A wide-ranging collection of news and opinion from the previous week focusing on criminal justice policy, advocacy, and reform.
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Life after prison: Lorenzo Brooks
Meet Lorenzo Brooks. He spent 30 years in jail. Thanks to The Fortune Society, he turned his life around.
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Jail to job: NYC to give jobs to [formerly incarcerated individuals]
Neftali Thomas Diaz swears he’s done with Rikers Island. After being [incarcerated] twice at the notorious New York City jail…, Diaz entered a private jobs program. Once he’s back on his feet with a paycheck, Diaz says, “I know I’m not ever going back there — ever.” At The Fortune Society — one of the social service nonprofits expected to partner with the city on the plan and a sponsor of Diaz — the mission is proving the critics wrong by training [formerly incarcerated individuals] on how to land and keep jobs.
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Shaina Taub’s “As You Like It” musical adaptation to bring friends, feuds and romance to Public Works this fall
The Public Theater will kick off the 2017-18 season in September with a free Public Works musical adaptation of “As You Like It”, adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery. Now in its fifth season, this unforgettable Public Works musical adaptation about chance encounters and self-discovery, will run for five nights for free, September 1-5, at the Delacorte Theater. Some of The Public Works community partner organizations are Brownsville Recreation Center (Brooklyn), Center for Family Life in Sunset Park (Brooklyn), DreamYard Project (Bronx), and Fortune Society (Queens).
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NY state will soon allow ‘thousands’ with [justice-involvement histories] to seal records
New York attorney Rick Collins said he understands why advocates might be hailing the state’s new law raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18. But he said a major change to the criminal justice system has largely flown under the radar. At the same time lawmakers raised the age, they gave people with criminal convictions, regardless of their age, a chance to seal their records from public view.
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New York eases rules for formerly incarcerated to visit public housing
The New York City Housing Authority has a rule that people with certain felonies cannot live in public housing. But in recent years there have been efforts made to loosen some of the restrictions, including a new effort to make it easier for people who served jail time to visit NYCHA properties.
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What justice looks like: formerly incarcerated share their journey to success
On Tuesday April 18, 2017, a crowd gathered for “Decarcerated: What Justice Looks like,” a series of personal accounts and conversation at BRIC House Stoop. Moderator of the town hall was Marlon Peterson, a social and criminal justice advocate, writer, educator and host of Decarcerated, a podcast which documents the success of formerly incarcerated people.
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[Formerly incarcerated individuals] find hope and employers at NYC ‘Second Chance’ Job Fair
Hundreds of men and women dressed for interviews milled about the hall, moving from one table to the other to speak to prospective employers, taking time out to pop complimentary brownie bites or check their phones. But for these particular job applicants, it was anything but business as usual. All of them had [experience with justice involvement.] Organized by a nonprofit called M.A.D.E. Transitional Services, in collaboration with the Columbia University and NYU Schools of Social Work, the event—billed as the Second Chance Job Fair—provided what for many could be a life-changing opportunity to find jobs that might otherwise have been out of reach if they tried to contact employers on their own.
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Policy shifts reduce federal prison population
A decline in the number of federal prosecutions and in the severity of sentences for drug-related crime in recent years has resulted in a significant drop in the federal prison population, according to statistics from the Judiciary, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The decrease reflects a dramatic shift in federal policies away from stiff penalties for drug trafficking and other drug-related offenses in recent years. It also has mitigated overcrowding at BOP facilities – the inmate population, once at 37 percent overcapacity, is now at 13 percent overcapacity.
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We’re jailing way more people who’ve been convicted of exactly nothing
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s promise to close the notoriously overcrowded and brutal Riker’s Island jail made national news last month, but less famous policymakers all over the country struggle with jail overcrowding on a regular basis (see, for example, Kansas, Indiana and Upstate New York). This raises an intriguing question: If jails are for [individuals who have committed crimes,] why are there still so many people behind bars after decades of declining crime? The answer is both surprising and disturbing.
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The steep cost of medical co-pays in prison puts health at risk
If your doctor charged a $500 co-pay for every visit, how bad would your health have to get before you made an appointment? You would be right to think such a high cost exploitative, and your neighbors would be right to fear that it would discourage you from getting the care you need for preventable problems. That’s not just a hypothetical story; it’s the hidden reality of prison life, adjusted for the wage differential between incarcerated people and people on the outside.
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Aaron Hernandez’s suicide highlights a huge gap in correctional health
The main reason we know so little about correctional health in the United States is because [incarcerated individuals] are considered a “vulnerable population,” and they are therefore afforded special protections. This is the legacy of our nation’s ignoble past of experimenting on prison populations, and the effect is both necessary and problematic. The necessary part is that it protects [incarcerated individuals] from coerced participation in inhumane research.