It is with great pleasure that we introduce this issue of the Justice Policy Journal that has quite an eclectic mix of papers, but all of which are centered on forging innovative and collaborative approaches to criminal justice policy. Our lead paper explores the impact of false imprisonment on the future of the newly exonerated, and features collaboration between a falsely imprisoned former police officer, J. Scott Hornoff, and a University professor, Barbara Zaitzow. This type of collaboration is unique in the field of criminal justice, and represents exactly the type of innovative approaches to criminal justice policy that the Justice Policy Journal seeks to promote.

Our second article by Connie Ireland explores the practice of parole in California, in one of the largest and most diverse parole districts in the State. This article explores how motivated administrators sought to change the practice of parole in order to provide parolees with more opportunities to succeed. Bringing both the voices of parole agents and parolees to bear on the process, Ireland discusses the individual and structural constraints to providing rehabilitative policies that work.

Lee Michael Johnson examines jail wall drawings in the third article, and uses the artwork found in a county jail to discuss how people in jail are firmly situated within mainstream society rather than a deviant sub-population. This article provides an important insight into the nature of jail wall drawing as a therapeutic endeavor for inmates and as a way to maintain their connection to life outside the jail walls.

Lee Hyman, in the fourth article, addresses the failures and successes of juvenile rehabilitation in response to a specific type of juvenile crime, the sex offender. Growing interest in sex offenses has led to unique and innovative approaches to offender treatment, and Hyman provides lessons from the state of Illinois on how a population that is often thought to be "untreatable" benefits from a combination of therapeutic and behavioral modification techniques.

Finally, our issue ends with a paper written by a group who call themselves "convict criminologists" and who emphasize the importance of taking the perspectives of incarcerated people into account when calling for reforms of criminal justice institutions. In this final piece, the convict criminologists explore the problems with the use of women guards in male institutions and the difficulties and inhumanities that this creates for those who are incarcerated.

Together, these five articles provide incomparable insight into the incarceration process in the U.S., often bringing the much needed perspectives of those subject to these practices to bear on criminal justice policies. All of these articles are certain to stimulate conversations about the direction of criminal justice policy in the U.S., and the possibilities and potential for meaningful and just reform.

We would like to offer our apologies to readers for the delay of the release of this issue due to technological difficulties.

Elizabeth Brown, San Francisco State University
Randall Shelden, University of Nevada-Las Vegas