Communities around the United States face tough choices every day about how to keep their neighborhoods safe. Violence prevention efforts are important, but the resources often focus on responding to crime. Determining the most appropriate response to illegal activity—whether that’s incarceration or providing community-based services to people who commit crimes—also requires careful consideration. Communities also need to ensure that, for people who have been incarcerated, policies and programs are in place to facilitate successful reintegration after release.
RAND draws on its cross-disciplinary expertise to deliver rigorous research and analysis to strengthen public safety and enhance the performance of U.S. justice systems. We support federal, state, and local agencies, law enforcement, courts, and communities in addressing urgent criminal justice challenges, from alternatives to incarceration and successful reentry, to violence prevention, justice workforce development, and evidence-based drug policy.
In addition, our two policy centers that focus on civil justice—Institute for Civil Justice (ICJ) and the Feinberg Center for Catastrophic Risk Management and Compensation—ork to make the civil justice system more efficient and equitable, and develop solutions to reduce the social and economic impacts of disasters, respectively.
