Inside Voices is an opportunity for our members who are incarcerated to voice their ideas and opinions to the outside world. Since they can't access our monthly electronic newsletter, Safe & Just Michigan prints a newsletter several times a year that is mailed to our members who are in prison. We have invited those readers [...]
(NOTE: Safe & Just Michigan is nonpartisan and doesn’t make political endorsements. Ronnie Waters, our community engagement specialist, is speaking about his own personal endorsement of Justice Richard Bernstein.) SJM Community Engagement Specialist Ronnie Waters (left) with Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein in the summer of 2022. When Michigan Supreme Court Justice [...]
On Thursday, Jan. 12 — the second day of the new session — the incoming Democratic majorities in the Michigan House and Senate announced committee assignments. For those of us interested in criminal justice issues, the focus is always the Judiciary committees, which handle the vast majority of criminal justice-related legislation. There is much to [...]
Kimberly Woodson was almost locked away forever. We should all be grateful she wasn’t. Not only has she started a Detroit-based nonprofit to help others reintegrate into the community after coming home from prison, Safe & Just Michigan is lucky enough to welcome her onboard as one of our two new fund development fellows. As [...]
Growth is carried out over the course of an entire lifetime. This is a concept that resonates well with Scott Tompkins. Over his lifetime, he has been a father, a journalist, an educator, a community organizer — and someone sentenced to 18 months in prison. Now back home in northern Michigan, Scott wants to put all [...]
Lucas Day is still learning. A graduate from the Michigan State school of journalism and now a student pursuing a master’s degree in social work degree from MSU, Lucas has learned more through his interviews with the people he’s writing about than anywhere else. “I feel like my perspective is always shifting,” Lucas said. “The [...]
Cassie Larrieux is comfortable with data. She can talk about ratios and intervals or qualitative and quantitative information like most people can talk about what was on television last night or who won the big game. But for all that, Larrieux never loses sight of what those numbers truly show — the people whose stories [...]
When Cecilia Zavala was a girl growing up in Detroit, she dreamed of one day dressing up in suits and going to work downtown, where she’d have a job as “the boss.” Becoming a mother at the age of 16 didn’t deter her. She realized her goal, quickly rising through the ranks of Detroit’s Hispanic-focused [...]
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 [...]