Featuring Senator Joe Morrissey, Delegate Patrick Hope, and Delegate Don Scott. Moderator Gin Carter of the Humanization Project. Just Future Project is one of the members of our coalition and they deal specifically… with VCBR. If people don’t know what that is and what that’s about, I know I personally was completely appalled last year when I learned what VCBR is.
This section under construction at this time. Check back later.
Advocates living behind the walls at gulag:Moose Lake have been speaking out about the acute danger to shadow prisoners in Minnesota from the novel coronavirus. Here we have assembled 3 letters to Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), 1 letter from advocates on the inside to facility staff in gulag:Moose Lake and St. Peter, and 1 memo from the facility administration pretending they’re doing something about the problem. No one deserves to die from Covid-19 behind bars. Sadly, that is already happening because callous administrators and public officials have failed to act to protect this vulnerable population. Jails and prisons have been…
Amid the public health crisis caused by the novel coronavirus, Just Future Project united with a broad coalition of civil rights and human rights organizations to call on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to reverse his dangerous reduction of protections for people in the criminal legal system. Read the letter below. Download the PDF file .
Residents of the Arcadia facility are held in confinement under the Jimmy Ryce Act, which forces sex offenders into treatment if experts believe they’re likely to commit another sex crime. The Florida Civil Commitment Center is a treatment center in Arcadia for sex offenders held involuntarily by the Jimmy Ryce Act. [Google Earth] By Kathryn Varn Published Yesterday A resident in a sex offender treatment facility has died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Another resident is sick with the disease. The outbreak is taking place in Florida’s Civil Commitment Center, a privately run treatment facility in DeSoto…
Pre-crime is dystopian science fiction. No one should be imprisoned for imaginary future crimes. But right now, Minnesota is warehousing 731 individuals in a prison masquerading as a treatment facility — for what they might do in the future.
Hopelessness pervades this system, where men are detained indefinitely, outside the traditional protections of the criminal law, with little prospect of release. Legal scholars have likened Minnesota’s system of pre-crime preventative detention to a “domestic Guantanamo Bay.” The British High Court has called it a “flagrant denial” of human rights. These shadow prisoners are 8 times more likely to leave in a body bag than to ever be set free.
The price tag to taxpayers is $110 million per year. The cost in terms of human lives is unspeakably tragic. And the threat to American values of liberty and due process is real.
Data is important for advocacy. But shadow prisons are so shrouded in secrecy that no one actually knows how many people are locked away in these “treatment” facilities in the U.S. Here is a brief look at what we know (or don’t) and why the number that you often see cited is wrong.
Blank & Pink sent out a “2020 Election Survey” in vol. 9 issue 6 of their newsletter (p.25) One of 4 questions solicited opinions from members of the Black & Pink family living behind the walls on whether sex-related offense policy should be a focus of their political advocacy during this presidential election cycle. YES, and here is why:
By: Patrick Hope Sept 29, 2019 The “lock ’em up and throw away the key” era of criminal justice is over. Virginians have reassessed their views on criminal justice to better address mass incarceration weighed against costs and the likelihood to reoffend. Policies ripe for reform include: resentencing prisoners who were convicted as youth; repealing mandatory minimums; legalizing marijuana; abolishing the death penalty; ending solitary; reinstating parole; ending cash bail; and creating alternatives to incarceration. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has a strong track record of criminal justice reform. But there’s one enforcement aspect his office needs to re-examine: the…
Persons with sex-related convictions are often deliberately excluded from the reentry picture. This LTE points that out to the Washington Post and argues that everyone is entitled to a just future. Kudos to Kirsten Darby for using this important advocacy tool to register her perspective as a member of the community, with the newspaper’s editor. I read with great interest the September 3 article [in the Washington Post] by Tracy Jan documenting the legal hurdles of those formerly incarcerated. I’ve led a faith based prison pen pal ministry for many years and have seen first hand the struggles these men…
1. Abolish pre-crime preventative detention laws
2. Free our friends and loved ones from dehumanizing labels
3. Realign our justice system with the values of restoration and reintegration
Just Future Project is a new initiative focused on challenging pre-crime preventative detention laws. We are a people-driven grassroots advocacy campaign dedicated to building a movement of community members demanding an end to indefinite detention regimes.
Why Is This Important?
Pre-crime preventative detention systems are a dangerous departure from the traditional values of our legal system.
We believe in justice, that persons who have caused harm may be held accountable for their actions. But justice also demands proportionality and due process, elements essential to distinguish justice from mere vengeance. The goal of any true system of justice must be restoration and re-integration, not the perpetual containment and incapacitation that have come to define the U.S. criminal legal system.