The Haywood Burns Institute (BI) is a Black-led national nonprofit working to transform the administration of justice in the United States. BI’s mission is to dismantle structural racism and build community-centered structural well-being. BI is a member of the APPR Racial Equity and Community Engagement Committee. The committee advises the APPR project team on the impacts of structural racism, reducing disparities in the pretrial system, and working toward community well-being.
APPR: Tell us about the work of BI and why addressing structural racism is central to your vision of transformative justice?
BI: Structural racism persists despite decades of reform across different systems, with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in these efforts. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) continue to experience worse outcomes across sectors, whether we look at education, economic stability, justice system involvement, health, and even life expectancy.
BI believes centering community to establish self-directed solutions is critical to achieving transformational change and better life outcomes. Too often, communities of color have been divested of resources, and barriers prevent engagement in the design and/or implementation of solutions necessary to achieve their well-being.
BI has worked in hundreds of jurisdictions nationally to support local efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities. Through these efforts, BI realized the significant limitations of the traditional ‘harm reduction’ methods of system reform and, instead, adopted a structural well-being framework.
APPR: Can you explain why you think a structural well-being framework offers more promise in achieving community safety?
BI: BI defines structural well-being as a system of public policies, institutional and inclusive practices, cultural representations, and other norms that work to strengthen families, communities, and individual well-being for positive life outcomes.
A structural well-being framework centers community. It invites the people directly impacted to identify solutions. And it works beyond the justice system to include other public sectors in addressing longstanding structural inequities.
A structural well-being framework asks people in the community what they need. Our experience has been that community members often identify housing, food, living-wage jobs, and drug treatment as the needed solutions for responding to drug addiction and illegal activity in their neighborhood, not more policing or traditional justice system interventions.
For example, a traditional justice system response when a person robs to buy drugs is for police to arrest the person. A structural well-being framework recognizes that this will keep the community safe for only so long. Community members prefer treatment and prevention—responses that are historically available to only some members of our society.
APPR: What do you mean when you say that “justice reform must transcend the justice sector?”
BI: To “transcend the justice sector” means that some of the problems we are trying to solve in the justice system require solutions that system actors alone can’t provide. The justice sector has an important role to play, though. Justice agencies can use data to examine and improve their policies and practices and collaborate with other sectors (health, education, economic development) and the community to address problems and build on existing strengths that community members identify. The justice sector can further support the reallocation of resources to other sectors and community-based organizations that are better positioned to help people thrive.
Justice sector reform can be thought of as “harm reduction” while centering community-identified solutions can lead to structural well-being.
APPR: How should people working to advance system change begin to engage in this critical work?
BI: We have to understand that culture eats policy for breakfast. Meaning, we could design the best policies that research has to offer, but if the culture contradicts the spirit of the policy, the policy is unlikely to be implemented effectively.
Racial disparities result from historical conditions, a culture of racism, and current policies and practices that heavily shape the circumstances in which we all live. People of color who “succeed” do so despite these conditions.
To counter the myth that success is due to individual effort alone—and that failure is due to individual fault—we must engage in personal and political development, particularly those of us who benefit from race, class, heteronormativity, and other forms of structural power. The ability to reflect critically is a skill we must build and exercise vigilantly to adjust to the changing world around us and to build solidarity among us.
Here are some resources. Start by reading APPR’s Glossary of Racial Equity and Community Engagement. From there, delve into the resources cited in the glossary’s notes; watch this Ted Talk from Marlon Peterson, who has lived experience; or read or watch material from Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative.
APPR: What advice do you have for justice system stakeholders interested in improving their pretrial policies and practices to achieve better outcomes and reduce disparities?
BI: We suggest starting with two key steps:
Community engagement: A critical aspect of changing the status quo is to engage the community – including people with lived experience – in a way where decision making power is shared. It’s important to recognize this truth: the people closest to the problems are the ones who will have the solutions. Having community members at the table is an opportunity to develop shared values and goals that can help advance community well-being. APPR’s Strengthening and Sustaining Public Engagement provides a useful framework for different types of engagement. Where some forms of community engagement are lighter touch, the ultimate goal is to center community in this work.
Data: Qualitative and quantitative data, disaggregated by race/ethnicity and other variables should be reviewed, deliberated upon, and used to inform policy and practice change. Data may also be used to identify which communities are most impacted and whether further participation from members of those communities is needed. If so, additional community outreach may be necessary.
Without engaging with directly impacted community members and looking at data, reforms often result in tinkering at the edges and making minor adjustments to policies and practices that, at best, will have a minimal impact on creating positive life outcomes for BIPOC.
APPR: How can we encourage system stakeholders who might say, “Working for structural well-being sounds great, but it’s unrealistic. I can only influence my own agency’s policies and practices.”
BI: It may be helpful to think of structural well-being and harm reduction along a continuum. Many jurisdictions start with a harm reduction approach. It’s valuable and necessary for justice agencies to identify changes to local policies and practices to reduce harm. This should be an ongoing process that must intentionally continue as long as our current structures remain. With effective efforts to center community and share power, harm reduction efforts can set the foundation for building structural well-being in the future.