Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Video screening cuts jail time, reduces court 'no shows'

    In Bernadillo County people who are arrested for nonviolent crimes have the chance of being released, without having to serve jail time. They are screened through video by an intake officer who gauges the likelihood of them showing up in court. “We know from national studies that releasing low-level, non-violent offenders promptly reduces recidivism.” Data shows it works, and an overwhelming majority, 90 percent, of defendants showed up in court.

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  • Detroit homeless court changes lives for its defendants

    Street Outreach Court Detroit is a collaboration between the courts and service providers to waive legal and financial obligations post-conviction if a person makes a commitment to an individualized action plan. These plans can include steps such as substance misuse treatment, enrolling in a workforce readiness program, and accessing housing subsidies.

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  • Rhode Island Prisons Push To Get Inmates The Best Treatment For Opioid Addiction

    In order to reduce opioid related deaths, Rhode Island has taken a rare step among state prisons: offer medication and drug counseling to opioid addicts. The Rhode Island Department of Corrections gives small doses of either methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone to inmates, as well as drug counseling. "I still have to fight the other drugs… But at least I have something to help with one of the ones that's brought me closer to death than anything else." Evidence show the program is working. There was "a significant drop in overdose deaths among people recently released from prison."

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  • John Pace and His Friends Expected to Die in Prison

    Once deemed youthful “superpredators” condemned to spend their entire adult lives in prison, the peer counselors in Philadelphia’s Life After Life support group help other formerly incarcerated people transition back to freedom. Of the more than 100 former “juvenile lifers” who returned to Philadelphia after the Supreme Court deemed them eligible for a second chance, none has been convicted of a new crime or serious parole violation – a key metric that encourages Pennsylvania to continue whittling down its record-high population of juvenile-life-without-parole inmates.

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  • ‘People helping people': North Dakota's addiction fix

    In rural North Dakota where clinical treatment centers are hard to find, a program called Free Through Recovery "seeks to drive down North Dakota’s prison rates by creating networks of sobriety and support around people on probation and parole." Although local law enforcement claims the program is not an alternative to incarceration, in the short time it has been in operation, it has served over 550 people with many participants securing both housing and work opportunities.

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  • North Dakota may hold key to Wyoming's prison woes

    Criminal justice reform succeeds when states prioritize rehabilitation and over punishment. In North Dakota, the Free Through Recovery program increases the number of stakeholders in a parolee’s success, creating multiple levels of behavioral health support. The program is part of a criminal justice legislation package that included sentencing reforms and alternatives to incarceration. The state has been successful in beginning to reduce its overcrowded prison populations and serves as a model for other states.

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  • When a man kills his wife in India, what happens to the children?

    Global Network for Equality grew out of sociological research of men imprisoned for killing their wives. Researcher KR Raja saw how many children had been effectively orphaned by such killings, and how the men's rehabilitation in prison depended in part on knowing their families were provided for. GNE helps hundreds of children up to age 18 with living expenses, emotional support, and college applications and costs. While the effects on prisoners aren't shown, the program clearly improves the lives of the affected children.

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  • America's Other Family-Separation Crisis

    As incarceration rates of women in America continue to rise, Still She Rises, a project of the Bronx Defenders, uses a holistic approach to legal defense for incarcerated mothers in Tulsa, OK. Attorneys for the organization investigate injustices in cases and represent local, often impoverished, mothers, who face losing custody of their children in the face of the law.

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  • Emergency Preparedness for Prisons Isn't Just Sandbags and Non-perishables

    After Hurricane Katrina in 2005 stranded people incarcerated in the New Orleans jail without food or water, the city used the experience not to question its disaster preparedness but instead to rethink who needs to be incarcerated in the first place. By easing policies in cash bail and arrests for petty offenses, the city cut its jail population by two-thirds and replaced its flooded jail with one less than one-quarter the original size. The new policies helped inspire Louisiana to revise its sentencing standards in an effort to end its distinction for having the world's highest incarceration rate.

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  • Spreading the Good News of Worker-Owned Businesses in D.C.

    When Juan Reid had a hard time finding a job after his release from prison, he finally founded a worker cooperative called Tightshift Laboring Cooperative. He wanted to create sustainable employment opportunities for himself and others coming out of prison. This is part of a larger trend of worker cooperatives in the Washington, D.C. area. The DC Employee Ownership Initiative and Coop DC are two groups helping businesses like Tightshift and others.

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