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 Washington Post article reports the experience of DC native James Dunn to demonstrate all that is wrong with the current system of parole under the federal U.S. Probation Service (USPC). Despite being fully qualified for parole, the USPC denied him release three times. Mr. Dunn was finally able to win release under DC’s new …
ReThink Justice DC Coalition New Visions Committee co-chair Malcolm C. Young has drafted a concise report noting that the DC parole authority model proposed by ReThink Justice and the DC Reentry Task Force [link] would be a successful model based on a national comparison. The report, titled How the Proposed District of Columbia Parole and …
Reports, Letters, and Testimony Regarding Local Control of Parole The ReThink Justice DC Coalition has been actively advocating to transfer the parole function from federal control to local District control through the work of its New Vision: Alternatives to Incarceration Committee. Along with our partners in the Reentry Task Force, we’ve made a substantial contribution …
Continue reading “Local Control of Parole Document Library”
The DCIST reports that the Arlington County Board has voted to create a civilian group that will oversee police. The group will have the ability to subpoena police to investigate and scrutinize police actions, but will not initiate investigations or be able to discipline officers. VIEW THE DCIST article
The Justice Policy Institute has issued a report titled: Voices for Reform in DC: Recommendations for improving reentry following long prison terms. Since passage by the DC Council of the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA), under which 65 people have been released to date, the report points out that providing reentry support for the IRAA …
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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 …
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The Washington Post has published an Op Ed on the local control of parole issue. Titled D.C. needs a local paroling authority, the piece was written by Misty Thomas, executive director of the Council for Court Excellence. In the article, Thomas points out that “D.C. has failed to respond to Congress’s deadline and has no …
Continue reading “Washington Post Op Ed – D.C. needs a local paroling authority”
As reported in the DCIST, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has introduced a bill largely drawn from recommendations by the D.C. Police Reform Commission, though the bill tackles only a small portion of the commission’s 90 recommendations.
The DC Line published today an Op Ed piece on the issue of the District taking over local DC control of the parole function, replacing the federal US Parole Commission. The article cites the recent petition from nearly 100 incarcerated DC residents calling for a locally appointed board that includes at least one returned citizen …
