Research
Objective: Legitimacy-based approaches to crime prevention operate under the assumption that individuals — including violent offenders — are more likely to comply with the law when they believe that the law and its agents are legitimate and act in ways that seem inherently “fair” and “just.” While mounting evidence finds an association between such legitimacy-based …
June 6, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Changing, Policy No Comments 
Two years after the United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its severely overcrowded prisons by more than 30,000 inmates, the state is still trying to figure out how to comply. Governor Jerry Brown released a new plan in early May that called for the early release of elderly inmates and the relocation of …
June 1, 2013 Tags: CA, news
Category: News, Policy No Comments
Two recently released reports indicate that, despite some political claims to the contrary, the state’s prisoner-realignment effort is working both locally and statewide. Based on Assembly Bill 109, and triggered by order of the U.S. Supreme Court, the realignment has reduced the number of inmates in the state’s 33 prisons by about 28,000 since October …
May 31, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Changing, Parole No Comments
Hoping to shrink the glut of low-risk federal inmates consuming tax dollars in prison, Rep. Jason Chaffetz is about to unveil a post-sentencing reform bill that would allow drug offenders and others to earn early release into halfway houses, home confinement and ankle-bracelet monitoring.
Quietly, the Utah Republican has worked Washington’s back channels for 18 months …
May 31, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Parole, Policy No Comments
Federal budget cuts, a spike in gun violence and the state’s financial instability all threaten recent progress in the reduction of Illinois’ juvenile recidivism rates.
In an effort to reduce cost while keeping youth out of the detention cycle, and in contrast to the tough laws of …
May 30, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Youth No Comments
According to the New York City Department of Corrections, nearly half of the 16- and 17-year-olds released from Riker’s Island come back in less than a year. In some studies, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven effective in keeping teens from returning to prison. For instance, the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies released research …
May 27, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Community, Reform, Youth No Comments
When Janice Hutt, a New Hampshire nurse, went to prison to serve a 10-year sentence for stealing someone’s identity and cash, she probably didn’t realize that in addition to this prison term, she was effectively being sentenced to a lifetime of poverty and unemployment.
Because of her felony conviction, Janice will almost certainly never be allowed …
January 5, 2013 Tags: news
Category: Changing No Comments
The city launched a war on teenage boredom and, after years of cuts, the City Council opened its pocketbook for youth programs. They hired more staff, created more youth programming and threw open the doors to the Zanewood Recreation Center.
It worked.
A new study shows 42 percent of Brooklyn Park teens are now participating in some …
December 28, 2012 Tags: news
Category: Youth No Comments
For more than a decade, Milwaukee County’s jail system has been under the scrutiny of a court-appointed medical monitor for its failure to provide adequate health care, including for inmates with mental illness.
In August, the monitor found mental health care in the county’s two jails was still in shambles. Among the problems: Vacancies in top …
December 28, 2012 Tags: news
Category: Mental No Comments
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.”…
