reimaginING what public safety means in American life
At the Justice for Everybody Movement (J4EM), we are working to reimagine what public safety means in American life. Rooted in interdisciplinary scholarship and sustained through partnerships with communities.
our work unfolds across four interlocking initiatives:
Our initiatives put research to work. Across education, advocacy, reform, and partnerships, we collaborate with directly impacted communities to broaden access to justice and strengthen democracy—advancing a vision of public safety grounded in knowledge, accountability, and shared responsibility.
EDUCATIOn
Developing accessible research and civic learning tools that empower system-impacted communities, students, and the broader public to think critically about law, democracy, and safety.
ADVOCACY
Reconceptualizing legal strategies as a means of structural repair and restoration, ensuring outcomes that are fair and effective.
REFORM
Advancing evidence-based approaches that translate into durable institutional and policy change, improving the equity and accountability of legal systems.
Partnerships
Collaborating with key stakeholders and communities to motivate, inspire, and embolden participation in confronting urgent, often intractable challenges.
At J4EM, we believe in Justice for Everybody: in building a democracy resilient enough to confront its own failures, combat inequality, and open broader pathways to education, growth, opportunity, and civic life. As we expand and build on our collaborations with the Hutchins Center at Harvard University—where the intellectual foundations of J4EM first took shape—we carry that vision forward at Yale, deepening engagement with incarcerated individuals and widening our reach across the nation.
We view inequality as a condition that shapes the boundaries of freedom and safety. Our charge is not only to study these inequities and their consequences, but to ask what kind of society becomes possible when public safety is reimagined as a collective responsibility. J4EM's work rests on the conviction that scholarship, when joined with lived experience and community knowledge, can unsettle entrenched structures and chart paths toward repair. By convening students, practitioners, defenders, and directly impacted communities, we aim to generate ideas that move beyond diagnosis—ideas that widen access to justice, sharpen the demand for accountability, and call institutions to their highest purpose. We insist on a future where justice is shared and not conditional or deferred.