State of Michigan Second Chance Initiative
Dec 11, 2021
Detroit, Michigan Dec 10, 2021 (Issuewire.com) - We are pleased to announce that US Behind the Walls will be opening a Detroit, Michigan regional office at 400 Renaissance Center, Suite 2600 Detroit, Mi 48243 and have appointed Mr. Dani Hourani from Dearborn, Michigan as Acting Director and Cynthia Haynes as the community board member in Flint, Michigan.
About Us
US Behind the Walls national headquarters is located in Los Angeles, California with regional offices in Detroit, Chicago, Miami, and Washington DC and supported by organizations and companies nationwide including NAAB Radio's station with over 50 million listeners with a scheduled broadcast titled Equal Justice, which is broadcast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 am to 11:30 PST covering the wrongfully convicted and also an "Ask the Lawyer" segment. You can tune in to listen on any device anywhere at https://naabradio.com/inside-justice/
US BEHIND THE WALLS IS A CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM NON-PROFIT FOCUSED ON RESTORATIVE JUSTICE.
US Behind the Walls believes that today's criminal justice system is financially and socially untenable. Social stratification is weighed unfairly against people with lower incomes. Laws have been written that disproportionately punish people of color much more harshly and severely.
It is a system plagued by high recidivism rates and incarceration costs that exceed the investment our society has placed into educating our youths. The system solves no problems, but instead has a devastating effect on the families and children of those incarcerated. It perpetuates the school-to-prison pipeline where the sons replace the absent fathers in prison.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke this truth to power in his 2013 speech to the American Bar Association, when he, as the nation's Chief Law Enforcement Officer, articulated and admitted these facts.
Today a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities. And many aspects of our criminal justice system exacerbate these problems, rather than alleviate them.
Too many Americans go to prison for far too long, for no good reason. It's clear, at the basic level, that the 20th-century criminal justice solutions are not adequate to overcome our 21st-century challenges. And it is well past time to implement common-sense changes that will foster safer communities from coast to coast.
See: Attorney General Eric Holder Delivers Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association's House of Delegates SF, CA Monday, August 12, 2013
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, former President Donald Trump supported criminal justice reform efforts as well. During a White House Press conference, President Donald Trump shared his take on the issue, in pushing for his hallmark criminal justice reform bill, The First Step Act of 2018, the President stated.
Americans from across the political spectrum can unite around prison reform legislation that will reduce crime while giving our fellow citizens a chance at redemption, so if something happens and they make a mistake, they get a second chance at life," Trump told reporters at a White House event.
See: White House Press Briefing, November 7, 2018
The Republican president's prodding ensured passage of this reform legislation and President Trump signed the First Step Act on December 18, 2018, which reduced mandatory minimum sentences, required officials to try to place inmates in prisons near family, expanded drug treatment programs for prisoners and parolees, and allowed some federal prisoners to finish their sentences early with good behavior. This bipartisan legislation was the most consequential criminal justice reform effort on the Federal level in over 40 years.
Likewise, US Behind the Walls is a bipartisan organization that is working to help resolve these inefficiencies and injustices. Our plan is to introduce three initiatives to the ballot during the 2022 midterm election. The first would be to reaffirm that Michigan's felony murder law was abolished in 1980 and see that it applies retroactively to everyone that was charged and sentenced under that Statute previous to its abolishment. The second initiative would give inmates earned time credits for good behavior and positive programming. The third initiative is to reform the Michigan parole board with the goal of making it more transparent and representative of the community.
We believe these initiatives will help ensure that the Michigan Criminal Justice system becomes more responsive, accountable, and fair to its residents, community, and those incarcerated. We believe that the public should have more say in the criminal justice system and Michigan Second Chance Initiative is the first step in that process.
US Behind the Walls Lobbying and Prison Reform Organization
Press contact [email protected]
usbehindthewalls.org
Tel: 213-589-3330
Source :US Behind the Walls
This article was originally published by IssueWire. Read the original article here.
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