Follow-up items from our class today on crime, alternatives and collateral consequences

Here are additional materials/links to follow up some matter discussed in class on Monday.  First, here are links to unpublished materials from our casebook for those really eager to dig deep into alternatives:

• Electronic Chapter 8: Non-Prison Punishments (see pp. 119-139 for coverage of the SCOTUS case Padilla and related discussions of collateral consequences)

• Electronic Chapter 10: Alternatives to Criminal Sentences (see pp. 31-62 for coverage of asset forfeiture, a topic that SCOTUS addressed in its recent Timbs ruling)

Second, here is  a link to the full huge new report from the US Commission on Civil Rights has today released in June titled "Collateral Consequences: The Crossroads of Punishment, Redemption and the Effects on Communities."   The report runs over 150 pages and provide a comprehensive modern accounting of collateral consequences along with reform recommendations. and here is part of the introductory letter from the Commission Chair:

This report provides an overview of the relevant data and arguments for and against the imposition of collateral consequences on people with criminal records.  Each year, federal and state prisons release more than 620,000 people to return to their communities.  While these individuals have often completely exited criminal supervision (for example, through a prison sentence or probation), individuals with criminal records still face potentially thousands of collateral consequences upon reentering society.  These collateral consequences are sanctions, restrictions, or disqualifications that attach to a person because of the person’s criminal history.  For example, individuals with criminal histories can face barriers to voting, jury service, holding public office, securing employment, obtaining housing, receiving public assistance, owning a firearm, getting a driver’s license, qualifying for financial aid and college admission, qualifying for military service, and maintaining legal status as an immigrant.  The reach of each collateral consequence extends past people with criminal records to affect families and communities.

Third, here is a recent report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the problem of child sexual abuse images (aka child porn). It starts with this accounting of its data:

At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC), our CyberTipline® has received more than 50 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation from its launch in 1998 through June 2019 – 18.4 million in 2018 alone. The vast majority of these reports contain child sexual abuse images – a stunning indictment of the insatiable demand for this abusive imagery on the internet. In the last decade, there’s been enormous progress made to disrupt the distribution of these images and prosecute those who share the experience of victimizing children with other offenders. In large part, this progress is due to technological advances to find these images online, leading to an increase in the number of reports to NCMEC’s CyberTipline.