The Crime Report

TCR Special Reports

Can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Help Juvenile Offenders?

By Laura Binczewski | 12 hours ago

When youths are preconditioned to violence and crime, disregard for the law becomes automatic. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) targets this “criminal thinking” to reduce crime and recidivism— and give juveniles the opportunity of a productive future.

Reforming the System

How Neuroscience is Reforming Criminal Justice

By Dane Stallone | 12 hours ago

New research into how the brain works is contributing to innovative strategies for reducing recidivism and developing alternatives to incarceration.

International

Controversy Brews Over Colombian Police Ties to Scientology

By Shane Cassidy/ Colombia Reports | 12 hours ago

Photos published on Colombian policewomen’s social media showing 22 female officials aboard a Church of Scientology boat in August 2017 have reignited questions about the national police force’s links to the controversial church.

Drugs

Annual Drug Overdose Count Rises 10% to 72,300

By Crime and Justice News | 13 hours ago

The epidemic appears more deadly than ever. The death toll is more than the peak yearly death totals from H.I.V., car crashes or guns. It’s unclear whether the epidemic has reached its peak. Some factors contributing to the rising overdose rate have proved difficult to contain.

Capital Punishment

Nebraska Executes Carey Dean Moore With Four Drugs

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

Nebraska resumed capital punishment on Tuesday after a 21-year de facto moratorium. Carey Dean Moore, who had seven previous execution dates set aside in his 38 years on death row, was put to death for the 1979 murders of two cab drivers.

Policing

Police Recruiting Slows; Hundreds of Openings in Cities

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

More than 80 percent of U.S. police departments are operating below their authorized levels. In some places, fewer than 10 percent of applicants go on to become officers.

Sex Crime

300 PA Priests Accused of Molesting 1,000 Children

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

A state grand jury report recounted sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania since the 1940s. Prosecutors say that in nearly every case, statutes of limitations preclude criminal charges.

Crime Statistics

'American Violence' to Gather, Analyze City Crime Data

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

The American Violence website will assemble and translate publicly available information into an interface that doesn’t take specialized training to navigate, says sociologist Patrick Sharkey of New York University.

Courts

WVA Justice Quits, The Others May Be Ousted

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

Impeached Justice Robin Davis, a Democrat, announced her resignation and accused the legislature of staging a partisan coup against the court. Lawmakers could remove the other three sitting justices for financial abuses.

Courts

Boston Chief to Judges: Stop Freeing Repeat Criminals

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

After three people were shot on a Boston street, Police Commissioner William Gross, declaring himself “sick and tired” of the courts’ revolving door, challenged the state’s judges to show more backbone when deciding whether violent offenders can be returned to the streets. Gross said, “Stay-away orders, ankle bracelets do not work.”

School Crime

U.S. Funds Program to Teach Students Bleeding Control

After a spate of school shootings, federal officials will award $1.8 million to develop “School-Age Trauma Training” for students to help victims with traumatic injuries.

Policing

Ex-Baltimore Officer Charged With Assault

A former Baltimore police officer who repeatedly punched a man over the weekend in an altercation caught on video was charged with assault and turned himself in Tuesday. Officer Arthur Williams resigned after the incident.

White Collar Crime

Manafort Record ‘Littered With Lies’–Prosecutor

Closing arguments began on Wednesday in the trial of former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on charges of bank and fax fraud.

Immigration

VA Says Treatment of Immigrant Teens Isn’t Abusive

A state review of the treatment of immigrant teens held at a Virginia detention center confirmed that restraint techniques there can include strapping children to chairs and placing mesh bags over their heads. The state says the treatment isn’t abuse or neglect. A lawsuit says children as young as 14 were handcuffed, shackled and beaten.

Research & Analysis

Drugs

Legal Profession ‘Critical’ to Addressing Opioid Crisis: ABA

A new report by the American Bar Association's Senior Lawyers Division makes nine recommendations and suggests 45 "action items" that it says can advance public health efforts to confront the opioid epidemic. One recommendation calls for promoting policies and laws that support families and caregivers struggling with opioid and substance misuse disorders.
Reforming the System

Homelessness Called ‘Crisis’ for the Formerly Incarcerated

In a report issued Tuesday, the Prison Policy Initiative found that people who have been to prison are 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public. Recommended policy initiatives include barring housing discrimination against returning citizens.
Courts

Is Justice Class-Blind?

A forthcoming study by a University of Texas-Austin law professor says conservative jurists have begun to question precedents applying the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to poor Americans.
Crime Prevention

Will Police Respond When Your Burglar Alarm Goes Off?

A study by a home security startup argues they may not. The firm, which advertises its own “artificial intelligence” alternative, says a nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies found that in cities with populations of 50,000 or more, police won’t answer alarm alerts from 40 percent of residents.
Policy & Politics

Political Climate Influences Perception of Crime: UK Study

The pronouncements that leading politicians make about crime can have a lasting impact on the crime fears of young adults, according to a study in the British Journal of Criminology.
Juvenile Justice

Probation Sets Up Young Adults for Failure: Report

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition calls for reforms to community supervision that are 'developmentally appropriate' to young people who age out of the juvenile justice system but are still too immature to understand the consequences of their behavior.

WORTH A READ

Viewpoints

To Deter Violence, Let’s Treat Alt-Right Groups as Street Gangs
By Shannon Reid and Matthew Valasik | August 14, 2018
Law enforcement efforts to avert the kind of violence seen in Charlottesville last year and Portland, Or., this year would be boosted by anti-street gang strategies, say two researchers.
Juvenile Justice

California Ponders Raise the Age Bill
By Sara Tiano/Chronicle of Social Change | August 14, 2018
A hearing on state Senate Bill 1391, which would prevent youths under 16 from being sent to adult courts, is scheduled Thursday. Supporters say it will reduce recidivism rates and better rehabilitate and prepare youth for successful, productive reentry into society.
Viewpoints

Trapped: How Fee-Based GPS Monitoring Puts a ‘Price Tag on Freedom’
By Phil Telfeyan | August 13, 2018
William Edwards, released from jail with a GPS tracking device that he has to pay for, is one of thousands of poor defendants left at the mercy of an ‘E-carceration” system increasingly run by for-profit services, writes an attorney who is leading a class action lawsuit combating the practice.
Reforming the System

A ‘Holistic’ Approach to Wrongful Convictions
By Elena Schwartz | August 13, 2018
The “piecemeal” approach by state and federal court approach to addressing trial-level errors fails to account for the complex ways that seemingly independent errors interact with one another, writes a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law.

Featured

Bill Moyers Speaks Out on Justice. Watch the Video.

By TCR Staff | December 1, 2017

Moyers received TCR’s annual “Justice Trailblazer” award at a John Jay College dinner Feb. 15. See the video of his remarks here.

The Crime Report - Your Complete Criminal Justice Resource

Drugs

Annual Drug Overdose Count Rises 10% to 72,300

By Crime and Justice News | 13 hours ago

Capital Punishment

Nebraska Executes Carey Dean Moore With Four Drugs

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

Policing

Police Recruiting Slows; Hundreds of Openings in Cities

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

Sex Crime

300 PA Priests Accused of Molesting 1,000 Children

By Crime and Justice News | 14 hours ago

Crime Statistics

'American Violence' to Gather, Analyze City Crime Data

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

Courts

WVA Justice Quits, The Others May Be Ousted

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

Courts

Boston Chief to Judges: Stop Freeing Repeat Criminals

By Crime and Justice News | 15 hours ago

School Crime

U.S. Funds Program to Teach Students Bleeding Control

Policing

Ex-Baltimore Officer Charged With Assault

White Collar Crime

Manafort Record ‘Littered With Lies’–Prosecutor

Immigration

VA Says Treatment of Immigrant Teens Isn’t Abusive

Policing

Did D.C. Police Give Supremacists Too Much Help?

With More Police on Streets, No Weekend Chicago Murders

Chicago Violence Toll Tied to Poor Neighborhoods

Manslaughter Charge in FL Stand Your Ground Case

Arrests of Immigrants With No Record Tripled Under Trump