Serving a Rehabilitative Goal

In a series of decisions issued during his last two years on the bench, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York set out a new vision for the imposition and termination of federal supervised release. Specifically, beginning with his decision in U.S. v. Trotter in 2018, he focused on imposing shorter terms, terminating supervised release early, and vowed not to return people to prison for supervised release violations caused by habitual alcohol or marijuana use. This article examines Judge Weinstein’s jurisprudence on supervised release and looks at the impact of his new vision. After reviewing Judge Weinstein’s pre-Trotter supervised release cases, it examines the Trotter case and his subsequent supervised release decisions. The article concludes by reviewing the impact of these decisions on the imposition of supervised release in the Eastern District as well as the wider federal criminal legal system.

LA IMAGEN LEGAL DEL DELINCUENTE IMPUTABLE PELIGROSO: REFLEXIONES A TRAVÉS DE LA LIBERTAD VIGILADA

Durante la última década ha aumentado el interés político criminal por expandir la aplicación del criterio de peligrosidad en el Derecho penal español. Esto determinó la introducción de la libertad vigilada con el objetivo expreso de aprehender el riesgo que plantea un nuevo tipo de sujeto jurídico-penal: el delincuente imputable peligroso. El presente trabajo examina detalladamente la evolución de esta medida de seguridad con el fin de extraer las notas características de la construcción de los «peligrosos» efectuada por el legislador. Como objetivo último, se pretende reflexionar sobre la idea de peligrosidad que se encuentra detrás de la plasmación legal y las implicaciones que derivan de ella.The last decade has seen a rise in the utilization of the dangerousness criterion in the Spanish criminal law. This determined the introduction of the measure of supervised release as a way to respond against certain types of offenders deemed to still pose a risk to the population at time of release. This paper aims to examine this process in depth with the purpose of extracting some of the features of this group of «dangerous» offenders as defined by the Criminal Code. More generally, it aims to gain some insight about which concept of dangerousness lies behind these changes.

La necesidad de reformar la medida de seguridad libertad vigilada

Después de casi una década desde la introducción en el Código penal español de la medida de seguridad libertad vigilada solo es posible plantear si quiera más dudas sobre su regulación, imposición y sobre todo su ejecución de los que en su día surgieron por parte de la doctrina especializada. En el presente trabajo se pretende se expondrá brevemente cual es el estado de la cuestión de la realidad práctica de la libertad vigilada en España para luego pasar al análisis de la regulación de instituciones jurídicas de naturaleza similar en el Derecho anglosajón con el objetivo de comprender cómo allí se está planteando su ejecución y sobre todo cómo es regulada. El objetivo final no es otro que buscar en el Derecho comparado posibles soluciones a la falta de regulación de la ejecución de la libertad vigilada regulada en el art. 106 del Código penal español. Almost a decade after the introduction the supervised release in the Spanish Criminal Code, it is only possible to raise even more doubts about its regulation, imposition and above all its execution. This paper will briefly explain the state of the question of the practical reality of supervised release in Spain and then analyse the regulation of similar legal institutions in Anglo-Saxon law in order to understand how it is regulated and above all executed. The final objective is none other than to seek in comparative law possible solutions to the lack of regulation of the Spanish supervised release’s execution.

Second Looks at Sentences under the First Step Act

Under the First Step Act of 2018, federal prisoners may now petition courts directly for reduction of their sentences, and judges may grant such requests if “extraordinary and compelling reasons” support reduction. Judges are also in the process of imposing reduced sentences in thousands of cases where the First Step Act has retroactively reduced statutory penalties. Not only does the First Step Act offer prisoners new opportunities for sentence reduction, but the law also may change how federal judges understand the impact of their sentencing decisions. Before now, in federal cases, judges rarely had the chance to take a second look at the prison sentences they (or their colleagues) imposed. Encounters between judges and the people they sentenced typically occurred only if a person violated the terms of supervised release after leaving prison. Now, judges can reassess sentence length while someone is still in prison and evaluate whether a reduction in the sentence is warranted. This newfound power allows judges to see their sentencing decisions in a new light and may influence how they conceive of the prison time they impose in future cases.

Criminogenic and Desistance-Promoting Processes Behind Bars and Postrelease Supervision: New Evidence From Federal Offenders

Institutional misconduct has criminogenic implications, whereas visitation, work, and educational involvement have desistance implications, but there is considerable heterogeneity in the inmate population and in the effects of institutional experiences and various programming on their immediate and postrelease behavior. Using a near population of offenders on federal supervised release, the current study examined the effects of criminogenic (e.g., misconduct) and desistance-promoting (e.g., work, education, and visitation) factors occurring within prison along with the effects of importation factors (e.g., arrest onset, federal criminal history rank, and demographics) in relation to functioning/compliance on supervised release. Institutional misconduct and specifically drug/alcohol misconduct reduced postrelease functioning/compliance, while the effects for visitation were limited. Prison work and educational experiences had no effect on supervised release outcomes. The most consistent predictor of supervision failure was age of arrest onset and to a lesser extent federal criminal history rank that is supportive of importation and life-course perspectives.