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March 31, 2006

Los Angeles: Youth Walk-Out

From the Los Angeles Times
THE STATE
Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz
Youths used a popular website to organize their walkouts. And some did know what a 'sit-in' was.
By Scott Gold
Times Staff Writer

March 31, 2006

Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last weekend, Mariela Muniz stared into the carpet and suffered, as teenagers do, the silent deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father nodded and her mother uttered the words she'd been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes hacer." "You can do it."

The next morning, the 15-year-old sophomore at Garden Grove High School — with the permission of her parents, both of whom are factory workers and Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens after entering the country illegally — skipped school for the first time in her life.

Following in the footsteps of those who led the first of the student walkouts March 24 and the adults who organized last Saturday's massive protest against proposed immigration legislation, Muniz became one of a few dozen students in Southern California who helped spearhead a national exhibition of civil unrest, one of the largest and most boisterous since the civil rights movement four decades ago. By the end of today — in Fresno, in Monterey Park, in San Diego — more than 40,000 students in California will have walked out of their schools to protest the proposed reforms.

There is little question that some students took advantage of the protests to ditch school. Some acknowledged they had little idea what all the fuss was about. Others took the opportunity to throw bottles at police and to shut down freeways. Law enforcement officials criticized them for diverting resources from more pressing needs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told them to go back to school.

But for the small group of students who instigated the walkouts, most of whom hadn't been politically active but were well-connected on campus and online, it was a transformative week.

Using modern technology — mostly their communal pages on the enormously popular MySpace website — they pulled off an event with surprising speed and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little sleep, lacking any formal organization, the protests were chaotic and decentralized and organic.

They were also a reminder that there are more than 35 million Latinos in the United States, about 40% of them in California. At least 8 million are in the country illegally. But many of their children — including many of the student leaders — are citizens by birth. And they represent a voting bloc that could help shape the politics of the West for years to come.

"I think it is the beginning of something," said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science at UC Irvine. "You have the foundation for a new kind of Hispanic politics."

Many of the student leaders attended last weekend's Gran Marcha — which brought 500,000 demonstrators to downtown Los Angeles, stunning even the event's organizers — and said they were awed by the event.

"I've always been proud to say that I'm Hispanic," said Rafael "Ralph" Tabares, 17, a Marshall High School student and an organizer of his school's walkout. "But on Saturday, I thought: Whoa. We can do something. And we can do it right."

Others said they were inspired by the recent airing of the HBO film "Walkout," which re-created the Chicano-era school walkout by 20,000 Los Angeles students in 1968.

Since that tumultuous time, many Latinos in California had come to favor quiet, somber assimilation over loud, showy rebellion. To many, the student protests — and the Gran Marcha — represented a reawakening.

"It hearkens back to 1968," said Andres Jimenez, director of the California Policy Research Center at the University of California. "There was a sense of frustration that they saw with their parents in terms of the tenor of the immigration debate. This group is being singled out as a 'problem group.' And they wanted to seek an avenue to respond to that, to show that on the contrary, this group is very much a part of the broader society."

To be sure, students revealed both their youth and their naivete at times. When thousands of Los Angeles students descended on City Hall on Monday, for example, one student said she remembered something about civil rights protesters in the 1960s sitting down during demonstrations. It was a reference to the "sit-in," but it wasn't entirely clear whether the students recognized the pedigree of their decision to plop down on the steps.

"That was the idea of a girl from Belmont" High School, said Tabares. "In the '60s, the way they did it was sitting down. So we told everybody to sit down."

Just as often, however, students evidenced a surprising amount of savvy. They carried trash bags in their backpacks so they could not be accused of littering. They corralled students who tried to stray into stores and restaurants so they would not be seen as marauders.

Tabares even ordered classmates to put away Mexican flags they had brought to the demonstration — predicting, correctly, that the flags would be shown on the news and that the demonstrators would be criticized as nationalists for other countries, not residents seeking rights at home.

Stephanie Cisneros, a senior at Los Angeles Downtown Business Magnet, had to contend with the fact that many of her classmates were concerned about the police in squad cars following the marchers.

"Living in a low-income neighborhood, you just don't have a really good image of the police," said Cisneros, who became one of six students invited into City Hall to meet privately with Villaraigosa. "People thought we were going to get arrested. But I told them: 'No. We are exercising our right to free speech. As long as we don't do anything wrong, we won't be arrested.' "

Cisneros and a few others directed demonstrators to cross the street with the light and to remain on the sidewalk so they couldn't be accused of trespassing. "We were respectful. But we fought for something," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The protest staged by Muniz and two friends in Orange County was typical of the student leaders' efforts.

They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at several high schools in Los Angeles, and decided to launch a protest of their own. On Sunday afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace — since discovered by school administrators, who were not pleased — announcing that anyone wishing to participate should stand up at the 8 a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."

In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of students' MySpace missives, the bulletin continued: "dOnt b scared…. All these politic officials are trying to make their dreams come true by destroying ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"

On the Internet site, which serves as a free-of-charge, virtual gathering place, users can send bulletins to all of their MySpace "friends." The lists can include dozens of people and the bulletins can be passed along in seconds.

It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove High's roughly 2,200 students knew what was coming, without the knowledge or involvement of teachers or parents.

Soon, the bulletin crossed over an invisible but critical line between teens who were friends but attended different schools. Students began posting their telephone numbers, and soon dozens more pledges to participate were obtained through phone calls and instant text messages.

Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, Muniz had no idea what to expect. Teenagers can talk a big game. But would they follow through?

She waited in front of the school. Soon, the doors opened, and scores of students — most of them Latino, but a handful of whites, African Americans and Asian Americans too — joined her. They marched through Garden Grove and Anaheim, picking up students at several other schools as planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., they had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 students had walked out. Muniz was a truant — and, to her friends, a hero.

School administrators have since informed her that she'll have to perform community service as penance. Back at her home, a humble ranch-style house with family photographs on the wall and avocados on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.

"Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," she said. "We did. And it worked."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-students31mar31,0,2965460,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Posted by lois at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

CA: Plans to build pychiatric facilities on prison grounds

Sacramento Bee
CALIFORNIA POLITICS
Inmate care to expand

By Crystal Carreon -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Friday, March 31, 2006
Story appeared on Page A3 of The Bee

More than a decade after a legal victory for mentally ill inmates, state officials Thursday announced plans to build several new psychiatric facilities on prison grounds, with the largest site slated for California State Prison, Sacramento, in Folsom.

In a letter submitted to the Legislature on Thursday, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation asked for $37.8 million next fiscal year to begin plans to build the centers or augment existing facilities at four sites across the state. About 60 percent of the funds will be earmarked for the Folsom prison.

The other sites are the California Institution for Women in Corona; California Medical Facility in Vacaville; and Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad.

The expansive project, expected to cost $593 million over the next five years, emerged partly in response to a 1995 federal court order to upgrade the level of mental health care services provided to inmates.

At the time, a federal judge chastised the department for "gross systemic deficiencies" that put some of the most vulnerable inmates at an "intolerable risk of harm." A special master was appointed to oversee reforms.

Scott Kernan, the warden at the Folsom prison and acting liaison with the CDCR, said the centers will provide more beds and staff to treat inmates with the most serious mental disorders - a population that is projected to more than double by the time construction is completed in 2011.

"The work is really just now beginning," Kernan said. "This is really the first effort ... to try to get these needed mental health facilities built."

Michael Bien, one of the lead attorneys who represented inmates in the class-action suit, Coleman v. Wilson, that led to the court mandates, applauded the state's initiative but said it should have started sooner.

"We've been fighting for this for about 10 or 15 years," Bien said. "This need has been clear for years and years and years. People are literally dying because they don't have enough beds."

In 1996, about 8 percent of the prison population required the most intense psychiatric treatment, according to Terry Thornton, CDCR spokeswoman. This year, she said, about 20 percent of the state's nearly 170,000 inmates receive such treatment.

These inmates, she said, have serious mental disorders, have marked impairment, or pose a heightened danger to themselves or others. They must be separated from a prison's general population, but there is a shortage of beds available to house them at the appropriate treatment sites.

Thornton said that there are now only 100 beds available at two different prisons - Salinas Valley State Prison and the California Medical Facility.

The project is expected to add space for nearly 700 more beds; 478 of those beds for intermediate and acute care will be at the psychiatric complex to be built at the Folsom prison.

Kernan said the four sites were selected because of the number of inmates there who already need mental health services and the likelihood that those locations could attract mental health professionals.

For example, more than 620 psychiatric staff will be added to the acute care facility slated for Folsom, which will house 350 beds for inmates.

Bien said recruiting qualified professionals has proven problematic in the past.

"There is a very serious need," he said. "Let's do it right, and let's do it as rapidly as we can."

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/14237189p-15057977c.html

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

March 30, 2006

MA: Countywide Prayer Vigil in Response to 2 year sentence for youth with 2 marijuana cigarettes

Countywide Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Response to the Sentencing of
Mitchell Lawrence
The Superior Courthouse Pittsfield MA
Sunday April 2nd 7:00 p.m.

A group of clergy from throughout Berkshire County has organized to
hold a prayer vigil at the courthouse in Pittsfield this Sunday April
2nd, at 7:00.

Many people in our community were moved with a sense of collective
sadness at the recent sentencing of Mitchell Lawrence to a mandatory
two years in prison for selling a small amount of marijuana. Like many others, the Reverend Steven Bridges of the First Congregational Church in Stockbridge and John Whalan of Stockbridge were puzzled by the severity of the punishment and began to discuss faith perspectives on what constitutes justice in such cases. “True justice is only possible in a larger context which includes not only the power of enforcement but the exercise of wisdom and mercy in the application of such power,” concluded Rev. Bridges.

“The response to the school zone charges for those arrested in the
Taconic Parking lot has been largely a political one.” Whalan said “The community is polarized, with a group of concerned citizens on one side calling for discretion and more appropriate sentencing and the District Attorney on the other standing by his conviction that he must invoke the law in all of these cases.

The aim of this interfaith prayer vigil is to provide an opportunity to transcend the purely political and allow people come together with an affirmative aim.
Members of the Clergy from nearly every city and town in the county
will lead the vigil with prayers and words of support for Mitchell
Lawrence, his family and the families of others involved in cases like this. And also, for those involved in the community, in law enforcement and in the judicial system, that in these cases and cases like these, justice will be administered with wisdom and mercy.

Posted by lois at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Yale Students call for divestment from CCA

GESO calls for divestment from prison corporation
ACIR members question arguments against CCA

BY JESSICA MARSDEN, Staff Reporter
Published Tuesday, March 28, 2006
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32359

Campus activists renewed their calls for the University to divest from investments in Corrections Corporation of America at a rally and a meeting with the Advisory Committee for Investor Responsibility on Monday afternoon.

Approximately 150 protesters gathered on Beinecke Plaza Monday for a rally supporting divestment from CCA, the country's largest private prison operator. After the rally, which was organized by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, two representatives for the group spoke at a public hearing of the ACIR, which proposes investment resolutions to the Yale Corporation on ethical grounds.

Earlier this month, Farallon Capital Management -- the hedge fund through which Yale invests in CCA -- sold about two-thirds of its holdings in the prison company, reducing the value of Yale's indirect investment in the company from approximately $1.5 million to approximately $500,000. But opponents of the investment in CCA said the University should pressure Farallon to divest fully from the company in light of a reported history of prisoner abuse and cost-cutting at CCA facilities.

"We all remain participants as long as we refuse to turn a blind eye," said Tasha Eccles '07, who spoke at the protest.

After the rally, about half the crowd marched up Prospect Street to the School of Management for the annual open meeting of the ACIR. The 34-year-old ACIR has only recommended divestment twice before, from energy companies in Sudan last month and previously from companies with interests in South Africa under apartheid. The committee's chairman, SOM professor Geert Rouwenhorst, said divestment should be used only after attempts to encourage a company to change its policies have failed.

"Divestment is an action of last resort for the endowment," Rouwenhorst said. "We believe that selling the shares to someone who cares less than us [does] not necessarily [make] a good world."

In December, ACIR concluded that CCA did not meet its standard of causing "grave social injury" that would prompt divestment, based on the standards set out in the 1972 book "The Ethical Investor," which the committee uses as a guide.

But Sarah Haley GRD '09, who authored GESO's report about CCA, "Endowing Injustice," said divestment is a moral imperative for the University based on the prison company's record. Along with GESO chair Melissa Mason GRD '08, Haley presented the case for divestment to ACIR.

"Ultimately, I think the only rational, sane, humane thing to do is to divest," she said.

In their presentation, Haley and Mason described the July 2004 death of Estelle Richardson, who died following a skull fracture, four broken ribs and damage to her liver sustained while she was a prisoner at a CCA facility. The Nashville medical examiner, Dr. Bruce Levy, told the Nashville Tennesseean after her death that the injuries might have been expected from a car accident or a fall from a high building.

Alex Friedman, the associate editor of Prison Legal News and a former CCA inmate, said the abuses reported at private prisons stem from the company's impulse to maximize its profit, which results in cost-cutting measures such as reducing salaries and training -- as well as the total number -- of prison employees.

"We're treating people as commodities," Friedman said. "We're not just giving prisoners numbers, we're giving them numbers with a dollar sign in front of them."

At the ACIR meeting, committee members and GESO members clashed over questions about legislators' responsibility for problems with the prison system. In their presentation, Haley and Mason argued that CCA's lobbying for stricter sentences, mandatory minimums and "three strikes" is immoral because the company stands to profit from more prisoners serving longer terms. But several ACIR members asked the presenters whether legislators, who voted to support the laws, are actually responsible for their consequences.

"What we're trying to get at is, is it clear that there is a strong connection between this company and the passage of this legislation?" said committee member John Mayes, Yale's chief procurement officer.

Other ACIR members questioned how CCA's practices compare to those of other private prison companies, and how private prisons in general compare to public prisons. They also suggested that engagement with the company, rather than divestment, would be a better tactic to spur policy changes toward improving prison conditions.

At times, audience members expressed anger and frustration with the committee's questions, particularly when Rouwenhorst declined to provide a timeline for the committee to make a recommendation about investing in CCA. After the meeting, Rouwenhorst said the next step will be for the ACIR to meet and discuss the information they received at this year's presentation.

Yesterday's rally was coordinated with actions at 10 other campuses nationwide, including the University of Michigan, Duke University and Case Western Reserve University.

Posted by lois at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

WA: People with felony convictions can vote even with court ordered fines

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 12:00 AM

Limits on felons' voting eased

By David Postman and Ralph Thomas
Seattle Times staff reporters

OLYMPIA — A King County Superior Court judge Monday ruled that thousands of Washington felons should be able to vote even though they have yet to pay off court-ordered fines.

"It is well recognized that there is simply no rational relationship between the ability to pay and the exercise of constitutional rights," Judge Michael Spearman wrote in a ruling backing the challenge of three indigent felons.

Spearman said the state law requiring payment of all court-ordered fines and fees before a felon can vote again violates the equal-protection clause in the U.S. Constitution and the state constitution. He said "discrimination on the basis of wealth and property has long been disfavored."

Under state law, felons can petition the state to have their voting rights restored, but only after they have completed their sentences — including any probation or community service — and have paid all of their court-related costs.

State lawyers argued that the judge shouldn't make a distinction between court-ordered payments and other parts of a felon's sentence, such as jail time.

"It's rational for the Legislature to say we want you to complete everything, as opposed to start separating out sentence elements," said deputy solicitor general Jeff Even.

State officials said they hadn't yet decided whether to appeal.

"We're still weighing our options," said Trova Heffernan, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Sam Reed.

It also was unclear how many people the ruling will affect. But, based on past estimates, it could add tens of thousands of convicted felons to the voter rolls.

In Monday's ruling, Spearman said the state could not show a "rational relationship" between a felon's ability to pay the fines and his willingness to abide by the law.

In fact, he wrote, "the better example of respect for our justice system may very well be the indigent who manages for years to make monthly payments toward the obligations."

The lawsuit was filed in late 2004 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of three felons who cannot afford to pay their court-ordered fines: Dan Madison of King County, Beverly DuBois of Spokane County and Dannielle Garner of Snohomish County.

DuBois, 49, a former state park ranger from Spokane County, has been trying in vain to pay off her court debt.

She spent nine months in jail for growing and selling marijuana, and she faced $1,610 in court fees and fines. Disabled after a car accident, DuBois was making $10 payments each month. But, with interest accruing at 12 percent, she was falling behind. She said Monday her debt is now about $2,000.

"I get disability every month, and I can barely afford to pay the $10," Dubois said.

She said she plans to try to register to vote today. "It will make me feel great to be able to feel like a citizen again," DuBois said. "Right now, I don't feel like I'm a part of society. I feel like an outcast."

Under Spearman's ruling, a felon who completes a prison sentence and community supervision would be able to vote while still making court-ordered payments.

"It really strikes to the heart of our democracy in terms of the judge recognized that people shouldn't be prevented [from voting] just because of their financial means," said ACLU spokesman Doug Honig.

In a written statement, Gov. Christine Gregoire said that convicted felons still have a responsibility to their debt, but that "once they have served their time, withholding certain rights due to fines becomes a virtual debtors' prison."

Katie Blinn, Reed's assistant director of elections, said the state does not know how many felons are barred from voting simply because they have not paid off their court-related debts. But in 2002, the state Department of Corrections put that figure at 46,500 felons, according to the ACLU lawsuit.

The state Republican Party made a big issue of felon voters last year during its unsuccessful effort to overturn Gregoire's 2004 election victory.

The Legislature last year passed a law requiring the state to screen its voter-registration database each quarter to make sure there are no deceased people, duplicate voters or ineligible felons on the rolls.

The state was nearing completion of its first screening for ineligible felons but put everything on hold Monday.

In light of Spearman's ruling, Blinn said, her office would have to work with the State Patrol and prison officials to figure out which felons have paid off their fines and court fees.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted by lois at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

How DJs Put 500,000 Marchers in Motion

By Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

March 28, 2006

He's one of the hottest Spanish-language radio personalities in the nation. So when Los Angeles deejay Eddie Sotelo joined hands with his radio rivals to urge listeners to turn out for a pro-immigrant rally in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, organizers hoped for a big turnout.

But many said Monday that they were stunned by how many responded to the call to march against federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants and penalize those who assist them.

As a result, what was initially expected to draw fewer than 20,000 ballooned into a massive march that police estimated at 500,000 and said was one of the largest demonstrations in Los Angeles' history. The march topped a wave of protests drawing hundreds of thousands of participants in cities around the nation, which organizers said influenced the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's approval Monday of legislation that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.

Rally supporters, including immigrant-rights activists, churches, and labor and community groups, agreed that the active advocacy of the region's top Spanish-language radio personalities was critical in drawing the enormous crowds, who marched more than 20 blocks along Spring and Main streets and Broadway to City Hall, wearing white "peace" shirts and waving American and Mexican flags.

The promoters included such on-air celebrities as KHJ's Humberto Luna, KBUE's Ricardo "El Mandril" (The Baboon) Sanchez, Renan "El Cucuy" (The
Boogeyman) Almendarez Coello - whose often risque show has cast him as a sort of Latino version of Howard Stern - and Sotelo, better known to listeners as "El Piolin," or Tweety Bird. Coello's and Sotelo's morning talk shows are among the highest-rated programs in any language in Los Angeles.

"They were the key to getting so many people out," said Mike Garcia, president of Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union. "If you listened to Spanish-language media, they were just pumping, pumping, pumping this up."

For his part, Sotelo said he decided to promote the cause - by calling a summit of his rival deejays to encourage them to do the same - after rally organizers told him about the ramifications of the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December. The bill, by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), would make undocumented immigrants and those who assist them felons and erect a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"I told God that if he gave me an opportunity as a radio announcer, I was going to help my people," said Sotelo, who himself illegally crossed the border in the trunk of a car in 1986 and gained legal status a decade later. "I think we have to make sure the message went through to Washington, to let them know we're not criminals."

The idea for the march first sprouted in February in the oldest church in Los Angeles: Our Lady Queen of Angels, which has historically served as a sanctuary for undocumented migrants.

The church near Olvera Street has become one of the city's organizing hubs against the House bill, playing a leading role in promoting the Roman Catholic Church's national "Justice for Immigrants" campaign. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony last December appointed a committee to promote the national campaign throughout the 5-million-member Los Angeles Archdiocese.

The coalition of religious, community and civil rights activists meeting at the church had begun planning several small-scale events: news conferences, a petition drive and protest marches to Republican and Democratic party offices.

But when two visitors joined the group in January, the vision suddenly expanded.

Jesse Diaz, a doctoral candidate in sociology at UC Riverside, had worked with day laborers in Pomona and organized marches against Proposition 187, the 1994 state initiative that cut public benefits to undocumented immigrants but was struck down in federal court. Javier Rodriguez, a journalist, had also worked with immigrants and organized black-Latino political alliances.

The two men called for something dramatic: a massive protest march.

"It was time," Diaz said. "The Sensenbrenner bill had passed. We have 10 [million] to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country, but their voice can't be heard at the ballot box. We felt a march would be a way for them to speak out."

The coalition was initially wary, he said. The group had little money or organization. At the time, none of the big labor or civil rights organizations had yet signed on, such as the service employees union or the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. At the table, aside from the Catholic priests and some Spanish-language journalists, were such groups as the Central American Resource Center, Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, the Pomona Day Labor Center and the Southern California Human Rights Network.

But Diaz and Rodriguez kept pushing. On March 2, the group held a news conference at the church to announce the march and call for political and Spanish-language media to get involved.

On March 13, the group got extensive coverage from KMEX-TV Channel 34, including promos, leading up to a "media breakfast" the next day. Later that day, Rodriguez and other leaders spoke to a producer on Sotelo's program. The day after that, they were on "Piolin Por La Mañana" for four hours, Rodriguez said.

"That was it, man!" Rodriguez said. "They gave us four hours and we went at it. We talked about the need for people to come out."

The next day, Rodriguez and other leaders went on the air with Sanchez of KBUE-FM (105.5) "Que Buena." During that show, Rodriguez said, he proposed that the deejays join together for the cause.

Sanchez called Sotelo and they had an on-air conversation during their programs, Rodriguez said. Later that day, Sotelo would make the calls that would bring the other deejays together on the air.

By March 20, all of the major Spanish-language disc jockeys got together on City Hall's south steps to promote the big march.

"From there, it just blew up," Diaz said.

The deejays did more than publicize the march. Working with the organizers, they also helped develop some ground rules: Marchers had to be peaceful and clean up after themselves.

They were also encouraged to wave American flags.

"We wanted them to show that we love this country," Sotelo said. "Bringing the U.S. flag, that was important. There are so many people who say, 'I'm glad my parents came here and sacrificed like they did for us.' "

By this time, other organizations had begun to join the effort.

Local 1877, which represents janitors, took care of security. The union trained nearly 500 people in how to deal with conflicts and herd marchers along the route, posting nearly two dozen on each block in orange T-shirts donated by an L.A. apparel firm, according to union organizer Ernesto Guerrero.

The union also coordinated the more than 100 buses that dropped off marchers from throughout California, Las Vegas and a few Southwestern cities, he said.

All of the planning paid off. The "Great March of March 25," as some dubbed it, was peaceful.

"I was saying, 'Man, we did it, we did it!' " Sotelo said.

The strong advocacy of the disc jockeys and other Spanish-language media contrasted sharply with other outlets, said Felix Gutierrez, a journalism professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

"The Latino media played it more as how will this affect you, how will it affect your job, how will it affect your kids," Gutierrez said. "They were much closer to their audience, in terms of the direct effect."

Gutierrez lauded the organization behind the event and contrasted it with the angrier assemblies of the Chicano movement of the 1960s, in which he was a media liaison.

By comparison, Saturday's rally was festive, featuring kazoos, mariachi music, cotton candy and families with children. "The messages I heard last week was show up, bring your family, bring your children, don't get pulled into violence, there may be people trying to provoke you," Gutierrez said.

Meanwhile, Diaz and Rodriguez planned to announce today their next major
action: a call to boycott work, school and all consumer activities May 1. They are calling it "The Great American Boycott of 2006."

Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this story.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-march28mar28,0,3303231.story?coll=la-hom
e-headlines

Posted by lois at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

Another day of protests against the further criminalization of immigrants.

For some great photos of the marches, see: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-032806walkout_lat,0,6123606.story

Rain Dampens Student Protests Over Immigration Reform
By Cynthia H. Cho and Anna Gorman
Times Staff Writers

March 28, 2006

Nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California staged walkouts to protest proposed immigration legislation Monday, blocking traffic on four freeways and leaving educators concerned about how much longer the issue will disrupt schools.

With steady rain falling this morning, a scattering of walkouts were reported, including one in Compton and another in Wilmington. Television broadcast reports showed a small group of students, holding their hands over their heads, as they were detained and later escorted by police along one road in San Pedro.

Monday's protests are believed to eclipse in size the demonstrations that occurred during the anti-Proposition 187 campaign in 1994 and even a famous student walkout for Chicano rights in 1968.

Some principals put their schools on lockdown Monday to keep students from leaving campus, and Los Angeles Unified School District officials said all middle and high schools will be on lockdown today.

Monday's demonstrations appeared to start in Los Angeles but quickly spread to San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Ventura counties. Though the protests were mostly peaceful, there were a few clashes and several arrests.

Motorists were left in gridlock as youths marched down Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Laurel Canyon Boulevard and other major thoroughfares.

At one point, protesters marched onto the Hollywood Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and two sections of the Harbor Freeway, downtown and in San Pedro, briefly halting traffic.

Students in Orange County briefly blocked the Riverside Freeway and Santa Ana Freeway in Fullerton, waving Mexican flags and tossing a rock that smashed the window of a CHP cruiser.

By noon, thousands of youths had gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall, with student leaders meeting privately with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The rally took on a festive tone, with many waving Mexican flags and yelling, "Latinos Stand Up!" and "Viva Mexico!"

"It was my dad's and grandfather's sweat and tears that built the city of Los Angeles," said Marshall High School senior Saul Corona, whose father came to the United States illegally before getting a green card. "People like them did things no one else wanted to do because they wanted me to have a better future."

The protests appeared to be loosely organized, with students learning about them through mass e-mails, fliers, instant messages, cellphone calls and postings on myspace.com Web pages. By contrast, the massive rally Saturday that drew 500,000 people to downtown Los Angeles was highly organized, with demonstrators urged to wear white and bring American flags.

Many students said they were marching in opposition to a bill sponsored by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that passed the House in December. The bill would give police more power to enforce immigration law and would lead to 700 miles of additional fencing along the border.

Even as the students marched, a Senate committee approved an immigration package Monday that would enable some of the about 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country to become U.S. citizens.

As immigrants or children of immigrants, several marchers said they would be personally affected by Sensenbrenner's pending bill.

"If this law passes, what will happen?" said Yadira Pech, 16. "There would be no more Los Angeles High School. Nearly all of us are immigrants."

Added Antonio Chavez, an eighth-grader at University Heights Middle School in Riverside: "Our parents, our families came here from Mexico. We want other families to be able to come here too."

Some students said they did not know exactly what the bill said but believed that it was part of an anti-immigrant movement taking hold nationwide.

"We just walked out because we didn't want to be at school," said Diana Hernandez, a senior at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. "But we also believe [the legislation] is wrong."

The demonstrations became violent in some areas. In San Diego County, two dozen protesters were arrested in Escondido after refusing orders from police to disperse. Two patrol cars were reportedly vandalized.

In Riverside, a peaceful student protest unfolded downtown as six youths and one adult were arrested across town after scuffles with police clad in riot gear and carrying nightsticks, authorities said. After following students throughout the city and calling for them to disperse, officers confronted the group. Students responded by hurling rocks and bottles at police.

"They're pushing us around," said Pati Sanchez, a Norte Vista High School senior. "People should be able to say what they think."

In Santa Ana, officers used nightsticks and pepper spray to control students throwing bottles and rocks. They also set up barricades to prevent the protesters from disrupting traffic. One student was arrested and a few others suffered minor injuries, police said.

Four adults were arrested during a protest in Van Nuys, but no major violence occurred in Los Angeles County. The demonstrations prompted a tactical alert by Los Angeles police so the department could deploy officers to areas where they were needed.

"They're noisy but well-behaved," said LAPD Chief William J. Bratton as he walked through the downtown crowd. "Let them have their say."

In a district with about 358,000 middle and high school students, an estimated 26,000 walked out of more than 50 Los Angeles Unified campuses. Teachers, principals and school police urged students to demonstrate on campus, but students flooded through gates and onto city streets and sidewalks.

"It's very disruptive," said Ellen Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District. "We want them to express their opinions, but there are venues, there are forums for them to do so. We'd like them to stay in school and get an education."

Not only did the mostly high school students miss class time, administrators said, but the district could lose money if students did not show up. And with postings on myspace.com promoting more walkouts today, principals were doing whatever they could to encourage students to stay on school grounds.

All L.A. Unified middle and high schools will be on lockdown today, which means no one will be allowed to leave school once they enter, officials said. The district plans more stringent measures this morning, prohibiting students from going from class to class as usual.

Teachers are planning lessons on the immigration issue, and administrators are setting aside spots on campus for rallies and sit-ins. Some school officials plan to punish students who left campus with enforced attendance at Saturday school.

In Los Angeles, principals sent notes home that urged parents to tell their children to stay on campus and warned of disciplinary action for those who did not.

On Monday, some principals locked down their campuses in an attempt to prevent students from leaving school grounds. Nevertheless, students from at least one campus climbed over a fence to leave.

Lucy Delgadillo, whose children attend South East High School in South Gate, said she knows that lockdowns promote school safety.

"There are some kids who don't know what the protest is about," she said. "But there are kids who understand and feel strongly about this, and I think they should be allowed to protest."

At some campuses where students did walk out, staff members marched alongside the youths to ensure their safety, officials said. In addition, Los Angeles school administrators dispatched about 30 buses to City Hall and other locations to ferry students back to their campuses in the afternoon.

In a noontime speech outside City Hall, Villaraigosa told the students that he opposed the Sensenbrenner bill.

"I know that all of you are fearful about what's going on," Villaraigosa said, referring to the pending legislation. "I know it would criminalize 12 million people."

But later in the afternoon, when he came out to tell students to go home, he was met with chants of, "Hell no, we won't go."

Administrators expressed differing views on the protests, which took place on the Cesar Chavez holiday. Some complained about a wasted day, while others praised the youths' activism.

"What pleases me is that our kids are politically active," said Ventura Unified School District Supt. Trudy Arriaga. "Isn't that what we want for the future?"

But Oxnard Union High School District Supt. Joy Dunlap said she hoped that it was over and that students had fulfilled their need to express their opinions.

"They've had that opportunity and now they'll come back and get back to studies on a normal basis," she said.

Santa Ana Unified School District Supt. Al Mijares said the students should use the classroom to engage in the immigration debate.

"The students are generally interested in the subject," he said. "But our quest is to make sure they're safe. We don't want them to miss school."

For the most part, students were met with support from honking motorists and cheering observers. (The demonstrations occurred a week after HBO premiered a movie about the 1968 student walkouts in East Los Angeles to protest the treatment of Chicanos.)

"I'm so proud of these kids," said social worker Robin Sheiner, as she watched the crowd pass on Melrose. "They're showing what they believe in."

Times staff writers Hemmy So, Juliet Chung, Jennifer Delson, Gregory W. Griggs, Stephen Clark, H.G. Reza, Sara Lin, Kelly Anne Suarez, Michelle Keller, Tony Perry, Joel Rubin, Carla Rivera, Jessica Garrison, Mai Tran, Susannah Rosenblatt, Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

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

March 27, 2006

MA: Drug Tally Shoots Down a Racial Myth-Whites Top City's Rising Toll from Drug Abuse

Drug Tally Shoots Down a Racial Myth - Whites Top City's Rising Toll From Abuse

By Michael Levenson, Boston Globe Staff | March 25, 2006

A new report by the Boston Public Health Commission explodes the myth that drug abuse is centered in the city's minority communities, indicating that while whites make up half of city residents, they comprise two-thirds to three-fourths of those who have died from drug abuse in recent years.

The figures show the deadly grip of heroin, OxyContin, and other drugs tightening in Boston, where 50 percent more residents died from drugs in 2003 than in 1999, the time period covered by the study. Of the 145 drug-related deaths in 2003, most from overdoses, 94 of victims were white, 32 black, and 19 Hispanic.

The gap between whites and minority group members in drug-related deaths persisted over the five years studied, although the size of the difference fluctuated. Death rates rose for all racial groups studied: whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Drug abuse counselors said yesterday that the increase in drug-related deaths is fueled by the availability of $4 bags of heroin and an increasing number of people using combinations of substances: crystal methamphetamine, heroin, and alcohol, for example. At the same time, they said, there is less treatment available for addicts trying to kick their habits.

Drug counselors confirmed the city's findings on racial differences in mortality rates, part of an exhaustive annual report on the health of Bostonians. For example, among the 1,000 people treated in 2004 by Victory Programs Inc., a network of 18 residential treatment centers in Boston, 62 percent were white, 22 percent were black, and 11 percent were Hispanic, officials there said.

Most were addicted to heroin, the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Boston, said John Auerbach, executive director of the Health Commission.

City treatment centers are reporting that more white residents are abusing heroin than blacks and Hispanics, who tend to use crack or cocaine, which can be less lethal than heroin. Part of the reason may be the strength of heroin being peddled in South Boston and Charlestown, neighborhoods with large white populations, he said.

''There is a much larger use of heroin now in the white neighborhoods than there ever was before," said state Representative Brian P. Wallace, a South Boston Democrat who has been trying to boost funding for drug treatment programs.

''The heroin is rampant," he said yesterday. ''It's cheaper, purer, and people are buying it. We're seeing people in their 40s who are OD-ing."

The city's figures show that the per capita rate of deaths caused by drugs is highest in South Boston and Charlestown, followed by North Dorchester and East Boston, all communities with large proportions of white residents. In South Boston and Charlestown, 69 people per 100,000 died from drug use in 2003, more than double the citywide rate of 26.3 per 100,000.

Jonathan D. Scott -- president of Victory Programs, which runs treatment centers in Jamaica Plain, the South End, Dorchester, Mattapan, and other neighborhoods -- said that ''it drives me crazy" to hear people talk about drug problems disproportionately affecting minority communities.

''It's just one of the fallacies that gets perpetuated, that this is a ghetto problem in minority housing projects," Scott said. ''It really is affecting every community in this city."

Yet even as cheaper, purer heroin is being sold on the streets of Boston, the number of detoxification beds available in the city has plummeted by 39 percent, from 311 in 2001 to 189 in 2003, Auerbach said. The number of residents receiving treatment fell in 2004 to its lowest point in at least three years, with 16,532 people admitted to city drug treatment centers. The Public Health Commission blamed state budget cuts for the decline.

''Obviously, we need more beds," said John McGahan, executive director of Cushing House, a treatment center for teens in South Boston. Cushing House, with its 16 beds for boys and 12 for girls, has been full since the center opened in 1999, McGahan said, ''and that's probably always going to be the case for some time."

He said he also has seen people of different races generally coming in for treatment for addiction to different drugs. ''We don't see a lot of minorities that actually use heroin -- they tend to use crack and cocaine, marijuana and alcohol -- and you're going to have many more deaths from opiates than cocaine or crack," he said.

Drug counselors said they also are treating increasing numbers of young people using lethal combinations of drugs. Sometimes, teenagers using OxyContin switch to heroin because it is cheaper and so pure that it can be snorted instead of injected, making it easier to use. Young people also mix heroin with prescription antianxiety drugs or crystal methamphetamine. Scott compared the cocktail's effect on the body to trying to drive a car with the gas and brakes on at the same time.

''When you mix those drugs it doesn't take long for the car to combust, explode," he said.

In 2003, 32.9 whites per 100,000 died of drugs, compared to 25.2 blacks and 22.6 Hispanics per 100,000, the health commission study said. The figure for all races was 26.3 per 100,000. The Public Health Commission said it did not tally other races because deaths among them were too few to separate statistically.

Among men in Boston, drugs were the sixth-most common cause of death in 2003, behind heart disease, cancer, injuries, chronic pulmonary disease, and stroke and ahead of HIV, AIDS, and diabetes, the study said. Substance abuse is not among the dozen leading causes for women.

Auerbach said he hopes the report draws attention to the danger of reducing treatment services. ''We knew this was a growing problem, and the number of deaths illustrate it tragically," he said.

Posted by lois at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

Probably the largest demonstration in LA history....

500,000 Pack Streets to Protest Immigration Bills

The rally, part of a massive mobilization of immigrants and their supporters, may be the largest L.A. has seen. By Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra Times Staff Writers

March 26, 2006

A crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously marched in Los Angeles on Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall along the U.S.' southern border.

Spirited but peaceful marchers - ordinary immigrants alongside labor, religious and civil rights groups - stretched more than 20 blocks along Spring Street, Broadway and Main Street to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting, "Sí se puede!" (Yes we can!).

Attendance at the demonstration far surpassed the number of people who protested against the Vietnam War and Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that sought to deny public benefits to undocumented migrants but was struck down by the courts. Police said there were no arrests or injuries except for a few cases of exhaustion.

At a time when Congress prepares to crack down further on illegal immigration and self-appointed militias patrol the U.S. border to stem the flow, Saturday's rally represented a massive response, part of what immigration advocates are calling an unprecedented effort to mobilize immigrants and their supporters nationwide.

It coincides with an initiative on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, spearheaded by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, to defy a House bill that would make aiding undocumented immigrants a felony. And it signals the burgeoning political clout of Latinos, especially in California.

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

The demonstrators, many wearing white shirts to symbolize peace, included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life.

Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally emigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two businesses and pays $7,000 in income taxes each year.

Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind. In his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid $10 a day.

"As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving both the American and Guatemalan flags. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."

On Monday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to resume work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. The Senate committee's version includes elements of various bills, including a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants proposed by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)

In addition, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill that would strengthen border security, crack down on employers of illegal immigrants and increase the number of visas for workers. Frist has said he would take his bill to the floor Tuesday if the committee does not finish its work Monday.

Ultimately, the House and Senate bills must be reconciled before a law can be passed.

President Bush has advocated a guest worker program and attracted significant Latino support for his views.

In his Saturday radio address, Bush urged all sides of the emotional debate to tone down their rhetoric, calling for a balanced approach between more secure borders and more temporary foreign workers.

Largely in response to the debate in Washington, hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks have staged marches in more than a dozen cities calling for immigration reform.

In Denver, police said Saturday that more than 50,000 people gathered downtown at Civic Center Park next to the Capitol to urge the state Senate to reject a resolution supporting a ballot issue that would deny many government services to illegal immigrants in Colorado.

Hundreds rallied in Reno, the Associated Press reported.

On Friday, tens of thousands of people were estimated to have staged school walkouts, marches and work stoppages in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and other cities.

In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions opposing the House legislation. At least one city, Maywood, declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.

Despite the significant opposition to the crackdown on illegal immigrants shown by the turnout in recent rallies, a recent Zogby poll found 62% of Americans surveyed wanted more restrictive immigration policies, and a Field Poll last month found that the majority of California voters surveyed believed illegal immigration was hurting the state.

"Polling has consistently shown that Americans don't want guest workers or amnesty," said Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a Washington-based immigration control group that says its e-mail list of 1 million and 140,000-member roster of activists have more than doubled in the last year.

Espinosa said current levels of both legal and illegal immigration would push the U.S. population to 420 million by 2050, "leading to a tremendously negative impact on the quality of life in the United States."

According to a U.S. Census Bureau survey a year ago, the nation's 35.2 million immigrants - legal and illegal - represent a record number. California led the country with nearly 10 million, constituting 28% of the state's population overall and one-third of its work force.

The swelling number of immigrants has clearly influenced the political calculus of those involved in the issue, including political and religious groups. The Republican Party, for instance, is split among those who want tougher restrictions, those who fear alienating the Latino vote and business owners who are pressing for more laborers - mostly Latin Americans
- to fill blue-collar jobs in construction, cleaning, gardening and other industries.

Some Republicans fear that pushing too hard against illegal immigrants could backfire nationally, as with Proposition 187. Strong Republican support of that measure helped spur record numbers of California Latinos to become U.S. citizens and register to vote. Those voters subsequently helped the Democrats regain political control in the state.

"There is no doubt Proposition 187 had a devastating impact on the [California] Republican Party," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant. "Now the Republicans in Congress better beware: If they come across as too shrill, with a racist tone, all of a sudden you're going to see Republicans in cities with a high Latino population start losing their seats."

The effects of the nation's growing Latino presence also are evident in religious communities. This week, for instance, the president of the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals is scheduled to issue a statement supporting immigration reform, including a guest worker program. It will be in concert with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, conference president.

Rodriguez, whose Sacramento-based group serves the nation's 18 million evangelical Christian Latinos, said it took "a lot of persuasion" to broker the joint statement with Ted Haggard, president of the evangelicals group. Rodriguez said he warned the group that failure to support comprehensive immigration reform would have long-term political repercussions.

Latino evangelical Christians voted for Bush at a 40% higher rate than Latinos overall, he said, but they would probably turn away from conservative candidates and causes without support on immigration.

"I had to do a lot of asking: Will Hispanics ever vote for conservative candidates again, or partner with white evangelicals if they were silent while our brothers and sisters and cousins were being sent out of the county on buses?" Rodriguez said.

Churches were just one force behind Saturday's rally.

Several immigrant advocates said that the ethnic media were a significant factor in drawing crowds. News outlets repeatedly publicized it and even exhorted marchers to wear white shirts. Churches announced the rally too. Although a police spokeswoman estimated the crowd at 500,000 based on helicopter surveillance, rally organizers said it was closer to 1 million.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa briefly addressed the rally.

"We cannot criminalize people who are working, people who are contributing to our economy and contributing to the nation," Villaraigosa said.

In contrast to demonstrations 12 years ago against Proposition 187, Saturday's rally featured more American flags than those from any other country. Flag vendors were soon overwhelmed by demonstrators holding out dollar bills.

Father Michael Kennedy, a longtime immigrant advocate and pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, said that past demonstrations were more heavily Mexican or Mexican American, but the House bill had rallied protesters across religious, national and ethnic lines.

One was Korean immigrant Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles. Yoon said the Korean community was more inflamed over the House bill than Proposition 187 because it would penalize not only undocumented immigrants but also businesses that hired them and anyone who helped them.

He said the Korean-language media has intensified coverage of the House bill in recent weeks.

"The Korean community is shocked and outraged over this inhumane legislation," Yoon said. "Everybody would be affected by it."

*

The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig26mar26,0,7628611.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Posted by lois at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2006

Editorial: NY Times: Go Away: You Can't Vote

March 25, 2006
Editorial, NY Times
Go Away: You Can't Vote
The right to vote should never be curtailed in a way that disenfranchises a whole class of people. This view is gaining traction even in the Deep South, which pioneered the shameful state laws that barred nearly four million ex-felons, parolees and probationers from voting in the last national election. It's heartening to see those laws being modified or repealed across the country. But states will need to re-educate elections officials, who are often dismally ignorant of election laws and biased against people who have been convicted of even minor crimes. As a result, many men and women who have paid their debts to society remain disenfranchised, even in states that guarantee them the right to vote.

One good example is New York, where the State Board of Elections has failed to uphold a state law that guarantees voting rights for people on probation, as well as for those who have completed their maximum sentences or been discharged from parole. As is completely appropriate, the law presumes that ex-offenders are as eligible as anyone else once they meet age, citizenship and residency requirements.

Unfortunately, the law isn't being followed, as was vividly documented in a new study by two civil rights groups, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Demos. Canvassers who contacted all of the state's county election boards found that nearly 40 percent were actually ignorant of the state's voting rights law and that nearly one-third continued to disenfranchise probationers and former inmates who were eligible to register and vote under state law.

This is all the more distressing because the State Board of Elections was made aware of all these problems after a similar survey three years ago. New promises to look into the matter aren't good enough.

State officials need to require every worker at every local board of elections to know the law, and make their own spot-checks to make sure that the law is being followed. It should do this quickly, before prisoners' rights advocates file a lawsuit that could well put the state's elections under a layer of court supervision that would be far more difficult to contend with than simply doing the right thing now.

Posted by lois at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times: Marc Mauer Letter on Incarceration of Young Black Men

NY Times- 3-22-06
To the Editor:
A complex array of factors has come together to produce high rates of unemployment and incarceration for young black men, but one cannot help but conclude that the racial dimension of the problem skews the public policy response.
Consider the national response to Depression-era poverty, a social ill that crossed racial lines.
Major resources and political attention were devoted to W.P.A. job creation and construction of a safety net through Social Security. But as the image of poor people focuses on communities of color, the national response is one of wars on crime and drugs that emphasize harsh punishments over prevention and community-building.
One of every three black men born today can expect to go to prison if current trends continue. This is but one result of the crime policies of recent years that many political leaders tout as successful.
It is difficult to imagine such congratulatory messages being pronounced if we were talking about one in three white men.
Marc Mauer
Executive Director
The Sentencing Project
Washington, March 20, 2006

Posted by lois at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

CT: Drug-Free Zones Are Bill's Targets, Measure Would Shrink Them And Remove Some

By MATT BURGARD
Courant Staff Writer

March 24 2006

In a move likely to renew debate over the war on drugs, state legislators plan to consider a bill today that would reduce the size of drug-free school zones after a national report tagged them as unfair to cities and racially discriminatory.

Under Connecticut law, any drug activity - whether selling or buying - is subject to stiffer criminal penalties if it takes place within 1,500 feet of a public school, housing project or day-care center.

The idea behind the law, which was drafted in the late 1980s and mirrors similar laws in several other states, was to protect children from an outbreak of urban drug dealing as the crack epidemic hit its peak.

But the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based group known for supporting drug laws with the goal of treating offenders rather than punishing them, says that the law has contributed to a yawning disparity between the way whites and non-whites are treated by the courts.

Because the drug-free zones are so predominant in high-density cities such as Hartford and New Haven, the higher minority populations in those cities face stiffer penalties, the institute says.

In contrast, sprawling suburban towns such as Glastonbury and Madison, with higher white populations, are not nearly as saturated with the zones.

That makes it easier for drug users or sellers in suburban areas to avoid the extra penalties that come with being caught in a drug-free zone, critics say. Under current law, anyone convicted on a first offense for selling or possessing drugs in a drug-free zone faces a mandatory prison term of three to 15 years.

By comparison, anyone convicted on a first offense for selling or possessing drugs outside of a drug-free zone faces no mandatory minimum prison sentence, ostensibly making it easier to plea-bargain for probation or another sentence that does not include jail.

"No one wants drug dealing in their neighborhood, least of all poor people in the cities, but people who get caught using drugs in one area should get the same treatment as someone doing the same thing in another area," said state Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey, D-Hartford, a proponent of the bill.

The measure, scheduled for a public hearing today by the legislature's judiciary committee, would reduce the reach of drug-free zones, from within 1,500 feet of a public school to within 200 feet. The proposal would also drop housing projects and day-care centers from the law.

But the plan has met with opposition from those who view it as a sign of surrender in the effort to combat drug trafficking in the state's cities. Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano said the proposal would give urban drug dealers more incentive to ply their trade.

"I recognize the anecdotal evidence that there are disparities between the cities and the suburbs, but I don't think that outweighs the need to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the scourge of drug dealing, namely our children," he said. "The bottom line is, we shouldn't give up."

Carol Coburn, a Hartford neighborhood activist who works closely with the police to fight drug dealing in the Barry Square and South Green areas, said the effort is misguided.

"It's obvious the people who support this bill don't care about families trying to raise their children in the city," Coburn said. "It seems like they care more about drug dealers."

While citing evidence from other states, the report acknowledges that there is no statistical information available from Connecticut that shows that those who are convicted for drug-related offenses in drug-free zones receive harsher sentences than those in areas outside of the zones.

And while state Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, said the idea of reducing the zones might sound like raising a white flag in the war on drugs, it's actually meant to put the battle on a level field.

"I don't think anyone wants to see different penalties for those caught dealing drugs in one area compared to another, but that's what's resulted with these zones," said Lawlor, who supports the measure.

"I can see how it might strike people as controversial," he said, "but if these drug-free zones were really meant to discourage people from engaging in drug activity near schools and other public areas, you have to ask yourself, `Have they worked?' I would say they haven't."

Lawlor cited statistics gathered over the past five years that show that, of all the people arrested on drug-related charges in Connecticut, about 55 percent were black or Latino, while almost 45 percent were white.

At the same time, he said, the breakdown of all those who have been imprisoned on drug-related convictions amounts to roughly 90 percent black or Latino, and 10 percent white.

Lawlor said that disparity is exacerbated by the concentration of drug-free zones within cities.

Cities' populations are made up mostly of minorities, which means minorities are more likely to be the ones receiving mandatory prison terms for drug violations in drug-free zones.

The mandatory sentences also give prosecutors added leverage when negotiating plea bargains with those pleading guilty to drug charges, he said.

"If you're a black kid from the city, you're looking at prison time no matter what, while a white person from the suburbs will have more leverage to avoid any time at all," Lawlor said.

The report by the policy institute reviewed 300 drug cases in Connecticut and New Jersey - both states with drug-free zone laws - and concluded that not only are the laws discriminatory, but that they do little to discourage drug activity in areas near schools and other places.

Other opponents of the proposal have argued that, instead of shrinking existing zones, the legislature should extend them, so crimes committed in larger swaths of suburban areas are also subject to the mandatory minimum sentences.

But Kevin Pranis, one of the report's authors from the policy institute, said such a measure would only further diminish the effectiveness of existing drug laws.

"Just because you make a law saying that from now on there will be no drug dealing anywhere in the city or the suburbs doesn't mean it's going to happen," he said.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-drugzones0324.artmar24,0,7326531.story?coll=hc-headlines-politics-state

Posted by lois at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

NH: Op-Ed: No Mandatory Minimums for Child Molesters

Linda Griebsch: No mandatory minimums for child molesters

By LINDA GRIEBSCH,

NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Monday, Mar. 20, 2006, Manhchester Union Leader, NH

REGARDING YOUR March 8 editorial "A heinous crime," referencing the House bill regarding child sexual assault, Rep. David Welch is a man of remarkable integrity and is respected on both sides of the aisle. He has provided support for his committee, Criminal Justice and Public Safety, as it continues to put a great deal of work and energy into this bill. These representatives, with varied backgrounds in law enforcement, child and family law and education, have met day after day to craft the most effective sexual assault prevention bill possible.

No one involved in the work sessions is soft on crime, nor is there any wish to protect dangerous sexual offenders from punishment or incarceration, even lifetime confinement when appropriate. Everyone is working hard to craft a bill without unintended consequences.

Last August, when Bill O'Reilly attacked our state, the Union Leader wrote an editorial reasoning that a law that works in one state is not necessarily good for any other state. The editorial stated that care should be taken, study was required and we should look to see what was needed specifically to improve New Hampshire statutes.

Therefore, we should not limit our legislators to focus on mandatory minimum sentences, especially 25 years for a first offense. No basis for pursuing the mandatory minimum is prescribed in the bill, no mention of risk assessment or classification, nor any objective data-driven tool.

A mandatory minimum 25 year sentence requires large amounts of money for the lengthy incarceration.

Valuable limited public resources will be used for every offender regardless of the risk presented to the community. Not every offender is at the same risk level or is likely to recidivate or is incurable. With proper early intervention, many juvenile offenders are amenable to treatment and can go on to live productive, crime-free lives. Among adult offenders, only through careful and frequent risk assessment can we be sure we are adequately addressing correction, prevention and reintegration. In this way we will know we are using taxpayer dollars effectively.

The board of directors of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence has drafted a policy statement pertaining to lengthy mandatory minimum sentences. They speak to the need for consideration of the impact on the victim and the victim's family.

"Long mandatory minimum sentences can have a number of negative consequences that serve to decrease, rather than increase, public safety. For example, lengthy mandatory minimum sentences sometimes result in prosecutors not filing charges or filing charges for a lesser crime than a sex offense, as well as increased plea bargains down to a lesser crime. Similarly, judges or juries may be less inclined to convict a defendant on a sex offense because of the mandatory minimum sentence. Long mandatory minimum sentences can also keep victims who were assaulted by someone they know from reporting the crime."

In addition to the above objections, a mandatory 25-year minimum will force defendants to request jury trials more frequently. Trials will last longer and extreme pressure will be placed on the child victims. This is not child-friendly or victim-centered thinking. In the end there will be less reporting, fewer prosecutions and far fewer convictions, the very opposite of the intended result of creating safer communities.

One last question about this approach. What kind of treatment is effective for someone with a 25 year sentence? Currently the DOC offers a one-year treatment program. Nothing in this bill increases the time or resources for the program offered or alternative treatment.

Due to a long history in this field, I am aware of the many complicated emotions that individual victims experience in response to this crime. In more than 90 percent of cases the perpetrator is a family friend or relative. We don't need a simple knee-jerk reaction or slick politics. This is an opportunity to craft a well thought out legislative response, which takes into account all the available knowledge and research. And that's how representatives truly protect our children.

Linda Griebsch is the public policy director of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=37b9599b-5202-4c30-927f-60
7697600452

Posted by lois at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

GA: 4,300 more cells and 1,000 more pre-kindergarten slots

State Sennate passes 2007 budget
The Associated Press - ATLANTA

The state Senate on Thursday approved a $18.65 billion spending plan which boosts salaries for police and teachers and would funnel money to more disabled Georgians for community-based care.

The budget would also provide money for 4,300 more prison beds to handle the state's booming inmate population and add 1,000 more slots for pre-kindergarten.

It sailed through the Senate 53-0 on Thursday.

The state's tax collections continue to swell, which has made the budget process relatively painless for lawmakers, most of whom are seeking re-election in the fall.

"Our revenues are growing this year at a good clip," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill told the chamber on Thursday.

The budget for fiscal year 2007 would increase spending by $800 million over the recently amended budget for fiscal year 2006. The state's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

Lawmakers on Thursday rejected an amendment that would have provided $4 million to the state's trauma centers.

State Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale, said the shortage of trauma care in Georgia was placing people's lives at risk.

But state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said a study committee was being formed over the summer to investigate shortcomings in trauma care more broadly

"We all recognize the seriousness of the issue," Unterman said.

Sen. Tim Golden complained that the state's debt _ at just under $1 billion _ was too high.

"This borrow and spend philosophy from Washington is moving it's way south and it's got to stop," the Valdosta Democrat said.

The House has already passed its version of the budget and the two chambers must now work out their differences in conference committee.

One of the larger discrepancies was in disability funding. The Senate provided $35.7 million for some 3,000 slots for care for the mentally and developmentally disabled. The House had included funding for just 1,500 slots. The waiting list for services is more than 6,000 people.

The Senate also added $250,000 to open a Georgia trader office in China.

Raises of up to 7 percent for the state troopers, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, prison guards and parole officers were included in both chambers. But the Senate stripped out money for two new 50-cadet trooper classes and 16 secretaries for the Georgia State Patrol. Law enforcement officials say the administrative help would free up more troopers for patrol.

State law enforcement officials say they have had a tough time recruiting and retaining qualified officers because of sluggish pay and benefits.

The budget that passed on Thursday included the 4 percent pay raise Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed for teachers.

The budget includes a raise of between 2 and 4 percent for all state employees and freezes health premiums.

The budget eliminated $2 million for improvements to the Riverwalk in Savannah, home to the powerful Republican leader of the Senate, Eric Johnson. Instead, the project is being funded by $8 million in state bonds.

The Senate and the House both rejected a proposal by Perdue to increase funding for the homeowner tax relief grant by $1.7 million.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=73044>

Posted by lois at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

MA: Many in Jail Eligible to Vote, but Need Access

This was printed in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA
March 23, 2006
Many in jail eligible to vote, but need access

To the editor:
I agree with Yvonne Freccero and Osa Flory's guest column that we must eliminate barriers to voting in order to expand democratic participation. In fact, there are thousands of men and women held on bail prior to trial and sentencing who are eligible to vote but have no access to the ballot. Additionally, there are the tens of thousands of our fellow citizens who have finished serving their prison or jail sentence and are eligible to vote but are uninformed about their rights.

This can be corrected through proposed unconditional absentee voting which would allow people being held pre-trial to vote. Other barriers would fall if Election Day voter registration took place at polling places. However, for these good ideas to work, jails must be willing to inform those being held pre-trial how they can vote absentee. Departments of probation and parole need to inform people that they are eligible to vote upon release from jail or prison.

This can be facilitated by having voter registration forms on hand at probation and parole offices and signs posted explaining voter eligibility.

The Sentencing Project estimates there are 4.7 million Americans who have currently or permanently lost their voting rights as a result of a felony conviction. The United States is the only democracy that permanently disenfranchises almost 2 million of its citizens. In 2000 Massachusetts voters passed a law prohibiting people who are incarcerated from voting. As a result of this law and the permanent disenfranchisement of millions, many of Massachusetts' citizens who were incarcerated incorrectly believe that they are prohibited from voting. Groups like the League of Women Voters, political parties and people working in the criminal justice system need to actively inform everyone of their voting rights.
Lois Ahrens
Northampton

Posted by lois at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

KS: Keep Private Prisons Out of Kansas

Posted on Fri, Mar. 24, 2006
Keep private prisons out of Kansas
BY FRANK SMITH
With an appalling display of lobbyist strength, special interest legislation meant to solely enrich the out-of-state for-profit prison industry was recently forced through a Kansas House committee.

Then Wednesday, a bill authorizing privately owned and operated prisons cleared the full Senate.

The ostensible rationale for bringing nonliving wages to Kansas corrections is alleged taxpayer savings. But repeated legitimate research fails to demonstrate any such thrift. And there's no guarantee the proposed private prisons would ever hold a single Kansas inmate.

For-profit operator GEO Group enlisted economically depressed Woodson County in eastern Kansas to strengthen its ploy to enable proliferation of its "Rent-a-Pens." Studies conducted by professors from five universities and an independent think tank, however, conclusively demonstrate that even public prisons, where wages are sometimes twice as high, do not improve faltering rural economies. Prisons dissuade safer and better-paying industries from locating in host counties. No economic feasibility assessment has ever been done in Woodson County, which simply couldn't recruit sufficient low-paid employees.

A survey comparing similar-sized populations of a public prison system with national for-profits indicated the privates had 30 times as many escapes. Liability damage language has rarely protected any hosting state.

And might for-profits bring corruption? Prosecutors accused former Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie of taking $284,000 to privatize his jail.

To test the efficacy of the services provided, look no further than the GEO Group's Jena, La., prison and the Cornell Companies' New Morgan Academy in Morgantown, Pa. Both have been closed for years after horrendous abuse of scores of juveniles. Management and Training Corp. closed its prison in Eagle Mountain, Calif., after rioting and murders.

I've visited Corrections Corporation of America prisons in Kentucky, Colorado and Arizona following such riots. It took law enforcement from four states to quell the previous riot at the Crowley County, Colo., prison.

After extensive study, numerous denominations -- including Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and the Church of Christ -- condemned this industry. Kansas would do well to heed their call.

Frank Smith lives in Bluff City.

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/editorial/14170975.htm

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

March 23, 2006

Disparity by Design--New National Report on Drug Free Zones

New national report shows that drug-free zone laws fail to protect youth from drug sales, worsen racial disparity in prison. Laws that heighten penalties for drug activity near schools, public housing and other designated locations fail to protect youth, according to a new report from the Justice Policy Institute (JPI). While not achieving the intended goals, these laws contribute to unacceptably high levels of racial disparity in the use of incarceration and subject people of color to stiffer punishment than whites engaged in similar conduct. Several states are considering proposals to either eliminate or narrow the scope of the drug-free zone laws, in order to enhance public safety and minimize unintended consequences.

The JPI report, authored by Judith Greene, Kevin Pranis and Jason Ziedenberg, was commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance, and is available at www.justicepolicy.org

Drug-Free School Zone Laws Questioned

By DAVID CRARY,, Washington Post

The Associated Press

Thursday, March 23, 2006; 1:30 AM

NEW YORK -- In reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, laws creating drug-free zones around schools spread nationwide. Now, hard questions are being raised _ by legislators, activists, even law enforcement officials _ about the fairness and effectiveness of those laws.

In New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington state, bills have been proposed to sharply reduce the size of the zones. A former assistant attorney general in Massachusetts reviewed hundreds of drug-free-zone cases, and found that less than 1 percent involved drug sales to youths.

Citing such developments, the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute is issuing a report Thursday that contends such laws, which generally carry extra-stiff mandatory penalties, have done little to safeguard young people and are enforced disproportionately on blacks and Hispanics.

"For two decades, policy-makers have mistakenly assumed that these statutes shield children from drug activity," said report co-author Judith Greene, a New York-based researcher. "We found no evidence that drug-free zone laws protect children, but ample evidence that the laws hurt communities of color and contribute to mounting correctional costs."

New Jersey's sentencing review commission reached similar conclusions in December, when the panel _ made up of state officials and criminal justice experts _ found that students were involved in only 2 percent of the cases it examined. It said drug-free zones around schools, parks and housing projects cover virtually all of some cities, and 96 percent of offenders jailed for zone violations were black or Hispanic.

Instead of declining, drug arrests in the zones have risen steadily since the law took effect in 1987, the commission found.

A bill based on the panel's recommendation has been introduced that would reduce the zones to 200 feet from the present size of 1,000 feet around schools and 500 feet around parks and public housing. Drug dealers in the smaller zones would face five to 10 years in prison, compared to three to five years under current law _ but judges would have more discretion in sentencing.

"When the overlap of zones in densely populated areas covers the entire city, the idea of special protection loses its meaning _ people don't know they're in a school zone," said Ben Barlyn, a deputy attorney general and executive director of the sentencing review panel. "It would be as if we made the entire New Jersey Turnpike a reduced speed zone."

Barlyn said New Jersey prosecutors and police chiefs had no objection to shrinking the zones.

In Washington, state Sen. Adam Kline has proposed reducing drug-free school zones from 1,000 feet to 200 feet, and limiting the law's application to regular school hours. In Connecticut, a hearing is scheduled Friday on a bill that would reduce school zones from 1,500 feet to 200 feet.

At recent meetings, activists with Connecticut's A Better Way Foundation _ which supports the bill _ have displayed maps of major cities showing huge sections designated as drug-free zones. A map of New Haven indicated that Yale University's golf course was the only large part of the city not encompassed in one of the overlapping zones.

Most states have drug-free-zone laws; they often entail mandatory prison terms that preclude such options as probation or treatment.

Lolita Buckner Inniss, a Cleveland State University law professor, is a vocal critic of the laws. Her research found that drug dealers in inner cities and compact rural towns were disproportionately likely to incur the extra penalties, in contrast to dealers in suburbs where zones covered relatively small portions of the communities. That urban-suburban split has the effect of making minorities more likely to bear the brunt of tougher sentencing rules, she said.

"I've been dissatisfied by how the public mutely accepts these laws," she said.

Though intended to deter drug sales to youths, the laws have been applied mostly to adult-to-adult transactions, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a private research group advocating alternatives to prison.

It cited a study by William Brownsberger, a former Massachusetts assistant attorney general who reviewed 443 drug cases in three cities. He found that 80 percent of the cases occurred in drug-free school zones, but only 1 percent involved sales to minors.

"The laws have an undeniable appeal _ nobody wants drugs near schools," Brownsberger said in a telephone interview. "But the evidence suggests they're not effective in moving drug dealing away from schools. If every place is a stay-away zone, no place is a stay-away zone."
-----------
A link to this paper can also be found at www.realcostofprisons.org under Papers, Workshop Materials, and Other Documents which has links to current research useful to organizers.

Posted by lois at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2006

Springfield MA: Studies Show Uphill Fight For More Black Men Today

Studies show uphill fight for more black men today
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
By PATRICIA NORRIS
SPRINGFIELD - Something alarming is happening to black men.

Their plight in this country and locally is far more dire than previously portrayed in employment and education statistics, according to studies by researchers at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions.

While there are many success stories in cities such as Springfield, statistics show that young black and Latino men here are also more likely to get caught up in a web of urban violence even as their education suffers.

There were 18 homicides in Springfield in 2005, a 12-year high. Most of the victims and suspected perpetrators are black and Hispanic males. The slayings fit a national pattern in which homicide is a leading cause of death for young black men.

The persistent negative statistics are rooted in everything from institutional racism to barriers to success and a culture of low expectations, all fueled by poverty, many agree.

"It comes down to a question of humanity. How much value today do you place on black life and black youth?" asked Henry M. Thomas III, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Springfield Inc.

Thomas said the question is both aimed at the black community and the rest of society.

"There has to be a tipping point where the community and institutions realize the gravity of the problem and correct it on a priority basis with the institutions that have the most impact," said Thomas.

His organization has devised a parent empowerment program to help strengthen familial bonds, a move he believes will aid the community's overall health and help turn the problems around.

A community coalition also is planning a May 6 summit at the High School of Commerce to connect Springfield parents with the resources needed to help ensure a successful future for their sons and daughters. Denise Jordan, co-chairwoman of the city's Youth Commission, is chairwoman of the City of Hope Summit Committee, which soon will be making pre-registration material available.

The summit, called "City of Hope: Empowering Parents," is co-sponsored by The Republican. It is expected to include an appearance by entertainer Bill Cosby as well as eight workshops featuring panelists ranging from college to vocational counselors to experts on communicating with teens.

Such efforts couldn't come at a more critical time.

Among some of the disturbing trends university scholars uncovered:

The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990s. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless - that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white dropouts and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.

Incarceration rates reached historic highs in the last few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20s who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30s, six in 10 black men who have dropped out of school have spent time in prison.

In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

In Springfield and statewide there are more similarities. Blacks have the second highest dropout rate in the city at 7 percent, while black men over 18 are the majority population in the state's correctional system.

Latinos have the highest dropout rate in the city at nearly 11 percent and reflect the largest population in county jail, at 46 percent of inmates in 2005, compared with 31 percent white and 23 percent black. Critics of mandatory drug sentencing laws say they fuel the high rates of incarceration with more severe penalties for crack cocaine and drug sales near schools, both of which are more prevalent in densely populated urban centers.

Cosby said the new studies regarding black men in America should come as nothing new to anyone who is watching society and the political world.

Cosby, who lives in Shelburne but has cemented ties with Springfield after sponsoring the college education of several young city men, said the black man's plight leaves him feeling very angry and very sad.

Young black men in particular get the wrong messages from commercial interests, he said.

"What do they buy, what kind of music do they listen to, and what's the value of the things they're being taught? These things are driven by someone," he said.

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills - like parenting, conflict resolution and character building - as teaching job skills.

But leaders here say that reaching young people, whether it is through education or the importance of preventive health care, requires challenging the status quo.

Darryl Moss, outreach coordinator for U-turn Street Workers at the Mason Square Community Center, said in order to make education, religion and other things valuable to young people, you need to make them relevant to their lives and futures.

"This might be unpopular but I believe in neighborhood-based schooling and residency rules. It is hard for someone coming from suburbia to teach in an impoverished school district. There is a cultural clash and people take that for granted," Moss said. "If you don't speak my language, understand how I talk, walk and dress, how can you teach me?"

Part of the Caring Health Center's success in connecting with black male patients is reaching out to them in the not-so-usual places.

"It is the way you present information that determines whether they are going to listen," said Michael Wallace, director of the men's health outreach and education coordinator at the city clinic.

For Wallace, that sometimes requires him to go to work in a sweat suit and to take his health-care information on the road and into places like bars and basketball tournaments.

"They are not going to talk to this guy in a suit. They are going to think what does this guy want from me, not what can this guy do for me," he said.

Material from The New York Times and staff writer Mary Ellen Lowney was used in this report.

Posted by lois at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)

OH: Reggie Wilkinson to retire as head of DOC

Article published Mar 20, 2006
State prisons director will retire next month
Wilkinson's tenure includes Lucasville riot, resumption of executions
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS — The director of the state prisons department is resigning at the end of April, ending a 15-year tenure that included the 1993 Lucasville prison riot and the return of Ohio’s death penalty.

Reginald Wilkinson, 55, will leave his post at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to become executive director of the Business Alliance on Higher Education and the Economy. The alliance is a nonprofit group that emphasizes the role Ohio colleges and universities play in the state’s economic growth.

Former Gov. George Voinovich appointed Wilkinson as the prisons department director in 1991 and Gov. Bob Taft reappointed him in 1999. He joined the department in 1973 and served as a warden, supervisor of training and deputy director before assuming the top post. As director, he makes $124,464 a year.

Ross County includes two prisons – Ross Correctional Institution and Chillicothe Correctional Institution – which employ about 1,200 people.

He oversaw the resolution of the 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in which one guard and nine inmates were killed. He also has supervised the execution of 20 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1999.

Taft plans to appoint a new director before Wilkinson leaves on April 30.

About Reggie Wilkinson

Reginald A. Wilkinson has been employed by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction since 1973.

He has served in a variety of positions including superintendent of the Corrections Training Academy, warden of the Dayton Correctional Institution, and deputy director of prisons. He was appointed Director of the Department in 1991.

He is a Past President of ACA, the Ohio Correctional and Court Services Association; the Ohio chapter of the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice; the State of Ohio Training Association, in addition to ASCA.

He has received numerous awards from a variety of organizations including the National Governors’ Association, the International Community Corrections Association, the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, the Volunteers of America, the Ohio Community Corrections Organization, and the Ohio Correctional and Court Services Association. He is a recipient of the Michael Francke Award, the highest honor bestowed by ASCA, and the E. R. Cass Correctional Achievement Award, ACA’s most prestigious honor.

http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/NEWS01/60320003

Posted by lois at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)

Forbes: U.S. Prisons Not Safe for the Aged

U.S. Prisons Not Safe for the Aged: Study
03.20.06, 12:00 AM ET, Forbes Magazine

MONDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Incarcerated Americans are a graying population, and a new study suggests that U.S. prisons need to meet the challenge of caring for older prisoners.

"Prison is not a safe place for vulnerable older people to be," study author Dr. Brie Williams, a geriatrician at San Francisco VA Medical Center, said in a prepared statement. "Prisons aren't geared to the needs and vulnerabilities of older people. In the prison environment, there are a number of unique physical tasks that must be performed every day in order to retain independence. They're not the same tasks that are called for in the community."

Williams' group analyzed questionnaires filled out by 120 female prisoners, aged 55 and older, in the California prison system and found that 69 percent of the women reported that they had great difficulty performing at least one daily living activity in prison such as climbing onto a top bunk, hearing orders from correctional officers, standing in line to be counted, walking to the dining hall, or dropping to the floor rapidly when an alarm goes off.

Sixteen percent of the survey respondents reported that they needed help with one or more daily activity. That's twice the rate of the general U.S. population aged 65 and older. In addition, 51 percent of the respondents reported falling within the previous year.

The inmates were also less healthy than the general population. They reported significantly higher rates of high blood pressure, arthritis, and asthma or other lung diseases.

The study appears in the early online issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and will appear in the April print issue.

Williams noted that the number of older prisoners in the United States is increasing rapidly and that by 2030, about a third of the U.S. prison population will be geriatric.

Specific measures could help older inmates, she said.

"Every prisoner over 55 and over should be assigned to a bottom bunk unless the person specifically requests otherwise, and should be in a cell with grab bars near the toilets. They should be housed closer to the dining hall, and given more time to drop to the floor during alarms. There should be grab bars in showers, and rubber mats on shower floors," said Williams, who is also a fellow in aging research at the University of California, San Francisco. http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/03/20/hscout531580.
html

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

March 20, 2006

MA: Prisons guards doing sick time and lots of it

"The Massachusetts numbers are significantly disproportionate to state prison systems that employ the same number of officers. For instance, in Colorado last year the 3,525 correction officers used 20,316 sick days - meaning Massachusetts officers used over 2.5 times the amount of sick days."

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=131288

Prison guards doing (sick) time and lots of it

By Maggie Mulvihill/ Exclusive
Monday, March 20, 2006

State correctional officers called in sick a startling 52,399 days last year, averaging 15 sick days each and costing taxpayers an additional $3.5 million in overtime to pay for their replacements, according to state records.

    And that¹s an improvement.

    "The numbers are staggering," said Department of Correction Commissioner Kathleen M. Dennehy, who has been cracking down on sick time abuse since she was appointed in 2003.

    Sick time use by correction officers has actually come down about 15 percent under Dennehy.

    In 2004, correction officers took a total of 62,012 sick days or roughly 17.3 days per officer, DOC statistics show. Last year, the officers averaged 14.9 days per year or three weeks of sick time.

    Roughly 3,500 correction officers work in the state prison system and their union contract allows them 15 sick days a year, including five unsubstantiated days that don¹t require a doctor¹s note, said Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Corrections Officers Federated Union.

    "As far as I¹m concerned, if there were 100,000 sick days, as long as the doctor signed off that is an authorized absence," he said.
    Dennehy acknowledges DOC management has not addressed the problem aggressively enough in past years.

    "We as an agency have to accept some of the responsibility for not having vigilantly monitored these numbers over the years," Dennehy said. "The vast majority of the staff don¹t abuse sick time."

    But correction officers have faced tough discipline under her command. Fourteen officers were disciplined last year, including one officer who worked at MCI-Norfolk. The $54,000-a-year officer was terminated after taking 256 sick days.

    Dennehy has referred seven cases in the past two years to Attorney General Tom Reilly for possible criminal prosecution.

    The Massachusetts numbers are significantly disproportionate to state prison systems that employ the same number of officers. For instance, in Colorado last year the 3,525 correction officers used 20,316 sick days - meaning Massachusetts officers used over 2.5 times the amount of sick days.

    High sick time usage was highlighted as an issue by two panels convened by Romney to revamp the entire state prison system. More correction officers call in sick at MCI-Cedar Junction, one of the state¹s two maximum security prisons, than any other facility.

    Kenneway said Walpole is the most difficult facility to work in.
    ³Walpole is, bar none, the most violent facility in the Northeast to work in. There is a feeling of dread when you go to work there because you never know what the next eight hours will bring.My hat¹s off to those guys because they do a fantastic job keeping the level of violence down,² Kenneway said.

     He said the union does not brook abuse of sick time and blames understaffing for the high numbers.

    ³We are far more serious than we have been given credit for about this sick time stuff. When I am working a block, I want my partner next to me,² Kenneway said. ³But they can¹t even cover the vacations anymore. They don¹t have the staff to work these prisons.²

Posted by lois at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times: Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn

March 20, 2006
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
By ERIK ECKHOLM, NY Times Page 1
BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.

Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.

Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.

Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.

These were among the recent findings:

¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.

One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.

"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."

Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.

A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.

The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record.

Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.

"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.

Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape — past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores — and described a life that seemed inevitable.

He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.

Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.

"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said.

According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.

Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars — and the young men themselves — agree that all of these issues must be addressed.

Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.

"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society."

All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.

Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).

"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."

Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show.

With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men.

Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.

First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.

Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.

By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said.

Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day — 34 percent — than are working — 30 percent — according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley.

The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.

About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.

Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."

The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.

Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.

They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.

In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.

"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/national/20blackmen.html?incamp=article_po
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March 19, 2006

Activist for arts programs in prisons on its benefits

March 17, 2006, 3:56PM
The rehabilitation factor
Activist for arts programs in prisons runs down the benefits
By FRITZ LANHAM
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
For 25 years Austin-based poet and translator Grady Hillman II has worked in correctional facilities, teaching creative writing and helping design and implement arts-in-the-prisons programs.
He's been a guest artist at more than 100 prisons, from California to Peru to the United Kingdom. From 1981 to 1984 he was writer in residence for the Texas Department of Corrections, where his work was the subject of the documentary film Lions, Parakeets and Other Prisoners.

He's published two monographs on community arts. Recently he's been a consultant on two federal initiatives, one dealing with youthful offenders, the other on developing arts centers in housing developments.
So we asked him: Do the arts make you a better person?
Q: You've seen participation in arts programs having a beneficial effect on prison inmates?
A: The primary benefit is it counteracts the effects of institutionalization. Prisons breed mistrust. They operate with a severe hierarchy of power, externally imposed rather than internally imposed discipline. It's enormously boring and occasionally dangerous and an exploitative arena.
The greatest benefit was that it gave this inmate population an opportunity to be human for a little while, that they had these arts programs as safe havens where their ideas mattered and their lives mattered and they were respected by others.
It's almost a prophylactic to prevent them from becoming worse than they were when they came in.

Q: Did it change their behavior in prison?
A: Absolutely. In all the studies you almost always see the same figures: 60 to 90 percent reduction in incidents of misbehavior, everything from violent offenses to misdemeanor infractions.
A lot of people see this music-soothes-the-savage-breast scenario. It can also be due to the fact that they know they can be removed from these programs if their behavior goes down, so there's also an incentive. It's valuable enough to them that they want to keep their noses clean.

Q: Many of them obviously feel anger, bitterness, frustration. Do things like poetry and painting provide a way of channeling those negative feelings into something more benign?
A: Absolutely. But it's interesting. When you think about prison populations, it's a highly diverse group. A very tiny percentage of the folks in correctional facilities are sociopaths. The vast majority are substance abusers whose behavior has been as self-destructive as it has been destructive toward others. About 10 percent of the population is mentally retarded. Most come from poor backgrounds. In a sense, prisons have become our receptacles for all of our undesirables.
So what we get are people who don't care about themselves or about others. They're depressed. You find an enormously depressing environment where depression is just prevalent.
Creating a piece of art, whether it's dance or music or creative writing, is an act of critical thinking. It's connecting the internal world to an external reality and trying to communicate. Just engaging in the creating of art -- which is a form of strategizing, figuring out, a process of discovery -- that helps take people away for a little while. They get very engaged in this process, and it's therapeutic, even if they're writing about anger or bitterness. For a while they're transcending it ...
It requires considering the needs of the audience, which means they have to look at what they've done from the point of view of others. That's one of the fundamental premises of corrections -- to be penitent, think about what you've done to others, try not to be totally in the moment but think about the consequences of your actions and how what you do affects the lives of others.

Q: Do studies show lower recidivism rates on the part of inmates who have passed through these arts program?
A: Yes. The California numbers -- between 1980 and '87, six months after parole, among the arts-in-corrections participants 88 percent had not gotten in trouble again, compared to 72 percent (for other parolees). After a year their favorable rate was 74.2, bu