Young Adults in Court: Developing a Tailored Approach
"The Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance, a coalition of criminal justice, health and youth organisations, has helped to establish a growing consensus that criminal justice system responses to the behaviour of young adults should reflect their variable developmental maturity and make allowances for their specific age-related needs. This consensus is underpinned by research on brain development in young adulthood suggesting that impulse control, reasoning, and decision-making capacities are in formation through the mid-20s.
Aspects of justice system practice in England and Wales have adjusted in recognition of this evidence. Adult sentencing decisions have, since 2011, included maturity as a mitigating factor. From 2013, the Crown Prosecution Service began taking maturity into account as part of its public interest test. However, the allocation of people within the court system continues to be driven purely by the chronological age of the defendant. The separation into youth and adult courts was established with the Children Act 1908, recognising that children and young people needed to be treated differently from adults. We now know that young adults are a developmentally distinct population. A chronological split between jurisdictions based on Edwardian evidence no longer reflects contemporary understanding of the evidence base."
Your resource for news, research, opinion and comment in the world of Criminology and Criminal Justice, brought to you by the Criminology Library, Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
We now have Algorithms to Predict Police Misconduct
"...Many police departments have early warning systems — software that tracks each officer’s performance and aims to forecast potential problems. The systems identify officers with troubling patterns of behavior, allowing superiors to monitor these cops more closely or intervene and send them to counseling.
...a mixed group of graduate and undergraduate students working together at the University of Chicago with backgrounds in statistics, programming, economics and related disciplines, are trying to build a better kind of early warning system. They began their task last summer with a request from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department: Predict when police officers would participate in adverse interactions with civilians."
"...Many police departments have early warning systems — software that tracks each officer’s performance and aims to forecast potential problems. The systems identify officers with troubling patterns of behavior, allowing superiors to monitor these cops more closely or intervene and send them to counseling.
...a mixed group of graduate and undergraduate students working together at the University of Chicago with backgrounds in statistics, programming, economics and related disciplines, are trying to build a better kind of early warning system. They began their task last summer with a request from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department: Predict when police officers would participate in adverse interactions with civilians."
Incorrect Care: A Prison Profiteer Turns Care into Confinement
"As criminal justice reform sweeps the nation, an alarming trend has emerged tat could mean private prison profiteers control a person's fate for life, not just the term of a prison sentence. The same private prison profiteers who built billion dollar empires as partners in tough on crime policies are adapting to reforms by rebranding themselves as humane treatment providers. The criminal justice system has created ample opportunities for their expansion, including mental health hospitals and civil commitment centers, correctional healthcare, and community corrections. This report will look specifically at one segment of their expansion: mental health hospitals and civil commitment centers, facilities that represent the potential for lifetime confinement and long-term guaranteed profit."
"As criminal justice reform sweeps the nation, an alarming trend has emerged tat could mean private prison profiteers control a person's fate for life, not just the term of a prison sentence. The same private prison profiteers who built billion dollar empires as partners in tough on crime policies are adapting to reforms by rebranding themselves as humane treatment providers. The criminal justice system has created ample opportunities for their expansion, including mental health hospitals and civil commitment centers, correctional healthcare, and community corrections. This report will look specifically at one segment of their expansion: mental health hospitals and civil commitment centers, facilities that represent the potential for lifetime confinement and long-term guaranteed profit."
Recidivism among Federal Offenders: A Comprehensive Overview
"This report provides a broad overview of key findings from the United States Sentencing Commission’s study of recidivism of federal offenders. The Commission studied offenders who were either released from federal prison after serving a sentence of imprisonment or placed on a term of probation in 2005. Nearly half (49.3%) of such offenders were rearrested within eight years for either a new crime or for some other violation of the condition of their probation or release conditions. This report discusses the Commission’s recidivism research project and provides many additional findings from that project."
View the Report
"This report provides a broad overview of key findings from the United States Sentencing Commission’s study of recidivism of federal offenders. The Commission studied offenders who were either released from federal prison after serving a sentence of imprisonment or placed on a term of probation in 2005. Nearly half (49.3%) of such offenders were rearrested within eight years for either a new crime or for some other violation of the condition of their probation or release conditions. This report discusses the Commission’s recidivism research project and provides many additional findings from that project."
View the Report
The Supreme Court and the Transformation of Juvenile Sentencing
"In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In combination, these cases create a special status for juveniles under Eighth Amendment doctrine as a category of offenders whose culpability is mitigated by their youth and immaturity, even for the most serious offenses. The Court also emphasized that juveniles are more likely to reform than adult offenders, and that most should be given a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that they have done so. In short, because of young offenders’ developmental immaturity, harsh sentences that may be suitable for adult criminals are seldom appropriate for juveniles.
These opinions announce a powerful constitutional principle—that 'children are different' for purposes of criminal punishment. In articulating this principle, the Supreme Court has also provided general guidance to courts sentencing juveniles and to lawmakers charged with implementing the rulings. At the same time, the Court did not directly address the specifics of implementation and it left many questions unanswered about the implications of the opinions for juvenile sentencing regulation. In the years since Roper, Graham, and Miller, courts and legislatures have struggled to interpret the opinions and to create procedures and policies that are compatible with constitutional principles and doctrine.
This report addresses the key issues facing courts and legislatures under this new constitutional regime, and provides guidance based on the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment analysis and on the principles the Court has articulated."
View the Report
"In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In combination, these cases create a special status for juveniles under Eighth Amendment doctrine as a category of offenders whose culpability is mitigated by their youth and immaturity, even for the most serious offenses. The Court also emphasized that juveniles are more likely to reform than adult offenders, and that most should be given a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that they have done so. In short, because of young offenders’ developmental immaturity, harsh sentences that may be suitable for adult criminals are seldom appropriate for juveniles.
These opinions announce a powerful constitutional principle—that 'children are different' for purposes of criminal punishment. In articulating this principle, the Supreme Court has also provided general guidance to courts sentencing juveniles and to lawmakers charged with implementing the rulings. At the same time, the Court did not directly address the specifics of implementation and it left many questions unanswered about the implications of the opinions for juvenile sentencing regulation. In the years since Roper, Graham, and Miller, courts and legislatures have struggled to interpret the opinions and to create procedures and policies that are compatible with constitutional principles and doctrine.
This report addresses the key issues facing courts and legislatures under this new constitutional regime, and provides guidance based on the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment analysis and on the principles the Court has articulated."
View the Report
Natasha Madon and Anthony Doob: The Retention of Women in the Private Practice of Criminal Law: Research Report
"Between 2005 and 2008, the Law Society of Upper Canada conducted an extensive study on the retention of women in private practice in Ontario. That work culminated in a report, which was released on May 22, 2008. The Law Society study found as follows:
...In 2014, the Women's Committee commissioned a study to look at whether women are leaving defence practice in greater numbers than men and, if so, to identify why that was the case and what can be done to reverse the trend. This report provides the first systemic look at the data on women in defence practice in Ontario. It provides qualitative information about the experience of women in private practice and sets out a number of recommendations for systemic changes to ensure women remain in defence practice."
"Between 2005 and 2008, the Law Society of Upper Canada conducted an extensive study on the retention of women in private practice in Ontario. That work culminated in a report, which was released on May 22, 2008. The Law Society study found as follows:
- Women have been entering the legal profession and private practice in record numbers for at least two decades. However, they have been leaving private practice in droves largely because the legal profession has not effectively adapted to this reality.
- The departure of women from private practice means that the legal profession is losing a large component of its best and brightest in core areas of practice
...In 2014, the Women's Committee commissioned a study to look at whether women are leaving defence practice in greater numbers than men and, if so, to identify why that was the case and what can be done to reverse the trend. This report provides the first systemic look at the data on women in defence practice in Ontario. It provides qualitative information about the experience of women in private practice and sets out a number of recommendations for systemic changes to ensure women remain in defence practice."
"Ghettoside" Author Jill Leovy on what we have Learned since Rodney King
"...The safe take safety for granted. They assume that they are safe because safety is a state of nature, and that violence is an aberration. They fail to realize that, historically, it’s the safe people who are the strange ones.... They don’t have to negotiate with killers. Their neighbors don’t coerce them. Their living rooms are not firebombed if they break ranks with the community. They are the beneficiaries of institutional progress that has shifted the burden of conflict resolution from individuals, families, clans or sects to a highly developed criminal justice system, rooted in democratic processes, controlled by an independent judiciary, and governed by the rule of law. They don’t know how lucky they are....
...So before we talk of addressing legitimacy, we have to be clear about the problem we are trying to fix. The real problem is that formal justice is materially lacking among populations that suffer high rates of violence. It’s missing, and it must be supplied.
That means no amount of warm and fuzzy talk will fill the bill. More than half of killers of black men go free in cities all over the country. The unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County posted solve rates for homicide in the thirty-percent range through some of the most violent periods of the eighties and nineties. This translates to thousands of killers operating with impunity over decades in America’s poorest urban enclaves – dozens per square mile in South Los Angeles over just a few years. And that’s just a glimpse of the uncharted depths of the impunity problem, a statistical dark zone, where no good information exists on the frequency of non-lethal crimes, assaults and threats. The resulting lawlessness is a cruel form of deprivation afflicting tens of thousands of mostly poor, minority residents of America’s inner-cities, who get roughed up, robbed and raped with appalling frequency and live in daily fear that their sons might be killed. Its remedy must be to supply official justice, not just engage in “dialogue.” Violence is not a problem for coaches and pastors to solve; the state must do its job."
"...The safe take safety for granted. They assume that they are safe because safety is a state of nature, and that violence is an aberration. They fail to realize that, historically, it’s the safe people who are the strange ones.... They don’t have to negotiate with killers. Their neighbors don’t coerce them. Their living rooms are not firebombed if they break ranks with the community. They are the beneficiaries of institutional progress that has shifted the burden of conflict resolution from individuals, families, clans or sects to a highly developed criminal justice system, rooted in democratic processes, controlled by an independent judiciary, and governed by the rule of law. They don’t know how lucky they are....
...So before we talk of addressing legitimacy, we have to be clear about the problem we are trying to fix. The real problem is that formal justice is materially lacking among populations that suffer high rates of violence. It’s missing, and it must be supplied.
That means no amount of warm and fuzzy talk will fill the bill. More than half of killers of black men go free in cities all over the country. The unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County posted solve rates for homicide in the thirty-percent range through some of the most violent periods of the eighties and nineties. This translates to thousands of killers operating with impunity over decades in America’s poorest urban enclaves – dozens per square mile in South Los Angeles over just a few years. And that’s just a glimpse of the uncharted depths of the impunity problem, a statistical dark zone, where no good information exists on the frequency of non-lethal crimes, assaults and threats. The resulting lawlessness is a cruel form of deprivation afflicting tens of thousands of mostly poor, minority residents of America’s inner-cities, who get roughed up, robbed and raped with appalling frequency and live in daily fear that their sons might be killed. Its remedy must be to supply official justice, not just engage in “dialogue.” Violence is not a problem for coaches and pastors to solve; the state must do its job."
Canada's Prisons are the new Residential Schools
"Canada’s crime rate just hit a 45-year low. It’s been dropping for years—down by half since peaking in 1991. Bizarrely, the country recently cleared another benchmark, when the number of people incarcerated hit an all-time high. Dig a little further into the data, and an even more disquieting picture emerges.
While admissions of white adults to Canadian prisons declined through the last decade, Indigenous incarceration rates were surging: Up 112 per cent for women. Already, 36 per cent of the women and 25 per cent of men sentenced to provincial and territorial custody in Canada are Indigenous—a group that makes up just four per cent of the national population. Add in federal prisons, and Indigenous inmates account for 22.8 per cent of the total incarcerated population."
"Canada’s crime rate just hit a 45-year low. It’s been dropping for years—down by half since peaking in 1991. Bizarrely, the country recently cleared another benchmark, when the number of people incarcerated hit an all-time high. Dig a little further into the data, and an even more disquieting picture emerges.
While admissions of white adults to Canadian prisons declined through the last decade, Indigenous incarceration rates were surging: Up 112 per cent for women. Already, 36 per cent of the women and 25 per cent of men sentenced to provincial and territorial custody in Canada are Indigenous—a group that makes up just four per cent of the national population. Add in federal prisons, and Indigenous inmates account for 22.8 per cent of the total incarcerated population."
Big Data on the Beat: Predictive Policing has Arrived
"'Predictive policing used to be the future,' said career cop William Bratton, 'and now it is the present.' In mid-May 2015, Bratton—the visionary former chief of police in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and currently again top cop in New York—was talking about his early days as an officer in Boston, about what worked and what didn’t, and about what can work better in the future. That future will involve predictive policing, which Bratton is bringing to New York (a pilot program was launched last summer).
Predictive policing, which Bratton helped develop when he headed the Los Angeles Police Department during the 2000s, seeks not just to fight crime but to anticipate and prevent it. It uses cutting-edge technology and Big Data—some of which comes from past analysis and some of which is new, streaming in real time to an onboard computer in a patrol car—to identify high-risk areas, which precincts can then flood with police. The aim is not to make arrests but to deter crime before it occurs. Predictive policing relies crucially on community engagement—it can work only when the police are seen as part of the neighborhood, rather than as an occupying presence. At a time when police-community relations are frayed and many cities face rising violent-crime rates as well as renewed concern about terrorist threats, the approach may provide a better way forward."
Related Article: Does Predictive Policing Lead to More Police in Black Communities? Readers React
"'Predictive policing used to be the future,' said career cop William Bratton, 'and now it is the present.' In mid-May 2015, Bratton—the visionary former chief of police in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and currently again top cop in New York—was talking about his early days as an officer in Boston, about what worked and what didn’t, and about what can work better in the future. That future will involve predictive policing, which Bratton is bringing to New York (a pilot program was launched last summer).
Predictive policing, which Bratton helped develop when he headed the Los Angeles Police Department during the 2000s, seeks not just to fight crime but to anticipate and prevent it. It uses cutting-edge technology and Big Data—some of which comes from past analysis and some of which is new, streaming in real time to an onboard computer in a patrol car—to identify high-risk areas, which precincts can then flood with police. The aim is not to make arrests but to deter crime before it occurs. Predictive policing relies crucially on community engagement—it can work only when the police are seen as part of the neighborhood, rather than as an occupying presence. At a time when police-community relations are frayed and many cities face rising violent-crime rates as well as renewed concern about terrorist threats, the approach may provide a better way forward."
Related Article: Does Predictive Policing Lead to More Police in Black Communities? Readers React
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)