In 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury selected the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) to participate in SIPPRA, a national initiative to improve community conditions by leveraging the financial incentives of State and local governments. Popularly known as “Pay for Success,” federal funds provide a source of investment capital to improve the impact and efficiency of social services and supports. The PFS model has been used to inspire government effectiveness in a variety of social policy sectors for more than a decade. When local projects reduce future federal expenditures in some way, a SIPPRA grant is used to offset the costs of the effort. An independent and rigorous evaluation, however, must document the effectiveness of the project and monetize its results to predict federal savings. Evaluation costs are covered regardless of the study findings. Program costs are reimbursed only if the evaluation shows positive returns from the federal government’s investment.

With this competitive award from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, New York City launched an expansion of its Crisis Management System, a violence prevention strategy inspired by Cure Violence and overseen by MOCJ’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence. MOCJ invited the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (JohnJayREC) to collaborate in the SIPPRA effort. To ensure the independence and accuracy of the evaluation, JohnJayREC sought the partnership of NORC at the University of Chicago. Researchers at NORC, led by Senior Fellow Dr. John Roman, are the principal analytic team designing the rigorous evaluation being carried out with JohnJayREC.

Like all externally funded research at John Jay College, the SIPPRA initiative is coordinated by the Office for the Advancement of Research under the auspices of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the Research Foundation of CUNY(RF-CUNY), fiscal agent for all research projects housed at CUNY campuses.

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From the Department of the Treasury:
The Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) was signed into law on February 9, 2018 and is intended to improve the effectiveness of certain social services. The federal government will pay for a project only if predetermined project outcomes have been met and validated by an independent evaluator, a system called a “pay for results partnership.” Congress appropriated $100 million for the SIPPRA program to implement “Social Impact Partnership Demonstration Projects” and feasibility studies to prepare for those projects.  The SIPPRA program is largely administered by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury).

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Evaluation Funding
$2.6 Million over 7 years.

JohnJayREC Staff
Dr. Jeffrey Butts (co-PI @ JohnJayREC), Dr. John Roman (co-PI @ NORC).