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November 30, 2005

Census to Study How Prisoners are Counted

National: Census inmate count to be looked at.
Census to study how prisoners are counted
Change could have important political changes in Texas
By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, November 30, 2005

A provision in an appropriations measure signed last week by President Bush that directs the Census Bureau to study how prisoners are counted could have far-reaching implications for the distribution of political clout in Texas.
The provision orders the bureau to examine whether it could count prisoners as living at their address at the time of incarceration instead of at their prison addresses.
Currently, under the bureau's "usual residence" rule, which counts people where they sleep and live at the time the census is taken, prisoners are counted as living in the community where they are incarcerated rather than in the neighborhood they call home.

Where prisoners are counted - in penitentiaries usually in remote areas far from home - effectively shifts political power, taking federal and state dollars, and social services, from urban areas to rural ones, and ultimately skews a state's public policy agenda, according to academics and researchers who have advocated for the change.

But one Census Bureau official said he is skeptical about changing the method, and some rural lawmakers said the population numbers prisons bring in is critical for bringing government dollars to their regions.
According to "Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Texas," a report based on the 2000 census and released last year by the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachu- setts-based research and advocacy group dedicated to reforming prison policies, Texas has two state House districts that have almost 12 percent of their residents behind bars. Ten Texas counties have more than 20 percent of their citizens in prison. Those prisoners hail primarily from the state's urban areas and typically return to those cities after their release.

"If they're from Houston, it doesn't make sense to count them as members of, let's say, Hartley County," said Bill Cooper, a demographer with FairData, a database for education, environment, housing and poverty-related issues. Hartley is a Panhandle county with at least one-fifth of its 5,537 residents in prison.

Compounding the problem is that prisoners don't have voting rights. A county such as Hartley gets a population boost largely from imported prisoners, but Hartley commissioners (or the state representative or U.S. congressman who represent Hartley) are not accountable to them.

Several years ago, state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, sponsored legislation that would have counted prisoners according to their pre-incarceration address. The bill, which Dutton says would have added another representative to Harris County, failed in the House after stiff opposition from rural legislators.

Prisoners are critical for pulling down federal dollars and maintaining political power in rural districts, said state Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville.
"Rural voting strength is declining every time we do a census," he said. About 6.5 percent of his district's population is incarcerated. "I don't want to give up any of mine."

But changing the way prisoners are counted will lead "to a better count and a more just distribution of public funds," said Kenneth Prewitt, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University who was the Census Bureau director from 1998 to 2001.
Advocates of changing the counting method say there is plenty of time to adjust the rules by 2010, when the country takes its next census.

"Incarcerated people are easy to find," said Patricia Allard, co-author of a report called Accuracy Counts, published by the Brennan Center for Justice in New York. "It's just a matter of finding out where they lived before they were incarcerated. People have enduring ties to particular communities - their physical presence in a community isn't the only factor to keep in mind."

But Ed Byerly, the head of the population and housing branch at the Census Bureau, said he has studied the issue over the past year and "nothing yet points to changing how people incarcerated are counted," he said. "If you've been ordered by a judge to be in prison, that's where you're living at the time of the census."

Home is "not where your mom is," he said. By following something other than the "usual residence" rule, which has guided census takers since 1790, "You open up a Pandora's box, a free-for-all census, where there's no principle for where people are counted."

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/11/30CENSUS.html

Posted by lois at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

VA: Clemency for Robin Lovitt-Execution Stopped

November 30, 2005
Clemency Stops an Execution in Virginia
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia granted clemency Tuesday to a convicted killer, declaring that the loss of a crucial piece of evidence had persuaded him that the man should not be put to death as scheduled on Wednesday.

Mr. Warner's decision, in the case of Robin Lovitt, blocked what would have been the 1,000th execution in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

The case has been closely watched, because of the milestone Mr. Lovitt's execution would have marked, because the former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr worked on Mr. Lovitt's behalf and because the case was viewed as having possible political implications for Mr. Warner, a Democrat who is believed to be weighing a run for the presidency in 2008.

"I believe clemency should only be exercised in the most extraordinary circumstances," Mr. Warner said. "Among these are circumstances in which the normal and honored processes of our judicial system do not provide adequate relief - circumstances that, in fact, require executive intervention to reaffirm public confidence in our justice system."

The improper discarding of evidence - the pair of scissors that Mr. Lovitt was convicted of using to kill a pool hall manager in Arlington in 1998 - was just such a circumstance, said Mr. Warner, who had never before granted clemency in his four years in office, a period in which 11 men have been executed.

Mr. Warner said before the announcement Tuesday that he had agonized over the Lovitt case like no other. "The commonwealth must ensure that every time this ultimate sanction is carried out, it is done fairly," he said in his clemency statement. "After a thorough review, it is my decision that Robin Lovitt should spend the rest of his life in prison with no eligibility for parole."

Clemency was the last hope for Mr. Lovitt, 42, after the Supreme Court declined on Oct. 3 to hear his latest appeal despite having granted a stay of execution three months before.

The scissors were thrown out by a Virginia court clerk, after Mr. Lovitt's conviction had been affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court but before he filed a federal court petition. Mr. Lovitt was accused of using them to pry open a cash register drawer and to stab the pool hall manager, Clayton Dicks, who caught him in the act.

The DNA testing available at the time showed the blood on the scissors to be that of the victim but was inconclusive for the DNA of anyone else. Nor were Mr. Lovitt's fingerprints on the scissors. His lawyers argued that a more modern test of the scissors could show that he was innocent, and that losing the weapon had resulted in "profound unfairness."

Mr. Starr also tried to persuade the Supreme Court that Mr. Lovitt's original lawyer had failed to present evidence of severe childhood abuse by a stepfather. "The jury cannot reliably impose the death sentence without considering the petitioner's individual life history," Mr. Starr said in a brief.

Mr. Starr had sought to overturn a ruling last April by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, which concluded that the conviction should stand, despite the discarding of the scissors.

The court noted that two witnesses testified they were almost certain Mr. Lovitt was the man they saw stabbing and kicking; that Mr. Lovitt's cousin testified that the defendant had showed up at the cousin's house in the middle of the night with a cash drawer, and that a fellow inmate testified that Mr. Lovitt had confided to killing Mr. Dicks.

Mr. Lovitt, who had previously worked at the pool hall, has said that he was in the bathroom at the time of the killing, and that he took the cash drawer only after finding Mr. Dicks already dead.

The Fourth Circuit held that Mr. Lovitt's trial lawyers had defended him competently, and under difficult circumstances: had they chosen to have Mr. Lovitt's relatives testify about his background they would have invited cross-examination about the relatives' criminal records, and, most likely, Mr. Lovitt's own convictions for assault, attempted robbery, larceny and other crimes.

Mr. Warner, who made a fortune in the telecommunications industry, has been mentioned as the kind of Democrat who could appeal to business-minded conservatives, especially in the South, if he runs for president. Commuting the death sentence of a convicted murderer could leave Mr. Warner open to being attacked as soft on crime in a general election. But in Democratic primaries in which Mr. Warner would probably be among the more conservative candidates, granting clemency to Mr. Lovitt might be viewed as a plus by the party's powerful liberal wing.

This year's Virginia governor's race may have provided evidence that the death penalty has faded as an electoral issue. The race was won handily by Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who opposes capital punishment on religious grounds, even though his opponent hammered him as soft on crime. Analysts believe the popularity of Mr. Warner, prohibited by term limits from running again, helped negate the attacks.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

Alito Memos Supported Expanding Police Powers

November 29, 2005, NY Times
Alito Memos Supported Expanding Police Powers
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - As a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Samuel A. Alito Jr., the Supreme Court nominee, played an active role in advancing the administration's efforts to expand law enforcement powers and limit restrictions on prosecutors, documents released Monday by the Justice Department show.

The 470 pages of documents, which consist mainly of memorandums Mr. Alito wrote as a deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel in 1986 and 1987, generally address routine matters or highly technical legal issues. In several of the memorandums, however, Mr. Alito makes a series of arguments espousing a broad view of law enforcement authority and a skeptical view of proposals to protect individuals from legal investigations.

Mr. Alito, who is now a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, wrote the memorandums as a lawyer enacting the policies of the administration, not necessarily expressing his personal legal opinions.

But the disclosure comes at a time when liberal opponents of his nomination are buying television advertisements suggesting that as a judge on the Third Circuit, Judge Alito wrote dissenting opinions that would have reduced protections against police searches, including one regarding a strip search of a 10-year-old girl.

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the White House, said those accusations ignored other opinions Judge Alito wrote that protected defendants against improper police searches. "The criticisms by some outside-of-the-mainstream groups are deeply unfair because Judge Alito has shown a great respect for individual rights with regard to criminal prosecutions during his tenure as a federal judge," Mr. Schmidt said. "The attacks that are being directed against him don't bear any resemblance to the reality of his career."

In one 1987 memorandum disclosed Monday, Mr. Alito argued for stronger penalties specifically for violent civil rights violations.

In a 1986 memorandum, Mr. Alito argued that an opinion of the American Bar Association prohibiting lawyers from secretly taping conversations should not block lawyers for the Internal Revenue Service from secretly taping as part of a federal criminal investigation.

In another, he argued against proposed "model rules of professional responsibility" from the District of Columbia that would have precluded investigation of an individual without a "good faith belief" that the person was involved in criminal activity. He argued that the rules were written so broadly that they would cramp the ability of prosecutors to pursue legitimate leads.

In another memorandum, Mr. Alito argued that the Federal Bureau of Investigation should have broad latitude to investigate federal employees, contending that a federal district court decision appearing to limit such investigations was wrongly decided.

He also took a narrow view of an appeals court case, Clark v. Library of Congress, that prohibited an investigation of a government employee on the basis of his membership in a socialist party. Mr. Alito argued that decision still left room for a preliminary inquiry without more evidence, in part to determine if "there is a reasonable possibility that the employee is disloyal" and thus justifying a fuller investigation.

In another case that may prefigure legal issues relating to combating terrorism, Mr. Alito wrote to William H. Webster, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that it would be permissible for the bureau to compile fingerprint and identifying information on Iranian and Afghan refugees who had entered Canada. The Canadian authorities had provided the information.

"In light of the intelligence reports that the bureau has summarized for us, we believe the collection of both fingerprint identification and criminal identification information" in an F.B.I. database was justified, Mr. Alito wrote, citing an executive order with a "broad mandate to protect against terrorism."

In a 1987 memorandum to John R. Bolton, who was then an assistant attorney general and is now ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Alito also took a dim view of a draft of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Mr. Alito argued that the document failed to reflect "the traditional American aversion towards state intervention in child-rearing practices," and faulted it as infringing on the right of state governments to set policies on matters like child welfare standards and the administration of the death penalty for minors.

The United States Supreme Court earlier this year ended executions for crimes committed by minors, ruling by a vote of 5 to 4 in the case of Roper v. Simmons that such executions were cruel and unusual punishment.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

"Don't Discard Youthful Offenders"

Don't discard youthful offenders
By DAVID BERGER

11/28/2005
Children can and sometimes do commit terrible crimes, and when they do they should be held accountable. But life in prison without any possibility or even consideration of parole does not hold children accountable, it holds them disposable. Child offenders should be sentenced in a manner that reflects both the severity of their crime and their special capacity to change and redeem themselves.

A recent report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reveals that 2,225 child offenders in the United States been locked up for life without any possibility of parole. Fifty-nine percent of child offenders serving life without parole are in prison for their first criminal offense, and an estimated 27 percent were sentenced for felony murder - that is to say, they were involved in a crime during which a murder took place, but they did not take part in the murder itself. Sixteen percent of child offenders serving life sentences without parole were between the ages of 13 and 15 when they committed their crimes.

Also striking are the racial disparities, which we find in every area of the criminal justice system but which are perhaps even more pronounced in the sentencing of children to life without parole. Black children are 10 times more likely to receive life without parole than white children are. Sixty percent of the current population of child offenders serving life without parole is black.

Are you the same person you were when you were 14, or 16? Neither are the child offenders who have been discarded into our prison system without any hope of release, but our criminal sentencing laws ignore this obvious fact. As the Supreme Court said in a landmark decision on the juvenile death penalty last spring: ''any parent knows'' and ''scientific and sociological studies ... tend to confirm'' that children possess a ''lack of maturity ... an underdeveloped sense of responsibility ... (and take) impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.'' While a neuroscientist could explain to you the specifics of brain development, it doesn't take a doctoral degree to know that kids act out, often don't consider the consequences and are extremely susceptible to peer pressure.

Often touted as a leader in human rights, the United States lags behind the rest of the world on this important human rights issue. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch were able to identify only 12 child offenders in the entire rest of the world serving the sentence often termed ''death by incarceration.'' That's right - 12 in the rest of the world and 2,225 in the United States.

Judges cannot look into a crystal ball at the time of sentencing. Children are uniquely suited for change: They grow up and mature, often becoming unrecognizable to those who knew them in childhood. Yet in many states, sentencing of children who have committed very serious crimes has become an exercise in fortune telling.

Ironically, in 28 states, even a judge with a crystal ball could not save a child from being discarded into our prisons for life. Instead, in these states, judges' hands are tied by mandatory sentencing laws. Sentencing decisions should be made case by case. A ''one-size fits all'' approach to criminal justice ignores children's inherent ability to change.

Sentencing a child offender to life without the possibility of parole sends a message to that child - who is more likely than not low-income, African American or Hispanic - that his life is less valuable, his potential contributions are less significant and he is not worth the minimal time or effort it would take to revisit his case and evaluate his state of redemption later in life. We can do better for our troubled youth than discarding them forever.

David Berger, a Washington attorney with O'Melveny & Myers LLP, serves as pro bono counsel to Amnesty International USA.

Times-Post News Service

Posted by lois at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

Canada: A Prison Makes The Illicit and Dangerous Legal and Safe

November 24, 2005
Bath Journal
A Prison Makes the Illicit and Dangerous Legal and Safe
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
BATH, Ontario, Nov. 18 - The Bath Institution is a long way from Alcatraz.

It is a medium-security federal prison, and its inmates are allowed to keep the keys to their cells. Many have their own kitchens, and they move freely from the gym to the cabinet-making shop. Drug addicts can clean their needles with bleach, and condoms are readily available.

Now the institution has opened a tattoo parlor, and Mark Hewitt, a 37-year-old inmate in jail for breaking into factories, couldn't be happier.

"You're excluded from society, so the way to fit in here is to get a tattoo, to blend in and be one of the crew, to be safer," said Mr. Hewitt, who for years had been clandestinely puncturing prisoner biceps with sewing needles, guitar strings and homemade ink sometimes made from burnt polystyrene.

While he says he has always been careful, such practices have contributed to an epidemic of hepatitis C and H.I.V. in prisons in Canada and around the world. Now Mr. Hewitt has been trained by the government to take his art form out of the dark and seamy corners of the jail and into a sterile-looking cinder-block room that looks almost like a dental clinic.

Mr. Hewitt's parlor is part of a pilot project by the Correctional Services of Canada that began in August and now includes five federal prisons across Canada. A sixth, in a woman's prison, is scheduled to open this month. More than 120 inmates have already taken part, paying about $5 per two-hour session.

Officials here and in the United States say they believe that the pilot project is the first of its kind in the world, another step in a trend of harm-reduction techniques spreading to one degree or another in prisons in many countries. The pilot program, expected to continue through at least 2007, is expected to cost the government roughly $100,000 per prison.

Tattooing has traditionally been banned in prisons because tattoos are often used to identify inmates with gangs and hate groups. But inmates have managed to get around the bans; 45 percent of Canadian inmates acquire a tattoo while in prison, according to government statistics. That rate has held steady over the last decade despite the widespread knowledge that diseases are spread through reused tattoo needles and ink.

"You don't want your prisons acting as a pool of infection for the general population," said Joanne Barton, a senior health officer working on the program. "The prevalence of H.I.V. is 7 to 10 times higher in federal penitentiaries than in the general Canadian population, and for hepatitis C the prevalence is 30 times higher."

Ms. Barton stressed that tattoos connected with hate groups and gangs were prohibited, along with tattoos on the face, neck and genitals. While she acknowledged that illicit tattooing would continue, she said at least now prisons in the pilot project were distributing information on safer techniques.

But the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers strongly opposes the pilot as a potential danger to its members.

"This program is doomed for failure," said Sylvain Martel, the union's national president. "Needles will be used against corrections officers."

Mr. Martel also said "we already have evidence" that inmates are stealing needles, ink and other paraphernalia from the parlors to be used in illicit tattooing. Prison supervisors say that they have no knowledge of that, adding that there is a careful inventory before and after tattooing sessions.

Whether legal or not, tattooing is not going to disappear from prisons. Tattoos serve many functions, aside from gang identification. Inmates typically make their bodies a collage of their life, complete with pictures or representations of loved ones and important events like funerals they cannot attend. To understand the importance of tattoos here, one only has to look at Tracy Rivet's body.

On his right arm is a tattoo displaying a decaying skull with hair flowing out of its mouth. On his chest there is a Christian cross that commemorates his deceased father. And on his left arm there is a wizard and a skull that cover up another tattoo of the name of his former wife. Now he is getting his entire back tattooed with a giant eagle, a symbol of freedom.

Like many convicts with tattoos, Mr. Rivet has hepatitis C, a debilitating chronic infectious disease that costs the Canadian government more than $20,000 a year per inmate to treat.

"I always let doctors, nurses and females know about my disease," said Mr. Rivet, who is serving a five-year sentence for first-degree manslaughter, after killing two people while driving drunk. "But only about 50 percent of the inmates are careful," he added, referring to sharing tattoo needles and reusing homemade ink.

The Canadian experiment is being watched closely by other prison systems looking for ways to control infections. It may work best in prisons like Bath, where inmates say gangs do not have a significant presence. Other Canadian prisons where tattoo programs are being tested, in Quebec and the Prairie provinces, have larger gang problems.

The corrections department in the Spanish province of Catalonia has reviewed the guidelines used in the Canadian program as it prepares to open its own pilot program. One corrections department in Australia has also considered starting a pilot, and the idea could eventually migrate south of the border.

"If there was a way to demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the risks," said Joey Weedon, director of governmental affairs of the American Correctional Association, "it's certainly a model that correctional administrators in the United States would look at and possibly attempt to copy."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)

VA: International Day for Human Rights--From Abu Ghraib to Red Onion State

International Day for Human Rights
From Abu Ghraib to Red Onion State
Stop Prison Abuse!

Saturday December 10th 2:30 PM
Oliver Hill Court House
1600 Oliver Hill Way across from the Richmond city Jail

FedUp! is working with a group called The People
United, a grassroots social justice network that has
members all over Virginia. We are planning an event
for December 10th in Richmond. December 10th is the
International Day for Human Rights. The idea is to
address human rights violations in prisons abroad,
like Abu Ghraib, and make the correlation between the
Human Rights Violations that are taking place here in
Virginia. The people in this country were appalled
when photographs and footage of torture and abuse
found its way to the public. If only we can get the
people in this country to see what has been happening
here in Virginia and in prisons across the United
States, the reaction would be the same – horrified,
ashamed, and outraged. So, please if you can, try to
attend the rally in Richmond on December 10th. It will
take place at 2:30pm at the Oliver Hill Court House
which is located across from the City Jail. There will
be speakers and a march. Keep your evening free for an
evening event is being planned where we will have a
chance to network and strategize about where we want
to go from here. Together our voices our strong. STOP
THE ABUSE! There are also plans for an event on Sunday
the 11th people to gather at one of Virginia’s Super
Max prisons. There will be transportation provided.

Prisoners must be treated with respect for their
dignity as human beings and for their fundamental
rights, whatever their crimes.

For more information contact:
Art at 804-303 3270
or email antiprison@yahoo.com
www.signalfire.org/Dec10

Posted by lois at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

AZ: Pinal County Wants You

Pinal County wants you
By PRESTON McCONKIE, Staff Writer
November 22, 2005
Terry Altman, jail commander for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, stands outside the new $42 million, 1,054-bed jail the county is building just east of the present jail in Florence. Altman needs to hire 66 new detention officers, 12 detention aides, one polygraph technician, one criminal investigator, one noncriminal background investigator and two administrative clerks before the first prisoners can be moved into the building.

FLORENCE -

Pinal County is looking both to lure trained prison guards away from the state Department of Corrections and to entice people to make detention work their new career. The reason is simple: The county needs $16 million a year to pay for building and staffing its new jail, but to make the money it first needs the staff.

Certainly the more than 700 inmates in the current 472-bed Pinal County detention center would prefer the elbow room and modern facilities of the three-story, $42 million, 1,054-bed edifice rising to the east. But before anyone moves in, jail commander Terry Altman must find more than a few good men and women. To be precise, right now he needs 83 of them, and by the middle of next year he'll need 189 more.

As of three weeks ago, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead to begin hiring and training the first set of detention officers and support staff for the jail.

Although debt service on the loan paying for the jail is $5 million, that's still easier to swallow than the $11 million annual cost of staffing and running it. Altman had expected the hiring to begin in July, but supervisors decided to push that date back, closer to the time the building will be ready physically to start housing detainees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose rent payments are expected to bring $15 million to $16 million a year once the jail is up to speed.

Before Altman can open the first wing of the jail and welcome the lucrative ICE detainees, he needs 66 new DOs, 12 detention aides, one polygraph technician, one criminal investigator, one noncriminal or background investigator and two administrative clerks.

On Nov. 16, Altman and Sheriff Chris Vasquez held a press conference to explain the advantages of working for Pinal County instead of another detention authority.

Show me the money

The first reason, sensibly enough, is pay. According to a human resources spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections, officers in training get an annual wage equal to $26,364 and, after graduating from the Correction Officers Training Academy, that rate goes up by $1,000. Over five years that rate rises to "about $31,000." Those commuting long distance receive an extra 10 percent, or $100 per paycheck, to help with travel.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office, on the other hand, starts a newly hired officer without training at $32,302.

"Their salary is the same during training," Altman said. "We don't have a cadet salary."

For those concerned with making more money from the get-go, the numbers compare pretty well even with the county's covey of private prisons. Corrections Corporation of America, which has several facilities in Florence and Eloy, pays newly hired DOs $12.72 per hour, just over $26,000 for full-time work. Once they pass a stringent background test, which can take up to six months, they qualify to work with federal detainees at $19.77 per hour, about $41,000 annually.

For the county the rate of pay increase after first hire is more gradual than in both state and private work, though DOs still end up making more than they would for the state; a county DO with five years' experience makes $33,944 today.

Altman said experience gained at other jails or prisons is counted when figuring the starting pay scale for the Sheriff's Office. Also, the county participates in the state's correction officers retirement program. State workers who transfer to the county can keep their years accrued toward retirement, with the hope of retiring at a higher wage.

"We also offer a significant benefit package," Altman said. "That is, the county has a base employee payment of $5,200 annually that the employee can use to select which benefits they wish to purchase for their family. They can tailor it to their own needs - medical, dental, vision - and use it to offset personal cost."

The county also offers a flexible spending program where $2,600 can be set aside before taxes and used to cover co-pays, deductibles and other medical expenses. A new law allows that money to be used until March 31 of the following calendar year instead of having to be forfeited if not spent by Dec. 3. For county workers who already have insurance coverage through a spouse and elect not to buy their own coverage, the county provides the $2,600 for the flexible spending program.

Last of all, there are 10 paid holidays, 10 vacation days for new hires (and more with longevity), 30-day sabbaticals provided after 15 years, plus 13 days of sick leave.

Not such a pain

For those who may have tried to hire on with the county before and been put off by the eight to 12 months waiting for paperwork to pass through the county's bureaucratic digestive tract, Altman said the process has been speeded up.

"Now we believe the maximum wait will be 120 days," Altman said. "We are processing people partially through the application process, and if they clear specific hurdles such as drug analysis, background and medical checks, we will bring them on board with a conditional employment offer - based on if they don't fail anything else on the background check.

"But who better to know their background than the individual, if they're willing to accept conditional employment knowing they will be terminated if we find something in there. They can say wait and see, or they can say, I know my background is clean, and then we can bring them on board sooner."

The basic qualifications to be a DO are being 21 or older, being drug free, having an Arizona driver's license, passing a written exam and having a high school diploma or equivalent. For those 19 or 20, there is also the option of being a "detention aide," a person who sits in an observation booth and communicates with guards and inmates through an intercom.

"They start with a $24,211 per-year salary," Altman said. "The aide doesn't have direct physical contact with inmate populations. They are an extra set of eyes for officers on the floor."

Altman said this is a good way for a recent high school graduate to learn about detention work and decide if he or she wants to go on to be a regular officer.

Altman said job applications are only taken online, at www.pinaljobs.com, but he also hopes people will come down to see the new jail. He invites calls to his secretary at 868-8250 to schedule a walk-through, as well as to chat about the advantages of working for Pinal County.

Sheriff Vasquez added his own invitation:

"This is an exciting time. I firmly believe new hires will find the Pinal County Sheriff's Office is the No. 1 law enforcement agency in Arizona, and a great place to work."

To learn more about working as a detention officer for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, call the recruiting line at 868-8250.

©Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc. 2005

Posted by lois at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

Florida Opens Third Faith-Based Prison

Published Thursday, November 24, 2005
By Joe Follick
Ledger Tallahassee Bureau

CRAWFORDVILLE -- With guests tapping their toes under a red-and-white-striped tent, the band dressed in prison blues put their repentance to music as they welcomed visitors to Wakulla Correctional Institution on Wednesday with a rough-edged but soulful repertoire.

"I'd rather have Jesus than silver and gold," went one chorus to a song with a convicted murderer sharing the lead vocals.

The prison, located on Commerce Boulevard next to Opportunity Park, was dedicated Wednesday as the state's third, and now the nation's largest, faith-based prison.

The 1,600-inmate facility will become a "faith- and characterbased institution" as inmates with good behavior can move to the facility and receive educational and spiritual opportunities not available at other state prisons. This is the third faith-based prison in the state; there is another in Lawtey, and a female prison is in Hillsborough County.

No other state has entire prisons devoted to faith-based guidelines. The first faith-based prison in Lawtey has been open only two years, not enough time for data to show whether inmates who leave such facilities are more likely to succeed in the real world once released.

DOC officials are extra careful to include the phrase "character-based" in any descriptions of the facilities.

Despite the Christian majority, classes are available for most religious faiths and even, officials say, those with no religious belief at all. Despite some consternation from groups that battle the blurring of religion and government, the faith-based prisons have not brought on any lawsuits, largely because they are a voluntary option for inmates and the religious material and time are donated by volunteers.

Gov. Jeb Bush and others say incidents such as fights have been reduced at Lawtey, but it's unclear how much of that is attributable to religion and how much is because of a clientele of inmates with fewer disciplinary problems in the past with more religious activities to fill their time.

Wakulla CI warden Kenneth Lampp said just having extra programs allows fewer opportunities for mischief.

"Even if (an inmate is) not getting any benefit from (faith-based classes), while he's sitting in that program, if nothing else he's occupied for that moment, so he's not creating a security risk or a threat," Lampp said.

Wakulla inmate Timothy Hardee, 51, said he's been in and out of prisons around the country for more than two decades. He hadn't seen his son, Ryan Palmer, since he was 8 years old until a chance meeting last year in the yard of the Central Florida Reception Center, a prison in Orange County.

"I looked down at this fellow and his ID and he looked back at mine and just said, `Dad,' " Hardee said of his son, who is now 22. "We started going to church right then."

Hardee is scheduled for release in nine months after serving time for driving with a suspended license and grand theft. He hopes to return to Polk County and become a minister and to atone for his past failures as a man and as a father. He said that will be easier with the new programs at Wakulla.

"In this environment right here, you have something beautiful," he said. "Sure, there's going to be some (inmates) who pretend at it, but the seed's in them and they'll come around, too."

Thomas M. Siebert, 51, has a college degree and had a career as a journalist until drugs became part of his life in the 1980s. He was sent to prison for robbery and battery in the early 1990s and was arrested again on cocaine charges in 2001. He has a release date of late 2007, and he thinks the new programs at Wakulla will help him achieve his goal of being an inspirational writer.

"Coming to prison is a dehumanizing experience. I accept responsibility for why I'm here, but it's the kind of place where you're kind of given the message all day long that you're just no good, that you don't have any value," Siebert said. "This place changes that atmosphere. It has the potential to change lives and to change families and to change their communities."

Speaking to inmates, volunteers and others, Bush reminded them that he and his wife pray every morning for "God's blessings" as well as for the welfare of their families and the troops overseas.

"It's no secret that I believe in the power of faith," Bush said. "It makes a big difference to me."

DOC Secretary James Crosby said Wakulla is a different environment for the faith-based philosophy because many inmates there will serve long sentences that may last their entire lives.

"These are human beings," he said. "The biggest point I see to the whole faith-based, characterbased movement is getting and setting an environment for a person who's made a mistake or done something wrong, to still be able to live in a safe, secure place where they can develop as an individual, a person, as a human being."

Posted by lois at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)

AZ:"I think the good thing is that it generates a lot of jobs for people living here

Federal prison construction now complete
Facility to house 1,000-plus high-security and minimum-security prisoners
By Patty Machelor
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The Southeast Side will gain as many as 1,000 new residents in upcoming months, though the newcomers will not move here voluntarily.

Construction has been completed on a new $100 million federal prison that will eventually house up to 960 high-security prisoners, said Traci Billingsley, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The facility at 9300 S. Wilmot Road will also include up to 128 minimum-security prisoners who will participate in a work camp next to the high-security prison.

Many of the prisoners who will live at this U.S. Penitentiary and Federal Prison Camp will be transferred from West Coast facilities, Billingsley said. "We try to place offenders within 500 miles of their release residence," she said.

The facility will open after the passage of the federal agency's 2006 budget, which could be at any time in upcoming months, Billingsley said.

Construction on the prison began in 2003 on 15 acres. The facility is west of the Federal Correctional Institute and north of the Arizona State Prison.

Mary Lee Swann is a resident of Rita Ranch, a large subdivision east of the prisons. Swann said she is not concerned about the new facility opening.

One reason is that two other correctional institutions are already there, said Swann, a licensed practical nurse who moved to the area in September from Northwest Tucson.

Swann said another reason she is not concerned is that she used to teach girls and young women in detention and feels compassion for people who are imprisoned.

Another resident said he is confident that if an inmate does escape from the prison, people in Rita Ranch will not be in much danger. "Usually when somebody does break out of prison, they quickly leave the area," said Kent Bortz, who has lived in Rita Ranch about six years.

Bortz, who works as an engineer, said he also supports the new prison because of what it means for the Tucson economy.

"I think the good thing is that it generates a lot of jobs for people living here in Tucson, and I know we need that," he said.

The site of the new prison was chosen over other sites in Yuma because Tucson has the population and location to support it.

About half the employees for the new facility will be hired locally, Billingsley said. Between 350 and 400 full-time workers will take the jobs, which include guards, wardens, medical specialists, caseworkers, food service employees and trade workers.

To compete with the new employer, the Pima County Board of Supervisors earlier this month approved 18.7 percent pay raises for its corrections officers. This hike will make their salaries more competitive with officers working in federal prisons.

The raises, which will cost the county $400,000 this fiscal year and $1.6 million to $1.9 million next year, were approved in hopes of discouraging defections to federal jobs.

The plan boosts the starting pay for county corrections officers from $29,094 to $33,696 a year, which is within $1 per hour of federal corrections employees, said County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.

Posted by lois at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2005

TX: Encinal Economic Development Corporation Takes Stand Against SuperJail

Encinal Economic Development Corporation
Resolution # 08-22-05
August 22, 2005

A RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE EXPANSION OF THE LA SALLE COUNTY REGIONAL DETENTION FACILITY OR THE CREATION OF ANY OTHER PRISON OR DETENTION FACILITY IN OR NEAR ENCINAL

WHEREAS the Encinal Economic Development Corporation was created by the City of Encinal to promote and invest in the economic well-being of the City of Encinal;

WHEREAS the existing La Salle County Regional Detention Facility, which houses detainees for the US Marshals Service and is located less than a mile outside of Encinal city limits, was undertaken by the County of La Salle and private interests without input from Encinal city officials and without response to Encinal community member concerns;

WHEREAS the study published in Social Science Quarterly in March 2004, "The Prison Industry: Carceral Expansion and Employment in U.S. Counties, 1969-1994." (Greg Hooks, et al.) shows that small, rural communities such as Encinal, contrary to popular belief, do not see long-term economic benefit from prison projects;

WHEREAS the existing La Salle County Regional Detention Facility has failed to provide any demonstrative positive economic impact to the City of Encinal;

WHEREAS the recent addition of the La Salle County Regional Detention Center to the water/sewer system of the Encinal Water Supply Corporation, which provides water and sewer services to the community of Encinal, has left insufficient water/sewer infrastructure to support additional businesses and residences without considerable expense (estimated at over $4 million);

WHEREAS the City of Encinal has a population of 629 (US Census, 2000) and the creation of a large-scale detention facility, with a detained population (2,800) far greater than the town population will cast the image of Encinal as a prison town.

WHEREAS the Encinal Economic Development Corporation supports a diversified economy for the Encinal community and envisions a community that is not reliant on any one sector of the economy or any one industry;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Encinal Economic Development Corporation opposes the expansion of the existing La Salle County Regional Detention Facility or the creation of any other prison or detention facility in or near Encinal.

PASSED AND APPROVED this 22nd day of August, 2005.

SIGNED BY:
Donna Lednicky
Chairperson

ATTEST:

Joann Wells
Secretary

Posted by lois at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)

NYC Begins Distributing Naloxone (Narcan) to Treat Overdoses

November 22, 2005
NYC Begins Distributing Naloxone to Treat Overdoses

The New York City health department has provided about $200,000 to the Harm Reduction Coalition to distribute the opiate antidote naloxone(Narcan) to needle-exchange visitors, Newsday reported Nov. 21.

Naloxone distribution began about seven months ago in the city; the drug, which is effective in preventing fatal overdoses, can't be misused and is easy to administer by syringe. "It's sort of a revolutionary idea, in a way, to put a medicine in the hands of anybody," said Sharon Stancliff, medical director for the Harm Reduction Coalition. "Overdose is really preventable in many, many cases."

Needle-exchange clients are taught how to detect an overdose and how to administer the antidote and perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, if necessary; they also are advised to call 911.

About 700 people die of opiate overdoses in New York each year. In addition to allowing the Coalition to distribute naloxone directly to addicts, the health department is considering giving the drug to New York Fire Department EMTs so it can be used when they respond to emergency calls.

"We know about 80 percent of the time people shoot up with a peer. It's like drinking, people don't do it alone," said Department of Health official Andrew Kolodny said. "Historically, heroin users do all the wrong things when they witness an overdose -- there are reports about injecting people with milk, putting ice on people. They are scared to call 911."

ISIT THIS PAGE ONLINE for accompanying web links and resources: http://www.jointogether.org/y/0,2521,578644,00.html
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Posted by lois at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Bill Would Give People with Drug Convictions Earlier Parole

By Emelie Rutherford/ Daily News Staff
Wednesday, November 23, 2005

BOSTON -- Approximately one-tenth of the inmates at Framingham's notoriously overcrowded women's prison would be eligible for parole under a measure backed by a MetroWest lawmaker who drew dozens of supporters to the State House yesterday.

The bill to grant parole eligibility for the first time to inmates serving mandatory minimum drug sentences would reduce overcrowding in Massachusetts' prisons and save the state millions of dollars, supporters said.

"This is not being soft on crime, it's being smart," bill sponsor state Sen. Cynthia Creem, D-Newton, said after it was weighed by the joint Judiciary Committee, on which she sits.

Of the 671 inmates at MCI-Framingham, 65 of them were serving mandatory minimum drug sentences as of Monday, according to state Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.

Across the state there are approximately 10,300 inmates in DOC facilities, with 1,592 serving mandatory minimum drug sentences, she said.

Creem's parole bill would allow such drug offenders to go before the parole board once they have served two-thirds of the maximum sentences for their crimes. The measure would not ensure those inmates are sent home and monitored on parole.

"It won't open the gates, it won't let them out," said Leslie Walker, director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which aids indigent prisoners. "It just lets them see the parole board," which she added is "not a notoriously liberal body."

According to Walker, many of the women serving mandatory minimum drug sentences at MCI-Framingham are "wonderfully eligible for parole." That's because many of those women are repentant, lacking of criminal histories and nonviolent, she said. While sentencing judges cannot take such factors into consideration, the parole board can.

MCI-Framingham is the most cramped housing unit in the state's system, and has an overcrowding rate of 331 percent in the awaiting trial unit, Walker said.

Creem's parole bill made its way into a working version of the state budget last year before dying. Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey declined to publicly endorse the bill during yesterday's Judiciary Committee hearing, telling Creem she would talk about it in a more "personal" setting.

Healey was at the hearing to testify in favor of Gov. Mitt Romney's bill to require post-release supervision of felons.

Norwood native Sean Glynn said Creem's parole bill could help his 30-year-old brother, Patrick, who is three years into a five-year sentence for trafficking cocaine, his first-ever offense.

Patrick Glynn is a model prisoner with a job, supportive family and girlfriend waiting for him, Sean Glynn said. Patrick Glynn's continued incarceration is costing the state thousands and causing heartache for his loved ones, his family said.

"I don't think there is a parole board in this country that would not release him," Sean Glynn said.

The Boston Bar Association and League of Women Voters were among the groups that spoke in favor of Creem's parole bill. While no one testified against it, a lawmaker on the committee predicted it would be hotly contested if it advanced to the full Legislature.

Creem said her bill would save the state $10 million to $15 million a year and is supported by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. It costs approximately $43,000 to incarcerate an inmate for one year, Healey said.

(Emelie Rutherford can be reached at 617-722-2495 or erutherford@cnc.com)

Posted by lois at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)

The Moral Importance of Clemency

The Moral Importance of Clemency
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet
Posted on November 22, 2005, Printed on November 22,
2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/28580/

LOS ANGELES--As California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
ponders the fate of death-row inmate Stanley "Tookie"
Williams, he might examine the political fortunes of
Sen. George Allen, former governor of Virginia.

In 1990, residents of Danville, Va., were shocked at
the execution-style murder of a local businessman
during what police described as a bungled drug deal. A
jury swiftly convicted William Saunders of the
killing. The betting odds were that Saunders would get
the death penalty. The odds were even greater that
he'd be executed. Virginia ranks close to Texas as an
"execute em' quick, and in large numbers" death
penalty state.

Guilt was not an issue in his case -- Saunders
purportedly killed in cold blood. But later he had a
jailhouse epiphany, and had become a strong advocate
against drugs and violence. There were also hints of
improprieties in his sentencing. Authorities praised
Saunders as a changed man.

Governors are scared stiff of being tagged as soft on
crime and of subverting the people's will. They
routinely duck and run from granting clemency to
convicted murderers. Yet, in Sept. 1997, conservative
Republican Gov. George Allen did what many thought
unthinkable: He spared Saunders' life.

Six months after granting clemency to Saunders,
Allen's approval rating was far higher than a year
earlier. Allen's clemency grant may not have caused
his approval rating to climb, but the act didn't hurt
him. This defied the conventional wisdom that outraged
voters punish governors who grant clemency to death
row inmates. Allen's political career didn't miss a
beat. He left the governors post, then ran and won a
Senate seat.

Allen is no aberration. In the decade since 1993, 15
governors have granted clemency in capital punishment
cases, mostly on humanitarian grounds. Only one of the
governors failed to win re-election. In nearly every
case, the approval ratings of the governors who
granted clemency remained steady or climbed.

That's no guarantee that if California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger grants clemency to Stanley "Tookie"
Williams, scheduled for execution Dec. 13, there'll be
an instant numbers reversal in his plummeting
popularity. But clemency won't be the death knell for
Schwarzenegger's re-election bid.

Nor was it for the governors who granted clemency
during the 1950s and 1960s, when the death penalty was
commonly used. In those years, governors granted
clemency to roughly one in four death row inmates.
California Gov. Pat Brown topped that rate. During the
late 1950s and 1960s, with no public outcry, Brown
granted clemency to one out of three death row
inmates.

That abruptly changed after the Supreme Court
reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Since that
time, governors have cringed at being branded as soft
on crime and insensitive to victims, and they also
believe they will go down in flaming political defeat
should they grant a clemency appeal. They distort,
ignore or misread the legal and moral importance of
clemency.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, never
one to be mistaken for a bleeding heart on crime and
punishment, put clemency in the right frame. In the
1993 Herrera v. Collins decision, he called clemency
the "fail-safe" that governors have at hand to right a
legal wrong or prevent a miscarriage of justice. It's
also their legal means to simply do the humane thing
when it serves justice.

Rehnquist's apt read of what clemency is supposed to
be about is doubly important because the Court in that
same case severely narrowed the grounds in which
federal courts could intervene and grant habeas corpus
to a prisoner who claimed innocence in a capital case.
That further added to the burden held by prisoners who
seek legal relief in courts. Judges are loath to
overturn lower court convictions in death penalty
cases even when there are outrageous examples of
prosecutorial misconduct, witness tampering or the use
of flimsy or non-existent physical evidence to obtain
convictions.

In many death row cases today, governors act only when
there is ironclad proof that a death row inmate was
legally insane when he or she killed. Despite some
evidence of mental impairment, Schwarzenegger refused
to grant clemency to Donald Beardslee earlier this
year. He flatly said that clemency should not be used
to undo the judgment of the people, and that he'd
spare a life only when there is absolute legal and
clinical proof that a condemned killer was insane.
That shoves the clemency bar past the point of
relevance.

Tookie Williams doesn't come close to passing
Schwarzenegger's clemency test. William's appeal comes
down to whether his good deeds and commendations --
including one from President Bush and other world
figures -- convince Schwarzenegger that he deserves to
live. Good deeds in prison haven't been enough to sway
most governors to grant clemency. Still, the few times
that governors have bucked the death penalty crowd and
spared a life, it has not been the political kiss of
death for them. It won't be Schwarzenegger's, either.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political
analyst. He is the author of 'The Crisis in Black and
Black' (Middle Passage Press).
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/28580/

Posted by lois at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2005

MI: Prison's Closing Economic Bust for Town

November 21, 2005
Prison economic bust for town
Corrections facility closure puts growth on hold.
CAPITOL FOCUS
By AMY F. BAILEY
Associated Press Writer
BALDWIN, Mich. -- Brian Smith is the kind of person who officials in this small northwestern Michigan town had in mind when they agreed in 1996 to be the home of a new, high-security prison for young offenders.
The 37-year-old corrections officer had been working in a privately-run Pennsylvania prison when he and his wife decided to move out of Philadelphia to find a better area to raise their young children.
He took a job at the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility and bought a home down the road from where he worked. But the 480-bed prison run by GEO Group Inc. closed last month and Smith now drives 140 miles a day to and from his new job at a state prison in Muskegon.
"I wish I could go back home now," Smith said as he stood outside the local Michigan Works office where he was getting information about state aid for his higher gasoline costs.

It has been just a month since the prison emptied out, but its loss has taken a toll on new business ventures in Lake County. Without an anchor in the area, a number of projects and renovations have been put on hold, including a new hotel and a manufactured housing community, said Jim Truxton, village of Baldwin president and owner of a few H&R Block offices in the area.
"We didn't see the prison as being 'the thing,' but we saw it as a base to build on," Truxton said.
What state and local officials didn't count on was fewer violent young offenders than projected. Young inmates who had been in the Lake County facility were moved to other prisons last month. The state's prison capacity is just short of 49,000 and isn't expected to hit capacity until March 2008, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan.
"We saw these young offenders committing violent acts so this facility was intended, designed and constructed to house those offenders," Marlan said. "Six years later, we have not seen that population we thought was going to develop. It was just a business decision."
Located about 90 miles from Grand Rapids and 36 miles from Lake Michigan, Baldwin has a modest tourism industry but not much else. It's on the way to the ferry stop in Ludington and local officials are creating a museum in nearby Idlewild to mark the former resort area popular among blacks during the Jim Crow era. But it's not expected to be finished for another year.
The area doesn't have an agricultural base because the land is too sandy -- only jack pine and scrub oak can grow. No major manufacturing facilities exist for fear they will pollute the river basin, which could mean fewer visitors during the summer and the hunting season.
"We're not near the markets, we're not near the raw materials and we don't have a trained labor force and no infrastructure, so how would you attract anything else?" asks Debi Smith-Olson, president of Lake-Osceola State Bank. "It's just not possible and we've been trying."
Marlan says prisons shouldn't be used as tools to promote economic development because they are expensive to operate and are intended to do only one thing: protect the public.
Tracy Huling, a consultant based in upstate New York who has researched the economies of areas near prisons, said the situation in Baldwin shows short-term thinking by both state and local officials. She said the two sides should have been working together to determine whether there were other options for the prison.
"States have been creating penal colonies for years and there are consequences," she said. "It's understandable to see how folks get into this situation, but someone has to take the leadership role and say there's got to be a better way."
Community leaders insist they tried to attract new businesses to the area during the six years the prison was open. They applied for and received a $3 million federal grant to develop a strategic plan for the area and Baldwin received a Renaissance Zone designation from the state to encourage development.
"We've had lots of ideas and we've tried them all," Connie Theunick-Perley, director of the Michigan State University Extension in Baldwin, said before a recent meeting among community leaders.
Local officials met with Gov. Jennifer Granholm last month to talk about the future of the area.
Since then, they have been working on a list of projects they think would help alleviate the loss of the prison. Although they want to diversify their economy, their top recommendation to the governor is reopening the prison.
Without it, they said the area will lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue and fees for the area school district, local governments and the water and sewer systems, which were built to accommodate the large facility. They also said they may have to shut down the water system and drain the water tower because there won't be enough flow to keep the water from becoming stagnant or freezing in the winter.
Despite their efforts, reopening the prison appears unlikely. The state budget remains tight and the state is being sued over its decision to end its lease with the GEO Group by the Boca Raton, Fla.-based company, the Village of Baldwin and Webber Township.
http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/11/21/local.20051121-sbt-MICH-B1-Prison_economic.sto

Posted by lois at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)

MS: Prison's Economic Impact Difficult to Track

Prison's economic impact difficult to track
By Stewart Smith / staff writer

Saturday, November 19, 2005 10:44 PM CST
It's the mid-1990s. The number of inmates in Mississippi's penal system is increasing, and state officials need to build more prisons - or contract with private companies to build more prisons. Meanwhile, Lauderdale County and Meridian officials are looking for ways to improve the local economy and create jobs.

It seemed like a good match. The state needed a place to build a prison and Lauderdale had a readily available workforce and land that needed no rezoning.

When city and county officials began putting together a proposal, they hoped the new prison would provide an influx of jobs that would only increase over time.

They also hoped it would help Naval Air Station Meridian. New U.S. Navy regulations prohibited student pilots from performing maintenance tasks at the base. It was hoped that non-violent prisoners could do some of the work - saving the base $300,000 to $500,000.

The Wackenhut Corp., now The Geo Group Inc., won the contract to build and operate East Mississippi Correctional Facility in southwest Lauderdale County's Lost Gap community. The facility accepted its first prisoners in April 1999.

Measuring outcomes

District 2 Supervisor Jimmie Smith said the initial estimate was that the facility would create up to 350 jobs. It currently employs 220 people in positions ranging from security officers to medical staff to administrators.

The partnership between the Navy base and the prison never happened, according to Susan Junkins, public affairs officer at NAS Meridian.

But Hank Florey, former District 1 supervisor who supported the facility during the initial votes, said the prison has delivered the boost local officials envisioned.

“The initial economic impact was around $5.5 million..., and that's back when it was only a 500-bed facility,” Florey said.

“It provides a lot of jobs, and it also has a lot of visitors, who in turn sleep in our hotels, eat in our restaurants and shop in our stores. It brings a lot of money into our community.”
Florey's optimism isn't completely shared by others. Some local hoteliers said they haven't noticed any significant increase in their business.

“To the best of my knowledge I have seen no impact that it has made to my business,” said David Hamilton, owner of the Best Western in Meridian.

Ray Joyner, manager of the Howard Johnson motel in Meridian, concurred: “I can't tell any difference in business. It certainly doesn't seem any different, but I wouldn't call it a major tourist attraction or industry, either.”

This could be due to the fact that, according to Darryl Anderson, interim warden at East Mississippi Correction Facility, the prison averages only four visitors a month.However, Hamilton said keeping tabs on where his guests come from isn't easy.

“There is really no way to track where people are coming from. If someone does check in to my hotel, they aren't going to tell me they are off to visit an inmate,” Hamilton said. “So it could have had an Hamilton also spoke of his personal experience in visiting prison inmates - an overnight stay or a shopping trip isn't usually on the agenda.
“When I went to go visit someone up at Parchman, we weren't going there to spend the night, it was going to be a day trip,” Hamilton said.
“We got up early in the morning, went there and then came back. We might have gone to a fast food restaurant or something, but we certainly weren't going to be spending any time hanging around there.”
State perspective
Wayne Gasson, chief of labor market information with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, said given the relatively small number of jobs available, it is hard to gauge the prison's economic impact.
“If a facility like this one opened or closed, it would be significant to the people that worked there - but as far as it impacting an entire area, it probably isn't going to have much of an impact,” Gasson said.
“Plus, when you have an employer come in, that rate of employment is based on the county and its residents. But in the case of that facility, you might have people from Alabama or other areas that work there and it would not be reflected in Lauderdale.
“But it really is hard to pin down. The only exception is when a really big employer comes around, like a casino on the Gulf Coast, and you can actually see a big change.”

Bright spots
Ambiguity may cloud the exact economic impact, but at least one local business has no trouble measuring success.
Spaceway Truck Plaza - on Highway 80 just off Interstate 20 and fewer than 150 yards from East Mississippi Correctional Facility - opened in March 2001. Clerks there see a daily stream of customers in beige uniforms bearing The Geo Group Inc.'s logo, grabbing a cup of coffee or a plate lunch.
“There are no downsides to having it near us,” said Richard Lewis, general manager of Spaceway Truck Plaza.
“We get business out of them on a regular basis. We certainly appreciate their trade and we certainly haven't had any problems with any of the employees. It has been very good for the location.”
Supervisor Jimmie Smith added that, while the prison has admittedly not flooded the market with jobs, what it does offer should not be sneered at.
“What we have to remember is that we cannot discount any work that comes here. Jobs are jobs,” Smith said.
“Yes, jobs that produce tangible products are going to immediately bring more money that will stay in the community. But regardless, even with a service industry like the prison, it is important on any level.
“Even if the money is not going right back into the county, it is still providing an opportunity to feed a family and take care of them when they are sick and that is important on any level. Diversity is a very good quality in economic development and that is what we have here.”
LOST GAP JOBS
The East Mississippi Correctional Facility at Lost Gap employs 220 people. Interim Warden Darryl Anderson reports that the annual turnover rate at the facility is 65 percent. Here's a look at positions available and their hourly pay range.
Security posts $7-$10.95
Clerical staff $7-$10
Food service $7-$15.35
Program staff $11.06-$18.45
Maintenance staff $9-$17
Medical staff $7.35-$20.95
http://www.meridianstar.com/articles/2005/11/20/local_news/news_stories/a1-prison.txt

Posted by lois at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2005

House Backs Bill to Add 32,000 cells for "Homeland Security"

DAILY BRIEFING November 17, 2005
House panel backs bill to tighten border security
By Chris Strohm
Govexec.Com

The House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would stiffen the nation's border security.
The 2005 Border Security and Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 4312) authorizes the hiring of 8,000 more Border Patrol agents and 1,000 new inspectors at ports of entry over the next four years. It also would allow for the addition of 32,000 beds to detain illegal immigrants and the construction of more physical barriers along the border.

The act requires increased use of military surveillance technology along the borders. Starting next October, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau would have to detain all illegal aliens.

Union leaders, however, said the bill falls short because it does not merge two of the Homeland Security Department's law enforcement agencies and fails to give border inspectors the status of law enforcement officers. It also does not provide for stronger enforcement of laws barring employers from knowingly hiring illegal aliens or address the economic roots of illegal immigration, unions said.

"This is kind of like chicken soup," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "It doesn't hurt, but does it help?

"I would hope this is not the flagship bill that the House is considering to secure our borders, because it does very little," he added.

Under the bill, the DHS and the Defense Department would need to develop a plan to provide the Border Patrol with Defense surveillance assets, such as unmanned aerial vehicles.

DHS also would have to submit a national strategy to Congress within a year after the bill is passed "to achieve operational control over all ports of entry into the United States and the international land and maritime borders of the United States."

In addition, the act would require DHS to report on the progress of cross-border security agreements signed with Mexico and Canada.

And the bill would place DHS' Air and Marine Operations division directly under the authority of the secretary, in the hopes of creating "a more flexible, coordinated air program capable of providing tracking, deterrence, rapid response, and investigative support to multiple DHS agencies."

"We must establish operational control of our borders and swiftly remove illegal immigrants once they arrive," said committee chairman Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "The time to act is now."

Democrats on the committee introduced several amendments that either failed by vote or were withdrawn.

An amendment by Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., called for merging Customs and Border Protection and ICE; it was withdrawn.

The department's inspector general issued a controversial report earlier this week citing numerous problems between CBP and ICE and calling for the two agencies to be merged.

"The department's inspector general's recent report has identified problems in organization, management, information sharing and operations that prevent CPB and ICE from efficiently and effectively carrying out their responsibilities for enforcing our laws and protecting the American people," Meek said.

DHS, however, is opposed to a merger. Department officials say many of the issues cited in the IG report were the result of financial problems at ICE and say most of the problems are being addressed. The current organizational structure should be given more time to succeed, they argue.

Meek withdrew his amendment because it was apparent it would not pass and because he was assured by King that the committee would continue to examine whether the agencies should be merged.

The bill, however, requires the department's secretary "to take immediate action to address the inefficiencies and poor communication between [ICE and CBP]."

The act also would require a review of the One Face at the Border program within CBP.

"This will be the first, comprehensive review of the program, which we are confident will show that the security of this nation depends on Congress doing away with the One Face program," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

An amendment offered by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, to give CBP personnel the status of law enforcement officers also failed. Law enforcement officers are eligible to retire earlier than standard federal employees, and with more generous annuities. Unions argue that CBP officers are uniformed, carry guns and have arrest power, so they should have the same benefits as other federal law enforcement officers.

In early November, some Republican House and Senate lawmakers released a joint concept paper which seeks to bring pay parity to federal law enforcement, including CBP officers. Unions said they oppose the proposal, however, because too much decision-making power is given to the Office of Personnel Management.

The border security bill now must be approved by the House Judiciary and Armed Services committees.

This document is located at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1105/111705c1.htm

Posted by lois at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

2,000 + more cages coming to AZ

Pinal County may add 66 detention officers

Josh Kelley
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 19, 2005 12:00 AM
With more jail cells coming to Florence, more detention officers are on the way, too. The Pinal County Sheriff's Office laid out plans this week to hire 66 detention officers by the end of January, the first wave of a recruiting effort aimed at staffing an expansion of the county's Adult Detention Center. In all, the Sheriff's Office has requested permission to hire 272 people, including 211 detention officers, to staff the expanded jail, which is planned to open by April, said Terry Altman, chief deputy over detention for the Sheriff's Office. advertisement

The annual cost to pay for those new positions is about $11 million, Altman said.
Pinal County plans to cover that cost from rent it hopes to collect for housing in its jail from up to 625 detainees awaiting deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a bureau of the Department of Homeland Security.
So far, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors has approved funding for 83 new positions at the jail, including the 66 detention officers and 12 detention aides. They will join about 4,000 other people who work at county, state, federal and private detention facilities and prisons in Florence, said Jess Knudson, a spokesman for the town. Roughly 25 percent of those workers live in Florence, according to Knudson. "It's a lot of jobs," Knudson said. "Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of them that reside in Florence. We realize we don't have a lot of housing developments as of yet." The town's population is estimated to be 21,000, but it's only 6,000-plus if you subtract the inmate population of about 15,000 housed at eight facilities within the town limits, Knudson said. Florence's population is projected to swell up to 200,000 over the next 10 to 15 years, Knudson said. Meanwhile, the jail and prison cells keep coming. The Arizona Department of Corrections contracted earlier this year with the Correctional Services Corp. to build in Florence a 1,000-bed private prison facility for sex offenders. The county is adding a 100-bed juvenile detention center, and the Sheriff's Office is expanding its jail by 1,034 beds. By March, Altman hopes to gain approval to begin hiring for 87 positions, most of which will be detention officers. Pinal County's starting annual pay for a detention officer with five years experience is $33,945. It's $33,113 for those with one to five years of experience, and $32,302 for one year or less. Pay is the same during and after training. Maximum pay is $44,657.60.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/1119gr-moreguardsnewZ12.
html>

Posted by lois at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

US-Mexico: Cross Border Prison Industries, Inc.

by Kent Paterson

The chain gang of yore is getting a globalized make-over. Enjoying what is literally a captive labor force, Chihuahua state authorities are laying the groundwork for export-oriented factories, or maquiladoras, in the state's prisons. For correctional officials involved in the industrial project, the buzzword is rehabilitation. "Idleness is the mother of all vices," said Juan Federico Fernandez, the warden of the Ciudad Juarez prison. "Here it could encourage prisoners who don't work to become easy prey to drug trafficking."

Warden Fernandez recently attended a Chihuahua City meeting with other state authorities and the Tijuana-based company Ceinre in order to discuss the possibility of having maquiladoras operate in the state’s penitentiaries. Fernandez said a plan is under review to initially employ 500 prisoners in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua City and Parral, for the purpose of making room furnishings for the international hotel industry. In order to obtain extra space for the Ciudad Juarez site, the prison administrator added that using land now controlled by the Mexican Defense Ministry is under consideration. Private and public backers of the project hope tourists, in the comfort of their favorite resort, soon will be relishing the refreshing rugs and cool curtains made by Chihuahua's convicts.

A North Carolina-born businessman, Joe Robertson Ervin Jones, is the private sector's frontman for the Chihuahua maquiladora prison project. A one-time textile worker, Robertson began manufacturing products for a Hilton hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1975. He later ran plants in Orlando and Dallas before closing up US shop in 1997, laying off 600 workers and moving to Mexico. Now a nationalized Mexican citizen, Robertson is associated with two Mexican companies, Ceinre and JoeVilla.

Robertson's companies operate, or plan to operate, maquiladoras in Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Baja California and Chihuahua. A factory line employing about 50 workers who assemble blankets and other hotel furnishings was rolled out last September at a Quintana Roo state prison. Robertson's enterprise has been awarded the exclusive supplier contract for Marriott's Latin American hotels.

In an interview with the Mexican press at the recent maquiladora industry convention held in Acapulco, Guerrero, Robertson laid out his plans to have factories operating in virtually every Mexican prison, employing tens of thousands of workers.

"We want to motivate the prisoner to help his family and reintegrate (into society) with honor and integrity so he can recover his self-esteem, which is one of the biggest problems inmates have," Robertson said. "We want prisoners who are close to release not to return."

Robertson is pursuing a twin-plant strategy for Mexican prisons. The goal is to build a twin plant right outside the gates of the jail, allowing prisoners' wives to be employed in addition to the inmates themselves once they are released. Prisoners will be paid the minimum wage of about $4 dollars a day. One-third of the wage will go to the prisoner, one-third to his family and one-third to the prison administration. It’s not known if the twin plants will pay the traditional punctuality and attendance bonuses of the maquiladora industry, or if unions will be permitted to represent the inmate-workers.

Robertson contended that prison factories could serve to reduce crime and wayward social behavior by providing an income to prisoners who sell drugs on the inside in order to survive, as well as to their wives who sell their bodies on the outside. "This program is going to eliminate those type of problems and bring the family together when the prisoner completes his sentence," Robertson said.

Robertson and Company have an ambitious agenda. In addition to the Chihuahua plants, the prison industry investors have plans for jailhouse factories in other nations of Latin America, Canada, Spain, and Indonesia.

* * *

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 9, 2005. Article by Javier Saucedo. Norte, October 31, 2005. Article by Francisco Cabrera. www.unidaddelvocero.com, September 15, 2005.

Reprinted with permission from Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Posted by lois at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

Hurricane Katrina: National Legal Aid Resource Center

National Legal Aid Partners Launch “Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center”
Date Monday, November 07 @ 05:09:02

Tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents face devastating legal problems as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but many people cannot afford and do not know where to get the legal assistance they need. To help address this problem, four national allies in the legal aid and public defender communities have launched “Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center,” a Web-based clearinghouse of legal aid, pro bono and public defender information for persons affected by the hurricanes and the lawyers and advocates helping them.

Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center, is the result of a partnership among the American Bar Association (ABA), Legal Services Corporation (LSC), National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) and Pro Bono Net.

“So many people have suffered tragedies beyond comprehension as a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Sadly, many of those people are from the low-income community whose need for legal assistance has only escalated in the wake of these disasters. The daunting task that many of our legal aid and public defender colleagues face as they prepare to assist a growing number of clients is overwhelming,” said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA president and CEO.

Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center offers a significant number of legal aid, public defender, pro bono and referral resources to persons affected by the hurricanes who must navigate a maze of legal, government and insurance issues, and to advocates and lawyers committed to helping them. The site also offers private attorneys information on how they can assist the many legal aid lawyers and advocates in their efforts to serve communities devastated by this unprecedented tragedy.

“LSC and its partners are working tirelessly to ensure that those impacted by Hurricane Katrina and Rita and the lawyers and advocates who support them have the resources they need to rebuild the many lives that have been shattered by the devastation wrought by Katrina and Rita,” said LSC president Helaine M. Barnett. “We intend to increase the number of resources we offer to the Gulf Coast evacuees, but are hopeful that the information presented thus far will provide some relief as the task of rebuilding lives begins.”

“These hurricanes have exacted an enormous human toll, but they also are shaping up to be one of the greatest legal services crises in the history of our country. Persons affected by the hurricanes need legal assistance and the ABA and its members will make sure they have free legal services as long as it takes to help them rebuild their lives,” said Michael S. Greco, president of the ABA.

The template for Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center is based upon one developed by Pro Bono Net to coordinate the New York legal community’s response to the events of September 11th in New York City. Debevoise & Plimpton assisted in the development of the local pro bono section and Mule Design provided design services pro bono. The site focuses on three broad areas of help:

For People Who Need Help
The site provides state by state links and information on how to receive assistance with a number of legal and non-legal problems, including finding a legal aid or pro bono lawyer, locating emergency and temporary housing, filing insurance claims, and understanding their legal rights and what they can do to protect them.

For Legal Aid and Public Defender Programs
Legal aid and public defender lawyers on the front lines can find information and links in a broad array of issues. Some of those resource categories are: Child Welfare; Disability; Food Program Resources; Government and Government Services; Health Law; Housing; Immigration; License / Identification; Prisons; Social Security; State Disaster Manuals; Unemployment Compensation / Unemployment Insurance; and Welfare Resources. These pages also allow for posting of news about specific legal services (civil and defender) programs and individuals that have been affected by the hurricane and that are working hard to rebuild their physical structures as well as their personal and professional lives.

For Pro Bono Volunteers
Lawyers who want to offer pro bono assistance to persons in affected areas may register online through an ABA database that matches lawyers with volunteer opportunities most suited to their expertise and interests. Private lawyers may also find a listing of opportunities to volunteer in numerous states and localities, along with information about lawyer training programs to prepare them to assist persons affected by the hurricane. The site also provides information for lawyers who want to provide assistance to evacuees who have been relocated to other states, including Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, New York and the District of Columbia.

The coordinated substantive response to those in need as a result of Katrina and Rita has been extraordinary. In addition to the Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center, the ABA, LSC, NLADA and Pro Bono Net continue to work hard with a number of substantive support centers and emergency legal assistance experts in ensuring that: local advocacy efforts have the backup needed; volunteer advocates have access to substantive resources to assist their efforts; national advocacy responses are adequate; and substantive communications on cross-cutting issues are effective.
For more information, please visit Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center.

This article comes from PNNOnline
http://www.pnnonline.org

The URL for this story is:
http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=6319

Posted by lois at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)

New York County Votes for Rockefeller Drug Reform

New York County Votes for Rockefeller Reform
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Last week in upstate New York, Tompkins County voters took a stand in favor of Rockefeller Drug Law reform when they elected a new district attorney, Gwen Wilkinson.

Wilkinson beat out 16-year incumbent George Dentes for the position in the wake of a campaign that prominently featured discussion of Rockefeller reform. Wilkinson publicly declared her support for repealing the draconian laws in speeches and writing, while Dentes maintained that the laws had already been sufficiently reformed. Debate swirled in the pages of the Ithaca Journal, with Alliance supporters writing letters to the editor in support of Wilkinson's position.

Wilkinson's victory marks the second year in a row that an incumbent DA in New York has been defeated in part due to support of the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.

In a bitter fight last year, political upstart David Soares defeated incumbent Paul Clyne in the race for Albany County District Attorney, sending political shockwaves throughout the state. Soares sailed to victory on a platform that included repealing the failed Rockefeller Drug Laws and calling for expanded judicial discretion. In his concession speech, Clyne said he would have won were it not for his longtime opposition to reform of the laws. In recent polls, over 83% of New York residents said they think the Rockefeller Drug Laws should be repealed.

"Wilkinson’s victory shows that Soares was no fluke," said Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann. "Sitting DAs should beware: Support for the Rockefeller Drug Laws could bring you a short-lived political career."

Drug Policy Alliance

Posted by lois at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Broken Justice: Alabama: ACLU Report Reveals What We Already Knew

From AxisofLogic.com
Death Penalty
BROKEN JUSTICE: ACLU REPORT REVEALS WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW!!
By Charlotte A. Clark- Frieson
Nov 13, 2005, 04:18

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released a report that startles most, but according to many black leaders, merely confirms what most blacks in Alabama have always known. “Alabama Justice is broken and needs fixing.” This statement sums up the heart of this 32 page report, released by the ACLU just last month (October).

The report comes after an exhaustive study of the judicial system in Alabama, concerning the application of the death penalty. The death penalty, also referred to as Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law.

Throughout history, people have been put to death for various forms of wrongdoing. Without question, the death penalty is the most controversial and debated penal practice in the modern world. Other harsh, physical forms of criminal punishment—referred to as corporal punishment—have generally been eliminated in modern times as uncivilized and unnecessary. In the majority of countries, contemporary methods of punishment—such as imprisonment or fines—no longer involve the infliction of physical pain. Although imprisonment and fines are universally recognized as necessary to the control of crime, the nations of the world are split on the issue of capital punishment.

There are many individuals and groups on both sides of the death penalty issue.

Many hands were involved in the origination and completion of the ACLU study, which was sponsored by several organizations including: Alabama Arise, Alabama CURE, Alabama Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty, Alabama Democratic Conference, American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, Alabama New South Coalition, Alabama Prison Project, Amnesty International, Alabama State Conference of NAACP Branches, Project Hope To Abolish The Death Penalty (PHADP), and lastly the Restorative Justice Team, North Alabama Conference, United Methodist Church.

This ACLU study was authored by Rachael King, with the assistance of several ACLU Capital Punishment interns, most notably Katie Dahlen, Liza Grote, Katherine Grubbs, and Claire Lunman, and a long list of other individuals, who played various roles in conducting the study and compiling the report. Lucia Penland, of the Alabama Prison Project provided the majority of the data, which was expanded and improved upon by Olivia Turner, Kimberly Parker, and Kathanna Culp of the ACLU of Alabama. Also, Jim Carnes and Kimble Forrister of Alabama Arise contributed to the writing and editing.

In its opening statement the ACLU report states that “…Of all the actions carried out by the state, none warrants more cautious implementation and stringeht review than the imposition of the death penalty. Yet in Alabama, this most solemn responsibility remains fraught with inconsistencies and inequities….The structure of the state’s criminal justice system and the power given to its trial and appellate judges compromise and limit the ability of capital defendants to get a fair trial and appropriate sentencing..”

The report begins by giving an interesting overview of the history of the death penalty in the U.S. dating back to 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all death penalty statues in the United States, citing their application as arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory. As a result of the action by the Supreme Court, 629 death sentences were commuted. Then, the states scrambled to re-write their capital punishment laws. Four years later, the Supreme Court then re-instated the death penalty after states re-wrote their statutes, and executions resumed in 1977. Thus, the period after 1976 is now referred to as the modern death penalty era. So, this report mainly deals with the application of the death penalty since that time. Some of the more outstanding facts in the report include the following: As of August 2005, 981 people have been executed. During this same time period, Alabama has executed 33 individuals, including three in 2005. Seven people have died on Alabama’s death row before their scheduled execution date, three from suicide. According to this report, Alabama has the 6th highest execution rate in the country, as well as the 6th highest death-sentencing rate. In 1999, Alabama sentenced more people to death per capita than any other state. Yet, unlike many states, Alabama has no statewide public defender system. At least 30 current death row inmates have no lawyer. Alabama’s death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor—95% are indigent --- and minority.”

The report clearly points out several of Alabama’s short comings in the application of the Death Penalty. There are several broad discussions of these short comings titled as follows:

1. The State of Alabama Does not Provide Adequate Indigent Defense

2. Innocent People have been Wrongfully Convicted and Possibly Executed

The report makes note that as of August of 2005, 121 prisoners throughout the country have been exonerated and released from death row during the modern era because they were innocent of the crime. During this same period, 972 people have been executed. This means that for every eight executions, one person is released from death row because they have been proven innocent. These people spent an average of 9 years in prison before their sentences were overturned. “This is a terrible tragedy for the person who was wrongfully convicted, but it also means the guilty person remained at large, perhaps harming others.”It was interesting to note that during this “modern era” Alabama has had five prisoners exonerated of all charges. Another, Daniel Wade Moore, was released from prison after the trial court dismissed all charges against him; but the state is appealing that dismissal.

3. The High Cost of the Death Penalty

4. Prosecutorial Misconduct

5. Judicial Overrides and Death Sentencing

6. Mentally Retarded Defendants and the Death Penalty

7. Juveniles and the Death Penalty

8. Race and the Death PenaltyThe report concludes that “The people of Alabama want a criminal justice system that is fair and effective. We remain skeptical that the unfairness that has plagued the death penalty in Alabama and other death penalty states for so long can ever be completely eliminated. But as long as the death penalty remains public policy, basic decency requires that all citizens of good will to try.

The ACLU study concludes with 11 strong recommendations which include ways that the process can be made fairer. It urges the Alabama Legislature, the courts and the Governor to consider the following action:

1. Impose a moratorium – a temporary freeze – on all executions in Alabama, at least until the recommendations of this report are in effect. During this moratorium, the State should undertake an exhaustive study of the death penalty in Alabama, conducted by an independent commission appointed by the Legislature, with members from the Legislative, executive and judicial branches, in addition to criminal justice experts. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, members of non-governmental organizations, and family members of murder victims and of people on death row should also take part in this study.

2. Establish a statewide public defender system, insuring that all defendants are represented by qualified attorneys at trial, appeal, and post-conviction proceedings.

3. Improve the quality of capital representation.

4. Institute meaningful checks on prosecutorial power.

5. Alabama Court System should begin

6. Establish a process for reviewing claims of mental retardation

7. Establish a post-conviction DNA testing procedure.

9. Abolish judicial override in capital cases

10. Recruit, retain and promote minority personnel to create a more diverse group of judges and prosecutors. Judges should make efforts to appoint people of color to represent indigent defendants in court-appointed cases.

11. Institute a meaningful review process to ensure that death sentences are meted out in a fair, rational and non-discriminatory way.

Right on the heels of the ACLU report, on Sunday, November 7, the Editorial Board of The Birmingham News, Alabama’s largest newspaper, also came out publicly against the Death Penalty, which has certainly affirmed the position of those who have long been proponents of abolishing the Death Penalty.

In it’s November 7th Editorial entitled “A Death Penalty Conversion,” The Editorial Board Of The Birmingham News writes: “It’s a matter of law that deeply troubles The News’ editorial board. After decades of supporting the death penalty, the editorial board no longer can do so. Today and over the next five days, we will explain our change of mind and heart.”

Just what does this ACLU report mean for the State Of Alabama? What does it mean for those who are fighting to abolish the death penalty?

Esther Brown serves as the Executive Secretary of Project Hope To Abolish The Death Penalty (PHADP). In an interview, Brown stated: “There have been several positive developments recently. First there was the independent opinion poll conducted by Dr. Gerald Johnson that found that 57% of Alabamians are in favor of a moratorium. This was followed by the ACLU report, Broken Justice, the Death Penalty in Alabama which explored the issues of unfairness that surround the application of the death penalty. To quote attorney Richard Jaffe of Birmingham, it is better to be guilty and rich than innocent and poor. And to that statement I would like to add that it is a whole lot better if you are white and your victim was black! And now this week the Birmingham News has come out against the death penalty in a series of articles. We are delighted, and when I say we, I was just on the phone with my board, I mean the board of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty and myself. We salute the B’ham News for its courage and the painstaking research that went in to their stand. They talk about a conversion, may there be many more in Alabama! And, while I have a chance to say this, the support of the Peoples’ Voice is one of the other very positive developments that gives us hope.

Judith Collins Cumbee of Lanett who is the first vice-president of Alabama New South Coalition was reached by phone and when asked for her reaction to the Birmingham News stated, “I think it is one of the most positive things that has happened in all the years that Alabama New South Coalition has been lifting up the issues of injustice in Alabama’s administration of the death penalty.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is the nation’s premier guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Any individual or group interested in obtaining a copy of “Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama” is welcome to contact the writer of this article and a copy will gladly be forwarded to you.

Posted by lois at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)

"We Are All Suspects Now: Exploring The Human Cost of Post 9-11 Immigration Crackdown

MotherJones.com / News / QA

We are All Suspects Now
Exploring the human cost of the post-9/11 immigration crackdown

Lisa Wong Macabasco
November 16 , 2005

In the months after the September 11 attacks, the lives of most Americans returned to something like normalcy. But for Arab, South Asian, North African and Muslim communities, life changed fundamentally—and irrevocably. Early morning visits from the FBI became routine; thousands of people were detained, most often without charge or access to a lawyer; deportation ripped families apart, and virtually every member of those communities became a suspect. Nevertheless, not one of the immigrants caught up in post-9/11 sweeps and detained was ever shown to have been involved in terrorist activities, though many were eventually charged on minor immigration violations.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's important to remember, though, that the anti-immigrant clampdown after Sept. 11 only exacerbated an environment already made hostile by a raft of immigration laws, passed in 1996, that mandated the detention and deportation of whole categories of people, and made all immigrants, from green card holders to refugees to undocumented migrants, subject to deportation even for relatively minor offenses, like shoplifting or possession of marijuana. Since 1996, more than 1 million immigrants from 120 countries have been deported, and immigrant detainees are the fastest growing portion of the US prison population.

In We Are All Suspects Now, Tram Nguyen examines the human cost of the country’s domestic war on terrorism in the four years since 9/11—a cost borne by communities not in some far-off, dust-ridden land, but here within our very own borders. Nguyen, whose own family fled Vietnam in 1978 as part of the largest resettlement in U.S. history, tells detailed, compelling stories of those whose lives are missing from the media—the silent, the “disappeared.” Taking readers on a harrowing journey through targeted immigrant communities from Brooklyn to Minneapolis to Los Angeles to Canada, Nguyen provides a ground-level view of federal policies implemented in the name of the war on terror, and tells the deeply intimate stories of thousands of immigrants caught up in the immigration and criminal justice system. She sheds light, too, on an immigration system that sets up arbitrary and reductive distinctions between “good immigrants” (the hard-working, penny-saving souls who work in our back rooms, kitchens and taxicabs) and “bad immigrants,” those who, for breaking the law even in trivial ways, can expect to suffer harsh penalties.

Nguyen is the executive editor of Colorlines, one of the only magazines in the country to focus exclusively on all communities of color in America. She recently spoke with Mother Jones from Colorlines’ office in Oakland, CA.

Mother Jones: What motivated you to write this book?

Tram Nguyen: Right after September 11, I heard stories of people disappearing, especially in the East Coast. I heard from a South Asian organization in Brooklyn called DRUM—Desis Rising Up and Moving—about increasing numbers of people being picked up off the streets or from their homes, and no one knew what happened to them.

A few months after September 11, I was able to go along with some DRUM volunteers on a detention visitation. I had a really intense experience visiting Passaic County Jail in Patterson, New Jersey. We took the bus from Port Authority, and I was with a family—a mother, her three little kids, and a grandmother, who were with a DRUM volunteer. We had this very dehumanizing experience waiting in the jail to go see their dad, who had been arrested at his convenience store and detained for five months without charges. He was undocumented; his visa had expired, so he was still being held. I went with them to visit, and it just reminded me so much of the experience of visiting political prisoners, specifically when I was a kid going with my family to visit my dad when he was put into a political re-education camp in Vietnam. It seemed really different from the standard in the criminal justice system, where at least you have some sort of system. This was totally chaotic at the time and very secretive, and there was no accountability on the government’s part. It really chilled me.

Colorlines is tied to the Applied Research Center, which is more of an advocacy, organizing, and policy institute. ARC put together five hearings in different cities to start creating a public discussion of this issue. We would talk about secret detentions, and people would be really shocked. Some communities would be intensely affected, but if you weren’t in that community, you could not know it was happening. That was the driving force—[the] need to put these stories front and center and let people see the wide effect of it.

MJ: What were some of the emotions you picked up on in the people you spoke to? Were there some intangibles you weren’t able to capture in words?

TN: At one point while I was writing, I remember really wishing it was a novel. If these people were fiction characters, I could express a lot that I sensed was part of the story but didn’t have the facts to back up. One thing that was difficult to make concrete is the sense of surreal-ness, the sense of the government really having the power to reach in and take people away and change your life in really drastic ways. That comes across in the details: worrying that in your Friday mosque sermon there might be undercover FBI agents—which was not just a fear; it was really happening in some places. Or in the parking lot, agents taking down license plates and following people after they left. All of that added up to a more threatening kind of environment, and it’s hard to show that in a way that was more concrete.

MJ: In the book you talk about the almost scripted role immigrants play in the U.S.—how they are assumed to be either part of a fifth column or almost cardboard cutouts illustrating the American dream. Talk about how these two images informed the writing of the book.

TN: I really was consciously trying to work against that. As the story began to crack open more, the mainstream media were pretty sympathetic on how they covered it. There were a lot of “sob stories” that told the same kind of narrative again and again: hard-working immigrant family and so on. It always had to fit the “good immigrant” model, where you had to be grateful or talk about [how] “I came here for freedom.” It was a real typical master narrative about what kinds of immigrants were wronged and deserved our sympathy in this system. But of course, the more complicated, messy part of the picture is that the system is the problem. It’s because they’ve built this very entrenched detention system and they’ve enlarged criminalization.

The guy in the first chapter, Ali [Raza], he was a small time thug in Queens. He was undocumented and was working in the underground economy, doing what he could to get by. At one point, he was doing fake credit cards and small petty crimes. There is a lot of that within our immigrant economy. You can say these aren’t the model good immigrants. Southeast Asian gang members do not fit the Asian American immigrant model minority thing. How do we talk about those people, these “bad immigrant” archetypes? And how do we get around this “We need to be sympathetic to the good people”?

Sadruddin Noorani in the Chicago chapter was one of my favorite stories in the book because he’s so complicated. He tried to be the “good immigrant,” and it reminded me a lot of my parents and their friends—really trying to be good Americans, obey the law. But he occupied a gray area, too. His response to special registration was to organize hundreds of people to register, ruining the lives of a lot of people. He could even be seen, arguably, as an unofficial agent of the INS. That brought up for me the importance of showing immigrants as real people, [showing] the humanity of people’s choices and the rules for who gets to be an American and what you have to do to earn your place here.

MJ: Why is the “good immigrants-bad immigrants” dichotomy problematic?

TN: You have, on one hand, the fight for immigrant rights at the broad level: saying that immigrants built this country, that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, and that we have to make room for the good immigrants but crack down on the criminal immigrants. That has been a real challenge for people in the immigrant rights movement, because in order to advocate for good immigrants, you have to sell short the bad ones and say, “We don’t want to fight for reform of the 1996 immigration law [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act] that increased the criminalization and detention of immigrants.” You can’t advocate or talk about that because it would endanger the “good immigrants” trying to get their driver’s licenses.

MJ: In some of the stories, there was almost a sense of morbid absurdity about what was happening to targeted immigrants.

TN: It’s hard to capture that now, four years down the line. Even the organizers, lawyers, and advocates’ heads were spinning about how this was going down. We’re able to look back, and it’s all been well-documented now. I remember at the time this whole overwhelming sense of crisis. I really wish I’d been able to write something about Texas. Texas has huge detention prisons, and a lot of people from all over the country are flown there and warehoused. I was talking to a lawyer who was working on a one-man detention project out of Dallas, talking about so many people getting picked up and flown in from other places that there was a detention prison that used to be a meatpacking plant. The basically built bars over it and turned it into a big cage to house people. It was really terrifying and surreal.

MJ: You write about how post-9/11 issues have been framed mainly within a civil liberties and national security framework. What does this framework leave out?

TN: It doesn’t capture the real, far-reaching impact in immigrant communities and lives. They didn’t know what civil liberties meant. They didn’t care about due process, because they weren’t getting anything. How do you capture what was happening in a way that’s more true to that level of experience?

If I say “civil liberties,” for a white general audience, they tend to think of the PATRIOT Act and the library sneak ‘n’ peek, or surveillance—can the government spy on us, that type of concern, which are real concerns. But what needs to be raised up are also the human rights of immigrants, who are on the front lines of being affected by this. It’s not just a matter of surveillance or having library books monitored. It’s much more than that.

MJ: You write briefly about your own family’s immigration experience as refugees from Vietnam. How did that personal history inform the book?

TN: I had some struggle over whether to include myself at all in this book, because I really wanted to make it about the people who were directly affected. Then it became clear to me later the usefulness of enlarging the circle of people that we’re calling on to stand up and be involved in this. More of us should be thinking of that and repudiating the mentality that it’s them and not us. In the beginning, people were saying, “Oh, we’re Sikh, we’re not Muslim.” Well, that’s understandable, but what if you were Muslim?

There are so many pieces of me in it, in terms of really identifying with the families. So much of it is about family separation, about breaking up families, locking up mostly the men of the family, and deportation. I really know what that’s like—to be concerned about staying together and where you are headed next, where you can find your home. All of those things were at the core of my experience, and I really empathized with these other families in doing the reporting and writing.

MJ: In terms of media coverage of the war on terror, do you think sometimes there is too much focus on people and events outside of the country, as opposed to within the U.S.?

TN: If you look at some of the coverage of the war on terror, it’s either focused on Iraq and what the U.S. foreign policy has been, or Guantanamo. For a long time, when we were talking about secret detainees, the general public thought it was about Guantanamo. I don’t think there’s enough linking of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo to how the U.S. criminal justice system operates. A few organizers have been talking about the similarity between driving while Black and Brown, racial profiling, and the mass incarceration of African Americans. They’re comparing the police’s gang databases, for instance, with the databases set up to go after immigrant absconders. That’s the domestic face of the war on terror. It’s not just about detainees in Cuba in Guantanamo Bay. It’s [about] your neighbor next door having the FBI come in and visit.

MJ: What do you think about what’s happening in London since the bombings, as compared to what has happened here?

TN: What I find really interesting from London is they seem to have a much more integrated campaign around suspect communities and really articulating the failures of the war on terror domestically. They have a really strong critique of the U.S. response, as well. Right after the London bombings, you heard more politicians saying we need to shift from calling it the war on terror to the global struggle against violent extremism. George Lakoff wrote a useful piece on AlterNet about this, about how they’re acknowledging that the foreign policy focus, the invasion of Iraq, that military response is really not adequate in preventing attacks at home. London is an example of that.

Now of course the drum beat moves on to more talk about [how] we need to focus on homeland security more, and fighting terror is about crime fighting, more law enforcement. It’s a real danger. U.S. communities of color and U.S. immigrant communities can really raise our voices and say what homeland security operations have meant thus far, showing they have been deeply flawed, deeply misguided, and made a lot of people insecure in these targeted communities. They have arguably not contributed very much to national security overall. How much more secure does it make us if mostly what they’re doing is shipping off taxi drivers and restaurant workers and petty criminals?

MJ: You claim that what began as a post-9/11 anti-terrorism round-up devolved into a broader anti-immigration crackdown. What was the government’s thinking? Was it simply, ‘Hey, let’s expand our policies to entrap more immigrants’?

TN: If you want to be cynical or conspiracy-minded about it, a lot of people do think that [the government] knew it was a chance to do an immigration clean-up. There was almost a PR benefit, too, being able to say, ‘We are doing something about national security,’ and these are the easy targets to get. It was a calculation in terms of being able to show that you’re doing something about homeland security and going after the people that you could round up the most easily and show the most arrests and process them in a system that doesn’t have a lot of judicial protections.

MJ: The premise of We are All Suspects Now is that all immigrants have become both possible victims and suspects. Does this idea of everyone as a possible suspect apply to White people too? And where do non-immigrant blacks fit in?

TN: We can all be affected, at varying levels. White activists have been targeted on the no-fly list. In that sense, as a society, we do have something to lose collectively. It’s useful to build a bigger movement. But I remember giving a talk at a church with a mostly White audience. Afterwards, a woman said to me, “Yeah, we should all worry because maybe I could be taken from my bed in the middle of the night next.” I highly doubt that would ever happen [laughs]. There is that privilege that a White citizen would have. The title is adapted from a quote in the first chapter where Mohsin Zaheer said in his community everybody was seen as a suspect.

The question of African Americans—that was a key question. There are such parallels to the laws, policies, and sentencing structure for African Americans in U.S. prison system. But, at a community level, it’s been difficult. We’re often pitted against each other, immigrants and African Americans. There’s the overlap around the war on drugs and the war on crime. African Americans have this conflicted response. There was a surge of patriotism among everybody after September 11. This one artist I worked with for the magazine, he would see all these Black people waving flags after September 11. They want a country, too, they want to be able to claim this country too. It’s important that blacks and immigrants don’t get divided in this.

MJ: What is there to be done? What can we do to help these targeted communities? And what can we do to ensure this doesn’t happen the next time?

TN: More community connections are being developed now. More alliances are being built. Families for Freedom is doing a good job of crossing ethnicities and multiracial lines, organizing Caribbean immigrants, as well as South Asian, Arab, and Latinos. Hate-Free Zone in Seattle was a good example, with Somali and Middle Eastern immigrants.

At the local level, the urgent fights are around stopping the collaboration of law enforcement and immigration enforcement agencies. The community defense part of organizing has been critical, including organizing pro bono legal responses, where there is such a shortage, and organizing protests of detention conditions. They’re critical in calling attention to the human rights violations and the detention system, making that visible. Organizing the families of detainees, giving support to family members, and having them speak out in the media is also important.

Lastly, we really need to fight the big picture fight for public opinion. We’re losing that fight. This may be a critical point in the anti-war movement. The Bush administration is on the defensive about Iraq. On the media front, we need more investigative work exposing what they are actually carrying out in terms of homeland security. We need the media to put pressure on government agencies. A good example is Nina Bernstein’s work in the New York Times--I think she’s just brilliant. We need to get at this question of legal status. It’s become such a dividing line. People look at those who were detained and say they’re not terrorists, but they’re still illegal. They still don’t belong here. We need to say status does not trump human rights. So much erosion has happened in dehumanizing migrants that a lot becomes acceptable. Does a human being’s legal status determine what human rights they have? People are rotting in jail and families are being broken up for administrative infractions.

Lisa Wong Macabasco is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.

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