Every 10 years, states and local governments redraw electoral maps to comply with the constitutional requirement that districts must have roughly the same population. However, Covid-19 has delayed the census numbers needed for the redistricting process. But that doesn’t mean that states should use less specific data to fill the gap. In fact, creating new voting districts using anything other than census data would be ill-advised and even expose states to lawsuits. To ensure fair representation, states should hold off on redrawing their maps until the redistricting data becomes available starting in August 2021. // Read More

The president’s new budget includes a 78 percent increase in Justice Department funding for state and local grant programs aimed at spurring positive changes in the criminal legal system. Michael Crowley breaks down Biden’s DOJ budget to see how it’s being used to cut prison populations and implement other reforms. // Read More

Community supervision began in the 19th century as a peer-to-peer system of support, in which community members came forward to assure officials that they could help those convicted of crime to live lawfully outside of jail or prison. Much has changed since then. In the latest essay in the Brennan Center’s Punitive Excess series, Peggy McGarry writes about the harm inflicted by decades of policy expanding the United States’ probation and parole apparatus. “A different approach to community care is critical if we are to make it a useful tool for preventing future crime and enhancing both family and community well-being,” says McGarry. // Read More

Pride Month in June commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising against police brutality against gay and trans people in New York City. There have been great strides in the fight for equal rights since then, but more than a half-century later, police brutality, mass incarceration, and the quest for racial justice remain ever salient in our nation’s struggle to embody its stated principles of liberty and equality. “How a system of laws treats its most vulnerable groups is the best barometer to judge said political system,” writes Kelly Wright. // Read More

This week, the Brennan Center published “Protests, Insurrection, and the Second Amendment,” a series of 13 essays from 14 scholars, edited by Brennan Center Fellow Eric Ruben, that weigh in on heated debate around gun rights and regulation. In one form or another, the writers consider how unfettered gun rights threaten public safety or are built upon shaky philosophical and historical foundations. The authors sound an alarm that armed civilian groups — steeped in NRA revisionism and nostalgic for an America that never existed — warp American traditions, misconstrue framing era philosophy, defy the rule of law, and threaten democratic norms. // Read More

• VIRTUAL EVENT: P&P Live! Theodore R. Johnson | When the Stars Begin to Fall
  Wednesday, June 30 // 8:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. ET
  When the Stars Begin to Fall makes a compelling, ambitious case for a pathway to the national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism. In the book, the Brennan Center’s Theodore R. Johnson posits that a blueprint for national solidarity can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society — not a color-blind one — is the true fulfillment of the American promise. RSVP today.
  This event is produced in partnership with Politics and Prose.

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• Ames Grawert on how the criminal justice landscape has evolved since the 1990s // Washington Post
• Yurij Rudensky on a new redistricting bill in Pennsylvania // Spotlight PA
• Eliza Sweren-Becker on the increased voting restrictions since the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder // Mother Jones