The Choice is Yours (TCY) is a felony diversion program in Philadelphia that channels young people arrested for drug possession with intent to distribute away from jail and into education and job training services. Alberta LLoyd, TCY career training and life skills instructor, and Marta Buechler, TCY case manager, discuss some of the numerous life challenges faced by TCY participants.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office on a wave of enthusiasm about a new approach to governing, including a stance on policing that broke with that of his predecessor. As a candidate, Mamdani promised to “relieve the excessive burden we’ve placed on police officers” and to allow officers “to focus on serious crimes.” The Mamdani administr ...
Maryland’s newly passed Fair Chance Housing Act expands access to safe, stable housing for people with conviction histories and advances public safety.
Marquis Howard recalls sweating over every word he wrote in the box on the housing application that asked about his criminal conviction. Even though he had gone back to school, earned degrees, and held a good job, he reasonably feared his application would be rejected due to a decades-old conviction. “I was so stressed,” said Howard, a senior organ ...
A Dispatch from the Global Justice Exchange
Delegation members, including Stanley Richards and Dan Martuscello, tour Heidering Prison, Berlin’s newest correctional facility.Since 2013, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) has organized high-level study delegations composed of diverse justice practitioners and leaders to visit Germany—where the conditions of incarceration are designed to prom ...