Op Eds

This Los Angeles Times editorial shows strong support for our bill (SB 1363) that would limit the use of solitary confinement in California's youth prisons.

A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting a different outcome. California has been doing the same thing with drug users for decades, while wasting billions of dollars and wrecking lives in the process.

I've been working on issues of police accountability, locked-up youth, violence, and community investment for a long time. Sometimes I think that no example of injustice could still surprise me. I was recently proved wrong.

In a sustainable, healthy economy, people shouldn't have to settle for grey jobs. Fortunately, Jerry Brown has a plan to fight unemployment and put more Californians to work fixing up houses and apartments to reduce energy consumption -- the renewal and reform of the Public Goods Charge.

Before my son got locked up, he was healthy. Being locked up for more than 21 hours and sometimes more than 23 hours a day made my son sick. He is physically deteriorating. His speech is slower and he seems distant now.

Joaquin DiazDeLeon says what happened to him in the youth prison system shouldn't happen to anyone.

It’s been a violent year in Oakland so far – both homicides and shootings are up about a third over last year’s numbers. And, throughout the year, various editorials have called for different solutions to the uptick in violence.

HE U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal court order requiring California to reduce its prison population by approximately 33,000 within two years.

For those of us who believe that the health of people and the planet should come before profits, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is the cornerstone of our state's environmental policy.

Seven years ago, the Ella Baker Center's Books Not Bars Campaign started calling for closing California's youth prisons. People laughed in our faces. Literally. Even reformers who agreed in private, thought we were foolish to call for shuttering the largest set of youth prisons in the country.