The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/washington-report/)
Under the budget sent by the White House to Congress Monday, the Justice Department will be hit with a small decrease. But it would still fare better than many other federal agencies, which could lose more than 10 percent. One agency targeted for the chopping block: the Community Oriented Policing Services program (COPS).
The Justice Department had announced a new direction for the justice reinvestment program that encourages states to cut prison populations. The proposal has been withdrawn after advocates of reinvestment sought support from key members of Congress.
More than 100 civil rights, “digital justice” and community groups issued a statement expressing concerns about the expanding use of risk assessment instruments as a substitute for basing bail releases on money. The groups said risk assessment tools may not only exacerbate racial bias but “allow further incarceration.”
David Muhlhausen, director of the Justice Department’s research agency, predicted at a Washington, D.C., meeting that research will play “an ever more important role in how the criminal justice field operates.” The National Institute of Justice gave $221 million in grants last year.
The Trump administration wants to change the direction of a longstanding partnership with nonprofits aimed at reducing prison populations. Thirty-five states have taken part in the program.
Analyzing federal data, the Violence Policy Center says that states with weak gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership have the highest gun suicide rates.
Why did homicides increase in 2015 and 2016? Some blame the opioid epidemic and others point to the “Ferguson effect” on police, but criminologists say neither explanation is supported by data.
On the 10th anniversary of the Second Chance Act, veteran corrections administrator and researcher Stefan LoBuglio says attitudes towards prisoner reentry have undergone a “sea change” since the 1990s. But in an extended chat with TCR, he warns of a retrenchment in programming that threatens the overall functioning of the U.S. corrections system.
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), chairman of the House committee that oversees Justice Department funding, has proposed increasing a program aimed at reducing state prison populations and recidivism that the Trump administration wanted to kill. The chairman also sought a small reduction in the FBI budget, plus increases for immigration judges and the Trump-supported Project Safe Neighborhoods program.
Michigan Sen, Gary Peters, a key sponsor of a bill to create a national commission studying the criminal justice system similar to the landmark LBJ-era effort, says he is “cautiously optimistic.” He told a Washington briefing that the more incidents occur involving failures by criminal justice officials, “the more people lose trust in the system.”