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HLPR 2016 Symposium Day 3: Prof.…
Panelists: Franklin Zimring, William G Simon Professor of Law at U.C. Berkeley Philip Heymann, James Barr Ames Professor of Law at Harvard Law School By Kate Epstein “Every year…
HLPR 2016 Symposium Day 2: The…
By HLPR Staff When we talk about “the police,” what do we mean? On February 9, the second day of the 2016 HLPR Symposium, the focus was on the…
HLPR 2016 Symposium Day 1: Prof.…
Panelists: Elizabeth Joh, UC Davis School of Law Professor Thomas Abt, Harvard Kennedy School Adjunct Lecturer and Program in Criminal Justice Senior Research Fellow Vivek Krishnamurthy, Harvard Law School…
The Business of Government
By Annise Parker* Governing is often an impracticable job performed with insufficient tools by inadequately prepared people, sometimes in a system designed to prevent progress. Yet it is necessary; human beings in community must have a method of decision-making. Why, after thousands of years of trying, have we not perfected the process? Certainly partisanship, ego,…
Smart Infrastructure Investment
By Annise Parker* Cities across America are facing a looming crisis caused by a failure to adequately invest in critical infrastructure. The water crisis in Flint was clearly a failure of leadership, but it was equally a failure to maintain a public infrastructure system necessary to sustain life. Ten years ago, we were having a…
Why We Need National Water Affordability Legislation
By Sharmila L. Murthy* A growing number of water crises across the United States underscore the need to ensure that all Americans have access to safe and affordable water for drinking, sanitation, hygiene and other basic needs. From lead-contaminated water in Flint and Jackson to the massive water shut-offs in Detroit and Baltimore, affected residents…
Navigations Through a Legal Asteroid Belt
By Robert Seaney and Jake Glendenning* These past couple of weeks have been exciting for those interested in the future of space. Astronaut Scott Kelly returned to earth after a record-setting year-long stint in the International Space Station, and SpaceX attempted their fifth rocket landing, with mixed yet valuable results. Given these two significant milestones…
When the “Distressed Assets” are Homes: Fighting Foreclosures on FHA Loans in Philadelphia
By Rachel Labush* I am a staff attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia where I defend low income homeowners in foreclosure. By saving my client’s homes through loan modifications, I am holding the mortgage companies to the contracts that they have signed and the laws that govern their conduct. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans…
It’s an Election, Not a Party
By Charles McGonigal* Political parties play strong roles in our government, but they should never be confused with actual parts of the government (e.g., Congress, agencies, officeholders). Current election processes, however, risk encouraging this confusion. State governments run parties’ candidate selection processes (primary elections), and general election ballots list the party affiliation of each candidate….
Revealing the Hidden Sentence: How to Add Transparency, Legitimacy, and Purpose to “Collateral” Punishment Policy
By Joshua Kaiser Americans think we know an awful lot about our penal system. Yet policymakers, jurists, academics, offenders, and the public alike remain largely ignorant of more than 35,000 hidden sentence laws across the nation. “Hidden sentence” refers to any punishment imposed by law as a direct result of criminal status, but not as…
Two Ways of Thinking About the Undue Burden Test After Hellerstedt
By Mary Ziegler* This week, after the Supreme Court heard argument in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, it seems tricky to predict the future of abortion rights. Justice Scalia’s passing and the ambiguity of Justice Kennedy’s stand make any bet on the outcome unwise. Just the same, history can still give us a sense of…
The Hodgepodge Principle in US Privacy Policy
By John A. Deighton* Data, says Professor Lawrence Summers, is the new oil, “a hugely valuable asset essential to economic life.” Personal data, the kind of data that invites thoughts of privacy, is a big part of that “hugely valuable asset.” My colleague Peter Johnson and I recently estimated that marketers paid about $200 billion…
Another perspective on Community Policing, Part Two
By Ronald E. Hampton* Critics of community policing say that the idea of a friendly beat officer acting as some magic bullet solution for serious crimes such as murders, rapes, assaults, big-time, sophisticated drug dealing and the rising tide of violence fueled by drugs, is laughable. Yet community policing techniques are appropriate for more serious…