Respect Life

• Campaign to qualify the Californians for Parental Rights Parental Notification Constitutional Amendment failed to obtain the required 807,615 valid signatures to qualify for the November 2012 ballot. See report. 
  
  
• Californians for Parental Rights initiative supports an amendment to the California constitution to endorse the role of the family in guiding children. California currently has no parental involvement law. Download petitions.

Restorative Justice

• They cannot afford bail. More than 50,000 of the 71,000 Californians held in county jail on any given day are awaiting their day in court. The ACLU’s realignment research team conducted an in-depth analysis of how local leaders in the 25 counties that received the most realignment (AB 109) funding have decided to invest these dollars — nearly $400 million, slated to grow to more than $1 billion annually in the next fiscal year. Read the report.
  
  
• Debate over death penalty resurfaces in California The death penalty is emerging as a contentious issue in 2012, both in the state Capitol and at the polls.There are two competing approaches: repeal or repair. Which direction California takes, if either, will probably remain unanswered until fall.

• California's Parole System Based on Vengeance? A response to a recent account in the Sacramento Bee on Gov. Brown’s affirming the release of “more killers” than his predecessors. 


• Films Look at Life without Parole for Juveniles
  SB 9 Youth Sentencing (Lee-D, San Francisco) fell one vote short in the State Assembly in 2011, but advocates – including the California Catholic Conference – continue efforts to ask lawmakers to change the practice of sentencing children to life without parole.
  
  
• Life Sentences for Youths
  California has sentenced more juveniles to life in prison without possibility of parole than any state in the nation except Pennsylvania.
  
  
• Prison Release, Homelessness
  Generally speaking, more than 100,000 people are released, and more than 100,000 people are incarcerated every single year. Our prison system released in excess of 130,000 people into our neighborhoods in 2009 alone.
  
  
• Author of Death Penalty Legislation Reconsiders
  I wrote the ballot initiative that reinstated the death penalty in California in 1978.But the death penalty initiative that I drafted was drawn up without fiscal study, input from others, or committee hearings.
  
  
• California's Prison System: An Orientation
  As a member of a public oversight group I have recently had the experience of being exposed to the California Prison System. What I found was totally unexpected and shocking.
  
  
• California Unions
  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has over 50,000 employees.