The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/tcr-special-report/)
Stories by The Crime Report staff and nationwide network of contributors.
A bill introduced by New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman would give inmates aged 55 and older a chance for parole, regardless of their crime, as long as they have served 15 years of their sentence. In an interview with TCR, Hoylman says it’s a way to recognize the potential for rehabilitation.
Congress’s decision to reinstate financial aid for incarcerated students pursuing higher education has been hailed as a long-overdue achievement. But, the program will need careful monitoring to ensure that sufficient infrastructure is in place and that it is not exploited by for-profit colleges “looking for an easy buck,” experts tell The Crime Report.
The barriers faced by Kilroy Watkins to finding housing after his release from prison were formidable. But as advocates across the country pursue early release for non-violent inmates during COVID-19, the challenge of finding transitional housing in a world afflicted by the pandemic has exacerbated the already difficult barriers to successful reentry.
The recent decision to do away with lethal injections in Ohio has forced death-row inmates at Chillicothe Correctional Institution to wonder not only when they’ll be executed but also how.
State politicians who supported police reform and accountability measures could see future donations from law enforcement disappear. “We’re going to remember who was with us and we’re going to remember who wasn’t,” said Tom Daly, executive vice president of the New England Police Benevolent Association.
Inmates freed during the pandemic may have escaped one threat only to encounter fewer services and greater risk of infection from an already flawed reentry infrastructure that offers little help.
On Thursday, Brandon Bernard joined the list of individuals executed for a crime committed when he was an adolescent. Convicted for his part in a gruesome murder 21 years ago, Bernard also fell victim to a system that still fails to consider an offender’s youth and background, such as a history of abuse, as a mitigating circumstance.
Arrests of juveniles have plummeted, but reformers are pivoting to the plight of young people placed on probation by juvenile courts, where they are more likely to be trapped in a cycle that makes it virtually impossible to escape further involvement in the justice system.
In death penalty cases, the media usually focuses on the victim’s family and the condemned prisoner’s crime. Yet the pain of the families of those put to death is also real, and long-lasting, as journalist Jodie Sinclair discovered when she interviewed relatives of two men executed in Texas.
Some 45 states have the authority to revoke police officers’ licenses, but a growing number have recently begun to toughen police decertification laws, which would establish a procedure to more effectively prevent police officers found guilty of misconduct from being hired by other law enforcement agencies —with varying degrees of success.