Over the past four decades, criminal justice in the United States has taken a sharp disciplinary turn. Muscular new policies and stronger efforts to root out and punish violations have pulled an ever-larger number of citizens into an expanding apparatus of state surveillance, custody, and control. As a growing body of research documents, the results have been far-reaching transformations of American society unlikely to fade any time soon. more...
crime
To many liberal critics, America’s swollen prisons have grown like a rapacious weed—one entirely immune to efforts to hack it back. The growth of incarceration seems inexorable and irreversible, driven by a combination of cynical politics, racial inequalities, and lobbying by corporations, unions, and towns that profit from the prison business.
These self-reinforcing dynamics are very real, but they are not cause for despair. In fact, there is reason to hope that the political momentum is turning against our over-reliance on cuffs and cages. The U.S. prison population declined each year from 2009 through 2012, and the number of new inmates admitted to state and federal prisons has reached a 12-year low. States from Texas to New York have taken aggressive steps to curb their prison populations, and even the U.S. Congress is entertaining sweeping reforms. There is no more important force in this reversal of political fortunes than the willingness of conservatives to take a more critical look at our prison system. more...
Not long ago, accounts of homeless people in America focused on single white men, who indeed made up the majority of those without a sure place to live. A skid row lifestyle, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, and a lack of social ties to people not themselves homeless—these were the realities for homeless white men. But homelessness in America took an unexpected turn starting in the 1980s, when the share of women and children on the streets began to grow.
By now, the United States has unthinkably high numbers of homeless children. Roughly two of every hundred American children find themselves without a home in any given year. Rates of child homelessness are higher in cities, and black children are especially at risk. In New York City, for example, black children are up to 35 times more likely than white youngsters to have lived in a homeless shelter at some point during the last year. more...
Fights over the laws governing voting rights are nothing new – but 2014 is shaping up to be a big year for court decisions that will determine whether millions of Americans will face new and unnecessary barriers at the polls. Since the disputed 2000 elections, states have increasingly moved to change voting rules, and litigation on these issues has more than doubled. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court decided in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had long required states with a history of discrimination to “pre-clear” proposed voting rule changes with the U.S. Department of Justice. Republican-led states have since redoubled efforts to restrict voting – and civil rights groups and the Justice Department have responded by filing new challenges. In 2014, the courts will weigh in, revealing what role, if any, U.S. judges will play in checking moves to make voting harder. more...
Across America, state governments are considering – and in some cases enacting – a veritable flood of new laws regulating voting and limiting access to the polls. Leading the list are laws requiring would-be voters to show specific kinds of photo identification before they can vote – including types of IDs not easily accessible to many otherwise eligible voters. Additional measures include tighter regulation of organizations and individuals who aim to register new voters, shorter periods for early voting, and the repeal of same-day voter registration laws. Many studies show that such measures dissuade or disenfranchise significant numbers of voters. Minorities, young people, and the very old are especially likely to be hampered. Since these groups disproportionately vote for Democrats, the new restrictions have the potential to actually change election outcomes.
The crime of human trafficking includes either forced labor or sexual exploitation, where coercion or fraud is used to control the victim. In the United States, this set of crimes is defined and addressed through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, reauthorized in 2003, 2005, and 2008. Provisions of the act cover steps for preventing trafficking, for prosecuting perpetrators, and for providing protection and services to victims. In the thirteen years since the passage of this legislation, much has been written about U.S. trafficking policy – mostly focused on national issues, rather than on varied local contexts.
My research uses interviews, official data, and field work to take a close look at human trafficking in the state of Hawai`i – and, importantly, I have gathered information in three different islands in the state, to see if Maui and the Big Island experience human trafficking issues differently from the main island of Oahu. more...
The United States imprisons more of its people than any other nation – currently one out of every 31 Americans. Lots of prisoners naturally leads to a steady flow of people leaving prison. Each year more than 700,000 U.S. prisoners are released to their communities. These men and women often have little education and poor prospects for finding jobs or establishing stable homes – and to make things worse, their health often deteriorates right after they leave prison.
About four out of every five newly released people suffer from chronic medical, psychiatric or substance abuse problems – but only about one in five visits a physician outside of hospital emergency departments during the first year after release. Imprisoned patients are often released without adequate follow-up instructions, medications, or access to health insurance coverage. Many let problems fester until they end up in hospital emergency rooms – inflating costs in U.S. health care and forcing taxpayers or insured Americans to foot bills the ex-prisoners cannot pay. An obvious solution is to ensure continuous good health care for people leaving prison. more...
Curbing violence in America’s inner cities has long been a difficult challenge. A wide variety of tactics have been tried – ranging from enforcement focused on gangs or repeat offenders to new preventive initiatives by social service providers. Affected neighborhoods have also been targeted for such measures as an increased police presence, the organization of neighborhood watch networks, and efforts to remove or clean up visible signs of disorder, such as abandoned cars, blighted buildings, junk-filled vacant lots, graffiti, and the presence of loiterers or beggars. more...
Stand Your Ground laws are suddenly in the spotlight, as Americans debate whether they counter violence or put more people in danger of death or injury by gunfire. It is a good time to look closely at what these laws do – and what we know, so far, about their effects. more...
Death by gunfire is a regularly recurring tragedy in the United States. In 2010, for example, 8,775 homicides were committed with a firearm—equal to one gun death for every hour of every day all through the year. Recent mass shootings like those in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, make Americans even more worried about gun violence—and there is real cause for concern. One of every five Americans reports personally knowing a victim of gun violence. To put this in perspective, that is thirty-five times higher than the number of people expected to graduate from U.S. colleges in 2013.
Police forces often respond to high levels of gun violence with intensely punitive measures. When crime spreads, a common police response is to flood affected communities with police patrols and make as many arrests as possible. This approach is similar to New York City’s infamous “stop-and-frisk” measures, whereby officers stop and search anyone they believe has committed, is committing, or might commit a crime.
Unfortunately, such indiscriminant approaches rely on inefficient and often discriminatory practices to reduce crime through sheer volume and intensity of policing. Simply put, being tough on crime doesn’t always mean that cops are being smart about the best ways to proceed. more...
To many liberal critics, America’s swollen prisons have grown like a rapacious weed—one entirely immune to efforts to hack it back. The growth of incarceration seems inexorable and irreversible, driven by a combination of cynical politics, racial inequalities, and lobbying by corporations, unions, and towns that profit from the prison business.
These self-reinforcing dynamics are very real, but they are not cause for despair. In fact, there is reason to hope that the political momentum is turning against our over-reliance on cuffs and cages. The U.S. prison population declined each year from 2009 through 2012, and the number of new inmates admitted to state and federal prisons has reached a 12-year low. States from Texas to New York have taken aggressive steps to curb their prison populations, and even the U.S. Congress is entertaining sweeping reforms. There is no more important force in this reversal of political fortunes than the willingness of conservatives to take a more critical look at our prison system. more...
Not long ago, accounts of homeless people in America focused on single white men, who indeed made up the majority of those without a sure place to live. A skid row lifestyle, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, and a lack of social ties to people not themselves homeless—these were the realities for homeless white men. But homelessness in America took an unexpected turn starting in the 1980s, when the share of women and children on the streets began to grow.
By now, the United States has unthinkably high numbers of homeless children. Roughly two of every hundred American children find themselves without a home in any given year. Rates of child homelessness are higher in cities, and black children are especially at risk. In New York City, for example, black children are up to 35 times more likely than white youngsters to have lived in a homeless shelter at some point during the last year. more...
Fights over the laws governing voting rights are nothing new – but 2014 is shaping up to be a big year for court decisions that will determine whether millions of Americans will face new and unnecessary barriers at the polls. Since the disputed 2000 elections, states have increasingly moved to change voting rules, and litigation on these issues has more than doubled. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court decided in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had long required states with a history of discrimination to “pre-clear” proposed voting rule changes with the U.S. Department of Justice. Republican-led states have since redoubled efforts to restrict voting – and civil rights groups and the Justice Department have responded by filing new challenges. In 2014, the courts will weigh in, revealing what role, if any, U.S. judges will play in checking moves to make voting harder. more...
Across America, state governments are considering – and in some cases enacting – a veritable flood of new laws regulating voting and limiting access to the polls. Leading the list are laws requiring would-be voters to show specific kinds of photo identification before they can vote – including types of IDs not easily accessible to many otherwise eligible voters. Additional measures include tighter regulation of organizations and individuals who aim to register new voters, shorter periods for early voting, and the repeal of same-day voter registration laws. Many studies show that such measures dissuade or disenfranchise significant numbers of voters. Minorities, young people, and the very old are especially likely to be hampered. Since these groups disproportionately vote for Democrats, the new restrictions have the potential to actually change election outcomes.
The crime of human trafficking includes either forced labor or sexual exploitation, where coercion or fraud is used to control the victim. In the United States, this set of crimes is defined and addressed through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, reauthorized in 2003, 2005, and 2008. Provisions of the act cover steps for preventing trafficking, for prosecuting perpetrators, and for providing protection and services to victims. In the thirteen years since the passage of this legislation, much has been written about U.S. trafficking policy – mostly focused on national issues, rather than on varied local contexts.
My research uses interviews, official data, and field work to take a close look at human trafficking in the state of Hawai`i – and, importantly, I have gathered information in three different islands in the state, to see if Maui and the Big Island experience human trafficking issues differently from the main island of Oahu. more...
The United States imprisons more of its people than any other nation – currently one out of every 31 Americans. Lots of prisoners naturally leads to a steady flow of people leaving prison. Each year more than 700,000 U.S. prisoners are released to their communities. These men and women often have little education and poor prospects for finding jobs or establishing stable homes – and to make things worse, their health often deteriorates right after they leave prison.
About four out of every five newly released people suffer from chronic medical, psychiatric or substance abuse problems – but only about one in five visits a physician outside of hospital emergency departments during the first year after release. Imprisoned patients are often released without adequate follow-up instructions, medications, or access to health insurance coverage. Many let problems fester until they end up in hospital emergency rooms – inflating costs in U.S. health care and forcing taxpayers or insured Americans to foot bills the ex-prisoners cannot pay. An obvious solution is to ensure continuous good health care for people leaving prison. more...
Curbing violence in America’s inner cities has long been a difficult challenge. A wide variety of tactics have been tried – ranging from enforcement focused on gangs or repeat offenders to new preventive initiatives by social service providers. Affected neighborhoods have also been targeted for such measures as an increased police presence, the organization of neighborhood watch networks, and efforts to remove or clean up visible signs of disorder, such as abandoned cars, blighted buildings, junk-filled vacant lots, graffiti, and the presence of loiterers or beggars. more...
Stand Your Ground laws are suddenly in the spotlight, as Americans debate whether they counter violence or put more people in danger of death or injury by gunfire. It is a good time to look closely at what these laws do – and what we know, so far, about their effects. more...
Death by gunfire is a regularly recurring tragedy in the United States. In 2010, for example, 8,775 homicides were committed with a firearm—equal to one gun death for every hour of every day all through the year. Recent mass shootings like those in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, make Americans even more worried about gun violence—and there is real cause for concern. One of every five Americans reports personally knowing a victim of gun violence. To put this in perspective, that is thirty-five times higher than the number of people expected to graduate from U.S. colleges in 2013.
Police forces often respond to high levels of gun violence with intensely punitive measures. When crime spreads, a common police response is to flood affected communities with police patrols and make as many arrests as possible. This approach is similar to New York City’s infamous “stop-and-frisk” measures, whereby officers stop and search anyone they believe has committed, is committing, or might commit a crime.
Unfortunately, such indiscriminant approaches rely on inefficient and often discriminatory practices to reduce crime through sheer volume and intensity of policing. Simply put, being tough on crime doesn’t always mean that cops are being smart about the best ways to proceed. more...
Research to Improve Policy: The Scholars Strategy Network seeks to improve public policy and strengthen democracy by organizing scholars working in America's colleges and universities. SSN's founding director is Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University.