Measures for Justice (MFJ)

Results

According to Measures for Justice, its work grew out of in-person research conducted by Amy Bach for her book examining the U.S. criminal justice system. MFJ’s pilot program began with a $50,000 grant from the U.S. government to collect criminal justice-related data in a single Wisconsin county, gradually expanding to cover the entire state. It has since grown to more than 1,200 counties in 20 states. ²

According to Bach, MFJ is intended to be nonpartisan. In fact, its communications director Fiona Maazel stated, “We don’t infer something or give explanations…. our hope is that people do the due diligence required to get to the bottom of what the numbers are suggesting.” Nevertheless, the data presented sometimes display a racial and socioeconomic dimension. For example, one author pointed out that in Florida’s rural Wakulla County, data showed that non-white offenders with no prior violent criminal history who are convicted of nonviolent felonies received prison sentences at nearly four times the rate of white offenders. ³

In another study conducted in Alabama, MFJ noted that those considered “indigent,” and less likely to be able to afford fines and court costs, were also 30 times more likely to be forced to pay those costs instead of having their cases “diverted” through non-judicial processes. ⁴

One data set from its Wisconsin study showed that poorer defendants were often unable to afford even low bail costs, resulting in longer detention over weekends and holidays. As a result of MFJ’s intervention, Winnebago County, Wisconsin shifted its rules to allow judges to release some of these defendants without requiring a prosecutor to present a probable cause hearing. ⁵

Data Portal and “Commons”

In 2017, Measures for Justice launched a data portal on its website that displays various criminal justice statistics across 20 states. MFJ also launched the pilot version of its community-accessible “Commons” project, which provides more detailed, local statistics by county. ⁶

The pilot program, launched in Yolo County, California, was preceded by a study conducted by MFJ and the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, which suggested a deliberate lack of transparency in California’s data reporting procedures, as reported by Los Angeles Times. ⁷

As part of her plan to increase data transparency in Marin County, California, local district attorney Lori Frugoli announced in April 2022 that she would be collaborating with MFJ and intended to request funding to launch a Commons portal for that county. Further Commons for Louisiana and New York are planned. ⁸

Florida Legislation

In the fall of 2017, Florida state Rep. Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) invited Amy Bach to present the results of Measures for Justice’s years-long data collection in Florida. The information presented spurred Sprowls to successfully advance legislation in 2018 that would eventually require all 67 of Florida’s counties to collect and standardize data according to the parameters developed by MFJ. MFJ also supported similar legislation in California, which was enacted in 2019. ^{9 10}

Leadership

Amy Bach, founder and CEO of Measures for Justice, is a former attorney and journalist for the New York Times, Slate, New York magazine, and The Nation. She is also the author of Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court. In 2011 she was awarded an Echoing Green global fellowship, and in 2018 she won the $100,000 Charles Bronfman Prize for her work with MFJ. ¹¹