This Thursday, October 23rd, Emma Ketteringam, Managing Director of the Family Defense Practice, and Elizabeth Keeney, Managing Director of Social Work will be presenting at the 10th National Harm Reduction Conference in Baltimore, MD. The biannual conference, sponsored and organized by the Harm Reduction Coalition, is the only multidisciplinary gathering dedicated to improving the health and well-being of…
This week, Senator Charles Schumer proposed making trespassing on “critical infrastructure” — bridges, buildings, and the like — a federal offense, punishable by up to five years in prison. He pointed to the pair of German artists who this summer allegedly scaled the Brooklyn Bridge and replaced its American flags with white flags; a Russian…
“Every day, advocates at our office witness firsthand how the promise of due process held out by the 5th Amendment is unrealized by our non-citizen clients solely because of immigration status. Whenever ICE has lodged a detainer against a non-citizen client and the client’s criminal case carries potential immigration consequences, that client is unable to…
Written Comments of The Bronx Defenders New York City Council Joint Meeting of the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services and the Committee on Juvenile Justice Good afternoon. My name is Dave Casellas, and I work as a client coordinator at The Bronx Defenders. In this role, I help Bronx Defenders clients and their families…
The multitude of black men killed by police led Maryam Monalisa Gharavi to call these last months “the Summer of Death” in her New Inquiry essay “The Killing Class.” In New York, police strangled grandfather Eric Garner. In Ohio, police gunned down John Crawford III in a Walmart while he was checking out an air…
It has been a very exciting year for the The Bronx Defenders’ Center for Holistic Defense! In May, we hosted the first annual Holistic Defense Symposium, which brought together representatives from 24 different organizations that are working to adopt holistic practices. In the coming weeks, we will begin meeting with our latest group of technical assistance sites. Since 2010,…
“Thanks to the City Council’s groundbreaking leadership on this issue, dozens of the Bronx residents we have represented are home with their families, supporting their children, and contributing to their communities” said Robin Steinberg, Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders. “The proposed expansion will mean fairness and justice for more immigrant families in the Bronx.”…
The disturbing use of civil forfeiture by many cities and states to line their coffers has been on the rise, and Last Week Tonight took up the topic and framed it the only way most of us can understand: In the guise of a Law & Order episode. As The New Yorker put it in…
The Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Porsha Shaf’on Venable was featured in a piece by NY City Lens, a news website produced by students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, talking about her passion for being a public defender and serving the Bronx community: Public defender Shaf’on Venable wants to make a difference in her…
In this week’s New Yorker, I wrote about a sixteen-year-old boy from the Bronx named Kalief Browder, who was accused of robbery and confined on Rikers Island. He stayed there for three years, waiting for a trial that never happened. For the majority of that time, he was in solitary confinement, locked in a cell…
The Bronx Defenders is excited to share the news announced in a press release published by U.S. Congressman José E. Serrano yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance has awarded renewed funding to The Bronx Defenders Center for Holistic Defense: Sep 29, 2014 | Issues: The Bronx Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Congressman José…
The 8th Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it happens every day in prisons across the country. Putting aside capital punishment, which I would argue is cruel and unusual on its face, Americans are ignoring a host of horrific conditions that inmates are subjected to. This is not only morally and constitutionally dangerous; it…
Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Colby Dillon was featured this month in Northwestern University School of Law’s Children and Family Justice Center blog, Youth Matters, in their “Ask an Alum” column, speaking about her experience as a new public defender at The Bronx Defenders. Colby (JD ’13) works as a juvenile attorney at The Bronx Defenders in…
Yesterday, September 21, 2014, Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice Supervising Attorney Mary Anne Mendenhall joined in a compelling discussion on NFL player Adrian Peterson’s ongoing child abuse case, offering keen insights into the experiences and challenges faced by Bronx Defenders clients in Bronx Family Court. The episode of Hot 97’s “Street Soldiers” with host Lisa Evers brought…
Keston Jones, Bronx Defenders Parent Advocate, will present at the New York State Social Work Education Association’s Conference on October 9, 2014. His talk is entitled “Focus on Fathers: Myths and Misconceptions about Low Income African American and Minority Fathers.” The presentation flows from Keston’s work with The Bronx Defenders Focus on Fathers project, which was developed to…
On Friday, September 19, 2014 at 2:30 PM Eastern, The Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Mark Loudon-Brown will be instructing a National Association for Public Defense webinar entitled “DNA Basics for the Defense – A Primer to Get You Started.” The webinar will focus on the basics of DNA evidence, examining what DNA evidence is,…
Given the ever-increasing reliance on forensic evidence in the justice system, particularly in the areas of criminal defense and family defense, The Bronx Defenders has created a Forensic Practice Group as a resource for attorneys from all practice specialties within the office.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wanda Coleman sits in the New York City public housing apartment where she’s lived for 25 years, surrounded by empty rooms, bare walls and suitcases lined up by the front door. Any day now, she and her teen daughter will be evicted and have no other option than to go to…
The following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts. The American Civil Liberties Union released 26 reports alleging extensive abuses in Arizona’s prisons, including claims that individuals are being placed in solitary confinement because prison beds elsewhere are…
Inmates are placed in solitary confinement at Rikers Island for “inexcusably extreme” amounts of time, a new report charges, “egregiously disproportionate” to the infractions they are alleged to have committed. While in solitary, it can be difficult for inmates to get access to the most basic of services, including food, showers, and phone time. That’s…
‘The interviews expose a systemic practice that is unquestionably inhumane,’ concludes the report by The Bronx Defenders. Of the 59 inmates interviewed, some were as young as 16 — and their median age was 20. The “horrific conditions” endured by inmates in solitary confinement at Rikers Island are exposed in a report released Thursday by a…
The Otis Bantum Correctional Center has the largest solitary confinement unit on Rikers Island. It holds roughly 400 inmates, according to the Board of Correction. The Otis Bantum Correctional Center has the largest solitary confinement unit on Rikers Island. It holds roughly 400 inmates, according to the Board of Correction. (Brigid Bergin/WNYC) A new report…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 12, 2014 Contact: Skylar Albertson, The Bronx Defenders, (347) 842-1215, SkylarA@bronxdefenders.org Voices From the Box: Solitary Confinement at Rikers Island New York – The Bronx Defenders released a report summarizing the experiences of 59 current and former clients who were subjected to extreme isolation in solitary confinement at Rikers Island. The…
NEW YORK — It took two hours during Monday’s packed City Council hearing with NYPD Commissioner William Bratton for someone to mention “broken windows.” It was council member Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn) who finally broached the subject, calling the controversial policing strategy the “5,000-pound elephant in the room.” Cornegy made the remark while questioning Bratton about…
NEW YORK — The New York City Police Department outlined a new tactical training program on Monday as the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio continues its efforts to mend the fractured relationship between the nation’s largest police force and the city’s minority communities. Speaking before the New York City Council Monday morning, police Commissioner…
