Month: December 2020

Lawmen Off Limits

This is a series of news reports that call for holding Law Enforcement officers accountable.

County law enforcement series highlights need for change

by Contributed

“It is crucial for lawmakers to change laws that protect sheriff’s office employees from losing their jobs and certification for actions that would result in firing and license revocations in other professions and states,” the BDN Editorial Board writes. See more HERE

Impact Report: COVID-19 and Crime

Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities: November 2020 Update

This report updates previous research by the authors with additional crime data through the end of October 2020. It examines crime rates for ten offenses in 28 American cities during the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest over police violence. Not all cities reported data for each offense, and offense classifications varied somewhat across the cities.

Read the Report

Implementation Guide for Prosecutorial Performance Indicators

Select HERE for a copy of the article

Changes in prosecution are essential to criminal justice reform, but prosecutors have rarely had the data they need to define success beyond conviction rates. To address this problem, criminologists from Florida International University and Loyola University Chicago partnered with prosecutor’s offices from Chicago, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, and Tampa to develop a menu of 55 prosecutorial performance indicators (PPIs) and redefine success for prosecutors. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for choosing and implementing specific PPIs.

Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities: November 2020 Update

This report updates previous research by the authors with additional crime data through the end of October 2020. It examines crime rates for ten offenses in 28 American cities during the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest over police violence. Not all cities reported data for each offense, and offense classifications varied somewhat across the cities.

See the report HERE

Building Safe, Thriving Communities Research-Based Strategies for Public Safety

Decades of harsh, carceral law enforcement practices have perpetuated cycles of violence and harm without making us safer. The number of individuals behind bars—particularly for low-level offenses—is not a measure of public safety, and in fact has tremendous costs and consequences that detract from the goal of creating healthy, stable communities. Progress toward this goal requires transformational change in the way we approach law enforcement practices, specifically in the fields of policing, prosecution, and sentencing. We cannot continue to use incarceration as our default solution. All over the country, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and lawmakers are reducing their reliance on enforcement and incarceration, and are instead implementing practices and policies that focus on reinvestment, research-based strategies, and community engagement.

The article can be access HERE

States Can Shorten Probation and Protect Public Safety

Overview

More than 3.5 million, or 1 in 72, adults were on probation in the United States at the end of 2018—the most recent year for which U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data is available—more than triple the number in 1980. Nationwide, on any given day, more people are on probation than in prisons and jails and on parole combined. At its best, probation—court-ordered correctional supervision in the community—gives people the opportunity to remain with their families, maintain employment, and access services that can reduce their likelihood of re-offending while serving their sentences. But, as previous research by The Pew Charitable Trusts has shown, the growth and size of this population have overloaded local and state agencies and stretched their resources thin, weakening their ability to provide the best return on taxpayers’ public safety investments, support rehabilitation, and ensure a measure of accountability. One key factor driving the size of the probation population is how long individuals remain on supervision.

You can get the report HERE

The Case Against Pretrial Risk Assessment Instruments–PJI 2020

Pretrial risk assessment instruments (RAIs) are actuarial tools intended to estimate two key outcomes for those who are released pending trial: the likelihood that someone will fail to appear for court, and the likelihood that someone will be arrested for a new crime before the disposition of their case. The use of RAIs is a topic of great debate among criminal justice practitioners, community advocates, formerly incarcerated people, policymakers, and academics. This paper lays out the case for why risk assessments should not be a part of pretrial decision making.

Get a copy HERE