By Irene Oritseweyinmi Joe

While the public defender is critical to protecting individual rights in the U.S. criminal process, state governments take remarkably different approaches to distributing public defense services. Some states organize indigent defense as a function of the executive branch of state governance; others administer indigent defense through the judicial branch. The remaining state governments do not place the public defender within any branch of state government, instead delegating its management to local counties. This administrative choice has important implications for the public defender’s efficiency and effectiveness. It influences how the service will be funded and the extent to which the public defender, as an institution, will respond to the particular interests of its local community. So, which branch of government should oversee the public defender? Should the public defender exist under the same branch of government overseeing both the prosecutor and police—two entities the public defender seeks to hold accountable in the criminal process? Should the provision of services be housed under the judicial branch—although this branch is ordinarily tasked with being a neutral arbiter in criminal proceedings? Perhaps a public defender that is independent of statewide governance is ideal, even if that might render it a lesser player among the many government agencies battling at the state level for limited financial resources. This Article answers the question of state assignment by engaging in an original examination of each state’s architectural choices for the public defender. Its primary contribution is to enrich our current understanding of how each state manages the public defender and how that decision influences the institution’s funding and ability to adhere to ethical and professional mandates. It concludes the public defender should be an important executive function in this modern era of mass criminalization and articulates modifications that would improve such a state design by insulating it from pressure by other system actors.

106 Iowa L. Rev. 113 (2020)

By Max Travers, Emma Colvin, Isabelle Bartkowiak Théron, Rick Sarre, Andrew Day, Christine Bond

In this paper we seek to review the rapid rise in remand in custody rates in Australia. In particular, and in response, we ask and discuss three specific questions:

1. To what extent do defendants applying for bail have vulnerabilities?

2. To what extent can risk analysis tools that seek to predict breach of bail terms be relied upon?

3. To what extent can the emerging pre-trial services programs in Australia reduce remand in custody populations?

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 610. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 13p.

By Jim Quinn  

Since New York State’s 2019 bail reform went into effect, controversy has swirled around the question of its impact on public safety—as well as its broader success in creating a more just and equitable system. The COVID-19 pandemic (which hit three months after the bail reform’s effective date), the upheaval following the killing of George Floyd, and the subsequent enactment of various police and criminal justice reforms are confounding factors that make assessing the specific effects of the 2019 bail reform particularly complex. This paper attempts to give the public a better sense of the risks of this policy shift and the detrimental effect that the changes have had on public safety. First, I will lay out the content of the bail reform and will measure pertinent impacts on crime and re-offending rates. Then I will review changes made in the 2020 and 2022 amendments. I will look at the push for supervised release and closing Rikers Island and how those initiatives fed into the momentum behind these laws. Finally, I will propose recommendations to improve bail reform’s impact on public safety, which include: 1. Allow judges to set bail, remand, release on recognizance (ROR), or conditions of release for any crime and any defendant. There should be a presumption of release for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, which could be rebutted by the defendant’s prior record or other factors that indicate that the defendant is a flight risk. There should be a presumption of bail, remand, or nonmonetary conditions for defendants charged with violent felonies or weapons offenses. This presumption could also be rebutted by evidence of the defendant’s roots in the community, lack of criminal record, and similar factors

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2022. 29p.

By Ionnuala Ratcliffe and Penelope Gibbs

How are young adults treated in the magistrates’ courts? How, if at all, is their maturity considered and taken into account by the court? This report seeks to answer these questions, based on testimony from 82 courtwatchers, volunteer members of the public who observed London magistrates’ courts for six months in the second half of 2023. Sentencing Council guidelines recognise the potential impact of young adults’ developing maturity on their responsibility for an offence, their ability to cope with a prison or community sentence, and their capacity to participate effectively in court proceedings. Courtwatchers observed almost 200 hearings involving a young adult defendant. They reported that maturity was mentioned in less than a third of hearings observed. When maturity was raised, it usually wasn’t covered in depth, rather “mentioned as an aside, no specific arguments made.” Some maturity arguments applied specifically to the offence or defendant: on the young adult’s susceptibility to peer pressure, their difficulties assessing risk, the potential impact of a court sanction on their education or employment, and their potential for rehabilitation. But these were few and far between. When mentioned, arguments about maturity did sometimes prompt the court to reduce the severity of the sentence given, or at least to postpone sentencing until they had more information about the defendant. But most of the time, comments about maturity were dismissed by court decision makers or deprioritised compared to other factors. Courtwatchers observed young adults being treated much the same as older defendants, with little direct engagement with young adult defendants, frequent use of the secure dock and challenges arranging interpreters. This report sets out recommendations for how the courts can deal with young adult defendants more effectively by considering maturity more thoroughly. 

London: Transform Justice, 2024. 31p.

By Fionnuala Ratcliffe and Penelope Gibbs

This report summarises findings from CourtWatch London, a mass court observation project where citizen volunteers observed magistrates’ court hearings and reported what they saw. From July to December 2023, a diverse group of 82 volunteer members of the public (courtwatchers) visited their local London magistrates’ courts armed with a booklet of observation forms and a small amount of training. Between them they observed over 1,100 hearings, reporting on the treatment of defendants, the decision-making of magistrates and district judges, and their experiences of attending magistrates’ court as a public observer. This report focuses on courtwatchers’ observations of the court process and the court’s decision-making. We have written separate reports on their experiences of being a public observer trying to access and understand the courts, and their reflections on how young adult defendants are treated. Our first report - “Why are you here?” Open justice in London magistrates’ courts - highlights how court watchers found it hard to comprehend the court system. Their observations suggested defendants were struggling too. People cannot have a fair trial without a clear understanding of what they are accused of, what is happening in court, and the implications of the court process. Our court watchers observed magistrates’ courts often falling short. Defendants were usually physically isolated from the rest of the courtroom in the secure dock, where it was all too easy to ignore them for the majority of the hearing. A significant minority of defendants appeared without a lawyer. Courtwatchers felt that unrepresented defendants were severely disadvantaged by their lack of legal advice, even though court staff and judges made efforts to explain things. Defendants who needed interpreters were some of the worst served by the court. And court watchers were alarmed to see hearings going ahead despite some defendants being unwell. Despite these concerns, courtwatchers felt judgments made were overall fair, reasoned and practical. They appreciated magistrates and judges who took the time to get to the bottom of things and to find the most productive solution for the individual in front of them. Court watchers were most frustrated by what seemed to them ineffective or counterproductive sanctions. This included fines and other court costs which had to be paid by people of severely limited means, or punitive sentences given to people with serious drug addiction or mental health problems which did nothing to address those issues. Our court watchers also felt some time was wasted on cases that should not have been in court at all. Court watchers usually agreed with the court’s decision to remand people, although their reports highlighted some examples where bail might have been more appropriate. A few court watchers picked up on inconsistencies in how defendants were dealt with which they saw as evidence of racial bias.  Court watchers were shocked by what they perceived to be the inefficiency of courts. They expected hearings to start on time and to run continuously throughout the day. They were concerned that the valuable time of the many professionals in the room was being wasted. It was hard for courtwatchers to work out why so little was happening since court staff and judges seldom explained the delays. As court watchers gained experience, they gradually discerned the reasons - prosecution and defense advocates who didn’t have the right information in advance, nor the time to prepare for hearings, defendants not turning up for their hearing (often through no fault of their own) and technology which didn’t work well. The fundamental flaw in our court system highlighted by court watchers - that many defendants don’t know what’s happening in the court and so can’t meaningfully participate in the process - needs urgent action. We need simpler court proceedings so the process is intelligible to a layperson, and legal aid is available for a wider range of circumstances. At the very least, we recommend introducing a support service for defendants, available in every magistrates’ court. The use of court fines should be reduced, particularly for people whose poverty was a contributing factor to their offence. Fines should be replaced with sentences which instead address the drivers of crime. To improve court efficiency, research should be commissioned to understand the main causes of court delays and how they might be addressed. Meanwhile, the number of cases listed could be reduced by discontinuing some very old ones and encouraging the police to offer more out of court resolutions for lower-level crimes. This project shows the power and potential of court watching in England and Wales. The commitment from our volunteers to observe and report on over 1,100 hearings shows that ordinary people are willing to give their time and energy to hold our courts accountable. Their reflections, which focused on access, fairness and effectiveness, bring a unique perspective to the scrutiny of our courts. The act of courtwatching itself changed how many of our volunteers viewed the justice system and those who get into trouble with the law. And it’s possible that courtwatcher presence played a small role in encouraging the courts they observed to be fairer and more compassionate towards those who are swept up in our justice system

London: Transform Justice, 2024.   55p.

By Dorota Pudzianowska

This book discusses the fundamental issues of public law in the area of statelessness from the perspectives of comparative law and international law standards. The author proposes an approach in which statelessness is not a homogeneous concept but is best analyzed and responded to through the lens of different categories of statelessness. This accounts not only for the existence of different categories of stateless persons (e.g., voluntary or involuntary) but also for different assessments and needs of their respective situations for purposes such as prevention mechanisms. The book demonstrates the conceptual and regulatory relevance of this important differential aspect of the international law on statelessness (with implications for domestic legal systems).

Bern: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2023. 272p.

By Joshua Grossman, Julian Nyarko, Sharad Goel

  After arrest, criminal defendants are often detained before trial to mitigate potential risks to public safety. There is widespread concern, however, that detention decisions are biased against racial minorities. When assessing potential racial discrimination in pretrial detention, past studies have typically worked to quantify the extent to which the ultimate judicial decision is conditioned on the defendant’s race. Although often useful, this approach suffers from three important limitations. First, it ignores the multi-stage nature of the pretrial process, in which decisions and recommendations are made over multiple court appearances that influence the final judgment. Second, it does not consider the multiple actors involved, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, each of whom has different responsibilities and incentives. Finally, a narrow focus on disparate treatment fails to consider potential disparate impact arising from facially neutral policies and practices. Addressing these limitations, here we present a framework for quantifying disparate impact in multi-stage, multi-actor settings, illustrating our approach using 10 years of data on pretrial decisions from a federal district court. We find that Hispanic defendants are released at lower rates than white defendants of similar safety and nonappearance risk. We trace these disparities to decisions of assistant US attorneys at the initial hearings, decisions driven in part by a statutory mandate that lowers the procedural bar for moving for the detention of defendants in certain types of cases. We also find that the Pretrial Services Agency recommends detention of Black defendants at higher rates than white defendants of similar risk, though we do not find evidence that these recommendations translate to disparities in actual release rates. Finally, we find that traditional disparate treatment analyses yield more modest evidence of discrimination in pretrial detention outcomes, highlighting the value of our more expansive analysis for identifying, and ultimately remediating, unjust disparities in the pretrial process. We conclude with a discussion of how risk-based threshold release policies could help to mitigate observed disparities and the estimated impact of various policies on violation rates in the partner jurisdiction

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2023;1–48.

By Sandra G. Mayson

Bail reform is gaining momentum nationwide. Reformers aspire to untether pretrial detention from wealth (the ability to post money bail) and condition it instead on statistical risk, particularly the risk that a defendant will commit crime if he remains at liberty pending trial. The bail reform movement holds tremendous promise, but also forces the criminal justice system to confront a difficult question: What statistical risk that a person will commit future crime justifies short-term detention? What about lesser restraints, like GPS monitoring? Although the turn to actuarial risk assessment in the pretrial context has engendered both excitement and concern, the debate so far has largely ignored this foundational question. One way of thinking about the question of what level of crime-risk justifies restraint is to ask whether the answer is different for defendants than for anyone else. It is generally assumed that the answer is yes — that defendants are a special case, exempt by virtue of their pending charge from otherwise applicable constitutional and normative constraints. This Article challenges that assumption. It argues that, for purposes of restraint for dangerousness, there is no clear constitutional, moral, or practical distinction between a defendant and a non-defendant who are equally dangerous. There is thus no basis to conclude that the risk standard for such restraint should be different for defendants than for anyone else.

127 Yale L. J. 490 (2018)

Sandra G. Mayson

Police, prosecutors, judges, and other criminal justice actors increasingly use algorithmic risk assessment to estimate the likelihood that a person will commit future crime. As many scholars have noted, these algorithms tend to have disparate racial impacts. In response, critics advocate three strategies of resistance: (1) the exclusion of input factors that correlate closely with race; (2) adjustments to algorithmic design to equalize predictions across racial lines; and (3) rejection of algorithmic methods altogether. This Article’s central claim is that these strategies are at best superficial and at worst counterproductive because the source of racial inequality in risk assessment lies neither in the input data, in a particular algorithm, nor algorithmic methodology per se. The deep problem is the nature of prediction itself. All prediction looks to the past to make guesses about future events. In a racially stratified world, any method of prediction will project the inequalities of the past into the future. This is as true of the subjective prediction that has long pervaded criminal justice as it is of the algorithmic tools now replacing it. Algorithmic risk assessment has revealed the inequality inherent in all predictions, forcing us to confront a problem much larger than the challenges of a new technology. Algorithms, in short, shed new light on an old problem. Ultimately, the Article contends, redressing racial disparity in prediction will require more fundamental changes in the way the criminal justice system conceives of and responds to risk. The Article argues that criminal law and policy should, first, more clearly delineate the risks that matter and, second, acknowledge that some kinds of risk may be beyond our ability to measure without racial distortion—in which case they cannot justify state coercion. Further, to the extent that we can reliably assess risk, criminal system actors should strive whenever possible to respond to risk with support rather than restraint. Counterintuitively, algorithmic risk assessment could be a valuable tool in a system that supports the risk.

Yale L. J. 2218 (2019) Yale Law Review,

By Alissa Skog and Johanna Lacoe

Pretrial electronic monitoring (pretrial EM) is a digital surveillance program that tracks the location and movements of people released to the community while they await the resolution of their criminal case. A locked plastic bracelet is attached to the person’s ankle, which includes a GPS tracking device that notifies the Sheriff’s Office if the person is not complying with the terms of their release. This report covers the characteristics and outcomes of people released by the courts to pretrial EM in San Francisco between 2018 and 2021. During this period, two significant events impacted pretrial detention. First, the In Re Humphrey decision required judges in San Francisco to consider the ability to pay when setting bail and to select the least restrictive non-monetary release condition. Second, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers issued public health directives limiting the jail population in San Francisco. This report is not an evaluation or causal analysis of the impact of pretrial EM. Rather, this report provides policymakers with data and insights to aid decisions about pretrial EM in San Francisco. This analysis reveals: • The use of pretrial EM increased more than twenty-fold between 2017 and 2021. San Francisco rarely used pretrial EM before 2018, averaging 75 cases per year. In 2018, more than 550 cases were released to pretrial EM and the annual caseload increased to more than 1,650 in 2021. • More than one-third of people on pretrial EM are unhoused/unstably housed. • More than 65% of people on pretrial EM who were assessed with a standardized pretrial risk assessment tool were rated at the greatest risk of new arrest or failure to appear in court. • Eighty-five percent of people on pretrial EM are booked on felony charges. The median number of prior San Francisco County Jail bookings is five. • Most people on pretrial EM are terminated prematurely. Of those who fail to comply with pretrial EM rules, 60% are returned to custody within one week of termination and 76% are returned within two months. • Pretrial EM termination rates are higher for people who are unhoused/ unstably housed. Nearly 80% of people who are unhoused/unstably housed on pretrial EM fail to complete the program, compared to approximately 50% of people who are housed. • Terminations from pretrial EM often happen in the first 2 weeks of the program. Individuals who terminate have a median number of days on pretrial EM of 15 days.  

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2022. 41p.

By: Oded Oren, Chad M. Topaz, and Courtney Machi Oliva.

Key Findings:

1. An analysis of public pretrial data from 2020 - 2022 reveals that some New York City judges are disproportionately carceral, i.e., these judges are substantially more likely to order pretrial detention than their peers, even when accounting for factors such as the severity of the case and the defendant’s prior criminal history.

2. The fourteen judges who exhibited the most carceral discretion compared to their peers are Felicia Mennin, Gerald Lebovits, Quynda Santacroce, Josh Hanshaft, Kerry Ward, Bruna DiBiase, Gerianne Abriano, Beth Beller, Phyllis Chu, Alan Schiff, Tara Collins, Derefim Neckles, Joseph McCormack, and Lumarie Maldonado-Cruz.

3. These fourteen judges’ disproportionately carceral decisions over 2.5 years resulted in an estimated 580 additional people detained, 154 additional years of pretrial detention, and over $77 million of additional costs borne by New York City taxpayers

Key Recommendations:

1. Closer scrutiny of judges’ bail decisions is crucial because of the link between pretrial detention and increased recidivism rates, exacerbated racial disparities, and influence over case outcomes.

2. New York (and other jurisdictions) must evaluate whether judicial discretion should be constrained given that legislative efforts to reform bail have not prevented some judges from exercising discretion in disproportionately carceral ways.

3. New York lawmakers should consider the following approaches to constraining disproportionately carceral judges:

• Making additional judge-level data publicly available to all New Yorkers.

• Removing disproportionately carceral judges from overseeing criminal cases.

• Limiting judges’ discretion to detain, including by mandating release from detention upon the preparation of a release plan by holistic teams of experts.

Scrutinize, Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Zimroth Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at NYU School of Law, 2023. 29p.

By Jacqueline Pacvilon, Neil Agarwal, Rosie Wang ,, April Pierina , Hernandez Luperdi

Having legal representation helps ensure due process and is associated with more positive case outcomes for people facing deportation. In 2022, the Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance (MIDA) was formed by four organizations to provide legal representation for people in the Chicago immigration court whose cases begin in immigration detention: The National Immigrant Justice Center, The Resurrection Project, The Immigration Project, and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender. These organizations developed a collaborative model to provide legal representation on a merits-blind basis, which ensures equity in access to representation. A larger share of people on the Chicago detained docket are being represented one year into the MIDA program, despite an increasing number of cases before the court. In this report, the Vera Institute of Justice evaluates the impact of MIDA and this model of universal representation during the coalition’s first year.

Key Takeaway:

Cases with representation have historically fared much better in immigration court. One year after MIDA’s formation, a larger share of people on the Chicago detained docket have representation, despite an increasing number of cases before the court. This model ensures equity and has resulted in many MIDA clients establishing a right to remain in the United States.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2024. 35p.

By Kim Shayo Buchanan

We at the Center for Policing Equity (CPE) advocate reducing the footprint of law enforcement by removing police from places where they do not belong and cannot help. People’s health care, their pregnancy outcomes, and their gender and queer identities exemplify situations that should not involve police. Law enforcement can and should step back from enforcing such laws, as police have traditionally done. Enforcement of anti-abortion, anti-trans, and anti-LGBTQ+ laws would divert finite police resources away from serious and violent crimes that communities care about; squander the goodwill police have built with communities; embolden extremist violence; and endanger vulnerable communities—all while doing nothing to keep the public safe. We urge mayors and municipal governments to instruct law enforcement agencies to deprioritize enforcement of these new, victimless crimes. Instead, officers’ time and departmental resources should be used to prevent and investigate serious crimes that affect public safety. Police and municipal governments can take the following steps to deprioritize enforcement and protect their communities against the threats and harms these laws create: Municipal governments and law enforcement should take these actions: 1. Affirm a public commitment to the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ and pregnant people. 2. Consult with affected communities, on a structured and ongoing basis, about how to deprioritize enforcement. 3. Consult with affected communities about how loud and public to be about deprioritizing enforcement. 4. Ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcome, and provision or receipt of reproductive health care, abortion care, and gender-affirming care (whether real or perceived). a. Ban discrimination against municipal employees, including police officers, on these bases. b. Ban discrimination by municipal employees, including police officers, on these bases. 5. Provide employment benefits such as medical leave, comprehensive health coverage, travel for out-of-state health care, and assurances that any investigation or prosecution by another agency for breach of anti-abortion, anti-trans, or anti-LGBTQ+ laws will not affect the person’s employment. Municipal governments should take these actions: 6. Direct law enforcement leadership to allocate no funds to enforce anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-abortion laws. 7. Ban discrimination by municipal contractors and by local businesses based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcome, and receipt of abortion care and gender-affirming care. 8. Consider using municipal funds to ensure community access to health care needs such as prenatal care, doula care, lactation support, and out-of-state gender-affirming and reproductive health care. 9. Oppose any effort to criminalize use of municipal roads to access abortion, gender affirming care, or any other health care. Law enforcement should take these actions: 10. Protect people and communities against hate crimes and vigilante violence. Use and enforce restraining orders and, when warranted, laws against trespass and disorderly conduct. 11. Consult with abortion providers, reproductive justice advocates, and escorts; gender affirming care providers; hospital management and staffers; and trans and LGBTQ+ advocates about the risks they face and about how best to protect their rights and safety. 12. Amend policy manuals, as needed, to clarify that it is misconduct for police officers and civilian employees to discriminate against members of the public on the bases of sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, pregnancy outcome, or receipt of abortion care or gender-affirming care. 13. Do not enforce anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+, or anti-abortion laws. Allocate no resources to their enforcement. Conduct no investigations and make no arrests. Amend policies and procedures to direct law enforcement employees as follows: a. Do not conduct electronic, in-person, or other surveillance to detect violations of these laws. b. Do not use traffic-safety laws, pretextual stops, or any other means to investigate whether drivers, passengers, or pedestrians may be pregnant, may be transgender, or may be traveling within or out of state to receive prohibited health care. c. Take no action on any report of a violation of anti-abortion, anti-trans, or anti-LGBTQ+ laws except, as needed, to protect the person against potential violence by the caller. d. Do not investigate whether anyone is or has been pregnant, or how or why their pregnancy may have ended. e. Do not investigate anyone’s gender identity, their biological sex, or their assigned sex at birth. f. Take no action when you see a person you think may be transgender unless you have reasonable grounds to suspect the person is committing a crime for which a cisgender person would be investigated. g. Do not enter bars, theaters, libraries, or anywhere else to identify drag performances. h. Apply the same standards of obscenity to LGBTQ+ content or performance as to heteronormative1 content or performance. i. Do not enter bathrooms, changerooms, or anywhere else to ascertain the assigned sex at birth or sex characteristics of people who are there. 14. Require multiple levels of written supervisory approval, including by the chief of police, before an officer can initiate an arrest or investigation for any alleged violation of an anti-abortion, anti trans, or anti-LGBTQ+ law. 15. Ensure that officers and dispatchers are aware of agency policy not to investigate alleged violations of such laws, and that they understand specific laws in the state and locality. 16. Remind officers that they and other people cannot know by looking whether someone is transgender, what their assigned sex at birth was, or whether they are pregnant. a. Do not assume that a person is engaged in sex work based on their gender presentation. b. Do not treat possession of condoms as evidence that a person intends to engage in sex work. 17. Do not treat the presence or existence of a person who is – or is perceived to be – transgender, queer, or gender-expansive as a threat to anyone. 18. Ensure that law enforcement does not interfere with provision of health care. a. Do not station police officers in emergency departments or at hospitals or clinics to investigate patients. b. Do not investigate or interrogate patients or health care providers about a patient’s health care, gender identity, biological sex, pregnancy, health condition, or any reason they may have sought or received medical treatment. c. Do not seek disclosure of patients’ health information or records to investigate any suspected violation of an anti-abortion, anti-trans, or anti-LGBTQ+ law. d. Do not partner with hospitals or health providers to surveil or investigate patients who are pregnant, miscarrying, birthing, thought to be transgender, or suspected of using substances. 19. Do not second-guess medical determinations of whether an abortion procedure was medically necessary within the meaning of a state’s criminal laws. 20. Meet with hospital management, together with local prosecutors – and with physician representatives and emergency health care providers – to understand their concerns about criminal liability and to clarify that police and prosecutors will not second-guess their medical decisions about pregnancy or gender-affirming care   

West Hollywood, CA: Center for Policing Equity, 2024. 35p.

Edited by Steven Teutsch, Yasmin Hurd, and Elizabeth Boyle

Over the past several decades, more than half of all U.S. states have legalized cannabis for adult and/or medical use, but it remains illegal at the federal level. The public health consequences of cannabis policy changes have not been comprehensively evaluated. Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health tasked the National Academies with reviewing cannabis and cannabinoid availability in the U.S., assessing regulatory frameworks for the industry with an emphasis on equity, and describing the strengths and weaknesses of surveillance systems for cannabis. The resulting report finds that there has been limited federal guidance to states regarding protecting public health, which has led to inconsistent protection across the states. The report recommends a strategy to minimize public health harms through stronger federal leadership, a robust research agenda, and more.

Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2024. 340p.

By Florida International University and Loyola University Chicago

This project is a groundbreaking partnership between prosecutors and researchers to promote more effective, just, and transparent decision-making in prosecution. It is a bipartisan effort to be smart on crime, to think about new ways to maximize public safety, to enhance fairness, and to create a new system of accountability to the public. It involves four forward-thinking prosecutors in Cook County (IL), Jacksonville (FL), Milwaukee County (WI), and Tampa (FL) working with researchers at Florida International University and Loyola University Chicago to take a new look at prosecutorial performance and decision-making. This partnership is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Improving prosecutorial performance and decision-making is impossible without data. Data takes center stage in the project because it tells prosecutors what problems are the biggest threats to community well-being, and it points to ways to tackle those problems. Data helps measure the overall impact of prosecutors’ work, and it alerts them that a policy or practice needs to be continued or changed. Unfortunately, most prosecutors’ offices cannot collect, analyze, and apply data to these ends. Many offices do not record the data they need. Others are missing the staff and knowledge necessary to analyze their data. Still other offices—probably most—do not have the ability and commitment to use data to guide their decisions and reforms. This project focuses on helping our partner offices and other interested jurisdictions overcome these hurdles. The project has four distinct objectives: What The Project Is About While the project targets performance in our four partner jurisdictions, it also aims to use the knowledge generated from this experiment to advance the field of prosecution nationally. There are more than 2,300 local prosecutors’ offices in the United States, but very few organizations specialize in prosecutorial research and technical assistance. Realistically, most prosecutors’ offices will not receive any direct meaningful assistance. By building sustainable data collection, performance measurement, and communication practices for the four offices, this project provides a set of blueprints that offices across the country can use to make their own internal improvements. We realize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to prosecutorial office management that will meet every office’s needs. Writing a prescription for a patient we have not examined is hard. However, the project provides a model that other offices can use to start thinking about forming local partnerships, improving data capacity, and producing metrics for assessing their own impact. The backdrop for this project is the Safety & Justice Challenge, the MacArthur Foundation initiative to reduce jail misuse and overuse as both a crucial component and a major driver of America’s over-reliance on incarceration. Unnecessary jail incarceration carries significant costs to individuals, families, communities, and society at large. These costs take their greatest toll on low-income people and communities of color. The Safety & Justice Challenge supports local leaders who are dedicated to safely reducing jail populations, improving justice systems, and ultimately strengthening their communities. To expand offices’ data and analytical capacity by assessing case management systems, making better use of existing data, and exploring options for capturing new information without creating additional burdens for prosecutors. To assist prosecutors with tracking their progress toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness using prosecutorial performance indicators at the office and unit levels (as opposed to the individual prosecutor level). To identify possible racial and ethnic disparities at various stages of case processing across offense categories, and to work with stakeholders to develop specific solutions to reduce them. To establish a practice of using data to measure monthly or quarterly performance and engage with the communities While the project targets performance in our four partner jurisdictions, it also aims to use the knowledge generated from this experiment to advance the field of prosecution nationally. There are more than 2,300 local prosecutors’ offices in the United States, but very few organizations specialize in prosecutorial research and technical assistance. Realistically, most prosecutors’ offices will not receive any direct meaningful assistance. By building sustainable data collection, performance measurement, and communication practices for the four offices, this project provides a set of blueprints that offices across the country can use to make their internal improvements. We realize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to prosecutorial office management that will meet every office’s needs. Prescribing for a patient we have not examined is hard. However, the project provides a model that other offices can use to start thinking about forming local partnerships, improving data capacity, and producing metrics for assessing their impact. The backdrop for this project is the Safety & Justice Challenge, the MacArthur Foundation initiative to reduce jail misuse and overuse as both a crucial component and a major driver of America’s over-reliance on incarceration. Unnecessary jail incarceration carries significant costs to individuals, families, communities, and society at large. These costs take their greatest toll on low-income people and communities of color. The Safety & Justice Challenge supports local leaders who are dedicated to safely reducing jail populations, improving justice systems, and ultimately strengthening their communities. This report presents findings from an assessment of racial and ethnic disparities in prosecution and sentencing in Cook County, Illinois. Multiple decision points are analyzed, including case charging, changes in charge severity from arrest to charging, disposition type, changes in charge severity from charging to conviction, and sentencing. Because the findings vary by decision points and offense categories, each finding should be examined and assessed independently

Miami; Florida International University and Chicago: Loyola University Chicago, 2019. 50p.

By Jan Pospisil

KEY FINDINGS • The governor of Lakes state, Rin Tueny Mabor, rules the state with an iron fist, and is credited with reducing overall levels of inter-communal violence during his two years in office. Despite widespread allegations of human rights violations linked to his heavy-handed approach to security, he has received considerable national recognition for pacifying Lakes state. • The governor’s reputation has suffered setbacks —including public unrest over a decision to demolish informal housing in Rumbek, erected by internally displaced people, and a perceived loss of authority in his home county, Yirol West, following the contested dismissal of a county commissioner nominated by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO). • Since September 2022, pastoral violence has re-emerged along the border with Warrap state, especially in Rumbek North and Cueibet counties, highlighting faults with the governor’s disarmament strategy and his emphasis on a deterrence-based approach to curbing inter-communal violence. • Despite these recent challenges, Rin Tueny appears to be interested in a national-level position. While he is seen as indispensable among national leadership in tackling insecurity in Lakes state, he has political backing to support an appointment in a high-level security sector role. 

Geneva, SWIT: Small Arms Survey, 2023. 7p.

By Odile Ammann,

In Domestic Courts and the Interpretation of International Law, Odile Ammann examines the methodology and reasoning which domestic courts, including Swiss courts, use to interpret international law. She argues that interpretative methods must be taken more seriously in international law. Readership: Domestic judges, academics working on international law, legal theory, and judicial reasoning, academic libraries, advocates, public servants, diplomats, students, and laypersons interested in the relationship between domestic and international law.

Leiden: Brill | Nijhoff, 2019. 404p.

By Suzanne M. Strong, and Mark Motivans

This report provides statistics on the number of RICO investigations concluded and persons investigated by U.S. attorneys from fiscal year (FY) 2012 to FY 2022. It also presents statistics from FY 2018 to FY 2022 on investigations concluded by U.S. attorneys with multiple persons investigated; persons prosecuted, adjudicated, and sentenced with a RICO violation as the most serious offense; persons convicted with a RICO violation as the most serious offense or as a secondary offense; and conviction rates by state or territory.

Washington, DC:  U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2024.11p.