We must continue our pursuit of a more equitable justice system

These last few weeks have been heavy to say the least. At the fore is the Derek Chauvin verdict, the indictment of the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, the announcements of DOJ investigations into the police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, and the recent stories of police violence against the Black community. 

For me, these are more than “stories.” They reflect the connected lived experiences of my community and they underscore why we need to stay focused and engaged. The experiences of the last few weeks and the last year+ have taught me many things, about myself, and about the importance of community. We are invited to see each other’s pain, carry each other’s burdens, and receive care as well. And I'll be honest, I often find myself feeling overwhelmed. But then I am centered by what I believe I and we “must” do.   

We must partner to drive deeper impact. 

There is no doubt that this last year has taught us that we’re stronger together. This has been true for me personally, and for the work we’ve achieved this year through the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative. Over the last several years we’ve had great partners that have enabled us to build a strong foundation and accelerate our work related to improving law enforcement policies, programs, and practices. When the national conversation around justice reform shifted last summer, this foundation afforded us the privilege to be part of the acceleration point in the racial justice movement that has continued.  

Last June, we announced a series of commitments for addressing racial justice, including building upon our foundation in policing reform, and expanding the scope to include diversion (or alternatives to incarceration) and prosecutorial reforms. This shift to focus on the front-end pieces of the justice system affords us the incredible opportunity to engage more deeply with existing partners while also focusing on a broader subset of the issues going forward.  

Since July, we’ve announced and expanded partnerships with more than 20 organizations such as the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Bureau, the University of Southern California (USC) Sol Price Center for Social Innovation, and the Vera Institute of Justice Reshaping Prosecution initiative.  

Supporting Alternatives to Incarceration. It's widely-acknowledged that we rely on incarceration as a solution for social needs and under-invest in social services that can provide support for individuals and communities in crisis. Started in Seattle in 2011, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Bureau was the nation’s first pre-arrest, pre-booking strategy to address disruptive or unlawful conduct stemming from substance use and/or extreme poverty. Centered at the intersection of public health, public safety, and racial justice, LEAD is designed to build a new system of response to reduce the harms that can stem from unmanaged behavioral illness. By pairing high-level systems change with intensive, long term, non-coercive street-based case management, LEAD reduces racial disparities in the justice system, increases equitable access to community care and services for low-income people and people of color, and displaces police enforcement as a primary response mechanism for unmanaged behavioral illness.  

Today, we are proud to support the LEAD Proof of Concept Project which is underway in cities across the United States, and while the level of implementation varies by jurisdiction, they are already seeing significant opportunities to accelerate their work using data and technology. In Atlanta, for example, we’re partnering with Atlanta PAD, a LEAD affiliate, to support their digital transformation journey to bolster Atlanta's "311" social services response to crises (as opposed to "911") which will enable them to scale up their local operations and better track program participation and outcomes.   

Reimagining Policing. Law enforcement and policing is inherently local but access to data, insights, and powerful analytics tools to promote transparency and foster more informed community conversations is often sorely lacking. As part of our partnership with the University of Southern California (USC), the Neighborhood Data for Social Change program will add additional policing data to its data visualization and data-sharing platform. To support geocoding of several million rows of policing data, our team partnered with USC to leverage Bing Maps capabilities and bring additional policing data from the Los Angeles region into the data portal. In addition, USC conducted additional tracking and analysis of the data with key findings highlighting that people of color across all neighborhoods, especially people who identify as Black, are stopped at higher rates by the police than other groups. Across the city, Black citizens are stopped and arrested three times as often as White and Latinos.  These data were also leveraged for community convenings and were then presented to the Los Angeles Police Department. 

Evolving Prosecution Practices. Prosecutors hold significant decision-making power as they may exercise discretion regarding who to charge with a crime, the nature of the charge, plea offers, and sentencing recommendations. Reliable data and lack of transparency related to these decisions and the associated decision-making process is essential to understanding due process, effectiveness, and efficiency, but limited data is available. Our investment in the Vera Institute of Justice Reshaping Prosecution program is helping to enable reform-minded prosecutors to use the power of their offices to address the harms of system racism, put an end to the mass incarceration and criminalization of communities of color, and promote transparency and accountability to communities. The goals of this program are to 1) examine the historic roots and impact of mass incarceration, and how current policies and practices exacerbate those inequities, 2) implement data-driven policies and practices that reduce incarceration, and 3) become more transparent and accountable to the communities they serve, particularly those more impacted by disparities.  

  We must provide education to inspire action.  

We’ve learned a great deal from our employees through our employee town halls, hosted in partnership with the Blacks at Microsoft (BAM) employee resource group. Our employees have provided feedback, asked questions, and weighed in across a variety of justice reform issues. They’ve shared personal experiences and they’ve taught us how to turn education and understanding into action.  

They’ve also taught us the importance of relationships and compassion when working in social justice. In response, employees around the company have found ways to support their communities. A team of human resource professionals started providing interview and resume coaching for incarcerated individuals who are preparing for release. Another team in our U.S. subsidiary turned a simple hackathon into a Hack for Social Justice—developing solutions designed to drive change across a variety of societal issues including justice reform. In addition, dozens of teams stepped up during out annual summer hackathon to create technology solutions to help drive equity in the justice system. One team, for example, partnered with the Seattle Clemency Project to develop a data visualization prototype designed to expose unfair disparities in sentencing and convictions.  

Over the last several weeks we’ve continued these conversations with BAM and our employees, focusing on the topics of reimagining policing and public safety. In the weeks ahead we’ll continue the conversation with sessions on, the role of the prosecutor and local government, and activating allyship and activism. This series is designed to help give our employees a comprehensive understanding of front-end justice reform and create pathways for community engagement. We hope these conversations provide a space for solution-oriented dialogue and healing during these challenging times, while also continuing to inspire more employees into action.  

We must engage in the policy debate. 

Despite the work we’ve been doing with law enforcement stakeholders over the past few years, we know systemic change requires many voices engaged in the policy debate. In 2018, Microsoft engaged in efforts to get the First Step Act passed through Congress. The First Step Act is a bipartisan bill that provided meaningful sentencing reforms which helped reduce the number of people in prison.  When Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed last year, it reignited the calls for racial justice and people marched across the world demanding an end to systematic racism.  As a result, the United States Congress responded by introducing two pieces of legislation – the Justice in Policing Act and The Justice Act.  Several states and cities followed suit with more than 1,600 pieces of legislation being introduced in response to both enhance accountability and promote safety. We are eager to elevate the perspectives of organizations at the community and national level to inform this critical conversation.

 We must be in this for the long run.  

All of this amounts to the biggest "must" which is a commitment to endurance to propel long-lasting change. There is so much work that still needs to be done. Regardless of the time that goes by, or the difficulties that persist, we’re committed to staying at it. This last year was a point of acceleration but it wasn’t the beginning, nor is it the end. We’ll continue to keep our foot on the gas.  

To stay connected and learn more about the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative, visit Microsoft.com/JRI.