by Jayson Hawkins
According to reports in several media outlets, including the Washington Post, the FBI contracted in March 2022 with tech company Babel Street for 5,000 licenses to use Babel X software for searches of broad swaths of social media. The contract, reportedly worth $27 million …
by Jayson Hawkins
A judge hearing oral arguments in an insurance fraud appeal on April 7, 2022, stopped the proceedings when she discovered a “deeply troubling” item in the record: when serving a search warrant in a rich Washington, D.C. neighborhood, the FBI decided not to break down …
by Jayson Hawkins
Few crimes are as traumatic as a violent sexual assault. When the assailants are unknown and at large, victims often remain in a constant state of anxiety and apprehension, unsure when or if they may be attacked again. DNA evidence collected from a rape kit …
A Closer Look at How Police Departments Resist Reform From Within Their Ranks
by Jayson Hawkins
The last few years have seen a growing awareness of systemic problems in the way American police operate. Efforts to reform the system have been stymied by a number of factors, …
by Jayson Hawkins
Before Alice Sebold wrote her New York Times Bestseller, The Lovely Bones, she published a haunting memoir recounting her rape in 1981 when she was a freshman at Syracuse University. The book, Lucky, details not only the experience but also how she saw …
by Jayson Hawkins
Despite the constant glamorization of forensic evidence analysis that has become so common on TV shows, regular readers of CLN should be well aware that what passes for “science” in many actual cases amounts to little more than wishful thinking on the part of prosecutors …
by Jayson Hawkins
Increasing attention to excessive police force has hopscotched across the country in recent years as one city after another found itself in the spotlight for incidents of police brutality that were caught on film or glaring dishonesty by cops was made public. Troopers from the …
by Jayson Hawkins
The five-plus decade battlefield of America’s war on drugs and crime is littered with dishonesty, abuse, and failure, which goes far to explain why 50 years of social war has achieved nothing beyond the growth of a massive police state and increased unrest in over-policed …
by Jayson Hawkins
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is credited with accelerating many trends that were already emerging before the plague struck. From work-at-home to mRNA vaccines, many of these new trends seem to have won a permanent place in the new normal. While working via Zoom …
by Jayson Hawkins
Lawrence Montoya was only 14 years old back in 2000 when Denver cops accused him of being involved in the murder of Emily Johnson, a local teacher. During the first two hours of interrogation, Montoya refuted detectives’ allegations of his presence at Johnson’s house over …
