When President Obama visited Rutgers Law School, he called on changes to the criminal justice system and the way former offenders are treated – including offering support services for people once they’re released from incarceration, reducing sentences for nonviolent offenders, and eliminating the stigma of a prison record when filling out job applications.
The president’s message resonated at Rutgers Law School because of the school’s enduring commitment to social justice and active pro bono and clinic work that serves surrounding communities, Rutgers Law School has been a leader in rethinking mass incarceration and its professors and students have long served as advocates for those in the corrections system.
Professor Laura Cohen, who attended the president’s visit, said she was thrilled that the president chose to visit the law school because of its tradition of serving those affected by the criminal justice system. “We are at the forefront of juvenile justice reform in the state,” she said. “The law school has made a very real and lasting commitment to systematic reform.”
Faculty at Rutgers Law School – both in Newark and Camden – are among the nation’s scholarly leaders who are trying to better conditions for people who are incarcerated. Their work dovetails with President Obama’s focus on overhauling some of the nation’s harshest sentencing laws, particularly for non-violent offenders.
Rutgers Law School faculty and students who participate in clinic programs have tirelessly worked for justice for those behind bars. In the last two years, those efforts paid off with significant victories.
- In August, Gov. Chris Christie signed a law that eliminates harsh detention practices for juveniles in the state justice system, a law largely brought about because of the work of Rutgers Law Professors Cohen and Sandra Simkins, with help from Professor Douglas Eakeley. Cohen and Simkins provided legal representation to youth incarcerated in New Jersey’s long-term juvenile facilities and found youthful offenders were often placed in solitary confinement for misbehavior no more serious than foul language directed at corrections officers. In addition, youths were commonly transferred, without receiving a hearing, to punitive adult prisons. Once exposed to adult criminals, those young offenders often lost out on the chance to turn their lives around. With the passage of the law, juveniles cannot be transferred to an adult prison without due process and legal representation and solitary confinement is outlawed within juvenile facilities if the purpose is simply to punish. There also are limits to how long a violent young offender can be put in solitary confinement in a juvenile facility.
- In 2014, Professor Cohen and students from the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic were part of a legal team that worked to free David McCallum, a man who spent 29 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The team found and interviewed witnesses and had the District Attorney’s office test physical evidence for DNA, establishing holes in the trial evidence that persuaded the Brooklyn DA that McCallum’s confession was false. The clinic provides legal representation to incarcerated youths and to adults in minor criminal parole, and actual innocence matters.
As part of the Strategic Plan of Rutgers University—Newark, the Chancellor’s Seed Grant program has also initiated two new programs that address the issue of over-incarceration and reentry:
- In order to divert the “school to prison pipeline,” the Law School’s Newark Educational Access and Advocacy Project (NEEAP) will train law students to provide “know-your-rights” presentations and website information to public school students involved in school disciplinary proceedings, and will provide direct representation in some cases. NEEAP will seek to promote sensible alternatives to school exclusion as the preferred result of such proceedings.
- The Rutgers Law Associates—the Law School’s post-graduate fellowship program that provides access to low cost legal services from recent graduates working under the supervision of experienced attorneys—will partner with the Mountainview Program and NJ-STEP to represent former youth offenders who are reentering the community and also earning their undergraduate degree from Rutgers. The Rutgers Law Associates will provide legal services in matters that often inhibit successful reentry, such as acquiring valid identification and restoring driver’s privileges, outstanding warrants, minor probation violations, child support and custody issues, and difficulties in applying for expungement.
Rutgers Law School also has hosted panels and continuing professional education courses discussing the issue of mass incarceration, including one in May 2014 that brought together, expert faculty from both the Newark and Camden locations, including Professor Taja-Nia Y. Henderson, a member of the steering committee for Newark Reentry Legal Services and Todd A. Berger, the founding Managing Attorney of the Federal Prisoner Reentry Project. That panel discussed how barriers men and women face upon reentry increase the likelihood of reincarceration. The panel also addressed reforming the justice system through judicial, legislative and direct advocacy initiatives. The Law School’s Institute for Professional Education and the Eric Neisser Public Interest Program also hold periodic sessions that train attorneys to provide effective legal advocacy for re-entering former offenders.
In addition, Rutgers Law students participate in array of advocacy programs, which gives them real world experience while working on behalf of those who are underrepresented through pro bono placements for the American Civil Liberties Union, New Jersey Citizen Action and the International Justice Program, besides taking part in several clinic programs, including the Constitutional Rights Clinic.
Co-Dean Ronald K. Chen said, “Over-incarceration can rend the fabric of entire communities and wastes a vast amount of resources that can be directed toward lowering the barriers that prevent successful reentry by former offenders. For the community, the economy, as well as for the individual, promoting successful reentry is the obvious choice over further incarceration, and I am very proud of the service that New Jersey’s public law school provides to reach that goal.”
Here is another article about President Obama's visit to Rutgers University-Newark and a video of his remarks during his visit.
