| DailyXtra
Canada's federal jails have told staff to stop sorting trans people by their genitalia, after a trans woman raised the issue with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "I did 36 years in the military; I'm a pensioner. I get to speak out now," Teresa Windsor tells Xtra. On Jan. 12, 2017, Windsor took part in a Kingston, Ontario, question-and-answer session during Trudeau's tour of the province. She asked Trudeau about "what I consider torture of trans inmates" by housing them in jails by genders they don't identify with. "Will you do your best to make sure that trans women are put in a prison that's more appropriate?" she asked. READ MORE
WAFB-TV
Louisiana's incarceration rate is one of the highest in the nation and recenty, the Justice Reinvestment Task Force held a town hall asking community members to help come up with a plan to turn those numbers around. "We're going to have to be smarter. We can do this. We're smart people and we can do this," said Louisiana Chief Justice Bernette Johnson. But while Louisiana puts more of its people per capita in prison than any other state, it does not mean the Bayou State is riddled with offenders. "Louisianians don't commit more crimes than people in other states, but they are just incarcerated at a much higher rate than anybody else," said Southern University Law Center Chancellor John Pierre. READ MORE The Globe and Mail
Recently, Australian Attorney-General George Brandis launched yet another inquiry into what he called a "national tragedy" — the country's exploding aboriginal prison population — and directed the Australian Law Reform Commission to come up with solutions to the crisis. "The degree of civilization of any society can, among other things, be judged by looking at the condition of its prisons," Brandis said in handing the commission its mandate. "It is a sad reflection on Australia that our first peoples are so grossly overrepresented in our nation's prisons." READ MORE
Tech Crunch
It's no secret that the criminal justice system in the United States is broken. With 2.2 million people behind bars in prisons and jails in the country, the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world. In our first episode of Bullish since taking a break in May, I sat down with Chris Redlitz, a general partner at Transmedia Capital and co-founder of The Last Mile, to talk about the tech industry's role in criminal justice reform. The Last Mile, located inside San Quentin, teaches incarcerated people about entrepreneurship, as well as how to code. READ MORE WAVE3
About 70 jails in Kentucky are overcrowded, with some operating at double their capacity. At the same time, many halfway houses or reentry centers have open beds, so their directors are now pushing lawmakers to give them more inmates to help the problem. Ray Weis is the President and CEO of Dismas Charities. They operate halfway houses around the nation, seven here in Kentucky. He's frustrated by jail overcrowding. READ MORE Truthout
Soleiman Faqiri's family is still looking for answers. They want to know why, less than two weeks after he was arrested, the 30-year-old was found dead on Dec. 15 while in solitary confinement in an Ontario jail. "We want to know why my brother died," Soleiman's brother, Yusuf, told CBC News late last year. "Why did Soleiman die? How did Soleiman die? That's what we're looking for." Yusuf said his brother, who was jailed on aggravated assault charges that were later dropped, has schizophrenia. READ MORE
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