It is now just a week until Election Day 2018, and everyone should feel a significant responsibility to vote and to encourage everyone they know to vote. (I have long thought we ought to have many more elections and much more voting in the US, but that it a topic for a different post.) Over at Vox, German Lopez has this great extended review of all the notable and different initiatives and candidates on the ballot that could have an impact on local, state and national criminal justice systems. The extended piece is fully headlined "How 2018 voters could change America’s criminal justice system: From marijuana to crime victims’ rights to prosecutors, the 2018 elections will be big for criminal justice." Here is how the piece gets started and some of its headings that follow:
From ballot initiatives to local elections to the state and federal races, the 2018 midterm elections will give voters an opportunity to define the system charged with arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people in America.
These races usually do not get the attention they deserve, especially state and local elections and particularly races for prosecutors. But they are tremendously important: Despite all the attention that goes to the federal system, the great majority of criminal justice work is done at the local and state level, where America’s police departments operate and most of the people in prison are locked up.
A criminal justice reform movement, galvanized by Black Lives Matter, civil rights issues, and prison spending’s strain on government budgets, has already led to some changes in recent years, from reforming prisons and police to reducing criminal penalties for certain crimes. The 2018 midterms offer an opportunity to continue the momentum behind criminal justice reform.
Here are some of the most pressing criminal justice issues on the ballot this November, covering debates over the war on drugs, mass incarceration, policing, crime victims’ rights, and more.
Criminal justice issues on the ballot in six states...
Marijuana legalization in Michigan and North Dakota, and medical pot in Utah and Missouri....
Marsy’s Law, a crime victims’ bill of rights, is on the ballot in six states...
Prosecutor elections: maybe the most important contests in criminal justice...
Prosecutors are driving mass incarceration...
Other local and state races will be a big deal too
This Vox piece has lots and lots of links to all the initiatives and other races and related points in the piece. Read the whole thing and click through (and share views in the comments on what you consider the most important or consequential matters or people on the ballot). And for another (more visual) view on all these matters, the folks at The Appeal political report have these terrific maps on these election matters:
On the ballot in November 2018
Where Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement Measures are on the 2018 Ballot
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