By Lars Trautman

Traditional norms hold that a prosecutor’s role effectively ends with the conviction and sentencing of a defendant. After all, that is the point at which the prosecution is complete. Future decisions related to the defendant are generally the province of various correctional officials unless and until the individual becomes a defendant once again. Accordingly, when taken at all, postconviction prosecutorial action is frequently reactive and limited in nature, with the conditions of the correctional facilities, community supervision and reentry systems relegated to a secondary or tertiary concern. Yet, such a system threatens to undercut the prosecutor’s own aims and misses a valuable opportunity to improve the justice system. The source of this prosecutorial reserve is decidedly not because these post-conviction elements of the justice system are working well and do not need additional support. In many cases, they are not. Jails and prisons are frequently the subject of lawsuits and news stories decrying their conditions and, unsurprisingly, recidivism rates for those ultimately released remain relatively high. Likewise, many probation and parole systems are in such a state of disarray that some defendants actually prefer incarceration as the lesser of two evils. A host of literature has similarly documented the travails of those with a criminal record who attempt to enter the workforce, find housing or engage in any number of other basic life activities. At the same time, a steady trickle of exonerees, including a few who actually pleaded guilty, suggests that even the conviction itself is not the ironclad reflection of truth and justice that it is hoped to be. This culture of noninvolvement and aversion to action on post-conviction issues does not stem from an inability to act on the part of prosecutors. In fact, in most jurisdictions, the law requires them to participate in various post-conviction proceedings such as expungement requests, or permits them to in the case of parole hearings. Further, the prosecution power itself grants prosecutors the ability to reach into jails and prisons to potentially curb abuses and even play an active role in community supervision proceedings in many states. Too often, however, prosecutorial engagement in each of these areas is limited narrowly to the necessities of the case at hand with little attention paid to broader issues. In light of this, the present study will delve into how prosecutors can aid themselves and the wider justice system through post-conviction actions. This will include an examination of why they should adopt a more nuanced and often assertive post-conviction role, as well as the actions they can take after the conviction has entered to help achieve these farther reaching goals. Specifically, it will analyze opportunities to act with respect to the conviction itself, conditions of incarceration, community supervision systems, parole hearings, expungement processes and outreach to directly impacted individuals. It will conclude with a reflection on what more concerted prosecutorial post-conviction actions might mean for prosecutors and the justice system as a whole.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 194 February 2020

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 6p.

By Nila Bala

C lose to one-third of the population has a criminal record, with Michigan courts churning out nearly 300,000 convictions every year.Even a minor record can present an enormous barrier to employment, housing and educational opportunities. Those with criminal records face unemployment numbers that exceed those during the great depression. Moreover, both public and private housing can be hard to obtain, and the record of one family member can lead to eviction for everyone. Given these vast effects, carrying a criminal record has been equated to a life sentence of poverty. However, expungements or methods to seal records from public view (known as “set-asides” in Michigan) have great potential to ameliorate these effects. Like most states, Michigan has an expungement policy to help ease the barriers reentering individuals face because of their records. But unlike most states, Michigan has a wealth of information and data regarding the current state of set-asides, thanks to a recently published empirical study by J.J. Prescott and Sonja Starr at the University of Michigan Law School. Notably, their study finds that despite the fact that thousands of individuals are eligible for expungements, very few—just 6.5 percent of eligible Michiganders—have received relief. As part of a larger nationwide movement to utilize technology to automatically clear records, a current seven-bill “Clean Slate” package under consideration could change that.6 It would also increase the number of eligible offenses, for example, by including driving and marijuana offenses to the list of crimes that can be set-aside, and by forgiving individuals who have had multiple convictions because of one bad night. The bills have already passed the Michigan House with bipartisan support and are now in the hands of the Senate. Accordingly, this paper examines the current state of set asides and the implications of expanding expungement relief, including to public safety and the economy, and finds that even considering the short-term costs associated with automation, ultimately the benefits outweigh these costs.

R STREET SHORTS NO. 79 November 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 4p.

By Jesse Kelley    

Jails and prisons in this country do not adequately prepare incarcerated individuals for successful public lives after their criminal sentence ends. For example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that almost 60 percent of individuals released from prison will be convicted of a new offense within five years of release. Clearly, this system has failed, rather than “corrected,” the individuals, families and communities involved within it. Accordingly, society must consider reforms to the conditions of incarceration. Roughly 95 percent of state prisoners will one day be released. For this reason, how they spend their time behind bars matters not only to those individuals but to their communities as well. The pursuit of higher education is perhaps the most worthwhile use of time for those incarcerated. Educational programing within prisons and jails can change the way individuals serve their period of incarceration and help them to become employable, stable members of society upon release. Efforts to improve postsecondary correctional education have proliferated over the past several years, but  more work is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of these programs. A college degree has become one of the most valuable assets one can attain in the United States. For example, one report found that a bachelor’s degree is worth more than $1 million in lifetime earnings. And in the justice system, one study found that an incarcerated person’s education level is highly correlated with his or her chances of recidivism: The recidivism rate for those with postsecondary education credits was 44 percent lower than those incarcerated within general population who did not participant in higher education programs. But many incarcerated people still do not have the opportunity to seek out higher education while serving a criminal sentence.5 Currently, in North Carolina, community colleges provide more than 90 percent of correctional education programming for incarcerated individuals. While adult education and literacy programs have the largest enrollments, the state requires colleges to offer entire for-credit certificates, diplomas or associate degree programs. According to a program administrator, postsecondary correctional education programs, which are predominantly vocational, awarded more than 6,000 vocational non-credit certificates; 1,458 vocational for-credit certificates; and nearly 100 associate and bachelor’s degrees to incarcerated people in 2006.6For the 2016-2017 fiscal year, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety reported that 673 incarcerated individuals completed requirements to obtain a postsecondary degree, and of those, 33 incarcerated individuals completed the requisite requirements to obtain an Associate of Applied Science diploma.7 However, under current North Carolina statutes, educational funds unfortunately cannot be used to provide postsecondary correctional education for the attainment of Associate of Arts, Associate of Science or Associate of General Education degrees.8 So, although North Carolina correctional facilities and their partnerships with community colleges have successfully instituted some correctional education programs, with more access to postsecondary education, incarcerated individuals could see increased economic potential and thereby make their communities healthier and stronger upon release. 

R STREET SHORTS NO. 71 May 2019 

Washington, R Street, 2019. 4p.

By Nila Bala and Emily Mooney    

For many of America’s prisoners, life after prison can mean perpetual unemployment, as approximately 600,000 return home each year—many without job prospects.  In fact, a study published in 2018 found that almost half of formerly incarcerated individuals reported no earnings within the first three years after release. For those who were able to secure work, earnings were dismal: the median individual earned only $10,090 in the first full calendar year after release. Such data clearly demonstrates that there is a disconnect between the work offered in prisons and meaningful, sustaining employment outside their walls.  This is particularly stark, as the public safety effect of unemployment for the formerly incarcerated is profound. Faced with a life of low wages, high rates of unemployment and the inability to support themselves or their families, about two-thirds of individuals released from prison will be rearrested within three years. By contrast, studies suggest quality employment is an important determinant in decreasing recidivism rates. And most importantly, high quality employment also helps to secure human dignity and keep families together. Currently, prison work too often consists of non-transferable skills that are of little use upon reentry. In light of this, it is time to reimagine what prison work can and should consist of, and the role that private employers can play during the period of incarceration and after a person’s release. Ideally, prison employment could be transformed to mean that individuals are paid prevailing wages, and that they form a strong relationship with a private employer and have an opportunity to continue with that employer after their term of incarceration. This “continuous employment” model is designed such that continuous in-prison to post-release employment with the same employer is not only possible but probable. However, it also is flexible enough to acknowledge that sometimes individuals may need to move away from their current employer or may acquire even better opportunities outside of prison. By definition, reentry is a major life upheaval; almost every element of an individual’s life changes and barriers automatically exist even to the most basic goals such as housing and family reunification. If employees could work both in and out of prison with the same employers, however, multiple benefits would result. For example, an existing relationship with an employer could ease the transition by improving job prospects, which can also help boost the local economy and community. To this end, the present study reviews current practices and proposes a new vision of employment behind bars that can lead to real work opportunities in the private sector that continue upon release. It also discusses barriers and obstacles to such programs and finally concludes with an agenda to better promote continuous employment opportunities. 

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 171 April 2019 

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 11p.

By Emily Mooney, Jesse Kelley and Nila Bala

Approximately 39,000 individuals are held in Michigan prisons, and the overwhelming majority of these will return to society after their sentence is completed. For this reason, Michigan residents and policymakers must be concerned with their ability to be productive, contributing members of society upon their return. However, research suggests that a lack of education may increasingly limit the employment options of formerly incarcerated individuals and may promote their return to crime. Accordingly, the present brief provides a short history of postsecondary education within prisons and then explains why it is an important part of the solution to this problem, as well as a benefit to society as a whole.

R STREET SHORTS NO. 65 January 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 3p.

By Hannah Miles Merran McAlister Samantha Bricknell

The National Deaths in Custody Program has monitored the extent and nature of deaths occurring in prison, police custody and youth detention in Australia since 1980. The Australian Institute of Criminology has coordinated the program since its establishment in 1992, the result of a recommendation made the previous year by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. In 2023–24, there were 104 deaths in custody: 76 in prison custody, 27 in police custody or custody-related operations and one in youth detention. In total, there were 24 Indigenous deaths and 80 non-Indigenous deaths in custody. This report contains detailed information on these deaths and compares the findings with longer term trends.

Statistical Report no. 49, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024. 59p.

By James René Jolin, Benjamin A. Barsky, Carrie G. Wade

By expanding health insurance to millions of people in the US, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have important health, economic, and social welfare implications for people with criminal legal involvement—a population with disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates. OBJECTIVE To scope the literature for studies assessing the association of any provision of the ACA with 5 types of outcomes, including insurance coverage rates, access to care, health outcomes, costs of care, and social welfare outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement. EVIDENCE REVIEW - The literature search included results from PubMed, CINAHL Complete, APA Psycinfo, Embase, Social Science Database, and Web of Science and was conducted to include articles from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2023. Only original empirical studies were included, but there were no restrictions on study design. FINDINGS Of the 3538 studies initially identified for potential inclusion, the final sample included 19 studies. These 19 studies differed substantially in their definition of criminal legal involvement and units of analysis. The studies also varied with respect to study design, but difference-in-differences methods were used in 10 of the included studies. With respect to outcomes, 100 unique outcomes were identified across the 19 studies, with at least 1 in all 5 outcome categories determined prior to the literature search. Health insurance coverage and access to care were the most frequently studied outcomes. Results for the other 3 outcome categories were mixed, potentially due to heterogeneous definitions of populations, interventions, and outcomes and to limitations in the availability of individual-level datasets that link incarceration data with health-related data. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE- In this scoping review, the ACA was associated with an increase in insurance coverage and a decrease in recidivism rates among people with criminal legal involvement. Future research and data collection are needed to understand more fully health and nonhealth outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement related to the ACA and other health insurance policies—as well as the mechanisms underlying these relationships.

JAMA Health Forum, 2024, 10 p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

In January 2019, the District of Columbia government enlisted the Justice Policy Institute to explore the feasibility of restoring local control of parole and make recommendations for how release decision-making can be transferred from the federal government to the DC government. Transferring supervision responsibilities and parole decision-making from the federal government back to the District is an ambitious, complicated undertaking. Fortunately, local leadership can draw on a wealth of data, evidence, and experience from other jurisdictions as they evaluate how best to move forward. This new report highlights the best available research and practice in the parole field, provides 22 recommendations for parole decision-making and supervision, and outlines three options for restoring local control of release decision-making. JPI undertook a series of activities to produce this report. These included:

• Interviewing District and federal officials to understand how the current system functions and how best to build upon its strengths.

• Speaking with attorneys who handle parole applications to the United States Parole Commission.

• Attending community speak-out events and local criminal justice coalition meetings to solicit input from a wide range of community and system stakeholders, including currently and formerly incarcerated people with experience in the District’s parole system.

• Consulting with experts from multiple organizations that provide technical assistance to help states improve their parole practice, including attending the 2019 Association of Paroling Authorities International Chairs Meeting and Annual Training Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

• Examining a broad array of research in academic peer-reviewed journals, technical white papers, and state agency reports.

The recommendations outlined in this report should guide the development and staffing of a new parole board, the criteria for release decision-making, and how individuals are supervised in the community. If the District follows this plan, we believe it has the opportunity to serve as a model jurisdiction for other states. We also hope the report can be useful for jurisdictions currently considering reforms to their parole systems.

 Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2019. 97p.

By Nicole Gelinas

Six months before the Covid-19 epidemic spread across New York City in early March, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council approved a plan to spend nearly $9 billion over the next half-decade to build four jails, one each in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. The completion of the new jails, in turn, would allow the city to close Rikers Island, home to most existing jail facilities. The mayor and the council are right in one respect: the jail facilities on Rikers are deficient. One way or another, New York must invest billions to make good on its promise to treat detainees—most of whom have not yet been convicted of any crime—with compassion and dignity. But there are major flaws in the city’s plan. The construction of four new jails in dense urban neighborhoods, at enormous expense and risk to the city’s fiscal health, does not guarantee inmates the better care that the city has promised. By concentrating on location rather than on deeper-seated problems, the city may simply replicate Rikers’ problems elsewhere. Indeed, should the city fail to successfully execute its borough-based jails plan, it would even fall short of its ultimate, symbolic goal: closing Rikers. The coronavirus crisis puts these flaws into sharper relief. At present, the city faces the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions—if not tens of billions—in tax revenue, and significant uncertainty over when recovery will begin and how strong it will be. As a result, New York simply has far less room for error than it did last fall, when it approved its plan to build new jails. There is a better alternative: rebuild Rikers. This 400-acre island is an optimal location for multiple, well designed, low- to mid-rise jail facilities. Rikers is also New York’s only remaining open space near enough to the courthouses in all five boroughs to be a practical location for housing inmates in a sprawling setting—but far away enough from the general population to serve as a secure location. Figure 1 is a sketch of what a rebuilt Rikers Island might look like.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2020. 16p.

By Sunny K. Frothingham

In October 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced a $6 million settlement with JPay, a leading provider of financial services in prisons and jails. The consent order detailed how JPay’s prepaid debit cards took advantage of justice-involved people as they were released from carceral facilities. As the CFPB’s first enforcement action under Director Rohit Chopra, the action signaled the Bureau’s concern about incarcerated people’s unique vulnerabilities to exploitative financial products.   When someone is released from prison or jail, release funds may include any wages earned during their incarceration, any remaining balances in their prison accounts, or any “gate money” benefits.6 Gate money programs aid re-entry by providing people with modest funding to cover basic transportation, housing, and food expenses in the first hours after release. While these release funds were traditionally available by cash or check, in the mid-2000s many departments of corrections started contracting with financial technology companies to offer prepaid debit cards. Over time, some departments of corrections eliminated the cash or check options and started to require that incarcerated people receive funds on prepaid debit cards. As part of a CFPB rulemaking process that culminated in a final rule on prepaid cards in 2016, a variety of civil rights organizations raised concerns about the predatory nature of prepaid cards in American prisons and jails. In response, the CFPB’s final rule noted that certain  prison release cards were already subject to consumer financial protection laws about prepaid cards, and stated that the CFPB was “continuing to monitor financial institutions’ and other persons’ practices relating to consumers’ lack of choice.” A few years later, this commitment to monitor prison release cards came to fruition in the 2021 enforcement action targeting JPay, which identified a variety of consumer protection law violations. According to the CFPB, JPay’s prison release cards took advantage of incarcerated people in several ways, including “[i]llegally requir[ing] consumers in certain states to receive protected government benefits on debit release cards,” “abus[ing] its market dominance,” “[c]harg[ing] fees without authorization,” and “[m]isrepresent[ing] fees to consumers.” The bulk of the violations involved either prohibitions on forcing consumers to use specific financial products to receive wages or government benefits, or prohibitions against unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices. While the order was specific to JPay’s conduct, it significantly clarified legal limits on prepaid debit release cards and can be seen as one step in a broader effort to develop the CFPB’s ability to hold companies accountable for abusive conduct that takes advantage of vulnerable consumers, especially justice-involved consumers. This Note proceeds in six parts and examines how the JPay consent order fits into broader CFPB efforts to protect justice-involved people from predatory financial products. Part II provides context for how preloaded debit cards fit into the broader landscape of prison banking. Part III assesses the statutory and regulatory landscape that applies to prepaid debit cards, including the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (“EFTA”), its implementing rules under Regulation E, and the CFPB’s standard for assessing unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices. Part IV explores the steps that the CFPB has taken under President Biden to expand protections for justice-involved people using existing statutes and regulations. Part V suggests potential next steps for protecting the rights of justice-involved consumers. Part VI summarizes and concludes this Note. 

28 N.C. BANKING INST. 227 (2024).

By The John Howard Association of Illinois (JHA, founded in 1901), The Pennsylvania Prison Society (The Society, founded in 1787) and The Correctional Association of New York (CANY

This report documents the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response in prisons in Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania – the only three states in the country with non-governmental oversight bodies. It is based on publicly available information as well as information collected directly by these oversight agencies: The John Howard Association of Illinois (JHA, founded in 1901), The Pennsylvania Prison Society (The Society, founded in 1787), and The Correctional Association of New York (CANY, founded in 1844). It provides data unavailable in states lacking similar independent oversight, and it tells a story of very different responses to comparable challenges and a lack of transparency on the details of the crisis and policies developed in response. This report was made possible through the support of Arnold Ventures. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. (Published December 2021)

The Authors: 2021. 79p.

By Human Impact Partners

This report — informed by public health research alongside interviews and survey responses from people currently and formerly incarcerated in women’s prisons — exposes the catastrophic health harms of incarceration in women’s prisons and provides evidence in support of investments in health-promoting social determinants of health instead of incarceration.

From Crisis to Care outlines how incarceration worsens health via multiple pathways: 

• Medical neglect — including failure to provide medical examinations, stopping needed prescriptions, and long delays in treatment — is common in prison.

• Alongside the violence of the criminal legal system itself, people incarcerated in women’s prisons also experience and witness high rates of interpersonal physical, emotional, and sexual trauma and violence.

• Environmental conditions in prisons seriously endanger the health of incarcerated people, by exposing them to infectious diseases, extreme heat and cold, inadequate food, foodborne illness, mold, toxic drinking water, and more.

• The use of solitary confinement can lead to increased psychological distress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, paranoia, agitation, sleep deprivation, and prescription of sedative medications, alongside physical ailments.

• Separating people from their families and communities has destructive and far-reaching consequences that harm health.

The state of California invests $405 million a year in its women’s prisons. Instead of perpetuating a system that overwhelmingly works against public health, the state has the opportunity to invest that money in health-promoting support systems that people can access in their communities. These public safety investments would not only support reentry after incarceration, but they would also help to prevent harm from occurring in the first place, creating the conditions that would make women’s prisons obsolete.

Oakland, CA: Human Impact Partners, 2023. 41p.

By Anna Anderson

This National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) report provides an overview of the carceral medical debt problem and policy recommendations and solutions to address the issue. The report provides background on the nature of the carceral medical debt, including the complex healthcare needs of people who are incarcerated, what fees are assessed and why, how these fees impact health outcomes and lead to medical debt, how carceral medical debt affects families and reentry, and private equity and for-profit contractors’ roles in this problem. The report includes an extensive review of the common sources of medical debt and how these debts are collected. It details recent policy victories in the effort to eliminate carceral medical debt, as well as some troubling setbacks. The report concludes with consumer-focused policy reforms to address medical debt related to incarceration.

Boston: National Consumer Law Center, 2024. 46p.

By Antje du Bois-Pedain

The prevalent criminal justice practices in the U.S. have produced levels and patterns of incarceration that fewer and fewer politicians, scholars, and citizens care to support. There seems to be widespread consensus that the system is indicted as unjust by its outcomes no matter how these outcomes came about. But if that is so, how can it be turned back? Who should be eligible for release, and on what grounds? This article addresses the position of black prisoners serving very long sentences. Many of these prisoners are at risk of missing out under current legislative and administrative proposals designed to reduce overall levels of imprisonment. Partly this is because the wrong of mass incarceration is often understood as a wrong suffered at the collective level by what has come to be referred to as “overpunished communities.” It is unclear how the existence of that collective wrong affects the permissibility of continued punishment at the individual level. This article develops an argument that, at the individual level, being a black prisoner serving a very long sentence gives rise to a moral entitlement for a review of the need and justification for continued incarceration. The article outlines the basic shape of a clemency scheme devised especially for these prisoners as a moral imperative for a reform process intended to remedy penal injustice.

New Criminal Law Review (2021) 24 (4): 655–688.

By Brandon L. Garrett & Lee Kovarsky

The COVID-19 pandemic blighted all aspects of American life, but people in jails, prisons, and other detention sites experienced singular harm and neglect. Housing vulnerable detainee populations with elevated medical needs, these facilities were ticking time bombs. They were overcrowded, underfunded, unsanitary, insufficiently ventilated, and failed to meet even minimum health-and-safety standards. Every unit of national and sub-national government failed to prevent detainee communities from becoming pandemic epicenters, and judges were no exception. This Article takes a comprehensive look at the decisional law growing out of COVID-19 detainee litigation and situates the judicial response as part of a comprehensive institutional failure. We read hundreds of COVID-19 custody cases, and our analysis classifies the decision-making by reference to three attributes: the form of detention at issue, the substantive right asserted, and the remedy sought. Several patterns emerged. Judges avoided constitutional holdings whenever they could, rejected requests for ongoing supervision, and resisted collective discharge—limiting such relief to vulnerable subpopulations. The most successful litigants were detainees in custody pending immigration proceedings, and the least successful were those convicted of crimes , 

110 California L. Rev 117 (2022)   

By Sheena Liberator and Maria Jose (MJ) Vides

In March 2020, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (BOS) unanimously adopted the “care first, jails last” vision, a transformative framework for safety grounded in support and services as alternatives to incarceration or bail.1 Three years have passed and people of color, people experiencing homelessness, and those with unmet mental health needs continue to languish in county jails.2 County staff attribute implementation delays to a shortage of community-based behavioral health workers. The Vera Institute of Justice’s (Vera’s) conversations with community-based providers—detailed in this brief—document how the COVID-19 pandemic, long-standing difficulties with contracting, and chronic underinvestment in infrastructure have resulted in the current workforce shortage. To effectively implement a “care first” vision and meet the demand for community-based pretrial services, Vera recommends immediate action steps to remedy ongoing issues with the county’s contracting processes, lower barriers to entry for small providers, and invest in urgent capacity-building and workforce development beginning this budget cycle.  

To effectively implement a “care first” vision and meet the demand for community-based pretrial services, Vera recommends immediate action steps to remedy ongoing issues with the county’s contracting processes, lower barriers to entry for small providers, and invest in urgent capacity-building and workforce development beginning this budget cycle.

Publication Highlights

• Local providers across the spectrum of services and service planning areas are experiencing staffing shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and competition with Los Angeles County.

• Capacity-building support is needed to strengthen community-based service providers, as are changes to contracting, billing, and reporting procedures.

• To expand capacity, Los Angeles County should, among other things, implement pretrial services by increasing budgetary allocations for community-based service providers and restructuring county contracting processes and technical assistance programs.

To effectively implement a “care first” vision and meet the demand for community-based pretrial services, Vera recommends immediate action steps to remedy ongoing issues with the county’s contracting processes, lower barriers to entry for small providers, and invest in urgent capacity-building and workforce development beginning this budget cycle.

Publication Highlights

• Local providers across the spectrum of services and service planning areas are experiencing staffing shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and competition with Los Angeles County.

• Capacity-building support is needed to strengthen community-based service providers, as are changes to contracting, billing, and reporting procedures.

• To expand capacity, Los Angeles County should, among other things, implement pretrial services by increasing budgetary allocations for community-based service providers and restructuring county contracting processes and technical assistance programs.To effectively implement a “care first” vision and meet the demand for community-based pretrial services, Vera recommends immediate action steps to remedy ongoing issues with the county’s contracting processes, lower barriers to entry for small providers, and invest in urgent capacity-building and workforce development beginning this budget cycle.

Publication Highlights

• Local providers across the spectrum of services and service planning areas are experiencing staffing shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and competition with Los Angeles County.

• Capacity-building support is needed to strengthen community-based service providers, as are changes to contracting, billing, and reporting procedures.

• To expand capacity, Los Angeles County should, among other things, implement pretrial services by increasing budgetary allocations for community-based service providers and restructuring county contracting processes and technical assistance programs.

 New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 8p.

By Maria Rafael

The United States’ criminal legal system is often described as a two-tiered system that treats people differently based on their social status, wealth, and power.1 In a two-tiered criminal legal system, those with money, social connections, or political influence may receive preferential treatment in the form of lighter sentences, leniency with respect to court-ordered obligations, or even freedom.2 Meanwhile, people without those advantages are likely to face harsher punishments, limited access to legal resources or representation, and even mistreatment from system actors.3 In the context of fines and fees, having the resources to settle court-imposed charges can make the difference between a quick resolution of a case or an extended entanglement with the criminal legal system. Those who struggle to pay their debt extend the length of time of their involvement with and obligations to the courts, which can require regular payments, court appearances, community service, and even incarceration. All of this creates chances for people to fail at meeting these obligations, which can trigger a host of legal and collateral consequences that extend the period of surveillance further still. In short, those without money have far more punitive experiences than those who have the resources to quickly pay off their debts 

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2024. 37p.

By The U.S. National Institute of Justice 

Title I of the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) required the Attorney General, in consultation with the Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), to develop and implement a risk and needs assessment system. In 2020, the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN) was developed and implemented, with the intent of assessing recidivism risk and determining eligibility for early release time credits outlined by the FSA. Also mandated was the development of a dynamic needs assessment system. Utilizing existing and validated assessment items and scales, the FBOP created Standardized Prisoner Assessment for Reduction in Criminality (SPARC-13), which consists of 13 domains: Anger/Hostility, Antisocial Peers, Antisocial Cognition, Education, Family/Parenting, Finance/Poverty, Medical, Mental Health, Recreation/Leisure/Fitness, Substance Use, Trauma, Work, and Dyslexia (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022). Section 3631 of Title I of the FSA requires that both the PATTERN and SPARC-13 be reviewed and validated on an annual basis. To help fulfill these requirements of the FSA, NIJ announced a competitive Consultant Statement of Work (SOW) and selected three consultants to conduct the annual review and revalidation of the SPARC-13. NIJ contracted with Dr. Grant Duwe, Dr. Zachary Hamilton, and Dr. Alex Kigerl to review and revalidate the SPARC-13. This report reviews and validates the SPARC-13 by conducting analyses relating to internal content, convergent/divergent, latent structure, and concurrent validity. It also presents the results from a process evaluation of the FBOP’s development and implementation of the SPARC-13.

Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2024. 69p.