Category: CRJ101 Intro CJ

Task Force on Policing

The independent Task Force on Policing was launched in November 2020 by the Council on Criminal Justice. Its mission is to identify the policies and practices most likely to reduce violent encounters between officers and the public and improve the fairness and effectiveness of American policing. The Task Force is evaluating more than two dozen proposed policing reforms, including those focused on preventing excessive use of force, reducing racial biases, increasing accountability, and improving the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

The Task Force on Policing is staffed by the Council, with research support from the Crime Lab at University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.


Make sure to check out the several different Policy Assessments that they offer on it’s website.

HERE are a few notable ones that can be downloaded from the website:

Body-Worn Cameras (BWC) – HERE

Civilian Oversight – HERE

Governmental Oversight and Reform Measures – HERE

The Pandemic Prompted Marilyn Mosby to Stop Prosecuting Low-Level Crimes. Will Other D.A.s Follow? – The Appeal

Or is the pandemic an excuse?

Prosecutors across the country have begun declining low-level cases in an effort to reduce racial inequity and to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
— Read on theappeal.org/the-pandemic-prompted-marilyn-mosby-to-stop-prosecuting-low-level-crimes-will-other-d-a-s-follow/

Is Police Reform Over – Podcast #134

This podcast is another anti-police view for reform. There were some comments that police Reform hasn’t work so maybe its time to stop trying to reform police. Policing is in constant change and reform. Over the past 30 years there has been changes in technology, use of force, response to domestic violence, police pursuits, changes in law, implicit bias, de-escalation, etc. When change is difficult is because police offices think the reforms are illegitimate. They are agenda driven and spearheaded by a small amount of people.

A second thing that the participants discuss are several thinks that are not part of policing like homelessness, unemployment, housing, access to school yet they discuss law enforcement’s role with these issues. These are not law enforcement issues. You call for the abolition of the police yet you connect police to issues that it is not part of. WHY? Because you know that it is the police that will be called to lend assistance because there are NO OTHER agencies that are available 27/7/365.

Unfortunately through the whole podcast I don’t hear anything positive about the police. It is difficult to think that you are legitimately trying to improve policing when discussed about policing is negative. When anyone who is part of policing knows that it just isn’t so.

The podcast can be accessed here….podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/criminal-in-justice/id1094352910

National Registry of Exonerations

About the Registry

The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. It was founded in 2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. The Registry provides detailed information about every known exoneration in the United States since 1989—cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence. The Registry also maintains a more limited database of known exonerations prior to 1989.

The website for the National Registry of Exonerations is HERE

National Registry of Exonerations 2020 Annual Report is HERE

Cops Tried To Force a Man To Delete a Video of Them Beating a Suspect. They Got Qualified Immunity.

In August 2014, Levi Frasier filmed Denver cops beating a suspect during an arrest for an alleged drug deal. The officers punched the accused six times in the face, and when a woman approached the scene screaming, a different cop clutched her ankle, tossing her to the ground—all captured on film.

The officers didn’t take kindly to the latter point. After the arrest, they surrounded Frasier, searched his tablet without a warrant, and attempted to delete the resulting video. In doing so, a federal court this week acknowledged that the officers violated the First Amendment, with the judges noting that the city’s police training had taught the officers as much: There’s a constitutional right to record government agents making a public arrest.

Read more HERE ………..

Derek Chauvin and the Myth of the Impartial Juror

As a space for democratic deliberation and decision-making, the jury box still has the potential to shift the criminal legal system. But, first, we must change who is able to serve on a jury. 

Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death?. . . If you participated, did you carry a sign? What did it say?

These questions were part of the questionnaire given to those summoned to serve as jurors in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd. Provided that judges and attorneys are willing to take these questions up, they could hold the key for beginning more nuanced conversations about race and the criminal legal system. READ MORE here …………

Applying Procedural Justice in Community Supervision

Abstract

Procedural justice, a framework for authority figures to treat people with fairness and respect, can improve probation supervision and core supervision outcomes. This report summarizes the approach and provision outcomes of an effort to develop and pilot a new procedural justice training curriculum outlining new tools and practices for probation officers. Analyses of interactions between supervising officers and people under supervision, survey responses regarding perceptions of supervision, and analyses of administrative data provided mixed findings, with some preliminary indications that participating in the procedural justice training may make probation officers’ treatment of people under supervision fairer and more respectful and improve supervision outcomes. However, the conclusions that can be drawn from even those results supportive of intervention impact are subject to significant limitations, given the nonexperimental nature of the design and the small number of observations in some of the data collected.
for more select HERE………

Select here to get a copy of the report:
Applying Procedural Justice in Community Supervision

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