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Kim Ogg

In Texas, Prosecution Gets Privatized

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 […]

Graduation Ceremony Held For New Members Of New York City Police Department

Spending billions on policing, then millions on police misconduct

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 2017, the coalition Freedom to Thrive looked at the enormous outlay on policing and incarceration across the U.S.—over $180 billion annually—contrasting it with the systemic underinvestment […]

Spotlight: A City Council Says No To More Police

Last week, in a 4-3 vote on the 2019-20 budget, the City Council in Durham, North Carolina, voted against funding 18 new police officers. It voted instead to raise the wage for part-time city workers to just over $15 an hour. With that, the city joined jurisdictions around the country that are critically evaluating requests for increased […]

Harris County D.A. will no longer prosecute “trace cases”

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg made good on a central campaign promise this week, announcing that her office will no longer prosecute “trace cases” that involve trivially small amounts of drugs, or drug residue. In an interview with the Houston Press, Ogg said that although there is still no formal policy prohibiting these prosecutions, her office stopped […]