Brandon Garrett Posts

Virtual Criminal Courts

As criminal courts around the United States suspended in-person proceedings, virtual hearings, where parties appear through videoconference or teleconference technology, have allowed courts to remain in session while reducing the danger to public health. Courts at all levels, from small municipal courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, have been hearing arguments remotely.

Changing the Law to Change Policing: Initial Steps

Several law school faculty, each of whom runs or is associated with a center devoted to the practice of policing and the criminal justice system, released the report “Changing the Law to Change Policing: First Steps” to address enduring problems in American policing.

Federal Criminal Risk Assessment

Risk assessments are a common feature of federal decisionmaking across a wide variety of areas of regulation. Perhaps the most widely used definition describes risk assessment as “the process of using risk factors to estimate the likelihood (i.e., probability) of an outcome occurring in a population.”

Risk and Resources: A Qualitative Perspective on Low-Level Sentencing in Virginia

Virginia’s sentencing guidelines include alternative sanctions based on the use of a quantitative instrument called the Nonviolent Risk Assessment (NVRA) that identifies individuals convicted of drug and property crimes that are considered to be at lower risk of recidivism. In this study, the authors explore how judges make use of the NVRA instrument when sentencing individuals convicted of low‐level drug and property crimes.