Legislation

We opposed legislation which would provide that any “person in charge” of student organizations who permits hazing activities or “negligently fails to take reasonable measures” to prevent hazing” could face a potential year-long prison sentence.

We opposed this bill, noting that the complete abandonment of any statute of limitations hobbles the due process rights of ciriminal defendants.

We strongly supported a bill which would allow individuals serving long sentences to request a “second look” and reduction of their sentence after serving ten years.

We supported legislation which would generally prohibit the detention of a juvenile under the age of 14 at the Rhode Island Training School.

We opposed a provision in this bill that could allow police officers to recoup disability benefits if they allege to suffer from PTSD from misconduct that they have themselves inflicted on a civilian.

We testified in favor of legislation which would decriminalize sex work.

As an important piece of criminal justice reform legislation, this bill would slightly redefine in two ways the definitions of “felony” and “misdemeanor” in Rhode Island law.