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Why Should States Pay For Prisons, When Local Officials Decide Who Goes There?, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

In the United States, states typically pay for prisons, even though the decisions that lead to prison admissions — arresting, charging, and sentencing — are made by local officials. The practice of state subsidies is relatively recent: there were no state prisons in the early part of the country’s history, and even as state institutions began to be developed, they largely supported themselves financially, rendering the notion of subsidies moot. Given the political economy of local decision-making, local preferences are unlikely to result in optimally-sized state prison populations. This Article suggests that since state prison subsidies may not be desirable …

Facilitating Crimes: An Inquiry Into The Selective Invocation Of Offenses Within The Continuum Of Criminal Procedures, Kyle Graham

Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom holds that all crimes run a gauntlet of procedures that begins with an investigation and arrest, leads to charging and arraignment, and culminates (at least in successful prosecutions) with a conviction and the application of punishment. The reality is more nuanced. As this article's empirical study of the invocation and utilization of specific crimes contained within the United States Code indicates, there exist “detention crimes,” “charging crimes,” and “pleading crimes,” three types of offenses that, as applied, tend to implicate only portions of this sequence.

This article examines the three categories of “facilitating crimes” and the benefits and …