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In the United States, one in every five people killed by police has a mental illness, according to information from The Washington Post. Since The Post began collecting that data in 2015, police have killed more than 1,400 people with mental illnesses. Statistics like these have helped form the backbone of the Defund the Police movement. While the decentralized, leaderless movement has many different iterations, one of the most common refrains has been to demand replacing police with other trained professionals for some emergency calls. New York City has recently become one of several places in the country to try replacing police with a mental health response team for non-violent emergency calls, yielding some positive early results.

A New York City pilot program tested non-police intervention in some nonviolent emergency calls.

Thus far, 2021 has been a year of significant justice reforms for New York City. And in June, the city launched the pilot program Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, or B-HEARD. According to the city’s website, B-HEARD “is part of New York City’s commitment to treat mental health crises as public health problems – not public safety issues. For the first time in New York City’s history, teams of health professionals – including EMTs/paramedics and mental health professionals – are responding to 911 mental health calls, beginning with a pilot program in East Harlem and parts of north and central Harlem.”

The city published a one-pager on its website to outline the basic purpose and functions of the program. It says that B-HEARD teams will use their expertise and experience in mental and physical health to respond to and deescalate a number of emergency situations. The brief specifically mentions several situations:

Suicidal thoughts and ideation,
Substance abuse and misuse,
Mental illness, including severe mental illnesses and
Physical health issues which may mask mental health issues.

B-HEARD Teams arrive on scene in FDNY EMS-marked non-transport vehicles and uniforms, but the city outfits them with the same basic first aid and life support equipment as EMS ambulance teams. They are able to assess a person’s physical and mental health and, if necessary, provide on-site assistance. That assistance can mean connecting a person with a mental health provider or follow-up services with consent. Teams can also provide on-site emergency medical care if needed while waiting for EMS to arrive.

Early data from the study yielded positive results.

The city launched the mental health response team on June 6 and began collecting data immediately. After its first month of operation, the results show some promise.

Between June 6 and July 7, B-HEARD fielded around 16 calls each day in the pilot area. And of those calls, 911 operators routed roughly 25% of them to B-HEARD teams. The study showed some measures of improvement over traditional police responses, according to data from the city.

When traditional police-led teams respond to 911 calls, only 82% of people accept care from those teams. But among people treated by the B-HEARD teams, 95% of them accepted care.

The mental health response team also showed improved outcomes when it came to people sent to emergency rooms. Among people B-HEARD responded to, only 50% of them were taken to a hospital for further care. This is far less than the 82% of people who get transported to a hospital during and following traditional police-led 911 responses.

And while it responded to just 25% of calls in first month, city officials say that they expect that number to grow to as much as 50% in the near future.

The program is not actually a new idea. Using a mental health response team instead of police has a decades-long history.

The B-HEARD program might have come during recent nationwide push for justice reform, but the idea isn’t all that new. Neither is implementing it.

In fact, the B-HEARD program is modeled after a well-established mental health response team program from Eugene, Oregon. Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS, has been successfully carrying out a similar mission for more than three decades.

According to the program, CAHOOTS fielded around 24,000 calls in 2019. Of those 24,000 calls, respondents requested police backup only 150 times.

Their contribution to local emergency calls is far from insignificant. In 2017, CAHOOTS units responded to 17% of the Eugene Police Department’s overall calls. But in that time, it used far less than 17% of the police budget. The annual combined budgets of the Eugene and nearby Springfield (which CAHOOTS also serves) police departments is $90 million. Meanwhile, the CAHOOTS program budget costs taxpayers just $2.1 million each year, roughly two percent of the police budget. Officials estimate that the city of Eugene saves around $8.5 million each year due to the program.

The results are far from conclusive but show enough promise to warrant more testing.

The initial results of the B-HEARD program have been positive ones for those advocating for a rethinking of emergency response systems. And while the feedback from the pilot program shows exciting promise for justice reform advocates, it is important to recognize its limitations. Given the small sample size—one specific area and just under 150 responses—and the short period of study, the data are in no way conclusive.

While the results are not conclusive, though, they are certainly promising. And it looks as though more data are on the way. Similar mental health response team programs are already underway in other states such as California, Colorado, Georgia and Montana. Some of those appear to also be returning positive results. That’s enough to inspire optimism from some progressives, such as U.S. Rep Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who represents Harlem’s neighboring district in the Bronx and Westchester County.

“This is great news. A smarter approach to public health and public safety. A smarter use of resources. And the evidence — from Denver to New York — shows that responding with care works,” he tweeted.

It is also important to recognize that while data around these new programs is limited, data surrounding police violence and mental health is not. Just since 2015, there have been at least 1,400 examples of the failures of the current system.

The post Study: Mental Health Response Teams Have Better Outcomes Than Police appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Overall, the number of people imprisoned in the United States has been on the decline. But when it comes to people who the government identifies as women, that number is at an all-time high. As of 2019, more than 219,000 people labeled as women are incarcerated across the country. And yet, when it comes to the regular needs of a population that skews towards people who menstruate regularly and experience other common biological functions, the supplies to address those needs can be extremely difficult to come by, if not impossible. While some states have begun to address these issues, many people U.S. prisons still lack easy access to menstrual supplies.

The BOP mandated free menstrual supplies for federal facilities in 2017, but that has solved very little.

The issues with lack of access to menstrual supplies in prisons did not go unnoticed—at least not on the federal level. In 2017, the BOP issued a memo which mandated that its facilities stock menstruation supplies give them away at no cost.

The memo states as follows:

“Wardens will ensure inmates are provided the following products (at no cost to the inmates):

Tampons, regular and super size;
Maxi Pads with wings, regular and super size; and
Panty liners, regular

Institutions will purchase the products in accordance with National Acquisitions guidance, and should not significantly increase overall expenditures for female hygiene products beyond current levels.”

At just 162 words long, the memo is as brief as its language is clear. Nonetheless, a follow-up report by the BOP revealed that not much had changed for many in female-designated facilities. Subjects reported issues such as restrictions on availability, irregular distribution of products or being forced to pay for products despite the mandate.

But another issue looms even larger. Federal prisons house only five percent of the country’s prisoners classified as female. The remaining 95% of those people are incarcerated in state prisons or local jails. And in state prisons and local jails, the availability of these items varies wildly.

Since the BOP memo, states have been slow to catch up. As of 2020, only 13 states and the District of Colombia had laws on the books that required facilities to provide menstrual supplies free of charge to people in jails in prisons. That means that in the vast majority of states, corrections facilities have little to no legal obligation to provide necessary health supplies.

Incarcerated women in most states deal with significant obstacles to getting adequate menstrual supplies.

In states without such laws on the books, people who menstruate face serious challenges to getting supplies in prison. These issues are wide-ranging and different across different states and facilities.

For example, West Virginia state prisons do not allow incarcerated people to have more than two boxes of tampons at a time. In Delaware, incarcerated people need to ask guards—many of whom identify as male—specifically for tampons. Even then, the guards can only issue six at a time, and people must purchase them.

Interrogating Justice social media coordinator Kristine Bunch shared her own experience with these issues in the Indiana state system.

“I gave birth to my son on July 22, 1996 at the Indiana Women’s Prison,” said Bunch. “On July 27, I was told that we were out of pads and I would need to purchase tampons off of commissary. I explained to the male officer that I had had a cesarean section five days before and tampons were not recommended. He said, ‘We should have some in a few days and you can have this.’ He handed me a roll of toilet paper.”

Bunch says that the response to the incident made hurt her emotionally as well as put her health at risk.

“I was embarrassed because I not only had to explain to a male officer that I needed pads but I was made to feel like I was not worthy of sanitary napkins because I was in prison,” she said.

Even when supplies are available in some places, many incarcerated people can’t afford them.

But the availability of and access to menstrual products is just the first obstacle. In many systems, people in prisons need to pay for their own menstrual supplies. The basic economy of prisons makes that a challenge for many.

For starters, menstrual supplies often cost significantly more in prison commissaries than they do at the local pharmacy or supermarket. Bunch said it wasn’t just a small markup either.

“A box of 10 regular tampons can be bought in the store from $2.99 to $3.79 depending on where you purchase them,” she said. “The same box can be purchased off of a prison commissary for double that price.”

It’s not just Indiana that marks up its menstrual supplies by nearly double. That’s true in many states. For example, in Texas, a 54-count box of tampons (no brand specified) costs $11. That’s almost exactly twice what major retailers sell them for. In Michigan, a 20-count box of Playtex Gentle Glide tampons for $7.89. A major retailer sells a box of 36 in the same brand and model for less than one dollar more.

It’s not just the cost, either. While some incarcerated people have the support of families or savings to help them obtain their supplies, most don’t. Statistically speaking, most people in female-designated prisons lived below the poverty line before incarceration. That means that for most part, people rely on their prison wages to pay for the items they need.

A person uses around 20 tampons per menstrual cycle on average. With the average prison job wage in Michigan at $0.56 per hour, a person needs to work more than 14 hours per month just to cover the cost of menstrual supplies for that month—nearly two full workdays.

Some states have made progress this year, but obstacles still abound.

There is some evidence that attitudes—or at the very least, laws—around these issues are changing. Several states have introduced legislation this year that addresses this very issue.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, this push has extended across partisan lines. Bills addressing the issues have reached legislatures in reliably progressive states like California. They’ve also done so in “battleground” states like Missouri, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. But they’ve also popped up in deeply conservative states such as Mississippi, too.

However, the challenge of improving conditions for the nation’s fastest-growing prison population is as cultural and structural as it is practical. Despite accounting for just 10% of the population, people identifying as white males hold 62% of elected offices in the United States.

These are the people who make the budget-level decisions for their state’s systems—people like Rep. Richard Pickett (R-Maine). As with many political issues in the U.S., many of these people have failed to display empathy when making these decisions. When asked why he voted against providing menstrual supplies, Pickett responded, “The correctional system was never meant to be a country club.”

The post U.S. Prisons Still Don’t Have Adequate Menstrual Supplies in 2021 appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Over the last year, jails and prisons around the country have released scores of incarcerated people. In addition, a wave of criminal justice reform has many states implementing laws that could further reduce incarcerated populations. However, some tough-on-crime politicians have blamed these policies for the recent uptick in homicides and gun crimes.

But a pair of new studies from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation shows that the reduction in jail and prison populations not necessarily made communities more dangerous. In fact, the studies suggest, reducing incarceration have actually made them safer.

Two new studies looked at how recent reductions in jail populations have affected public safety.

The new studies came out of the MacArthur Foundation-sponsored Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC). This challenge tasked its participants to “develop[ing] and model[ing] effective ways to keep people out of jail who don’t belong there, more effectively reintegrate[ing] those who must be confined into the community upon release, and help[ing] them stay out of jail thereafter.”

Data specialists from the City University of New York’s Institute for State and Local Governance (CUNY ISLG) and the JFA Institute (JFA) worked with the SJC to study the effects of criminal justice reforms both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic on public safety. In June, they published their findings in two reports: Jail Decarceration and Public Safety: Preliminary Findings from the Safety and Justice and The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime, Arrests and Jail Populations.

Both studies used data from cities and counties to examine public safety from 2015 to 2019. The first study looked at the effects of jail population reduction policy. And the latter studied the effect COVID-19 had on the justice system.

The study showed that crime rates often decreased alongside jail populations.

Data gathered for the studies shows that, in most cases, crime did not increase following the release of incarcerated people. In many cases, crime rates actually went down as jail populations decreased.

One example is Lake County, IL. The jail population in Lake County decreased by 27% over the course of the pandemic. This reduction was mostly due to the introduction of public health policies designed to stop the spread of COVID-19. Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2019, incidents of nonviolent and violent crimes decreased in Lake County from 2016 to 2019.

Results such as this run counter to messaging from some that harsh sentences and more enforcement keeps communities safe. According to the study, “reducing over-incarceration in jails keeps us safe. Narratives connecting these reforms to rising crime rates are misleading and damaging.”

Some say that the results provide an opportunity to examine and change policy.

As COVID-19 ripped through the correctional system in the United States, federal, state and local governments were left with little choice but to reduce incarcerated populations to help slow the spread. Even “law and order” figures such as then-Attorney General William Barr signed off on the plan.

Now, some are suggesting that this situation provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of policy on communities. One of those is Wendy Ware, president of the JFA Institute.

“It is time to break the misleading and mistaken connections between increased use of jails and increased public safety…,” she said. “We know how to safely reduce jail populations. The COVID-19 pandemic fueled the largest one-time decrease in jail populations in recent US history, and those practices should serve as the new standard for local criminal justice systems going forward. It is important to not allow a departure from historical trends to roll back policies and practices that reduce the harmful and unnecessary use of incarceration.”  

Now the BOP and others want to recall many of those released back to jails and prisons.

Researchers such as Ware, however, may see that window of opportunity shrinking. Last year, the Department of Justice allowed more than 23,800 incarcerated people to serve out their sentences in home confinement. But in the closing days of the Trump administration, the DOJ issued a memo that the BOP “must recall prisoners in home confinement to correctional facilities” after the state of emergency gets lifted. If the policy holds, nearly 7,400 people will head back to federal prisons to serve out the remainder of their sentences.

Activists and some congressional Democrats have demanded that President Joe Biden and current Attorney General Merrick Garland reverse the memo. However, thus far, neither has taken action. This, despite Biden showing no hesitation in reversing a number of Trump-era policies. The lack of action is something that Inimai Chettiar, a director at the Justice Action Network (JAN), says is at odds with much of the Biden administration’s rhetoric around criminal justice reform.

“Allowing this memo to stay on the books is in direct conflict with the administration’s commitment to criminal justice reform,” she said.

The results are unlikely to affect the opinions of people in favor of a “tough on crime” approach.

The results provide support for an argument activists have been making for a long time—that reducing incarceration can make communities safer. However, they are not likely to cause any epiphanies for tough-on-crime politicians and activists. That’s because, to some degree, that message stays the same regardless of crime rates or the policies that shape them. Studies have shown that crime rates have fallen steadily for nearly three decades. Yet politicians have continued to ride their tough-on-crime stance into elected office during that time. And given the stances of those deemed likely to run as the GOP candidate in the 2024 presidential race, that’s not likely to change any time soon.

The use of the fear of crime and “criminals” will continue to be an effective motivator. But as more policies work to reduce jail and prison populations, researchers will have more data to work with. That’s something Reagan Daly, the research director at CUNY ISLG, says is worth pursuing.

“These new data are further evidence that those who tell us we need to choose between safety and change are simply wrong,” he said. “As cities and counties across the country ramped up efforts to rethink their local justice systems, overall crime rates steadily dropped in most places. We can make our justice systems fairer and effective while also keeping communities safe.”

The post New Studies Suggest Reducing Incarceration Might Make Us Safer appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on businesses around the U.S. One estimate suggests that nearly one-third of all small businesses in the country have closed due to the pandemic. But conditions it brought with it also had the opposite effect on some businesses. One of those businesses was prison communications contractor Securus Technologies Inc., makers of JPay. While COVID-19 ended hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world, according to a new report, it may have saved Securus.

Securus Technologies was struggling on the eve of the pandemic.

Securus was going through an extended rough patch leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, The New York Times published an article that pointed out security flaws in Securus Technologies systems. One of these flaws could have allowed a user to spy on almost any phone in the U.S. The article prompted Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) to pressure the FCC to investigate the company.

Then, in 2019 the FCC and DOJ blocked Securus’ attempt to acquire one of its competitors, Inmate Calling Solutions LLC (ICS). In a press release, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division Makan Delrahim said in a press release that the move would have violated antitrust principles.

“Securus and ICS have a history of competing aggressively to win state and local contracts by offering better financial terms, lower calling rates, and more innovative technology and services. This merger would have eliminated that competition, plain and simple,” he said.

Heightened awareness of the company and its business model also brought the company into the spotlight. Activist and civil rights groups railed against the high costs to families and, in general, prison profiteering.

The combination of all of this negative attention put the company in serious financial jeopardy. The trade value of company debt plummeted in October of 2019, reaching as low as 47 cents to the dollar. At those rates, the company’s value would have been as little as $693 million. That is significantly less than the $1.6 billion that Platinum Equity bought the company for in Nov. 2017.

By early 2020, the company attempted to rebrand as Aventiv. Nonetheless, the outlook was grim for the private prison contractor heading into Feb. 2020.

The arrival of COVID-19 brought a boom in business for Securus.

Once COVID-19 arrived in the U.S., it ripped through the prison system almost immediately. As a result, the DOJ and many state systems enacted a number of different emergency measures to try to slow the spread. One that was nearly universal, however, was the suspension of in-person visitation. For incarcerated people and their loved ones, this meant being even more disconnected. But for Securus, who provided one of the only available ways to communicate under these conditions, it meant a windfall.

Without the ability to see people in person and mail often cut off, incarcerated people were left with video visitation, phone calls and email—all services Securus provides. The result was an immediate uptick and calls, according to a study by Prison Policy Initiative. It found that despite the jail population falling by around 15%, people across the country used 8% more phone minutes during the pandemic.

As a result, the company’s fortunes changed dramatically.

The massive growth in digital and phone communications meant big business for the company. But it wasn’t just communications, either. Securus also produces hardware and software for electronic monitoring used to track people on parole and probation. As a result, the company experienced a massive spike in revenues.

In 2019, Securus’ revenues grew by just two percent. But in 2020, they grew by 10%, totaling $767.5 million

That success translated to positive shifts in other financial metrics. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBIITA) is a metric investors use to measure the financial health of a company. Between 2019 and 2020, Securus’ EBITDA grew 41%, up to $209.2 million. During that same period, the company’s operating income more than doubled. In addition, the company’s cash flow from operating activities grew to $133.5 million during that same period, representing a nearly 400% increase.

And while Platinum Equity and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores pledged to reinvest the company’s profits in new infrastructure and operations, that hasn’t been the case. As revenues rose, investments fell sharply. During that same 2019 to 2020 period, infrastructure investments dropped by 46%.

New laws could work to protect Securus’ profits.

By all measures, Securus has rebounded from its pre-COVID-19 troubles. The company is now valued at as much as $1.5 billion—just short of what Gores and Platinum Equity paid for it. And if current trends new laws around prison communications are any indication, that growth could continue into the future.

Incarcerated people and their families received much-needed relief in Connecticut when the state passed a law that will make phone calls from the state’s prisons free to individuals. Connecticut had previously been one of the most expensive states for incarcerated people to stay in touch. The news is surely welcome to people who spend significant portions of their budgets on communications. However, it may also be welcome to executives at Securus. A statement from the company praising the decision seems to indicate that they will still provide their services. That means the company can still rake in profits from phone calls, but now at the expense of the taxpayers rather than individuals.

In Florida, lawmakers are debating a law whose passage would also stand to benefit Securus. The state is considering phasing out its physical mail and replacing it with digital scans of that mail. Under the new system, Securus’ company JPay would scan physical mail and upload it to cloud storage. Then, incarcerated people would have to pay 25 cents per page for black-and-white paper copies of those scans. The fee would be $1 per page for color printouts,

Securus spent years pressuring the departments that contract it to limit or stop in-person visitation. Even after it said it would stop, one report found that 74% of the facilities that contracted the company reduced or eliminated in-person visits. With the arrival of COVID-19 and lockdown conditions, Securus finally got what it wanted.

The post How Cashing in on COVID-19 May Have Saved Securus, Owners of JPay appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Throughout the United States, Hepatitis C (HCV) is the leading cause of serious liver diseases such as liver cancer and cirrhosis. Kentucky, where Brian Woodcock, Keath Bramblett, Ruben Rios Salinas and Jessica Lawrence are incarcerated, has the highest rate of HCV of any state in the country. So when a new treatment for the disease showed conclusively positive results, there was hope that they—along with the other more than 1,200 HCV-positive people incarcerated in Kentucky—could finally be free of the life-threatening illness. But in July, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Kentucky DOC can deny the lifesaving medicine to the people in its prisons.

A new treatment cures “nearly all” patients with Hepatitis C—one of the most common diseases among correctional populations.

More than 350 million people worldwide are infected with HCV, including 3.2 million people in the U.S.. The disease causes inflammation of the liver, which can lead to scarring and the development of cancer over time. Medical journals describe the disease as causing “substantial morbidity.”

HCV is also one of the most common illnesses among correctional populations. One study estimated that between 30% and 40% of incarcerated people in the United States were infected with HCV. That compares to the national rate of 1.8% among the general population.

Until recently, the most effective way to treat HCV was a serious of painful injections over a period of months. This treatment came with serious side effects and only cured people in in 40% to 50% of cases. And, according to Jeffrey S. Murray, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at the FDA, not everyone can take it.

“Patients with very advanced liver disease couldn’t take the traditional treatment because often those injections could make them worse,” he said.

But new medications that have come onto the market in the last five years are more effective, have fewer side effects and are easier to administer. These new medications have been shown to cure HCV in 90%-100% of patients. They also lack many of the unpleasant and debilitating side effects of previous treatments. Instead of injections, the new treatments come in pill form. And while previous treatments took over a year to administer, the new rounds of treatments are complete in just three months.

A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Kentucky prisons’ decision to deny the medicine to their residents is not unconstitutional.

These new treatments could quickly and easily rescue the tens of thousands of incarcerated people infected with HCV, saving them from agonizing and irreversible liver damage. But there is a distinctly American catch—the cost of the drugs. A full course of treatment can range from $13,000 to $32,000. Citing that cost, the Kentucky DOC restricted the use of the newer medicine in its prisons. It only offers them to incarcerated people who have fibrosis or advanced liver scarring, the latter of which is incurable.

Attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of Woodcock, Bramblett, Salinas and Lawrence, who are all incarcerated in Kentucky and infected with HCV. Court documents show that the first two received the new treatment, while the DOC denied Salinas. Lawrence has yet to receive treatment. In the initial case, U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove of Lexington ruled that the DOC’s policy of monitoring HCV-infected people constituted “treatment.” Therefore, he ruled, the DOC’s plan was considered “adequate.”

Attorney Greg Belzley, who represents the incarcerated people in the class-action lawsuit, appealed the decision up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Then, in mid-July, the court reached a 2-1 decision with the majority in favor of the original ruling. Denying treatment, the majority found, does not violate a person’s Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment rights. In response, Belzley said he would continue to appeal the decision—all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if needed.

“Basically the majority … ruled that Kentucky prison officials don’t have to do anything to treat an inmate’s infection except sit around and watch it get worse,” Belzley told The Wichita Eagle.

Prisons denying or delaying care is not uncommon—and the results can be fatal.

Unfortunately, incidents in which prisons deny or delay treatment with grave results are not uncommon in the U.S.. The most recent and perhaps most catastrophic example is the bungling of the response to COVID-19. As of Apr. 2021, more than 660,000 incarcerated people and corrections staff had been infected with COVID-19. Nearly 3,000 died.

But in addition to large-scale failures like the COVID-19 response, there are also acute incidents that bear a striking resemblance to the case in Kentucky.

One case is that of Dana Huff. When Huff, 63, was sent to a state facility in Florence, Arizona in May 2019, he had a small lump on the side of his face. Then, on July 1, 2019, the Arizona DOC contracted private medical provider Centurion to provide medical services to its facilities.

Huff’s wife, Jackie Steffen, said that she begged the department and Centurion to give him medical attention. But ultimately, her calls went unfulfilled.

“They forgot about him for like two months,” she said. “They didn’t do anything. He was just pushed to the back burner.”

Over the next few months, that lump turned into a baseball-sized tumor. Less than a year later, doctors diagnosed Huff with an untreatable and aggressive cancer. They gave him less than four months to live.

The Arizona Board of Clemency approved Huff’s clemency application based on the “imminent danger of death” exception on Feb. 12. It wasn’t until Apr. 7 that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed the commutation, allowing Huff to die at home.

This could only happen in the United States.

The Sixth Circuit ruled that denying life-saving treatment to people with no other options wasn’t “cruel” or “unusual,” but it would be hard to make the argument that it isn’t callous. And it would also be hard to deny that this situation is anything other than wholly American in nature.

Certainly, the Kentucky DOC bears a great deal of responsibility for denying lifesaving medicine to people in its prisons. On its own website, the agency says that its mission is “to provide a safe, secure and humane environment.” Failing to provide lifesaving medical care is neither safe nor humane to the infected person. However, as HCV is an infectious disease, refusing to treat it puts both the incarcerated population and staff at great risk. That’s hardly a safe, humane or even secure environment.

But financial concerns are indeed real, practical concerns. In a private medical system, the cost that the manufacturer sets for the drug is a genuine consideration. And as callous as the decision to deny treatment to people is, that decision is unfortunately a relatable one for many Americans. Undoubtedly, there are countless people in the U.S. who would be forced to at least consider denying that same treatment to themselves or those they care about when the price tag can reach up to $32,000. That’s more than twice the annual salary of someone earning minimum wage in Kentucky.

With all this in mind, it’s actually not difficult to see why the Sixth Circuit ruled that the Kentucky DOC’s treatment of its incarcerated population isn’t “unusual.” At least not in the U.S., anyway.

The post Court Rules Kentucky Prisons Can Deny Prisoners Life-Saving Medicine appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Bills to make marijuana legal at the federal level aren’t anything new. As more states legalize the plant for medical and recreational use, the push at the national level has become stronger, with bills like the MORE Act emanating out of the House. But for the first time in U.S. history, a Senate Majority Leader has sponsored and backed a bill that would legalize marijuana at the federal level.

Along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA) in mid-July. The bill would end federal marijuana prohibition. It would also have a significant impact on people convicted of federal marijuana-related offenses and their communities.

The bill in the Senate would legalize marijuana by removing it from the list of controlled substances.

Of course, the headline of the CAOA is that it would legalize marijuana at the federal level. But rather than legalize specific amounts of the plant or forms of it, like in most states, the CAOA takes a different path. If passed, it would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances entirely.

Currently, the DEA lists marijuana as Schedule I, the strictest scheduling category. According to the DEA, Schedule I substances have “no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.” This, despite there being nearly 5.5 million people across 35 states who are currently prescribed medical marijuana.

Schumer, who has recently been a vocal advocate of legalization, said that now is the time to make changes.

“It makes eminent sense to legalize marijuana,” he said. “A number of states, including my own of New York, just legalized recently. The doom and gloom predictions haven’t materialized in any of these states. And as more and more states legalize marijuana, it’s time for our federal cannabis law to catch up.”

The CAOA also contains restorative justice elements.

In addition to legalizing marijuana, the CAOA would also benefit people who suffered legal consequences under prohibition and their communities. The bill contains several restorative justice provisions.

If the bill passes, it will automatically expunge all federal non-violent marijuana-related charges. People currently incarcerated on marijuana-related offenses would be able to petition for resentencing under current laws. The bill would also prohibit the federal government from denying public benefits to people because of marijuana-related charges. It would do the same for people applying for immigration-related benefits such as green cards and citizenship.

But the CAOA also contains economically restorative justice elements. Under the bill, the federal government would create two new programs through the Small Business Administration (SBA). The Cannabis Opportunity Program would provide funds to eligible states to make loans to cannabis businesses owned by economically and socially disadvantaged people. And the Equitable Licensing Grant Program would provide funds to states to help them create licensing programs that remove barriers for people impacted by the War on Drugs. To be eligible for these grants, states would be required to automatically expunge marijuana-related offenses from people’s records.

The bill also affects both the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Services. Under the CAOA, both would be able to prescribe and recommend marijuana to patients.

Under the new bill, the federal government would be able to study and regulate marijuana and marijuana-related products.

The CAOA would also move the regulatory authority from the DEA to the FDA. As a result, the government would have unhindered access to the plant for research, regulation and tax purposes. This means major changes to the industry.

For starters, the FDA and other government organizations would no longer face legal barriers to studying the plant. The same is true for universities, which would also be eligible for federal funding for said research. This is something the CAOA bill proposal points out in specific terms.

“Maintaining strong incentives for research and development of drugs containing cannabis is especially important, given both its potential promising health benefits and potentially harmful effects,” it says.

And under the CAOA, the FDA could also regulate the plant in the same way it does foods, beverages, medicines and supplements. That means that they could require specific labeling practices, conduct safety testing and issue recalls.

The CAOA also has major tax and financial implications.

The CAOA also lays out a plan for taxation. It says that in the first year of legalization, the government will implement a 10% tax. This tax would increase by 5% each year, maxing out at 25%.

But it also contains a provision meant to help smaller marijuana businesses. Under the bill, businesses would pay half of the tax rate on the first $20 million in sales. Four years after implementation, a company would a rate of 12.5% on all sales up to $20 million. It would pay a rate of 25% on everything above that.

While not mentioned specifically in the CAOA, legalizing marijuana at the federal level would also change the way cannabis businesses handle money. It is currently difficult or impossible for cannabis businesses to use banking systems. As a result, many businesses deal in cash—a concern for both safety and tax reasons. Under the CAOA, these businesses could store their money in banks, accept credit cards and pay federal taxes on their earnings, all subject to federal regulation.

It doesn’t look like the CAOA will pass this session.

The CAOA may seem like a win-win-win situation. Legalizing marijuana is incredibly popular in the U.S. across the political spectrum. And ideologically, there’s something for everyone. States that legalized are spending less money on enforcement and incarceration and taking in bundles of more money to spend on schools and other social programs. Legalization at the federal level would also be a win for conservatives who champion “states’ rights” as it would allow the states to determine whether or not they wanted legal weed.’

Despite all of that, there is very little optimism in Washington that the CAOA will pass. Democrats technically control the Senate, but with Republicans often voting in a bloc and Senators like Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) often joining them, passing much of anything has proven difficult. According to The Hill, Schumer himself said that some Democrats oppose the bill. That makes passing a bill that would legalize marijuana in the Senate nearly impossible.

And then there’s the president. President Joe Biden has said he is in favor of decriminalization which, according to the definition of the word, the CAOA absolutely is. However, he has also said he is in favor of prohibition, which decriminalization absolutely is not. That’s something White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated following the release of the bill.

“I’ve spoken in the past about the president’s views on marijuana,” she said. “Nothing has changed and there are no new endorsements of legislation today.”

Despite the excitement of such a high-level national politician finally endorsing a legalization bill, Psaki summed up the reality of the situation for the millions of people affected by the War on Drugs. Nothing has changed.

The post Senate Bill Would Legalize Marijuana, Expunge Records at Federal Level appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

On July 6, Brooklyn Borough Chief and former police officer Eric Adams won the Democratic primary in the New York City. The win makes him a near certainty to become the next mayor of New York City, where people registered as Democrats outnumber registered Republicans six-to-one. Adams, who boasts extensive experience in politics and law enforcement, ran on a decidedly pro-police message at time when some other candidates put themselves firmly in the “defund the police” camp. If he becomes next mayor of New York City, Adams would take the reigns at a time when the city is enacting a number of reforms to the criminal justice system.

Adams beat out some big names to win NYC’s Democratic primary.

While Adams was considered the frontrunner as the race drew to a close, it didn’t start that way. Early in the race, Adams trailed former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang. And it wasn’t just him. In May, 13 candidates had qualified for the election.

Adams faced strong competition from the party’s progressive wing. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorsed lawyer, professor and civil rights activist Maya Wiley two weeks before the first round of the election.

This election was the first to utilize a ranked-choice voting system. After coming in first in the first round of voting, Adams entered a runoff election with Kathryn Garcia, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Sanitation. In the runoff, Adams won 50.5% of the vote, edging out Garcia by fewer than 8,500 votes.

Eric Adams was a police officer with the NYPD for 22 years before entering politics.

Over the last 14 years, Adams has served in both the New York state Senate and as the Brooklyn Borough President But before that, he spent 22 years with the New York Police Department (NYPD). Adams joined the NYPD Transit Police in 1984 and continued with the department after it merged with the NYPD in 1996.

But it was a negative experience with the NYPD that led Adams to join the force. When he was 15, NYPD officers arrested Adams and his brother for criminal trespassing. While in custody, officers beat the two brothers until a Black officer stepped in. Adams has said that this event prompted him to join the force in an attempt to change it from within.

The former officer has pushed for a mix of policies throughout his career.

Adams would indeed attempt to change the NYPD. In 1995, he co-founded the advocacy group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. The organization served to advocate for Black police officers who pushed for criminal justice reform. Since its inception, the group has spoken out against racial profiling and police brutality. And Adams himself has not been one to mince words.

“Lying is at the root of our training,” he said, in 1999. “At the academy, recruits are told that they should not see black or brown people as different, but we all do. We all know that the majority of people arrested for predatory crimes are African-American. We didn’t create that scenario, but we have to police in that scenario. So we need to be honest and talk about it.”

But at times, Adams has advocated for some tough-on-crime policies. In 2018, six residents incarcerated at the George Motchan Detention Center on Rikers Island assaulted a guard. Following the incident, Adams joined others outside the Brooklyn Detention Center to demand the city reinstate the use of solitary confinement in its correctional facilities.

The NYPD are still a big part of Adams’ vision for public safety in New York City.

Adams’ win comes on the heels of the “defund the police” movement gaining traction around the country. Throughout his campaign, Adams said that defunding the police was not something he was interested in doing.

On his website, Adams’ campaign makes it clear which side of the defund movement he stands on. In fear-inducing language that would sound at home on a “tough-on-crime” conservative politician’s platform page, Adams makes an argument for the need for the NYPD. “Today our city faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens to undo the progress we have made against crime,” it says. Shortly after, the site lists five numbered points. The first item on the list reads, “If we are for SAFETY – we NEED the NYPD!”

But in an open letter in the same section, Adams tries to make the case for himself as a reformer. “I called out racism in the NYPD as an officer and helped push through reforms, including the successful effort to stop the unlawful use of Stop-and-Frisk,” it says.

The page does list “making it easier for good cops to identify bad cops,” appointing a female police commissioner and adding more Black and Brown officers to the NYPD. But beyond that, ideas for reform are few and far between. The page does, however, twice make reference to the need to “the bad guys” and the need to get or catch them.

Conservative media are already painting Adams’ victory as a referendum against the defund movement.

Fox News and other conservative media outlets have already touted Adams’ victory as a public refute of the defund movement and the politicians that support it. “AOC influence in question after Eric Adams defeats her picks for NYC mayor,” reads one headline.

But the reality of the situation, as always, is much more complicated. For starters, Adams won the Democratic primary by a razor-thin margin. In a runoff election in which nearly 800,000 people voted, he beat out Garcia by fewer than 8,500 votes. By most standards, a victory by just around one percent hardly represents a mandate.

The anti-reform take also fails to take into account that many people may have voted for Adams—and not necessarily against other candidates. To his credit, Adams has plenty of progressive bona fides outside the arena of criminal justice. He is a staunch supporter of public and affordable housing development, an early proponent of marriage equality, in favor of providing free two-year college programs and a backer of public land use initiatives. In other words, if New Yorkers decide to elect Adams as their next mayor, they won’t exactly be putting a hardline conservative in office.

But Adams’ stances on the NYPD and criminal justice are surely disappointing to justice advocates. Both New York City and New York state passed landmark justice reforms in the past year. If Eric Adams becomes New York City’s next mayor, many will be watching to see exactly what the former police officer does with those reforms.

The post Who is Eric Adams? Former Police Officer Likely to be NYC’s Next Mayor appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

When he signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1997, President Bill Clinton authorized the 1033 program. The 1033 program allowed the Department of Defense to transfer surplus military-grade equipment to local and state police forces. That equipment was on full display in 2020 as police forces around the nation used it to suppress protests in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Later in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden used strong language in a speech in Philadelphia as he decried the actions of those police forces.

“There are other measures, to stop transferring weapons of war to police forces, improve oversight and accountability, to create a model use of force standard, that also should be made law this month. No more excuses, no delays,” he said.

These words may have provided hope to activists who sought to end the nearly 25-year-old practice. But nearly five months into his first term, Biden has yet to move on the 1033 program.

The modern 1033 Program began under George H.W. Bush under a different name.

While the 1033 program as we know it now may have been signed into law under President Clinton, it started life under President George H.W. Bush. The NDAA of 1990 introduced the 1280 program via section 1280 of the bill. This program was the predecessor to the 1033 program and did many of the same things. It gave broad authorization to the Department of Defense (DoD) to send surplus military equipment to “federal and state agencies.” These agencies were supposed to use this equipment specifically “in counter-drug activities.”

In 1995, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) created the Law Enforcement Services Office (LESO). This office serves as a liaison between the DoD and law enforcement agencies. Then, in 1996 Clinton signed the NDAA for Fiscal Year 1997. This expanded what that military equipment could be used for. Under the new law, departments could use military equipment for “all law enforcement agencies to acquire property for bona fide law enforcement purposes that assist in their arrest and apprehension mission” Still, the law said that the DoD would give priority to “counter-drug and counter-terrorism requests.”

President Obama issued an executive order limiting the 1033 program. President Trump reversed it with another executive order.

Law enforcement agencies around the country made heavy use of the 1033 program over the next decade and a half. Between 1997 and 2014, the DoD transferred $5.1 billion in military equipment to local and state law enforcement agencies. During that time, the program faced criticism from the media and the government itself. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) critiqued waste, fraud and abuse within the program. But in 2014, the program drew national attention during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police killing of Michael Brown. In attempting to suppress the protests, the Ferguson Police Department employed military equipment. Images of heavily-armed, camouflaged police riding through streets in armored vehicles became a fixture in the media.

Then, in May 2015, President Obama signed Executive Order 13688, which prohibited agencies from obtaining certain types of equipment. But just two years later, President Trump rolled back Obama’s executive order.

A widely shared tweet claimed that the program had expanded under the Biden administration, but this was found to be false.

After Trump repealed Obama’s executive order, there was an uptick in acquisitions, according to DLA data. But after that initial spike, those acquisitions slowed, reaching their lowest level in Q3 of 2020.

Given Biden’s remarks during his speech, activists understandably put out calls for him to end the 1033 program. One of those was the official Black Lives Matter Twitter account. In the first part of a two-part tweet, the account asked followers to join them in demanding Biden end the 1033 program. But in the second part of that tweet, the account accused Biden of making the problem worse. It said, “Biden is currently sending more military equipment to our neighborhoods than Trump did. You read that right. Our communities are being terrorized at a greater rate than they had been under Trump.”

The claim, which seemed to suggest that Biden was expanding the 1033 program rather than ending it, was understandably worrying to people hoping for an end to the program. But PolitiFact found this to be flawed. There was no mention of a point of comparison. And the data from the DLA suggests that the number of items ordered during Biden’s first quarter was lower than at almost any point during the Trump administration. As a result, PolitiFact rated this claim “false.” Nonetheless, the tweet was retweeted more than 12,000 times.

Biden could end the program, but that might not be the most effective solution.

Activists who say that Biden could end the 1033 program with an executive order are not wrong. Indeed, as the head of the executive branch, the president has authority over the Pentagon. But as the past has shown, executive orders can be reversed just as easily as they can be enacted.

An act of Congress instead could offer a more permanent change in policy. Laws enacted by Congress are much more difficult to change.

And up to now, Biden has shown that this is his preferred path on several issues. There are a few perspectives on this course of action. From one point of view, Biden could just be kicking the can down the road and offloading contentious decisions onto Congress. In its current state of gridlock, that can be seen as tantamount to doing nothing about a number of campaign promises.

From another perspective, it’s possible that the longtime senator believes he can use his office and a slight Democratic majority in Congress to influence more lasting change through the traditional lawmaking process. Or that he is at least willing to try that route first.

But the two are not mutually exclusive. Biden has shown a willingness to use executive orders early in his presidency. He issued 17 on his first day in office alone.

In that speech in Philadelphia, Biden spoke about the urgency of the issues around the 1033 program. Ending the program with an executive order, even as a stopgap, would help him make good on both a campaign promise and an important issue to people fighting for police reform. If it is an issue that is truly important to this administration, they could make sweeping changes to it with the signing of a document. “No excuses, no delays.”

The post Why Hasn’t President Biden Repealed the 1033 Program? appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Thus far, 2021 has been the year of justice reform. States with electorates ranging from distinctly progressive to reliably conservative have introduced one reform after another. With national legislation like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in consideration, justice reform has certainly gone mainstream. But over the last year, a majority of American cities have seen a dramatic spike in killings and gun crimes. Could this wave of homicides lessen American’s appetite for justice reform?

Homicide rates increased dramatically in American cities over the last year.

In general, crime was down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drug crimes, for example, fell by more than 65% on average, according to Pennsylvania University law and economics professor David Abrams. “The cities with the greatest declines were Pittsburgh, New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago, which each had declines of at least 35% for overall reported crime rates,” wrote Abrams in his paper, “COVID and Crime: An Early Empirical Look.”

But there have been just a few notable exceptions to the trend. Early data from criminologists show a serious spike in homicide rates in most major American cities. According to data cited by the New York Times, homicide rates rose more than 30% on average last year. They rose another 24% since the beginning of this year.

The city of Chicago saw its worst year for homicides since crime began to decline around the country in the mid-1990s. Homicides rose 82% in Portland, Oregon and in Minneapolis, they grew by 72%. Los Angeles experienced a 36% increase in homicides in 2020.

This trend has continued into 2021, the data seem to suggest. Through May 9, Philadelphia saw a 28% increase in homicides on the year. The rate jumped by 76% on the year from the beginning of the year through May 13 in Tucson, Arizona. According to the NYPD statistics, homicides rose by more than 23% on the year through May 23.

Some people are blaming protests and justice reform for the rise in homicides.

Experts have suggested that the rise in homicides is likely the result of a number of factors coming together. They credit social anxieties around the pandemic and the lack of economic opportunities with playing a role. Shifting of police resources is also considered as a potential factor. “Crime is complicated,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the non-profit police research and policy group Police Executive Research Forum, told CNN. “Murder is complicated.”

But the complexity of the situation has not stopped some from placing the blame directly on people advocating for change. One of those is St. Louis police commissioner, Col. John Hayden Jr. “Sometimes protesters do not play by rules. Sometimes they want to destroy property. If a person gets trapped that has an opposing message there are assaults involved,” Hayden said. “I can’t leave them to their own eventualities, we have to monitor those. Sometimes (protesters) block major intersections and block traffic … the fact we had to man all those protests, we couldn’t leave them unattended, it took time from presence in neighborhoods.”

Others, such as Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer and current professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, still place blame on the protests but say that the effect was less direct. “It’s not that the protests caused the rise in violence,” said Moskos. “What the protests caused was a major change in policing. If you stop policing, violence goes up.”

But Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist and professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, suggested an alternative relationship between the protests and the increase in homicides—that the underlying reasons for the protests could also be some of the underlying reasons for the spike in homicides.

“When police legitimacy is greatly reduced, you get more crime because people are no longer relying on the criminal justice system for assistance,” Dr. Rosenfeld said. “People are less willing to cooperate with police in investigations, less willing to report crimes or other problems to the police and more willing to take matters into their own hands.”

The rise in violent crime does correlate with a dramatic spike in firearm sales.

There was certainly a correlation between rising anti-police sentiment and calls for defunding police departments from some justice reform advocates and the increase in homicides. But that increase correlates with a number of other data points. Video chat usage, for example, spiked alongside the homicide rate. So, too, did the use of streaming services. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, especially with such limited data.

But there is one data point that does correlate with the increase in shootings and homicides that is more likely to have a causal relationship. In 2020, Americans purchased a record number of firearms. Sales of guns within the United States rose 40% last year to just under 40 million. This number also breaks any previous record of annual gun sales since 1999, when the current system of keeping records went into effect.

As with anything, drawing a causal relationship between two data points is tricky. But that’s a relationship Rosenfeld says is likely to exist. “Were it not for the proliferation of firearms through our society and in our big cities, we would not have seen these big jumps in homicide,” he said.

Conservative politicians and pro-policing advocates may try to use the increase to halt progressive justice reforms.

As demands for police reform reverberated throughout the country over the last year, so too has the pushback to those demands. While many states introduced new legislation that works to do things like reduce prison populations or reform police departments, others went the opposite direction, strengthening police protections and increasing legal penalties for things like public protest.

Prominent and powerful conservative voices have already pounced on the rise in crime to chastise justice reformers and push a tough-on-crime narrative. In a series of tweets, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), lambasted the recent wave of justice reforms. “How high does the crime rate need to go before Democrats stop their campaign to release violent criminals from prison?” Cotton tweeted. “Crack penalties are harsher than powder cocaine penalties. Let’s fix this by increasing the penalty for selling powder cocaine. Not by letting drug traffickers out of prison.”

His sentiments were echoed by the Republican National Committee in a statement. “Looking for a major cause of the spike in crime in our nation’s cities?” reads the statement. “Look no further than the devastating impacts Democrats’ defund the police efforts have had on officer morale.” This type of messaging and the fear of homicides could successfully woo voters away from supporting justice reform efforts and back towards supporting tough-on-crime policies and rhetoric. And there is no sign of the sudden increase in homicides and gun crimes reversing anytime soon. Homicide rates are still rising in many cities, and gun sales have continued to climb in 2021. Miami police chief Art Acevedo was anything but optimistic about what this summer holds for homicides in the United States.

“I am very sad to say that this summer is going to be a long summer for the American people,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” If conservatives and pro-policing groups are successful at capitalizing on the rise in the violent deaths of Americans, the influx of justice reforms that has marked the first half of 2021 could be a short-lived trend, rather than a new direction for American policy.

The post Could the Rise in Homicides Derail Justice Reform Efforts? appeared first on Interrogating Justice.

Earlier this year, the White House released its budget proposal for FY 2022. Within the budget, the Biden administration earmarked several justice reform items. And while defunding the police at the federal level isn’t part of the budget, the proposal does suggest a shift in approach to several areas of law enforcement.

Yes, the new budget does increase funding to police departments. But it’s complicated.

Since 2020, calls to “defund the police” have moved from the streets to the top levels of government. High-profile officials such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) openly support the movement. And since 2020, at least 13 cities have announced plans to reallocate police funding.

But defunding the police won’t happen in FY 2022 at the federal level. The Biden administration plans to spend $1.3 billion to support law enforcement agencies. This is a $379 million increase over FY 2021, the last budget of the Trump administration. However, where those dollars are intended to go tells a more complex story.

One of the largest increases is a nearly $200 million increase in hiring grants for the COPS program. According to the DOJ, the COPS program “assist[s] law enforcement agencies in enhancing public safety through the implementation of community policing strategies.”

The budget also creates $20 million in new funding for police training on racial profiling, de-escalation, and duty to intervene. In addition, it increases funding for police training on dealing with people with mental illnesses by $2.5 million.

The budget earmarked space for the creation of a community intervention program.

One major line item is $100 million to what the White House calls the Community Violence Intervention (CVI) initiative. This initiative is a broad set of policies that runs across multiple departments. According to the White House, the CVI initiative aims to reduce gun violence by funding targeted programs in the Departments of Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Health and Human Services and Labor.

For example, the initiative provides funds to the 21st Century Learning Center (21st CCLC). These centers help fund after-school and summer programs for students in underperforming or high-poverty schools. The administration says that these programs reduce violence by “support[ing] children impacted by trauma and reengage disconnected youth.”

Biden’s budget also increases funding for diversion programs and incarceration alternatives.

One area of justice reform the Biden administration looks to tackle with the FY 2022 budget is decreasing incarceration. It asks for $35 million for the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI). The JRI works to reduce state prison populations. Since 2007, the program has worked with at least 35 states. In that time, it has been credited with an 11% decrease in state incarceration. The Trump administration had previously tried to defund the JRI.
The new budget also allocates $100 million towards reducing juvenile incarceration. This funding goes towards addressing Biden’s campaign promise to make juvenile justice a priority.

But it’s not just juvenile incarceration. The FY 2022 budget earmarks $164 million for court-based diversion programs. This marks a $17 million increase from the previous budget. These diversion programs include drug courts, mental health courts and veteran’s courts. But FY 2022 also introduces a new $3.5 million grant for a Family-Based Alternative Sentencing program.

In addition to reducing the number of people who go to jail or prison after arrest, the new budget funds alternatives to arresting them in the first place. Over the next year, the DOJ plans to support the national Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program.

Based on a program that began in Seattle in 2011, LEAD programs across the country work to reduce arrest rates. The administration is committing $190 million to LEAD’s Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program. This program places an emphasis on diversion and treatment, rather than arrest and incarceration for drug use crimes.

Restorative justice reform and the public defender program also get a boost in the Biden adminstration’s budget.

Restorative justice is also a part of the new budget, another departure from the Trump administration. The FY 2022 budget requests $28 million for restorative justice programs. Of that, $25 million goes towards grants for restorative responses to victims of dating violence, domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault.

The budget also seeks $77 million for the country’s indigent defense support programs. Of that, $25 million goes towards a new Public Defender Grant. An additional $40 million gets set aside for improvements to juvenile defense. It also calls for $12 million in new capital case and wrongful conviction review grants.

The FY 2022 budget doesn’t defund the police, but it does indicate a change in perspective.

Justice reform advocates hoping for defunding initiatives may be disappointed with the Biden administration’s FY 2022 budget. Indeed, it does not address several of the core issues of what many see as overstuffed police budgets. There is no effort in the budget to reel in spending on vehicles, combat gear and weapons.

But the changes in the budget are significant. They do reflect a departure from the last administration and from policies that Biden himself helped to enact in the 1990s. If the president gets what he is asking for, the federal government will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into programs that seek to reduce incarceration. This budget reflects a commitment to reverse course on policies that led to mass incarceration.

It also shows a willingness to invest in programs that address the root causes of crime and violence. These kinds of community-based efforts are exactly the kinds of reforms many defunding advocates have been asking for.

However, headlines can still read that Biden is increasing spending more on law enforcement than his predecessor. Devoid of context, that’s enough to ruffle plenty of feathers among people hoping for meaningful change. In order to satisfy calls around the country for justice reform, the Biden administration will need these budget items to translate to real action and real results.

The post What the Biden Admin’s New Budget Has in Store For Justice Reform appeared first on Interrogating Justice.