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.
“In less than a month, state legislators descend upon Santa Fe to once again to try and change New Mexico law. One of the lawmakers wants to allow felons to vote. Right now in New Mexico, those convicted of felony crimes are able to register to vote after they finish their sentence, which includes probation and parole. But one Democratic Representative wants to change that.“
KRQE Albuquerque
December 24, 2018
Read More“I am 13 now, and I still write holiday cards to people in prison. It’s really fun to think of nice things to say to people you’ve never met. I always try to imagine what I would want to hear if I was forced to be away from my family and was being treated poorly. I would be terrified, sad and worried that nobody remembered that I existed.“
New York Times
December 21, 2018
Read More“Unfortunately, the musical selection on the 15 or so North Carolina stations I can pick up leaves quite a bit to be desired. And this is why I look forward to Friday night. The weekly radio show known as “Penitentiary Rock”—or “Pen Rock” for short—first aired on WKNC 88.1, the N.C. State University station, during the 1990s. This was before my arrival on death row.“
The Marshall Project
December 20, 2018
Read More“Nevada is one of 12 states where people are still disenfranchised after completing a sentence. The upcoming reform (Assembly Bill 181) will keep Nevada on that list. While it will expand the groups who qualify for automatic rights restoration, anyone convicted of a higher-category felony and anyone with multiple convictions of whatever severity will remain disenfranchised even after serving a sentence. (AB 181 is thus weaker than Florida’s Amendment 4, which was adopted via referendum in November and does not contain the latter exception.)“
The Appeal Political Report
December 20, 2018
Read More“Yet the fight for equal access to the ballot is just beginning. With voting rights, voter knowledge and empowerment are everything. And as of now, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is dragging his feet on enforcement rather than taking proactive steps to advertise Amendment 4’s impact.“
Tampa Bay Times
December 14, 2019
Read More““Between Thanksgiving and Christmas it was palpable,’ Randall said. ‘You’d just see people start to circle the drain because they felt really incapacitated. They couldn’t buy gifts. They can’t be home. They know their kids are waking up Christmas morning or, you know, Hanukkah, and there’s nobody buying them presents.’ So Randall had an idea: She sent out a few email messages to her friends and family, and asked them to sponsor an inmate’s child or two and purchase a present for them’.“
Vermont Public Radio
December 14, 2018
Read More“But six NYPD officers who reviewed the messages told The Appeal that such language is typical of the new, less explicit methods supervisors use to enforce an unofficial quota system today. “
The Appeal
December 12, 2018
Read More“A Christian rift over the bipartisan prison reform bill — the First Step Act — is forming, with the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA announcing its opposition. NCC, which is an ecumenical body composed of largely liberal bodies, including various mainline Protestant denominations, explained on Friday that despite its support for reforming America's prison system, it finds the First Step Act to be "sorely lacking" on several fronts.“
The Christian Post
December 10, 2018
Read More“Here in red-state America, the death penalty is supported by 73 percent of white evangelical Christians and by even a solid majority of Catholics — 53 percent, despite official church teaching to the contrary — according to a Pew Research Center survey released in June. “
New York Times
December 10, 2018
Read More“‘These young people are looking for love, understanding and empowerment,’ Henderson told a local television reporter. ‘As soon as we concentrate on giving them those three things, the sooner crime will decrease, and we’ll see these people soar’.“
Politico
December 6, 2018
Read More“Kentucky and Iowa are the two states that disenfranchise people convicted of all felonies for life. (Virginia law provides for this as well, but recent governors have mostly gotten around it with executive orders. Other states, like Mississippi, also permanently disenfranchise many people.) To get their rights restored, Kentuckians must apply to the governor, and few are enfranchised this way. Governor Matt Bevin restored no one’s rights during his first year in office in 2016, even though more than 300,000 Kentuckians lacked the right to vote that year, according to a report by the Sentencing Project. That’s over 9 percent of Kentucky’s voting-age population.“
The Appeal Political Report
December 6, 2018
Read More“What’s clear is that it’s not working for either the person committing the harm or the people being harmed. People living behind bars are people and should be treated as such. Consideration and education are simple tools that we can offer the imprisoned that will help them upon release. It is also important that we hire formerly incarcerated people and that we not use stigmatizing language like inmate or ex-con and correct others when they use it. Donate time and money to organizations doing the work all over the U.S.“
Newsweek
November 29, 2018
Read More“On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the Eagles posted $50,000 in bail ― $25,000 raised by the players and $25,000 matched by the team’s Eagles Social Justice Fund ― so that nine defendants in Philadelphia could spend Thanksgiving out of jail. The money went to the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, a local organization aimed at reforming the cash bailout system, which has been a major issue for Philadelphia city officials over the years.“
Huffington Post
November 28, 2018
Read More“In October, Common put on three live performances at facilities located in remote parts of California’s Central Valley. He met with groups of currently incarcerated men and women, some of them acknowledging crimes as serious as murder. Others said they were convicted of offenses related to their experiences with poverty, childhood neglect and addiction. Common said there’s deep desire among inmates to change public perceptions about prison, from a place where criminals become even more hardened to a place where reconciliation, rehabilitation and inner peace are realities.“
Mic
November 24, 2018
Read More“What I want to achieve with the book is to say we absolutely need reform, and we need to reduce the use of imprisonment. But we need to recognise that supervision is a form of punishment and that we have to use it parsimoniously and deliver it in ways that are productive.“
The Herald Scotland
November 24, 2018
Read More“She created a ScholarCHIPS — CHIPS stands for children of incarcerated parents. With her first grant of $1,000 from LearnServe, she went looking for donations and found so many kids like herself. She has raised and awarded more than $100,000 to 51 students. Thirteen have already graduated.“
NBC Washington DC
November 16, 2018
Read More“Cyphert said it was crucial to keep in mind that despite committing no crime, children of the incarcerated face deteriorating physical and psychological health, and problems at school, which are reflected in high rates of asthma, obesity, depression and anxiety.“
The Crime Report
November 14, 2018
Read More“Women’s incarceration has grown at twice the pace of men’s incarceration in recent decades, and has disproportionately been located in local jails. The explanation for exactly what happened, when, and why does not yet exist because the data on women has long been obscured by the larger scale of men’s incarceration.“
Prison Policy Initiative
November 13, 2018
Read More“This is not a true crime whodunit. This is the story of what happens to the family of a murder victim when they find out years later that everything the criminal justice system had led them to believe was a lie. This is a story of wrongful conviction told from the perspective of Debbie’s family, how they survived one earthquake and then another, and came to the other side. It is also about Debbie’s little cousin Christy: her reckoning, her rage, her forgiveness, and her transformation into a crusader for a different vision of justice—a vision that put her at odds with her tight-knit, rock-ribbed red-state community.“
Politico
November 11, 2018
Read More“So, city officials are flipping the script: intervening directly with young men who are closest to the violence — including known shooters — before they either pull the trigger or become a victim themselves. The strategy is part of a program called Advance Peace, which offers financial incentives to the young men it targets if they stay out of trouble, a relatively radical approach to reducing gang violence. Police consider such violence a major factor in homicides nationwide and say those killings can be among the most difficult to solve.“
Washington Post
November 9, 2018
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