Archives

JS Publication March 16, 2016

Day Fines & The Fare Probation Experiment

This article by Susan Tucker and Judith Greene on the Maricopa County day fines program was first published in 1999 (The Justice System Journal Vol. 21 No. 1, 1999). Recently, there has been growing interest in day fines from the media, the US Department of Justice, criminal justice reform advocates and academics as a consequence of events in Ferguson Missouri.

News Article Buzzfeed January 20, 2016

The Ticket Machine

In 2012, the eight officer traffic unit of Port Arthur, Texas, a town of only 55,000 collected $2.1 million in fines. This revenue bonanza however, came at a significant cost to residents. From 2009 to 2011 over 1,500 people, about 2.7 percent of the town's population, many of who were poor and seventy-five peercent of who were Black, had been locked up for failure to pay their traffic fines. Judith Greene is quoted in this Buzzfeed article discussing the use of day fines as a possible solution to this problem.

News Article The New York Times October 9, 2015

Instead of Jail, Court Fines Cut to Fit the Wallet

Judy Greene, who directed America's first day fines program from 1987 to 1989 while at the Vera Institute of Justice, is quoted in this New York Times opinion page article by Pulitzer Prize winning author Tina Rosenberg. The author advocates the use of income adjusted day fines as a fairer intermediate penalty for minor legal infractions, that could also provide a means for courts to avoid the use of costly jails.

News Article Slate.com September 3, 2015

This is a Fundamentally Different Way of Policing

Judy Greene and Patricia Allard, co-authors of The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same, our report on policing practices in Los Angeles, are quoted as saying of that department's efforts at reforming policing practices under the tenure of Bill Bratton as being, "Business as usual, wrapped in a bow" in this Slate.com article about the challenges facing Susan Herman, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Collaborative Policing, and the prospects for reversing the Department's troubled policing history with the City's minority communities.

JS Update July 28, 2015

Immigrant Children Ordered Released

In a rebuke of the federal government's position that a prior consent decree (the Agreement) prohibiting the incarceration of unaccompanied minors in unsafe or secured facilities (detention centers) did not apply to accompanied minors crossing the US Mexico border with their parents, in last summer's refugee crisis, Federal District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee ordered the government to show cause, within ninety (90) days, why the remedies she concludes are needed to protect the well being of incarcerated accompanied minors (class members) held by ICE and the US Border Patrol, should not be imposed. In Jenny L. Flores, et al. v. Jeh Johnson, et al. decided July 24, 2015, Judge Gee grants the plaintiffs motion to enforce the Agreement as to class members and denies the government's motion to amend the Agreement. In her order, Judge Gee would further require the defendant federal government to comply with the following remedies:
1. Make and record prompt and continuous efforts toward family reunification and the release of minors under the Agreement.
2. Comply with the Agreement by releasing class members without unnecessary delay in first order of preference to a parent, including a parent who either was apprehended with the child minor or presented herself or himself with a class member.

JS Publication March 27, 2015

Prioritizing the Needs of Children of Incarcerated Parents in New York State

In this policy memorandum, Senior Justice Strategies Research Analyst, Patricia Allard offers suggested changes to New York State law that can help mitigate the negative impacts of parental involvement with the criminal justice system on their children. These changes would help preserve family integrity by promoting alternatives to parental incarceration, provide for enhancing sentencing reports to courts, and other supports that could help these NYS families thrive.

News Article The Atlantic March 12, 2015

Day Fines in the News

In this article, Justice Strategies' Director, Judy Greene, responds to news from Finland of their use of day fines, where traffic tickets scaled to the violator's income can reach over $100,000 (US equivalent) for well-off speeders. Last week, a US Dept. of Justice report raised concerns that fine enforcement practices in Ferguson Missouri were shaped more by the need for revenue rather than public safety. Director Greene helped establish the use of day fines in New York City almost 30 years ago. She responds to the question of the fairness of day fines in this article, along with, University of Chicago economics professor, Charles Mulligan, and University of Minnesota professor of applied economics, Marc Bellemare.

JS Update February 10, 2015

"Shadow Prisons" Transforming Rural America's Landscapes

Follow this link to see Fusion writers Jorge Rivas and Cristina Costantini's birds-eye-view of how "Shadow Prisons" used to house over 55,000 immigrants, have transformed landscapes in rural America. http://fusion.net/story/43342/before-and-after-how-shadow-prisons-transformed-rural-america/

JS Update February 10, 2015

Director Judy Greene Quoted on Shadow Prisons

In their multimedia Fusion article, with quotes from Justice Strategies' Director Judy Greene, authors Cristina Costantini and Jorge Rivas describe how the U.S. Government has created a second-class federal prison system specifically targeted to holding immigrants in private for-profit prisons. http://interactive.fusion.net/shadow-prisons/

JS Publication October 8, 2014

For-Profit Family Detention: Meet the Private Prison Corporations Making Millions by Locking Up Refugee Families

In this joint report by Grassroots Leadership and Justice Strategies, we review the history of charges of sexual abuse and neglect of children, indifference to medical needs, inadequate and unsanitary food, and brutal treatment by staff, levied in lawsuits, government investigations, and allegations by those held in family detention facilities operated by private, for-profit, prison corporations. These same corporations are now being contracted by the federal government to detain refugee families arriving at our southern border after fleeing the violence in Central America.