99 Search results for "criminal justice reform"

Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring the US Midterms & Family/Parenting issues, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. How has our political system been working for and against us? What dynamics are different today? How should we prepare for midterm elections vs presidential ones, and local […]

By Kevin Clay The culture of physical and emotional abuse, blackmailing, and the intellectual sabotage of students recently uncovered at the T.M. Landry school in Louisiana by the New York Times, atop what was previously a narrative of “Black student exceptionalism,” positions the school at the nexus of much larger and pervasive problems in the way […]

Editor’s Note: This essay contains discussions of childhood sexual violence I didn’t order that extra whiskey ginger last week. I went home when my body told me to, even though it was still early and my friends were still partying. I rested when I got sick, or as much as I possibly could without missing […]

The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFK) Foundation, led by Kerry Kennedy, started a month-long mission to bail out hundreds of women and juveniles at Rikers Island. It’s become the largest mass bailout in history.

The Canadian House of Commons and Senate approved the legalization of marijuana in June. On Oct. 18, the law finally went into effect and not only did stores start selling recreational marijuana, those with past pot convictions were also pardoned.

Signed by Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday, a new Californian reform bill, called the California Money Bail Reform Act, will abolish the cash bail system for all defendants awaiting a trial. Instead of cash bail, courts in different jurisdictions will create algorithms to decide who stays in custody and who leaves while they await trial.

Following a ruling by Houston judge Lee H. Rosenthal of Federal District Court last year, Judge Eldon E. Fallon of the Louisiana Eastern District Court has also ruled against the implementation of money bail, calling it a violation of equal protection and due process. In the New Orleans case, the judge struck down the city’s kickback […]

A new study from the Brookings Institute reveals that around half of the prison population had no earnings in the years leading up to their incarceration. That number goes up to 80 percent when analyzing only the year before their incarceration. The study examined both IRS filings and the BJS National Prisoner Survey to come […]

*A note from our editor Sherronda J. Brown: January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and our theme at Black Youth Project is Human Trafficking and Slavery. We are interested in publishing works that address these topics and the things surrounding them.* This post contains spoilers for season four of How to Get Away With Murder. […]

By Maya King For more than two centuries, religious institutions have sat at the intersection of pain and liberation within African-American communities. Churches like Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist and Atlanta’s Ebenezer exemplified this, giving birth to the people and movements that defined the Civil Rights Era while providing political capital and a sense of stability […]

One of the reasons that the United States has such a disproportionately high prison population is that a lot of people just can’t afford to avoid jail once they are accused of a crime. Although it’s law in most states that judges should set bond that defendants can actually afford, this isn’t often the case. Cook […]

“Am I not human?” This one of the questions Marlon Peterson, a human rights activist and writer, asked during his recent TED Talk. Peterson connects his experiences coming from an immigrant community and family and the ways he was systematically criminalized in the United States. Following his arrest and incarceration, Peterson reflects on how his […]