By Saba Kassa

Politics matters for the success of anti-corruption and asset recovery efforts. This report discusses the political and governance factors that affect the performance of the justice system in relation to anti-corruption and asset recovery. It also provides guidance on assessing these factors systematically with the goal of developing adaptive strategies to strengthen the justice chain in line with changing contexts. The Assessment and Monitoring Framework presented here is a state-of-the-art methodology to think and work politically to strengthen rule of law systems. It draws on the experience and insights of ICAR staff working with anti-corruption institutions across the globe. It responds to a gap in the existing toolbox of anti-corruption practitioners, given that existing political economy methodologies have not sufficiently focused on the contextual factors that impinge on the performance effectiveness of the different anti-corruption institutions constituting the justice chain.

Working Paper 52,

Basel, SWIT: Basel Institute on Governance, 2024. 24p.

By Scarlet Wannenwetsch

Since its first use by the World Bank in 2008, the concept of “anti-corruption Collective Action” has evolved into a well-established best practice to prevent corruption and strengthen business integrity. This paper captures the specific characteristics of anti-corruption Collective Action that have emerged over time and translates them into an easy-to-grasp typology that reflects both the variety and unifying principles that make up the Collective Action ecosystem. It aims to: • spark new impetus for engagement; • open the concept to new stakeholders, topics and environments; and • support existing initiatives in developing their long-term visions and aims. In addition to supporting practitioners, updating the typology will also help strengthen the case for Collective Action as a normative corruption prevention practice 

  This Working Paper presents an updated typology for anti-corruption Collective Action, a concept first defined by the World Bank in 2008. The new typology aims to reflect the realities and evolution of Collective Action, which is now becoming a well-established best practice for preventing corruption and strengthening business integrity. The paper seeks to enhance understanding, encourage broader stakeholder engagement and support the long-term visions of existing initiatives. The typology builds on the key characteristics of Collective Action that have developed into common denominators over time: • Private-sector engagement: Collective Action is primarily driven by businesses, often in collaboration with governments and civil society. • Focus on addressing corruption: Initiatives target corruption and corruption-related risks. • Commitment to raising integrity standards: Collective Action aims to level the playing field through sustained engagement and concrete actions. Using these common characteristics, the paper identifies three distinct categories of Collective Action initiatives: 1. Engagement-focused initiatives: Centered on trust building, knowledge sharing and collaborative efforts to strengthen business integrity. 2. Standard-setting initiatives: Developing industry- or country-specific anti-corruption frameworks, codes of conduct and best practices. 3. Assurance-focused initiatives: Incorporating external verification, compliance certification and monitoring mechanisms to ensure accountability. These categories operate within a Collective Action ecosystem, where initiatives are interconnected and capable of evolving and transitioning between categories. The paper highlights the importance of trust, commitment and private-sector leadership. It also identifies challenges, such as avoiding free riding and ensuring credibility. The paper finds that Collective Action has evolved into a dynamic and adaptable approach that must remain flexible and responsive to context. Rather than prescribing rigid methodologies, a broader focus on the Collective Action ecosystem is necessary to help stakeholders effectively engage. Currently, Collective Action faces a critical juncture: the growing number of high-level commitments is contrasted with challenges in translating them into practical collaboration between the public and private sectors. A key concern is preventing Collective Action from becoming a mere tick-box exercise rather than a meaningful mechanism to drive business integrity To safeguard its impact, a robust ecosystem anchored by an active community of practice must guide how governments, regional organisations and international bodies integrate Collective Action into their anti-corruption frameworks. To successfully “mainstream” Collective Action, the community must adopt a shared language and further provide clarity of concept. The typology presented in this paper serves as a building block. There is still a long way to go, requiring concerted efforts from the Collective Action community to come together to define and drive what meaningful progress looks like.   

Working Paper 56, 

Basel, SWIT: Basel Institute on Governance. 2025. 39p.

By Jonathan Fisher

. At its most simple, the disclosure of unused material is the process whereby information gathered during an investigation is passed from the prosecution to the defence. The information disclosed should assist the defence in arguing the most compelling version of their case. The obligation placed upon the prosecution to disclose certain pertinent material acts as an essential safeguard. We have learnt through bitter experience that disclosure errors, whether deliberate or through negligence, can lead to cases collapsing or worse, a miscarriage of justice. Such events are lamentable and erode the public’s trust in the criminal justice system.. When in the autumn of 1981 I started practice at the Bar, my Opinions, Advices and Pleadings were written in manuscript or dictated into a hand-held tape-recording machine. They were then typed by a professional typist, using an Imperial typewriter with carbon paper to produce a copy. Similarly, most business records were kept on paper and retained manually in files. Rules regarding disclosure of unused material generated in a criminal investigation were governed by the innate fairness of the common law which required a prosecutor to pass information to a defendant where the material assisted the defence case.. Fifteen years later, it was recognised that a more sophisticated approach to disclosure was required. This followed a series of cases in which failure to disclose information to a defendant was responsible for some grievous miscarriages of justice. At the same time, reliance on documentary evidence and expert witness testimony increased. When the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (CPIA)1 was enacted, the new statutory based rules of disclosure were regarded as state of the art, providing a sound foundation for criminal trials to proceed on a sure footing in the new millennium. Since then, the technological revolution has brought radical changes in work practices, and the position now looks rather different. Nearly 30 years have passed since the CPIA was enacted. At that time, internet connections were typically made via dial-up modems, with downloading speeds sufficient for basic web browsing and email, but little more. As technology improved and information could be stored electronically, the volume of unused material generated in a criminal investigation grew exponentially. This development occurred against a background in which the CPIA did not directly address the way in which digital information should be reviewed by a prosecutor and made available to a defendant when the test for disclosure of unused material was satisfied. Concern regarding the operation of this process is the reason why previous Reviews were established. Yet the world has not stood still since the last Independent Review on this subject over a decade ago. Indeed, society in the United Kingdom continues to embrace technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, in many aspects of our lives. Furthermore, the very nature of criminal offending, as it has done throughout history, continues to evolve, taking advantage of new online enablers. The rise in digital material across the whole gamut of criminal cases, and its implications for the disclosure regime, is the very reason why I was tasked to consider, once again, whether the regime is fit for the modern age. Today, the largest investigation case on the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) system has 48 million documents (6.5 terabytes of data). With this volume of digital material, it is inconceivable that the totality of unused material generated in the investigation can be accurately reviewed and scheduled by investigating officers manually, in the traditional way. It is also a gross waste of resource for investigating officers to spend time on banal and unproductive activity. Electronic material has become commonplace in even the smallest of cases. Body camera material features (or should feature) in every case where a motorist is stopped by the police, and it is estimated that on average there are 7.4 digital devices in every home. Each of these devices can retain thousands of pieces of information which might be relevant to a prosecutor or defendant in a criminal case.

London: Home Office, 2025. 224p.

By Oscar Solórzano

This Working Paper explores the wide variety of non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture laws in Latin America, with a special focus on the region’s predominant model, Extinción de dominio.

It argues that NCB forfeiture legislation, which allows for the recovery of stolen assets outside of criminal proceedings, can contribute significantly to a state’s criminal policy response to rampant economic and organised crime.

The paper emphasises the importance of critically reviewing and harmonising domestic practices of NCB forfeiture around emerging standards, so that they can reach their large potential in asset recovery. Ensuring their alignment with international human rights and other recognised norms and procedural rules ultimately builds trust, lends legitimacy and fosters judicial cooperation in international NCB forfeiture cases.

Working paper 54.

Basel, SWIT: Basel Institute on Governance, 2024. 61p.

By Jacob D. Charles & Darrell A.H. Miller

From subtle shifts in the procedural mechanics of self-defense doctrine to substantive expansions of justified lethal force, legislatures are delegating larger amounts of “violence work” to the private sphere. These regulatory innovations layer on top of existing rules that broadly authorize private violence—both defensive and offensive—for self-protection and the ostensible maintenance of law and order. Yet such significant authority for private violence, and the values it projects, can have tragic real-world consequences, especially for marginalized communities and people of color. We argue that these expansions of private violence tap into an ancient form of social control—outlawry: the removal of the sovereign’s protection from a person and the empowerment of private violence in service of law enforcement and punishment. Indeed, we argue that regulatory innovations in the law of self-defense, defense of property, and citizen’s arrest form a species of “New Outlawry” that test constitutional boundaries and raise profound questions about law and violence, private and public action. Simultaneously, we use the New Outlawry as a frame to explore connections between several constitutional doctrines heretofore considered distinct. Whether limits on authorized private violence fall under the state action doctrine, the private nondelegation doctrine, due process or equal protection, or the republican form of government guarantee, experimentation with the New Outlawry provides an opportunity to explore how these different doctrinal categories share common jurisprudential and normative roots in the state’s monopoly over legitimate violence.

124 Columbia Law Review 1195 (2024)

By The Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative

  This report outlines 18 recommendations to address the urgent need for criminal justice reform and reduce racial disparities in Maryland’s prisons and jails. Developed through over a year of research, analysis, and collaboration with experts, service providers, and impacted community members, these recommendations provide clear steps for change. The report summarizes key research, data, and proposed actions to help reduce the overrepresentation of Black people in its criminal legal system.

Maryland’s criminal legal system has decreased in size by almost every measure.  Arrest rate, jail population, prison population, and the number of people on parole and probation2 are all on the decline3 and below the national average. However, these gains obscure a troubling reality: racial disparities within the system remain stark and, in some instances, have worsened.5 Maryland's Black population, which constitutes only 30% of the State's residents, represents a disproportionate segment of those entangled in the criminal legal system. Alarmingly, Black people account for 51% of arrests,6 59% of the jail population,7 71% of the prison population,8 71% of the parole population,9 and 53% of the probation population.10 This persistent racial injustice highlights the urgent need for reform within the system to address these inequities. About MEJC -  MEJC is a joint initiative led by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (MOPD) to address the racial disparities in the incarceration of Black people in Maryland prisons and jails. MEJC’s existence is a recognition that Maryland’s decarceration efforts have not reduced the glaring racial disparities in our criminal legal system and that we must abandon the outdated notion that they will. MEJC’s recommendations also acknowledge that the current criminal legal system produces inequitable results for Black people and, without radical change, will continue to do so at alarming rates. Therefore, MEJC has taken a clear-eyed look at current policies, informed by historical and systemic injustices, which directly contribute to the disproportionate outcomes and harm to Black people in Maryland’s criminal legal system. The data and statistical findings in this first annual report reveal much more than numbers; they represent real lives impacted by a system that too often fails our children; disproportionately punishes Black people and other communities of color; and neglects basic human dignity in our prisons and jails. In this report, MEJC, in partnership with policy experts, educators, and community voices, presents clear, urgent recommendations that could reverse these inequities. This is a pivotal moment for Maryland’s criminal legal system. MEJC presents the opportunity to confront these unfair outcomes head-on and build a system that reflects Maryland’s highest values of fairness, community, and opportunity. RECOMMENDATIONS In recognition of the all-encompassing nature of racial disparities in our criminal legal system, MEJC’s recommendations address comprehensive aspects of an impacted person’s experience, from how and why a person first encounters law enforcement to how the system supports or does not support a person’s journey back from incarceration. All recommendations are rooted in data and evidence that clearly demonstrate (1) the inefficiencies or inadequacies of our current policies, (2) the disparate outcomes for Black people because of the status quo, and (3) the efficacy of the recommended solutions.    

Baltimore: Office of the Maryland Attorney General, 2025. 111p.

By Lindsay Bing, Rebecca Goldstein , Helen Ho , Devah Pager, and Bruce Western

  US courts regularly assess fines, fees, and costs against criminal defendants. Courtrelated debt can cause continuing court involvement and incarceration, not because of new crimes, but because of unpaid financial obligations. We conducted an experiment with 606 people found guilty of misdemeanors in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. Study participants were randomly selected to receive relief from all current and prior fines and fees assessed for criminal charges in the county. Fee relief reduced jail bookings 21 mo after randomization and the effect persisted over 44 mo of follow-up. Although fee relief reduced incarceration, financial sanctions had no effect on indicators of lawbreaking. Instead, the control group (who obtained no relief from fines and fees) were rearrested at significantly higher rates because of open arrest warrants for nonpayment. These results indicate the long-term and criminalizing effects of legal debt, supporting claims that financial sanctions disproportionately harm low-income defendants while contributing little to public safety

PNAS 2024 Vol. 121 No. 51 e2415066121 

by Jens Ludwig and Sendhil Mullainathan

Algorithms (in some form) are already widely used in the criminal justice system. We draw lessons from this experience for what is to come for the rest of society as machine learning diffuses. We find economists and other social scientists have a key role to play in shaping the impact of algorithms, in part through improving the tools used to build them.

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES VOL. 35, NO. 4, FALL 2021, 26p.

by Will Dobbie and Crystal S. Yang

In this article, we review a growing empirical literature on the effectiveness and fairness of the US pretrial system and discuss its policy implications. Despite the importance of this stage of the criminal legal process, researchers have only recently begun to explore how the pretrial system balances individual rights and public interests. We describe the empirical challenges that have prevented progress in this area and how recent work has made use of new data sources and quasi-experimental approaches to credibly estimate both the individual harms (such as loss of employment or government assistance) and public benefits (such as preventing non-appearance at court and new crimes) of cash bail and pretrial detention. These new data and approaches show that the current pretrial system imposes substantial short- and long-term economic harms on detained defendants in terms of lost earnings and government assistance, while providing little in the way of decreased criminal activity for the public interest. Non-appearances at court do significantly decrease for detained defendants, but the magnitudes cannot justify the economic harms to individuals observed in the data. A second set of studies shows that that the costs of cash bail and pretrial detention are disproportionately borne by Black and Hispanic individuals, giving rise to large and unfair racial differences in cash bail and detention that cannot be explained by underlying differences in pretrial misconduct risk. We then turn to policy implications and describe areas of future work that would enable a deeper understanding of what drives these undesirable outcomes.

Journal of Economic Perspectives 35 (4): 49–70. 2021.

By Jay Gormley, Gabrielle Watson, Gavin Dingwall, Jade Mouton, Jonathan Bild and Julian Roberts

Firearms offences are statistically rare yet in light of their potential for harm cause considerable public concern. The offences vary greatly in terms of their nature and possible sentences. As a result, the sentencing exercise is often complex. Courts must weigh the harm caused, intended, or which was reasonably foreseeable, as well as the culpability of the individual offender. Quantifying the harm caused can be particularly challenging where a firearms offence does not have an identifiable victim as firearms offences are inherently potentially harmful. An additional complexity arises in a small number of serious gun crimes which carry a mandatory minimum sentence. When sentencing these offences, the court must also consider whether exceptional circumstances may justify the imposition of a sentence which falls below the statutory minimum. This report examines research and sentencing guidance relating to firearms offences. These offences include a range of crimes varying in seriousness, although most create a risk of serious harm or death. We conducted a literature review of the social and socio-legal databases to uncover relevant publications for the period 2000-2024. As will be seen, most of the scholarship in the area focuses on restricting access to firearms rather than punishing offenders convicted of firearms offences. Within the more restricted domain of sentencing, the majority of publications address mandatory sentencing as a response to gun crime. Most Western nations have introduced mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for the more serious forms of gun crime. The project also conducted a review of the public opinion literature to seek any research exploring public knowledge of, and attitudes towards, sentencing for firearms offences. Understanding public opinion is recognised as a relevant consideration by sentencing commissions and councils around the world. 3. With respect to guidance, England and Wales is the only relevant comparator jurisdiction. While gun crime is a near-universal problem, differences in the definition of offences – and laws around gun ownership – makes it inappropriate to compare sentencing guidance or trends with the United States. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are more comparable countries, but none of these operate formal sentencing guidelines. Many of the firearms offences in Scotland also exist in England and Wales and stem from the same UK legislation. In addition, courts in England and Wales and Scotland also employ sentencing guidelines. These follow a similar step by step approach (albeit with important differences). For these reasons, we restrict our comparisons to England and Wales. Contents of the Volume Chapter 1 Firearms Offences: This chapter identifies the offences under consideration, including statistics on the prevalence of the offences, and summarises the current legal framework for sentencing these offences. Chapter 2 Firearms Offenders and Associated Offences: This chapter explores the connection between firearms offences and other violent crime. It addresses the way that the assessment of risk interacts with sentencing for firearms offences and the indicators of further or more serious offending (such as homicide). Finally, it discusses the background of offenders and the intersection between minority ethnic backgrounds and sentencing for firearms offences. Chapter 3 Sentencing Guidance for Firearms Offences: This chapter reviews the principles and purposes of the sentencing of firearms offences and also discusses the sentencing guidelines for firearms offences issued by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. Chapter 4 Research on Sentencing Responses to Firearms Offences: The final chapter summarises findings from research on the sentencing of firearms offences. The chapter also discusses the limited research exploring public attitudes to sentencing offenders convicted of firearms offences.

Edinburgh: Scottish Sentencing Council, 2025. 65p.

Chairman, Rt. Hon. David Gauke

This review of sentencing is tasked with a comprehensive re-evaluation of the sentencing framework in England and Wales, to ensure we are never again in a position where the country has more prisoners than prison places. This report – Part 1 of the Independent Sentencing Review’s conclusions – outlines the prison population challenge in figures, provides an explanation of why and how we got here, and advocates for an approach rooted in all statutory principles of sentencing and public service reform. Chapter one of this report examines trends in custody and the capacity pressures faced by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), which have brought the system dangerously close to collapse. At the end of 2024, over 85,000 individuals were held in the adult prison estate; these numbers undeniably exceed the population the system is designed to accommodate. The total prison population has grown by over 40,000 people since 1993, with adults sentenced for indictable offences now serving longer sentences. England and Wales also have one of the highest prison population rates in Western Europe. The probation service is similarly stretched: by September 2024, 240,497 individuals were under probation supervision, over 100,000 more than in 1993. Prison demand is expected to grow by an average of 3,000 people a year– the equivalent of building two large prisons per year. Without further government action, the prison population could reach up to 112,300 prisoners by November 2032.8 Chapter two summarises the drivers behind the increase in the use and length of custody. It concludes that the increase in the prison and probation population is not the consequence of a considered strategy as the most effective measure to reduce crime. Nor can it be explained by rising crime levels. In fact, latest estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) showed there has been an overall general decline in incidents of headline crime since 2017. The increase has been the result of many decisions made by successive governments and a “tough on crime” narrative that has focused primarily on punishment – understood as incarceration and longer sentences – on occasion responding to embedded misunderstandings about sentencing and high-profile individual cases. In tandem, there has been an underinvestment in probation and other alternatives that can provide rehabilitation and reduce reoffending. Chapter three outlines the need for change, and advocates for a system rooted in all the current statutory principles of sentencing. The emphasis on longer-term imprisonment has placed significant strain on the system, forcing successive governments to adopt costly and high-risk emergency measures. These have attempted to both increase short-term capacity (often in ways which are expensive and risky) and reduce demand by expediting the release of prisoners, such as the measures we saw in the autumn of 2024 when prisoners were released 40 per cent (as opposed to 50 per cent) of the way through their sentence. This incoherent approach also comes at a fiscal cost: new prison programmes are estimated to cost between £9.4 billion and £10.1 billion.10 The piecemeal and unstrategic manner in which sentence lengths have increased in recent decades has meant that there has been insufficient consideration of all of the statutory aims of sentencing: punishment, crime reduction, reform and rehabilitation, public protection and reparation. Punishment is an important aim for the criminal justice system and prison plays a vital role in delivering punishment. But too often decision making has been based on an approach that punishment is all that matters, and that the only form of punishment that counts is imprisonment.

Rather than approach sentencing policy based on the evidence of what is likely to be most effective in reducing crime and reducing reoffending, too often the knee-jerk response has been to increase sentence lengths as a demonstration of government action.

London: Miniarey od Juarixw2025. 65p.

by Luzi Shi, Megan Denver

A common concern in hiring individuals with criminal convictions is the stigma associated with the criminal record, which can include negative consumer reactions. We provide two novel tests of courtesy stigma, or the idea of transferring negative traits from one entity to another, through a nationwide survey. Using a conjoint experiment and a follow-up open-ended question, we first establish whether the public is less likely to select a restaurant if the business has a hiring initiative for people with conviction records. Using a vignette experiment, we then test whether the same factors driving personal stigma apply to courtesy stigma and whether hiring messaging frames influence courtesy stigma. We find evidence of criminal conviction courtesy stigma in the conjoint experiment. Respondents, however, typically reported the characteristics of the business itself as influential, and when the criminal record mattered, the underlying rationale was mainly instrumental: Avoiding a criminal record–friendly business was often due to safety concerns. We find similar instrumental results in the vignette experiment; the quality of service, rather than the characteristics of the criminal record or server's race, influenced restaurant recommendations. Perhaps for this reason, messaging strategies focusing on reducing criminal record stigma did not reduce courtesy stigma.

Criminology, Volume 63, Issue 1, February 2025, Pages 89-121

By Shadd Maruna

Early desistance research identified a key role for redemption scripts in the process of desisting from crime. This research emerged in an incredibly punitive environment at the turn of the century, when core beliefs about human redeemability were being challenged by popular and academic theories about incorrigible predators incapable of change. Desistance research made a profound impact, inspiring academic scholarship and changes to the policy and practice of reintegration. However, desistance research can also be accused of numerous crimes, as well, ranging from the adoption of an overly individualistic framing to the usurpation of the voices of research contributors. Fortunately, redemption is possible. A new generation of desistance theory and research now explicitly addresses the political and cultural factors impacting the desistance process and proposes that these hardened prejudices will only be changed by supporting a social movement led by and for system-impacted people. With their proven ability to inspire hope and promote action, redemption scripts may, again, be a key tool in such a movement.

Criminology, Volume63, Issue 1, February 2025, Pages 5-25

By Ava Pittman

Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) envisions a future where everyone has an affordable, safe and nurturing home, where neighborhoods are attractive places to live, work, attend school, shop and play, and where everyone has the support they need to succeed as parents, students, wage earners and neighbors. THA’s mission is to provide high quality, stable and sustainable housing and supportive services to people in need. It does this in ways that help them prosper and help our communities become safe, vibrant, prosperous, attractive, and just1 . To fulfill that vision and that mission, THA attempts to make informed judgments about whether to admit or deny applicants for its housing. It seeks to balance its mission to house people who need the housing while keeping it safe and enjoyable by excluding those who pose an undue risk. Like most other landlords, THA’s screening policies consider an applicant’s criminal history as a sign of risk for this purpose. THA also uses screening policies for admission to its rental assistance programs that help clients pay the rent to private landlords on the private rental market. This paper describes THA’s review of these uses of criminal history. It recommends some changes to THA’s screening policies. These recommendations arise from the review’s answer to the following questions: ● to what extent is an applicant’s criminal history a useful predictor of future tenant behavior; ● is excluding an applicant due to criminal history otherwise excluding a qualified tenant unnecessarily; ● does the use of criminal history as a screening criterion result in an undue and disproportionate exclusion of persons of color; ● the extent to which housing persons with criminal histories make a community, the justice-involved individual, and their families more successful; ● can changes to THA’s screening policies make THA’s housing more accessible to persons with a criminal history without incurring undu To help answer these questions, THA consulted the following sources: ● the research literature; ● THA’s current practices and the results; ● current practices of other public housing authorities, and the results; ● THA residents; ● THA staff; ● THA’s Landlord Advisory Group; ● THA’s liability insurance carrier. THA’s review of its use of criminal history as a screening criterion arose from related discussions in Pierce County. In late 2016, the Center for Social Innovation, a national research and training project addressing racism and homelessness, invited Pierce County to take part in a research study to identify the nexus of race to homelessness in Pierce County. They call the project, Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities (SPARC). It included interviews with people who have or are experiencing homelessness in Pierce County. During these interviews, participants voiced that their past criminal history was a barrier to securing housing. Nationally, research tells the same story that: people with conviction histories face discrimination in many facets of life, including housing. In September 2017, the Vera Institute of Justice invited THA to participate with other public housing authorities in a new initiative, Opening Doors to Public Housing. The U.S Department of Justice funded this initiative. The initiative sought to help housing authorities assess how to safely increase access to stable housing for people with conviction histories. The Vera Institute of Justice provided THA with technical assistance, data from national research, and valuable substantive expertise in assessing that data. THA’s Department of Policy, Innovation & Evaluation (PIE) led this review. This paper conveys PIE recommended changes to THA’s screening use of criminal history.

Tacoma, WA: Tacoma Housing Authority, 2020. 76p.

By Vera Institute of Justice

Millions of people transition into the community from jails and prisons every year but face signifcant obstacles to securing safe, affordable housing. These barriers contribute to the revolving door of homelessness and incarceration. People who were formerly incarcerated are 10 times more likely than the general public to be unhoused, with a rate of 203 people experiencing homelessness per 10,000 people. The relationship between homelessness and incarceration is cyclical, as homelessness and housing instability increase the likelihood of future criminal legal system involvement: People who are unhoused are more likely to interact with police and are 11 times more likely to be arrested than people with stable housing. Viewed another way, access to stable and affordable housing substantially increases the likelihood that a person returning home from prison or jail will be able to receive support from their family, fnd and retain employment, rebuild supportive social networks, and avoid additional convictions. These improved outcomes and living conditions are relevant and crucial to the whole community: When people who are reentering their communities are housed and supported, the community is strengthened and public safety is improved. The United States has nearly 3,300 public housing authorities (PHAs) that serve approximately 1.2 million households, yet they are often inaccessible resources for people released from incarceration and in need of a safe place to live. At present, exclusionary criteria govern much of the country’s public housing that bar people who were formerly incarcerated from moving back in with their families—families who are often eager to reconnect and to help their loved ones reintegrate into society. These admissions criteria affect local public housing developments as well as federal housing choice vouchers, commonly referred to as Section 8, which provide rental assistance to low- and moderate-income families. Following the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines, all PHAs must place permanent residency exclusions on people who are required to register on the sex offender registry for life or who have been convicted of producing methamphetamine in federally assisted housing. For other types of crimes, housing authorities exercise their individual discretion when developing their admissions criteria.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice • Office of Justice Programs • Bureau of Justice Assistance , 2022. 7p.

By  Julian Adler, Jethro Antoine, Kush R. Varshney

It is hard to know where we stand in the timeline of AI implementation in the criminal legal space. Part of the challenge is that the criminal legal “system” is in reality a multiverse of federal, state, and local jurisdictions.[1] More problematic still is the sheer ubiquity of AI and related technologies. “I think the most important thing people don't know is that tech is now working at mega scale,” observes Eric Schmidt, the former chairman and CEO of Google, cautioning—via the title of a recent Oscar-winning film—that tech is “everything everywhere all at once.”[2] What we do know is that AI is already in use in the criminal legal realm and, given the human propensity to reach for technological solutions to social problems, its further adoption is almost certainly unstoppable.[3] So how best to navigate the current moment of AI implementation? “We need a clear line in the sand: ‘these use-cases are OK, these are not,’” urges Sara Friedman of The Council of State Governments Justice Center. “The criminal legal system deprives people of their liberty. It shouldn’t be using AI to do this. There is a line when you are responsible for people’s lives; there are things you shouldn’t do.” 

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2025. 9p.

By Lama Hassoun Ayoub, Adelle Fontanet, Suvi Hynynen Lambson, Noel Altaha, Desiree Fox, Ann Miller, Alisha Morrison, and Lina Villegas

  Decisions about what to do with people coming through the criminal court system can have long-lasting impacts on those individuals’ well-being and public safety more broadly. Will putting them in jail make things better or worse? Will offering them services help address some of the underlying issues that brought them to court in the first place? Given the complexity of these decisions, criminal justice practitioners have increasingly relied on risk assessments to help them systematically make these determinations. But assessments used in one context do not always translate well to other contexts. In particular, tribal courts—courts operated by Indian tribes under laws and procedures that the Tribe has enacted (Jones, 2000)—have found these assessments lacking and not always appropriate for their unique context and population. Because of this, there has been a desire among tribal practitioners to develop their own risk assessment tools or ensure appropriate validation of existing tools within their tribal contexts or with tribal populations. This report summarizes the first steps that the Center for Court Innovation and the Tribal Defenders of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have taken to build knowledge and lay the groundwork for advancing risk-need assessment, data management, and technological capacity in tribal courts. Chapter 1 introduces the need for a tribal-specific assessment and provides a detailed description of the tribal-researcher partnership that was created to deepen our collective understanding around these neglected topics and building the capacities needed to embark on future projects, including validation of new or existing risk-need assessments. Chapter 2 summarizes the findings from a survey of tribal courts intended to understand existing assessment practices and technology needs--key information that would help serve as the foundation for any future work on this subject. Chapter 3 concludes with recommendations for next steps for the development, validation, and implementation of an appropriate risk assessment tool to be used in tribal courts.  

  New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2021. 37p.  

By Jordan Conan and Jeffrey Sharlein

Infants and toddlers (aged 0-3) are overrepresented in the child welfare system and are more likely than older children to be removed from their original caregiver and placed in out-of-home care. Implementation of our Strong Starts Court Initiative in a New York City courtroom led to a decrease in removal rate for program-eligible subject children from their original caregiver and was associated with an increase in children residing with that caregiver a year later. This program seeks to support families of children aged 0-3 through direct services, judicial and attorney education, and a more collaborative court process.

The findings from this study complement results from an earlier evaluation that showed a decrease in subsequent child welfare court episodes for Strong Starts participants. Together, these studies paint a picture of an intervention that improves outcomes at both the individual case and courtroom levels—creating more stability for children, improving family court outcomes for their respondent caregivers, and preserving attachment relationships.

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 29p.

By Julian Adler, Jethro Antoine, Laith Al-Saadoon 

There was but one passing reference to “core values” over the course of a recent U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing on artificial intelligence [AI] in criminal investigations and prosecutions.[1] This is typical. Even in spaces like the criminal legal system, where the specters of racial injustice and inhumanity loom so large, the technological sublimity of AI can be awfully distracting. People have long looked to technology to duck the hard problem of values. “[W]e have tended to believe that if we just had more information, we could make better policy,” observes University of Nevada’s Lynda Walsh in Scientists as Prophets. “But no matter how much data we could lay hands to—even if it were LaPlace’s Demon itself—values would still stand in the way.”[2] If anything is clear about advanced AI, it is that there is much we don’t know and even more that we can’t begin to predict. Consider that the “generative AI” we have witnessed over the past 18 months—AI which produces autonomous human-impersonating content—was largely unforeseen. It’s now being attributed to AI’s “emergent abilities.”[3] Across sectors, most observers acknowledge that AI is a game-changing technology. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is illustrative: using AI, it now processes “a peak volume of 600 billion transactions every day to detect potential abuses,” making the regulator “one of the largest data processors in the world.”[4] Tell  ingly, many of the people closest to the leading edges of AI development are sounding the loudest alarms about its capabilities. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” warned the Center for AI Safety in 2023.[5] AI has the potential to supercharge, not mitigate, the uglier sides of humanity, much like, as one journalist puts it, “a fun-house-style… mirror magnifying biases and stripping out the context from which their information comes.”[6] Advanced AI is “not just another technology,” contends Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. It is not “another tool that will add incrementally to human capabilities.”[7] Echoing countless dystopian projections of the future, the Center for AI Safety predicts AI systems will likely “become harder to control” than previous forms of technology; among other disquieting scenarios, these systems could “drift from their original goals” and “optimize flawed objectives.”[8] 

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2024. 8p.

By Sruthi Naraharisetti

In the wake of several high-profile systemic failures of justice for Black people in the last decade, there have been widespread demands for change against pervasive racial inequities throughout the criminal legal system. These failures include the killings by law enforcement1 of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor; the excessive use of confinement and untimely deaths of Sandra Bland and Kalief Browder; and the determination of the wrongful convictions of the Central Park 5. While much of the public discourse has focused on how law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and correctional officers perpetuate racial biases, far less attention has been on how public defense attorneys do, as well. Recently, scholars have started examining how race affects legal representation in public defense. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to counsel in criminal cases and the Supreme Court has held that the government will provide a lawyer if a person cannot afford it. Each decision point of a public defense lawyer’s assistance is vulnerable to racial bias and the potential for long-lasting harm to clients. Despite calls from the American Bar Association's Standards for the Defense Function4 for defense counsel to be proactive in detecting, investigating, and eliminating improper biases, with particular attention towards historically persistent biases like race, achieving this standard has proven difficult. Often operating with limited time, resources, and information, public defense attorneys must make critical decisions relating to bail requests, case investigations, social service needs, plea negotiations, and trial strategies, among others. Recognizing the pivotal role that public defense attorneys play in addressing racial disparities that their clients face, our exploratory study seeks to create a basis of understanding for how attorneys consider race when working with clients, conceptualize their role in addressing racial inequity, and experience the impact of their own racial/ethnic identities in the workplace. By shedding light on these issues, we hope to encourage public defense attorneys to reflect on and discuss how racial bias within their field perpetuates systemic harm, ultimately paving the way for improvement in racial equity across the field. 

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2024. 14p.