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Currently, law enforcement has gotten more trainings and are required to follow certain measures in how to handle and recognize fentanyl. A “glassy” look for example, is the combination of heroin and fentanyl. Fentanyl can also come in a white powder form too, and other mixtures are no longer a rare instance. Police officers are now blaming state laws for the increase of fentanyl usage and overdose, claiming that Proposition 47 that was a law passed back in 2014, reducing the prison populations around the state, including releasing those with crimes such as drug possession and other nonviolent misdemeanors. Returning back to prison would be applied to those that have prior strikes, if they were arrested for possession of fentanyl as an example. While the crisis of fentanyl hasn’t become easier for law enforcement, it doesn’t mean punishment isn’t excluded from the picture. Living on the streets can still be criminalized, and treatment centers are either at full capacity or are not affordable to obtain services from. The solution that law enforcement highly demands on is to put people into or back to prison doesn’t truly resolve any aspect of the drug epidemic. The drug will still exist, and it will harm communities if it isn’t prevented to be stopped in using or selling. I don’t know any other solutions other than funding from city to state budgets actually being invested into resources that are on the ground in helping those that are at risk of these high intensity situations, and not just displacing them from one place to another. Law enforcement insisting that laws are to blame for the crisis is pretty reductive, and it goes further into just not be equitable for prison.

Last Friday, an appeals court in California ruled that the state is still able to share gun owners’ personal information with researchers who focus on gun violence. California's Department of Justice has been given permission to give identification information that is compiled by the state from the background check process that each gun owner is required to do by law. The data is given to qualified research institutions, and there are 4 million gun owners in California. Authorization of this law, AB 173, was passed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021, according to The Associated Press. California's DOJ was permitted to share "names, addresses, phone numbers, and any criminal records, among other things" under the new regulation, said by The Modesto Bee. “The court’s decision is a victory in our ongoing efforts to prevent gun violence,” Bonta said in a November 20 media release. “AB 173’s information-sharing serves the important goal of enabling research that supports informed policymaking aimed at reducing and preventing firearm violence," Bonta said in the statement. "Research and data are vital in our efforts to prevent gun violence in California and provide a clear path to help us save lives." “The court’s decision is an important victory for science,” Garen Wintemute, who heads up the California Firearm Violence Research Center at University of California, said in a statement. “For more than 30 years, researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere have used the data in question to conduct vital research that simply couldn’t be done anywhere else," Wintemute said. "We’re glad to be able to return to that important work, which will improve health and safety here in California and across the country.”

Despite California being a Democrat-led state, prison reform hasn't been as successful as proposed. Inspector General Amarik Singh released a report on prison medical care earlier this month, with results of the majority of adult prisons in California scoring underperforming levels. This report ...

The Kern County Sheriff's Department is now being enforced to stop the usage of chokeholds while on duty as well as stopping other officers if they decide to make that action, said the California Attorney General's Office last Tuesday when announcing a major settlement between the county and the ...

SAG-AFTRA has officially ended their 118-day strike after reaching a tentative agreement with Hollywood executives. Many films and shows were not able to be marketed or publicly discussed by those in the union, and the picket lines never stopped during this period of demanding for the bare minimu...

33 percent of state prisons in California do not provide well-quality healthcare to the incarcerated population, as many recent inspections have proven that concern. The Office of the Inspector General makes evaluations every couple of years or so, inspecting medical facilities and how patients ...

Yesterday, the Supreme Court had began the process of hearing arguments on the case that would determine whether federal law can or cannot permit guns to be owned by domestic abusers. If this law is taken away, many state laws similar to it would as well. Gun reform would completely shift. The c...

Two farm labor contractors were sentenced to seven years' probation due to the lack of reporting of their payroll that would impact worker's insurance premiums, the Monterey County District Attorney's Office said Friday. Elias Perez Jr., 43, and Alejandra Perez, 40, from King City, were corporat...

California law enforcement agencies are sharing automated license plate reader data to states that have banned access to legal abortions after the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Attorney General Rob Bonta made an issued statement on what and what cannot be shared under state law. “While this technolog...

Tesla has been sued by a California civil rights agency, alleging that Black employees have experienced racial discrimination and harassment while working at a factory in San Francisco. According to Courthouse News Services, “The 39-page complaint filed in Alameda County Superior Court by the Ca...

Over 5,700 minors have been hired and employed illegally since 2020 with more than 900 companies, according to the data provided by the Department of Labor. This was a highly concentrated disaster within poultry companies in California. Exclusive, Valtierra, and Meza, three poultry facilities, w...

A state task force will most likely shift the punishment on fentanyl-related deaths caused by drug dealers, making those crimes charged with second degree murder. It could start as early as 2024, which is right around the corner, even as Fresno County has already implemented this legal change. ...

The Fresno Teachers Association had made a statement before their official strike against the Fresno Unified School District: In a joint statement issued Monday, the Fresno Teachers Association and the Fresno Unified School District both say they have spent “countless hours” to make progress to ...

California has set it off they will be providing protective leave for miscarriage, stillbirth, and other types of loss. SB 848 will require that employers will need to give their workers five days of leave that are experiencing “reproductive loss.” Reproductive loss includes: miscarriage, stillb...

California is implementing a new three-strikes crime that applies to those who can be given a longer sentence, but advocates are worried about this expansion of the 30-year-old statute. Gov. Gavin Newsom in late September signed Senate Bill 14 from Senator Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, which mak...

Hospitals and institutions across the state have had a violent history of sterilizing Black, Indigenous, and Brown women, for more than half of century. This is what we call eugenics, and even after its state ban back in 1979, this harmful practice was still occurring. Medical dishonesty is the ...

California's assault weapon ban is upheld until the law passed three decades ago will be decided whether it remains constitutional or not by the court. In a 2-1 majority, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of the 9th Circuit had decided on Saturday that there will be an administrative protection ...

COVID-19, a virus that has killed more than 100,000 Californians, completely shifted how the state's courts were going to operate during uncertain times. Trials were delayed, lawsuits became an unguaranteed mission to accomplish, attorneys didn't know how they were going to best represent their c...

Over on the East Coast in Tampa, Florida, crimes have significantly decreased by 20 percent in the past five years. However, incarceration has, according to a report from the Florida Policy Project. Basically, the same people are being thrown into the whirlwind of recidivism. Former state Sen. ...

The United Nations Standard defines solitary confinement as “the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact,” and it is considered “torture” if it last 15 days or more. But, Prison officials claim that the state does not conduct solitary confinement, des...

A diabetic prisoner has filed a lawsuit against the Idaho Department of Corrections and their medical provider for improper management and care for his medical requests, including a refusal of giving him inuslin which is a necessity for his wellbeing. Jacob Frey, the diabetic prisoner, who resid...

Book bans are not just in schools anymore, extend that to prisons across the country. A report made by PEN America, free speech organization that has been tracking book bans nationwide came out with results that are sad yet not surprising. Last Wednesday, PEN America released “Reading Between th...

A new California law banning private prisons statewide has brought in conflict on the federal level with the country's government not being able to incarcerate undocumented individuals in private facilities. The GEO Group, a private detention company that has their headquarters in Boca Raton, Fl...

Mandatory minimum sentences aren't as clear and effective in the criminal justice system as people who have never been system impacted as they think. It promotes recidivism, and sentences tend to be extended or the lowest sentencing is more than predicted. Such as the “three strikes law,” it exe...

The arrest process in Los Angeles is not the same anymore for criminal defendants. The county court decided that individuals who are accused by misdemeanors and non-violent felonies will now typically be released and be given a legal order to appear in court at a later date, instead of having to...