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Full-Text Articles in Law

Arizona's Sex Offender Laws: Recommendations For Reform, Tamara Rice Lave Oct 2020

Arizona's Sex Offender Laws: Recommendations For Reform, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

No abstract provided.


Incrementalist Vs. Maximalist Reform: Solitary Confinement Case Studies, Margo Schlanger Aug 2020

Incrementalist Vs. Maximalist Reform: Solitary Confinement Case Studies, Margo Schlanger

Articles

Among criminal justice reformers, it has long been hotly contested whether moderate reform helps or harms more efforts to achieve more thoroughgoing change. With respect to solitary confinement, do partial and ameliorative measures undermine the goal of solitary confinement abolition? Or do reformist campaigns advance—albeit incrementally—that ultimate goal? Call this a debate between “incrementalists” and “maximalists.” I offer this Essay as an appeal for empirical rather than aesthetic inquiry into the question. After summarizing nationwide reform litigation efforts that began in the 1970s, I try to shed some factual light by examining solitary reform efforts in two states, Massachusetts and …


May The State Punish What It May Not Prevent?, Gabriel S. Mendlow Jun 2020

May The State Punish What It May Not Prevent?, Gabriel S. Mendlow

Articles

In Why Is It Wrong To Punish Thought? I defended an overlooked principle of criminalization that I called the Enforceability Constraint. The Enforceability Constraint holds that the state may punish transgressions of a given type only if the state in principle may forcibly disrupt such transgressions on the ground that they are criminal wrongs. As I argued in the essay, the reason why the state is forbidden from punishing thought is that the state is forbidden from forcibly disrupting a person’s mental states on the ground that they are criminally wrongful (as opposed to, say, on the ground that they …


Understanding Violent-Crime Recidivism, J.J. Prescott, Benjamin Pyle, Sonja B. Starr May 2020

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

Articles

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 …


The Effects Of Anti-Immigrant Laws In The U.S. On Victims Of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, And Human Trafficking: A Gender-Based Human Rights Analysis, Caroline Bettinger-López, Jamila Flomo, Amanda Suarez Apr 2020

The Effects Of Anti-Immigrant Laws In The U.S. On Victims Of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, And Human Trafficking: A Gender-Based Human Rights Analysis, Caroline Bettinger-López, Jamila Flomo, Amanda Suarez

Articles

No abstract provided.


Reimagining The Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives, Spearit Jan 2020

Reimagining The Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives, Spearit

Articles

This Article is an interdisciplinary response to an entrenched legal and cultural problem. It incorporates legal analysis, religious study and the anthropological notion of “culture work” to consider death penalty abolitionism and prospects for abolishing the death penalty in the United States. The Article argues that abolitionists must reimagine their audiences and repackage their message for broader social consumption, particularly for Christian and conservative audiences. Even though abolitionists are characterized by some as “bleeding heart” liberals, this is not an accurate portrayal of how the death penalty maps across the political spectrum. Abolitionists must learn that conservatives are potential allies …


Racial Profiling: Past, Present, And Future, David A. Harris Jan 2020

Racial Profiling: Past, Present, And Future, David A. Harris

Articles

It has been more than two decades since the introduction of the first bill in Congress that addressed racial profiling in 1997. Between then and now, Congress never passed legislation on the topic, but more than half the states passed laws and many police departments put anti-profiling policies in place to combat it. The research and data on racial profiling has grown markedly over the last twenty-plus years. We know that the practice is real (contrary to many denials), and the data reveal racial profiling’s shortcomings and great social costs. Nevertheless, racial profiling persists. While it took root most prominently …


Before The Cell Door Shuts: Justice Reform Efforts Should Focus On Steps Besides Sentencing, Barbara L. Mcquade Jan 2020

Before The Cell Door Shuts: Justice Reform Efforts Should Focus On Steps Besides Sentencing, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

Mark Osler writes that criminal justice reform efforts have been hampered by what he calls “the slows.” He explains that despite bipartisan support, which resulted in the First Step Act of 2018,2 criminal justice reform remains elusive. He then offers some insightful suggestions for how to increase the pace.