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Correcting Contradiction: Limiting License Suspension as a Child Support Enforcement Mechanism in Pennsylvania
No full textIn many communities across Pennsylvania, maintaining employment without a driver’s license is extremely difficult. Section 4355 of the Pennsylvania Domestic Relations Code authorizes license suspension as a means to encourage child support payments. Unfortunately, license suspensions rarely result in obligors making payments. Instead, suspensions often lead to loss of employment and financial insecurity. Under Section 4355, if an obligor falls three months behind in child support payments, their professional, recreational, and driver’s licenses may be suspended indefinitely. Coincidentally, the obligor’s actual ability to pay may not be considered in a pre-suspension hearing. Even those who fall far below the national poverty level are subject to license suspension. By making it more difficult for obligors to find and maintain employment, Section 4355 initiates and exacerbates a ruthless cycle of debt and poverty.
Regrettably, Pennsylvania cannot abolish license suspension entirely while complying with federal law. However, the Pennsylvania General Assembly can and must amend Section 4355 to require consideration of an obligor’s ability to pay, and to make license suspensions a last-resort enforcement tool. This Comment recommends three provisions that would limit license suspensions under Section 4355: (1) an exhaustion provision, (2) an increased enforcement trigger period, and (3) a hardship or poverty exemption provision. By amending Section 4355, Pennsylvania lawmakers can help obligors stay employed to ensure financial support for children throughout the Commonwealth
Cleaning Up Space Junk: Applying the Models of U.S. Domestic Environmental Law to Regulate the Creation of Orbital Debris by Private Actors
No full textThe commercial space flight industry has grown rapidly in recent decades, and Congress has implemented a “learning period” to prevent heavy regulations on the industry. This learning period has led to the proliferation of orbital debris in space. The learning period is set to lapse in 2024, and now is the proper time to implement regulations to mitigate the creation of more debris. These regulations should be modeled after federal environmental law, including simplifying the current permit system and setting up a trust fund to finance research into active debris removal
A Critical Assessment of the First Step Act’s Recidivism-Reduction Measures
No full textThe First Step Act of 2018 (“FSA”) is the most impactful federal sentencing reform of the past 40 years. While the Act represents a partial resurgence of the rehabilitative model of imprisonment, which had fallen out of favor decades before, it also represents a missed opportunity to fully integrate evidence-based rehabilitation programs for those offenders who pose the greatest risks to public safety.
The public has a strong interest in reducing recidivism, particularly among violent offenders, most of whom will be released from federal prison eventually. The FSA incentivizes participation in evidence-based, recidivism-reducing programs offered by the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) by allowing participants to earn additional time credits that reduce their sentence. Yet Congress excluded from its incentive program many violent offenders as well as others convicted of non-violent offenses relating to immigration and drug trafficking. This Article argues that this exclusion was a critical mistake for several reasons: (1) Programming such as cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be most effective for offenders who pose the highest risk of recidivism, including violent offenders; (2) Given limited resources in the BOP, incentivizing participation among only non-violent offenders will likely result in less programming for violent offenders; (3) The BOP already exhibits significant shortcomings in its ability to properly calculate release dates, and forcing the BOP to calculate time credits based on a complex list of excluded offenses will only create additional administrative burdens that may result in more inaccuracy in release dates; and (4) In creating a politically-driven list of excluded offenders, Congress missed an opportunity to focus on data-driven reforms to reduce crime and risks to public safety.
A better approach would be a simpler, more straightforward one that would be easier for the BOP to administer and that would incentivize participation of all people in prison who will be released into local communities. Congress has expert bodies with which it can consult, including the social science arm of the Department of Justice and the United States Sentencing Commission. Allowing expert bodies to make decisions and recommendations can insulate both Congress and the President from the political backlash that sometimes hampers meaningful criminal justice reform. Finally, federal judges can be trusted with release decisions. Judges demonstrated strong adherence to Sentencing Commission guidance when ruling on compassionate release motions once Congress allowed people in prison to file for early release under that statutory provision. Congress should consider creating a second-look provision that would allow federal judges to apply Commission guidance to early release petitions, taking into account successful completion of recidivism-reducing programs
Introduction: Medical-Legal Partnerships: Equity, Evolution, and Evaluation.
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic laid bare systemic inequities shaped by social determinants of health (SDoH). Public health agencies, legislators, health systems, and community organizations took notice, and there is currently unprecedented interest in identifying and implementing programs to address SDoH. This special issue focuses on the role of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) in addressing SDoH and racial and social inequities, as well as the need to support these efforts with evidence-based research, data, and meaningful partnerships and funding
