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Closing Argument The Week in Justice July 21, 2018 Edited by TOM MEAGHER Closing Argument features highlights from the past week in criminal justice. To change how often you hear from us, update your preferences. A map showing public opinion of the police in nearly all of the New York Police Department’s 297 sectors. THE BEST OF THE MARSHALL PROJECT Like Yelp for cops. The NYPD has just rolled out a “public opinion monitor,” a program designed to determine the sentiment New York residents feel for the police who patrol their particular neighborhood. Our Simone Weichselbaum reports in this piece we published with Wired that precinct officials now receive a monthly “trust score.” It comes along with other data that measures how safe residents feel and how comfortable they are with the level and methods of policing they are receiving. How do those residents get to express their feelings? Through ads that pop up on their smartphones asking them to complete a survey. A view of tomorrow. Prison officials now are using virtual reality programming to help long-held inmates comprehend what life will be like if and when they are released, writes Nicole Lewis. Research shows that VR helps ease PTSD symptoms in prisoners and expedites their rehabilitation. Some advocates worry that VR is no substitute for person-to-person rehabilitative efforts. But the VR industry is pushing hard now to get more corrections clients on board. Less than zero tolerance. After the Parkland and Sante Fe shootings, school officials around the country are more often reporting threats of violence by students. The trend is acute in Texas, where data culled from the state’s juvenile justice system suggests a “surge” in reports akin to what occurred in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Some advocates, however, worry that the new approach targets vulnerable students, according to our reporters Mustafa Z. Mirza and Andrew R. Calderon. Can’t afford a lawyer? How about a “legal technician?” Seventy percent of low-income Americans had a civil legal issue last year — divorce, housing, child support — often fallout from a criminal case. But there is no guaranteed legal help in civil matters. Washington State has created a new legal position to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to pay legal fees. These new technicians can do more than paralegals but cannot appear in court or perform other critical attorney functions. Christie Thompson has our story. The brutal logic of snitching in prison. George Wilkerson, on death row in North Carolina, explains in the latest in our “Life Inside” series how the culture of snitching works. There are plenty of rules centered around the idea that informing on fellow inmates is always a bad idea in a “might makes right” world. And prison officials seem content to let inmates police themselves, usually with violent and avoidable results. THE BEST OF THE REST Criminal justice stories from around the web as selected by our staff. A federal prosecutor sues over discrimination in her department, a judge tosses out her lawsuit, and she pledges to appeal. All of this would have passed with little notice, as an internal dispute with few implications outside of this department, except for the fact that the prosecutors involved started throwing serious accusations of misconduct at one another. These prosecutors handle death penalty cases, and the lawyers for men on death row realized that their clients may have been deprived of their rights. One prosecutor is accused of destroying interview notes that the defense should have been able to see. Another is accused of failing to divulge details of a deal with a cooperating witness. The Intercept has a good introduction to this gnarly, sideways case and its larger implications. — Maurice Chammah “This is not how I gave them my son. My son has come back to me sick.” That’s what Hermelindo Che Coc told the Los Angeles Times after being reunited with his 6-year-old son. The two were separated at the border after traveling from Guatemala to seek asylum in the United States. This story stands out among the dozens of stories about children separated from their parents. That’s because reporter Esmeralda Bermudez and photographer Marcus Yam documented the physical and psychological scars that remain, even after children have been reunited with family (Yam’s Twitter thread on the father and son was also incredible storytelling). Instead of a simple story of a happy reunion, we see a boy with a vacant stare, a bruised eye and a body covered in a rash, and a father desperate to heal his child. — Abbie VanSickle Nevada is the only state in the nation where prostitution is legal, and even those with a distaste for the sex trade generally acknowledge that “the logic of legalization is similar to that for marijuana and casino gambling...forcing participants underground [is] perpetuating the risks and harms.” But an essay in last week’s New York Review of Books takes a skeptical look at that premise. As several Nevada counties consider repealing legal prostitution, Julie Bindel argues that legalization in Nevada has fueled the much larger illegal market (with all its risks and harms), and has given police cover to “adopt a totally hands-off approach” to legal brothel owners who essentially enslave women under the guise of their empowerment. The story describes a particularly disturbing game offered by one of the brothels: in “Hunt a Ho,” “johns pay to ‘hunt’ women in the desert with paintball rifles. Upon catching a woman, the john is rewarded with sex. ‘We get the girls, they are the prey, hunters come find ’em,’” said one county commissioner approvingly. — Beth Schwartzapfel In an International Association of Police blog post, police Sgt. Greg Stewart wades into the debate about the role of data, research and science in policing. He argues that some resistance to integrating science in policing is due to a lack of research that helps answer questions relevant to police managers. Instead, research on policing “simply points out what is being done wrong.” Stewart suggests creating partnerships between police agencies and academics to drive research that has practical applications in the field and that’s needed to evaluate what works, what doesn’t and why.— Ivonne Roman VERBATIM “Why get their hopes up with rehabilitation if society is still gonna look down their nose? We aren't still in the dark ages. I think the lame policies of 'having a criminal record means you can't possibly be a good worker' need to go...” — Our reader, Heather Wagner-Shelton, on the difficulties people face in obtaining occupational licenses after reentry JOIN THE DISCUSSION