Tagged With "Senate Bill"
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A college education in prison opens path to freedom (calmatters.org)
Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative is the state’s only public bachelor’s degree program sending professors to teach behind bars. College programs like it were once far more common, and today advocates are hopeful the political winds have shifted enough to bring public dollars back to prison education. Federal legislation that would make grant aid available has bipartisan support, and in California, a bill to open the state’s financial aid program to incarcerated students is headed...
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Adult Reentry Grant Program (ARG): Proposals due November 1st.
The Adult Reentry Grant (ARG) Program was established through the Budget Act of 2018 (Senate Bill 840, Chapter 29, Statute of 2018) and appropriated $50,000,000 in funding for competitive awards to community-based organizations to support offenders formerly incarcerated in state prison. The Budget Act requires that funding be allocated as follows: -$25 million be for rental assistance; -$9.35 million to support the warm handoff and reentry of offenders transitioning from prison to...
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Bail or Jail? Tool Used by San Francisco Courts Shows Promising Results (kqed.org)
Last year, San Francisco began using an algorithm to assess whether someone accused of a crime and awaiting trial is safe to be let out of jail. Fifteen months later, prosecutors say the risk assessment tool appears to be working: According to information provided to KQED by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, just 6 percent of defendants who were released from jail based on the “public safety assessment,” or PSA, over those 15 months committed a new crime; 20 percent failed to...
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Bill On Governor’s Desk Aims To Reduce Childhood Trauma By Diverting Parents Into Treatment, Instead Of Prison [witnessla.com]
By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, September 13, 2019 An estimated 10 million US children have parents who are currently locked up, or who have previously been incarcerated. A bill currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, SB 394, seeks to reduce the number of parents and children separated by incarceration by boosting diversion. Children arguably suffer the worst consequences of mass incarceration. In 2014, a UC Irvine study found that having a parent behind bars can be more damaging to a kid’s...
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Bill would require more mental health screening for some state convicts (pressdemocrat.com)
A state legislative bill that would require judges in certain cases to consider a defendant’s mental health during sentencing was approved by the Legislature this week and is headed for Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. The bill, AB 154, would require judges to make a recommendation to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that a convicted felon receive a mental health evaluation if mental illness played a role in the crime. North Coast Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael,...
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Bryan Stevenson Wants the U.S. to Face Its History [nytimes.com]
Last month, Congress passed the First Step Act, a prison-reform bill intended to reduce recidivism. Do you think this bill will actually change the realities of mass incarceration? It’s important but insufficient, in terms of the actual number of people in jails and prisons. We’ve gone from 300,000 people in jails and prisons in the 1970s to 2.2 million people today. We have to radically reorient ourselves and start talking about rehabilitation, restoration and how we end crime. And if we do...
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California's 'ban the box' law to help ex-felons find jobs after release (vcstar.com)
Starting Jan. 1, people with felony convictions across California will have a chance to do that. That’s when new “ban the box” legislation goes into effect, expanding an older state law that covered only public agencies to every business with five or more employees. At issue is that one little box on an employment application — the one that requires the applicant to check “yes” if she or he has a criminal history. Knowing they are likely to be screened out, job-seekers who would have to...
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California would virtually eliminate money bail under proposed legislation (sacbee.com)
California lawmakers have unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul pretrial release in the state that could virtually eliminate the use of money bail. Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, introduced legislation last December to change a system they argue unfairly punishes the poor by keeping them stuck in custody if they cannot afford expensive bail rates. Updated with new details last Friday, the proposal envisions instead a system of risk assessment to...
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Children of imprisoned parents get Oregon bill of rights [streetroots.org]
"The first state law of its kind..." reads the article! A big thanks to Oregon law makers for pioneering law supporting the rights of children of incarcerated parents. On Tuesday September 19 th , Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law a bill of rights for Oregon's children requiring the Oregon Department of Corrections to develop and sustain policies and procedures supporting the needs of families, and protecting the rights of children, when parents are incarcerated. This legislation is...
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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,...
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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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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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Restoring Prisoners' Access to Education Reduces Recidivism [psmag.com]
As of early April, imprisoned Americans stand to gain easier access to a higher education. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Representatives Danny Davis (D-Illinois), Jim Banks (R-Indiana), and French Hill (R-Arkansas) introduced a bipartisan piece of legislation to restore Pell Grant access to the incarcerated. If the bill passes, 463,000 prisoners will become eligible for federal financial support toward earning a college degree, which experts argue could go a...
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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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Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) speaks out about Community Violence and Introduces TIC Bill [chicagodefender.com]
It is noteworthy that in his press conference to introduce his new bill, The Trauma Informed Care for Children and Families Act, Senator Durbin (D-IL) speaks out about the impact of community violence. “As we work to address the root causes of violence, we need to focus on the impact that community violence and other traumatic experiences have on Chicago’s children,” said Durbin. “During a visit to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center last year, I learned that more than 90 percent of...
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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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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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The law said an ex-felon couldn’t be a nurse. So this single mom got the law changed. (washingtonpost.com)
When Lisa Creason was a 19-year-old single mom, she robbed a Subway shop. Or, at least, she tried to. One evening in 1993, she walked in without a plan, without an ultimatum, and demanded money from the cash register. When she was denied, she took off. That spontaneous decision, which she said she made out of desperation to provide for her baby girl, would cost her for the next two decades. But it never defined her. On Thursday, Creason, now a 43-year-old mother of three and a nursing school...
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Will 2017 Be the Year of Criminal Justice Reform? [NYTimes.com]
It’s no wonder criminal-justice reformers woke up from Election Day 2016 with a sense of existential gloom. Given candidate Donald J. Trump’s law-and-order bluster, his dystopian portrayal of rising crime and an ostensible war on the police, and a posse of advisers who think the main problem with incarceration is that we don’t do enough of it, the idea that justice reformers have anything to look forward to is at best counterintuitive. It is reasonable to expect that President Trump and his...
Comment
Re: Immigrant Prisons • BRAVE NEW FILMS (14 minutes)
Perhaps the "National Moratorium on Prison Construction" which was jointly sponsored by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and the Unitarian-Universalist Service Committee, could be 're-activated' with other allies to address this situation. More recently, the "For-Profit Prison" companies have compiled a 'dismal record' in how they house 'convicted felons' and 'juveniles', too, especially when taxpayers foot the added bill of 'rescuing' under-staffed prisons from riots, etc.
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Virginia inmates start Black Lives Matter chapter (Virginia Times Dispatch)
By Frank Green, July 16, 2020, Virginia Times Dispatch. Courtney Henson knows the spot outside Cup Foods on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis where George Floyd's life ended under the knee of a police officer on May 25. Three decades ago Henson, then a teenager and now a resident of Virginia's River North Correctional Center, lived with his mother across the street from the store where Floyd allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill prompting a call to the police. [ Please click here to read more. ]
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Police Reform Should Include Implementing ACEs Science
When I first learned about ACEs science, I was working for the local police department as the Director of a crime prevention program. This program was aimed at reducing drug related and violent crime by strengthening community partnerships. Our efforts yielded 19 crime prevention programs implemented by 35 community agencies. Together we reduced crime by 40% in one neighborhood, and pioneered a first probation program of its kind in Tennessee to reduce recidivism. At the end of the grant in...
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CA Passes Bill Allowing Former Inmates To Become Firefighters (Patch)
By Kat Schuster, September 1, 2020, Patch. Nonviolent former prisoners who participated in fire camps will now have an opportunity to become year-round, full-time firefighters. SACRAMENTO, CA — Lawmakers approved a bill Monday that will finally allow former prisoners to pursue a career in fire. The new legislation arrived while fire crews were overwhelmed, facing multiple devastating lightning complex fires across California. AB 2147 , authored by Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes, will allow...
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Govenor Newsom Signs Brady's Bills into Law (ca.bradyunited.org)
We just received word that Governor Newsom signed microstamping bill, AB 2847! We'd like to thank Assembly Members Chiu & Gabriel, and coauthoring Assembly Members Bauer-Kahan, Gipson, Gloria, Muratsuchi, M. Stone, Ting, and Wicks. We'd also like to thank coauthoring Senators Jackson & Wiener, and of course, Governor Newsom. Congratulations to the thousands of Brady supporters who helped steward this lifesaving bill through the state legislature and onto the governor's desk. Your...
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Help reunite families victim to mass incarceration to stop ACEs. Senate Bill 6164 Webinar - Get your loved one out of jail/prison sooner in WA State!
Free educational Webinar invite! Topic: Ending Mass Incarceration and Uniting families Join WashingtonCAN on 12/6 and 12/9 to learn about a tool that could help your loved one get resentenced and released early in Washington State! My name is Rashell and I’m the Lead Organizer with Washington Community Action Network (WashingtonCAN), a grassroots organization with 44,000 members that advocates for mass liberation and an end to mass incarceration, through lobbying, advocacy, and grassroots...
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*Time-Sensitive* grant opportunity to support violence reduction (CalVIP RFP)
This year, the California legislature approved $209 million for competitive 3-year grants to cities disproportionately impacted by violence to improve safety and promote healing in communities. 53 California cities are eligible to apply for this grant, more than ever before! In San Diego County, community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve the residents of the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, or El Cajon are also eligible to apply. You are receiving this email either because your...
Calendar Event
DROP LWOP Coalition: Lobby training on SB 300
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The Campaign on Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice 2022 Trauma-Informed Policy Development Highlights. Join Wednesday's CAN Call for analysis!
By Whitney Marris, Trauma Therapist and CTIPP's Director of Practice & System Transformation 2022 marked a successful advocacy year for the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice’s (CTIPP) network. Federal and state leaders proposed and supported legislation to prevent and address trauma and create more long-term health, equity, and resilience in more significant numbers than in past years. There is no doubt that the continued commitment and efforts of advocates around the...
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A Letter to Kyle
To mark the anniversary of the passage of the landmark legislation of the Georgia Mental Health Parity Act, we are sharing a letter written a year ago by Roland Behm, Co-founder of the Georgia Mental Health Policy Partnership, Board Member and Former Board Chair, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Georgia Chapter. The letter is to his son, Kyle, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2010 as a junior in college and died by suicide in August 2019.