Links of Interest: October 1-5, 2012
Criminal Justice
- The Washington Post ran an editorial this week criticizing systemic barriers to restoring voting privileges to former inmates in Virginia. The NAACP is having an event in Richmond, Virginia on Friday to publicize its advocacy on the issue. Illinois restores voting rights to prisoners upon their release from prison (.pdf download), but does not permit the incarcerated to cast ballots.
Here is a 2010 Report (.pdf download) by the Sentencing Project on felony disenfranchisement. Project Vote has additional resources, as does the Prison Policy Initiative.
Community Justice
- American Express will pay $112.5 million to resolve allegations of abusive debt collection practices, late-fee charges and deceptive marketing. The FDIC press release links to the court order and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has some simple information about the settlement.
The CFPB has great resources on credit cards for consumers.
Other Links
- This week the Legal Services Corporation Pro Bono Task Force released its findings and recommendations for enhancing pro bono legal services in the U.S. LSC sponsored a panel discussion of the crisis in legal services funding at Duke this week and the task force presented its report at Harvard on Wednesday.