Grants Announcement: Arnold Ventures Criminal Justice Research Grants During the Fourth Quarter of 2025 Demonstrate Its Commitment to Rigorously Test Public Safety Interventions

Researching the effectiveness of public safety policies builds understanding about recent declines in violent crime and how best to allocate taxpayer dollars.

Houston, TX (February 13, 2026)— In the fourth quarter of 2025, Arnold Ventures (AV) awarded more than 15 new research grants through its open request for proposals (RFP) for criminal justice research. These grants, totaling more than $9 million dollars, demonstrate the philanthropy’s ongoing commitment to testing policies and interventions that are intended to improve public safety and reduce recidivism. 

The fourth quarter grants support research in a variety of areas, including forensic genetic genealogy, DNA databases, community violence intervention programs, police supervision, and victim advocate programs. 

Grant awards also focus on determining the effects of jail-based rehabilitation, education for incarcerated people, the use of mandatory minimum sentencing, PTSD treatment in prisons, permitless firearm carry, increased access to methadone maintenance treatment, proactive outreach around record expungement/​sealing, and prison conditions. 

“Policymakers across the country are looking for ways to improve public safety, with smaller budgets than in the past,” said Jennifer Doleac, executive vice president of Criminal Justice at AV. ​“We are determined to help policymakers make the best use of their scarce public safety resources. To figure out which interventions deserve public investment – and which don’t – we continue to support rigorous impact evaluations of innovative policies and programs.”

This release covers a subset of grants that were committed, awarded, or fully executed in the fourth quarter of 2025. It is intended to be illustrative of the work that AV is funding in the criminal justice field and serve as a resource for academics and practitioners who might be interested in applying for funding or in the outcome of previously funded research. It is not a comprehensive summary of AV’s Criminal Justice grantmaking. Grant amounts are rounded to the nearest hundred dollars. 

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Arnold Ventures is a philanthropy that supports research to understand the root causes of America’s most persistent and pressing problems, as well as evidence-based solutions to address them. By focusing on systemic change and bipartisan policy reforms, AV works to improve the lives of American families, strengthen communities, and promote economic opportunity.

Community Safety

Name: The Effect of Police Alternatives on Public Safety Outcomes in Durham, NC
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate the impact of HEART, a Durham-based civilian-led crisis response model, on public safety and community trust.
Geographic Focus: Durham, North Carolina
Grant Recipient: Duke University
Principal Investigator(s): Bocar Ba, Tony Cheng, Martha Eies, Justin Holz
Term: 2025 — 2027
Amount: $300,000

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Name: Reducing Gun Violence Without Exacerbating the Harms of Policing: The Group Violence Reduction Strategy in Baltimore
Description: This project uses synthetic difference-in-differences to evaluate the impact of Baltimore’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy and provide evidence for whether any effects operate through channels of deterrence versus incapacitation. 
Geographic Focus: Baltimore, Maryland
Grant Recipient: Cornell University
Principal Investigator(s): Max Kapustin
Term: 2025 — 2026
Amount: $94,800

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Name: Does Increased Methadone Maintenance Treatment Supply Impact Local Rates of Opioid Overdoses and Crime?
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate whether increased access to methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) reduces overdose and crime. 
Geographic Focus: National
Grant Recipient: University of Pittsburgh
Principal Investigator(s): J. Travis Donahoe, Adam Soliman, Analisa Packham
Term: 2025 — 2028
Amount: $287,600

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Name: A Test of Specific Deterrence: An RCT of the Notification of Inclusion in CODIS
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the deterrent effect of notifying offenders that they have a DNA profile in the federal CODIS database.
Geographic Focus: Pennsylvania, Tennessee
Grant Recipient: National Opinion Research Center
Principal Investigator(s): John Roman, JJ Nadeo
Term: 2025 — 2029
Amount: $385,000

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Name: The Impact of Permitless Carry Laws on Firearm Violence and Community Safety
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate the impact of changes to states’ permitless carry laws on homicides and non-fatal shootings. 
Geographic Focus: National
Grant Recipient: Washington University
Principal Investigator(s): Julia Fleckman, Brigham Walker
Term: 2025 — 2029
Amount: $158,900

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Name: The Boss in Blue: Supervisors and Police Behavior
Description: This project uses a two-way fixed effects model to investigate the effect that supervisors have on patrol officers’ enforcement behaviors and downstream public safety outcomes. 
Geographic Focus: Dallas, Texas
Grant Recipient: Northeastern University
Principal Investigator(s): Austin Smith
Term: 2025 — 2027
Amount: $121,800

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Name: Delegating Community-Based Violence Interventions: An Evaluation of Detroit’s ShotStoppers Program
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate the impact of ShotStoppers, a community violence intervention (CVI) strategy, on violent crime in Detroit.
Geographic Focus: Detroit, Michigan
Grant Recipient: RAND Corporation
Principal Investigator(s): Rachel Nesbit, George Zuo
Term: 2025 — 2028
Amount: $287,800

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Name: An Advocate Intervention Aimed at Improving Crime, Arrest, and NFS Clearance Rates
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an intervention aimed at increasing participation in a Victim Advocate Program for nonfatal shootings on case clearance and repeat victimization.
Geographic Focus: Indiana
Grant Recipient: Indiana University
Principal Investigator(s): Kendale Adams, Phil Cook, Lauren Magee, Alberto Ortega, Susan Parker
Term: 2025 — 2030
Amount: $354,200

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Name: The Effectiveness of Forensic Genetic Genealogy
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) relative to traditional DNA testing in police investigations. 
Geographic Focus: Multistate
Grant Recipient: Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
Principal Investigator(s): Aaron Chalfin, Romaine Campbell, Brandon Del Pozo
Term: 2025 — 2030
Amount: $4,147,300

Courts

Name: How Important is Police Testimony for DV Convictions? Evidence from Crawford v Washington
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2004 Crawford decision which restricted the scope of admissible police testimony in prosecutions where victims were not themselves testifying.
Geographic Focus: Tennessee, Texas
Grant Recipient: Yale University
Principal Investigator(s): Kerri Raissian, Aria Golestani, Emily Owens
Term: 2025 — 2028
Amount: $216,700

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Name: Prosecutor Discretion and the Use of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to estimate the effects of eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses, with a focus on prosecutorial discretion and downstream criminal justice outcomes. 
Geographic Focus: Rhode Island
Grant Recipient: University of Connecticut
Principal Investigator(s): Spencer Cooper, Adam Soliman
Term: $259,700
Amount: 2025 – 2029

Incarceration and Post-Incarceration

Name: How do Prison Conditions Affect Inmate Outcomes?
Description: This project uses difference-in-differences to evaluate the effects of prison conditions on misconduct and other inmate outcomes. 
Geographic Focus: Pennsylvania
Grant Recipient: Research Foundation of the City University of New York
Principal Investigator(s): Mauricio Caceres Bravo
Term: 2025 — 2027
Amount: $201,250

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Name: The Impact of Prisoner Education on Recidivism, Labor Market Outcomes
Description: This project uses an instrumental variable design to examine the differential impact of career and technical education (CTE) relative to adult basic education (ABE) programs in Tennessee prisons on recidivism and economic outcomes.
Geographic Focus: Tennessee
Grant Recipient: Cornell University
Principal Investigator(s): Valentin Bolotnyy, Michael Lovenheim, Natalie Miller
Term: 2025 — 2028
Amount: $457,900

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Name: Completion of Long-term Multistate RCT Evaluation of the 5‑Key Reentry Model
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of the 5‑Key Reentry Model. 
Geographic Focus: Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina
Grant Recipient: Research Triangle Institute
Principal Investigator(s): Pamela Lattimore, Janeen Willison
Term: 2025 — 2027
Amount: $199,600

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Name: Restoring Rights, Rebuilding Lives: A Series of RCTs on Expungement, Employment, and Reintegration
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate whether proactive outreach and legal support increases expungement and record sealing as well as positive outcomes in reentry.
Geographic Focus: Pennsylvania
Grant Recipient: Free Our Vote Inc.
Principal Investigator(s): Neel Sukhatme, Alexander Billy
Term: 2025 – 2028 
Amount: $300,000

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Name: What (Actually) Works in US Jails? Evaluating the Expansion of IGNITE
Description: This project uses an instrumental variable design to evaluate the effects of an ongoing, multi-site expansion of the jail-based rehabilitation and education program, IGNITE. 
Geographic Focus: National
Grant Recipient: The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
Principal Investigator(s): Marcella Alsan, Peter Hull, Crystal Yang
Term: $851,400
Amount: 2025 ‑2028

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Name: PTSD Treatment for the Prison Setting
Description: This project uses a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of group Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for post-traumatic stress disorder in prisons. 
Geographic Focus: Wisconsin
Grant Recipient: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Principal Investigator(s): Michael Koenigs
Term: 2025 — 2030
Amount: $854,400