About MDRC
Sarah Picard joined MDRC in September 2021 as the Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research. Her work focuses on policy-level reform in the adult criminal justice context and how research evidence can best be translated into practice. Picard brings more than fifteen years of applied research experience in justice system research and reform and is currently playing a leadership role on MDRC’s Pretrial Justice Collaborative and acting as a senior advisor on the Los Angeles County Reentry Integrated Services Project. Before joining MDRC, Picard was the Director of Research-Practice Strategies at the Center for Court Innovation. She has extensive experience studying the use of actuarial risk assessment tools in court settings and has recently completed a study modeling the potential impact of risk assessment on pretrial racial disparities in New York City. Other past research includes mixed-methods evaluations of problem-solving initiatives ranging from pretrial reform initiatives to community-based gun violence prevention and problem-solving courts. She received her Ph.D. in criminal justice from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.
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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.
CommentaryApril, 2022In this commentary originally published by The Crime Report, Melanie Skemer and Sarah Picard discuss how recent media coverage about the relationship between New York State’s bail reform and an uptick in crime has been misleading, particularly in using newly released data to conflate bail reform with a program called supervised release.
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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, Sarah Picard, Michelle S. Manno, Ann Bickerton, Douglas Phillips, Osvaldo Avila, Viktoriya Syrov, Emmi Obara, Sara Ellis, Olivia WilliamsEvery year, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services’ Office of Diversion and Reentry ( ODR ) provides reentry services for thousands of people involved in the justice system. These services cover a wide variety of needs, ranging from employment services and skills training for individuals on adult felony probation to connections to community organizations...
Kristin Porter, Bret Barden, Melanie Skemer, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Viktoriya Syrov, Lily Freedman, Emily Brennan, Sara Ellis, Olivia Williams, Sarah PicardJurisdictions 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, Ann Bickerton, Emmi Obara, Sara Ellis, Lily FreedmanThe 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...