KALW , an NPR member station in San Francisco, has led classes in audio production inside San Quentin State Prison since 2012, and Solano Prison since 2018. Since then, KALW has aired over 80 stories produced inside the walls. Radio producers from KALW visit the prisons to teach classes in audio production, and to help edit the stories. Audio engineers at KALW do some final polishing before it goes out to the world. KALW’s classes in prisons are supported by the California Arts Council's...

Plans to integrate practices and policies based on the science of adverse childhood experiences in North Carolina’s 4,000-person,100-county statewide judiciary were announced today. Jon David, district attorney for North Carolina’s 15th District, District Court Judge Quintin McGee of the same district, and Amelia Thorn, of Duke University’s Bolch Judicial Institute, revealed plans to work with North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby and Administrative Office of the Courts Director Andrew...

Building relationships of healing, redemption and reconciliation in families and communities impacted by crime and mass incarceration. We cannot talk about healing communities without talking about restorative justice.

Recently, I was provided a form letter addressed to a local police chief and friend of mine who knew of my interest in trauma-informed policing and who thought I should read the letter. The letter claimed that trauma-informed policing, specifically as it related to domestic violence and sexual violence allegations, was everything from “junk science” to “prejudicial against men.” Needless to say, I found the letter uninformed and unpersuasive.

Did you miss our talk on Transforming Correctional Design for Justice Reform? Based in the irrefutable facts of the biological effects of trauma, this talk is now available for you to stream!

NDRN Applauds Ending Contracts with Private Prison Companies - https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndrn-applauds-ending-contracts-with-private-prison-companies/ On Tuesday, January 26, 2021, the Biden Administration announced that the Department of Justice will not renew any existing contracts for private prison operators in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). There are currently 12 privately-run prisons in the BOP, several of which had already been shut down or are pending transfer to government...

Adolfo Gonzales began work Monday as Los Angeles County’s chief probation officer, overseeing a system that supervises more than 40,000 juveniles and adults and managing an annual budget of over $1 billion. A former San Diego County probation chief, Gonzales brings 43 years of law enforcement experience to his new position, including being chief of the National City Police Department and assistant chief with the San Diego Police Department. Gonzales was appointed to the position last month...

In prison six years later, Gullickson was contemplating joining an intensive recovery program when a “striking, magnetic gorgeous Black woman walked in the room, held up a mug shot and started talking about being in the very chairs where we were sitting,” Gullickson remembers. There was life on the other side of addiction and prison, the woman said. But you have to fight for it. Gullickson believed her. “I remember thinking, I may not be able to do all that, be what she was, but maybe I...

"In my campaign for president, I made it very clear that the moment had arrived as a nation, as we face deep racial inequities in America and systemic racism that has plagued our nation for far, far too long. I said that over the course of the past year that the blinders had been taken off the nation, the American people. What many Americans didn't see or had simply refused to see couldn't be ignored any longer." Today, President Biden spoke to these issues in straightforward language before...

By Keri Blakinger, The Marshall Project, January 19, 2021 When his father died last year of an overdose* , * Rodney Watson thought he would miss the funeral and his last chance to say goodbye—not because of the pandemic, but because he was in jail. Watson, 36, was awaiting trial in Houston after shooting and wounding his brother during a fight, an act he swears was unintentional. In the past, Watson’s incarceration could have forced him to miss the elegant church funeral with the white roses...

I'm pretty sure I learned as much or more about trauma-informed policing while presenting the class as did the police chiefs who attended. After not presenting at all during 2020, I was excited to be invited to present a block of instruction on Trauma-Informed Leadership for Police Chiefs at the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police 2021 Winter Conference. There were about 50 chiefs in attendance on January 14, 2021, and while we all had to deal with the COVID precautions, it was good...