The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/author/jackatme/page/2/)
To honor Martin Luther King Day, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed three new bills designed to “undo the racial disparities in our criminal justice system,” while giving current inmates a “second chance.”
A University of California economics professors compared recidivism data in 25 states that have passed ‘Ban the Box’ policies and found that they might have had the opposite impact for African-American ex-offenders.
Led by Washington state’s attorney general, the states have formed a coalition to challenge the Trump administration’s latest effort to allow 3D-printed gun blueprints to be released on the Internet.
State legislators are debating a bill that would bring together data from justice agencies in an effort to break down “silos.” Idaho is one of seven states that still do not have a centralized data system.
Of more than 2,300 jurisdictions that elect their prosecutor, fewer than 700 presented voters with more than a single candidate in 2014 and 2016, finds a new study. Still, most voters live in more-populous areas that give them a choice.
The proposed changes in how the state and counties share jail costs will also promote accountability and reduce recidivism in the state’s troubled corrections system, the task force said.
The 15th annual awards, the nation’s most prestigious prizes for justice journalism, went to Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken of CNN for their exposé of privatized prison health care, and Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News for his series examining the plight of indigenous Alaskans living with no police protection. John Jay President Karol Mason also announced 26 journalists have been chosen as John Jay justice reporting fellows for this year.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is curtailing staffers’ access to the internet and cell phones to guard against “unnecessary distractions” that allegedly contributed to the failure to prevent the suicide of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The government’s plan to collect DNA from persons detained as they try to cross the U.S. border—and store it in an expanded FBI genetic database—could pose serious threats to privacy. Genetics and forensics experts also warn it will lead to the further criminalization of immigrants.
The Justice Department says that as Congress required a year ago, all inmates have been assessed under the Justice Department’s risk and needs assessment tool known as the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Need (PATTERN).