The central tenant of U.S. border security is deterrence, and beginning in the 1990's U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) began the implementation of enhanced consequence delivery systems to increase deterrence. Specifically, the primary border enforcement strategy in the majority of jurisdictions in the southwestern U.S. shifted from civil deportation to criminal prosecution. CBP maintains that the strategy—named Operation Streamline—effectively reduced unauthorized entry by deterring would-be immigrants. Given that research on deterrence theory generally demonstrates that harsher penalties are ineffective at…

Want to hear how the Trump Administration is impacting mass incarceration, civil rights and policing issues? Interested in knowing how it will impact Virginia and Arlington residents? Want to learn more about effective strategies and how you can get involved in ending mass incarceration, policing reform and ensuring civil rights? If you answered yes, then this is the forum for you! At this event, you will have the opportunity to: --Hear the latest developments on mass incarceration, policing and civil…

On June 6, FAMM hosts a briefing from 2:30-3:45 p.m. at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2226, to discuss the findings of their report and the future of prison reform in the context of this new data. Click on the image below to RSVP today! 

Drawing on her recent service as a member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Professor Tracey Meares will connect the Task Force’s recommendations with her recent research on police reform and discuss the relevance of both in a world in which federal efforts to push police reform are likely to diminish. Professor Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor at Yale Law School and has done important work, both academically and in practice, focusing on communities, police legitimacy,…

To scholars and social critics, segregation in our neighborhoods has long been viewed as a manifestation of unscrupulous real estate agents, unethical mortgage lenders, and exclusionary covenants working outside the law. This has largely ignored the evidence that the U.S. government did not merely overlook discriminatory practices, but promoted and enforced them. EPI researcher Richard Rothstein recently explored America’s history of government-sponsored residential segregation in his new book “The Color of Law.” Rothstein will appear at EPI on Thursday, June…

The Sentencing Project invites you to a book discussion on, Becoming Ms. Burton. Authored by Susan Burton, a formerly incarcerated woman from California, Becoming Ms. Burton is a memoir that humanizes the collateral impacts of mass incarceration and offers solutions for structural and policy reforms. Ms. Burton founded A New Way of Life, an organization devoted to helping recently released women rebuild their lives. Our director of advocacy, Nicole Porter, will talk with Ms. Burton about her new book and…

While the public conversation around criminal justice reform tends to focus on big cities, rural jail populations have surged even as their urban counterparts have dropped. Since 1970, the total local jail population in the U.S. has swelled from 157,000 on any given day to our current level of 700,000, with nearly 11 million annual admissions. More recently, this steep growth has been heavily influenced by small, mostly rural counties across the U.S., despite the fact that these areas have…

A screening of THE RETURN, a Tribeca Film Festival award-winning documentary about the collateral damage and impact of long prison sentences, occurs June 15. The film chronicles the first time in national history people voted to shorten prison sentences, and the challenges faced by those who were released from prison following that decision. The film has screened in festivals, on Capitol Hill, in a national community screening tour, and in prisons across the country. One of the biggest barriers for individuals post-release is…

Presented by the Reentry Coalition of New Jersey in partnership with Rutgers University Newark School of Criminal Justice, Center for Law and Justice and Volunteers of America Delaware Valley Thursday, June 22, 2017 9:00 am—3:00 pm Rutgers University Newark School of Criminal Justice Center for Law and Justice 123 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102 Register at http://reentrycoalitionofnj.org/2017-conference Email arock@voadv.org with any questions