The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog: April 2005 Archives

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April 28, 2005

Nearly 1,000 new individuals incarcerated each week in US

April 25, 2005, Justice Policy Institute

Jail population surges to 700,000: advocates and elected officials call for increasing re-entry programs and prison reforms

Washington, DC – According to data to be released by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) this Sunday, the number of individuals incarcerated in jails and prisons grew by 48,452 between midyear 2003 to 2004. Driven largely by growing federal and state prison populations, and huge increases in jail populations during the past 4 years, BJS reports the incarcerated population grew by 932 people each week.

For Immediate Release: April 25th, 2005

Despite crime being in decline for over a decade, these numbers show a persistent rise in prison population, and push the US’s rate of incarceration to a startling 726 per 100,000-maintaining the US status as the world’s leading incarcerator (*England-142, *China-118, *France-91, *Japan-58, *Nigeria-31---*Incarceration rates per 100,000 citizens).

“Unless we promote alternatives to prison, the nation will continue to lead the world in imprisonment,” says Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute. “While the numbers of incarcerated people continue to rise, some legislators are realizing that by removing the barriers to housing and jobs that formerly incarcerated individuals face when re-entering their communities, we can improve public safety, cut corrections costs, and rebuild communities.”

Prisoners and Jail Inmates at Mid-Year 2004 shows that between mid-year 2003 and 2004, the jail population grew by 3.3%, the state prison population by 1.3%, and the federal prison population by 6.3%. The increase in the federal population is unnerving to some since Congress is currently considering HR 1528, legislation that could drastically increase the federal prison population even more.

“The mandatory sentences in HR 1528 are cruelly punitive and destructive," said Julie Stewart, president and founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). "Despite a growing national movement away from mandatory sentencing laws, HR 1528 creates new mandatory sentences and senselessly increases existing ones. It targets parents with mandatory sentences if they witness their children using or selling drugs and do not turn them in and it would completely remove a judge’s discretion to consider the facts or the individual’s role in all federal cases.”

While more people are coming into the prison system through the front end, around the country, federal and state legislatures are considering a flurry of reforms designed to help the 650,000 people who leave prison each year to return to their communities.

Nearly two-thirds of people released from prison are re-arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor. A spectrum of federal legislators, including Rep. Robert Portman (R-OH) and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) are working to pass the Second Chances Act (HR-1704), legislation that will coordinate federal policies on re-entry and increase job opportunities, housing, substance abuse, and mental health treatment, as well as provide support for families of those re-entering society.

Some states are reluctant to enact the kinds of reforms needed to reduce prison populations, or ease the burden on people returning to communities. In California, which has the second lowest level of parole success the nation, the state recently scrapped plans to reduce the parole failure rate by diverting people to drug treatment and community corrections instead of prison—even though these policies had already been shown to be reducing parole returns. Instead of closing prisons, which the state had originally projected it would do, the administration is instead pressing ahead to open the state’s 34th prison at Delano.

“There is more than a decade of evidence that California’s pre-reform parole system was a billion-dollar failure resulting in the highest return to prison rate in the country,” said Dorsey Nunn, a member of the Coalition for Effective Public Safety (CEPS). “It’s ironic that because we purportedly don’t have evidence that these reforms are working, we instead choose to return to a system we know is a disaster.”

Prisoners and Jail Inmates at Mid-Year 2004 continued to show an alarming rise in the number of people incarcerated as 13 states reported at least a 5% increase in their prison populations, led by Minnesota (13.2%), Montana (10.5%), and Arkansas (8.9%). On the flipside, 12 states including Connecticut, Alabama, and Ohio, saw their incarcerated populations drop. According to the survey, jails were holding nearly 100,000 more people than they were in 2000.

“We should be alarmed at the growth that we are witnessing in the local jail population, which has continued to rise exponentially,” says Dana Kaplan, a policy analyst with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City who is studying jail expansion.

Kaplan said the growth was caused by factors including: increased arrest rates for low-level offenses, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where many residents cannot meet bail, the increased detention of non-citizen immigrants in county facilities, and a rising number of people with mental illness who were formerly residing in mental health facilities. She said jail growth could easily be addressed by implementing the reforms that move people through, and frequently out, of the system faster.

The Justice Policy Institute is a Washington DC-based think tank dedicated to ending society’s reliance on incarceration and promoting effective and just solutions to social problems. For more information on the issues cited here, please contact the commentators listed above, or contact Malik Russell at (202.363.7847x308, or cell 202-271-0742), or visit our website at www.justicepolicy.org

Posted by lois at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times: Anti-Drug Gains in Columbia Don't Reduce Flow to U.S.

April 28, 2005
By JOEL BRINKLEY

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, April 27 - Five years and $3 billion into the most aggressive counternarcotics operation ever here, American and Colombian officials say they have eradicated a record-breaking million acres of coca plants, yet cocaine remains as available as ever on American streets, perhaps more so.

"It's very disturbing," said a senior State Department official traveling here with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is on a five-day tour of the region.

Colombian traffickers still provide 90 percent of the cocaine used in the United States and 50 percent of the heroin, just as they did five years ago, the government says. "Key indicators of domestic cocaine availability show stable or slightly increased availability in drug markets throughout the country," the White House drug policy office acknowledged in February. Officials added that prices have remained stable and purity has improved.

Several senior officials said they were perplexed and disappointed. The White House report said, "There is little interagency consensus for this disparity."

Over the past five and a half years, the United States has spent nearly $3 billion on programs to fight drug trafficking, train the Colombian military to battle insurgents who control much of the drug trade, and improve institutions of government. The initiative is called Plan Colombia.

The centerpiece of this effort has been the use of a small air force, 82 aircraft, to spray herbicide on coca plants grown on small plots and large plantations across the country. Over five years, more than 1.3 million acres of coca plants and 52,000 acres of opium poppy have been destroyed at great cost. Traffickers have shot down at least five of the planes; three lives have been lost.

Theories abound on the reason for the disparity between the eradication numbers and the availability estimates, and on how to deal with it. Luis Alberto Moreno, the Colombian ambassador to the United States, said he believed the Colombian enforcement teams should be uprooting the coca plants instead of spraying them with herbicide.

The senior State Department official said he suspected traffickers were hoarding vast supplies of cocaine and doling it out slowly. Representative Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee, said he thought the Colombians should be using a more powerful herbicide. And the White House drug policy office hypothesizes that the government's data on drug cultivation may be inaccurate.

Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, director of the Colombian national police and one of Colombia's primary experts on the issue, described the Plan Colombia drug-enforcement paradox as "a complex phenomenon" but added when pressed that he believed that the traffickers were simply replanting the coca and opium plants almost as soon as the spray planes left.

Even with the contradictory results from the first five years, the Bush administration is asking Congress to extend Plan Colombia for at least one more year. The president's budget proposal asks for another $734 million next year on top of the $2.9 billion already spent.

A senior State Department official who is involved in the Colombia program said, "Give us another year or so and see if there is any effect."

At a news conference here on Tuesday, Ms. Rice said Washington had no intention of reassessing the program, adding that such a move would most likely take a long time to see results in the United States.

Mr. Moreno said the traffickers had "improved their productivity, but I think we are getting close to the tipping point." He is lobbying Congress to renew the financing.

A Congressional delegation was in Colombia this week to ask whether Plan Colombia was producing results commensurate with its cost. "We want to make sure the money we are spending is well spent," said Mr. Burton, whose subcommittee will consider the State Department budget request.

Gregory W. Meeks, the New York Democrat, is another subcommittee member who was on the trip this week, and he too said he wanted to evaluate "how our money is spent" - particularly because "I know in the neighborhoods where I live, we are just not seeing any effect at all."

Plan Colombia was born at the end of the Clinton administration, after a decade during which drug trafficking from Colombia grew exponentially. A State Department report in 2000 said, "The situation has long been challenging, but it has reached crisis proportions in the last few years."

As the Plan Colombia bill reached his desk in 2000, President Bill Clinton said, "With this funding, we will be able to support the courageous anti-drug efforts of Colombia, which can, in turn, help curb the flow of drugs in our nation."

That first year, Colombians, with American help, eradicated 116,000 acres of an estimated 336,000 acres of coca under cultivation - one-third of the crop. Each mission is a complex operation involving a former military plane converted to crop duster and five or six other aircraft, including helicopter gunships that provide protection. The planes spray glyphosate on the crops; that is the generic name for the herbicide sold commercially as Roundup. It kills the plants but is said to leave no residue in the soil.

Earlier this year, the State Department reported that 2004 had been "another banner year." The spray planes had eradicated 336,248 acres of coca plants. But it seemed a Pyrrhic accomplishment. At about same time, the White House drug policy office reported that 281,000 acres of coca plants remained, an area "statistically unchanged" from the previous year.

The apparent reason, American and Colombian officials said, is that the coca bush can grow from a seedling to a harvestable plant in only four months. General Castro said a coca farmer could harvest leaves from a bush "three, maybe four times a year." If a farmer replants his bushes after the spray plane leaves, he may miss only one harvest.

What is more, General Castro said, stabbing at a coffee table as if it were a map of Colombia, "If we eradicate here, they move there to replant and then there and there."

"They are always replanting."

Colombia is roughly three times the size of Montana.

Though the acreage under cultivation has remained stable for the last two years, the White House drug office said production of cocaine dropped by 7 percent last year because many traffickers were harvesting newly planted bushes that could not produce as many leaves.

General Castro was in Washington in part to lobby Congress to renew financing for Plan Colombia, telling members of Congress and government officials, "We're making progress little by little."

Mr. Burton, the subcommittee chairman, said he was inclined to favor the president's request to renew Plan Colombia financing.

Still, with a resigned air he observed, "This is a never ending battle."

Posted by lois at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2005

Tough on Crime or Smart on Crime: Jobs Not Jails Make Our Streets Safer

BY CAROLINA CORDERO DYER/ MARCH 2003

(For) felons who have paid their debt to society? we have to work hard to get them jobs so that they come back into society and become contributors to society, rather than being dependent on it.

Mayor Bloomberg, New York Daily News. August 12, 2002

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address. January

Introduction
The United States locks up two million people each year, with another 4.6 million are under criminal justice supervision (parole or probation). Most of those involved in our criminal justice system have been convicted of non-violent offenses; many for drug charges. A quarter of the entire world?s prisoners are locked up in this country, although the United States represents only five per cent of the world?s population. In fact, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any country in the world including Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Indonesia.

BY CAROLINA CORDERO DYER/ MARCH 2003

(For) felons who have paid their debt to society? we have to work hard to get them jobs so that they come back into society and become contributors to society, rather than being dependent on it.

Mayor Bloomberg, New York Daily News. August 12, 2002

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address. January

Our philosophy of ?locking people up and throwing away the key? has clearly not worked. Sentences in the United States are exceedingly long: five to six times those in Western Europe and Canada.1 Yet, recidivism remains high. Nationally, 51% of people released from prison return within three years.2 In New York, it?s worse: two out of three will return within three years. And, studies demonstrate that a longer prison term doesn?t make someone less likely to get arrested again.3

In spite of all our tough-on-crime rhetoric in New York, most people that we lock up come home. Across the country, more than 600,000 inmates were released into society last year. New York State released 32,000, and 78% of them returned to New York City. In the same period, the New York State Division of Parole had more than 70,000 former prisoners under supervision, the vast majority of whom resided in New York City. In addition, more than 130,000 New Yorkers cycle through New York City's lock ups and jails each year.

All this doesn?t come cheap. New York spends $32,000 annually to lock someone up in a state facility; $64,000 in a city jail. In New York City, we spend $9,739 to educate a young person in a public high school each year,4 but $131,000 a year to detain a juvenile in a facility.5 In a public budget climate of looming deficits of a magnitude we have never seen, incarceration dollars squeeze City and State budgets, taking essential dollars away from health care, education, care for the elderly, and other hallmarks of a civilized society.

If the goal of our criminal justice system is to keep people safer and communities stronger, it is failing. Prisons are a very expensive revolving door. We imprison many, and spend a great amount of money doing it, and then welcome them right back in. They don?t become productive citizens, and there are more victims of crime, not fewer. If we want to keep our streets safer, we need to pay as much attention to what keeps pushing people through that jail door, as we do to what happens when they get out.

Employment stops the revolving door
Marc La Cloche faced a classic "Catch-22" upon his return from a twelve-year bid in upstate prisons. He had obtained his GED in prison and was trained as a barber by the State of New York in its prison system. Yet, upon his release, he was denied certification as a barber's apprentice from the State of New York's licensing authorities.6 New York did not permit him to cut hair -- the trade he learned inside New York's prison walls.

Mr. La Cloche's story is just one example of the challenges ex-prisoners face when they try to get free from the revolving door of incarceration. While there are many factors that contribute to whether someone returning to society is able to make it or not, employment is critical. People with jobs commit fewer crimes than people without jobs. According to the New York State Department of Labor, 83% of people who violate the terms of probation and parole are unemployed at the time of violation. In a Texas study, an unemployed ex-prisoner is three times more likely to return to prison than one who has a job.7 According to the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, ?Having a legitimate job lessens the chances of re-offending following release from prison.?8

Employing people with criminal records has tremendous benefits to society:

It saves money, a concern that is more important than ever before. For every 500 people with criminal records employed in lieu of receiving welfare, a minimum of $4 million is saved annually. For every 500 people employed in lieu of returning to prison, $15 million is saved.
Employed people are less likely to commit crimes and return to prison, thereby enhancing public safety.
Prisoners return to communities already plagued by high levels of unemployment, poor public schools, and families ripped apart by the impact of crime and incarceration. Providing jobs to returning ex-offenders helps build communities instead of putting even more pressure on fragile neighborhoods.
The challenges to ex-prisoner employment
Inmates released from a New York State facility typically receive $40 and a bus ticket to the Port Authority. The lucky ones have families or friends who will take them in. Many others find their way to the City shelter system -- unemployed and homeless. Finding a decent job that pays a living wage is very hard for someone with a prison record. The challenges come from both the set-up for failure that the prison experience itself creates as well as the roadblocks that government policies have created.

Imprisonment undermines an individual's future work prospects. While prisoners hold "jobs," these jobs do not prepare them for work in the real economy. Typically, prison jobs teach inmates to work "dumber" by splitting one job into several small jobs. Nor are there consequences for doing a prison job slowly or poorly. No reward is given for creativity or initiative, and certainly none for teamwork, a concept that makes corrections officers uneasy. An inmate who has adapted well to prison has not been primed for a job in the community. Behavior learned in prison to survive -- toughness, "attitude", and isolation -- is the exact opposite of what is needed to be successful on the outside.

The restrictions that prisons impose on an adult's independence, spontaneity, and self confidence are internalized over time. After years in a crowded and confined environment, a prisoner reacts to the world's ordinary stresses with despair, hypersensitivity to disrespect, and alternating fearfulness and anger. The regimentation of prison life can erode a person's capacity to plan an orderly day, navigate the subways, make it to an appointment on time, or respond flexibly to the smallest of stumbling blocks. Because they lack usable work experience, many are pessimistic about their prospects for finding employment upon release. This pessimism expresses itself in many ways. Some ignore the future and refuse to make plans for employment. Others make plans that are unrealistic or require illegal behavior.

When released, the former prisoner enters the job market yards short of the starting line. Eight in ten have a history of substance abuse, and many are sober for the first time in their lives. Many have never been employed outside of prison. The majority of those returning to New York City do not have a high school diploma. Many have poor critical thinking skills and cannot read.

The recession and the September 11th attacks brought an immediate reduction in the low-skilled, entry-level jobs that former prisoners are qualified for -- maintenance workers, clerks, messengers, food services workers. And the competition for these jobs in the New York City area -- always great -- has become greater than ever. Because the dismal state of the New York economy has led to layoffs, more highly skilled workers, who once would have rejected the jobs former prisoners seek, are now desperate for a job -- any job.

Further, former prisoners carry an additional disadvantage that shows itself every time he encounters an employment application's unforgiving question: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? In addition to fears and prejudice on the part of employers, many are restricted from certain types of employment, including caring for the elderly, airline security, healthcare, plumbing and even as we've seen, cutting hair.

Improving the system
How do we change the system to increase the chances of ex-prisoners finding the jobs that can keep them from repeating their crimes?

One, prisons and jails should provide realistic job training programs to every inmate, giving them skills that are marketable when they get out. At a minimum, require all prisoners to get a GED while incarcerated and provide the capacity for them to do so.

Two, we should expand the use of community supervision, including work release and parole. It is ironic that politicians proclaim that ending parole or restricting work release enhances public safety. On the contrary, these programs serve as an important bridge between confinement and an independent, productive life on the outside. We should certainly not release inmates directly from maximum-security prisons and special housing units (SHUs or "prisons within prisons"). There is a radical difference between the amounts of independence and decision-making an inmate can exercise while incarcerated, and what he is expected to exercise upon release. Inmates released directly from SHU's and maximum-security facilities are simply unprepared for what is expected of them. We ought to be moving inmates into less restrictive environments as they come closer to release.9

Three, provide a continuity of pre- and post-release services. Corrections staff lack information about available community resources for those they are releasing. Workforce development agencies working with former prisoners cite missed opportunities and an inability to coordinate efforts with the pre-release transitional services performed by corrections departments. Basic documentation -- birth certificates, Social Security cards, training and educational certificates for programs completed in prison -- are not readily available.10

Four, we must address the unintended consequences of welfare reform and the "work-first" model. By championing the work-first philosophy, society mandates an immediate income. But longer-term success in the labor market depends on the ability to develop skills and contacts -- both of which former inmates are not likely to gain in the jobs that are immediately available to people leaving prison. New and expanded employment programs should combine work and job skills development to meet the immediate need for income and the longer-term need for skills and relationships. Federal and state funding should support these efforts. In the long-term, it's cost effective.

Five, remove employment restrictions. At least six states bar ex-prisoners from public employment, and many state licensing agencies bar former prisoners from professions such as the law, real estate, medicine, nursing, teaching, physical therapy, and even, barbering. Not only must such licensure restrictions be reformed, but we must actively move to change public opinion on employing ex-offenders. A recent survey in five major United States cities revealed that 65 percent of all employers said they would not knowingly hire a former prisoner, regardless of the crime.

And, finally, we need to invest far greater government resources on transitional and employment services for people coming out of prisons and jails.

And, here is the surprising part: there is plenty of money available for this. The funds are available in state prison budgets but are being spent on ineffective strategies: locking too many people up, for far too long, based on far too arbitrary sentencing guidelines. Mandatory sentencing laws, such as the Rockefeller Drug Laws and Second Felony Offender laws in New York, should be repealed. Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Law, something the State of New York has been unable to do since 1973, could save $610 million annually if we provided alternatives to incarceration to just 19,000 drug offenders. The price of building the prisons to house those drug offenders saves another two billion dollars in capital costs.

Politicians must stop pandering to the public's fears. Tough on crime, the war on drugs, three strikes -- these are all empty sound bites that have led prosecutors to seek longer and longer sentences, legislatures to lengthen sentences in order to cure every societal ill, led to criminalizing more behavior, led to the incarceration of our young people, led to the demonization of prisoners and former prisoners, led to the devastation of families and communities, and led to barriers to employment for those who have served their time.

The irony of it all is that so much of what we have done to contribute to this mess has been done in the name of public safety. But to ignore the needs of the 600,000 returning to society does not make our streets safer. It is instead extraordinarily costly, increases the likelihood that new crimes will be committed, and puts further strain on fragile communities.

We can do better and we must do better. We must shift our thinking about crime and punishment and turn our focus to crime prevention; addressing the root causes of crime such as lack of employment; and devoting our resources to community building, education, and workforce development that provides jobs at a living wage. The future of our communities and our society depends upon it.

About the Author
Carolina Cordero Dyer is Associate Executive Director, The Osborne Association, 36-31 38th St., Long Island City, NY 11101,
www.osborneny.org, (718) 707-2648.

By transforming the lives of those involved in the criminal justice system, the Osborne Association's programs demonstrate that there are policies and procedures our nation can adopt that can foster a more effective and efficient criminal justice system and a safer and more just society. We believe that relying only on imprisonment as a response to crime is a costly and counterproductive approach that fails to take into account people's basic capacity to change.

You can reach Carolina Cordero Dyer at cdyer@osborneny.org.

Footnotes
Norval Morris and David J. Rothman, The Oxford History of the Prison, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002.
P.A. Langan & D.J. Levin, `Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994.` Bureau of Justice Statistics (2002).
The Correction Association of New York, `Juvenile Justice Project Fact Sheet,` http://www.corrassoc.org/juvenile_fact.html.
ibid.
Clyde Haberman, "Ex-Inmate Denied Chair (And Clippers)," The New York Times, February 25, 2003.
Eisenberg, M., Project Rio: Twelve-Month Follow-up, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Pardons and Parole Division.
Jeremy Travis, Amy L. Solomon and Michelle Waul, "From Prison to Home: The Dimensions and Consequences of Prisoner Reentry." Urban Institute Justice Policy Center. June 1, 2001.
Elizabeth Gaynes, "Transitional Services for Inmates: Practice Issues", Offender Programs Report, Civic Research Institute, Inc. (May/June 2001).
Buck, Maria L., Getting Back to Work - Employment Programs for Ex-Offenders. New York: Public/Private Ventures (Fall 2000).

phone 212.909.9663 - more contact info
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Posted by lois at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2005

Number of people who are incarcerted increases 2.3% in the last year

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 25, 2005 WASHINGTON, April 24 (AP) -
The nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people in mid-2004, 2.3 percent more than the year before, the government reported on Sunday.

The inmate population increased by slightly more than 48,000 from
mid-2003 to mid-2004, a growth of about 900 inmates each week, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The total inmate population has hovered around two million for the last few years: It was 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later.

While the crime rate has fallen over the last decade, the number of
people going to prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates
released, said an author of the report, Paige M. Harrison.

Ms. Harrison said the increase could be largely attributed to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980's and 1990's. Among them are mandatory sentences for drug crimes, "three strikes and you're out" laws for
repeat offenders and "truth in sentencing" laws that restrict early
releases.

"As a whole, most of these policies remain in place," Ms. Harrison said. "These policies were a reaction to the rise in crime in the 80's and early 90's."

Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which
promotes alternatives to prison, said, "We're working under the burden of laws and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime."

Mr. Young said many of those incarcerated were not serious or violent
offenders, but low-level drug offenders. He said ways to help lower that number included introducing drug treatment programs that offer effective ways of changing behavior and providing appropriate assistance for the mentally ill.

The Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient system of punishment than incarceration, said the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.

According to the government's report, there were 726 inmates for every 100,000 United States residents on June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier. Put another way, in 2004, one in every 138 residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.

In 2004, nearly 60 percent of prison and jail inmates were racial or
ethnic minorities, the report said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all
black men age 25 to 29 were in jails or prisons, compared with 3.6
percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/politics/25prison.html?th&emc=th

Posted by lois at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2005

Challenges to Jail Reentry

Challenges of Jail Reentry
By Michelle Gaseau, Managing Editor, Corrections.com

The national discussion about reentry has ramped up in recent years as legislators, community officials and corrections leaders have come together to discuss how to keep the inmate population from coming back to prison or jail. But largely missing from the conversation is how jails can be a part of this effort.

Much of the money and attention being spent on reentry efforts has focused on those offenders being released in the community from prison, but offenders coming from jails are cycling in and out of the gate faster, yet services to help them are less focused.

"It's an important and overlooked population. What we don't know is the extent to which these populations are the same [but] we have reason to believe that similar people are cycling through both systems, so ignoring the jail reentry population is foolhardy and isn't looking at the big picture." said Nancy LaVigne of the Urban Institute.

According to LaVigne, who coordinates the Urban Institute's Reentry Mapping Network, prison inmates may get more attention for a few reasons - because they have been away from the community for longer and because institutions can work with them more intensely to acclimate them to the services they need in the community.

Jail inmates are more complicated to work with. One problem for jails is that officials know at best they will only have inmates for a short period of time and that means whatever interventions they provide - they must be done quickly.

"You don't have a lot of time to work with them within in the jail system to prepare them for release. That's one of the greatest challenges in jail reentry," LaVigne said.

Despite these challenges some counties and cities have created programs and coordinated services specifically for jails inmates, while others are just beginning the process. These community efforts stand as models for other jurisdictions as the issue of jail reentry becomes a greater element in the national discussion.

Allegheny County Moves Offenders Forward

Officials at the Allegheny County, Pa., Jail recognized 10 years ago that jail inmates were going to need services from the community if recidivism was going to be lowered.

With guidance from the warden at the time, the jail began an earnest effort to involve offenders in GED programs and classes that would teach them living skills.

"We will work on life skills, find them housing if they need it, we'll make sure they are set up with everything they need. [Then case managers] track them and coach them for one year. A case manager will meet with them and meet with employers if any problems come along," said Jack Pischke, Inmate Program Administrator for the Allegheny County Jail.

Today, under a new Warden, Ramon Rustin, the program continues stronger than ever, and has even broader support from the community.

In 2000, local officials including public health, mental health and jails officials began a working group to address reentry issues facing jail inmates - called the Jail Collaborative.

"The collaborative grew from a recognition that the human services, health department and jail directors had clients who were all the same people and if we were going to impact recidivism, we absolutely had to work in collaboration with each other. The problems of the offenders are multi-faceted," said Dana Phillips, Chief Operating Officer, Allegheny Correctional Health Services.

Phillips said there are many ways in which the community can work with health officials inside the jail to ensure inmates return to society healthy and are able to care for themselves.

The collaborative set up a 90-day non hospital treatment program for male offenders with substance abuse problems where the men receive intensive treatment six hours a day. From there, the participants can go to a step-down program where they receive treatment one to three hours each day.

In addition, through relationships with community agencies the collaborative has created a 3/4-way house for offenders so they can make a slower, easier transition into the community and to living on their own.

According to Phillips, offenders can go to work, start to save money, continue their treatment programs and "try to get themselves firmly established in the community."

"They have a job, are drug free, have a housing commitment, they are stable and doing well in recovery," she said.

From the inside, correctional health care staff assist offenders with medical assistance applications and appointments with doctors and specialists in the community prior to release. In addition, Phillips said, the state of Pennsylvania is also working toward a mechanism that will allow chronically ill offenders who receive financial assistance prior to incarceration to be able to access it again more easily upon release.

Also on the jail side, officials want to make good use of the inmates' time while behind bars - with the hope that it will help them work toward a new and better life.

To this end, four case managers work with the offenders on the inside and follow-up with them in the community after release.

According to Pischke, inmates who are motivated can sign up for classes teaching life skills, parenting skills as well as resume writing and tips for job hunting and interviews.

Through the Jail Collaborative, more than a dozen programs are conducted by members of community organizations for offenders as well.

"We're trying to get the community to buy into what we are doing here and it all comes down to public safety. If we can give John Doe a job and get him into treatment in a 12-step program, then he won't have to steal for his habit," said Pischke.

Pischke said that jail administrators also have to use similar reasoning to obtain buy-in from members of the jail staff.

"You have to do a lot of staff training and change some of the thinking of correctional officers and staff and strongly urge them that [this] is public safety you are trying to better. Some people ask, Why are you doing something for that junkie? You can turn one around, but there's always one to follow him. Crime is always there," said Pischke.

Pischke said by having the community involved in an offender's reentry programming, the positive outcomes can be seen over an over again.

In the case of Allegheny County jail, ex-offenders who have benefited from reentry programming have been able to come back, not as inmates, but as service providers to help those who are incarcerated turn their lives around.

"They are good role models. We [at the jail] are not ex-offenders while this guy has walked their shoes. He may be a manager of a store somewhere now, but he's been where they have been," said Pischke.

Understanding offenders, where they have come from and their needs is at the heart of creative a positive reentry experience. In Travis County, Texas officials are working hard to make sure this is understood by multiple service providers in the community.

Roundtable Awakens Community to Reentry

A few years ago, after the Urban Institute published a research report on Texas inmates returning to the community and the multiple needs that they had, Travis County officials went into action. The report hit at a time when Texas prisons and jails were at capacity and legislators were wondering what to do about potential overcrowding.

"Because of that, we had the perfect storm and everyone said we need to do something in that environment," said Mike Trimble, Coordinator of Travis County Criminal Justice Planning.

Trimble was a part of what came out of that "perfect storm" and today sees real change on the horizon. The Travis County/ Austin Reentry Roundtable was formed one year ago through the efforts of many in that community including District Attorney Ron Earle.

The roundtable brought together more than 200 members of the community including state officials, local officials, human services, housing officials, juvenile justice, criminal justice, community providers and consumers such as ex-offenders who have reentered the community.

"The Reentry Roundtable is looking at any person coming back to the community, whether it is jail or prison, to the Austin/Travis County area," Trimble said.

After a year, the roundtable has divided itself into many different committees focusing on different aspects of the reentry problems for offenders. One of the most active of those committees is the one that focuses on legislation and policy.

According to Trimble, who until recently chaired that committee, the group is looking closely at the barriers and roadblocks to successful reentry as well as other policies to implement.

"From a general sense, the roundtable is looking at supporting legislation that removes barriers to improve the process to help people reintegrate back into the community and keeping an eye out for bills that would hinder reentry, then talk to legislators about those things," he said.

A transition committee focuses on those supports that offenders need right away to be street or community ready from identification, resumes, a place to sleep and developing a good system for supports for when that person gets out to hit the ground running, Trimble added.

Other committees such as the mental health/substance abuse committee focus on specific services needs of offenders, while a support systems committee concentrates on what families and victims need as the offender prepares to return to the community.

"They are coming back [to the community] and there are certain things that they need to be successful, otherwise we are going to have them come back to the jail or prison]," Trimble said.

While much of what the roundtable has accomplished is in the planning stages, some of the committees have made headway in some direct service elements. The transition committee, Trimble said, has been looking at the creation of a common assessment tool to be used for offenders and shared across service boundaries so that service providers can read the individuals' scores in the same context.

"We're trying to really have a broad net. These strategies can transfer from prison to jail and we're trying to figure out how things can work," he added.

While common ground can be found in reentry from prisons and jails, there are some specific considerations that should be made as jails are brought further into the reentry discussion.

Addressing and Assessing Jail Reentry

In a report issued earlier this year by the Re-Entry Policy Council, a project of The Council of State Governments, recommendations for specific policies and programs were outlined for both prisons and jails.

The report provides recommendations for planning a reentry initiative, a review of the reentry process and the elements of health and social service systems that are important to reentry. The suggestions within the report provide guidance to reentry planners in both jails and prisons. However, there are specific portions of the report that specifically address the differences inherent in jails.

A common element among those recommendations is a recognition of the shorter stays inmates have in jail settings.

The report recommends that intake procedures be developed to reflect an abbreviated intake procedure that connects inmates immediately to core programs and links them directly with community-based organizations that can provide services to these inmates after release from jails.

Jail reentry planners, according to the report, should also consider the high population turnover rates of jails when creating reentry programs and connecting offenders to health care services.

The report further suggests using the APIC (Assess, Plan, Identify, Coordinate) model when coordinating jail health care services so that offenders can start to receive treatment inside the facility and also experience a seamless transition to community services that are targeted towards specific needs.

For example, the assessment phase for someone incarcerated for 72 hours might include only cataloguing his or her psychosocial, medical and behavioral needs and strengths. However, someone who is incarcerated for several months could also receive continued observation and testing.

According to the Urban Institute's LaVigne, organizing services for jail inmates that continue into the community is a good idea considering the overlap of clients that typically occurs.

"We have reason to believe that different agencies, without realizing it, are working with the same population. [The issue is] how can we become more efficient with resources and avoid duplication of effort," she said.

She added that the Urban Institute hopes to secure funding to discuss jail reentry issues and how to intervene and assist this population as part of a national roundtable.

LaVigne and others involved in reentry expect that when the specific needs of jail inmates are identified and highlighted, the national reentry dialogue will expand accordingly.

Resources:

National HIRE Network http://www.hirenetwork.org.

The Reentry Mapping Network - http://www.urban.org/content/PolicyCenters/
Justice/Projects/TheReentryMappingNetwork/overview.htm

Targeted Capacity Expansion Grants for Jail Diversion Programs -
http://www.samhsa.gov/grants/2005/nofa/sm05011_jaildiversion.aspx

Reentry Media Outreach Campaign - http://www.reentrymediaoutreach.org/

Posted by lois at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2005

11th Circuit Upholds FL Law Barring People with Felony Convictions from Voting

Dan Christensen
Daily Business Review
04-14-2005

In a decision fraught with partisan political overtones, the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has upheld an 1868 Florida law that generally bars convicted felons from voting even after they've finished serving their prison sentences.

Tuesday's 10-2 ruling widens an existing split of opinion on the issue among the federal appellate courts across the country and could set the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the issue. The decision affirmed a 2002 summary judgment by Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King in Miami.

In September 2000, amid the Bush-Gore presidential election campaign, Thomas Johnson and six other ex-felons sued Gov. Jeb Bush and his Cabinet in U.S. District Court in Miami, claiming the anti-felon law was a form of discrimination. They argued that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the federal Voting Rights Act. The defendants are all members of Florida's Clemency Board.

The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school, filed the class action on behalf of an estimated 600,000 Florida felons who have completed their prison sentences but cannot vote. Under the law, felons can't "vote or hold office" until they convince the Clemency Board to restore their civil rights. Felons must petition for that status. There is no automatic review.

The issue has been especially controversial in Florida, where the purging of felons from voter rolls in 2000 and 2004 was widely seen as flawed, resulting in the mistaken exclusion of nonfelon voters. In addition, Gov. Bush and legislative Republican leaders have resisted growing calls for easing the restoration of voting and other civil rights to felons after they complete their sentences.

There also is a major partisan factor involved in the issue. A disproportionate percentage of felons in Florida are African-Americans, and blacks vote heavily Democratic. In a state where 7.6 million Floridians cast ballots in last year's presidential election, the possible inclusion of 600,000 felon voters could swing close races. But the appeals court, in an opinion noting that about 70 percent of the plaintiff class is white, tossed the case out of court in a 79-page ruling.

Eleven judges rejected the first prong of the plaintiffs' attack -- that Florida's current felon disenfranchisement law was motivated by intentional discrimination. Ten judges also rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act extended to considering claims of racial discrimination regarding the disenfranchisement of felons. There were two dissenters. Judge Rosemary Barkett dissented from both findings. Judge Charles R. Wilson agreed with the majority that there was no evidence of intentional discrimination, but he disagreed with its conclusion that claims of racial discrimination in felon disenfranchisement laws "are not cognizable" under the act.

Judge Stanley Marcus, a former U.S. Attorney in Miami, recused himself and did not participate in the decision. In Tallahassee, Gov. Bush's office hailed the decision.

"The governor feels that it was a very decisive ruling," said Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss. "The court ruled that Florida's process is a fair and good one, giving felons the ability to have their rights restored through a thoughtful and fair review."

Critics of the Florida law vowed to fight on to win voting rights for felons. "This is a terribly unjust law that needs to be fixed," said Jessie Allen, lead attorney for the plaintiffs and associate counsel at the Brennan Center. "The law's undemocratic consequences are creating a civil rights crisis in the state of Florida."

Legal and political battles have raged for years across the country over felon disenfranchisement. According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, most states have laws disenfranchising convicted felons and ex-felons. But only Florida, Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia disenfranchise all felons and provide no automatic process for restoration of civil rights.

While the 11th Circuit majority said it had little doubt that racial bigotry motivated some provisions of Florida's Reconstruction-era constitution, the majority found that such discrimination does not "establish that racial animus motivated the criminal disenfranchisement provision, particularly given Florida's long-standing tradition of criminal disenfranchisement." Besides, the court said, the law was re-enacted in 1968 during a general revision of the state's constitution.

Similarly, the judges ruled that the plaintiffs failed to provide any "contemporaneous evidence" from 1868 to prove discrimination. The plaintiffs' reference to racist remarks made by a white delegate to the 1868 Constitutional Convention about keeping blacks from taking over the state were rejected by the full court as unconvincing. Those remarks helped convince a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit not to dismiss the suit in December 2003.

The plaintiffs' claim that Florida's law violates the Voting Rights Act also was found wanting by the full court Tuesday. The legislative history of the act shows that "Congress never intended" it to reach state laws regarding felon disenfranchisement, the opinion says.

Loyola University of Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen, who specializes in election law, said the 11th Circuit's ruling once again raises the question of whether the Voting Rights Act reaches felon discrimination claims when it can be shown that such laws have a greater impact on minorities.

Hasen said the U.S. Supreme Court declined last fall to hear cases involving a split of opinion between the 2nd Circuit -- which held that New York's felon disenfranchisement law did not violate the act -- and the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, which held that a trial should be held to determine whether a similar law in Washington state did violate the act. The Loyola law professor noted that the plaintiffs in the Florida case filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court at that time. "The plaintiffs in the Florida suit told the Supreme Court, 'Wait, don't take those cases. We've got a case with a better factual record,' " Hasen said. "I think the stars are lined up now for a likely Supreme Court review."

Posted by lois at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)

FL: 4 months for lying about arrest record during jury selection

Michael Mayo
News Columnist

April 17, 2005
Free Stacey Forbes.

There. I can't make it any simpler or clearer. And now that I've alerted Al Sharpton's National Action Network about his case, maybe the cry will soon be raised at the Broward County Courthouse. Loudly.

Forbes is the hapless 19-year- old who showed up for jury duty and ended up sentenced to four months in jail. Lying about your arrest history during jury selection is stupid. But equally stupid is when a judge takes it so personally as to throw out all sense of proportion.

A case of poor judgment - all the way around
"That morning he got up and he was real excited because it was his first time," said his mother, Coleen Forbes. "I said, `OK, son, go do your civic duty.' Then he called during the day and said, `Mom, I'm in custody. I've been sentenced to four months.' I said, `What?' Everything happened so fast. I'm still trying to figure it out."

Wherever Circuit Court Judge Eileen O'Connor is vacationing, I hope she relaxes, has some fruity rum drinks and realizes that what she did will not be confused with justice.

And maybe, just maybe, she'll find a heart and release Forbes when she returns Wednesday.

"Maybe the judge wasn't having a good day," Coleen Forbes said. "I'm hoping she'll reconsider and do the right thing."

Said Broward Clerk of Courts Howard Forman: "It's severe, I agree, but it sends a message to people that you can't lie under oath." No, the message it sends, especially to minorities, is: better to blow off jury duty than risk this trouble.

Consider: Of 156,276 Broward residents summoned for jury duty last year, only 54,116 showed up. That's a truancy rate of 65 percent.

The worst sanction brought against the 102,160 no-shows? A $100 fine. Court administrators did not know the number of fines issued or paid last year.

Yet here's a teen who actually showed up, made a dimwitted mistake and had his life turned upside down.

Forbes, a high school dropout with reading problems, said he got flustered when orally answering a written questionnaire during jury selection for a drug case on March 22. Anyone who's been through the jury selection process knows how rattling it can be to answer so many personal and detailed questions in front of a roomful of strangers.

Asked if he had ever been arrested, Forbes said no. He has been arrested, but never convicted. His lie was exposed when a prosecutor checked his record "on a hunch."

O'Connor, a former federal prosecutor appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2003, showed no mercy. She sentenced him on the spot to four months for contempt.

"I asked him, `Why did you lie?'" Coleen Forbes said. "He said, `Mom, to be honest, I really didn't understand the question. I thought they meant convictions.' He said the judge was going to give him six months, but she reduced it to four after he apologized. Like she was doing him some big favor."

"This kid is going to do more time than that FBI agent who was driving drunk and killed those two brothers," said state Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale. "How is that right?"

Agent David Farrall got a 90-day sentence for drunk and reckless driving for his role in the Interstate 95 crash that killed brothers Maurice Williams and Craig Chambers in 1999.

"I've never heard of anything like this," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that monitors incarceration policy. "You're not supposed to lie, and what he did was wrong. But it's hard to understand what four months in jail will accomplish that one night wouldn't, if this is about teaching him a lesson and sending a message to other jurors."

If the point is pure vindictiveness, however, four months sounds perfect.

Judge O'Connor "really has it out for this kid and it's distressing," said Bill Gelin, Forbes' attorney. "She's already had a chance to mitigate the sentence [during an emergency bond hearing] and she didn't. I'm telling people, `Call your congressman. Call your senator.'"

Better yet, if you think the outrageous time surpasses the crime, call Judge O'Connor's office directly at 954-831-1673 and let her know how you feel. And please, no lying.

Michael Mayo can be reached at mmayo@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4508.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/sfl-mayocol17apr17,0,6037676.column

Posted by lois at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

NY State Pressures Dutchess Co to Build Jail

Dutchess jail costs to rise
State panel limits inmate numbers
By Anthony Farmer
Poughkeepsie Journal

Saving tens of millions of dollars by not moving
forward with construction of an addition to the
Dutchess County Jail comes with a cost.

County taxpayers were, in effect, handed the bill
Tuesday when a state panel told county officials that
by May 1, no more than 257 inmates will be allowed to
be held at the facility, which can hold up to 318
inmates. Safety regulations require certain types of
inmates be separated, meaning a certain number of
cells have to be left empty.

About 20 to 30 inmates a day, on average, already are
sent to stay at jails in other counties because the
Dutchess facility is full.

As a result, Dutchess could be paying to keep some 60
to 80 inmates a day at jails in other counties, come
May 1.

That would cost the county about $100 a day, per
inmate, plus roughly another $1 million a year for
costs related to transporting prisoners to and from
other counties for court appearances and meetings with attorneys, according to the county Legislature.

Jail generally crowded

The state Commission of Correction on Tuesday rejected
the county's request to extend variances that have
allowed the county to fill its jail to capacity, and
beyond, for several years now.

The most immediate effect will be that a greater
number of inmates will have to be sent to other
counties. As a result, more corrections officers will
have to work mandatory overtime shifts to get them
there and back, said Lt. Todd Mikus, head of the union
that represents the officers at the jail.

''It has the potential to be very dangerous for both
the staff and the inmates, traveling that much,'' said
Mikus, president of the Dutchess County Sheriff's
Employees Association. ''When things are bad, these
guys end up working double shifts two or three times a
week.''

The commission had warned the county for years that it
needed to expand its jail to relieve overcrowding
problems and turned up the heat in the fall, demanding
at least 300 beds be added on to the facility. But
county leaders have been unable to agree on how, or
even if, to proceed on a project estimated to cost
between $60 million and $70 million, not including
financing costs.

The county Legislature's Republican majority earlier
this year approved borrowing $560,000 to design the
jail expansion, but County Executive William Steinhaus
vetoed it.

Last month, Commission of Correction Chairman Alan
Croce rejected a proposal by the county to add only
150 beds to the jail while expanding programs that
provide criminals with alternatives to incarceration.

Addition fails to get support

Steinhaus, a Republican, and Democrats in the
Legislature have opposed any jail expansion.

While the Dutchess jail has 286 beds available for
inmates, the need to separate male and female, as well
as violent and nonviolent, inmates means only 257
cells will be available for housing inmates.

There were 303 inmates in the jail as of Tuesday
morning, with another 18 being housed in other
counties, said Gary Christensen, assistant jail
administrator. Another 47 inmates would need to be
shipped out to meet the new guidelines, he said.

That number, and the related costs, are only likely to
increase as the warmer weather coincides with more
arrests, he said.

With anywhere from 40 to 50 state parole violators at
the jail on a given day, the state could alleviate
Dutchess' overcrowding by taking custody of its own
inmates, Steinhaus said. State legislators
representing the area need to step up and rectify that
problem, he said.

''The state lawmakers, the senators and assemblymen,
and the state agency, are refusing to recognize they
created the problem,'' Steinhaus said.

Efforts to expand the jail are at a standstill.

Though the Republican county legislators have a
17-member, veto-proof majority, plans wouldn't go far
without cooperation from all sides, said Legislature
Chairman Brad Kendall, R-Dover.

''While the Democrats may be in the minority, they
have an obligation to put the good of Dutchess County
in front of politics on issues like this,'' he said.

Minority Leader Roger Higgins, D-Town of Poughkeepsie,
said his caucus simply disagrees with the three state commissioners, appointed by Republican Gov. George Pataki, who have demanded Dutchess expand the jail.

''This is not a political difference,'' he said,
''this is a philosophical difference.''

Anthony Farmer can be reached at apfarmer@poughkeepsiejournal.com

__________________________________________________

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dutchessjustice/

Posted by lois at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2005

Should Architects Design Prisons?

Lecture: Should Architects Design Prisons?
2005/04/27 05:30 pm
4/27/05
5:30 PM
AIA San Francisco, 130 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco

ADPSR - Architects and Designers for Social Responsibility - has created a nationwide campaign asking that architects stop designing prisons. They reason that if architects won't design them, they won't get built, thereby forcing government to develop alternatives to incarceration. Is this approach in the best interest of our justice system including prisoners, their families, and the people that work in the system?

Hear a lively discussion between ADPSR's president, an architect who designs detention facilities, and San Francisco's own Sheriff Hennessey.

Free
415.362.7397 or info@aiasf.org

Posted by lois at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Remembering Marla Ruzicka

Mourning Marla
By Jill Carroll, Christian Science Monitor
Posted on April 18, 2005, Printed on April 18, 2005
Californian Marla Ruzicka was the head of an NGO whose blend of tenacity and optimism kept her in Iraq long after almost every other humanitarian aid organization had left.

Marla and her Iraqi driver died Saturday when their car was tragically caught between a suicide car bomber and a US military convoy.

Marla was more than a source for a story, she was one of those quiet cheerleaders that kept me -- and the Iraqis she touched -- going almost from the moment that I arrived here three years ago.

I first met her in Jordan, just before the war. A reporter friend told me that I should get to know this young activist who made a name for herself working for Global Exchange, the US organization that sent field workers to Afghanistan to count civilian casualties.

After the Iraq war, she moved her push for an accurate count of civilian casualties to Baghdad. At a time when the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations were leaving Iraq, Marla started the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. Through that, she helped Iraqi families navigate the process of claiming compensation from the US military for injuries and deaths.

When she died Marla was traveling to visit some of the many Iraqi families she was working to help. Lately, she had been attempting to aid the relatives of a toddler whose parents were killed after the mini-bus they were traveling in was hit by what was believed to be an American rocket. The baby was thrown out of a window to save her life.

It's still unclear exactly how Marla and her driver, Faiz, were killed. But early reports indicate that they were traveling on the dangerous route between Baghdad and the airport when a suicide car bomber tried to attack a military convoy. Faiz was an Iraqi Airways pilot, who at one time worked as an interpreter for Monitor correspondents in Iraq.

I was always amazed at how composed Marla remained amid the violence and confusion of Iraq. One of my favorite memories of her was when I was sitting in the middle of the Palestine Hotel lobby in Baghdad, surrounded by a confusing swirl of soldiers, officials, and reporters. Fear swept over me. What was I doing here? I had come as a freelancer, with no experience covering a war. Just as I was quietly freaking out, Marla appeared in the dusty, harried scene. She was the picture of calm in a perfect French braid and long blue dress. She was like a breeze blowing through, so tranquil, so clean.

Later in the fall of 2003 when I moved here and was despairing of my sputtering freelance work she would always say, "Jill, good for you. You're working so hard. I'm so proud of you." She was the eternal supportive cheerleader. One night she slipped a note in my hotel mailbox. It was a small essay of encouragement and praise from out of the blue, scribbled in black ink on a scrap of notebook paper.

I found out that Marla had died several hours after she didn't show up for a party that she planned at the Hamra, a hotel occupied mostly by foreign journalists. I was tired and wasn't going to go. My friend Scott went and called me about 11 p.m. He said no one had heard from Marla since about 2 o'clock that afternoon. The other journalists and I all feared a kidnapping. I went over to the Hamra lobby and asked at the reception desk if they knew Marla's driver's family. They said his brother had just called because they were worried they hadn't seen him. A bad sign.

Then we got a call from the US military saying a woman fitting her description had been in an accident, but that she was in the military hospital and in good condition. We were relieved. In Baghdad's strange logic, we all thanked God it was a car accident and not a kidnapping. Then we received another call. It was the military again. This time they said the woman was dead on arrival.

The only thing we can say now is at least she died doing what she wanted, doing what she really, really believed in. If she were still here, she'd be most worried now about her driver's family and who will take care of all the other Iraqi families she was working with.

She would point out, this happens to Iraqis every day and no one notices or even cares. There are no newspaper articles or investigations into what happens to them. For most of them, there was only Marla.

http://www.alternet.org/story/21780/

Posted by lois at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)

Corky Gonzales: Poet, Fighter & Chicano Activist

OBITUARIES
Rodolfo Gonzales, 76; Prizefighter, Poet and Fervent Chicano Activist
By Louis Sahagun
Times Staff Writer

April 14, 2005

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, a former boxer whose political activism and outspoken advocacy of Chicano power made him a hero to Mexican American youths in the 1960s, has died. He was 76.

Gonzales, who was diagnosed in late March with renal and coronary distress, died Tuesday evening at his Denver home, his family said.

As unofficial ideologist for the Chicano movement, the dapper, bantam-sized activist led boycotts, student walkouts and demonstrations throughout the Southwest protesting police brutality, inadequate housing, the Vietnam War and what he called the educational neglect of Mexican Americans.

But he may have made his biggest impact as a poet. He was the foremost poet of la generacion de Aztlan, the generation of activists who invoked the mythical Aztec homeland as a symbol of Chicano self-determination and nationalism.

Gonzales' best-known poem, "I Am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquin," was published in 1967, during a time of urban tumult and youthful idealism. It called on Chicano youths to find strength and pride in their culture and history. It opened with these often-quoted lines:

I am Joaquin

Lost in a world of confusion,

Caught up in a world of a gringo

society,

Confused by the rule,

Scorned by attitudes,

Suppressed by

manipulations,

And destroyed by modern

society.

"Here, finally, was our collective song, and it arrived like thunder crashing down from the heavens," said Juan Felipe Herrera, who holds the Tomas Rivera chair in creative writing at UC Riverside. "Every little barrio newspaper from Albuquerque to Berkeley published it. People slapped mimeographed copies up on walls and telephone poles."

For a brief time in the late 1960s, Gonzales attracted national attention for his strident protests against and attacks on "the gringo establishment."

These actions rankled other Mexican American activists who relied on more conciliatory approaches to resolving social issues.

In 1968, Gonzales joined New Mexico's militant land grants fighter Reies Lopez Tejerina to lead a contingent of 1,000 Chicanos and Native Americans in a Poor People's March on Washington.

"Along with others from that era," said Felix Gutierrez, a USC professor of journalism, "Corky gave a vision and voice to those of us who were Mexican Americans and becoming Chicanos: Mexican Americans with a non-Anglo view of who we are and our role in society."

Born in Denver, Gonzales was the youngest of four brothers and three sisters. His mother, Indalesia, died when he was 2. His father, Federico, who emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, never remarried, but kept the family together in a tough east side barrio of the Colorado capital.

Gonzales was a precocious youngster who earned his nickname when an uncle mused that he was "always popping off, like a cork."

Although working in local beet fields left little time for study, Gonzales earned a high school diploma at 16.

He entered the private University of Denver, but left after one quarter because the cost proved prohibitive.

He then literally fought his way out of poverty.

In the ring, he was known for starting fast with sizzling rights driving straight at the heads of his opponents. He won 65 of his 75 fights as a featherweight and was named to the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.

He left the ring in 1953 to run a neighborhood tavern, Corky's Corner. Later, he worked as a bail bondsman and Democratic Party organizer.

In 1960, he was coordinator of the Colorado Viva Kennedy campaign and chairman of a regional anti-poverty program.

Frustrated with mainstream politics, he abandoned his Democratic affiliations in the mid-1960s and proclaimed that Chicanos had to fight for their own collective economic, political and social power.

Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice, a grass-roots civil rights organization that hosted "liberation" conferences for youths across the nation; ran its own school in Denver, Escuela Tlatelolco; and gave college scholarships to barrio youths.

Among those was Susanna Rodriguez de Leon, who was awarded $250 when she graduated from high school in 1969.

"I received my scholarship at a dinner held in the Crusade's headquarters in a little church," said DeLeon, a bilingual special education teacher.

"Corky got up and spoke about the importance of student leaders and how proud he was of me," she said. "I'll never forget that night. It set in stone my determination to get a college degree and become a teacher."

In later years, Gonzales was among a handful of Latino leaders who held fast to their ideals but saw their influence wane with changing times.

Since 1988, he had struggled with the long-term effects of a heart attack and an automobile accident. But he remained active in issues related to public education.

"Corky was doing something in a very articulate, unabashed way that few others were doing at that time," said Juan Gomez-Quinones, professor of history at UCLA. "He was reminding the country that there was a Mexican American minority whose needs were being unmet."

He is survived by his wife, Geraldine; six daughters and two sons; 22 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-gonzales14apr14,1,1062651.story?coll=la-news-obituaries

Posted by lois at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2005

WA: CCA and Corr Properties Trust trying to get new prison

Details are key to new prison
Budget proposals disagree on funding, size and who would operate it

KENNETH P. VOGEL; The News Tribune
Last updated: April 11th, 2005 06:44 AM
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/government/story/4763163p-4388817c.html

State lawmakers and Gov. Christine Gregoire are poised to end the days of inmates sleeping on the floor of state prisons or being shipped off to private prisons in Arizona, Colorado and Minnesota.

After years of putting off building a new prison, plans for spending upwards of $250 million on one in Eastern Washington appear likely to be approved this year. But with the Legislature entering the final two weeks of this year’s regular session, there’s a debate brewing about how big the new prison should be, how it should be paid for and who should operate it.

Ideas range from a 1,280-bed prison built using a $179 million state bond issue to a 2,000-bed prison financed – and possibly run – by the private sector.

Budget proposals from the state House, Senate and governor all call for a new prison on the grounds of the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in northern Franklin County between the Tri-Cities and Moses Lake. But the differences between the three plans – particularly how the prison would be financed – have emerged as the key hurdle to negotiating a $3 billion spending plan for construction projects around the state.

Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish), chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee, said building a new prison is a move lawmakers have been happy to put off in the face of tight budgets, but that it can’t be delayed any longer.

At the end of last year, the state had 674 more inmates than it had beds for, according to the Department of Corrections. The agency expects that number to rise to 2,700 by July and 5,400 by 2015. If approved, the new prison would open in four years.

“The reality is we needed it a couple years ago, because even if it had been funded last year, we would still have been sending inmates out of state. So we’re kind of in a pickle,” said Lynne Delano, assistant deputy secretary for the Department of Corrections.

An overcrowded system can be potentially volatile, she said, adding that sending prisoners out-of-state is bad policy.

“Family ties are really critical in terms of rehabilitation and re-entry into the community,” she said. “When you send folks out of state, it’s very hard on the offenders and it’s very difficult on their families. Their families weren’t sent to prison, but we’re punishing them as well.”

The department pays $61.55 to $73.22 per inmate, per day to house 540 inmates out of state. It expects to place another 400 by July.

“We cannot afford to keep sending people out of state. It’s a dramatic cost to the taxpayers of our state,” Gregoire said last month as she released her budget proposal.

Her prison plan shares certain attributes with the House and Senate proposals, but they depart in three main areas:

SIZE

Gregoire and House budget writers propose a roughly 2,000-bed prison. Gregoire would set aside $267 million for a medium security prison. The House plan would set aside $245 million for a mix of medium-security beds and lower security “hybrid” beds.

Though Gregoire and Dunshee acknowledge that the state might not need all those beds right away, they say the state could rent excess beds to other states.

And, they say, it’s cheaper than building a prison with fewer beds and expanding it later.

That’s the idea behind the Senate plan, which proposes spending $179 million on a 1,280-bed medium-security prison, with some hybrid beds.

“It’s financially risky to go into the prison business,” Sen. Karen Fraser (D-Olympia), Dunshee’s counterpart in the Senate, said of the possibility of renting excess beds.

Fraser said the Senate plan would give the state flexibility to add beds if the need arises at the appropriate security level.

“Security changes, culture changes, crime changes,” Fraser said, adding that the smaller prison would keep the pressure on lawmakers to reform sentencing laws. Civil liberties groups argue that the state’s sentencing laws send too many non-violent offenders to prison for drug and property crimes.

All three budgets assume savings from reducing sentencing, but it’s always tricky to pass such legislation.

FINANCING

The House plan calls for the state to lease and eventually buy the prison from a private company, which would pay to build it by issuing bonds.

The debt for the prison wouldn’t count against the state’s bonding limit, which would allow the state to issue more bonds to pay to improve its public schools and other facilities.

Though the state has used similar schemes to pay for office buildings and other projects, the prison would be the biggest project financed that way.

Gregoire’s plan also calls for the state to lease the prison from an outside entity. But it opens the door to more possibilities, including allowing counties to team up to build the prison or a basic operating lease.

“We’re trying to spark a little out-of-the-box thinking here,” said Mike Roberts, Gregoire’s capital budget director.

At least one company, Correctional Properties Trust, a Florida real estate investment company, has expressed interest in providing financing under Gregoire’s plan.

But Fraser said the financing plans offered by Gregoire and the House won’t reduce the state’s debt, just shift it.

“We need to exercise discipline on debt,” she said. The Senate plan calls for a traditional financing scheme in which the state would issue general obligation bonds to build the prison.

OPERATION

The Gregoire and Senate plans call for the prison to be operated by the state, but the House plan leaves open the possibility of paying a private company to operate it.

Corrections Corporation of America, a Tennessee company that runs prisons in 20 states, has been lobbying lawmakers to allow private operation, which it says would save the state a bundle.

The company, which houses 328 Washington prisoners in private prisons in other states, submitted a plan to Gregoire and key lawmakers under which it would spend $100 million to build the prison and charge the state $65 per inmate, per day.

“If the budget language that comes out does not allow private operation, I think the state would be missing a significant opportunity both on the construction and operating side,” said Josh Brown, an official with the company.

Former Gov. Gary Locke had suggested looking into privatizing the new prison. But Gregoire said she’s opposed to the idea, citing a riot last year in a Corrections Corporation prison in Colorado that injured five Washington inmates.

Private prison operators cut costs by cutting corners, asserted Fraser.

Unions generally oppose private prisons. Corrections Corporation representatives met recently with the union representing state prison guards to discuss conditions under which the union might support a privately run prison.

Dunshee predicted some opposition might fade if the union could reach a deal with a private prison operator. Though he said he favors a state-run prison, he said he’s not opposed to exploring new ways to build and run a prison, particularly with regard to financing.

“Our kids have been in crowded and crumbling schools too long,” he said, “and they shouldn’t suffer because we love to throw people in jail.”

Kenneth P. Vogel: 360-754-6093

ken.vogel@thenewstribune.com

Prison proposals

Gov. Christine Gregoire and budget writers in the state House and Senate have proposed building a new prison in Franklin County, but their plans differ in the details.

Gregoire:

Size: 2,000-bed medium-security prison

Cost: $267 million in alternative financing

Financing: Range of options, including a private company or a coalition of local governments

Operations: Owned and operated by the state, which would lease and eventually buy it from an outside entity

House:

Size: 2,000-bed medium/hybrid-security prison

Cost: $245 million in alternative financing

Financing: State would lease and eventually buy it from a private company, which would finance its construction through the sale of bonds

Operations: Could be operated by the state or possibly a private company

Senate:

Size: 1,280-bed medium/hybrid-security prison

Cost: $179 million from state bonds

Financing: State bond issue

Operations: Owned and operated by the state

Posted by lois at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)

IN: Prison Unit to Help Kick Meth Habit

Prison unit to help kick meth habit
State's program is among 1st in nation to focus on the task

Who is eligible
Here are the basics of eligibility for the new methamphetamine treatment program at the Miami Correctional Facility: € History: Inmates must show a significant history of substance abuse with significant impairment caused by meth use. € Release date: Inmates must have a projected release date that falls within 14 and 24 months at the time of admission, must have had no institutional incidents involving weapons or assault for at least one year and must have a good disciplinary conduct history.

By Dan McFeely
dan.mcfeely@indystar.com
April 12, 2005

State officials on Monday unveiled a new prison unit dedicated entirely to helping meth addicts kick their habit -- one of the first of its kind nationally. Twenty-six prisoners checked into the unit at the Miami Correctional Facility in north central Indiana, which is piggybacking on similar programs already under way at various county jails. "Our offenders will be released someday to society. Preparing them to not return to meth is the issue," said John VanNatta, superintendent of the Miami facility, which is located between Kokomo and Peru off U.S. 31. "The physical damage done to inmates who have come here on meth is very extreme. So anything we can do to help keep them from returning to using meth, the better for society." Methamphetamine addiction is so powerful, experts say, that without treatment in prison, most addicts will return to abusing the drug once they get out. Monday's ceremonial opening, attended by Gov. Mitch Daniels, symbolizes how seriously state officials are treating Indiana's growing meth problem, state officials say. Indiana ranked fourth in the nation with 1,549 meth labs destroyed in 2004. Daniels, who toured the wing, told inmates he hopes the pilot program can be expanded to Indiana's other prisons to combat the state's growing meth problem. "You can't help but have hope that this thing just might work. It has to work for the people involved; it has to work for our state," he said. VanNatta said the state is paying for the program by using existing money, taking funds from other prison programs. The state did not release an overall price tag for the meth initiative. According to Partnership for a Drug Free America, meth abusers suffer emotional and physical side effects from a pattern of abuse that includes "bingeing" on the drug. Abusers can go days without sleep and food as they feed their habit. Chronic use leads to paranoia, hallucinations and ultimately criminal activity. Last year, more than 1,200 people were arrested by State Police alone, a number that could double if arrests made by rural sheriff's departments and small-town police departments were included. Statewide statistics are not readily available, but in Knox County alone in southwestern Indiana, meth-related criminal cases grew from 17 percent of all cases in 1999 to 77 percent last year. The new program -- officially named Clean Lifestyle is Freedom Forever, or CLIFF -- will run 15 hours a day, seven days a week. It will be overseen by a mix of staff and outside drug experts, according to VanNatta. The program will be in a self-contained wing of the prison that can hold up to 204 inmates, in cells that hold two inmates apiece. By completing the nine-to-12 month voluntary treatment program, inmates are eligible to shave up to six months off their sentence. "The time cut is the immediate sell we use to get them into the program," VanNatta said, "but when I look at the effects of meth on a person . . . their teeth, their aging, their before and after pictures . . . I would think that would be a pretty good incentive, also." Although substance abuse treatment programs are common in the nation's prisons, Indiana's program specifically for meth addicts may be the first of its kind, said Harry K. Wexler, a principal investigator with the National Development and Research Institutes Inc. in New York City. "It sounds tremendously exciting because meth is such a powerful drug -- one of the most powerful drugs," said Wexler, who has studied prisons' drug treatment programs for more than two decades. J. David Donahue, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, said more than 900 of the state's 22,140 inmates qualify for the program because their convictions are for meth use, production or related crimes. VanNatta said program specifics still are being worked out and will be a work in progress as the state tracks the program's graduates to see how they fare outside of prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Call Star reporter Dan McFeely at (317) 444-6230.
http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/236210-7645-009.html>

Posted by lois at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

LA: Juvenile prisons remain violent

The Advocate
(Baton Rouge, LA) 04/16/05

Group demands faster changes

By MARK BALLARD
mballard@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau

Violence at the local juvenile prison has increased despite year-long efforts by the Blanco administration to change the state's system of punishing youthful criminals.

David Utter, whose organization sued the state to force juvenile justice reforms, said he is heartened by the many positive modifications in the system, but the changes have not translated into safer prisons for juveniles.

"While many things have improved in the facilities, there remains the intractable problem of violence and neglect. Scores of kids are being hurt and traumatized due to violence every month," Utter told the Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission Friday.

The panel, which has overseen efforts to reform the system, heard almost universal accolades from juvenile justice experts about the transformation led by Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Utter agrees that the "progress has been phenomenal." But he said Blanco needs to address the violence issue more directly.

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For instance, 63 of the 175 youngsters incarcerated at the Jetson Correctional Center for Youth near Baker were injured in fights during February. In February 2004, when the facility had a population of 265 inmates, violence injured 67 minors.

"You have almost the same number of injuries but 90 fewer kids. Jetson is actually more violent than it was a year ago," Utter said in an interview after the hearing.

Utter called on Blanco to fire Nathan Davis, Jetson's interim director, and to immediately release all juvenile inmates who are not adjudged a threat to public safety.

Blanco administration officials agreed that violence is bad and changes need to be made.

But Blanco's top juvenile justice aides say the changes are occurring, maybe not fast enough for Utter, but as fast as is reasonable.

Kim Hunter Reed, Blanco's director of policy and planning, said: "It's on our radar. We have a serious problem. We're aware of that. The governor is aware of it. She asked about it today."

Reed said, "We are certainly aware that we need new leadership at Jetson." Davis' appointment was interim and the administration is in the midst of a nationwide hunt for a new director for the Jetson juvenile prison, she said.

Simon Gonsoulin, Blanco's head of the Office of Youth Services, said he daily reviews violence statistics that show information such as where the incidents occur, time of day, staff on duty.

"We're looking for reasons. We're looking for possible solutions everyday," Gonsoulin said.

One reason for the violence rates could be that as more nonviolent offenders are being diverted to treatment programs, a higher percentage of the prison's remaining population is violent. Seventy-two percent of the incarcerated population need anger-management treatment, he said.

Gonsoulin said his office is drafting a plan on how to close Jetson and the state's juvenile prison in Monroe and replace the facilities with smaller, home-like dorms that focus on treatment. He said the plan should be ready this fall.

Louisiana, like most states, imprisons youngsters the same way as adult criminals. The levels of violence in Louisiana facilities caught the attention of international humans-rights groups in the early 1990s.

Utter's Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana sued the state claiming the violence, and the conditions that caused them, violated state and federal law. In the September 2000 settlement, the state agreed to improve a number of items in order to keep the federal court from taking over the juvenile prisons.

Blanco has pushed to shift the focus from incarceration to treatment. Her initiatives have gone far beyond what is called for in the settlement, Reed said.
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/041605/new_juvenile001.shtml

Posted by lois at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2005

New Book by Jeremy Travis: But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry

Jeremy Travis is the President of John Jay College and national expert on prisoner reentry issues. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Travis served four years as a senior fellow affiliated with the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where he launched a national research program on prisoner reentry into society and initiated research agendas on crime in a community context, sentencing, and international crime. While at the Urban Institute, Mr. Travis co-chaired the Reentry Roundtable, a group of nationally prominent researchers and policymakers devoted to exploring the dimensions of prisoner reentry. From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Travis was the director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).
For more information about the book, please see http://www.urban.org/pubs/AllComeBack/

Posted by lois at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

New bill pushes for more, tougher mandatory minimum sentences

From FAMM. To contact your Congressperson go to: or go to the FAMM website: www.famm.org
Action needed to stop disastrous sentencing bill from advancing

Dear Friends and colleagues,

Please distribute the FAMM Alert below as widely as possible to any interested email networks. As you can see below, these new proposed federal drug mandatory minimum sentences greatly diminish judicial discretion and the ability of low-level, non-violent chemically addicted and/or mentally ill offenders to get access to drug courts and treatment - especially those in densely-populated urban areas. In addition, women are very likely to be hard-hit (note the parental provisions), as are communities of color.

Thank you,

Laura Sager

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

H.R. 1528, the new version of "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2004," by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), was passed by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on April 12 and FAMM expects the full House Judiciary Committee to vote on it as early as next week (April 18 - 22, 2005). If this bill becomes law, it will have a disastrous effect on the federal sentencing system. We must act now to stop H.R. 1528.

GET READY TO ACT!

If you live in a House Judiciary Committee member's district please take action now by contacting your lawmaker. Click the link above or enter your home zipcode in the box on the right and click the button. It may ask you to enter your address to make sure you live in a House Judiciary Committee member's district. PLEASE NOTE: If you do not live in one of the House Judiciary committee member's districts, you will see a message that says "Office is currently vacant." This means your federal representative is not on the committee.

If you do not live in these districts, FAMM still needs your help in the coming days to fight this terrible sentencing bill. FAMM will send an "ACT NOW" e-mail when the time is right to contact other representatives. Why wait? Because the bill has not yet reached most members of the House of Representatives; if you contact them now about it, they won't know what you are talking about. But as early as next week, the bill could be headed for a full House vote. Use this time to get ready to act!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH H.R. 1528?

Among other things, it:

- Makes the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision.
- Creates new mandatory minimums that further erode judicial discretion.

- Eliminates the safety valve for low-level drug offenders.
- Makes virtually every drug crime committed in urban areas subject to "drug free zone" penalties that carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.
- Punishes defendants for the "relevant conduct" of co-conspirators that occurred BEFORE the defendant joined the conspiracy.

As written, H.R. 1528 would:

- Effectively make the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision. This provision forbids judges from departing below the guideline sentence in all but a few cases.

- Make the sale of any quantity of any controlled substance (including anything greater than five grams of marijuana) by a person older than 21 to a person younger than 18 subject to a ten-year federal mandatory minimum sentence.

-Create a new three-year mandatory minimum for parents who witness or learn about drug trafficking activities, targeting or even near their children, if they do not report it to law enforcement authorities within 24 hours and do not provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting the offender.

-Create a new 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for any parent committing a drug trafficking crime in or near the presence of their minor child.

- Mandate life in prison for persons 21 years or older convicted a second time of distributing drugs to a person under 18 or convicted a first time after a felony drug conviction has become final.

- Increase to five years the federal mandatory minimum sentence for the sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, college, public library, drug treatment facility (or any place where drug treatment, including classes, are held), or private or public daycare facilities - in short, almost anywhere in cities across the U.S.

- Eliminate the federal "safety valve," granting it only when the government certifies that the defendant pled guilty to the most serious readily provable offense (the one that carries the longest sentence), and has "done everything possible to assist substantially in the investigation and prosecution of another person," and would prohibit the federal "safety-valve" in cases where drugs were distributed or possessed near a person under 18, where the defendant delayed his or her efforts to provide substantial assistance to the government, or provided false, misleading or incomplete information.

FAMM OPPOSES H.R. 1528

For these reasons, FAMM opposes H.R. 1528. We need FAMM members to ACT NOW to stop this harmful bill. Rep. Sensenbrenner is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and therefore controls its agenda. It is imperative that FAMM members who live in the House Judiciary Committee member's districts call, write and meet with your federal representatives as soon as possible.

Please forward this message to your friends and neighbors who have e-mail. Print and distribute copies of this alert to those who don't. For more information, visit www.famm.org.

Posted by lois at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2005

War against Drugs or Youth--Ernest Drucker

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - To the Editor of THE Berkshire EAGLE:-

As a homeowner in Great Barrington for more than 30 years, I have watched as the drug problems of the outside world inevitably surfaced in the Berkshires. But as someone who has spent his entire career doing drug treatment and related research (I am professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine), I also knew that the many strengths of this community (caring families, good schools, community services for youth, and a wholesome environment) were its best safeguards against the most severe problems associated with drugs and young people. So even if kids experimented with drug and alcohol use (as over 85 percent do) I saw no cause for general alarm. That's because research clearly shows that most youngsters, especially those with sound family lives, move away from drugs when they mature. And as they "get a life," the vast majority of youthful drug users (even of harder drugs) do not have serious drug problems as adults.

But I also know that aggressive prosecution of the "war on drugs" can become a war on youthful users and do great harm. Naive and easy to ensnare, these kids are considered the low-hanging fruit by aggressive drug prosecutors. This is clearly the case with the 17- and 18-year-olds swept up in the Great Barrington drug bust.

Following eight months of "buy and bust" operations by undercover police, 17 young people are charged with school zone violations which carry mandatory two-year prison sentences, even for minor first offenses such as buying or selling a single marijuana joint within 1,000 feet of a school zone, although the school is nowhere in sight of the Triplex lot. This assures the maximum penalty.

If they are found or plead guilty (and even if they never serve a day in prison) the criminal record itself will cause exclusion from many forms of education and financial support, from the uniformed services, most public employment, and from many professional careers and licenses.

Recent research at the Boston University School of Public Health shows that such use of school-zone drug laws (originally meant to protect children from drugs when they attend schools) has no effect on drug use at and around schools. That's because most kids use, buy, and sell drugs close to where they live, which in many communities means within 1,000 feet of a school. So, not surprisingly, the BU study found that 80 percent of all drug busts fall within such school zones.

However, the study also found, most local police exercise judgment in charging school-zone violations, and most prosecutors "break down" or dispense with these charges in first offender cases. But not so in the Great Barrington case where DA David Capeless insists on these charges and the mandatory prison terms they imply.

Drug enforcement people often talk about "messages," but what message are the citizens of Berkshire County sending (via our elected officials) by so severely threatening these young lives in pursuit of some drug war illusion? In a world full of huge crimes and injustices that cry out for relief, should these kids' crimes be the focus of such vengeful adult behavior? Is that the message the adult community of Great Barrington wants their elected official to send to our children? Not in my name please!

ERNEST DRUCKER
Great Barrington
April 11, 2005

Posted by lois at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

Disparities Found in Sub-Prime Lending to African Americans & Hispanics

Disparities Found in Sub-Prime Lending Data Show African Americans, Hispanics Pay More to Borrow for Home, Refinance
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 11, 2005; Page A02

About 29 percent of African Americans who bought or refinanced homes last year ended up with high-cost loans, compared with only about 10 percent of white Americans, according to an a consumer advocacy group's analysis of new data from 15 large national lenders.

About 15 percent of Hispanics received such loans offered to borrowers with damaged credit, known as sub-prime loans, according to the analysis conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which represents 640 nonprofit organizations.

"The good news is that access to credit is more available in the home mortgage market, but the bad news is that it is being offered in a disproportionately unfair way," said John Taylor, the coalition's president and chief executive.

Lender groups do not dispute that there are disparities based on race and sex, but say borrowers pay higher rates if they pose a higher credit risk for any one of a variety of reasons, such as low income, poor neighborhood, bad credit history or low down payment.

The new numbers are available because federal banking regulatory agencies for the first time have begun requiring home-mortgage lenders to provide information about higher-than-average loan rates, data that can be correlated with the race and sex of borrowers. Lenders were required to report the information if a borrower paid at least 3 percentage points more than the rate for Treasury securities of similar loan duration. Federal regulators will not release the aggregate data until September, but have required the lenders to provide the information institution by institution upon request.

The information is required under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, enacted in 1975 to track patterns of mortgage lending when many minorities and women were routinely denied loans of any kind. The new requirements are part of a 2002 amendment.

Advocacy groups such as the National Community Reinvestment Coalition have contended that minorities and women pay disproportionately more for credit. They have been eager to mine the new data that have become available. The coalition obtained the data from 15 large lenders, including Ameriquest, Bank of America, Countrywide, Citigroup, HFC, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Chase, National City, Sun Trust, US Bank and Wachovia. The coalition's analysis includes reviews of 4.6 million prime loans and 649,000 sub-prime conventional loans.

The coalition says its analysis corroborates its long-held belief that lenders discriminate. Lenders say the new information does not provide a complete picture of the loan-making process. They say borrowers who have poor credit, bad records for paying bills on time, or live in troubled neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates and falling home values are riskier customers than people with good credit who live in neighborhoods where real estate values are rising. Lenders have to charge more money to compensate for the higher risk, they say.

Such risk is generally measured by credit scores. In the past, lenders have opposed efforts to add credit scores to the federally required data, saying the obligation would pose an additional regulatory burden and potentially invade the privacy of borrowers.

"We really don't believe, if all the data were looked at, that our companies discriminate," said Anne C. Canfield, executive director of the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, an industry trade group. "We think there are other issues. But if discrimination exists, we are committed to eliminating it. It's not good for us, for consumers or for communities. It's abhorrent."

Susan M. Wachter, a professor of real estate with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the coalition's national analysis of loan terms by race and sex closely tracks what other, more limited studies have found. The results are "very consistent," she said.

Higher interest rates have steep costs for consumers. A home buyer who gets a $100,000 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6 percent pays about $600 a month to repay principal and interest. At 9 percent, the buyer pays about $800, and at 13 percent, which some sub-prime borrowers pay, the monthly cost is about $1,100.

Lenders have created types of loans "that respond to risk and create risk," Wachter said at a Federal Reserve conference on consumer lending issues held in Washington last week , at which several academics presented studies on the connection between high interest rates, foreclosure and crime.

At the conference, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan defended the higher interest rates paid by some consumers as a positive development because those people at least are receiving loans.

"Where once-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately," he said in a speech. "These improvements have led to rapid growth in sub-prime mortgage lending; indeed, sub-prime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s."

Posted by lois at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times Editorial: Guilty Unitl Proven Innocent & article

April 12, 2005
The post-9/11 world involves two competing nightmares. One imagines another terrorist attack that occurs because authorities fail to respond to signs of danger. The other is about innocent people who are arrested by mistake and held indefinitely because authorities are too frightened, or embarrassed, to admit their errors. We have to be equally vigilant against both.

Right now, two New York City girls, both 16, have been detained and accused of plotting to become suicide bombers. If there is a real reason to believe that charge, officials are obviously right to have acted. But so far, they have said little about the evidence against the girls, and the girls' friends and families have offered accounts that suggest the charges could be completely false.

At this point, it's impossible not to worry about a potential miscarriage of justice, given the number of previous incidents in which the government has rushed to make a terrorism arrest that turned out to be baseless.

Details of the cases against the two girls - one from Bangladesh and the other from Guinea, and both in the country illegally - are sketchy. According to reporting by Nina Bernstein in The Times, the parents of the Bangladeshi girl went to the police several weeks ago to file a complaint about their daughter's defying their authority. When the dispute was resolved, they tried to withdraw the complaint, but the police proceeded with an investigation.

The police and federal immigration officials searched her belongings and are reported to have found an essay on suicide. According to the family, the essay says suicide is against Islamic law. But detectives went on to question the girl about her political beliefs before arresting her. Even less is known about the investigation of the girl from Guinea. Teachers and students at the high school she attended expressed outrage at the arrest and at the idea that she could be plotting terrorism.

The government calls the girls an "imminent threat," and says it has "evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." But it has not described the evidence, insisting that national security requires that much of it remain secret. Because the girls are here illegally, they have been put into a deportation system that affords them far fewer rights than ordinary criminal suspects have. There is no definite limit on how long they can be held.

No one wants to leap to conclusions about a government case in such an important area. But the record is not reassuring. Last year, the government wrongly jailed Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer who is a Muslim, for two weeks after the F.B.I. mistakenly matched his fingerprint to one found at the scene of the Madrid train bombing. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department rounded up hundreds of Muslim men who were here illegally and detained them for months, often in deplorable conditions. The department's inspector general later found that the F.B.I. had made "little attempt to distinguish" those with terrorism ties from those without. Shortly after 9/11, federal authorities detained a Nepalese tourist for three months in a tiny cell after he inadvertently included an F.B.I. building in a videotape of the sights of New York for folks at home.

More information about the two girls will no doubt surface over time. If the evidence isn't there, the arrests are very disturbing. The government will have taken 16-year-olds from their families, branded them as would-be terrorists and put them into a frightening legal limbo for no good reason.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

April 9, 2005
Teachers and Classmates Express Outrage at Arrest of Girl, 16, as a Terrorist Threat
By NINA BERNSTEIN

t Heritage High School in East Harlem, where the student idiom is hip-hop and salsa, the 16-year-old Guinean girl stood out, but not just because she wore Islamic dress. She was so well liked that when she ran for student body president, she came in second to one of her best friends - the Christian daughter of the president of the parent-teacher association, Deleen P. Carr.

Now Ms. Carr, a speech pathologist who calls herself "a typical American citizen," is as outraged as the girl's teachers and classmates, who have learned that the girl and another 16-year-old are being called would-be suicide bombers and are being held in an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania.

"They have painted this picture of her as this person that is trying to destroy our way of life, and I know in my heart of hearts that this is bogus," said Ms. Carr, who welcomed the Guinean girl to her house daily and knows her family well. "I feel like, how dare they? She's a minor, and even if she's not a citizen, she has rights as a human being."

According to a government document provided to The New York Times by a federal official earlier this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has asserted that both girls are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." No evidence was cited, and federal officials will not comment on the case.

Its mysteries deepened as teachers and neighbors gave details of the Guinean girl's life, like the jeans she wore under her Muslim garb, her lively classroom curiosity about topics like Judaism and art and her after-school care for four younger siblings while her parents, illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States since 1990, eked out a living.

"I just can't fathom this," said her art teacher, Kimberly Lane, who has repeatedly called the youth detention center but like Ms. Carr was not allowed to speak to the girl, who has no lawyer. Among the unanswered questions they raised was why, if she was really a suspect, no F.B.I. agent had shown up to search her school locker or question her classmates, who sent her letters of support.

"This is a girl who's been in this country since she was 2 years old," Ms. Lane said. "She's just a regular teenager - like, two weeks ago her biggest worry was whether she'd done her homework or studied for a science test."

Until now, attention has focused on the other 16-year-old, a Bangladeshi girl reared in Queens who could not deal with the hurly-burly of her West Side high school and withdrew into home schooling. Yesterday, on a motion of the government, an immigration judge closed the Bangladeshi girl's bond hearing to the public and adjourned it to next Thursday, said Troy Mattes, a lawyer who is taking over the case but has yet to meet her.

By the Bangladeshi girl's account, reported by her mother, the girls did not meet until March 24, after their separate arrests in early-morning raids on immigration charges against their parents. Both grew up in Islamic families. But while the Bangladeshi girl had grown increasingly pious, and uncomfortable in the urban culture of the High School of Environmental Studies on West 56th Street, the Guinean girl, a 10th grader, embraced every aspect of Heritage High, at 106th Street and Lexington Avenue, her teachers said.

"She is, yes, an orthodox Muslim, but completely integrated into this school," said Jessica Siegel, her English teacher in a class in which topics like teenage pregnancy and world politics were discussed. Ms. Siegel was profiled in the book "Small Victories," by Samuel G. Freedman, as an unsentimental, but fiercely committed teacher who provoked and delighted her students.

"She's a wonderful, wonderful girl," Ms. Siegel said. "She's about the last person anyone could imagine being a suicide bomber."

The English teacher's most vivid recollection was of a day two months ago when she heard a kind of roar in the hallway of the school, which is full of colorful student collages and life-size sculptures in papier-mâché. The teenager had stopped wearing her veil, and she beamed as her fellow students, seeing her face for the first time, cheered.

After the class read "Night," the Holocaust memoir by Elie Wiesel, the girl wrote a paper about genocide in the Sudan, she recalled. But she was so excited about a field trip to see Christo's "Gates" in Central Park, Ms. Siegel said, that she skipped an appointment at immigration - a teenage impulse the teacher now worries might have set off problems with federal authorities. Her father is now in immigration jail facing deportation.

At Woodrow Wilson Houses a few blocks from the school, a sticker on the family's apartment door reads, "Allah is our protector." Yesterday no one was home, but across the hall, Christine Anderson, a neighbor, shook her head in disbelief when she learned why she had not seen the girl or her father in recent weeks.

"Why would they take the lady's daughter?" she asked. "They're nice people, and hard-working people. I've been here four years. I know she's not a problem child."

Ms. Lane, the art teacher, said that when Heritage High first learned that immigration agents had picked up the girl, one of her best friends asked if someone from the school might have denounced her as an illegal immigrant. "I remember telling her the government doesn't go after 16-year-old girls," Ms. Lane said. "And in the last few days, I'm wrestling with the fact that, yes, it does."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2005

CA: State to Scrap Key Parole Reform

"The shift in parole strategy probably will please the state prison guards union. At a Senate hearing on the issue last month, Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., called the diversion approach a flop and a danger to public safety.

Leaders of a crime victims group heavily supported by the union agreed. Two weeks ago, Crime Victims United of California began airing television ads accusing Schwarzenegger of abandoning those who have suffered from crimes and suggesting his parole policies put communities at risk."

State to Scrap Key Parole Reform
Violators will go back to prison instead of into diversion programs now deemed ineffective. By Jenifer Warren Times Staff Writer

April 9, 2005

SACRAMENTO - Corrections officials will scrap the centerpiece of their effort to reform California's beleaguered parole system because there is no evidence the new approach is working, according to a memo obtained by The Times.

Beginning Monday, parole violators will no longer be diverted into drug treatment programs, halfway houses and home detention instead of being returned to prison, according to the memo.

That strategy had been pushed by the Schwarzenegger administration as a way to save the state money by reducing the prison population - and to improve the odds that ex-convicts would turn their lives around.

Though popular in other states, the approach has drawn criticism here from some crime victim advocates. Some parole agents also said they felt pressure from supervisors to allow dangerous parole violators to avoid prison - and possibly go on to commit new crimes.

Such concerns were among factors prompting the change in course, said Youth and Adult Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman, who signed the memo.

In an interview, Hickman said the new options for parolees were not delivering the intended results: "When you start down a path and then realize the path is not leading you where you need to go, it's time for a change," Hickman said.

He added, however, that the action should not be seen as a retreat from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's pledge to make California a place where prisons rehabilitate, rather than merely punish felons.

"We are committed to protecting the public by making sure offenders are successfully reintegrated into society," Hickman said. "But these programs weren't helping us get there."

The shift in parole strategy probably will please the state prison guards union. At a Senate hearing on the issue last month, Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., called the diversion approach a flop and a danger to public safety.

Informed of the change Friday, the group's president, Harriet Salarno, was
ecstatic: "You're kidding! You mean my commercial did it?" she said. "I am so thrilled. This is step one, but we have a lot more to do."

Eliminating alternative sanctions as an option for parole violators will undoubtedly drive up the inmate population and exacerbate overcrowding in the California prison system, already jampacked to nearly twice its design capacity. Experts say such conditions - with inmates stacked in triple-decker bunks and wedged into gyms, hallways and other spaces not intended as housing - are a recipe for riots.

Already, California prisons - the nation's largest system, with about 162,500 men and women - report nearly twice as many assaults behind bars as Texas, which incarcerates nearly as many people.

But Hickman said any dangers from more overcrowding were less critical than the threat posed by ineffective parolee programs: "You don't play around in this arena. The consequences can be devastating."

Some inmate advocates were surprised and disheartened by Hickman's decision. They argued that alternatives to incarceration had been shown to improve the odds of parolee success, at a lower cost to taxpayers.

"I'm very disappointed, and I certainly hope they're not caving in to pressure from the unions based on the fact that the governor's poll ratings seemed to be declining," said Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit law firm that works to improve conditions for inmates.

One expert on parole, UC Irvine criminologist Joan Petersilia, took a different view. She said the move suggests the state is serious about its commitment to fund only programs that are supported by solid research.

"I applaud this, because it's the first time I've heard someone at [Hickman's] level say, 'We're not going to do this because there's no evidence it's working,' " said Petersilia, who has been advising the state on corrections issues but had not seen the memo.

Petersilia said that in attempting to revamp how it handles parolees, California is 10 or more years behind the rest of the nation. In the 1990s, most other states - facing budget crises that forced them to cut their prison populations - began developing alternative sanctions, such as community detention, electronic monitoring and other forms of supervision.

"While the other states were doing that, California was still building prisons," Petersilia said. "So we have a long ways to go. And the fact is, we need to do it thoughtfully. This is not something you do in a piecemeal fashion."

The parolee programs to be shelved next week were first put in place under former Gov. Gray Davis but were expanded about a year ago. They came on the heels of a report by a nonpartisan watchdog agency, the Little Hoover Commission, that hammered the parole system as "a billion-dollar failure" because 67% of ex-convicts - nearly twice the national average - return to prison.

To reduce the recidivism rate, the Department of Corrections began allowing some low-level parole violators to go into jail-based drug treatment for 30 days, halfway house programs or home detention with electronic monitoring.

But a variety of setbacks, including contract disputes and delays in obtaining the monitoring devices, prevented those programs from reaching their full potential, according to testimony at last month's Senate hearing. Meanwhile, parole agents and leaders of the guards union said that some parolees allowed to avoid prison were going on to commit serious crimes.

Statistics show that at the end of 2004, there were 2,529, or 4.1%, fewer inmates in prison on parole violations than in 2003. But officials said they could not provide data on how many of those parolees who avoided incarceration had later been arrested on new offenses.

Hickman stressed that by abandoning the current programs that had served as alternatives to prison, leaders were by no means giving up on plans to help more parolees succeed, an outcome he called critical to public safety.

"We are going to have many tools in the toolbox," he said. "The key is developing the right kind of supervision and intervention for each personŠ. We're just not there yet."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parole9apr09,0,6430628.story?coll=la-hom
e-headlines

Posted by lois at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

"Prisoners of the War on Drugs" New Comic Book Available from the RCPP

New. Available NOW
"Prisoners of the War on Drugs" by Sabrina Jones, Ellen Miller-Mack and Lois Ahrens. The comic book includes: the history of the war on drugs, mandatory minimums and how racism creates harsher sentences for people of color; stories on how the war on drugs works against women, three strikes, obstacles to coming home after incarceration; how mass incarceration destabilizes neighborhoods. Alternatives to the present system.
To view this comic book on line go to:
http://www.realcostofprisons.org/comics.html

Comic books are sent free of charge to organizations who submit a one page email or letter explaining how you will use the comic books in your organizing, community education and outreach work. We ask that you put a link to Real Cost of Prisons Project on your website.

To request comic books:

A brief letter including contact name, mailing address, phone number, website address if any, email address and brief description of your organization or program. Please specify how many comic books you can use. Organizations/groups can receive up to 300 copies of each comic book depending on your need. Due to demand, we cannot guarantee you will receive the number you request but we will try to meet your request.

Each comic book is 16 pages with a four color cover and black and white interior pages. Send your letter to: Real Cost of Prisons Project, 5 Warfield Place, Northampton, MA 01060 or email: info@realcostofprisons.org.

Also available:
"Prison Town: Paying the Price" by Kevin Pyle and Craig Gilmore. The comic book tells the story the ways in which the financing and siting of prisons and jails effects the people of rural communities in which prison are built. It also tells the story of the how mass incarceration effects the people of urban communities where the majority of people who are incarcerated come from. Included in the comic book are alternatives to the current system. Available now.

Coming Soon! "Prisoners of A Hard Life: Women and Children" by Susan Willmarth, Ellen Miller-Mack and Lois Ahrens Check back to see availability.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO OTHERS WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN THE COMIC BOOK SERIES.

www.realcostofprisons.org

Posted by lois at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

TX: Faith Based Prison Moves Toward Getting Built

April 8, 2005

Commissioners clear hurdle for faith-based prison

Associated Press

SAN ANGELO -- Tom Green County commissioners moved one step closer to building a 620-bed faith-based prison Thursday with the creation of the Concho Valley Community Facilities Corp.

The corporation would build the $25 million private prison east of San Angelo and lease it.

The medium-security facility would be for inmates in the final two years of their sentences and would serve as a rehabilitation program.

Dallas-based Corrections Concepts Inc., which plans to submit a proposal to run the proposed prison, said construction could create 200 jobs and the prison would need 250 workers once it is operational.

Bill Robinson, chairman of the Corrections Concepts board, said inmates could hold to whatever beliefs they wish.

"Every prisoner ... must sign an agreement to come -- it's voluntary," Robinson said in a story in Friday's San Angelo Standard-Times. "It's a faith-based facility, but their worship preferences will be respected."

Corrections Concept's mission statement says it will use Christian principles to help inmates prepare for the outside world and makes no mention of evangelization or Christianity.

Such language must be carefully couched to avoid running afoul of the law, Jeremy Leaming, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based advocacy group, told the newspaper. "Until it's in operation, they can describe it in any way they want to describe it -- the safest possible way. They have to be careful in the way they set it up."

Robinson said accountability is emphasized. Inmates would work in the prison and earn money, some of which would go for victim restitution and the cost of their housing.

County Judge Mike Brown said Jack Sheety, the county's attorney, said in a written opinion that the prison wouldn't violate the First Amendment.

Commissioner Steve Floyd said the county could receive $1.75 per day for housing inmates. States with inmates in the prison would pay part of their board. Other money would be saved for when the inmate leaves prison.

The county is waiting for the state attorney general to review the legality of the creation of the corporation.

The newspaper said at least 10 area counties have passed resolutions in support of the prison for economic reasons.

The corporation was created on a 3-1 vote.

Commissioner Richard Easingwood said the state of Texas is reluctant to use the proposed facility because of its unusual approach.

Easingwood voted against Thursday's proposal because he said he would have preferred to see the city of San Angelo building the prison.

"I think the city could have had better control over it. The city has the capability to handle it better than we do," he said.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3124392

Posted by lois at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)

Electoral and Fiancial Conscequences of Counting Prisoners Where They Go, Not where They Come From

PACE LAW REVIEW: ELECTORAL AND FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES

The U.S. Census Bureau counts people in prison where their bodies are confined -- in prison -- not the communities they come from and where they are genuine members. This would be an item of statistical trivia, but the new numbers give it new meaning. More people now live in prison and jail than in our three least populous states combined. Organized differently, they would have six votes in the United States Senate. It is not trivia anymore.

A new article in Pace Law Review traces the unanticipated effects of this counting method. Prisoners of the Census: Electoral and Financial Consequences of Counting Prisoners Where They Go, Not Where They Come From by Eric Lotke and Peter Wagner is the first academic article to quantify the impact of prison population counts on both the political process and on state and federal funding streams.

The article can be accessed at http://www.library.law.pace.edu/PLR24-2/PLR218.pdf

Posted by lois at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

Alabama House Unanimously Approves Criminalizing Fetal Injuries

Alabama House Unanimously Approves Bill Criminalizing Fetal Injuries During Crimes Against Pregnant Women

The Alabama House on Thursday approved 93-0 a bill (HB 311) that would make it a separate crime to kill or injure a fetus during the commission of a crime against a pregnant woman, the Mobile Register reports. The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Spencer Collier (R), would expand the state's definition of a person in regards to victims of assault and homicide to include "an unborn child at every stage of gestation in utero from conception to birth, regardless of viability," according to the Register.

The bill states that it would not prohibit or restrict access to abortion services legal in Alabama, and state House lawmakers added an amendment that says a pregnant woman could not be charged with assault or homicide if she was "also a victim," according to the Register. Collier said he has introduced similar legislation in two previous sessions, but they were not approved (Owen, Mobile Register, 4/8). "All human life, in its various forms, deserves to have equal protection from crime, and those who commit violent acts against any life, born or unborn, should be punished severely," Collier said (Johnson, AP/al.com, 4/7). However, Carol Gundlach, executive director of the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said, "I am still not convinced that this is a particularly effective deterrent to domestic violence, but as a crime bill it does no harm" (McGrew, Montgomery Advertiser, 4/8). State Sen. Bradley Byrne (R) has introduced a companion measure (SB 90) in the Senate, but Byrne said the measure might "simply be buried" in the chamber. Gov. Bob Riley (R) on Thursday "praised" the House vote, the Register reports. "Pregnant women who have been harmed by violent crime know they are not the only victims," Riley said, adding, "Their unborn child is also a victim, and both should be protected by law" (Mobile Register, 4/8).

Posted by lois at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2005

7-31-04- Frank "Big Black" Smith

Remembering Big Black
R E M E M B E R I N G 'B I G B L A C K'
by bo brown

On July 31, 2004, Frank 'Big Black' Smith died in Kinston, NC.
He was 71, and cancer won the final battle of his life. He will be
missed by his wife Pearl; his friend of 30 years,Attica attorney Liz Fink; this writer and thousands of other lives he touched in person, in prison or other ways such as Eyes On The Prize. If you haven't seen it, you are missing out.

Frank Smith was a large Black man, at least 250 lbs. and over 6 feet tall. While serving his nine years in Attica he was the prison football coach. He was popular and well liked by inmates and staff alike. This was one reason he was chosen to be the chief of security by the inmates during the rebellion. This meant he was responsible for the safety of the outside in observers and negotiators during the four day uprising. After his release in 1972 he was encouraged by
other Attica Brothers to work with attorney Liz Fink in search of some sort of justice for those murdered by the state of new York and the national guard.

I was in prison when George Jackson was killed and i was still in prison a month later in Sept '71 when the Attica massacre happened. Not only my own prison experience but these historic events affected my heart and soul; thus shaping my politics and my
life for all time. Upon release i got even more aware and politicized and was part of the 70's prison movement in the Pacific Northwest. I even went back to prison as a political prisoner.

In 1973 'Black' was touring for the Attica Brothers Defense Committee and we honored him as the keynote speaker at CON-vention (an organization for ex-cons based in Seattle).He stayed with a close comrade/brother and we broaden our understanding of how Attica Is All Of Us as we talked and hung out.

In 1974 two more Attica Brothers came west and we continued our local support work. Then again in spring of 1975 'Black' returned and this time we got him and the Shulasmith Firestone Attica movie inside two washington state prisons (one was Purdy prison for women). One of my best memories of those times was when
'Black' and Mark Cook came over to our very dyke house and made us breakfast in bed. It was truly a beautiful sharing of love and solidarity; and the food was great! August '75, we traveled to Buffalo for a huge national Attica memorial march that was very well attended by people who were doing prison work all around
the country. We stayed with 'Black' and Akil during this trip. We also met several other dykes who were going into women's prisons and we stayed in regular communication for the next couple
of years.

Now, i went on about the business of my life and didn't see 'Black' for some years but i always kept up with the Attica Defense Committee and the 30 year struggle to get that case to court. I even went back to prison as a political prisoner. I paroled to the sf bay area Jan '86 and was soon engaged in prisoner support
work around the lexington control unit built for political prisoners.

In 1997 a jury award Frank Smith $4 million in damages for his torture over a 36 hour period after the Attica prison rebellion in 1971. A jubilant Frank Smith broke down and cried in the courtroom. He sobbed so loudly that District Judge Elfvin asked him to wait in the hall. Afterwards, he said, "I hope every one of them who were hurt gets $4 million. This jury is sending a message--Just because you're in prison they can't beat you like a dog and get away with it." The $4 million judgement was overturned in August.

In 1998 Frank 'Big Black' Smith was part of yet another history making event. Critical Resistance, a conference
at UC Berkeley, brought together more the 3500 people from around the country (many who were ex-prisoners) to discuss and organize around what had by then become the gigantic prison
industrial complex. On one panel sat Raphel Cancel Miranda, Frank 'Big Black' Smith, Ed Mead and bo brown. These folks represented about 60-70 years worth of time behind the walls and they all had continued to be activists in their communities.

I saw 'Black' a few more times either here or in New York. We talked occasionally on the phone. Even when he was in the hospital, he always had a genuine interest in what i was doing and how i was doing it. He wasn't a perfect person. Neither am i. Actually, i don't like perfect people and neither did he. He was a good person
and he made me feel like i was a good person, too. He was a stubborn and strong individual who took on an extremely hard job for many many years with little or no pay and pursued with honor to teach everyone possible that ATTICA IS ALL OF US.....

Posted by lois at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

FL: Jailing Probation Violators could mean 7,166 new cages

"The Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which analyzes bills, said Monday that a Senate version of the bill would cost the state nearly $232 million next year and $828 million over five years. The Senate version is slated to go before its first committee Wednesday. The House version, which is somewhat different, would cost about $630 million over five years and require the addition of 7,166 prison beds, according to the analysts. That bill has passed one committee and is pending."

TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2005

Jailing probation violators too costly, some say

By JIM SAUNDERS
Tallahassee Bureau Chief

Last update: April 05, 2005

TALLAHASSEE -- After a convicted felon was charged with murdering six people last year in a Deltona home, state lawmakers and Attorney General Charlie Crist vowed to crack down on probation violators. They pushed get-tough bills -- dubbed "anti-murder" legislation by Crist -- aimed at locking up probation violators before they can commit more crimes.

But now, as the bills move through the Legislature, they face a major
obstacle: the price tag.

Legislative analysts said Monday that such a crackdown could cost as much as $828 million over five years and require the state to add about 8,000 prison beds -- roughly the equivalent of six to eight new prisons.

The cost is causing even some supporters to question whether the state can afford it. Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who chairs a committee that oversees criminal-justice spending, said lawmakers will have to weigh the cost against other needs.

"I wish we could just write a check, but we can't," said Victor Crist, who is no relation to Charlie Crist.

But a spokesman for the attorney general said other projections show the cost at less than half of the $828 million estimate. Jon Peck, the spokesman, said lawmakers also have to look at the value of protecting residents.

"The important thing is not the dollars," Peck said. "It's the people."

Lawmakers began considering a crackdown last year after a man on probation was charged with the highly publicized murder of an 11-year-old Sarasota girl, Carlie Brucia. But the issue got renewed attention after police accused Deltona resident Troy Victorino of being the ringleader in the grisly deaths of six people Aug. 6 in a Telford Lane house.

Just days before the killings, Victorino had been arrested on a felony battery charge -- a potential violation of his probation -- but was released from jail. The case led the Department of Corrections to fire four probation officials, in part, because probation officials failed to alert a judge that Victorino posed a risk.

The Crist-backed proposal would deny bail for violent felons who are accused of violating their probation, which would prevent people such as Victorino from being released while their cases are pending. Also, the proposal would require judges to hold hearings to determine whether felons are dangerous to their communities and would lead to more being sent to state prisons.

But putting more probation violators in county jails and the prison system would drive up costs for local governments and the state.

The Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which analyzes bills, said Monday that a Senate version of the bill would cost the state nearly $232 million next year and $828 million over five years. The Senate version is slated to go before its first committee Wednesday. The House version, which is somewhat different, would cost about $630 million over five years and require the addition of 7,166 prison beds, according to the analysts. That bill has passed one committee and is pending.

Peck, however, said the Attorney General's Office thinks those estimates are too high. He pointed to Florida State University projections that said the measure would cost about $355 million over five years.

At the same time, local governments also are trying to sort out the costs. Jeff Porter, who lobbies for the Florida Association of Counties, said three large counties, Orange, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, estimated that their combined costs would be about $5 million a year -- without factoring in the possibility they would have to build more jail space.

As lawmakers grapple with the costs, Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, is moving forward with a separate bill that stems from the Deltona case but would not be as far-reaching. That bill, which passed a committee last week, is designed to help lead to more quick arrests of people suspected of violating their probation.

Lynn said it could be difficult to get funding for the bill sought by Crist. She said lawmakers also are considering another costly proposal that would require sex offenders on probation to be tracked through global positioning devices -- a proposal that stems from the abduction and death last month of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in Homosassa Springs.

jim.saunders@news-jrnl.com
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/03NewsHEA
D01POL040505.htm>

Posted by lois at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

Iowa League of Women Voters Calls for Sentencing Reforrm

By:JOHNIE HAMMON, League of Women Voters

During 2003-2004 the League of Women Voters of Iowa studied sentencing policy with an eye toward possible reforms while still protecting public safety. We found enormous prison population growth related to drugs and alcohol. We found that mandatory prison sentences often denied the judicial system the ability to look at an offenders risk assessment and impose probation or a shorter term of incarceration. We found that, without changes in the law, Iowa's budget was threatened with being swallowed up by Department of Corrections costs. We found that Iowa's system of community based corrections has been and is a model program in the nation. Yet we also found that ever-increasing numbers in the prisons have put such a demand on prison budgets that Iowa is not doing a good job of providing the services to help turn around the lives of offenders, and is often ignoring the special needs of offenders with mental illness, mental retardation, or geriatric illness.

The numbers of suicides within the prisons this past year reflect that concern. The League was aware of Iowa's growth in prison population and the resulting building of new prisons. From 1991 to 2001, Iowa's prison population grew from 4,077 to 8,108. Our state has increased prison beds by 3,809, yet the prisons are still well above capacity. Currently Iowa has 1,527 more prisoners than the prisons were designed to hold. Those crowded prisons have the potential to create a volatile situation. At the same time we have over 30,000 offenders in community corrections programs who are being supervised by probation and parole officers with excessive caseloads. During the same ten years, the budget for corrections increased from $141 million in 1994, with prison costs accounting for most of that increase, to $265 million in 2004. That represents an increase from 4.02% of the total state budget to 5.91%. Thus, prison costs are demanding an ever-larger share of our state budget. At a time when we need to invest more in education at all levels, to protect our environment more aggressively, and to invest in economic development, we have instead been building prisons at a cost of almost $50 million each. The annual operating cost for each prison is about $28 million. If current sentencing trends, policies, practices and offender behavior remain unchanged, the prison population will increase 42.6% over the next ten years, and five new 800-bed prisons will be needed. Of particular concern to the League was the growth in admissions for drug offenders, which tripled during the past ten years. In contrast, new admissions of all other offenders increased by only 49% during that same period. The Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning agency estimates that prison admissions for methamphetamine-related drug crimes increased from about 105 in fiscal year 1995 (FY 1995) to about 800 admissions in FY 2003, a 662% increase during that eight-year period. The legislature should look at the effectiveness of drug courts in the areas where they exist and consider increasing the availability of those courts to prevent growth in prison admissions. Following the 18-month study, local League organizations statewide agreed to the following positions:
* The League of Women Voters of Iowa (LWVIA) supports a justice system that is fair and protects the public safety. LWVIA believes that mandatory sentencing has had an adverse impact on Iowa's justice and corrections systems, which could be reduced by providing greater flexibility for judges, the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC), and the Iowa Board of Parole to consider unique circumstances in criminal cases while sentencing standards set out in the Iowa Code remain applicable.
* The LWVIA supports an indeterminate sentencing structure.
* The LWVIA supports legislation that considers offenders with special needs, such as the mentally retarded, mentally ill, geriatric inmates, and medically needy inmates.
* The LWVIA supports Iowa's system of community-based corrections (CBCs) for offenders. CBCs should provide treatment, when appropriate, for offenders in the community while maintaining safeguards for the public. Iowa should maximize community corrections by providing adequate funding.
* The LWVIA supports adopting sentencing legislation that is based on valid and reliable research. Such legislation should consider proportionality of all sentences to crimes committed; judicial discretion; budget constraints on the Iowa Department of Corrections; and effectiveness of treatment. We urge the Iowa General Assembly to seriously consider these recommendations and establish a plan to achieve successful outcomes for offenders in this state.
***
The above article was written by Johnie Hammond, a member of the LWV of Iowa Sentencing and Corrections Committee, member of the Ames LWV, and former State Senator and Representative and Pat Jensen, President, League of Women Voters of Iowa.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14281537&BRD=2575&PAG=461&
amp;dept_id=513088&rfi=6>

Posted by lois at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

April 05, 2005

Fred Korematsu, 86, Fought Interment during WW II

April 1, 2005, NY Times
Fred Korematsu, 86, Dies; Lost Key Suit on Internment
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Fred T. Korematsu, who lost a Supreme Court challenge in 1944 to the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans but gained vindication decades later when he was given the Medal of Freedom, died on Wednesday in Larkspur, Calif. Mr. Korematsu, who lived in San Leandro, Calif., was 86.

The cause was a respiratory ailment, said Don Tamaki, a lawyer for Mr. Korematsu.

When he was arrested in 1942 for failing to report to an internment center, Mr. Korematsu was working as a welder and simply hoping to be left alone so he could pursue his marriage plans. He became a central figure in the controversy over the wartime removal of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants from the West Coast to inland detention centers. He emerged as a symbol of resistance to government authority.

When President Bill Clinton presented Mr. Korematsu with the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in January 1998, the president likened him to Linda Brown and Rosa Parks in the civil rights struggles of the 1950's.

In February 1942, two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the designation of military areas from which anyone could be excluded "as protection against espionage and sabotage."

In May 1942, the military command on the West Coast ordered that all people with Japanese ancestry be removed inland, considering them a security threat, and internment camps were built in harsh and isolated regions.

Mr. Korematsu, a native of Oakland, Calif., and one of four sons of Japanese-born parents, was jailed on May 30, 1942, in San Leandro, having refused to join family members who had reported to a nearby racetrack that was being used as a temporary detention center.

Mr. Korematsu had undergone plastic surgery in an effort to disguise his Asian features and had altered his draft registration card, listing his name as Clyde Sarah and his background as Spanish-Hawaiian. He hoped that with his altered appearance and identity he could avoid ostracism when he married his girlfriend, who had an Italian background.

A few days after his arrest, Mr. Korematsu was visited in jail by a California official of the American Civil Liberties Union who was seeking a test case against internment. Mr. Korematsu agreed to sue.

"I didn't feel guilty because I didn't do anything wrong," he told The New York Times four decades later. "Every day in school, we said the pledge to the flag, 'with liberty and justice for all,' and I believed all that. I was an American citizen, and I had as many rights as anyone else."

Mr. Korematsu maintained that his constitutional rights were violated by internment and that he had suffered racial discrimination. In the summer of 1942, he was found guilty in federal court of ignoring the exclusion directive and was sentenced to five years' probation. He spent two years at an internment camp in Utah with his family. In 1944, the A.C.L.U. took his case before the Supreme Court.

In December 1944 in Korematsu v. the United States, the Supreme Court upheld internment by a vote of 6 to 3. Justice Hugo L. Black, remembered today as a stout civil liberties advocate, wrote in the opinion that Mr. Korematsu was not excluded "because of hostility to him or his race" but because the United States was at war with Japan, and the military "feared an invasion of our West Coast."

In dissenting, Justice Frank Murphy wrote that the exclusion order "goes over the very brink of constitutional power and falls into the ugly abyss of racism."

The case was revisited long afterward when Peter Irons, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, discovered documents that indicated that when it went to the Supreme Court, the government had suppressed its own findings that Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were not, in fact, security threats.

In light of that information, Judge Marilyn H. Patel of Federal District Court in San Francisco overturned Mr. Korematsu's conviction in November 1983. In 1988, federal law provided for payments and apologies to Japanese-Americans relocated in World War II.

Mr. Korematsu returned to California after the war, worked as a draftsman and raised a family. For many years, he withheld information about his case from his children, seeking to forget about his humiliation.

In recent years, Mr. Korematsu expressed concern about civil liberties in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Surviving are his wife, Kathryn; his son, Ken, of San Francisco; and his daughter, Karen Korematsu-Haigh, of Larkspur.

In her decision overturning Mr. Korematsu's conviction, Judge Patel said, "Korematsu stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees."

Posted by lois at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

China Leads in Number of Executions--US in 4th place

Published on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 by the Independent/UK
China Leads Death List as Number of Executions Around the World Soars
by Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor

Executions around the world are nearing record levels, and the Unites States is among the four countries which account for 97 per cent of the total, a report has found.

At least 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries in 2004, according to a report released today by Amnesty International.

The report says China easily operates the most stringent capital punishment regime, with an estimated 3,400 executions last year. In second place, Iran executed at least 159, Vietnam at least 64, and 59 prisoners were put to death in the US.

The number of executions worldwide last year was the highest since 1996, when 4,272 were carried out.

No official figures are available for China's execution rate, and Amnesty has changed the method it uses to calculate the number of executions there. According to Amnesty's report for 2003 China carried out at least 726 executions. The much higher figure of 3,400 executed last year is an estimate based on internet reports of trials, although it is still described as the "tip of the iceberg".

Kate Allen, Amnesty International's UK director, said China's record was "genuinely frightening". Amnesty quoted a delegate at the National People's Congress in March last year, who said that "nearly 10,000" people were executed every year in China. Corruption is among the crimes which carries the death penalty.

Ms Allen said: "It is deeply disturbing that the vast majority of those executed in the world last year did not even have fair trials, and many were convicted on the basis of 'evidence' extracted under torture.

"The death penalty is cruel and unnecessary, does not deter crime, and runs the risk of killing the wrongly convicted. It is time to consign the death penalty to the dustbin of history." Yet the figures conceal a trend that shows a general move towards abolition. "The world continued to move closer to the universal abolition of capital punishment during 2004," the report says.

Five countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes last year - Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey. This means that 120 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Although the US has become accustomed to being named in the grim league table alongside states such as Iran, which it has branded an "outpost of tyranny," there were fewer executions compared with 2003, when 65 were held. Two prisoners with long histories of mental illness were put to death in the US, but the Supreme Court ruled that imposing death sentences against child offenders contravened the US constitution.

In several of the 38 American states where the death penalty is still legal, the lawfulness of lethal injection has been challenged on the grounds that one of the chemicals used may mask a prisoner's suffering.

Amnesty says that six prisoners on death row in the US were released last year after they were found innocent.

Kenny Richey, a Scotsman, whose conviction for murder and arson was overturned on appeal earlier this year, is still at risk of execution because Ohio prosecutors are trying to have the decision overturned.

Ms Allen said: "Last year I visited Scotsman Kenny Richey on death row in Ohio and saw the true wretchedness of a system that can condemn someone to years of calculated cruelty as they await death at the hands of the state.

"Even now Kenny is effectively suspended between life and death. We want to see Ohio prosecutors accept the senior state court's decision and release Kenny immediately," Ms Allen said.

In some countries, such as Vietnam, it remains a state secret to reveal the number of executions carried out. Video evidence of North Korea's execution of defectors was produced last week in a video released by a Japanese non-governmental organization.

MOST EXECUTIONS

Total in 2004

1 China 3,400*

2 Iran 159*

3 Vietnam 64*

4 United States 59*

5 Saudi Arabia 33*

6 Pakistan 15*

7 Kuwait 9*

8 Bangladesh 7*

9= Egypt 6*

= Singapore 6*

= Yemen 6*

*Minimum

Posted by lois at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)

Schoolhouse to Jailhouse website

The Advancement Project’s report Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track. Visit the new schoolhouse to jailhouse website at www.stopschoolstojails.org.

Are schools arresting youth needlessly? Report says, "Yes!"
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-bin/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20050328m

March 28, 2005

Advancement Project, a national racial justice organization, released its second report last week examining the over use of zero-tolerance school discipline policies and the growing reliance on police and juvenile courts as disciplinarians-Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track.

According to the report, school districts across the U.S. have teamed up with law enforcement to create this "schoolhouse to jailhouse track" by imposing a "double dose" of punishment - suspensions or expulsions and a trip to the juvenile court - for misconduct that often does not threaten school safety.

"In school district after school district, an inflexible and unthinking zero tolerance approach to an exaggerated juvenile crime problem is derailing the educational process," said Judith Browne, Advancement Project acting co director. "The educational system is starting to look more like the criminal justice system. Acts once handled by a principal or a parent are now being handled by prosecutors and the police."

Education on Lockdown, which focused on data from school systems in Denver, Chicago, and Palm Beach County, dissects the schoolhouse to jailhouse track by examining:

* How zero tolerance, a policy originally designed to address the most serious misconduct, morphed into a "take no prisoners" approach to school discipline issues and created a direct track into the juvenile and criminal justice systems;

* The expanding role of law enforcement measures in schools; and

* The disparate impact of these practices on students of color. The report illustrates that while national school arrest data is not available, data from various districts indicate the growing trend toward using law enforcement measures to address school disciplinary matters. For example:

* Between 2000 and 2004, Denver Public Schools experienced a 71% increase in the number of student referrals to law enforcement (through tickets and arrests). Last year, most of these referrals were for non-violent behavior such as use of obscenities and disruptive appearance.

* In 2003, over 8,000 students were arrested in Chicago Public Schools. More than 40% of these arrests were for simple assault and battery - often nothing more than a threat or harmless weaponless fight.

"Our report finds that in the name of school safety, students are being needlessly arrested for non-violent acts," said Monique Dixon, senior attorney, Advancement Project. "It also finds that while students of all races, find themselves on the schoolhouse to jailhouse track, the arrest and referrals to juvenile court fall heaviest on students of color."

Additionally, the following examples illustrate the extreme reaction to minor offenses that are causing a growing number of students to be derailed into the juvenile justice system.

* Philadelphia, PA - A 10-year-old girl was handcuffed and taken to a police station for taking a pair of scissors to school. She used the scissors to work on a school project.

* Port St. Lucie, FL - A 14-year-old girl was arrested and charged with battery for pouring a carton of chocolate milk on the head of a classmate.

* Wilmington, NC - A high school student was criminally charged by a sheriff's deputy for cursing in front of a teacher.

Students of color are often disproportionately impacted by these zero tolerance school discipline practices. For example, last year in Denver, black and Latino students were referred to law enforcement at twice and seven times the rates of their white peers, respectively.

"We must have safe learning environments but, these zero-tolerance practices have gone too far. Youth are being treated like criminals for cursing, having a body piercing, and shoving matches. Our juvenile courts should not be called upon to address behavior that could be corrected in schools," concluded Dixon. "Schools should turn to school-based intervention and prevention programs and stop the schoolhouse to jailhouse track."

There have been at least three incidents involving guns at New Orleans schools in recent times: The Carter G. Woodson Middle School shooting which took place in September 2000; an April 2003 shooting at John McDonogh Senior High School that left a 15-year-old student dead and three others wounded; and this month's shooting at O. Perry Walker Senior High School that wounded a 16-year-old student.

There were reportedly four security guards and one resource officer on Walker's campus when the shooting occurred. After the March 17 shooting,

some critics said the school and its security staff did not do enough to deal with the initial conflict that had led to the fight between nearly two dozen students and subsequent shooting.

"Some school officials knew about growing tensions between rival groups of students here but chose to do nothing," a Walker teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Louisiana Weekly. "When the cameras and reporters show up, everybody tries to put the best possible spin on what happened, but the truth is that this could have been avoided if [admininstrators and security personnel] had done their jobs."

Another teacher at Joseph S. Clark Senior High School who did not want to be identified said that students are increasingly being "written up" and "expelled" for minor offenses while the school system fails to address the schools' most serious issues. "It's like they're knitpicking while the house is burning down," she told The Louisiana Weekly.

Orleans Parish school system officials were unavailable to comment late last week because schools were closed for the Easter holiday.

In recent years, a number of groups have stepped up their efforts to assist schools in becoming proactive in dealing with on-campus violence. However, there is also a move to differentiate between dangerous behavior and teenage angst. While rebellion is a natural part of adolescence, rebellion that is expressed violently is neither natural nor acceptable. Keystosaferschools.com has a website that offers helpful information to educators, administrators and parents about telltale signs of potentially dangerous students. The following is posted from its website:

"The 'National School Safety Center' warns that children showing two, possibly three or more of these traits may become predisposed to violence.

1. Has tantrums and uncontrollable angry outbursts.

2. Has been truant, suspended or expelled from school.

3. Has little or no supervision and support from parents or a caring adult.

4. Prefers reading materials dealing with violent themes, rituals and abuse.

5. Characteristically resorts to name-calling, cursing or abusive language.

6. Habitually makes violent threats when angry.

7. Has previously brought a weapon to school.

8. Has a background of serious disciplinary problems.

9. Has a background of drug, alcohol or other substance abuse or dependency.

10. Has few or no close friends.

11. Is preoccupied with weapons, explosives or other incendiary devices.

12. Displays cruelty to animals.

13. Has witnessed or been a victim of neglect or abuse in the home.

14. Has been bullied and/or bullies or intimidates peers or younger children.

15. Tends to blame others for difficulties and problems they cause.

16. Consistently prefers TV shows, reading materials, movies or music expressing violent themes, rituals and abuse.

17. Reflects anger, frustration and the dark side of life in school writing projects.

18. Is involved with a gang or an antisocial group on the fringe of peer acceptance.

19. Is often depressed and has significant mood swings.

20.Has threatened or attempted suicide.

Posted by lois at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

Prison Health Services Again-Another Death at Riker's Island

April 4, 2005 State Board Calls Rikers Suicide a Glaring Case of Poor Care
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

It was 2:50 p.m. on July 18, 2004, when David Pennington, a 27-year-old small-time thief in jail on a third-degree burglary charge, was sent from a clinic back to his cell at Rikers Island's largest jail. During the previous three days, jail doctors had received ample evidence showing that Mr. Pennington should not be left alone.

Two days earlier, according to investigators, he had told a social worker at Rikers about two attempts to kill himself, about his psychiatric hospitalizations, about his father, who had killed himself in prison. Near the end, Mr. Pennington, increasingly agitated, had even told a jail doctor that he was hearing voices and was thinking again of killing himself.

Still, Mr. Pennington was sent back from a Rikers mental health clinic to what is called the jail's general population - Cell 26 in Quad 14 - without any special instructions to correction officers or medical staff to keep a close eye on him. In fact, state investigators later discovered, Mr. Pennington was returned to his cell after a jail psychiatrist, despite being alerted by another doctor, chose not to examine him.

Six and a half hours later, jail officers heard a commotion outside Cell 26. Inmates were gathered around the locked cell door, yelling for help. The officers rushed over to find Mr. Pennington slumped against the door, hanging from a bedsheet tied to the door's small window. He was brain dead, and three days later, at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, his family had him removed from life support.

For the correction and medical workers at Rikers Island, Mr. Pennington was another entry in the disturbing catalog of suicides inside city jails in recent years.

In the view of state investigators, Mr. Pennington was another casualty of the sometimes deadly mistakes made by the Tennessee company hired to provide health care at Rikers, and to thereby tackle the problem of the growing number of mentally ill inmates who populate the jail, a sprawling complex in the East River.

Over the past four years, in a series of increasingly urgent reports, the New York State Commission of Correction has excoriated the company, Prison Health Services, for mistakes in the care of 23 inmates who died in city and upstate jails. The commission, which is appointed by the governor to oversee jail and prison standards, has repeatedly condemned Prison Health for flouting state medical standards, hiring poorly qualified doctors and nurses
and failing to properly treat several of its sickest patients, who
eventually committed suicide - the leading cause of death in American jails.

In its report on Mr. Pennington, made available to the public last week, the commission issued some of its harshest criticism of the company, calling its care of Mr. Pennington "flagrantly inadequate," and again asserting that the company was practicing in the state in violation of the law because executives in Tennessee, and not doctors at Rikers Island, were ultimately in charge of dispensing care.

In a letter accompanying the report, the commission also criticized the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which monitors Prison Health's work at Rikers, for excusing the company's errors and for what it said is the company's continuing improper operations in the state.

State law requires that a company dispensing medical services for a profit must be owned and controlled by doctors, to keep business interests from affecting medical decisions. Prison Health Services, a publicly held profit-making company that the city pays $100 million a year, says it subcontracts its medical services at Rikers to a small corporation run by a doctor who is also its regional medical director. The state commission, in its letter to the city's health department, said that the arrangement "begs credulity" and "only raises further questions" about the legality of the company's operation here.

City health officials have said that Prison Health does a satisfactory job and performs its work legally. In a letter to the commission in January, James L. Capoziello, the health department's deputy commissioner in charge of monitoring jail health care,disputed the commission's conclusion that Mr. Pennington received poor or improper care.

A department spokesman declined to comment last week on the commission's findings in Mr. Pennington's death or the letter that accompanied the report. Prison Health, through a spokeswoman, also declined to comment on Mr. Pennington's treatment but said the company's work in New York complied with state laws.

But officials with the city's Board of Correction, a watchdog agency that monitors the safety of the city's jails and sets minimum health standards, said that the lack of care Prison Health gave Mr. Pennington before his death was particularly troubling given his mental-health history, his report that his father had killed himself in prison and his own increasingly suicidal behavior.

In an interview on Friday, Cathy Potler, the board's deputy executive
director, said, "The question is, what happened between the time he was noted to be hallucinating and suicidal and the time he was found
unresponsive in his cell?"

Indeed, by the time the jail psychiatrist sent him back to his cell for the last time, the state commission said, Mr. Pennington had done "everything he could to attract psychiatric attention to himself."

Three times in three days before he was found hanging, correction officers had noticed Mr. Pennington acting bizarrely and had sent him to the jail's mental health clinic to be treated. After the first referral, on July 16, Mr. Pennington told a mental health worker about his past psychiatric hospitalizations and disclosed his two previous attempts to kill himself - with pills in 1998 and by slashing his wrists in 1997, the state commission's report said. He was returned to his cell without treatment, the report said.

The next day, officers again escorted Mr. Pennington to the mental health unit, after news of a relative's death had sent him into an even deeper anxiety, the state report said. After evaluating him, a jail social worker found him stable enough to return to his cell without special observation. The social worker also scheduled Mr. Pennington to see a psychiatrist on July 19.

On July 18, about 9:30 a.m., jail officers sent him to the mental health unit for the third time. A social worker ordered an immediate evaluation by a psychiatrist, the state report said. But the Prison Health psychiatrist, after speaking briefly with Mr. Pennington, did not complete an evaluation.

"He is not suicidal or homicidal," the psychiatrist wrote, according to the state report. The psychiatrist, who had received his state medical license a year earlier, also said that Mr. Pennington had walked out of their meeting after the psychiatrist refused to give him an anti-anxiety medication he had asked for.

Back in his cell, four hours later, jail workers called in a doctor after Mr. Pennington appeared to be having seizures. He told the physician he was hearing voices and wanted to kill himself, the commission's report said. The physician immediately escorted him back to the psychiatrist who had seen him that morning. The psychiatrist agreed to evaluate Mr. Pennington and have him moved to a mental health unit for closer observation, the state report said.

But Mr. Pennington was not treated or moved to a more secure cell. The only action the psychiatrist took, state investigators found, was to send Mr. Pennington back to his usual cell, where he killed himself.

"This deliberate refusal to provide treatment to patient with active
suicidal ideation who was directly referred by another physician constitutes professional medical misconduct on the part of the psychiatrist and flagrantly inadequate mental health care by PHS, Inc.," the state report said.

The city's health department, in its response to the state commission, defended the work of the social worker and thepsychiatrist and said the state investigators had overstated how clearly suicidal Mr. Pennington was. It also said the psychiatrist did not remember being told Mr. Pennington was suicidal or looking at a medical chart.

Prison Health Services fired the psychiatrist three months later, for
reasons that a company spokeswoman said were unrelated to Mr.Pennington's death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/nyregion/04jail.html?

Posted by lois at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)

Denver: Pilot Project to Creat Denver Homeless Court

Defendants will be able to clear names for changing lives

By Stuart Steers, Rocky Mountain News
April 4, 2005
The homeless in Denver will soon have their own court, with a judge and officials trained to deal with their unique experience. The pilot project to create a Denver Homeless Court is aiming for a May launch.

The intent is to give homeless people who have been arrested for
relatively minor crimes a chance to clear their records if they can show they are kicking their addictions and turning their lives around.

"The court won't deal with any violent offense or any crime with a
clearly defined victim, like stealing a car," said Roxane White,
Denver's director of human services. "The charges are usually
panhandling, loitering, using the alley as a restroom."

Those violations, often described as "quality of life crimes," are
usually misdemeanors.

Many homeless people don't show up in court to face the charges,
however, which means warrants are issued for their arrest.

"The charge in and of itself usually isn't a big deal. It's the failure to appear that becomes a big deal," White said.

Having a warrant out makes trying to land a job or rent an apartment
enormously difficult, she said. White, who worked with homeless teenagers for many years, said she oftensaw people who had begun to turn their lives around being hauled off to jail.

"The last thing you want when your boss likes you is to have to tell
your boss you have to go to jail," she said. "The last thing you want
when you're moving away from drug and alcohol abuse is to go see your
buddies in jail."

Even homeless people who have kicked drug and alcohol habits and found work are still at risk of losing everything.

"I almost didn't get an apartment because of my record," said Kyle, a
former alcoholic who was homeless for seven years and asked that his
last name not be used. "One month I got 16 citations for carrying an
open container."

Kyle said those citations turned into a warrant for his arrest when he didn't appear in court. He now is in a treatment program and has his own apartment for the first time in years.

Several other cities have homeless courts, including San Diego, Los
Angeles, Albuquerque, N.M., and Salt Lake City. In San Diego and Los
Angeles, homeless court is held at local shelters.

"There's still a judge with a black robe and a bailiff, prosecutor and defense attorney," said Steve Binder, a San Diego public defender who helped start the nation's first homeless court there in 1989 and has been advising officials in Denver.

More than 500 defendants a year appear before the San Diego court. By
meeting in the shelter, Binder said, the judge is able to talk directly to case managers who can describe a defendant's progress.

"The participants are scared," Binder said. "They don't want to lose
what little they've gained. They see the promise of a future. The
individual has to reach deep down inside themselves and say, 'I need
help with this problem.' "

Seeing the judge acknowledge their efforts sends an important message, Binder added. "What they're doing is being recognized. That's very powerful," he said. So far, Denver is planning to use a regular courtroom for its fledgling
homeless court.

A judge has not yet been assigned to the new court.

In cities such as San Diego, people are referred to homeless court by
shelters and programs that help the homeless. Only those who can prove they've found work, signed up for drug and alcohol treatment, joined a mental health program and passed urinalysis tests are allowed to participate.

Denver will have similar requirements.

Those involved with the planned court emphasize that it won't let anyone off easily. They say most of these crimes would net someone probation if the individual showed up in court.

"I wouldn't say the underlying crimes are insignificant - a lot of
people are affected by panhandling and urinating in public," said Vince DiCroce, director of the prosecution section at the city attorney's office. "It's just a matter of looking at unique situations that pertain to homeless individuals. That's why we want to see if this might be workable in Denver."

DiCroce said it's common for alcoholics to plead guilty to crimes in
court to get into alcohol treatment as part of their probation.

In homeless court the sequence will be reversed: Defendants will go into treatment and then show up to plead guilty.

Denver officials are expecting 300 people a year to appear in the
homeless court. They hope to save taxpayers money by reducing the number of homeless people getting picked up by police. Many of the homeless and mentally ill cycle in and out of jail, but no
one is sure what percentage of inmates they make up.

"We have a number of individuals with some type of mental illness," said Denver Director of Corrections Fred Oliva. "They don't go to jail because they're mentally ill but because they're charged with a crime. "We don't track the number of homeless or mentally ill (in jail). We don't have the resources to do that."

Those who are working to set up a homeless court in Denver hope it will make it less likely that jail is the only home some people know.
"Part of what we're trying to do is break that cycle and not have a
situation where people continue to break the law," DiCroce said.

Helping the homeless

300 people are expected to appear in the Denver Homeless Court each year.

Other cities that have adopted homeless courts:

. San Diego
. Los Angeles
. Albuquerque
. Salt Lake City

Participants in the homeless court program must:

. Prove they've found work.
. Sign up for drug and alcohol treatment.
. Join a mental health program.
. Pass urinalysis tests.

steerss@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2282
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3673491,00.html

Posted by lois at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

AL: Durg, Alcohol Sentencing Crowds Prisons, Many more African Americans targeted

Sun, Apr. 03, 2005
Study: Drug, alcohol sentencing crowds prisons, splits races

SAMIRA JAFARI
Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama's sentences for minor drug offenders are among the harshest in the nation, and some researchers say the stiff punishments create racial disparities among offenders and continue to fill state prisons beyond capacity.

A study by the Equal Justice Initiative points out that more than half of prisoners locked up for first-degree marijuana possession are black men, while nearly three-fourths of felony DUI offenders are white men.

But driving while drunk doesn't even become a felony until the driver has been convicted on DUI four times, and the average sentence is nearly half that for first-degree marijuana possession - creating a racial disparity, the study says.

"Even though penalties for drunk driving have become more severe, they are still very modest compared to the punishments for drug offenses," said Mark Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based consulting firm for criminal justice research.

"And you think about the people who are affected by this: Drunk drivers are predominantly white and the majority of drug offenders are African-American. There's two forms of substance abuse and two very different approaches, but both of them can be harmful in a different way."

A first-degree marijuana possession can result if a person has a prior misdemeanor conviction or if it's a first offense with 2.2 pounds of marijuana or more.

The average sentence for first-degree marijuana possession is 8.4 years, while the average felony DUI sentence is 4.8 years, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Jefferson County Drug Court Judge Pete Johnson said blacks are not the only ones getting harsh sentences for drug-related offenses under Alabama's law - it's a problem for all drug offenders.

"We have overreacted totally with zero tolerance and a lot of people are getting swept up for minor things and they have a little bit of drugs," said Johnson, a former member of the sentencing commission.

There has been an impact on the prison system: Drug-related offenses made up 3,202 of the 10,267 prison admissions in 2004 - nearly twice the number of robbery, murder, rape and manslaughter entries combined, according to the Alabama Sentencing Commission's 2005 report. Despite a second parole board to speed up paroles for nonviolent offenders, the new inmates have pushed Alabama's prison population to more than twice its designed capacity.

Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, takes a different view than Johnson on the racial aspect.

"There's no question the racial disparities exist. But why they exist is a complicated question," he said.

He blamed the reported disparities on what he said was a two-pronged
problem: First, police are more likely to target blacks for drug crimes, resulting in more black arrests. Second, minorities are disproportionately poor, resulting in weak courtroom defense and, ultimately, longer sentences.

"I think it has a lot to do with who's being punished," Stevenson said. "We're too harsh in the drug context. Why is someone serving life in prison for simple possession?"

Part of the answer lies in Alabama's drug sentencing laws, which are some of the harshest in the country, according to the state sentencing commission. Alabama ranks with only four other states - Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota - which allow up to 10 years in prison for possession of 2.2 pounds or less of marijuana.

Only Mississippi authorizes a more severe sentence of up to 16 years in prison.

"I think the problem with that ... is that we're using a lot of our prison beds for drug offenders. What we've got to do is maintain room for our violent offenders," said state Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

But Black and Linda Flynt, executive director of the sentencing commission, said there's no clear evidence that race plays a role in sentencing and that the commission had not conducted an independent analysis on the issue.

Still, other studies support EJI's findings. Most recently, Professor Ted Chiricos of Florida State University completed research in 2004 about racial stereotypes and their effects in sentencing.

"Generally the case for drug crimes is that African-Americans and Hispanics are consistently dealt with more harshly than white defendants," he said.

Chiricos said there is a perception that blacks are more likely to commit drug crimes than whites and that view indirectly influences sentencing. He called this trend "modern racism."

"It's not overt racism. In court, decisions have to be made about sentencing with imperfect information. Judges have to make a decision on who is more dangerous to the community," he said. "In absence of perfect information, the stereotyping fills the void and they get a harsher outcome."

Johnson, who has served in the Jefferson drug court for more than a decade, said he has noticed more white drug offenders than black appear in his court, though the numbers seem close.

"Race should have nothing to do with a sentence," Johnson said. "I know from being on the sentencing commission, there's people going to prison for long periods of time who shouldn't - and it's not just black folks."

While Stevenson and the sentencing commission may disagree on race playing a role in stiff sentencing, they agree that alternative measures should be taken for drug offenses - whether it be treatment programs like those offered by Johnson's court or more consistent sentences for first-time drug and alcohol offenses.

"With drug or substance abuse offenders, they're due punishment but we also have to come up with a way to get them treatment," said Black, who is also a member of the sentencing commission.

"If you made the sentencing scheme identical, we could eliminate these disparities," Stevenson said.

ON THE NET

Equal Justice Initiative at www.eji.org

Alabama Sentencing Commission at http://sentencingcommission.alacourt.gov

Posted by lois at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)

Prison "health care" is killing people who are incarcerated

Prison health care is killing inmates

By MARY BETH PFEIFFER
First published: Friday, April 1, 2005, Albany Times Union
The deaths of 23 inmates in jails across New York -- from Rikers Island to the Albany and Schenectady county lockups -- demonstrate the unseen perils of getting sick in facilities where medical care is contracted to companies seeking to make a profit.

But the alleged substandard practices of Prison Health Services, a Tennessee contractor exposed in articles by The New York Times and published in the Times Union, aren't limited to a single company and aren't merely a byproduct of privatization. They go on in many prisons in New York where health care is rendered by the state itself and health complaints of inmates are treated suspiciously, late and, often, not at all.
Consider the case of Andre Davidson. His mother and three children received a $900,000 settlement in 1999 after Davidson, 29, died at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Dutchess County from a series of worsening, and untreated, asthma attacks.
In 2001, Ibn Kenyatta won a $1 million settlement after his grossly distended bladder was ignored by Fishkill prison staff until his kidneys failed and he was rendered permanently unable to urinate.
And the state was held 100 percent liable the same year in the death at Cayuga prison of James Wooten, who knew he was lapsing into congestive heart failure and had desperately sought help. His young son was awarded $338,000.
As with Prison Health Services, state prison administrators have been sharply criticized by the Commission of Correction, a three-member board that investigates jail and prison deaths. But because it works for and is appointed by the man at the top of state government, George Pataki, the commission has not been nearly as strident in speaking out about care in state prisons as it has in county jails.
The Times series told of people who died unnecessarily from allegedly shoddy and indifferent care -- from a nuclear scientist denied his Parkinson's medicine at the Schenectady jail to a 35-year-old woman who was given Bengay during 10 agonizing days of chest pains at the Dutchess County jail. The commission's chair called Prison Health, which was contracted to provide health care in those facilities, "reckless and unprincipled in its corporate pursuits, irrespective of patient care," the Times reported.
Ironically, the commission has repeatedly found many of the same failures of care at state prisons, linking the deaths of inmates to poorly kept medical records, poorly dispensed medications, inadequate staff and tragically belated care. Twice in 2001, mentally ill inmates starved to death after obvious physical and psychological signs of distress were ignored, it found. And as at Rikers, state prison officials have been chastened at least two dozen times in recent years for lapses in mental health care that preceded suicides. Inmates, the commission reported, were abruptly dropped from care, denied medication or treated as if they were feigning illness.
But, contrary to its conclusions concerning Prison Health Services, the commission has shown little inclination to blame the system that produced those failures. Nor has it insisted that action be taken when prison officials have either disputed its findings or failed to discipline staff faulted by the commission.
The problem is first that the commission has no power to enforce its delicately labeled "recommendations." But secondly, it has an inherent conflict of interest as gubernatorial appointees, which neutralizes the reporting power it does have. Commission reports are often used in lawsuits filed by the families of dead inmates; as a result, the commission's findings in recent years have become increasingly cryptic and restrained. That is, except when criticizing -- rightfully, it would seem -- entities such as Prison Health Services.
A separate but related issue is the failure of state law to subject prison health care to the same scrutiny afforded other hospitals and clinics in the state, which are regulated by the state Health Department. Not so prisons. A pending bill would change that.
State-rendered prison health care may not be riddled with the type of "shocking incompetence and outright misconduct" that, according to the Times, the commission says it found in jails under contract with Prison Health. But there is little doubt that serious problems exist in inmate health care, as judges and their appointees have found.
At Green Haven prison, eight inmates died from 1992 to 2000 after receiving inadequate care -- even as the prison, the target of a class-action lawsuit over health care, was under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor. One inmate died of untreated meningitis, another of a staph infection ignored for six months. Significantly, most of those deaths were not even reviewed by the commission, which focuses almost exclusively on suicides. But for the lawsuit, they would likely have gone unnoticed, as many deaths do.
The need for commission independence and enforcement power is urgent. An estimated 10,000 inmates suffer from Hepatitis C; another 6,000 are infected with HIV. Complaints about substandard care are legion. When inmates are released sicker than when they went in, community systems are stressed and families suffer. Moreover, prisons have a moral obligation to care for people at their literal mercy when they get sick.

At a hearing on prison health care last year, Sister Antonia Maguire, a prison chaplain for 30 years, said she'd seen cancer patients wait months for care and HIV-positive inmates go without medicine.
"To be aware of such situations and to say nothing would make me a part of them," she said. "I cannot live with that on my conscience."
Would that the Commission of Correction had such fortitude.

Mary Beth Pfeiffer, who has reported extensively on state prisons, recently spent a year as a Soros Justice Media Fellow. Her e-mail address is marybethpf@aol.com.

Posted by lois at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)

Women Longtimers' Organize: read platform and sign!

Subject: Women Longtimers' Parole & Prison Reform Platform
The Insiders/Longtimers are a group of women who are organizing from inside a private prison in Louisiana. As most of you know, they were shipped to Louisiana after we sued Alabama for the unconstitutionally overcrowded conditions at Tutwiler Prison for Women. The Longtimers are, by and large, women who have served 10 years or more on long sentences, including life. Many would have been paroled by now, but the parole board's decision to essentially shut down parole for people serving time for violent offenses means these women will serve years and maybe decades more.unless the parole board reforms its policies.
The challenges and risks of organizing from inside a prison, where every aspect of your life is watched and controlled, are truly daunting. Yet, the Longtimers managed over the last few months to work collectively to create a platform demanding basic reforms that would make parole more fair. I've attached the 5-point platform they are asking people to sign on to. It would be tremendous if you could print it out, sign it, & send to:
The Longtimers/Insiders
P.O. Box 4951
Montgomery, AL 36103

Please read this and the attachment. Please print out the attachment, sign, if you can with an organizational affiliation, and send to the women. This email was written by Lisa Kung, their attorney. Do it now and then forward to others who will be interested in acting in support of the brave women longtimers’.

Lois

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Lisa Kung"
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 22:54:41 -0400
To:

I encourage you also to forward this email to likely supporters. And, of course, you can email/call me if you want more background on these women.

As the story says, they are looking for 500 individual signatures and 15 organizational signatories. Let's help them succeed in their incredibly beautiful & courageous act of resistance.

Female prisoners try to gain prison, parole reform
State inmates seek change from cells in Louisiana lockup

Friday, April 01, 2005
CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer

Alabama female prisoners locked in a rural Louisiana prison are demanding changes they say could give them a fairer shot at parole and curb the state's reliance on private, for-profit lockups.

Women at the South Louisiana Correctional Center, some of whom have been housed 500 miles from their families for two years, wrote a Platform for Fair Reform. The two-page document includes reasons for their concerns and five demands they think would improve their chances for getting parole and leading productive lives.
"We know we've changed, and we can make a difference if we have a chance," inmate Phyllis Richey, 44, who is from Muscle Shoals, said from the Basile, La., lockup where she has been since October.

Because of crowding in state prisons, Alabama so far has paid private companies more than $12 million to house prisoners in other states.

The women have asked for: Objective parole criteria, work-release opportunities, an end to the parole board's backlog, an end to the "heinous crime" designation that prevents some of them from working outside the prison and a chance to face their victims as well as the parole board.
The move to the Louisiana prison, 475 miles from Montgomery, makes it difficult or impossible for families to visit, the inmates said. Surrounded by rice fields, the prison has no classes, programs or rehabilitation groups, the opportunities prisoners rely on to show the parole board they have worked to better themselves.

"Down here, the time is not constructive. We have nothing to do. We're basically housed. That's it," said Richey, who helped draft the platform. She is serving a life sentence for murder, which occurred while she was driving drunk.
The prison is run by LCS Corrections, a company that plans to operate Alabama's first private prison.
Reason for denial:
Like Richey, most of the women in Louisiana are serving long sentences for violent crimes. Many of them have been turned down for parole before.
The board is not required to give a reason for the denial, which the inmates said leaves them with no guidance about what to do better. They want the board to set criteria for granting paroles.
Parole Board Assistant Executive Director Cynthia Dillard said the board has rules setting out when parole hearings can be set but no guarantees of parole.
"It's totally discretionary, the board has to believe they are not a risk to reoffend, and they have to not be a financial risk on the state if they're released," Dillard said.
That creates frustration for prisoners who are well behaved, said Lisa Kung, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta law firm that sued on the prisoners' behalf over conditions at Tutwiler. "The parole board makes its decision haphazardly based on culture and habit rather than the objective criteria that the long timers are asking for," she said.
Also, the board is a year behind on hearings for prisoners convicted of violent crimes. The delay stems from a law that requires the board to locate victims before holding hearings.
"We demand that the parole board clear their backlog and honor the parole consideration dates that are set by law," the women wrote.
The Department of Corrections has asked the state Legislature for an extra $14.9 million next year in anticipation of having to send more inmates, probably men, out of state.
Alabama houses about 270 women at the Louisiana prison. Special early paroles for nonviolent inmates helped drop the number below 150 at one time, but it's creeping back up as the state prison population rises. It costs the state $22.85 a day to house a woman in the Louisiana prison, about $2.3 million a year based on the current population.
For Richey, the most important part of the platform is the chance to face her victims.
"We cannot demand that our victims forgive us. But we would like the opportunity to present directly to the parole board our real selves and how we have changed through the years," the women wrote. "We believe our obligations are with the victims' families, not professional victims' groups or politicians who use victims for their own gain."
The women hope to gather 500 signatures on their platform as well as support from 15 organizations.
E-mail: ccrowder@bhamnews.com

THE INSIDERS/LONGTIMERS
Alabama Women Incarcerated in Basile, Louisiana

PLATFORM FOR FAIR REFORM

We, the Insiders/Longtimers, are Alabama women prisoners incarcerated in Louisiana as a result of the overcrowded conditions within the Alabama Prison System.

We have this platform to bring about awareness, and to voice our concerns about unfair conditions and treatment within the Alabama Prison System. Our concerns are directed toward the Legislature, Board of Pardons & Paroles, Department of Corrections, and the entire Judicial System.

The purpose of this group is to implement fair reform, ensure fair treatment, and demand guidelines and laws that will result in effective rehabilitation or those who need to be rehabilitated and immediate release of those who have been rehabilitated. For rehabilitation to take place, the overcrowded conditions must be eliminated, and that will not happen until the issues of concern below are addressed.

1. We demand that the parole board create and implement consistent, fair and objective criteria to determine release once we reach parole eligibility (1/3 of sentence or 10 years, whichever is less). Any override of the criteria must be presented to us in writing.

2. We demand that the parole board clear their backlog and honor the parole consideration dates that are set by law.

3. We demand that all offenders be permitted to participate in work release when we are within 36 months of our parole eligibility date.

4. We demand that the "heinous crime" designation be eliminated or reformed.

5. We cannot demand that our victims forgive us. But we would like the opportunity to present to the parole board in a face-to-face hearing our real selves and how we have changed through the years. We believe our obligations are with the victims' families, not professional victims' groups or politicians who use victims for their own gain.

The undersigned, ______________________________________________, (print name of individual or organization)

supports the Insiders/Longtimers in their efforts to have

Alabama change the way it spends its scarce criminal justice

dollars.

______________________________________________ (name of individual or organization)

______________________________________________
(address)

______________________________________________
(city, state, zip)

______________________________________________
(email)

______________________________________________
(daytime phone number)

Additional comments: _________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

Send to: Longtimers/Insiders
P.O. Box 4951
Montgomery, AL 36103

Lisa Kung

Southern Center for Human Rights

83 Poplar Street

Atlanta, GA 30303
(404) 688-1202 ext. 225
(404) 688-9440 (fax)

Posted by lois at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

MA: Culture of Viciousness in MA prisons

By Peter Reuell / Daily News Staff, MetroWest

Sunday, April 3, 2005
Guards in Bay State prisons have been disciplined more than 1,200 times in the last five years for offenses ranging from tardiness to having sex with prisoners, a Daily News examination of state records shows.

The records, released by the state Department of Correction in response to a state Public Records Law request filed by the Daily News, show 1,261 hearings were held in the last five years, including 360 involving guards at MetroWest and Milford/Franklin area prisons.

Just this week, a guard at a minimum security pre-release center in Framingham was indicted by a Middlesex grand jury on six counts of having sex with two inmates in 2003 and 2004.

The guard, Moises Ballista of Springfield, is suspended with pay while the charges are investigated. He could face up to five years in prison for each count and/or a $10,000 fine.
Ballista's is exactly the face state officials don't want attached to the department.

In an interview with Daily News editors last month, DOC Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy called improving the culture of the department a priority, and pledged to square off against the minority of guards accused of bad behavior.

"We are committed to dealing with the small percentage of the work force that causes problems," said Dennehy, who took over the department nearly a year ago.
"We are trying to break their culture," said Ron Duval, DOC associate commissioner for administration. "Their culture is it's all right to turn a blind eye when there's something wrong."
Dennehy's efforts, however, haven't won her many fans among guards.
"That is bulls---," Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, said this week, of claims that the culture among guards needs to be changed. "That's the commissioner's fairy tale.
"She wants everybody to believe there's this culture of viciousness among the staff," he said. "We recognize in a department of 5,000 people you are going to have people who break the rules...however, that doesn't translate into a culture of abuse."
DOC disciplinary records reveal scores of incidents involving guards found to be insubordinate or engaging in fights with other guards.
The DOC records show evidence of numerous incidents similar to the report of a Framingham guard who received a two-day suspension for making verbal threats to other staff members, or the Walpole guard who was suspended for five days for assaulting a superior officer.
Other reports include correction officers reporting to work with alcohol on their breath, sending explicit e-mails to female staff members, submitting false reports, lying or refusing to cooperate with investigators, sleeping on duty and even leaving posts to go to Dunkin' Donuts.
In recent years, guards have been cited for having improper relationships with inmates. One guard in Framingham was cited -- and later fired -- after he was seen driving an inmate's car around town.
The guard's name was not made public. For privacy reasons, the names of all the guards involved in disciplinary hearings were redacted from state records.
Several guards also have had serious run-ins with police, on charges that include drunken driving, attempting to buy drugs while in uniform and kidnapping and intimidating a witness.
For prison advocates including Leslie Walker, such stories are hardly news.
"It does not surprise me," said Walker, the executive director of Boston-based prison advocacy group Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. "It confirms what we have heard anecdotally and learned about in our work for years.
"It highlights the fact that the department has chosen to close their doors and exclude the media and the public, and until very recently has refused to reveal the dirty secrets that have been part of corrections for years."
Although she applauded Dennehy for her willingness to challenge the union to sweep problem officers from its ranks, Walker seemed doubtful about the commissioner's chances of success.
"She's plenty squared off (against them)," Walker said. "But the lack of respect for her...it's palpable.
"It's very difficult to figure out how this culture is ever going to change with this open contempt for the hand that feeds them. The union leadership does not represent the rank and file who want to put in their hours, do a decent job and then go home. They create an atmosphere of this blue wall of silence."
Prison researcher Kelsey Kauffman, however, warned against simply assuming all guards are sadists bent on terrorizing prisoners.
"It's important to understand the officers in my study ascribe to the very values we want to promote," said Kauffman, who authored a study of Massachusetts prisons, titled "Prison Officers and Their World," in 1988.
"What happens is they get into a situation that's untenable. Without having an officer subculture that supports them...they feel they can't survive."
Add into the mix that officers have total control over a segment of the population most people despise, Kauffman said, and the "Think about (pedophile priest John) Geoghan," she said. "Give somebody absolute power over him, and you just can't be surprised when things go wrong. The only brake you can put on this is to provide oversight."
Geoghan was transferred from a medium-security prison to a unit in a maximum-security facility after complaining of harassment by guards. Following his transfer, the former priest was beaten to death by another inmate.
Although Kauffman points to oversight as a key element, too often, that doesn't happen.
Too often, Kauffman said, for the public, the media and even administrators, prisons remain inscrutable, monolithic structures, and what goes on behind their closed doors remains hidden.
"The lack of oversight, and people not knowing what's going on is, The solution, Walker, Kauffman, and other prison advocates believe, is to attack the problem from many different angles.
First and foremost, Walker said, the department will need a tough-minded leader who's willing to take on the difficult job of creating change, something she believes they finally have in Dennehy.

The department must also submit to outside oversight on everything from budgets to contracts, and should allow for the creation of citizen oversight boards and/or the creation of an inspector general, both of which would ensure the public has a better understanding of what goes on inside prison walls.
"There is a culture in every organization," DOC Deputy Commissioner James Bender said this week. "Where it's negative, we need to address it. We're trying to work very closely with the union, we recognize that role and we respect that role, but, at the same time, there are incidents that need to be addressed."
Walker, however, insisted it will take wider changes before the department sees any real measure of change.
"It's the way these prisons are run," she said. "If you know there are not going to be serious repercussions...that sets up a culture of why not do it? It creates an atmosphere of, 'I can do whatever I want.' It's not a few rotten apples, it's the barrel itself that's rotten."
( (Peter Reuell can be reached at 508-626-4428 or at preuell@cnc.com) )

Today's Metro West Daily News (April 3, 2005) details 1200 Mass. Prison Guards having been disciplined in the past 5 years, and "culture of viciousness" within prisons.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=94790
(In CJPC's Report of the Governor's Commission on Corrections Reform: A Digest and Commentary, Sept. 2004, http://www.cjpc.org/doc_harshbarger_commentary.htm , the lack of an assessment of the existing culture was a major criticism. The Report provided no context for the change in culture that was urged by the Commission. From Commentary section of the CJPC review: "The current prison culture is nowhere specifically defined, nor is the culture towards which the DOC should move.")

Posted by lois at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2005

MA: Discretion Called for in School Zone Drug Case

Sunday, April 03, 2005 - To the Editor of Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, MA

A March 24 letter to the editor supported the prosecution, without exception, of school-zone charges carrying a minimum two-year sentence against all of the young people charged in the Triplex sting operation. The writer, Robin Mazzantini, asked, "Who are the more than 400 people who signed [the petition urging prosecutorial discretion]? Are they all relatives or close family friends?"

As a former assistant district attorney who has prosecuted, and now defends, school-zone cases, I stand with the more than 400 people asking the district attorney to use the discretion that comes with his office to decide whether any of these young people should face a two-year mandatory minimum sentence and felony conviction.

The school-zone charge, with its mandatory sentence, is a blunt instrument. It works as a penalty enhancement that may be tacked on to any charge of selling, or possessing drugs with the intent of selling, within 1,000 feet of a school property, whether college or day-care, whether in session or not. It applies to marijuana in any quantity and it applies whether or not the person charged is a first-time offender. It gives the district attorney the power to send a third-time offender selling crack cocaine on the steps of a middle school to state prison for two additional years. A district attorney can also, if he or she chooses, send a 17-year-old high school student with absolutely no record to prison for two years for selling a joint, blocks away from any school property.

The Legislature armed district attorneys with the school-zone charge with the expectation that a district attorney would go after the first defendant but would use his constitutionally granted prerogative to consider mitigating factors when dealing with the second.

The job of the district attorney is to decide, on behalf of the citizens of Berkshire County, when it is appropriate to seek the two-year penalty. Unfortunately, in Berkshire County, school-zone cases regularly go to trial without regard to the costs, both human and fiscal.

District Attorney Capeless has agreed to listen to, and consider, alternatives to the school-zone penalty in the Triplex cases. He is to be applauded for this. Ms. Mazzantini asks: "If these teens were black and in the west side of the city, would they get the same consideration?" They should.

IRA J. KAPLAN
Great Barrington,
March 30, 2005

Posted by lois at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2005

Skewing Democracy: Where The Census Counts Prionsers

SKEWING DEMOCRACY: WHERE THE CENSUS COUNTS PRISONERS

New York's conservative State Senator Dale Volker is glad prisoners can't vote, because if they did, as he told Newhouse News Service, "They would never vote for me." Given Volker's role as the leading defender of the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws, prisoner opposition to Volker might not be surprising. But that Volker, who represents a mostly white rural part of the state, would care who the state's mostly Black, Latino and urban prisoners might vote for is, on the surface, surprising.

The explanation is that Volker owes his seat to a once-obscure Census Bureau glitch that credits the prison location with the population of prisoners involuntarily incarcerated there. Without credit for the 8,951 prisoners in his district, Volker's sparsely populated rural district would need to be redrawn.

Our modern conception of democracy -- based on the One Person, One Vote rule that requires legislative districts to be redrawn each decade to contain roughly equal numbers of people -- is now skewed by the Census Bureau's outdated method of counting incarcerated people. The Bureau developed the "usual residence rule" for determining where people are counted for the first Census in 1790. While the rule for other special populations like students and military have evolved over time, the method of counting prisoners remains mired in the past.

In 1790, this rule might have made sense, because the Census Bureau had a far simpler purpose: to count the number of people in each state, in order to determine their relative populations for purposes of Congressional reapportionment. It did not matter -- for purposes of comparing New York's population to New Jersey's -- whether an incarcerated person was counted at home in New York City or in the remote Attica Prison, as long as they were counted in the right state. Although our society and our uses for Census data have changed radically since 1790, the Census' method of counting prisoners has unfortunately remained the same.

SOME STATE IMPACTS

The Census Bureau developed its methods for its own purposes and admits, right in its residence rules, that where it counts some populations "is not necessarily the same as the person's voting residence or legal residence." But that is precisely the type of count the states require for internal redistricting. While all states currently rely on Census Bureau data for drawing legislative districts, most states have state constitutional clauses or election law statutes that explicitly define a prisoner's residence to be the place where she or he lived prior to incarceration. Simply put, states that rely on federal Census data to draw state legislative districts violate not only federal One Person, One Vote requirements but their own state constitutions. Census Bureau data as currently collected is inappropriate for use within states because it does not reflect how these states define residence for election purposes.

The impact of the Census Bureau's outdated counting method on the fair distribution of political power is aggravated by the radical changes in incarceration patterns since the mid-1970s. From 1980 to 2000, the number of people in prison quadrupled. Alongside a large and growing racial disparity in who gets sent to prison has been a growing trend to locate prisons in rural areas far from the urban communities that most prisoners originate from. In New York, for example, 66% of the state's prisoners come from New York City, but all of the 43 new prisons built in New York since 1976 have been built upstate. Ninety-one percent of New York's prisoners are incarcerated in the upstate region of the state. This geographic disparity translates into a clear racial disparity as well: Although the New York State prison population is 82% Black or Latino, 98% of the prison cells are located in State Senate districts that are disproportionately White. Because of these trends, what might have once been a matter of little consequence has developed into a crisis that violates state and federal constitutional protections.

IMPACT ON HOME COMMUNITIES

So while politicians like Dale Volker benefit, the people who pay the highest price for this policy are the Black, Latino and urban communities from which most prisoners come. This counting practice intersects with other punitive electoral policies to great negative effect. Forty-eight states (all but Maine and Vermont) bar prisoners from voting, and 33 states including New York ban parolees from the polls. The burden for this disenfranchisement falls most heavily on minority communities. In New York, 62% of the state population is White, but 82% of the prison population is Black or Latino. Disenfranchisement disproportionately denies these minority voters a voice in government.

As recently argued by the National Voting Rights Institute and the Prison Policy Initiative in a friend of the court brief challenging New York's disenfranchisement policies, this counting practice illustrates how the effects of disenfranchisement extend beyond those convicted of crimes to affect entire communities not under criminal justice control. Disenfranchisement may be nominally aimed at the "guilty," but its effects are felt as well by the innocent families and communities from which the prison population is taken, because their legislative representation is diminished by the interplay of felon disenfranchisement laws and the method of counting prisoners for redistricting purposes.

While not all states have yet received the same level of detailed study as New York, the Census counting method creates problems for democracy in virtually every state. Sixty percent of Illinois' prisoners call Cook County (Chicago) home, yet 99% of the state's prison cells are outside the County. Los Angeles County supplies 34% of California's prisoners, yet only 3% of the state's prisoners are incarcerated there. Philadelphia is the legal residence for 40% of Pennsylvania's prisoners, but Philadelphia County contains no state prisons.

My "Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout" report series has applied this regional analysis down to the district level in eight states. In Texas, one rural district's population is almost 12% prisoners. Every group of 88 residents in that district are represented in the State House as if they were 100 residents from urban Houston or Dallas. Even states with lower incarceration rates see serious distortions in their democratic processes. In one Montana district, 15% of the population is disenfranchised prisoners from other parts of the state.

SOME HOPEFUL SIGNS OF CHANGE

Until recently, this was an unrecognized issue. Tracy Huling discovered the prisoner counting issue shortly before Census 2000 while preparing her groundbreaking 1999 documentary about rural prisons, "Yes In My Backyard". While this was far too late to make a change in that Census, her work sparked interest in measuring the effects. The first "Importing Constituents" report quantified the distortions in each New York legislative district, but was not completed until shortly before the new district lines were finalized. Since then, the national Prisoners of the Census project at the Prison Policy Initiative has worked to extend this analysis to other states.

The growing interest in this issue suggests that a change in Census counting policy may be possible before the 2010 Census. Historically, the Census Bureau has proven itself very responsive to the needs of its data users, provided such issues are presented early in the Census planning process. The method of counting other special populations has changed numerous times, in each case responding to the country's changing demographics and needs. When evolving demographics meant more college students studying far from home and more Americans living overseas, the Census policy changed in order to more accurately reflect how many Americans were living where.

Also encouraging is the work of many state-based advocates who are proposing legislation in Illinois and other states to correct how the Census Bureau counts prisoners. If the Census Bureau fails to correct this serious flaw in its data, state officials are discovering that they can take matters in to their own hands to preserve the fairness of their election districts.

http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/fact-28-3-2005.shtml

This article, originally prepared in February, was published in the March/April 2005 issue of Poverty & Race, the newsletter of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council.
Peter Wagner http://www.PrisonersoftheCensus.org
pwagner@prisonpolicy.org http://www.prisonpolicy.org
Prison Policy Initiative PO Box 127 Northampton, MA 01061

Posted by lois at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

AL: Women who are Incarcerated Work to Gain Prison & Parole Reform

The Birmingham News
Female prisoners try to gain prison, parole reform
State inmates seek change from cells in Louisiana lockup Friday, April 01, 2005

CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer

Alabama female prisoners locked in a rural Louisiana prison are demanding changes they say could give them a fairer shot at parole and curb the state's reliance on private, for-profit lockups.

"We know we've changed, and we can make a difference if we have a chance," inmate Phyllis Richey, 44, who is from Muscle Shoals, said from the Basile, La., lockup where she has been since October.

Because of crowding in state prisons, Alabama so far has paid private companies more than $12 million to house prisoners in other states.

The move to the Louisiana prison, 475 miles from Montgomery, makes it difficult or impossible for families to visit, the inmates said. Surrounded by rice fields, the prison has no classes, programs or rehabilitation groups, the opportunities prisoners rely on to show the parole board they have worked to better themselves.

The prison is run by LCS Corrections, a company that plans to operate Alabama's first private prison.

Reason for denial:

Like Richey, most of the women in Louisiana are serving long sentences for violent crimes. Many of them have been turned down for parole before.

The board is not required to give a reason for the denial, which the inmates said leaves them with no guidance about what to do better. They want the board to set criteria for granting paroles.

Parole Board Assistant Executive Director Cynthia Dillard said the board has rules setting out when parole hearings can be set but no guarantees of parole.

"It's totally discretionary, the board has to believe they are not a risk to reoffend, and they have to not be a financial risk on the state if they're released," Dillard said.

That creates frustration for prisoners who are well behaved, said Lisa Kung, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta law firm that sued on the prisoners' behalf over conditions at Tutwiler. "The parole board makes its decision haphazardly based on culture and habit rather than the objective criteria that the long timers are asking for," she said.

Also, the board is a year behind on hearings for prisoners convicted of violent crimes. The delay stems from a law that requires the board to locate victims before holding hearings.

"We demand that the parole board clear their backlog and honor the parole consideration dates that are set by law," the women wrote.

The Department of Corrections has asked the state Legislature for an extra $14.9 million next year in anticipation of having to send more inmates, probably men, out of state.

Alabama houses about 270 women at the Louisiana prison. Special early paroles for nonviolent inmates helped drop the number below 150 at one time, but it's creeping back up as the state prison population rises. It costs the state $22.85 a day to house a woman in the Louisiana prison, about $2.3 million a year based on the current population.

For Richey, the most important part of the platform is the chance to face her victims.

"We cannot demand that our victims forgive us. But we would like the opportunity to present directly to the parole board our real selves and how we have changed through the years," the women wrote. "We believe our obligations are with the victims' families, not professional victims' groups or politicians who use victims for their own gain."

The women hope to gather 500 signatures on their platform as well as support from 15 organizations.

E-mail: ccrowder@bhamnews.com
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1112350937241610.
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Posted by lois at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

CT: Rell May Shut Juvenile Jail That Aided Rowland's Fall

April 2, 2005, NY Times
Rell May Shut Juvenile Jail That Aided Rowland's Fall
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN

Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut said yesterday that she was considering closing the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, the cheerless prison that became a costly symbol of corruption for the previous Republican administration.

The prison is one of the reasons for Gov. John G. Rowland's fall, and for his one-year prison sentence, which he began serving yesterday.

In a statement that took many by surprise, Mrs. Rell directed the state's Department of Children and Families to come up with a plan for the facility by Aug. 1. She said that the prison did not adequately serve the needs of the children who are sent there, and that "the cost of failing to provide meaningful change in these lives is far too high - too high in terms of dollars, wasted lives and defeated dreams."

One option, she made clear, included shutting it and "better serving its students by transferring as many as possible to community-based residential or other types of treatment programs."

"It's about time," said Travis Ruffin, a 17-year-old who lived at the school and returned last year as part of a film crew that made a critical documentary about it.

The option of placing children in small community settings had been on the table in 1998, after a teenager commited suicide at the previous, outmoded youth facility.

But many lawmakers and elected officials who favored small community-based centers remember being overruled by the Rowland administration. The governor and his aides chose instead to use land the state owned in Middletown to build one large prison for juveniles.

"Rowland wasn't really thinking about what was best for the children," said Domenique S. Thornton, Middletown's Democratic mayor. "I don't know what he was thinking."

The construction contract, like many in the Rowland years, went to the Tomasso family of New Britain, which had personal ties to Mr. Rowland and one 9f his co-chiefs of staff, Peter N. Ellef. The cost to taxpayers was $57 million, including the Tomassos' $3.3 million fee.

In December, Mr. Rowland pleaded guilty to having conspired to deprive taxpayers of his honest services and of committing tax fraud. As part of the plea, he acknowledged that he approved the juvenile prison as a member of the state bond commission without disclosing that he had previously accepted gifts worth $15,000 from the Tomassos.

Mr. Rowland also acknowledged that he failed to act after learning that William A. Tomasso had gained an edge in the bidding process when he accompanied Mr. Ellef on a tour, before the job was publicized, of some Ohio facilities that were likely to be the model for Connecticut.

Mr. Ellef, Mr. Tomasso and their associates have maintained their innocence as they face trial for fraud and racketeering.

Mrs. Rell's call for new ideas for the juvenile facility came on the same day that Mr. Rowland began serving his sentence of a year and a day in a minimum-security Pennsylvania prison camp.

The State Senate's president pro-tem, Donald E. Williams Jr., a Democrat, said he found it "somewhat fitting that we focus on this on the very day that former Gov. John Rowland is going to jail to a facility that is far less secure, I would add, than the juvenile training school for children."

Senator Williams said he found it "a great disappointment that we've reached the stage where we're looking at walking away from a $57 million investment. At the same time, I think it's confirmation that this project was pure folly from the outset."

From the day it opened in August 2001, the training school has had detractors who criticized its somber design, understocked library and cinder-block dorm rooms that often lacked windows. Senator Williams likened the rooms to "tiger cages." But at a speech last spring, Governor Rowland praised the facility, saying, "It's as nice as any college campus."

Recently, the state has been paying about $514,000 a year for housing, education and other services for each child at the Middletown center. State officials, meanwhile, have found other arrangements for some children and discouraged new admissions to lower the headcount while improvements to the design and the programs were considered. Although it was initially billed as a 240-bed facility, it serves only 64 boys, tended by a staff of 366.

Mrs. Rell, who has authorized $1.2 million to buy desks and books and widen the extremely narrow windows, noted in her press release that the prison's shortcomings "are painfully and expensively obvious." She promised that whatever the outcome, the state would "protect its construction investment" by finding a use for the campus.

Mayor Thornton, who said she had never supported the plan to build the juvenile facility in Middletown, said she was bracing herself for the possibility that the state would try to use the place as an adult prison or for short-term mental health assessment and treatment. She said her preference would be for the state to give the property to Middletown, much as it has made available other valuable parcels to Norwich, Newtown and Stratford for redevelopment.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compa

Posted by lois at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)