By Olive Lu and Michael Rempel

This report addresses the extent to which reforms to the use of Desk Appearance Tickets (DATs), enacted in New York State in January 2020, led more people charged with low-level offenses to avoid pre-arraignment detention.

A previous DCJ report established pre-reform baselines by examining statewide DAT issuance and arraignment appearance rates for DATs in 2019.

Key Findings:

Rising DAT Issuance Post-Reform but Continued Inconsistent Practices

• Among charges made ineligible for custodial arrest, statewide DAT issuance increased from 38% in 2019 to 58% in 2021, followed by a decline to 50% in 2022 (in part reflecting rollbacks to the reforms put into effect May 2022).

• Upstate courts saw the largest increase in DAT issuance from 2019 to 2021 (from 29% to 59%) while Suburban NYC had the highest DAT issuance rate throughout the study period (above 70%). DAT issuance in NYC post-reform was unexpectedly low, with 45% receiving a DAT in the peak 2021 year.

• DAT rates among eight charge categories (including petit larceny, drug possession, criminal mischief, and criminal trespass) also varied widely by region.

Relative Stability in Warrant Issuance

• The statewide warrant issuance rate for failing to appear at a scheduled DAT arraignment increased from 10% in 2019 to 17% in 2022, with large fluctuations in 2020 due to pandemic-related impediments.

• Warrant rates in Suburban NYC and Upstate remained stable over the study period while NYC alone explained nearly all of the statewide increase.

Racial Disparities Persist but Shrinking in Some Places

• Statewide, Black people were consistently less likely than white people to be issued a DAT on similar charges.

• The Black-white disparity in DAT issuance decreased over the study period in NYC (from a 12 to 7 percentage-point difference) and disappeared in Suburban NYC.

• The Hispanic-white disparity decreased in Suburban NYC and disappeared in NYC.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2024. 34p.

By René Ropac 

This study estimated the impact of New York’s bail reform on recidivism in the State’s suburban and upstate regions. We compared re-arrest rates for people who had bail set or were remanded at arraignment in the first half of 2019 (before bail reform) with similar people who were released without bail in the first half of 2020 (after bail reform).

Key Findings:

Estimated Impact of Eliminating Bail and Detention in Select Cases 

• Overall, the results indicate that eliminating bail for select misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges led to little change in recidivism.

  • Over two years, we found no changes in overall re-arrest and felony re-arrest; a slight increase in firearm re-arrest (2.7% vs. 2.0%); and a slight increase in violent felony re-arrest (9.5% vs. 8.1%) that became statistically insignificant when extending the follow-up period to 30 months.

Estimated Impact of Reducing the Use of Bail in Cases Remaining Legally Eligible 

• Across two research designs, releasing people who remained eligible for bail was associated with a 1 percentage-point increase in firearm re-arrest over two years, though the difference became statistically insignificant when extending the follow-up period to 30 months. Spanning measures of overall, felony, and violent felony re-arrest, no results showed that releasing people increased recidivism across both research designs; but, conversely, no results from either design pointed to reduced recidivism.

How did Pretrial Release Impact Different Subgroups? 

• The elimination of money bail increased recidivism for people charged with nonviolent felonies, with recent criminal history, and with a recent violent felony arrest, while it decreased recidivism for people charged with misdemeanors and people with no recent criminal history.

• The reduced use of bail for legally eligible cases tended to increase recidivism among people charged with violent felonies and people with a recent arrest. The starkest and most consistent recidivism increases across both research designs were among people with a recent prior violent felony arrest and among people currently charged with VFOs who had a recent criminal history.

Study Results in Context

In contrast to the results from the current study, the findings published in March 2023 for New York City were generally more favorable to bail reform, finding an overall recidivism reduction for cases subject to mandatory release and no effect in either direction for bail eligible cases. However, the subgroup results from the two studies draw a consistent picture. Across all of New York State, bail reform tended to reduce recidivism for people facing less serious charges and with limited or no recent criminal history, but tended to increase recidivism for people facing more serious charges and with recent criminal histories.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2024. 40p.

By Kath Murray, Susan McVie, Ben Matthews, Victoria Gorton

Since the 1960s, Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) have become a widely used sanction in the United Kingdom, used to deal with various low-level offences. More recently, the sanction came to prominence as the mechanism chosen to enforce the Coronavirus Health Regulations. This article critically examines the decision to employ FPNs in this context, and the implications in respect of inequality and inequity. We show that the decision was at odds with contemporaneous policing trends, and, drawing on new research evidence, argue that the Regulations stretched FPNs beyond their intended use, creating inequalities in enforcement and inequitable punishment effects. Our findings raise policy questions about the impact of the Health Regulations and what actions should be taken in the event of future pandemics.

academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azae016/7645325

The British Journal of Criminology, azae016

By Andrew R. Morral, Terry L. Schell, Theo Jacobs, Rosanna Smart

The RAND Corporation launched the Gun Policy in America initiative in January 2016 with the goal of creating objective, factual resources for policymakers and the public on the effects of gun laws. As part of this mission, the research team has investigated a variety of data sources that could help shed light on key questions about whether and how gun laws affect important public health and criminal justice outcomes.

The Firearm Law Effects and Mortality Explorer is designed to provide users with information about the distribution of firearm deaths across states and demographic subgroups. In addition, it allows users to explore how those deaths might be affected by the implementation of a set of commonly enacted state firearm laws using estimates of those effects produced by the RAND research team. In the documentation that accompanies the tool, the research team describes the data sources used to produce the visualizations in the tool, the assumptions underlying the visualizations, and the statistical models that produce the law effect estimates the visualizations depict.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024. 31p.

Fell, James C., Kubelka, Julie

Impaired driving continues to be a significant public health and public safety problem in the United States. In 2021 some 30 percent of the 42,915 traffic fatalities involved alcohol-impaired drivers (drivers with blood alcohol concentrations [BACs] of .08 grams per deciliter or higher). In addition, there has been a significant increase in drug-impaired driving and especially driving with delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in cannabis, in drivers’ systems. Impaired-driving task forces (or sometimes called task teams, commissions, coalitions, councils, committees, leadership teams, or advisory groups) are mechanisms to assess the impaired-driving problem in States to document the systems in place to deal with the problem and to make recommendations for improvement.
Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; 2024. 104p.

By Sarah E. Jackson, Melissa Oldham, Colin Angus, John Holmes, Jamie Brown

The last 3 years have seen substantial changes in Great Britain (GB) including the COVID-19 pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and policy changes such as minimum unit pricing. We examined changes in purchasing cross-border, illicit and home-brewed alcohol among risky drinkers over this period.

Methods

Data were used from 22,086 adult (≥18 years) increasing/higher-risk drinkers (AUDIT-C ≥5) participating in a monthly cross-sectional survey between October 2020 and August 2023. We estimated time trends in the proportion reporting obtaining alcohol from: (i) cross-border (any/within-GB/international); (ii) illicit; and (iii) home-brewed sources in the past 6 months.

Results

Between October 2020 and August 2023, the proportion reporting cross-border alcohol purchases increased (from 8.5% to 12.5% overall; prevalence ratio [PR] = 1.47 [95% CI 1.17–1.86]). This was largely driven by an increase in cross-border purchases abroad (PR = 1.52 [1.13–2.05]), with a smaller, uncertain increase in cross-border purchases within GB (PR = 1.37 [0.96–1.95]). The prevalence of cross-border alcohol purchasing was higher in Wales (13.8% [12.3–15.4%]) and Scotland (6.1% [5.4–6.8%]) than England (3.6% [3.3–3.9%]). There was little change in illicit alcohol purchasing in England or Wales (4.1% [3.7–4.4%]; 4.2% [3.2–5.1%]), but in Scotland it fell from 5.7% to 2.4% (PR = 0.42 [0.19–0.81]). Home-brewed alcohol was rare (GB: 3.1% [2.9–3.4]) and stable.

Discussion and Conclusions

The proportion of increasing/higher-risk drinkers in GB purchasing cross-border alcohol increased between October 2020 and August 2023, due to an increase in people buying alcohol abroad. Cross-border alcohol purchases within GB were more commonly reported in Wales and Scotland. The small proportion purchasing illicit alcohol did not change substantially in England or Wales, but fell by half in Scotland.

Drug and Alcohol Review; 2024

By Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane

The City of Cape Town is host to a menacing shadow economy, with money, services and goods being extorted from an increasingly wide range of businesses, including spaza shops, nightclubs, construction and transport companies, as well as individuals.

Extortion is growing rapidly and spreading throughout the city, and the groups involved are highly organized. The range of sectors and people affected is widening: from street vendors selling their wares in Mitchells Plain or Khayelitsha, to the owners of bars and restaurants in the city centre; from construction companies building roads or houses, to municipal workers and contractors providing basic services. In certain parts of the city, even private vehicles have become targets.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 48p.

By Flore Berger, Patrick Gnonsekan and Mouhamadou Kane

 Since 2019 and 2020 respectively, the northern parts of Benin and Côte d’Ivoire have been facing growing security challenges posed by the expansion of violent extremist groups. Besides this infiltration, the new dynamics of conflict in these border areas – adjacent to nature reserves and providing a link between coastal regions and the Sahel – do not occur in a security vacuum. They occur in an already well-developed illicit environment, with its own realities in terms of actors and supply chains and their impact on communities. Research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) in the subregion – notably through a mapping exercise on illicit economies1 and specific reports on north-eastern Côte d’Ivoire and the tri-border area between Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso2 – has highlighted the complex but undeniable crossovers between illicit economies and conflict. Illicit economies, while not generally catalysts of conflict, play a key role in creating an environment conducive to the emergence of conflict, the maintenance of conflict and the obstruction of efforts to resolve conflict. This statement needs to be nuanced, however, because although illicit economies can fuel and sustain conflict, they can also be sources of income and resilience. GI-TOC research has also shown the strategic importance of nature reserves in the expansion of armed groups.3 In these areas, illicit economies contribute to the territorial expansion of armed groups through funding and resources. They are also entry points for armed groups to impose an alternative system of governance for local populations and even gain legitimacy within these communities. North-eastern Côte d’Ivoire and northern Benin, which border nature reserves such as the Comoé National Park and the W-Arly-Pendjari complex, respectively, are therefore pivotal regions for armed groups from Sahelian countries to expand their influence to coastal West African countries. Although state responses have had some positive effects – for example, north-eastern Côte d’Ivoire has not seen an attack since 2021 – some elements of the response, mainly based on military and  security operations, have had the opposite effect. In particular, the widespread stigmatization of the Fulani community has exacerbated grievances and fuelled tensions between different communities. State initiatives alone will not produce the expected results and must be supplemented by a community-based approach. In particular, the aim is to strengthen the resilience of communities faced with links between illicit economies and instability. To achieve a unified understanding of the problem and collective mobilization to tackle it, a holistic and sustainable peace-building strategy, aimed at breaking the link between illicit flows and instability, must complement state efforts with regional networks of individuals and organizations. There is no miracle solution to the twin challenges of crime and conflict, but two things are clear: first, interventions have little hope of success if they are not based on solid evidence; and second, state-centred programmes alone are not sufficient to enhance stability in West Africa. States’ resilience to organized crime is relatively well understood, and measurement methods have been developed, including the ENACT Organized Crime Index Africa and the GI-TOC’s Global Organized Crime Index. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of communities’ capacity for resilience when faced with the destabilizing effects of illicit economies, as well as what constitutes this resilience and why some communities are more resilient than others.     

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 40p.

By Virginia Comolli

Following the opening policy brief, a research report zooms in on the private sector. Foreign companies and entrepreneurs from different sectors and backgrounds have deepened their involvement in the islands. Legitimate business activities are often conducted in parallel with illicit ones, which in some cases amount to the bulk of revenues generated. These businesses, many of which are of Asian origin, have been able to exploit favourable tax regimes, limited monitoring and enforcement capabilities and, in certain cases, corrupt local partners and enablers, to increase their profits through illicit means. Diplomatic relations between their countries of origin and the Pacific countries in which they operate, can grant a high level of political access to these businesses and result in preferential treatment.
The study details four broad categories into which private sector criminal actors in the Pacific can be grouped:

• Environmental sector operators (fishing, logging and mining)
• The embedded diaspora
• Absentee residents
• Schemers and scammers

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 29p.

Brandon C. Welsh , Steven N. Zane , Daniel P. Mears

The present state of calls for and efforts to implement evidence-based policy provide a powerful foundation for propelling a movement toward bringing about rational, cost-efficient, and humane policies for reducing aggression, crime, and violence. The main aim of this article is to report on new developments in evidence-based policy (EBP)—what we view as giving rise to a new era in crime and violence prevention and social justice. The article describes major advances, both in research and policy, and discusses pressing challenges that confront EBP in crime/violence and justice, drawing on key findings from a new, comprehensive book project. The overall conclusion of the findings is heartening and yet sobering. Research and policy have made substantial progress, but there is much more to be done. The specific details of this work are organized around three questions that are foundational to evidence-based crime/violence and justice policy today: (a) How is research contributing to and guiding EBP? (b) What are productive and new ways to think about EBP? and (c) What are strategies for promoting greater use of EBP?

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Volume 77, July–August 2024, 101940

By Perfecta Delgado Oxholm and Jack Glaser

Communication between police and community is an inevitable part of policing. Core narratives—subjective, internal, sense-making processes that can shape behavior—that police officers hold related to communication can influence police–community interactions. There is no known research on core narratives related to police officer communication. To begin to fill the gap, this paper reports the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted to investigate how police officers understand police–community relations and the nature of encounters with community members. Communication emerged as an important theme. Five communication core narrative themes were identified: communication as central, advocacy, cover, withholding, and connection. Four of the core narrative themes were abstracted into two dimensions along which the characteristics of the communication varied. Understanding the core narratives influencing officer intergroup communication can help researchers and practitioners see the larger implications of communication, an essential component of policing and police–community relationships, and its connection to officer behavior.

 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 26(4), 875-890.

By Amos Irwin and Rachael Eisenberg

 U.S. cities rely on police as the default responders for most 911 calls, whether they concern a person shouting at a bus stop or a child who refuses to go to school. In most cities, these kinds of issues constitute a significant portion of calls made to 911 call centers. Too often, police are tasked with handling a host of situations that are not about criminal activity, but are about other social issues, without the additional training or resources to respond appropriately. Defaulting to dis patching a police response to these types of 911 calls undermines public safety by diverting resources away from serious and violent crime while neglecting the underlying needs that drive people to call 911 to begin with It can also have a range of unintended consequences, especially for people of color and people with behavioral health disabilities who have been disproportionately harmed by the criminal justice system, where an encounter with police could escalate rather than de-escalate matters. Dispatching community responders to 911 calls can improve both short- and long term outcomes by ensuring that specially trained professionals are available to assist people with certain situations that require de-escalation, conflict resolution, and connections to community-based care. Particularly as jurisdictions across the country struggle to recruit and retain police officers, they are beginning to address these issues by dispatching community responder teams to low-risk calls instead of police. When developing community responder programs, city leaders frequently ask how their 911 call center can best identify calls and direct them to the new teams. To ensure the right response is provided in each situation, 911 call centers may need to alter how they choose which team to dispatch. 911 call centers must effectively identify eligible calls without delaying call times or overburdening their already stretched staff.   

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2023. 58p.

By Lauren Slagter, Trevor Bechtel, and Amanda Nothaft

The criminal legal system should provide accountability for people who threaten public safety, respect the rights of crime victims and defendants, and treat people fairly regardless of their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. However, in Washtenaw County, there is evidence that people of color have different encounters with the legal system than white people. FEBRUARY 2024 The analysis did not find evidence of racial disparities in the following areas: • In acceptance into a pre-plea diversion program, nor • In granting Holmes Youthful Trainee Act (HYTA) status, which allows young defendants to avoid a criminal record. As part of the Prosecutor Transparency Project , the University of Michigan analyzed cases referred to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office from 2017 to 2022. That analysis found the largest racial disparity occurred in requests to file charges received by the prosecutor’s office from local law enforcement. Black people appear in 49.9% of requests for charges between 2017 and 2022 but make up only 12.2% of county residents. By comparison, white people appear in 47.8% of requests for charges and make up 70% of the county’s population. This suggests the demographic composition of the cases that come into the prosecutor’s office are a significant driver of previously observed racial disparities in Washtenaw County’s criminal legal system. 

Ann Arbor: Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, 2024. 8p.  

By Stephen Eide

“Trans-institutionalization” refers to the shift of seriously mentally ill adults from the care of psychiatric institutions to correctional institutions. Beginning in the 1950s, public mental health agencies have pursued the deinstitutionalization of the seriously mentally ill. These government agencies intended to meet that goal through creating a system of community-based care to replace the asylum-based systems. Deinstitutionalization did not succeed as planned. Consequently, jails and prisons became the custodians of hundreds of thousands of seriously mentally ill adults who in previous eras would have been committed to an asylum.

Some dispute the magnitude of trans-institutionalization. But no one denies the high rate of serious mental illness among the incarcerated, or that jails and prisons are poor settings in which to treat serious mental illness. Correctional mental health care now stands as one of the most important mental health care systems in the nation. Jails and prisons are legally obligated to serve the seriously mentally ill, whereas community-based systems are not. More effective community-based mental health remains an important goal to pursue. But equally important is the reform of corrections-based systems. Better correctional mental health care systems will benefit both community systems and the seriously mentally ill themselves.

This report will explain how corrections-based systems function. It will place those systems in the context of debates around “jail abolition,” explain their workforce and financial challenges, and recommend the following reforms:

1. State governments should assume more responsibility for funding jail-based mental health care.

2. Correctional mental health systems have special responsibility to the seriously mentally ill and are justified in targeting resources accordingly.

3. Collect, keep, and report better data.

4. Repeal Medicaid’s Institution for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion.

5. Correctional institutions should make more use of long-acting injectables during discharge.

6. Eliminate overuse of administrative segregation (solitary confinement); do not abolish it.

7. Do not use telehealth when reliance on onsite clinical staff is feasible.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2024. 28p.

By Solène Lugon Moulin, Emre Ertan, Didier Martin, Simon Baechler

The serial character of document fraud and its connection to organised crime groups who produce, sell and/or use fraudulent documents is a challenge for security and crime fighting. As a response, the added value of forensic intelligence is increasingly recognised. Using a forensic profiling method and a dedicated system deployed in Switzerland, document examiners can detect series (i.e., documents that share a common source) of fraudulent documents conveniently and efficiently. This detection can trigger or orientate investigations, supports crime intelligence efforts, and facilitates cross-jurisdictional cooperation. This study aims to assess the suitability of the forensic profiling system for international purpose and the efficiency of the method to detect cross-border series. The forensic profiling system has been deployed in France in the framework of a cross-border pilot project conducted by the School of Criminal Justice from the University of Lausanne and the French National Police (Division Nationale de Lutte contre la Fraude Documentaire et à l'Identité) over the period July 2019–May 2020. Data from the Swiss and French forensic profiling systems were compared to each other to detect cross-border series. The study sought to create operating conditions as close as possible to the real-life conditions of the profiling systems. The results are extremely positive both quantitatively and qualitatively. They demonstrate the benefit of setting up a systematic exchange of forensic data issued from profiling systems for fraudulent identity documents between France and Switzerland, let alone between any other countries. The results open up a very promising prospect for a sustained operational implementation by the police services of both countries and the extension of the exchanges internationally.

Science & Justice

Volume 64, Issue 2, March 2024, Pages 202-209

By Carrie Leonetti

This article presents a systematic and critical assessment of the reliability of forensic science in New Zealand. It documents the types of forensic-science being offered in criminal cases, the party presenting the evidence, the experts’ affiliations, how often there are challenges to the admissibility of the expert evidence and their timing in the proceedings, how often experts rely upon the uniqueness assumption, and how often experts testify to an individualised identification or ‘match’ of a source of forensic evidence. It finds that several of the common forensic disciplines in the criminal justice system in New Zealand have been the subject of critique and criticism internationally, the most common source of expert evidence was presented by the prosecution and provided by institutional police laboratories, and in most cases the forensic expert testified either to the uniqueness assumption or to an individualised match determination. It concludes that the New Zealand Parliament should amend the Evidence Act 2006 to require a demonstration of foundational validity and as-applied reliability as a precondition to the admissibility of any purported scientific evidence.

Common Law World Review, Online First, March 2024, 26pg

By Rebecca Tiger

The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call “enlightened coercion,” detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both “sick” and “bad.” Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a “progressive” and “enlightened” approach to addiction. She critiques the medicalization of drug users, showing how the disease designation can complement, rather than contradict, punitive approaches, demonstrating that these courts are neither unprecedented nor unique, and that they contain great potential to expand punitive control over drug users. Tiger argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and punitive approaches—that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Judging Addicts presses policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance use that remove its control entirely from the criminal justice system and ultimately explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today.

New York; London: NYU Press,  2012

By National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.

This report provides criminal justice policymakers and practitioners with a priority agenda to prepare the nation’s criminal justice system for future public health crises. Through its recommendations, the Commission seeks to better balance the roles and responsibilities of the public health and public safety fields. Through its recommendations, the Commission seeks to better balance the roles and responsibilities of the public health and public safety fields. Launched at the end of July, the Commission received multiple reports and extensive testimony from leading national and local experts. Key findings include: + Crime: Property crime and drug offense rates fell from 2019 to 2020, but violent crime increased significantly. In particular, homicide rates increased by 42% during the summer months (June to August) in a sample of more than 20 medium to large cities, and by 34% in the fall (September to October).1 + Prisons: Prison populations have been reduced by about 5% nationally. On average, the COVID-19 mortality rate within prisons (61.8 deaths per 100,000 people in prison) was double the mortality rate for the general population, after adjusting for the gender, age, and race/ethnicity of those incarcerated. There are also substantial differences among states in the rate of prison infections and deaths.2 + Jails: Jail populations fell by 31% in the early weeks of the pandemic but have been slowly climbing toward prior levels since May.3 During the pandemic, the rates at which people have been rebooked on new charges 30, 60, and 180 days after release remain below pre-pandemic rates. Unfortunately, data regarding COVID-related infections and deaths in jails is scarce. + Racial and Ethnic Disparities: The COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated some racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. As jail populations began to fall in March at the onset of the pandemic, there were increases in the proportion of people who were Black, who were booked on felony charges, who were male, and who were 25 or younger. These changes in the population composition persisted even as jail populations began to rise again in early May.4 + Substance Use and Mental Health Disorders: More than 40 states have reported increases in opioid-related fatalities since the onset of the pandemic. Mandatory lockdowns, restrictions on movement, social distancing guidelines, orders limiting access to facilities for nonessential workers, and the absence of in-person treatment have created gaps in the system's ability to identify and monitor the needs and legal 3 requirements of people with substance abuse and mental health disorders, and to intervene when they are in distress.5 + Budgets: State and local governments face daunting budget deficits that will worsen as the pandemic wears on, and unemployment levels remain high. Because criminal justice operations (law enforcement, courts, and corrections) are funded more heavily by state and local governments than most other government functions, revenue shortfalls will disproportionately damage the criminal justice system without effective policy interventions.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice. 2020, 43pg

By Sandra Susan Smith and Cierra Robson    

In the year following Humphrey, a judicial decision mandating that judges consider both defendants’ ability to pay cash bail and non-monetary release options, San Francisco Sheriff’s Office (SFSO) reported a 308% increase in the number of people court-ordered for pretrial electronic monitoring (EM) – from 178 to 725. Although proponents of pretrial EM have described it as an effective alternative to pretrial incarceration – one that ensures public safety and court appearances – critics contend that it is simply an alternative form of incarceration, with many of jail’s attendant harms. With this debate in mind, we explore people’s recent experiences on pretrial EM in San Francisco – the extent and nature of difficulties program participants face while attempting to meet program obligations, the extent to which and how these difficulties put them at risk for noncompliance, and how threats of noncompliance interact with other major issues that system-involved people face to affect program outcomes. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 66 people court ordered to participate in pretrial EM between 2018 and 2020, we find that prior struggles, especially with housing insecurity and co-occurring disorders, made it much more difficult to meet program obligations, amplifying risks of noncompliance. Further, conditions of pretrial EM release also created hardships for many, making it even more difficult to find safe, affordable, and stable housing; to protect health and well-being; to secure employment and keep jobs; and to maintain physical, emotional, and psychological connections to loved ones. Indeed, pretrial EM often placed program participants in the untenable position of constantly having to choose between two or more equally awful options, such as program compliance or maintaining employment. These findings have major implications for debates about pretrial EM’s net-widening effects but also the inherent stickiness of the criminal legal system.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Kennedy School. 2022, 53pg

By Arthur L. Rizer

Over the past 20 years, conservatives have often been at the forefront of criminal justice reform efforts, including to reduce mandatory minimum sentencing, lengthy prison terms, and excessive criminal fines and fees and to improve conditions in prisons and jails. Rejecting the Nixonian “law and order” impulse, criminal justice reform has increasingly become incorporated into the conservative political self-identity. But this has been an elite-driven phenomenon, and it is open to question whether the roots of that political identity are deep enough to withstand the rising salience of crime as a political issue. This review traces how criminal justice reform came to be incorporated into the conservative political identity, raises questions concerning its staying power in the face of rising crime and increasingly strident progressive demands, and proposes some principles that might ground a more lasting conservative commitment to a just, proportionate system of criminal justice.

Annual Review of Criminology, v. 6. 2023, 18pg