Human Rights Pen Pals

more on that

Current inmates feel left behind by Trump's criminal justice reform bill First Step Act reduces the mandatory sentence for three-strikes offenders but the provisions will not be made retroactive

"Even with all the attention it receives, the scale of incarceration and punishment in the United States can still be hard to comprehend. On any given day, about 1.5 million people are in state and federal prisons; another 750,000 are in county jails (most still awaiting trial); and over 4.5 million are on probation or parole. Over the course of a year, over 600,000 people enter prison, and roughly the same number are sent home; and over 10 million people are admitted to jails annually. About 2.5 million more enter or leave parole or probation.'"

Why today’s criminal justice reform efforts won’t end mass incarceration If we really want to scale back our reliance on prison, we need to change how we approach violence, and most people—politicians, reformers, the public—seem unwilling to do this.

Haven't shared much about the FSA... definitely a step in the right direction but impacts such a small proportion of incarcerated Americans

Opinion | Test Your Knowledge of American Incarceration The First Step Act, signed on Friday by President Trump, will shorten sentences for federal prisoners. It is a bright moment in a highly partisan time.

Adnan Khan is a co-founder of Re:store Justice and is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

A Sentence for Felony Murder—and the Consequences of Hope California scales back its felony murder rule.

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge ordered an independent investigation Thursday into whether top California corrections officials deliberately misled court officials into believing that mentally ill inmates generally receive proper care.

Judge orders probe into California prison psychiatrist’s claims A judge ordered an investigation into whether top state corrections officials deliberately misled court officials into believing that mentally ill inmates generally receive proper care.

"It's absolutely unacceptable to be holding people who are in effect our wards of the state, to have them dying on our watch for use of illegal substances," said state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who chairs the Senate's Public Safety Committee and has called for corrections officials to do a better job of preventing illegal opioid drugs from entering the prison system.

San Quentin Deaths Come Amid Increase in Drug Overdoses at Prison There have been six suspected drug overdoses at San Quentin so far this month.

Intense heat has been shown to inflict both physical and psychological suffering. “The success or failure of correctional adaptation efforts will be measured in human lives as well as public dollars,” wrote Daniel Holt, a legal scholar who authored a report titled Heat in U.S. Prisons and Jails. “Every death is a haunting, tragic occurrence.”

Incarcerated People Remain Vulnerable to the Worst Ravages of a Warming World Harsh conditions inside U.S. prisons and jails have led to growing concerns about the unsustainability and climate vulnerability of mass incarceration.

Nearly Half of All U.S. Adults Have a Family Member Who Has Been Incarcerated | Colorlines A new study finds that mass incarceration has ruinous consequences for the 113 million people in the United States whose family members have spent time in prisons or jails, and people of color are disproportionately impacted.

California Lawmakers Eye Nixing Contracts With For-Profit Prisons Calling on California to sever ties with the private prison industry, a state lawmaker wants to nix contracts with for-profit prisons and ban the state’s public pension funds from ever investing in…

Governor - offer more hope to those serving long prison sentences Gov. Jerry Brown has issued more than 1,100 pardons and commuted more than 150 sentences since taking office in 2011 — far more than have his recent predecessors — with the latest announced Nov. 21. The governor’s intervention creates a new pathway to justice for people serving long prison sen...

‘A major step forward’: California passes criminal justice reforms in 2018 In recent months, Gov. Jerry Brown has signed numerous criminal justice reform bills on topics ranging from bail reform and an overhaul of rules regarding felony murder charges to revisions of juvenile detention law.

In 2006, David Harding, then faculty member at the University of Michigan, initiated a seven-year research project on the successes and failures of systemic prisoner rehabilitation.

Weekender | UC Berkeley professor’s 7-year study on mass incarceration and prisoner rehabilitation With two other colleagues, Harding gathered data from roughly 11,000 former state prisoners in Michigan who were released in 2003, 22 of whom they continuously followed up on for three years. They wanted to make readers aware of the various plights prisoners face in their process of rejoining societ...