The federal government’s “sequester,” a package of across-the-board budget cuts, starts today. Federal criminal justice agencies like the Bureau of Prisons aren’t happy about it. As NPR summarizes, “[c]orrections officers in the federal prison system are bracing for possible staffing cuts and furloughs . . . at a time when . . . inmate crowding and staff shortages in federal prisons are already posing challenges for guards trying to maintain order behind bars.” The federal court system is likewise planning for lean times, and federal grant funding for state agencies and organizations is likely to dwindle. In other news: Racial disparities falling. Some racial disparities in imprisonment have been falling recently. The New York Times reports here that “[i]ncarceration rates for black Americans dropped sharply from 2000 to 2009, especially for women, while the rate of imprisonment for whites and Hispanics rose over the same decade.” An expert cited in story suggests that a reduction in the “intensity of incarceration for drug offending” is part of the explanation. The story is based on a report by the Sentencing Project. Sentencing Commission on child pornography guidelines. Not to be confused with the Sentencing Project is the United States Sentencing Commission, which has also issued a noteworthy new report, on sentencing for child pornography offenses. For a long-winded government report, it’s pretty blistering about the child pornography guidelines, noting that judges usually don’t follow them; that they “no longer adequately distinguish[] among offenders based on their degrees of culpability”; and that “most stakeholders in the [...]
Faculty Coordinators
