Incarceration

Sandra Johnson needs a job: Finding work after incarceration

Sandra Johnson needs a job, desperately. The formerly incarcerated 59-year-old Oakland woman is now a City College of San Francisco student, but needs to find work as well.

In June, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of establishing a new re-entry hiring program that aims to create 1,400 county job opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

Critics say a predictive policing system could amplify racial bias in Oakland

Twenty-two-year-old Kamani Holmes has dark skin, stands about six feet tall, and wears a full beard across his face. A Black Power fist adorns the center of his grey hooded sweater with the words “Movement Warriors” across the bottom. His light blue jeans perfectly match the tint of blue in his Jordan sneakers. Then, there’s the bracelet.

BOSS graduates celebrate changing their own lives

Stay the course. That was the message given to those sitting in the front row of Oakland’s city council chambers Friday night, when friends and supporters gathered to watch 29 men and women graduate from the BOSS Career Training and Employment Center, in a ceremony that acknowledged the significant hurdles they had overcome to gain employment while under the supervision of the Alameda County Probation Department. BOSS, which stands for Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, is an East Bay non-profit which…