Senate Bill 136 would repeal one of California’s most frequently used sentence enhancements, which gives judges the discretion to add a year to a felony sentence for every prior felony prison or jail term.
How high or low bond is isn’t a measure of how severe the state considers a crime.
The intense interest in conditions at MCC after Jeffrey Epstein’s death was preceded by years when little was done to address restrictions so oppressive one observer described them as “diabolical.” Why do Americans allow brutality, even torture, to go unchecked?
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. The ironies of the Trump administration can seem to pile up, beginning with his campaign against elitism and corruption, and including the first lady’s pet project combating online […]
The 2020 presidential candidates recently unveiled national criminal justice agendas that reimagine public safety and punishment.
A lawsuit is challenging Mohave County’s practice of charging certain people for mandatory GPS monitoring before trial.
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. This week, the two most progressive frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, added their criminal justice proposals to the pile. They […]
In 1998, prosecutors failed to tell the defense that a key witness in Toforest Johnson’s capital murder trial would receive thousands of dollars in reward money for her testimony, Johnson’s attorneys say. Now a Birmingham judge must decide whether their argument has merit.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics relies in part on states to self-report prison capacity numbers, which can result in a misleading snapshot of overcrowding in the U.S.
Forty-three elected local prosecutors filed an amicus brief last week in support of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office’s Conviction Integrity Unit’s work in the case of Lamar Johnson.
Assemblymember Jim Cooper is pushing to roll back changes that have successfully reduced incarceration.
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. When Jeffrey Epstein died in a federal jail, the attorney general was, as he tells it, “appalled” and “frankly angry to learn of the MCC’s failure to adequately […]
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors votes to cancel contract to build Mental Health Treatment Center in place of Men’s Central Jail
In the wake of the Dayton shooting, Gov. Mike DeWine proposed creating more space in psychiatric hospitals by removing some people who are court-ordered to be there.
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. No aspect of the Trump presidency has prompted the level of outrage, ire, frustration, devastation, and desperation as his treatment of people who did not happen to […]
The same culture exists across the country, experts say—with devastating effects.
Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent death by suicide highlights the problems of adequate mental health care and monitoring in jails nationwide.
Nearly 380 people remain in custody after ICE raids in Mississippi Wednesday. They are likely to be held in immigration detention in Louisiana, far from their families and access to legal counsel.
The New York Times’s coverage of the one-off case of a 77-year-old man omits key facts about how older adults are treated by our punitive legal system.
Black Lives Matter and other advocates have pushed county officials to abandon the $2.2 billion project with McCarthy Builders.
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 week, San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan reported that a 57-year-old man has become the first person freed under a new law that lets prosecutors review […]
In Cook County, Illinois, 99 percent of defendants deemed ‘high risk’ for pretrial violence don’t reoffend.
The American Correctional Association has granted accreditation to includes detention centers, prisons, and jails where people are held in horrific conditions.
Richard Kinder thought he would die in an Alabama prison until the Supreme Court ruled mandatory juvenile life without parole unconstitutional. But last year, despite a judge concluding there was “uncontradicted evidence” that Kinder had worked to rehabilitate himself, the state parole board refused him release.
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 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 people, many of them teenagers attending a Labor Party meeting. He said the murders were justified because his victims embraced multiculturalism, […]
Gloria Williams was in her 20s when she was sent to prison for her part in a robbery that turned deadly. After serving nearly five decades, including one decade in solitary confinement, Williams now has a chance at freedom.
A new report shows that a progressive approach, like the one advanced by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, can help decrease jail populations—and crime.
In 2016, Madison Jensen died from opiate withdrawal at the Duchesne County jail. New court filings allege that jail staff, including its nurse, ignored her rapidly deteriorating health.
Recent legal victories have spurred counties and states to provide medication-assisted treatment to prisoners struggling with substance use.
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. Nearly 20 million people in the United States are estimated to have felony convictions. This makes up approximately 8 percent of all adults and a full third […]
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. For years, civil rights organizations have litigated cases on prison systems’ failures to respect the rights of Muslim plaintiffs to practice their faith. In a report published […]
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.
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. This week, The Advocate reported on the case of Gloria Williams, also known as Mama Glo, and her win before the pardon board. Williams has been in […]
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. Over the weekend, much of the United States experienced a heat wave. In The Atlantic last week, Robinson Meyer described what was coming as “a vast blanket of […]
Editor’s Note: The Daily Appeal is occasionally examining the 2020 presidential contenders’ records, platforms, and rhetoric on issues relating to criminal justice. You can find past installments here. An article by Campbell Robertson in the New York Times today looks at the case of Angelo Robinson, in prison in Ohio since 1997 for the murder of […]
The carceral system fails to heal victims and perpetuates trauma by caging human beings. It‘s time to try something else.
Since the state’s public safety realignment in 2011, sheriffs have used criminal legal reform as a scapegoat for their failure to maintain safe jails—and recent reporting has given county officials a free pass to make that excuse.
Four transgender women say clinicians and staff deny them gender-affirming care and see their identity as in conflict with sex offender treatment.
Last week, FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) launched a campaign, calling on state and federal lawmakers to visit a prison, jail, or juvenile detention facility in the next 12 months. The challenge highlights the fact that although legislators make the laws governing when people can be sent to jail or prison, and for how long; […]
Outlets ran over 200 articles covering the vandalism. The outsize attention will likely damage young lives.