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  • Firefighter jobs difficult to find for women fire crew after prison

    January 12, 2021 |

    Cronkite News - Arizona PBS |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Arizona

    Arizona's Inmate Wildfire Program trains incarcerated people to fight wildfires, paying them low prison wages to provide a critically needed service as wildfires grow more common. Members of the only all-female crew, from Perryville Prison, tell of their pride of accomplishment in doing a dangerous job, and of the rehabilitative benefits of the program. They also describe their frustrations when regulations often bar them from using their skills after release from prison.

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  • These gardens ask visitors to reconsider solitary confinement

    December 23, 2020 |

    Grist |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

    Solitary Gardens is an art project that protests prisons' solitary confinement conditions. Incarcerated people connect with volunteers on the outside who plant flowers, vegetables, or herbs in beds matching the tiny dimensions of the prison cell that confined Herman Wallace for a record 41 years in Louisiana. The people inside prison imagine their garden, often with memory triggers of what they have lost, and their gardener carries out their plan. The idea is to make a place for grief, healing, public service, and public education, as the gardens in four cities teach about solitary confinement.

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  • Incarcerated Women Are Punished for Their Trauma With Solitary Confinement

    December 12, 2020 |

    Truthout |

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    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Shakopee, Minnesota

    Like other prisons, Minnesota's Shakopee Correctional Facility says it uses solitary confinement as punishment for violence or other misbehavior by incarcerated people, to provide safety, or to isolate people with mental illness. But interviews with 51 women who were sent to solitary, in this story by a fellow incarcerated woman, show how common the punishment is for trivial offenses. Innocent touching is deemed inappropriate sexual activity, or women act out over the trauma they have suffered. Then they are confined in conditions that only make their emotional state worse.

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  • Newly Formed KC Bail-Out Group Successful After Its First Year in Action

    December 08, 2020 |

    The Community Voice |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Kansas City, Missouri

    In its first year, Operation Liberation helped more than 30 people post bail to be released from the Jackson County Detention Center. The operation focuses on bailing Black people out of jail when their lack of money keeps them jailed on low-level charges. Kansas City's population is about one-quarter Black, but its jail skews 58% Black. Operation Liberation provides social supports to people once they are released from pretrial detention, helping with everything from housing to transportation. Its first year's work was funded by more than $75,000 in donations.

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  • How the Criminal Justice System Fails People With Mental Illness

    November 26, 2020 |

    The Intercept |

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    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Tyler, Texas

    Crisis-intervention and de-escalation trainings for police were meant to reform the criminal justice system's handling of people suffering from mental illness. But a lack of rigorous standards in the training and use of these approaches means that they routinely fail as a means of diverting people from arrest and incarceration toward treatment. That failure, combined with a lack of adequate mental-health-care resources, maintains jails' and prisons' role as the nation's de facto mental health care hospitals, even though they lack the will and the means to help people heal.

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  • How Cook County Jail Became the Country's First Jail-Based Polling Place

    October 30, 2020 |

    Belt Magazine |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

    As the first jail to serve as a polling place for the people incarcerated there, the Cook County Jail saw the highest number of votes cast in a primary election in decades during the spring primary. On two weekends of early voting for the fall general election, more than 2,000 people cast their ballots, nearly 40% of the jail's population. In jail, in-person voting has several advantages over mail-in voting, which in the past was the only option, as at all other jails. Because most people held there have not been found guilty, they are eligible to vote. Illinois also allows same-day registration.

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  • We can't vote in San Quentin prison. So we held a mock election

    October 28, 2020 |

    The Guardian |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, San Quentin, California

    Two men incarcerated at San Quentin prison tell how the men incarcerated there held a mock presidential election, despite a pandemic-related lockdown and prison officials' failure to distribute ballots that had been sent to the prison. Using handwritten ballots, the "voters," denied their actual voting rights by the state, managed to cast 176 mock votes (heavily favoring Joe Biden) by distributing the ballots during limited time outside their cells. Voting gave the men the opportunity to express their views, not just by checking a box but by adding comments on their ballots.

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  • In San Diego, Black Muslims are working to expand voting access in jails

    October 14, 2020 |

    The GroundTruth Project |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, California

    Pillars of the Community hires people incarcerated in local California jails to register new incarcerated voters and conduct civic engagement education behind bars. Pillars, a faith-based criminal justice advocacy group led by Black Muslims, registers hundreds every year, many of whom did not know they were eligible to vote and did not know how to register on their own. Those voting in 2020 will be able to vote on state referenda concerning expanding voting rights for people with felony convictions and on ending cash bail.

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  • Illinois advocates work to ensure ballot access for jail voters during pandemic

    October 13, 2020 |

    The GroundTruth Project |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Cook County, Illinois

    Many people who are currently incarcerated still retain the right to vote, and as the 2020 election approaches advocates in Illinois are making sure that those who are in Chicago’s Cook County Jail have access to ballots. Under a newly implemented law, Cook County Jail was designated as a polling place, which increased access for pretrial detainees and those serving certain misdemeanor convictions, and ultimately resulted in a higher voter turnout for the March primaries.

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  • A Broken Bond: How New York Judges are Getting Around Bail Reform Audio icon

    October 12, 2020 |

    New York Focus |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    A key part of New York state's bail system reform legislation gave judges the ability to use alternative forms of bail designed to be more affordable to more people. But, by giving judges broad discretion, the law left large loopholes that judges have used to undercut the law's purpose. In addition to the two standard forms of bail – payment in cash or a nonrefundable fee to a bail bonds company – the law allowed for cost-free or refundable-deposit bonds that judges either have avoided using or have turned into a new costly obligation, leaving thousands to sit in jail pending trial.

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