Criminal court systems across the country are using Northpointe, a Minority Report-esque algorithm designed to predict an offender’s likelihood to commit another crime in the future, to aid decisions about things like eligibility for bail and jail-diversion programs. Unfortunately, just like many non-algorithmic elements of the justice system, Northpointe seems to have a thing against black people.

With the utter breakdown of the public defender system in Louisiana showing no sign of abating, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has published a profile of an average public defense attorney who has remained loyal to the cause despite having every conceivable reason to find a new job. In a detail that English teachers in Louisiana would no doubt describe as the perfect example of irony if Louisiana education budgets weren’t sitting on the chopping block alongside the public defender system, the article notes that the defender’s office is so broke it can’t even afford a lawyer for itself.

The system of so-called “equitable sharing” of seized assets between the federal government and local police departments has long been a target for proponents of criminal justice reform, so when the feds shut the program down last year, people cheered. It turns out that the whole thing was just about budget cuts, however, and soon it will be back in full force.

William F. Powell, a 27-year-old waiter at the IHOP in Downtown Brooklyn, was arrested recently for allegedly giving out about $3,000 in free beverages to customers over a seven-month period. He faces charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and petit larceny, for the crime of being a cool waiter.

Dissent is in the air in America! Even behind bars, the people are rising up against oppression. In Connecticut, prisoners have begun a letter-writing campaign to defend their right to own "pictorial depictions of sexual activity or nudity," otherwise known as Pornographic Magazines. Letters today! Hunger strikes tomorrow!

Looking for ways to make your upcoming criminal trial more memorable for everyone involved? Urinating into a courtroom trash can while the judge and various spectators are present is one way to achieve results, as one Texas teen recently demonstrated.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., the so-called "West Memphis Three" who were wrongly convicted in 1994 of child murder in West Memphis, Arkansas, and whose case became a cause celebre, were freed this morning.

For allegedly stealing a 24-ounce can of Steel Reserve, Victoria Hill of Boise, Idaho now faces up to ten years behind bars. Officers charged her with felony burglary, because she stuck the beer in her purse and walked by some cash registers—thereby indicating "intent."

Brian Pollard of Kentucky received just a four-day jail sentence for a drunk driving-related crash that killed his passenger, because everyone forgot to tell the judge and prosecutor about the passenger, somehow. Pollard could face additional charges. [Image via AP]

You know how in movies and TV shows about prison, inmates use cigarettes as currency? That's apparently not the case in Florida. The preferred jailhouse currency across the Florida penal system is Mrs. Freshley's Grand Honey Buns.

The three New York City police detectives charged with manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of Sean Bell, 23, on his wedding day as he was leaving his bachelor party with two friends were acquitted of all charges this morning. The officers fired fifty shots at Bell and his friends, who were all unarmed, outside of a Queens strip club.