As a matter of recent history in this country, we’re at quite an important moment, where the conversation and political attitudes towards criminal justice policy and sentencing policy seem to be shifting quite dramatically. Members of Congress and policy makers, law makers in state systems are talking a lot about the problems we have created through mass incarceration and mass punitiveness in other respects. This moment in history, I think is particularly fortunate and fortuitous for the Model Penal Code because we are arriving at the point of completion just as this new or changed national debate is occurring. – Kevin Reitz, Project Reporter
Reporters
Kevin Reitz
Reporter, Model Penal Code: Sentencing
Kevin Reitz is the James Annenberg La Vea Land Grant Chair in Criminal Procedure Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. In 1993, he organized the pilot meeting of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, which has gone on to become a nationwide resource for states contemplating or undertaking the process of sentencing reform. He continues to work with NASC and with state sentencing commissions nationwide.
Cecelia M. Klingele
Associate Reporter, Model Penal Code: Sentencing
Cecelia M. Klingele is an Assistant Professor at The University of Wisconsin Law School. Her academic research focuses on criminal justice administration, with an emphasis on community supervision of those on conditional release. She serves as a faculty associate of the Frank J. Remington Center and the Institute for Research on Poverty, and a research affiliate of the University of Minnesota Robina Institute’s Sentencing Law & Policy Program.
Brandon Garrett | January 4, 2019 | Sentencing
Recent Slate article by Brandon L. Garrett discusses the implementation of The First Step Act, the federal prison reform bill recently signed into law by President Donald Trump. The statute embraced two main types of interventions designed to reduce federal reliance...
Steve Zeidman | December 17, 2018 | Sentencing
As the year comes to a close, it is undeniably true that criminal justice reform is in the air. The federal First Step Act, even with critics on the left and right, heralds a less punitive approach than the “get tough on crime” policies of the past several decades....
Ryan King and Jeremy Kittredge | November 19, 2018 | Sentencing
Over the last two decades, the juvenile justice system has been celebrated for driving a decline in the use of confinement as lawmakers and practitioners changed policies and practices to move away from costly and ineffective use of secure facilities. This has...
James M. Anderson, Maya Buenaventura and Paul Heaton | November 13, 2018 | Sentencing
Abstract: Debates over mass incarceration emphasize policing, bail, and sentencing reform, but give little attention to indigent defense. This omission seems surprising, given that interactions with government-provided counsel critically shape the experience of the...
Gregory Jay Hall | October 25, 2018 | Sentencing
Abstract Starting August 21, 2018, Americans incarcerated across the United States have been striking back — non-violently. Inmates with jobs are protesting slave-like wages through worker strikes and sit-ins. Inmates also call for an end to racial disparities and an...
Peter A. Joy and Rodney J. Uphoff | October 23, 2018 | Sentencing
ABSTRACTIn theory, at least, many subscribe to the belief that it is better to let 10 or 100 guilty persons go free rather than convict an innocent person. Indeed, the American criminal justice system provides criminal defendants a panoply of important rights,...
