News & Articles of Interest

Articles of Interest

Familias Seguras: Guía de emergencia para inmigrantes (Safe Families: An Emergency guide for Immigrants)

El Pueblo and ACLU of North Carolina, February 2025

The Familias Seguras. Guía de emergencia para inmigrantes (Safe Families: An Emergency Guide for Immigrants) is a Spanish-language guide that helps Latine immigrant families understand their legal rights and prepare for the potential deportation or detention of a family member. The NC Justice Center partnered with El Pueblo and ACLU of North Carolina to produce this valuable resource, which provides detailed, step-by-step instructions and easy, fill-in-the-blank templates for creating emergency plans.

In particular, the guide addresses:

  • What to say during interactions with police or immigration agents
  • How to prepare in case a family member is deported
  • How to protect children, pets, household assets, and finances

The Harmful Ripples of Pretrial Detention

By Diana D’Abruzzo, April 2022

"Too often, pretrial decision-makers don’t consider the negative impacts of detention. Having an empirically based study that demonstrates that detention at pretrial for any amount of time—before someone is found guilty—can make that person and the community less safe, that’s a really important point.”

– Alison Shames, co-director, Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research

Reducing the Harm of Fentanyl Podcast

NPR Tested

Extremely potent substances like fentanyl and xylazine have flooded the illegal drug market, causing a major increase in overdose ER visits and deaths. Harm reduction policies could help reverse that trend.

This District Attorney is Fighting Crime - and Angering the Police

By Emily Bazelon Feb 2, 2022

"Accumulating research in well-designed studies supports the idea, counterintuitive though it may seem, that prosecuting fewer people can actually reduce crime." 

Related Studies:

Michael Mueller-Smith, Kevin T. Schnepel, Diversion in the Criminal Justice System, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 88, Issue 2, 883–936 (Mar. 2021) (click here for the full article)

E. Augustine, J. Lacoe, S. Raphael, and A. Skog, The Impact of Felony Diversion in San Francisco, J. Pol. Anal. Manage (2022) (click here for the full article)

To reduce drug crimes, send people to treatment instead of making arrests

By Joel K. Johnson and Jac A. Charlier, Dec 9, 2021

By helping people get treatment and begin to rebuild their lives, deflection is a benefit to the individual, his or her family members and employer, and the community as a whole.

The Judge Who Keeps People Out of Jail

By Ted Alcorn, Nov. 30, 2021

In northern Mexico, a district court judge has a radical approach to addressing addiction.

TIP: You can read articles behind the paywall at Washington Post and other newspapers through NC Live, provided by the Orange County, NC Library. If you aren't in Orange County, check with your county library about NC Live or other newspaper access.

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