Tagged With "Ben David New Hanover County DA"
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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...
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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.
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A Criminal Justice Revolution
Newly elected Philadelphia DA, Larry Krasner, is on a mission to tear down the City's "bigoted and patently unfair systems of mass incarceration," writes Shaun King in his article for TheIntercept.com, titled: " Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. He's Exceeding Expectations ." Quoting some of the highlights of King's article: So far, having been in office less than three months, he has exceeded expectations. In his first week on the job, he fired 31...
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A Federal Judge’s New Model for Forgiveness (nytimes.com)
Should a judge care what happens, years down the road, to the defendants convicted in his courtroom? In 2003, John Gleeson, a federal district judge in Brooklyn, presided over the trial of a woman charged for her role in faking a car accident for the insurance payments. After a jury found her guilty, Judge Gleeson sentenced the woman to 15 months in prison. Many judges might leave it at that, but in an extraordinary 31-page opinion released on March 7, Judge Gleeson stepped back into the...
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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...
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A Modern-Day Harriet Tubman (nytimes.com)
She was 4 years old when her aunt’s boyfriend began to abuse her sexually. Then at 14, she had a baby girl, the result of a gang rape. Soon she fell under the control of a violent pimp and began cycling through jails, prisons, addiction and crime for more than 20 years. Yet today, Susan Burton is a national treasure. She leads a nonprofit helping people escape poverty and start over after prison, she’s a powerful advocate for providing drug treatment and ending mass incarceration — and her...
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A New Justice Challenge for Trump: Mental Health & Drugs [TheCrimeReport.org]
It’s a common lament of the nation’s police officers and prison wardens alike: A large proportion of the crime suspects and inmates they find themselves dealing with suffer from mental illness, substance-abuse issues, or both. Today, a coalition of organizations spanning justice and health interests are launching a new campaign to focus on what they call “behavioral health issues in the criminal justice system.” At a meeting in Washington, D.C., the groups are issuing what they termed...
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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...
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A Trauma-informed, Resiliency-based Community of Practice for Prison Educators
An article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled " How Philanthropy Can Create Public Systems Change " describes how Renewing Communities, a five-year, multifunder initiative aimed increasing education of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students by California’s public colleges and universities, partnered with the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research in order to address educator burnout through a trauma-informed and resiliency-based community of practice.
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Access to civil justice in California remains elusive. It could be an opportunity (calmatters.org)
More than half of California households had problems last year that are civil legal issues, but nearly 70% of them received no legal help. That is one of the stark findings of the State Bar’s California Justice Gap Study . The study, which surveyed nearly 4,000 California adults, spotlights a harsh reality: There is an enormous gap between the need for civil legal services and most people’s ability to access legal help. Think this is only a problem for low-income Californians? Think again.
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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...
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Afraid of Jail? Buy an Upgrade [TheMarshallProject.org]
Alan Wurtzel met Carole Markin on Match.com in 2010. On their first date, he took her to coffee. After their second date, he walked Markin to her door, followed her inside and, she said, forced her to perform oral sex. Wurtzel later claimed the act was consensual, but in 2011 he pleaded no contest to sexual battery and was sentenced to a year in jail. His victim was disappointed in the short sentence, but she still believed a measure of justice would be served with her assailant locked...
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Announcing CRI's Newest Trainings- July and September!
CRI is excited to announce new trainings! We will have online trainings in July, and an in-person training in September. July Online Trainings CRI Course 1 LIVE WEBCAST: Trauma-Informed Training A dynamic 2 part six-hour LIVE WEBCAST course, Course 1 introduces CRI’s capacity-building framework for building resilience, KISS. Knowledge, Insight, Strategies and Structure describes our community’s learning and movement from theory to practice and how to implement evidence-based strategies into...
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As need skyrockets, Sacramento jail to expand aid to mentally ill (sacbee.com)
As the Sacramento County Main Jail handles more inmates with psychiatric problems, the Sheriff’s Department is developing a new section staffed by UC Davis medical professionals, social workers and deputies that can provide intensive mental services without 24-hour care. Under a plan passed by county supervisors this month, the county within weeks will add 20 new outpatient beds to the section of the jail for inmates with mental health issues. For Sacramento’s new program, four social...
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At Least 61,000 Nationwide Are in Prison for Minor Parole Violations [TheMarshallProject.org]
Among the millions of people incarcerated in the United States, a significant portion have long been thought to be parole violators, those who were returned to prison not for committing a crime but for failing to follow rules: missing an appointment with a parole officer, failing a urine test, or staying out past curfew. But their actual number has been elusive, in part because they are held for relatively short stints, from a few months to a year, not long enough for record keepers to get a...
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'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...
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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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Banning in-person jail visits is foolish and needlessly cruel (latimes.com)
As a movement has taken hold to get California’s jails and prisons to operate more efficiently while releasing inmates who are better able to successfully reenter society, there have been occasional steps in the opposite direction. One of the most destructive has been a trend to ban in-person visits by family and friends. Some county jails have gone as far as eliminating visitation rooms, where higher-security inmates speak on phones to their visitors while seeing them, face-to-face, through...
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“BECOMING MS. BURTON: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women” by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn
I met Susan Burton in 2010, but I had learned her name years before. I was doing research about the challenges of re-entry for people incarcerated due to our nation's cruel and biased drug war. At the time, I was in the process of writing The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - a book that aimed to expose the ways the War on Drugs had not only decimated impoverished communities of color but had also helped to birth a new system of racial and social control eerily...
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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...
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Big Jump Seen In Number Of Inmates Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs In California (npr.org)
The number of inmates in California who've been prescribed psychiatric drugs has jumped about 25 percent in five years, according to a recent analysis of state data. These inmates now account for about a fifth of the county jail population across the state. The increase might be a reflection of the growing number of inmates with mental illness, though it also might stem from improved identification of people in need of treatment, say researchers from California Health Policy Strategies , a...
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Biggest Jailer in the World: Los Angeles (citywatchla.org)
JUSTICE THROUGH UNITY-The people of the County of Los Angeles and beyond need to understand that spending $3.5 billion on new jails instead of focusing on local services that could prevent mostly black and brown people from ending up behind bars in the first place is in the best interest of all of us—and not just black and brown people. According to historian and UCLA Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez, LA County isn’t just the biggest jailer in the United States—it is the biggest jailer in the...
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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...
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Buddhas on Death Row: A Bridge of Art & Friendship (dailygood.org)
Buddhas on Death Row was born out of the collaboration of two pen friends, based in the United States and Finland. Their names: Moyo and Maria When I came to prison I was quite inarticulate and made an oath to myself that I wouldn’t ever again allow someone else to tell my story. I would be the one from here on out telling it. But I knew that what I wanted to do was master the art of communication. For a long time, I spent my time dealing with difficult emotions within the space of my art.
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CA Could Reduce Its Prison Population By 30,000, Says Report (witnessla.com)
A new report outlines strategies the state of California could employ that would reduce its prison and jail populations by 30,000 and save approximately $1.5 billion in prison spending. In 2016, there were over 200,000 people were locked in California’s prisons and jails. According to the report, lowering the incarcerated population by 30,000—by reducing the length of prison time for the majority of inmates by 20 percent—would make it possible for the state to close five prisons. The report,...
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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's mentally ill inmate population keeps growing. And state money isn't enough to meet needs, lawmaker says (latimes.com)
Gov. Jerry Brown has earmarked $117 million in his new state budget to expand the number of treatment beds and mental health programs for more than 800 mentally ill inmates found incompetent to stand trial. State officials said they have struggled to keep up with the needs of a population that has jumped in size by 33% over the last three years, as judges are increasingly referring defendants to treatment. But one state lawmaker says additional funds are not enough. Legislators, he said,...
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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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Can Restorative Justice Help Prisoners to Heal? (greatergood.berkeley.edu)
The Insight Prison Project helps incarcerated men learn new emotional skills in order to succeed in and out of prison. But it can also help crime survivors. A dozen men sit in a circle. Some are old and some are young. A facilitator asks each one to check in with the group about how they are feeling emotionally, physically, or spiritually. Sometimes a man tears up with emotion as he talks. The others listen, offering nods of support or asking clarifying questions. It sounds like a typical...
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Childhood Researchers Study Health Effects Of A Parent Behind Bars (sideeffectspublicmedia.org)
Having a parent behind bars can poorly impact a child’s behavioral, emotional and even physical health. A new community-led research project in Indianapolis seeks to understand that link more clearly. The research project is a partnership between a community leader Shoshanna Spector, executive director of the Indianapolis Congregational Action Network (IndyCAN), and two academic researchers, Tomlin, who is the director of the Riley Childhood Development Center at the Indiana University...
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Children of Incarcerated Parents
As a middle aged, naive and wide eyed kid with a new mission, that of addressing the many behavioral issues we faced in our Alaska Native Community, I focused on what I referred to as restoring responsible fatherhood to families. As the son of an absent father, I believed that the simple act of re engaging fathers with their children could have immediate results. Well, as I discovered, nothing is easy, especially in the field of corrections. I did start a fatherhood initiative for Alaska...
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Connecting With Incarcerated Parents Is Easier With Photo Patch, an App Developed By a Teen [teenvogue.com]
When Jay'Aina Patton was three, her father, Antoine, went to prison for gun possession. It wasn’t until she was seven or eight that Jay’Aina (or “Jay Jay” as friends and family call her) really understood where her father was. She also knew just how difficult maintaining a relationship with him was. Her father was imprisoned hours away. Her mother, raising two children on her own, could only afford to take them to visit twice during his seven-year incarceration. They couldn’t make up the...
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Consider alternative before building a bigger jail [Bangor Daily News]
Penobscot County is planning a new, bigger jail. The argument is that the currently overcrowded facility is a risky environment. While roughly 75 new beds are needed to reduce overcrowding, the group is planning to add twice that , just in case. Now seems like a good time to re-imagine prison. Since 2005, the Corrections Alternatives Advisory Committee of Maine has been discussing the need for reform in the state justice system, citing bail reform, providing resources toward reducing...
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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,...
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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...
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Credible Messengers Help Turn Former Convicts into Leaders (nationswell.com)
The key to this program is an initiative called the credible messenger approach to restorative justice. It pairs at-risk and justice-involved youth, who are individuals who’ve been involved with the criminal system, with people who have had comparable life experiences, such as ex-convicts or ex-gang members. “When you think of a credible messenger, you think of those closest to the problem are closest to the solution,” says Jason Clark, the program manager at King County Credible Messengers...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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District Attorney Ben David's TED Talk Highlights ACEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz5sTyDe9sY
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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...
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Does the death penalty target people who are mentally ill? We checked. [WashingtonPost.com]
In January, Dylann Roof was sentenced to death for killing nine black churchgoers at a prayer meeting in Charleston, S.C. Since then, some commentators have debated whether Roof should have had the right to fire his attorneys when they wished to introduce evidence of mental illness — and whether, or when, mental illness should disqualify someone for capital punishment. Most Americans oppose the death penalty for the mentally ill, a category that ranges from mild to severe. But our research...
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Early, Individualized Interventions Key to Reentry Success, Report Says [JJIE.org]
Former offenders need timely, individualized reentry paths that focus on career development, a new report by ICF International says. Too often, the hundreds of thousands of people returning from prison each year are unable to find employment, a situation compounded by trouble securing housing, health care and transportation — all factors that increase the likelihood of recidivism. “All they’ve got is a criminal record. That’s all anyone can see,” said Brent Orrell, a family and economic...
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More than eight in 10 men in prison suffered childhood adversity – new report [phys.org]
Male prisoners are much more likely than men in the wider population to have suffered childhood adversities such as child maltreatment or living in a home with domestic violence, according to a new report by Public Health Wales and Bangor University. The findings suggests that preventative action and early intervention to tackle Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) could prevent crime and reduce costs for the criminal justice system . In this new survey of men in Her Majesty's (HM) Prison...
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Municipal Courts: An Effective Tool for Diverting People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders from the Criminal Justice System [SAMHSA's GAINS Center]
In November, SAMHSA has released a new guide, "Municipal Courts: An Effective Tool for Diverting People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders from the Criminal Justice System," that provides information on the role of municipal courts as an early intervention point for diverting persons with behavioral health conditions from the criminal justice system and into treatment. Developed by SAMHSA's GAINS Center, this guide describes the benefits and challenges as well as four essential elements...
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My Brother's Killing Messed Me Up [jjie.org]
By Tyrone, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 7, 2019 March 7, 2012 my oldest brother was killed. He was killed by the NOPD (New Orleans Police Department). Coming home from school March 7, 2012, my oldest brother and his friend was sitting outside. They were just chilling and talking. Once he saw my siblings and I get off the school bus, he told us not to come outside until we finished our homework. I told him “OK” and we walked past him to the front door. First thing I remember...
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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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New film rethinking incarceration for women in Canada
A new documentary film has recently been released called Conviction. It is self-described as A COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTARY FILM THAT ENVISIONS ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON THROUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN BEHIND BARS
I've recently seen the film and highly recommend it. The content is Canadian, but no doubt the issues the women deal with are universal.
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New program lets jail inmates rehabilitate shelter dogs (keyt.com)
A new program helping jail inmates and at-risk shelter dogs get a new chance at life is off to a good start. A nonprofit organization called Pivot Animal Rescue & Educational Outreach offers training programs for both incarcerated adults and juveniles in detention centers. "We are targeting the people that are the repeat offenders. We are trying to get that person who keeps coming back, trying to communicate with them in a different way," said Pivot board director John Brockus. The...