By The Police Executive Research Forum

In 2022, the Department of Justice released updated guidance on Improving Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence by Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias. This guidance is designed to help law enforcement agencies recognize, mitigate, and prevent gender bias and other biases from compromising the response to, and investigation of, sexual assault, domestic violence, and other forms of gender-based violence. The guidance provides a set of eight basic principles that – if integrated into LEAs’ policies, training, and practices – help ensure that gender bias, either intentionally or unintentionally, does not undermine efforts to keep survivors safe and hold offenders accountable.

Washington, DC: PERF, 2022. 36p.

By Mona Lynch and Emily V. Shaw

Building on research demonstrating significant differences in how Black and White Americans view law enforcement, this study assesses how views of police shape potential jurors’ decision-making. The authors conclude that it is critical that citizens are not prevented from being seated on juries due to skepticism about police, given the risk of disproportionate exclusion of Black potential jurors. The legal processes relevant to juror excusals need to be reconsidered to ensure that views of police, rooted in actual experience or knowledge about the problems with fair and just policing, are not used to disproportionately exclude persons of color, or to seat juries overrepresented by people who blindly trust police. A sample of 649 Black and White jury-eligible U.S. citizens were exposed a federal drug conspiracy case in which the primary evidence against the defendant is provided by an FBI agent and an informant cooperating with the agent, in which a Black defendant is being tried, and where the informant-witness race (Black or White) was varied. Participants determined verdict, evaluated evidence, and completed additional measures. Results indicated that Black participants were significantly less likely to convict than White participants, especially in the White informant condition; rated the law enforcement witness as less credible; and viewed police more negatively across three composite measures. Exploratory analysis of how juror race and gender interacted indicates Black women largely drove racial differences in verdicts. Perceptions of police legitimacy mediated the relationship between juror race and verdict choice

Race and Justice Volume: Online Dated: 2023 Pages: 1-25

Edited by Chris Cunneen, Antje Deckert, Amanda Porter, Juan Tauri and Robert Webb

The Routledge International Handbook on Decolonizing Justice focuses on the growing worldwide movement aimed at decolonizing state policies and practices, and various disciplinary knowledges including criminology, social work and law. The collection of original chapters brings together cutting-edge, politically engaged work from a diverse group of writers who take as a starting point an analysis founded in a decolonizing, decolonial and/or Indigenous standpoint. Centering the perspectives of Black, First Nations and other racialized and minoritized peoples, the book makes an internationally significant contribution to the literature.

The chapters include analyses of specific decolonization policies and interventions instigated by communities to enhance jurisdictional self-determination; theoretical approaches to decolonization; the importance of research and research ethics as a key foundation of the decolonization process; crucial contemporary issues including deaths in custody, state crime, reparations, and transitional justice; and critical analysis of key institutions of control, including police, courts, corrections, child protection systems and other forms of carcerality.

The handbook is divided into five sections which reflect the breadth of the decolonizing literature:

• Why decolonization? From the personal to the global

• State terror and violence

• Abolishing the carceral

• Transforming and decolonizing justice

• Disrupting epistemic violence

This book offers a comprehensive and timely resource for activists, students, academics, and those with an interest in Indigenous studies, decolonial and post-colonial studies, criminal legal institutions and criminology. It provides critical commentary and analyses of the major issues for enhancing social justice internationally.

London; New York: Routledge, 571p.

by Duren Banks, Lynn Langton, Madison Fann, Michael G. Planty, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Brian A. Jackson, Dulani Woods

The systems that provide counsel for indigent adult and juvenile defendants in the United States vary considerably across states, localities, and judicial jurisdictions. In addition to the challenges associated with the myriad systems for providing indigent defense, there are other inherent challenges to providing effective defense counsel. These challenges include a lack of sufficient resources in general, access to investigators and other support staff, workload standards and other standards to support effective representation, strategies to support the recruitment and retention of quality counsel dedicated to indigent defense, and specialized training and other needs related to the provision of public defense with certain clients or cases.

On behalf of the National Institute of Justice, RTI International and RAND Corporation researchers conducted an environmental scan to develop a set of information gaps or research priorities that, if addressed, could advance knowledge around effective indigent defense strategies. In the scan, the researchers (1) explored the literature around the needs of the indigent defense field, (2) obtained input from leading practitioners through individual interviews, group discussion, and interactive feedback, and (3) reviewed the priorities of federal and private research and practitioner organizations.

Key Findings

• There is a lack of basic descriptive data about indigent defendants (e.g., which defendants have lawyers representing them and which are deprived of lawyers).

• Many jurisdictions are not equipped to provide pre-court or pre-charge representation.

• Excessive caseloads have an impact on the quality of representation, the ability to adhere to professional practice standards, and client-attorney relationships; that impact is not well understood.

• In some jurisdictions, there is limited or no access to attorneys with the qualifications, experience, and desire needed to represent people in criminal cases who are unable to afford counsel.

• In many jurisdictions, particularly rural communities, there is limited or inconsistent access to the nonattorney case support needed to provide quality indigent defense representation.

• It is difficult to hire qualified and diverse indigent defense attorneys.

• Because of the differing systems for assigning counsel across the United States, many defendants who are accused of misdemeanors or other lower-level crimes do not receive the assistance of counsel when facing pretrial detention or fines, fees, or other penalties associated with a guilty plea.

• There is a lack of understanding about the extent to which the racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds of indigent defense attorneys affect the experiences of the clients they serve.

• Emerging research shows that holistic defense strategies, which address co-occurring and collateral factors associated with criminal cases, hold promise for advancing justice and improving outcomes for individuals and communities.

Recommendations

• Require courts to collect descriptive data on which defendants have representation; leverage this information to answer research questions.

• Assess innovative options used in some jurisdictions to provide earlier access to a lawyer.

• Examine areas with different levels of caseloads and examine the differences across a broad variety of outcomes and impacts and for different types of clients and cases.

• Conduct research that offers a more nuanced understanding of the administration of indigent defense in small, rural areas.

• Conduct research to identify the impacts of nonattorney case support on case outcomes.

• Explore strategies for expanding access to paraprofessional expertise.

• Study other systems that are working well.

• Conduct research on the scope of rules, practices, and resource decisions that limit access to counsel.

• Obtain client perspectives on differences in the level and quality of representation received through public defense and noninstitutional representation systems; focus on reducing those differences.

• Conduct research to identify the full scope of issues that make it difficult to recruit qualified and diverse attorneys.

• Develop undergraduate and law school internship programs and defense counsel pipelines.

• Evaluate training opportunities; determine whether training is effective and under what circumstances.

• Conduct research on the complexities that public defense attorneys face and the support and resources needed to successfully manage these complexities.

• Engage with defendants to get their perspectives on what quality counsel means and how it is operationalized.

• Conduct research to connect outcomes with what indigent defense attorneys are doing to understand the types of engagement that are most effective.

• Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023. 20p.

By Kaman Maxine Clarke

Since its inception in 2001, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been met with resistance by various African states and their leaders, who see the court as a new iteration of colonial violence and control. In Affective Justice Kamari Maxine Clarke explores the African Union's pushback against the ICC in order to theorize affect's role in shaping forms of justice in the contemporary period. Drawing on fieldwork in The Hague, the African Union in Addis Ababa, sites of post-election violence in Kenya, and Boko Haram's circuits in Northern Nigeria, Clarke formulates the concept of affective justice—an emotional response to competing interpretations of justice—to trace how affect becomes manifest in judicial practices. By detailing the effects of the ICC’s all-African indictments, she outlines how affective responses to these call into question the "objectivity" of the ICC’s mission to protect those victimized by violence and prosecute perpetrators of those crimes. In analyzing the effects of such cases, Clarke provides a fuller theorization of how people articulate what justice is and the mechanisms through which they do so.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. 384p.

By Stacey J. Bosick

An analysis of felony cases accepted for prosecution by the Denver District Attorney’s Office in the City and County of Denver REPORT HIGHLIGHTS: • The researcher found racial and ethnic differences across three of the four points of prosecutorial discretion examined: dismissals, deferred judgments, and referrals to drug court. • There was no evidence of racial and ethnic differences in plea offers, the fourth point of prosecutorial discretion examined. • Results of the study demonstrate a persistent set of disadvantages faced by Black and Hispanic defendants. • The findings point to the importance of increasing structures and processes to support racial justice, including collecting and examining data across multiple points of prosecutorial discretion.

Denver: University of Denver, 2021. 44p.

By John F. MacLeod, Peter G. Grove, and David P. Farrington

Explaining Criminal Careers presents a simple quantitative theory of crime, conviction and reconviction, the assumptions of the theory are derived directly from a detailed analysis of cohort samples drawn from the “UK Home Office” Offenders Index (OI). Mathematical models based on the theory, together with population trends, are used to make: exact quantitative predictions of features of criminal careers; aggregate crime levels; the prison population; and to explain the age-crime curve, alternative explanations are shown not to be supported by the data. Previous research is reviewed, clearly identifying the foundations of the current work. Using graphical techniques to identify mathematical regularities in the data, recidivism (risk) and frequency (rate) of conviction are analysed and modelled. These models are brought together to identify three categories of offender: high-risk / high-rate, high-risk / low-rate and low-risk / low-rate. The theory is shown to rest on just 6 basic assumptions. Within this theoretical framework the seriousness of offending, specialisation or versatility in offence types and the psychological characteristics of offenders are all explored suggesting that the most serious offenders are a random sample from the risk/rate categories but that those with custody later in their careers are predominantly high-risk/high-rate. In general offenders are shown to be versatile rather than specialist and can be categorised using psychological profiles. The policy implications are drawn out highlighting the importance of conviction in desistance from crime and the absence of any…..

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  additional deterrence effect of imprisonment. The use of the theory in evaluation of interventions is demonstrated.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 273p.

 Edited by: Sinclair Dinnen , Anita Jowitt, Tess Newton

With their rich traditions of conflict resolution and peacemaking, the Pacific Islands provide a fertile environment for developing new approaches to crime and conflict. Interactions between formal justice systems and informal methods of dispute resolution contain useful insights for policy makers and others interested in socially attuned resolutions to the problems of order that are found increasingly in the Pacific Islands as elsewhere. Contributors to this volume include Pacific Islanders from Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea including Bougainville, as well as outsiders with a longstanding interest in the region. They come from a variety of backgrounds and include criminal justice practitioners, scholars, traditional leaders and community activists. The chapters deal with conflict in a variety of contexts, from interpersonal disputes within communities to large-scale conflicts between communities. This is a book not only of stories but also of practical models that combine different traditions in creative ways and that offer the prospect of building more sustainable resolutions to crime and conflict.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2010. 324p.

By Errol P. Mendes

This text provides an analysis of the greatest challenge facing the International Criminal Court - a reconcilliation of the demands for justice for the most serious crimes known to humanity. The author argues that the Court is a product of centuries of efforts to reconcile peace with justice. The Court as offspring of centuries of peace with justice -- Is it peace or justice that ends the alleged first genocide of the 21st century? -- Is it peace, justice or a military solution in the tragedy of Northern Uganda? -- Reconciling peace with justice in the ICC through positive international complementarity -- The future of the Court : reassuring Africa, investigating Gaza, integrating America and seeking help from global finance.

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2010. 215p.

By William Godwin

…and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness. 4th ed.. in 2 Volumes. Vol. l. Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness is a 1793 book by the philosopher William Godwin, in which the author outlines his political philosophy. It is the first modern work to expound anarchism.

London: J. Watson, 1912. 244p.