CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance

04/17/2026

Community services that make a real impact often have one thing in common: they’re developed with input from those communities. Funders and providers have increasingly embraced this principle in the past decade. The Criminal Justice Investment Initiative is a prime example.

CJII’s strategic plan was shaped by more than 200 interviews with community advocates and other stakeholders across NYC. In its decade of implementation, grantees embodied this commitment by hiring staff with lived experience, designing program and engagement models with participants, and including communities in research projects.

Read more about how program staff, researchers, and funders integrated community and participant voices, as well as other briefs on data, trauma-informed services, and more.

https://buff.ly/spy3ktE

03/27/2026

“Nobody gives you a handbook and says, ‘this is how you should be chief of staff for this office.’ Each district has different needs and different personalities. But every office is ultimately accountable to the voters.”

From intern to legislative director to now chief of staff, Jacob Sherretts has worn many hats in state government. Now working with Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter - 128th District, he described his role as "a focal point, because everybody else on the team is specializing. The chief of staff is the one that needs to bring that all together and make sure it's heading in the right direction.

See the full conversation about getting involved in the legislative process, how different offices approach challenges, and why being a Kriegel Fellow has helped put it all into context. https://islg.cuny.edu/blog/fellowship-qa-jacob-sherretts?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=posts&utm_campaign=kriegel

03/10/2026

Over 300 voters registered. Nearly 200 community events hosted. More than 21,000 community members brought into the conversation. That’s what the 14 Civic Engagement Fellows have accomplished in the 6 months since the first cohort of the Fellowship has kicked off.

What has this looked like day-to-day? On our blog, some of the City University of New York student Fellows discussed their work with South Bronx community organizations bringing more voices to the civic conversation - and the voting booth.

✍ by ISLG's Ruby Phillips and Patrick Hart. The program is a partnership between ISLG and Votes.

Each Fellow—and the CBOs in which they are embedded—works on meaningful initiatives designed to foster voter education and engagement. But each Fellow’s work looks different day-to-day or overall. The South Bronx is a diverse, multifaceted collection of communities, and the CBOs that serve it ...

02/23/2026

Local governments and criminal legal partners both know that robust data is needed to inform policy and practice that have real impact. The new Safety and Justice Challenge Research, Policy, and Practice Insight Hub offers an unprecedented synthesis of analysis, trends, and findings drawn from nearly 100 research products across 50+ cities and counties.

This Hub provides policymakers, practitioners, and community leaders with evidence on what works in:

🏛️ Pretrial decision-making

⚖️ Safe jail population reduction

📉 Reducing racial and ethnic disparities in decision-making

🏠 Measuring the safety impacts of reform

📚 Understanding case processing

😷 Long-term implications of COVID-19

The Hub is a designed to translate data into action, helping jurisdictions take what we've learned to create solutions that safely reduce unnecessary incarceration and enhance fairness. Dive in.

https://buff.ly/u6AOrbm

02/11/2026

"Having worked through fiscal crises in multiple major cities, Jersey City's $254 million deficit for 2026 is both severe and urgent,” said Marc Shaw, ISLG Senior Advisor, last week.

The new mayoral administration across the Hudson is tackling a major budget crisis. CUNY ISLG is on the ground floor to help diagnose why it happened and chart a new path toward fiscal health.

“What stands out in Mayor James Solomon’s approach is the commitment to transparency and truth-telling from day one,” Shaw continued. “Too often, municipal leaders try to paper over these problems with the same gimmicks that created them.”

Read more about the work in the New York Times: https://buff.ly/ub1gFBB

See the press release from Jersey City: https://buff.ly/4jf2VTR

The city’s new mayor, James Solomon, is blaming his predecessor, Steven Fulop, who just became the head of an influential business advocacy group in New York City.

02/09/2026

📆Save the Date: Strategies for a New Era of Policing & Public Safety in New York City.

How law enforcement interact with the public is an increasingly important issue when working toward safer communities. This panel, presented by us and the The Graduate Center, CUNY, brings together leading experts to discuss research-backed approaches to strengthening these interactions, on both a procedural and practical level.

From pedestrian stops to procedural justice to substance use crises to non-police behavioral health responses, this conversation will provide insights into a better approach to justice.

Join us Wednesday, March 4, at 6:30 pm, in person or online: https://buff.ly/dDqkFid

02/06/2026

During last year's budget session, reforms to discovery—evidence-sharing between prosecution and defense during criminal cases—dominated the headlines. What resulted was a band aid, ISLG researchers wrote in a joint op-ed with Data Collaborative for Justice, and this year we have the chance to make it right.

Read more about what the data says isn't working and how policymakers, court stakeholders, and researchers can fix it: https://buff.ly/HlHzquZ

Amid mixed results to date, policymakers can insist on better implementation of New York’s discovery reform, provide prosecutors with whatever tools they need, and steadfastly avoid sacrificing the due process rights of people facing charges. This joint piece is a collaboration between two of CUNY...

01/30/2026

Fresh insights on strengthening reforms in New York. New research using local crime data in Louisiana and Ohio. The latest data on the fiscal flow between NYC and Albany. That, and more, in January's edition of Institute Intelligence. 📩

Read it here: https://buff.ly/Vr1CYxC

A snapshot of the work we’ve done this past month.

01/27/2026

Like the snow, budget season is upon New York. The budget, as much a policy document as it is a financial one, gives policymakers and everyday New Yorkers alike insight into what priorities the Governor's Office, State Assembly, State Senate, and local governments across the state will chart in the year ahead.

When staking out these priorities, it's critical that policymakers have up-to-date numbers on how much taxpayers—especially in its most populous, economy-driving regions—are contributing to state expenditures, and how much they're receiving back in services.

Our brief measures this "fiscal flow" between New York City and its capitol for the first time in a decade. Dig in. https://buff.ly/v3tq2X3

01/17/2026

Most people in local jails have not yet been convicted of a crime. Many of them don’t pose a risk to public safety. But When they face pretrial detention, it can create lasting instability for individuals, families, and communities.

Through the Safety and Justice Challenge, cities and counties are using data and cross-agency collaboration to improve the equitable use of jails.

The result? Nearly 18,000 fewer people are in jail across participating jurisdictions, without compromising community safety.

Released in fall 2025, our analysis in "Changing Use of Jails" examines shifts in how jails are being used, including fewer low-level bookings, more pretrial releases, and shorter stays, while also demonstrating that racial and ethnic disparities persist.

For a deeper look at this work and more from 2025, check out our Impact Review and see how these efforts fit into ISLG’s broader work: https://buff.ly/ORjO6wS