Archives

News Article The Intercept December 17, 2016

Fatal Corrections: Inside the Deadly Mississippi Riot That Pushed the Justice Department to Rein In Private Prisons

Justice Strategies' Director, Judith Greene, is quoted in this recent Intercept article about the deadly riot that occurred on May 20, 2012 at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, a facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America, now know as CoreCivic.  The author, Janosch Delker, traces the events leading to the Natchez private prison riot, including complaints by prisoners about the inadequate medical care, substandard food and poor supervision that led to fatal consequences for prisoners prior to, and for staff, that day.  The riot at CoreCivic's Natchez prison, and similar events elsewhere, prompted investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and a call by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, in August of 2016, for ending the use of private prison contracts by the federal Bureau of Prisons to house immigrants.  During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump called for increasing the use of private for-profit prisons.  The Natchez Adams County Correctional Center private prison riot was the subject of a Justice Strategies' report released in Sept. 2012 entitled Privately Operated Federal Prisons for Immigrants: Expensive, Undafe, Unnecessary. 

News Article Huffington Post November 22, 2016

Trump Has Not ‘Softened’ His War On Immigrants

Judith Greene and Grassroots Leadership's Bob Libal explain why we should expected an unprecedented deportation regime from Trump, who has not "softened" his vision for the war on immigrants.

"Some news reports have offered an unjustifiably charitable interpretation of Mr. Trump’s recent statement to suggest that he is becoming more “targeted.” Mr. Trump’s numbers are wrong, and his vision is anything but “soft.” To realize these numbers during a four-year term, to say nothing of a shorter “immediate” timeframe, would require deportation rates never before experienced in this country."

News Article PBS NewsHour November 4, 2016

New York City defied national trends, cut incarceration rate in half, study finds

In this story by PBS NewsHour's The Rundown, Ryan Connelly Holmes quotes Better By Half  co-authors Judith Greene and Vincent Schiraldi, as they question the efficacy of mass incarceration as a crime control strategy, and point to how community activism for diversion and sentencing alternatives, changes in police enforcement and District Attorney charging practices, as well as the 2009 Rockefeller Drug Law reforms, have led to a reduction of better than 50 percent in NYC's jail and prison populations, over two decades.  The study points the way for other jurisdictions to follow, the authors state.

News Article The Marshal Project October 28, 2016

Better by Half: How New York City Cut Crime and Incarceration at the Same Time

In this Op-Ed penned by Better by Half co-authors Vincent Schiraldi and Judith Greene, we describe the changes in New York State drug sentencing reforms and New York City policing and prosecutorial practices, from 1996 to 2014, that led to unprecidented reductions in the City's combined jail and prison incarceration rates of fifty-five percent, while, at the same time, serious index crimes were reduced by fifty-eight percent.  Follow the links provided to read the editiorial and our related publication Better by Half.

News Article New York Daily News October 28, 2016

NYC jail, prison incarceration rates drop by over 50 percent as crime falls

With quotes from Judith Greene and Vincent Schiraldi, Daily News reporter Dareh Gregorian covers our latest publication, Better by Half, that describes how the City cut jail and prison incarceration by fifty-five percent from 1996 to 2014, while also decreasing serious crime by fifty-eight percent during the same time period.  This feat was accomplished even as incarceration rates in New York State have grown, as a whole, and incarceration is up nationally by twelve percent.  Follow the link to read the original news article and the findings of Better by Half.

JS Publication October 28, 2016

Better by Half: The New York City Story of Winning Large-Scale Decarceration while Increasing Public Safety

Released in the midst of a growing national discussion about ending mass incarceration, a new publication highlights New York’s reversal on incarceration and offers lessons on how other cities and states can substantially reduce incarceration while promoting safety. 

In Better by Half, co-authors Judith Greene, Director of Justice Strategies, and Vincent Schiraldi, Senior Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Program in Criminal Justice, describe how New York City, which once struggled with overflowing jail populations and high rates of violent crime, cut its combined jail and prison incarceration rate by 55 percent and reduced serious crime by 58 percent between 1996 and 2014. 

By contrast, the national incarceration rate grew by 12 percent during the same time period, and was accompanied by a more modest decrease in serious crime of 42 percent. By 2014, New York City earned the distinction of having the lowest crime rate of the nation’s 20 largest cities, and the second lowest jail incarceration rate. And New York State had become one of three states (along with New Jersey and California) leading the nation in terms of prison population reductions. Read more »

JS Publication July 26, 2016

Zero Tolerance: A Case Study of Police Policies and Practices in New York City

This article by director Judith Greene first appeared in the Sage Publication journal Crime and Delinquency in April of 1999.  In it Judith argues that Zero Tolerance produced an increase in Civilian Complaint Review Board filings and lawsuits alleging police misconduct but not the decreases in crime its proponents claimed.  To assert this point the author presents a case study comparing New York City's Zero Tolerance policy with San Diego's problem oriented community policing that produced effective crime control with fewer negative impacts on urban neighborhoods.

News Article Immigration Impact July 20, 2016

New Book Documents 10 Years of Operation Streamline

This story in Immigration Impact, a publication of the American Immigration Council covers key findings of our book Indefensible. The author quotes Judge Felix Recio, retired federal magistrate in Brownsville, Texas, who said Operation Streamline prosecutions have no deterent effect whatsoever.

News Article Tucson Sentinel.com July 14, 2016

Advocates: Fast-track immigration courts costly, ineffective

This Tucson Sentinel article quotes Indefensible author Judith Greene and co-author Bethany Carson, with additional quotes of Judge Felix Recio, retired Federal Magistrate for Brownsville, Texas.  Reporter Paul Ingram of the Sentinel explains how programs such as Operation Streamline rely on privately operated for-profit prisons under contract with the federal government to incarcerate migrants, and how, since 2003, 155 people have died in ICE facilities nationwide. 

News Article San Antonio Current.Com July 15, 2016

The Feds Have Spent Billions Jailing People for Illegal Immigration

The San Antonio Current covers the release of Justice Strategies' and Grassroots Leadership's lastest publication, our book titled: Indefensible: A Decade of Mass Incarceration of Migrants Prosecuted for Crossing the Border.  Key findings discussed in the book are highlighted.