Texas correctional officials this month quietly eliminated the use of solitary confinement as a punishment for jailhouse rule-breakers, positioning the state at the forefront of a nationwide push to end the practice.
Today, six statewide organizations, along with individuals and organizations directly engaged in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, filed a formal petition asking the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to issue a one-time Driver Responsibility Program (DRP) fee amnesty in Texas’ disaster area counties.
Sandra Bland wasn’t mentioned by name. But it was clear that her highly publicized death, which helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement, was a key part of a hearing Thursday aimed at stopping police from locking up Texans over minor traffic offenses.
After decades of pursuing failed policies in the name of waging war on drugs, elected officials now claim to seek sensible approaches to drug use.
City Council is holding budget hearings later this afternoon, with testimony expected on the proposed property tax rate, any fee changes, etc. Criminal justice advocates say they will be there to oppose the current Austin Police Association contract, and demand greater accountability over officer misconduct.
On September 23, 2016, hundreds of protesters marching through the streets of Uptown Charlotte stopped outside of the Mecklenburg County Jail on East 4th Street to show solidarity.
Read the rest of this article at Creative Loafing Charlotte.
A group of Austin community advocacy organizations came together Tuesday to call on city leaders to end meet-and-confer negotiations with the Austin police officers’ union.
Read the rest of this article at the Austin American-Statesman.
The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) calls on Governor Greg Abbott to expand the call of the Special Legislative Session to fix the state’s dangerously outdated drug policies.
States are responding to U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have found mandatory life-without-parole sentences unconstitutional for juveniles except for the rare homicide offender incapable of rehabilitation.
Read the rest of this article at The Washington Post.
In early 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court told states to retroactively apply its 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life without parole for juveniles convicted of homicide. While many states have acted to resentence offenders to parole-eligible terms, Texas has left it to inmates to apply individually.
Read the rest of this article at the San Antonio Express-News.
Mark Gonzalez had never prosecuted a single case before he was elected district attorney of Nueces County, Texas, last November. The 37-year-old self-described “Mexican biker defense lawyer” spent his first decade in law poking holes through bad cases and defending low-level offenders from what he viewed as unnecessary prosecutions and unduly harsh penalties.
During the past 10 years, Texas has made incredible progress both in reducing the number of individuals incarcerated and in creating alternative programs for low-risk offenders.
Read the rest of this op-ed at the San Antonio Express-News.
Texas will shutter more prisons this year than it has in any single year in history, a response to the state’s tight budget and shrinking inmate population. In the state’s two-year budget, which lawmakers approved in May, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was ordered to close four prison facilities by Sept. 1.
Texas police officers and other first responders who have job-related mental health issues can soon be diverted into pretrial treatment programs if they commit a crime, but many large counties don’t appear interested in creating the new specialty courts.
Anthony Graves emerged from solitary confinement over six years ago to become a national crusader for justice reform, but it took a recent report by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to add new urgency to his campaign to reform the practice in his own state.
Read the rest of this article at The Crime Report.
Boys locked up for sex offenses were left unsupervised at a Dallas County juvenile detention center long enough to engage in sexual acts with each other on at least two occasions.
As City Council meetings go, the one held Thursday, April 20, was a rarity: a meeting with invited public testimony for a staff briefing on labor negotiations for the city’s three public safety unions. That kind of Item doesn’t tend to ever get scheduled.
Since 2003, an obscure Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) program has trapped more than a million Texans in a cycle of debt, opponents say. For nearly as long, lawmakers critical of the program have sought to repeal it.
Austin Police are getting ready to use body cameras, but some say they could be giving away public property to a private company. The city’s buying cameras from Axon, which used to be known as Taser International.
Read the rest of this article at Spectrum News.
Solitary confinement, administrative segregation, seclusion, disciplinary separation and lockdown are a few of the names for isolating a prisoner in a separate cell. Officials say administrative segregation or “ad seg,” is necessary for offenders who require maximum security to ensure the safety of staff, other offenders and the security of the institution.