Community Efforts to Minimize Supervision: Lessons from Delaware, Minnesota & New York State

SESSION INFO

Monday, August 28, 2023
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Session Type: Workshop

A little over a year after the implementation of of Less Is More – a law that significantly limited incarceration for technical violations, provided earned time credits, ended automatic detention for technical violations, and established the right to counsel in revocation proceedings in New York – community members and advocacy organizations in other jurisdictions are continuing to reform and minimize supervision through the legislative process. As such, advocates in several states, including Minnesota and Delaware, have proposed legislation that uses New York’s Less Is More law as a launching pad for transforming both probation and parole. This panel will provide insight into the state-specific provisions of the legislative process for reforming supervision and the process of building community coalitions to advocate for change, as well as wins and challenges to advancing legislative efforts. We will emphasize ways that interested parties from the system can play a key role in the legislative reform process.

SESSION PRESENTERS

Will Cooley
Project Lead- Community Supervision, Minnesota Justice Research Center


Will Cooley is a researcher and policy advocate on issues of probation and parole, violence prevention, and policing strategies. He serves as the lead for the Minnesota Justice Research Center’s “Re-Imagining Community Supervision in Minnesota” project. He earned his PhD from the University of Illinois in 2008 and has published in has published articles in the Journal of Urban History, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Labor History, The Oxford Handbook on Immigration and Ethnicity, Labor, the Journal of Social History, Policing, and Building the Black Metropolis. His book, Moving Up, Moving Out: The Rise of the Black Middle Class in Chicago was released in 2018.


Ms. Akosua Serwaa Frimpong
Manager, Probation and Parole Reform Project, Columbia University School of Social Work


Akosua Serwaa Frimpong is the Manager of the Parole and Probation Reform Project at the Justice Lab. In this role, she coordinates the activities for the Executives Transforming Probation and Parole (EXiT) network, a membership group of current and former chiefs of supervision agencies, as well as other signatories.


Bronwyn A Hunter
Senior Site Work Manager of the Probation and Parole Reform Project, Columbia University Justice Lab


Bronwyn Hunter is a Senior Site Work Manager for Columbia Justice Lab’s Probation and Parole Project and focuses on engagement with sites to reduce the use of supervision and increase community-led supports, services, and investment.Prior to joining the Justice Lab, Bronwyn was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where her research program and community work has focused on promoting health and well-being for people and communities who are indirectly and directly impacted by the criminal legal system.


John Reynolds
Campaign Manager, American Civil Liberties Union - Delaware


John Reynolds joined ACLU of Delaware as Campaign Manager for Clean Slate Delaware in February 2021. John is a committed advocate for racial justice and graduate of UCLA School of Law with a specialization in Critical Race Studies. Prior to ACLU-DE, John lived in New York, where he coordinated legal education programming at the Federal Bar Council, managed direct service efforts at NYC Mission Society for students struggling with criminal justice, economic, and other challenges, and worked on campaigns for criminal justice reform and economic equity at the Center for Popular Democracy.


Yonah Zeitz
Director of Organizing, Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice


Yonah Zeitz is the director of advocacy with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. Through advocacy, communications, policy work, organizing, and coalition building, Yonah works to strengthen grassroots movements and build people power. His work focuses on transforming the criminal legal system and creating community-led solutions that focus on resources and healing, not cages. His work combines policy strategy, digital and community organizing, and communications to advance Katal’s goals.