Radley Balko | The Libertarian Institute

There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof.

by Radley Balko | Sep 19, 2018 | Featured Articles, Justice

A couple years ago, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) gave a powerful speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Scott talked about how he had been repeatedly pulled over by police officers who seemed to be suspicious of a black man driving a nice car. He added that a black senior-level staffer had experienced the same thing and had even downgraded his car in the hope of avoiding the problem. Given that Scott otherwise has pretty conservative politics, there was little objection or protest from the right. No one rose up to say that he was lying about getting pulled over. The thing is, most people of...

The Seen and the Catastrophic Unseen in Our Criminal Justice System

by Radley Balko | Nov 13, 2017 | Featured Articles, Justice

Thank you. Thank you to the Reason Foundation, and to the judges who saw merit in my work and honored me with this award. It's especially validating to get an award named after Bastiat—an award for which people like Milton Friedman and James Buchanan once served as judges—because I write about and report on the criminal justice system. People like Friedman, Bastiat, and Buchanan had a lot to do with how I arrived at this beat. Bastiat is perhaps most famous for his caution that we should not merely consider the observable consequences of public policy, but the hidden and unintended...

The inexplicable prosecution — and vindication — of Ray Rosas

by Radley Balko | Dec 15, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

The Texas man was just acquitted for shooting at the police who raided his home. Back in 2001, Ray Rosas testified against a gang member. According to his attorneys, in the years after, there were several drive-by shootings directed at his home. In February 2015, police in Corpus Christi, Tex,, were looking for Rosas’s nephew, whom they suspected of dealing marijuana. They believed the nephew lived at Rosas’s house, so they raided the place. It was a full-on, no-knock raid, conducted at night, complete with the detonation of a flash-bang grenade. Let’s stipulate — again — that the entire...