$4 million grant aims to reduce jail populations
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia has received a $4 million grant to continue lowering its jail population, and city officials said they will focus some of the funding on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in its criminal justice system.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the winners Wednesday of the second round of its Safety and Justice Challenge grants, including the largest award to Philadelphia. In all, 13 cities and counties will receive between $350,000 and $4 million each to implement criminal justice reforms to reduce jail populations. Twelve others will receive $50,000 grants to start innovative programs aiming to do the same.
Foundation leaders have held up Philadelphia— which received a $3.5 million grant during the first 2016 awards— as an example of success after it announced earlier this year that it had reduced the jail population by about 36 percent in less than three years.
City officials say the process has been a lot of continued work. The city spent months planning for the grant, bringing the different agencies— courts, the district attorney’s office, public defenders, city departments including police— to the table to plan across the system changes that would decrease the jail population and the length of stay in the city’s jails.
One of the most successful changes has been the city’s Early Bail Review program that promises to put nonviolent offenders facing cash bail of $50,000 or less in front of a judge within five days of arraignment. District Attorney Larry Krasner is looking to expand that program to more defendants that don’t pose a risk to the community.
The $50,000 innovation grants were also awarded to jurisdictions from Baltimore to Long Beach, Los Angeles County, to implement programs that do a range of things from connecting reentry populations to services in Camden County, N.J., to connecting female defendants with domestic violence help upon release in Cumberland County, Maine.