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June 29, 2006

Jail Fees A Cruetl Twist to "Paying Your Dues"

Letter From Prison -- Jail Fees a Cruel Twist to 'Paying Your Dues' New America Media, Commentary, Dannie Martin, Jun 20, 2006

A man imprisoned in a county jail in Kentucky says jailers are gouging inmates for what little they've got. Dannie Martin is currently behind bars in the Warren County Regional Jail in Bowling Green, Ky. He is co-author of "Committing Journalism: The Prison Writings of Red Hog" (W.W. Norton and Co., 1995).

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.--In a time when corporations are operating jails and prisons for profit, local jails are getting in on the act.

The Warren County jail in Bowling Green, Ky., is operating one such "pay as you go" jail.

Inmates are charged a $20 processing fee to be booked in and $20 dollars a day for every day they remain in the jail. A visit to the jail doctor runs $20, and $5 for a visit to the jail nurse.

If prescriptions are filled outside the jail, the actual cost is billed, and it's a $5 co-pay for jail medicine such as aspirin. The jail has a firm policy forbidding any narcotic medication. Apparently, severe pain is against jail rules here.

Danny Lindsay, 23, has been in Warren County jail for one week after being sentenced to 60 days for contempt of court. He says he takes medicine for a rare blood disorder and gets it free outside with his medical insurance. Jail staff, he says, would not let his family send in his medicine. They choose to fill it at a local pharmacy.

His family sent him $60 to spend at the jail commissary. The jail took $30 of it to apply toward his bill. That's standard procedure here. The bottom of his money receipt shows a balance due the jail of $589.

"That's over $600 a week, man. After 60 days I'll owe $5,000," Lindsay says.

About one-third of county jails in the United States charge inmates for their time behind bars, according to a May 23, 2004, Associated Press report. In Minnesota, Olmstead County suspended its "pay-to-stay" program after losing close to $6,000 in four months. The state of Missouri did better, gouging inmates for a total of $384,000 over several months, according to the AP.

Here, new arrivals are issued one mattress, one blanket, a sheet, a towel, a small bar of motel soap and a three-inch toothbrush with enough paste for one brushing. A jumpsuit is the only clothing issued. No shorts, no socks, no shoes -- no anything. Underwear, shoes and socks can be purchased at the commissary at exorbitant rates.

Food can also be purchased, and the jail fare is sparse to say the least. Some inmates try to ignore their medical needs to keep from going hungry all day. Hunger makes a day seem longer than illness.

One uneducated hillbilly from the far reaches of Harlan County, Kentucky, looks at his docked money slips and says something that sounds almost philosophical.

"We ain't presumed innocent no more. We are presumed in arrears!!"

A survey of the jail population reveals there are no rich people here. They are all out on bail. The middle-class is barely represented, so the cost of the jail falls on the abject poor, who make up the majority of the jail population.

Someone says to Danny Lindsay: "The hell with them. They can't make you pay that five grand once you get out."

"No, but if I don't pay it," Lindsay replies, "they will turn it over to a collection agency and ruin my credit for the rest of my life."

Life without credit seems like a harsh sentence for contempt of court.
http://tinyurl.com/h6dqj

Posted by lois at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

WA: State Supreme Court Hears Felony Voting Case

The state's highest court hears felony voting case

By CHRIS McGANN, P-I CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

OLYMPIA -- American Civil Liberties Union lawyers and State Attorney General Rob McKenna agreed on one thing when they faced off before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday: Washington has every right to disenfranchise convicted felons.

It was on the constitutional requirements associated with the state's decision to restore voting rights that they disagreed.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington sued the state on behalf of three people who can't vote because they have not -- and may never be able to -- pay fines and restitutions levied as part of their sentences.

In March, King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman struck down the state law that denies the vote to thousands of ex-felons solely because they owe court-imposed fines.

McKenna argued that state law requires felons to complete all the terms of their sentences, including fines and victims restitution, before their right to vote can be reinstated.

ACLU lawyer Peter Danelo argued that the right to vote can never be tied to the ability to pay, echoing what Spearman wrote in his decision.

"It is well recognized that there is simply no rational relationship between the ability to pay and the exercise of constitutional rights," Spearman wrote. "There is no logic in the assumption that a person in possession of sufficient resources to pay the (legal financial) obligation immediately is the more law-abiding citizen."

McKenna argued that there is a compelling state interest in requiring a felon to complete payments of fines and restitution before voting rights are restored. He said it provided an incentive for felons to repay some of the damages their illegal actions have caused.

And he said the U.S. Constitution allows states to disenfranchise felons and establish their own criteria for disenfranchisement and re-enfranchisement -- including requiring felons to complete the terms of their sentences.

The case was being closely watched by several national voting rights groups, who insist that tying fines to voting rights is akin to an illegal poll tax.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, filed an amicus brief with the court, on behalf of itself, several civil rights organizations and three Washington bar associations.

Washington's law excludes from the polls more than 167,000 people, 3.61 percent of the voting-age population, because of their criminal records, according to the Brennan Center.

It is unclear how many are barred solely because they haven't paid their fines; a state estimate four years ago calculated it to be more than 46,000.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. P-I reporter Chris McGann can be reached at 360-943-3990 or chrismcgann@seattlepi.com.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/275621_felons28.html

Posted by lois at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

There's a booming business in building prisons in U.S.

Charlotte Crane
Pensacola News Journal
Published - June, 29, 2006

If they come, you will build it -- but more are coming and many return, and you must build again, and again, and you might ask: Has something gone awry here?

I thought so the other day when I read a story out of Graceville quoting a town official saying "It's a dream come true'' at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new 1,500-bed state prison -- a boon for the community for its $13 million annual payroll supporting 300 or more new jobs, but a state-budget debit at $70 million construction cost.

I thought so again when I heard of Northwest Florida counties' crunches concerning jail accommodations. Walton County is adding a 254-bed pod to a 330-bed new jail before it's even completed, responding double-time to overcrowding of its DeFuniak Springs jail, where 210 inmates are routinely squeezed into space designed for 101. Meanwhile, Okaloosa County's 594-bed jail at Crestview commonly houses 800 inmates per day and Escambia County's jail population is exceeding jail capacity by some 300.

Who are all these "bad'' people, I wondered? Statistics show that about half of offenses stem from illegal use, or bad judgment, regarding drugs and alcohol. And some one-third of Florida jail guests are repeat customers; for example, a 2003 study from Florida Department of Corrections showed 38 percent of recently released male prisoners were re-imprisoned within five years.

That's really scary is that it's becoming so easy to get an upsidedown view when it comes to locking people up, leading citizens to conclude prisons solve all problems and are a boon besides -- as in the case of the Graceville economic development event. Actually, lots of seemingly good news isn't. To wit: There was a hilarious story in the Wall Street Journal the other day about how young perpetrators are being easily caught because they lose their pants when they try to run. Sad side: It is prisons' beltless regimen that's set the fashion these young perps, and others, are following.

Another story recently reported that a Girl Scout troop in Ohio is meeting monthly inside the nearby prison so members can bond with their fathers. Does that mean imprisonment is going a tiny bit mainstream? How tragic.

Fact: At year-end 2004, nearly 7 million people, 1 of every 31 adults in America, were in jail or prison, or on probation or parole.

What prisons often are inappropriately becoming is big business: jobs, profit, an entrenched industry. A growing number are being turned over to private contractors. At Graceville, prison construction and management will be handled by GEO Group, which, along with Corrections Corp. of America was slammed last year by a Florida audit which found the companies, which run five state prisons, were overpaid by some $13 million.

And where's the incentive for Big-House businesses to promote rehabilitation, to teach marketable skills, to discourage repeat customers? (Crime college, anyone?)

Fact: the U.S. percentage of imprisoned people -- 1 of every 138 -- is higher than for any other country on earth. (Annual lock-up cost: $35 billion.) In Florida ($2.6 billion current annual tab) — the prison population is expected to increase from 88,000 to more than 94,000 by May 2008.

Some prisons are certainly needed. Long view: More is not better.
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/BUSINESS/606290312/1003

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

Drug Policy Alliance Files Suit to Protect Prop 36

Drug-offender provision faces suit
Authors of treatment initiative oppose jail terms in budget deal.
By Laura Mecoy -- Bee Los Angeles Bureau, Sacramento Bee

Thursday, June 29, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- Authors of a drug-treatment initiative said Wednesday they will file a lawsuit challenging the changes in the voter-approved measure legislators made as part of the latest state budget agreement.

Proposition 36, requiring treatment instead of prison for certain nonviolent drug offenders, won approval by California voters in November 2000.

Senate Bill 1137, which won legislative approval Tuesday night, would let judges impose short-term jail sentences for drug offenders who relapse while in Proposition 36 programs.

The legislation's goal is to compel offenders to stay drug-free. But Proposition 36's authors contend additional treatment is the answer -- not jail.

"Jail is not part of treatment," said Margaret Dooley, Drug Policy Alliance Proposition 36 outreach coordinator. "It doesn't help people stop using drugs. If it did, we wouldn't have a recidivism problem."

SB 1137's author, Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, had expected a legal challenge. So she included language saying the provisions of the bill would be put to a vote of the people if the courts strike down Senate Bill 1137.

Daniel Abrahamson, Drug Policy Alliance director of legal affairs, said the alliance would also challenge this "unprecedented and wacky provision. That provision has never been used anywhere in California."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger required the changes in Proposition 36 as a condition of continuing to fund the initiative.

The initiative mandated funding for the first five years of the program, then turned the issue over to lawmakers and the governor to decide in the upcoming budget and future budgets.

Last year, a group of prosecutors, judges and drug treatment officials first proposed using short jail sentences, or "shock incarceration," to try to improve compliance with the law.

University of California, Los Angeles, evaluations of the program have found more than a fourth of those sentenced to treatment under Proposition 36 never show up for their initial assessment and only a fourth complete treatment.

UCLA also found offenders sentenced under Proposition 36 are more likely to have a new drug arrest within a year than those arrested for the same crime before the initiative went into effect.

Margita Thompson, the governor's spokeswoman, said Schwarzenegger hopes to improve these outcomes by signing SB 1137 into law. "The focus has to be on the goal of helping these people lose their addiction to drugs so you can protect public safety," she said.

As part of the budget, lawmakers approved increasing the current funding for Proposition 36 from $120 million a year to $145 million a year.

But drug treatment program administrators and providers have said they need $209.3 million to adequately fund the program.

A UCLA study found that the state saves $2.50 in incarceration and other costs for every $1 spent on Proposition 36.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/14273042p-15083207c.html

Posted by lois at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)

MI: Prisons system is one fifth of state budget

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/POLITICS01/606290
382/1022/POLITICS

Michigan's prisons house 50,270 inmates, more than double the number from 20 years earlier. It's the fifth-largest system in the country.

Taxpayers will spend $1.8 billion this year for the prison system, a four-fold increase over the cost in 1986. It costs $875,000 a week to feed the inmates and nearly $5 million a day to operate the system.

The prison system gobbles up one-fifth of Michigan's general fund, up from 7.4 percent in 1986.

The 16,568 corrections employees make up more than 31 percent of state government's total work force. Twenty years ago, corrections workers represented about 16 percent of the total work force.

Posted by lois at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

Justices Back PA on Prison Newspapers

Justices back Pa. on prison newspapers
By TONI LOCY, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 28, 2:49 PM ET

Pennsylvania prison officials did not violate the rights of troublesome inmates by denying them access to certain newspapers and magazines, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

By a 6-2 vote, the justices said the state had a legitimate reason for using inmates' access to secular newspapers as an incentive to get prisoners in a high-security unit to behave themselves.

Justices back Pa. on prison newspapers
By TONI LOCY, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 28, 2:49 PM ET

Pennsylvania prison officials did not violate the rights of troublesome inmates by denying them access to certain newspapers and magazines, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

By a 6-2 vote, the justices said the state had a legitimate reason for using inmates' access to secular newspapers as an incentive to get prisoners in a high-security unit to behave themselves.

But Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said Pennsylvania's victory could be short-lived if there is another constitutional challenge to the prison unit's rules.

That's because the justices were divided over how far states can go in determining punishment for offenders.

Pennsylvania created a special high-security segregation unit for about 40 inmates who failed to follow prison rules. Inmates were permitted access only to religious newspapers, two paperback books of general interest, legal documents and letters from family. They were barred from receiving secular newspapers and magazines or photographs.

In a concurring opinion, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia said courts have no business second-guessing state officials' decisions on prison operations. Nor, they said, should courts force states to accommodate inmates by providing substitutes for the rights taken away.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, saying even the "worst of the worst" offenders have constitutional protections, especially the First Amendment's coverage of "rights to receive, to read and to think."

The decision reverses a ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but validates a dissent by the high court's newest member, Justice Samuel Alito, who sided with Pennsylvania when he served on the appellate court. Alito did not participate in the argument before the Supreme Court.

Breyer said that "prison officials, relying on their professional judgment, reached an experience-based conclusion that the policies help to further legitimate prison objectives."

The high court's ruling could have affected prison operations nationwide if the justices had required state officials to prove that their policies serve legitimate security and rehabilitative interests.

The Bush administration sided with Pennsylvania, saying the state's policy deserves deference from the courts because it involves maintaining order in prisons.

Religious and civil liberties groups had argued that fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, are not mere privileges that can be granted or revoked at the whim of a prison official. They worried that prison officials would not stop with newspapers but may one day bar access to the Bible.

The case began in October 2001 when Ronald Banks filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of himself and other inmates in the disciplinary unit, then located in Pittsburgh, after prison officials barred him from receiving The Christian Science Monitor, a nonreligious daily newspaper.

By a split vote, a three-judge 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with Banks, ruling that prison officials had failed to show the policy had any effect on inmate behavior. This finding was reversed in Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling.

The case is Beard v. Banks, 04-1739.

___

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

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

AZ: Jailed Migrants Speak Out Against Conspiracy Law

Jailed migrants speak out against conspiracy law
Say they merely wanted a better life for families

Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press
Jun. 27, 2006 12:00 AM

The five men knew their two-day walk across the Arizona desert could end with the Border Patrol swiftly returning them to Mexico.

But they never imagined that they would be stuck in a county jail for more than three months under a novel interpretation of an Arizona immigrant-smuggling law that allows the customers of human traffickers to be charged as conspirators to the crime.

They said their plan to earn a better living working construction and landscaping jobs in the United States backfired and that their incarceration has caused their families to suffer financially.

"We didn't come to conspire," said Juan Carlos Gutierrez, who wanted to earn enough money so he could open a boot-making business back in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. "We came to work."

The five, among the first 48 people charged as conspirators under the new law, told the Associated Press in exclusive jailhouse interviews conducted in Spanish that they knew they weren't supposed to sneak across the border. But they said people shouldn't blame them for trying to improve life for their families.

Of the more than 250 people arrested in Maricopa County under the 10-month-old law, most are undocumented immigrants who are accused of paying smugglers to bring them across the border. A fraction of those arrested were accused of working as smugglers.

Immigration analysts said it's rare for local police agencies to jail immigrants for having crossed the border illegally, though many immigrants have been arrested for crimes unrelated to immigration.

Supporters said the conspiracy prosecutions were necessary to hold the customers of smugglers accountable because the federal government hasn't done enough to fulfill its responsibility to enforce immigration laws.

The charges were brought under an interpretation of the law by the top prosecutor in Maricopa County, who said in a legal opinion that, under Arizona law, people may be charged with an offense if there is evidence that they solicited someone to commit the offense. Maricopa County is the only county in the state where the law is being applied in this way.

Critics said the approach was overreaching, potentially expensive and that the law was never intended for that use. The law's authors have said they intended it to be used to prosecute smugglers, not the immigrants being smuggled.

Before the first 48 rank-and-file immigrants were arrested in early March, they crossed into the country near the western Arizona border city of San Luis, carrying jugs of water for their trek.

They came from places throughout Mexico and intended to find work or join family members already living in the country. Most were headed to California, though a few were going to Oregon, Utah, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

Several said they were piled like sacks into two vans that picked them up for the second leg of their trip. Even after they were pulled over by a sheriff's deputy about 50 miles west of Phoenix, they figured it wouldn't be long until they were allowed to return home.

"I thought the sheriff was going to turn us over to the Border Patrol," said Jorge Saavedra, a construction worker who planned to meet his wife and two U.S.-born children in California.

Mexicans caught trying to cross the border frequently bypass formal deportation proceedings and are returned to their country within a day or two.

Immigrant advocates said the 48 might have fared better had they been picked up by federal authorities, because they probably would have stood less chance of being charged

Both civil and criminal federal laws prohibit sneaking into the country. But the federal government usually uses civil actions against undocumented border-crossers, immigration law experts said, saving its limited criminal prosecution resources for more serious crimes.

"For the most part, people who make it across the border are home free, but that doesn't mean if the law is enforced that it's unfair," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limiting immigration.

Mehlman said he was unmoved by the argument by immigrant advocates that the only crime that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants commit is crossing the border to do right by their families.

Tanya Broder, an attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, a non-profit group that aims to protect the rights of low-income immigrants, said it's not productive to lock up migrants who want to improve their lot and are contributing to the economy.

"You have kids and moms who don't have the benefit of having a parent in a home, economically or emotionally," said Broder, whose employer isn't involved in defending the 48 immigrants.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who sought the prosecutor's opinion on the legality of arresting the customers of smugglers, rejects arguments that enforcing the smuggling law would be too expensive, given the tens of thousands of immigrants who try to sneak into Arizona each year.

"I don't even want to hear that there's not room (to jail them)," said Arpaio, the state's only police boss to arrest immigrants as conspirators. "That's a cop-out. That's a way to ease out of this. That's what the federal government is saying."

The five inmates said they were getting used to living in a cellblock and aren't afraid of the 100 other inmates.

But they said they worried about their families, because they haven't been able to provide for them for more than three months and don't know when their cases will be resolved.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0627jailed0627.html

Posted by lois at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

IL: Men arrive at former empty prison turned into "treatment" center for sexually dangerous men

Men arrive at treatment center

Half of sexually dangerous men enter while plan aims to move the rest by August

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

BY JODI POSPESCHIL
OF THE JOURNAL STAR
RUSHVILLE - About half the residents have arrived in the move that has turned the empty Rushville prison into a state treatment center for sexually dangerous men.

Earlier this month, the state began making transfers from the Illinois Department of Human Service's treatment center in Joliet, and about half of the 280 sexually dangerous men are now in Rushville, state officials said Monday.

The plan is to have the entire move to Rushville completed by the end of August, DHS spokesman Tom Green said.

Construction was completed in 2003 on the Rushville prison, but state budget cuts kept it from opening. The prison has required only minor modifications to be converted into the new treatment center, which will replace the one in Joliet.

Green said Monday that 39 security therapy aides from Joliet will be moving to Rushville, "but not all have moved yet."

Another group of about 10 will move from Joliet to Rushville for nonsecurity jobs ranging from maintenance to administration.

Green said nearly 100 people from the area are expected to be hired as security therapy aides.

"The initial class of 48 has gone through training and have started to work," he said. "There will be a second class of 46 that will start by the end of the summer."

About 230 people will work at the center once the move is complete. Moving vans have been hauling items such as office equipment between Joliet and Rushville.

In recent months, numerous employees from Joliet traveled to Rushville in groups for tours of the prison and the surrounding community. Several job fairs have been held in Rushville to explain employment options to interested applicants.

Green said the plan is to have the entire move to Rushville completed by the end of August. Moving vans have been hauling items such as office equipment between Joliet and Rushville.

Before the change in the prison's purpose was approved, public hearings were held in Rushville to gauge public support. Many in town supported the move because of the jobs it brings.

The center holds 360 beds that are divided into six living units. The most recent plan is to open four of those six units to hold the current resident levels.

The center's opening is good news for the city of Rushville, which has been making $125,000 annual payments on bonds and loans for infrastructure extensions to the site. With the facility up and running, it will be using the services that will help generate money to cover those payments.

Jodi Pospeschil can be reached at 686-3041 or state@pjstar.com.
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/062706/REG_BA7I81P4.033.shtml

Posted by lois at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)

KY: State May Consider Takeover of Costly Local Jails

Wednesday, June 28, 2006
State may consider takeover of costly local jails, official says
By Roger Alford
Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. ‹ A review could be completed by the end of next year that will look at the feasibility of the state taking over county jails, Corrections Commissioner John Rees says.

State Auditor Crit Luallen raised the issue in February when she released a report suggesting taxpayers are spending too much on individual county jails and recommending that Kentucky move toward a state-run system that would be less expensive.

"It's a very complex financial issue, and a complex political issue," Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, said yesterday. "We've got to deal with it in some way. Our prison populations are growing on a daily basis."

Rees said his office already has been talking with the University of Louisville about doing a study.

"We're going to look at it," Rees told a legislative committee on Monday. "We'll have a report available prior to the next budget cycle."

Rees said the study would examine financial and policy issues that would be involved in eliminating local oversight of county jails, now operated by an elected jailer.

Kentucky has more than 80 local jails that house about 17,000 inmates at a cost of about $244 million a year.

The February audit report said some local jails struggle to meet financial obligations and would operate more efficiently under state control.

"I'm not really in favor of it, because I believe there needs to be local involvement in the jail issue," Rees said. "I think there's really a benefit of having local involvement, local responsibility."

Daviess County Jailer David Osborne, who operates a 685-bed jail, said he welcomes the proposed study because it would help raise awareness about the financial burdens jails face.

Osborne said counties wrestle with the cost of running jails, and he said he doesn't expect state officials would be willing to assume the financial liabilities, which include not only personnel costs and operational expenses, but debt service on dozens of new jails.

"If the state takes over, how would they afford all the various expenses involved? Are they going to assume all that debt?" Osborne said.

The Kentucky County Judge-Executive Association has endorsed legislation that would lead to state operation of the jail system by 2010.

"The counties are spending a ton of money on jails that they could be spending on other things, like roads," Yonts said.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/NEWS01/60
6280517/1008/NEWS01

Posted by lois at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)

CO: State Awards Contracts for New Private Prisons

State awards contracts for new private prisons
JON SARCHE, Associated Press
Posted on Tue, Jun. 27, 2006 http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/14914711.htm

DENVER - Faced with the likelihood that Colorado's inmate population could outstrip prison capacity by the end of the year, state officials have awarded contracts to three companies to build two private lockups and expand two others for an additional 3,776 beds.

State officials on Monday awarded a contract to Houston-based Cornell
Companies Inc. to build a prison in Hudson, a town of 1,600 about30miles northeast of Denver, to house up to 832 women.On Tuesday, Boca Raton, Fla.-based The Geo Group Inc. won a contract to build a prison in Ault, about 10 miles north of Greeley, to house up to 1, 504 male inmates; and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America won a contract to expand its existing male-inmate prisons in Bent and Kit Carson counties by 720 beds each.

As of July 1, the state's rate for private-prison contracts will be $51.91 per day per inmate. Both of the new prisons and both expansion projects are expected to be completed by mid-2008, according to the state Department of Personnel and Administration's purchasing office.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti said the state's prison population is increasing by an average of 100 per month, and it is projected to exceed capacity by the end of the year.

"We are almost out of state beds, and we are desperately in need of places to put these inmates to keep them safe and secure and house them in a humane way," she said. "The private prisons allow us to do that without incurring construction costs to the state."

The first private prison in Colorado opened in 1994.

Hudson Mayor Neal Pontius said Cornell's proposal to build the prison on a site about 2 miles from the town center will have to go through public hearings. He said the few residents he has heard from on the possibility surprised him by supporting it.

"They're excited about the jobs and the chance that there'll be an
increase in the tax base," he said. "The town needs to get some kind of growth going in order to survive."

Cornell runs 82 correctional facilities in 18 states. In Colorado, it runs the Southern Peaks treatment Center in Canon City for up to 160 youths.

ON THE NET

Corrections Department: http://www.doc.state.co.us

Cornell Companies: http://www.cornellcompanies.com

The Geo Group: http://www.thegeogroupinc.com

Corrections Corporation of America: http://www.correctionscorp.com

Posted by lois at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

Supreme Court: Prison Officials can ban newspapers for people who re incarcerated

Officials can ban newspapers for inmates: Supreme Court 28 Jun 2006 A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that prison officials can ban most newspapers, magazines and photographs for the most violent and 'disruptive' [?!?] inmates without violating their free-speech rights.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-0628T155258Z_01_N28358344_RTRUKOC_0_US-COURT-PRISONERS.xml

(the entire link must go in your browser)

Posted by lois at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2006

Column Neal Peirce: Reforming the Prison System

Monday, June 26, 2006
Reforming the prison system
By NEAL PEIRCE, Syndicated columnist. This ran in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA

''What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons.''

That's the disturbing lead sentence of ''Confronting Confinement,'' the newly released report of the Vera Institute of Justice's Commission on Safety and Abuse in American Prisons.

Many of us are sure to despise the finding. Isn't the overriding reason for jails and prisons to lock up the bad guys and protect the rest of us? Aren't we the country that decided, beginning 30 years ago, to substitute punishment for rehabilitation? Haven't we demonstrated our toughness by imprisoning 2.2 million people - the most of any nation on earth? And pumping up our prison and jail system expenditures to a stunning $60 billion a year?

So now you're telling us that bad stuff is seeping out of jails and prisons and back into our neighborhoods, cities, towns?

Well, yes.

Overcrowding is so rampant in the burgeoning California prison system that a high-ranking corrections official is warning, ''We believe that an imminent and substantial threat to the public safety exists, requiring immediate action.''

The New York City-based Vera Institute's panel, headed by former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, with former judges, corrections officials and prisoner rights advocates, cites many more perils.

First and foremost, there's violence - widespread patterns of individual assaults, including gang violence, rape and beatings by guards. Can we expect inmates subjected to that culture to abstain from it when they're released?

Indeed, if prison guards spend their days in that kind of culture, the potential for acting the same to their families, or in other outside-the-bars incidents, is real. ''When people live and work in facilities that are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane, they carry the effects home with them,'' warns the commission.

The perils are compounded by the decision of prison officials to segregate difficult or mentally ill prisoners - a practice that has grown quickly in the last decade. Segregation is usually counterproductive, the Vera commission reports; it triggers violence inside prison walls and recidivism among segregated convicts when they're freed.

Then there's medical care. High rates of disease and illness among prisoners, coupled with inadequate funding for correctional health care, endanger all parties - prisoners, staff and the public. Every year, about 1.5 million people are released carrying such life-threatening diseases as tuberculosis, hepatitis C and AIDS. Correctional systems, obliged to operate on shoestring budgets for medical care, ''are set up to fail'' - in some instances there are just two or three doctors for 4,000 to 5,000 inmates.

The ''cures'' for all these conditions are clear. Reducing crowding - indeed, putting limits on prisoner numbers in any institution - leads the list. Second, a return to rehabilitation - basic literacy and skills training - on the sure knowledge that high numbers of prisoners (currently about 60 percent) will commit offenses and be reincarcerated if they're not prepared for civilian life.

Third, use force and non-lethal weaponry far more sparingly - constant and excessive force only begets violence. And fourth, upgrade medical care radically, including much better screening for infectious diseases, partnering with community health care providers, providing treatment for mentally ill prisoners, and persuading Congress to extend Medicaid and Medicare benefits to prisoners.

Why would federal and state legislators approve such changes? The answer: unless they do, violence to family members and others, plus illness and desperation, will keep rippling out each time an inmate heads home, as 95 percent do.

Even in the absence of the sweeping reforms the criminal justice system cries out for - especially terminating our horrendously failed and harmful ''war on drugs,'' plus scrapping mandatory minimum sentences in favor of radically expanded sentencing discretion by judges - the ideas of the Vera Institute's panel represent a worthwhile start.

And since prisoner contact with families is known to ease their return to society, the prison world (and responsible legislators) could make a significant first step by terminating agreements with telephone companies that charge exorbitant collect-call fees when prisoners seek to ''call out.'' If states can't at least relieve the excess pain and discrimination they impose on prisoners, they'll deserve the mounting despair and future crime their policies will inflict.

Congress is at least considering a ''Second Chance Act'' for easing prisoner re-entry into society, including modest proposals to encourage job openings and housing, along with treatment for substance abuse and mental health. Though limited in scope - the measure depends mostly on selective demonstration grants to private social service providers - it enjoys sponsors ranging from strongly conservative to liberal lawmakers and backers from the National Council of La Raza to the Christian Coalition.

Could we be ready for an outbreak of corrections sanity? With our 2.2 million men and women behind bars and the explosive conditions in our prisons, the old ''pay me now or pay me later'' adage has never been more compelling.

Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.

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

June 26, 2006

AZ: CCA becomes Town's Biggest Employer

Published: 06.26.2006
Second prison to open in Eloy
Tenn.-based CCA to be town's biggest employer
By Levi J. Long
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Just three months after Eloy nearly lost hundreds of jobs at a privately owned detention center, town and prison-company officials are getting ready to open the doors to a new facility and are laying the groundwork for a third prison to open there next year.

Corrections Corporation of America is planning to host a "grand opening" Tuesday of the new Red Rock Correctional Center, a CCA prison that will house 1,596 medium-security inmates from Alaska and other states.

The $82.5 million Red Rock Center is the company's fourth prison in Pinal County and is the second such facility to open in Eloy, employing about 317 workers. The center is expected to open July 15 for inmates.

With the opening of the prison, Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA will become the largest employer in Eloy, with more than 630 workers. Eloy's population is about 11,000.

The Eloy Detention Center — also run by CCA — employs about 320 workers and was already considered the town's largest employer.

In January, the Eloy Detention Center was facing possible closure after federal budget cuts prompted the Federal Bureau of Prisons not to renew its contract with CCA. In February, however, the city of Eloy and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, signed an intergovernmental agreement to use the detention center.

The center now houses about 1,500 noncitizen detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A third CCA-owned prison in Eloy, the Saguaro Correctional Facility, broke ground in May, about 100 yards from the Red Rock Center and is scheduled to open in 2007. The 1,896-bed Saguaro facility is expected to employ another 400 workers or so, said Kathren Laughlin, an executive assistant for Eloy Detention Center.

Eventually the three CCA prisons in Eloy should have a total of 1,300 employees, with an annual payroll of $50 million, said Mark Brnovich, CCA's senior director of state government relations.

Once Red Rock and Saguaro open, total employees for CCA in Pinal County — including two facilities in Florence — should jump to nearly 2,000 workers and will be one of the top employers in Pinal County, Laughlin said.

"This means an awful lot to the city. It opens more job opportunities for people in the region," said Eloy Mayor Byron Jackson.

It also means a boost in tax revenue, Jackson noted.

CCA paid about $1.7 million in property taxes last year and expects to pay nearly $4.6 million in total property taxes once the Red Rock Center opens, Laughlin said.

Already residents of other areas of Pinal County and some Tucsonans make the drive to Eloy for jobs, Jackson said.

Wages at the Red Rock Center start at $27,000 per year, the starting salary for state correctional officers, he said. CCA is recruiting to fill about 130 positions.

If you go

● The Corrections Corporation of America and Eloy town officials plan a 9 a.m. Tuesday grand opening of the Red Rock Correctional Center, 1750 E. Arica Road, in Eloy. Tours of the prison will be available to the public.

Corrections Corporation of America in Arizona

● Red Rock Correctional Center, 1750 E. Arica Road, Eloy

Inmate capacity: 1,596

Source of inmates: Alaska Department of Corrections and state of Hawaii.

Security level: Medium

● Eloy Detention Center, 1705 E. Hanna Road, Eloy

Inmate capacity: 1,500

Source of inmates: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Security level: Minimum/Medium

● Central Arizona Detention Center, 1155 N. Pinal Parkway, Florence

Inmate capacity: 2,304

Source of inmates: U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, U.S. Air Force.

Security level: Multilevel

● Florence Correctional Center, 1100 Bowling Road, Florence

Inmate capacity: 1,600

Source of inmates: U.S. Marshals Service, state of Hawaii, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, state of Alaska, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Security level: Medium

Source: Corrections Corporation of America

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/allheadlines/135121.php

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

Undo This Legacy of Len Bias's Death

Undo This Legacy of Len Bias's Death

Opinion editorial by Eric E. Sterling and Julie Stewart
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Washington Post

When Len Bias, the basketball star, overdosed on cocaine 20 years ago, Len Bias, the symbol, was born. To many he symbolized the corruption of college athletics -- stars whose academic performance is poor, if not irrelevant, but who are essential to bringing in donations and other revenue. To others, he became the object lesson: Cocaine is dangerous, don't do it, you can die. For yet others, Bias symbolizes the danger that arises when a powerful symbol overwhelms careful judgment about what ought to be the law.

Immediately after Bias's death, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., from the Boston area (where Bias had just signed with the Celtics), issued a demand to his fellow Democrats for anti-drug legislation. Senior congressional staffers began meeting regularly in the speaker's conference room as practically every committee in the House wrote Len Bias-inspired legislation attacking the drug problem. News conferences around the Capitol featured members of Congress extolling their efforts to clamp down on cocaine and crack.

One result was the innocuous-sounding Narcotics Penalties and Enforcement Act, which became the first element of the enormous Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, hurried to the floor a little over two months after Bias's death. But the effect of the penalties and enforcement legislation was to put back into federal law the kind of clumsy mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that had been done away with 16 years before. And there they remain, 20 years and several hundred thousand defendants later.

Congress wanted to send several messages by again enacting mandatory minimums: to the Justice Department to be more focused on high-level traffickers; to major traffickers that the new penalties would destroy them; to the voters that members of Congress could fight crime as vigorously as the police and prosecutors. But Congress garbled the message. Instead of targeting large-scale traffickers, it established low-level drug quantities to trigger lengthy mandatory minimum prison terms: five grams (the weight of five packets of artificial sweetener), 50 grams (the weight of a candy bar), 500 grams (the weight of two cups of sugar) or 5,000 grams (the weight of a lunchbox of cocaine). Large-scale traffickers organize shipments of drugs totaling tons -- many millions of grams -- filling tractor-trailers, airplanes and fishing boats.

The Justice Department has compounded the problem by focusing on countless low-level offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reports that only 15 percent of federal cocaine traffickers can be classified as high-level. Seventy percent are low-level. One-third of all federal cocaine cases involve an average of 52 grams, a candy bar-sized quantity of cocaine, resulting in an average sentence of almost nine years in prison without parole.

Not surprisingly, the federal prison population has exploded. From 1954 to 1976, it fluctuated between 20,000 and 24,000. By 1986 it had grown to 36,000. Today it exceeds 190,000 prisoners, up 527 percent in 20 years. More than half this population is made up of drug offenders, most of whom are serving sentences created in the weeks after Len Bias died.

Sadly, the nation's drug abuse situation is not much better after 20 years. Teenagers are using very dangerous drugs at twice the rate they did in the 1980s. The price of cocaine is much lower and the purity much higher, which tells us that the traffickers have become more efficient.

There is a trickle of hope that mandatory sentences as a legacy of Bias's death might come to an end. A handful of conservative members of the House Judiciary Committee have begun to question the wisdom of current mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and some vote against them. The first round of mandatory minimums for drug offenses, enacted in 1951, was repealed almost 20 years later, with bipartisan support. Among those who backed repeal was George H.W. Bush, then a congressman from Texas. With his son in the White House, this would be a good time for history to repeat itself, and for this sad legacy of Len Bias's death to finally end.

Eric E. Sterling, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 1979 to 1989, is president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. Julie Stewart is president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

Posted by lois at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)

MN: If we build it, they may not come

Winona Daily News
OP ED

By Judge Dennis Challeen, Winona
.
Once again the county commissioners are being asked to consider whether taxpayers should pay for a new jail.

We have all the prisons and jails we need; we just have to learn how to use them more wisely. And if we build a new one, we better be careful it fits in the 21st century, not the last. There are outside forces beyond our control that are already affecting Winona and the criminal justice systems across America.

Consider:

* The ³lock them up, build more jails² solution to crime has failed andrun its course. Reason: We can¹t possibly catch and lock up all the bad people, and even if we could, we can no longer afford it. When some states pay more for incarceration than education, something¹s wrong.

* A new principle is evolving: If we fear them, then we must lock them upto protect ourselves, not to change them ‹ we have more than enough prisons to house the dangerous. If offenders simply make us angry, and they will return to live among us, then we must find other ways to deal with them and to change their faulty belief systems and/or addictions that keep getting them in trouble with the law.

* We¹ve known for years that locking up offenders for rehabilitative
purpose fails, in fact it often makes them worse. The National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Dept. of Justice concluded in 2000 that not a single study of official punishment found any consistent evidence of reduced recidivism. They found punishment increased criminal behavior by 0.07 percent.

* 25 percent of incarcerated prisoners in the world are Americans, yet weare only 5 percent of the world population. American judges imprison more people per capita for longer periods of time than any judges in the world. The ³lenient² judge is a myth.

* The Supreme Court of Minnesota released a task force report in Februarycalling for ³problem-solving courts² using more required treatment and ³less jail² for addicted and mentally ill offenders. The report said 90 percent of Minnesota¹s prison inmates are plagued by drug and alcohol problems. That 95 percent of addicted inmates return to drugs within three years, and 68 percent are re-arrested within that time.

* The same report calls for cooperation between judges, prosecutors,public defenders and corrections to shift from punitive to problem-solving. ³The strategy could even allow many cash-strapped counties to scale back plans to expand their jails.²

* As of April 2006, there were 1,557 drug courts operating in the U.S.,and 394 more in the planning phases.

Drug courts operate on successful rehabilitation treatment procedures, where the judge assumes the addicted offender will probably make two steps forward and one step back ‹ fail means jail (shock-lock, get their attention) back on the program with intensive monitoring and testing. Thus jails must adapt to a treatment philosophy, short jail terms, not useless long-term ³doing time.²

* There is another myth subscribed to by many jail advocates known asretribution. ³You hurt us, we¹ll hurt you back.² If we can overlook the problem of being low on any major religion¹s morality scale, it doesn¹t work in the practical world. Criminals don¹t settle their disputes in courtrooms, they settle them in the back alleys with violence. Retribution is part of their everyday world, not part of the law-abiding world we want them to join. It may give some victims momentary satisfaction, but it¹s counterproductive and reinforces the wrong-headed thinking of chronic offenders.

* DUI laws are now being challenged as failures. DUI laws are justified,but the way they are being implemented fails. DUI laws over-punish the social drinker (majority of Americans) and fail on the alcoholic high-risk multi-offender. The same National Institute of Corrections study found ³those under the influence of chemical substances² to be resistant to punishment. Yet our Minnesota laws require long-term mandatory jail sentences for repeat offenders, who are most likely alcoholics; needlessly filling our county jails. There is a reason many states are diverting repeat DUI cases to drug courts.

A Wisconsin study by its Department of Transportation (2004) found a third of the people convicted of DUI were repeat offenders; that those convicted of DUI drive 200 times for every time they get caught. They estimate 21,000 cars a day in Wisconsin are being driven by someone over the 0.08 BAC limit. That equates to about 18,000 a day for Minnesota. An impossible task for law enforcement.

In the past two years, I¹ve served as a retired substitute judge in 10 of the 11 counties in southeastern Minnesota (The third judicial district). I¹ve been on the faculty of the National Judicial College for 28 years teaching sentencing and the criminal mind. I¹ve been invited to speak to judges¹ education programs in 42 of 50 states. I feel I have some insight locally and nationally. My observations and opinions for what they¹re worth:
* Courts of the future must change from what hasn¹t worked to what hasshown to be more effective. Trials will remain the same, but upon conviction the prosecutor, defense attorney, correction staff and the judge will be obligated to find a ³problem-solving solution² to the offender¹s problem ‹ unless the offender poses a danger to society, then prison must be considered.

* County jails will hold only people for trial and those considereddangerous or a flight risk. Jails will be used for short ³shock² time to enforce accountability. No longer will county jails be considered rehabilitative, thus freeing up cell space.

* Correction agents will assume a new role. They must aid the court intheir problem-solving capacity and monitor drug court sentences. Treatment and cognitive programs (changing how criminals view their world) will dominate their time. They will be active participants rather than computer-bound paper shufflers.

Some local counties have already become ³problem-solving courts² as envisioned by the Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force. Dodge County
(Mantorville) leads the way ‹ they have no jail, it was condemned years ago, followed by Wabasha County¹s shift to a drug court. These counties have collaboration among the participants of their justice system. The counties, in my opinion, with the least cooperation: Olmsted by far, closely followed by Winona.

Guest views are opinions of the author and don¹t necessarily reflect the views of the Winona Daily News. They are published to stimulate thought and to provide an expanded forum on issues of local interest.

http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2006/06/25/opinion/zguestview0625.tx
t

Posted by lois at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)

FL Shootings Shine Lights On Prison's Dirty Secret

Editorial
6/25/06
Shootings shine a light on prison's dirty secret
By Mary Ann Lindley
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

In November of 2001, I had the privilege of speaking to 140 women at the Federal Correctional Institution here at their commencement program.

While in prison, these women had earned their GEDs or certificates in English as a second language, parenting, business education, cosmetology, electronics, horticulture or building trades.

It was an incredibly moving experience to witness the quiet pride that they deservedly felt in their come-from-behind accomplishments. Those were some tired and worn-out faces, but they were allowing themselves a few genuine smiles on that singular day.

The 1,200 inmates at FCI, which became a women's prison in 1996, aren't there because they went on a shooting spree after being rejected by the Junior League. They aren't "in" for insider trading like Martha.

FCI is the only women's prison in the Southeast and one of the few in the nation, and the women who wind up there are serving an average of 11-year sentences for felonies often related to drugs. In a good many cases, I learned, they'd been caught up in the drug trade, serving as "mules" in smuggling operations. Many, maybe most, had lived abusive, unwholesome and wild existences on the outside and had become rough and desperate.

With last week's shooting at FCI, when federal agents went in to arrest six corrections officers for allegedly coercing women inmates into sex, I realized it was very possible that the women I met on that day of achievement were already living with the dirty little secret that has now been blown wide open.

Two men are dead. One was a guard who was about to be arrested, the other victim a federal agent who had come to arrest him and the other five guards indicted on the same mix of crimes: conspiring to commit bribery, witness tampering, mail fraud, interstate transportation in aid of racketeering.

According to the timeline coming out in the aftermath of the shooting, allegations of sex were first documented in March of 2002.

That is more than four years ago.

Four long years of what, if these charges remotely true, appears to be a field day for men put in charge of guarding a henhouse.

In general, it is absurdly bad judgment to put men in charge of guarding women inmates who are almost 100-percent powerless in the first place.

And the fact that it has taken more than four years to bring about an indictment suggests to me the low priority given to indications of improper sex with women inmates.

It would be hard to keep such behaviors hush-hush. FCI inmates don't live in cells; they live in large dormitories where four women are closeted in half-walled cubicles. The lights are on 24/7, and there is a pervasive lack of not only liberty but privacy. The women are together almost constantly.

It's impossible that fellow inmates who sleep four feet away from each other would be wholly unaware of sexual acts in progress behind a half-wall or in the laundry nook. Or that, in such an environment, no one would have noticed when unexpected bits of money or cigarettes or amenities were showing up or wondered why and how and from whom.

The FBI has spent years apparently trying to make its case for conspiracy and bribery, mail fraud witness tampering and racketeering - big fancy charges that suggest that Al Capone was at work.

Yet what we're really talking about is apparent tolerance of outrageous employee behavior and a rule-bending management culture that appears to be stuck in the 1950s.

Every office place in America of any size is so on top of sexual harassment that it doesn't go unnoticed, or unpunished, for long. Practically every office in America tests even the most junior newcomer assistant to the assistant for drug use. Yet a federal prison doesn't check its guards for weapons or drugs or, apparently, even cigarettes or taboo trinkets when they walk through the door to go to work.

You don't have to be a woman who has been knocked around by life to be outraged by the serious possibility of what happens to women in prison. Now that two men have been killed, perhaps changes will be made.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060625/COLUMNIST05/6
06250302/1006/OPINION

Originally published June 25, 2006

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

MA: Legislature Gives Approval to Nonprescription Sale of Hypodermic Needles

Mass. Legislature Gives Final Approval for Bill That Would Authorize Nonprescription Sale of Hypodermic Needles

The Massachusetts House and Senate on Thursday voted to give final approval to a bill (H 4176) that would authorize the nonprescription sale of syringes to people ages 18 and older as a means of reducing the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and other bloodborne diseases, the AP/Boston Globe reports (LeBlanc, AP/Boston Globe, 6/22). The state Senate earlier this month voted to pass the bill and the state House in November 2005 voted to approve similar legislation. The bill would require pharmacists dispensing the needles to provide a brochure created by the state Department of Public Health that includes information about the proper use and disposal of syringes and needles, the risk of contracting bloodborne diseases through such devices and the state's toll-free number for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C information (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/2). The bill now goes to Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who likely will veto it, according to the AP/Boston Globe (AP/Boston Globe, 6/22). Romney spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom has said that Romney opposes the bill, adding that the governor "believes that removing prescription controls on hypodermic needles ... encourages heroin use." The bill has received enough votes that a veto by Romney could be overridden (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/2).

Posted by lois at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2006

Critics Decry Immigrant Detention Push

Critics Decry Immigrant Detention Push

By DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 24, 2006; 7:05 PM, Washington Post

NEW YORK -- The sweeping immigration bills in Congress would add many thousands of beds to the patchwork network of detention facilities that hold illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers _ places that critics say are over-costly and under-regulated.

Already, activists say, far too many nonthreatening people are held for too long in demoralizing conditions.

"I'm not against homeland security," said Edward Neepaye, a pastor and human-rights campaigner from Liberia who was detained in New Jersey for four months. "But the greatest nation on earth must come up with a remedy that accords immigrants some respect, rather than throwing them in jail like animals."

On any given day, the system overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains about 21,000 people _ most for a few weeks, some for years. Some, like Neepaye, are asylum seekers; others are illegal immigrants or foreigners who had U.S. residence cards but face deportation because of run-ins with the law.

More than 200,000 people are detained over the course of a year in any of three types of facilities _ eight run by ICE itself, six run by for-profit companies that are eager for more business, and 312 county and municipal jails that have won lucrative federal contracts and hold about 57 percent of the detainees. Advocacy groups call it a hodgepodge system that is expensive and difficult to monitor.

"ICE hasn't done a good job with the facilities they directly manage, much less the ones they contract out," said Judith Greene, a New York-based prison expert. "Talking about doubling or tripling this system, without some kind of restructuring, is a recipe for a nightmare."

ICE defends its performance, saying it has reduced the average detention from 90 days to 20 days as it speeds deportation proceedings. Gary Mead, an assistant director of ICE's detention and deportation division, said the agency has 300 inspectors who examine each facility annually to ensure standards are upheld; at least two have lost contracts because of shortcomings.

In Congress, criticism of the detention system had little impact as both chambers proposed major expansions in their immigration bills. The Senate bill, though more moderate on some issues, proposed the biggest increase _ 20 new facilities with 20,000 beds.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, says it needs 35,000 more detention beds to hold all the illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. As of Dec. 30, there were 544,000 such people who had absconded; ICE blamed the bed shortage for fueling "an unofficial mini-amnesty" for high-risk aliens.

Detainees, as non-citizens, have no automatic right to legal counsel. The majority, who are indigent and without local connections, depend on scarce pro bono assistance or do without, reducing their odds of winning appeals.

Many detention facilities _ notably those in the Southwest _ are geographically remote, with few pro bono attorneys nearby, and detainees often are transferred far from their home base. Other hurdles include inadequate law libraries in some facilities and steep telephone charges, lawyers said.

Janet Curley, as part of a church-based volunteer program, has been visiting detained asylum seekers in Elizabeth, N.J., for the past year, conversing by telephone through a window.

"It's a lifeline," she said "They know there's at least one person who cares about them."

The detainees, she said, "are essentially warehoused" _ without opportunities to exercise outdoors or take English-language classes. At many detention centers, watching TV is the primary pastime.

Mead said some centers offer anger-management and drug-education classes, but a broader array of programs is considered impractical because turnover is so rapid. Even without programs, the average daily cost per detainee is about $90, ICE said _ well above the cost for federal and state prison inmates.

Neepaye was detained at Elizabeth in 2003 after fleeing Liberia. He feared for his life after condemning human rights abuses in a war between rebels and warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor.

Despite some prominent American contacts, Neepaye said he was placed in handcuffs at Newark International Airport and interrogated for hours.

"It was a torturous experience _ being treated like a common criminal," Neepaye said by telephone from Rogers, Minn., where he lives with his wife and four sons, busy as a pastor and businessman.

He recalled the tedium, the lack of privacy, the despair of other detainees who _ unlike himself _ had no one outside advocating for them and no idea how long they would be held.

At the request of some House Democrats, the General Accounting Office agreed this month to investigate alleged mistreatment of detainees and examine how ICE monitors their conditions. There have been numerous complaints of poor nutrition and medical care.

"We've had asylum seekers who endured horrendous conditions in their home countries, and they come here, past the Statue of Liberty, and get thrown in some hellish jail that mirrors the experience they just escaped," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

During the Senate's immigration debate, Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., proposed an amendment to improve conditions for detained asylum-seekers. The measure died after Homeland Security officials said its provisions would be burdensome.

"Tens of thousands of non-criminal detainees are held in maximum security prisons and jails for months, often in the same cellblocks or cells with hardened criminals," said Lieberman, who urged ICE to make greater use of alternatives to detention.

Advocacy groups say only high-risk illegal immigrants should be confined, while most other detainees could be released, at huge savings, if ICE expanded pilot programs that have succeeded _ through close supervision _ in persuading people to show up in court.

"It's outrageous how many people are detained who don't need to be," said Judy Rabinowitz of the American Civil Liberties Union.

___

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

Midwest Conference to Abolish Control Units

*Help Create A Human Rights Campaign Against Prison Control Units*

Over 40 prisons around the U.S. contain prison control units, which are geared to destroy prisoners' minds and their will to resist. Join us for a conference aimed at building a movement against control units, at which we will hear statements from prisoners, testimonies from those with loved ones in prison, and presentations from activists from various backgrounds dedicated to abolishing the prison industrial complex.

*Saturday, July 29, 2006
9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn (office of American Friends Service Committee, downtown Chicago Loop)*

Sponsored by the Midwest Campaign to Abolish Control Units CONTACT INFORMATION: Program/Workshop Information: anthonyrayson@hotmail.com, majackson@afsc.org Housing Information: vannatta@riseup.net American Friends Service Committee of Chicago: (312)427-2533.

*Tentative Schedule:*

9-9:30 a.m.: Breakfast
9:30-10:30 a.m.: Purpose of Conference/Explanation of Control Units, by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin & Bonnie Kerness
10:30 a.m.-noon: Panel of Representatives of Groups Involved in Organizing Against Control Units Around the Country
Noon-1:15 p.m.: Lunch and Workshops (simultaneously)
1:15-2:15 p.m.: Personal Testimonies of Ex-Prisoners and Family Members of Ex-Prisoners (5 min. each)
2:15-2:45 p.m.: Q&A Session of Panel Members
2:45-5 p.m.: Networking Assembly—Where Do We Go From Here to Build a National Movement Against Control Units?
5-8 p.m. (?): Dinner/Cultural Program

Posted by lois at 09:02 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2006

MA: Revisiting Drug Sentences

Revisiting drug sentences
By Cynthia Stone Creem and James V. DiPaola/ As You Were Saying...
Saturday, June 24, 2006, Boston Hearld

During its budget debate, the Senate added hundreds of provisions to the budget and almost all of them will cost the state money. One amendment stands out from the crowd in that it will save the state millions of dollars and will improve public safety. By making a small change to the mandatory minimum drug laws to allow better use of parole, this amendment will ease prison overcrowding; allow a more controlled transition for prisoners from the cell to the street and could save Massachusetts millions of dollars a year.

The ever-rising costs for our state and county prison system is a problem that needs immediate attention. Over the past 10 years the state correctional population has increased by 3,189 inmates - a growth rate of more than 15 percent.
The greatest burden has been on the county correctional system, intended for short term prisoners, which has seen its population grow by 25.8 percent. This trend is a costly one, and it directs scarce resources away from other important state services.
For example, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation made headlines in 2003 when it pointed out that, for the first time in history, the state would spend more money on prisons than on higher education.
cw-0Twenty years ago, Massachusetts spent less than $200 million a year on corrections; this year we will spend more than $850 million.
This dramatic increase in corrections spending can be blamed, in part, on the use of mandatory minimum sentencing. These laws dictate that offenders serve a predetermined number of years in prison regardless of their criminal record, circumstances of the crime, or their rehabilitation efforts while in prison. Many first-time offenders or minor players in the drug trade must serve sentences far greater than their record or crime merits even if the sentencing judge believes that the mandatory sentence is too harsh.
The law also ties the hands of prison officials because these offenders must serve every day of their sentence in a costly - about $40,000 a year - and increasingly scarce, prison cell.
Besides being costly, mandatory minimum sentences hurt public safety because they guarantee that most drug offenders are released back into their community without any conditions or restrictions. A recent study by MassINC found that almost half of all unsupervised prisoners will re-offend within three years of being released. Mandatory minimum sentencing, therefore, costs untold millions of dollars in future spending for law enforcement, prosecution and prison space.
Fortunately, the Senate budget includes a provision that allows parole eligibility for prisoners who have served two-thirds of their mandatory sentences. This proposal does not repeal mandatory minimum sentences - drug offenders will continue to be sentenced to tough prison terms. Furthermore, offenders will only be released if they convince the law-enforcement oriented Parole Board that they no longer pose a threat to the community. By allowing the possibility of parole, however, persons who deserve release will no longer take up costly prison space and will receive supervision as they are integrated back into the community.
The Massachusetts Sentencing Commission estimates that expanded use of parole could safely shrink the prison population by over 500 inmates as quickly as the Parole Board can hold hearings.
Such a significant decrease would save the state $21 million in the first year alone.
Massachusetts would not be alone in this effort - as the negative effects of mandatory minimum sentencing has been felt across the country, 25 other states have passed similar legislation. In fact, this proposal does not go nearly as far as recent legislation in Louisiana, New York and Michigan that significantly limited, or even repealed, mandatory minimum drug sentences for fiscal and public safety reasons.
The time has come to moderate our costly position on drug sentencing. This is not an issue of being “tough” or “soft” on crime. Rather, this “smart on crime” measure will be an important first step towards getting our corrections spending under control while improving public safety. As the final budget is written, we can no longer afford to ignore mandatory minimum sentencing reform.

Cynthia S. Creem represents Newton, Brookline and Wellesley in the Massachusetts Senate and she is co-chair of the Joint Committee on Revenue. James V. DiPaola is the sheriff of Middlesex County. As You Were Saying is a regular feature of the Boston Heral

http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=145212&format=text

Posted by lois at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2006

Supreme Court Rules That Parolees Can Be Searched Without Cause

Toni Locy
The Associated Press
06-20-2006

California parolees can routinely be searched by police as a condition of their release from prison, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

By a 6-3 vote, justices said the 1996 law is a legitimate attempt by state officials to deal with a large population of repeat offenders who pose a danger to public safety.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said California has a "special governmental interest" to control its parolees, an interest that outweighs a parolee's privacy.

In California, most prisoners eventually receive parole. But before release, each parolee is required to consent in writing to searches by police during the term of their supervision. If they refuse, they are not allowed out of prison.

Under the law, police can conduct such a search as long as it is not arbitrary, capricious or conducted to harass the parolee.

Thomas said parolees do not have any "expectation of privacy that society would recognize as legitimate" because of the danger posed by California's large recidivist population.

"The state's interests, by contrast, are substantial," Thomas wrote, citing a 68-to-70 percent recidivism rate among California's parolees.

But Justice John Paul Stevens, writing in dissent, said the majority had "run roughshod" over previous court rulings on unreasonable searches and improperly allowed California to create another form of punishment for its prisoners.

"What the court sanctions today is an unprecedented curtailment of liberty," Stevens wrote on behalf of himself and Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

Stevens wrote that California has given its police "a blanket grant of discretion untethered by any procedural safeguards."

Only California allows parolees to be searched for no specific reason. Thirty other states and the federal government require parolees to submit to searches, but there must be reasonable grounds for the search to occur.

In September 2002, a San Bruno, Calif., police officer spotted Donald Samson walking down a street with a woman and her 3-year-old son. The officer knew Samson was a parolee and suspected there was a warrant out for his arrest on a parole violation.

The officer searched Samson, who then told him that the warrant had been "taken care of." After confirming Samson's assertion, the officer searched him again. Inside a cigarette box Samson was carrying, the officer found a plastic baggie containing methamphetamine.

Samson was not charged with a parole violation. Instead, he was charged with drug possession, convicted and sentenced to seven years in state prison.

California's Court of Appeal upheld Samson's conviction, rejecting his argument that a suspicionless search of a parolee violated the Fourth Amendment.

The case is Samson v. California, 04-9728.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copyright 2006 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page printed from: http://www.law.com

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GA: Southern Center for Human Rights Challenges GA law on people convicted of sex offenses

Federal suit challenges state's sex offender law
One of nation's toughest

By Doug Gross
June 21, 2006
ATLANTA - A civil liberties group filed a federal class-action lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new Georgia law designed to crack down on people convicted of sexually abusing children, arguing that it is so strict that it would be impossible for offenders to live in most of the state's urban and suburban areas.

The law, believed to be among the nation's toughest, is set to go into effect July 1 and would impose stricter limits on where sex offenders may live, work or spend time - including 1,000-foot buffers around all school bus stops, churches, schools, child-care centers and other places where children congregate.

The lawsuit was filed by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights on behalf of nine convicted sex offenders.

"Thousands of people on Georgia's sex offender registry will be forced, by legislative fiat, to evacuate their homes, leave their jobs, cease attending their churches and abandon court-mandated treatment programs," the lawsuit reads.

Under the law, those deemed sexually dangerous predators would have to wear electronic monitoring devices for the rest of their lives after being released from prison and would have to pay for the cost themselves. The new law also increases prison sentences for even first-time offenders and makes it a crime to harbor a sex offender.

Supporters of the law, which was signed by Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue in April, say it's designed to prevent repeat sex crimes toward children.

"It's a shame that when we take steps to protect children from absolutely the worst of our criminal element, that there are those who would want to defend them," said state Rep. Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island, the plan's sponsor. "We're going to continue to put the safety of our children above the convenience of convicted sex offenders."

While arguing for the changes before the Georgia General Assembly earlier this year, Keen said the plan would make Georgia's laws among the nation's most restrictive by keeping sexual predators locked up longer and often driving them from the state after they are released.

The plan passed 53-1 in the state Senate and 144-27 in the House.

The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit is Wendy Whitaker, a 26-year-old criminal justice student who has been married for six years. According to the complaint, Whitaker was convicted of sodomy when she was 17 after a consensual sex act with a 15-year-old boy on school property.

Plaintiffs argue that too many people with similar stories will be labeled child sex offenders under the new law. Keen, however, said it's impossible to write a law tailored to cover every individual story.

"We knew there were going to be people affected by this law - that it was going to create some inconvenience," he said. "But we thought that was a small price to pay for what the overall law is intended to do."

The lawsuit says the Whitakers already have been forced to move under Georgia's current law because they lived too close to a church with a day-care center and likely will have to move again under the new law.

Sarah Geraghty, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, called Georgia's law "by far the most onerous law of any state."

While laws preventing offenders from living or working near schools, day-care centers and other spots are relatively common across the nation, she said the bus stop provision goes too far.

"At this point, it's unclear if there's anywhere in the state for people on the registry to live," she said.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rome, claims the statute unconstitutionally denies sex offenders due process under the law, infringes on their religious freedom, amounts to an illegal taking of their property and imposes cruel and unusual punishment.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 062106

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/062106/news_20060621034.shtm

Posted by lois at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2006

U.S. Agent Dies in Shootout with Prison Guard in Federal Women's Prison in Tallahassee

June 22, 2006
U.S. Agent Dies in Shootout With Prison Guard
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., June 21 — A federal agent was killed and a prison officer wounded Wednesday in a shootout with a guard at a federal prison here. The guard, who was about to be arrested in connection with a sex ring, also died in the gun battle.

The guard, Ralph Hill, was one of six who were indicted Tuesday, accused of giving contraband to female inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in exchange for sex and money. The low-security prison houses about 1,400 women on the eastern edge of Tallahassee.

Agents from the Justice Department inspector general's office were serving warrants on the guards just after 7:30 a.m. when Mr. Hill pulled out his personal gun and began firing just outside the main entrance of a smaller detention center next to the prison, according to the Justice Department. He killed Special Agent William Sentner, 44, and seriously injured a lieutenant at the prison who was helping with the arrests.

Mr. Sentner is the first special agent from the Justice Department inspector general's office to be killed or wounded in the line of duty, a spokeswoman for the office, Cynthia Schnedar, said. The office has about 120 special agents with the same arrest powers as F.B.I. agents and other federal investigators.

On Tuesday, a Federal District Court grand jury in Tallahassee indicted the six guards on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of bribery, witness tampering, mail fraud and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering. The charges, a result of a joint investigation by the inspector general's office, the F.B.I. and the federal Bureau of Prisons, carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison.

The indictment said that starting in 2003, five of the six guards — Mr. Hill, Alfred Barnes, Gregory Dixon, Alan Moore and E. Lavon Spence — traded contraband for sex with at least 10 inmates. At other times, it said, they sold contraband to inmates or used it to bribe them to keep silent.

Federal officials would not say what kind of contraband was involved, but the indictment suggested it could have included alcohol, drugs, food or anything else not available at the prison commissary.

To further keep the inmates from telling anyone, the guards also monitored their phone calls and threatened to have them sent to other prisons farther from their families, according to the indictment.

The sixth guard, Vincent Johnson, is said to have conveyed messages between inmates and one of the other five guards, and showed inmates the Bureau of Prisons computer system, presumably as a threat that they could be tracked once they were released.

Michael Folmar, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Jacksonville, said the guards had been unaware of the indictments and had no advance warning of the arrests.

But Timothy Jansen, a lawyer for Mr. Hill, said the guard hired him last fall after hearing rumors of an investigation. Mr. Jansen said that Mr. Hill had submitted a saliva sample for DNA testing in January, but had not heard anything from federal investigators since then.

Mr. Folmar said it was standard procedure for agents from the inspector general's office to make arrests.

"These agents were out just trying to do their jobs," he said. "They were trying to make arrests in a very controlled situation, and it just didn't come down as planned."

Mr. Folmar said guards were not allowed to bring personal weapons into the prison. He would not provide details about the deaths, saying that a review team from Washington would start to "piece all this together" Thursday morning. He also would not identify the Bureau of Prisons lieutenant injured in the shootout, but said the lieutenant was expected to recover fully.

Each of the five surviving guards pleaded not guilty during an early afternoon arraignment in federal court here. Still dressed in their uniforms of white shirts and gray pants, they showed no emotion as they sat beside their court-appointed lawyers.

The defendants were ordered held in federal custody at an undisclosed location pending a hearing Thursday.

Trial was set for Aug. 21 before Chief Judge Robert L. Hinkle of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Mr. Jansen, the lawyer hired by Mr. Hill, said he had never had "any indication that my client was a violent person." Mr. Hill received an honorable discharge from the Air Force, he said, and had worked at the federal prison for 12 years.

Mr. Dixon's lawyer, Thomas Findley, suggested that some inmates might have made false accusations about the guards in the hope of getting their sentences reduced.

Teri Donaldson, the lawyer for Mr. Spence, said his client was "not anywhere near the shooting and had absolutely nothing to do with those events."

Several family members of the surviving guards, meanwhile, said they were surprised by the charges and could not imagine the men capable of such acts.

"We wouldn't expect anything like this from him," said Vincent Johnson Jr., 22, Mr. Johnson's son, adding that his father had worked at the prison for at least six years. "He was a good guy for the most part, or so we thought."

Mr. Moore's sister, Angela Moore of Conyers, Ga., said her brother was a deacon at his Baptist church and had never before been in trouble. He is married, has a son in college and has worked at the prison for at least a decade, she added.

"My brother is a good person, and I know him well enough to know he would never do anything like that," Ms. Moore said in a telephone interview. "He counsels people to do right. All those accusations are false."

Armando Garcia, the lawyer representing Mr. Barnes, described him as a "family man" from Thomasville, Ga., about 35 miles north of Tallahassee. He said his client was not guilty.

"He's a god-fearing, churchgoing married man with children who works hard," Mr. Garcia said. "He owns his home. He drives back and forth to work every day. He does what he's supposed to do."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Joe Follick and Christine Jordan Sexton in Tallahassee, Terry Aguayo in Miami and Scott Shane in Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/us/22prison.html?th&emc=th

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2006

Army Cancels Contract for Iraqi Prison

June 20, 2006
Reconstruction
Army Cancels Contract for Iraqi Prison
By JAMES GLANZ, NY Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 19 - The Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it had canceled a $99.1 million contract with Parsons, one of the largest companies working in Iraq, to build a prison north of Baghdad after the firm fell more than two years behind schedule, threatened to go millions of dollars over budget and essentially abandoned the construction site.

The move is another harsh rebuke for Parsons, only weeks after the corps canceled more than $300 million of the company's contracts to build and refurbish hospitals and clinics across Iraq. A federal oversight office had found that some of the clinics were little more than empty shells and that only 20 of 150 called for in the contract would be completed without new financing.

But the prison, originally scheduled to be completed this month, appears to be the largest single rebuilding project canceled for failing to achieve its goals under the $45 billion American rebuilding program for Iraq. The corps said Parsons officials had recently estimated that it could not be completed before September 2008, and would cost an additional $13.5 million.

"I have other contractors that hold to their schedules," said Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the corps' Gulf Region Division. "And when they hold to their schedules, there's no problem."

In the case of the prison contract, General McCoy said, "I've got to stop the bleeding."

The corps says it intends to complete 3,700 rebuilding projects. But that number is much smaller than once planned and there is no independent overall assessment of their success. For example, among the water and sanitation projects, only 49 of the 136 projects originally envisioned are expected to be completed, according to Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent federal oversight office.

The move over the prison contract pushes further into the open a series of bitter disagreements between Parsons and the corps over who is ultimately responsible for the failure of its rebuilding projects. When a senior Parsons official was informed by telephone that General McCoy had released word of the cancellation, the official replied, "He would, wouldn't he?"

The official referred a reporter to Parsons corporate headquarters in the United States for permission to conduct an interview for attribution about the development. But the request was turned down, and the company released a brief statement through a spokeswoman instead.

"Parsons performed our work in Iraq in conformance with the contract terms and the direction given to us by the U.S. government," said the spokeswoman, Erin Kuhlman, by e-mail. "We're extremely proud of our dedicated employees who have performed very well under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances."

Another corps official, Col. Andrew Q. Knapp, said that even the new September 2008 completion date cited by Parsons was not realistic because the company had stopped working on the site two months ago. "So the date's kind of meaningless," Colonel Knapp said.

The company declined to clarify why it had stopped the work.

The largest single project previously canceled in Iraq appears to have been a $75.7 million dollar contract that called for KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, to restore a set of oil pipelines across the Tigris River.

The loss of business for Parsons in Iraq may not be over. General McCoy said a broad review of Parsons' work in Iraq had turned up problems in sector after sector. According to news releases on the Parsons Web site, the company has received contracts worth as much as $4 billion in Iraq.

Parsons' contracts with the corps called for building and refurbishing scores of police stations, border forts, fire stations, courthouses, prisons and Iraqi government buildings. "We found overruns in almost every case," General McCoy said.

Corps officials also said that they had asked the company to explain delays and overruns on another prison project, south of Nasiriya, for which it has an $82.7 million contract.

Mr. Bowen, the inspector general, said after he issued a pair of scathing reports on the clinics that he intended to review all of the Parsons work in Iraq. Mr. Bowen's reports said the $243 million program to build 150 clinics would complete only 20 unless new financing were found.

In some cases, the reports found, the clinics were little more than empty shells of uneven bricks and concrete that were already crumbling into dust. But those reports focused much of their criticism on what they called the failure of the corps to exercise proper oversight of the work.

Shortly after those reports were issued, General McCoy canceled the clinics contract, and shortly thereafter voided a $70 million Parsons project to refurbish 20 hospitals in Iraq. General McCoy said Sunday that he had found $62 million in his budget to finish the remaining clinics by letting construction contracts directly to Iraqi companies.

The general said he would also contract directly with Iraqi companies to finish the 1,800-inmate prison, the Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility. Colonel Knapp said that about 40 percent of the project had been completed and that what was in place appeared to be sound.

"It's just primarily cost and schedule," Colonel Knapp said of the reasons for canceling the Parsons prison contract. "There's an urgent need for prisons right now for the country of Iraq, and it's simply not getting there fast enough."

An inspection team led by Mr. Bowen visited the Nasiriya prison project in May and found that the workmanship was good but that the construction schedule had slipped by nearly a year for reasons no one there could explain. General McCoy said he was aware of Mr. Bowen's findings and asked the company for an explanation.

"We've given them about 10 days to come back to us," General McCoy said.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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June 19, 2006

PA: County Prisons Should PRomote Rehabilitation

From The Morning Call, Easton, PA
June 19, 2006
County prisons should promote rehabilitation
''We build prisons to deter crime. Unquestionably, punishment is an important part of that process. But so is rehabilitation.''

We take no pleasure in dedicating a prison. We would prefer a park, a school or a recreation center. Yet, we can be proud of meeting an important responsibility of good government. A measure of society's decency is how it treats its prisoners. A great author stated, ''The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.'' Our constitution requires prisons not be barbaric or brutal. In adopting the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the Founders set the standard for this nation.

Of course, a prison is not a hotel; coddling is not appropriate. But we must not lose our humanity in the process of incarcerating others. We have built a decent, safe facility to reduce overcrowding. That was the right thing to do.

How we use this facility will be the important test. It is indisputable that most of the inmates who will enter this prison will come from communities in Northampton County. They come from Bethlehem, Easton, Nazareth, and Northampton. Virtually all of them will leave the prison system. When they do, they will return to the same communities. They will return to their homes. The key question is, ''Will they have positive alternatives? Will they be better people? Or, will they be more hardened and educated in crime?''

We build prisons to deter crime. Unquestionably, punishment is an important part of that process. But so is rehabilitation. On June 8, the National Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons issued its report. It is worth reading. The commission was chaired by a former attorney general of the United States and a former appellate court judge. Membership included Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and people from varying experiences. Among the findings are several that speak to the issue of rehabilitation in prisons.

First, few conditions compromise safety and security in prisons more than idle prisoners. Programming is essential. When prisoners merely sit in their cells all day or watch television, there is no effective rehabilitation. The potential for violence increases. When those prisoners are released, they are more of a danger than when they entered the prison. These are dysfunctional people with serious problems. It defies common sense and human experience to think that these broken people are going to be better citizens when they return to the community without experiencing effective rehabilitative programming in the prison.

Second, the commission found that, ''While prison populations grew astronomically, funding for education, vocational training and rehabilitative programming has not kept pace.'' Regrettably, that statement is very descriptive of what has happened in Northampton County. Twenty years ago, Northampton County Prison had a reputation for focusing on prisoner rehabilitation. It was a model for other institutions around the state in providing effective rehabilitative programming. Unfortunately, county officials dismantled those rehabilitative programs. I am not here today to point a finger at anyone or to judge their motivations. I assume that, for the most part, their concerns were financial. But it was penny-wise and pound-foolish. When prisoners who did not receive rehabilitative programming were returned to the community, there was a cost in terms of further criminal behavior.

Third, the commission found that pessimism about the effectiveness of rehabilitation is misguided. Targeted interventions work. Education reduces rule-breaking. It was popular 15 or 20 years ago to suggest that prison rehabilitation was not successful. According to the commission, studies demonstrate to the contrary that rehabilitative programming is often effective.

Fourth, the commission found that programs are needed which cultivate life skills, anger management, personal growth and faith, development of family relationships and victim awareness. Drawing on my 27 years on the bench, I will add to those the urgent need for drug treatment. It is absolutely essential. We are deceiving ourselves if we think that prison sentences alone will reform drug abusers. I have visited the Gander Hill Penitentiary in Delaware and have seen the outstanding program there. Its recidivism figures support what they are doing. I am pleased that there is a treatment community planned for the Northampton County Prison in this new addition.

Just today, a representative of the Adult Probation Department told me about the urgent need for sex offender counseling. While most sex offenders are transferred to state correctional institutions, some are housed here. Does it make sense for them to be released without prior counseling or should they have counseling and rehabilitative programming while they are in the prison? The answer is obvious. We need an effective sex offender counseling program in the prison rather than deferring treatment until parole.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Corrections and Rehabilitation, said it well: ''For the vast majority of inmates, prison is a temporary, not a final destination. The experiences inmates have in prison, whether violent or redemptive, do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.''

We must formulate effective programming for this institution. I urge the county executive and county council to work with the court to develop these programs. We will be making proposals for Northampton County Prison, and we hope that the other branches of government will support them. Building this facility was an important first step. Now, we must use it wisely.

Robert A. Freedberg is president judge in Northampton County. This article is adapted from a speech he gave June 9 at the dedication of the new wing at the county prison in Easton.
Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-a-a-ajun19,0,1249037,print.story?coll=all-newsopinionanotherview-hed

Posted by lois at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

Cost of Incarceration and Superivsed Release

Cost calculations were made by the Bureau of Prisons and by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Costs of Incarceration and Supervised Release

June 6, 2006 — In fiscal year 2005, it cost $23,431.92 to keep someone incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility and $20,843.78 to keep a federal inmate incarcerated in a community correction center.

For the same 12-month period ending September 30, 2005, it cost $3,450 for a federal offender to be supervised by probation officers.

Those figures translate into daily costs of $64.19 for a Bureau of Prisons facility, $57.10 for a community correction center, and $9.45 for supervised release.

http://www.uscourts.gov/newsroom/prisoncost.html

Posted by lois at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Kibbutz Founder, Dies at 99

June 19, 2006

By DENNIS HEVESI

Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, a pioneer of the Israeli kibbutz movement, a contentious colleague of the nation's leaders and the leader of its labor federation in the early 1970's, died on May 19. He was 99.

Often describing himself as a radical Socialist, Mr. Ben-Aharon took controversial positions that rattled even his allies among the left-leaning founders of the nation he helped create. He said that the country had room "for the Arab masses" and that Jerusalem must be shared with Muslims and Christians. He said that Israelis had become too concerned with becoming rich and that the nation was being built on the backs of Arab workers. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in a position presaging current government policy, he called for unilateral withdrawal from some occupied territories.

Born Yitzhak Nussboim on July 17, 1906, in Bukovina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but now part of Romania, Mr. Ben-Aharon joined several Zionist organizations as a teenager, then walked or rode a donkey overland to Palestine in 1928. There he helped found Kibbutz Givat Haim, a Jewish farm commune between Tel Aviv and Haifa, where he remained the rest of his life.

From 1932 to 1938 he was secretary of the Tel Aviv Workers' Council and for two years was secretary of Mapai, a forerunner of Israel's Labor Party.

In 1940, Mr. Ben-Aharon volunteered for the Jewish Brigade, part of the British Army, rising to the rank of major. While fighting in Greece in 1941, he was captured by the Germans and spent the next four years in a prisoner of war camp.

From 1949 to 1965 he was elected to five terms as a member of Parliament and was Israel's transportation minister in the last two of those terms. From 1969 to 1977 he served two more terms in Parliament.

From 1969 to 1973 Mr. Ben-Aharon was also secretary general of the labor federation Histadrut, often stirring controversy. He allowed Arabs to join the federation for the first time. He criticized Prime Minister Golda Meir for being too close to capitalists.

During a period of national soul-searching over the founding principles of Israeli society, Mr. Ben-Aharon, a booming orator, gave a speech in April 1972, saying the nation had lost its way in a "frenzied rat race" for personal enrichment. "We have started to worship achievement as a golden calf," he said.

Then, in a 1973 Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Mr. Ben-Aharon wrote that "an Arab minority has become part and parcel of the reality of this land." And, he said, "there is plenty of room both for the Jewish people returning here and for the Arab masses — this is a formula we can live with."

Later that year, Mr. Ben-Aharon received withering criticism from the press and even from members of his own faction of the Labor Party when he called for Israel to withdraw unilaterally from some West Bank territories occupied since the 1967 war, because it would reduce antagonism toward Israel and help turn Palestinians into friendly neighbors. In 1995, the Israeli government awarded Mr. Ben-Aharon its highest honor, the Israel Prize.

Mr. Ben-Aharon is survived by his second wife, Bilha Rubin, and two sons, Yariv and Yishayahu. His first wife, Miriam, died in 1993.

Posted by lois at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)

NC: New initiative for incarcerated mothers

MAY 31, 2006
New initiative for incarcerated mothers takes root

BY PATRICK O'NEILL http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A32459

When a pregnant mother is imprisoned in North Carolina, her newborn is usually taken away within hours of birth and passed to a family member or foster parent for rearing.

The cost of separating mothers from their newborn and young children through prison is high, experts say. In addition to the more than $20,000 annual incarceration cost per inmate, the children of incarcerated mothers frequently need public assistance, and often suffer immeasurable emotional toll.

Enter Our Children's Place, an initiative that will offer imprisoned mothers the opportunity to do time while still caring for their young children. The nonprofit program plans to provide a group living option for up to 20 mothers and their children.

Instead of serving their time in Raleigh's Women's Prison, mothers will be sentenced to live in Butner in a state-owned building. Each mother can have up to two children live with her.

Modeled after a similar program in California, Our Children's Place has been in the planning stages for about six years, but organizers are finally seeing their plans moving toward fruition, said Sarah J. Shapard, the group's Chapel Hill-based project administrator.

Plans call for the building to be renovated and ready for occupancy by early 2008, with an on-site nursery and preschool classrooms.

The board of directors is working closely with numerous state agencies to create a safe, stable environment for the children, the project's first priority, Shapard said. An important secondary priority is to provide rehabilitation for the mothers, including substance-abuse treatment, health care, parenting and academic education, vocational training, and re-entry services.

"The program was designed with the child's best interests in mind," Shapard said. A third priority is to foster quality bonding between mother and child. Child development specialists will mentor the mothers, offering practical skills for life on the outside, Shapard said.

"Most of these mothers have poor mothering skills," Shapard said.

State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, a Carrboro Democrat, has been a key supporter.

While working for Prisoner Legal Services as a family lawyer, Kinnaird saw the newborns of incarcerated mothers "scattered to the wind," she said. The child of an incarcerated parent is six times more likely to be involved in criminal behavior, she said.

The initiative has taken direction from a similar California program called Family Foundation, and Summit House in Raleigh, an alternative sentencing program for mothers and their children. A cost-benefit analysis claims Summit House, which has three facilities, saves taxpayers $1 million annually. Studies have found that just 21 percent of Summit House mothers were reconvicted within a three-year period, compared with a 40 percent reconviction rate among released female felons.

Our Children's Place will accept mothers with children 6 and younger or who are pregnant, and who have been charged only with nonviolent offenses, with sentences of five years or less.

Getting the program off the ground is the hard part, says board chairwoman Mary Andrews. Shapard is only a part-time administrator, and the board must interface with a varied group of state agencies. Money is tight, and renovation costs could run as high as $4 million.

Still, Andrews says it's simply the right thing to do.

"Certain things in life are clear, and this is clear," Andrews says. "We need to find more creative ways to deal with women who make terrible mistakes."
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Incarcerated Moms Can Soon Raise Kids While Serving Time
June 16, 2006

Our Children's Place of Butner, N.C., will allow mothers to serve prison sentences while caring for their young children and receiving rehabilitation services, Independent Weekly reported on May 31. By early 2008, a state-owned building will be renovated with a nursery, classrooms, and group living accommodations for 20 mothers and their children. To be eligible, the women must be charged only with nonviolent crimes, serving sentences of no longer than five years. Up to two children, age six or younger, may live with each mother. The mothers will receive substance use treatment, health care, parenting classes, academic education, vocational training and re-entry services. Child development specialists will also mentor the mothers. 'Most of these mothers have poor mothering skills,' said Sarah J. Shapard, project administrator. 'The program was designed with the child's best interests in mind.' State Senator Ellie Kinnaird (D-Carrboro), a key supporter of the program and a former family lawyer for Prison Legal Services, explained that the child of an incarcerated parent is six times more likely to be involved in criminal behavior. For nearly six years, the program has been in the planning stages, taking lessons from such successful programs as Family Foundation, a similar California program, and Summit House, an alternative sentencing program for mothers and children in Raleigh. Summit House saves taxpayers $1 million annually and reduces the reconviction rate among its participating female felons from 40 to 21 percent.

http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/communitystories/2006/incarcerate
d-moms-can-soon.html

Posted by lois at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2006

New Development to Bar People Convicted of Sex Offenses

USA today
6/15/2006
Developments bar sex offenders

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
Private housing developers are joining a surging number of communities that are telling convicted sex offenders who need a place to live: "Not in my backyard."

A Texas-based company, I&S Investment Group, is breaking ground this summer on a 154-lot development in Lenexa, Kan., that will bar registered sex offenders. If someone is convicted of a sex crime while living there, the subdivision will fine the person $1,500 daily until he or she moves. The group has sold out all 150 lots in its first such development in Lubbock, Texas, begun 10 months ago, and plans to offer 250 more lots there this fall.

"The sex offender deal has improved demand. It's probably increased our sales three to four times," says I&S partner Clayton Isom, 24. "We're fighting sex offenders head on."

Another Texan, Taylor Goodman, today launched a website, Blockwatcher.com, listing homes for sale that have no registered sex offenders living within a half-mile radius. He says only 20% of available homes will qualify.

"These guys are just everywhere," Goodman says of roughly 567,000 sex offenders registered nationwide. The site carries disclaimers, however, noting that thousands of offenders haven't registered and thousands more have listed phony addresses.

The new private efforts complement an accelerating push by states and cities to bar sex offenders from living near schools or playgrounds. Hundreds of cities, including more than a dozen this year alone, have approved such ordinances, some of which block out entire downtowns.

At least 15 states have enacted such laws, including three (Nebraska, Mississippi and South Dakota) that did so for the first time this year and two (Georgia and Indiana) that expanded prior restrictions. Others, including California and Pennsylvania, restrict offenders on parole or probation. The restrictions have increased despite U.S. data showing sex crimes against children have decreased in the last decade.

"It's grown out of public demand" fueled by media coverage of high-profile cases, says Blake Harrison, analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Nobody wants them (sex offenders) in their backyard."

Several restrictions on where sex offenders can live, including Iowa's statewide law, have been upheld in court.

Banning sex offenders from private property does not violate the Fair Housing Act, but restrictions by states and cities are worrisome, says Brett Shirk of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas & Western Missouri.

"Everybody wants a sex offender-free neighborhood, but it is an unfortunate fact, they are going to live somewhere," he says. "What's going to happen is they're going to go underground and create a nightmare for law enforcement."

The restrictions may give a false sense of security, because they do not bar offenders from traveling into a prohibited area, says Carolyn Atwell-Davis of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The private group prefers better tracking of offenders, workplace restrictions and increased penalties for non-registration.

The bans focus on strangers, but parents need to understand that 80% of offenders know their victims, says John La Fond, author of Preventing Sexual
Violence: How Society Should Cope With Sex Offenders.

He says as more communities impose restrictions, neighboring ones will pass copycat laws for their own protection.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-15-sex-offenders-barred_x.htm

Posted 6/15/2006

Posted by lois at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

CA: Pro & Con: Female Offender Reform Master Plan

Friday, June 16, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
CON/On Solutions for Prison Overcrowding/More prisons or better
prisons?/Sent home should mean sent home
Cassandra Shaylor, Ari Wohlfeiler

Statewide polls have reaffirmed that the percentage of Californians who want more prison construction is in the single digits. So why are multiple prison expansion packages making their way through the Legislature? Perhaps the most controversial of these is the Female Offender Reform Master Plan. Carried as AB2066 by Assembly members Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, and Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, this plan, in fact, would guarantee renewed prison construction, exactly the opposite of what most Californians want.

With this plan, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has found a new way to deepen the crisis of an overcrowded, over-budgeted and revolving-door prison system, proving again that the state lacks the political will to shrink our huge and troubled prison system.
The department's Gender Responsive Strategies Commission recently identified at least 4,500 people it wants to release from the state's four women's prisons. Under its master plan, California would build or contract for an additional 4,500 beds in mini-prisons for these female inmates, calling it "release" and "community-based treatment." But that rhetoric ignores the fact that if 4,500 people don't belong in prison, then they belong at home.
The master plan is nothing new. It's not about reducing our prison population, which now stands at 170,000, or investing in social services that would help keep Californians out of prison. Under the guise of "gender responsiveness," the commissioners are seeking new prisons across the state to hold 4,500 people, which would free up an existing women's prison to hold thousands more male inmates. As is, this plan could increase the number of prisoners in California by thousands. History shows what prison expansion has done to California for almost 30 years: empty the taxpayers' pockets, break up families and starve essential services by diverting tax funds into guards' salaries, health-care costs and prison construction debt.
The department isn't providing services for drug treatment, vocational training, education, health care or the litany of other services required by women of color and poor people of all races in California's women's prisons, and there's no blueprint to do so under this plan. The governor reduced the department's programming and education budget for the 2006-2007 fiscal year because the department can't provide those services, even when the money is available.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fails to find alternatives to incarceration, and isn't seeking to close prisons and shift funds toward community-based re-entry programs, independent from the department. The idea that any prisoner would be better off in a privatized prison belies the evidence: private prisons are as violent as public lockups; they cost more to operate; and they create another layer of bureaucracy between prisoners and the decision-makers who control their access to health care, family, lawyers and programs.
We have a responsibility to tease out the good intentions this plan proclaims from the bad news it contains. As state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, quipped last month when the governor unveiled the budget revise, "We are not going to build ourselves out of this problem ... New prisons are not going to cut it."
What about shifting money out of the corrections department and into social-service agencies? We should send the 4,500 prisoners home to their communities with the resources earmarked for construction and operation of new prisons. That way, former prisoners can reunite with their families and seek education, job training, housing, employment and drug treatment as necessary.
Positive change often comes in small steps. But it won't come at all if
we
settle for steps backward. This plan distorts the meaning of "release." It would shift California's formidable prison construction machine into high speed, a path California should not go down again.
Assembly members Goldberg and Lieber both know better than to let the corrections department expand further. We need to take a closer look at AB2066 and the recommendations of the Gender Responsive Strategies Commission. Imprisoning people in new facilities and investing billions more in prison construction and operation is not a release plan. Making prison the place where the state provides education, drug treatment and employment assistance to the poor is no way to make Californians safer.

Cassandra Shaylor is the co-director and Ari Wohlfeiler is the campaign coordinator at Justice Now, a human-rights organization dedicated to stopping violence against women and ending imprisonment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006
/06/16/EDGGAJF1R21.DTL

PRO
On Solutions for Prison Overcrowding
No more prisons or better prisons?
New small facilities offer a better future for female inmates
- Sally Lieber, Barbara Bloom
Friday, June 16, 2006
There is a historic effort under way today to provide women serving time in California's prisons with greater opportunities for success in life after their release, with a net benefit to these women, their families and society. If the political will is there, we have the chance to reduce severe overcrowding in our state prisons and break the intergenerational cycle of incarceration.
The plan is to move 4,500 low-level female offenders out of the large, centralized institutions where they are housed and into much smaller secure facilities in the communities they come from. Studies demonstrate that placing inmates in community-based programs dramatically reduces recidivism.

These women inmates are serving time for nonserious, nonviolent offenses -- with the overwhelming majority serving time for drug offenses or property crimes arising from drug use. They do not need high-security measures that cost taxpayers an average of $36,200 per inmate, per year. They do need meaningful services, including substance-abuse treatment and education, vocational training, mental-health treatment and health care -- all of which can be provided in the community at a higher quality and lower cost than in a state prison.
With all four of California's women's institutions situated in just two counties, thousands of women are inevitably housed far from their families and potential support networks. To be successfully rehabilitated, these inmates need contact with their families, with culturally-appropriate services and with potential employers -- in the communities they will return to after serving their time.
The value of placing women offenders closer to their families cannot be overstated. Seventy percent of women serving time in our state prisons are mothers of children 18 or younger. Programs already in place in our state -- though on a much smaller scale -- show an enormous rehabilitative benefit from family interaction. Women in community programs that provide comprehensive services and give them frequent contact with their children in a healthy environment re-offend at a rate of just 14 percent -- a sharp contrast with the typical rate of 46 percent.
The impact on children is no less dramatic. The data show that separation from mothers puts children at a higher risk of ending up in prison themselves. The chance to break the intergenerational cycle of incarceration is reason enough to move these women from their remote locations closer to the people who will motivate and support them.
For these reasons, we have introduced legislation that will create gender-specific strategies to address the needs of female inmates and, where appropriate, provide for the transition of women from large-scale prisons into smaller community facilities.
There is strong bipartisan support for these changes and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has included funding to accomplish this in his proposed budget for next year.
Critics of these plans argue that too many people are already in prison as a result of mandatory-sentencing laws and technical parole violations and that our state's focus should be on rolling back increases in sentencing. These trends have indeed put many more women behind bars than belong there, and we must address that.
However, our plan won't expand prisons; it will actually reduce the number of women in prison by decreasing the rate of recidivism. Shifting nonviolent, low-level female offenders from prisons to community facilities and commonsense sentencing reform are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

We cannot turn our backs on the opportunity to improve the lives of women inmates and their families, just because it doesn't go quite as far as some would like it to.
We should move forward together and reap the many benefits that this new approach to rehabilitation will provide.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, is assistant speaker pro tempore of the State Assembly and the author of AB2066. Barbara Bloom is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Sonoma State University. She is a past president of the Western Society of Criminology and a recipient of the 2003 WSC Fellow Award for important contributions to the field of criminology.
Page B - 11
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/16
/EDGDOILMNR1.DTL&type=printable

Posted by lois at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

Prison Tycoon: build and run your very own prison

ZNet | Repression

Prisons For Fun And Profit
by Bob Libal; June 17, 2006
“PRISON TYCOON /allows you to build and run your very own correctional facility from the comfort of your own home, on your PC./ / / / Control the layout of your prison buildings and the arrangement of the rooms and facilities within them. Place dormitories and cellblocks, mess halls and gymnasiums, but don't expect to be able to build death row right away.”/

So starts the game description of /Prison Tycoon/, the newest release in the Tycoon PC game series. The series includes more benign-sounding titles such as /Rollercoaster Tycoon/ which puts you in charge of an amusement park and /Coffee Tycoon/ which has you oversee a coffee franchise.

/Prison Tycoon/ would be just another in a string of relatively offensive video games (think Grand Theft Auto) if it were only a farfetched fiction as it seems. Instead, /Prison Tycoon/ is a reflection of one of the fastest growing and most nefarious legal industries in the United States.

As the game promises, “In /Prison Tycoon/, you're at the ground floor of the country's largest growth industry.” And that’s no lie. Real prison tycoons exist, and they’re getting rich heading companies called Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE:CXW) and The GEO Group (NYSE:GGI). (Yes, the NYSE logos mean you can buy and trade in prisons on the stock exchange.)

George Zoley, the CEO of GEO Group, makes over $3.6 million a year in total compensation. CCA’s John Ferguson draws in just under $3 million in his role overseeing the country’s fifth largest prison system and over 62,000 prisoners. There companies are the biggest in the billion-dollar-a-year industry, and one that is growing every year.

Unfortunately, what’s good for prison tycoons isn’t nearly as good for the rest of us. Last summer the federal government announced that there were nearly 2.2 million people in prisons in the United States – nearly twice as many as were imprisoned just ten years ago. In fact, while the United States has roughly 8% of the world’s total population, it incarcerates nearly 25% of the world’s imprisoned population. The “land of the free” incarcerates more of its citizens (in sheer numbers and per capita) than any other nation.

Nationwide, the bulk of the newly incarcerated are young people of color who have been convicted of non-violent drug offenses and immigrants who are being incarcerated under harsh new “counterterrorism” laws and policies.

The Presbyterian Church, United Methodists, and all 48 Southern Catholic Bishops have criticized for-profit prisons as having a vested interest in incarceration. Beyond the moral dilemma posed by incarceration for profit, it is increasingly clear that for-profit prison operators produce more volatile and violent prisons.

Criminologist James Austin found that privatized prisons have 49% to 65% higher rates of violence both against inmates and guards. These effects largely come from cost-saving measures implemented to ensure a profit is made such as cutting the number and pay of guards and trimming programs for education and rehabilitation.

Private prisons are banking on a crackdown on undocumented workers to fill prison beds. In Texas alone, there are over 7,500 recently built or proposed private prison beds solely designed to house federal detainees – almost all of whom are immigrants held on non-violent charges.

Last month, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Corrections Corporation of America had received a contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to incarcerate detained immigrant families awaiting deportation in it’s Don T. Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas. The Hutto facility will be only the second such “family prison” in the country.

But, imprisoned immigrant families probably won’t be featured in /Prison Tycoon/. Instead, you’ll be treated with the other, less human side of the prison system in the U.S. – making big bucks operating prisons.

/Bob Libal is the co-coordinator of Grassroots Leadership’s Not With Our Money! campaign in //Austin//, //Texas//. He can be reached at bob@notwithourmoney.org . /

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

Pentagon Study Describes Abuse by Units in Iraq

June 17, 2006

By ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times

WASHINGTON, June 16 — United States Special Operations troops employed a set of harsh, unauthorized interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq during a four-month period in early 2004, long after approval for their use was rescinded, according to a Pentagon inquiry released Friday.

The investigation is the last of 12 major inquiries to be made public that focus on allegations of detainee abuse by American personnel in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the first to focus on Special Operations troops, who operate with more latitude than other military units. It detailed harsh treatment that continued at isolated bases even after the abuses first surfaced at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Special Operations interrogators gave some detainees only bread or crackers and water if they did not cooperate, according to the investigation, by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica of the Army. One prisoner was fed only bread and water for 17 days. Other detainees were locked for as many as seven days in cells so small that they could neither stand nor lie down, while interrogators played loud music that disrupted their sleep.

The inquiry also determined that some detainees were stripped naked, drenched with water and then interrogated in air-conditioned rooms or in cold weather. General Formica said it appeared that members of the Navy Seals had used that technique in the case of one detainee who died after questioning in Mosul in 2004, but he reported that he had no specific allegations that the use of the technique was related to that death.

Despite the findings, General Formica recommended that none of the service members be disciplined, saying what they did was wrong but not deliberate abuse. He faulted "inadequate policy guidance" rather than "personal failure" for the mistreatment, and cited the dangerous environment in which Special Operations forces carried out their missions. He said that, from his observations, none of the detainees seemed to be the worse for wear because of the treatment. "Seventeen days with only bread and water is too long," the general concluded. But he added that the military command's surgeon general had advised him "it would take longer than 17 days to develop a protein or vitamin deficiency from a diet of bread and water."

General Formica's review focused on the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian Peninsula, which included soldiers from the Army's Fifth and 10th Special Forces Groups. It did not cover the actions in Iraq of more highly classified Special Operations units, including Delta Force and some Navy Seal groups, or other specialized units including Task Force 6-26, a subject of extensive allegations of misconduct that were reported by The New York Times in March. General Formica recommended eight changes, including more training for Special Operations interrogators, minimum standards for detention conditions and new policies regulating the use of indigenous forces who worked with those in Special Operations. Pentagon officials said Friday that all eight had been carried out.

General Formica said that the Special Operations forces mistakenly used 5 of 12 interrogation techniques between February and May 2004 that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top commander in Iraq, had withdrawn in October 2003 because military lawyers had found they were too harsh. "It is regrettable," General Formica said in an interview at the Pentagon with three reporters on Friday. "But they were erroneously given the wrong policy."

General Sanchez had approved the harsher techniques, like blaring loud music and using military dogs to frighten Iraqi captives, in September 2003. But confusion over use of the techniques became widespread, even after they were barred a month later except when approved by General Sanchez. Many of the American captors at the Abu Ghraib prison have also said they believed the techniques were authorized, even without General Sanchez's approval.

The report made public on Friday was a heavily redacted copy of the 75-page classified document that General Formica completed 20 months ago. Members of Congress were briefed on it about a year ago. The Pentagon had refused requests since then from The New York Times and other news organizations to provide a declassified version of it. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had promised that declassified versions of all major inquiries would be made public, but this one was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Senior Defense Department officials said General Formica's review was not intended to be a wide-ranging evaluation of Special Operations' detention and interrogation practices. General Formica conducted interviews regarding three separate episodes of alleged detainee abuse involving Special Operations, some of them referred from another Army inquiry by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. General Formica also reviewed the findings of seven other instances that had been previously investigated.

General Formica said there was no physical or medical evidence to substantiate allegations by several members of an Iraqi family that American interrogators at Abu Ghraib in December 2003 had beaten and slapped them, and then sodomized them with a water bottle. In addition, he said, the family members were known to be insurgent sympathizers. In a second case, General Formica said two Iraqi detainees at a safe house in April 2004 were fed only bread and water for 13 and 17 days, respectively. But he said allegations that a former Iraqi policeman and an Iraqi-born Lebanese interpreter, both working with the Americans, had beaten and kicked them were unsubstantiated.

General Formica found that in the third case at a Special Operations outpost, near Tikrit, in April and May 2004, three detainees were held in cells 4 feet high, 4 feet long and 20 inches wide, except to use the bathroom, to be washed or to be interrogated. He concluded that two days in such confinement "would be reasonable; five to seven days would not." Two of the detainees were held for seven days; one for two days, General Formica concluded.

Of the seven other previously investigated cases, General Formica concluded that allegations in two were unfounded and that one did not involve Special Operations, the report said. In two other cases, investigations were still pending when General Formica completed his report in November 2004. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, said Friday that those inquiries had been completed, but that he would not comment on their findings.

General Formica said in the interview on Friday that he believed that the Special Operations troops thought they were following authorized procedures, and corrected them after he pointed out their error. "I didn't find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse," he said.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2006

NY Times: "The Don't Bother to Knock Rule"

June 16, 2006
Editorial
The Don't-Bother-to-Knock Rule

The Supreme Court yesterday substantially diminished Americans' right to privacy in their own homes. The rule that police officers must "knock and announce" themselves before entering a private home is a venerable one, and a well-established part of Fourth Amendment law. But President Bush's two recent Supreme Court appointments have now provided the votes for a 5-4 decision eviscerating this rule.

This decision should offend anyone, liberal or conservative, who worries about the privacy rights of ordinary Americans.

The case arose out of the search of Booker T. Hudson's home in Detroit in 1998. The police announced themselves but did not knock, and after waiting a few seconds, entered his home and seized drugs and a gun. There is no dispute that the search violated the knock-and-announce rule.

The question in the case was what to do about it. Mr. Hudson wanted the evidence excluded at his trial. That is precisely what should have happened. Since 1914, the Supreme Court has held that, except in rare circumstances, evidence seized in violation of the Constitution cannot be used. The exclusionary rule has sometimes been criticized for allowing criminals to go free just because of police error. But as the court itself recognized in that 1914 case, if this type of evidence were admissible, the Fourth Amendment "might as well be stricken."

The court ruled yesterday that the evidence could be used against Mr. Hudson. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, argued that even if police officers did not have to fear losing a case if they disobeyed the knock-and-announce rule, the subjects of improper searches could still bring civil lawsuits to challenge them. But as the dissenters rightly pointed out, there is little chance that such suits would keep the police in line. Justice Scalia was also far too dismissive of the important privacy rights at stake, which he essentially reduced to "the right not to be intruded upon in one's nightclothes." Justice Stephen Breyer noted in dissent that even a century ago the court recognized that when the police barge into a house unannounced, it is an assault on "the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life."

If Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had stayed on the court, this case might well have come out the other way. For those who worry that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will take the court in a radically conservative direction, it is sobering how easily the majority tossed aside a principle that traces back to 13th-century Britain, and a legal doctrine that dates to 1914, to let the government invade people's homes.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

Judge Rules that U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely

Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely

By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times
June 15, 2006

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.

The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.

This is the first time a federal judge has addressed the issue of discrimination in the treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks and held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported. The roundups drew intense criticism, not only from immigrant rights advocates, but also from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations.

Lawyers in the suit, who vowed to appeal yesterday's decision, said parts of the ruling could potentially be used far more broadly, to detain any noncitizen in the United States for any reason.

"This decision is a green light to racial profiling and prolonged detention of noncitizens at the whim of the president," said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the detainees. "The decision is profoundly disturbing because it legitimizes the fact that the Bush administration rounded up and imprisoned our clients because of their religion and race."

A spokesman for the government, Charles S. Miller, would not respond to those assertions, saying only that the Justice Department was "very pleased that the court upheld the decision to detain plaintiffs, all of whom were illegal aliens, until national security investigations were completed and plaintiffs were removed from the country." He said the government was reviewing the rest of the opinion to decide whether to appeal the rulings Judge Gleeson made to allow the plaintiffs' other claims to proceed.

In his 99-page ruling, Judge Gleeson rejected the government's argument that the events of Sept. 11 justified extraordinary measures to confine noncitizens who fell under suspicion, or that the attacks heightened top officials' need for government immunity to combat future threats to national security without fear of being sued.

But his interpretation of immigration law gave the government broad discretion to enforce the law selectively against noncitizens of a particular religion, race or national origin, and to detain them indefinitely, for any unspecified reason, after an immigration judge had ordered them removed from the country.

"The executive is free to single out 'nationals of a particular country' and focus enforcement efforts on them," the judge wrote. "This is, of course, an extraordinarily rough and overbroad sort of distinction of which, if applied to citizens, our courts would be highly suspicious."

Yet, he continued, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress and the executive branch, in exercising their broad power over naturalization and immigration, can make rules that would be unacceptable if applied to American citizens.

In the judge's view, the government has the right to detain people indefinitely as long as their eventual removal is "reasonably foreseeable." If that interpretation stands, it could apply to millions of noncitizens, including tourists removable for visa violations, said Gerald L. Neuman, a law professor at Columbia who is an expert in human rights law and was not involved in the case.

"It doesn't seem to limit the motives the government has to have in being slow in removing them; it could even be just basic neglect," he said.

But Professor Neuman cautioned that "it's only a district judge's decision."

"The decision encourages the government to behave this way without fear of financial liability," he said, but it does not carry the weight of a ruling by an appellate court. "This interpretation is attackable even among other judges in Brooklyn, let alone Lower Manhattan."

But David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and a co-counsel in the lawsuit, said the ruling was the only one of its kind and made New York "an equal protection-free zone" because the government can detain immigrants wherever it chooses.

"What this decision says is the next time there is a terror attack, the government is free to round up every Muslim immigrant in the U.S., based solely on their ethnic and religious identity, and hold them on immigration pretexts for as long as it desires," he said. "We saw after 9/11 what the government did in an era of uncertainty about how far it can go. Judge Gleeson has essentially given them a green light to go much further."

The class-action lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, is the first and largest of several brought by immigrants held after 9/11. The named plaintiffs in the case include former detainees who came back to the United States this year for depositions and were required to be in the custody of federal marshals at all times. Among them were Hany Ibrahim, a deli worker, and his brother, Yasser, a Web designer, Egyptian Muslims who said then that putting themselves back in the hands of the government they were suing was an act of faith in America.

Yesterday, Yasser Ibrahim, who had lived in New York for three or four years on an expired tourist visa and was delivered in shackles to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn soon after Sept. 11, said through his lawyers that he was shocked and very disappointed by the judge's decision.

"I can't believe the court would allow this to happen," he said." I am frightened for other Muslims in the United States, who could face the same discrimination and abuse that I suffered."

Posted by lois at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

FL: GEO Signs Interim Contract for Operation of Civil Commitment Center

The GEO Group, Inc. Signs Interim Contract For the Management and
Operation of the 545-bed Florida Civil Commitment Center
GEO to Assume Management of the Florida Civil Commitment Center on July 1, 2006

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=91331&p=irol-
newsArticle&ID=871936&highlight=
BOCA RATON, Fla., June 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The GEO Group, Inc.
(NYSE: GGI) ("GEO") announced today that it has signed an interim
agreement with the State of Florida, Department of Children and Families (the "Department") for the management and operation of the 545-bed Florida Civil Commitment Center (the "Center") located in Arcadia, Florida. Under the terms of the interim agreement, GEO will assume management of the existing Center on July 1, 2006. The interim agreement is expected to generate approximately $7.7 million in operating revenues during 2006.

As previously announced on June 6, 2006, GEO received a notice of intent to award a contract from the Department for the management of the Center under an operations contract which would have an initial term of five years and three five-year renewal option periods and which is scheduled to begin on January 1, 2007. The operations contract is expected to generate approximately $20.0 million in annual operating revenues during the first year. In addition, under the contract award, GEO would begin construction of a new 660-bed replacement facility in Arcadia, Florida. The sale of
tax-exempt, government- sponsored bonds would finance the construction of the replacement facility, which would be leased to and ultimately owned by the State of Florida. GEO would assume operation of the new facility upon its completion in 2008 under the terms of the operations contract. The interim contract is not related to the previously announced contract award.

George C. Zoley, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of GEO,said: "We are thankful for the opportunity to provide interim management services at the Florida Civil Commitment Center beginning on July 1, 2006.We appreciate the confidence placed in our Company by the Florida Department of Children and Families, and we look forward to the signing of a long term contract for the management of the Florida Civil Commitment Center and the development of a new state-of-the-art replacement facility. "

The GEO Group, Inc. ("GEO") is a world leader in the delivery of
correctional, detention, and residential treatment services to federal, state, and local government agencies around the globe. GEO offers a turnkey approach that includes design, construction, financing, and operations. GEO represents government clients in the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom. GEO's worldwide operations include 62 correctional and residential treatment facilities with a total design capacity of approximately 50,500 beds.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and future performance of GEO that involve risks and uncertainties that could materially affect actual results, including statements regarding estimated earnings, revenues and costs and our ability to maintain growth and strengthen contract relationships. Factors that could cause actual results to vary from current expectations and forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to:
(1) GEO's ability to successfully pursue further growth and continue to enhance shareholder value; (2) GEO's ability to access the capital markets in the future on satisfactory terms or at all; (3) risks associated with GEO's ability to control operating costs associated with contract start-ups; (4) GEO's ability to timely open facilities as planned, profitably manage such facilities and successfully integrate such facilities into GEO's operations without substantial costs; (5) GEO's
ability to win management contracts for which it has submitted proposals and to retain existing management contracts; (6) GEO's ability to obtain future financing on acceptable terms; (7) GEO's ability to sustain company- wide occupancy rates at its facilities; and (8) other factors contained in GEO's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K reports.

SOURCE The GEO Group, Inc.
06/13/2006

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

MA: 1,600 Illegally Detailed at Ludlow Prison Each Year

1,600 Inmates Illegally Detained
At Ludlow Prison Each Year

By Michael James
Investigative Reporter
Springfield MA
June 2006

Each year approximately 1,600 inmates at the Hampden County Correctional Center (HCCC) in Ludlow Massachusetts are detained illegally beyond their proper date of release from incarceration. This illegal and unnecessary detention of inmates is the result of a prison administrator's deliberate refusal to credit to inmates the reduction in their sentence to which they were entitled by law.

Inmates at the HCCC may earn a small reduction in their sentence by participating appropriately in education, treatment or work programs. For each education, treatment or work program in which an inmate participates, he or she can earn a reduction in his sentence of 2.5 days each month. This reduction is called 129D earned-good-time. Thus, an inmate who participates appropriately in an education, treatment or work program can earn up to 7.5 days of earned-good time for each month in which he
appropriately participates in school, work or treatment programs. This
practice for 129D earned-good-time program is authorized law to provide inmates with an important incentive to participate in rehabilitative
programs: they can obtain their liberty more quickly. The practice of
awarding earned-good-time also benefits the prison administrators and the public at large by reducing the number of persons in prison and by reducing
the associated costs incarceration. Thus, this program is beneficial to
all parties.

Original 2003 Policy

When the Violence Prevention Program was created at the Hampden County Correctional Center in August 2003, inmates participated in six classes over a two-month period. Thus, inmates who participated appropriately in these classes would be awarded 2.5 days of earned-good-time for each of the two months of appropriate participation in this program (or total of five days
of earned-good-time for the two months). During 2003 and much of 2004,
approximately 1,200 inmates received 2.5 days earned-good-time off of their sentence for each month of appropriate participation in the Violence Prevention Program.

Arbitrary Change In Policy

However, in 2004 Guy Prairie was appointed to be the new supervisor
of the Violence Prevention Program at the HCCC. Almost immediately he
ordered his reluctant staff to award to inmates only half of the 129 earned-good-time that had been awarded since the beginning of the Violence Prevention Program. Mr. Prairie demanded that his staff provide no more than 2.5 days of earned good and only to those inmates who actually completed the program in its entirety. Mr. Guy Prairie made this change in policy and practice arbitrarily and without direct reference to the specific law for 129D earned-good-time awards. There is no evidence that he consulted with the HCCC superintendents about this change in policy before its implementation. Further, there is no documentation that Guy Prairie ever received written authorization from the superintendents for implementation of this new policy for the reduction of earned-good-time awards.

Cruel Consequences To Inmates and Families

This reduction in the total amount of earned-good-time has had serious consequences for inmates, for their families, for prison administrators and for taxpayers. Since early 2004, the reduction in earned-good-time awards has affected approximately 1,600 inmates each year. Collectively, these 1,600 inmates lost 3,195 days of earned-good-time that they would have received had they participated in the same program in 2003
and early 2004. The estimated cost of incarcerating each inmate for one
day is 70 dollars. Thus, this new reduction in earn-good-time awards has cost the taxpayers approximately 223,650 each year in additional expense of
incarceration.

Further, this reduction in earned-good-time has cost the families of these inmates to remain separated longer and needlessly from their loved
ones. Employers must wait longer for their talented employees to be
released from prison and return to gainful and productive employment. Naturally the inmates were disappointed in this reduction in 129D earned-good-time awards but they were powerless to prevent it.

Unfair Situations

This reduction in earned-time-awards creates situations that are obviously unfair. There have many situations in which inmates participated appropriately to the best of their ability in most of the Violence Prevention Program classes. However, many of these inmates are obstructed from completing the Violence Prevention Program (and thus are denied their 129D earned-good-time award) due to circumstances beyond their control. Many inmates have been transferred to a minimum-security facility such as the Pre-Release Center before they could complete the sixth and final class of the Violence Prevention Program. Other inmates missed out on the final classes of the Violence Prevention Program when they suddenly were required to work in the kitchen or to perform some other work obligation at times that conflict with their schedule for the Violence Prevention Program.

Cold Hearted Intentions

One of the Violence Prevention Program staff persons (who has asked to remain anonymous in this report to ensure his job security) reported: "Mr. Prairie simply wanted to get tough with inmates by denying them earned-good-time awards. He wanted to show his supervisors, Basil Tsagaris and Thomas Rovelli, that he was anti-inmate in his philosophical orientation as a prison administrator. Guy Prairie did not want to be perceived by his supervisors as an 'inmate lover' who gives out earned-good-time awards with excessive generosity."

Illegal Policy

This reduction in earned-good-time awards is illegal because it is not consistent with the word or intent of the law by which earned-good-time awards had been authorized. There is no provision in the law that authorizes a prison administrator arbitrarily to reduce earned-good-time awards simply so that he could ingratiate himself in the good favor of his supervisors who want to get tough with inmates.

Hypocrisy Revealed

The reduction in earned-good-time awards represents more than an illegal and inappropriate abuse of power by a prison administrator. This reduction reveals the hypocrisy of prison administrators who claim publicly that they want to reduce both the number of inmates in prison and the associated costs of incarceration. By this illegal reduction of 129D earned-good-time awards, Guy Prairie and the prison administrators demonstrate that in truth they are eager to keep prison costs high and to keep inmates in prison and apart from their families as long as possible. In doing so, they ensure the growth of the prison industry and their own job security, at the expense to taxpayers and inmates alike.

Posted by lois at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

Death Penalty Activists Focus Too Much on Innocence

June 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor, New York Times
The End of Innocence
By DAVID R. DOW

Houston

EARLIER this week, the Supreme Court decided, in a 5-to-3 opinion, that a Tennessee prison inmate named Paul G. House was entitled to prove he did not commit the crime for which he was sent to death row. On the same day, I received a letter from Centurion Ministries, which argued for more than a decade that a Virginia man named Roger K. Coleman had not committed the crime for which he was executed in 1992. The letter admitted that Centurion had been wrong.

These cases have something in common: they pivot on the question of innocence. For too many years now, though, death penalty opponents have seized on the nightmare of executing an innocent man as a tactic to erode support for capital punishment in America.

Innocence is a distraction. Most people on death row are like Roger Coleman, not Paul House, which is to say that most people on death row did what the state said they did. But that does not mean they should be executed.

Focusing on innocence forces abolitionists into silence when a cause célèbre turns out to be guilty. When the DNA testing ordered by Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia proved that Mr. Coleman was a murderer, and a good liar besides, abolitionists wrung their hands about how to respond. They seemed sorry that he had been guilty after all.

I, too, am a death penalty opponent, but I was happy to learn that Mr. Coleman was a murderer. I was happy that the prosecutors would not have to live with the guilt of knowing that they sent an innocent man to death row.

The day before the DNA results were reported in the Coleman case last January, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Paul House case. In Mr. House's case, the DNA testing has already been done, and it tends to suggest that he is indeed innocent. During oral arguments, however, Justice Antonin Scalia (who was one of the three dissenters when the court decided the case this week) argued that disputes over factual findings in a case can't be endlessly rehashed.

He is certainly right about that. As Justice Scalia has said elsewhere, of course we are going to execute innocent people if we have the death penalty. The criminal justice system is made up of human beings, and fallible beings make mistakes.

But perhaps that is a price society is willing to pay. If the death penalty is worth having, it might still be worth having, despite the occasional loss of innocent life. Paul House might be innocent, but how long will we keep death row inmates alive, waiting to find out?

In Mr. Coleman's case, the Virginia Supreme Court did not address the arguments that he had raised in his appeal, because his lawyer had filed the papers one day late. When the case got to the United States Supreme Court, the court, in an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, began its analysis by saying, "This is a case about federalism."

The case did have something to do with the relationship between the Supreme Court and Virginia's highest court. But is that what the case was really about? Mr. Coleman was saying that his trial lawyer had been incompetent, and that the Virginia courts were refusing to address the question of whether his trial lawyer had been incompetent because his appellate lawyer had filed the appeal a day late.

Federalism might be a plot line in this story, but it hardly seems to be the major issue. When the Supreme Court brushed aside Mr. Coleman's appeal 15 years ago, the justices said that a death row inmate cannot complain when his lawyer misses a filing deadline, because the lawyer is the agent of the client, and clients are responsible for the failings of their agents.

As a result of this syllogism, my client Johnny Joe Martinez was executed in 2002, because his court-appointed appellate lawyer neglected to file a proper appeal — a mistake he freely admitted to, attributing it to inexperience. When the Martinez case reached the federal courts, those courts, invoking the Coleman decision, said too bad for Mr. Martinez; the mistake of his lawyer was attributable to him. I could go on with other examples.

Of the 50 or so death row inmates I have represented, I have serious doubts about the guilt of three or four — that is, 6 to 8 percent, about what scholars estimate to be the percentage of innocent people on death row.

In 98 percent of the cases, however, in 49 out of 50, there were appalling violations of legal principles: prosecutors struck jurors based on their race; the police hid or manufactured evidence; prosecutors reached secret deals with jailhouse snitches; lab analysts misrepresented forensic results. Most of the cases do not involve bogus claims of innocence, like the one that swirled for 15 years around Roger Coleman, but the government corruption that the federal courts overlook so that the states can go about their business of executing.

The House case will make it hard for abolitionists to shift their focus from the question of innocence, but that is what they ought to do. They ought to focus on the far more pervasive problem: that the machinery of death in America is lawless, and in carrying out death sentences, we violate our legal principles nearly all of the time.

David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston, is the author of "Executed on a Technicality: Lethal Injustice on America's Death Row."

Posted by lois at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

Death Penalty Abolishionists are Too Focused on issues of Innocence

June 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor, NY Times
The End of Innocence
By DAVID R. DOW

Houston

EARLIER this week, the Supreme Court decided, in a 5-to-3 opinion, that a Tennessee prison inmate named Paul G. House was entitled to prove he did not commit the crime for which he was sent to death row. On the same day, I received a letter from Centurion Ministries, which argued for more than a decade that a Virginia man named Roger K. Coleman had not committed the crime for which he was executed in 1992. The letter admitted that Centurion had been wrong.

These cases have something in common: they pivot on the question of innocence. For too many years now, though, death penalty opponents have seized on the nightmare of executing an innocent man as a tactic to erode support for capital punishment in America.

Innocence is a distraction. Most people on death row are like Roger Coleman, not Paul House, which is to say that most people on death row did what the state said they did. But that does not mean they should be executed.

Focusing on innocence forces abolitionists into silence when a cause célèbre turns out to be guilty. When the DNA testing ordered by Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia proved that Mr. Coleman was a murderer, and a good liar besides, abolitionists wrung their hands about how to respond. They seemed sorry that he had been guilty after all.

I, too, am a death penalty opponent, but I was happy to learn that Mr. Coleman was a murderer. I was happy that the prosecutors would not have to live with the guilt of knowing that they sent an innocent man to death row.

The day before the DNA results were reported in the Coleman case last January, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Paul House case. In Mr. House's case, the DNA testing has already been done, and it tends to suggest that he is indeed innocent. During oral arguments, however, Justice Antonin Scalia (who was one of the three dissenters when the court decided the case this week) argued that disputes over factual findings in a case can't be endlessly rehashed.

He is certainly right about that. As Justice Scalia has said elsewhere, of course we are going to execute innocent people if we have the death penalty. The criminal justice system is made up of human beings, and fallible beings make mistakes.

But perhaps that is a price society is willing to pay. If the death penalty is worth having, it might still be worth having, despite the occasional loss of innocent life. Paul House might be innocent, but how long will we keep death row inmates alive, waiting to find out?

In Mr. Coleman's case, the Virginia Supreme Court did not address the arguments that he had raised in his appeal, because his lawyer had filed the papers one day late. When the case got to the United States Supreme Court, the court, in an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, began its analysis by saying, "This is a case about federalism."

The case did have something to do with the relationship between the Supreme Court and Virginia's highest court. But is that what the case was really about? Mr. Coleman was saying that his trial lawyer had been incompetent, and that the Virginia courts were refusing to address the question of whether his trial lawyer had been incompetent because his appellate lawyer had filed the appeal a day late.

Federalism might be a plot line in this story, but it hardly seems to be the major issue. When the Supreme Court brushed aside Mr. Coleman's appeal 15 years ago, the justices said that a death row inmate cannot complain when his lawyer misses a filing deadline, because the lawyer is the agent of the client, and clients are responsible for the failings of their agents.

As a result of this syllogism, my client Johnny Joe Martinez was executed in 2002, because his court-appointed appellate lawyer neglected to file a proper appeal — a mistake he freely admitted to, attributing it to inexperience. When the Martinez case reached the federal courts, those courts, invoking the Coleman decision, said too bad for Mr. Martinez; the mistake of his lawyer was attributable to him. I could go on with other examples.

Of the 50 or so death row inmates I have represented, I have serious doubts about the guilt of three or four — that is, 6 to 8 percent, about what scholars estimate to be the percentage of innocent people on death row.

In 98 percent of the cases, however, in 49 out of 50, there were appalling violations of legal principles: prosecutors struck jurors based on their race; the police hid or manufactured evidence; prosecutors reached secret deals with jailhouse snitches; lab analysts misrepresented forensic results. Most of the cases do not involve bogus claims of innocence, like the one that swirled for 15 years around Roger Coleman, but the government corruption that the federal courts overlook so that the states can go about their business of executing.

The House case will make it hard for abolitionists to shift their focus from the question of innocence, but that is what they ought to do. They ought to focus on the far more pervasive problem: that the machinery of death in America is lawless, and in carrying out death sentences, we violate our legal principles nearly all of the time.

David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston, is the author of "Executed on a Technicality: Lethal Injustice on America's Death Row."

Posted by lois at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

Hampden County Jail-MA: Prison housed addicts overburden Jail system

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Sunday, June 04, 2006 Springfield Republican

Prison-housed addicts overburden jail system

Jail Superintendent Jay Ashe has a disturbingly cavalier attitude about medical care in his jail, where there are "huge" issues but "no one has any idea, [and] no one wants to know." ("Inmate's death puts detox in spotlight," The Republican May 22.)

Inmates with serious health issues have poor treatment options in jail, and there's no way they're going to improve if jail administrators just have their hands over their eyes. Lawyer Shawn Allyn says forcing an addicted inmate to go cold turkey in jail is cruel and unusual punishment, but it's also cruel and unusual to stuff too many sick prisoners into a facility that can't possibly care for them. This problem won't be solved, only repeated, in the new facility Sheriff Michael J. Ashe wants to build.

He wants to add more 56 cells onto his original plans, but the new jail's medical facilities were surely planned with 240 inmates in mind, not 296. Ashe's proposal demonstrates an appalling indifference to the needs of the sick prisoners who will be housed in the Chicopee jail. They are already serving sentences for their crimes; they shouldn't also have to fear the incompetence of the institution responsible for their welfare.

ARLA BERMAN Florence

Posted by lois at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2006

The Next Big Thing-Sentencing Project Report on Meth "epidemic"

The Sentencing Project has released a major new study disproving the popular belief that there exists a growing methamphetamine “epidemic” within the United States.

To the contrary, The Next Big Thing? Methamphetamine in the United States, reveals that methamphetamine is actually one of the rarest of illegal drugs used, with its use declining among youth, stabilizing among adults and demonstrating no increase in first-time users.

The Next Big Thing? documents the sensationalist coverage of “meth” by most media sources that have distorted national trends of the drug’s actual prevalence, growth, dangers and treatment.
Important findings of the report include:

Methamphetamine is among the least commonly used drugs.
Methamphetamine remains a rare occurrence throughout most of the country and is not indicative of a nationwide problem.
Methamphetamine use is declining among our nation's youth.
Drug treatment programs are effective in combating methamphetamine addictions.

The Full Report, complete with recommendations for a more appropriate and evidence-based approach to methamphetamine is available on The Sentencing Project website.

web: http://www.sentencingproject.org

Posted by lois at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)

Natural Disasters in Black and White

How Racial Cues Influenced Public Response to Hurricane Katrina

By Shanto Iyengar and Richard Morin
Thursday, June 8, 2006; 6:05 PM

Natural disasters are typically occasions for political unity rather than controversy. In the aftermath of large-scale death and destruction, Americans reach for their wallets rather than engage in rancorous debates over fixing responsibility and blame.

Hurricane Katrina proved an exception. In the first place, it was quickly apparent that government officials at all levels were utterly unprepared for the scope and severity of the disaster. Thousands of people were left cooped up in the Superdome for days in the most primitive of conditions. The feeble relief efforts provoked a firestorm of criticism leading eventually to the resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown.

Not only did Katrina raise questions about the government's ability to deal with large-scale flooding, it also rekindled longstanding issues concerning the standing of African-Americans. The people who remained left behind in New Orleans to suffer the brunt of the hurricane's consequences were disproportionately black. Post-hurricane publicity, although sympathetic to victims, was criticized as seeming to be racially biased at times. The media publicized instances of looting by blacks while characterizing similar activity on the part of whites as "looking for food." Other reports alleged that gangs of armed blacks had attempted to shoot down rescue helicopters. Quite unexpectedly, Katrina became a metaphor for the state of race relations in America.

We designed this experiment to investigate how racial cues conveyed in news coverage conditioned Americans' response to Katrina. We wanted to explore whether public outrage over the governmental response was mitigated by frank coverage of the demographics of the victims, their perceived inability to help themselves and in some cases their lack of compliance with rescue efforts.

Racial cues can be conveyed within two distinct genres of news coverage. "Thematic" news reports cover events in general terms providing information about background and context. In contrast, "episodic" news personalizes events by focusing on the experiences of specific individuals. We presented participants with two different thematic frames for Katrina; one, completely lacking in race-related references, focused on the scope of the flooding and destruction in different areas of New Orleans. The second added implicit racial cues to the coverage by focusing on the breakdown of law and order in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. We anticipated that people who read the former news report would favor more energetic government relief efforts than those exposed to the report on lawlessness. In fact, this is exactly what we found.

Our manipulation of race was more explicit in the case of episodic news coverage. We presented study participants (those who were not assigned to either of the two thematic reports) with a typical story about a displaced Katrina victim. By varying the victim's ethnicity we could observe whether the audience responded differently to efforts to help the entire class of Katrina victims when they were presented with a specific case of an African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or white victim. Here our results suggest that the race-ethnicity of the person showcased by the news report was relevant: participants responded more generously (in the sense of recommending higher levels of government assistance to hurricane victims) when they encountered a victim who was white.

The study design was as follows. All participants first read one of the three news reports. Some participants were assigned to the two thematic conditions, but the majority encountered an episodic report featuring a particular individual left homeless by the hurricane. We embedded several manipulations of the victim's personal attributes into this episodic report. The victim's name was either Terry Miller or Terry Medina. Terry was either a mother or father of two children, married or single, and said to be either a school custodian, factory worker, or real estate agent. We also inserted a small headshot photo of Terry into the report; depending on the condition, the photograph showed a white, African-American, Hispanic, or Asian person (see Table 1 for an example of the episodic report). We selected a total of 18 different photographs (9 men and 9 women) from a national database all showing people from the shoulders up with a neutral (non-smiling) expression. We then edited each photograph so as to alter the subject's skin complexion. In effect, for each of the 18 selected faces, we created dark and light-skinned versions of our fictional Terry. (Examples of the skin color manipulation are provided in Table 2.) We then had Stanford undergraduates view all 36 photographs and identify the ethnicity of the person. (They were asked to classify each face as white, African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or ambiguous.) A majority of the undergraduates were able to identify each face as either white, African-American, Hispanic, or Asian.

Approximately 2,300 people completed the experiment. As in our past studies, the sample was skewed heavily in the direction of Democrats and liberals -- only 12 percent of the participants identified as Republican. Eighty-six percent were critical of President Bush's handling of Katrina. The sample was also highly educated -- 84% had completed at least a bachelor's degree. These features of the sample are especially important in light of the results we describe below.

Our principal interest was to trace the connections between different forms of news coverage and participants' willingness to support government assistance to hurricane victims. We asked participants to indicate how much money hurricane victims should be awarded in the form of assistance for housing and general living expenses. For each type of assistance, they could check a box that ranged from $200 per month to $1200 per month. Participants also indicated for how long (from a minimum of three to a maximum of eighteen months) victims should receive government assistance. Based on these responses, we created separate measures of the total amount of recommended assistance and the average length of time for which victims could receive this assistance. (The average total amount of assistance was nearly $1,500 and the average length of assistance was twelve months.) These measures reflect some mix of beliefs about the moral obligation of the government to assist victims of natural disasters on the one hand, and beliefs about how deserving were Katrina's victims on the other.

We began by examining the effects of the different genres of Katrina news on the amount and duration of recommended financial assistance for hurricane victims. Our analysis includes participants of all ethnicities although the vast majority (86 percent) were white. We expected that beliefs about the appropriate level of assistance would vary with the presence or absence of racial cues in the news. As shown in Figure 1, the looting news frame had significant effects. Participants were least generous in their recommendations after reading the report on looting. Episodic framing of the disaster -- presenting readers with an actual flesh and blood victim attempting to restart his or her life -- and impersonal descriptions of the scope of destruction both elicited higher levels of recommended assistance. The data does not permit us to assess whether the significant reduction in the amount and length of financial assistance in the looting condition is attributable to racial cues per se, but many previous studies have documented the existence of a close connection between references to violent crime and implicit racial stereotypes. We suspect that exposure to the news story on looting "primed" people to associate hurricane victims with crime, thus making them scale back on what they considered the appropriate level of assistance.

We can test for the effects of racial cues more directly within the various episodic coverage conditions where participants either encountered a white, African-American, Hispanic, or Asian family uprooted by Katrina. The appropriate comparisons (see Figure 2) demonstrate that beliefs about the appropriate amount of assistance did not vary substantially by the race of the person depicted in the news. However, participants recommended different periods of assistance depending on the ethnicity of the victim they encountered. Those who saw the African-American version of Terry Miller (Medina) awarded a significantly reduced period of assistance. (On average, the difference between the African-American condition and the remaining episodic conditions was nearly one month.) Conversely, participants awarded a significantly longer period of assistance after reading about the same Terry Miller, but who now appeared to be white.

We do not mean to suggest that participants were sensitive only to the race of the person featured in the new story. In fact, they were also affected -- and significantly so -- by gender and occupation. Participants recommended considerably higher levels of assistance after reading about Terry Miller the mother and Terry Miller the real estate agent. Occupation is clearly a proxy for earnings potential, and we suspect that people saw fit to award more generous levels of assistance when they encountered a case of a victim with significant lost earnings. Interestingly, neither marital status nor surname made any difference at all to the level of recommended support.

Finally, we turn to the question of skin color. For each of the episodic news conditions we created a lighter and darker complexion image of the person in question. We anticipated that the impact of skin color would be especially influential when the person in question was non-white. That is, we expected that darker skin color would prompt people to consider race only when they believed the person in question to be non-white. In fact, the impact of the skin color manipulation on the level of recommended financial assistance was striking. (We have plotted the difference in the level and length of disaster relief between the dark and light conditions in Figure 3.) When the hurricane victim in the news was a dark-complexion white, the amount of assistance for hurricane victims actually increased. Perhaps well tanned whites are perceived as vigorous, fit and attractive, thus putting our respondents in a more favorable state of mind concerning hurricane victims in general. But for every other ethnic group -- blacks, Hispanics and Asians -- the effect of skin color ran in the opposite direction. When people saw a dark-skinned black, Hispanic, or Asian, they recommended lower levels of financial assistance. This divergence in the effects of skin color for whites and non-whites was statistically significant. A similar, but weaker pattern emerged for duration of assistance. Here the effects of darkened skin color were to increase the duration of assistance in the white and Asian conditions, but to decrease it in the case of the African-American and Hispanic conditions.

These results suggest that news media coverage of natural disasters can shape the audience's response. Framing the disaster in ways that evoke racial stereotypes can make people less supportive of large-scale relief efforts. News reports about flooding evoke one set of apparently positive images in the reader's mind; reports about lawlessness evoke quite another.

The effects of the racial identity of individual hurricane victims on the prescribed level of government assistance for all victims are suggestive of what psychologists call the "automaticity" of stereotyping. People cannot help stereotyping on the basis of ethnicity despite their best efforts to act unbiased and egalitarian. As we noted at the outset, this particular sample of participants consisted of highly educated individuals who located themselves toward the liberal end of the political spectrum. Many of them live in and around the nation's capital, one of the more racially diverse and cosmopolitan areas of America. We suspect that this group would score at or very near the top of most measures of support for civil rights and racial equality. Yet their responses to Katrina were influenced by the mere inclusion of racial cues in news media coverage. The fact that this group awarded lower levels of hurricane assistance after reading about looting or after encountering an African-American family displaced by the hurricane is testimony to the persistent and primordial power of racial imagery in American life.

Shanto Iyengar is Professor of Communication and director of the Political Communication Lab at Stanford University. Richard Morin is director of Washington Post polling and a staff writer.

Posted by lois at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)

White Americans Favor Treatment for Cocaine Users

June 13, 2006
Join Together

First-time cocaine offenders caught with five grams of the drug should go to drug treatment or get probation, not prison, three of four white Americans say.

The Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) reported that the survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago also found that those who called for imprisoning cocaine users were more likely to make moral judgments about users, to blame users for their addictions, to deny that racism is a problem in the U.S., and to believe that blacks are more likely than whites to use cocaine.

The survey of 783 white Americans found that 51 percent favored treatment for cocaine offenders, while 26 percent favored probation. "Scholars have suggested that racism and moralism have influenced American attitudes on addressing drug problems, and we believe that this is the first study to empirically test whether these factors are related," said study co-author Kenneth Rasinski.

Added Rosalyn Lee, the other co-author of the study: "Our study shows that racial attitudes were related to the tendency to blame and make moral judgments about addicts for addiction; and those with a tendency to blame and moralize were more likely to support prison sentences."

The survey results were published in the June 2006 issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy. The study was funded by the nSAPRP, a project of the http://www.rwjf.org Robert Wood Johnson Foundatio

Posted by lois at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

Touring Show: "The Hardest Question Ever"

For additional information on venues and times in your area contact
fedupriseup.net or trust_the_shadow@yahoo.com or the specific venue.

The Indicator Species Present:

“The Hardest Question Ever…”

A puppet show about prisons and violence in our towns and cities. A discussion will follow the performance which is about ½ hour.

The Hardest Question Ever… is mixture of live performers, chain gang inspired music, and shadow puppets set inside a life size prison cell covered with 100’s of letters written by prisoners. We aim to create a dialogue surrounding how society encourages violence and punishes those who are violent. The Hardest Question Ever is a three act play portraying responsibility, forgiveness and the pain of loss. The stories are actual events that are directly related to the creators of the play. There will be a discussion following the performance.

Indicator Species Tour Itinerary:

People United in VA near Harrisonburg June 24th : 274
@Shannon Farm Lane, Afton, VA 22920.

Greensboro, NC Monday June 26

Chapel Hill, NC Tuesday June 27 – Forest Theatre

Richmond, VA - June 28th: (Wed): - Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church 1720 Mechanicsville Turnpike
Richmond, VA 23223 – Show time 6pm

Takoma Park, MD – June 29th -7:30pm
Sangha -- 7014 Westmoreland Avenue -- Takoma Park, MD - 20912.
(adjacent to the Carroll Avenue Gazebo Stage and 2 blocks from the Takoma Metro) ... 301-891-3214

Washington, DC June 30th -7pm St. Stephen's Church - www.saintstephensdc.org/directions.html St. Stephen's is located at 1525 Newton St. NW, at the intersection of 16th and Newton Streets, NW in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights area of Washington, DC.

Baltimore, MD – July 1st – MidAtlantic Book Fair @ Center Stage 700 N. Calvert St. www.redemmas.org/bookfair Sometime between 10 and 5 on that Saturday. Check website.

Columbus, OH – July 5th – @ SkyLab 57 E. Gay St. #5 www.skylabgallery.com

Bloomington, IN – July 6th - @ Monroe County Public
Library 303 E. Kirkwood Ave
As part of X-Fest www.crimespree.org/pixcamp
Show at 6

Urbana, IL – July 7th -

Chicago, IL - July 8th -mercury café 1505 w Chicago ave
7pm $5-10 donation

Cleveland, OH – July 10th

New York City – July 12th and/or 13th

Providence, RI – July 14th - @ Dirt Palace – 14 Olneyville SQ. Providence, RI 02909

Bread and Puppet Vermont – July 16th

Hope, ME – July 18th

Northampton, MA/AmerstJuly 19th – Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst, 121 North Pleasant St. Amherst(across from Food for Thought Books - store), 8pm

Albany, NY – July 20th - The Howe phone: 518-433-0679 the address is: the corner of schuyler st and Broad Albany NY 12202

Philly, PA – July 21 and 22 - @ the Cinema 3925 Walnut St. Show time 8pm

The Hardest Question Ever: Correspondents Weigh In

by Sue on Mon 12 Jun 2006 04:42 PM EDT

This past Friday, we accepted an invitation to catch the local performance of "The Hardest Question Ever," a puppet show performance art piece examining the societal role in creating and punishing violence through the prism of incarceration. The show was put together by Indicator Species, a Pittsburgh based collective of teachers, artists and activists who work on prison issues.

The show opened with live music from Ricardo who took our collective breath away. His acoustic guitar performance and lyrics were just stunning. I hunted him down at the end and ordered him to add us to his email list. :-) He told us he'd be performing live soon so we'll keep you informed.

The show itself was a 1/2 hour mixture of live action, puppets, and music. I was skeptical at first as I always am when surrounded by a crowd of seemingly preternaturally thin people who made me feel incredibly mainstream .... one of the nightmare moments when someone points at you and yells "She's wearing Mom jeans" while everyone laughs. Then someone's actual mom sat down in front of us with her two staunch suburbanite lady friends and I felt a the comforting shift back to slightly left of center. Whew. As soon as the group took the stage, all sense of discomfort fell away and I merged right into a crowd waiting to be taught.

The stage included a life-sized prison cell that is used for solidary confinement. The walls were constructed from thousands of letters the artists had received through their books for prisoners program Book 'Em, a project of the Thomas Merton Center. The show included 4 acts reconciling the horror of crime with the horror of prison. Through live narration of cases based on the real life experiences of the artists, the show explores the complicated nature of something mainstream media and politics tends to oversimplify -- delving into the gray. One case involved a former friend and comrade who had raped and murdered a woman -- the dialogue was a refreshing examination of all that had come before.

I have to give the Indicator Species credit -- they really did ask the hardest questions. When someone you know has raped and murdered, what does that mean for our own complicity in creating a violent society? To simply say that you could not have physically prevented the crime is not enough of an answer. What about all that came before -- at what point can we as a society prevent any crime? And how does the way we treat our criminals reflect back on our values?

"The cracks I fell through were the indifference of the people around me."

Indicator Species will be taking their show on the road for a two month tour. For more details on upcoming Pittsburgh performances fedupriseup.net or trust_the_shadow@yahoo.com

It was a good show -- thoughtful, earnest and personal. It was obvious that the members of the collective put a huge investment of their personal stories, fears, hopes, and values into this show. That investment touched me from the first chord and lifted me over any bumps in the road. I would see this again when it returns to Pittsburgh. And I'm going through my books to donate to the program.

Posted by lois at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

MA: New Jail Wanted in Cambridge

"DiPaola said he needs a new facility to house prisoners because of overcrowding conditions in the East Cambridge jail. The jail houses 370 inmates, but was designed for 160, he said. The Billerica House of Correction, which is undergoing renovations, was built in 1929 to house 300 inmates, but houses as many as 1,250, he said."
Somerville News, MA

June 13, 2006

Sheriff wants a new prison, patrolmen¹s union wants their space By George P. Hassett

Sheriff James V. DiPaola is touting his plan to build a new prison in East Somerville as a way to also provide a new headquarters for city police. But the police DiPaola said he wants to help strongly oppose the idea.

³We don¹t want anything to do with DiPaola. We do not want him to use us as an excuse to build his own police department and further his own goals,² Patrolmen¹s Union President Jack Leutcher said this week. ³Our feeling is DiPaola wants to establish his force as a police department. If he¹s going after money to build a new facility, why can¹t we? Who has more of a need? I think we do. Does the city have to sell its soul to Mr. DiPaola to get a new police station? I don¹t think so.²

In August, nearly 60 people who work at the police station sought legal action as an attempt to get to the bottom of alleged health problems plaguing employees of the building. The suit claims they ³were subjected to pro-longed exposures, to chronic damp conditions, and the types of molds that produce toxins as well as other hazardous substances present in their workplace environment.² The Patrolmen¹s Union has publicly supported the plaintiffs and helped pay for testing on the building.

The case has yet to be resolved.

DiPaola said he needs a new facility to house prisoners because of overcrowding conditions in the East Cambridge jail. The jail houses 370 inmates, but was designed for 160, he said. The Billerica House of Correction, which is undergoing renovations, was built in 1929 to house 300 inmates, but houses as many as 1,250, he said.

The Middlesex County jail occupies floors 17 through 22 of the Middlesex County Courthouse in East Cambridge, which is targeted for closing by the end of 2007 to undergo asbestos removal and a $125 million rehabilitation.

DiPaola said he is facing the same conditions in the Middlesex County Courthouse that police in Somerville face in their own building.

³I¹m surprised they¹re against this,² DiPaola said. ³I¹m bringing something to the table that would solve their problem. What motivated me to bring this project to Somerville was their interest in a new police station. I¹d like to sit down and discuss this with the union because I see myself as being on their side.²

As for the union¹s assertion that DiPaola is using the city to extend his empire and build his own power as sheriff, DiPaola said that is simply not the case.

³Sometimes when you have different departments working in the same building, there is a fear that one side will lose its identity,² he said. ³But that is not going to happen here. I haven¹t taken over a police department yet and I don¹t have any plans to.²

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone¹s spokesperson Thomas P. Champion said the mayor is interested in working with DiPaola to build a facility in the city that would serve as both a jail for inmates awaiting trial and a new station for the Police Department.

³This is potentially a way to get a new police station at a time when everyone agrees we need one,² Champion said.

For Leutcher, the need for a new station is not enough to share space with DiPaola and the Middlesex County Sheriff¹s Department.

³There are a lot of politics being played here and they¹re going to use the excuse of a new police station and that they¹re doing this for us, but we¹re not buying it,² he said.

http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2006/06/sheriff_wants_
a.html

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

June 13, 2006

A Fresh Start Needs Hands Willing to Help

June 13, 2006
A Fresh Start Needs Hands Willing to Help
By CLYDE HABERMAN, NY Times

GREGORY PEREIRA had plenty of drug convictions and the prison sentences that went with them. They were usually short stretches — a year here, 18 months there — and they finally got Mr. Pereira to realize that life on New York's margins had not worked out. "I wasn't," he said with ample understatement, "that good a criminal."

He turned his life around. First, he managed to stay out of prison. Eventually, he kicked his drug habit. He went to school and earned a bachelor's degree. "I don't know if I had a spiritual awakening or reckoning or what," Mr. Pereira said, "but I realized I had to give something back."

He began to do just that. He managed H.I.V.-prevention programs. And he continued his studies. Now 46, he is getting a master's degree in public administration from Metropolitan College of New York, on Varick Street, where the students are typically well above traditional college age.

There are many ways Mr. Pereira could have taken note of this latest passage. He chose to celebrate the other evening with a dozen men and women who are also receiving degrees this spring from colleges in the city and its suburbs. They had that achievement in common. That, and one other thing:

They were all former convicts.

It is sometimes easy to forget, in this get-tough-on-crime era, that the bad guys eventually get out of prison, or most of them anyway. It is even easier to forget that some are no longer bad guys. They seek redemption. But maybe they need a hand to find it.

Mr. Pereira did. So did the other onetime inmates gathered with him in celebration in an auditorium of the City University Graduate Center.

All belonged to a program called College and Community Fellowship, created six years ago to help former inmates pursue college studies, in most cases while they also hold full-time jobs. More than 100 people have taken part so far. At some point along the way, all had been written off as hopeless lowlifes, even no-lifes. Now they are graduating from college, some with advanced degrees.

And not one, the sponsors say, has landed back in jail.

Participants receive some cash, $600 a semester, to ease the pain of tuition a bit. Perhaps more important, they get mentoring and encouragement and, as the program's name says, fellowship.

"The money helps, but it's really the camaraderie and the hope," said Aracelis Turino, who did 10 years in federal prisons on a drug-related conviction. At 37, she is getting her bachelor's degree in social work from Lehman College, in the Bronx. "We sit together," Ms. Turino said, "and discuss who's having issues, and the barriers we all face, and the stigmas."

FOR sure, this is not the only program in the city for onetime criminals ready to change their lives. The need for such a helping hand should be self-evident. Every now and then, though, a situation comes along to bring the point home.

A good example is the case of a man named Marc La Cloche. He appeared in this column more than once. Mr. La Cloche was a Bronx man who, during an 11-year stretch in New York prisons for first-degree robbery, learned to be a barber. He loved cutting hair. After he was freed in 2001, he sought the state license required to pursue his new craft.

Time and again, the office of New York's secretary of state, Randy A. Daniels, made sure that he didn't succeed. His criminal past, state officials said, proved that he lacked the "good moral character" to be a barber. Ultimately, Mr. La Cloche was beaten down. He died last October at 40, a lonely man not given a shot.

In his attempt to get a license, he had taken Mr. Daniels to court. When Mr. La Cloche died, so did his case. Justice Louis B. York of State Supreme Court in Manhattan signed a formal dismissal order on June 1. But in his ruling the judge did not hide his "outrage and despair" over what the state officials had done, over "the inhumanity exhibited by human beings with power over one person without power."

At least Mr. Pereira, Ms. Turino and the others got a chance to start over. So they celebrated together at the Graduate Center. They heard speeches of encouragement, and they performed a short play of their own about life behind bars and, more hopefully, the road ahead.

There was a printed program for the evening, designed by Mr. Pereira. Its dominating feature was an illustration of a phoenix.

E-mail: haberman@nytimes.com

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2006

NY Times: The Deaths at Gitmo

June 12, 2006
Editorial, NY Times
The Deaths at Gitmo

The news that three inmates at Guantánamo Bay hanged themselves should not have surprised anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the twisted history of the camp that President Bush built for selected prisoners from Afghanistan and antiterrorist operations. It was the inevitable result of creating a netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations, where men were to be held without any hope of decent treatment, impartial justice or, in so many cases, even eventual release.

It is a place where secret tribunals sat in judgment of men whose identities they barely knew and who were not permitted to see the evidence against them. Inmates were abused, humiliated, tormented and sometimes tortured. Some surely are very dangerous men, committed to a life of terrorism and deserving of harsh justice. But only 10 of the roughly 465 men at the camp have been charged with crimes. The others, according to senior officers who served there, were foot soldiers of the Taliban or men who just happened to live in a country invaded by the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

Inmates at Guantánamo Bay have tried seeking help from the American courts, and one case has reached the Supreme Court. But most of these appeals were thwarted by claims of national security. Any new appeals will fall under a shocking new law that deprives the inmates of the centuries-old right to challenge their imprisonment. Government lawyers have even tried to use that law retroactively, to dismiss all pending appeals.

Guantánamo Bay and other American detention centers have sparked outrage around the world — deeply harming America's image as the defender of humanity against just these sorts of abuses. Last month a United Nations panel called for the prisons to be shut down. But the administration's response to all of this has been defiance.

When dozens of inmates went on hunger strikes last year, the authorities strapped them into metal "restraint chairs" and ordered doctors to force-feed them. Military officials said they did this only to inmates on the brink of death, but The Times has reported that the restraint chair was used on all hunger strikers, regardless of their condition.

Medical groups were overwhelmingly appalled by this practice, but the Pentagon issued new rules this month reaffirming that military doctors can be ordered to force-feed prisoners. The only role for psychiatrists at Gitmo seems to be to help prepare prisoners for interrogation.

So it was not surprising in the least when inmates attempted suicide. Twenty-three tried to kill themselves over eight days in August 2003, but the military covered it up for 18 months. Now, three inmates have succeeded. Camp officials say one was a mid- or high-level Qaeda operative. One was captured in Afghanistan (doing what, we're not sure), and the other was from something the camp commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., called a splinter group.

Admiral Harris's response was as appalling as the suicides. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," he said. The inmates, he said, "have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own."

These comments reveal a profound disassociation from humanity. They say more about why Guantánamo Bay should be closed than any United Nations report ever could.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)

Iowa: War on Drugs Could Force Women in Men's Prison

"Many of these females are nonviolent offenders, and prison officials should consider working with the Iowa Board of Parole to determine if more of them can be released to community corrections programs, Mills said. The board should also consider constructing additional prison space at Mitchellville, she said."

Des Moines Register

Crowding could push women into male prison
Females would be separated from men at Fort Madison
WILLIAM PETROSKI
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

June 10, 2006
Mitchellville, Ia. - Iowa's prisons are becoming so crowded with women that some female inmates could be assigned for the first time in history to the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison.

Deputy Iowa corrections director Larry Brimeyer told the Iowa Board of Corrections on Friday that prison officials are considering transferring about 40 women to the penitentiary's Clinical Care Unit for mentally ill prisoners.

The Fort Madison penitentiary, which was established in 1839, is the oldest prison west of the Mississippi River and has always been strictly for male convicts.

Brimeyer said the Clinical Care Unit, which opened in 2002 at a cost of $26 million, was designed to hold 200 male prisoners, but has been used for only about 140 to 145 inmates. Officials are considering assigning 40 female inmates to a separate "pod" within the unit, he said.

"The women would be completely physically and procedurally separate from the men," Brimeyer said. "They wouldn't eat together. They wouldn't recreate together. They wouldn't do anything together."

Iowa Department of Corrections officials said they being forced to consider a host of alternatives to deal with a surging population of female inmates that has been fueled by an increase in women being convicted of drug crimes. Many of those convicts also have mental-health problems.

The state women's prison at Mitchellville on Friday was jammed with 585 inmates in space designed for 443 convicts. Another 83 women were in custody at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility, and 55 more women were at the Oakdale state prison near Iowa City.

Some additional space will become available at Oakdale next year when a "special needs" unit is scheduled to open for male and female inmates with medical and mental-health problems.

During the past 11 years, Iowa's women's prison population has gone up 83 percent, growing almost twice as fast as the population of male inmates. Researchers project the female inmate population will increase to 1,054 inmates by mid-2015 if current trends continue. About 34 percent of the female inmates are now serving time for drug offenses, many involving methamphetamine.

Sixty percent of female inmates have been diagnosed with mental illness, almost twice the percentage of male inmates with mental-health problems. "At some point, we have to address these growth issues," said Mitchellville Warden Diann Wilder-Tomlinson.

Similar trends are occurring nationally.

As of Dec. 31, 2004, 104,848 women in the United States were held in state and federal prisons - up from 68,468 in 1995, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Many of these imprisoned females have children, who are typically cared for by grandparents or other relatives while mothers are behind bars, Wilder-Tomlinson said. So it's important to help these women stay out of prison once they are released, she said.

"If you treat the needs of these women, often you will rescue a family. That is what we are trying to do," she said.

Corrections Board Chairwoman Robyn Mills of Johnston said the issue underscores the need to provide treatment for female offenders and to address safety considerations.

Many of these females are nonviolent offenders, and prison officials should consider working with the Iowa Board of Parole to determine if more of them can be released to community corrections programs, Mills said. The board should also consider constructing additional prison space at Mitchellville, she said.

"I think it needs to be a comprehensive approach. You can't just take one thing out of context and do it," Mills said.

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060610/NEWS10/6061
00332/1011

Posted by lois at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

Eye in sky puts collar on parolees

"It's Orwellian, it's a virtual prison," said Sibbett. "It's what the criminal justice system has been looking for for years ‹ and it took a medical company to put it together."
Column
Eye in sky puts collar on parolees

By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News

An unexpected discovery happened to Mike Sibbett as he stepped into retirement last fall after serving 12 years as chairman of the state Board of Pardons.

During all that time he had one constant worry when deciding whether to keep convicts in prison.

"You want to give people a chance without jeopardizing the community," he said. "That's the question that keeps you up nights."

Then, only months after he stopped asking the question, he was introduced to what he sees as the answer.

It's called TrackerPal, a parolee monitoring device developed by a Sandy technology firm called SecureAlert.

TrackerPal is a battery-powered ankle bracelet with pinpoint GPS positioning and a built-in cell phone that is in 24/7 contact with a monitoring center.

Wear one of these and you're never alone.

If the battery is getting too low, the monitoring center will call with a reminder to either recharge it immediately or prepare to be visited by your case agent who by the way knows exactly where you are.

If you try to shoot it off, saw it off, burn it off or cut it off, a 95-decibel alarm will sound about the same time you realize it's virtually impossible to penetrate the reinforced steel cable.

If you try to turn off the cell phone, you can't, and it's a speaker phone, which means anyone in the vicinity will hear the agent when he announces, "you are a sex offender and need to leave the park immediately."

TrackerPal is OnStar with a conscience.

"It's Orwellian, it's a virtual prison," said Sibbett. "It's what the criminal justice system has been looking for for years ‹ and it took a medical company to put it together."

SecureAlert, founded by Jim Dalton and David Derrick, started in business in 1997 specializing in electronic monitors for the elderly.

In 2005 the company figured out how to install a tamper proof cell phone in its monitors, paving the way for a patent that led to TrackerPal.

"This is not your Martha Stewart tracker," said Sibbett. "All that told them was if she was in her house or if she left. This tells you where someone is right now."

"There are over 500,000 sex offenders under supervision right now in America alone," said Sibbett. "This is a way of tracking all of them."

Not to mention gangbangers, domestic violence offenders, drug addicts and so forth.

And at about $8 a day, the cost is considerably less than the $65 it takes to house an inmate in prison.

"I wasn't looking to do anything in the criminal justice field when I retired," said Sibbett, who was on his way to fixing up the family ranch when SecureAlert contacted him about being a consultant. "But then I realized this is what I was always looking for when I was chairman."

Since January, he's traveled the country touting TrackerPal. Pennsylvania is already using about 100 units, and a number of pilot programs are about to begin, including one by the Utah Department of Corrections.

"Every judge, every parole board, every case officer I've visited, they're all saying, 'What do I have to do to get this?' " said Sibbett. "They realize this is it, this is the next step."

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,640186268,00.html

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

Nationwide Study Shows Arab American Fear of Federal Law Enforcement

June 12, 2006
NATIONWIDE STUDY SHOWS ARAB AMERICAN FEAROF FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT POLICY FOLLOWING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
June 12, 2006
Local Law Enforcement Uneasy
Over Immigration Role

Today, the Vera Institute of Justice released a national report on relations between Arab Americans and law enforcement in the United States following September 11, 2001.

The two-year, National Institute of Justice-funded study found, among other things, that Arab Americans fear the intrusion of federal policies and practices even more than individual acts of hate or violence, and that many local police are reluctant to enforce immigration law as a form of counterterrorism.

"Our findings have important implications for law enforcement," said Nicole Henderson, lead researcher on the project. "Nine-eleven interrupted a decades-long trend toward greater cooperation between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Fortunately, we also found opportunities and ideas for how law enforcement can build relationships and trust with Arab American communities in this new environment."

Additional highlights include:

Despite a growing atmosphere of mistrust, community members make a clear distinction between local and federal law enforcement personnel, with comparatively more goodwill toward the former;
Many local police and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation report undefined, or inconsistently applied policies regarding their role in enforcing immigration law, resulting in selective application of the law; and
Efforts to improve relations between Arab American communities and law enforcement personnel are effective in reducing tension.

In addition, the report identifies examples of partnerships and innovations that have successfully bridged gaps identified in the study. It cites recommendations and opportunities for restoring trust and creating alliances to reduce crime and address terrorism and other public safety concerns.

The report, Law Enforcement and Arab American Community Relations After September 11, 2001: Engagement in a Time of Uncertainty, is based on a telephone survey conducted in 16 cities, followed by focus groups and more in-depth one-on-one interviews in four specially selected sites. It is one of the earliest and most comprehensive analyses of interactions among Arab American community members, local police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. The cities where the interviews occurred go unnamed in the report to protect the confidentiality of respondents. The study's results will be presented today at a meeting organized by National Institute of Justice in Denver.

The Vera Institute of Justice is an independent nonprofit organization based in New York City that is dedicated to advancing safety and justice, promoting fair and efficient policy and practice, and working with leaders of government and civil society to improve the systems people rely upon for safety, security, and justice.

Posted by lois at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

NATIONAL COMMISSION OUTLINES CRUCIAL REFORMS TO PREVENT

NATIONAL COMMISSION OUTLINES CRUCIAL REFORMS TO PREVENT
VIOLENCE AND ABUSE IN U.S. CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES
June 8, 2006

Report Connects Problems Inside Facilities to
Public Safety and Public Health
The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons released Confronting Confinement, a report on violence and abuse in U.S. jails and prisons, the impact of those problems on public safety and public health, and how correctional facilities nationwide can become safer and more effective.

A diverse group co-chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach and John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the Commission concluded that serious problems exist even as it identified promising practices and strong leadership that contradict the notion that violence and abuse are inevitable features of life behind bars in America.

The report addresses dangerous conditions of confinement - violence, poor health care, and inappropriate segregation - that can also endanger corrections officers and the public; lack of political support for labor and management; weak oversight of correctional facilities; and serious flaws in the available data about violence and abuse. Among 30 practical reforms, the Commission recommends:

A re-investment in programming for prisoners to prevent violence inside facilities and reduce recidivism after release.
Changing federal law to extend Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement to correctional facilities and ending prisoner co-pays for medical care, reforms necessary to protect the public health.
Reducing the use of high-security segregation, which can actually cause violence, and ending the release of prisoners directly from these units to the streets, which contributes to recidivism.
Increased investment at state and local levels to recruit, train, and retain skilled, capable workers at all levels.
Expanding the capacity of the National Institute of Corrections to work with states and localities to create a positive institutional culture in corrections facilities.
Creating an independent agency in every state to oversee prisons and jails and changing federal law to narrow the scope of the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
Developing standardized reporting nationwide on violence and abuse behind bars so that corrections officials, lawmakers, and the public can have reliable measures of violence and monitor efforts to make facilities safer.
"For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions," said Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Subcommittee's Ranking Member is Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL).

The 20 members of the Commission include Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, those who run correctional systems and those who litigate on behalf of prisoners, scholars, and individuals with a long history of public service and deep experience in the administration of justice. Beginning in March 2005, the Commission held four public hearings in cities around the country, visited jails and prisons, consulted with current and former corrections officials and a wide range of experts working outside the profession, and conducted a thorough review of available research and data. The Commission is staffed by and funded through the Vera Institute of Justice.

To read a summary of the commission's findings and recommendations and a brief Q&A about the report, or to access the complete report, go to www.prisoncommission.org/report.

Posted by lois at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2006

OR: Mandatory Minimums Cost State 4,743 cages

"Porter said that without the policy changes that were enacted by the Legislature and by initiative, the state currently would need 4,743 fewer prison beds. Measure 11 accounts for almost 70 percent of the additional needed beds, while the Repeat Property Offenders law accounts for almost 27 percent, according to the analysis."
The Oregonian

Growth of prison population projected to taper off by 2015 Mandatory sentences - The recent increase in the number of inmates is due mainly to longer terms

Thursday, June 08, 2006

EDWARD WALSH
The growth of Oregon's prison population will slow during the next decade as more inmates complete serving mandatory minimum sentences and are released, according to an analysis for the Legislature's two judiciary committees.

Suzanne Porter, a forecaster in the Office of Economic Analysis, found that the prison population has grown by 75 percent since 1995 but predicted that it will increase by only 21.4 percent in the next nine years. The 4.4 percent rate of growth in the 2005-07 biennium will decline to 3.3 percent by 2013-15, according to Porter's projections.

In a written analysis she prepared for a joint hearing of the judiciary committees in Roseburg on Wednesday, Porter said the driving force behind the growth of the prison population has been passage of Measure 11, the 1994 initiative that imposed long, mandatory minimum sentences for a large number of violent crimes, and an expansion of the Repeat Property Offenders law.

Porter said the state prison system takes in an average of 58 new Measure 11 inmates a month and releases 37 who have completed their sentences, a net monthly gain of 21 inmates. By 2015, she said, the number of Measure 11 inmates arriving at state prisons will increase slightly, to 64 a month, but inmate releases will grow to an average of 55 a month, a net gain of nine a month.

Porter said that without the policy changes that were enacted by the Legislature and by initiative, the state currently would need 4,743 fewer prison beds. Measure 11 accounts for almost 70 percent of the additional needed beds, while the Repeat Property Offenders law accounts for almost 27 percent, according to the analysis.

Porter said Measure 11's largest impact was the length of sentences imposed under its terms. She said the number of Measure 11 inmates entering the system has declined but that their median sentence is almost 50 months longer than those served by inmates convicted of the same crimes before Measure 11 was passed.

The Repeat Offenders law was passed in 1995 and expanded in 1999 to include identity theft and again in 2001 to cover felony forgery and related crimes. The law includes a presumptive minimum sentence of 19 months in prison for repeat offenders.

One result of the law's expansion has been a spike in the number of women entering the prison system, Porter reported. She said that since 2003, women have made up one-third of new prison inmates convicted of identity theft or felony forgery and almost all were repeat offenders, an "unusually high participation rate."

In another presentation for the committees, Nathan Allen, the Department of Corrections' planning and budget administrator, said that about 20 percent of Oregon prison inmates have severe or high mental illness treatment needs, an increase from 11.8 percent in 1999. If the rate remains at 20 percent, the system is projected to have almost 3,208 inmates with severe mental health needs by 2016, he said.

Allen said the cost of mental health treatment in prison ranges from $1.14 a day for inmates with moderate problems to $10.28 for the most severe cases.

Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, chairwoman of the interim Senate Judiciary Committee, said after the hearing that the large number of women going to prison for identity theft crimes could have a "severe" impact on Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the state prison for women in Wilsonville.

"If you look at the trajectory of the (Repeat Property Offenders) category, it's pretty alarming," she said in a telephone interview.

Corrections Department officials said Coffee Creek is slightly over capacity now but will add 108 beds in September and 216 more beds by 2011.

Burdick said she will also urge the next session of the Legislature to consider what to do about an aging prison population. She said that between 2000 and this year, the number of inmates older than 60 increased from 223 to 467, a rise of 109 percent.

Burdick said many of these inmates are serving long or indefinite sentences without parole for the most serious crimes and become a financial strain on the state as they develop health problems.

"These are not nice people," Burdick said, "but if they are unable to commit another crime because of poor health it doesn't make sense to keep them in full incarceration with high medical costs."

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/11497335483160
30.xml&coll=7

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

Elmira-Ithaca NY: Officials to Use Study to Examine Who's In Jail and Who Shouldn't Be

Chemung justice system under scrutiny
Officials to use study to examine who's in jail and who shouldn't be.
By GEORGE OSGOOD
Star-Gazette
gosgood@stargazette.com
June 4, 2006

Tom Santulli bought bunk beds for the jail. The Chemung County executive hopes he never has to use them.

And if he doesn't, it will likely be because of the efforts of people who work in the county's criminal justice system over the next year or so.

Inmate populations at the William Street jail have peaked in recent months, forcing county officials to consider doubling-up in some cells or "boarding" prisoners in other counties - a very expensive proposition. The population recently averaged 210 inmates a day, approaching the maximum of 234, up 34 percent from 2001.

That's the reason for the bunk beds.

"Because of these numbers, we're bumping against our maximum," Santulli said. "I want to get those bunk beds out of here pretty quickly. That's my goal."

A report on the county's criminal justice system prepared recently by the Center for Government Research in Rochester spells out how to keep that inmate population under control - and how to save at least $1.1 million in county tax dollars each year, while also better serving the needs of prisoners and the community.

Simply put, the county jail is nearly full because too many people who are in it shouldn't be, Santulli and others, including Don Pryor, who prepared the report, believe.

Pryor will meet with Santulli, Chemung County District Attorney John Trice and lots of other folks in the justice system on June 12 to answer questions and begin reversing the trend toward soaring prison populations.

"I think they have already had a chance to rebut (Pryor's findings), in writing," Santulli said. "What I want them to do is sit down, one by one, and have one more opportunity to comment, and then to talk about some of the solutions recommended in the report, as far as implementation.

"We need to talk about implementation," he said. "That's where the real work comes down - actually putting the work force together. Because, I've got to tell you, we are going to do this. We are going to change the system.

"We are actually going to those numbers that we have and, and we are going to have a conversation about, 'Who's (in jail) now, and who doesn't belong there,' " Santulli said. "We are going to be looking for programs we can institute immediately to get these people doing some other form of work instead of sitting in jail watching television. We are going to speed up the process."

Lawyers interviewed by Pryor for the report told him that sometimes attorneys told clients "just to sit in prison because they might get a better plea agreement" or because failure to prosecute within 45 days might set them free, Santulli said. That means the system is moving too slowly, he and others said. It's unfair to crime victims and cops. And it clogs the jail, too.

Criminal justice system must work together

Trice said he planned to attend the June 12 meeting and recognized some faults in the criminal justice system. More cooperation among agencies is vital to working them out, he said.

"A lot of this comes down to the fact that the criminal justice system has a lot of different components," he said. "And I think all-in-all, it's a combination of everybody working together to streamline the system, make it efficient, overcoming any type of obstacles, slowdowns. Let's see if we can speed it up and make it more efficient.

"Sometimes, the different components are at loggerheads, you might say," Trice said. "That's the way I'm looking at this whole process. I know they have made some criticisms, which I don't necessarily agree with. But I'm kind of busy, involved in some major cases here, and I don't have time to criticize or throw stones at what they are doing."

The report does have some strong points, and Trice said he would work to correct the system flaws it detailed.

"What I do appreciate is, yes, it gives us some areas to think about, some areas to look at to see if we can do things better," he said. "If we can save the taxpayers some money, I'm certainly willing and certainly want to assist and help and see what we can do to straighten things out, anywhere we can make things more efficient."

The situation clearly goes beyond dollars.

"But it's not just for the money purposes," he said. "It's to make sure that the public is served in regard to health and safety. This is about all of us getting together and looking at it, analyzing it. Can we do this better and still safeguard the community? That's where my focus is."

But those dollars are important, Santulli and others said.

"One thing I would tell you is that $1.1 million and that's conservative, that's all local dollars," Santulli said. "There's no state aid there, no federal aid. That's local money.

"Now, $250,000 is roughly 1 percent on the (tax) levy," he said. "So when you think about it, that's about 5 percent of your levy that is being used up."

But not for long, Santulli hopes. It will not take long to implement some of report's recommendations - or to see them pay off, he said.

"I don't think anyone should be afraid of this report," he said. "I think they should take it and say, 'You know what? We need to review, relook, retool, rethink what's going on.

"The bottom line is, we're talking about redirecting our existing resources," he said. "And implementing new programs that keep people who don't belong in jail, out of jail. This is going to be an exercise we're committed to.

"I think we'll see some saving in 2006," he said. "I think we will see substantial savings in 2007, because by then, these programs will be implemented.

"We are going to be running a far better criminal justice system than we are now," Santulli said. "And that's not to say that what we're doing (now) is bad. It's just that it's going to better, more progressive, more efficient."

Neighboring county looks at similar study

It's working, though somewhat more slowly, in Steuben County.

That county commissioned a criminal justice analysis by Center for Governmental Research in 2005 and received its final report last November. The county is adding 96 cells to its jail in Bath because of increasing inmate populations. One goal of the study was to "make that expansion last for a longer time into the future," County Executive Mark Alger said. At one point last year, Steuben had more than 50 prisoners housed in other jails.

On Wednesday, the county's Criminal Justice Review Panel met, he said.

"We reviewed recommendations to try to boil them down into action steps," Alger said. "And to some extent, identify the priorities.

"The intent here is essentially to tweak a system that we don't necessarily feel is broken," Alger said. "To try to improve it and make it work more efficiently."

And that's the key, Santulli said.

"I always believed you should take a negative and turn it into a positive," he said. "That's not to say that the system was a total negative. But we're going to turn it into a positive.

"I'm hoping that 12 to 18 months from now, we will lookStudy's findings
Among the major findings and recommendations of the Center for Governmental Research Inc. assessment of Chemung County's criminal justice system practices:
•The daily jail population can be cut an average of at least 60 inmates a day, totaling 21,900 fewer inmates a year. Over a year, that represents a 29 percent reduction in average daily census from 2005 levels - from 205 to 145.
•Significant cost-reduction of the jail population is achievable using key strategies that include revising procedures to allow earlier release of low-risk defendants jailed on low bail, streamlining Drug Court screening and admission procedures and expanding use of electronic home monitoring to the criminal justice system.
•The county currently uses electronic home monitoring only with juveniles, and only 51 percent of available capacity was used between 2000 and 2005. The unused capacity should be used for the adult criminal population. A pilot project should be started, and if successful, monitoring could be expanded.
•The county could save about $250,000 a year by hiring an additional public defender and an additional public advocate to represent cases in Family Court that are now represented by assigned counsel. The total cost of additional staff would be $160,000, compared with an estimated $400,000 of assigned counsel costs that could be eliminated.
•The county should hire a full-time criminal justice system coordinator to establish priorities, develop a strategic action plan and monitor implementation of the plan.
•The district attorney should routinely and promptly screen arrest cases to expedite processing, establish priorities for prosecution, establish sentencing guidelines and reduce the number of cases that fail to meet prosecution deadlines.
•Courts should reduce from 24 days to 14 days the time it takes to sentence the average case following completion of a pre- sentencing investigation report.
•To reduce unnecessary days in jail by individuals ultimately admitted to Drug Court, the county should expedite access to treatment.
•The county needs to address procedures that cause people to be detained longer than necessary.
Source: "Strengthening Criminal Justice System Procedures In Chemung County."

Posted by lois at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

Jail, Court Changes Could Save 1.1 million

Jail, court changes could save $1.1 million
Too many people in Chemung County jail, report finds.
By RAY FINGER
Star-Gazette
June 1, 2006
Chemung County can save at least $1.1 million by streamlining jail procedures, speeding up case processing and using alternatives to incarceration, a newly released report says.

The Center for Governmental Research Inc. has recommended ways to reduce the number of inmates and save between $1.1 million and $1.5 million a year of local taxes, according to "Strengthening Criminal Justice System Procedures In Chemung County," a final report made public this week.

"We have too many people in jail that don't belong there," said Tom Santulli, Chemung County executive. Inmates awaiting sentencing represent a huge part of the jail population, and many others are incarcerated for misdemeanors and violations, he said.

"Jails were made to hold people that are a threat to a community," he said. "Quite frankly, this has become a holding point for a number of people who really have not committed serious crimes and too many people who are just sitting there waiting for things to happen. It's not fair to the taxpayer."

Some points made in the report:

•The county should hire a full-time criminal justice system coordinator.

•The county could save about $250,000 a year by hiring an additional public defender and an additional public advocate to represent cases in Family Court that are now represented by assigned counsel.

•The county has a disproportionately large number of defendants sent to jail on misdemeanor and violation charges. If those cases were sent to jail at the same rate as Steuben County, which has similar arrest patterns, Chemung would need to house 53 fewer inmates each night, the report says.

The jail holds about 234 inmates, Santulli said.

The report conservatively estimates about 125 defendants a year are released from the Chemung County Jail after 45 days because the system failed to prosecute them in time.

"That's a lot of people," Santulli said.

District Attorney John Trice said he was disappointed in some of the findings and does not agree with all of the conclusions, but he doesn't have the time or wherewithal to criticize the report.

Trice said he has held several meetings with his staff, and they are assessing some of the areas pointed out in the report. They are trying to determine if those issues are serious enough and can be corrected by his office alone, he said.

"There are some things that we can most likely do better to help save the taxpayers' money, economize and be efficient, but I think ultimately it gets down to it's not just us, it's the entire system," he said.

The county decided more than a year ago to assess its criminal justice system because in early 2005, the jail population had reached a 10-year high and jail overtime had escalated significantly, Santulli said.

"The last thing I want to get into is another jail expansion. It's very expensive, and quite frankly, I don't see the need for a county of this size," Santulli said. "That jail should certainly sustain us. As we speak, we're nearly at capacity."

State Supreme Court Justice Judith F. O'Shea gave the county credit for initiating the evaluation.

"It does any system good every once in a while to get an overview of how the system is working. As I recall, the study took into account many different perspectives," she said.

"If there are some things that we as a group or as individuals or a system can improve, as public servants, we ought to be looking at ways to improve it. I'm hopeful that those of us involved in the criminal justice system will cooperate to the extent that everyone can and make some improvements."

Everyone involved was given an opportunity to respond to the draft report, including the courts, district attorney's office and probation department, Santulli said.

Some noses got out of joint over some of the report's observations, he said.

"Despite the bent noses, you get down to the hard work of fixing it," he said. "That's what we're going to do."

The next step is to bring law enforcement, courts, agencies and other components of the criminal justice system together to meet with CGR and implement the recommendations, Santulli said. A county criminal justice board will be reactivated to provide communication throughout the system, he said.

The county probably will have to come up with additional resources, but the savings will far outweigh the expenses, he said.

According to the report, Chemung County could save about $250,000 annually by hiring two additional defense attorneys, one as a public defender and one as a public advocate, to represent cases in Family Court, which now are represented by assigned counsel.

While the total cost of additional staffing would be $160,000, an estimated $400,000 of assigned counsel costs could be eliminated, the report says.

"Anything that we can do to impact that tax levy, we're anxious to do," said Cornelius Milliken, chairman of the Chemung County Legislature.

"The savings that would be generated in implementation of the recommendations would fall to the bottom line."

Copyright © 2006 Star-Gazette.

Posted by lois at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2006

Now Meth Registries!

Wednesday, June 7, 2006
TOP STORY
States fight meth plague with registries

By Elizabeth Wilkerson, Special to Stateline.org

Like sex offenders and tax dodgers, methamphetamine makers are now being listed on Internet registries in several states.

Tennessee brought the nation¹s first such registry online in 2005, and it now carries information on almost 400 convicted meth manufacturers, according to the state Bureau of Investigations. In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed a law June 4 creating a convicted meth manufacturer registry .

The registries mark a new tool for states in combating the abuse and production of the illegal drug, also known as crystal meth, ice, glass and speed. It can cause stroke, paranoia, anxiety, delusions and violent behavior, as well as damage to blood vessels and skin abscesses in those who inject the drug, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Meth production labs are dangerous, smelly and toxic to children exposed to the fumes. Nearly all states already have laws limiting sales of cold tablets containing pseudo ephedrine, a key ingredient in meth production.

At least four states -- Georgia, Oklahoma, Washington and West Virginia
-- have bills pending that would create a meth-maker registry. An Oregon bill would require the state to alert residents -- whether through an Internet registry or other means -- when a convicted meth maker is released from prison into their area. And Montana has included meth makers in its sexual and violent offender registry since 2003, though it does not list them separately.

States differ on how they expect their registries to be used. In Tennessee, the registry is posted on a publicly accessible Web site and was established in response to complaints from residents and from landlords whose property had been damaged or destroyed by meth production, according to Jennifer Johnson, director of communication for the state¹s bureau of investigation.

State Sen. William R. Haines (D), the primary sponsor of Illinois' law, said his state's meth registry primarily will be used to help law enforcers by reducing the time and expense of searching through conviction records rather than to inform the public. The public isn¹t restricted from viewing the registry online, he said, ³but as a practical matter it would be rather boring to the average person unless they¹re curious.²

In Tennessee, the registry lists the offender¹s name and date of birth, the offense, the county in which it took place and the date of conviction. The Illinois registry will contain similar information, as would registries proposed in West Virginia and Oklahoma.

Lawmakers and law enforcers said the meth-maker registries differ from sex-offender registries, which states now rely on to post the whereabouts and often pictures of released sexual molesters. In Tennessee, the names and date of birth -- but no picture or current address -- of convicted meth manufacturers are sent directly to the registry by the courts, Johnson said, unlike sex offenders who are required to register in person and re-register regularly. Also, those on the meth registry can appeal to have their names removed from the list after seven years.

Johnson and Haines said the costs of running the meth registries were minimal. The start-up costs for the Tennessee registry were about $50,000, covered by a grant.

The number of seized meth labs nationwide decreased from 1999 to 2004, but rose in the Midwest, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said more meth labs were seized in Tennessee (786) and Illinois (923) than in California in 2005 (434).

Oklahoma estimated that an average meth case costs $350,000, including $54,000 to treat the meth user, $12,000 in child welfare services and $3,500 to decontaminate the area, which essentially is a hazardous waste site. For every pound of meth produced, about six pounds of toxic waste are left behind, said Blake Harrison, a senior policy specialist specializing in criminal justice for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Oklahoma was the first to restrict the availability of cold medications containing pseudo ephedrine by moving certain non-prescription cold tablets such as Sinutab and Sudafed behind the pharmacy counter. Shoppers in Oklahoma are limited in how many packets of the medication containing pseudo ephedrine they can buy at one time and must show ID and sign for the pills. Send your comments on this story to letters@stateline.org. Selected reader feedback will be posted in the Letters to the editor section.
Contact Elizabeth Wilkerson at ewilkerson@stateline.org.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=117748

Posted by lois at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2006

In These Times: "Convict Nation"

"Between glimpses of the Enron trial and the President's surreal projections of "progress" in Iraq, Americans were informed on CNN's electronic ticker tape that, by mid-year 2005, the official U.S. incarceration count stood at 2,186,230 inmates. Over the course of one year, our nation saw an increase of 56,428 prison and jail inmates, amounting to an average of 1,085 new adult prisoners each week."

"As was the case last year, six of 10 of prisoners in our state facilities are people of color. That number is likely to be higher, as BJS doesn't keep comprehensive, national statistics on Native American or Latino prisoners. (This is a result of individual states that choose not to report those demographics separately.) Both groups are heavily, disproportionately represented in states such as New Mexico, Montana, South Dakota and Washington."

Convict Nation

By Silja J. A. Talvi, senior editor at In These Times

Let me tell you what hurts the most
I'm a convicted felon and I can't work

No matter where I go to try to get paid
That's the everyday life of a convict

Trying to make it while they're saying to me:
The judge said, "Don't trouble nobody,"
Probation said, "Don't trouble nobody,"

"Stay out of trouble, don't trouble nobody,"
And I'm a tryin' not to trouble nobody

Picture lookin' at your babies in the face
When they hungry and they need to eat

Trying not to do wrong, But they won't let me do right.

Even though I done change my life
Criminal record's what they're judging me by.

Akon, "Trouble Nobody."

In May, I traveled to McNeil Island Corrections Center, a medium-custody men's prison in Washington state. I made the journey out there because I had been invited to experience the Native American prisoners' annual Pow Wow, which brings together spiritual elders, prisoners and their families, for a powerfully intense four-hour ceremony.

The biggest challenge, as I quickly discovered, wasn't taking in all of the emotion surrounding the event, but having even the briefest moment of privacy for thinking, taking notes, or taking to prisoners. Increasingly, American prison life doesn't allow for privacy -- not even for outsiders like myself. I could discern no possible security risk from a small-statured woman with a pen and a notepad at an island prison, surrounded by barbed wire and frigid waters. Regardless, for four hours, my every move and word was followed, intercepted and occasionally interjected upon. I could barely endure it for the half a day I was there. Millions of Americans don't have that choice.

Of course, many prisoners are indeed guilty of precisely the crimes they've been charged with -- or some version of the crime for which they've been sentenced. And some are absolutely innocent, doing time on trumped up charges, or because a snitch got out of prison time by "rolling" on some of his friends. But assessing the consequences of our country's soaring imprisonment rates has less to do with the question of guilt versus innocence than it does with the question of who, among us, truly deserves to go to prison and face the restrictive -- and sometimes brutally repressive -- conditions found there.

Mass Incarceration: Who Is It Good For?

The latest statistics on the U.S. prison and jail population from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) barely seemed to register on the news radar when they were released in late May.

Between glimpses of the Enron trial and the President's surreal projections of "progress" in Iraq, Americans were informed on CNN's electronic ticker tape that, by mid-year 2005, the official U.S. incarceration count stood at 2,186,230 inmates. Over the course of one year, our nation saw an increase of 56,428 prison and jail inmates, amounting to an average of 1,085 new adult prisoners each week. In just one decade, the number of prisoners in the United States has risen by more than 600,000 men and women, so that 738 out of every 100,000 Americans are sitting in some kind of a prison or jail. Our rates already far exceed those of Russia's, a politically and economically unstable country which throws 594 out of 100,000 citizens in the slammer. In contrast, the U.K. does so at a rate of 144 per 100,000, and France's incarceration rate stands at just 88 out of 100,000.

As was the case last year, six of 10 of prisoners in our state facilities are people of color. That number is likely to be higher, as BJS doesn't keep comprehensive, national statistics on Native American or Latino prisoners. (This is a result of individual states that choose not to report those demographics separately.) Both groups are heavily, disproportionately represented in states such as New Mexico, Montana, South Dakota and Washington.

People are understandably a bit more familiar with the impact of mass incarceration on Black men. At least one in eight African American men ages 25-29 are doing time. Over the years, I've gotten to know many of these folks as they've cycled in and out of the system, trying to make ends meet just as Senegalese-born Akon describes in the song excerpted above. Many organizations, including the Drug Policy Alliance, have rightfully characterized this overincarceration of African Americans one of our greatest present-day civil rights issues.

Women now account for nearly 7 percent of state and federal prisoners, and 13 percent of the nation's jail population (compared with 10 percent in 1995). Black women are four times more likely to be incarcerated than white women.

"The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a sad new milestone," says Kara Gotsch, Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C.

"Over 200,000 women are now incarcerated," Gotsch explains. "Since 1980, [especially] as women became entangled in the 'war on drugs,' the number in prison increased at nearly double the rate of incarceration for men. The impact of their incarceration devastates thousands of children who lose their primary caregiver when mom goes to prison."

The "War on Drugs," indeed. I've personally started likening this war to our short-sighted, grossly miscalculated War on Terror -- only the War on Drugs has gotten a serious head start on the body count. Like terrorism, drugs are still everywhere -- they're even more pervasive, in point of fact. The people best at "the game" are hiding out, strategizing, doing damage and raking it in -- this is a multi-billion dollar
industry, after all -- while the regular ol' users, addicts, street-level hustlers, and even unwitting bystanders and girlfriends charged with "conspiracy" end up locked down by the thousands.

This is in spite of the findings of a recent poll conducted by Zogby International for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. American voters insisted by almost a 9-to-1 margin that they favored rehabilitative services for nonviolent prisoners over a punishment-only system.

Right now, at least 530,000 are incarcerated on drug-related sentences. I'm still trying to figure out how any of that is making a dent in the struggle and strife I see on urban street corners.

Statistics like these give us a sense of how out-of-control the situation is. They give journalists something to hang stories on; they also give prison activists and correctional employees alike a perspective of how their immediate realities fit into a far larger picture.

But prison statistics have become their own version of a double-edged sword. When we're talking about numbers as big as these, statistics easily obscure the individual stories and struggles of those caught in the sticky, far-reaching net of American mass incarceration.

The Girls Of Today; The Prisoners Of Tomorrow?

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a group of girls in a drab, concrete juvenile detention pod in King County. I was there as a volunteer, to
facilitate a writing workshop under the auspices of a Seattle-based-group, Powerful Voices. In doing so, I also hoped to gain more insight
into the lives of these girls, who are increasingly locked for crimes ranging from truancy to drug dealing. I told the girls what I wanted to know about them and their lives, and most of them opened up to me, a complete stranger, with the kind of searing, brutal honesty that still surprises me.

One of the 15-year-olds was pregnant, although most of the other girls didn't know that yet. She held her stomach tenderly from time to time. Some of the girls were loud and boisterous, competing for attention and trying to show precisely how "fierce" they were. (Coming from 13 and 14-year-old girls, that's an easy enough bluff to see through.) One girl, just a few months shy of turning 18, admitted to the group that this was her twelfth time being locked up in some kind of an institution. Her first had been in another state, where she had been thrown into a mixed juvenile/adult psychiatric facility as a 12-year-old--with understandably traumatic consequences.

I asked all of the girls to participate in a few writing exercises with me about their fears and dreams. One of those writing exercises had to do with the first night that they were incarcerated in juvenile detention. This caused a fair amount of consternation. "Do you mean this time
or the first time," one girl bellowed. As it turned out, most of the girls had been in juvie more than once. The cycle of incarceration and re-incarceration, for them, had already begun.

When we finally settled that they were to write about their first time ever, everyone got to work, munching on microwave popcorn and drinking Tang as they went along.

"It was scary, dirty, and just not a place for me," wrote one 14-year-old. "I felt sad and lonely."

I asked the her, later, where she saw herself five years from now.

She laughed. I got her to talk a bit about why she found this question so ridiculous, and this is what she finally said: "I don't even know me five minutes from now."

Eventually, this is what she wrote on a piece of paper: "How am I supposed to know that tomorrow is even promised? If I make it to five years from now, I hope that I'll have a job, a boyfriend, and [that] I'm doing good. But that's never promised."

I told her, as she walked out, that she was right. Nothing's promised to us in this world. But I, for one, believed in her ability to make it to the next day. And then next. And that day, five years from now, when she could actually defy her odds, to live a fulfilling life in what prisoners commonly refer to as the "free world."

I'm still hoping, writing, and looking toward living in the kind of country that actually gives her that chance.

Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is at work on a book about women in prison (Seal Press/Avalon).
********

Posted by lois at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2006

VT: Prison Health Services Accredited at 8 prisons

Vermont accredits PHS services at 8 sites

By TODD PACK, Staff Writer
Monday, 06/05/06
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060605/BUSINESS01/606050336/1003/NLETTER01

The National Commission of Correctional Health Care has accredited or reaccredited the health facilities at eight Vermont prisons whose medical services are provided by Brentwood-based Prison Health Services.

PHS, owned by America Service Group Inc., has provided medical care to Vermont's Department of Corrections since February 2005. The accreditation process started shortly after PHS began operating in Vermont facilities.

"These accreditations are a testament to the dedicated efforts of DOC and PHS to improve the health of offenders, staff, and the communities to which offenders return," Vermont's secretary for human services, Cynthia LaWare, said in a statement.

The accreditations were refreshing news to PHS' parent company, which is searching for replacements for two board members who quit in May after arguing that the health services company would be better off without CEO Michael Catalano. The departures meant the company no longer was in compliance with a Nasdaq requirement that a majority of the company's directors be independent.

Unless the company finds a replacement for at least one of the directors by its annual meeting, scheduled for June 14, its stock may be dropped from the Nasdaq National Market. Catalano has said the company expects to beat the deadline and avoid having its stock delisted.

Posted by lois at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2006

MD: New Finds Voters Strongly Support Increased Drug and Alchohol Treatment

New Poll Finds Maryland Voters Strongly Support Increased Access to Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment

Two-Thirds of Maryland Voters Support an Increased Alcohol Tax to Expand Treatment
Press Release June 4, 2006

BALTIMORE‹Maryland voters strongly believe alcohol and drug addiction treatment are effective and support providing greater access to such programs, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by the Open Society Institute­Baltimore.

Maryland voters would even support an increase in the alcohol tax to pay for expanded alcohol and drug treatment. Support for the tax increase crosses political party lines.

The statewide poll results come as mayors and health officials from nine cities will attend a major two-day conference in Baltimore June 7 and 8 to share successful strategies about drug addiction treatment. The conference‹called "Cities on the Right Track: Building Public Drug Treatment Systems"‹is being sponsored by the OSI-Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the City of Baltimore.

"This poll tells us that Marylanders know treatment works and believe more people should have access to it," said Diana Morris, director of OSI-Baltimore. "It also tells us they believe it is so important that they are willing to pay for it with a tax increase on alcohol."

The statewide survey found that 69 percent of Maryland voters believe alcohol and drug treatment are effective in helping people overcome addiction‹a number that rises to 72 percent of those who have known someone with an addiction. Overall, 67 percent believe that drug treatment is a better option than prison to stop someone from using illegal drugs.

The poll also reveals the depth of the addiction problem as two-thirds of Maryland voters say they personally have known someone with an alcohol or drug addiction. This personal experience with addiction crosses all lines, regardless of gender, race, income, region or political party.

The survey findings also reveal a treatment gap in Maryland as many people appear not to have access to treatment when they need it. Among voters who have known someone with an addiction problem, 26 percent report that the person was unable to obtain treatment. As many as 39 percent were unable to access publicly funded treatment, according to the survey.

Roughly two-thirds of voters support three different policy options to expand alcohol and drug treatment:

* 67 percent said they favored private insurance covering treatment
* 63 percent said they supported increased public funds for treatment
* 67 percent said they supported a tax increase on alcohol

The poll found that Republicans approve of a proposed alcohol tax increase by a 17-point margin, while Independents are almost two-to-one in favor, and Democrats support it more than three-to-one.

The poll also found that 56 percent of voters who intend to support Gov. Robert Ehrlich this November against either Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley or Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan also support an alcohol tax to fund improved access to treatment.

Such a tax also is strongly supported by undecided voters in the gubernatorial race: 69 percent of undecided voters in an Ehrlich/O'Malley match and 68 percent in an Ehrlich/Duncan contest support an alcohol tax increase to fund treatment.

Expanding access to treatment could be a factor in this fall's election. Forty-one percent of Maryland voters said they would be more likely to vote for a state legislative candidate who supports increased availability of alcohol and drug addiction treatment, compared to only 7 percent who would be less likely to do so. One in six voters would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who supports expanded treatment ­ a potentially powerful voter swing.

The poll, conducted by OpinionWorks in Annapolis, surveyed more than 1,214 likely Maryland voters in the election by telephone from March 31 to April 5. The survey has a maximum potential sampling error of ± 2.8% at a 95% confidence level. That means that 95% of the time, the survey results would differ from the actual views of likely voters statewide by no more than 2.8% if every likely voter in Maryland had been interviewed.

OpinionWorks' principal, Steve Raabe, has been writing and conducting surveys of Maryland voters since 1992. From 2001 to 2005 he was the methodologist and primary author of the polling program at The Sun. The Cities on the Right Track conference will feature Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, and Providence Mayor David Cicilline. Health officials from Baltimore, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, and Seattle also will present effective practices.

At the conference, philanthropist George Soros, founder of the Open Society Institute, also will discuss the importance of drug addiction treatment in creating lasting change in cities. The Open Society Institute­Baltimore has provided substantial funding to strengthen and expand Baltimore's public drug treatment system, which is managed by the quasi-public Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems (BSAS).

Since 1998, Baltimore has made it a priority to build an expanded drug treatment system and has mobilized broad public support for drug treatment among city, state and private funders. The result: The city has significantly increased the capacity of its public drug treatment system.

Despite that expansion, thousands of Baltimore residents still need treatment, and additional funding needs to be found so that ultimately treatment on-demand is a reality in the city.

###
Founded by philanthropist George Soros, OSI-Baltimore is a private operating foundation that supports a grantmaking, educational and capacity-building program to expand justice and opportunity for Baltimore residents. With support from a range of investors, its current work focuses on helping Baltimore's youth succeed, reducing the social and economic costs of incarceration, tackling drug addiction, and building a corps of Community Fellows to bring innovative ideas to Baltimore's underserved communities.

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/baltimore/news/newpoll_20060604

Posted by lois at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)

OK: number of women incarcertaed drops by 94--1/2 incarcerated for drug convictions

6/4/2006
Number Of Women In Oklahoma Prisons Declines
AP - 6/3/2006

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Changes in state sentencing laws, including the expansion of drug courts, is credited with helping reduce the number of women in Oklahoma prisons.

Oklahoma still leads the nation in the rate of incarceration of women, according to ``The Punitiveness Report,'' a recent study by the Women's Prison Association, but the report said the number of women in Oklahoma prisons fell from a high of 2,394 in 2000 to 2,300 in 2004.

Nationally, the number of female prisoners has increased 17 percent during that time period.

Since 2004, Oklahoma's female inmate population dropped even more, according to the state Corrections Department.

As of May 30, the department's most recent inmate count, there were 2,194 female inmates.

``We apparently made some progress on this issue,'' said K.C. Moon, director of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center.

Moon said a drug-court expansion approved in 1999 has brought state spending on the program from about $500,000 to more than $11 million.

The move has given judges more options for rehabilitating drug offenders other than handing down prison sentences, he said.

Last year, half of all women sent to Oklahoma prisons were convicted of drug-related crimes, compared with about 35 percent of men, said DOC spokesman Jerry Massie.

The report said for every 100,000 women in Oklahoma, 129 were sent to prison for a year or longer during 2004, tops in the nation. Mississippi was second with 107 of every 100,000 women in prison.

Kevin Pranis, one of the study's authors, said states such as Oklahoma with tougher sentencing laws for relatively minor drug and property crimes tend to send far more women to prison.

``Since prison systems started broadening and grabbing more people, women are being disproportionately scooped up,'' he said.

Pranis said women also are more likely to go to prison for petty property crimes such as shoplifting and writing bogus checks.

A change in state law in 2001 could mean fewer women are being incarcerated for those crimes, according to Moon.

Theft crimes involving more than $50 used to be a felony punishable by more than a year in prison.

The Legislature moved the threshold for those crimes to $500 dollars during the 2001 legislative session and now, only property crimes of more than $1,000 are punishable by prison sentences, Moon said.

Another explanation for the drop in female inmates could be that more are being released early.

As of May 30, 152 women were completing their sentences in halfway houses, according to the Corrections Department.

Massie said others have been released from halfway houses on work-release programs and are being monitored by global positioning software.
http://www.kotv.com/news/?105438
KOTV.com - The News On 6

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

June 03, 2006

Court Rejects Evangelical Prison Plan Over State Aid

By NEELA BANERJEE, NY Times
June 3, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 2 — A federal judge in Iowa ruled Friday that a state-financed evangelical Christian program to help inmates re-enter society was "pervasively sectarian" and violated the separation of church and state.

The decision has set the stage for an appeals process that is expected to explore more broadly the constitutionality of the Bush administration's religion-based initiative programs, according to plaintiffs, defendants and legal experts.

Prison programs run by religious groups have increased over the last decade or so, as policy makers, prison and law enforcement officials and prisoner advocates have focused on the high rates of recidivism when inmates return to society, said Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University who is an expert on religion-based initiatives. Proponents of such programs in prisons have said that the transformative experience of religion can counter recidivism.

In April, the Justice Department announced plans to begin a religious-based program, offered in a single faith, in at least a half-dozen federal prisons, according to legal analysts and critics of the program.

The case was filed more than three years ago by Americans United for Separation of Church and State against the Iowa Department of Corrections and InnerChange Freedom Initiative, an organization affiliated with Prison Fellowship Ministries. Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles W. Colson, a close ally of President Bush and an influential evangelical who went to prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

In his ruling on Friday, Judge Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, said he was not ruling on the efficacy of religious programs in rehabilitating inmates or "the ultimate truthfulness about religion."

Instead, Judge Pratt ruled that the InnerChange program had violated the separation of church and state by using money from taxpayers to pay for a religious program, one that gave special privileges to inmates who accepted its evangelical Christian teachings and terms.

"What we had hoped to make clear was that InnerChange was pervasively religious, that it gave special benefits to inmates and that it sought to convert people to Christianity," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "InnerChange denied that, but the judge backed us on all three points. It shows that government-funded religious programs don't have a place in prisons."

Judge Pratt said that the program had to be halted in 60 days and that InnerChange had to return about $1.5 million it had received from the State of Iowa.

Those penalties, however, are pending an appeal, which InnerChange plans to file next week at the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, said Mark Earley, a former attorney general of Virginia who is president of Prison Fellowship.

"I think it is an extreme decision that if allowed to stand strikes a pretty serious blow at the religious freedom of prisoners," Mr. Earley said. "And it strikes an equally destructive blow to rehabilitation efforts in the prisons of America."

Mr. Earley said he expected the decision to be reversed on appeal, either at the Eighth Circuit or in the Supreme Court.

Both sides are banking on the possibility that this case could rise through levels of appeal and set precedent about religion-based initiatives, or more significantly, about the separation of church and state, legal experts said.

Douglas Laycock, professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas in Austin, said of InnerChange's strategy: "I think they're betting on getting to the Supreme Court and that Sam Alito and John Roberts will be there. And they're betting that they have five votes to win."

Mr. Earley said in a phone interview that anyone of any faith could participate in the program. On its Web site, however, InnerChange explains that it is "anchored in biblical teaching" and "Christ-centered." It operates in six states, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and Texas, Mr. Earley said. It is partly financed by the state in all but Texas and Arkansas, where it uses private money, he added.

Religious programs in prisons once used to be chaplaincy efforts and occasional visits by volunteers, but they have now grown into ambitious programs like InnerChange, Professor Tuttle said. He estimated that about 15 states had such programs.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2006

IN; Cells will open for isolated inmates

June 2, 2006

Mentally ill prisoners have been confined 23 hours a day, but that will change
By Brendan O'Shaughnessy
brendan.oshaughnessy@indystar.com
June 2, 2006

Indiana's mentally ill prisoners who have been locked in isolation cells for 23 hours a day will be moving to better conditions.

Faced with a lawsuit over housing the inmates in 7-foot-by-12-foot windowless cells, the Department of Correction will move inmates from the Westville Control Unit and Wabash Valley Special Housing Unit by October, Commissioner J. David Donahue said.

The special confinement units house inmates with the worst behavioral problems in the system, Donahue said. Some mentally ill inmates are isolated for their own safety and the safety of other inmates and do not receive needed care, officials said.

Some inmates will move to a psychiatric treatment facility in New Castle, while others will receive treatment before being integrated into the general prison population.

Mental health experts working with prison officials determined that locking ill prisoners in the cells without natural light or outside contact contributes to their illness.

"When we have serious mental health illness, we have to provide intervention and treatment for that offender," Donahue said. "You just don't merely put these people in an isolation environment, hoping they will change their behavior."

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed about 18 months ago by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana was set to go to trial in August, but a joint motion filed in early May requested a delay because of the plans to move the inmates.

The ACLU suit alleged that years of isolation in the windowless cells led four mentally ill inmates to kill themselves since 2000 and others to attempt suicide, hallucinate or rip chunks of flesh from their bodies.

"The idea of locking up mentally ill people in conditions that worsen their illness is barbaric and unconstitutional," said Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana. "If you can't conform your behavior because of a mental illness, it's a trap" that catches some inmates for up to 20 years.

Falk wouldn't comment directly on the lawsuit, except to say there has been no settlement in writing. A status report is due Monday, he said, and he hopes to see progress in removing the mentally ill from "a toxic environment."

Donahue said the lawsuit did not provoke the change in policy. "We're doing this because it's the right thing to do," he said.

The department began a review of treatment of the mentally ill before Donahue arrived in January 2005. He said he brought in a new medical provider and hired a medical director to improve conditions.

The department also has turned to the National Alliance on Mental Illness to train prison officers how to recognize mental illness.

About 19 percent of the state's 25,000 prisoners have been diagnosed with a mental illness, and 12 percent are being treated with psychotropic medication, he said.

Kellie Meyer, the alliance's Indiana criminal justice director, said the DOC has been making positive steps over the past three years.

"There has been a punitive approach in the past as the consequence of behaviors associated with mental illness," Meyer said. "Now, they are looking at treatment models."

A 1997 report by Human Rights Watch used the maximum-security units at Wabash Valley and Westville as the national example of abuse of the mentally ill in U.S. prisons. The report, called "Cold Storage," found that prison policies dehumanized mentally ill inmates to the point that they were less capable of leading law-abiding lives than when they entered. Some improvements followed the report's release, but problems persisted.

Donahue said his goal has been to promote public safety by improving rehabilitation programs. Because about 16,000 prisoners will return to society each year, he said the department has been developing approaches to ease that transition and prevent the ex-convicts from returning to prison.

"We want to prepare offenders in our institutions to return to a community and be law-abiding members," Donahue said. "Once you have mental health stabilization through appropriate meds or treatment, you want to maintain that. It's our job to do better."

Posted by lois at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

CCA Shares Surge

JUNE 2, 2006
High & Low
By Marc Hogan
Corrections Corp. Breaks Out
Shares in the private-sector detention company have surged, thanks to a growing inmate population
Crime may not pay, but punishment has been doing pretty well lately. Shares in Corrections Corp. of America (CXW ) recently touched a 52-week high of $52.45, and the stock was up 13.6% for the year at the close on June 1. A growing U.S. prison population suggests the Nashville-based company can continue to deliver solid profits.

Corrections Corp. is the biggest domestic player in the burgeoning private-sector detention business. The company runs 63 prison facilities in 19 states and Washington, D.C., with bed capacity for 71,000 inmates. In 2005, the company brought in a profit of $70.9 million, a 22.9% increase from 2004, on revenues of $1.19 billion. "We've never seen the wind at our back like it is today," Chief Executive John Ferguson said in a May 3 conference call.

LOTS OF COTS. Certainly, the forces of supply and demand are working in the company's favor. State and federal authorities are projected to seek 21,600 beds in the private corrections sector in the next two years, but only 13,450 beds are currently available, according to Bank of America analyst T.C. Robillard, who has a buy rating on the stock. Corrections Corp. "is the best-positioned company to benefit from the supply imbalance within the correction industry," Robillard wrote in a May 3 report. (Bank of America has led or co-led an offering of securities for Corrections Corp. and has received compensation from the company for investment banking services.)

On May 3, Corrections Corp. posted a $21.3 million first-quarter profit, after a loss of $8.9 million for the same period a year earlier. Management also raised its full-year profit outlook 2006 by 10 cents, to a range of $2.20 to $2.27 per share. Shares surged to a 52-week high of $49.38. They went on to hit their most recent one-year peak on May 23.

Share prices have since eased, to $51.08, down 2.6% from their zenith. On May 30, shares dropped as low as $50.19 on the news that the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded a contract for the housing of 1,200 low-security inmates to a competing bidder. Despite the setback, Corrections Corp. reaffirmed its outlook for 2006. "Although psychologically disappointing on the margin, there is no change to our estimates," wrote Avondale Partners senior analyst Patrick Swindle in a May 30 report, reiterating an outperform rating. (Avondale has received compensation for investment banking services from Corrections Corp.)

FOREIGN INFLUX. Political trends suggest the jailhouse stock's blues might not last long. White House and congressional immigration reform efforts call for more prison space to accommodate illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico. Currently, these immigrants are subject to a "catch-and-release" program. "Part of our strategy is to end catch-and-release by expanding the number of beds in detention facilities along the border," President George W. Bush said June 1 before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (see BW Online, 05/16/06, "Huddled Masses, Tricky Politics").

Faced with budget crunches, authorities will probably get those extra prison beds from privately run corrections outfits. State and federal governments currently outsource 6.7% of prisoners to the private sector, a figure expected to reach 7% by the end of 2008, according a Mar. 30 report by Bank of America, which estimates the private corrections market at $3.6 billion of the $53.1 billion total domestic corrections market. "The private sector is in a position to provide beds at an incrementally lower cost than either the state or the federal government can provide those same beds," Avondale's Swindle says.

Corrections Corp. isn't the prison industry's only breakout stock. On June 1, Houston-based Cornell (CRN ) reached a 52-week high of $16.36, up 18.4% on the year. Boca Raton (Fla.)-based Geo Group (GGI ) finished the day at $38.32, up 67.1% on the year but down from a 52-week high of $41.40 reached on May 23.

PLANNING AHEAD. Nevertheless, Corrections Corp.'s size and cash flow give it an advantage over rivals, analysts say. "What they do that's different from the other companies out there is effectively use their balance sheet and build ahead of demand," says Jim Macdonald, a managing director at First Analysis. "Other companies tend to operate at 100% occupancy, and they would tend to build a facility after they have a contract." (First Analysis has managed or co-managed a public offering of securities for Corrections Corp., and Macdonald has a long position in the company's stock).

Building prisons before knowing for sure that there will be inmates isn't as risky as it may sound, others say. "It's not a purely speculative build," Swindle says. "They have a pretty clear expectation of who the customer will likely be for that facility."

As a prison operator, however, Corrections Corp. faces other risks to its share price. One is the chance that abuse or other events at its facilities will make the news. In 2000, Amnesty International cited "reports of torture and ill-treatment" at Corrections Corp. facilities. The company has disputed those allegations. Corrections Corp. "has never in its history lost a federal state or local contract due to performance issues," says Louise Gilchrist, vice-president of marketing and communications at the company. "They would not rely on a contracted vendor if there was any issue about the quality of our performance."

"SOCIAL INJURY." Earlier this year, Yale University's Graduate & Employees Student Organization, a labor union, pushed for Yale to divest its interest in the company, held in a hedge fund. Correction Corp.'s "pursuit of profit through incarceration inherently leads to social injury." Hedge fund Farallon Capital Management sold its stake in Corrections Corp. during the quarter ended Mar. 31, according to filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Yale spokesperson Tom Conroy says that unlike the university's recent move to divest from Sudan, Yale "did not make any decision" itself to sell out of Corrections Corp.

Another hurdle for Corrections Corp. is the uncertain timing of contract awards. Government time frames can be difficult to pin down, analysts say. "Predicting the timing of contract awards is next to impossible, but it is also highly improbable, in our opinion, that [Corrections Corp.] will not benefit in a big way over the next three to five years," writes BB&T Capital Markets analyst Barry Stouffer, who has a buy rating on the stock. (BB&T Capital Markets expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services from Corrections Corp.)

HOW MUCH UPSIDE? It also remains to be seen whether the stock can continue its climb. At least one analyst points out that the stock already reflects the positive trends. "Typically, this industry has not traded much above 15 times earnings," says First Analysis's Macdonald. "The stock price is probably justified, but I'm not sure the upside is there."

Other analysts maintain that Corrections Corp. is poised for further gains. "We continue to view the shares as attractively priced," wrote Jefferies & Co. analyst Anton Hie in a May 3 report. Hie has a buy on the stock and a target price of $55. (Jefferies acted as a co-manager on a high-yield offering for Corrections Corp. in January, 2006.) Analyst projections range as high as a $65 target price at Bank of America. If the stock continues its run, investors might just be tempted to lock up profits.

Posted by lois at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

SC; Legislature Passes Death Penalty for Some Convicted of Child Molesting

JUNE 01, 2006
Death penalty for some molesters OK'd

BY JOHN FRANK
The Post and Courier, South Carolina

COLUMBIA - Some twice-convicted child molesters would be eligible for the death penalty under legislation headed to Gov. Mark Sanford's desk.

In a party-line vote, the House approved a Senate bill Wednesday that allows capital punishment in cases in which sex offenders are repeatedly convicted of raping a child younger than 11. Eleven Democrats joined the Republican majority to approve the bill 84-27.

Sanford has expressed support for the legislation, which would make the state's sex crimes laws among the toughest in the nation.

'This is a great step forward that will send a message loud and clear that that kind of conduct is not tolerated in South Carolina,' said Attorney General Henry McMaster, a Republican. 'We have stepped into the forefront of those states recognizing the threat of sexual predators.

McMaster contends the legislation is constitutional, though critics argue it goes beyond what higher courts allow.

'It will be challenged, if not here, in some other states,' McMaster acknowledged. 'It needs to be tested, and I predict the Supreme Court will conclude it is perfectly constitutional.'

Critics argue the litigation would cost the taxpayers money for a bill that is nothing more than an election-year ruse.

'Most attorneys and judges I talk to think it's unconstitutional,' said Symmes Culberson, president of the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 'They are needlessly going to waste taxpayer money to prosecute a crime that can be dealt with in other methods.'

The bill is known as 'Jessica's Law' after Jessica Lunsford, a young girl in Florida who was raped and murdered by a known sex offender who lived nearby.

But it gained momentum after a South Carolina man was charged in March with kidnapping and raping two girls in a makeshift dungeon at his Hartsville home.

A House panel initially removed the death row measure from the larger sexual predator legislation but added it back on Wednesday after passing a companion bill that clarifies a number of provisions.

The second bill still needs final approval in the Senate.

The combined legislative package would also:

Increase the mandatory minimum sentence for sex offenders to 25 years to life in prison.

Make electronic monitoring mandatory for offenders who are found guilty of lewd or criminal sexual conduct.

Create a new crime for harboring a sexual predator.

Spell out that consensual sex with a child older than 14 is not criminal.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, said scarring sex offenders with tough penalties is not the way to curb their behavior.

'What you do with pedophiles is limit their access to children,' said Cobb-Hunter, a social worker. 'I'm not sure we understand that holding a threat (over their head) of a death penalty isn't going to work.'

Outside of the policy concerns, a number of lawmakers were upset about the politics of how the bill arrived in the House.

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, used procedural maneuvers to aggressively push the bill forward. After the House dropped the death penalty provision, he threatened to kill every House bill pending in the Senate.

Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston, said the House should have stood up to Knotts' bullying.

'I am not here to say I want to rehabilitate them,' he said. 'But this bill and the surrounding hoopla is a mess. I simply don't understand it,' Altman said.

For a full report on the Legislature, go to www.charleston.net/webextras.

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