Tagged With "Foster Care System"
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Gender Specific Criminal Justice Resources
Creating a Place of Healing and Forgiveness: The Trauma-Informed Care Initiative at the Women's Community Correctional Center of Hawaii Source: National Center for Trauma-Informed Care Description: The Trauma-Informed Care Initiative (TICI) is a...
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Governor Cuomo and Legislative Leaders Announce Agreement on FY 2018 State Budget (governor.ny.gov)
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...
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Graduations, non-linear paths, & the importance of getting started
With graduation season upon us, I have been thinking a lot about one of my favorite graduation speeches. It’s the speech that Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, gave in 2014 at Dartmouth College. She references the typical expected advice from a graduation speech: “Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big...." And then she says, “I think that’s crap.”
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Grassroots Organizations Are Leading the Way on Criminal Justice Reform (psmag.com)
Across the country, jails are, all too often, used as holding pens for people who can't afford to pay bail. The Workhouse in St. Louis is no exception to this phenomenon. In July of 2017, almost all of the 836 inmates were awaiting trial, with only a handful having actually been convicted. Given that, historically, criminal justice reform has only rarely come from the city's prosecuting attorney , community members have taken matters into their own hands. These local-led efforts are part of...
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Healing A Mother’s Pain By Forgiving A Killer (kpbs.org)
At 1:30 in the morning in May of 2012, Bevelynn Bravo was woken by a knock on the door. Two detectives had come to tell her that her son was dead. Her 21-year-old son, Jaime Bravo Jr., was stabbed and left to die as he walked out of friend’s house in City Heights. As a volunteer first responder for the San Diego Compassion Project since 2010, Bravo had become accustomed to dealing with tragedy at a crime scene. She offered emotional and administrative support to the families of homicide...
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Health Issues for Judges to Consider in Foster Care
This resource from the AAP provides an overview of important health issues for children and youth in foster care. It includes downloadable, age-appropriate forms that can be shared with case workers and/or caregivers to obtain, record,...
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How Can America Reduce Mass Incarceration? [npr.org]
Julian Adler, co-author of Start Here, and Judge Victoria Pratt discuss alternatives to jail, including community service, social services and even personal essays. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Judge Victoria Pratt is known for having done her best to avoid sending people to jail by offering alternatives such as community service, social services and even writing a personal essay. She served as chief judge of Newark's municipal court and presided over...
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How Can We Eradicate Racism from the US Prosecutorial System? [nonprofitquarterly.org]
December 11, 2018; New York Times In the past two years, progressive district attorneys have been elected in a wide range of cities, note Emily Bazelon and Miriam Krinsky in the New York Times. But will electoral victories be enough to uproot a racialized criminal justice system, which Michelle Alexander has labeled the New Jim Crow , built up over decades? The stakes are high. The data are well known, but the physical and human costs are worth enumerating. The introduction of a new report...
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How Homelessness, Mental Illness, Substance Use and the Criminal Justice System Collided in Little Five Points [jjie.org]
By Ray Glier, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, September 4, 2019 Torch has been on the street 11 years, he says. With no fixed address, he is a permanent resident of Little Five Points, a robust business district of mom and pop entrepreneurs in east Atlanta. Born Kyle Latrell, he was a homeless 17-year-old from Illinois. Now he is a homeless 28-year-old. He takes amphetamines, eight a day, he says. He has been arrested for marijuana possession and it is not certain what other drugs he...
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How One Connection at CYW’s ACEs Conference Sparked Awareness into Action
Origins offers a number of training and consulting services. We developed The Basics as a half-day session to provide the foundation to support trauma-informed and resilience practices across sectors and industries. The session includes an overview of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, the neurobiology of toxic stress, the impact of social and historical trauma, and the science of resilience. We have tested The Basics with two cross-sector audiences, in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
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How solitary confinement drove a young inmate to the brink of insanity (chicagotribune.org)
With his mental state deteriorating as he sat in the crushing isolation of solitary confinement, a desperate inmate named Anthony Gay saw a temporary way out. Sometimes it came in the form of a contraband razor blade. Occasionally it was a staple from a legal document or a small shard of something he had broken. Each time he harmed himself, he knew that, at least for a little while, the extreme step would bring contact with other human beings. Therapists would rush to calm him. Nurses would...
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How The Juvenile Justice System is Failing Girls [yr.media]
By Susie Armitage, YR Media, October 16, 2019 When Bree was booked into a juvenile detention center as a teen, they were subject to a strip search. “The staff had to take off my clothes and started patting me down, touching me, and making me feel uncomfortable,” said Bree, who asked that their last name not be used for privacy reasons. As a youth advocate with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, Bree recounted their experience of incarceration in a report. “I felt violated, like I...
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How the Money Bail System Perpetuates America’s Mass Incarceration Problem [PSMag.com]
At this very moment, nearly 450,000 Americans are sitting in county jails not because they’ve been charged with a crime, but because they simply don’t have enough money to post bail. And, according to a new study , America’s money bail system isn’t just unconstitutional—it’s a fundamental engine of injustice in the United States. New data published by Columbia University researchers Arpit Gupta and Christopher Hansman and Ethan Frenchman from the Maryland Office of the Public Defender...
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How to Build a Better Jail (nationswell.com)
Rikers Island, the infamous and isolated jail complex located off the coastline of New York City, is officially being shut down. And in its place is the possibility of new community jails that are designed, specifically, for better treatment of inmates. In conjunction with closing Riker’s 10 jails, an independent commission last year recommended the city open smaller facilities — called “justice hubs” — that would be located next to local courts and integrated into existing neighborhoods.
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'I Can Be Free Again': How Music Brings Healing at Sing Sing [psmag.com]
"Never ran, never will!" is the gangster-bravado motto that people use to explain Brownsville, Brooklyn, with its blocks and blocks of low-income housing projects. Even the grungiest hipster artisans, who've pretty much invaded Brooklyn in recent years, still stay away from Brownsville. Growing up there in the crack era of the 1980s, Joseph Wilson was surrounded by crack dealers and addicts. His mother was an addict, so his grandmother wound up raising him—and teaching him to love music. She...
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'I Can Be Free Again': How Music Brings Healing at Sing Sing [psmag.com]
"Never ran, never will!" is the gangster-bravado motto that people use to explain Brownsville, Brooklyn, with its blocks and blocks of low-income housing projects. Even the grungiest hipster artisans, who've pretty much invaded Brooklyn in recent years, still stay away from Brownsville. Growing up there in the crack era of the 1980s, Joseph Wilson was surrounded by crack dealers and addicts. His mother was an addict, so his grandmother wound up raising him—and teaching him to love music. She...
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I Did It Norway [themarshallproject.org]
In August, when the solar eclipse passed over South Boise Women's Correctional Center in Idaho, the officers held lunch early, handed out protective sunglasses, and invited the women outside to watch the sky. At the Cheshire Correctional Institution in Connecticut, a few prisoners and officers recently played cards together; the warden seemed a little stunned when describing the scene. John Wetzel, who runs the prison system in Pennsylvania, has noticed a shift in tone at annual gatherings...
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'I'm looking for a fresh start,' say ex-cons attending job, resource fair in Anaheim (ocregister.com)
Austin Barry stood outside of the Honda Center on Tuesday looking for a little redemption and a job. Just eight days out of prison for a robbery conviction, the 24-year-old Mission Viejo resident was among 200 former offenders who attended the Orange County Re-entry Resource Fair, which connected felons with employment opportunities, legal advice and drug-treatment programs. “I’m looking for a fresh start, which is kind of hard for any person with a record,” said Barry, who served a 2...
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'I took someone’s life — now I am giving back': In California's prisons, inmates teach each other how to start over (latimes.com)
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...
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Illinois Supreme Court establishes uniform standards, certification process for problem-solving courts [MadisonRecord.com]
The Illinois Supreme Court has announced the creation of uniform standards and a certification and application process for problem-solving courts across the state. Madison County Circuit Court is host to at least two such courts - one for veterans and a newly established one designed to help parents struggling to make child support payments. Statewide standards will bring uniformity, accountability and administrative oversight to problem solving courts in Illinois, where there are...
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Illness, incarcerated: As residents with mental illnesses cycle from the streets to cells, county officials struggle to create a new system (santamariasun.com)
The county’s current plan of action for decriminalizing mental illness is the Stepping Up Initiative, which aims to reduce the number of mentally ill inmates nationwide. The initiative brings together leaders in mental health, law enforcement, and criminal justice to help provide nonviolent mentally ill offenders with treatment, not jail time. The Sun spoke with mental health experts and county representatives who are vying to improve law enforcement’s approach to mentally ill offenders. At...
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In Chicago, Another Public Housing Experiment: Prisoner Reentry [CityLab.com]
For the past several years, three residents of St. Andrew’s Court, a halfway house on Chicago’s west side, have waited patiently for a spot in Chicago’s public housing system. Bobby Flowers, Jimmy Edwards*, and John Stamps are among the nearly 282,000 Chicagoans who registered for affordable housing assistance when the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) waitlist last opened in November 2014. In past waitlist cycles, these men would not have had a shot at CHA housing because all three are...
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In Photos: A Mother Adjusts to Parenting After Prison [YesMagazine.org]
When Kendra Wright was incarcerated for drug-related offenses at Oregon’s only women’s prison, her then-6-year-old daughter, Selene, was placed in the care of Wright’s grandparents. Prohibited from speaking to Selene, Wright cherished what little contact she had: Wright’s grandmother would call her while Selene was in the same room. “It was the only way I could hear her little voice,” Wright said. But in 2013, Wright was accepted to the Family Preservation Project, an initiative then run by...
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Incarcerated Girls Finally Get Their #MeToo Moment with Spirit Awakening Foundation's Latest Event [prnewswire.com]
LOS ANGELES , March 27, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- TIME'S UP for Hollywood , but what about incarcerated young women who have been victims of sexual abuse? As social media provides growing platforms for women to speak up about workplace discrimination and sexual abuse, many voices still remain unheard in the background. Spirit Awakening Foundation continues its 22-year legacy of arts-based, trauma-informed work in Los Angeles County by helping incarcerated girls break the silence and...
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Incarceration, Addiction & Homelessness: The Problem with the U.S. Foster Care System
I was recently asked to be on the Incarcerate US podcast that is hosted by Dante Nottingham, an inmate who has been locked up since the age of 17. As you may know, incarceration in the US is at extreme levels and touches a wide variety of social issues, topics and dilemmas. At Incarcerate US, they believe that the solutions to our incarceration problems reside within the minds and hearts of the people. So the aim of our Incarcerate U.S. podcast is to interview a wide array of people across...
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Indigenous groups release booklet for workers in the criminal justice system (cbc.ca)
A new booklet designed for people working in the criminal justice system aims to give more context and understanding when working with Indigenous people involved with the system. It provides information about the Indigenous groups in Atlantic Canada, a brief history of Indigenous-Crown relations and The Indian Act, as well as how generational trauma, such as the residential schools, are still having an effect today. Bringing Balance to the Scales of Justice was designed by the Mi'kmaq...
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Inmates can't afford to communicate with their children or families - Another example of an unjust justice system
In an oddly placed story, the Arts and Entertainment section of the Star Tribune in Minnesota covered the cost of phone calls for inmates after the FCC decided that it would not support caps on cost for inmates to make calls. The article starts out talking about the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, but this issue isn't fiction, it's impacting families all over the United States. In criminal justice reform this issue could easily get lost when larger issues like mental health are so...
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Integration of TIC in the Justice System [Trauma Informed Oregon]
I have avoided writing this blog because there is so much that needs to be addressed regarding the judicial system and trauma – the theme of this newsletter. But of course, it is this avoidance that I, we must resist because avoidance often perpetuates harm. To talk about the judicial system means we have to talk about racism, systemic oppression, power, economics, and trauma and that can feel overwhelming. Even what we call the system can lead to inaccurate assumptions and connections. For...
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Introducing myself, Morgan Vien & NEW Practicing Resilience Community
Hello! I’m a Community Manager for the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care & Healing community. This is an introduction to me and this new community. I graduated with a B.S. in Public Health from Santa Clara University June 2017. And I’m interested in preventing chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, at the community and population level by addressing biological, psychological, and social factors that affect chronic disease outcomes. As the...
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Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
Earlier this year @Dawn Daum wrote to us when she was ready to share ACEs science with people in the organization she works in to make a case for moving towards more trauma-informed care for the benefit of the staff and those they serve. She was frustrated because almost all the training and resources she found were geared towards schools, clinical staff or to organizations working with children and families rather than ACE-impacted adults in the workplace and who are...
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Jail & Prison Resources
Addressing Correctional Officer Stress: Programs and Strategies Source: NCJRS Description: A guide to assist corrections administrators is addressing employee stress. Link: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183474.pdf Art Behind Bars...
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Jeff Sessions Is Throwing the Brakes on Criminal Justice Reform [PSMag.com]
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...
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Job center at women’s reentry facility opens (workforce.org)
Opened in October, the center, managed by grant sub-recipient Second Chance, started enrolling participants, with the goal of offering trauma-informed reentry services to 400 women pre-release and to 100 of those 400 post-release. Enrollment of voluntary participants is based on three criteria. The individual must: be a resident of the facility be within 180 days of release have not been convicted of a sexual offense other than prostitution Though the goals are similar for both men and women...
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Juvenile Law Center (advancing the rights and well-being of children in jeopardy)
Trauma and Resilience: A NEW LOOK AT LEGAL ADVOCACY FOR YOUTH IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE AND CHILD WELFARE SYSTEMS While rates of trauma are high for all youth, they are particularly high for youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. This...
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Kamala Harris Unveils Justice Reform Plan Focused on Youth and Families [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Sara Tiano, The Chronicle of Social Change, September 9, 2019 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris rolled out a criminal justice reform plan Monday that focused heavily on youth justice and child welfare issues. Harris’s plans aligns with several fellow Democrats on proposing reforms to the juvenile justice system, but she is the first in the crowded Democratic primary field to talk about addressing some child welfare issues. A key tenet of Harris’s plan is the creation of a...
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Kamala Harris Went to Prison So Others Won’t Have To [MotherJones.com]
Democratic up-and-comer Kamala Harris visited just about every corner of California during her successful 2016 campaign to take over Barbara Boxer’s seat in the US Senate, and she’s kept it up somewhat since taking office. But on a recent, sweltering July afternoon, I accompanied Harris to a place where no senator has set foot for at least a decade. The Central California Women’s Facility, which houses nearly 3,000 inmates, is tucked amid the farmlands of Chowchilla, about three hours from...
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Kelly Orians: Getting Out and Staying Out (dailygood.org)
Kelly Orians is a staff attorney at The First 72 Plus , a New Orleans nonprofit founded by six formerly incarcerated people to help other formerly incarcerated men and women navigate the first 72 hours of their release. She is also the co-founder of Rising Foundations , a partner nonprofit that provides pathways to self-sufficiency for formerly incarcerated people, with an aim to stop the cycle of incarceration in low-income communities through small business development and home ownership.
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Kentucky Eyed as Model for Reforming California’s Costly Bail System (timesofsandiego.com)
It's rare that a California lawmaker seeking a policy model to follow would turn to Kentucky. But with the Legislature on summer recess, that's precisely what Sen. Bob Hertzberg is doing. The mission: travel to the Bluegrass state to investigate how Kentucky gets its defendants awaiting trial to show up for court dates and keep them from committing crimes - all without locking them up. Civil rights advocates point to Kentucky as a shining example of reform, and Hertzberg, a Democrat who...
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Kids Under 12 Can No Longer be Sent to Juvenile Hall for Most Crimes Starting in 2020 [capradio.org]
By Steve Milne, Capital Public Radio, December 20, 2019 One of the last pieces of legislation from former California Gov. Jerry Brown’s final year in office would end the prosecution of pre-teens who commit crimes, other than murder and forcible sexual assault. Right now, California has no minimum age for sending children to juvenile hall. Beginning in the new year, counties will no longer be allowed to process kids under 12 years old through the juvenile justice system. Instead, they will...
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L.A. County Considers Letting More Arrestees Go Free (laweekly.com)
It costs the taxpayers of L.A. County $177 a day to keep someone in the "largest and most costly local jail system in the United States," according to a motion by county supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis. About half the people in those cells are presumed innocent and awaiting trial, and according to Sheriff Jim McDonnell, most in that group can't afford bail. The proposal is similar to legislation at state and national levels that seeks to address the injustice of bail. State Sen. Bob...
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LA County opens review of bail system that hurts the poor (scpr.org)
In a move long sought by civil rights activists, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Wednesday ordered a comprehensive review of the county’s bail system. In a move long sought by civil rights activists, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Wednesday ordered a comprehensive review of the county’s bail system. “Getting out on bail correlates much more to a person’s ability to pay, than to any likelihood of appearing in court or relative risk to the safety of the public,”...
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LA County Supes Seek Better Care And Outcomes For Pregnant And Post-Partum Incarcerated Women And Girls And Their Babies (witnessla.com)
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to identify ways to better support pregnant women and girls in the county’s jails and juvenile lockups. The motion, authored by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn, directs the Department of Health Services and the sheriff’s department, in coordination with other relevant county departments to report back to the board in 90 days with data on the number of pregnant women and girls in sheriff’s department or probation custody,...
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LA to receive $36 million for programs to keep people out of jail (scpr.org)
Nearly $36 million will flow into L.A. County to fight recidivism over the next few years, money all saved by sending fewer people to prison for drug and property crimes. California voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014, downgrading many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, meaning offenders would no longer go to state prison. The authors of the initiative promised that it would yield savings from the state an that the money would be reinvested in programs designed to cut...
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Law Enforcement & Corrections Resources
Cops, Kids, and Domestic Violence Source: National Child Traumatic Stress Network Description: Law enforcement training DVD and support documents (which can be used independently). Link: Video – ...
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Making It Right Again (lionsroar.com)
By bringing victims and perpetrators together, she’s helping repair harm and turn lives around. Meet restorative justice expert sujatha baliga. A graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe, baliga completed her law degree at the University of Pennsylvania and became a public defender, but she says the legal system began to feel like it was designed to not get at the truth. She began to look for a path to justice that “excavates from the deepest level who has been harmed, what do they need, and whose...
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Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018 [prisonpolicy.org]
Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial? And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? These questions are harder to answer than you might think, because our country’s systems of confinement are so fragmented. The various government agencies involved in the justice system collect a lot of critical data, but it is not designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. Meaningful criminal justice reform that reduces...
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May Newsletter from Trauma Informed Oregon: Integration of Trauma Informed Care in the Justice System
Mandy Davis, Director of Trauma Informed Oregon, reminds us how important trauma informed care is in all facets of the judicial system. Read the full newsletter here: https://traumainformedoregon.org/integration-of-tic-in-the-justice-system-tio-happenings-may-june-2019/
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Mental Health in Criminal Justice Resources
7 Common Characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts Source: Gains Center, SAMHSA Description: Identifies seven common characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts (JMHCs) as part of a National Institute of Justice – funded study,...
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Study: About 4 Percent of Women Are Pregnant When Jailed (nytimes.com)
About 4 percent of women incarcerated in state prisons across the U.S. were pregnant when they were jailed, according to a new study released Thursday that researchers hope will help lawmakers and prisons better consider the health of women behind bars. The number of imprisoned women has risen dramatically over the past decades, growing even as the overall prison rates decline. But there had been a lack of data on women's health and no system for tracking how frequently incarcerated women...
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Successful Reentry: Partnerships on Outside Critical for Ex-Offenders Making New Start (publicceo.com)
Hundreds of people committed to helping former offenders successfully return to their communities were energized and ready to get back to work after a recent event, when one state official paused to point out how far California has come in the past few years. “This is a mammoth shift,” Linda Penner proclaimed about how California’s governmental agencies are working with community-based organizations (CBOs) to ensure successful reentry from incarceration to the community. As chair of the...