Safety and Justice Challenge

Strategic Alliance

For more than 100 years, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association has been on the forefront of the effort to promote excellence in the delivery of public defense and civil legal aid. Fair, effective pretrial practices that provide the highest manner of justice have been a central tenet of NLADA’s mission and its national standards for quality representation.

The Safety and Justice Challenge is an initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. The initiative—an initial five-year, $100 million investment by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation—features a competition to help jurisdictions across the country create fairer, more effective local justice systems.

As a Strategic Ally of the Challenge, NLADA is working with defenders from each jurisdiction to promote their leadership and share essential information from the Challenge with the broader public defense community. NLADA will provide the following services and tools to the entire Challenge Network:

• Toolkits, resource guides, training materials and webinars - developed with Challenge partners and sites - pertaining to pretrial justice and early access to counsel
• Peer-networking and information-sharing among Challenge Network defenders, and with NLADA's community of defender, civil legal aid, and client advocates
• Communications and strategic problem-solving support to inform, engage, and encourage broad public defense community participation in the Challenge

Current Results of the Safety and Justice Challenge

Over the course of 2018 and early 2019, NLADA, as a Safety and Justice Challenge Strategic Ally, created a four-part vidcast series highlighting the work of several defenders involved with the SJC. The Strategic Allies and members of the Challenge Network are still hard at work changing the lives of millions and ensuring that equal access to justice is available for all. These videos provide a glimpse into the defenders' work as well as the significance of collaboration among each Strategic Ally and member of the Challenge Network. View the clips below:

   CLICK HERE to view the entire video

   CLICK HERE to view the entire video

   CLICK HERE to view the entire video

  CLICK HERE to view the entire video

Challenge Network Defenders

The 40 jurisdictions participating in the Challenge will develop and model effective ways to keep people out of jail who don’t belong there, more effectively reintegrate those who must be confined into the community upon release, and help them stay out of jail thereafter. In doing so, they will demonstrate alternatives to incarceration as usual, creating models for reducing unnecessary jail use to make communities healthier, fairer, and safer. 

NLADA coordinates and supports defender leaders in these sites.

Resources from NLADA