“A Thousand Small Sanities” and Why Judges Matter

"A Thousand Small Sanities" is worth a look for anyone interested in learning about rational, incremental criminal justice system reform. It's a succinct, straightforward history of criminal justice reform in New York City. In Small Sanities, the Center for Court Innovation Director Greg Berman writ...
August 29, 2012

Policy Brief: Early Criminal Case Assessment in Urban Jurisdictions

Chicago Appleseed is pleased to release a policy brief discussing the use of early prosecutorial review of drug cases in Philadelphia, PA and Brooklyn, NY--and implications for Cook County. You can find this brief and all of our latest criminal justice policy research at our Criminal Justice page....
August 28, 2012

Links of Interest: August 20-24, 2012

Judicial Performance and Elections The Election Law Blog has copies of the amicus brief filed in support of cert filed jointly by six states and a separate brief filed by Alaska in the Voting Rights Act case. Petitioners Shelby County and John Nix filed the initial petition in July seeking Suprem...
August 24, 2012

Donor Diversity through Public Matching Funds

In May, the Brennan Center for Justice and the Campaign Finance Institute released a report on how public financing improves diversity of small donors and changes how candidates view potential donors and potential constituents. The report’s authors note that the data set is rather small, but the tre...
August 23, 2012

Policy Brief: Early Case Assessment in Urban Jurisdictions

The twin goals of early case assessment are to devote more resources to those cases for which a conviction can confidently be obtained, and also to decline to prosecute, reduce charges, or divert other cases. Our Early Case Assessment Policy Brief takes a look at how the District Attorney's Offices...
August 21, 2012