President Obama Promoting Criminal Justice Reform

This month we saw President Obama visit a prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, making him the first ever sitting president to visit a federal correctional facility. The effects of the recent initiatives made by both him and his administration to promote our nations need for criminal justice reform are already proving their indispensability for the roughly seven million Americans who are either currently incarcerated or on probation or parole. (htt)

For the first time in our Nation’s history, criminal justice reform, fairer sentencing, and a reduction in government spending on prisons and mass incarceration has become a bipartisan issue. In a recent USA today article, Republican House Speaker John Boehner backed prison reform legislation on the basis of U.S. expenses stating, “Some of these people are in there under what I would call flimsy reasons. And so I think it’s time we review this process.” (htt1)

 We live in a nation that thrives on the prison industrial complex, and because of that we are the leading country in mass incarceration at 25%. (htt3)

Our criminal justice system does very little for drug related offenders in regards to rehabilitation, recovery, and re-entry, and instead operates through outdated and largely ineffective policies and procedures that are reminiscent of Reagan era War on Drugs ideologies and misconceptions.

President Obama has proved in his recent initiatives that our response to nonviolent offenders should reflect a preventative and rehabilitative nature, instead of the punitive and borderline vindictive sentencing that this particular prison demographic has been facing for nearly four decades. Through signing the Fair Sentencing Act, to the Justice Departments “Smart on Crime” initiative, to commuting the extensive sentences of nearly four dozen non-violent offenders, a change is finally becoming evident.

At Time for Change Foundation we believe in the value of potential of the human being and that treatment, not punishment is the solution. We are people that have made mistakes in our past, and are thankful for second chances!

As prioritized by the President, “we’re just at the beginning of this process, and we need to make sure that we stay with it.” (htt4)

For many of us we are far from the beginning; we have poured out sweat, blood, and tears to get to where we are today playing tremendous roles in our justice system. And although we still have a long way to go, we will not give up or lose heart. We must stay active and aware of what is being done and continue our fight for fair, supportive, and rehabilitative policies and practices that promote healthy families and thriving communities. 

By: Abry Elmassian, Intern

Time for Change Foundation

Court Rules that Denial of Sentencing Relief to Juveniles is Unlawful

The 4th District Court of Appeal, in a stunning rebuke to San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, today ruled that Proposition 47’s sentencing reclassification provisions apply equally to children and adults.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis had sought to deprive juvenile offenders of the retroactive relief the initiative provides. Her office argued that juveniles are not eligible to have their past offenses reduced to misdemeanors, even though adults convicted of the same felonies may petition for such relief.

“Bonnie Dumanis, in her ongoing quest to mete out the harshest punishments to the most vulnerable San Diegans rather than pursue smart justice, disregarded the will of California voters and asked the Court to treat juveniles with misdemeanors as if they were felons,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, director of the ACLU of California’s Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Project. “Had her unsupported reading of the law been upheld, it would have given prosecutors across the state the authority to do what many would consider unthinkable – criminalize children more harshly than adults.”

Proposition 47, a measure which passed with nearly 60% of the vote in November 2014, ended felony sentencing for six petty crimes, including simple drug possession and petty theft, and created a resentencing process for those certain felonies to be retroactively reclassified as misdemeanors.

The ACLU argued that denying juveniles the resentencing relief provided to adults with identical offenses, and denying these juveniles similar relief to that provided to juveniles charged after the initiative went into effect, violates juveniles’ equal protection rights under the California and U.S. Constitution.

“Today’s ruling makes the future a little brighter for many young people in San Diego. The Court recognized that juveniles have the same rights as adults under Proposition 47 and may petition to have eligible felony adjudications reclassified as misdemeanors. Such relief opens up doors in education, employment, and the military, and will assist those facing any future criminal or immigration proceedings,” said Chessie Thacher, an attorney at Keker & Van Nest. “Keker & Van Nest is very pleased to have been involved in this outcome and hopes the Court’s well-reasoned decision sets the stage for consideration of this issue across the state.”

It would be absurd for adults to enjoy rehabilitation as misdemeanants while children are punished with felony records and all the collateral consequences. “Doing so would not only run contrary to the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system, but would be an abdication of a district attorney’s responsibility to seek justice,” said Dooley-Sammuli. “And the Court has now confirmed it is unlawful, something that our district attorney should have known.”

After Proposition 47 passed and went into effect, a juvenile, Alejandro N., and 75 other children petitioned the court to ask that their offenses be reclassified as misdemeanors, thus minimizing the myriad negative consequences of a having a felony on their records. California and San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative that included the expressly retroactive resentencing and reclassification provisions in order to achieve the broadest relief possible for nonviolent, non-serious offenders.

The children’s cases were joined by the superior court after District Attorney Dumanis opposed them, arguing that Prop 47 should be read to treat child offenders more harshly than adults.

This is now the law of the state of California.

Via: https://www.aclunc.org/news/court-rules-denial-sentencing-relief-juveniles-unlawful

UC raising minimum hourly wage to $15

The University of California will raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next three years for all employees, including part-time and contract workers.

Under a plan unveiled Wednesday at the university’s Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco, mandated hourly pay will increase to $13 this October, then by another dollar over each of the next two years, for any employee hired to work at least 20 hours per week. That will put the university well above the state of California, where the rate is set to rise to $10 per hour next year.

The policy comes amid the national “Fight for $15” campaign, led by labor unions, that has seen major cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles hike their minimum wage well above state and federal levels. On the same day, a wage board in New York recommended an increase to $15 for the state’s fast-food workers, who have been at the forefront of the movement.

Vice President Joe Biden was also in Los Angeles to campaign for raising the minimum wage. Earlier this week, Los Angeles County followed the city’s lead and agreed to boost its hourly rate to $15 by 2020.

UC President Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, said the raise was “the right thing to do for our workers and their families.”

“It’s the right thing to do to enhance the university’s leadership role,” she added, noting that UC is the first public university system in the country to set its minimum wage at $15.

The announcement came as regents considered a 3 percent raise for 21 senior administrators, including nine campus chancellors, which is expected to be approved Thursday.

UC estimates that the minimum wage change will affect about 3,200 hourly employees throughout the system, including custodial, food service and bookstore staff, lab assistants and student workers. The university employs more than 195,000 people throughout its 10 campuses, five medical centers and other locations.

By expanding the policy to include contractors, the impact will be felt even more broadly. New service contracts that the university enters into will include the minimum wage provision and other working-condition standards, addressing union complaints that some workers have been poorly treated by third-party companies.

“We wanted to plant the flag in the ground and say, ‘This is not acceptable,’ ” UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said.

Though she could not provide an exact figure, Klein said the number of contract workers who make less than $15 per hour is “many times larger” than the approximately 3,200 university employees.

Praise for the plan immediately rolled in from top Democratic politicians, including U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a member of the regents. Both thanked UC on Twitter.

“The #FightFor15 has reached @UofCalifornia and I’m very glad that workers will move up to $15 within three years,” Newsom tweeted, urging California State University to do the same.

But Assembly Republican Leader Kristen Olsen worried that students would end up footing the bill for the pay raise.

“It is concerning that UC would implement this proposal just after spending an entire year arguing they do not have the funds necessary to keep tuition flat and enroll more California students,” she said in a statement.

She also slammed UC for extending the policy to private contractors: “The University should be teaching engineering, not spending student dollars to practice social engineering by limiting who campuses can do businesses with.”

Klein said the majority of affected employees work in auxiliary services or self-supporting enterprises such as the UC medical centers, which would pay for the minimum wage increase themselves. She said it will add an estimated $14 million per year to UC’s approximately $12.6 billion payroll, though the university anticipates that contractors will pass on additional costs.

“The bulk of this is non-state funded,” she said. “It is not as though we are taking the money we assume we are getting from the state and giving it to minimum wage workers.”

Early reaction from employees was mixed.

AFSCME Local 3299, which represents about 23,000 custodians, cooks, gardeners and other workers, called the plan a “marginal step forward.”

“UC recognizes that there is a problem at the university about poverty wages – the fact that people are working at the university and not making enough to live on,” union President Kathryn Lybarger said. “Doing this doesn’t actually solve the problem.”

She said the university should hire all of its lowest-level employees so that they can earn a retirement and health benefits, rather than outsourcing many of them to temporary contracts that create a “permanent underclass” of workers.

One UC Irvine professor expressed concerns on Twitter that he would have to cut the number of student researchers in his lab if his grants did not cover the pay raise.

Lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would boost California’s minimum hourly rate to $13 by 2017. It passed the state Senate last month and is now working its way through the Assembly.


By: Alexei Koseff

Via: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article28291927.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article28291927.html#storylink=cpy

Omnitrans Agrees to Remove Potentially Explosive Gas Tanks from Westside Residential Neighborhood

Two 30,000 gallon tanks like the one above were moved into the residential neighborhood several years ago. 

Finally they will be moved them out!

At the July 8, 2015, Inland Valley Environmental Justice Task Force meeting, hosted by the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, Omnitrans’ CEO/ General Manager, Scott Graham, announced that the San Bernardino Transit Agency will remove the two 30,000 gallon tanks of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from its facility at 1700 West 5th Street in San Bernardino. The massive tanks of potentially explosive natural gas have long been a point of contention with the local residents who were concerned about the storage of natural gas in a residential neighborhood and next to an elementary school. Mr. Graham explained that over the next year they will convert the facility to utilize a pipeline, eliminating the need for the massive storage tanks. Estimates for completing the transition is June of 2015, Mr. Graham reported.

“We applaud, Omnitrans’ action to remove the tanks”, said Teresa Flores Lopez, longtime residents of the Westside and avid critic of the fueling operation. “We are very pleased that Omnitrans has finally listened and responded to our concerns.”

“While we acknowledge that the facility meets all its requirements, we remained concerned about the possibility of an accident” said Ericka Flores, community organizer for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and local resident. “ No one plans for an accident to happen but they still do. If a problem occurs with 60,000 gallons of natural gas, it should be in a place where there are few people, not in a residential area with a school across the street.”

Over the last year, natural gas has been gaining use as coal and other fuel use is reduced. As a result more and more reports of explosions and fires have taken place around the country. Residents were concerned that with the storage of such a large amount of gas in one place so close to homes and schools that an accident would result in destruction of homes and many injuries and death.

For nearly two decades the presence of natural gas tanks in the neighborhood has raised concerns. In 1998 residents started complaining about continuing leaks as indicated by the natural gas odors during fueling activities at the facility. Residents filed complaints to South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) under it’s odor nuisance rules each time they smelled the gas. To address those concerns Omnitrans replaced the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) tanks with two massive tanks containing 30,000 gallons each of LNG and removed the odorant, methylmercaptan, which is used to warn of any gas releases. Just this year there were two incidences near the facility, one that require evacuation of the employees at the facility. Residents were concerned when they were not notified and neither were staff at the Ramona Alessandro Elementary School. The Board of Education for the San Bernardino City Unified School District joined in calling for the removal of the tanks in a resolution issued approved last year.

“We look forward to working with Omnitrans during this transition period”, said Penny Newman, Executive Director of CCAEJ who has been working with the community to solve this issue. Members of the EJ Task Force, a multi-agency task force made up of U.S. EPA, Calif. Air Resources Board (ARB); Dept. of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC); California Attorney General’s office; South Coast AQMD; local CUPA and others, have monitored activity of the facility in the last two years and even conducted their own analysis. Using a program called ALOHA, used by emergency response agencies to determine areas that would be impacted they developed a map showing the “Zone of Harm”. The analysis calculated that a population of 1,739 people and 447 dwellings would be affected in a 0.3 miles radius around the facility. The analysis did not take into account the presence of the elementary school, expanding the affected population by hundreds of children.

A recent report conducted for Omnitrans stated, “The facility’s tanks and its operation are state-of-the-art. Explosions are still possible, but extremely unlikely.” It goes on to state that if an explosion were to happen “the 95% potential injury scenarios may extend up to 880 feet from the facility boundary and 95% scenarios with the potential for severe injury may extend up to 175 feet from the facility boundary. “ “That’s our homes and our children”, Teresa Flores Lopez points out!

Carlin Hafitz, Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Southern Regional office of EPA, offered to work with Omnitrans in developing an appropriate emergency notification program for both residents and the school district in case of an incidence.


Via: Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice
http://www.ccaej.org/

Prop 47 Felony Reduction Clinic July 25th

Join Time for Change Foundation this Saturday, July 25, 2015

from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Reduce the following felonies to misdemeanors:

- Receiving Stolen Property ($950 or less)

- Simple Drug Possession ($950 or less)

- Petty Theft/Grand Theft ($950 or less)

- Writing a Bad Check ($950 or less)

- Forgery/Fraud ($950 or less)

- Shoplifting ($950 or less)

Organizations hold vigil and demonstration in protest of prison expansion

Pro-immigration organizers gathered at the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) Detention Facility in Adelanto on Thursday July 9 to show support for detained immigrants and demonstrate opposition against further expansion of the prison.

The prayer vigil saw organizers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU), the Justice for Immigrants Coalition of Southern California (JFIC), Inland Empire-Immigrant Youth Coalition (IEIYC), and other affiliated organizations gather outside of the faciltiy to display solidarity with detainees through prayer and song.

On July 1, the GEO group–the multinational corporation that operates the prison–announced a 640 bed expansion and began further intake of immigrant detainees, some of which are now women and transgender women. Currently it detains 1,300 men.

“We are very pleased with the successful activation and the start of the intake process at our three company-owned facilities in Oklahoma, Michigan, and California,” said CEO George Zoley. “These important activations are indicative of the continued need for correctional and detention bed space across the United States as well as our company’s ability to provide tailored real estate, management, and programmatic solutions to our diversified customer base.”

Photo/Anthony Victoria
Patricia Suarez of Alhambra has a son who is being detained by ICE officials at the Adelanto Detention Center. “It has been an inferno for me,” Suarez said about her son’s detainment.

According to ACLU community engagement and policy advocate Luis Nolasco, the facility has a notorious history of dreadful conditions. There have been two deaths at the prison since its opening in 2011. In April, Salvadoran immigrant Raul Ernesto Morales-Ramos, 44, died after being transferred from Adelanto Detention Center to a hospital in Palmdale, according to a statement from ICE. He had been in custody since 2010.

“The facility has a history of horrible medical care and abusive practices,” explained Nolasco. “Quite frankly we are terrified as to what may happen when there are populations that are very vulnerable detained in there.”

Nolasco said his organization and partners are frustrated at what they perceive as a continual conflict against undocumented immigrants.

“We cannot take it anymore,” he said. “We’re tired of seeing our communities being criminalized and detained.”

Patricia Suarez of Alhambra, whose son has been detained inside Adelanto since February 6 for felony charges, said she will continue to fight for justice for her son and other immigrants looking to live the “American Dream.”

“It has been an inferno for me,” Suarez said about her son’s detainment. “Sitting through court, sitting through the pain. It’s a trauma for all of us who come to the U.S. to work hard. Us mothers, we no longer cry. We are fighting for the rights of our sons and human beings who came here to be big and dream big. I just never imagined living through something so awful.”

Via: http://iecn.com/organizations-hold-vigil-and-demonstration-in-protest-of-prison-expansion/

NOT JUST IN FERGUSON

A recent Department of Justice report found that courts and law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, are systematically and purposefully taking money from the pockets of poor people—disproportionately from black people—to put into court coffers. The context may be different in California, but many of the practices are chillingly similar. As a result, over four million Californians do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, further impeding their ability to pay their debt. They harm credit ratings. They raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible to overcome. This report highlights the growing trend of license suspensions, how the problem happens, the impact on families and communities, and what can and should be done about it. Click here to read the full report.

Via: http://www.anewwayoflife.org/category/blog/