Press Releases & Press Conferences

The Charles Koch Foundation has provided a generous gift of over $6.5 million to support the groundbreaking work being conducted at the Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD) in the Florida State University College of Social Work.

These contributions will support and expand the reach of IJRD’s pioneering scientific, policy and practice endeavors, all designed to improve the well-being of individuals, families and communities impacted by criminal justice system involvement. The core values of IJRD are the rapid dissemination of data-driven discoveries to catalyze transformative real-world change and using innovation to ameliorate racial, economic and health disparities in criminal justice reform.

Watch an excerpt from a press conference given by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on the need for probation reform in the state. Carrie Pettus-Davis, Mark Holden, and other leaders from Safe Streets and Second Chances joined to Governor to talk about data-driven solutions to criminal justice reform currently being implemented in the state by the Institue for Justice Research and Development. 

Carrie Pettus-Davis, the executive director and founder of Florida State University’s Institute for Justice Research and Development, has received the 2019 Marguerite Q. Warren and Ted B. Palmer Differential Intervention Award, presented by the American Society of Criminology on November 14, 2019 in San Francisco.

“Dr. Pettus-Davis’ work represents a new era of criminal justice intervention research,” said Jim Clark, dean of the FSU College of Social Work. “Her focus on including formerly incarcerated persons in the research design and her emphasis on intervention that promotes whole-person health and social intervention are especially significant.
She is courageous to take important ideas and translate them into testable, scalable and sustainable interventions and programs.”

Is a smart phone app the answer to increasing support and improving well-being among individuals under community supervision? A team of researchers led by two Florida State University scholars intend to find out with the help of a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Justice.

Carrie Pettus-Davis, executive director and founder of the Institute for Justice Research and Development, and Sudhir Aggarwal, professor of computer science at FSU, are co-principal investigators for the project, in partnership with Marcus Rogers and Umit Karabiyik at Purdue University and Tathagata Mukherjee and Haeyong Chung at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Researchers will engage in a 4-year study using artificial intelligence techniques within an app and a wearable device to provide support to individuals as they leave incarceration and come home.

Florida State University has received a grant totaling nearly $1.2 million from the National Institute of Justice to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive trauma-based re-entry program for young adult men.
A team of researchers including Carrie Pettus-Davis, Stephen Tripodi and Tanya Renn of the Institute for Justice Research and Development at the FSU College of Social Work will conduct a 5-year randomized controlled trial aimed at addressing trauma as a key mechanism to increase support and improve well-being for young men as they leave prison and return home to their communities.

The College of Social Work celebrated the Institute for Justice Research and Development on Thursday, April 18th at the Augustus B. Turnbull Center. A crowd of 100 was in attendance to learn more about the newest multidisciplinary research institute to find a home at FSU. Newly appointed Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections Mark Inch headlined the event. Inch spoke about the recent passage of the First Step Act and how the criminal justice system should take a holistic approach to retribution, incapacitation, and deterrence, with meaningful rehabilitation and restoration of the nearly 12,000 individuals released from prisons each week across our nation. “IJRD is an exciting new force in making meaningful change in our Florida communities,” Secretary Inch stated.

During a press conference in Kentucky, IJRD Executive Director Carrie Pettus-Davis joins\ed Governor Matt Bevin, Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet John Tilley, Safe Streets & Second Chances Advisory Council members Mark Holden and John Koufos to highlight the impact of the 5-Key Model for Reentry on the well-being and success of individuals released from incarceration in Kentucky.

In the months after release from incarceration, formerly incarcerated individuals face significant stress and anxiety that could affect their ability to successfully reenter society, new data shows. The new data also shows that the anxiety and stress is shared by family members, and can last for months after incarceration has ended.  

According to a new report published by Florida State University researchers at the Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD), individuals are highly motivated to find and maintain employment, reconnect with their loved ones, and stay out of prison. 

Social work researcher, Carrie Pettus-Davis, joined the FSU College of Social Work faculty this summer to continue the research she started at the Washington University in St. Louis on criminal justice and prison reform.