Cause of Death
Source here. Today I came across this sobering table, which struck me as important not only for the obvious reasons. You’ll note that homicide is nowhere in the top-ten list of
Gov. Newsom, Please Release More Prisoners to Prevent CDCR from Becoming a Mass Grave
Dear Gov. Newsom, Many thanks for your tireless work on behalf of Californians in their hour of need. I can only imagine the multiple emergencies on your agenda and the
Distress Call: Suicide Rates in California Prisons
A couple of years ago, Michael Bien alerted us at his keynote speech at WSC to an alarming trend: mental illness was on the rise in CA prisons even as
Are CA Prisons Really Less Crowded?
Hello, Dear Readers, It’s been a while since I updated this blog, and it’s time for an update as well as a substantive post. I am hard at work trying
Not Long Sentences or War on Drugs: Problem Is Prosecutorial Discretion
My colleague John Pfaff from Fordham (who is quoted extensively in Chapter 1 of Cheap on Crime) is an economist, and has tested the various explanations given for mass incarceration.
New Jails: If You Build It, They Will Come?
Yesterday’s interesting L.A. Times editorial addresses the plan to build a new jail in Los Angeles, which prison activists have been resisting for a long time. When I visited Los Angeles at
Plata/Coleman Sequel: We Can’t Release Inmates – We Need Their Labor!
If you’ve followed the litigation in Plata/Coleman from the mid-2000s forward, you probably think you’ve seen it all: the dawdling, the evasion maneuvers, the political blackmail. But today I have
Book Review: Mass Incarceration on Trial by Jonathan Simon
Hidden from sight and forgotten from mind, American prisons in the last forty years have been horrific Petri dishes for medical neglect, interpersonal cruelty, and unspeakable conditions. California, which incarcerates
New Bill Proposes Allowing Counties to Import/Export Inmates
One of the declared purposes of the Realignment was to benefit from the added rehabilitative value of doing time within one’s community, close to one’s family and social network, and
Rolling Back Realignment
Yesterday, Assemblymember V. Manuel Perez introduced AB 1449, also to be known as the Realignment Omnibus Act of 2014. The bill, if passed, would significantly regress the achievements of realignment