Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.
“This report investigates how New York City responds to individuals experiencing mental health crisis. Examining the flaws in current protocols and the best practices of approaches applied in other cities, it presents a framework for an improved response system that would provide those in crisis with the services that they need and minimize the negative outcomes that are currently far too common.“
New York City Public Advocate
September 25, 2019
Read More“But Watkins’s coverage moves the goal posts and relies heavily on simplistic police narratives. She first reports on an increase in homicides in Brooklyn, but when those decrease, she narrows in on murders in North Brooklyn. When those also go down, the reporting zooms in on two precincts—all while letting pro-police voices drive the narrative that there’s a worrying “spike” in crime. These articles are a study in how not to report on crime, given that such reporting will most likely influence how authorities police Black and Latinx neighborhoods.“
The Appeal
August 16, 2019
Read More“If the goal is to help homeless people, ‘you try to earn somebody’s trust and offer them services that they need,’ Goldfein said. ‘You don’t start off by giving them a summons and then say to them ‘but I’ll remove this threat hanging over your head if you come in and accept services.’ That’s coercive. No one’s going to do it’.“
The Appeal
July 26, 2019
Read More“This seismic change in how the nation’s largest city handles bail and jail is the result not of top-down change in the system but of thousands of small shifts in courtrooms every day. Whereas California, New Jersey, Maryland and a handful of other states have tried to eliminate money bail legislatively or through a court order—with mixed success—New York has done so organically, potentially offering a model for other large cities in otherwise recalcitrant states.“
Criminal Legal News
July 17, 2019
Read More“Of the roughly 500 women now in city jails, many have significant unmet needs such as homelessness and substance use disorder. On average, women have fewer financial resources, which can result in an inability to pay bail. And because most jailed women are mothers, their incarceration can have sweeping consequences for families. “
The Appeal
December 6, 2018
Read More"The only way for states and the federal government to atone and begin to undo the damage is to commute their sentences, reverse their convictions, and pay these men reparations."
The Marshall Project
August 26, 2018
Read More"Police know what to do when dealing with serious mental illness — the NYPD receives over 165,000 calls for emotionally disturbed persons annually. More than 8,000 NYPD officers have also gone through Crisis Intervention Team training, which teaches how to de-escalate situations involving EDPs. But law enforcement alone can’t solve this problem."
New York Post
August 14, 2018
Read More"Instead, she posits, the penal power exerts social control through what she describes as marking (identifying a defendant as a real or potential lawbreaker), procedural hassle (the ordeal of processing a case) and performance (an evaluation of the defendant’s subsequent behavior). How? By identifying recidivists on the basis of previous arrests alone, rather than convictions, and then subjecting them to more stringent oversight."
New York Times
July 26, 2018
Read More"Many states set a clear limit on the amount of time they hold people with mental health issues in jails and forensic psychiatric hospitals who have not been found competent to stand trial. But in some states, including New York, authorities can keep attempting to restore a defendant’s mental capacity until the person has served two-thirds of the maximum sentence he or she would receive if eventually found guilty."
The Appeal
June 21, 2018
Read More"In New York City, when clients of The Legal Aid Society who were charged with a misdemeanor in 2017 entered their initial arraignment, they had anywhere between a 2 and 26 percent chance of the judge setting a cash bail, depending on which judge was randomly assigned to oversee the court that day. For felonies, the range was even wider: anywhere between 30 and 69 percent."
FiveThirtyEight
June 19, 2018
Read More"Cases in New York courts are handled in an assembly-line fashion, often with public defenders rushing to meet their clients to figure out what’s going on. They tend to be in front of a judge and prosecutor for less than five minutes before their bail requests are decided — compared with the apparently extensive negotiations that lawyers for Manafort and Weinstein conducted before their clients had their pre-trial fates delivered."
The Intercept
June 9, 2018
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