|
The Sentencing Project
News
New Publication: To Build a Better Criminal Justice System
To Build a Better Criminal Justice System: 25 Experts Envision the Next 25 Years can be viewed here.
May 16, 2012
(The Huffington Post)
Juvenile Offenders Sentenced To Life Can Face Harsher Treatment Than Adults: Report A new report chronicles the systematic disadvantages facing Michigan juveniles sentenced to life without parole in the adult criminal justice system.
May 15, 2012
(The Times-Picayune)
Angola inmates get life skills, then spend their lives behind bars Johna Haynes, 31, is finally getting the education he never got in the brutal, impoverished world where he grew up. He’s paying for it with life without parole.
May 15, 2012
(OpEdNews.com)
Meting Out Injustice in Mississippi A guard at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility "endorsed" a fight that left a dozen young men hospitalized and one nearly beaten to death. The melee at the youth prison -- one run for profit by the nation's second-largest prison corporation –highlighted a system completely out of control. A federal investigation and a lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) uncovered what U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves called in a March 26 court order a "cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions" that had been allowed to fester under the management of GEO Group Inc.
May 14, 2012
(The Washington Post)
Commutation denied after facts were withheld from Bush Administration At 24, Clarence Aaron, was sentenced to three life terms for his role in a cocaine deal, even though it was his first criminal offense and he was not the buyer, seller or supplier of the drugs. He seemed especially deserving of a federal commutation-- an immediate release from prison granted by the president of the United States—because his release was championed by lawmakers, civil rights activists, the media, the prosecutor’s office and sentencing judge. But Ronald Rodgers, head of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, left out the prosecutor and sentencing judge’s opinion in recommending that the George W. Bush White House deny Aaron’s application.
May 11, 2012
(The Huffington Post)
"Prison Break Lemonade" The Sentencing Project's Marc Mauer writes in The Huffington Post, that "Among the many reasons why we have such a high prison population in the United States is the way in which people in prison are portrayed in popular media. His commentary, “Prison Break Lemonade,” looks at a new advertising campaign for lemonade that will feature "a 'prison break' along with portrayals of hardened looking 'convicts.'"
May 11, 2012
(The Nation)
Throwaway People: Will Teens Sent to Die in Prison Get a Second Chance? In 1976, 14-year-old Trina Garnett was arrested and charged with homicide, arson, conspiracy and burglary. Abused and neglected, Trina was sentenced as an adult and given a mandatory life sentence. In prison, she was raped by a guard, became pregnant and gave birth to a child. Today, she is one of approximately 470 prisoners in Pennsylvania serving life without parole for crimes they committed as teenagers. Over the last 35-years, the state has gone from holding a small handful of juvenile lifers to incarcerating the highest number in the country.
May 10, 2012
(Detroit Free Press)
Stand-your-ground laws ignore racial bias realities Mark P. Fancher, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Project, argues in a guest column in the Detroit Free Press that stand-your-ground laws are colored by racial attitudes in the United States—attitudes that have led to the over incarceration of African Americans.
May 4, 2012
Race and Justice News Research: Historic Ruling in North Carolina Racial Justice Act Case Research: Blacks Underrepresented on Detroit Juries Collateral Consequences: Employers may not Deny Employment Based on a Conviction Legislation: Federal "End Racial Profiling Act" Introduced Legislation: CT Senate Passes Bill Strengthening State’s Racial Profiling Law Legislation: Missouri Passes Bill Reducing Disparity Between Sentences for Crack Cocaine and Powdered Cocaine Juvenile Justice: Debate Over Racial Disparities in Memphis Juvenile Justice
April 26, 2012
(TomDispatch.com)
Locking Down an American Workforce Penitentiaries have become a niche market for sweatshop labor. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain. |
|