The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/policy-politics/)
President Donald Trump formally named Kendel Ehrlich to lead the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking. He picked Jessica Hart to lead the Office for Victims of Crime.
The largest economic relief bill in U.S. history will provide for “personal protective equipment and other needed medical items and to support overtime for officers on the front lines,” says Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
In the latest skirmish of the war between a large section of the U.S. legal community and Attorney General William Barr, some of the country’s top jurists charge the AG’s expansive views of presidential powers, combined with his interventions in support of President Trump’s allies, are helping to nurture an “imperial” presidency.
A Justice Department grant will set up the first national center on restorative justice. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) says it will help address the mass inarceration issue.
Inspector General Joseph Cuffari of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has refused to testify to Congress. One staffer says he has come to work and found the lights off because no one is there.
An alliance of two major criminology groups complains that “multiyear delays in the release of expected data and reports… [do] not help improve public safety or the efficiency of our criminal justice system.”
Nearly all the Democratic contenders for president placed reducing mass incarceration at the top of their criminal justice agendas, according to a survey conducted by the Justice Action Network.
In 48 states, voting from prison—which is legal in most of the European Union and in countries as disparate as Indonesia, South Africa, Canada, and Kenya—is either severely restricted or outlawed. Only Maine and Vermont allow all inmates to vote.
With overwhelming bipartisan support, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act passed the House of Representatives last week, which would make lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history, pending Senate approval. “It’s never too late to repudiate evil,” said Rep. Bobby Rush, the bill’s sponsor.
Community supervision suffers when lawmakers create new potential violations, write Jesse Kelley and Arthur Rizer of the R Street Institute. Exhibit A: Last month, Congress was expected to vote on a bill to criminalize the sale and distribution of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products that is likely to hit hardest on African-Americans.