The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/viewpoints/)
Law enforcement efforts to avert the kind of violence seen in Charlottesville last year and Portland, Or., this year would be boosted by anti-street gang strategies, say two researchers.
William Edwards, released from jail with a GPS tracking device that he has to pay for, is one of thousands of poor defendants left at the mercy of an ‘E-carceration” system increasingly run by for-profit services, writes an attorney who is leading a class action lawsuit combating the practice.
An ongoing argument about the differences between ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ marijuana is absorbing Michigan courts and politicians. But the debate turns more on politics than science, and is likely to become irrelevant if voters approve full legalization next November, writes a commentator on drug policy.
Life in prison is a little easier when you can find a good book to absorb your waking hours. But when you’re in solitary, reading can become an unsettling experience, writes a Washington State inmate.
For some Americans, health care and criminal justice are not two separate systems, but components of one big system that too often fails them. Frustrated cops call them “frequent fliers” because they regularly cycle between jail and hospital, so why do we think we can fix one without the other?
A recent national poll of 1,400 voters shows nearly one in five respondents want to scrap the current money bail system. That should send a message to policymakers that voters are willing to accept alternatives that limit arrests and incarceration for nonviolent offenses, writes the CEO of the Pretrial Justice Institute.
Many incarcerated individuals develop a cultural or racial consciousness they ignored when they were free—and prison authorities encourage it as a healthy way to build character. But there’s a dark underside, says a Washington State inmate.
Can a process developed to analyze serious mishaps in the US Forest Service be applied to justice? Its creator believes that the “Learning Review,” now used in medicine and other fields to learn from accidents, incidents and normal work, without trying to affix blame, is ideally suited to criminal justice as well.
Even though a majority of states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, it remains on the federal government’s list of the most harmful drugs, alongside heroin. That makes little sense, according to an addiction expert, if we hope to regulate its use to protect health and public safety.
It’s not just moms and kids who benefit when mothers involved in the justice system are provided with opportunities to serve their sentences under community supervision. Public safety does too, according to a researcher at the R Street Institute, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.