TSU to study criminal justice decisions

Texas Southern University’s Center for Justice Research has received a nearly $600,000 grant to study the effects of prosecutorial decision-making across the country.

The project — funded by Houston-based policy research and advocacy group Arnold Ventures — tasks Texas Southern with tracking the outcomes of bail recommendations and the cost-benefit of pretrial diversion programs in five counties.

The research is part of a $7.4 million pledge by Arnold Ventures, which is funding more than a dozen projects studying 40 prosecutor’s offices in 19 states.

“This project centers an interdisciplinary research team dedicated to rigorously studying prosecutor decision-making,” said Howard Henderson, founding director of the Center for Justice Research. “Through this work, we have the opportunity to provide evidence that will help prosecution better understand community-based alternatives to incarceration.”

Also focusing on prosecutors’ efforts to reduce racial dispari

ties in the criminal justice system, Texas Southern’s work will look at three diversion programs in Colorado and California, as well as two in Texas — the Fort Bend and Dallas County district attorney’s offices, according to the university.

Diversion programs are ones in which district attorneys use their discretion to route people away from the traditional court process. The programs usually involve a wouldbe defendant completing hours of coursework or other requirements to avoid arrest, jail booking and the filing of a criminal charge.

“This support will help inform policy and practices and expand our understanding of how to build safe and racially just outcomes,” said Rebecca Silber, director of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures. “It will also lift up the research-prosecutor-community partnerships that sit at the core of these projects and are critical to building safety and justice.”

Texas Southern University researchers will work with Claremont Graduate University and Justice System Partners, a consulting group, on its portion of the project.

Other higher education institutions that received grants are Harvard University and Indiana University.