Newly released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics for the first six months of 2016 show California’s reported urban crime rate remained stable from 2010 through 2016, despite the implementation of large-scale criminal justice reforms during that period. The report finds that: Total urban crime fell 3 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the first half of 2015. This decline was driven by a 4 percent reduction in property offenses and a 4 percent increase in reported...

At first glance, jails and prisons may not seem like the best environment for a mindfulness program. The noise level alone can be unsettling, let alone the windowless, cinder block walls. But John Eby turned that notion on its head. Instead, he asked, what better place could there be for a mindfulness class? In 2014, Eby, a psychotherapist who has worked for many years with Nevada County’s incarcerated and mentally ill, introduced an eight-week pilot mindfulness program in the jail at the...

In Garden Grove in October, Jason Gomez, 34, was asked to talk about himself. He had been recently released from jail after being convicted of robbery. Gomez sat in a county office meeting with a big shot from the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. At stake was the future of the program that had helped Gomez get a job after jail. It’s called LEAP (Linking to Employment Activities Pre-release), which was established with a $500,000 grant to the Orange County Sheriff’s...

At the Northern California Construction Training Center in Sacramento County, you can find a number of probationers hard at work learning new crafts. And over the sound of hammers and buzz saws, a four-letter word is frequently heard. That word is H-O-P-E. For many of those taking part in this career training, it’s the first time they’ve had any hope in a long, long time — thanks to a joint program created by the Sacramento County Probation Department, County Office of Education and the...

His radio debut may have been only a few months ago, but in that time Philip, a young man with a broad grin and a genial delivery that holds your attention, has come a long way. “When I listen [to my early shows], I can hear that I was a bit overexuberant. Now, I take my time and make sure that my recording levels are right, that things fade in and out correctly,” he says. Philip’s progress from novice to accomplished broadcaster is exactly what you would expect of a keen intern on a...

The county’s current plan of action for decriminalizing mental illness is the Stepping Up Initiative, which aims to reduce the number of mentally ill inmates nationwide. The initiative brings together leaders in mental health, law enforcement, and criminal justice to help provide nonviolent mentally ill offenders with treatment, not jail time. The Sun spoke with mental health experts and county representatives who are vying to improve law enforcement’s approach to mentally ill offenders. At...

Grant Period: June 16, 2017 to August 15, 2020 Eligible Applicants : Public Agencies in Partnership with the Communities they Serve Released: November 18, 2016 Notice of Intent to Apply Due: January 20, 2017 Proposal Due Date: February 21, 2017 Public agencies – defined as city, county, or tribal government entities – must be the lead applicants for this funding, but they are required to share at least 50 percent of awarded funding with a nonprofit partner. There are many ways for you to...

The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative is pleased to share three policy briefs on the impact of ACEs in the health, justice, and education systems including promising practices and recommended actions for change. These briefs were developed by members of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative—system leaders in Illinois who are working from an ACEs-informed lens to improve systems to prevent and mitigate trauma across generations. Rooted in social justice, these briefs are a call to...

If you live in Kentucky and want to work on a farm, run an HVAC company, or interpret for the deaf community, you’d better not have a criminal record. Those professions and more than 100 others have licensing restrictions in the state based on a person’s prior convictions, making it hard for even those with minor offenses in their history to get a job. It’s not just Kentucky—every state in the U.S. has some form of employment restriction based on criminal records. There are nearly 70 million...

As national imprisonment rates continue to fall, so too does crime, according to data collected by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Between 2010 and 2015, the national imprisonment rate declined 8.4 percent while property and violent crime rates fell a combined 14.6 percent. During this time period, 31 states saw reductions in both crime and imprisonment. This includes California, which experienced a sharp 25.2 percent reduction in imprisonment rates along with a 1.1 percent reduction in property...

From her home in Helsinki, Maria Jain began a correspondence with a death row inmate in the US. Now, they've co-created an art exhibit that explores the need for justice reform, the potential for personal transformation, and the intricacies of healing. We talk about our lives growing up. The era was the same, the 80’s and the 90’s; the places were very different. I grew up in Finland; he grew up in Texas. I share about my difficult teenage years when I turned to self-harming. I talk about my...

Gun violence is often described as an epidemic or a public health concern, due to its alarmingly high levels in certain populations in the United States. It most often occurs within socially and economically disadvantaged minority urban communities, where rates of gun violence far exceed the national average. A new Yale study has established a model to predict how “contagious” the epidemic really is. In a study published online on Jan. 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association,...