Posted on

Panel Discussion The Path to Closing Rikers

What Does it Mean for People with Significant Behavioral Health Needs?

Rikers Island

The City is taking active steps to close the jails on Rikers Island. Toward this end, government officials are working hard to implement systemic changes that will reduce the number of people entering jail and improve services for those currently incarcerated on Rikers Island. These changes are part of a multi-pronged effort to reform the City’s jail system and ultimately replace it with smaller, safer, program-rich borough-based jails.  Register Now!

Posted on

NYS Parolees are Granted the Right to Vote!

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday that he intends to restore voting rights to felons on parole, a move that could open the ballot box to more than 35,000 people.

The mechanism through which Mr. Cuomo plans to do so is unusual: He would consider pardons for all 35,000 people currently on parole in New York, as well as any new convicted felons who enter the parole system each month.

Posted on

Pennsylvania State court is locking up defendants too poor to pay court fines!

Spotlighting disparities in jail stays over unpaid court fines in Pennsylvania

Image result for pennsylvania courts

A helpful reader made sure I saw this impressive piece of reporting from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazetteunder the headline “Modern-day debtors’ prisons? The system that sends Pennsylvanians to jail over unpaid court costs and fines.”  I have probably not given as much attention here as I should to reporting and complaints about persons being incarcerated for failure to pay certain fines and fees, and this story caught my attention in its discussion of disparities in how judges justify sending folks to jail for failures to pay.  Here is an excerpt for that discussion:

U.S. Supreme Court and state court precedents forbid the government from locking up defendants too poor to pay.  District judges are supposed to jail only defendants who can afford to pay but “willfully” do not.  “The Constitution is very clear, the law is very clear, you cannot be jailed for failing to pay when you can’t pay,” said David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

But data show that is not always what happens.

Posted on

The Role of Jails in Combating the Opioid Crisis

Leah Pope - Program Director
A report released today from the Pew Charitable Trusts sheds new light on
what has long been true but is often overlooked: local jails play a vital role in our nation’s health care safety net, working often as the default response to people with mental health and substance use disorders. Individuals passing through jails have high rates of chronic and infectious diseases as well as disproportionately high rates of mental health and substance use disorders compared to the general
population. Even so, jails are often ill-equipped to respond to the health
care needs of people in their custody.
Posted on

Innocent and Behind Bars

Why Does Our Justice System Fight So Hard to Keep Innocent People Behind Bars?

Alcatraz_prison_block_cc_imgMark Godsey was a “prosecutor’s prosecutor” who didn’t think there were any innocent people in prison. Then he began supervising his law school’s Innocence Project, and realized his assumptions were all wrong.   By Joshua Holland