A progressive New York criminal-justice group walks back from an unsustainable position. (excerpt from City Journal, Winter Edition 2019) Last September, as part of a national push for criminal-justice reform, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a charitable organization, announced a plan to pay the bail of every woman and minorRead More →
Bail reform ideas let dangerous criminals go free [Opinion] (excerpt form the Houston Chronicle – Feb 24, 2019) It was the type of call every law enforcement officer dreads, but prepares for. An armed robbery, the second in about as many weeks, had taken place at a local pharmacy. TheRead More →
Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) has now taken to Twitter and Facebook, commending herself for running federal legislation to bribe states with $10 million in grant money to get rid of what she calls their “money bail systems”. The real question for Harris, however, is what is her solution to replaceRead More →
Law enforcement officials call for changes to bail-reform law (except from WMUR9 New Hampshire, Feb 19, 2019) CONCORD, N.H. — Police and prosecutors are seeking sweeping changes to the state’s six-month-old bail reform law, but the new Senate majority leader said any problems with the law aren’t the Legislature’s fault.Read More →
As the conversation continues on Idaho’s handling of the pretrial release of criminal defendants and the role of algorithm based pretrial risk assessment tools, so do the usual misguided arguments. Enter former Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney. Former Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney Sheriff Raney thinks “black box” risk assessmentRead More →
El Paso County Giving Accused Criminals 90%-100% Bail Discounts, Costing Taxpayers Millions, and Reducing Criminal Accountability El Paso County is all-in on bail reform, but it’s not what you might think. Is El Paso trying to identify cases where poor or destitute defendants who shouldn’t be in jail but shouldRead More →
Excerpt from KTVB News, Feb 14, 2019 Bipartisan bill seeks to prevent racial bias in criminal risk-assessment Two Treasure Valley lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle are teaming up on a bill they say will keep defendants from being unfairly labeled by a computer algorithm as likely future criminals.Read More →
LAWSUIT ASSERTS HARRIS COUNTY JUDGES CIRCUMVENTED DEFENDANTS’ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BAIL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Lakewood, CO (February 14, 2019) – A lawsuit involving the on-going fight between bail reform and the legal right to bail was filed today (February 14) in the State District Court in Harris County, Texas. The caseRead More →
Justice-by-algorithm is all the rage across the United States — and it is soon to sweep into Colorado. That is, unless judges, lawyers, state legislators and the public get wise to the reality behind this so-called better system of criminal justice. Using big data, fancy math and computers, the premiseRead More →
As bail reformers continue to their push to implement group-data based criminal justice algorithms to decide bail and conditions of release, the push back against them continues to gain momentum. This time, in conservative Idaho, a group of bipartisan legislators have introduced legislation to end “black-box” algorithms and require thatRead More →
