Monroe County, Indiana, has been at the forefront of justice system change when it comes to piloting new programs in the state.
“We were one of the first to do drug treatment courts, we were one of the first few mental health courts, we were one of the pilot counties for pretrial release program,” recalls Prosecuting Attorney Erika Oliphant.
They’re also now on the leading edge of research, partnering with the Monroe County branch of the NAACP and Paul H. O’Neill Professor Eric Grommon to take a closer look at decisions made in her own office as people make their way through the criminal justice system—and the potential impacts those decisions have on racial and ethnic disparities in Monroe County.
“The justice system often falls short of its constitutional duties to be fair and impartial to everyone,” Oliphant says. “I truly believe this type of assessment is simply the right thing to do and helps us find ways to improve the system while increasing public transparency about what we are doing.”
Oliphant was recently honored by the IU Public Policy Institute with the John L. Krauss Award for Public Policy Innovation for her efforts to promote equitable justice in Monroe County. The Krauss Award is given to an individual or entity for applied research or activity that helps Indiana and/or Indiana communities with real-world solutions.
“I would not have this award, were it not for my team—I didn’t win this award alone,” she says with a smile. “I owe a debt of gratitude to my research team.”
As part of the research project, Oliphant’s office took the results of the study and brought the community together to examine the results and make recommendations for improvement. She admits she was anxious about how those important community conversations might go, but says she was very pleased with how respectful and productive they were.
She says that while the results of the initial phase of the study found that the prosecutor’s office wasn’t necessarily inserting disparities, their decisions were reinforcing existing racial and ethnic disparities.
“Many of the cases we receive are the result of calls for services,” she explains. “They’re calls from people who are witnesses or victims of crime. I think it’s important for us to have the data to show there are really deep issues that expand well beyond the criminal justice system.”
She said they need to understand what circumstances in society are keeping these injustices in place, from health care and housing to employment and education.
“What we’ve learned is that many people—those in the community to those in the justice system, like our office—need to take ownership and responsibility to work on these disparities,” she says.
The first step for Oliphant was to change how her office collects data so they can better understand the issues. She says they are still digging into some of that data to identify additional steps in the process where they can make a difference.
“What I’m really trying to get out of this is a way to have a place to start when it comes to change implementation and have a place to gauge performance and efficacy of those changes down the road,” she says.
Having this kind of data from a place like Monroe County is especially important, according to Grommon. He says this type of research—the kind based in a community that is more representative of counties nationwide—is critical because existing research often focuses only on large urban areas.
“National policy and practice debates focus on the powerful role prosecutors play in the justice system,” Grommon adds. “This project helped us form a foundation to connect data to prosecutorial decisions, identify plausible contributors to racial and ethnic disparities, and gather community perceptions. I’m confident this type of practitioner-community-researcher approach can help improve transparency in prosecution and assess the effect these decisions have on individuals and communities.”
The research team recently expanded it to work with Lake County as well and is already working on a new phase of the project with Monroe County.
“I hope that we can continue working together for a long time because this is important work,” Oliphant says. “We want the state and other prosecutor’s offices to know this research is valuable so they will be comfortable and willing to take the next step in addressing these issues at their levels as well.”
