By Michelle Blouin
This is a story about a failure—what could have been but wasn’t. It would have been the A2J Lab’s first project outside of North America, the first to be conducted in a language other than English, and the first in which the political climate vastly differed from that of the U.S. and Canada, where our to-date projects have occurred.
The Africa Project formed from a collaboration between the Access to Justice Lab and the International Legal Foundation (ILF) to study the effects of prompt access to quality defense counsel for misdemeanors in Tunis and Sousse, Tunisia, as well as Nairobi, Kenya; The Justice Initiatives Global was to serve as the field partner.
But in January, a federal stop work order paused the project, causing the abrupt dismissal of employees and interruptions to their livelihoods. In addition, it left key access to justice questions unanswered. As with most ambitious projects, we learned as much from this one—through its goals, operational challenges, and collaborative efforts in its initial stages—as we’ve discovered through studies that have hit their marks and produced a complete set of results to share, publish, and discuss.
Global expansion (of research)
Despite a right to counsel in both Kenya and Tunisia, few government-paid lawyers are available and ILF offices are overburdened. Therefore, the default for low- and middle-income individuals who cannot afford to pay for legal representation is no counsel at all.
Some research suggests that early access to counsel improves the criminal justice outcomes for the accused, but that information is sporadic, generated entirely in the United States legal environment, lacking in cost-effectiveness data, and limited in scope to criminal justice outcomes and not to how it translates to socioeconomic outcomes. The study aimed to address these parameters.
Study design
The study design focused on providing access to counsel in both countries early in the process. In Tunisia, ILF attorneys were to be called in to police stations within 24-72 hours of detainment, at which point the attorneys would conduct an informed consent process with the detainee to get their permission for study participation. In Kenya, ILF attorneys were to be available to the accused at “first appearance” hearings at courthouses since their release is often dependent on having the means to post bail. In this case, attorneys could access detainees, and paralegals would conduct the informed consent process to gain study permission.
The randomized control trial would follow with consenting study participants assigned to one of two groups: the Enhanced Services Group, in which detainees could access all the ILF services, or the Status Quo Group, in which no ILF services would be provided.
The researchers had some hypotheses before the study began. We expected to see several outcomes for the accused, including:
- Increased release without bail
- Decreased time to disposition
- Decreased days of incarceration pre-trial
- Improved economic welfare
- Improved family stability
- More trust in the justice system
At the time of the stop work order, we were surveying a sample of the study population in Kenya and had nearly reached our survey goal, which was to measure family and financial stability, as well as trust in the system. The next step would have been to collect court records and records from the Department of Corrections and Department of Public Prosecutions to measure pre-trial incarceration and time to disposition.
Challenges
When the project got the call to cease operations in January, nearly 600 participants were enrolled; remote data collection methods had been implemented; and 16 employees, plus two local researchers in each country, had been recruited. The abrupt and unexpected halt to the study highlighted the harsh reality of relying on external funding.
In the accompanying Proof Over Precedent podcast episode, A2J Lab Researcher Renee Danser noted the nuanced challenges of operating globally, from language barriers in Tunisia, requiring translators for all meetings, to work delays due to time zone differences (Tunisia is five hours ahead of Eastern Time, while Kenya is seven hours ahead); any issues in participant enrollment meant that U.S.-based researchers might work on it one day (during overnight in Africa), while its African counterparts would address issues the following day. While Kenyan work could be conducted electronically, electronic device bans in Tunisian police and court settings presented their own bureaucratic hurdles to the process.
Lessons learned
The experience, halted as it was, still prepared the A2J Lab for future studies in other countries. With it, we take a few lessons:
- Have a sustainable financial strategy—maybe this means a back-up financial plan, maybe it means fundraised internal support, or maybe it means a reliable funding source not likely to discontinue projects already started
- Preserve a strong collaboration with local researchers tasked with collecting data, and doing so in a culturally sensitive manner
- Recruit those in courts and field research who are passionate about the projects—the teams in Kenya and Tunisia were committed to bringing systemic change to the justice systems
For now, we’re actively seeking funding to restart the Africa Project and continue the forward progress we’ve made so far.
If you’re interested in more on this topic, listen to our Proof Over Precedent podcast episode.