alccourtwatch

📍PGH 👁‍🗨 committed to transformative racial justice by keeping courts accountable thru observation, data collection + public reporting @abolitionistlc

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

🚨 New blog post! 🚨 Check out our first post of the year on compassionate release, written by our court watch intern. Read it here: https://t.co/r7ZZrbwcmM

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

PGH incarcerates youths, Philly incarcerates more. Both share the same problem. Children and adolescents do not belong in jail.

[Brittany Hailer @BrittanyHailer]

Absolutely stunning investigation.

Despite widespread abuse in juvenile institutions, Philly still locks up kids at a rate seen in few other cities.

https://t.co/Ev2qBuSOmX

[Nick Estes @nickwestes]

Leonard Peltier is granted clemency! He’s out of prison and commuted to home confinement. This is a huge win for grassroots Indigenous movements who kept his campaign alive and a moral indictment on the system and people who kept him unjustly imprisoned for half a century.

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

📣 Statewide day of action this Monday, Feb. 3: Join the phone-in to help free an incarcerated elder! 📅Schedule 10 minutes on Mondays to make this call, and let us know how it goes! @AbolitionistLC

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Free Mechie Monday--Call to Action:

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Today we’re showing up for a PCRA hearing for Cris. Member of Philly ParDef, Cris has been incarcerated for 22 years & now will have new evidence to present in court

#letswatchcourt

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Our NYE Letter Writing Campaign is still going strong! We've sent over 200 letters out to 70 incarcerated children & adolesencts this winter season. @CareNotControl is joining in with a letter writing session in Philly tomorrow!
Come join us! Details below...

[Care, Not Control @CareNotControl]

Join us with @ALCCourtWatch this Friday @ Ubuntu in Germantown to write letters to youth incarcerated across PA. Let's let them know that we will not let them be disappeared by the criminal legal system; there is hope for their future!

📆 Friday, January 24th @ 5pm
#FreeOurYouth

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Come & see what court watch looks like in 2025! We're on live: https://t.co/K1sRWDM5sS

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Join us on MLK day to learn how court watch is making an impact across the country! We're teaming up with court watch programs from different cities to host this event. Click here to register! ↪️https://t.co/PG6gkT3czp

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

It's coming!

We're having a national court watch session to share resources, talk about developments and encourage others to join our movement! Let's hold the courts accountable--together.

#letscourtwatch

https://t.co/K1sRWDLxDk

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Free Marie Scott!

Thurs, Jan 9 this week from 6-8pm we're coming together w/friends & allies statewide. We'll be in PGH & Philly spaces, as well as online, to write letters to for Marie's commutation! @vivamarilynbuck @phillyHRC @cadbiwest

Join us:
https://t.co/nRuANFJEHT

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Decertification is the motion filed by the adolescent and their defense, that asks the courts to move their case “back” from the adult criminal legal system to the juvenile system.
Learn more at our upcoming INFO session on youth proceedings next Thursday: https://t.co/7fXTJRxhJ9

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

What we have seen is several decertifications happening with a far greater success rate than seen in the years we've been following them!
When youths are decertified, the leave the adult criminal legal system entirely--including the adult jail, adult EHM, and adult courts.

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Through our court watch efforts, we’ve been able to track the cases of many youth ensnared at the ACJ. Today, the juvenile jail population has dropped to just 18—one of the lowest in over a year!

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

"Countless people in prison (& jail) need to go home." @PrisonPolicy

#Decarcerate
#FreeThemAll
#LetsWatchCourt

[Abolitionist Law Center @AbolitionistLC]

Most charges are politically motivated. Arresting & detaining people in poverty, people w/ mental health and/or drug use disorders, unhoused people, people who can't pay probation fees, and people of color--it's a political choice to perpetuate mass incarceration. #FreeThemAll

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

@NickRankin10 Not so....
ACJ incarcerated children & adolescents before Shuman shut down & will continue to. Schuman does not contain beds for the youths directly filed as adults so, the fact that Shuman re-opened has no direct impact on, nor does it provide relief for ACJ's youth population.

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Through our court watch efforts, we’ve been able to track the cases of many youth ensnared at the ACJ. Today, the juvenile jail population has dropped to just 18—one of the lowest in over a year!

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

In Allegheny County, the Interest of Justice (IOJ) proceeding asks the court if it is in the "interest of justice" for the youth (under age 18) to remain incarcerated at Allegheny County Jail (ACJ).

*These IOJ's play out differently in the Philly courts.

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

There are 1752 people incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) today. 20 of them are under age 18 & should be having an Interest of Justice (IOJ) hearing every month.
Help us make sure their IOJs are happening.
#LetsWatchCourt
https://t.co/4HTwisgwkg

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

In Allegheny County, another child/adolescent was granted decertification today in Judge Beemer's court room. That makes 5 since August. This is good.

#LetsWatchCourt
@CareNotControl @YASP2

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

@BukitBF But now we have a new bit of information—that private hearings are happening in the Pittsburgh Municipal Courts.

Join us:

https://t.co/vb1zBuiYc3

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Court Watch denied access to PMC RM 1 today. They say these “cases are sealed” by order of President Judge Evanshavik & the DA. MDJ Butler was on the bench. No public allowed this morning.
@NLGnews
#LetsWatchCourt

[alccourtwatch @ALCCourtWatch]

Today we’re told that normally we’d be allowed to watch preliminary arraignments and that they will presume later today—which is what we came to see. @BukitBF