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Posts in Criminal Justice
Justice System Actors’ Perceptions of the Elimination of Peremptory Challenges in Arizona

By Henry F. Fradella, Cassia C. Spohn, Jessica M. Salerno, Shi Yan, Valena Beety, and Rose E. Eerdmans

This article presents the results of a mixed-methods study that surveyed legal system actors in Arizona about their perceptions of the Arizona Supreme Court’s elimination of peremptory challenges in the state. Responses from 195 participants revealed statistically significant differences between members of the bench and bar with regard to their support for the ban, its impact on litigating challenges for cause, and its perceived negative effects on selecting fair and impartial jurors from a representative cross-section of the community. Qualitative analyses provided insights into the divide, with judges expressing support for the ban largely due to perceived increased efficiency, whereas trial attorneys decried the loss of control over jury selection and its corresponding effects on the perceived fairness of trials and case outcomes. The article concludes by exploring the public policy implications of the results, including the impact of the ban on procedural justice.

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Age of Surveillance: Conservative Age Surveillance of LGBTQ+ Youth

By Albert Fox Cahn, Esq., Brooke Cordes, Nina Loshkajian, David Siffert, Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA, Sarah Roth, and Gabriel Quagliata

We’re at an inflection point in the design of American internet as a new wave of laws seeks to dramatically expand government surveillance of everything from social media to libraries, all in the name of protecting children. But while few objectives are as laudable as keeping kids safe, the rhetoric of child protection frequently masks a far darker reality: an effort to use immense new surveillance powers to attack LGBTQ+ youth and the institutions that serve them. In recent years, far-right lawmakers have used this child protection narrative to pass a patchwork of new measures at the state level that are already radically remaking what content is available in their jurisdictions. But perhaps the most alarming discovery is how growing numbers of liberal lawmakers are now following suit, joining in to expand surveillance and control of internet platforms in ways that undermine anonymity and endanger the open internet. Of course, these newest progressive proponents of internet tracking don’t share their conservative counterparts’ anti-LGBTQ+ ideology. Instead, they’ve come to view expanded government surveillance of internet platforms as a corrective to platforms’ unethical misuse of children’s data and use of dangerous features. Unfortunately, while many of the measures making their way through statehouses are poorly positioned to address the real drivers of social media harms, they will unintentionally strengthen this far-right attack on the LGBTQ+ internet resources.

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Selling Surveillance: Fact vs. AD Fiction

By Eleni Manis, Annie Dorsen, Evan Enzer, Owen May, Gabriella Papper, Derek Smith, Andy Ratto, Reagan Razon, Sophia Wright, Jimin Yoo, and Corinne Worthington

Billions in surveillance technology is sold annually with completely unsubstantiated, outlandish marketing claims.

These endemic practices frequently appear to constitute deceptive advertising, violating federal and state consumer protections.

Regulators are beginning to take action against some of the worst offenders, but many surveillance firms appear to make marketing claims with impunity.

A growing body of independent analysis documents surveillance systems’ ineffectiveness, errors, and bias.

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Seeing is Misbelieving: How Surveillance Technology Distorts Crime Statistics

By Eleni Manis, Fatima Ladha, Nina Loshkajian, Aiden McKay, and Corinne Worthington

Though data is essential to understanding public safety, police data is rarely reliable.

Surveillance technology distorts crime statistics, giving the illusion that crime is concentrated in predominantly BIPOC and low-income neighborhoods that are already over-policed.

Independent audits and data verification can help produce a more accurate picture of what crime looks like and where it happens.

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Genetic Surveillance: The NYPD's Rogue DNA Database

By Nina Loshkajian, Anissa Arakal, Aaron Greenberg, Tanisha Narine, Corinne Worthington, and Eleni Manis

For years, the NYPD violated New York State DNA privacy protections by collecting New Yorkers’ DNA secretly, banking children’s DNA without parental permission, and conducting stop-and-spit campaigns in BIPOC communities, DNA dragnets that invade thousands of New Yorkers’ genetic privacy in the hope of stumbling across a single suspect.

Those the NYPD puts in its rogue database become permanent suspects, their DNA scanned thousands of times a year in cases where they have no connection whatsoever.

Every scan is an invitation for injustice, with DNA contamination and laboratory mix-ups driving false arrests and wrongful convictions. Even worse, the NYPD’s experimental DNA techniques may leave many of their claims (and resulting convictions) in doubt.

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Stand by Me: NYC Venues Stick with Evolv Despite Failures

By Corinne Worthington, Eleni Manis, Casey McLaughlin, Will Owen, and Nikita Ermolaev

Evolv is an AI weapon detector firm that has gained national attention following federal investigations, shareholder lawsuits, and close connections to Mayor Eric Adams. In this report, S.T.O.P. and IPVM present original research to reveal the high error rates and inaccuracy of Evolv weapon detectors in real-world conditions.

Key Findings Include:

  • Many of New York City’s biggest tourist venues waste huge sums of money leasing Evolv sensors that frequently misidentify weapons and everyday objects;

  • Venues continue to spend over 20 times the cost of comparable metal detectors on Evolv rentals, even as the company faces everything from federal investigations to lawsuits for false advertising and falsified earnings;

  • S.T.O.P. and IPVM observed Evolv walk-through scanners in use at five top New York City attractions: three museums, one performing arts venue, and a sports stadium, as well as a popular bowling alley for comparison with the city’s largest venues;

  • S.T.O.P. and IPVM’s research found Evolv sensors falsely claimed that one in four visitors had weapons, when, in practice, none did. On rainy days, the false alarm rate could reach 54%;

  • Operators routinely ignored alarms or responded with only a cursory check, making the alerts almost entirely meaningless.

NOTE: S.T.O.P. and IPVM jointly conducted this study, including fieldwork and data collection. IPVM’s contributions focused on engineering analysis, survey methodology, and technical background, while S.T.O.P. took the lead in drafting the final report. S.T.O.P. reached out to Evolv and the venues for comment but the venues either failed to reply or declined to comment.

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Failures of FOIL: New York's Open Records System Needs Reform

By David Siffert, Vibha Kannan, Dario Maestro. Jennifer Park, Claire Cleary, Taylor Skorpen, Emma Harman, Alissa Johnson, Alicia Abramson, Jimin Yoo. Patrick Li, Kevin Ye, Anya Weinstock, Marwa Sayed, Vianca Figueroa, Sophia Conrad, Malcom Rakshan. Nina Loshkajian, and Eleni Manis

Summary

This report, S.T.O.P., details the systematic failures of New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Rather than promoting transparency, New York’s open records law has become a law of discretion rather than obligation, governed by vague timelines, nonbinding oversight, and an appeals process that favors the agencies it was designed to hold accountable.

Key Findings Include:

  • New York’s open records system systemically obstructs record seekers. Journalists don’t get the records they need to root out corruption; taxpayer watchdogs can’t scrutinize government spending; and the public can’t find out what their governments are doing.

  • State and local agencies routinely frustrate Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) requests by delaying excessively, by redacting records to the point of uselessness, and by claiming, groundlessly, that records are exempt from disclosure.

  • Agencies face few consequences, because New Yorkers have little recourse when agencies block their requests. Agencies themselves decide first-round appeals; the state’s FOIL oversight body lacks any enforcement power; and the secondary appeals process is prohibitively costly and time-consuming.

  • Unlike states such as Pennsylvania and Florida, which have implemented reforms such as binding oversight, consistent exemption interpretations, independent appeals, and enforceable timelines, New York lacks meaningful implementation mechanisms and continues to fall behind national transparency standards.

  • Legislators must set enforceable deadlines for agencies, require agencies to report their reasons for denying records requests, require agencies to track their handling of FOIL requests, establish an independent appeals board and an empowered FOIL oversight committee, and shift the financial burden of appeals onto agencies that obstruct transparency.

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Balancing First Amendment Protections While Navigating “True Threats” Against Local Officials

By CTEC Staff

Local government officials experience increasingly high rates of threats and harassment, while lacking guidance about which threats amount to constitutionally protected political speech and which threats may justify legal action. This executive summary provides a brief overview of the two requirements for speech to constitute a “true threat,” at which point it is no longer protected by the First Amendment. The remainder of the document contains a detailed summary of these requirements, including case citations, and examples of relevant cases.

A threat may merit legal action when:

1. It is a threat to commit an act of unlawful violence, and 

2. The speaker or writer acts with reckless disregard, i.e., “the speaker is aware that others could regard his statements as threatening violence and delivers them anyway.”

First criteria: threat to commit unlawful violence

  • An explicit threat to commit an act that is both illegal and violent is likely sufficient.

  • Symbolic speech such as cross burning may be sufficient, but it depends on the context and the history of the use of such symbols.

Second criteria: speaker intent

  • Courts have extensively debated the intent requirement, and future Supreme Court cases may alter the standard.

  • Currently, the standard is recklessness: The speaker must have acted with reckless disregard for the threatening nature of their speech.

  • The speaker must have been “aware that others could understand their statements as threatening violence, and delivers them anyway.”

  • “Political hyperbole” does not lose constitutional protection (see below for example).

  • A speaker does not have to intend to carry the threat out.

  • Threatening speech that does not show sufficient intent can still be removed from public spaces such as social media platforms, public forums, etc.

  • Indirect threats may be sufficient to qualify as true threats.

  • Speech that does not qualify as a criminal threat under state statutes may still be sufficient to justify civil action such as protective orders against individuals, or other civil remedies such as civil assault claims.

This document is not intended to provide guidance as to what kinds of threats are credible, i.e., likely to be acted on by the speaker or their allies and therefore deserving of law enforcement scrutiny. Threats that fall outside the boundaries of “true threats” under the First Amendment may still warrant law enforcement attention and should be reported. Threats should quickly be reported to allow the relevant law enforcement agency to determine whether it meets the threshold for further action, especially if an individual is concerned about personal safety. Reporting subthreshold or edge-case threats also allows law enforcement to track and evaluate cumulative behavior, provide context for other actions, and allow for investigation of the speaker’s mental state. For guidance on threat assessment, please see resources in footnote, as featured in the PDF upload.

Monterey CA:  Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism, Middlebury Institute of International Studies.   2024. 8p.

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Industrial-scale prosecution? Why the single justice procedure needs radical reform

ByPenelope Gibbs

The criminal justice system is in crying need of more efficiency but there is little space to be innovative. So what’s not to like about a process which has revolutionised the magistrates’ court? The single justice procedure, introduced ten years ago, makes summary justice far speedier and cheaper. It needs fewer court staff and judges than a traditional open court hearing, and defendants can plead guilty and submit mitigation online. A case can be processed within weeks rather than months. Transform Justice has followed the progress of the single justice procedure (SJP) since its launch in England and Wales in 2015. We have written many articles about it, briefed journalists and made it the subject of our first ever podcast episode, but never brought our evidence together. In this report we acknowledge the potential benefits of the SJP but also express our deep concerns about the justice it delivers. Just as in the case of the Post Office Scandal, the victims are organisations and companies who are trying to protect their revenue or ensure behavioral compliance. They are both victim and prosecutor, which may cloud their objectivity in decision-making. It is in the interests of any prosecutor to produce the minimum of evidence to get a conviction and to have as few people as possible contest the charge. The SJP fits the bill. Most offences are strict liability so prosecutors don’t have to prove the suspect intended to commit a crime, nor do they need to prove their prosecution is for the public benefit (partly because no-one ever challenges them to do so). So prosecution is relatively easy. Getting convictions is easy too, because most people don’t respond to their prosecution under SJP and are convicted in their absence. A tiny minority of defendants plead not guilty. No data is available on what proportion are acquitted. Procedural justice is defined as the fairness of processes used by those in positions of authority to reach specific outcomes or decisions. This report measures the SJP against that test and finds it wanting. Many people who transgress are willing to make amends. But SJP defendants also need to know what their rights are and how to exercise them, and most don’t. So far, no-one (apart from some journalists) has been that interested in finding out about their experience and amplifying their voice. But change is coming. We hope that procedural justice and fair trial rights will be at the heart of SJP reform.

London: Transform Justice, 2025. 36p.

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Hate crime investigation and sentencing in Sweden: what have we learned in the past 20 years?

By Mika Hagerlid, Görel Granström

Twenty years ago, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention presented a report that highlighted serious problems with regard to identifying, investigating, and sentencing ofenders for hate crimes. The same problems have also been described in international research from several other countries. Since then, several measures have been taken to remedy these problems, but it remains unknown whether these measures have been successful. The aim of the present study is therefore to trace developments over time, using Sweden as a case study, and to evaluate the extent to which the problems identifed earlier have been remedied. The results show that the problems identifed by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention still remain despite a continuous process of reform. Theoretical links and parallels to international research are discussed throughout the article.

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research (2025) 31:193–210

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Lowering the standard: a review of behavioural control orders in England and Wales

By JUSTICE, Chair of the Committee George Lubega

The term ‘Behavioural Control Orders’ refers to a group of legal Orders that are imposed upon an individual via a civil court process or by an executive authority. They aim to address particular behaviours deemed to be objectionable. Sometimes the behaviours targeted constitute crimes in their own right; at other times the Orders are designed to tackle behaviour that falls below the criminal threshold. They do so by imposing restrictive conditions or requirements upon the person subject to them. These include conditions prohibiting association, being present within a particular geographical area, accessing the internet and can include electronic monitoring. Although Orders are imposed via a civil process and usually upon civil standards of evidence, breaching a condition within an Order is a criminal offence. There are an increasing number of Behavioural Control Orders (“Orders”) on the statute books of England and Wales, and their scope and availability appear to be ever-widening. Originally created to fill a gap present within the criminal law, e.g., the difficulty of prosecuting individual instances of football hooliganism, they have rapidly expanded to new areas and now cover behaviour which is, in and of itself, a criminal offence – punishable via the criminal law. For example, Orders now exist to address anti-social behaviour, protests, drug use, knife possession, gang-crime, stalking, and sexual offending, among other matters. Some Orders can differ in terms of who they protect (a specific individual, the public at large, or even a particular place); who may seek or impose an Order; whether an Order can be made on complaint, on conviction, or both; whether they can be imposed on children, or on adults only; the types of conditions and requirements that they can impose; what outcome the Order is intended to achieve and, accordingly, the legal test to be applied (including the standard of proof). The reasons for the variations is unclear and, in any event, has caused confusion across the country. This, in turn, has resulted in inconsistency in the ways in which Orders are used, and the protections afforded to victims. Surprisingly, despite their proliferation and the serious subject matter which they address, Behavioural Control Orders have never been the subject of any systematic, government-led review. It is not clear how the effectiveness of Orders should be measured, nor what ‘success’ should look like. Very little attention has been paid to whether the Behavioural Control Order ‘model’, works. The Working Party has sought to shed light on this question by examining the extent to which Orders are effective for victims, fair, accessible, proportionate, and rights compliant. Overarching Concerns Notwithstanding the variations between Orders, the Working Party identified a number of common, overarching concerns. Orders are often conceived of as a solution to complex social problems. They seek to prevent harms, protect vulnerable individuals, and offer rehabilitation to those accused of committing unwanted conduct. Whilst the policy papers accompanying their introduction stress that they are not intended to be punitive, their duration, the breadth of conditions they impose and the punishment for breach means that in practice, they are often perceived and experienced as such. Moreover, rather than diverting individuals out of the criminal justice system, the Working Party heard criticisms that Orders draw people, especially children, further intro the criminal justice system (owing to the possibility of criminal sanctions for breach). The bar for what conduct may be prohibited by an Order is very low in practice. For example, some Orders have been imposed on individuals as a result of them “closing the door too loudly" and impose conditions which prohibit “sitting on a pavement” or “wearing a bikini in the garden”. Arguably, such prohibitions are reflective of a loss of perspective on what degree of behaviour should properly be controlled by the State, and thereafter criminalised. At the same time, it risks diverting attention away from those really responsible for causing harm. On the other hand, some forms of Order can be said to criminalise individuals ‘by the back door’, by overlapping with existing criminal offences. Procedures for obtaining Orders generally do not require the rigour that proving a criminal charge does, with the tests to be applied often much broader than the wording of a statutory offence. Although proceedings for breach (as a separate offence) are brought before a criminal court, the conduct amounting to a breach may in fact be much less serious than the nature of the Order implies. Despite this, most contributors agreed that in certain circumstances, and when used appropriately, Orders could be useful tools in protecting victims from harm. This is especially true where used to protect a particular person, in the context of harms generally constituted by escalating or cumulative conduct. For example, Orders such as Stalking Protection Orders are effective, provided enforcement bodies apply for them. And Non-Molestation Orders can provide relief to victims of domestic abuse, as long as breaches are followed up and provided that victims are applying for them – not because the police have failed to help them - but because it is their preference to take action themselves. Nonetheless, more planning and consultation is required at the legislative phase, to ensure Orders are capable of achieving their aims, and enforcement bodies are set up to use them effectively. Little is currently done to assess how Orders will work in practice, and the views of interested parties, including experts and victims, and organisations working with offenders, are not meaningfully considered, nor their concerns adequately addressed. A consequence of this is that Orders can be performative in nature. The Working Party heard criticisms that Orders often reflect a “knee-jerk reaction” to high-profile issues, treating the symptom rather than the cause. It is doubtful whether a legal Order alone, can ever have a significant impact on reducing harm without the State taking responsibility for tackling the causes: inequality, poverty, inadequate housing, education and an under-resourced mental health service. Even where Orders have been found to be effective in providing relief to victims – as with Stalking Protection Orders, Non-Molestation Orders and Sexual Harm Prevention Orders - the failure to make resources available for training, enforcement and data sharing – mean that they are often deemed “a missed opportunity” and are not used widely enough. Moreover, whilst Behavioural Control Orders are meant to provide access to interventions, programmes and positive diversions – a lack of resources and available services often mean that this cannot take place. Without proper accreditation, there is also a risk that certain types of ‘perpetrator programme’ or diversionary schemes can cause further harm (continued)

London: JUSTICE, 2025. 144p.

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Assessing Protection from Abuse Orders in Maine

By Tara Wheeler, Research Associate, Julia Bergeron-Smith, Clare Murray, Margaret Gormley   

Assessing Protection from Abuse Orders in Maine is the result of the Maine Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) and the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (MCEDV) seeking and securing funding from the Bureau of Justice Statistics for an 18-month research project to scan and analyze a year’s worth of final protection from abuse (PFA) orders and generate a first-of-its-kind dataset for Maine.Although the Maine Judicial Branch’s electronic case management system collects some data about the relief that is ordered by the court, certain details are not available through this system and can only be accessed through a manual review of each physical case file—a labor-intensive but essential undertaking to evaluate outcomes and assess current practices. Maine SAC researchers carried out this work by travelling over 3,400 miles to 25 district courts statewide, where they reviewed thousands of 2023 case files in which a final order had been issued. Ultimately, researchers generated a dataset of 2,079 cases, which accounts for 91% of all 2023 PFA cases in which a final order was issued.Key findings from the study included that the majority of final 2023 PFA orders were filed against an intimate partner (77%), were for exactly 24 months (66%), and were determined by agreement (59%), meaning the plaintiff and defendant agreed upon the provisions contained in the final order before a court hearing.Additional findings include:Across the state, the vast majority of firearm relinquishment orders specify law enforcement as the receiving party. Final orders determined by agreement of both parties are less likely to include firearm relinquishment provisions than orders determined by a judge. Firearm relinquishment is also influenced by court region. Custody provisions were closely associated with parties agreeing to the terms of an order prior to the final hearing. Paragraphs It is further ordered and P. Limits to the defendant’s rights of contact are frequently being used to address reliefs that appear elsewhere on the form.While the order data does not explain the reasons behind the disparities by order determination type and by court region, the findings provide a strong foundation for further research and to inform ongoing policy discussions.Andrea Mancuso, Public Policy Director at MCEDV, spoke to the effect this report will have in Maine: “This report is an incredibly valuable resource for policymakers as well as advocates who are working hand in hand with survivors to access Maine’s civil justice system across Maine every day. This data will help us over the next several years in the work to ensure that the protections and support available to respond to the needs of survivors in Maine’s protection from abuse statute can be functionally accessed by them.

Portland: Maine Statistical Analysis Center, University of Southern Maine, 2025. 29p

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Lemonade: A Racial Justice Reframing of The Roberts Court’s Criminal Jurisprudence

By Daniel S. Harawa

The saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When it comes to the Supreme Court’s criminal jurisprudence and its relationship to racial (in)equity, progressive scholars often focus on the tartness of the lemons. In particular, they have studied how the Court often ignores race in its criminal decisions, a move that in turn reifies a racially subordinating criminalization system.

However, the Court has recently issued a series of decisions addressing racism in the criminal legal system: Buck v. Davis, Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, Timbs v. Indiana, Flowers v. Mississippi, and Ramos v. Louisiana. On their face, the cases teach that history matters. Government actors who discriminate must be held to account. Accepted institutional practices can no longer perpetuate racism. And courts must assume an active role in addressing the racism endemic to the criminal legal system. At least tonally, these cases are a marked shift for the notoriously post-racial Roberts Court.

But if you dig a little deeper, it is clear that the cases have severe shortcomings. The cases reflect that the Court acknowledges only the most egregious examples of racism, and it fails to see the invidious ways race taints the criminal legal system. The cases also demonstrate the Court’s failure to connect past racial practices with present racial disparities, a failure that in turn paints a false picture of discontinuity of the past from the present. When viewed critically, these seemingly race-aware cases fall neatly in line with the post-racial critiques of the Roberts Court. From a racial justice perspective, the cases could be viewed as lemons.

Even so, this Article attempts to make lemonade. The Article shifts the narrative about the Court’s criminal jurisprudence by arguing that these recent cases can be helpful tools in the fight for racial justice. This Article asserts that the cases can be deployed not only to make specific antiracist legal arguments, but also to push for policy changes and to encourage more open discussions about racism in the criminal legal system. In the end, the Article urges a reclaiming of the case law to help unwind the corrosive relationship between race, crime, and punishment in America. This intervention is necessary now, for the millions of Black and Brown people shuffled through the system each year.

California Law Review, Article Volume 110 June 2022

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Criminal Governance and the Crisis of Contemporary Latin American States 

By Andreas E. Feldmann and Juan Pablo Luna

Across Latin America, societies are confronting the rise of novel orders in which state officials and political authorities share power with criminal organizations. Criminal governance (i.e., the creation of rules regulating behavior by criminal entities often with the collaboration of state actors), as these arrangements have come to be known, poses significant challenges for democracy and the rule of law and often threatens peoples enjoyment of fundamental rights. This article reviews the literature on state-criminal relations in Latin America by critically discussing conceptual and methodological issues. In so doing, it looks at three extant literatures that have contributed to enhancing our grasp of alternative forms of governance: studies on violence, works on stateness and the rule of law, and the literature on criminal governance. This article posits that those literatures have done a commendable job in describing and conceptualizing emerging forms of governance that deviate from traditional views. However, we also argue that these bodies of work operate in silos with little integration and display methodological biases and theoretical blind spots that weaken their overall analytical power. We also point out that much more work is needed to assess these new orders consequences for existing political regimes and state institutions. In the conclusion, we propose concrete steps to strengthen research and foster a more integrated agenda and suggest future investigative avenues.

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2022. 48:441–61 

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A Ten-Year Analysis of Drug-Facilitated Crimes: Prevalence and Characteristics at a Tertiary Hospital Victim Protection Center

By Sarah Anegg, Daniela Doerfler, Wolfgang Bicker, Serena Paola Gonzalez Barias, Florian Heinzl, Jakob Schwazer, Sabine Eder, Ksenia Krögler-Halpern, Christine Sam, and Karin Windsperger 

Drug-Facilitated Crimes (DFCs) involve criminal offenses where the victim's intoxicated state plays a central role. The substances used, often central nervous system depressants, are challenging to detect, leading to a high rate of undiagnosed cases. As a result, DFCs remain a form of violence that is weakly characterized. This cross-sectional study analyzed 1104 violence-related cases presented to the Children and Victim Protection Center (CAVPC) at a tertiary hospital. Of these, 12.2 % were suspected to be DFCs between 2014 and 2019, while 38.5 % were suspected to be DFCs between 2020 and 2023 (p < 0.001). This suggests a 544 % increase in the volume of DFC-related cases between the two time periods. Victims were predominantly female (86.4 %) and aged 20–30 years, though a concurrent rise in male victims, from 3.5 % in 2014–2019–15.1 % in 2020–2023 was also observed (p = 0.01). Perpetrators were primarily male (96.2 %), acted alone, and were known to the victim in 51.9 % of the cases. The crimes, which predominantly occurred in private settings between 2014 and 2019, increasingly took place in public spaces between 2020 and 2023 (p = 0.01), where alcohol was present, and peaked on weekends (especially Saturdays) and during late-night and early-morning hours. Most victims exhibited signs of amnesia (91.8 %) and physical injuries (58.4 %). Alarmingly, only 38.5 % of victims sought help within 12 h, significantly reducing the chances of detecting certain substances. Cannabinoids, cocaine, diphenhydramine, paracetamol and lidocaine were the most commonly identified substances in blood and urine. These findings highlight the urgent need for action, including implementing preventive measures, raising awareness, and reducing stigma – an approach that could help address the growing global public health concern of DFCs.

Forensic Science International Volume 374, September 2025, 112552

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Non-Intrusive Inspection Equipment to Counter Illicit Drug Flows

By Kristin Finklea

In policy discussions around drug trafficking and elevated overdose deaths related to illicit opioids and other drugs, some observers have looked to the tools border officials have in place to help detect and stop the flow of illicit drugs into the United States. More specifically, attention has turned to the use of nonintrusive inspection (NII) equipment to scan commercial and private vehicles crossing into the country for illicit drugs and other contraband.  
Congressional Research Service; September 2025. 3p.

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Jumping Hurdles to Sue the Police

By Sunita Patel

During the tenure of President Barack Obama, scholars and advocates viewed the best route for federal court review of police practices to be consent decrees negotiated between municipal police departments and the Special Litigation Section in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 14141.1 DOJ fact-finding reports and settlements, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri, exposed egregious practices and sought a culture shift by decrees in police departments across the country. The DOJ Process sometimes also bolstered mobilization to achieve police reform already underway outside the court. Today, the current Administration has taken an official position against using 28 U.S.C. § 14141 authority in favor of potentially unconstitutional exercises of police discretion. Although the federal executive branch is no longer a driving force behind police reform litigation, the institution of policing is no less harmful to Black and Brown communities. Thus, the questions motivating this Article are: “What can legal advocates do now? How can communities and their lawyers mobilize within the legal process?” Without the DOJ’s involvement, injured communities interested in court intervention may turn to section 1983 impact litigation, and what legal scholarship terms public law, public interest, or structural reform litigation. Rather than seek monetary damages against particular officers for abusive conduct against individual plaintiffs, structural reform litigation seeks redress from police departments and municipalities for their law enforcement practices and policies. Its goal is to achieve an injunction against, or change in the policies or practices of, a governmental entity. These are cases typically brought as class actions. Legal scholars have pointed to conservative judicial appointments and Supreme Court doctrine as causes for the shrinking of liberal structural reform litigation. Scholars’ views range from “[t]he courthouse door is closed,” to “procedure and doctrine make it really difficult to obtain substantive review of civil rights and constitutional harms”.

104 Minnesota Law Review 2257 (2020), 

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Embedded Healthcare Policing

By Sunita Patel

Scholars and activists are urging a move away from policing and towards more care-based approaches to social problems and public safety. These debates contest the conventional wisdom about the role and scope of policing and call for shifting resources to systems of care, including medical, mental health, and social work. While scholars and activists in favor of reducing society’s reliance on police recognize the co-constitutive relationship between policing and care work, they have not sufficiently grappled with the explicit overlapping mechanisms of carcerality. Surveillance and criminal enforcement permeate medical centers delivering care to low-income patients. Using numerous government records related to the U.S. Veterans Affairs Police Force (VAPF), this Article describes how the VAPF criminalizes low-income and sometimes Black or Latinx veterans with disabilities stemming from U.S military service. These populations are among the most medically vulnerable populations in the United States. It argues that care workers and health institutions become dependent on police to address harm and safety, and proposes alternatives grounded in anticarceral care to reduce reliance on police. In doing so, this Article shows just how difficult it will be to remove police from institutions because it requires rethinking care, not only policing. At the same time, this thick descriptive account provides a guide for how to reduce society’s reliance on police in institutional contexts. This Article assesses the multiple intersections between U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare and embedded policing as a metaphorical healthcare policing web. Part I maps the process of assimilating policing into the VA, providing a primer on the agency and its patients. It explains the convergence of order maintenance, disability management, and workplace safety regulations that built the embedded policing infrastructure in place today. Part II explains how police influence clinical decisions and the care environment through Disruptive Behavior Committees, criminal enforcement, and workplace threat assessments, thereby altering the institutional culture. Part III draws lessons from the VA and proposes a list of potential solutions, adopting an abolitionist ethic for decoupling care from policing and embedded police from institutions

UCLA Law Review, Vol. 69, 2022,

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Transinstitutional Policing

By Sunita Patel

Policing has become a permanent fixture within other institutions and occurs in more ways and places than are often recognized. For race-class subjugated communities, this means policing has inserted itself into every facet of life, from education and health care to mass transit and housing. Police serve as instruments of control in many spaces and connect the bureaucratic management of safety inside formal institutions of care, learning, and public services. Police connect these safety services to ordinary street policing and wellness checks in the home.This Article provides a framework for analyzing policing within institutional settings. I examine K–12 schools, emergency departments, mass transit, veterans health care, public housing, and universities and colleges. This Article describes six features of transinstitutional policing. The first three — red flagging, street policing, and wellness checks — show how policing the public relies upon police presence within formal institutions. The second three — networked information, bureaucratic conflict and cooperation, and vulnerable privacy — tie surveillance of the public to transinstitutional policing. This framework highlights the susceptibility of institutions to the logics of policing and the ways policing undermines noncarceral and socially valuable institutional goals. This Article frames an emerging literature as a transinstitutional approach of studying policing across and between multiple institutional domains. Examining policing through a transinstitutional lens offers a deeper understanding of the corrosive influence of policing on spaces of learning, care, and public services. The punitive and carceral aspects of these settings become amplified and more visible when the institution of policing takes hold. The features analyzed here have made it easy for police leaders and bureaucratic administrators of these institutions to resist police reform, even though the locations I study are places where advocates and institutional clientele contest policing and broader carceral control. Part I provides a continuum of embedded policing and explains why I focused on these particular institutions. Parts II and III provide the six-feature framework. Part IV offers an analysis of how we got here and draws out lessons learned to further understand transinstitutional policing.

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Discovering Racial Discrimination by the Police

By Alison Siegler & William Admussen 

For decades, it was virtually impossible for a criminal defendant to challenge racial discrimination by the police or prosecutors. This was because in United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 (1996), the Supreme Court set an insurmountable standard for obtaining discovery in support of a selective prosecution claim. Equating the roles of prosecutors and law enforcement officers, lower courts applied this same standard to claims alleging racial discrimination by the police. This high standard led courts to deny discovery and stifle potentially meritorious claims. Recently, criminal defendants have initiated a wave of challenges to “fake stash house” operations, in which federal law enforcement agencies like the ATF and the DEA approach people—overwhelmingly people of color—and induce them to rob a nonexistent drug stash house. Defense attorneys have argued that these practices constitute racially selective law enforcement and that Armstrong’s strict standard should not apply to the police. Three federal courts of appeals responded by recognizing that the differences between prosecutors and law enforcement officers merit lowering the discovery standard for defendants alleging racial discrimination by the police. This Article is the first to describe and defend this important development in equal protection jurisprudence. We argue that other courts should similarly craft a lower discovery standard.

Recognizing that federal courts hear only a fraction of race discrimination claims, this Article embraces the spirit of federalism and proposes an innovative state-level solution: a state court rule lowering the insuperable discovery standard to which most states still cling. This Article draws on a recent Washington state court rule aimed at preventing racial discrimination in jury selection to propose that state courts adopt a similar rule setting a new discovery standard for racially selective law enforcement claims. Such a rule would ensure that state-level equal protection claims are not blocked at the discovery stage, thus enabling courts to adjudicate those claims on the merits.

115 Northwestern University Law Review 987 (2021)

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