By Laura Diorella Islas Limiñana

This thesis seeks to develop a better understanding of the transnational behaviour of drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) by documenting the role that Mexican DTOs had in the cocaine trafficking to Europe after 2008. This was the year when the Italian authorities announced their discoveries that there were business interaction between the Mexican DTOs and the Italian mafia groups. At the same time the Italian authorities were announcing their findings, my literature review showed a lack of analysis and documentation regarding the transnationalization of Mexican DTOs to Europe.

While most of the literature focuses on the explanation of the cartels inside Mexico, my research question focused on clarifying whether or not the Mexican DTOs are expanding their cocaine trafficking activities to Europe. At this point I considered the reports of the Italian authorities that affirm that the Mexican DTOs are relevant drug trafficking intermediaries in the cocaine trafficking routes to Europe.

To answer my research question, and to systematically describe the evolution of DTOs, a qualitative methods approach was deployed (Mohajan, 2018) with a case study design adapted from Yin (2003). My analysis was carried out through the use of multiple triangulation techniques that helped me to collect and study different types of data to understand the subject. I collected empirical information through 28 interviews with security personnel with experience in countering Mexican DTOs or in the cocaine routes to Europe. The information gathered from the security personnel, complemented by official reports and open source information, was useful to answer my research question and test my hypothesis.

The analysis showed that despite Italian authorities’ claims and perceptions, the power of the Mexican cartels is very limited when talking about their presence and links in Europe, and resulted in four key findings. Firstly, that the perception of the Mexican DTOs as having trans-Atlantic powers is erroneous, because the evidence showed that there is no transatlantic expansion. Secondly, the analysis uncovered the internal, national and international variables that were observed to alter the evolution and behaviour of the Mexican DTOs. At the internal level, the variables included the loss of leadership and the grievances between groups. At the national level the identified variables were the democratic transitions, corruption and impunity networks. And at the international level the variables were the international drug demand, the changes in the international illicit world, the situation of governance and corruption in foreign countries and the geography of the region where the illicit business are taking place.

By: The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
This report presents an analysis of the drug markets in the European Neighbourhood Policy-East (ENP-East) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus (1), Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It provides a top-level overview of the information available on drug production, trafficking, sale, use and harms, as well as exploring what is known about the drivers and facilitators of drug markets across the ENP-East region. It highlights drug-related threats and their potential implications for security and health. Due to its proximity as well as economic and social ties, developments in this region have potentially important implications for the EU. The analysis presented here focuses on the drug situation over the period 2018-2021, and specifically on key developments prior to the COVID-19 pandemic through to the end of 2021. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and its potentially significant implications for the drug situationare also considered, although solid information to inform the analysis is lacking. The ENP-East region comprises two geographically distinct groups of countries separated by the Black Sea and Russia (Figure 1). While there are similarities in the drug markets across these countries, their geographical location has influenced their domestic drug situations, including production, trafficking, sales and use. In the north-western part of the ENP-East region lie Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. These countries share borders with EU Member States, Russia and the Black Sea. In the south-eastern part of the region lie the Southern Caucasus countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The Southern Caucasus borders Iran, Russia, Türkiye and the Black Sea. The drug markets in the region continues to undergo significant change in terms of the production, trafficking, sale and use of illicit drugs. A key recent development has been the growth of online markets, which has been linked with the availability of a broader spectrum of drugs, particularly new psychoactive substances (NPS). Thereported emergence of new trafficking routes for heroin and cocaine through the Black Sea, with involvement of international criminal networks, is another relatively recent phenomenon that highlights the need for continuing vigilance in this area. New developments have also been noted in drug production, with synthetic drug production sites identified and dismantled in several countries in the region. In addition, there are concerns that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 may impact on drug flows and lead to increased drug-related harms, both in Ukraine and in neighbouring countries. The findings detailed in this report are based on semistructured interviews conducted between September and December 2021 with over 40 stakeholders in the six countries of the ENP-East region. Stakeholders included government representatives, law enforcement agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), researchers and international organisations. To substantiate the information that emerged from these interviews, scientific literature and other data and reports published by governmental and non-governmental entities were consulted. However, it is important to note that in general there is a lack of routinely collected and detailed information on the drug situation in the region. This highlights the importance of strengthening routine drug monitoring data systems for collecting and reporting reliable and comparable information.

By Brian Elderbroom, Peter Mayer, and Felicity Rose

Key Findings:

• Families with an immediate family member incarcerated spend an average of $4,195 annually to maintain contact and provide support; spouses/co-parents spend the most ($6,225 annually), followed by adult children ($5,470 annually).

• Families spend a total of $5.6 billion annually on commissary deposits, prison accounts, and other direct support for basic necessities and other items their family members might need.

  • Black family members spend $280 per month on direct support compared to $152 per month for white family members.

• On an annual basis, Black family members spend 2.5 times more ($8,005) than white family members ($3,251). 

  • Hispanic family members spend an average of $6,367 annually, and Native American family members spend an average of $6,464 annually.

This mixed-methods report quantifies the financial costs incurred by families when a loved one is incarcerated. Drawing on a nationally representative survey of adults with an immediate family member incarcerated for at least three months, supplemented by focus groups, the study documents both direct out-of-pocket spending and longer-term financial impacts. The central finding is that families pay large, recurring costs to maintain contact and provide for incarcerated loved ones, and they suffer persistent income losses that compound intergenerationally. The authors estimate that families collectively bear an annual financial burden of $348 billion. These costs are not distributed evenly: Black, Hispanic, Native American, and low-income families shoulder a disproportionate share, devoting more of their household resources to supporting incarcerated relatives. All in all, the findings highlight the far-reaching consequences of incarceration on family financial stability and intergenerational economic opportunities.

Author(s): Dante BC Hoek, Ard J Barends, Esther FJC van Ginneken
Focus: This explorative qualitative research on prison violence investigates how, and why, potentially violent situations between incarcerated men occur. Through in-depth interviews with imprisoned and formerly imprisoned men, the research explores the situational circumstances of prison violence.
Conclusion: The article identifies three distinct categories of situations where violence can occur: when incarcerated individuals perceive threats to their (1) status, (2) safety and (3) shared interests (or goals). The findings show how these particular threats impact participants’ interactions and interpretations of situations and subsequent potentially violent behaviour. 

By : Lex Stevens, Winifred Agnew-Pauley, Matthew Bacon, Helen Glasspoole-Bird, Nadine Hendrie, Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes, Charlie Lloyd, Mark Monaghan, Rivka Smith, Charlie Sutton 

This article explores how discretion is managed and exercised across senior, middle, and street levels of policing. It uses qualitative data from two studies in England. The first, a study across three police force areas, involved interviews and focus groups with 221 people who were designers, deliverers, and recipients of police-led drug diversion. The second study used 354 hours of ethnographic observation and 21 interviews to examine stop-and-search practices in one other police force. Rather than a simply expanding scope of discretion at lower levels of the hierarchy, the findings reveal a multi-level process of cascading constraints and subsidiary discretion. At each level, we observe the exercise of occupational professionalism and autonomous judgement, but higher-level constraints shape how discretion is applied in pursuit of organizational professionalism.

By Murat C. Mungan. J. Shahar Dillbary

We consider a framework which brings together losses arising from rent-dissipation and the workhorse model of law enforcement. Governmental actors engage in a contest to share the proceeds from the enforcement of the law through monetary fines, which leads to rent-dissipation. This causes monetary sanctions to be costly, rendering the model used for studying nonmonetary sanctions a better fit for their analysis. The effect of rent-dissipation on optimal sanctions is directly related to the sanction elasticity of offenses measured at the classic optimum (i.e., where the expected sanction equals the direct harm from the offense). When offenses are inelastic, the optimal sanction is smaller than the classic optimum and it is decreasing in the degree of rent-dissipation; and a legislator who does not fully internalize contest costs chooses an overly-punitive sanction which is smaller than the classic optimum. The opposite results are obtained when offenses are elastic. We discuss implications and extensions.

By Daniel C.K. Chow

Multinational companies (MNCs) with valuable trademarks in China seek criminal enforcement against counterfeiting because other available avenues of relief, such as administrative and judicial remedies, have proven to be ineffective. While MNCs prefer enforcement through China’s Police, the Public Security Bureau (PSB), many MNCs are unaware of the significant hidden dangers of using the PSB.Most MNCs will delegate enforcement of trademark rights to their Chinese subsidiaries. These subsidiaries are known to make illegal payments to the PSB that may violate the laws of the PRC as well as the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). These acts expose MNCs to draconian penalties under PRC law and the FCPA. MNCs can be unaware of these illegal practices because many MNCs organize their business structures and intellectual property (IP) management strategies in ways that shield MNCs from reviewing some of the on-the-ground actions by their Chinese subsidiaries. This Article exposes these risks, explains how some of these risks arise, and makes suggestions on how MNCs can structure their business organizations and IP management structures in China to eliminate or mitigate these risks. *

By Alison Siegler and Grant Delaune

Although the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s drug guidelines were intended to align punishment with culpability, decades of sentencing practice reveal a different reality. Outcomes are primarily driven by drug type and quantity, which have proved to be poor proxies for assessing culpability. We put forward a new approach to drug sentencing that instead focuses on a person’s function in a drug enterprise. We also propose anchoring base offense levels to pre-Guidelines sentencing data. To illustrate this model, we present a rewritten version of Guideline § 2D1.1 incorporating our proposed framework. Focusing on function rather than drug type and quantity will ensure that sentences are calibrated based on culpability and better fulfill the core purposes of punishment.

University of Chicago Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper No. 25-38,  2025,

Editors: John K. Roman, Philip Cook

One of the great policy successes of the last decade is the increasing role of rigorous, objective, and transparent data and research in policymaking. Developing and implementing a data-driven government in which valid and reliable evidence informs solutions to our nation’s most pressing health and safety challenges is more critical than ever as those challenges are ever more complex. Nowhere is that data foundation more needed than in the realm of firearms violence. Trustworthy data is a much-needed bridge to effective policymaking that can reduce the number of firearm accidents, suicides, homicides, and assaults. In an age of intense partisanship, shared facts are the cornerstone for building a shared purpose. The shared purpose of modernizing firearms data infrastructure is to improve public safety by reducing gun violence. In the fall of 2020, Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy dedicated to maximizing opportunity and minimizing injustice, and NORC at University of Chicago, an objective nonpartisan research institution, released the Blueprint for a US Firearms Infrastructure (Roman, 2020)1 . The Blueprint is the consensus report of an expert panel of distinguished academics, trailblazing practitioners, and government leaders. It describes 17 critical reforms required to modernize how data about firearms violence of all types (intentional, accidental, and self-inflicted) are collected, integrated and disseminated. This project, which is also supported by Arnold Ventures, takes the conceptual priorities described in the Blueprint and proposes specific new steps for implementation. The first step in building a better firearms data infrastructure is to acknowledge where we currently stand. In The State of Firearm Data in 2019 (Roman, 2019)2 , the expert panel found that while there are a substantial number of data sources that collect data on firearms violence, existing datasets and data collections are limited, particularly around intentional injuries. There is some surveillance data, but health data on firearms injuries are kept separately from data on crimes, and there are few straightforward ways to link those data. Data that provide context for a shooting—where the event took place, and what the relationship was between victim and shooter—are not available alongside data on the nature of injuries. Valuable data collections have been discontinued, data are restricted by policy, important data are not collected, data are often difficult to access, and contemporary data are often not released in a timely fashion or not available outside of specialized settings. As a result, researchers face vast gaps in knowledge and are unable to leverage existing data to build the evidence base necessary to adequately answer key policy questions and inform firearms policymaking.

By ALISSA SKOG AND JOHANNA LACOE 

Research series examining second look policies in California The five policy briefs and overview report in this series describe the characteristics and recidivism rates of individuals affected by second look policies in California. Committee on Revision of the Penal Code Before 2019, people who participated in certain felonies that resulted in a death could be convicted of murder, even if the person had neither committed the killing nor intended for it to occur. These convictions were based under the felony murder rule or the “natural and probable consequences” doctrine, which both allowed for broad liability. To address concerns about fairness and excessive punishment, Senate Bill 1437 (2018) narrowed or eliminated the application of these doctrines and allowed individuals convicted under them to petition for resentencing. In recognition that other serious convictions were similarly affected, Senate Bill 775 (2021) expanded eligibility to include those convicted of manslaughter or attempted murder under these legal theories. This brief examines who was resentenced under felony murder reform, the offenses for which they were originally convicted, and their recidivism rates following release. Key findings • Nearly 1,200 people were resentenced after these changes to the felony murder rule. As of December 2024, 1,172 people initially convicted under the felony murder rule have had those charges vacated, and were resentenced based on the remaining charges in their cases. Of those resentenced, 78% have since been released from prison. • Most people convicted of felony murder were young at the time of the offense, and for many, it was their first admission to prison. The median age at the time of the offense was just over 21, and for 75% of those resentenced, that conviction was their only prison sentence. • Women made up a larger share of those resentenced under felony murder reform (9%) than the share of all people released from prison in fiscal year 2018–19 (7%). • Recidivism rates for those resentenced under felony murder reform (9%) than the share of all people released from prison in fiscal year 2018–19 (7%). • Recidivism rates for those resentenced under felony murder reform were notably low. New conviction rates were consistently lower than the total releases (3% within one year, 7% within two years, and 10% within three years, compared to 21%, 33%, and 42%). Of those resentenced and released, most new convictions were misdemeanors. • Very few people were convicted of a new serious or violent felony after resentencing under felony murder reform. Fewer than five people were convicted within one- and two- years, and only 2% (n=5) were convicted within three years. However, we can only assess full three-year outcomes for 25% of people who have been released (n=274).

By Anna Cook, Jon Lloyd, Fablina Sharara, Jennifer Key,

When someone is in a crisis, a police response can lead to help — or harm. Across the country, communities are trying something new: sending mental health specialists, peer specialists or other trained professionals to crisis calls instead of police through alternative response programs (ARPs). Research on ARPs has focused on case studies and standout programs like CAHOOTS in Oregon and Denver STAR, but we know relatively little about the broader trends in this growing field. Comprehensive information about where and how jurisdictions are implementing ARPs is crucial so that policymakers, funders and advocates can make better informed strategic decisions regarding public safety innovation. To address this gap, we created a novel database of 216 ARPs established since the early 1970s and operational as of 2024 to produce one of the first overviews of these programs throughout the United States. By summarizing the design, scale and geographic distribution of ARPs, we provide a broad look at the field to help inform and empower community leaders to build stronger public safety systems while reducing dependence on traditional policing. Our findings underscore critical choices in how ARPs are implemented and raise important questions about their scope, accessibility and long-term potential. As policymakers, practitioners and advocates continue to explore alternatives to police response, this report provides a foundation for understanding the current landscape and identifying paths for growth. Given current gaps in ARP implementation, future research and innovation are needed to explore how these programs can evolve to handle a higher volume and wider range of calls, understand the benefits and limitations of different call lines, and expand to meet the needs of smaller or underserved communities.

 Key findings: • Recent proliferation: Public officials and other decisionmakers established nearly 120 ARPs from 2020 through 2024, reflecting a surge in interest and political willpower following national Black Lives Matter protests. • Limited scale: Most programs serving large populations respond to fewer than five calls per 1,000 residents per year. • Narrow scope: Mental and behavioral health are a stated focus for 94% of programs; far fewer are designed to address issues like traffic safety, interpersonal conflict or homelessness. • 911 reliance: Despite their focus on mental crisis calls, only 18% of ARPs use the 988 national mental health crisis line, while 50% use 911 for dispatch. • Urban concentration: Programs are concentrated in large, racially diverse, urban areas.

West Hollywood, CA,

WeWest Hollywood, CA,West Hollywood, VThe Center for Policing Equity’s (CPE) , 2025. 23p.

By Alina D. Machande 

The burgeoning field of cyberdeviance lacks a unified conceptual framework, hindering classification and understanding of its subtypes and underlying psychological mechanisms. To address this gap, we conducted two studies. In Study 1 (N = 20), employing the repertory grid technique, we identified five key dimensions of cyberdeviance. In Study 2 (N = 268), participants rated 16 cyberdeviant behaviors on these dimensions, revealing three subtypes: data-oriented, interpersonal, and non-prototypical cyberdeviance. Our findings suggest a shift from singular cyberdeviance investigation toward recognition of its diverse subtypes, each necessitating tailored interventions. By adopting a dimensional approach, we transcend categorical and technocentric perspectives, enabling examination of behavior clusters across cultural and temporal contexts. Our work underscores the importance of integrating foundational deviance theories and expanding conceptual frameworks to comprehensively grasp cyberdeviance phenomena.

The Information Society, 1–19. 2025.

By Cerina Dubois , Elizabeth C. Danielson, Tim Schwirtlich, Molly Beestrum, Dean T. Eurich

Pornography consumption is a highly prevalent behavior in developed countries, with studies indicating that up to 70% of men and 40% of women have viewed pornography within the past year. Substance use in individuals with problematic pornography use (PPU) is an area that warrants further investigation due to the potential for its compounded negative effects including risk for addiction and potential negative effects on mental and emotional health. This scoping review examines substance use patterns and associations among individuals with PPU; and to summarize the different operationalizations of PPU. This is one of the first reviews to evaluate the empirical research on this relationship. Four primary databases were used to conduct the search: MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO, up to December 4, 2024. Included studies investigated the association between substance use and PPU or chronic pornography use. After deduplication, 949 references were retrieved, however, only 8 cross-sectional studies were eligible for this review. Substance use classification varied across studies and included: alcohol, smoking, cocaine, substance use disorder, cannabis use disorder, and general drug use. Alcohol was the most frequently studied substance. Although alcohol, cocaine use, and smoking were positively correlated with PPU, the findings were not significant for other substances or substance use disorders. Studies used a variety of PPU definitions. The Problematic Pornography Use Scale was the most frequently used measure to capture PPU. This review suggests there is a large knowledge gap in understanding the intersection between PPU and substance use in both the volume of literature available and a lack of standardization of measuring PPU. Indeed, PPU is currently not officially recognized as a stand-alone disorder in the DSM-5. Longitudinal studies utilizing a consistent definition and measure for PPU are warranted to fully understand its association with each substance use type. 

PLOS Global Public Health, 2025.

By The HIV Legal Network

In Canada, there is a growing body of evidence that indicates criminalizing simple drug possession (i.e. possessing drugs for personal use) and other activities related to drug use (e.g. activities captured by the trafficking prohibition) do not protect public health or public safety. Rather, these prohibitions have been ineffective in reducing the use and availability of criminalized drugs while contributing to profoundly negative health outcomes for people who use drugs. At the same time, criminalizing these activities has legally entrenched stigma, racism, and other forms of discrimination against people who use drugs, particularly those who are Indigenous, Black, unhoused, and poor. Acknowledging the harms of drug prohibition policymakers and other criminal legal system actors in Canada and globally have focused on the potential impacts of decriminalizing simple drug possession. Numerous United Nations bodies, for example, recommend “alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use,” and countries across Europe and the Americas have implemented reforms regarding how simp le possession and/or personal drug use is legally defined and regulated.These changes have been implemented for diverse reasons, including to align laws and policies with public health principles and to alleviate demand on strained criminal legal systems. Yet, there has been little to no corresponding momentum to reform laws and policies when it comes to offences related to the supply and distribution of drugs (e.g. drug “trafficking”). A series of law and policy developments in Canada over the past decade have sought to mitigate some of the harms of the simple drug possession offence while directing focus towards people who supply drugs. This focus has manifested in an increase in sentences for drug trafficking across multiple jurisdictions, an approach that has been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. As the Court recently held, drug trafficking should be “understood as an offence of violence, even beyond the ruinous consequences it has for those who abuse drugs and in the process, destroy themselves and others” — thus warranting heavy punishment.6 Yet, research suggests that a narrow focus on decriminalizing simple drug possession and the shift towards pursuing and more severely punishing drug trafficking may exacerbate the structural vulnerability of people who use drugs while actually contributing to health and social harms, such as violence, racism, and poverty, that can push people into conflict with the law in the first place.

Toronto: HIV Legal Network, 2025. 

By Mirko Nazzari, Marco Calaresu, Moris Triventi

Business curfews are emerging as regulatory policy instruments to reduce crime in high-risk areas, yet rigorous evaluations remain limited. This study examines San Francisco’s Tenderloin Retail Hours Restriction Pilot, which required select businesses to close from 12:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. starting July 2024. Using a customized Bayesian Structural Time Series model, we estimate a 56% reduction (95% credible interval: −72% to −27%) in drug-related incidents during curfew hours over nine months, with no evidence of spatial displacement to nearby areas or temporal displacement within the Tenderloin Public Safety Area. Results hold under CausalARIMA sensitivity tests. Findings suggest curfews may reduce opportunities for street-level drug activity, but potential economic costs and questions about longterm sustainability underscore the need for careful policy design.

By Ian Ayres and Fredrick E. Vars

In February of this year, we published a call for the government to relaunch the federal Gun Control Act's long-dormant 925(c) petition process, which empowers anyone subject to a federal restriction on their ability to purchase or possess firearms to apply to the Department of Justice for restoration of their gun rights.  We write again in support of this  925(c) relief process.  A functioning pathway to the restoration of firearm rights would help insulate federal gun regulation from constitutional attack.  Nevertheless, several targeted refinements would make the program fairer, safer, and more sustainable:  1.) Requiring applicants and the affiants to attest that applicants are not at risk of suicide;  2.) Aligning eligibility standards for mental‑health relief with the NICS Improvement Amendments Act;  3.) Conditioning relief eligibility on evidence-based drug-, alcohol-, mental-health-, and terrorism-related risk indicators;  4.) Reconsidering the permanent ineligibility of permanent aliens to obtain relief;  and 5.) Requiring the biennial release of aggregate program data.

U of Alabama Legal Studies Research Paper 2025

By Nketiah “Ink” Berko  

An inheritance is an important family legacy that can provide a safety net for future generations. For working families struggling to keep up with rising living costs, the transfer of a family home or other inheritance can provide newfound economic security. In particular, the anticipated wealth transfer from the Baby Boomer generation to their heirs — estimated to be over $50 trillion — has the potential to provide millions of families with improved financial stability.

The hard-earned wealth of working-class families, however, has become increasingly vulnerable. Affluent families are often better situated to protect and transfer their wealth using legal tools such as trusts or business entities. By contrast, working-class families’ wealth — the majority of which is held as home equity — is far more precarious and often vulnerable to seizure to cover health care costs and other expenses before it can be passed on and can face additional threats when transferred.

One example of the precarity of working-class intergenerational wealth arises in the criminal-legal context. More than half of states potentially authorize seizing the inheritances of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people to pay for the costs of their own incarceration, known as “pay-to-stay” fees. Nearly every state charges incarcerated people these pay-to-stay fees, which may include charges for room and board, medical expenses, and other necessities.

A recent study by Professor Brittany Deitch found that, of the states that charge individuals for incarceration-related expenses, three expressly authorize seizure of inheritance assets and 25 may potentially permit it.

These seizures of inheritances for pay-to-stay fees may occur decades after a person served their sentence and can jeopardize financial stability in old age. Connecticut resident Teresa Beatty, for instance, received a bill for over $83,000, stemming from a two-year incarceration that ended 20 years prior, when her mother passed away and left her a portion of the family home.

Pay-to-stay laws and, in particular, the seizure of family inheritances to cover pay-to-stay fees, exacerbate an already wide chasm between the haves and have-nots, causing poor families to grow poorer as rich families continue to grow richer.

Seizing family inheritances to pay for incarceration causes particular harm to Black communities. Due to widespread inequities across the criminal justice system, as well as historic disinvestment in Black neighborhoods, Black families have less wealth available to pass to their heirs and are more likely to lose what little wealth they manage to build to the government to pay for the costs of operating prisons and jails. Moreover, seizure of resources to collect pay-to-stay fees can make it harder for returning citizens to achieve the financial stability necessary to reintegrate into society and avoid reincarceration.

Constitutional challenges to pay-to-stay fees have largely been unsuccessful, but reformers have made progress through several state legislatures. Illinois, New Hampshire, and Missouri have repealed their pay-to-stay statutes in recent years. Additionally, in 2022, Connecticut partially reformed its pay-to-stay laws, exempting incarcerated individuals from paying the first $50,000 of their incarceration costs and collecting only from individuals convicted of “serious crimes.”

State policymakers have an important role to play in reforming the laws that sentence formerly incarcerated people and their families to generations of debt. In addition to an analysis of the disparate harm that pay-to-stay laws and inheritance seizures have on low-income and Black communities. This paper provides recommendations to state lawmakers on how to end or alleviate the punishing impact of incarceration fees.

State policymakers have an important role to play in reforming the laws that sentence formerly incarcerated people and their families to generations of debt. In addition to an analysis of the disparate harm that pay-to-stay laws and inheritance seizures have on low-income and Black communities. This paper provides recommendations to state lawmakers on how to end or alleviate the punishing impact of incarceration fees.

National Consumer Law Center, 2025. 7p.

By Stephanie Fahy, PhD, Abt Global, LLC Jennifer Bronson, PhD, formerly of Abt Global, LLC Charlotte Lopez-Jauffret, PhD, formerly of Abt Global, LLC Brenda Rodriguez, Abt Global, LLC Allison Ackermann

This third-party report by Abt Global presents findings on the redesign and pretest project for BJS’s Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ). The report presents Abt Global and BJS’s review of, and recommended revisions to, the existing SILJ instrument.

The SILJ is the only nationally representative survey that collects self-reported, individual-level information on hard-to-reach jail populations, making it a vital resource for policymakers, facilities, government agencies, and researchers. Since the survey was last administered in 2002, the characteristics of jail populations have changed, and new policies and policing reforms have been enacted. Abt Global and BJS entered into a cooperative agreement in 2015 to address gaps in the 2002 version of the instrument with the goal of producing reliable national estimates of local jail populations through the redesigned survey instrument.

Abt Global, 2025. 20p.

By Erin Tinney and Alexandra Thompson,

This report presents statistics from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and examines victimization rates across the 22 most populous U.S. states and how reported and unreported crime levels vary across these states and over time. It analyzes selected state-level estimates of violent and property victimization for the 3-year aggregate periods of 2017–19 and 2020–22 in the 22 largest U.S. states. Findings are based on data from the NCVS, the nation’s primary source of data on criminal victimization. State-level data, available following an increase in the NCVS sample that began in 2016, can provide more detailed information than the national NCVS estimates and other NCVS estimates historically produced for BJS reports, such as regional estimates.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2025. 27p.

Richard J. Condon Commissioner Division Of Criminal Justice Services

Police Use of Deadly Force in New York State: A Report to Governor Mario M. Cuomo (1985) offers one of the earliest systematic examinations of how and why lethal force was deployed by law enforcement across the state during a period of intense public scrutiny. Commissioned at a time when debates over police accountability, training standards, and civil rights were gaining national prominence, the report evaluates legal frameworks, departmental policies, and patterns of police–citizen encounters to assess the necessity and proportionality of deadly force incidents. Drawing on case reviews, agency surveys, and statistical analyses, it seeks to identify structural weaknesses and propose reforms aimed at reducing unnecessary violence and strengthening public trust.

Viewed from today’s perspective, the report stands as an important precursor to contemporary discussions about policing and the appropriate limits of state power. In the decades since its publication, nationwide movements such as Black Lives Matter, advances in data transparency, increased availability of video evidence, and evolving constitutional standards have intensified scrutiny of deadly force practices. Modern debates continue to revolve around issues the 1985 report identified early on: the need for clear and consistent use‑of‑force policies, robust training in de‑escalation, improved data collection, and stronger mechanisms of accountability. As current policymakers and communities grapple with how to balance public safety, civil liberties, and equitable treatment, this historical report offers valuable insight into the longstanding nature of these challenges and the enduring need for thoughtful, evidence‑based reform.

If you'd like, I can also turn this into a full foreword, integrate it into a larger document, or tailor the tone for academic, policy, or public audiences.

NY. Division Of Criminal Justice Services. 1985. p.273.