Suchergebnisse

Revocation of community supervision is a defining feature of American criminal law. Nearly 4.5 million people in the United States are on parole, probation, or supervised release, and 1/3 eventually have their supervision revoked, sending 350,000 to prison each year. Academics, activists, and attorneys warn that "mass supervision" has become a powerful engine of mass incarceration. This is the first Article to study theories of punishment in revocation of community supervision, focusing on the federal system of supervised release. Federal courts apply a primarily retributive theory of revocation, aiming to sanction defendants for their "breach of trust." However, the structure, statute, and purpose of supervised release all reflect a utilitarian design justified solely by deterrence and incapacitation, not retribution. A utilitarian approach to revocation would not just be a theoretical change, but also would have a real-world impact by shortening prison terms, mitigating racial bias, and ending consecutive sentencing. While scholars view courts as the government branch most protective of criminal defendants, the judiciary has played a key role in expanding the state's power to punish through retributive revocation. Judges may feel a personal stake in sanctioning disrespect of their authority, yet they should revoke supervised release only to deter and incapacitate.

What first caught my eye when reading Patti Lenard's clear and carefully argued critique of citizenship revocation was a claim at the end of her first paragraph: the power to revoke citizenship, she says, "is incompatible with democracy." That is quite a strong claim, and my thoughts turned immediately to the fons et origo of democracy, ancient Greece. Weren't the Greek city-states notorious for the readiness with which they disenfranchised, banished, exiled, even outlawed some among their own citizens? And in the case of Athens especially, wasn't this in part because it was a democracy (at least for those who qualified for citizenship), and expulsion from the demos was one of the devices used to protect it?

A requisite element of a union organizing campaign is the collection of evidence of union support, commonly referred to as "union cards." Organizers can, and frequently do, say anything to get employees to "sign on the dotted line." With signed union cards, a union can demand an election or even secure representation status without the benefit of a vote. An election campaign, therefore, is about more than the ballots: it is a battle about the cards themselves. Without sufficient evidence of support, a union is unable to gain any ground in the fight for status as collective bargaining representative.