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SACRAMENTO — Today, the California Senate voted to pass AB 45, state legislation introduced by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay) to eliminate copays for medical and dental services provided in California county jails. The bipartisan vote follows the decision by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to voluntarily eliminate copays in state prisons earlier this ... Read More

SACRAMENTO – Today the California State Assembly passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 6, which would restore voting rights to nearly 50,000 Californians on parole. ACA 6, authored by Asm. Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), passed with a 54-16 vote. ACA 6 will next go through the California State Senate, where it will need a 2/3 majority to pass. If it passes through the Senate, the constituti... Read More

After a parole board granted Richard Mireles his freedom earlier this year, he was shocked to learn that he still couldn’t cast a vote in California, the state he had lived in since he was born. Just three months shy of his 21st birthday, a court gave Richard a life sentence on his first felony case. In the two decades of his incarceration, Richard worked hard to change his life. He got sober, wor... Read More

BAKERSFIELD — Farm worker and immigration activist Jose Bello, who was arrested and imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shortly after reciting an anti-ICE and Trump administration poem at a public meeting, has been freed. His ICE-imposed bail of $50,000 was paid by: National Football League players Josh Norman and Demario Davis, who are members of the of the Players C... Read More

Erica Smith was making a fresh start. After being forced out of her home by domestic violence, she had spent the last three years cycling between homelessness and jail for petty offenses. But with the help of reentry organization Starting Over Inc., she finally secured stable housing and a job helping women who had experienced challenges like hers. She found community support in the Riverside chap... Read More

For nearly three decades, my former colleague Rep. John Conyers of Michigan would introduce H.R. 40, legislation seeking to establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals. Though many thought it a lost cause, he believed that a day would come when our nation would need to account for the brutal mistreatment of African Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and th... Read More

We are two months away from the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in what would become the United States of America. It is time to renew the public discussion about reparations to descendants of Africans who were enslaved as our country was forming and growing rich.  First as colonies and then as a nation, America has existed longer with slavery (1619-1865: 246 years) than... Read More

SACRAMENTO — Today, California’s Assembly passed Assembly Bill 45, authored by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay) with a vote of 44 to 19. AB 45 eliminates medical and dental copayments and charges for health care appliances in prisons and jails. “People in here refuse medical service because of copays,” said Juan Moreno Haines, an incarcerated journalist and winner of the Silver Heart ... Read More

LOS ANGELES — The chemical agent known as pepper spray is so toxic that it’s classified in California law as a tear gas weapon. But in juvenile detention facilities in many parts of California, this weapon — which can cause not only intense pain, but also blistering of the skin, respiratory arrest, and even an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks — is alarmingly overused on youths as young ... Read More

A judge ruled that California is violating the due-process rights of defendants who have been declared incompetent to stand trial by letting them languish for months in jail. State agencies must now reduce transfer delays. Read More