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Organ donor recipients and their families will join Gov. Janet Mills at the State House today to highlight Organ Donation Month in Maine. Advocates of organ donation say more than 1,300 lives were saved in New England last year because of individuals who registered as organ donors at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. ...
Recently passed legislation lowers barriers to access Washington state's Death with Dignity Act. The original law was passed by voters in 2008. Cassa Sutherland, client services manager for the group End of Life Washington, said the medical aid-in-dying law was in need of modernization so more people who wanted to participate could. ...
A new report outlines ways that states like Virginia could rethink long prison sentences and how to use them more sparingly. The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Long Sentences makes a series of policy recommendations for more judicial discretion in sentencing, and for promoting more individual accountability. They focus on allocating more resources to rehabilitation, through behavioral healthcare or trauma services. ...
A recent report from the Prison Policy Initiative calls for better state laws to keep incarcerated parents close to their kids. It finds 12 states including New York have measures designed to improve a child's access to incarcerated parents, but not all of these laws have the same protections. New York has a proximity law, which means there's a maximum distance allowed between a child and an incarcerated parent. ...
California will soon become the first state in the nation to offer health insurance to income-eligible individuals who are incarcerated - starting 90 days prior to their release. The feds just agreed to match funds spent on Medi-Cal or CHIP for people leaving jail, prison or juvenile correctional facilities. Hagar Dickman, senior attorney at the nonprofit Justice in Aging, said it is in everyone's interest to set justice-involved people up for success. ...