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Criminal Justice Repository

This page contains a repository of academic articles and other resources relating to the criminal justice system.

Afrocentric facial feature and skin tone bias

Mark W. Bennett, Implicit Racial Bias in Sentencing: The Next Frontier, 126 Yale L. J. F. (2017)

Ryan D. King & Brian D. Johnson, A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice, 122 Am. J. Soc. 90 (2016)

Traci Burch, Skin Color and the Criminal Justice System: Beyond Black-White Disparities in Sentencing, 12 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 395 (2015)

Jaclyn Ronquillo et al., The Effects of Skin Tone on Race-Related Amygdala Activity: An fMRI Investigation, 2 Soc. Cognitive Affective Neuroscience 39 (2007)

Jennifer L. Eberhardt et al., Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes, 17 Psychol. Sci. 383 (2006)

Travis L. Dixon & Keith B. Maddox, Skin Tone, Crime News, and Social Reality Judgments: Priming the Stereotype of the Dark and Dangerous Black Criminal, 35 J. Applied Soc. Psychol. 1555 (2005)

William T. Pizzi et al., Discrimination in Sentencing on the Basis of Afrocentric Features, 10 Mich. J. Race & L. 327 (2005)

Irene V. Blair et al., The Automaticity of Race and Afrocentric Facial Features in Social Judgments, 87 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 763 (2004)

Irene V. Blair et al., The Influence of Afrocentric Facial Features in Criminal Sentencing, 15 Psychol. Sci. 674 (2004)

Jennifer L. Eberhardt et al., Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing, 87 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 876 (2004)

Allocution

Mark W. Bennett & Ira Robbins, Last Words: A Survey of Federal Judges’ Views and the Impact of Defendant’s Allocution on Federal Sentencing, 65 Ala. L. Rev. 735 (2014)

Mark W. Bennett, Heartstrings or Heartburn: A Federal Judge’s Musings on Defendants’ Right and Rite of Allocution, The Champion, Mar. 2011, at 26

Bail Reform

Wendy R. Calaway & Jennifer M. Kinsley, Rethinking Bail Reform, 52 U. Rich. L. Rev. 795 (2018)

Mel Gonzalez, Consumer Protection for Criminal Defendants: Regulating Commercial Bail in California, 106 Cal. L. Rev. 1381 (2018)

Crystal S. Yang, Toward an Optimal Bail System, 92 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1399 (2017)

Criminal Justice Reform

Douglas Berman & Robert Watkins, Leveraging Marijuana Reform to Enhance Expungement Practices, 30 Fed. Sent’g. Rep. 4 (2018)

Brad Bishop & Laura E. Yetter, The Continuing Reformation of Alabama’s Municipal Courts, 79 Ala. Law. 190 (2018)

Wendy R. Calaway & Jennifer M. Kinsley, Rethinking Bail Reform, 52 U. Rich. L. Rev. 795 (2018)

Malcolm M. Feeley, How to Think About Criminal Court Reform, 98 B.U. L. Rev. 673 (2018)

Susan N. Herman, Getting There: On Strategies for Implementing Criminal Justice Reform, 23 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 32 (2018)

Kari Hong, A New Mens Rea for Rape: More Convictions and Less Punishment, 55. Am. Crim. L. Rev. 529 (2018)

Keith N. Hylton, Whom Should We Punish, and How? Rational Incentives and Criminal Justice Reform, 59 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 2513 (2018)

Carolyn Côté-Lussier & Jason T. Carmichael, Public Support for Harsh Criminal Justice Policy and its Moral and Ideological Tides, 24 Psychol. Pub. Pol'y & L. 235 (2018)

Jenny Roberts, The Innocence Movement and Misdemeanors, 98 B.U. L. Rev. 779 (2018)

Salma S. Safiedine et al., Policy Reform in the Juvenile Justice Arena, 33 Crim. Just. 8 (2018)

Rachel Smith, Condemned to Repeat History? Why the Last Movement for Bail Reform Failed, and How This One Can Succeed, 25 Geo. J on Poverty L. & Pol’y 451 (2018)

Expungement

Brian M. Murray, Unstitching Scarlet Letters?: Prosecutorial Discretion and Expungement, 86 Fordham L. Rev. 2821 (2018)

Anna Kessler, Excavating Expungement Law: A Comprehensive Approach, 87 Temp. L. Rev. 403 (2015)

Matthew D. Callanan, Protecting the Unconvicted: Limiting Iowa’s Rights to Public Access in Search of Greater Protection for Criminal Defendants Whose Charges Do Not End in Convictions, 98 Iowa L. Rev. 1275 (2013)

Juvenile Justice Reform

Elizabeth Cauffman et al., How Developmental Science Influences Juvenile Justice Reform, 8 UC Irvine L. Rev. 21 (2018)

Juvenile Life Sentence Without Parole

Caroline Maass, A Meaningful Opportunity to Obtain Release: A Practical Impossibility, 8 Wake Forest J.L. & Pol'y 503 (2018)

Danielle Petretta, Juveniles Make Bad Decisions, But Are Not Adults & Law Continues to Account for This Difference: The Supreme Court’s Decision to Apply Miller v. Alabama Retroactively Will Have a Significant Impact on Many Decades of Reform and Current Debate Around Juvenile Sentencing, 37 Pace L. Rev. 765 (2017)

Laurence Steinberg, Adolescent Brain Science and Juvenile Justice Policymaking, 23 Psychol. Pub. Pol'y & L. 410 (2017)

Sarah French Russell & Tracy L. Denholtz, Procedures for Proportionate Sentences: The Next Wave of Eighth Amendment Noncapital Litigation, 48 Conn. L. Rev. 1121 (2016)

Jordon Calvert Greenlee, Victims of Youth: Equitable Sentencing Reform for Juvenile Offenders in the Wake of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, 33 Law & Ineq. 263 (2015)

Summer L. Davidson, The Relationship Between Childhood Conduct Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder in Adulthood: An Argument in Favor of Mandatory Life Sentences Without Parole for Juvenile Homicide Offenders, 39 Law & Psychol. Rev. 239 (2014)

Mass Incarceration

Mirko Bagaric et al., Mitigating America's Mass Incarceration Crisis Without Compromising Community Protection: Expanding the Role of Rehabilitation in Sentencing, 22 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 1 (2018)

Jeffrey Bellin, Reassessing Prosecutorial Power Through the Lens of Mass Incarceration, 116 Mich. L. Rev. 835 (2018)

Lynn Adelman, Booker, Judges, and Mass Incarceration, 29 Fed. Sent’g Rep. 224 (2017)

Mark W. Bennett, Slow Motion Lynching? The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration: Reflections on Doing Kimbrough Justice and a Response to Two Third Circuit Judges, 66 Rutgers L. Rev. 873 (2014)

Mark Osler & Mark W. Bennett, A “Holocaust in Slow Motion?”: America’s Mass Incarceration and the Role of Discretion, 7 Depaul J. Soc. Justice 117 (2014)

Lynn Adelman, What the Sentencing Commission Ought to be Doing: Reducing Mass Incarceration, 18 Mich. J. Race & L. 295 (2013) 

Anne R. Traum, Mass Incarceration at Sentencing, 64 Hastings L. J. 423 (2013)

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010)

Alyssa L. Beaver, Note, Getting a Fix on Cocaine Sentencing Policy: Reforming the Sentencing Scheme of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 2531 (2010)

Dorothy E. Roberts, The Social and Moral Costs of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities, 56 Stan. L. Rev. 1271 (2004)

 

Plea Bargaining Reform

Andrew M. Crespo, The Hidden Law of Plea Bargaining, 118 Colum. L. Rev. 1303 (2018)

Cynthia Alkon, Hard Bargaining in Plea Bargaining: When do Prosecutors Cross the Line? 17 Nev. L. J. 401 (2017)

Tina M. Zottoli et al., Plea Discounts, Time Pressures, and False Guilty Pleas in Youth and Adults Who Pleaded Guilty to Felonies in New York City, 22 Psychol. Pub. Pol’y & L. 250 (2016)

Cynthia Alkon, What’s Law Got to Do With It? Plea Bargaining Reform after Lafler and Frye, 7 Y.B. Arb. & Mediation 1 (2015)

Russell D. Covey, Plea-Bargaining Law after Lafler and Frye, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 595 (2013)

Laurence A. Benner, Expanding the Right to Effective Counsel at Plea Bargaining, 27 Crim. Just. 4 (2012)

Stephanos Bibas, Incompetent Plea Bargaining and Extrajudicial Reforms, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 150 (2012)

Darryl K. Brown, Lafler, Frye and Our Still-Unregulated Plea Bargaining System, 25 Fed. Sent’g. Rep. 131 (2012)

Richard E. Myers II, The Future of Effective Assistance of Counsel: Rereading Cronic and Strickland in Light of Padilla, Frye and Lafler, 45 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 229 (2012)

Stephanos Bibas, Regulating the Plea- Bargaining Market: From Caveat Emptor to Consumer Protection, 99 Cal. L. Rev. 1117 (2011)

H. Mitchell Caldwell, Coercive Plea Bargaining: The Unrecognized Scourge of the Justice System, 61 Cath. U. L. Rev. 63 (2011)

Ronald Wright, Padilla and the Delivery of Integrated Criminal Defense, 58 UCLA L. Rev. 1515 (2011)

Michael M. O’Hear, Plea Bargaining and Procedural Justice, 42 Ga. L. Rev. 407 (2008)

Russell Covey, Reconsidering the Relationship Between Cognitive Psychology and Plea Bargaining, 91 Marq. L. Rev. 213 (2007)

Albert W. Alschuler, The Changing Plea Bargaining Debate, 69 Cal. L. Rev. 652 (1981)

Prison Reform

Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter & Gabrielle Wolf, Technological Incarceration and the End of the Prison Crisis, 108 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 73 (2018)

Spencer K. Beall, "Lock Her Up!" How Women Have Become the Fastest-Growing Population in the American Carceral State, 23 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 1 (2018)

Amanda Dick, The Immature State of Our Union: Lack of Legal Entitlement to Prison Programming in the United States as Compared to European Countries, 35 Ariz. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 287 (2018)

Emily Halter, Parental Prisoners: The Incarcerated Mother's Constitutional Right to Parent, 108 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 539 (2018)

Anita Hurlburt, Building Constructive Prison Reform on Norway’s Five Pillars, Cemented with Aloha, 19 Asian-Pac. L. & Pol’y J. 194 (2018)

Priscilla A. Ocen, Incapacitating Motherhood, 51 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 2191 (2018)

David M. Bierie & Ruth E. Mann, The History and Future of Prison Psychology, 23 Psychol. Pub. Pol'y & L. 478 (2017)

Heidi Cerneka, "We Will Not Be Invisible" Women and Solitary Confinement in the U.S., 32 Wis. J.L. Gender & Soc'y 107 (2017)

Holger Sonntag, Medicine Behind Bars: Regulating and Litigating Prison Healthcare Under State Law Forty Years After Estelle v. Gamble, 68 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 603, 604 (2017)

Racial Profiling

Mary N. Beall, Gutting the Fourth Amendment: Judicial Complicity in Racial Profiling and the Real-life Implications, 36 Law & Ineq. 145 (2018)

Russell L. Jones, Terry v. Ohio: Its Failure, Immoral Progeny, and Racial Profiling, 54 Idaho L. Rev. 511 (2018)

Blanche Bong Cook, Death-dealing Imaginations: Racial Profiling, Criminality, and Black Innocence, 63 Wayne L. Rev. 9 (2017)

Ronnie A. Dunn, Racial Profiling: A Persistent Civil Rights Challenge Even in the Twenty-first Century, 66 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 957 (2016)

Sonja B. Starr, Testing Racial Profiling: Empirical Assessment of Disparate Treatment by Police, 2016 U. Chi. Legal F. 485 (2016)

Donald F. Tibbs, Racial Profiling in the Era of Black De-Constitutionalism, 23 Wash. & Lee J. Civil Rts. & Soc. Just. 181 (2016)

Gabriel J. Chin & Charles J. Vernon, Reasonable but Unconstitutional: Racial Profiling and the Radical Objectivity of Whren v. United States, 83 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 882 (2015)

Restitution in Criminal Cases

Mary Theresa Mahfoud, United States v. Osman: Including Future Therapy Costs in Mandatory Restitution Awards is the Growing Trend Among Circuits, But is it Wise?, 69 Mercer L. Rev. 969 (2018)

Kevin Bennardo, Restitution and the Excessive Fines Clause, 77 La. L. Rev. 21 (2016)

Cortney E. Lollar, What is Criminal Restitution?, 100 Iowa L. Rev. 93 (2014)

Tyler Morris, Perverted Justice: Why Courts Are Ruling Against Restitution in Child Pornography Possession Cases, and How a Victim Compensation Fund Can Fix the Broken Restitution Framework, 57 Vill. L. Rev. 391 (2012)

Restorative Justice

Jan Peter Dembinski, Esq., The Promise of Restorative Justice, 44-Fall Vt. B.J. 34 (2018)

Chaitanya Motupalli, Intergenerational Justice, Environmental Law, and Restorative Justice, 8 Wash. J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 333 (2018)

Shailly Agnihotri & Cassie Veach, Reclaiming Restorative Justice: an Alternative Paradigm for Justice, 20 CUNY L. Rev. 323 (2017)

Jeanne Bishop, Restorative Justice and the Value of Victims, Offenders, and a Cloud of Witnesses, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 451 (2017)

Alexandra Hoffman, Mass Incarceration’s Second Generation – the Unintended Victims of the Carceral State and Thinking About Alternatives to Punishment Through Restorative Justice, 7 U. Miami Race & Soc. Just. L. Rev. 31 (2017)

Margo Kaplan, Restorative Justice and Campus Sexual Misconduct, 89 Temp. L. Rev. 701 (2017)

Michael P. Seng, Segregation, Violence, and Restorative Justice: Restoring Our Communities, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 487 (2017)

Avila Stahlman, Restorative Justice in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: Suggestions for its Qualified Usage as Supplementary to the Criminal Justice System, 28 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 193 (2017)

Daniela Velez, Restorative Justice: a Look at a Legal Community Creating Harmony on the Front Lines of an Urban Jungle, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 463 (2017)

Hannah Walker, Unspoken Immunity and Reimagined Justice: the Potential for Implementing Restorative Justice and Community Justice Models in Police-related Shootings, 37 Pace L. Rev. 789 (2017)

David B. Rabbani, Enhancing the Community Relations Service Arsenal: a Restorative Justice Solution for Community Conflicts with Local Law Enforcement That Have a Race-relations Basis, 17 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol. 567 (2016)

Laura Merkey, Building Trust and Breaking Down the Wall: the Use of Restorative Justice to Repair Police-Community Relationships, 80 Mo. L. Rev. 1133 (2015)

Sentencing Reform

Symposium: Criminal Sentencing Reform, 87 UMKC L. Rev. 1 (2018)

  • Stephen R. Bough, Introduction
  • Mark W. Bennett, Addicted to Incarceration: A Federal Judge Reveals Shocking Truths About Federal Sentencing and Fleeting Hopes for Reform
  • Stephen R. Bough, Getting to Know a Felon: One Judge’s Attempt at Imposing Sentences that Are Sufficient, but Not Greater than Necessary
  • Francesca Flood, How to Rebuild a Human After Time Is Served: The Power of Meaningful Work
  • Nancy Gertner, Against These Guidelines
  • Mark V. Holden, The Second Chance: A Movement to Ensure the American Dream
  • Shon Hopwood, Improving Federal Sentencing
  • Peter A. Joy & Rodney J. Uphoff, Sentencing Reform: Fixing Root Problems
  • Marc Mauer, Long-Term Sentences: Time to Reconsider the Scale of Punishment
  • Judith Resnik and Kristen Bell, Sentencing Inside Prisons: Efforts to Reduce Isolating Conditions
  • Patti B. Saris, So Much Accomplished, So Much Left to Do: A Retrospective on Six Years as Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission
  • Stefan R. Underhill, Everyday Sentencing Reform
  • Elizabeth Walker, My Felonious Journey

Joshua M. Devine, Booker Disparity and Data-Driven Sentencing, 69 Hastings L.J. 771 (2018)

Jessica A. Roth, The “New” District Court Activism in Criminal Justice Reform, 72 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 187 (2018)

Dawinder S. Sidhu, Towards the Second Founding of Federal Sentencing, 77 Md. L. Rev. 485 (2018)

Veronica Saltzman, Redefining Violence in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 55 Harv. J. On Legis. 525 (2018)

Mark W. Bennett, Justin D. Levinson & Koichi Hioki, Judging Federal White-Collar Fraud Sentencing: An Empirical Study Revealing the Need for Further Reform, 102 Iowa L. Rev. 939 (2017)

Frank O. Bowman, III, First Principles and Practical Politics: Thoughts on Judge Pryor’s Proposal to Revive Presumptive Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 29 Fed. Sent’g. Rep 126 (2017)

Frank O. Bowman, III, ‘Loss’ Revisited: A Defense of the Centerpiece of the Federal Economic Crime Sentencing Guideline, 82 Missouri L. Rev. 1 (2017)

Frank O. Bowman, III, Recalibrating the Federal Economic Crime Guideline: An Admiring Rejoinder to Judge Bennett and Friends, 102 Iowa L. Rev. Online 205 (2017)

Frank O. Bowman, III, Damp Squib: The Disappointing Denouement of the Sentencing Commission’s Economic Crime Project (and What They Should Do Now), 27 Fed. Sent’g Rep 270 (2015)

Mark W. Bennett, Confronting Cognitive “Anchoring Effect” and “Blind Spot” Biases in Federal Sentencing: A Modest Solution for Reforming a Fundamental Flaw, 104 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 489 (2014)

Thomas M. Hardiman & Richard L. Heppner. Jr., Policy Disagreements with the United States Sentencing Guidelines: A Welcome Expansion of Judicial Discretion or the Beginning of the End of the Sentencing Guidelines?, 50 Duq. L. Rev. 5 (2012) 

Mona Lynch, Expanding the Empirical Picture of Federal Sentencing: An Invitation, 23 Fed. Sent’g Rep. 313 (2011)

D. Michael Fisher, Striking a Balance: The Need to Temper Judicial Discretion Against a Background of Legislative Interest in Federal Sentencing, 46 Duq. L. Rev. 65 (2007)

Frank O. Bowman, III, The Failure of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Structural Analysis, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1315 (2005)

Victim’s Rights

Paul G. Cassell, Crime Victims' Rights, (2017), Academy for Justice: A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice Reform, University of Utah College of Law Research Paper No. 224 (forthcoming 2017), available here

Paul G. Cassell and Edna Erez, Victim Impact Statements and Ancillary Harm: The American Perspective, 15 Can. Crim. L. Rev. 149 (2011)

Paul G. Cassell, In Defense of Victim Impact Statements, 6 Ohio St. J. of Crim. L. 611 (2009)

Paul G. Cassell, Treating Crime Victims Fairly: Integrating Victims into the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 2007 Utah L. Rev. 861 (2007)

Links to organizations

FAMM

NACDL

ACLU

ACS

Justice Policy Institute

The Sentencing Reform Project

Vera Institute of Justice

The National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated

The Lawrence Goldfarb Judicial Reform Foundation

The Marshall Project

Right on Crime

Prison Policy Initiative

Law School Calendar 
 
Law School News