Human Rights for Prisoners March: Successful Reentry vs. Recidivism

Human Rights for Prisoners March, hosted by Mary Neal. 9pm Pacific Time. Call (818) 572-2947 to speak on air.

Fighting mass incarceration must also include reducing recidivism. Prisoners face challenges being released from prison, including (a) the loss of good time programs, (b) unresponsive pardons and parole boards, (c) mandatory sentencing laws. Some released prisoners face tremendous challenges getting acclimated back into society, including (1) poor employment prospects, (2) lack of family and community support, and (3) expenses related to their release, i.e., ankle bracelets, probation fees. Ex-convicts who served sentences for certain offenses may be denied voting rights, and many are ineligible for government programs offering subsistence assistance and educational benefits. America's recidivism rate is over 65 percent. Recidivism is even higher among released inmates who have acute mental illness and were released from prison without arrangements for their continued psychiatric treatment.

Human Rights for Prisoners March provides:

• Advocacy for adequate defense, fair trials, drug courts, mental health courts, post-conviction DNA tests, safe and humane incarceration, and successful re-entry.

• Advocacy against prisoner abuse, avoidable deaths caused by police and corrections officers, solitary confinement, children tried and sentenced as adults, criminalizing mental illness, inadequate health care, wrongful convictions, law of parties, three-strikes law, enforced prison labor, and capital punishment.

Guests include people who have experienced, or who have specialized knowledge about, prison conditions and overuse of force by police or correctional officers, or any subject related to crime and punishment, including improvements proposed or realized.