Long Beach’s Justice Lab has two dedicated employees now, and is gearing up for its work.

The Justice Lab, a creation from the city’s i-team (Innovation Team), aims to move people convicted of minor crimes out of the justice path to jail and into paths of treatment and/or training. To do that, the Justice Lab will work with the city’s public safety continuum — Police, Health and Fire departments, the City Prosecutor’s office and Los Angeles County service providers.

To coordinate that effort, Alma Castro has been named Justice Lab project manager. Castro has been with the I-team since its formation in 2015, and has already worked closely with those in the public safety group as i-team deputy director.

Also joining the Justice Lab is Nishchal Chaudhary as the data scientist. Since the Justice Lab process is data dependent, Chaudhary is vital to make sure data is up-to-date and is shared across several departments to efficiently help people with the right services the first time.

Their work will be paid for primarily by a $1 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. One part of the grant will help the Justice Lab create a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) from among its partners and a Data Mart that would allow service providers to cross reference people and the services they receive.

The second grant will pay for a feasibility study and randomized control trial of the MDT approach. Partners are Cal State Long Beach and UCLA.

The I-team was started with help from the Bloomberg Foundation. It already has worked with several departments to show innovative ways to solve problems.

For more information about the i-team, go to www.longbeach.gov/iteam.