Accounting for Violence: How to Increase Safety and Break Our Failed Reliance on Mass Incarceration, outlines what it would take to responsibly address and reduce violence without relying on prison. It argues that any response to violence should be centered on survivors, based in accountability, driven by safety, and racially equitable.
The report’s recommendations include the elimination of mandatory minimums to make way for alternative options that better meet survivors’ needs and increase safety; the expanded use of restorative justice; the investment of public resources into strategies that target the core drivers of violence—including poverty, housing instability, inequity, and trauma; and the expansion of access to victim services, including ways that don’t require engaging with law enforcement.