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The Chicago Tribune— Public defense attorneys are now staffing felony arraignment courtrooms in Contra Costa County, where the prior absence of such attorneys spurred a federal class action lawsuit.
February 14, 2013 | Courts | California
Times Herald— When most teenagers were dealing with homework and spending time with friends, Kimberly King was experiencing something very different.
She was just 13 when her mom introduced her to drugs. What followed was a life of uncertainty, alcohol and drug use, and crime.
King was 16 when she was ensnared in an abusive relationship that she would endure for 10 years. She used drugs to try to escape and was in jail for the first time at age 18. There didn't seem to be an end to her destructive ways.
It wasn't until she was in jail for the second time for possession of drugs and car theft that she really got a second chance.
February 13, 2013 | California
Mercury News— Crime rates are squirrely things.
Criminologists will tell you they've been struggling for a hundred years to figure out what makes levels of outlaw behavior rise or fall.
Judging by the comments posted below online newspaper stories, that doesn't stop a lot of us from opining on the topic, often fueled by the latest headline and perhaps a beer or two.
Now, despite the somewhat quixotic nature of the quest, Monterey County officials are working to come up with a more fact-based view of local crime and whether state prisoner realignment plays any role in it.
February 13, 2013 | California
Mercury News— County officials are directing nearly a third of funding provided by the state to implement a prison realignment law into a host of social services designed to keep felons from reoffending on the outside.
Assembly Bill 109 went into effect in October 2011, shifting incarceration for nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual offenders from state prisons to county jails and from state parole to county probation departments upon release. The county is funneling about $1.5 million of $5.2 million in annual funding from the state for AB 109 into intervention, including housing, mental health treatment and conflict resolution, provided by 15 local nonprofits or government agencies.
The largest share of the intervention funding, nearly $600,000, is designated for substance abuse treatment.
February 13, 2013 | California
The Chicago Tribune— Police are refocusing their efforts to help reduce alcohol-related crime in the downtown area.
Cheyenne Police Department and COMEA House shelter officials have been working on the project -- called the Homeless Empower-ment Action Team (HEAT) since August.
February 04, 2013 | Wyoming
Library Journal— What is changing is a growing realization that more public, prison, and jail libraries can better identify and serve the often significant needs of inmates or those prisoners who are returning to their communities. Not only are some libraries providing books, they are providing innovative programs and services, helping inmates and returnees to learn about work and employment opportunities, the arts, and to develop job-seeking skills.
February 04, 2013
Juneau Empire— Alaska’s prison population could reach capacity by 2016, even as a new prison is just gearing up.
Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the estimate speaks to the effort under way within his department geared at reducing recidivism.
February 01, 2013 | Alaska
NPR— According to some estimates, 1 in 5 Americans has a criminal record — which can last a lifetime. While it's generally illegal for employers to indiscriminately deny all applicants with criminal records, many still do.
January 31, 2013
The Wall Street Journal— New York officials expect the state's prisons to shed 1,000 more inmates over the next four years, noting the steady decline of commitments for drug offenses since 1999 and allowing it to save money by closing some of the institutions.
The inmate population has dropped below 55,000 after peaking in 1999 at 72,584 under Rockefeller-era drug laws. Several tough sentencing provisions, including 15 years to life for having 4 ounces of illegal narcotics, were softened or eliminated in 2009. Those laws were first enacted in 1973, pushed by then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to combat a drug and crime epidemic.
January 28, 2013 | New York
Mercury News— In a courtroom in Watsonville, Monte Vista Christian School sophomore Elisabeth Wayne is prosecuting a 14-year-old boy who skipped school, broke into an abandoned bowling alley and drank beer with his friends.
"He didn't respect the law," Wayne told the jury comprised of 12 teenagers. "He believed it was OK to ditch school, enter an abandoned building and drink beers with his friends."
Rachel Zheng, a 17-year-old Santa Cruz High School senior acting as a defense attorney, prevailed on the jury to empathize with their fellow teen.
January 24, 2013 | California
The Clarion Ledger— Gov. Haley Barbour last year justified pardoning some of the state’s most notorious killers in part by saying they’re the least likely to reoffend.
Statistically, he’s right. Murderers have the lowest recidivism rate among all types of criminals, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Forty percent will be arrested within three years of release, though just 1.2 percent for another homicide.
January 23, 2013 | Mississippi
The Baltimore Sun— Karen L. Sitnick's job is jobs — helping people find them.
As director of the Mayor's Office of Employment Development in Baltimore, she oversees an effort that isn't simple, even in the best of times, as residents struggle to overcome education gaps and other challenges. The recession and slow recovery have tested job seekers and their helpers alike.
January 23, 2013 | Maryland
The Chicago Tribune— Dressed in olive drab jerseys and pants, and hard at work inside a makeshift classroom, seven young jail inmates focused on the day they are free again.
Some, like Marvin, 18, slide T-squares along graph paper to finish architectural sketches of homes both real and imagined. Others, including Khalid, 18, who aspires to be an audio engineer, work on resumes and fine tune graphic arts skills on computers. And Anthony, 17, hopes to parlay skills he is learning into a college degree and a career as a chef.
"I want to do good when I get out," Anthony said.
January 23, 2013 | New York
The Corrections Connection— The U.S. juvenile justice system today faces the same pressures familiar to any government agency, particularly at the state level: budgets are dwindling, but the need for services is not. Dealing effectively with juvenile offenders has never been easy, and as program resources dry up and staffs shrink the merely challenging becomes daunting. In such circumstances it only makes sense to ask whether programs can be made simultaneously less expensive and more effective—even though that sounds like nothing more than a politician’s pipe dream.
But the answer, surprisingly enough, may be “yes.”
January 23, 2013 | Missouri
The Courier-Journal— The suspect was caught on camera and admitted he caused about $1,800 worth of damage vandalizing a Louisville business.
Instead of handling the 16-year-old defendant’s case in juvenile court, local officials asked the business owner, Keith Bush, if he would take part in a “restorative justice” pilot program designed to repair the harm caused by a crime and find ways to keep offenders from re-offending — instead of seeking only retribution.
January 23, 2013 | Kentucky
WNYC— In 2011 alone, nearly 250,000 people in New York were convicted of crimes serious enough to warrant fingerprinting. And while employers are barred from pre-emptively excluding anyone with a criminal record, many do.
January 17, 2013 | New York
The Billings Gazette— Called the Montana Mentoring Project, the pilot program, which began in November, aims to shut the prison’s revolving door by providing support to women who are considered medium- to high-risk repeat offenders and are six months to one year away from their release. The goal is to reduce the recidivism rate by 50 percent.
January 08, 2013 | Montana
The San Diego Union-Tribune— Hazard Wilson's new cellmate is a hairy bundle of energy whose playful zeal can't be contained by steel doors: a five-month-old golden retriever. Yardley is one of three canines assigned since September to inmates at a maximum-security prison in western Maryland for training as service dogs for disabled military veterans.
The number of programs nationwide using inmates to train service dogs is growing, but the program at Western Correctional Institute might be the first to use incarcerated veterans to train dogs for other veterans.
January 07, 2013 | Maryland
Honolulu Star Advertiser— A task force that spent a year studying ways to reduce the number of Native Hawaiians in prison and involved in other parts of the criminal justice system submitted a list of 38 recommendations to the state Legislature today.
Among them is the suggestion that resources be directed toward children of incarcerated parents to reduce the number of families with successive generations in prison.
January 07, 2013 | Hawaii
The Daily News— New York’s juvenile justice system is slowly being overhauled under Gov. Cuomo’s Close to Home initiative, with about 250 city youth in upstate facilities slated to be transferred to the city’s care by the end of the month.
January 04, 2013