By Ruthie Kesri Responding safely to behavioral health crises requires sensitivity, extensive training and de-escalation practice. Police have become the de facto first responders to those crises despite rarely receiving adequate training to safely and effectively handle the situation. The Wilson Center recently hosted a roundtable discussion on the topic. The event brought together three […]
Category: Student Work
Urban Institute Report: NC Revocations on Decline Thanks to Justice Reinvestment Act
By Annie Han The Urban Institute recently released an assessment of the outcomes from changes made to the Supervision Revocation Policy in 2011. The report examines outcomes for individuals on probation, post-release supervision, and parole supervision before and after the changes were implemented. In 2010, North Carolina’s prison population was projected to increase 10 percent […]
Durham Invests in Police Alternative to Address Gun Violence
By De’Ja Wood The 2020 murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, and countless others catalyzed national protests against the police state and discourse about the need to reimagine public safety. Organizers across the nation, including in Durham, began to demand their local and state governments divest from the police and carceral […]
Attorney for Man Granted Clemency: At Minimum, Legal System Should Clear Hurdles for Exonerated
By Ruthie Kesri Gov. Roy Cooper announced in late December he would be issuing pardons of innocence to five men he believed were innocent, serving time for crimes they did not commit. Cooper’s actions allow for those five men to apply to receive compensation from the state for each year they were wrongly imprisoned. In […]
Support During Justice System Re-entry: A Look at Critical Time Intervention
By Chinmay Amin It’s widely documented that individuals who live in homeless shelters and suffer from mental illness often experience cycles of recurrent homelessness during their transition to living independently. The same is true for homeless persons with mental illness navigating justice system re-entry. After staying in a shelter for an extended period of time, […]
Brayne Talks Police Surveillance in First Novel Justice Event
By Belle Allmendinger The Wilson Center welcomed Sarah Brayne, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, for the first installment of the Novel Justice series, which invites recently published criminal justice authors to present their work and discuss their findings. Brayne’s book, Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion and the Future of […]
Online Conference Offers Scholars Maximum Feedback on Research
By Belle Allmendinger The Wilson Center and Duke Law’s Ben Grunwald hosted the inaugural Empirical Criminal Law Roundtable in December. “We are so pleased to have gathered together such an impressive and collegial group of scholars from across the country, to share their works in progress and provide feedback designed to improve the quality of […]
A Deeper Dive into the Recent Racial Equity Task Force Recommendations
By Annie Han In December, North Carolina’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC) released 125 recommendations that encompass all aspects of the criminal justice system, starting with police contact, then the courts, and sentencing. “North Carolina can reimagine public safety to provide accountability for victims and safety for communities without the grotesque […]
Student Post: Policing Term ‘Excited Delirium’ Should Not Justify Risky Ketamine Use
By De’Ja Wood This summer, the murder of George Floyd seized national attention and sparked protests and discourse about police violence across the country. The ongoing discussion about police brutality led to an online petition calling for Colorado government agencies to reopen the investigation in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year old Black man […]
Wandering Officer Research Could Create More Transparency in Police Hiring
By Sydney Gaviser In light of high-profile police uses of force and subsequent protests this summer, police officers have been scrutinized more than ever. While some of the conversation has related to rules for police use of force and how police are funded, or defunded, another focus has been on how police officers are hired, […]