March 16, 2008
Federal judge at the center of California prison controversy will stay and fight
SAN FRANCISCO, CA: U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson maintains that judicial pressure is needed to persuade officials to respect inmates’ constitutional rights. “Correctional defendants are particularly resistant to courts ordering change,” he said at a conference on penal reform at the University of San Francisco. “Prison personnel can be experts at the waiting game. I'm not going away. I'm here for the long haul.” At the same time, the veteran jurist said he'd rather work with state officials on solutions to prison overcrowding and inadequate health care than impose his own remedies. Henderson ruled in 2006 that the $1.1 billion medical care system in California's 33 prisons was “broken beyond repair.”
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March 12, 2008
Senate passes Second Chance Act
WASHINGTON, DC: The U.S. Senate passed the Second Chance Act, sponsored by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Illinois) with 92 cosponsors. It is now waiting for the President’s signature. If signed, the Act will provide a way to reduce recidivism and increase public safety. It will provide essential resources for prisoner reentry giving offenders a better chance to rebuild their lives and families and help stop the revolving door that sends 95% of California inmates back to prison. The Second Chance Act would authorize $362 million to improve the way our prisons prepare inmates to reenter society. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted letters of support and testimony for the Second Chance Act saying that “it is a significant first step toward creating a more just criminal justice system.” According to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) entitled ”Offender Reentry: Correctional Statistics, Reintegration into the Community, and Recidivism,” the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. The report also indicates that of the 2.2 million people currently incarcerated, over 95% of offenders currently serving prison sentences will return to the community at some point.
Read the complete text of the Act >>
Read the Bishops’ letter of support >>
Read the CRS report on reentry >>

March 10, 2008
Chowchilla Family Express keeps running
LOS ANGELES, CA: Every weekend the Chowchilla Family Express provides free transportation for families to visit loved ones at Valley State Prison for Women and the Central California Women’s Facility. Women and Criminal Justice, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Gender Responsive Commission partner to make this program happen.
Visit their web site >>
View the bus schedule >>

March 9, 2008
60 Minutes show features story of innocent man in prison
In this CBS broadcast, the famous 60 Minute team covers Alton Logan’s story, who has spent 26 years in prison trying to understand why he was convicted of a crime he didn't commit. His lawyers tell why they were legally bound to keep a secret that prevented his release. Logan, still in jail, speaks to 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon in his first interview for a report that also includes the lawyers which will be broadcast this Sunday, March 9, at 7pm ET/PT.
Learn more about the story >>

February 28, 2008
One in 100 are behind bars in America 2008
A new report by Pew Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project details how, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety. In addition to detailing state and regional prison growth rates, the report identifies how corrections spending compares to other state investments, why it has increased, and what some states are doing to limit growth in both prison populations and costs while maintaining public safety. Spending is up, and the national recidivism rate remains virtually unchanged, with about half of released inmates returning to jail or prison within three years. Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project, says, “More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers.”
Download the report >>
View MSNBC coverage of this story >>

February 20, 2008
Many district attorneys refuse to answer survey on death-penalty reasoning
LOS ANGELES, CA: Three-quarters of California’s elected district attorneys refused to disclose how they choose defendants to face the death penalty, according to a report slated for presentation at a public hearing in Los Angeles. In a report to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which is examining how the death penalty is applied in California, Pepperdine law school professors Harry M. Caldwell, Carol Chase and Christine Goodman said only 14 of the state’s 58 counties agreed to provide detailed answers to questions about the selection process. District attorneys in many large counties that frequently seek the death penalty submitted no answers, despite repeated entreaties by the professors and their research assistants, according to the report.
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February 18, 2008
Juvenile prison system needs reform, lawyers say
SACRAMENTO, CA: Three years after state officials promised to fix California’s troubled juvenile prisons, advocates for incarcerated youths are urging a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains tragically broken.
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Death penalty panel looks at reasons for reversals
LOS ANGELES, CA: The California Supreme Court last year overturned convicted killer James Hardy's 1984 death sentence because a defense lawyer’s “meager” effort representing him undermined the chance of a fair trial. And just a few weeks ago, a federal appeals court gave a reprieve to Earl Lloyd Jackson, one of the state’s longest-serving death row inmates, because of a prosecutor’s blunders during his 1979 trial. Shoddy representation and prosecutorial miscues are two of the most common reasons that death row inmates have had a better chance of getting their death sentences reversed than of being executed. A state commission examining California’s death penalty system will focus on those issues in its second round of hearings on the subject.
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February 16, 2008
California prisons examined in online documentary series
California Prisons Under Pressure is a series of thirty-minute documentaries examining the complex issues surrounding the state’s prison system from the outside in. This four episode series explores the overcrowding issue, the controversy behind a Sentencing Commission, recidivism and rehabilitation, as well as how early release will impact local law enforcement and communities.
Watch the series >>

February 5, 2008
Justice program linked with drop in juvenile crime
RICE LAKE, WI: A drop in the juvenile crime rate in Barron County appears to be linked to the county’s Restorative Justice programs. A study conducted by Eric Kasper, assistant professor of political science at UW-Barron County, seems to show a strong correlation in the number of juvenile crimes and the start-up of the Restorative Justice program.
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Working to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline
NEW ORLEANS, LA: Across America, countless school children—particularly impoverished children of color—are being pushed out of schools and into juvenile lock-ups for minor misconduct that in an earlier era would have warranted counseling or a trip to the principal's office rather than a court appearance. Southern Poverty Law Center has launched a multi-faceted new initiative, called the School-to-Prison Reform Project. Based in New Orleans, the project is seeking systemic reforms through legal action, community activism and lobbying to ensure these students get the services—both in school and in the juvenile justice system—that can make the difference between incarceration and graduation.
Read about the project >>

January 27, 2008
Students brainstorm new paths to justice
OAKLAND, CA: Residents from around the city concerned about dealing with conflict brought their visions of justice to a "talking circle" Saturday at Cole Middle School. The community talk session organized by Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth included guest speakers Howard Zehr, a sociology and restorative justice professor at Eastern Mennonite University, and Don Johnson, a district attorney in the juvenile prosecution division of his Minnesota county. Together, the group imagined what it would be like to revolutionize the U.S. criminal justice system and create a new model.
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January 24, 2008
State prison healthcare czar is fired
SACRAMENTO, CA: A federal judge cited Robert Sillen’s clashes with officials and the slow pace of change as reasons for his ouster. Sillen had been given broad powers to run prison healthcare and order additional spending in the state's overcrowded, understaffed medical wards. His appointment came as part of a case in which the same judge had ruled that medical conditions violated prisoners' constitutional rights and had excoriated state officials for failing to fix a medical system so broken that an average of one inmate was dying every six or seven days because of poor care.
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January 7, 2008
Per capita, U.S. has highest prison rate
The United States puts more people in prison – both in absolute numbers and per capita – than any other country in the world, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College, London.
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Learn about International Centre for Prison Studies >>

January 5, 2008
Supreme Court to hear arguments on the how, not why, of the death penalty
WASHINGTON, DC: On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether lethal injections used by states to execute condemned inmates are legal under the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. It's quite the moral dilemma for human rights activists - how do you argue in favor of a 'humane' method of capital punishment, when your stated goal is to abolish state executions altogether?
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January 3, 2008
The story of Mario Rocha is released on DVD
LOS ANGELES, CA: In 1998, Mario Rocha, a young Latino from East LA, was convicted of murder and attempted murder on the basis of questionable identification and no physical evidence. He was sixteen years old at the time of his arrest, but tried as an adult and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. This film interweaves Mario’s story as an inmate in one of California’s toughest maximum-security prisons with the efforts of an unlikely group of people who have come together to win his freedom. Filmed over the course of seven years, the documentary provides a rare “behind the scenes” look at the efforts of the legal team as they pursue a new trial for Mario. The filmmakers were given unprecedented access to film inside Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, California. While the film raises serious questions about our criminal justice system, it is also a hopeful and inspiring story of the allies who come together to overturn injustice. Mario’s own personal growth in prison reveals how even under the worst conditions, the human spirit can rise and reach out to others.
Learn more about the film >>

January 2, 2008
Time for prison reform
VACAVILLE, CA: A showdown is in the air, and it appears that 2008 will be the year California's dysfunctional prison system is reformed, says The Reporter newspaper in Vacaville. While the governor did manage to put through a $7.9 billion bond that would create 53,000 new prison and jail beds, and even set aside some money for rehabilitation, it appears that Assembly Bill 900, approved in April 2007, was too little, too late. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to reduce prison population by sending inmates to facilities out of state were also stymied at every turn. As a result, facilities that should house no more than 100,000 now hold an excess of 172,000, forcing the system's 33 institutions to double and triple bunk inmates and use every possible available bit of space, from gymnasiums to day rooms.
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January 1, 2008
World Day of Peace Message issued by the Holy Father
VATICAN CITY: Pope Paul VI first established the World Day of Peace in 1968. Since then, each the Holy Father marks this day with a special peace message. This year Pope Benedict XVI calls on all people to “live by a common moral law that that ensures the protection of the weak from oppression by the strong and promotes a just distribution of wealth.”
Read the full statement for 2008 (pdf) >>
Prayers, activities and resources for parishes (pdf) >>