Derek M. Cohen, Ph.D, is the Foundation’s Chief Research Officer and Right on Crime Senior Fellow. Previously the Vice President of Policy and Director of Right on Crime, the Foundation’s criminal justice reform initiative, Cohen was instrumental in the passage of the First Step Act, federal legislation that borrowed from successful changes to prisons and sentencing that he had helped pass in conservative states. In addition to leading the Foundation’s work on criminal justice, he is also the lead researcher of firearms policy.
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel at the Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor to Right on Crime.
School bonds are one of the main instruments contributing to Texas’s local government debt, which is currently over half a trillion dollars. Key points: As of 2026, school bond debt in Texas is over $236 billion. In May of 2023, Texas passed 79% of the 245 bond proposals put on the ballot, costing taxpayers $22.9...
A culture of death is stalking our nation. Yet as some states work to expand assisted suicide, make abortion limitless (and free), and to ensure that children are able to be sterilized with surgeries and hormone treatments, Texas is creating—and celebrating—a culture of life. In some states, activists are working to expand physician-assisted suicide laws...
At what age should juvenile offenders be tried and treated as adults in North Carolina? What constitutes a juvenile’s actions so irredeemable that they bypass the juvenile system and go straight into adult corrections? As times change and public safety evolves, it is important to reflect on the principles that guide our justice system. One...