Diversion programs administered by CorrectiveSolutions, a for-profit company dogged for years by consumer rights litigation, often have left out those they were designed to help.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott canceled funds for Travis County after Sheriff Sally Hernandez refused to back down from her plans to institute a sanctuary city policy.
Courts in nearly 50 Alabama cities have stopped jailing people charged with misdemeanors simply because they can’t afford to post bond – a significant policy shift in a state that repeatedly has come under fire for legal practices that punish the poor.
The chief public defender in New Orleans says his office doesn’t have enough money or time to do a good job representing poor people accused of crimes. So he’s refusing some serious cases. His goal? To break the system in order to fix it.
New Mexicans overwhelmingly voted to limit the role of money in judges’ decisions about which defendants stay locked up and which go free before trial.
Before signing the federal Bail Reform Act in 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson heralded the legislation, saying it put the nation “at the threshold of a new era” in its criminal justice system. But 50 years later, few states have crossed that threshold.
