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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.
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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 inm