The Racial Disparity Committee met at 2:30 PM on Saturday, January 26, 2013 at the Hilton Americas hotel in Houston, TX.  The following documents were used during the meeting:

• Roster of Racial Disparity Committee Members
  
• The Mission Statement of the Racial Disparity Committee
  
• The agenda for the Racial Disparity Committee Meeting
  
• Document A - The Minutes from the July 21, 2012 Racial Disparity Committee Meeting.
  
• Document B - Nov. 14-15, 2012 Roundtable Agenda from the Liman Law School and ASCA Meeting
  
  • Biographies of Roundtable participants
    
  • Reading Resources regarding Racial Disparity
    
• Document C - Overview of a Letter of Inquiry to Open Society Foundation
  

The meeting minutes and other meeting information will be posted here soon.

The Sentencing Project’s 25th anniversary forum, Criminal Justice 2036: A 25-Year Vision for Reform, and “Unlocking Justice,” a video on problem-solving approaches to justice, are now available in streaming video.

The October 11th forum featured Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, outlining the reasons why the United States can no longer continue its broken policy of incarceration, and how both justice and equality can be served through criminal justice reform. Other highlights of the
program include a panel discussion, "Strategies for Moving Forward,” as well as comments from Representative Bobby Scott; Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs; and Malcolm Young, founder of The Sentencing Project.

Click here for the forum videos.

The Sentencing Project April 30, 2013 Race and Justice News newsletter features an article on Oregon legislators passing a Racial Impact Study bill to require the Criminal Justice Commission to issue a racial impact statement when requested by a legislator.  Click here for the April 30 Race and Justice News.

The Sentencing Project presents a new report, Ending Mass Incarceration: Charting a New Justice Reinvestment, that traces the history and examines the impact of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI).  Justice Reinvestment was conceived as part of the solution to mass incarceration.  The intent was to reduce corrections populations and budgets, thereby generating savings for reinvestment in high incarceration communities to make them safer, stronger, more prosperous, and equitable.

The report that Nicole Porter and Marc Mauer have co-authored with colleagues in the field concludes that while JRI has played a significant role in opening space for criminal justice reform, it has not produced significant reductions in the correctional populations of most of the states in which it has worked.  The report provides an assessment of why we believe this has been the case, and how the original mission of Justice Reinvestment can be achieved moving forward. In order to achieve the goals of reducing corrections populations and investing in local communities, the authors recommend Justice Reinvestment approaches that would:

• Reduce all forms of incarceration and correctional supervision (probation/parole),
• Reinvest in high incarceration communities,
• Involve stakeholders and non-governmental entities at the state and local levels throughout the planning, legislative, implementation and reinvestment process, and
• Create a multi-year plan and course for implementation and evaluation beyond short-term legislative or policy fixes

Marc Mauer’s Race to Incarcerate, first published in 1999, has become an essential text for understanding the exponential growth of the U.S. prison system and a canonical work for those active in the U.S. criminal justice reform movement. Jonathan Kozol, the writer and education activist, called it: “A tremendously disturbing and important book about the devastating increase in our prison population…the questions that it poses call for answers that too few of those in power have been brave enough to give.”   "Do not underestimate the power of the book you are holding in your hands." - Michelle Alexander Now, graphic artist Sabrina Jones has collaborated with Mauer to adapt and update the original text to produce Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling, a vivid and engaging comics narrative. Jones’s dramatic artwork adds passion and compassion to the complex story of four decades of prison expansion and its corrosive effect on generations of Americans and the implications for American democracy. In the foreword, Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, calls the book “utterly indispensable” to the understanding of the human rights nightmare that mass incarceration is today. If current trends continue, one of every three black males and one of every six Latino males born today can expect to find themselves in prison at some point of their lives. Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling, in this highly accessible format, chronicles the lives of those imprisoned and the fallout from a failed social policy. With more than two million people now imprisoned, Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling is more essential than ever. Sabrina Jones is the author of Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography and a contributor to World War 3 Illustrated, Wobblies!, The Real Cost of Prisons, Studs Terkel’s Working (The New Press), FDR and the New Deal for Beginners, Yiddishkeit, and Radical Jesus. Marc Mauer is the executive director of The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Race to Incarcerate, a semifinalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the co-editor, with Meda Chesney-Lind, of Invisible Punishment (both available from The New Press). Michelle Alexander is the author of the New York Times bestseller The New Jim Crow.

The Sentencing Project Executive Director Marc Mauer was interviewed by Truthout with a wide ranging interview covering how people who are incarcerated have become “commodities,” the connection between the drug war and race, the role of the rapidly emerging for-profit prison industry in "filling beds," and how substantial funds spent on incarceration could be redirected to the communities most heavily affected by mass incarceration. Other issues addressed include the role of the fiscal crisis in shifting corrections policy, the politics of “tough on crime,” and how we can begin to shift the political climate toward a more rational and compassionate approach to public safety.  Click here for the interview with Marc Mauer from Truthout

The Sentencing Project April 2, 2013 issue of Race and Justice News features pending legislation in Oregon and Arkansas that would require a racial impact statement for legislation that creates a new criminal offense; changes an existing offense; or changes existing sentencing, parole or probation procedures, similar to the racial impact legislation passed in Iowa in 2008.  Other articles include Evidence of Racial Bias in Texas Death Penalty Cases, Another Effort to Repeal North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, and Race and Pre- and Post- Adjudication of Youth.  Click here for the April 2, 2013 Race and Justice News.

The March 29, 2013 Disenfranchisement Newsletter from The Sentencing Project highlights news from states considering changes to voting rights for felons.  Click here for Disenfranchisement News

The Sentencing Project has published a new article, “Tinkering with Life: A Look at the Inappropriateness of Life Without Parole as an Alternative to the Death Penalty,” by senior research analyst Ashley Nellis, that appears in the University of Miami Law Review.  Dr. Nellis explores the use of life without parole, now standing at more than 41,000 sentences nationwide and representing a 300% increase over the past two decades. She argues that the abolition of the death penalty in several states in recent years allows deliberations about punishment to expand and to consider the appropriateness of other sanctions. The article describes commonalities between death sentences and parole-ineligible life sentences, including:

• The terminal nature of both sentences that necessitates death in prison.
• The extreme racial disparities among those who receive either of these sentences.

The article also discusses critical problems posed by life without parole sentences, including:

• The mandatory nature with which they can be imposed;
• The lack of heightened legal review required for life without parole cases in comparison to death sentences.

Finally, Dr. Nellis encourages careful consideration in promoting life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty, arguing that neither of these sentences allows for the possibility of reform or redemption.

The Sentencing Project has published a new report that finds a dramatic shift in the racial composition of U.S. prison populations for the period 2000 – 2009, particularly among women. In The Changing Racial Dynamics of Women’s Incarceration they analyze data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and find that whereas in the year 2000 African American women were incarcerated at six times the rate of white women, by 2009 that disparity had dropped by half, to less than three times the white rate.

Overall, during this period the black women’s rate of incarceration declined by 30.7%, while the rate for white women increased by 47.1% and for Latinas by 23.3%. These figures represent national trends, and are likely to vary considerably by state, depending on such factors as crime rates, sentencing policy, and socioeconomics.

Several factors appear to be contributing to the racial changes in imprisonment among women:

• Declining arrest rates for African American women, along with sharp reductions in incarceration for drug offenses in certain states.
• Rising rates of imprisonment for white women for property crimes in particular, as well as for violent and drug offenses.
• The cumulative social disadvantages that correlate with greater involvement in substance abuse and crime are increasingly affecting less educated white women.

In order to better understand these trends, The Sentencing Project is encouraging state officials to conduct state-based analyses of incarceration disparities, to establish task forces to recommend changes in policy and practice, and to engage practitioners in collaborative efforts to address disparities.

Click here for an article from The Crime Report about the study.

The latest issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter (FSR) focuses on the ethical and legal ramifications of America’s overburdened, underfunded public defense system. It also features commentary on Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, two recent Supreme Court cases that restate the importance of access to effective counsel in the plea bargaining process.

By special arrangement with the University of California Press, the Editors’ Observations and Professor Erica Hashimoto’s article, Abandoning Misdemeanor Defendants, can be read for free on Vera’s website.

The Sentencing Project released a new report The State of Sentencing 2012: Developments in Policy and Practice.  The report highlights reforms in 24 states that demonstrate a continued trend to reform sentencing policies and scale back the use of imprisonment without compromising public safety.  The report provides a overview of recent policy reforms in the areas of sentencing, probation and parole, collateral consequences, and juvenile justice.  Highlights include:

• Mandatory minimums - Seven states – Alabama, California, Missouri, Massachusetts, Kansas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania – revised mandatory penalties for certain offenses,  including crack cocaine offenses and drug offense enhancements.
• Death penalty - Connecticut abolished the death penalty, becoming the 17th state to do so.
• Parole and probation reforms - Seven states – Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Missouri, and Pennsylvania -- expanded the use of earned time for eligible prisoners and limited the use of incarceration for probation and parole violations.
• Juvenile life without parole - Three states – California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania – authorized sentencing relief for certain individuals sentenced to juvenile life without parole.

Click here for the report.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) held a briefing on December 7 in Washington regarding the impact of criminal background checks on employment, and its particular effects for black and Latino workers. Specifically, USCCR sought to determine "whether the new EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] Guidance policy or other prohibitions or limitations on the use of criminal background checks results in lower job opportunities and reduced employment overall among minorities, including nonoffenders."

EEOC has long provided guidance to job seekers, employees, employers, and others regarding the use of arrest and conviction records in employment. The revised guidance calls for employers to assess applicants on an individual basis rather than excluding with a blanket policy all of those with a criminal record. It directs employers to weigh the nature of the job, the seriousness of the offense, and the length of time since the offense occurred in hiring. Moreover the revised guidance notes that job seekers should not be rejected on the basis of an arrest alone, since arrest is not proof of criminal behavior.

Appearing at the December 7 briefing were a number of experts, including government officials, academics, advocates, and business leaders. USCCR is now accepting public comments, which it will consider in developing a report and recommendations on the need to address employment barriers based on criminal history. It is thus essential that criminal justice, civil rights, and workers advocates submit comments for the Commission’s consideration. Comments can be any length, but interested parties are advised to be concise. In relating your concerns, you may want to consider the following:

• Nearly one in three American adults is arrested by age 23.
• Many of those who have been arrested (and thus have a “criminal record” that could appear on a criminal background check) have never been convicted of a crime.
• Black workers are disproportionately impacted by criminal background checks, reflecting disparities in the criminal justice system and racial bias among employers. Research has documented that African Americans with no felony convictions are no more likely to receive a callback or job offer as whites with a felony record.
• Employment is essential for people who have broken the law and are trying to reenter society. Barring such people from getting a job increases the odds that they will commit another crime.
• The bottom line is that people should have the opportunity for employment in jobs for which they are qualified and for which their criminal record is irrelevant. The overly broad use of criminal background checks by employers has a disproportionate impact on people of color.

If you are interested in submitting comments, the deadline is January 21. Comments should be emailed to:  lostrowsky@usccr.gov or publiccomments@usccr.gov

With support from the National Institute of Justice, the Vera Institute of Justice undertook research to better understand how prosecutors make decisions throughout the processing of a case. Vera’s study, conducted by Senior Research Associate Bruce Frederick and Don Stemen, assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Loyola University Chicago, sought to go beyond previous studies of prosecutorial decision making and conduct a study that would yield a more nuanced, comprehensive understanding of the process.

The resulting multimedia resource, titled The Anatomy of Discretion: An Analysis of Prosecutorial Decision Making, is now available online. It includes a technical report, a summary report, and four podcasts featuring scholars and practitioners in the justice system discussing the study’s ramifications for understanding how prosecutorial practice affects justice outcomes.

Click here for links to the Technical Report, Summary Report, Fact Sheet and Podcasts of study interviews.

The Sentencing Project’s annual newsletter will tell you, and we hope you enjoy seeing criminal justice reform in action.

Some highlights:

• Their report on the 5.85 million people with felony convictions who have been disenfranchised highlighted the lack of access to democracy by millions of our fellow citizens, and resulted in strong media coverage.
• They produced the first-ever national survey of juveniles serving life without parole and joined an amicus brief of national advocates in support of the petitioners whose case led to the landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court barring mandatory sentencing of juveniles to life without parole.
• Marc Mauer, a graphic novelist? Yes, in 2013, be among the first to read his seminal book on race, class and the criminal justice system, Race to Incarcerate, in graphic form.
• Potential benefits in Obamacare: a report on how expanded Medicaid coverage could contribute to diverting people from prison and reducing recidivism.
• Missouri’s bipartisan crack sentencing reform, the continued growing consensus to reduce U.S. incarceration and much more.

Click here for The Sentening Project annual newsletter.

NIJ has announced the launch of the new "National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction" website. This searchable database lists the federal and state restrictions faced by former offenders. Visitors to the site can choose a jurisdiction by clicking on an interactive map to search for restrictions by either the triggering offense or by the type of consequence (such as employment, education, housing, etc.).

The website was created by the American Bar Association with funding from NIJ after passage of the Court Security Improvement Act of 2007, which was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy.

Currently the site contains data for nine states and the federal government; the remaining states will be added over the coming year.

NIJ anticipates that the site will be useful to policymakers and practitioners who are working to understand the impact of rules and policies that challenge the ability of former offenders to reintegrate with their community and become tax-paying, productive citizens.

Click here for the Collateral Consequences webpage.

The Sentencing Project Executive Director Marc Mauer will be testifying today at a hearing of the U.S. Sentencing Commission on federal sentencing options following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Booker v. United States. The Booker decision changed the federal sentencing guidelines from a mandatory system to an advisory one, thus granting greater discretion to federal judges. Today’s hearing has been called to assess changes in sentencing since that decision and implications for policy development.

The testimony focuses on issues of racial disparity in federal sentencing, and raises the following issues:

• There is no single cause of racial disparity in sentencing outcomes, and we need to examine how decision making at each stage of the court process affects ultimate outcomes.
• Enhanced guidelines discretion for judges now makes disparities in the imposition of mandatory penalties even more significant, a development which adversely affects black males.
• Responses to disparity in sentencing can best be addressed by expanding use of the “safety valve” in many drug cases and by creating a broader array of non-prison sentencing options.

This report, published by the Twenty-First Century Foundation, identifies concrete policy solutions to close educational achievement gaps, ensure workforce success, reduce health disparities, improve conditions for low-income fathers, and improve the overall well-being of black men, their families, and communities. To download the report, please click here.

A new study by Jill Doerner at the University of Rhode Island and Stephen Demuth at Bowling Green State University use United States Sentencing Commission data to examine the effects of race/ethnicity, gender, and age on sentencing decisions in U.S. federal courts.  The authors find that Hispanics and Blacks, males, and younger defendants receive harsher sentences than whites, females, and older defendants after controlling for important factors that impact sentences.  

The results also show that the youngest Hispanic and Black male defendants receive particularly harsh punishments when race/ethnicity, gender and age are examined together.  Young Hispanic males have the highest odds of incarceration and young black males receive the longest sentences.

Doerner, Jill, K. and Stephen Demuth.  2010.  “The Independent and Joint Effects of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age on Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts."  Justice Quarterly 27(1):1-27.

A Keynote address at the 2012 NIJ Conference was delivered by Lawrence Bobo, W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University on the Importance of Research on Race, Crime and Punishment. 

Click here for the video of the address.  Click here for the transcript of the address.