AI-Generated Police Reports: High-Tech, Low Accuracy, Big Risks
As police departments across the country begin experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) to draft official reports, a new issue brief from Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) warns that these tools pose serious threats to accuracy, due process, and public trust in the justice system.
This issue brief explores many of the emerging issues related to the use of AI-generated police reports, including their susceptibility to inaccuracy and bias, privacy and data ownership concerns, impacts on police accountability and public trust in law enforcement, and the serious legal issues these tools raise.
Decriminalizing Sex Work: Key Principles and Policy Recommendations for Prosecutors
The criminalization of consensual sex work increases sex workers’ vulnerability to violence, exploitation, and increases public health risks while undermining trust in law enforcement. A growing body of research, along with leading human rights and public health organizations, supports decriminalization as a more effective and just approach. FJP’s issue brief provides prosecutors with key principles and recommendations to shift away from punitive measures, instead prioritizing public safety, harm reduction, and the protection of human rights.
FJP’s model policy offers a framework for prosecutors, including declining to prosecute consensual work, continuing to vigorously pursue cases involving violence, trafficking, and/or minors, and supporting the expungement of charges related to consensual sex work. By redirecting resources to serious crimes like trafficking and violence, prosecutors can improve public health outcomes, strengthen community trust, and ensure a more equitable justice system.
The Prosecutor’s Role in Promoting and Protecting Free and Fair Elections
Elected prosecutors play a critical role in ensuring fair and free elections—the essential building blocks of our democracy—and guarding against interference with the right to vote. In an era of misinformation, increased voter intimidation, and rising incidents of political violence, ensuring public trust in democracy, the rule of law, the integrity of our government, and the electoral process is essential for public safety. FJP’s Resource Guide recounts steps local prosecutors can and should take to encourage eligible voters to exercise their constitutional right to vote; educate the public on the voting process; and work with community leaders and law enforcement officials to combat voter intimidation, misinformation, and political violence.
U Visa Best Practices for Prosecutors
Ensuring that all members of our communities feel safe to report crimes and assist in investigations is crucial to promoting public safety, yet many within immigrant communities do not trust law enforcement and live in fear that sharing information could lead to an inquiry into their own documentation status or that of their loved ones. This FJP “Issues at a Glance” brief explains how prosecutors can implement fair and effective policies around U visas, which grant temporary legal status to qualifying witnesses and survivors of crime to encourage cooperation with law enforcement efforts and improve relationships with noncitizens in our communities.
Improving Justice System Responses to Individuals With Mental Illness: A Toolkit for Prosecutors
People with mental illness are overrepresented throughout the justice system despite clear evidence that the vast majority of individuals who struggle with these issues need help, not a jail bed, and pose no threat to their communities. But without robust mental health crisis response systems and investments in alternatives to incarceration, police are often unnecessarily called to respond to mental health crises and prosecutors resort to overly carceral and punitive approaches. This FJP toolkit provides recommendations and useful resources for DAs interested in promoting compassionate, effective, and tested innovations and strategies to improve the justice system’s response to individuals with mental illness.
Drug-Induced Homicide Prosecutions
Drug-induced homicide prosecutions have increased greatly in the past decade in an unsuccessful effort to quell our nation’s overdose crisis. DIH cases charge individuals with homicide when they supply drugs that result in a fatal overdose, regardless of intent. Our issue brief explains why DIH prosecutions are ineffective and can actually exacerbate our nation’s overdose epidemic and discourage seeking help at a critical moment. It also recounts how prosecutors can adopt harm reduction approaches to substance use that save lives and promote public safety.