About us

We help communities improve public safety while reducing harmful outcomes

Our mission

Justice Innovation Lab builds data-informed, people-centered solutions for a more fair and effective justice system. Our team of data scientists, human-centered design experts, former prosecutors, policymakers, and community advocates support local leaders in developing effective solutions to criminal justice challenges. We help communities improve public safety while reducing harmful outcomes, including unnecessary incarceration and unjust racial and economic disparities.

Our origin

In 2015, Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black man, was pulled over for a broken taillight in North Charleston, SC. Moments later, Scott was gunned down by a police officer, though he was unarmed and posed no risk to the officer.

During the investigation into Scott’s death, Jared Fishman, then a senior prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, worked with Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, the Charleston area’s chief prosecutor, to secure justice.

Walter Scott’s murder exposed many structural inequalities in Charleston’s criminal legal system, and Solicitor Wilson wanted to know whether her office could use existing data to answer the question, “Are we being fair?”

In 2020, Fishman created Justice Innovation Lab to partner with Solicitor Wilson and her office to pursue a more innovative, proactive, and cost-effective approach to justice and public safety.