Criminal Justice Policy Review

Bills, Matthew A.; Vaughn, Michael S.

doi: 10.1177/08874034221112847pmid: N/A

Hate-motivated crime remains problematic in the United States. California passed the first hate crime law in 1978; Congress followed in 1990. States continue to amend their hate crime legislation, producing an amalgam of statutory provisions. This article creates a conceptual framework from which to classify hate crime legislation across the 50 states and Washington, DC. Laws were identified through Westlaw. Analyses compared the types of crimes covered, discrete and insular minorities protected, prosecutorial alternatives, mandates for law enforcement agencies, and additional rights provided to victims among states’ legislation. Considerable variation in scope and content of hate crime legislation exists among states, leaving several vulnerable groups unprotected, law enforcement underprepared, and victim rights and resources sparse. Future directions for hate crime policy and legislation are discussed.

Nowotny, Jordan; Shlosberg, Amy; McAndrew, Thomas

doi: 10.1177/08874034221106747pmid: N/A

Wrongful convictions are an indicator of the flaws of the American justice system and represent the consequences of disproportionate crime control policies. To date, few scholars have documented how the public views wrongful conviction frequency or who is responsible for these miscarriages of justice. In this study, we draw on a national sample to examine public perceptions of the prevalence of wrongful convictions and the degree to which the public believes the government is responsible for compensation after a wrongful conviction. Our results demonstrate that most Americans believe felony wrongful convictions happen at least occasionally and that the government should provide compensation to exonerees. These findings are not consistent across groups. Race, political affiliation, gender, and age are significantly related to differences in views of wrongful conviction frequency. Likewise, age and political affiliation are significantly related to differences in support of government compensation. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Schmuhl, Margaret; Mills, Colleen E.; Silva, Jason; Capellan, Joel

doi: 10.1177/08874034221128939pmid: N/A

The death penalty is a local phenomenon with 15% of U.S. counties responsible for passing death sentences since 1976. Although state-level research has contributed a greater understanding of abolition and state-level factors surrounding the death penalty, it remains crucially important to understand the sociopolitical context of counties as key decision-makers in death penalty cases. Findings from our study suggest that both racial and gender threats are important predictors of death sentences within these communities. Specifically, counties with Black populations greater than the state median experience increases in all death sentences, while gender equality in education produces an ameliorative effect on death sentencing. The persistence of extralegal factors, especially racial bias, influencing death sentencing suggests that these relationships be carefully considered in the research and administration of capital sentencing.

Hawes, Morgan B.; Slakoff, Danielle C.; Anguelov, Nikolay

doi: 10.1177/08874034221098909pmid: N/A

Within the United States, there is an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Using data from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) repositories on missing and unidentified women, we examined how demographic and regional differences affected case status. Within the NamUs database, we found that American Indian/Alaska Native women are 135% more likely to be listed within the “unidentified remains” cases than women of other races. The results also showed that in states with relatively high urban population densities, women of all races were 250% more likely to be found dead and remain unidentified than women in places with a low urban population. We conclude by discussing three areas in which policy can help bring Indigenous women’s plight back to the fore: (a) in data collection efforts, (b) in increased support for Tribal police, and (c) via the media’s purposeful focus on Indigenous issues.