Amici Curiae for People with Criminal Records.

“Effective amicus briefs can, and have, shaped significant decisions on important legal  points. The amicus can bring to the argument policy perspectives that present to the court  the ‘big picture’ in a way that a party’s brief may not, and, sometimes, cannot.” –Reagan  Wm. Simpson (Mary-Christine Sungaila, Effective Amicus Practice Before the United  States Supreme Court: A Case Study, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF LAW AND  WOMEN’S STUDIES, Spring 1999, Pg. 187). Source

The Institute’s Amici Curiae for People with Criminal Records is part of our Public Policy & Advocacy program. We are committed to filing “friend-of-the-court” briefs in select state and federal appeals that affect the interests of people with criminal records, primarily in cases that affect reentry and rehabilitation rights and opportunities.

June 16, 2011: The Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously in People v. Hawkins that  it was an “absurd” and “unjust” reading of applicable law for the Department of Corrections to claim the right to garnish inmate work assignment wages at 100%, and not what the legislature intended.
The amicus curiae brief filed by the Institute for People with Criminal Records, in which we opposed the prison, is well reflected especially in the reasoning of Justice Karmeier’s Special Concurrence, pp.15-18 of the opinion.

The Chicago law firm Neal Gerber & Eisenberg generously represented the Institute for People with Criminal Records, pro bono.

Media and Blog Coverage Mentioning the Institute for People with Criminal
Records

The Associated Press

CourierPress.com

The Daily Journal

“..studies show that inmates who work in vocational programs are 20 percent
less likely to re-offend, according to the Institute for People with
Criminal Records, a Colorado-based non-profit group, which filed a brief in
the case. It also pointed to a study that found that of more than 20,000
inmates released to Chicago communities in 2005, 1,200 of them wound up
homeless.”

Prison Culture: How the PIC Structures our World:

As the Institute noted in its Amicus Brief, “Not only is there a direct
connection between unemployment and crime, there is considerable evidence of
a connection between unemployment and repeat crime, i.e. recidivism.”