Kim Foxx's unexpected 2016 victory in the race for State's Attorney for Cook County (Chicago) helped to ignite the movement to elect prosecutors promising something other than being "tough on crime." As part of our series on prosecutor power, Foxx explains the reforms she’s put in place, her struggles with being the face of a system that continues to fail so many of her constituents, and offers her take on the “incredible” gains made by the movement to elect a new kind of prosecutor.
Jill Harris says she's "shocked to find myself working for a D.A." A long-time advocate for criminal justice reform, Harris, now the head of the Brooklyn D.A.'s Justice 2020 reform initiative, offers her take on the role of the prosecutor in the third installment of our series on the debate over prosecutor power.
Highlights from a public screening and panel discussion of Bill Moyers's 'Rikers: An American Jail,' moderated by New Thinking host, Matt Watkins. Commenting on the film and the future of criminal justice reform are Tina Luongo of the Legal Aid Society, Jill Harris of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and two of the people formerly held on Rikers featured in the film: Barry Campbell of the Fortune Society, and Johnny Perez of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
This report details the design, implementation, and impacts of Up & Out, a brief, non-custodial intervention to help misdemeanor defendants critically consider ways to avoid future justice-involvement. The intention of the program is to offer a meaningful, proportionate alternative to short-term incarceration. Research suggests this population has a strong propensity to repeat justice-involvement fueled by needs for treatment and services in areas such as housing, substance use, and mental health.
Prosecutors across the country are increasingly developing innovative strategies to divert pretrial defendants to community-based programs. While risk assessment can be a powerful aid to identifying eligible participants, in practice, selecting and putting into place the proper tool can be challenging. Drawing on recent studies of risk assessments used in pretrial contexts, this document lays out key principles for ensuring their effective implementation.
This study seeks to validate the Criminal Court Assessment Tool on a sample of misdemeanor defendants participating in a deferred prosecution program in Cook County, Illinois. We developed the brief, publicly accessible risk-and-needs assessment for use in high-volume jurisdictions. In this study, it was found to have good overall predictive accuracy, with program participants identified as having significant needs related to substance use and employment, supporting the use of diversion to services in lieu of prosecution.
How do we reconcile the call in some quarters for more low-level enforcement with a desire to reduce the impact of the criminal justice system, particularly on communities of color? This Boston University Law Review article attempts to answer that question by articulating a new approach to misdemeanor justice that reconciles the maintenance of public safety with the urgent need to reduce unnecessary incarceration.
If the justice system replaced jail and other traditional sanctions for misdemeanor defendants with services and treatment, what should those interventions look like? By identifying the drivers of repeat, low-level offending, this in-depth profile of misdemeanor defendants in New York City lays the groundwork for developing more effective and proportionate responses.
As part of our podcast series on prosecutor power, Scott Hechinger of Brooklyn Defender Services offers a view from the other side of the adversarial process, discussing prosecutors' impact at key decision-points in his clients' cases and the prospects for reform in a time of increasing scrutiny of prosecutorial discretion.