Related Papers
Frontlines: Policing at the Lexus of Race and Mental Health
2016 •
Camille Nelson
he last several years have rendered issues at the intersection of race, mental health, and policing more acute. The frequency and violent, often lethal, nature of these incidents is forcing a national conversation about matters which many people would rather cast aside as volatile, controversial, or as simply irrelevant to conversations about the justice system. It seems that neither civil rights activists engaged in the work of advancing racial equality nor disability rights activists recognize the potent combination of negative racialization and mental illness at this nexus that bring policing practices into sharp focus. As such, the compounding dynamics and effects of racism, mental health, and policing remain underexplored and will be the foci of this Article. Lurking beneath the surface of these policing encounters is an issue of mental disability or, as I prefer to recognize this fluid state, mental vulnerability. Picking up from where my earlier Article, Racializing Disabilit...
Opioid Policing
2019 •
barbara fedders
This Article identifies and explores a new, local law enforcement approach to alleged drug offenders. Initially limited to a few police departments, but now expanding rapidly across the country, this innovation takes one of two primary forms. The first is a diversion program through which officers refer alleged offenders to community-based social services rather than initiate criminal proceedings. The second form offers legal amnesty as well as priority access to drug detoxification programs to users who voluntarily relinquish illicit drugs. Because the upsurge in addiction to — and death from — opioids has spurred this innovation, I refer to it as “opioid policing.” This new approach improves in key ways upon previous state responses to illicit drug use. Opioid policing has explicit public-health aims — seeking improved life outcomes for people addicted to drugs without relying on arrest. By contrast, the War on Drugs incentivized arrests, which create myriad negative consequences ...
Fordham Urban Law Journal
#Closerikers: The Campaign to Transform New York City's Criminal Justice System
2018 •
Janos Marton
Case Western Reserve Law Review
We We Can't Breathe: Reimagining Equal Protection as a Collective Can't Breathe: Reimagining Equal Protection as a Collective Right Right
2022 •
Alexandra Raleigh
This Note critically analyzes the ways in which police brutality— as a rights violation—is currently framed by the Supreme Court and the implications of such rights framing for the pursuit of racial justice in the United States. Since Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court has largely framed police brutality through a Fourth Amendment individual rights frame, holding excessive force as a violation by a singular officer of a person’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure. Increasingly dissatisfied with the Graham doctrine’s inability to recognize and redress the structural dimensions of police brutality, scholars have called for a re-examination of the potential of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an alternative mechanism by which the courts can take the structural dynamics of excessive force into account. Such calls, however, neglect the fact that police brutality under the Equal Protection Clause is similarly framed as a violation of an individual’s right to equality before the law. That is, the Supreme Court has adopted individual rights framing of the right to equal protection of the law, solidified by the intentional-discrimination requirement of Washington v. Davis, that constructs police brutality as an isolated harm caused by purposeful acts by individual officers motivated by racial prejudice. Ultimately, this Note argues that reconstructing police brutality under an equal-protection frame will fail to acknowledge and redress the structural causes and consequences of police excessive force until both equal protection and police brutality are reframed in collective terms. In other words, only when the nature of police brutality against individuals in the Black community is understood as a violation of the Black community’s collective right to equal protection, caused by structural practices and resulting in collective harms, can the Fourteenth Amendment offer Black people any kind of legal vehicle for the pursuit of racial justice in the context of state-sponsored violence.
The Cambridge Handbook of Policing in the United States
Pretext and Justification: Republicanism, Policing, and Race
2019 •
Ekow Yankah
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Acknowledging and Protecting Against Judicial Bias at Fact-Finding in Juvenile Court
2017 •
Prescott Loveland
As a public defender, I often represent young people from twelve to seventeen years old in juvenile court. My juvenile clients face a wide range of accusations and they come from various family circ*mstances. Nearly all of my juvenile clients, however, are young people of color from under-resourced communities. Many find themselves arrested for typical adolescent behavior and others are accused crimes that they did not commit. When counseling juvenile clients, I carefully explain the nuances of the juvenile justice system that is now aggressively examining their lives. I strive to provide information that will help them make informed decisions in court proceedings that treat them like adults despite their still-developing adolescent brains. To some of my clients, for example, I must explain that unless your behavior is nearly perfect in the coming months, you may not be home with your family for a long time. To many clients, I must explain the role of the judge in juvenile court. De...
Social Science Research Network
The School-to-Prison Pipeline's Legal Architecture: Lessons from the Spring Valley Incident and Its Aftermath
2018 •
Josh Gupta-Kagan
The School to Prison Pipeline\u27s Legal Architecture: Lessons from the Spring Valley Incident and its Aftermath
2017 •
Josh Gupta-Kagan
This Article examines the 2015 Spring Valley High School incident – the high-profile arrest of a Columbia, South Carolina high school student for “disturbing schools” in which a school resource officer threw her out of her desk – to identify and illustrate the core elements of the school-to-prison pipeline’s legal architecture, and to evaluate legal reforms in response to growing concern over the pipeline. The Spring Valley incident illustrates, first, how broad criminal laws transform school discipline incidents into law enforcement matters. Second, it illustrates how legal instruments that should limit the role of police officers assigned to schools (school resource officers) can direct their involvement in situations that school officials should handle without law enforcement. Third, too few diversion programs are operated by schools, leading to law enforcement involvement as a means to access such programs. Fourth, prosecutors too rarely exercise discretion to screen out charges...
City University of New York Law Review
2017 •
Corinthia Carter
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Youth Incarceration, Health, and Length of Stay
2017 •
Thalia Gonzalez
For youth from marginalized communities, the pathway into the juvenile justice system occurs against a backdrop of disproportionately high levels of stress, complex trauma, and adverse childhood experiences. Despite overall reductions in the percentage of youth in confinement from recent state-level reforms, the lengths of stay for many youth often exceed evidence-based timelines, as well as a state's own guidelines and criteria. This occurs despite a large and growing body of empirical research that documents the health status of system-involved youth and the association between incarceration during adolescence and the range of subsequent health and mental health outcomes in adulthood. Presently, advocates for length of stay reform rely on two primary arguments: recidivism and costs of confinement. This Article argues that this framing misses a critical component, as a better understanding of the linkages between length of stay, health, and mental health are essential for achie...
