Overview
Current Projects
The Final Stage Reentry Project: Expungement
Research: Does expungement of a criminal record induce stabilization of housing and employment with concomitant reductions in recidivism? Should oversubscribed legal services providers dedicate their scarce resources to meeting the vast demand for assistance in obtaining an expungement under state law?
A randomized control trial will assign individuals eligible for expungement under state law to different levels of service (self-help materials or attorney representation) from oversubscribed legal services providers. If, as anticipated, expungement outcomes differ based on service level, the study will employ an instrumental variables design to infer the effect of expungement on recidivism, housing stability, and employment.
Working with Kansas Legal Services, the study team plans to enroll complete enrollment in 2022. All participants will receive some type of assistance, either full representation or self-help materials, and will be offered the opportunity to participate in follow-up surveys for two years.
What We’ll Learn: There is no clear evidence of the effect of record-clearing on recidivism. Further, there are no studies based in randomized field operations that show the effectiveness of record-clearing on housing stability outcomes. This study will show those effects.
Research Team:
D. James Greiner, Faculty Director, Access to Justice Lab; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Renee Danser, Associate Director of Research and Strategic Partnerships, Access to Justice Lab
Marilyn Harp, Kansas Legal Services (ret.)
Social Work in Public Defense
Research:
The Problem: Since the formation of public defender offices, defense attorneys have sometimes incorporated social workers into the criminal defense team. More recently, some social worker involvement has extended to the provision of services that go beyond the clients’ legal needs. A minority of states (about 14) currently make use of this holistic defense approach, and some are working to expand their use of social workers. Other states are considering whether to adopt a holistic defense approach that incorporates social workers. But there is no credible evidence that incorporating social workers into the criminal defense team, as opposed to advising defendants to make use of social services available in their communities, improves either criminal justice outcomes or improves defendant quality of life. There is also no evidence to suggest that lawyers allocate scarce social worker resources well.
The Questions: Does integrating social work services into the public defense team reduce recidivism and improve other outcomes for defendants? How well do public defenders determine which defendants would most be helped by a social worker?
The Study: Working with Sarah Buchanan, Director of Social Services at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office, the A2J Lab has designed a four-site, double-randomized evaluation to be implemented in multiple jurisdictions in Tennessee. In all four sites (Jackson, Franklin, Kingston, and Knox Counties), the RCT will investigate whether outcomes with a social worker as part of the criminal defense team are different from those where defendants are invited to take advantage of social workers in their communities. In Knox County, after attorneys make a provisional decision regarding incorporation of a social worker into the criminal defense team, the A2J Lab will randomize each potential client into one of two groups (the first level of randomization). In the first group, the attorney’s decision will be followed; in the second group, a random decision will replace the attorney’s. Among that second group, a computer-based randomizer will “decide” whether the defendant will be offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team. In the other three counties, a randomizer will determine whether the defendant is offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team; these three counties will not evaluate attorney triage decisions. In all the sites, the study team will follow various outcomes for each participant, including recidivism, for two years after randomization.
What We’ll Learn: The RCT design will discover how effective incorporating a social worker into the criminal defense team is at decreasing recidivism as well as housing insecurity, unemployment, and other risk factors for future criminal behavior. The double randomization in Knox County will also determine how successful lawyers are at determining which clients would most benefit from the scarce social worker resources.
Research Team: Sarah Buchanan (formerly of TN Pub Def Office)
April Faith-Slaker, Executive Director, Texas Access to Justice Commission
Community Diversion Program
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Toledo Municipal Court
Mother Up
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Mothers Outreach Network
Social Work in Public Defense
Research:
The Problem: Since the formation of public defender offices, defense attorneys have sometimes incorporated social workers into the criminal defense team. More recently, some social worker involvement has extended to the provision of services that go beyond the clients’ legal needs. A minority of states (about 14) currently make use of this holistic defense approach, and some are working to expand their use of social workers. Other states are considering whether to adopt a holistic defense approach that incorporates social workers. But there is no credible evidence that incorporating social workers into the criminal defense team, as opposed to advising defendants to make use of social services available in their communities, improves either criminal justice outcomes or improves defendant quality of life. There is also no evidence to suggest that lawyers allocate scarce social worker resources well.
The Questions: Does integrating social work services into the public defense team reduce recidivism and improve other outcomes for defendants? How well do public defenders determine which defendants would most be helped by a social worker?
The Study: Working with Sarah Buchanan, Director of Social Services at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office, the A2J Lab has designed a four-site, double-randomized evaluation to be implemented in multiple jurisdictions in Tennessee. In all four sites (Jackson, Franklin, Kingston, and Knox Counties), the RCT will investigate whether outcomes with a social worker as part of the criminal defense team are different from those where defendants are invited to take advantage of social workers in their communities. In Knox County, after attorneys make a provisional decision regarding incorporation of a social worker into the criminal defense team, the A2J Lab will randomize each potential client into one of two groups (the first level of randomization). In the first group, the attorney’s decision will be followed; in the second group, a random decision will replace the attorney’s. Among that second group, a computer-based randomizer will “decide” whether the defendant will be offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team. In the other three counties, a randomizer will determine whether the defendant is offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team; these three counties will not evaluate attorney triage decisions. In all the sites, the study team will follow various outcomes for each participant, including recidivism, for two years after randomization.
What We’ll Learn: The RCT design will discover how effective incorporating a social worker into the criminal defense team is at decreasing recidivism as well as housing insecurity, unemployment, and other risk factors for future criminal behavior. The double randomization in Knox County will also determine how successful lawyers are at determining which clients would most benefit from the scarce social worker resources.
Research Team: Sarah Buchanan (formerly of TN Pub Def Office)
April Faith-Slaker, Executive Director, Texas Access to Justice Commission
Projects in Development
Eviction Diversion (full study)
Research:
What We Hope to Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Connective
Discontinued Projects
Eviction Triage
Research:
Residential displacement can disrupt a host of life activities and undoubtedly takes an emotional toll on tenants and their families. To mitigate those impacts, we need to know more about how tenants find themselves as defendants in summary eviction proceedings, the role that lawyers play in stopping or delaying those proceedings, and whether existing legal solutions address the problems of eviction as we understand them.
The Questions:
How well do lawyers allocate the scarce resource of their time? Does legal representation yield improved outcomes for those facing eviction?
The Study:
With its field partners, the A2J Lab has designed a double-randomized study. This RCT will investigate (1) how well lawyers make decisions about whom to represent; and (2) whether outcomes with direct representation are measurably different from those where tenants only have access to self-help materials. After staff attorneys conduct intake and make provisional representation decisions, the A2J Lab will randomize each potential client into one of two groups (the first level of randomization). In the first group, the attorney’s decision will be followed; in the second group, another random decision will replace the attorney’s. Among that second group, a computer-based randomizer will “decide” whether the potential client receives an offer of representation or self-help materials (the second level of randomization).
What We Hoped to Learn:
This RCT design was intended to help identify which eviction defendants’ outcomes truly depend on representation, whether those outcomes are continuances, stays of execution, or even possession of the apartment. It also was intended to reveal whether the offer of direct representation increases the probability of success relative to receiving the self-help packet. Considering the larger social impact of eviction, this study was expected to include non-adjudicatory outcomes measures such as the incidence of homelessness, unemployment, and adverse health effects, among other individual welfare consequences.
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Rhode Island Center for Justice
Roger Williams University School of Law
New Mexico Legal Aid
University of New Mexico School of Law