The Harlem Community Justice Center and Exodus Transitional Community Unite the Harlem Community to Extend a Warm Welcome Home to the Formerly Incarcerated and their Families at the Harlem Family Day Block Party

To counter the message of exclusion often sent to formerly incarcerated individuals and their families, on July 23, 2011, The Harlem Community Justice Center and Exodus Transitional Community united community members, social service providers, and the faith-based community to say, “Welcome home, you are part of our community.  We value you as sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and community members and have great expectations for you.”

Our Reentry Family Day was a lively celebration, with service providers, games, crafts, music and food spanning Lexington to 3rd on 121st.  It was a true community effort with the all of our neighbors donating supplies, music and energy.  Despite the humidity and sweltering sun,  seniors and youth danced together to  drums, a local dance studio put on a mesmerizing hip hop and African dance display; there was  jewelery making, free haircuts, and delicious BBQ.   Representatives from local reentry agencies came early and stayed late to make sure information about services reached as many people as possible. Our parole officers, all of them, were on hand as well, as our Reentry Court Judge.  Many of the men in our programs who show up with their kids who were treated to face painting, tie dying, and street games, not to mention the open fire hydrant.

Thank you to all of the participants who volunteered, those who made donations, and those who attended.  It was a truly special day, embodying the spirit of acceptance, hope, and support that we wish for all individuals coming home.

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Ohio and North Carolina Enact Justice Reinvestment Policies

via the Council of State Governments:

Bipartisan Legislation Saves States Hundreds of Millions of Dollars,

Leaders Reinvest in Safer Communities

Over a two-week period in June, a bipartisan group of state leaders from across the political spectrum in both North Carolina and Ohio came together in their respective states to enact comprehensive, data-driven legislation resulting from justice reinvestment initiatives. The bills in both states will increase public safety and reduce crime by making probation more effective, ensuring, for example, that those people who are most likely to reoffend are not left unsupervised. Both bills increase sentence lengths for certain high-risk property offenders or the most serious and violent offenders, while expanding sentencing options for nonviolent and first-time felony offenders.

North Carolina

Since 1994, when it established a structured sentencing system, NC has long been considered a model state for its approach to managing the capacity of its prison system. Increasing numbers of probation revocations and various sentence enhancements have since increased the pressure on the prison system. Recently, the General Assembly received a projection forecasting a 10 percent growth in the prison population, or about 3,900 inmates, by 2020.

Learn how Justice Reinvestment is helping North Carolina save $290 million, increase sentences for habitual offenders and expand community-based treatment programs for people on supervision.

Ohio

Like North Carolina, Ohio's criminal justice system faced pressures that, in 2008, led a bipartisan group including the governor, chief justice, and legislative leaders to employ a justice reinvestment approach. With nearly 51,000 people locked up on any given day, the prisons were 33 percent over capacity. The state projected that the system would grow by another 3,000 people by 2015. Much of that could be traced to people convicted of property and drug offenses, who received short sentences and were subsequently released from prison with no supervision.

Find out how Ohio is able to make community supervision and treatment more effective, while putting $20 million towards improving felony probation supervision.

The CSG Justice Center's Justice Reinvestment Initiative to address corrections spending and public safety is a partnership with the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. These efforts have provided similar data-driven analyses and policy options to state leaders in 14 states.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization that serves policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels from all branches of government. The Justice Center provides practical, nonpartisan advice and consensus-driven strategies, informed by available evidence, to increase public safety and strengthen communities.

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From Rikers to Television

A recent Daily News article describes how a young man "breaks into the tv industry, and out of a life of drugs and jail" through the Made In New York Production Assistant Training Program.

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12,000 Prisoners To Be Granted a Reduction in Sentences for Crack Related Offenses?

Thousands of federal prisoners may benefit from the proposal under consideration by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to correct large disparities in sentences between those convicted of crack and power cocaine offenses. Although the Fair Sentencing Act, passed nearly one year ago, sought to ameliorate such disparities, the act did not determine if the reduction in sentencing would apply retroactively.

Prior to the FSA, crack related offenses had been been punished one hundred times more severely than those involving powder cocaine and have largely targeted African Americans, who represent 82% of those prosecuted federally for crack offenses. (For example, a conviction for the sale of five hundred grams of powder cocaine triggers a five-year mandatory sentence,whie only five grams of crack triggered the same sentence). The FSA reduced that disparity to eighteen to one.

A recent LA Times article, Attorney General Eric Holder, who supports the proposal stated, "There is simply no just or logical reason why their punishments should be dramatically more severe than those of other cocaine offenders."  No meaningful pharmacological differences between the two drugs have been found.

Over 12,000 federal prisoners could be affected.

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New Study Examines the Benefits of Access to Health Insurance for the Poor

According to the New York Times, a groundbreaking study by the National Bureau of Economic Research investigated the impact of access to Medicaid for the poor. The study was made possible when the state of Oregon  moved to expand access to Medicaid via a lottery in 2008. Over 90,000 persons applied for the 10,000 new Medicaid slots creating a comparison group (the gold standard of research).

The study found that those with Medicaid were more likely to avail themselves of health services, including: mammograms, doctor visits, and medicines to treat illnesses; Medicaid recipients were forty percent less likely to not pay a bill or borrow money as a result of a medical debt, according to the Times. The study is now comparing the medical outcomes of Medicaid recipients and non-recipients.  

To read the Times article by Gina Kolota click here.
To access the full study click here.

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New York State Closing 7 Prisons

According to Ernest Drucker in his new book, "A Plague of Prisons," New York State had a fairly consistent number of persons incarcerated from 1880 to 1970. That all changed with the enactment of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 1973. So began the steady rise in the state's prison population from about 75 inmates per 100,000 to 375 per 100,000. New York led the way in a national incarceration experiment that has cost an estimated 1 trillion dollars with an incalculable loss of  human capital, according to Drucker.  

Now, almost 40 years later, New York has turned the corner with a 28% drop in prison inmates and historically low rates of crime. The New York Times reports today, that New York is closing seven prisons totaling 3,800 beds.

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