Under this are posts that are of general interest to the District’s criminal system that may not fit under other categories.
The Clemency Board Establishment Act of 2018 gave the District an opportunity to create its own, local Clemency Board. Currently, the path to clemency is winding and almost always results in a dead end. Proving this is a broken system, of the 2,822 clemency grants issued by five presidents since 1989, only one single person …
Continue reading “Advocates Call for Better Regulations Governing the D.C. Clemency Board”
The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the US Dept. of Justice, has published an article titled Redesigning Risk and Need Assessment in Corrections. The article introduces a report released by the agency titled Guidelines for Post-Sentencing Risk Assessment. The agency said it undertook to produced these guidelines because: “… the kind of …
Continue reading “Redesigning Risk and Need Assessment in Corrections”
The Associated Press has reported that “Senior Biden administration officials have discussed whether to remove Michael Carvajal, the holdover director of the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons” as reported in the Washington Post. The Post article says that “there’s an indication that the bureau is shaking up its senior ranks following growing criticism of chronic mismanagement, …
Continue reading “Senior administration officials mulling ousting US prisons director”
FROM REP. NORTON PRESS RELEASE: Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) wrote the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to request that BOP provide information on District of Columbia residents leaving BOP custody so that the District can help with reentry into the community. Alternatively, Norton requested that if BOP continues to take the …
Co-chair of the DC Reentry Task Force, Louis Sawyer, was featured in this Washington Post article. He spoke of how his family took 14-hour road trips to visit him in federal prison in southwestern Virginia, until he was moved to a prison too far away for them to continue their visits.
The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) has announced its publication of The D.C. Reentry Navigator, a 900-page, 16-chapter book that is a comprehensive compilation of expert knowledge and reentry resources for people arrested, charged, tried, and/or convicted under District of Columbia law. PDS created The D.C. Reentry Navigator as a resource …
Continue reading “PDS Publishes its new D.C. Reentry Navigator!”
Mayor Muriel Bowser has signed a bill passed unanimously by the DC Council called the Removing Barriers to Occupational Licensing for Returning Citizens Amendment Act of 2019. The new law bars occupational licensing boards withholding a license based on a criminal conviction, unless it is currently pending or “directly related” to the occupation. Boards will …
Galen Baughman was one of the original organizers of what became the ReThink Justice DC Coalition, assisting Charlie Sullivan in forming and operating the group, when it was called the First Friday Group. He was the group’s first administrator, until his incarceration in Virginia three years ago based on a technical violation of his parole. …
Continue reading “Galen Baughman case gains support to overturn unjust civil confinement”
Prison Policy Initiative has published a report–using D.C. as a case study–to show how much non-criminal – and often drug related – “technical” violations of probation and parole contribute to unnecessary jail incarceration. From their report: “In the nation’s capital, the scope of the problem is conspicuous. The Washington, D.C. Department of Corrections estimates that …
Continue reading “D.C. data shows how minor supervision violations contribute to excessive jailing”
As reported in the Washington City Paper, a coalition of local activists is pushing for D.C. Jail inmates to run as write-in candidates. Julie Johnson, a co-founder of Neighbors for Justice, says most jail inmates probably don’t know they’re eligible to run because ANC 7F07’s commissioner slot has never been filled. “A lot of people …
