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Criminal Justice Reform - Multimedia

  • Sentencing Reform in America: An Overview and Conversation [POLICYbrief] (2018)

    YouTube Video - 4:18 minutes

    By The Federalist Society

    The United States has five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population. Reformers argue that these numbers reflect our country’s growing incarceration problem, while other experts point to the drastic reduction in violent crime over the past three decades as proof that tough on crime tactics work.

    Does the US have a mass incarceration problem or a crime problem? Do criminals receive unjust sentences? Have mandatory minimums and other tactics led to safer communities? Two experts, Steven H. Cook of the Department of Justice and...

  • Can Oklahoma learn from Louisiana’s criminal justice reform? (2018)

    Soundcloud Audio - 4:35 minutes

    This year (2018), Oklahoma became the nation’s top incarcerator - a title that formerly belonged to Louisiana. But officials in the Bayou State said it reduced its prison population by 7.6 percent in less than a year by passing a sweeping package of reforms.

    Louisiana and Oklahoma both started new criminal justice reform efforts around the same time. Officials in each state asked the U.S. Department of Justice and nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts for help with task forces that would make recommendations on the best ways to keep people out of prison.

  • MacArthur Grant Allows Ada County To Study Criminal Justice Reform (2018)

    NPR Audio - 23:55

    In October of 2017, Ada County was awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation's Safety and Justice Challenge.

    The $1 million grant will allow Ada County's courts to look at productive approaches to criminal justice that minimize levels of incarceration and recidivism. We (Boise State Public Radio) speak with an Ada County official about looking at criminal justice differently.

  • Less Incarceration, Less Crime (2017)

    Pew Trusts - PODCAST 19:28 minutes

    States are finding new ways to get smart on crime and, in the process, changing how America views crime and punishment. After decades of rising prison populations, reforms in 33 states have helped cut the national incarceration rate by 13 percent since 2007. That data point drives this episode’s conversation about the new approaches, informed by research-based sentencing and corrections policies, that are slowing prison growth and helping communities become safer. Host Dan LeDuc speaks with Adam Gelb, director of Pew’s public safety performance project, as well as two leaders in South Carolina—state Senator...

  • Community-powered Criminal Justice Reform (2019)

    Community organizer Raj Jayadev wants to transform the US court system through "participatory defense" -- a growing movement that empowers families and community members to impact their loved ones' court cases. He shares the remarkable results of their work -- including more than 4,000 years of "time saved" from incarceration -- and shows how this new model could shift the landscape of power in the courts.