{"id":4402231478416,"date":"2026-03-31T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/?p=4402231478416"},"modified":"2026-05-01T17:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:20:12","slug":"abolish-ice-or-lock-em-up-a-nonprofits-middle-ground-approach-to-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/news\/abolish-ice-or-lock-em-up-a-nonprofits-middle-ground-approach-to-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Abolish Ice’ or ‘Lock ’em Up?’ A Nonprofit\u2019s Middle Ground Approach to Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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When she steps into her new role as CEO of the\u00a0Vera\u00a0Institute of Justice this month, Insha Rahman will be leading an ongoing legal case against President Trump\u2019s Department of Justice. Last April, the agency abruptly canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to more than 200 nonprofits, including $5 million<\/a> Vera relied on to pursue alternative approaches to law enforcement.

As she and a coalition of nonprofits press their legal attack against an administration she says is pursuing an \u201cauthoritarian agenda,\u201d Rahman is also looking for ways to get buy-in from people from across the political spectrum on effective law enforcement policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rahman hopes that Vera, which posted $44.5 million in revenue in 2025, including grants from big foundations like Ford and MacArthur, can encourage more grant makers to support nonprofits working on new criminal justice approaches. Philanthropic support is often used to test ideas government agencies consider too risky, and in the years leading up to the pandemic, foundations responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too often the political debate over policing, trial procedures, and incarceration gets reduced to mere sloganeering, said Rahman. She is the first woman, immigrant, and Muslim to lead the venerable criminal justice research and advocacy nonprofit. Conservatives, she said, will say, \u201cLock them up and throw away the key,\u201d while liberals will chant, \u201cDefund the police\u201d or \u201cAbolish ICE.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s missing, she said, is a set of tested approaches to law enforcement that are based on human dignity and protect the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That approach \u2014 which Rahman, a former public defender in the Bronx, calls being \u201cserious about safety\u201d \u2014 was the motivation behind the Vera grants slashed last year by the federal government. Her early-career introduction to the courts soured her on what she saw as an \u201cassembly line\u201d approach to justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vera had been helping cities expand civilian crisis-response teams to reduce the number of mental-health calls that might otherwise fall to police, training corrections officials to improve prison culture, and supporting law enforcement to better respond to deaf survivors of domestic violence. <\/p>\n\n\n

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