Silencing the Messenger: The War on Truth and Free Press

Between 2006 and 2024, over 1,200 journalists were killed, with UNESCO reporting that 85% of these cases remain unresolved. Journalism, once hailed as a pillar of democracy, has now become a perilous profession. This culture of impunity reflects systemic failures at the national and international levels to protect journalists and hold perpetrators accountable. The result […]

The Final Days of Death Row in California

California has been using a universal and inevitable fact of life as a form of punishment – death. The penalty may be seeing its final days, however, as the state explores other forms of justice. On January 31st, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he plans to dismantle California’s death row by relocating inmates of San […]

Algorithmic Injustice

Algorithms in the justice system started off as a noble solution to a serious problem: the bias of judges. There are two distinct ways that judges can be biased — targeted bias, such as sexist and racist beliefs, and cognitive bias, ways in which our mental circuitry fails to work logically (such as how judges […]

Dangers of Predictive Policing Algorithms

As more and more states are employing algorithms in policing, the dystopian world of The Minority Report might be more of a reality than a sci-fi film.  The use of algorithms in policing is not a new topic. Predpol, a for-profit company pioneering predictive policing algorithms, was a largely controversial issue in 2012, sparking criticisms […]

Universal Jurisdiction, Universal Justice: Prosecuting Syrian War Crimes Abroad

In August 2013, a defector from the Syrian regime with the code name “Caesar” stunned the world by smuggling photos out of Syria illustrating abuses taking place at the hands of the Assad-led government. Tens of thousands of graphic photos illustrated “evidence of widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease in Syrian government detention facilities.” The […]

Is Justice Bought?

CRIMINAL You’re a drug dealer who’s just been busted for possession with intent to distribute. You started dealing in college to help pay for tuition and promised you would stop after graduation.  Beads of sweat shoot down your face as you realize the evidence is stacked against you and could do up to ten years. […]