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Full-Text Articles in Law
Algorithmic Risk Assessments And The Double-Edged Sword Of Youth, Megan T. Stevenson, Christopher Slobogin
Algorithmic Risk Assessments And The Double-Edged Sword Of Youth, Megan T. Stevenson, Christopher Slobogin
Christopher Slobogin
Risk assessment algorithms—statistical formulas that predict the likelihood a person will commit crime in the future—are used across the country to help make life-altering decisions in the criminal process, including setting bail, determining sentences, selecting probation conditions, and deciding parole. Yet many of these instruments are “black-box” tools. The algorithms they use are secret, both to the sentencing authorities who rely on them and to the offender whose life is affected. The opaque nature of these tools raises numerous legal and ethical concerns. In this paper we argue that risk assessment algorithms obfuscate how certain factors, usually considered mitigating by …
White Paper Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld, Laura I. Appleman, Richard A. Bierschbach, Kenworthey Bilz, Josh Bowers, John Braithwaite, Robert P. Burns, R A Duff, Albert W. Dzur, Thomas F. Geraghty, Adriaan Lanni, Marah Stith Mcleod, Janice Nadler, Anthony O'Rourke, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan Simon, Jocelyn Simonson, Tom R. Tyler, Ekow N. Yankah
White Paper Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld, Laura I. Appleman, Richard A. Bierschbach, Kenworthey Bilz, Josh Bowers, John Braithwaite, Robert P. Burns, R A Duff, Albert W. Dzur, Thomas F. Geraghty, Adriaan Lanni, Marah Stith Mcleod, Janice Nadler, Anthony O'Rourke, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan Simon, Jocelyn Simonson, Tom R. Tyler, Ekow N. Yankah
Anthony O'Rourke
This white paper is the joint product of nineteen professors of criminal law and procedure who share a common conviction: that the path toward a more just, effective, and reasonable criminal system in the United States is to democratize American criminal justice. In the name of the movement to democratize criminal justice, we herein set forth thirty proposals for democratic criminal justice reform.
Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost: Immigration Enforcement's Failed Experiment With Penal Severity, Teresa A. Miller
Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost: Immigration Enforcement's Failed Experiment With Penal Severity, Teresa A. Miller
Teresa A. Miller
This article traces the evolution of “get tough” sentencing and corrections policies that were touted as the solution to a criminal justice system widely viewed as “broken” in the mid-1970s. It draws parallels to the adoption some twenty years later of harsh, punitive policies in the immigration enforcement system to address perceptions that it is similarly “broken,” policies that have embraced the theories, objectives and tools of criminal punishment, and caused the two systems to converge. In discussing the myriad of harms that have resulted from the convergence of these two systems, and the criminal justice system’s recent shift away …
Retributive Justifications For Jail Diversion Of Individuals With Mental Disorder, E. Lea Johnston
Retributive Justifications For Jail Diversion Of Individuals With Mental Disorder, E. Lea Johnston
E. Lea Johnston
Jail diversion programs have proliferated across the United States as a means to decrease the incarceration of individuals with mental illnesses. These programs include pre-adjudication initiatives, such as Crisis Intervention Teams, as well as post-adjudication programs, such as mental health courts and specialized probationary services. Post-adjudication programs often operate at the point of sentencing, so their comportment with criminal justice norms is crucial. This article investigates whether and under what circumstances post-adjudication diversion for offenders with serious mental illnesses may cohere with principles of retributive justice. Key tenets of retributive theory are that punishments must not be inhumane and that …
Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Race matters in the criminal justice system. Black defendants appear to fare worse than similarly situated white defendants. Why? Implicit bias is one possibility. Researchers, using a well-known measure called the implicit association test, have found that most white Americans harbor implicit bias toward Black Americans. Do judges, who are professionally committed to egalitarian norms, hold these same implicit biases? And if so, do these biases account for racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system? We explored these two research questions in a multi-part study involving a large sample of trial judges drawn from around the country. Our results …
Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Race matters in the criminal justice system. Black defendants appear to fare worse than similarly situated white defendants. Why? Implicit bias is one possibility. Researchers, using a well-known measure called the implicit association test, have found that most white Americans harbor implicit bias toward Black Americans. Do judges, who are professionally committed to egalitarian norms, hold these same implicit biases? And if so, do these biases account for racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system? We explored these two research questions in a multi-part study involving a large sample of trial judges drawn from around the country. Our results …
Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford
Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford
John F. Stinneford
This year marks the tenth anniversary of California's enactment of the nation's first chemical castration law. This law requires certain sex offenders to receive, as part of their punishment, long-term pharmacological treatment involving massive doses of a synthetic female hormone called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). MPA treatment is described as chemical castration because it mimics the effect of surgical castration by eliminating almost all testosterone from the offender's system. The intended effect of MPA treatment is to alter brain and body function by reducing the brain's exposure to testosterone, thus depriving offenders of most (or all) capacity to experience sexual desire …
The Immigration Detention Risk Assessment, Mark Noferi, Robert Koulish
The Immigration Detention Risk Assessment, Mark Noferi, Robert Koulish
Mark L Noferi
In early 2013, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) deployed nationwide a new automated risk assessment tool to help determine whether to detain or release noncitizens pending their deportation proceedings. Adapted from similar evidence-based criminal justice reforms that have reduced pretrial detention, ICE’s initiative now represents the largest pre-hearing risk assessment experiment in U.S. history—potentially impacting over 400,000 individuals per year. However, to date little information has been released regarding the risk assessment algorithm, processes, and outcomes.
This article provides the first comprehensive examination of ICE’s risk assessment initiative, based on public access to ICE methodology and outcomes as a …
Exclusion And Control In The Carceral State, Sharon Dolovich
Exclusion And Control In The Carceral State, Sharon Dolovich
Sharon Dolovich
Theorists of punishment typically construe the criminal justice system as the means to achieve retribution or to deter or otherwise prevent crime. But a close look at the way the American penal system actually operates makes clear the poor fit between these more conventional explanations and the realities of American penal practice. Taking actual practice as its starting point, this essay argues instead that the animating mission of the American carceral project is the exclusion and control of those people officially labeled as criminals. It maps the contours of exclusion and control, exploring how this institution operates, the ideological discourse …
Rotten Social Background And The Temper Of The Times, Angela P. Harris
Rotten Social Background And The Temper Of The Times, Angela P. Harris
Angela P Harris
This essay was submitted to the Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law review as part of a symposium on Richard Delgado's essay on "Rotten Social Background." Its publication has been delayed by the destruction caused by the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham tornado in the spring of 2011.
Collateral Consequences Of Criminal Convictions: Confronting Issues Of Race And Dignity, Michael Pinard
Collateral Consequences Of Criminal Convictions: Confronting Issues Of Race And Dignity, Michael Pinard
Michael Pinard
This article explores the racial dimensions of the various collateral consequences that attach to criminal convictions in the United States. The consequences include ineligibility for public and government-assisted housing, public benefits and various forms of employment, as well as civic exclusions such as ineligibility for jury service and felon disenfranchisement. To test its hypothesis that these penalties, both historically and contemporarily, are rooted in race, the article looks to England and Wales, Canada and South Africa. These countries have criminal justice systems similar to the United States’, have been influenced significantly by United States’ criminal justice practices in recent years, …
Why Our Justice System Convicts Innocent People And The Challenges Faced By Innocence Projects Trying To Exonerate Them, Steven A. Krieger
Why Our Justice System Convicts Innocent People And The Challenges Faced By Innocence Projects Trying To Exonerate Them, Steven A. Krieger
Steven A. Krieger
Despite the prominence and success of the over sixty innocence projects in the United States, there is almost no empirical literature discussing how these organizations operate, what resources or factors contribute to their success, and what challenges they must overcome. This article is a foundational step to fill this void. Following a brief introduction, Part I of the article surveys the reasons why innocent individuals get convicted, including: inaccuracy of eyewitnesses, perjured testimony, availability of DNA testing, accuracy of DNA testing and scientific evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense representation, ineffective capital representation, police misconduct: false confessions, and pretrial criminal procedure …
A Criminal Justice System That Works, Alan E. Garfield
A Criminal Justice System That Works, Alan E. Garfield
Alan E Garfield
No abstract provided.
Discretionary Decision-Making In The Criminal Justice System And The Black Offender: Some Alternatives, Taunya Lovell Banks
Discretionary Decision-Making In The Criminal Justice System And The Black Offender: Some Alternatives, Taunya Lovell Banks
Taunya Lovell Banks
No abstract provided.
Discretionary Justice And The Black Offender, Taunya Lovell Banks
Discretionary Justice And The Black Offender, Taunya Lovell Banks
Taunya Lovell Banks
No abstract provided.
Gender Violence, Race, And Criminal Justice, Angela P. Harris
Gender Violence, Race, And Criminal Justice, Angela P. Harris
Angela P Harris
No abstract provided.
Changing The Public Drunkenness Laws: The Impact Of Decriminalization, David Aaronson
Changing The Public Drunkenness Laws: The Impact Of Decriminalization, David Aaronson
David Aaronson