California a leader in number of youths in prison for life http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/scotus/la-me-juvenile19nov19,1,231437.story?coll=la-news-politics-supreme_court Crack cocaine sentence cut is stalled by retroactivity http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07323/835088-85.stm NPR: Should Sentencing Reform Be Retroactive? [Real...

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) conducts research on a wide range of topics and its work is frequently cited by scholars around the world. This intriguing piece was authored by Carolyn M. Moehling and Anne Morrison Piehl and released in May 2013. The 39-page paper looks into the statistical patterns behind immigrant assimilation into US prisons from 1900-1930 by drawing on newly...

In late April 2001, Human Rights Watch released a much-publicized report on male rape in US prisons. Featured in the New York Times and on Nightline, the 378-page report is the result of three years of research to "expose the problem of male rape in U.S. prisons." "It is based on information from over 200 prisoners spread among thirty-four states . . . as well as an exhaustive survey of state...

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch released a new report, Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs. Supporting its case with a plethora of Justice department data from the 1996 national Corrections Reporting Program (the latest version available), the report finds that drug penalties are disproportionately applied on the basis of race. In fact, "relative to population,...

The Sentencing Project "is an independent source of criminal justice policy analysis as well as data and program information for the public and policy-makers." The Website provides a wealth of information including a weekly update of news with links to relevant reports and Websites, summaries of the project's policy reports and a form for ordering the complete reports, selected free reports such...

The Sentencing Project (featured in the 11-28-2000 and 12-04-2015 Scout Report) has been a staple resource for members of the criminal justice community for over 30 years. Since we last featured the site, the Sentencing Project has continued to add to their resource collections and reports. Highlighted here is the State-by-State Data section, including three subsections that allow users to better...