The New York City Department of Finance (DOF) is the primary revenue collection agency for City government. DOF currently offers four programs designed to facilitate summons closure for owners of commer­cial fleets. The programs range from sim­ple notification programs to substantial discounts in return for the commercial entity waiving its rights to contest a sum­mons. The DOF engaged the Capstone team to conduct a comprehensive evalua­tion of its programs and determine whether they are still appropriate solutions to the present­day challenges and needs of com­mercial ticketing in NYC. The team con­ducted interviews with different stakeholders, researched best practices in other munici­palities, and conducted quantitative data analysis to produce a report for the DOF. The report contains feasible policy and procedural recommendations that will help DOF improve and re­envision these programs with respect to the agency's pol­icy objectives.

Founded in 2001, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) works to redress and prevent the most severe viola­tions of human rights by confronting lega­cies of mass abuse. This work entails informing international policymakers of best practices in transitional justice, strengthening the recognition of transi­tional justice as a crucial feature of post­conflict peacemaking and peace building, and contributing to the development of international norms for accountability and justice. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, ICTJ charged the Capstone team with investigating the role ICTJ played in the development of two seminal transitional justice framework documents that guide practices within the United Nations: the 2004 Secretary­General's report on rule of law and transitional jus­tice in conflict and post­conflict societies; and the 2005 revised UN Mediator Guidelines. The Capstone team reviewed relevant documents and conducted inter­views with UN officials and former and current ICTJ staff and consultants. By doc­umenting successes and key challenges throughout the organization's work, the Capstone team enhanced ICTJ's understanding of its role in creating these frameworks. The Capstone team provided ICTJ with a set of recommendations that will help the organization create more impactful strategies for future policy advocacy.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is currently creating pro­grams to support local governments in fostering and coordinating economic growth in least developed countries. UNCDF's Local Economic Development Program (LEDP) aims to build local govern­ment capacity to support and promote LED by investing in governance, business­enabling environments, and catalytic inter­ventions. In support of these efforts, the Capstone team created an LED Policy Manual that analyzes the type and scope of LED promotion in selected local authori­ties. The team conducted its analysis using case studies focused on the experi­ences of local governments in select municipalities of South Africa and Sweden. The lessons learned from the experiences promoting LED in advanced and middle­income contexts are intended to provide UNCDF with the tools to devel­op best practices for local governments in developing countries.

Under a public sector decentralization process in the Philippines, Metro Manila's seventeen independent Local Government Units (LGUs) have been mandated with the challenge of addressing the needs of the sizeable slum populations living within their jurisdictions. City officials and local government agencies alike found them­selves with increased financial, technical, and taxation responsibilities, but with insufficient authority to effectively execute their expected duties. While the National Urban Development & Housing Framework (NUDHF) provides an approach to shelter policy based on long­term poverty allevia­tion and economic growth objectives, the severe lack of housing continues to be a problem with few short­term solutions. The Capstone team assisted the World Bank in developing background material for its support of a Metro Manila­wide slum upgrading policy. Using a document review and field interviews, the Capstone team prepared a series of policy memos on institutions and stakeholders, national housing policies, financing schemes, data gathering strategies, and international case studies of slum upgrading.

Legal Information for Families Today (LIFT) provides support and services to litigants navigating the Family Court system with­out an attorney. LIFT recognized that unrepresented litigants often do not understand their basic rights, creating a significant obstacle to their success in court. The Capstone team helped LIFT develop the first Unrepresented Litigants' Bill of Rights and provided recommenda­tions for the implementation and dissemi­nation of the document. Using surveys, interviews, and focus groups with unrep­resented litigants and court staff, the Capstone team researched how much liti­gants know about their rights, and whether the Litigants' Bill of Rights could be used in Family Court. The Bill of Rights and final report will help LIFT improve its services in Family Court and provide rec­ommendations for how to improve the overall court process.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) requested a Capstone team to assist in improving the way it allocates basket funds for local economic develop­ment projects. The Capstone team trav­eled to Uganda to perform an institutional assessment of public service delivery in the agriculture sector. The main tasks involved conducting a stakeholder analy­sis for the agriculture sector and docu­menting service functions and the flow of resources to local governments from vari­ous actors, including central ministries, donor partners, and NGOs. The informa­tion generated through this research is intended to facilitate dialogue between central ministries, UNCDF, and the Local Government Finance Commission regard­ing the targeting of resources and techni­cal assistance to local governments.

After an extended period of internal con­flict in Cambodia, decentralization was introduced as part of a larger wave of pub­lic sector reform to promote democratic development and increase participatory governance. Decentralized planning and financing mechanisms were initially pilot­ed and then institutionalized at a lower level (commune), and similar reforms are now being introduced at higher sub­national levels (district and province). The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and The Asia Foundation engaged the Capstone team to assess the recent decentralization efforts in Cambodia. The Capstone team conducted a document review of the decentralization process as well as field interviews with researchers, local and international development part­ners, and government officials at the national and sub­national levels. As a final deliverable, the Capstone team produced an assessment of the sub­national planning process and guidelines, documentation and assessment of the pilot planning process undertaken in the Takeo province, and recommendations for a future subnational planning system for Cambodia.

The New York State Rockefeller Drug Law of 1973 became the model for harsh sen­tencing policies for nearly all states in the country. Although the “war on drugs” and the “war on crime” sought to address vio­lent criminal activity, the changes in policy and the emphasis on mandatory prison sentences have mostly resulted in the mass imprisonment of low­risk, nonviolent drug offenders who are often young Black and Latino men. The drastic increase in the number of people sentenced to prison for drug­related offenses has caused prison over­crowding, ballooning state expenses, and an influx of drug offenders returning to communities. While existing research on recidivism has focused on individual characteristics of offenders, very little is known about the state or neighborhood­level context to which offenders return. For this study the Capstone team examined the impact of state­level policy factors, such as indeterminate and determinate sentencing, on recidivism among drug offenders released in 1994.