Arrests & Incarceration
The Sentencing Project 35 years of Fighting to End Mass Incarceration
• Collateral Consequences (of imprisonment)
• Campaign to End Life Imprisonment
Fifteen Years of Guidelines Sentencing: An Assessment of How Well the Federal Criminal Justice System is Achieving the Goals of Sentencing Reform
(Nov 2004) United States Sentencing Commission
• Executive Summary and Preface
• Chapter One: Introduction to the Sentencing Reform Act
• Chapter Two: Impact of the Sentencing Guidelines on the Certainty and Severity of Punishment
• Chapter Three: Presentencing Inter-judge, and Regional Disparity
• Chapter Four: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Federal Sentencing Today
• Chapter Five: Summary and Conclusions
Demographic Differences in Sentencing: An Update to the 2012 Booker Report (PDF) (Nov 2017) United States Sentencing Commission
A Judge Asked Harvard to Find Out Why So Many Black People Were In Prison. They Could Only Find 1 Answer: Systemic Racism 9/10/20 | By Michael Harriot | The Root
Selected Race Statistics September 27, 2016 Massachusetts Sentencing Commission
Racial Disparities in the Massachusetts Criminal System (PDF) A Report by The Criminal Justice Policy Program, Harvard Law School Submitted to Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts September 2020 by Elizabeth Tsai Bishop, Brook Hopkins, Chijindu Obiofuma, and Felix Owusu
Race And Wrongful Convictions In The United States (PDF) National Registry Of Exonerations, Newkirk Center For Science And Society University Of California Irvine (March 2017)
Public Policy Responses to Wrongful Convictions (PDF) (2013) Frank R. Baumgartner, Saundra D. Westervelt and Kimberly J. Cook
An American Epidemic: Crimes of Wrongful Liberty Jennifer E. Thompson and Frank R. Baumgartner (April 2018)
Examining Wrongful Convictions: Stepping Back, Moving Forward (2014) Allison D. Redlich, James R. Acker, Robert J. Norris, Catherine L. Bonventre
When the Innocent Go to Prison, How Many Guilty Go Free? Mar 21, 2018 | Maurice Chammah | The Marshall Project
Citizens’ Attitudes Toward Wrongful Convictions (2012) Marvin Zalman, Matthew J. Larson, and Brad Smith
Studying Wrongful Convictions: Learning From Social Science (2009) Richard A. Leo, Jon B. Gould
Foreword: Elephants in the Courtroom: Examining Overlooked Issues in Wrongful Convictions (PDF) (2016)
The Mayhem of Wrongful Liberty Documenting the Crimes of True Perpetrators in Cases of Wrongful Incarceration (PDF) (Apr 2014) Frank R. Baumgartner, Amanda Grigg, Rachelle Ramìrez, Kenneth J. Rose and J. Sawyer Lucy
Gerry Conlon’s life is a reminder that wrongful convictions happen everywhere (Jun 2014)
The multibillion-dollar US prison industry - and how to dismantle it A phone call to a US prison or jail can cost up to a dollar per minute -- a rate that forces one in three families with incarcerated loved ones into debt. In this searing talk about mass incarceration, criminal justice advocate and TED Fellow Bianca Tylek exposes the predatory nature of the billion-dollar prison telecom industry and presents straightforward strategies to dismantle the network of corporations that has a financial interest in seeing more people behind bars for longer periods of time. TED Talk | May 2021 (5:45)
The Wrongful Convictions Blog addressing wrongful conviction and actual innocence issues in an international forum
Trends in Correctional Control by Race and Sex (PDF) (Dec 2019) William J. Sabol, Thaddeus L. Johnson, and Alexander Caccavale | Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ)
The Growing Racial Disparity in Prison Time A new study finds black people are staying longer in state prisons, even as they face fewer arrests and prison admissions overall. Dec 3, 2019 | The Marshall Project
The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons (PDF) Jun 14, 2016 | Ashley Nellis, Ph.D. | The Sentencing Project | African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at more than five times the rate of whites, and at least ten ties the rate in five states. This report documents the rates of incarceration for whites, African Americans, and Hispanics in each state, identifies three contributors to racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment, and provides recommendations for reform.
The human stories behind mass incarceration The United States locks up more people than any other country in the world, says documentarian Eve Abrams, and somewhere between one and four percent of those in prison are likely innocent. That's 87,000 brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers -- predominantly African American -- unnecessarily separated from their families, their lives and dreams put on hold. Using audio from her interviews with incarcerated people and their families, Abrams shares touching stories of those impacted by mass incarceration and calls on us all to take a stand and ensure that the justice system works for everyone. Nov 2017 | TEDWomen | (13:30)
How we’re priming some kids for college - and others for prison In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison — sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions. In an impassioned talk she asks, "Why are we offering only handcuffs and jail time?" Alice Goffman’s fieldwork in a struggling Philadelphia neighborhood sheds a harsh light on a justice system that creates suspects rather than citizens. Mar 2015 | TED2015 | (15:55)
We need to talk about an injustice In an engaging and personal talk -- with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks -- human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America's unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness. Mar 2012 | TED Talk | (23:25)
Just Mercy: Race and the Criminal Justice System with Brian Stevenson Bryan Stevenson, acclaimed public interest lawyer and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative delivers the 2016 Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Speaker Lecture on race and the criminal justice system. A roundtable conversation featuring Jennifer Eberhardt, Gary Segura, Robert Weisberg, JD ’79, Bryan Stevenson, and Katie Couric follows Bryan Stevenson's keynote address. OpenXChange is a year-long, student-focused initiative on campus that aims to encourage meaningful dialogue around tough issues. This is the first in a series of discussions with Stanford faculty and global experts on criminal justice, inequality and international conflict. Jan 13, 2016 | Youtube video (1:44:09)
Wrongful Convictions and the Souls of Victims (Mar 2020) Sydney Edwards