- The incarceration rate is declining in the US but people can't agree what it means. Ryan Cooper of The Week calls the decline in prison admissions 'stunning' and 'great news', While David Cole writing in the New York Times said 'we may be on our way out of the Inferno.' Andrew Cohen of the Brennan Center, meanwhile, says it's 'way to early to declare victory.'
- ILS funding to the Chautauqua County public defender office was announced last week, as covered here in The Buffalo News.
- Prison reform has become a conservative agenda item according to this report by Ted gest on The Crime Report.
- ILS funding to capital region counties was reported in this article in the Times Union this week.
- Convicted persons face significant fines and fees as described in NPR's "Guilty and Charged" series. Featured here last week, the series has now grown to ten articles, all of which can be found here. A report titled Criminal Justice Debt by the Brennan Center which can be found here also deals with this issue.
- Drug testing may actually favor the employment of African Americans suggests this new paper by economist Abigail Wozniak. The reason for the finding is not clear, but Wozniak suggests that employers generally assume African American job applicants use drugs - an assumption which drug testing allows them to disprove.
- The administration of the death penalty should be improved according to this report by The Constitution Project which makes 39 recommendations. The recommendations cover post-conviction review of innocence claims, forensic lab procedures, access to courts for wrongful conviction claims, custodial interrogation, eyewitness identification procedures, limiting the definition of 'heinous' murders, oversight of the quality of counsel, jury instructions, accountability for prosecutors, attention to racial disparities, clemency processes, and transparency in execution procedures.
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