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PACEs in the Criminal Justice System

Discussion and sharing of resources in working with clients involved in the criminal justice system and how screening for and treating ACEs will lead to successful re-entry of prisoners into the community and reduced recidivism for former offenders.

Tagged With "PACEs in the Criminal Justice System"

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Population-Based Analysis of Temporal Trends in the Prevalence of Depressed Mood Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Youths From 1999 Through 2017 [jamanetwork.com]

By Alexandra H. Bettis, Richard T. Liu, Jama Pediatrics, October 21, 2019 Depression in adolescence is highly prevalent and associated with negative long-term outcomes.1 Despite decades of research on treatment for adolescent depression, sexual minority youths remain a particularly at-risk group.2 Temporal trends inform progress in addressing the need to eliminate health disparities among sexual minority populations.3 To our knowledge, this study presents the first population-representative...
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Pregnant Behind Bars: What We Do And Don't Know About Pregnancy And Incarceration [NPR]

Karen Clemmer ·
There are 111,616 incarcerated women in the United States, a 7-fold increase since 1980. Some of these women are pregnant, but amid reports of women giving birth in their cells or shackled to hospital beds , prison and public health officials have no hard data on how many incarcerated women are pregnant, or on the outcomes of those pregnancies. A study published in The American Journal of Public Health Thursday changes that. The study included 57 percent of the US prison population (New...
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Presentation to Philadelphia Defenders Association

Leslie Lieberman ·
On October 17th I gave a presentation to 70 + attorneys from the Defenders Association.  Several members of this group assisted me by sending me great information about ACEs and the criminal justice system for which I am grateful.  The 3...
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Private Prisons Are Back in Business [PSMag.com]

Samantha Sangenito ·
It was only a matter of time before Attorney General Jeff Sessions backtracked on the Department of Justice’s earlier plans to phase out the use of private prisons. Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union has been concerned about the former senator’s ties to the private prison lobby since October, when Geo Group—one of the biggest private prison corporations—hired two of Sessions’ former aides, David Stewart and Ryan Robichaux. On Thursday, Sessions issued a memo overturning the one put...
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Prop. 47 Reduced Recidivism & Infused Money Into Rehabilitation, But Also Boosted Theft-Related Crime Rates, Report Says (witnessla.com)

While California crime rates remain at historic lows, voter-approved Proposition 47 appears to have led to an increase in certain property crimes, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California report that aims to shed some light on the effects of the measure–an ongoing, contentious point of debate in the state. While researchers found what appeared to be a correlation between Prop. 47 and upticks in larceny, the measure did not make a measurable contribution to the state’s...
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Proposition 47: A failure to learn history’s lesson (sacbee.com)

In their laudable effort to reverse mass incarceration, California policymakers have been too slow to provide felons with necessary care and treatment upon their release. That’s among the conclusions to be gleaned from an important reporting project by newspapers in Palm Springs, Ventura, Salinas and Redding analyzing Proposition 47, the 2014 initiative that cut penalties for drug possession and property theft, and reduced many crimes to misdemeanors. “Thousands of addicts and mentally ill...
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Putting Their Prison Pasts Behind Them (nationswell.com)

These social entrepreneurs aren't just working to reform the criminal justice system - they're a product of it too. America's criminal justice system currently housed more than 2 million people - that's more per capita than any other nation on earth. Even worse: Many are repeat offenders who haven't been offered the support or resources to get their lives back on track once released. A new initiative, backed in part by the singer John Legend, is hoping to reverse those dire statistics.
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Rebuilding Lives while Building Homes: Tony McGuire's Resilience-Building Carpentry Class

Tara Mah ·
Tony McGuire is a great carpenter. He ran his own construction business for years. Then he wanted to get into teaching. He became a Tenured Faculty member at a local community college, and landed in the state penitentiary as a Basic Skills Carpentry instructor. So how could that be connected to saving lives with a 20 buck investment? Tony got touched by CRI’s trauma-informed training. He saw himself past and present and knew somehow that, “with this information comes the responsibility to...
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Reducing Bench Warrants—By Text Message (Route Fifty)

Karen Clemmer ·
By Kate Elizabeth Queram, October 8, 2019 for Route Fifty Minnesota is rolling out a statewide program that sends text messages and emails to remind defendants of their court appearances. A program that sends email and text reminders of upcoming court dates will expand statewide in Minnesota after a one-county pilot significantly reduced the number of bench warrants issued for people failing to appear. The eReminder program debuted two years ago in Hennepin County after officials there...
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Reducing Harm for People in the Corrections System [Trauma Informed Oregon]

Karen Clemmer ·
When I entered Framingham State Prison for the first time at age 19, I was placed in a cold, dark holding cell with 9 other women. Most of us were in bad shape, experiencing withdrawal symptoms, bruised from domestic violence, and simply scared to death of what we would experience after entering our designated cellblocks. After almost an entire day of being crammed in that cell, I was finally moved and asked to remove my clothes in front of an intimidating, angry-looking woman and then to...
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Reject more jail expansion and invest in prevention, re-entry (sacbee.com)

Recently, when Gov. Jerry Brown warned of impending deficits and the perils of committing to new spending in his revised budget proposal, he failed to mention the one area in which he has been consistently profligate: his aggressive expansion of the state’s already vast system of imprisonment. The governor is proposing $250 million for county jail construction, on top of the $2.2 billion he has already poured into expanding county jails since 2008. More than 40 counties are already building...
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Rep. Kennedy Calls Juvenile Justice the Next Civil Rights Issue [JJIE.org]

Samantha Sangenito ·
Rep. Joseph Kennedy III drew on the spirit of his grandfather Robert F. Kennedy this morning, casting juvenile justice as an urgent civil rights issue in a rousing and eloquent keynote address at the inaugural Probation System Reform Symposium . He applauded the 200-plus symposium attendees, many of them people who work with children in the system, for being on the front lines of this movement and putting reforms into place that de-emphasize punishment and throwing children deeper into the...
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Residents praise correctional re-entry program, as Gov. Bullock pays a visit [ktvq.com]

Laura Pinhey ·
"The program focuses on treating people and educating them about trauma in their lives, and how that trauma has contributed to their addictive or criminal behavior. Women must apply for the program, through their probation officer, and register a high score on the “adverse childhood experience” scale. Program officials said most women on the program scored at least eight out of 10 on the scale, making them a very high risk for behavioral and mental-health problems."
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Restorative Justice conference focuses on 'energy of healing' (thecalifornian.com)

With crime and its aftermath often rippling through Monterey County , more than a hundred residents gathered at Hartnell College on Saturday to talk about how victims, offenders and the community can transform the negative effects of crime into positive solutions. Restorative justice is a system of criminal justice that focuses on rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large. The “ Restorative Justice Conference: Justice that Heals ” was hosted...
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Riverside County aims to help mentally ill stop cycle of incarceration (cafwd.org)

When a national report was issued this summer that showed incarceration has largely replaced hospitalization for the severely mentally ill, the analysis reinforced what many counties across the country had been experiencing, including Riverside County. And according the Riverside County Jail Utilization Study conducted by CA Fwd, mentally ill offenders stayed in Riverside County jails for longer periods of time and were booked more often. The national report and the Riverside County jail...
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Riverside County Takes Proactive Approach to Transitioning Inmates Back into Community (cafwd.org)

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...
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Roc Nation Invests in Company's 'Promise' to Reform Criminal Justice System [colorlines.com]

Alicia Doktor ·
Shawn “ Jay-Z ” Carter, who has promoted criminal justice reform in prose and on screen , is putting his financial weight behind a start-up company that aims to use technology to reform bail and sentencing practices. TechCrunch reported yesterday (March 19) that Roc Nation , the MC ’s management company, invested in a first round of fundraising for Promise . The company joined venture capital groups like Kapor Capital , 8VC and First Round Capital to raise a total of $3 million for the new...
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Role Call

andrea schulz ·
I encourage members of ACES in the Criminal Justice System to share what you each hope you gain or contribute by participating in this networking group. Mission Statements please! I work in CDCR, and hope to see routine ACEs screening of inmates and...
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San Diego County jails make changes to treat mentally ill inmates, curb suicides (sandiegouniontribune.com)

For decades, jails throughout the state have operated as de facto mental health facilities, a trend that intensified in recent years after California changed its laws to keep some offenders out of the state’s overcrowded prison system. In San Diego County, where there were 12 inmate suicides in 2014 and 2015, Sheriff Bill Gore and his staff have been working to improve mental health services at the county jails to prevent more deaths. The department has modified the mental health screening...
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Seeking Graphic on ACEs and Criminal Justice

Leslie Lieberman ·
Hello Colleagues,   I am looking for a graphic which shows a relationships between involvement in the adult criminal justice system and ACEs.  I'm also looking for statistics about numbers of people in the criminal justice system and early...
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Signed Out Of Prison But Not Signed Up For Health Insurance [NPR.org]

Samantha Sangenito ·
Before he went to prison, Ernest killed his 2-year-old daughter in the grip of a psychotic delusion. When the Indiana Department of Correction released him in 2015, he was terrified something awful might happen again. He had to see a doctor. He had only a month's worth of pills to control his delusions and mania. He was desperate for insurance coverage. But the state failed to enroll him in Medicaid, although under the Affordable Care Act Indiana had expanded the health insurance program to...
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Skene: Elayn Hunt inmates learn about impacts of childhood trauma, applying research to their own lives

Linda Manaugh ·
Ryan Crotwell's memories of growing up in French Settlement are filled with mental snapshots of abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father. First he remembers kneeling on rice. Then the whippings started — "switches, belts, whatever was within reach." Crotwell, 34, recalls acting out in school and receiving brutal punishments at home. He was institutionalized for psychiatric treatment twice before his 10th birthday and diagnosed with various psychological conditions including attention...
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Social Policy Report The Biological Embedding of Child Abuse and Neglect Implications for Policy and Practice

Former Member ·
  Each year within the US alone over 770,000 children are victimized by abuse and neglect (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), and this figure is likely to underestimate the extent of the problem. Researchers have long recognized...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science

Carey Sipp ·
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Eric Holder Wants to End Bail as We Know It [CityLab.com]

Samantha Sangenito ·
Nationwide, a movement is growing to address what civil rights advocates have called a “wealth-based detention scheme”—the traditional bail system, which often holds arrestees who can’t scrape together the funds to post bail, even for minor offenses. About 450,000 Americans are held in jails each day because of inability to pay, according to the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and Equal Justice Under Law, a Washington-based civil rights group. Eric Holder, the former attorney...
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Fathers & ACEs with Trauma Dad & Father's Uplift CEO: Tuesday, September 12th

Christine Cissy White ·
What supports exist to "uplift" fathers who have survived abandonment, abuse or torture as children? Where can men go to discuss the joys, struggles and issues of being a father with ACEs? Where are the men who face hard, heavy and complicated realities to make life easier and lighter for all who come after? We found two of them and they will be the featured guests in the next Parenting with ACEs chat . Meet Charles Clayton Daniels, Jr. of Father's Uplift and "Trauma Dad" Byron Hamel. Both...
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For Male Victims Of Child Sexual Abuse, Untreated Trauma Can Lead To Run-Ins With The Law (wpin.org)

Every week, Daniel Westbrooks walks through a metal detector and several locked doors to visit teens at Nashville’s Juvenile Detention Center. He weaves through the shuffle of boys in matching blue polo shirts and gray slip-on sneakers, joking and chatting. Westbrooks says he knows what it’s like to be locked up. He cycled in and out of juvenile detention, jails and prisons for nearly two decades. All the while, he was holding in painful secrets from his past. It’s easy for Westbrooks to...
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Gender Injustice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for Girls

Jane Stevens ·
  [This information is from The Crittenton Foundation website.] Gender Injustice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for Girls  by Francine T. Sherman and co-author Annie Balck. This report is the most comprehensive to date on girls in the juvenile justice system. The report is released through a partnership between The National Crittenton Foundation and The National Women’s Law Center and the authors.   The full report, executive summary and comprehensive infographic...
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Gender Specific Criminal Justice Resources

Joanna Weill ·
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)

Kate Giduz ·
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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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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How Can America Reduce Mass Incarceration? [npr.org]

Alicia Doktor ·
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]

Alicia Doktor ·
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 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]

Samantha Sangenito ·
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 Did It Norway [themarshallproject.org]

Alicia Doktor ·
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]

Jane Stevens ·
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]

Samantha Sangenito ·
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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Incarcerated Girls Finally Get Their #MeToo Moment with Spirit Awakening Foundation's Latest Event [prnewswire.com]

Alicia Doktor ·
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

Shenandoah Chefalo ·
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

Leisa Irwin ·
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]

Karen Clemmer ·
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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