More than two months since President Donald Trump signed into law the First Step Act, the development of a risk assessment tool central to its implementation is still stalled.

For our Requester’s Voice series, The Young Turks’ senior investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein spoke with us about his love for FOIA, public records reporting during a government shutdown, the perks of going viral, and the “symbiotic relationship” between journalism and activism.

The First Step Act was touted as beginning a reversal of decades of tough-on-crime policies. But just hours after the bill was signed by President Trump, the federal government began a shutdown of “nonessential” government operations. Now more than a month later, the shutdown has stopped efforts by the federal government to meet the new law’s first deadline - the selection of a team who will help implement a tool to assess risk and needs.

For this week’s FOIA round-up, a new report shows over 40,000 immigration hearings have been cancelled due to the government shutdown, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pushed to have activists providing migrants with water prosecuted on environmental grounds, and recently released photos reveal that the New York Police Department might be in violation of its guidelines on protest surveillance.

Between a federal shutdown, ongoing litigation, and new efforts to change bad policy, there’s a lot going on in the nation’s criminal justice system. Here’s what you might have missed.