If you are ever standing before a judge to be sentenced in Michigan the least you’d hope for is a fair and impartial hearing. You’d never want a judge to decide whether to send you to prison, and for how long, based on factors such as whether you were able to afford your own attorney, [...]
Veterans Day is Nov. 11, but when that day falls on a weekend, as it does in 2018, the federal holiday is also observed in a weekday, which is why Veterans Day is being observed on Nov. 12 this year. Safe & Just Michigan honors the spirit and sacrifice of all the people who wore [...]
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, Oct. 18 at the Radisson Hotel in Lansing. The event, attended by nearly 200 people, featured speakers Leon El-Alamin from [...]
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 for the girl’s mother — Rudy’s older sister, Cindy Shank — who had just been sentenced to 15 years in [...]
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 when committing or attempting to commit a felony. That sentence which must be served before — not during — the [...]
Much of the national criminal justice reform conversation focuses on mandatory minimum sentences because they often result in harsh outcomes for people and our criminal justice system. Mandatory minimums require judges to impose a specific minimum prison sentence whenever someone is convicted of a given crime. This removes the judge’s ability to tailor the sentence [...]
We all believe that justice should be applied equally. In artwork, justice is depicted as a blindfolded woman who can’t even see who she is judging, showing that she is fair and impartial in her rulings. We want to believe that no matter what race we are, where we live, how much education we have, [...]
There is a buzz in our office. It is the excitement from publicly launching our new name, Safe & Just Michigan. As a Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending supporter – aka CAPPS, you likely have received our communications, such as our e-newsletter, discussing the reasons for the change. We would like to provide [...]
Only Michigan and four other states treat 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. Currently, a 17-year-old, who is legally too young to vote, marry, or join the military, can be convicted in adult court. There is little disagreement among stakeholders that raise the age is good for Michigan. However, uncertainty about the potential [...]
On May 2, Barbara Levine, CAPPS associate director, and John Cooper, CAPPS policy director, testified before House of Representatives Law and Justice Committee, at the invitation of the chair, Rep. Kesto (R – District 39). Cooper identified the policies that fueled Michigan’s prison growth over recent decades. We currently incarcerate about 41,000 individuals at a [...]