ABOUT US
The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center helps leaders in every state make communities safer and healthier. By combining trusted data, practical strategies, and cross-systems collaboration, we create second chances, reduce harm, and transform lives.
We help state, local, and community leaders in all three branches of government and practitioners across the country identify and implement data-driven solutions for complex justice challenges.
Here’s how we can help your state or jurisdiction.
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OUR WORK
We connect and support the people who are working every day to turn ideas into actions that improve the justice system. Our approach is built on three pillars that transform data-driven research into practical solutions.
Trusted Data and Insights
By combining data with frontline and expert insights, we help state and local leaders turn complex challenges into practical, evidence-based solutions that work across systems. We collect and analyze state-specific data and trends on crime, reentry, health, workforce, and more from 70+ sources so you don’t have to.
Explore the latest data in your state—and how it compares to others.
Practical Strategies
From reentry and crisis response to corrections and behavioral health, we lead innovative projects in statehouses, city halls, and courts throughout the country.
- Our Reentry 2030 initiative unites states around a bold goal: reduce recidivism 30% by 2030.
- Our Expanding First Response project helps increase the number of community responder programs so people in crisis get the right care and police can focus on solving and reducing violent crime.
- Our Stepping Up initiative provides counties with the tools to confront the behavioral health crisis in jails.
- Our Judges and Psychiatrists Leadership Initiative educates leaders who have the power to champion change and address the challenges that people with mental illness face in the justice system.
Cross-Systems Collaboration
Across our work—whether it’s a local event with law enforcement and behavioral health leaders, state strategies for corrections to improve reentry, or a nationwide initiative that combines the power of courts and health systems—we bring together stakeholders from various agencies, branches, and states to create spaces where leaders can learn from one another and build the partnerships necessary for lasting change.
OUR IMPACT
Redefining Reentry & Reducing Recidivism
23%
Drop in state-level reincarceration rates since we pushed for passage of the Second Chance Act in 2008 and helped 900+ grantees implement the landmark law
Addressing Crime & Improving Crisis Response
325+
Number of states, counties, and other jurisdictions where we helped improve 911 and other crisis systems to reduce harm and safely divert people from incarceration whenever possible
Strengthening Behavioral Health Responses of Courts, Corrections & Communities
$650M
Amount we helped states reinvest in evidence-based treatment and alternatives to incarceration
OUR HISTORY
The CSG Justice Center began with a simple idea: Leaders across systems and political aisles need trusted data, practical strategies, and a space to build consensus on complex issues related to safety, health, and justice.
“In the mid-1990s, it became very clear that if you had a meeting of legislators from different states, or of prosecutors, public defenders, or victims—that people agreed on a vast majority of the things that needed to be done to make the criminal justice system work better. And that was the genesis of what has grown into the [CSG] Justice Center,” said Mike Lawlor, a founding member of the CSG Justice Center advisory board.
That idea took shape in 2002, when The Council of State Governments (CSG) published a landmark report on the needs of people with mental illness in the justice system. The report didn’t just document a problem; it offered a framework for action that policymakers could use. It also signaled what the CSG Justice Center—formally established in 2006—would become known for: translating evidence into action.
Since then, we’ve partnered with national and state leaders throughout the country to impact the field—through legislation, direct assistance, convenings, and groundbreaking reports. We helped spur passage of the Second Chance Act (SCA), a first-of-its-kind federal law, and we’ve helped leaders across the country implement SCA, the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, and many other efforts designed to create second chances, reduce harm, and transform lives. Key contributions:
- Charting a new course for reentry policy and practice and giving policymakers and practitioners across corrections, housing, workforce, and behavioral health a shared blueprint for helping people return home from prison successfully (Report of the Re-Entry Policy Council: Charting the Safe and Successful Return of Prisoners to the Community)
- Building a shared foundation for keeping young people out of the justice system and forging consensus across education, law enforcement, behavioral health, and juvenile justice around common strategies and goals (School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System)
- Giving every state a clear, comparable picture of its public safety challenges and providing a concrete roadmap of strategies and actions for policymakers (50-State Report on Public Safety)
- Giving county leaders concrete tools to address the overrepresentation of people with mental illness in jails and sparking a national movement to address it (Reducing the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jail: 6 Questions County Leaders Need to Ask)