"Kansas Two-Step" Unconstitutional, NM's Juvenile Strip-Searches & More

Here are five things you should know about criminal justice reform this week: 

"When a trooper quickly reapproaches a driver after a traffic stop and continues to ask questions, the authority that a trooper wields...communicates a strong message that the driver is not free to leave." 
 
A federal judge ruled that a common traffic stop technique used by Kansas Highway Patrol unconstitutional last week. U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Vratil said that the "Kansas two-step" approach, where a state trooper re-approaches a vehicle they have pulled over after the apparent purpose of the stop has been accomplished, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions on searches and seizures. In her opinion, Judge Vratil wrote that because of the officer's inherent position of power, a driver's willingness to stay when re-approached does not constitute knowingly and willingly consenting to further questioning. 
 
"If young people enter the facility and face a strip search, they can’t develop positive relationships with staff. They can’t feel comfortable. They may be traumatized. They may be triggered based on past sexual assault."
 
Toilets are a basic necessity, yet access to them is not guaranteed at New Mexico's largest jail for incarcerated youth. Read more about the shocking conditions and systemic failures plaguing the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center—including routine strip searches and nearly 70% of unfilled staff positions—in this in-depth report by Searchlight New Mexico.
 
"We’ve shown over a 15-year period how to do [criminal justice reform] right. I actually wish other states spent more time looking to Connecticut."
 
Nearly 25 years ago, Connecticut prisons were so overcrowded that the state paid for some of its incarcerated population to be housed in Virginia. But after enacting a number of criminal justice reforms in the years since, the state has cut its incarcerated population in half, closed 10 prisons, and kept its crime rate at its lowest level in 40 years. Read more in Slate here. 

"I feel a lot better as a father, as a grandfather and as a husband because I am able to communicate with them."

This year, California became the second state in the nation to eliminate charges for making phone calls from prisons. With this new law in effect, many incarcerated people are finally able to reconnect with their loved ones and rebuild estranged relationships now that phone calls are free. 
 
"Given that Sen. Schumer is the [Senate] Majority Leader, he also has power to put pressure on the Judiciary committee to have them move this bill." 
 
National and New York State advocates are pushing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to advance the EQUAL Act, which would finally and fully end the unjust federal crack cocaine sentencing disparity. In a letter sent to Sen. Schumer this month, advocacy groups thanked the Senator for his historical support for the bill and urged him to find a path to the Senate floor prior to the Senate's next recess.