Art by Tashiena Combs-Holbrook
Natalie Holbrook-Combs, program director of the Michigan Criminal Justice Program, reports that AFSC and partners are hoping to pass Second Look legislation during the “lame duck” session of the legislature in November 2024.
Natalie said advocates are frustrated that the Democratic trifecta in Michigan hasn’t yet taken more steps for criminal justice reform. Second Look would give people serving life and long sentences an opportunity to be reviewed for possible release by their sentencing judge after 10 years, as the bill is currently written.
Claudia McLean and Pete Martel of AFSC MI have been working on a report for legislators with a policy person from the University of Michigan on the significant racial disparities in extreme sentences in Michigan and other geographic and demographic information. Proponents want policymakers to know the impact of Second Look under various scenarios.
In July 2024, Natalie, Claudia and Pete published Recommendations for Clemency Process: A Community-Centered Approach. AFSC is hoping that Gov. Whitmer will grant more clemency in her last two years in office. The report gives her guidance on what the clemency process could look like. Recommendations include a new 10-person clemency review board.
In August 2024, AFSC Michigan published Second Look Update: The 20-Year Compromise. The report includes information on reinvestment solutions, staff shortages, county breakdowns, words of support for the bill, and a look at who would be affected.
Other AFSC MI staffers -- Lawanda Hollister, Skylar Gillette, Cozine Welch and Adalia Kirby -- have been busy setting up meetings of legislators with their constituents. This often involves going to coffee hours of legislators and getting constituents ready to talk with their lawmakers about Second Look. It’s on-the-ground work that’s crucial for getting the bill passed.
Lawanda has been working on the Welcome Home Good Neighbor project to connect women who are still inside with people on the outside to be their landing pad when they come home. Adalia has been writing commutations for a number of women at Women’s Huron Valley prison.
New Medically Frail Parole law leaves too many people out
While Gov. Whitmer recently signed a bill that provides slightly more relief for people in prison who are in very poor health, AFSC MI remains concerned about all the people who are left out.
According to Pete, the group of people who need this relief the most are the lifers—a group in Michigan's prisons that now accounts for nearly 15% of the population.
“This medically frail parole bill is just another example of how some minimal amount of reform gets claimed as a big win,” Pete says. “But at the end of the day, we're left with a large and growing group of people in Michigan's prisons who will die in there without significant reform -- like Second Look legislation or a return to clemency practices that were in regular use up until the mid-1960s”
Pete concludes, “AFSC’s true passion lies in the never-ending narrative change and cultural shift work that will get more people carrying the conversation about how wasteful and corrosive it is to rely solely on punishment as a means of response to social harms.”