Pregnant Women Allege Abuse in Texas Jails At the same time, state lawmakers are pushing to incarcerate more people pretrial. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
What The St. Louis Mayoral Candidates Would Do To Close The City’s Notorious Workhouse Jail Tishaura Jones wants to decriminalize offenses and transfer people out of the Workhouse. Cara Spencer wants to end the contract to house federal detainees. Meg O'Connor
Misdemeanor Convictions Cause Real Harm. New York Needs a New Approach Getting convicted of a “minor offense” inflicts serious, long-term harm. The state can and must divert more people to counseling, group meetings, or other interventions. Jackie Fielding, Chloe Sarnoff
Newly Elected Los Angeles DA Will End Cash Bail in Nation’s Largest Prosecutor Office On his first day in office, George Gascón said prosecutors will not seek bail starting Jan. 1, a win for criminal justice reformers. Eliyahu Kamisher
Report Finds Bail Reform in Chicago Reduced Pretrial Incarceration Without Hurting Public Safety A growing body of evidence suggests that it’s possible to reduce or even eliminate the use of money bail without increasing crime. Ethan Corey
As COVID-19 Permeates Prisons And Jails, Baltimore Defendants Continue To Be Held Without Bail An Appeal analysis shows that the percentage of people held without bond remains steady, at roughly 33%, although arrests are down during the pandemic. Jerry Iannelli
Despite COVID-19 Cases, Mississippi Is Slow to Review Jail Populations For Release The state’s public defender asked the state Supreme Court in April to speed up reviews of people held pretrial, but advocates say it’s unclear if district courts have complied. Ko Bragg
Cleaning Supplies Are So Scarce At This Arizona Prison, Detainees Are Using Shampoo And Menstrual Pads, Lawsuit Says The plaintiffs want an independent expert to assess whether the facility has implemented social distancing measures, testing procedures, and hygiene practices adequate enough to reasonably protect detainees from contracting COVID-19 while in custody. Meg O'Connor
His Immune System Is Compromised and He Spent Two Months in Jail Unable to Afford Bail A man describes his ordeal in medical isolation while awaiting trial. Eliyahu Kamisher
As the U.S. Scrambles to Slow Coronavirus, We Should Be Wary of Increased Surveillance 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. James Kilgore
Critics Of Progressive Judges Find A Willing Ally In Local Newsrooms With few exceptions, news outlets in Harris County, Texas, spotlight singular instances of crime to allege that legal reform policy is a threat to the public. Jonathan Ben-Menachem
Cash Bail Is Creating a Crisis in Rural Jails A federal lawsuit alleges lack of due process in a rural Tennessee county, and reform advocates say its jail is hardly an outlier. Jessica Pishko
San Francisco Officials Push to Reduce Jail Population to Prevent Coronavirus Outbreak The public defender and district attorney both directed their staffs to keep individuals who are more vulnerable to the virus out of jail. Darwin BondGraham
Criminal Justice Group Drops Support For Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools As Ohio Justices Seek To Block Their Use Reform advocates say the risk assessments are racially biased and are not effective at their key tasks: predicting the likelihood someone will return to court. Dawn R. Wolfe
New Data Suggests Risk Assessment Tools Have Little Impact on Pretrial Incarceration Around one-third of counties in the United States use the tools when making release decisions, but few monitor whether they work as intended. Ethan Corey
Police and Sheriff’s Departments Join Media Campaign Against Bail Reform In New York State 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.’ Adam H. Johnson
