More from The Appeal:
This budget season, Philadelphia must hold our law enforcement accountable for their failures by redirecting resources to strategies that can help us.
Kendra Brooks | April 15, 2021
A veteran D.C. police officer says the Metropolitan Police Department’s Gun Recovery Unit deploys illegitimate tactics in a war on guns that have fostered an adversarial relationship between the department and the communities they are supposed to serve.
Brandon Soderberg | April 14, 2021
Cities across the country must rethink the role of law enforcement, as police continue to brutalize and kill Black men and women during traffic stops, advocates say.
Joshua Vaughn | April 14, 2021
Art Acevedo’s recent comments reveal an official who, despite his “good cop” veneer, has played fast and loose with the facts when it comes to addressing public safety.
Eoin Higgins | April 12, 2021
The city will use $1 million in funds diverted from its police budget to expand substance use treatments and harm reduction services for low-income people in Austin and Travis County.
Meg O'Connor | April 7, 2021
Yes 4 Minneapolis, a coalition of advocacy organizations, is on track to place a proposed charter amendment on November’s ballot that would fundamentally change policing and public safety in the city.
Joshua Vaughn | March 26, 2021
Several states, including Maryland, are considering bills to protect minors from abusive police interrogations.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | March 25, 2021
The Appeal examined 17 fatal shootings by the Vallejo police over the last decade and found at least six cases where the person shot may have been unarmed.
Brian Krans | March 24, 2021
The trial budget includes a proposal to expand a crisis response program under the fire department, but also includes a $3.7 million increase to the Phoenix Police Department’s $745 million budget.
Meg O'Connor | March 19, 2021
Sterling Higgins died in a Tennessee jail in 2019 after officers pinned him to the floor. Two new medical experts’ reports describe the incident as homicide.
Tana Ganeva | March 10, 2021
As Texas lifts its COVID-19 restrictions, the city’s jail remains overcrowded and its police and prosecutors continue to operate as normal.
Jerry Iannelli | March 9, 2021
Cities across the country have begun exploring traffic enforcement without police. This bill proposes doing so statewide.
Meg O'Connor | March 5, 2021
It is the latest incident of violence from a police department already under fire for pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl and fatally injuring Daniel Prude.
Meg O'Connor | March 5, 2021
Community members and advocates question why Mayor Jim Kenney and the City Council continue to fund the police department at record levels, despite the department’s low murder solve rate.
Joshua Vaughn | March 1, 2021
In an effort to end systemic racism, the California city will aim to reduce the number of police-involved traffic stops for expired registrations and other small violations.
Joshua Vaughn | February 23, 2021
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced today that a grand jury voted not to indict any police officers on charges related to the death of Daniel Prude.
Meg O'Connor | February 23, 2021
The police killing has accelerated a years-long effort by advocates and lawmakers to shift resources and money away from law enforcement.
Joshua Vaughn | February 19, 2021
Over two nights last year, police in Boston and Worcester used excessive force—including pushing and tackling—while arbitrarily arresting protesters without apparent cause.
Eoin Higgins | February 9, 2021
After organizing to repeal the “walking while trans” ban, advocates in the state—and around the country—are looking ahead to the next fight.
Bryce Covert | February 9, 2021
The political paradigm emerging in Louisville is being formed by newcomers to local politics.
Jerry Iannelli | February 8, 2021
The city will use funds diverted from its police budget to set up wraparound services for the people who will live at the hotel.
Meg O'Connor | February 4, 2021
Right-wingers and ultranationalists convened in the city days after the Washington insurrection, but the police crackdown that day fell on counterprotesters.
James Stout | February 3, 2021
The City Council voted to buy one hotel and use funds diverted from its police budget to set up wraparound services for the homeless people who will live there.
Meg O'Connor | January 27, 2021
The City Council will decide whether to buy two hotels and use funds diverted from its police budget to set up wraparound services for the homeless people who will live there.
Meg O'Connor | January 26, 2021
A Vallejo police lieutenant has a long history of excessive force allegations in a department that is under investigation by the California Department of Justice—and he continues to rise in the ranks.
Brian Krans | January 21, 2021
A new report de-anonymizes hundreds of officers in the city and shows more than 1,800 cops have had complaints filed about them.
Brandon Soderberg | January 19, 2021
Some lawmakers are citing the violence in Washington as a reason to pass laws that criminalize protesting, but far-right extremists aren’t the target.
Meg O'Connor | January 19, 2021
Police and prosecutors routinely treat white domestic terrorists with kid gloves, but use the full force of the law against protesters calling for an end to police violence against Black people.
Meg O'Connor | January 14, 2021
Law enforcement officers from around the country attended and supported last week’s rally in support of President Trump that sparked a riot.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | January 13, 2021
Because traffic stops all too often escalate into deadly incidents, calls have grown to disentangle traffic enforcement from police—and a measure to do so has already passed in Berkeley, California.
Meg O'Connor | January 13, 2021
From San Francisco to Philadelphia, cities across the country are creating fully unarmed response teams to address emergencies that used to call for cops.
The historical connections were on full display during Wednesday’s violence at the Capitol.
Jerry Iannelli | January 8, 2021
‘It’s an insult to the activism and organizing that defined 2020, and falls far short of the transformational leadership that Boston deserves,’ one City Council member said.
Eoin Higgins | January 7, 2021
Law enforcement agencies are creating online content, often at the expense of people they have arrested.
Hope Corrigan | December 21, 2020
Hours of video given exclusively to The Appeal show police officers bragging about attacking protesters and multiple instances of excessive force and the liberal use of pepper spray.
Eoin Higgins | December 18, 2020
The case illustrates the importance of keeping lists of police officers with histories of misconduct or dishonesty, the defense lawyer in the case says.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 18, 2020
California Assemblymember Jim Cooper may seek to be Sacramento sheriff once more—despite sexual harassment allegations and a long history of outlandish antics.
Jerry Iannelli | December 16, 2020
Investing in local communities and rolling back the criminalization of marijuana is exactly what the country needs right now.
Barbara Lee | December 3, 2020
Eric Garcetti, who may be considered for a position in the administration, is out of touch with the city’s working class and poor people, activists say. And they fear he’ll bring that sensibility to national politics.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 3, 2020
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Transportation Secretary or Assistant to the Transportation Secretary, Rahm doesn’t belong in any of D.C.’s halls of power.
Jamaal Bowman | December 2, 2020
Two moped riders were left dead or injured after recent police pursuits in Washington, D.C., and Providence, Rhode Island.
Ella Fassler | December 2, 2020
Incumbents Jimmy Flannigan and Alison Alter have been targeted by conservative challengers because of the council’s votes to cut police funding and repeal a ban on public camping.
Meg O'Connor | December 1, 2020
None of the Austin City Council members who voted to cut police funding lost their elections, but a police union vice president who fearmongered about the defund movement did.
Meg O'Connor | November 20, 2020
When election and racial justice protests rocked the city, Lori Lightfoot used raised bridges and shutdown public transportation as crowd control measures, which harmed the city’s workers.
Maya Dukmasova | November 13, 2020
Law enforcement organizations have long treated mass incarceration as a job creation program. In 2020, the tide began turning against them.
Jay Willis | November 10, 2020
Under the banner of Detroit Will Breathe, the city’s Black Lives Matter activists have formed a cohesive and lasting local political force.
Chris Gelardi | October 29, 2020
Incumbent Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel is backed by police unions and has declined to charge officers in high-profile killings. Challenger Julie Gunnigle says she wants to create an independent unit to review police use-of-force cases.
Meg O'Connor | October 23, 2020
Fort Bend Sheriff Troy Nehls wants voters to send him to Congress despite his department’s history of jail deaths and allegations of racial-profiling.
Jerry Iannelli | October 23, 2020
Civil liberties experts say the Strategic Response Group’s recent crackdown on ICE protests is the most brutal suppression of protests in decades—and many of its officers are the subject of significant misconduct allegations, including a supervisor with 32 complaints.
Ali Winston | October 15, 2020
Contrary to reports, most City Council members—who ran and won by pledging to advance racial equity—tried to do the right thing, but were stalled by a charter commission that overstepped its authority.
Scott Shaffer | October 9, 2020
The Florida Sheriffs Association gains a third of its multimillion-dollar budget by selling big-ticket items like trucks and mobile command centers to local sheriff’s departments and other government agencies.
Jerry Iannelli | October 9, 2020
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s popularity has declined after a summer of protests against police violence in the Oregon city.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | October 7, 2020
Research has shown only that police can be sufficient, not that they are necessary.
John Pfaff | October 2, 2020
The ruling said the commission wasn’t diverse enough and gave little voice to communities affected by policing.
Joshua Vaughn | October 1, 2020
If he becomes president and Democrats win the Senate, Biden should push a federal spending bill that includes money for civilian first-responder programs.
Aaron Stagoff-Belfort | October 1, 2020
An investigation by The Appeal and Spotlight PA found that troopers in three counties have taken big money from drivers, many of whom were never charged.
Mayors of liberal cities love to criticize the president’s incendiary law-and-order rhetoric, but do precious little to check police violence and bloated budgets in their own backyards.
Jay Willis | September 30, 2020
Under the guise of restoring public confidence in law enforcement, President Trump’s secretive and regressive Commission on Law Enforcement is stacked with old-guard failed tough-on-crime thinking that precipitated the crisis of confidence we now face.
The proposed legislation would expand the city’s public mental healthcare system using funds reallocated from the police budget.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 28, 2020
Lawsuits from Joliet Police Department officers are among at least 12 current federal complaints against the agency. The men say their civil rights lawsuits are part of a decades-long history of discrimination.
Jerry Iannelli | September 25, 2020
Legislation proposed this week by Gov. Ron DeSantis also seeks to withhold state funding from counties that move to decrease police budgets.
Accused of shaking a baby to death and facing the death penalty, Amy Wilkerson says she is innocent, but pleaded guilty to spare her life.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 23, 2020
As protests against racism and police violence were sweeping the country, a Vallejo, California detective shot and killed Sean Monterrosa. His death has galvanized a community.
John Glidden | September 21, 2020
The 17-year-old, who his lawyers say was pushed off a fence by a police officer, survived the fall but suffered serious injuries.
Joshua Vaughn | September 17, 2020
Brian Stepter, a 61-year-old with chronic respiratory problems, has struggled with substance use for decades. Police and prosecutors sought the harshest sentence possible after he failed to return the car.
Meg O'Connor | September 16, 2020
Several recent killings have put the spotlight on the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S., but many of the LASD’s abuses go unseen, advocates say.
Piper French | September 15, 2020
Now is the time to act. If we have learned anything since George Floyd’s death, it is that we cannot keep waiting for change.
In February 2019, police officers in Killeen shot James Scott Reed in his home. One officer entered a guilty plea to evidence tampering, but Reed’s family is still suing the city and several officers in federal court.
Jerry Iannelli | September 4, 2020
The review follows an investigation by The Appeal and Spotlight PA, which found that troopers were using minor traffic stops to illegally detain and search motorists along highways.
Joshua Vaughn | September 3, 2020
Like her Democratic mayoral counterparts in Portland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York, Lightfoot has condemned police violence outside her borders, while using law enforcement to suppress demonstrations in her own city.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 3, 2020
Body camera video shows that Daniel Prude was complying with police when they knelt on his back and pushed his face to the ground for so long that he stopped breathing.
Meg O'Connor | September 2, 2020
A review of five years of cases that arose from traffic stops in the south-central region of the state shows that police used underhand tactics to justify holding and searching drivers illegally.
Athletes should demand more than prosecutions of police officers who kill Black people. The criminal legal system is a guilty system responsible for our oppression. It cannot also be the guardian of our liberation. Here are three racial justice demands that athletes can support right now.
Derecka Purnell | August 27, 2020
Administrative subpoenas—which do not require a judge’s approval—are typically used for the department’s internal investigations, but The Appeal has learned that they are being used in criminal cases.
Ali Winston | August 25, 2020
Removing police union influence from the prosecutor’s office is a critical first step towards building a system that is safe, just, and fair for all.
White voices and victims dominate the genre, which can skew the perception of what constitutes a crime.
Elon Green | August 21, 2020
Some say their roles are already too close to those of law enforcement and are organizing for a radical rethinking of the profession.
Mia Sato | August 20, 2020
Although there’s a diversity of views about law enforcement in Brownsville, Brooklyn, there’s widespread agreement that the community is still fighting to obtain all the resources it needs to thrive and police itself.
Abigail Savitch-Lew | August 19, 2020
A state investigation found that Detroit police officers fabricated evidence that helped convict a 14-year-old boy. A judge threw out his conviction after he spent nine years in prison, but the officers are still on the job and haven’t been flagged as unreliable to testify in court.
Kira Lerner | August 19, 2020
President Trump and the DOJ are funding federal policing programs in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore, but advocates say they’re unnecessary, harmful, and ineffective.
Marcia Brown | August 13, 2020
The City Council passed a budget that cut nearly $150 million from the Austin Police Department. Millions will be reinvested in services like violence prevention and supportive housing.
Meg O'Connor | August 13, 2020
In difficult moments like this, we can’t let bad faith attacks set our community back. What our families need are resources and investment, not more police on the streets.
Robert Peters | August 12, 2020
The boy’s mother says Orange County Sheriff John Mina has still never spoken to her after more than 20 years. And in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings, local activists are asking why Mina deserves to keep his job.
Jerry Iannelli | August 12, 2020
The City Council will pass a budget this week that could cut nearly $150 million in funding from the Austin Police Department. The proposal appears to have majority support.
Meg O'Connor | August 12, 2020
A lawsuit alleges Breonna Taylor died because Louisville was trying to arrest its way toward economic redevelopment. Research shows this is common.
Brenden Beck | August 4, 2020
Local law enforcement tear-gassed and beat protesters and journalists.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | August 3, 2020
The presence of police in schools is emblematic of America’s carceral approach to governing.
Aaron Stagoff-Belfort | August 3, 2020
Protesters believe law enforcement is looking for retribution after police arrested a woman Tuesday night and placed her in an unmarked van, a callback to recent events in Portland, Oregon.
Chris Gelardi | July 29, 2020
As U.S. attorney in Seattle, Durkan prosecuted a severely mentally ill man in a terrorism case using an informant convicted of child sex abuse—and claimed to have reformed the same Seattle Police Department that has tear-gassed peaceful protesters for weeks.
Jerry Iannelli | July 29, 2020
Though domestic violence is often cited as a reason to maintain the carceral status quo, advocates say there are more humane—and effective—alternatives.
Jessica Pishko | July 28, 2020
Federal agents have been unfairly arresting Black and brown people for decades. Now that white Portlanders are seeing it up close and personal, they are outraged. Better late than never.
Qualified immunity is just one obstacle of many that incarcerated people face when seeking to hold correctional officers accountable for misconduct.
Joshua Manson | July 23, 2020
Under current law, established during the "tough on crime" era, San Francisco mandated at least 1,971 full-time police officers. Voters will now have the opportunity to reconsider that mandate.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | July 21, 2020
From crackdowns on Black students decades ago to more recent arrests during protests against neo-Confederates, the department has served as a tool for enforcing white supremacy.
Cam Calisch | July 21, 2020
Police should no longer occupy all of our vital support systems in our communities.
Alex S. Vitale | July 20, 2020
Excessive force against people being arrested, falsification of evidence against suspects, and brutality by guards against prisoners — these are all just different forms of the same problem.
Vernon Horn | July 20, 2020
Through this mechanism, communities can accept accountability for the racism they allow to flourish by failing to disrupt it.
Monica C. Bell | July 17, 2020
As criminal justice reformers take steps to defund police departments and limit qualified immunity, it’s important to consider the role of universal and special duties in policing.
Eric Kennedy | July 15, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests over police brutality are strengthening the case against mass incarceration, advocates argue.
Emily Nonko | July 14, 2020
In a moment of crisis, the state Senate and House are slated to be in recess until January.
Jay Willis | July 10, 2020
Social Workers address crises regularly and without an armed police officer standing in front of us. Often, the presence of an armed officer escalates a crisis that could have been better handled by mental health professionals alone.
This year’s presidential contest will be the first since a federal judge lifted a decades-old consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from engaging in “ballot security,” or voter intimidation at the polls.
Kira Lerner | July 2, 2020
In late April, officer Toni McBride shot Daniel Hernandez to death after a suicide call. His attorney and grieving family say videos posted on social media of McBride gleefully firing high-powered weapons show that she’s a trigger-happy officer.
Jerry Iannelli | July 2, 2020
In the 1990s, Davis was a policing superstar, hailed as the best crime solver the Crescent City had ever seen. But a dispute over a paid detail at a festival turned into a major federal case against her, brought by a prosecutor involved whose conduct in other cases was called ‘grotesque.’
Ethan Brown | July 1, 2020
A representative board is needed to check the power of the NYPD and appropriately discipline officers for misconduct, they argue.
Amir Khafagy | June 29, 2020
The city’s clearance rate for murder, whose victims are disproportionately Black, has hovered around 40 percent for the last several years.
Joshua Vaughn | June 25, 2020
Law enforcement super PACs are spending big money on district attorney races and local elections from California to New York—and respected Democratic consulting firms are helping them.
Safe and healthy communities start with less police and more investment in community services that work.
A’Brianna Morgan | June 25, 2020
The Department of Justice is leaving researchers, policymakers, and advocates in the dark about deaths in police custody, prisons, and jails.
Ethan Corey | June 24, 2020
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has hampered the process of installing a police oversight council, activists say, despite making it a major part of her public safety platform during her mayoral run.
Maya Dukmasova | June 23, 2020
For decades, the Court has been carving out generous exceptions and crafting new rules that limit the Miranda warning’s real-world impact.
Jay Willis | June 23, 2020
Two people, arrested and detained in Cincinnati after protesting the police killing of George Floyd, recall being held at the jail, outside, for hours.
Caleb Brennan | June 22, 2020
Protesters and activists have categorically changed the national conversation about public safety. Now they have to figure out how to change public policy.
Ted Alcorn | June 22, 2020
In October 2018, Marshall Miles died at the Sacramento County jail after struggling with deputies. His lawyers say a deposition scheduled for next month will force the sheriff to answer for the in-custody death.
Jerry Iannelli | June 18, 2020
The cuts will defund a controversial gang policing unit and end the city’s policing partnership with TriMet, the regional transit agency.
Jay Willis | June 17, 2020
A lawyer with the state attorney general’s office omitted key evidence in a meeting with the family of Ricky Ball, who Canyon Boykin shot and killed in 2015.
Yes, we must radically transform policing in America. But we cannot stop there. We must transform the pervasive systems of economic and carceral injustice that are choking our common life.
The city wants to give the force an additional $24 million. But the department is still failing to solve crimes, and officers have shot 212 people between 2011 and 2018, killing about half.
Meg O'Connor | June 17, 2020
After families of people killed by police asked the organization to investigate racist American policing, 54 African nations called for a debate on the treatment of Black Americans. The debate will happen today.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | June 17, 2020
District Attorney Rachael Rollins sought to block the disclosure of records that could show Boston police used Snapchat to target people who are Black or Latinx.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 16, 2020
Although the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are both provoked by natural phenomena, the dangers they present are just as political as the crisis of police violence.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò | June 16, 2020
Memos obtained by The Appeal and anecdotes from public defenders reveal how, for a week during protests over police brutality, the NYPD stalled cases by directing officers not to testify in court.
Chris Gelardi | June 12, 2020
Sterling Higgins called 911 in March 2019 seeking help during a mental health crisis. Police took him to Obion County Jail, where he died after officers pinned him to a floor.
Tana Ganeva | June 12, 2020
Essential workers say curfews put them at risk of police violence, even though they were exempt.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 12, 2020
Videos contradict officers’ claims that they didn’t ‘kettle’ protesters.
Jerry Iannelli | June 12, 2020
The New Jersey department received slavish media praise after it was disbanded and reoriented toward community policing. But behind the reformist mask was an embrace of surveillance and broken windows policing.
Brendan McQuade | June 12, 2020
Breonna Taylor was killed nearly three months ago during a no-knock raid. All 26 members of the Metro Council have signed on as co-sponsors to “Breonna’s Law,” which would ban them.
Jay Willis | June 11, 2020
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has asked for the budget increase amid ongoing local and national reports of police violence against protesters.
Ko Bragg | June 11, 2020
Coroners and police departments have cited the condition in cases across the country, often clearing officers of wrongdoing when people die in their custody. In Floyd’s case, experts say, the diagnosis is irrelevant to his death.
Tana Ganeva | June 11, 2020
The country’s homeless population was already struggling to access services during the pandemic.
Kira Lerner | June 10, 2020
The ‘drug house’ ordinances that force landlords to kick out tenants are mostly compounding the overdose crisis, critics say.
Leora Smith | June 9, 2020
Some unions and labor activists are calling for the AFL-CIO to expel police unions.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 8, 2020
Democrats have introduced and reintroduced bills that have languished in the Judiciary Committee, which must approve them before they reach the full House.
Joshua Vaughn | June 8, 2020
The move follows the police killing of George Floyd and more than a week of uprisings, where hundreds of thousands of people around the world have protested against police violence, and abusive police responses to the protests.
Jay Willis | June 7, 2020
Dion Johnson’s family wants answers about the last moments of his life.
Meg O'Connor | June 5, 2020
The use of excessive force against nonwhite communities and people protesting police brutality is further eroding public confidence in policing.
Ellison Berryhill | June 5, 2020
This weekend’s string of errors is just the latest in his career of cruelty.
Jonny Coleman | June 4, 2020
Lawmakers are targeting a statute that has been used as a cudgel to bat away almost any inquiries into police misconduct.
Chris Gelardi | June 4, 2020
The killing of George Floyd demonstrates that incremental police reforms are insufficient in the absence of a comprehensive plan to transform law enforcement and its stated purpose.
David A. Love | June 4, 2020
A president who openly endorses police brutality struggles with a nation rejecting it.
Jay Willis | June 3, 2020
Under the HEROES Act, the Community Oriented Policing Services program would receive $300 million to fund the hiring of more police. Democratic and Republican leaders alike remain committed to the ideology of increased funding, even under the guise of reform.
Ross Barkan | June 3, 2020
State Assembly members, senators, and city council members have said they will decline and donate funds from police and corrections officers as New Yorkers fill the streets to protest recent violence by law enforcement.
Bryce Covert | June 2, 2020
Cops who turn marches against police violence into parades don’t actually want substantial changes to policing.
Derecka Purnell | June 2, 2020
Canyon Boykin was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing Ricky Ball during a traffic stop in 2015.
Ko Bragg | June 1, 2020
More training, more equipment, and more officers will not stop police from killing Black people.
Justin Brooks | June 1, 2020
The city is flouting CDC guidance by continuing to dismantle homeless encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic, though it does not have nearly enough shelter space.
Meg O'Connor | May 28, 2020
On the pretext of conducting ‘transnational gang operations,’ ICE raids have swept up thousands of U.S. citizens.
Simon Davis-Cohen | May 21, 2020
As of April 30, one in three unsheltered people have been arrested in Miami-Dade County since a local state of emergency was declared in March.
Jerry Iannelli | May 7, 2020
As COVID-19 spreads, Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio are slashing budgets, but leaving funding for police and prisons largely untouched.
Ross Barkan | April 30, 2020
On the anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising protests, new evidence in Gray’s death uncovers suppressed witness accounts of police brutality.
Justine Barron | April 23, 2020
The city has created the structural conditions that have engendered disproportionately high rates of infection and death among its Black and Latinx residents.
The current coronavirus crisis underscores our urgent need to look hard at our pretrial justice system. Eliminating money bail is a necessary first step.
Michigan was one of several states requiring registrants to report to local police stations in person despite the risk to public health from coronavirus.
Dawn R. Wolfe | April 9, 2020
Louisville, Kentucky judges are ordering people with COVID-19 who have allegedly defied quarantine to wear GPS ankle monitors, raising ethical questions about the government's role in a pandemic.
Kira Lerner | April 9, 2020
As infections and deaths mount, state leaders and law enforcement are turning to tough-on-crime tactics in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jessica Pishko | April 7, 2020
Decisive action by governors and the President now can save lives -- of incarcerated people, correctional and medical personnel, and nearby community members. Business as usual will not.
In Boston, it’s worse than business as usual at the police department as the pandemic spreads. On a recent day, officers arrested people for charges the district attorney has publicly declined to prosecute.
Will Isenberg | March 24, 2020
One of America’s largest police forces says it’s drastically reducing the number of people it arrests during the coronavirus pandemic.
Jerry Iannelli | March 20, 2020
Sheriffs wield enormous power, and they can direct it in ways that will help contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect incarcerated people.
Jessica Pishko | March 18, 2020
The Metropolitan Police Department has discussed reducing arrests, but it has not formally announced any policy changes.
Jon Campbell | March 18, 2020
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.
Roxanna Asgarian | March 9, 2020
We need to be more critical of the former New York mayor’s outsize influence on the gun control movement.
Alex Clavering | March 3, 2020
Sarah Lustbader | March 3, 2020
The city is ramping up a cleanup program that activists fear will worsen the criminalization of homelessness.
Eliyahu Kamisher | March 3, 2020
Deputies in Orange County wrote false reports about their collection and booking of evidence, according to internal audits kept secret for months.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | February 27, 2020
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.
Aaron Morrison | February 24, 2020
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.
Joshua Vaughn | February 21, 2020
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.
Dawn R. Wolfe | February 21, 2020
As a Black child in San Francisco, I learned early that mine and others’ bodies meant nothing to those supposedly tasked with our protection.
Jamal Trulove | February 19, 2020
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.
Brandon Soderberg | February 13, 2020
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.
Aaron Morrison | February 12, 2020
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.
Aaron Morrison | February 11, 2020
Erick Wallace’s federal civil rights lawsuit joins a long line of litigation and misconduct allegations against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Jerry Iannelli | February 11, 2020
Mistaken identifications have been involved in nearly 70 percent of post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence.
Jay Willis | February 11, 2020
A civil suit claims that an officer who shot a 46-year-old stagehand in Midtown Manhattan should have de-escalated the encounter.
Jon Campbell | February 7, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | February 5, 2020
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.
Roxanna Asgarian | February 4, 2020
Leading with housing status for homeless people is a common trope in the news reporting business and one in urgent need of re-examining.
Adam H. Johnson | January 31, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 29, 2020
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.
Molly Minta | January 28, 2020
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 | January 27, 2020
Activists hope Chesa Boudin will press charges, and push for systemic changes to address the criminalization of mental illness.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | January 22, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 17, 2020
There’s a cynical local-to-national news pipeline designed to mock the powerless under the guise of “odd” news stories.
Adam H. Johnson | January 16, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 15, 2020
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.
Dawn R. Wolfe | January 14, 2020
The move is made possible by a Texas law that legalized the production of hemp last year.
Jay Willis | January 10, 2020
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.
Kira Lerner | January 9, 2020
Logbooks were seized as part of an inquiry into misconduct allegations against high-ranking officers in the division that investigates sex crimes.
Meg O'Connor | January 9, 2020
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.
Aaron Morrison | December 19, 2019
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.
Ali Winston | December 19, 2019
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.
Darwin BondGraham | December 18, 2019
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.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 18, 2019
A City Council Committee considers a bill on NYPD surveillance today.
Ali Winston | December 18, 2019
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.
Zachary A. Siegel | December 17, 2019
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.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 13, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | December 9, 2019
Investing billions of government dollars into programs that embed police in Black communities will not reduce police violence, nor repair years of injustice.
Philip V. McHarris | December 2, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | November 27, 2019
Kyle C. Barry | November 26, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | November 26, 2019
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.
Joshua Vaughn | November 25, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | November 22, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | November 21, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | November 19, 2019
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.
Joshua Vaughn | November 12, 2019
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.
Adam H. Johnson | November 7, 2019
If passed, Question 2 would also allow the board to force police commissioners to provide more insight into disciplinary decisions.
Aaron Morrison | November 5, 2019
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.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | November 5, 2019
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.
Kelly Hayes | November 4, 2019
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.
Meg O'Connor | November 4, 2019
A lawsuit in Los Angeles and a motion in Orange County highlight battles to get key information.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | October 31, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | October 25, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | October 18, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | October 17, 2019
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.
Ali Winston | October 10, 2019
The former Dallas police officer should be held accountable for killing Botham Jean, but sending her to prison does not keep us safe.
Elisabeth Epps | October 7, 2019
The gang database in the state gives police increased authority to approach and harass people for virtually no reason at all.
Emily Galvin-Almanza | October 4, 2019
The Madison County Sheriff’s Department was sued in 2017 for allegedly subjecting Black motorists and pedestrians to unconstitutional stops and searches.
Aaron Morrison | October 3, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | October 3, 2019
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.
Kate Chatfield | October 3, 2019
WJLA’s Kevin Lewis selectively reports on immigrants arrested for sex crimes to paint a misleading picture of violence in Montgomery County.
Adam H. Johnson | October 1, 2019
Vaidya Gullapalli | September 27, 2019
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.
Tori Marlan | September 24, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 19, 2019
In a rare case of local media nuance, a Boston TV news station provided a humane and health-focused segment on safe drug use.
Adam H. Johnson | September 17, 2019
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.
Vaidya Gullapalli | September 16, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 10, 2019
Police are accused of lying to obtain the warrants to conduct military-style raids on the homes of poor people and people of color.
Joshua Vaughn | September 6, 2019
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.
Aaron Morrison | September 5, 2019
Advocates and homeless people are suing Sacramento County over its treatment of homeless—and the city responded by filing a lawsuit against seven men for being a ‘public nuisance.‘
Meg O'Connor | September 4, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 3, 2019
Kansas City news outlets called scores of people ‘violent criminals’ based solely on the word of police and the federal government.
Adam H. Johnson | September 3, 2019
In a civil rights lawsuit, an officer in Allentown claims he was subjected to racial discrimination before he was fired.
Joshua Vaughn | August 29, 2019
Elsewhere in the country, lawsuits and legislation seek to protect people from predatory mugshot sites.
Katie Rose Quandt | August 27, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | August 20, 2019
Police and prosecutors claimed facial recognition technology wasn’t at the center of a shoplifting case, but defense attorneys say it was the sole basis for probable cause to arrest.
Mike Hayes | August 20, 2019
Media coverage obsessively focuses on homicides, which are at historical lows. Meanwhile, suicides and overdoses skyrocket, quietly driving record declines in American life expectancy.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | August 20, 2019
Murder rates are at an all-time low in Brooklyn, but one would hardly know it reading the New York Times.
Adam H. Johnson | August 16, 2019
In Valencia County, a sheriff’s deputy who once faced allegations of excessive force in Albuquerque is accused of assaulting an elderly man.
Joshua Vaughn | August 16, 2019
Heather Marlowe, now an activist, says neglected kits are a reflection of who and what police prioritize.
Raven Rakia | August 15, 2019
Most coverage of police raids targeting homeless people and substance users parroted official—and fraught—talking points.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | August 15, 2019
Children as young as 4 years old are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result, the complaints say.
Lauren Gill | August 14, 2019
A new internal audit shows that officers disproportionately strike, tussle with, and draw guns on Black people but then fail to disclose the incidents in their reports.
Darwin BondGraham | August 12, 2019
A federal lawsuit claims that Palo Alto, California, police falsely detained, arrested, and beat a gay Latinx man—then boasted about their brutality.
Joshua Vaughn | August 8, 2019
The family of Ricardo Treviño, an unarmed 21-year-old killed by police last year, says they’ve spent months waiting for answers on why he was shot.
Aaron Morrison | August 7, 2019
The New Jersey General Assembly unanimously passed a bill to extend qualified immunity to police officers at private colleges and universities.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | August 2, 2019
Current and former mayors were questioned about how they managed their police departments.
Aaron Morrison | August 1, 2019
Dozens of reports about an indigent man in Bradenton, Florida, showed the cruel excesses of local news’s homelessness coverage.
Adam H. Johnson | July 31, 2019
The Crescent City is in the final stages of a multimillion-dollar federal police reform process. Here‘s why it and other programs like it fail to achieve real reform.
Matthew Nesvet | July 30, 2019
Three Bronx friends recount their 2012 arrests in the NYPD’s ‘Operation Crew Cut,’ along with their experiences with the court system and incarceration, and reflect on their lives seven years later.
Olivia Heffernan | July 30, 2019
In California, Texas and Florida, advocates sent letters to district attorneys, demanding that they refuse to work with officers with histories of misconduct.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | July 29, 2019
A new effort to reduce arrests and summonses is criticized as continuing to criminalize homelessness.
Raven Rakia | July 26, 2019
Offices across the state conduct operations under the guise of saving victims of human trafficking. But the vast majority of people detained, including sex workers, are charged with prostitution.
Molly Minta | July 25, 2019
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, Florida, is one of the state’s most controversial lawmen.
Jessica Pishko | July 23, 2019
For far too long, the press has leaned on wrong-headed tough-on-crime officials like the former NYPD commissioner when reporting on the criminal legal system.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | July 22, 2019
A Shippensburg man faces 15 years on the sex offense registry for offering a girl a ride.
Joshua Vaughn | July 17, 2019
A California Superior Court ruling gives officers accused of misconduct access to investigator notes and files while cases are in progress.
Darwin BondGraham | July 17, 2019
Sensational and false news reports about the drug are pushing lawmakers to enact harmful policies.
Expert reports in a 2017 federal lawsuit explore an alleged pattern of discrimination against men perceived to be gay.
Kira Lerner | July 12, 2019
Louis Ackal has said he isn’t seeking re-election. But advocates fear that may not be enough to bring change.
Jessica Pishko | July 8, 2019
ABC News claims anti-police violence is on the rise but offers no data.
Adam H. Johnson | July 2, 2019
The accusations span decades and involve two separate Biddeford cops and at least seven alleged victims.
Roxanna Asgarian | July 1, 2019
Brandi Courtesis lost her job with the Gettysburg force after saying a colleague sexually harassed her. The accused, fired for another reason, may be back in uniform soon.
Joshua Vaughn | June 27, 2019
Reality shows like ‘The First 48,’ ‘Live PD,’ and ‘Cops’ are interfering in legal cases, exploiting people of color, and threatening lives.
Adam H. Johnson | June 24, 2019
The police union’s newly elected vice president led the investigation into the shooting that cleared Officer William Gourley of any wrongdoing.
Darwin BondGraham | June 21, 2019
The California county has a thin blue line that appears to protect not just the police, but also the DA’s office, criminal justice advocates say.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 19, 2019
Jose Montelongo-Morales challenged the jail’s immigration detainer policy. He and some of his family members were arrested months later.
Lauren Gill | June 18, 2019
Thanks to the diligence of one assistant state attorney, 119 cases were thrown out and the officer is under state investigation.
Katie Rose Quandt | June 17, 2019
The popularity of Axon’s tech soared after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, but it may be doing more harm than good in protecting people from excessive force.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | June 10, 2019
Vaidya Gullapalli | June 10, 2019
The sensationalist coverage of a handful of fights highlights local media’s misplaced priorities.
Adam H. Johnson | June 7, 2019
City officials say its vast network of cameras are simply a tool when responding to 911 calls and complaints of criminal activity. But several cases suggest the system serves an additional purpose.
Mike Hayes | June 3, 2019
In Pennsylvania, mothers are harshly penalized for leaving children unattended in vehicles, even for several minutes.
Joshua Vaughn | May 30, 2019
Chicago hands out millions in settlements and legal fees for police misconduct. Its newly inaugurated mayor should take a dollar from the department’s budget for every dollar the city spends settling with its victims.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | May 29, 2019
Newly released records show that task force members faced allegations of theft and questionable overtime, all under the watch of a commander later fired for lying as the misconduct was investigated.
Darwin BondGraham | May 23, 2019
Trooper testimony inconsistent with video and misconduct among state and local law enforcement in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have caused at least 15 drug cases to unravel.
Zachary A. Siegel | May 20, 2019
A former Baltimore officer says the Hopkins plan should be viewed skeptically because campus police have a history of deadly force and its officials come from troubled Baltimore Police units.
Larry Smith | May 16, 2019
Instead of building ‘humane jails’ to replace Rikers Island, let’s push the NYPD to cut down on arrests.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | May 15, 2019
New York City just paid Jose LaSalle of the Copwatch Patrol Unit nearly $900,000 over claims of false arrest related to the 2016 incident, but his fight for justice is far from over.
Ashoka Jegroo | May 9, 2019
In a case of mistaken identity, Jada Noone was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police, spent 15 days in jail and faced a felony drug case before charges were dismissed. She’s now suing over her false arrest.
Joshua Vaughn | May 7, 2019
The fatal shooting by Oakland police of an unconscious man as he woke is putting pressure on the California department to rethink its deployment of force.
Darwin BondGraham | May 2, 2019
Videos and audio posted by the group and its supporters on social media raise questions about the agency’s role.
Debbie Nathan | April 29, 2019
Advocates are pushing to abolish the office in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Jessica Pishko | April 24, 2019
After a drug bust involving Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines turned deadly, questions are being raised about how he operated during his time on the force.
Mike Hayes | April 23, 2019
New NYPD data show that in 2018 the department closed nearly 500 rape cases due to an alleged lack of participation from victims and had a declining clearance rate for rape, raising questions over its handling of sexual assault.
Meg O'Connor | April 23, 2019
A new documentary explores the notorious ‘Bronx 120’ raid—and what it says about the evolution of policing in New York City.
Simon Davis-Cohen | April 18, 2019
Police union lawsuits delayed many local governments from complying with a new transparency law. In the meantime, some cities have destroyed files.
Darwin BondGraham | April 17, 2019
In September, Marcus Smith experienced a mental health crisis and begged Greensboro, North Carolina police for help. Instead, they tied him with restraints. Moments later, his body went lifeless.
William C. Anderson | April 9, 2019
Attorneys for a man exonerated in a Baltimore murder say detectives suppressed exculpatory evidence and that the police’s homicide unit has a pattern and practice of similar conduct in decades of cases.
Amelia McDonell-Parry | April 2, 2019
Banishing people from the subway will only marginalize them without addressing the problem.
Guy Hamilton-Smith | April 1, 2019
Andrew Mitchell, a former officer in Ohio who was recently indicted on charges he kidnapped women and forced them to have sex for their freedom, will soon face a grand jury for killing Donna Dalton during a prostitution arrest.
Melissa Gira Grant | March 28, 2019
A scandal of falsified drug arrests is spreading at a Florida sheriff’s office that has also spent more than $1.33 million settling excessive force lawsuits and is at the center of the increasingly troubled Robert Kraft case.
Meg O'Connor | March 26, 2019
Their claims are part of a federal lawsuit; other women say they, too, were assaulted and the officer now faces a raft of criminal charges.
Joshua Vaughn | March 19, 2019
In 2017, over 2,000 homeless people were arrested on charges including drinking in public and panhandling. That same year, roughly 1,400 people were arrested in Miami-Dade County for rape, murder, and robbery.
Meg O'Connor | March 18, 2019
Critics say New York’s new interrogation recording law falls short.
Curtis Stephen | March 14, 2019
In 2009, Anaheim police shot and killed Theresa Smith’s son. A new California law promises police transparency, but her quest for answers faces a substantial cost.
Aaron Morrison | March 13, 2019
Attorneys representing the arrestees in Cartersville, Georgia, say they were mistreated in jail, lost jobs, and endured public humiliation.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | March 11, 2019
New bills would expand access to medical marijuana, but the state's sheriffs' association promises to fight even such modest legislation.
Michael Arria | March 4, 2019
In April 2018, Herman Bell was paroled after spending 45 years in prison in a case involving the shooting deaths of two police officers. Now, New York police unions and the widow of one of the slain officers are challenging the decision in court.
Victoria Law | February 26, 2019
Jason Van Dyke’s sentence for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald is approximately half the average sentence for a person convicted of second-degree murder in Cook County, Illinois.
Rob Arthur | February 25, 2019
A new coalition of people in the sex trades wants New York to become the first state to fully decriminalize their work.
Melissa Gira Grant | February 25, 2019
Claims including sexual assault of a woman with mental illness to lying in reports haunt the Miami Gardens police; payouts in federal lawsuits have cost the city's taxpayers at least $3.5 million.
Meg O'Connor | February 21, 2019
Since Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s 2017 election, at least five people have died at the hands of the law enforcement in Mississippi’s capital city.
Ko Bragg | February 20, 2019
Senate Bill 1421 requires law enforcement agencies to make public investigative records of officer-involved shootings and uses of force resulting in great bodily harm. But law enforcement unions argue that the law threatens the privacy of their members.
Darwin BondGraham | February 20, 2019
Lexipol, a private for-profit company, has quietly become one of the most powerful voices in law enforcement policymaking in the country.
Scott Morris | February 13, 2019
A former Baltimore Police officer says it’s time for the department to stop wasteful, harmful marijuana arrests, especially after Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s announcement that her office would not prosecute cases of possession.
Larry Smith | February 11, 2019
‘There were explosions everywhere ... I had no idea who was in the house.’
Jessica Pishko | February 5, 2019
Advocates say the case hasn’t been handled fairly and there’s little hope for justice.
Melissa Gira Grant | February 1, 2019
In October 2018, Marshall Miles was taken into custody by Sacramento County sheriff‘s deputies outside a convenience store. About 14 hours later, he was dead.
Aaron Morrison | January 31, 2019
People who view body cam footage of an incident are less likely to attribute blame to a police officer than those who see the same incident through the lens of a dashboard camera.
Nicole Wetsman | January 29, 2019
She is suing the Division of Human Rights for saying it’s not authorized to investigate her complaint.
Emma Whitford | January 22, 2019
Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed decriminalization legislation that advocates say would curb the discriminatory policing tactics associated with fare evasion enforcement. Today, the D.C. City Council will decide if it will override her veto.
Ella Fassler | January 22, 2019
A new proposal to abolish small police forces seeks to end the cycle of debt and incarceration.
Teresa Mathew | January 18, 2019
The records raise questions about the department’s compliance with its protest monitoring rules.
George Joseph | January 17, 2019
Alex Berenson says he’s concerned there’s not enough research into cannabis risks, but his misleading arguments set scientists back.
Cherie Townsend is suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after she says they falsely imprisoned her for murder and destroyed her reputation.
Raven Rakia | January 11, 2019
The decision also held that the city’s routine storage of DNA profiles from nonconvicted people in a permanent database violates state law.
George Joseph | January 10, 2019
The president is drawing on two decades of bipartisan support for crackdowns on traffickers to secure support for his agenda at the border.
More states are giving undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses, but many DMVs are sharing their information with ICE.
Debbie Nathan | December 21, 2018
A ban on dancers under 21 raises questions on the growing role of the state's Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control in policing clubs.
Melissa Gira Grant | December 21, 2018
The officers were part of the department's Street Crimes Unit, known among residents for its aggressive patrols.
Officer Sheehan Miles of the Trenton Police Department had 43 force encounters between 2012 and 2016, according to a new database.
George Joseph | December 19, 2018
Advocates say victims are being pressured to sign ‘withdrawal’ forms to quickly close investigations and protect the department from legal liability.
Meg O'Connor | December 17, 2018
Officers say the language used now is more subtle but still encourages numbers-driven policing.
George Joseph | December 12, 2018
SB 4 encourages officers to ask for the status of anyone they detain.
Debbie Nathan | December 10, 2018
Advocates say the city has dragged its feet on legislation meant to ensure transparency on the police practice, and that data released so far—from 2010 to 2016, nearly 82 percent of stops involved Black people—signals that it’s time to end stop-and-frisk entirely.
Ella Fassler | December 3, 2018
Attorneys for a Honduran woman are suing over the widespread jailhouse practice of honoring ICE requests to hold incarcerated immigrants for pickup.
Debbie Nathan | December 3, 2018
A notoriously unreliable roadside drug test administered by Monroe County sheriff's deputies led to Dasha Fincher being charged with methamphetamine trafficking.
Lauren Gill | November 27, 2018
Baton Rouge residents say little has changed after Alton Sterling.
Even though it’s unlikely that they commit sexual assault at higher rates than other ethnic or racial groups, nearly one of every 100 Black men is on a sex offender registry, a rate double that of white men.
Debbie Nathan | November 15, 2018
Supporters hope the passage of Prop C may herald a more compassionate—and effective—approach.
Melissa Gira Grant | November 15, 2018
The city’s experiment with civil asset forfeiture was supposed to end, but the practices of its parking agency and some in state law enforcement suggest that police may be turning to other forms of property confiscation.
Ryan Briggs | November 14, 2018
Then he ordered another officer to arrest the man.
George Joseph | November 13, 2018
In internal documents obtained by The Appeal, the vice unit’s supervisor admits no specific complaints were lodged against Daniels or the club before the police took action.
George Joseph | November 12, 2018
In Travis County, detectives refused training that would have helped them interview victims of trauma.
Kira Lerner | November 9, 2018
In response, a new ‘Freedom Cities’ movement is rising to defend immigrants’ rights.
Debbie Nathan | November 9, 2018
Local allies of the Trump administration fought challengers over immigration policy.
Daniel Nichanian | November 8, 2018
Advocates say that Sheriff Donnie Harrison is unfit for a fifth term because of such abusive practices as well as his office's cooperation with ICE.
George Joseph | November 2, 2018
Advocates say these charges endanger sex workers and urge the police to stop using them.
Melissa Gira Grant | October 31, 2018
Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins seeks a fourth term as critics blast him for a record that includes poor jail conditions, in-custody suicides, and the deaths of two young people at the hands of his deputies.
Raven Rakia | October 31, 2018
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.
Mike Faulk | October 30, 2018
Dismal police accountability has made communities vulnerable to private vendors.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office stands accused of violating immigrants’ rights and dismissing a shocking number of jail deaths.
George Joseph | October 23, 2018
Opposition to Operation Stonegarden, however, is spreading; one Arizona county just rejected over $1 million of its funds.
Debbie Nathan | October 22, 2018
Experts say playing up the risk of sex trafficking fuels anxiety and criminalization.
Melissa Gira Grant | October 19, 2018
The Strategic Response Group was created for counter-terrorism but it's involved in everything from Broken Windows policing to suppressing protest.
Ashoka Jegroo | October 19, 2018
A new report details Alabama’s “War on Marijuana” ahead of a key DA election.
George Joseph | October 18, 2018
If his conviction stands, it could criminalize people who refuse to do things like unlock their phones or garages at police request.
Levi Pulkkinen | October 17, 2018
Campus police forces have become more professionalized, but critics say they operate behind a veil of secrecy and often exceed their jurisdiction.
Ryan Briggs | October 15, 2018
With writer Kelly Hayes.
Adam H. Johnson | October 11, 2018
Established to track anyone convicted of a gun-related offense, the registry has proved to be both racist and ineffective in reducing gun violence.
Larry Smith | October 9, 2018
The women, who were arrested alongside Stormy Daniels in July, allege that they were smeared by arresting officers, but they’re just the latest to raise concerns.
Melissa Gira Grant | October 5, 2018
About 51 percent of the people charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana in Allegheny County are Black.
Joshua Vaughn | October 3, 2018
Lawyer seeks end to Halloween restrictions that target people convicted of sex offenses.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | October 1, 2018
A lawsuit brought by a Compton resident detailing an alleged beating by deputies is just one of nearly three dozen federal civil rights lawsuits alleging brutality and racial bias at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Two new reports challenge the efficacy and ethics of prostitution diversion programs in New York City and nationwide.
Melissa Gira Grant | September 21, 2018
This fall, however, an initiative goes to voters that would change the law on deadly force by the police, which has led to no officer there being convicted of wrongfully killing someone in the line of duty in more than 30 years.
Mike Faulk | September 20, 2018
The exceptions to the policy change could actually worsen the racial disparities in marijuana-related arrests, defense attorneys told The Appeal.
Raven Rakia | September 17, 2018
Rep. John Becker doubles down on his recent comments about the tasing of an 11-year-old for allegedly shoplifting.
Melissa Gira Grant | September 14, 2018
Between 2001 and 2017, the department justified officers in 99 percent of use-of-force cases, according to data released through a public records request.
Jeffery Parker was shot to death by a police officer in his Huntsville home. A grand jury handed up an indictment for murder, but the mayor and City Council appear to be throwing their support behind the officer.
Lauren Gill | September 10, 2018
State Senate candidate Julia Salazar explains how sex workers’ rights is a key part of reforming criminal justice in New York.
Melissa Gira Grant | September 7, 2018
Community outrage mounts over Officer Andrew Mitchell’s killing of Dalton during an attempted prostitution arrest.
Melissa Gira Grant | August 30, 2018
An 11-month prosecution of a ‘forcible touching’ case in Manhattan sharply diverges from the office’s treatment of Harvey Weinstein, defense attorneys say.
Off-duty law enforcement officers are using state resources to work side jobs for the pipeline company.
Karen Savage | August 28, 2018
Critics say the Berkeley Police Department’s unusual practice of posting anti-fascist protesters’ mugshots on Twitter endangers activists and violates free speech rights.
Scott Morris | August 24, 2018
After the Gun Trace Task Force scandal rocked the police department, plainclothes policing was spurned. But a recently resigned commissioner championed plainclothes units, a decision the department seems to be sticking with.
Larry Smith | August 22, 2018
Local advocates are struggling with a new immigration memo that makes it more difficult to support these survivors.
Melissa Gira Grant | August 22, 2018
A bill introduced in the state would require all chronic pain patients to enter into an agreement with their doctor before being prescribed opioid medication for the first time.
Joshua Vaughn | August 17, 2018
A former Baltimore cop questions how a department with a nearly half-billion-dollar budget that is riven by rampant corruption and brutality, bloated overtime spending, and unaccounted for patrol officers can continue to justify its existence
Larry Smith | August 15, 2018
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.
George Joseph | August 13, 2018
Grassroots group VOCAL-NY is teaching people with substance use disorder how to avoid getting ensnared in the criminal justice system.
Christopher Moraff | August 9, 2018
In the wake of Nia Wilson’s murder, it’s critical that calls for justice in response to anti-Black violence are not contingent upon appeals to white-approved notions of innocence and respectability.
Zoé Samudzi | August 8, 2018
New records obtained by the Appeal show the account seems to have been monitoring Black Lives Matter activists for years.
George Joseph | August 2, 2018
A community group met with the Bastrop County sheriff in an effort to build trust between the sheriff’s office and the immigrant community. Then, the sheriff ran a sting that led to more than one dozen arrestees being handed over to ICE.
Michael Arria | July 31, 2018
Faya Rose Touré, a 73-year-old former judge, says she’s determined to fight the charges against her.
Lauren Gill | July 30, 2018
Police appear to have used a fake Facebook account to 'friend' activists and archive who 'liked' their posts.
George Joseph | July 27, 2018
Groups like the Loop and DanceSafe test drugs like Ecstasy and warn users of high dosages and adulterants, but federal legislation from the early 2000s has live music promoters wary of their brand of harm reduction.
Zachary A. Siegel | July 25, 2018