By Brian Johnson,  Kiminori Nakamura,  Lydia Becker, Raquel Hernandez

Firearms violence is a major policy concern in America. How criminal courts address firearm crimes represents a critical opportunity for improving public safety. The overwhelming majority of criminal cases are settled by guilty plea, yet little is known about the ways that plea deals impact criminal punishment for firearms-involved offenders, or how they shape subsequent recidivism. This project investigates the association between plea bargaining, sentencing, and recidivism outcomes in state-wide sample of firearms-involved offenders. It provides a descriptive overview of case characteristics and outcomes in firearms cases, examines the scope and impact of plea bargaining for these offenses, and considers how plea discounts potentially impact future reoffending. Findings indicate that plea negotiations are common in firearms-related offenses – a majority of cases involve multiple filed charges but a single conviction charge, and more than half of all cases include a reduction in the severity of the top charge between filing and conviction. The mean distance traveled, or average magnitude of plea discounts, results in a significant reduction in the likelihood of incarceration and expected sentence lengths. Results also reveal significant relationships between plea discounts and recidivism. Defendants who are convicted and sentenced to longer incarceration terms have lower odds of coming back into the system for a new offense, whereas those who receive charge reductions and are given larger plea discounts are more likely to recidivate during our study period. Because average sentences in firearms cases are substantial, and because our follow-up period is limited, these results likely reflect the short-term incapacitation effects of lengthier incarceration terms. Overall, the current study suggests there may be significant public safety implications of plea discounts in firearms cases, though future research is needed before strong policy recommendations can be offered.  

College Park, MD: University of Maryland, 2024. 88p.

By The Death Penalty Information Center

It is a common assumption that the federal death penalty is reserved only for the most serious crimes against the country, like terrorism, that have a unique federal interest. However, an expansion of the federal death penalty in the 1990s added more than 60 crimes that carried a potential death sentence. The cases the federal government decides to pursue are rarely “exceptional” compared to the cases tried at the state level. Federal defendants also share many of the same characteristics as state court defendants: they are often poor, traumatized, mentally impaired, and disproportionately people of color. This report documents the use of the federal death penalty from its earliest beginnings through the modern day. Like many state-level capital punishment systems, the federal death penalty has been used in a racially biased manner, a conclusion that the many historical examples and data in this report confirm. The federal death penalty was a tool historically used by the government to intimidate and subjugate people of color, particularly Black and Native American communities. Today, the most active death-sentencing federal jurisdictions were once the nation’s leaders of extra-judicial lynchings, a through line of connection that links the past to the present and raises serious questions about the future use of the federal death penalty.  

Death Penalty Information Center, 2024. 36p.

By Frank R. Baumgartner 

I have compiled data from the FBI Supplemental Homicide Reports from 1976 through 2019 (the last data currently available) on homicides in Florida and in Duval County, and information about all death sentences imposed in those two jurisdictions since the modern system of capital punishment was created in Florida 1973. This consists of a record of 1,103 death sentences imposed state-wide and 112 in Duval County. The corresponding numbers of homicide offenders are 20,831 (state-wide) and 1,742 (Duval County). I have used this data to calculate rates of death sentences per 100 homicides, in Florida and in Duval County, by race of offender, race of victim, gender of offender, and gender of victim. This report begins by describing the race and gender information I collected and how often it was missing. It next presents a detailed table to document the figures used to calculate the rates of death sentences per 100 homicides in Florida and Duval. My narrative analysis of these tables follows, after which I give a similar analysis limited to those cases in Florida resulting in execution. As will be seen, I ultimately conclude that neither death sentences nor executions are applied in an equal manner; they are instead driven powerfully by the race and gender of the victim, with the highest rates of death sentencing and executions, both in Florida and Duval County, reserved for black offenders who kill white victims, and highest of all for black men who kill white women.  

Washington, DC: American Civil Liberties Union, 2023. 42p.

By Tim Lyman, Frank R. Baumgartner, and Glenn L. Pierce 

Out of 6,512 homicides from 1976 through 2014, we review the outcomes of 1,822 capitally charged homicide cases across eight judicial districts in Louisiana. In most cases, capital charges were reduced; but in 385 cases, the state sought death to the final stage of the prosecution. In 107 cases, a death sentence was imposed. We analyze these outcomes, looking at legally relevant factors, as well as legally irrelevant ones, in determining final capital charges and death sentences. Legally relevant factors include the number of victims as well as various statutory aggravating circumstances (e.g., victims under 12 or over 64, simultaneous felony circumstances, the type of weapon, and the relationship between the victim and offender). Legally irrelevant factors include the judicial district and the race and gender of the offenders and victims, respectively. Many legally relevant factors have powerful impacts: the number of victims, certain felony circumstances, child victims, and elderly victims are all associated with higher rates of final capital charging or death sentencing. But we also show that factors that appear legally irrelevant in theory have powerful effects; rates of capital prosecution and death sentencing are substantially different based on the race of the victim and the combined races of the offenders and the victims, for example. We found only modest differences across the eight judicial districts we studied, but especially significant differences in rates of final capital charges and death sentences in cases that involved white victims, particularly white females. No demographic combination was as likely to see a final capital charge or a death sentence as those cases with a black male offender and a white female victim, which were more than five times as likely to lead to a final capital charge or a death sentence, compared to the much more frequent crimes involving black offenders and black victims. These findings come after a review of the bivariate relations as well as a series of multivariate logistic regressions. The Louisiana death penalty system is heavily weighted by a tendency to seek the harshest penalties in those cases with white female victims. Our powerful and consistent findings of racial and gender-based disparities hold in a multivariate analysis and are inconsistent with the equal protection of the law or any common understanding of equality or justice. 

SUL Rev., 2021

By  Michael Woody, Tyrone Walker, and Joel Castón

Jurisdictions throughout the country have been exploring new approaches to the treatment and care of emerging adults in recent years. In 2018, the Department of Corrections launched the YME Unit in partnership with three individuals who served time in the federal system as emerging adults. Joel Castón, Micheal Woody, and Tyrone Walker acted as mentors for emerging adults in the DOC care. This brief is the story of the unit’s implementation, development, impact, and future.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2020. 21p.

By the Justice Policy Institute

Over the last 20 years, elected officials and juvenile justice system stakeholders have changed policies and practices to create a more developmentally appropriate youth justice system, resulting in a reduction of the number of confined youth by 60 percent since the 1990s and reducing the number of youth automatically prosecuted as adults by 56 percent since 2007. This change in course is largely the result of policies that restrict the use of secure detention facilities and limit prosecution of youth in the adult court system. These trends in declining youth incarceration rates, while positive, have primarily focused on youth involved in nonviolent offenses. Moreover, despite a significant decline in the overall use of confinement, racial disparity in the juvenile justice system has worsened in many jurisdictions. This is due, in large part, to the fact that too many jurisdictions still rely on confinement and transfer to the adult system for youth who engage in violence. The research clearly shows that youth are best served in the least restrictive setting, regardless of underlying offense type. However, state practices frequently do not follow these lessons, turning to secure settings and transfer to the adult criminal justice system when other interventions would be more effective at addressing the underlying cause of the behavior and delivering a better public safety return on investment. Instead, these punitive practices worsen racial disparities, saddle youth with the collateral consequences of a criminal record if they are
prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system, and contribute to recidivism.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2020. 24p.

By Oliver Kossack

In the past three decades, radical right parties had the opportunity to directly influence political developments from the highest public office in many post-communist Central and Eastern European countries. Oliver Kossack provides the first comprehensive study on government formation with radical right parties in this region. Even after the turn of the millennium, some distinct features of the post-communist context persist, such as coalitions between radical right and centre-left parties. In addition to original empirical insights, the time-sensitive approach of this study also advances the discussion about concepts and methodological approaches within the discipline.

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2023. 392 p.

By Lynn LoPucki

LoPucki's provocative critique of Chapter 11 is required reading for everyone who cares about bankruptcy reform. This empirical account of large Chapter 11 cases will trigger intense debate both inside the academy and on the floor of Congress. Confronting LoPucki's controversial thesis-that competition between bankruptcy judges is corrupting them-is the most pressing challenge now facing any defender of the status quo."" -Douglas Baird, University of Chicago Law School ""This book is smart, shocking and funny. This story has everything-professional greed, wrecked companies, and embarrassed judges. Insiders are already buzzing."" -Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School ""LoPucki provides a scathing attack on reorganization practice. Courting Failure recounts how lawyers, managers and judges have transformed Chapter 11. It uses empirical data to explore how the interests of the various participants have combined to create a system markedly different from the one envisioned by Congress. LoPucki not only questions the wisdom of these changes but also the free market ideology that supports much of the general regulation of the corporate sector."" -Robert Rasmussen, University of Chicago Law School A sobering chronicle of our broken bankruptcy-court system, Courting Failure exposes yet another American institution corrupted by greed, avarice, and the thirst for power. Lynn LoPucki's eye-opening account of the widespread and systematic decay of America's bankruptcy courts is a blockbuster story that has yet to be reported in the media. LoPucki reveals the profound corruption in the U.S. bankruptcy system and how this breakdown has directly led to the major corporate failures of the last decade, including Enron, MCI, WorldCom, and Global Crossing. LoPucki, one of the nation's leading experts on bankruptcy law, offers a clear and compelling picture of the destructive power of ""forum shopping,"" in which corporations choose courts that offer the most favorable outcome for bankruptcy litigation. The courts, lured by big money and prestige, streamline their requirements and lower their standards to compete for these lucrative cases. The result has been a series of increasingly shoddy reorganizations of major American corporations, proposed by greedy corporate executives and authorized by case-hungry judges.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. 335p.

Edited by Ian Hall, Troy Lee-Brown and Rebecca Strating

This book advances a holistic conceptualization of maritime security under the term ‘Blue Security’ and situates it in states across the Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific encompasses a vast space, incorporating two of the planet’s biggest oceans, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, as well as littoral and hinterland states home to half the world’s population. Security challenges abound across the maritime Indo-Pacific, ranging from the risk of inter-state war at sea to so-called blue crimes, like piracy, smuggling, and illegal fishing. Climate change and marine pollution, as well as the over-exploitation of scarce, and sometimes fragile resources, also pose threats to human security, sustainability, and biodiversity. Using the concept of ‘Blue Security’, this book assesses these various challenges and analyses the approaches to their management used by Indo-Pacific states. It argues that we should embrace a holistic understanding of maritime security, incorporating national, regional, international, human, and environmental dimensions. To that end, it explores the Blue Security strategies of 18 Indo-Pacific states, examining their changing perceptions of threat, their approaches to managing those challenges, and their capabilities. The volume makes an innovative contribution to our knowledge of a region crucial to global security and prosperity. This book will be of interest to students of maritime strategy, security studies, Asian politics, and International Relations.  

 London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 226p.

Edited by Maria Eugenia Trombini · Elizangela Valarini · Vanessa Elias de Oliveira · Markus Pohlmann

This open access book examines the interplay between public and private sectors in Latin America's biggest market. It is the result of the binational research project “Organizational Crime and Systemic Corruption in Brazil” funded by the DFG and FAPESP (2018-2023). Its contributions analyze anti-corruption, political finance, and how for-profit organizations manage illegality.

Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2024. 293p. 

Edited by  Eveline G. Bouwers and David Nash

This book investigates the relationship between blasphemy and violence in modern history, with a focus on cases from the European world, including its (post-) colonial ties. Spanning from the late eighteenth century to today, it shows how cultures of blasphemy, and related acts of heresy, apostasy, and sacrilege, have interacted with different forms of violence, committed against both the sacred and the secular.

Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2022. 

By The Center for Justice Innovation

This mapping report looking at the alternatives to coercive sanctions for low-level drug offences, forms part of one of the strategic priorities identified in the mid-term review of the National Drug Strategy established in 2017. As the government has shifted towards a healthy response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland, Alternatives to Coercive Sanctions (ACS) have become a recent area of increased focus. This Irish context aligns with the wider European policy shift towards a health-led approach to drug use, and this report will feed into the wider European strategy around this. The recommendations made by the Citizens Assembly on Drugs Use (CADU), established by the Oireachtas in 2023, have also been key in shifting the state’s approach towards promoting alternatives to coercive sanction for drug use. Recommendation 17 of the CADU report specifically says ‘The State should introduce a comprehensive health-led response to possession of drugs for personal use’.1 Criminalisation of drug possession has shown to be ineffective in reducing drug use while concurrently causing harm to individuals and society and placing continual pressure on justice system resources. In Ireland, drug possession continues to make up a significant proportion of drug-related crime, and the Rooney report highlights that “significant rates of offending behaviour amongst the sample were reportedly linked to both Drugs (48%) and Alcohol Misuse (53%)”.2 Alternatives to coercive sanctions on the other hand have shown promising evidence in their ability to reduce drug use and lower reoffending rates.3 As outlined in the European Commission study on ACS, despite the need for more robust evidence in the European context, “a study conducted in Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK found that quasi-compulsory treatment through the criminal justice system was effective in reducing crime” and “overall studies have found evidence that ACS can help reduce levels of substance use”.4 In order to identify local ACS across Ireland, we carried out a survey disseminated to relevant professionals in the sector and held follow-up remote in-depth interviews with several of them, to gain an understanding of specific existing initiatives as well as gaining insight into the appetite for different types of ACS across stakeholders. We found a total of nine relevant initiatives spanning across diverse types of ACS, including; The Garda Adult Caution Scheme, diversionary measures, The Dublin Drug Treatment Courts (DDTC), and drug treatment programmes with various criminal justice referral pathways into them. Some of these programmes have been operating for various lengths of time with the year they were established ranging from 2001 to 2023. The majority of the ACS we came across were local initiatives, with the only national one being the Garda Adult Caution Scheme. It appeared that there was no widespread knowledge about existing ACS across the country, and those interviewed about one project were often not aware of others. There also has been very limited use of the Adult Cautioning Scheme by An Garda Síochána for simple possession of cannabis or cannabis resin, as only 5,139 people were given this caution between December 2020 and February 2024, while 17,125 people were issued with a charge/ summons for this in the same period.5 This may suggest a lack of widespread awareness about the scheme. Overall, there seemed to be an appetite for ACS among those we spoke to, particularly within probation, court workers, the judiciary and the stakeholders and networks of those running local initiatives. One stakeholder mentioned there was an “aspiration to fund more successful national projects”, while another stated, “it would be easy to do this [refer to treatment] upon arrest, the difficulty would just be in setting up the electronic referral system”. The one agency that appeared to have a more varied perspective was An Garda Síochána, although this was not the case unilaterally, as the LEAR pre-court diversionary programme collaborated very successfully with local Gardaí. The findings of this report lead us to believe that at present Ireland is at the precipice of transforming how its justice system responds to drug use in a more effective and humane way. It has shown how local initiatives have identified a need for ACS and have begun to implement them throughout the country in the absence of a national ACS for possession of drugs for personal use. The innovative work undertaken across the system to support individuals with their drug use is laudable, but it is missing opportunities earlier to prevent offending and re-offending and improve health outcomes for its citizens.  

London: The Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) , 2024.20p.

By Jodie M. Dewey , Patrick Hibbard , Dennis P. Watson , Juleigh Nowinski Konchak and Keiki Hinami 

Roughly 24–36% of people who are incarcerated in the U.S. are formally diagnosed with opioid use disorder (OUD). Once released, individuals involved with the criminal legal system (CLS) face increased risks of return to use and fatality and are 129 times more likely to die from an overdose within the first two weeks of release compared to those without CLS involvement. People who are CLS-involved and who are seeking a recovery living environment can access temporary stable housing through recovery homes. However, entering a recovery home can be difficult due to fragmentation among recovery housing organizations and their non-uniform application and screening procedures. A navigation pilot program was implemented to provide clients with recovery home placement advice, pre-screening, and referrals in Cook County, IL. Existing research on recovery homes has rarely examined the importance of recovery housing navigation for enhancing service engagement among CLS-involved individuals receiving medications for OUD. Methods.   Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 22 clients and three recovery housing navigators as part of a program evaluation of the navigation program pilot. Qualitative software was used to organize and qualitatively analyze transcripts through several rounds of coding producing emergent themes, which were then triangulated, and expanded using navigator data. Results.  Clients seeking recovery home services reported multiple prior challenges securing safe and supportive recovery living environments. Despite low initial expectations, clients described their interactions with housing navigators in favorable terms and felt navigators worked with them effectively to identify and meet their housing and substance use needs in a timely manner. Clients also commented on their partnerships with the navigator throughout the process. Interactions with navigators also calmed fears of rejection many clients had previously experienced and still harbored about the process, which bolstered client-navigator relationships and client motivation to engage with additional services. 

Health Justice 2024 Sep 14;12(1):37

By Lauren B. Edelman, and Jessica Cabrera

With the rise of the #MeToo movement, there has been a groundswell of attention to sex-based harassment. Organizations have pressured high-level personnel accused of harassment to resign or fired them outright, and they have created or revised their anti-harassment policies, complaint procedures, and training programs. This article reviews social science and legal scholarship on sex-based harassment, focusing on definitions and understandings of sexual (and sex-based) harassment, statistics on its prevalence, the consequences of harassment both for those who are subjected to it and for organizations, and explanations for why sex-based harassment persists. We then discuss the various steps that organizations have taken to reduce sex-based harassment and the social science literature on the effectiveness of those steps. We conclude that many organizational policies prevent liability more than they prevent harassment, in part because courts often fail to distinguish between meaningful compliance and the merely symbolic policies and procedures that do little to protect employees from harassment

Annual Review of Law and Social Science Vol. 16:361-383 Vol. 16:361-383 

By Luc Altmann, Mariane Piccinin Barbieri and Sophia Kilroy 

This policy paper presents a step-by-step assessment to help countries implement the OECD Recommendation on Access to Justice and People-Centred Justice Systems. The paper draws on the United Kingdom's model for measuring access to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. It is designed to help policymakers adapt this assessment model to their specific contexts and provides guidance on using data to identify and address barriers to court services. With a focus on people-centred justice, it includes good practices and country examples for using data to realise equal access to justice for all.

OECD Public Governance Policy Papers, No. 60, OECD Publishing

By Leigh Goodmark

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has been hailed as the federal government's signature legislation responding to gender-based violence. VAWA, passed in 1994 and reauthorized three times since then, has created several new programs and protections for victims of gender-based violence. VAWA is, however, primarily a funding bill and what it primarily funds is the criminal legal system. But the criminal legal response to gender-based violence has not been effective in decreasing rates of gender-based violence or deterring violence. A VAWA that discontinued funding for the criminal legal system and instead focused on economics, prevention, and community-based resources—a noncarceral VAWA—could better meet the needs of victims of gender-based violence and target the underlying causes of that violence.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:115–31

By Sarah Esther Lageson

This review analyzes criminal record stigma and surveillance through the concept of digital punishment: the collection and widespread dissemination of personally identifiable data by the American criminal legal system and subsequent private actors. The analysis is organized into three parts: a descriptive account of the technological, legal, and social factors that have created mass criminal record data; a theoretical framework for understanding digital criminal records through stigma and surveillance theories; and an argument that contemporary criminal records constitute digital punishment, with emphasis placed on how digital records are disordered, commodified, and biased. I close by raising policy-relevant questions about the widespread disclosure and use of criminal legal system data for extralegal purposes.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:67–90

By Ben Grunwald

We know that criminal defendants who plead guilty receive lower sentences than those convicted at trial, but there’s widespread disagreement about why. One camp of scholars believes this plea-trial differential represents a deeply troubling and coercive penalty; a second believes it’s merely a freedom-enhancing discount; and a third denies any meaningful distinction between the two at all. One reason for this disagreement is theoretical—it’s not at all clear what these concepts mean. Another is empirical—in the absence of precise conceptual definitions, we lack relevant data because scholars don’t know what to look for when searching for evidence of penalties and discounts in the real world. This Article seeks to bring greater theoretical and empirical clarity to the debate. To that end, I propose a theoretical definition of plea discounts and trial penalties. Applying this framework to the existing literature, I argue that there is strong theoretical and anecdotal evidence of trial penalties but little systematic empirical evidence. Nearly all of the statistical research has only studied the plea-trial differential; because both discounts and penalties are equally consistent with the existence of such a differential, the literature cannot distinguish between them. To develop a robust statistical test of the discount and penalty theories, we need to look elsewhere—where they make different predictions about prosecutorial behavior. Contrary to the views of the third camp of scholars—who maintain that’s impossible—I show that discounts and penalties are only indistinguishable if we assume litigation costs and acquittal probabilities are static. But they aren’t. They change all the time, and as a result, the discount and penalty theories diverge from each other, predicting different prosecutorial behavior. I argue that this theoretical insight might be used to develop an empirical test to help assess the prevalence and intensity of discounts and penalties in criminal court.

 37 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 261 (2021).

By James Osborne

This paper explores the intersection of federalism and legal forgiveness mechanisms in the United States, emphasizing the role of the Tenth Amendment in safeguarding state autonomy. It examines how executive and legislative mechanisms, such as pardons, commutations, set-asides, and expungements, have evolved from their common law origins into modern legal practices. While executive clemency remains a crucial tool, legislative actions have also significantly shaped state-level forgiveness processes. By analyzing the balance between federal and state authority, the paper argues that states maintain the right to define and manage their mechanisms of legal forgiveness, reflecting the enduring principles of mercy, justice, and rehabilitation.

By James A. Densley and Jillian K. Peterson

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic and the civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder influenced the 2020 homicide surge, focusing on individuals already at high risk for violence. Based on life history interviews with 18 people convicted of homicide in Minnesota, the research explores how the disruptions of 2020 intensified pre-existing vulnerabilities, accelerating pathways to lethal violence. Participants reported that the breakdown of social order, loss of routine, and economic instability created conditions that rapidly escalated violence within their lives and communities. This qualitative analysis complements existing quantitative research by offering a detailed account of the micro-level experiences behind the homicide spike, revealing how large-scale societal disruptions can shape individual trajectories toward serious violence. Findings underscore the need for policies that address structural inequalities and ensure continuity of social support and mental health services during periods of widespread upheaval to prevent future escalations in violence.

JOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 2024, AHEAD-OF-PRINT, 1-10