Sheriffs wield enormous power, and they can direct it in ways that will help contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect incarcerated people.

The Metropolitan Police Department has discussed reducing arrests, but it has not formally announced any policy changes.

Rhode Island prosecutors charged nine people with felony distribution of the addiction treatment drug. Reform prosecutors in other states are declining such charges and instead encouraging access to the drug.

The student, whose last name is Mohammed, was subject to improper searches based on little evidence, his attorney argues.

We need to be more critical of the former New York mayor’s outsize influence on the gun control movement.

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. As the country braces itself for the “all but certain” global pandemic of the coronavirus, some people are stocking up on food and surgical masks, many are […]

The city is ramping up a cleanup program that activists fear will worsen the criminalization of homelessness.

Deputies in Orange County wrote false reports about their collection and booking of evidence, according to internal audits kept secret for months.

At least one error led to a wrongful arrest, according to a Freedom of Information Law request, underscoring the need for better oversight of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, advocates say.

The former mayor issued a city resolution honoring officers for their ‘bravery’ in a shooting that paralyzed Tarance Etheredge, who will receive a payout from a civil rights lawsuit.

The authors reported that 29.4 percent of the possession cases involved Black individuals in a county where Black people make up only 8.9 percent of the population.

As a Black child in San Francisco, I learned early that mine and others’ bodies meant nothing to those supposedly tasked with our protection.

Jawan Richards was shot by Baltimore police and hit with gun and assault charges stemming from the incident. His defense attorneys now say video evidence may exonerate their client.

As old audio clips of Bloomberg defending the controversial policing policy went viral, new data showed the practice isn’t fading away in New York city.

Rann Bar-On pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault of Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson to remain a legal U.S. resident. For the next two years, he isn’t allowed to protest in the county.

Erick Wallace’s federal civil rights lawsuit joins a long line of litigation and misconduct allegations against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Mistaken identifications have been involved in nearly 70 percent of post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence.

A civil suit claims that an officer who shot a 46-year-old stagehand in Midtown Manhattan should have de-escalated the encounter.

In 1976, New York criminalized “loitering for the purpose of engaging in a prostitution offense,” a law that has allowed for policing that targets LGBTQ and immigrant New Yorkers of color. Now, a broad coalition is hoping to repeal the law, as a step towards broader decriminalization.

In a lawsuit, the boy’s family said he was repeatedly suspended, secluded, and violently restrained before he was ever given a special education evaluation.

Leading with housing status for homeless people is a common trope in the news reporting business and one in urgent need of re-examining.

“A public health approach neither accepts harm as a given nor accepts punishment as prevention.”

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister’s stings, conducted under the guise of targeting human trafficking, netted the largest number of arrests there since 2008. Sex workers say the operations put them at risk.

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.’

Activists hope Chesa Boudin will press charges, and push for systemic changes to address the criminalization of mental illness.

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. Every American law student gets to know, and usually comes to dislike, a person called “the reasonable person.” The reasonable person is everywhere: negligence cases in torts […]

Two recent investigations look at how, in the name of fighting crime, police departments engage in dangerous, often fatal, vehicle pursuits

There’s a cynical local-to-national news pipeline designed to mock the powerless under the guise of “odd” news stories.

Moms 4 Housing made a home for their families in a vacant house in Oakland. Yesterday, police in tanks and riot gear evicted them.

Charges in each of four arrests of a city man were subsequently dropped. Now he has become one of a long line of New York City residents who have filed wrongful arrest lawsuits against the city.

The move is made possible by a Texas law that legalized the production of hemp last year.

The department is targeting communities of color and violating local and federal law by using broad ‘association’ criteria to list people in a gang database, a Rhode Island community organization claims.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Texas told The Appeal about her vision for a complete overhaul of her state’s legal system.

Logbooks were seized as part of an inquiry into misconduct allegations against high-ranking officers in the division that investigates sex crimes.

On the eve of the state’s marijuana legalization law going into effect, Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois announced that he would issue 11,017 pardons to people with low-level marijuana convictions.

According to a complaint, police in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago, subjected Tylus Allen Jr. to invasive searches, all of which turned up nothing.

Misconduct complaints against officers in the NYPD’s 34th Precinct have risen for three years straight. In 2018, 15 officers had complaints against them substantiated, the most of any precinct in New York City.

Since 2010, no Vallejo officer has been disciplined for using deadly force, despite multiple shootings of unarmed people—including a man holding a can of beer. And active police union leaders have been involved in the shooting investigations.

Social media posts, tattoos, or the unvetted word of an officer can lead to inclusion on the list, which is overwhelmingly composed of people of color.

A City Council Committee considers a bill on NYPD surveillance today.