In his 40 years, Tamir Bell has been a motherless child, a star pupil, a drug dealer, incarcerated and a community activist. But to truly understand him, you must look beyond all those labels. “It’s a very dangerous thing to try to understand people,” says Tamir, who is now one of two development fellows at [...]
The age of 18 has long been recognized as the legal age of adulthood. That means it is the age at which a person has both the rights and responsibilities of adulthood under the law. Before age 18, the law recognizes that a person does not have full legal rights or responsibilities; in the criminal [...]
Ronnie Waters was just 17 years old when he stood before a judge for his sentencing. Waters knew what was coming, so he told his mother to stay home to spare her from hearing it. Having been found guilty of first-degree murder, he knew he would be sentenced to prison for the rest of his [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
For those who don’t have money, they are stuck in jail, trying to fight their case and hold their lives together with a crazy glue made out of incapacitation, restricted access to a telephone, and the wreckage of whatever was left behind. - Joshua Hoe Getting arrested and going to jail turns your entire [...]
2020 was a phenomenal year for criminal justice reform in Michigan, with everything from Clean Slate to the jails task force bills making their way into law. Amid all those victories, however, was one bitter disappointment: drunk driving expungement. In a promising development, however, it appears there may yet be hope for people hoping for [...]
The Michigan Jail Task Force on Jail and Pre-Trial Incarceration made 18 recommendations that were turned into legislation. In the last weeks of 2020, the Michigan Legislature passed that legislation and changed the laws but more importantly it will change hundreds of thousands of Michiganders lives for the better. Some of this legislation focused on [...]
This past year has been one of extremes. The COVID-19 pandemic has been tragic and caused enormous loss, as many people with loved ones inside prison know all too well. At the other extreme, it has also been a year of unprecedented gains in criminal justice reforms. In between, all of us at Safe & [...]
Last week, Safe & Just Michigan released its first report in five years! Our new report examines the 40-year history of the felony firearm statute and the effect it has had on Michigan residents and prisons. Michigan’s felony firearm statute makes it a crime for a person to be in possession of a firearm during [...]