October 29, 2004
Cheney and Edwards both clueless on AIDS and African American Women
"Wendi Thomas, Memphis Commercial Appeal: Cheney's and Edwards' "non-answers" expose their "blindness" to the issue of HIV/AIDS among African-American women and reveal "general indifference" in the United States to the epidemic...."
Daily HIV/AIDS Report
Opinion | Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report Summarizes Opinion Pieces on HIV/AIDS Among U.S. Black Women, Reaction to Vice Presidential Debate
[Oct 29, 2004]
During the vice presidential debate earlier this month, PBS news correspondent Gwen Ifill, who moderated the discussion, asked Vice President Dick Cheney, "I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country, where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their [white] counterparts. What should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?" Both Cheney and Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) shifted the conversation to foreign HIV/AIDS policy and general health care policy following the question. While Cheney said that he was "not aware" that black women are 13 times as likely to die of AIDS-related causes as white women, Edwards said that HIV/AIDS prevention in the United States is part of the "bigger question" about the future of health care in the country (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 10/7). Two opinion pieces on the issue are summarized below:
Jon Cohen, Slate: Both vice presidential candidates were "utterly lost" on the question of HIV/AIDS prevalence among black women in the United States and "suffered sharp criticism for their shockingly vacuous replies," but a "sophisticated" answer to Ifill's question is a "tall order" because researchers do not have an explanation, making it difficult to form a response to the problem, Cohen, a writer for Science magazine, writes in a Slate opinion piece. CDC offers a "laundry list" of reasons -- including poverty and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the two most "convincing" explanations, according to Cohen. Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, suggests that the "single biggest driver" of the spread of HIV among black women is the incarceration of black men, Cohen says, adding that Wilson and others argue that women are at a greater risk of contracting HIV because of disruptions in their sexual networks. In addition, "black women have a small pool of black men to choose from at any given time," making them "vulnerable" to becoming involved with men who practice "risky behaviors" without their knowledge, Cohen says. However, Cohen concludes that the "muddy truth" is that the high rate of HIV/AIDS among African-American women is a combination of many factors (Cohen, Slate, 10/27).
Wendi Thomas, Memphis Commercial Appeal: Cheney's and Edwards' "non-answers" expose their "blindness" to the issue of HIV/AIDS among African-American women and reveal "general indifference" in the United States to the epidemic, columnist Thomas writes in a Commercial Appeal opinion piece. "We must teach women how to avoid risky behavior" through both abstinence and prevention education, as well as developing new prevention methods -- such as microbicides -- that women can use to protect themselves if men will not wear condoms, Thomas concludes (Thomas, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 10/28).
Posted by lois at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
No New Jails/CURB oppose new taxes for Jails
CURB COMMISSION MEETS IN LOS ANGELES
Over 100 concerned voters turned out on a rainy Tuesday in Watts
to attend a hearing of the Californians United for a Responsible
Budget Commission. The meeting was co-sponsored by the LA-based
No New Jails Coalition.
CURB commissioners Susan Burton, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and John Lum
heard testimony from a variety of Los Angeles residents opposed to
Measure A, a ballot initiative that would raise sales taxes to pay
for more police, more jails and more prosecutors and public defenders
CURB COMMISSION MEETS IN LOS ANGELES
Over 100 concerned voters turned out on a rainy Tuesday in Watts
to attend a hearing of the Californians United for a Responsible
Budget Commission. The meeting was co-sponsored by the LA-based
No New Jails Coalition.
CURB commissioners Susan Burton, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and John Lum
heard testimony from a variety of Los Angeles residents opposed to
Measure A, a ballot initiative that would raise sales taxes to pay
for more police, more jails and more prosecutors and public defenders.
Many at the hearing called for prioritizing programs other than
police and jails, such as housing, mental health services, drug
treatment, re-entry programs and education.
Dr. Kimberly King (California Faculty Association) described how
fee increases at Cal State Universities have devastated the college
opportunities of tens of thousands of low-income youth.
Andy Griggs (United Teachers of Los Angeles Human Rights Committee)
testified that at his school, students see far more military
recruiters than college counselors.
Formerly incarcerated women Lorraine Dillard (Community Coalition),
Amanda Perez (Adelante) and Linda Wong (A New Way of Life) told of
the enormous challenges facing women and men returning from prison
and of the underfunded community programs that provide lifelines to
those coming home.
Bilal Ali (Los Angeles Community Action Network) talked about the
police sweeps among the homeless downtown, motivated he argued, not
by concerns for the homeless or public safety but as preparation for
gentrification.
Others who testified included:
Melissa Burch (No New Jails Coalition)
Gerard Panahon (Associated Students Incorporated of Cal State L.A)
Noe Orgaz & Cassandra Gonzalez (Youth Justice Coalition)
Tim Watkins (Watts Labor Community Action Center)
Alejandro Corruvibas (La Causa Youth Build)
Geri Silva (Families to Amend California's Three Strikes)
Khalid Al Alim (Coalition for Educational Justice)
Roy San Filippo (Critical Resistance)
All who attended were given $500 million of play money and asked to
divide it among 13 broad categories. Education was the clear winner
and many 'dollars' were also spent on Youth Programs, Health and
Housing.
Posted by craig at 05:41 PM | Comments (0)
Unborn Victims of Violence Act emboldens prosecutors around the country
Letter from Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women
"NAPW is facing a crush of new prosecutions and child welfare interventions based on a woman's conditions, circumstances and actions during pregnancy. We suspect that these new cases reflect the impact the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and similar laws have had in emboldening prosecutors around the country."
Dear Friends and Allies:
NAPW (National Advocates for Pregnant Women) is facing a crush of new prosecutions and child welfare interventions based on a woman's conditions, circumstances and actions during pregnancy. We suspect that these new cases reflect the impact the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and similar laws have had in emboldening prosecutors around the country. There are also many new child welfare interventions relating to pregnancy and drug use including a case in Connecticut where a child was removed from her mother’s custody because the mother was receiving methadone treatment. With our allies at the Drug Policy Alliance and the New York Civil Liberties Union we are working hard to meet the many new and frightening challenges. For example, with these allies, we recently filed public health amicus briefs in a Missouri case in which a woman who admitted to smoking marijuana once while pregnant is being prosecuted for criminal child abuse and in a Rochester case where a judge prohibited a woman from becoming pregnant unless and until she has the financial means to support and regain custody of her existing children. NAPW is also continuing our organizing and education efforts. To that end NAPW board member Dr. Robert Newman and I were both successful in getting letters to the editor published. These letters responded to a terrible Newsday story that revived and rehashed myths and misinformation about pregnancy and drug use. We sent out a call to our allies to write letters to the editor. Many people wrote and we believe the strong and prompt response put pressure on the paper to publish at least two of them – and on different days – extending the impact. We have much more to report on in terms of local and national organizing, significant new collaborations, and some important steps forward in our efforts to redirect debate from discussions of personal blame to broader social justice issues. For now though please find the letters we mentioned pasted below.
Sincerely,
Lynn M. Paltrow
Newsday (New York)
October 23, 2004 Saturday
Real villain
Regarding "A life short and hard" [News, Oct. 17]: The death of a young child is always a catastrophe. Your article, however, does a disservice to both child and mother by giving credence to the family's unsupported conclusion that drug use during pregnancy caused this tragedy.
You do finally get around to citing authoritative research that indicates the relationship between illicit maternal drug use and fatal consequences for babies is "more myth than medical reality." By then, however, most readers will have joined the family in pointing an accusing finger at the mother's alleged crack use, and ignore poverty, use of legal drugs like cigarettes and alcohol, inadequate nutrition, housing and access to health care, and a host of other possible causes of conditions such as this child experienced.
Robert Newman
Editor's note: The writer is director of Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center.
Newsday (New York)
October 24, 2004 Sunday
A tragic child
"A life short and hard" [News, Oct. 17] reports the tragic death of
5-year-old Xavier Morales. Rather than exploring the many serious underlying scientific and medical issues that are raised by this family's terrible loss, it instead focuses on the family's speculative supposition that the child's deceased mother and her drug problems during pregnancy were responsible for Xavier's death. An exploration of the far more likely causes of his death, the reasons why drug rehabilitation failed the mother, and what research tells us about successful interventions on behalf of pregnant drug users and their families would serve this newspaper's readers and the memory of Xavier Morales far more honorably.
Lynn M. Paltrow
Editor's note: The writer is executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
Copyright 2004 Newsday, Inc.
Posted by lois at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
From the Pen to the Voting Booth
"A few weekends ago the Fortune Society of New York sent 10 parolees (barred from voting by New York State law) to Cleveland to tell their Ohio counterparts – "we can't vote but you can – so do it!": they helped sign up over 500 inmates to vote in the upcoming election."
From the Pen to the Voting Booth
By Dr. Ernest Drucker and Dr. Ricardo Barreras, AlterNet
Posted on October 28, 2004, Printed on October 29, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/20333/
Since the Florida election of 2000 (where 600,000 citizens with criminal convictions were barred from voting), felony disenfranchisement has attracted a lot of attention. Over the last three decades, 12 million Americans have lost the right to vote for all or most of their adult lives. It's no surprise then that many politicians believe that "these people don't vote anyway" – a convenient rational for ignoring them.
But that may be about to change.
While it is true that many with felony convictions are unable to vote, at least four million others in the criminal justice system (or recently released from it) are legally eligible to vote. This includes over 700,000 now in city and county jails; 2.25 million on probation or parole (in states that allow them to vote); and well over a million who have finished their sentences in recent years.
We have been interviewing current and former prisoners in New York, Connecticut and Ohio about their voting histories, attitudes about voting, and knowledge and understanding of the rules of disenfranchisement that apply to them. We find that prior to disenfranchisement they registered and voted at rates similar to the general population (40 to 50 percent) and most would like to do so again.
As few realize they have the right to vote, their registration and voting rates post-release are reduced to half of what they were before. This is accompanied by a time lag in getting back on the roles that effectively doubles the years of voting life lost to disenfranchisement.
A recent study by The Sentencing Project finds sharp disparities in the effects of disenfranchisement by race: in Atlanta, one of every seven African American males is disenfranchised. So as the imprisonment rates for blacks has climbed over three decades, long traditions of voting in many black families have been broken – each successive generation votes at lower rates than the previous one. This is true of all Americans since the 1960s, but the rates are most pronounced in black communities, where 30 to 40 percent of the men have been disenfranchised. A study by the University of Virginia School of Law finds that in states with the harshest disenfranchisement laws the overall voter turnout among African Americans is 13 percent lower than those who disenfranchise only for prison time.
And that may be no accident.
Among the large populations recently released from prison, parole, or probation (and now eligible to vote) there is widespread misinformation about the disenfranchisement rules — deterring many eligible voters because it is a felony to even try to vote if you are ineligible. Florida made it a point to widely publicize this intimidating fact again this year — until stopped by a court. In one area of Georgia, all Hispanic voters are now being called in, 6 days before the election, to present "proof of citizenship."
In Connecticut, which two years ago halved the size of their disenfranchised population by rescinding probation disenfranchisement, we found that two-thirds of probationers and parolees still did not know they were able to vote — 72 percent said no judge, parole or probation officer or lawyer had ever said a word about the issue to them. Another 60 percent thought that anyone is ineligible to vote if they'd "ever had a felony conviction," and fewer than half of those actually eligible to vote right now , believed that they would ever be eligible to vote again. In Ohio we found similar beliefs widespread among jail inmates and probationers, all of whom have the right to vote there.
What can be done about this de facto disenfranchisement whose numbers exceed those who are disenfranchised de jure? In most states there is an automatic computerized system to "purge" felons from the voting roles as they are convicted. But there is no comparable process to reinstate them once they finish their sentences. In response, Connecticut authorities are now placing voting information and registration cards in all centers where prisoners get processed out. They are even discussing producing a video to tell re-entering prisoners the rules and routines for registration and will provide registration cards at discharge,
Serious efforts to mobilize this large hidden vote have been underway in this election year by the National Right to Vote Campaign and many local organizations. In Ohio the Racial Fairness Project has been successfully educating prisoners about their voting rights in the jails and registering eligible inmates – 1,500 in the Cleveland jail alone. As a result 74 percent got the right answers on a test of their knowledge of the rules. A few weekends ago the Fortune Society of New York sent 10 parolees (barred from voting by New York State law) to Cleveland to tell their Ohio counterparts – "we can't vote but you can – so do it!": they helped sign up over 500 inmates to vote in the upcoming election.
This huge but forgotten pool of voters may soon have their voices heard again in the electoral process. Some key states now have more formerly disenfranchised (but now eligible) voters than the 2000 gap between Bush and Gore: in Ohio (where Bush won by 165,000 votes) there are 225,000 eligible voters in the criminal justice system today. And, with millions of these "hidden votes" in play nationally, ex-felons votes could be decisive in another close election this November.
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20333/
Posted by lois at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
AL: Resistane to Private Prison Is Strong
"Since this is a private prison, we know that we as citizens will have no influence or impact over how that prison is run," Mary Lelia Schaeffer told fellow members of the group last week.
Resistance to private prison is strong
Perry group raises several concerns
Thursday, October 28, 2004
CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer , Birmingham, (Alabama) News
UNIONTOWN - Every Thursday night, a group known as the Concerned Citizens of Perry County gathers at the Stockyard Cafe off U.S. 80. They talk about politics, how to create better jobs and other issues dear to this struggling Black Belt county.
Recently, the hot topic has been the private prison in the works down the road, on brushy, woodsy land adjacent to mobile homes and cow pastures. This group is trying to keep it out.
The Perry County Commission last spring entered into a partnership with the Louisiana-based LCS Corrections, a company that runs for-profit prisons, including one housing some Alabama women. Commissioners say it will bring much-needed jobs.
Construction on Uniontown's 888-bed lockup could start within a couple of weeks.
"Since this is a private prison, we know that we as citizens will have no influence or impact over how that prison is run," Mary Lelia Schaeffer told fellow members of the group last week.
"We have enough problems as it is without bringing prisoners into our community," said Robert James Johnson, another member.
Uniontown has a high crime rate and chronic drug infestations. The largest employer is a catfish plant where wages are low, and the main road through town is flanked by public housing projects.
But Concerned Citizens believes renewal is possible. The group - which counts preachers, teachers, retirees and a former mayor as members - is trying to make an impact before construction starts by raising legal questions and sending petitions to the highest levels of state government.
"We have received complaints and are aware of their concerns," said Joy Patterson, a spokeswoman for Alabama Attorney General Troy King. "We are reviewing them to see if there is any action from this office that's appropriate."
Other correspondence has been directed to Steve Hayes, an assistant to Alabama Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell.
"This proposal was initiated and approved by the Perry County Commission without allowing for any public comment or public participation in the decision," the citizens' group wrote Sept. 22. "No research, study, investigation, or determination was made about the economic or social impacts of this proposal on our community or our county."
But it's out of Campbell's hands.
There is no formal plan or written agreement between the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Perry prison developers to house state inmates, said prisons spokesman Brian Corbett.
"If the prison is built or not built, it has nothing to do with ADOC," Corbett said. "It is between the Perry County Commission and the company interested in construction."
Residents believe the prison will stigmatize their community, keeping away better businesses. They also fear that importing criminals from other places could jeopardize their safety. They say the few jobs that would go to Perry County residents aren't worth the repercussions.
"To get that little benefit, we're going to have from now on the stigma of a prison," said Robert Bamberg, a Uniontown farmer and Concerned Citizens member.
Study's findings:
At least one study shows their concerns might be justified.
In 2003, researchers with the Sentencing Project, a Washington criminal justice think tank, studied conditions surrounding 32 rural prisons opened since 1982 in New York. They found that counties with prisons did not gain any significant jobs compared with those without prisons.
A premise of the study was the argument that prisons are a tool for economic recovery in poor counties.
"While prisons clearly create new jobs, these benefits do not aid the host county to any substantial degree since local residents are not necessarily in a position to be hired for these jobs," the authors wrote in the 2003 report.
County Commission Chairman Johnny Flowers, who is leading the effort to bring in the Perry prison, is familiar with the residents' complaints, but says Perry County desperately needs jobs. He maintains that the prison is the best bet.
"Their concern is one thing and my motive is another. My motive is jobs," Flowers said. "Their motive is selfish. Most of them already have a job."
He expects that spin-off businesses from the prison - hotels, stores and restaurants to serve families who come to Perry County to visit inmates - would boost the economy. Also, Uniontown would make money supplying water to the prison, Flowers said.
Originally, the plan was to have the prison open next summer. Construction is estimated to take 14 months for the $20 million facility, but the project has fallen behind schedule, Flowers said.
Questions:
Still, questions remain, and that's what concerns the Uniontown residents.
For example, county officials initially described the prison as minimum security. They emphasized the rehabilitation component - drug treatment and education.
But the memorandum of understanding between Perry County and Perry Detention Services, the company formed by county officials and LCS executives to operate the prison, does not require the prisoners to be minimum security. And the staffing plan, which calls for 136 employees, lists no drug treatment personnel and only one teacher/librarian.
Another unknown is where the prisoners will come from. Alabama officials, while agreeing they need more prison space, have made no agreement to use the prison. The memorandum of understanding says the prison could house federal prisoners, including illegal immigrants, and prisoners from other states.
The company is planning to build the multimillion-dollar facility without a contract to fill it. "It doesn't make sense," said Perry County Commissioner Brett Harrison, the lone voice on the commission raising a lot of questions about the arrangement.
He and members of Perry County Concerned Citizens also worry about the county's liability. Residents worry that the county would have to pay lawyers and legal costs to defend itself against lawsuits that spring from prison settings. Now, LCS is fighting off a lawsuit from an Alabama prisoner who claims she was sexually assaulted at one of its prisons.
Efforts to reach LCS failed.
"Perry County doesn't need to be held in any way liable for a private business," Bamberg said at Thursday's meeting.
Members of his group have found sections of state law they argue forbid the state from using private prisons. The statutes prohibit the transfer or lease of state prison facilities to nongovernmental entities without consent from the Legislature.
The attorney general's office found that the planned prison is not under state control. Also, the prison will be administered under a capital improvement cooperative district, which Alabama law allows, according to the AG opinion.
The citizens are not deterred. Their most recent letter to Gov. Bob Riley was six pages long plus 20 pages of petitions.
However, since the state is not involved in the venture, Riley has not gotten involved, said spokesman Jeff Emerson.
E-mail: ccrowder@bhamnews.com
Copyright 2004 al.com. All Rights Reserved.
Posted by lois at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)
Law Denying Financial Aid to Students with Drug Convictions May Have Momentum to Change
"Presidential candidates George W. Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader released position statements in opposition to the 1998 provision, which has allowed for the loss of financial aid for more than 157,000 students nationwide."
The Daily Campus - News, University of Connecticut
Issue: 10/25/04
Higher Education Act under scrutiny
By Seth Harris
No matter what the outcome of the Nov. 2 presidential election will be, the controversial provision in the Higher Education Act, which denies financial aid to students with drug convictions, will be changed in some way.
Presidential candidates George W. Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader released position statements in opposition to the 1998 provision, which has allowed for the loss of financial aid for more than 157,000 students nationwide.
According to Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), a non-partisan group based in Washington D.C. which has campaigned for a repeal of the provision for six years, the candidates' statements are the result of a questionnaire compiled by the New Voters Project (www.newvotersproject.org).
The New Voters Project is a young voter registration campaign sponsored by state Public Interest Research Groups around the country. The questionnaire is part of an online survey of 12 questions submitted by young voters. The financial aid question pertaining to the provision in the Higher Education Act was posted by a member of SSDP.
The provision is an issue among young voters in the upcoming election, according to Josh Litwin, a 3rd-semester political science major and UConnPIRG staff member.
"All the candidates are concerned about it," he said. "It is a huge issue if you are a student convicted of a drug crime and can't get financial aid."
Litwin said the candidates' responses show how students can influence politicians if they are seen as voters.
"The only way students are going to influence politicians and make them pay attention to our issues are by voting in this election and elections in the future," he said. "Voters should choose the candidate who will change the act if they want them to and hopefully change it for the better if that's what they are concerned about."
The candidates and students alike are against the provision. Many feel education is the best way for students to overcome their past and change their lives for the better.
"Education is perhaps the best way for someone who has been involved with drugs or crime to turn their life around," Kerry said. "If a young person has overcome past obstacles and is ready to go to college, I don't think that a nonviolent drug conviction in their past should prevent them form doing so. And the reality is that preventing them from obtaining federal loans means they won't be able to afford to go to college."
Bush called for a partial reform of the provision so students entering college with a drug conviction could still obtain federal financial aid.
"My 2005 Budget proposes to fix the drug provision of the Higher Education Act so that incoming students who have a prior drug-related conviction would be able to receive Federal student aid, and only students convicted while in college would lose their eligibility for student aid," he said, according to the New Voter's Project web site.
The provision should be entirely repealed as it relates to nonviolent offenders, Independent candidate Ralph Nader said on the New Voter's Project website.
"Repeal the Higher Education Act drug provision as it applies to non-violent offenders," he said. "The drug war has failed. We spend nearly $50 billion annually on the drug war and problems related to drug abuse continue to worsen."
UConn students agree with the candidates' positions on some level and feel the provision only hurts these offenders instead of helping them.
Drug policies and financial aid should be two separate issues, Jason Cabral, a 3rd-semester meteorology major said.
"I think there should be stricter substance abuse policies, but to lose financial aid is a separate issue," he said. "I agree with the intention of it, but I disagree with what it is doing to people's education. Education in the long run will probably help people."
"I agree with the candidates' stances," said Tyler Longland, a 3rd-semester history and political science major. "Everyone makes mistakes and to take their opportunity away is un-American."
However, some feel students should lose their financial aid based on how serious the drug offense is and the circumstances surrounding their conviction.
"If a student is receiving financial aid to go to college and they are caught dealing drugs they should lose their financial aid," said Steve Conley, a 7th-semester sociology major. "But there is a difference between someone smoking pot and someone snorting coke."
Posted by lois at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)
Jail Building Spree Sweeps NY State Creating County Debt
"Since 1995, thirty-six of New York’s fifty-eight counties have built or are constructing or considering new jails. As the state’s crime rate and prison population plummets, local jail populations are experiencing unprecedented growth."
New York State Network for Jail Alternatives and Safer Communities
90 Pennsylvania Avenue, Massapequa, NY
For Immediate Release
October 25, 2004
Contact:
Dana Kaplan, 917-821-5142
Maurice Mitchell, 202-361-1998
Jail Building Spree Sweeps New York State State Mandates Force New Construction and County Debt
While Governor Pataki is closing prisons, county legislators across New York are being confronted with State mandates to build new or expanded county jails at county expense. For many counties, these new jails represent the largest capital projects in local history with significant impact on county debt, local taxes, and funds available for schools, healthcare and housing.
Since 1995, thirty-six of New York’s fifty-eight counties have built or are constructing or considering new jails. As the state’s crime rate and prison population plummets, local jail populations are experiencing unprecedented growth. From mid-year 1995 to mid-year 2004 the New York State prison population decreased from 68,335 to 64,778, a decline of more than 5%. During the same time period, the population housed in New York State county jails increased from 13,853 to 16,079 – an increase of close to 16% of the population.
Some of the factors driving up New York’s jail populations are similar to those affecting jail populations throughout the country: increased arrest rates for low level crimes, particularly in poor neighborhoods where many residents fail to meet bail, increased detention of non-citizen immigrants in county facilities; and a rising number of mentally ill persons formerly residing in mental health facilities.
But counties in New York also must contend with the State Commission of Corrections (SCOC), a small state agency, controlled by three Commissioners appointed by the Governor, which oversees prison and jail conditions in the state of New York. While historically the SCOC has focused on issues such as training correctional officers, regulating the items of clothing received by inmates and overseeing conditions of confinement, in the last nine years the agency has emphasized another mission: mandating construction of new jails or expansion of existing facilities to a timetable and size set by the state.
Some counties have spent taxpayer funds to study the problems leading to jail overcrowding and concluded that programs supervising non-violent offenders in the community; intensive case-management of populations like the mentally ill, and reforms of bail and arrest practices would reduce or eliminate the need for new construction. However, county officials who have challenged the state’s ‘build or else’ conclusions have found that ‘variances’ regularly granted them by SCOC over the years have been abruptly withdrawn, forcing shipment and housing of their inmates elsewhere. Other counties have been threatened with litigation.
Maurice Mitchell, of the New York Network for Jail Alternatives and Safer Communities, states, “The New York State Commission of Corrections is forcing us to build new jails, but they aren’t the ones paying the costs. It’s the county taxpayers who will bear the fiscal burden, and low- income communities who will feel the loss of funding for other services. Unless the SCOC wants to pick up the bill, they should allow us to pursue the alternative programs that have already been proven to make our communities safer and that save us money instead.”
Some of the counties currently undergoing or contemplating jail expansion in New York State include:
Ulster County: A new 500-bed jail currently stands 70% completed, a year behind schedule, and more than 20% over the initially projected costs. County lawmakers wondering whether they will be able to fill the massive new jail are looking to other counties, the state, and the federal government to provide inmates to make up the difference.
Tompkins County: Lawmakers are currently considering a legal challenge to the SCOC’s mandate to the county to build a new jail, as the size of the facility prescribed by the SCOC is far greater than the 105 bed facility that county legislators and community residents have determined to be necessary.
Suffolk County: The largest capital construction project in the history of Suffolk County – a projected $215 million, 1,150-bed jail – has met with stiff opposition from a broad array of residents, organizations and a few local officials. County legislators say that the state has left them with no choice but to begin building in 2006, despite plans offered by the Probation Department to decrease the population of a current jail. This summer the county sued SCOC over its decision to close two wings of its current jail, necessitating the expenditure of $5 to $10 million to ship displaced prisoners elsewhere.
The New York State Network for Jail Alternatives and Safer Communities is a network of community members throughout the State of New York who are concerned about the exorbitant economic and social costs of massive jail expansion, and seek to implement alternative to detention programs and reforms to build healthy communities and ensure long-term public safety instead.
*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************
New York County Legislators React to State Mandated Jail Expansion
Tompkins County
"We're the ones in charge of the money raised from Tompkins County
taxpayers. They're saying we have to build a jail to accommodate the number of prisoners they think might be incarcerated 20 years from now. We think the number will be significantly less. Well, it's our money, and how it gets spent is our call, not theirs."
"I had reconciled myself to a 104-bed jail with the spine for 196 beds. The Legislature as a whole agreed unanimously on that. They (the commission) have eliminated that option. The option they offer us now is a very big jail or nothing. Given that, the only reasonable choice is not to build at all."
- Tim Joseph, Chairman of Tompkins County Legislature, D-Ithaca
Allegany County
"I think the bottom line becomes the question: how can we afford not to? I really feel like were being backed into a corner here (by the Commission of Corrections)…"
-Brent Reynolds, Chairman of Public Safety Committee , R-Alfred
"We don't really have a choice but to go ahead and build a new jail. Allegany County can not afford a $30 million jail. It already has more than $24 million in bonded indebtedness. Our taxes are too high and they are driving property values into the ground."
-Rod Bennet, R-Granger, County Legislature
Essex County
“(If the commission wants the county to have a bigger jail, the commission should be prepared to pay the difference)…that sounds like a mandate to me. I’d like to know where he thinks we’re getting the money. The state should pay it.”
“I could care less what message we send to the Commission of Correction right now, after what they did to us. We need to do what’s best for the county.”
-Supervisor Walter Rushby Junior, R-Moriah
Suffolk County
“Why didn't it occur to anybody that the system wasn't communicating when we were under the gun from the State to make this decision? Now this Legislature has chosen to go down a path of build first and gain information second, something that I vehemently disagree with.”
-David Bishop, County Legislature, D-Babylon
Chatauqua County
I think that it is unfortunate that we have come to this whole process. I think the State of New York has put forth standards that don’t take into account the County’s ability to pay and the taxpayer’s ability to foot the bill also.
-James Caflisch, County Legislature, R-District 21
“In good business practice, I feel that we as a County should have been saving dollars from the beginning of time when this issue first came in front of us. We continue to go to the twelfth hour in arriving at dollars which in the long run, costs the taxpayer more money because of bonding and borrowing. I feel that we should be looking at the reason that we are having an increase in population in our jail. With a stable population, something is drastically wrong if we are causing our population to commit more and more crime. There should be a major movement in our society to reduce the crime that is occurring rather than providing facilities and acknowledging that we have more and more criminals. Because of that, I will not support this bond issue.”
-Doug Richmond, County Legislature, R-District 22
“The reasons that some of the people are in there and I just can’t bring myself to vote for that much money when I personally feel that a large percentage of those people don’t have to be in the jail at this particular time. There are other alternatives.”
-Legislator Alvin Crowe, County Legislature, R-District 4
Ulster County
"It's either a lack of communication or a lack of fiscal discipline. The point is, here's half a million dollars of taxpayer dollars being wasted."
-Peter Kraft, County Legislature, Democrat
''It's a catastrophic failure of leadership. The public deserves better”
-Richard Parete, D-Boiceville, County Legislature
“Do Not Pass Go! Taxpayers Ante up $40 million as County, State Lock into Contest over Size.” Ithaca Journal: July 3, 2004.
Gordon, Jim. “Arresting Figures: More Staff Hired, but Jail Won’t be Complete until December at the Earliest.” Woodstock Times: April 1, 2004
Liebler, Shane. “County Takes Next Step Toward Jail; Legislators: $24 million complex mandated by COC”.
Wellsville Daily Reporter: March 16th, 2004.
McKinstry, Lohr. “Essex Supervisors to Decide Jails Issues: Will Seek State Extension.” Press Republican: April 29, 2003.
McKinstry, Lohr. “120 Beds…or Else: State Mandates Size of Essex Jail”. Press Republican: August 22, 2003.
Wasserman, Gabriel. “Overruns, Delays Mar Jail Project: Democrats in Ulster Seek Investigations”. Poughkeepsie Journal: April 1, 2004.
Chatuuqua County Legislature Minutes; June 23, 2004, Public Safety & Public Information Committee, Mayvile, New York.
Suffolk County Legislature Minutes: March 16, 2004, Public Safety Committee Meeting, Hauppauge, New York.
Posted by lois at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
$50 million to help keep people who are mentally ill out of prison
U.S.: Congress Addresses Plight of Mentally Ill Offenders (Human Rights Watch, October 22, 2004)
Two letters to the editor following publication of the above article:
October 28, 2004
Mentally Ill, and in Prison
To the Editor:
Re "Treating Mentally Ill Prisoners" (editorial, Oct. 22):
In 1963, Congress passed the Community Mental Health Centers Act. At that time, many, if not most, people with mental illness were confined to large state psychiatric centers, and the act was meant to help move them toward community inclusion. Like the current Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, that act was also underfinanced.
In New York, 93,000 people were confined to large institutions in 1953; today, approximately 4,200 receive treatment in psychiatric centers. Thus, most people with mental illness are supposed to be receiving treatment in the community. Your editorial sheds light on where many of them end up: in our prisons and jails.
The current act is a step in the right direction. An even better step would be to enhance financing for community-based treatment, including supportive housing. Mental illness is a health issue, but it is being viewed increasingly through a law-enforcement lens.
Mary Elizabeth Anderson
New York, Oct. 22, 2004
The writer is director, Mentally Ill-Chemically Addicted Project, Legal Aid Society.
•
To the Editor:
I, along with most professionals, propose the reality that mental illness is a public health challenge, not a criminal justice agenda. Instead of public money being provided for programs behind the walls of prisons, provide adequate financing in the community to assist citizens suffering from psychological and emotional behavior conditions.
(Rev.) Charles E. Doyle
Michigan City, Ind., Oct. 22, 2004
The writer is a former prison chaplain and former public defender.
Posted by lois at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2004
CCA and Cracker Barrel big Republican Donors
The Jackson Sun News - State's corporations dig deep for GOP
State's corporations dig deep for GOP
By MATT GOURAS
The Associated Press
Oct 25 2004
NASHVILLE - Tennessee's largest corporations favor Republicans with their political donations, but none more so than Cracker Barrel and Corrections Corporation of America.
Federal campaign filings show the state's Fortune 500 companies gave anywhere from 62 percent to 75 percent of their donations from their political action committees to Republicans - with the rest mostly going to Democrats.
That's in line with national corporations, which use their PACs to send roughly two-thirds of their donations to Republicans and one-third to Democrats.
But even among these large Republican contributors, a few Tennessee companies stand out as particularly partisan donors.
The nation's largest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, and most of its senior officers, give nearly all their political money to Republicans, according to federal election filings through August.
CCA's political action committee has given 96 percent of its money to Republicans so far this election cycle.
''We are supportive, regardless of party lines, of those individuals that believe in the private sector playing a role in delivering government services,'' said Louise Chickering, a CCA vice president.
Only the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel has a similar record among Tennessee's largest contributors.
The Lebanon-based company also gave Republicans 96 percent of its donations, pouring a total of $77,100 into political campaigns.
CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, has credited the Bush administration's expansion of federal police for creating new business for the firm.
Three times, the Corrections Corporation of America Political Action Committee made $15,000 donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A number of $5,000 donations went to the Bush-Cheney campaign, the New Republican Majority Fund, and other GOP money groups.
Of the $149,500 doled out by the company's PAC in the 2004 election cycle, 96 percent went to Republicans around the country.
The $5,000 spent on Democrats went to Tennessee politicians- Reps. Jim Cooper, Lincoln Davis, John Tanner and Harold Ford Jr., according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
Money was also doled out to candidates from states where CCA has deals to run prisons, such as Colorado, Georgia and Florida.
Dick Williams, state chairman for Common Cause of Tennessee, a Nashville-based government watchdog group, said it's obvious that CCA is trying to buy influence.
CCA wins when politicians from the local to federal level decide to send prisoners to its private jails, he said.
''We have a concern any time you have large campaign contribution from an interest that has a direct interest in the actions of politicians they are supporting,'' said Williams.
One notable exception at CCA is Thurgood Marshall Jr., the son of the first black Supreme Court justice. Marshall sits on the company's board of directors. His money focused on Democrats, including John Kerry, one-time presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, Ford, and other congressional candidates.
Cracker Barrel, recently indicted in what authorities say was a scheme to funnel illegal contributions into Texas campaigns, said it supports candidates who hold favorable positions on issues like workers' compensation and employment regulations.
''Cracker Barrel doesn't support a specific political party, but supports candidates that are in concert with the restaurant industry,'' said Julie Davis, a spokeswoman for Cracker Barrel. ''It's a matter of supporting positions that support the industry.''
The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Citizens for Political Action Committee gave money this election cycle to other GOP or conservative PACs, like the National Rifle Association, and a laundry list of Republican congressional candidates.
Memphis-based FedEx Corp., which has handed out $1.3 million, led Tennessee's largest corporations in overall donations, according to the FEC. It also favored Republicans, sending roughly 70 percent of its money on Republicans over Democrats.
The company said whichever political party is in power gets more donations, usually along a 60-40 split.
FedEx is among the largest corporate donors to political campaigns in the country, the FEC reports.
''We've always taken the position that being active in the political arena is an important part of the company,'' FedEx spokeswoman Kristin Krause said.
For-profit hospital chain HCA Inc. was next in overall donations from the group, according to the FEC, with the HCA Inc. Good Government Fund spending $179,200.
Dollar General, based in Goodlettsville, was the state's only Fortune 500 company without a PAC.
Williams said corporations will continue to pour money into campaigns until laws are revamped, such as with the public campaign financing his group promotes.
''All politicians are going to give some preference to the position of someone that gave them significant funds,'' he said.
Posted by lois at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
Narrowmindedness has Cost Lives
Posted by lois at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Black Coalition to Target Drug Policies
On Wednesday, a dozen African-American professional groups announced the creation of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition...
" Treatment, advocates hoped, would reverse a disturbing trend reported in 2002 by the Justice Policy Institute: In 1980 African-American men in colleges and universities outnumbered those in prison by more than 3-to-1. But two decades later, 791,600 black men were incarcerated for drug-related crimes, compared with 603,032 enrolled in college."
Black Coalition to Target Drug Policies
Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Oct. 22, 2004 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/9987123.htm
BALTIMORE - For years, many of the nation's leading black legislators, attorneys and social scientists complained that the nation's war on drugs was both ineffective and unfair. They blamed policies arising from that war for the disproportionate number of African-Americans in prison. But for years, little changed.
On Wednesday, a dozen African-American professional groups announced the creation of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, hoping to spark reform with a two-pronged approach: In a handful of cities, including Baltimore, they plan to advise judges to offer treatment rather than prison sentences for drug crimes and to push education and prevention in communities.
Nationally, they hope to launch a debate that will propel lawmakers to change mandatory minimum-sentencing laws that the coalition complains unfairly hurt blacks and other minorities.
Among the group's leaders is Kurt L. Schmoke, a former three-term Baltimore mayor who, in 1988, called drug addiction a public health problem and advocated decriminalizing drugs. His stance sparked a national debate on drug policy.
Schmoke, once a prosecutor and now the dean of Howard University Law School, will be co-chairman of the coalition.
Schmoke acknowledged that his stance on drug decriminalization did not draw widespread support, but he distanced that position from this latest effort.
"I have tried my best to ensure that people didn't see this as a Kurt Schmoke operation, because it is not," he said Wednesday. "I do strongly believe that this war on drugs should be more of a public health war. I am very pleased that this organization has come about. But it's not something I created, and it's not about decriminalizing drugs."
Schmoke said instead he wants to help fix what he calls "one of the most important issues affecting the quality of life in urban America."
He was elected to his first term as mayor in 1987, and shortly afterward he said the nation's drug policy was as big a failure as Prohibition. He advocated medical treatment for addicts instead of jail time.
Treatment, advocates hoped, would reverse a disturbing trend reported in 2002 by the Justice Policy Institute: In 1980 African-American men in colleges and universities outnumbered those in prison by more than 3-to-1. But two decades later, 791,600 black men were incarcerated for drug-related crimes, compared with 603,032 enrolled in college.
The notion that the nation's drug policies are ineffective is not new. But what sets the coalition's effort apart is its collaborative nature.
"We have had a fragmented approach for some time, but we have never had all these groups working together," said Arthur L. Burnett, a retired Washington, D.C., superior court judge, who is the full-time executive director of the coalition.
And its goals are ambitious. Supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the group plans to see results within the next five years.
The national component will be launched in February, with a conference bringing together partners to strategize a national debate. The Coalition includes such groups as the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, National Bar Association and National Association of Black Psychologists.
On the local level, the group is targeting seven pilot cities: Baltimore; Washington; Chicago; Seattle; Huntsville, Ala.; Flint, Mich.; and another city to be named in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Smaller advisory groups will work to influence local judges and to lobby legislators.
"The drug courts are fine, but they are only dealing with an infinitesimal amount of people," said Burnett, a judge of 31 years, who helped advocate for drug courts years ago. "They don't have all the resources to deal with all the people who really need help. One of our big missions is to educate legislative bodies for more intensive and more elaborate treatment. To do that, they need more money."
Beyond reforming decades-old drug laws, Burnett wants to see black professionals play a larger role mentoring children in communities and keeping them out of the streets - and away from drugs.
"Sure, there are mentoring programs out there, but they have been episodic, small and fragmented," he said. "These organizations need to come together and make educating young people the basis for their existence. We need to be concerned with doubling the numbers of black lawyers and doctors."
Drug policy affects more than dealers and addicts, he said:
"We're not dealing with drug policy only as it impacts the criminal justice system, but it is a part of the whole problem of the dysfunctional black family, the lack of jobs and unemployment. Drugs is the thread that runs through all this."
Information from: The Sun, http://www.baltsun.com
Posted by lois at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)
HIV pandemic African prisons
People in Zambia with HIV find life hard both in and out of prison
Mail and Guardian (South African newspaper) at:
http://www.mg.co.za/content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-Africa&ao=124182
Freedom a mixed blessing for positive prisoners
Zarina Geloo | Lusaka, Zambia
22 October 2004 08:37
The HIV pandemic has proved a divisive force in several African countries, not least Zambia.
As IPS reported last month, the question of whether to make HIV tests mandatory has sparked fierce debate in the country. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) Zambia currently has a 19% HIV prevalence rate.
However, another controversy is also afoot about the wisdom of releasing prisoners in the advanced stages of Aids.
Since late 2001, more than 300 sick inmates have been freed by President Levy Mwanawasa on compassionate grounds.
Commissioner of Prisons Jethro Mumbuwa says Zambia’s jails simply lack the resources to look after convicts who are seriously ill.
“The prisons are under-resourced both financially and (in terms of) human resources. Besides, we think that when people are terminally ill they are better off spending their last days with their families,” he noted.
With many of the former inmates having been given life sentences for serious infractions, protests from the victims of their crimes might have been expected.
But surprisingly, some of the strongest opposition to the releases has come from the prisoners’ families.
“Why, why give me this shell?” asks the wife of HIV-positive ex-prisoner Samson Nkumba (not his real name).
“They (the government) must keep him, because I cannot do what they have failed to do. I cannot afford ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs). It is traumatic for the children to see their father in this way,” she adds.
These words are echoed by Clement Mfuzi, chairman of the Network of Zambian People Living with HIV/Aids (NZP+). “Zambians are poor. (If) you lock up the bread earner, where do you expect families to get money to look after a sick relative?” he asks.
An instance where release worked to good effect was that of Jack Chiti, who was jailed for attempting to topple former president Frederick Chiluba in October 1997. Chiti’s relatives petitioned for his release, and he subsequently died in the care of his family.
NZP+ believes that government is entrenching the stigma surrounding HIV-positive persons by washing its hands of prisoners with Aids-related diseases.
While prison authorities claim inmates are counselled about their condition before being released, NZP+ also queries whether this process is adequate -- and whether the convicts’ families are being properly advised on how to care for them.
“You just do not unleash people with HIV onto an unsuspecting public. What if the convicts themselves are in denial (about their HIV status) and continue to have unprotected sex with their ... spouses?” asks Mfuzi.
Prison often hardens convicts rather than rehabilitating them, he adds. This might encourage reckless behaviour on the part of former inmates -- which makes the need for prison and home-based counselling still more urgent.
Says Nkumba, “They removed us from society because they said we were a danger to the public. They now throw us back to the same society when we are even more dangerous than before.”
“Neither myself or my family were counselled, and I had not heard of any of my colleagues who were in the same situation being counselled. We are just told we are being released -- that’s it,” he adds.
At present, Zambian courts do not take HIV status into consideration when sentencing felons. There are no voluntary counselling and testing facilities in prisons, and HIV tests are only conducted when a convict falls ill repeatedly.
Nonetheless, the dirt, congestion and poor nutrition that prevail in many prisons all but ensure that those HIV-positive prisoners at risk of developing Aids-related diseases do so. Unprotected sex between male inmates also fuels the spread of HIV.
“The convicts cannot be forced or coerced into testing for HIV because of the human rights issue. But, I see a time when this will be a necessity because HIV is flourishing in the prisons,” says Leslie Phiri, a lawyer based in the capital, Lusaka.
Zambia’s Permanent Human Rights Commission insists that no prisoner should be forced to test for HIV, however.
Instead, it recommends that prisons be reformed to ensure that HIV-positive inmates receive the treatment needed to keep them alive.
Elsewhere in the region, officials are also grappling with the effects of HIV on prisons.
According to a 2003 study conducted by the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, the HIV policies that South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services has introduced are “excellent” in certain respects.
It notes, however, that the distribution of condoms in prisons – something advocated by UNAids and the World Health Organisation -- “... would be considerably improved if it were to include the discreet provision of condoms in common areas rather than requiring prisoners to request condoms face to face with a member of the health staff.”
The study, entitled HIV/Aids in Prison: Problems, Policies, and Potential, goes on to state that “the provision of water-based lubricant in a similarly accessible manner” would help to reduce condom breakage and damage to the rectum during anal sex. Breakages and rectal damage facilitate the transmission of HIV.
Malawi, with its Banja la Mtsogolo (Family of the Future) programme, aims to educate over 5 000 prisoners in 21 jails about HIV. The initiative also incorporates treatment for prisoners who have sexually-transmitted infections.
According to UNAids, HIV prevalence in Malawi is at 15%. -- IPS
Posted by lois at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
Taking Back Their Backyard
"A school on the Tallulah site would represent a triumph of education over imprisonment for youth in Louisiana."
http://www.bestofneworleans.com%2Fdispatch%2F2004-08-10%2Fcommentary.html
Gambit Weekly, New Orleans, LA
COMMENTARY 08 10 04
Taking Back Their Backyard
A school on the Tallulah site would represent a triumph of education over imprisonment for youth in Louisiana.
In one year's time, Tallulah townspeople have done something that many would consider impossible. They organized a grass-roots effort rooted in the idea that they could build a school to replace the notorious local juvenile prison. Then they wrote proposed legislation and got it passed. Act 721 created the Northeast Louisiana Delta Learning Center -- but the new law did not provide for site acquisition or funding for the center. Those are significant hurdles, but if they could be overcome, Tallulah might become the first place in the nation to replace a prison with a school. Longtime prisons researcher Tracy Huling calls the coalition's achievements "historic" and predicts that other prison towns across the nation will follow Tallulah's lead. That's truly something to cheer about.
The learning center would stand on the site of the now-closed Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth (later re-named the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth/Madison Parish Unit). This was the juvenile prison that New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield referred to in 1998 as a place "so rife with brutality, cronyism and neglect that many legal experts say it is the worst in the nation." In 2001, New Orleanian Avis Brock formed Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) after she'd talked with parents of kids held in Tallulah and heard "stories of the broken bones, the rapes, the abuse, the inequalities, the lack of education, the feelings of hopelessness and despair." Tallulah, to state Sen. Don Cravins, epitomized what was wrong with Louisiana's juvenile justice system. "Nothing stood out clearer," he says, "than the atrocities happening at the facility in Tallulah." A school on that site would represent a triumph of education over imprisonment for youth in Louisiana.
It also makes economic sense, according to research published in recent studies. During the 1980s and 1990s, as rural economies reeled from lost farms and shuttered factories, small towns across the nation began wooing private prisons and lobbying for them in state legislatures. Compared to other "industries of last resort" -- nuclear power plants, toxic waste dumps, and garbage incinerators -- correctional facilities were viewed as non-polluting industries that provided year-round employment and better-than-average benefits. In 1994, when Tallulah opened, it was hailed as an employer that could stabilize the area and hire locals in a town where more than one-third of the residents lived in poverty.
The New Landscape of Imprisonment, an April 2004 Urban Institute report, found that in the last 25 years, the number of state prisons alone increased from fewer than 600 to more than 1,000, an increase of about 70 percent. During the same time frame, the numbers of inmates in all correctional facilities increased 10-fold, from about 200,000 to about 2 million, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2000, the Washington Post wrote, "Call it salvation through incarceration -- a prison-based development strategy that small towns all over America are pursuing, and changing economically and culturally because of it."
Today, townspeople in Tallulah say that their small town has indeed changed, but not in the way they'd foreseen. People look at each other differently in a prison town, says coalition leader and local attorney Moses Williams. "If you see a kid playing and something happens, you say, ‘Look at that bad kid.'" Once the learning center becomes the hub of Tallulah, he believes, the response will change to, "That kid should be in school somewhere." We hope so.
Within the past two years, a number of new reports have questioned how much economic development, if any, prisons provide to their host towns. Researchers Terry Besser and Margaret Hanson examined changes in U.S. Census data for certain small towns between 1990 and 2000. In their 2003 report, The Development of Last Resort, they found that small towns with new state prisons experienced less economic growth than non-prison towns.
Conversely, the Economic Policy Institute examined nearly 180 studies for its newly released report Smart Money: Education and Economic Development. "There is a growing consensus," the report concludes, "that money spent wisely on education pays off not only for workers but also for communities and businesses." The report reserved special praise for community colleges, home to half of all postsecondary undergrads, because they "rescue many high school dropouts and prepare them for productive work." Raising skills of young adults has lifetime effects. According to the report, even a step-up of one grade level raises earnings and reduces out-of-wedlock births and welfare dependency. It also lessens the chance of arrest or incarceration. If things go as planned, Tallulah will do much more than replace a prison with a school. It will plant seeds of hope and opportunity where previously nothing grew. And, in the long run, the townspeople's hard work and forward-thinking attitude will also prevent many northeast Louisiana kids from a stint -- or a life -- in the type of facility that once brought such disgrace to their town.
Posted by lois at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2004
The Death of Tallulah Prisons
An extraordinary successful campaign to close the notorious Tallulah youth prison moves to demand that the facility be used to house a Learning Center with a satellite campus of the Louisiana Delta Community College at its core.
The Death of Tallulah Prison
An extraordinary campaign against racism and corruption takes down Louisiana's notorious Tallulah youth prison.
By Xochitil Bervera, ColorLines. Posted June 24, 2004. http://www.alternet.org/rights/19040/
For nearly 10 years, the Tallulah youth prison has sat on the edge of northeastern Louisiana€” imposing, barb-wired, a warehouse for hundreds of young men locked on the inside. Built on the momentum of the national "tough on juvenile crime' wave of the early '90s, the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth (referred to as simply "Tallulah,' after the small delta town where it is located) has symbolized for many the intractability of the impoverished, lockdown culture of Louisiana, the state with the highest incarceration rate in the world.
The Tallulah youth prison, considered by some to be the worst juvenile facility in the country, is notorious for its cruelty. Broken bones, black eyes, fractured jaws and rapes are everyday occurrences.
"You can't imagine the things they do to children at Tallulah,' says Brenda Brue, a New Orleans woman whose son was sent to the prison for over two years. "These children are abused by guards who are supposedly there to care for them. Guards beat on the children, sell them drugs and have sex with them. This is what is happening and the children are afraid to say anything about it.'
Yet in a state well-known for its racism, corruption and cronyism, a small coalition of parents of incarcerated children, lawyers and organizers managed to pass a transformative piece of legislation last June. The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 paves the way for a radical reconstruction of the state's juvenile justice system and mandates the closure of the notorious Tallulah youth prison. The passion for Louisiana's youth that united various parties into a powerful coalition can make for an equally powerful lesson. Sometimes unusual allies result in unusual triumphs. And perhaps, the most significant triumph is that the struggle to pass the Act of 2003 has ignited a movement for youth justice throughout the state.
Private Prisons, Public Disasters
The Tallulah youth prison never made any bones about rehabilitating its young inmates. In fact, the recidivism rate of the youth held there has increased to at least 90 percent over the years, according to Louisiana State University prison expert Cecile Guin.
The prison did, however, function quite well as a cash cow for the private for-profit corporation who won the state contract to open and operate the facility back in 1994. In May 2001, the state's legislative auditor found that between January 1995 and April 2001, three members of Trans-American Development Associates, cronies of then-Gov. Edwin Edwards, pocketed $8.7 million dollars from the deal. Even after lawsuits forced the state to seize control of the facility in 1999, the three continued to put away up to $600,000 each fiscal year until the legislature finally ceased all payments except those which covered the lease of the facility. These annual lease payments by the state are scheduled to continue until construction bonds for the facility are paid off in 2012, after which the three me€”not the state, parish or tow€”will retain ownership of the physical plant.
Almost six weeks after it first opened its doors on November 16, 1994, federal judge Frank Polozola declared a state of emergency at the prison "due to riots and an inability of staff to control or protect youth.' In 1995 Human Rights Watch reported that all of Louisiana's youth prisons violated international human rights standards and that the Tallulah facility failed to provide adequate education and programming to youth and inappropriately placed children in small, bare isolation cells. In 1996 the United States Department of Justice began an investigation and found that in just 20 days in August, 28 Tallulah youth were sent to the hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The investigation declared youth prison "life threatening and dangerous' to children. In 1997 the DOJ formally notified the state that conditions at Tallulah violated the United States Constitution and federal law. And finally, in 1998, following a bold lawsuit initiated by the fledgling Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana on behalf of children incarcerated at the Tallulah youth prison, the Department of Justice joined suit and Louisiana became the first state in the nation to be sued by the federal government over conditions in its juvenile facilities.
But the Tallulah youth prison is only one example of what is wrong with Louisiana's juvenile justice system. For years, Louisiana has had one of the nation's highest rates of juveniles in jails and group homes in the country. And while African American youth comprise barely one third of the state's population, they make up 78 percent of the youth behind bars. Contrary to the popular belief that youth prisons are a last resort for "out of control kids' who are violent and repeat offenders, 73 percent of Louisiana's young people are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.
Despite state constitutional mandates that the Office of Youth Development educate, protect and rehabilitate children committed to their care, conditions in Louisiana's youth prisons are startlingly violent and demeaning. Children routinely face humiliation and other forms of emotional abuse as well as severe physical abuse at the hands of guards. They are denied adequate education, medical and mental health treatment and are often sent to do their time far from their families and communities for excessively long sentences. Only nine months ago, 17-year-old Emmanuelle Narcisse was killed by a guard in another of Louisiana's facilities by a single blow to the head that was witnessed by dozens of other children.
Making History, Making Noise
When David Utter, Shannon Wight and Gabriella Celeste opened the doors to the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana in 1997, they had no way of knowing that their work would ignite a statewide juvenile justice movement only a few years later. Their bold move to file a class action suit on behalf of children incarcerated in Tallulah put them into direct contact with children and families with devastating stories. The lawyers began working to improve conditions inside the prisons and obtain early release for inappropriately placed kids, eventually helping to reduce the number of children housed in "secure care' by 66 percent.
But the lawyers made no pretenses that their legal work had solved all the problems. For one thing, no matter how much negative media attention the situation received, it seemed as though the elected and appointed officials ultimately to blame for the conditions were beyond reproach. Further, the improvements made to facilities, while significant, did not mean that children were safe and getting the help they needed. The Juvenile Justice Project saw that if they were really going to win justice for youth in Louisiana they would have to broaden their struggle and take it into new arenas.
At the same time, parents and grandparents of children suffering in Louisiana's youth prisons began to call the Juvenile Justice Project office with ideas and energy to take the struggle to another level. Gina Womack, the then-receptionist and now lead organizer, spent her time fielding calls from confused and scared parents needing support and angry parents demanding something be done about the system that was abusing their children and tearing apart their families.
"Parents wanted do something about the problem” something larger than just get help for their child. They wanted to change the system so that no one's child suffered what theirs had suffered,' says Womack. "And their voices were precisely what the struggle had been missing€” the voices and stories of parents and children who had been victims of Louisiana's juvenile justice system who were now speaking out for change.'
Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) made their public debut in September of 2001 when they organized the "Mock Jazz Funeral,' a march that adapted a New Orleans tradition to mourn the lost freedom and departing dreams of their children. More than 150 people marched, and brass bands played while chanting parents and children led the way to Orleans Parish Juvenile Court. The funeral's double meaning soon became clear. Parents wanted more than the reform that the lawsuits had envisioned: They wanted the death of the Tallulah youth prison.
Anatomy of a Winning Strategy
In 2002 and 2003, the Justice Project lawyers and advocates along with the Families and Friends organizers and members began to formulate a more deliberate strategy. They wanted to orchestrate their myriad efforts to force the legislature to take action where the lawsuits could not. Their goal was to combine legal, legislative and grassroots strategies focused on a single short-term goal: close Tallulah and use all the money saved toward community-based alternatives.
The members of FFLIC packed the halls of the legislature and testified to the horrors their children suffered at the Tallulah youth prison. The development of a statewide Coalition for Effective Juvenile Justice Reform brought in new allies and broadened the campaign's base. Legal monitoring of the settlement agreements continued to put pressure on the Department of Public Safety & Corrections. And savvy legislative maneuvering built support in both the house and senate and from conservatives and liberals alike. The campaign even helped facilitate a trip for legislators, judges and department heads to Missouri to examine the juvenile justice system there€” one based on treatment, education and respect for youth. One white, conservative Republican legislator who had previously been neutral on the issue came back completely converted from the experience of seeing facilities with no barbed wire, bars or cell blocks” and the resultant 7 percent recidivism rate compared to Louisiana's 70 percent. She stood in front of TV cameras declaring Louisiana needed to "close all of its secure care facilities and implement a model like Missouri'”a demand more radical even than what the campaign was asking for.
Aside from the severe opposition within the corrections department and the governor's office, there were internal struggles for the campaign as well. As the grassroots base of the campaign began developing a more autonomous identity and voice, parents and attorneys for the first time had differences of opinions on what was negotiable and what wasn't. In one instance, the campaign's lead attorney agreed to set back the date for Tallulah's closure by six months without consulting the parents€” a move which infuriated them and taught everyone a lesson about the need to share equal representation at the table.
Ultimately the close partnership, never an easy one, proved to be powerful and effective. Families, organizers and lawyers strategize and negotiate roles as they struggle to keep building trust and solidarity with one another. The bill certainly has flaws, including the long wait period before the last child must be removed from the facility, but it is one of the most impressive wins criminal justice organizing in this country has seen in years. It impacts thousands of youth and families, and millions of dollars in services and state contracts.
"People said it could never happen,' said Grace Bauer, a member of FFLIC whose son spent time in Louisiana's youth prisons. "But people underestimate the power of compassion and a commitment to justice.'
A Different Tallulah is Possible
The story is not yet over. Besides the fight over the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, there is the town of Tallulah” an impoverished, predominantly African American town that depended on the prison for badly needed jobs. In an attempt to head off the opposition from the region during the legislative session, the campaign drafted a resolution that called for an examination of economic development in the region” an attempt to look for solutions beyond "industries of last resort' such as prisons. Carried by Senator Charles D. Jones in the senate, the resolution passed and has begun to stir an unanticipated movement locally opposing the state's proposal to use the facility as an adult prison once it is closed to children. "We don't want to be a prison town any longer' said Moses J. Williams, director of the Northeast Louisiana Delta Community Development Corporation located in Tallulah. Williams and other local leaders argue that the prison not only failed to bring the economic boom promised to local citizens but also devastated the local school system by enticing away the best and most experienced teachers with better pay. They are demanding that the facility be used to house a Learning Center with a satellite campus of the Louisiana Delta Community College at its core.
"When my parents were living, working and struggling here, people knew Tallulah as a bastion of the civil rights movement,' says Williams. "Now you say the name?Tallulah,' and people think only of the prison. They think?violence, corruption and child abuse.' That happened under my generation's watch and I don't want to go down with that legacy.'
Xochitl Bervera is a Soros Justice fellow working with Grassroots Leadership and Families and Friends of Lousiana's Incarcerated Children.
Posted by lois at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
"Get Tough" Programs Don't Work
Not a surprise but boot camps and other programs for youth do not prevent "criminal behavior".
October 17, 2004
'Get Tough' Youth Programs Are Ineffective, Panel Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (AP) - Boot camps and other get-tough program for adolescents do not prevent criminal behavior, as intended, and may make the problem even worse, a new study has found.
Further, laws transferring juveniles into the adult court system lead these teenagers to commit more violence, the study said. More promising, it said, are programs that offer intensive counseling for families and young people at risk.
A 13-member panel convened by the National Institutes of Health reviewed the available scientific evidence to look for consensus on causes of youth violence and ways to prevent it. Its report was released on Friday.
" 'Scare tactics' don't work," the panel concluded. "Programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment do not work."
Youth violence has declined from its peak a decade ago but violent crime rates are still high, the panel said.
Violence can be traced to a variety of conditions. Among the possible causes are these: inconsistent or harsh parenting, poor peer relations, gang involvement, lack of connection to school and living in a violent neighborhood.
The trouble with boot camps, group detention centers and other "get tough" programs is that they bring together young people who are inclined toward violence and teach one another how to commit more crime, the panel said. "The more sophisticated instruct the more naive in precisely the behaviors that the intervener wishes to prevent."
It also rejected programs that "consist largely of adults lecturing," like DARE, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.
One barrier to setting up effective programs, the report said, is resistance from people operating ineffective programs who depend on them for their jobs.
"All the evaluations have shown they don't work," said the panel's chairman, Dr. Robert L. Johnson of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "Many communities are wasting a great deal of money on those types of programs."
The panel looked for programs that have been tested using rigorous research methods and concluded that "the good news is that there are a number of intervention programs that have been shown" effective.
The report cited two: a therapy program where youth and their families attend 12 one-hour sessions over three months, and a community-based clinical treatment program that targeted violent and chronic offenders at risk of being removed from their families. This second program provided about 60 hours of counseling over about four months with therapists available at all hours.
One key, Dr. Johnson said, was letting counselors observe families and children together and offer suggestions for better parenting.
Both programs reduced arrest rates and out-of-home placements, with positive effects four years after treatment ended.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Posted by lois at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
Flawed voting systems can deprive millions of the right to vote
Posted by lois at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2004
Supreme Court Considers Changes to Federal Sentencing Guidelines
The Supreme Court seems close to ruling on the constitutionality of federal sentencing guidelines, with an apparent 5-4 majority ready to strike down the current guidelines. The basis for overturning the guidelines is likely to follow a similar case in Washington state. This past summer the court overturned the Washington guidelines, arguing that because they allowed judges to increase a defendant's sentence based on evidence that was not proven to a jury they violated the sixth amendment to the constitution.
Sentencing Rules Get Hearing (washingtonpost.com)
Posted by mdbrenner at 01:10 AM