CSW General

FSU Institute for Justice Research and Development Trains Researchers and Practitioners Nationwide to Advance Data-Driven Criminal Justice Reform

Twenty-one practitioners and researchers across 15 states met for a weeklong workshop to explore effective approaches to criminal justice research and data-driven reform.

The Institute for Justice Research and Development’s summer institute, “Conducting Intervention Research in Criminal Justice Settings,” was led by Carrie Pettus, the institute’s founding executive director and associate professor at the Florida State University College of Social Work. The workshop took place on the FSU Panama City campus, August 26-30, 2021.

FSU’s Institute for Justice Research and Development Uses Science to Transform Justice System

The numbers are the problem for Associate Professor of Social Work Carrie Pettus at Florida State University.

More than 12,000 people are released from state and federal prisons each week, and 77% of formerly incarcerated individuals return to prison within five years.

“If you can imagine going to a doctor and they say here’s this medical intervention that works 23 percent of the time, would we continue to use that intervention? No,” Pettus said.