A staggering 1,094 people have been killed by American police so far in 2017. At the current pace, this will make 2017 the second deadliest year ever measured for police violence. As I’ve said many times here, and across the country, most Americans can’t name a single victim. Trump has all but sucked the wind out of […]
“Kiss your boyfriend goodbye.”
The five states that have done away with commercial bond outlets still struggle with inequity when it comes to cash bail.
The Memphis Police Department failed to discipline detectives who routinely left rape kits untested, former Memphis Police Lieutenant Cody Wilkerson testified on November 8. Memphis police detectives closed rape cases without testing rape kits, he said, “hundreds, hundreds of them”, and without any consequences to their careers. Detectives also closed other rape cases only after minimal […]
So far, the report card on the “Mexican Biker” prosecutor is mixed.
A new app seeks to liberate people from more than “liberal malaise.”
Rallies & petitions grow for the rapper Meek Mill
I want to preface what I’m about to say by first making it clear that I’m not a Meek Mill fan.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was re-elected last week, an unsurprising twist given that his was the only name on the ballot. In fact, given the lack of official options, Vance’s victory was not so impressive. He still managed to garner only 90% of the vote — almost 20,000 people decided to write-in a candidate rather than […]
It’s de rigueur these days in progressive circles to decry attempts by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “bring back the war on drugs.” A cursory internet search for the phrase “Sessions wants to bring back the war on drugs” returns nearly identical headlines containing a variation on the theme from the Washington Post, New York Magazine, the New Republic, Vice, […]
Hip-hop artist Meek Mill was named one of the 100 most influential Philadelphians by Philadelphia Magazine. However, rather than his music, his recent prison sentence is what has garnered the spotlight, helping to focus attention on the problems of our criminal justice system, specifically the issue of court supervision in Pennsylvania and its impact on […]
In response to a surging overdose crisis, prosecutors are doubling down on draconian drug induced homicide statutes. On November 28, 2014, 28-year-old Edward Martin was found dead inside a Quiznos bathroom in Littleton, New Hampshire. Next to his body was a syringe and spoon with which he used to inject a potent batch of heroin […]
On Labor Day 2017, Giovanni Jerry Reid of Philadelphia was released from Graterford Prison in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He had served 26 years of a life sentence without possibility of parole, imposed when he was only 16 years old. On that warm, sunny morning, as he took his very first steps as a free adult, […]
Retired Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine, a deputy prosecutor, have been arrested on multiple federal charges, including conspiracy, making false statements to federal officers, obstruction and bank fraud.
Community members are cautiously optimistic, but wary of the program’s emergence during election season.
Talk of bail reform in Nashville is getting an assist from recently released data showing that the majority of individuals arrested for misdemeanors remain in jail until their cases are concluded.
Will the state with the second highest incarceration rate get its act together?
The City Controller’s report calls on the DA’s office to “dismantle the current cash bail system”
A law that results in disproportionate arrests and prosecutions of black and Latino New Yorkers will stand.
Mecklenburg, North Carolina District Attorney R. Andrew Murray doesn’t seem to understand the problem with the county’s deferred prosecutions system, even after a group of faith leaders held a press conference Monday morning, arguing that the current system discriminates against the poor most in need of help. The protest was timed with a hearing in the case of Charlotte […]
Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry has vowed to seek longer prison terms for drug dealers in an attempt to crack down on the opioid epidemic damaging Indianapolis and large regions of the country. “Our office has made a decision that we are taking a hard line,” Curry recently told Fox 59 in Indianapolis. “We just feel it’s important that […]
Alameda and Santa Clara County jail detainees round out the first week of a hunger strike for better conditions.
Criminal charges are absent from 85 percent of all forfeiture cases in the city.
I am going to switch it up today. Instead of giving you this week’s stories of horrible injustice, which Lord knows there is a long list of those stories to tell this week, I want us to have a serious conversation about how we make change happen in this country.
A movement to oust Cyrus Vance gains steam.
An Assistant District Attorney with the Orleans Parish DA is claiming that the Orleans Public Defenders’ office fraudulently obtained records in the case of a man accused of killing a New Orleans police officer in 2015. The charge is just the latest example of the DA making allegations of misconduct against public defenders for simply […]
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. Josie Duffy Rice’s new editorial in the New York Times, “Cy Vance and the Myth of the Progressive Prosecutor,” explains the need to measure elected officials by what they actually do — and not […]
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. In today’s news roundup, we bring you stories about Chicago activists protesting a new police training academy, the St. Petersburg Police Department trying out gun cameras, Pensacola’s State Attorney directly filing kids […]
At a press conference on October 5th, Sheriff Steve Prator of Caddo Parish, Louisiana decried the state’s new policy that would lead to the release of some prisoners in the upcoming months. Sheriff Prator’s comments that the reforms would contribute to the release of “good” prisoners as well as “bad ones” have been roundly critiqued for “evoking […]
In New York City, many demographics are eligible for subsidized MetroCards, which allow them to access the increasingly expensive and dysfunctionalsubway system at a lower cost. Transit benefits are available to the elderly, disabled, and schoolchildren, and many companies offer their employees pre-tax MetroCards as part of their benefits package. But one group of New Yorkers is conspicuously left out […]
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. Media narratives around drug prosecutions have tended to overstate a turn away from punishment and towards rehabilitation for substance users. While this has been true in some instances, many jurisdictions are continuing […]
Texas residents have recently been coming around to the idea that carrying small amounts of pot shouldn’t be a crime. Houston’s current district attorney Kim Ogg announced in this year that she would no longer prosecute cases involving small amounts of marijuana, instead recommending a diversion program that would prevent a criminal record. DA Nico LaHood also […]
Each week, the Fair Punishment Project monitors the news in New York, talks to local journalists and advocates, and share the most important stories with you through our weekly New York newsletter. In this week’s New York newsletter, we brought you stories about ICE raids, the future of Rikers Island, a program that is cutting […]
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. Our focus today is on juvenile life without parole sentences. Yesterday, California became the 20th state to ban JLWOP. Washington could become the next state to eliminate JLWOP, as the question of […]
A local solution to a national problem.
In the era of Trump, it can be hard to keep up with essential stories about injustice in America. This is my weekly column where I give a rundown of important headlines that have unfolded that may have gotten past you. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to our regular newsletter here. It’s […]
If you’re facing criminal charges in Manhattan, it appears you might be able to get out of that jam with the right campaign donations. And if you don’t have that kind of cash? Expect to face jail time and fines, even for the lowest-level offenses. This is the transactional possibility suggested by a series of […]
Salt Lake County, Utah residents are experiencing déjà vu. Their District Attorney, Sim Gill, announced last week that he would not bring charges against the police officer who fatally shot Patrick Harmon in the back. The announcement comes just over a year after Gill declined to bring chargesagainst the officer who shot then 17-year-old Abdi Mohamed, a choice […]
A sex crimes detective with the Memphis Police Department will keep her job despite leaking confidential investigative files to the family of a rape suspect, the Commercial Appeal reported last week. Before Detective Ouita Knowlton became the subject of a criminal investigation, she was the supervisor of the DNA Unit, which was formed in 2014 to investigate long-neglected […]
It’s been almost 50 years since President Richard Nixon played the law-and-order card to help him win the presidency. Decades later Donald Trump has adopted the same playbook, telling his own version of the forgotten American who is at the mercy of a crime wave. It didn’t matter that facts didn’t support candidate Trump’s arguments. […]
North of the New Mexico border sits Alamosa Municipal Court. An unassuming brick building with a terra cotta roof, the local court looks like a sleepy place you might duck into to pay a traffic ticket. Yet the mostly poor Alamosa residents who appear before Judge Daniel Powell are routinely denied counsel, face jail because […]