When President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month threatening to withhold federal funding from states and localities that have adopted “cashless bail” policies, he escalated a national fight over how courts decide who should remain behind bars before trial.
The move has already rippled into state capitols. In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers are considering legislation this week that would tighten pretrial release rules after a high-profile fatal stabbing on a commuter train last month.
SIGN UP HERE to get PhillyVoice’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox
The bill, which was first introduced in March and altered earlier this week with the title “Iryna’s Law,” would require people to post money bail for certain offenses and would restrict judicial discretion for violent and repeat offenders. The bill also would add a new category of violent offenses that require specific pretrial conditions, such as electronic monitoring. It passed the state Senate on Monday.
“When we were looking at drafting this bill, a lot of it was looking at the situation that happened in Charlotte,” said North Carolina state Sen. Danny Britt, a Republican and criminal defense attorney, to WRAL-TV.
In New York, Republican lawmakers are pushing to advance legislation that would further limit pretrial release and allow judges to weigh a defendant’s “dangerousness” in setting conditions. New York ended bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies in 2019, but has since scaled back the law at least three times to allow judges more discretion.
And in Texas — where legislators passed new bail restrictions earlier this summer — voters in November will consider a constitutional amendment banning bail altogether in certain cases for violent offenses such as murder, aggravated assault and indecency with a child.
Trump signed the cashless bail order three days after Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was killed in a seemingly random stabbing in Charlotte, North Carolina. The suspect, who has a lengthy criminal record, had been released without bond last winter after being charged with misusing the 911 system.
Trump’s order directs U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify which jurisdictions have “substantially eliminated cash bail,” though it does not define what that means — leaving its scope and enforcement unclear. Some legal experts say they expect challenges in court, as has happened with previous efforts to tie federal funding to state or local policies.
Trump issued the directive alongside another order aimed at Washington, D.C., where he declared a “crime emergency” and sought to roll back the city’s decades-old bail law. The district did not fully eliminate cash bail when it passed its Bail Reform Act in 1992, but judges are required to consider nonfinancial conditions — such as electronic monitoring, curfews or check-ins — before setting a monetary bond.
Trump’s orders are part of his broader crackdown on crime and public safety, which has also included deploying the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee; Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.
Same charge, different outcomes
Cash bail is a guarantee to show up to court: A defendant pays money and is allowed to go home. At the end of their case, they may get the money back. A judge or magistrate may set the amount based on the severity of the charge and whether the defendant is considered a flight or safety risk.
But someone unable to pay the bail, even after being charged with a low-level misdemeanor, may remain in jail for days, weeks or months. Defendants by law are presumed innocent, but stuck behind bars, they can lose jobs or housing and be unable to care for their family.
Dozens of jurisdictions, including some states, have taken steps to change their bail systems, but there is no single definition of what constitutes “bail reform” or how such changes are applied.
Some states, counties and cities have moved toward fully or nearly eliminating, cash bail. Under these “cashless bail” systems, people may be released before trial without paying money unless a judge determines they pose a public safety risk or are unlikely to return to court. These decisions, experts say, are made intentionally, based on the facts of the case — including the charges involved — rather than on a defendant’s ability to pay.
The policies can affect a large share of the people in the justice system. About 5 million felony cases and 13 million misdemeanor cases are resolved in state courts each year, according to the National Center for State Courts. Since misdemeanors make up the bulk of cases, state and local bail policies can shape outcomes for millions of people charged with lower-level offenses.
Some opponents of cashless bail policies argue that lenient policies may result in the release of defendants who could reoffend or fail to appear. Supporters counter that keeping people in jail simply because they cannot afford bail is unfair and disproportionately affects Black, Latino and low-income defendants.
The ongoing debate has fueled misconceptions, partly because some news coverage repeats unproven claims that cashless bail policies cause upticks in crime.
Trump has frequently drawn that connection himself. In a July post on Truth Social, he wrote: “Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”
Supporters of cash bail often raise concerns that released suspects might commit new, potentially more serious crimes. While that is possible in individual cases, some research suggests that eliminating cash bail does not lead to a widespread increase in crime. Some research also suggests that setting money bail isn’t effective in ensuring court appearances or improving public safety.
How the bail system works
Washington, D.C., the immediate target of Trump’s executive orders, largely eliminated the use of cash bail in 1992. Judges are required to first consider nonfinancial conditions, such as check-ins or curfews, though cash bail may still be used in serious cases.
Several states also have adopted major changes. Alaska, California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have passed laws scaling back or fully eliminating cash bail, though some of those laws have since been revised.
In 2016, New Mexico voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that limited the use of cash bail. Judges may impose a cash bond if they determine it is necessary either to ensure a defendant returns to court or because the person poses a public safety risk.
In 2023, Illinois became the first state to fully abolish cash bail through the Pretrial Fairness Act, which also guarantees defendants legal representation at pretrial hearings.
“Those early decisions about someone’s liberty are much more deliberative,” said Don Steman, a professor and co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Loyola University Chicago. The center’s team has been evaluating the implementation and impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act. “It’s about, ‘Is this person a threat to public safety or a threat to willful flight?’”
In Houston, a 2019 settlement and consent decree resolved a lawsuit challenging Harris County’s misdemeanor bail practices as unconstitutional, requiring the county to release most people charged with misdemeanors on a personal promise to return to court.
In the latest independent monitoring report, from 2024, observers wrote that the changes “have saved Harris County and residents many millions of dollars, improved the lives of tens of thousands of persons,” and resulted in “no increase in new offenses by persons arrested for misdemeanors.”
In August, just a day after Trump issued his executive order, Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a federal court to vacate the consent decree.
He argued that the order conflicts with a Texas law passed in 2021 and another state bail law that took effect this month. Those laws require people charged with violent crimes in Texas to post cash bail in order to be released from jail, and expand the list of offenses for which defendants must post a cash bond, respectively.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Pennsylvania Capital-Star, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
On Sept. 24, chef Jeff Henderson was teaching Cincinnati State students to cook. The next day, he spoke to a crowd of dozens about incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline.
Henderson is a best-selling author and the former executive chef at the Café Bellagio in Las Vegas. He’s been on the Food Network and Oprah. He’s also an ex-felon, having spent nearly 10 years in prison for dealing drugs.
But in this crowd, they don’t say ex-felon, they say “justice-impacted individual.”
On Sept. 25, he spoke at the Building Bridges Disrupting the Pipeline to Prison for Our Youth conference, hosted by the Hamilton County Office of Reentry and other agencies. There, he met people who work in inmate reentry programs around Ohio to talk about how people become criminalized and how vocational opportunities in prison changed his life.
Henderson grew up in Southern California. When he was 16, he was stabbed in the chest in a gang dispute. At 23, he was sent to prison.
“Sometimes the journey and the process of transformation begins when you’re in a cage,” Henderson said. “It gives you time to to reflect and look in that mirror.”
It was there he formed his dream of becoming a chef. He experienced positive feedback, some of the first in his life, for his skills at the stove.
Chef Jeff Henderson works with Cincinnati State students on Sept. 24. He came to Cincinnati to meet with people from all over the state who work to help inmates enter society after their sentences.
Behind bars, he earned his high school diploma and dozens of certifications. He became head inmate cook and head inmate baker.
Henderson said when he was growing up, he and so many others never saw education work. He parents didn’t benefit from it, and neither did generations before that.
“When you grow up in poverty, and you see your mother struggle, your father’s not in the home, food needs to be put on the table, it just does something to young males, especially young Black males,” he said.
But no one was born a criminal or born a drug addict, he said.
“My addiction was the American Dream,” Henderson said. “These young folks and adults in the prison system have so much potential, but they never had the opportunity … to discover their greatest gifts.”
Now through his Chef Jeff Project and his Academy Behind Bars, Henderson travels across the country and works to help people find their skills and the passion.
“You’ve got two choices: You’ve got freedom or you have this world inside the prison,” Henderson said. “Freedom to me means being able to open a refrigerator and have choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner; going to the beach, playing with your children.”
With 30 years on the outside, he said he wants to continuing serving as living proof that people can change when given a second chance. They can achieve their dreams even after a prison sentence.
He said next to mental health support, vocational training is the most important thing for incarcerated people.
Hamilton County Office of Reentry disrupts cycle on incarceration
Trina Jackson is the director of the Hamilton County Office of Reentry. Formed in 2011 to disrupt the cycle on incarceration, her office has seven people on staff. They serve 500 new clients each year, and make about 1,400 client engagements each year.
“There are so many barriers that individuals with convictions face. They need the right support, they need familial connections, and they need a livable wage.”
Jackson said her office is one of the biggest of it’s kind among Ohio’s 88 counties. They help with obtaining IDs, getting jobs or even managing their child support.
She said Henderson’s work goes hand-in-hand with what she does, which is really a focus on prevention.
“His story is so inspirational,” Jackson said. “People need access to resources so that they can take care of themselves and their family and feel successful and contribute back to their community.”
having at least one parent incarcerated during their lifetime. In
Pennsylvania, about 62,000 people are currently in custody, and nearly
80,000 children in the Commonwealth have a parent who is incarcerated.
“We hear from more than 100 family members on a weekly basis,” says Kirstin
Cornnell, Family and Community Support Director for the
Pennsylvania Prison Society. According to Cornnell, “Family members often have questions or concerns
about loved ones in prison, and that’s where the Society comes in. Some want
to learn how their loved ones can access health care. Others call to report
allegations of abuse, neglect, or unsafe conditions such as lack of heat or
running water. The Society advocates for these families. They follow up and
physically check on loved ones by tapping into a network of more than 300
volunteers across the state.”
The Impact of Incarceration on Mental Health
Families can experience significant stress when a loved one is in prison.
The Society offers advice on everything from making ends meet in the absence
of a family member’s income to supporting children affected by a loved one’s
incarceration.
“A lot of the anxiety is dealing with the lack of control,” Cornnell says.
“The windows for when you can talk to or visit a loved one when they are
incarcerated are limited. You can’t talk to them when you want to. That’s a
big adjustment. The other piece is fear and worry for the loved one’s
safety. There’s a limited amount we can do about the conditions, but we can
give the family a safe space to talk.”
There is also a great need for additional family support. “We’re trying to
fill that space by launching support groups,” says Cornnell. “You can’t do
it alone. Due to the scale of mass incarceration, if you haven’t had a loved
one incarcerated, you likely know somebody who knows somebody who has been
involved in the system. Talking to people in a similar circumstance goes a
long way.”
To reduce the family’s anxiety, the Society staff explain the processes for
things like visitation and sending mail. They also teach family members how
to become advocates for their loved ones. In addition, they help family
members set up electronic accounts to arrange visitation, which is critical
for everyone’s mental health.
Family Visits are Important
“We try to encourage people to take advantage of visits as much as possible,
whether in person or on video,” Cornnell says. The more you can keep in
touch, the better. Research shows that people in prison who receive frequent
visitors are
less likely to return to prison. They are also more likely to have relationships they can rely on when they
are released.
And although some adults hesitate to bring children to a prison, research
shows that in-person visits are important for children affected by
incarceration. But children need to be
prepared for what to expect
during a visit.
“It’s important to remind loved ones that they’re still part of the family,”
Cornnell says. “Physical separation can’t break the bonds of love. We’re all
more than the worst thing we’ve done, and family is there for you.”
Resources for Families
If you have a loved one who is incarcerated, the following resources may be
helpful:
Inside Halden Fengsel, a high-security prison in Norway, inmates choose their own clothing. Knockoff track suits from designer brands such as Karl Lagerfeld are favored.
They buy fresh produce from their well-stocked grocery store and chop onions with knives from their shared kitchens.
They play in bands and walk in the woods and pray in a graceful holy room where clerestory windows beam sunlight down onto slate floors and a compass shows the direction of Mecca.
But what surprised California corrections officer Steve “Bull” Durham most on a recent visit to Halden wasn’t the prisoners but the guards — how relaxed and happy his Norwegian counterparts were, and how casually they interacted with the inmates.
Members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. visited prisons in Norway in September to better understand the Scandinavian model of incarceration.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
“I am blown away by it,” he said.
Durham has been a California corrections officer for 25 years, much of it in the remote reaches of Tehachapi, east of Bakersfield. He looks like the kind of guy you’d nickname Bull. Big and bald, he leans forward when he walks, like he’s battling the wind, or the world.
I met him on the sidewalk in front of the elegant Grand Hotel in Oslo, just down the street from the stately Royal Palace of King Harald V.
Durham was one of about a dozen members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., or CCPOA, the union that represents the women and men who work in our prisons, who let me tag along with them to Norway recently.
They were there to see firsthand what all the hype is when it comes to the so-called Scandinavian model of incarceration, which California hopes to import in coming months.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is in the process of converting San Quentin into an institution — via the “Scandinavian method”— that is focused on rehabilitation, not punishment.
Tiny, rich, predominantly white and with a population roughly half that of Los Angeles County, Norway doesn’t seem like a good model for anything in California. But Newsom isn’t trying to replicate what Norway does, just adapt the basic premise to create a shift in how and why we incarcerate.
The Scandinavian method acknowledges that people rarely go to prison for life. Instead, it focuses on the reality that most people who go into prison are going to come outagain, and it’s safer for all of us if they have a plan and the skills for a future that doesn’t include more crime. That credo demands that prison is made to be more humane, and more normalized, turning the guards into at least part-time social workers.
“It’s radical,” Durham said, but he’s all for it.
An inmate at Halden prison in Norway visits the facility’s library, where books and DVDs are available to borrow.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
The CCPOA has long supported Newsom. But it is also one of the toughest and most powerful unions in the state and is not known for soft-on-crime stances. So it may surprise some that the union supports the Scandinavian model, even as fentanyl, homelessness and a misguided fear of rising crime have combined to swing the political pendulum back toward more incarceration.
Durham, a CCPOA vice president, said corrections officers in California are literally sick and tired from being cogs in a machine that doesn’t work — for society, for those incarcerated or for guards who want a career that doesn’t kill them.
“We are tired of seeing our partners in a casket,” Durham said. “The stuff that we see is not good.”
Being a U.S. corrections officer is not a great gig, union benefits aside. It comes with levels of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that far outpace other professions, even in law enforcement.
Corrections officers are quick to tell any listener that the psychological stress and constant threat of violence eat at their health, leaving them vulnerable to ailments including heart attacks, ulcers and fallen arches. They drink too much, get divorced often and die by suicide at a rate 39% higher than the rest of the working-age population, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. Their life expectancy is more than 15 years below the national average.
Many people assume they are all abusive brutes, in dead-end jobs.
“It comes down to the mental health and well-being of our staff,” Durham said. “We have to try to change.”
Helge Valseth, center, the governor of Halden prison (comparable to a U.S. warden) leads a group of U.S. visitors through the facility, which houses about 250 inmates convicted of serious offenses including drug crimes and murder.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
Durham shared those depressing statistics as we rode in a bus to Halden, about two hours outside of Oslo, on an overcast day in September. The drive there took us through picturesque fields where cattle milled around sturdy barns, then up into hills covered in spruce and pine. It felt like traversing the back roads of Napa to Tahoe — all classy ruralism.
Nothing about our arrival at Halden dispelled that, no armed guard towers or razor wire. The only clue this was a prison was the nearly milelong wall that surrounds it, 20 feet high and curving at the top with an elegance that Scandinavians seem able to put into everything they build, regardless of purpose. It was, as a certain former president might describe it, a big, beautiful wall.
“Jeez, look at that wall,” one of the officers exclaimed as we stepped off the bus.
Critics deride Halden as a luxury prison that coddles, but it is the star of the Norwegian system, opened in 2010 with a design and a mantra: Prison should not be defined by the agony of discomfort and fear. The punishment for those incarcerated at Halden is being removed from family and friends — being behind the wall. Not the experience inside it.
Before Norway embraced this new model of incarceration in the 1990s, its prisons looked much like ours do today and recidivism rates were stubbornly high, hovering near 70% for some crimes. Now, though not as low as many had hoped, those rates have fallen to about 20% of people re-offending within five years of release — one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
Helge Valseth, left, the governor of Halden prison, shows off the prison grocery store to visiting California correctional officers. The inmates at Halden largely live in dorm-like apartments with a shared kitchen where they cook meals.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
The prison population in Norway is vastly smaller than ours — Halden holds about 250 men, fewer than your average county jail — but there are similarities with the U.S., starting with racial diversity. Forty percent of prisoners in Norway are not citizens by birth — they come from more than 25 countries, many of them migrants from places including Sudan and Pakistan.
Gangs, said Helge Valseth, the governor of Halden (our version of a warden), are a big problem, inside of prisons and out.
What is different at Halden isn’t the prisoners but the guards, Valseth said.
People incarcerated in Norway wear their own clothes and have more freedoms than in U.S. prisons.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
In Norway, corrections is a profession that has pathways into other branches of law enforcement. Officers start off in a two-year college program, paid as they go, and must continue their education, Valseth said. The Norwegian guards union has a partnership with management that allows officers to have a say in how a facility is run, who is hired and what the policies are.
In all, said Tor Erik Larsen, a leader of the Union of Norwegian Correctional Services Employees, it’s a good job — one that comes with respect and provides work that feels meaningful. Under the Scandinavian system, expectations of and from corrections officers extend far beyond maintaining control.
“I need to know what makes a man tick,” Larsen said. “And he needs to know what makes me tick.”
That philosophy is called dynamic security. In the United States, we use static security: lockdowns, body armor, mace. Rehabilitation is largely left up to inmates to figure out on their own through a hodgepodge of programs — some good, some questionable.
The Norwegians depend on relationships to maintain control and highly trained corrections officers to be deeply involved in rehabilitation.
An inmate at Halden prison uses a knife while working in a shop. In Norway, incarcerated people are governed by “dynamic security,” which relies on relationships with guards to maintain order and safety.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
Therapy, job skills, addiction treatment — corrections officers in Norway are responsible for facilitating all of it, and for building the trust and mutual respect needed for inmates to feel like someone is on their side when it comes to changing, no matter what crime they committed.
Durham knows there will be many California officers who are not just skeptical, but downright hostile to that idea — he’s cognizant that it sounds like telling officers, “Hey, from now on you have to hug every inmate on your unit.”
But Durham believes the current system leaves inmates without enough autonomy to learn how to be different. Everything is done for them or to them. He uses the grocery store inside Halden as an example. In the U.S., meals come and go on a tray, no effort required. In Norway, many facilities only provide one pre-made meal a day. Prisoners are encouraged to buy groceries, make food for themselves, share meals with officers and fellow inmates and clean up afterward.
U.S. prisons “are not teaching [inmates] any life lessons,” Durham said. In Norway, “they give them the ability to function in life.”
The same goes for officers, Durham said. Right now, U.S. corrections officers have few opportunities to interact with inmates other than keeping order and imposing discipline in part because rules often forbid getting too close. U.S. officers, Durham said, have to be trusted to act as mentors — like their Norwegian counterparts.
It’s that mutual respect that makes the Scandinavian model work. And it does work. Violence is rare at Halden.
I met an inmate named Roger (I am not using his last name for privacy reasons) in a prison auto shop. Roger was incarcerated for sexually abusing his daughter, he said.
A round-faced, bespectacled man, he was changing the oil on an Audi — largely unsupervised by officers — surrounded by tools that in the United States would be considered weapons: a hefty hammer, socket wrenches, saws, a drill. In the next room, other inmates were using power tools to cut wood.
An inmate at Halden prison works in an auto shop, largely unsupervised by correctional officers.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
As a child molester, Roger is the type of prisoner who typically would not be safe in a U.S. prison — always under threat of attack from other inmates and often looked down on by officers.
He’s the kind of guy that most of us have a hard time feeling empathy for. But one day in the not too distant future, Roger is getting out — as are most people who go to prison in the U.S.
At Halden, Roger said, he is learning“how to not think about my child like an abuser” would.
Norway, like much of Scandinavia, has a reputation for allowing the common good to frequently outweigh individual desires and demands. That philosophy presumably makes it easier to create a system that helps someone like Roger.
But U.S. culture prizes vengeance. How many times has some variation of “I hope you rot in prison” been uttered with righteousness in film and television?
Our culture wants wrongdoers to suffer, even at the expense of public safety. But as uncomfortable as it is to hear Roger talk about the help he is receiving, isn’t that what we should want? For criminals to stop seeing the rest of us as prey?
“It’s been a real good program,” Roger said. “I am starting on the ground floor and building up.”
Down a hallway I met David, who was from Lithuania and serving time for selling drugs. The lack of fear, of guards and other inmates, he said, took away much of the stress of being in prison. It allowed him the space to think about his future.
A cell inside Halden prison includes a window and a private bathroom. Though the door locks, the Norwegian model of incarceration seeks to normalize life inside prisons so that inmates can focus on rehabilitation.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
“I don’t need to be afraid that something will happen,” he said. “I don’t think I will come out a worse person. I feel I could come out better.”
Tiffanie Thomas, a San Quentin corrections officer who was on the tour, told me bringing this system to California “seems realistic.”
As a female officer who is often alone and outnumbered at San Quentin, she has long depended on relationships with inmates for her safety and theirs.
“We do a lot of this already,” Thomas said. “We just didn’t have the words to put to it.”
But, she added, relationships take time. If the state brings the Scandinavian model to California, it is going to require something that will, even if they support the model, make both prison officials and reformers unhappy:
More corrections officers.
A correctional officer checks out the ice cream freezer in the grocery store at Halden prison. The inmates are able to purchase their own groceries, including ice cream.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
Right now, there are too few officers on duty to spend any meaningful time with their charges. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has 21,220 correctional officers and a statewide prison population of 93,649 — though that is expected to drop by nearly 10,000 in coming years. At San Quentin, there are 833 rank-and-file corrections officers and 3,504 incarcerated people, according to CDCR.
Often, there are two officers assigned to more than 120 inmates, Durham said, and that can jump to 160 depending on the facility and the time of day.
Thomas said she has been in charge of up to 200 inmates at once. In Norway, each guard is responsible for a few dozen inmates at most — a number that has increased because of budget cuts, much to the consternation of both guards and management.
But to the officers I was traveling with, it was still unimaginably low.
Durham never dreamed of spending his life inside prisons. Who does?
A Central Valley kid, he joined the Navy to escape the expectation that he would follow his father into construction. At 18, he found himself married, with a son and getting ready to deploy. But his wife at the time was diagnosed with a mental illness — bipolar disorder, he said — in an era when such things were barely understood, much less talked about.
One day, she took too many muscle relaxers. While he was trying to help her, his baby son, crawling around their waterbed, swallowed a penny. Durham scooped everyone up and made it to the hospital, but it was a breaking point.
California correctional officers visit Halden prison. Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to turn San Quentin prison into a model facility using Scandinavian principles.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
He left the military and moved back home and soon found himself a single father. He needed help and stability and a job in a place without many options. So he became a prison guard.
No regrets, he said. But “if it was me, alone, I probably wouldn’t do it. But I had to support him.”
The job has taken its toll. His first week, he witnessed a stabbing. His old-school partner barely said a word about it, he said. But then, that partner rarely said anything useful at all. He was left to figure out a foreign and brutal world largely on his own.
Over the years, there has been an endless flow of trauma. The first time Durham had to help lower a hanged man, he remembers the legs in his face, and being grateful for the strength to hold the man up, even though it was too late. More than 20 years later, he remembers that inmate’s name. Beale.
An inmate sits at a table at Halden prison.
(Javad Parsa / For The Times)
He knows there are “bad apples” in the profession and there are certainly too many instances of officers committing crimes and abusing their power. He’s also heard the criticism that it doesn’t matter if corrections officers like their job or not, because unlike inmates, they can leave whenever they want.
Even as we rightfully shrink our prison population and rethink policies that turned incarceration into an industry, the reality remains that prisons will continue to exist because society does demand accountability for committing crimes.
The Scandinavian model doesn’t promise to end crime or fix society’s problems. But it has answered an obvious if ignored question: If guards have no hope, how can prisoners?
Walking out of Halden down a gravel path at the edge of the forest, Durham told me it was “weird” to see corrections officers smiling and laughing at work. The visit gave him hope, though he knows that as it did in Norway, change will take decades in California.
Rain started to fall and the air took on the vibrant scent of moisture hitting earth.
Ahead of us, a man with a scooter walked with a man pushing a wheelchair, oblivious to our approach. I couldn’t tell if either or neither were inmates, but it didn’t seem to matter, to us or them.
For the first time, maybe in his life, Durham was relaxed inside a prison wall.
Inmates walk down a path. The natural setting of Halden prison, located outside of Oslo, is part of its rehabilitative ethos.
A federal judge ordered Louisiana officials to remove incarcerated children from a former death row unit in the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary by Sept. 15.
Chief District Judge Shelly Dick’s Friday ruling followed a seven-day hearing as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by teens in the custody of Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice. Dick found that the conditions of confinement at the prison — a former slave plantation better known as Angola — amount to cruel and unusual punishment and violate the 14th Amendment, as well as a federal law protecting children with disabilities.
“For almost 10 months, children — nearly all Black boys — have been held in abusive conditions of confinement at the former death row of Angola – the nation’s largest adult maximum security prison,” lead counsel David Utter said in a statement. “We are grateful to our clients and their families for their bravery in speaking out and standing up against this cruelty.”
Of the estimated 70 to 80 children who have been incarcerated at the Angola unit, known as Bridge City Center for Youth at West Feliciana or BCCY-WF, the overwhelming majority are Black. The state had previously assured the judge that conditions at BCCY-WF would be comparable to other juvenile facilities in the state, only in a more secure building. However, the children imprisoned at Angola report spending days in solitary confinement in windowless cells, losing access to education and disability accommodations, having limited phone calls and visits with their families, and being physically abused by guards.
During a hearing last month, Henry Patterson IV, a guard at BCCY-WF, admitted that the kids are kept in “cell restriction” for as long as five or six days. Cell restriction is used at intake, as well as to punish everything from assault to throwing food, graffiti, and destroying clothing, according to evidence presented at the hearing. State law prohibits keeping juveniles in solitary confinement for more than eight hours.
The hearing also exposed a shocking incident in which a guard pepper-sprayed a teen who was locked in his cell and left the boy there for about 14 minutes before removing him from the toxic gas. Guard supervisor Daja McKinley testified that the boy had thrown liquid from his toilet at a guard, who responded by unloading pepper spray into the cell.
In July 2022, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards announced a plan to move about 25 kids from OJJ facilities into a building that, until 2006, had imprisoned men on the state’s death row. The governor cited several recent escapes from juvenile facilities as evidence of the need for a more secure facility. Officials claimed that children would only be at Angola temporarily until renovations on a juvenile facility were complete and that they would retain access to rehabilitative and educational services.
Death row signage was removed from the unit shortly before kids started arriving last year.
The proposed transfers faced immediate backlash. Elizabeth Ryan, administrator for the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, warned OJJ leadership on July 25, 2022, that “the state will potentially be in danger of violating federal laws” and “could potentially face costly litigation.”
Unlike the adult prison system, the juvenile justice system’s explicit purpose is rehabilitation rather than punishment. Juvenile delinquency adjudications are civil findings, not criminal. According to OJJ, youth in their secure custody facilities are housed in dormitories or housing units rather than cells, with an emphasis on treatment and family involvement.
“Every single one of these young people will be released by their 21st birthday at the very latest, and it is Louisiana’s job to ensure that, by that time, they have been educated, treated, and supported in a way that enables them to live healthy lives without posing a risk to the community,” a group of current and former youth correctional administrators wrote in a letter to the governor last year. “Sending them to Angola will do the opposite.”
“Angola is perhaps the most infamous prison in the country, and exists in our national conscience as a quintessential harsh, merciless, and dangerous place for adults who may never be free again,” the group of youth correctional administrators continued. “This lore is not lost on the children that Louisiana is now planning to send there. The stigma and trauma of a move to Angola would be devastating for the mental health and future prospects of these young people and, consequently, the safety of the citizens of Louisiana when these young people return to their communities.”
The Louisiana State Penitentiary, the state’s only maximum-security prison, sits on 18,000 acres of farmland that used to be a plantation called Angola. When the plantation became a prison, the prisoners, rather than the slaves, tended to the fields. Most of the state’s prisoners who are facing life sentences — who are disproportionately Black — are incarcerated at Angola, where jobs include working the fields for pennies an hour.
Weeks after Ryan’s warning, a group of children in OJJ custody sued Edwards and other state officials and asked Judge Dick to block the transfers from proceeding. The children are represented by the ACLU, the Claiborne Firm and Fair Fight Initiative, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the lawyers Chris Murell and David Shanies.
“I am terrified of being moved to Angola,” a 17-year-old plaintiff identified by the alias Alex A. wrote in a declaration last year. “Ever since I learned we were going to be moved, my sleeping troubles have gotten worse. I would lay awake at night and start pulling on my hair until it came out.”
Alex A., who has a disability, expressed fears that he would lose access to schooling, counseling and calls with his mom — “the part of the day I look forward to the most,” he wrote.
Last September, Dick allowed the transfers to proceed while the underlying case moved forward. She acknowledged that being in Angola would “likely cause psychological trauma and harm” to the children but expressed confidence in OJJ’s assurances that the facility at Angola would be comparable to other juvenile facilities.
“Plaintiff’s argument that special education services and mental health services will be unavailable or deficient at [Angola] went unproven,” Dick wrote ahead of the transfers.
“I am close to getting my HISET (high school diploma) – and it makes me sad I can’t earn it. They keep promising that they’ll give me education, but don’t.”
– a plaintiff identified by the alias Charles C.
The first group of youth were transferred to Angola in October 2022. Their experiences were everything they feared.
“This is much worse than the other facilities,” a 15-year-old plaintiff identified by the alias Daniel D. wrote in a declaration filed in January.
Daniel D. reported seeing mold in the tap of the sink his drinking water came out of and losing power when it rained. His substance abuse counseling ceased when he got to Angola, he wrote, and he was typically locked in his cell alone overnight from 5 p.m. until 6:45 a.m. Sometimes the children would be locked in their cells for days at a time, allowed out only to shower.
The United Nations’ Mandela Rules, outlining the “standard minimum” of humane treatment for prisoners, state that solitary confinement, defined as isolated confinement for 22 hours or more a day, should only be used “as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review.”
Although the children at Angola are in OJJ custody, guards from Louisiana’s Department of Corrections work at the facility, too. “When DOC guards arrive, all OJJ staff say the situation is out of their hands and whatever DOC says goes,” Daniel D. wrote.
One time, Daniel D. wrote, staff — it’s unclear whether OJJ or DOC — allegedly maced a group of kids after one boy struck a guard. Staff put the boy on the ground and punched him while he was being maced, Daniel D. wrote.
In June, during his third stint at Angola, Daniel D. wrote that there was no air conditioner on his block and that when the power went out, they couldn’t even use fans. That month, temperatures reached 99 degrees at Angola.
A 16-year-old plaintiff identified as Frank F. described in a declaration how he was left alone in his cell from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m each day, losing his disability accommodation, losing group therapy, having inconsistent access to hot water, limited access to the phone to call his family and not being allowed outside for recreation on the weekends.
“This is the worst OJJ facility I have been in,” he wrote.
Several of the plaintiffs reported having one teacher for all of the kids and no library. “The last time I was provided access to ‘school’ — a computer, no teacher — was last Tuesday,” a plaintiff identified as Charles C. wrote the following Tuesday, on July 11. “I am close to getting my HISET (high school diploma) ― and it makes me sad I can’t earn it. They keep promising that they’ll give me education, but don’t.”
In that same declaration, Charles C. alleged frequent abuse by staff. The previous week, he wrote, a staff member threw him against a wall, causing the skin on his back to break, possibly from glass. The next day, staff maced a youth in the neighboring cell while the child was handcuffed and shackled, Charles C. wrote. The mace spread into Charles C.’s cell, burning his open wound.
Despite the state’s claims that the Angola facility was not intended to be punitive, several kids said staff threatened to send them to Angola if they misbehaved.
In response to a detailed list of questions, OJJ spokesperson Nicolette Gordon described “a spread of misinformation” and referred HuffPost to an FAQ published on its website. In the FAQ, OJJ claims that the juvenile facility at Angola is fully air-conditioned, that youth have access to “clean and safe drinking water” and that they are “never placed in solitary confinement.”
The FAQ also notes that “there are windows along the full length of each wing where youths’ rooms are located.” Asked if the actual cells are windowless, as the plaintiffs allege, Gordon did not respond.
Pressed about the plaintiffs’ allegations of physical abuse, Gordon said that OJJ does not comment on specific allegations related to pending litigation.
In July, the group of teens in OJJ custody filed a motion asking the court to order the state to remove the kids from Angola.
“The state’s treatment of kids in Angola has been a series of broken promises,” Utter said at the time.
“The state promised the Angola facility would close in the spring. The state promised the kids wouldn’t be held in solitary. The state promised the kids would receive their education and treatment,” Utter said. “None of this has come to pass.”
When my husband began his incarceration in May 1996 for embezzling nearly 2 million dollars, I made the effort each Saturday to bring our three daughters to visit their father in the Connecticut state prison where he was serving six years for defrauding law clients.
These were our last months in our ranch home on Hilltop Road, and I commended myself for generously orchestrating the visits. I understood it was important for my then-16-year-old, 12-year-old and 8-year-old to see their dad, to confirm he was safe and be able to continue a loving relationship with him. But as benevolent as I was, I cursed his very existence through my teeth each time I pushed our rusted, 90-pound mower uphill over the rutted lawn.
I remember one summer day when we visited him. I parked in the visitor’s lot, and as we approached the entrance to Cybulski, I made note of the 12-foot fencing topped with rolled barbed wire that surrounded the institution. It served as an unmistakable reminder that we were on the outside and he, like all prisoners, was trapped on the inside.
After we entered the dimly lit waiting room, I approached the guard’s station while the girls sat on steel benches bolted to the walls. Though it was nearly 90 degrees in the blistering sun, the waiting room felt like a meat locker.
I raised my voice to be heard through the speaker implanted in the glass barrier. “We are here to see prisoner 147942.” Names are too personal for prison life. I had memorized David’s number now that he’d forfeited his right to a name. The guard examined his list to find our prisoner’s request for Saturday visitation. He looked up and leaned into the mic. “I need to see some identification.”
“I felt like I had been convicted, too. But what was my crime?”
I fumbled through my purse, searching for my wallet, and then slid my driver’s license under the plexiglass divider. After comparing my identification with the information he had on file, the officer raised his head and surveyed my face to verify I was who I claimed to be. I was who I appeared to be based on my license photo: green eyes, brown hair, 5’3”. Beyond that, it was anyone’s guess. My identity as a housewife married to a lawyer and a woman who played tennis, hosted playgroups and volunteered with the PTA was gone. I wasn’t certain yet who would be occupying her place.
“Have a seat,” the guard said as he gestured toward the bench. “You’ll be called soon.” I felt like I had been convicted, too. But what was my crime?
I could confess to the crime of making bad choices and ignoring what I didn’t want to see. I was also guilty of fashioning my life into a competition, participating in a materialistic quest for a beautiful home, vacations at Disney and dinners at expensive restaurants. But my greatest crime was depending on my husband to take care of me, rather than taking responsibility for myself. I was willing to admit those things.
I also sensed the guard saw us as nothing more than lowlives he had to deal with. I was married to a number, and that made me no more than that number plus one. I was simply part of a system. When one family member goes to prison, the entire family goes with him.
After staring at inspirational wall posters like “Hang in There” or “Walk the Talk,” it was time. We were escorted, single file, into a visiting room that looked like an elementary school cafeteria with oversized images of Road Runner and Sylvester painted by the prisoners onto white cinderblock walls. The cartoons were likely intended to evoke comfort for children visiting their fathers, but I saw them as absurd reminders of the path I’d traveled that brought me to this surreal place.
The author poses with her three daughters at Disney circa 1991.
David had been calling collect from prison every day. These calls were expensive, and we couldn’t afford them. I told him to call less. He said he’d get his sister to pay for the calls because they sustained him. He accused me of being cold and insensitive, but I was trying to save money. His sister didn’t send me a check for the calls, but after several months, he slowed them down to once or twice a week.
Families that were more experienced with visitation rushed to occupy tables placed 10 feet from one another. There were a few picnic tables positioned outside on a yellowed patch of dry grass, but it was hot in the sun without trees to provide shade. We decided on an inside corner table large enough to accommodate our family of five and tucked away to give us some privacy, which of course, is actually not permitted in prison.
Fifteen minutes passed before the doors opened. I wondered what was delaying the men’s entrance. It was always possible there had been a skirmish that caused a lockdown and we’d suddenly need to leave.
Finally, the men who sought humanity in the presence of their families solemnly walked into the room. They wore identical bright orange jumpsuits, reinforcing the league to which they belonged.
My husband spotted us right away. As he approached, the girls jumped from their seats to hug their dad, and he smothered them with kisses. I watched from the sidelines. David acted cheery, but I saw nervousness in his tight smile, and his eyes looked beyond us, fearful a brawl might erupt at another table. Armed guards stood strategically along the perimeter of the room for just that reason. He pulled a chair from the table and faced us.
“Hey, how are my booty boos doing?” He used a term of affection he had invented for our girls when they were babies.
My 12-year-old was quick to fill him in on the details of her summer camp experience. “Jessica Fishman is in my group. Remember Jessica from soccer?” She tried to keep the mood upbeat, desperate to normalize an abnormal situation.
“I do. She was fast. I’m happy you have a friend at camp, sweetie. How do you like camp, Ana?” He turned his attention to our youngest, who was studying Tweety Bird. She told him camp was OK but didn’t tell him that she’d shown up at the nurse’s office several times a day complaining of stomach aches and headaches.
Our teenage daughter watched us interact as if we were strangers. She had begun tuning us out long before Dave was incarcerated. Prison strengthened her inclination to ignore us.
“Lynn knows someone at an insurance company,” I offered. “It looks like I might be able to get a temp job at the end of the summer.” The uncertainty of employment weighed heavily on my mind. “And, I applied for housing at the affordable housing project. We should be hearing soon about whether we’ll be able to move there.”
The project was a development built on land deeded to our town nearly 100 years earlier to support the town’s poor population. That was now us.
“That’s great. How’s Jake?”
Dave reacted as if my employment was a low priority rather than a life source. He switched the subject to our dog, his loyal companion, because there was no point in worrying about my job search when he could do nothing about it. He was developing an understanding of what was within his control and what was not.
“He’s sleeping on the floor by your side of the bed, and I’ve seen him pacing in front of the door,” I told him. “I think he’s waiting for you to come home.”
“Tell him I’ll be home soon and we’ll go for long walks. When I come home, he can have all the chew bones he wants.”
I nodded as if I’d convey the message. That was not going to happen.
The author at the school where she taught in 2018.
David talked about helping other people convicted of crimes with their cases, and the computer class he was taking. He was enthusiastic about the projects he had going on behind bars.
Everything was almost as it always has been. He talked about his clients, who also happened to be fellow incarcerated individuals. They asked for his advice about their cases and treated him with respect. He wasn’t in danger (at least, as far as he admitted to us) but enjoyed a revered status among his peers in prison.
With us, he shared his vision for a bright and sunny future where we would once again take vacations to visit his sister in the Hamptons, spend a week at Disney, and another at the dude ranch — yes, we vacationed at an upstate New York dude ranch where we participated in rodeos and danced the Texas two-step. He reminded the children — which was, in truth, a reminder for himself — that once he had been a free man, indulgently enjoying his life. When this little glitch (prison) was taken care of, he’d resume the life he’d led before. The next time it would be even better because he would be free of addiction.
However David might have liked fantasizing about his future, that summer day was not like those of our past. He was in prison, and we lived on the outside.
I tried to parse what he was saying for our benefit versus what he truly believed. Did he really think that when his prison sentence ended he’d slip into his former life like a pair of comfortable jeans left draped across a chair for a few days?
There could never be a return to the life we once knew.
The life we had lived on Hilltop Road was ripe with entitlement. I believed that life was part of some master plan established for me that included marriage, children and a four-bedroom home surrounded by natural beauty, where we would never suffer from hunger or dislocation.
At the end of that summer, my daughters and I moved into affordable housing, where we remained for the next 14 years. I took that temp job because I didn’t have money to pay for my teacher recertification. I was able to pay my bills, and for the first time, file taxes. Rarely do people celebrate the day they pay taxes, but for me, it was a symbolic measure of my newly acquired independence.
My daughters struggled with depression, anxiety and shame, but were able to complete college degrees, law degrees and master’s degrees, finding fulfilling careers in legal aid, software engineering and music therapy. Their dad and I divorced. We both remarried, but remain on good terms. David returned to school and began a career in social work, counseling those who struggle with addiction. I returned to teaching and formally retired a year ago.
We are among the fortunate ones.
“Did he really think that when his prison sentence ended he’d slip into his former life like a pair of comfortable jeans left draped across a chair for a few days?”
Mass incarceration is a problem for America. Many innocent people serve long terms for crimes they didn’t commit, and others, because of mandatory minimum sentencing, are serving sentences that are often disproportionate.
My ex-husband wasn’t innocent — like many who are in prison. However, because of his incarceration, I learned more about the criminal justice system and prison than I would have ever thought, and I discovered its many flaws.
I learned that, in the U.S., Black people are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly five times the rate of white people, according to The Sentencing Project. I learned that more than the average individual, incarcerated individuals in state institutions suffer from mental illnesses that would be best served in a different setting. The American Psychological Association reports that “64 percent of jail inmates, 54 percent of state prisoners, and 45 percent of federal prisoners” have reported mental health concerns.
I learned that the children of incarcerated individuals are vulnerable to emotional and social consequences that can have long-term impacts, contributing to the cycle of crime and punishment. According to a 2007 report for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “The arrest and removal of a mother or father from a child’s life forces that child to confront emotional, social and economic consequences that may trigger behavior problems, poor outcomes in school.”
Though I am obviously not a fan of prison, in my particular case, my husband’s incarceration helped me grow. It made me confront my own life in ways I wouldn’t have if my husband had not served time. I can’t state with any certainty whether that growth would have happened otherwise, but I do know moving from our home to a diverse community, experiencing job insecurity, living on a limited income, and visiting prison enlarged my perspective as I considered my place in society and my privilege.
This is perhaps a key distinction. Most white middle-class or upper-middle-class people have little exposure to the experiences of those who wind up in prison for any number of reasons — or how the system damages those who enter it, including family members. Now I know.
I can’t say how my life would have turned out if David had never gone to prison. What I do know is that, once, I lived a sheltered life with little thought to how much of the world truly worked. This experience changed me. I transitioned from entitled dependency to enlightened responsibility, and though I would never wish what my children and I experienced on anyone, I can say I am grateful to be where I am today with the knowledge I have.
I hope to use my understanding to make things better for others.
Note: The names and some identifying details of the individuals who appear in this essay have been changed to protect their privacy.
Wendy Swift is a recently retired creative writing teacher who was awarded Memoir Magazine’s 2022 Memoir Prize for Books. Her unpublished manuscript, “A DREAM LIFE,” won in the category of Transformation of Self. Other awards include the 2022 Honorable Mention from the Connecticut Press Club for her essay “The Sentencing” and the 2006 Press Club of Long Island Award for her narrative essay “Ritter’s Pond,” published in Long Island Woman. Essays based on “A DREAM LIFE” have appeared in various literary magazines, including Grub Street Literary Magazine, Barely South Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Avalon Literary Magazine and Memoir Magazine. She currently reads fiction submissions for Mud Season Review and writes narratives for the American Red Cross’s blog and grantors. Swift lives with her husband in Farmington, Connecticut. Visit https://www.wendyswift.com/ for more info.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch.
Gift Will Expand Technology Training, Innovation and Research in the Justice System
OAKLAND, Calif., May 10, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– The Last Mile (TLM), an organization that prepares incarcerated individuals for successful reentry through education and technology training, announced today that Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin and Stand Together Foundation have provided $10 million to fund expansion efforts, educational programming, and research that aims to improve the justice system. Both Ken Griffin and Stand Together Foundation seek to break down barriers to upward mobility by investing in innovative non-profit organizations that provide communities with data-driven, scalable solutions.
“The Last Mile provides the skills and training that those serving time need to reintegrate into society,” said Griffin. “In partnering with Stand Together Foundation to support The Last Mile, it is my hope that these individuals are able to earn an honest living, contribute to their communities, and never again return to crime.”
This support will enable TLM to expand to reach a larger population of incarcerated people across the United States. As a result of this new funding, more than 800 new classroom seats will be created to provide incarcerated individuals and their families with technology training and support during and after incarceration.
“In addition to revolutionizing what’s possible for in-prison education programs, TLM is excited to generate rigorous evidence about the impact of in-prison training and reentry services,” said TLM Chief Programs Officer Sydney Heller. “With systemic problems across the justice system in the United States, it’s imperative that scalable solutions with proven efficacy are supported and expanded throughout the country, and we’re grateful to Ken Griffin and Stand Together Foundation for their critical support of our mission.”
Funding will also support the design and implementation of a randomized controlled trial to understand the causal impact of TLM programming on critical outcomes within and beyond the justice system post-release. The Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania will carry out the study under the direction of leading criminal justice researcher and Primary Investigator (PI) Anthony Braga, Jerry Lee Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, alongside co-PIs Aaron Chalfin, Ben Struhl, and Sarah Tahamont. This study aims to generate rigorous evidence on the efficacy of TLM programming and inform future efforts within both the organization itself and the broader justice system.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Ken Griffin on this important project. The Last Mile is empowering incarcerated individuals to find valuable ways to contribute when they rejoin society. It’s truly a win/win solution: The students benefit through greater opportunity for themselves and their families and society benefits through their contributions along with dramatically reduced recidivism and safer communities,” said Brian Hooks, chairman of the Stand Together Foundation. “They’re demonstrating that improvements to the criminal justice system and improvements to public safety go hand in hand.”
New York, NY, October 25, 2016 (Newswire.com)
– A new approach to reduce gun violence is getting results—and People Magazine has the story in a Special Edition with Ellen DeGeneres on newsstands now. Operation LIPSTICK (Ladies Involved in Putting a Stop to Inner-City Killing) stops women from straw purchasing guns for felons, juveniles, and other people who can’t buy guns legally. Straw purchasing by women is a major source (http://operationlipstick.org/operation-lipstick/) of guns used in homicides and other violent crimes in cities throughout the country.
Every day, women are exploited to move guns into the hands of drug dealers, convicted felons, gang-involved youth, domestic abusers, and more. Men who cannot pass a criminal background check often turn to women to buy guns for them in what’s known as a “straw purchase.”
LIPSTICK reduced gun crimes by women 33%
Nancy Robinson, Executive Director
LIPSTICK keeps guns out of the wrong hands and youth out of the criminal justice system. LIPSTICK has been credited with a 33% reduction in gun crimes by women and girls in Boston.
The non-profit has chapters in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. The organization is now raising money through crowd funding to expand to more cities.
Straw purchasing cases involving women underscore the need for LIPSTICK in urban communities across the country:
Chicago
A Chicago man with a criminal record paid a female security guard $800 to buy four guns for him at local gun stores. (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-12/news/ct-met-guns-straw-purchasers-20130512_1_kenneth-lee-gun-violence-straw-purchasing) Research by Northwestern University shows that 15% of guns recovered from male gang members were first bought by women
Philadelphia
Last month, a press aide to Philadelphia’s District Attorney was investigated for straw buying an AK-47 for her boyfriend.(http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160923_DA_s_press_aide_under_investigation.html)
Harlem and Bronx
In the largest gun trafficking bust in New York City history, the trafficker used his girlfriend to smuggle and resell weapons. (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/largest-seizure-illegal-guns-announced-article-1.1430629)
Milwaukee
The handgun used to shoot a Milwaukee police officer was purchased by a woman from The Gander Mountain store.(http://www.wisn.com/article/man-who-shot-officer-had-accomplice-documents-say/6332517)
Minneapolis
The 23-year-old wife of convicted trafficker straw purchased six guns in five separate transactions at the same gun store. The guns were used in Minneapolis-area shootings.(http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/03/17/guns-straw-purchase-sentencing/)
Oakland
A woman bought 35 guns for crack dealer. Several of the guns were found at Oakland crime scenes. (http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2014/10/03/oakland-guns-illegally-purchased-in-oregon-turn-up-at-crime-scenes/)
Ft Myers, Florida
A woman was arrested for straw purchasing the gun used in a nightclub shooting that killed two youth. (http://www.news-press.com/story/news/crime/2016/07/29/more-victims-identified-club-blu-shooting/87727494/)
For more cases, visit LIPSTICK’s Women and Crime Guns database.
LIPSTICK transforms female straw purchasers into leaders, mentors and spokeswomen. They make presentations in beauty salons, community centers, schools, after-school programs, churches, and domestic violence and homeless shelters. They warn women not to be duped into buying, hiding or holding guns for partners and male friends and family members who can’t get guns legally.
“Nobody’s doing what LIPSTICK is doing,” said John Jay College professor of criminal justice David Kennedy. “Their combination of grassroots action and their focus on establishing a community moral imperative against gun trafficking is particularly original and timely. ”
Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley stated, “I’ve have been telling Hillary Clinton, Mayor DeBlasio, Mayor Walsh, and anyone else who will listen, LIPSTICK is the right fix.”
“I’m making a difference when someone who is misguided on what love is, who is willing to go to jail for someone else, makes a turnaround, “ said LIPSTICK Program Director Judy Rose.
LIPSTICK leaders who took part in the story include:
• Ruth Rollins, LIPSTICKS’ first Program Director whose 21-year old son Danny was found shot to death in 2007
• Rashandra Riley, former Ohio straw purchaser who testified before Congress (https://youtu.be/i5tYvzDuyqA ) and is now a mother with a Master’s degree. Ms. Riley is seeking to launch LIPSTICK in St. Louis
• Judy Rose, LIPSTICK Program Director, mother, nurse and community activist with a passion for educating and empowering women and young girls
• Shante Leathers, LIPSTICK Social Media and Outreach Director, a senior at Wheelock College earning her Bachelor’s Degree in social work
• Iesha Sekou—founder of Harlem’s Street Corner Resources and director of the New York LIPSTICK office
• Nancy Robinson, LIPSTICK Executive Director
• Ayanna Pressley, the first African American woman elected to Boston City Council and LIPSTICK board member
• David Kennedy, author of “Don’t Shoot,” director of National Network for Safe Communities at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice
About LIPSTICK
LIPSTICK is women helping women keep guns out of the wrong hands and create safe neighborhoods where children can grow up without the fear of gunfire.
