How to Make Every Offender an Ex-Offender
Keeping Parolees Out of Prison Takes Jobs, Housing, and Cold, Hard Cash
Immediately after Californians voted in favor of Proposition 47—which redefined nonviolent felonies—last November, lawyers’ phones started ringing. The goal of this legislation—called the “The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act” by its supporters—is to keep low-risk, nonviolent offenders out of prison in the first place. But for thousands of Californians, it means less time behind bars, and reentry into the outside world sooner than expected.
In advance of the Zócalo/California Endowment event “How Will California’s Sentencing Reform Affect Communities?”, we asked criminal justice scholars the following question: What is the most important …