Keeping Kids and Parents Together: A Healthier Approach to Sentencing in MA, TN, LA

“We are supporting organizations led by formerly incarcerated women in 3 states (Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Louisiana) to strategically bring a public health perspective into their campaigns to pass legislation to keep parents who are caretakers with their children through alternatives to incarceration.

Our work consists of two parts:

  • We’re conducting research to evaluate the health and equity impacts of allowing a judge to sentence eligible primary caretakers (mainly parents) to community-based supervision or community-based programs.
  • We’re mobilizing health professionals as a constituency to advocate for and endorse primary caretakers bills in each state — with the goal of advancing criminal justice reforms that place health and wellbeing at their center.”

 

read more