Tagged With "reach the other side"
Blog Post
2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference Series - Why Take Course One and Course Two?
Community Resilience Initiative is officially launching a new series of blog posts, building to our 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers conference on June 25th - 27th. We’ll cover a range of topics relevant to conference material, events, and inspirations. In addition to the regular conference, CRI is offering two training add-on options on Tuesday June 25, 2019 prior to the conference: Resilience-Based Trainings, Course One and Two . https://criresilient.org/beyon...re-conference-event/ “A group of...
Blog Post
"5 myths about putting people in prison and what actually works." (upworthy.com)
When people commit crimes, we send them away from their families and communities to become better by locking them in cells. That idea really starts to fall apart when you consider the number of people who abuse drugs , people with mental illness, and people of color in the prison system. Sometimes society's most egregious myths are right in front of our faces. Thankfully, as a society, starting to take a second look at the parts of our criminal justice system, especially prisons, that might...
Blog Post
7.25+
I have spent over a decade working at the intersection of mental health and social/criminal justice systems, but it wasn't until recently when I started collecting ACE scores with the inmates I work with in county jails. Prior to working in the jails, I worked in the state prison system, where I did mental health intake evaluations at the state prison where all offenders in Minnesota enter through. So often, in the back of my mind, was the thought that "if only these guys had the right...
Blog Post
7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress
Traumatic stress feels awful. Thankfully, there are small things we can all do to help relax a hyperaroused nervous system.
Blog Post
A California Court for Young Adults Calls on Science [NYTimes.com]
On a cloudy afternoon in the Bayview district, Shaquille, 21, was riding in his sister’s 1991 Acura when another car ran a stop sign, narrowly missing them. Both cars screeched to a halt, and Shaquille and the other driver got out. “I just wanted to talk,” he recalls. But the talk became an argument, and the argument ended when Shaquille sent the other driver to the pavement with a left hook. Later that day, he was arrested and charged with felony assault. He already had a misdemeanor...
Blog Post
A Food Truck Run by Former Inmates Charts a New Course (nationswell.com)
Since 2014 the New York City based Drive Change has been operating a food truck, called Snowday , as a way of reducing recidivism rates among young people. The organization hires and mentors formerly jailed young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. And so far, it has ushered more than 20 of them through its paid fellowship program, which provides both specific training in the culinary arts as well as broader professional-development skills. Graduates of the program have gone on to work as...
Blog Post
A Prison With No Walls (nationswell.com)
To be clear, inmates at Moriah do not receive shock therapy, as its formal name seems to infer. Rather, non-violent felons, like DiSilvestre, are shocked by therapeutic social programs and military-style schedules designed to lower recidivism rates. Still, there are two shock programs in New York that have proven effective and have drawn praise from state department heads, academics well-versed on military-style prisons and inmates. The prisons boast both lower recidivism rates and lower...
Blog Post
A Vision of Healing, and Hope for Formerly Incarcerated Women (nationswell.com)
Topeka K. Sam sits on a plush purple sofa in the living room of an immaculate row house in the Bronx, ordaining all of the ladies in the room. Sam, a founder of Hope House , a residence for previously incarcerated women, points to her cofounder, Vanee Sykes. “She’s a Lady of Hope,” Sam says, then swivels and points at another woman who has just entered the room. “That’s another Lady of Hope.” And, apparently, so too is this reporter. “The Ladies of Hope is you, and it’s all of us,” she adds.
Blog Post
Action steps using ACEs and trauma-informed care: a resilience model (link.springer.com)
The prison system is an example of the ways undigested trauma from early childhood experiences can join with the conditions of harshness and violence in many of our U.S. prisons and contribute to reinforcing a cycle of reactivity in both Correction Officers and prisoners. The correctional system is rife with challenges to the health and well being of Correction Officers (COs) as well as prisoners. Suicide rates of COs are more than double that of police officers as well as for the national...
Blog Post
Addressing Social Justice with Compassion (dailygood.org)
Professor Rhonda Magee is a faculty member at the University of San Francisco law school, an expert in contemplative pedagogy, the President of the Board of the Center for Contemplative Minds in Society, and a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers and law students. She has spent her career exploring the interrelationship between law, philosophy, and notions of justice and humanity. Having grown up in a segregated North Carolina, Magee developed an early...
Blog Post
At $75,560, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard (latimes.com)
The cost of imprisoning each of California’s 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year. Gov. Jerry Brown ’s spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because voters in November approved earlier releases for many inmates. The price for each inmate has doubled since 2005, even as court orders related to overcrowding...
Blog Post
'Badly needed': Dallas first responders laud new ways to help mentally ill in 2017 [DallasNews.com]
It's been years in the making, but finally, a plan to help scores of nonviolent, mentally ill people avoid jail and get treatment will take shape in the coming year, Dallas County leaders said Monday. The changes, to be primarily funded with a $7 million private grant, aims to bring fewer mentally ill people to the jail, release more of them while they await trial and connect them with services once they're freed so they don't return. The goal: to facilitate treatment for mentally ill people...
Blog Post
Behind Bars, Mentally Ill Inmates Are Often Punished For Their Symptoms (npr.org)
By some accounts, nearly half of America's incarcerated population is mentally ill — and journalist Alisa Roth argues that most aren't getting the treatment they need. Roth has visited jails in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta and a rural women's prison in Oklahoma to assess the condition of mentally ill prisoners. She says correctional officers are on the "front lines" of mental health treatment — despite the fact that they lack clinical training. "Most of [the correctional...
Blog Post
Breaking the cycle: County jail programs guiding inmates toward better choices [Parkrapidsenterprise.com]
Hubbard County, MN Christina Day, Hubbard County Jail Programs Coordinator is finding success with new support groups, classes and programs in the correctional facility as well as stronger support systems outside the facility. “Day and her team of volunteers are proponents of the power of positivity, empowering people to set goals, believe in themselves and make better choices.” “That's where I feel our role, as far as myself and the other volunteers and instructors that come in and even...
Blog Post
California Prop. 47 grants for criminal rehabilitation seen as a long-awaited step forward (latimes.com)
Legislation signed by Brown in 2014 settled some of the next debate: guidelines for the grant proposal process. It set aside 65% of Proposition 47 savings for the state Board of State and Community Corrections, requiring that money also go to programs developing housing and employment opportunities for released inmates. And it required that the committee awarding the grants have a diverse membership, including people who had been formerly incarcerated. In crafting the grant proposal...
Blog Post
Clark instructors help Larch inmates earn GEDs (columbian.com)
YACOLT — Posted on the walls in the Larch Corrections Center’s education building are photos of inmates, beaming in blue caps and gowns. These are men who have earned their General Educational Development certificates, or GEDs. These are the men who came first. In a nearby classroom, other men in beige and burgundy uniforms huddle over textbooks and worksheets. These are the men who hope to come next. Clark College’s GED program at Larch Corrections Center is a cornerstone of the educational...
Blog Post
Court Resources
7 Common Characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts Source: Gains Center, SAMHSA Description: Identifies seven common characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts (JMHCs) as part of a National Institute of Justice – funded study,...
Blog Post
COVID-19 Risks Prompt Some California Counties to Ease Jail Populations [chcf.org]
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Care Foundation, April 24, 2020 Many county correctional facilities throughout California are reducing their teeming populations to prevent large-scale COVID-19 outbreaks. The dorm rooms, dining halls, and recreation areas in many of these institutions are breeding grounds for spreading the virus, experts say. People have been complaining for weeks that inmates don’t have hand sanitizer or equipment like masks to protect themselves and that cramped...
Blog Post
CRI is hiring an Associate Director!
Community Resilience Initiative is seeking an innovative and passionate individual to join our organization as an Associate Director (AD). The AD reports to the Executive Director and to the Board of Directors. Job Overview The role of the Associate Director is to sustain the resilience-based, trauma-responsive capacity building work at the local, regional, state and national stage for which CRI is recognized. Success in this position will be evidenced by recognition of its exceptional...
Blog Post
Crime once plagued San Joaquin County, but now its jail has empty beds. Here’s what it did right (latimes.com)
While overall crime in California increased slightly after 2011, San Joaquin County’s dropped 20% — and hit a decades-old low last year. The county’s jail, which had been under court-ordered monitoring because of dangerous overcrowding, now has empty beds. Participation in specialized drug courts has increased and recidivism among newly released offenders has dropped. It is unclear how much of the county’s success is the result of its new programs rather than other factors, such as hiring...
Blog Post
Criminal Diversion offers treatment instead of jail time in San Diego (sdnews.com)
As part of their ongoing effort to get low-level drug offenders off the streets and into treatment, City Attorney Mara W. Elliott and San Diego Police Chief Nisleit have teamed to launch Prosecution and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Services (PLEADS). PLEADS is a voluntary, pre-booking diversion pathway that allows individuals suspected of being under the influence of a controlled substance to avoid prosecution and jailtime by agreeing to seek support services. The Neighborhood Policing...
Blog Post
Cycle of Risk: The Intersection of Poverty, Violence, and Trauma (issuelab.org)
We make the case that the conditions that foster violence and the conditions that perpetuate poverty are interconnected and reinforce each other; we further show the traumatic effects of violence -- and how trauma drives both poverty and violence. We then examine how violence has been used to enforce systems of racial oppression and how communities of color are disparately impacted by violence today. The conditions that perpetuate poverty and the conditions that foster violence often...
Blog Post
Designing a Way out of Mass Incarceration [CityLab.com]
As it stands today, criminal justice in the U.S. exists inside an architecture of isolation: those within the system are shuffled between courthouses and prisons, which are separated from society by thick walls and high fences. “Our dominant justice system is framed around three questions: What law was broken, who did it, and what do they deserve—with the deserving part being about punishment,” says Barbara Toews, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Washington...
Blog Post
Developing Super Powers: Using Resilience Strategies to Cope with Negative Experiences. Introducing CRI's Newest Book!
“I believe that everyone, especially a child, deserves to know how their brains are shaped by environment, to then understand their capacity for building proactive protective factors. We all deserve to be super heroes as we do the best we can to consciously live life well. ” - Teri Barila The superheroes we learn about in comics, movies, and TV shows swoop in to save the world with their incredible powers, to shield people from harm. But in our world, no matter how much we wish to protect...
Blog Post
Dispatches From San Quentin: Is San Quentin State Prison The Future Of Prison Reform? [witnessla.com]
By James King (WLA Guest), Witness LA, October, 20, 2019 I hear it all the time. “San Quentin is unique,” “If only we could take what’s happening here and reproduce it in other prisons,” blah, blah, blah. You know what? That was kind of overdramatic. Let me start again. I have yet to meet anyone here who doesn’t think San Quentin is the best prison in the state, and possibly on the country. As a person who has been here for nearly six years, I can confirm that the opportunities at this...
Blog Post
Documentary captures how a high school in a San Francisco jail heals and reduces recidivism
Believe it or not, although 70 percent of the adults incarcerated in our nation’s county jails lack a high school diploma, only one jail – San Francisco County Jail #5 in San Bruno, CA – offers inmates the opportunity to earn a high...
Blog Post
Donna Jackson Nakazawa Chats Live with Jane Stevens & You: Nov. 14th
Featured Guest: @Donna Jackson Nakazawa Topic: Well-Being, Self-Care & ACEs Date: November 14th, 2017 Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Where: Here / Chats Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an winning researcher, writer and public speaker on health and family issues. She explores the intersection between neuroscience, immunology, and the deepest inner workings of the human heart. Her most recent book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal , examines...
Blog Post
Dr. Ross Greene, Educated & Kids Who Have Been Traumatized
The Educating Traumatized Children Summit had Ross Greene, Ph.D. as the keynote. He was interviewed by Julie Beem of the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN). Dr. Greene is the author of The Explosive Child and Lost at School, Lost & Found and Raising Human Beings . He's the originator of the Collaborative and Pro-Active Solutions (CPS) model . I’d heard his name from some of the teachers in my life, but I’d never heard him speak. I’ve summarized, paraphrased and quoted a few of the things he...
Blog Post
Educational Trauma: Examples From Testing to the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Dr. Lee-Anne Gray)
Educational Trauma is the inadvertent and unintentional perpetration and perpetuation of harm in schools. The use of standards and the normal distribution or the bell curve to rank students and identify those at risk of developing problems later is born in the same theories and practices as eugenics. Eugenics practices thrive in schools and feed the school-to-prison pipeline, which is the most extreme example of Educational Trauma. This book ambitiously aims to open a feld of inquiry into...
Blog Post
Momentum Grows In Congress To Expand Access To Quality Postsecondary Education For People In Prison [witnessla.com]
By Witness LA, July 8, 2019. Twenty-five years ago, the massive Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which, among other things, prevented incarcerated students hoping for a college degree from accessing Pell Grants, was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton, and essentially resulted in the slashing of opportunities for higher education in federal and state prisons across the U.S., a move that, as Mikaol T. Nietzel, president emeritus of Missouri State University,...
Blog Post
"Moving From Trauma Understanding to Trauma Responsive" - SAMHSA Forum
Johnson City to co-host forum on community-wide systems of care On Sept. 5, the City of Johnson City will co-host a forum entitled Moving from Understanding to Implementing Trauma-Responsive Services in conjunction with the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The forum will address SAMHSA recommendations for communities to treat trauma as a component of effective behavioral health service delivery. Statistics recently released from the Tennessee Department of...
Blog Post
Nearly 200,000 felonies erased by Prop 47, but some former felons don't know (desertsun.com)
Despite the dramatic impact of erasing felonies, some former felons whose cases were retroactively resentenced will be slow to seize their newfound opportunities because they don’t know their conviction has changed. In at least a few California counties, felonies were downgraded in bulk without any involvement from the defendants. In these counties, public defenders rushed to file as much Prop 47 paperwork as possible, deciding there was no time to track down former clients before...
Blog Post
New Resource! Secondary Traumatic Stress in Child Welfare Practice: Trauma-Informed Guidelines for Organizations
The Chadwick Center for Children & Families at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego has just released a set of trauma-informed guidelines with concrete strategies for approaching secondary traumatic stress (STS). While these guidelines were created for intended use within child welfare systems, they may be easily adapted into other child-and family-serving organizations. These guidelines were created as part of the Chadwick Trauma-Informed Systems Dissemination and Implementation Project...
Blog Post
No touching. No human contact. The hidden toll on jail inmates who spend months or years alone in a 7x9 foot cell [LATimes.com]
In nearly three years, Dominic Walker rarely looked another human being in the eye. Except for showers, he left his cell at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles only once a week, to exercise in a small cage resembling a dog kennel. His conversations were typically shouted through cell bars to other inmates in his row. “It makes you feel like nobody. I’m here, the walls are closing in. It makes you hallucinate,” said Walker, 34, who was released in June after prosecutors dropped his...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
North Dakota’s Norway Experiment (motherjones.com)
Late one night in October 2015, North Dakota prisons chief Leann Bertsch met Karianne Jackson, one of her deputies, for a drink in a hotel bar in Oslo, Norway. They had just spent an exhausting day touring Halden, the maximum-security facility Time has dubbed " the world's most humane prison", yet neither of them could sleep. Halden is situated in a remote forest of birch, pine, and spruce with an understory of blueberry shrubs. The prison is surrounded by a single wall. It has no barbed...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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,...
Blog Post
One on One with the Police (nationswell.com)
Can open conversations with cops and inner-city youth bring down crime rates? The organization, Pennsylvania Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC), trains Philadelphia cops to empathize with inner-city youth. Its seminars aren’t a certain fix to rebuilding trust between police and the communities they serve, but data collected from DMC and other case studies around the country, suggest they are making a difference. These open conversations are happening across the country. In New Jersey’s...
Blog Post
One professor's fight to help the children of incarcerated parents [Phys.org]
When I was ten years old my father, a lawyer, was incarcerated. He was what some people call a "white collar criminal" and spent two years in prison. Because I come from a loving family and because my family had other supports and privileges (i.e. we were white and middle class in a community that rewarded both), my siblings and I fared well despite of my father's incarceration. And so for a long time, decades, really, I didn't discuss my father's history. I didn't know anyone else who had...
Blog Post
Oprah Looks At How California’s Infamous Pelican Bay Prison Is Leading The Way In Reforming Solitary Confinement [witnessla.com]
On Sunday’s 60 Minutes broadcast Oprah Winfrey reported on the use of solitary confinement in American prisons. She talked about how California is leading the way to reform of the practice, with changes in the state’s Pelican Bay Prison, which Winfrey called the most notorious state penitentiary in America. It is a story that is very much worth watching. “Designed and built as a ‘supermax’ facility,” Oprah began, referring to the 1989-constructed prison, “it’s been used for nearly 30 years...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Priest Responds To Gang Members' 'Lethal Absence Of Hope' With Jobs, And Love [npr.org]
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Father Greg Boyle, has worked with former gang members in LA for over 30 years. He's the founder of Homeboy Industries, which was created to help former gang members and people transitioning out of prison create stable lives and stay out of gangs. Instead of Father Greg trying to convince business owners to hire young people who are at risk, he created jobs for them through Homeboy Industries. Homeboy is a series of businesses...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Proposition 47 Grant Program Request for Proposals - California only
Grant Period: June 16, 2017 to August 15, 2020 Eligible Applicants : Public Agencies in Partnership with the Communities they Serve Released: November 18, 2016 Notice of Intent to Apply Due: January 20, 2017 Proposal Due Date: February 21, 2017 Public agencies – defined as city, county, or tribal government entities – must be the lead applicants for this funding, but they are required to share at least 50 percent of awarded funding with a nonprofit partner. There are many ways for you to...
Blog Post
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.