Seek Justice

Links Securing Justice: Reforming Our Criminal Legal System Summary Page 2000 Winning Essay by Peter Buttigieg – Bernie Sanders (JFK Library) Pete Buttigieg has been criticized for his handling of policing. He hopes his criminal justice plan will change that. (Vox) Buttigieg Raised $19.1 Million in Third Quarter, Campaign Says (Yahoo News)

Links Kamala’s Plan to Transform the Criminal Justice System and Re-envision Public Safety in America [Joe Biden] was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 at the age of 29, becoming the fifth youngest senator in history. – Britannica How Kamala Harris’ death penalty decisions broke hearts on both sides (CNN) Kamala Harris Touts Her Opposition to the Death Penalty. Her Track Record’s More Complicated (Mother Jones) Kamala Harris’s criminal justice reform plan, explained (Vox) Kamala Harris, Progressive Prosecutor? (On The Media, NPR) Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ (New York Times)

Links The Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice SAFE Justice Act (Bobby Scott) The Reverse Incarceration Act (The Brennan Center) Decriminalization Versus Legalization of Marijuana (Thought Co.)

Links Rethinking Public Safety to Reduce Mass Incarceration and Strengthen Communities (Team Warren) The United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but nearly 20% of the world’s prison population. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with over 2 million people in prison and jail. Our system is the result of the dozens of choices we’ve made — choices that together stack the deck against the poor and the disadvantaged. Simply put, we have criminalized too many things. We send too many people to jail. We keep them there for too long. We do little to rehabilitate them. We spend billions, propping up an entire industry that profits from mass incarceration. And we do all of this despite little evidence that our harshly punitive system makes our communities safer — and knowing that a majority of people currently in prison will eventually return to our communities and our neighborhoods. The federal government oversees just 12% of the incarcerated population (PDF) (Bureau of Justice S

Links Rethinking Public Safety to Reduce Mass Incarceration and Strengthen Communities (Team Warren) The United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but nearly 20% of the world’s prison population. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with over 2 million people in prison and jail. Our system is the result of the dozens of choices we’ve made — choices that together stack the deck against the poor and the disadvantaged. Simply put, we have criminalized too many things. We send too many people to jail. We keep them there for too long. We do little to rehabilitate them. We spend billions, propping up an entire industry that profits from mass incarceration. And we do all of this despite little evidence that our harshly punitive system makes our communities safer — and knowing that a majority of people currently in prison will eventually return to our communities and our neighborhoods. Debtors’ Prisons, Then and Now: FAQ (The Marshall Project) Dispelling Myths About Poverty (Equal J

Links Bernie Sanders – Justice and Safety For All (Bernie Sanders) For most of our history as a country, the United States incarcerated people at about the same rates as other western democracies do today. In the early 1970s we had the same low crime rate as today, but we now have an incarceration rate five times higher. Indeed, America is now the world’s leading jailer. We lock up more than 2 million people in America, which is more of our own people than any country on Earth. And that does not include another 5 million people who are under the supervision of the correctional system. Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people in America have not been convicted of a crime and are solely in jail because they can’t afford their bail. We are criminalizing poverty. Second Chance Act (2007) (Wikipedia) 14-year-old to be tried as an adult in killing of 16-year-old (Baltimore Sun) 14-year-old charged as an adult for the rape and murder of an 83-year-old woman (USA Today) Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Confinin

Links Bernie Sanders – Justice and Safety For All (Bernie Sanders) For most of our history as a country, the United States incarcerated people at about the same rates as other western democracies do today. In the early 1970s we had the same low crime rate as today, but we now have an incarceration rate five times higher. Indeed, America is now the world’s leading jailer. We lock up more than 2 million people in America, which is more of our own people than any country on Earth. And that does not include another 5 million people who are under the supervision of the correctional system. Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people in America have not been convicted of a crime and are solely in jail because they can’t afford their bail. We are criminalizing poverty. Sanders’s Criminal-Justice Plan Is Wrong in So Many Ways (National Review) It’s based on the false premise that the justice system is draconian and racially oppressive, and it ignores that most prisoners are in state, not federal, prisons. F

Links Jeffrey Epstein (Wikpedia) Ep. 15 - The Meaning of Life, with Marc Mauer Journalists should examine the leading cause of jail deaths, in light of Jeffrey Epstein (Poynter) The Daily Show with Trevor Noah clip (YouTube) Last Week Tonight with John Oliver clip (YouTube) Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000–2013 - Statistical Tables (PDF) (Department of Justice) Suicide has been the leading cause of death in jails every year since 2000. In 2013, a third (34%) of jail inmate deaths were due to suicide. The suicide rate increased 14%, from 40 suicides per 100,000 jail inmates in 2012 to 46 per 100,000 in 2013. AP Investigation: Many US jails fail to stop inmate suicides (AP) Suicide, long the leading cause of death in U.S. jails, hit a high of 50 deaths for every 100,000 inmates in 2014, the latest year for which the government has released data. That’s 2½ times the rate of suicides in state prisons and about 3½ times that of the general population. Metropolitan Correctional Center (Fe

Follow Roger Przybylski’s work at: RKC Group Implementing Evidence-Based Practices (PDF) What Works - Effective Recidivism Reduction and Risk-Focused Prevention Programs (PDF) Special Issue on Evidence-Based Policy and Practice – Introduction (PDF) Links National Criminal Justice Reform Project (NCJA) National Governors Association (Wikipedia) Formative Evalutation (Wikipedia) Summative Evaluation (Wikipedia) Types of summative assessment and formative assessment (ResourceEd) “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative [evaluation]. When the guests taste the soup, that’s summative [evaluation].” – Robert E. Stake, Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Illinois

Follow Marc Mauer’s work at: The Sentencing Project End Life Imprisonment The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences (Amazon) Links Sentator Gerald Malloy (South Carolina State House) Charles “Joe” Heinz (Wikipedia) Vera Institute of Justice (Wikipedia) Racial Impact Statements: Changing Policies to Address Disparities (The Sentencing Project) In reaction to a study that found Iowa topped the nation in racial disparity in its prison population, Iowa Governor Chet Culver in April 2008 made history by signing into law the nation’s first piece of legislation to require policy makers to prepare racial impact statements for proposed legislation that affects sentencing, probation, or parole policies. In signing the bill, Gov. Culver noted that “I am committed to making sure government at all levels reflects our shared values of fairness and justice.” In the following months Connecticut and Wisconsin took similar action. James Bell (Burns Institute) Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal

Links Decarceration Strategies – How 5 States Achieved Substantial Prison Population Reductions (PDF, The Sentencing Project) Connecticut: Declined 25%, 2007-2016 Focused on reducing young people’s contact with the justice system through reducing school suspensions, changing criteria for detention, and raising the age of adult jurisdiction from 16 to 18. Michigan: Declined 20%, 2006-2016 Increased parole grants by expanding capacity of the parole board, and reduced returns to prison by establishing Technical Rule Violator centers for enhanced programming and services. Mississippi: Declined 17.5%, 2008-2016 Reduced time served in prison by scaling back the “truth in sentencing” policy from 85% time served to 25%, and applied changes retroactively; adopted a risk assessment instrument that contributed to doubling of parole approval rate. Rhode Island: Declined 23%, 2008-2016 Reduced time served in prison by establishing earned-time credits of 10 days per month, and eliminated mandatory sentence

Links Economic Impact of Sentencing Reform Act Initiatives on the Economy, David Hughes, Ph.D, Clemson University, Clemson Institute for Economic and Community Development, 2.28.14 (PDF, South Carolina State House) Based on a 2011 report conducted by the United States (U.S.) Government Accountability Office, and on data taken from a factsheet produced by the Children’s Defense Fund for South Carolina (2011), we estimated that 25 children are not in foster care and three children were not adopted out of foster care because of SRA initiatives. When we examine impacts of SRA initiatives implemented by the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services for the three year period, the cumulative impact on the South Carolina economy is $50.896 million. Sandhill Research and Education Center (Clemson) Ep. 10 - Trust the Methodology, in which we discussed the Koch Brothers Senator Gerald Malloy Kwame Kilpatrick (Wikipedia) Ep. 8 - Unemployment, Before and After Prison, in which we discussed

Links Criminal Defense Lawyer (Wikipedia) Judges are more lenient after taking a break, study finds (The Guardian) Failure to Appear (Wikipedia) Economic Impact of Sentencing Reform Act Initiatives on the Economy, David Hughes, Ph.D, Clemson University, Clemson Institute for Economic and Community Development, 2.28.14 (PDF, South Carolina State House) Victim offender reconciliation (National Institute of Corrections) ‘Close to a breaking point’: Public defenders walk off job over high caseloads (KATU) Law school was insanely expensive. I have colleagues who came out of law school with a quarter-million dollars in educational debt. Every year that I’ve been a public defender, I have taken on more cases than I had the year before. … I had 531 new cases last year, which is 131 more than the ABA recommends.

Links Michigan spending one-fifth of its general fund budget on prisoners (USA Today) It cost the state — and by extension, taxpayers — an average of $36,106 to incarcerate a single person in Michigan in 2017. You can buy a new Ford Explorer for that, according to Kelley Blue Book. At that rate, a single prisoner sentenced to 30 or more years would cost Michigan taxpayers more than $1 million to incarcerate. Budget Briefing: Corrections (pdf) (Michigan House of Representatives) FY 2018-19 MDOC Budget $2,019,056,200 – Total spending authority from all revenue sources “Fix the damn roads” - Gretchen Whitmer The Second Chance Act of 2007 (Wikipedia)

Links Ep. 5 – How do we know what works?, in which we discussed Jennifer Doleac’s work previously. Jennifer Doleac’s thread on Twitter Working on criminal justice topics gives me a very different perspective on the Kochs than my equally-liberal friends & family have. Charles Koch Foundation & Charles Kock Institute are perhaps the most important funders of research related to criminal justice policy & reform. They also frequently host conferences that bring top-notch researchers and practitioners together in one room — a chance to meet everyone else who’s working in this space. In other words, they throw great parties — sounds trivial but this is super important & helpful! Charles Koch Foundation has funded my own work related to prisoner reentry and I am deeply grateful for that as well as their broader support of my research. My contacts there & Charles Kock Institute are the first I call if I’m looking for practioner contacts. They know everyone! As funders they are extremely hands-o

Links Broken promises and lost funding: how Mississippi prison reform failed (The Guardian) Between 1993 and 2013, Mississippi’s prison population more than quadrupled, thanks largely to mandatory minimum sentences, with the population peaking in the past decade at more than 23,000. The state had a higher per capita rate of incarceration than countries such as China or Russia. By the time the bill became law in July 2014, the Mississippi Parole Board was paroling more offenders and had already reduced the prison population by about 2,000 inmates. Within six months, it fell even more, to below 19,000. Miss. locks up more per capita than China and Russia (Clarion Ledger) Pew predicted that by 2024 Mississippi would save $266 million (PDF) (Pew Charitable Trusts) Assessment platforms, discussed in detail on Ep 4 – Racial Disparity: Northpointe’s COMPAS (Equivalent) Ohio Risk Assessment System (NICIC) Level of Service Inventory - Revised (MHS) Build vs. Buy (Wikipedia) Mississippi Center for Investigative

Links Unemployment benefits in Denmark (Wikipedia) Soft Skills (Wikipedia) Center for Employment Opportunities, in New York City New Orleans Business Alliance United Way Prosperity Center, South Eastern Louisiana (United Way) Work and opportunity before and after incarceration (Brookings) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Annie E. Casey Foundation Integrated Reentry and Employment Strategies – Reducing Recidivism and Promoting Job Readiness (PDF) (BJA)

Links Judith Greene, Director of Justice Strategies (Justice Strategies) Bailing Out Private Jails, by Judith Greene (The American Prospect) Michael Jordan has NOT invested in prisons (Earth The Necklace) Marc Mauer, of the Sentencing Project (Wikipedia) Ankle Monitor (Wikipedia)

Links DOJ: Alabama prisoners exposed to horrifying violence, rape; murders a ‘regular’ occurrence (USA Today) Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Wikipedia) Inmates at Kentucky prison build teddy bears to give back to children (WKYT) Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Wikipedia) Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Give Working Prisoners Dignity — and Decent Wages (National Review) Angola Prison – Louisiana State Penetentiary (Wikipedia) Lansing Prison Visit, Part 1 (Original Buffalo Dale) There is also an embroidery shop which makes all the hats for the NCAA, the NFL, major league baseball teams and companies such as Gear and Sprint. In addition there are several other smaller shops that make goods of various kinds, all

Links EconTalk – Jennifer Doleac on Crime (EconTalk) Jennifer Doleac Randomized Controlled Trial (Wikipedia) Ban the Box (Wikipedia) Unintended Consequences: How “Ban the Box” Backfires for Minority Job Seekers (UVA Today) Propensity Score Matching (Wikipedia) United Way Prosperity Center, South Eastern Louisiana (United Way)