Commentary

New research shows that jails contribute to infectious disease deaths in the greater community.

When the dust settles on this pandemic, we need to be clear on what was an emergency response and what is a desirable permanent change.

But the proposals on the table are leaving our most vulnerable neighbors behind.

It should not take a global pandemic for our elected officials to acknowledge that we are all safer if everyone can shower and wash their hands.

Sheriffs wield enormous power, and they can direct it in ways that will help contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect incarcerated people.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Democrats who hope to retake the White House in November are seeking to turn out voters—a lot of them. According to one information systems professor who worked for President […]

At a time when it’s vital to reduce jail and prison populations to prevent outbreaks, this data can help advocates identify areas where that is or is not happening.

Local jails are notorious amplifiers of infectious diseases. If we don’t move quickly to reduce their population, it may undermine our ability to control the new coronavirus, nationally and locally.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. These days, I spend a lot of energy thinking about how to keep my child and my parents safe from the coronavirus. But if my child, or […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. In late January, the Public Security Department of China’s Hubei province, whose capital is Wuhan, announced that carriers of the novel coronavirus may face criminal charges if they intentionally […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. For all of the nearly 150 years that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the Constitution prohibits excluding people from juries because of race, prosecutors have […]

We need to be more critical of the former New York mayor’s outsize influence on the gun control movement.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. As the country braces itself for the “all but certain” global pandemic of the coronavirus, some people are stocking up on food and surgical masks, many are […]

Prison-based gerrymandering takes political power away from Black and Latinx communities—power that could be used to push for more funding for schools, social services, infrastructure, and other important reforms.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Yesterday, criminal justice advocates protested the Harris County district attorney’s office for using pro bono law firm attorneys to help prosecute misdemeanor cases in the Justice of […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. This week, Rolling Stone published a harrowing portrait of how one state’s enlightened approach to mental health and criminal behavior came to be threatened by one case that went […]

Eric Schmitt should follow the lead of a Pennsylvania prosecutor who acknowledged that a man deserved a new trial, even when it meant reversing a murder conviction.

Josh Norman was one of the 17 people to die in Mississippi prisons so far this year. His death raises important questions about the state’s failures.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. This month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to curb public lewdness, groping, and other unwanted touching on New York City’s public transit: a three-year […]

As a Black child in San Francisco, I learned early that mine and others’ bodies meant nothing to those supposedly tasked with our protection.

The attitude behind the Harris County district attorney’s message to ‘put down your gun and pick up an employment application’ is outdated.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal.  When the Justice Department rescinded its recommendation this week that Trump ally Roger Stone be sentenced to seven to nine years, it seemed to lose whatever remaining […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal.  “Under pressure from law enforcement, state lawmakers say they are now willing to make significant changes to the bail reform laws that have been in effect for less than […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. When I was working as a public defender, I was once preparing a trial with another attorney in my office. Our client was facing felony charges, and […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. “Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary. […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. It was no secret that President Trump was planning to run an ad during the Super Bowl this year; the question was only what the particular message […]

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Case workers at the Sexual Assault Support Services of Midcoast Maine report that they counseled 503 people who said they were survivors of sex crimes last year. […]

Leading with housing status for homeless people is a common trope in the news reporting business and one in urgent need of re-examining.

Three Supreme Court justices and others said competent counsel could have saved his life.

As a society, we can’t continue to subject hundreds of thousands of people to the trauma of incarceration before they face a jury of their peers.

On Sunday, news that basketball legend Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter crash along with his daughter and seven others overtook the impeachment trial as the top news story. “A generation lost a hero on Sunday, thousands of basketball players who grew up spinning along baselines and firing up picture-perfect midrange jump shots lost […]

Lack of evidence does not stop opponents of former San Francisco DA George Gascón from making the claim that the city’s criminal justice reforms unleashed a crime wave.

A wave of sensationalist press is not just coming from New York City, but also from county sheriff and city police departments frustrated by bail reform that they claim is ‘too broad.’

Stories that uncritically blame child welfare agencies for the deaths of children at the hands of their parents can contribute to increases in child removals—with devastating consequences for families.

On Thursday, the state of Georgia is set to execute a 58-year-old man for a crime that would not receive the death penalty today. Jimmy Meders was convicted of murder and sentenced to die for the October 1987 killing of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. His lawyers want the state parole board to […]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal purports to take sexual violence seriously, but it aggressively ignores reality in favor of lazy solutions.

“New York Democrats have blood on their hands,” Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, said in a news conference this week. “They rushed this dangerous, reckless law through, despite warnings from law enforcement.” Langworthy was referring to a recent attack on a rabbi’s house in Monsey, and his implication is that somehow bail reform […]

Many liberals support reform in theory. But when unpopular decisions need to be made, it’s back to the 1990s “Tough on Crime” playbook.

“When New York State created a network of 12 Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, criminal justice professionals hailed it as an innovation,” writes Christina Goldbaum for the New York Times. “The courts send people into counseling sessions to help them leave the multibillion-dollar sex trade while dismissing their charges and sealing their records.” New York’s court isn’t alone. Courts […]

William Barr says the government owes it to the victims and their families to resume federal executions. In doing so, he’s ignoring important facts about the death penalty—and the actual wishes of victims’ families.