About MDRC
Henderson’s work uses data science approaches to provide technical assistance to organizations and inform evaluations of policies, programs, and systems in a variety of domains, including criminal justice, employment and training, education, and youth development. They are experienced in directing and managing projects; overseeing the acquisition, integration, processing, and analysis of complex administrative data sources; mapping system processes and data flows; research design; impact analysis; equity analysis; providing technical assistance to organizations; and collecting qualitative data through on-site observations, document reviews, interviews, focus groups, and participatory methods.
They are the project director for a study of United Way of King County’s Bridge to Finish program, which provides basic needs services to community college students to increase equity in educational attainment. They are also the co-principal investigator and impact lead for the NJ CARE project; the data manager and quantitative lead for the OTTERS project, which aims to optimize chatbot messaging to increase access to postsecondary training and education in Washington state; and the quantitative and equity advisor for the Pretrial Justice Collaborative project. Past projects include the impact evaluation of New York City’s Supervised Release program, the Youth Villages Transitional Living Program Evaluation, and an evaluation of the Re-Integration of Ex-Offenders Program. They earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Cornell University and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where they are currently a doctoral candidate in sociology.
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MDRC Publications
CommentaryMay, 2022Research suggests that pretrial policy reforms supporting arrested individuals’ release pending trial—unless evidence shows they will not return to court or they pose a threat to public safety—have positive results. This post discusses several policies that were established to prevent the overuse of pretrial detention.
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
Jurisdictions across the country are striving to increase equity in their pretrial justice systems by reducing their use of pretrial detention and money bail, which affect Black people and other people of color disproportionately and are linked to negative health and well-being outcomes. Despite the intentions of these reforms, there is little rigorous evidence...
Bret Barden, Melanie Skemer, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Lily Freedman, Emily Brennan, Sarah Picard, Rae WalkerJurisdictions 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...
Sarah Picard, Dan Bloom, Melanie Skemer, Bret Barden, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Lily Freedman, Rae Walker, Michelle S. Manno, Raul Armenta, Emily Brennan, Kyla WassermanThe 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 individuals in jail while they are awaiting trial, and on the...
MDRC launched a study of New York City’s Supervised Release ( SR ) program shortly after its citywide rollout in 2016, assessing its effectiveness as it existed before New York State’s bail reform legislation went into effect in 2020. SR offered judges across the five boroughs of New York City an alternative to money bail by providing the option of pretrial release...
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...