Law Commons^™

Reimagining Criminal Justice: The Violence Of Incarceration In The Midst Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tammy Henson

Reimagining Criminal Justice

Six years after the infamous and disturbing elevator video of former NFL player Ray Rice punching his fiancée Janay Palmer in the face, knocking her unconscious and then dragging her out of the elevator, Rice and Palmer remain happily married, both speaking out against domestic violence. Contrast Rice’s story to that of Samuel Lee Scott, a husband charged with murdering his wife hours after a nonprofit group posted his bail in a domestic violence case. The difference in these cases: Rice was given domestic violence counseling in lieu of jail, Scott was incarcerated. Research shows that incarceration actually increases future …

The U.S. Sentencing Commission’S Recidivism Studies: Myopic, Misleading, And Doubling Down On Imprisonment, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Recidivism has now replaced rehabilitation as the guiding principle of punishment. It is increasingly used to steer criminal justice policy despite research limitations. It serves as a stand-in for public safety, even though lengthy incarceration may have criminogenic and other negative ramifications for family members and communities. Yet the U.S. Sentencing Commission emphasizes recidivism. It emphasizes what amounts to preemptive imprisonment for those with long criminal records to prevent future offending.

The Commission’s work should come with a warning label. First, its recidivism studies should not be consumed on their own. Instead they must be read in conjunction with U.S. …

Emergency Parole Release For Older Parole-Eligible Doc Inmates, David I. Bruck

Scholarly Articles

Professor Bruck writes to Secretary Moran and Chairwoman Bennett to urge them to protect elderly Virginia prison inmates from the risk of death from COVID-19 by granting immediate parole release to as many over-60 parole-eligible prisoners as possible, upon a showing that they are at low risk to re-offend, and have a supportive home to go to once released.

The 15th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Address 1-28-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Andrea Hansen

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

From The Legal Literature: Disentangling Prison And Punishment, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Understanding Violent-Crime Recidivism, J. J. Prescott, Benjamin David Pyle, Sonja B. Starr

Faculty Scholarship

People convicted of violent crimes constitute a majority of the imprisoned population but are generally ignored by existing policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. Serious efforts to shrink the large footprint of the prison system will need to recognize this fact. This point is especially pressing at the time of this writing, as states and the federal system consider large-scale prison releases motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those convicted of violent crimes constitute a large majority of older prisoners, who are extremely vulnerable to the spread of the virus behind bars. Excluding them from protective measures will deeply undermine those …

Eliminating The Criminal Debt Exception For Debtors' Prison, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Although the exact number is unknown due to poor documentation, the data available suggests nearly a quarter of the current incarcerated population is detained due to a failure to pay their legal financial obligations. In federal courts alone, the amount of criminal legal debt owed to the U.S. government in fiscal year 2017 totaled more than $27 billion, and to third parties, more than $96 billion, not including interest. In 2004, approximately sixty-six percent of all prison inmates were assessed a fine or fee as part of their criminal sentence.4 Not surprisingly, legal financial obligations disproportionately impact poor defendants and …