California Jails

Coming Up: Bills on Juveniles, Reentry, and Sentence Enhancements

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Our friends at the Criminal Justice Information Network sent us an update on upcoming bills coming out of Sacramento that impact our communities. Checkout the descriptions of five below. We met one of the authors of AB 1706, the one about jury trials for juveniles facing strikes, and she makes some powerful arguments. — Posted by Raj Jayadev

From the Criminal Justice Information Network — The Assembly Public Safety Committee has scheduled its next hearing for March 20th. The Senate Public Safety Committee will hold its next hearing for March 27th. Letters of opposition or support are due to the Public Safety Committees one week prior to the hearing in order for your organization to be listed in the committee analysis, or official background information for the bill. Below are a few bills to watch out for as we approach March 20th. Continue reading →

Stark Digital Culture Mag: WEEKEND JAIL– Judges Just Don’t Understand

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Check out this first hand account of a writer who gets adjudicated for a “crime” she never committed. In the article, author Kortnee Liegh shares a firsthand account of facing charges, going through the court process, and ultimately doing “weekend work” for her misdemeanor offense. The piece is also illustrated by Fernando “Force 129” Amaro Jr., a talented San Jose artist, and long-time De-Bug illustrator. Click the art to read the article.

Weekends by Fernando "Force 129" Amaro Jr.

San Jose Mercury News: Santa Clara County DA program aims to boost reliability of eyewitness identifications

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According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing. Implementing this program is a step in the right direction to make sure that justice can be properly carried out.  Submission post by Charisse Domingo

SANTA CLARA COUNTY DA PROGRAM AIMS TO BOOST RELIABILITY OF EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATIONS

By Tracey Kaplan
02/04/2012 06:40:08 AM PST

To boost the reliability of eyewitness identifications, every police department in Santa Clara County has recently begun videotaping or recording most witnesses as they pick out a suspect from a set of photos or a live lineup.

The practice, spearheaded by District Attorney Jeff Rosen, is the latest technique law enforcement agencies across the nation are using to try to reduce wrongful convictions. In the Bay Area, police in San Francisco, Oakland and Pleasant Hill are among those who also have adopted it.

But Santa Clara County is believed to be the only county in the state where every police agency from the Highway Patrol to campus officers at San Jose State has signed a protocol agreeing to it.

Continue reading →

Healthy Cal: Fewer Youth in State Detention After Juvenile Realignment

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The results of juvenile realignment forced our state to think more creatively and compassionately about juvenile offenders.  As a result, according to this article, the youth prison population went down 88% in the last 10 years.  Hoping the same results happen through the jails realignment.  Submission Post by Charisse Domingo

Fewer youth in state detention after juvenile realignment

Published: January 9, 2012

By Callie Shanafelt, California Health Report

Michael Bryant has been in and out of Juvenile Hall in Santa Cruz since he was 13 years old, when he started drinking alcohol everyday. Now 17, Bryant is doing time in a treatment center after plea-bargaining on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Some counties would have viewed this crime as a second strike and sent Bryant to a state facility. But Santa Cruz rarely sends youth to the state for supervision. In part, that’s because the county is a participant in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a program of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Continue reading →

Los Angeles County Jails: Wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years.

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A recent investigation by the LA Times reveals that the County Jails have a record of incarcerating hundreds of innocent people for days, weeks, and months at a time before realizing the error. How many people will slip through the cracks of this system and continue to be innocently imprisoned? – Post submission by Ernest Chavez

By Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times
December 28, 2011

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Tuesday that he will create a task force to minimize the wrongful jailings of people mistaken for someone else.

Baca’s move came in response to a Times investigation that found hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized their true identities. Continue reading →