Criminalizing those who sell drugs by enacting more punitive laws may lead to more dangerous drug use and will disproportionately affect communities of color, a new report suggests.

District Attorney Rachael Rollins ran as a reformer who would work to increase transparency, but her office and the police department have been fighting the order.

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. Last month, longtime public defender Chesa Boudin was elected San Francisco’s next district attorney. His victory was not merely an upset over an interim incumbent with establishment […]

Tribal jurisdiction over intimate partner and sexual violence was created in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and advocates argue it is necessary for accountability and safety.

Investing billions of government dollars into programs that embed police in Black communities will not reduce police violence, nor repair years of injustice.

A Philadelphia police union’s recent attack on Players Coalition co-founder Malcolm Jenkins matches rhetorical tactics that officers’ groups are using in the face of outspoken support for criminal justice reforms.

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 1997, four Navy sailors in Norfolk, Virginia were arrested for the rape and murder of a young woman. The men were trained to endure stressful situations, […]

Advocates say the removals are more evidence of a troubling and unregulated law enforcement tool, overseen by the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

During the tenure of Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal, deputies assaulted and harassed men inside the parish jail. Several deputies were convicted in federal court, and now cases brought by the office are under renewed scrutiny.

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. New Yorkers were supposed to be finished with all of this. Done with 12 years of Michael Bloomberg, a technocratic, out-of-touch billionaire mayor who oversaw the highly […]

The billionaire and former New York City mayor defended the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim Americans and mandatory minimum prison sentences for gun possession, among other policies.

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. Rodney Reed was scheduled to be executed tomorrow. He won’t be, at least not tomorrow. He was convicted and sentenced to die in 1998 for the rape […]

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 a video posted on Twitter on Friday, a small woman with a pushcart full of churros is surrounded by four NYPD officers inside the Broadway Junction […]

Research shows access to a trauma center is critical after a shooting. But as gun deaths are rising in Philly, one trauma center has closed. Experts say a rise in homicides may prompt more policing.

A close examination of a poll backed by a business group reveals loaded questions, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and the shortchanging of very real privacy concerns.

If passed, Question 2 would also allow the board to force police commissioners to provide more insight into disciplinary decisions.

Recent violent arrests in the city subways should make New Yorkers question the push by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the MTA to hire 500 new transit police.

The mayors of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco wrap themselves in the language of progressivism, but when it comes to the criminal legal system they’re Trumpian.

At least three women made police reports about Girls Do Porn in 2015, but recruiters continued to exploit women until the FBI stepped in last month.

A lawsuit in Los Angeles and a motion in Orange County highlight battles to get key information.

Criminal case files from Oakland’s seminal Riders scandal were among documents shredded by the Alameda County Superior Court in 2015.

Last week, the City Council reinstated a “no camping” ordinance meant to discourage people experiencing homelessness from sleeping on sidewalks and outside a shelter. Advocates say the city is criminalizing poverty.

Sheriff Mike Chapman, who runs the Loudoun County jail, has received close to $15,000 in contributions from the provider since taking office in 2012.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva was elected on the promise of reforming the scandal-plagued sheriff’s department. But eight deputies now accuse Sheriff Villanueva of allowing a violent group, the Banditos, to thrive in his department’s ranks.

The former Dallas police officer should be held accountable for killing Botham Jean, but sending her to prison does not keep us safe.

The gang database in the state gives police increased authority to approach and harass people for virtually no reason at all.

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

“For some legal observers, there was only one word for the Amber Guyger guilty verdict on Tuesday: stunning,” the Dallas Morning News reported. “That’s because a police officer likely never even would have been charged just a few years ago.” Between 1973 and 2016, there were no Dallas police officers who faced murder charges for killing a civilian, […]

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood and District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer intend to openly defy a 1975 state Supreme Court precedent that says law enforcement cannot intentionally discriminate against a person or group of people.

WJLA’s Kevin Lewis selectively reports on immigrants arrested for sex crimes to paint a misleading picture of violence in Montgomery County.

At least a quarter of all people killed by police each year suffer from untreated mental illnesss. New York City’s Public Advocate is proposing a new hotline and mental health crisis teams.

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. Meralyn Kirkland got a call last Thursday about her granddaughter, Kaia Rolle. She was told that the 6-year-old girl had been arrested at her Orlando charter school and was […]

The Washington State Patrol has added thousands of old sealed juvenile records to a database it shares with law enforcement agencies across the country—erasing for many their chance of a clean slate.

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. “Donald Trump has long understood that he can leverage homelessness to motivate people,” writes David Graham for The Atlantic. “In the early 1980s, the developer was desperate to get […]

In a rare case of local media nuance, a Boston TV news station provided a humane and health-focused segment on safe drug use.

Court records and interviews with former prosecutors show that internal assessments of police dishonesty are rarely memorialized, potentially violating the rights of people charged in criminal cases and sometimes keeping the records of bad cops clean.

Climate activists in Houston are charged under a new law aimed at criminalizing protest

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. “After 147 years, California residents are now free to turn down law enforcement officials who ask for help with an arrest,” reported Jacey Fortin for the New York Times […]

Police are accused of lying to obtain the warrants to conduct military-style raids on the homes of poor people and people of color.

Jose ‘Lil Joe’ Chapa says one way to make Beauregard Parish ‘great again’ is to stop construction of a new jail and divert resources to services that keep people out of lockup altogether.