Entries tagged with “Vera Institute of Justice”

Facts & Research

Public Opinion

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Dec 06, 2022

Midterm Elections: Moratorium Supporters, Reform Prosecutors Post Gains Despite Massive Campaign Efforts to Tie Reformers to Surge in Violent Crime

In a year that fea­tured mas­sive cam­paign adver­tis­ing attempt­ing to por­tray legal reform­ers as respon­si­ble for increas­es in vio­lent crime, can­di­dates com­mit­ted to crim­i­nal legal reform or who promised to con­tin­ue statewide mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions post­ed key elec­tion wins in the 2022 midterm elec­tions. Defying a pre-elec­tion nar­ra­tive fore­cast­ing a back­lash against pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors and con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that fear of crime dri­ves polit­i­cal out­comes, reform pros­e­cu­tors were re-elect­ed to…

Death Row

Conditions on Death Row

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May 19, 2020

Oregon Closes Death Row, Joins National Trend Away from Automatic Solitary Confinement

The Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) has announced that it will close the state’s death row and inte­grate most of its cap­i­tal­ly sen­tenced pris­on­ers into the gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion. The move reflects the con­tin­u­ing decline of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Oregon and fol­lows a nation­wide trend of remov­ing death-row pris­on­ers from auto­mat­ic solitary…