criminal justice

Pregnant Behind Bars, Part Five: Looking To The Future

By Taylor Walker

The final installment of this five-part series about Los Angeles County’s unique Maternal Health Diversion Program explores the pressing need for LA’s Office of Diversion and Reentry to scale up its diversion capacity. Thus far, the money to do so hasn’t been there.

The Maternal Health Diversion program pulls pregnant people from the county’s women’s jail and places them in interim group housing until they’re ready to move into their own permanent housing with their children. All the while, participants receive a broad array of services.

Pregnant Behind Bars, Part Four: The Mothers

By Taylor Walker

Long before the point of lock-up, the moms now in a Los Angeles diversion program for pregnant incarcerated people said they experienced problems for which they might have gotten assistance — things like housing insecurity and homelessness, domestic violence, substance use disorder, and involvement with the child welfare system.

With the support of the Maternal Health Diversion Program, many of these women said they are now able to get the help they need.

Domestic Violence Survivors Often Don’t Want to Call the Police. California Tries A New Approach

By Carly Stern

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will fund pilot projects that provide alternative responses to domestic violence. While cities and jurisdictions have launched similar efforts, California is the first state to support such experiments at scale.

“It’s the biggest investment in alternative responses that the state has ever seen,” said Cat Brooks, of Justice Teams Network.

Pregnant Behind Bars, Part One: Second Chances

By Taylor Walker

Women have become the fastest-growing incarcerated population in the U.S., even as overall national incarceration numbers have begun to slowly recede. Approximately 80 percent of the 2.9 million women jailed each year in the U.S. are mothers.

Los Angeles County’s Maternal Health Diversion Program disrupts the incarceration cycle by moving pregnant people out of jail cells and into supportive housing.

Analysis: The Case for Defunding the Police

By Denzel Tongue

Local governments invest a huge percentage of their budgets in policing, often to the detriment of other community services. Yet the results of this enormous taxpayer outlay are mediocre at best.

That’s why advocates across the country are calling on governments to reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to services that tackle the underlying social and economic factors generating crime and perpetuating structural racism. These include programs such as job training, mental health services, homelessness prevention and basic income supports.

Facing Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and ICE Raids, Fewer Undocumented Victims Willing to Report Domestic Violence

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett

Spooked by ICE raids in their communities, news of family separations at the border, and anti-immigrant policies from the federal government, undocumented domestic violence survivors are staying with abusers longer and shunning help, often at risk of their lives. Survivors who do come forward also face greater challenges to pursuing safety and stability than in the past.

Poor health care moving from prison to jails

By Mary Flynn

California’s sweeping criminal justice reform plan, in place since October 2011, was meant to sharply reduce the state’s prison population. But the changes may have also had the unintended consequence of passing along the biggest problem associated with overcrowding – poor health care – to county jails.

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