Monday, July 31, 2017

Reduce public-safety costs by diverting non-emergency 911 calls

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CityLab has a story about a topic that's been on my mind lately, though I hadn't written anything yet: How to reduce 911 volume by ...
4 comments:
Sunday, July 30, 2017

Governor: DPS crime lab fees 'premature,' but that doesn't mean 'unnecessary'

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Texas politicians love to talk about cutting budgets and reducing taxes, but they never want any of the services that money pays for to shri...
17 comments:
Thursday, July 27, 2017

How journalists should (and shouldn't) cover parole, community supervision

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Journalism surrounding parole is mostly myopic, regressive, and unenlightening. Tuff-on-crime demagogues have mastered the art of crowing ov...
26 comments:

James White on 'small tyrannies' and Texas' 'criminal-justice dividend'

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In the latest "Reasonably Suspicious" podcast from Just Liberty, we broadcast a brief excerpt from a conversation between me and ...
3 comments:
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Shorter sentences when locals on the hook for incarceration costs

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In California, when counties were made to pay for juvenile incarceration instead of pawning off costs on the state, local decision makers ch...
11 comments:
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Petition seeks change to DPS rules on Class C arrests

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Yesterday, Just Liberty filed a formal petition to initiate rule making at the Texas Department of Public Safety to substantially limit arre...
5 comments:

Texas AG: Carrying a gun doesn't justify 'Terry' frisks

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has signed onto an amicus brief  aimed at the US Supreme Court to argue that carrying a firearm in a state...
1 comment:
Sunday, July 23, 2017

'Reasonably Suspicious': Check out latest Just Liberty podcast

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Check out the latest "Reasonably Suspicious" podcast from Just Liberty, hosted by your correspondent and Amanda Marzullo of the T...
8 comments:
Thursday, July 20, 2017

TX DPS ends freebie crime-lab services for law enforcement

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Local governments complain near incessantly in Texas of "unfunded mandates" imposed on them by state government, but almost never ...
25 comments:

What is the upshot of TDCJ heat litigation injunction?

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Hard to know the full implications, yet, but the issuance of injunctive relief by a federal district judge in favor of inmates complaining o...
10 comments:
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Don't eliminate field tests without tracking outcomes from officer discretion

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Cheap and unreliable field tests for drugs have caused hundreds of false convictions in Houston and elsewhere. But it's unclear if elimi...
4 comments:

Black folks jailed longer, junk-science-writ scholarship, and other stories

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Grits has a busy week, but here are a few odds and ends of which Grits readers should be aware: When officers are indicted The Balch Spri...
Monday, July 17, 2017

Texas jailhouse-snitch reforms praised

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The New York Times over the weekend (7/15) had a staff editorial praising the latest reforms in Texas  aimed at reining in the use of jailh...
1 comment:
Sunday, July 16, 2017

Of journalists, drunks, lamp posts, and Year-To-Date crime data

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A note to my journalist friends: Can we please dispense with news stories featuring "year to date" crime statistics, murder rates,...
3 comments:
Thursday, July 13, 2017

Blain: 'What does actual police reform look like?'

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Charles Blain of the Restore Justice project at Empower Texans has a column in The Hill posing the question, " What does actual police ...
1 comment:

NRA afraid to confront 'real threat' to Second Amendment

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Bravo, Radley Balko! [The National Rifle Association] is the group that claims to be the only thing preventing the government from oblite...
4 comments:
Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Perverse incentives created by police overtime for court appearances

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last month issued an opinion in Ex Parte Mark Bowman, with a dissent from Judge Elsa Alcala, that caug...
15 comments:
Sunday, July 09, 2017

Roundup: Bail reform all about the judges, and other stories

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Here are a few odds and ends of which Grits readers should be aware: 5th Circuit: Government can't be held accountable in false convic...
7 comments:
Friday, July 07, 2017

On the future(s) of nonprofit journalism

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When Evan Smith launched the Texas Tribune and nonprofits like Politico and Pro Publica popped up on the journalistic landscape, Grits wasn...
12 comments:
Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Suggestions to maximize usefulness of CCA argument video

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will finally get cameras in the courtroom, reported the Austin Statesman , at least for purposes of reco...
4 comments: