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Newsroom: Horwitz On Ri Probation Reform, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Punitive Compensation, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Criminal restitution is a core component of punishment. In its current form, this remedy rarely serves restitution's traditional aim of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, courts use this monetary award not only to compensate crime victims for intangible losses, but also to punish the defendant for the moral blameworthiness of her criminal action. Because the remedy does not fit into the definition of what most consider "restitution," this Article advocates for the adoption of a new, additional designation for this prototypically punitive remedy: punitive compensation. Unlike with restitution, courts measure punitive compensation by a victim's losses, not a defendant's …

What Is Criminal Restitution?, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A new form of restitution has become a core aspect of criminal punishment. Courts now order defendants to compensate victims for an increasingly broad category of losses, including emotional and psychological losses and losses for which the defendant was not found guilty. Criminal restitution therefore moves far beyond its traditional purpose of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, restitution has become a mechanism of imposing additional punishment. Courts, however, have failed to recognize the punitive nature of restitution and thus enter restitution orders without regard to the constitutional protections that normally attach to criminal proceedings. This Article deploys a novel …

Book Review: American Jericho: A Book Review Of The Hanging Judge By Michael A. Ponsor, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In Crisis: The Racial Impact Of The Denial Of The Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

Whereas in 2013 there had been widespread celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, much has been written in subsequent years about the unhappy state of the quality of counsel provided to indigents. But it is not just defense counsel who fail to comply with all that we hope and expect would be done by those who are part of our criminal courts; prosecutorial misconduct, if not actually increasing, is becoming more visible. The judiciary chooses to focus on the rapid processing of cases, often ignoring the rights of those being prosecuted …

Ending Mass Incarceration: Some Observations And Responses To Professor Tonry, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

We should all be grateful for Michael Tonry’s (2014, this issue) characteristically thoughtful article proposing 10 concrete steps to reduce the excessive reliance on incarceration in the United States. It would behoove legislatures and judges to think carefully about each of his proposals. The following remarks constitute an attempt to expand on some of his observations and offer a few cautionary notes about some of his proposals.

At the outset, however, it is important to note that I fully agree with the general premise of Tonry’s (2014) article, which is by now conventional wisdom among criminal law scholars and practitioners …

Economic Interest Convergence In Downsizing Imprisonment, Spearit

Articles

This Essay employs a variation of the “interest convergence” concept to examine the competing interests at stake in downsizing imprisonment in the United States. In the last few decades, the country has become the world leader in both incarceration rates and number of inmates. Reversing these trends is a common goal of multiple parties, who advocate prison reform under different rationales. Some advocate less imprisonment as a means of tempering the disparate effects of imprisonment on individual offenders and the communities to which they return. Others support downsizing based on conservative values that favor reduced government size, spending, and interference …

Child Pornography And The Restitution Revolution, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Victims of child pornography are now successfully seeking restitution from defendants convicted of watching and trading their images. Restitution in child pornography cases, however, represents a dramatic departure from traditional concepts of restitution. This Article offers the first critique of this restitution revolution. Traditional restitution is grounded in notions of unjust enrichment and seeks to restore the economic status quo between parties by requiring disgorgement of ill-gotten gains. The restitution being ordered in increasing numbers of child pornography cases does not serve this purpose. Instead, child pornography victims are receiving restitution simply for having their images viewed. This royalty-type approach …

Criminal Records, Race And Redemption, Michael Pinard

Faculty Scholarship

Poor individuals of color disproportionately carry the weight of a criminal record. They confront an array of legal and non-legal barriers, the most prominent of which are housing and employment. Federal, State and local governments are implementing measures aimed at easing the everlasting impact of a criminal record. However, these measures, while laudable, fail to address the disconnection between individuals who believe they have moved past their interactions with the criminal justice system and the ways in which decision makers continue to judge them in the years and decades following those interactions. These issues are particularly pronounced for poor individuals …

Incarceration And The Economic Fortunes Of Urban Neighborhoods, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Valerie West

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter turns to the response of the criminal justice system to neighborhood violence, in particular examining to what extent persistently high levels of incarceration can depress economic well-being and human capital in disadvantaged and racially segregated communities. A panel analysis of New York City neighborhoods between 1985 and 1996, a period in which the city's violent-crime rates both rose and fell sharply, provides evidence that high incarceration rates reduce income growth, educational attainment, and work experience in disadvantaged and racially segregated neighborhoods. To rectify this, targeted micro investment and housing development in such areas can break the connection between …

The Influence Of Systems Analysis On Criminal Law And Procedure: A Critique Of A Style Of Judicial Decision-Making, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

This draft analyzes the birth and emergence of the idea of the “criminal justice system” in the 1960s and the fundamentally transformative effect that the idea of a “system” has had in the area of criminal law and criminal procedure. The manuscript develops a critique of the systems analytic approach to legal and policy decision making. It then discusses how that critique relates to the broader area of public policy and contemporary cost-benefit analysis.

The draft identifies what it calls “the systems fallacy” or the central problem with approaching policy questions from a systems analytic approach: namely, the hidden normative …

Is Color Blind Justice Also Culturally Blind? The Cultural Blindness In Justice, Shiv Narayan Persaud

Journal Publications

As diverse ethnic groups continue to experience numeric growth and societal grounding in America, their advocacies for culturally competent representation within the legal system cannot be ignored or underplayed. Undoubtedly, some professions such as mental and physical health, and their related sectors, have developed and continue to integrate cultural competencies into their respective practices. Others such as the legal profession seem to lag in their advocacies and promotion of culturally competent practices.

In the criminal justice system, where discretionary legal decision-making authority is commonplace and may grossly affect the civil liberties of the citizenry, a paucity of standards requiring cultural …

The Micro And Macro Causes Of Prison Growth, John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

General Equilibrium Effects Of Prison On Crime: Evidence From International Comparisons, Justin Mccrary, Sarath Sanga

Faculty Scholarship

We compare crime and incarceration rates over time for the United States, Canada, and England and Wales, as well as for a small selection of comparison countries. Shifts in U.S. punishment policy led to a five-fold increase in the incarceration rate, while nearly every other country experienced only minor increases in incarceration. The large shifts in U.S. punishment policy do not seem to have caused commensurately large improvements in public safety.

Drug Policy In Context: Rhetoric And Practice In The United States And The United Kingdom, Richard C. Boldt

Faculty Scholarship

The history of narcotics use and drug control in the U.S. before passage of the Harrison Act in 1914 is similar in important respects to that in the U.K. during the same period. Although the two countries’ paths diverged significantly over the ensuing decades, there has been a convergence of sorts in recent years. In the United States, the trend lines have moved from an active “war on drugs” in which criminal enforcement and punishment have been the primary rhetorical and practical instruments of policy to an evolving approach, at least at the federal level, characterized by a somewhat more …

Lethal Discrimination, J. Thomas Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reconceptualizing Competence: An Appeal, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test Of A Collaborative Model For Cases Of Intimate Partner Violence, Laurie S. Kohn, Laura Bennett Cattaneo, Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein, Holly A. Zanville

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article describes the Victim-Informed Prosecution Project (VIP), a program that, over its 6-year tenure, aimed to amplify the voice of the victim in the handling of interpersonal violence (IPV) prosecutions in Washington, D.C. The Article discusses the rationale for and design and implementation of VIP and then explores whether it increased the victim’s sense of influence over the justice system response. While some VIP services, including legal advocacy and civil protection order representation, were associated with increased perceived victim voice, the program as a whole reflected more limited levels of perceived victim voice in the area of criminal prosecution. …

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test Of A Collaborative Model For Cases Of Intimate Partner Violence, Lauren Bennett Cattaneo, Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein, Laurie S. Kohn, Holly A. Zanville

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project (VIP) was designed to amplify the voice of the victim in the prosecution of a battering current or ex-partner through collaboration between the prosecution and victim-centered agencies. This article describes the rationale for and design and implementation of VIP and then explores whether it increased perceived voice. While some VIP services (advocacy and civil protection order representation) were associated with increased perceived voice, the program as a whole was associated with it only in the context of greater contact with prosecutors, when cases were more likely to be felonies. The authors make specific recommendations for applying …

The Emerging Role Of Dna Analysis In The Criminal Justice System, Sandra Sherman

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Forensic science has evolved into the most advanced investigative tool used in the criminal justice field. DNA evidence is a strong component of forensic science and with constant advancements of DNA testing so that its evidence is more reliable and accepted in the criminal justice system will help provide justice for the quily and innocent alike.

Women, Re-Entry And Everyday Life: Time To Work?, Dina R. Rose, Venezia Michalsen, Dawn Wiest, Anupa Fabian

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study focuses on women at various stages of re-entry into the community after involvement with the criminal justice system. In particular, it takes a close look at how the participants in the study manage their time in the face of the types of competing demands that are all too common to most people.

Death And Harmless Error: A Rhetorical Response To Judging Innocence, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Professor Garrett’s impressive empirical analysis of the first 200 post conviction DNA exonerations in the United States (“Garrett Study”) has the potential to affect contemporary debates surrounding our nation’s criminal justice system. This Response explores this potential by harnessing the Study’s data in support of arguments for and against a contested doctrinal proposition — that guilt-based harmless error rules should never apply in death penalty appeals. My analysis starts with the premise that the Study’s real world impact will necessarily depend on how jurists, politicians, and scholars extrapolate the explanatory power of the data beyond the 200 cases themselves. While …

What Documentary Films Teach Us About The Criminal Justice System - Introduction, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

Film . . . has been used effectively to shape public perceptions about the criminal justice system. . . . [and] the documentary form has power to convict or release a defendant, as well as to disclose the positive and negative aspects of the criminal justice system. . . . Three articles on this subject appear in this issue of the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND LAW JOURNAL OF RACE, RELIGION, GENDER AND CLASS and add to this body of scholarship. . . .Our goal was to foster a series of dialogues among and between a number of individuals: filmmakers....

Joining The Legal Significance Of Adolescent Development Capacities With The Legal Rights Provided By In Re Gault, Hilary B. Farber, Donna M. Bishop

Faculty Publications

Our discussion is presented in seven parts. In Part I, we briefly sketch historical conceptions of adolescence and its relationship to foundational principles of the juvenile court, and juvenile court practice from its inception in the late nineteenth century through the mid-1960s. In order to more fully appreciate both the strengths and weaknesses of the Gault decision, we pay special attention to the larger social and legal context in which the case was decided. Part II is devoted to a discussion of Gault. We argue that although Gault represents a valiant attempt to impose the rule of law on …

Revisiting Anna Moscowitz's Kross's Critique Of New York City's Women's Court: The Continued Problem Of Solving The "Problem" Of Prostitution With Specialized Criminal Courts, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The New Prosecution, Kay L. Levine

Faculty Articles

This Article proceeds as follows. Part I introduces the Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution Program that took shape in California in the mid-1990s. In addition to explaining how this program emerged and its central features, I highlight the aspects of the SRVPP that distinguish California statutory rape prosecutors from the traditional image of the local prosecutor in the United States. Part II offers some background on the new prosecution and the problem-oriented approach to criminal justice, explaining how this model differs from the traditional crime-based or case-based method of criminal justice work. In Part III, I use empirical data derived from …

Seeing Crime And Punishment Through A Sociological Lens: Contributions, Practices, And The Future, Calvin Morill, John Hagan, Bernard E. Harcourt, Tracey L. Meares

Faculty Scholarship

There is a rich intellectual history to the sociological study of crime and punishment that encompasses multiple and interrelated traditions. Some of these traditions trace their roots to the European social theorists of the nineteenth century, particularly Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. Although only Durkheim and Weber systematically studied law (and only Durkheim actually studied punishment), all three social theorists facilitated the development of sociological research and theory on crime and punishment. Durkheim's Suicide: A Study in Sociology for example, investigated the relationship between social integration and suicide rates, which, in turn, provided a model of inquiry for …

Intimate Partner Violence And The Justice System: An Examination Of The Interface, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Women entering the court system face a challenging experience, in part, because a courtroom can be an intimidating and difficult place for any person, and in part because women victimized by crimes in which the offender is known to them face distinctive difficulties when they seek the court’s remedies. The interface is also made more challenging for women as the literature offers disparate findings as to the efficacy of criminal justice responses and civil remedies. This article briefly explores the unique characteristics of intimate partner violence cases that influence the interface of these victims with the court system.Areviewis provided of …

Living "Off-Stage": The Semiotic Potential Of Narrative In Paula Johnson's Inner Lives: Voices Of African-American Women In Prison, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The hopelessness and hopefulness in the voices of the women profiled in Inner Lives exemplify a semiotic response to the racism that permeates the criminal justice and prison systems in the United States. This article asks how, in the telling of their stories and living of their lives, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women profiled in the book engage in a working semiotics. The extraordinary thing about the narratives collected by Johnson is that they describe how women who have been placed at the very bottom of the American social consciousness are successfully constructing their own image-repertoires rather than accepting …