The Other Public Health Crisis: How The DOJ Can Flatten the Overdose Curve
The pandemic has turbo-charged the overdose crisis, and the Biden administration can bend this curve by abandoning ineffective and counterproductive policy.
Leo Beletsky, Morgan Godvin, Jeremiah Goulka Jun 11, 2021
The Case for Gas Bans and Residential Building Electrification: Equity Perspectives on an Emerging Socio-Technical Energy Transition
We can and should revise the regulatory and policy approaches, in consultation with communities and stakeholders, to achieve equitable solutions.
Robert Cudd, Felicia Federico, Eric Daniel Fournier Jun 04, 2021
Millions of Low-Income People Are Locked Out of The Financial System. More Big Tech Monopoly Power Is Not The Answer.
Congress must act to ensure that the power of digital currency is used in an inclusive system, not to cement Big Tech’s already outsize influence.
Saule T. Omarova May 06, 2021
The Case For Moving Beyond Probation, And How To Do It
Radical change requires developing alternatives to probation that do not steer people into prison.
Fiona Doherty May 04, 2021
Why We Need A Public Health Jobs Corps—And How To Do It
A permanent Public Health Job Corps would allow the U.S. to take on the drivers of health inequity and build power among workers.
Amy Kapczynski, Jane Hopkins Apr 28, 2021
Erasing the “Scarlet E” of Eviction Records
Policymakers must protect tenants from records that can effectively banish people from civil society.
Kathryn A. Sabbeth Apr 12, 2021
Health, Place, And Covid-19 Vaccines: Why Geography Matters For Equity And Public Health Now, And Once Vaccines Are Widely Available
A novel place-based approach to COVID vaccine allocation could reduces inequities, even as states have adopted differing allocation frameworks.
Harald Schmidt Mar 18, 2021
The Case for Prioritizing COVID-19 Vaccines in Prisons and Jails
By prioritizing incarcerated people and correctional officers in COVID-19 vaccine plans, we will better be able to stem the virus, protect our most vulnerable, and our community at large.
Emily A Wang, Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, Lisa B. Puglisi Feb 22, 2021
The Case for Providing Guaranteed Income to Kids Aging out of Foster Care
With soaring unemployment, stagnant wages, and historic income inequality, the transition from living at home to financial independence is often a long and arduous one, and perhaps impossible without a family safety net. That transition is even more difficult for children in foster care.
Mark Courtney, Shanta Trivedi Feb 05, 2021
Decades of Federal Policies Turned Local Police On Immigrant Communities. Here’s How Biden Can Stop That.
To make real progress on immigration, the president must address not just four years of bad policy, but the last 40 years.
Alina Das Jan 20, 2021
Harm Reduction Practice and Innovation in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in San Francisco
Executive Summary Amid a significant spike in deaths among individuals experiencing homelessness in San Francisco, including a rise in overdose deaths, expanded harm reduction practices and substance use treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown promising results in reducing death and harm from opioid use. The interventions include providing emergency shelters for higher-risk adults and […]
Joshua Bamberger, Nicky Mehtani, Jessica Ristau Dec 07, 2020
How the Supreme Court Has Turned False Narratives on Policing into More Police Power
Introduction Late one night in September 1980, New York City police officers chased Benjamin Quarles to the back of a grocery store. There, officers detained Quarles and frisked him, finding an empty shoulder holster. After securing Quarles with handcuffs, one officer asked him where the gun was. Quarles nodded toward some empty cartons and replied, […]
Jennifer Laurin, Kyle C. Barry Dec 04, 2020
Struggling to Breathe: Asthma, Pollution, and the Fight for Environmental Justice
Executive Summary Asthma rates in the United States are intimately connected with environmental policy choices. Weak regulation or non-compliance with pollution control has resulted in uneven air quality across the country and corresponding elevated health risks. The disease burden has fallen primarily on nonwhite communities, and particularly nonwhite children, who—due to America’s racialized housing geography—tend […]
Rebecca Bratspies Dec 03, 2020
The Case for Social Housing
INTRODUCTION The United States is in the midst of a housing crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic catastrophe are making it worse. Over 40 million people may soon be at risk of being thrown out of their homes at a time of great uncertainty. While the recent federal eviction moratorium keeps some people […]
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Mark Paul Nov 02, 2020
How Trump Could Steal the Election
Executive Summary This election has put the basic tenets of our democracy at stake. The vote will place unprecedented stresses on our system of electing a president. Whether the system will be able to withstand these pressures is another matter. American history suggests that our system is vulnerable to periodic breakdowns. Ordinarily the risk of […]
Lawrence Douglas Oct 31, 2020
Why We Need a New Civilian Conservation Corp – And How To Do It
Executive Summary The United States currently faces three deepening and converging crises. The first and most obvious is the health crisis produced by COVID-19, which has killed more than 200,000 people nationwide and resulted in acute social isolation for millions of Americans. Second, the state and local lockdowns imposed to stem the virus’ spread have […]
Neil M. Maher Oct 09, 2020
How Cities Can Protect Workers From Wage Theft
Executive Summary Addressing wage theft is an essential part of providing economic security for working people, and if done correctly with robust enforcement, local wage theft ordinances can provide significant protections. These ordinances are also popular among voters. New polling from Data for Progress and The Justice Collaborative Institute shows overwhelming bipartisan support for local […]
Nicole Hallett Oct 06, 2020
How to Demilitarize the Police
Executive Summary As peaceful protesters throughout the United States challenge the police killings of Black women and men, they are confronted today with fully militarized police forces, equipped with M4 rifles, sniper scopes, camouflage gear and helmets, tanks and mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, and grenade launchers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heavily weaponized […]
Bernard E. Harcourt Sep 30, 2020
The Dangers of Police-Created Crime
Executive Summary Police-created crime is not a path to public safety. In most cases, undercover police stings target individuals who officers know nothing about, including whether they were already committing the targeted crime. Rather, these stings tend to ensnare the most vulnerable individuals, often by focusing on low-level drug crimes and poverty-induced offenses. Creating crime—in […]
Katie Tinto Sep 29, 2020
Sexual Assault Victims Want Services Tailored to Their Needs
Executive Summary For decades, prosecutors and advocates strove to make the criminal legal system more victim-centered. This resulted in more money being funneled towards prosecutions and policing as well as laws that now require harsher penalties and more regular notifications for victims. But it has also produced, paradoxically, a downgrading of social services, counseling, medical […]
Mary Koss Sep 25, 2020
How Cities Can Protect Public Health When States Stand In the Way
Executive Summary Cities play a vital role in protecting the health and safety of their residents. But they have been increasingly thwarted by their own state governments, thanks to a relatively recent uptick in “preemption,” where a higher level of government uses either executive authority or legislation to limit the authority of a lower level […]
Richard Schragger, Dilini Lankachandra Sep 23, 2020
End Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Competition – Collect the Tax Deficit of Multinationals
Tax systems have too often worked toturbocharge the inequalities associated with our modern economy.
Kimberly Clausing, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman Sep 17, 2020
The Case for a Federal Job Guarantee Program
Executive Summary The coronavirus pandemic has brought the country to the brink of economic collapse. While the CARES Act provided some temporary relief, sustained economic recovery requires a plan to give unemployed workers an opportunity to support themselves and their families with dignity. New Deal-style federal jobs programs can help eliminate working poverty and create […]
William Darity Jr., Dawn Milam Sep 10, 2020
Racism is a Public Health Crisis
Executive Summary Racial disparities in health and wellbeing are well documented. In 2003, the Institute of Medicine issued the landmark report Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare, which connected racism in mortgage lending, access to housing, employment, and criminal justice to racial health disparities. This report and the World Health Organization’s 2008 […]
Ruqaiijah Yearby, Crystal N. Lewis, Keon L. Gilbert Sep 03, 2020
From Crisis Response to Harm Prevention: The Role of Integrated Service Facilities
Executive Summary As things stand, many interactions with crisis response systems in the United States result in a trip to jail or an emergency room. Both of these options are costly, inefficient, and often result in the same people coming back again and again. There is a better way: Integrated Service Facilities (ISFs) can provide […]
Rafik Nader Wahbi, Sterling Johnson, Leo Beletsky Sep 01, 2020
Water Regulation and Injustice in the United States
Executive Summary The notion of “environmental justice” reflects the disproportionately high burden of environmental hazards—such as pollution—borne by low-income communities, communities of color, and indigenous communities, as well as the disproportionately low access of these communities to environmental benefits—such as clean water. This already unequal distribution of environmental costs and benefits has been gradually exacerbated […]
Tamar Meshel Aug 27, 2020
Prosecutors Should Not Take Money From Police Unions
Executive Summary Over the past several months, protests against police violence and the criminalization of communities of color have increased focus and attention on calls to defund the police and limit their political influence. This development has forced elected prosecutors to reckon with their role in a system that has long failed in its mission […]
Katie Levine Aug 24, 2020
A Path to Non-Police Enforcement of Civil Traffic Violations
Executive Summary To reduce police violence and abuses of power, officers’ contacts with the public can be limited by transferring some policing functions to non-police agencies that can better promote individual and societal well-being. One proposal to significantly decrease police encounters without compromising public safety is to remove civil traffic law enforcement from the duties […]
Sarah A. Seo Aug 24, 2020
The Case for Same-Day Voter Registration
Executive Summary Same-day voter registration—where a voter can both register and vote on Election Day—improves democracy in the United States by making it easier for people to vote. Same-day voter registration promotes greater participation: states with this policy tend to have higher turnout than states with onerous registration deadlines. This reform has a notable, positive […]
Joshua A. Douglas Aug 20, 2020
The Case for Comprehensive Marijuana Reform – Policies & Public Opinion
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 […]
The Justice Collaborative Institute, Data for Progress, Fair and Just Prosecution Aug 19, 2020
Reforming Police Union Contracts and Law Enforcement Officer Bills of Rights
Executive Summary In October of 2018, an arbitrator ordered Florida’s Opa-locka Police Department to rehire Sergeant German Bosque. This was the sixth time that the city had attempted to fire Sergeant Bosque, and the sixth time an arbitrator ordered the city to rehire Bosque on appeal. There were good reasons to fire Bosque. Over the […]
Stephen Rushin Aug 17, 2020
The Need for a Pandemic Merger Moratorium
Executive Summary During a pandemic, any greater consolidation of corporations is a risk to health, jobs, and small businesses. Instead of charging forward with more mergers during the coronavirus-created economic crisis, we should impose a moratorium until the Federal Trade Commission can determine that small businesses, workers, and consumers are no longer under the financial […]
Zephyr Teachout Aug 11, 2020
Ending Dispossession Through Student Loan Collection – Policies & Polling
Executive Summary The student loan debt crisis is leading to tremendous dispossession of wealth and income from borrowers—and disproportionately from Black and Latinx borrowers, as well as women borrowers of all races, with Black and Latinx women faring the worst. Aggressive student loan collection practices, which may even involve arrest or threat of arrest, are […]
Aug 05, 2020
The Case for Banning Law Enforcement From Using Facial Recognition Technology
Executive Summary Police use of facial recognition technology has become routine in the United States, posing grave risks to privacy and civil liberties, especially for people of color. Despite its ubiquity, there is no comprehensive regulation of the technology and its use by law enforcement. Thus far, some cities and states have reined in law […]
Evan Selinger, Woodrow Hartzog Aug 04, 2020
Congress Must Provide Real Aid To people in the Next Stimulus Package
Executive Summary Congress has the ability to provide comprehensive aid to households in the next stimulus package. At its core, the new legislation must provide recurring, inclusive, and long-term relief for individuals and families. This relief must not end at an arbitrary date by which Congress wishes the coronavirus will magically disappear. It must give […]
Pamela Foohey, Sara S. Greene Aug 03, 2020
The Case for a Community Health Corps – Responding to COVID-19 With a Jobs Program to Build a New Infrastructure of Care
Executive Summary COVID-19 has caused intertwined health and economic crises: the virus threatens the health of millions of Americans, and the resulting economic harm is devastating, especially for working people and families. The burden of these crises has not fallen equally. Communities of color, especially Black and Latinx people, have borne the brunt of the […]
Amy Kapczynski, Gregg Gonsalves, Lisa Hansmann Jul 30, 2020
The Case for a Right to Counsel in Housing Court
Executive Summary The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically and ominously shifted the scale of the eviction crisis in the United States. Short of extensive, multipronged legislative action, estimates suggest that anywhere from 19 to 23 million renters (or 11 million renter households) are at risk of eviction between summer and fall 2020. Congress must take immediate […]
Jamila Michener Jul 29, 2020
The Inclusive Value Ledger – Digital Dollars and Digital Platforms for Digital Public Banking
Executive Summary Since Facebook announced Libra, its proposed “global crypto-currency,” a bit over a year ago, central banks and monetary authorities worldwide have accelerated their efforts to develop central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Sweden and China, for example, were nearly ready to test their own proto-CBDCs even before last summer. Thanks to CBDCs’ promise to […]
Robert Hockett Jul 28, 2020
An Eviction Cliff Years in the Making and the Need for Comprehensive Action
Executive Summary The challenges around eviction and housing affordability predate the pandemic, which means the response must also extend well beyond it to protect renters now and from ongoing housing instability going forward. While COVID-19 is pushing tens of millions of people over the eviction cliff, the staggering lack of affordable housing, particularly for the […]
Kathryn Howell, Vincent J. Reina Jul 23, 2020
Police Misconduct Records Should Be Public – Policies & Polling
Executive Summary When a police chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death back in 2014, a bystander caught it all on video. Protests across the nation called for fundamental reforms—and for the punishment of Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who executed the chokehold. Anyone watching the video could see that something was wrong with the officer’s […]
Jonathan Abel Jul 16, 2020