PRI's Upcoming Occasional Series: The Use of Criminal Records in College Admissions

From the Center for Community Alternatives:

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I thought you might be interested in the upcoming Occasional Series on Reentry Research sponsored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Prisoner Reentry Institute. On Friday, May 6 from 9:00 am - 10:30 am, I will be reviewing the results of CCA’s study “ The Use of Criminal Records in College Admissions: Reconsidered.” The study is the first to explore the use of criminal history record screening in the college admissions process. The full report is available on our website at http://www.communityalternatives.org./

The discussants will include Linda Hollmen, Director of Education at New York State Department of Correctional Services and John Molina, Director of I.M.P.A.C.T at Exodus Transitional Community.
The event will be held at John Jay College, 899 Tenth Avenue, between 58th and 59th Streets, Room 630, New York, NY 10019.
To attend RSVP to pri@jjay.cuny.edu.

Best regards,

Marsha Weissman, Ph.D.

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An Evidence-Based Approach to Banning Sex Offenders Access to Dating Sites

Salon writer, Tracey Clark Florye, argues that dating sites should use an evidence-based approach to banning sex offenders from their sites. 

Well, she might not use those terms exactly, but take a look at her argument for why low risk sex offenders should have access to sites like match.com.

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Can Food Affect Parole Decisions?

A Columbia Professor and an Israeli research team made an interesting, and disturbing, finding when reviewing the effects of taking a snack break on parole decisions by judges in Israel.

"The team studied more than 1,000 parole decisions made by eight experienced judges in Israel over 50 days in a ten-month period. After a snack or lunch break, 65 percent of cases were granted parole. The rate of favorable rulings then fell gradually, sometimes as low as zero, within each decision session and would return to 65 percent after a break.

Professor Levav commented on the meaning of the study, "The evidence suggests that when judges make repeated rulings, they show an increased tendency to rule in favor of the status quo. This tendency can be overcome by taking a break to eat a meal, which is consistent with previous research that demonstrated the positive impact of a short rest and glucose on mental resource replenishment. However, food might not be the only factor; sometimes a mental break can yield a similar result."

The study was recently published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read the article describing the study in Medical News Today, click here.

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Using Evidence-Based Interventions in Corrections

Dr. Edward Latessa, Ph.D, is an internationally renowned criminal justice researcher and author. In this series of short interviews recorded by the National Institute of Justice, Dr. Latessa discusses the key concepts related to the use of evidence-based practices in corrections. The segment titles include: 

• Key Principles of Reducing Recidivism

• Using Resources to Reduce Recidivism-Learning From Past Programs

• Criminal Risk Assessment.

• Research Informs Expertise

• Program Fidelity and Program Integrity

• Improving Correctional Interventions

• Correctional Practitioners as “Agents of Change”

Each segment is less than five minutes. They provide a nice introduction to the world of evidence-based practices in corrections. Click here to view the videos.

You can also view a recent Power Point presentation by Dr. Latessa presented at the 2011 National Second Chance Act Reentry Conference.



"The Harlem Community Justice Center gratefully acknowledges the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, for allowing us to reproduce, in part or in whole, the video above. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this video are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice."

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Blogging from Prison?

Tired of reading the usual blog? MIT's Center for Civic Media operates a blogging platform to facilitate prisoners' access to broadcast media.

"Between the Bars is a blogging platform for one out of every 142 Americans---prisoners---that makes it easy to blog on paper, using standard postal mail. It consists of software tools to make it easy to upload PDF scans of letters, crowd-sourced transcriptions of the scanned images, and the usual full-featured blogging tools including comments, tagging, RSS feeds, and notifications for friends and family when new posts are available."

The blog offers profiles of each prison blogger and original content in its original form.  Check it out here.

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Exposing Employment Discrimination: 65 Million 'Need Not Apply'

The National Employment Law Project's March publication, "65 Million 'Need Not Apply," exposes the blatant discrimination of individuals with criminal convictions across the U.S. by both large companies and small, questions the rational that a criminal record accurate predicts negative work behavior despite some significant evidence otherwise, and highlights recent law suits and policy recommendations that could enhance public safety by protecting the rights of the formerly incarcerated.

It is also one of the first publications, at least that I've seen, that highlights the wave of recent lawsuits that have been brought pursuit to federal law challenging exclusionary hiring practices. 

• Arroyo v. Accenture, Hudson v. Transit Inc., Mays v. Burlington, Johnson et. al v. Locke. 
• Dozens of The EEOC charges are also pending against national employers such as Lowe's and Select Truckers Plus.
• In 2009, former NY Attorney Andrew Cuomo enforced state protections that regulate criminal background checks for employment in suits against Radio Shack, ChoicePoint, and Aramark.

While enforcing the laws protecing individuals with convictions are crucial, it is equally important to publicize the fact that these lawsuits are regularly occurring. Doing so not only draws employers attention to the law, but emphasizes that discrimination will hit employers where it most hurts, in their pockets.

The publication also focuses on discriminatory job advertisements on Craigs List, where many employers blatantly advertise their illegal blanket bans on hiring individuals with arrests or convictions.   Using language like,  "We are looking for people with spotless background/criminal history (CORT Furniture Retal), "Applicants must also pass a background investigation showing no felony convictions (Domino's Pizza), and  No Felonies or Misd. allowed (Peak Organization, Staffing Firm NYC), NELP found over 300 adds at Criags list that facially discriminate.

To read the full text of the publication, including NELP's policy recommendations, click here.

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Understanding The Budget Process

Understanding the federal, state, and city budget process is a daunting task. It is difficult to keep track of budget negotiations and the impact on issues of concern for the formerly incarcerated. If you are a formerly incarcerated person, or someone who cares about criminal justice issues in New York City ,there are good sources of information that can help you understand the budget process.

This is not an exhaustive list, but a list of resources that we use:

1. New York City Budget Information

New York City Office of Management & Budget: http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/html/home/home.shtml

The NYC Independent Budget Office is a great source for unbiased analysis of the New York City budget. The IBO regularly produces reports on specific areas of the budget and city operations to inform the public and elected officials: http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/

To view the IBO City Budget Roadmap see: http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/IBORoadmap.pdf

2. New York State Budget

New York State Division of the Budget: http://www.budget.state.ny.us/

The Division of Budget also has a Citizen's Guide to the Budget Process: http://www.budget.state.ny.us/citizen/process/process.html

3. Federal Budget

White House Office of Management and Budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/

See their budget process overview: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/circulars/a11/current_year/s10.pdf

Congressional Budget Office: http://www.cbo.gov/

4. Other Good Sources of Information

The Fortune Society's David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy is a great resource for information on major state and federal legislation impacting the criminal justice system. You can join their weekly email blast: http://fortunesociety.org/category/david-rothenberg-center-for-public-policy-drcpp/

The Correctional Association of New York is one of the oldest prisons reform advocacy organization in New York State and the only one with legislative authority to visit and inspect conditions in state prisons. The Association has also been a driving force in the state's drug law reform efforts and reforms in juvenile justice: http://www.correctionalassociation.org/

The Legal Action Center of New York conducts state and national advocacy on justice reform issues: http://www.lac.org/

On the small screen, Inside City Hall is a nightly cable news show on local and state government happenings: http://www.ny1.com/content/about_ny1/program_info/114/inside-city-hall/

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