by Jayson Hawkins
Big Brother is still watching. Amid a growing chorus of troubling reports about the extraordinarily effective efforts of the police state in China to spy on its citizens’ online activity, evidence continues to accumulate showing that police excel at snooping around social media in America, too. In ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Public scrutiny of police behavior in recent years has mostly failed to bring about substantive change in the way police operate in America. Many causes have been put forward to explain the institutional resistance to change, from racism to police intransigence. A recent paper by Max M. ...
by Jayson Hawkins
A new Illinois statute is the first in the nation to require police to have a search warrant or the owner’s permission before accessing their data on a personal device. The Protecting Household Privacy Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2022, is intended to establish ...
by Jayson Hawkins
A new study published in the American Sociological Review (“ASR”) challenges the efficacy and rationale of the growing body of fees and fines being imposed for minor offenses in courts across the U.S. The study asserts that these fines have no deterrent value and simply punish, or ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Civil forfeiture, the government confiscation of cash or assets believed to be related to criminal activity, has been a favorite tool of police since the early days of the war on drugs. The process requires a low burden of proof, the money goes directly to police budgets, ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Few terms conjure a more apprehensive reaction than “sex offender.” Yet, like those convicted of any other crimes, the vast majority of sex offenders eventually serve their sentences and return to society. Various localities have adopted policies limiting where such individuals may live, usually by barring them ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Eyewitness testimony is often central to criminal trials, and even though the quality of that testimony has repeatedly come under fire in the age of DNA-based exonerations, the value of eyewitness accounts has not diminished. This value stems from the high level of confidence that people — ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The tale reads like a Hollywood version of undercover police work, but Operation Trojan Shield really happened. The FBI was monitoring encrypted traffic on the “black devices” favored by criminals as soon as they came out of the box. Now, new questions are being asked about the ...
by Jayson Hawkins
All the attention garnered by cops murdering unarmed Black men in America in recent years has led to widespread calls for “police reform,” a rather ambiguous term advocating changes in how police interact with communities of color and new policies to counteract decades of mass incarceration. Lost ...
by Jayson Hawkins
On April 20, 2022, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the formation of a Post-Conviction Justice Unit (“PCJU”) to review questionable convictions in Manhattan. The announcement included not only the parameters for filing a petition for review but also a clear statement of intention by the Manhattan ...
