The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/focus/page/2/)
This section features the best criminal justice reporting around the nation, produced by our media partners and collaborators, and journalists who have participated in the Criminal Justice Reporting Fellowship programs sponsored by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, TCR’s parent organization. For a more comprehensive list of Fellows’ work, please check out the “programs” section—and monitor this site for information on upcoming programs and how to apply!
The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the nationwide drive for eliminating money bail and fixing the inequities of pretrial detention. But it’s also strengthening opposition from the bail industry and tough-on-crime advocates,. such as San Diego’s DA, who objected to some jail releases in his city.
A recent state Supreme Court order set in motion measures to end some money bonds and stop penalizing people for failure to pay court fines and fees in an effort to slash jail populations. Other states have followed suit in a trend long recommended by advocates. But will it last once the pandemic is over?
Efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus have forced courts around the country to suspend proceedings, but they also threaten the constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. “We’re in real danger of a total breakdown of the system.” warns Nina Ginsberg. president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
With COVID-19 threatening to ravage incarcerated populations, homeopathic remedies like eating garlic and onion have become part of their last line of defense, says Yusef Salaam, one of the wrongfully convicted “Central Park 5,” who is now working as a prisoner advocate in Mississippi.
Although Curtis Lovelace was acquitted in the 2006 murder of his wife, he was still saddled with a hefty county administrative fee. Local court systems across the country depend on such fees for badly needed revenue, but are they fair?
More than 300 Alabamans have been charged since 2014 under state law requiring people with more than two felony convictions to register with local sheriff’s offices and carry cards identifying them as repeat felons. One legal expert compared it to the ID cards Jews were required to have in Nazi Germany.
Young people in youth shelters are particularly at risk, advocates say. City agencies respond they are doing all they can to address their needs.
The County Board of Supervisors says it agrees with a report calling for the provision of mental health care and services as an alternative to incarceration— thereby ending the L.A. County jail system’s unenviable title as the nation’s largest mental institution.
Bill Lapinskas spent 26 years working at Alaska’s only maximum-security prison, the last three as its superintendent. He quit after receiving orders to roll back a program designed to prepare prisoners for release.
Valerie Martinez’ Louisiana parish has one of the most innovative systems in the country for getting guns out of the hands of abusers, thanks to her work. The system has served as the model for similar reforms across this conservative state.