Building a Skilled Justice Workforce
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The problem: Concerns about appropriate workforce resourcing exist across the criminal legal system, including optimal staffing levels, necessary training and resources, workforce well-being, and suitable workloads for public defenders’ offices.
Strengthening resources and capacity: RAND partners with state and local agencies to assess staffing, training, and well-being needs across the criminal legal system, drawing on the practical expertise of former practitioners to develop evidence-based strategies for building a skilled and resilient justice workforce.
- Trust and effectiveness in policing: RAND’s Toolkit for Community-Police Dialogue guides meaningful engagement between police and community members. Separately, the Better Policing Toolkit provides resources for implementing effective strategies and overcoming barriers to change. For the city of Los Angeles, RAND conducted an organizational assessment of its police department and delivered recommendations to improve staffing, morale, and internal processes that would support a more resilient and responsive police force.
- Public defense systems: Research has established empirically based caseload standards for effective representation, demonstrated how targeted funding and training expand access to postconviction relief, and identified persistent challenges to indigent defense such as resource gaps, recruitment, and training needs. State-level guidance supported jurisdictions in Utah managing indigent defense workloads and advancing equitable public defense.