The Justice Report
The Justice Report is a journal dedicated to the advancement of civil rights by providing context and understanding for issues most prominently affecting our justice system today. This curated collection is an online database focused on poverty, historical civil rights benchmarks, staff and contributor insights, and the inner workings of our government leaders.
“His wife knocked on the door one morning and burst into tears, and explained what happened,” Gruffudd recalls. He describes a certain despair accompanying the excitement in the visiting area, “full of families and children, dressed in their Sunday best.” Meanwhile, the inmates appeared emotionally and physically deteriorated.
Read MoreIn a 2-1 decision, the justices said Wednesday that the city's bond rules are constitutional, even though defendants who can't afford bail remain behind bars for up to 48 hours after their arrests. Two days in jail does not cause unreasonable harm to a person's life, the justices argued.
Read MoreSpecifically, the complaint alleges that the Twentieth Judicial District’s practice of requiring defendants to post secured money bail as a pretrial condition of release had a discriminatory effect on African Americans because they are disproportionately detained in jail prior to trial.
Read MoreA new class-action lawsuit accuses Alameda County of allowing a private company to charge excessive fees to people sentenced to electronic monitoring, telling them to pay up or go to jail. James Brooks left his job at the Port of Oakland after his mother was paralyzed by a catastrophic stroke in 2012. The 49-year-old former longshoreman is now her full-time caregiver, earning about minimum wage from the state's In-Home Supportive Services program.
Read MoreA number of fees like those faced by our plaintiffs would be wiped out under legislation that San Francisco city Board of Supervisors President London Breed plans to introduce. The ordinance, backed by Supervisor Malia Cohen, along with the city’s treasurer, public defender and district attorney, seeks to change a system that proponents say fails to deter crime while unfairly burdening poor defendants and hindering the rehabilitation of people convicted of crimes.
Read MoreThe Marshall Project reporter Joseph Neff obtained data offering a rare glimpse into how private companies profit from the steady march of low-level offenders into Mississippi jails. Over 18 recent months, this industry took in $43 million, with 36% of revenues generated from small bonds in a state where the average income is under $22k. Corbett Bonding, the largest company and a major focus on this story, has a troubling cozy relationship with jails and courts in the state.
Read MoreDismantling the commercial bail industry is a steep hill to climb. Prosecutors, mayors, legislators and governors across the country are responding to the community-led movement for bail reform and reconsidering the role of money bail in our justice system.
Read MoreThe money bail system is one of the most corrupt parts of our criminal justice system, so we applaud Google for taking this unprecedented move to ban ads for bail bonds from its platforms.
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