By Vanessa Bettinson

• Coercive control is a recognised form of domestic abuse under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and it is a criminal offence to engage in controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. Domestic abuse disproportionately affects women as victims and this is reflected in the female prison population where research has found that 57% of women in the prison population in England and Wales have been victims of domestic abuse.

• Coercive control by a male intimate partner or relative can directly result in women’s offending. This occurs in a variety of ways such as taking responsibility for a partner’s crime, possession of a controlled substance belonging to an abuser and theft to support a partner’s drug habit, stealing personal items or using violent resistance against the abuser.

• Coercive control has also been linked to women’s reoffending with short custodial sentences leading to financial hardship and homelessness. Access to women’s refuges is limited as female offenders often have complex and multiple needs which make them ineligible for most refuges. Returning to an abuser to avoid homelessness is likely to lead to the continuation of coerced offending. Abusive partners can also prevent a female offender from complying with supervision under a community order by exerting coercive and controlling behaviours on them. In an effort to maintain their safety, the victim-offender can perceive that compliance with the abuser’s demands is their safest option.

• Existing sentencing guidelines do recognise ‘coercion, intimidation or exploitation’ as a mitigating factor in sentencing. It can operate as a factor that lowers the culpability threshold in some offence specific sentencing guidelines or, alternatively, it can be assessed as personal mitigation in accordance with the Sentencing Council’s ‘General guideline: overarching principles’. This means there is a high potential that coercive control as mitigation in sentencing is not consistently applied to all sentencing decisions.

• The guidelines do not explicitly adopt the term coercive control and sentencers could be limiting their approach to coercion for mitigation purposes to physical forms of coercion. HM Courts and Tribunals ought to apply the statutory guideline that supports the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 at sentencing hearings, however, there is no research on the ability of sentencers to identify coercive control and apply it to sentencing decisions.

• Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) are a valuable tool to assist the court in understanding the role coercive control played in the offending, however, there is a reduction in the volume of full written PSRs being requested by courts. In addition, there is no research on the ability of probation officers to identify coercive control and the extent it is included in PSRs

London: Sentencing Academy, 2024. 16p.

By Kathryn Hollingsworth, Jonathan Bild and Gavin Dingwall

This report describes the findings from a survey of 1,038 children living in England and Wales aged between 10-17 years, drawn from the general public and conducted in 2023. The research contributes to the literature on the public’s knowledge and opinion of sentencing and this survey follows up an earlier report by the Sentencing Academy, published in January 2022, which explored public knowledge of sentencing practice and trends through a survey of adult respondents. This report, however, focuses on a cohort – children over the minimum age of criminal responsibility – who are largely absent from the existing research literature.

Key Findings

• Most children reported having spoken to someone about what happens in a criminal court. The most common answer (57%) was that they had spoken to ‘my family’, with 39% of respondents having spoken to ‘my teacher at school’. However, very few respondents (2%) reported having been to a criminal court.

• Respondents reported having seen what happens in a criminal court from a variety of sources, with the two most common responses being ‘on a TV programme’ and ‘in a film’.

• Despite all participants in the survey having reached the minimum age of criminal responsibility, respondents generally over-estimated the age at which children become criminally responsible: 61% of those who provided an answer to the question of at what age does a child become criminally responsible (i.e. excluding those who answered ‘don’t know’) thought it was over the correct age of 10-years-old.

• The children in this survey were much less likely than adult respondents to think that the sentencing of adults is too lenient: 27% of respondents thought that sentencing was too lenient but a greater proportion – 34% – thought it was ‘about right’. Only 16% of respondents thought that the sentencing of children was too lenient.

• Whilst the vast majority (81%) of respondents correctly identified that a judge ‘would’ sentence a 25-year-old more severely than a 15-year-old for an identical offence, only 50% of respondents thought that they ‘should’ do so; 38% thought that both offenders should receive the same punishment.

• Respondents generally under-estimated the severity of sentencing for children convicted of a repeat knife offence. In a scenario crafted to engage a mandatory custodial sentence as the most likely outcome, 57% of respondents thought that the offending would most likely be met with a non-custodial sentence. This included a majority of 16- and 17-year old respondents to whom the mandatory sentencing provisions apply

London: Sentencing Academy, 2024. 26p.

By: Catherine H. Augustine, Andrea Phillips, Susannah Faxon-Mills, Abigail Kessler

In this report, the authors describe how implementation of restorative practices in educational settings and a juvenile diversion program run by the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) in San Diego County are working to stem the school-to-prison pipeline. The authors focus on how NCRC is serving as an intermediary organization for youth-focused programs, signs of success, opportunities to improve, and insights for other communities.

RAND Research—Published Sep 30, 2024

By: Stephanie Brooks Holliday, Elizabeth Marsolais, Samantha Matthews

The Los Angeles County Rapid Diversion Program (RDP) is a pretrial mental health diversion program operating in seven courthouses in Los Angeles County, California. Established in 2019 as a faster approach to mental health diversion compared with the traditional approach, RDP allows for the diversion of individuals who have a mental health diagnosis or substance use disorder and certain qualifying misdemeanor or felony charges. Individuals who complete the program have their case dismissed.

In this report, the authors present findings from a formal assessment of program implementation to date. Using a mixed-methods evaluation of program data and interviews with implementation partners and RDP graduates, they explore current program implementation, case outcomes for individuals who participate in RDP, and strengths and areas for improvement. Lessons learned from this evaluation have the potential to inform efforts to scale the program within Los Angeles County and to other counties interested in implementing a similar pretrial diversion program.

RAND—Published Sep. 30, 2024

By Scottish Government, Social Research

In late 2019, the Scottish Government commissioned an independent research study into decision making in relation to refusal of bail in Scotland. The overall aim of the research was to explore how decision making works in practice, as well as to gather perceptions on bail options. The research was carried out over two phases. Phase 1 involved online surveys of members of the Judiciary and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal (COPFS) staff, the findings from which were published in an Interim Findings report in July 2022.

This report presents findings from Phase 2 of the research which involved a series of qualitative interviews with key justice stakeholders (Sheriffs, COPFS staff, defence solicitors and social work staff) to add breadth and context to the survey data presented in the Phase 1 report. A case study approach was taken with fieldwork carried out in six different case study areas, selected on the basis of broad geographical coverage, as well as a mix of courts (from different Sheriffdoms) where historical data (provided at the outset of the project by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service) showed high, medium and low levels of remand. All participation was on a voluntary, self-selection basis and all interviews were carried out on a one-to-one or two-to-one basis, using either face-to-face, online or telephone interviews. A total of 60 people took part over a six month period.

Main Findings

The research highlights that the bail and remand decision making process is complex, multi-faceted and time pressured. The ‘jigsaw’ of legislation, combined with circumstance and human factors, means that no two cases are ever treated the same way and no response can ever be seen as ‘typical’. All participants across all stakeholder groups agreed that the decision making process was informed by multiple considerations in each case, and that there was never any one factor which was determinative in its own right. All cases were described as being unique and as being treated on the basis of the information available at the time and the merits of each individual case. Similarly, while some factors may carry more weight in some circumstances, all factors are still considered in their totality.

Findings from the research broadly fell under four key topics, these being: Legislative Grounds, Process and System Influences, Human Factors and Other Considerations. The main findings presented below are structured around these four topics, with a fifth separate dedicated section focusing on Alternatives to Remand.

(1) Legislative Grounds

The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 is the cornerstone of all decision making and was described by all stakeholders as the main framework within which all decisions on bail and remand are made, being of equal relevance and influence in both summary and solemn cases.

Most respondents concurred that a combination of all of the factors set out in Section 23C of the 1995 Act, alongside the particular facts and circumstances of a case, determined all decisions about whether an accused presents a risk of re-offending and whether bail should be opposed. In general, however, the nature of the offence (especially where the accused has a history of similar, recent offending) and previous convictions were the two factors which perhaps carried the most weight in decisions to oppose bail (by COPFS) and to refuse bail (by Sheriffs).

The nature (including level of seriousness) of offences before the court was described as “highly influential” in Crown decisions to oppose bail primarily because it was seen as the key indicator of the danger that the accused may present to the public and witnesses. Sheriffs also stressed that the seriousness of the current offence was paramount in their determinations (with decisions in solemn procedure even more likely to have seriousness at their heart than summary procedures).

The nature of any previous convictions of the person (including analogous offending) was described by the Crown as “highly influential” in their case marking, and could be sufficient for opposing bail on its sole merit (especially if previous offending was very similar to the new offending). It was noted that the nature of previous convictions could demonstrate that the accused has a preferred method of offending, as well as demonstrating risk of commission of further offending and/or being of danger to the public. Offence histories were also the second most frequently cited factor influencing Sheriffs’ decisions.

Previous behaviour whilst on bail (including compliance, previous breaches and previous breaches of other court orders) was described by Sheriffs as being “very commonly relied upon by the Crown and the court”, with COPFS respondents noting that it often indicated concerns as to commission of further offences, future failure to comply with bail conditions, failure to surrender and likelihood of custody (with breach of orders suggesting contempt of same). Similarly, solicitors noted that the record of the accused alongside their compliance with previous orders played heavily in their assessment of likelihood of bail being granted. Sheriffs confirmed that previous behaviour while on bail was considered as a key indicator of likely future behaviour in the current case.

How recently other offences were committed was described as playing a key role in decisions as it could help to demonstrate any pattern of offending or risk of re-offending and whether the accused was targeting a single or multiple victims/complainers. This information was also described as useful insofar as it may yield arguments that certain specific sections of society are not safe if the accused was to be at liberty. A period of desistance following a prolific record was not always seen as good reason to support bail, and it was noted that the weight of the record and other factors were also likely to be considered by COPFS and Sheriffs in turn.

Evidence of escalation of offending was perhaps seen as slightly less influential than other features of an accused’s history and was often considered only alongside other features (in particular the types of offending being escalated) to present a case for opposing bail by the Crown. For Sheriffs, escalation was also not a primary determinative factor in decisions.

Of lower importance in the order of considerations for Sheriffs was the risk of failure to appear at future court diets. While previous behaviour was seen to be indicative, Sheriffs tended to note that failure to appear would need to be severe, prolonged and prolific for this to be the reason why they would remand someone to custody.

Sheriffs also cited risk to public and community safety as being key to their decision making, and possibly one of the most significant factors weighing in bail/remand decisions, after offence nature and seriousness (the two often being intertwined). Assessing whether the accused was likely to interfere with victims/witnesses was also seen as important, although it was noted that interference was ‘rare’ in most types of case (the exception being domestic abuse/harassment cases). Similarly, most Sheriffs cited the nature and number of previous offences and previous non-compliance with bail and other court orders as a key consideration involved in assessing ‘substantial risk’.

Also in relation to legislative grounds, Section 23D of the Act (which sets out a presumption against bail for those accused of violent/sexual/domestic abuse offences or drug trafficking offences in solemn proceedings, where they have a previous conviction of a similar nature) was viewed as being interpreted very differently by different Sheriffs. Stakeholders viewed that ‘exceptional circumstances’ (which may allow the granting of bail in some such cases) was a (largely) undefined, fluid and subjective concept. Sheriffs and solicitors also concurred that there was a certain inevitability of bail being opposed by COPFS in Section 23D cases. It should be noted, however, that the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 (which was still being passed through parliament at the time that the research was reaching its conclusion) repeals Section 23D of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. (continued)

Edinburgh: Safer Communities Directorate, 2023. 93p.

By Yin-Lan Soon, Sara Singh, David Greenberg, Natasha Rae, Daria Korobanova, Carolynn Dixon etc.

Mental health court diversionary programs are a key strategy to address over-representation of individuals with a mental illness in the criminal justice system. The study examined 2,476 individuals identified as eligible for mental health court diversion by the Statewide Community and Court Liaison Service (SCCLS) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia and compared reoffending of those granted and not granted court diversion. Individuals not diverted had 43% higher reoffending rate than those granted diversion. Predictors of non-diversion and reoffending included younger age, being male, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, primary personality and/or substance use diagnosis and non-violent offence charges.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FORENSIC MENTAL HEALTH, 1-15, 2024

By: Aaron Arnold, Precious Benally, and Michael Friedrich

In recent years, several U.S. states have adopted legislation aimed at decreasing sentences for low-level drug offenses. These reforms represent a promising effort to reduce the use of unnecessary incarceration. But one consequence has been reduced enrollment in drug courts. This paper explores how drug courts can adapt themselves to sentencing reforms and continue serving as a powerful, lifesaving intervention for court-involved individuals with substance use disorders.

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2020. 12p.

By Justin Murray

The American prosecutor’s legitimacy faces unprecedented challenges. A new wave of reformist prosecutors has risen to power promising to transform the criminal justice system from within, sparking fierce backlash from defenders of the prosecutorial status quo. Central to this conflict is a debate over the nature of prosecutorial discretion, influenced by a set of claims and assumptions that this Article terms the myth of individualized enforcement. This myth posits that prosecutors base discretionary decisions on case-specific facts and equitable circumstances rather than generalizable criteria or categorical nonenforcement practices, such as the policies some reformist prosecutors have adopted that disfavor prosecuting marijuana possession or abortion offenses or seeking the death penalty.

This Article is the first to identify and critically examine the myth of individualized enforcement. It draws on a review of historical evidence and research on contemporary prosecutorial practices to show that prosecutors have long engaged in categorical nonenforcement in relation to vice laws, property offenses, and even certain areas of violent crime enforcement. By situating reformist prosecutors’ policies within this broader context, the Article exposes how the myth of individualized enforcement has been weaponized to delegitimize reform efforts while shielding conventional prosecutors from scrutiny.

The Article also excavates the deeper distinctions between reformist and conventional approaches to categorical nonenforcement that the myth of individualized enforcement serves to hide from view. Reformist prosecutors tend to adopt centralized, formal, and transparent nonenforcement policies that aim to redistribute the benefits of prosecutorial leniency to historically marginalized groups. Conventional prosecutors, in contrast, have often dispensed categorical leniency in an informal, covert manner and in contexts that tend to reproduce existing hierarchies of race, class, and gender. By surfacing these divergences, the Article aims to reorient academic and political discourse about prosecutorial reform toward the more constructive end of evaluating different visions of discretionary justice and the institutional structures that will best align prosecutorial power with democratic values.

WASH. U. L. REV. — (forthcoming 2025)

By: Temple, Kathryn D.

A history of legal emotions in William Blackstone’s England and their relationship to justice William Blackstone’s masterpiece, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), famously took the “ungodly jumble” of English law and transformed it into an elegant and easily transportable four-volume summary. Soon after publication, the work became an international monument not only to English law, but to universal English concepts of justice and what Blackstone called “the immutable laws of good and evil.” Most legal historians regard the Commentaries as a brilliant application of Enlightenment reasoning to English legal history. Loving Justice contends that Blackstone’s work extends beyond making sense of English law to invoke emotions such as desire, disgust, sadness, embarrassment, terror, tenderness, and happiness. By enlisting an affective aesthetics to represent English law as just, Blackstone created an evocative poetics of justice whose influence persists across the Western world. In doing so, he encouraged readers to feel as much as reason their way to justice. Ultimately, Temple argues that the Commentaries offers a complex map of our affective relationship to juridical culture, one that illuminates both individual and communal understandings of our search for justice, and is crucial for understanding both justice and injustice today.

New York: NYU Press, 2019.

By Jensen Hughes

 At the request of the Columbus (Ohio) Division of Police (CDP), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) conducted an independent review of the CDP via the COPS Office Collaborative Reform Initiative – Critical Response Program. This review was focused on the CDP’s use of force (UOF) policies, procedures, operational protocols, training, data collection and reporting processes, and community engagement related to UOF oversight and investigations. The CDP has experienced major changes in senior leadership, with the hiring of an external chief in June 2021 followed by a significant turnover in senior command staff. This influx of new leadership created an opportunity to undertake a critical analysis of the division’s operations with an eye toward improving transparency and improving relationships between the CDP and the community. In addition to the CDP’s leadership change, the division experienced a significant operational change in February 2022 when the Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) voted—and the mayor confirmed—the appointment of an inspector general to investigate allegations of police misconduct and excessive UOF by members of the CDP. During the Critical Response review process, CDP leadership demonstrated a genuine interest in engaging in this collaborative effort as a means not only to gauge the organization's UOF practices but also to capitalize on this opportunity as a catalyst for cultural change in the organization. The COPS Office tasked Jensen Hughes with assisting the CDP through this review process. The intent of the review is to assist the CDP in determining the extent to which its current use of force policies, procedures, practices, and associated training align with what is considered best or emerging practices in policing consistent with modern policing principles and standards. It should be noted that the scope of this review did not include an in-depth review of officer-involved shootings. This category of UOF was excluded since all officer-involved shootings in the city of Columbus are investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations and not handled internally and this inquiry is focused on internal CDP UOF processes. The ultimate goals of this Critical Response assistance the COPS Office and Jensen Hughes are providing to the CDP are to (1) increase public trust and community and officer safety and (2) support effective, contemporary, and innovative policing practices through improvements in training, policy, transparency, professionalism, and accountability related to CDP officers’ UOF. To assist the CDP in realizing these goals, the Jensen Hughes team focused on two objectives: 1. Identifying operational practices the CDP currently employs that ensure any UOF by the agency’s personnel is – – compliant with local, state, and federal law and constitutional protections; appropriately documented; – – – – 2. subject to thorough supervisory review; compliant with current policies and standard operating procedures; consistent with current agency training; as transparent as possible, both internally and externally, to community and agency stakeholders; Identifying areas in which the CDP’s policies, procedures, protocols, and data collection and reporting processes could benefit from potential changes or updates that align with – – – – national standards; best practices; current and emerging research; community expectations.   

Collaborative Reform Initiative Critical Response. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.  2024. 58p.

By William A. Galston

Author and Publication: Written by William A. Galston, "Justice and theHuman Good" was published by The University of Chicago Press in 1980.

Main Themes: The book explores justice and the human good, discussing utopian thought, elements of the human good, and principles of justice.

Philosophical Approach: Galston adopts aquasi-Aristotelian approach, integrating ethical naturalism and Aristotle's analysis of justice.

Critical Reception: The book includes extensive critiques and responses to various philosophical arguments, aiming to address contemporary political and moral issues.

University of Chicago, 1980, 324 pages

By Jonathan Gu

AIM To estimate the association between judge-alone trials and the probability of acquittal, trial length, and sentence severity. METHOD We compared 5,064 jury and 805 judge-alone criminal trials finalised in the NSW District Court and Supreme Court between January 2011 and December 2019, excluding cases where the defendant entered a guilty plea to their principal offence or had a special verdict of “not guilty by reason of mental illness” (under s. 25 of the Mental Health (Forensic Provisions) Act 1990 (NSW)). Entropy balancing was used to match judge-alone cases with jury cases on available covariates. We then estimated the association between trial type (judge-alone vs jury) and four criminal justice outcomes, adjusting for relevant observable factors. The analysis was repeated for two subsets of offences: violent offences and offences with a higher likelihood of having prejudicial elements or complex evidence (prejudicial and complex offences). We also interviewed 12 legal practitioners, including District and Supreme Court judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers, to identify factors motivating judge-alone applications that may be correlated with the outcomes of interest. RESULTS We estimated that compared to jury trials, judge-alone trials are associated on average with a statistically significant nine percentage point increase in the probability of acquittal and a shorter prison sentence by 7.6 months. Within prejudicial and complex offences, we found that judge-alone trials were associated with a statistically significant decrease in average trial days. Judge-alone trials were also associated with a statistically significant decrease in prison sentence length for the violent offences subgroup. Interviewees suggested that increased use of written submissions may influence both shorter trial length in judgealone matters and reduced prison sentences (i.e., via discounts from efficiencies resulting from pre-trial cooperation or time saved by submitting tendered evidence). Interviewees stated that judge-alone applications in NSW are mostly made in cases with prejudicial elements (e.g., evidence that cannot be separated from prior proven offending) or complex evidence (e.g., cases with substantial scientific or financial evidence). CONCLUSION Judge-alone trials are associated with an increased probability of acquittal, shorter trials, and a shorter prison sentence. However, we cannot determine whether these differences are driven by confounding factors (such as strength of the prosecution’s case) and/or causal factors.

Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2024. 49p.

By Julie Marie Baldwin, John M. Eassey, and Erika J. Brooke

This paper reviews the distinct nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and examines the resultant court responses and recommendations disseminated by various entities that support courts. Specifically, we contextualize the current environment the present pandemic has created by considering how it compares to the most-recent previous pandemics. We then review guidelines disseminated to the courts and the modifications and innovations implemented by the courts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional challenges related to these recommendations and modifications are identified and discussed.

American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2020. 16p.

By Megan Comfort, Jenn Rineer, Elizabeth Tibaduiza, and Monica Sheppard

The “pretrial process” refers to the events that happen between the time that one is suspected by law enforcement of violating the law and the time that charges are dismissed, the case is otherwise resolved, or the trial process begins. During the pretrial period, people are considered innocent under the law. The U.S. Supreme Court1 has stated, “In our society, liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception.” The only two constitutionally valid reasons for holding someone in jail during the pretrial period are (1) to prevent flight or (2) to prevent harm to people in the community. Judges make decisions every day about whether to detain or release people going through the pretrial process, as well as about what conditions of release may be needed to help people succeed. Pretrial release assessments are designed to inform their decisions. Unlike assessments that involve a clinician or other professional drawing on their subjective expertise to make a recommendation, actuarial pretrial release assessmentsa rely on mathematical processes. Using large data sets with information about people who previously went through the pretrial process, researchers identify factors related to appearing for court hearings and not being arrested again if released. The researchers then create a sequence of instructions for a computer to follow (called an algorithm) that uses these factors to calculate an estimated likelihood that a person will appear in court and remain arrest free while their case is being resolved. This calculation—referred to as a “score”—is provided to the judge as information to consider when making decisions about pretrial release. A person’s score is also often provided as information to other courtroom actors, such as prosecutors, defense attorneys, and pretrial services officers. When thinking about actuarial pretrial release assessments, it is important to understand the history of the criminal legal system in the United States, which is deeply rooted in the legacy of slavery. Read Race and the Criminal Justice System2 by the Equal Justice Initiative to learn more. No actuarial pretrial release assessment tool or instrument is considered standard. Numerous assessments have been developed, and they vary in terms of the factors and instructions entered in the algorithm. Some use factors that are available through criminal legal system records, such as whether someone has been arrested before or has previously missed a court date. Others include factors like whether someone has a job, is enrolled in a substance use treatment program, or has a place to live. This information is usually obtained by talking with the person who has been arrested. At the time of this writing, pretrial release assessments use algorithms that are created by humans as opposed to ones that are generated by machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI). It is possible that future assessments will rely on AI, which would raise a different set of issues to consider. The use of actuarial pretrial release assessments is growing across the United States. Often, they are an element of broader system change aimed at reducing or eliminating the use of cash bonds, which require people to post money to be released from jail. Judges may consider the actuarial pretrial release assessment score when deciding what conditions of release—for instance, electronic monitoring or mandatory check-ins with pretrial services—are appropriate for a person. In systems that retain money bond as a potential release condition, assessments are sometimes used to inform decisions about bond amounts, but the impact on release is lessened if people remain in jail because they cannot afford to pay their way out. Judges may also use the score as part of their decision about whether to keep someone in jail or release them while their case is pending

APPR Research Brief, April 2024. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2024. 5p.

By Harry Annison, Kate Paradine

In this article we sketch a vision that might guide academic and third sector collaboration. We do so by drawing on a project that involved collaboration with a range of stakeholders, in order to stimulate ongoing discussion about how academics and the third sector might work together to seek positive change. Our findings show that there are keenly felt challenges, but also a sense of resilient optimism. A key finding among our stakeholders was a sense that there is an absence of an overarching shared vision, which was experienced by many of our respondents as consequential. Therefore, in the spirit of constructive provocation we set out such a vision, which was collaboratively developed with our respondents: opening a dialogue, rather than providing a conclusive position.

Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, May 2024 (early view)

Edited by Murdoch Watney

The chapters in this volume focus on the future of law and related disciplines: human rights and access to medical care, corruption and money laundering in state procurement, counterfeit medical products, IPR waiver on COVID-19 vaccines, emergency powers, freedom of expression, prison healthcare, the impact on labour law, access to courts and digital court processes, access to education and the impact on insurance law are but a few possible topics which are addressed.

Johannesburg, UJ Press, 2022. 288p.

By American Bar Association Working Group on Building Public Trust in the American Justice System

Released in June 2020, this Report provides a comprehensive overview of the role private companies play throughout the criminal justice system and how the use of these private companies impacts low-income individuals moving through the system. The Report summarizes research done by other entities, academics, journalists, and activists on specific aspects of privatization. The organization of the report tracks the sequence of a typical accused individual's experiences in the criminal justice system following arrest, demonstrating how costs compound as the individual moves through the system.

The Report acknowledges that courts and other government entities sometimes need to import expertise they lack, but it urges governments to recognize how low-income individuals too often can be relentlessly ensnared in the criminal justice system, not because they engage in ongoing criminal activity, but because they cannot pay the debts imposed by the system itself. Too often, by hiring private companies to handle what were previously governmental functions in the criminal justice system, government agencies exacerbate the cycle of mandatory fees, nonpayment, and consequent additional fees. Far too frequently, government authorities allow private companies to operate in the criminal justice system with little or no oversight and to charge fees untethered to actual costs.

The Report urges the ABA to adopt specific policy on the privatization of services in the criminal justice system, as well as to promote the policies, already in existence, calling for careful limitations on fines and fees.

Chicago: ABA, 2020. 36p.

By The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Data Lab

The Conviction Integrity Unit (“CIU”) was established in 2018 by District Attorney Larry Krasner. The CIU’s predecessor, the Conviction Review Unit (“CRU”), which was established in 2014, had operated for a number of years with only a small staff and a narrow mandate. The CRU only reviewed claims of actual innocence, and rarely undertook investigations into whether new evidence existed that could prove those claims. Cases where the defendant had confessed were largely excluded from consideration, as if false confessions (which occur in a quarter of DNA exonerations nationally) were always reliable. Today, the CIU is an independent unit within the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, reporting directly to the District Attorney, and involved in one out of every ten homicide exonerations in the country. When District Attorney Krasner transformed the unit from the CRU to the CIU, he immediately tasked it with a broader mandate: not only to review past convictions for credible claims of actual innocence but also to review claims of wrongful conviction and secondarily to consider sentencing inequities. Early in his first term, District Attorney Krasner merged the CIU with the Office’s Special Investigations Unit (“SIU”). The two units share a common focus on investigating official misconduct, and their cases frequently overlap. However, as the CIU and SIU personnel have grown and expanded their caseloads, the units were separated in the summer of 2020 to better accommodate each unit’s mission

The CIU’s mission is to ensure that justice is served by prosecutors at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and to remedy the Office’s wrongful convictions. Pennsylvania prosecutors have limited post-con viction discretion in general and they have no legal authority to set aside convictions in the interest of justice. Since CIU prosecutors cannot unilaterally dismiss an existing conviction or free anyone we believe to be wrongfully incarcerated, the CIU makes a recommendation to the court that the petitioner be granted a new trial whenever its independent investigation leads it to conclude that a conviction lacks integrity. If warranted, the CIU will move to withdraw the charges against the petitioner or reduce the charges so that an equitable sentence can be imposed. In cases that are ultimately withdrawn or dismissed, the CIU will investigate and prosecute the actual perpetrator where feasible. However, given the inherent difficulties involved in investigating decades-old crimes where the original investigation was either botched or inadequate, identifying the real perpetrator and bringing that person to justice may be impossible. To date, the Philadelphia Police Department has declined to re-open and re-investigate old cases following exonerations. For example, Walter Ogrod was exonerated of a 1988 murder in 2020. While investigating the case, the CIU identified two alternate suspects. As of almost a year after Ogrod’s exoneration, however, police had not even begun the process of re-opening the underlying murder case. Additionally, the CIU believes that conviction integrity is more than simply fixing past mistakes and exposing misconduct. It also requires policies and processes to prevent future injustices. With this aim, the CIU helps craft office-wide policies and trainings designed to reduce the number of future wrongful convictions.

This report encompasses exonerations, commutations, and sentencing adjustments from January 1, 2018 through June 15, 2021. This report includes data on cases submitted to the CIU, active investigations, cases declined or closed, and cases awaiting review that are accurate as of May 31, 2021. Experts who have opined on the issue of best practices for conviction integrity units agree that in order to increase public understanding of and trust in such units, offices should publish annual reports detailing the results of their conviction and case reviews and actions taken. This report is the first report issued by the CIU under District Attorney Krasner and is a first-term report, rather than an annual report. Although annual reports were contemplated, they were postponed as a result of multiple factors ,including lack of resources, internal technology deficits, case load, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Data Lab. 2021. 47p.

By Kuc, Oktawian

Recent decades have brought international and municipal courts much closer together and induced meaningful cooperation. This holds true also for the International Court of Justice and domestic judicial institutions as they engage actively in an inter-judicial dialogue, particularly on the normative level. Due to the impact of globalisation and internationalisation, the World Court has expanded its jurisprudence to also accommodate references and analysis of external judicial organs and their pronouncements. Likewise, ICJ decisions are referred to and consulted by municipal courts as authoritative statements of international norms or assistance in fact determination. This monograph examines this inter-judicial dialogue in a comprehensive manner by identifying and analysing all its aspects as evidenced in respective jurisprudence. Surprisingly, the mutual conversation in judicial decisions between the World Court and national judicial institutions has drawn little attention from international legal scholarship, and the book is designed to fill this lacuna.

New York; London: Routledge, 2022.

By Rebecca Tiger

The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call “enlightened coercion,” detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both “sick” and “bad.” Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a “progressive” and “enlightened” approach to addiction. She critiques the medicalization of drug users, showing how the disease designation can complement, rather than contradict, punitive approaches, demonstrating that these courts are neither unprecedented nor unique, and that they contain great potential to expand punitive control over drug users. Tiger argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and punitive approaches—that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Judging Addicts presses policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance use that remove its control entirely from the criminal justice system and ultimately explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today.

New York; London: NYU Press,  2012