U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On August 5, 2021, the Department of Justice opened a pattern or practice investigation of the Phoenix Police Department (PhxPD) and the City of Phoenix (“the City” or “Phoenix”). Our investigation revealed systemic problems within PhxPD that deprive people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law. We found pervasive failings in PhxPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability systems that have disguised and perpetuated these violations for years

The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the City of Phoenix and the Phoenix Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law: • PhxPD uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force and other types of force. • PhxPD and the City unlawfully detain, cite, and arrest people experiencing homelessness and unlawfully dispose of their belongings. • PhxPD discriminates against Black, Hispanic, and Native American people when enforcing the law. • PhxPD violates the rights of people engaged in protected speech and expression. • PhxPD and the City discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities when dispatching calls for assistance and responding to people in crisis 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, 2024.   

By United States Sentencing Commission

This report examines trends in the prevalence of federal methamphetamine trafficking sentences, and the purity levels of methamphetamine trafficked in the United States. The Commission analyzed 20 years of sentencing data and conducted a special data collection project examining the purity of methamphetamine trafficked and offense conduct of individuals sentenced for trafficking methamphetamine in fiscal year 2022. This report is the Commission's first comprehensive analysis of federal methamphetamine trafficking offenses in nearly 25 years.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2024. 

by Mafalda Pardal, Elle Wadsworth, Beau Kilmer

Potent synthetic opioids, illegally produced, are starting to emerge in Europe. Considering the damaging harms caused by the opioid crisis in North America, which has led to a substantial surge in overdose deaths, it is crucial that European leaders understand the challenges associated with synthetic opioids. In this Perspective, we present and discuss the current situation in Europe concerning synthetic opioids, and draw on earlier and ongoing crises involving this group of substances to reflect on likely challenges ahead and ways to improve preparedness.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024. 20p.

By Claudia Wallner ,  Jessica White and  Simon Copeland

  With an increasing focus on far-right extremism globally, the threat both to and within the security forces must be considered. Recent high-profile cases from national and local security forces, as well as critical reviews of internal cultures, indicate that the UK’s security forces are no exception. This paper addresses these challenges in the UK context, focusing on the police and military services, and offers practical guidance and recommendations. The analysis highlights the following four critical areas for reform: 1. Vetting processes are essential. However, it seems that there remain significant gaps and challenges in effectively identifying potential extremists. This poses a considerable risk, particularly as far-right organisations strategically infiltrate security forces, exploiting organisational similarities and cultural overlaps. 2. Training emerges as a critical area for prevention. The need for continuous, well-structured training programmes is emphasised, with a focus on addressing hypermasculinity and racism. Fostering a culture that counters stigma around mental health is also identified as a crucial factor in reducing radicalisation risk, aligning with the broader goal of building resilient and adaptive security forces. 3. Accountability mechanisms within security forces are equally important, especially in the face of an evolving extremist threat. Transparency, consistency and leadership support in enforcing consequences for misconduct and extremist ideologies are highlighted. 4. Separation from the police or military is identified as a critical phase of vulnerability to radicalisation. Comprehensive support programmes, including mental health assistance, exit interviews and tailored interventions, are highlighted as crucial for successful reintegration into civilian life. Addressing these challenges is vital to building the resilience of the UK’s security forces against extremist influences.   

London: The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI),  2024. 32p.

By Anne-Marie Weeden, Mark Williams, Cathy Haenlein and Elijah Glantz

  The importance of ‘following the money’ in illegal wildlife trade (IWT) investigations is increasingly clearly recognised, given the need to isolate ‘upstream’ criminal actors – higher-level threat actors who control and drive illicit activity – as opposed to the low-level, downstream offenders who can easily be replaced. In 2019, RUSI’s Organised Crime and Policing team, working with the government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), pioneered a new technique in the environmental crime domain to support capacity building in this area: the use of multi-agency reviews of closed IWT cases – the Closed Case Method. Based on the pilot exercise’s success, this novel capacity-building methodology was subsequently adopted as a recommendation by the Financial Action Task Force, which urged affected countries to ‘undertake (multi-agency) case reviews of historic/closed IWT cases that focus on the unexplored financial elements of a case’, arguing that such reviews can identify typologies of IWT-related financial crime, develop risk indicators, and potentially reveal new leads. The RUSI team has since refined the Closed Case Method through multi-agency capacity-building workshops held in Malawi, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia in 2022–23. These workshops were designed and delivered as part of the RUSI project, ‘Case Closed? Using Historic Cases to Enable New Financial Investigations’, funded by the UK government under the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund. This Whitehall Report summarises the lessons learned from this workshop activity, presenting a best practice guide for the use of closed case reviews to support financial investigation in IWT cases. This approach involves the retroactive analysis of previous IWT cases to identify fresh opportunities to gather and act on financial intelligence. The team’s methodology for using closed case reviews in capacity building can be broken down into three different stages: • First, the ‘research and preparation stage’ involves context-specific literature reviews, targeted stakeholder engagement, case criteria development, case selection and development of training materials. • Second, the ‘capacity building stage’ comprises delivery of multi-agency

workshops, involving baseline financial investigative skills training and small group case reviews, in which all relevant agencies are charged with re-examining the details of the case and developing missed opportunities to follow financial leads. 

• Third, the ‘learning and dissemination stage’ involves the development of red flags (risk indicators for suspected money laundering activity), the dissemination of financial intelligence to both the private and the public sector, and monitoring and evaluation.    

  RUSI Whitehall Report 4-23,  

London: The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) 2023. 43p.

By European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

FRA’s third LGBTIQ survey shows that people still experience hate-motivated violence and discrimination. Trans and intersex people face even greater victimisation. Yet, signs of progress show that the EU’s and Member States’ efforts can positively affect people’s lives. More LGBTIQ people are open about their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.

FRA’s survey is one of the biggest of its kind globally. It analyses the experiences of over 100,000 LGBTIQ people of all backgrounds aged 15 years and above in the EU and neighbouring countries. This is the third wave of the survey FRA first conducted in 2012 and again in 2019. It presents results showing gradual progress in equality over time. The findings contribute to developing legal and policy responses to meet the needs of LGBTIQ people and protect their fundamental rights. The report sets out ways forward for the EU and Member States to ensure dignity and equality. Now is a critical moment to step up efforts.

In this report:

• Why is this survey needed?

• Survey in a nutshell

• Key concepts and terminology

• Assessing progress - comparing selected results from 2019 and 2023

1. Discrimination and awareness of rights

   • Assessing progress between 2019 and 2023 - selected results

   • Key 2023 survey findings

2. Violence and harassment

   • Assessing progress between 2019 and 2023 - selected results

   • Key 2023 survey findings

3. Life and dignity in inclusive societies

   • Assessing progress between 2019 and 2023 - selected results

   • Key 2023 survey findings

• Annex: Survey sample, methodology and socio-demographics

Vienna: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2024. 112p.

By Brandon L. Garrett & Cynthia Rudin

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) increasingly is used to make important decisions that affect individuals and society. As governments and corporations use AI more pervasively, one of the most troubling trends is that developers so often design it to be a “black box.” Designers create AI models too complex for people to understand or they conceal how AI functions. Policymakers and the public increasingly sound alarms about black box AI. A particularly pressing area of concern has been criminal cases, in which a person’s life, liberty, and public safety can be at stake. In the United States and globally, despite concerns that technology may deepen pre-existing racial disparities and overreliance on incarceration, black box AI has proliferated in areas such as: DNA mixture interpretation; facial recognition; recidivism risk assessments; and predictive policing. Despite constitutional criminal procedure protections, judges have often embraced claims that AI should remain undisclosed in court.

Both champions and critics of AI, however, mistakenly assume that we inevitably face a trade-off: black box AI may be incomprehensible, but it performs more accurately. But that is not so. In this Article, we question the basis for this assumption, which has so powerfully affected judges, policymakers, and academics. We describe a mature body of computer science research showing how “glass box” AI—designed to be fully interpretable by people—can be more accurate than the black box alternatives. Indeed, black box AI performs predictably worse in settings like the criminal system. After all, criminal justice data is notoriously error prone, and it may reflect preexisting racial and socioeconomic disparities. Unless AI is interpretable, decisionmakers like lawyers and judges who must use it will not be able to detect those underlying errors, much less understand what the AI recommendation means.

Debunking the black box performance myth has implications for constitutional criminal procedure rights and legislative policy. Judges and lawmakers have been reluctant to impair the perceived effectiveness of black box AI by requiring disclosures to the defense. Absent some compelling—or even credible—government interest in keeping AI black box, and given the substantial constitutional rights and public safety interests at stake, we argue that the burden rests on the government to justify any departure from the norm that all lawyers, judges, and jurors can fully understand AI. If AI is to be used at all in settings like the criminal system—and we do not suggest that it necessarily should—the presumption should be in favor of glass box AI, absent strong evidence to the contrary. We conclude by calling for national and local regulation to safeguard, in all criminal cases, the right to glass box AI.

  CORNELL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 109 (3): 2024.

By Megan Moore and Angie Weis Gammell 

  In 2020, 165,700, or 23%, of incarcerated individuals were seniors. This represents a 280% increase in incarcerated older adults since 1999 and is in stark contrast to the steady decline of total prison populations since peaking in 2009.  The growing number of older adults has a distinct set of healthcare needs that must be met, including aging-related cognitive impairments like dementia. Older adults behind bars are at a greater risk for developing cognitive impairment and carceral facilities are not properly staffed or equipped to recognize, assess, or care for incarcerated individuals with cognitive decline.  The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2030, U.S. prisons will hold 400,000 older adults who will comprise one-third of the total incarcerated population. Between approximately 70,000 and 210,000 of those incarcerated older adults will develop dementia.  With few national standardized dementia trainings, screenings, and practices across carceral facilities, there is a pressing need to address the diagnostic, medical, and rehabilitative needs of the aging prison population. Importantly, none of the purposes of punishment—incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and deterrence—are advanced by the continued incarceration of individuals living with dementia. Many are unaware of their surroundings or the “why” of their existence in a carceral institution. They are already incapacitated by their medical condition. They no longer have the opportunity for rehabilitation. They are unable to understand their living environment as a consequence of their crime, rendering retribution impossible. Additionally, incarceration is not an effective deterrent against crime, and may actually serve to increase crime.  Despite this, state programs providing for geriatric release or release based on cognitive decline are rare. This leaves many individuals living with dementia in prison, burdening states with hefty medical bills. Prison systems must provide adequate medical care to allow those living with cognitive decline to maintain their dignity and protection to prevent their victimization.  

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, 2024.  23p.

By: Jay Szkola, Megan J. O’Toole, Sarah Burd-Sharps

On average, at least one gun is stolen from a car every nine minutes in the United States. The rate of gun thefts from cars is triple what it was a decade ago. This includes both consistent increases nearly every year over the decade and a marked spike during the pandemic. A decade ago, roughly a quarter of gun thefts were from cars; in 2022, over half were. Cars parked at residences (in driveways, outside homes, etc.) are the most common source of stolen guns, demonstrating the importance of securely storing guns at all times and locations. Cities in states with the weakest gun safety laws see nearly 18 times the rate of gun thefts from cars as those in states with the strongest gun laws. Memphis, Tennessee—the city with the highest rate of guns stolen from cars— had over 3,000 gun thefts from vehicles in 2022. A range of cities in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, reported zero gun thefts from cars. 

New York: Everytown for Gun Safety, 2024. 14p.

By Emily Berg,  Susannah N. Tapp

This report presents a new method of estimating prevalence that overcomes the problems associated with the old procedure; it will be adopted beginning with the Criminal Victimization, 2023 report. Limitations of the old prevalence measure are discussed, followed by guiding principles for the new prevalence measure. The new measure is presented, as is a comparison of estimates using both methods. Additionally, see the accompanying third-party report, National Crime Victimization Survey: Prevalence Estimation Methods.  

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2024. 20p.  

By Neil Shortland; Jason Rydberg; John Horgan; Michael Williams; Georgia Elena Savoia; T. H. Chan; Tyler Cote; Kurt Braddock

This study evaluated the Operation250 campaign focused on online safety and risk assessment.

Abstract

This evaluation of Operation250 reported positive results for students who experienced the Operation250, an important step in efforts to identify “what works” in the realm of prevention. However, several issues were identified that center on both (1) the wider issues associated with conducting interventions and (2) evaluating those interventions to assess the degree to which they are achieving their stated goals. Researchers conducted a formal and summative evaluation of Operation250 (Op250) using a mixed-method approach, including a randomized control trial and a wait-list control trial design with 1) an intervention group and 2) a control group (i.e., a matched-control group that has not received the Op250 intervention) at a series of schools in the North Adams District in Massachusetts. The goal of this independent evaluation was to objectively measure the ability of Op250 to (1) reduce unsafe online behavior in pre- teen ,and teenagers and (2) increase the ability of pre-teens and teenagers to assess risk online.

Lowell, MA: University of Massachusetts, Lovell, 2024. 150p.

By Farid Badrán

  Recent scholarship has seen the peace agreement between Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrillas a milestone in closing more than 50 years of internal armed conflict. Indeed, the traditional practice of subversive warfare between the two sides ended. However, this did not imply a true path to peacebuilding. The empirical and statistical evidence indicates the worsening of the conflict through the transformation of its practices and representations, into terrorism and transnational organized crime. This article contends that the FARC, as a political party, a new insurgent group, and a criminal actor, continues to have a main role

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:173–196 

By Yarin Eski, Anna Sergi

   This article will explore how the current narratives (and corresponding changes) in Dutch organised crime policing relate to ethnic profiling of minorities in the Netherlands. It will do so by developing a theoretically informed narrative understanding of what we would like to conceptualise as ethnic profiling of organised crime (in the Netherlands), digging deeper into the connection between the role of ethnicity in organised crime studies inasmuch as it relates to the history of the mafia concept and, even further, lingering colonialism in law-and-order approaches. By focusing on (assumed) socio-historical connections between Italy, mafia and organised crime and on the social construction of Italian mafia as organised crime, based on narrative criminology, this article discursively and interpretatively understands the dominant and hidden Dutch narratives on (policing) organised crime. The discovered narratives will be critically discussed in light of the juxtaposition between mafias and ethnic organised crime and post-colonial implications.

  Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:120–139

By Robert A. Roks, Edwin W. Kruisbergen, Edward R. Kleemans

   In this article, we aim to further our understanding of the social embeddedness of organized crime by exploring the (possible) ways the social environment adds to the shielding of organized crime or criminal activities by organized crime groups. We argue that the metaphor of ‘walls of silence’ provides a fruitful way to examine the shielding of organized crime. Based on a theoretical and empirical exploration of 30 cases from the fifth data sweep of Dutch Organized Crime Monitor, we illustrate how organized crime offenders in the Netherlands depend on the silence and secrecy of co-offenders, victims, bystanders, and others who are aware of their (criminal) activities. Furthermore, we present a framework of the shielding of organized crime activities to provide insight into how offenders not only make use of the social environment to shield their activities, but also how the social environment can (pur posely) act as walls of silence and secrecy.

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:103–119 

By Michael D. Anestis; Jayna Moceri-Brooks, Rachel L. Johnson,  et al

Abstract

Importance: Secure firearm storage may help reduce firearm injury and death. Broad implementation requires more granular assessments of firearm storage practices and greater clarity on circumstances that may prevent or promote the use of locking devices.

Objective: To develop a more thorough understanding of firearm storage practices, obstacles to using locking devices, and circumstances in which firearm owners would consider locking unsecured firearms.

Design, setting, and participants: A cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of adults residing in 5 US states who owned firearms was administered online between July 28 and August 8, 2022. Participants were recruited via probability-based sampling.

Main outcomes and measures: Firearm storage practices were assessed via a matrix provided to participants in which firearm-locking devices were described both via text and images. Locking mechanisms (key/personal identification number [PIN]/dial vs biometric) were specified for each type of device. Obstacles to the use of locking devices and circumstances in which firearm owners would consider locking unsecured firearms were assessed via self-report items developed by the study team.

Results: The final weighted sample included 2152 adult (aged ≥18 years), English-speaking firearm owners residing in the US; the sample was predominantly male (66.7%). Among the 2152 firearm owners, 58.3% (95% CI, 55.9%-60.6%) reported storing at least 1 firearm unlocked and hidden, with 17.9% (95% CI, 16.2%-19.8%) reporting storing at least 1 firearm unlocked and unhidden. Gun safes were the most frequently used device both among participants who use keyed/PIN/dial locking mechanisms (32.4%; 95% CI, 30.2%-34.7%) and those who use biometric locking mechanisms (15.6%; 95% CI, 13.9%-17.5%). Those who do not store firearms locked most frequently noted a belief that locks are unnecessary (49.3%; 95% CI, 45.5%-53.1%) and a fear that locks would prevent quick access in an emergency (44.8%; 95% CI, 41.1%-48.7%) as obstacles to lock usage. Preventing access by children was the most often reported circumstance in which firearm owners would consider locking unsecured firearms (48.5%; 95% CI, 45.6%-51.4%).

Conclusions and relevance: In this survey study of 2152 firearm owners, consistent with prior research, unsecure firearm storage was common. Firearm owners appeared to prefer gun safes relative to cable locks and trigger locks, indicating that locking device distribution programs may not match firearm owners' preferences. Broad implementation of secure firearm storage may require addressing disproportionate fears of home intruders and increasing awareness of the risks associated with household firearm access. Furthermore, implementation efforts may hinge on broader awareness of the risks of ready firearm access beyond unauthorize 

access by children

JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Mar 1;6(3):e231447.

 doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.1447.

By Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, Michael Laurence

The California Racial Justice Act of 2020 recognized racial and ethnic discrimination as a basis for relief in capital cases, expressly permitting several types of statistical evidence to be introduced. This statewide study of the influence of race and ethnicity on the application of capital punishment contributes to this evidence. We draw on data from over 27,000 murder and manslaughter convictions in California state courts between 1978 and 2002. Using multiple methods, we found significant racial and ethnic disparities in charging and sentencing decisions. Controlling for defendant culpability and specific statutory aggravators, we show that Black and Latinx defendants and all defendants convicted of killing at least one white victim are substantially more likely to be sentenced to death. We further examined the role that race and ethnicity have in decision-making at various points in the criminal justice system. We found that prosecutors were significantly more likely to seek death against defendants who kill white victims, and that juries were significantly more likely to sentence those defendants to death. The magnitude of the race of the defendant and race of the victim effects is substantially higher than in prior studies in other states and in single-jurisdiction research. The results show an entrenched pattern of racial disparities in charging and sentencing that privileges white victim cases, as well as patterns of racial disparities in who is charged and sentenced to death in California courts that are the natural result of California's capacious statutory definition of death eligibility, which permits virtually unlimited discretion for charging and sentencing decisions. This pattern of racial preferences illustrates the social costs of California's failure to follow the Supreme Court's directive in Furman v Georgia to narrow the application of capital punishment over 50 years ago.
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Early View, June 2024

By New York City, Office of the City Comptroller

The audit found that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) ensures that the billing, invoices, and payments to ShotSpotter are accurate, and that ShotSpotter generally meets its currently specified contractual obligations. The auditors found that sensor coverage areas were initially set up in Brooklyn and the Bronx because the two boroughs had the highest number of confirmed shootings, and, within the two boroughs, they were generally placed in precincts with the highest number of confirmed shootings. The audit also found that ShotSpotter met its contractual performance targets, which focus on avoiding “missed incidents,” most of the time.

However, the audit found that the contractual performance standard does not measure whether alerts sent to NYPD result in confirmed shootings. When measured against the contractual performance standards set by NYPD, ShotSpotter met its 90% target for avoiding missed incidents in almost all boroughs except Manhattan, but when measured against the number of confirmed shootings, performance is far lower. During the sampled months of review in 2022 and 2023, ShotSpotter alerts only resulted in confirmed shootings between 8% and 20% of the time.

During the month of June 2023, for example, out of the 940 ShotSpotter alerts that NYPD responded to 771 could not be confirmed as shootings upon arrival at the scene (82%), 47 were determined to be unfounded (5%), and 122 were confirmed as shootings (13%). NYPD officers spent 426.9 hours investigating alerts that were not confirmed as shootings. If only one officer responded, this equates to almost 36 twelve-hour shifts; if two officers responded, this number doubles.[1]  NYPD does not currently track the amount of time ─ or the associated staff costs ─ spent responding to such instances.

NYPD does not agree that confirmed shootings should be used to measure ShotSpotter’s performance.  It asserts that ShotSpotter improves the response time to possible shots fired which in turn increases the ability to provide assistance to victims, increases officers’ safety, and provides a more accurate location of the possible shooting than a 911 call alone.

However, NYPD does not measure ShotSpotter alert response times in comparison to 911 call response times to shots fired outside, the metric most closely aligned to ShotSpotter alerts. The audit analyzed the two data sets, NYPD’s internal OCD ShotSpotter Tracking report and the Open Data NYPD Call for Service report, and found that during the month of June 2023 average response times to ShotSpotter alerts were 1 minute and 38 seconds faster than response times to reports to 911 of outdoor shots fired (3 minutes 50 seconds for ShotSpotter versus 5 minutes 28 seconds for 911), far less than the difference of 5 minutes claimed in publicly-available data.[2]

The audit found that NYPD’s data collection should be improved, analyzed more critically, and published in the interest of transparency before ShotSpotter’s contract, which expires in December 2024, is renewed. The data currently collected and published by NYPD does not support a comprehensive assessment of the tool’s effectiveness or economy, does not fully inform the public or government officials interested in ShotSpotter’s performance, and therefore does not currently support renewal of the contract.

Intended Benefits

The audit increases transparency around the use of ShotSpotter and raises questions concerning NYPD’s assessment of its performance.  NYPD has already spent over $45 million on this product and is committed to spending a further $9 million before the end of the current contract term. The audit calls on NYPD to critically and comprehensively assess ShotSpotter’s performance and determine whether its continued use remains in the City’s best interests.

New York City: Office of the City Comptroller, 2024. 48p.

By Adam Isacson

  For this report, WOLA staff paid a two-week research visit to Colombia’s borders with Panama and Ecuador in late October and early November 2023. Here are 5 key findings: 1. Organized crime controls the migrant route through Colombia. From the informal crossings or trochas at the Ecuador border to every step of the way through the Darién jungle border with Panama, violent criminal groups are in control. That control is dispersed among many groups near Ecuador, and concentrated in a single, powerful group—the Gulf Clan—in Colombia’s Darién region. Their profits from migrants now sit alongside cocaine and illicit precious-metals mining as a principal income stream for Colombia’s armed and criminal groups, some of which the International Committee of the Red Cross considers parties to armed conflicts.1 2. The Colombian state is absent from both border zones, although this is a reality that we have observed in past fieldwork in many of Colombia’s zones of armed conflict and illicit crop cultivation. The national government is not doing enough to manage flows, determine who is passing through, or protect people at risk. At all levels of government, responsible agencies are poorly coordinated and rarely present. Checkpoints, patrols, and detentions are uncommon, but so are humanitarian services and access to protection. Despite ambitious plans to “introduce the state” to conflictive areas—most recently, Colombia’s 2016 peace accord—key points along the migration route are vacuums of governance that get filled by armed and criminal groups. 3. Colombia faces challenges in integrating Venezuelan refugees and migrants. Amid Venezuela’s collapse, Colombia’s humanitarian response to fleeing Venezuelans remains more complete and generous than those of much of South America. However, the Colombian government’s recent trajectory is troubling. It is now harder for Venezuelans—especially more recent arrivals—to get documentation and to access services in Colombia. Pathways to permanent residency, including asylum, barely exist. As those efforts lag and people fail to integrate, more are joining in-transit migrants, attempting the dangerous journey north. This reality has a differentiated and more severe impact on the more than a quarter of people transiting Colombia, or seeking to settle in Colombia, who are adult women—especially women heads of migrant households—and the nearly a quarter who are children. The risk of physical harm including sexual violence, or of enduring hunger or lack of access to health care, is much more challenging for women, Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ migrants. 4. At the same time, U.S. supported initiatives to help Colombia integrate migrants, to open up legal migration pathways for some who wish to come to the United States, and to encourage greater cooperation and collaboration between states seeking to manage this moment of heavy migration are promising. However, we note that at the same time, the U.S government orients much of its diplomatic energy and security programs toward minimizing the flow and discouraging Colombia and other states from making the journey more orderly, for fear that it might encourage more to travel. As a result, governments and migrants receive a muddled, unclear message from Washington that, for migrants, can be drowned out by poor-quality information gleaned from social media.

5. Resources to help Colombia and other nations along the migrant route are scarce, meeting only a fraction of projected needs—and that they are shrinking as wars elsewhere in the world draw humanitarian resources away. Countries like Colombia that are experiencing large amounts of U.S.-bound migration have a very difficult needle to thread. Blocking migrants is a geographic impossibility and would violate the rights of those with protection needs. Providing a managed “safe conduct” and an orderly transit pathway with robust state presence would prevent today’s immense harms and loss of life while cutting organized crime out of the picture—but the impression of “green-lighting” migration alarms the U.S. government. While some states do something in between: some measure of blocking, detaining, and deporting that dissuades few migrants but creates robust opportunities for organized crime, human traffickers, and corrupt officials who enable them, Colombia is leaning into an additional option: do little to nothing, with minimal state presence, leaving a vacuum that armed and criminal groups are filling. This poor menu of options for managing in-transit migration leads WOLA to recommend some version of “safe conduct,” even a humanitarian corridor—but with an end to Colombia’s hands off, stateless approach. Creating a safe pathway through Colombia must come with vastly increased state presence, far greater implementation of migration policies from a protection and human rights approach, dramatically improved cooperation between governments, and strongly stepped-up investment in integrating people who would rather stay in Latin America. Until it expands legal migration pathways and vastly improves its immigration court system’s capacity, much migration will be forced into the shadows. This situation will worsen further as the Biden administration implements a June 5, 2024 ban on most asylum applications between the U.S.-Mexico border’s ports of entry. In that context, the United States must be more tolerant of efforts to provide safe conduct to migrants. U.S. tolerance of such approaches, though, would hinge on big changes to the “neglect migrants in transit,” “de-emphasize integration,” and “cooperate minimally with neighbors” status quo in Colombia and elsewhere.   

  Washington, DC: The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), 2024.  45p.

By J.J. Prescott, Benjamin Pyle & Sonja B. Starr

People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those convicted of violent crimes consti tute a large majority of older prisoners, who are extremely vulnerable to the spread of the virus behind bars. Excluding them from protective measures will deeply undermine those measures’ effectiveness—and yet many governors and officials have hesitated due to fears of violent-crime recidivism. In addition, the population imprisoned for violent offenses also exhibits sharper demographic disparities than the general prison population across both age and race. Conse quently, reforms that target those convicted only of nonviolent crimes will likely exacerbate existing inequalities in the criminal justice system. In this Article, we start from the premise that better understanding individuals convicted of violent crimes is essential to overcoming resistance to the idea of releasing them earlier—and in particular, to address the fear that this population will almost certainly reoffend violently. We review existing studies and offer new empirical anal ysis to inform these questions. Although estimates vary, our synthesis of the available evidence suggests that released violent offenders, especially homicide offenders who are older at release, have lower overall recidivism rates relative to other released offenders. At the same time, people released after previous homicide convictions may be more likely to commit new homicides than otherwise comparable releasees, although probably not by as much as most would expect.   

95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1643 (2020).   

By Shima Baradaran Baughman and Megan S. Wright

  It has long been postulated that America’s mass incarceration phenomenon is driven by increased drug arrests, draconian sentencing, and the growth of the prison industry. Yet among the major players—legislators, judges, police, and prosecutors—one of these is shrouded in mystery. While laws on the books, judicial sentencing, and police arrests are all public and transparent, prosecutorial charging decisions are made behind closed doors with little oversight or public accountability. Indeed, without notice by commentators, during the last ten years or more, crime has fallen, and police have cut arrests accordingly, but prosecutors have actually increased the ratio of criminal court filings per arrest. Why? This Article presents quantitative and qualitative data from the first randomized controlled experiment studying how prosecutors nationally decide whether to charge a defendant. We find rampant variation and multiple charges for a single  crime along with the lowest rates of declination in a national study. Crosscutting this empirical analysis is an exploration of Supreme Court and prosecutor standards that help guide prosecutorial decisions. This novel approach makes important discoveries about prosecutorial charging that are critical to understanding mass incarceration. 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 94:1123,  2021