Leading participants, experts, and scholars of criminal justice in the United States met last weekend during a two-day conference organized by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The Quattrone Center’s Spring Symposium, “A Systems Approach to Conviction Integrity,” addressed the impact of criminal justice system errors and ways to reform the system in order to prevent mistakes in justice.
James Doyle, a Boston attorney and recent National Institute of Justice (NIJ) fellow, spoke at the conference and introduced a “systems approach” to correcting mistakes in justice, known as the “Sentinel Events Initiative,” which will be tested in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Baltimore this year. The “Sentinel Events Initiative” will bring criminal justice players of varying positions together in agreement to develop a private feedback loop, which will examine cases that went awry and address the lessons learned from each case that could be applicable to future practice. Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, who received national attention for his partnership with county public defenders, addressed the conference saying, “This is a really exciting time. For the first time, the criminal justice system is opening up and saying we need a redesign.”
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