Racial discrimination in policy and policing has been a consistent problem in Texas since its inception. In a nod to this historical reality, Texas took the small step of putting laws on its books requiring law enforcement agencies to report…
Category: Criminal Justice Reform
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
There has always been a stark contrast between the quality of justice dispensed by the American criminal justice between wealth and poverty. The bottom line is this: justice tends to favor wealth. Some will argue that it is a natural…
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Misconduct
The Texas Legislature has a significant piece of legislation pending before it calling for meaningful police reform. The failure to address the merits of the proposed Texas George Floyd Act will result in continued unjustified police misconduct, abuse, and homicides…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
The COVID virus has devastated American jails and prisons. By the end of 2020, one in every five inmates in the country had tested positive for the deadly virus—a rate four times higher than the general population. That translated into…
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Brutality
Imagine your nine-year-old daughter handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. Now imagine she was having a mental crisis and was pepper-sprayed by officers called to the scene for assistance, while confined in the back seat of the…
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Misconduct
On May 25, 2020, as the nation was coming to grips with the deadly coronavirus pandemic, a cellphone video emerged documenting Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin suffocating the life out of George Floyd during a brutal chokehold that lasted eight-minute…
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Misconduct
On December 22, 2020, a 19-year white veteran of the Columbus Police Department—44-year-old Adam Coy—shot and killed a 47-year-old African-American man named Andre’ Maurice Hill in his own garage. Coy and a fellow officer had responded to a 911 “non-emergency”…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
Since 2016, there have been five lawsuits filed in federal courts in Texas alleging equal protection and procedural due process violations concerning bail practices in Houston, Dallas, and Galveston.
As we reported in an August 2019 post, the Fifth Circuit…
2020
Category: Criminal Justice Reform
The current American criminal justice system has four key components: arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration.
On September 15, 2020, the Brennan Center released a report (“BC Report”) titled, “Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings: How Involvement With The Criminal Justice System…
2020
Politicians often make their personal and professional records the centerpiece of their campaigns to secure a public office or be reelected to one.
In the Houston-area 22nd Congressional District, Republican candidate Troy Nehls, a career cop with a checkered past,…