Latest criminal justice news and reports 6.5.25
Top reads: PPI is tracking the Trump administration’s terrible criminal justice policy moves; Trump wants to “unleash the police”; an abolitionist conversation with Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson.
Media
Raj Jayadev is one of the most brilliant and creative organizers in America today, and the model that he and his colleagues have developed of “participatory Justice” is extremely timely. Listen to his recent conversation on the Everyday Injustice podcast.
I recommend reading The War Before the War about the politics of slavery from the Revolutionary war to the Civil war, which drove over 80 years of viciously churning tensions between North and South. It’s a fast read and an important and timely refresher.
I finally had the opportunity to watch The Alabama Solution, the documentary that takes us inside Alabama prisons on covert cellphones, and it blew my mind. I don’t usually watch media about how terrible prisons are as I’m pretty up to speed on that point. This film was different. There are no talking heads, no charts and diagrams. Just a ton of footage capturing the struggle of men inside trying to avoid being murdered by guards. Please see this film when it comes out in theaters in the fall. If you want to learn about or contribute to distribution or partnerships with groups on the ground, please email me and I will connect you.
The Laura Flanders Show covered the spike in aggressive deportations by the Trump administration, which has used criminalizing language to justify its behavior.
I’ve heard good things about The Quilters, a short documentary on Netflix about men in a Missouri prison who make beautiful, personalized quilts for foster children.
Audible has a new series called "The Parole Room", about a man’s decades-long quest to win parole. See also the Case of Henry Dee.
Politics
Larry Krasner won a resounding victory in his bid for a third term as Philadelphia’s District Attorney. Krasner positioned himself as a democracy defender against Trump. Mother Jones has a good piece with background on his consequential leadership. This is a huge deal - Krasner has been a number one target for enemies of this work, and they failed miserably.
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, now surging in the polls, has split from the pack of candidates on the question of policing. While the others have said they want to hire more officers (which will be difficult or impossible, given that the department is already having a hard time hiring officers), Mamdani is proposing that the city institute a Department of Community Safety. This department would expand programs that handle cases that aren't a great fit for police, such as mental health calls. This would relieve pressure on the NYPD while also getting more effective responses into the field, and is based on effective models like the one in Albuquerque. It’s very exciting to see this model on the major city stage in NYC!
In New York, a terrible and out-of-line upstate judge just chose retirement rather than seeking reappointment to the bench, after a successful advocacy campaign by the Center for Community Alternatives, which relied on data compiled by Scrutinize, an organization focused on judicial transparency.
Solutions and Wins
Governor Newsom is moving to close another CA prison, the fifth since he took office.
Maryland’s Governor recently signed the Second Look Act, a compassionate release bill making it moderately easier for elderly and sick prisoners to get paroled.
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that parole reforms passed in 2023 are constitutional. This means that nearly 1800 people in Nebraska prisons will receive earlier parole eligibility dates or become parole eligible for the first time.
2025 is on track to produce the lowest murder rate ever recorded in the United States. This is fantastic, though I wonder if this amazing trend will reverse when the impact of Trump’s federal cuts are felt. Violence intervention programs and other crime reductions efforts around the country have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. If the rate spikes up again next year, we may know why.
The Policing Project at NYU Law is launching the 12 Million Calls Initiative in partnership with municipalities around the country to divert 20% of police calls to non-police responses.
Convergence magazine did a four-part series on cancel culture and how we can find other ways to work through tensions in our movements.
Congratulations to Katherine Passley, co-ED of Beyond the Bars, a member-led worker center for people with criminal records, who just won a prestigious ‘organizer of the year’ cash award!
Reports
Essie Justice group released a new report, The Hidden Heart of Reentry, with learnings from efforts to bail Black mothers out of jail, and the subsequent effects on their lives.
Cornell’s Center on the Death Penalty put out a report on women and the death penalty.
Equity and Transformation collaborated with Fathers, Families, & Healthy Communities to publish a groundbreaking report called Breaking the Chains: Reclaiming Wealth, Power, and Dignity for Black Men, focused on the experiences of formerly incarcerated Black men in Chicago.
FWD.us released a new report called We Can’t Afford It: Mass Incarceration and the Family Tax. One striking finding from the report: Mass incarceration is costing families with incarcerated loved ones nearly $350 billion every year. This includes both out-of-pocket costs that family members pay and depressed wages over a lifetime for both the person who was incarcerated and their children.
Jeff Asher finds that cities that implemented large recruitment bonuses for new police officers didn’t succeed in achieving more officers on the force. Whatever the politics of policing, the fact remains that many fewer people actually want to be police now, and money isn't making a difference. Cities would do well to find as many ways as possible to solve problems without police (see many examples here), and save their dwindling force for the essentials.
The Prison Policy Initiative is maintaining a fantastic tracker of the many specific ways in which the Trump administration is producing worse outcomes for safety and for people in the criminal legal system. Given that Trump is trying to tout a few pardons as signs of his efficacy in this area, this data is really important to follow.
Saul Kassin has produced a major study (updating his 2010 study) that lays out the risk factors for false confession and how to lessen those risks. The Innocence Project says that 29% of its exonerations involved false confessions. Hard to believe at first, but 16-hour hostile interrogations will have that effect on people.
A very detailed new study, co-authored by several criminologists, has found that most Americans have an unfavorable opinion of mass incarceration. The news article doesn’t do it justice; I recommend reading the underlying paper.