In the NEWS 2026
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Nobody wants to believe crime is falling, but it is
LA Times, By James Rainey, July 25, 2025
Homicides in Los Angeles are on track to hit a nearly 60-year low. Property crime across California dipped in the last year and now stands at its lowest ebb in three decades.
Yet a feeling persists that the Golden State has been tarnished by a wave of unchecked crime. Conservative media fanned that notion in June, when unruly and sometimes violent crowds took over streets in a few L.A. neighborhoods.
LA County braces for potentially massive financial blow as Trump tries to crack down on homelessness
The LAist, By Aaron Schrank, Jul 24, 2025
L.A. County is bracing for a potentially devastating shortfall in funding for homelessness services in the years ahead as the federal government signals cuts, officials said Thursday. The county’s financial concerns come amid a perfect storm of local, state and federal funding reductions, said Sarah Mahin, director of the county’s new homelessness department.
After years of scandals, CA attorney general asks court to put LA County's juvenile halls under state control
The LAist, By Libby Rainey, Jul 23, 2025
The move comes after a litany of scandals at county facilities, including overdoses and accusations of gladiator fights.
"Let me be clear, this is the last resort," Bonta said. " But it's also the one path left to protect the safety, dignity, and basic rights of the young people in these facilities."
Homelessness in Los Angeles county declines for second straight year
The Guardian by Cecilia Nowell, Tue 15 Jul 2025
LA reports 72,308 people as unhoused, a 4% decrease from last year, as California pushes to break up encampments.
The southern California metropolitan area previously reported its highest unhoused population in 2023, when it counted 75,518 people experiencing homelessness. That count decreased slightly to 75,312 people in 2024. “For the first time in our city’s recent history, homelessness has gone down two years in a row,” the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, said at a press conference announcing the results of Lahsa’s annual point-in-time count.
LA County accidentally repealed its anti-incarceration ballot measure. Now what?
Los Angeles Times, Rebecca Ellis, Jul 16, 2025
Los Angeles County leaders are scrambling to restore a sweeping racial justice initiative that voters accidentally repealed, a mistake that could threaten hundreds of millions of dollars devoted to reducing the number of people in jail.
County supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to ask their lawyers to find a way to bring back the initiative known as Measure J, which required the county to put a significant portion of its budget toward anti-incarceration services. Supervisor Kathryn Barger was absent from the vote.
‘Suspected overdose' reported at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall
NBC4 Los Angeles, By Marco Haynes, July 2, 2025
The situation unfolded just two days after a nonprofit organization worker was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs into the juvenile facility.
Juvenile Justice:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
The Sentencing Project’s Youth Justice research was featured on a recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. John Oliver dives deep into our country’s harmful juvenile justice system and its youth prisons, highlighting The Sentencing Project’s research on why youth incarceration fails,
Here’s how the state budget will impact Southern Californians
LA Daily News, By Linh Tat, June 29, 2025
The California Legislature has passed a $321 billion budget for the new fiscal year, with changes to Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants, funding to better prepare the state against future wildfires and additional investments to help revive the Hollywood industry.
Mold, rats and neglect: a year of inspections at Men’s Central Jail reveals ‘horrific’ conditions
LA Daily News By Jason Henry, June 29, 2025
‘People have gotten numb to the horrors and I don’t know what its going to take to jolt the county out of their paralysis,’ said an ACLU attorney
Despite wearing a mask, Sybil Brand Commissioner Haley Broder struggled to breathe as she and another inspector walked through the 2300 housing unit during an October 2024 inspection at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. “There had been a flood or something in that area and there was mold everywhere,” she said later in an interview. “Everyone was coughing or had some respiratory issue going on.”
New research: More evidence that county jail incarceration harms health, raising death rates
Prison Policy Initiative, by Jacob Kang-Brown, June 24, 2025
The health burdens of jail expansion are heaviest in places that already lock a lot of people up. Those places also would see the largest benefits from decarceration, including fewer deaths each year.
Researchers are increasingly providing evidence that the criminalization of poverty, addiction, and mental health issues has sharp harmful consequences. Jailing in general is associated with higher mortality (death) rates. At the community level, higher levels of jailing causes more communicable and noncommunicable disease, mortality, and harms maternal health. For individual people, jailing has major impacts on mental health and maternal-child health.
The Power of Music for People in Jail and Prison
Vera By Erica Bryant, Jun 24, 2025
Positive programming can help uphold incarcerated people’s dignity, promote safety behind bars, and reduce recidivism.
“Music is such a part of our human core,” said Joshua Conyers, an opera singer and assistant professor of voice at the Eastman School of Music. “I don’t think anything is better for the soul and spirit.”
It’s not just ICE raids — immigration lawyer warns of reopened cases and how to prepare
Boyle Heights Beat, By Alejandra Molina, Jun 24, 2025
Immigration lawer, Cynthia Santiago offers legal tips that immigrant families should keep in mind, not only as the raids continue, but also as closed immigration cases are being reopened. Including:
- Preparation is key, In immigrant households, family members should be aware of each other’s history
- Be wary of immigration legal scams
- Reopening closed immigration cases
California bill would prohibit ICE officers from wearing masks in the state
The LAist,KQED, By Elize Manoukian, Jun 23, 2025
Masked federal officers, descending on workplaces and immigration courts in dramatic scenes across the country, have drawn comparisons to secret police in authoritarian regimes.
But under a new state bill from two Bay Area lawmakers, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers and others would have to identify themselves while working in California.
Crime Is Down in 2025. Trump Doesn’t Deserve Credit.
Vera, Jun 20, 2025
For the past year, Donald Trump has been saying that “homicides are skyrocketing” and the country is “breaking down” with violence even as the data told a much different story. Now, as crime keeps declining, even Trump is finally changing his tune.
Who deserves credit for the crime decline?
From save our state to sanctuary, California’s immigration views have shifted dramatically
Cal Matters, by Ben Christopher and Mikhail Zinshteyn, June 20, 2025
California voted to bar immigrants from schools and social services in 1994. Now most Californians see immigrants as a benefit to the state.
But... Recent polling shows the latest wave of Medi-Cal expansions may have gone too far even for California’s immigrant-friendly electorate. A majority of Californians — 58% — oppose health coverage for immigrants without permanent legal status, according to PPIC’s June 2025 survey.
Immigration raids in Los Angeles hit small business owners: 'It's worse than COVID'
Reuters, By Tim Reid and Kristina Cooke, June 17, 2025
ICE raids hit Hispanic small businesses
Street vendors, restaurant workers, too afraid to buy supplies
Trump crackdown threatens local economies
Millions of protesters are expected at ‘No Kings’ rallies nationwide as President Trump’s military parade takes place on his 79th birthday
CNN, By Lauren Mascarenhas, Holly Yan, June 13, 2025
As a military parade rolls through Washington, DC, on Saturday – President Donald Trump’s birthday – millions of Americans are expected to protest in what organizers predict will be the strongest display of opposition to Trump’s administration since he took office in January.
More than 1,900 protests across all 50 states are planned through the No Kings movement, which organizers say seeks to reject “authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy.”
Maps and photos show how the Los Angeles ICE protests unfolded
CBS News, Updated on: June 12, 2025
About 700 Marines completed training and could be deployed to the Los Angeles area by Friday, as protests continued for a sixth consecutive day. More than 850 people have been arrested in Los Angeles County since the demonstrations over federal immigration enforcement began last Friday. The protests have also spread to other cities across the nation. Here's a timeline of how the protests have unfolded in multiple locations around L.A..
The Truth About Immigration Detention in the United States
Vera, Nazish Dholakia, Jun 11, 2025
President Trump’s mass deportation agenda threatens to dramatically escalate the use of detention, a system plagued by abuse and neglect.
In recent months, immigration officers have detained people seeking asylum and those who have been living and working in their communities for years. Some have been undocumented and others have had valid temporary or permanent legal residency. Regardless of their circumstances, they have been locked up in deplorable conditions and separated from their families. Many have been sent to detention centers thousands of miles away from their homes. This is an escalation of an immigration detention system that was already ripping families apart and putting lives in danger.
LA County to establish labor council for homeless service providers
City News Service, June 10, 2025
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the creation of a Labor Council to assist contracted homelessness service providers.
The Labor Council will be funded by Measure A, approved by voters in 2024, which is a funding source for the county’s homelessness efforts, and includes a provision on improving recruitment and retention of social service providers.
In recorded calls, reports of overcrowding and lack of food at ICE detention centers
NPR, By Jasmine Garsd, June 6, 2025
It was accompanied by a screenshot of a photo of a man with swollen red eyes, with another screenshot of his full detainee information. "Please help me. Im desperate."
The woman who sent it, Maria, was texting about her brother at the Krome Detention Center in Miami. She requested their last name be withheld for fear of retaliation against her brother, who has been held in detention for more than two months.
Washington reality check hits Sacramento
Politico, By Lindsey Holden 06/04/2025
California was struggling to afford its health care programs even before the threat of federal cuts intensified. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed capping Medi-Cal enrollment for the state’s undocumented population following a years-long expansion that became far more costly than initially thought.Progressive Democrats are pushing hard for their colleagues to consider corporate tax hikes to help pay for those Medi-Cal benefits.
Targeting the Vulnerable: the CA Budget
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin, May 27, 2025
Vulnerable Californians are in the crosshairs. That’s one of the big takeaways from Governor Newsom’s latest budget proposal -- the May Revise.Last week on this podcast, we focused on the proposal’s impact on transportation, housing and climate. Today we’re looking at its impact on vulnerable and low income Californians, and the news is pretty ugly.
Five Years After George Floyd’s Murder, What’s Changed?
Vera, by Nicholas Turner President & Director, May 23, 2025
This past March, government employees used a jackhammer and pickaxe to destroy the mural painted on a street near the White House in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. A woman stood by watching with a hand-lettered “Black Lives Matter” sign, in a silent protest of those same words being torn up out of the concrete in Washington, DC. “It was important for me to come out today,” she said. President Trump, who calls the phrase “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate,” has also taken a jackhammer to basic police accountability.
She brought ‘teeth’ as juvenile hall watchdog — but claims state defanged her
LA Times, By James Queally, May 18, 2025
After one of her first visits to L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she’d seen in “over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California.”
California bill would offer option to choose rehabilitation over jail for certain crimes
Spectrum News BY Daniela Pardo, May 15, 2025
The bill states it will ultimately be up to a judge to decide if those with a non-violent felony can choose diversion instead of jail. If signed into law, those who choose diversion will have their charges dropped if a court finds that the defendant complied with the terms established during the diversion period.
Thousands of California prisoners falsely tested positive for opioids. Did it cost them their freedom?
LA Times, By Salvador Hernandez, April 29, 2025
Thousands of inmates wrongly tested positive for opiate use inside California state prisons last year because of a laboratory mistake, and civil rights attorneys now worry many of them could be denied parole and a chance at freedom because of it.
About 6,000 drug tests are believed to have generated false positive results in 2024, according to attorneys at UnCommon Law, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents inmates seeking parole.
JCOD’s Rapid Diversion Program Reaches 1,000 Graduates and More Than 3,000 Case Diversions
LA County Justice Care and Opportunities Department (JCOD) Press Release, April 24, 2025
LOS ANGELES – The Justice, Care and Opportunities Department (JCOD) celebrated the graduation of five individuals today through its Rapid Diversion Program (RDP) at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. The event marked a major milestone for the program, reaching 1,000 graduates and more than 3,000 cases diverted since its inception.
RDP is a pretrial mental health diversion program under California Penal Code section 1001.36. It is designed to support and provide care for individuals with a mental health diagnosis or substance use disorders.
Unreasonable Probation Requirements Are Sending People to Jail
Vera, Nazish Dholakia, Apr 30, 2025
People on probation or parole are being incarcerated for “technical violations” when they break onerous rules that set them up to fail.
Thousands of probationers ‘unsupervised’ as LA County redirects officers to Los Padrinos
Los Angeles Daily News, By Jason Henry, April 27, 2025
'You walk through any area (probation) office, it's desolate,' one source said. 'They're all gone'
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger is now calling on the Probation Department’s leadership to “implement an immediate, realistic plan that both triages the crisis at Los Padrinos and sets us back on track to stabilize the entire system.” The decision to direct resources to Los Padrinos reflects the urgency of that facility’s situation, she said, but “it must not come at the expense of broader community safety and oversight.”
Inside LA’s mental health court: Meth, homelessness and the judge who wants to help
Cal Matters, by Joe Garcia, April 23, 2025
Addiction and homelessness are a constant presence in L.A.’s mental health court. Its judge wants defendants to “feel like someone who’s deep in the system of power cares about them.
When a criminal defendant’s mental competency to stand trial is at issue, their case will get redirected to a handful of courtrooms like Kaye’s. In partnership with L.A. County’s Office of Diversion and Reentry, these mental health courts can also further assess the alleged offenders for treatment and housing placement.
With 17 Deaths in 2025, LA Jails Continue Deadly Trend
Vera, Sam McCann Senior Writer, Apr 21, 2025
Another person has died in Los Angeles County Jails, marking the 17th death of this year. LA jails have totaled 94 deaths since the start of 2023.
2025’s current year-to-date death tally is now just one death shy of 2021’s—the highest on record and the year the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) committed to closing Men’s Central Jail.
Fish Tanks, Plants and Podcast Studios — Some States Try a New Approach to Incarceration
The Masrshall Project, By Jamiles Lartey, April 19, 2025
America’s experiment with Scandinavian-inspired prison units is growing — and being tested.
A unit in Pennsylvania, opened in 2022. Its premise is simple, if radical, by U.S. standards: Prisons should primarily focus on preparing people to successfully reenter society — rather than on punishment.Last month, Pennsylvania corrections Secretary Laurel Harry announced that the state would expand its Scandinavian-inspired approach to three new facilities. The move came after a randomized study at SCI Chester showed promising early results. California, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with a more financially ambitious vision for Nordic-inspired prison reform....
Justice Reform 101: What to Read, Watch, and Listen To
Vera Institute, Erica Bryant Associate Director of Writing, Apr 07, 2025
Public Defenders Slam DA’s Death Penalty Decision While Hochman Tries to Burnish Reform Credentials
Davis Vanguard, March 28, 2025
LOS ANGELES – A growing rift between Los Angeles County’s public defenders and the District Attorney’s Office exploded into public view this week after DA Nathan Hochman announced a return to seeking the death penalty—a move sharply condemned by the LA County Public Defenders Union.
In a searing public statement, the union denounced the decision as “state-sanctioned murder” and called on Angelenos to join their opposition. “The death penalty does not deter crime. The death penalty does not repair harm. Abolish the death penalty,” the union declared in a tweet that quickly gained traction.
The Strike That Broke a Supermax Prison
Reveal, March 29, 2025, Reporter and producer: Michael Montgomery | Editor: Brett Myers | Filmmakers: Lucas Guilkey and JoeBill Muñoz |
After spending years locked in solitary confinement, a group of California men united to launch the largest prison hunger strike in US history.
This week on Reveal, we team up with the PBS film The Strike to tell the inside story of a group of men who overcame bitter divisions and harsh conditions to build an improbable prison resistance movement.
Judge Summons LA Leaders to Court as Audit Finds Billions in Homelessness Funds Poorly Tracked, Mismanaged
Westside Current, Mar 27, 2025
LOS ANGELES - City officials called to a Los Angeles federal court hearing Thursday are expected to respond to the bleak picture of the region's homelessness assistance programs painted by an independent consulting firm that spent months trying to track expenditures.
The court-ordered audit by the firm Alvarez & Marsal identified $2.4 billion of funding, including appropriations, commitments or spending related to city programs.
With 12 Deaths in 2025, LA Jails Continue Deadly Trend
Vera Institute, Sam McCann, Mar 25, 2025
Just three months into 2025, 12 people have already died in Los Angeles County jails. That brings the jail death tally to 87 since the start of 2023.
These tragedies underscore the urgency with which the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors must honor its now four-year-old commitment to close Men’s Central Jail and stop this cycle of death.
A newspaper sets up shop in an unexpected place: California's largest women's prison
The LAist, By Libby Rainey, Mar 23, 2025
Tucked away in the Central Valley, Central California Women's Facility sits off Highway 99 between Fresno and Merced. Farmland surrounds much of the prison, and visitors are rare.
The 640-acre facility is the largest women’s prison in California, and holds more than 2,000 women, nonbinary and transgender people. In total, women make up just 4% of the state's prison population.
The Strike That Broke a Supermax Prison
Reveal, March 29, 2025, Reporter and producer: Michael Montgomery | Editor: Brett Myers | Filmmakers: Lucas Guilkey and JoeBill Muñoz |
After spending years locked in solitary confinement, a group of California men united to launch the largest prison hunger strike in US history.
This week on Reveal, we team up with the PBS film The Strike to tell the inside story of a group of men who overcame bitter divisions and harsh conditions to build an improbable prison resistance movement.
A newspaper sets up shop in an unexpected place: California's largest women's prison
The LAist, By Libby Rainey, Mar 23, 2025
Tucked away in the Central Valley, Central California Women's Facility sits off Highway 99 between Fresno and Merced. Farmland surrounds much of the prison, and visitors are rare.
The 640-acre facility is the largest women’s prison in California, and holds more than 2,000 women, nonbinary and transgender people. In total, women make up just 4% of the state's prison population.
For these reasons and more, the prison in Chowchilla seems an unlikely place to have its own newspaper. But last year, an organization for prison journalism helped open up a media center and started training journalists there.
Why Are We Still Strip-Searching Prisoners?
NYTimes Opinion, March 20, 2025 By Christopher Blackwell and Sarah Sax, Mr. Blackwell and Ms. Sax are reporters. Mr. Blackwell is incarcerated in Washington State.
Tracy McCarter remembers vividly the first time she was strip-searched. On Rikers Island in New York, she was forced to remove every shred of clothing and bend over to expose the most intimate parts of her body to three strangers. Ms. McCarter, who was arrested after defending herself from a violent domestic partner, said it was one of the most dehumanizing moments of her life.
International Program Demonstrates How Centering Human Dignity in Reentry Improves Public Safety
CAP by Akua Amaning, Mar 17, 2025
International Program Demonstrates How Centering Human Dignity in Reentry Improves Public Safety. In Brazil, a prison-based reentry program known as APAC centers human dignity in its efforts to reintegrate individuals fully back into society, serving as a model that U.S. leaders and policymakers alike should consider expanding to improve reentry and public safety outcomes.
LA County Probation Presents “Global Plan” for Housing Youth in Halls and Camps
Witness LA, March 15, 2025 by Taylor Walker
Two years ago, on March 7, 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors directed the LA County Probation Department to develop what they called a “Global Plan” to reorganize and move incarcerated youth between the county’s juvenile halls and camps. Last week, the Youth Justice Coalition and other advocates continued to put pressure on the supervisors and the probation department to toss out the Global Plan. Members of YJC, many of whom have personal experience with the county’s criminal legal system, are urging the board and probation officials to forget about shuffling kids around and instead prioritize decarceration.
Violence-Prevention Helpline for Those Who Want to Change Gains Ground in California
Witness LA, March 1, 2025, by Claudia Boyd-Barrett
The Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, a network of community and advocacy organizations focused on advancing racial and gender justice, is spearheading expansion of the helpline in California. For the past several years, the network has led a campaign to create new ways of addressing intimate partner violence that don’t involve the criminal or legal system.
Large majority of homeless people in California are not illicit drug users, study finds
LA Times By Doug Smith, Feb. 27, 2025
A large majority of people living on the streets in California are not illegal drug users, a study found. But drug use is still deeply intertwined with homelessness, both as a risk factor and an effect of losing housing, the researchers wrote.
The study, published in the medical journal JAMA by the Benioff Homeless and Housing Initiative at UC San Francisco, gives a complex statistical picture of a topic that has been fraught by conflicting narratives.
Newsom launches new digital democracy tool with initial focus on wildfire victims
LA Times, By Phil Willon, Feb. 23, 2025
The initiative will attempt to connect Californians directly with government officials in times of disaster and allow them to express their concerns about matters affecting their day-to-day lives.
Known as Engaged California, the platform will go live with a focus on aiding victims of the deadly wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena who are struggling to recover.
A test of California’s rightward lurch on homelessness
Politico, By Lindsey Holden 02/12/2025
MOVE ALONG: A Bay Area city known for its Tesla plant and tech workforce is testing the boundaries of a growing movement to ban homeless encampments.
Leaders in Fremont, a suburban community of about 226,000 just north of San Jose, late Tuesday voted to expand its ban on camping in public spaces. But its ordinance goes further...
‘We’re not sure if “reform” is cutting it’: Activists call on California to close 10 prisons
Prison Reports, by Victoria Valenzuela, February 12th, 2025
A coalition of more than 80 organizations is ramping up its abolitionist campaign, urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to direct resources to supportive services
How Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Blurs the Lines Between Reality, Rumor and Theater
The Marshall Project, by Jamiles Lartey, Feb 8, 2025
ICE arrests, including “collateral arrests,” are up — and often in front of cameras. But experts say the data is incomplete — and hoaxes abound.
California parole agent allegedly tricks transgender woman into leaving home, leading to arrest by ICE agents
Fox News, By Gina Silva, February 6, 2025
A California parole agent seemingly deceived Natalie Marinero, a transgender woman from El Salvador, into leaving her home, leading to her arrest by ICE agents. Marinero, who had been rebuilding her life after serving time for a second-degree murder conviction, now faces deportation to El Salvador, where she fears for her safety.
Trump Orders Transgender Women, Housed with Males in Federal Prison, Taken Off Gender-Related Medical Treatments
Davis Vanguard, By Ellie Reddington, January 30, 20250
WASHINGTON, DC – In a move of wide-ranging executive orders, President Trump has ordered federal prisons to house inmates who are transgender women in men’s facilities and stop all medical treatments relating to gender transition, reported the New York Times.
Immigration Law, Explained
Vera Institute of Justice, Jan 29, 2025
How Trump's Orders Eviscerate Due Process in the Immigration System
In his first week in office, President Trump issued more than a dozen executive actions to advance his mass detention and deportation agenda. These actions were designed to sow fear in our communities and cause chaos and dysfunction in our immigration system. Rather than advance needed reforms to modernize our outdated immigration system, these actions will waste billions of dollars, create greater inefficiencies in immigration courts, and increase suffering and injustice for immigrants and their families, ultimately undermining democracy.
Instead of a new jail, LA built a shipping container housing complex for homeless residents
Good News, Kamrin Baker, Jan 28, 2025
For years, a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles sat empty. It was once a parking lot and was slated to become a staging area for the construction of a new jail. But in 2019, county officials began considering the space to shelter homeless residents. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they forged ahead on the project.
Now it’s home to The Hilda L. Solis Care First Village, a hybrid facility that offers both permanent and temporary housing to people experiencing homelessness.
What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons
New York Times Magazine, By James Forman Jr., Jan. 28, 2025
Lessons from a radical 20-year experiment and a quiet triumph of public policy.
You don’t have to look at the graph for long to grasp the story. First, the part that won’t surprise you, given the well-chronicled rise in incarceration rates since the 1970s: The number of young people behind bars increased steadily in the 1970s and 1980s and then rose more sharply in the 1990s. What comes next is surprising: Beginning in 2000, each year for the next two decades there was a decline in the number of young people locked up. If you think of juvenile incarceration as a mountain, we reached the summit in 2000, and until 2020 we sprinted straight downhill.
Troubled juvenile hall gets another lifeline after judge punts decision on closure
LATimes, By Rebecca Ellis, Jan. 24, 2025
More than a month after the state ordered Los Angeles County’s sole juvenile hall shut down due to paltry staffing, a judge has once again spared the troubled facility from immediate closure.
Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza punted a decision on whether to order Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall closed, seemingly swayed by having no good alternatives for where the roughly 230 youths housed inside should go instead.
Los Angeles city leaders prepare for policy changes from Trump administration
Daily Bruin, By Nury Salazar-Ibanez, Jan. 23, 2025
Los Angeles city leaders made plans to insulate marginalized communities from new White House policies, following the election of Donald Trump.
What Will Trump’s Executive Order on Private Prisons Really Do?
The Marshall Project By Shannon Heffernan, January 22, 2025
The order reverses Biden’s ban on private prison contracts with the Justice Department. Private immigrant detention never stopped and is expected to grow.
At the last possible moment Biden commutes sentence for Leonard Peltier
WitnessLA, January 20, 2025 by Celeste Fremon
In the last few minutes of his presidency, Joe Biden unexpectedly commuted the sentence of Native American activist Leonard Peltier.
Peltier has been serving a life sentence for the deaths of two FBI agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. However, many have maintained that Peltier’s trial, and subsequent conviction for killing FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975, was laced with errors and corruption.
Prop. 36 drug and theft felonies to force millions in state cuts, projection shows
LA Times, By Anabel Sosa, Jan. 18, 2025
Today, it costs $133,000 a year to incarcerate a person in California, a figure that has gone up dramatically in recent years. When voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014, fewer people were serving prison time for low-level, nonviolent theft and drug crimes, and as a result, the state saved more than $100 million a year. Those savings were distributed to counties for prisoner reentry and victim support — the same programs now on the chopping block.
Joe Biden commutes sentences of nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders
The Guardian, Joseph Gedeon, Fri 17 Jan 2025
Joe Biden, who leaves office next week, announced on Friday he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offences, saying he had now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any predecessor.
L.A. inmate dies in cluster of suspected overdoses on jail transport bus
LA Times, By Keri Blakinger and James Queally, Jan. 10, 2025
A 22-year-old inmate died in a cluster of suspected overdoses on a jail bus early Friday, prompting Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials to halt court transports from the downtown facilities.
The incident, which marks the department’s first in-custody death of the year, comes amid a chaotic week in which wildfires shut down courthouses, delayed inmate transports and forced the evacuation of one sheriff’s station.
How To Fight for Justice in Your State and Community in 2025
Vera Institute of Justice, January 07, 2025
Despite a grim horizon with a new federal administration, there are many ways you can protect and advance justice reform at the state and local level.