Connecticut Office of Policy and Management

Following a national competition in 2015, the State of Connecticut was among twenty jurisdictions selected for inclusion in the Safety and Justice Challenge Network, the centerpiece of the Foundation’s strategy to address over-incarceration by reducing jail misuse and overuse. A previous award supported Connecticut’s participation in a structured data analysis and planning process, assessing local drivers of jail incarceration, setting reduction targets, and developing a plan to achieve them. Resulting plans were scored by an expert panel on the basis of ambition, comprehensiveness, and achievability, and eleven, including Connecticut’s, were selected for implementation funding on the basis of this review. This two-year award enables Connecticut to institute changes aimed at reducing local incarceration and disparities in jail usage in accordance with its implementation plan.

Twenty jurisdictions have been selected, following a nationwide competition, to participate in the Safety and Justice Challenge Network of sites committed to finding ways to safely and sustainably reduce unnecessary jail incarceration. The Safety and Justice Challenge Network is at the core of the Foundation’s initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. Awards to these jurisdictions support their participation in a structured data analysis and planning process aimed at assessing drivers of local incarceration and developing multi-stakeholder action plans to address them.