This report, Boxed In: The True Cost of Extreme Isolation in New York’s Prisons, is the product of an intensive, year-long investigation that involved communication with more than 100 people who have spent significant amounts of time – in one case, more than 20 years – in extreme isolation. The authors interviewed prisoners’ family members and corrections staff, and analyzed thousands of pages of Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) records obtained through the state’s open records laws.

The February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo by police officers in the NYPD’s Street Crimes Unit triggered a broad public controversy about racial profiling and stop-and-frisk that continues to this day. Not only did the shooting prompt widespread protests, but it led the New York State Attorney General’s Office to conduct a detailed study of NYPD stop-and-frisk activity and led the New York City Council to enact legislation requiring the Police Department to provide quarterly reports about stop-and-frisk activity.

This report is the first-ever in-depth examination of the Border Patrol’s transportation raids in upstate New York. It paints a disturbing picture of an agency resorting to aggressive policing tactics in order to increase arrest rates, without regard for the costs and consequences of its practices on New Yorkers’ rights and freedoms. The report extends beyond transportation raids to other Border Patrol practices as well, raising serious concerns about an agency that appears to be driven by the belief that the regular rules of the Constitution do not apply to it.

Taking Tasers Seriously: The Need for Better Regulation of Stun Guns in New York analyzes 851 Taser incident reports from eight police departments across the state as well as 10 departments’ policies and guidelines for using the weapons, which deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity and have caused the deaths of more than a dozen New Yorkers in recent years. The report concludes that police officers throughout New York State are consistently misusing and overusing Tasers.

We all recognize the need for effective law enforcement, but we should also understand our own rights and responsibilities — especially in our interactions with the police.

This report, released in November 1998, provides a review of the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board five years after the agency was established. The report maintains that the CCRB was implemented in a manner that virtually ensured it would not provide the oversight called for in the City Charter.

The defining moment in the movement to create civilian oversight of the police department is often a violent confrontation: A police officer attacks or shoots. Justification appears absent. A civilian dies. There is widespread public outcry: Who is policing the police? After the violence quiets in the streets, a political "street fight" begins as politicians and community members attempt to negotiate the terms of greater oversight of the police.

In August, 1988, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was rocked by one of the most shocking outbursts of police violence in New York City's history. Fifty-two civilians, the great majority of them innocent bystanders, required medical attention as a result of scores of assaults, often by groups of police officers, over a period of six hours.

Independent oversight of the New York Police Department is essential to making police accountable in instances of misconduct. Ignored complaints of police misconduct erode the public’s trust in the police force and weaken its ability to protect the public. The City of New York amended its Charter in July 1993 to establish the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent oversight agency to review and investigate civilian complaints of police misconduct.

The School to Prison Pipeline is a nationwide system of local, state and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of school and into the criminal justice system. This system disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities. Inequities in areas such as school discipline, policing practices, high-stakes testing and the prison industry contribute to the pipeline.