by Jo Ellen Knott
Rand, a nonprofit research organization, published a research brief on January 9, 2024, that proves hiring individuals with criminal records is not risky and has benefits for the employer, the individual seeking employment post-incarceration, and society.
The brief titled “Resetting the Record: The Facts on Hiring ...
by Jo Ellen Knott
On January 10, 2024, Forensic Mag delivered astonishing news: Research out of Columbia University and the University at Buffalo radically challenged the long-held belief that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person are always unique and unmatchable.
The research team, led by Columbia Engineering undergraduate ...
by Jo Ellen Knott
The First Step Act (“FSA”), a 2018 law designed to curb recidivism among formerly incarcerated individuals on the federal level, is showing modest but positive results in reducing the amount of time people serve in the federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) system.
An analysis performed by ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Vince Schiraldi talks private probation and parole in his new book Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion of Safety and Freedom. When Schiraldi was selected to run the troubled New York Department of Corrections (“DOC”) during the COVID pandemic crisis, the New York Times called ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
F.D. Zigan, a veteran crime scene investigator who specializes in fingerprint analysis for the Roswell Police Department in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, writes about the disconnect between evidence collection and scene reconstruction in Forensic Magazine, November 2023.
Zigan points out that in a world of specialization, a ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Imagine a courtroom where a defendant’s fate is being decided. But instead of evidence, jurors rely on an unconscious judgment based on downturned lips or a heavy brow. Scientists at Columbia University have proven that people unfairly believe that those specific facial features mark a person ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
The First Step Act (“FSA”) is a bipartisan criminal justice bill passed in 2018 to reform federal prisons and sentencing laws to reduce reoffending, decrease the federal prisoner population, and maintain public safety.
The Council on Criminal Justice published the results of an early analysis of ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Wrongful convictions are a troubling aspect of the criminal justice system in the United States. Most experts estimate the rate of falsely convicted prisoners to be between four and six percent.
Studies report that eyewitness misidentification of strangers is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, contributing ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
In a move applauded by privacy advocates, Amazon-owned Ring announced on January 24, 2024, that it will no longer allow police to request doorbell camera footage directly from users through the Request for Assistance (“RFA”) tool on its Neighbors app. However, the company’s broader surveillance practices ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Dr. Robert Maher, electric and computer engineer who has researched and studied gunshot acoustics at the University of Montana, published the results of a two-year study on synchronizing and processing audio recordings of gunshots in 2018. His research was sponsored by a National Institute of Justice ...
