An honest map of where voters actually stand — for every state.
Second Look Alliance runs a voter-intelligence platform for criminal-justice reform: rigorous, even-handed opinion research, modeled to every state, built to guide real decisions — where to invest, which states are ready, and which arguments are associated with the strongest support.
What this is
A decision instrument, first
Our numbers exist to be acted on — allocation, sequencing, and message strategy. They can be quoted, and members do quote them; but they are designed around being right, not around being loud. No established public pollster fields your questions, in your states, on your timeline. This platform does.
An even read before anything else
Every wave starts with deliberately even-handed questions — the honest baseline that makes numbers comparable across states and time, and makes soft support visible instead of hidden. Message testing then builds on that baseline, identifying which framings are associated with the most support and where.
Every state, one model
Surveys in a strategic mix of states power a hierarchical Bayesian model (MrP) that projects onto any state's Census-measured demographic composition — validated statewide estimates even for states nobody has polled, at no additional fieldwork cost.
Leave-one-state-out validation: each surveyed state was removed from training and predicted from the remaining five using only U.S. Census data about its demographic composition — a full rehearsal of the unsurveyed-state configuration. Source: Cross-State Estimation Validation Memo (July 2026) · read the full validation, including its limitations. Every modeled estimate is labeled as modeled, carries its 95% interval, and describes opinion as of its field period — a snapshot, not a forecast. A state's first direct survey supersedes its modeled estimates.
Two ways to power the work
Data membership
Organizations join for live access to the intelligence — state
reports, cross-state comparison, message guidance, and modeled
estimates for states without fieldwork. Working in a state we
haven’t surveyed? Membership starts at a fraction of the cost
of fielding a poll.
Become a member →
Charitable contributions
Second Look Alliance is a 501(c)(3) educational organization.
Contributions fund even-handed public-opinion research on
criminal-justice policy and keep the evidence base growing —
new states, new waves, deeper coverage.
Contribute →