The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has been declared by the World Health Organization to be a global pandemic. As the number of people infected in the United States grows exponentially, we must focus on prevention and containment in the criminal and immigration legal systems. Vera and Community Oriented Correctional Health Services have created a series ...
Estimating the Spread of COVID-19 among People in ICE Detention
Year 2 Evaluation
Although people accused of crimes in the United States are entitled to government-funded counsel for their defense, immigrants facing deportation are not. It is nearly impossible to prevail in immigration court without the assistance of counsel. Representation for everyone facing deportation is, therefore, a last line of defense to keep families an ...
An initiative focused on centering racial equity in prosecution reform
Motion for Justice is a product of the Dignity, Racial Justice, and Prosecution Initiative led by the Vera Institute of Justice’s Reshaping Prosecution program and John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.
To be an informed voter, it is important to understand the role of a district attorney (DA) and the impact of the DA’s choices. The Vera Institute of Justice’s New Orleans office developed this tool as a guide for residents participating in DA candidate forums and debates or performing research on the candidates. Voters can use this tool to familia ...
The United States detained 486,190 immigrants in prison-like conditions in 2019, inflicting unnecessary physical and emotional harm on vulnerable people at a $3.1 billion cost to American taxpayers. The government justifies this mass detention by assuming that immigrants will fail to show up to deportation proceedings unless they are confined. The ...
August is Black Philanthropy Month, a time to celebrate our rich history of communal giving and highlight the need for funding to help address community needs. On Wednesday, August 26, 2020, Vera New Orleans hosted an important conversation with partner organizations about the ways that philanthropy can take bold action to support social and crimi ...
A Review of the Research on Plea Bargaining
Most criminal cases that result in conviction—97 percent in large urban state courts in 2009, and 90 percent in federal court in 2014—are adjudicated through guilty pleas. Of these, researchers estimate that more than 90 percent are the result of plea bargaining—an informal and unregulated process by which prosecutors and defense counsel negotiate ...
Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and Jail
On any given night in the United States, more than 550,000 people experience homelessness. The U.S. legal system criminalizes survival behaviors associated with homelessness and fails to acknowledge that people who are homeless face impossible odds within the legal process. Black people, who already face a disproportionate risk of homelessness, are ...
How to urgently decarcerate Louisiana in the era of COVID-19
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the novel coronavirus remains a threat to incarcerated people. In Louisiana, there are more than 30,000 people serving sentences in prisons and jails. Many people across the state urged the governor, the head of the Department of Corrections and Public Safety (DOC), and local lawmakers to act within their power t ...
From mid-March to mid-April 2020—the first month of rapid spread of COVID-19 in the United States—there was an unprecedented reduction in the number of people held in local jails. Vera’s analysis of the most comprehensive jail data available shows that the number of people in jail in the United States fell by one quarter, mainly over the course of ...
A Virtual Event on the Power of District Attorneys in Criminal Justice
District attorneys wield enormous power in the criminal legal system. They have the power to decide the fate of people accused of crimes at every stage of a criminal case. They have tremendous sway over other actors throughout the criminal legal system, including policing practices and enforcement. We, the people, have the power to influence how th ...
Expedited Immigration Hearings Pose Danger to Detained Children’s Right to a Fair Process
The Guardianship Project serves as court-appointed agency guardians to a vulnerable, mostly indigent population—elderly and disabled people who lack family or other supports. The project’s multidisciplinary services provide essential support networks and enable clients to live as independently as possible—regardless of their ability to pay. The COV ...