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Departing AG Limits DOJ Consent Decrees

Shortly before resigning his post, as requested by President Trump, ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued guidelines for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to follow when seeking consent decrees with police departments or other units of state or local government. The likely result will be to keep DOJ out of state and local law enforcement investigations,

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DOJ Rolls Back Obama Program Aimed at Fixing Police Problems

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Sept. 15 that, effective immediately, it is making significant changes in a program launched six years ago to investigate and issue reports of problems in some local police agencies. The Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance (CRI-TA), part of DOJ’s Office of Community Policing Services, was launched

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Grassley Prods Silent BOP on Remedies for Wrong Release Dates

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) is demanding answers from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on why it hasn’t acted on recommendations made last May by the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general to reduce incorrect incarceration release dates. First, a little history: Jermaine Hickman, convicted in 2007 of bank robbery, was supposed to

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What Will Trump Team Do On DOJ Private Prison Ban?

In what the American Civil Liberties Union hailed as a groundbreaking step, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced with great fanfare in August that it planned to stop using private prisons. The announcement followed the release a week earlier of a report by DOJ’s inspector general finding private prisons generally have higher assault and use

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DOJ, ABA: Financial Bail System Is Unconstitutional, Bad Policy

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the American Bar Association (ABA) have each submitted amicus curiae “friend of court” briefs in a class-action lawsuit that attacks the bail system used by the city of Calhoun, Georgia. The case of Walker v. City of Calhoun began on September 3, 2015, when Maurice Walker, an unemployed

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DOJ’s Private Prison Phaseout Has Complex Roots

Part II: How the Policy Came About and Will It Last? Read Part I: What DOJ and the Bureau of Prisons Have Planned In a blog last week, I summarized the Department of Justice’s August 18 announcement it plans to stop sending federal inmates to privately-owned prisons. Now, let’s look at the background leading up

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Advocates Urge Obama to Speed Up DOJ Commutation Initiative

Dozens of criminal justice reform activists have publicly told President Barack Obama his personal intervention is needed to keep the clemency initiative his administration announced in 2014 from falling victim to a “bureaucratic logjam” at the Department of Justice (DOJ). A joint letter went to the president on June 21 from more than 40 law

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DOJ Inspector General: Sentences Miscalculated for Thousands

A recent report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) federal watchdog says mistakes resulted in incorrect amounts of prison time being served by more than 4,000 federal prisoners during the six years between 2009 and 2014. The 41-page report, “Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Untimely Releases of Inmates,” issued on May 24, examined

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