Auburn: Women wearing masks, carrying bags wait on line outside building

As New York Prisons Open to Visitors Again, Mixed Emotions Run High

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AUBURN, New York — On the day she would see her father for the first time in nearly five months as he bounced among three maximum-security prisons, Julianna Bundschuh, 5, hung on the metal fence of Auburn Correctional Facility as if it were at a playground. Near her stood Kristina Abell, who arrived first at 7 a.m. Wednesday with eight boxes of food for her son. Behind Abell was a woman named Courtney who didn’t want to give her last name. She came to see her fiance and was wondering how long these visits would last. None had seen their loved ones since mid-March, when state-run prisons across New York suspended visitation due to coronavirus.

California: Young guy with stand-up locs outside

California Probation Can Handle COVID, Proposed Transition of High-needs Youth to Counties

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Probation in California has the responsibility of treating and supervising our community’s most high-needs and high-risk youth. We take our role in promoting healthy, prepared and positive adolescents seriously and provide each youth the supervision and support services they need to help guide them into adulthood.  

The use of individualized, evidence-based practices to advance the long-term well-being of youth is foundational to our work. We rely on practices and tools such as risk and needs-based assessments, cognitive development, counseling, therapy, and trauma-informed care and evidence-based supervision models. 

Our rehabilitative and health-centered focus has been proven successful. 

Since 2007, California’s juvenile justice system, led by local probation departments, has successfully decreased juvenile detention rates by 60% and juvenile arrest rates by 73%. In addition, we safely treat 90% of youth in the justice system in our communities, and have diverted nearly 67% of youth. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in California this year, county probation departments remained focused on keeping our youth safe both in the community and in our secure facilities while still creatively providing the supports and services each youth needed for stability and their individualized growth.

gun violence: Man in short-sleeved pink shirt, mask speaks at outdoor podium surrounded by crowd wearing masks

New York City’s Public Advocate Unveils Proposal to End Gun Violence

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NEW YORK — Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, announced his proposal for curbing gun violence in the five boroughs after a week of at least 64 shootings. Only 20 were reported for the same week in 2019. Williams unveiled his ideas in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Friday. Putting into place CompStat, the New York Police Department’s statistical data tool and a new “Advance Peace” crisis management system were at the top of his list. He also called for changes to the police department’s responses right away but the timeline was unclear.

NY Legislation- Parole, Solitary: Man in sweats, sneakers, sunglasses, hat speaks on lawn with fake graves behind him.

NY Bills on Parole and Solitary the Focus of Overnight Demonstration

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ALBANY, N.Y. —A makeshift cemetery created outside the New York State Capitol building was the backdrop to a last-ditch overnight demonstration to push for three longshot criminal justice bills organizers helped write. Organizers for Release Aging People from Prison (RAPP) and the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (#Haltsolitary) had worked on three bills that focused on solitary confinement, paroling certain elderly inmates and changing parole criteria.

telehealth: Doctor with a stethoscope on the computer laptop screen.

More Telehealth Could Be Among Policy, Practice Implications of COVID-19 Pandemic

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In a remarkably short period of time, the COVID-19 pandemic has required us to change almost everything about how we live and work. It has also exposed significant fault lines in our understanding about, and delivery of services to, the most vulnerable in our communities. During this time, many of our systems have been challenged to handle complex crises and rapidly changing circumstances. Just as our health care systems have strained to meet acute medical needs, our education, justice, housing and child-serving systems are also navigating unprecedented challenges. Four Stoneleigh Foundation Fellows shared their preliminary observations on the impact COVID-19 is having on our communities’ young people in a virtual convening in spring.

New Massachusetts Group PPAL Helping Families With Justice-involved Youth During Pandemic

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 In mid-March, everything changed because of COVID-19. One mom said her life changed in 24 hours. Her teenage son had been arraigned for his first offense. He was in detention, though not found guilty, with no option to be heard in court. The schools had closed, daycare closed and the juvenile courts were closed.

Advance Peace: 6 men sitting and standing in group at restaurant

Opinion: Advance Peace Change Agents Already Interrupting Epidemics Every Day

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Fresh shell casings are still scattered in the streets. Multiple sets of dice are still rolling like rocks in an avalanche. Bottles of liquor are still wet. Broken hearts with painful memories of gunshot victims remain fresh. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the hood is still the hood.

NYPD: Sculpture on building has no justice written on it with orange tape, graffiti below it

NYPD Won’t Stay in Schools Under New Budget Agreement

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NEW YORK — The Surrogate's Court in Lower Manhattan received a fresh coat of paint — albeit an unprompted one, after graffiti, as colorful in its language as it was in its incandescence, was scrawled across the building by anti-police protesters. Nearby, an elevator shaft for the City Hall 4/5/6 train was covered in scraps of cardboard etched with messages memorializing the lives of Black Americans killed by police. Demonstrators had encamped in the area around City Hall for days while inside city officials dealt with one of the most significant political issues of their time — how to effect massive reforms to the nation's largest police department without sacrificing public safety. The solution from city leaders, much to the consternation of some protesters who envisioned a wholesale removal of police altogether, has been to enact a massive shift in funding away from the New York Police Department (NYPD), to the tune of nearly $1 billion, and reinvest it into communities of color. After midnight this morning the City Council voted on a budget that includes deep cuts to NYPD personnel and shifts millions to other city agencies.

gun violence: Food delivery during coronavirus. Black courier guy wearing medical mask delivering grocery order to young woman's home

Opinion: We Need to Take Care of Each Other After COVID-19 Too

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The Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) in Richmond, Calif., is a non-law enforcement governmental agency whose sole purpose is to reduce gun violence using street outreach as a primary vehicle to deliver optimal and sustained gun violence reduction outcomes.