Lifers

The Need to Push Further and the Wall of Truth in Sentencing

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. [...]

2020-04-23T14:32:51-04:00April 23rd, 2020|Categories: Blog, Lifers, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), Parole, Reentry|

Safe & Just Michigan statement on COVID-19

In these are trying and uncertain times, we at Safe & Just Michigan want you to know that we are working to limit the impact of COVID-19 on people in Michigan's jails and prisons, to keep the public up-to-date on what is being done, and to support advocacy for diversion and decarceration both during the [...]

2020-03-27T11:00:05-04:00March 25th, 2020|Categories: Blog, Courts, Elderly, Jails, Lifers, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)|

Breaking the cycle of trauma and prison

(Please note: the following blog post contains the reflections of formerly incarcerated people in their own words, and it covers material that is emotionally sensitive such as rape and gun violence.)   Daniel Jones’ life changed forever when his parents separated when he was just a young boy. Up to then, he felt secure and [...]

MDOC in 2018: By the numbers

Each year, the Michigan Department of Corrections releases a factbook of statistics describing their department, the state prisons and the people who are incarcerated inside them. This year’s factbook, which looks at statistics from 2018, was recently released. Overall, the facts and figures point to continuing trends: Michigan’s prison population continues to fall, while our [...]

Safe & Just Michigan’s Top 10 for criminal justice reform in 2019

As 2019 winds down, we thought we’d take a moment to look back at a busy year for criminal justice reform in Michigan and take stock of all that’s happened. From the introduction of Clean Slate to the passage of Raise the Age, the formation of the Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration [...]

Changing narratives on long sentences, catching up with board member Dr. Cobbina at a criminology conference

Every year in mid-November, thousands of criminologists from around the world gather in a large U.S. city for the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). ASC is the primary professional association for criminologists and other academics that study crime. This year, the conference took place in San Francisco, and the theme was [...]

2019-12-03T15:20:00-05:00December 3rd, 2019|Categories: Blog, Lifers, Parole, Racial equity, Reentry, Sentencing|

Life and Long Sentences

This is the third in a series of blogs related to understanding who is incarcerated in Michigan prisons, why they are incarcerated, and for how long. The first post looked at some of the demographics of our prison population. In the second blog, which took a look changing size of our prison population, we ended [...]

Reflections on the Ending Perpetual Punishment Convening

Image is from the Sentencing Project’s Still Life report:https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/still-life-americas-increasing-use-life-long-term-sentences/ Four members of the Safe & Just Michigan team attended the two-day convening on Ending Perpetual Punishment in Detroit on July 12-13. The aim was to bring together representatives from organizations who are actively trying to reduce life and long sentences, to discuss what [...]

2019-07-25T11:02:40-04:00July 25th, 2019|Categories: Blog, Lifers, Sentencing|