It’s spring break for many around the country, but at the Barack Obama White House, the focus is on events to promote Administration initiatives aimed at making it easier for ex-prisoners to re-enter mainstream society. In its final months, the Administration plans to keep pushing measures it believes will improve the re-assimilation of the over
Colorado State Penitentiary opened in Canon City in 1993, was one of the first state prisons built to be a top-security “supermax” facility – where the most violent or troublesome inmates in the state system would be kept in lockdown all but one hour per day. Other than for legal or medical appointments, during that
When you hear Tribeca, you probably think of the glamorous New York film festival started by actor Robert De Niro in 2002. Recently, though, the Tribeca Film Institute – which “champions storytellers to be catalysts for change in their communities” – also brings screenings to prisoners through the Community Screenings Series, in partnership with the
It’s heartbreaking to hear about the atrocious conditions facing students at Detroit-area schools in recent months and even years. These learning centers are literally crumbling around their staff and students – and the situation continues to get worse. Spain Elementary and Middle School, one of the worst-off Detroit schools, was recently featured on The Ellen
Rejecting a lawsuit filed by conservatives trying to rewrite the longstanding “one man, one vote” rule for drawing the lines for political districts, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it is acceptable for states not to count just eligible voters, but to instead use the number of total residents. As a result, states can count
In a time when we need to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline, I’m concerned to hear that four of the country’s largest school districts have more police or security officers than counselors – a troubling ratio that speaks to a police-state mentality that apparently continues to thrive in America. In New York City, the country’s largest
On March 30, President Obama commuted the prison sentences of 61 federal prisoners – over a third of whom were serving life sentences, for drug or firearms offenses. After a White House event highlighting the clemency action, the president invited ex-inmates whose sentences had previously been commuted to join him for lunch at a local
Most jurisdictions struggle with how to relieve overcrowded prisons and jails, but at the same time avoid releasing inmates who are most likely to re-offend. After examining the experience of Los Angeles County coping with a California state policy that transferred many low-level felons from state prisons to county and city jails, Stanford University management
When it comes to the school-to-prison pipeline in America, a thought-provoking book by a prominent U.S. author and justice advocate sheds startling insights into an often-overlooked segment of our broken justice system – the discrimination against black girls. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris spotlights a group that is
The U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), an independent agency within the judicial branch that writes federal sentencing guidelines and studies federal crime and sentencing policies, on March 9 released a major new study, ‘Recidivism Among Federal Offenders: A Comprehensive Overview’. Drawing on data on more than 25,400 former inmates who were either released outright from federal