A review of 2,900 drug possession arrests in Travis County from June 2017 to May 2018 reveals troubling police practices that harm communities, exacerbate racial disparities in arrests and jail detention, and fail to address underlying needs of people who use drugs.
Ahead of the Harris County Commissioners Court’s first set of preliminary budget hearings today, a slew of advocacy groups in and around Houston slammed Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg for an expected funding request for additional prosecutors for her office and called on Commissioners to reject the request, the fifth such ask by DA Ogg’s office since the start of 2019.
In a public letter released just before Thanksgiving, several local criminal justice reform groups asked Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore to implement a “‘No Call’ policy for officers who've “committed perjury and other acts of grave misconduct." The letter notes, these officers "cannot be relied upon to tell the truth on the stand or in any documents that impact a person’s liberty.”
While package thefts are nothing new, there is a new state law in place. Typical theft charges are based on the value of what’s stolen; the more expensive the item, the bigger the charge. But the new law counts packages, not dollars.
When the suspect in a brutal attack at a downtown parking garage bonded out of jail not once, but twice, it sparked a public outcry. Why did judges set David Cadena's bail to low, critics asked after a Dallas waitress was beaten so badly with a fire extinguisher that she lay in a coma with her eyes swollen shut for two days.
In an email obtained by the Scene, a homeless-services provider says that people experiencing homelessness are not responding well to Nashville’s new winter overflow shelter — in part because it’s a converted jail.
Senior Policy Analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC), Douglas Smith, challenged his audience on Thursday Oct.17 to imagine a world without police officers or prisons. Smith, a St. Edward’s alumni and formerly incarcerated person, spoke on his six year experience in prison and how the United States currently resides in an era of mass incarceration.
Last week, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) released a guide to positive youth and adult justice legislation that became law in Texas in 2019. The guide, which is organized by bill area, is free and available online at the TCJC website.
A new police contract between the city of Austin and the Austin Police Association could take five to six months of negotiating, said Ron DeLord, an attorney and police union contract consultant involved in the negotiations, at a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by Leadership Austin, a nonprofit that trains and connects local leaders.
The Dallas County district attorney, Faith Johnson, often reminds voters that she recently won a rare murder conviction against a white police officer who shot into a car full of teenagers, killing a black 15-year-old boy.
