Second Chances for People Incarcerated as Young Adults
Second Chances for People Incarcerated as Young Adults will help move Washington towards racially just, evidence-based sentencing practices by giving young adults who have demonstrated accountability and rehabilitation a second chance.
Read MoreFresh Start for Criminalized Youth
The use of juvenile adjudications in adult sentencing has led to Black and Indigenous People of Color receiving longer sentences because of crimes they committed as children. Fresh Start for Criminalized Youth retroactively eliminates this racist practice and discontinues its use moving forward.
Read MoreRecognizing Accountability and Rehabilitation
The absence of Earned Release Time (ERT) for a large portion of those currently incarcerated has been a primary driver of extraordinarily long sentences and mass incarceration in Washington State. ERT helps remedy that by allowing people who have demonstrated rehabilitation and accountability the opportunity to earn good time.
Read MoreWashington’s Mass Incarceration Crisis
Since 1980 the state’s prison population has nearly quadrupled in size, even as crime rates have continuously dropped. In this time period the number of long and life sentences imposed by Washington’s Superior courts have also more than quadrupled.
Justice Demands More
- Washington is one of very few states that does not have parole.
- Washington’s sentencing practices are not evidence-based nor geared toward public safety.
- Washington disproportionately incarcerates and gives longer sentences to Black and Indigenous People of Color.
