LARRP Monthly Newsletter: January 2020

Restoring People! Rebuilding Community! Reshaping the Nation!

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A Message from LARRP Executive Director Troy VaughnAs the year, and thedecade, come to aclose, I reflect on howfar we have come. Iencourage us all tokeep the momentumgoing for the criminaljustice reformsuccesses we havecollectively securedacross our nation.

LA County, our home,our place of service,

the defacto 7th largest state, and home to the largest jailin the world, has finally begun to embrace true systemicreforms to the County’s criminal legal systems.

Whether it was the extensive Probation Departmentreform process, the stopping of LA County jail expansion,

building a roadmap for Alternatives to Incarceration, orthe critical District Attorney election, the principles ofreform and the commitment to decarceration andcommunity restoration are taking hold in LA County.

And, twelve months ago, Congress passed the FIRSTSTEP Act, signaling the arrival of bipartisan criminaljustice reform at the federal level. The passage of theFIRST STEP Act marked a critical milestone in ourjourney toward a more fair and effective criminal justicesystem.

Let’s maintain our bipartisan momentum — the future ofour criminal justice system and our democracy dependson it. The question for Washington now is: What’s next?

Read more

LARRP MEETINGS and EVENTS

LARRP General Meeting January 9,20209:30am – 12:00pmInglewood Community Church 742 N. La Brea Ave

Sara Wilshinsky- LARRP Voices from ImpactedPeople Troy Vaughn, LARRP - LARRP ExecutiveDirectors's Report: 2019 in review andShaking Up Reentry Update Takouhi Tarkhanyan, LARRP - LARRPReentry Resource Asset Mapping Project, L-

Reentry Resource Asset Mapping Project, L-Ramp Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, California HealthPolicy Strategies (CHPS) - CaliforniaAdvancing And innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM):Overview & UpdatesLARRP Committee Reports

Register

Integrated Health CommitteeMeetingJanuary 7, 20202:00 pm-4:00 pm742 N La Brea Inglewood 90302

Register

Policy Committee MeetingJanuary 7, 202010:30 am - 12:00 pmLARRP Office742 N La Brea Inglewood, 90302

Education Committee MeetingJanuary 16, 20204:00-5:30 West LA College9000 Overland Ave,Culver City, CA 90230

Register

Employment Committee MeetingJanuary 16, 20209:00 - 11:00 Goodwill Worksource342 N San Fernando Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90031

Register

Housing Committee MeetingJanuary 16, 20201:00 -3:00 pm

Hopics Broadway 5715 S Broadway, Los Angeles,CA 90037

REPAIR Expungement FairJanuary 4, 2020 10:00 AM to 1:00 PMAmity Foundation3750 S. Grand Ave.Los Angeles, CA 90007

The following services will be available to justiceinvolved and justice impacted everyday people: • Record reclassification with Proposition 47 andProposition 64 and expungement services • Certificate of Rehabilitation Referrals • On-site voter registration and education • Employment services • Live Scans

Register

Unlock the Vote Campaign:Request for Volunteers LARRP, along with a number of community partnersincluding ANOWL, will educate and registerindividuals who are incarcerated inside the LA jailsas well as engage with the justice-impactedcommunity at re-entry fairs.In order to engage with as many people who areimpacted as possible, we need your support. We will need volunteers:• To go inside the jail facilities to educate andregister*,• At the visitor’s line educate and register family and

friends,• To help with mailings,• To attend reentry fairs to educate and register

Register

• To attend reentry fairs to educate and registerpeople who areCJ-impacted• And so much more If you and/or your organization are interested in anyof the above, please contact Joe Paul, ManagingDirector of LARRP, at joe@lareentry.org

January Spotlight

2020: Bring Your Vision to a LARRP Working Committee

With the new year upon us, we invite you to deepen the work to improve reentrysystems and enact community repair in LA County by joining a LARRP Committee. Therange and depth of reentry systems and services needing attention can feeloverwhelming. Some may ask, “Where do I start? How can I make a difference?” orperhaps, “How can I deepen my reentry practice?”

Whether you are a front line case manager, an executive focused on managing staffand raising money, or a directly impacted person seeking to rebuild your life, pleaseconsider joining a LARRP committee where you can deepen your knowledge in aspecific reentry area, identify gaps and problem solve to improve systems andservices, or simply network with other practitioners in your field. Each LARRP Committee focuses on a different area of reentry, such as housing,employment or education. Explore your options by clicking on any committee link, orregister to attend one of the meetings that is happening this month.

The Employment Committee mission is to increaseemployment amongst the reentry population, resulting ingreater stability, self-sufficiency, and an improved qualityof life for the community at large, and is co-chaired byMaria “Alex” Alexander of Center for Living and Learning,and Cesar Perez from Amity Foundation.

The Housing Committee work includes understandingthe housing and homeless services landscape,identifying interim and permanent housing solutions forthe reentry population, and tracking polices andguidelines that impact formerly incarcerated people’sability to access housing subsidies and resources. Thecommittee is co-chaired by Veronica Lewis of HOPICSSSG and Janie Hodge of Paving the Way Foundation.

The Education Committee mission is to help supportand advance educational and career pathways for bothreentry students and the professionals who work withthem, and to build bridges from corrections to college inSouthern California. The Education Committee is co-chaired by Paul Seeman, Daniel Tabor, and SugarEasley.

The Integrated Health Committee is a dedicated spacefor behavioral health stakeholders working at theintersection of reentry to convene regularly to promoteharm reduction practices in reentry services andadvance solutions to creating a continuum of health carefor people leaving incarceration and living withconvictions, and is co-chaired by Amanda Cowan fromCLARE MATRIX and Nyabingi Kuti from TarzanaTreatment Centers.

The Faith Based Committee will focus on identifyingand developing best practices and core competenciesthat would enable diverse groups of clergy and otherspiritual organizations to leverage existing assets andresources to address needs of formerly incarceratedpeople, their families and their communities, and is co-chaired by Joe Paul of LARRP and Adam Siegal of BeitT’Shuvah.

The Policy Committee mission is to develop andadvocate for the implementation of legislative andadministrative policies that reduce recidivism, advance

social justice, safeguard the rights of victims, anddecrease incarceration levels while providingaccountability to taxpayers and reducing structuralinequalities. This committee is reconstituting and holds

inequalities. This committee is reconstituting and holdsits first meeting January 7th and is still seeking co-chairs.

PARTNER EVENTS

Volunteer For Your LocalHomeless CountThe 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count willoccur on these dates:

January 21, 2020 - San Gabriel & SanFernando Valleys (Service Planning Areas 2 &3)January 22, 2020 - West Los Angeles,Southeast Los Angeles, & the South Bay(Service Planning Areas 5, 7, & 8)January 23, 2020 - Antelope Valley, Metro LosAngeles, & South Los Angeles (ServicePlanning Areas 1, 4, & 6)

Sign up!

February 18th6:30-8:00 pmLA District AttorneyCandidate Forum

National Council of JewishWomen, 543 N. Fairfax Ave.Los Angeles, CA 90036

RSVPSaturday, January 18, 20208:00am - 2:00pm28th Annual EmpowermentCongress SummitCommunities in Peril: A Call to Action for 2020and Beyond

Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science1731 E. 120th St. LA, CA 90059

More InfoRegister

Opportunities

Formation of a County “ReentryHealth Advisory Collaborative”The Collaborative will include 7 to 10incarcerated/formerly incarcerated individuals or peoplewho have had contact with the criminal justice system,and will “provide feedback on healthcare and socialservice needs related to the incarcerated/formerlyincarcerated community and play an integral role in the

Centralized Training AcademyHomeless Health Care Los Angeles

(HHCLA) is excited to announce the launch of severalnew FREE TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES for entry level,mid-level and supervisory staff in the homeless servicessector!!

Curriculum I: Care Coordination and SystemsNavigation

incarcerated community and play an integral role in theimplementation and monitoring of a Countywide roadmapof Alternatives to Incarceration.”

The application period has opened and will close on Jan.16, 2020. Apply Here

Navigation

Curriculum II: Applied Care Coordination andSystems Navigation

Curriculum III: Supervisory Training for HomelessServices

Yes on R

The Reform LA County Jails Campaign is hiring a top-quality Paid Canvass Manager for its campaign to passMeasure R in the upcoming 2020 election cycle. The campaign will run a community-based paid canvass programalongside it’s grassroots community engagement effort that will focus on ensuring voters are educated on Measure Rand that the initiative passes on March 3, 2020. More infoYes on R - Other job openings in the field click here

NEWS

Featured News StoryFor our January Featured News Story we presentan LA Times Editorial about the movement to stopnew jails from being built.

2019 was the year L.A.County finally said ‘no’ tonew jailsLA Times, By The Times Editorial BoardDec. 26, 2019

Read the Editorial

Jails are crowded with mentally ill people becausestates including California closed mental hospitalsover several decades beginning in the 1960s withoutbuilding out the system of community-based mental-health care they had promised. Jail populations aredisproportionately black and Latino, in part becauseof a criminal justice system laced with overly punitivepolicies that prey on poverty and sentences thatpunish multiple generations. Building new jails —even ostensibly more humane ones — maysometimes be unavoidable, but it consumesresources that could otherwise be used for correctingthe problems and improving lives.

This year — 2019 — was the year that the Board ofSupervisors got the message.

More News Stories

More News Stories

U.S. Supreme Court leaves inplace ruling barring prosecutionof homelessReuters, by Dec. 16, 2019, Andrew ChungRead More

Why people are freezing inAmerica’s prisonsIt shouldn’t be up to concerned citizens to keep theincarcerated warm in the winter.Vox, By Roxanna Asgarian Dec 13, 2019Read More

Ventura Training CenterProvides Parolees Path inFirefightingSpectrum News 1, By Tanya McRae CamarilloDec. 26, 2019Read More

Rural justice systems low onpretrial resources leave some tolanguish, dieShortage of money, attorneys push rural jailpopulations to explode. In extreme case, Wisconsin

From Marijuana To The DeathPenalty, States Led The Way In2019The Appeal, by Daniel NichanianDec 20, 2019A retrospective on the year that was on criminaljustice reform. Seven maps. 16 issues. 50 states.Read More

Sacramento Kings andIncarcerated Individuals ComeTogether For First NBA 'Play ForJustice' Event at Folsom StatePrisonNBA.com, Dec 12, 2019"Today, the Sacramento Kings, with theREPRESENT JUSTICE Campaign tipped off a seriesof basketball games at correctional facilities betweenincarcerated individuals and NBA players andcoaches."Read More

The Hidden Cost ofIncarcerationPrison costs taxpayers $80 billion a year. It costssome families everything they have.The Marshall Project By Nicole Lewis and BeatrixLockwoodRead More

The hidden scandal of UScriminal justice? Ruralincarceration has boomedWhile big cities are finally putting fewer people in jail,small towns and rural counties are locking up morepeople than everThe Guardian, by Jasmine Heiss and Jack Norton,December 13, 2019 Read More

populations to explode. In extreme case, Wisconsinteen took his life.USA Today by Pamela Metzger, Opinion contributor,Dec. 13, 2019Read More

California Voters SupportEnding Cash Bail, New PollShowsKQED News, by Marisa Lagos, Dec 19, 2019

Read the article

Read More

REPORTS

Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie2019Prison Policy Initiative, By Wendy Sawyer, December19, 2019

On any given day, over 48,000 youth in the UnitedStates are confined in facilities away from home as aresult of juvenile justice or criminal justice involvement.Most are held in restrictive, correctional-style facilities,and thousands are held without even having had a trial.But even these high figures represent astonishing

progress: Since 2000, the number of youth inconfinement has fallen by 60%, a trend that shows nosign of slowing down.

What explains these remarkable changes? How are thejuvenile justice and adult criminal justice systemsdifferent, and how are they similar? Perhaps mostimportantly, can those working to reduce the number of

Pretrial Risk Assessment inCaliforniaPublic Policy Institute of California, Heather Harris,Justin Goss, Alexandria Gumbs, December 2019

The policies governing California’s pretrial system areundergoing substantial change. Amid recent correctionalreforms and ongoing challenges to the state’s bailsystem, pretrial risk assessment has emerged as a wayto help counties make decisions about whether arrestedindividuals should remain in the community or bedetained until any charges stemming from that arrest areresolved.

This report presents an overview of pretrial riskassessment in California and offers considerations forusing, evaluating, and improving the effectiveness oflocal pretrial risk assessment systems.

Read the report

One Year After the First Step Act:Mixed OutcomesThe Sentencing Project by Kara Gotsch, December 17,2019

In commemoration of the sentencing reform law’spassage one year ago this week, The Sentencing Projecthas published an analysis of the law’s successes,challenges and the reform left undone.

Read the Report

importantly, can those working to reduce the number ofadults behind bars learn any lessons from the progressmade in reducing youth confinement?

Read the report

An Overview of Evidence-BasedPractices and Programs in PrisonReentryIllinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, Dec., 2019

Read the Report

Visit the LARRP Report Archive