Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice sy...
Categories: criminal justice, drug testing, life without parole, Linn State Technical College, overincarceration, overincarceration clips Tags:
Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights From the Blog
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice sy...
Categories: California, criminal justice, Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana, Ohio, Orleans Parish Prison, overincarceration, overincarceration clips Tags:
Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Withover 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it's ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has fai...
Categories: California, criminal justice, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Ohio, overincarceration, overincarceration clips, South Carolina, Texas Tags:
Smoke Pot, Lose Your Kid (If You’re Black)
I have some friends who grew up in homes where their parents smoked pot. Their parents also loved them, fed them, clothed them, quizzed them for exams, nursed them when they were sick, cheered their accomplishments and sent them off into the world ...
Categories: criminal justice, drug law reform Tags:
Tennessee and Virginia Agree: Stop Shackling Pregnant Women
Women's dignity was vindicated twice in a double dose of justice on Thursday. A federal jury in Tennessee awarded Juana Villegas $200,000 as compensation for the suffering she endured when the Davidson County Sheriff's Office unconstitutionally sh...
Categories: criminal justice, pregnancy, prisoners' rights, shackling Tags:
The ACLU’s 12-Step Plan to End California’s Addiction to Incarceration
The Golden State has a problem. An addiction problem. California is addicted to incarceration. We've hit rock bottom, and it's time for an intervention. To help the state break the addiction, yesterday the ACLU of California sent a 12-step...
Categories: A.B. 109, Brown v. Plata, budget, California, criminal justice, Jerry Brown, overincarceration, sentencing reform Tags:
A Way Toward Balancing Government Budgets While Promoting Justice: Break Our Addiction to Incarceration
There isn’t an American who hasn’t felt the devastating effects of the Great Recession. And just when most of us thought it couldn’t get any worse, the S&P downgrade of the federal government’s Treasury debt last Friday sen...
Categories: criminal justice, overincarceration, prison spending Tags:
No Prison for Jaywalking Mom, But She Wants a New Trial
We told you yesterday about the plight of Raquel Nelson, a suburban Atlanta woman who was convicted of charges connected to the death of her four-year-old son, who was killed last year by a drunk driver as they crossed a street. Nelson was found guilty...
Categories: criminal justice, Georgia, jaywalking, Radley Balko, Raquel Nelson Tags:
Mother Jaywalking Faces More Prison Time Than Man Who Ran Over Her Son
“Tough on crime” rhetoric – especially when it comes to perceived threats against our nation’s children – has been a political focal point in recent years. Local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are often judged by...
Categories: criminal justice, Georgia, jaywalking, Radley Balko, Raquel Nelson Tags:
At Rikers, Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Every cartographer has to leave something out. Street names, landmarks, tiny inlets — a two-dimensional rendering of our world can’t possibly include everything. This kind of selective exclusion reminds me of a specific khaki-colored mas...
Categories: criminal justice, maps, New York, overincarceration, prisoners' rights, Rikers Island Tags: