Johanna Zacarias
Host: Northeast New Jersey Legal Services
Sponsor: AmeriCorps, Northeast New Jersey Legal Services
Bethan works on Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s Clean Slate Project, which collaborates with community partners to provide direct reentry legal services for expungements and Certificates of Relief for dismissed charges and convictions across the state of North Carolina.
Today in the United States, about 1.6 million people are currently in prison; 4 million are on probation; and nearly 65 million have a criminal record. In the South, the prison population has grown faster than in any other region. Criminal justice is therefore a critically important issue–particularly so for communities of color.
Collateral consequences of a criminal conviction are formidable and often insurmountable barriers to successful reentry. They include disenfranchisement; denial of public employment and benefits; loss of professional licenses; and deportation. Southern states have more legal barriers to successful reentry than other regions of the country. According to a report by the Legal Action Center, which ranked all 50 states from best to worst based on the number of legal obstacles faced by people attempting to renter society, most of the southern states were ranked in the worst category, meaning they had the greatest number of roadblocks to reentry.
The entrenched criminal justice system is in urgent need of widespread reform. SCSJ’s Clean Slate Project is just a small piece of the overall effort to end mass incarceration and the overcriminalization of people of color. By providing community requested legal services to address collateral consequences, lawyers help directly affected people to obtain jobs and housing and ultimately join in community organizing efforts for change.
During the Bethan’s Fellowship, Bethan:
Host: Northeast New Jersey Legal Services
Sponsor: AmeriCorps, Northeast New Jersey Legal Services
Host: East Bay Community Law Center
Sponsor: AmeriCorps, East Bay Community Law Center
Host: Legal Aid of North Carolina
Sponsor: AmeriCorps, Legal Aid of North Carolina
Host: Mississippi Center for Justice
Sponsor: AmeriCorps, Mississippi Center for Justice