Lifers

Don’t Throw Away the Key on Michigan’s Youth — Bring Them Home

The Michigan Legislature is considering a proposal to end juvenile life without parole in Michigan. Fully half the states and Washington, D.C., have already taken this step, banning the practice of sending children to prison to die, and another seven states currently have no one serving such a sentence. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court [...]

2023-04-27T14:18:49-04:00April 27th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Courts, Juveniles, Lifers, Parole, Reentry|

April brings Second Chances to Michigan

We use the phrase “second chances” so often in criminal justice reform work that it can sometimes sound like a buzzword. We urge employers to adopt second-chance hiring to give people with a criminal record a chance at a job. The federal Second Chance Act provides grants to nonprofits and agencies that work to reduce [...]

2023-03-30T15:36:36-04:00March 29th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Juveniles, Lifers, Parole, Reentry, Sentencing|

Inside Voices – February 2023

Think twice before demanding Bernstein resignation There’s no mistaking Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein’s Freudian Slip objection to newly appointed Justice Kyra Bolden’s hiring ex-felon Pete Martel as one of her law clerks as racism, bigotry, or discrimination. But calls for Bernstein’s resignation are unwarranted because his outburst isn’t reflective of the “blind justice” [...]

Inside Voices – January 2023

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 [...]

Meet Kimberly Woodson, our new Fund Development Fellow

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 [...]

2022-10-12T15:13:26-04:00October 12th, 2022|Categories: Blog, Juveniles, Lifers, Reentry|

Why Restoring Good Time is Good Policy

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, [...]

2022-03-21T14:58:08-04:00March 21st, 2022|Categories: Blog, Lifers, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), Reentry, Sentencing|

From prosecuted to working for the prosecutor’s office: A story of continuing transformation

Former juvenile lifer Edward Sanders starts work for Washtenaw County's Conviction Integrity & Expungement Unit (Safe & Just Michigan first interviewed Edward Sanders, a former juvenile lifer, in July 2018, after he had been released from prison for about a year. Since then, he has contacted us periodically to keep us up-to-date on [...]

2021-07-09T01:47:55-04:00July 8th, 2021|Categories: Blog, Courts, Juveniles, Lifers, Racial equity, Reentry, Sentencing, Trauma|

The Michigan Department of Corrections by the numbers

The Michigan Department of Corrections has released its 2019 Statistical Report, offering a glimpse into Michigan’s corrections system shortly before the COVID-19 crisis took hold and brought about some significant changes. Some of those changes are visible in a subsequent report to the Michigan Legislature in a January 2021 Budget Briefing document that detail how [...]