About MDRC
Henderson’s research focuses on evaluations of criminal justice policies, programs, and systems as well as employment and training, noncustodial parent, and youth development programs. She plays a central role in multiple aspects of the Pretrial Justice Collaborative project, a study of pretrial supervision techniques and court appearance rates in eight jurisdictions across the country. She also works as the lead analyst for the impact evaluation of New York City’s Supervised Release program, a bail alternative intended to reduce the use of pretrial detention and reliance on money bail while ensuring defendants’ appearance in court and maintaining public safety, and serves as a data manager for the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt demonstration, a random assignment study testing new approaches to working with noncustodial parents who have fallen behind in their child support payments. Across these projects, Henderson’s responsibilities include managing the acquisition, processing, and analysis of multiple data sources; research design; impact analysis; the collection of qualitative data through on-site observations, document reviews, and interviews; and report writing; Her past projects include the Youth Villages Transitional Living Program Evaluation and an evaluation of the Re-Integration of Ex-Offenders Program. Henderson earned a BA in sociology from Cornell University and is currently a doctoral student in the Sociology Department of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
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MDRC Publications
ReportEffects in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
March, 2019The Public Safety Assessment (PSA) assesses the likelihood that a defendant will commit a new crime or fail to appear for court hearings, information that then can guide decisions about release conditions. This study presents the effects of the PSA and related policy changes in Mecklenburg County, NC.
ReportTwo-Year Impact Report
May, 2015RExO increased the number and types of services received by participants and improved their self-reported labor market outcomes as well. But there is little evidence it had any impacts on recidivism or other outcomes. Further, the impacts on employment, while statistically significant, are quite small in practical terms.
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Other Publications
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Projects
Kristin Porter, Bret Barden, Melanie Skemer, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Viktoriya Syrov, Lily Freedman, Emily BrennanJurisdictions across the United States are taking steps to reduce the number of people who are detained in jail unnecessarily while awaiting trial. In particular, they are seeking to reduce the use of cash bail as a mechanism to ensure court appearance. Many jurisdictions have introduced risk-assessment tools to inform release decisions and pretrial supervision...
The objective of the MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research is to help build a more effective and equitable criminal justice system through clear, rigorous, and actionable research evidence. We partner with national and local criminal justice agencies, policymakers, and community-based organizations to assess reforms, practices, and programs that seek to increase...
Many jurisdictions across the United States are rethinking the “front end” of the criminal justice system — the pretrial period between an arrest and the disposition of a criminal case. Often these reforms focus on the initial decisions that judges and other court stakeholders make about whether to detain defendants in jail while they are awaiting trial, and on the use...
Supervised Release ( SR ) offers judges across the five boroughs of New York City an alternative to money bail by providing the option of pretrial release supervision. Eligible defendants include individuals facing certain misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges who are not at high risk for felony pretrial rearrest based on a locally developed and validated risk...
The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. has quadrupled since the 1970s. The more than 600,000 people who are released from prison each year face a range of obstacles to successful reentry into the community. Perhaps not surprisingly, outcomes are often poor: Two-thirds of those who are released from prison are rearrested and half are reincarcerated within three...
Most of the children who are placed in out-of-home care through the child welfare system exit to a “permanent” placement with a family member, or they are adopted or placed with a legal guardian. However, more than 20,000 young people each year “age out” of care, usually when they reach age 18. Most of these young people entered foster care in their teens after having...