Tag: Parole

Criminal Risk Assessment and the Character Trap

People born in different years, even not that far apart, have wildly different outcomes.

Over the past three decades, successive birth cohorts in the United States have come of age in very different worlds of crime and its control. These shifting contexts shape people’s life chances in ways that challenge the belief in stable, individual propensities to commit crime and in timeless rules for predicting risk. Focusing on the life course of different birth cohorts — on when we are rather than who we are — reveals the power of the birth lottery of history.

This matters because common risk-assessment practices pervade the criminal justice system and extend well beyond it. Formal risk instruments are used to inform pretrial release and probation decisions, while criminal history information is used in sentencing, employment screening, tenant screening and occupational licensing. With the emergence of AI tools and large-scale databases, predictive risk assessment is accelerating.

But prognostications like these rest on assumptions of an individual’s stable criminal propensity or character. New research exposes the perils of this approach, revealing how rapidly changing times challenge common notions about prediction and enduring propensities to commit crime.

Read more HERE

Exclusive | New York’s parole board stacked with lefty cronies earning $190K

The real issue is how the parole board members follow their personal agendas.

A Post examination of the 16-member panel — whose salaries have skyrocketed 87% since 2019 and who have freed 43 cop killers in the past eight years  — is almost as disturbing as many of its decisions.
— Read on nypost.com/2025/04/12/us-news/new-yorks-parole-board-stacked-with-lefty-cronies-earning-190k/

A Matter of Life: The Scope and Impact of Life and Long Term Imprisonment in the United States – The Sentencing Project

Overview

In the United States, the federal government and every state enforces sentencing laws that incarcerate people for lengths that will exceed, or likely exceed, the span of a person’s natural life. In 2024, almost 200,000 people, or one in six people in prison, were serving life sentences.1 The criminal legal system’s dependence on life sentences disregards research showing that extreme sentences are not an effective public safety solution.

This report represents The Sentencing Project’s sixth national census of people serving life sentences, which includes life with the possibility of parole; life without the possibility of parole; and virtual life sentences (sentences reaching 50 years or longer). The report finds more people were serving life without parole (LWOP) in 2024 than ever before: 56,245 people were serving this “death by incarceration” sentence, a 68% increase since 2003. While the total number of people serving life sentences decreased 4% from 2020 to 2024, this decline trails the 13% downsizing of the total prison population. Moreover, nearly half the states had more people serving a life sentence in 2024 than in 2020.
— Read on www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-matter-of-life-the-scope-and-impact-of-life-and-long-term-imprisonment-in-the-united-states/

Chicago Way w/John Kass: Discussion with Rafael Mangual

Excellent!

This podcast covered Policing, Racism, Progressive Prosecutor, & Cash Bail. Rafael Mangual is an expert on these topics. Also see Mangual’s book – there is a link to it at the like below.

Chicago Way w/John Kass: Kindness is for holiday parties, not revolving-door criminal courts – John Kass
— checkout the podcast at johnkassnews.com/chicago-way-w-john-kass-kindness-is-for-holiday-parties-not-revolving-door-criminal-courts/

Criminal Convictions in New York State, 1980-2021 – Data Collaborative for Justice

This is the study used for the “Clean Slate Act”.

Criminal Convictions in New York State, 1980-2021

From 1980 to 2021, just over 6.6 million New York criminal cases impacting nearly 2.2 million people ended in a conviction.

The purpose of this study is to examine criminal convictions and attendant racial disparities in New York State from 1980 to 2021. This research brief expands on an earlier Data Collaborative for Justice study: Criminal Conviction Records in New York City (1980-2019).

— Read on datacollaborativeforjustice.org/work/racial-justice/criminal-convictions-in-new-york-state-1980-2021/