Brennan Center for Justice

• Jack McDevitt, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Director Institute on Race and Justice, Northeastern University
• Deborah Small, Executive Director, Break the Chains

Jack McDevitt discussed challenges to advancing a claim of racial or ethnic disparity.  For one, the necessary data is usually unavailable. Generally, data is less available about those who are eligible but not subject to a criminal sanction. For example police departments generally keep no information on routine stops, and only maintain a record of individuals who are subject to formal decisions such as arrests. Jack also noted that data regarding motivations behind decisions by law enforcement is seldom available. For example, officers are normally not required to keep a record of exactly why they made a certain stop.  Still, some relevant data is available. One option may be to inquire at specific agencies responsible for collecting data on police activities as part of a larger information system.  Another option is to collaborate with an academic institution to make a request in partnership with an academic researcher.  In addition to providing the support of a larger institution, such a partnership can open up opportunities for external funding.  Last, Jack emphasized the importance of considering data in a larger context, noting that while certain statistics may not be useful on their own, they may be relevant when compared to other figures.  For example, if 27% of individuals who are stopped by police officers are African Americans, the data is most meaningful when compared to the total percentage of African Americans driving on that road or in the neighborhood.   

Deborah Small discussed data indicating racial disparities in marijuana drug arrests published in a report she co-authored with the New York Civil Liberties Union, Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Policy in New York City 1997-2007.  She noted that almost half of all drug arrests involve only marijuana, and that the majority of arrests involving marijuana are for possession rather than for intent to sell. These figures demonstrate an overwhelming willingness to persecute drug users, while there is little evidence that state actors are interested in tackling the root of the problem, drug addiction. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of arrests are of minorities, despite evidence of a higher instance of drug use among whites.  In Atlanta, for example, around 90% of all drug-related arrests are of African Americans, while only about 45% of the population is black

Many low-level arrests result from policing practices that emphasize “order-maintenance.”  Police officers have many incentives to make such arrests. For one, it is easier for police to arrest petty criminals who are less likely to be violent than serious offenders.  Also, these individuals are placed into the system and can be easily monitored in the future. A striking example of the impact of these policing policies is New York. From 1997-2006, there were approximately 362,000 marijuana possession arrests in New York City alone. This number is startling, but the impact goes beyond a mere statistic.  For each one of these arrests, the impact on the offender is profound.  As Deborah observed, being in police custody can be humiliating in itself.  These individuals – many of them juveniles – are handcuffed, placed in a police vehicle, and transported to a police station.  They remain in jail for a minimum period of 24 to 72 hours, and are fingerprinted and photographed upon arrival.  This process can have damaging consequences.  Arrests create permanent criminal records that hinder future prospects.  Indeed, there is a direct correlation between early entrance into the criminal justice system and an inability to complete school or get a job.  This can be understood as acclimatizing youth for prison. 

In closing, Deborah called on COD members – referring to them as community organizing defenders – to speak out against these problems in minority communities and to work to fix the system rather than just the individuals caught in the system.

Materials

Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City 1997-2007 (by Harry G. Levine & Deborah Peterson Small)
PowerPoint Presentation - The Use of Data to Identify Racial and Ethnic Disparities (by Jack McDevitt)

• Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative and NYU Professor of Clinical Law

Context is Everything:  How COD Members can use family ties and effective storytelling to garner community support for our clients.

• Claudia Trupp, Author & Senior Appellate Counsel, Center for Appellate Litigation

Claudia began her presentation recalling that at the beginning of her career she was reluctant to discuss her work as a public defender, realizing that most of her friends and family did not share her outrage about the inequities present in the criminal justice system.  However, after a health-related scare, she stayed up late at night working on a book, wanting to share her experiences with the public.  She chose six cases from her work to write about, interweaving stories from her career with stories from her home life.  Hard Time and Nursery Rhymes was published in April 2009.

Claudia noted that she was struck by how little the general public knows about public defense work.  She observed that it had become fashionable to talk about public defense work in terms of efficiency, but the general public often failed to see the humanity and individuality of the defendants and the families impacted by the criminal justice system.  In particular, she drew attention to the first case she wrote about in her book – an individual convicted of first degree murder for shooting a police officer.  Claudia described the connection she established with the client, and emphasized how important it was for the public to see him as more than the crime of which he was accused.

Claudia ended her session stressing the importance of incorporating effective storytelling in community-oriented defense work in order to prevent the dialogue from being fully dominated by the law and order side of the criminal justice system.  She also urged the audience to spread the word about public defense work by cultivating friendships with the media, collaborating with public relations departments at other organizations, and exercising their creative sides through blogs and other extended media opportunities.

Materials

"Hard Time and Nursery Rhymes" by Claudia Trupp

•   The Honorable Laura Safer Espinoza

The COD group had the privilege of visiting the Bronx Treatment Court and meeting with Judge Laura Safer Espinoza and her staff.  Judge Espinoza has been the presiding judge of the Bronx Treatment Court since it was established in 1999. 

The Court, operating with the cooperation of the Assistant District Attorney’s office, provides the option of treatment to those defendants with first-time, non-violent, drug charges.  The Court partners with outpatient and residential treatment programs and moves participants through a three-phased rehabilitation process that requires mandatory months of “clean time” and either employment or involvement in a vocational program.  Court staff informed us that they regularly discuss participants’ progress with the treatment providers and monitor participants’ compliance in monthly visits.  While program failure will result in prison time, if the program is completed successfully, the conviction is either dismissed or reduced.

On our visit we observed drug court participants come in for monthly status updates.  In what we were told was an exceptionally good day, most of the participants seemed to be doing well in their programs.  Judge Espinoza asked the participants if there were issues or complaints about their programs that they’d like to discuss, went through the results of the monthly drug test, and provided them with the comments from the treatment program staff.  We observed several of the participants “graduate” from one phase of the program to the next, a cause for celebration in the court, as exhibited by applause from the bench,  court officers, and participants themselves.  The docket also included several newcomers to the court, who pled guilty to the drug charges and were assigned to treatment programs.

The Court boasts a program completion rate of around 60 percent and three-year-out recidivism rate of 35 percent (versus 50 percent for a non-drug-court comparison group), and participants showed visible signs of pride at their success moving through the program.   

While our group was impressed by these statistics, as well as with the dedication of Judge Espinoza and her supportive and respectful interaction with the defendants, COD members raised a number of questions about the court’s cooperative model which relies on negotiated settlements as contrasted with more traditional adversarial engagement.

COD members asked whether those participating in the program had the right to counsel in the regular update proceedings we observed, where in certain instances sanctions were being applied.  Judge Espinoza explained that attempts are made for counsel to be present at any proceedings involving sanctions, but the right to counsel in the treatment court is extended only to formal sentencing proceedings. 

Some COD members said it is problematic to require defendants to plead guilty to felony charges before they can be enrolled in the program, and in doing so, forfeit the right to a trial, especially given the minimal level of counsel involvement in the plea proceedings.

These and other issues prompted deeper conversation that continued after our visit concerning the comparative merits and pitfalls of drug treatment courts.

Materials

The New York Times - Letting Judges Have a Say in Sentencing
The New York State Adult Drug Court Evaluation: Policies, Participants and Impacts (by the Center for Court Innovation)
Bronx Treatment Court - Client Information Guide

• Heidi Altman, Staff Attorney, Equal Justice Works Fellow, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem
• Angad Bhalla, Organizer, New Sanctuary Coalition
• Benita Jain, Co-Director, Immigrant Defense Project

The panelists spoke about strategies for public defenders to better serve immigrants who are at risk of detention and deportation as a result of contact with the criminal justice system. Panelists focused on available resources, how defenders can partner with community-based organizations, and opportunities to achieve broader policy reform.

Benita Jain, co-director of the Immigrant Defense Project, described the drastic repercussions for non-citizen immigrants who have contact with the criminal justice system. Benita spoke about who is at risk and the potential grounds for detention or deportation, and then outlined what defenders can do at the initial stages of a criminal case to help clients avoid detention or deportation. 

Benita also described the work that her organization, The Immigrant Defense Project (“IDP”), is doing to help defender programs serve immigrant communities. IDP recently produced a model protocol which includes various training modules that programs can use, given limited resources, to address immigration issues.  She encouraged defenders to reach out to her office for assistance with the protocol.

Heidi Altman, staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (“NDS”), spoke about the immigration services project at NDS and the challenges NDS has faced in setting up the project.  Project staff work with NDS defenders to advise every non-citizen client about the collateral consequences of conviction, whether or not the client is the subject of an immigration court proceeding.

Heidi highlighted the challenges of running such a project, including the problem of supervision and collaboration with defenders who are already over-burdened due to excessive caseloads and, most importantly, the problem of funding. It can be difficult to fund immigration counseling services, but one path is to use temporary fellowships to help create projects with greater permanence, as NDS is seeking to do.

Angad Bhalla, organizer at the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York, an interfaith network of immigrant families, faith communities, and organizations, spoke about ways in which the coalition is fighting deportation and how it has teamed up with public defenders to help keep immigrant families together. The Coalition endeavors to protect immigrants against hate, workplace discrimination, and unjust deportation, and to influence policy decisions by educating the public about the actual suffering of immigrant workers and families under current and proposed legislation.

The Coalition takes on some of the most legally challenging cases and works to win deferred action, an avenue of relief that can be granted on the basis of community support. The Coalition provides support to the individual and family during the process. Angad emphasized that this is one way in which community groups can augment services that defenders provide to immigrant clients.

Angad emphasized that partnerships between community organizations and public defender programs are valuable for both partners.  Community groups rely on defenders to secure hard-to-get facts about what is actually going on inside detention centers.  Defenders rely on organizations like the New Sanctuary Coalition to pull together support for the defense function from a broad range of allies (likely and unlikely), including churches, mosques, and synagogues.

Materials

Protocol for the Development of a Public Defender Immigration Service Plan
Immigrant Defense Project Guide
How ICE ACCESS Programs Interact with the Criminal Justice System
New Memo Regarding Probation Reporting to ICE
Drug Grounds of Removability
Immigrants and Pleas in Problem-Solving Courts: A Guide for Noncitizen Defendants and their Advocates
New York City's Collaboration with ICE Hurts its Own Residents

How can public defenders better enlist the support of community leaders/groups, criminal justice stakeholders (prosecutors, corrections, judges) and the public at large? 

• John Stuart, Minnesota State Public Defender
• The Honorable Pamela G. Alexander, President, Council on Crime and Justice

This session focused on ideas and themes for the conferees to take home in order to build community support for their work.  Judge Pamela Alexander and John Stuart discussed their experiences promoting criminal justice issues in their own communities. 

John highlighted some of work he has done as chief of the Minnesota State Public Defender’s office to support and increase his office’s engagement with the community.  As a result of these efforts, staff from his office have collaborated with civil rights advocates with the Council on Black Minnesotans, introduced judges to a local drug treatment center for use as a sentencing alternative, and partnered with a car dealership in a county where 65% of the juveniles on probation are Native American, to get jobs for juvenile clients trying to raise money for restitution.

Judge Alexander discussed her experiences working in all aspects of criminal justice: as a judge, a public defender, and a prosecutor, and the necessity for community input in shaping governmental responses to crime.  Judge Alexander is currently president of the Council on Crime and Justice, a non-profit involved in research, demonstration, and advocacy that is dedicated to building community capacity to secure social justice and improve the criminal justice system in Minnesota.  In this capacity, she has collaborated with government officials, community leaders, judges, non-profit leaders, and members of faith-based communities.

John and Judge Alexander discussed their joint work on legislative initiatives to improve expungement of criminal records, and to secure sentencing reforms.  Together, they offered a real life example of partners – a defender and committed advocate -- collaborating on tough justice issues.

Both speakers emphasized  the importance of i) getting involved in policy work and legislative reform, ii) obtaining training for employees on cultural competency; iii) building partnerships with local academics for research and data collection; and, iv)  involving clients in dialogue about the goals of community-oriented defense work.

Materials

Public Defenders and Communities - Selected Messages
The Council on Crime and Justice

Speakers' Bios

Jeff Adachi
San Francisco Public Defender

Jeff Adachi is the Public Defender of the City and County of San Francisco.  Before being elected Public Defender in March 2002, Mr. Adachi worked as a San Francisco deputy public defender for 15 years and was in private practice for 2 years.  From 1998-2001, he served as the Chief Attorney of the Public Defender's Office.   Mr. Adachi has tried over 100 jury trials, including numerous serious felony and homicide cases, and has handled over 3,000 criminal matters throughout his career, including some of the Bay Area's highest profile cases.

As the only elected Public Defender in California, and one of few elected public defenders in the United States, Mr. Adachi oversees an office of 93 lawyers and 70 support staff.  The office represents over 29,000 people each year who are charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses.  The office has a $24 million budget and provides a panoply of innovative programs to its clients, including Drug Court, Clean Slate expungement services and a full-service juvenile division.  The office also has one of the country's top intern programs for law students and graduates.

Mr. Adachi has served on the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigents and is a member of the National Board of Trial Advocacy.  He currently sits on the board of the California Public Defenders Association and is a past board member of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the San Francisco Bar Association. Mr. Adachi is past president of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area and the San Francisco Japanese American Citizen's League. Mr. Adachi co-authored Chapter 25: Immunity for Testimony in the California Criminal Law Procedure and Practice book. Mr. Adachi has also taught with BAR/BRI bar review for 15 years and has published five books in this area. He has been a certified criminal law specialist since 1991. 

In 1992, Mr. Adachi received the California State Bar Association's Hufstedler Award for public service. In 1997, Mr. Adachi received the Asian American Bar Association's Joe Morozumi Award for exceptional legal advocacy, and in 2003, was honored by the Asian American Bar Association of the Silicon Valley.  In 2000, Mr. Adachi received the Mayor's Fiscal Advisory Committee's Managerial Excellence Award.  In 2006, Mr. Adachi received the California Public Defenders Association Program of the Year Award, and the American Bar Association's Dorsey Award for excellence in public defense.  In 2007, Mr. Adachi was the recipient of the prestigious California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for his work in the field of prisoner reentry. Most recently, in April 2009, Mr. Adachi received a second California Public Defenders Association Program of the Year Award for the office's innovative Children of Incarcerated Parents program, which provides assistance and services to children of a parent who is incarcerated.  

Mr. Adachi is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Hastings College of the Law. 

Pamela Alexander grew up in South Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Law.  She began her legal career as a criminal defense attorney with the Legal Rights Center and then moved to the Hennepin County Attorney's office as a prosecutor in the Criminal Division.  From 1983-2008 she served as a Hennepin County District Court Judge where she presided over the Juvenile Division and served as Assistant Chief Judge for the Court as a whole.  She sits on many community boards and committees including The Minneapolis Foundation Board of Trustees, the Children's Defense Fund, and the Juvenile Judges Leadership Council.  She has been awarded numerous community service awards ranging from the University of St. Thomas School of Law Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching to the NAACP Profiles in Courage Award.  Judge Alexander, currently with the Council on Crime and Justice, is the Council's third President in its 50-year history. 

Heidi Altman is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, where she created and implements the Immigration Services Project.  The Project aims to mitigate immigration consequences of criminal dispositions and to provide direct immigration legal services to NDS clients.  Heidi has a JD from New York University law school and a Master's in International Affairs from Columbia University.  Prior to law school she worked at the Asylum Legal Representation Program at Human Rights First. 

Angad Bhalla is an organizer for the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, an interfaith network of immigrant families, faith communities, and organizations, standing together to publicly resist unjust deportations, to create a humane instead of a hostile public discourse about immigration, and ultimately to bring about reform of the United States' flawed immigration system. 

Catherine V. Beane is the Principal of Beane Consulting.  Beane Consulting provides facilitation, policy advocacy, and organizational development services to nonprofits and public service agencies. Catherine's expertise includes facilitating workshops, meetings, and strategic planning sessions; creating public education and advocacy materials; designing leadership and management training programs; and providing coalition-building, advocacy, and public education support for policy reform campaigns.  Catherine previously directed the National Defender Leadership Institute of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and served as indigent defense counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  She is a former associate director of the Program on Law and Government at the American University Washington College of Law, where she taught as a member of the adjunct faculty.  Catherine began her legal career as a trial attorney, representing clients in civil rights and criminal matters.  Catherine received her undergraduate degree in philosophy from Emory University, and her law degree from Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law.   

Cait Clarke is the Director of Public Interest Law Opportunities at Equal Justice Works in Washington DC, Cait Clarke directs the largest legal fellowships program in the country which manages the Equal justice Works Fellowship Program (100 lawyers); the AmeriCorps Legal Fellows program (60 lawyers); and, the Summer Corps program (over 400 law students).

Cait has 18 years of experience as a lawyer, law professor and policy consultant. Prior to joining Equal Justice Works, Cait was the Principal of Clarke Consulting which provided leadership development and management training to nonprofits, public defenders, legal aid programs and the Department of Justice. Cait was the founding director of the National Defender Leadership Institute at NLADA, which develops leadership capacity in public defense practitioners.

Cait began her legal career as an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow, practicing criminal defense and supervising in Georgetown's Criminal Justice Clinic. She then joined the faculty of Loyola Law School as an Associate Law Professor where she taught Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure and founded a Street Law Program.  Subsequently, she completed a doctorate degree at Harvard Law School where she also taught at the Kennedy School of Government's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and managed the Executive Session on Public Defense funded by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Cait is a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC).  She serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. In 2006, she and her husband created the Gardenia House Foundation, which provides permanent shelter to single Latina women and their children in the East Coast chicken-processing center of Georgetown, Delaware.

Cait holds her S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center's Criminal Justice Clinic, J.D. from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, and B.S. from Villanova University's School of Business.

The Youth Advocacy Project (YAP) is a juvenile defender unit of the Massachusetts statewide public defender agency, the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS).  Joshua Dohan became a public defender in 1988 and joined YAP, at its inception, as its first staff attorney in 1992 and assumed the role of Director in 1999.  Mr. Dohan is a returned Peace Corps volunteer, Ghana (1982-84).  He is a graduate of Harvard College (1980) and Northeastern University School of Law (1988).  He is the 1998 recipient of the Access to Justice Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association.  Mr. Dohan is on the Board of Directors of Citizens for Juvenile Justice and is President of the Board for the Youth Advocacy Foundation.  He is a founding Member of the Equal Justice Partnership, a member of the LeadBoston class of 2001, a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Institute on Race and Justice and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Brennan Center's Community Oriented Defender Network.  He also serves on the Institutional Review Boards for Children's Hospital and Tufts University.  In 2001, the Youth Advocacy Project became the first Juvenile Defender organization to win the Clara Shortridge Foltz award for outstanding achievement from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.  In 2008, Massachusetts was one of eight states chosen by the MacArthur Foundation to participate in the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network, with YAP as the lead entity.

Justice Safer Espinoza was elected to Civil Court in 1990, and named as NY State Acting Supreme Court Justice and Deputy Administrative Judge in 1998.  She has been the presiding judge of Bronx Treatment Court since its inception in 1999.   Justice Safer Espinoza has lectured on drug courts as alternatives to incarceration in several countries in Latin America, and helped to establish the first treatment court in Chile in 2004. She co-authored a book with Latin American legal and clinical professionals in 2007, on Addiction and Criminal Law.  Prior to her election to Civil Court Justice Safer Espinoza worked for the United Farm Workers Union, Legal Services of NY, and NY State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Mazur.

Benita Jain is Co-Director at the Immigrant Defense Project, where she advises criminal defense and immigration attorneys, community groups, and families on the immigration consequences of criminal dispositions.  She has written several pro se guides for immigrants fighting deportation and is an original co-author of the "Deportation 101" curriculum, which has trained more than 1000 people about the American detention and deportation system, its interaction with criminal justice, and legal and community responses.  Benita serves on the Board of Directors of Families for Freedom, a multi-ethnic network by and for immigrants facing and fighting deportation.  She is a graduate of NYU School of Law and joined IDP on a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2003.

Mr. Judge is the Chief Public Defender for the County of Los Angeles, California, with the responsibility for 40 offices with more than 750 lawyers.  He is the recipient of the Loren Miller Award - John M. Langston Bar Lawyer of the Year 1998, is a former Trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, has served on the Executive Board of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and is an Executive Board Member of the Criminal Courts Bar Association.

In November 2008 Mr. Judge was the recipient of the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association's Reginald Heber Smith Award (for Exceptional Advocacy, Leadership and Dedication).

In September 2008 Mr. Judge was named one of the "Top 100 Lawyers Shaping the Future in California" by the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

In July 2008 Mr. Judge received the State Bar of California Diversity Award.

In April 2008 Mr. Judge received the Program of the Year Award for Child Support Collaboration from the California Public Defenders Association.

In March 2008 Mr. Judge received California Lawyer Magazine's CLAY Award in the area of Legislation for his efforts regarding the passing of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (HR 2669).

In September 2007 Mr. Judge was named to California's 100 Most Influential Lawyers by the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

In October 2006 Mr. Judge received the VIP Mentors Lifetime Achievement Award.

From 2005 to 2008 Mr. Judge served on the State Senate to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which investigated cases of wrongful conviction of innocent persons and making recommendations for reform to prevent and remedy that. 

In May 2001, he was elected President of CPDA. 

In 1999 Mr. Judge was honored by the Mexican-American Bar Association with the Justice Cruz Reynoso Award for Principled Leadership.  In 1999 he became the first recipient of the Annual Diversity Award of the Los Angeles County Hispanic Managers Association.  In addition he has been recognized with the Los Angeles County Bar Criminal Justice Lifetime Achievement Award in June 1999.  He was presented with the John Anson Ford Award for work in Human Relations by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors in October 1999.  He received the 1999 Quality and Productivity Award for his Elimination of Racial Bias Program.

He was appointed by the Chief Justice in 2000 to the Judicial Council of California: Collaborative Justice Courts Advisory Committee, is the Vice Chairperson of the Los Angeles Drug Court Oversight Committee which oversees and coordinates the development of drug courts in L.A., is a member of the California Association of Drug Court Professionals, has drafted and successfully lobbied for the inclusion of the drug court provisions in California's Diversion Statute, has participated as a member of the faculty and as a panelist on drug court issues in numerous conferences throughout the country, has authored articles on drug treatment published by the National Institute of Justice and the Newsletter of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and is the only defender to receive the National Leadership Award of NADCP, presented by the Secretary of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (Federal Drug Czar) on 6/5/98 in Washington D.C.

Jack McDevitt is the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate studies at the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Mr. McDevitt also directs the Institute on Race and Justice and the Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research.  Jack is the co author of three books, Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed, Hate Crime Revisited: American War on Those Who Are Different (both with Jack Levin) and Victimology (with Judy Sgarzy).  Mr. McDevitt is presently leading a team providing technical assistance and evaluation support to the Shannon Community safety Initiative a $11,000,000 statewide effort to reduce gang violence in Massachusetts.  He has also co-authored a number of reports on racial profiling including a monograph for the US Department of Justice and Statewide reports from Rhode Island and Massachusetts on the levels of disparity in traffic enforcement. Mr. McDevitt is Co-principal Investigator with Dr Amy Farrell of a national evaluation of the recent Police Integrity Initiative of the U S Department of Justice's Office of Community Orientated Policing Services (COPS).  Mr. McDevitt has trained thousands of law enforcement officials over the past 25 years most recently in conjunction with the New England Regional Community Policing Institute. Over this period he has published numerous articles on a wide variety topics in criminal justice. He has spoken on hate crime, racial profiling and security both nationally and internationally and has testified as an expert witness before the Judiciary Committees of both US Senate and The US House of Representatives and as invited expert at the White House

Michael Rempel is Research Director at the Center for Court Innovation and is actively involved in projects concerning drug courts, domestic violence, community justice, and applications of problem-solving principles in conventional court settings. He is currently principal investigator of a national study of domestic violence courts and co-principal investigator of a multi-site evaluation of adult drug courts nationwide. He recently directed a randomized experiment testing the impact of batterer programs; a national survey examining how courts respond when domestic violence offenders fail to comply with judicial orders; a study of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in New York City; and a statewide evaluation of adult drug courts in New York State. He has also participated in a series of three research projects on the potential to apply "problem-solving justice" techniques more broadly throughout state court systems. He is co-editor of Documenting Results: Research on Problem-Solving Justice (2007). Previously, he published articles on contemporary social theory and the political sociology of advanced industrial societies and co-edited Citizen Politics in Post-Industrial Societies (1997).