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January 31, 2006

Grassroots Victory for Immigrant "Detainees" at Passaic County Jail

From the January 2006, Vol. 5, No. 1 BORDC Newsletter

by Flavia Alaya, New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee (NJCRDC)

Editor's Note: Our September 2005 newsletter reported the NJCRDC's efforts to bring abuse of New Jersey immigrant detainees to the attention of Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General. We are pleased to share the outcome of the NJCRDC's tireless efforts to bring the mistreatment of detainees to the outside world. Read Flavia's expanded account in CounterPunch . Flavia is a member of the BORDC's board of directors.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract to hold immigrant detainees at Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey, has been voluntarily ended by Sheriff Jerry Speziale himself. Officials say that transfer of the remaining hundred or so detainees to other facilities will be complete as of February 1, 2006.

Passaic County Jail (PCJ) was one of five facilities nationwide targeted this past year for audit by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS/IG) owing to substantial complaints of substandard conditions and treatment. The beleaguered PCJ audit, which had stalled in August and was later resumed, was completed in December. On December 29, Sheriff Jerry Speziale announced the termination of contract. The full audit report is due out in February.

The audit also includes Hudson County Jail in nearby Kearny, New Jersey. Activists say that the inclusion of two New Jersey facilities on the IG's short list owes in good part to vigorous advocacy efforts that joined citizen activists on the outside with detainees willing to seek justice for themselves. The NJCRDC submitted more than 80 detainee affidavits to the IG when the audit was announced.

Indeed, pressure on the IG was originally intensified when National Public Radio, using data about detainees and contact information for former detainees supplied by the NJCRDC, reported on the use of attack dogs in PCJ. Immediately after this report, in November 2004, the IG announced its forthcoming series of audits.

Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale has made it clear that persistent demonstrations and activism both within and outside the jail were responsible for his decision to end the ICE contract. "It's definitely more trouble than it's worth," he said, speaking on CNN's Lou Dobbs Show. "There are so many advocacy groups out there.. Regardless where you put these detainees," he went on, "the advocacy groups and the demonstrations will continue, and you're just going to have problems for other facilities."

Bergen County Peace & Justice Coalition (BCPJC), one of NJCRDC's activist partners, has just announced its own campaign to end ICE's contract with Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, one of the several facilities that have received transfers from PCJ. In a statement issued January 10, members of BCPJC wrote:

The Bill of Rights protects everyone, everywhere, from being held without charges by the US Government. It makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens, or detention within or outside the US border. The Bill of Rights puts limits on the action the government can take at any time. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says that "No person . shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." .... The detainees have been charged with no crimes. They must be freed.

We demand that the Freeholders end the contract with ICE, stop holding the detainees and stop selling our rights! We have succeeded in ending the ICE contract at Passaic County Jail. Bergen is next!

What you can do: If there is a detention center near you, consider following the lead of the NJCRDC in exposing their plight and helping the detainees and their families. Contact us at info@bordc.org for help.

Posted by lois at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)

KS: Trial Opens in Challenge to Law Over Teenage Sex

"To me, it's violating what, quite essentially, therapy is couched in: confidentiality," Ms. McGilley said. "You have two 15-year-olds mashing in the back seat of the car ‹ who's the criminal here? Do we really need Big Brother to decide whether or not that needs to be judiciously pursued?"

New York Times

Trial Opens in Challenge to Law Over Teenage Sex

By JODI RUDOREN
Published: January 31, 2006

WICHITA, Kan., Jan. 30 ‹ A federal trial opened here Monday over whether a Kansas law prohibiting virtually all sexual activity by people under age 16 means health care professionals and educators must report such behavior to state authorities, which some say would stop many teenagers from seeking contraception or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

Phill Kline, the Kansas attorney general, is expected to testify.

The class-action lawsuit stems from a 2003 opinion by the Kansas attorney general, Phill Kline, a conservative Republican who has developed a national reputation for fighting abortion and whose pursuit of abortion clinic records is also being challenged in court.

Mr. Kline's interpretation of the law focused mainly on the reporting duty of abortion providers, arguing that any pregnant, unmarried minor had by definition been the victim of rape or abuse. But it included a broad mandate for reporting whenever "compelling evidence of sexual interaction is present."

Bonnie Scott Jones, a lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, which is representing the plaintiffs, said in her opening statement that Mr. Kline's "dragnet approach" to amassing information on under-age sex violated minors' privacy rights and the Constitution's equal protection clause, and that it "seriously endangers the health and well-being of adolescents."

"Sexual abuse is not synonymous with consensual sexual activity," Ms. Jones said to the judge deciding the case, J. Thomas Marten of Federal District Court. "Consensual sexual activity is not inherently injurious. It is a normal part of adolescent development."

Steve Alexander, an assistant attorney general defending the suit, said the Kansas statute meant that those younger than 16 could not consent to sex, and that those violating the law forfeited any privacy rights.

"Illegal sexual activity by minors can lead to S.T.D.'s, unwanted pregnancies, abortion, depression, mental illness," Mr. Alexander said. "To pretend otherwise is foolish." He said the case was in essence a challenge to the law barring consensual sex between young people of a similar age, which he called "a policy argument that plaintiffs would be better served making in the Legislature."

Kansas is one of 12 states where sex under a certain age ‹ 16, 17 or 18 ‹ is illegal regardless of the age difference between partners, according to a 2004 report prepared by the Lewin Group, a consulting firm, for the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Laws on reporting child sexual abuse also vary, but a third of states require reporting only when statutory rape involves a parent or guardian, the report found.

Dr. Robert W. Blum, a Johns Hopkins University professor and an expert in pediatrics and adolescent medicine, who was the plaintiffs' lead witness, testified Monday that only one state, California, had previously tried to require reporting of all under-age sex, and that it reversed course after a year in the early 1990's because the authorities were flooded with "irrelevant and obstructive" reports.

Among the plaintiffs' arguments is that blanket reporting of sexual activity would be futile because the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services has a policy against investigating cases of consensual teenage sex.

Pressed on cross-examination, Dr. Blum said he did consider all sex by children 12 or younger to be "problematic" and worthy of reporting, but he said, "That's distinctly different than a 14-, 15- or 16-year-old in a romantic relationship."

Nationally, studies suggest that about 30 percent of teenagers under 16 have had intercourse, and an additional 20 percent have experimented with oral sex or genital fondling.

A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a temporary injunction blocking enactment of Mr. Kline's ruling but provided a two-week window, approximately the expected length of the trial, before the reporting would be required.

Among the issues debated Monday was the very definition of sexual activity. Anal and vaginal intercourse and oral sex are mentioned in the law, as is "lewd fondling or touching" done with "the intent to arouse," which Ms. Jones said could cover even intense French kissing.

Mr. Kline, who is expected to testify Friday, declined to discuss the case. In an e-mail statement, he avoided the central controversy over consensual sex between teenagers of a similar age.

"Plaintiffs are arguing that the constitution does not allow the state to require people to report child rape," the statement said. "We differ. Prosecuting and investigating child rapists depends on such laws, and if the plaintiffs believe that adult-child sex should be legal they need to take that debate to the Legislature rather than initiate litigation."

Similarly, Mr. Kline said last year that prosecuting rapists was his goal in seeking access to the medical files of women and girls who had had late-term abortions, which led to a separate lawsuit awaiting a decision by the State Supreme Court.

Mr. Kline, elected in 2002, also serves as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association and has fought against abortion throughout his career. He filed a lawsuit, recently dismissed, to challenge the state's use of Medicaid funds for abortions, and he submitted a brief in a federal case arguing that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Last year, Mr. Kline successfully lobbied the Legislature to require that abortion providers collect fetal tissue from patients younger than 14 and turn it over to law enforcement.

"He's certainly on a crusade to limit or eliminate abortion in Kansas," said Peter Brownlie, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. "That's been a clear agenda for a long time." Mr. Brownlie said Mr. Kline had helped make Kansas a national battlefront in the abortion debate.

But the doctors, nurses, counselors and educators suing over Mr. Kline's interpretation of the reporting law say it goes far beyond abortion to include every teenager who requests birth control pills or H.I.V. testing, or who in a group therapy session even discusses "heavy petting" with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

"If they know what they tell me is reported, they simply won't talk," said Beth McGilley, a Wichita therapist who is among the plaintiffs, referring to both teenage clients and adults who often consult her about their children's sexual exploration.

"To me, it's violating what, quite essentially, therapy is couched in: confidentiality," Ms. McGilley said. "You have two 15-year-olds mashing in the back seat of the car ‹ who's the criminal here? Do we really need Big Brother to decide whether or not that needs to be judiciously pursued?"

Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting from Chicago for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/national/31sex.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

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

Coretta Scott King

January 31, 2006, NY Times
Coretta Scott King, 78, Widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dies
By PETER APPLEBOME
Coretta Scott King, first known as the wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then as his widow, then as an avid proselytizer for his vision of racial peace and non-violent social change, has died, her sister in law, Christine King Farris, said this morning.

She was 78 and had been in failing health since suffering a stroke and heart attack last August. Mrs. King appeared at a benefit earlier this month, but did not speak, and was unable to attend the yearly celebration of Martin Luther King Day.

Andrew Young, the former United Nations ambassador and longtime family friend, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Mrs. King died in her sleep and was discovered by her daughter Bernice about 1 a.m. "It seemed as though she was resting when she passed away," Mr. Young said, according to the paper's Web site.

In a statement, the King family said that "Mrs. Coretta Scott King, first lady of human and civil rights, died overnight." Mrs. King rose from rural poverty in Heiberger, Ala., to become an international symbol of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and a tireless advocate for a long litany of social and political issues, ranging from women's rights to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, that followed in its wake.

She was studying music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1952 when she met a young graduate student in philosophy, who on their first date told her: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all." A year later she and Dr. King, then a young minister from a prominent Atlanta family, were married, beginning a remarkable partnership that ended with Dr. King's assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Mrs. King did not hesitate to pick up his mantle, marching before her husband was even buried at the head of the garbage workers he had gone to Memphis to champion. She then went on to lead the effort for a national holiday in his honor and to found the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta, dedicated both to scholarship and to activism, where Dr. King is buried.

Aside from the trauma of her husband's death, which left her alone with four young children, Mrs. King faced other trials and controversies over the years. She was at times viewed as chilly and aloof by others in the movement. The King Center was criticized first as competing for funds and siphoning energy from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Dr. King had headed. In recent years, it has been widely viewed as adrift, characterized by intra-family squabbling and a focus more on Dr. King's legacy than continuing his work. And even many allies were baffled and hurt by her campaign to exonerate James Earl Ray, who in 1969 had pleaded guilty to her husband's murder, and her contention that Ray did not commit the crime.

But more often, Mrs. King has been seen as an inspirational figure around the world, a dogged advocate for her husband's causes and a woman of enormous spiritual depth who came to personify the ideals Dr. King fought for.

"She'll be remembered as a strong woman whose grace and dignity held up the image of her husband as a man of peace, of racial justice, of fairness," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. King and then served as its president for 20 years. "I don't know that she was a civil rights leader in the truest sense, but she became a civil rights figure and a civil rights icon because of what she came to represent."

Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, the middle of three children born to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She grew up in the two-room house her father built on land that had been owned by the family for three generations.

From the start there was nothing predictable about her life. The family was poor, and she grew up picking cotton in the hot fields of the segregated South or doing housework. But Mr. Scott hauled timber, owned a country store and worked as a barber. His wife drove a school bus, and the whole family helped raise hogs, cows, chickens and vegetables. So by the standards of blacks in Alabama at the time the family had both resources and ambitions out of the reach of most others.

Some of Coretta Scott's earliest insights into the injustice of segregation came as she walked to her one-room school house each day, watching buses full of white children kick up dust as they passed. She got her first sense of the world beyond rural Alabama when she attended the Lincoln School, a private missionary institution in nearby Marion, where she studied piano and voice, had her first encounters with college-educated teachers and where she resolved to flee to a world far beyond the narrow confines of rural, segregated Alabama.

She graduated first in her high school class of 17 in 1945 and then began attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where two years earlier her older sister, Edythe, had become the first black to enroll. She studied education and music and after graduation went on to the New England Conservatory of Music, hoping to become a classical singer and working as a mail order clerk and cleaning houses to augment the fellowship that barely paid her tuition.

Her first encounter with the man who would become her husband did not begin auspiciously. Dr. King, very much in the market for a wife, called her after getting her name from a friend and announced: "You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo," he said. "I'm like Napoleon. I'm at my Waterloo, and I'm on my knees."

"That's absurd," Ms. Scott, two years his elder, replied. "You don't even know me."

Still, she agreed to meet for lunch the next day, only to be put off initially that he wasn't taller. But she was impressed by his erudition and confidence and he saw in this refined, intelligent woman what he was looking for as the wife of a preacher from one of Atlanta's most prominent ministerial families. When he proposed, she deliberated for six months before finally saying "yes" and they were married in the garden of her parents' house on June 18, 1953. The 350 guests, elegant big-city folks from Atlanta and rural neighbors from Alabama, made it the biggest wedding, white or black, the area had ever seen.

And even before the wedding she made it clear she intended to remain her own woman. She stunned Dr. King's father, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., who presided over the wedding, by demanding that she wanted the promise to obey her husband removed from the wedding vows. Reluctantly, he went along. After it was over, the bridegroom fell asleep in the car back to Atlanta while the new Mrs. King did the driving.

Mrs. King thought she was signing on for the ministry, not ground zero in the seismic cultural struggle that would shake the South when he became minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery in 1954. But just over a year later the Montgomery bus boycott brought Dr. King to national attention and then like riders on a runaway freight train, the minister and his young wife found themselves in the middle of a movement that would transform the South and ripple through the nation. In 1960, the family moved back to Atlanta, where he shared the pulpit of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father.

With four young children to raise — Yolanda born in 1955, Martin 3d in 1957, Dexter in 1961 and Bernice in 1963 — and a movement culture dominated by men, Mrs. King, for the most part, remained away from the front lines. But the recognition of danger was always there, including a brush with death when Dr. King was stabbed while autographing books in Harlem in 1958.

What role she would play was a source of some tension between them. While wanting to be there for their children, she also wanted to be active in the movement. He was, she has said, very traditional in his view of women and balked at the notion she should be more conspicuous.

"Martin was a very strong person, and in many ways had very traditional ideas about women," she told The New York Times Magazine in 1982. She continued: "He'd say, "I have no choice, I have to do this, but you haven't been called,' " "And I said, "Can't you understand? You know I have an urge to serve just like you have.' " Still, he always described her as a partner in his mission, not just a supportive spouse. "I wish I could say, to satisfy my masculine ego, that I led her down this path," he said in a 1967 interview. "But I must say we went down together, because she was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now."

Instead, she mostly carved out her own niche, most prominently through more than 30 "Freedom Concerts" where she lectured, read poetry and sang to raise awareness of and money for the civil rights movement.

The division disappeared with Dr. King's assassination. Suddenly, she was not just a symbol of the nation's grief but a woman very much devoted to carrying on her husband's work. Exactly how to do that was something that evolved over time. Marching in Memphis was a dramatic statement, but Ralph Abernathy, one of Dr. King's lieutenants, was chosen to take over his movement. In stepping in for her husband after his death, Mrs. King at first used his own words as much as possible, as if her goal were simply to maintain his presence, even in death.

But soon she developed her own language and own causes. So when she stood in for her husband at the Poor People's Campaign at the Lincoln Memorial on June 19, 1968, she spoke not just of his vision, but of hers, one about gender as well as race in which she called upon American women "to unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war." She joined the board of directors of the National Organization for Women as well as that of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference and became widely identified with a broad array of international human rights issues rather than being focused primarily on race.

That broad view, she would argue, was completely in keeping with Dr. King's vision as well. And to carry on that legacy, she focused on two ambitious and daunting tasks. The first was to have a national holiday in his honor, the second was to build a nationally recognized center in Atlanta to honor his memory, continue his work and provide a research center for scholars studying his work and the civil rights era. The first goal was achieved despite much opposition in 1983 when Congress approved a measure designating the third Monday in January as an official Federal holiday in honor of Dr. King, who was born in Atlanta Jan. 15, 1929.

President Ronald Reagan, who had long opposed the King Holiday as too expensive and inappropriate, signed the bill, but pointedly refrained from criticizing fellow Republicans such as Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who continued to denigrate Dr. King, saying he had consorted with Communists. The holiday was first observed on Jan. 20, 1986.

The second goal, much more expensive, time consuming and elusive remains to this day a work in progress — and a troubled one at that. When Mrs. King first announced plans for a memorial in 1969, she envisioned a Lincolnesque tomb, an exhibition hall, the restoration of her husband's childhood home, two separate buildings for institutes on non-violent social change and Afro-American studies, a library building an archives building and a museum of African-American life and culture. And she envisioned a center that would be a haven both for scholars and a training ground for advocates of non-violent social change.

Even friends say it may have been too ambitious a goal. Building the center was an enormous achievement in itself. But many of Dr. King's allies, particularly the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, grumbled that the center was draining scarce resources from the movement. And over the years the center struggled to find its mission. Critics worried it had become too much a family enterprise with her two sons, Dexter and Martin 3d vying to be its leader. Those problems became particularly acute after she suffered a stroke and heart attack in August 2005 and the two brothers struggled for control over the center while she was recuperating. As a result, many feel it has not become the scholarly resource it could have become, while never becoming a center for civil rights activism.

And many supporters were saddened and baffled by the family's campaign on behalf of James Earl Ray, who confessed to the murder, then recanted and died in 1998 while still seeking a new trial. After his death, Mrs. King issued a statement calling his death a tragedy for his family and for the nation and saying that a trial would have "produced new revelations about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. Ray's innocence."

Still, to the end Mrs. King remained a beloved figure, often compared to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as a woman who overcame tragedy, held her family together and became an inspirational presence around the world. Admirers said she bore her own special burden — being expected somehow to carry on her husband's work and teachings — with a sense of spirit and purpose that made her more than just a symbol.

If picking up Dr. King's mantle, in the end, was something of an impossible task, both of them described a relationship that was truly a partnership. "I think on many points she educated me," Dr. King once said. And she never veered from the conviction, expressed throughout her life, that his dream was her's as well. "I didn't learn my commitment from Martin," she once told an interviewer. "We just converged at a certain time."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2006

WI: Study Outlines Alternatives to Jail by Increasing Drug Treatment

http://www.justicestrategies.net/States/WI.htm (this is a link to the study)
Study outlines alternatives to jail
State urged to boost drug-treatment funding for non-violent offenders
By LEONARD SYKES JR.
lsykes@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 29, 2006
Wisconsin's lawmakers are willing to consider new approaches to handling non-violent drug offenders, but absent a major investment in treatment services, the state will continue to face mounting costs and pressures on its prison population, a new study has found.

If treatment services were extended to cover half of the more than 5,000 felons sentenced to probation each year for low-level drug, property and drunken-driving offenses, the annual savings to the state could reach $22 million in the first years of a program offering alternatives to incarceration, the study says.

And down the road, the eventual savings could grow to $43 million annually while reducing the prison population by 1,500 in Wisconsin.

Much of that, however, depends on whether the state invests in its treatment and wraparound service for drug offenders, says the study commissioned for lawmakers and judges by the Washington, D.C.-based Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group for sentencing reform.

The study was conducted by Justice Strategies, an organization founded by criminal justice policy analysts Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis, who spent a year interviewing judges, corrections officials, prosecutors and others on the state's drug problem. They also analyzed data from the state Department of Corrections.

The focus groups for the study were created at the request of state Sen. Carol Roessler (R-Oshkosh), who with Rep. Garey Bies (R-Sister Bay), proposed a measure adopted by the Legislature last year that established a grant program to enable counties and regional groups to expand treatment-based alternatives to incarceration.

But the report makes note of the fact that lawmakers declined to put any general fund revenue in the grant pot, relying instead on surcharges imposed on people convicted of drug and property offenses to fund the program.

To make the grant program successful, the report recommends Wisconsin lawmakers increase the funding by $22 million annually to make quality treatment available to 3,000 people convicted of non-violent offenses each year, including more than 1,100 who otherwise would be sent to prison.

The state's prison population has grown fivefold in the span of a single generation, the study says. In recent years, the trend has been driven by the number of people incarcerated for non-violent offenses, which over the last five years has outpaced the rise in the number of inmates serving time for violent or sex offenses.

The study found that Wisconsin's prisons hold roughly 2,900 prisoners serving time for low-level, non-violent offenses. At an annual cost of $28,622 per prisoner, they consume $83 million a year in correctional resources. For an estimated $6,100 per person, the state could provide quality substance abuse treatment as an economical alternative to incarceration, the study found.

The study's findings come as no surprise to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Charles Kahn, who was among the judges surveyed in focus groups throughout the state in 2005 by the authors.

Kahn said many of the cases coming before judges in Milwaukee are driven by drug addiction. But while he applauds Gov. Jim Doyle and Corrections Secretary Matthew Frank for moving forward with sensible programs to reform the corrections system, he wonders whether the Legislature has the will to change it.

"Whether the Legislature or county governments will go along and make responsible budgetary decisions, I don't know," Kahn said.

Among the study's recommendations is a call for the establishment of a problem-solving court that targets prison-bound individuals with severe addiction problems and expansion of local alternatives to incarceration using a mix of state grants, community corrections subsidies and state purchase of local services for probation and parole.

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan06/388565.asp

Posted by lois at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)

The GEO Group get $34 million contract to manage San Diego Detention Facility

BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE: GGI) ("GEO") announced today it received a contract award from the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee ("OFDT") for the continued management and operation of the 700-bed Western Region Detention Facility located in San Diego, California. GEO is currently managing the Detention Facility on behalf of the United States Marshals Service ("USMS") under a contract extension period, which expires on January 5, 2006. The new management contract has a five-year term beginning January 6, 2006 with a five-year renewal option and is expected to generate approximately $34 million in annual revenues.

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

The GEO Group get $34 million contract to manage San Diego Detention Facility

BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE: GGI) ("GEO") announced today it received a contract award from the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee ("OFDT") for the continued management and operation of the 700-bed Western Region Detention Facility located in San Diego, California. GEO is currently managing the Detention Facility on behalf of the United States Marshals Service ("USMS") under a contract extension period, which expires on January 5, 2006. The new management contract has a five-year term beginning January 6, 2006 with a five-year renewal option and is expected to generate approximately $34 million in annual revenues.

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

January 29, 2006

Census Bureau, Activists Debate How and Where to Count People who are Incarcerated

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, January 30, 2006; A15

Since the first U.S. census in 1790, there has been a rule for keeping track of the convicts sitting in prisons: They are counted in the state and region where they are serving their time, not necessarily the place they did their crime or will call home once they are out of the joint.

How to count inmates historically has not been a big issue. But the fast-expanding prison population -- now about 1.5 million -- is prompting a debate because government spending and electoral district boundaries are in part decided by population. Opponents say the practice unfairly rewards rural, often sparsely populated regions where many prisons are built, at the expense of the cities where many prisoners had resided.

"For people in prison, their bodies count but their voices don't," said Kirsten Levingston, director of the criminal justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "Their presence in the tabulation column expands the influence of those who have an incentive to keep them in prison, not those who need the resources to help keep them out."

Now, after a congressional directive, the Census Bureau is studying what it would take to change the policy, and the National Academy of Sciences will also report on the question.

The issue pits the bureau, resistant to change its long-standing procedure, against activists who say that the practice results in misleading demographic data and large distortions in the size of electoral districts. It also pits rural lawmakers against urban ones.

The Census Bureau, which is due to issue a report on the feasibility of altering the practice next month, says it follows a consistent benchmark in counting the population, applying a "usual residence" rule to determine where people live -- that is, where they eat and sleep. It has been used for other mobile populations, including college students and people on military bases.

"Once you destroy the foundation for the basis for where people are counted, it becomes very difficult for people to take an accurate census," said Edwin Byerly, head of the bureau's population and housing programs branch.

The U.S. prison population has been rising steadily for decades, a result of the sharp increase in urban poverty, the influx of addictive drugs and stiffer penalties for crime. From 1993 to 2003, the population increased about 60 percent. The big numbers have prompted criminal justice activists to focus on the census effects. They have long worried about racial disparities in the penal system and a high rate of recidivism.

In New York state, activists find what they consider the most glaring example of the distortions created by the census policy. More than 40,000 convicts from New York City, in the southern part of the state, are housed in prisons upstate. Seven state Senate districts would not qualify as districts without their prison population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, an activist group. More worrisome, the group says, is that two politicians from those areas, Republican state Sens. Dale Volker and Michael Nozzolio, lead the committees on the legal code and crime and have been enthusiastic backers of long-standing, controversial laws that require long prison sentences for drug crimes.

"If there are 10,000 people in prison on drug issues and you count them back home, that could help bring more money to fight the drug war," said U.S. Rep. Jose E. Serrano, a Democrat who represents the Bronx, a high-crime borough of New York City. He added the provision to a bill last year that ordered the Census Bureau to study the issue.

Last year, state Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D), who represents parts of New York City, introduced a bill that would order adjustments for the purpose of redistricting. It is stalled because of resistance from lawmakers representing rural areas. Nozzolio and Volker declined to comment for this article, but in past news accounts, Volker has acknowledged that if they could vote, inmates who are housed in the eight prisons in his district would not vote for him.

In Virginia, activists say a similar shift affects demographic measures and education funding. Several years ago, the Census Bureau reported that Sussex County, in southern Virginia, was the nation's fastest-growing county. But the population actually declined if inmates living in the two maximum-security prisons that opened in the late 1990s were not included, according to the Brennan Center. The population increase results in additional state funding of about $115,000 for primary and secondary education, said Eric Lotke, who studied the issue with a grant from the Soros Foundation.

But Rebecca Smith, who oversees the Sussex County school system's multimillion-dollar budget, said such a small increase does not really register.

Such views reflect a frustrating problem for activists: It is not clear how much regions with prisons actually gain and how much urban, high-crime areas would receive if they got the prisoners back as part of their census count. The ambiguity is compounded by another problem -- whether it is logistically possible for the Census Bureau to count prisoners at their home addresses. Prisons do not take a consistent approach to recording where their inmates came from.

Columbia University public affairs professor Kenneth W. Prewitt, who directed the Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001, frames the problem as one of "fairness" vs. "accuracy."

Originally, Prewitt was skeptical about arguments that prisoners should be counted where they lived before incarceration. But ultimately he was convinced that the "conditions in which prisoners are relocated" are unique
-- they are forced to move to another region and then often required to return to where they had lived before.

He concluded that "there is no doubt that there are distortions" in government spending and districting created by the census method of counting. But, he said, given the arduous task of locating inmates' homes, switching count procedures could lead to greater inaccuracy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900
775_pf.html

Posted by lois at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2006

Where's home for prison inmates? Answer could mean dollars for communities

Newsday, NY By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press Writer

January 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Communities with prisons often gain political clout: Inmates are counted as local residents when it comes to divvying up government grant money and laying out legislative districts.

Big-city congressmen, whose districts typically lose in the deal, have told the Census Bureau to think about changing the arrangement _ a switch that would create a mass migration of more than a million people, at least on paper.

   The lawmakers want inmates counted as residents of their home towns and cities in the 2010 Census.

Many rural areas, where most prisons are located, would lose big chunks of population. Some cities would gain a lot of new "residents."

"I believe this is essentially an issue of fairness," says Rep. Jose Serrano, a Democrat from the Bronx in New York City. "Because federal dollars are distributed based on population, prisoners should be counted in their last known permanent residences where they are most likely to return to upon release."

New York City would gain about 36,000 residents if it could reclaim all its inmates in upstate prisons, according to state and federal statistics.

Many prison communities don't like the idea, arguing that they deserve benefits for housing criminals from other areas.

"We get the stigma of having these facilities," said Christopher Bromson, interim town manager of Enfield, Conn., home to three state prisons. "We get all of the ill effects of it, and now to take away the one positive. That, I think, is grossly unfair."

Bromson said his town of 45,000 would lose grant money for road construction, schools and its general budget if the 3,000 inmates were counted as living elsewhere.

The impact would be even greater in Gatesville, Texas, a city of 15,600 between Dallas and San Antonio. About half the city's population is housed in six state prisons.

Late last year Congress required the Census Bureau to study the issue. A report is due in late February.

At issue is the Census Bureau's residency rules, which, bureau officials said, would require another act of Congress to change. The bureau defines a person's "usual residence" as the place where they sleep most nights. Jefferson Taylor, the bureau's associate director for communications, said it would be difficult to determine home addresses for many inmates, especially those on death row or serving life sentences.

"If we did this, it is very likely we would have to conduct interviews with 2 million prisoners," Taylor said. "They are not going to let us go in and conduct interviews with Charles Manson."

Gatesville City Manager Brandon Emmons said, "I think from a practical standpoint it will be a pretty tough endeavor."

Billions of dollars in federal and state grants are distributed to communities based on population. Some grants are based on per capita income, which makes prison communities eligible for more money because inmates don't have much income.

Legislative districts _ local, state and federal _ are drawn based on population counts in the 10-year census. America's 1,200 state and federal prisons house about 1.5 million inmates, the equivalent of about two congressional districts. An additional 500,000 are in local jails.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University argues that prison inmates are different from other temporary residents. The center, which advocates for inmates' rights, wants more state and federal money to go to inmates' home communities for programs to reduce recidivism.

"There is no one else who is involuntarily taken hundreds of miles from their homes to communities that they are not involved in," said Kirsten Levingston, director of the center's Criminal Justice Program. "They don't go to the libraries, they don't go to the grocery store." ___
On The Net:
Census Bureau residence rules: http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/resid_rules.html
Brennan Center for Justice: http://www.brennancenter.org/
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--prisons-census0127j
an27,0,342815.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

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IL: State prisons Director outlines plan for treating people addicted to meth

State prisons Director Roger Walker outlines plan for treating meth addicts

By RON INGRAM - H&R Staff Writer

DECATUR - Ann is in treatment for methamphetamine addiction at the Gateway Project in Springfield after abusing the drug for 13 years.

"I finally got out, with a little nudge from law enforcement," said Ann, who did not give her last name. "My daughter got involved with meth, and she had her kids taken away from her. I have a 12-year-old son. I want to keep him from entering that world."

On Friday, Ann urged the state to initiate treatment programs for women inmates as she spoke to state officials, area sheriffs, social service agency personnel and local ministers. They gathered at the Law Enforcement Center to hear Illinois Department of Corrections Director Roger E. Walker Jr. outline a proposal to rehabilitate men incarcerated because of meth problems.

Walker assured Ann that programs for female inmates exist.

The initiative to help male inmates rejoin society as productive citizens was unveiled in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's recent State of the State address.

Friday's meeting was the third in a series to be held statewide in areas highly affected by meth-related offenses. The meetings' goal is to gain input from social service providers, community leaders and law enforcement officials to help develop the plan to reduce repeat offenses by meth users.

Methamphetamine is a powerful stimulant that affects the central nervous system and can cause users to hallucinate and become psychotic and violent, Walker said. Incarcerated addicts will not shake the addiction while in prison without treatment; and there must be a system of social service support in place so when they are paroled they don't immediately commit robberies, burglaries and thefts to support a drug habit, he said.

The state this year will create a 200-bed meth unit at the 667-bed Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center in East St. Louis. The facility will be a dedicated drug prison and re-entry program, modeled on a program piloted two years ago at the Sheridan Correctional Center in Ottawa. Next year, Sheridan will be expanded to its full capacity of 1,300 inmates from the present 950 inmates, with 200 of those spaces used for another meth unit.

Inmates at both facilities will participate in integrated programs including drug treatment, vocational training, education and closely supervised community re-entry.

Walker said the program's estimated cost the first year is $7 million, with $4.7 million coming from federal funds and $16 million the second year, with $1.9 million in federal funds.

The Illinois Department of Human Services will be a partner in the new effort, said Theodora Binion Taylor, director of its Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. The effort at Sheridan over the past two years shows treatment works, she said.

Recidivism rates at Sheridan among men in the treatment program have been 50 percent less than the normal rate, said John Pugliese of the Gateway Project. The state's normal recidivism rate for males is about 56 percent.

http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2006/01/28/news/local_news/1012713.txt

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

January 27, 2006

WI: Ends Practice of Shackling women in prison during childbirth

January 20, 2006

From The Post-Crescent:
Well, that didn't take long. After Wisconsin Post-Crescent ran a series of stories on incarcerated mothers earlier this week that highlighted the mind-boggling practice of shackling female prisoners during childbirth, the state Department of Corrections vowed to review its policy. On Thursday, department secretary Matt Frank announced that policy has been ended.

From USA Today 1-19-06

The State Department of Corrections will no longer shackle inmates during childbirth, a practice that was the subject of stories recently in the Post-Crescent newspaper. Secretary of Corrections Matt Frank on Wednesday, said he directed the state Corrections staff to end the practice. “I believe that we can have a policy that promotes safety and security but still allows for a woman offender to have a baby without having restrains on,” Frank told the paper…

Posted by lois at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)

the United States supported Iran's recommendation to deny consultative status at the United Nations' Economic and Social Council to the Danish National Association for Gays

January 27, 2006
Rights Groups Fault U.S. Vote in U.N. on Gays
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 26 — Human rights organizations and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus protested on Thursday a decision by the Bush administration to back a measure introduced by Iran denying two gay rights groups a voice at the United Nations.

In a vote Monday, the United States supported Iran's recommendation to deny consultative status at the United Nations' Economic and Social Council to the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians and the International Lesbian and Gay Association, based in Belgium.

Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents to meetings of the council.

Among countries with which the United States sided were Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, nations the State Department has cited in annual reports for their harsh treatment of homosexuals.

Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who is co-chairman of the caucus, wrote a letter to John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, saying the move was "a major setback" for "a core component of our nation's human rights diplomacy."

Matt Foreman, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, "It is an absolute outrage that the United States has chosen to align itself with tyrants — all in a sickening effort to smother voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world."

Mark P. Lagon, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said in an interview that the vote did not stem from "being against gay rights groups" but was based on "the controversial history of the International Lesbian and Gay Association — an affiliate of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, was associated with it in the past and openly condoned pedophilia."

Scott Long, a Human Rights Watch director, said that the association had publicly expelled the man/boy group in 1994.

Martin Thümmel, the German delegate at the vote, protested that "those delegations that claim that this organization is supporting pedophilia are using this as a pretext in order to shirk the real issue of sexual orientation."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 26, 2006

Halliburton Get Deal from U.S Immigration & Customs Enforcement

ttp://news.moneycentral.msn.com/printarticle.asp?Feed=AP&Date=20060124&ID=5
443578
Halliburton Unit Gets Deal From Agency
All Associated Press News - 1-24-06
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - Defense, engineering and construction services contractor Halliburton Co. on Tuesday said its KBR subsidiary received a five-year, $385 million contract from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.

The pact provides for establishing temporary detention, processing and deportation facilities if there is "an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S.," Halliburton said. Under the contract, KBR will also provide planning and, if required, engineering and logistics support to establish or operate expansion facilities.

Posted by lois at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)

CT jumps on the bandwagon sentencing "sex offenders"

January 26, 2006

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Gov. M. Jodi Rell wants new legislation requiring 25-year minimum mandatory prison sentences for certain sexual predators who assault children.

Her proposal mirrors a new Florida law prompted by last year's sexual assault and slaying of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

Rell, who unveiled a package of proposals on Wednesday, is also suggesting lifetime tracking by global positioning satellite of the most serious sexual predators. She wants those offenders to also register their addresses with state authorities for life.

Offenders who commit lesser crimes could also be monitored by GPS if state parole and probation officers believe they pose a risk, under Rell's proposal. The Judicial Branch's Office of Adult Probation recently completed a pilot program using GPS to track some high-risk offenders.

"We need to give those charged with properly tracking offenders upon their release the tools that they need," Rell, a Republican, said in a written statement.

Some of Rell's ideas are similar to parts of a plan recently unveiled by legislative Democrats, who control the General Assembly. For example, Democrats also want to expand the state's sexual offender Web site and include descriptions of the offenses committed, in addition to the offenders' photographs and addresses. Rell also wants to include contact information for the offender's parole or probation officer. Lawmakers will take up the proposals in this year's legislative session, which opens on Feb. 8.

Rell's proposal calls for lifetime GPS monitoring and lifetime registration for those convicted of multiple counts of first- and second-degree sexual assault and tougher penalties for anyone convicted of knowingly harboring a sex offender who failed to register with state authorities. Convicted sex offenders from other states would be required to register in Connecticut 48 hours before their arrival. Those failing to do so within five days would face a felony charge.

The governor's plan would also create a separate criminal violation for offenders who fail to verify address changes or report name changes for the GPS monitoring and registration requirements.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ct-xgr--sexualpredato0126jan2
5,0,573988.story

Posted by lois at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2006

Laws Proliferate but Sex Abuse cases are down

"David Finkelhor, with the Crimes Against Children Research Center in New Hampshire, contends the increase in laws goes against a steady drop in sex abuse cases for most of the last decade. According to Finkelhor's research, which analyzed state-by-state figures from child protection agencies, the rate of substantiated sex abuse cases fell about 40 percent since the early 1990s. He cites figures that show a peak of an estimated 150,000 sex abuse cases in 1992, dropping to about 90,000 cases in 2003."

Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Lawmakers crusade against molesters
By Mark K. Matthews, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Major initiatives against sex offenders, 1994-2005
 
Wetterling Act (1994) ­ Federal law requires states to register sex offenders or lose federal funds. All 50 states now have registries.
 
Megan's Law (1996) ­ Federal law requires public notification when a sex offender is released or moves to a new neighborhood.
 
Amber Alert (1996) -- Started when Texas broadcasters joined with police officials to help find abducted children by quickly posting information on TV and highway signs.  By 2001, four states had adopted; by 2005, all 50 had a system in place.
 
Castration laws (1996) -- California was the first state to allow chemical castration of sex offenders, such as by intake of female hormones. Eight states now allow chemical or surgical castration.
 
Jessica Lunsford Act (2005) ­ Florida law enhances penalties for sexual crimes against children, requires lifetime electronic monitoring for the worst offenders and provides the death penalty for murder of sexual victims. Other states are now copying.
 
National Sex Offender Public Registry (2005) -- An online source linking state sex offender Web sites of all states except Oregon and South Dakota, which are to join soon.
 
SOURCES: U.S. Department of Justice, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

For many state lawmakers, almost no penalty is too harsh for sex offenders who hurt children.
 
Eight states allow castration. At least a dozen track molesters by satellite once they¹ve served their prison terms. In Florida last year, lawmakers made it easier to execute sexual predators who are guilty of murder.
 
Life could become even tougher for sex offenders in 2006. Already, lawmakers from New York to Washington state have submitted scores of bills designed to protect children and punish those who sexually abuse them. The flood of new laws stands out as a trend sweeping statehouses, but it can't be explained by any single development.
 
Last year, state lawmakers passed more than 100 sex offender laws -- double the number of 2004 and "far and above previous years," said Blake Harrison, a political researcher for the National Conference of State Legislatures, based in Denver and Washington D.C.
 
Among the most popular measures -- expected to spread this year -- is a law authorizing use of satellites to track released sex offenders.
 
Twelve states now allow Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to track
offenders: California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to NCSL. Iowa also requires electronic monitoring of released offenders, though not specifically GPS.
 
Kansas is one of the states considering GPS tracking this year. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) made it a key point of her State of the State address.
 
"I want to require all repeat sex offenders (to) wear electronic tracking devices -- for the rest of their lives. These tracking bracelets will allow law enforcement officers to monitor their locations at all times. I¹ve put money for this in my budget because, again, it¹s just common sense," Sebelius said.
 
Harrison, of NCSL, said the availability of improved technology is one reason for the marked increase in bills cracking down on sex offenders.
 
Jessica Lunsford is another. Last year, the 9-year-old Florida girl was killed by a registered sex offender who lived nearby. Within months, Florida legislators drafted a harsh response, calling for mandatory sentences of 25 years for the worst molesters, satellite tracking upon release and the possibility of a death sentence for predators who kill.  
 
Lunsford¹s death and Florida¹s response inspired copycat legislation last year in a handful of other states, such as Missouri and Oklahoma, and is the basis of at least a half-dozen measures this year.
 
"Very often, there is a case that catches the nation's attention, and, as a result, legislators start to pay attention. Now nearly every state is considering the implementation of Jessica's Law," said Susan Broderick, a senior attorney with the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.
 
Among those states is Georgia, where Lunsford's accused murderer was arrested. State Rep. Jerry Keen (R), majority leader of the Georgia House, said his bill was styled after Florida's law and was co-signed by 75 House members when it was introduced.
 
"We want to make it so tough, that they (sex offenders) are not going to live in Georgia once they are released," Keen said. When asked where sex offenders then would go, he responded: "I'm a state legislator from Georgia. What Alabama, Tennessee and other states do is up to them."
 
Indeed, sex offender laws can vary greatly between states. One of the biggest differences centers on whether a state has the authority to put sex offenders in mental hospitals once they¹ve been released from prison.
 
Kansas was among the first states to try the idea, and a successful 1997 defense of the law before the U.S. Supreme Court -- in the case Kansas v. Hendricks -- encouraged at least 16 states to pass similar laws.
 
The post-prison confinement has angered both mental health experts and civil liberties advocates, and the issue created a stir in the Northeast last year when Republican Govs. George Pataki of New York and Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island abruptly ordered sex offenders sent to mental hospitals after their prison terms expired.
 
In their struggle to deal with the country's estimated 560,000 registered sex offenders, states also are trying other strategies. Last year, New York legislators barred sex offenders from operating ice cream trucks. California has stopped them from running massage parlors. And this year, Kansas legislators are proposing giving sex offenders distinctive pink license plates.
 
Meanwhile, federal officials have been trying to compile the sex offender registries of every state since last summer. Officials from the U.S. Department of Justice said only two states -- Oregon and South Dakota ­ aren¹t yet linked but are expected to join.

There is little consensus about what is causing the sharp increase in sex offender laws, and even some question about how helpful it will be.
 
Besides better technology and the high-profile cases of child murders, researchers suggest the Catholic clergy abuse scandal brought more attention to these problems and that sex offenders jailed under softer laws are now getting out, raising alarm.
 
David Finkelhor, with the Crimes Against Children Research Center in New Hampshire, contends the increase in laws goes against a steady drop in sex abuse cases for most of the last decade.
 
According to Finkelhor's research, which analyzed state-by-state figures from child protection agencies, the rate of substantiated sex abuse cases fell about 40 percent since the early 1990s. He cites figures that show a peak of an estimated 150,000 sex abuse cases in 1992, dropping to about 90,000 cases in 2003.
 
His numbers, though, aren¹t universally accepted as the trend.
 
Broderick, whose think tank deals with crimes against children, said sex offenses are difficult to track because the attacker is most likely to be an acquaintance or family member.
 
A former Manhattan prosecutor, she warned that mandatory minimum sentences for sex offenders could backfire because prosecutors would find it harder to obtain guilty pleas from defendants, who often know the child they assaulted.
 
If the child won't testify in court, or the jury is unwilling to send someone to prison for 25 years on anything but solid evidence, many sex offenders could go free, she said. "It can lead to some really bad consequences," she said. 

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&co
ntentId=82700

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GA: Sex "crime" bill could incarcerate youth for 25 years

Atlanta Journal Constitution
Sex crime bill may snare teens

By JILL YOUNG MILLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/25/06

A broad new law to toughen sentences for sex offenders who assault children is one of the main goals of Georgia's Republican leaders.

But critics say some children themselves might be caught in the proposed law's net ‹ for at least 25 years. The House bill also might send some teens who engage in consensual sex to prison, critics say.

Teenagers 13 through 16 who are prosecuted in adult court for rape or aggravated crimes of sodomy, child molestation and sexual battery would face a mandatory sentence of at least 25 years under House Bill 1059, according to an analysis by the Barton Child Law & Policy Clinic at Emory's School of Law. The current penalty under Georgia law is at least 10 years.

"I'm very scared for kids with this legislation," said Beth Reimels, the clinic's managing attorney.

The bill also might punish some teens who engage in sexual activity with each other, critics say. They hasten to say they don't condone teen sex but know it happens. If the bill passes, a youth of 13, 14, 15 or 16 who engages in mutual sexual activity with a child under 14 could be prosecuted for aggravated sexual crimes, tried as an adult and face a minimum 25-year sentence. The age of the younger child makes the crime an "aggravated" one.

House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) proposed the sex offender legislation, which the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee is expected to consider this afternoon. More than 70 other lawmakers have signed on to the bill.

Keen declined to comment for this article because lawmakers are working on new draft of the bill to present to the committee today, a spokeswoman for House Republicans said Tuesday afternoon. "They are still working on the changes," Michelle Hitt said. She said she did not know the specific changes or how they might affect juveniles.

"Our top priority is to protect our children from dangerous sexual predators," Hitt said. "As we've gone through this process, we've made a lot of changes to the bill. More changes are coming."

Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending," called Keen's bill as it could affect teens "a penal policy nervous breakdown."

"It takes my breath away," he said. Teens "do some very stupid things sexually that do not predict any patterns of adult sexual danger," he said. The bill perpetuates the idea that teen sex offenders "are just junior editions of adult offenders, and that is just demonstrably not true," Zimring said.

Other critics say the bill would take away discretion from judges and not address treatment and rehabilitation for offenders, not even for young ones. Yet "researchers say children can respond to treatment and be rehabilitated and never re-offend," the Barton Clinic's Reimels said.

Sara Totonchi, public policy director for the Southern Center for Human Rights, said she hoped lawmakers would change how the bill could affect teens. "Because the language is overly broad, it's going to trap children who are not sex offenders ... who could really benefit from treatment," she said.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/0125legteens.html

Posted by lois at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

MO: Finally! One Senator Wants to Curb Flood of "Sex Offender" Bills

WEDNESDAY | JANUARY 25, 2006
Senate committee leader wants to curb flood of sex-offender bills By Matt Franck POST-DISPATCH JEFFERSON CITY BUREAU 01/24/2006

JEFFERSON CITY

The same Legislature that has engaged in a free-for-all of measures against sex offenders this session is now showing signs of restraint.

The head of a key Senate committee vowed this week to put the brakes on bills that he described as too extreme in punishing certain sex offenders.

That stance, by Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee's Summit, comes after prosecutors statewide warned that some bills filed this year could make it harder to obtain convictions.

In a hearing Monday night, Bartle said he was against measures that would impose tough mandatory sentences for nonviolent sex offenses, such as consensual sex involving a teenager. He vowed to not let such bills clear the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which he oversees.

"I will stand in the way of a bill that creates a mandatory 25-year minimum for an offense that involves an 18-year-old boy having a petting encounter with a 16-year-old girlfriend," Bartle said in an interview.

Bartle also went a step further, saying he wants to re-examine the state's sex offender registry to make sure the roughly 11,000 people on the list are truly a threat to the public.

At Monday's hearing, he and other members of the committee said some people had landed on the registry for nonviolent offenses that happened years ago.

That issue is at the heart of a case currently under deliberation by the Missouri Supreme Court, which is being asked to tighten the standards for placing offenders on the registry.

Sen. Chris Koster, R-Harrisonville, told of a man in his district who was placed on the registry for statutory rape of his girlfriend. Koster said that the two later married and had children but that the father was unable to clear his name.

Koster called for an appeals process, similar to those in neighboring states such as Arkansas and Nebraska, to allow certain offenders to petition to be cleared from the registry.

"There should be some mechanism where that father can extricate himself from that net," Koster said.

Senate President Mike Gibbons, R-Kirkwood, said the sex offender registry had value only if it accurately listed those who were truly a risk to the public. He said the list lost credibility if it included too broad a range of criminals.

"The one thing you don't want to do is have a list that people don't take seriously," he said.

In recent weeks, lawmakers have filed more than a dozen bills calling for increased prison terms for offenders, particularly in cases involving forcible rape or sodomy of a child.

But a few of the bills are more aggressive, imposing mandatory sentences for lesser, nonviolent crimes. The same bills would broaden the types of offenders who would be placed on the registry.

Prosecutors, including some who testified Monday, have said tough sentences for nonviolent offenders will make it harder to win over jurors. They call for more selective use of 25-year prison terms.

"You want to do it in an appropriate way so you don't cast such a wide net," said St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch.

The enthusiasm over sex-offender bills was triggered by several high-profile child abductions and murders across the country, though experts note that sex crimes are down substantially on the whole.

What wasn't mentioned at Monday's hearing was the hefty price tag that accompanies many of the tough sex-offender bills. According to Senate researchers, some of those measures would cost as much as $140 million over 10 years just to cover prison costs.

Bartle is among those who have sponsored bills calling for increased sentences, though he targets severe offenses involving younger victims. Even so, his bill would cost the state more than $50 million over 10 years.

Bartle said Monday that he planned to take at least eight sex-offender bills already heard by the committee and roll them into one. He said the new bill would heed the concerns shared by prosecutors, while potentially re-examining the sex-offender registry.

The bill also could include a wide range of provisions unrelated to tougher sentences. For example, a bill by Gibbons would widen the circumstances in which employers could be sued if they hired sex offenders who worked around children.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/AC
73F18D3435FCA886257101001CC032?OpenDocument

Posted by lois at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

Inspiring Rikers Teacher Runs Afoul of Jail's Rules

January 25, 2006
On Education
Inspiring Rikers Teacher Runs Afoul of Jail's Rules
By MICHAEL WINERIP
JEFF KAUFMAN, a teacher at the Rikers Island jail, has a reputation as a good educator who cares about his student inmates. In 2004, without the aid of computers, his students finished first in a citywide stock market game competition against more than 50 high schools.

Elizabeth Lesher, who oversees the competition, said that at most schools, "students gather around computers, research stocks via Web sites such as Yahoo Finance, Market Watch or Nasdaq and enter their transactions online."

"The classroom environment at Rikers was very sparse," said Ms. Lesher, a director for the Foundation for Investor Education. "No attractive bulletin boards, no computers with Internet access and no industry specialists visited the classroom to provide investment ideas." Mr. Kaufman's students relied on the newspaper and his class lessons. That, she said, "speaks volumes about the teacher. Obviously I was very impressed."

In 2003, Mr. Kaufman's students won a citywide playwriting competition. In 2000 and 2001, he arranged for the student chorus at Louis Armstrong Middle School in Queens to visit Rikers at Christmas and perform for his students.

Don Murphy, a fellow teacher, said Mr. Kaufman became so popular during his eight years at the jail that in 2004 he was unopposed in the election for union representative at Island Academy, the Rikers school, which serves about 1,000 teenage inmates.

David Lee, an inmate serving time for assault, who earned a General Educational Development diploma with one of the highest scores ever at Rikers, said no teacher worked harder. Mr. Kaufman made special arrangements for Mr. Lee to take college correspondence courses, spent his lunch hours tutoring him and then proctored each of the three-hour exams from Excelsior College.

In July 2003, Mr. Kaufman was off for the summer, but made special trips to Rikers so Mr. Lee could take his next college exam. "All the teachers were on vacation and school didn't begin until September," Mr. Lee wrote in a letter sent to this reporter from Rikers. "But Kaufman comes here to Rikers not once, but twice just so that he could give me the test on a hot summer day. He didn't have to come; he could have stayed home with his wife and kids."

"Mr. Kaufman wasn't only a teacher or test proctor," said Mr. Lee. "He inspired me to aim higher in life."

But on Friday, Mr. Kaufman received notice from his principal that he was no longer permitted to teach at Rikers.

His crime? "Undue familiarity."

Mr. Kaufman had given Mr. Lee his home address so the two could correspond by mail and try to arrange for Mr. Lee to take another of those Excelsior College exams while the inmate was in solitary confinement in the summer of 2004.

There is no allegation of anything improper about the content of those letters. Copies of 20 letters provided to a reporter by Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Lee mainly talked about learning. In one, the inmate thanked the teacher for sending books to him in solitary ("the Bing") and wrote that he was spending so much time reading, up to 12 hours a day, that he was getting headaches. "I don't mind being here at the Bing but I want to be able to take the test," wrote Mr. Lee.

Mr. Kaufman wrote back urging patience, saying that he was trying to work out arrangements with correction officials. "If your head begins to hurt from reading, stop. Your body is telling you it's enough."

How did school and correction officials know that Mr. Kaufman had given out his home address? Mr. Kaufman told them.

On Sept. 12, 2005, the Rikers principal, Frank Dody, sent out a security memo, in which he spelled out in writing, for the first time, what was meant by the prohibition against undue familiarity: "All contact with current/former students outside of the school area (home, upstate facilities) in the form of letters or phone calls must be authorized by the principal."

Mr. Kaufman read the memo, requested authorization and showed the principal a recent letter from Mr. Lee. Within days Mr. Kaufman was yanked from Rikers and placed in a holding room in Brooklyn for teachers under investigation.

Mr. Kaufman says he thinks the real reason he was investigated was that he had testified at a City Council hearing in December 2004 about how bad the Rikers school's services were for inmates being released. "That really upset Frank Dody," Mr. Kaufman says. "He wouldn't talk to me for months. He's using this incident to get me."

Mr. Dody said he was upset, but that's not why there was an investigation. He said that even though he had been principal six years and had only recently spelled out the rules in writing, anyone who had been at Rikers as long as Mr. Kaufman knew you weren't supposed to give out your address. "Teachers here have to live by the corrections rules," Mr. Dody said. "While the rules don't always make sense, even to me, they're in place for a reason, to keep everyone safe."

Mr. Dody acknowledged that the letter Mr. Kaufman showed him had nothing compromising in it. "From my reading of it, I didn't really see anything of any nature that would raise my eyebrows," Mr. Dody said.

Thomas Antenten, a corrections spokesman, said that once the principal made the decision to refer the case, officials had to investigate. "We take undue familiarity very seriously," he said. "Giving an inmate a personal address could lead to deadly consequences."

Inmates like Mr. Lee say Rikers has lost a rare, good teacher. "It was a wrong decision to demote Kaufman," Mr. Lee said. "I'm the one who initiated contact in order to see what options I had in seeking a better education."

David Lee was a 16-year-old junior with a B+ average at Francis Lewis High in Queens in January 2002. He says he got mixed up with the wrong people, and was at a Flushing apartment when a fight broke out and a man was stabbed to death. Mr. Lee pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in return for an eight-year sentence and is being held at Rikers pending the trial of a co-defendant charged with murder.

Within four months at Rikers, Mr. Lee took the G.E.D. In the middle of the test, he says, a brawl broke out and someone threw a chair at him, bruising a rib. Still, he comes from a family of good students, and even bruised, he finished with a top score. His younger sister, Sonia, is an A student in her sophomore year at George Washington University, and travels from Washington every other week to visit her brother in jail, bringing books he requests.

At the Rikers school, Mr. Lee became a favorite. He showed Mr. Murphy, the computer teacher, how to use several desktop publishing programs. He was given a job doing janitorial work. With Mr. Kaufman's help, he took three college business courses and got A's. Neither he nor Mr. Kaufman knew what material was going to be on the tests and which chapters to focus on, so Mr. Lee read everything. "I would read 450, 500 pages of a textbook from cover to cover three to four times so I would truly understand," he said.

AS Mr. Lee was about to take his fourth college exam, in May 2004, he was caught with 17 packs of Newports. Smoking was banned at Rikers in 2003; cigarettes are considered contraband. Mr. Lee said he was offered a "slap on the wrist" if he'd give up his supplier but did not. For each pack of Newports, he was given 15 days in solitary, 9 months altogether in a 6-by-9-foot cell.

Mr. Antenten, the corrections spokesman, said he did not know the details of the case but added that Rikers makes no distinction between cigarettes and heroin when it comes to contraband. "It can lead to disputes between inmates that have bloody consequences," he said.

Mr. Lee said the teacher's letters helped keep him sane those nine months. "Not only did Kaufman help me pursue educational studies, but he offered moral support through the letters," he said.

The illegal letters sent to Mr. Kaufman's home are often quite moving. A July 28, 2004, letter begins with Mr. Lee thanking the teacher for the latest package of books. "You want to know what's funny," wrote Mr. Lee. "Before I was incarcerated, I never used to really read. I could honestly tell you that I read less than 10 books during my life outside and it was during my elementary school years. I wouldn't even bother to look at the cover of a book if I came across one.

"Now that I'm incarcerated, I treasure them. I'm not just talking about novels which enhance your vocabulary and reading comprehension but also self-help books. What I like about self-help books is that from reading just one significant quote which catches your eye, it could change your whole perception of life itself. From reading books you tap into the most brilliant minds of the present and past. In here they're like my most trusted friends."

At times, in the letters, Mr. Kaufman sounds like a stern father. Referring to the cigarette infraction that got Mr. Lee removed from the school and landed him in the Bing, Mr. Kaufman wrote, "We were all upset at your sudden leaving, but we have talked about consequences."

Mr. Kaufman, 50, said his background - he is a Cornell grad, a former police officer and lawyer for the indigent - makes him well-suited for teaching inmates. He will appeal the decision. "It's a place I feel I can be of most use to my students," he said.

In December, after spending more than two months in the Brooklyn holding room, Mr. Kaufman was sent to Queens Academy, where he is mentoring three new teachers. An Education Department spokesman, David Cantor, said Mr. Kaufman would soon be given a job teaching at an alternative high school.

Mr. Dody, the principal, said Mr. Kaufman's removal was solely a Correction Department decision.

But a November 2005 memo by the department's investigator, Capt. Matthew Boyd, indicates that the principal had a significant role. "Dr. Dody reports that he has determined that Mr. Kaufman's actions violate undue familiarity and I concur," the memo says.

Mr. Dody says he's not a doctor and the corrections memo is wrong.

Mr. Lee's younger sister, Sonia, wrote about his jail experiences in a term paper at George Washington that won a top a prize and was featured at a student lecture series. The paper includes the hardships her brother knew growing up, including the suicide of their mother, who suffered from manic depression. Sonia Lee plans to get a master's degree in public policy specializing in the prison system. Her prize paper calls for prisons that devote more resources to rehabilitation and education.

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

Reproductive Rights in Theory and Practice: The Meaning of Roe V. Wade for Women in Prison

Reproductive Rights in Theory and Practice: The Meaning of Roe v. Wade for Women in Prison

by Rachel Roth
January 20, 2006, American Prospect Magazine

In 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, there were about 14,000 women incarcerated in the United States; today, there are over 180,000. If the ultimate legacy of Roe is that women have the freedom to make decisions about pregnancy and motherhood, then what does this anniversary mean to women who are literally not free, those in jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers? Because prisons are shielded from public scrutiny, and the women in them are “out of sight and out of mind,” their concerns rarely enter the debate about reproductive rights and health.

Although “reproductive freedom in prison” may sound like a contradiction in terms, courts have been clear that women do not automatically lose their reproductive rights simply because they are incarcerated. Moreover, prisoners are the only group in the United States with a constitutional right to medical care. Yet the difference between having a right in theory and being able to exercise that right in practice is particularly stark for women in prison.

The “war on drugs” and mandatory sentencing policies have been major forces driving up the numbers of women in prison and have had a disproportionate impact on women of color and poor women. Consequently, the health problems of incarcerated women are those that commonly affect these groups, including high rates of such chronic illnesses as hypertension, asthma, and diabetes, as well as Hepatitis C and HIV. Histories of drug addiction and physical abuse add to women’s medical and mental health needs. Incarceration poses unique threats to women, because access to medical care is frequently arbitrary, discouraging, and difficult to navigate, with few effective mechanisms to redress grievances.

A recent survey of women jailed in the nation’s capitol, for example, found that the sick-call system does not meet the needs of women with ongoing health problems. Women with chronic, infectious, and mental health conditions reported having to submit 10-15 requests before being seen. Women also reported disruptions in their HIV medications, a situation which endangers their health by leading to drug resistance.

Another recent study of a California prison highlights problems with access to life-saving preventive care. The study found that the entire process of scheduling, having, and learning the results of Pap tests to detect cervical cancer was unpredictable. Some women were called in for exams while others had to pay a fee and file medical requests – competing with the emergencies of the day for a doctor’s attention. Women also reported negative experiences during the exam itself, especially with male physicians insensitive to their histories of sexual trauma and abuse.

Given the difficulties that women have obtaining basic health care within jails and prisons, what happens when they need abortion services, which are only available in outside clinics or hospitals?

Beyond the restrictions on access that all women face, such as the mandatory 24-hour delays in place in 21 states, women in prison must deal with an additional, literal barrier – the prison itself, and whether they can get a corrections officer to take them from the prison to a clinic.

This was the problem a young woman in a rural Missouri prison confronted recently, when prison staff told her that they would not take her to a clinic – effectively telling her that she could not have an abortion. Although she ultimately prevailed, thanks to a federal lawsuit brought by the ACLU, she obtained an abortion far later than she would have if prison officials had simply respected her rights at the outset. The protracted struggle caused weeks of anxiety and necessitated raising even more money from family and friends to pay for the procedure. Her story is not unique: women in at least 15 other states have experienced similar conflicts with sheriffs and prison authorities over access to abortion.

Perhaps the most widely shared reproductive concern among women inside prison is maintaining relationships with their children. The majority of women in prison are mothers who hope to be reunited with their children when they finish their sentences. Once released, their hopes strain under the weight of policies that deny them, as people with felony convictions, access to the things they need to rebuild their lives and care for their children, such as public housing, food stamps, student loans, and jobs.

The experiences of imprisoned women stand as a vivid reminder that there is no such thing as having a right or a choice without access to the resources needed to carry out that choice. A reproductive justice agenda for imprisoned women therefore includes not only the ability to make decisions about pregnancy, but also the protection of family ties and access to basic medical care to preserve health and fertility, in order to ensure real reproductive choices in the present and the future.

When judges and juries send women to prison, they do not sentence them to a term of medical neglect or to continue a pregnancy against their will, but these are often the consequences of doing time. These excessive punishments call for greater accountability from the government, and for a broader agenda for the reproductive rights movement.

Rachel Roth, a Research Fellow at Ibis Reproductive Health, is the author of several articles on women’s rights in prison and the book: Making Women Pay: The Hidden Costs of Fetal Rights. She is also co-author of the report: Abortion Funding: A Matter of Justice and a contributor to: Defending Justice: An Activist Research Kit.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1363953

Posted by lois at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Dignity Denied: The Price of Imprisoning Older Women

The report, Dignity Denied: the Price of Imprisoning Older Women in California, documents the conditions of confinement for the more than 350 women over the age of 55 in state prisons. Because of the "Three Strikes" law and a reluctance to grant parole, more Californians are growing older in prison than ever before. It is estimated that by 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) will incarcerate about 30,000 elders. Due to health-related expenses, the annual cost of imprisoning an older person, at a conservative estimate, is at least $70,000, twice that of a younger prisoner. The report questions the wisdom of committing such vast economic resources for the continued punishment of older prisoners, the group with the lowest recidivism rate of any segment of the prison population.

http://prisonerswithchildren.org/news/dignity.htm

Posted by lois at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

UT: Men and women over 55 cost the state 16 times more for medical care

MONDAY, January 23, 2006

Aging inmates pinch prison's health budget
Costly: Those 55 and older cost 16 times more for medical care, and their numbers are rising By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune

Lloyd Owens, a convicted sex offender at the Utah State Prison, will be paroled in June 2008 - if he lives that long.

The 88-year-old, who had open-heart surgery, is now diabetic. He lives in the Oquirrh Five dormitory, the closest thing to a geriatric unit at the prison in Draper.

    His ashy gray hair combed back, Owens' eyes swell with tears behind his large gold-framed glasses as he talks about his 83-year-old wife, also a diabetic, who lives alone in their Hyrum home.

    "I'd give anything to be out if I could live a couple of years with her on the outside. I'd die a happy man," said Owens, who has been in prison for five years.

    On both sides of the prison walls, demographics are changing. The baby boomers are graying. And while they're under-represented in prison, their numbers are growing, sending the prison's medical costs soaring, said Richard Garden, clinical director for the Utah Department of Corrections.
    "The fact that a larger proportion of our inmate population is aging is going to mean a tremendous burden for us," he said.

    The problem is only expected to get worse. By 2030, Utah's 65 and older population is expected to increase by 155 percent compared with the same population in 2000, according to a report by the state Department of Human Services' Utah Aging Initiative.

    In just the past six years, the number of elderly inmates at the prison has risen 67 percent while the overall population increased just 11 percent.
    The impact on the Corrections budget is significant, Garden said. While per capita medical costs for younger inmates typically range from $400 to $600, older inmates' per capita costs range between $2,000 and $12,000.

   On average, inmates 55 and older cost 16 times more for medical care, he said.

    "That is a cost to us that is real and currently unfunded."
    Complicating the problem is medical premiums, which continue to rise steeply - about 8 percent to 10 percent each year, Garden said.

    Val Green, 68, who was locked up in February 2002 on two counts of sexual abuse and two counts of forcible sex abuse, had quadruple bypass surgery in 1999. The cost: $27,000.

    These days, Green is fighting off a cold that settled into his lungs and triggers coughing fits. And he has pains and discoloration in his legs. Green, whose sentence expires in February 2007, said he'll live to get out and be with his family. Other inmates won't.

    "I feel sorry for the people who stay here," he said.
    Some inmates, such as 99-year-old Bert Jackson, who is scheduled to be paroled next month, rely on younger inmates to help make their beds, eat their meals and return to their cells.

    Those who die there, and who don't have families to provide for funeral expenses, are cremated and their ashes are buried in a cemetery, said Warden Clint Friel.

    "It's pretty unceremonial," he said.

    Such is Garth Justet's fate, a 75-year-old inmate who was locked up six years ago for a sex offense and has no parole date in sight.
    He has stopped going to mail call because his family has cut off all communication with him.
    "I'm assuming I will be here for the rest of my life," said Justet, who uses a wheelchair and relies on an oxygen tank.
    He took off his orange knit hat, revealing his salt and pepper-colored buzz cut hair.
    "I've accepted I'm no longer wanted or needed," he said.

    Justet's list of ailments is long: his arteries have hardened. He has a blockage in his shoulder. He has had three growths removed from one ear. He has the flu and takes pills for an ear infection.

    "I sneeze, I cough, my nose runs," he said.

    The Department of Corrections defines "elderly inmates" as those who are 55 and above, because most are physiologically older than their age after years of drug and alcohol abuse. They are more likely to suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and strokes.

    Most of them were 55 or older when they were sentenced to prison, according to the Utah Aging Initiative report. About 61 percent were convicted of a sex offense.

    Based on the shifting population and medical inflation, Garden estimates that for every 0.1 percent increase in elderly inmates, Corrections can expect a 1.3 percent increase in medical costs.

    Corrections, which is required by federal law to provide medical care, is tightening its belt in other areas of prison operations to make up for the climbing costs.

    Fewer medical staff members are taking on more responsibilities, Garden said. Some services have been privatized. Inmates' outside medical treatment is being more closely reviewed and scrutinized, and Corrections has taken on the role of a managed health care system.

    "There is not too much more to squeeze from the turnip here," he said.
    Yet another option is early parole for those inmates who are chronically or terminally ill and no longer pose a threat to society, Garden said.
    The Legislature is considering a bill that would require Corrections to disclose inmates' criminal history to health care facilities that accept those who get an early parole.

    House Bill 125, sponsored by Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City, also would require Corrections to provide health care for inmates who are chronically or terminally ill - something the department is already doing, Garden said.

    The prison infirmary, where inmates used to stay for a few days while they recovered from surgeries, now houses the terminally ill. Whereas before it operated as a clinic, it now serves as a round-the-clock nursing care facility for the sick.

    "It's a tremendous drain on the health-care staff," Garden said.
    In the coming years, Garden expects the prison will begin exploring the possibility of an actual geriatric unit at the prison.

    "I really think it will happen in a few years. Our problem is the bed crunch. The beds are so tight, we can't afford to have a section dedicated to geriatric inmates and then have a few beds open and no one qualifies [for them]," he said.
    lrosetta@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3428919

Posted by lois at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

Pataki Proposes one of the most punitive laws in the country for sex offenders

PRESS RELEASES - 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 23, 2006

GOVERNOR PATAKI PROPOSES ONE OF STRONGEST LAWS IN THE NATION TO IMPOSE TOUGH, NEW PENALTIES ON CHILD MOLESTERS
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³Jessica¹s Law² Would Mandate 25 Years to Life for the Most Violent Sexual Crimes Against Children Impose Tougher Sentences for Worst and Repeat Sex Offenders; Strengthen Other Sexual Assault Laws; Proposal Comes Days After Governor Signs Tougher Megan¹s Law

Governor George E. Pataki today furthered his commitment to keep New York¹s children and families safe by proposing Jessica¹s Law ­ legislation that imposes tougher penalties on those who commit sexual crimes against children, and further strengthen other sexual assault laws.

³As a father of four, I can hardly imagine anything worse than the sexual abuse of a child,² Governor Pataki said. ³This new legislation will ensure that if you commit the worst kind of violent sexual crime against a child, you will go to prison for a minimum of 25 years. But Jessica¹s Law will do more than that -- it will also raise the age threshold for crimes against children and further penalize the worst-of-the-worst sexual predators as well as repeat sexual offenders.²
"The Assembly proposals would provide up to life sentences for the most serious sex crimes in which a weapon was used, in a crime with multiple victims, or if the culprit had previously been convicted of a felony sex crime. Adults convicted of a serious sex crime against a child under 13 years old could spend life in prison. In addition, a sex offender could be confined for life after a psychiatric exam and after the state attorney general petitions a court, but the offender would be provided a public defender, a public hearing and other due process measures, under the Assembly version. A jury would have to vote unanimously to hold an offender in civil confinement if it is shown he or she is likely to repeat a horrific sex crime again."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--sexoffenders0123jan
23,0,4239420.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Jan 23, 2006

AP New York
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`Jessica's Law' would end short sentences in sex crimes

By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer

January 23, 2006, 5:20 PM EST

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A convicted rapist likely serves less than three years in prison. A convicted sexual abuser spends about a year and a half in prison. And a sexual offender convicted of a lesser felony likely sees less than six months in prison.

Under new proposals from Gov. George Pataki, those average lengths of time served as a result of plea bargains and other factors would change.

Sentences would increase to as much as 25 years to life and life in prison without the chance of parole. The minimum sentence for conviction of a sex crime against a child would be 25 years.

"We have to have penalties that come close to the magnitude of the crime," Pataki said Monday in releasing his package of sex crime bills led by the proposed Jessica's Law. The law is named for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford of Florida who was snatched from her bed, raped and killed last year by a convicted sex offender who, despite public sex offender registries, was living 150 yards from the home without her family's knowledge.

The Republican governor released his proposals in a news conference hours before the Democrat-led Assembly released its own Child Safety and Sexual Predator Punishment and Confinement strategy. That package of bills addresses the same issues, but they are fundamentally different from Pataki's package that was supported by the Republican-controlled Senate. The Assembly, Senate and governor will have to compromise for the competing bills to become law.

"Sexual abuse and assault are heinous crimes that leave profound, everlasting scars," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who sponsored some of the measures. "Ultimately we intend to go to conference committees and iron out our differences, hopefully the Senate agrees, and we can produce a law."

Pataki called the Assembly package weak and full of loopholes, but said he'd negotiate.

The Assembly proposals would provide up to life sentences for the most serious sex crimes in which a weapon was used, in a crime with multiple victims, or if the culprit had previously been convicted of a felony sex crime. Adults convicted of a serious sex crime against a child under 13 years old could spend life in prison.

In addition, a sex offender could be confined for life after a psychiatric exam and after the state attorney general petitions a court, but the offender would be provided a public defender, a public hearing and other due process measures, under the Assembly version.

A jury would have to vote unanimously to hold an offender in civil confinement if it is shown he or she is likely to repeat a horrific sex crime again.

Pataki cited this as an example of a loophole: He said the measure would give one juror veto power and the ability to release a serious offender. Pataki's proposals would establish:

_A mandatory sentence of 25 years to life for violent sexual felonies against children, under a measure called Jessica's Law.

_A new definition for a child in the most serious level of sex crimes from "under 11" to "under 13" years old.

_Life without parole for causing the death of a child during a sexual assault.

_A new higher-level felony for using children under the age of 13 in a sexual performance.

_Increased sentences for all other sexual crimes against children. _Mandatory sentences of 25 years to life for all second-time felony sex offenders.

_Mandatory 25 years to life minimum sentences for a proposed "predatory sexual assault" crime. That crime would include the use of a weapon or committing multiple sexual assaults.

"The devil is in the details," said Republican Assembly leader James Tedisco of Silver's civil confinement proposal. "And even the devil wouldn't be confined under their law."

The Governor¹s legislation is named for Jessica Lunsford, a nine-year-old-girl who was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered by a registered sex offender living in her neighborhood in Florida. ³Jessica¹s Law² was first signed in Florida last year. Governor Pataki¹s proposed New York Jessica¹s Law is modeled on the original Florida law, and if passed, it would be one of the toughest laws in the country against violent sexual predators of children.

Just last week, at the Governor¹s urging, the Legislature passed an expansion of Megan¹s Law, lengthening the amount of time sex offenders would be mandated to remain on the Sex Offender Registry and ensuring thousands of sex offenders would not come off the lists beginning this month. This new law ensures that all sex offenders remain on the Registry, most for life, and continues to give every parent and family the ability to find information about sex offenders in their neighborhoods.

³Last week we strengthened Megan¹s Law. Today I am proposing Jessica¹s Law. And still, we can and must do more to further ensure the safety of our children and families. We still need to work together to pass new laws that would further toughen Megan¹s Law, protect our children and families by civilly confining dangerous sexual predators, toughen sentences for those who molest and rape children, end the statute of limitations on rape, and require every criminal to submit a DNA sample to the State¹s DNA Databank,² the Governor added.

Several of the provisions of Jessica¹s Law have been acted on by the State Senate since 1996, but they have not been acted on by the State Assembly Majority Leadership.

Mark Lunsford, father of Jessica Lunsford, the child for whom the bill is named, said, ³I want to commend Governor Pataki and New York State for looking to implement tougher laws to protect children. Although we will never be able to prevent all of the crimes that will be committed against children, we can implement laws that will further protect them and avoid senseless tragedies. The death of my daughter‹like so many other children‹could have possibly been avoided; and there is no time better than the present to take action so that it doesn¹t happen again. I look forward to helping New York protect its children by working with the Governor and the New York Legislature to get New York¹s version of Jessica¹s Law passed.

³Like Governor Pataki, I believe this will only be accomplished by working through bi-partisan partnerships. I believe the Governor and I will be able to successfully work with the Assembly and Senate so that New York¹s children can live lives free from fear and harm. I believe that together, we can implement laws that will keep dangerous individuals who want to harm and destroy innocent lives away from our children. Never again should a child have to suffer the pain and fate that my daughter did. It is our job to make sure this never happens again and that children can safely play in our communities and neighborhoods.²

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco said, ³This is an excellent proposal. We must do everything we can to protect children from dangerous pedophiles, molesters and rapists. Sexual crimes against children are the most evil of crimes and the perpetrators should be dealt with harshly. The families of New York are demanding action immediately and if the Assembly Democrats drag their feet they will have to answer to those families in November.²

Senator Michael Nozzolio said, ³Governor Pataki has proposed a comprehensive approach to keeping violent sexual predators behind bars. Protecting innocent children from sexual assault is critically important and this new proposal will advance our fight to protect our children and families from the scourge of sexual predators.²

Jessica¹s Law would include:

Tougher Sentences for Sex Crimes against Children

* Mandatory A-I sentence of 25 to Life for violent sexual felonies
against children (Jessica's Law)
* Increase age threshold for most serious sexual crimes against children
from "under 11" to "under 13"
* Mandatory life without parole sentence for causing the death of a child
during a sexual assault (Tamiqua's Law).
* Creation of a higher-level A-I felony offense for using children under
the age of 13 in a sexual performance.
* Increased sentencing for all other sexual crimes against children.
Tougher Sentences for Repeat Sex Offenders
* Mandatory 25 to Life sentences for all second-time sexual felony
offenders.

Tougher Sentences for the ³Worst of the Worst² Sexual Offenders

* Mandatory 25 to Life minimum sentence for new crime of ³Predatory
Sexual Assault².
* Aggravating factors for the new crime of ³Predatory Sexual Assault²
would include: (1) causing serious physical injury; (2) use or display of a gun, deadly weapon or what appears to be a gun or deadly weapon; and (3) committing more than one sexual assault; (4) a prior sexual or violent offense.

Strengthening Other Sex Assault Laws

* Adding numerous sex crimes to list of ³violent felony offenses².
* Eliminating requirement that ³physical injury² be demonstrated in
aggravated sex abuse cases.
* Require the Board of Parole consider input from the State Board of Sex
Examiners prior to granting parole to any sex offender.
* Make Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree (subjecting one incapable of
consent to sexual contact for any reason except age) a felony. Currently, it is only a misdemeanor to subject a person who is physically helpless or mentally disabled or incapacitated to sexual contact.

New York State Director of Criminal Justice Chauncey G. Parker said, ³This legislation will give law enforcement officials the tools they need to ensure that dangerous predators who prey on our children receive the appropriate punishment. As a former prosecutor I know how important it is to have a law like Jessica's Law on the books. I want to thank Governor Pataki for continuing to propose legislation that will allow us to further protect our children and families.²

During his 12th and final State of the State Address three weeks ago, the Governor called for new laws that would further protect our children and families by: requiring the civil confinement of dangerous sexual predators; imposing longer sentences for those who molest and rape children, or commit violent or repeat sexual assaults; strengthening New York¹s Megan¹s Law; ending the statute of limitations on rape and sexual assaults; and requiring all criminals to submit a DNA sample to the State¹s DNA Databank.

Over the past ten years, violent crime in New York State has been cut in half. Crime is at its lowest levels since statewide crime reporting began - nearly 40 years ago. ###
http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/06/0123062.htm

Posted by lois at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)

Meth--Focus changes from locally produced to large quanties of Mexican meth

New York Times

By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: January 23, 2006

DES MOINES, Jan. 18 - In the seven months since Iowa passed a law restricting the sale of cold medicines used to make methamphetamine, seizures of homemade methamphetamine laboratories have dropped to just 20 a month from 120. People once terrified about the neighbor's house blowing up now walk up to the state's drug policy director, Marvin Van Haaften, at his local Wal-Mart to thank him for making them safer.

But Mr. Van Haaften, like officials in other states with similar restrictions, is now worried about a new problem: the drop in home-cooked methamphetamine has been met by a new flood of crystal methamphetamine coming largely from Mexico.

Sometimes called ice, crystal methamphetamine is far purer, and therefore even more highly addictive, than powdered home-cooked methamphetamine, a change that health officials say has led to greater risk of overdose. And because crystal methamphetamine costs more, the police say thefts are increasing, as people who once cooked at home now have to buy it.

The University of Iowa Burn Center, which in 2004 spent $2.8 million treating people whose skin had been scorched off by the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine at home, says it now sees hardly any cases of that sort. Drug treatment centers, on the other hand, say they are treating just as many or more methamphetamine addicts.

And although child welfare officials say they are removing fewer children from homes where parents are cooking the drug, the number of children being removed from homes where parents are using it has more than made up the difference.

"It's killing us, this Mexican ice," said Mr. Van Haaften, a former sheriff. "I'm not sure we can control it as well as we can the meth labs in your community."

The influx of the more potent drug shows the fierce hold of methamphetamine, which has devastated many towns once far removed from violent crime or drugs. As Congress prepares to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine ingredient that is used to make methamphetamine, officials here and in other states that have recently imposed similar restrictions caution that they fall far short of a solution.

"You can't legislate away demand," said Betty Oldenkamp, secretary of human services in South Dakota, where the governor this month proposed tightening a law that last year restricted customers to two packs of pseudoephedrine per store. "The law enforcement aspects are tremendously important, but we also have to do something to address the demand."

Here, officials boast that their law restricting pseudoephedrine, which took effect in May, has been faster than any other state's in reducing methamphetamine laboratories. Still, when Mr. Van Haaften, director of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy, surveyed the local police, 74 percent said that the law had not changed demand, and 61 percent said supply had remained steady or increased.

In a survey of treatment professionals, 92 percent said they had seen as many or more methamphetamine addicts; the state treated 6,000 in 2005 and expects to treat more than 7,000 this year, based on current trends. Some health officials said abuse among women, typically the biggest users of methamphetamine, was rising particularly fast.

While seizures of powdered methamphetamine declined to 4,572 in 2005 from 6,488 in 2001, seizures of crystal methamphetamine increased, to 2,025 from one.

Federal drug agents tend to describe ice as methamphetamine that is at least 90 percent pure. Officials here say much of their crystal methamphetamine is less pure - "dirty ice," they call it. But either is far more potent than homemade powdered methamphetamine; a "good cook" yields a drug that is about 42 percent pure, but around 25 percent is more common. And in the first four months after the law took effect here, average purity went to 80 percent from 47 percent.

Other states have seen the same.

"The Mexican drug cartels were right there to feed that demand," said Tom Cunningham, the drug task force coordinator for the district attorneys council for Oklahoma, the first state to put pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters, in 2004. "They have always supplied marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. When we took away the local meth lab, they simply added methamphetamine to the truck."

A methamphetamine cook could make an ounce for $50 on a stovetop or in a lab in a car; that same amount now costs $800 to $1,500 on the street, the police say.

"Our burglaries have just skyrocketed," said Jerry Furness, who represents Buchanan County, 150 miles northeast of Des Moines, on the Iowa drug task force. "The state asks how the decrease in meth labs has reduced danger to citizens, and it has, as far as potential explosions. But we've had a lot of burglaries where the occupants are home at the time, and that's probably more of a risk. So it's kind of evening out."

When the state surveyed the children in state protection in southeastern Iowa four months after the law took effect, it found that 49 percent were taken from parents who had been using methamphetamine, the same percentage as two years earlier, even as police said they were removing fewer children from homes with laboratories.

Some law enforcement officials say that addicts may find the crystal form more desirable. "If they don't have to mess with precursor chemicals, it's actually a bit easier on them, and safer," said Kevin Glaser, a drug task force supervisor for the state highway patrol in Missouri, which last year led the nation in methamphetamine lab seizures.

But the switch has also increased the risks. "People are overdosing; they're not expecting it to do this much," said Darcy Jensen, director of Prairie View Prevention Services in South Dakota. "They don't realize that that fourth of a gram they're used to using is double or triple in potency."

Federal officials say there are 1.4 million methamphetamine addicts in the United States, concentrated in the West, where the drug began to take hold in the late 1980's, and the Midwest and South, where it moved in the mid- and late 1990's.

Drug enforcement officials have always said that 80 percent of the nation's supply comes from so-called super labs, those able to make 10 pounds or more. But in some counties here, officials say that all the methamphetamine came from mom-and-pop labs that made the drug by cooking pseudoephedrine with toxic farm and household chemicals.

Law enforcement focused on the laboratories because they were so
destructive: the police found children who had drunk lye thinking it was water, or went without food as parents went through the long binge-and-sleep cycles of using. Laboratories in homes, motels, abandoned farm buildings or cars frequently exploded, or dumped their toxic chemicals into drains or soil. Small police departments spent much of their time attending to contaminated sites.

More than 30 states have restricted pseudoephedrine in some way. Nine have put it behind pharmacy counters, and Oregon now requires a prescription to obtain it.

Addicts and cookers have proved to be skilled at getting around the restrictions; as one state imposes a law, bordering states see an increase in laboratories. Oklahoma recently linked its pharmacies by a computer database to track sales after discovering that cooks were going county-to-county buying from several pharmacies a day.

Iowa's law passed unanimously. As in other states, officials say the number of laboratories had already begun to decline, most likely because cooks feared they would be caught because there was so much public attention on the problem.

The law resulted in a decline of at least 80 percent. Police found 138 laboratories from June to December, down from 673 for the same period the year before. The state had hit a high of 1,500 lab busts in 2004, but with the law, had 731 for 2005, and expects just 257 this year. Law enforcement says the costs of policing and cleaning up labs will drop to $528,000 next year from $2.6 million in 2004.

But here and in many of the states with recent pseudoephedrine restrictions, frustration with the stubborn rate of addiction has moved the discussion from enforcement to treatment and demand reduction.

That discussion, officials say, will be much tougher.

After listening to Mr. Van Haaften's report on the effects of the law this week, State Representative Clel Baudler, a former state trooper who now heads the public safety committee for the Iowa General Assembly, charged his committee to come back to the next meeting with strategies to reduce demand.

"My fear is, when I ask what they think we should do, they'll say 'I don't know,' " Mr. Baudler said in an interview afterward. "We've increased penalties, we've increased prison time, we're still not getting in front of it."

Officials say they never advertised the law as one that would reduce methamphetamine addiction. Still, they are surprised at how the drug has hung on.

"Things that are highly destructive, including diseases, tend to be self-limiting," said Arthur Schut, president of the Mid-Eastern Council on Chemical Abuse in Iowa City, and a member of the state's drug policy advisory council. "This has been devastating. It's remarkable how quickly people are damaged by it."

Mr. Van Haaften, too, knows that it was too much to hope that the law would reduce demand. Still, he says, "I had a little hope."

"I knew of the addictive nature, but in my heart, I believed people didn't want to deal with dealers," he said. "They have guns, it's dangerous, if you make your own it's safer. I hoped for a dip, but the availability did not allow that to happen."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/national/23meth.html?pagewanted=all

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

January 22, 2006

NY Times Editorial: A Place for Sex Offenders

New York Times
Editorial
A Place for Sex Offenders
Published: January 22, 2006

Gov. George Pataki has proposed turning a woodsy upstate prison into a pseudo-prison for certain convicted sex offenders who have already done their time. His impulse is understandable: rather than allow men who seem likely to repeat terrible crimes back onto the street, why not lock them up for psychiatric treatment until they get their impulses under control? The United States Supreme Court has declared the practice permissible for people deemed "mentally abnormal," and 16 other states have so-called civil-confinement laws.

But it isn't necessary to be a raging civil libertarian to be queasy about the Pataki plan, under which the state would spend $130 million to raze and replace Camp Pharsalia, 50 miles north of Binghamton, with a new treatment center run by the State Office of Mental Health.

There will never be an easy or wholly satisfying solution to the problem of violent sexual criminals. Sickened by highly publicized crimes against children and dubious about the odds of rehabilitation, Congress and the states have been adopting ever-tougher laws governing where and how sex offenders can live, work and travel.

But peace of mind has been elusive. An era that began with laws requiring freed sex offenders to register with local law-enforcement officials now features laws requiring notification of neighbors when offenders move in, the posting of offenders' names on the Web, electronic monitoring and restrictive "distance laws" meant to keep them away from places like schools and parks.

Preventive detention for violent sex offenders is the natural end point of the logic embraced by Mr. Pataki and his allies: that these are a special class of misfits whom existing laws are incapable of subduing, and that no price is too high for safety. But while no one disputes society's obligation to protect the innocent, it is fair to ask whether the state's limited resources might be better deployed at the front end of the problem. A bill sponsored in the Assembly by Speaker Sheldon Silver and Joseph Lentol, while allowing for the civil confinement of sexual predators, places a heavier emphasis on treatment behind bars. The current prison treatment system, underfunded and understaffed, typically offers six months of group therapy run by corrections officials. The Assembly bill would require at least two years of treatment by mental health professionals for everyone imprisoned for a felony sex offense, and provide for continued treatment after release.

But treatment is not the entire answer. Few would deny that the universe of sex criminals includes a small number of repeat offenders who do not respond to therapy, and that the criminal-justice system will eventually run out of ways to deal with them. The admittedly imperfect answer in that case would be to seek longer sentences for violent sex crimes to reduce the chances that dangerous predators will be released too soon, and to aggressively monitor offenders upon release with electronic bracelets and a strengthened parole system.

Psychiatric treatment in prisons, intensive outpatient therapy and close monitoring are, in the main, preferable to a questionable reliance on preventive detention. The remaking of Camp Pharsalia, in fact, seems more like an upstate jobs program. We should not forget that only last year lawmakers were urging Mr. Pataki to keep Camp Pharsalia open somehow, lest its neighbors lose 100 jobs and $11 million in economic activity.

We are all for upstate development, but the more urgent questions have to do with public safety and whether lavishing resources on a place for warehousing a small subset of sex offenders - rather than aggressively treating and keeping tabs o