Law Commons^™

Reimagining Criminal Justice: How We Traded Out Asylums For Prisons, Zaynah Zaman

Reimagining Criminal Justice

The criminal justice system fails to adopt alternative mental health reforms better equipped to handle mental health crises rather than placing the mentally ill in institutions that have proven to worsen their illness. The criminalization of mental illness must end, says Zaynah Zaman, a student at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Reimagining Criminal Justice: In Defense Of Self-Defense, Jude Diebold

Reimagining Criminal Justice

Since the Louisville, Kentucky police killed Breonna Taylor in the middle of the night in her own apartment, the United States has seen an uptick in protests against racially motivated police violence. However, the officers responsible for her death have not been criminally charged, in part because her boyfriend, unaware that police were entering the apartment in the middle of the night, shot one of the officer’s in the leg, “justifying” the next six rounds that were shot by the police and ultimately killed an innocent woman during the botched police raid.

As if this was not outrageous enough, in …

Reimagining Criminal Justice: A New System Is Required For Police Accountability, Thomas Johnson

Reimagining Criminal Justice

In 1997 Daniel Mendoza was shot by an off-duty Las Vegas Metro police offcer. The offcer who pulled the trigger had been drinking heavily and wanted to “harass dopers and bangers.” The offcer in question fired into a group of people from the passenger side of a vehicle. This offcer was tried and convicted, which sounds like a success.

However, when an offcer is not stopped before killing a citizen without regard to whether there was a suspected crime, it highlights a problem of accountability.