing system, which is a complex set of people, organizations, laws, and conditions that interact to produce our current housing arrangements. This system has created a chronic shortage and affordability gap and persistently inequitable, segregated, and unhealthy living conditions for millions of Americans.

Pay for success sparks innovation in the public sector while limiting risk to taxpayers by ensuring the government only pays for services that are effective. Importantly, it can bring financing to interventions for populations that are often forgotten, neglected, or deemed less worthy of taxpayer support, including people experiencing chronic homelessness.

Kacie Dragan of our NYU Wagner School Research Hub writes about collaborating with local criminal justice and public health agencies to better understand the health needs of justice-involved New Yorkers.

This research seeks to understand the current and emerging policy landscape that addresses racial health disparities in policing. Evidence has shown that a Black person is killed by police approximately every 40 hours in the United States.