Giving Compass' Take:

• Thelton Henderson spent his 37-year career as a federal judge reforming California's prison system. Now, in his retirement, law enforcement is working to undo his legacy of progress. 

• How can philanthropy support continued progress for prison reform? What judges still on the bench can continue his work? 

• Learn how California's prison education system is yielding impressive results. 

During his 37 years on the bench, Judge Thelton Henderson did more than anyone to transform California’s notoriously overcrowded prisons into a great experiment in second chances.

Now, newly retired and stricken by an autoimmune disease, the judge is watching the first serious backlash to his legacy. A campaign led by law enforcement organizations is gathering support for a measure on the November ballot that would roll back some of California’s reforms — a transformation Henderson believes is still unfinished.

Henderson, 84, became a lawyer during the civil rights era, and that moral framework and activist energy guided his work. When he joined the federal bench, he presided over a series of prison cases that ultimately forced radical changes in the system.

He started with Pelican Bay, finding in 1995 that the state’s new supermax prison was so plagued by problems that the courts had to take over. He appointed a federal monitor. In 2001, he presided over a lawsuit claiming that prison medical services were inadequate. This case merged with another to become Brown v. Plata, in which a three-judge panel, including Henderson, found the state’s prison system was so overcrowded that inmates were dying unnecessarily at the rate of 60 a year. The judges ordered California to reduce the number of prisoners. In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court agreed.

Read the full article about Judge Thelton Henderson by Abbie VanSickle at The Marshall Project.