A new report from The Sentencing Project debunks the myth of a post-pandemic crime wave fueled by young people.
In March, Congress held a hearing about a spike in carjackings in big cities, but the data actually show a drop in overall robberies by youths in 2020, and a drop in the share of crime committed by youths over the past 20 years.
Tshaka Barrows, co-executive director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute in Oakland, rejected calls to ditch progressive policies on juvenile justice.
“To think that somehow we don’t need to revisit failed approaches that specifically have a racial impact that’s structural – that dates all the way back to the founding of this country – to me, is disingenuous,” he said. “It lacks a true reflection of the magnitude of what we’re dealing with.”
Barrows said he supports restorative-justice programs that rehabilitate young people and keep them out of the criminal-justice system. He said he views the recent recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin as a setback, and added that huge investments in law enforcement have not made communities safer.
Report author Richard Mendel, senior research fellow at The Sentencing Project, said he thinks young people who commit minor crimes should not be expelled or locked up – but rather, redirected to counseling.
“You take them away from school, you take them away from activities of rites of passage and adolescence, and you surround them instead with incarceration, with other troubled kids,” he said, “and it’s a negative dynamic that halts their natural progression to ‘age out’ of these behaviors.”
State data show the felony juvenile arrest rate decreased from 2019 to 2020 – from 3.9 per 1,000 to 2.7 at the height of the pandemic.
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A new report from Indiana University revealed stark racial disparities in bail costs, and outlined how those higher costs can have long-term impacts on folks charged with crimes and their families.
According to the report, bail across the country is set an average of 34% for Black detainees and 19% higher for Latino detainees, compared with their white counterparts.
Krystal Gibson, program analyst for the Indiana University Public Policy Institute, said increased cost makes it more difficult for many to get out of pretrial detention.
“Research does show that detaining people before their trials, it really increases their risk of future criminal behavior,” Gibson reported. “It can harm the defendant, their family and community, and it disrupts an individual’s life.”
According to the report, eliminating cash bail could help reduce those racial disparities, since it would level the field for all ethnicities, regardless of the charges they face. Its authors point to New Jersey, which reduced its dependence on cash bail, and saw a 35% decrease in its jail population.
Come July, Indiana will enact a new law restricting the operation of charitable bail funds. Among other restrictions, the law would prevent charitable funds from bailing out people charged with a violent crime.
Gibson said the policy could potentially push detainees to rely more on for-profit bail-bond companies, which still are permitted to bail out those facing violent-crime charges.
“When you use a bail bond agency, individuals have to pay several fees, including this 10% nonrefundable fee, no matter the outcome of the case,” Gibson pointed out. “And that can be thousands of dollars.”
The policy currently is facing a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Bail Project, a national bail fund whose Indiana operation is likely the largest such fund operating in the state.
The two groups argued, among other things, the policy violates the Bail Project’s constitutional right to equal protection under the law, as it was drafted essentially to solely target their Indiana operations.
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Advocacy organizations of differing ideologies appear to be in agreement when it comes to certain bail reform efforts in Ohio.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear proponent testimony on a proposed fix to an Ohio Supreme Court ruling, which said courts cannot use public safety as a factor in setting bail.
Senate Joint Resolution 5 would put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to allow courts to use public safety and other factors in determining the amount of bail posted.
Alan Smith, criminal justice fellow at the Buckeye Institute, a free-market public policy think tank, argued Ohio would be better served by bipartisan reform efforts in the Legislature.
“The focus here is on accused persons who are in jail because they couldn’t organize bail money and people with resources can pay their way out,” Smith pointed out. “There’s a discrepancy there.”
Senate Bill 182 and House Bill 315 would write into law the presumption for release rather than detention and greatly reduce the use of cash bail. The measures also are supported by the ACLU of Ohio, Common Cause Ohio, Ohio Conservatives for Bail Reform, and Policy Matters Ohio.
Supporters of the constitutional amendment, including the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, argued judges should not be limited in their ability to consider victims’ rights and public safety. But Smith countered changing the constitution would undermine current and future legislative work.
“It may affect negatively some of the long-term work that’s been put into bail reform,” Smith explained. “There might be perceived conflicts because one set of rules is in the Constitution and another set would be statutory.”
Smith added reducing the use of cash bail will keep people with low-level offenses out of jail and save the state money, while preserving the principle of innocent until proved guilty.
“There’s a wide spectrum of ideological interest in making the system better,” Smith noted. “It all comes back to public acceptance. The idea is that we could improve the system that’s out there, and in that sense, I suppose improve civilization.”
The Senate resolution gets its second hearing today. Its companion bill, House Joint Resolution 2, was passed by a House committee last week.
Reporting by Ohio News Connection in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.
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After a drop due to the COVID pandemic, new research found Kentucky is once again crowding more people into jails and prisons.
The Bluegrass State has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and some experts believe it is a direct result of state legislation keeping men and women locked up.
Carmen Mitchell, criminal justice policy analyst at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which produced the report, said the state’s elected officials are not doing enough to solve the problem.
“If Kentucky were a country, it would rank seventh-highest in the world for the rate of incarceration,” Mitchell reported. “We have right under 22,000 people in jails; about another 9,800 people in state prisons. This legislative session that just concluded didn’t make any meaningful steps to address that.”
Mitchell pointed out over the past decade, several factors are driving the state’s incarceration levels, including locking people up for low-level drug felonies and property crime. High rates of pretrial detention are another factor. The report noted Kentuckians remain in custody when they cannot afford bail.
Mitchell explained, like many states and countries around the world, Kentucky’s incarceration levels were reduced due to pandemic health concerns, but the decrease did not last.
“We saw a major drop in the jail population, especially in pretrial capacity,” Mitchell recounted. “And unfortunately though, we’ve been climbing back up ever since then. So, we’ve once again gotten back to the point where our incarcerated population in jails is exceeding even the capacity and number of beds.”
In 2021, bills were passed to limit no-knock warrants and raise the dollar amounts for making some crimes felonies, but Mitchell argued the 2022 session appears to have reversed the trend.
“We pass punitive legislation at a rate of about six-to-one, with respect to legislation that might redress, address, incarceration or justice involvement,” Mitchell emphasized. “That’s what we normally do, and 2021 was a good outlier, and we were hoping to build on that. But unfortunately, we kind of returned to ‘business as usual.’ “
She added she is convinced changes would be more likely if Kentuckians let their lawmakers know they feel criminal-justice reform should be a top priority.
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