Data for Progress

Executive Summary In the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a powerful nationwide movement emerged calling to divert money from the police as a solution to police brutality and the systemic racism inherent in current policing methods. In the movement’s view, diverting money would mean passing local policies that take funds originally earmarked […]

Executive Summary “If you are in denial about climate change, come to California,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in August. The record-setting wildfires that have devastated the American West this year have forced thousands of people from their homes and caused toxic chemicals to leach into drinking water. In the middle of a pandemic, the air quality and excessive heat […]

Executive Summary Law enforcement officers are often sent to respond to emergency calls related to crisis situations that do not actually require, or are even made worse by, a law enforcement response. Some of these calls relate to mental health or substance use disorder crises, check-ins for health and safety, a lack of housing or […]

Executive Summary The U.S. census, mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, is conducted every 10 years to count each resident of the United States. A complete and accurate census is vital. The census determines each state’s representation in the House of Representatives and dictates how billions of federal dollars are spent on […]

Executive Summary In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and classified marijuana under Schedule I, a designation reserved for drugs considered to be highly addictive and that have no accepted medical use. But the decision to classify marijuana alongside heroin and PCP (fentanyl and cocaine, for comparison, are classified under Schedule […]

Executive Summary At the height of the Great Depression, with national employment soaring to over 25%, President Franklin D. Roosevelt championed federal jobs programs that put Americans to work—part of the New Deal that used public works projects to ignite the economy and stem unprecedented job loss. Among those programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) combined […]

Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role of fast and affordable internet service. With internet access, Americans across the country forced to stay home have been able to keep in touch with family and friends, schedule important virtual doctor’s appointments, work from home, and continue their education. But the pandemic has also […]

Executive Summary In a national poll, we asked voters whether they support comprehensive marijuana reform that would legalize marijuana and begin to address the historic, intergenerational harms wrought by decades of racially disparate enforcement. We specifically asked about the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement (MORE) Act, legislation that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level […]

Executive Summary The questions of whether, when, and how to safely open America’s schools have become the center of political fights over the coronavirus. President Trump has taken a hard line on opening schools — his administration is insisting that schools must fully re-open for in-person learning, and is threatening to cut federal funding for districts that […]

Executive Summary Police communications are not reserved for communicating to the public about ongoing emergencies. Instead, the police have their own publicly-funded public relation teams, often used to control public narratives about crime and public safety in ways that promote police power, stoke fear about crime, and conceal police abuse and other misconduct. While these […]

Executive Summary In Portland, Oregon, federal agents in unmarked cars chased protestors and snatched them off the streets without explanation. One video shows federal agents in camouflage fatigues and generic “police” badges grabbing a protester, binding his hands, and placing him into the back of an unmarked minivan. In Washington, D.C., during protests in front of the […]

Executive Summary Amidst the larger debate about funding for law enforcement, Data for Progress and The Justice Collaborative conducted a national survey to examine attitudes toward police presence in schools. Programs that keep “school resource officers” in schools are prohibitively expensive, running into the millions of dollars, and have not prevented a single school shooting. […]

Executive Summary When voters are provided two options regarding cutting or maintaining current levels of defense spending and provided arguments for and against, they support a ten percent decrease by a 14 percentage point margin.  If defense spending was decreased by ten percent, healthcare (40 percent) and responding to the coronavirus pandemic (37) were the […]

Executive Summary Data For Progress and The Justice Collaborative Institute conducted a survey of likely voters in swing states for the November 2020 Presidential and U.S. Senate election to gauge support for the HEROES Act, which The House passed on May 15th and is currently pending before the Senate. The HEROES Act was designed to […]

Executive Summary Hundreds of thousands of people across the country and around the world have taken to the streets to demand an end to police violence and racism in the criminal legal system, moved by the devastating murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and many others, as well as a broader […]

Executive Summary In November of 2019, a group of us,—mothers and our children—those of us who would later become known as Moms 4 Housing, moved into a house on Magnolia Street in Oakland that had been vacant for two years. Our decision was a practical one—we needed a place to raise our children. Homelessness was […]

Executive Summary Forced in this moment to reflect on this new reality—and this new recognition of our shared vulnerability—the vast majority of Americans believe that many of our responses to this crisis have, so far, been woefully inadequate and left too many people behind. Indeed, while the virus poses a threat to us all, we […]

Executive Summary Public health experts agree that jails and prisons pose special risks to the spread of the coronavirus. These risks extend to the incarcerated, and to the correctional officers, medical professionals, and other people who work inside and visit jails and prisons. Moreover, because these workers and other vendors travel in and out of […]

Executive summary The U.S. is a world-leader in incarceration, and the unprecedented number of people serving decades-long and life sentences is a major reason for America’s outlier status. In recent years, despite an emerging bipartisan consensus around the need for criminal justice reform, there has been insufficient action to address people serving lengthy sentences who […]