Tagged With "Chief Justice’s Task Force"
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Nevada County Probation Department implementing Transitional Age Youth Program in Juvenile Hall
By Michael Ertola, Chief Probation Officer California State Assembly Passed Public Safety SB 1004 on June 28, 2016, to allow five California counties to implement a pilot program to house Transitional Age Youth (18-21 years old) in their Juvenile Halls. The five counties include Nevada, Napa, Butte, Santa Clara and Alameda. The Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) sponsored bill SB 1004 to provide appropriate housing, programs and services needed by Transitional Age Youth. SB 1004...
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New California mental health roadmap recommends alternate routes away from incarceration (cafwd.org)
A new strategy of alternatives to incarcerating Californians with mental health needs has been released as part of the work to help counties develop more effective criminal justice systems. After an 18-month review, the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) this month released “Together We Can: Reducing Criminal Justice Involvement for People with Mental Illness,” a roadmap to address this complex and growing issue in California. The recommendations in the...
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NFL Athlete Lawrence Phillips: The Broken Kid
http://blitzweekly.com/lawrence-phillips-the-broken-kid/ http://www.thenation.com/article/who-killed-lawrence-phillips/ Today NFL athlete Lawrence Phillips' death was ruled a suicide by the coroner. His ACEs score (Adverse Childhood Experiences) was by all accounts extremely high. By all accounts, he did not receive treatment for this unrelenting childhood trauma and attachment disruption. Abandoned by his father, abused by his stepfather, removed from his mother, placed in group homes, and...
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Nine Lessons About Criminal Justice Reform [TheMarshallProject.org]
Adapted from remarks to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, San Francisco, July 17, 2017. Since November, a kind of fatalistic cloud has settled over the campaign to reform the federal criminal justice system. With a law-and-order president, a tough-on-crime attorney general, and a Congress that has become even more polarized than it was in former President Barack Obama’s time, most reform advocates say any serious fixes to the federal system are unlikely. Reformers have been consoling...
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Nonprofit Aims to Close Modern-day Debtors’ Prisons in Texas (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Debtors’ prisons aren’t legal. Authorities are not supposed to be able to lock up individuals who can’t afford to pay their fines—unless they “willfully refuse.” This is where the gray area forms, where poor people go to jail when they can’t afford the fines for minor offenses. Thousands of people are being jailed for fines they can’t afford to pay—and at least one nonprofit organization in Texas hopes to end that. The Texas Organizing Project (TOP) is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means it’s...
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Now Is the Time to Transform the Criminal Justice System (aspeninstitute.org)
There is a sense of renewed urgency among criminal justice reform advocates in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. As COVID-19 cases rise in jails, prisons, and detention centers, efforts have been made to release young people, older and vulnerable adults, and undocumented migrants. Advocates have encouraged policymakers to consider clemency and approve medical furloughs for those with health challenges. Among many other recommendations, they have called for the immediate release of people...
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Offender reentry program fits national initiative (ocregister.com)
The importance of reentry services for offenders has gained public prominence. The Department of Justice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently underscored this by announcing National Reentry Week April 24-30. During this week, the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. attorney’s offices and others will coordinate and promote various reentry events, such as job fairs, mentorship programs and other community activities like the ones we organize frequently from this center. The Santa Ana BI Day...
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OJJDP Announces Family Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Funding Opportunity [SAMHSA's GAINS Center]
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is seeking applications for funding under its OJJDP fiscal year (FY) 2016 Family Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Program. This program furthers the Department's mission by supporting training and technical assistance that helps states, state and local courts, units of local government, and Indian tribal governments develop, maintain, and enhance...
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On Demand Webinar: A Trauma-Informed Approach for Criminal Justice-Involved Women
https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1679197/2A6EFC02B0741BFF9497FF7CF19B475C A Trauma-Informed Approach for Criminal Justice-Involved Women With the increased awareness of the impact of trauma on w omen’s lives, criminal justice professionals are beginning to consider what this means in their specific settings. There is a growing evidence-base documenting the impact of child neglect and abuse (as well as other forms of trauma) on heath, mental health and behavior. While research and clinical...
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One man’s story: A remarkable story about crime, punishment and the quest for forgiveness on the mean streets of Stockton. The ballad of Rocky Rontal. (californiasunday.com)
Rocky was raised in Stockton, California, on the far south side. "Further you go, the worser it gets. And we lived at the very end." Rocky’s father, Ronly Rontal, was a small-time hustler who drove a truck and often gathered with his friends to drink whiskey and play guitar on weekends. When he drank, he’d get violent. Rocky wasn’t the oldest or the strongest, but he was the bravest, and so the task of standing up to their father fell to him. It happened most often on the first and the 15th,...
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Paying (and Paying and Paying) a Debt to Society [TheAtlantic.com]
Last week, a federal judge in Brooklyn issued a ruling that sent a small shockwave through the criminal-justice world. Rather than sentencing a woman who had been convicted of smuggling more than a pound of cocaine into the United States to a few years in prison, Judge Frederic Block opted for extraordinary leniency and gave her probation. Block’s rationale was simple enough: The “collateral consequences” of being a convicted felon are punishment enough. Quoting experts on American...
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Pipeline to Prison May Start with Childhood Trauma
Leah Bartos - California Health Report - January 6, 2016 Pediatric patients giving their health histories at the Center for Youth Wellness, a health clinic in the impoverished Bayview Hunter’s Point area of San Francisco, are asked for more than the usual details about allergies and current prescriptions. Doctors there need a different kind of medical history: did their parents use drugs or have a mental illness? Were any family member in jail or prison? Have their parents divorced or...
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Presentation to Philadelphia Defenders Association
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 Lockups May Prosper Under Trump Due to Predictions of More Deportations [JJIE.org]
The private prison industry may end up being one of the winners under the incoming Trump administration, though it’s not clear how or when the new administration will act. Stocks of for-profit prison operators tumbled after the U.S. Department of Justice announced in August that it would no longer house federal inmates in private lockups. But they rebounded after the Electoral College upset in November by Donald Trump, who campaigned on pledges to crack down on crime and step up deportations...
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Program strengthens families separated by bars [Courier-Journal.com]
n the sullen basement of Louisville’s Hall of Justice, families reunite on a Sunday night. Scattered about, women and toddlers and a few others sometimes wait hours to see a loved one incarcerated in the next building over. No cuddles or hugs will occur during their few moments together. Just a picture on the screen and a voice through a phone give the most basic form of contact. While they bide their time, men on house arrest snake through a large gray room outlined with maroon plastic...
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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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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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Racial Bias in Criminal Risk Scores Is Mathematically Inevitable [PSMag.com]
The racial bias that ProPublica found in a formula used by courts and parole boards to forecast future criminal behavior arises inevitably from the test’s design, according to new research. The findings were described in scholarly papers published or circulated over the past several months. Taken together, they represent the most far-reaching critique to date of the fairness of algorithms that seek to provide an objective measure of the likelihood a defendant will commit further crimes.
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Real Rehabilitation – The Benefits of Organic Gardening in Prisons (wakeup-world.com)
Adding gardens to prisons may seem trite; prior to the 1970s, many prisons, including Alcatraz, had them. Then came an era when, as The Washington Post put it, “lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key justice took hold.” Gardens in prisons disappeared, along with their many profound, yet little-recognized, benefits. Today some prison officials are recognizing the importance of rehabilitation. Most prisoners are released, but as it stands more than 60 percent will be sent back to prison after...
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Real Resilience is now a PODCAST
Women who support an incarcerated loved one finally has a place to share their stories on the Real Resilience P.W.L. Podcast.
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Reducing Harm for People in the Corrections System [Trauma Informed Oregon]
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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Rep. Kennedy Calls Juvenile Justice the Next Civil Rights Issue [JJIE.org]
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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Research Central: Data on Characteristics, Risk Factors, and Protective Factors of Children With Incarcerated Parents (ojjdp.gov)
An estimated 1.7 million youth younger than age 18 have at least one parent currently in prison in the United States, and millions more have a parent currently in jail. Incarcerated parents and their children are a diverse group, and associations between parental incarceration and developmental outcomes are complicated. Research has shown that having an incarcerated parent can present individual and environmental risks for the child and increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Because...
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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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Roc Nation Invests in Company's 'Promise' to Reform Criminal Justice System [colorlines.com]
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
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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Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents
This model policy from the Bureau of Justice Assistance US Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police focuses on police interaction with children who are impacted when a parent is arrested and law...
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San Joaquin County D.A. highlights role of women in criminal justice (lodinews.com)
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...
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Seeking Graphic on ACEs and Criminal Justice
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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SF Board of Supervisors introduces legislation to eliminate criminal justice fees (abc7.news)
The City of San Francisco is looking to eliminate criminal justice fees ranging from probation fees to electronic monitoring fees and booking fees. The fees, Breed said, create barriers for people attempting to turn their lives around, and the city only collects between 9 and 15 percent of the fees. The proposal, which Breed called a "collaboration," also has the support of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office and San Francisco District Attorney. "From a fiscal standpoint, a social...
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Signed Out Of Prison But Not Signed Up For Health Insurance [NPR.org]
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
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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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
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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Special Report: 'Death Sentence' - the hidden coronavirus toll in U.S. jails and prisons (msn.com)
COVID-19 has spread rapidly behind bars in Detroit and across the nation, according to an analysis of data gathered by Reuters from 20 county jail systems, 10 state prison systems and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which runs federal penitentiaries. But scant testing and inconsistent reporting from state and local authorities have frustrated efforts to track or contain its spread, particularly in local jails. And figures compiled by the U.S. government appear to undercount the number of...
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Spotlight on Restorative Justice (dailygood.org)
In America alone, more than 2 million people are incarcerated, millions more on probation or parole, and tens of millions more with a criminal record. What distinguishes us from them? What if there were no 'us' and 'them' when it came to criminal behavior? What if we all had, at one time or another, fallen short of a perfect, law-abiding life? Would that realization make us more open to rehabilitation and less inclined to imprisonment as the first recourse? With her non-profit, "We Are All...
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Staying Connected: Moms Who Pump in Prison (nextcity.org)
An innovative lactation program encourages incarcerated new moms to maintain their breast milk supply, reinforcing maternal bonds and providing health benefits to their newborns. Jackson is one of six mothers at Riverside who are currently participating in the lactation program, one of the first of its kind inside an American jail. Women who give birth just before or during their time here are given access to breastfeeding education and the facilities of the lactation room, plus additional...
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Ella Baker Truth and Reinvestment Justice Teams underway in 8 CA Counties
There are various forms of emergency preparedness for natural disasters. From an early age, one learns how to put out a fire, board up their home if a hurricane or tornado is coming, or drop under a desk if an earthquake hits—but low-income communities of color have little to no response to more frequent incidences of state violence in the streets and inside of jails. The Justice Teams for Truth and Reinvestment will be the local rapid response networks inside of eight different counties...
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Eric Holder Wants to End Bail as We Know It [CityLab.com]
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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Federal Bill Would Reverse Perverse Incentives for Mass Incarceration [stopthedrugwar.org]
This article was produced in collaboration with AlterNet and first appeared here . Even as President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions descend into a law-and-order authoritarianism that views mass incarceration as a good thing, Democrats in Congress are moving to blunt such tendencies. A bill introduced last week in the House is a prime example. Last Wednesday, Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) filed the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act of 2017 (HR 3845), which would use the power of the...
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FINLAND: Healing Through Art on Death Row (worldpulse.com)
From her home in Helsinki, Maria Jain began a correspondence with a death row inmate in the US. Now, they've co-created an art exhibit that explores the need for justice reform, the potential for personal transformation, and the intricacies of healing. We talk about our lives growing up. The era was the same, the 80’s and the 90’s; the places were very different. I grew up in Finland; he grew up in Texas. I share about my difficult teenage years when I turned to self-harming. I talk about my...
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First Maine inmate to enroll in graduate school conducts groundbreaking research in prison (Portland Phoenix ME)
By Jordan Bailey, January 22, 2020, for Portland Phoenix ME In 2008, 21-year-old Brandon Brown shot a man in Portland’s Old Port. He was eventually convicted of attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault, and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Now Brown is poised to be the first person in Maine to earn a master’s degree while incarcerated, and may be the first inmate to conduct approved research on fellow inmates for his thesis project. Brown shot former Marine James Sanders, crippling...
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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
[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
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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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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Gun violence is a ‘contagious’ social epidemic (scienceblog.com)
Gun violence is often described as an epidemic or a public health concern, due to its alarmingly high levels in certain populations in the United States. It most often occurs within socially and economically disadvantaged minority urban communities, where rates of gun violence far exceed the national average. A new Yale study has established a model to predict how “contagious” the epidemic really is. In a study published online on Jan. 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association,...
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Healing and Justice Toolkit (Dignity and Power Now)
We have learned so much from our anchor organization Dignity And Power Now , a “Los Angeles based grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities” and are so thrilled to have been able to collaborate on a Healing Justice Toolkit with DPN. The guide was written by DPN, edited by Thandisizwe Chimurenga, translated into Spanish by delia ayala, and designed by Design Action Collective . Here is an excerpt...
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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...