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 […]
Two United State Senators have proposed reforming money bail as a way to lower the incarceration rate in the country. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) are co-sponsoring the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act, which would “encourage states to reform or replace the bail system.” The U.S. Department of Justice would provide grants […]
On January 16, Markcus Brown was on his way to a job interview when he was approached by a police officer at one of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) hubs in Dayton, Ohio. Standing next to friends wearing baggy pants and sweatshirts, Brown was asked to show his identification. After declining the request, he was […]
There’s a story the mainstream media trumpets most loudly when it comes to parole, and it’s a frightening one: A violent criminal is released from prison, and within weeks or months of their release, a heinous, tragic crime is committed again. The lesson this story teaches the public is toxic, and largely inaccurate. When the only stories of […]
Cuyahoga County prosecutor Michael O’Malley attempted to try a 15-year-old boy accused of murder as an adult. The child was accused of shooting 16-year-old Alexander Mullins in an abandoned building in Cleveland’s Slavic Village. O’Malley’s effort to try the child in adult court was rejected by Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd, who found that the […]
That’s what officers told then 17-year-old Gerome Moore when they interrogated him following the 2015 shooting of Carolyn Temple. Moore ultimately confessed to driving the getaway car for two friends who robbed and shot Temple in her boyfriend’s driveway; she died a week later from the gunshot wound.
A new report shows that the number of people locked up in rural jails has continued to significantly increase, making it difficult to decrease the total number of people locked up in the United States.