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 M. D. Vattel. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

A foundational work of international law, still resonant today.

First published in the eighteenth century and issued in authoritative English editions throughout the nineteenth, The Law of Nations by Emer de Vattel shaped how statesmen, jurists, and diplomats understood the rights and duties of sovereign powers. In this monumental treatise, Vattel applies the principles of natural law to the real conduct of nations, addressing war and peace, treaties and alliances, commerce and neutrality, diplomacy, and the limits of lawful power.

Rejecting both utopian idealism and brute realpolitik, Vattel argues that true national interest is inseparable from justice, restraint, and respect for sovereignty. Nations, like individuals, are bound by moral obligations arising from their coexistence in a shared international society. His careful analysis of war, intervention, and treaty obligations established enduring standards that influenced constitutional debates, foreign policy doctrine, and the development of modern international law.

This edition preserves a work that continues to illuminate contemporary conflicts and global challenges. Clear-eyed, systematic, and profoundly influential, The Law of Nations remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how lawful order, moral principle, and power intersect in the affairs of nations.

The theses advanced in The Law of Nations remain strikingly relevant to contemporary international disputes, particularly those involving intervention, recognition of governments, and claims of humanitarian necessity. Vattel’s insistence on sovereignty as the cornerstone of international order places clear limits on the legitimacy of external interference in the internal affairs of states. While he allows that extreme cases—such as manifest tyranny threatening the very existence of a people—may raise difficult moral questions, he consistently warns that powerful states are prone to disguise ambition and interest under the language of justice.

This caution is especially pertinent when considering recent controversies surrounding efforts by the United States to promote regime change in Venezuela, including diplomatic, economic, and political measures aimed at displacing the government of Nicolás Maduro. From a Vattelian perspective, such actions raise fundamental questions about lawful authority, the limits of collective judgment, and the distinction between moral condemnation and legal right. Vattel argues that no nation may unilaterally assume the role of judge over another sovereign without undermining the mutual independence on which international society depends. To do so, he suggests, risks converting international law into a mere instrument of power.

At the same time, Vattel’s framework does not deny the reality of gross misrule or humanitarian suffering. Rather, it demands rigorous scrutiny of motives and means. Economic coercion, diplomatic isolation, and recognition of alternative authorities would, in his analysis, need to be justified not by ideological preference or strategic advantage, but by clear evidence that such measures genuinely serve the common good of nations and do not erode the general security of the international system. His emphasis on proportionality, necessity, and respect for established sovereignty stands in tension with modern practices of intervention that rely on contested doctrines of legitimacy.

Viewed through this lens, contemporary debates over Venezuela illustrate the enduring force of Vattel’s central warning: that the stability of international relations depends less on the moral claims of individual powers than on shared restraint. His work reminds modern readers that the erosion of sovereignty in one case—however rhetorically justified—sets precedents that may ultimately weaken the legal protections upon which all nations, strong and weak alike, rely.

P.H. Nicklitn etc. Philadelphia. 1829. Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026 p.424.

By Jennifer A. Tallon

To effectively address the problem of mass incarceration, prosecutors must adopt ways to respond to cases involving violence that don’t rely on jails and prisons. The "Prosecutors and Responses to Crimes of Violence: Notes from the Field" document offers in-depth case study findings and is intended as a tool for jurisdictions looking to expand alternative approaches to crimes of violence.

New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2024, 18pg