Tagged With "Criminal Justice System"
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Re: 7.25+
HI Zachary- thank you for the post and sharing the video. SO POWERFUL and hopeful. We need to change the systems that incarcerate rather than, as you say address what happened to them (and moving upstream, be asking kids this BEFORE they get into the system. (Note, this is the third time today that someone shared this video!)
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Re: 7.25+
Zachary, Thank you for sharing your work, this numbers you offer are critical for understanding the connection. You were on target in sharing the powerful video that we can pass along.
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Re: 7.25+
Thank you Zachary, Yes, I too saw this video posted on facebook last week. As a substitute teacher (nowhere near retired), I see my ability to use trauma informed practices is directly enhanced by my learning to address White Supremacy Culture. I'm happy my state education association recently publicly named that. I'm learning that all the many people who've been directly impacted by incarceration have so many practical solutions! Those of us nearer the decision-making (traditionally-- with...
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Re: Proposition 47: A failure to learn history’s lesson (sacbee.com)
Anna, I'm saddened to hear of this gentleman's pain and our systems not supporting his healing. Every "system" should intentionally focus on supporting who they serve heal. Every professional who supports humanity should have their system support their own well being with compassion. Every individual deserves hope... I'm uplifted knowing all of our 12,000 + ACEs Connection members, and many others, are on the front line of systems change and creating cultures of caring. We've come a long...
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Re: Humboldt County Jail speaker series aims to inspire inmates (kiem-tv.com)
Congratulations Robert! Tremendously exciting to hear of you becoming a VISTA and a Toastmaster! Collaborating closely with many re-entry folks over the years who've been incarcerated and are now transforming lives and communities through modeling and mentoring others, I'm continually inspired by their wisdom and heart-based leadership. Always sharing with them the power of their voice , the most inspirational words and insights come from those with lived experiences. And I just love the...
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Re: YPD hosts specialized training for over 170 officers and advocates
How did I miss this? It certainly can be, there are a few different ideas around the interview process in the Justice System. I'd be happy to explain. Just too much to write. One of the problems is getting in front of people is smaller areas. The Justice System and especially Law Enforcement don't have funding to do the right thing. Crazy as that sounds, in fact, it is mostly the Community Non-Profits that hire me to speak to their Law Enforcement. Let me know if you would like to chat...
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Re: For Male Victims Of Child Sexual Abuse, Untreated Trauma Can Lead To Run-Ins With The Law (wpin.org)
Overseeing development of the first Day Reporting Center in the state of TN which went on to be acquired and replicated by the TN Dept of Corrections was a tremendous honor to me. During that time I learned many involved in the justice system have histories of childhood trauma. Thank you for sharing this story and the wonderful work this gentleman is now doing to mentor other youth! Trauma is not an excuse for drugs or crime but it offers an explanation for it.
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Re: Putting Their Prison Pasts Behind Them (nationswell.com)
That's fantastic, Becky! Thank you for forwarding to one of the Assistant Commissioners of state corrections! Please consider inviting them to join our ACEs in Criminal Justice community on ACEs Connection. With so many solutions shared in many communities and criminal justice systems (such as, the most humane prison in our world - Norway prison system ), learning from so many innovative approaches, and community-driven solutions, the site would also benefit profoundly from the Assistant...
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Re: Pipeline to Prison May Start with Childhood Trauma
Hi Emily, Thank you for your critically imperative post. So important that we (society) are well informed and engaged in transforming our systems to focus on bringing hope and healing to whom we serve cross-sector in a socio-ecological model, please find a link to an exemplary School to Prison Pipeline prezi with the glaring statistics of the reality and just as importantly, all the solutions on transforming this punitive pipeline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmI5nROpbqc if...
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Re: Banning in-person jail visits is foolish and needlessly cruel (latimes.com)
Yes... absolutely concurring with you Rick. Individuals who are incarcerated need opportunities to heal, within the system and when they return to their community. It's heartbreaking to realize how many sons and daughters are treated as caged animals. Knowing there are pockets of hope and healing with the criminal justice system, my hope is all of our collective synergy and momentum will support the transformation of the justice systems (juvenile and adult, courts, jails, prisons, detention...
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Will the Coronavirus Make Us Rethink Mass Incarceration? (newyorker.com)
For decades, community groups have pointed out the social costs of mass incarceration: its failure to address the root causes of addiction and violence; its steep fiscal price tag; its deepening of racial inequalities. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed another danger of the system: its public-health risks. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union worked with epidemiologists and statisticians to show that, without protective measures in jails and prisons, including rapid reductions in...
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"How to talk policy and influence people": a Law and Justice interview with Fritzi Horstman
In this "How to talk policy and influence people" interview with Fritzi Horstman, founder and CEO of the Compassion Prison Project (see http://compassionprisonproject.org/), we discuss childhood trauma, the significance of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) science, offending behaviour, addiction, violence and the fact that the men and women who end up in prisons are often among the most traumatized members of any society. We talk about the power of the "Step Inside the Circle"...
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Proposition 47 and Racial Disparities in California [ppic.org]
From Public Policy Institute of California, June 16, 2020 About the Program While the COVID-19 pandemic has required changes to law enforcement and correctional policies, widespread protests over the police-involved deaths of African Americans have intensified concern about racial and ethnic disparities in our criminal justice system. In recent years, California has implemented significant reforms that, while not motivated by racial disparities, are narrowing them. PPIC researcher Brandon...
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California jail population plummets during the pandemic. Could this lead to long-term change? [sacbee.com]
By Jason Pohl, The Sacramento Bee, May 27, 2020 California’s long history of altering its criminal justice system — from requiring life in prison for third-strike offenders to reducing the punishment for hundreds of crimes — is having another moment that could dramatically alter how the state locks people up. In a seismic, almost overnight shift, California has jailed 21,700 fewer people — nearly one-third of its daily population — in county lockups since the new coronavirus hit the state.
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Stepping Up: A National Initiative to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails
The Stepping Up initiative recently celebrated 500 counties joining the national movement to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails. Four years ago, The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center , the National Association of Counties (NACo), and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APA Foundation) launche d Stepping Up in response to a public health crisis: the disproportionate number of people in jail who have mental illnesses. The human toll of this...
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Barton: Address childhood trauma for criminal justice reform (The Times)
By Kevin Barton, July 1, 2020, The Times. 'By the time a crime is committed and a victim is harmed, the root causes of that crime may have occurred long ago.' It is impossible to work within our American criminal justice system and witness the events over the past several months without asking whether there is a better way of doing things. The disparities that we see throughout society in areas such as education, housing and healthcare are even more apparent when viewed through the lens of...
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New episode of Transforming Trauma! Compassion Prison Project: Bringing Trauma-informed Care into the Prison System with Fritzi Horstman
Transforming Trauma Episode 017: Compassion Prison Project: Bringing Trauma-informed Care into the Prison System with Fritzi Horstman In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our host Sarah Buino is joined by Fritzi Horstman, Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project . Through her work, Fritzi aims to bring trauma-informed care to a population in high need of trauma healing and not likely to receive it: men and women in prison. Sarah and Fritzi discuss Adverse Childhood...
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Newsom to release 8,000 prisoners in California by August amid coronavirus outbreaks [sfchronicle.com]
By Jason Fagone, Megan Cassidy, and Alexei Koseff, San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2020 Gov. Gavin Newsom will release approximately 8,000 people incarcerated inside California’s prison system by August, in a move that comes amid devastating coronavirus outbreaks at several facilities and pressure from lawmakers and advocates. The releases, which were announced just before noon Friday, will come on a rolling basis, and they’ll include both people who were scheduled to be freed soon as well...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...
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A year without visits: COVID-19’s impact on children with incarcerated parents (North Carolina Health News)
By Hannah Critchfield, July 16, 2020, NC Health News. Correctional facilities throughout the state have shut down in-person visitations to help quell the spread of COVID-19, creating one more roadblock for kids trying to navigate the criminal justice system to stay connected with a parent. In any other year, on Father’s Day, 11-year-old Marley Bennett and her grandmother would pack up their pre-made lunches and drive to Orange Correctional Center for a visit with Marley’s father. They’d sit...
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Kindness in court: a novel approach [royalgazette.com]
By Victoria Greening, The Royal Gazette, August 14, 2020 I would like to consider a counterintuitive method of achieving crime reduction and disruption to the cycle of offending behaviour in Bermuda. This is as a follow-up to recent concerns raised in The Royal Gazette between August 4 and 7 when the lack of resources available to vulnerable and mentally unwell members of the community who end up caught up in the criminal justice system was addressed. There has been a recent upsurge in...
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Mental Health Needs of Law Enforcement: Being Proactive in a Reactive Career
How Do You Help Police Officers Address Trauma? Officer mental health is an often overlooked component of safety and wellness. Good mental health is just as essential as good physical health for law enforcement to be effective in keeping our country and our communities safe from crime and violence. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), between 7 to 19 percent of police officers have symptoms of PTSD and 1 in 4 police officers have thoughts of suicide at some point in...
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A County-Tribal Partnership to Improve Family Experience with Courts [imprintnews.org]
By Kim Schneider, The Imprint, October 12, 2020 A Minnesota tribal community and county have announced a partnership that aims to better serve Native parents and kids in family and criminal cases through more coordinated court processing. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and Itasca County, located in northern Minnesota, will design and pilot family-centered solutions for people in criminal or dependency court cases. One of the project leaders, Minnesota Ninth District Judge Korey Wahwassuck,...
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UC to Launch Its First Bachelor's Program in Prison [kqed.org]
By Vanessa Rancano, KQED, December 15, 2020 UC Irvine and the state prison system have reached a deal to create the first University of California bachelor’s degree program behind bars. Since California opened the door for community colleges to teach in prisons in 2014, some 2,000 incarcerated men and women across the state have earned associate degrees, said Brant Choate, director of rehabilitative programs for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. But opportunities...
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Re: Trauma-Informed Prisons: Dr. Stephanie Covington and CPP's Fritzi Horstman
This is wonderful! Two great trauma informed champions teaming up to bring healing and dignity to those in the justice system. Go Stephanie and Fritzi!
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Re: Trauma-Informed Prisons: Dr. Stephanie Covington and CPP's Fritzi Horstman
Fritzi, I just love your heart. You are indeed my sister! When I feel defeated and discouraged, I always seem to seek you out somewhere so just know your love and compassion for our incarcerated beloveds is contagious and we are grateful for all of us that are leaning in and pressing in hard for change. There's something about God's beautiful beloveds who have a score of seven on the ACE test (you and I are a lot alike; seven is perfection!). We're extra special because we understand our own...
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Adverse Childhood Experiences and Justice System Contact: A Systematic Review [pediatrics.aappublications.org]
By Gloria Huei-Jong Graf, Stanford Chihuri, Melanie Blow, and Guohua Li, Pediatrics, January 2021 CONTEXT: Given the wide-ranging health impacts of justice system involvement, we examined evidence for the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and justice system contact in the United States. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize epidemiological evidence for the association between ACEs and justice system contact. DATA SOURCES: We searched 5 databases for studies conducted through...
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Where Incarceration Isn’t the Answer (yesmagazine.org)
Progressive voices long ago characterized America’s penal system as a failure. However, in recent years, even a few button-down conservative, law-and-order types have grudgingly acknowledged the need for change. Of course, they don’t sign on to so-called “bleeding heart” concerns about human rights. But they do express alarm about the dollars and cents required to warehouse human beings with no financial return. Texas lawyer Marc Levin, who helped establish the organization Right on Crime...
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LA County’s new probation chief is known for San Diego County juvenile justice reforms (dailynews.com)
Adolfo Gonzales began work Monday as Los Angeles County’s chief probation officer, overseeing a system that supervises more than 40,000 juveniles and adults and managing an annual budget of over $1 billion. A former San Diego County probation chief, Gonzales brings 43 years of law enforcement experience to his new position, including being chief of the National City Police Department and assistant chief with the San Diego Police Department. Gonzales was appointed to the position last month...
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An Open Letter to Police Chiefs: The Need for Trauma-informed Policing
Recently, I was provided a form letter addressed to a local police chief and friend of mine who knew of my interest in trauma-informed policing and who thought I should read the letter. The letter claimed that trauma-informed policing, specifically as it related to domestic violence and sexual violence allegations, was everything from “junk science” to “prejudicial against men.” Needless to say, I found the letter uninformed and unpersuasive.
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North Carolina to infuse ACEs science into state judiciary system
Plans to integrate practices and policies based on the science of adverse childhood experiences in North Carolina’s 4,000-person,100-county statewide judiciary were announced today. Jon David, district attorney for North Carolina’s 15th District, District Court Judge Quintin McGee of the same district, and Amelia Thorn, of Duke University’s Bolch Judicial Institute, revealed plans to work with North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby and Administrative Office of the Courts Director Andrew...
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uncuffed.org (Radio Station within San Quentin and Solano Prisons in California)
KALW , an NPR member station in San Francisco, has led classes in audio production inside San Quentin State Prison since 2012, and Solano Prison since 2018. Since then, KALW has aired over 80 stories produced inside the walls. Radio producers from KALW visit the prisons to teach classes in audio production, and to help edit the stories. Audio engineers at KALW do some final polishing before it goes out to the world. KALW’s classes in prisons are supported by the California Arts Council's...
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After rampant COVID cases and mass vaccines, is California’s prison system nearing ‘herd immunity’? (eastbaytimes.com)
A precipitous decline of coronavirus cases in state prisons has transformed California’s correctional system from a cautionary tale of mass incarceration in the time of a plague to something more unexpected: an intensely monitored field study that could help scientists develop strategies to defeat the pandemic outside prison walls. Highly effective vaccines distributed in the prisons combined with the lack of reinfections among inmates and staff previously diagnosed with COVID-19 appear to...
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A Farm in North Carolina Offers a Women's Reentry Program Unlike Any Other [dailyyonder.com]
By Olivia Weeks, The Daily Yonder, March 11, 2021 In recent decades, the number of women incarcerated in North Carolina has skyrocketed. In 2017, the state’s female prison population totaled 2,634, almost six times its 1978 number. In the early aughts, programming for women reentering society lagged behind growing incarceration rates, said Benevolence Farm Executive Director Kristen Powers in a phone interview. In 2008, social worker and Benevolence Farm founder Tanya Jisa put together a...
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Abolitionist Politics: The Case for a World without Prisons (nonprofitquarterly.org)
What is often called police and prison reform does not and has never worked for Black people. Measures to stem police violence and other acts of harm toward Black people, like hiring more Black police officers, community policing, modernized surveillance techniques, placing police outposts in under-serviced and marginalized neighborhoods, and starting sports camps run by police, among other programs, fail by their very nature because each is meant to further cement the position policing...
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Making Space for Restorative Justice (yesmagazine.org)
Over the past few years, statistics on how the U.S. justice system is failing its citizens have come fast and hard. With more than 2 million people detained in jails and prisons, we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world—a rate that’s increased 500% in the past five decades Possibly as many as 482,000 people currently held in local jails are there simply because they’re too poor to pay bail; they haven’t been convicted of a crime. African Americans are three times more likely to...
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ROBERT PRICE: The woman once known as W76337 is on a mission [bakersfield.com]
By Robert Price, Bakersfield.com, March 27, 2021 You might say Shawanna Vaughn got off to a bad start. Born in a California state women’s rehabilitation prison to a drug-addicted mother and assigned to the state foster care system as a toddler, her destiny must have seemed preordained. Books with first chapters like hers usually don’t end well. For a time, the arc of her young life had a hopeful trajectory. Her foster care experience in Bakersfield was fulfilling and positive, thanks mostly...
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Best Practices, Internationally Respected Experts Featured at ACEs Central Florida Conference. Registration Closes Monday!
Donna Jackson Nakazawa ( photo by Marshall Clarke ), award winning science journalist and author of Angel and the Assassin , will join Dr. Mimi Graham , director of Florida State University's Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy , Andrea Darr , creator of Handle With Care, Captain Lovetta Quinn-Henry , from the Orlando Police Department and many more featured at the conference. Help your community move the needle toward a trauma-informed, resilient community by learning from...
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Born In Prison, How One Woman Used Her Trauma To Write The Post Traumatic Prison Disorder Act [forbes.com]
By Amanda Nguyen, Forbes, May 13, 2021 “I was born in prison, rented to the foster care system, then leased back to prison.” After she was born to an incarcerated mother and faced an unstable childhood, Shawanna Vaughn found herself back behind bars by the age of 17. “Walking into prison at 17 was the most traumatic experience of my life,” she remembers. She shared a cell with convicted murderers, mothers and young women. [ Please click here to read more .]
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Re: Born In Prison, How One Woman Used Her Trauma To Write The Post Traumatic Prison Disorder Act [forbes.com]
Thank you, Shawanna, for sharing your story and your continued fight to advocate for our residents incarcerated and those transitioning back into society. Mental illness is isolating and what people don't understand is that trauma may be a fact of life, but it does not have to be a life sentence, and you are walking and living proof of that. Thank you! Don't ever grow tire; it's a hard system, I know, to break through, but your voice is being heard. I'm sharing your article on Blameless' FB...
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Eugene, OR's Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Street Program
Eugene, OR: CAHOOTS 32 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic started CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989 (White Bird Clinic).* The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as the USA struggles to reimagine public safety. From the CAHOOTS...
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Removing Barriers to Success Created by the Criminal Justice System (barrons.com)
For people who have served prison time, the penalties never end. The California-based national nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice (ASJ) coined a term to describe what many of these people face: post-conviction poverty. After completing a sentence, and being freed from prison, a formerly convicted individual encounters thousands of restrictions depending on where they live that make it challenging to reintegrate into society. They may not be able to vote, get a driver’s license, or,...
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Removing Barriers to Success Created by the Criminal Justice System [barrons.com]
By Abby Schultz, Barron's, July 31, 2021 For people who have served prison time, the penalties never end. The California-based national nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice (ASJ) coined a term to describe what many of these people face: post-conviction poverty. After completing a sentence, and being freed from prison, a formerly convicted individual encounters thousands of restrictions depending on where they live that make it challenging to reintegrate into society. They may not be...
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From Crime to Care — On the Front Lines of Decarceration [nejm.org]
By Nathaniel P. Morris, The New England Journal of Medicine, July 29, 2021 When I became a physician, I was not expecting to learn so much about ankle monitors. Over the past few years, I have worked in clinics caring for patients with mental disorders, substance use disorders, or both, many of whom remain under criminal justice supervision in the community after arrest or incarceration. Some of these devices have Global Positioning System capabilities, allowing law enforcement officers to...
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Opinion: How the language of criminal justice inflicts lasting harm [washingtonpost.com]
By Deanna Hoskins and Zöe Towns, The Washington Post, August 25, 2021 These days there is more reporting on the harms of mass incarceration and mass criminalization than ever before. More journalists are on these beats . Stories about conditions in police stations, jails and prisons are getting more space on the page. Entire journalism outlets are dedicated to critically tracking the criminal justice system. Yet when we scroll through our news feeds and Twitter, or turn on the radio or news...
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The Language Project (themarshallproject.org)
Reporters and editors have long believed that terms such as “inmate,” “felon” and “offender” are clear, succinct and neutral. But a vocal segment of people affected by the criminal justice system argue that these words — and any other words that define human beings by their crimes and punishments — are dehumanizing. The Marshall Project occupies a unique space in criminal justice reporting. We are not an advocacy organization, but we are committed to sustaining a sense of national urgency...
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'I studied law in jail - now I want to change the system' [bbc.com]
By Kirstie Brewer, British Broadcasting Corporation, September 5, 2021 LaTonya woke up in the night to the sound of thuds and yells. Her mother's boyfriend had been growing increasingly abusive and unstable, and now he was dragging their bed out of the apartment and into the passageway outside. LaTonya crept out of bed and saw the boyfriend shouting and jabbing his finger at her mother's temple. "I thought I could protect my mom," she says. She picked up an aerosol can and hit him with it.
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Join us October 27, 2021 for the inaugural event in our Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice System series, “The Relationship between PACEs and the Criminal Justice System”
Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection Midwest and Tennessee community facilitator and criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and...
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How “Solitary Gardens” Help Envision a World Without Prisons (yesmagazine.org)
In a small patch of green space on Andry Street in New Orleans’ lower ninth ward, nine garden beds lie next to one another, each 6 feet by 9 feet, each the size of one standard solitary-confinement cell. Each garden bed grows a mix of herbs and flowers, among them pansies, stinging nettles, onions, mugwort. They are a mix of plants with medicinal properties and some that just bring pleasure to the eyes, and their growth is limited to the parts of the tiny space where a person would be free...
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Prison And Jail Reentry And Health (HealthAffairs.org)
People reentering communities after incarceration are sicker than the general population and face barriers to accessing health care and other supports. Along with criminal justice reform, policy makers must work to improve evidence-based reentry programming that supports healthy people and communities. Key Points: Mass incarceration in the United States is a public health crisis that disproportionately affects Black and Brown people and their communities. Incarceration can exacerbate health...