Additional Links
A Guide to Human Trafficking for State Courts
CCI Report: Race, Bias, and Problem-Solving Courts
Advancing Racial Equity and Transforming Government: A Resource GuideABA-CJS Racial & Ethnic Justice and Diversity Committee
ABA: Change in Justice System Road Map"Drugs, Race and Common Ground"
Report of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Judicial Process
State Policy Implementation Project
Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of NYC Schools
Juvenile Detention
Reform
NADCP Board ResolutionRacial Impact Statements
The Peoria Pilot Project Useful Links
NDAA National Prosecution Standards:
Probation and Parole Violations : State Responses by Alison Lawrence : November 2008
A New Era for Plea Bargaining and Sentencing?: The Aftermath of Padilla v. Kentucky (Symposium, St. Louis, Feb. 25)
See more in the recent Committee News.
A recent article by Faye Taxman, James M. Byrne and April Pattavina entitled “Racial Disparity and the Legitimacy of the Criminal Justice System: Exploring Consequences for Deterrence,” addresses the pressing problem of overrepresentation of people of color in the criminal justice system. Reviews of the criminal justice system reveal that procedural and extralegal variables often influence this race effect. This article explores how the cumulative policies and practices of the criminal justice system foster churning, or the recycling of individuals through the system. By proposing a research agenda focused on the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, the authors promote a better understanding of how this impacts individual and community behavior.
Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Pretrial Criminal Processing By Traci Schlesinger
Maryland: Support Sentencing Reform
Nationally, serious crime rates in the U.S. have been declining for nearly 20 years. However, our recent report, Life Goes On: The Historic Rise of Life Sentences in America, found the number of persons serving life sentences has more than quadrupled since 1984. In Maryland, there are more prisoners serving life terms (11.5%) than the national average of 10.6%.
Additionally, 1 in every 10 persons serving a life sentence in Maryland was sentenced as a juvenile. Our briefing paper, The Lives of Juvenile Lifers in Maryland, highlights findings from our survey of the experiences of juveniles sentenced to life imprisonment.
Key findings from the paper include:
UPDATE: TWO NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM THE SENTENCING PROJECT
David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, and Marc Mauer have just published an op-ed commentary in the Washington Times on “Reducing Crime by Reducing Incarceration.” Cole and Mauer argue that if the nation hopes to achieve substantial reductions in the use of incarceration, it will require going beyond reforms that divert low-level drug law violators from prison. Further, they advocate addressing those individuals serving the longest sentences – lifers. Only by achieving substantial population reductions will we be able to free up resources to better address public safety needs.
The Sentencing Project has also just released an updated version of their graphics presentation, Trends in U.S. Corrections, providing data on incarceration, drug policy, race, ethnicity, gender, and other trends over the past several decades. To learn more, please visit The Sentencing Project.
UDATE: Urban Institute finds probation revoked at higher rates for Blacks
Probation was revoked at higher rates for Blacks than for white and Hispanic probationers in all four jurisdictions examined in a report from the Urban Institute. The study focused on probation outcomes in the late 2000’s in four diverse sites: Dallas County, Iowa’s Sixth Judicial District, Multnomah County, Oregon, and New York City. Racial disparities persisted even after controlling for differences in probationer characteristics such as type of charge, age, marital status, and educational level. The major contributors to this disparity were differences in risk assessment scores and supervision levels—both based primarily on criminal histories—between Black and white probationers. Because criminal histories may reflect disparities in arrests and sentencing practices, giving them weight in revocation decisions may perpetuate and compound front-end disparities in justice system practices. Sentencing guidelines sometimes perpetuated these disparities by limiting the discretion of probation officers.
The report suggests using risk assessment scores to identify probationers in need of additional services to reduce their reoffending, rather than using the scores to target high-risk offenders with additional surveillance that will likely result in probation revocation. Used this way, risk assessments could provide a means of directing greater resources at people of color to improve their success rates on probation.
Center for Social Inclusion:
Advancing Racial Equity and Transforming Government: A Resource Guide
Racial Equity Toolkit: An operation to Operationalize Equity
Dane County Racial Equity Analysis & Recommendations
ABA: Change in Justice System Road Map"Drugs, Race and Common Ground"
Report of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Judicial Process
State Policy Implementation Project
Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of NYC Schools
Juvenile Detention
Reform
NADCP Board ResolutionRacial Impact Statements
The Peoria Pilot Project Useful Links
NDAA National Prosecution Standards:
Probation and Parole Violations : State Responses by Alison Lawrence : November 2008
A New Era for Plea Bargaining and Sentencing?: The Aftermath of Padilla v. Kentucky (Symposium, St. Louis, Feb. 25)
See more in the recent Committee News.
A recent article by Faye Taxman, James M. Byrne and April Pattavina entitled “Racial Disparity and the Legitimacy of the Criminal Justice System: Exploring Consequences for Deterrence,” addresses the pressing problem of overrepresentation of people of color in the criminal justice system. Reviews of the criminal justice system reveal that procedural and extralegal variables often influence this race effect. This article explores how the cumulative policies and practices of the criminal justice system foster churning, or the recycling of individuals through the system. By proposing a research agenda focused on the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, the authors promote a better understanding of how this impacts individual and community behavior.
Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Pretrial Criminal Processing By Traci Schlesinger
Maryland: Support Sentencing Reform
Nationally, serious crime rates in the U.S. have been declining for nearly 20 years. However, our recent report, Life Goes On: The Historic Rise of Life Sentences in America, found the number of persons serving life sentences has more than quadrupled since 1984. In Maryland, there are more prisoners serving life terms (11.5%) than the national average of 10.6%.
Additionally, 1 in every 10 persons serving a life sentence in Maryland was sentenced as a juvenile. Our briefing paper, The Lives of Juvenile Lifers in Maryland, highlights findings from our survey of the experiences of juveniles sentenced to life imprisonment.
Key findings from the paper include:
- Three quarters (77.8%) of Maryland juvenile lifers witnessed violence in their home.
- Nearly four in ten (38.9%) persons sentenced to juvenile life without parole in Maryland have spent between eleven and fifteen years in prison. Seven of the 18 survey respondents have been in prison for at least fifteen years.
- Substantial numbers of juveniles sentenced to life without parole in Maryland come from low income households; one-third reported living in public housing prior to incarceration. Three-quarters (75%) of juveniles sentenced to life without parole in Maryland are Black, compared with 60% nationally.
UPDATE: TWO NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM THE SENTENCING PROJECT
David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, and Marc Mauer have just published an op-ed commentary in the Washington Times on “Reducing Crime by Reducing Incarceration.” Cole and Mauer argue that if the nation hopes to achieve substantial reductions in the use of incarceration, it will require going beyond reforms that divert low-level drug law violators from prison. Further, they advocate addressing those individuals serving the longest sentences – lifers. Only by achieving substantial population reductions will we be able to free up resources to better address public safety needs.
The Sentencing Project has also just released an updated version of their graphics presentation, Trends in U.S. Corrections, providing data on incarceration, drug policy, race, ethnicity, gender, and other trends over the past several decades. To learn more, please visit The Sentencing Project.
UDATE: Urban Institute finds probation revoked at higher rates for Blacks
Probation was revoked at higher rates for Blacks than for white and Hispanic probationers in all four jurisdictions examined in a report from the Urban Institute. The study focused on probation outcomes in the late 2000’s in four diverse sites: Dallas County, Iowa’s Sixth Judicial District, Multnomah County, Oregon, and New York City. Racial disparities persisted even after controlling for differences in probationer characteristics such as type of charge, age, marital status, and educational level. The major contributors to this disparity were differences in risk assessment scores and supervision levels—both based primarily on criminal histories—between Black and white probationers. Because criminal histories may reflect disparities in arrests and sentencing practices, giving them weight in revocation decisions may perpetuate and compound front-end disparities in justice system practices. Sentencing guidelines sometimes perpetuated these disparities by limiting the discretion of probation officers.
The report suggests using risk assessment scores to identify probationers in need of additional services to reduce their reoffending, rather than using the scores to target high-risk offenders with additional surveillance that will likely result in probation revocation. Used this way, risk assessments could provide a means of directing greater resources at people of color to improve their success rates on probation.
Center for Social Inclusion:
Advancing Racial Equity and Transforming Government: A Resource Guide
Racial Equity Toolkit: An operation to Operationalize Equity
Dane County Racial Equity Analysis & Recommendations
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