COVID-19
Dallas Salon Owner Sent to Jail For Defying Closure Order
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A judge sentenced Shelley Luther to a week in jail and fined her $1,000 for every day the salon remained open. Luther opposed the stay-at-home order for financial reasons.
Q&A
Why Drug Courts Fail
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Over the last few decades, drug courts have emerged as a significant policy tool in the nation’s efforts to combat addiction, but how effective are they? In a conversation with TCR, Kerwin Kaye says the findings of his new book show they are subject to the same biases that have marred other much-touted justice reforms.
Prosecutors
‘Conviction at Any Cost’: The Tangled Case of Michael Segal
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When multi-millionaire Chicago insurance broker Michael Segal was convicted in a $30 million fraud case, it was widely celebrated as the downfall of a notorious white-collar criminal. In a forthcoming book, however, he claims to be the victim of prosecutorial overreach. Author Maurice Possley tells TCR why he has a legitimate case.
Juvenile Justice
The Crisis of America’s Disconnected Youth—and How to Connect Them
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Some 4.5 million young people, or a staggering 11.5 percent of youth aged 16 to 24, experience an “abrupt abandonment” that thrusts many of them into a foster care or juvenile justice system that shortchanges their futures, according to author Anne Kim.
Immigration
Migrant Detentions on Mexican Border Rise
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The number of migrants detained on the U.S.-Mexico border increased for the first time in nine months, suggesting that President Donald Trump’s deterrent measures may be stalling.
Books
Rocks and Riches: How Crack Cocaine Affected America
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It was no coincidence that the crack cocaine epidemic exploded during a time of dramatic transformation in the U.S. economy, says David Farber, author of a new book. In a conversation with TCR, he argues that, even as it destroyed lives and fueled mass incarceration, it provided a passport for some young men into the prevailing 1980s lifestyle of greed and amorality.
Books
‘A World Turned Upside Down’: How Slavery Morphed into Today’s Carceral State
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A new book uses the story of a former slave trader who profited after the Civil War by trafficking in convict labor to trace the historical roots of mass incarceration and racial profiling.
Race and Equity
Written Into Law: The Legacy of African-American Subjugation
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A new book offers a timely look at the ugly history of race-based laws. In “Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law In Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana” professors Ariela J. Gross, of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and Alejandro de la Fuente, of Harvard University, trace how colonial-era laws used to subjugate people of color still resonate in our justice system.
Prisons
West Virginia Inmates Charged for Reading ‘Free’ Books on Tablets
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A new policy in several West Virginia prisons means inmates must pay to read free books in the public domain because the books are made available through prison-supplied electronic tablets charging by the minute.
Books
‘Gladiator’ or ‘Bionic Mouth’? The Making of a Mob Lawyer
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James LaRossa’s clients included unsavory figures such as mob bosses Paul Castellano and Vincent Gigante. But the controversial New York trial lawyer’s defense career really began when he quit his job as a federal prosecutor after a collision over with Robert Kennedy over a terrorism case, LaRossa’s son tells TCR in a conversation about his recently published memoir.