Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.
“The bill now heads to a vote by the full Senate, where it is expected to pass with a veto-proof majority. The bill, which passed the House in March with a veto-proof majority, would not spare Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing Manchester police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006. Addison is the state's only death-row inmate. New Hampshire has not executed an inmate since 1939.”
WMUR New Hampshire
April 2, 2019
Read More“Formerly incarcerated citizen pledge: ‘I take responsibility for my choices and incarceration. I am accountable for my education, employment and successful reentry. As a formerly incarcerated citizen, I pledge to break the cycle of crime, violence and incarceration in my family and community’.“
Florida Times-Union
March 31, 2019
Read More“In Until We Reckon, Danielle Sered draws on her work as founder and director of Brooklyn-based Common Justice — the first victim services and alternative-to-incarceration program that focuses on violent felony crimes like gunpoint robberies, shootings and assaults, — to show how restorative justice is a process of charting ‘a course for repair.’ It helps survivors heal and makes us all safer, unlike the current criminal justice system.“
The Indypendent
March 30, 2019
Read More“The measure is the first in the country to specifically address transparency in the use of computerized risk assessment tools to predict the likelihood of a repeat offense before a judge sets bail or a prisoner is released on parole. It is also the first to set requirements for public access to the design and data used to build the tool’s predictions, requiring that records created during a risk assessment tool’s development, validation, and use to ‘be open to public inspection, auditing, and testing’.“
MuckRock
March 26, 2019
Read More“Over the past decade, a growing number of cities, counties and states have recognized the profound injustice of a cash bail system, in which people who can afford bail walk free while those who can’t are detained. But that awareness gives rise to a thorny question: What should replace it? How should judges decide whom to detain pretrial? In many cases, the answer has been to rely more heavily on risk assessments, algorithmic tools based on predictive analytics.“
The Appeal
March 25, 2019
Read More“In New York and across the country, bail reform is gaining momentum as the public learns how the money bail system discriminates based on wealth and race. Everyone can agree that no pretrial system should treat people differently based on the money in their bank accounts or the color of their skin. But in New York today, rich people accused of crimes can write a check and walk free while they await trial, while those who cannot afford to post bail must languish in jail for months or years until their case is resolved.“
New York Law Journal
March 25, 2019
Read More“When he learned he had lost the second rental, Charles told The Post that his disappointment was akin to what he felt when he learned he’d have to go back to jail after previously being released. He has been crashing on a friend’s couch since he was released Jan. 3 but hopes to secure a two-bedroom apartment of his own.“
Washington Post
March 18, 2019
Read More“Randall’s story illustrates that reintegration requires more than just determination and work ethic, a key finding of our three-year study of the day-to-day lives of formerly incarcerated individuals. About a third struggle with hunger, homelessness and housing instability.“
The Hill
March 15, 2019
Read More“Just three days after he revealed he could not find housing in Nashville, Matthew Charles learned he will not have to worry about paying rent for the next five years — all thanks to Kim Kardashian-West. "Now, all... I have to do is find the place," Charles told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee Monday night.“
The Tennessean
March 11, 2019
Read More“The negative financial effects continue even after release, as former inmates face severe discrimination in the labor market. Consequently, former inmates face significant impediments to accessing credit. But here is the paradox: Without credit, such individuals face myriad financial difficulties, from not being able to afford transportation or a place to live to falling victim to predatory lending and even homelessness.“
The Hill
March 5, 2019
Read More“Fifty-four percent of the people currently held in state prisons have been convicted of a crime classified as violent. We will never slash our prison population by 50 percent — the goal of a number of current campaigns — much less get back to levels of incarceration that we had before the race to incarcerate began in the early 1980s, without addressing the one issue most reformers avoid: violence.“
New York Times
March 3, 2019
Read More“It was a far different philosophy from that expressed by many politicians at similar meetings in previous decades, when the emphasis was on putting more people behind bars—and not on training them for productive work when they were released.“
The Crime Report
February 25, 2019
Read More“While police departments often recognize that “we can’t arrest our way out of the problem,” the broken windows paradigm remains active throughout policing. Perhaps most significantly, it still colors how the public views violence and demands responses to it: both as a danger that characterizes entire poor communities of color, and as a menace that poses a constant threat. This long-held view is, simply, wrong.“
City Lab
February 25, 2019
Read More“‘I came across this article in a Prison Legal News – a magazine that tells you about cases, mostly civil [cases],’ Blackmon said. ‘Back in those years, you may have a sprinkling of a criminal case or two. I read across this little page, it was an ad, that said if you want to learn the law apply here. It was only like $59 a month. I thought, ‘I really do need to learn the law.’ So, I signed up and for $59 a month in 14 easy payments, I got a paralegal certificate’.“
Hyde Park Herald
February 22, 2019
Read More“Getting incarcerated for opioid-related charges presents a daunting challenge: navigate the healthcare system of a prison or jail and undertake the deeply personal work of treating mental illness. As part of our series Only in NH, in which we answer listener questions about the state, we’re addressing a question from a listener named Jeanne: how do prisons in New Hampshire deal with the opioid crisis?“
New Hampshire Public Radio
February 22, 2019
Read More“The burden of mass incarceration has a negative effect on state budgets and an even bigger negative effect on society, where people with felony records struggle to get out of low-wage jobs. Breaking laws must have consequences, but our criminal justice system needs to provide a pathway to individual justice through the opportunity to earn a second chance in our economy.“
The Hill
February 22, 2019
Read More““I came across this article in a Prison Legal News – a magazine that tells you about cases, mostly civil [cases],” Blackmon said. “Back in those years, you may have a sprinkling of a criminal case or two. I read across this little page, it was an ad, that said if you want to learn the law apply here. It was only like $59 a month. I thought, ‘I really do need to learn the law.’ So, I signed up and for $59 a month in 14 easy payments, I got a paralegal certificate.”“
Hyde Park News
February 22, 2019
Read More“In April 2018, a blind man with one foot robbed a bank in Austin, Texas. This is a heist story—but unlike any you’ve ever read. “
The Atavist Magazine
February 1, 2019
Read More“‘I think that it is our moral duty as people and as leaders to take a stand against what is wrong, even if it is supposedly legal,’ she told the Phoenix. ‘Because we understand that just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s right. And it’s not right for us to profit off the labor of incarcerated people’.“
The Florida Phoenix
February 1, 2019
Read More“According to the report, in 2017, 30 percent of those admitted into Wisconsin prisons committed a new crime, but 37 percent admitted were because of revocation. This means, tax payers’ dollars are paying for prison and jails to hold inmates who literally didn’t even commit a new crime, or any crime for that matter.“
Milwaukee Courier News
January 26, 2019
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