The “crime panic” was a myth. But an analysis by The Appeal shows the narrative helped local police buy facial recognition software, drones, license plate readers, social media surveillance tech, and more.
Attorneys say the district’s practice of sending armed police officers to mental health emergencies violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The severe restrictions I face while on supervision effectively serve as a ban on stable housing. The terms of this arrangement have left me technically homeless, forced to live in a motel.
On Election Day, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will decide whether to close loopholes in their state constitutions allowing the forced labor of incarcerated people.
Repealing state and federal mandatory minimums will help address the mass incarceration crisis, advocates hope.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s popularity has declined after a summer of protests against police violence in the Oregon city.
Local law enforcement tear-gassed and beat protesters and journalists.
Tens of thousands of children are in congregate care settings around the country, and some have already started to get sick.
Inconsistent rules nationwide mean some people are still registering and reporting in person despite public health directives meant to control COVID-19.
The state’s attorney general decided to support resentencing hearings in two high-profile cases, though she had fought appeals in the past.
Lawmakers are recognizing the harms of mass incarceration. But some governors are reluctant to use their clemency power to address them.
With special guest host Leo Beletsky, a professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University, and criminal justice reform advocate Morgan Godvin.
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 […]
In 2018, the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment that requires unanimous jury verdicts in felony cases for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2019. Now, the Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of the nonunanimity rule—with prosecutors arguing that the U.S. Constitution does not require unanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases.
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, the Supreme Court appeared ready to rule against convictions by nonunanimous juries. The Court heard arguments in Ramos v. Louisiana, a case that challenged the […]
Despite supporting Oregon’s new juvenile justice law, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is still fighting to keep people in prison who received life sentences as minors.
Prosecutors are supremely powerful and have played an outsize role in mass incarceration. What can be done?
As in Louisiana, Oregon’s practice is rooted in its own rich history of white supremacy.
More than one dozen sheriffs support Measure 105 that would allow for cooperation with federal authorities even when an immigrant suspect has not been apprehended for any crime.
As a consequence, authorities are keeping them in cells for 22 to 23 hours a day, according to Oregon’s federal public defender.
In this Oregon capital case, it could ensure that the state doesn’t execute the wrong man.
On August 13th, corrections officers at Portland, Oregon’s jail found 37-year-old Dee Glassmann dead in her cell during their routine morning “wake up” call. If you’re wondering what happened, you’re not alone: Multnomah County officials won’t release any information about the circumstances of her death for up to eight more weeks, when her toxicology report will be […]
The state of Oregon has made drug possession a misdemeanor over the objections of multiple district attorneys in the state. The new law went into effect as soon as Governor Kate Brown signed it earlier this month. It makes most instances of first-time simple possession of illegal drugs — including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines — a misdemeanor rather than a felony. The […]
District attorneys in Oregon have a new tactic to deal with judges that hand down rulings against their offices: they’re effectively getting rid of them. County circuit judges in both Lane and Multnomah counties have been disqualified from hearing criminal cases this year following accusations from district attorneys that the judges failed to be “fair […]