In partnership with The Sacramento Bee.
ProPublica is hosting a community meetup at the Main Library in Oakland, California, to discuss our reporting with The Sacramento Bee on increasingly deadly conditions in county jails. We’re focusing on the effects of a 2011 reform that downsized dangerously overcrowded prisons and funneled inmates into jails instead. Those changes, however, have resulted in longer stays for a more complex inmate population in facilities only intended to hold people briefly, as they awaited trial or served sentences of less than a year. Not all counties have risen to the challenge. Some have fallen woefully behind.
On Monday, Aug. 5, at the city’s Main Library meeting room, reporters Jason Pohl of The Sacramento Bee and Ryan Gabrielson of ProPublica will answer questions about their reporting. Members of the community can ask the team questions and offer suggestions for future stories. Beena Raghavendran, engagement reporter on ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, will also be there to talk about how Californians can help with our ongoing reporting. Here’s a questionnaire that the team is using to collect more stories.
We’re also trying to help get our findings in front of the people most affected: inmates. Our meetup will conclude with a letter-writing session. If you correspond with someone incarcerated in a county jail, we hope you’ll join us. If you’d like to start corresponding with someone, here’s some advice from a few groups:
Prisoner Correspondence Project, which focuses on the LGBT community
Meetup details:
Monday, Aug. 5
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Oakland Main Library
125 14th St.
Oakland, CA 94612
RSVP here.
Note: The Oakland Public Library does not advocate or endorse the viewpoints of meetings or meeting room users.
This event has ended.
