Among the millions of people incarcerated in the United States, a significant portion have long been thought to be parole violators, those who were returned to prison not for committing a crime but for failing to follow rules: missing an appointment with a parole officer, failing a urine test, or staying out past curfew. But their actual number has been elusive, in part because they are held for relatively short stints, from a few months to a year, not long enough for record keepers to get a...

San Joaquin County’s first female district attorney, Tori Verber Salazar, is among those speaking at a special Women in Blue event Tuesday. “An Evening with San Joaquin County’s Top Women in Crime, Law and Public Safety” is part of the TEP Talk lecture series. Increasingly, women are rising through the ranks in agencies that protect the public, create safer streets and prevent social injustices such as human trafficking and domestic violence, and are making a significant difference in our...

One key to successfully transitioning an inmate with mental illness from jail back into the community is what’s called a “warm hand-off.” It is when jail staff and the county’s behavioral health department work hand-in-hand to ensure that inmates have the resources they need immediately upon their release, including transportation, housing, medication and assistance setting up appointments. For nearly a year, Riverside County’s Sheriff’s Department and the Riverside University Health...

John, 61 Prison psychiatrist Los Osos, California I moved to California from Texas at the behest of my wife, who pretty much said, “I’ve had it — I wanna move to California.” I’d planned to set up a private practice when I got here. It’s a lot more varied and a lot more gratifying. But it also tends to be all-consuming. I needed some cash flow, and I started working at a men’s prison. I found that it was a lot easier: I didn’t have any overhead. I wasn’t on call every night. I had paid...

Nearly half a century ago, Richard Nixon called for an "all-out offensive" on drug abuse. It was the opening salvo in America's longest running war. Successive presidents took up the call to arms. Arrest rates soared and mandatory minimum sentences sent young men - particularly black men - away for long stretches for low-level offences. Then as violent crime rates fell under George W Bush and prisons became clogged, prosecutions eased. The war on drugs fell out of fashion. Barack Obama...

Ian Manuel spent 26 years behind bars after he shot a woman in the face when he was just 13 years old, but he rarely felt alone. That’s because the woman he hurt, Debbie Baigrie , decided to forgive him — and more. Baigrie, then 28, was out with friends for the first time since giving birth to her second child, and she was walking back to her car to head home. Manuel, who had a history of minor run-ins with the law, was with a group of older men and was being peer-pressured into robbing...

Corrections officials said the growing emphasis on rehabilitation and helping offenders re-enter society has led to a prison culture shift. Inmates at facilities with the most opportunities seem less inclined to break the rules, officials said, showing a greater interest in group sessions, completing college applications and learning work skills. California plans to release 9,500 offenders over the next four years under Proposition 57, part of the state’s strategy to comply with a federal...

Back for the second year, Beyond Paper Tigers conference will take place June 28th and 29th in Walla Walla, WA. Featuring Dr. Ken Ginsburg from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as the keynote speaker, BPT builds on the story of one community and how they've learned that embracing trauma-informed care and implementing ACEs science truly takes a village. Operationalizing the latest in brain science, BPT will provide concrete strategies for intervention with youth, families, and communities...

The idea that locking up parents can have baleful effects on their children’s health isn’t exactly new. I have written before about research that found links between the incarceration of parents and learning disabilities, developmental delays and behavior problems, even after other variables were taken into account. But a new paper published Thursday in the British journal The Lancet makes clear just how unequal the effects of incarceration can be on families in the United States, which...

Statement from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo: "For too long, draconian punishments for youthful mistakes have ruined the lives of countless young New Yorkers. By coming together, we reversed this injustice and raised the age of criminal responsibility once and for all so that 16- and 17-year-olds are no longer automatically processed as adults." Statement from Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie: "This conference is proud that our years-long goal to end the unjust treatment of young offenders in the...

Lawmakers in New York, North Carolina, Missouri and Texas are currently debating proposals that would move 16- or 17-year-olds (or both) out of the adult criminal justice system and into the juvenile court. This development comes after seven states raised their age of jurisdiction over the past decade. In those states, as a result, half the number of youth who were previously automatically sent to adult courts now appear before a juvenile court judge — an outcome that increases the...

This summer marks nearly three years not only since the deaths of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, but also since a major transformation began in the American criminal justice system. Police departments are increasingly implementing training regimens to combat racial bias and requiring officers to wear body cameras, with some 95 committing to do so in the future in January of 2016; district attorneys are increasingly prosecuting police officers...