Dems CJ Wall of Silence, Police Use of Consumer Cameras & More

"If the president wants to rejoin the criminal justice conversation, it’s simple: listen to the voters who are smarter than election-year soundbites."

President Biden’s 2020 campaign website included an extensive section on criminal justice reform. Four years later, the site has been scrubbed and journalist Max Burns faced a wall of silence from democrat lawmakers and national criminal justice organizations while researching a column on what happened to Democrats’ justice reform priorities since the last election. JAN's Executive Director Jenna Bottler was happy to break that wall, and talk about not just what's happened to criminal justice policy, but its viability to voters in 2024 and beyond.

"It's a different form of crime fighting. Crime prevention is just as important to protect the public as taking the person off the street."

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the results of the First Step Act this week, with testimony from former Deputy Assistant to President Trump, Ja'Ron Smith, First Step Act beneficiary Matthew Charles, the National District Attorneys Association’s Charlie Smith, and the Council on Prison Locals’ Steve Markle. The success of the law—which includes a 37% reduction in recidivism among those who have benefitted from the law compared to their similarly situated peers—featured prominently in the discussion, as well as bipartisan calls for additional federal reforms. The Due Process Institute documented some of the best quotes from the hearing in real time on X, but the entire event is worth a listen.

"Increasingly, most of these facilities functionally blur the lines between private and public surveillance sources."

Major cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are set to launch Real-Time Crime Centers, described as "nerve centers" integrating various police technologies and data, including surveillance video, license plate readers, facial recognition, and more. With at least 135 such centers nationwide, proponents argue they enhance crime-solving, while opponents express concerns about privacy invasion and potential bias against marginalized communities. The increasing collaboration between private and public surveillance—fueled by the proliferation of camera-equipped devices and cloud storage—raises ethical questions as police gain direct access to footage held by third-party companies, potentially reshaping the landscape of criminal investigations.

"Prisoners who have earned their First Step Act credits are staying in prisons longer than necessary and longer than the law allows. […] This is a problem that is going to persist unless something is done."

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) faces a critical challenge in implementing the First Step Act, as a shortage of halfway house capacity leaves thousands of individuals languishing in federal prisons when they are eligible for release. Despite the law's intent to expedite the reintegration of offenders into society, bureaucratic hurdles, zoning issues, and limited halfway house availability hinder the timely release of individuals who have earned release credits under the First Step Act.

"We found no relationship between either a state’s incarceration rate or its partisan leaning and how it has set fines and fees statutes."

Millions of Americans face the burden of prolonged legal financial obligations (LFOs) related to fines, fees, and restitution arising from criminal cases. A new study from the Vera Institute documents that the millions of Americans who are struggling to pay down court debt must do so for much longer than they would have to for debt of any other kind, and that longer-term criminal justice debt is neither financially beneficial for states nor conducive to repayment. Authors urge reforms to reduce the time people are subject to these debts.