By Ian Mynot and Oksana Ihnatenko\

On 15 November 2024, RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security and the Center for Financial Integrity (CFI)1 launched a Taskforce on Public–Private Partnership in Fighting Financial Crime in Ukraine. An in-person meeting in Warsaw, held on a non-attributable basis, convened 40 representatives, including those from the public and private sectors in Ukraine, and international experts. The discussion included two sessions focused on the current state of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in Ukraine and on international experience and recommendations. This report summarises the main findings of each of these sessions. None of the discussions at the meeting are attributable.

London: The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies RUSI, 2025. 15p.

In September 2024, after 56 years under a sentence of death, Hakamada Iwao was acquitted in a retrial in Japan. This article summarizes what went wrong in his wrongful conviction case and what should be learned from it. The Shizuoka District Court’s retrial decision concluded that police and prosecutors conspired to frame Hakamada with evidence they had fabricated, but there is more to the case than that. This tragedy occurred because of mistakes and misconduct that were exacerbated by underlying weaknesses in Japan’s criminal process. To prevent a recurrence, many things need to change in Japanese criminal justice. The conclusion identifies five priorities for reform.

The Asia Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 22 | Issue 11 | Number 3 | Article ID 5872 | Nov. 30, 2024

By Siobhan Lawler, Hayley Boxall, Christopher Dowling

Research evaluating restorative justice programs for domestic and family violence and sexual violence is limited in Australia and internationally. In 2019 the AIC was commissioned to evaluate the Australian Capital Territory’s Restorative Justice Scheme for domestic and family violence and sexual violence (‘Phase Three’). The evaluation examined the process and outcomes of Phase Three, including barriers to delivery, activities delivered and outcomes associated with participation. A range of data was examined, including interviews with participants (n=16) and stakeholders (n=47), analysis of post-conference surveys (n=28) and analysis of administrative and reoffending data. The evaluation demonstrated Phase Three is working effectively overall. Participants and stakeholders report high levels of satisfaction with Phase Three and the service they received. There was evidence that victim-survivors could meet a range of justice needs with varying levels of offender participation and accountability. Some areas for improving referrals were identified.

Research Report no. 33.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 185p.

By Brandon L. Garrett and Luke Mears

After 44 years in prison for a conviction of rape in the small town of Concord, North Carolina, Ronnie Long was released from prison in 2021. Four months later, the Governor granted him a full pardon on the grounds of innocence. That pardon made it possible to obtain compensation from a state commission, which awarded Long $750,000. This amount was the maximum available under state law that permitted compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration, but with an upper limit of $750,000. After his exoneration, Long also filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court. This federal case against the city settled for $22 million in 2024. Long also received $3 million from the North Carolina State Crime Lab as a result of its “role in hiding evidence from Mr. Long and his legal team that proved his innocence.” This substantial settlement made Long Compensating Exonerees in the United States highly unusual among exonerees in the United States. Most exonerees, if they are compensated, received something more along the lines of the $50,000 per year available under the state law that initially compensated Long, and nothing more. Many exonerees receive no compensation at all. Academics have long criticized the traditional lack of compensation for wrongful conviction in the United States. In 1932, Edwin Borchard wrote that the United States needed national legislation regarding compensation for wrongful convictions. For many decades, no such legislation existed, however. Civil rights litigation, like the case brought by Long, was uncommon, and compensation under statutory schemes was similarly rare. This changed once exonerations became much more common, including those based on post-conviction DNA evidence, in the 1990s. In general, many of the exonerees that have received substantial compensation, like Ronnie Long, have brought civil rights lawsuits in federal, not state court. For example, of the first 250 DNA exonerees, 60% received some type of compensation, and of those, half of them obtained it in federal court. However, exonerees are increasingly seeeking compensation under state compensation statutes. In this fact sheet, we describe how compensation for exonerees has evolved in the past several decades, including through successful litigation efforts and through the enactment of compensation legislation, in thirty-nine states, Washington D.C., and by the federal government. We summarize each of these state and federal statutes in the table at the end of this document. To date, 39 states have enacted such compensation statutes, in addition to Washington D.C. and the federal government. In addition, five of the remaining 11 states currently have pending legislation on the issue. The figure below shows which jurisdictions have these statutes currently, and which have legislation pending.

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, 2024. 20p.

By Sarah Monaghan, Kellyann Bock, Michael Rempel, & Olive Lu

Spanning more than four decades, how has the footprint of New York’s criminal legal system changed? This comprehensive report explores the changing landscape of law enforcement in New York State from 1980 to 2023. It analyzes trends in arrests, prosecutorial declinations, criminal convictions, and sentencing practices, with a focus on regional and racial disparities.

Key Takeaways

● Statewide Arrest Trends

● After varying patterns by charge and region from 1980 to 2010, arrest rates declined significantly from 2010 to 2020, with a modest resurgence from 2020 to 2023.

● Misdemeanor arrests in NYC increased nearly fourfold from 1980 to 2010, dropped by 75% from 2010 to 2020 but rose by 40% from 2020 to 2023.

● Felony arrests decreased across all regions from 1980 to 2020, with a modest uptick in recent years.

● Charge-Specific Arrest Patterns

● Drug arrests in NYC peaked at over 128,000 in 2000, before falling to under 18,000 in 2023.

● Prostitution and fare evasion arrests in NYC saw drastic declines. Prostitution declined 99% from 1985 to 2023, and fare evasion declined 99% from 1994 to 2021, before a 2021-to-2023 uptick.

● DUI remained a leading charge outside NYC, comprising 18%-19% of suburban and upstate misdemeanors in 2023.

● Prosecutorial Declinations

● After changing only modestly until 2017, district attorneys’ offices in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn declined to prosecute increasing numbers of low level misdemeanor arrests from 2017 to 2023.

● Select low level arrests for transit fare evasion, prostitution, trespass, and marijuana possession saw especially significant increases in declinations in the Bronx, Manhattan, and/or Brooklyn.

● Sentencing Trends: Jail and prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies peaked around 2000 before decreasing significantly by 2023. Violent felony convictions increasingly resulted in prison sentences across all regions.

● Racial and Ethnic Disparities: While shrinking in some areas since 1980 (e.g., felony arrest disparities narrowed), the study found that sizable Black-white and Hispanic-white disparities on most metrics examined.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2024. 45p.

By Chris Tully

JENGbA facilitated a series of Listening Days with the families and friends of those impacted by Joint Enterprise (JE). Between October 2023 and May 2024 four such days took place in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield. The days were attended by 41 family members and friends. Each listening day focussed on five themes; knowledge of JE and when they were first aware their loved ones were to be charged under joint enterprise, the impact on them and their communities following conviction, racism and the gang narrative, role of the media, developing support networks and the fightback against the injustice of joint enterprise. Families reported having little or no previous knowledge of JE and in a considerable number of cases only found out immediately prior to, or during the trial and in some cases not until the judges’ summing up. Inevitably the impact was profound. We heard of the toll on peoples’ physical and mental health, the damage done to family relationships, the breakdown of relationships with neighbours and members of their local communities, often based on stigma, a suspicion that there is ‘no smoke without fire’ and a general lack of awareness amongst the general public of how JE is applied. A lack of independent, accessible information, support and guidance at the point of charging was seen as a fundamental problem for families confronting a trial. Families expressed anger towards the role of the police, often seen as complicit with the Crown Prosecution Service, in using JE as a blunt instrument to “round up” and prosecute young people particularly on the basis of race, class, family name and by dint of neighbourhood. Participants in the conversations also had poor experiences with lawyers citing; a lack of experience, little or no expertise in JE cases, little empathy, a reluctance to share. information and documents. The experiences of trials were predicated on similar concerns. We heard families describe juries who appeared unaware of what guilty verdicts in JE cases meant for defendants, judges who were dismissive of evidence, and concerns that juries rarely reflected the diversity of the cities and towns where trials were taking place. A key concern was disproportionate use of JE in relation to black and racialised communities, working class communities and children and young people. Often underpinning this was the use of a gang narrative to justify charging and prosecution. Families were angered by the speed with which the gang narrative was introduced into proceedings and why this was applied when association was actually founded on living in the same neighbourhood, shared interests such as music and sport, school friendships etc. As such JE was seen as both “lazy” and susceptible to stereotyping and demonisation. Many we heard from had experienced unacceptable treatment at the hands of the media. Commonly this is presented as malign or inaccurate reporting, geared towards racism, blame often attributed to parents and especially mothers. Some felt the media and police worked hand in hand to perpetuate moral panics. Retractions of inaccurate reporting were hard to come by and we also heard how images of families’ children were used repeatedly by local press, sometimes years later, to highlight youth crime or gang violence. The most positive conversations revolved around the value of family relationships as a buffer against the isolation of having a loved one sentenced under JE. Additionally a community of interest has been forged by the work of JENGbA, without which many felt they would have collapsed under the weight of trying to support loved ones and sustain other relationships. JENGbA have provided support, information, understanding and access to a group of people who share campaigning zeal and a desire to put an end to the misuse of a legal doctrine that punishes many more people than ‘just’ those it imprisons.

London: Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association,

2024. 28p.

By Natasha Brown

On September 18, 2022, 42-year-old Shannon Brandt hit and killed 18-year old Cayler Ellingson with his SUV following a heated altercation in McHenry, North Dakota. Brandt admitted to the crime and “was charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death.” Despite court documents revealing Brandt’s past DUI history, “unlawful possession of alcohol and fleeing a peace officer on foot”, two days later, on September 20, 2022, Brandt was released from custody after posting $50,000 bail. On September 12, 2022, 42-year-old Ivan Cheung was “charged with aggravated rape (four counts), aggravated rape of a child (four counts), and aggravated statutory rape (two counts)” in Boston Massachusetts. Sixteen days later, on September 28, 2022, Cheung walked out of Boston Municipal Court after posting a $200,000 bail. In contrast, in March of 2016, 31-year-old Jessica Preston was arrested for driving with a suspended license in Macomb County, Michigan. Despite being eight months pregnant, the judge gave her the choice of going to jail until she received a hearing date, or come up with $10,000 for bail. Preston did not have the financial resources to make bail and as a result was put in jail. Five days later, Preston went into labor. When the jail staff refused to call an ambulance, Preston had no choice but to give birth on a mat lying on the jailhouse floor. These three stories above reveal that despite the wide range of crimes that were committed, the determining factor to secure the pretrial release of a murderer, a rapist, and a traffic violator was money. While Shannon Brandt and Ivan Cheung were charged with violent crimes, they were both released because they had the means to pay their bail. In contrast, Jessica Preston who was arrested for a non-violent crime remained in pretrial detention because she could not afford to pay her way out. Ending a decades long system that bases someone’s freedom off of access to money requires collective collaboration between advocates across political lines who are ready to implement change. On January 22, 2021, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity Today Act, otherwise known as the SAFE-T Act (“Act”). Within the SAFE-T Act is the Pretrial Fairness Act (“PFA”) which eliminated cash bail in Illinois. While states like California and New Jersey have passed similar cash bail reform laws, Illinois is the first state in the country to abolish the cash bail system entirely. This bill affirms the notion that people accused of crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty and their release is not based on their access to monetary funds. Those in opposition claim the SAFE-T Act will be the beginning stages of The Purge, the infamous movie where all crime is legal for 12 hours. Critics against the Act have promoted misinformation leading many to believe that violent people will be released into the neighborhoods and cause chaos among communities. This comment explores how the implementation of the PFA does not impose a threat to the safety of Illinois residents, but rather how the PFA will pave the wave for a more just court system that other states should follow. Part II discusses the history of pretrial detention and cash bail in the United States. This will lead to how cash bail became a faulty and unreliable metric to determine whether someone could be a danger to their community and whether they pose a flight risk. Part III discusses the development leading to the PFA in Illinois. Part IV proposes that the PFA should grant judicial decision-making power to the Restorative Justice Community Courts and further explains how this expansion will lead to safer communities. While the Act will impact the entire state of Illinois, most of the analysis for this comment is focused towards Cook County.

57 UIC L. REV. 291 (2024), 37 p.

By Jesse Kelley

Texas has become a leader in criminal justice reform by replacing old, “tough on crime” policies with more appropriate “smart on crime” ones. And although this new approach has seen success in the adult system, progress has stalled in the juvenile justice system. Accordingly, if Texas is to reassert its position as a leader in reforms, the best and most effective way is to improve their juvenile justice system by raising the age of criminal majority, by providing a “second look” for those juveniles who were sentenced to life in prison, and by shifting the way the state views and prosecutes youth who have committed serious and violent crimes. 

R STREET SHORTS NO. 83 February 2020 

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 5p.

By Lars Trautman and SteVon Felton

Every year, police in America conduct over 10 million arrests. Once in the criminal justice system, these individuals face a dizzying series of bail hearings, pretrial conferences, plea deals, trials and in all likelihood, a sentencing. At each of these decision points, nothing less than a person’s freedom hangs in the balance. As such, it may seem a reasonable assumption that the person evaluating the merits of the case and applying the law will be an experienced jurist with a trained legal mind. And yet, in some places that person may not have even gone to college, let alone passed the bar exam or practiced law. Instead, many Americans find their fates in the hands of a motley assortment of officials serving as front-line judicial officers or in courts of limited jurisdiction. Whatever the moniker attached, these magistrates have the right to deprive an individual of her freedom through a collection of powers such as the ability to set bails, issue warrants and sometimes even preside over certain criminal trials themselves. While their decisions are subject to review by more traditionally educated and legally trained judges, in our messy, overburdened criminal justice system, this is often too little, too late. Appellate review, for example, is of limited value to a person already placed in pretrial detention, and is of even less value to a person who has chosen a guilty plea to avoid an even longer period of incarceration. Moreover, unlike the lawyers who practice before them, these magistrates do not face any universal requirements or tests like the bar exam. Indeed, while the increasing complexity of our laws and a greater appreciation for the awesome power that judges wield led to higher professional standards over the last century for most other judicial offices and the legal profession as a whole, the same is not true for these magistrates. Despite holding many of the same judicial powers and facing the same set of byzantine procedural rules and complex case law as other judges, they are often able to take the bench with only minimal legal training or education. Accordingly, what follows is an examination of these magistrates. It will begin by describing the four primary categories of lay officials that hold judicial powers of detention, the scope of their powers and their qualifications. Next, it will explain how their authority over the front end of the criminal justice process and misdemeanors can give them outsized, if sometimes underappreciated, power. It will then discuss why the use of nonlawyers in these roles and other minimal qualifications currently in use are particularly concerning. And finally, it will consider what minimum standards jurisdictions should adopt in order to ensure that their magistrates are able to effectively and equitably serve as the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 173 May 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 13p.

By Brandon L. Garrett and Luke Mears

After 44 years in prison for a conviction of rape in the small town of Concord, North Carolina, Ronnie Long was released from prison in 2021. Four months later, the Governor granted him a full pardon on the grounds of innocence. That pardon made it possible to obtain compensation from a state commission, which awarded Long $750,000. This amount was the maximum available under state law that permitted compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration, but with an upper limit of $750,000. After his exoneration, Long also filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court. This federal case against the city settled for $22 million in 2024. Long also received $3 million from the North Carolina State Crime Lab as a result of its “role in hiding evidence from Mr. Long and his legal team that proved his innocence.” This substantial settlement made Long Compensating Exonerees in the United States highly unusual among exonerees in the United States. Most exonerees, if they are compensated, received something more along the lines of the $50,000 per year available under the state law that initially compensated Long, and nothing more. Many exonerees receive no compensation at all. Academics have long criticized the traditional lack of compensation for wrongful conviction in the United States. In 1932, Edwin Borchard wrote that the United States needed national legislation regarding compensation for wrongful convictions. For many decades, no such legislation existed, however. Civil rights litigation, like the case brought by Long, was uncommon, and compensation under statutory schemes was similarly rare. This changed once exonerations became much more common, including those based on post-conviction DNA evidence, in the 1990s. In general, many of the exonerees that have received substantial compensation, like Ronnie Long, have brought civil rights lawsuits in federal, not state court. For example, of the first 250 DNA exonerees, 60% received some type of compensation, and of those, half of them obtained it in federal court. However, exonerees are increasingly seeeking compensation under state compensation statutes. In this fact sheet, we describe how compensation for exonerees has evolved in the past several decades, including through successful litigation efforts and through the enactment of compensation legislation, in thirty-nine states, Washington D.C., and by the federal government. We summarize each of these state and federal statutes in the table at the end of this document. To date, 39 states have enacted such compensation statutes, in addition to Washington D.C. and the federal government. In addition, five of the remaining 11 states currently have pending legislation on the issue. The figure below shows which jurisdictions have these statutes currently, and which have legislation pending.

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, 2024. 20p.

By Francisco Alba

In This Article

Large-scale Mexican migration to the United States began in the early 1940s

After flatlining for several years, emigration has started to bounce back

The shift into a country of transit is perhaps Mexico's recent defining migration feature

Immigration is largely a product of return migration from the United States and transit migrants who remain

There has been a change in the government’s posture regarding transit migration

Migration Information Source, May 23, 2024

By Anthony Duarte, Sophia Hunt, and Matthew Clair

This report describes—and offers recommendations for improving—the quality of attorney-client relationships in a criminal courthouse in Santa Clara County, California. We draw on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations collected between July 2021 and June 2022 from the Hall of Justice, one of four state courthouses in Santa Clara County that deals with adult criminal cases. Interviews with a diverse sample of 37 defendants suggest that they hold mostly positive views of their relationships with defense attorneys, though such perceptions vary by type of counsel and income. Moreover, among those who hold positive perceptions of their current defense lawyers, some defendants expressed negative attitudes toward, and recounted negative experiences with, current and previous lawyers. Ethnographic observations of public court proceedings further reveal recurring negative attorney-client relationship attributes, including silencing and sidelining, miscommunication, brevity of interaction, and cooperation with the state (or, coercion). We conclude with several immediate and long-range suggestions for improving the quality of defense provision in the county.

Court Listening Project, Report no. 2. Court Listening Project ((c/o Matthew Clair, Stanford University) 2022. 25p.

By Matthew Clair, Jesus Orozco, and Iris H. Zhang

This article theorizes how space shapes access to state institutions, and with what consequences. Drawing on 125 interviews and over 400 hours of ethnographic observations concerning two criminal courthouses within the same county, we identify four spatial features that differentially shape access while working alongside institutional rules and norms: functional distance, neighborhood social life, exterior built forms, and interior built forms. When they constrain access, these features constitute spatial burdens, which contribute to distinct institutional and collateral costs concentrated among marginalized groups. We theorize how these costs likely reproduce systemic patterns of inequality by extending people’s burdensome interactions with the state institution they seek to access and compelling them to interact with other state institutions that further the state’s power over their lives. The theory of spatial burdens has implications for the study of poverty governance and institutional inequality.

Social Service Review, October 2024, 72 p.

By Terry-Ann Craigie

Ban the Box (BTB) policies mandate deferred access to criminal history until later in the hiring process. However, these policies chiefly target public employers. The study is the first to focus on the primary goal of BTB reform, by measuring the impact of BTB policies on the probability of public employment for those with convictions. To execute the analyses, the study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort (2005–2015) and difference-in-difference (DD) estimation. The study finds that BTB policies raise the probability of public employment for those with convictions by about 30% on average. Some scholars argue that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination against young low-skilled minority males. The study employs triple-difference (DDD) estimation to test for statistical discrimination, but uncovers no evidence to support the hypothesis.

Economic Inquiry, Volume 58, Issue 1 Jan 2020, 75p.

By The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General

  In the aftermath of the riot and breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, among the questions that were raised was how the breach had occurred and what was known by federal law enforcement in advance of January 6 about the possibility of a violent protest that day. On January 15, 2021, the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced its review to examine the role and activity of DOJ and its components in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department prosecutors immediately began criminally investigating individuals who violated federal law in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The Department—through the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Columbia (DC)— has reported that it has brought charges against over 1,500 individuals and described the January 6 investigations and prosecutions as having “moved forward at an unprecedented speed and scale.” In the public announcement of our review of the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, we took note of these ongoing criminal prosecutions, stating that the OIG was “mindful of the sensitive nature of the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the events of January 6. Consistent with longstanding OIG practice, in conducting this review, the DOJ OIG will take care to ensure that the review does not interfere with these investigations or prosecutions.” As is customary for the OIG, we coordinated closely with the Department and the DC USAO to ensure that the OIG’s investigative work did not conflict with or compromise any ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution. To that end, and consistent with OIG practice, in spring 2022 the OIG paused aspects of our review. 1 Once the OIG determined last year, after consultation with federal prosecutors, that our review would no longer potentially interfere with pending prosecutions, we resumed our review. In doing so, we were cognizant of the amount of time that had passed in deference to the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions, as well as the number of other non-DOJ OIG oversight reports that have since been publicly released regarding the January 6 events, and we therefore decided to largely focus our inquiry on an issue that has not yet been thoroughly reviewed in oversight conducted by other entities, namely the FBI’s direction and handling of its confidential human sources (CHS) in the lead-up to and on January 6, and whether the FBI exploited its CHSs and other available information to determine the nature of threats in advance of the electoral vote certification on January 6. In addition to the DOJ OIG’s oversight efforts reflected in this report, several other Inspectors General have conducted reviews of their agency’s actions in connection with the events of January 6:  The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) OIG immediately began a review to determine if the USCP, which is responsible for policing the Capitol Complex, (1) established adequate measures for ensuring the safety and security of the Capitol Complex as well as Members of Congress, (2) established adequate  internal controls and processes for ensuring compliance with Department policies, and (3) complied with applicable policies and procedures as well as applicable laws and regulations.  The Department of Defense (DoD) OIG initiated a review of the relevant events leading up to January 6, including the DoD’s review and approval of the DC government’s request for assistance from the DC National Guard; DoD’s coordination with DC and federal officials in preparation for January 6; DoD’s receipt and approval of the USCP’s request for assistance on January 6; and the planning involved for National Guard forces to help secure the Capitol in the immediate aftermath of the riot.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) OIG began a review to examine the role and activity of DHS and its components in preparing for and responding to the events of January 6, 2021, including DHS’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis’s responsibility for providing intelligence to law enforcement and DHS law enforcement components’ roles, responsibilities, and actions on January 6. The U.S. Secret Service (USSS), which was responsible for protecting then Vice President Mike Pence on January 6 during his time at the U.S. Capitol, is a law enforcement component within DHS. In addition, DHS is responsible for designating an event as a national special security event (NSSE) or as a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) event, which it did not do for the electoral vote certification on January 6. 2 The FBI defines a special event as a “significant international event or a domestic event” formally designated as an NSSE event or a SEAR event, which requires the FBI “to plan, coordinate, develop, or provide FBI resources to mitigate potential threats the special event may cause to national security or threats of significant criminal activity that the FBI is responsible for identifying, preventing, investigating, or disrupting.”  The Department of Interior (DOI) OIG initiated a review of the actions of the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Park Police (USPP) in preparing for and responding to the events at the Ellipse and the Capitol on January 6 and in information-sharing between the NPS, the USPP, and their law enforcement partners. The demonstration that preceded the violence at the Capitol occurred at the Ellipse, which is part of President’s Park—a national park under the control of the NPS. The USPP is a unit of the NPS authorized to conduct law enforcement in the national park system and, pursuant to local statutes, within DC generally. A further oversight effort was undertaken by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), at the request of Congress, which announced that it would conduct “a comprehensive overview of events leading up to, during, and following the January 6 attack.” The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives also conducted oversight regarding the events of January 6. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) together with the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (RAC) announced a joint investigation on January 8, 2021, to “examine the intelligence and security failures” that led to the events of January 6. On January 12, 2021, the House of Representatives and Senate leadership were briefed by senior FBI officials about the FBI’s posture leading up to January 6, its response and investigation into the events of January 6, and the threat picture and operational posture leading into the Inauguration on January 20, 2021. Subsequently, numerous congressional committee hearings addressed how various federal agencies prepared in advance of the January 6 Electoral Certification and how they responded on January 6, with the first one being held by the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on January 26, 2021. In early March 2021, HSGAC/RAC jointly held an oversight hearing that included testimony from the FBI, Hearing Examining the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Part II, as well as from non-FBI witnesses. On June 30, 2021, the House of Representatives established a 13-member Select Committee to investigate the rioting and breaching of the Capitol on January 6, named the “House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” (House Select Committee). The House Select Committee held 10 televised hearings beginning on June 9, 2022, and concluded the last hearing on December 19, 2022. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. 88p.

By Deniz Arıtürk , Michele M. Easter , Jeffrey W. Swanson, and Marvin S. Swartz

Despite significant scholarship, research, and funding dedicated to implementing criminal diversion programs over the past two decades, persons with serious mental illness and substance use disorders remain substantially overrepresented in United States jails and prisons. Why are so many U.S. adults with behavioral health problems incarcerated instead of receiving treatment and other support to recover in the community? In this paper, we explore this persistent problem within the context of “relentless unmet need” in U.S. behavioral health (Alegría et al., 2021). 

  The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 52 (2024): 65-75 

By Kyra Hanemaaijer, Nadine Ketel, Olivier Marie 

When decision-makers overemphasize salient features under limited attention, biased decisions can result in settings in which decisions should be unbiased. We exploit a sudden shock in the salience of individuals of Moroccan descent in the Netherlands to test the vulnerability of decisions of various actors in the Dutch criminal justice system to biases. Using high-quality data on decisions made from arrest through appeal in the Dutch CJS, we find that the sentence length of individuals of Moroccan descent convicted of a crime increased by 79% after the shock. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that more-experienced judges mitigate this effect. Finally, we find suggestive evidence of longer-term costs for defendants of Moroccan descent in that their labor income drops by 40% over the four years following their judgment of conviction. 

Bonn:  IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2024, 54p.

By Johanna Lacoe, Brett Fischer & Steven Raphael 

Objectives

Low-income individuals facing criminal charges experience disproportionately high rates of pretrial detention and conviction. We study a pilot program in Santa Clara County, CA that aims to address this inequity by providing access to public defenders immediately following arrest.

Methods

The Santa Clara Public Defender agreed to provide pilot services one day per week, rotating the intervention day across weeks. Individuals booked on an intervention day were eligible for early legal representation, while individuals booked on control days received public defender services as usual. The study leverages the rotating treatment day to compare pretrial release and case outcomes between eligible individuals booked on treatment days and eligible individuals booked on control days.

Results

Pilot program participants were 28 percentage points more likely to secure pretrial release, and 36 percentage points more likely to see their cases dismissed, relative to comparable individuals who generally first meet with their public defender at arraignment.

Conclusions

Providing prompt access to legal representation could improve release and case outcomes for low-income individuals and the efficacy of public defense.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2024.

By Christopher Uggen, Ryan Larson, Sarah Shannon, Robert Stewart and Molly Hauf

  Laws in 48 U.S. states ban people with felony convictions from voting. In 2024, an estimated 4 million Americans, representing 1.7% of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era. In this historic election year, questions persist about the stability of democratic institutions, election fairness, and voter suppression in marginalized communities. The systematic exclusion of millions with felony convictions should be front and center in these debates.

This report updates and expands upon a quarter century of work chronicling the scope and distribution of felony disenfranchisement in the United States.1 As in 2022, we present national and state estimates of the number and percentage of people disenfranchised due to felony convictions, as well as the number and percentage of the Black and Latino populations impacted. This year, we also present state-level data on the degree of disenfranchisement among men and women. Although these and other estimates must be interpreted with caution, the numbers presented here represent our best assessment of the state of U.S. felony disenfranchisement as of the November 2024 election. Among the report’s key findings: • An estimated 4 million people are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, a figure that has declined by 31% since 2016, as more states enacted policies to curtail this practice and state prison, probation, and parole populations declined. Previous research finds there were an estimated 1.2 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.3 million in 1996, 4.6 million in 2000, 5.1 million in 2004, 5.7 million in 2010, 5.9 million in 2016, 4.9 million in 2020, and 4.4 million in 2022.2 • One out of 59 adult citizens – 1.7% of the total U.S. voting eligible population – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. • Seven out of 10 people disenfranchised are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on felony probation or parole. • In two states – Florida and Tennessee – more than 6% of the adult population, one of every 17 adults, is disenfranchised. • Florida remains the nation’s disenfranchisement leader in absolute numbers, with over 961,000 people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions. An estimated 730,000 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights. • One in 22 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than triple that of non-African Americans. Among the adult African American population, 4.5% is disenfranchised compared to 1.3% of the adult non-African American population. In 15 states, 5% or more of the African American adult population is banned from voting due to a felony conviction. • More than one in 10 African American adults is disenfranchised in five states – Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Tennessee. • Although data on ethnicity in correctional populations are unevenly reported and undercounted in some states, a conservative estimate is that at least 495,000 Latino Americans or 1.5% of the voting eligible population are disenfranchised. • Based on available correctional data that records an individual’s sex, approximately 764,000 women are disenfranchised, comprising about 0.6% of the female voting eligible population and approximately one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population.3 We estimate that approximately 3.2 million men or 2.7% of the male voting eligible population is disenfranchised, consistent with the overrepresentation of men in the criminal legal system.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 40p.

By Christoph Feldhaus, Lukas Reinhardt, Matthias Sutter:

In a democracy, it is essential that citizens accept rules and laws, regardless of which party is in power. We study why citizens in polarized societies resist rules implemented by political opponents. This may be due to the rules' specific content, but also because of a general preference against being restricted by political opponents. We develop a method to measure the latter channel. In our experiment with almost 1,300 supporters and opponents of Donald Trump, we show that polarization undermines rule-following behavior significantly, independent of the rules' content. Subjects perceive the intentions behind (identical) rules as much more malevolent if they were imposed by a political opponent rather than a political ally.

Bonn:  IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 36p.