The five states that have done away with commercial bond outlets still struggle with inequity when it comes to cash bail.

Case called an “embarrassment to criminal justice system.”

A new project chronicles the myriad alternative visions of justice taking place in the U.S. and Canada.

A new app seeks to liberate people from more than “liberal malaise.”

Hip-hop artist Meek Mill was named one of the 100 most influential Philadelphians by Philadelphia Magazine. However, rather than his music, his recent prison sentence is what has garnered the spotlight, helping to focus attention on the problems of our criminal justice system, specifically the issue of court supervision in Pennsylvania and its impact on […]

With the Department of Justice targeting national gangs like MS-13, the Trump administration has declared a war on national gangs. “MS-13 members brutally rape, rob, extort and murder,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the International Association of Chiefs of Police at a conferencein Philadelphia in late October. “Just like we took Al Capone off the streets […]

The landslide election of Phil Murphy to be the new governor of New Jersey is likely to put the Garden State at the forefront of criminal justice reforms in the United States.

On October 30th, the State Department announced that passports of people who are required to register as sex offenders because of an offense involving a minor will be marked with a “unique identifier” that will read: The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to […]

In response to a surging overdose crisis, prosecutors are doubling down on draconian drug induced homicide statutes. On November 28, 2014, 28-year-old Edward Martin was found dead inside a Quiznos bathroom in Littleton, New Hampshire. Next to his body was a syringe and spoon with which he used to inject a potent batch of heroin […]

On Labor Day 2017, Giovanni Jerry Reid of Philadelphia was released from Graterford Prison in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He had served 26 years of a life sentence without possibility of parole, imposed when he was only 16 years old. On that warm, sunny morning, as he took his very first steps as a free adult, […]

On October 19th, a few dozen public defenders and grassroots activists showed up outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to rip the reformer mask off of one of America’s most well-known prosecutors.

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

New Jersey has become a national leader in criminal justice reform, particularly around the hot button issue of requiring cash bail. When it passed the Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act last year, it became one of only three locations in the United States that have virtually eliminated bail as a condition for release when someone is charged with a crime. Yet the state literally stumbled into these efforts, almost by accident, in 2012.

Talk of bail reform in Nashville is getting an assist from recently released data showing that the majority of individuals arrested for misdemeanors remain in jail until their cases are concluded.

Alameda and Santa Clara County jail detainees round out the first week of a hunger strike for better conditions.

At a press conference on October 5th, Sheriff Steve Prator of Caddo Parish, Louisiana decried the state’s new policy that would lead to the release of some prisoners in the upcoming months. Sheriff Prator’s comments that the reforms would contribute to the release of “good” prisoners as well as “bad ones” have been roundly critiqued for “evoking […]

A 2-year-old child is in danger of dying because his father is not being allowed to donate a kidney to his son because of the dad’s criminal history. A.J. Dickerson was born without kidneys and his father, Anthony Dickerson, is a perfect match. But Emory Hospital in Atlanta delayed the transplant after Anthony Dickerson was thrown in […]

Here’s more information on why bail reform is so important (by Jessica Pishko) Kalief Browder, 16-years-old at the time of his arrest, was held on Rikers Island for three years because he could not afford to post bail. Browder was accused of stealing a backpack. When he refused to plead guilty, and instead continued to profess his […]

Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. Our focus today is on juvenile life without parole sentences. Yesterday, California became the 20th state to ban JLWOP. Washington could become the next state to eliminate JLWOP, as the question of […]

Last month, Massachusetts criminal defense lawyers filed suit seeking an extraordinary measure of relief: dismissal en masse of thousands of drug convictions, with prejudice — meaning that prosecutors would forever be barred from retrying the defendants. The circumstances giving rise to the request were, at first glance, equally extraordinary. First, there was the revelation in 2013 that Massachusetts state […]

Memphis critic says Juvenile Court Judge’s resistance to reforms has ‘emasculated’ Department of Justice

(This article is cross-posted from the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange blog) When I was 17, I accepted a plea agreement and 25-year prison sentence to avoid the likelihood of spending the rest of my life in prison. I had been involved in the death of another person. Prosecutors initially charged me with first-degree murder and aggravated robbery […]

Two prominent Jacksonville civil rights attorneys are challenging bail practices for misdemeanor charges in Northeast Florida’s 4th Judicial Circuit. Attorneys William Sheppard and Elizabeth White argue that current practices unfairly punish those unable to afford bail. The lawsuit maintains that judges in the 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, don’t inquire as […]

John Valerio shows that violent offenders can change.

A district attorney wants to solve crime by breaking up families.

The price of shoplifting at Wal-Mart isn’t always low.

On August 13th, corrections officers at Portland, Oregon’s jail found 37-year-old Dee Glassmann dead in her cell during their routine morning “wake up” call. If you’re wondering what happened, you’re not alone: Multnomah County officials won’t release any information about the circumstances of her death for up to eight more weeks, when her toxicology report will be […]

Being trapped results in physical experiences beyond those caused by the immediate environs in which you are stuck. You feel it in your muscles, in your chest, in your throat and in your stomach. It is, to say the least, uncomfortable. While I can’t claim to have ever been thrown behind bars, with no good […]

The policy making body of the American Bar Association has approved multiple resolutions calling for a major reform of bail, an end to locking juveniles up in solitary confinement, and an end to mandatory minimum sentences. The resolutions put the ABA, a voluntary professional association with over 400,000 members, in line with what many criminal justice reform […]

71-year-old Henry Montgomery has been in prison for over 50 years for his role in the shooting death of East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy Charles Hurt. But he now has a chance to see the free world. The petitioner in the U.S. Supreme Court case Montgomery v. Louisiana, which gave hope to thousands of people who thought they […]

If someone commits a crime days after turning 18, should he be treated like an adult or a child? In two recent cases — Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana — the U.S. Supreme Court held that life-without-parole should be reserved for the rare kid (defined as someone under 18) “whose crime reflects irreparable corruption,” citing the ability of youth […]

A lawsuit filed against the city of Louisville by a man exonerated after serving 14 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit will go forward. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson ruled that the man, Kerry Porter, had “compelling evidence” that police possessed information that someone else, Juan Leotis Sanders, had murdered truck driver Tyrone Camp— […]

There is widespread agreement that the bail system is broken. Millions of people annually sit in local jails without conviction because they cannot afford bail, and 75% of pretrial detainees have been charged only with drug or property crimes. The effect is that bail needlessly causes people to lose their jobs, not be able to care for […]

Anthony Huff tragically died in the Garfield County Jail in Oklahoma last year, after staff restrained him in a chair and failed to hydrate and feed him for two days, according to court documents unsealed and released to the public on July 25. But in a rare move, prosecutors in the state decided to hold the […]

Throughout his life, Nick has battled mental illness and an addiction to crack cocaine. He was convicted three times in the 1990’s for offenses that are characteristic of someone struggling with addiction, and served more than four years in a Washington State prison. But despite his fierce desire to remain sober and gainfully employed since […]

A 22-year-old Baton Rouge man sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when he was a juvenile will now have a chance to get out of prison after the Louisiana Supreme Court held that his sentence is unconstitutional. Thayer Green was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after he was arrested […]

A 22-year-old Baton Rouge man sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when he was a juvenile will now have a chance to get out of prison after the Louisiana Supreme Court held that his sentence is unconstitutional. Thayer Green was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after he was arrested […]

On July 17th, a judge in Chicago ruled that courts there could no longer hold people in jail on bail simply because they could not afford it. This is the latest in a series of judicial and legislative actions designed to reform the cash bail system that has come under increasing scrutiny in the wake […]

There is widespread agreement that the bail system is broken. Millions of people annually sit in local jails without conviction because they cannot afford bail, and 75% of pretrial detainees have been charged only with drug or property crimes. The effect is that bail needlessly causes people to lose their jobs, not be able to care for […]

Over the past decade, the U.S. embarked on an unprecedented jail and prison building campaign, reaching a peak of 2.3 million people incarcerated in adult facilities in 2008. While this meteoric rise of mass imprisonment has been increasingly scrutinized, it is less well known that the number of individuals under supervision on community supervision rose […]