Search results | Street Roots

Results

Opinion | 8 ways district attorneys can transform justice

Oregon’s 36 district attorneys are some of the most powerful actors in the public safety system, and about half of them are running for reelection in the May 17 primary election. Whether or not your district attorney’s name is on your ballot, this is an ...

10 May 2022 - Shannon Wight
Hundreds in Oregon still await new trials a year after Supreme Court ruled on non-unanimous juries

Citing racist origins, justices struck down Oregon's law allowing such convictions, but the state isn't applying the ruling retroactively Update: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, May 17, in Edwards v. Vannoy that its 2020 decision in Ramos ...

12 May 2021 - Christen McCurdy
Oregon bill would end police trickery and deceit in juvenile interrogations

‘If you have good data on a suspect, why do you need to lie to get them to confess?’ says the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Chris Gorsek A 15-year-old boy worn down by interrogators falsely confesses to killing his little sister after detectives tell him they ha ...

7 Apr 2021 - Libby Dowsett
Why The Marshall Project is tracking COVID-19 in America’s prisons

Katie Park, one of the journalists behind the project, talks to Street Roots about what the team has learned: ‘This really is a serious issue behind bars’ The Marshall Project has been tracking confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths within America’s state ...

10 Mar 2021 - Emily Green
‘Set up to fail’: Ex-prisoners speak out as Oregon lawmakers consider Measure 11 reforms

Hearings on a criminal justice reform bill draw testimony about mandatory minimums, parole restrictions and more Kenneth McGee ran into an old acquaintance online Feb. 25 during a public hearing on House Bill 2002 on criminal justice reform. It was former ...

10 Mar 2021 - Tom Henderson
Editorial | The prison system cannot be fixed

Scores of COVID-19 deaths in Oregon’s prisons underscore the failures of America’s carceral system E xpendable. The word refers to something that is normally used up or consumed in service, or something that is more easily replaced than rescued, salvaged ...

10 Mar 2021 - SR editorial board
‘No human being belongs in a cage’: Podcast creator gives fellow ex-prisoners a platform

Prison abolitionist Joshua Edward Wright has launched ‘The Exiled Voice,’ featuring interviews with people who have been incarcerated in Oregon In the 19th century, slave narratives from writers like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs played a critical ...

13 Jan 2021 - Hanna Merzbach
Special Report | The life and death of Billy Baggett

After spending most of his life in prison, Billy Baggett was released into a world he no longer understood, contending with a lifetime of trauma and coming to terms with his imminent death Introduction: On telling Billy's story He was dying, but he w ...

27 Dec 2020 - Emily Green
Opinion | Housing advocates and frontline providers agree: Yes on Measure 110

The ballot measure would reform Oregon's approach to drug addiction The overdose epidemic, housing crisis, COVID pandemic and policing disparities have many Oregonians eager to find something to be hopeful about. That’s why we’re excited to tell you ...

30 Sep 2020 - Haven Wheelock and Steve Rudman
Opinion | Oregon is poised to reduce incarceration

It’s time to divest in prisons and invest in BIPOC crime survivors and communities instead The racism inherent in our criminal justice system is finally being widely recognized — for centuries, Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other people of color have been ...

2 Sep 2020 - Shannon Wight and Amy Davidson