The public receives numerous inaccurate, unfair, and prejudicial messages about the criminal legal and immigration systems. Countering these messages and driving a narrative based on facts is imperative if we are to challenge and change them. Through strategic communications, Vera combines groundbreaking research with the voices of people impacted by the criminal legal and immigration systems to create powerful campaigns, advance opportunities, and build more equitable systems of justice.

Through op-eds, videos, media coverage, blog posts, fact sheets, reports, explainers, social media, and digital advocacy, Vera is reaching a larger audience than ever before and attracting more supporters to our work to achieve justice for all.

Making News

Reaching people through media coverage of criminal legal and immigration issues is an integral part of Vera’s strategy to advance transformative change. Vera remains a trusted source of data, analysis, and expert commentary for national and local media outlets and has appeared in dozens of news articles, op-eds, radio and television programs, and online publications in 2022. Each of these appearances allows Vera to advance facts that support our goal to eradicate racism in the criminal legal and immigration systems, ensure fairness, and help our communities thrive. A sampling of Vera’s most impactful 2022 media appearances:

• Activists Press LA Supes To Stick With Timeline To Close Men’s Central Jail, LAist, March 30, 2022
• Vera Institute proposes additional spending on prevention, rather than arrests and prosecution, to tackle violent crime, The Lens, April 12, 2022
• Opinion: Bail reform did not spike crime, Washington Post, April 18, 2022
• The Perpetual Loop of Injustice, In the Thick, April, 26, 2022
• Getting a bachelor's degree in prison is rare. That's about to change, NPR, June 23, 2022
• Black drivers pulled over in Boston at 2.4 times the rate of white drivers, new study finds, Boston Globe, July 3, 2022
• After Chesa Boudin's Recall, What Is the Future of Criminal Justice Reform?, Reason, July 6, 2022
• How Hawaii brought its population of girls in prison to zero, NBC News, October 1, 2022
• Crime Researchers Say Political Candidates Are Ignoring Evidence As The Midterm Campaigns Heat Up, Buzzfeed News, October 7, 2022

Amplifying Research and Centering Personal Stories

Vera's publications help advance our reform goals by informing and persuading readers. Elevating the voices of people harmed by the criminal legal and immigration systems and providing research-based solutions can help drive change. A selection of publications from 2022:

• The Criminalization of Poverty in Tennessee
• [It’s] a Torture Chamber: Stories from Rikers Island
• Driver’s License Suspensions for Unpaid Debt: Punishing Poverty
• The People Responding to 911 Calls Instead of Police
• Seeking Help, Instead Imprisoned—Until They Found Representation

Expanding Digital Reach

We use digital engagement, be it email marketing, social media posting or website updates, to educate, engage, and galvanize communities around the issues that central to Vera’s mission.

We create accessible and timely content that helps break down Vera’s research and findings, and pair it with personal stories and actions any one of us can take to advance change.

In this way and others, we’re able to inspire action and help others understand that meaningful change is possible:

• How incarceration shapes our elections
• Why we need formerly incarcerated people in public office
• Take Action: The conditions inside Rikers Island
• The undeniable impact of Second Chance Pell partnership
• The words we use matter