West Virginia Public Broadcasting - On this West Virginia Morning, people who have been incarcerated, once they get out, often struggle to find a job and a place to live. Those struggles often drive them back to crime, but re-entry councils are helping to address that problem. Also, in this show, Kanawha County has the most…
Criminal Justice
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law in March 2021, is a tremendous and unprecedented opportunity to invest in programs and projects that will increase public health and public safety as communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The $1.9 trillion package’s flexibility allows for state and local governments to fund a wide range…
For Immediate Release: May 13, 2021Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV – Across the United States, citizens returning from prisons and jails face numerous obstacles as they reintegrate into their communities, including finding steady employment and stable housing, obtaining reliable transportation, and navigating the requirements of community supervision. The challenge in overcoming these obstacles is heightened in West…
This report was co-authored by WVCBP's criminal justice analyst, Quenton King, and the director of AFSC West Virginia's Economic Justice Project, Rick Wilson. Read the full report here. Introduction Across the United States, citizens returning from prisons and jails face numerous obstacles as they reintegrate into their communities, including finding steady employment and stable housing,…
The 2021 West Virginia legislative session ended last month, and now that the majority of the bills have been signed by the governor or passed into law without his signature, we can take stock of how criminal justice policies fared at the Capitol. The 2020 session saw several bills that were strides toward reform and…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - Last spring, a small, bipartisan group of West Virginia lawmakers embarked on an enormous task — the rewriting of several hundred pages of criminal law. Read the full article. Every one to two weeks, the five House delegates would meet over a video conferencing app to consider a new section…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - On this West Virginia Morning, healthcare costs continue to rise around the country and can cause tremendous stress for consumers. But several bills being considered by the West Virginia Legislature aim to reduce those costs and put more money in the pockets of West Virginians. Also, we learn about a massive…
West Virginia saw an unprecedented drop in the incarcerated population at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between the beginning of March 2020 and April 15, 2020, the state’s total incarcerated population fell by nearly 13 percent as officials made efforts to prevent COVID-19 spread in jails and prisons. While the number of incarcerated people…
Join the West Virginia Criminal Law Coalition and our special guest panel on March 30 as we watch and discuss the new docuseries "Philly DA" ahead of its premiere. "Philly DA" is a groundbreaking documentary series embedded inside the long-shot election and tumultuous first term of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia's unapologetic District Attorney, and his experiment to upend…
The West Virginia Legislature is one-fourth of the way through the 2021 session, and thus far the focus has largely been on areas other than criminal justice. Legislation concerning criminal law that has been passed out of committees includes a juvenile restorative justice program and several bills that enhance sentences for certain crimes. Last Friday,…