By Tasseli McKay and William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr.

Social scientists continue to declare that mass incarceration, a defining social force of the last half century, is on its way out. Lifetime risks of imprisonment are indeed in decline, as are absolute and relative imprisonment risks for Black Americans. But whether we consider mass incarceration to be over, or even on its way out, depends a great deal on what we believe mass incarceration is and what it does.

Scholarship on the “collateral consequences” of mass incarceration, leaving concerns with political etiology to political scientists, is curiously absent a broader concept of how such consequences function. Even as the field rigorously documents the vast social, political, economic, and health fallout of mass incarceration, it remains largely agnostic on a central theoretical concern: Do we conceive of mass incarceration as a policy mistake with negative consequences for us all, or as a well-running engine of racial stratification that has enriched some Americans at others' expense? How we answer this question, or do not, has tremendous implications for how we study the harms of mass incarceration and what policy moves we deem capable of confronting it.

Scholarship on mass incarceration's consequences is often introduced with reference to racial inequality. Such scholarship has identified an array of mechanisms by which mass incarceration appears to contribute to racial stratification, particularly through a longstanding line of inquiry on the disproportionate impact of incarceration-related constraints on Black men's workforce participation, income, and wealth. Yet most such research frames these phenomena as an unfortunate artifact of racially disproportionate criminal legal system contact, rather than situatingthe impetus and functioning of the criminal legal system within a broader theory of structural racial inequality.

Critiquing the failure to engage questions of structural racism in empirical research on mass incarceration's consequences, two of the field's preeminent scholars argue,

While most studies that explore the consequences of mass incarceration for American families are motivated by racial inequality within the carceral system--rightfully so, given the massive racial disparities in incarceration rates and criminal justice involvement--the work often fails to engage this important issue in meaningful ways .... We neither interrogate why we see racial disparities in mass incarceration nor do we investigate why we might see racial disparities in outcomes due to mass incarceration.

Indeed, with important exceptions, collateral consequences research inventories the implications of mass punishment for individuals, neighborhoods, and nations rather than examining how a racially targeted punishment system functions within a broader set of national and subnational institutions that systematically privilege whiteness. Further, the possibility that mass incarceration produces systematic benefits, in addition to or even as an impetus for its systematic harms, receives very limited scholarly attention. Such research, if it aims to confront racial injustice, must “move beyond description of racial inequality [and] think critically about how our society's raced institutions interact with one another to stratify the experiences of American families”.

Toward that end, the current review applies the theory of stratification economics to consider whether and how the broad criminalization and intensive punishment of Black Americans have advanced or advantaged their White contemporaries. First, the review briefly revisits key theoretical perspectives on the consequences of mass incarceration and proposes stratification economics as a meta-theoretical framework for understanding the production and functioning of those consequences. Next, it applies stratification economics to available social scientific evidence on the consequences of mass incarceration, analyzing the implications of that evidence for the relative standing of White Americans. Finally, the review advances an agenda for future research and policy capable of confronting and redressing the ill-gotten gains of mass incarceration.

20 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 309 (2024), 22p.

By Tashayla Sierra-Kadaya Borden

xisting literature does little to address the unique victimization of Black women in the law. Studies looking through a racial lens may ignore Black women by failing to address gender. Alternatively, gender analysis may center around issues specific to white women. White feminist scholars promote carceral feminism, a “neoliberal law-and-order agenda pursued by a coalition of secular anti-prostitution feminists and white evangelicals.” Carceral Feminism focuses on white womanhood and harms marginalized communities, actively pushing Black women into prison. To address this, Black feminist scholars have developed key theories to understand Black women's experiences. One such scholar, Moya Bailey, coined the term misogynoir to describe “the uniquely co-constitutive racialized and sexist violence that befalls Black women as a result of their simultaneous and interlocking oppression at the intersection of racial and gender marginalization.” Misogynoir operates as a form of implicit or explicit bias that informs how and why the state views Black women as dual victims and victimizers.

In 2019, the New York State Legislature passed the DVSJA. The DVSJA amended New York's existing Penal Law § 60.12 and created Criminal Procedure Law § 440.47 to provide resentencing for currently incarcerated individuals. This statute permits a judge to change a domestic violence survivor's initial sentence if the abuse was a “significant contributing factor” to the crime. The DVSJA is the first legislation of its kind in the United States. Advocates and survivors promoted this statute to decriminalize trauma and help individuals who commit crime while suffering abuse. Other states have enacted similar laws, but Black women still face lingering issues that exacerbate coercive abuse, racism, and gendered violence.

This Note examines the impact of New York's revolutionary DVSJA on Black woman survivorship while proposing solutions and improvements for other states aiming to replicate the statute. Part I summarizes the DSVJA and contextualizes the case law that preceded its passing. Part II describes the unique impact of domestic violence on Black women, the challenges of qualifying for relief under the statute, and the limitations of resentencing. Lastly, Part III offers noncarceral solutions that replace sentencing and help Black women share their experiences as abuse survivors.

144 Columbia Law Review 2065 (2024), 40p.

By Andrew Howard

Almost every county in the United States elects its chief Prosecutor, but the chief Public Defender, if there is one, is generally an appointed position. In four states, however, some or all of the Public Defender offices have elected leaders. Although prosecutorial elections have been heavily studied and criticized, relatively little attention has been paid to the elections of their counterparts. This Note sheds light on how Public Defender elections impact a criminal justice ecosystem. A series of interviews with elected Public Defenders reveal these elections can enhance the independence and stature of the position. Additionally, the interviews and additional research rebut the primary criticism of these elections: that voters may elect someone who wanted to work against indigent defendants. There are simply very few examples relative to the many counties that have these elections. These qualitative findings are supported in part by further quantitative analyses. First, this Note found a correlation of increased Public Defense experience amongst the state judiciary in jurisdictions where there the chief Public Defender is elected. Second, this Note found a correlation between these elections and increased salary parity between Public Defenders and Prosecutors in the same state.

Accordingly, this Note argues that some counties should explore making their chief Public Defender an elected position. While far from a panacea for the many issues facing the American criminal justice system, these elections could help enhance the quality of indigent defense where implemented.

Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 2020, 40p.

By Ben Finholt

For decades, the North Carolina Supreme Court—like many other state supreme courts—largely ignored its own state constitution’s ban on harsh criminal punishments and deferred entirely to federal case law on the constitutional limits of excessive sentences. The result has been near-total deference to the state legislature and a discriminatory mass incarceration crisis that has ballooned without meaningful constitutional checks.

This approach has been a serious mistake of constitutional law. As Justice Harry Martin once noted, “the Constitution of North Carolina . . . is the people's timeless shield against encroachment on their civil rights,” and it provides uniquely broad protections of civil rights and personal liberty. Yet sentencing law has been the exception, despite a specific provision that bans “cruel or unusual punishments,” and whose text and original meaning are distinct from the Eighth Amendment.

The North Carolina Supreme Court finally revived this clause, Article I, Section 27, in two recent cases involving children sentenced to serve decades, recognizing that it should not be interpreted in lockstep with its federal counterpart. This Article argues that these cases provide a crucial moment of doctrinal clarity and opportunity to articulate the independent meaning of Section 27 and unleash its power as an essential tool in the urgent project of dismantling mass incarceration. While previous scholarship has noted that state analogs to th

e Eighth Amendment can and should bear their own independent meaning, this Article provides a full analysis of Section 27 specifically, looking to its text and history, related constitutional provisions, and other factors to show that it provides broader protections against excessive punishments than does current Eighth Amendment case law. This Article also sketches a doctrinal framework that state courts can apply in all challenges to excessive punishment, not just those involving children.

Finally, the Article places this constitutional analysis in the specific context of North Carolina’s criminal legal system, explaining how other mechanisms of reducing needless incarceration have proven wholly inadequate.

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2023, 49p.

By Erin Thorvaldson and Kendric Holder

In 2015, Rhode Island had the country’s second-highest probation population rate, with high probation revocation rates and lengthy probation terms contributing to an increasing prison population. To address these challenges, Rhode Island requested support through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI). As a result of JRI, Rhode Island amended the superior court’s Rules of Criminal Procedure and Sentencing Benchmarks in 2016, limiting probation periods for nonviolent offenses to 3 years and allowing for early termination of probation for people satisfying specified requirements. Subsequently, 6 JRI bills were passed in 2017. Among other things, these new laws and amendments to the superior court’s Rules of Criminal Procedure and Sentencing Benchmarks created policies that centered on reducing the prison population, launching a diversion program with an alternative to traditional conviction and sentencing, and screening cases for eligibility for early discharge from probation. This brief highlights the results of these measures.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024. 5p.

By Erin Thorvaldson and Kendric Holder

In 2016, Georgia used the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) to focus on community supervision, as the state had the highest rate of adults on probation in the country. The JRI analysis showed that Georgia’s large probation population was due to widespread use of probation sentences for misdemeanor offenses, as well as lengthy felony probation sentences that were used in lieu of and in addition to prison sentences. Additionally, an estimated 50,000 people in Georgia had been on supervision for more than 2 years, despite the risk of recidivism dropping by half after an individual’s first year on supervision. In 2017, the governor signed Act 226, codifying the JRI policy framework. It featured policies to reduce lengthy probation terms and large probation caseloads, enhance the cost-effectiveness of responses to probation and parole violations, and improve the handling of legal and financial obligations for people on felony probation. This brief explores the effects of this legislation.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024. 5p.

By Erin Thorvaldson and Kendric Holder

In 2017, Missouri’s prison incarceration rate was eighth highest in the country, and violent crime had increased 13 percent between 2010 and 2016. If the rate of growth in Missouri’s prison population continued, the state would have needed to build two new prison facilities by 2021, which would have cost nearly half a billion dollars in combined construction and operating costs. To address these challenges, the state used the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), which resulted in legislation in 2018 aimed at reforming Missouri’s criminal justice system. This brief explores the effects of that legislation.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024. 8p.

By Alison Martin and Greg Halls

In March 2020, the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) faced overcrowding and urgent health concerns. To address these issues, IDOC and other criminal justice agencies implemented measures to reduce the prison population and expand community-based corrections (CBC). These efforts included limiting revocations, expanding administrative review processes, releasing low-risk individuals, and increasing the use of telehealth and technology for supervision and programming. As a result, the prison population decreased by 13 percent within 6 months, while the CBC population increased by nearly 17 percent. Despite this increase, the average monthly revocation rate decreased by almost 40 percent between March 2020 and March 2021. In 2021, Iowa state leaders requested support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance and The Pew Charitable Trusts to assess the impact of these changes on public safety and CBC operations using a Justice Reinvestment Initiative approach. This brief summarizes the findings from that effort.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024. 9p.

By The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability

This volume describes what we have learnt about the treatment of people with disability in the criminal justice system in Australia. In particular, we have found people with disability are significantly over-represented at all stages of the criminal justice system. Chapter 1 gives a snapshot of the available data about people with disability in the criminal justice system, common types of disability, and factors contributing to people with disability having high rates of contact with the criminal justice system. Particular groups of alleged offenders with disability are far more likely to have contact with the criminal justice system (including with police, courts and corrections) than other groups. These include First Nations people with cognitive disability, women with disability experiencing violence, and people with co-occurring cognitive disability, psychosocial disability and other disabilities. The statistics are stark. For example, a 2015 report on adult prisoners in New South Wales found that 43 per cent of First Nations women who participated in the study had a disability,4 and between 40 to 90 per cent of adult prisoners may have an acquired brain injury.5 Because of limitations in the available data, the true number of people with disability in the criminal justice system in Australia is unknown. Nonetheless, it is clear people with disability – particularly those with cognitive disability – are disproportionately represented in criminal justice settings, across all stages, from police contact and arrest, through to court processes and correctional settings. The disproportionate rate of imprisonment of people with disability is not the result of any inherent relationship between disability and crime. Rather, it reflects the disadvantages experienced by many people with disability, such as poverty, disrupted family backgrounds, family violence and other forms of abuse, misuse of drugs and alcohol, unstable housing and homelessness. People with disability, particularly cognitive disability, are also exposed to frequent and intense policing.6 People with cognitive and mental health impairments experience multiple forms of disadvantage, making them more likely to be criminalised and caught up in a cycle of reoffending and incarceration. Relatively little attention has been paid by governments to the disproportionate number of people with cognitive disability who are in custody. The data we received about the proportion of First Nations people with cognitive disability in custody, particularly in youth detention, exposes a largely hidden national crisis. For example, as of 2015, almost one in four First Nations young people aged 14 to 21 in detention were estimated to have an intellectual disability, compared with one in 12 non-Indigenous young people. Despite this strong evidence, with the possible exception of New South Wales Corrective Services, corrective service and youth justice agencies do not collect or record adequate data about disability in their prison and youth detention populations. They also use widely different methods to identify prisoners with disability. No corrective service or youth justice agencies use a culturally validated screening tool to identify disability in First Nations people in custody. This means custodial agencies cannot identify the prevalence and types of disability within incarcerated populations, or adequately understand their support needs. This lack of data also limits the development, implementation and evaluation of criminal justice disability policies and programs, and the monitoring of health and disability support needs of people with disability in custody. We heard that prisoners with disability are: • more likely to have difficulty coping with the prison environment • more likely to experience a higher rate of comorbid mental health disorders and physical conditions than prisoners without disability • at increased risk of being disadvantaged and socially isolated • at higher risk of returning to custody. Interactions with the criminal justice system come at great social and economic cost to the community. It benefits the entire community if people with disability do not enter the criminal justice system in the first place, and if treatment and supports are improved within the criminal justice system and continue after any term of imprisonment. Further research is required on the social and economic benefits of early support to prevent people with cognitive disability and complex support needs from coming into contact with the criminal justice system. Improved screening and identification practices, complemented by further research, are needed to understand the true extent of disability of people in criminal justice settings. This would also improve understanding of Australia’s compliance with its obligations to ensure the rights of people with disability are upheld in the criminal justice system.

Sydney: NSW Parliament: The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability 2023. 368p.

By Susan McMahon

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

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

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

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

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

By Measures for Justice

MFJ collects data regarding adult criminal cases filed and resolved in state courts. Through these efforts,
we’ve identified gaps in the types of information received that limit our ability to generate a
comprehensive picture of how criminal cases are processed by trial courts across the United States. One
example of these gaps relates to cases involving American Indians and crimes committed on tribal lands. In an effort to paint a more comprehensive picture of how criminal cases unfold at the local level, MFJ
wanted to better understand jurisdictional authority over these cases.
Unfortunately, we quickly learned that disparate and convoluted laws governing criminal case processing
deeply complicate the question of jurisdictional authority and act as a significant barrier to understanding
the ways in which these cases are processed. A key contributor to this jurisdictional confusion is Public
Law 83-280 (PL-280), which reduces the ability of American Indian tribes to independently respond to
crimes occurring on Indian land, instead allocating authority to state governments to varying degrees across several states.   PL-280 plays a significant role in dictating which institutions respond to criminal offenses and, consequently, what justice looks like for different people across different communities in the United States. The sections that follow shed light on the complexity created by PL-280 and the challenges it poses for data collection and system transparency. Importantly, the intentions of this report are not to make comparisons or draw conclusions about the effectiveness of these differing approaches to justice, but rather to highlight the importance of data transparency and accessibility for the purposes of evaluating system performance and holding administrators accountable. We argue that this transparency is always key to ensure the fair and effective handling of cases, and this is of particular importance in places where the power to handle criminal matters has expanded beyond federal and tribal governments to the state by way of PL-280.

Rochester, NY: Measures for Justice, 2023. 16p.

By Measures for Justice

  After experiencing a series of hurdles obtaining and analyzing criminal justice data in New York State, Measures for Justice (MFJ) set out to better understand the state’s data infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with system stakeholders--including practitioners, policy advocates, and researchers--we explored the quality and availability of criminal justice data in the state of New York. With heated criminal justice reform debates underway, there is a clear need for data that can speak to system performance. And yet our investigation uncovered that, with few exceptions, the mechanisms for criminal justice data collection and release in New York State are broken. Efforts to put data to use across the state are frequently hampered by obscure systems, antiquated technologies, arduous request processes, and a degree of partiality that allows data access to some and not others. The present report explores each of these themes and ultimately suggests four pathways forward for New York agencies looking to pursue equitable and responsible data practices.

Rochester, NY: Measures for Justice, 2021. 23p.

By Sema Taheri, Jennie Brooks, Mason DeLang, Shelby Davis, Hillary Livingston, Nathan LeMahieu, & Trevariana Mason

Despite accounting for a substantial portion of local, state, and federal budgets, our criminal justice institutions are among the least measured systems in our country. In an effort to bring transparency to this sector, MFJ has collected, standardized, and made public 20 states’ worth of criminal justice data.

The purpose of this report is to share what we have learned through this effort, including: (a) what we cannot see when data are missing, and (b) the value that data can provide when they are available and comparable. In particular, we identify patterns around the following:

There is a substantial lack of data around pretrial detention and release decision-making, as well as individual demographics (particularly indigence).

New data privacy laws are also making it needlessly difficult to obtain certain data. This poses challenges to understanding how individuals experience the system in cases that do not result in conviction.

There is great variation in how counties dispose of and sentence nonviolent cases; how financial obligations are imposed on individuals; and the collateral consequences that individuals face when convicted.

Across many of these findings, where demographics are available, we have an opportunity to identify and respond to significant disparities in group outcomes.

This report challenges stakeholders and policymakers to dig deeper into these patterns and missing data. It also implores policymakers and legislators to improve criminal justice data infrastructure to ensure a more transparent, fair, and equitable implementation of justice.

Rochester, NY: Measures for Justice, 2021. 17p.

By Mark A. Motivans

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

Highlights

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

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

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

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

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

By the United States Sentencing Commission

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

Washington, DC: USSC, 2025. 201p.

By Catalina Franco Buitrago, David J. Harding, Shawn D. Bushway, and Jeffrey D. Morenoff

We find that people involved in low-level crime receiving a prison sentence are more likely than those with non-prison sentences to be re-imprisoned due to technical violations of parole, rather than due to new crimes. We identify the extent and cost of this incapacitation effect among individuals with similar criminal histories using exogenous variation in sentence type from discontinuities in Michigan Sentencing Guidelines. Technical violations disproportionately affect drug users and those first arrested as juveniles. Higher re-imprisonment adds one-quarter to the original sentence’s incapacitation days while only preventing low-severity crime, suggesting that prison is cost-ineffective for individuals on the margin.

NHH Dept. of Economics Discussion Paper No. 03/2022, 79p.

By Ellen R Gutowski, Lisa A Goodman

Intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors seeking safety and justice for themselves and their children through family court and other legal systems may instead encounter their partners' misuse of court processes to further enact coercive control. To illuminate this harmful process, this study sought to create a measure of legal abuse. We developed a list of 27 potential items on the basis of consultation with 23 experts, qualitative interviews, and existing literature. After piloting these items, we administered them to a sample of 222 survivor-mothers who had been involved in family law proceedings. We then used both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Rasch analysis (RA) to create a final measure. Analyses yielded the 14-item Legal Abuse Scale (LAS). Factor analysis supported two subscales: Harm to Self/Motherhood (i.e., using the court to harm the survivor as a person and a mother) and Harm to Finances (i.e., using the court to harm the survivor financially). The LAS is a tool that will enable systematic assessment of legal abuse in family court and other legal proceedings, an expansion of research on this form of coercive control, and further development of policy and practice that recognizes and responds to it.

J Fam Violence. 2023;38(3):527-542

By Octavian Simu, Paul McGorrery, Melanie Hull

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

Key findings

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

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

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

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

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

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

London: Policiy Exchange, 2025. 91p.

By The International Labour Organization (ILO)

X Executive summary Access to labour justice is out of reach for most migrant workers who experience human and labour rights violations. The intersection of a migrant worker’s immigration status with their employment causes heightened vulnerability and an increased likelihood that a migrant worker will not be able to seek or obtain justice for the labour violations they have suffered. This can happen because of formal exclusion from labour protection or practical difficulties in accessing labour complaints mechanisms. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has long recognized the fundamental role that access to labour justice plays in protecting the rights of workers, including migrant workers. Access to labour justice is a key principle in many international labour standards, notably those on migrant workers. Furthermore, access to justice is embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international human rights treaties and is recognized by the United Nations as integral to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including economic growth and the commitment to leave no one behind. The difficulties that migrant workers experience in accessing justice in the country of employment, including the impossibility for workers to remain in the country of employment to pursue complaints upon leaving an abusive employer, have led to increased attention on cross-border or transnational access to justice for migrant workers. In the context of this report, cross-border or transnational access to justice includes a worker’s ability to file a claim or continue with a claim in the country of employment after a worker has left (either back to their country of origin or to a third country) or to file a claim in the country of origin (for example, against the recruitment agency) for violations that have occurred or are occurring in the country of employment. Trade unions, civil society organizations and lawyers are currently assisting migrant workers with cross-border claims on an ad-hoc basis. In addition to this ad-hoc support, transnational organizations with a presence in more than one country and with a specific mandate to support migrant workers, lodge cross-border claims, operate in several migration corridors. These organizations have developed innovative models to provide legal representation and assistance to migrant workers through partnerships in the country of origin and country of employment. They have also conducted strategic litigation in response to the legal and procedural issues that prevent migrant workers from seeking justice from abroad, including by launching test cases to expand and leverage.

Geneva: ILO, 2024. 74p.