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December 31, 2006

Book Review of Ruth Wilson Gilmore's: "Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing CA"

Crime and punishment -- California's conundrum
Behind the state's prison boom

- Reviewed by Tony Platt
Sunday, December 31, 2006

Golden Gulag

Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California

By Ruth Wilson Gilmore

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS; 388 Pages; $19.95 PAPERBACK
California may lag behind many other states in high school graduation rates, welfare benefits and investment in public health, but when it comes to punishment, we rank at or near the top. We've crammed 173,000 convicts into the nation's largest prison system, designed to house at least one-third less. Our prison suicide and recidivism rates approach twice the national average. And we have one of the most extravagant penal systems in the country, costing taxpayers about the same as the state spends on higher education.

In the mid-1970s, under pressure from Ronald Reagan and the Board of Regents, the University of California closed Berkeley's School of Criminology. Several colleagues and I lost our jobs, but more important, California lost an opportunity to hear voices of opposition to the unregulated police-industrial complex launched during the Nixon presidency (1969-1974). By 1977, as public spending on policing peaked, national and local priorities shifted to incarceration, with California in the vanguard.

Today, 90 penitentiaries, small prisons and camps stretch across 900 miles of the fifth-largest economy in the world. It hasn't always been this way. Between 1852 and 1964, California built only 12 prisons. Since 1984, the state has erected 43 penal institutions, making it a global leader in prison construction.

Most of the new prisons have been built in out-of-the way rural areas, making it easier to lose sight of the humanity of the people we warehouse: mostly men (93 percent), mostly Latinos and African Americans (two-thirds), mostly from big cities (60 percent from Los Angeles) and mostly unemployed or the working poor.

Before the Clinton presidency, we used to hear national leaders debate the merits of punishment versus rehabilitation. But after the Democratic Party joined its Republican counterpart on the low road, politicians of both parties now churn out the same law-and-order platitudes. Occasionally a major scandal will appear in the headlines, such as the recent receivership imposed by a San Francisco federal judge on a prison health care system that violates the U.S. Constitution. But you wouldn't have known from California's gubernatorial race that the prison system is the shame of our state, testimony to the persistence of institutionalized racism, the widening economic divide and the gutting of social programs.

How and why this happened in California is the simple question explored in complex ways in the long-awaited "Golden Gulag." Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a geographer and professor at the University of Southern California, is an experienced activist in the anti-prison movement, and she has written an impressive first book that stands as a model of politically engaged scholarship and an indictment of California's "archipelago of concrete and steel cages."

Gilmore begins by swatting away the usual cliches about crime and punishment. The right claims that prisons reduce crime, but California's crime rate was decreasing before the prison boom took off. The left argues that prisons are the "new slavery," designed to provide cheap labor to mercenary corporations, but, Gilmore notes, "very few prisoners work for anybody while they're locked up." Others have suggested that the 54,000-strong California Correctional Peace Officers' Association, with its hefty political war chest, calls the shots in Sacramento. But the guards' union didn't have enough clout even to stop the governor from recently deciding to transfer 5,000 prisoners to private prisons as far away as Tennessee to alleviate the crowding crisis.

Having dispatched the prevailing common wisdom, "Golden Gulag" digs deeply into the issues. In this sophisticated, interdisciplinary study, brimming with new ideas, political savvy and moral urgency, Gilmore takes us on a demanding intellectual exploration of California's economic, political, spatial and cultural history. To understand the prison situation, she tells us, we need to understand four interconnected developments, none of which has made people feel more secure in their everyday lives.

First, most of the new prisons were built on formerly irrigated agricultural lands and in regions seeking to resuscitate their depressed economies. Second, the state benefited landowners, construction and utility companies by borrowing from public funds to finance the prison boom. The small towns that hoped for a bonanza, Gilmore says, have been victimized by a boondoggle. Third, changes in California's economy, combined with cuts in social programs, have aggravated chronic unemployment among urban low-wage workers, most of whom are Latino and African American. Finally, the majority of California's politicians jumped on the law-and-order bandwagon to promote "sentence-enhancing legislation" in the 1980s, followed in 1994 by public endorsement of the "three strikes" policy. It wasn't hard to quickly fill up the new concrete cages until they were overflowing in 2006.

This damning portrait would be depressing indeed if not for the voices of opposition and resistance permeating "Golden Gulag" from the first to last page. Drawing upon her own experiences in this movement, Gilmore provides us with a richly textured account of how working-class women of color and rural and urban activists have begun to challenge California's penal colony. She introduces us to the unsung heroes of Mothers Reclaiming Our Children, who, like their counterparts in Argentina, represent a public conscience. "A principled sense of mortal urgency," Gilmore writes, "inspires hope."

There are a few disappointments. Gilmore's history begins in the late 20th century; we would have benefited from learning about how California's original 19th century prisons overflowed with Chinese prisoners and other working-class convicts, all of whom were forced to work under grueling conditions for agricultural employers or build the state's infrastructure. Stylistically, some of "Golden Gulag's" denser theoretical passages could be thinned, and some readers might need a map to guide them on a journey that takes many important detours.

But these concerns in no way diminish the originality of this groundbreaking book. In the past century there were only a handful of innovative writers who prodded us to think deeply and imaginatively about crime and punishment in the modern world. Topping my list are Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer's "Punishment and Social Structure" (1939), Erving Goffman's "Asylums" (1961), Michel Foucault's "Discipline & Punish" (1977), Stuart Hall's "Policing the Crisis" (1978) and Mike Davis' "City of Quartz" (1990). Now, if you want to understand why progressive California leads the Western world with its regressive system of punishment, Gilmore's "Golden Gulag" is the first must-read book of the 21st century.

Tony Platt is professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento. His latest book is "Bloodlines: Recovering Hitler's Nuremberg Laws, From Patton's Trophy to Public Memorial" (Paradigm Publishers, 2006).

Page M - 1
URL:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/31/RVGNG-SN44B71.DTL

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Posted by lois at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2006

Legislative bumbling is to blame for much of the prison problems

Letter published in Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, CO
Regarding The Daily Sentinel's story about exporting of 240 prisoners to Sayre, Oklahoma, this crisis is the direct result of malfeasance by Colorado legislators and officials.

A lack of nerve plus pandering to the fears of the public have resulted in increased sentences for Colorado prisoners and backward parole policies that keep many minor, non-dangerous offenders in prison for so long.

Along with TABOR, a deficit of DOC ethics and professionalism have kept Colorado from building its own prisons and the failure to properly monitor the performance of the for-profit lockups that were built in their place.

I predicted a riot would occur at the Crowley private prison months before it exploded in flames on July 20, 2004. Colorado officials blithely looked the other way, ignoring the same whistleblowers to which I’d been speaking for a year.

That riot cost taxpayers over $700,000, less than half of which the DOC recovered after it was finally forced to assess damages. It was the second such Crowley riot. The first required intervention of law enforcement from four states.

Recently, the Pueblo Chieftain editorialized, "Private prison plans for Pueblo have been declared dead as the result of a scathing state audit and other serious questions involving the proposed operator, Florida-based GEO Group. We say good riddance."

State Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo requested the audit, which found that a former state director of prisons, for $1 million, was helping GEO to get a contract for a private prison in Weld County while he still was employed by the state.

The Crowley warden went to Sayre, Okla., the destination of the Colorado inmates. It was closed for years after Wisconsin withdrew its prisoners because they were deprived family contact.

FRANK SMITH, National Field Director Private Corrections Institute Bluff City, Kan.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2006/12/24/12_24_06_letters.html

Posted by lois at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

NY Times Editorial: Sex Offenders in Exile

December 30, 2006
Editorial, NY Times
Sex Offenders in Exile

Of all the places that sexual predators could end up after prison, the worst is out of sight, away from the scrutiny and treatment that could prevent them from committing new crimes. But communities around the country are taking that risk, with zoning laws that banish pedophiles to the literal edges of society.

There is a powerful and wholly understandable impulse behind laws that forbid sex offenders to live within certain distances of schools, day care centers and other places that children gather. Scores of states and municipalities have created such buffer zones, then continued adding layer upon layer to the enforcement blanket.

This has placed a heavy burden on law enforcement agencies, which already must struggle to meet exacting federal and state requirements for registering and monitoring the ever-growing population of released sex offenders, many of whom must be tracked for life. Lawmakers have shown no hesitation in piling on the administrative load, but frequently are less quick to pay for additional people to do the work.

As the areas off limits to sex offenders expand to encompass entire towns and cities, if not states, the places where they can live and work are shrinking fast. The unintended consequence is that offenders have been dispersed to rural nowhere zones, where they are much harder to track. In confined regions like Long Island, they have become concentrated in a handful of low-rent, few-questions-asked areas — an unintended and unfair imposition on their wary neighbors.

Many offenders respond by going underground. In Iowa, the number of registered sex offenders who went missing soared after the state passed a law forbidding offenders to live within 2,000 feet of a school or day care center. The county prosecutors’ association has urged that the law be repealed, for the simple reasons that it drives offenders out of sight, requires “the huge draining of scant law enforcement resources” and doesn’t provide the protection intended.

The prosecutors are right that any sense of security that such laws provide is vague at best and probably false. Just as it would feel foolish to forbid muggers to live near A.T.M.’s, it is hard to imagine how a 1,000-foot buffer zone around a bus stop, say, would keep a determined pedophile at bay. If children feel secure enough to drop their wariness of strangers, that would be a dangerous outcome. And of course, no buffer against a faceless predator will be any help to the overwhelming majority of child victims — those secretly abused by stepfathers, uncles and other people they know.

The problem with residency restrictions is that they fulfill an emotional need but not a rational one. It’s in everyone’s interest for registered sex offenders to lead stable lives, near the watchful eyes of family and law enforcement and regular psychiatric treatment. Exile by zoning threatens to create just the opposite phenomenon — a subpopulation of unhinged nomads off their meds with no fixed address and no one keeping tabs on them. This may satisfy many a town’s thirst for retributive justice, but as a sensible law enforcement policy designed to make children safer, it smacks of thoughtlessness and failure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/opinion/30sat1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

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

DE: Justice Dept. Finds Civil Rights Violations at 4 Del. Prisons

Justice Dept. finds civil rights violations at 4 Del. prisons—

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -
The Justice Department announced today that the federal government has reached an agreement with Delaware aimed at improving medical conditions at four prison facilities where investigators found substantial civil rights violations.

Investigators reported problems at the Delores J- Baylor Women's Correctional Institution in New Castle, the Howard R- Young Correctional Institution in Wilmington, the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna and the Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown. The investigation didn't find constitutional violations at a fifth facility, John L- Webb Correctional Facility in Wilmington.

In the other four facilities, federal officials reported inadequate intake screening and health assessments to identify acute and chronic health conditions of inmates. They also found inadequate treatment of inmates with infectious diseases and serious mental illness. Investigators noted deficiencies in the state's suicide prevention measures.

http://www.wmdt.com/wires/displaystory.asp?id=57107709

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

December 29, 2006

VA: No More Prisons in VA--Grayson County

NO MORE PRISONS IN VIRGINIA - GRAYSON COUNTY
For More Information: http://www.coxchapelgrange.org/
SUGGESTED COMMENTS

Phone calls, letters, e-mails and chance meetings or discussions will be helpful and promote understanding of the issue. Please use any resource or opportunity to share information with County and State officials.
The issue statement will serve as a base of information and the following statements are suggested for your use. Please feel free to use any and all information as you communicate in your own style and words.

A. Please help my neighbors and me in defeating the proposed site for a prison. Locating a prison on the New River and in Grayson County will be a devastating way to provide jobs, most of which will not go to present residents, but to those experienced in prison management.

B. A correctional facility on the New River will diminish the recreational experience of visitors and residents alike. As one of America’s Heritage Rivers, the New River is one of the few in the United States that can be experienced as a natural waterway and is an American treasure.

C. Grayson County is blessed with natural beauty and is well-known for the scenic terrain of Grayson Highlands State Park, Mt. Rogers and the New River. Placing a prison here would forever send a negative message to residents and visitors.

D. The site in Cox’s Chapel Community will incur substantial costs for a bridge and new roads that would be
invasive on private property and community residents. The expense for construction would add increased financial responsibilities to this already expensive project.

E. A great deal of money has been spent on preserving the New River, its communities and its heritage. Building economic strength through tourism with the establishment of the heritage music trail The Crooked Road and the artisan network ‘Round the Mountain, growth and progress has come with small and well-planned steps. Grayson County needs balanced and planned growth to enhance present opportunities.

F. The prison would forever bring a negative change to the human, natural and economical environment to the second oldest river in the world.

Please share this information with your incarcerated love one and others. United we stand, divided we fall.

Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged(RIHD)
Prisoner Self Help Rehabilitation
PO Box 55 - Highland Springs - Virginia 23075
(804) 562-2123 www.rihd.org

Addresses for Letter Writing Campaign To Governor Tim Kaine
The Honorable Tim Kaine
Office of the Governor
Patrick Henry Building, 3rd floor
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219

Ms. Kim Lipp
Virginia Department of Corrections
6900 Atmore Drive
Richmond, VA 23261
804-674-3102-1206

John W. Marshall
Virginia Department of Public Safety
Patrick Henry Building
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219

Mr. Preston Bryant
Secretary of Natural Resources
Office of the Secretary of Natural Resources
P.O. Box 1475
Richmond, VA 23218

Senator William C. Wampler, Jr.
510 Cumberland Street, Ste. 308
Bristol, TN 24201-4381

Senator John H. Chichester**
Finance Committee Chairman
P.O. Box 904
Fredricksburg, VA 22404

Senator Walter A. Stosch**
In-session address:
General Assembly Building, Room 621
Capitol Square
Richmond, Virginia 23219
(804) 698-7512
Mailing address:
Innsbrook Centre
4551 Cox Road
Suite 110
Glen Allen, Virginia 23060-6740
(804) 527-7780

Sterling Proffitt, Chairman**
Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Corrections
6900 Atmore Drive
Richmond Virginia, 23225

Jimmy Burrell, Vice Chairman**
Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Corrections
6900 Atmore Drive
Richmond Virginia, 23225

Bobby Mitchell, Secretary**
Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Corrections
6900 Atmore Drive
Richmond Virginia, 23225

Local Officials
Charles W. “Bill” Carrico
1139 Turkey Knob Road
Fries, VA 24330
276-744-7925 - Home
276-773-9600 – Office

Mr. Ralph Tuggle
848 Black Rock Mountain Lane
Independence, VA 24348
276-773-2806

Mr. Mike Maynard
550 Little Wilson Road
Mouth of Wilson, VA 24363
276-579-9442

Mr. D.K. “Doug” Carrico
2450 Old Baywood Road
Galax, VA 24333
276-238-8826 - Office
276-238-8844 - Home

Larry K. Bartlett
94 Pondside Lane
Galax, VA 24333
276-236-9333

Joe Vaughn
2948 Clito Road
Fries, VA 42333
276-744-7255 Home

Posted by lois at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2006

CT: Plan to have residential program for men currently incarcerted

"According to a study conducted earlier this year at Central Connecticut State University, the overall recidivism rate among more than 8,000 prisoners who were released in 2000 and tracked for six years, was 39 percent. Those who served their entire sentences at a correctional facility had a recidivism rate of 47 percent, compared to a 24 percent rate among those who were released into residential programs."

Hartford Courant- CONNECTICUT NEWS

Plan Would Open Home To Inmates
Blue Hills Avenue Facility Now Houses A Residential Program For Youths

December 28, 2006
By STEVEN GOODE, Courant Staff Writer

BLOOMFIELD -- An agency that for years has operated a residential program for troubled youths on Blue Hills Avenue is seeking permission to convert the facility for use as an adult halfway house.

The proposal, by Windsor-based Community Solutions Inc., comes as the state Department of Correction continues to look for ways to increase adult residential placements as a means to combat recidivism and help reduce the bloated inmate population, which is again near levels reached earlier in the decade.

Community Solutions, which operates 40 residential supervision and treatment programs in Connecticut and other states, is one of several vendors that contracts with the correction department to house inmates released into community facilities.

Under the Blue Hills Avenue proposal, which must be approved by the planning commission, 40 male inmates would be housed near a condominium complex and an enclave of single-family homes, for two to eight months each, and would be offered a wide range of services, including employment, housing search, life skills development and case management.

Bloomfield officials expressed support for the plan to house adult prisoners making the transition back to their communities, with some ground rules.

"We are going to insist on them not having certain types of clients that are not appropriate to a neighborhood context," Town Manager Louie Chapman Jr. said Wednesday.

The restrictions would address individuals with acute or chronic psychological or psychiatric difficulties, predatory sex offenders, and those convicted of arson.

Brian Garnett, spokesman for the Department of Correction, said Wednesday that there are currently 1,057 halfway-house placements statewide and the department is seeking 150 more as it expands community reunification efforts.

Garnett said that while offenders will continue to serve their full sentences, portions of those sentences will increasingly be served in residential programs.

The push for more halfway houses was given a boost with the appointment in 2003 of Theresa Lantz as correction commissioner, and continues today backed by data on recidivism rates.

According to a study conducted earlier this year at Central Connecticut State University, the overall recidivism rate among more than 8,000 prisoners who were released in 2000 and tracked for six years, was 39 percent. Those who served their entire sentences at a correctional facility had a recidivism rate of 47 percent, compared to a 24 percent rate among those who were released into residential programs.

"As a result, we have sought out other opportunities, because we know it works," Garnett said. "Halfway-house placements are the best thing we can do to support them and make sure they don't re-offend."

Garnett said the community release push is not a reaction to recent figures that show the state's inmate population again is on the rise after three years of decline. He attributed the recent increase to more violent crime and arrests in urban areas, as well as the system housing illegal immigrants for federal agencies. As of Wednesday, there were 18,800 prisoners incarcerated in Connecticut, according to Department of Correction figures. Garnett said the department will require those eligible for supervised release to meet strict standards.

"We are not going to put anyone into a community who is going to create a risk," he said.

Chapman said that when the facility was geared toward housing juvenile offenders in the past, some residents initially expressed concern. He said there was no increase in crime as a result and that he expected a similar result with the change to a halfway house for adults.

The proposal is scheduled to go before the Bloomfield Plan and Zoning Commission on Jan. 22. Contact Steven Goode at sgoode@courant.com.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctconboard1228.artdec28,0,1139591.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

Posted by lois at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

VA: Cox's Chapel No Place For A Prison

12/28/06
Cox's Chapel no place for a prison
John A. Duvall
Duvall lives in Comers Rock and is a retired United Methodist pastor.

The Roanoke Times has earlier reported plans for a state penitentiary on New River in Cox's Chapel community in Grayson County. Evaluation is ongoing.

Grayson political leaders are hyping this prison as a cure-all for the county's ailing economy. Couple this with the implied blackmail that it must go to Cox's Chapel or "almost certainly not be in Grayson County," along with the claim it would keep area youth at home with jobs guarding convicts, and Grayson officials and the private contractor appear to think they're making a convincing case.

I believe the result will be destroying a historic community and sacrificing the honest toil, way of life and noble citizenship of generations upon the reckless altar of unfeeling expediency.

Further, the county supervisors reportedly stand "unanimous" in this venture. Thus, the question arises of who represents, and offers to protect, the rights of the multiplied scores of area citizens who happen to disagree? If Samuel Johnson were alive, I think he'd now write, "The last refuge of scoundrels" is no longer patriotism, it's rule by confidential unanimity!

It's also argued a prison will hasten area public water systems with low rates guaranteed. I think dependable water/sewer systems, with reasonable prices should be expected, with or without a prison.

The truth is, prisons have become big business trafficking, sadly, in human wreckage. Virginia has more people locked away than the entire populations of Grayson and Carroll counties and Galax combined. Without possibility of parole, the numbers skyrocket.

Additional space, when required, should be built only at industrial locations. Planting a multimillion dollar common jail along the banks of the picturesque New River in the midst of a nationally recognized rural community, however winsome the site, ought to be the last thing Grayson leaders or Virginia corrections officials advocate, or do.

Grayson County's pastoral beauty and quality families are legendary. Both must be nurtured and protected. I urge Virginia leaders to summarily decline the Cox's Chapel site.

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/wb/xp-97674

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

MA: 2 men and one woman commit suicide in prisons in Dec.

Third suicide this month at a Massachusetts prison
12/28/2006, Daily Hampshire Gazette

BOSTON (AP) - A convicted killer serving a life sentence for a 1983 murder hanged himself early Wednesday in his cell at MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole, a state prison spokeswoman said, in what was the third suicide this month in the state prison system.

Glenn Bourgeois, 44, was found hanging in his cell in a segregation unit at 4:34 a.m., and was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Norwood Hospital, said Diane Wiffin, Department of Correction spokeswoman.

Bourgeois was convicted of first degree murder, armed robbery and other charges in 1985 stemming from a fatal shooting during a robbery in Middleborough in September 1983, Wiffin said.

Bourgeois used a bedsheet to hang himself in a cell in a segregation unit called 10 Block. Wiffin said the unit was fully staffed with a lieutenant and two officers. She said a review of video shows the officers followed policy by conducting cell checks every half-hour.

There are 60 cells in 10 Block, currently housing 57 inmates, she said. Bourgeois was "not an active mental health case," according to a DOC statement. He was transferred to Cedar Junction on Aug. 8 from the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater after officials discovered a cellular phone and 8-inch hacksaw blade piece in his cell. Officials said last week that two people in custody hanged themselves at separate state prison facilities within two hours of each other late Dec. 12 or early Dec. 13.

Nicole Davis, 24, was found hanging by a bedsheet at MCI-Framingham late Dec. 12. Davis was in custody for a 30-day drug detoxification program but was not a convicted criminal.

Convicted murderer Eduardo Soto, 33, was found hanging by a bedsheet at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater early Dec. 13.

"The only parallel is they are in DOC custody," Wiffin said of the rash of suicides. "It's not evidence of a larger matter."

Still, the DOC in September began a suicide prevention assessment. Wiffin said the findings would be released early in the new year.

Posted by lois at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

NC: Prison Boom Continues

News & Observer
Raleigh, NC

Dec 27, 2006 12:30 AM

State's new prisons not enough
Lawmakers face prospect of spending millions to avoid overcrowding

Dan Kane, Staff Writer

When North Carolina finishes a prison building boom in 2008, it will still lack room for roughly 400 inmates, according to the latest estimates for North Carolina's prison population.

The space crunch only gets worse from there.

By 2016, the prison system will have nearly 6,400 more inmates than beds if no measures are taken to add space or reduce sentences.

Given the time it takes to build prisons, state lawmakers and Gov. Mike Easley again face the prospect of spending tens of millions of dollars in the coming legislative session so the prison system does not become dangerously crowded.

"You can't wait until the last minute to decide what you are going to do," said Boyd Bennett, the prisons director for the N.C. Department of Correction. "It's my belief that it will be an issue that the legislature will need to address."

The lack of space causes other problems. County jails could again see their cells filled with convicted criminals awaiting assignment to a state prison. The crunch also makes it harder for lawmakers to push for tough-on-crime initiatives that are likely to be popular with voters, such as increased penalties for gang activity or child pornography.

"What scares me is we're making new laws every day that are putting more people in jail, and so the population's going up -- I don't see it going down -- and we're going to have to work harder to accommodate them," said state Sen. John Snow, a Cherokee County Democrat and co-chairman of a state budget subcommittee that oversees prison spending. Snow is a former Superior Court judge.

At the same time, the lack of prison space allows lawmakers to consider alternatives that could shave time off some inmates' sentences and could free cells. The N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission has proposed several law changes to achieve that, but lawmakers have not warmed to the suggestions.

Other states, in an attempt to save money during budget crunches, have revised sentencing laws to reduce prison time for drug criminals and nonviolent repeat offenders.

Bennett said correction officials and Easley's budget staff are working on a plan to deal with the lack of cells.

A 10-year capital plan correction officials produced in May would provide space for roughly 7,650 inmates, largely by adding dormitories to existing prisons. Those expansions would cost between $10 million and $20 million per prison, department officials say.

The department also recommends a new 1,000-bed medium-security prison and a new 500-bed minimum-security prison with estimated costs of $63 million and $28 million, respectively.

All told, the plan's price tag comes to roughly $260 million for expansions and the two new prisons. Another $310 million would pay for new health care facilities in four prisons across the state.

Bennett said the department is looking to save money by having inmates perform some labor, which has the added benefit of teaching them a trade.

Nearly all the new construction would be for medium- and minimum-security housing.

Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, for example, is a new 1,000-bed maximum-security prison that would add a 500-bed section for medium-custody inmates and a 250-bed section for minimum-security inmates.

The last six prisons that are either built or are under construction are 1,000-cell maximum-security facilities that, at roughly $90 million each, are the most expensive to build.

Some lawmakers have criticized the department and other lawmakers for focusing solely on those types of prisons, especially after prison population projections indicated there were greater needs for less expensive medium and minimum-security housing.

Prison officials now plan to house medium- and maximum-custody inmates at the last maximum-security prison authorized by lawmakers, one that is under construction in Columbus County. It is due to open in 2008.

That proposed conversion, if approved by lawmakers, would allow Columbus to house 500 maximum custody inmates and 1,000 medium-custody inmates.

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/525650.html

Posted by lois at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

CO: Geo plan hits a bump in Ault

The Tribune
Ault prison plan hits bump
Roxye Arellano,
December 26, 2006
After the state Department of Corrections pulled its contract with the GEO Group to build a prison in Pueblo, Ault residents wonder about GEO's proposed prison plans in their backyard.

While some speculate that the department's decision to pull the contract will halt the company's plans for Ault, others say it has changed nothing. For Phillip Tidwell, a member of the Citizens Against Ault Prison, the Department of Correction's decision in Pueblo was good news for his own fight.

"We are elated ... finally someone will investigate them," he said. "The board is not calling off anything, but to me, like the DOC, why hasn't Ault pulled out on our contract with them? They're not truthful, not honest from the beginning ... Now, we don't feel alone. We will continue our own fight, it just feels like we're being assisted by the DOC."

The contract was canceled for the Pueblo prison after concern about Geo's lack of progress on the project.

The corrections department said that after four years, the company failed to respond to inquiries from them and failed to break ground on the Pueblo facility.

In Ault, the state awarded the GEO Group the right to build a 1,500-bed medium security men's prison on 40 acres in the southeast part of town. Despite the initial discussions, there still are no final decisions on the Ault proposal.

Ault Mayor Brad Bayne said the department's decision about the Pueblo facility won't change what's happening in Ault.

"The town hasn't changed its views on this," he said.

He said for the prison to be built in the town, there has to be a guarantee from the state, a negotiation between the town and the GEO Group that makes sense and a vote of residents to approve the plans.

Town officials haven't heard from a GEO Group representative since September when GEO hosted a public forum answering questions from residents, he said. "... We're in a holding pattern until the state guarantees the matter," he added.

The plan first came to light at the end of May when the GEO Group gave a proposal to the Ault Town Board. According to meeting minutes, representatives from GEO said the project would be funded through a local government bond, where the state pays the local government, which then pays GEO. They said the facility would house 1,500 beds, but the request for proposal on the project would allow up to 2,250 beds.

To fight the project, Citizens Against Ault Prison demanded an injunction on the town's code which will require a vote of residents to decide the fate of the prison. The injunction, which was signed by 297 voters, was approved by board members in November.

Although Ault's prison proposal hasn't had discussion on the construction phase, one issue remains the same: The lack of a guaranteed head count the GEO has requested from the corrections department. The state normally pays private facilities on a per-person basis.

"GEO asked for a bed guarantee," said Alison Morgan, director of private prisons for the Colorado Department of Corrections. "... Historically, the state has not provided a guarantee."

Ault residents have been divided on having the prison come to town. One group says the prison will help the town survive with increased tax revenues, jobs and housing developments. Others do not trust GEO or town board members and worry their voices are not being heard.

They are not the only ones who don't trust the GEO Group. Rep. Buffie McFayden, D-Pueblo, questioned why GEO Group was awarded a contract to build a facility in Ault when the same company had failed to perform under the Pueblo contract since 2003.

An audit performed by the Legislative Audit Committee questioned Nolin Renfrow, a former top official for the state corrections department, when he helped GEO Group win a state contract earlier in the year.

Renfrow is handling the discussions and deals with the town of Ault. The audit states Renfrow was helping GEO Group get a contract for a private prison in Ault while he was still employed by the state. The Ault project is expected to cost up to $100 million, and Renfrow would get a 1 percent fee or up to $1 million from the deal.

McFadyen questioned why the department was even considering a GEO request of giving them a written guarantee that the new beds would be filled, something the state has never provided to any of the five other existing private prisons in the state. While the talks of the prison facility are still ongoing, the recent news stories have taken a toll on the issue in Ault. GEO representatives did not return calls.

"In my own personal opinion, it doesn't look good for GEO," said Mayor Bayne. "... But I don't get too wrapped up when reading on the Pueblo issue or about Nolin. All that needs to play out. We only know as much as it is in the paper."

MORE ONLINE
To see the Department of Corrections letter to GEO Group log online at www.greeleytribune.com.

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20061226/NEWS/112250091

Posted by lois at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

Murders Up In Big Cities

Murders up in New York, other big cities

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
NEW YORK -- After many years of decline, the number of murders climbed this year in New York and many other major U.S. cities, reaching their highest levels in a decade in some places. Among the reasons given: gangs, the easy availability of illegal guns, a disturbing tendency among young people to pull guns when they do not get the respect they demand, and, in Houston at least, an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

In New York, where the city reported 579 homicides through Dec. 24 -- a nearly 10 percent increase from the year before -- the spike is mostly the result of an unusually large number of "reclassified homicides," or those involving victims who were shot or stabbed years ago but did not die until this year. Thirty-five such deaths have been added to this year's toll, compared with an annual average of about a dozen.

At the same time, Police Department spokesman Paul Browne noted that this year's total is only slightly higher than last year's 539 homicides -- the city's lowest death toll in more than 40 years.

Browne blamed the rise in part on the availability of guns, particularly weapons from out of state. The city this year sued dozens of out-of-state gun shops that it says are responsible for many of the illegal weapons on the streets of New York.

In Chicago, homicides through the first 11 months of the year were up 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2005, reversing a four-year decline. A police spokeswoman said gang violence has been a contributing factor.

In New Haven, Conn., there were 23 homicides as of Tuesday, compared with 15 in 2004 and in 2005. Police Chief Francisco Ortiz said that about half of this year's killings involve young people settling disputes with guns instead of fists.

"They're all struggling with this thing about respect and pride," Ortiz said. "It's about respect. It's about revenge. It's about having a reputation. It's about turf and it's about girls."

Houston police attribute the 15 percent increase in the homicide count to the influx of Katrina evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

"So we expect that to settle," Lt. Murray Smith said. "We're hoping it will go down."

New Orleans, with its post-Katrina exodus, is the only major U.S. city that saw a sharp decline in the number of homicides. There were 154 in New Orleans this year as of Monday, said police spokesman Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson, down from 210 in 2005. But the city was largely empty during the fall and winter of 2005-06, and even now has only about half of its pre-Katrina population of 455,000.

Some cities, like Cincinnati -- which has had 83 homicides so far, up from 79 in 2005 -- posted their highest numbers ever. Others saw their highest death tolls in years.

Oakland, Calif., had 148 homicides as of Wednesday, up 57 percent from last year and the highest in more than a decade. Philadelphia's 2006 homicide total was 403 as of Wednesday, the first time the number has topped 400 in nearly a decade. There were 380 killings in all of 2005.

Philadelphia officials have struggled all year to reduce the violence. In July, Mayor John F. Street gave a televised address in which pleaded with young people: "Lay down your weapons. Do it now. Choose education over violence."

A few cities reported slight decreases in murders. Los Angeles' total was down about 4 percent to 464 homicides through Dec. 23. San Francisco's fell about 15 percent. San Francisco Police Sgt. Steve Mannina said the drop is partly due to increased patrols in violence-prone areas and more overtime approved by the police chief.

The FBI does not release its national crime statistics until several months after the end of the year. The bureau's statistics for the first six months of 2006 showed an increase of 1.4 percent in the number of murders in the first half of 2006 compared with the first six months of 2005.

Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at John Jay College in New York, said that while there are various theories for the drop in murders in New York and other cities in the 1990s, no one knows for sure why it happened. And if they are going up again, no one knows the reason for that, either, he said.

He noted that police departments tend to take credit when the murder rate goes down. "When crime goes up it will be interesting to see whether they will accept responsibility," Karmen said.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=548400&category=&BCCode=&
newsdate=12/27/2006

Posted by lois at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

CA: Why LA jail cells have revolving doors

A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Why L.A. jail cells have revolving doors
A strained justice system and a flawed rehab law feed the cycle of repeat offenders.

By Megan Garvey and Jack Leonard, Times Staff Writers
December 26, 2006

Bertha Cuestas was standing outside her Highland Park apartment scratching off an instant lottery ticket when veteran Los Angeles Police Department Officers J.C. Duarte and Harold Marinelli spotted the 50-year-old from their patrol car.

They had been arresting Cuestas for prostitution and drugs since their days on the vice squad in the mid-1990s. On this warm October afternoon, she was wanted for failing to report to the judge in her most recent drug case.

"Why didn't you go to court?" Duarte asked her.

"I was busy," she replied.

Cuestas knew the drill. She asked a friend for money, then stuffed the $7.42 he gave her into her bra for the bus ride home when she got out of jail.

"How many times have you guys done this with her?" her son asked, cradling his infant daughter in his arm.

"Too many times," Marinelli said.

It was the start of a typical week for Duarte and Marinelli. Like other patrol officers throughout Los Angeles County, the longtime partners are spending more and more time picking up old regulars like Cuestas.

A Times investigation has found that thieves, drug offenders and other repeat criminals are cycling in and out of jail faster than ever.

Since 2000, the number of people booked two or more times into jails in Los Angeles County in a single year has jumped 73%, reaching 61,646 last year, according to a Times analysis. Repeat offenders now account for 42% of bookings, up from 26% in 2000.

Once booked, defendants enter a justice system whose resources have not kept pace with demand, even as crime has dropped in recent years.

There are not enough prosecutors to try them. There are not enough courts to sentence them. There are not enough jail or prison beds to house them. And there is not enough treatment to help them.

Instead, repeat offenders drain limited justice resources and are quickly back on the streets to get arrested again, taking up the time of police, prosecutors, public defenders and judges. Patrol cops are frustrated. Victims feel forgotten.

"Under any other definition of crisis, this would be an emergency," said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who runs the nation's largest network of jails. "The system is collapsing because of its volume."

A solution, top law enforcement officials say, would require far more money than lawmakers have been willing to commit.

"We didn't cure malaria until we started draining the swamps instead of just swatting at the mosquitoes," said Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton. "The resources have just not been committed to draining the swamps."

A week on the beat

To gauge the effects of the revolving door, The Times examined jail bookings since 2000. Reporters interviewed prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, law enforcement leaders and criminologists.

The paper also spent a week in October with officers in the LAPD's Northeast Division, a 29-square-mile collection of affluent and poor neighborhoods that runs from Eagle Rock to eastern Hollywood.

Police that week made 28 adult felony arrests, on typical charges for the division's patrol officers, mostly drug offenses, thefts and domestic violence. Within six weeks of their arrests, 12 had cycled through the court system, were found guilty and were back on the streets. Three others arrested on warrants were released by judges within days.

Of those 15, three have already been rearrested and are back in jail.

"We get so many repeaters it's ridiculous," Officer Duarte said. "They do a few days and then they're back out again."

Duarte and Marinelli had a hand in five arrests that week, all involving repeat offenders. Together, the five had at least 106 previous arrests and 61 convictions. Cuestas alone had been arrested 21 times, most recently in July.

Cuestas had been ordered to enter rehab in August under Proposition 36, the 2000 state initiative that mandates treatment rather than incarceration for most nonviolent drug offenders. She never went, leading to the warrant.

She is among thousands who have failed to complete treatment. Although nearly 8,000 people in the county successfully completed Proposition 36 rehab between July 2001 and June 2005, they are the minority. UCLA researchers found that about 75% of those sentenced to treatment opted out, never showed up or stopped going.

Duarte and Marinelli believe the initiative gives longtime, chronic users like Cuestas too many chances to reoffend, with little consequence.

"We need to let the courts know Prop. 36 is not working for a lot of people," Duarte said.

A parolee is arrested

A day after they arrested Cuestas, Marinelli and Duarte were called in to help with a search. Rodolfo Salcido, 35, had been pulled over driving a stolen 1991 Toyota Camry. Before police could detain him, he fled, jumping over a picket fence in a Cypress Park neighborhood.

Police found Salcido crammed into an attic crawl space in the laundry room of a nearby apartment building.

"All right, officers, I'm coming out," he told them. He was on parole for stealing another car. Sweat poured from his shaved head and tattooed torso.

Salcido had spent the last seven years in and out of prison, never in for more than a year or out for more than nine months. In 1999, he was convicted of stealing a $4,000 LAPD radio from an unmarked police car. Soon after, he went to prison in another burglary case, the first of four prison terms.

In his wake, he left victims like Emma Sanchez, a mother of two and owner of the stolen Camry. Sanchez is one of more than 23,000 people whose cars were stolen in the city this year. She said it took her more than six months, working for minimum wage as a lunch-truck driver, to save $2,500 to buy the car.

She said she paid about $220 to the city to get her car out of the impound lot. Her prized $400 stereo was gone.

The Camry smelled of stale beer and cigarettes.

She feels uneasy behind the wheel, as though the car is no longer hers.

"They say once a car is stolen, it's not good anymore," Sanchez said. "I don't even like driving in it. It's not the same anymore. It feels like it was violated."

'Don't I know you?'

A few hours after Salcido's arrest, Duarte and Marinelli were on a new case. The division's detectives received a tip that Orlando Gallegos, 34, a burglary suspect also wanted for failing to report for his parole, was living at a dingy Highland Park hotel.

In the late afternoon, the officers pounded on his door. They found him in his narrow room, several baggies of heroin in the freezer, stolen credit cards on the dresser and two convicted criminals as company.

In the dim hallway, the suspects knelt, handcuffed and facing the wall. Gallegos caught the eye of Marinelli.

"Don't I know you?" Marinelli asked him. "You look familiar to me."

A check of Gallegos' rap sheet jogged Marinelli's memory. Three years earlier, Gallegos had led him on a brief high-speed chase in a stolen car.

"I knew I knew you," said Marinelli, shaking his head.

Gallegos told police he'd found the credit cards in a trashcan.

Police first arrested Gallegos when he was 18 for possession of a small amount of marijuana. Five years later, he was arrested and convicted of vandalism.

In 1999, he was convicted of domestic violence. A burglary conviction in 2000 led to prison time after he violated probation. Two years later, when Marinelli caught him driving a stolen car, he was sent back to prison.

Gallegos' convictions, though frequent, never met the threshold of a strike under California's three-strikes law, which increases sentences for repeat offenders convicted of more serious or violent crimes. And so he cycled rapidly in and out of jail and prison.

One of the men in the hotel room, Evaristo Torres, 31, was furious at the arrival of police. He said he'd only come by to find someone to "smoke some weed with, get a beer with." He told officers he didn't even know the names of the other men.

Gilbert Morales, 46, told police he was on parole for drunk driving and on probation for drug possession. In the cinderblock holding cells of the Northeast Division, an officer searched him.

The officer pulled a tiny baggie filled with what looked like rock cocaine from Morales' small front jeans pocket. Another bag held what appeared to be a balloon of heroin and powder cocaine.

"Am I going to find anything else?" the officer asked. "You might as well tell me because I'm going to find it."

"No, nothing," Morales said.

The officer pulled another tiny bag from one of Morales' socks: methamphetamine and a single tablet of Tylenol.

It was his 47th arrest. Over the years, he'd had 24 convictions, seven for felonies. This was his third arrest this year.

After nightfall, Marinelli and Duarte helped drive Gallegos, Morales and Torres to the city's downtown jail in Parker Center.

There, Morales said he believed he could stop using drugs, if he could get the right help.

"I did good for a while when I had residential treatment. Maybe if I can get that again," he said.

His friend Gallegos needed medical evaluation for an old head injury. A nurse asked if he was on any medication.

"Dylantin for seizures," he said. She gave him his dose for the day.

Was he on any drugs or alcohol? He shook his head no.

"He got interrupted," Marinelli said.

Some deals are made

Duarte and Marinelli doubted that the five suspects they helped arrest would serve much time. They were right. Four were back on the streets within three weeks.

Cuestas, the drug abuser whose son watched her arrest, spent six days in jail before a judge released her on probation.

On Dec. 7, she failed to show up for a court hearing to decide whether her probation should be revoked. A judge issued a new arrest warrant.

Twelve days after his arrest for car theft, Rodolfo Salcido shuffled into Department 50 of the downtown Los Angeles criminal courthouse. His previous convictions ‹ for robbery, burglary and car theft, among other crimes ‹ meant that he faced up to 13 years in prison. Because his 1995 robbery is considered a strike under the three-strikes law, he would have to serve 80% of the time.

But prosecutors and Judge David M. Horwitz agreed on a three-year prison sentence in return for a guilty plea. As part of the deal, the judge did not consider Salcido's robbery conviction. With credit for good behavior, he is likely to serve only half his sentence.

It did not take long to resolve the drug arrests of the three men in Orlando Gallegos' Highland Park hotel room.

Torres sat in jail for five days until he appeared in court and promised to pay the fine he owed on his previous drug case. When he did so three weeks later, the case was dismissed.

Less than three weeks after their arrests, Gallegos and Morales each pleaded guilty to drug possession. Probation officers recommended prison for Morales, noting that he had already been sentenced under Proposition 36 and "has either been unable or unwilling to rehabilitate."

But Proposition 36 required that both men be sentenced to treatment. In drug court, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Maria E. Stratton read aloud a long list of probation conditions.

"If you mess up ‹ and you might mess up ‹ come to court," she told them. "Don't just blow it off. I'd hate to have the police sent out to find you."

That afternoon, the friends left the criminal courthouse together as free men. It had been 19 days since their arrests.

On Dec. 1, Gallegos rode a bus to the downtown criminal courthouse to check in with Stratton. He had yet to enroll in treatment or attend 12-step meetings. She told him to come back in January with more to show for himself.

His friend Morales was due in court the same day. But there was no answer when Stratton called his name. The judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

A vicious cycle

The county's top law enforcement officials concede that local justice often appears at odds with itself. The number of arrests by county police agencies has risen sharply since 2000. Yet budget cuts have reduced the number of prosecutors available to handle their cases.

The county's courts have not added a single judge to hear criminal cases in more than a decade. Overwhelmed, judges are increasingly relying on special courts where defendants are offered more generous deals in return for quick guilty pleas.

The available room for offenders in jail has also shrunk, due to financial woes and federal court limits on overcrowding. Most offenders sentenced to jail are released well before they complete their sentences. Since 2002, more than 16,000 inmates have been rearrested during time they would still have been in jail if not for early release.

Low-level offenders with enough felony convictions eventually get sent to state prison. But they too cycle in and out. More than half are back in prison within two years of their release.

Beyond jail and prison walls, the state has committed $120 million each year to Proposition 36 ‹ an expense that researchers note has saved millions more on incarceration costs. But a shortage of funds for treatment programs has created waiting lists for residential rehab beds, increasing the chance participants in the program will relapse while awaiting treatment.

Baca blames state lawmakers for concentrating their efforts on enacting laws that increase prison terms for the worst offenders, such as murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. Those laws, he said, fail to deal with drug abuse that plagues lower-level offenders, who commit the bulk of crimes.

"All of these extraordinary laws only work for the worst of the worst," Baca said. For the common offender, he said, they are "not a deterrent."

'We need help'

Even criminals say the system is failing.

On a recent Saturday, Salcido walked into the visiting area of the county's Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. He was still awaiting transport to prison on his car-theft conviction. Salcido worried his children would read about him. But he began speaking about his drug problems. When he was caught, he said, he'd been on a three-week methamphetamine bender.

"Why do you think these crimes are committed ‹ because I like committing crimes?" he asked. "I've done [prison]. What's the point? Obviously, it's not helping me. Can't they put two and two together? Why not say, 'Here's 18 months in a live-in program?' "

Salcido said he'd attended AA meetings in prison but needed more help. After leaving prison in January, he said, he stayed off drugs for months. Then he was ordered to make child-support payments that took nearly half his $400-a-week construction job wages.

"Instead of drinking a couple of beers, you start doing a couple of lines. Stop coming home. Stop going to work. You're going to lose your job," he said.

"It's always prison, prison, prison. It just corrupts you more," he said, his voice angry and frustrated. "We need help. We're sick. It shouldn't just be back to prison."

Out of jail after his latest arrest, Orlando Gallegos was struggling to rebuild his life.

During the three weeks he was incarcerated, he lost his job servicing old refrigerators. The manager of the hotel where he'd been living threatened to evict him. He had no rent money.

Three weeks after his release, Gallegos said he needed a steady job to stay out of trouble. But his criminal history along with the seizures he suffers make it difficult for him to find work.

"I can't get a job so I find different ways of trying to make my money. When I don't have no work, sometimes I have to steal for it," said Gallegos, who spoke slowly and sometimes struggled to articulate his thoughts. "A car ‹ if I see a window open, I might see what's in it or I might go into a store and steal whatever I can steal. Like, if there's a bike laying out in front of the yard, I might take itŠ. I do these little [crimes] that I know I'm not going to go to prison for the rest of my life."

For now, he said, he was managing to stay clear of heroin and wanted to find work again.

"I like being ‹ how do you say? ‹ stable Š taking care of myself, you know. Paying my bills, you know. That felt good, you know, paying my rent every month. And to buy something. I don't have to go steal for it," he said.

Marinelli and Duarte, who have been partners for 18 years, said they've seen too few people turn their lives around.

"A lot of these guys could change if they really wanted to, but the problem is that it's too hard," Duarte said. "Too hard once you've got a felony record ‹ to get a decent job or to make ends meet. And especially if you've got a drug problem, then forget it. All bets are off."

But both officers said their sympathies lie with victims.

"They get outraged," Marinelli said. "'What? He's already out?' Or they'll call us and say, 'Hey! The guy you arrested yesterday for vandalizing my wall is standing right in front of my house right now!' They don't understand the system."

Postscript:

On Dec. 18, Gilbert Morales was arrested again by LAPD officers and is facing new drug possession charges. Bertha Cuestas was arrested Dec. 20 for failing to appear in court. Rodolfo Salcido is awaiting transportation to state prison. Orlando Gallegos said he planned to enter treatment next month. Evaristo Torres lost his job while in jail. He said he is struggling financially and emotionally but has not had new trouble with the law.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
megan.garvey@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Times researcher Maloy Moore and staff writer Hector Becerra contributed to this report. Data analysis by Doug Smith and Sandra Poindexter.

*

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Rise in caseload

In recent years, Los Angeles County's courts and jails have struggled to keep pace with demand.

2000

Total number of bookings: 321,032

Bookings involving repeat offenders: 82,400

Felony filings: 56,404

Number of county prosecutors: 989

---

2005

Total number of bookings: 375,655

Bookings involving repeat offenders: 159,389

Felony filings: 68,277

Number of county prosecutors: 903

---

Note: Bookings based on calendar year data. Filings, number of prosecutors are for fiscal years.

---

Case study: Northeast Division

During the week of Oct. 2 to Oct. 8, police made 28 adult felony arrests in the LAPD's Northeast Division on suspicion of crimes that included drug possession, theft, assault and a variety of other offenses.

Of the 28 arrested:

12 were found guilty, sentenced and let out of but two were rearrested and are back in jail

5 have court cases pending

3 were sentenced to prison

3 were released by the courts, but one was rearrested and is back in jail

2 were released early but placed in federal custody on unrelated charges

2 were not charged with a crime

1 was sentenced to drug treatment in jail

---

Sources: L.A. County Superior Court, L.A. County district attorney's office, L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-churn26dec26,0,1712742.story?coll=ktla-news-1

Posted by lois at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

FL: Private Sector Solution to Mental Health Problems Rather than Jail/Prison

"The Florida Substance Abuse and Mental Health Corp., created by the Legislature last spring, of which I am an ex-officio member, will advise the governor on this very issue in 2007. The corporation has put together a Committee on Criminal Justice to examine this dilemma and to help develop a comprehensive mental health and substance abuse care plan for juveniles and adults. The committee is concentrating on developing a plan that includes diversion tactics to place people with mental health or substance abuse needs who commit minor infractions in alternative facilities rather than jails and prisons. The committee also will focus on in-care and after care services for both age groups."

Cyclical mental health care effects costly in Lee County Turnstile approach leads many to prison
Originally posted on December 26, 2006

People in need of mental health care in Lee County have been facing a crisis for quite some time. Years, in fact. Years of neglect and cyclical care that's just not working.

People in need of mental health and substance abuse care continue to enter and exit a turnstile that one time may lead to a short-term care facility and the next time may lead into the state or federal prison system or even a juvenile justice facility. Most times there is very little hope of breaking this cycle as there are too few beds available for long-term care. This ineffective pattern is costly to taxpayers because people in need are continuously in and out of our courts and criminal justice facilities. This is not the right venue for them and truthfully, the cycle is just plain cruel to people who truly are in need.

We need to realize that it is not a crime to need mental health care. But it is a crime to treat people with a mental illness as though they are criminals.

To exacerbate this issue, when a person with a mental illness is placed in a jail or justice facility, they may be given contradictory or less effective medications than they have been originally prescribed, causing physical and emotional reactions and unneeded stress on the individual. Controlling medical care in the criminal justice system is mostly a fiscal issue, not a best-medical care practice, and could provide a contradictory purpose to the person needing mental health treatment. For example, earlier this year in a Pinellas jail, an inmate plucked out his eye in frustration while waiting for treatment.

JAIL CRISIS

Once released from the jail or prison system, people in need begin living under short-term state care or in private facilities. When they are released from these temporary shelters, they often begin living on the street and then can end up without medication and back in the justice system. This is a broad example of the broken circle.

According to the Florida Department of Children & Families, more than 309 adults in crisis are currently being held in jails and prisons while waiting for one of the paltry 1,329 available state beds. For juveniles, there only are 158 beds available and half a dozen youth are awaiting care. Despite ever-increasing spending on correction facilities for both juveniles and adults, Florida's jail and prison populations are growing faster than we can build them.

On a national level, up to 700,000 people or about 6 percent of the 11.4 million adults booked into U.S. jails each year have active symptoms of serious mental illness. In Florida about 20 percent of the adult inmates are people with a mental illness.

Florida is not alone in this crisis but perhaps we can set a good example for what is needed. Turning our backs on this issue and pretending it does not exist is not the solution. Instead, the solution is a public-private team approach that will provide a smooth transition from a crisis situation to long-term private care.

STATUS QUO UNACCEPTABLE

The Florida Substance Abuse and Mental Health Corp., created by the Legislature last spring, of which I am an ex-officio member, will advise the governor on this very issue in 2007. The corporation has put together a Committee on Criminal Justice to examine this dilemma and to help develop a comprehensive mental health and substance abuse care plan for juveniles and adults. The committee is concentrating on developing a plan that includes diversion tactics to place people with mental health or substance abuse needs who commit minor infractions in alternative facilities rather than jails and prisons. The committee also will focus on in-care and after care services for both age groups.

The committee and larger corporations do recognize already-in-place local and state agencies and facilities that can provide the base network for people in need. It is looking to strengthen these with legislation, guidance and enhanced diversion and long-term services which means increasing expenditures for these services. Earlier this month, the Department of Children & Families developed a 13-point list of Forensic Waitlist Actions to help focus attention on the need for additional and diversionary care.

I want to bring these solutions into Lee County and help our existing facilities and programs fill in the gaps. This will take social and financial support. The Smart Growth Committee recently held a workshop where members discussed supporting this initiative. However, additional input and discussions are needed to make this partnership work.

Status quo won't do. The goal is to provide relief to our community by helping to thin out the jail population, keep people off of the streets and save money by taking people in need out of the court system and providing them with preventative care.

‹ Bob Janes is chairman of the Lee County Board of County Commissioners.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061226/OPINION/612260
330/1015

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

CT: State Prisons Bulging Again

State prisons bulging again, but Rell says situation improving

December 26, 2006

HARTFORD, Conn. --State officials say Connecticut's prison population has again boomed to the level it was three years ago when overcrowding forced the state to ship some prisoners to Virginia.

But Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who praised state correction officials for handling the recent increase without incident, said Tuesday that she believes the population is now starting to drop again.

Figures show that the increase, which comes after three years of decline, is especially sharp among prisoners awaiting trial.

The prison population jumped from about 17,700 in 2001 to 19,200 in 2003. It was less than 10,000 in 1990.

The big increase spurred lawmakers to examine alternatives to prison, especially for drug addicts and nonviolent offenders.

The population steadily declined in 2004 and 2005, dipping below 18,000 again at the beginning of this year.

But it crept up to 18,500 in the middle of this year and surpassed 19,000 this fall, said Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction. The increase is due mostly to police roundups of gang members and other violent criminals in Hartford and New Haven, he said.

The state has had to house prisoners in gymnasiums at a few prisons, he said. State officials have asked federal immigration authorities if they can remove illegal immigrants from state prisons.

They've also asked judges in the state if they can release more defendants awaiting trial on nonviolent charges instead of jailing them on bond.

"It's not a mandate" to the judges, Garnett said. "But it's a way to give us some breathing room."

It would cut the number of inmates awaiting trial, a group that typically accounts for about 25 percent of the jail and prison population, Department of Correction statistics show.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor, told The Advocate of Stamford that defendants who await trial in jail are more likely to receive a prison sentence from a judge than those who can afford to pay bond.

"If you come in off the street, you have a much better chance of getting probation than you do if you are in custody," he said.

Adam Liegeot, a spokesman for Rell, said Connecticut's prison population began decreasing in late summer.

"Gov. Rell has made it a priority to implement offender re-entry programs to ensure that those who have served their time and are released from prison will become productive, law-abiding citizens," Liegeot said. "Gov. Rell believes these re-entry efforts benefit both public safety and the taxpayer."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/12/26/state_priso
ns_bulging_again/

Information from: The Advocate, http://www.stamfordadvocate.com

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

December 26, 2006

James Brown, The Godfather of Soul, Dies at 73

December 26, 2006
James Brown, the ‘Godfather of Soul,’ Dies at 73
By JON PARELES

James Brown, the singer, songwriter, bandleader and dancer who indelibly transformed 20th-century music, died early yesterday in Atlanta. He was 73 and lived in Beech Island, S.C., across the Savannah River from Augusta, Ga.

Mr. Brown died of congestive heart failure after being hospitalized for pneumonia, said his agent, Frank Copsidas.

Mr. Brown sold millions of records in a career that lasted half a century. In the 1960s and 1970s he regularly topped the rhythm-and-blues charts, although he never had a No. 1 pop hit. Yet his music proved far more durable and influential than countless chart-toppers. His funk provides the sophisticated rhythms that are the basis of hip-hop and a wide swath of current pop.

Mr. Copsidas said that Mr. Brown had participated in an annual Christmas toy giveaway in Augusta on Friday but had been hospitalized on Saturday. After canceling performances planned for midweek, Mr. Brown on Sunday night got his doctor’s approval to perform on Saturday in New Jersey and on New Year’s Eve at B.B. King’s nightclub in New York.

Mr. Copsidas said Mr. Brown used one of his best-known slogans to convey his dedication to his fans: “I’m the hardest working man in show business, and I’m not going to let them down.”

Through the years, Mr. Brown did not only call himself “the hardest working man in show business.” He also went by “Mr. Dynamite,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” “the Minister of Super Heavy Funk” and “the Godfather of Soul,” and he was all of those and more.

His music was sweaty and complex, disciplined and wild, lusty and socially conscious. Beyond his dozens of hits, Mr. Brown forged an entire musical idiom that is now a foundation of pop worldwide.

“I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know,” he wrote in an autobiography.

The funk Mr. Brown introduced in his 1965 hit “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” was both deeply rooted in Africa and thoroughly American. Songs like “I Got You (I Feel Good),” “Cold Sweat,” “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” and “Hot Pants” found the percussive side of every instrument and meshed sharply syncopated patterns into kinetic polyrhythms that made people dance.

Mr. Brown’s innovations reverberated through the soul and rhythm-and-blues of the 1970s and the hip-hop of the next three decades. The beat of a 1970 instrumental “Funky Drummer” may well be the most widely sampled rhythm in hip-hop.

Mr. Brown’s stage moves — the spins, the quick shuffles, the knee-drops, the splits — were imitated by performers who tried to match his stamina, from Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson, and were admired by the many more who could not. Mr. Brown was a political force, especially during the 1960s; his 1968 song “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” changed America’s racial vocabulary. He was never politically predictable; in 1972 he endorsed the re-election of Richard M. Nixon.

Mr. Brown led a turbulent life, and served prison time as both a teenager and an adult. He was a stern taskmaster who fined his band members for missed notes or imperfect shoeshines. He was an entrepreneur who, at the end of the 1960s, owned his own publishing company, three radio stations and a Learjet (which he would later sell to pay back taxes). And he performed constantly: as many as 51 weeks a year in his prime.

Mr. Brown was born May 3, 1933, in a one-room shack in Barnwell, S.C. As he would later tell it, midwives thought he was stillborn, but his body stayed warm, and he was revived. When his parents separated four years later, he was left in the care of his aunt Honey, who ran a brothel in Augusta, Ga. As a boy he earned pennies buck-dancing for soldiers; he also picked cotton and shined shoes. He was dismissed from school because his clothes were too ragged.

He was imprisoned for petty theft in 1949 after breaking into a car, and paroled three years later. While in prison he sang in a gospel group. After he was released, he joined a group led by Bobby Byrd, which eventually called itself the Flames. At first, Mr. Brown played drums with the group and traded off lead vocals with other members. But with his powerful voice and frenzied, acrobatic dancing, he soon emerged as the frontman.

In 1955 the Flames recorded “Please Please Please” in the basement studio of a radio station in Macon, Ga. A talent scout heard it on local radio and signed the Flames to a recording contract with King Records. A second version, recorded in Cincinnati in 1956, became a million-selling single.

Nine follow-up singles were flops until, in 1958 a gospel-rooted ballad, “Try Me,” went to No. 1 on the rhythm-and-blues chart. Mr. Brown followed up with more ballads, although the Flames’ stage shows would turn them into long, frenzied crescendos. His trademark routine of collapsing onstage, having a cape thrown over him and tossing it away for one more reprise, again and again, would leave audiences shouting for more.

In 1960 Mr. Brown’s version of “Think” put a choppy, Latin-flavored beat — hinting at the funk to come — behind a sustained vocal and pushed him back into the R&B Top 10 and the pop Top 40.

Mr. Brown had his first Top 20 pop hit in 1963 with “Prisoner of Love,” a ballad backed by an orchestra. But before those sessions he had done a series of shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and the one on Oct. 24, 1962, was recorded. His label had not wanted to record the shows; Mr. Brown insisted. Released in 1963, “Live at the Apollo” — with screaming fans and galvanizing crescendos — revealed what the rhythm-and-blues circuit already knew, and became the No. 2 album nationwide.

James Brown and the Famous Flames toured nonstop through the 1960s. They were filmed in California for the “The T.A.M.I. Show,” released in 1965, which shows Mick Jagger trying to pick up Mr. Brown’s dance moves.

By the mid-1960s Mr. Brown was producing his own recording sessions. In February 1965, with “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” he decided to shift the beat of his band: from the one-two-three-four backbeat to one-two-three-four. “I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat,” Mr. Brown said in 1990. “Simple as that, really.”

Actually it wasn’t that simple; drums, rhythm guitar and horns all kicked the beat around from different angles. “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” won a Grammy Award as best rhythm-and-blues song, and it was only the beginning of Mr. Brown’s rhythmic breakthroughs. Through the 1960s and into the ’70s, Mr. Brown would make his funk ever more complex while stripping harmony to a bare minimum in songs like “Cold Sweat.” He didn’t immediately abandon ballads; songs like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” a No. 1 R&B hit in 1966, mixed aching, bluesy lines with wrenching screams.

Amid the civil rights ferment of the 1960s Mr. Brown used his fame and music for social messages. He released “Don’t Be a Dropout” in 1966 and met with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey to promote a stay-in-school initiative. Two years later “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” insisted, “We won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, Mr. Brown was due to perform in Boston. Instead of canceling his show, he had it televised. Boston was spared the riots that took place in other cities. “Don’t just react in a way that’s going to destroy your community,” he urged.

By the late 1960s Mr. Brown’s funk was part of pop, R&B and jazz: in his own hits, in songs by the Temptations and Sly and the Family Stone, and in the music of Miles Davis. It was also creating a sensation in Africa, where it would shape the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, the juju of King Sunny Ade and the mbalax of Youssou N’Dour.

Musicians who left Mr. Brown’s bands would also have a direct role in 1970s and 1980s funk; the saxophonist Maceo Parker, the trombonist Fred Wesley and the bassist Bootsy Collins were part of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic, and Mr. Parker also worked with Prince.

Through the early 1970s Mr. Brown’s songs filled dance floors. His self-described “super heavy funk” gave him No. 1 R&B hits and Top 20 pop hits with “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” and “Mother Popcorn” in 1969, “Super Bad Pts. 1 & 2” in 1970, “Hot Pants” and “Make It Funky” in 1971, “Get on the Good Foot Pt. 1” in 1972 and “The Payback Pt. 1” in 1974. He provided soundtracks for blaxploitation movies like “Black Caesar” and “Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off,” and performed at the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire.

The rise of disco — a much simplified version of Mr. Brown’s funk — knocked him out of the Top 40 in the late 1970s. But an appearance in “The Blues Brothers” in 1980 started a career resurgence, and in 1985 Mr. Brown had a pop hit, peaking at No. 4, with “Living in America,” the song he performed in the movie “Rocky IV.” It won him his second Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording. That year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of its first members.

Meanwhile hip-hop had arrived, with Mr. Brown’s music often providing the beat. LL Cool J, Public Enemy, De La Soul and the Beastie Boys are among the more than 100 acts that have sampled Clyde Stubblefield’s drumming on “Funky Drummer” alone. In 1984 Mr. Brown collaborated with the influential rapper Afrika Bambaataa on the single “Unity.” He kept recording into the 21st century, including a 2002 studio album, “The Next Step.”

Mr. Brown maintained a nearly constant touring schedule despite a tumultuous personal life. During the 1970s the Internal Revenue Service demanded $4.5 million in unpaid taxes; the jet and radio stations were sold. His oldest son, Teddy, died in a car accident in 1973.

In 1988, intoxicated on PCP, he burst into an insurance seminar adjoining his own office in Augusta, then led police on a car chase across the South Carolina border. He was sentenced to prison for carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering, attempting to flee a police officer and driving under the influence of drugs, and was released in 1991.

In 1998 after discharging a rifle and another car chase, he was sentenced to a 90-day drug rehabilitation program. He was officially pardoned by South Carolina in 2003, but arrested again in 2004 on charges of domestic violence against his fourth wife, Tomi Rae Hynie, a former backup singer. “I would never hurt my wife,” he said in a statement at the time. “I love her very much.”

She survives him, along with their son, James Brown II, and at least five other children.

In 1999, Mr. Brown made a deal to receive more than $25 million in bonds against advance publishing royalties. This year, however, he sought to refinance the bonds with a new loan. The banker who had made the original deal, David Pullman, objected to the terms, and Mr. Brown filed a lawsuit against him in July.

But Mr. Brown’s status as an American archetype had long since been assured. A definitive collection, “Star Time” (Universal), was released in 1991. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2003, the same year that Michael Jackson presented him with a BET Award for lifetime achievement. In a 1990 interview with The New York Times, he said, “I was always 25 years ahead of my time.”

John O’Neil contributed reporting.

Posted by lois at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2006

CA: COs earn $220 million in overtime

NATHAN BILOW / AP
Seattle Times
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Nation Digest
Overtime at California prisons costly

About 6,000 California corrections officers earned more than $100,000 in the past fiscal year, thanks to overtime in the strained prison system, and one brought in more than $250,000.

Overtime added $220 million to the $453 million base pay for those prison workers, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. More than 900 earned $50,000 or more in overtime alone.

Overtime costs have soared since the officers' current labor contract took effect five years ago, the newspaper reported.

The biggest payout to a corrections officer for the fiscal year that ended in June was $252,570, which went to a lieutenant.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vowed to change the nation's largest prison system, which incarcerates almost 174,000 people in 33 prisons that were designed to hold 100,000.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003492872_ndig24.html

Posted by lois at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

"Ask A Policeman"

December 24, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor, NY Times
Ask a Policeman
By PETER NEUFELD

AFTER the Nov. 25 police shooting death of Sean Bell, the New York Police Department compiled a preliminary report. The 23-page report summarizes interviews of officers who did not directly participate in the critical encounter, of civilians who heard the gunfire but saw little and even one of Mr. Bell’s two wounded friends, questioned by the police as he lay in his hospital bed. Astonishingly, the report does not include a single interview with any of the four detectives and one police officer who fired the 50 shots at the three unarmed men.

Richard Brown, the Queens district attorney, noted that the report raises as many questions as it answers. But what does he expect when the report contains no interview with the shooters? Not only does this institutional failure make it extremely difficult to get a conviction in the event that a crime occurred, but it also minimizes the ability of the police internal affairs division to discipline police officers for their transgressions.

Good policing and common sense are deliberately ignored when the shooters are officers rather than civilians, as I know from representing Abner Louima and other victims of police misconduct. Not only do police suspects receive far greater protection than the rest of us, but our Police Department and the city’s five district attorneys, inexplicably, afford greater protection to officers than do the police and prosecutors in any other major city in the nation.

In the typical shooting incident where the police know who was involved but not how the shooting happened, investigators are trained to immediately separate and question suspects and participants, preventing those involved from getting together and devising a shared story. A good detective does not necessarily expect a quick confession, but even a superficially exculpatory statement, voluntarily given, can later be used to prosecute if the details of the denial are contradicted by other, more persuasive evidence.

In the 1997 Abner Louima case, preferential treatment bought time for the few bad officers to meet in the basement of the precinct and concoct a story that Mr. Louima had injured himself in the performance of a consensual sex act. In 1999, immediately after Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times, instead of isolating the four officers, their union delegates accompanied them — as a group — to the hospital so they could be treated for ringing in their ears. They spent the next several hours together.

Eventually a narrative emerged, one that was parroted by all four. They all claimed to be looking for a rapist who had been on the run for years. They all believed Mr. Diallo, perhaps in the act of removing his house keys to enter his home, was reaching for a gun. And they all mistakenly believed that when one of their own tripped and fell, Mr. Diallo had shot him, justifying the fusillade of shots.

Of course, we don’t know yet what narrative will be offered by the officers who fired their guns in the Bell case. But we do know that before they utter a single word on the record, they will have had the opportunity to scrutinize every word in the preliminary report and review every finding of the crime scene unit and ballistics team. Indeed, they will know all of this before the case is even presented to a grand jury.

The most infamous obstacle to police questioning had been the notorious 48-hour rule, which gave New York City police officers two business days to retain counsel before they could be questioned. But this rule (recently eliminated by the city), along with other procedural protections, apply only to administrative investigations. They do not govern — and hence cannot pose an obstacle to — investigations into suspected criminal misconduct. In practice it is not the rules of the Police Department that compromise investigations, but rather the orders of the five city prosecutors prohibiting anyone at the department from questioning officers in shootings where crime is suspected. Prosecutors want to be the only ones to question the shooters. That is why the police investigators who prepared the report never got to talk to the people with the most useful information.

Their rationale for this strategy is a 1967 United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that statements made by New Jersey police officers, who had been questioned under threat of dismissal, could not be used against them in a later criminal case. But today in New Jersey, and in almost all large cities, officers who fire their guns are asked, without delay, to give an explanation. The courts have repeatedly held that unless there is an express threat of dismissal, the answers to questions will be admissible in a criminal case. And, even if the statement can’t be introduced in a criminal proceeding, it can be used as the basis for disciplining the officer.

In 1998, when two white New Jersey state troopers fired 11 bullets into the car of four unarmed black and Hispanic college students, the officers were questioned on tape within a couple of hours of the shooting. Their description of where they were standing when they fired was subsequently contradicted by the scientific evidence and provided the basis for a grand jury indictment.

Even if the Queens prosecutors are justified in keeping the questioning of the policemen to themselves, there is simply no reason to put off the interviews. Their purported justification — to wait until all the other evidence has been analyzed — is wanting. There is no rule against multiple interviews. Indeed, it is not unusual for detectives to interview participants several times as new facts emerge in the investigation.

Certainly, police officers should receive no less constitutional protection than we all enjoy. If asked, they can invoke their right to remain silent. But like 80 percent of Americans, including the state troopers in New Jersey, they are likely to waive that right and offer an explanation. It is unconscionable that on the one hand it is O.K. to question a man riddled with bullets and lying in a hospital bed, but it is not all right to simply ask the uninjured officers what happened.

Peter Neufeld is a civil rights lawyer.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)

The Second Chance Act: The Right Has A Jailhouse Conversion

December 24, 2006, NY Times Magazine
The Right Has a Jailhouse Conversion
By CHRIS SUELLENTROP

Not too long ago, you could tell whether an election was under way by watching prime-time television and counting the number of ominous recitatives about prisoners and ex-prisoners in the commercials. This fall, however, the seven million Americans who are in the custody of the state — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — did not loom large on nightly TV; in fact, as has been the case for nearly a decade, they barely received any notice at all. Prisoners are no longer the charged political symbols and campaign-season scapegoats they once were.

This decline in the exploitation of crime coincides with an odd and surprising change in the politics of crime. The G.O.P., the party of Richard Nixon’s 1968 law-and-order campaign and the Willie Horton commercial, is beginning to embrace the idea that prisoners have not only souls that need saving but also flesh that needs caring for in this world. Increasingly, Republicans are talking about helping ex-prisoners find housing, drug treatment, mental-health counseling, job training and education. They’re also reconsidering some of the more punitive sentencing laws for drug possession. The members of this nascent movement include a number of politicians not previously known for their attention to prisoners’ rights. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a former federal prosecutor whom The New Republic once accused of being stained “with the taint of racism,” wants to reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of crack. Referring to mandatory-minimum sentences, Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, whose district is home to Bob Jones University, declared on the floor of the House: “I voted for them in the past. I will not do it again.” Perhaps most remarkably, the outgoing Republican-controlled Congress came tantalizingly close to passing the Second Chance Act, a bill that focuses not on how to “lock them up” but on how to let them out. The bill may become law soon, if Democrats continue to welcome the new conservative interest in rehabilitation.

By some measures, the Second Chance Act is a small bill. It authorizes less than $100 million over two years to address a significant problem: about 700,000 ex-offenders (the population of a good-size American city) will leave prison in 2007 — and two-thirds of them are likely to be rearrested within three years. The bill would provide states with grants to develop model programs for prisoners returning to society. Those states that accept the grants will be asked to re-examine any laws and regulations that make it unreasonably difficult for ex-offenders to reintegrate themselves into their communities — the classic example is the ban on allowing felons to receive a barber’s license. (If the felon in question is Sweeney Todd, of course, the ban might make sense. But a blanket prohibition that includes check bouncers and marijuana users seems overly broad.) The bill also provides money to faith-based organizations and other nonprofits for prisoner-mentoring programs. Finally, it requires states to measure how well their programs achieve the bill’s main goal: reducing the rate of recidivism among recently released prisoners.

No one expects the Second Chance Act to solve the prisoner-re-entry problem overnight. The bill’s authors are probably too confident that drug treatment, education and housing assistance can reduce recidivism on their own. Such services, many criminologists say, are effective only when paired with the tight supervision of ex-offenders. Some researchers point to the “broken windows” response to crime and suggest trying a similar approach with prisoner re-entry: quickly punish any small violations of the terms of a prisoner’s release with graduated sanctions while returning ex-offenders to prison only for new crimes, not for technical parole violations like missing a meeting with a probation officer. The Second Chance Act does nothing to support this sort of approach.

As policy, then, the bill won’t be an elixir. But as a symbolic political gesture, the Second Chance Act completely reverses recent practice. For the first time in decades, Congress is poised to pass a bill that aims to make the lives of prisoners and ex-prisoners easier, not more difficult. In the 1990s, Democratic and Republican Congresses scrapped the Pell Grant program for prisoners, barred drug offenders from receiving federal student loans and cut highway money for states that did not revoke or suspend the driver’s licenses of drug felons. Now leading politicians of both parties are proposing that states remove laws and regulations that wall off the ex-criminal class from the community. Rather than eliminating education and substance-abuse treatment programs, Congress may well finance them. When I met with Mark Earley, a former political star of the Christian right and a present-day prison reformer, I began explaining to him why I was surprised by the Second Chance Act and the so-called “re-entry movement” surrounding it. He knew why I was surprised: “First of all,” he said, by the very fact “that there is common ground” between Republicans and Democrats. “And second of all, it’s this?”

Many liberals and Democrats — from Senator Joe Biden to members of the Congressional Black Caucus like Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a representative from Cleveland, and Danny Davis, a representative from Chicago — are sponsors of the Second Chance Act. Still, the issue is not a top priority for the party. In their recent blueprint for Democratic success, “The Plan,” Rahm Emanuel, the influential Illinois congressman, and Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, wrote only one paragraph on crime — and that was mostly a hymn to the achievements of the 1994 crime bill. The campaign document for House Democrats, “A New Direction for America,” promises action on national security, the economy, higher education, energy, health care and retirement. The words “crime” and “prisons” never appear.

Prison reform is not a highly advertised position of the Republican Party either, but a growing number of social conservatives are trying to make it a centerpiece of the Christian-conservative agenda. The most striking aspect of the Second Chance Act may be the cross-section of Republicans, from every wing of the party, who support it. Senator Arlen Specter, the top-ranked contender for the award of Least Favorite Republican among movement conservatives, is a lead sponsor, as is Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who may be Christian conservatives’ top choice for the 2008 presidential nomination. Among the House sponsors of the bill are Mike Pence, an Indiana congressman who is a leader of the conservative caucus in the House and a darling of Washington’s conservative press corps, and Dan Lungren, a California representative and former California attorney general who helped write California’s three-strikes law (which he still supports). “For liberals in criminal justice, he’s like the devil, almost,” says a key liberal lobbyist for the bill, Gene Guerrero of George Soros’s Open Society Policy Center.

The Second Chance Act would seem an unlikely bill to be advanced during an election year. At every level of government, after all, elections are thought to encourage tough-on-crime legislation. Recalling his time in the Illinois Legislature, Barack Obama, an early sponsor, says: “We used to have a joke. Let’s say the offense was that defacing property was a Class C misdemeanor, or a Class A misdemeanor. Suddenly somebody would jack it up to a Class 2 felony. And it was always before election time. And we’d say, ‘You know, it’s not a good idea to leap all the way to the maximum penalty, because you’ll have nothing to come back with next election.’ You know, you want to take it in stages.”

With the Second Chance Act, however, three of what were the most endangered senators in America — Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Jim Talent of Missouri and Mike DeWine of Ohio — put their names on the bill; all lost their re-election bids. Their support for the legislation wasn’t an issue in their losses, but even that fact is remarkable. In today’s political environment, crime policy has so receded from controversy that the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee could approve the Second Chance Act in July under the assumption that the full House might take it up on the eve of an election in which the Republican majority was at stake.

What has changed? It’s true that crime rates have declined in recent years (notwithstanding a slight uptick last year), but for the last quarter of the 20th century, crime policy was impervious to fluctuations in street crime. If crime went up, politicians got tough on crime. If crime went down, politicians still got tough on crime. At the state level, at least, that is no longer the case — and a large shift in public opinion has much to do with it. In 1994, crime and health care were the two top issues that Americans thought the government should tackle. Nine years later, less than 1 percent of Americans named crime as a top political issue.

If safer streets had something to do with the change in public attitudes, so did another development: the changing place of crime in the national debate over moral values. Over the past decade, as the political scientists William Galston and Elaine Kamarck have suggested, the culture war of the 1970s and 1980s that revolved around race has been replaced by one that revolves around religion. A side effect has been a radically different crime debate. If the Second Chance Act fails to pass, it will not be because the two parties cannot agree on the importance of rehabilitation programs in prisons. But it may be because they disagree on the role religious organizations should play in rehabilitation.

This September, Mark Earley ascended to a lectern at the Washington Convention Center to recite a political act of contrition. Earley, who is white, seemed among the least likely attendees of the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative conference to rouse the mostly African-American audience of liberal activists, Capitol Hill staff members, lobbyists and members of Congress to sermon-listener cries of “Amen,” “Yes, sir” and “Tell it!” The most successful Christian conservative politician to emerge from the State of Virginia, Earley represented the district of Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed for 10 years in the Old Dominion Legislature. In 1997, he ran for attorney general on a platform that combined socially conservative positions on abortion and other issues with a dollop of tough-on-crime rhetoric — and won.

Now Earley came to confess his sins. In front of an audience filled with former prisoners who were attending a job fair connected to the conference, Earley cast his arms wide and proclaimed: “I was wrong. I repent!”

“I’m 52 years old,” he said at the beginning of his remarks, “and for the first 48 years of my life, I didn’t think much about prisoners. And when I did, it went something like, I’m glad I’m not one, and I’m glad they are where they are.” He continued: “And I really pretty much had the view that prisoners were at the end of the line. That if you were in prison, you had no hope, you’d made a mess of your life, and it was better for me that you were there, because my family could be safe.”

He went on: “I was elected to the Virginia Legislature and served 10 years, from ’87 to ’97, in the Senate of Virginia, and quite frankly, spent most of my time in the Legislature working on how to put more people in jail and keeping them there longer. Virginia, like most states in the ’80s, abolished parole, instituted three strikes and you’re out, lowered the age at which juveniles could be tried as adults from 16 to 14.” Earley told the crowd that these policies helped increase the American prison population “tenfold in the last 30 years.” Unlike most politicians who say such things, Earley wasn’t bragging. He was apologizing.

Like many Republicans and Christian activists, Earley’s prison-house conversion dates from an encounter with Chuck Colson, the Watergate crook turned Christian evangelist. When Earley lost the Virginia governor’s race in 2001 to Mark Warner, Colson asked Earley to take over Prison Fellowship, the ministry that Colson founded in the mid-1970s. Earley declined on the assumption that devoting himself to prisoners was tantamount to throwing his life “down a dark hole.” Over the next few months, Earley read his Bible and was struck by the number of criminals who play starring roles: Moses, for example, murdered a man and became a fugitive. Paul presided over the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Earley came to a realization: “If Moses or Paul had lived in Virginia or any state in the United States today, they would be serving, had they been caught, a multiple-decade prison sentence.” He took the job.

Of course, it’s easy to admit the error of your political ways when you’ve left office and don’t have to worry about voters punishing you for your change of heart. But Earley is far from alone in his apostasy from the usual anti-crime politics. Howard Coble, a congressman from North Carolina and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in the last Congress, said in 2003 that the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II were “appropriate at the time.” And yet when Coble first introduced the Second Chance Act to the full judiciary committee this summer, he called the bill “an enlightened departure” from the politics of “lock them up and throw away the key.”

“At one point, I may have embraced that theory,” Coble told me over the phone from his home in Greensboro, N.C., during the August Congressional recess. “I still embrace the theory of locking the cell door if an offender has been convicted of a crime. But I don’t say throw the key away. I say, keep the key handy, so the same key that locked that door can also unlock it.” Coble’s words recalled those of Alexander Maconochie, a Scottish prison warden who reformed Norfolk Island, the Alcatraz of 19th-century Australia, by inventing the concept of indeterminate sentencing — an incentive-based system involving early release for hard work and good behavior: “When a man keeps the key of his own prison, he is soon persuaded to fit it to the lock.”

For most of the 20th century, indeterminate sentencing and rehabilitation were consensus policies in the United States. The decision to call the state agencies that run prisons departments of “corrections” was intended to reflect the rehabilitative nature of their work. But in 1974, a sociologist named Robert Martinson published an article called “What Works?” in the neoconservative journal The Public Interest. John DiIulio, President Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, once called Martinson’s essay “arguably the single most influential article ever published in that influential journal.” Martinson answered the question he posed by concluding that “with few and isolated exceptions,” there was no evidence that any rehabilitation programs successfully reduced recidivism. His article and the subsequent media attention it received — along with the high crime rates of the 1970s — are credited with shifting the emphasis in crime policy from rehabilitation to punishment and “just desserts.” Martinson later retracted his argument: in a 1979 article in The Hofstra Law Review, he acknowledged that some rehabilitation programs had “an appreciable effect,” while emphasizing that other programs were actually harmful. But the political environment was not as receptive to a more nuanced approach. Following California’s lead in 1977, state after state abandoned rehabilitation and indeterminate sentencing in favor of punishment and fixed sentences.

Today’s revival of rehabilitation began during the final years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The Clinton administration had been as punishment-oriented as its Republican predecessors. With the exception of a few liberal members of Congress — mostly members of the Congressional Black Caucus who represent urban districts — Democrats in the 1990s abandoned prison reform. The two defining moments of Democratic crime politics in the 1990s were Clinton’s decision as governor of Arkansas to allow the execution of the mentally impaired Ricky Ray Rector in 1992 and the passage of the 1994 crime bill; along with banning assault weapons and putting 100,000 cops on the street, the bill also prominently featured longer sentences for criminals and a federal three-strikes law.

But in the spring of 1999, Janet Reno turned to Jeremy Travis, then the director of the National Institute of Justice, and asked, “What are we doing about all the people coming out of prison?” It began to dawn on Reno, Travis and others that the mandatory sentences Congress and state legislatures created over the preceding decades had an unintended side effect: automatic release. More and more prisoners were leaving prison without having to earn their release, because the incentives to change their behavior had been removed. That seems obvious: what else would you expect from states that abolished parole and replaced discretionary sentencing with fixed sentences? Yet few lawmakers and corrections professionals seemed to have considered the consequences. In October 1999, Reno and Travis held a news conference promoting the idea of prisoner “re-entry,” a word Travis came up with that rebranded the unpopular notion of prisoner rehabilitation. “Re-entry” shifts the emphasis from the criminal to the community — from how an inmate is treated to how safe you and your neighbors will be when he or she is released. In that sense, re-entry preys on the public fear of a nation of Willie Hortons, but it does so in the service of going “softer” on crime.

Even as Reno and Travis were promoting the idea of prisoner re-entry, Matt Salmon, a Republican congressman from Arizona, was championing the No Second Chances Act, a bill that would take federal money away from states that released a prisoner who then committed a crime in another state. The political climate seemed unfriendly. Yet Reno and Travis’s initiative aroused little opposition — or much notice of any kind.

Criminologists of both parties hope that the decreasing importance of crime as a political issue will make it possible to have a more sober discussion of the subject at last. They want to see a less ideologically charged debate and one that rests more closely on sound research. There’s only one problem: a shocking paucity of such evidence to inform the policy debate. As Christy Visher, a researcher from the Urban Institute, put it in the May 2006 issue of Criminology and Public Policy, “There is no consensus answer to the question Do prisoner-re-entry programs work?”

And yet there is a consensus to not do what we are doing. Criminologists largely agree that increasing the use of incarceration at some point becomes counterproductive and crime actually starts to rise. Many researchers suggest that we’re at that point already. In his book on re-entry, “They All Come Back,” Travis notes that only about 25 percent of the violent-crime reduction in the 1990s was because of “incapacitation” — the fact that would-be criminals were locked up and unable to commit more crimes. Michael Jacobson, who worked as the New York City corrections commissioner under Rudy Giuliani, points out that the city’s nation-leading decline in street crime during the 1990s coincided with a decline in the use of incarceration as a weapon of crime control. San Diego, the No. 2 city in crime reduction from 1993 to 2001, also sent fewer people to prison during that period.

The best way to deter crime, according to most researchers, is to increase the swiftness and the certainty of arrest for people who break the law, not to increase the severity of their sentences. Many experts would like to see some kind of return to indeterminate sentencing, though they disagree on the particulars. Ultimately, they’d like to see sentencing turn from an Industrial Age policy, a one-size-fits-all assembly line, to an Internet Age policy of personalization. Joan Petersilia, a leading researcher on parole, recommends using statistical risk profiles, similar to those employed by auto insurers, to determine which ex-offenders should receive the most support or supervision from re-entry programs. She argues in her book “When Prisoners Come Home” that “from a victim’s standpoint, there is no benefit from determinate sentencing or automatic-prisoner-release schemes,” because you “replace a rational, controlled system of earned release for selected inmates with automatic release for nearly all inmates.”

Outside the criminology community, conservatives have embraced re-entry to save lives, to save souls and also to save money. Putting aside Medicaid, spending on corrections has been the fastest-growing item in state budgets in recent years. Partly for this reason, Louisiana and Mississippi — the two states, Michael Jacobson notes in his book, “Downsizing Prisons,” with the highest rates of per capita incarceration in the country — embraced sentencing reform in 2001. Louisiana eliminated some mandatory sentences and required that the first two “strikes” for offenders be violent, rather than nonviolent, felonies. Mississippi, which had abolished discretionary parole in 1995, decided to bring it back for nonviolent first-time offenders. By 2003, 18 states had implemented similar reforms. Under the Republican governor, John Engler, Michigan repealed all of its mandatory-minimum drug laws.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he did not dismantle the Clinton-era re-entry programs; rather, he adapted them to fit his faith-based agenda. Despite his strong support for capital punishment, President Bush may be the most pro-prisoner president in American history — at least if you disregard the war on terror (an admittedly enormous caveat). Certainly in terms of rhetoric, Bush has done more to advance the interests of prisoners than either Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. The Second Chance Act takes its name from the 2004 State of the Union address in which Bush asked Congress to pass a $300 million program to help prisoners as they re-enter society: “In the past, we’ve worked together to bring mentors to children of prisoners, and provide treatment for the addicted, and help for the homeless. Tonight I ask you to consider another group of Americans in need of help. This year, some 600,000 inmates will be released from prison back into society. We know from long experience that if they can’t find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit crime and return to prison. So tonight, I propose a four-year, $300 million prisoner re-entry initiative to expand job-training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups. America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”

Democrats were flabbergasted. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones calls it “the only thing that George W. Bush has ever said at a State of the Union that made me stand up and cheer.” Representative Danny Davis says, “I always tell people that when he said that, I was the first person up to applaud, even though I was on the Democratic side of the aisle.”

According to Mark Earley, Bush’s speech “very subtly sent a signal to conservative Republicans that it’s O.K. to talk about rehabilitation and doing something for prisoners as they’re coming back into society, and prisoners’ kids.”

There are few, if any, senators more closely identified with the Christian conservative movement than Sam Brownback. Like a growing number of conservatives, Brownback is a political proponent of the so-called new-evangelical causes, which range from AIDS in Africa and slavery in Sudan to poverty and the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a bill that helped build the coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the re-entry movement. Even when he disagrees with his fellow religious conservatives, he gives faith-based reasons for doing so. A convert to Catholicism, he has said his religion informs his support for a less punitive approach to immigration reform. In February, he held a hearing intended to foster debate on whether the death penalty can be reconciled with Pope John Paul II’s call to create “a culture of life.”

Brownback also routinely mentions prison reform — especially the faith-based variety — in public speeches. During Alberto Gonzales’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general, he made a special point of asking Gonzales about his plans to reduce prison recidivism. He wrote a letter to The Washington Post in February complaining about an op-ed by the U.C.L.A. psychologist David Farabee, who dismissed the Second Chance Act as a return to “the intuitively appealing programs that we correctly rejected 30 years ago.” Brownback countered in his letter, “We should not be resigned to allowing generation after generation to return to prison because they don’t have the tools to break the cycle.”

When I visited him earlier this year, Brownback seemed highly aware of the dangers, even for a conservative Republican from Kansas, of seeming the slightest bit soft on crime. “I wouldn’t say I represent the mainstream of this,” he insisted. “I think we have to prove results” — that is, demonstrate an actual reduction in recidivism rates among newly released prisoners. He continued: “I personally favor a number of these faith-based approaches. But if there are other approaches, let’s try them. This is an enormous problem, and since the ’70s, we have basically just said we’ll lock people up.”

Later, in his office in the Senate Hart Building, Brownback implicitly raised the specter of Willie Horton — the fear that he and the other sponsors of the bill would be blamed for crimes committed by the formerly incarcerated: “Imagine you get one bad prisoner coming out and committing a heinous crime, which is likely to happen. And people’s reaction is, they get mad. They don’t want this guy out on the streets that’s doing this. If you can’t show, look, by doing these programs we are cutting the recidivism rate overall, I don’t think it will stand the blowback when that situation inevitably happens.”

Chris Cannon, a Utah conservative who is the bill’s Republican point man in the House, is less circumspect than Brownback. On crime, Cannon can sound like a liberal Democrat, if liberal Democrats still talked the way he did during my first phone conversation with him in August: “Republicans have taken a pretty harsh position, just locking people up.” And: “The system has a very strong tendency to change them for the worse. Everybody knows that, I think.” And: “Our current system is fundamentally immoral.”

A few weeks later, in his Congressional office, Cannon was just as adamant: “I think society has a huge obligation to prisoners. I think that obligation transcends our current view, which is: Lock them up, hide them away, keep my daughter safe, keep my house safe, if he or she burgles, I want that person gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Away. I think that violates the fundamental concepts of who we are as Americans.

“Nobody thinks this is a bill that solves our moral dilemma,” he went on. “Maybe I should say moral crisis. But it is a first step, an agreeable first step, and it allows us to take a look at where we ought to think about ending up.” But even Cannon occasionally realizes he’s treading on dangerous political ground. After this preamble, apropos of nothing, he declared: “In this whole thing, nobody is being soft on crime. Nobody is saying, let these people out. It’s about after someone is found to have committed a crime, what do we do to help that person become a useful, productive member of society?” Which, of course, involves letting them out.

Cannon and his allies toiled hard on behalf of the Second Chance Act, and they helped shepherd it through the House, where the Republican leadership pledged to schedule a vote if the Senate did the same. But despite their efforts, the outgoing Congress failed to move forward. The first sign of trouble came in the summer. When the bill reached the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas tried to amend it so that it explicitly, rather than implicitly, authorized the financing of faith-based organizations. Gohmert’s proposed amendment drew enthusiastic support from Republicans, but it alienated Democrats, who would have scuttled the bill in the Senate. The bill’s Democratic supporters accept that the Bush administration will allocate some of the funds to Christian organizations. But they draw the line at direct legislative authorization to finance religious organizations. Such an authorization was anathema to them unless it contained additional language restricting faith-based groups from proselytizing and from discriminating on the basis of religion in their hiring decisions. To keep the bill on course, four Republicans — including Cannon and Coble — turned against their colleagues and joined with Democrats to defeat Gohmert’s amendment.

In the Senate, with 37 co-sponsors and the support of Republican leaders, the bill seemed sure to pass. But in mid-December, as the legislative term came to an end, Senator Tom Coburn — a Christian conservative from Oklahoma who has said, “As a physician, I believe that we ought to be doing drug treatment rather than incarceration” — ignored personal appeals from Brownback, Specter and others and put a hold on the bill. Coburn supports the bill’s objectives and calls it “a good act,” but his fiscal-conservative conscience overcame his social-conservative one. He demanded the termination of other federal programs that, in his view, served similar purposes. The bill’s supporters must have felt betrayed, as some assumed that Coburn had pledged not to prevent the bill’s passage. Even so, the bill seems likely to pass, with some modifications, in the next legislative session.

In order for that to happen, the Democrats will have to take a step similar to the one Bill Clinton encouraged them to take in the 1990s, when they conceded that the country’s desire for changes in affirmative action, welfare and crime policy was more than just a proxy for racism. By passing the Second Chance Act, Democrats can acknowledge that the Christian desire to improve the lives of prisoners is more than a mere proxy for evangelism. And in doing so, they can re-embrace a cause of their own: the creation of a criminal-justice system that is more humane and more just. The current moment is, in Michael Jacobson’s view, “the best opportunity of the last 25 years for altering the way in which the United States has used incarceration.” But if that moment is to be seized, if there’s any possibility to reform a prison system that almost everyone thinks has failed, both parties are going to have to rely, at least a little bit, on faith.

Chris Suellentrop writes the Opinionator blog for The New York Times on the Web. This is his first article for the magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24GOP.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2006

Former Calif. prisons chiefs testify

Dec. 20, 2006, 11:01PM
Former Calif. prisons chiefs testify
Houston Chronicle
By SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press Writer
C 2006 The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Two former state prisons chiefs who resigned in quick succession this year told a federal judge Wednesday the political sway the prison guards' union held over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drove them from office.

Roderick Hickman, who quit the post in February after little more than two years on the job, and his successor, Jeanne Woodford, who resigned in July, testified at a hearing called by U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson as part of his ongoing oversight of state prison reform.

"The political environment in California is overly influenced by well financed special interests that disallow policy makers to make good policy because they're concerned about their political futures," Hickman testified. He said the California Correctional Peace Officers Association was foremost among those interest groups.

Woodford testified that the union appeared to have vetting rights over her appointments of subordinates, and said union officials were meeting secretly with the governor's staff. She said she resigned after a meeting with Schwarzenegger during which he seemed to sideline prison reform proposals she had made over concerns they might have on his re-election campaign.

The governor's office has repeatedly denied bowing to the influential prison guards union. Adam Mendelsohn, a spokesman for the governor, declined to comment on Woodford's depiction of her meeting with the governor.

Schwarzenegger was re-elected last month. The prison guards union did not endorse him.

Lance Corcoran, the union's chief of governmental affairs, said it has never had vetting authority over postings and called the former chiefs' testimony "absolutely ridiculous."

Meanwhile, attorneys said Wednesday that a federal judge bypassed state law and ordered pay raises for hundreds of mental health workers in California prisons to try to fill vacancies and improve care for mentally ill inmates.

The order, issued in Sacramento Friday by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, was made public Wednesday by attorneys representing mentally ill inmates.

The increases will cost state taxpayers about $56 million a year, according to the state Department of Finance.

A bulging prison population has left the mental health caseload about 15 percent over capacity, court-appointed special master Michael Keating said in a recommendation filed with the court last week.
He said higher wages were needed to fill hundreds of vacancies.

The new salary schedule affects 19 classes of state employees and takes effect next year.

The order comes as Schwarzenegger prepares to outline a broad prison reform plan Thursday.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4417492.html

Posted by lois at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

Union Square Awards: Kym Clark- Prison Families Community Forum

Union Square Awards
2006 Awardee
Prison Families Community Forum
Kym Clark
Founder
founderpfcf@yahoo.com
www.stopthecontract.org
Prison Families Community Forum (PFCF), a New York City network of support, education and action for families affected by the incarceration of their loved ones. PFCF deals with challenges faced by members through a three-prong strategy of support, self-advocacy and community organizing. Members are primarily African American and Latina women whose experience provides the guiding voice for the organization.

PFCF convenes mutual support groups where members exchange experiences and teach each other about the criminal justice system. Free legal trainings and leadership development activities increase members’ knowledge so that they may effectively advocate for themselves and navigate the system on issues dealing with health, parole, transfer policy, and pro se representation. PFCF also assists with individual cases and makes legal and social services referrals. Gatherings and events such as potluck dinners, holiday parties and barbecues help build a supportive community.

PFCF engages in public education to raise awareness about families’ concerns and to organize for change of unjust policies. For example, as a partner in the “New York Campaign for Telephone Justice,” PFCF continues to challenge the New York State Department of Corrections’ contract with Verizon/MCI, which charges exorbitant telephone fees for calls from prisoners to their families.
http://www.unionsquareawards.org/v2/awardees/bio.asp?aID=159

Posted by lois at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

NY Times Editorial: Only The Jailers Are Safe

December 20, 2006
Editorial, NY Times
Only the Jailers Are Safe

Ever since the world learned of the lawless state of American military prisons in Iraq, the administration has hidden behind the claim that only a few bad apples were brutalizing prisoners. President Bush also has dodged the full force of public outrage because the victims were foreigners, mostly Muslims, captured in what he has painted as a war against Islamic terrorists bent on destroying America.

This week, The Times published two articles that reminded us again that the American military prisons are profoundly and systemically broken and that no one is safe from the summary judgment and harsh treatment institutionalized by the White House and the Pentagon after 9/11.

On Monday, Michael Moss wrote about a U.S. contractor who was swept up in a military raid and dumped into a system where everyone is presumed guilty and denied any chance to prove otherwise.

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention. And that was special treatment. As an American citizen, he was at least allowed to attend his hearing. An Iraqi, or an Afghani, or any other foreigner, would have been barred from the room.

This is not the handiwork of a few out-of-control sadists at Abu Ghraib. This is a system that was created and operated outside American law and American standards of decency. Except for the few low-ranking soldiers periodically punished for abusing prisoners, it is a system without any accountability.

Yesterday, David Johnston reported that nearly 20 cases in which civilian contractors were accused of abusing detainees have been sent to the Justice Department. So far, the record is perfect: not a single indictment.

Administration officials said that prosecutors were hobbled by a lack of evidence and witnesses, or that the military’s cases were simply shoddy. This sounds like another excuse from an administration that has papered over prisoner abuse and denied there is any connection between Mr. Bush’s decision to flout the Geneva Conventions and the repeated cases of abuse and torture. We hope the new Congress will be more aggressive on this issue than the last one, which was more bent on preserving the Republican majority than preserving American values and rights. The lawless nature of Mr. Bush’s war on terror has already cost the nation dearly in terms of global prestige, while increasing the risks facing every American serving in the military.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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

CA: $10 Billion Plan for New Prisons Readied

$10 billion plan for new prisons readied
Governor to seek funds to build state, county, health facilities, sources say. By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing to roll out a plan next year that will call for about $10 billion in construction for prisons, jails and medical facilities, and include support for a sentencing commission, according to sources familiar with the proposal.

Sources said the breakdown on funding would allocate about $4.4 billion to prisons and re-entry institutions, $4.4 billion for county jail and juvenile beds and $1 billion for medical facilities to satisfy court monitors in two federal cases overseeing health care and treatment of the mentally ill.

The outlines of the plan appear to closely follow the proposals Schwarzenegger laid out last year in his State of the State speech and then in his call for a special legislative session to ease California's prison overcrowding crisis.

Nearly 174,000 prisoners are being housed in prisons designed for fewer than half that many, which prompted the Republican governor to declare an overcrowding emergency earlier this year.

State Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said Tuesday she has been briefed by administration officials on the governor's correctional proposals for next year.

"It's going to be a broad portfolio that will include issues of capacity, local jail issues, enhancing re-entry facilities, moving forth on parole reform and, most creatively, support for a sentencing commission," said Romero, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Administration officials declined to confirm any details of the proposals, which are expected to be among the governor's major legislative priorities next year along with health care and education.

"The governor has made no final decision on plans for reforming the prisons, and like the many other issues that are being developed by the administration, all ideas are up for debate," gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn said.

According to sources, the new prison construction would be funded by lease-revenue bonds, with some general fund money included to take care of planning. The $4.4 billion would fund 16,000 new beds at an undisclosed number of prisons and 5,000 more beds at community-based re-entry facilities.

The re-entry facilities are mini-prisons for short-term inmates on the verge of release or returning for short stays on parole violations.

The construction money also would fund a new correctional officer training academy in Southern California and pay for modifications of San Quentin State Prison's death row.

Another $1 billion in lease-revenue bonds would be for construction of medical facilities, the sources said. Federal court monitors such as prison health czar Robert Sillen have identified the medical facilities as a crucial need to help correct what he has described as the "horrific" medical care system in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The medical facilities also have been requested by the special master in another case covering the treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Sillen has said the state could build as many as seven hospitals at seven state prisons around the state.

An additional $150 million in the Schwarzenegger plan would be directed to improving medical facilities at San Quentin.

The sources did not identify the funding source of the $4.4 billion the governor is expected to request for county jails. Counties, already suffering from massive jail overcrowding, would augment the construction funding. The money would pay for an estimated 4,500 new county jail beds.

The governor's plan also is seeking to add bed space for 4,500 juveniles at the local level.

No details were available on the sentencing commission.

Corrections Secretary Jim Tilton has said in interviews that the administration is open to the idea of a commission, which could range from being advisory in nature to having the authority to set sentencing guidelines that determine which inmates should go to prison and for how long.

"This is a new era," Romero said. "We now have the opportunity to enact a sentencing commission in California that is long overdue."

Romero predicted a positive reception for the governor's prison package in the Legislature.

"We recognize we have to address this prison crisis," she said. "Otherwise, it will continue to consume us."

PRISON PLAN

Highlights of the governor's anticipated prison plan:

. $4.4 billion for 16,000 new prison beds, 5,000 "re-entry" beds, new correctional officer training facility, death row modifications.

. $4.4 billion for county jails and juvenile facilities.

. $1 billion for prison medical facilities.

. Creation of a California sentencing commission.

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/95422.html

Posted by lois at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

SF County Distributes Condoms to Prisoners Despite Govenor's Veto

San Francisco County Distributes Condoms to Prison Inmates Despite Gov. Schwarzenegger's Veto of Prison Condom Distribution Bill
12-20-06 Kaisernetwork.org

San Francisco County is distributing condoms to prison inmates as part of a safe-sex education program despite California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R) veto of a bill (AB 1677) that would have allowed not-for-profit organizations to distribute condoms in jails, the Oakland Tribune reports (Winkelman, Oakland Tribune, 12/18). The bill, proposed by Assembly member Paul Koretz (D), would have allowed public health organizations to distribute condoms, dental dams or "other sex-related protective devices" to California's 162,000 prison inmates. The bill was sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Southern California HIV/AIDS Coalition (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 10/2). About 2% to 5% of the 2,100 inmates in the five county jails are HIV-positive, Kate Monico Klein, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Forensic AIDS Project, said, adding that although the jails are not necessarily a high-risk HIV transmission setting, prevention programs such as condom distribution are critical. The county -- which is one of seven jurisdictions nationally that distributes condoms to inmates -- avoids the prohibition on condom distribution by handing them out as part of a safe-sex educational tool, according to Monico Klein. Many county jails in California -- including those in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Joaquin -- ban condoms, and condoms also are not permitted in the 18 federal prisons in the state, the Tribune reports (Oakland Tribune, 12/18).

Posted by lois at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)

CO: State Dumps Contract with Geo--Ault Prison Not Decided

"Corrections is leaving the question of a revenue guarantee for the proposed Ault prison to Gov.-elect Bill Ritter." _________________________________
State dumps contract with prison firm
Geo Group never broke ground for facility in Pueblo
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
December 19, 2006

Colorado has formally canceled a 2003 contract with the Geo Group to build a private prison in Pueblo for 500 state inmates.

Geo has failed to break ground in the four years since it won the state contract. At the time, Community Education Centers won a similar deal with the state, and it built a prison in Colorado Springs and opened it 13 months ago, the cancellation letter noted.
Geo officials could not be reached for comment after hours on Monday.

Florida-based Geo ran into local opposition and zoning problems in Pueblo. But Geo also demanded repeated changes in the deal that it won in a competitive bid, according to the cancellation letter from Corrections chief Joe Ortiz. Geo wanted government financing and changed the size of the proposed pre-release prison. It also had problems meeting state requirements for both the prison building and the programs Geo would offer to inmates about to be released into society, the letter said.

Recently, Geo demanded more money. It wanted either more money per inmate, or a revenue guarantee that amounted to $1 billion over 30 years for two prisons. Geo also has won a deal to build a prison in Ault.

Corrections is leaving the question of a revenue guarantee for the proposed Ault prison to Gov.-elect Bill Ritter.

But in the meantime, fed up with the delays and changes on the Pueblo project, and in need of prison space, Ortiz canceled the Pueblo deal.

The department plans to re-open the competition for the pre-release prison, which need not be located in Pueblo.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5223804,0
0.html

Posted by lois at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)

MI: Granholm, Legislature Must Work Toward Refrom on Prisons in '07

Published December 19, 2006
Prisons: Granholm, Legislature must work toward reform, savings in '07 A Lansing State Journal editorial

Michigan no longer can afford to ignore the costs - budgetary and human - of its prison policies. Fortunately, the results of the November election may have created the circumstances for a bipartisan effort to reevaluate what Michigan does and whether it works.

What Michigan has done lately is pretty simple: Lock people up for as long as possible.

No doubt that has prevented some crimes by repeat offenders. But this policy is imposing huge costs on the state, costs that are hurting Michigan.

As noted earlier this year by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the Corrections Department is the only state department that got more general fund money in fiscal 2005 than in fiscal 2001. Corrections accounts for half the state employees paid out of the general fund.

And, CRC says that even with a falling crime rate, Michigan's imprisonment rate is above the regional average; 40 percent higher.

In the last year, Michigan has learned a few things politically.

First, the public wants real investments in higher and K-12 education. Second, there remain real needs in the realm of child protection and health care. Third, Michigan can't expect a huge surge of new tax revenue soon, either through raised rates or a resurgent economy.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will enter 2007 budget negotiations secure in her second term and with a Legislature in divided partisan hands. How will they respond to calls to invest in, for example, education and child protection?

Out of the state's major general fund accounts, only Corrections offers any real possibility for significant savings to fund investments elsewhere - and only if Granholm and the Legislature move beyond the politics of "imprisonment first and last."

This isn't just about cutting spending, but about spending more wisely. Michigan has community corrections, prisoner reentry programs and other efforts to cut recidivism or keep petty offenders out of state prisons.

These are exactly the programs that need more support, because as much as you spend on them, it's still cheaper than sticking someone in prison.

With a new Democratic majority, the state House should be more amenable to Granholm ideas. Also, we have found state Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, to be supportive of nuanced corrections policy as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Michigan needs fewer people in prison and more people working as productive citizens. That goal should be the basis of a bipartisan policy at the Capitol in 2007.

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061219/OPINION01/612190310/1
086/opinion

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

FL: Task Force Says State Needs More Faith-Based Prisons

Dec 19, 2006
Gainesville Sun
Task force says state needs more faith-based prisons

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
Associated Press Writer
The state should create more faith-based prisons and prepare a better exit strategy for all prisoners if it wants to lower the number of inmates who get released only to commit more crime, a task force recommended Tuesday.

The prison system also should focus more on job training and substance abuse programs for prisoners, as well as keeping them in touch with family and providing individual plans for what they will do once released.

"We all too often put ex-offenders back on the streets with no plan for them to successfully re-enter the community. No homes, no job prospects and no support," said Vicki Lopez Lukis, who chaired the Ex-Offender Task Force appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. "Even if they want to go straight after they're released, they're sucked back into the crowd that got them into trouble."

That plan should begin the first day felons enter prison, she said.

The state should also expand by six the number of faith-based prisons. It now has one each for men and women. There are more than 8,000 inmates on a waiting list to get into the faith-based prisons, said Henree Martin, who served on the task force.

"In order to get into these facilities that you have a record of very few disciplinary reports, you have to have evidence that you really want to change," said Martin. "When you apply to come into a faith- and character-based facility, you're basically saying, 'I don't want to come back, I want to change.'"

Many inmates begin GED, reading or training programs in prison but are released or transferred before they complete them. Prisons should either help inmates complete programs, or help schedule their continuation after their release.

The task force said that of the nearly 90,000 inmates in state prisons, 44 percent had been released after serving a previous sentence and then got caught after committing another crime.

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061219/APN/612191745

Posted by lois at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)

Minneapolis: City Might Stop Asking About Criminal History

Minneapolis Star Tribune
Last update: December 19, 2006 - 11:03 PM

City might stop asking about criminal history

A Minneapolis committee recommends keeping a criminal history question off city job applications. It's hoped more ex-cons will apply for work.
By Terry Collins, Star Tribune

Minneapolis is one step away from becoming the latest big city to stop asking about criminal records on city job application forms.

The City Council's Ways and Means/Budget Committee unanimously recommended a resolution Monday that will remove the question about someone's criminal record on city forms. It will go before the full council on Friday.

The plan is meant to increase the employment rate by encouraging those with a criminal record to apply for lower-level city jobs while reducing the recidivism rate. Minneapolis will still do criminal-background checks and likely turn down ex-cons for police and fire jobs as well as other high-level jobs that deal with money or children.

If a candidate receiving a conditional job offer is shown by background check to have a criminal record -- even as low as a misdemeanor -- they might have the opportunity to state either in person or in writing what led to the crime and what steps they are taking to avoid doing it again.

St. Paul adopted a similar hiring policy earlier this month, joining Boston and San Francisco as the only other major cities with such plans.

Council Member Elizabeth Glidden said Monday's move shows that Minneapolis is committed to giving ex-offenders, who are reluctant to apply for jobs given their past, a second chance.

"We can still do the same good job to employ a great workforce," said Glidden, who wrote the proposed resolution with Council Member Don Samuels. "I hope we can get the support of the private business community to do the same."

Samuels called Monday's move "a very important decision" and said he believes the measure will have the necessary votes to pass on Friday.

Minneapolis' and St. Paul's moves were inspired by a report in June from the Council on Crime and Justice, a Minneapolis advocacy group that supports hiring former convicts and those with arrest records as a way to fight crime.

Cheryl Morgan Spencer, community relations coordinator at the Minneapolis Urban League, made an emotional plea to the committee.

"Do you know what it feels like when someone comes begging to you for a job, but you have nothing to offer?" Morgan Spencer said. "If you want to offer people some hope, please, please consider passing this."

C2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. http://www.startribune.com/462/story/887061.html

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

December 19, 2006

FBI Says Violent Crimes Surged in first half of 2006

Reports of violent crimes surged in first half of 2006
National trend seen, FBI says

Boston Globe

By Dan Eggen, Washington Post | December 19, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A recent rise in violent crime accelerated in the first half of 2006, providing the clearest sign yet that the nation is in the midst of a prolonged increase in murders, assaults, and other violent offenses, the FBI reported yesterday.

Reports of violent crime surged by nearly 4 percent in the first six months of 2006 when compared with the same time period of a year earlier, including a dramatic increase of nearly 10 percent for robberies, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.

The numbers indicated robbery increases for cities of all sizes, including a 13 percent jump for some of the smallest cities, with populations from 10,000 to 24,999. Murders and assault also rose by more than 1 percent, while the number of reported rapes declined slightly.

The results followed a 2.5 percent surge in violent crimes for 2005, which marked the highest rate of increase in 15 years. The latest numbers suggested that those results were part of the first significant uptick in violent crime since the early 1990s.

The recent crime increases have prompted widespread criticism by police chiefs and state law enforcement officials around the country, who have complained that the federal government has retreated from providing money and other help to localities in favor of programs focused on counterterrorism and homeland security.

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston who has been critical of the Bush administration's crime-fighting strategies, said the surge in crime should be expected, given dramatic cuts in assistance to local police agencies and simultaneous increases in the population of young males who are most likely to commit violent acts.

"We have many high-crime areas where gangs have made a comeback, where police resources are down, and where whatever resources there are have been shifted to antiterrorism activity," Fox said. "It's robbing Peter, and maybe even murdering Peter, to pay Paul."

Justice Department officials have previously rejected such criticisms, arguing that federal policies play a limited role in combating local crime. One senior Justice Department official called the 2005 statistics a "yellow flag" that did not represent a trend.

Yet at the same time, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales increasingly has focused on combating violence and gang crimes in recent public appearances, and the department has launched a study to find explanations for the recent crime increase.

A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday that researchers are in the midst of visiting the 18 cities that are included in the study, which was announced in October.

The one positive piece of news from the latest FBI report was in the category of property crimes.

In that category, crimes dropped 2.6 percent overall even as violent offenses rose.

Even that portion of the report contained some bad news, however: Burglaries rose 1.2 percent nationwide.

Arson crimes, which are tracked separately from other offenses, also jumped nearly 7 percent -- including a 20 percent increase in cities with fewer than 100,000 people but more than 50,000.

Rising murder rates have prompted particular concern among both local and federal law enforcement officials, particularly because a surge in killings and other violent attacks in the Midwest played a significant role in driving up overall crime rates in 2005.

The latest numbers indicate a continued increase in murders, including an 8.4 percent rise for larger cities of 500,000 to 1 million residents. Overall, reported murders were up 3.1 percent in all metropolitan counties, the FBI said.

A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said: "We are encouraged by the drop in property crime seen in most areas around the country, but we are again concerned about the increase in violent crime in some cities and towns." He also said the department's ongoing crime study will help determine "what is causing this increase and to determine which crime-fighting efforts are most effective."

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/12/19/reports_of_
violent_crimes_surged_in_first_half_of_2006/

Posted by lois at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

MN: County questions Moral Issue of Jailing Immigrants

"We have a failed national immigration policy," Ortega said. "We are only Ramsey County, but I think we need to discuss it. It's for us to set an example. We are not a federal prison. It's a moral issue."

Tuesday, Dec 19, 2006, Pioneer Press
County questions contract to jail illegal workers
U.S. immigration agency paid $2 million last year to house detainees in St. Paul

BY TIM NELSON
Pioneer Press

Ramsey County is considering giving up its lucrative contract with the federal government to house suspected illegal immigrants in the county jail, with one county commissioner saying the detentions raise a "moral issue."

Commissioner Rafael Ortega said Monday he plans to ask administrators today whether the county can afford to say "no" to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which pays $80 a day per detainee for space in the St. Paul jail. The county received nearly $2 million from the agency last year.

"We have a failed national immigration policy," Ortega said. "We are only Ramsey County, but I think we need to discuss it. It's for us to set an example. We are not a federal prison. It's a moral issue."

The discussion comes amid growing debate about the federal practice of detaining suspected immigration violators. Ortega said he decided to act after federal raids last Tuesday at Swift & Co. slaughterhouses in Minnesota and five other states, which led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 workers.

Local ICE spokesman Tim Counts declined to comment on Ortega's position.

"People are entitled to their opinion," he said.

Counts said ICE has similar contracts with several other facilities in the Twin Cities, including jails in Sherburne, Carver and Washington counties, but not Hennepin County. He also said ICE holds detainees at a state prison in Rush City.

Each contract with each jail is independently negotiated, though none include a set, minimum number of detainees.

"The contract is like: 'If you have room to hold them, and we have someone available, this is the rate we've agreed to,' " Counts said.

But from a practical standpoint, metro-area facilities are a better bet.

"Typically, we hold people in the metro area because our office and both immigration courts are there," he said.

On any given day, there are 150 to 200 detainees in Minnesota jails and prisons, Counts said. Nationally, about 200,000 people are detained by ICE; of those, about 57 percent go through 312 county and municipal jails. On average, it costs the federal government about $95 a day.

As for Ramsey County's share of the detainees, Counts said, "The numbers fluctuate all the time."

In June, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, said it needed 35,000 more detention beds to hold those awaiting deportation. By the end of 2005, 544,000 illegal immigrants had absconded; ICE blamed a lack of beds for encouraging "an unofficial mini-amnesty" for high-risk aliens.

Local officials, however, say they're reluctant to take custody of the illegal immigrants for a variety of reasons.

Ortega said he has been closely monitoring the status of immigration detainees since the April death of Maria Inamagua Merchan, an Ecuadorean native who was being held in the Ramsey County jail awaiting deportation. She collapsed five weeks after being detained and later died, apparently of an undiagnosed parasitic infection.

"There are a lot of issues when you deal with the immigrant population that we're not geared up to deal with," Ortega said. "There are language issues, there are cultural issues, there are health issues. We need to examine if this is a business we want to stay in."

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher cited Merchan's case as one of many concerns he has about what he calls "immigration boarders." His 494-bed jail is home to about 60 of them on a typical day. He says local pretrial detainees usually spend just four days behind bars at the Grove Street jail, but detainees brought in by ICE officials typically stay 100 days.

"When you're housing inmates for that long, the burden shifts to us to be their caretakers," Fletcher said.

He also cited the growing demand for space: His facility turned away more than two dozen detainees from immigration raids this month because the jail didn't have space. (The county also houses female prisoners for Dakota County and inmates for the state Department of Corrections.)

It isn't clear what direction the county might go on Ortega's suggestion.

Spokesman Dave Verhasselt said Ramsey County got $1.9 million in revenue from federal immigration authorities for housing detainees last year and had already received $1.3 million in payments through August ‹ just short of 1 percent of the property tax levy.

It is, however, a significant portion of the jail budget: Federal inmate payments are about 11 percent of the $14.8 million that jail operations are expected to cost in 2006.

And Fletcher said keeping federal detainees earns more than for other jurisdictions. Dakota County pays $70 per day to house prisoners in St. Paul, the state just $55.

County Board Chairman Tony Bennett, a former U.S. marshal, has himself put detainees in local jails, since the federal government doesn't have a detention center in Minnesota.

And while he agrees with Ortega that federal immigration policy is increasingly dysfunctional, he also noted the potential financial impact of rebuffing immigration detainees.

"One night, when I was marshal, I had to send eight prisoners to Fargo, N.D., to house them because there was no room for them here. That's expensive," Bennett said.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/state/minnesota/16270344.htm

Posted by lois at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)

AL: Pew Charitable Trusts' Picks AL to Assist with Prison Reform

Press-Register
Editorial
Alabama prisons earn well-deserved attention
Monday, December 18, 2006

ALABAMA'S INCLUSION in a national corrections project offers the state significant help and pays officials a well-justified compliment.

The Pew Charitable Trusts' Public Safety Performance Project chose Alabama as the first of eight states it will assist with corrections reform.

The Pew trusts and the Vera Institute of Justice will spend $12 million over the next four years to help the selected states figure out how best to deal with people convicted of crimes. Advertisement

Alabama sorely needs the help. For more than a decade, Alabama prisons have been grossly overcrowded. Part of the reason is that too many nonviolent criminals have been put in prison serving sentences that are too long.

The problem with that approach is this: Putting more nonviolent offenders in prison leaves less room to keep violent criminals locked up under long sentences.

If the project is successful ? and it can be ? it can lead to the expansion of community corrections programs such as work- release centers, a shrinking of the too-large prison population, and less recidivism among inmates released into society.

Instead of serving long prison terms, people convicted of nonviolent property and drug crimes can best be dealt with by placing them in local halfway houses and work-release centers, where they go to jobs during the day and are confined at night. That allows them to earn money to pay restitution or fines.

Alabama already has community corrections programs in 38 of the state's 67 counties. When the project concludes in four years, programs should be in place in all counties, according to officials. That would be progress.

What's more, the aims of the national project will embrace much that Alabama officials, largely under the leadership of Gov. Bob Riley, have already done to improve state corrections. The backlog of state prisoners housed in county jails has been erased. And Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen already has plans to add inmate transitional centers and work-release centers across the state.

Additionally, the Legislature has enacted sentencing reforms recommended by the forward-looking Alabama Sentencing Commission. The commission was established in 2000, and was specifically cited by Adam Gelb, the national project's director, as one reason Alabama was chosen for the project.

The new sentencing guidelines are expected to bring shorter sentences for nonviolent inmates and more consistent punishment across the state.

Mr. Gelb also noted that Alabama was invited into the project because its leaders work together. "The thing that stood out the most is the tremendous level of cooperation across (political) parties," Mr. Gelb said at a news conference at which Alabama's selection was announced. He said he noticed a strong "climate for change."

That's something to be proud of. Alabama officials have recognized the importance of solving the state's corrections problems, and will work together to solve them. The public can be grateful for that.

Reducing the prison population while maintaining the security of Alabama's communities won't be easy. But it surely will be easier with the help of the experts at the Vera Institute and with funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

http://www.al.com/opinion/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/opinion/11664369902
42450.xml&coll=3

Posted by lois at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2006

High times for farmers as cannabis is named America's biggest cash crop

High times for farmers as cannabis is named America's biggest cash crop
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles, The Independent, UK
Published: 19 December 2006

Marijuana is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new report by a leading American drug reform lobbyist that cites the US government's own figures.

Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation and consumption of pot have had a counter-productive effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and one of the top five crops in 39 states.

The report's author, Jon Gettman, says it is "larger than cotton in Alabama, larger than grapes, vegetables and hay in California, larger than peanuts in Georgia, and larger than tobacco in South and North Carolina".

California accounts for almost a third of all US production. It is a major economic force in the state, especially in the redwood forests in the north, where the smell of weed wafts unmistakably down the streets of several towns.

Marijuana remains popular with the baby boomer generation, which first experimented with it in the 1950s and 1960s. And its use is booming among teenagers and young adults, especially as alcohol cannot be sold to under 21s. US Marijuana cultivation is worth more than $35bn (£18bn) per year. And that is a conservative estimate, based on government price surveys, Mr Gettman says. Corn, the largest legitimate crop, is worth just over $23bn and soybeans around $17bn. "Despite years of effort by law enforcement, they're not getting rid of it," Mr Gettman told the Los Angeles Times ahead of his report's publication yesterday in The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. "Not only is the problem worse in terms of magnitude of cultivation, but production has spread all around the country. To say the genie is out of the bottle is a profound understatement."

Figures issued by the State Department and other government agencies show marijuana production increased from an estimated 2.2 million pounds in 1981 to at least 22 million pounds. Some estimates put the current crop as high as 50 million pounds.

Since the presidency of George Bush Snr in the late 1980s, official policy has been one of zero tolerance of all illegal narcotics. Recently, the federal government has been unforgiving of the medical marijuana movement, and federal agents have raided numerous marijuana farms that were fully licensed under state law.

It has not cut down use of the drug. Mr Gettman and other activists argue that it might be time to legalise the entire industry and subject it to proper regulatory control and taxation.

"The fact that marijuana is America's number-one cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," said Rob Kampia, executive director of Washington's Marijuana Policy Project.

Marijuana is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new report by a leading American drug reform lobbyist that cites the US government's own figures.

Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation and consumption of pot have had a counter-productive effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and one of the top five crops in 39 states.

The report's author, Jon Gettman, says it is "larger than cotton in Alabama, larger than grapes, vegetables and hay in California, larger than peanuts in Georgia, and larger than tobacco in South and North Carolina".

California accounts for almost a third of all US production. It is a major economic force in the state, especially in the redwood forests in the north, where the smell of weed wafts unmistakably down the streets of several towns.

Marijuana remains popular with the baby boomer generation, which first experimented with it in the 1950s and 1960s. And its use is booming among teenagers and young adults, especially as alcohol cannot be sold to under 21s. US Marijuana cultivation is worth more than $35bn (£18bn) per year. And that is a conservative estimate, based on government price surveys, Mr Gettman says. Corn, the largest legitimate crop, is worth just over $23bn and soybeans around $17bn. "Despite years of effort by law enforcement, they're not getting rid of it," Mr Gettman told the Los Angeles Times ahead of his report's publication yesterday in The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. "Not only is the problem worse in terms of magnitude of cultivation, but production has spread all around the country. To say the genie is out of the bottle is a profound understatement."

Figures issued by the State Department and other government agencies show marijuana production increased from an estimated 2.2 million pounds in 1981 to at least 22 million pounds. Some estimates put the current crop as high as 50 million pounds.

Since the presidency of George Bush Snr in the late 1980s, official policy has been one of zero tolerance of all illegal narcotics. Recently, the federal government has been unforgiving of the medical marijuana movement, and federal agents have raided numerous marijuana farms that were fully licensed under state law.

It has not cut down use of the drug. Mr Gettman and other activists argue that it might be time to legalise the entire industry and subject it to proper regulatory control and taxation.

"The fact that marijuana is America's number-one cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," said Rob Kampia, executive director of Washington's Marijuana Policy Project.

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

December 17, 2006

CO: State Rescinds GEO Contract to build new prison

State Rescinds Corrections Contract Offer To Private Prison
December 16, 2006
PUEBLO, Colo. -- The state has cut off negotiations and rescinded a contractwith developers planning to build a private prison in Pueblo.
Colorado Department of Corrections executive director Joe Ortiz sent aletter Friday to the GEO Group, ending six months of negotiations The letter cites numerous delays and unresolved issues and says the department has run out of patience with the developers.

The Florida-based GEO Group had been working for about four years to buildthe 1,000-bed prison near the Pueblo Memorial Airport industrial park.Construction never got under way. The prison would have been for pre-paroleprisoners and prisoners who had seen their parole status revoked.
GEO bought about 36 acres for the facility last year, but negotiations withthe state broke down over the company's demand that the DOC guarantee 90percent occupancy and grant a 30-year contract.
GEO operates private detention centers in 15 states and one Canadian
province as well as in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom. ThePueblo facility is one of two the company was planning in Colorado. Thecompany's Web site also indicates GEO in 2003 was awarded a contract todevelop a 1,000-bed immigration detention facility in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

A DOC spokeswoman says the department will put the Pueblo proposal back upfor bid, with no promise the facility will still be built in Pueblo.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10553092/detail.html

Posted by lois at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

Maine: "What Do Prison Officials Have to Hide?

The Phoenix
Lockdown

What do prison officials have to hide?

By: LANCE TAPLEY

12/14/2006 10:12:03 AM

If you were a reporter and you received a letter like the one excerpted below, what would you make of it? It’s from an inmate at the maximum-security, solitary-confinement Supermax unit at the Maine State Prison in Warren. The “Dino” referred to is prisoner Deane Brown, 42, a burglar, dedicated human-rights activist, and the major source of information for a series of articles I have written over the past year on abuse of mentally ill and other prisoners in the Supermax, the 1000-inmate prison’s 100-cell warehouse for the most violent men, but also a place for those whom prison officials see as troublemakers.

A prison is by definition a totalitarian kind of place, where control is a way of life. Still . . .

“Dino was brought down here more than a week ago . . . and ever since then Mental Health has cleared him off this [suicide] watch at least three times that I know of. Every time he’s cleared either the Chief of Security or the Deputy Warden put him back on. While he’s on this watch he cannot have visits, phone calls, mail, or write letters out. He’s completely stripped out except for a security dress to cover himself. He’s not allowed his reading glasses or a book to pass the time. Officers won’t let him sleep more than 15 minutes at a time before they bang on his door to make sure he’s ok. Dino has stopped eating and taking his medication because of this treatment.

“Dino is not suicidal! This is the Prison’s way of restricting his access to the outside world and especially the media. Just last week all newspapers in the entire prison were confiscated, and no newspapers were allowed back into the prison for about five days. . . .

“[The Supermax officers] have perfected the art of what I call ‘No Touch Torture.’ Noise is the weapon of choice, and unless an inmate breaks down and gets placed on medication he’s not getting more than 30 minutes of sleep at a time.”

“If this is true, it is deeply disturbing,” says Shenna Bellows, the Maine Civil Liberties Union director. “Courts have found sleep deprivation to be an Eighth Amendment violation.” The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Officials shut the gate
A year after beginning my series on the Supermax — officially, it is the Special Management Unit or SMU — I am still writing about the same subject, the torture of prisoners, although now it is combined with the subject of the denial to the press of access to prisoners — and the refusal of officials to answer questions. (See sidebar, “Stonewalling is normal,” for more examples of official obstruction.)

The author of the above letter wrote me to explain why I haven’t been allowed contact with Deane Brown. His letter, dated November 6, was sent by way of another correspondent, since he assumed mail to me would be confiscated by prison authorities. The Phoenix is granting him anonymity to protect him from repercussions from them.

The authorities maintain that outgoing mail isn’t read unless it’s from a list of inmates who are suspected of criminal activity. Incoming mail isn’t read, they say, though it’s screened for contraband. But while Brown was on suicide watch, he did not receive mail I sent him, he says. Other letters I have sent prisoners asking for a reply have not had a response, so I assume some of my letters or theirs have been confiscated. The prison has not responded to my query asking if any of them were.

On November 13, around the time I received the above letter, Brown was shipped out to a maximum-security prison in Maryland. Maine Department of Corrections commissioner Martin Magnusson says, vaguely, Brown was a threat to prison security. Brown believes his transfer was in retribution for his activism. (See “Baldacci’s ‘Political Prisoner,’” November 24, by Lance
Tapley.)

Put yourself again in the shoes of a reporter: should I discount what the above letter-writer says, on the reasonable-sounding assumption that criminals are not to be trusted?

In confirmation of his description of Deane Brown’s treatment, however, I have letters from two other current Supermax inmates. They paint the same scene of what many people would perceive as torture — especially, for a man officially deemed suicidal. They describe also the same intention by prison officials to deny Brown access to the press — namely, to me.

Isolation chamber
Providing many more details, Brown himself sent a letter from his Maryland cell to his best friend, Bethany Berry, of Rockland, giving a chronology of what happened to him. He reports these highlights of his recent treatment in the Maine Supermax:

— “I was kept under constant watch with no clothing, bedding, soap, toothbrush, or toothpaste. Only a thin mat and security blanket.”

— His daily menu was “two sandwiches, two apples, and four pieces of celery or carrot three times a day, no liquids except water from the dirty tap, no cup.”

— Especially, the experience was “torture because my hands were required to be visible at all times, and it was freezing cold in there, with rain flooding my floor.” He confirms he was denied his eyeglasses. As a result, “I was suffering headaches to the point of vomiting.”

Why was he put on suicide watch? As he explains in a letter to me, “The night I was hauled off to [the] SMU (again!), I was of the mind-frame of ‘This is it; I’ve done all I can do. Someone else can carry the ball. By killing myself I will keep the heat on the situation’!”

And so he threatened to kill himself, even sending me a suicide note via another prisoner. He had earlier told me, “If I end up in another stint [in the Supermax], it’s going to kill me.” He hadn’t been in it in over a year.

But then, he says, he saw he could carry on the fight, that he still could be useful. He sees his human-rights activism as “redemption” for his past crimes. He abandoned his suicide plans and decided he could be an investigator within the Supermax. He had been a weekly prison “correspondent” by phone for a Rockland radio station as well as a source for the Phoenix.

Specifically, he wanted to see “what Ryan Rideout went through before he died.” Twenty-five-year-old Ryan Rideout, a severely mentally ill man in prison for robbery, committed suicide by hanging himself from a sprinkler head in a Supermax cell. (See “Death in the Supermax,” October 11, by Lance
Tapley.) His suicide — as well as several others in the Supermax in recent years — had upset Brown greatly (he has been imprisoned since the mid-1990s). He thought Rideout’s treatment on suicide watch might have driven him to kill himself.

(Brown may have been mistaken about Rideout’s status in the Supermax. Warden Jeffrey Merrill has said publicly that Rideout was not considered a suicide risk, despite a long history of suicide threats.)

Brown apparently outfoxed himself: prison officials used his suicide-watch status to deny him access to the outside world, in spite of my requests to see him, while they prepared to send him 500 miles from family and friends — in spite, also, of being “cleared by five different mental-health people,” he says. It turned out he couldn’t get off suicide watch in Maine, though he was taken off suicide watch in Maryland. He had told me several times of threats from prison authorities to send him out of state.

Long investigations
Actually, this drama is more complicated, murky, and bizarre (welcome to the weird world of covering a prison). Brown says he was put in the Supermax on October 24 because he was mistakenly connected by prison authorities with an inmate, Gary Watland, 44, a murderer, whose wife, Susan Watland, has been charged with attempting to bring a gun into the prison on that day to help her husband escape.

Brown’s letter to Bethany Berry suggests the prison’s connection of him with Watland was made because of bad luck and judgment on his part and bad will on the part of prison officials. He says that on the previous day he had obtained what he believed to be proof of mail tampering: that the prison was opening and scanning prisoners’ outgoing mail without a search warrant or consent, which he thought to be a federal crime.

(Here, too, he may have been mistaken. The postal service gives prisons the right to “open, examine, and censor” mail, if the prison rules allow it, according to postal regulations.)

Brown says an inmate gave him the address of an Internet server that the inmate said contained Department of Corrections files, including copies of prisoners’ mail. Brown writes that he wanted to get this information to me so I could “get it to a federal prosecutor.” From his words, it appears that Brown never accessed the server. He believes some inmates cracked “the DOC mainframe.”

But Brown made the mistake of bragging to two correctional officers on October 24 — at a time when he didn’t know about the alleged breakout plot, he says — that his next “news release” would be “an atomic bomb.” That evening he was placed in the Supermax “pending investigation,” he writes.

There is certainly more to be discovered about these events. But I — the Phoenix, the press — can’t fill in some details because I have not been allowed access to Brown for weeks, and the Corrections Department refuses to explain Brown’s Supermax incarceration or his transfer from Maine other than in hazy words about security threats.

Brown’s argument that the prison made an erroneous connection with Watland would seem to be bolstered by the unlikelihood that he would have been shipped to another state if he were under investigation, although Magnusson says “we can bring him back if we need to.”

Preventing dissent
Brown sums up the investigation, his Supermax stay, and his transfer to Maryland as payback by the officials and a means to shut him up. His extended Supermax suicide watch he sees as, partly, torture to extract a false confession of involvement in the Watland affair. His pro bono lawyer, Lynne Williams, calls him a “political prisoner.” He says he is now locked in a Maryland cell 23 hours a day, as he was in the Maine Supermax. “They sent me here to die,” he writes.

But shouldn’t I discount what Brown writes, since he, too, is a criminal? In this case, a man serving 59 years for a long string of burglaries. Yet he supplied me with a great amount of disturbing information that did indeed check out. And he demonstrated courage, now at great cost, in defying the prison. Truth and bravery are a lot more than I get from some prominent Maine politicians in my other journalistic role as a political reporter. In fact, nothing I have been told by any inmate about prison conditions has been proven false.

“He’s a good man,” says Camden attorney Christopher Maclean, who once briefly represented Brown. “Obviously, the authorities have singled him out to punish and shut him up.”

Nevertheless, a reporter should be able to closely question Brown and other prisoners in person on their claims. But for a month and a half corrections officials have kept me out of the prison, declaring all but one of the prisoners I want to see off-limits, for various reasons. For a long time, they didn’t even bother to respond to my e-mail messages listing prisoners I wished to visit. For weeks, they did not send me the new paperwork they said was necessary for a media visit to the one prisoner they said they would permit me to see, the brother of suicide victim Rideout. Like Deane Brown, I suspect retribution.

The latest stonewalling by prison officials is an e-mailed form with some new restrictions added specifically for me as a result of my reporting work. These new rules require I be monitored by prison staff while interviewing inmates, and would bar me from asking prisoners questions about other inmates. Beyond that, I would have to agree not to publish certain information — determined by prison authorities — even if the inmate said it in the interview. And I would have to agree to have my notebook confiscated if it contained information “not authorized” by prison officials. No respectable journalist would ever agree to these conditions.

Other states control reporters’ access to prisoners, especially Supermax inmates. For example, Massachusetts and New Hampshire require interviews be monitored or observed, but neither state attempts to control the subject matter or content of media interviews — or news stories written based on them — and neither demands to review notes or recordings from an interview, though both reserve the right to search notebooks or equipment for “contraband” items.

Governor John Baldacci was asked to respond to these restrictions on reporting, but he did not reply.

So the Baldacci administration has effectively banned me from the prison.

Obstructing the press
.
And now that Magnusson has sent Brown out of state (the commissioner says he personally made the decision), I have discovered that officials of the Maryland prison system, run by Mary Ann Saar, a former Maine associate corrections commissioner, won’t return my calls or e-mails to set up a visit to see Brown.

In other words, obstructions to coverage have been erected at every turn.

According to Denise Lord, associate commissioner, the Corrections Department won’t discuss individual prisoners because of “confidentiality” — even though, in Brown’s case, I have a signed release from him — and because of the ongoing investigations of the Rideout suicide and the alleged breakout attempt. Actually, her first words to me on Brown’s transfer were, “We’re not going to share information” about why he was sent to Maryland “because we’re not going to.”

Recently, my request to the department to see documents pertaining to Supermax policies and several inmates and employees, made under Maine’s Freedom of Access (freedom of information) law, have been almost totally denied by an assistant attorney general, Diane Sleek. To take the next step to try to see these documents, I would have to sue in Superior Court.

Ryan Rideout killed himself on October 5. Authorities at first suggested the investigation would take only a short while. Several weeks ago, State Police Lieutenant Gary Wright said the investigation had been “pretty much complete” for some time. But it lingers on, and its report remains undisclosed to the public. Recently, phone messages left for Lieutenant Wright went unanswered.

Williams, Brown’s attorney, says of such a delay by authorities: “They have a right to preclude the media during a limited period of time. These investigations should be done by now, and they should be allowing reporters back in.”

Now I feel I know a little of what it is like working as a reporter in a totalitarian state.

Control is a disease
In Maine, the lonely job of preventing torture to these outcasts, and gaining public access to them and their environment, rests largely with a few lawyers, particularly the very few who defend indigent prison inmates for a taxpayer-paid $50 an hour.

“The idea that you would prevent suicides by being concerned about the mental health of prisoners is not something they consider,” says attorney Joseph Steinberger, of Rockland, about correctional officials. The alternative they have chosen, putting mentally ill, suicidal people in solitary confinement, he finds simply “crazy.” To the prison mentality, “suicidal behavior is punishable behavior,” he says with amazement.

A self-proclaimed “radical lawyer” and a Ph.D. psychologist, Williams, of Bar Harbor, is a key person in Maine in the struggle against what she suggests is the totalitarianism of the corrections system. “The goal in a totalitarian regime is silence and no dissent,” she notes.

She says she intends in January to sue the Department of Corrections, in a federal civil-rights action, with the support of the National Lawyers Guild, a 6000-member, left-wing group, over the department’s denial of Brown’s First Amendment rights. She wants to bring Brown back to Maine and allow him access to the press.

“Prisoners have a free-speech right to communicate with the outside world, whether family, friends, or reporters, about prison conditions,” Williams says. “And the outside community surely has a right to that information.”

Maine School of Law professor Orlando Delogu comments: “The tendency in the bureaucracy is to think that people don’t care about [prisoners] and they can do whatever they want with them. The reality of the law is they may be bad people but you still don’t get to do whatever you want. They have constitutional rights, with safeguards and limitations.”

Few would dispute that very strict security is needed in a prison, but allowing a facsimile of a totalitarian system to reproduce within its high walls is not only constitutionally unjust to prisoners, it allows harshness, including physical and psychological abuse — up to and including torture — to grow and metastasize. In the 1980s, after writing exposés of abuse at the state’s Baxter School for the Deaf and Pineland Center for developmentally disabled people, I used to say to my friends, “Show me any institution where people have great and unsupervised power over others, and I will show you great abuse.”

It is perhaps sadly normal, too, for a prison bureaucracy to want to exercise the same control on those without its walls as it does on those within. These officials are in the business of control. Nationally, politically active prisoners are regularly punished for their speech, and reporters find their access to prisoners cut off, says Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News: “It happens all the time. This is the standard playbook from around the country.”

Despite promised reforms — a few of which, to the department’s credit, have begun to be implemented — the Maine State Prison and its Supermax remain, a year after the beginning of the Phoenix’s series, a mostly closed, arbitrary, super-harsh world in which officials appear now to want to apply stern rules to reporters as well as to prisoners.

Email the author:Lance Tapley: ltapley@adelphia.net .
Copyright © 2006 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group http://www.thephoenix.com/Article.aspx?id=29730&page=2

FROM: pvg@riseup.net
Subject: Injustice in the Maine State Prison (alleged torture and political persecution)

Hello friends and fellow Victory Gardeners,

We are sending out this quick email to notify you about information recently released to the public regarding serious allegations of human rights abuse and politically motivated persecution in the Maine State Prison.

Over the past year, Portland based journalist, Lance Tapley, has written a series of articles investigating evidence of torture and other gross violations of human rights in the Maine State prison. Some of the most serious abuses against prisoners include:

- Stays for long periods of time (often naked and blind-folded) in metal "restraint" chairs.

- Sleep deprivation

- Persecution of politicized, activist prisoners-- putting them in solitary/supermax and in the recent case of Deane Brown, transferring him suddenly to a notoriously violent prison in Maryland.

In two articles in this week's edition of the Portland Phoenix, Lance Tapley explains how his attempts at investigating these matters has been very difficult, due to the lack of cooperation from prison officials and the administration of Governor John Baldacci.

While this news may not be surprising to those already familiar with America and Maine's prison systems-- it may come as a shock to others. We are after all, lead to believe in school and on TV that these type of things don't happen in "the land of the free."

This public exposure, however, presents us with a good opportunity to further expose the prison system as a cruel enforcer of economic injustice, class oppression, and racism.

We are asking people to read the December 14, 2006 Portland Phoenix article "Lockdown" (also see the sidebar "Stonewalling is normal"), and write to Governor John Baldacci and Corrections Commisioner Martin Magnusson demanding that they bring Deane Brown back to Maine, and cease the use of "restraint chairs" and other torture techniques.

Also, a new legal collective is forming in Maine to address these problems in an ongoing manner. They will be holding legal trainings and their first meeting in Augusta in early Januray. It is open to anyone who is interested. For more info, please email davidbidler@yahoo.com.

Please direct correspondence to:

Governor John Baldacci
1 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0001

Phone: (207) 287-3531
Fax: (207) 287-1034
Email: governor@maine.gov

and

Commissioner Martin Magnusson
Maine Department of Corrections
Central Office
25 Tyson Drive 3rd flr
111 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0111

Telephone: 207/287-2711
Fax: 207/287-4370
TTY: 207/287-2360

FROM:
Portland Victory Gardens Project
PO Box 1992
Portland, Maine 04104
(207) 761-1504

Posted by lois at 03:13 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2006

VA: Gov. Proposes $100 Million Prison In Grayson Co.

"His $100 million borrowing proposal will pay for construction of a planned 1,024-bed state prison in Grayson County and will generate more than 350 jobs. The prison, to be located in the Mount Rogers Planning District, will be the fourth state prison built in Southwest Virginia in the past decade. Red Onion and Wallens Ridge prisons opened in the late 1990s. A third prison is being constructed in Tazewell County and is scheduled to open in September."

Times Dispatch
Richmond, Va.- Friday, Dec. 15, 2006
Kaine proposes $100 million prison in Grayson County
BY MICHAEL HARDY

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will propose borrowing about $100 million to build a new state prison in Southwest Virginia for more than 1,000 inmates, government sources said last night.

They said that the medium-security prison in Grayson County will be in the district of Sen. William C. Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, a leading budget negotiator in the General Assembly. It is needed to house a rising state prison population that now is almost 31,000, the administration explained.

Additionally, the Democratic governor will recommend an estimated $15 million to increase long sought-after enhanced retirement benefits for state policemen.

For example, a 30-year veteran of the state police would receive about 55.5 percent of his final salary annually. That is an increase from the roughly 51 percent currently received, one source estimated.

Additionally, the governor will offer, among other things, cash to localities that already award enhanced benefits to retired deputies. About 60 percent of localities offer the benefits and the state cash would help defray their costs.

Kaine's proposed changes to the state budget also will set aside about $175 million for capital projects around the state, much of it to deal with cost overruns of construction in higher education and some in mental-health facilities.

He also would add about $60 million to plug a shortage in health care to pay for current Medicaid services buffeted by a slowdown in tobacco payments. Medicaid primarily serves the poor, disabled and elderly.

The source also estimated that the governor proposed spending about $15 million on homeland security, primarily on allocations to local programs.

Kaine will detail his major spending changes to the second-year budget spending in an appearance this morning before the money committees of the General Assembly. With a humming economy producing millions of dollars over estimates, Kaine will not propose tax increases for government services in his proposed amendments.

Kaine left less than $10 million unearmarked for spending in the budget. The governor had held several events this past week to highlight major budget initiatives. They included 3 percent raises for public school teachers and $250 million in borrowing to upgrade sewage-treatment plants to improve the polluted Chesapeake Bay.

Legislators approved the state's $74 billion, two-year budget just before the July 1, 2006, deadline after marathon wrangling over transportation. After 246 days of fighting, the House and Senate failed to agree on a package of tax and fee increases, sought by Kaine and the Senate, to produce an extra $1 billion annually for road, rail and transit improvements.

The confrontation with the anti-tax House may be replayed during the 46-day session that begins Jan. 10. All 140 Senate and House seats are up for election in November when voters will determine whether Republicans maintain their majorities in the House and Senate.

Kaine said yesterday that he will introduce legislation early in the session to spell out the need for long-term, sustainable revenues for transportation. That may translate into a proposed batch of tax and fee boosts.

His $100 million borrowing proposal will pay for construction of a planned 1,024-bed state prison in Grayson County and will generate more than 350 jobs. The prison, to be located in the Mount Rogers Planning District, will be the fourth state prison built in Southwest Virginia in the past decade. Red Onion and Wallens Ridge prisons opened in the late 1990s. A third prison is being constructed in Tazewell County and is scheduled to open in September.

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will propose several budget changes when he addresses members of the state Senate and House today. They include:

€ $100 million in borrowing for a medium-security prison in Grayson County

€ $79.5 million for K-12 education, including $64 million for teacher raises

€ $250 million for sewage treatment plants $60 million for Medicaid

€ $161 million for transportation

€ $175 million for construction cost overruns on existing building projects around the state

€ $15 million to increase retirement benefits for state police

€ $15 million for homeland security

€ $10 million remains unallocated

TRANSPORTATION PLAN
This is how Gov. Timothy M. Kaine wants to spend $500 million in one-time transportation investments during the next two years:

€ $305 million to support the Capital Beltway high-occupancy toll-lanes project, the Hillsville Bypass on U.S. 58, the Interstate 64-264 interchange in South Hampton Roads, and widening U.S. 50 in Fairfax and Loudoun counties

€ $125 million for rail improvements along Interstate 95 and Interstate 81 corridors, for railcars for the Washington Metro, Virginia Railway Express and the proposed Norfolk light-rail system, and for public transit system buses

€ $50 million to complete the state Route 164 rail relocation in South Hampton Roads and begin detailed planning for the Craney Island marine terminal

€ $20 million -- split equally between Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia
-- for technology innovation grants to reduce congestion in the state's most traffic-clogged regions

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1149192189704
&pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&path=!news&s=1045855934842

Posted by lois at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2006

Calling sex consensual insult to women who are incarcerated

Letter to the Editor:
(Springfield Republican)- December 15, 2006
Calling sex consensual insult to female inmates

In spite of Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett's reference to sex between the four indicted Hampden County Correctional Center officers and two women prisoners as "consensual" in The Republican, it is unquestionably a case of sexual exploitation and victim-blaming. ("Guard, 3 former guards, indicted, Dec. 6).

Any thinking adult would have to know that women who are incarcerated are powerless and treated as property of the state. Sexual contact by paid employees of HCCC is inherently exploitive, violent and abusive.

Bennett's statement is an insult to the sensibilities and intelligence of the community and could destroy any element of fairness when the cases go to trial. Although Sheriff Ashe refers to this crime as "an aberration," the sexual violation of women prisoners in jails and prisons is not. Sex with a woman prisoner is on the continuum of abuse that most of the women have endured since childhood. Incarcerated women suffer disproportionately from mental illness and addiction, and recovery is barely possible in that setting. Bennett's assertion is reiterated: "While investigators discovered the alleged sexual encounters were voluntary, jail guards are barred from sex with inmates under any circumstances, [Sheriff Michael] Ashe said." It is clear that those who wrote and passed the law barring guards from having sex with prisoners knew that those who have a vested interest in protecting their positions will maintain that sex between a guard and a prisoner can be consensual.

The comments of Bennett and Ashe undermine the indictment of the grand jury and demonstrate the necessity for state law that supersedes the opinions of some of our elected officials.

Ellen Miller-Mack
Northampton, MA

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

December 14, 2006

Q&A: Patricia Caruso New Michigan Director of DOC

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS | PATRICIA CARUSO: Pressure on prisons
December 14, 2006
Patricia Caruso has been director of the Michigan Department of Corrections since 2003. (2003 photo by AL GOLDIS/Associated Press)

Patricia Caruso became the first female director of the Michigan Department of Corrections in July 2003. Here are excerpts of her conversation last week with Free Press Editorial Writer Jeff Gerritt about the recent jump in the state's prison population and how the state can better control prison costs of $1.9 billion a year, 20% of the state's general purpose revenues.

QUESTION: Michigan has one of the nation's highest incarceration rates and now holds a record 51,044 inmates. The department managed to control the inmate population fairly well in recent years, recording slight decreases in 2003 and 2004.

But the population spiked this year, following the mistaken release of Patrick Selepak, who later killed three people. The state added 1,700 inmates in the first 10 months of 2006, and the population is now where it was projected to be in 2008. Can you explain what's happening to Michigan's prison population trends?

ANSWER: We have done a good job over the past few years in stabilizing and even decreasing our population. We did it with our re-entry program, working closely with community corrections, and working with our agents in dealing with parole violators. We held to our projections until Selepak hit. You can attribute almost all of the increase to that. We're now about 1,300 beds over our projected population. In March, we went up 500 beds in one month.

Q: How did Selepak affect that increase?

A: That's the human element of our business. When you look at 6 1/2 weeks of headlines, it impacts everyone's decisions, including (parole) agents, parole board members and judges. We've slowed that down some, but we're still going up.

Q: How is the department handling the increase short-term?

A: What we've done this year is expand within our existing facilities. Most of our prisons are designed to flex a bit. We still have some empty beds. We are not going to stack people. As a former warden, I know it's dangerous to run prisons like that. It's wrong for staff and for inmates.

Q: I've received dozens of letters from inmates, describing increasingly crowded conditions. Do you think the growing population is causing a security problem?

A: No, I don't. Certainly, there are people who disagree. We added staff in the areas where we (expanded). We've worked with the union about what we needed to do. When you compare our staffing ratios to most states, we still look pretty favorable.

Q: What are you doing, long-term, to control the number of inmates?

A: If we hadn't done what we did, we'd probably be at 55,000 inmates today. We're putting a lot of effort into our Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative. It's about getting them out and keeping them out. Communities, prosecutors, judges, police and legislators have embraced this effort. We need to do some things differently to ensure that people who get out don't commit more crimes. Maybe 75% of the people in prison have substance abuse problems. Then there's the mentally ill (an estimated 25% of the prison population). One of the focuses of re-entry is getting the mentally ill out of prison and finding the right structure in the community for them so that they can exist as law-abiding citizens while dealing with their mental illness. Re-entry programs change the whole atmosphere of a prison. We have a 48% recidivism rate. If we cut that by only 10%, it would save a lot of money and make our communities much safer.

Q: The U.S. Justice Department recently reported that a record 7 million people -- one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole. The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate, and a disproportionate number of those in prison are African-American and poor people. In some communities, going to prison has become the norm. Does that trouble you?

A: I talk about this publicly all the time, and it troubles me a lot. I was a warden for a long time and I'm OK with locking people up. I know some people need to be locked up and stay there. But how do we reconcile being the greatest country in the world and yet lock up so many people? If what we got in return for that high incarceration rate was a crime-free society, I'd say that would be a good investment. But that's not what we get for it. It's kind of the opposite, and that's the problem.

Clearly, when you look at the numbers in our country, there has to be another answer. One of the big problems is that the kids of incarcerated people are also sentenced and, later, many times more likely to be incarcerated themselves. It's not the child's fault, and many of the people in prison were born into the same circumstances. We've normalized going to prison in this country. Think of how many young people expect to go to prison now.

Q: There are going to be pressures on the Corrections budget. The biggest savings come from keeping prison populations down. But are you worried that legislators might look, instead, at cutting vital programs such as education and re-entry, which ultimately will lead to a larger system?

A: Absolutely I'm afraid of that. How many times has our education budget been on the block? I'm afraid our efforts on re-entry could go by the wayside. None of those are good solutions.

Q: Are you committed to staying on for four more years?

A: That's the governor's decision, not mine. This has been a hard year, but I've never faltered in my dedication to this department and I'm still really honored to have this opportunity.

Q: The Free Press editorial page has written a highly critical series on prison health care. Can you respond?

A: Your columns on health care have implied that we don't care, or I don't care, and that's not true. ... I think we have good, caring professionals who work in a really difficult environment. I think we do provide good health care and good access to care for prisoners. The governor has called for an independent review, which I'm really welcoming at this point, because I need some partners to help me look at the system.

Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.

Posted by lois at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2006

AL: Pickens Towns Pinning Hopes to Prisons including prison to replace Tutwiler

Pickens towns pinning hopes to prisons
From Staff and Wire Reports
The Commercial Dispatch
The Commercial Dispatch - Columbus

GORDO, Ala. -Two Pickens County towns are hoping to boost the area's sluggish economy through an unlikely source - prison facilities.

This week, the state Department of Corrections revealed Gordo, located on the western border of the county, is among four Alabama cities vying to provide a site for a new state prison for women inmates.

Earlier this year, Aliceville citizens held a public meeting with U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., to celebrate an initial appropriation of $15 million toward construction of a federal prison in the south Pickens County town. The federal prison could create about 350 jobs with annual salaries of $30,000 each, Aliceville residents were told at the Jan. 10 hearing.

This week, the state prison commissioner announced he wants to replace Alabama's only prison for women, which is now more than 60 years old. The goal is to have a new women's prison up in 2008, and four municipalities have expressed interest - Gordo, Thomasville, Brundidge and Livingston.

Tutwiler Prison for Women, which is in Elmore County near Wetumpka and houses fewer than half of the 1,977 female inmates in state custody, has plumbing and infrastructure problems.

“We know we need a new women's facility,” Commissioner Richard Allen told the Montgomery Advertiser in a story Tuesday.

Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said Livingston has proposed building a prison and leasing it to the state, and Gordo is working on a proposal.

“I have talked with the mayor of Gordo,” said Aliceville Director of Economic Development Alan Harper, who is also the state economic development representative for District 61, which include Pickens County and the western part of Tuscaloosa County.

“They have entertained the prison commissioner at a luncheon and expressed their desire to host a women's prison. I have committed to the mayor I will help any way I can at the state level,” Harper said.

“Gordo has a lot to offer in the way of transportation, infrastructure and a quality work force,” Harper continued. “They're good, caring folks who want to work hard.”

The department spent $450,000 on a study to determine the prison population's needs and the state corrections system's future. Allen said the study will be completed by January and will include research on the feasibility of housing female inmates in private prisons, similar to the incarceration of 397 in Louisiana.

If the study indicates a need for a new facility, Corbett said it would likely be built for a population of 2,000 female inmates.

“It would be a significant financial impact for the county,” Harper said.

He said the study may also determine if the Tutwiler property has a future with the state Department of Corrections or whether it should be sold.

Eric Basinger, director of the Elmore County Economic Development Authority, said he's been told renovation of the Tutwiler complex is possible.

“Since it's been here as long as it has, I would be surprised if we didn't do something to keep it here,” Basinger said.

He said Tutwiler employs 300 state and contract workers, so there would be concern if it shut down completely.

Meanwhile, planning continues on the Aliceville federal prison project.

“The Bureau of Prisons has narrowed it down from six possible sites to three sites (in southern Pickens County),” Harper said. “They're about to complete preliminary studies which include environmental, geotechnical, cultural and historical portions. They should have that done by the first of the year.”

Harper said the three possible sites all lie within five miles of downtown Aliceville.

“Last week, the bureau selected a national consultant to undertake the public hearing and documentation process,” Harper said. “Some time in January or February, they will begin to focus on the best site and conduct in-depth studies of that potential site.

“We feel like late next summer or early fall, we will have zeroed in on the site.”

While Aliceville has seen a loss of jobs with the closing of two plants in the last decade, Harper said the unemployment rate in Pickens County is less than 4 percent.

“Those in the county who want to work, can find jobs,” he said.

http://www.cdispatch.com/articles/2006/12/13/local_news/local03.txt

Posted by lois at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

Arrested teacher shouldn't be treated like a pariah

Arrested teacher shouldn't be treated like a pariah
Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA
December 13, 2006
To the editor: As a former teacher at Amherst Regional High School, I read with interest the Gazette articles about the arrest of my former colleague, Ron Garney, with considerable interest. I am particularly interested in whether his predilection for child porn spilled over into the classroom.

It seems to me, based on the Gazette accounts, that it did not. In fact, Ron Garney is described as a 22-year teacher with a satisfactory record. He is a member in good standing as a teacher. And if there had been some oddities in behavior, they did not rise to a level where his students called these behaviors to the attention of their guidance counselors or administrators. Hence, I am wondering why he was arrested. Could not police officials have gone to the School Committee and informed them of the violation of the law, rather than taking what seems to me extreme measures?

Since the Gazette accounts indicate no harm came to the children of Amherst, I am concerned about another issue. What is the Immigration and Customs Service doing combing through the records of porn sites and ruining the lives of persons who are not affecting others? The Gazette pointed out that they are investigating thousands of others. I am uncomfortable with the government looking into our viewing choices.

It is to the everlasting credit of the Amherst Regional School Committee that Ron has been suspended with pay. He may yet be able to salvage his pension rights if he is allowed to retire, rather than be removed involuntarily. Ron Garney should not have to stitch CP - child pornographer - to his clothing or in any way become a pariah to atone for his use of what seems to be illegal material in the privacy of his home.

Bill Ames
Northampton

Posted by lois at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

CO: Prisons Seeking $500 million for new 5000 more prisoners

Rocky Mountain News
Prisons seeking $500 million for new beds
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
December 12, 2006

The state Department of Corrections is seeking $500 million to build new prisons for more than 5,000 more inmates over the next five years.

The request for new spending is being driven by a huge increase in prisoners and rising financial demands from private prisons. One, the Geo Group, is demanding a $1 billion revenue guarantee before going ahead with two prisons that it is under contract to build for Colorado in Pueblo and Ault.

Prisons chief Gary Golder said he is waiting for the incoming administration of Gov.-elect Bill Ritter to decide whether the state should provide any such guarantee.

Meanwhile, a former state prison official, Nolin Renfrow, is being investigated for working on behalf of Geo to win the second of those private prison contracts while still a state employee. Golder said the results of the administrative investigation may be referred to prosecutors for possible criminal charges. He wasn't sure what could be charged. He said it might be considered malfeasance.

Renfrew stands to be paid $1 million by Geo for his work if its second prison in Ault is built.

But meanwhile, the state is moving to yank Geo's first prison contract, for Pueblo, because Geo has still not broken ground.

Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
URL:http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5208499,0
0.html

Posted by lois at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)

SF: Community Forum on Criminalization and Deportation of Youth

Un foro comunitario sobre el tema de la criminalización
y deportación de nuestra juventud. Ven y participa en la
discussion sobre esta epidemia transnacional!
Domingo 17 de Diciembre
4:00-6:00pm
En el “CELL” 2050 Bryant SF
Entre las calles 18 & 19
CARECEN, CELLSPACE AND HOMEY PRESENTA:
Para información llame al (415) 642-4418
“Maras y Deportación”Community Invitation!
CARECEN, CELLSPACE and HOMEY are collaborating to present a community forum addressing the criminalization and deportation of our youth. Please join us in addressing this growing transnational phenomenon that is affecting our community.
We will have panelists to lead us in a discussion to explore options for those facing deportation from Latin American Consulates offices', CARECEN, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, FMLN-SF and other community members. You are all welcome to come and take part in this discussion.
Please forward far and beyond!!
SCTRP
CARECEN
1245 Alabama St
San Francisco CA 94110
(415) 642-4418

Posted by lois at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2006

Incarceration Nation

Incarceration Nation
Marc Mauer
December 11, 2006, TomPaine.com

Marc Mauer is the executive director of The Sentencing Project and the author of Race to Incarcerate and co-editor of Invisible Punishment (both from The New Press).

Two remarkable developments in Washington in the past week highlight the extent to which the United States has become the land of mass incarceration.

First, the Supreme Court denied the appeal of Weldon Angelos for a first-time drug offense. Angelos was a 24-year-old Utah music producer with no prior convictions when he was convicted of three sales of marijuana in 2004. During these sales he possessed a gun, though there were no allegations that he ever used or threatened to use it. Under federal mandatory sentencing laws, the judge was required to sentence Angelos to five years on the first offense and 25 years each for the two subsequent offenses, for a total of 55 years in prison. In imposing sentence, Judge Paul Cassell, a leading conservative jurist, decried the sentencing policy as “unjust, cruel, and even irrational.”

The Angelos decision came on the heels of a Bureau of Justice Statistics report finding that there are now a record 2.2 million Americans incarcerated in the nation’s prisons and jails. These figures represent the continuation of a “race to incarcerate” that has been raging since 1972. With a 500 percent increase in the number of people in prison since then, the United States has now become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-8 times the rate of other industrialized nations. The strict punishment meted out in the Angelos case and thousands of others explain much of the rapid increase in the prison population.

The composition of the prison population reflects the socioeconomic inequalities in society. Sixty percent of the prison population is African American and Latino, and if current trends continue, one of every three black males and one of every six Latino males born today can expect to go to prison at some point in his lifetime. The overall rates for women are lower, but the racial and ethnic disparities are similar and the growth rate of women’s incarceration is nearly double that of men over the past two decades.

While the United States has a higher rate of violent crime than comparable nations, the substantial prison buildup since 1980 has resulted from changes in policy, not changes in crime. The “get tough” movement, which embraced initiatives designed to send more people to prison and to keep them for longer periods of time, contributed to massive prison construction and a corrections budget now totaling $60 billion annually. These policy changes included mandatory sentences that restrict judicial discretion while imposing “one size fits all” penalties, “three strikes and you’re out” laws that allow life terms upon a third felony conviction, and the “war on drugs.”

Drug policies have been responsible for a disproportionate share of the rise in the inmate population, with the 40,000 drug offenders in prison or jail in 1980 increasing to a half million today. A substantial body of research has documented that these laws have had virtually no effect on the drug trade, as measured by price or availability of drugs. Most of the drug offenders in prison are not the “kingpins” of the drug trade. Indeed, the low-level sellers who are incarcerated are rapidly replaced on the streets by others seeking economic gain.

While crime rates have been declining nationally for a decade, research to date demonstrates that expanded incarceration has, at best, been responsible for only a quarter of this decline. Other factors that played a key role include a strong economy in the 1990s that provided employment opportunities for low-skill workers, a marked decline in crack cocaine use and its associated violence by the early 1990s, and strategic community policing. New York City, which experienced a two-thirds reduction in homicides from 1990 to 2002, did so despite a one-third decline in its jail population during that period. And conversely, while Idaho led the nation with an astonishing 174 percent rise in its prison population, it nevertheless experienced a 14 percent rise in crime.

With a new Democratic Congress in place, there is hope that long-festering criminal justice policy inequities can finally be addressed. Long-time reform champions Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Bobby Scott, D-Va., are poised to take over the chairmanships of the House Judiciary Committee and its Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittee, respectively. But we should be cautious in our expectations given the Democratic Party’s record of complicity in endorsing “get tough” measures. Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, for example, was loaded with harsh sentencing provisions and $8 billion in new prison construction. Progressives would be wise to continue to build bipartisan support for criminal justice reform measures. In recent years this has led to alliances with conservative Senators Sam Brownback and Jeff Sessions who sponsored bills for prisoner reentry and crack cocaine sentencing reform respectively.

As we look to the new Congress, high on any reform agenda should be the following:

• Crack cocaine sentencing reform—During the last 20 years, the federal sentencing laws for crack cocaine offenses have subjected thousands of low-level defendants to mandatory five- and 10-year prison terms, while exacerbating the racial dynamics of incarceration. More than 80 percent of the persons charged with these offenses are African Americans, who receive much stiffer terms than those meted out to powder cocaine defendants.

• Mandatory sentencing reform—Congressional mandates to impose harsh sentences with no judicial input have created unfair and overly harsh penalties, and have been decried by the American Bar Association and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, among many others.

• Racial impact statements—Just as fiscal impact statements aid lawmakers in assessing the financial implications of sentencing policies, the preparation of racial impact assessments could provide similar benefits to policymakers. Had such assessments existed in 1986, we could have had a debate on the racial dynamics of the crack cocaine laws prior to their enactment, not 20 years later.

• Felon disenfranchisement reform—Five million Americans could not participate in the November election due to a current or previous felony conviction. Laws that govern these practices are enacted by the states, but Congress has the authority to require uniform voting rules in federal elections. Legislation proposed by John Conyers in the House would require states to permit voting by any non-incarcerated person in federal elections, even if barred from participating in state elections.

Three decades of prison expansion have led to rates of imprisonment that are shameful for a democratic nation. Both public safety and community health would be better served through investments in policies that promote job creation, high school graduation and substance abuse treatment. It’s time to reverse the race to incarcerate.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/11/incarceration_nation.php

Posted by lois at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2006

Council of State Governments Announces New Justice Center

Council of State Governments Announces New Justice Center

The Council of State Governments (CSG) is pleased to announce the launch of its Justice Center, a national resource center on criminal justice policy. The CSG Governing Board voted December 3, 2006, to transform the Criminal Justice Program of CSG's Eastern Regional Conference into this new center dedicated to helping policymakers from any state develop nonpartisan, consensus-driven strategies that address a wide range of public safety issues.

For a copy of the full news release about the CSG Justice Center, go to: .

Posted by lois at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

Buddhism flowering in prisons

Buddhism flowering in prisons

By Maria Sudekum Fisher
Associated Press, Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette
12-9-06

LANSING, Kan. – Lama Chuck Stanford started visiting a small group of Buddhist inmates in Kansas about six years ago.

“Then word got around that I was doing this,” Stanford says, “and I started getting calls from prison chaplains around here telling me they had Buddhist inmates interested in getting groups going.”

Now Stanford serves four prisons – the Lansing Correctional Center, the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, and two state prisons in Missouri. He’s on the road two days a week, most days serving groups of about 10 men at each prison.

Stanford is among a quietly growing number of Buddhist teachers working in U.S. prisons, tending to inmates who had been raised Buddhist or who discovered the ancient faith later, many while incarcerated. U.S. prisons are also offering meditation and yoga for their general populations.

The Prison Dharma Network in Boulder, Colo., leads yoga and meditation and also sends books and correspondence to inmates nationwide. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship in Berkeley, Calif., has meditation, yoga, and journal writing programs in several California prisons, and the National Buddhist Prison Sangha in Mount Tremper, N.Y., has been supporting prison inmates since 1984 with visits, letters and reading material.

Kate Crisp, executive director of the Prison Dharma Network in Boulder, Colo., teaches a yoga, meditation and peacemaker classes at the Boulder County Jail.

Her organization also teaches classes on meditation at the Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center in Golden, Colo. The facility is Colorado’s only long-term maximum security youth correctional facility for boys.

It took a couple of years to convince corrections officials that Prison Dharma Network could be of some help at Lookout, Crisp said. She said the youths at Lookout, who range in age from 14 to 21, “have never experienced anything like meditation in their lives.”

“They’ve always been worried about ‘Who’s going to get me? Who’s going to shoot me?’ Now it’s ‘Oh my God, there’s a place where I can relax. I have a choice.’ It slows them down from the constant pounding in their heads,” Crisp said.

Kalen McAllister, director of Inside Dharma, a Buddhist organization in St. Louis that offers support to prisoners and recent parolees, makes visits to five eastern Missouri prisons. Her group is hoping to add all 23 Missouri prisons to its list of volunteer visit sites.

“We’re not judgmental,” said McAllister, who allows anyone who expresses interest to take part in her sessions, which include prayer, discussion and meditation.

“For a while we had four Sufis, and we called them Su-Bu’s,” McAllister said. “Then we had a Jewish man, we called him a Jew-Bu and then a Wiccan came to class and we called him a Wi-Bu.”

Buddhism has no centralizing authority and its practices vary greatly worldwide, although meditation is a common ritual. The exact number of U.S. Buddhists is not known. However, the population grew significantly after the United States eased immigration rules in the 1960s, admitting millions of Asians. American interest in the faith spiked during youth rebellions of the same period, drawing many more followers who remain active today.

Buddhist Scott Whitney works as a staff prison chaplain in Washington state, ministering to people of all religions at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen. While he has heard mostly positive feedback, he said some Christian inmates have questioned his faith.

“One of them said to me, ‘If you’re Buddhist, you don’t even believe in God the father, so how can you be our chaplain?’ ” Whitney said.

Mikel Monnett runs Buddhist services at the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Mo. He has been making the two-hour drive twice a month from his home in St. Louis for about two years and says he has seen a lot of personal growth among the Buddhist inmates.

“They still get thrown into the hold, but it’ll be less often or not because they did something to somebody, but rather because someone did something to them,” Monnett said of the inmates he teaches.

“They’re learning about this gap, this freedom to decide whether or not to act.”

Tony Farnan, 41, a former inmate, said Buddhism “has basically saved my life.”

His route to the tradition began in 1999, during his third trip back to prison. Serving time for drug possession and burglary, he picked a fight with a young inmate, then was overcome with remorse.

“I thought, ‘What I want to do is I want to be a man of honor and integrity, most of all,’ ” said Farnan, who at the time was sporting a swastika tattoo and another that said “White Trash” across his back.

Farnan, who had learned meditation while studying martial arts, began meditating and reading books on philosophy and Buddhism. He was eventually moved to a prison where a Buddhist group met regularly.

Farnan, who cares for his 95-year-old grandfather, makes a living repairing foundations. He’s spent thousands of dollars covering up his tattoos.

“I decided if I really believe what I’m doing,” Farnan said, “then I have to change everything, including that.” http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/16202809.htm

Posted by lois at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

AL: Private prisons: snake-oil solution

Private prisons: snake-oil solution
State facilities are already operating on a shoe-string budget Sunday, December 10, 2006 By RHONDA BROWNSTEIN and GENESIS FISHER For The Huntsville Alabama Times

Usually, when something sounds too good to be true, it is. That's the case with arguments for privatizing Alabama's long-troubled prison system.

In a Nov. 19 opinion piece, Michael Ciamarra of the business-oriented Alabama Policy Institute pitches privatization as some sort of elixir that will allow taxpayers to spend less on Alabama's corrections system while relieving its appalling congestion and making our communities safer.

There is no question that the state's criminal justice policies - which have caused a quadrupling of the inmate population, to 28,000, over the past quarter century - have left Alabama with a prison system that is now overwhelmed. Health and education programs are suffering, and rehabilitative services are sorely lacking.

But these problems won't be solved by turning over operation of the system to profit-seeking corporations. It is highly speculative - and doubtful - that private management can save the taxpayers money. The Alabama corrections system already operates as leanly as possible - spending far less than the national average for each inmate.

Private prisons, in fact, often cost more than government-run facilities. Kentucky, for example, pays private prisons up to $44.19 per day for each prisoner, compared to $26.51 for state-run facilities. And don't forget subsidies. A study released in 2002 showed that private prisons have received more than $600 million in government subsidies that don't get calculated into states' costs.

To generate shareholder profits and reduce the state's costs, companies would have to cut corners on health and safety - putting guards, inmates and the public at greater risk.

According to the Alabama Policy Institute report cited by Ciamarra, taxpayer savings from private prisons would come from prison guards working longer hours with fewer health and retirement benefits.

Prison managers could be expected to hire fewer employees - with less experience, training and benefits - while restricting the meager educational and rehabilitation programs currently offered in the prisons. Given that 90 percent of all Alabama prisoners will leave prison one day and return to our communities, cutting back on rehabilitation only makes our communities less safe.

As the Alabama Sentencing Commission's 2003 report and the national media highlighted, our state is incarcerating people for too long, sometimes decades, for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses. Between 1994 and 2003, the incarceration rate increased by 41 percent while the crime rate decreased by just 9 percent.

As a consequence, our prisons currently operate at twice their capacity while local jails are sometimes forced to house the overflow. This crisis has been exacerbated by severe underfunding of alternatives to incarceration, yet these methods offer cheaper remedies and lower recidivism rates.

Research consistently bears out that sentencing reform, transitional programs for those leaving prison, drug treatment and community corrections offer the best package of lower costs and community strengthening without compromising public safety.

Supervised treatment programs can cut recidivism rates by as much as 20 percent, while community programs for the mentally ill have an even bigger impact. These programs also save the taxpayers money. Some cost as little as $11 per day for each participant, compared to the $36 a day Alabama now spends to lock up a prisoner.

But more than the money saved, these alternatives build a safety net of connections so that those released are in a better position to rejoin and strengthen their communities.

A shift to smart rather than long sentencing for nonviolent crimes would cut state costs by millions, strengthen families by returning noncareer and low-level offenders to their homes, and more quickly transition offenders from tax burdens to tax payers.

There are other questions, besides cost, that Alabama citizens should ask: Is it morally right to profit from the imprisonment of human beings? Will the profit motive distort the justice system - providing incentives to lock more people up for longer stretches at the expense of rehabilitation and crime prevention? How will the public maintain accountability over what goes on inside prisons?

The bottom line is this: Prison privatization is no magic elixir for Alabama. It is, rather, snake oil designed to produce profits for private interests.

But sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration will save money while making our communities stronger and safer.

Rhonda Brownstein is legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Genesis Fisher is a staff attorney there. http://www.al.com/opinion/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1165746651
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Posted by lois at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. Supreme Court: No Review of Mandatory Sentencing Case

No Review of Mandatory Sentencing Case
December 8, 2006
News Summary

Observers hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would seize on an opportunity to address the issue of mandatory drug sentences were disappointed when the high court declined to review the case of a Utah man sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling marijuana.

The Deseret Morning News reported Dec. 5 that the court let the sentence stand, leaving Weldon Angelos in prison. Angelos received the harsh sentence because an informant said he had a gun in his possession when Angelos sold him eight ounces of marijuana.

"We are extremely disappointed that the Supreme Court did not agree to hear the case," said University of Utah law professor Erik Luna. "This case presented a great opportunity for the Supreme Court not only to correct this miscarriage of justice but also to clarify the scope of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

Angelos' supporters included a group of 141 former justice officials, including four former U.S. attorneys general, a former FBI director, and former judges and prosecutors, who filed briefs in support of the Salt Lake City man. "Even the judge who imposed the sentence found that it was 'cruel, unjust and irrational,'" said Jeff Sklaroff, an attorney who led the group of justice officials.

Critics of the mandatory sentencing laws expressed hope that Congress would address the issue. But Brett Tolman, U.S. Attorney for Utah, said he was "pleased that the Supreme Court denied the petition. Congress has determined that armed drug trafficking is a particularly serious offense that warrants severe punishment."

Visit www.jointogether.org for complete news coverage, resources and advocacy tools to advance effective drug and alcohol policy, prevention and treatment.

Posted by lois at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

St. Paul stops requiring job seekers to disclose criminal records

St. Paul stops requiring job seekers to disclose criminal records
Associated Press, December 7, 2006
ST. PAUL - The City of St. Paul is giving a break to ex-cons in hopes that they'll stay ex-cons.

Mayor Chris Coleman issued an order this week saying the city will stop requiring job applicants to disclose whether they've ever been convicted of a crime.

While the immediate goal is to ensure the city doesn't discriminate against applicants with criminal records, backers say they hope it gives people with minor rap sheets a chance to turn their lives around.

"After 9/11, with the increasing number of background checks employers are doing, this has become a problem for people that have made a mistake in their lives," said Guy Gambill, advocacy coordinator for the Minneapolis-based Council on Crime and Justice.

Gambill said St. Paul's decision makes it a national leader in the effort. Only Boston has gone as far, he said.

In a letter ordering the change, Coleman also said he would work with the private sector to "encourage adoption of a similar policy."

But the city's move runs counter to what's happening in the private sector. More employers are looking deeper into whether applicants have criminal histories and increasing the scope and depth of background checks, said Joe Schmitt, a labor and employment attorney.

No one keeps full statistics on how many Minnesotans have criminal records, but the number is increasing.

More than 130,000 Minnesotans were on probation in 2005, up about 30 percent from a decade earlier. The state's prison population has almost doubled during that time to nearly 9,000 inmates. But those figures don't include people who have served their time and-or completed their probation.

The two biggest contributors to rehabilitating convicts are family visits during incarceration and finding a well-paying job after being released, Gambill said.

Having a criminal history makes it harder to get a job even if the conviction had nothing to do with the work being sought, Gambill said. Why, he asked, should someone busted for pot at age 18 be prevented from getting a job 15 years later?

State law prohibits people from being denied government jobs or state licenses needed to get a job in the private sector because of their criminal histories. There are exceptions for jobs that relate directly to the crime committed, and the law doesn't apply to police officers and firefighters.

In the private sector, the trend of more vigilantly ferreting out applicants with criminal histories has been driven by the rise of legal claims against companies for negligent hiring and the desire to distinguish between applicants as soon as possible.

The increasing availability of national databases and computerized records have made background checks on applicants easier and more common.

"As the ability of employers to do background checks increases, one measure of a negligent hiring claim is you didn't do as much as you could have," Schmitt said. "As the bar raises in terms of what you can do, then the bar raises in terms of what you should do."

St. Paul's human resources director, Angie Nalezny, said there's no risk of a sex offender being assigned to work with children. She said the city will continue to do background checks if the applicant would work with children or have access to money or sensitive information, so it will find out if an applicant has a criminal record.

"Anybody that works in a rec center, absolutely we're going to do a background check on them," she said.

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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com

Posted by lois at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2006

CA: Punishing prisoners at all costs

Punishing prisoners at all costs
California's prisons are in crisis because of harsh sentencing laws that don't treat violent and nonviolent criminals much differently.
By Joe Domanick
JOE DOMANICK, author of "Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America's Golden State," is senior fellow in criminal justice at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism

December 10, 2006, LA Times

IN 1977, CALIFORNIA made a momentous decision that is still sending shock waves through the state's prison and parole systems. In response to the public's rising fear of crime, the Legislature changed the goal of incarceration from "rehabilitation" to "punishment." To that end, lawmakers over the next decade passed more than 1,000 bills toughening and lengthening prison sentences. They also instituted "truth in sentencing" policies that required prisoners who committed certain crimes to serve 85% of their sentence before they were eligible for parole. Then, in 1994, voters overwhelmingly approved a three-strikes law mandating a sentence of 25 years to life for a third felony conviction and a doubling of a sentence for a second strike.

Criminal justice experts estimate that as much as 25% of California's — and the nation's — decade-long crime decline is attributable to this punish-all-criminals strategy. But the approach has come at a huge cost. The longer sentences have swelled the inmate population far beyond the capacity of our prisons and contributed to the rise of an older criminal class, especially in California. In Los Angeles County, for instance, felony arrests and incarceration of 40- to 59-year-olds have jumped dramatically, a stunning development given that criminals tend to commit fewer crimes as they reach their mid-20s and fewer still as they grow older. But in L.A. County, 40- to 59-year-olds are incarcerated at a rate 1,200% higher than in 1980. Many return to prison because of technical violations — failing drug tests or missing a parole appointment.

As a result, the medium age of a prisoner in California is 36, up five years from 1984. About 20% of the state's inmate population is now 45 and older. More older prisoners means higher healthcare costs. Currently, the medical bill is $1.5 billion a year, and the prison healthcare system is so dysfunctional that a federal judge has placed it under his direct control.

Although many older, violent inmates may deserve long prison sentences, such treatment for substantial numbers of nonviolent, repeat offenders who make up the underbelly of California's criminals — petty thieves, small-time drug dealers, speed freaks, crack heads, winos, junkies and the mentally ill — has been counterproductive.

Inside prison, little is done during their years of incarceration to help these older inmates shed their street-hustler values or kick their addictions. As criminologist Joan Petersilia recently wrote in a report for the California Policy Research Center, "Almost one-quarter of all California inmates are completely idle during their prison stay, never participating in any treatment programs, despite an unusually high need for drug and alcohol counseling."

About 42% of California's inmates, according to research done by Petersilia, have a "high need" for alcohol treatment, but only 7.5% receive it. The numbers are even more glaring for drug addicts: 56% have a high need for treatment, but only 9% are treated. Opportunities for educational or vocational training are similarly limited.

"If someone is locked up in prison for 12 years for a crime that previously would have gotten him a four-year sentence and fails to get any treatment or rehab," said Todd Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, "they'll just return to their old habits."

The problem, Clear said, is that men "don't age out" of their criminal behavior simply by sitting in prison. As a result, when released, they have the "same probability of getting rearrested as do younger parolees," he said.

The state's parole and probation systems, which reinforce the "punish 'em" approach, also have fostered an older prison population. Rather than provide psychological, social and rehab support for ex-cons, the parole system has become a surveillance and control mechanism geared to catching parolees doing something — often anything — wrong, then quickly sending them back to prison. Parole officers, for their part, often have to choose between ignoring a parolee who fails a drug test — because there's no state money for treatment — or sending him back to prison, the more expensive option. Ignoring a violation is a risky choice for them. All it takes to tarnish a career is a sensational media story about how a parole officer's decision to give a parolee another chance was followed by the parolee committing a horrible crime.

Dumped back onto the streets untreated, with no rehabilitation and with nothing but $200 "gate money," ex-cons must also contend with laws denying them public housing, food stamps, driver's licenses, access to their children and federal assistance for education. If they've been convicted of a drug crime, they are barred for life from receiving federal assistance. Further, once out, parolees receive little follow-up attention to ensure that they find appropriate residences, positive associations, employment and treatment.

As a result, California has the worst parolee failure rates in the country. Roughly 66% of parolees return to prison within three years.

The increasing lack of job opportunities for ex-cons exacerbates the situation. Thirty years ago, an ex-prisoner could often melt back into society by finding a decent blue-color job at a factory. Today, by contrast, manufacturing jobs are scarce in California, and available unskilled jobs are often filled by illegal immigrants. In addition, ex-cons are subject to electronic background checks by potential employers that often eliminate them from job consideration.

"Research has shown that an arrest record is associated with high unemployment, less income over time, high rates of family breakup and arrests," Clear said. "The arrest record in itself is a precursor to future failure."

The prospect of producing another generation of middle-age, often violent criminals and drug addicts is near 100%. "Two-thirds of the overall growth in [California's] prison population since 1994," Petersilia said, "is due to crimes against persons — especially robbery, assault and homicide."

At the beginning of his tenure, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked a good game about instituting comprehensive treatment and education programs that could make a difference in ex-cons' lives. He added rehabilitation to the official name of the Corrections Department, appointed reform-minded people to run the prison system and promised to fund rehab programs. But he retreated at the first signs of political opposition from the guards union, falling back on the old, failed bromide of building more prisons on top of the 22 the state has built since 1980 and, to the state's shame, proposing to outsource some prisoners to other states to relieve overcrowding.

What Schwarzenegger needs to do is put state money and his considerable political capital where his mouth is and lead a charge to rewrite the state's sentencing laws in conjunction with using any savings to fund rehab programs. California's prison system is in crisis because of the public's desire to punish all criminals, above all else, instead of treating nonviolent and violent criminals differently.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-domanick10dec10,0,7763245.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

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

Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes

December 10, 2006, NY Times, Page 1
Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW LEHREN

Life was different in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa.

The toilets and sinks — white porcelain ones, like at home — were in a separate bathroom with partitions for privacy. In many Iowa prisons, metal toilet-and-sink combinations squat beside the bunks, to be used without privacy, a few feet from cellmates.

The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.

But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”

One Roman Catholic inmate, Michael A. Bauer, left the program after a year, mostly because he felt the program staff and volunteers were hostile toward his faith.

“My No. 1 reason for leaving the program was that I personally felt spiritually crushed,” he testified at a court hearing last year. “I just didn’t feel good about where I was and what was going on.”

For Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the federal courts in the Southern District of Iowa, this all added up to an unconstitutional use of taxpayer money for religious indoctrination, as he ruled in June in a lawsuit challenging the arrangement.

The Iowa prison program is not unique. Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children.

Nevertheless, the programs are proliferating. For example, the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison management company, with 65 facilities and 71,000 inmates under its control, is substantially expanding its religion-based curriculum and now has 22 institutions offering residential programs similar to the one in Iowa. And the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs at least five multifaith programs at its facilities, is preparing to seek bids for a single-faith prison program as well.

Government agencies have been repeatedly cited by judges and government auditors for not doing enough to guard against taxpayer-financed evangelism. But some constitutional lawyers say new federal rules may bar the government from imposing any special requirements for how faith-based programs are audited.

And, typically, the only penalty imposed when constitutional violations are detected is the cancellation of future financing — with no requirement that money improperly used for religious purposes be repaid.

But in a move that some constitutional lawyers found surprising, Judge Pratt ordered the prison ministry in the Iowa case to repay more than $1.5 million in government money, saying the constitutional violations were serious and clearly foreseeable.

His decision has been appealed by the prison ministry to a federal appeals court and fiercely protested by the attorneys general of nine states and lawyers for a number of groups advocating greater government accommodation of religious groups. The ministry’s allies in court include the Bush administration, which argued that the repayment order could derail its efforts to draw more religious groups into taxpayer-financed programs.

Officials of the Iowa program said that any anti-Catholic comments made to inmates did not reflect the program’s philosophy, and are not condoned by its leadership.

Jay Hein, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said the Iowa decision was unfair to the ministry and reflects an “overreaching” at odds with legal developments that increasingly “show favor to religion in the public square.”

And while he acknowledged the need for vigilance, he said he did not think the constitutional risks outweighed the benefits of inviting “faith-infused” ministries, like the one in Iowa, to provide government-financed services to “people of faith who seek to be served in this ‘full-person’ concept.”

Crossing a Bright Line

Over the last two decades, legislatures, government agencies and the courts have provided religious organizations with a widening range of regulatory and tax exemptions. And in the last decade religious institutions have also been granted access to public money once denied on constitutional grounds, including historic preservation grants and emergency reconstruction funds.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that public money could be used for religious instruction or indoctrination, but only when the intended beneficiaries made the choice themselves between religious and secular programs — as when parents decide whether to use tuition vouchers at religious schools or secular ones. The court emphasized the difference between such “indirect” financing, in which the money flows through beneficiaries who choose that program, and “direct” funding, where the government chooses the programs that receive money.

But even in today’s more accommodating environment, constitutional scholars agree that one line between church and state has remained fairly bright: The government cannot directly finance or support religious evangelism or indoctrination. That restriction typically has not loomed large when public money goes to religious charities providing essentially secular services, like job training, after-school tutoring, child care or food banks. In such cases, the beneficiaries need not accept the charity’s religious beliefs to get the secular benefits the government is financing.

The courts have taken a different view, however, when public money goes directly to groups, like the Iowa ministry, whose method of helping others is to introduce them to a specific set of religious beliefs — and whose success depends on the beneficiary accepting those core beliefs. In those cases, most of the challenged grants have been struck down as unconstitutional.

Those who see faith-based groups as exceptionally effective allies in the battle against criminal recidivism, teen pregnancy, addiction and other social ills say these cases are rare, compared with the number of programs receiving funds, and should not tarnish the concept of bringing more religious groups into publicly financed programs, so long as any direct financing is used only for secular expenses.

That concept has been embodied most prominently since 2001 in the Bush administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative, a high-profile effort to encourage religious and community groups to participate in government programs. More than 100 cities and 33 states have established similar initiatives, according to Mr. Hein.

The basic architecture of these initiatives has so far withstood constitutional challenge, although the Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 1 to consider a case on whether taxpayers have legal standing to bring such challenges against the Bush administration’s program.

Defenders of these initiatives say they are necessary to eliminate longstanding government policies that discriminated against religious groups — to provide a level playing field, as one White House study put it.

But critics say the “level playing field” argument ignores the fact that giving public money directly to ministries that aim at religious conversion poses constitutional problems that simply do not arise when the money goes elsewhere.

Converting Young People

Those constitutional problems sharpen when young people are the intended beneficiaries of these transformational ministries. In recent years, several judges have concluded that children and teenagers, like prisoners, have too few options and too little power to make the voluntary choices the Supreme Court requires when public money flows to programs involving religious instruction or indoctrination.

That was the conclusion last year of a federal judge in Michigan, in a case filed by Teen Ranch, a nonprofit Christian facility that provides residential care for troubled or abused children ages 11 to 17.

In 2003, state officials imposed a moratorium on placements of children there, primarily because of its intensively religious programming. Lawyers for the ranch went to court to challenge that moratorium.

“Teen Ranch acknowledges that it is overtly and unapologetically a Christian facility with a Christian worldview that hopes to touch and improve the lives of the youth served by encouraging their conversion to faith in Christ, or assisting them in deepening their pre-existing Christian faith,” observed a United States District judge, Robert Holmes Bell, in a decision released in September 2005.

Although youngsters in state custody could not choose where to be placed, they could refuse to go to the ranch if they objected to its religious character. As a result, the ranch’s lawyers argued, the state money was constitutionally permissible.

The state contended that the children in its care were “too young, vulnerable and traumatized” to make genuine choices. The ranch disputed that and added that the children had case workers and other adults to guide them. Judge Bell rejected Teen Ranch’s arguments. “Regardless of whether state wards are particularly vulnerable, they are children,” he wrote.

The ranch in Michigan has discontinued operations pending the outcome of its appeal, said Mitchell E. Koster, who was its chief operating officer. “We are confident that our argument will win,” Mr. Koster said. “It’s just a question of at what level.”

In another case early last year, a federal judge struck down a federal grant in 2003 to MentorKids USA, a ministry based in Phoenix, to provide mentors for the children of prisoners. In a case filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., the judge noted that the exclusively Christian mentors had to regularly assess whether the young people in their care seemed “to be progressing in relationship with God.” In a program newsletter offered as evidence, its director said, “Our goal is to see every young adult choose Christ.”

The federal government had been clearly informed in advance of the nature of the MentorKids ministry, said John Gibson, chairman of the group’s board. “The court’s decision meant that there were 50 kids we could have served that we were not able to serve.”

In another case, more than $1 million in federal funds went to the Alaska Christian College in Soldotna, Alaska, which says it provides “a theologically based post-secondary education” to teenage Native Americans from isolated villages. But an investigator from the Education Department who visited the school last year found a first-year curriculum “that is almost entirely religious in nature.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued to block the financing. The school promised to use government money only for secular expenses, and federal financing resumed last May, according to Derek Gaubatz, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the college.

A number of government grants to finance sexual abstinence education have been successfully challenged. For example, the Louisiana Governor’s Program on Abstinence gave federal money to several religious groups that used it for clearly unconstitutional purposes, a federal judge ruled in 2002, in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

One grant went to a theater company that toured high schools performing a skit called “Just Say Whoa.” The script contained many religious references including one in which a character called Bible Guy tells teenagers in the cast: “As Christians, our bodies belong to the Lord, not to us.”

The federal judge said the grants were so poorly monitored that the state missed other clear signs of unconstitutional activity — as when one Catholic diocese sent monthly reports showing that it had used federal money “to support prayer at abortion clinics, pro-life marches and pro-life rallies.” Gail Dignam, director of the abstinence program, said that state contracts now emphasize more clearly that no grant money may be used for religious activities.

The Programs in Prisons

Programs like the one at the Iowa prison are a rare ray of hope for American prisoners, and governments should encourage them, their supporters say.

“We have 2.3 million Americans in prison today; 700,000 of them will get out of prison this coming year,” said Mark L. Earley, a former attorney general of Virginia. Many inmates come out of prison “much more antisocial than when they came in,” he added. He said he saw faith-based groups as essential partners in any effective rehabilitation efforts.

Mr. Earley is the president and chief executive of Prison Fellowship Ministries, based in Lansdowne, Va. With almost $56 million a year in revenue, the ministry oversees the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, which operates the Iowa program.

Since its birth in 1976, Prison Fellowship has been most closely associated with one of its founders, Charles W. Colson, who said in a 2002 newsletter that the InnerChange program demonstrates “that Christ changes lives, and that changing prisoners from the inside out is the only crime-prevention program that really works.”

In early 2003, Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined with a group of Iowa taxpayers and inmates to challenge the InnerChange program in federal court.

In ruling on that case, Judge Pratt noted that the born-again Christian staff was the sole judge of an inmate’s spiritual transformation. If an inmate did not join in the religious activities that were part of his “treatment,” the staff could write up disciplinary reports, generating demerits the inmate’s parole board might see. Or they could expel the inmate.

And while the program was supposedly open to all, in practice its content was “a substantial disincentive” for inmates of other faiths to join, the judge noted. Although the ministry itself does not condone hostility toward Catholics, Roman Catholic inmates heard their faith criticized by staff members and volunteers from local evangelical churches, the judge found. And Jews and Muslims in the program would have been required to participate in Christian worship services even if that deeply offended their own religious beliefs.

Mr. Earley said Judge Pratt’s decision was sharply inconsistent with current law and his standard for separating secular from religious expenses was so extreme that it would disqualify almost any faith-based program. He acknowledged that inmates, whatever their own faith, are required to participate in all program activities, including worship, but he insisted that a religious conversion is not required for success. InnerChange uses biblical references only to illustrate a set of universal values, such as integrity and responsibility, and not to exclude those of other faiths, he said, adding that it was “unfortunate” if any inmates felt the program denigrated Catholicism or any other Christian faith. Corrections officials in Iowa declined to comment on the case.

Not all programs in prisons are so narrowly focused. Florida now has three prisons that offer inmates, who must ask to be housed there, more than two dozen offerings ranging from various Christian denominations to Orthodox Judaism to Scientology. But at Newton, Judge Pratt found, there were few options — and no equivalent programs — without religious indoctrination.

“The state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one of its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates,” Judge Pratt wrote. “There are no adequate safeguards present, nor could there be, to ensure that state funds are not being directly spent to indoctrinate Iowa inmates.”

InnerChange, which has been widely praised by corrections officials and politicians, operates similar programs at prisons in Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, Arkansas and, by next spring, Missouri. Officials in those states are monitoring the Iowa case, but several said they believed their programs were sufficiently different to survive a similar challenge.

A government-financed religious education program at a county jail in Fort Worth was struck down by the Texas Supreme Court more than five years ago, and more lawsuits are pending. Corrections Corporation was among those sued last year by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is challenging a Christian residential program at a women’s prison in Grant, N.M. The foundation has also sued the federal Bureau of Prisons over its faith-based rehabilitation programs. And Americans United, the Iowa plaintiff, and the American Civil Liberties Union have sued a job-training program run by a religious group at the Bradford County Jail near Troy, Pa.

Prison Fellowship Ministries is one of about a half-dozen Christian groups that operate programs at jails and prisons run by the Corrections Corporation. The company’s lawyers are studying the Iowa decision, said a spokeswoman, Louise Grant. “But we are not, at this time, changing or altering any of our programming based on that, or any other ruling.”

Inadequate Monitoring

Government agencies have been criticized repeatedly for inadequately watching these programs. Besides the criticism in various court decisions, the Government Accountability Office has twice raised questions about cloudy guidelines and inadequate safeguards against government-financed evangelism.

In its most recent audit released in June, the G.A.O., which examined faith-based organizations in four states, found that some were violating federal rules against proselytizing and that government agencies did not have adequate safeguards against such violations.

The problem is not that none of these programs are audited. Every group that gets a federal grant worth more than $500,000 has to pay a private auditor to examine its books and report to the government. Many federal programs, like those that provide Medicaid services or help the government allocate arts grants, require additional audits.

But no supplemental audits are required under the faith-based initiative — indeed, it would probably violate the Bush administration’s new regulations to do so, said Robert W. Tuttle, a professor of law and religion at George Washington University and co-director of legal research, along with Ira C. Lupu, for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, a project of the Rockefeller Institute.

“The rules can be read to prohibit special audit requirements because that would be considered a stigma, which would be discriminatory,” Professor Tuttle said. “But that flies in the face of constitutional logic, because religion is special, and that special quality has to be reflected in program guidelines and audit rules.”

The G.A.O. also says the government cannot easily or accurately track either how much money is flowing to groups or whether they are using the funds in unconstitutional ways.

The Bush administration is already studying whether these constitutional problems can be resolved by reshaping many government grants into voucher programs under which the beneficiary decides where the money goes. But vouchers are a limited solution because most social service agencies need to know that a certain amount of money is assured before they can begin operations.

Mr. Hein, the White House official, agreed that vouchers could clarify the legal landscape. But even where they are not practical, he said, the Bush administration remains committed to keeping the doors to government financing open for as many religious groups as possible.

Donna Anderson contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/business/10faith.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2006

KS: Bigots & Racists Find a Home in Prison Industry

Rev. Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics
Religious Bigots Find a Home in the Kansas Prison Industry
By ALEX FRIEDMAN, Counterpunch, December 7, 2006

Hate is a strong word. Many prison employees and DOC officials are contemptuous of or indifferent to the prisoners in their custody. Detention facility staff are sometimes negligent, retaliatory and even abusive, but they seldom display a fanatical hatred toward prisoners. There is, however, one group whose deep burning hatred and extremism are apparently well suited for employment in the criminal justice field.

For those who aren't familiar with Rev. Fred W. Phelps, Sr., the 77-year-old reverend leads the fire-and-brimstone Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Phelps and his religious clan--consisting of approximately 80 followers, including numerous members of the Phelps extended family--have gained national attention through their high-profile protests at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.

The Westboro Baptist Church believes that the United States is being punished due to a tolerance of homosexuality; they have various other beliefs, all of which center around such slogans as "God hates fags" and "God hates America." The Phelps clan has also demonstrated at funeral services for gay murder victims and for the 12 West Virginia mine workers killed in an accident earlier this year, and planned to protest at the funerals of five Amish children murdered in Pennsylvania in October, 2006.

As one writer put it, the church members "also rejoice in the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami that devastated Asia two years ago, and AIDS. They believe God hates Santa, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, soldiers, me, and if I had to guess, they probably believe that God hates you." Apparently Phelps and his followers believe they are the only people whom God doesn't hate.

The Westboro Baptist Church protests include inflammatory picket signs, name-calling, desecration of the American flag, and an extra helping of Phelps' hate-filled philosophy. Laws have been enacted across the nation to limit such funeral demonstrations, including federal legislation signed into law in May 2006, but several such measures have been struck down by courts on free speech grounds.

Interestingly, many of the Phelps are attorneys. Patriarch Fred Phelps, Sr., who had a lengthy law career, has been disbarred; eleven of his 13 children are lawyers. More interestingly, six of the Phelps family are or were previously employed by various jails and the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Margie Phelps, an attorney, currently works for the Kansas Dept. of Correction as the agency's Director of Re-entry Planning; she attends the group's funeral protests outside of work hours. Her brother, Fred Phelps, Jr., a former parole officer, is a staff attorney with the Kansas DOC. Both Margie and Fred Jr. were previously temporarily suspended from practicing law following disciplinary action. Timothy Phelps is presently employed as a spokesman for the Shawnee County Dept. of Corrections. Lee Ann Phelps and Elizabeth Phelps both formerly held positions with the Shawnee County Sheriff's Department, while Abigail Phelps, another active participant in the group's funeral protests, works in the staff development office for Kansas' Juvenile Justice Authority.

Despite their hate-filled, anti-American ranting outside the workplace, the Phelps' personal beliefs apparently do not affect their on-the-job performance. Jack Rickerson, director of the state's human resources department, stated that Margie Phelps' activities outside of work "violated no state policy." Kansas DOC Secretary Roger Werholtz was quoted as saying, "I don't agree with her views," but said Margie Phelps was "a good employee." Kansas state Senator Jean Schodorf called the situation an embarrassment, stating that members of the Phelps clan employed in corrections " kind of flaunt that they work for the state and can't be terminated" due to civil service protections.

Under the belief that practicing law and acting as an officer of the court are inherently inconsistent with the hate-mongering practiced by members of the Phelps clan, in February 2006, Prison Legal News associate editor Alex Friedmann filed an ethics complaint against Shirley L. Phelps-Roper. Phelps-Roper, an attorney with the family's law firm, Phelps Chartered, actively participates in the church's funeral protests. The state Office of the Disciplinary Administrator, however, refused to file the complaint, stating First Amendment concerns would "preclude a successful investigation and prosecution of the Phelps." A request for reconsideration of the Disciplinary Administrator's decision was refused.

Apparently fanatical hate, inflammatory name-calling and intolerance are acceptable practices for attorneys--and prison and jail employees--in the state of Kansas.

Alex Friedman writes for Prison Legal News, where this article originally appeared.

Posted by lois at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2006

MA: Springfield's dropout rate on rise

ednesday, December 06, 2006
By NATALIA E. ARBULÚ
narbulu@repub.com

A significant increase in Springfield's high school dropout rate made it the district with the second highest percentage of students leaving school early in 2005.

Springfield came behind Lawrence, which had the highest dropout rate of urban centers with 12.9 percent.

About 12.4 percent, or 861 students, of Springfield's high school population dropped out in the 2004-2005 school year, according to a report released this week by the state Department of Education.

Springfield had a dropout rate of 8.1 percent the previous year.

Springfield Schools Superintendent Joseph P. Burke said many of the city's dropouts have been picked up by the district's adult education program.

Burke said many students dropped out due to financial reasons. "There was a real challenge in terms of students having to choose to work and help with the support of their families. I'm hoping that in '05-'06, it (dropout rate) will go back down and we'll have to wait and see," Burke said.

Holyoke's dropout rate declined from 11.1 percent in 2004 to 9.7 percent in 2005.

Holyoke Mayor Michael J. Sullivan credited Superintendent Eduardo B. Carballo's tutoring initiatives and the creation of a Saturday academy, where students can make up work and get extra help, with reducing the dropout rate.

Sullivan, who serves as chairman of the Holyoke School Committee, said district officials are getting better at matching students to the appropriate program but continue to face challenges, especially from the increase in the numbers of transient families in the city.

There are more than 180 transient families in Holyoke now, compared with 80 in 2003.

"These are the most difficult people to keep on track. We'll keep on trying, but it is going to be difficult," he said.

The statewide dropout rate crept up to 3.8 percent in 2005 from 2004's 3.7 rate. A total of 11,145 students statewide dropped out in 2005, with Hispanic students representing more than 25 percent of dropouts.

The Hispanic dropout rate increased to 9.1 percent from 2004's 8.2 percent.

Whites and blacks had the same dropout rate as the previous year with 2.8 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively.

The dropout rate for Asians fell slightly from 2.7 percent to 2.6 percent. The American Indian dropout rate decreased from 6.4 percent to 5.4 percent.

Armando Feliciano, director of the Springfield School Department's Adult Education Center, said about 50 percent of Hispanics do not complete high school.

Feliciano said students will continue to drop out for various reasons including their inability to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests, not feeling safe in school, and lack of parental involvement.

The state report showed that 48 percent of juniors and 69 percent of seniors who dropped out had met the state's graduation requirement by passing both the math and English portions of the MCAS tests.

The adult education program tests about 500 students a year. There are more than 4,000 adults on a waiting list for the program, Feliciano said.

The majority of local school districts had a decline in their dropout rate, with only a handful having an increase.

In Chicopee, where the dropout rate increased from 6.9 percent to 7.3 percent, Superintendent Richard Rege said educators need to find faster interventions to help students who begin to fall behind in elementary school and end up dropping out of high school.

Rege said the cause of Chicopee's increased dropout rate will require further analysis.

Through a state dropout prevention grant, teams from both Chicopee High and Chicopee Comprehensive High schools have studied ways in which to reduce the dropout rate. They will present their recommendations to the School Committee today.

©2006 The Republican http://www.masslive.com/news/topstories/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1165398117263
50.xml&coll=1

Posted by lois at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

Springfield MA-4 Guards Indicted for Having Sex with Women Who Are Prisoners

Guard, 3 former guards, indicted
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
By JACK FLYNN
jflynn@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - Three former guards at the Hampden County Correctional Center and a fourth guard on unpaid leave have been indicted by a grand jury for having sex with female inmates while on duty.

Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett said the four male guards are accused of having consensual sex with two female prisoners at the Ludlow jail during the past year. Under a state law passed in 1999, guards are barred from having sex with prisoners under any circumstances.

Besides marking the first time Hampden County officers have been prosecuted under that law, the indictment marks the first time so many guards have been accused of crimes in the jail's recent history.

"This is illegal and unprofessional," said Bennett, speaking at a press conference with Sheriff Michael J. Ashe and State Police Lt. Peter Higgins.

The three ex-guards named in the indictment - Stanford Norman, 35, of Springfield; William Muldrow Jr., 38, of Milbury; Brian K. Murphy, 53, of Springfield - were fired during the past month following an investigation by the sheriff's office and state police, Bennett said.

The fourth, Arial Reyes, 37, of Westfield, has been placed on unpaid leave until the investigation is completed, Ashe said.

The defendants will be arraigned in Hampden Superior Court later this month.

The jail's payroll includes two officers named Brian Murphy; Ashe stressed that Brian F. Murphy, of Wilbraham, has no connection to the case.

With about 1,630 inmates and 425 guards, including 67 women correctional officers, the Ludlow jail is the state's second-largest. The 150 women prisoners are housed in two units overseen by male and female guards.

Neither Ashe nor Bennett would offer details about where or how often the alleged incidents occurred, or whether female inmates received preferential treatment in return for sex.

Two female inmates involved in the case have been moved to another jail.

The investigation began with a tip during the summer about possible misconduct by jail staff, Ashe said. While investigators discovered the alleged sexual encounters were voluntary, jail guards are barred from sex with inmates under any circumstances, Ashe said. The maximum penalty for violating the law is five years in prison.

"This is an aberration," said Ashe, adding that it was an insult to all jail personnel who do their jobs properly.

"No level of sexual activity between staff and offenders is acceptable or tolerated," he said.

http://www.masslive.com/springfield/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-6/116539538626350.xml&coll=1

Posted by lois at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2006

Editorial: Austin American Statesman: New Prisons Will Cost Taxpayers Money, So Be Sure They're Needed

EDITORIAL, Austin American Statesman
New prisons will cost taxpayers money, so be sure they're needed EDITORIAL BOARD Wednesday, December 06, 2006

State officials want $5.6 billion from the Legislature to run the criminal justice system for the next two years — including $520 million just to build three more prisons and fund drug and alcohol treatment programs. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, however demands that officials justify the full house they have now before starting new ones and he is absolutely right.

Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, thinks there could be thousands of inmates who could be released, thereby sharply reducing the need for new prisons — and saving taxpayers a lot of money.

"We're at a crossroads," Whitmire said Tuesday. "We can continue to do business as usual, or we can be smart, make corrections, enhance public safety and save millions of dollars." He thinks the public has been ready to see more emphasis on treatment programs for those in prison because of alcohol or drug offenses, and the Legislature, he said, appears to be reaching the same conclusion.

Like Whitmire, the House Corrections Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, also thinks there are too many low-risk inmates in high- or medium-security beds. Of about 5,600 prisoner trusties eligible for parole, most are serving time for drug and property crimes, not violent offenses, prison statistics show.

One problem that lawmakers and state criminal justice officials agree on is the need for more alcohol and drug treatment programs. Whitmire said that about 900 prisoners otherwise ready for parole could get out if they could complete a treatment program — but there aren't enough slots in the programs.

There are also 5,481 minimum-security prisoners being held on drunken-driving convictions, and many of them must go through a treatment program — as well they should — if they are to ever qualify for parole.

Whitmire also suspects that the prison system is holding on to some prisoners who are trusted to work unsupervised outside prison walls, and even eligible for parole, because of their usefulness as laborers. But prison officials deny that, noting that they don't make parole decisions.

Some Texans would be satisfied to just stuff ever more prisoners into existing prison buildings, and maybe put up some tents and let them live in escalating misery. Actually, that's what the state used to do, but the federal courts finally imposed some minimum standards of decency for prisoners.

That's why the Legislature, in its upcoming session, must decide whether to build more prisons to house a growing prison population — now at 135,000 convicts — or safely release more prisoners to make way for new ones.

The trouble with new prisons is that the construction cost is only the start; there follows the never-ending bills for paying guards and staff, feeding prisoners and providing them with medical care. Of course, paying new guards might not be a problem because the state probably couldn't find any. It's already 2,500 guards short.

Given the state's growth and its hard-nosed attitude toward lawbreakers, some new prison construction may be inevitable. But first, fully funding effective treatment programs for alcohol and drug abuse deserves legislative attention — that would benefit both the prisoners and the rest of us, who wish to live in a safe society.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/12/6/6Parole_edit.html

Posted by lois at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2006

Art Work on People Who Are Incarcerated on Lincoln Center

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press WriterFri Dec 1, 3:40 PM ET

M&M's. Kool-Aid. Human hair. Coffee. Lime juice.

These are some of the materials prisoners across the United States have used to create artworks now on display at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

"My accessibility to art supplies is extremely limited," Anthony Throop, an inmate at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, wrote to explain his coffee on paper work. "As a painter this frustrated me, so I grew my hair for five months to make paint brushes."

Throop's work, "Long Time No See," depicts the silhouette of a prisoner lifting a visiting child high in the air.

It's one of 22 framed works hanging in a gallery at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for a show that opened Thursday and runs through Dec. 22.

The arts complex, in an effort to reach wider audiences, has been offering space on its 16 acres to more unusual presentations than its standard classical arts fare, including such oddities as stunt artist David Blaine's attempt last spring to set a world record for holding his breath underwater in a bubble.

The prisoner art is part of a collection of 239 artworks submitted to The Fortune Society, a New York-based private agency that helps former inmates re-enter daily life, linking them to jobs, education, housing and, for some, treatment for addictions.

Titled "Insider Art," the show includes paintings and drawings by men and women with little or no formal art training who are behind bars in 36 states, in state and federal prisons ranging from minimum to maximum security.

While the society does not request that they provide the reasons for their incarceration, their criminal records can be easily obtained using their names and public records. What is required of each artist is a brief testimonial describing the work submitted.

Jesus Padilla, who painted "The Blessing" at the Correctional Center in Tamms, Ill., said the work was inspired by his ancestral roots — Aztec Mestizo, Kwahadhi Comanche and Chiricahua Apache.

"I am not allowed any art material (aside from ink pen) so I have to improvise," he said. "For this piece I used coffee, ink and dyes made from Skittle and M&M candies."

Crushed M&Ms and a blank postcard are the main materials used in the multicolored "Soul 2006," by Don Johnson, of the maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City, Calif.

Johnson is serving three life terms in solitary confinement for murder and for slashing a prison guard's throat. Prison officials cracked down this summer after Johnson started selling his paintings to raise money for an inmates' children's program, saying he was breaking prison rules by running an unauthorized business from his cell. The M&M paintings were already drawing attention, though, and prison officials eventually backed off from taking any disciplinary action.

"He's thriving below the radar," his lawyer, Charles Carbone, said Friday

A rumpled brown paper bag is the backdrop for "Caine's Redemption," a drawing done with a pencil and a lime by Ralph "Tony" Hobson, who is at the Correctional Facility in Pendleton, Ind.

The Fortune Society said it tried to "put a human face on prisoners."

"These are people with feelings and skills, and this is their outlet," spokesman Brian Robinson said.

Each prisoner who submits a work receives a $25 gift certificate to buy art supplies, which are available at some prisons; funding cuts have eliminated art materials at other prisons.

The Fortune Society was founded in 1967 by theater producer David Rothenberg after he staged an off-Broadway play dramatizing the horrors of prison life. Called "Fortune in Men's Eyes," words taken from a Shakespeare sonnet, it was written by former inmate John Herbert.

Former convicts started to show up at the play, networking with each other and Rothenberg, who organized the activity into the society that now operates on a $14 million annual budget. The funds come from private contributions, grants and the government.

An auction of the works in the gallery will be held on Dec. 13, with bids already open on the society's Web site for all 239 artworks displayed online, including sculptures. The money goes to programs offered by The Fortune Society, including English as a second language, job training, writing and resume building.

___

On the Net:

The Fortune Society: http://www.fortunesociety.org

Posted by lois at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect's Isolation

Warning--This is a story of extreme brutality!

Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect's Isolation
By DEBORAH SONTAG, NY Times- December 4, 2006

One spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant, Jose Padilla experienced a break from the monotony of his solitary confinement in a bare cell in the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, S.C.

That day, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert whom the Bush administration had accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack and had detained without charges, got to go to the dentist.

"Today is May 21," a naval official declared to a camera videotaping the event. "Right now we're ready to do a root canal treatment on Jose Padilla, our enemy combatant."

Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla's bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla's legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.

Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla's cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.

The videotape of that trip to the dentist, which was recently released to Mr. Padilla's lawyers and viewed by The New York Times, offers the first concrete glimpse inside the secretive military incarceration of an American citizen whose detention without charges became a test case of President Bush's powers in the fight against terror. Still frames from the videotape were posted in Mr. Padilla's electronic court file late Friday.

To Mr. Padilla's lawyers, the pictures capture the dehumanization of their client during his military detention from mid-2002 until earlier this year, when the government changed his status from enemy combatant to criminal defendant and transferred him to the federal detention center in Miami. He now awaits trial scheduled for late January.

Together with other documents filed late Friday, the images represent the latest and most aggressive sally by defense lawyers who declared this fall that charges against Mr. Padilla should be dismissed for "outrageous government conduct," saying that he was mistreated and tortured during his years as an enemy combatant.

Now lawyers for Mr. Padilla, 36, suggest that he is unfit to stand trial. They argue that he has been so damaged by his interrogations and prolonged isolation that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to assist in his own defense. His interrogations, they say, included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of "truth serums."

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Vician, said Sunday that the military disputes Mr. Padilla's accusations of mistreatment. And, in court papers, prosecutors deny "in the strongest terms" the accusations of torture and say that "Padilla's conditions of confinement were humane and designed to ensure his safety and security."

"His basic needs were met in a conscientious manner, including Halal (Muslim
acceptable) food, clothing, sleep and daily medical assessment and treatment when necessary," the government stated. "While in the brig, Padilla never reported any abusive treatment to the staff or medical personnel."

In the brig, Mr. Padilla was denied access to counsel for 21 months. Andrew Patel, one of his lawyers, said his isolation was not only severe but compounded by material and sensory deprivations. In an affidavit filed Friday, he alleged that Mr. Padilla was held alone in a 10-cell wing of the brig; that he had little human contact other than with his interrogators; that his cell was electronically monitored and his meals were passed to him through a slot in the door; that windows were blackened, and there was no clock or calendar; and that he slept on a steel platform after a foam mattress was taken from him, along with his copy of the Koran, "as part of an interrogation plan."

Mr. Padilla's situation, as an American declared an enemy combatant and held without charges by his own government, was extraordinary and the conditions of his detention appear to have been unprecedented in the military justice system.

Philip D. Cave, a former judge advocate general for the Navy and now a lawyer specializing in military law, said, "There's nothing comparable in terms of severity of confinement, in terms of how Padilla was held, especially considering that this was pretrial confinement."

Ali al-Marri, a Qatari and Saudi dual citizen and the only enemy combatant currently detained in the United States, has made similar claims of isolation and deprivation at the brig in South Carolina. The Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Vician, said Sunday that he could not comment on the methods used to escort Mr. Padilla to the dentist. Blackened goggles and earphones are rarely employed in internal prison transports in the United States, but riot gear is sometimes used for violent prisoners.

One of Mr. Padilla's lawyers, Orlando do Campo, said, however, that Mr. Padilla was a "completely docile" prisoner. "There was not one disciplinary problem with Jose ever, not one citation, not one act of disobedience," said Mr. do Campo, who is a lawyer at the Miami federal public defender's office.

In his affidavit, Mr. Patel said, "I was told by members of the brig staff that Mr. Padilla's temperament was so docile and inactive that his behavior was like that of 'a piece of furniture.' "

Federal prosecutors and defense lawyers are locked in a tug of war over the relevancy of Mr. Padilla's military detention to the present criminal case. Federal prosecutors have asked the judge to forbid Mr. Padilla's lawyers from mentioning the circumstances of his military detention during the trial, maintaining that their accusations could "distract and inflame the jury."

But defense lawyers say it is unconscionable to ignore Mr. Padilla's military detention because, among other reasons, it altered him in a way that will impinge on his trial.

Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., who examined Mr. Padilla for a total of 22 hours in June and September, said in an affidavit filed Friday that he "lacks the capacity to assist in his own defense."

"It is my opinion that as the result of his experiences during his detention and interrogation, Mr. Padilla does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation," Dr. Hegarty said in an affidavit for the defense.

Mr. Padilla's status was abruptly changed to criminal defendant from enemy combatant last fall. At the time, the Supreme Court was weighing whether to take up the legality of his military detention - and thus the issue of the president's authority to seize an American citizen on American soil and hold him indefinitely without charges - when the Bush administration pre-empted its decision by filing criminal charges against Mr. Padilla.

Mr. Padilla was added as a defendant in a terrorism conspiracy case already under way in Miami. The strong public accusations made during his military detention - about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings - appear nowhere in the indictment against him. The indictment does not allege any specific violent plot against America.

Mr. Padilla is portrayed in the indictment as the recruit of a "North American terror support cell" that sent money, goods and recruits abroad to assist "global jihad" in general, with a special interest in Bosnia and Chechnya. Mr. Padilla, the indictment asserts, traveled overseas "to participate in violent jihad" and filled out an application for a mujahedin training camp in Afghanistan.

Michael Caruso, a public defender for Mr. Padilla, pleaded "absolutely not guilty" for him to charges of conspiracy and of providing material support to terrorists. Mr. Padilla faces two charges that each carry a maximum penalty of 15 years.

Over the summer, Judge Marcia G. Cooke of United States District Court in Miami threw out the most serious charge, of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country, saying that it replicated accusations in the other counts and could lead to multiple punishments for a single crime. This was a setback for the government, which has appealed the dismissal.

Mr. Padilla's lawyers say they have had a difficult time persuading him that they are on his side.

From the time Mr. Padilla was allowed access to counsel, Mr. Patel visited him repeatedly in the brig and in the Miami detention center, and Mr. Padilla has observed Mr. Patel arguing on his behalf in Miami federal court.

But, Mr. Patel said in his affidavit, his client is nonetheless mistrustful. "Mr. Padilla remains unsure if I and the other attorneys working on his case are actually his attorneys or another component of the government's interrogation scheme," Mr. Patel said.

Mr. do Campo said that Mr. Padilla was not incommunicative, and that he expressed curiosity about what was going on in the world, liked to talk about sports and demonstrated particularly keen interest in the Chicago Bears.

But the defense lawyers' questions often echo the questions interrogators have asked Mr. Padilla, and when that happens, he gets jumpy and shuts down, the lawyers said.

Dr. Hegarty said Mr. Padilla refuses to review the video recordings of his interrogations, which have been released to his lawyers but remain classified.

He is especially reluctant to discuss what happened in the brig, fearful that he will be returned there some day, Mr. Patel said in his affidavit.

"During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body," Mr. Patel said. "The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/us/04detain.html?hp&ex=1165294800&en=d92b3
532e5b950be&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2006

FL: Governor's panel urges tripling state's faith-based prisons

Governor's panel urges tripling state's faith-based prisons
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Sunday, December 03, 2006

TALLAHASSEE — A panel appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to come up with ways to keep former inmates from winding up back behind bars recommends tripling the number of faith-based prisons in Florida within two years, despite no evidence that the institutions work any better than conventional facilities.

The Governor's Ex-Offender Task Force, created by Bush last year, completed its final report in November, stressing that state corrections officials must begin planning with inmates for their release from the first day of incarceration.

The recommendations include converting at least six prisons to faith-based facilities, a Bush brainchild in which inmates volunteer to be housed in facilities that provide special activities and classes - religious and secular - aimed at character development and personal growth.

Florida opened the nation's first faith-based prison three years ago and now has three facilities - two serving men and one for women - and seven other prisons with "faith-based/self-improvement" dormitories. The programs serve more than 3,500 inmates, or about 4 percent of the state's prisoners.

Proponents of faith-based prisons claim that inmates there have fewer disciplinary problems and a lower recidivism rate than the general prison population.

Faith-based programs are fine, said Department of Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough, but the most important component to reduce recidivism is education, followed by vocational training, mental health and drug abuse treatment and life-management skills, including making sure prisoners get a driver license and Social Security card.

More than 4,000 inmates read at a first- or second-grade level, McDonough said.

After learning how to read, inmates need solid vocational training, he said.

"They have to have a job," McDonough said. "You can eat if you have a job, but you can't eat faith. It gives you the moral stability, but the facts of life are you need to survive."

The department plans to add two more faith-based dorms and is considering a third.

Researchers say that a variety of mitigating factors may have more to do with reduced disciplinary problems than the religious instruction, and that no scientific evidence exists showing that offenders who leave the faith-based prisons are less likely to end up back in prison.

For example, inmates who sign up for the program are required to be trouble-free for at least three months before being accepted. And those who volunteer are not only more motivated to stay clean but receive services not provided in conventional facilities, said Dan Mears, a Florida State University criminology professor.

"It's a program one would adopt on faith, as it were," he said.

Because the inmates are self-selected for the programs, it is impossible to conduct random experiments to compare how effective the faith-based programs are against other types of programs, he said.

But, he added, that doesn't mean the programs should be scrapped.

"You run a correctional system and you've got a pitiful amount of money for programming, for services, for treatment, and you're desperate for pretty much anything that might help and is at least not harmful," Mears said. "Even if you're a big civil libertarian, you might say if there's any way we can do this and I can sleep well at night, then let's do it."

The task force, composed of lawyers, corrections officials, community leaders and others, acknowledged the dearth of data regarding faith-based programs in its report, even while recommending the expansion.

"Faith and character-based institutional transformations are budget-neutral and appear to be achieving some good outcomes. Although it is too soon to measure recidivism rates of the people leaving the transformed facilities, the disciplinary rates of these facilities are about half of similar profiles of inmates in other facilities," the report said.

Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said: "It is startling that they would call for a dramatic increase of six additional facilities in the very same report in which they acknowledge that there isn't any evidence that it reduces recidivism rates."

Florida now has nearly 90,000 prisoners behind bars and releases about 36,000 annually. Within three years, about 12,000 are back in prison.

Some lawmakers familiar with the faith-based programs remain skeptical about their efficacy and question whether the state should expand the programs because they aren't at full capacity.

"To simply just create them because they would be a good idea wouldn't necessarily be a fiscally prudent thing to do," said Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, former chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee.

Most lawmakers agree that corrections officials must take a more holistic approach when dealing with prisoners than just to keep them off the streets, fed and safe from guards and one another in order for them to successfully transition back into the community.

But whether they will pay for the expanded services the report calls for - education and drug abuse and mental health counseling - is questionable.

"I think it would be an easy sell from a policy perspective, but from a fiscal one, where do we get the money?" Crist said.

But others argue that taxpayers will end up paying the bill either way if prisoners are released into the community without the skill to find a job and keep one.

Preparing prisoners for freedom

Recommendations by a task force appointed to suggest ways to help former prisoners transition to the community and to reduce the numbers of ex-offenders who return behind bars:

• Convert at least six conventional prisons into faith-based prisons within two years.

• Improve and expand job training and education for inmates.

• Begin prerelease planning from the day an inmate is incarcerated and develop individual community reentry plans.

• Help inmates to sign up for Social Security cards, driver licenses and state identification cards before they are released.

• Assist disabled inmates to apply for disability and/or Medicaid benefits before they are released.

• Create an inmate-discharge handbook containing individualized reentry plans and programs and services available in the inmate's home community.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2006/12/03/a30a_prisons_1203.html

Posted by lois at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

Do Immigrants Make Us Safer?

December 3, 2006, NY Times Magazine
Idea Lab
Do Immigrants Make Us Safer?
By EYAL PRESS

Although the midterm election failed to render a clear verdict on illegal immigration, the new Democratic Congress may enact sweeping legislation tightening border controls and allowing more guest workers next year. If that happens, the rancorous debate about how undocumented workers affect jobs and wages in the United States will be rejoined. So, too, will an equally rancorous, if less prominent, debate: Do immigrants make the U.S. more crime-ridden and dangerous?

In an age of Latino gangs and Chinese criminal networks, the notion that communities with growing immigrant populations tend to be unsafe is fairly well established, at least in the popular imagination. In a national survey conducted in 2000, 73 percent of Americans said they believe that immigrants are either “somewhat” or “very” likely to increase crime, higher than the 60 percent who fear they are “likely to cause Americans to lose jobs.” Cities like Avon Park, Fla., have considered ordinances recently to dissuade businesses from hiring illegal immigrants, whose presence “destroys our neighborhoods.” Even President Bush, whose perceived generosity to undocumented workers has earned him vilification on the right, commented in a speech this May that illegal immigration “strains state and local budgets and brings crime to our communities.”

So goes the conventional wisdom. But is it true? In fact, according to evidence cropping up in various places, the opposite may be the case. Ramiro Martinez Jr., a professor of criminal justice at Florida International University, has sifted through homicide records in border cities like San Diego and El Paso, both heavily populated by Mexican immigrants, both places where violent crime has fallen significantly in recent years. “Almost without exception,” he told me, “I’ve discovered that the homicide rate for Hispanics was lower than for other groups, even though their poverty rate was very high, if not the highest, in these metropolitan areas.” He found the same thing in the Haitian neighborhoods of Miami. In his book “New York Murder Mystery,” the criminologist Andrew Karmen examined the trend in New York City and likewise found that the “disproportionately youthful, male and poor immigrants” who arrived during the 1980s and 1990s “were surprisingly law-abiding” and that their settlement into once-decaying neighborhoods helped “put a brake on spiraling crime rates.”

The most prominent advocate of the “more immigrants, less crime” theory is Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the sociology department at Harvard. A year ago, Sampson was an author of an article in The American Journal of Public Health that reported the findings of a detailed study of crime in Chicago. Based on information gathered on the perpetrators of more than 3,000 violent acts committed between 1995 and 2002, supplemented by police records and community surveys, it found that the rate of violence among Mexican-Americans was significantly lower than among both non-Hispanic whites and blacks.

In June, Sampson and I drove out to a neighborhood in Little Village, Chicago’s largest Hispanic community. The area we visited is decidedly poor: in terms of per capita income, 84 percent of Chicago neighborhoods are better off and 99 percent have a greater proportion of residents with a high-school education. As we made our way down a side street, Sampson noted that many of the residents make their living as domestic workers and in other low-wage occupations, often paid off the books because they are undocumented. In places of such concentrated disadvantage, a certain level of violence and social disorder is assumed to be inevitable. As we strolled around, Sampson paused on occasion to make a mental note of potential trouble signs: an alley strewn with garbage nobody had bothered to pick up; a sign in Spanish in several windows, complaining about the lack of a park in the vicinity where children can play. Yet for all of this, the neighborhood was strikingly quiet. And, according to the data Sampson has collected, it is surprisingly safe. The burglary rate in the neighborhood is in the bottom fifth of the city. The overall crime rate is nearly in the bottom third.

The safety of neighborhoods like these has received little attention in the debate about immigration — or, for that matter, the debate about crime. Ever since cities like New York began cracking down on panhandling and loitering in the mid-1990s, a move that coincided with a precipitous drop in violence, policy makers have embraced the so-called broken-windows theory, which emphasizes the deterrent effects of punishing such minor offenses. Lately, though, scholars have begun to question whether “broken windows” deserves all the credit for diminishing crime after all. Some researchers have linked progress to the cessation of the crack epidemic. Others point to an improved economy, community-policing initiatives or even the legalization of abortion, which reduced the number of poor, unwanted children growing up in high-risk neighborhoods.

Sampson’s theory may be the most provocative yet. Could America’s cities be safer today not because fewer unwanted children live in them but because a lot more immigrants do? Could illegal immigration be making the nation a more law-abiding place?

There are, to be sure, scholars who take issue with this rosy picture. Wesley Skogan, a political scientist at Northwestern University, has spent the past 13 years tracking violence and social disorder in the white, black and Latino communities in Chicago. In a new book, “Police and Community in Chicago: A Tale of Three Cities,” just out from Oxford University Press, Skogan concludes that the big success story took place not in immigrant areas but in African-American ones, where participation in community-policing programs was highest and violence fell the most. “About two-thirds of the crime decline in Chicago since 1991 took place in black neighborhoods,” Skogan says. In Hispanic communities, by contrast, Skogan found that the fear of crime, as measured in surveys of residents, and real social disorder — gang activity, loitering — actually became worse as the foreign-born population increased. Skogan acknowledges that Hispanic immigrants don’t show up much in arrest records, but he says he believes part of the explanation for this rests in the fact that those who are undocumented go to enormous lengths to “stay off the radar.” Many also come from a country, Mexico, where distrust of law enforcement is endemic, which is why he suspects they underreport crime and participate less in community-policing programs, as his study found.

Sampson doesn’t deny that crime may be underreported in immigrant neighborhoods. Nonetheless, he is quick to note that as the ranks of foreigners in the United States boomed during the 1990s — increasing by more than 50 percent to 31 million — America’s cities became markedly less dangerous. That these two trends might be related has been overlooked, he says, in part because immigrants, like African-Americans, often trigger negative associations regardless of how they actually behave. Not long ago, Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush, a sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment to test this idea. The experiment drew on interviews with more than 3,500 Chicago residents, each of whom was asked how serious problems like loitering and public drinking were where they lived. The responses were compared with the actual level of chaos in the neighborhood, culled from police data and by having researchers drive along hundreds of blocks to document every sign of decay and disorder they could spot.

The social and ethnic composition of a neighborhood turned out to have a profound bearing on how residents of Chicago perceived it, irrespective of the actual conditions on the streets. “In particular,” Sampson and Raudenbush found, “the proportion of blacks and the proportion of Latinos in a neighborhood were related positively and significantly to perceived disorder.” Once you adjusted for the ethnic, racial and class composition of a community, “much of the variation in levels of disorder that appeared to be explained by what residents saw was spurious.”

In other words, the fact that people think neighborhoods with large concentrations of brown-skinned immigrants are unsafe makes sense in light of popular stereotypes and subliminal associations. But that doesn’t mean there is any rational basis for their fears. Such a message hasn’t sat well with everyone. As the debate about immigration has grown more heated and polarized, Sampson has found himself barraged with hate mail. “Vicious stuff,” he told me, “you know, thinly veiled threats, people saying, ‘You should just come and look at the Mexican gangs here.’ ” But Sampson has also won some far-flung admirers. In Mexico, one of the nation’s leading dailies, La Reforma, published a story hailing his findings, under the triumphal heading, “Son barrios de paisanos menos violentos que los blancos ” (“Neighborhoods of our countrymen are less violent than white ones”).

If immigrants really are making America safer, why is this so? “That,” Sampson says, “is the $64,000 question.” In discussing the persistence of poverty and the causes of crime, sociologists on the left often emphasize the importance of “structural” factors like unemployment and racism, while scholars on the right tend to focus on individual behavior like having an illegitimate child and using drugs. Sampson prefers to focus on the nature of the social interactions taking place in particular neighborhoods. At one point in Little Village, we strolled past a house where a couple of young girls were playing outside. It didn’t seem that anybody was supervising them. Next door, however, an elderly woman was standing just inside the window. The window was open, and as Sampson and I passed by, her eyes did not leave us. “Did you notice that?” asked Sampson as we proceeded down the block. She was making sure the two strangers who had appeared weren’t dangerous. It was an example of the kind of informal social control that Sampson says can prevent even the poorest neighborhoods from spiraling into chaos and that he suspects may distinguish many tightknit immigrant communities.

But Sampson also notes the importance of another factor, one often stressed by conservatives: Mexicans in Chicago, his study found, are more likely to be married than either blacks or whites. “The family dynamic is very noticeable here,” Sampson remarked as we passed a girl with long braided hair clutching her mother’s hand. Her father followed a few steps behind. Sampson does not believe family structure explains everything: the data showed that in immigrant neighborhoods, even individuals who are not in married households are 15 percent less likely to engage in crime. Yet neither did he discount its significance.

To the extent a strong family structure does play a role, it has left Sampson understandably mystified why the most strident opponents of immigration so often come from the right. Shouldn’t conservatives concerned about the breakdown of traditional values be celebrating these family-oriented newcomers? This is indeed what David Brooks argued not long ago in a column in The New York Times, gently chiding his fellow conservatives for reflexively assuming foreigners have had a corrosive impact on the nation’s moral fiber. “As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen 57 percent,” Brooks noted in the column, which was titled “Immigrants to Be Proud Of.”

Sampson wrote Brooks a note complimenting him on the piece. But he is under no illusions that his views on crime and immigration will endear him to Republicans clamoring for America’s borders to be sealed. On the other hand, it might not make his colleagues on the left any happier. The flip side of the impulse to demonize immigrants is, after all, the tendency to romanticize them as hard-working Horatio Alger types who valiantly lift themselves out of poverty — with the implication that if they can avoid falling victim to drugs, gangs and other inner-city scourges, those who succumb to these forces have only themselves to blame. In calling attention to the virtues of immigrant communities, there is a risk that Sampson’s work will be taken by some as a commentary on the high crime rate in some poor African-American communities.

Of course, comparing the experiences of Mexican immigrants and African-Americans may seem grossly unfair, not least because studies have shown that many employers are willing to hire foreigners (on the assumption they work hard) but not blacks (on the assumption they don’t). Yet the fact that it is unfair hardly means such comparisons won’t be made — even though immigrants commit less crime not only than African-Americans in inner-city neighborhoods but less than American-born white people as well.

Before anyone rushes to conclude that crime would vanish from America’s cities if only more foreigners moved here, it is worth considering something else Sampson’s study uncovered. It is a finding as troubling as his basic thesis about immigrants is hopeful. Second-generation immigrants in Chicago were significantly more likely to commit crimes than their parents, it turns out, and those of the third generation more likely still.

Opponents of immigration frequently charge that Mexican immigrants threaten America’s national identity because of their failure to assimilate. A more reasonable concern might be the opposite of this: not that foreigners in low-income neighborhoods refuse to adopt the norms of the native culture but that their children and grandchildren do.

The sociologists Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut conducted a multiyear longitudinal study of immigrant children in Miami and San Diego. The offspring of foreigners who grow up in impoverished ghettos, they have argued, particularly Mexican-Americans exposed to racial as well as economic discrimination, often lose the drive and optimism their parents had and come to share the widespread attitude among their inner-city peers that survival depends on brandishing an oppositional stance toward school authorities and, more broadly, a culture that looks down on them. “The learning of new cultural patterns and entry into American social circles does not lead in these cases to upward mobility but to exactly the opposite,” Portes and Rumbaut contend, a process of “downward assimilation” that has created a new “rainbow underclass.” Astoundingly, in a recent paper, Rumbaut and several doctoral students found that the incarceration rate among second-generation Mexicans was eight times higher than for the first generation; among Vietnamese, it was more than 10 times higher. Where the first-generation immigrants in their data were less likely to wind up in prison than native-born whites, the second (with the exception of Filipinos and Chinese) were more likely.

Such findings suggest the class and race divisions that cleave America’s social landscape may prove decisive after all. In Sweden, a country with markedly less inequality and more generous social welfare policies — and far less violent crime — studies have shown the rate of offending tends to be lower for the second generation of immigrants than for the first. Of course, America has historically done an admirable job of assimilating newcomers, and the theory of “downward assimilation” has not gone unchallenged. Recently, a team of researchers completed a study in New York of more than 2,200 second-generation immigrants and 1,200 native-born Americans that allowed them to compare the rate of offending among various groups, West Indians versus African-Americans, for instance, or Russians versus American-born whites. According to John Mollenkopf, a political scientist at the CUNY Graduate Center, the arrest rates among the children of immigrants were the same or lower in every case. “The second-generation immigrants are doing better, on the whole, than the native-born,” he said.

Clearly, the debate over assimilation will continue, as Sampson acknowledges. When I asked him why he thought the positive trends he and his colleagues had discovered in Chicago seemed to become diluted by the second and third generations, he paused.

“That’s another $64,000 question,” he said, chuckling softly. Part of the explanation, he went on to speculate, may rest in the exposure subsequent generations have to the things that often lure young people in America’s cities to engage in illicit activities: drugs, cash, cars, contraband. Part of it, as well, might be the adoption of streetwise attitudes that lead people to react quickly to insults in the United States. One thing it is difficult for Americans to realize, he said, is how unusually violent their country is, particularly in light of its inordinate wealth. Recently, scholars have become increasingly interested in the historical origins of American violence. Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan and others have traced our “culture of violence” back to the valorization of retribution and dueling among Scotch-Irish immigrants in the American South, suggesting that antique folkways have become encoded into the nation’s DNA.

It is a dark view, perhaps, but Sampson is hopeful that the good news about crime in recent years can continue, albeit under certain conditions, among them less alarmism about the supposedly dangerous foreigners in our midst. Sampson shook his head when describing some of the correspondence he has received from people absolutely certain that immigrants are sowing mayhem in our streets. In the last few years, he noted, such people have had somewhat less cause for worry, since the numbers show the flow of newcomers has subsided a bit. Meanwhile, the crime rate in some cities has begun to creep back up. Sampson, for one, does not think this is a mere coincidence. Those clamoring for America to close its borders in order to prevent violence-prone strangers from flooding our shores may well get their way, he acknowledged, but they ought to be careful what they wish for.

Eyal Press, a contributing writer for The Nation, is the author of “Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City and the Conflict That Divided America.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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December 02, 2006

NY: Police Shooting Reunites Circle of Common Loss

December 2, 2006, NY Times
Police Shooting Reunites Circle of Common Loss
By SARAH KERSHAW

The bus from Miami rolled into the Port Authority station at 6:25 p.m. Thursday, 28 hours after Marie Rose Dorismond set out for New York City, alone on her grim pilgrimage.

It was not the first time she had returned to the place she fled after her only son, Patrick M. Dorismond, was killed at age 26 by the police in 2000; she comes back every Feb. 28, on his birthday, and stays through March 16, the day he was shot in a scuffle with undercover detectives only a few blocks from the bus station. He is buried in Queens.

This time, clutching a rolling suitcase and three sets of neatly pressed dress clothes on hangers, Mrs. Dorismond was returning for the funeral of Sean Bell, the 23-year-old bridegroom who died in Queens on Saturday in a storm of 50 police bullets.

And in doing so, she returned to join again what amounts to an anguished club: the widening circle of unintended friends made up of the relatives of those killed by the police in the city’s streets.

She was here to make herself available to the Bell family, people she had never met but who felt to her like instant sisters and brothers. And when she could not find a flight that would get her to New York on time, Mrs. Dorismond, 59, traveling alone for the first time, decided to take a Greyhound bus.

“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Mrs. Dorismond, a Haitian immigrant who came to New York at 18 to study nursing, said of the relatives of Amadou Diallo and others who died in encounters with the police. “Nobody can understand that pain but me, Mrs. Diallo and the others. When it was my turn, everybody came.”

They had come and been there for her, rushing to her side to introduce themselves — at her son’s wake, at his funeral, at the protests on the streets. Amadou Diallo’s mother, Malcolm Ferguson’s mother, Nicholas Heyward Jr.’s father, Abner Louima himself.

At Sean Bell’s wake yesterday, in a crowded church in Jamaica, Queens, Mrs. Dorismond was weeping in the second row of pews, only a few feet from the open coffin, when Amadou Diallo’s mother, Kadiatou, arrived. Mrs. Dorismond rushed to her friend, the two hugged for several minutes, and Mrs. Dorismond shouted: “Again? Again? Again?”

As hundreds of people passed through the church to view the coffin, a crowd of protesters ebbed and flowed on the streets outside, swelling to about 500 people by the time the funeral was over and Mr. Bell’s coffin was carried out of the church at 8:30 p.m. Many held signs that said, “Justice for Sean Bell,” and demonstrators denounced police brutality over loudspeakers, but the event was largely peaceful.

It was Mrs. Dorismond’s first such funeral since her son was killed, but others, like Nicholas Heyward, whose son was killed in 1994, could count off half a dozen.

In addition to his son, 13-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr., who was playing with a toy gun when he was killed by a housing officer in Brooklyn, recent victims of violent encounters with the police included Amadou Diallo, killed in a hail of 41 bullets in the Bronx; Malcolm Ferguson, a drug suspect whose death came only five days after officers were acquitted in Mr. Diallo’s death; Gidone Busch, a mentally ill man killed by the police in Brooklyn; Patrick Dorismond, killed by an undercover narcotics detective in Manhattan; and Sean Bell, killed in Queens when five undercover detectives opened fire on his car.

In the days before Mr. Bell’s funeral, the anguished club’s grapevine was in full operation: Mrs. Dorismond heard, but was not positive, that Mrs. Diallo, whose son was killed in 1999, would come from Maryland.

Mrs. Diallo, meanwhile, was in close contact with the mothers of Gidone Busch, whom she speaks to every month, and Timothy Stansbury Jr., an unarmed man killed in 2004, but neither was able to attend the Bell funeral.

Mr. Heyward had said he was going and was pleased to hear that Mrs. Dorismond was coming. Juanita Young, whose son Malcolm Ferguson was killed in 2000, told Mr. Heyward, now a very close friend, that she really wanted to go, but he talked her out of it because she had just been released from the hospital.

“I know what the families are going through right now,” Mr. Heyward had said before the funeral. “It’s really, really tough right now. Right now they are completely lost. Sometimes you may think they are all right, but they are completely lost.”

Mrs. Dorismond recalled feeling exactly that way in the chaotic and surreal days after her son’s death, which a grand jury found to be unintentional and which resulted in no charges against the officer.

There was also the overlaying public spectacle, with protests at her son’s funeral erupting in violence and dozens of people being arrested. There were marches, with the Rev. Al Sharpton by Mrs. Dorismond’s side, the constant glare of television cameras, a public battle between the Dorismonds and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Mrs. Dorismond’s and Mrs. Diallo’s meeting with Gov. George E. Pataki.

Two weeks after her son died, Mrs. Dorismond, a retired pediatric nurse, said she was looking out the window of her fourth-floor apartment in East Flatbush, where she had lived for 30 years, and saw a dead body on the building’s steps. Mrs. Dorismond and her husband, André, a well-known singer among Haitians whom fans called the “Haitian Frank Sinatra,” had already decided to move to Florida, where they were building a house.

The body, appearing so soon after their son’s death, persuaded them to leave New York as quickly as possible, and they settled in the quiet town of Port St. Lucie with their daughter, Marie, 35, and one of Patrick Dorismond’s two daughters, Infinity, now 11.

As she made her way from the bus terminal to a friend’s car on Thursday and rode to Brooklyn, where she is staying with a brother in East Flatbush, Mrs. Dorismond’s anger boiled up. With every passing police car, every sound of a siren, she fumed.

“You might as well stay away,” Mrs. Dorismond said. “You cannot live with Satan. New York City is like a jungle place.”

Mr. Dorismond’s other daughter, Destiny, 7, is living with her mother in New York. The city settled a civil lawsuit in the case and paid the family $2.25 million. Mrs. Dorismond said all the money was in a trust fund for her son’s daughters, who will be allowed access to what she estimated would grow to $10 million only after they turn 25.

Mrs. Dorismond, who spent yesterday morning on Flatbush Avenue having her nails and hair done for the Sean Bell funeral, said that both of the girls talked about wanting to become police officers, “so they can find out what really happened.”

Infinity seems especially focused on what happened to her father, writing songs that she sings aloud to him, asking her aunt and grandmother all kinds of questions.

“I am young and I don’t know,” begins one of Infinity’s songs. “I’m going to be a police, I want to know how they killed you.”

For a while, her aunt said, Infinity worried about what her father was wearing when he was buried.

“Did my daddy have shoes on his feet when he was in the box?” she asked her aunt.

“No shoes, I don’t think so,” Ms. Dorismond replied. “But he was buried in a cream suit.”

Sean Bell was buried in a pinstriped suit, and yesterday Mrs. Dorismond and Mrs. Diallo spent four hours sitting next to each other, catching up — Mrs. Diallo is now the grandmother of triplets; Mrs. Dorismond has retired — and watching mourners file by the coffin.

When Mr. Bell’s mother, Valerie, approached her son’s body, Mrs. Dorismond burst into tears and laid her head on Mrs. Diallo’s shoulder.

A few minutes later Mrs. Dorismond and Mrs. Diallo walked over to the next pew, introduced themselves to Ms. Bell and said they were sorry. The three of them hugged, and Ms. Bell told the two other mothers she was sorry, too, for their losses.

When they returned to their seats, Mrs. Diallo said, “She’s numb.”

Mrs. Dorismond said, “I know.”

Posted by lois at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

Great Britian: "Will You Be Able to Invest In Prisons?"

BBC NEWS followed by an article from The Guardian
Will you be able to invest in prisons?
By Ian Pollock
Personal finance reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/6198408.stm Links to otherarticles, graphs about British prisons and the prison system.

Asking the public to become the landlords of new prisons, with the prisoners as the tenants, may seem a strange idea. But it appears to be one that has, at the very least, crossed the minds of Home Office officials.

The Home Office has already said it wants to expand its prisons, or build enough new ones, to hold an extra 8,000 inmates during the next six years. Where to get the money? is the question. And one possible answer is: from the general public.

"We are currently planning for the private sector to raise the finance to build any new prisons, which has been the model for the last 15 years," said the Home Office.

Property is thrift

The proposal hinges on a new investment vehicle called a Real Estate Investment Trust - or Reit for short - which will come into existence at the start of next year.These will be conventional property investment companies, but with significant tax advantages. They will not have to pay corporation tax on their income from rent, or on the capital gain they make on any sales of UK properties.And 90% of rental income must be given as dividends to the shareholders.

Nice for the shareholders.

Already some of the UK's biggest property firms have decided to take advantage of this and convert to the new tax status, come the New Year. The rules:it's not an investment where people can invest in small scale property companies So, could an existing or new firm set up in business as a Reit for the specific purpose of building and running prisons? This seems tricky, at least under the present rules.

Firstly, Reits have to be companies that have their shares traded on a recognised stock exchange. And they will have to own at least three properties. According to Oliver Gilmartin, an economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, "It's not an investment where people can invest in small scale property companies."

Building a prison for letting to the government in the future is allowed in principle.But three-quarters of profits in a Reit have to come from letting properties, which would rule out most pure construction companies.Furthermore, 75% of the value of the Reit's assets must be made up of those properties.So you would not get the tax advantages of being a Reit if your construction activity infringed on those limits.

Investment potential

Some would-be investors might regard that as a pity. The prisons, once built, could be let to the government on a long lease. This would guarantee a nice, predictable flow of income for the shareholders.You just have to regard prisoners as long-term, social tenants, whose rent is paid by the government. Given the government's - and the public's - enthusiasm for locking up criminals, there would probably be few problems with what landlords call void periods, ie unlet prison cells.But what about wear and tear? Or riot damage? Malcolm Harrison of the Association of Rental Letting Agents (ARLA) said: "Who is going to judge fair wear and tear? I'm not quite sure."

Cunning plans

Currently 11 prisons in the UK are managed by private companies such as GSL, Serco and G4S Justice Services.

Some new prisons have been built through the government's Private Finance Initiative.

Under this, private companies are paid to build, maintain and service buildings - such as schools, hospitals, roads and, indeed, prisons - in return for guaranteed payments for, say, 25 or 30 years, after which the building becomes public property.

So the government has no problem with cunning new ideas to bring in private finance for public projects.

But with the rules as they are, it is no wonder that a Home Office spokeswoman said: "We have not given any serious consideration to Reits, but are always ready to look at innovative ideas that could help us to build places more quickly and cost effectively." Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/12/01 15:58:06 GMT
Timeline of British Prisonshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4887704.stm

AND

Public to be sold shares in new prisons
'Buy-to-let' scheme planned to fund building of 8,000 new jail places Alan Travis, home affairs editor Friday December 1, 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,1961501,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

Guardian
The public are to be offered the chance to purchase shares in new prisons under a "buy to let" scheme being considered by the Home Office, it emerged yesterday.

The idea has been floated in an attempt to overcome the refusal of the chancellor, Gordon Brown, to find the extra money needed for 8,000 new prison places at a time when the service is at breaking point.

Home Office finance directors, who are looking for alternative ways of funding the next wave of new prisons, hope that the public can be tempted to invest in a new-style property company that would build jails and then rent them out to private prison operators. This would provide a steady guaranteed dividend from the "rental income".

One incentive for small investors is that the government's punitive penal policy has seen prison numbers rise relentlessly over the past 10 years and would appear to guarantee a steady stream of rental income with no apparent shortage of prison "tenants".

The prison population in England and Wales passed the 80,000 mark for the first time this week, with 85 of the 139 prisons in England and Wales officially declared to be overcrowded. The Home Office confirmed last night that it was considering a number of proposals, but the probation officers' union described the "buy to let" scheme as absurd.

The home secretary, John Reid, is under severe pressure to find the new prison places, but a standstill budget for the Home Office for the foreseeable future means it could take several years to fund and build the new prisons, all of which are to be privately run.

Over the summer the home secretary said he had won cabinet backing for 8,000 extra prison places, with 4,000 to be provided in existing jails and a further 4,000 in three "super-prisons" each housing 1,300 inmates, double the normal capacity. The model uses "real estate investment trusts" (Reits) which are to be launched by the Treasury in January and will enjoy tax exemptions.

They are designed to encourage a wider range of investors in property. This model has already been used in the United States by the Corrections Corporation of America to finance several new privately run jails. According to a Home Office source quoted by Building magazine, finance officials will be considering the option over the coming weeks.

Under the proposed system, the prison operator would rent the facility from the Reit and the income would be channelled back to the investors. Private prison contracts tend to be long-term in Britain, with 25-year leases common.

A Home Office spokeswoman said final decisions had not been made about providing the extra 8,000 prison places; she confirmed that the government was considering proposals for funding their construction through a number of means.

Harry Fletcher of Napo, the probation officers' union, said: "The Treasury has refused to finance a conventional prison-building programme so Mr Reid is having to go to extreme lengths to find the money. Under this scheme shareholders would have a vested interest in seeing that the jails were full as the more rent that would come in, the higher the dividends."

He said it was an absurd proposition and wondered what safeguards there would be to ensure that organised crime networks did not invest heavily and buy up the new jails.

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

NM: As Prisons Fill, N.M gets out checkbook

As prisons fill, N.M. gets out checkbook

By Kate Nash
Friday, December 1, 2006

The number of people in U.S. prisons and probation programs has risen to record levels, a federal report says, and New Mexico is one of many states struggling to keep up with the financial demand.

The price tag for housing prisoners and keeping tabs on those out on parole and probation will cost state taxpayers an extra $37.2 million next year, officials say.

That's how much more money the state Department of Corrections will ask for in 2007 to deal with the growing number of people who live in lockups.

The money, if approved by lawmakers who meet starting in January, would add to the department's budget of $240.7 million.

"We think everybody understands that we have an increased population and that takes money," said Tia Bland, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections.

Among other things, the money would be used to hire 17 additional probation and parole officers, she said.

The department also needs cash for new and expanding prisons. Next year, the department will add 240 beds to the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility near Santa Rosa.

And by the end of 2008, a privately run prison in Clayton will open. Most of the prisoners in that 600-bed lockup will be state inmates.

Bland said that on Thursday, the state had 6,646 inmates in custody and another 19,329 people on probation and parole. That figure isn't the highest it's ever been, but the number - mirroring inmate populations across the country - is on the rise.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Michael Sanchez, a Belen Democrat, said it looks like the department will need more money.

"Definitely, we are at capacity," he said.

Sanchez said he'd also like to see the state focus on alternatives to incarceration for carefully screened nonviolent offenders.

"I'm a strong believer in diversionary programs," he said. "I don't think they've been explored enough.

"Since there is overcrowding like there is, I'd rather see us use diversionary programs because it is so expensive to build a new prison."

Gov. Bill Richardson, re-elected last month to a second term, has said he will not build another state prison.

New Mexico has state and privately run prisons and houses inmates in a variety of locations, including the Metropolitan Detention Center on Albuquerque's West Side.

Bernalillo County's deputy county manager in charge of public safety, John Dantis, said about 40 percent of the population at MDC are state inmates, including sentenced felons.

On Thursday, the population was 2,432.

Public safety officials are working with judges on the Community Custody Program, one way to help keep the population in check.

The current population is "over the design and the rated capacity of the facility, so that's why we are working with the judges," he said.

The city and county for years have battled inmate population. Several years ago, the MDC was opened under a court order to keep the population to a daily cap in the old Downtown jail.

New Mexico has a storied history of prison uprisings, including most recently a riot in the private prison in Hobbs and in a fatal stabbing in the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility in 1999. E.W. Scripps Co. C 2006 The Albuquerque Tribune http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/dec/01/prisons-fill-nm-gets-out-checkbook/

Posted by lois at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2006

World AIDS Day-Advocates Call to Lift Federal Ban on Syringe Exchange

World AIDS Day: Advocates Call to Lift Federal Ban on Syringe Exchange -
Take Politics Out of HIV Prevention

NATIONWIDE -- The Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC), a national healtand human rights advocacy group working to reduce drug-related harm, calls on Congress and the Administration to take action on World AIDS Day, December 1, to support syringe exchange programs as a proven, effective strategy to prevent HIV infection.

Extensive research demonstrates that syringe exchange is a highly successful, cost-effective intervention that reduces HIV transmission among injection drug users. Syringe exchange has gained the endorsement of a broad range of prestigious public health, medical and scientific experts and professional associations, and a majority of the American people support syringe exchange programs. Nearly 200 syringe exchange programs operate in the United States.

However, the U.S. government refuses to fund syringe exchange, both domestically and internationally. Congress has maintained a ban on the use of any federal monies for syringe exchange, starving programs of vital resources and contradicting effective public health strategies. Similarly, the White House has vehemently opposed syringe exchange in the global fight against AIDS.

Over a third of AIDS cases in the United States result from shared syringes and sexual transmission of HIV from infected injection drug users to their partners. Similarly, an estimated one third of all HIV cases outside of sub-Saharan Africa stem from injection drug use.

The AIDS epidemic will continue to spread unless government leaders on all level - local, state, federal, and international - embrace and support syringe exchange. In accordance with the World AIDS Day theme of accountability, we demand accountability from Congress and Administration:

- Strike language in appropriations bills that ban use of federal funds for syringe exchange

- Direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to allow use of HIV prevention funds for syringe exchange domestically

- Instruct the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator to allow use of HIV prevention funds for syringe exchange internationally
# # # #

For more information about the Harm Reduction Coalition, visit http://www.harmreduction.org/

Posted by lois at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

Happy Meth Awareness Day

"A supply-side strategy has failed for every drug it has been tried on.
There are a number of reasons why it does not work, but chief among them is basic economics. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be a supply to meet it. But a wide range of special interests benefit from this failed strategy, including law enforcement agencies, private prisons, prison guard unions and the drug testing industry."

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/113006meth.cfm

Drug Policy Alliance
Drug Policy News

Happy Meth Awareness Day
November 30, 2006

President Bush has declared today National Methamphetamine Awareness Day.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061128.html

Although methamphetamine abuse and illegal meth labs have recently become subjects of intense national concern, state and federal policymakers have actually been grappling with both problems for more than 40 years (the first illegal U.S. meth lab was discovered in the early 1960s.) The national strategy for dealing with the drug is the same now as it was then: incarcerate as many methamphetamine offenders as possible and hope for the best. This punitive strategy has devastated families and failed to make America safer. In fact, the problems associated with methamphetamine abuse -crime, addiction, child neglect, the spread of HIV/AIDS, etc. - are greater now than they were 40 years ago.

Before you run out to Hallmark to pick up a Happy Meth Awareness Day card for your significant other, here are some questions to consider.

1) Why is the government pursuing a strategy towards methamphetamine that has been failing for 40 years?

For decades policymakers have claimed that restricting access to the chemicals used to illegally make methamphetamine and putting methamphetamine offenders in jail are the ³silver bullets² needed to solve meth-related problems. This is in line with their strategy on other illegal drugs. Most of the money spent dealing with cocaine and heroin, for instance, has gone to unsuccessful attempts to reduce availability of the drugs by stopping their production in Latin America, interdicting them at the border, and incarcerating as many drug offenders as possible. Hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of arrests later, illegal drugs remain cheap, potent, and widely available in every community. A supply-side strategy has failed for every drug it has been tried on. There are a number of reasons why it does not work, but chief among them is basic economics. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be a supply to meet it. But a wide range of special interests benefit from this failed strategy, including law enforcement agencies, private prisons, prison guard unions and the drug testing industry.

2) Why do elected officials, law enforcement officers and the media continue to ignore science and repeat the myths that methamphetamine is uniquely addictive and people who use it are hooked for life?

Contrary to the myths, treatment for methamphetamine abuse is very effective. A 2003 survey of treatment approaches published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment concluded ³that clients who report methamphetamine abuse respond favorably to existing treatment.² A study in Washington State found that ³there were no statistically significant differences across a series of outcomes between clients using methamphetamine and those using other substances.² In fact, there have been at least twenty recent studies showing the efficacy of methamphetamine treatment.

In an open letter to the media last year, dozens of treatment professionals warned that the myth that abuse of methamphetamine cannot be treated is causing great harm:

"Claims that methamphetamine users are virtually untreatable with small recovery rates lack foundation in medical research. Analysis of dropout, retention in treatment and re-incarceration rates and other measures of outcome, in several recent studies indicate that methamphetamine users respond in an equivalent manner as individuals admitted for other drug abuse problems."

Of the estimated 12 million Americans who have tried methamphetamine, only 1.5 million have used it in the last year; and only 583,000 have used it within the last 30 days. The truth is most people who try meth never end up addicted to it and meth addiction is treatable. Meth addiction can cause serious harm to individuals, their families, and their communities; but there¹s no reason to panic. Unfortunately, sowing the seeds of hysteria is profitable ­ to the politicians who gain votes, to the law enforcement agencies that get budget increases, and to the newspapers that sell papers.

3) What role does lack of access to health care play in meth-related problems?

Methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug that doctors can prescribe to treat narcolepsy, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and exogenous obesity under the brand name Desoxyn. Teenagers are sometimes forced to take methamphetamine (and other stimulants) to treat ADD; but adults who use street meth are arrested and thrown in jail. Does this make sense?

How many people arrested for methamphetamine abuse are knowingly or unknowingly using black market drugs to deal with ADD, depression, trauma, and other medical conditions? What role does the lack of access to health care generally, and prescription drugs specifically, play in perpetuating methamphetamine abuse? Would meth use decrease if poor and middle class Americans could afford Adderall, Ritalin, Prozac and other drugs?

4) How much of the meth problem is rooted in America¹s ³workaholic² culture?

The broad appeal of methamphetamine may be due to the fact that the drug¹s effects closely mirror desirable goals in society. It offers seemingly limitless productivity, better sex, weight loss and strong feelings of self-confidence and happiness ­ at least in the short-run. Its use, like the use of stimulants in general (from coffee and Red Bull to Adderall and cocaine), is deeply embedded in our culture which emphasizes working harder, looking better, and fitting a week¹s work of activity into every day.

As the long lines at Starbucks show, the demand for stimulants in the U.S. is very strong. But for many, short-lasting mild stimulants like coffee and Red Bull are not enough. That¹s one reason why millions of Americans have used methamphetamine, cocaine and other illegal drugs.

This begs the question; could policymakers reduce the demand for methamphetamine by increasing the availability of safer, legal drugs that promote wakefulness, vigilance and alertness? To be effective as a policy measure, such stimulants would have to be longer lasting and more potent than caffeine, but without the negative side effects of methamphetamine and cocaine.

5) Why are policymakers short-changing women?

Unlike other illegal drugs, women use methamphetamine at rates similar to men. They also face unique obstacles to recovery, which can range from being the primary caretaker of their children to being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. Yet, a 2004 government study found that only 30% of treatment facilities in the U.S. have unique programs for women. Only 14% have special programs for pregnant or postpartum women. Less than 10% of treatment programs in the United States provide child care, and only 4% provide residential beds for children. Why haven¹t policymakers increased treatment resources for pregnant and parenting women? And given that fear of losing custody of their children keeps many women with substance abuse problems from seeking help, why haven¹t they adopted policies that shield parents who seek drug treatment from having their children taken away?

6) Why are policymakers ignoring the growing public health threat posed by methamphetamine abuse?

Since meth can dramatically increase both stamina and confidence, it is heavily associated with high-risk sexual behavior, which can spread HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Sharing of syringes among people who use meth intravenously is also a factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as the spread of hepatitis C and other infectious diseases. The strong presence of meth in rural areas, combined with the significant shortage of both drug treatment and HIV/AIDS prevention resources in those areas, make it a growing public health threat. Its growing use in urban areas, most notably in the gay party scene, poses very significant threats there too. Even though thousands will die, policymakers have failed to make sterile syringes widely available. Why?

7) What if the billions of dollars wasted each year incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders was invested in drug treatment instead?

No state guarantees treatment to anyone who wants it; but California guarantees treatment to anyone arrested for simple drug possession. The law, enacted by California voters in 2000 as Proposition 36, diverts approximately 35,000 persons from jail to drug treatment every year‹over half of whom identify methamphetamine as their primary drug. A recent evaluation by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) found that California taxpayers are saving nearly $2.50 for every dollar invested in the program. The program is estimated to have saved state and local government more than $1 billion over the last five years, while reducing crime and keeping families together. But, people with substance abuse problems shouldn¹t have to get arrested to get treatment. Policymakers should ensure that treatment is available to all who need it, whenever they need it, and as often as they need it.

Posted by lois at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)