About the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) at CRJ
Our primary goal is to make criminal and juvenile justice systems more efficient and cost effective to promote accountability for achieving better outcomes.
CJI operates as a division of Community Resources for Justice, and provides nonpartisan policy analysis, consulting, and research services to improve public safety throughout the country. With a reputation built over many decades for innovative thinking, unbiased issue analysis, and effective policy advocacy, CJI's strength lies in our ability to bridge the gap between research, policy and practice in public institutions and communities, and provide evidence-based, results-driven recommendations. With our creative, collaborative approaches to today's most pressing and complex social and public safety problems, CJI is improving public safety and human service delivery nationwide and in Massachusetts.
What We Do
CJI takes pride in our demonstrated ability to improve evidence-based practices in community corrections; to gain organizational acceptance in difficult work environments; to create realistic implementation plans; to put these efforts into practice; to evaluate their effectiveness; and to enhance the capacity and sustainability of corrections agencies. Through our work, we help to make the public safety system more results-driven and cost-effective.
Agency Overview
Community Resources for Justice (CRJ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, and was founded in Massachusetts in 1878. CRJ's mission includes fostering the development of criminal justice, juvenile justice, and social welfare systems that are fair, humane, results-driven, and cost-effective. As a division of CRJ, the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) supports the mission primarily through non-partisan policy analysis, capacity-building technical assistance, research and program evaluation, and educational activities.
CRJ is comprised of three distinct and complementary areas of expertise. Through the Social Justice Services and Community Strategies divisions, CRJ provide direct care and supportive services to some of society's most challenged citizens. CRJ's direct service programs range from residential homes for developmentally disabled adults to programs serving troubled youth and men and women returning home from incarceration. CRJ currently operates 29 residential and day programs and provides services to more than 2,000 people annually. CRJ's public partners include federal, state and county agencies throughout the country.
The Social Justice Services Department (SJS) encompasses the adult and youth programs of CRJ for individuals transitioning out of periods of incarceration. Our youth programs serve juvenile offenders from the Boston area and northeast Massachusetts (including Lowell, Lawrence, and Lynn) that have been committed to the Department of Youth Services (DYS) or the Department of Children and Families (DCF). SJS also provides community reentry services to adult male and female offenders transitioning out of the local, state, and federal correctional systems back to their home communities in the greater Boston Metropolitan area. We firmly believe that justice applies to every aspect of society, and not solely to the administration of laws. We partner with social service agencies and the community to provide the best services possible, and are dedicated to having a positive impact on the clients in our care and on the neighborhoods in which we are located.
Community Strategies is located in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont, and provides specialized residential or community-based services to individuals with mental illness or mental retardation, severe psychiatric or developmental disabilities, and/or complex medical needs. These services might take the shape of adult foster home care, or staffed adult-shared living, and are developed and adapted to meet the needs of the people in our programs. We bring a unique combination of a clear understanding of people with developmental disabilities or mental retardation as well as competence in treatment of psychiatric disorders. This expertise has allowed many people who would be living in institutional settings, the opportunity to live in the community in less restrictive settings. Through our models of care, our staff provides a balanced mix of supervision, treatment and freedom that helps these community settings be nurturing environments.
