DC Justice Lab

DC Justice Lab Developing smarter safety solutions that are evidence-driven, community-rooted, and racially just. linktr.ee/dcjusticelab

This Juneteenth, we're asking a harder question than how to celebrate freedom. We're asking: what does it take for insti...
06/19/2026

This Juneteenth, we're asking a harder question than how to celebrate freedom. We're asking: what does it take for institutions to repair and restore the communities they've harmed?

Communities across this country — including in DC — continue to live with the consequences of slavery, segregation, displacement, over-policing, disinvestment, and policies that concentrated harm in Black neighborhoods while building wealth in white communities.

Repair requires more than acknowledgment.

Reparations are one tool for addressing historic and ongoing harm through investment, accountability, and material support. That is why communities, organizers, researchers, and lawmakers continue pushing this conversation forward in the District.

The question is not whether harm occurred. The question is whether there is the political will to address it.

Want to learn more? Click the link below.
https://dcjusticelab.org/reparations/

What’s the best support we can offer to people experiencing behavioral health crises?When someone is experiencing a beha...
06/18/2026

What’s the best support we can offer to people experiencing behavioral health crises?

When someone is experiencing a behavioral health crisis, sending an armed officer should not be the default response.

Communities across DC have been saying this for years.

Georgetown Law’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety laid out a different path in its blueprint, Our Neighborhoods, Our Safety — one that treats behavioral health crises as health issues rather than criminal ones.

The blueprint maps out how DC can build alternative first-response systems rooted in care, prevention, and trained behavioral health expertise.

This is not a theory. Other cities are already doing it. The evidence exists. The models exist.

DC has a choice: continue investing in responses that escalate harm, or build systems designed to actually meet people’s needs.

Read the blueprint:https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2026/04/DC-Community-Safety-Blueprint.pdf

This week, we’re asking and answering some of the questions at the center of DC Justice Lab’s work.What does it actually...
06/16/2026

This week, we’re asking and answering some of the questions at the center of DC Justice Lab’s work.

What does it actually take to make DC safer?

The 2026 DC Public Safety Policy Agenda was built alongside organizations, advocates, returning citizens, violence interrupters, public health experts, and community leaders across the District.

The result is a roadmap with 70 recommendations focused on thriving communities, young people, community safety, and reducing incarceration.

The roadmap exists.
The research exists.
The community has spoken.

What’s missing is the political will to invest in what actually works instead of returning to policies that have already caused harm across the District.

Read the agenda. Share it. Hold your elected officials accountable.
dcjusticelab.org/publicsafetypolicyagenda/

This month, DC Justice Lab joined the Washington Mystics' Wear Orange Night as a Community Corner partner, connecting wi...
06/15/2026

This month, DC Justice Lab joined the Washington Mystics' Wear Orange Night as a Community Corner partner, connecting with fans and sharing resources about what it takes to build safer communities.

Wear Orange honors victims and survivors of gun violence while raising awareness about the urgent need for solutions that prevent harm before it happens. We were proud to be part of a space that brought together community organizations, advocates, and residents committed to creating a safer, more just DC.

At DC Justice Lab, we believe true public safety is built through investment in people, communities, opportunity, housing, behavioral health care, violence prevention, and the resources that help communities thrive.

Want to learn more about evidence-driven solutions to improve public safety? Explore the 2026 DC Public Safety Policy Agenda developed in partnership with nearly 30 organizations across the District—some of whom also joined us at Wear Orange Night—to advance community-centered approaches that prevent violence and strengthen safety for everyone.

🔗 https://dcjusticelab.org/publicsafetypolicyagenda/

Thank you to the for inviting us to be part of this important conversation and for using your platform to uplift community safety and violence prevention efforts.
🧡

Join the DC Justice Lab and our partners from Open City Advocates, the School Justice Project, the Black Swann Academy,...
06/12/2026

Join the DC Justice Lab and our partners from Open City Advocates, the School Justice Project, the Black Swann Academy, Critical Exposure and the T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project for a deep dive on their recommendations to increase youth safety and community safety in the District.

June 26th, 2026, Noon to 1:30 pm.

Register: bit.ly/YouthJusticeLunchAndLearn

Missouri became the first state to adopt earned compliance credits in 2012.The result:Shorter supervision terms, lower c...
06/12/2026

Missouri became the first state to adopt earned compliance credits in 2012.

The result:
Shorter supervision terms, lower costs, and no negative impact on public safety.

That matters because too many supervision systems are built around punishment instead of success. Earned compliance credits create incentives for people to stay compliant, move forward, and successfully complete supervision without unnecessary extensions that destabilize work, housing, and family life.

This is not a new or untested idea. It is a policy backed by evidence.

DC can do this, too.

06/11/2026

This week, we’re talking about policies that have been implemented and shown success.

In 2020, DC became the first jurisdiction in the country to restore voting rights to people who are incarcerated. A year later, it happened again: DC held the first election in U.S. history where both the candidates and the electorate were incarcerated. Joel Castón became the first incarcerated person elected to public office in the District. He fulfilled his Advisory Neighborhood Commission duties from the inside, on Zoom, showing up for his constituents the way elected officials are supposed to.

Commissioners Leonard Bishop and Shameka Hayes followed, each continuing that legacy of representation. Now ANC Commissioner Harold Cunningham is carrying it forward, including testifying virtually at a DC Council hearing on the EASE Act. If passed, the EASE Act would allow incarcerated residents to do the same: speak directly to the Council that governs their lives, in real time, rather than submitting written testimony that may never be read aloud. Pass the EASE Act, and DC can continue to lead the way.

DC Justice Lab is working to transform the District’s approach to public safety. We are inviting partners, businesses, a...
06/10/2026

DC Justice Lab is working to transform the District’s approach to public safety. We are inviting partners, businesses, and community leaders to be part of that work through sponsorship of the 2026 Movement Mixer. 🩷

The Movement Mixer brings together advocates, policymakers, attorneys, organizers, creatives, and community members from across DC and beyond for an evening centered on connection, conversation, and collective impact.
Your sponsorship directly supports DC Justice Lab’s ongoing advocacy, training, and research.

Sponsorship opportunities are now available at multiple levels, with benefits including event visibility, recognition during remarks, newsletter placement, co-branded communications, and more.

We’d love to partner with organizations and businesses committed to investing in meaningful change across DC.

📍 The Point DC
📅 Thursday, September 17, 2026
⏰ 6 PM to 9 PM

🩷 Learn more about sponsorship opportunities:
https://dcjusticelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/MM26-Sponsorship-Packet.5.21.2026.pdf
🩷 Sponsor Movement Mixer 2026: https://dc-justice-lab.networkforgood.com/events/101633-2026-movement-mixer

The June 16 DC election will shape the future of DC. Residents will choose a new Mayor, new Councilmembers, and a new De...
06/09/2026

The June 16 DC election will shape the future of DC. Residents will choose a new Mayor, new Councilmembers, and a new Delegate at a moment when questions of public safety, local control, and democracy are front and center. It also comes at an unprecedented moment as we watch the federal government threaten community safety and local control in DC and democracy in general. That makes your vote even more important.

Make a plan to vote and make a plan to do so safely.

Beginning May 11, ballots were mailed to DC voters. Residents can vote by mail (must be postmarked by June 16) or use official drop boxes across the city. You can also vote early in person from June 8 through June 14, 8:30 AM–7:00 PM, and you can register on-site.

A few important reminders:

• You do not need an ID to vote in DC unless you are registering at the polls
• DC residents with felony convictions still have the right to vote (as do residents at the jail or in BOP custody)
• You can vote in the June 16 primary election if you are 17 and will be 18 by the general election

The right to vote belongs to the people of the District. Intimidation, interference, or efforts to discourage participation have no place in our democracy. If you experience or witness anything that feels like voter intimidation, call or text the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).
Make your voice heard.

Overdose prevention centers (also known as harm reduction centers) are health facilities.These centers offer people who ...
06/08/2026

Overdose prevention centers (also known as harm reduction centers) are health facilities.

These centers offer people who already use drugs a safe space, alongside medical care, mental health support, drug checking, and connections to treatment. They do not provide drugs. They do not encourage drug use.
, the nation’s first operating overdose prevention center that includes a safe consumption program, has shown that this model works.
• 2000+ overdose interventions since 2021
• 83% of participants accessed wraparound services 
• Opioid use disorder treatment expanded nearly 7x in one year 
• 100% of participants who requested treatment were connected to a provider

DC is in an opioid overdose crisis, and roughly 84% of fatal opioid overdoses have been among Black residents, concentrated in Wards 5, 7, and 8. DC’s drug supply is increasingly contaminated with deadly additives. People are dying not just from drug use, but from not knowing what is in the drugs they are using. Safe consumption programs and drug checking services directly address this.

Harm reduction is evidence-based and saves lives.
Thank you to for their leadership in elevating proven solutions to DC’s overdose crisis. 

Learn more about behavioral health interventions that will advance public safety in the 2026 Public Safety Policy Agenda and ‘Our Neighborhoods, Our Safety,’ a report published by Georgetown Law’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety ().

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1200 U Street, NW
Washington D.C., DC
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+12026818783

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