American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good

The Commission seeks to reimagine the nation’s political economy, rethink the values that drive economic policy making, and advance recommendations that help individuals, communities, and the nation flourish.

The bipartisan Commission issued Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century to both strengthen institutions and bolster civil society. Work is underway to advance initiatives rooted in that report that will help make the nation emerge as a more resilient democracy by 2026, the nation’s 250th anniversary.

By convening scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers with representatives of the courts, legal aid providers, and foundations, the project seeks to understand and assess the challenge of providing legal services for low-income Americans.

This study examined the scope of mass incarceration, its political significance, and its social impacts, weighing the concerns about crime control, rehabilitation, and more fundamental issues of social justice.

The goal of the project is to advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap that currently exists between the demand for civil legal services and the supply.