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Criminal (In)justice

Problems with police, prosecutors and courts have people asking: is our criminal justice system broken? University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris interviews the people who know the system best, and hears their best ideas for fixing it. Criminal (In)justice is an independent production created in partnership with 90.5 WESA, Pittsburgh's NPR News Station.
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Now displaying: May, 2019
May 28, 2019

In the last five years, we’ve seen case after case of police
killing unarmed civilians – even people running away.
Usually, officers do not face charges; when they do, juries
often acquit them. Does the law governing police use of
force favor police?

Our guest, Professor Cynthia Lee, is one
of the leading thinkers on use of force law, and she’ll
discuss proposed changes.

May 24, 2019

Hundreds of former federal prosecutors are now on record that -- but for the Justice Department's policy against prosecuting sitting presidents -- the Mueller report contains ample evidence to bring obstruction charges against Donald Trump.

May 21, 2019

In the metropolitan heart of the tech industry, San Francisco bars police and city agencies from using facial recognition software. The latest in a string of recent stories we've been following on evolving technologies of surveillance.

CI #36 Alvaro Bedoya

CI #49 Barry Friedman

 

May 18, 2019

Apropos of our recent episode on ALPRs, Holly from Idaho asks: what can we, as citizens, do about these surveillance systems that seem to be popping up in the digital world?

May 14, 2019

Mass incarceration remains the hallmark of the US justice system, as it has been for decades. In the last ten years, in some states, we see less jail in low-level cases and more electronic monitoring. But does this just trade one form of custody for another?

Our guest, law professor Chaz Arnett, reveals the new world of e-carceration. He’s the author of “Virtual Shackles: Electronic Surveillance and the Adultification of Juvenile Courts” and "From Decarceration to E-carceration."

May 10, 2019

A federal court ruling on the practice of marking tires with chalk to enforce parking ordinances delivers an unexpected reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment.

May 5, 2019

Using ubiquitous traffic cameras that can read license plate numbers, cities are building automated surveillance networks that indiscriminately scoop up data on the movements of individual vehicles. When an Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) system sees a plate that matches one in a police database, officers are dispatched -- sometimes with guns drawn. These systems have shockingly high error rates. What could possibly go wrong?

Charlie Warzel, “When License-Plate Surveillance Goes Horribly Wrong”

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