I had been looking forward to this great opportunity as the new community engagement specialist at Safe & Just Michigan. Then, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer put the state under shelter in place status the day after my first day on the job. I couldn’t help but think about how exactly I could engage the community during [...]
The Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration identified the suspension of driver’s licenses for reasons that have nothing to do with unsafe driving as one of the major drivers in Michigan’s jail growth over the past few decades. In 2018, nearly 358,000 people lost their driver’s license for reasons that had nothing [...]
On Tuesday, June 9, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections held a meeting to discuss the prison population and the Michigan Department of Corrections’ response to the Covid-19 crisis. However, due to pending litigation, the review of the MDOC’s response to Covid-19 is delayed until a future meeting. What can’t be delayed or denied is [...]
The final report of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration found that most arrests in Michigan are for misdemeanors that harmed no one. Research shows police squander many hours and large amounts of taxpayer dollars to arrest, book and jail people for these minor offenses. For that reason, the task force recommended [...]
There are more than 44,000 people on Michigan’s bloated sex offender registry — more people than are incarcerated inside Michigan prisons — and this number grows yearly. For more than 90 percent of people on this list, registration is for 25 years to life. While there is a process to petition for removal from the [...]
Michigan has one of the worst epidemics of COVID-19 in prisons in the country, both in terms of the number of people infected and the number of people who have died of a COVID-19-related illness. The Marshall Project has been tracking how many people incarcerated in prisons in each state have been impacted by the coronavirus. Here's [...]
(Please note that portions of this blog use legislative and legal terms that aren’t Safe & Just Michigan’s preferred terminology. Safe & Just Michigan prefers to use humanizing person-first terms. However, as this post deals with pending legislation and existing laws, we are referring to them by their names for the sake of clarity.) Sex [...]
For Rick Speck, the process of change relies heavily on role models — both having one and being one. While he was incarcerated, it was the presence of good role models that led Speck, now Safe & Just Michigan’s community engagement specialist, to turn his life around. Once that happened, he realized that he had [...]
The COVID-19 crisis presents an unprecedented challenge to our country that touches on all aspects of our society, including the criminal justice system. Knowing that there is broad public support for protecting incarcerated people in Michigan prisons will help us advise state decision-makers, and helps those elected leaders feel confident as they make their choices. [...]
The COVID-19 crisis presents an unprecedented challenge to our country that touches on all aspects of our society, including the criminal justice system. Knowing that there is broad public support for taking steps to protect incarcerated people in Michigan prisons will help us advise state decision-makers, and helps those elected leaders feel confident as they [...]