As greater emphasis is being placed on the importance judicial discretion in sentencing, a new comprehensive study from the Bureau of Justice examining this practice has revealed some unintended and unsettling consequences.

Police officers in the U.S.A. are not better or worse than in Germany or Great Britain. What determines the conduct of an average police officer is the political and organizational climate in which they operate.

Just like immigration reform, mass incarceration and the need to change our criminal justice system are sparking another movement -- especially after the parable of Ferguson woke up the country.

In the spring of 1954, like so many Black families, mine waited anxiously for the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. My father and I talked about it and what it would mean for my future and the future of millions of other Black children who were attending segregated but unequal Black schools. He died the week before Brown was decided. But I and many other children were able, in later years, to walk through the new and heavy doors that Brown slowly and painfully opened. Now, the most recent findings from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, called the "richest, fullest" collection so far for measuring education access and equity in our nation's public schools, show many children are still receiving an unequal education. This is the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement.

The US Supreme Court, in a series of four recent cases, has underscored what every parent knows -- that children are developmentally less mature, and more capable of rehabilitation.

A study examining racial disparities reveals that people are more empathic to whites than blacks, especially when it comes to medical treatment for pain. How do we close this gap if most fail to realize that it exist?