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Featured Blogs
2018 Lame Duck Session: Criminal Justice Issues to Watch
Every two years, at the end of a legislative session, the Legislature has a post-election “lame duck” session, where the election results are known, but the existing Legislature has several weeks of session remaining in [...]
Safe & Just Michigan’s Annual Meeting focuses on moving hearts and minds
Solving the problem of how to get more people to get on board with criminal justice reform was the theme of the night at Safe & Just Michigan’s Annual Membership Meeting and dinner, held Thursday, [...]
Only one was sentenced, but a whole Michigan family does time in “The Sentence,” a documentary on HBO
Rudy Valdez didn’t intend to create an award-winning documentary when he picked up a camera and started filming his niece preparing for her first dance recital. All he wanted to do was capture the moment [...]
Detroit Community Meeting – Sharing stories, planning for the future
September brought great legislative advancements to the cause of criminal justice reform in Michigan, such as the passage of objective parole, the governor’s decision to ban the box on state job applications and movement toward [...]
Current reforms: Expanding the scope of expungement in Michigan
Michigan’s expungement law is both too restrictive and too difficult to use. There are a number of pending bills to expand access, which we will discuss below. There are not yet any bills introduced to [...]
Safe house: crime survivors need secure, affordable housing
Kimberly Cole is haunted by the memory of the young woman who came to her asking for help with her apartment manager. Cole is an instructor with St. Luke’s New Life Center in Flint, an [...]
Objective parole bill passes out of full Senate
Objective parole is one step away from becoming law in Michigan after it sailed through the Senate committee hearing and a full vote of the Senate in single day on Sept. 5, 2018. Objective parole [...]
Clean Slate in Penn state
Lawmakers, community leaders, business advocates and even sports figures agree that thriving communities are at their best when all people who live in them are able to seek meaningful employment and obtain safe housing. It [...]
History of the felony firearm law
Michigan’s felony firearm law is one of the few offenses in our state that carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence. The law imposes a mandatory sentence of at least two years for possessing a firearm [...]
A Brief History of Expungement in Michigan
A person’s criminal history can unfairly hold them back from important life opportunities in employment, housing or other areas for years — and even decades — after they have paid their debt to society. Michigan [...]
Understanding the link between housing and the formerly incarcerated
Being released from prison should have been the end of a long, difficult chapter in Jarrett Ruffin’s life and the start of a much easier one. Instead, when Ruffin was released in 2003, he found [...]
Ojibway prison slated for closure
Yesterday, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) announced the closure of the Ojibway Correctional Facility located in Gogebic County. The nearly 50-year-old facility, originally a camp, was converted to a prison in 2000. The correctional [...]