Public safety is among the most basic responsibilities of state and local government, and one of the most expensive. Alabama’s courts, jails, prisons, and supervision systems touch nearly every county budget and thousands of families each year. It is also a policy area where decisions are often made with incomplete data, spread across agencies that don’t always measure things the same way.

PARCA brings its independent, data-driven approach to the questions Alabama faces now: how the justice system is funded, governed, and staffed, and what results it produces. We don’t take a side in those debates. We make sure they start from the same facts.

PARCA also serves as the local partner of the Aspen Institute’s work with the Birmingham-Jefferson County Justice Governance Partnership.