Our Aims

This major multi-year Program has aimed to identify and spearhead the most promising global examples of violence reduction and criminal justice transformation, proven through research to be effective, viable, and replicable. In today’s polarized societies, solutions have been urgently needed as the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities and drivers of violence, and this urgency will continue to grow.

To catalyze a global, research-based exchange and seed new strategies in the United States and beyond, Salzburg Global has launched and will continue to lead this multi-year Program with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the David Rockefeller Fund.

This Program has brought together and will continue to convene a diverse, cross-sector, international, and intergenerational group of stakeholders—including young people, formerly incarcerated individuals, and victims and survivors of violence—to identify the most effective, viable, and replicable solutions to tackle youth violence and promote youth safety and criminal justice reform.

WHY ARE WE FOCUSING ON YOUTH, SAFETY, AND JUSTICE?

Serial failures to redress social, legal, and economic injustice and structural racism have underpinned violence and disproportionately shaped politics, policing, and judicial systems around the world. Yet bold reforms in different jurisdictions have shown—and will continue to show—that cross-cutting interventions can be cost-effective and foster more humane, inclusive, and healthier societies. What can we learn, share, and take to scale for long-term results?

In many countries, including the United States, there has been growing recognition among policymakers and reform advocates that effective criminal justice reform must look beyond the toolkit and institutions of the justice system itself. In an increasing number of settings, innovations based on community-centered, cross-sectoral approaches and socially integrative methods of engaging young people and violent offenders—before, during, and after encounters with the criminal justice system—have proven and will continue to prove more humane, just, and effective.

Key trends and drivers that have shaped and will continue to influence the future of reform efforts worldwide include:

• Changing demographics
• Decolonization and contested legacies that drive demand for diversity, equity, and inclusion in policing, judicial, and law enforcement structures
• Climate change and migration
• Unequal representation and access to justice
• Constraints on public justice system budgets and shrinking resources for legal aid
• Political and societal determinants of (in)justice
• Rapid and unequal urbanization with increased spatial and social segregation
• Uses and abuses of new technologies
• Radical changes in the labor market and future economic opportunities
• Measures introduced as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic

WHAT DO WE HOPE TO ACHIEVE THROUGH THIS PROGRAM?

The main goals of this multi-year Program have been to:

• Enhance community safety and cohesion
• Reduce violence, crime, and incarceration
• Transform judicial and prison systems

Progress has already been made toward these objectives, and the Program continues to work toward accelerating systems change and generating lasting results at three interconnected levels:

• Individual lived experience – by improving daily safety and wellbeing within communities
• Interactions between individuals/communities and systems of authority – by reducing exposure to violence, criminalization, and incarceration
• Institutional structures and mandates – by rethinking the purpose, funding, staffing, metrics, and accountability of judicial and custodial systems

Across all three levels, Fellows have identified—and continue to evaluate—approaches, tools, and technologies in four key areas:

1. New intervention points with long-term potential to reduce violence, injustice, racism, and implicit bias within and beyond criminal justice systems
2. Multi-country comparisons that spotlight successful criminal justice policies and practices across diverse jurisdictions
3. Direct engagement with marginalized communities, including communities of color, to amplify lived experiences and embed their knowledge in reform strategies
4. New initiatives aimed at shifting attitudes, behaviors, and investments in response to global racial and social justice movements and the structural inequities exacerbated by the pandemic

Salzburg Global, together with its partners and Program participants, has already begun to share promising, research-based strategies to reduce violence, incarceration, and recidivism with policymakers and communities in the U.S. and internationally. These efforts continue through publications, media outputs, video interviews and documentaries, targeted policy recommendations, and the development of a forward-looking cross-sector research agenda.