By Massachusetts Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

January 3, 2024

The Massachusetts State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights undertook an investigation of this practice that included analysis of individual and aggregated cases, findings from independent researchers, testimony from non-governmental experts in non-profit organizations, and elected officials with a wide range of experience within the system of civil asset forfeiture in the state. We found that there are serious flaws at all levels of civil asset forfeiture practices and procedures.

In addition, we conducted a systematic analysis of a geographically weighted sample of cases of civil asset forfeiture filed across all 11 counties in Massachusetts between January 2019 and June 2022. We reviewed all documents available from the Massachusetts Trial Court website to ascertain the timeline between seizure and forfeiture filing, types of property seized, and the circumstances leading up to the seizure and forfeiture filing. We noted the location of the seizure, the county in which the forfeiture was filed, and any demographic or other characteristics of the individuals from whom property was seized. Given the amount of documents involved, we completed a review of a total of 45 cases during this time period.

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2023. 18p.

By: Kristen DeVall, Christina Lanier, and Lindsay J. Baker

The monograph has continued the long-standing tradition of providing a detailed profile of the treatment court field within the United States. Especially noteworthy is that the data enable the authors to monitor trends and highlight similarities and differences in the findings over time. The monograph also provides a summary of the most recent scholarly literature on treatment courts. Summaries of the extant literature for each type of treatment court include an overview of the history and structure, best practice standards, guiding principles, effectiveness and cost-benefit findings, and directions for future research.

Wilmington, NC: National Drug Court Resource Center 2022. 36p.

By Ian K. Belton and Mandeep K. Dhami

Personal mitigating factors (PMFs) such as good character, remorse and addressing addiction help sentencers evaluate an offender’s past, present and future behavior. We analyzed data from the 2011–2014 Crown Court Sentencing Surveys in England and Wales to examine the relationship between these PMFs and custodial sentences passed on assault and burglary offenses, controlling for other sentencing relevant factors. Beyond revealing the distribution and co-occurrence of the three PMFs, it was found that good character, remorse and addressing addiction all had a significant mitigating effect. The effects of addressing addiction were the strongest of the three across both offense types, while good character had a stronger effect on burglary than assault. In addition, some mitigating factors appear to be underweighted when they occur together. We consider the implications of these findings for sentencing policy and practice.

J Empir Leg Stud. 2024;1–32.

By Clare Anderson & Martin Halliwell

This article considers the intersecting geographical, social, medical and political frameworks necessary to construct an understanding of mental health in Guyanese prisons, historically and in the present day. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to integrate archives, modern records and interviews, it looks first at colonial and independent state management of mental health impacts with respect to sentencing, incarceration and rehabilitation. It moves on to reflect on recent efforts to provide co-ordinated policies and practices at national level to tackle more effectively moderate to severe mental health conditions. Here it shows that, as in the colonial period, prisoners and prison officials are typically neglected. Overall, our appreciation of the importance of what we term the coloniality of incarceration and public health enables us to deepen an understanding of the development and ongoing significance of approaches to mental ill health in the modern state, following Guyana's independence from colonial rule in 1966.

United States, The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice. 2022, 19pg

By Miloš Resimić   

Undercover integrity testing involves simulating an event that places an employee, without their knowledge, in a monitored situation with an opportunity for unethical decision-making. It has been used as an integrity measure by law enforcement agencies, customs administrations, and public administration more widely. This Helpdesk Answer assesses its effectiveness, finding it can both detect and deter corrupt behaviour. The Answer also considers operational implications of the measure, including potential legal issues.

Berlin:  U4 Helpdesk Answer. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and Transparency International , 2023. 18p.

By Elise White, Basaime Spate, Javonte Alexander, and Rachel Swaner

Our study of more than 100 young gun-carriers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn identifies fear—for their own lives and for their loved ones—as the overwhelming factor behind their decision to carry. In-depth interviews were conducted by researchers with personal connections to the young people’s social networks, opening up levels of trust and honesty rarely found in prior research.

Predominantly young Black men, ages 15 to 24, these gun-carriers talked about experiencing, witnessing, and being threatened with violence at shocking rates. Very few had access to long-term, stable jobs, with most relying on the underground economy to make ends meet. Afraid and distrustful of police, and with few other means to ensure their safety, many young people turned to gun-carrying for self-preservation. For most youth, fear for their own lives and the lives of their families outweighed concerns about going to jail.

The study identifies four types of young gun-carriers in Brooklyn:

• Those who carry for protection due to generalized fear, and are ambivalent about using guns

• Those who carry for image, to intimidate or impress others

• Those who carry defensively as part of street hustles that expose them to danger

• Shooters, who are willing to go on the offensive

These findings highlight the need to meet young gun-carriers where they are, recognizing gangs, crews, and street networks as the main sources of identity, loyalty, and decision-making for many young people. Our recommendations point the way towards a collaborative approach to safety—one that offers an alternative to law enforcement, creates spaces for healing, and respects young gun-carriers’ allegiance to their street networks.

New York: Center for Justice Innovation, 2023. 72p.

By The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)

  Ten years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice’s COPS Office approached PERF with an exciting opportunity—to develop guidelines for the police use of body-worn cameras. Body cameras were a brand-new technology at the time, and we quickly found that while many departments were interested in developing a body camera program, very few had done so. And the few agencies that had adopted body cameras often lacked a written policy governing their use. Police leaders told us that a big reason why they were hesitant to adopt body cameras was that there was little guidance on how to navigate the many challenges that come with implementing a camera program. So in September 2013, PERF brought together more than 200 police chiefs, sheriffs, and other experts for an in-depth discussion of the many complex issues body cameras raise. Participants shared their experiences with body cameras, their concerns with what this technology meant for the future of policing, and their questions about how to deploy body cameras in a way that strengthens police transparency and accountability—without infringing on people’s privacy or damaging community policing efforts. We then used these discussions as the basis for the 2014 PERF/COPS Office report, “Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned,” which provided the first set of comprehensive guidelines for implementing a body camera program. 1 Much has changed in the ten years since that first convening. For one thing, the police use of body cameras has skyrocketed. In 2020, almost 4 in 5 (79 percent) local police officers worked in departments that used BWCs, and all departments serving 1 million or more residents reported using them.2 Sheriffs’ offices had similar increases in their use of BWCs, with more than two-thirds (68 percent) of sheriffs’ offices having BWCs in 2020.3 Even federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, have adopted this technology. And with high-profile police use-of-force incidents and in-custody deaths leading to demands for greater police accountability, the public has come to want—and expect—police officers to wear cameras. We also have more research now about the impacts of body cameras. For example, as discussed on page 57 of this report, studies have consistently found that body cameras are associated with re ductions in complaints against officers, though it is still not clear whether this is because officers with cameras behave better or because people file fewer frivolous complaints if they know there is video footage of an event. Research has also shown that the impact of body cameras on police use of force is promising, especially when the camera program is well-implemented. However, even with ten years’ worth of research and real-world experience, many questions about body cameras remain. That’s why PERF decided to revisit this critical topic and hold a second meeting, “Body-Worn Cameras a Decade Later: What We Know,” on June 29, 2023 in Washington, DC. Once again, we gathered roughly 200 police leaders, researchers, and other experts to talk about their experiences with body cameras. These fascinating discussions revealed both the benefits and challenges of body cameras, and how this technology is shaping policing. For example, participants told us about innovative ways they are using body cameras to improve officer and agency performance. I often talk about the importance of “Monday-morning quarterbacking” and how after-action reviews of critical incidents should become part of the DNA of policing. At the conference, many police officials said body cameras can play a large role in these efforts by allowing departments to review footage of incidents to assess policies, procedures, and resources. In this way, body cameras can help build an organizational culture of constructive criticism, self-awareness, and ongoing learning and improvement. We also heard from researchers that strong implementation and fidelity to policy play a key part in the effectiveness of a body camera program. This is especially true when it comes to camera activation. If officers are not turning their body cameras on when they are supposed to, the cameras will be rendered useless. Participants discussed how advances in technology, such as automatic camera activation through sidearms, biometrics, dash cameras, lights and sirens, and computer-aided dispatch, can be used to promote compliance.    

Washington, DC:  Police Executive Research Forum, 2023. 64p.

Benjamin W. Fisher,  Anthony Petrosino,  Hannah Sutherland,  Sarah Guckenburg,  Trevor Fronius,  Ivan Benitez,  Kevin Earl

Background

School-based law enforcement (SBLE) has become a common intervention. Although SBLE is meant to make schools safer, critics suggest it may not accomplish this purpose, and may have unintended negative consequences such as increasing students’ exclusionary discipline or contact with the criminal justice system. There may also be secondary effects related to perceptions of the school or student learning.

Objectives

The purpose of this review is to synthesize the literature evaluating the use of SBLE, including outcomes related to (a) crime and behavior problems; (b) perceptions of safety; and (c) learning.

Methods

We conducted a systematic literature search to identify studies that examined outcomes associated with SBLE use. Eligible studies used experimental or quasi-experimental designs; included samples of students, teachers/staff, schools, or school districts; reported on a policing strategy focused on crime prevention or school safety that did not involve officers teaching a curriculum; included a measure that reflects crime and behavior problems, perceptions of safety, or learning; and were in a primary or secondary school. Following a multi-stage screening process to identify studies eligible for inclusion, we estimated a series of meta-analytic models with robust variance estimation to calculate weighted mean effect sizes for each of three main categories of outcomes and commonly occurring subsets of these categories. We examined heterogeneity in these estimates across features of the primary studies’ design.

Results

The search and screening process yielded 1002 effect sizes from 32 reports. There were no true experiments, and the quasi-experiments ranged from strictly correlational to permitting stronger causal inferences. SBLE use was associated with greater crime and behavior problems in studies that used schools as the unit of analysis. Within this category, SBLE use was associated with increased exclusionary discipline among studies that used both schools (g = 0.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.02, 0.27]) and students (g = 0.003, 95% CI [0.002, 0.003]) as the unit of analysis. SBLE use was not associated with any measures of crime or violence in schools. SBLE use was associated with greater feelings of safety among studies that used schools as the unit of analysis (g = 0.18, 95% CI [0.13, 0.24]), although this estimate was based on only seven effect sizes from two correlational studies. All the other models, including those examining learning outcomes, yielded null results. None of the moderators tested showed meaningful relationships, indicating the findings were consistent across a variety of study design features.

Authors’ Conclusions

This study's findings provide no evidence that there is a safety-promoting component of SBLE, and support the criticism that SBLE criminalizes students and schools. Although we found no evidence of differences across methodological features, risk of bias in the primary studies limits our confidence in making causal inferences. To the extent that the findings are causal, schools that invest in strategies to improve safety will likely benefit from divesting from SBLE and instead investing in evidence-based strategies for enhancing school safety. Schools that continue to use SBLE should ensure that their model has no harmful effects and is providing safety benefits.

Campbell Systematic Reviews, Volume19, Issue4

December 2023

By  Derek A. Neal and  Armin Rick

Between 1975 and 2008, the US incarceration rate increased by roughly 400 percent. Trends in crime rates, arrest rates per crime committed, conviction rates per arrest, and expected time-served in prison given conviction all influence trends in incarceration rates. Available data do not allow researchers to precisely measure the contribution of each of these factors to the US prison boom. However, increases in expected prison time-served among those arrested for many different offenses were the most important drivers of rising incarceration rates. We argue that changes in policies that govern sentencing and parole are the likely drivers of these increases. We also discuss potential reforms that may reduce expected time-served among convicted offenders while minimizing harm to public safety.

Working Paper No. 2023-150

Chicago: University Chicago, Beck Friedman Institute for Economics, 29 Pages Posted: 1 Dec 2023

By  Ben Bradford, Krisztian Posch, Arabella Kyprianides,  Jyoti Belur, et al.

Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) were introduced into UK policing in 2003 and were initially made available for use only by authorised firearms officers. The CED adopted by the UK is manufactured by AXON and referred to as Taser. The College of Police describes CEDs as follows. “A CED is a less lethal weapon system designed to temporarily incapacitate a subject through use of an electrical current that temporarily interferes with the body’s neuromuscular system and produces a sensation of intense pain. It is one of a number of tactical options available when dealing with an incident with the potential for conflict. CEDs will not be routinely used to police public order or public safety events, but may be used as an option to respond to circumstances within the operation. The use of CED ranges from the physical presence of a drawn device through to the application of electrical discharge to a subject. Even before a CED is drawn, the mere visibility of an overtly carried holstered device may serve a deterrent value”. 1 In 2008, Taser was made available to non-firearms trained police, who could be equipped and deploy with the device after becoming a Specially Trained Officer (STO). This transition was particularly important because it meant that, in most cases, the strict command and control protocols supervising Taser use within firearms operations no longer applied. Rather, individual STOs made decisions to deploy the weapon in the context of routine operations. Moreover, training for Taser moved from the specialist arena of extended firearms training into a shorter, usually three-day, training programme. In 2019, access to Taser was extended to Student Officers and, in 2022, it was expanded again to Special Constables. To retain their qualification, STOs in England and Wales are required to undertake a minimum of six hours refresher training every twelve months, typically delivered over one day. Whilst, under certain circumstances, Taser is effective tactically, its use carries a range of risks, both individually and organisationally. Home Office figures show that in 2017/18, when new use of force recording rules came into force, there were just under 17,000 uses of Taser; by 2021/22 this had grown to over 34,000. As the use of CED increases so too does the possibility of incidents occurring that pose a threat of harm to citizens, as well as individual and cumulative threats to police legitimacy. This is particularly true with regard to its deployment involving people from ethnic minority communities. For example, Home Office statistics for 2021/22 showed that Black .... people were approximately five times more likely than White people to have Taser used against them. The extent and nature of ethnic disproportionality in police use of Taser is measured and understood primarily via these Home Office statistics. According to the Voice newspaper a review of Taser cases between 2015-20 by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that 60% of Black people were subjected to Taser use for up to five seconds longer in comparison to just 29% of White people, people with mental health issues were also more likely to be subjected to multiple and prolonged discharges and a total of 16 people have died where the use of Tasering has been a factor following the inquests into their deaths. 2 Moreover, within England and Wales there have been several high-profile incidents where individuals of Black heritage have died following police use of Taser. These patterns of policing are a significant challenge for the police. As the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Taser and Less Lethal Weapons, Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi has said: “Police officers across the UK do an exceptional job under immense pressure, but these statistics cannot be ignored. The impact of this disproportionality on communities is far-reaching and it is important that we do as much as we can to understand the underlying reasons”. 3 1.2. This report describes a programme of research, funded by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which aimed to explore the potential causes of these ethnic and racial disparities in the police use of Taser.    

2023. 212p.

London: University College London, 2022. 212p.

By Meressa Kahsu Dessu, Dawit Yohannes and Charles T Hunt

Most contemporary multidimensional peace operations prioritise the protection of civilians (PoC) as one of their primary mandates. This is expected as current conflicts and crises are increasingly marked by high civilian casualties, emanating not least from the deliberate targeting of civilians and the blurred distinction between combatants and non-combatants. As a key element of multidimensional peace operations, the United Nations (UN) Police have assumed diverse roles in implementing the mandate of such missions. Key decision-making entities such as the UN Security Council (UNSC) have increasingly acknowledged such roles. This can be illustrated by the UNSC’s resolution that recognises the police’s ‘invaluable contribution to peacekeeping, post-conflict peacebuilding, security, the rule of law, and the creation of a basis for development.’1 However, the evolving roles of the police have not matched with studies on its effectiveness in mandate implementation, particularly in PoC. 

 This monograph contributes to debates around the role and effectiveness of policing in PoC based on the lessons from the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The study combines two overarching debates: the effectiveness of peace operations and the role of policing in PoC. While the mission was established in 2011, this monograph pays particular attention since 2014, following the prioritisation of the PoC mandate. The analysis broadly focuses on the effectiveness of different structures of mission headquarters and Field Offices, with a special emphasis on policing at PoC Sites. As one of its key findings, the study recognises the mixed record of the UNMISS police in fulfilling the mission’s PoC mandate. The police component played key roles in supporting the mission to prevent protection challenges from worsening in the face of recurrent crime, violence and conflicts  

Monograph 211. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2023.   66p.

By Daragh Murray

Retrospective facial recognition (RFR) marks a step change in police surveillance capability that has received surprisingly little attention to-date. As the legal issues surrounding RFR are uncertain, and as legal challenge is likely, this article makes four key contributions. First, the surveillance capability made possible by RFR is set out. Second, human rights harms associated with RFR are examined, highlighting the ‘chilling effects’ of surveillance, and raising the possibility of compound human rights harm. Third, the assumption that the common law, coupled with police forces’ policy framework, may satisfy the ‘in accordance with the law’ test is challenged, and existing policy frameworks are evaluated. Fourth, the ‘necessity’ test is unpacked to better understand how evidence in favour of a RFR deployment could be presented, and how associated harm may be identified. This section asks whether the necessity test, as currently approached, is adequate in light of the emergence of RFR.

Modern Law Review, Dec. 2023.

By Tim Verlaan & Stijn Ruiter 

Background

As rapid response has been a key policing strategy for police departments around the globe, so has police response time been a key performance indicator. This scoping review maps and assesses the variables that predict police response time.

Methods

This review considers empirical studies, written in english, that include quantitative data from which an association between the outcome variable police response time and any predictor can be observed or derived. This review provides both a narrative synthesis as well as what we termed a hybrid synthesis, a novel way of synthesizing a large quantitative dataset which is considered too rich for a mere narrative synthesis and yet does not allow for meta-analysis.

Results

The search, screening and selection process yielded 39 studies, which presented 630 associations between 122 unique predictor variables and police response time. In order to present the results in a digestible way, we classified these into categories and subcategories. All methodological steps and the findings are made public: https://github.com/timverlaan/prt.

Conclusions

Most of the conclusion and discussion focuses on lessons learned and recommendations for future research, as it proved hard to draw any definitive conclusions on causal factors related to police response time. We recommend that future studies clearly describe mechanisms, focus on the components of police response time (reporting time, dispatch time, travel time—or a combination of these), attempt to standardize predictors and outcome variables, and we call for more research into reporting time. We conclude this review with a first attempt at deriving a causal model of police response time from the subcategories of predictor variables we observed in the empirical studies included in this review.

Trail Registration: https://osf.io/hu2e9. Crime Science volume 12, Article number: 19 (2023) 

By  Libor Duˇsek and Christian Traxler

This paper studies how swiftness and delay of punishment affect behavior. We leverage rich data on the enforcement of speed limits by automated speed cameras. The data allow us to track cars’ driving histories over time as well as the exact time when tickets are sent, delivered, and paid. To identify the effect of swift or delayed tickets on payment and driving outcomes, we exploit two sources of (quasi-)experimental variation: (1) at the start of the speed camera systems, administrative issues caused large delays in the time between an offense and the sending of a ticket; (2) in cooperation with the authority, we later introduced a protocol that randomized the sequence at which tickets were processed. We get two sets of results. First, we find significantly negative effects of delays on payment compliance. Relative to tickets sent within 4 weeks after an offense, the rate of timely paid fines drops by 7 to 9% when a ticket is delayed by four or more weeks. We also find evidence that very swift tickets, which are sent within the first day after an offense, increase timely payments. These findings are in line with the expectations of academic economists and criminologists, which we elicited in a survey. Our second set of results shows that tickets cause a strong, immediate, and persistent drop in speeding. However, we do not detect any differential effect from swift or delayed tickets. This conflicts with widely held beliefs about the benefits of swift punishment, which are also mirrored in the responses to our survey.

 CESifo Working Paper No. 10906, 2024

By Alexandra Klein

The Death Penalty Information Center described 2022 as “the year of the botched execution” in its 2022 Annual Report. Alabama’s execution errors were especially serious: it attempted to execute four people, botched three of its four executions, and ultimately called off two executions. Alabama’s 2022 executions and its errors are the culmination of common problems in capital punishment across the United States. A full understanding of capital punishment requires an analysis of individual cases, including executions, and analysis of how that case fits within the system of capital punishment. Evaluating a single case may reveal unfairness and arbitrariness, but tracking those trends across multiple cases demonstrates broader system failures. Alabama’s 2022 executions present a useful case study for understanding the flaws in execution practices and capital punishment more broadly.

This Article documents the 2022 Alabama executions and makes three contributions. First, it summarizes the events in Alabama surrounding the executions of Matthew Reeves and Joe James, and the failed executions of Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith. It reviews some issues associated with each capital sentence and appeals process. Second, it explores points of commonality among each of the four cases: non-unanimous jury sentencing and judicial overrides, inadequate legal representation and resources, the role the Supreme Court played in the cases, and the problems associated with Alabama’s execution protocols. Finally, it addresses the outcome of Alabama’s decision to suspend executions and offers recommendations intended to protect the Eighth Amendment rights of people facing executions if Alabama’s elected officials are unwilling to take the necessary step to abolish the death penalty.

The problems this Article describes are not unique to Alabama, but events in Alabama afford an opportunity to bring fresh scrutiny to these issues. The Supreme Court’s willingness to authorize executions regardless of the merits of an individual case makes it more likely that errors like this will continue to happen. Alabama is not the whole story of 2022’s botched executions, but what happened in Alabama illustrates just how pointlessly cruel the process of capital punishment is.

24 Nev. L.J., Forthcoming, 2024.

By Corinna Lain

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and our failed implementation of deinstitutionalization in the 1970s is a prime example of the point. In this symposium contribution—a response to Jeffrey Bellin’s book Mass Incarceration Nation—I offer a historical account of deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals, tracing how severely mentally ill patients were discharged from state hospitals and eventually made their way back to secure beds, but in our nation’s jails and prisons instead. Mental health and mass incarceration are not separate crises, I argue, but rather interconnected problems with an interconnected past that require an interconnected solution. The lessons of deinstitutionalization’s failures can inform how our decarceration story plays out, offering an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of our past and move toward a more just, humane, and equitable future—a future that takes the “mass” out of mass incarceration.

William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 65, No. __, 2024

By Thomas Frampton

Supreme Court opinions involving race and the jury invariably open with the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, or landmark cases like Strauder v. West Virginia (1880). Legal scholars and historians unanimously report that free people of color did not serve as jurors, in either the North or South, until 1860. In fact, this Article shows, Black men served as jurors in antebellum America decades earlier than anyone has previously realized. While instances of early Black jury service were rare, campaigns insisting upon Black citizens’ admission to the jury-box were not. From the late 1830s onward, Black activists across the country organized to abolish the all-white jury. They faced, and occasionally overcame, staunch resistance. This Article uses jury lists, court records, convention minutes, diaries, bills of sale, tax rolls, and other overlooked primary sources to recover these forgotten efforts, led by activists who understood the jury-box to be both a marker and maker of citizenship. A broader historical perspective—one that centers Black activists in the decades before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868—offers a new way of thinking about the relationship between race, rights, citizenship, and the jury.

New York University Law Review, 2024.

By The Welsh Parliament Equality and Social Justice Committee

Women who commit crime are generally some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society, often with multiple and complex needs. Women now make up around 5 per cent of the prison population, estimated to be twice as many as twenty years ago.

Wales, The Committee. 2023, 56pg

By Nisha Waller and Naima Sakande

In England and Wales, the requirement for a unanimous jury verdict in criminal cases was abolished in 1967, marking a significant departure from a centuries-old legal tradition. Majority verdicts are now common practice, yet no research to date explores the origins of this sudden change to the jury system. In contrast, recent research in the US uncovered a connection between the conception of majority verdicts in Louisiana and Jim Crow era law-making, finding that majority verdicts were strategically introduced to suppress the black juror vote and facilitate quicker convictions to fuel free prison labour. The US Supreme Court later outlawed majority verdicts in a case known as Ramos v. Louisiana, amid recognition of their racist origins. Adopting the critical epistemological position guiding the US research, we consider how race and class underpinned the decision to introduce majority verdicts in England and Wales. Drawing on Home Office files and other archival materials, we find that an increase in eligible jurors from different racial and class backgrounds led to a perceived decline in the ‘calibre’ of jurors – reflective of wider public anxieties about Commonwealth immigration, Black Power and white disenfranchisement. We conclude that a desire to dilute the influence of ‘coloured’ migrants on juries contributed to the introduction of majority verdicts in England and Wales.

Race & Class, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231212992 Online First, 2024.

By Ross Miller, Paul Heaton, Haley Sturges

Presumptive field tests for illicit substances have become an integral part of policing. Inexpensive and fast, these tests have become a tool of choice for law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, they are notoriously imprecise and are known to produce “false positives,” where innocuous legal substances (e.g., baking soda) provide the same result as an illegal substance (e.g., cocaine) and leading to frequent wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions. Although originally developed as a preliminary-only testing method due to their unreliability, these tests have become de facto and inaccurate determinants of guilt or innocence in thousands of cases, causing considerable negative and undeserved consequences for thousands upon thousands of Americans. In the modern U.S. criminal legal “system of pleas, not...of trials” (Lafler v. Cooper, 2012) where 95% of cases are resolved by plea bargain, the unreliability of these tests undermines public trust in the justice system and creates a liability risk for jurisdictions that rely on them. This research report provides the first-ever comprehensive analysis of presumptive drug field test usage across law enforcement agencies in the United States. Utilizing a nationwide survey of agencies, the report offers national estimates on the frequency of test usage, finding that each year approximately 773,000 drug-related arrests involve the use of presumptive tests. Using the survey data and national estimates of drug arrests, this report examines the impact of the tests on wrongful arrests, racial disparities in their use, and their subsequent impact on drug possession prosecutions and dispositions.

 2023. 68p.