July 02, 2009
"Racism's Hidden Toll"
Racism's Hidden Toll
by: Ryan Blitstein
Does the stress of living in a white-dominated society make African Americans get sick and die younger than their white counterparts? Apparently, yes.
more at....
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/racisms-hidden-toll-1268
Posted by lois at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2009
MA: Organizations and Officials Call for Reform of CORI
Changes urged to state criminal records law
June 30, 2009
By Vivian Nereim, Globe Correspondent
Legislators, government officials, and community organizers called today for changes to the state's criminal records law that they said would help ex-offenders reenter society, including shortening the waiting period to seal records and a simplification of the sealing process.
Supporters of the changes to the Criminal Offender Record Information law, speaking at a State House rally, argued that revisions to the law would help people released from prison to find jobs and housing, reducing recidivism.
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Posted by lois at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
Alex Sanchez's Arrest by Tom Hayden
THE NATION LAW & JUSTICE
Alex Sanchez's Arrest
by TOM HAYDEN
June 29, 2009
As a state legislator Hayden was a leading proponent of gang peace efforts, including Homies Unidos, and testified for asylum in the Alex Sanchez case.
The indictment of Alex Sanchez, a revered gangbanger-turned-peacemaker, raises new doubts about whether the Los Angeles police department has reformed sufficiently to be released from a federal court order.
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Posted by lois at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2009
CA: Program for parolees ends
Parolee re-entry program to end
By Lanz Christian Bañes
Contra-Costa Times-Herald
Posted: 06/28/2009
Solano County's parolee re-entry program will cease operations Wednesday.
"It's completely over with," said Tony Pearsall, executive director of Fighting Back Partnership, which runs the program.
Founded three years ago on a $600,000 state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation grant, the parolee re-entry program provided skills training, case management and support for about 900 parolees released into Solano County.
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Posted by lois at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2009
Editorial: Two Meals and Not Always Square
Editorial: Two Meals and Not Always Square
Published: Sunday June 28, 2009
NY Times
With budgets tight, states and local governments have been looking at prisons — and prison food — as a place to save money. Three days a week, Georgia now serves inmates only two meals. And across the country, there have been increasing reports of substandard food. This is inhumane. Adequate meals should be a nonnegotiable part of a civilized penal system. It is also bad policy. Researchers have found a connection between poor food quality and discipline problems and violence.
Georgia has nevertheless decided to save on staff costs by serving just two meals on Friday, as it already did on Saturday and Sunday. The state says it gives prisoners the same number of calories on days when one meal is skipped. Even if it does — and some prisoners’ advocates are skeptical — it can be oppressive to go so long without eating.
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Posted by lois at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)
MI-CA: Gov. Granholm offers to cage some of California's prisoners
State may take Calif. inmates
By Dawson Bell • Free Press Lansing Bureau • June 29, 2009
LANSING – Gov. Jennifer Granholm offered empty beds in Michigan prisons to house inmates from California today as the Golden State seeks solutions to prison overcrowding and a massive budget deficit.
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Granholm sent a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger after speaking to him personally, in which she called the offer an “opportunity (that) has great potential and could be mutually beneficial.” Granholm said several empty facilities and soon-to-be-vacated prisons in Standish and Muskegon could be available.
California faces the prospect of being forced to release tens of thousands of inmates to ease overcrowding, even as it addresses a $24.3 billion deficit.
Granholm’s letter said terms of a prison space sharing plan could be worked out in negotiations.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090629/NEWS06/90629052/Granholm+offers+prison
+space+for+Calif.+inmates
Posted by lois at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)
Mass. prison system overcrowded; Patrick aims to fix it
"The presence of inmates in the system taxes an already stretched prison system at a higher cost to the taxpayer. It costs $2,500 to supervise a person through parole, while it costs about $43,000 annually to incarcerate someone. And unsupervised transitions from prison lead to more crime and more victims, as an ex-inmate without parole supervision is twice as likely to go back to prison than a released inmate who goes on parole.
With the state taking away the option of doing more time for no post-release supervisions, "consequently we free up beds," Burke said.
The Patrick administration wants to make the matter a non-issue by requiring mandatory supervision for all who serve a state prison sentence equal to 25 percent of their sentence, with a minimum of nine months parole and a maximum of five years parole."
Mass. prison system overcrowded; Patrick aims to fix it
By Dan McDonald/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jun 28, 2009
FRAMINGHAM —
The prison system in the state is overtaxed, and MCI-Framingham is no different.
As of last week, the Southside prison held 593 inmates - its capacity is 452.
The state system is at 146 percent capacity, state Public Safety Secretary Kevin Burke said. While the state considers creating "better space" inside the prison, "There isn't anyone you talk to who says we can build our way out of this."
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Posted by lois at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2009
MS: Free labor and $29.74 per day from the state...communities clamor for regional jails
Sunday, Jun. 28, 2009
Miss. communities clamor for regional jails
By JACK ELLIOTT JR. - Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. -- There are 11 county/regional jails scattered around Mississippi. With them, the Mississippi Department of Corrections has created its own cottage industry.
Locally, the prisons provide lockups for offenders, jobs for local residents and a free labor force for public works projects. So popular are they that at least three more could open within the next year.
The question is, does the state need the beds? Yes, says Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps.
Posted by lois at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)
An invisible woman is laid to rest
An invisible woman is laid to rest
E.J. Montini
Arizona Republic
For most of her adult life, 48-year-old Marcia Powell was invisible. Then she died, and slowly came into view.
If you were required in school to read H.G. Wells' science fiction masterpiece "The Invisible Man" you'll recall that the troubled scientist called Griffin formulated a recipe for invisibility that, we learn tragically, wears off after death.
As it turns out, the same holds true in real life.
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Posted by lois at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2009
Jena 6' beating case wraps up with plea deal…
JENA, La. – Five members of the Jena Six pleaded no contest Friday to misdemeanor simple battery and won't serve jail time, ending a case that thrust a small Louisiana town into the national spotlight and sparked a massive civil rights demonstration.
State District Judge Tom Yeager then sentenced the five, standing quietly surrounded by their lawyers, to seven days unsupervised probation and fined $500. It was a far less severe end to their cases than seemed possible when the six students — all of whom are black — were initially charged with attempted murder in the 2006 attack on Justin Barker, a white classmate. They became known as the "Jena Six," after the central Louisiana town where the beating happened.
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Posted by lois at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
MI: Prson Backers Pray to Keep Prison Open
Prison backers turn to prayer to save closing facility
By Kathryn Lynch-Morin
Bay City Times
6-26-09
STANDISH — About 350 people attended a candlelight vigil Monday at Resurrection of the Lord Catholic Church in Standish to pray for a meeting between local leaders who are committed to saving the prison and Gov. Jennifer Granholm who announced earlier this month that the prison would close later this year.
Standish City Manager Michael J. Moran III attended the vigil and said he is still optimistic that Gov. Jennifer Granholm will meet with city and state officials to discuss the closing of the prison.
"Hopefully we can give her enough reason to reconsider her executive order," Moran said. "If not, we feel that we have other options we can discuss with her."
He said the mood at the vigil was different than that of the rally that took place at the same church June 12.
"It was more of a formalized religious experience in a way," Moran said.
The Rev. James Fitzpatrick organized the vigil as well as a petition that collected nearly 8,000 signatures and the rally to try and urge Granholm to change her mind about closing the prison, Standish's largest employer.
http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/1849627-Prison-backers-turn-to-prayer-to-save-closing-facility/
Posted by lois at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)
AZ: Right-wing vigilantes kills a woman's child and her husband in their house in a border town
New Border Fear: Violence by a Rogue Militia
By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN
NY Times
Published: June 26, 2009
ARIVACA, Ariz. — “Somebody just came in and shot my daughter and my husband!” the woman shouted to the 911 dispatcher. “They’re coming back in! They’re coming back in!”
Arivaca finds itself a town both terrified and angered.
Multiple gunshots are then heard on a tape of the call.
The woman, Gina Gonzalez, survived the attack after arming herself with her husband’s handgun, but both he and their 10-year-old daughter died.
The killings, last month, have terrified this small town near the Mexican border, in part because the authorities have now tied them to what they describe as a rogue group engaged in citizen border patrols.
The three people arrested in the crime include the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a Washington State-based offshoot of the Minutemen movement, in which citizens roam the border looking for people crossing into the country illegally. Former members describe the group’s leader, Shawna Forde, 41, as having anti-immigrant sentiments that are extreme, at times frightening, even to people accustomed to hard-line views on border policing.
Posted by lois at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
CT: HOUSE PASSES BUDGET : Rell Opposes Democrats' Budget Item That Would Close 2 Prisons
HOUSE PASSES BUDGET : Rell Opposes Democrats' Budget Item That Would Close 2 Prisons
By CHRISTOPHER KEATING
The Hartford Courant
June 27, 2009
The state has fewer prison inmates than it did on the day of the tragic Cheshire killings in July 2007.
The prison population had soared by 1,200 after Gov. M. Jodi Rell froze the parole system following the triple homicide. Now, that number has fallen back completely.
As a result, in their budget proposal, Democratic legislators called for closing two prisons in an attempt to save as much as $200 million annually. But Republicans and Rell sharply questioned the idea at a time when many believe that crime is still too high in citiesthroughout the state.
The prison debate will continue because Rell is expected to veto the overall budget, which includes the prison plan, that was passed by the House on Friday, 91-48.
Posted by lois at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
Ruling could aid Pennsylvania prison lifers seeking release
The big word in the headline is COULD.
Lois
Posted on Fri, Jun. 26, 2009
Ruling could aid Pa. prison lifers seeking release
PETER JACKSON
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A federal judge has reaffirmed a ruling that could make it easier for inmates serving life sentences in Pennsylvania prisons to get commutation requests considered by the governor.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo in Scranton could affect hundreds of lifers who committed their crimes before voters amended the state constitution in November 1997 to toughen the standards for clemency requests from lifers.
The amendment, part of an anti-crime package advocated by then-Gov. Tom Ridge, requires the unanimous approval of the state Pardons Board before a commutation is recommended to the governor , allowing a single board member to block a commutation. Before that, only a majority vote by the five-member board was needed.
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Posted by lois at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2009
CA: Governor dumps plan to build prison hospitals
Governor dumps plan to build prison hospitals
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 26, 2009
(06-25) PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disowned a tentative agreement Thursday to build prison hospitals to settle lawsuits over shoddy health care for inmates, saying the state won't borrow $1.9 billion for the effort while it's slashing other services.
"It's just not the right time," state Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said, four weeks after he announced the plan to build two hospitals for 3,400 inmates, refurbish existing medical centers and start returning control of prison health care from federal courts to the state. "At this time, we're going to have to live within our means."
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Posted by lois at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2009
FL: Powerful business lobby calls for a halt to prison construction & change in sentencing policies
Change sought in Florida prison system
A movement among powerful Florida leaders to overhaul the state's prison system is gaining steam as lawmakers grapple with shrinking resources.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
Miami Herald
06.24.09
A call by Florida's most powerful business lobby to halt prison construction and reform the criminal justice system is gaining surprising traction among policymakers in the wake of a deepening budget crisis and growing evidence that building new prison beds will not reduce crime.
Four months after the head of Associated Industries of Florida stunned lawmakers with his plea to slow prison growth, a who's-who of business, religious and political leaders are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to consider alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders, particularly drug addicts.
Posted by lois at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)
