New data from Minnesota shows that the state has seen a significant decline in asset forfeitures by law enforcement agencies, with a 35% drop over the last five years and a 15% decrease since 2021. This comes after legislation was passed in 2021 to limit police from seizing cash amounts less than $1,500 and making certain vehicle forfeitures without a criminal conviction.

A court case involving language in the nation's most prominent federal bipartisan criminal justice reform will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, and the dispute at hand involves how to interpret the word 'and' in the law. The issue in the case, Pulsifer v. United States, is how to determine ineligibility for the sentencing safety valve—or departure from a mandatory minimum sentence—and whether meeting of any the three criteria is enough to disqualify someone from the safety valve, or if they must meet all three criteria to be ineligible. 

new task force on violent crime met for the first time this month in Louisiana, giving a preview of what many advocates and insiders in the state expect to be a tough-on-crime legislative session next year. Created by legislative resolution, the group has taken aim at reforms passed as a part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative in 2017, a package of legislative accomplishments advocates point out were focused on diverting nonviolent and low-level drug offenders from prison and not intended to deal with violent crime, which is the task force's main focus. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on prison oversight this week where they questioned Bureau of Prisons Director Collette Peters on whether she's adequately delivering on promises to turn the BOP around and expressed discontent with the timeliness of responses to requests for information. The hearing came amid widespread scrutiny over prison conditions covered in previous Five Things emails, including sexual misconduct by corrections officers at numerous federal facilities, and a desire for change represents an area of strong bipartisan agreement.

his week, a panel of federal appellate judges unanimously ruled officials in Wayne County, Michigan are violating citizens’ 14th Amendment rights by seizing their vehicles for months without an opportunity to contest the seizure. The 6th Circuit ruled that Wayne County must provide car owners a post-seizure court hearing within two weeks.

In the late 80's and early 90's, beltway politicians undertook a radical crackdown on crime that shifted American's perception of the role of prisons and incarceration. The result: exploding prison populations, ever expanding corrections budgets, and voters who lost faith in the system.

“Republican voters deserve to know where their presidential candidates stand on public safety, and Wednesday night’s debate gave them a preview of what’s to come throughout the election cycle. Every violent crime in America is a tragedy, and substance abuse and mental health issues are important issues that need to be taken seriously.

This week, the New York Times delved into the once commonly used practice of sentencing youths–some as young as 13-years-old—to life-without-parole sentences in Philadelphia, and some of the individuals subject to those sentences who have earned a second chance. Of the more than 300 child-lifers, all but a dozen have been resentenced.

Most Americans have to drive to get to work, shuffle kids back and forth to school, to buy groceries, and more—and that's especially true in states like Ohio. Yet, a new investigationpublished by The Marshall Project and News 5 Cleveland this week found that more than 200,000 Ohioans have their licenses suspended every year for non-driving related reasons, such as failure to pay a traffic ticket or child support.

The U.S. prison population is rapidly aging, and care for elderly inmates is expensive—costing taxpayers around $70,000 per prisoner annually. Meanwhile, some 50,000 people are serving sentences of life without parole, regardless of the progress they've made towards rehabilitation behind bars.

A federal judge ruled that a common traffic stop technique used by Kansas Highway Patrol unconstitutional last week. U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Vratil said that the "Kansas two-step" approach, where a state trooper re-approaches a vehicle they have pulled over after the apparent purpose of the stop has been accomplished, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions on searches and seizures.

Representatives Glenn Ivey (D-MD) and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) joined Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and John Cornyn (R-TX) to introduce the Kenneth P. Thompson Begin Again Act, a bipartisan bill that would remove the age requirement for those seeking an expungement order for a first-time federal drug possession offense.

The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the recently enacted SAFE-T Act which reforms the state’s pre-trial system this week, finding that Democratic legislators acted properly when they passed the law. As a result of this ruling, the use of cash bail as a condition of pre-trial release will end in Illinois.

Five decades after the creation of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Reason Magazine published a deep dive into the agency’s history, its controversial tactics for fighting drugs in America, and the impact it’s had on policing and incarceration. Despite an annual budget that has ballooned to over $3.2 billion, the agency has had no measurable impact on the use and prevalence of drugs in our communities.

American Conservative Union's David Safavian and Faith & Freedom's Tim Head authored a joint op-ed in The Hill this week that calls recent criticism of federal criminal justice reforms an “ill-informed, short sighted mistake.” Instead, they advocate “now is not the time to shy away from improving the criminal justice system; instead, we should build upon the First Step Act’s success,” and emphasize that conservatives support reforms that that prioritize rehabilitation and accountability.

As election season continues to gain momentum, reporters are increasingly turning their attention to fact checking claims made by candidates in the earliest stages of their campaigns, including Ron DeSantis' attack on former President Trump’s signature criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act. CNN's KFile recently took a deep dive into DeSantis' history with First Step, noting the Governor voted for an even stronger version of the bill during his time in Congress and has praised similar reintegration efforts in public forums prior to announcing his bid for the White House.

The federal Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act unanimously passed the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this week. Aimed at eliminating the financial incentive for government agencies like the FBI to seize property or assets from individuals who may not ever be charged or accused of committing a crime, the bipartisan FAIR Act stops short of requiring a criminal conviction for forfeiture, but takes important steps to better protect people's property rights and rein in potential abuses.

Preliminary data published in The Atlantic this week suggests that the United States may be experiencing a sharp decline in murders committed this year. Data from more than 90 cities shows a 12% decrease in murders compared with data released from the same period last year.

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that if he is elected president, he would seek the repeal of the First Step Act—a major criminal justice reform bill signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018—even though he voted for a version of the bill while he was a member of Congress. The criticism of DeSantis’ remarks was swift and strong over the weekend, but no reporters went quite so deep as Reason's CJ Ciaramella, who highlighted both the bill's positive impact and how badly DeSantis misrepresented its provisions.