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PACEs in the Criminal Justice System

Discussion and sharing of resources in working with clients involved in the criminal justice system and how screening for and treating ACEs will lead to successful re-entry of prisoners into the community and reduced recidivism for former offenders.

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The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years [vox.com]

America puts more people in jail and prison than any other country in the world. Although the country has managed to slightly reduce its prison population in recent years, mass incarceration remains a fact of the US criminal justice system. It’s time for a radical idea that could really begin to reverse mass incarceration: capping all prison sentences at no more than 20 years. It may sound like an extreme, even dangerous, proposal, but there’s good reason to believe it would help reduce the...

Florida Is One of the Most Overincarcerated Places in U.S. Is It Likely to Change? [jjie.org]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Randy Ratledge doesn’t get out much. Since he was arrested in 2012, Ratledge, 61, has a fear of the police. He doesn’t like leaving his home, and definitely doesn’t like coming downtown, where he was locked up for 117 days. He faced 120 years in prison, and under the state’s minimum mandatory laws, a judge would have had no choice but to impose that sentence if he’d been convicted. [For more on this story by Larry Hannan, go to...

California Ramps Up College Education Behind Bars (capitalandmain.com)

Prisons have been called universities of crime. What if they became, instead, actual universities? There is plenty of evidence to support bringing higher education classes into prisons. Nearly all inmates will eventually be released, and a comprehensive 2013 RAND Corporation study found that inmates who participated in educational programs lowered their chances of recidivating by 43 percent. The RAND study also found that each dollar invested in correctional education returns between four...

Staying Connected: Moms Who Pump in Prison (nextcity.org)

An innovative lactation program encourages incarcerated new moms to maintain their breast milk supply, reinforcing maternal bonds and providing health benefits to their newborns. Jackson is one of six mothers at Riverside who are currently participating in the lactation program, one of the first of its kind inside an American jail. Women who give birth just before or during their time here are given access to breastfeeding education and the facilities of the lactation room, plus additional...

All too often, California’s default mental institutions are now jails and prisons (calmatters.org)

Perhaps nowhere is California’s mental health crisis more evident than in its criminal justice system. After decades of failure to create and fund policies that effectively help people with serious mental illnesses, many now say the jails and prisons have become the state’s default mental institutions. Close to a third of California’s inmates have a documented serious mental illness, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A few decades ago, fewer than half...

The Importance of Connection | Alissa R. Ackerman | TEDxCSULB (www.YouTube.com) & Commentary

Cissy's note: The TedTalk below is given by one of my good friends, Alissa. When she first told me about the restorative justice work she was doing with Dr. Jill Levenson, speaking with convicted of sexual offending, where she shared about her experiences as a survivor of sexual assault, (aka, without her "professional shield," as she says), I was concerned. Was it safe, wise, and helpful? What would the impact be on her? Part of me felt that it's not the place of survivors to help...

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...

In California, Criminal Justice Reform Offers a Lesson for the Nation [nytimes.com]

LOS ANGELES — A police officer is shot dead in Whittier by a gang member . A mentally ill homeless man walks into a steakhouse in Ventura and stabs a man to death in front of his family. In Bakersfield, a man angry over his divorce goes on a shooting rampage , killing his ex-wife and four others. In the aftermath of these high-profile killings, some police officers, district attorneys and politicians were quick to use them as examples to show that criminal justice reform had let dangerous...

Bryan Stevenson Wants the U.S. to Face Its History [nytimes.com]

Last month, Congress passed the First Step Act, a prison-reform bill intended to reduce recidivism. Do you think this bill will actually change the realities of mass incarceration? It’s important but insufficient, in terms of the actual number of people in jails and prisons. We’ve gone from 300,000 people in jails and prisons in the 1970s to 2.2 million people today. We have to radically reorient ourselves and start talking about rehabilitation, restoration and how we end crime. And if we do...

NYC Books Through Bars (dailygood.org)

I recently slipped through a sidewalk cellar door to enter the basement of Freebird Books , a large space crammed with books organized into different sections, where I spent the evening reading letters from prison inmates and selecting and packaging books for them. At least twice a week , volunteers go through the 700-800 letters NYC Books Through Bars , a collective based in New York City, New York, receives from inmates every month and fulfill their requests. It's a team effort. Founded 21...

YPD hosts specialized training for over 170 officers and advocates

I had the chance to attend a training for law enforcement and others, described below, in Yarmouth, MA, a few weeks ago. The presentation, "Trauma Informed Response Training for Law Enforcement & Multi Disciplinary Team Members," was given by retired detective Justin Boardman . Boardman was joined in the morning by the chief domestic violence prosecutor of the Cape & Islands, Michael Patterson. Here is a news story excerpt about the training from the Cape Cod newsletter (yes, the...

How solitary confinement drove a young inmate to the brink of insanity (chicagotribune.org)

With his mental state deteriorating as he sat in the crushing isolation of solitary confinement, a desperate inmate named Anthony Gay saw a temporary way out. Sometimes it came in the form of a contraband razor blade. Occasionally it was a staple from a legal document or a small shard of something he had broken. Each time he harmed himself, he knew that, at least for a little while, the extreme step would bring contact with other human beings. Therapists would rush to calm him. Nurses would...

Research Central: Data on Characteristics, Risk Factors, and Protective Factors of Children With Incarcerated Parents (ojjdp.gov)

An estimated 1.7 million youth younger than age 18 have at least one parent currently in prison in the United States, and millions more have a parent currently in jail. Incarcerated parents and their children are a diverse group, and associations between parental incarceration and developmental outcomes are complicated. Research has shown that having an incarcerated parent can present individual and environmental risks for the child and increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Because...

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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