Courts increasingly use actuarial meaning statistically derived information about a
defendant's likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior in the future at sentencing. This …

We live in an era of mass incarceration. Since the early 1970s, the criminal justice system
has expanded rapidly, disproportionately affecting poor people of color. 1 A growing chorus …

The US criminal system is at a historical crossroads. In some ways, the behemoth is
becoming kinder and gentler: many jurisdictions are shortening drug sentences and closing …

Misdemeanor convictions are typically dismissed as low-level events that do not deserve the
attention or due process accorded to felonies. And yet, ten million petty cases are filed every …

In the mid-1990s New York City inaugurated its era of mass misdemeanors by pioneering
policing tactics featuring intensive enforcement against low-level offenses as part of its …

Enforcement discretion-the authority to turn a blind eye to legal violations-is central to the
operation of both the federal criminal justice system and the administrative state. Yet its …

Arrests are more than the point of entry into the criminal justice system. They also drive a
host of other decisions. A number of actors outside the criminal justice system, such as …

The American criminal justice system is a system of pleas. Few who know it well think it is
working. And yet, identifying plausible strategies for law reform proves challenging, given …

The rules and practices of criminal procedure assume a clean separation between the
interests of the public and the interests of the lone defendant who stands accused. Even the …

Scholars have long studied the power of community actors to nullify official decisions by
state actors in the criminal justice system.'This scholarship analyzes" nullification" as a …