Webinar Resources Speakers
Second Chance Month
Watch the Recording
Harsh, inflexible sentences do not deter crime or make our communities safer. Lengthy and extreme sentences, often triggered by mandatory minimum sentencing laws, do not deter crime and have limited impact on community safety. Such sentencing laws disproportionately affect communities of color and have contributed greatly to the explosive increase in the U.S. prison population during the past three decades. To tackle the problem of mass incarceration, reforms must target individuals currently experiencing incarceration.
On Thursday, April 14th, 2022, at 1:00pm ET (10:00am PT), NACDL and The Sentencing Project hosted, “Legislating Freedom: The Importance of a Second Look”. This panel discussion delved into the country’s continued overreliance on incarceration and extreme sentences and legislative efforts to enacted 'Second Look' laws which provide individuals with an opportunity for resentencing or a sentence reduction after they have served a certain amount of time in prison.
The panel discussion was moderated by Alexandra Bailey, the End Life Imprisonment Strategist at The Sentencing Project, and featured Eric Alexander, Senior Advocate, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth; Warren Allen, End Life Imprisonment Fellow, The Sentencing Project; Lawanda Hollister; and Kate Mogulescu, Associate Professor of Clinical Law, Brooklyn Law School.
No CLE credits are being offered for this program.
Webinar Resources
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A Second Look at Injustice, The Sentencing Project, May 2021.
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No End In Sight: America's Enduring Reliance on Life Imprisonment, The Sentencing Project, February 2021.
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Survivors Justice Project / New York Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA)
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Joint Statement on Sentencing Second Chances and Addressing Past Extreme Sentences, Fair and Just Prosecution, April 2021.
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Second Look Sentencing: A (Running) Reading List for Legislators, Staff, Advocates, and Everyone Else, Greg Newburn, Dec. 11, 2020.
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Second Look = Second Chance: The NACDL Model "Second Look" Legislation and Accompanying Report, NACDL, Released Dec. 2020.
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Policies & Polling on Reducing Excessive Prison Terms, Data for Progress, February 2020.
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How to End a Sentence by Mitch Ryals, Washington City Paper, Oct. 10, 2019.
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The IRAA and the SLAA: Moving Beyond Nonviolent Drug Offenders to Address Mass Incarceration by Jonathan Blanks, Cato Institute, Sept. 13, 2019.
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James Zeigler: DC Council's 'second look' sentencing efforts are thoughtful, safe and just responses to the crisis of mass incarceration, The DC Line, Aug. 13, 2019.
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Ameliorating the Federal Trial Penalty through a Systematic Judicial “Second Look” Procedure by JaneAnne Murray, University of Minnesota Law School, April/June, 2019.
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As a teen he killed a man. A new law has given him a second chance by Keith L. Alexander, The Washington Post, Sept. 6, 2018.
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Finality and Rehabilitation by Meghan J. Ryan, Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy, April 2014.
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Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences by Douglas A. Berman, Ohio State Moritz College of Law, May 2014.
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Changing the Sentence without Hiding the Truth: Judicial Sentence Modification as a Promising Method of Early Release by Cecelia Klingele, William & Mary Law Review, Nov. 2010.
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Second Look Sentencing, NACDL.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON SECOND LOOK
Speakers
Eric Alexander joined the CFSY team in 2017. He speaks to groups throughout the country in support of our public education and advocacy efforts. He is also a founding member of ICAN (Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network) and works with formerly incarcerated youth to help engage them deeply and strategically in the movement for the fair sentencing and treatment of all children.
Warren Allen supports state and local advocates operating cohesively to challenge the nation's life sentencing laws. His priorities include advocating to end life imprisonment for the juvenile justice system, encouraging restorative justice methods, promoting “second look” opportunities and motivating healthy educational practices that oppose systemic institutional programing that’s unproductive. Prior to joining The Sentencing Project, Allen served over two decades in federal prison where he acquired his high school diploma and received college credits from the Georgetown Scholars Program. He was an influential leader in the YME (Young Men Emerging) mentoring program at the Central Treatment Facility, working to better the lives of troubled youth. During his incarceration, he created a cognitive thinking program called Hard Lessons, which promoted and provided appropriate solutions to problem solving. Allen is also a recipient of Washington, DC’s Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act bill that allowed for his early release from a 35-year to life prison sentence.
Alexandra Bailey is the End Life Imprisonment Strategist at The Sentencing Project. She supports state and local advocates working to challenge the nation’s life sentencing laws. Her priorities include supporting efforts to end life without parole, capping maximum penalties at 20 years, promoting “second look” provisions, and fostering a culture shift that rejects excessive punishments in favor of restorative approaches to public safety.
Prior to joining the Sentencing Project, Bailey was a Campaign Strategist and National Organizing Specialist for the ACLU and a Coordinator for Women’s March in Chicago. She has used her organizing skills to win campaigns including voting rights for unhoused citizens, ending the use of 287g ICE agreements, and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in Illinois. Bailey is also an Advisory Commissioner in Washington DC’s Ward 2. She studied organizing and political change theory at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government under Marshal Ganz.
Kate Mogulescu is an Associate Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School. She directs the Criminal Defense & Advocacy Clinic, which she launched in 2017. Her work and scholarship focus largely on gender, sentencing and reentry issues in the criminal legal system, with a focus on gender-based violence, intimate partner abuse, sex work and human trafficking. Before starting the Clinic, Kate worked as a public defender at The Legal Aid Society for 14 years.
Kate has founded several projects, including the Exploitation Intervention Project (2011), the Survivor Reentry Project (2016) and the Survivors Justice Project (2020). She offers critical analysis of carceral approaches to violence and harm and advocates extensively against the criminalization of vulnerable and exploited people. Kate received her J.D. from Yale Law School and B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
