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America
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Even though my boss and I didn’t quite get off to the right start, over the years I grew to respect him and see him more as a person and less as a badge. For one, he did not laugh at me when he caught me crying over the loss of my father, because he, too, had recently been in mourning.
In prison, t…
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“Reform” is one of those ambiguous words that mean different things to different people. I think of reform as something that aims to reduce the numbers of Americans who are removed from society and deprived of their freedom, and to do it without making us less safe. In 1972, when I was starting my…
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Now, a new study by the Urban Institute is trying something different. The nonprofit counted how long people currently in prison — many of whom still have long sentences to serve — have been there. Examining data from 43 states and Washington, D.C., the organization’s Justice Policy Center found th…
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We called him Tyson. He was a short kid. Very good looking. And he was kind of like a child. He was very soft-spoken. We knew he suffered from a mental illness. You can just tell when a person’s not normal. He was like our nephew—like a child that needed to be fostered. Sometimes he would stray aro…
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Raising the age for criminal responsibility of juveniles is an issue on the front lines of criminal justice reform. Raise the age bills have been passed at some point in almost all 50 states and allow for juveniles to be treated as juveniles unless they have committed certain violent offenses, such…
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A U.S. judge accepted on Thursday major revisions to Arizona’s death penalty procedures, such as eliminating paralytic drugs in lethal injections and giving witnesses more access to watch prisoners inside the death chamber, a lawyer for the death row inmates said.
The changes were part of a settlem…
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Drugs
United States
Jeff Sessions wants a new war on drugs. It won’t work.
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Protest
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A gang revolt at a Florida state prison injured seven corrections officers and one inmate Wednesday morning, authorities said.
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Attorneys for an inmate accused of strangling his cellmate have asked a judge to declare Nebraska’s death penalty unconstitutional.
Concerns over the recently reinstated capital punishment that was repealed in 2015 are among the 11 arguments in a motion filed Monday by Todd Lancaster and Sarah Newe…
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Discipline
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“Segregation is known to be psychologically detrimental to those who are in there for any length of time,” Bruce Busby, the state department’s director of institutions said.
America
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Justice
Drugs
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Local authorities revived Smith, arrested him, and then gave him two options: he could go to jail or he could go into treatment. Smith chose treatment—or at least that’s what he thought. What Smith chose, more specifically, was to go through the alternative sentencing program known as drug court, w…
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The state is hammering out its budget. And lawmakers are having a sharp disagreement with the governor’s office over one of Michigan’s biggest price tags – the corrections budget. Both sides agree rehabilitation and lowering recidivism is the way to go. But they can’t agree on how much money to spe…