By Tanya Mehra, Merlina Herbach, Iwa Maulana

According to UNSC 1373(2001), States should bring alleged terrorists to justice, reflecting the seriousness of the crimes they have committed, which forms a vital aspect of an effective counterterrorism strategy. Consequently, States need to ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation, or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice. States must similarly ensure that such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences under domestic law and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts. When committed during armed conflict, some terrorist acts can constitute war crimes, and where terrorist acts are conducted as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, they can constitute crimes against humanity. In some situations, terrorist acts may also constitute genocide if they are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. While several terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Horam, Taliban, or the Maute Group are engaged in an armed conflict, one conflict stands out: the conflict in Syria and Iraq. The rise of ISIS resulted in an unprecedented flow of foreigners who travelled to the conflict zone. In response, several United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs), in particular 2178(2014) and 2396(2017), oblige States to take measures to prevent such travel and criminalise a range of activities related thereto. Several international independent organisations have documented how ISIS committed attacks against civilians, in particular minorities, pillaged houses, in addition to multiple crimes other crimes such as murder, persecution, enslavement, sexual slavery, and rape. Several of these crimes amount to so-called core international crimes, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. Hence, in recent years, several countries have started to prosecute members of ISIS for both terrorist offences and core international crimes. Examples include the prosecution for the war crime of pillaging, where members of a terrorist organisation occupied an estate after the original inhabitants were forced to flee, or for the war crime of outrage upon personal dignity for posting a picture of a mutilated body with degrading comments on social media. By prosecuting terroristrelated acts as core international crimes, perpetrators are being held accountable for the full range of crimes they have committed. This may lead to high(er) sentences and provide justice to victims. Ultimately, prosecuting terrorist-related offences with linkages to core international crimes can strengthen efforts to end impunity. Indonesia has seen a considerable number of its citizens travel to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other organisations and, like many other countries, is concerned with the security risks that are involved but also how to adopt effective prosecution, rehabilitation, and reintegration approaches. This report looks at the challenges and opportunities to prosecute alleged terrorists for both terrorism and core international crimes in Indonesia. This report reflects the findings of the project ‘Interlinkages Indonesia’ which was conducted by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) together with the Indonesian Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terrorisme (BNPT) from 15 June 2023 to 31 March 2025. During this project, two workshops, a closed-door expert meeting ,and a public panel were held. This report reflects the main findings on how cumulative charging for terrorism and core international crimes can be implemented in Indonesia for the so-called foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), especially in light of the new Indonesian criminal code that will enter into force on 1 January 2026. This report provides a short overview of the status quo concerning Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters and the approach taken thus on prosecuting those that have returned. After discussing some of the legal, institutional, and evidentiary challenges, this report provides an overview of the opportunities for Indonesia to adopt cumulative charging for terrorist offences and core international crimes.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) , 2025. 30p.

By The UK Comptroller and Auditor General

Family justice is concerned with keeping children safe and helping families resolve disputes. It includes cases on protecting children, who children live with and how they spend time with their family, as well as divorce, adoption and associated financial arrangements. In this report we will use the term family justice to refer to government activity on these cases. Family justice is distinct from civil and criminal justice. Family justice cases account for around one in seven cases heard in family, civil or criminal courts. Family justice uses shared assets, such as courtrooms, and shared staff. In this report we focus on the two categories of family justice cases that involve legal disputes over children: ‘public law’ and ‘private law’. Public law cases are brought by local authorities to protect a child from harm. Private law cases involve parental disputes, such as the living or contact arrangements for their child. These two types of cases are among the most costly and time-consuming family court cases as they can involve vulnerable children, substance misuse and domestic abuse. In 2024, there were 15,980 new public law cases and 51,473 new private law cases. Family justice involves the judiciary and several central government organisations and public bodies working together. The Department for Education (DfE) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are the lead policy departments for public law and private law, respectively. Local authorities are statutorily responsible for safeguarding children and social work. HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is responsible for administration of the courts and judges and magistrates hear the cases. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) and its equivalent in Wales, Cafcass Cymru, advise the courts on what is safe for children and in their best interests. Independent solicitors and barristers represent families at court and may be funded by legal aid. The way a case is managed differs between public law and private law (Figure 2) but broadly involves: • working with families to improve care or provide support to resolve issues before court; • if the child’s safety is at risk or a solution cannot be found, an application is made to the court; • assessments are made, evidence is collected and court hearings held; and • the magistrate or judge will decide on the best course of action and make a court order. These can vary from taking the child into local authority care to setting parental contact. Scope 5 This report reviews the government’s approach to improving how public law and private law cases are managed, with a specific focus on improving family justice services for children. This report covers England and Wales. The main government bodies we have audited are MoJ, DfE, HMCTS and Cafcass in England. Cafcass Cymru is a devolved service, delivered and funded by the Welsh Government, and is therefore outside the scope of this report. We do not audit the judiciary, which is constitutionally independent of the executive branches of government. Therefore, although we are aware of judicial-led improvement work, we have not evaluated this work in our audit. We have focused on the family courts process from where a case is brought to court onwards, and have not audited the work of local authorities. We have not audited the quality of children’s services or the outcomes of cases. Timeliness of family courts 6 Family courts have a backlog of cases but have recovered better than criminal courts after the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2024, there were 47,662 outstanding cases; 10,121 in public law and 37,541 in private law. Unlike in Crown Courts where the outstanding caseload has continued to rise following the pandemic, the outstanding caseload in family courts has reduced by 18,081 (28%) from a peak of 65,743 cases in August 2021. This is partly because family court demand has fallen over the period. Also, MoJ increased funding and sitting days for family courts in 2020-21 to help reduce the outstanding caseload. Both the backlog and funding have since reduced; HMCTS expenditure on family courts was 17% lower than in 2021-22 in 2023-24 prices (£368 million in 2020-21; £307 million in 2023-24). The government has not set out how it assesses the appropriate capacity to manage the caseload most efficiently (paragraphs 1.6, 1.7, 2.21, Figure 4 and Figure 5). Children and families are still waiting too long to have their cases resolved. A statutory time limit was introduced in 2014, for most public law cases to be resolved within 26 weeks. However, the average time taken has consistently been longer and there is no limit to the number of extensions that can be given. In 2024, a public law case lasted 36 weeks on average. There is no timeliness target for private law, and in 2024 a case took 41 weeks on average. There is significant regional and local variation in timeliness. For example, in December 2024, public law cases lasted on average 29 weeks longer in London (53 weeks) than in Wales (24 weeks) and private law cases lasted on average 52 weeks longer (70 weeks in London and 18 weeks in Wales). In December 2024, there were over 4,000 children involved in public and private law proceedings that have remained open for more than 100 weeks. The proportion of children waiting over a year for a public law case increased from 0.7% in January 2017 to 12% in December 2024 (paragraphs 1.8 to 1.10 and Figure 6). (Continued)

London; The UK National Audit Office (NAO) , 2025. 57p.

By LINDSAY GRAEF, SANDRA G. MAYSON, AURÉLIE OUSS & MEGAN T. STEVENSON

This Article aims to reorient the conversation around “failure-to-appear” (FTA) in criminal court. Recent policy and scholarship have addressed FTA mostly as a problem of criminal defendants in connection with questions about how bail systems should operate. But ten years of data from Philadelphia reveal a striking fact: it is not defendants who most frequently fail to appear but rather the other parties necessary for a criminal proceeding—witnesses and lawyers. Between 2010 and 2020, an essential witness or private attorney failed to appear for at least one hearing in 53% of all cases, compared to a 19% FTA rate for defendants. Police officers, victims, other witnesses, and private attorneys each failed to appear at rates substantially higher than defendants. In short: FTA is a systemic phenomenon.

The systemic nature of FTA calls into question the extreme asymmetry between the treatment of defendant and non-defendant FTA. Bail reform has generated intense debates about when cash bail, detention, and other pretrial interventions are warranted to ensure defendants’ appearance. Given that witnesses and lawyers also have a legal duty to appear, the systemic nature of FTA requires more comprehensive thinking about how best to get people to court and when restrictions on liberty are appropriate.

Systemic FTA also has systemic consequences, because when essential witnesses don’t show, cases are dismissed or withdrawn. FTA thus serves a regulatory function by providing a check on the nature and volume of criminal adjudications. Sometimes this function seems beneficial, as when witness FTA carries information about the strength or worth of the case, but other times it seems like a problem. The sheer volume of police officer FTA creates an impression of arbitrariness, dysfunction, and disrespect. Other aspects of this regulatory dynamic are more ambiguous. For instance, victim FTA rates are so persistently high that many appear to be effectively “opting out” of the criminal proceeding. Does this tell us that certain classes of harm are better dealt with outside of the criminal legal process? Or are we, as a society, losing something valuable when cases are dismissed due to victim or witness nonappearance? More generally, when is witness FTA a problem and when is it a healthy check on the system? This Article aims to draw attention to systemic FTA as an important feature of contemporary U.S. criminal legal systems, identify the core questions that it raises, and lay a path for future research.

172 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1 (2024)., 60p.

By Amanda Y. Agan, Andrew Garin, Dmitri K. Koustas, Alexandre Mas, and Crystal Yang

All results in this paper using IRS data are drawn from the publicly available working paper “The Impact of Criminal Records on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing,” which is available on the IRS Statistics of Income Tax Stats website. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or the official positions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Researchers Agan, Garin, and Koustas received funding for this research through the Clean Slate Initiative, a project of the New Venture Fund. We thank the San Joaquin Public Defender's Office and District Attorney's office for their help and tireless work in making this project possible. We also thank the numerous interns who worked in San Joaquin to help us gather data. Camilla Adams, Kaan Cankat, Sarah Frick, Jared Grogan, Bailey Palmer, and Kalie Pierce provided instrumental research assistance. We also thank Emma Rackstraw and J-PAL NA for the initial conversations that allowed this project to happen. The RCT in this paper was registered in the AEA RCT Registry, RCT ID: AEARCTR-0004414. IRB approvals were obtained where necessary.

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2023-133

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2023. 53p.

By Amanda Y. Agan, Andrew Garin, Dmitri K. Koustas, Alexandre Mas, and Crystal Yang

All results in this paper using IRS data are drawn from the publicly available working paper “The Impact of Criminal Records on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing,” which is available on the IRS Statistics of Income Tax Stats website. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or the official positions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Researchers Agan, Garin, and Koustas received funding for this research through the Clean Slate Initiative, a project of the New Venture Fund. We thank staff at the Philadelphia DA's office, especially Michael Hollander and Betsey Carroll for help with the Clean Slate data and analysis. We also thank the numerous interns who worked on this project: Camilla Adams, Kaan Cankat, Sarah Frick, Jared Grogan, Bailey Palmer, Kalie Pierce provided instrumental research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.  

  WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-57  

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2024. 80p.

By Andrew Jordan, Ezra Karger, and Derek Neal

We examine ten cohorts of male eighth graders in public schools in Chicago, IL: 1995-2004. We find large racial disparities in academic achievement, socioeconomic status (SES), and adult criminal justice involvement. Although our measures of SES and academic achievement are strong predictors of future felony arraignment and incarceration, even among students of the same race who attend the same school, these measures predict only small portions of the overall Black-Hispanic disparities in adult criminal justice involvement. These same measures predict between roughly half or more of Black-White criminal justice disparities and over eighty percent of Hispanic-white disparities. The relationships between various valueadded measures of eighth-grade school quality and future criminal justice outcomes vary by race. Schools that excel at promoting on-time matriculation from eighth grade to high school significantly reduce rates of criminal justice involvement among Black males.  

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-140  

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics , 2024. 52p.

By Leora Yedida Bilsky

Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic? Transformative Justice, Leora Bilsky's landmark study of Israeli political trials, poses this deceptively simple question. The four trials that she analyzes focus on identity, the nature of pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law-issues whose importance extends far beyond Israel's borders. Drawing on the latest work in philosophy, law, history, and rhetoric, Bilsky exposes the many narratives that compete in a political trial and demonstrates how Israel's history of social and ideological conflicts in the courtroom offers us a rare opportunity to understand the meaning of political trials. The result is a bold new perspective on the politics of justice and its complex relationship to the values of liberalism. Leora Bilsky is Professor of Law, Tel Aviv University.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 393p

Edited by Aksel Tømte and Eko Riyadi

This book addresses the technicalities of how international human rights law can be applied at the domestic level through a case study of the human rights methodology of the Indonesian judiciary. Numerous international human rights treaties have been ratified by States parties all around the world. However, local implementation has proven a difficult task for national authorities with every State struggling to realize rights to varying degrees. This reveals a gap between the standards of human rights as envisaged by the law and those experienced by rights holders at the local level. This work analyses how Indonesian courts interpret and apply human rights. It discusses the position of human rights within specific areas of Indonesian law: constitutional law, criminal law and private law. It analyses how courts have dealt with specific cases within these fields of law. Its key contribution lies in its detailed attention to the role of the Indonesian judiciary in implementing human rights, as well as to the influence of international law, and the role that actors other than the judiciary play in this process. It also incorporates international comparative perspectives. The book will be of particular interest to human rights scholars concerned with national judiciaries’ role in human rights implementation, and to scholars, judges, civil society actors and legal practitioners working with law and human rights in Indonesia.

London: New York: Routledge, 2024.

Edited by Daniëlla Dam-de Jong and Britta Sjöstedt

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This incisive Research Handbook addresses the growing recognition within the international law community that natural resource governance and environmental protection are crucial aspects of peace processes, both as a security imperative and as an opportunity for peacebuilding. Examining the impact of international normative and institutional frameworks on environmental peacebuilding, this Research Handbook features contributions from distinguished experts and global case studies on integrated legal approaches to the governance of natural resources.

Cheltenham, UK: Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023. 452p.

By Adam Ali, Anita Dockley, Stephen Farrall, Sarah Lewis, Jake Phillips and Kam Stevens

Hope, efficacy, optimism and positive expectations are connected to greater levels of psychological and physical wellbeing (Alarcon et al., 2013) and peoples’ ability to change (Bartholomew et al., 2021). Hope is important for people who have a desire to change following a period of punishment or criminalisation (Burnett and Maruna, 2004; Farrall et al., 2014). However, research on the concept of hope in criminology has tended to focus on prisons and – to a lesser degree – desistance from offending. Little research has focused on hope in the context of probation despite facilitating change being one of probation’s central aims. We thus undertook research to look at: • how people on probation supervision and people who have experience of working in probation conceptualise hope • how the Probation Service in England and Wales might facilitate hope • what people hope to get from probation and what ‘gets in the way’ of probation supporting them to achieve those hopes • what needs to happen to make probation a more hopeful experience for people on probation. The most widely used definition of hope is the ‘perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways’ (Snyder et al., 2002: 249). So people need goals that are, at least to some degree, achievable and that they think or believe can be achieved. It is as a ‘way of thinking’ (ibid.) and is thus relevant to probation practice because it ‘may be helpful in fostering adaptive rehabilitation processes through the use of intervention techniques aimed at creating clearer and more sustainable goals, increasing pathways thoughts, and instilling greater agency’ (Snyder et al., 2006). Moreover, to have hope one must feel like one has the agency to work towards and achieve those hopes (see Miceli and Castelfranchi, 2015:161-3). Considering the links between agency and desistance (Healy, 2013), we can further see the potential importance of hope for people on probation supervision. Hope has been variously conceptualised in imprisonment studies. Institutional hope was seen as an adaptive strategy to cope with the challenges of imprisonment, as a ‘key mechanism of psychological survival’ (Crewe et al., 2020:126). It can also be a protective factor against the adverse effects of imprisonment (Wai-Ming Mak et al., 2021), that supports higher levels of wellbeing. While deep hope is transformational and involves moving away from previous ways of living. Seeds (2022: 241) suggests hope is ‘sparked by the absence of an institutional apparatus, hope is a process of reorientation’. In turn, hope might lead to a ‘re-narration’ in which people in the criminal justice system reconstruct their own identities and commit to being better people (Seeds, 2022). There are clear links with desistance research which emphasises the role of redemption scripts enabling people to actively re-tell their lives and, crucially, their future (Maruna, 2001). Elsewhere, Farrall et al. (2014) point to the changing nature of hope that people experience as they desist from offending. Hope has been incorporated into some models of criminal justice practice such as the Good Lives Model (GLM) (Ward and Brown, 2004) which focuses on developing peoples’ ‘goods’ and creating a more hopeful outlook. The GLM asks practitioners to practice in a way which ‘adds to … personal functioning’ rather than removing or managing problems (Ward et al., 2007). For example, research with women in prison constructed hope as a belief in a better future and was ‘heavily dependent upon outside sources that would provide structure and discipline’, demonstrating the potential for probation services to provide strengths-based re-entry programmes, mentorship and goal-setting strategies (Stearns et al., 2018). Whilst these strategies can support people to be more hopeful, they tend to be specialist interventions and so are not widespread. In this Academic Insights paper, we share the ideas, perceptions and possibilities found in our research for probation practice if hope were to be incorporated into its thinking and practice. A more detailed discussion of the research and findings can be found in Phillips et al. (2025)

Manchester, UK: Inspectorate of Probation, 2025. 18p.

By Phil Bowen and Ellie Brown

• This briefing considers the three criminal justice Bills currently before Parliament— the Sentencing Bill; the Criminal Justice Bill; and the Victims and Prisoners’ Bill— and estimates the impact they will have on the demand placed on the prisons and on probation specifically. (In a separate briefing, we have looked specifically at how to strengthen provision for victims within the Victims and Prisoners’ Bill). We recognise our estimates include a good deal of guesswork but we have tried as far as possible to ground them in the existing Government figures in the public realm. • The backdrop of these new Bills is stark. From court backlogs, high probation service caseloads and an overcrowded and overflowing population in the adult male prisons, the adult criminal justice system is already struggling with demand. The Sentencing Bill itself was originally announced as part of a broader response to acute prison capacity issues, and included a new executive early release scheme. • Our assessment is that, taken together, the proposals to reduce demand on, and increase the capacity of, our prison system are unlikely to adequately deal with the acute pressures on the adult male prison estate in the medium term. Measures like a presumption against short sentences may delay the point at which demand outstrips supply but we estimate that, by December 2026, we are likely to reach a capacity crunch point again. • Turning to probation, a number of the measures to alleviate prison demand place do so by placing additional burdens on the probation service (we estimate 14,000 extra cases over the next four years). There is currently insufficient assurance that probation have the workforce and resources to take this on. We have concerns that the current proposal to place individuals onto Suspended Sentence Orders (SSOs) as an alternative to short prison sentences could backfire due to this lack of probation resourcing, and this may further undermine judicial and public confidence in community sentences more generally. • We suggest that the Ministry of Justice pay special attention to the recommendations of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the House of Lords report on community sentences that “Deferred sentencing can be used… to create incentives for low-level, repeat offenders to engage with more intensive rehabilitative activities.” We also recommend the Ministry of Justice extends existing alternatives to short prison sentences for women (both diversion away from the court system as well as problem-solving court alternatives for women), and ensure that the presumption against short sentences applies for people under 18 as well. • Finally, we have concerns about the measures in the Criminal Justice Bill to tackle rough sleeping and nuisance begging through new civil orders which, if breached, can result in criminal proceedings. There is a lack of credible evidence advanced for these proposals and the Government’s own impact assessment seems to ignore the considerable evidence that similar attempts to use these types of order have been ineffective, poorly implemented, disproportionately punish the most vulnerable and do so while draining resources away from evidence-based preventative measures. We are also concerned that the proposals are accompanied by no assessment of their impact on the courts or other parts of the criminal justice system

London: Centre for Justice Innovation 2023. 10p.

By Jose Pina-Sánchez, Julian V. Roberts and Jonathan Bild,

This Research Bulletin reports findings from the first comprehensive analysis of ‘sentence inflation’ in England and Wales. Unlike previous analyses, this one encompasses all years since 2005 and all offences.

In a previous research bulletin by the Sentencing Academy Pina-Sánchez et al. (2023) documented a significant increase in sentence severity in England and Wales over the last two decades. However, the extent to which this increase in sentence severity is due to a genuine process of ‘sentence inflation’ was unclear. The changing nature of crime might have affected the offence mix processed through our criminal courts. It is possible that the cases sentenced by the courts have become more serious over the period in question. To the extent that this has occurred it would constitute ‘explainable’ or natural inflation. If the cases sentenced are more serious, sentence severity should reflect this changing pattern.

The analysis relates two indices. One – the Imprisonment Index – measures sentence severity by combining the custody rate and Average Custodial Sentence Length (ACSL). The second index measures the seriousness of cases appearing for sentencing.

The Sentencing Academy’s submission to the Sentencing Review reported new analyses comparing trends of sentence severity and crime seriousness for three offence groups: sexual offences, drug offences, and criminal damage offences. In this report, we expand that preliminary analysis to include all major offence groups. This enables us to estimate the overall increase in sentence severity independent of changes in the mix of offences sentenced.

We estimate that since 2005, sentence severity has increased by 62%, while the seriousness of crimes processed through courts has increased by only 8%. This means that 87% of the increased sentence severity over the period was due to changes in sentencing practice, or as we term it, ‘sentence inflation’. Put differently, we estimate that sentencing in England and Wales is today 54% more punitive than in 2005. This is the first analysis to provide an estimate of the overall degree of sentence inflation in this or any other jurisdiction.

Our analysis reveals that sentence inflation has been far from uniform. Whereas no discernible pattern can be detected for drug offences, or public order offences, sentence severity for offences involving violence or weapons related offences has doubled since 2005. Sentence severity for fraud offences has tripled.

London: The Sentencing Academy, 2025. 7p.

By Kaan Yilmazturk, John Williams, Sarah Sandford, Seth Reynolds

Voluntary organisations working in and with the criminal justice system (CJS) face a complex funding landscape. This report explores what funding streams from statutory and philanthropic funders exist, and how they reach voluntary organisations (predominantly charities). We believe that a better understanding of these funding flows can inform changes to funder practice that will help criminal justice voluntary organisations best support some of the most vulnerable people in our society. NPC is a think tank and consultancy for the impact sector. We were commissioned by Lloyds Bank Foundation, with feedback from His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS), AB Charitable Trust and Clinks, to research the funding landscape for voluntary organisations working in and around the CJS. We adopted a mixed methods approach to this research including: • quantitative data collection on a sample of 624 charities using Charity Commission and 360Giving data • interviews with sector stakeholders (nine charities, five funders, and three advocacy and research organisations respectively) • a survey completed by 55 voluntary organisations working in and around the CJS • case studies conducted on 10 voluntary organisations working with women and racially minoritised people. Funding flows into the criminal justice voluntary sector • Statutory funding makes up double the share of income for criminal justice charities than the wider voluntary sector. 57% of the total income of our sampled criminal justice charities comes from statutory sources, compared to just 26% for the wider voluntary sector. • Almost all statutory funding goes to larger charities. 94% of statutory funding goes to charities with annual incomes above £2m. Charities with annual incomes up to £500k received only 1.42% of statutory funding. o Trusts and foundations are the main source of income for ‘small’ charities (£100k-£500k annual income) and ‘medium-sized’ charities (£500k-£1m annual income) in our sample. o Micro-charities are underrepresented criminal justice funding flows. Of the 624 charities we sampled, 46% had annual incomes of less than £100k. For comparison, 80% of the wider voluntary sector is made up of these charities. • Only 3% of total income goes to criminal justice charities working with specific ethnic groups. Just 7% of sampled charities identified ‘people of a particular ethnic or racial origin’ as the beneficiary group they focus on. o ‘Children/young people’ is the beneficiary group that has received the highest proportion of income over the previous five years. o The most common beneficiary groups selected by charities in our sample are the ‘general public’, ‘children/young people’, ‘other defined groups’, ‘older people’, and ‘people with disabilities’. • Around three-quarters (71%) of criminal justice charities in our sample work on ‘offender support and rehabilitation’. The remaining 29% are classified as ‘prevention and safety’. Education/training’ is the most common subtheme, both in number of charities and the proportion of total income.

London:: lloyds Bank Foundation, 2025. 54p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Despite the limited evidence base for its effectiveness and the significant burden it imposes on those under supervision, jurisdictions across the United States have expanded the use of electronic monitoring (EM) – technology that tracks and sometimes restricts a person’s movements – to supervise justicesystem-involved people released to the community. EM presents an appealing alternative to judges and prosecutors who want to limit jail or prison use but seek additional security to ensure public safety. This is true in Maryland, where the use of EM to supervise pretrial clients has grown significantly over the past decade and increased sharply following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to a one-time federal allocation of resources to fund supervision by private providers. However, despite this increase, there is very little information about the use of EM to supervise people awaiting trial in Maryland. We have no idea how many people have been monitored by the technology, its impact on their lives, or how effective it is with various populations. To inform these decisions, the Justice Policy Institute conducted a study on the use of EM to supervise pretrial clients in Maryland. This report explores the day-to-day realities of electronic monitoring, its effects on individuals under supervision, and offers recommendations to enhance service delivery based on proven best practices. Research on the efficacy of pretrial EM suggests that: • EM Does Not Reliably Reduce Failure to Appear (FTA) or Recidivism in Pretrial Populations. Although the use of EM has skyrocketed across the country, there is no clear and convincing evidence that EM effectively reduces FTA rates or recidivism for pretrial supervisees. This contrasts with other strategies like court notification and reminder systems, which have much stronger evidence of efficacy in reducing FTA rates. • Best Practices in Pretrial Release, Supervision, and EM Are Grounded in Validated Risk and Needs Assessment. The central elements that comprise an evidence-based approach to pretrial justice involve: • Expanding citation and diversion options; • Implementing a legal framework with a presumption of least restrictive release; • Ensuring due process in all hearings; • Grounding all decision-making in the use of a validated pretrial risk and needs assessment instrument (PRAI); and • Strictly limiting the use of pretrial detention and other restrictive measures, including electronic monitoring, to instances where an individual is at high risk of failing to appear or reoffending. EM Imposes a Significant Burden That Must Be Considered in Policy and Practice Decisions. EM surveillance presents serious challenges for individuals and severely limits their freedom. If EM is assigned to those at low risk of FTA or recidivism and drives net-widening in the corrections system, it is likely to cause unnecessary harm. However, when implemented and monitored effectively and humanely, it can be a useful strategy when used as a true alternative to jail and to increase the number of people released to their homes. 

Baltimore, MD: The Abell Foundation, 2025. 48p.

By William J. Sabol and Thaddeus L. Jjohnson

Although significant gaps remain, disparities between Black and White people continued to narrow at nearly every stage of the criminal justice process between 2016 and 2020. In some cases, the pace of the decline slowed; in others, the disparity gap closed entirely.

These trends extend patterns from 2000 to 2016 that were identified in CCJ's first report on correctional control by race and sex. Subsequent reports will explore trends in disparity among female populations and by ethnicity, assess trends in multiple states, and seek to identify what, if any, policy changes may have contributed to reductions in racial disparities.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2022. 36p.

By Guyora Binder,and Ekow Yankah

The widely applauded conviction of officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd employed the widely criticized felony murder rule. Should we use felony murder as a tool to check discriminatory and violent policing? The authors object that felony murder—although perhaps the only murder charge available for this killing under Minnesota law—understated Chauvin’s culpability and thereby inadequately denounced his crime. They show that further opportunities to prosecute police for felony murder are quite limited. Further, a substantial minority of states impose felony murder liability for any death proximately caused by a felony, even if the actual killer was a police officer, not an “agent” of the felony. In these “proximate cause” jurisdictions, felony murder is far more often used to prosecute the (often Black) targets of police violence, than to prosecute culpable police.

Previous scholarship on prosecution of felons for killings by police criticized such proximate cause rules as departures from the “agency” rules required by precedent. But today’s proximate cause felony murder rules were enacted legislatively during the War on Crime and are thus immune to this traditional argument. The authors instead offer a racial justice critique of proximate cause felony murder rules as discriminatory in effect, and as unjustly shifting blame for reckless policing onto its victims. Noting racially disparate patterns of charging felony murder, and particularly in cases where police have killed, the authors call on legislatures to reimpose “agency” limits on felony murder as a prophylactic against discrimination. Finally, the authors widen this racial justice critique to encompass felony murder as a whole, urging legislatures to abolish felony murder wherever racially disparate patterns of charging can be demonstrated.

17 Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. 157 (2022).

By The ACLU of Northern California

California was once the nation’s leader in public defense. Long before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide a lawyer to poor people charged with crimes, many counties in California already did so. Yet today, after years of neglect by the state, California is in the midst of a decades-long public defense crisis. A main cause is the reliance on “flat-fee” contracts with for-profit private attorneys and firms, where lawyers are paid a set amount for a limitless number of cases. These agreements lock attorneys and their clients in a financial conflict of interest where the lawyers’ fees are pitted against quality, zealous representation for those accused of crimes. Flat-fee systems have a well-documented history of providing worse representation and fueling mass incarceration and California has been called out, decade after decade, for allowing them to flourish.

This report examines the actual contracts California counties use and finds that they are woefully deficient in providing necessary resources to private contractors in order for them to adequately represent their clients, they uniformly fail to limit the number of cases attorneys can handle at once, and they provide little to not oversight or supervision for the lawyers who defend people when their lives are on the line. We synthesize the decades of research from within the state and around the country that show these systems should be eliminated and recommend that California finally do just that

San Francisco: ACLU of Northern California, 2025. 27p.

By David Spencer

New guidelines produced by the Sentencing Council for judges and magistrates to follow when sentencing offenders are both significant and controversial. The Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline, due to come into effect on the 1st April 2025, sets out the considerations for judges and magistrates when sentencing an offender who has been found or pleaded guilty in the criminal courts. The Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline instructs courts to request and consider, prior to sentencing, a pre-sentence report before forming an opinion about sentencing. Pre-sentence reports enable the court to have as much information as possible about the offender, including the risk they pose to the public, before passing sentence. Judges and magistrates are instructed that they need not order a pre-sentence report only if they consider it unnecessary. The new guideline requires that from the 1st April 2025 a presentence report will “normally be required” when sentencing offenders from one of a whole host of different and specified groups – while some groups are included, others are excluded. In particular, those within the cohort where a pre-sentence report will “normally be required” include individuals who are from an ethnic, faith or cultural minority group. While there is nothing specifically preventing a court requesting a pre-sentence report for other offenders, those who are white or male will not, unless they can fit themselves into one of the other groupings available, qualify under the criteria that “a pre-sentence report will normally be considered necessary”. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP, has made clear that she does not agree with the new Imposition guideline and, given the Sentencing Council have refused to withdraw it, she is willing to legislate to prevent “two-tier justice”. On the 28th March 2025 the Lord Chancellor said: “I have been clear in my view that these guidelines represent differential treatment, under which someone’s outcomes may be influenced by their race, culture or religion. This is unacceptable, and I formally set out my objections to this in a letter to the Sentencing Council last week. I am extremely disappointed by the Council’s response. All options are on the table and I will legislate if necessary.” The Lord Chancellor is right. There must be no two-tier justice – which the new guideline represents – and the government should legislate without delay to correct the Sentencing Council’s error. In conversation with the authors at Policy Exchange, the Rt Hon Jack Straw – the former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice who created the Sentencing Council – has expressed his strong support for Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP. He said: “I strongly support the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood MP, in the position she is taking relating to the new Imposition Guideline that the Sentencing Council have published. It is clear that the Government will need to take steps to correct the error. Given the crossparty support for this to be resolved, as shown by the position of the Shadow Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, I hope that this can be done quickly.” Pre-sentence reports, typically written by a probation officer, are key to judges and magistrates deciding whether to sentence an offender to prison or to a non-custodial community order – particularly in borderline cases. As a result, deciding which defendants are to be included in the cohorts where a pre-sentence report will “normally be required”, and which don’t, can be key in deciding who goes to prison and who doesn’t. The Sentencing Council, which produced the new guideline, is an independent non-departmental body that is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. The Labour government, under Prime Minister the Rt Hon Gordon Brown, created the Sentencing Council through section 118 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The Council commenced operations in April 2010. The framework for the creation of sentencing guidelines evolved during the period of Labour in office between 1997 – 2010. Two bodies associated with the production of guidelines for the sentencing of offenders – the Sentencing Advisory Panel and Sentencing Guidelines Council – were created (and subsequently abolished). We outline the history of this period in chapter 2 of this report. The Sentencing Council is responsible for the preparation of sentencing guidelines for judges and magistrates to follow when sentencing offenders. Section 120 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 specifies that the Sentencing Council must prepare: “(a) sentencing guidelines about the discharge of a court’s duty under section 73 of the Sentencing Code (reduction in sentences for guilty pleas), and (b) sentencing guidelines about the application of any rule of law as to the totality of sentences” and may prepare sentencing guidelines about any other matter. We outline how the Sentencing Council is required to operate, under statute, in chapter 3 of this report. The membership of the Council is made up of both judicial and non-judicial members. Eight members of the Council are appointed by the Lord Chief Justice with the agreement of the Lord Chancellor (“judicial members”) and six members are appointed by the Lord Chancellor with the agreement of the Lord Chief Justice (“non-judicial members”). We outline the current membership of the Sentencing Council, how members (continued_

London: Policy Exchange, 2025. 43p.

Angela R. Riley & Sarah Glenn Thompson

The Double Jeopardy Clause guarantees no individual will be put in jeopardy twice for the same offense. But, pursuant to the dualsovereignty doctrine, multiple prosecutions for offenses stemming from the same conduct do not violate the Clause if the offenses charged arise under the laws of separate sovereigns, even if the laws are otherwise identical. The doctrine applies to tribal prosecutions, but its impact in Indian country is rarely studied. Such an inquiry is overdue, particularly as the scope of crimes potentially subject to dual tribal and federal prosecutions has broadened in recent years. This Article is the first to undertake a preliminary examination of the dual-sovereignty doctrine in the tribal–federal context and describe the complex interplay between the doctrine and the rest of the criminal law fabric in Indian country. Perhaps most significantly, it includes an original typology highlighting when a defendant may be subject to the doctrine, which sovereigns have the authority to prosecute, pursuant to what source of power each sovereign operates, and when and how the sequence of prosecutions matters, if at all. This leads to the Article’s central thesis: Indian tribes are separate sovereigns with inherent sovereignty, and, under current conditions, the dual-sovereignty doctrine plays a central role in ensuring safety in Indian country. The doctrine’s application in Indian country, however, creates unique complexities that may threaten tribal sovereignty and raise issues of unfairness for defendants. This Article offers numerous reforms—some highly ambitious and others more modest—to address these issues.

122 Colum. L. Rev. 1899 (2022).

By Erik Luna and Weldon Angelos

Marijuana laws in the United States vary by state, with some states allowing recreational use and others only allowing medical use. At the federal level, marijuana is still illegal, however, banned as a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substance Act. The disconnect between state laws and federal laws is growing. As of December 2024, 39 states allow for medical use of marijuana and 24 states allow for recreational use, while a proposed change in federal rules would reschedule marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3. With the laws constantly evolving, and calls for legalization at the federal level growing louder and louder, what happens to the people still affected by the federal war on marijuana at the twilight of national prohibition? This white paper proposes clemency criteria for non-violent, federal marijuana convictions. It concludes by offering next steps for both executive and legislative action. With the President’s leadership, this Administration and Congress can assure that individuals haunted by marijuana arrests and convictions will finally have the clean slate they deserve.

Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Paper No. 5199528, 43p.