Blog Oct 9, 2012
Going local: Lessons from tribal justice
A year into California’s criminal justice Realignment, preliminary data indicates overcrowded state prisons populations are in fact declining. However, sentencing practices across the state remain varied. While many counties have been able to decrease their reliance on state prison, over half of California’s counties experienced an increase in new prison commitments for certain offenses since realignment. For these counties, continued state-dependence could be resulting from the lack of…
California’s budget demonstrates a commitment to correctional spending despite continued funding cuts to other important social services. According to California Common Sense , since 1980 “…the number of incarcerated felons in state prisons has increased more than eightfold despite relatively stable crime rates.” Incarcerations and related costs have been driven up in part by the unnecessary incarceration of low-risk, non-violent offenders due to the Three Strikes law and similar…
Report: Monitor’s findings shed poor light on Oakland’s police department Oakland Tribune, October 3, 2012
San Mateo County faults three reports that question need for new jail Daily News, October 4, 2012
Blog Oct 2, 2012
Romney, the 47% and juvenile justice
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney committed a major blunder that has gone viral all across the country. In a moment of candor he told a very exclusive audience (of mostly some of the infamous one percenters and perhaps a few wanabees) that “There are 47 percent of the [American] people who will vote for the president no matter what.…there are 47 percent who are with whom, who are dependent on government, who believe they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to…