Crime
Commentary
San Francisco’s Justice System Is Breaking Down
San Francisco’s criminal justice system may be reaching a breaking point. A San Francisco Superior Court judge recently found Public Defender Mano Raju in contempt and imposed fines after the office continued declining court-assigned cases in defiance of a prior order to stop doing so. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins says ...
Blog
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...
Blog
Bay Area police oversight is in turmoil—and the real problem is inside the oversight system itself
Civilian police oversight was built on a simple premise: internal police discipline was not enough on its own. Independent civilian review would add transparency, improve accountability, and strengthen public trust. That model now exists in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Jose. But its defining feature today is not success ...
Blog
Road to Freedom – Unravelling the Riddle of David Allen Funston
California’s “elderly parole” system, created under AB 3234 and related statutory reforms, allows incarcerated people to be considered for release once they reach age 50 and have served at least 20 years. It is routinely described as a compassionate mechanism for aging inmates and prison population management. But the label ...
Blog
BOOK REVIEW: Does backing the blue mean backing unions’ ‘Blue Power’?
Five years ago, in response to George Floyd’s death, the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute issued a report outlining methods to move toward a “criminal justice system — police, courts, prison, reentry, community supervision — that is focused on the safety, health and well-being of communities rather than ...
Blog
The Funston Case – The Dangerous Myth of the “Elderly Inmate”
In California, a life sentence rarely means life. With limited exceptions — death penalty cases, life without parole (LWOP) sentences, and certain murder convictions — most inmates serving life terms will eventually become eligible for release. In 2021, lawmakers passed AB 3234, lowering the age for “elderly parole” eligibility from ...
Blog
Legislature’s Anti-ICE Measures Would Bring Unintended Consequence of Betraying California’s Veterans
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D- Hollister) and Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D- Los Angeles) have announced Assembly Bill 1896, legislation to bar Department of Homeland Security employees who participated in immigration enforcement during the second Trump administration from holding any public employment in California — including peace‑officer positions. It’s the most ...
Blog
On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle
The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
Blog
Treating Drug Trafficking Like a Security Threat Matters at Home
For decades, the United States has responded to drug trafficking primarily through domestic law enforcement and public health frameworks. Those approaches matter, but they hit a wall when drug supply chains are protected by political power abroad. At that point, local enforcement is reacting to the problem, not shaping it. ...
Blog
Sexual Assault at California’s Colleges and Universities: A Policy and Public Safety Issue
California Campus Data Clery data from California’s largest universities illustrate the scale of the issue: UC Berkeley and UCLA each reported 61 rapes in 2023. When adjusted for student population, this equates to rates of 184.5 per 100,000 students at UC Berkeley and 164 per 100,000 at UCLA—approximately four to six times the statewide ...
San Francisco’s Justice System Is Breaking Down
San Francisco’s criminal justice system may be reaching a breaking point. A San Francisco Superior Court judge recently found Public Defender Mano Raju in contempt and imposed fines after the office continued declining court-assigned cases in defiance of a prior order to stop doing so. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins says ...
BOOK EXCERPT Urban Policy Beyond the Nation’s Big Metros: Smaller-City Case Studies from California, Washington and Michigan
It’s easy to think that urban policy is solely about big cities and their surrounding suburbs, much in the way that one would naturally believe that farm policy is solely about farm regions. A quick perusal of the statistics suggests that America is indeed an urban nation despite its vast ...
Bay Area police oversight is in turmoil—and the real problem is inside the oversight system itself
Civilian police oversight was built on a simple premise: internal police discipline was not enough on its own. Independent civilian review would add transparency, improve accountability, and strengthen public trust. That model now exists in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Jose. But its defining feature today is not success ...
Road to Freedom – Unravelling the Riddle of David Allen Funston
California’s “elderly parole” system, created under AB 3234 and related statutory reforms, allows incarcerated people to be considered for release once they reach age 50 and have served at least 20 years. It is routinely described as a compassionate mechanism for aging inmates and prison population management. But the label ...
BOOK REVIEW: Does backing the blue mean backing unions’ ‘Blue Power’?
Five years ago, in response to George Floyd’s death, the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute issued a report outlining methods to move toward a “criminal justice system — police, courts, prison, reentry, community supervision — that is focused on the safety, health and well-being of communities rather than ...
The Funston Case – The Dangerous Myth of the “Elderly Inmate”
In California, a life sentence rarely means life. With limited exceptions — death penalty cases, life without parole (LWOP) sentences, and certain murder convictions — most inmates serving life terms will eventually become eligible for release. In 2021, lawmakers passed AB 3234, lowering the age for “elderly parole” eligibility from ...
Legislature’s Anti-ICE Measures Would Bring Unintended Consequence of Betraying California’s Veterans
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D- Hollister) and Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D- Los Angeles) have announced Assembly Bill 1896, legislation to bar Department of Homeland Security employees who participated in immigration enforcement during the second Trump administration from holding any public employment in California — including peace‑officer positions. It’s the most ...
On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle
The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
Treating Drug Trafficking Like a Security Threat Matters at Home
For decades, the United States has responded to drug trafficking primarily through domestic law enforcement and public health frameworks. Those approaches matter, but they hit a wall when drug supply chains are protected by political power abroad. At that point, local enforcement is reacting to the problem, not shaping it. ...
Sexual Assault at California’s Colleges and Universities: A Policy and Public Safety Issue
California Campus Data Clery data from California’s largest universities illustrate the scale of the issue: UC Berkeley and UCLA each reported 61 rapes in 2023. When adjusted for student population, this equates to rates of 184.5 per 100,000 students at UC Berkeley and 164 per 100,000 at UCLA—approximately four to six times the statewide ...