Events

The Deason Center hosts Dr. Kevin Scott, interim director of the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, for a discussion with researchers and practitioners about gathering data in rural court systems. Dr. Scott will be joined by:

• Kristen Staley, Executive Director of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission
• Christian Mash, State’s Attorney for Garrett County, MD
• Melissa Mackey, Research Director for the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services

The panel, moderated by Deason Center Research Director Dr. Andrew Davies, will discuss challenges and solutions when gathering data on courts, defense services, and prosecutors in rural jurisdictions.

This event is part of the Deason Center's STAR (Small, Tribal, and Rural) Justice Series. This series seeks to highlight an array of distinctive criminal justice issues affecting small, tribal, and rural areas across the United States.

The over-policing of communities of color has been at the forefront of social and criminal justice reform movements in recent years. The desire to address policing in the U.S. is closely linked to the proliferation of officer-involved shootings of, and physical altercations with, Black men and women. Notably, less attention has been given to the over-prosecution of these groups.

While prosecutors have the ability to divert individuals away from justice system involvement, over-policing of some communities may have indirect effects on the likelihood of prosecution. Merely living in a particular zip code may increase an individual’s chances of criminal justice contact. Given the emphasis on efficiency in case processing, this may lead to compounded disadvantage for defendants, particularly for those from communities experiencing the greatest socioeconomic and structural deficits. 

This study examines the impact of residency on over-prosecution. Specifically, this project identifies sociocultural characteristics of over-prosecuted communities, clarifies offenses most commonly over-prosecuted, and explores whether policies can mitigate these issues, with particular attention given mitigation of non-violent drug and gun possession offenses.

Inclusive criminology (“IC”) emphasizes comprehension through diversity and inclusivity in researchers' subject populations and contexts, theoretical perspectives, research questions, methodological techniques, and practical aims.

In this webinar, Professor Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill explains the IC approach, reviews its growing body of research, and provides examples of its use in theoretical and applied science. He connects IC to larger discourses on demographic and identity diversity and inclusion, including in empirical legal scholarship and indigent defense research. Finally, Professor Blount-Hill introduces epistemic justice as a moral and ethical basis for inclusive criminology.

The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center and the Indigent Defense Research Association (IDRA) are collaborating to bring this special event.

Presented by Dr. Jennifer Schwartz and Dr. Jennifer Sherman (Washington State University)

Mass incarceration has increasingly become a rural phenomenon. To learn more about the causes and consequences of rural incarceration, the authors conducted a mixed methods study across six counties in rural Washington State. Contrary to local perceptions that jails acted as “revolving doors” for drug addicts and serious felons, quantitative analyses of jail data (2015-2019) showed that a large proportion of jail stays were due to minor offenses like missed court dates, noncompliance with release conditions, unpaid fines, and/or offenses related to driving with a suspended license.

The authors dub this constellation of charges system navigation problems (SNPs), which were responsible for a plurality of pretrial incarcerations and jail re-entries. The authors argue that SNP charges work to criminalize rural poverty and marginality through both financial and non-financial means. This study highlights the importance of place-based dimensions of social inequalities, illustrating how rurality intersects with net-widening legal practices to contribute to jail use and mass incarceration.

In 2019, District Attorney John Creuzot vowed to end the rampant racial disparity in marijuana enforcement. As a result, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office (Dallas DAO) issued policies designed to radically decrease police enforcement of misdemeanor marijuana possession laws. The authors review pre- and post-reform data about the number of marijuana misdemeanor cases that police submitted to the Dallas DAO for prosecution.

The authors conclude that the Dallas DAO’s policies were associated with a significant decrease in the number of marijuana misdemeanors referred by local police. However, those policies were not associated with a similar reduction in the degree of racial disparity among the cases submitted. Indeed, racial disparity in marijuana enforcement actually increased in some places.

Drawing on other research about prosecutorial charging discretion, the authors situate their findings in the context of other progressive prosecution initiatives and offer insights about the conditions necessary for success.

Professor Sean Hill is an Assistant Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. 

Professor Hill’s teaching and research lie at the intersection of critical race theory and criminal justice policy. His forthcoming publication in the UCLA Law Review specifically examines bail reform and pretrial risk assessment instruments through a critical race lens. Prior to joining OSU Moritz College of Law, Professor Hill was a Law Research Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, where he led a seminar on the racial implications of algorithmic risk assessment.

The Criminal Justice Reform Workshop "Unwarranted Warrants: An Empirical Analysis of the Search and Seizure Process" was hosted by the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center on November 3, 2022. The workshop was presented by Prof. Miguel de Figueiredo, Prof. Dane Thorley, and Prof. Brett Hashimoto.