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The Abstract
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> By Torie Ludwin, Arnold Ventures
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President and CEO of Arnold Ventures Kelli Rhee introduces a new initiative.
This week, Arnold Ventures announced the launch of our new and exciting infrastructure initiative.
It couldn’t have come at a more critical time.
Major federal legislation, like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, are projected to direct trillions of dollars to upgrade transportation systems, expand energy production and transmission, and support other projects. At the same time, regulatory barriers, onerous policies and supply-side bottlenecks undermine U.S. capacity to deliver in a timely and cost-effective manner.
That’s where this week’s announcement comes in. Using research, policymaking, and advocacy, we plan to work with partners across the political spectrum, in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and at the local, state, and federal levels to bolster our nation’s capacity to deliver on these ambitious plans for better roads and transit, clean and diverse energy sources, and abundant and affordable housing, as well as stronger economic growth and global competitiveness.
We’re not the only ones who recognize the incredible opportunity of this moment.
Across the country, we’re seeing both Republicans and Democrats working to build more homes, produce clean energy, and unleash our nation’s greatest potential.
There’s so much more work ahead of us.
I can think of no better person to lead AV’s work in this space than Charlie Anderson, our new executive vice president of infrastructure. Charlie comes to us from the Biden White House, where he most recently served as special assistant to the president for economic policy at the National Economic Council and director of economic policy and budget for the administration’s COVID-19 Response Team. With more than 15 years of experience in the executive and legislative branches, Charlie knows the challenges – and opportunities – that come from working across the aisle to get big things done.
We’re just getting started, but AV will scale up our infrastructure initiative to match the urgency of the moment. Let’s get building.
Learn more about our infrastructure initiative >
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An Inside View of Policing with Former NYPD Officer Jillian Snider
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By Thomas Hanna, communications manager
National Police Week, which recognizes the work of police officers and honors those who have lost their lives in the line of duty, also provides an opportunity to profile some of the current and former law enforcement officers who are dedicated to improving policing.
What’s Happening: AV spoke with Jillian Snider, policy director of the criminal justice and civil liberties team at R Street Institute and a former NYPD officer, about how her personal experiences led her to support improvements to policing. “We go to lawmakers’ offices and talk to people who are hesitant about important reforms,” Snider says. “We explain to them, from our practitioner angle, that current practice is costly and ineffective, and it’s furthering the wedge between police and the public.”
Why It Matters: Improvements in policing benefit from the perspective of current and former officers. Snider’s expertise, experience, and role at R Street help her make the conservative case for police accountability and public safety.
What’s Next: “In the almost three years since my retirement, there’s already a difference in the training that new officers receive,” Snider says with optimism. “Even if someone is an alleged criminal, that person is still a human. Ultimately, this will help to dismantle this long-standing culture in policing of us versus them.”
Read the interview>
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Getting Students All the Way to
College Completion
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By Evan Mintz, director of communications
This week, the higher education policy and advocacy community celebrated #CollegeCompletion Day, a day of digital action on the important issue of college completion.
What’s Happening: On Wednesday, Third Way hosted a conversation on Twitter on the importance for students to get the support they need to finish their degrees and graduate. As AV grantee The Institute for College Access and Success put it: “Far too many students start their college journey but never see it through graduation day. Barriers like developmental education (remedial courses), hidden costs/finances, limited access to basic needs supports such as transportation/childcare only scratch the surface.”
Why It Matters: “Earning a degree puts people on a path to econ[omic] mobility, which can have important benefits for families & communities. In fact, recent findings show that the ASAP Ohio programs increased earnings for participating students.” MDRC, an AV grantee, tweeted as part of the online chat.
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A New Overview of
AV's Criminal Justice Initiative
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By Thomas Hanna, communications manager
Arnold Ventures is now one of the largest criminal justice reform efforts in the United States, after a period of significant growth and expansion.
What’s Happening: Arnold Ventures has released an up-to-date overview of its criminal justice initiative. It details our work and vision across 11 portfolio areas, including: Reducing Violent Crime; Gun Policy Research; Police Response; Police Accountability; Bail Reform; Public Defense; Prosecution; Prisons; Community Supervision; Fines and Fees; and Reintegration.
Why It Matters: AV’s work in criminal justice aims at changing the system to improve people’s lives and strengthen community safety. This document is intended to provide an accessible, high-level overview that can help potential grantees, policymakers, and the general public navigate our work.
Read the overview >
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Criminal Justice
- A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) explores the role of community supervision systems in all 50 states and Washington, D.C and whether they promote or undermine community safety.
- The Appeal published an op-ed by Jamila Hodge, Executive Director of Equal Justice USA, an AV grantee, on the importance of supporting survivors of violent crime, including those close to people directly victimized.
- Preliminary first quarter 2023 data released by the Major Cities Chiefs Association shows an overall drop (over first quarter 2022 levels) in certain serious crimes across 70 U.S. jurisdictions.
- KSDK reports on how a bipartisan vote in the Missouri Senate
defeated an effort to replace local control of the St. Louis police department with state control.
- The California Policy Lab, an AV grantee, has released two new studies. The first focuses on the impact Covid-19 had on decreasing prison and jail populations, and the second shows disparities in who is stopped by police and the outcomes of those stops.
- A story originally posted on the APPR website details how recent reforms to Youngstown, Ohio's pretrial system have successfully reduced the number of people incarcerated before trial while maintaining community safety.
- Several news outlets covered a recent high-level summit on reducing violent crime at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis that featured Thomas Abt from the Violence Reduction Center, an AV grantee. See some of the stories from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Spectrum News, and Fox 2 Now.
Health Care
- From State of Reform, California and the nonprofit Civica Rx will produce biosimilar insulins with plans to hit the market in the next few years. Allan Coukell, the senior vice president of public policy at Civica Rx, told State of Reform that the organization’s ultimate goal is to have Civica Rx insulins widely available in every state.
- AV grantee Private Equity Stakeholder Project launched a tracker that lists all private equity-owned hospitals in the United States. It finds nine percent of all U.S. hospitals are PE-owned, and more than a third of PE-owned hospitals are in rural health care markets.
Related: Private Equity is Gutting America – and Getting Away With It (free link)
Higher Education
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New America released a brief analyzing income-driven repayment of student loans, which found that borrowers who could benefit the most from recent policy changes are at risk of missing out. On the list of potential policy solutions: automating access to income-driven repayment, engaging in better outreach, providing strong oversight of student loan services, and increasing funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
Infrastructure
- In a USA Today op-ed, Arnold Schwarzenegger writes about how he transformed from Hummer-driving action star to green governor, and calls for policy reforms that make it easier to build a “clean and abundant energy future” faster, better, and at lower cost.
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The Brady Campaign’s podcast, Red, Blue, & Brady, recently interviewed AV grantee Dr. Jennifer Tucker (Associate Professor of History and Director, Center for the Study of Guns and Society at Wesleyan University). On episode 225, "The Rising Lethality of the Second Amendment," the conversation focused on how firearm lethality has increased, how "historically" based legal decisions around firearms have been fundamentally flawed, and how we need an improved vocabulary for discussing guns in the U.S. |
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The Pretrial Justice team has released a request for proposals that will help inform and advance the field’s collective understanding of the policies and practices related to pretrial release decisions, pretrial release conditions, and pretrial services.
The Higher Education and Evidence-Based Policy teams have created a request for proposals for rigorous impact evaluations of programs and practices (“interventions”) to promote college success in the United States.
The Criminal Justice and Evidence-Based Policy teams at Arnold Ventures are teaming up to learn more about what works in criminal justice reform in an ongoing request for proposals for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that will test programs and practices. There is no deadline for submissions.
The Evidence-Based Policy team invites grant applications to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of social programs in any area of U.S. policy. Details are here.
View our RFPs here.
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Have an evidence-based week,
– Torie
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Torie Ludwin produces the Abstract and other multimedia work, and covers communications for public finance and evidence-based policy at Arnold Ventures.
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