By Laurel Wimbish, Janelle Simpson, Lena Dechert, Laura Feldman,

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program provides funding to state Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs) to build their capacity to collect, analyze, and disseminate criminal justice data to state and local policy makers, administrators, and other stakeholders. In 2019 and 2020, the SAC for Wyoming—the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center (WYSAC) at the University of Wyoming—received special-emphasis capacity-building funding from BJS to conduct a targeted analysis using Wyoming’s criminal history records. SACs are strongly encouraged to collaborate with their state’s State Administering Agency (SAA) to develop and implement projects that support the State’s criminal justice planning needs. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is the SAA for the State of Wyoming and serves as the central repository for criminal history record information. WYSAC worked with DCI to develop and implement this research project in support of one of DCI’s top priorities, maintaining accurate and complete criminal history records. Wyoming statute requires all city, county, and state law enforcement agencies; district courts; courts of limited jurisdiction; district attorneys; the Department of Corrections; state juvenile correctional institutions; and local probation and parole agencies to submit criminal history record information to DCI.1 DCI stores these data in a computerized state criminal history system (CCH) and uses the data for many purposes including complying with the 2002 Help America Vote Act, conducting background checks for employers and professional licensing boards, and sharing data with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) National Criminal Background Check System (NICS).2,3 To effectively serve these purposes, criminal justice entities (law enforcement agencies, the courts, and corrections) must provide DCI with accurate and complete data. The objectives of this project were to 1) explore the accuracy and completeness of Wyoming’s criminal history records, specifically for misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence (MCDVs), 2) provide DCI with a report outlining the results of the analysis, and 3) provide recommendations on how DCI and other state criminal justice agencies can improve the accuracy and completeness of the state’s criminal history records.

Laramie: WYOMING SURVEY & ANALYSIS CENTER, 2021. 16p.

By HM Prison and Probation Service and Ministry of Justice (UK)

Why should the Criminal Justice System be concerned with the mental health of those passing through the system? We know that rates of mental ill-health are high among those who pass through the CJS. Around a third of people11 who find themselves in police custody have some form of mental health difficulty, as do 48 per cent of men and 70 percent of women in prison. Some 38 per cent: of people on probation supervision are recorded as having a mental health issue. But why does this matter? First, because people with a mental illness need and deserve treatment. Entry into the CJS can provide a second chance for people who have been missed by other services to access that treatment and an incentive for them to take up that offer. Second, because mental illness and the symptoms associated with it can trigger criminal behaviour and therefore bring a person into contact with the CJS. Decisions then need to be made on whether a criminal charge is in the public interest or whether an alternative disposal (such as diversion into mental health treatment) would be more appropriate. Third, mental illness, particularly the more severe forms, can affect an individual’s ability to understand and participate in the criminal justice process. They may need additional support to understand the questions put to them during an investigation or at trial or they may lack the mental capacity to plead or stand trial. Fourth, the criminal justice process itself, for example the experience of custody, can have a severe and negative impact on someone’s mental health, particularly if they are already suffering a mental illness. In these circumstances, there is a duty of care to try to mitigate these wherever possible. This includes a duty to reduce the risks of suicide and self-harm, which we know to be high in criminal justice populations. For all these reasons, it is essential that those with a mental health condition or disorder are identified as early as possible in their journey through the CJS, particularly where that problem is severe. Once the mental health issue is identified, information relevant to that issue must be shared between agencies so that appropriate support and treatment can be offered, and the right decisions made at each step of the journey from arrest to sentence and post-sentence supervision in custody or in the community. This inspection, the first on this topic to involve all of the criminal justice inspectorates, and to consider post-sentence supervision, as well as the period leading up to trial, focuses on these critical issues: • Are people with a mental illness identified when they first come into the CJS? • Is this information passed on through the rest of the system from the police and defence lawyers to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the courts or from the courts to the probation and prison services so that the right decisions can be made about next steps? • Are people with a mental illness entering the CJS being properly assessed and then referred for help or treatment where this is identified as necessary? • What is the quality of support they are getting? Is it timely and adequately resourced or are people having to wait many months to get it? • Are the most seriously mentally ill people being looked after in appropriate settings and places of safety, or is custody still having to be used?

Manchester, UK: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation November 2021 117p.

By Matthew DeMichele,  Ian Silver,  Ryan Labrecque

This study provides a rigorous assessment of the public safety outcomes of pretrial detention by estimating the criminogenic and punitive effects of spending at least one week in pretrial detention across three jail systems in two states. Jails are a unique criminal justice contact point because they hold individuals at different stages of case processing, including individuals awaiting trial, and those serving shorter sentences or waiting to be transferred to prison. Pretrial incarceration is arguably one of the most consequential decisions in case processing for an individual. A small body of research has emerged to show that pretrial detention is both criminogenic (i.e., leads to higher arrest rates) and punitive (i.e., leads to higher conviction rates). In this paper, we use a doubly robust difference-in-differences design to assess the relationship between pretrial detention with court appearances, new arrests prior to adjudication, and convictions for the instant offense. The findings of this research study provide strong evidence that pretrial detention leads to increased likelihood that individuals will miss court and be arrested for new crimes

Unpublished paper, 2023, 57p.

By Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles, and Darrell A.H. Miller

  Academic work is increasingly important to court rulings on the Second Amendment and firearms law more generally. This article highlights two recent trends in social science research that supplement the traditional focus on guns and physical harm. The first strand of research focuses on the changing ways that gun owners connect with firearms, with personal security, status, identity, and cultural markers being key reasons people offer for possessing firearms. The second strand focuses on broadening our understanding of the impact of guns on the public sphere beyond just physical safety. This research surfaces the ways that guns can create fear, intimidation, and social trauma; deter civic participation and the exercise of constitutional rights; and further entrench racial inequality.  

Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2023. 19:165–77   

By Washington Office of Latin America. United States of America

Venezuela is the only country in Latin America with an open investigation before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The case has been the object of disinformation on behalf of Venezuelan authorities and the language surrounding the ICC can at times be confusing for those who are unfamiliar with international law. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) believes that it is important to bring this process closer to the international community, to decision-makers in Washington D.C., to Venezuelans, and to those who follow what is happening in Venezuela. That is why, through a series of questions and answers written in plain English, we are bringing you an easy-to-understand publication on the ICC investigation on Venezuela.

The following sections describe what the International Criminal Court (ICC) is and answers each of the following questions:

1. What is the International Criminal Court?

   Why did the ICC initiate an investigation on Venezuela and what is the current status of the process?

   What decision did the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court adopt on May 4, 2023?

   The Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement about the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber of May 4, 2023. Why is that statement false?

   Why did the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber authorize the Prosecutor to resume his investigation on Venezuela?

   What is actually happening then?

   What does the recent visit of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to Venezuela and the ICC’s decision to open an office there mean?

   What are the victims and human rights organizations working on these cases doing?

Washington Office of Latin America. United States of America 2023. 15p.

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 Susan McMahon

The competence to stand trial system is a “slow-moving tsunami” that has grown exponentially in recent years, capturing far more people than jurisdictions have the capacity to handle. As a result, individuals who are possibly incompetent become trapped in pretrial competence purgatory, often detained in jail for months or even years. The harms of this system can be tragic. Competence detainees have died by suicide, starvation, and beatings. They are placed in solitary confinement, experience neglect and abuse, and deteriorate mentally and physically while confined. Often, these individuals are accused of misdemeanors. Often, they go through the competence process only to be returned to court and released without any connection to long-term support.

Scholars have long advocated for changes to this process. But even the most ambitious of these reforms will only shift outcomes at the margins. As long as the competence system remains in place, it will be overused, and it will continue to cause massive harms, both in dollars wasted and in human suffering.

This Article is the first to propose a more fundamental change: barring misdemeanor defendants from even entering the competence process. If a court finds a bona fide doubt as to an individual’s competence, that person would instead have the charges against them dismissed and would be transferred to treatment outside of the criminal system. This shift reduces the harms of the current competence system and shrinks its footprint, decreasing delays and freeing up funds that could be better spent elsewhere.

At the same time, this approach recognizes that the criminal legal system simply does not work for individuals with mental disabilities. Rather than tinker with its mechanics or create exceptions for this population, a better solution, exemplified by this proposal, is to abandon that system altogether in favor of non-carceral models.

. UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2024, 53p.

By Mark A. Motivans

This report provides national statistics on the federal response to crime for fiscal year 2023 and some statistics on changes over time. It describes case processing in the federal criminal justice system, including investigations by U.S. attorneys, prosecutions and declinations, convictions and acquittals, sentencing, probation and supervised release, and imprisonment. It also includes a new section detailing the federal criminal justice system’s response to immigration violations. This is the 37th report in an annual series based on data from BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program, which began in 1979. 

Highlights

During fiscal year (FY) 2023, 94,411 suspects were arrested by federal law enforcement and booked by the U.S. Marshals Service, a 3% decrease from 96,857 in FY 2022. 

Of the 25,110 Drug Enforcement Administration arrests in FY 2023, the most common type of drug involved was methamphetamine (7,381 arrests), followed by other opioids (6,688 arrests), which includes fentanyl. 

The median number of days from the receipt of an investigation to the decision by a U.S. attorney to prosecute or decline a matter was 61 days in FY 2023, similar to FY 2022. 

U.S. attorneys prosecuted 61% of suspects in matters concluded in FY 2023. The percentage of suspects prosecuted was highest in immigration (70%), drug offenses (70%), and weapons offenses (68%).

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,  Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2025. 37p.

By the United States Sentencing Commission

  This is the twenty-ninth edition of the United States Sentencing Commission’s Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. This Sourcebook contains descriptive statistics on the application of the federal sentencing guidelines and provides selected district, circuit, and national sentencing data. The volume covers fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024, hereinafter “2024”). This Sourcebook, together with the 2024 Annual Report, constitutes the annual report referenced in 28 U.S.C. § 997, as well as the analysis, recommendations, and accounting to Congress referenced in 28 U.S.C. § 994(w)(3). The Commission received documentation on 61,678 federal felony and Class A misdemeanor cases involving individuals sentenced in fiscal year 2024.1 The Commission coded and edited information from the sentencing documents in these cases into its comprehensive, computerized data collection system. The Commission first released sentencing data in its 1988 Annual Report and reported this data annually until 1996. That year, the Commission compiled sentencing data into a new publication, the Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. In 2019, the Sourcebook edition reporting fiscal year 2018 data was substantially revised and expanded. Existing tables were revised to reflect current sentencing practices. Many figures were updated to make them easier to understand and were presented in color while others were removed and the data on them presented in new ways. Additional analyses regarding drug and immigration crimes were added, and new sections on firearms and economic offenses were included. Trend analyses were added to each of the major sections to show how sentencing patterns had changed over the last ten years. The section on Sentenced Organizations was also expanded. Finally, Appendix B, which provides sentencing data for each judicial district, was completely redesigned to reflect current sentencing practices. Beginning with that 2018 Sourcebook, the Commission made important methodological changes in the way the data was presented. Principal among them was the way cases were assigned to a “type of crime” (previously called offense type). Beginning with fiscal year 2018 data, the guideline (or guidelines) that the court applied in determining the sentence determines the crime type category to which a case is assigned. Also, the names of some of the crime type categories were revised and some outdated categories were removed from the tables and figures. Another important methodological change was that sentences were capped at 470 months for all analyses. Additionally, cases involving the production of child pornography were reassigned to the sexual abuse crime type. Previously, these cases were assigned to the child pornography offense type in the Sourcebook. Finally, beginning with the 2018 Sourcebook, the methodology used to analyze the sentence imposed relative to the sentencing range for the case as determined under the Commission’s Guidelines Manual was substantially revised. Sentences now are grouped into two broad categories: Sentences Under the Guidelines Manual and Variances. The former category comprises all cases in which the sentence imposed was within the applicable guideline range or, if outside the range, where the court cited one or more of the departure reasons in the Guidelines Manual as a basis for  the sentence. Variance cases are those in which the sentence was outside the guideline range (either above or below) and where the court did not cite any guideline reason for the sentence. Data for important subgroups within these two categories are also reported. Because of these methodological changes, direct comparisons between data for Sourcebooks from fiscal year 2018 and later years cannot always be made to data reported in the Sourcebooks for years before fiscal year 2018. This year, the Commission has made substantial revisions to the section on sentencing appeals. Beginning with 2024 data, the Commission is no longer collecting information about the guideline forming the basis for reversal or remand in sentencing appeals, or the reasonableness issues appealed in cases where the original sentence was reversed or remanded. Tables providing that information have been removed from the 2024 Sourcebook. Also beginning with 2024 data, the Commission has changed the way it categorizes appeals cases in which a brief was submitted by counsel for the defendant pursuant to the Supreme Court decision in Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). Previously, “Anders Brief” cases were reported as a type of appeal. Beginning with the 2024 data, the Commission has sought to determine the type of appeal involved in an Anders Brief case (e.g., an appeal of the sentence only) and, when that information was available, has classified the case accordingly. Cases in which an Anders brief was filed, but where the sentencing documentation did not indicate the type of appeal, now are classified as “Unknown” types of appeals and are excluded from the data reported on Figure A and the remaining tables. Also, this year the Commission is providing new information in the sentencing appeals section. New Figure A-2 reports additional information on the type of sentence that was appealed. Sentences are classified into three categories: appeals of the original sentence, appeals of an order deciding a motion for a resentencing or other modification of sentence, and appeals of a revocation of probation or supervised release. In appeals of an order deciding a motion for a resentencing or other modification of sentence, the Commission reports the basis asserted in the motion. Additionally, while the Commission has always reported the disposition of sentencing appeals of the original sentence on Table A-2, the Commission now is reporting information on the disposition of post-sentencing motion appeals on Table A-2A. New Figure A-3 provides information about the type of crime involved in appeals of original sentences. While this data was previously available on another table, and continues to be reported on Table A-5, new Figure A-3 presents this information graphically. New Table A-6 reports data on the position of the sentence relative to the guideline range in original sentencing appeals, using the Commission’s standard classifications found on Table 29 of the Sourcebook for original sentences. Finally, the numbers and titles of the remaining tables in the section were revised for clarity.   

Washington, DC: USSC, 2025. 201p.

By Octavian Simu, Paul McGorrery, Melanie Hull

This report to the Victorian Government makes 12 recommendations for reform to the sentencing of occupational health and safety (OHS) offences in Victoria. The recommendations are grouped in relation to victims and other affected persons, changes in sentencing practices, and fine payment and distribution.

Key findings

People injured in workplace incidents, people exposed to risks in workplaces, and the families of deceased workers are not always able to fully and meaningfully participate in sentencing proceedings for OHS offences.

Currently, sentencing practices for OHS offences are not aligned with community expectations, are not aligned with recent changes to penalties in the model work health and safety laws (‘model laws’), are not consistent with sentencing practices in other regulatory contexts, and are not capable of adequately achieving the purposes of sentencing.

Every year, there is almost $2.5 million in unpaid court fines for OHS offences.

State of Victoria, Sentencing Advisory Council, 2025, 218p.

By Roger Bootle, David Spencer, Ben Sweetman and James Vitali 

Securing the safety of the public is the foremost duty of government. But we are witnessing acute growth in a range of highly visible crimes. This is undermining the very legitimacy of the British state. • Police recorded shoplifting is up 51% relative to 2015 and is at its highest level in 20 years. Police recorded robberies and knife crime offences are up 64% and 89% respectively over the same period. Public order offences are up 192%. The cost of fraud in the benefits system has increased almost eightfold since 2006. • These areas of acute growth in criminal incidents are obscured by the aggregate downward trend in crime since 1995 reported by the Crime Survey of England and Wales. Although this is a reputable source, it excludes many types of serious crime. • Alongside rising crime rates, the criminal justice system is failing. Prisons have reached capacity, and thousands are being released early as a result. As of September 2024, there were 73,105 outstanding crown court cases, 31,000 of which have been outstanding for over 6 months, both numbers being the highest ever. The ratio of police personnel to the population is down 12% from 2010. • The proliferation of crime is an evil in and of itself. But it also significantly diminishes the prosperity of the British people. Crime has direct costs - the damage to, or loss of, property, the cost of insurance, medical bills, the cost of funding the criminal justice system etc. • But some of the greatest costs imposed by crime are indirect and hard-to-measure. They relate to the behavioural changes undertaken by individuals and businesses in response to the expectation of crime. • Order and the rule of law are necessary prerequisites for prosperity. They generate confidence that contracts will be upheld, property will not be stolen or damaged, and that individuals and businesses will enjoy the proceeds of their labour and industry, rather than being deprived of it by criminals. And the converse is true too; when the rule of law is breached with impunity, economic activity suffers. • In the context of increased crime, both businesses and individuals try to protect themselves by undertaking various preventative measures and taking out insurance. But this also drives up their  costs and thereby diminishes the living standards of law-abiding people. • Crime thus harms the profitability of businesses and they will tend to pass on the increase in their costs to their customers. • Moreover, the prevalence of crime and the apparent toleration of it corrode the bonds that hold a society together, damaging the trust in other people and institutions which is essential to the functioning of free markets. In undermining a sense of security, it also increases societal risk aversion. • We believe the tangible costs of crime in the UK to amount to almost £170 bn per annum, or about 6.5% of GDP. Of these costs, about £38bn are inflicted on businesses, £31bn on the public sector, and about £63bn against individuals. • But this is an incomplete estimate of the total costs, because it fails to account for the intangible effects on behaviour that derive from the fear of crime. Although these effects are extremely difficult to estimate, they are probably very large. Incorporating them would probably push the total costs of crime to over £250bn, or 10% of GDP. • Fortunately, the cost of crime to society is a problem with a clear solution. We must ditch the permissive paradigm that dominates our present approach to crime, and shift the balance in policymaking back towards the interests of the law-abiding majority. We lay out here a series of measures that could substantially reduce the prevalence of crime and hence its cost to society. • Our policy proposals are based around five key themes: delivering a dramatic expansion of the prison estate; taking back the streets; promoting smarter policing; and reforming sentencing and our courts system – and providing more funding while demanding more accountability. • Much of this programme can be delivered without any increase in funding. It will yield a return for little or no cost. The organisation of policing needs to be radically restructured to focus on the deterrence of crime and the catching of criminals. There needs to be a clear-out of senior members of the prison service and the Ministry of Justice. • Over and above this, however, there is a need for more funding. More resources need to be ploughed into the police and justice system to permit the recruitment of more police officers and staff, build more prisons and improve the functioning of the courts. • It may seem paradoxical that a programme to reduce the incidence of crime and its costs to society should include spending more public money. But this extra money can bring a significant return to society and a stronger economy. It should be regarded as a form of public investment. • Nevertheless, in these straitened times there is no scope to increase overall government spending financed by borrowing, and the burden of taxation is surely at the limits of what the economy can bear. • Meanwhile, given the global threats faced by the United Kingdom, the defence of the realm requires more funding. This must come at the top of the list of priorities. • So any increase in funding to finance our proposals must come from reductions in other sorts of public spending. While this paper does not seek to lay out in detail what other sorts of spending ought to be cut, with government spending as a share of GDP at a post-war high, there is ample scope for savings. Civil service manning levels, the benefits bill, overseas aid and the regime for uprating pensions will all have to be reviewed. • There are two reasons why our proposals should rank highly in the list of spending priorities alongside the need to spend more money on defence. First, by reducing the cost of crime and bringing about a stronger economy, our proposals will eventually enable the provision of more resources for other spending – including defence. • Second, the external threat to the United Kingdom is no longer purely from conventional warfare. It is hybrid and includes the sponsorship of terrorism, cyber warfare, attacks on critical infrastructure, and campaigns to widen divisions in our society – all activities which undermine the public’s confidence in the nation’s security at home. Maintaining a strong criminal justice system is fundamental to British interests and countering the threats to the nation which originate both at home and abroad. • If we are to take a less permissive approach to policing, we need to put more people behind bars. And to do this, we recommend the construction of 43,000 additional prison places and the phasing out of prison over-crowding by building a further 10,000 prison cells. • Police forces need to take control of the streets and give them back to the law-abiding majority, returning to a version of neighbourhood policing which has community orderliness and security at its heart. • Policing needs to be smarter, both tactically and strategically, making better use of technology. And it needs to neutralise the threat posed by hyper prolific offenders – the 9% of criminals who commit over half of all crime. • There also needs to be a major increase in prison sentences for the most serious crimes. The simple fact is that in our society, the chances of being caught are very low and if and when a criminal is caught and convicted the punishment is often laughably lenient. • This means that for those individuals inclined this way, crime pays. The system needs to be radically redesigned so that it doesn’t.  

London: Policiy Exchange, 2025. 91p.

By The Center for Justice Innovation

In May 2024, the New York State Unified Court System, with the Center for Justice Innovation (the Center), and in partnership with the Office of the Governor of the State of New York, launched the Family Justice Initiative: Court and Community Collaboration (FJI or the Initiative). Building on the reports and analyses that have documented statewide challenges across all case types in Family Court to date, the Initiative seeks to forge a fair, equitable, and sustainable path forward for the Court and its system partners to better serve all New Yorkers. The Initiative is solutions-focused, prioritizes areas for improvement, identifies promising programs, and explores new ideas to strengthen families, reduce unnecessary system involvement, and break intergenerational cycles of trauma. The Center’s role is to support a strategic planning process to develop a broad vision for what makes an effective family-serving system, as well as a comprehensive plan to support that vision. The goal for the initial phase was to begin to develop a shared vision and objectives for the Initiative and identify concrete solutions ready for immediate implementation. This report lays out the values and goals articulated by Initiative partners to date, and the specific recommendations that emerged from extensive discussions facilitated across New York State in the first phase of the project. It also provides a preview of the next phase of work, which will include the development of working groups to pursue longer-term areas for improvement while continuing to identify concrete opportunities for investment along the way.   

New York: Center for Justice Innovation, 2025. 31p.

By Sarah Picard, Leah Nelson, Rae Walker, Ellie Wilson

Every year, courts across the United States impose millions of dollars in fines, fees, and restitution charges on people adjudicated guilty of traffic violations, misdemeanors, and felonies. In theory, these assessments are intended to punish and deter unlawful behavior and compensate victims for financial losses incurred as the result of a crime. Despite their near ubiquitous use in criminal legal systems throughout the country, there is surprisingly little evidence that these financial penalties and assessments, collectively known as legal financial obligations (LFOs), deter criminal conduct, enhance public safety, or result in victims being compensated for their losses. In fact, some analyses indicate excessive fines and fees can have detrimental effects, eroding community trust in law enforcement, exacerbating hardships faced by individuals and families, undermining public safety and court legitimacy, and saddling community members with debt many will never be able to pay.

The Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees (JEFF) Project—a research–practice partnership among MDRC, the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court of Alabama—uses five years of longitudinal, case-level data and qualitative research to explore how Alabama’s fines and fees system plays out in Jefferson County, Alabama. This brief presents early results from analysis of the quantitative data collected. 

The preliminary findings highlight inequities in how LFOs are assessed and distributed and the inefficacy of LFOs as a revenue source. Analyses showed that indigent individuals across all charges were assessed higher financial penalties and paid less toward their debt than those who could afford private representation. In addition, across groups, most people did not satisfy their balances over the five-year period, and many incurred a “restitution recovery fee” due to missed payments. Furthermore, the research depicts a system in which restitution often goes unpaid because of the state’s priority disbursement schedule, which compensates law enforcement agencies that collect debt before funding victim restitution

New York: MDRC, 2024. 9p.

By Karin D. Martin

The core of the access-to-justice problem is widespread unmet civil legal needs coupled with general disuse of the civil legal system. This Essay posits that monetary sanctions are an important contributing factor to the problem of access to justice. First, monetary sanctions and the unpaid criminal legal debt they produce are engines of “legal hybridity” in people’s lives in a way that impedes access to justice by generating unmet legal needs. They conflate the criminal and civil legal systems in many people’s lives, thereby reducing access to recourse in either system. Second, by subverting the principles of proportionality, specificity, and finality, monetary sanctions structurally deprive people of just solutions and condition them to not expect justice from legal institutions

widespread disuse of the civil legal system to help solve civil legal problems lies at the core. Regardless of whether the crisis is conceptualized as people having insufficient legal assistance, legal information, or access to civil courts, a through line is the failure of people to make use of the benefits ostensibly available to them through the civil legal system. Here, “access to justice” is conceived of in terms of widespread unmet legal needs with an accompanying paucity of just solutions. Theories about the source of this deficit of just resolutions for people with civil legal problems include lack of legal knowledge and knowhow, underfunded courts, and too few lawyers.cal and structural aspects of monetary sanctions, explained in detail below, this Essay argues that it is time to include monetary sanctions as a contributing factor to the problem of access to justice.

Monetary sanctions are the fines, fees, surcharges, restitution, or any other financial liability imposed in the criminal legal system. Three factors make it easy to overlook the role of these sanctions in the access-to-justice problem: (1) Monetary sanctions originate in the criminal legal system; (2) Some people can pay them without difficulty; and (3) They are a less severe sanction than incarceration. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of monetary sanctions and the unpaid criminal legal debt they produce are engines of “legal hybridity” in people’s lives in a way that harms access to justice by giving rise to unmet legal needs. Specifically, this legal hybridity amplifies the potential for extraction in both the criminal and civil legal systems and hinders the potential for resolution in each. Further, monetary sanctions are structured in a way that violates key principles of justice, which inhibits the pursuit of just solutions. This Essay thus argues that failing to consider the role of monetary sanctions in the access-to-justice crisis will stymie efforts to solve it.

This Essay proceeds as follows. Part I explores how monetary sanctions conflate the criminal and civil legal systems in many people’s lives, thereby reducing access to recourse in either. The idea of legal hybridity is offered as a way to conceptualize this phenomenon. While both the criminal and civil legal systems ostensibly offer remedies for all manner of problems, legal hybridity highlights how they also both have the capacity to be extractive—of time, of money, of property, and of liberty. Monetary sanctions should be a point of focus because they often tilt the balance toward extraction, rather than toward recourse. Part II discusses how monetary sanctions undermine central tenets of justice: proportionality, finality, and specificity in punishment. By subverting these principles, monetary sanctions structurally deprive people of just solutions and condition them to not expect justice from legal institutions. Although these principles are typically of concern in the criminal legal setting, the aforementioned legal hybridity underscores the need to consider them more broadly, particularly in the domain of monetary sanctions.

Stanford Law Review Online , Vol. 75, June 2023, 15p.

By Beth Karp

Several widely used criminal risk assessment instruments factor a defendant’s abstract beliefs, peer associations, and family relationships into their risk scores. The inclusion of those factors is empirically unsound and raises profound ethical and constitutional questions. This Article is the first instance of legal scholarship on criminal risk assessment to (a) conduct an in-depth review of risk assessment questionnaires, scoresheets, and reports, and (b) analyze the First and Fourteenth Amendment implications of attitude and associational factors. Additionally, this Article challenges existing scholarship by critiquing widely accepted but dubious empirical justifications for the inclusion of attitude and associational items. The items are only weakly correlated with recidivism, have not been shown to be causal, and have in fact been shown to decrease the predictive validity of risk assessment instruments. Quantification of attitudes and associations should cease unless and until it is done in a way that is empirically sound, more useful than narrative reports, and consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Stanford Law Review, Vol. 75, 2023, 99p.

By Erin Jacobs Valentine, Sarah Picard

Jurisdictions across the United States are implementing reforms to their pretrial systems to reduce the number of people who are held in pretrial detention—that is, who remain incarcerated in jail while they await the adjudication of their cases. As part of this effort, many jurisdictions are moving away from money bail as a primary means to encourage people to return for future court dates, and are instead implementing pretrial supervision, which requires clients to meet regularly with supervision staff members. Jurisdictions often attempt to match the intensity or frequency of supervision with a client’s assessed risk of failing to appear in court or being rearrested, for example by requiring more intensive supervision for clients who are assessed as being at a high risk. However, while different levels of pretrial supervision impose different burdens and costs on both jurisdictions and people awaiting the resolutions of their cases, there has been little systematic research into how they differ in their effectiveness in improving court appearance and arrest outcomes.

This report contributes new evidence in this area using retrospective data from cases initiated between January 2017 and June 2019 in two jurisdictions: one populous, urban metropolitan area in the western United States and a sparsely populated, rural county from the same region. The research team employed a regression discontinuity design, comparing the outcomes of people whose risk scores were just below and just above the cutoff for a level of supervision. They did so for four supervision levels: (1) no supervision, (2) low-intensity supervision that involved only check-ins with supervision staff members after court hearings, (3) medium-intensity supervision that also required one in-person meeting a month with a supervision staff member, and (4) high-intensity supervision that required three in-person meetings per month. The analysis uses a noninferiority approach, which tests whether the less intensive form of supervision is at least as effective as (that is, no worse than) the more intensive form.

The analysis found that:

Overall, lower-intensity supervision was as effective as higher-intensity supervision in helping clients to appear in court and avoid new arrests. When comparing each level of supervision with the next level in intensity, assignment to less intensive supervision led to similar outcomes as assignment to more intensive supervision.

Risk scores were strongly correlated with rearrest rates and modestly correlated with court appearance rates. Unsurprisingly, people with higher risk scores were more likely to be rearrested, and somewhat less likely to make scheduled court appearances. However, higher-intensity supervision did not mitigate this effect.

Overall, the analysis found no evidence that requiring people to meet more intensive pretrial supervision requirements improves outcomes. These findings suggest that policymakers should consider other strategies to encourage people to appear in court and avoid arrest, especially since supervision has costs, including monetary costs to jurisdictions and time and travel costs to clients. It is possible, for example, that strategies that involve service connections rather than supervision could be more effective. At the same time, the results indicate that more research on the use of pretrial supervision is needed. Because the regression discontinuity design of this study focuses on cases at particular risk levels—those near the cutoff risk scores that determine supervision intensity—it is possible that the results would differ for cases with other risk levels. For example, high-intensity supervision could have effects among very high-risk cases, a question that this analysis was not designed to address. Given that prior research suggests that both service and supervision resources are most effective when reserved for higher-risk and -need cases, studies focusing solely on outcomes among this group could be of great benefit to the field.

New York: MDRC, 2023. 77p.