Month: March 2021

The New York State Trial Penalty: The Constitutional Right to Trial Under Attack

The ‘trial penalty’ refers to the substantial difference between the sentence offered in a plea offer prior to trial versus the sentence a defendant receives after trial. This penalty is now so severe and pervasive that it has virtually eliminated the constitutional right to a trial. To avoid the penalty, accused persons must surrender many other fundamental rights which are essential to a fair justice system.
Read on here …….

Get the publication HERE

Effectiveness of Police Training

Police training, particularly that which is delivered to recruits, is designed to impart the knowledge and skills officers require to adhere to departmental procedures, policies, and practices. As such, basic training is a fundamental component of efforts to reduce excessive use of force and racially biased policing, ensure respectful and constitutional behaviors on the part of officers, and build community trust and police legitimacy. Yet far too often decisions about whether and when to invest in certain trainings are guided by the latest trends and premised on assumptions that training will be effective. It is crucial that research on the content, duration, and modality of both basic and in-service trainings guides police departments’ decisions about their allocation of scarce training resources.
READ more ……. here

Get the publication HERE

Social Fabric: A New Model for Public Safety and Vital Neighborhoods

Overview

Should the police own safety? For the past forty years, localities across the country have responded with a resounding “yes,” as the primary response to crime has been to call upon the police and criminal justice system. That approach has come with harms, long understood in communities of color and further underscored last summer by the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death. These harms undermine the trust that should be the very foundation of any system of justice.

This paper argues that there is a different and more durable model, based on the oldest of ideas and eminently doable, especially in this moment of pandemic-straitened budgets: tight-knit communities, where residents are brought together through local institutions and have access to basic civic resources, are the places where safety thrives.

Find the FULL report and Executive Summary HERE

QPP 37: Justin Fenton – Peter Moskos

WOW another home run podcast. I’m looking forward to reading the book.

This is a discussion about corruption in the Baltimore Police Department. Professor Moskos is a terrific interviewer and the Author Justin Fenton is easy to listen to.

The discussion covers police corruption, policing in Baltimore, causes of corruption, neighborhoods, police supervision, politicians, all that circles the issue of police corruption.

QPP 37: Justin Fenton – Peter Moskos
— Read on qualitypolicing.com/episode-37-justin-fenton/

The Science of Justice St. Louis County Police Department National Justice Database City Report

The project’s overall goals were to (1) examine whether some racial groups in St. Louis County experience more frequent or burdensome police contact than other groups; (2) identify factors that contribute to any existing racial disparities and the extent to which these factors can be influenced by SLCPD; and (3) provide recommendations for actions SLCPD can take to address any identified disparities.

www.stlouiscountypolice.com/Portals/0/County Police/CPE Report w Cover Letter.pdf

Collecting and Using Data for Prosecutorial Decisionmaking | Urban Institute

This brief summarizes findings from a national survey of state prosecutors’ offices and offers insights for prosecutors, policymakers, and other stakeholders on how prosecutors collect and use data to manage their offices, understand trends, and evaluate their success.
— Read on www.urban.org/research/publication/collecting-and-using-data-prosecutorial-decisionmaking

A Public Health Crisis Decades in the Making A Review of 2019 CDC Gun Mortality Data

Gun violence is an American public health crisis decades in the making . The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that 39,707 people, 86% of whom were male, lost their lives to gun violence in 2019 . It was the third consecutive year of nearly 40,000 gun deaths, and part of a three-year cluster with a higher gun death rate than any other time in the last two decades . Further, almost one in ten (3,390) gun deaths in 2019 were children and teens, the second-highest number of annual child and teen gun deaths in twenty years. In 2019, firearms were the leading cause of death for American children, teens, and young adults ages 1 to 24

Access the report here…….efsgv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019CDCdata.pdf