City of Philadelphia Commemorates Completion of MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge

During the program’s ten-year term, Philadelphia was able to achieve its goal of reducing the jail population by nearly 58%

PHILADELPHIA – The City of Philadelphia Office of Public Safety’s (OPS) Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ), at its last Implementation Team meeting for key stakeholders, celebrated the culmination  of its ten-year participation in the first cohort of the MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) and its achievement of reducing the city’s prison population by nearly 58 percent from 8,082 individuals in July 2015 to 3,436 people in July 2025. The SJC supports local cities and counties looking to address misuse and overuse of jails through data-driven, equity-focused, and community-informed solutions to reduce jail populations, eliminate ineffective and unfair practices, and reduce racial disparities.

“It has been my administration’s great honor to participate in the MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge and to celebrate our national SJC cohort collectively declining our jail population by 58 percent,” said Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. “I believe that utilizing evidence-based, community-informed solutions to address the issue of jail misuse and overuse are an effective way to make our communities safer by keeping Philadelphians out of jail who do not belong there, better reintegrating individuals into the community upon release, and making sure those individuals stay out of jail.”

Founded in 2015, the Safety and Justice Challenge brings together a network of cities, counties, and states to prove it is possible to rethink local justice systems from the ground up. One of the key goals of the Safety and Justice Challenge is safely reducing local jail populations. To achieve this reduction in Philadelphia, the City identified a key strategy for the plan: reducing the number of people in local jail custody who are on pretrial status.

When the SJC work began in July 2015, the pretrial population was the top driver of the prison population with 2,018 people in custody on only a pretrial matter and 13% of the overall population held on cash bail amounts $50,000 or less. Ten years later, the volume of people in pretrial status has been cut in half and less than 5% of people are held on cash bail amounts $50,000 or less.

“I am proud of the work the Office of Public Safety has achieved under the guidance and support of the MacArthur Foundation,” said Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer. “Inefficiencies in our criminal justice system limit the City’s capacity to address violent crime and process more significant cases. Achieving our goal of reducing the Philadelphia jail population by 58 percent means our system is 58 percent more able to address the cases with wider reaching consequences. And we are seeing the results of this work with the recent positive trends in declining violent crime rates.”

Some initiatives supported by the Division of Criminal Justice in close collaboration with the City’s Criminal Justice stakeholders during its ten-year tenure as a SJC site include:

• Early Bail Review (EBR): This initiative is a collaborative effort among Philadelphia’s justice system partners to reduce the system’s reliance on cash bail and decrease the pretrial prison population. Participants in EBR are provided with a hearing 5 days after arraignment in front of a judge to determine whether the initial bail set at a preliminary hearing be reduced, removed, or kept the same as when bail was set. Counsel are able to interview clients and present information in support of release, while also reiterating pretrial requirements and next court appearance. Since its founding, Early Bail Review has expanded to include most offense types, higher bail amounts, and people with detainers/holds.
• Bail Advocates: Bail Advocates provides staff from the Defender Association to interview clients prior to preliminary arraignment. Bail advocates can perform brief, qualitative interviews designed to establish relevant family contact, housing and employment status, health and childcare needs, and other issues relevant to whether the client can or cannot remain in their home community while their case remains open. Bail Advocates currently operates in the Police Detention Unit (PDU), in the Philadelphia Public Safety Building (PPSB), with plans to expand into East Division before 2026.
• Community Advisory Committee (CAC): The Community Advisory Committee brings community voices together to advise on the implementation and sustainability of Philadelphia’s criminal justice reform plan. and serve as liaisons to the greater Philadelphia community. Members of the CAC are either directly impacted by the criminal justice system or have significant experience within.

“The MacArthur Foundation’s Safety & Justice Challenge has been nothing short of transformative,” shared Philadelphia Department of Prisons (PDP) Commissioner Michael R. Resnick, Esq. “It sparked a level of collaboration among our criminal-justice partners that continues to guide and strengthen our work today—and will remain a north star for years to come. The initiatives launched through this effort have made our system more efficient and helped drive our jail population to a 30-year low. As a result, the conditions in our facilities have improved, and our ability to deliver the services people need has never been stronger. We are seeing the sustained benefits of that investment every single day.”

As part of the Office of Public Safety’s ongoing commitment to the Safety and Justice Challenge, Philadelphia has been selected to participate in several of the SJC’s expansion networks after the formal completion of the SJC. These networks are opportunities for additional stakeholder engagement and continued innovation in intersectional spaces. These networks include Racial Equity Cohort, Just Home, and the Women & Survivors Expansion Networks.

The City of Philadelphia has been honored to be a participant in the historic first ten years of the MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge and looks forward to continuing the work of creating a criminal justice system that makes Philadelphia a safer city committed to public safety, driven by data, all while creating a fair and equitable system for all Philadelphians.