Ryan, a past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, calls this the worst case of coercion he’s seen in 35 years.“This was psychological torture, is the best way to describe what they did to this young woman,” Ryan says. “This video should be used as an example of what not to do.”

“Their interrogation was designed not to determine the truth, not to get at the facts,” he says. “Their intention was designed to force her to confess to doing it in the way they figure she did it. They are the ones that force-fed her the word ‘suffocation’ ” — and the word “smother.”

“It’s shocking that they didn’t take the time to consider there may have been an alternative reason for the child’s death,” Ryan says.

Read the full article: Anatomy Of A Bad Confession, Part 1 | WBUR.

EXCERPT: Added Police Chief Smith: “There are departments throughout the country, especially police departments, that had big concerns about this initiative, and we were among them.”

But the philosophy of catching juveniles early and not putting first-time suspects in detention along with felons who have an established criminal history appeals to Smith.

Some friction remains. Juveniles arrested on bench warrants are not automatically locked up. Runaways – even those from out-of-state – are not held without a warrant.

The bottom line, according to Eugene Polyak, commander of the St. Paul Police Department’s juvenile unit: “As we look at juvenile crime patterns, it’s down….We’re implementing the (risk assessment), we’re not holding some of these kids on lower-level offenses and as a result we’re not seeing an increase in juvenile crime.

FULL ARTICLE: Ramsey County: Locking up fewer kids, and so far, less crime – TwinCities.com.

Few court challenges have been successful in overturning such restrictions. Research shows that politicians and citizens are overwhelmingly in favor of such laws, which are often based on stated (but empirically unsupported) assumptions that almost all sex offenders reoffend and that they are immune to therapeutic intervention. In fact, recidivism rates of known sex offenders are much lower than commonly believed, and properly designed treatment, though not equally effective for all offenders, can significantly reduce the risk of re-offending. Restrictions also reinforce the myth of “stranger danger,” despite research from the Justice Department indicating that over 90 percent of child sexual abuse victims are well known to their perpetrators, who typically cultivate opportunities for molestation through familiar relationships with relatives and acquaintances.

via JURIST – Hotline: Sex Offender Residency Restrictions Impede Safety Goals.

Often labeled as the most profitable industry in America, private detention facilities are given free reign to profit from exploitation of inmate needs. Since the mid-1980s, an increasing percentage of these gains have been a direct result of kickbacks from prison phone contracts. When private prison systems examine phone contract bids, they almost always choose to employ the company with the highest commission benefits and highest prices.

Read the full article.

The reforms are quite obvious and based on hard data: Put away really bad guys. Reduce recidivism by treating the root causes of crime, such as drug and alcohol abuse. Give local officials the tools to discourage bad behavior.

Unfortunately, Missouri’s goals are less ambitious than many of the states that have benefited from the Pew Center’s data-driven study. In part, that’s because of the divided political climate that makes progress so difficult. As a result, the modest, if not underwhelming, package of reforms might save only $16 million a year by 2017, with a reduction of about 670 inmates.

This is not exactly what Missouri Supreme Court Judge William Ray Price Jr. had in mind each of the last few years as he urged lawmakers to reset priorities. Education funding was drying up while hundreds of millions of dollars were being wasted on corrections policies that don’t actually reduce crime.

"I would have liked to have seen more," Mr. Price told us about the working group’s report. "But you have to get the ball rolling in a way that’s possible."

via Editorial: Corrections reform proposal a start, but doesn’t go far enough.

Several of Hood’s other suggestions have particular resonance not only at ADX but for Colorado’s state prison system. He suggests, for example, that it’s time to beef up mental health services, rather than simply locking down “problem” inmates for 22 hours a day in solitary confinement: “There is an inherent disconnect between the security mission and mental health considerations.” Particularly at the federal supermax, as well as in the Colorado system; a recent independent study found that four out of ten inmates at the Colorado State Penitentiary are mentally ill, and solitary is overused statewide.

Hood also thinks that reducing sentences for nonviolent offenders is a good idea. “The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population…state correctional spending has quadrupled in the last two decades and now totals $52 billion a year.” But that would mean reforming Colorado’s habitual criminal legislation, which is now used in one particular judicial district to send chronic but low-level offenders away for decades; are you listening, District Attorney Carol Chambers?

via Robert Hood: A former supermax warden’s resolutions for 2012 – Denver News – The Latest Word.

Now, Florida’s Innocence Commission, the blue-ribbon panel working to prevent future false convictions here, is debating what to do about them.

The panel could make Florida the only state in the nation that would require judges to review the reliability of jailhouse informants — as well as any witness with pending criminal charges — before allowing them to testify at a felony trial.

READ THE REST: Innocence Commission of Florida jailhouse informants: Florida’s Innocence Commission: What should we do about jailhouse informants? – OrlandoSentinel.com.

But framing the incarceration debate as a tradeoff between public safety and public finance is far too narrow. The best evidence suggests the prison population would be substantially reduced with negligible effects on crime rates. Crime could actually be reduced if the savings were put to use in strengthening other criminal justice programs and implementing other reforms. Making this case requires that we confront widespread skepticism about the possibility of reducing criminal behavior on the outside.

The research community has made real progress in identifying the causal effect of various crime-related policies in recent years, providing us with proven alternatives to prison for controlling crime. The key has been to make greater use of experimental methods of the sort that are common in medicine, as well as “natural experiments” that arise from naturally occurring policy or demographic shifts.

via More Prisoners Versus More Crime is the Wrong Question – Brookings Institution.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) on Thursday sponsored a forum of policymakers from all 50 states to focus on improving success rates for people released from prison.

The event positioned states to set goals, or to expand on existing goals, for reducing recidivism through cost-effective strategies in their communities.

“In this time of economic challenges, we must continue to use every tool and strategy at our disposal to protect the American people while reducing costs to taxpayers,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.

“Today’s national forum demonstrates the Justice Department’s firm commitment to working with its partners in the states and non-governmental organizations to improve public safety by supporting efforts to assist formerly incarcerated people as they return to their communities to become productive members of our society,” said the embattled Holder, who is the focus of a Congressional probe involving the smuggling of firearms into Mexico as part of a federal law-enforcement operation.

via Jim Kouri — DOJ study on prisoner recidivism rates released.

The report, “Innocence Network Exonerations 2011,” provides information about each of this year’s 21 exonerations in 13 states. Misidentification was by far the leading cause of the wrongful convictions that were overturned, but this year also saw false confessions, faulty forensics and police and prosecutorial misconduct as contributing factors.

“These 21 exonerations expose the cracks in our deeply flawed criminal justice system,” said Keith Findley, president of the Innocence Network. “We urge legislators and other political leaders to take notice of these numbers and implement reforms to reduce the risks that such grave injustices will happen in the first place.”

READ THE REST