As a staff member of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, I fight for all children, especially those impacted by systemic racism in our criminal justice system.
We should demand that prison officials and our elected representatives honor their constitutional obligation to promote and support youth healing, growth, and change.
Nicole Poston was sentenced in July for punching a police officer after she slipped free from a handcuff. Life sentences, even for nonhomicide offenses like Poston’s, are ‘a major factor’ in mass incarceration in the U.S., a criminal justice expert said.
Despite the growing consciousness around the need for reforms, thousands of prisoners who might also deserve clemency or early release are slipping through the cracks.
Euka Wadlington was denied clemency by the Department of Justice under Obama. But then he mounted a legal challenge to sentencing enhancements used in his drug case; in April, a federal judge granted his release. Now he’s adjusting to freedom—and life in the coronavirus era.
I learned later than I should have what you probably already know: that it is strength not weakness to lean on somebody when you feel vulnerable and defeated and let them help you.
Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Yesterday in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, hundreds gathered to call on state Attorney General Josh Shapiro to “show mercy” and increase his support for clemency. The state’s clemency process allows even a […]
Opposition to it should lay the groundwork for opposition to the system of which it is a part.
“I sometimes wonder whether, in 100 years’ time, people will be as shocked by the length of sentences we are imposing as we are by some of the punishments of the 18th century,” the lord chief justice of England and Wales said in 2006.
Racial disparities in incarceration rates are dropping but still remain high. Racial disparities in sentence lengths are growing.
Recent reporting is a reminder of the crisis of elderly and ailing people in US prisons.