In Mississippi, people face many barriers to restarting their lives after prison.

Today's Rethinking Reentry Conference focuses on helping them succeed. Those who have organized the conference know firsthand how hard it can be to start over with a prison record.

Cynetra Freeman, founder and executive director of the Mississippi Center for Reentry, said people from across the state will gather to network. She pointed out one topic is a condition which has been compared to post-traumatic stress disorder, known as post-incarceration syndrome.

"I guess a lot of people just don't know much about it, but that is something that we deal with," Freeman explained.

The Magnolia State has one of the world's highest incarceration rates, at more than 1,000 per 100,000 population. Freeman noted conference participants will hear from people who have been in jail or prison, and those who work with them, on how to improve reentry services.

Freeman served a three-year mandatory sentence in the Florida Department of Corrections. She recalled her return home was met with many challenges, which led to the creation of the nonprofit. She added her organization offers services going far beyond the tutoring and workforce development to help people reintegrate into society.

"We offer a life and social skill classes. We have a private job board, where we go out and recruit for employers that are willing to hire those who are engaged with us. We have a clothes closet. We help with laundry assistance," Freeman outlined. "We help with just anything that they're needing."

Freeman emphasized having a felony on a person's record is still a barrier in many cases to finding housing and employment, and going back to school, which is why the annual conference is so important to share tips and ideas.


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Charleston City Council members have greenlighted a citizen-led municipal measure to reduce local penalties for some marijuana possession offenses.

Bill Number 8039 removes fines and jail time for first-time low-level possession of marijuana. Currently under state law, marijuana possession is a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Corey Zinn, a community organizer for the group Charleston Can't Wait, said the move is a positive step forward for the city.

"We're guaranteeing that if you haven't had another drug offense, that if you're arrested with 15 grams or less, that you're not going to have a fine, you're not going to serve jail time," Zinn outlined.

According to Section 89 of the city charter, Charleston residents can introduce measures to the ballot by petition, an ordinance or amendment with enough signatures. More than 4,000 residents signed the petition to reduce marijuana possession penalties.

Zinn added it was encouraging to hear city lawmakers acknowledge the community harms associated with criminalizing marijuana. According to data from West Virginia University, more than 1,600 residents were arrested in 2021 for marijuana possession or sales.

"It felt really powerful to hear those conversations and to talk about the racial disparities," Zinn noted.

Zinn feels the city is drastically limited in changing drug policies because of West Virginia's harsh penalties for possession.

"There's still this message that this is still a crime, this is still something that you should not do, and I think a lot of people would agree that's not really the case," Zinn pointed out. "If there's not some other crime being committed, then there shouldn't be an issue with this."

An overwhelming majority of U.S. adults, 88%, said marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, according to a survey released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center.


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Police departments across the U.S. have struggled with officer shortages in recent years but a new report showed how youth apprenticeship programs can combat the trend.

Many forces offer programs providing on-the-job training alongside classroom instruction.

Benjamin Klosky, a former researcher at the Urban Institute and a police apprentice in Fairfax County, said he became interested because he did not want to go to college or the military after graduating from high school, and still needed to earn a wage.

"If you ask a police officer what they do, they'll tell you that everything from the marriage counselor to a social worker to a teacher to a referee," Klosky outlined. "They have to inhabit a bunch of different roles, and not all of those roles are learned within the confines of the police academy. "

Klosky still had to go through a vetting process, including a polygraph and background check. And he was able to do productive police work, like helping run the warrant desk, handling evidence and performing maintenance, along with shadowing patrol shifts. He acknowledged apprenticeships are costly for departments but they can provide benefits like increasing officer retention, saving money compared to academies and recruiting more diverse workers.

For instance, many of Klosky's fellow cadets spoke multiple languages and came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

"The other cadets were not people who would have otherwise gone to college and then become police officers," Klosky observed. "These are people from the communities that are being policed who wanted to become police officers and didn't have another route to do so."

Officer hiring and retention has struggled since 2020 amid rising public distrust in policing and concerns over excessive force among officers. However, the trend may be starting to reverse for the first time since the pandemic, according to the Police Executive Research Forum.


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West Virginia has made significant criminal justice reforms in reducing harsh sentences for children, according to the latest report from The Sentencing Project but it does not help those who were sentenced before the reforms went into effect.

The report found more than 8,600 people behind bars with sentences of life without the possibility of parole, for crimes committed when they were children.

Ashley Nellis, co-director of research for The Sentencing Project, said West Virginia set an example for other states when it reformed its youth sentencing laws in 2016.

"West Virginia actually got rid of life without parole for juveniles," Nellis pointed out. "And also does not report any individuals who are serving life with parole or virtual life sentences for crimes committed when they were under 18."

The state also continues to see a downward trend in the number of youth in juvenile facilities. A one-day count of young detainees in 2019 found almost 500 children under 18 were in detention facilities in West Virginia. Two years later, the number had dropped to 345.

Nellis noted a growing body of neuroscience research showed critical differences between developing and adult brains related to decision-making, compulsive behavior and changes in parts of the brain responsible for "fight or flight." Most research now suggests the brain continues to develop into the mid-20s, calling into question the fairness of prosecuting and sentencing juveniles in the adult system.

"You're still biologically a teen, even though you've been transferred into the criminal legal system and taken out of the juvenile system," Nellis explained.

Nellis added states continue to have leeway in how they choose to sentence minors.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on life without parole for juveniles and severely limited the allowable use of life without parole for young people," Nellis stressed. "But they stopped short of telling the states how to implement."

Overall, the number of young people arrested has drastically dropped since the mid-1990s, and the number held in juvenile facilities fell from more than 108,000 in 2000, to around 27,000 in 2022, a 75% decline. However, youth of color are much more likely than white youth to be held in juvenile facilities.


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