This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 10th, 2019.

I'm Keelab Brown.

States house most inmates and handle the vast majority of criminal cases,

and criminal justice reform at the state level continues to be a bit of a mixed bag.

Robert Alt surveyed state level criminal justice reforms of 2018 for the Federalist Society.

During Cato's Constitution Day festivities,

we talked about how states have changed laws

regarding marijuana, bail, and other parts

of the Criminal Code.

Most states have ended long ago their legislative sessions.

What has been, at least so far, the movement on criminal justice reform at the state level?

Well, we actually went ahead and did a large white paper for the Federalist Society looking

at trends in 2018, what happened both in terms of prosecution and defense

friendly policies. And the interesting thing is I think as an overview, if you take a look

at what's happened in the

states it didn't necessarily trend in just one direction either pro defense or

pro-enforcement indeed they didn't even necessarily trend in the same direction in the same state.

So let me give you Ohio as an example, my home state and a state that's done a ton on criminal

justice reform.

Last year they passed some of the most pro-reform

legislation in the country including allowing defendants to expunge the

records if they have been found to be victims of human trafficking, requiring courts to consider drug treatment or rehab

...