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Criminal Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

No Path To Redemption: Evaluating Texas’S Practice Of Sentencing Kids To De Facto Life Without Parole In Adult Prison, Lindsey Linder, Justin Martinez Oct 2020

No Path To Redemption: Evaluating Texas’S Practice Of Sentencing Kids To De Facto Life Without Parole In Adult Prison, Lindsey Linder, Justin Martinez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.


Mass Solitary And Mass Incarceration: Explaining The Dramatic Rise In Prolonged Solitary In America's Prisons, Jules Lobel Aug 2020

Mass Solitary And Mass Incarceration: Explaining The Dramatic Rise In Prolonged Solitary In America's Prisons, Jules Lobel

Northwestern University Law Review

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, prisons throughout the United States witnessed a dramatic rise in the use of solitary confinement, and the practice continues to be widespread. From the latter part of the nineteenth century until the 1970s and ’80s, prolonged solitary confinement in the United States had fallen into disuse, as numerous observers and the United States Supreme Court recognized that the practice caused profound mental harm to prisoners. The reasons for this dramatic rise in the nationwide use of solitary confinement and the development of new supermax prisons have not been explored in depth. …


A Wrong Without A Right? Overcoming The Prison Litigation Reform Act's Physical Injury Requirement In Solitary Confinement Cases, Maggie Filler, Daniel Greenfield Aug 2020

A Wrong Without A Right? Overcoming The Prison Litigation Reform Act's Physical Injury Requirement In Solitary Confinement Cases, Maggie Filler, Daniel Greenfield

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay argues against applying the so-called “physical injury” requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) to deny monetary compensation to solitary confinement survivors. The Essay identifies three ways in which misapplication of the PLRA’s physical injury requirement limits the ability of solitary confinement survivors to receive monetary compensation for psychological harm suffered. First, some courts applying the PLRA wrongly dismiss damages claims for alleging “de minimis” physical injury. Second, some courts have been reluctant to find that physical injury caused by psychological trauma satisfies the PLRA’s physical injury requirement. Third, courts do not distinguish between “garden …


How Do We Reach A National Tipping Point In The Campaign To Stop Solitary?, Amy Fettig Aug 2020

How Do We Reach A National Tipping Point In The Campaign To Stop Solitary?, Amy Fettig

Northwestern University Law Review

The use and abuse of solitary confinement in American prisons, jails, and juvenile detention centers is at epidemic levels. On any given day 80,000 to 100,000 people in prisons are subjected to a practice considered inhumane and degrading treatment—even torture under international human rights standards. Despite widespread international condemnation, decades of research demonstrating the harm it inflicts on human beings, and a growing chorus from the medical community raising alarms about its impact on the brain, solitary confinement remains a routine prison-management strategy in correctional institutions nationwide. In the past decade, however, a growing movement has emerged to challenge the …


Consensus Statement From The Santa Cruz Summit On Solitary Confinement And Health Aug 2020

Consensus Statement From The Santa Cruz Summit On Solitary Confinement And Health

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.


When They Hear Us: Race, Algorithms And The Practice Of Criminal Law, Ngozi Okidegbe Jul 2020

When They Hear Us: Race, Algorithms And The Practice Of Criminal Law, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

We are in the midst of a fraught debate in criminal justice reform circles about the merits of using algorithms. Proponents claim that these algorithms offer an objective path towards substantially lowering high rates of incarceration and racial and socioeconomic disparities without endangering community safety. On the other hand, racial justice scholars argue that these algorithms threaten to entrench racial inequity within the system because they utilize risk factors that correlate with historic racial inequities, and in so doing, reproduce the same racial status quo, but under the guise of scientific objectivity.

This symposium keynote address discusses the challenge that …


#Metoo And Mass Incarceration, Aya Gruber Jan 2020

#Metoo And Mass Incarceration, Aya Gruber

Publications

This Symposium Guest Editor’s Note is an adapted version of the Introduction to The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration (UC Press 2020). The book examines how American feminists, in the quest to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, often acted as soldiers in the war on crime by emphasizing white female victimhood, expanding the power of police and prosecutors, touting incarceration, and diverting resources toward law enforcement and away from marginalized communities Today, despite deep concerns over racist policing and mass incarceration, many feminists continue to assert that gender crime …