The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/qa/)
Calvin Buari, convicted of a double murder he didn’t commit, was a casualty of over-zealous prosecutors in New York’s tough-on-crime era of the 1990s. In a conversation with The Crime Report about his new podcast, “Empire on Blood,” investigative journalist Steve Fishman tells the story of the battle to clear his name.
For lack of alternatives, thousands of mentally ill individuals are trapped in the justice system. In a conversation with TCR, Alisa Roth, author of “Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness,” says change will only happen when we reexamine our attitudes towards mental illness.
Some 28 states require individuals to disclose HIV status to their sexual partners or face criminal penalties. Author Trevor Hoppe tells TCR that such laws are largely the result of fear and discrimination towards victims of diseases considered socially unacceptable–a punitive approach that he says continues today in the face of public health crises such as the opioid epidemic.
The murder of notable New York architect Sanford White by a jealous husband in 1906 thrust young actress and model Evelyn Nesbit into the center of the first so-called “trial of the century.” Simon Baatz, author of a new book about the case, explains why it still matters today.
After eight years heading one of the nation’s largest police agencies, retiring Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck gives TCR a frank assessment of the challenges of being a big-city reform chief, what it takes to change the culture of American policing today, and some key lessons he learned.
Big-city gangs may be more violent and newsworthy, but smaller and less violent versions are a worrying presence in many poor, rural communities. University of Arkansas sociologist Timothy Brown tells TCR what he learned while interviewing gang members in a Clarksdale, Ms., jail.
Heather Beaudoin, leader of a conservative group fighting to end capital punishment, found new support for her cause at this month’s annual CPAC gathering of Republican activists. In a conversation with TCR, she reports a growing willingness among conservatives to embrace justice reform.
What do Three Strikes laws, mandatory-minimums for drug offenders, the Stop Snitching campaign, and private police have in common? According to Paul H. Robinson, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, they are all expressions of a “shadow” vigilantism that has spread in the contemporary U.S.—usually in response to perceived failures in the justice system.
Prosecutors have too often left it up to juries to sift through evidence of cases against individuals whom they decided were guilty of their crimes without a thorough investigation, Brooklyn (NY) DA Eric Gonzalez tells TCR. He adds his office is making sure that never happens again.
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters uncovered the trail of a serial rapist and two very different police investigations. TCR talks with one of the journalists who followed the story.