Articles by Steven Gilchrist

An October 2018 audit conducted by officials in Missouri indicated that the whereabouts of 1,259 registered sex offenders was unknown. At the time of the audit, Missouri had approximately 16,000 convicted sex offenders listed on record. In addition to the audit results from Missouri officials, the Associated Press identified other states with similar challenges pertaining to sex offender registries. The state of Wisconsin had 2,735 missing registered sex offenders. A 2017 audit in Massachusetts indicated that nearly 1,800 registered sex offenders were missing from registry records. According to a New York Times article from October 2, 2018: "Federal law requires states to register sex offenders and to notify the public when a convicted sex offender moves into a community. But despite the law's good intentions, it has been criticized for invading the privacy of those who have already been punished, then continuing to punish them. Those who remain on the sex offender registry of...

In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed legislation to drastically increase funding and staffing levels in order to deal with drug overdoses within the state prison system. Governor Newsom’s plan would create an initiative that would offer medications to treat opioid addiction for California prisoners. These medications include: buprenorphine, methadone, naloxone, and naltrexone. The Governor’s proposed treatment initiative would make California the third state in the US to provide comprehensive drug and alcohol treatment in prisons. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the other states with comprehensive treatment programs for inmates. Despite spending millions of dollars to restrict the flow of drugs into state prisons, the California state prison system has the highest rate of drug overdoses among any state prison system in the United States. Opioid overdoses are not only a problem that is confined to the California prison system.   Nationwide, 47,600 people died...

October 2, 2019 marked the 6 th annual International Wrongful Conviction Day.  Wrongful Conviction Day is intended to raise awareness and find solutions regarding wrongful criminal convictions.  International Wrongful Conviction Day also seeks to limit the factors that lead to wrongful convictions.  There are numerous economic and social challenges for individuals who are wrongfully convicted.  Over the past several years, more than 60 innocence organizations have been established worldwide to help wrongfully convicted people to be released from prison.  According to The National Registry of Exonerations, since 1989 there have been over 2,515 people exonerated for crimes that they did not commit.  The main factors that typically lead to someone being wrongfully convicted are: perjury/false accusation, law enforcement malfeasance, mistaken identification, forensic science errors, coerced confessions, and ineffective legal counsel for defendants. ...

2017 marked the 50 th anniversary of the publication of “The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society.”   This document was the final report of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice.   The Commission, which had a total of 19 members, was established by the Johnson administration to examine methods to improve the criminal justice system in the United States.   At the time of the final report, Johnson called the research “the most comprehensive and detailed program for meeting the challenge of crime ever proposed in this country.” The Johnson Crime Commission devised more than 200 recommendations in the 1967 report.   One of the recommendations was the establishment of calling 911 to report an emergency.   Another recommendation from the Commission was for the U.S. Congress to create a new office in the Department of Justice to assist state and local law enforcement agencies.   This recommendation led to th...