Many issues that are primary drivers of mass incarceration cannot be remedied through government solutions alone. Issues such as broken families and mental health, both forever altered by over criminalization, cannot be simply be repaired through legislation. Civil Society has the unique capability to address certain social issues that government cannot, or to address them more effectively than government can. This section also addresses issues in which over-policing attempts to fix issues that should be handled through the community.
“As America confronts its crisis of opioid addiction and overdose deaths, a multitude of medical, psychological, spiritual and legal tools are being deployed. The music of a gospel choir may seem an unlikely vehicle for recovery. But ultimately, the struggle with addiction is individual and personal — engaged case by case, life by life. Among these singers, the soul-filling music has helped turn around once-hellish lives.“
North Jersey Record
November 8, 2018
Read More“Charles Bell, professor of the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences (CJS) at Illinois State University designed a virtual mass incarceration panel to help students and researchers understand how factors like poverty, poor education, and community violence can adversely affect formerly incarcerated individuals. This panel included individuals who had navigated the carceral settings and were willing to share their lived experiences to help students gain an in-depth understanding of course concepts.“
Illinois State University
November 8, 2018
Read More“Ralph Clark is an Oakland native and the CEO of ShotSpotter, a gunshot-detection-technology company. He believes that unreported gunshots don’t act just as symptoms of community mistrust of police—they reinforce it. “When communities see police not responding to these [gunshot] events,” he said over the phone, ‘but at the same time have the resources to respond to low-level arrests and intercepts for marijuana and stop-and-frisk, that’s a pretty cynical situation’.“
The Atlantic
November 6, 2018
Read More“Some argue that taking away the right to vote serves as an additional sanction to breaking the law. Although the criminal justice system was structured to achieve punishment, it was also designed to rehabilitate and reintegrate these individuals back into society. Taking away the fundamental right to vote serves no purposes other than to cause further alienation and shame to these individuals who are expected to rejoin their communities, obtain employment, pay taxes and do everything else that other citizens enjoy.“
Delaware Online
November 4, 2018
Read More“That was the beginning of what became Escape at Dannemora, the Stiller-directed series starring Benicio Del Toro and Paul Dano as the Clinton convicts. It debuts November 18 on Showtime. Jensen is an actor in the series, as well as a consultant and technical adviser, working on everything from props to wardrobe to tattoos to hair and makeup. While films like The Shawshank Redemption and shows like Oz were fiction, Escape at Dannemora is based on actual events — requiring Jensen’s touch for realism. Jensen cast ex-cons and wrote scenes based off memories of real things that happened in Clinton.“
Ozy
November 2, 2018
Read More“The film focuses on the so-called NYPD 12, a group of 12 police officers who in 2016 publicly accused the NYPD of continuing to demand arrest quotas despite a state-wide law that made them illegal in 2010, and further for pressuring cops to arbitrarily target black and Latino men ages 14 to 21, solely to keep their arrest numbers high.“
Forbes
October 31, 2018
Read More“On page 15 of the 2018 Voter Guide (English), a response to whether a convicted felon can vote reads, ‘If you have been convicted of a felony, you can register and vote after you complete your sentence and/or parole.’ However, on April 18, 2018, Gov. Cuomo signed an executive order to restore voting rights to certain individuals on parole. The measure is meant to level the disproportionate impact the voting restriction has on African-American and Hispanic voters. Fourteen other states practice a similar policy on formerly incarcerated people.“
Bklyner
October 31, 2018
Read More“Fast forward to 2015. As a member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st-Century Policing, I listened when Camden County, New Jersey, Police Chief J. Scott Thomson explained that ‘community policing starts on the street corner, with respectful interaction between a police officer and a local resident.’ That interaction is missing from Manasseh’s video.“
The Marshall Project
October 30, 2018
Read More“Johnson was one of five parolees who spoke with City & State about his experiences with voting, keeping up with politics and negotiating the state Board of Parole.We met on an October morning in Long Island City at the Fortune Society, a nonprofit organization serving formerly incarcerated New Yorkers. Some of the parolees knew each other already, having served time together. Now they were now free together, commuting to their jobs, and coming and going as they pleased.“
City & State New York
October 29, 2018
Read More“In 2005, the World Health Organization dubbed Glasgow the “murder capital of Europe.” There had been 83 homicides the previous year in the Glasgow region, where gangs were known for their booze-and-blades culture. Exasperated police in Glasgow decided to rethink strategy. They set up a violence reduction unit (VRU) guided by the philosophy that violence is like a public health issue: Violent behavior spreads from person to person. To contain it, you need to think in terms of transmission and risk, symptoms and causes.“
Washington Post
October 27, 2018
Read More“Using its platform and players' time off the field, the Players Coalition shines a light on the myriad problems surrounding mass incarceration. Malcolm and his colleagues are reaching out to stakeholders to better understand the human impact of criminal justice policy – something that can't happen often enough. And they are taking action.“
Philadelphia Inquirer
October 26, 2018
Read More“What on earth does a victim's rights law have to do with a police officer demanding to conceal his identity from the public? According to the Rapid City Journal, the officer in question shot 21-year-old Kuong Gatlauk following a confrontation during a traffic stop. According to the police report, Gatlauk made statements intending some sort of self-harm and fled from a police vehicle. In a confrontation, he apparently threw a beer can at the trooper and then tackled the trooper and tried to steal the trooper's gun, according to this report. The trooper was able to keep his gun and shot the suspect twice.“
Reason Magazine
October 22, 2018
Read More“The goal of criminal justice should not be any particular level of incarceration, high or low, but rather fair, consistent and effective enforcement focused on the most repugnant and most socially destabilizing crimes. We’re not there yet, but compared with the recent past, we are doing better.“
Washington Post
October 22, 2018
Read More“Wildeman and his team, including Profs. Maria Fitzpatrick, policy analysis and management, and Peter Enns, government, designed and conducted an in-depth survey to gauge just how pervasive mass incarceration is in the U.S. Their research will generate five approximations that illustrate the portion of the U.S. population that has a relationship to incarceration.“
Cornell Daily Sun
October 22, 2018
Read More“So many of America’s troubles are intractable. Hyper-partisanship and the culture wars can make reducing gun violence or obesity seem hopeless. But mass incarceration is different. There is ample evidence that America’s states can lock fewer people up and still preserve public safety. Just look at Minnesota, which bangs up people at half the rate of neighbouring Wisconsin, though the crime rate in both places is about the same.“
The Economist
October 20, 2018
Read More‘‘Community members and elected officials from throughout the state will tackle bail policies and jury selection practices in Connecticut at the upcoming eighth annual Community Prison Awareness and Prevention Gathering at Shiloh Baptist Church. The free event for adults and youths will take place from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27, at the Shiloh Family Life Center, 3 Garvin St.”
The Day
October 19, 2018
Read More“Since Steven Pacheco returned to college three years ago, he has landed research and business fellowships, gotten elected student council president, and will join global leaders abroad to discuss human rights. That’s the kind of drive two drug-related arrests and a year behind bars has given him.“
The Today Show
October 19, 2018
Read More“Quinn has changed Cleveland.com’s policy of automatically using mugshots (‘the worst photos people will ever take’) with minor crime stories. It no longer names perpetrators of minor crimes in its stories. (If you’ve been listening to the current season of Serial, you know the criminal justice system in Cleveland is far from a perfectly fair operation.) “
Nieman Lab
October 18, 2018
Read More“Changing the institutional culture of incarceration could entail a social consensus that locking people up is never the ideal way to resolve social problems.“
The Nation
October 16, 2018
Read More“Sadly, the list goes on. Seventy-five percent of North Carolina’s death row inmates were tried before all these reforms and would face radically different prosecutions today. Almost none would get the death penalty. For some, the charges would be dropped.“
Raleigh News & Observer
October 11, 2018
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