Conservatives Try to Co-opt Criminal Justice Reform by Matthew Clarke After decades of driving prison expansion by espousing tough-on-crime sentencing laws, advocating for policies to lock up criminals and throw away the key, and exploiting the public’s fear of crime, conservative lawmakers have finally discovered criminal justice reform. Like European …

Report Lobbies for New Voting Bloc: Millions of Ex-Offenders by Following the recent presidential election, pundits debated which demographic—Latinos, African-Americans, college students or single women—made the difference. A study shows, however, that the greatest impact on election results might have been the disenfranchisement of millions of American citizens who were …

North Carolina Man Awaits Compensation Four Years After Death Row Exoneration by Matthew Clarke Glen Edward Chapman's conviction for two Hickory, North Carolina murders was reversed and a new trial ordered because lead investigator Dennis 'Money had lied during his trial testimony and detectives had "lost, misplaced or destroyed" evidence …

GAO Report finds Federal Prison Overcrowding Accelerates by Derek Gilna A General Accounting Office study of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that analyzed prisoner population from fiscal years 2006 through 2011, has shown that overcrowding in BOP prisons at all levels of security is increasing and has resulted in …

New Study Debunks Common Beliefs of Children of Incarcerated Parents by Christopher Zoukis by Christopher Zoukis A study released by the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, and in conjunction with the National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated, debunks commonly cited statistics concerning children with incarcerated …

Parolees Violated Without New Charges Bloat Wisconsin Prison Population by Matthew Clarke Due to policies and practices which are costly to society and former parolees, well over half the 7,727 people sent to prison in Wisconsin in 2013 were imprisoned for parole rule violations without any new criminal charges. Those …

Poor Parents Fail to Pay Child Support, Go to Jail by Matthew Clarke Child support is an enormous issue in the United States. In August 2015, Mark Greenberg, the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, …

Outcomes of California’s Proposition 47 by Joe Watson The passage of California’s Proposition 47 in November 2014 – which reduced many felony drug possession and property crimes to misdemeanors – might be a harbinger of criminal justice reform nationwide. But for now, reform advocates have gladly accepted the release of …

Report Says Lawmakers Should Choose Alternatives to Incarceration by Joe Watson A new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) argues that U.S. lawmakers and "tough-on-crime" advocates have relied on incarceration as a default approach to criminal justice for far too long, not only costing billions of taxpayer dollars and endless …

Destined to Fail: the Negative Effect of Collateral Consequence Laws by Gary Hunter Incarceration is intended as a deterrent to crime. But at least one report indicates that the opposite may be true. Dr. Tracy WP Sohoni of the University of Maryland received a federal grant to study the formal …

New Hamilton Study Report Details Benefits of Reduced Incarceration by Derek Gilna The Hamilton Project, a non-partisan organization based in California that studies the relationship of incarceration to crime rates and its broad impacts on society, has published a new study that puts forward several new theories on how to …

Report Cites Drug War’s “Collateral Damage” by Derek Gilna A recent report issued by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has called for a “broad national initiative” to reverse what they termed “America’s infatuation with collateral consequences has produced unprecedented and unnecessary collateral damage to society and the …

Internal Exile Collateral Consequences of Conviction, ABA, 2009 internal exile Collateral Consequences of Conviction in Federal Laws and Regulations A collaboration of the American Bar Association Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia Internal Exile Collateral Consequences of Conviction in Federal Laws …

Federal Jury Awards $9 Million to Illinois Man Cleared of Rape He Was Convicted of as Teenager by Alejandro Dominguez, who spent four years in prison for a rape he did not commit, was awarded $9 million by a federal jury after DNA evidence cleared him of the charges. Dominguez, …

Report Finds Criminal Justice Debt Creates Barriers to Offender Reintegration by David Reutter Severe financial obligations imposed upon offenders who get entangled with the criminal justice system "perpetually punish many ex-offenders and consign them to a life of permanent debt and poverty," concludes a report published by the John Jay …

The Debt Penalty: Financial Barriers to Offender Reintegration, John Jay College, 2014 The Debt Penalty Exposing the Financial Barriers to Offender Reintegration Douglas N. Evans Research & Evaluation Center John Jay College of Criminal Justice August 2014 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | Preparation of this report was supported by a grant from Justice …

No Second Chance – People with Criminal Records Denied Access to Public Housing, HRW, 2004 NO SECOND CHANCE People with Criminal Records Denied Access to Public Housing Human Rights Watch Copyright © 2004 by Human Rights Watch. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1564323285 Cover …

The Impact of Trying Youths as Adults, Campaign for Youth Justice, 2007 THE CAMPAIGN FOR YOUTH JUSTICE The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system. The goals of the …

Incarceration Generation, JPI, 2013 Table of Contents Foreword........................................................................................................................................................ 02 Introduction................................................................................................................................................ 03 People in the Justice System Racial & Ethnic Groups Racism Institutionalized: A Look at the Criminal Justice System.................................................................................. 08 Criminal Justice Reform for Immigration Reform.......................................................................................................... 12 Children & Teens Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System.................................................................................................................. 16 Rights of …

Sentencing for Dollars - The Financial Consequences of a Criminal Conviction, Justice Strategies, 2007 WORKING PAPER SENTENCING FOR DOLLARS: THE FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF A CRIMINAL CONVICTION Alan Rosenthal, J.D. Marsha Weissman, M.P.A. Center for Community Alternatives Justice Strategies 115 E. Jefferson Street, Suite 300 Syracuse, NY 13202 and th 39 …