Applied Research

Solitary Confinement Research 

The Legal Decision-Making Lab works closely with the ACLU to collect and analyze data on the use of solitary confinement in the Nebraska Juvenile Justice System. We have been working with the ACLU for the last Seven years to collect and analyze data that reports on the use of solitary confinement for youth in the Juvenile Justice System in Nebraska. These data include the reasons for the use of confinement, the gender and race of the youth confined, and the duration of the confinements. We have presented our data and reports to the Nebraska Legislature, which played a role in shaping LB-230 (passed and signed into statute in February 2020), which limited the use of solitary confinement for youth in the system. We continue to collect and analyze data to assess the effectiveness of the statute change on limiting the use of solitary confinement for youth in Nebraska. Last year we presented our work at the Annual Meeting of the American Evaluation Society.

• Wiener, S., Richters, S., Wertheimer-Meier, J. & Wiener, R.L. The effects of state legislation limiting solitary confinement for youth: A process and outcome analysis. Paper presented at the American Evaluation Association Annual Meeting (October, 2023, Indianapolis, Indiana)

We plan to present a follow up study at the AEA conference in Portland: 

• Wiener, S., & Wiener, R.L. The Role of Evaluation in Shaping Legislative Policy: An Update on Solitary Confinement Evaluation. Paper to be presented at the American Evaluation Association Annual Meeting (October, 2024, Portland, Oregon)

Court Watch

The Nebraska ACLU is involved in conducting court watch research in county court and immigration court. Law students, graduate students, and undergraduate students are trained to attend court and observe cases live and record public information about the cases including information on the plaintiffs, defendants, and state actors. The observers record how long the cases last, the type of case, the gender and nationality of the participants, the outcomes of the cases, and dispositional outcomes. To date we have worked with the ACLU on two reports based upon these in court observations. The Legal Decision-Making Lab analyzes the observational data and collaborates with the Nebraska ACLU on writing reports for these observational studies. One report analyzed bail and fines in Nebraska County Courts and a second report analyzed the outcomes of master calendar hearings in immigration court. The two reports appear at the following links: 

• Broken Rules: Laws Meant to End Debtors’ Prisons are Failing Nebraskans

https://www.aclunebraska.org/sites/default/files/aclu_broken_rules.pdf

• Courting Disaster: Rights at Risk in Omaha Immigration Court

https://www.aclunebraska.org/sites/default/files/courting_disaster_final.pdf

The legal decision-making lab is actively engaged in program evaluation with the Lincoln Police Department. Two on going projects are, “Evaluation of the BETA Training Program” and “Evaluation of the Behavioral Health Co-Responder Program”. The BETA project trains law enforcement and service providers in Nebraska on the best practices for police calls that involve people with mental illness. The UNL lab has analyzed pre and posttest data collected from those attending the training and a comparison group and found training related improvements in attitudes toward working with the mentally ill and significant gains in knowledge and skill development for program participants. Our team is planning on presenting the results of this work in October (2024) at the National Meeting of the American Evaluation Association in Portland, Oregon.

1. Wiener, R.L., & Wiener, S. The Effectiveness of Training Police to Answer Mental Health Calls - The BETA Project. American Evaluation Association Meeting in Portland, Oregon (October, 2024).

In addition, the Lincoln Police Department has secured a federal grant to train police officers and mental health practitioners to team up as co-responders to mental health calls. This is a demonstration project or which the Legal Decision-Making lab will serve as the program evaluators. The project is just staring (July, 2024) and will continue for 2 years. 

The Legal-Decision Making Lab is in the process of extending the Juvenile Justice Database to track involvement of adults in the criminal justice system in Lancaster County. The stakeholders are the same as the juvenile justice stakeholders (see above) plus the Lincoln City Attorney, the County Jail Administrators, and the Lancaster Adult Division of Human Services.  The first data collection, organization, and analysis will be in the fall of 2024 and will continue on a six-month basis into future years. The data include demographics, arrests, outcomes of diversion, assessment data, and case outcomes.  A unique, deidentified tracking number will link the juvenile and adult databases to allow analyses predicting involvement and outcomes from the juvenile to the adult system. This very rich dataset will allow us to provide detailed answers to very specific questions about juveniles and adults in order to reduce involvement and recidivism in both systems. The goal of the adult data base project is similar to that of the juvenile project, namely, to assist the stakeholders, the county, and the state to formulate evidence-based policy and to identify intervention points to reduce involvement in the criminal justice system.