For most of its history, Michigan had a generous, progressive “good time” system that reduced a prisoner’s parole eligibility date for every month they did not receive a citation for misconduct. (See: Barbara Levine, Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending, “10,000 Fewer Michigan Prisoners: Strategies to Reach the Goal” (June 2015) at pg. 76, [...]
One of the most rewarding things about working for criminal justice reform is getting people interested in transforming our court and prison systems and watching the momentum for change build, both in Michigan and nationwide. So, when I got a call from Sean Wilkinson, a reporter and videographer from San Francisco who is representing the [...]
Michigan’s prison population dropped by a drastic 11.7% between 2019 and 2020, driven by an effort to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections 2020 Statistical Report. While Gov. Gretchen Whitmer turned down requests to accelerate parole efforts during the pandemic, another decision of hers did lead to the sharp decrease [...]
It was at a young age that Ashley Bellant was introduced to the idea of organizing. Having come from generations of Michigan automotive workers, some of her earliest memories are dinners at the union hall or hours spent bundled up in the cold with her dad on the picket line. “He always made it a [...]
A lot of attention lately has been given to the sudden rise in inflation and what that has done to consumer prices. A quick definition of inflation is the rising price of goods and services caused by the falling purchasing value of the dollar or other currency. Last month, the annual rate of inflation measured [...]
We have long understood that incarceration of a parent can be traumatizing for a child — something we know from both peer-reviewed research and anecdotal evidence. Sadly, 1 in 10 children in Michigan have experienced having a parent in jail or prison, according to a 2016 study from the Annie E. Casey foundation. Children with [...]
One of the harder jobs Kamau Sandiford has ever had was telling people that Michigan’s expungement law didn’t allow them to expunge their criminal record. As the staff attorney of Cooley Law School’s Access to Justice Clinic, it was something he used to do often. Then, Clean Slate happened. Now, with Michigan’s expungement laws newly [...]
The words Justin Counts heard from a man in a prison hospice care shook him to his core and turned him in a new direction. “You don’t belong here,” the dying man said. For a while, Justin wasn’t sure what the man meant. After all, they were both in prison, a place no one wants [...]
In his 40 years, Tamir Bell has been a motherless child, a star pupil, a drug dealer, incarcerated and a community activist. But to truly understand him, you must look beyond all those labels. “It’s a very dangerous thing to try to understand people,” says Tamir, who is now one of two development fellows at [...]
The age of 18 has long been recognized as the legal age of adulthood. That means it is the age at which a person has both the rights and responsibilities of adulthood under the law. Before age 18, the law recognizes that a person does not have full legal rights or responsibilities; in the criminal [...]