Blog posts -- Criminal justice

From National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, February 2020 The City of Stockton has developed past its days as a small rural town in California’s Central Valley. Emerging from bankruptcy, the city is now experiencing population and economic growth with one of the most popular mayors in the country, whose innovative initiatives have garnered national attention. Although Stockton has long contended with stubbornly high rates of gun violence, the City is making progress on this front as...

A snapshot of 597 juveniles placed under probation supervision in Santa Barbara County in 2017 shows 53 were incarcerated in juvenile hall, a number 38 percent higher than the average in nearby counties. The reason, according to Probation Department officials, is that the county uses fewer alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenders than comparable counties like San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Ventura. Incarcerating misdemeanor offenders, and exposing them to serious,...

Inside an aging brick facility ringed by a chain-link fence and agricultural fields, 14 young people convicted of violent crimes are trying to program a better future for themselves. For the past two months they’ve been learning to write code through a first-of-its-kind pilot program at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility in Camarillo, California, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. They’re looking to break that streets-to-prison cycle by picking up new skills – JavaScript, HTML,...

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...

In March , the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that promised to tackle one of the most pressing issues the county’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems face: how to change the tragically life-altering effects of being caught up in both. For oft-labeled “crossover youth,” having a foot in both systems can easily result in incarceration, homelessness and substance abuse issues later in life. Amid the bleak outcomes for foster youth and those involved in the...

On Monday, the FBI released its full crime stats for 2016, which showed violent crime up 4.1 percent in the U.S. over the FBI numbers for 2015. Pfaff, a Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School, was one of several academic and law enforcement figures who took part in a Monday morning conference call about the FBI stats. The call was sponsored by the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, and Fair and Just Prosecution , a project that supports and inter-connects...

Manuel Dircio, 20, a business administration student at Fullerton College boasts a 4.0 GPA. He is also a recovering alcoholic with a history of arrest and incarceration in juvenile detention — not quite what you’d expect from a seemingly model college student with a stellar grade point. Dircio credits the Youthful Offender Wraparound program (YOW), which he says “helped [him] grow successfully.” It’s what’s known as a full-service partnership (FSP) in Orange County, California, that uses a...

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...

“Every one of us can play a role.” Eric Holder campaigns to reduce childhood trauma - The Washington Post

California takes a historic step forward this month as it moves to enact restrictions on the use of solitary confinement in state and local facilities for youth — curbing a manifest violation of human rights and protecting its youth from the trauma of isolated confinement. With the passage of Senate Bill 1143 , California will join the federal prison system and several other U.S. states in limiting solitary confinement for youth under 18. [For more of this story, written by Maureen Washburn,...

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...

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors split Tuesday on a decision to relinquish a $38.9 million state grant for a transition complex that was recently cut from plans for a North County jail. The 3-2 decision effectively kills a last-minute proposal from Sheriff Bill Brown, who sought reconsideration of the grant to alternatively fund the 228-bed treatment facility, which would have been staffed by the county’s Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services department. The board...