Posts Tagged: incarceration

Opinion

The struggle of incarcerated workers

Image by Toa55

OPINION – California’s refusal to fairly compensate prison labor is an affront to our most basic principles of human dignity – one that now has direct consequences on hundreds of incarcerated firefighters.

News

CROP program looks to move people from prison to tech

Photo by Lightspring Via Shutterstock

With California’s high levels of recidivism in mind, Oakland-based nonprofit Creating Restorative Opportunities and Programs (CROP) is set to open a reentry campus there for formerly incarcerated people in early April.

Opinion

California has another chance to get it right on solitary confinement

Via Shutterstock

AB 280 sets clear limits on the use of solitary confinement and provides alternatives to isolation that ensure safety and dignity for incarcerated individuals. The bill sets clear limits on the use of solitary confinement and ends the practices entirely for pregnant people, as well as those in certain age groups and with certain disabilities.

News

Real change proves elusive in mental health care system

An illustration of the brain and potential links to instability -- including mental illness. Some elements provided by NASA.(Image: GrAI, via Shutterstock)

Important legislation to improve California’s broken mental health system was passed this year, plus billions in new funding in the state budget — all aimed at stemming the tide of a growing crisis on California streets, in hospital ER’s, jails and prisons. But will it mean real change?

Opinion

Historic spike in gun violence demands response from Newsom

Gunsmith working on an 300 Blackout AR rifle upper receiver in a vise at a gun shop in California

OPINION: As gun sales and gun deaths have continued to surge since the onset of the pandemic, California’s underinvestment in violence intervention programs has become a glaring policy failure. Even after January 2021 proved to be California’s single deadliest month for gun homicides since 2007, the governor and state legislators have still not agreed to make funding the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) grant program a priority.

News

Federal judge orders conference in traffic ticket case

A federal judge has ordered a conference in the case of a driver who got a $200 ticket for turning right at a stop light in suburban Sacramento. The motorist filed a federal complaint against the Department of Motor Vehicles, the California Judicial Council and the Sacramento County Superior Court, saying he is one of millions of people who had their licenses suspended because they couldn’t afford costs and administrative fees.

Analysis

San Quentin puts on a happy face

San Quentin prison, as seen from San Francisco Bay. (Photo: San Quentin News, prison newspaper)

ANALYSIS: What if, instead of building prisons in remote locations, we put them near cities, accessible to family members and to the resources — educational, vocational, therapeutic, recreational, cultural — that are scarce in most prison towns?

Opinion

Latinos’ role crucial in fixing correctional system

A section of the San Quentin Prison area for condemned inmates. Photo via SanQuentinBlog.org

OPINION: Here in Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, anyone will tell you that casting is key. A film’s meaning and potential are lost if it’s miscast or missing the right characters. The same could be said about a blockbuster story that has been playing out for decades in California: our bloated and costly prisons. Much attention has been paid to lawsuits about the conditions in these packed facilities, as well as the response by the Governor, Legislature and others.

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