The Holyoke SSYI Program is a powerful example of how successful Gateway City initiatives fuse leaders and leadership styles together to overcome stubborn challenges. SSYI is a carefully coordinated effort to reach the community’s most difficult to reach young men—those who are “proven-risk” for violence. Making the most of a new state grant program, Holyoke
Why we believe in social emotional learning
Ben Forman's remarks at the Social Emotional Learning Policy Forum
Our focus at MassINC is serving as a nonpartisan voice for state policies that support a growing middle class; about decade ago, we started to organize our work around the Gateway Cities. This was in recognition that the communities where low-income families are increasingly concentrated have an outsized role, as either launching pads up into the middle class or as pockets where persistent generational poverty have formed.
Rich-poor divide in high school sports
Data reveal inequality that threatens American Dream
EACH YEAR, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association compiles athletic participation data from public, charter, and parochial high schools across the state. In nine out of the past 10 years, the publicized narrative about the data has been the same: that athletic participation is increasing. But below the surface, the data reveal some alarming trends about
The Topline
CNN Democratic Debate Reaction: Don’t believe anything you read… yet
It’s the day after the first Democratic debate, and some news outlets are out with “polls” declaring the winner. Don’t believe them. Not the Drudge website poll which has Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in first followed by Jim Webb. Nor the Boston Herald’s web poll, which has Sanders first and former Secretary of State Hillary
Crime, Cost & Consequences
A Two Year Progress Report
In 2013, MassINC issued Crime, Cost, and Consequences, a comprehensive look at the performance of the state’s criminal justice system. At the Second Annual Massachusetts Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Summit, we issued this update. These new figures show steady progress in some areas, while other problems identified in the 2013 report continue to present stubborn challenges.
Listen to MassINC’s Benjamin Forman discuss criminal justice
The Mara Dolan Show
On Monday, October 5th MassINC Research Director Ben Forman joined Mara Dolan on her show to talk about racial disparities in bail and pre-trial detention in Massachusetts.
Watch MassINC’s Benjamin Forman discuss criminal justice
On WGBH's Greater Boston with Jim Braude
On September 30th, MassINC Research Director Benjamin Forman sat down with Jim Braude on WGBH’s Greater Boston to discuss criminal justice and his latest report: Exploring the Potential for Pretrial Innovation in Massachusetts. Segment begins at 10:00 mark.
New research finds wide racial and ethnic variation in cash bail in Massachusetts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A new study by the nonpartisan think tank MassINC shows large racial and ethnic disparities in the composition of defendants awaiting trial in jail. In Barnstable County, black defendants are overrepresented in the jail population relative to their share of the county’s general population by a factor of 10 to one. Out west in
Exploring the Potential for Pretrial Innovation in Massachusetts
Many states involved in Justice Reinvestment—a data-driven approach to reduce incarceration and increase public safety—have taken aim at the practice of holding defendants on cash bail. These efforts are backed by research that shows many defendants held in jail awaiting trial do not pose a serious risk. Keeping low-risk defendants out of jail allows states
New Paper Finds Evidence of Fabrication in International Surveys
Curbstoning and beyond: Confronting data fabrication in survey research Steve Koczela, Cathy Furlong, Jaki McCarthy and Ali Mushtaq Data fabrication (i.e. creating fake survey data) has been a concern since the beginning of organized survey research. The risk has always been present that someone in the chain of survey data collection and processing would simply invent