Criminal Justice Reform Research Articles

The Evolution of Sentencing Policy in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania

Criminal justice reform has become an important policy area in the American states and federal government due to the extremely high rates of incarceration in the United States. In addition, high and disproportionate rates of incarceration for black people is an important civil rights issue that needs attention at all levels of the criminal justice system, from policing to parole. This case study of the mid-Atlantic states generates hypotheses for a 50-state model on one aspect of this system: sentencing policy. The mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are similar in terms of political culture and demographics and have key differences in incarceration rates that make them good choices for a comparative case study using the “most similar systems” or “comparable cases” design. Through our case study we identify policies that we believe contribute to rising incarceration levels as well as suggest reforms. Specifically, we argue that the combination of Pennsylvania’s structured sentencing guidelines and indeterminate sentencing have contributed to high levels of incarceration that have persisted even as the push for punitiveness in the criminal justice system has diminished. These factors in conjunction with political variables should be studied further in a quantitative model of the 50 states in order to provide areas for reform.

Perceptions of Black and White individuals sentenced for violent and nonviolent crimes

AbstractThe US judicial system is rife with racial discrimination against Black individuals at every stage. The current study aimed to examine perceptions of individuals accused of crimes and perceptions of sentencing decisions. Furthermore, we aimed to examine whether implicit and explicit racial bias would affect these perceptions. White university students (n = 157) and noncollege adults (n = 224) viewed fictitious electronic case records for Black and White target individuals convicted of a nonviolent drug crime or a violent assault crime. They rated the targets on positive and negative traits and completed measures of explicit and implicit racial bias. Findings indicated that university student participants rated the White targets more negatively and less positively than the Black targets across both crimes. The nonuniversity sample rated the Black targets more negatively than the White targets for the violent crime. On ratings of deservingness of incarceration and fairness of the sanction, participants had similar perceptions for Black and White targets. Furthermore, participants in our studies who reported greater explicit bias also evaluated the Black target less positively, more negatively, as more violent, and as more deserving of incarceration. More negative implicit bias was significantly associated with less positive evaluations of the Black target and greater endorsement that the target deserved incarceration. These findings have implications for criminal justice and judicial reform.

The Problematic Structure of Indigent Defense Delivery

The national conversation about criminal justice reform largely ignores the critical need for structural reforms in the provision of indigent defense. In most parts of the country, decisions about how to structure the provision of indigent defense are made at the local level, resulting in a fragmented patchwork of different indigent defense delivery systems. In most counties, if an indigent criminal defendant gets representation at all, it comes from assigned counsel or flat-fee contract lawyers rather than public defenders. In those assigned-counsel and flat-fee contract systems, the lawyers representing indigent defendants have financial incentives to get rid of assigned criminal cases as quickly as possible. Those incentives fuel mass incarceration because the lawyers put less time into each case than their public defender counterparts and achieve poorer outcomes for their clients. Moreover, empirical research shows that assigned-counsel and flat-fee contract systems are economically more costly to the public fisc than public defender systems. This Article collects data from across the country to show how prevalent assigned- counsel and contract systems remain, explains why arguments in favor of substantial reliance on the private bar to provide for indigent defense are outdated, argues that more states need to move toward state-structured public defender models, and outlines how it is politically possible for stakeholders to get there.

Reforming justice under a security crisis: The case of the criminal justice reform in Mexico

This paper assesses how the adoption of a common-law style model affects crime rates, pretrial detention, and judicial efficiency measures. We do this in the context of Mexico, where a judicial reform was fully implemented by 2016, both on the state and federal levels. Using a generalized synthetic control group approach (Xu, 2017) and municipality-level administrative data for the years 1997–2012, we find that the reform increased the homicide rate and was accompanied by a reduction in the use of pretrial detention for property crimes in the early implementer municipalities. The increase in the homicide rate was, nonetheless, much greater in the municipalities with established organized crime presence, where we also observed a greater reduction in the capacity to effectively prosecute homicides. Our results describe the difficulties in implementing this kind of reform in developing countries experiencing security crises.

Overpoliced and Underrepresented: Perspectives on Cannabis Legalization From Members of Racialized Communities in Canada.

Historically, overpolicing of some racialized and Indigenous groups in Canada has resulted in unequal application of drug laws contributing to disproportionate rates of charges and convictions in these populations. Criminal records severely and negatively impact an individual's life and can perpetuate cycles of poverty and socioeconomic disadvantage. On October 17, 2018, Canada legalized cannabis production, distribution, sale, and possession for non-medical purposes. Advocates of criminal justice reform have raised concerns that Indigenous and racialized people may not equitably benefit from legalization due to unequal police surveillance and drug enforcement. These groups are among priority populations for research on cannabis and mental health, but their views on cannabis regulation have been largely absent from research and policy-making. To address this gap, we asked self-identified members of these communities about their lived experiences and perspectives on cannabis legalization in Canada. Between September 2018 and July 2019, we conducted semistructured interviews and focus groups with 37 individuals in Québec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. During this phase of early cannabis legalization, participants responded to questions about anticipated public health risks and benefits of legalization, how their jurisdiction is responding to legalization, and what community resources would be needed to address legalization impacts. We conducted a thematic analysis and identified five major themes in the data related to race and early cannabis legalization: overpolicing of racialized communities, severity of penalties in new cannabis legislation, increased police powers, and underrepresentation of racialized groups in the legal cannabis market and in cannabis research. Participants discussed opportunities to support cannabis justice, including establishing priority licenses, issuing pardons or expunging criminal records, and reinvesting cannabis revenue into impacted communities. This work begins to address the paucity of Indigenous and racialized voices in cannabis research and identifies potential solutions to injustices of cannabis prohibition.

How to Think about Criminal Justice Reform: Conceptual and Practical Considerations.

How can we improve the effectiveness of criminal justice reform efforts? Effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is and shared visions of what success looks like. But consensus is hard to come by, and there has long been a distinction between "policy talk" or how problems are defined and solutions are promoted, and "policy action" or the design and adoption of certain policies. In this essay, we seek to promote productive thinking and talking about, as well as designing of, effective and sustainable criminal justice reforms. To this end, we offer reflections on underlying conceptual and practical considerations relevant for both criminal justice policy talk and action.

Reflections on Criminal Justice Reform: Challenges and Opportunities

Considerable efforts and resources have been expended to enact reforms to the criminal justice system over the last five decades. Concerns about dramatic increases in violent crime beginning in the late Sixties and accelerating into the 1980s led to the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Crime” that included implementation of more punitive policies and dramatic increases in incarceration and community supervision. More recent reform efforts have focused on strategies to reduce the negative impacts of policing, the disparate impacts of pretrial practices, and better strategies for reducing criminal behavior. Renewed interest in strategies and interventions to reduce criminal behavior has coincided with a focus on identifying “what works.” Recent increases in violence have shifted the national dialog from a focus on progressive reforms to reduce reliance on punitive measures and the disparate impact of the legal system on some groups to a focus on increased investment in “tough on crime” criminal justice approaches. This essay offers some reflections on the “Waged Wars” and the efforts to identify “What Works” based on nearly 40 years of work evaluating criminal justice reform efforts.

Criminal Justice Reform and Inequality

Criminal Justice Reform and Inequality

Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Reform

Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Reform

Research Training for Criminal Justice Reform

Research Training for Criminal Justice Reform

PWUD Experiences of Criminal Justice Reform: Enduring Tensions Between Policing and Harm Reduction in Baltimore, MD

In this paper we explore people who use drugs (PWUD) perceptions and experiences of drug-related law enforcement in a major U.S. city. Maryland recently implemented several harm reduction policies/interventions aiming to improve PWUD-police relationships, such as the Good Samaritan Law (GSL), intended to avoid criminalizing police encounters with PWUD in cases of overdose. PWUD, though most impacted by these efforts, are seldom included in the decision making process. Data collection occurred in Baltimore City, a majority-Black city with a history of structural racism, where high overdose fatalities necessitate collaborative interventions, but where over-policing and abusive practices have generated widespread community mistrust of police. Between October 2018 and December 2019, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 PWUD in Baltimore City to understand their perspectives of policing and its impact on harm reduction practices (specifically willingness to seek overdose assistance) in the context of the GSL. PWUD reported ongoing police mistrust, which impacted their harm reduction practices and experiences of laws such as the GSL. Results question whether police, as first responders to overdose, can ever avoid criminalizing the encounter. Findings intend to guide future public health-law enforcement collaboration efforts in the context of the current de-policing debate.

Understanding Causes for Wrongful Convictions in Vietnam: a View from the Top and the Bottom of the Iceberg

Wrongful convictions have severe consequences and effects on the values, dignity, and self-esteem of the innocent and their beloved ones. While Vietnam is implementing the rule of law to ensure the protection of citizens’ fundamental rights, recent and serious wrongful conviction cases suggest a need to enhance the effectiveness and credibility of criminal justice reform. Using several cases for examples from Vietnam, this study examines two levels of factors that contribute to wrongful convictions: (i) the acknowledged causes (the top of the iceberg) and (ii) the hidden roots (beneath the surface). In addition, we compare the case of Vietnam to the findings from other Asian nations, notably those of East Asia. We conclude that the causes for wrongful convictions are embedded in the criminal justice process and culture, and eradication of wrongful convictions requires careful planning and innovative reforms that address the root causes of the problems. Relevant policy and practical recommendations are offered to deal with the factors leading to wrongful convictions in Vietnam.

Pairing Sociology with Design

Students designed posters for the sociology course Crime, Justice, and Rebellion and the design course Experimental Typography. The sociology class situated crime and criminal justice reform in relation to family, peers, community, and institutions. In the design course, students looked to historical examples of protest art and were challenged to communicate issues of social, cultural, and political relevance through poster design. Students considered the promise and limitations of sociology and design through reflections. Some posters engage with ideas from assigned readings while other posters represent original student research. Student poster designs advocate for social justice and criminal justice reform.

Resist & Rise: The One Love Method and Human Rights Performance

Resist & Rise:The One Love Method and Human Rights Performance Ayshia Mackiestephenson (bio) In Spring 2021, Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) students presented the performance Resist & Rise: Our Fight for Freedom at the Spring Arts Festival. In this performance, Black and Brown community college students created original works based upon the human rights concerns within their communities. I directed Resist & Rise1 as the professor for the learning community course "Introduction to Communication." There were performances on ending police brutality, criminal justice reform in the United States, and resisting white supremacy in pop culture. Students presented poetry, images, passionate speeches, archival Black history footage, and their own original films on these topics. The overall themes for the performance were to advocate for BIPOC human rights and to resist and rise above white supremacy. I used the One Love Method (One Love), a curriculum I designed to resist white supremacy in performance-based education and beyond to teach this course and direct the performance. The public performance was grounded in One Love as a means to empower Black and Brown students, encourage antiracist allyship, and serve our college community with inspiration, participation, and action. One Love is a tool to center Indigenous African epistemology and human rights activism in the performance studies and theatre classrooms, and the Resist & Rise performance is an example of its effectiveness. Analysis and Pedagogy "Love is necessary work and it is in love that we learn to resist, thrive, and lead under any circumstances." —bell hooks It is through human rights advocacy that this love can be expressed and realized. One Love is a performance studies pedagogy that recognizes all human beings as one, with one common African ancestry, and uses Yoruba rhetoric and philosophy as a way to dismantle racism in teaching and learning. It is a performance studies pedagogy, because performance is the study of how humans present their identity in culture and on the stage. The use of a Black framework is critical to Black and other BIPOC students presenting an identity that resists white supremacy and centers the subaltern's epistemology. The use of a Black and precolonial framework is in itself an act of social change and works to transform the performance space. Students used Yoruba philosophy as the foundation to their human rights project. One Love is also based upon the premise that using African Indigenous philosophy makes sense, because all human beings share African ancestry. It is based upon Black African (specifically Yoruba and Zulu) rhetoric and philosophy. At BHCC, I was inspired to design this method while teaching communication, performance studies, and theatre in 2019. One day, I was teaching a dualenrollment performance studies course and a Black high school student said that she hated having [End Page 139] no history and nothing that was hers alone and that she didn't have to take from white people. This statement from such a young woman really broke my heart and was the inspiration for this method. I knew that resisting white supremacy in education would take more than teaching Black history rooted in the US oppression and discrimination of Black people. Performance needs a means to move away from the centralization of white paradigms, of white ways of knowing and being and producing. I already knew that the field of performance studies and theatre in particular predominantly uses frameworks by white American and European artists (Viewpoints, Stanislavski, Meisner, and so on). Performance studies is highly influenced by Black scholars who have framed the field (D. Soyini Madison, Bryant Keith Alexander, Mary Weems, and so on), but there is little linkage to African epistemology or BIPOC human rights or the centering of African epistemology as a human right. I decided that my students needed a method of teaching performance-based work that centers African influence on performance and recognizes the human rights of Black and Brown people in our artistic practices. The young woman's cry for help coincided with my humanities division looking for faculty to train other faculty in innovative curriculum for Professional Development Day. I volunteered to design and lead the workshop "The One Love Method: An Antiracist Pedagogy." I continued to develop One Love over...

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

Offending and the Long-Term Risk of Death: An Examination of Mid-Life Mortality Among an Urban Black American Cohort.

Research on the long-term relationship between offending and mortality is limited, especially among minorities who have higher risk of premature mortality and criminal offending, particularly arrest. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we estimate the relationship between young adult offending and later mortality (to age 58) among a community cohort of Black Americans (n = 1,182). After controlling for a wide range of covariates, results indicate that violent offenders are at heightened risk of mortality from young adulthood through midlife compared with both non-violent only offenders and non-offenders. Further analysis shows that this result is driven by the frequent, largely non-violent, arrests incurred among violent offenders. Criminal justice reform and collaboration with public health practitioners might be fruitful avenues to reduce mortality disparities.

Unfinished Business

As the newly confirmed Sentencing Commission begins to implement important criminal justice reforms like the First Step Act, we urge it to continue the project of criminal justice reform by returning to the issue of the Drug Conversion Tables, particularly with respect to MDMA (or “Ecstasy”). The Drug Conversion Tables play an essential role in determining sentences for drug offenses, the most commonly prosecuted category of federal crimes. These tables have resulted in severe sentencing disparities for similar offenses—they have been widely recognized as often arbitrary and detached from pharmacological evidence, including by the Commission and Congress, at least in the context of crack cocaine. In 2001, the Sentencing Commission updated the Drug Conversion Tables to treat one gram of MDMA as the equivalent of 500 grams of marijuana for sentencing purposes. This 1:500 ratio increased MDMA penalties significantly as compared to the prior 1:35 ratio. The Commission made this change based on faulty evidence and in spite of the testimony of scientists that even the original 1:35 ratio was too severe. In 2016, the Commission announced a re-examination of its MDMA conversion ratio. Despite its call for public comment and the submission of extensive expert testimony on the ratio’s unsound basis, the Commission never acted nor announced any conclusion with respect to the MDMA re-examination. We hope that the Commission returns to the re-examination it commendably chose to begin long before it lost quorum.

Congress Reforms Military Sentencing, Creating an Opportunity for a Productive Sentencing Reform Dialogue Between the Military and Civilian Criminal Justice Systems

In recently-enacted legislation, Congress drew upon the 35-year experience with sentencing reform in the federal civilian criminal courts to reform significant aspects of the sentencing process in the military justice system. The article reviews the sentencing reform provisions contained in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2022 and the Military Justice Act of 2016, which address many of the core elements of sentencing, including: (1) the principles governing sentencing in courts-martial; (2) the use of sentencing “parameters” and “criteria” in the adjudication of sentences by general and special courts-martial; (3) the role of the military judge in the adjudication of sentences; (4) consideration of plea agreements at the trial level; (5) appellate review of sentences; (6) clemency and related actions on the sentence, and more. After summarizing the history of military and civilian sentencing, the article reviews the newly-enacted military justice sentencing provisions, comparing them to the relevant provisions in the federal civilian sentencing system that were enacted as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and subsequent legislation, and implemented by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Although some of these newly-enacted reforms mirror similar elements of the federal civilian sentencing system, others follow a different approach, reflecting a decision by Congress to adapt rather than simply adopt current civilian practices. As Congress, the Administration, and a new Sentencing Commission focus on criminal justice reform, including possible changes to civilian sentencing law and policy, the recent reforms in military justice sentencing provide an important source of insights worthy of consideration.

Judging prosecutors: Public support for prosecutorial discretion

Prosecutors have immense discretion to determine which offenses to charge, which cases to take to trial, and which sentences to recommend. Yet, even though many of the prosecutors who exercise this discretion over important crimes must face the electorate to keep their jobs, we know little about how the use of this discretion affects prosecutors’ electoral fortunes. Drawing on two experiments embedded in a nationally representative survey, we demonstrate that the public is more supportive of prosecutors who issue lenient sentences for low-level crimes. The results have important implications for criminal justice reform inasmuch as they provide a linkage between progressive prosecutorial behavior and respondents’ vote intentions.

“There’s Something Happening Here”

This article examines the recent increase in the number of federal alternative-to-incarceration programs (ATIs), and how such programs could be aided considerably by the newly constituted United States Sentencing Commission. The authors observe that precisely because the federal system has been slower to embrace ATIs, this decarceration effort may have at least partially avoided the pendulum-like dynamic that repeatedly frustrates the criminal justice reform movement in state and local jurisdictions. Drawing on source material from a recent series of panel discussions on federal decarceration, the authors suggest that ATIs can be scaled to great, even transformative effect in the federal system. They conclude, however, that this will take equally great measures of conviction and culture change.