In a recent article for Law360 Access to Justice, Alexandra Natapoff of UC Irvine School of Law examines the misdemeanor process in the U.S. criminal justice system. Professor Natapoff argues that the misdemeanor system is “under-regulated and rarely scrutinized. And it is rife with official rule-breaking.”

She suggests that while these types of crimes are the most common they are the least regulated and the offenders are often denied basic rights and services because misdemeanor crimes are often discounted as being petty and unimportant. She concludes that these crimes, which represent a huge majority of the U.S. criminal system, need to be revised and updated to reflect the standards of the modern legal era.

Read the full article here.