Feds may be rethinking the drug war, but states have been leading the way
Faced with overcrowded prisons and soaring correctional costs, states are rethinking how to define and punish drug crimes.
America’s New Drug Policy Landscape
Lower support for death penalty tracks with falling crime rates, more exonerations
Over the past half-century, public support for the death penalty has generally tracked increases and declines in rates of violent crime.
Shrinking Majority of Americans Support Death Penalty
According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. A significant minority (37%) oppose the practice.
The Rise of Federal Immigration Crimes
Between 1992 and 2012, the number of offenders sentenced in federal courts more than doubled, driven largely by a 28-fold increase in the number of unlawful reentry convictions.
In 2013, 59% of deported immigrants convicted of a crime
More hate crimes motivated by victims’ ethnicity
In about half of the cases of reported hate crimes, victims believed their ethnic background motivated the offender.
Crime rises among second-generation immigrants as they assimilate
Second-generation immigrants are just “catching up” with the rest of us, a new study says.
Incarceration gap widens between whites and blacks
Black men were more than six times as likely as white men in 2010 to be incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and local jails.
Americans skeptical of value of enforcing marijuana laws
Roughly three–in-four Americans say government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth.
