Approach
Five years into its ten-year Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation hired M+R to refresh the design, flow, and messaging of the SJC website. We’ve also worked with the SJC since 2015 to use media as a vehicle for changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. By lifting up personal stories, issue experts, and assets like reports, we’ve supported the SJC Network in generating significant news coverage about meaningful change in local justice systems. Our team also led social media for the SJC, using core messages across different platforms and ensuring seamless integration with the media work.
The refreshed Safety and Justice Challenge website showcases the most up-to-date data and stories from across the SJC Network of participating cities, counties, and states. Messaging from the new guide is incorporated throughout the site to better communicate goals as well as the urgent need for this innovative criminal justice work.
The website features countless resources, blog posts, links to articles, and charts to help audiences engage more with the work being done on the ground by criminal justice stakeholders, advocates, and community members. Users can easily search for resources by issue area (e.g. Women in Jail, Mental Health, etc.) as well as location.
The SJC has core messaging that acts as a collective guide for the communications work at the national and local levels. M+R worked with the MacArthur Foundation to develop this Messaging Guide to help key audiences and the general public better understand and get on board with this critical work. The refreshed core messaging is intended to reflect where the Safety and Justice Challenge is five years into the project, embed a greater equity lens, and set and articulate a bold goal: By the end of 2025, local justice systems will have demonstrably advanced racial equity and justice, and at least 50% fewer people will be in jail across the Network.
