By Oceana R. Gilliam, Brett Taylor, Lindsey Price Jackson, and Jarred Williams
In partnership with the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office, this study looks at the potential for offering meaningful alternatives to traditional prosecution for people accused of felony offenses in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, laying out key aspects of planning a successful diversion program.
New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2023, 40pg
By Brandon L. Garrett, JD, Monitor, et al.
The ODonnell Consent Decree
Misdemeanor Bail Reform: In Harris County, secured money bonds are no longer required for most misdemeanor cases under the court rule adopted as part of the ODonnell v. Harris County settlement. Most people arrested for misdemeanors are released promptly without a hearing.
Bail Options Unchanged for Cases with Public Safety Concerns: People charged with misdemeanors that potentially present public safety risks (e.g., repeat DWIs, family violence, prior bond violations or outstanding warrants) are not automatically released. A hearing officer makes a bail decision, usually following a hearing at which magistrates have the traditional options to require financial bonds, protective orders, pretrial supervision requirements, or other release conditions.
Better Bail Hearings: Defense attorneys continue to represent people at bail hearings, as required by Rule 9 and the Consent Decree. Before 2017, people arrested in Harris County usually had no defense attorney at these hearings. Judges also must give greater attention to more rigorous bail requirements.
Major Consent Decree Accomplishments:
Court Appearance: The County is currently implementing an approved plan to make use of the budget allocation to improve court appearance. The County is now piloting a new website, https://myharriscountycase.com, where people can readily look up information about upcoming appearances in their cases.
Data: Much of the relevant information about the misdemeanor bail process is now available in an automated report. We have continued work to provide feedback on Harris County’s public data portal. We now have improved data regarding persons flagged as homeless or with mental health assessment requests, as well as data concerning pretrial supervision conditions, and report these new analyses in this report.
Training: The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at the SMU Dedman School of Law conducted trainings in 2023, which resume in early 2024.
Indigent Defense: The County is continuing to develop plans in response to the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) evaluation of Harris County’s misdemeanor indigent defense systems. We hope the County will implement a plan for the earlier appointment of counsel.
Ongoing Work by the Monitor Team:
Data Development: We analyzed data prepared by Harris County and provided continual feedback on data development in regular meetings concerning the assembly and validation of data regarding misdemeanor cases.
Community Work Group: We convened quarterly meetings of our Community Work Group, to share our work and solicit input from our diverse community stakeholders. Members share their perspectives for the “Community Viewpoints” column found in our reports.
Regular Meetings: We held regular meetings with the parties and Harris County stakeholders, including weekly calls, monthly meetings with both judges and hearing officers, and periodic calls with public defenders and prosecutors. Our next public meetings will be held in-person on April 18, 2024.
Feedback: We provided feedback to the parties on several improvements to the hearing process, the designed and implemented training, and the assessment work regarding holistic defense services and nonappearance. o Review of Violations: We are extremely grateful for the work that has begun to build an improved system to permit all County actors to review potential Rule 9 violations and prevent delays and errors in case processing.
Our Findings:
Data Analysis: Our updated findings largely confirm what we reported in our first six reports. The bail reforms under the ODonnell Consent Decree have saved Harris County and residents many millions of dollars, improved the lives of tens of thousands of persons arrested for misdemeanors, and these large-scale changes have produced no increase in new offenses by persons arrested for misdemeanors.
Overall, the work suggests that repeat offending by persons arrested for misdemeanors has remained stable in recent years.
The numbers of persons arrested for misdemeanors have declined since 2015.
The numbers of those arrested for misdemeanors who had new charges filed within one year have also declined.
The analyses conducted show:
Misdemeanor Case and Defendant Characteristics
The number of misdemeanor arrestees has declined by more than 15 percent between 2015 (N=49,359) and 2023 (N=41,177).
The count has been slightly increasing since 2020, which marked the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic period.
Durham, NC: Duke University, 2024. 107p.
By The Center for Justice Innovation
Within the context of a national movement toward criminal legal system reform— including the use of alternatives-to incarceration (ATIs) for non-violent and drug cases—legal responses to crimes of violence still largely involve incarceration. Few jurisdictions apply alternatives to address violent crime, instead continuing to rely on carceral approaches, despite evidence pointing to the overall negative effects. The current study explores alternative responses to crimes of violence outside of incarceration. Specifically, this document presents
Specifically, this document presents findings from five in-depth case studies. In it, we highlight some of the unique approaches to responding to violent crime implemented in each site, in hopes that they may prove instructive for other jurisdictions seeking to explore or further develop alternative approaches to crimes of violence. The featured approaches are implemented at various stages of the criminal legal system process—from after charging and the initial appearance, to pretrial and plea, to post-plea, pre- sentencing, to post-conviction and sentencing. We explore a pretrial supervision program, restorative justice programs, pretrial diversion programs, specialty courts, and post-conviction resentencing initiatives. Each study also includes specific recommendations made by those in the featured site and based on the information learned from the featured site. The companion piece, A New Approach: Alternative Prosecutorial Responses to Violent Crime, presents a comprehensive summary of study findings, along with resultant recommendations for policy and practice.
New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2024, 41pg
To effectively address the problem of mass incarceration, prosecutors must adopt ways to respond to cases involving violence that don’t rely on jails and prisons. The "Prosecutors and Responses to Crimes of Violence: Notes from the Field" document offers in-depth case study findings and is intended as a tool for jurisdictions looking to expand alternative approaches to crimes of violence.
New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2024, 18pg
By Fred Butcher, Amanda B. Cissner, and Michael Rempel
Mandatory minimum sentencing laws gained traction in the late 1970s and early 1980s amidst rising crime rates, a “tough-on-crime” push, and punitive enforcement related to the “War on Drugs.”. Under mandatory minimums, individuals receive a stipulated amount of prison time, with no accounting for the circumstances of the offense or the characteristics of the person charged. As minimums typically flow from the charge and a person’s criminal history, they confer outsized power on prosecutors; in plea negotiations, prosecutors can wield the threat of a higher charge with a minimum for someone hesitant to accept a plea. Judges also lose discretion, and defense attorneys lose opportunities to present mitigating circumstances. In 1984, the federal Sentencing Reform Act established the U.S. Sentencing Commission, requiring that federal courts impose sentences within a range specified by the Commission and eliminating parole for federal charges. Many states took their cue from federal efforts, introducing minimum sentences and restricting the ability of parole boards to reduce sentences through good-time or earned-time credits. Proponents viewed sentencing guidelines (including mandatory prison) as a limit on judicial discretion and a means to eliminate disparities in sentencing. They touted the idea of “truth in-sentencing”—giving people charged, crime survivors, and the public an accurate idea of how much time those sentenced would actually serve. Minimums also arose in response to the perception—ginned up at the time and since debunked—that the more rehabilitative approach of the 1960s had failed to tamp down crime rates and recidivism. Recent decades, however, have seen mandatory minimums fall into disrepute. Several decades of harsh sentencing policies contributed to the astronomical growth of the U.S. prison population, which peaked at 1.6 million people held on an average day in 2009, a total which omits about 750,000 additional people held in local jails that year. The rapid consolidation of mass incarceration over these decades did not increase safety; evidence points instead to a modest increase in recidivism among individuals subject to custodial sanctions. Similarly, mandatory minimums and other sentencing laws passed in the 1970s and 1980s increased (and here more than modestly) persistent racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Black Americans today continue to be disproportionately represented in prison populations and are more likely to be charged with offenses subject to mandatory minimums—leading to longer sentences—than white Americans.8 According to the most recent analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, among those detained in prisons nationwide, there were nearly identical Black and white populations (34% vs. 32%). Considering their representation in the general population, Black people are imprisoned at a rate five times greater than white people. Over the past two decades, numerous states, including New York, have weakened or eliminated mandatory minimum sentencing laws.10 Many of these reforms focused on eliminating minimums that apply primarily to drug offenses. This narrow focus has neglected much of the imprisoned population, as drug offenders make up a small percentage of those in prison. In 2022, the Vera Institute of Justice estimated just over half of New York’s approximately 300,000 prison sentences were the result of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Declaring the laws “morally and fiscally unsustainable,” the organization called for their abolition.
New York: Center for Justice Innovation. 2022, 31pg
By Melanie Skemer, Emily Brennan
The U.S. jail population has tripled over the last 30 years due to surges in the use of pretrial detention and money bail. On any given day, nearly 450,000 people in the United States are detained while awaiting the resolution of their criminal charges. Many of these individuals, still legally innocent, are in jail because they cannot afford to pay the bail amount set as a condition of their release. Pretrial detention takes a significant toll on the lives of affected individuals, putting them at increased risk of continued involvement with the criminal legal system as well as of losing their jobs, housing, and child custody.
As a result, jurisdictions across the United States are reforming their pretrial systems to reduce the number of people who are held in pretrial detention—that is, who remain in jail while they await the adjudication of their cases. As part of this effort, many jurisdictions are moving away from money bail as a primary means of encouraging people to return for future court dates. Instead, they are increasingly relying on alternatives such as pretrial supervision, which requires released people to meet regularly with supervision staff members while their cases are pending. Pretrial supervision has traditionally required clients to report for in-person meetings, particularly for those assessed as being at relatively high risk of failing to attend a court hearing or of being rearrested.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many pretrial supervision programs shifted in-person meeting requirements to remote check-ins to protect the health of both clients and staff members. For many jurisdictions, this shift highlighted some of the benefits of remote supervision, which include time savings for clients balancing work, school, caregiving, or other responsibilities, and less resource-intensive administration for supervision providers, potentially generating cost savings. At the same time, some members of the pretrial community questioned whether remote supervision was as effective as in-person interaction at meeting clients’ needs and protecting public safety. As the pandemic waned, it remained unclear whether remote supervision was as effective as in-person or hybrid (a mix of in-person and remote) supervision in achieving the main goals of supervision programs: helping clients make their court appearances and avoid new arrests during the pretrial period.
New York: MDRC. 2024, 37pg
Many observers claim that judges are imposing disproportionately lenient sentences on January 6, 2021, “Capitol Breach” offenders. Some have even suggested a racial or political motivation for lighter sentences. Comparative data on these sentences and offenders, presented here for the first time, refute this narrative. Individuals convicted of felonies related to the Capitol Breach appear to actually receive longer sentences than individuals convicted of the same crimes outside of the Capitol Breach context.
But sentences in Capitol Breach cases may indeed be “lenient” for a deeper, more structural reason—the current Federal Sentencing Guidelines do not adequately account for the severity of the conduct that occurred on January 6, 2021. There is a qualitative difference between federal offenses and the same offenses committed in the context of the “treason spectrum.” English and American legal traditions have historically viewed treason, rebellion, and subversive activities as “the worst crimes of all” because they are crimes against all citizens and threaten the constitutional order. Yet no sentencing enhancement addresses the increased severity of conduct involving offenses that are on the treason spectrum.
Recognizing the increased seriousness of other conduct, Congress and the Sentencing Commission have enacted an array of enhancements to punish, incapacitate, and deter offenders whose conduct involves a dangerous weapon, body armor, or even use of a fake website during an offense. This Article proposes a new sentencing enhancement in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that properly accounts for the relative severity of conduct involving offenses on the treason spectrum. To reaffirm a commitment to democratic values, to deter future subversive conduct, and ensure that the legal system is equipped to respond to the severity of subversive conduct, policymakers and judges should send clear signal that subversive activities are indeed among “the worst crimes of all.”
Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law Research Paper Series. 2024, 41pg
By Randolph Atkins, Trisann Jodon, Jennifer Davidson Conlon, and Amy Schick
This report was prepared in accordance with Section 25025 (Drug-Impaired Driving Data Collection) of the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA), Pub. L. 117-58. The report summarizes what is known about the collection of drug-impaired driving data and its reporting to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). The report describes the FARS data collection process and its toxicology reporting framework, the Recommendations for Toxicological Investigations of Drug-Impaired Driving and Motor Vehicle Fatalities – 2021 Update, identifies barriers that States encounter in submitting alcohol and drug toxicology results to FARS, provides recommendations on how to address those barriers, and describes the actions that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are taking to assist States in improving toxicology testing in cases of motor vehicle crashes, and the reporting of alcohol and drug toxicology results in cases of motor vehicle crashes.
Washington, DC: United States. Department of Transportation. 2024, 34pg
By Jue Jiang
This research provides a rare yet much-needed gender perspective on authoritarian legality in China, drawing upon sentencing and punishment for the crime of rape. First, several controversial cases – cases extensively discussed in the media or online – are reviewed to identify the attributes that triggered the controversy. Four categories of cases were selected, based on four sexual relationships embodying various power dynamics between the offender and the victim: public official and citizen/sex worker; husband and wife; adult and child; caregiver and dependent. A search was then made for “like cases” using these attributes as keywords in the China Judgments Online database. Finally, a qualitative analysis of these cases was carried out, in particular of the judicial reasoning provided by the judges, to explore how these controversial cases are handled by the judiciary, and the implications of this on the interplay between gender, sex, sexuality and authoritarian power in the context of authoritarian legality in China. This research argues that the criminal justice system in China embodies and reinforces a particular gendered order and “sex hierarchy,” instrumentalised by the state to maintain its authoritarian power.
The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy series Law and Authoritarianism. 2023, 69pg
By Nathan T. Connealy, Eric L. Piza, Rachael A. Arietti, George O. Mohler & Jeremy G. Carter
Objectives
We examine the potential effects of gunshot detection technology longitudinally in Chicago through a synthetic control quasi-experiment.
Methods
Police districts receiving gunshot detection technology were compared to a synthetic control unit via a staggered difference-in-difference design. Across eleven unique gunshot detection technology deployment phases, the analyses produce results for aggregate, initial versus expanded, and phase-specific deployment effects across five gun violence outcome measures.
Results
Gunshot detection technology had no effect on fatal shootings, non-fatal shootings, general part I gun crimes, or shots fired calls for service. Gun recoveries significantly increased in the aggregate, initial, and expanded models, and in several individual phases relative to controls.
Conclusions
The results align with prior literature that has found a procedural benefit, but not a crime prevention benefit, of gunshot detection technology. Law enforcement agencies seeking crime prevention or reduction solutions may be better served by investing in other options.
J Exp Criminol (2024).
By Michael L. Perlin, Heather Cucolo, Deborah Dorfman
In this article, we offer – we believe for the first time in the scholarly literature -- a potentially (at least partially) ameliorative solution to the problems faced by persons with autism(ASD) and fetal alcohol syndrome/disorder (FAS/FASD) in the criminal justice system: the creation of (separate sets of) problem-solving juvenile mental health courts specifically to deal with cases of juveniles in the criminal justice system with ASD, and with FAS/FASD. There is currently at least one juvenile mental health court that explicitly accepts juveniles with autism, but there are, to the best of our knowledge, no courts set up specifically for these two discrete sets of populations.
If mental health courts (or any other sort of problem-solving courts) are to work effectively, they must operate in accordance with therapeutic jurisprudence principles, concluding that law should value psychological health, should strive to avoid imposing anti-therapeutic consequences whenever possible, and when consistent with other values served by law should attempt to bring about healing and wellness.
If such courts are created, we believe this will (1) make it less likely that sanism and other forms of bias affect legal decisionmaking; (2) make it more likely that those aspects of the defendants’ underlying conditions that may have precipitated (or contributed to) their criminal behavior be placed in a context that understands such conditions, and (3) best ensure that therapeutic jurisprudence principles be employed in the dispositions of all cases.
NYLS Legal Studies Research Paper No. 4515470, 80 pages
By Casey Witte and Emily Mooney
Law enforcement agencies are the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system. Charged with responding to calls for service and investigating crimes, they also exercise a great deal of authority and discretion when it comes to how individuals are held accountable for misbehavior. Depending on the alleged act, state and agency, police officers can correct wrongdoing without an arrest or any court involvement. In some cases, police officers may be authorized to give an individual a warning or citation or to refer someone to community-based programming or services. Colloquially termed “diversion” opportunities due to their movement away from the formal court process, these decisions can be life-changing, particularly when a child is accused of committing a crime. Adolescents are especially prone to partake in risky behaviors, be affected by negative peer influences and struggle to adequately account for the consequences of their actions—all of which put them at greater risk of coming into contact with the justice system. Youth misbehavior can also be a reflection of trauma or a mislabeling of typical child actions due to overbroad criminal laws, such as those that punish youth for “disorderly conduct.” Fortunately, what we know about child development suggests children naturally age-out of crime as their cognitive functions develop, and trauma can be treated outside of the justice process. Police officers can likewise work collaboratively with other community actors to ensure overbroad laws do not result in criminal justice responses to actions better dealt with by schools and parents. After all, when people are arrested, processed and marked with a criminal record all before the age of 18, the long-term consequences can be devastating. Simply being stopped by police can have detrimental effects on a young person’s future, with some research suggesting it can amplify the young person’s likelihood of future criminal activity. After an arrest, a youth is on track to earn less income over their lifetime and be substantially less-educated than their peers. And when a youth arrest is followed by a stint of detention or incarceration, research suggests young people are even more likely to return to crime, particularly when they have had few prior interactions with the justice system. This means that when we introduce our youngest to the justice system, without full consideration of effective alternatives to hold them accountable, we are at risk of crippling their future and accelerating further societal harm. In response to this problem, states and individual law enforcement agencies have begun to establish formal youth diversion programs with set eligibility criteria. These programs allow youth to avoid being formally processed further in the justice system if they complete certain requirements, such as community service. Often, they provide resources— such as referrals to counseling or job services—aimed at meeting the needs of the youth that enter these programs and addressing the factors that led to law enforcement contact. However, there is no uniform design for diversion programs nor is there a uniform understanding of which youth should be diverted. As a result, program components and utility can vary wildly from state to state or even town to town. Such is the case in the state of Maryland. From Allegany to Worcester, law enforcement-driven diversion programs— which for the purposes of this paper are defined as programs managed by law enforcement agencies to which youth can be referred rather than having their case sent to the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS)—have started to take hold, though successful iterations with proven efficacy are still few and far between.6 In recent years, many law enforcement agencies have taken a step in the right direction by creating or forming relationships with existing youth diversion programs in their communities. In some cases, diversion programs driven by State’s Attorney’s Offices have worked to divert young people prior to a DJS referral as well. However, there are still a substantial number of jurisdictions that have no law enforcement-driven diversion programs whatsoever. Accordingly, this policy study will address the importance of police diversion, the state of law enforcement-driven diversion programs in Maryland, and ultimately recommend policies aimed at creating a statewide environment in which all Maryland youth have opportunities to be diverted by law enforcement earlier and with more efficacy.
Washington, DC: R Street, 2021. 15p
By Emma Zürcher, Lana Eekelschot, Annalena Wolcke, Lucy Strang
Police performance measurement is a complex activity that encompasses considerations of the social, legal, institutional and political contexts in which a police force operates. The definitions and methods used need to be regularly updated and adapted to reflect the constant changes in these contexts. This study follows from a broader desire, articulated by the national police force and the Ministry for Justice and Security, to improve how police performance is measured in the Netherlands. Indeed in 2014, Tilburg University and KU Leuven conducted a study to develop a new framework for productivity measurement of the Dutch police.1 While this study provided useful insights, approaches to performance measurement adopted by police forces abroad may also offer valid examples for the Netherlands and provide opportunities for general learning. Research design The study had two main goals: 1) To gather insights into how different police jurisdictions have approached performance measurement. 2) To assess what lessons these approaches can offer for improving police performance measurement in the Netherlands. A series of research questions were developed to meet these goals (see Section 1.1.2.). These questions focused on the methods and indicators used to measure performance in a selection of ten policing jurisdictions,2 including the Netherlands; the stated purposes of the performance measurement; the reliability of the approaches; identified or potential adverse side effects of measuring performance; and examples of good or innovative practice in these areas. In addition, several research questions focused on the methods and indicators used to gain insight into the performance of the Dutch police; the aspects of policing not currently captured in this framework; the lessons that approaches to performance measurement in other jurisdictions may offer the Netherlands; and the transferability of these approaches to the Netherlands. To address these research questions, the study team conducted a targeted literature review and expert and stakeholder interviews in each of these jurisdictions, including the Netherlands. The team then selected five case study jurisdictions for more in-depth data collection and analysis: England and Wales, Israel, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Seattle (United States) and Sweden. Using the resulting findings, the study team focused on extracting current practices from the case study jurisdictions that had potential to offer starting points for improving police performance measurement in the Netherlands. These are presented in the main body of this report. For the countries not selected as case studies (Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand and the United States), the study team prepared high-level summaries of current approaches and highlighted several relevant practices that may be of interest to policy makers for the Dutch National Police. These are presented in Annex A. To provide focus and enhance the feasibility of the research, this study looks exclusively at how police performance measurement has been approached by stakeholders who can directly influence policing policy, such as the police force and national- and local-level government stakeholders. For each of the case study jurisdictions, the research team has analysed the practices used by the relevant police force(s) and the administrative and/or political authority under which they sit. We are confident that the findings will therefore be of particular interest to decision-makers for the Dutch National Police, including police leadership at both national and regional levels and the Ministry of Justice and Security, and provide leads for improving how police performance is currently measured.
Cambridge, UK: RAND Europe, 2023. 182p
By Olivia Elizabeth Vere Taylor, Richard Philpot, Oliver Fitton, Zoë Walkington, Mark Levine
Introduction: Recent high-profile cases of police misconduct have revealed that officers were often aware of misconduct, but remained silent, compromising public trust in law enforcement. Here, we systematically review ‘police whistleblowing’ literature to identify barriers and facilitators to officers challenging misconduct. Methodology: Employing PRISMA guidelines, we systematically reviewed 118 relevant papers, extracting data and coding key variables including who the ‘target’ of the research was; whether reporting practices were studied, and whether practical solutions were offered. A reflexive thematic analysis then assessed consensus among researchers within the literature. Results: Five themes - 1) knowledge and rules, 2) consequences, 3) interpersonal relations, 4) responsibility, and 5) police culture and group relations – emerged as barriers and facilitators to whistleblowing. The review revealed relatively poorer representation of internal police reporting structures and limited practical solutions, with only 40 papers proposing strategies, predominantly centred on training and education. Discussion: This review highlights methodological limitations in existing research, with an overreliance on survey methods and a dominant focus on the characteristics of individuals over the structural constraints of reporting. The positive impacts of whistleblowing on policing as an institution and the development of practical strategies to overcome officers’ reluctance to report misconduct remain largely unexplored.
Journal of Criminal Justice, 2024, 15 pages
By Lisel Petis
The practical application of the U.S. bail system is a complex issue that intersects with overcrowded jails, socioeconomic disparities, and public safety concerns. To better understand how these issues vary from state to state and to observe trends and areas of opportunities, we undertook a comprehensive analysis of bail reform laws across all 50 states. This analysis sheds light on the landscape of pretrial justice in the United States, outlines current trends in bail reform, and explores how states can expect bail discussions to progress moving forward. Several key areas of opportunity emerged in our analysis, including expanding immediate-release options, defining time limits for setÝng bail, using pretrial risk assessments, and encouraging the presumption of unsecured release. Some important secondary issues also emerged, including considering a defendant’s ability to pay bail, emphasizing the need for statewide pretrial services, and expanding the types of offenses that are eligible for preventive detention. Additional opportunities for improvement include integrating needs assessments and pretrial support. Collectively, these themes suggest that there is value in shifting away from the traditional cash bail system and moving toward a more equitable, efÏcient, and data-driven pretrial justice framework. Although these themes provide a guide for reform, the path to a more effective bail system will likely face challenges driven by political dynamics and evolving public sentiment. To navigate this landscape, policymakers should strive for balanced, common-sense solutions, drawing inspiration from data and successful models in other states. Achieving meaningful change in the bail system will require careful consideration, bipartisan dialogue, and a commitment to addressing the multifaceted challenges within the U.S. pretrial justice system
Washington, DC: R Street, 2024. 71p.
By Cristina Tilley
American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal mid-century onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in the campaign for just middle spaces, taking as its exemplar the problem of racially oppressive policing. Inequitable policing arises from both system-level policies and personal officer biases. Public law can remake systems, but struggles to remake people. Consequently, this piece argues that the legal quest for humane policing has overemphasized public law litigation under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and underemphasized the private law of tort. Personal injury law, specifically the intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) tort, has untapped potential to influence the private bias of officers and the communities they serve. IIED invites individuation of Black litigants, self-reflection on the meaning of racial dignity in middle spaces, and construction of shared norms about civilian humanity—a panoply of exercises social psychologists have identified as the essential tools of anti-bias work. Returning to broader themes, the article builds on the example of inequitable policing to petition for full private law partnership in the bid for twenty-first century social justice.
Brooklyn Law Review , Vol. 89, No. 2, 2024
U Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024-08
By Christopher Wildeman
This article provides a critical overview in five stages of roughly 50 years of research on the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact. In the first stage, I document that research on the intergenerational transmission of crime and criminal justice contact focused primarily on crime until the mid-1990s, at which point research rapidly shifted in the direction of criminal justice contact (specifically, incarceration). In the second stage, I document that research on the intergenerational transmission of crime and the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact tended to use the same measures—i.e., self-reported and administrative indicators of criminal justice contact with minimal information on criminal activity—but discussed them in different ways. In the third stage, I review research on the broader effects of incarceration to highlight mechanisms through which parental criminal justice contact may independently influence children's criminal activity. In the fourth stage, I review research on the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact. In the final stage, I conclude by calling for new data collection efforts that provide high-quality measures of both crime and criminal justice contact of both parents and children.
Annual Review of Criminology, 2020.
By Arthur H. Garrison
This article uses five years of data, 2015–2019, from the Washington Post dataset on police use of deadly force and enhances the data with 21 situational and 8 police perceived threat measure variables to put in context the use of force and the disproportionate incidents involving Blacks compared to other races. Rather than comparing percentage race outcomes of police use of force to general population or behavior proxy measures the benchmark of situational contexts of police use of force is used to interpret race percentage distributions by race within the same context. Under this analysis, the top three situations that result in police deadly force involved 1) an assault or civilian call for help, 2) a call for domestic violence, and 3) a police officer being attacked. When viewing police shootings by situation and race percentage distribution, the data shows that police use of force is differentiated. Within the same situations Blacks were more likely to be shot and killed than Whites. Blacks were more likely to be shot by the police in a traffic stop, were more likely to shot by the police mistaking them as armed, were more likely to be shot if they are perceived to be suffering mental illness and were more likely to be shot if the police are responding to call for illegal drug activity than other races in the same situations and contexts that resulted in police use of deadly force.
Journal of Race and Policy 16(1) 2022
By Scott Peterson, Ian Lambie, Claire Cartwright
Despite dropping crime rates and prison muster, pretrial population rates in New Zealand are growing faster than in other OECD nations, risking negative impacts on defendants and communities. Fourteen defendants and 18 stakeholders were interviewed about a bail support service's strengths and weaknesses. Officer-training quality, communication between stakeholders and access to practical and cultural resources were crucial to success. Defendants reported that professional staff support and having access to services were the most helpful aspects. Changes were positive overall, but the programme's implementation, resources (especially lack of housing suitable for bail), and structure (within changing pretrial legislation) were of concern.
The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice , 21 April 2024, 21 pages
By J.J. van Berkel A. van Uden J.H. Goes
The Dutch Computer Crime Act III (CCIII) came into effect on 1 March 2019. Among other things, this Act introduces the power of the police to carry out hacking operations. The new Sections 126nba, 126uba, 126zpa in the Code of Criminal Procedure will allow specially authorised investigating officers to covertly and remotely intrude into computer systems under certain conditions and investigate them. The police can carry out investigative actions using technical tools. In principle, a technical device must be inspected and approved by an independent inspection service (de Keuringsdienst) prior to its use, in order to guarantee the reliability, traceability and integrity of the evidence. The Justice & Security Inspectorate (hereinafter Inspectorate) supervises the implementation of the hacking power. In its first Report in 2020, it concluded that the use of technical tools for hacking powers and the inspection of these tools were not yet proceeding as intended under the legal framework. In his response to the first Inspectorate Report, the then Minister of Justice and Security indicated that he would have an investigation into the safeguards of technical tools used by foreign police authorities. The present report is the result of this research. This report also supplements the previously published evaluation of the use of the hacking power in the Netherlands, carried out by the WODC.
The central research question for this study is as follows: What safeguards govern hacking powers abroad, more specifically the use of technical tools, and how does this compare with the Dutch situation? The central research question is answered on the basis of the following subquestions: 1 What countries allow ‘authorised hacking’ and on the basis of which legal ground can foreign police services carry out hacking operations in their own country? 2 What statutory conditions apply in other countries for police services to deploy the hacking power? 3 To what extent do other countries test technical tools and what has been laid down in legislation and regulations on this? 4 To what extent are there any other rules to ensure the reliability, traceability and integrity of data obtained with the use of technical tools? 5 How does the working method abroad compare with the Dutch working method regarding the approval of technical tools and any other safeguards to achieve data reliability, integrity and traceability?
The Hague: Netherlands Ministry of Justice, WODC Research and Documentation Centre , 2023. 154p
