Seek Justice

Decarceration Strategies – How 5 States Achieved Substantial Prison Population Reductions (PDF, The Sentencing Project)

Connecticut: Declined 25%, 2007-2016

Michigan: Declined 20%, 2006-2016

Mississippi: Declined 17.5%, 2008-2016

Rhode Island: Declined 23%, 2008-2016

South Carolina: Declined 14%, 2008-2016

Gina Raimondo (Wikipedia)

Racial Disparity Map (The Sentencing Project)

Rhode Island exceeds the national disparity index (8 to 1, Blacks to Whites incarcerated in Rhode Island versus 5 to 1 nationally)

A Review of the Jail Function Within State Unified Corrections Systems (PDF, National Institute of Corrections)

Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers, by Dennis Schrantz and Jerry McElroy (The Sentencing Project)

Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo's Jobs Video (YouTube, 2016)

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander (Amazon)

Cornel West (Wikipedia)

13th (Netflix Documentary)

The New Jim Crow Study Guide and Call to Action (Amazon)

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "A Proper Sense of Priorities", February 6, 1968

Based on a 2011 report conducted by the United States (U.S.) Government Accountability Office,

When we examine impacts of SRA initiatives implemented by the South Carolina Department of Probation,

Law school was insanely expensive. I have colleagues who came out of law school with a quarter-million dollars in educational debt. Every year that I’ve been a public defender, I have taken on more cases than I had the year before. … I had 531 new cases last year, which is 131 more than the ABA recommends.

It cost the state — and by extension, taxpayers — an average of $36,106 to incarcerate a single person in Michigan in 2017.

You can buy a new Ford Explorer for that, according to Kelley Blue Book.

At that rate, a single prisoner sentenced to 30 or more years would cost Michigan taxpayers more than $1 million to incarcerate.

FY 2018-19 MDOC Budget

$2,019,056,200 – Total spending authority from all revenue sources

Working on criminal justice topics gives me a very different perspective on the Kochs than my equally-liberal friends & family have. Charles Koch Foundation & Charles Kock Institute are perhaps the most important funders of research related to criminal justice policy & reform.

They also frequently host conferences that bring top-notch researchers and practitioners together in one room — a chance to meet everyone else who’s working in this space. In other words, they throw great parties — sounds trivial but this is super important & helpful!

Charles Koch Foundation has funded my own work related to prisoner reentry and I am deeply grateful for that as well as their broader support of my research. My contacts there & Charles Kock Institute are the first I call if I’m looking for practioner contacts. They know everyone!

As funders they are extremely hands-off — to a degree that is almost funny. I think they know people are watching them closely for missteps so are super careful. But most funders in this space have strong opinions abt what you should study & what you should find. They don’t.

Koch Industries for a long time was a major proponent of Ban the Box policies. When my research on BTB (which they did not fund) came out, showing detrimental effects, they were eager to hear about it & engage w the results. I really appreciated that.

To my fellow liberals that love to hate the Koch brothers, I simply say: the story is more complicated (as always, right?). Charles Koch in particular is enabling & supporting evidence-based CJ reform in red & blue states alike, and that is something we should all appreciate.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, uncovered a potential link between P. gingivalis, the bacteria associated with periodontal disease (commonly known as gum disease) and Alzheimer’s.

Infectious agents have been found in the brain and postulated to be involved with AD, but robust evidence of causation has not been established.

Between 1993 and 2013, Mississippi’s prison population more than quadrupled, thanks largely to mandatory minimum sentences, with the population peaking in the past decade at more than 23,000. The state had a higher per capita rate of incarceration than countries such as China or Russia.

By the time the bill became law in July 2014, the Mississippi Parole Board was paroling more offenders and had already reduced the prison population by about 2,000 inmates. Within six months, it fell even more, to below 19,000.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps was indicted Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, on charges of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud. Epps resigned from his post Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

There is also an embroidery shop which makes all the hats for the NCAA, the NFL, major league baseball teams and companies such as Gear and Sprint. In addition there are several other smaller shops that make goods of various kinds, all with inmate labor. It is quite fascinating and keeping these men busy I believe is the reason this area seems so tranquil. There are several private companies that work inside the walls and supply “civilian” crew bosses who teach the inmates how to operate the machinery and provide them with a trade if they don’t have one.

At any given time there are 500-600 men working in the industrial division on three 8-hour shifts — 24 hours a day if needed. They are paid minimum prevailing wage to start and 25 percent goes back to the penitentiary for room and board. Ten percent is put into mandatory savings, a small amount is paid into each inmates commissary account and the balance is paid into a victims’ restitution fund.

NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard (Wikipedia)

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear (The Free Dictionary)

Propensity Score Matching (Wikipedia)

United Way Prosperity Center, South Eastern Louisiana (United Way)