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August 31, 2005

Center for Constitutional Rights: Fed. Judge Rules on Kickback in Contract betweeen NY State and MCI

Center for Constitutional Rights Press Release

FEDERAL JUDGE RULES ON CONSTITUTIONALITY OF KICKBACK IN CONTRACT BETWEEN NEW YORK STATE PRISONS AND MCI

August 30, 2005, New York, NY – Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights today announced a major victory for the families and friends of people incarcerated in New York State prisons. The federal trial court in Byrd v. Goord issued an opinion upholding the constitutional challenge lodged by inmates’ families, ministers, friends, and counselors to the inmate telephone system in New York, which is designed to provide the Department of Correctional Services with millions of dollars in “commissions” or “kickbacks.” MCI and the New York State Department of Correctional Services entered a monopoly contract that charges family members hugely inflated rates to speak with their loved ones in prison and gives a 60 percent commission on the profits back to the State. The same system has been implemented in most states across the country, and has made it extremely difficult for families to speak with their loved ones in prison.

“The decision,” according to CCR Deputy Legal Director Barbara Olshansky, “is an important victory for inmates’ families seeking to maintain ties with their loved ones in prison. It is also a resounding confirmation by the court of the principle that inmates do not lose their constitutional rights when they enter the prison gates, and that no person may be penalized or taxed for seeking to maintain their relationship with a loved one in prison.”

CCR cooperating attorney Moshe Maimon of Levy, Phillips & Konigsberg, stated that “based on this decision and our evidence in this case, we are confident that the court will find that the surcharges imposed by the Department of Correctional Services on inmate calls are an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of prisoners and their families to keep in touch.”

Annette Dickerson, CCR’s statewide coordinator of the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, said, “The victory sends a signal that this unjust and unlawful practice is nearing the end of its days. The fewer impediments to prisoners speaking with family, the better for all of us: maintaining contact with family is one of the most important factors in staying out of trouble and out of prison when a person is released.”

Robert Perry, CCR Cooperating counsel concluded that “the Court’s decision today – that families have the right to stay connected, and that the loved ones of prisoners cannot be singled out to fund correctional services – is a big success, and we are expecting many more.”

On October 27, 2000, Ms. Olshansky and Mr. Maimon argued on behalf of New York State inmates and their families to oppose the State=s and MCI=s motions to dismiss the case. After the motions were argued before the Honorable George B. Daniels, MCI filed for bankruptcy and the entire matter was referred to bankruptcy court, causing much of the delay in getting a resolution to the dismissal motions. Since that time, the State has received approximately $125 million from inmate telephone calls, in what has essentially been an unlegislated tax on inmates’ families and friends.

Although the Byrd v. Goord lawsuit challenged the restriction of calls to collect only, the limitation of statewide service to one provider only, and the 60% commission/kickback taken by the State, the federal court upheld only the constitutional challenges to the State’s kickback. The court gave approval for the First Amendment, due process, and equal protection claims to go forward.

The decision comes shortly after CCR filed an appeal earlier this month in Walton v. MCI and NYSDOCS, a lawsuit challenging the prison telephone contract in State court. The New York State Assembly recently passed the Family Connections Bill to end the State’s kickback and reform the contract at the end of its session, while the companion Senate Bill remains in committee.

Currently, the only way for families to speak with their loved ones in most state prisons is for prisoners to call collect, and family members who accept the calls must accept the terms dictated by the phone company. Since states receive kickback commissions from the phone companies who receive the contract, there is no incentive to seek competitive bids. The contract goes to the company that provides the highest kickback, not the lowest fees. Rates for such calls are set well above market rates: in New York State, families pay a $3 connection fee and 16¢ per minute a 630 percent mark up over regular residential consumer rates. Current rates at Federal prisons are as low as 7¢ a minute. Meanwhile, those who accept these calls face staggering bills and must often choose between basic necessities and the chance to speak with their loved ones. Since prisoners come disproportionately from poor communities, the burden of staying in touch falls heaviest on those with the least ability to pay.

The New York Campaign for Telephone Justice works to end the kickback contract between MCI and the New York State Department of Correctional Services, and deliver choice, affordability, and equitable service to the families and friends of those incarcerated in New York State. The campaign is a project of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in partnership with Prison Families Community Forum and Prison Families of New York, Inc.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Posted by lois at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

Poverty Rate Continues to Climb

washingtonpost.com
Poverty Rate Continues To Climb
2004 Census Data Show Labor Market Is Still Struggling
By Jonathan Weisman and Ceci Connolly
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; A03

Despite robust economic growth last year, 1.1 million more Americans slipped into poverty in 2004, while household incomes stagnated and earnings fell, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 800,000, to 45.8 million.

The Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance sheds light on voter discontent with the economy in the face of seemingly strong economic data. The broad data draw a picture of a labor market still struggling to find its footing, three years after the 2001 recession.

"The poverty rate seems to be the last lonely lagging indicator of the business cycle," said E.R. Anderson, chief of staff in the Commerce Department's economic directorate, which oversees the Census Bureau.

The median household income stood at $44,389 last year, down slightly from the 2003 level of $44,482. But that level was propped up by more people going to work for lower earnings. A full-time male worker earned a median income of $40,798 last year, down $963 in inflation-adjusted dollars from 2003. Women's median earnings fell $327, to $31,223.

The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen. The increase was borne completely by non-Hispanic whites, the only ethnic group that saw its poverty rate rise. The percentage of whites in poverty rose from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 8.6 percent. African Americans saw no change in their poverty rate, which remained at 24.7 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics remained at 21.9 percent, while Asian Americans' poverty levels dropped by two percentage points, to 9.8 percent.

The Midwest was the only region that saw both the poverty rate rise and median household income fall, a "double whammy," said Ron Haskins, a welfare economist at the Brookings Institution.

The percentage without health insurance -- 15.7 percent -- did not change, but only because the expanding federal insurance programs compensated for a continuing decline in employer-provided health care. Last year, 27.2 percent of the population received medical care through the government, up from 26.6 percent in 2003.

The findings on poverty and health insurance are directly linked, said Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, noting that "more people are falling into the low-income groups that qualify" for Medicaid.

From the start of President Bush's first term in 2001 to 2004, the number of Americans without health insurance increased from 41.2 million to 45.8 million. Last year's uninsured rate was the highest it has been since 1998.

Two-thirds of the growth came from the Hispanic community, where the number of people without health coverage rose from 13.2 million in 2003 to 13.7 million last year.

Hispanic workers "are much less likely to have health insurance offers with jobs than they were 10 years ago," said Len Nichols, a health economist at the nonpartisan New America Foundation.

Michael J. O'Grady, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, said Bush's effort to expand the nation's network of community health centers will help bring care to more immigrants.

Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said more people are choosing Medicaid because it is a better deal than private coverage. "Medicaid has been expanded so much it includes a lot of people who could afford private coverage," he said.

But independent research suggests fewer companies are offering health insurance, Rowland said. "If Medicaid had not been offsetting some losses in the employer-based coverage, you would be seeing potentially another 1 million or 1.5 million more uninsured," she said.

In recent years, a growing chorus of economists and politicians have questioned the veracity of the poverty rates, median income level and number of uninsured. The Census Bureau's own alternative measurements of poverty -- which consider regional differences in cost of living, out-of-pocket medical expenses and more sophisticated inflation measures -- have consistently indicated that the official poverty level understates the problem. Conservatives object that the numbers do not capture assistance from food stamps, government insurance programs, housing aid or the earned-income tax credit.

The poverty data "are fundamentally flawed in measuring whether people are actually in some impoverished state of being," said Steven J. Davis, an economist at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

Charles Nelson, the Census Bureau's assistant division chief for income, poverty and health statistics, said the annual report does accurately capture the trends in poverty, income and insurance rates.

Locally, the picture was brighter. At $57,424, Maryland's median household income was above the national median, as was Virginia's, at $51,689, and the District's, at $46,574. With a median household income of $88,133, Fairfax County was the richest county in the nation in 2004. Of the five most affluent counties, three were in the Washington area -- Montgomery County was the fourth richest, with a median household income of $82,971; Howard County was just behind, with a median household income of $82,065.

Anderson said the new poverty numbers, while disappointing, were expected.

Poverty rates peaked years after the end of the recessions in the early 1980s and 1990s as well, she said.

"We're not happy about it, but going forward the trends are going the way we want them to go," she said.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Posted by lois at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)

NY: Court to Hear Lawsuit AGainst MCI

Court to hear lawsuit on cost of inmate calls

By MARK JOHNSON, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, August 31, 2005

ALBANY -- A court will hear a challenge to the telephone rates that relatives of prisoners face under a state contract for collect calls from prisons, a federal judge ruled.
Advertisement

The suit filed in 2000 accuses MCI Inc. and the state Correctional Services Department with charging hugely inflated prices that make it unaffordable for many families to talk to their loved ones behind bars.

"It's really distressing to see the effect this has on families," said Barbara Olshansky on Tuesday.

She is deputy legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of inmates' families and others.

The Aug. 26 decision by U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan throws out challenges to the state's policy of allowing inmates to only make collect calls and of limiting service to one provider.

But the judge did allow the challenge to the billing system -- in which the state takes 60 percent of the profits -- to proceed.

Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Linda Foglia said Tuesday that it was department policy not to comment on pending litigation.

Under a billing plan revised in July 2003, recipients of inmate calls pay a $3 access charge and 16 cents a minute, whether local or long distance.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press.

All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2005, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.

Posted by lois at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times--MCI price gouging--"Please Deposit All Your Money"

August 31, 2005
Please Deposit All Your Money
Faced with high prison costs, the states have been desperately seeking ways to make sure that people who are released from prison will forge viable lives outside - and not end up right back behind bars. Part of the solution is to help former inmates find training, jobs and places to live. In this context, the increasingly common practice of jacking up the costs of inmates' telephone calls to bankrupting levels, and then using the profits to pay for some prison activities, is self-defeating and inhumane. It also amounts to a hidden tax on prisoners' families, who tend to be among the poorest in American society.

A vast majority of the state prison systems have telephone setups that allow only collect calls. The person who accepts the call pays a premium that is sometimes as much as six times the going rate. Part of the money goes to the state itself in the form of a "commission" - or, more simply put, a legal kickback.

While such commissions are common throughout the country, the one in New York is particularly high: the state takes a commission of nearly 60 percent. Faced with telephone bills of $400 or more a month, the inmates' families must often choose between paying phone bills or paying the rent. This billing strategy erodes fragile family ties by discouraging prisoners from keeping in touch with loved ones - especially small children - who often have difficulty visiting because they live hundreds of miles away. Inmates who lack family ties are less likely to make a successful transition once released, and more likely to end up back inside.

While most states use collect-calls-only phone systems for prisons, federal prisons use a less expensive and less onerous debit-calling system. Federal inmates are allowed to use money that is accumulated in computer-controlled accounts to call a limited number of phone numbers. Prison rights groups have long urged the states to adopt the debit-calling system. Lawsuits pending in several states, including in New York, could eventually force prison authorities to abandon their policies of allowing only collect calls. And the New York State Assembly has passed a bill that, if it becomes law, will put an end to this system.

New York state corrections officials argue that the current system is good thing because the money goes to pay for AIDS treatments, cable television for inmates and other prison programs that benefit the inmates. But the inmates' families already support the prison system through their taxes. Dunning the poor to run the prisons where so many of the poor wind up may have been acceptable in Dickens's time, but no longer.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 06:21 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2005

West Virginia- The Prison State

By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
August 29, 2005

- Wild, wonderful West Virginia, a land of steep mountains and untamed waters, has gained some publicity over the years as a pleasant place for hunters, coal miners and, more recently, federal convicts.

While most states tend to shy away from inviting notorious felons into the neighborhood, West Virginia has taken to welcoming federal inmates with open arms.

The Mountain State has five federal prisons, including the just-opened $148 million correctional facility in Hazleton. Nearby, construction of a 512-bed women's prison, at a cost of $76 million, is under way. And the federal Bureau of Prisons has announced plans to build another medium-security prison in McDowell County in the southern portion of the state that will house 1,300 inmates.

Once the projects are completed, the state will host seven federal prisons. Total population, currently at 6,789, will eventually mount to 9,429. At that point, federal prisoners collectively would constitute the 17th-largest city in West Virginia.

Recently, the minimum-security camp in Alderson hosted one of the nation's most famous jailbirds, domestic maven Martha Stewart, who served several months for her part in lying to federal investigators about a stock sale.

Four states - California, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania - feature more federal prisons than West Virginia. But they dwarf West Virginia in both geographic size and population. West Virginia is 41st in size and its 1.8 million residents make it 37th in population.

Prisoners have become the equivalent of a cash crop in West Virginia. The state's enthusiasm for housing some of America's worst criminals can be traced to two factors - a sluggish economy and the indefatigable efforts of Sen. Robert Byrd.

West Virginia is, and historically has been, a poor state. Its economy long was based on coal mining - 26 of the state's 55 counties produce coal. But mining jobs have dropped off drastically over the past several decades, and state officials have been searching for ways to replace them. West Virginia's median income in 2003 was a little more than $46,000, placing it ahead of only Mississippi and New Mexico.

The federal prisons serve as economic development tools. The Bureau of Prisons reports that the Hazleton facility will employ 350 people when it becomes fully operational in 2006 and pump $39 million a year into the economy. The women's prison under construction will provide another 100 jobs, and the reformatory planned for McDowell County - to be built atop an abandoned surface mine - will mean 330 jobs and $35 million in annual economic benefit.

Heading the campaign to transform West Virginia into the world's largest penal colony is the 87-year-old Byrd, who has spent 47 years in the Senate. As ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd over the years has established that he isn't shy about funneling federal largesse to his home state. In 1990 he declared, "I want to be West Virginia's billion-dollar industry." He has proved successful in that endeavor, and much of his attention over the past few years has been directed at bringing federal prisons and their accompanying jobs to the Mountain State.

Byrd said the new facility in Hazleton will "provide hundreds of jobs for local residents while also playing an important role in the nation's justice system."

"The Bureau of Prisons needs more capacity and West Virginia needs more jobs," he said. "I think that adds up to a mutually beneficial partnership."

Unlike some politicians, Byrd displays no reluctance about filling his home state with lawbreakers.

"Even for those who have gone very far astray, there is hope," he said. "Forgiveness is possible."

Still, there is something ironic about situating federal prisons in West Virginia, a rustically beautiful state whose high mountains, green forests and whitewater would seem to make it more attractive to hunters and other outdoorsmen than hardened criminals.

In 2003, the FBI reported that the state suffered a violent-crime rate of 257.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. Only Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin came in lower. That means not too many native sons and daughters are being kept behind West Virginia's prison walls.

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=WVAPRISONS-08-29-05&cat=AN>

Posted by lois at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

NY: Plattsburgh Proves There Can be Life After Base Closure

"As the development council was getting its feet on the ground, several quick-fix proposals were put forward. One group of Mohawk Native Americans began talking about a resort and casino. Others in the area favored a prison, which offered good-paying jobs and no environmental issues, on the site. But the community quickly decided it would not take that route. "A community facing closure has to decide if it wants the quick fix like a prison or another military operation and they have to decide firmly," Douglas said. "We decided that we weren't going for the quick fix because it precluded a lot of other things that may be better."

Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/28/05
BY JOE LO TEMPLIO
SPECIAL TO THE PRESS

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. ‹ When leaders in Plattsburgh first heard the local Air Force base would be closing, they felt physically ill. "It was like getting punched right in the stomach. It was a sick feeling," said Mark L. Barie, who was chairman of the Plattsburgh Chamber of Commerce when the base was slated for closure in 1993.

It was a situation with which municipal leaders from the towns surrounding Fort Monmouth, targeted last week by the Base Realignment and Closure commission for closure, can now sympathize. And as officials in Eatontown, Oceanport and Tinton Falls prepare for an uncertain future, officials near the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base have some words of advice: "Don't waste time thinking you are going to fight the decision, because it just isn't going to happen," said Garry Douglas, President and CEO of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce.

With more than 10 years of post-BRAC experience, Plattsburgh provides a glimpse into the do's and don't's of base redevelopment. Among the most practical suggestions: Get over the shock, keep politics out of the process, decide what you want the base to be in the future and make sure your decision-making agency is small enough to be efficient.

A surprise decision

Plattsburgh advocates had carefully promoted the base as a viable and relevant facility to Air Force generals. Built in the mid-1950s as a Strategic Air Command base, with nuclear bombers poised to fly against targets in the Soviet Union, the base needed a new mission after the Cold War ended. By early 1993, the hope in Plattsburgh was that the base was going to become the major hub for the Air Force's East Coast airlift and air refueling operations ‹ with many of its new aircraft coming from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

At its peak, Plattsburgh, sitting on Lake Champlain a short drive from the Canadian border, was home to about 4,400 military personnel and their families. More aircraft and more personnel were to be on their way, ensuring more years of economic benefit to the area.

But in the weeks leading up to the final decision, the communities around Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y., and McGuire in New Jersey rallied to save their bases, which were proposed targets for closure.

Plattsburgh leaders were hoping then New York Gov. Mario Cuomo would provide the political clout needed to stave off closure. But Cuomo would not pick between the two bases in his state. He would describe the dilemma as that of a father having to pick one of two children.

Meanwhile, New Jersey officials led by Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J., mounted a well-financed campaign to point out shortcomings at Plattsburgh and burnish McGuire's attributes. In the end, McGuire came away with all the riches and both Plattsburgh and Griffiss were closed.

"For us, dealing with the base closure was different than many communities because most of them were on the list for closure and were kind of expecting it," Douglas said. "We weren't expecting it at all, so there was the initial stun factor."

"No clear mission"

In the summer of 1993, the Air Force announced Plattsburgh would officially close on Sept. 30, 1995, giving the community about two years to prepare a team to take over the property and begin the redevelopment process. Leaders were warned about letting politics bog down the efforts and not to make the transition team too big.

But that's exactly what happened.

The Plattsburgh Intermunicipal Development Council was created, featuring 15 members from government, education and business. "It was an unmitigated disaster," Barie recalled. "It was too big and had no clear mission or purpose."

For a while there was talk of suing the federal government over the BRAC decision or seeking an alternative military use for the base property. Douglas warns that such efforts are futile.

"You can't dwell on the past. You need to see it as the loss of a friend. You mourn, you grieve, you say your farewells but then you move on," he said.

Assemblyman Chris Ortloff, a member of the development council, wanted to fight the BRAC move. He sees it differently now. "Don't spend a lot of time in mourning," he said. "Get yourself prepared to negotiate the best deal you can with the Army for the property. Don't let them give you a bunch of buildings with asbestos and lead paint."

Many proposals

As the development council was getting its feet on the ground, several quick-fix proposals were put forward. One group of Mohawk Native Americans began talking about a resort and casino. Others in the area favored a prison, which offered good-paying jobs and no environmental issues, on the site. But the community quickly decided it would not take that route. "A community facing closure has to decide if it wants the quick fix like a prison or another military operation and they have to decide firmly," Douglas said. "We decided that we weren't going for the quick fix because it precluded a lot of other things that may be better."

Political squabbles

By the time the Air Force was ready to send off the final KC-135 Stratotanker in the fall of 1995, the Plattsburgh Intermunicipal Development Council had evolved into the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corporation. The redevelopment corporation was a smaller group (seven members) with more business representation. David Holmes, an out-of-state businessman, was hired to lead the redevelopment effort. But less than a year into his contract, Holmes left amid political squabbles.

Plattsburgh Mayor Daniel Stewart, who was a city councillor in 1995, said the political in-fighting was a distraction. "Regardless of what party you are, you have to learn how to play in the same sandbox because nothing will kill redevelopment quicker than combative local politics," Stewart said.

Phish and bottle caps

Barie took over in early 1996, and the main goal was to find something for the massive flight line. But he first had to deal with hosting a concert for the immensely popular rock group Phish.

Under a deal made with Holmes, Phish, natives of Vermont, a short ferry ride across Lake Champlain, would hold a three-day music festival called the Clifford Ball on the flight line of Plattsburgh in August 1996. About 100,000 people showed up, and officials estimated nearly $25 million was pumped into the local economy.

And since the event was held at the base, a base designed to be secluded for security measures, the local community hardly even knew the concert was going on.

But when redevelopment officials took a look at the monstrous amount of debris left behind on their flight line (cracks in the cement were filled with beer-bottle caps, an absolute no-no for jet engines) they decided that would be the end of concerts.

"I spent about six months dealing with that alone," Barie said. "Here I am trying to talk to the Pratt & Whitneys of the world and we're having this concert."

Courting big business

With Phish gone, Barie and the redevelopment board began to get serious about bringing in business. They came close in 1997 with TAG Aero Group and a few other smaller aviation companies. But Barie, like Holmes, became a victim of the political wars and he left after 23 months on the job. "It will be the rare community that divorces itself from the politics in the aftermath of a base closure," Barie said. He was replaced by Daniel Wieneke, who served as Barie's assistant. Under Wieneke's leadership, base redevelopment eventually began to flourish. Pratt & Whitney set up an engine-testing facility on the flight line and several other companies bought or rented space on it, creating more than 1,000 jobs.

A base reborn

More than a decade after the closure of Plattsburgh was announced, the base is being transformed, with the help of a clear vision and a focused redevelopment board. The base housing was turned into successful private neighborhoods and the Clinton County Legislature recently broke ground on a new airport at the base site. The base oval, or parade ground, is now home to six soccer fields, and three baseball fields will be soon be added. "We are seen as one of the shining examples of base redevelopment," Mayor Stewart, who served at the base as an enlisted man from 1984 to 1988, said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel, and, personally, even though I loved the base and was sad to see it go, I think it was the best thing that ever happened."

Staff writer Kirk Moore contributed to this article.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050828/NEWS/508280414

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

DC: Vincent Schiraldi- Juvenile Reform Official Quickly Shakes Up Attitudes

By Lindsay Ryan, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 29, 2005; Page B01

Vincent Schiraldi made the rounds, forgoing the handshake in favor of the chest bump, a greeting not in the standard repertoire of most city officials.

Then again, Schiraldi is not most city officials. As director of the District's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, he manages the care of about 200 detained youngsters and nearly 400 more in foster care, group homes or other living arrangements. Many of the confined youths were arrested for car theft or drug offenses, but others include runaways and rapists.

Student council members at the Oak Hill juvenile detention facility in Laurel pulled out copies of Schiraldi's plan for the department, which they had already read, to offer their reactions. With family therapy and outreach, activity and job opportunities, as well as intensive case management, he proposes to return many young people to their families or place them in supervised independent living, group homes or monitored foster care.

"You get more freedom, and you also get to make decisions on your own," said one teenager, excited by the prospect of independent living.

Right now, "if you screw up, the choice is between locking you down or nothing," said another.

Increasingly talkative, the young people asked for larger meals, less time kept in their rooms and more soap. They praised photography workshops the department organized but requested better job opportunities. "How about assistant to Schiraldi?" one joked. Schiraldi did not laugh. He nodded, then said, "That's not a bad idea."

Schiraldi later said, "It's amazing how simple their requests are. Soap. Think about what their demands were. They were asking about tutoring. It's counterintuitive."

For Schiraldi, who for years pressed for juvenile justice reform, running a system he once vocally protested is a dream come true -- but also a challenge.

Growing up in a working-class Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood, Schiraldi saw friends jailed for drug-dealing, car theft and murder. "They always came out worse, and we always looked up to them more," he recalled. During college, he worked in group homes. When he returned to Brooklyn, he was horrified to see and hear of childhood friends sleeping on benches or dying of AIDS in prison, no better off for their years in and out of youth facilities.

After getting a master's degree in social work, he spent the 1980s and '90s with criminal justice reform nonprofit groups, becoming executive director of the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. In 1996, he started the Justice Policy Institute in the District.

During that time, Oak Hill was deteriorating. Over two decades, there was a new youth services administrator almost yearly. Mismanagement, abuse, overcrowding, escapes, violence and lack of rehabilitation made it notorious. The Youth Services Administration, then part of the Department of Human Services, failed to comply with a consent decree and faced the possibility of being placed under court receivership.

One solution to the problems and "chronic lack of leadership," said Todd Cox of the Public Defender Service for the District, was to create a Cabinet-level department run by someone with a "deep commitment to and expertise in juvenile justice." Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) chose Schiraldi. He was confirmed by the D.C. Council in February.å

Schiraldi said he is still adjusting to his role, learning to use "a little more honey and a little less vinegar." He firmly believes that large, locked institutions, like Oak Hill, worsen negative behaviors, he said. In the District, 32 percent of juvenile offenders end up in adult prison within three years, Schiraldi said. In Missouri, that figure is 8 percent. By the 1980s, Missouri had replaced all large institutions with rehabilitation homes of about 20 beds each and many programs, group sessions and high staff-youth ratios. Missouri's per-capita cost is lower than the District's.

A wealth of evidence suggests that such systems as Missouri's substantially lower recidivism with little risk to the community, said Barry C. Feld, a University of Minnesota law professor and juvenile justice scholar.
Discipline isn't enough, says Vincent Schiraldi, head of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services since February. "You ain't gonna punish the badness out of them." (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

"When you have large numbers of inmates, there is a primary influence placed on security and authoritarian controls, and that produces the most violent, negative and hostile inmate subcultures. . . . Staff, themselves, end up resorting to violence . . . to control it," he said. In smaller settings, staff workers can cultivate positive behavior, he said.

Schiraldi has reduced the confined population by 23 percent in seven months, even as serious crime by juveniles in the District fell. He appointed a new director at Oak Hill and shut the worst units to improve the facility until it is replaced, slated for fall 2006.

Schiraldi's new employment opportunities for youths include 30 UPS jobs this fall and jobs in the juvenile facilities. He is working to create entrepreneurial programs that put abilities to legal uses. "These kids learn a certain skill set when they sell drugs," he explained. "They can use that. You buy an ounce of pot, you divide it into nickel bags, you mark it up. . . You gotta make a profit."

In one innovation, some juvenile offenders in the community are taken to a supervised center from 3 to 9 p.m. for sports, academic help and dinner and then taken home, said Mai Fernandez of the Latin American Youth Center, which Schiraldi chose for the pilot program.

Not everything has gone smoothly during Schiraldi's tenure. Warehouse glitches and hoarding have prevented such necessities as underwear and soap from reaching some young people. On a visit to Oak Hill in July, Schiraldi could thrust his arm through gaping holes in the dirty drywall of some units.

Although a broad spectrum of people in community groups praise Schiraldi's philosophy of more incentives and less punishment, it still meets some skepticism -- at times in the juvenile facilities.

"It's always about rewarding. There's enough rewarding. They need discipline," one officer said during a lively staff discussion about the direction Oak Hill is headed. Schiraldi replied that discipline alone is not the answer: "You ain't gonna punish the badness out of them."

An hour later, he left Oak Hill's razor-wire enclosed compound for the Youth Services Center. Photos of people who have succeeded despite incarceration during their youth cover the walls near his office.

Creating models in the District that bring more success stories seemed to weigh heavily on him. "We have a hangover from our incarceration binge," he remarked.

His enthusiasm quickly resumed. "Hopefully we'll drink some tomato juice and get better," he quipped.

Then he went back to work.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/28/AR2005082801112.html

Posted by lois at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

TX: Priosoner ID Gets You a Drivers License

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2005/08/few-new-laws-i-like.html

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Prisoner ID Gets You A Drivers License: Astonishingly, for years one of the big barriers to prisoners' successful re-entry into society has been acquiring a drivers license. The Texas Department of Public Safety wouldn't accept photo ID cards from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs the prison system, as valid. So ex-prisoners had to run around looking for their birth certificate or other forms of identification, which at a minimum causes delays. In other cases, they just wouldn't get a drivers license, or would use falsified documents to get a fake one. So the lapse not only harmed reintegration efforts, it created new security risks -- a double dipper. New legislation forces Texas DPS to accept TDCJ identification cards as valid ID to get a drivers license. It's about time.

Posted by lois at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2005

"Incarceration as a Failed Policy" by Alvin Bronstein

Incarceration as a Failed Policy

Alvin J. Bronstein*
August 26, 2005

Jim Gondles has invited me to write a guest editorial on “why US policies on incarceration are ineffective in terms of crime control, costly and counter productive,” something I had said to him in an email in another context. I was glad to receive this invitation and I should point out at the outset that my criticisms would apply to almost any country’s policies on incarceration and not just the United States. This is not intended as an attack on United States’ prisons but rather prisons generally. There are better, less damaging prisons than those in the United States, for example in the Scandinavian countries. And there are far more that are far worse than the United States. I have been in prisons in some countries, Russia and Brazil, that make ours really look like country clubs. The point is not how new or modern or well equipped prisons are but rather the fact of incarceration itself that is, in my opinion, a complete failure.

In his marvelous 1974 book, The Future of Imprisonment, Norval Morris, the distinguished criminologist and long-time consultant to the Federal Bureau of Prisons wrote:

The criminal law’s reach has been extended in this country far beyond its competence, invading the spheres of private morality and social welfare proving ineffective, corruptive and criminogenic. This overreach of the criminal law has made hypocrites of us all and has cluttered the courts and filled the jails and prisons, the detention centers and reformatories, with people who should not be there.

When that was written, we had about 350,000 men, women and children in our nation’s jails and prisons. Today we have over 2,200,000 and prisons here and throughout most of the world are still ineffective, corruptive and criminogenic.

It is widely recognized that we have locked up too many social nuisances who are not real threats, too many petty offenders and minor thieves, severing such few social ties as they have and pushing them further toward more serious criminal behavior. In the US, we inappropriately incarcerate the mentally ill and the alcohol and drug addicted. Prisons generally make people worse.

The 1973 national commission, The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, recommended that “the institution should be the last resort for correctional problems.” They gave their reasons – failure to reduce crime, success in punishing but not in deterring, providing only a temporary protection to the community, changing the offender but mostly for the worst – and concluded that “the prison has persisted partly because a civilized nation could neither turn back to the barbarism of an earlier time nor find a satisfactory alternative.” Today, over 30 years later, we have a new national commission that is looking at the abuses in and the problems of prisons in America.

Again, nothing has changed except that there are many more people in prison, our prisons are now larger and more destructive of the human personality with fewer programs and harsher regimes. Many years of studies have revealed that only three possible changes in the life of the prisoner during his or her incarceration are correlated with later conformity to the conditions of release and with the avoidance of new criminal behavior – the availability of a family or other supportive group to join on release, the availability of a reasonably supportive job, and the process and duration of aging itself. Getting a job and preserving or creating social relationships are exactly what prison most interferes with although time for aging it does provide. We cage people, it is clear, not to treat them but for a variety of other reasons. Increasingly prisons are places of punishment and have nothing to do with rehabilitation.

One of the great prison reformers in the world, Baroness Vivien Stern, Secretary General of Penal Reform International, in her 1998 book A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, wrote:

It is a great strength of the reform movement that the people in the system know that what is going on is wrong. They say so through the associations to which they belong. They need to be reinforced in their conviction that whilst they are contracted to carry out their instructions and follow their rule book, they have a higher loyalty to a set of values and principles. It will not be an excuse for the perpetrator of a clear human rights abuse to say, “I was just obeying orders”. Prison staff need to be given the confidence and courage to keep on pointing out what is wrong. Perhaps they should require that the international norms and instruments governing the treatment of prisoners should be written not just into prisoners’ rights, but into their rights too, as staff. There are rules governing how prisoners should be treated. So also should there be equivalent rules governing what prison staff can be asked to do, and making it clear what they cannot be asked to do.

As Nelson Mandela once said, “Prison not only robs you of your freedom, it attempts to take away your identity. Everyone wears a uniform, eats the same food, follows the same schedule. It is by definition a purely authoritarian state that tolerates no independence and individuality.”

In 1999, a large group of criminal justice professionals, academics and officials from 50 different countries in all five continents met for five days in Egham, England, to consider “a new approach for penal reform in a new century.” At the end of the five day meeting they drafted without any dissents an agenda for that new approach which included among them the following:

The understanding that penal reform is an essential part of good governance.The awareness that penal reform cannot proceed without changes to the criminal justice system as a whole and that crime prevention in and by civil society is essential to the success of penal reform.The determination to make sure that everyone, especially the poor and marginalized, has equal access to the justice system.
The recognition that drug abuse is usually better dealt with inside the health or social welfare care system rather than the criminal justice system, especially when there is no violence involved.
The need to enrich the formal judicial system with informal, locally based, dispute resolution mechanisms which meet human rights standards.

During the past 40 years I have visited hundreds of prisons and jails in the United States and many prisons in Asia, Latin America and Eastern and Western Europe. The best, least destructive, prison that I have ever been to was a maximum security prison in the city of Ringe, in Denmark, which I visited on a number of occasions.

This was a small maximum security prison which housed men and women prisoners together, all of them recidivists, in which every prisoner worked at a productive job every day, where correctional officers wore no uniforms and worked side-by-side with the prisoners and had many other marvelous features. Every time I left the prison and walked out through the main entry way I was accompanied by the prison governor, Eric Andersen. Each time I left, I would say, “Eric, this really is a marvelous prison.” And his answer each time was, “But remember, Al, all prisons damage people.”

* Alvin J. Bronstein is Director-Emeritus of The National Prison Project of the ACLU; US Board Member, Penal Reform International (London). This editorial originally appeared in the August 2005 edition of Corrections Today magazine.

Posted by lois at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2005

More on the Bureau of Justice Statistics & Bob Herbert Op-Ed

August 26, 2005

Democrats Want Official to Be Reinstated Over Report on Profiling

By ERIC LICHTBLAU, NY Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 - Democrats in Congress called Thursday for the reinstatement of a Justice Department official who objected to his supervisors' effort to play down the findings of a federal report on racial profiling.
The White House is replacing the official, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, who is director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, months after he complained that senior political officials at the department were seeking to distort publicly the findings of the statistical report by his agency.

The report found that while drivers from different racial or ethnic groups were stopped by the police at essentially the same rate, blacks and Hispanics were much more likely to have their vehicles searched or be subjected to the use of force once they were stopped.

Mr. Greenfeld objected to efforts by his superiors at the Justice Department to delete references to the racial or ethnic disparities from a planned news release on the study. After he refused to delete the material, the study was posted online in April, unchanged, but no public announcement was made. The White House has now told Mr. Greenfeld he is being replaced.

In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, six Democrats in Congress called for Mr. Greenfeld's immediate reinstatement. Citing the importance of the racial profiling issue, the letter said that the Justice Department must "be forthcoming about these troubling statistics" from the April report and that it was "essential that all data and statistical conclusions be free from political manipulation."

Senator Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, one of the Democrats signing the letter, added in a statement that "no government official should be removed from his or her position because they dare to tell the truth." Racial profiling has been a particularly divisive issue in New Jersey, where a pattern of racial profiling by state troopers in the late 1990's led to a state ban and a federal order to end the practice.

Justice Department officials said they had not yet seen the Democrats' letter and could not comment publicly on an internal personnel matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/politics/26profiling.html

August 25, 2005

Truth-Telling on Race? Not in Bush's Fantasyland

By BOB HERBERT

The Bush administration has punished a Justice Department official who dared to tell even a mild truth about racial profiling by law enforcement officers in this country.

In 2001 President Bush selected Lawrence Greenfeld to head the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which tracks crime patterns and police tactics, among other things. But as Eric Lichtblau of The Times reported in a front-page article yesterday, Mr. Greenfeld is being demoted because he complained that senior political officials were seeking to play down newly compiled data about the aggressive treatment of black and Hispanic drivers by police officers.

My first thought when I read the story was that burying the messenger who tells uncomfortable truths has always been a favorite tactic of this administration, which seems to exist largely in a world of fantasy. (Grown-ups don't do well in the Bush playtime environment. Remember Gen. Eric Shinseki? And former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill?)

My second thought was of a couple of stories from several years ago that dramatically illustrated the differences in the ways that white and black drivers can be treated.

Rachel Ellen Ondersma was a 17-year-old high school senior when she was stopped by the police in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Nov. 14, 1998. She had been driving erratically, the police said, and when she failed a Breathalyzer test, she was placed under arrest.

An officer cuffed Ms. Ondersma's hands behind her and left her alone in the back seat of a police cruiser. What happened after that was captured on a video camera mounted inside the vehicle. And while it would eventually be shown on the Fox television program "World's Wackiest Police Videos," it was not funny.

The camera offered a clear view through the cruiser's windshield. The microphone picked up the sound of Ms. Ondersma sobbing, then the clink of the handcuffs as she began maneuvering to free herself. She apparently stepped through her arms so her hands, still cuffed, were in front of her. Then she climbed into the front seat, started the engine and roared off. With the car hurtling along, tires squealing, Ms. Ondersma could be heard moaning, "What am I doing?" and, "They are going to have to kill me."

She roared onto a freeway, where she was clocked by pursuing officers at speeds up to 80 miles per hour. She crashed into a concrete barrier, and officers, thinking they had her boxed in, jumped out of their vehicles. But Ms. Ondersma backed up, then lurched forward and plowed into one of the police cars.

Gunfire could be heard as the police began shooting out her tires. The teenager backed up, lurched forward and crashed into the cop car again. An officer had to leap out of the way to keep from being struck.

Ms. Ondersma tried to speed away once more, but by then at least two of her tires were flat and she could no longer control the vehicle. She crashed into another concrete divider and was finally surrounded.

As I watched the videotape, I was amazed at the way she was treated when she was pulled from the cruiser. The police did not seem particularly upset. They were not rough with her, and no one could be heard cursing. One officer said: "Calm down, all right? I think you've caused enough trouble for one day."

Ms. Ondersma is white. As I watched the video, I kept thinking about an incident on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998 in which four young men in a van were pulled over by state troopers. Three of the men were black and one was Hispanic. They were neither drunk nor abusive. But their van did roll slowly backward, accidentally bumping the leg of one of the troopers and striking the police vehicle.

The troopers drew their weapons and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, three of the four young men had been shot and seriously wounded.

The beginning of the end of Lawrence Greenfeld's tenure as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics came a few months ago, as his agency was completing a major study showing that black and Hispanic drivers were treated more aggressively than whites when stopped by the police.

Mr. Greenfeld was overruled when he tried to include references to these disparities in a news release announcing the findings of the study. The study was then buried in the bowels of the Bush bureaucracy.

Mr. Greenfeld obviously failed to understand that the preferred methods of dealing with uncomfortable facts in the fantasyland of the Bush administration are to ignore them, or simply wish them away.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/opinion/25herbert.html?pagewanted=print

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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

August 25, 2005

Florence, AZ- Commission Supports Re-Zoning for New Prison

Florence News
P&Z Commission supports rezoning for new U.S. prison
Staff reports, Florence Reminder August 25, 2005

Breaking their previous deadlock, a majority of Planning & Zoning commissioners voted in favor of rezoning approximately 24 acres on Arizona 79 opposite Florence Heights Drive to I-1 Industrial Park.

The new zoning would allow the land to be sold to Correctional Services Corp., which is bidding on a contract to build a new federal detention facility for illegal immigrants. The land is currently zoned for agriculture. The current landowner, Nancy Patterson, testified at last week's commission meeting that she wants the industrial zoning regardless of whether CSC wins the prison contract.

CSC has won contracts for two other federal prisons of this type, now operating in Tacoma, Wash., and Pearsall, Texas, Senior Vice President Russell S. Rau told the commissioners last week.

The commission's positive vote is a recommendation to the Town Council, which will have the final say on the matter next month.

If the rezoning is approved and CSC wins the contract, the prison would create more than 300 jobs paying approximately $20 per hour. The facility must pay its employees the wage specified by the U.S. Dept. of Labor for this area, Rau said. He presented the commissioners a list of Dept. of Labor wages that currently specify $19.77 per hour for a detention officer. By the time the facility actually opens, the going rate could be $22, Rau said.

The facility will take about a year to build, but it's unknown when that year might begin. Rau couldn't say how soon CSC will know if it's the successful bidder.

He said after the meeting adjourned that the bids are now going through environmental studies as required by the National Environmental Protection Act.

If CSC's bid is successful, it will be its third prison in Florence.

CSC, based in Florida, has operated the medium security Arizona State Prison-Florence West at Arizona 79 and Diversion Dam Road for approximately eight years. The company recently won a state contract to build a second prison next door to house sex offenders. That prison should break ground in mid-October, Rau said.

"Florence has been a good community to business with," Rau said after the meeting.

Appearance of prison

He told the commission the new immigrant detention center would be "as far off the road as possible," buffered by trees as well as parking.

If CSC wins the contract, it will be a 1,000-bed facility for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (formerly INS).

In response to questions from commissioner Jeff Wooley, Rau said the prison would be built for low security. "These individuals are detainees; they're only offense is their immigration status." But he also said the facility would be adaptable to other uses.

As for security around the building, Rau said it won't "have a real heavy appearance from the exterior." It will be fenced and the parking area will be secure. There won't be a large recreation yard. The average detainee's stay there will be short.

The facility would bring all immigration processing activities under one roof.

Assuming this third federal contract is similar to the first two CSC has built, it will probably complement and replace some of the functions at the current immigrant detention facility in Florence, which is full, Rau said.

Three Planning & Zoning commission members, one who was present by phone, heard testimony on the matter Aug. 17 before unanimously approving the rezoning. The fourth commissioner was absent and the fifth seat is vacant.

The commission previously deadlocked on the issue in May, when both a motion to approve, and a motion to deny, died for lack of a second. The issue proceeded in June to the Town Council, which held a public hearing and heard testimony, but ultimately sent it back to the Planning & Zoning Commission.

Town Planning Director Larry Quick told the commissioners one reason for the earlier indecision is a petition, which stated inaccurately that the prison would house sex offenders, was circulated against the rezoning. "Whether they would have signed knowing the actual facts is unknown."

He noted the town has encouraged prison growth on Arizona 79 and "private prisons have been good neighbors and contributed to the local economy."

He added the property owner to the north has recently applied to rezone his entire property commercial, but wants his objection to the industrial zone to remain on the record.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15098661&BRD=1817&PAG=461& amp;dept_id=222076&rfi=6

©Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc. 2005

Posted by lois at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)

SF Reaching out to people who are incarcerated to vote

Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005

(08-23) 10:18 PDT San Francisco (SF Chronicle) -- The San Francisco Department of Elections is reaching out to a class of city residents who may not be aware they can register to vote — jail inmates and former convicts who have completed their prison sentences and parole.

Elections director John Arntz said he sees the new outreach program as a way to increase voter registration while honoring inmates’ right to vote.

“As far as the law is concerned, they have as much right to vote as anyone else,” Arntz said. State law prohibits only those serving time in prison or on parole for a felony conviction from voting, and cancels their voter registration when they are convicted. However, those who have served their sentences and completed parole can re-register.

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“Many ex-offenders do not realize that,” Arntz said. “I hope to create a program in San Francisco that can be a model for the rest of the state.”

The Elections Department’s program will supply registration cards and absentee ballot applications to San Francisco’s jails so those who are awaiting trial or serving time for misdemeanor offenses can vote. Arntz hopes to reach those who are no longer in prison by coordinating with organizations that work with ex-offenders.

The program comes at a time when civil rights advocates around the country are challenging laws that prevent people convicted of felonies from voting, sometimes for the rest of their lives.

According to the Sentencing Project, a prisoner rights advocacy group, such laws deny the vote to more than 4 million felons. Laws preventing felons from voting recently have been lifted in Nebraska, New Mexico and Iowa. They are under legal challenge in New York.

More information about the program is available at www.sfgov.org/site/elections.

E-mail Suzanne Herel at sherel@sfchronicle.com.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/23/BAvote23.DTL

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

August 24, 2005

Bureau of Justice Statistic: Profiling Report Leads to Demotion

August 24, 2005

By ERIC LICHTBLAU, NY Times
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 - The Bush administration is replacing the director of a small but critical branch of the Justice Department, months after he complained that senior political officials at the department were seeking to play down newly compiled data on the aggressive police treatment of black and Hispanic drivers.

The demotion of the official, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, whom President Bush named in 2001 to lead the Bureau of Justice Statistics, caps more than three years of simmering tensions over charges of political interference at the agency. And it has stirred anger and tumult among many Justice Department statisticians, who say their independence in analyzing important law enforcement data has been compromised.

Officials at the White House and the Justice Department said no political pressure had been exerted over the statistics branch. But they declined to discuss the job status of Mr. Greenfeld, who told his staff several weeks ago that he had been asked to move on after 23 years of generally high marks as a statistician and supervisor at the agency. Mr. Greenfeld, who was initially threatened with dismissal and the possible loss of some pension benefits, is expected to leave the agency soon for a lesser position at another agency.

With some 50 employees, the Bureau of Justice Statistics is a low-profile agency within the sprawling Justice Department. But it produces dozens of reports a year on issues like crime patterns, drug use, police tactics and prison populations and is widely cited by law enforcement officials, policy makers, social scientists and the news media. Located in an office separate from the Justice Department, it strives to be largely independent to avoid any taint of political influence.

The flashpoint in the tensions between Mr. Greenfeld and his political supervisors came four months ago, when statisticians at the agency were preparing to announce the results of a major study on traffic stops and racial profiling, which found disparities in how racial groups were treated once they were stopped by the police.

Political supervisors within the Office of Justice Programs ordered Mr. Greenfeld to delete certain references to the disparities from a news release that was drafted to announce the findings, according to more than a half-dozen Justice Department officials with knowledge of the situation. The officials, most of whom said they were supporters of Mr. Greenfeld, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters.

Mr. Greenfeld refused to delete the racial references, arguing to his supervisors that the omissions would make the public announcement incomplete and misleading. Instead, the Justice Department opted not to issue a news release on the findings and posted the report online.

Some statisticians said that decision all but assured the report would get lost amid the avalanche of studies issued by the government. A computer search of news articles found no mentions of the study.

Congressional opponents of racial profiling, who have criticized what they see as an ambivalent stance on the issue by the Bush administration, said they were frustrated to learn that the Justice Department had completed the Congressionally mandated study without announcing its findings or briefing members of Congress on it. They accused the Justice Department of effectively burying the findings to play down new data that would add grist to the debate over using racial and ethnic data in law enforcement and terrorism investigations.

"My suspicions always go up if a report like this is just deep-sixed," said Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, who is dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and plans to introduce legislation this fall that would ban the use of racial or ethnic police profiling.

The April study by the Justice Department, based on interviews with 80,000 people in 2002, found that white, black and Hispanic drivers nationwide were stopped by the police that year at about the same rate, roughly 9 percent. But, in findings that were more detailed than past studies on the topic, the Justice Department report also found that what happened once the police made a stop differed markedly depending on race and ethnicity.

Once they were stopped, Hispanic drivers were searched or had their vehicles searched by the police 11.4 percent of the time and blacks 10.2 percent of the time, compared with 3.5 percent for white drivers. Blacks and Hispanics were also subjected to force or the threat of force more often than whites, and the police were much more likely to issue tickets to Hispanics rather than simply giving them a warning, the study found.

The authors of the study said they were not able to draw any conclusions about the reason for the differing rates, but they said the gaps were notable. The research "uncovered evidence of black drivers having worse experiences - more likely to be arrested, more likely to be searched, more likely to be have force used against them - during traffic stops than white drivers," the report concluded.

In April, as the report was being completed, Mr. Greenfeld's office drafted a news release to announce the findings and submitted it for review to the office of Tracy A. Henke, who was then the acting assistant attorney general who oversaw the statistics branch.

The planned announcement noted that the rate at which whites, blacks and Hispanics were stopped was "about the same," and that finding was left intact by Ms. Henke's office, according to a copy of the draft obtained by The New York Times.

But the references in the draft to higher rates of searches and use of force for blacks and Hispanics were crossed out by hand, with a notation in the margin that read, "Do we need this?" A note affixed to the edited draft, which the officials said was written by Ms. Henke, read "Make the changes," and it was signed "Tracy." That led to a fierce dispute after Mr. Greenfeld refused to delete the references, officials said.

Ms. Henke, who was nominated by Mr. Bush last month to a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a brief telephone interview that she did not recall the episode.

Brian Rohrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department, declined to discuss Mr. Greenfeld's job status, citing confidential personnel matters, but said that "there was no effort to suppress information since the report was released in its entirety." Mr. Rohrkasse said the department had also posted on its Web site a number of other statistical reports without issuing news releases.

Mr. Greenfeld declined to discuss the handling of the traffic report or his departure from the statistics agency. But he emphasized in an interview that his agency's data had never been changed because of political pressure and added that "all our statistics are produced under the highest quality standards."

As a political appointee named to his post by Mr. Bush in 2001, "I serve at the pleasure of the president and can be replaced at any time," Mr. Greenfeld said. "There's always a natural and healthy tension between the people who make the policy and the people who do the statistics. That's there every day of the week, because some days you're going to have good news, and some days you're going to have bad news."

When asked if those political pressures had grown worse for his agency lately, as many of his employees asserted in interviews, he said: "I don't want to comment on that. It's just a fact of life."

Disputes between statisticians and policy makers at the Justice Department have flared occasionally over the years, particularly over the question of what credit if any the administration in power could take for dips in national crime rates. But a senior statistician, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "in this administration, those tensions have been even greater, and the struggles have been harder."

Another veteran statistician said: "Larry wanted to ensure that the integrity of the data was not compromised, and that's what's causing a lot of anxiety. We've seen a desire for more control over B.J.S. from the powers that be, and that's what seemed to get Larry in trouble."

Amid the debate over the traffic stop study, Mr. Greenfeld was called to the office of Robert D. McCallum Jr., then the third-ranking Justice Department official, and questioned about his handling of the matter, people involved in the episode said. Some weeks later, he was called to the White House, where personnel officials told him he was being replaced as director and was urged to resign, six months before he was scheduled to retire with full pension benefits, the officials said.

After Mr. Greenfeld invoked his right as a former senior executive to move to a lesser position, the administration agreed to allow him to seek another job, and he is likely to be detailed to the Bureau of Prisons, the officials said.

The administration has already offered the director's job at the statistics agency to a former official there, Joseph M. Bessette, but he turned it down, officials said. In an interview, Mr. Bessette declined to discuss his conversations with the administration but was quick to praise Mr. Greenfeld's work.

"I've never met a finer public servant," Mr. Bessette said, "and I think the agency has been taken to new heights by Larry."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/politics/24profiling.html

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2005

West Virginia--Money, Energy all go toward new Federal Prison

August 23, 2005

Construction of prison will bring 300 jobs
By Mary Catherine Brooks/Wyoming County Bureau Chief

Monday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) issued the final Record of Decision for the medium-security facility to be built in the Indian Ridge Industrial Park near the McDowell County-Wyoming County line, according to U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va.

The Record of Decision is the final step in the environmental review process and the BOP can now proceed with the project.

Construction of the 1,280-bed facility is expected to begin in the spring and will infuse $35 million annually into the local economy, Byrd said. "This is an exciting day for southern West Virginia, and for McDowell County and Wyoming County in particular," Byrd said. "This announcement caps many years of work by me and by other state and local officials. It is so satisfying to know that, because of our efforts, the wait is over. The jobs are coming."

"We're so excited it is unreal," added Gordon Lambert, who has served as McDowell County Commission president for the past decade. "This is the best news I've heard since I've been on the commission."

House Majority Leader Rick Staton, D-Wyoming, was excited as well. "This is a Christmas present that is going to last for generations to come," he emphasized.

"This is the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people," added Coalfields Expressway Authority Director and Wyoming County Delegate Richard Browning.

"The prison is the flagship of the economic development project of the Coalfields Expressway and shows the benefits of working with a three-county area.

"There were some dark days early in the evolution of this project, but because we had some good people -- Byrd and U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, and others -- working along the way, they have seen it through," Browning emphasized.

"This will create jobs for all of southern West Virginia -- not just McDowell and Wyoming counties," Browning noted. "McDowell County doesn't have enough people to fill all these jobs. There will be enough jobs for a five-county area."

"It is a great day, but I look at this with mixed feelings," added Mike Goode, Wyoming County clerk and chairman of the Coalfields Expressway Authority. "I wish we had the money to build the road to this prison. It's a shame the money isn't there for the Coalfields Expressway."

The Coalfields Expressway is earmarked to receive about $16 million in federal monies in the latest six-year transportation bill, which will only build about 5 miles of road, officials note. With the prison coming, however, more federal dollars are expected, they believe.

"This federal prison project truly represents the fruits of a community-based vision," said Rahall, D-W.Va. "The prison will be a huge economic generator for the region by creating new jobs and it will serve as a catalyst for future economic development and expansion."

The prison project has been in the making for more than five years, Lambert said.

"The first time we took the Bureau of Prison (representatives) to Indian Ridge, they couldn't believe we could do it," Lambert said. Five years ago, the 500-acre industrial park was no more than a series of deep valleys edged by looming mountain tops. Today those valleys have been filled, creating a huge stretch of flat, mountain-top land awaiting the development of the prison and other businesses, as well as the interchange for the Coalfields Expressway and the King Coal Highway.

"This shows what happens when you use persistence and methodical planning," Staton said. Staton also pointed out the by-products of the prison will include highway construction, new infrastructure, service industry jobs, new housing and improvements to the education system.

"The cake is going to be as delicious as the icing," he emphasized. "We've been working for years -- getting ready for this day," Browning said. "We've been improving our housing, education system, health care, social needs. It's not like we've been caught off guard -- unlike some other areas of the country.

"We're ready to reap the economic benefits of the location of the prison here," Browning said. "We started talking a long time ago about the possibility of prison number two. Somewhere along the way, I hope to see that happen, maybe in Wyoming County. "My hope is this will accelerate the construction of the Coalfields Expressway from Beckley to Welch." McDowell County has already seen the opening of a new cinema in Welch and a new Wal-Mart is set to open in September, Lambert said. The new Stevens Correctional Facility, located in the former Stevens Clinic building, will hire 60 people Sept. 5 and an additional 60 people will be hired Oct. 18, Lambert noted.

On at least four separate occasions between March 1997 and June 1998, at Byrd's direction, BOP officials visited McDowell County looking for a site for a federal prison. Subsequently, with Byrd's encouragement, BOP officials conducted additional visits to the Indian Ridge Industrial Park and met with local officials regarding criteria for a prison site.

To help move the site forward, Byrd added $5 million to legislation in 1999 for a water/sewer line extension at the Indian Ridge site. He also included $1.25 million in legislation in 2004 for infrastructure and site development at the Indian Ridge Industrial Park.

In addition, through the federal appropriations process, Byrd, who serves as the top Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been working to obtain construction funding for the new facility.

"I want to make sure that there are no delays in this project. This new facility has been a hope for so many of us for so long. Now, our hopes have turned to reality," Byrd said.
http://www.register-herald.com/articles/2005/08/22/news/bprison23.txt

Posted by lois at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

LA: Bayou Betterment--a New Juvenile Justice System is Emerging

Bayou Betterment
T@P In Louisiana, a new juvenile justice system is emerging, with the governor's strong support. If reform can happen here, it can succeed anywhere.
By Katy Reckdahl
Issue Date: 09.10.05

The former correctional officer mops sweat off his brow as he plays two-on-one basketball against kids he would have once called offenders. Michael Gaines gestures toward the man who's trying to block a layup by one of the kids. "In the old days, he would have just stood here in his uniform and watched while the kids played ball with each other," says Gaines. In those "old days" -- about six months ago -- Gaines was a deputy warden, overseeing a staff of lieutenants, captains, and officers. Today he's called deputy director, and his staffers, called youth-care workers, are newly trained at managing adolescent behavior. Their charges are the 70 delinquent children, ages 13 to 20, who reside at the crown jewel of Louisiana's juvenile-justice-reform program, the Bridge City Center for Youth.

Gaines and his boss, director (and former warden) John Anderson, point out signs of reform as they walk among the mossy live oaks that create a canopy over the yards of this onetime Catholic orphanage, a cluster of red-brick buildings across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. This summer, the state pulled back the razor wire surrounding the former Bridge City Correctional Center for Youth, plucked the word "correctional" from its name, and relaxed the staff dress code from blue uniforms to polo shirts and khakis. The goal? To remake Bridge City into a model, "Missouri-style" facility that will serve juveniles from the New Orleans region.

Currently, only about 40 percent of Bridge City's kids hail from the New Orleans metropolitan area. The state's pilot program is also still small; by the end of August, about 24 young men will be living in three Missouri-style dorm areas, remodeled at about $8,000 a pop. In place of military-style bunks and blankets, metal footlockers, concrete floors, and open group showers, the new areas offer a softer, homier environment. That means carpeted floors, windows hung with curtains and fronted with houseplants, and showers divided by bright curtains (they'll soon have permanent individual stalls). In the living area, unlocked wooden wardrobes stand next to wooden bunk beds, covered with colorful quilts. Across the room is a group of comfy couches arranged around an end table. It's here, on these couches, that a lot of the dorm's work is accomplished -- through peer-group meetings called "circles."

"When we wake up, we check in, call a circle," says Joe, a young man from New Orleans who lives in the first remodeled Bridge City dorm, called Ujima after the Kwanzaa principle for collective work and responsibility. The group also holds routine circles after lunch and at the end of the day, and as necessary, to discuss concerns or complaints with the other kids and the dorm's manager, youth-care worker, and counselor. Additional, impromptu circles are conducted standing together outside or wherever they're needed.

The difference between this dorm and those at other Louisiana juvenile facilities is most apparent during free time. At Bridge City, the young men giggle and joke, work on art projects, write in journals, put an arm on another youth's shoulder when helping him with homework. Gone are the tough poses, the tense jostling, the strictly enforced personal-safety distances.

Getting to this point took some adjustment. Eight teenagers moved into this dorm in June. But by late July, three of those residents had transferred out and been replaced by three other kids, all of them new to the juvenile system. "[Circles] weren't being called consistently. The group was at a standstill," explains dorm manager Patrick Riley. Bo, one of the original eight residents, nods his head. "It was the same thing everyday," he says. "[The circles] were dragging us down more than bringing us up." Eventually, participating in the process will be mandatory for everyone. "We wouldn't do this as a rule," says Gaines. But in this pilot stage, the young men are allowed to opt out, which one teen did, saying "it wasn't for him." The other two were asked to leave because they were verbally aggressive.

In July, the state officially opened Ujima with a press conference and a visit from Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. During the 2003 governor's race, Blanco, a former schoolteacher and the sitting lieutenant governor, was the first gubernatorial contender to sign on to a juvenile-justice-reform platform. The young men in Ujima say that she spent a long time talking with them, about circles, their dorm's new look, their faith, and their families. "You can tell she's a mom," says Joe. "She talked that mother talk."

The governor laughs at the assessment. "I did ask them what they hoped to do when they were released," she says.

* * *
"You've got some things going for you in Louisiana," says Molly Armstrong of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, who's spent the last year in Louisiana and the last decade working with a wide range of governments and their juvenile systems. For instance, she says, in Louisiana, juvenile-justice reform has an unusually high profile. "I think it's amazing you get the level of attention to the issue [here]," she says, crediting advocates for pushing it into the public forum and keeping it there. To Armstrong, the state's biggest advantage is Blanco. "The governor actually cares about juvenile-justice issues," she says. "That's unbelievably rare."

In 2003, while Blanco was still running for office, the Louisiana Legislature passed the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, prodded by exposés, litigation, and the death of a child at the hands of a Bridge City guard. The statute, Act 1225, specifically condemns large correctional facilities and "declares it to be the policy of the state of Louisiana to assist in the development and establishment of a community-based, school-based, and regionally based system."

Blanco won election later that year and took office in January 2004. Soon afterward, she took reform a step forward by signing an executive order separating the juvenile system from the adult corrections system and bringing in consultants from the Casey Foundation and from the highly successful Missouri juvenile system. "Juvenile justice has a new face in Louisiana," she declared, "and a strong advocate in the governor's office."

"We have a duty to the children," said Blanco in an interview, explaining why she had kept her eye on the state's juvenile recidivism even while she was lieutenant governor. In Louisiana, the governor and the lieutenant governor are elected separately, and at the time, Blanco, a Democrat, sat underneath a Republican governor. Her power to act was thus fairly limited, but she did have access to data and expert personnel, and so she simply gathered information and waited until she could follow through.

This was not a new interest. In prior years, Blanco had served in the state Legislature and had toured juvenile lockups during that time. "I remember the first time I entered the local detention center," she says. "It felt rough to me, and I was going in there as an adult." She resolved to change that.

Mark Steward, now one of Governor Blanco's key advisers on reform, sees a strong link between Blanco's interest in juvenile justice and her sense of compassion and understanding of loss. (In 1997, her youngest son, Ben, then 19, was crushed beneath a weight from an industrial crane and died instantly.) When asked about it, Blanco gets quiet for a moment. "You can lose children in a number of different ways," she says. "Some die, some are lost to the streets, and others are lost to the state's prison system. And families really suffer, no matter how their kids are lost."

This summer, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation selected Louisiana as one of three states to participate in its program "Models for Change: Systems Reform in Juvenile Justice." With the grant comes more outside expertise and up to $1.5 million annually for the next five years. Steward believes that Blanco's staunch support of the issue is responsible not only for the MacArthur Foundation award but for the momentum of reform in general. "To change one of the worst juvenile systems in the nation, you have to have the leadership at the top and all the way down," he explains.

Blanco, in turn, praises Steward, her advisers from the Casey Foundation, and Simon Gonsoulin, head of the Office of Youth Development, which runs the state's juvenile system. "Right now, Louisiana has the best minds in the country working on this issue," she says.

* * *
The recent history of juvenile-justice reform in Louisiana begins with the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, by common agreement one of the most notorious children's prisons in America. Tallulah opened in 1994, on the edge of a sleepy northeastern Louisiana delta town.

Before 16-year-old Christopher Simms was sent there in the summer of 2002, neighborhood friends in New Orleans warned him: He'd be raped for sure, he was told, unless he fought his way to respect. "So I wouldn't back down," says Simms. "If you show a sign of weakness, they are going to take advantage of that. You'll be a punk." Fellow New Orleans inmates taught him other essential skills: how to blackmail officers, have sex with young female guards, and keep a hidden stash of Camel straights in a world where half a cigarette was worth four bars of soap or four bags of potato chips.

Even the guards scrapped, says Simms: "Any time a guard can come out of his uniform and fight, we loved that. We respected that." Other times guards put a "hit" on a kid and paid the aggressor in cigarettes, lighters, fast food, or weed. Once, during a suspected hit, a group of kids broke Simms' upper and lower jaw. "I was lying in a big ol' puddle of blood, half of my body in blood," he recalls. "I blacked out."

Tallulah was "cutthroat," concludes Simms, who was released in 2003. "That's why the kids called it Little Angola." Cecile Guin, who directs social-service research at Louisiana State University, was the first person to study recidivism within the state's juvenile population. Because Tallulah was so violent, she says, many of its inmates left to commit worse crimes and wound up in adult prisons, like the state's infamous prison farm at Angola. While the state's official statistics show that 45 percent of its released juveniles are re-convicted within five years, Guin estimates that statistics for Tallulah alone would be much more grim -- more in the 90-percent range, she says.

For a decade, says juvenile-justice reformer and state Senator Donald Cravins, a Democrat from the Lafayette area, "Nothing stood out clearer than the atrocities at the facility in Tallulah." Not that the state's other juvenile prisons weren't awful. Mark Soler, president of the Washington, D.C.–based Youth Law Center, recalls touring them in the late 1990s. "Conditions in Louisiana's facilities were really horrible, as bad as any I've seen in 27 years of looking at juvenile facilities," he says.

"In this state," says defense attorney Tom Lorenzi, "when you get involved in a capital case, your client has almost always been through Louisiana's juvenile-prison system." Still, he can't recall one defendant helped by that system. "It made their lives living hells," he says. "They were brutalized and brutalized and brutalized." Seeing this, in case after case, motivated Lorenzi to work for juvenile-system reform as president of the board for the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL). It's no coincidence, he says, that the JJPL's founders -- Shannon Wight, Gabriella Celeste, and David Utter -- all did death-penalty work before forming the group in 1997.

Utter made his first trip to Tallulah in April 1998. As a defense attorney and as a prisons litigator for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, he had toured bleak prisons and jails for years. But, he says, "I had never seen anything like this. It had never occurred to me that we would see young people treated this way. The most shocking thing was the black eyes, broken jaws, hands in casts, bruises, and cuts. On some trips, half of my clients would be injured."

Within a few months, the JJPL filed a civil-rights lawsuit on behalf of 12 youths imprisoned in Tallulah. The U.S. Department of Justice also brought suit under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, making Louisiana the first state it had sued over conditions in juvenile facilities. Around the same time, New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield visited and wrote a front-page story referring to Tallulah as a place "so rife with brutality that many legal experts say it is the worst in the nation."

Still, Tallulah remained open for six more years. But in June 2004, parents, former Tallulah inmates, and key legislators celebrated its last day. Reform leaders made speeches and sang hymns on a lawn across the street from the facility, which provided a backdrop of gleaming razor wire. There, the townspeople of Tallulah unveiled a model of the learning center they'd been working toward for more than a year, which they hope to build on the prison's grounds. If they succeed, it will be the first prison in the United States replaced by a school.

"It was one of the greatest moments of my life," says Cravins, the state senator. "To me, it symbolized that our state was closing an ugly chapter in its history."

* * *
One morning in early June, Robin Brunker pulled on a red T-shirt bearing a logo for FFLIC (Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children) and joined a caravan of other red-shirted parents, grandparents, and children headed toward Louisiana's Capitol in Baton Rouge. There, they testified on behalf of a state Senate bill that they had dubbed one of two "Bring Our Children Home Acts of 2005." The proposed statutes would have closed the state's two large correctional-style facilities for juveniles and shifted their funding to community-based programs.

Brunker told state senators how her 17-year-old son had lost four of his teeth after a guard at the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth in northern Louisiana shoved him into a locker room with another kid and then stood outside the door. Other FFLIC members testified about brutal rapes, attacks, and suicide attempts, all at the two big facilities, all within the previous several months. The bill failed to make it out of committee.

In May, the JJPL had issued a report showing that the facilities' violence was on the rise. At Swanson, the group's monitors found that, on average, two young men per day were hurt due to self-inflicted injuries, fights, and assaults. As a result, some juvenile judges are reluctant to order incarceration. But often there are few alternatives. "Judges' hands are tied," says Utter. "If they have a kid who's a threat to public safety, the only place they can put him is going to hurt him more than help."

Agreed, says Simon Gonsoulin. A former special-education teacher and high-school principal, Gonsoulin landed his first job in the juvenile system courtesy of a federal settlement agreement (he oversaw the state's compliance with the education portion of that agreement). Since taking this job in early 2004, he has met with judges on a regular basis and has heard their concerns -- the same ones that Utter voices -- "constantly and continuously." Gonsoulin promises that many of these issues will be addressed in the Office of Youth Development's five-year strategic plan, which is currently in an information-gathering stage. For most of the summer, Gonsoulin and other juvenile-system administrators have been driving around the state, asking audiences gathered in school gyms and city halls for input on that plan, which will be finalized in October.

In the meantime, the department is addressing concerns one by one through its new family ombudsman, Prince Gray, who was hired in mid-June and immediately given an 800 number of his own. "We want parents and family members to know that their voices are being heard, and we want to make it easier for them to communicate with us," says Gonsoulin.

So far, Gray, a former principal at schools for at-risk kids, has devoted time to every complaint lodged by family or youth. He has, for instance, investigated a few accusations about "children treated roughly" and has ironed out smaller disputes between staff and youth. FFLIC members also met with Gray about a list of specific reforms, including a less stringent visiting-day dress code that won't bar parents from seeing their children if mothers are wearing, for instance, open-toed shoes or sleeveless blouses. Gray says that he found that request and others "reasonable," and that he is currently working to change department policy.

* * *
More than anything else, says Mark Steward, the success of this reform depends on well-trained personnel. He appreciates all the nice furnishings -- the carpet, the wooden furniture, the curtains, and the pillows -- that are rejuvenating the new dorms at Bridge City. But day-to-day decisions will be the real test, he says, "Because a pillow with a mean staff is going to be a weapon."

This past summer, Bridge City's staff went through intensive "human-dignity training." Coaches imported from Missouri spent time at the facility, Steward says, observing staff members at work and asking key questions -- questions such as: "Why did you do that? How could you have handled it differently? Was that treating with dignity and respect or was that punitive?" The intensive work continues until one group is fully trained, because only then can the pilot program expand "group by group by group," says Steward, who learned by trial and error that retraining an entire campus at once doesn't work.

Bridge City was always slotted as the first pilot. But at first, Gonsoulin had talked about closing the two big facilities, Swanson and the Jetson Center for Youth near Baton Rouge, which currently house about 175 kids apiece. Somehow, that plan changed. This summer, Gonsoulin announced that Swanson and Jetson would stay open but be "transformed."

To advocates, that decision defied the tenets of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, flew in the face of the JJPL's violence tallies, and deviated from the well-documented Missouri model, which relies upon many small-scale, regional facilities. "Big facilities are inherently dangerous and are going to lead to abuses and cannot possibly provide an appropriate atmosphere for children who are locked up," says the Youth Law Center's Mark Soler. The state plans to divide each facility into a day-treatment area and groupings of small cottages, but that won't change a big prison's essential nature, he says. "You can dress it up and put nice paint on it and make it look a little bit different," says Soler. "But a pig is a pig is a pig."

State Senator Cravins says that, without a doubt, he would like to see reform move at a faster pace. But Cravins, the man who for a decade has been the chief legislative critic of Louisiana's juvenile system, confesses that he now finds himself "somewhat optimistic." That's largely because he trusts the people who head up the state's efforts. He calls Gonsoulin "a good guy" and says he has "a tremendous amount of confidence in" Steward.

Steward is also hopeful, although he admits that revamping the two big juvenile prisons is not ideal, especially because those facilities' histories include what he calls "decades of punitive, horrible treatment." But decisions have to be made, he says. "There's the perfect world and there's the realistic world," he explains, "and Louisiana has to figure out what it can afford, how small it can go, and how and when it will regionalize." Transitional steps -- like utilizing the facilities at hand -- are necessary when revamping a system this large. "You cannot flip a switch," says Steward. "It cannot happen overnight." tap

Katy Reckdahl is a news reporter for the New Orleans alternative weekly Gambit. She has been writing about Louisiana's juvenile-justice system since 2001.

Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Katy Reckdahl, "Bayou Betterment", The American Prospect Online, Aug 15, 2005. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org.

Posted by lois at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

Michigan: State Says Men Can't Guard Female Prisoners

Corrections officers are being pulled from living quarters to curb sexual abuse of prisoners.

By Norman Sinclair and Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News

LANSING -- State officials have begun removing male correctional officers from living units in the state's women's prisons, placing Michigan among a handful of states that have such a gender policy.

The Detroit News reported in May that despite reforms the state promised federal officials six years ago, the number of sexual abuse complaints are about the same as a decade ago, when the U.S .Justice Department first said Michigan had a problem.

Pat Caruso, director of the Department of Corrections, told concerned state lawmakers in May that she would not remove the men until a legal challenge to the gender policy was resolved, which could stretch into October. In an interview with The News last week, Caruso said she had moved up the timetable to shift her male employees at Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth Township to other jobs because there are so few remaining in the inmates' living quarters anyway.

"To do this overnight would put the facilities in turmoil," she said. "We are implementing it in a way we think is least disruptive to the 50,000 prisoners and 18,000 employees," she said.

Even as these changes are carried out, The News has learned that authorities are investigating at least four additional reports of sexual abuse of female inmates this year.

In one case, an inmate produced semen-stained clothing as evidence of an unwanted sexual encounter. In another case, prison officials found sexually suggestive pictures of inmates taken with a camera allegedly smuggled into the prison by a staff member.

These new cases follow Caruso's public declaration in May that the department had long ago reined in the sexual abuse of the 1990s and that sexual abuse in prison is rare.

On Aug. 15, Caruso in a letter froze all personnel moves at all three women's prisons to accommodate the shifting of male officers.

In a second letter sent to all other state prisons, Caruso asked for female volunteers to staff the living quarters at the Scott facility, the Huron Valley Center in Ypsilanti and at Camp Brighton in Chelsea.

She plans to have the last 15 of 44 positions assigned to women only at the Scott facility by Sunday. In the next fiscal year, which begins in October, an academy will begin training women to fill all shift slots at female prisons.

Camp Brighton is expected to be the last facility to adopt the gender policy and the most difficult to implement it because nearly all the jobs include supervising the women's living area, Caruso said.

Deborah Labelle, an Ann Arbor lawyer who is suing Caruso's department over sexual abuse cases, welcomed the moves, but said more reform is needed.

"We're relieved the department is finally removing males from the housing units, but it's clear to me that this alone will not stop the assaults," she said, adding that some abuse cases have involved supervisory staff and other men outside the inmates' living quarters.

Days after Caruso told two legislative committees in May that sexual abuse of female inmates was an old story, a prisoner produced semen-stained shorts to prove what she said was an unwanted encounter with an officer in March.

That guard has been reassigned since a second inmate complained of improper conduct involving him. In that case, an inmate reported in April that he touched her genitals through her cell door.The Michigan State Police are investigating both cases. Caruso said this shows that the department takes such complaints seriously.

While stressing that the complaints are only allegations, Caruso said her staff warns employees daily about avoiding such problems.

"One (case) is too many," she said. "Every day we talk about issues of over familiarity (with prisoners), we talk about contraband. I tell them, 'You will be fired.' We stress that. The union tells them that. We feel strongly about that." The second case also raises another issue that has cost taxpayers in the past: retaliation against those who make a complaint.

Five days after the woman complained about the officer, she received two major misconduct tickets on the same day, one of them involving him. A week later, she said he wrote her a third ticket. Such tickets may be considered by the parole board and can prolong prison stays for inmates.

In June, a 21-year-old prisoner accused a different officer of forcing her to perform a sex act in her cell. She is at least the fourth woman in three years to make a sexual complaint against him. The allegations haven't resulted in criminal charges against the guard.

In a grievance filed with the Corrections Department, she said that in late January or early February, the officer entered her cell and forced her to perform a sex act. Not wanting to endanger her release from prison, she said she did not report it until her parole was approved in June.

Corrections officials said the guard was found guilty of rules violations and disciplined in one of the three earlier cases. He was transferred to a men's prison on Aug. 14 while the State Police investigate the latest complaint.

The three women who filed complaints this year have joined more than 460 current and former prisoners who are suing the state and the Corrections Department, claiming sexual abuse while they were behind bars.

A fourth case under investigation by authorities involves pictures of a 24-year-old inmate in her underwear. The inmate has told investigators that the prison's special activities director took pictures of her and let her take pictures of other prisoners.

Officials only learned of the matter after an officer in the prison's mailroom opened a package for the inmate and found enlargements of pictures taken inside the prison. Prison officials still have not found the camera, raising security concerns at the institution.

In a five-page statement to investigators on June 29, the inmate said the activities director grabbed and kissed her and asked her to pose nude for him. She refused, but did pose in her underwear.

Caruso defended her employees as hard-working professionals who do their jobs faithfully every day. She said both men and women guards have begged her not to reassign the men, but she has no choice because of the agreement entered six years ago with the U.S. Justice Department.

"This is part of the settlement," she said. After widespread complaints, the Justice Department began examining the state's female prisons in 1995. Two years later, and after state officials had vehemently denied there even was a problem, federal authorities sued Michigan over rampant sexual abuse behind bars.

Michigan settled the case in May 1999 by promising several reforms, including removing men from women's living quarters. Prison employees -- including women -- sued to block the state from limiting their job opportunities.

In 2002 a federal judge sided with the employees, but last year the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling.

In June, the employees appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could decide by October whether to hear the case.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0508/22/A01-288231.htm
additional stories in series at this link.

Posted by lois at 07:05 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

Letter to Editor: Re--"Expensive" MA Jails from Lois Ahrens

August 22, 2005

Editor
Springfield Republican
Springfield, MA

To the Editor:

According to the June 2004 Governor’s Commission on Corrections Reform Report, the average cost of incarcerating someone in Massachusetts is $43,000. And, as you reported the 2004 for the budget for the MA Department of Corrections is $428 million. 73% of the DOC budget goes to salaries. While Steven Kenneway, of the MA Correction Officers Federated Union blames the high cost of prisons on overtime, he fails to mention that without overtime salaries of MA CO’s in 2003, excluding benefits and overtime range from $59,919 to $71,946. Perhaps the number of overtime hours could be reduced if CO’s didn’t receive 52 paid days off per year. Is MA getting its money’s worth? In western MA alone, more than $81 million dollars a year is spent on jailing people who are incarcerated because they can’t make bail and mostly for non-violent drug-related convictions. The $81 million is the cost before the yearly expenses of supporting the proposed controversial jail for women in Chicopee.

Of the close to half a billion dollars the state spends every year to imprison people, only 3% goes to programs ($14.2 million). Since 2001 that is a 43% decrease in programs. 4,000 or 47% of people incarcerated in 2002 did not have a high school diploma or a GED. In that same year, the DOC was able to allocate enough money to enroll only 321 in GED programs. 65% of women who are incarcerated have an open mental health case yet the money for mental health and addiction services decreases yearly. People with little or no formal education and no job training are released from prison in worse shape than when they entered.

The reality is that interest groups such as the Correction Officer Federated Union and others so many others who directly benefit from tax payers largess continue to push for costly punishment over cost-effective rehabilitation. These powerful interests will keep at it, until those of us who pay their salaries and the bills say “NO!”

Lois Ahrens, Director
Real Cost of Prisons Project
Northampton, MA

Posted by lois at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)

MA Jails Expensive

Monday, August 22, 2005
By JO-ANN MORIARTY

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the nation but spends about the national average on its prison system, according to a new report.
"Massachusetts is spending a lot on relatively few people," said Marcia Howard, the author of State Policy Reports, a Washington newsletter affiliated with the National Governors' Association. "You would expect a state with one of the lowest incarceration rate (Massachusetts also has the 13th lowest crime rate) to spend well below the national average compared to other states in terms of the share of its budget."

Her study shows that for every 100,000 people in Massachusetts, the state has 233 inmates. In comparison, Louisiana's rate is 801 people for every 100,000 in population, Mississippi's rate is 768 and Texas incarcerates 702 people for 100,000 in population. Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Nebraska have lower incarceration rates.
The lowest incarceration rate in the country is Maine which incarcerates 149 inmates for every 100,000. Maine spends 2 percent of its budget on the correction system, Massachusetts spends 3.4 percent while the national average is 3.5 percent of state spending. Nebraska, which incarcerates 228 people for every 100,000, spends 2.5 percent on its corrections system.
The national incarceration average is 482 people for every 100,000 in population, based on the latest statistics available at the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Texas spends 6.1 percent of its state funds on prisons, Mississippi spends 2.3 percent and Louisiana spends 4.2 percent.
New Hamsphire spends 1.9 percent of its state spending on corrections,, Connecticut - which incarcerates 389 people for every 100,000 in population, spends 2.9 percent; Rhode Island spends 2.6 percent; and Vermont spends 3.3 percent.
Francis Carney, the executive director of the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission, said that the rate for Massachusetts is consistent with its history and that of the region.
"Massachusetts has had a longstanding tradition along with other New England states of having low incarceration rates. It is not a new phenomenon," Carney said.
"Judges tend to explore alternatives to incarceration that will hold offenders accountable maybe more so than other states," Carney said.
Howard agreed that the report doesn't hold any surprises.
"It says that Massachusetts is a state with a relatively low crime rate in a region of the country with low crime rates and that it is a state that incarcerates very few people in a region of the country that incarcerates very few people."
"What is out of line with Massachusetts is that it spends as much as a typical state that has both a higher crime rate and a higher incarceration rate," Howard said. "It seems to be spending relatively more."
Diane Wiffin, the spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections, said that 73 percent of the money the state spends on its correctional system goes for staff salaries, 15 percent pay for healthcare costs and the remaining 12 percent is spent on utilities, food, programs and other smaller items.
In fiscal 2004, the Department of Corrections budget was nearly $428 million and of that amount, $310 million was spent on staff, according to the Governor's Commission on Corrections Reform which issued a report last June.

As of June 30, 2004, Massachusetts had 10,365 prisoners in its state prison system compared to 10,511 people 12 months before. That was a 1.7 percent drop in the number of inmates. Nationally there was a 1.6 percent increase in the number of individuals sentenced to state prisons between 2002 and 2003.
In 2003, Massachusetts admitted 2,185 new prisoners into the system while it released 2,302, according to U.S. Department of Justice data.
Steven Kenneway, who heads the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union - which represents about 5,000 members - speculates that the high cost of running the prisons is in part related to a shortage of correctional officers and the overtime pay the state has to pay for that shortage.
And the shortage is getting more severe each month, he said.
"The numbers are staggering," Kenneway said. "DOC (the Department of
Corrections) is hiring but it is trying to play catchup and it is so far behind it is ridiculous."
"It is actually dangerous," Kenneway said.
He said that counselors in treatment settings have been attacked when no correctional officer was present and one correctional officer was stabbed during a night shift when she was doing checks alone.
Kenneway said that one prison will lose through retirement 20 correctional officers this year. He estimated that between last year and by the end of this year 300 correctional officers will leave the system..
He said the system is already 500 down in correction officers compared with four years ago.
The state, he said, is forced to hire people overtime.
"It's burning out my officers and makes for a dangerous situation," Kenneway said. "I place the blame on (Gov) Mitt Romney and the Commissioner of Corrections (Kathleen Denihy) because neither one of them has a clue" on how the correctional system operates.
The state has 17 facilities of which two are maximum security.

©2005 The Republican
© 2005 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.

Posted by lois at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)

NY: Telephone Justice Campaign Against MCI

ITHACA JOURNAL
Aug 17, 2005
Prisoners' families seek lower-cost phone calls
By NICK REISMAN
Gannett News Service

ALBANY - Family members of New York prisoners Tuesday appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit that would have reduced the cost of collect phone calls to their incarcerated relatives.
"Stop treating families of prisoners like dollar signs," said Marion Rodriguez, a former inmate who also has an imprisoned relative. "The secret is out. Now it is time to correct this gross system."
Prison inmates are required to call collect at a price of 16 cents per minute plus a $3 surcharge, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a Manhattan-based nonprofit civil-liberties group. The average phone call from prison last 19 minutes and costs $6- a 630 percent markup from normal phone calls, according to the group. The fee is charged to the person the prisoner calls.

"It is unjust and counterproductive in the desire to maintain families and communities," Ron Daniels, executive director of the group, said at a Capitol news conference. The group has filed a class-action lawsuit against the New York State Department of Corrections on behalf of the families.

The suit was dismissed by a trial-level state court last October ago on the grounds that the statue of limitations has expired based on the 2001 contract renewal with telecom giant MCI.

The advocacy group claims that the high fees place a limitation on the freedom of speech, violate due process, and are bad business practices on the part of MCI and New York.

New York receives about 57 percent of all revenue from phone calls made from inside-state prisons. The state has taken in more than $175 million since the contract with MCI was signed in 1996, the group said. These fees have been used to fund programs for inmates, including medical care. They have also been used to detect criminal activity in prisons by monitoring conversations, the group said.

Reducing the cost of phone calls would mean more contact with family members and help keep families intact - and prisoners out of jail once they're released, according to advocates.

"For many families who can't visit it (phone calls) become a valuable lifeline," said Cecily Coleman of Prison Families of New York.
A spokeswoman for the state agency that runs the prisons, the Department of Correctional Services, declined to comment.

A bill currently before the state Legislature would force the state to reduce the fees and provide a debit card system under which calls could be made.

The Assembly bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, was passed in June. The senate version, sponsored by Senator Michael Nozzolio, R-54th District, is still in the Crime and Corrections Committee, which Nozzolio chairs. The bill is stuck there because it does not have the majority support of the committee members, according to a Nozzolio spokesman.

There was no indication of when the appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court, will hear the advocates' lawsuit.
Cost of a call

Cost of typical 19-minute call for prisoners and others:

Prisoners: $6.04

MCI "net value" plan: 76 cents

Verizon "5-cent package" plan: 95 cents Sprint "7 cents any time " plan: $1.33

Note: the rate applies to calls from prisoners regardless of the location of who they call.

The Empire Journal

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Rates For Prison Phone Calls Challenged In Court
If the courts won't help us, who will?

That's the question being asked by thousands of New York family members who pay a grossly inflated rate to receive a phone call from their loved ones in state prisons. On behalf of these families, the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed an appeal in their case against the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) and MCI.

The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the state. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them, CCR says.

Albany County State Supreme Court Justice George Ceresia, dismissed the suit last fall, citing issues of timeliness. http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/justice/docs/WaltonAppeal_81705.pdf

"By dismissing the suit, the Supreme Court is effectively dodging its responsibility," said Rachel Meeropol, the attorney handling the case for the Center for Constitutional Rights.

"New York State is siphoning money from those who can least afford it. Gov. Pataki, the Department of Correctional Services, and the State Senate have all chosen to ignore the unfair financial burdens on family members struggling to pay their bills. This appeal for a judicial check on the other branches of government may be their only hope."

Meeropol noted that that the Family Connections bill (A.7231-A/S.5299-A), which would amend the state Corrections Law to provide prisoners with fair-market telephone rates, passed the Assembly in June but the Senate sponsor, Michael Nozzolio (R-Fayette), has yet to move the bill out of his own committee.

"This appeal is so important to me and all the others who are stuck with MCI's outrageous prices. No one should be cut off from their family, just so the state can make a profit. I'm praying the courts won't turn a blind eye to this injustice," said Brooklyn resident and family member Marion Rodriguez, who is also an organizer with the campaign.

Last fall, Judge Ceresia held that the plaintiffs were challenging DOCS' ability to contract with MCI, and should have filed their claim within four months of the April 2001 contract. The appeal asserts that, on the contrary, the appellants' claims were timely because the phone rates have changed since the 2001 contract. The plaintiffs are challenging the current rates, which were not effective until immediately before the suit was filed.

The appellants also argue that because family members of prisoners are billed monthly, their rights are violated on a monthly basis, constituting a new injury that they can sue to correct every month. Indeed, the logical implication of Judge Ceresia's ruling would be that thousands of individuals whose loved ones entered prison after 2001 would have no way to challenge the unjust rates.

CCR says New York's prison system has the highest kickback to the state and among the highest rates in America. They say for a family member to speak with a loved one in a DOCS facility, the prisoner must call collect at 16¢ per minute after a $3 surcharge. The average prison phone call is billed at 19 minutes, costing just over $6 and adding up to monthly phone bills of up to $400. Phone rates in U.S. and New York City facilities are substantially cheaper, CCR says.

"Criminal justice experts all agree that keeping in touch with loved ones makes it easier for prisoners to successfully re-enter society in a healthy, productive way when they are released," said Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). "This contract is a sneaky way for the State to tax mothers, wives, brothers and children who aren't guilty of anything more than loving a family member. It needs to end"

The New York Campaign for Telephone Justice is working to end the contract between MCI and the New York State Department of Correctional Services. The campaign is a project of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in partnership with Prison Families of New York, Inc. and Prison Families Community Forum. 8-18-05

Posted by lois at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2005

Panel on Prison Rape Hears Victims' Chilling Accounts

Why were they incarcerated in the first place!
August 20, 2005
By CAROLYN MARSHALL
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 - T. J. Parsell was a lanky pimple-faced adolescent bent on mischief. So when he found a toy gun one evening in 1978 while wandering home from a high school party, he thought nothing of pointing it at a store clerk and grumbling, "Your money or your life."

He got $50 for what he now calls "a stupid impulsive prank." The incident landed the 17-year-old Parsell in an adult jail, where on his first night, an older inmate spiked his drink with Thorazine and sexually abused and raped him.

"While my friends prepared for our high school prom, I was being gang raped," Mr. Parsell testified on Friday to a Congressional commission investigating prison sexual abuse and rape.

Mr. Parsell, now 45, and a successful software executive who lives on Long Island, was one of six victims of prison rape to relate disturbing accounts with a bipartisan panel of The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission here.

"What they took from me went beyond sex," Mr. Parsell said. "They'd stolen my manhood, my identity and part of my soul."

The panel, which also heard from state and federal legislators, law enforcement and prison officials and mental health experts, has been investigating the prevalence, cause and possibl