Based in 2016, Restoring Justice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group in Houston that gives holistic and client-centered illustration to marginalized members of our group dealing with prison fees. This consists of the supply of professional prison protection authorized illustration, social providers, trauma-informed counseling, religious help, volunteer connections, and extra.
Monique Joseph, the Holistic Companies Director of Restoring Justice, stated the group’s mission is to pursue Christ’s justice by ending mass incarceration one shopper and coronary heart at a time.
“We take instances of those that are receiving insufficient authorized illustration and supply them client-centered, holistic illustration, freed from cost,” stated Joseph.
She continued.
“Restoring Justice is a nonprofit created in Houston by Drew and Jessica Willie. We work to tackle instances of people that have overloaded court-appointed attorneys, and we offer them with a holistic, client-centered lawyer. Together with that lawyer, our shoppers obtain holistic useful resource connections by means of shopper advocates,” shared Joseph.
“These are of us who’re instantly affected and who’ve overcome their very own path and authorized system with psychological well being or drug use. We pair them with our shoppers to assist them get the assets they want. Every shopper can be given free trauma-informed counseling. They’re additionally paired with a volunteer from the group who helps stroll with them by means of their case. And what we see is that extra instances than not, a whole lot of our shoppers are in a position to get their instances dismissed, their fees dropped, or have actually minimal sentences, and are in a position to get again on their ft so much faster.”
As a grassroots, human-centered group, Restoring Justice additionally takes group engagement critically and routinely participates in academic endeavors and revolutionary collaborations that bolster the prison justice reform motion.
At difficulty is the truth that although a foundational precept of the U.S. prison justice system is that accused people are harmless except confirmed responsible, over 555,000 people who find themselves presumed harmless are detained pre-trial. These are the people who find themselves locked up in Harris County jail and different jails throughout the nation, versus people who’re in jail (they’ve been discovered responsible).
And although the U.S. Structure requires that folks labeled as “indigent,” which means too poor to afford an lawyer, be supplied one, in Texas alone, almost 315,000 folks have been appointed what activists name “mere shadows of correct illustration” final 12 months.
This present actuality of a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals in Texas alone being appointed attorneys with too many instances to adequately symbolize all their shoppers, indigent felony accused (but nonetheless harmless) folks will serve, on common, an additional 4.33 years of unjust incarceration, totaling 455,267 years of pointless incarceration in Texas – from only one 12 months of working the system of overloading courtroom appointments.
However not solely does the present system penalize the poor in years of unjust incarceration time, it additionally hurts your entire state economic system.
Roughly $149 billion per 12 months is wasted on pointless incarceration prices.
Restoring Justice seeks to finish all that.
“We try to pursue every kind of prison justice reform, with a give attention to eradicating racial disparities and reforming the indigent protection system,” reads a press release from the group’s web site.
