Notable Recent Publications, April 2026
Articles
Brooks Holliday, S., Sizemore, A., Keyes, T., Kelly, B., & Eberhart, N. K. (2026). Contextual determinants of the implementation of a mental health diversion policy in California: Lessons learned from local implementation partners. Psychological Services. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ ser0001026
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2027-56795-001.pdf
In 2018, California passed Assembly Bill 1810, creating a pathway for pretrial diversion of individuals with mental health disorders. State statute dictates certain aspects of diversion eligibility and implementation. However, implementation of diversion occurs at the county level and counties have some degree of discretion as to how they implement the policy. This study conducted a qualitative implementation assessment of the contextual factors that have shaped the implementation of the state’s mental health diversion policy. We recruited nine counties and conducted semistructured interviews with a total of 29 implementation partners. Qualitative coding was conducted to explore themes related to program implementation and these codes were analyzed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. An early challenge to the implementation process was the need to create infrastructure to support diversion and ensure oversight of mental health evaluations, treatment plans, and client progress. Many counties started with a decentralized process but found that standardizing the process was an important facilitator (e.g., having a dedicated judge for diversion cases). Some of the key implementation barriers related to perceptions of prosecutors and concerns related to public safety; however, even defense attorneys must balance diversion with other options their clients have (e.g., taking a plea in exchange for a short sentence). Jurisdictions implementing new mental health diversion programs can draw on the implementation science and literature related to other programs, such as drug courts, to address these implementation barriers.
Clair, M. (2026). “A Relational Theory of Inequality in the Criminal Legal System,” Sociology Compass: e70184. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.70184.
This article outlines a relational theory of legal inequality through a review of recent studies of crime, law, and deviance. I argue that three relational mechanisms—claims-making, social closure, and exploitation—sharpen insight into the way material (e.g., police services, jobs in prison) and symbolic (e.g., legal recognition, dignity) resources are unequally distributed within and between organizations in the criminal legal system. While the criminal legal literature has long sought to document inequality among social groups subordinated within legal organizations (e.g., the poor or people of color in courts), a relational theory expands inquiry in two novel directions. First, future research could deepen analysis of criminal legal organizations as workplaces, not just as social control institutions. As workplaces, legal organizations may reproduce inequality between legal professionals (e.g., prosecutors, public defenders, social workers), with implications for those subject to the law. Second, future research could further examine how field-level relations between organizations (e.g., public defender's office, reentry center, victim services unit) reproduce inequality through competition over resources. Relations between organizations determine the kinds of resources available for distribution within organizations. I conclude with several propositions for future research into the relational mechanisms that reproduce and challenge inequality in the criminal legal system.
Reports, Briefs, and Other Resources
Bailey, E. L. (2026). The Evolution of Supervised Own Recognizance: Understanding Pretrial Release Post-Humphrey in Southern California. Master's thesis, San Diego State University.
The 2021 California Supreme Court case In re Humphrey encouraged courts to set non-financial conditions rather than money bail in cases where non-financial conditions could reasonably assure victim and public safety while ensuring appearance in court. As a response to this ruling, some courts have shifted their release practices to rely more heavily on nonfinancial release types, such as Supervised Own Recognizance (SOR). Using administrative data from a public defender’s office in Southern California, ethnographic court observations, and in-depth interviews, this study seeks to explain the evolution of SOR imposition rates through analysis of the institutional logics influencing the advocacy for or against this release type, perceptions of SOR by court actors, its implementation in the community, and the potential consequences of overreliance on SOR as a primary release decision.
Pokorny, L. (2026). The Plea Bargain and the Human Toll of Administrative Convenience: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Plea Bargaining, Wrongful Convictions, Structural Pressures, Informational Asymmetries, Cognitive Biases, Prosecutorial Overreach, and Coerced Guilty Pleas in the United States Criminal Justice System. ICL Institute of Applied Sciences.
(shortened) The United States criminal justice system has become, in practice, a system of pleas. Approximately 97% of federal convictions and 94% of state convictions result from negotiated guilty pleas rather than jury trials, yet no comprehensive meta-analysis has synthesized the empirical evidence on the relationship between plea bargaining practices and wrongful convictions, structural coercion, racial disparities, and reform efficacy. This systematic review and meta-analysis, conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 framework, synthesized findings from 35 studies (k = 35, 64 extracted data rows) to address four research questions spanning the full dimensions of plea bargaining injustice. Random-effects meta-analyses revealed that: (a) the pooled proportion of false or wrongful guilty pleas across study contexts was 0.254 (95% CI [0.153, 0.391]), indicating that approximately one quarter of defendants in studied populations entered wrongful guilty pleas; (b) pretrial detention increased the likelihood of guilty plea or conviction by 15.4 percentage points (95% CI [11.6, 19.3]), confirming a robust causal coercion mechanism; (c) minority defendants faced 40% higher odds of adverse plea outcomes compared to similarly situated White defendants (pooled OR = 1.40, 95% CI [1.23, 1.59]); and (d) drug court diversion programs demonstrated modest efficacy (pooled OR = 1.37, 95% CI [1.08, 1.74]), with adult programs showing significant effects while juvenile programs yielded nonsignificant results. Findings carry significant implications for legislative reform of sentencing and bail practices, judicial oversight of plea negotiations, prosecutorial accountability, racial equity in the administration of justice, and the preservation of constitutional protections guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
Smith, A., and Maddan, S. (2025). Misdemeanor defendants: Counsel selection, and the consequences of delayed representation. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
(shortened) Scholarly research has primarily examined the effect of counsel type on case outcomes. The present study reorients the focus to examine how case type and defendant demographics might impact whether a person is represented by counsel and explores the effects, if any, of the procedural timing of obtaining counsel on misdemeanor case outcomes. In the present study of 437 cases, counsel selection was influenced by location (large or small county), defendant demographics, and case characteristics. The data demonstrates that court-appointed representation was significantly more likely when defendants were charged with serious misdemeanor offenses and had prior criminal histories. Regarding the timing of obtaining counsel, delays in court-appointed representation resulted in more negative consequences for defendants, including lower rates of pretrial diversion and an increased chance of nonappearance.
The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice by Elizabeth Vartkessian is out now and available at all major retailers. Order your copy today! Outside the US? You can purchase your copy here.
About: In her book, Liz invites readers to look beyond the crime and into the complex human stories of those condemned to die. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and firsthand encounters within the capital defense community, she reveals how the lives of people on death row illuminate deeper truths about poverty, trauma, race, and the limits of mercy in the American legal system.
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