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.
"The Fulton County district attorney has charged Williams, 35, with “distribution” of heroin — for injecting him with the fatal dose — plus a felony murder charge that could send him away for life. Williams’ lawyer is arguing that his client should be immune from prosecution under Georgia’s 911 Medical Amnesty law."
Atlanta Journal Constitution
August 9, 2018
Read More"Yet CAP focuses its critique (as does the American Friends Service Committee) on the absence of democratic control and oversight over the commercial operations of mass incarceration, which is often detached from any reasonable public-justice priority and represents a wider pattern of corporate impunity across the criminal-justice system."
The Nation
August 9, 2018
Read More"But the State’s work is not done to eliminate the criminalization of poverty in New Jersey. Continuing its leadership on this issue, New Jersey should now turn to reforming the laws that impose a cascade of court fines and permit the suspension of hundreds of thousands of driver’s licenses each year simply because of residents’ inability to pay justice-related debt."
New Jersey Law Journal
August 9, 2018
Read More"If they fail to pay this amount in full, he subjects them to arrest, driver's license suspension, and incarceration, as well as an additional $450 to $670 in fines and costs. He imposes these punishments without conducting any inquiry—let alone an adequate one—into the person's ability to pay or the reasons for non-payment."
Reason Magazine
August 9, 2018
Read More"It’s tempting to chalk up Pope Francis’s recent announcement—that the catechism has been revised to decree the death penalty as always “inadmissible”—to his perceived leftism. But that would be a mistake not only from a theological perspective, but also from a conservative one."
The American Conservative
August 9, 2018
Read More"More than a dozen Harris County misdemeanor judges contend that public safety would be imperiled if they followed an “untenable” new pretrial release order by a Houston federal judge who has found the current county bail system unconstitutional."
Houston Chronicle
August 8, 2018
Read More"Within a penal system that in its other features was more likely to degrade and reduce human development, Michael accidentally fell into a program that, but for the exploitative pay, is an excellent example of a response to wrongdoing that seeks to make the victim whole, seeks to make the community whole and seeks to help the wrongdoer prepare for positive relations with the broader society."
Washington Post
August 8, 2018
Read More"What we’ve learned from experience is that when jurisdictions first tackle moving away from secured money bond, without raising the bar on who may be detained and how, the system continues to cause unnecessary detentions. To make detention the exception rather than the rule, it needs to be more like hospital admissions and less like ordering from Domino’s."
Pretrial Justice Institute
August 8, 2018
Read More"Targeting only serious-crime cases, Abbott’s changes would not affect bail-reform initiatives underway in several Texas cities, including Houston, to ensure that poor defendants charged with nonviolent minor crimes are not kept in jail just because they cannot afford to post cash bail."
Houston Chronicle
August 8, 2018
Read More"One problem with using recidivism as a primary measure of success is that it misleads the public and policymakers by focusing on negative rather than positive outcomes. It also ignores the structural conditions around an individual’s life that push them into the justice system and act as barriers to successful reentry."
Vera Institute of Justice
August 7, 2018
Read More"Here the principle of justice, which demands that malefactors receive a punishment proportionate to their offense, and deterrence of this deeper sort meet. If we abolish the death penalty for even the most heinous and coldblooded murderers, we fatally undermine the idea of justice as the cornerstone of our criminal-justice system."
Wall Street Journal
August 7, 2018
Read More"Insurance companies form the quiet backbone of the industry, underwriting the vast majority of the millions of bail bonds written each year while undergoing little public scrutiny."
Marshall Project
August 6, 2018
Read More"Barring an appeal, the ruling from U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance marks the end of a three-year legal battle over the so-called "debtors' prison" lawsuit brought by a handful of criminal convicts who were jailed for days or longer in Orleans Parish without a chance to prove they couldn't afford to pay the fines and fees they owed. "
The Advocate
August 3, 2018
Read More"'While I respect the pope’s perspective, capital punishment remains the will of the people and the law of the state of Nebraska,' Mr. Ricketts’s statement said. 'It is an important tool to protect our corrections officers and public safety. The state continues to carry out the sentences ordered by the court'."
New York Times
August 3, 2018
Read More"The organizers explained to the detainees that because they had not yet been convicted of a crime, they were all likely eligible to vote in November. They could vote for Illinois’ governor or even elect the sheriff who ran the jail where they were detained, they told the women. "
Huffington Post
August 2, 2018
Read More"Losing the right to vote is among numerous other consequences of being convicted of a crime. This so-called “civil death” suggests that person is considered dead to society. The larger political consequence is a lack of representation in government of a large group of citizens who are largely poor and people of color."
Truthout Magazine
August 2, 2018
Read More"It can sometimes be hard to connect how our diplomats and international programs impact our everyday lives. But the heart-wrenching truth is that there is nothing “foreign” about what happened to Bailey Henke and his community in North Dakota, or to the hundreds of thousands of families across our nation who know the scourge of opioid addiction all too well. When it comes to combating the opioid epidemic, we simply don’t have the luxury of battling this crisis on the homefront alone."
USA Today
August 2, 2018
Read More"While these laws threaten addicts with draconian penalties simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they have done nothing to deter people from doing drugs or stem the tide of overdose deaths in the U.S."
Rolling Stone
August 2, 2018
Read More"The Catechism of the Church, a codified doctrine which sums up teachings, had previously stated that the death penalty could be used in some cases. It now says it is 'inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person'."
BBC
August 2, 2018
Read More"It’s one thing to make it legal for people to vote again, and another to ensure they know about it. Voters and even local officials may not realize what’s changed."
The Marshall Project
August 1, 2018
Read More