One of the first people to die of COVID-19 in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail system was Raymond Rivera — a 55-year-old father and husband who lost his life in April. The “offense” that ultimately resulted in a death sentence for Rivera? Leaving a drug program without permission — a minor technical violation of the parole he was on for stealing a motorcycle cover and some bicycles.
On October 20, 2020, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a new study entitled Decarcerating Correctional Facilities During COVID-19: Advancing Health, Equity, and Safety.
We are excited to welcome Gladys Carrión as the newest addition to the Justice Lab, joining our Youth Justice Initiatives team as an Adjunct Research Scholar!
Policymakers often talk about the problem of recidivism. Too often, they fail to recognize that most people who return to prison are incarcerated for failing to abide by non-criminal parole conditions, not for new criminal convictions.
Read the article here.
A group of over 60 former and current parole and probation executives are setting out to overhaul the current system of community supervision with the goal of reducing its size and punitiveness.
Our Co-Director, Bruce Western discusses his new book in which he followed 122 formerly incarcerated people for one year after they were released from prison to see how they re-integrated into society, with a focus on employment and family relationships.
Listen to the episode here.
Keeping people from going back to prison after they get out has long been a way to measure success in the American criminal justice system. But experts today say it may not be the best way.
Listen to the podcast here.
Bruce Western, author of Homeward: Life in the Year after Prison, discusses the importance of social integration to criminal justice - bringing people back into the community.
Listen to the discussion here.
In conversation with Matt Watkins, Bruce Western talks about criminal justice as social justice, and how the historically punitive system continues punish people who themselves have experienced a great deal of victimization.
Read the interview here.
Criminal justice reforms will depend on healing this population group too frequently left out of the equation. The complex reality of their lives as both violent perpetrators and victims of violence is one the U.S. justice system is ill-prepared to acknowledge or treat. This is a mistake that has put limits on criminal justice reforms designed to reduce the prison population.
Read the opinion piece by Bruce Western here.