Latest criminal justice news, updates, and commentary 6.30.24

Top reads/views:  NBC news short profile of the “right to hug” case; the New Republic examines “The New Sundown Towns,” which are trying to make it illegal to be homeless; the Safer Cities newsletter is always full of uplifting, practical solutions that are being implemented around the country.  

Media

• Absolute must-watch: NBC’s Lester Holt profiled Civil Right Corp’s “right to hug” lawsuit, which is suing Michigan jails for blocking in-person family visits and forcing inmates and their families to pay for costly video calls. The Sheriff admitted on camera that money is the only reason he blocked the visits, and also announced on camera that he was changing the policy back. 

• NPR did a short (8 minute) and good segment on the campaign to make phone calls from prison free, to ensure that people inside can stay connected with their families, and to ensure that families aren’t fleeced for money. 

• The Laura Flanders Show convened three journalists from around the country who cover police and policing to talk about their work and where things stand on efforts to move money away from policing and into public health and other solutions. 

• The Darren B. Easterling Center for Restorative Practices in Chicago has a project called You Matter, where they interview men coming home from prison. You can find dozens of interviews, most around 4 minutes long, here. 

• The One Million Experiments podcast interviewed Collective Justice, a restorative justice program out of Seattle. 

• I recently learned about a 2020 film that many folks may have missed – Belly of the Beast about the efforts of advocates to challenge and stop a pattern of illegal sterilizations of women in California prisons.  

Campaigns

• The dem nominee for AG in Pennsylvania is Eugene DePasquale, whose father spent 10 years in federal prison. I hear that he’s meeting with leaders and very receptive to learning. 

• The Abolitionist Law Center, led by Saleem Holbrook, is at the forefront of a campaign to abolish solitary confinement in Pennsylvania, and they are making progress!

• Californians will vote this fall on a measure to ban slavery for good, including in prison. Currently, prisons can force people to work for free or a pittance, under threat of punishment. This is a priority measure for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, a formerly incarcerated led group. 

• Prisoners at Angola, a former slave plantation that is now the largest prison in Louisiana and notoriously dangerous, petitioned a federal court to prohibit forced work outside when the heat index is over 88 degrees. They are represented by the Promise of Justice Initiative. 

• Groups in multiple states are suing to abolish the hated “felony murder rule,” the thing that makes most law students’ heads explode when they learn it. Basically, if someone dies while you’re committing a felony, you can be prosecuted for 1st degree murder, even if: you had no intent to kill anyone, you were nowhere near the killing, and/or the person was shot by police.   

• There’s a battle in Fulton County, GA (Atlanta) over whether to fix the current jail or spend $1.7 billion building a new one. Where once that new jail seemed inevitable, persistent campaigning by an alliance of groups is persuading county commissioners to reconsider. 

• There’s a campaign in Kentucky to inform formerly incarcerated people that they have the right to vote, after the governor restored rights in 2019 but did little publicity. 

Solutions and Wins

• Grassroots organizers waged a brilliant campaign to defeat David Soares in the primary for elected DA in Albany - their candidate Lee Kindlon won!  Soares has been an outspoken opponent of criminal justice reform. He’s been challenged before without result. Bolts covered the campaign. 

• The Center for Community Alternatives scored a big win when it comes to reforming the unaccountable world of NY state judges: after they presented data (prepared by Scrutinize) that a notoriously bad judge should not be reappointed, he chose to retire. This appears to be a first, and could galvanize a new era of accountability for NY judges acting in extreme ways. 

• NPR profiled the brilliant winning campaign to make phone calls from prison free in Connecticut. This quote really stuck out to me. When people are wondering how to engage Black voters, many of whom are disproportionately impacted by incarceration, they should keep this in mind: 

  • "I didn't experience any free phone calls because my son had come home a few months prior to the legislation, but the emails I got, the texts I got from Black women were amazing,” Lewis said. For years, this community had felt ignored or disregarded by politicians and government institutions. "You know how it feels when nobody don't pay you no attention? Then all of a sudden they think, 'Oh, God, they must have really been thinking about us to have passed this bill,'" Lewis said.

• Jason Hernandez, a formerly incarcerated leader and advocate from Texas whose work we have supported, recently received a full presidential pardon and was invited to the White House to speak with VP Harris. He is finishing his memoir now, and hopefully we can read it soon!

• Minnesota stopped prison gerrymandering, and will now count prisoners in the districts they are from, rather than where they’re incarcerated. This is a big deal for state budgeting. 

• Colorado is mandating that people in jail have access to voting. 

• The new mayor of Houston wants to cancel the city’s contract with the ShotSpotter program (which monitors sounds that may be gunshots, or may not be, and dispatches police to investigate), calling it a gimmick. Other cities around the country are doing the same. 

• The Minneapolis Police Department has shrunk by a third since 2020, because people aren’t applying to work there. The city is investing in non-police safety alternatives, like violence interruption and mental health teams.

• Maryland Governor Wes Moore did a mass pardon of 175,000 marijuana possession convictions. 

Commentary

• John Pfaff argues that the 1994 crime bill, which many point to as being one of the biggest drivers of mass incarceration, had little to do with it, because: the timing was wrong (prison grew less after the bill than before it); states only claimed 30% of the money put up by the bill; and states said that their decisions to pass certain high incarceration laws weren’t influenced by it. I think this article may be missing some intangible effects of the federal government sending such a big signal with this bill, but I find this to be a compelling argument against federal policy playing a significant role. 

• Aqeela Sherrills wrote movingly for Newsweek about the murder of his son Terrell and the many years of work he has done since to prevent other families around the country from suffering the same sorrow. Aqeela is the founder and head of the Community Based Public Safety Collective, a national organization that coordinates funding for violence interruption groups around the country and provides technical assistance, as well as the Newark Community Street Team. He’s a very well-respected leader in this space. If you are interested in funding violence interruption work, these groups should be high on your list!

Reports and Research

• As I hope everyone knows, touching fentanyl won’t hurt you. But many irresponsible media stories have featured police claiming to fall seriously ill after minor contact with fentanyl. What is going on? The Center for Just Journalism recently published this report. 

• The Prison Policy Initiative investigates how post-Roe abortion restrictions are impacting people on probation and parole. In short, if they can’t get permission from their probation or parole officer to travel for an abortion, people on supervision are forced to continue their pregnancies. Hundreds of thousands of women are on probation and parole in these states.  

• Safer Cities reports: Cities that rely more on non-police safety officers, such as the transit ambassadors in the Los Angeles transit system (which are wildly popular!), save millions of dollars on liability costs from reduced police misconduct lawsuits.  

• Human Rights for Kids has a new report on the extreme prevalence of serious childhood trauma suffered by girls who have been sentenced as adults. The Hill covered the report here. 

Wall of Shame

• The Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to arrest people for sleeping outside, even if there are no shelter beds available. In otherwise, homelessness may be criminalized. There are many many articles covering this; here’s Slate.

• Rolling Stone did a harrowing piece on the criminalization of pregnancy in Alabama. 

• The vast majority of people in the Atlanta City Jail, which holds people on municipal offenses (aka below the level of crimes that are made illegal by state statute), are in there for driving offenses. If the city had better transportation and walkability, a bunch of crime would disappear.