Racial Bias

Josie Duffy Rice and her co-host, Derecka Purnell, talk to Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, about the school to prison pipeline.

Some officers have recently boasted about breaking state law and collaborating with ICE, according to messages posted in the group and obtained by The Appeal.

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. Two Louisiana judges will begin hearing arguments tomorrow about whether a Black judge should be recused from more than 300 criminal cases after she criticized prosecutors for the disproportionate rate of […]

The Madison County Sheriff’s Department was sued in 2017 for allegedly subjecting Black motorists and pedestrians to unconstitutional stops and searches.

Rather than encouraging more faith in the police, true reform requires dismantling the system that empowers them.

With Miriam Mack and Elizabeth Tuttle Newman of The Bronx Defenders

Even in states where use is decriminalized, child welfare systems continue to treat it as a sign of neglectful parenting, particularly among families of color.

In a civil rights lawsuit, an officer in Allentown claims he was subjected to racial discrimination before he was fired.

This month, two research scientists and an attorney published an op-ed about risk assessment tools, which are presented as ways to reduce personal bias in the criminal legal system.

On Saturday, Injustice Watch and BuzzFeed News published an investigation into racist and violent social media posts by current and retired police officers. The article by Emily Hoerner and Rick Tulsky came out of a collaboration with the Plain View Project, which examined the Facebook accounts of police officers from eight departments across the county. The Plain View Project looked […]

With City University of New York law professor Babe Howell

Despite accounting for less than 12 percent of the state’s adult population, roughly 40 percent of all bail bonds were issued in cases involving a Black defendant.

With Appeal contributor Jon Campbell

Officers say the language used now is more subtle but still encourages numbers-driven policing.

A new report details Alabama’s “War on Marijuana” ahead of a key DA election.

About 51 percent of the people charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana in Allegheny County are Black.

A single training document uncovered in a prosecutor’s files could save Russell William Tucker’s life.

A white cop joked about bringing explosives to a Black Lives Matter protest in Columbus with no consequences. A black cop joked about ‘black on black’ crime and may be fired.

Sunday, the New York Times published a well-meaning op-ed about the fears of racial bias in artificial intelligence and predictive policing systems. The author, Bärí A. Williams, should be commended for engaging the debate about building “intelligent” computer systems to predict crime, and for framing these developments in racial justice terms. One thing we have learned about new technologies is […]

Last, month the Nevada Supreme Court threw out the death sentence of Julius Bradford after defense attorneys raised concerns that his trial was marred by the illegal exclusion of minority jurors.

A Louisiana man’s request for a “lawyer dog” was deemed unclear by the state’s Supreme Court.