John Lazet, Chief of Staff, Office of Michigan State Senator Alan Cropsey
NIJ Conference 2010
June 14-16

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The Collaborative Approach to Justice Reinvestment

John Lazet, Chief of Staff, Office of Michigan State Senator Alan Cropsey
NIJ Conference 2010
June 14-16

John Lazet: When Council of State Governments came in, one of the best things they did is they took all the different stakeholder groups out there — there was law enforcement, there were the benches, the educational groups, the provider groups, the advocacy groups — brought everybody into the same room, sat them all down, and because we had a bipartisan approach to this, everybody was willing to come and sit down in the room. So they came in, they went across and gave us a data analysis for where we were in Michigan. They told us about running the research, evidence-based practices, what really does make a difference so everybody in the room is hearing what they want to hear, they're also hearing what other people want to hear as well. So what it did is it gave people, I think, a global view of what could be done and what the possibilities were in Michigan if we all worked together.

So everybody's at the same table, all the stakeholder groups are there. We're all talking back and forth and we all realized we all want the same thing. We all want a better economy. We all want a better society. We all want to be safe where we live, work and play. We want crime to go down. We want victimization to go down. And what Council of State Governments gave us was the factual analysis and policy options based on the evidence that we all knew could succeed.