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February 28, 2007

Peter H. Morse-Pioneer and Leader in Harm Reduction Policy and Practice

San Francisco Chronicle - January 19, 2007 Peter H. Morse, Jr. 36, a pioneer and leader in harm reduction policy and practice, passed away on January 13, 2007. Dr. Morse was fiercely committed to protecting the health and well-being of drug users and their communities by reducing drug-related harm. His work in these areas has helped make harm reduction part of public policy and public consciousness. As the Naloxone Distribution Program Coordinator for the Drug Overdose Prevention Education (D.O.P.E.) Project of San Francisco, Dr. Morse helped to forge a groundbreaking partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to provide naloxone at needle exchange sites throughout the city. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that counters the deadly effects of overdose by heroin or other opiates. Dr. Morse helped establish and advised numerous syringe exchange programs throughout the country. He has been a member of the advisory board of the North American Syringe Exchange Network since 2001. He was currently serving as the advisory board chair for the Homeless Youth Alliance, an agency that provides critical services, including syringe exchange, to homeless youth in San Francisco. He was a member of the Injection Drug User Taskforce of the California HIV Planning Group, and was appointed to the San Francisco HIV Prevention Planning Council Substance Use and Structural Interventions Committee. Dr. Morse currently worked as the Project Coordinator of the Harm Reduction Coalition Syringe Exchange Technical Assistance Program and was working to expand syringe access in California. He was a longtime volunteer at the San Francisco Needle Exchange, and before that at the syringe exchange of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center when he lived in New York City. He was also a member of the Moving Equipment Syringe Distribution Collective of New York City. Dr. Morse also worked as an interviewer, counselor, and project coordinator for University of California San Francisco's UFO Study, a hepatitis prevention focused health study of injection drug using youth. Dr. Peter H. Morse was born in Royal Oak, Michigan. He was educated at DePauw University, and received his doctorate in history from Binghamton University in 2006. In his research, he worked to understand the role of race and gender in the formation of political identity by members of radical industrial organizations in the United States during the early twentieth century He was an avid bibliophile and political activist, and was a member of the Bound Together Anarchist Book Collective. Dr. Morse was also a DJ, bringing electronic dance music to people in New York City, San Francisco, the Nevada Test Site, and Black Rock City, Nevada. Pete Morse is survived by his partner of 11 years, Liz Turner. The couple lived in Berkeley, California. He is also survived by his parents Pete and Patty Morse of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; his sister Carrie Morse of Washington, D.C. and his brother and sister-in-law, Dan and Meredith Morse of Berkley, Michigan. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to: Tenderloin Health/Homeless Youth Alliance, Attention: Mary Howe, P.O. Box 170427, San Francisco, CA 94117.

Posted by lois at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)

LA Times: Immigrants Boost Pay, Not Prison Populations, New Studies Show

LA TIMES, 02-28-07
Immigrants boost pay, not prison populations, new studies show
Immigrants are less likely to go to prison than U.S.-born residents of the same ethnic group and they boost pay for natives, research says.

By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
February 28, 2007

Two new studies by California researchers counter negative perceptions that immigrants increase crime and job competition, showing that they are incarcerated at far lower rates than native-born citizens and actually help boost their wages.

A study released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California found that immigrants who arrived in the state between 1990 and 2004 increased wages for native workers by an average 4%.

UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri, who conducted the study, said the benefits were shared by all native-born workers, from high school dropouts to college graduates, because immigrants generally perform complementary rather than competitive work.

As immigrants filled lower-skilled jobs, they pushed natives up the economic ladder into employment that required more English or know-how of the U.S. system, he said.

"The big message is that there is no big loss from immigration," Peri said. "There are gains, and these are enjoyed by a much bigger share of the population than is commonly believed."

Another study released Monday by the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center showed that immigrant men ages 18 to 39 had an incarceration rate five times lower than native-born citizens in every ethnic group examined. Among men of Mexican descent, for instance, 0.7% of those foreign-born were incarcerated compared to 5.9% of native-born, according to the study, co-written by UC Irvine sociologist Ruben G. Rumbaut.

Both studies are based on U.S. census data, which includes both legal and illegal immigrants. They were released just days before the U.S. Congress is to restart debate on major immigration reform legislation and as numerous states, including Texas, consider harsh measures against illegal migrants.

The authors say their work shows that immigrants clearly benefit U.S. residents and are being unfairly scapegoated for problems they do not cause.

"There are grossly distorted perceptions between what people think about immigrants and the reality," Rumbaut said. "The old bromide that education is the way to reduce prejudice comes into play here."

Immigration hawks, however, took issue with both studies.

Steven Camarota of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies said the wage study, by examining immigrants only in California, failed to consider their effect on the rest of the country. Immigrants working for lower wages in a California factory, for instance, could keep wages down in a competing enterprise staffed by native-born citizens in another state, he said.

Immigrants, who make up one-third of California's labor force, could also be discouraging natives from moving to the state and taking advantage of higher-paying job opportunities, Camarota said.

And, by examining only wage effects, the study failed to address the declining percentage of native-born adults working in California, Camarota said. Their share of the workforce declined from 65% in 2000 to 62% in 2005, one of the lowest in the country, which could be caused by competition from immigrants, he said.

"The idea that immigrants compete only with other immigrants is absurd on its face," he said, adding that no industry in America employs only immigrants.

Peri said, however, that his study's more detailed analysis of California's employment trends showed no displacement of native-born workers. Other studies have shown that immigration has had a negative effect on African American high school dropouts. But those conclusions were rooted in different assessments of whether blacks performed the same work as immigrants, he said.

Of the crime study, Camarota said the U.S. government had failed to systematically collect 2000 Census data on immigration status from prisons and other institutions. The study's foundational data are therefore flawed, he argued.

But Rumbaut defended his study, saying the results were consistent with other research stretching back a century. They include national immigration studies conducted in 1911 and 1994, work by two Princeton economists examining 1980 and 1990 census data and more recent analyses of homicide rates in three border cities.

The co-author of the crime study was Walter A. Ewing, a research associate at the Immigration Policy Center. Among other findings, the study showed that the gap in incarceration rates between native-born and foreign-born men was wider in California. Incarceration rates, which rose the longer an immigrant was in the country, were highest among high school dropouts. Those of Asian descent generally showed lower incarceration rates and higher educational levels than Latinos.

Despite the data, Rumbaut said, many continue to perpetuate images of crime-prone immigrants.

Last year, the study says, President Bush blamed illegal immigrants for bringing crime to their communities, as did the city of Hazleton, Pa., in passing an ordinance barring them from renting homes or working.
The problem of crime in American society today is overwhelmingly a problem of natives, not immigrants," Rumbaut said.

In the wage study, Peri examined immigration flows and wages of California workers between 1960 and 2004 using U.S. Census data.

It found that immigrants did not worsen the job opportunities of natives with similar education and experience during the entire period.

The benefit for native-born workers ranged from a 0.2% wage increase for high school dropouts to 6.7% for those with some college, the study showed.

However, the study found that other immigrants suffered wage declines by as much as 20%.

"The findings would seem to defuse one of the most inflammatory issues for those who advocate measures aimed at 'protecting the livelihood of American citizens,' " the study said.

*
graphs at this url:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-me-immigstudy28feb28,1,4004926.story?page=2&cset=true&ctrack=1

Posted by lois at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

Texas Talks Tough on Illegal Immigrants

Texas talks tough on illegal immigrants

Lawmakers push some of the harshest immigration-related measures in the United States.

By Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff Writer

February 27, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigtexas27feb27,0,391356,full.story?coll=la-home-nation

AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Lone Star State has long welcomed Latino immigrants, no matter how they got across the state's 1,200-mile border with Mexico.

Back when California voted to cut public services to illegal immigrants, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush was preaching that immigrants were equal players in the state's economy.

But the atmosphere has changed markedly in Texas, home to about 10% of the nation's illegal immigrants.

Now, a growing chorus of Republicans and some Democrats is pushing some of the harshest immigration-related measures in the United States — laws that would not only deny public services to illegal immigrants but strip their American-born children of benefits as well.

The proposal to deny services to American citizens, which is thought to be the first in the country, is part of a push to challenge the citizenship given automatically to children born in this country to illegal immigrants.

Prior rulings have affirmed that nearly all such children were entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. But some legal scholars have questioned whether the amendment, which redefined national citizenship to include the children of slaves after the Civil War, should cover babies born to foreign parents.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated last year that more than 3 million U.S. citizens were born to illegal immigrant parents.

"The Texas bill could be a vehicle to get this before the courts, and we strongly support that," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been pushing Congress to revisit the 14th Amendment. "There is no question that it is time for a review, given the number of people entering the country illegally and giving birth."

Texas' shift toward a more incendiary brand of immigration politics comes at a time when many state lawmakers are frustrated that Washington has failed to stop illegal immigration. Few think President Bush's moderate proposals, which include a guest worker program and enhanced border security, will help much, even if they are approved by Congress.

State Rep. Leo Berman, the Republican legislator who wrote the bill to deny benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, admits that his goal is to set off a fight in the federal courts.

His legislation has been compared to Proposition 187, which was ruled unconstitutional after California voters approved it in 1994, but it goes further. It would deny citizens born to illegal immigrants numerous state services, including unemployment benefits and the ability to obtain professional licenses.

"A pregnant illegal alien can wait at the border, check into a hospital in Texas, give birth without paying a penny, and be rewarded for her illegal behavior," Berman said. "That's outrageous."

Berman's bill is one of more than two dozen proposals targeting illegal immigration in Texas. Other measures would tax money that illegal immigrants wire abroad; require patients to prove they are in the country legally before receiving state medical services; eliminate in-state college tuition breaks for illegal immigrants; and require state agencies to do a thorough accounting of how much illegal immigration is costing the state. Texas is home to about 1 million to 2 million illegal immigrants.

"Why should illegal immigrants, who by virtue of being in the country have broken the law, be able to get the same state services as a citizen?" asked state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas who is proposing one of several measures to tax remittances to Mexico. He said his legislation was one way to raise money for healthcare programs.

Texas politicians say that proposing such laws would have been unimaginable a decade ago. During his days as governor, Bush regularly praised the cultural and economic contributions Latino immigrants were making to the state. His political strategy paid off: He won 40% of the Latino vote in 1998, a number previously considered unreachable for a Republican.

Bush's approach was a stark contrast from the immigration politics in California during the tenure of Gov. Pete Wilson, who backed Proposition 187, using it to win reelection.

"California has always been more liberal than Texas, but yet the treatment of immigration issues has been night and day," said Rogelio Saenz, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University.

The Texas Republican Party added hard-line immigration language to its platform last year in response to the demands of its conservative base. It included the line "No amnesty! No how. No way," and a call to "suspend automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to illegal immigrant parents," the idea now proposed by Berman.

Latino leaders say they are stunned by the Texas proposals to deny services to children. They promise retaliation at the ballot box.

"How could anyone be so mean-spirited?" said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights group, which originated in Texas. "We're just going to have to get the community out to show these representatives that we matter."

For undocumented Texans such as Ofelia Lopez, the state's push to get tough on illegal immigrants elicits sadness as much as fear. Lopez , who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico seven years ago with the hope that she could give her children a better life, has two daughters, one 3 years old and one 6 months old, who are U.S. citizens.

"I don't think the solution is to deny children the opportunity to become better people. That's not going to help anyone," said Lopez, 35, who also has a 15-year-old daughter born in Mexico who is attending a Texas high school. "That's not going to stop people from coming here. People are coming here because it's the only way to survive."

Last year, state lawmakers nationwide proposed a record 570 immigration measures, and 84 were signed into law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The group predicts that immigration will again be among the hottest state issues in 2007.

In Texas, Democratic state Rep. Pete Gallego, head of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the House, said that though some of the new proposals were harsh, a few might have momentum, particularly the bills to tax wire transfers.

"People are appalled at how hard core some of these things are," Gallego said. "We will have a fight."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican who talked tough on illegal immigration during his reelection campaign last year, has tempered his rhetoric in recent weeks, and sounded a message of compassion and unity during his oath-of-office address last month. He has singled out Berman's proposal as divisive.

Berman counters that his bill may not make him the darling of Austin's lobbyists or the governor, but he is convinced his cause is popular.

"My mail is running 30 to 1 in favor of what I am trying to do," he said.

"This problem is costing Texas money. Texas has to act."

Posted by lois at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

PA: First Commutation since 2003

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:38:41 -0500
Organization: CURE International

All-

One month into his second term of office, Governor Rendell has commuted the life sentence of Michael Anderson who has served 36 years on a first degree homicide conviction. The Governor signed the clemency documents on February 8, almost four years after the Pardons Board recommended Anderson by a 4-0 vote. It was the first commutation of a life sentence since 2003 when outgoing interim Governor Mark Schweiker extended clemency to Ricki Pinkins. The next commutation occurred in the waning hours of Bob Casey's term when he extended clemency to Louis Mickens Thomas. Anderson will have to serve one year in a half way house before being released on parole.

On a related note, the Pardons Board plans to consider Angus Love's appeal for reconsideration of the status of two cases - Jackie Lee Thompson and Keith O. Smith - who received 4-1 votes from the board and are in limbo awaiting further rulings by the courts. District Judge Richard Caputo has ruled that the 1997 referendum violated the "ex post facto" protections in the U.S. Constitution and that cases that predate the 1997 ballot should be considered under the old, majority rule in the Pardons Board. Despite the ruling, the board has refused to forward the two cases to the governor.

It's been a long time since we've seen any measure of compassion in this criminal justice system. Let's enjoy this little victory.

--Bill

William DiMascio
Executive Director
Pennsylvania Prison Society
245 N Broad Street, Suite 300
Philadelphia, PA 19107
www.prisonsociety.org

Posted by lois at 08:36 AM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2007

Raymondville: Inside the Largest Immigration Prison Camp in the U.S.

Raymondville: Inside the Largest Immigration Prison Camp in the US
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/23/1536249

The largest immigrant prison camp is in Raymondville, Texas. Some two thousand undocumented immigrants are currently being held in the prison awaiting deportation. We speak with Jodi Goodwin, an immigration lawyer representing a number of immigrants being held there.

The number of undocumented immigrants currently imprisoned in the United States has reached a record of more than twenty six thousand people. To keep pace with the increasing number of detainees, the government is rapidly expanding its federal immigration detention system. The largest immigrant prison camp is in Raymondville, Texas - in the remote southern tip of the state. Some two thousand undocumented immigrants are currently being held in the prison awaiting deportation. The $65 million jail was built last summer by the Management Training Corporation.

The Washington Post describes the Raymondville facility as a “futuristic tent city...made of Kevlar-like material” without windows and ringed by barbed wire. Many of those being held there say they have insufficient food, clothing, medical care and access to the outside world.

AMY GOODMAN: Staying with the immigration issue for another minute, we're going to go now to Jodi Goodwin, who is an immigration lawyer from Harlingen, Texas, about twenty miles from the Raymondville prison, that huge tent city. She represents a number of immigrants being held there. She's joining us on the phone today from Houston. Jodi Goodwin, you're one of the few lawyers who have gotten into the facility. Can you describe what it is?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, it looks like a large series of circus tents put up in the middle of a field. There's a cement foundation and a steel frame, like ribs, and then there’s canvas that’s stretched over the steel frame. And there's ten tents just like that, all in a row.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Jodi Goodwin, I’m very familiar with Raymondville and Willacy County. It's one of the poorest counties in the United States, largely Mexican American. Any sense of the reaction of the surrounding community to the erection of this enormous detention center?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, it's interesting, the reaction of the community, because it's mixed. It is one of the poorest counties in the United States, and the Rio Grande Valley in general in the five-county area is the poorest area in the United States. So the thought of vast employment, which the prison did provide, I think, was welcomed by the community, because it provided a wealth of jobs for an area that has high unemployment. Now, there's questions about the training that was available prior to the prison opening and, even still, you know, whether or not the people that were hired have appropriate training as of yet.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the people you represent in Raymondville -- you call, what is it that you call it? Ritmo?

JODI GOODWIN: Now made famous by the Washington Post, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Taking after Gitmo, Guantanamo. What kind of access to food, to healthcare? What is their treatment by the guards?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, I think generally the access to healthcare is good. But there have been rampant reports and repeated reports -- and I can't say whether these are isolated incidences or not, but there are repeated reports of my clients and other people that I’ve talked to at the detention center that aren't my clients, that indicate they would put in requests for sick calls to be seen by a doctor or one of the nurses at the public health service, and days would go by before those requests would be answered. Now, I know that ICE has responded to those types of complaints by saying that that's just not true, but I have heard repeatedly from my clients and those who are not my clients that that's the case.

I’ve also heard repeatedly and over time that food service is not consistent, in terms of the timing that food is served, that the quantity of the food that is being served is not fulfilling. I mean, I went to the detention center once about probably the last part of November last year, and I walked into one of the pods, and I just opened the door and said, “Buenos dias. Como estan todos?” And they responded to me, “Muriendo de hambre” -- “We're dying of hunger.” And, you know, this is just their immediate reaction to someone coming in and asking, “How are you?” Now, ICE has responded that they are providing food within the caloric limit that’s approved by dietary services, etc., etc.

But even recently, as most recently as two weeks ago, I had a client write to me a pleading letter asking for medical attention and decent food, because he had been served rancid milk days in a row, and he and other detainees in his pod were throwing up and had stomach problems, because they had been served spoiled food. So, you know, for whatever that's worth, I know ICE's comments are completely opposite to that, but that’s what the reports that I get from my clients and from detainees there are.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Jodi Goodwin, any sense of how long the average detainee is being held there? Clearly, after the Mariel boatlift years ago, or decades ago now, some of the Cuban migrants were held for years in detention by United States Immigration. What's the situation there?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, you know, it's interesting, because the facility went up so quickly. It was contracted in mid-June, and it was housing 500 detainees by mid-August. It was at least designed to be a temporary facility, and I’m not really sure what's the number limitation that ICE would use to refer to “temporary,” but I’ve seen many, many people detained at the facility two, three, four, five months, and then there are people that are detained at the facility that have been transferred around the country and eventually end up in Willacy County, probably because it's cheaper to house detainees down in Willacy County than it is in places like New York or Boston. But I’ve seen those people that come into Willacy County after already having been in immigration detention in various facilities around the country five, six months.

I saw a woman from Ghana that had been transferred around from five different facilities in an eight-month period of time, and she was supposedly only waiting to be deported. So why does it take eight months in five facilities to deport somebody to Ghana? I’m not really sure.

AMY GOODMAN: Can we talk for a minute about who built this facility, Management Corporation of America, a private company, and how it compares to the public prisons or the ones run by the Department of Homeland Security?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, actually, Management Training Corporation is a contractor who runs [inaudible] the operations at the facility. It was a different contractor who actually constructed the facility, and I can't remember the name of that contractor. It was a contractor out of Houston, actually.

And as far as how does it compare to ICE-run facilities? Oh, night and day. We have an ICE-run facility that's a fairly large detention center that's only about forty-five minutes away from the Raymondville facility. That’s the Port Isabel Detention Center, and that’s an ICE-run facility, as opposed to a contractor-run facility. And to compare the two, and Port Isabel is Club Med compared to Raymondville. In fact, when there’s discipline problems or when someone starts complaining about their conditions at Port Isabel, almost as a joke, but really and truly it's not taken in jest, they say, “Do you want me to send you to Willacy?” You know, that people would rather stay at Port Isabel than be sent to Willacy.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think, Jodi Goodwin, has to happen right now?

JODI GOODWIN: We need immigration reform. I think that there needs to be a comprehensive approach to reform. And, you know, reform has to encompass a lot of different aspects. We can't just settle on a guest-worker program. We can't just focus on enforcement. The reform aspect needs to encompass the people who are here, needs to encompass the need of American companies for workers. It needs to encompass enforcement and just enforcement of the law. It needs to have all of those aspects to be able to be effective. And I have my hopes that Congress can set aside some of their partisanship and do something that will actually work good and be acceptable to both sides of the issue.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what is your sense in a state like Texas and the other border states in your part of the country that clearly most feel the impact of the immigration issue, in terms of the willingness of both Democrats and Republicans this year to come up with some comprehensive immigration reform?

JODI GOODWIN: Well, it’s interesting. I’ve met with staffers in Washington, D.C. and talked to different representatives and senators with respect to the proposals. I think that there's a clear recognition by all of the border representatives in Congress that there's a problem and it needs to be dealt with. And the mere fact that they’re willing to start a dialogue on the issue, I think, is hopeful. It's gotten to a point that it's a crisis situation, so those individuals are, I think, finally realizing that they need to take action, now that they’ve recognized the issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Jodi Goodwin, I want to thank you for being with us, immigration lawyer from Harlingen, Texas, representing immigrants held in the Raymondville prison, about twenty miles from Harlingen. She was speaking to us from Houston.

Juan, as we wrap up today, there's an interesting editorial in the New York Times called "They Are America," that began, “Almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families slipped out from the shadows of American life and walked boldly in daylight through Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, New York and other cities. ‘We Are America,’ their banners cried. The crowds, determined but peaceful, swelled into an immense sea. The nation was momentarily stunned.”

And it goes on to talk about a lot that has happened since then. The country “summoned great energy to confront the immigration problem, but most of it has been misplaced, crudely and unevenly applied.”

“Border enforcement. What little the last Congress did about immigration was focused on appeasing hard-line conservatives by appearing to seal the border. President Bush’s new budget continues that approach, seeking 3,000 more Border Patrol officers and another $1 billion for a 700-mile fence, adding to the billions spent to militarize the border since the 1990s. That still isn’t enough to build the fence and it hasn’t controlled the illegal flow;” they say, “you need more visas and better workplace enforcement to do that. It has directed much traffic into the remote Southwest desert, making more immigrants vulnerable to smugglers and leaving many people dead.”

And then there's the federal raids, like at the Swift packing plant, the local crackdowns, the gutted due process, the web of suspicion, the rise of hate.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I think the reality is that, yes, there was a lot of attention last year, but nothing really emerged in terms of comprehensive immigration reform, and I do not see at this stage that there is any momentum, already in this new year, by this new congress, to address the immigration issue, and I think it's going to clearly necessitate another upsurge of mass protest to be able to even put it on the agenda, and I suspect that this spring we're going to see more of that.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it's interesting that the main goal of people who are organizing the protest was just to stop any immigration legislation from passing, because they felt in a Republican congress there could only be trouble. And yet, now the Democrats are in power. What have they done, and is it on their agenda?

JUAN GONZALEZ: No. As I said, I don’t think it is right now, and I think it’s going to necessitate both the corporations who are increasingly realizing the necessity to have comprehensive immigration reform, as well as a mass movement and the labor movement to put it on the agenda, because, otherwise, with the war and the other major issues confronting the country right now, it's going to continue to be pushed back in terms of addressing what is clearly needed as some kind of comprehensive immigration reform.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to link to your story on the NYU protest: "Find an Illegal Immigrant." The Republican club held it, and hundreds of students then wore little notes on them that said "illegal immigrant." Is that right?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. “I am an illegal immigrant.”

AMY GOODMAN: “I am an illegal immigrant.”

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

Human Rights Groups Call for Closure of Hutto Prison Holding Undocumented Immigrants

Human Rights Groups Call for Closure of Texas Jail Holding Undocumented Immigrants
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/23/1530247

Human rights groups are calling for the U.S. government to shut down a jail in Texas where about 200 immigrant children, some only infants, are being detained. Ten months ago the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began holding families in The Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas, owned by the private prison company, Corrections Corporations of America.

Many of the families held at the facility are seeking asylum in the United States. For months immigration officials refused to allow outside groups or the media into the center. But late last year researchers from the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service were allowed inside.

The two groups have just released a report titled “Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families.” Michelle Brane is co-author of the report. She is the director of the detention and asylum program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and she joins us from Washington, D.C. And with us here in New York is Immigration Attorney Joshua Bardavid. Earlier this week he filed a habeas petition on behalf of five members of a Palestinian family being held in another immigration prison in Texas.

We repeatedly called both the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Corrections Corporations of America to invite them on the program. They did not respond to our requests.

Michelle Brane. Director of the detention and asylum program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. She is co-author of the report “Locking Up Family Values.” Joshua Bardavid. Immigration attorney in New York. He is representing families held in immigration prisons in Texas.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Human rights groups are calling for the US government to shut down a jail in Texas, where about 200 immigrant children, some only infants, are being detained. Ten months ago, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement began holding families in the Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas, owned by the private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America. Many of the families held at the facility are seeking asylum in the United States. For months, immigration officials refused to allow outside groups or the media into the center, but late last year, researchers from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service were allowed inside.

AMY GOODMAN: The two groups have just released a report called “Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families.” Michelle Brane is co-author of the report. She’s the director of the Detention Asylum Program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. She joins us from Washington, D.C. And with us here in our firehouse studio is immigration attorney Joshua Bardavid. Earlier this week, he filed a habeas petition on behalf of five members of a Palestinian family being held in another immigration prison in Texas. We repeatedly called both the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, and the Corrections Corporation of America to invite them on the program. They didn't respond to our requests.

Let's begin with Michelle Brane in Washington, D.C. Can you talk about the major findings in your report, "Locking Up Family Values"?

MICHELLE BRANE: Sure. We were investigating the use of family detention by ICE overall, and they’re using two facilities to hold families. So we visited both the facility in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and the facility that you mentioned in Hutto in Texas. When we went to Texas, we went in on December 4th of 2006. And really, what we found is that it's a former prison that is now being used to house families, and it still looks and feels very much like a prison. And even though they've made some modifications to accommodate children, such as putting railings on the bunk beds and painting some murals, it doesn’t really change the fact that it’s a prison, and people in there are treated still very much like prisoners.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the people who being detained here, are these folks who have entered the country illegally? Are they largely asylum applicants?

MICHELLE BRANE: We weren’t able to get exact statistics on what percentage of the people being held there are asylum seekers, but it does appear that the majority of them are seeking asylum. Everybody who’s there is in some sort of immigration proceeding. Either they've been apprehended at the border crossing illegally, or they’ve -- some of them have been apprehended inside the country, and I think your other guest can speak to his clients in that case. So there's people in all sorts of proceedings, but what is interesting is that none of the people held at these facilities have any criminal charges pending against them, nor do they have any criminal backgrounds.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you give us, Michelle Brane, a historical context for locking up whole families?

MICHELLE BRANE: Sure. It's a fairly new thing to lock up families together as family units.
The Department of Homeland Security used to separate families, and before, INS. They sometimes held families in hotel rooms, but for the most part, families were either released, pending a hearing, or what they started to do post-9/11 more, as they kind of were ending the practice of releasing people to the community, was separating families. So they would take the adults in the family and put them in adult facilities -- you know, the mother in a facility for women, the father in a male facility -- and the children would be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office for Refugee Resettlement, who takes custody of unaccompanied children in these proceedings. And they would be responsible for them until the case was resolved.

When Congress heard about this, they expressed concern about separating families and instructed ICE to stop separating families. And, actually, what they recommended was that ICE use alternatives, such as a program that currently exists that is run by ICE called the Intensive [Supervision] Appearance Program. And what they recommended also was that if these programs couldn't be used and detention was necessary, that home-like non-penal environments be used.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you tell us about the conditions that you found in these centers and, specifically, the impact on the children of being locked up?

MICHELLE BRANE: Sure. I mean, the facility in Hutto, in particular, is -- I don’t think it can be described anywhere near a home-like non-penal environment. As I mentioned, it is a former prison that still looks and feels very much like a prison. Children, families sleep in cells at night, where children are very often separated from their parents. So at night, some children do remain in the cell with their parents, and others are separated into separate cells. It depends on family size, space and the age of the child. But children as young as six can be separated at night. And, in fact, at the Berks County facility, all children over five sleep separately from their parents. And at night, these parents cannot get to their children. So, many parents talked of their children crying at night or being sick at night and not being able to go to them. While the doors of the cells at the Hutto facility are not locked -- they’ve disengaged the locks on the cell doors -- there is a laser beam that shoots across the line of cells so that if a door is opened, an alarm would go off.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking with Michelle Brane, who is one of the people who just published this report, "Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families.” Joshua Bardavid is also with us, an immigration lawyer here in New York. Can you talk about your clients, the Hazahza family?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: The Hazahza family is actually being held at a different facility than the Hutto facility. They’re being held in Haskell, Texas, the Rolling Plains Regional Detention Center. Two members of the Hazahza family were held at Hutto, but have since been released: the mother and an eleven-year-old child. The remaining members of the family are being held in what is a county prison that holds violent criminal offenders, who are there -- some of whom are there for life. They are being held in absolute prison-like facility.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m going to break in for one minute, because we have just gotten a call from the Hutto detention facility. We're joined on the phone by an Iranian immigrant named Majid, from inside the Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas. He, his wife, his nine-year-old son Kevin have been held at the center for the past nineteen days. Majid, your story is quite a remarkable one. Can you tell us how you ended up at this Texas jail?

MAJID: Hello. Thanks for taking my call. I was on my way to go to Toronto, Canada, and my plane was -- after three hours in the flight, somebody died on the plane and had an emergency landing to Costa Rica. After that, they said everybody should come out. After that, we went out. Immigration, they said you need to have American visa. We had no American visa. And they hold us over there --

AMY GOODMAN: Now, just to be clear, you were never planning to end up in the United States, is that right? You were flying to Canada, but another passenger on the plane had a heart attack, and so you guys had a forced landing in Puerto Rico, and when you had to come out of the plane, while he was taken off the plane, that's when they took you?

MAJID: Yes. This happened, yes -- was a Canadian Zoom Airline, and our ticket was direct from Guyana to Toronto. And this happened. They hold us -- my son is Canadian -- hold child is nine-and-a-half years old, and they put us in detention in Puerto Rico. And from Monday to Friday, I was in the jail in Puerto Rico between criminal people, and my wife and son was other place. We had no news from each other from Monday morning until Friday at noon, until we see each other in a Puerto Rico airport. After that, they brought us here to Hutto Detention Center, and here we are in same part, but different room. My wife and my son is room, but it’s totally inside the room, uncovered toilet. My son has asthma, and he’s very bad and still comes here. It’s very horrible here. And we are in very bad situation. We need help. We need the people help me --

JUAN GONZALEZ: Majid, in other words, basically, what reason did they give you for holding you if you never intended to enter the United States at all? What reason did they give for locking you up?

MAJID: Because they said, “You have an American visa?” That's why you have to stay here. Just plane was waiting one hour for us, but they didn't let us pass. A few officers came. They said Immigration officers -- six, seven -- they said, “We’re going to send you, but let us make decision.” After that, they called the police chief. He came there. He said, “Let me think five minutes.” After five minutes, he came, he said, “I’m going to send you to Canada, but I’m afraid to lose my job. But usually we have to send with your plane, but we keep you here. America is much better than Canada. Here you have safer place. We send you to hotel, and after a few days, you're going to be free.” But they broke their promise. That's why they keep us here, and we have very bad situation here.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Do you know whether any other passengers on your plane were also detained in the same way, or was your family the only one, as far as you can tell?

MAJID: Only my family. No other passenger.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to say to our listeners and viewers, we are not giving your full name, we’re not showing your face at your request. You did apply for political asylum in Canada in the past when you lived there for ten years. You were ultimately denied, sent back to Iran. And what happened when you were sent back to Iran, you and your wife?

MAJID: Yes. In December 2005, we sent to Iran, whole family, when my Canadian son born. And all documents -- the immigration officer gave all our documents to the captain of plane. After that, in Italy, we went with the Alitalia Airline. In Italy, police came to plane. They took us to [inaudible] room in the transit of Italy, and after that, again, they put us in the plane and give all documents to the captain of Alitalia again. We went to Iran, and in Iran, the plane’s captain said, “You have to sit until the police come to take you.” All passengers went out, and four Iranian secret police came in the plane, and he got all documents from the captain, and they took us in the airport in the secret police office. We were there for a few hours, four or five hours, in the same room.

After that, they separate us. They took me to other place, unknown place. I was in Iran a small cell for six months, and lots of torture and hitting. Now I have physical problem and knee problem and lots of things. And they took my wife to other prison, where we have no news from each other. And for six months, my wife was one year and one month in the prison, and she [inaudible] -- after she was free she [inaudible] the child, and because they [inaudible] him, and she was [inaudible] two, three time in the jail. And it's a very bad situation. But we had no news from each other. They told my wife, because your husband, you have to cooperate with us.

AMY GOODMAN: They said they killed you?

MAJID: Yeah, they a few times told. One time they told her, “He's in coma.” The other time, they said, “Already he was killed.” And, you know, many times they play with her. After one month, they free her in the street at nighttime. They did with me, too, after six months, a lot of torture. And this one, they free me in the street out of the town with closed eyes. And I didn't see anybody, but they took me in daytime some day in winter -- you know, they take my pants off to put in very cold water. They already broke the ice, they put in the water, and they hit me every day, hitting me.

And when I came out, I was less than thirty kilograms, my weight. And my wife was different, six months was under psychologist’s medication over that. And after free, I should register two times a week, every Sunday and Thursday. And when I took -- they took us over there, they took me over there again. One week, they put me in detention, and the other time, again three days. And after that, one guard told me, “I’m going to help you.” After that, he called me, said, “OK, your future is very dangerous. You have to leave. Otherwise, you are in big trouble. I don't know what will happen to you and your family.” That's why we decided and we escaped from there.

AMY GOODMAN: And you tried to go to Canada. Can you put your son Kevin on? He's standing next to you, nine years old?

MAJID: Yes. Just hold on, please?

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. We're talking to Majid and Kevin in the Hutto Detention Center that’s run by the Corrections Corporation of America in Taylor, Texas.

KEVIN: Hello.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi, Kevin. How are you?

KEVIN: Not good.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the situation you're in right now and what you want to happen right now?

KEVIN: Excuse me, I didn't hear you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe where you are right now?

KEVIN: I’m in US jail right now.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Kevin, where are you staying at night? Are you with your parents, or are they locking you up separately?

KEVIN: I’m with my parents, but we’re in separate rooms.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In separate rooms?

KEVIN: Yeah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And are they letting you -- are you getting any kind of education, or are you just sitting in your cell all day?

KEVIN: We’re sitting in the cell all day.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to do now, Kevin?

KEVIN: I want to be free. I want to go outside, and I want to go to school. I want to be in my homeland: Canada.

AMY GOODMAN: You want to go home to Canada?

KEVIN: What?

AMY GOODMAN: You want to go home to Canada?

KEVIN: Yeah. My home is in Canada.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you with your parents in Iran?

KEVIN: My parents -- what?

AMY GOODMAN: Were you with your mother and father in Iran?

KEVIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And you were coming on the plane?

KEVIN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the people telling you? Can you go to Canada?

KEVIN: Hmm?

AMY GOODMAN: What are the guards telling you? Will they release you?

KEVIN: I forgot what they were saying, but they told us some stuff. I forgot what they were saying to us.

JUAN GONZALEZ: How are the other children there? Are you spending time with any of the other children?

KEVIN: No.

AMY GOODMAN: They don't let you spend time with the other children?

KEVIN: No. I’m sleeping beside the washroom, and I can't -- and I’m upstairs. I can't go to the washroom all the time. And there's a lot of smell coming out from the washroom. And the food is garbage. And the school is very bad. I can't learn anything good. And I have asthma, and I got sick in here. I can't stay here anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin, you said you're sleeping next to the bathroom?

KEVIN: Yeah. And it's not a separate room. It's right beside the bed. And I’m sleeping beside the wall, and my back gets sick and it hurts.

AMY GOODMAN: How is your mother?

KEVIN: My mother is sick.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin, can you put your father back on the phone?

KEVIN: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin is nine years old. He's a Canadian citizen, came from Iran with his parents. They were flying over the United States, when the plane had to land in Puerto Rico because a passenger had a heart attack, and when they landed, the Majid family -- we're not using their real name -- was taken off the flight. Majid, have you talked to the Canadian consulate, and what is your hope when you get to Canada, if you get to Canada?

MAJID: Yeah, on Monday, they came here. They said -- they come here, and we spoke to each other. They mostly asked my wife and Kevin, “What's your food, and what kind of food they give you? Are you in same room with family?” My son said no, because he said, I was told -- “All your family in one room?” -- he said, “No, we are in separate room, and the toilet is inside, the uncovered toilet, in the room.” And only they said [inaudible] said, “You’re going to help us?” They said, “We don't know. You have to speak with your lawyer.” After that, just regarding information, my son’s birth certificate information, and they left. And two days ago, I tried to call them in consul, and no response, because he was to be phone. I tried again, but I couldn't reach him. No more information I have.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Majid, now, do you have a lawyer who is helping you? And do you have a scheduled hearing anytime in the future on your case?

MAJID: Yeah. I have lawyers that’s from immigration clinic here. They’re students. They’re working. They are very good people. And no hearing. Two or three time, I requested for hearing, but no response so far in the past seventeen, eighteen days here. No response. We don't know what's going to happen for us.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you want to stay in the United States?

MAJID: You know, we escaped from Iran, OK? We escaped to be safe and free with my family. But our plan was in Canada. And I don't know, they keep us here. Anyway, we want safe and free, Canada or US. If Canada give us a visa, we go there; we go to US, if here, we’ll stay here.

AMY GOODMAN: Why are you afraid to use your full name or to show your face?

MAJID: Because everybody knows the Iran. The Iran’s -- like this, we are in very bad situation, because I don't trust here immigration, because the first time they said lots of things to us, but they broke their promise. They said you're going to happen this, this, but now they said we're going to deported. OK, maybe we deported. And we are like this. We are in 100% in danger. If our whole full name goes, it's 200% in danger, because especially United States -- if you go from other country, you have less risk with government. If you go from United States, because they said “US is our enemy,” they said, Iranian authorities says, OK? But that's why we are in more and more trouble if we go back, because they will say, “Why you go to US and this happen?”

AMY GOODMAN: Joshua Bardavid is an attorney that we are sitting with in the New York studio. When you listen to this story, what are your thoughts?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Unfortunately, this is -- what he is experiencing is a very common experience. It is the reflexive use of detention for asylum seekers. The Majid family, they’re survivors -- from what he’s describing, he’s a survivor of torture. He was detained in Iran. He is seeking freedom, in this case, in Canada, arrives in the United States and is placed back in detention. The re-traumatizing effects of being placed back in detention cannot be underestimated. You have a child who is sleeping in what was a jail cell for a maximum-security prison that has been converted, but they still leave the exposed toilet, you know, sitting in the middle of their room. There's no privacy. With other children, he's in a room separate from his parents. Now, but the door may be not locked at night, but that door is certainly shut, and it’s a steel heavy door. They are placed in a prison. There's no doubt that this is a prison. And what is particularly troubling about this is that this was designed for the purpose of holding families, yet they made a conscious decision to maintain the facility as a prison, to leave the barbed wire, to leave the doors, to leave the environment as a prison.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about the issue -- I don't know if you've found with other of your clients -- given the fact that you do have young children like this, you’d think there would be some kind of process for expedited hearing to find out -- have an immigration judge review the case, but they've been there now, what, more than two weeks now.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Yeah, that's definitely another troubling aspect. In order to sentence somebody in the United States to two weeks in jail, you would need to have guilt proved beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of your peers. In order for the Majit family to spend an additional two weeks in jail, it simply could take an administrative delay. This is one of the problems.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the role of these private prison companies. The Hutto facility is run by CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America. In fact, the jail is named after CCA’s cofounder, T. Don Hutto. I want to play a comment made by William Andrews, the chair of the CCA board, during a conference call with investors two weeks ago.

WILLIAM ANDREWS: I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that these facilities that are being reported in the paper of ICE are in any way substandard. In fact, they are above standard, and the reports come from special interest groups that are attempting to do away with privatization and the whole immigration situation. And, you know, we welcome anybody to visit our facilities. And the family facility, particularly, at T. Don Hutto is almost like a home.

AMY GOODMAN: That was William Andrews, the chair of the board of the Corrections Corporation of America, describing the conditions at the Hutto jail as “almost like a home.” Michelle Brane in Washington, D.C., your response?

MICHELLE BRANE: Well, as I mentioned already, and has been made very clear by your other guests, it is very clearly a prison that is being used to house inmates, and it has no resemblance to a home. I mean, there’s sofas. There are plastic sofas and TVs, but that’s about it. And one of the things that's very disturbing about this model that they’re using is that there are alternatives. As I mentioned before, there are pre-hearing release programs that could be used.

There’s a whole range of ways to ensure that people appear for hearings, that they don't abscond and that enforcement of our immigration laws can be accomplished without resorting to these drastic measures. And that's one of the things that we've really been stressing in the report, is that, you know, as you've heard from the responses, in the White House response and the ICE response to our report, and to other complaints about the Hutto facility, they are presenting it as an alternative of either a facility like this or complete separation, into different buildings and different centers, of entire families. And there is a wide range of other alternatives in between those two.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. I also want to thank Majid and Kevin. And we will certainly continue to cover their story and update you on the situation. For one brief moment, because they called in in the middle of you describing your own clients, if you could briefly finish, Joshua, and then we're going to go to Raymondville, to something that is, well, a tent city, a prison camp for immigrants in the tip of Texas. But very briefly.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Well, my clients now, the Hazahza family, who are being held in Haskell, which is a county facility and is a maximum-security facility, this is an entire family that again is being separated in this center in extremely harsh conditions, that includes isolation of a seventeen-year-old, who has now turned eighteen, but at the time he was seventeen when he was placed in solitary confinement. You have the -- there is physical threats. There is strip searches as a common tool of discipline. And it is a prison. And this is an ongoing problem with intermingling immigration detainees with criminal violent offenders in the United States.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, again, the reason for their detention is they’re -- are they asylum seekers?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: They were asylum seekers. They lost their asylum hearing, but the US government has been unable to remove them, so they do not know what to do with them, so they placed them in this facility.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Joshua Bardavid, for joining us.

Posted by lois at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2007

Maine: State Seeks Fix for Overcrowded Prisons

Portland Press Herald
State seeks fix for squeezed prisons
By KEVIN WACK, Staff Writer
Sunday, February 25, 2007

The last time Maine studied overcrowding in its jails and prisons, a blue-ribbon commission issued an urgent call to action.

"Maine's prisons and county jails are at a critical juncture," read the 2004 report, written by a panel that included lawmakers, attorneys and judges. "Prisoners are triple- and quadruple-bunked in cells. Tensions are high.

Attacks and injuries are on the rise. Costs are spiraling upwards. The state must act now to alleviate these potentially disastrous situations."

The commission's findings led to a series of reforms. But three years later, little has changed.

The Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee recently held a news conference to again draw public attention to prison overcrowding. State officials noted that Maine's prison population is expected to grow by 21 percent between 2006 and 2011. This month, the state's prison system had 265 more inmates than are allowed under federal accrediting standards.

"So is it a dangerous situation? Yeah," said Rep. Richard Sykes, R-Harrison, echoing the 2004 report on overcrowding.

Much to the frustration of corrections officers, lawyers, judges and lawmakers, prison overcrowding is the problem that won't go away. Even though Maine has some of the nation's lowest rates of crime and incarceration, the number of inmates keeps rising at a rate that outpaces the population increase.

"It's like a creeping paralysis," said Don Allen, who was head of the Maine Department of Corrections for 18 years until he retired in 1995.

During the late 1990s, the state embarked on a $140 million plan to expand, renovate and replace its prisons. But within five years, the new space for adult prisoners was already full, and projections indicated that the trend would continue.

This set off alarm bells. So in the summer of 2003, the Legislature created an 18-member commission to find a solution without building new prisons. The commission was successful -- at least to a degree -- as its recommendations led to a number of reforms.

A 2004 law signed by Gov. John Baldacci eased probation for some offenders, since corrections officials said the state's probation system was overstressed. From October 2004 to December 2006, the number of adult probationers in Maine dropped by 17 percent.

For many prisoners, the law also increased time off for good behavior from five days per month to nine days. And there was a measurable effect. Between 2004 and 2006 the state's prison population barely rose.

But the relief was short-lived. Now the number of inmates is again rising, leading to a scramble to find places to put beds.

NO SIMPLE EXPLANATION

It's hard to say exactly why Maine's prison population continues to rise. People who work in and around the corrections system say it's unlikely there is a simple explanation.

Neale Duffett, a Portland defense attorney who served on the 2004 sentencing commission, believes that state lawmakers who take a tough-on-crime posture are a significant part of the problem.

The sentencing commission recommended a halt on enhancements to Maine's sentencing laws, but that moratorium didn't last long. At least seven new crimes were created in 2005 alone. The following year, new laws toughened the punishment for a wide range of crimes -- from the sexual assault of young children to driving with a suspended license to criminal mischief meant to harm property owners.

"I don't think the Legislature is doing its part," Duffett said.

Mary Cathcart, a former Democratic senator from Penobscot County, said that some lawmakers may support sentencing increases for political reasons. "I think there is a fear that you'll appear to be soft on crime, not giving strict enough punishments," Cathcart said.

Rep. Janet Mills, D-Farmington, said the Legislature can be blamed for failing to fund the full cost of tougher punishments. "We're notoriously poor at putting fiscal notes on criminal legislation," she said.

However, the longer sentences imposed in 2006 have not yet been in place long enough to have much effect.

Denise Lord, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, said the impact of tougher sentences will not be felt by the state's prison system for several years.

It's also important to note that the rise in prison populations is by no means limited to Maine. Nationally, the number of prison inmates is projected to increase by 13 percent between 2006 and 2011, according to a study released this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

OPINIONS DIFFER ON SOLUTION

In Maine, there's a wide range of opinions about what should now be done about prison overcrowding.

Some note the high cost of incarceration and say they would like to see a greater emphasis on alternatives, such as home confinement and the use of GPS devices to track offenders' whereabouts.

"You can get tough, but you've got to get smart now because tough has proven pretty expensive," said Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion.

Others emphasize the need for more jail beds, saying that dangerous offenders need to be removed from society.

"Jails are important. You have to have incarceration," said Sen. William Diamond, D-Windham.

But despite the differences over how to fix the overcrowding problem, there is broad agreement that Maine is now in a similar predicament to the one it faced just four years ago.

"I think they've now got a crisis," said Allen, who chaired the sentencing commission. "And they're going to have to deal with it." __________________

MAINE PRISON NUMBERS

POPULATIONS as of Feb. 14 -- capacity is based on national accrediting standards

MAINE CORRECTIONAL CENTER, WINDHAM: Capacity 522, population 689

MAINE STATE PRISON, WARREN: Capacity 922, population 875

BOLDUC CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, WARREN: Capacity 150, population 214

CHARLESTON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, CHARLESTON: Capacity 75, population 96

DOWNEAST CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, MACHIASPORT: Capacity 96, population 151

CENTRAL MAINE PRE-RELEASE, HALLOWELL: Capacity 50, population 55

Source: Maine Department of Corrections
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070225prison.html

Posted by lois at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

CA: $1 billion for nothing

Sacramento Bee
Editorial: $1 billion, for nothing
Published Sunday, February 25, 2007
What could the state buy for $1 billion?

It could buy health coverage for all California children for a year.

It could increase per-pupil spending by $169, enough to nudge California above Louisiana in the national rankings.

It could pay the cost of double-tracking light rail all the way to Folsom and add hundreds of new buses -- and still have money left over.

Instead of spending money on any of those worthy projects, the state has wasted $1 billion since 1989 in ineffective prison drug abuse programs. How ineffective are these programs? In a scathing report, Inspector General Matthew Cate found that the recidivism rates for prisoners enrolled in two of the largest in-prison substance abuse programs were actually higher than those of a control group that did not receive treatment.

The failures Cate documents are stunning in their magnitude. In some cases program contractors were paid for beds that went unfilled, so the cost of treatment zoomed from $3,832 per inmate to $5,079. Even when drug and alcohol addicted prisoners were enrolled in programs, months-long lockdowns in overcrowded prisons kept them away from required counseling sessions.

Although the contracts required that inmates enrolled in treatment were supposed to be isolated from the general prison population, none of the programs complied with that basic requirement, a serious lapse that ensured programs would fail.

The shortcomings the inspector general outlines in his report should have been well known in prison circles. The Prison Office of Substance Abuse Programs paid researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and San Diego State University $8.2 million in the last eight years to evaluate treatment programs. The 20 reports they produced identified many of the weaknesses the inspector general's investigation has now confirmed.

Inexplicably, nothing was done. In fact, the Legislature authorized the building of new prisons on the condition that new treatment beds would be created, apparently without knowing the programs were failing miserably.

In response to the report, the governor has appointed a new director and renamed the program. The old Office of Substance Abuse Programs is now the new Division of Addiction and Recovery Services. But a name change and empty promises of reform from the administration will not fix what ails California's prison system.

Everything about the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is in disarray. The state has shown time and time again that it is incapable of managing its prisons. Repeated failures mean that public safety is being compromised and billions of dollars wasted. Could a federal take-over be worse than what exists now?
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/128181.html

Posted by lois at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

Wall Street Journal:Educate, Medicate, Incarcerate- states plan an increase in spending

"Montana's Mr. Schweitzer, who also faced an austere outlook when he first took office, is now enjoying a $1 billion surplus, largely due to higher tax revenues on capital gains and energy production. As he sees it, states spend nearly all of their money to "educate, medicate and incarcerate." His two-year, $7.7 billion budget boosts spending on all three. Legislative analysts peg the budget increase at 26%; Mr. Schweitzer excludes the rainy-day fund and payments towards pension obligations and says the jump is closer to 13%. The state's prison system will see one of the largest increases. Mr. Schweitzer says Montana leads the nation in the per-capita number of citizens incarcerated. Because the vast majority of those are for drug-related crimes, he's proposing a program that would marry the state's prison system with its Department of Health. The resulting "meth prisons," as he calls them, would combine incarceration with intensive rehab programs, which he says would allow for more early releases and, over the long term, would lower the state's cost of maintaining its prisoners. It's an unusual idea, and one he says that the federal government is unlikely to help finance. "The feds aren't really interested in new and novel things," he says."

February 24, 2007, Wall Street Journal

BUDGET BOOM
States Set Big Spending Plans
As Washington Preaches Austerity
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
February 24, 2007; Page A1

Washington may currently be focused on fiscal austerity. But a major spending spree is shaping up in the states, as local legislators abandon a half-decade of fiscal conservatism to pursue bigger budgets.

From New York to Montana to California, states are proposing budget increases that outpace inflation and far exceed the 1% rise in domestic outlays -- outside of defense and homeland security -- that President Bush recently proposed in his fiscal 2008 federal budget. In Montana, Gov. Brian Schweitzer is cutting taxes and boosting spending by 26% over two years, including $100 million for new "meth prisons" that blend incarceration with intensive drug rehab for those convicted of methamphetamine crimes. In Vermont, Gov. Jim Douglas wants to borrow $40 million to create "the nation's first e-state," where free wireless broadband is available to all. And in Arizona, the only dispute between a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature over a half-billion-dollar road-repair program is whether to borrow the money or pay cash.

STATEHOUSE SPENDING BOOM

€ The News: Numerous states are proposing significantly bigger budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.

€ The Background: Washington's budgetary focus on Iraq, defense and homeland security is leaving states to address other domestic concerns, like health insurance.

€ The Bottom Line: The spending boom raises the risk that states may spend beyond their means.

The binge is bipartisan. Last year, the Massachusetts legislature approved a $1.56 billion universal health-care plan under Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who is now running for president. This year, at least ten states -- most notably Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger's California -- are weighing similar programs.

But that's just one of many areas where state governments are seeking to expand services that were long considered distant dreams by advocates. Universal prekindergarten is being championed by several incoming Democratic governors, such as New York's Eliot Spitzer, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Mike Beebe of Arkansas. Democratic leaders in Colorado and Pennsylvania and several other states want to create funds for state "energy independence." Many of these proposals will be topics of conversation at the National Governors Association's annual meeting, which begins in Washington today. 1

The new state activism is driven in part by the Bush administration's budgetary focus on Iraq, defense and homeland security, which leaves states to grapple with domestic concerns on their own. Higher tax receipts and growth in energy royalties, from higher oil and natural-gas prices, have also left many states flush.

But even states faced with declining revenue are mulling ways to ramp up spending -- not with unpopular tax increases, but by privatizing valuable public assets in return for big slugs of cash. Michigan and Illinois, among others, are looking at selling off their lotteries, while Missouri is considering doing the same with its student-loan portfolio.

The growing popularity of health-care programs and higher teacher salaries raises the risk that states, giddy from surging revenue, may be in danger of expanding beyond their means, using short-term windfalls to create new long-term obligations at a time when tax increases remain unpopular with voters.

It was just a few years ago that states last found themselves in financial dire straits. In the early 2000s, many state governments were hit hard by recession and constitutional requirements to balance budgets. Reluctant to unwind fresh tax rollbacks, states were forced not only to cease creating new services but also to cut back on many basics, such as road repairs and prisons. In 2003, the National Governors Association reported that states collectively were undergoing the worst budget crisis since World War II.

Even after their economies and revenue streams recovered in the middle part of the decade, state governments concentrated on building surpluses and kept spending relatively in check. But now, many states are returning to their old ways: along with spending more, several governors are proposing hefty tax cuts as well.

Like many governors, Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano faced a looming budget shortfall -- $1 billion in her case -- when she took office in 2003. Now, thanks to strong economic growth, surging sales-tax revenue and low unemployment, the state has $650 million in reserves. For fiscal year 2008, Ms. Napolitano has proposed a $10.4 billion budget that calls for a 6.9% increase in spending on top of the 18% increase last year.

The extra money allows Ms. Napolitano to put tens of millions of dollars toward her priorities: pay raises for teachers, 12% more for state universities, and $60 million for projects to train and attract high-tech workers and businesses. "Somewhere out there is the next Microsoft," Ms. Napolitano said. "I'd just as soon that it be in Phoenix or Tucson."

Montana's Mr. Schweitzer, who also faced an austere outlook when he first took office, is now enjoying a $1 billion surplus, largely due to higher tax revenues on capital gains and energy production. As he sees it, states spend nearly all of their money to "educate, medicate and incarcerate." His two-year, $7.7 billion budget boosts spending on all three. Legislative analysts peg the budget increase at 26%; Mr. Schweitzer excludes the rainy-day fund and payments towards pension obligations and says the jump is closer to 13%.

The state's prison system will see one of the largest increases. Mr. Schweitzer says Montana leads the nation in the per-capita number of citizens incarcerated. Because the vast majority of those are for drug-related crimes, he's proposing a program that would marry the state's prison system with its Department of Health.

The resulting "meth prisons," as he calls them, would combine incarceration with intensive rehab programs, which he says would allow for more early releases and, over the long term, would lower the state's cost of maintaining its prisoners. It's an unusual idea, and one he says that the federal government is unlikely to help finance. "The feds aren't really interested in new and novel things," he says.

Mr. Schweitzer's budget also offers about $150 million in tax cuts and a $170 million capital construction program. "The best part is I don't have one dollar of bonding in my program," Mr. Schweitzer said. "We're paying cash."

Another reason states are loosening their purse strings is to compensate for a sustained decline in federal revenue sharing. In the past, the federal government could often be relied on to help finance big projects such as highways and new state initiatives, such as antipoverty programs. But the days of expanding federal revenue sharing have been on the wane for years. And the Bush administration, with its focus on war and antiterror spending, has shown little interest in supporting these efforts.

In fact, governors and others say they expect cutbacks in federal support. "I don't think anyone feels the federal government is going to be a source of revenue increases any time in the near future," says Robin Prunty, a credit analyst, who specializes in state finances for bond-rating firm Standard & Poor's Corp.

In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who is running for president, is proposing a $5.7 billion budget, 11% bigger than last year's. The spending plan not only provides more than $100 million in raises for school employees, but includes some projects he had originally intended to supplement with federal grants, such as the state's commuter-rail system. "We had a commitment from the feds for $65 million but we haven't seen it yet, so I'm putting it in my own budget," Mr. Richardson says. His budget also includes a $77 million proposal to expand health care.

In many states, universal-health-care proposals are potentially the most expensive propositions, and none top the gargantuan plan offered by California's Mr. Schwarzenegger. His $12 billion health-care plan would insure an estimated 6.5 million people by imposing new fees on doctors and hospitals and giving $1 billion in tax breaks to individuals who purchase their own health insurance.

Mr. Schwarzenegger is touting his plan over the objections of many legislators in his own party, who argue that the program will cause budgetary havoc if the state's economy sours.

It wouldn't be the first time an ambitious insurance plan created fiscal problems for a state. Tennessee launched such a plan in 1994 but was forced to painfully unwind the program in 2005, when it had grown into a $7.8 billion behemoth that accounted for nearly a third of all spending and threatened to throw the state into deficit. The biggest contributor to
costs: insuring middle-aged citizens, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions. They were the first of the estimated 170,000 Tennesseans to be tossed out of the program.

Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, says the Tennessee experience is unlikely to be an anomaly. While it's relatively cheap to insure healthy children, "a 52-year-old diabetic is a lot more expensive to cover," he says.

To be sure, some states, fearing a quick reversal of fiscal fortunes, are trying to keep a lid on spending. In Alaska, a state that derives much of its revenue from oil royalties, high energy prices are expected to increase general-fund revenue to $5 billion this year, from $2 billion in 2003. Yet freshman Republican Gov. Sarah Palin vowed to limit budget growth to $3.3 billion, up less than 3% from this year. She points to a recent legislative report that predicts falling energy prices will result in declining revenue for the state as early as next year and a potential $1 billion deficit by fiscal 2010.

Already, there are indications that the flush times are ending. One early
sign: by late 2006, nearly a third of those states participating in an annual survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures -- 14 of them
-- were either experiencing or expecting to see a decline in revenue. Moreover, the group says, for the first time in years, projected spending increases this year seems likely to outstrip revenue growth, with outlays expect to rise 7.5%, and receipts, just 3.1%.

The obvious solution to flagging revenue is new taxes. But while many governors seem disposed to spend more, those same politicians remain largely conservative on taxes. Big increases, particularly on broad levies like income and sales taxes, are still considered political suicide. Instead, states from Arizona and Montana to New York, Florida and New Jersey have enacted or are considering tax rollbacks.

Many states are looking at other ways to raise cash. In Massachusetts and New York, Messrs. Patrick and Spitzer are toying with the idea of legalizing gambling to raise money. In New Jersey, which already has legalized gambling, Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine is entertaining a wager of another
sort: leasing a portion of the state's turnpike to a private company in order to raise cash. Governors in Pennsylvania and Texas are considering similar proposals.

The schemes can be a windfall for states: In Indiana last fall, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels essentially sold Interstate 85 under a 75-year lease that garnered a $3.8 billion cash payment. Now he is proposing to lease the state's lottery in return for a similar windfall -- as are several other states, including Illinois, Texas and New Jersey.

But lease deals have proven controversial. Critics fret that states won't properly value the assets or will strike deals that somehow hinder future growth. Chief among the critics is the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, a trucker lobby. The lease deals being considered involve sections of some of the nation's busiest roadways. Because the deals almost always include provisions that bar states from building new roadways that might compete with the toll routes being sold, future gridlock is all but assured, the group says.

In some states, there's plenty of cash -- at least for the moment. In Arizona, Ms. Napolitano finds herself allied with the conservative Goldwater Institute as she tries to beat back a proposal by the Republican-dominated legislature to raid the state's rainy-day fund for a $400 million road-improvement program. Like her Republican brethren, Ms. Napolitano wants to fix the roads. But she would rather borrow the money and keep the $650 million rainy-day account for the economic downturn she assumes is all but inevitable.

"When I came in, we had no rainy day fund," says Ms. Napolitano. "I wouldn't wish that on anybody."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117226890441117724.html

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

"But , They All Come Black: Facing the Challenge of Being Right All the Time"

"But , They All Come Black: Facing the Challenge of Being Right All the Time"
Publishing and Promotional Notes by the Author
"But , They All Come Black: Facing the Challenge of Being Right All the Time"

By Jerome Travesty, President, JJ 50 Shot University
Background

The Bourbon Institute is a Twelve Step, for-profit, research and miseducational organization for Ivy League educated upper class white policy people who understand the nuances of dealing with their less fortunate sisters and brothers of color. As Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, my research and recommendations actively supported and promoted the "tough on crime," approach of the late 1980's and 90's. I advocated for "broken windows," "zero tolerance" and "three strikes." Mass incarceration is the result of these enlightened public policy recommendations. At the time, we had no idea that we would also achieve the additional benefit of industrial expansion, political disenfranchisement and employment stimulus for rural economically depressed counties. As a further benefit, incarceration numbers inflate federal appropriations based upon census data.

From: The Truth [the.bookrelease@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 5:38 PM

Established in Washington, D.C., in 1865, The Bourbon Institute has promoted a "southern strategy" for the social, economic and governance problems confronting the nation. The Institute has advanced the careers of more white men (and a few white women) then we can accurately count at this time.

The Bourbon Institute disseminates its research findings through redundant, repeated, costly, very expensive, wasteful and usually unnecessary conferences funded by the Our Superior Intellect (OSI) Foundation. In this way, the limited social justice funding available for community-based organizations actually doing the work on the ground, is used instead to discuss and analyze urban problems and colored people. I am thankful to the Institute, and its Board of Directors, for publishing all of my books and research, when no one else would. As a member of the dominant privileged class in America, I thought I could have had my work published anywhere, but America has changed. White privilege just ain't what it used to be.

Preface

In the spring of 1999, U.S. Attorney General Janice Rio caught me coming out of the men's room in the U.S. Department of Justice. She noticed that I had failed to zip up my pants and mentioned it several times. This started me to thinking about how embarrassing it must be for ex-offenders on parole to be sent back to prison for simple violations, like not zipping your fly. It occurred to me, also, that the majority of those affected were Black men -hence the title of my latest and greatest book, "But .They All Come Black."
Immediately, I called Sally Turner at the Our Superior Intellect (OSI) Foundation and Rich Crank at the FRET Foundation [Rich resides in one of the richest counties in the United States and surrounds himself in African art and sculptures to reinforce his public image as a trustworthy liberal do-gooder-meanwhile, he supports the criminal justice system by granting the Kansas Department of Corrections 4.5 million dollars and calling it the key to policy reform] to request a planning grant of $300 million dollars, to convene a series of daily conferences from now until the year 2065. By that time my son-little Travesty-will have retired from his work succeeding me as the most esteemed conference giver in the world. I was worried that these grant makers would not be responsive, since their mission is to spend millions of dollars funding the ideas of people who are directly affected by the criminal justice system. However, I prevailed.

As you know, I created the term "ReEntry" to mean go back, as in re-enter. I actually took the term from Juan Irving, who first used it in his book in 1970, yet I claim full credit for creating it and have relegated Irving to a minor historical footnote so that I would not be accused of outright stealing or plagiarizing. This appropriation of intellectual property is a
major part of the way we do business at the Bourbon Institute and is the cornerstone of my career and that of my colleagues. The term "reentry" has since come to mean "recidivism," which was my original intent although no one picked up on it at the time.

In the fall of 1999, while still at the National Institute of Justice, I wrote a paper that proposed creating "reentry courts" as the new managers of the reentry-recidivism process. By creating this new entity, located in the community, to oversee all community supervision, we could easily realize all of the goals that the initial incarceration may or may not have accomplished, namely keeping prison populations at maximum capacity, foolishly spending taxpayer dollars and, of course, maintaining the economic/employment status quo at equilibrium for ourselves. I have come to believe that these functions are best lodged in the judicial branch of government, in the form of a "re-entry court." Briefly stated, there are
three outstanding reasons: (1) such a court would add another useless yet thick layer of government bureaucracy to an already over burdened court system, (2) the enormous expense created by this court will create more jobs and contracts (not to mention patronage) thus strengthening the economy and (3) the realities that such a court is totally unnecessary, a waste of time and perhaps even counterproductive to successful transition from prison to community, are all consistent with the other innovative recommendations I have made over the years. With this new alignment of responsibilities for overseeing the reentry process, we stand a better chance of promoting "real" reentry success as described above.

Introduction

The title of my book, "But .They All Come Black," reflects the fact that Blacks commit more crimes than whites. That's a fact that Joan and I discovered several years ago. Once we made this research public, at a series of weekly conferences we held from 2001 - 2003, we were both richly rewarded. Actually, I became the president of a very prestigious college
for cops and Joan became a cop. Both she and I have been acknowledged as experts ever since, even though neither of us have ever actually spoken directly to anyone in prison.

Throughout the book I use terms that I have either created, made up, formulated myself or otherwise produced. I deeply resent the many groups and individuals who have implied that the terminology I use is misleading, inaccurate and racist. I am conscious of the language. While I continue to use the term negro and colored to describe people of African descent, I
only do so because its alternative, African American, is somewhat unwieldy, particularly in written text. Occasionally (and only in private and among my very best friends) I resort to using the "n" word - but only for emphasis. Perhaps, someday our language will accommodate this complicated reality.

In choosing the title of the book, I was extremely sensitive to the idea that it would probably sell much, much more if I could manage to demonstrate, using the available research, that indeed Blacks were responsible not only for committing more crime then anyone else, but also that they planned the 9/11 attacks on our precious nation, the 2004 tsunami
in the Indian Ocean, Hurricane Katrina, created and funded Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Mafia. Also, they were responsible for the untimely demise of Manuel Noriega and the dismal failure of the War on Drugs simply by being Black and living in urban areas. I think I have been successful in making the case in what is probably the best book ever written.

While I know much of the evidence presented in the book also points to Puerto Ricans as being responsible for getting our country involved in the mess in Iraq, especially the Abu Grab prison, I have not made that assertion as part of the thesis of the book simply because it is often too difficult for my staff and I to distinguish between Puerto Ricans and Arabs. And, in any event, the drugs - mostly heroin - coming out of Afghanistan are more the result of the failure of the United States to keep pace with the demands of people wanting to get high, than to any specific action on the part of Puerto Ricans or others.

Given the inner-city realities, especially in places like New York City where 50% of the Black male population is unemployed, I have identified the best possible reentry model practice. Of all the programs we reviewed, the Unemployment Training Program, offered by CEO (Cancelled Employment Opportunities) was superior. This program provides excellent training for ex-offenders and others who almost inevitably, by racial and ethnic definition, will be unemployed forever. The program provides basic skills training in how to cope with, even enjoy, long unemployment lines, rude and disrespectful clerks, endless applications and dead end interviews. These are simple yet practical ways to use up time during the day. In addition, catering to the criminal mind, which only understands instant gratification, CEO pays drug addicts daily in order to help them steadily relapse. Its
self-esteem building component, particularly for people with no money, income, or health insurance, is perhaps the best in the country. And, the program's promise of perpetual unemployment makes sense in the context of the global economy and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. All of the research indicates that this program will have a success rate of between 97 and 100%. The originator of the program and the director of CEO, Cindy Marlow, is exceptional in her own right. First, she created what the existing data and outcome evaluations validated was a bullshit program, then she sold it to the city and state of New York for sums that were obscene but brilliant, and finally, she promoted herself in such a fabulous way that, like me and Joan, she became the expert on unemployment training.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dorrie Fuckem'all who has made a national name for herself by pimping unemployed ex-offenders. In her new capacity as executive director of the JJ 50 Shot University Pimping Reentry Institute (PRI) she is primarily responsible for wasting people's time (and other resources) by inviting them to meaningless pre-dawn forums, discussions and seminars, organized by her, to talk about nothing in particular. No one is better at this than she. In fact, to solidify her legitimacy in the field, she maintains contact with a few negroes in reentry-but only the ones who will tap-dance on demand. Dorrie made such a big splash in launching the Pimping Reentry Institute, that people hardly noticed my first act as president: terminating a white middle class Jewish ex offender. See, I'm not racist. In fact, I wanted to fire the rest of those convicts, but did not want to be accused of contagious firing at the 50 Shot University. Finally, Dorrie has the task of providing diversionary cover for me at the cops college, while I upgrade the small weapons education, improve undercover racial profiling tactics and expand the curriculum in the areas of rapid fire and reloading training.

My gratitude also goes out to Leamer (I can't pronounce or spell her last name), Executive Director of the ICARE About Myself Coalition, for her truthfulness, her willingness to be creative, her efforts not to steal other people's intellectual property and for allowing us little people to join her in her many, many, many, many victories. In fact, rumor has it that
Leamer, who works the faith-based community like you have never seen, single-handedly drafted the Ten Commandments, helping God to get his own legislative agenda sponsored and passed. She has, as a result, earned my appreciation.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to Willie Horton for all of the assistance he gave me and for the time he took from his own work to offer suggestions and criticisms. While I have a greater affinity for the late John Gotti and always valued his counsel, I owe a debt of gratitude to Osama bin Laden, who did more to improve the national security, policing, and crime fighting
capacity of this country then anyone before or since. While I have been unable to contact him directly, Mr. bin Laden provided valuable comment on the draft manuscript, particularly those sections that dealt with civil liberties, constitutional rights, privacy and law enforcement.

Posted by lois at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

PA: Sale of Graterford Could Mean Money for more prisons

Sale of Graterford may benefit Berks, local officials say
The county is a potential site for one of three prisons planned to replace the aging state facility.

By Holly Herman
Reading Eagle

The state's plan to sell its Graterford prison in Montgomery County could be a good thing for Berks County, officials said.

The state wants to build three prisons within 50 miles of the overcrowded 78-year-old prison in Skippack Township.

That means Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Schuylkill counties are potential sites for the new prisons.

The plan calls for construction of a 2,000-bed maximum-security prison and two 2,000-bed medium-security prisons.

Berks County Prison Warden George A. Wagner said a local state prison could save transportation costs but only if the state changes its system of sending inmates to the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, Cumberland County, for an initial screening before they are moved to one of the 25 other state prisons.

“It would also provide more jobs,” he said. “Prison is a growing industry. Many of the colleges have majors in criminal justice. For people who want to work in corrections and stay in Berks County, the only jobs available in corrections are at the county jail.”

Berks Commissioner Mark C. Scott said he would hope that building a state prison here would help with overcrowding at the county prison in Bern Township.

“A state facility could provide economic relief if it would mean that more Berks County inmates will be moving to the state prisons,” Scott said. “I hope it would curtail our overcrowding problem.”

The county jail has a capacity of 780 inmates but houses more than 1,200.

Scott said it would also provide employment opportunities.

State officials said the sale of the prison on 1,780 acres is designed to generate revenue while reducing prison overcrowding.

State prisons, which house the more serious criminal offenders, are severely overcrowded, with space for 38,547 inmates and a population of 44,365, according to the state Department of Corrections.

“It's possible that the construction of three new prisons would be offset by the price of the sale of Graterford,” said Edward Myselwicz, press secretary for the state Department of General Services.

“Gov. Ed Rendell is committed to saving taxpayers' money,” he said. “If we sell Graterford, there would be revenue for Pennsylvania.”

Officials said March 5 is the deadline to submit proposals to buy Graterford. The state Department of General Services is overseeing that process.

Officials declined to say if any applications have been submitted.

Berks County Commissioner Judith L. Schwank, board chairwoman, said she was unaware of the plans to sell Graterford.

“I am shocked,” Schwank said. “I would think it would be appropriate to give us warning.”

Commissioner Thomas W. Gajewski Sr. could not be reached for comment.

Susan McNaughton, state Department of Corrections press secretary, said Graterford is overcrowded and old.

“We obviously need more prison space for overcrowding,” she said.

But it would take about six years before inmates would be moved into the new prisons, she said.

McNaughton said some prisons are using modular housing because of overcrowding.

“We don't see any relief in the population explosion,” she said. “Whether this plan will happen will depend on what kind of response we get. Most of our newer prisons are built in the rural areas because we need land.”

http://www.readingeagle.com/re/news/1625889.asp

Posted by lois at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2007

2 Groups Compare Immigrant Detention Centers to Prisons

2 Groups Compare Immigrant Detention Centers to Prisons
By RACHEL L. SWARNS, NY Times
Published: February 22, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — Two advocacy groups for refugees said on Wednesday that the Bush administration routinely detained immigrant families in prison-like housing that separated young children from their parents and sometimes provided inadequate medical care, food and educational opportunities, despite calls from Congress to house such families in “non-penal, homelike environments.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which allowed the advocacy groups to visit the two detention centers that house immigrant families, has already corrected several problems identified by the groups. The two groups, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, are expected to release their report on Thursday.

But department officials, who said they were still reviewing the report, vigorously defended the quality of services provided by the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Residential Center, which opened last year in Texas, and the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility, which houses about 80 families in Pennsylvania. The centers hold immigrants and asylum seekers awaiting the outcomes of their cases.

“They adhere to the highest standards,” said Marc Raimondi, a department spokesman.

The complaints come one month after a federal inspection of 5 of the nation’s 325 immigrant detention centers found that most did not provide timely and responsive health care and sometimes failed to comply with the government’s standards of disciplining, classifying and housing detainees. Officials of the Homeland Security Department say the study was too small to be representative.

The new report found that women at the Hutto center received inadequate prenatal care and that children received only one hour of schooling a day. At both centers, children as young as 6 were separated from their parents, and separation of families and the threats of separation were used as disciplinary tools.

The study praised the Berks center for providing adequate educational opportunities and allowing families to participate in field trips and outdoor recreation time. But it says both centers are modeled on prisons, even though they hold people who are fleeing persecution or stand accused of violating civil immigration laws, not criminal codes.

“The prisonlike conditions, this form of detention, is not necessary,” said Michelle Brané, who heads the detention and asylum program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

“We release criminals,” said Ms. Brané, pointing to parole and monitored supervision programs. “Yet for immigrants in civil proceedings, they have not explored those options. And these are families with children.”

Mr. Raimondi said the family detention system was expanded to help end the routine practice of releasing immigrant families caught sneaking across the border. Smugglers began taking advantage of the loophole and pairing children with unrelated adults in hopes of ensuring their release, officials say. Some children were abandoned or abused. Mr. Raimondi said the centers provided a safe place for families and “serve as a deterrent to alien smugglers who needlessly endanger children’s lives.”

Ms. Brané said officials of the Homeland Security Department had addressed some of her concerns.

The Hutto center contracted with a local clinic to provide medical care to pregnant women. It also expanded the educational program to four hours a day from one.
The link for the study can be found at http://www.womenscommission.org/ by looking under the Reports section.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/washington/22detention.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Posted by lois at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

Report Blasts Calif. Prison Officials for $1-Billion Treatment 'Waste'

Report Blasts Calif. Prison Officials for $1-Billion Treatment 'Waste'
February 23, 2007

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has squandered $1 billion on ineffective drug treatment programs that have done nothing to reduce recidivism, the state's inspector general said in a scathing new report .

The Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 22 that Inspector General Matt Cate said that while successful treatment programs have the potential to "change lives and help relieve the state's prison overcrowding crisis," state corrections officials have "squandered that opportunity" by failing to manage programs properly and investing in in-prison programs where participants were destined to fail.

Cate called spending on in-prison treatment since 1989 "a complete waste of money," and said prison officials kept expanding programs even though more than 20 reports said that the programs were failing.

Reacting to the report, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs director Kathryn Jett to oversee a shakeup of the prison treatment program. Cate said that Jett's appointment was the right move, while Jett called the inspector general's report "an excellent blueprint for change."

California spends $143 million a year on addiction treatment for inmates, including on 38 privately operated programs in 22 prisons. Among the problems cited by Cate were that prisons rarely followed the therapeutic-community guidelines of separating treatment participants from the general prison population, that frequent prison lockdowns often disrupt treatment, and that group counseling programs put too many inmates with each counselor.

Cate added that the corrections department repeatedly funded studies of the programs but never took corrective action based on the reports' findings.

"Saying it's a billion-dollar failure is really a mischaracterization of what's happened, because there have been some very successful programs that have delivered amazing reductions in recidivism," said Rod Mullen, chief executive officer of Amity Foundation, which runs some of California's in-prison treatment programs. However, Mullen agreed with the report's contention that lack of followup care hurt treatment effectiveness. "That's the key, and we've known that for 10 or 15 years," he said. "What's been missing is a commitment by the department, the Legislature and the governor to make sure it happens."
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2007/report-blasts-calif-prison.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=31734499

Posted by lois at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2007

MA: DOC says Prisons to comply with study of suicides

"I'm delighted the department has created such a detailed corrective-action plan," said Leslie Walker , executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. "However, in light of the fact that [the study ] recommended significant changes to the Department of Correction in 2000 that have [not] yet been adopted, I am concerned that the current plan may not be realized."

Prisons to comply with study of suicides
Better training, housing urged

By David Abel, Globe Staff | February 22, 2007

The state Department of Correction announced plans yesterday to comply completely with the recommendations of an independent study that found serious problems with how prisons handle suicidal inmates.

"We embrace all of the study's 29 recommendations," said Veronica Madden, associate commissioner of reentry and reintegration at the Department of Correction. "We have taken each of the recommendations and developed an action plan for their implementation."

Madden would not say how much it will cost to fulfill the study's recommendations, but she pledged that the department will do what it takes to remove from cells housing suicidal inmates any features they can use to kill themselves, raise the number of hours staff are trained to prevent suicide, and increase the frequency of observation of at-risk inmates.

The department also will seek new housing for suicidal inmates and add oversight to allow for random rounds in segregation units, where inmates are confined for 23 hours or longer every day.

"These recommendations are broad, comprehensive, and practical," the department's response to the study said. "The DOC is committed to implementing all of these recommendations and has completed an expedited planning process."

The study, commissioned by the department after an increase in prisoner suicides in 2005 and 2006 left the state's rate nearly double the national rate over the past decade, found prison policies have contributed to the problem.

Ten inmates have killed themselves in state prisons in the past two years. A suicide attempt left a prisoner brain dead. Of the 11 inmates, five had been on suicide watches, and six had documented mental health issues.

The study found that guards and other staff members lack sufficient training in suicide prevention; guards fail to check on suicidal inmates frequently enough; some cells for suicidal inmates have features that prisoners could use to harm themselves; and inmates on suicide watch are isolated by being denied visits, phone calls, showers, and time outside their cells.

It also found that between 2000 and 2005, the number of mentally ill inmates increased by nearly 1,000, while the number of beds for such inmates did not change. The state's frequent isolation of suicidal inmates violates national prison standards, which suggest they be housed in the general population or in special mental health units, according to the report.

Some inmate advocates remained skeptical about the department's plans.

"I'm delighted the department has created such a detailed corrective-action plan," said Leslie Walker , executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. "However, in light of the fact that [the study ] recommended significant changes to the Department of Correction in 2000 that have [not] yet been adopted, I am concerned that the current plan may not be realized."

She said a previous report the department commissioned by Lindsay M. Hayes , a national specialist in prison-suicide prevention, called for an increase in training that did not materialize.

Walker called the department's plan to develop specialized units for suicidal inmates within 60 days "unrealistic and highly unlikely" and the creation of a 12man behavioral management unit as "woefully inadequate." She also questioned whether suicidal inmates will be allowed visits by their lawyers, given the department's efforts to block such meetings in the past.

"An overriding concern is the lack of external oversight," Walker said. "Who is going to ensure that this corrective-action plan is going to be carried out? The department needs to practice what it preaches and become open and transparent."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/02/22/prisons_to_comply_with_study_of_suicides/

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

Habeas Writ Details Immigrant Detention Abuses: Haskell Protest Called

Habeas Writ Details Immigrant Detention Abuses: Haskell Protest Called

Habeas Writ for Hazahza Family Details Allegations of Sexual Harassment, Medical Neglect, Overcrowding, and Isolation Techniques Johnson-Castro will Walk to Haskell Prison for Texas Indpendence Day Protest

by Texas Civil Rights Review

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007 at 6:37 AM
There are different kinds of angry. Jay Johnson-Castro has tears in his eyes when he thinks about Suzi Hazahza at the immigration prison of Haskell, Texas.

But he's not going to cry without doing something, so next week, Johnson-Castro will walk sixty miles from Abilene to Haskell and hold a vigil for the release of Suzi Hazahza and "anyone else" being mistreated for their desire to be American.

"I'm almost in tears trying to tell you how angry I feel," says Johnson-Castro via cell phone as he drives home to Del Rio, Texas on Tuesday evening following three weeks of border protests.

He's talking now about 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza and how she was subjected to body searches so humiliating that she has refused all visitors since early December. In a federal habeas corpus brief that will be filed Wednesday in Dallas, lawyers allege that both Suzi and her 23-year-old sister Mirvat have been subjected to repeated humiliations at the hands of prison guards. And according to Suzi's fiance, the searches got even worse after his fifth visit when Suzi called begging not to be visited again.

"I can''t believe a fellow American would do that to anybody," says Johnson-Castro. "But I'm afraid that's the policy not the exception."

Dallas real-estate developer Ralph Isenberg has seen the pattern before. It happened to his wife in Haskell under similar circumstances. She was imprisoned for immigration violations stemming from "bad lawyering" and once Isenberg started making noise about things he didn't like at Haskell, his wife, too, was subjected to a full body-cavity search. To this day, he recalls the sound of the scream that the search provoked.

In protest of Suzi Hazahza's treatment and confinement, Johnson-Castro will begin his freedom walk in Abilene on Wednesday, Feb. 28, arriving at the Rolling Plains prison in Haskell for a vigil on Texas Independence Day, March 3.

Ralph Isenberg says he'll host Johnson-Castro in Dallas prior to the walk and introduce him to some people he has helped to free. During the walk, Isenberg pledges to join Johnson-Castro for a time, and if he can get enough people together, Isenberg plans to meet Johnson-Castro at the Haskell prison on Texas Independence Day with a bus full of people from Dallas.

"The good people of Haskell have no cognizance of what's happening to sweet innocents such as Suzi Hazahza," says Johnson-Castro. "And when they find out, they will rise up like the people of Williamson County did against the Hutto jail."

Outrage at the jailing of children at the T. Don Hutto immigration jail keeps growing, joined this week by Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and the chair of the House subcommittee on immigration Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). Both of them told WFAA reporter Brett Shipp that child imprisonment is flat wrong, period.

And grassroots distaste for immigrant jailings sparked a new protest Tuesday from honor students of Fort Worth's Tarrant County Community College who are angry that a wonderful fellow student has also been tossed into Haskell jail for "bad lawyering."

The Fort Worth protest for 19-year-old immigration prisoner Samantha Windschitt was covered by two Metroplex television networks, which is a story in itself.

"The good news is that all the insane things that have been happening in a disconnected way are finally being connected," says long-time immigration activist Isenberg, reflecting on the protest and news coverage.

"I honest to gosh believe that everything we have done up to now is adding up to something bigger," says Johnson-Castro, who helped ignite protest in mid-December with a walk from Austin to the Hutto prison. In Haskell, he plans to make the most of the date and place.

"It's Texas Independence Day and it's the Governor's home town," he says. "We're going to be looking for freedom for people who are trying to be Americans. And we are going to Gov. Rick Perry's hometown and free the people that need to be freed, and not incarcerate them so that someone can make a profit."

The Rolling Plains immigration jail in Haskell is managed by the Emerald Companies of Louisiana (see: emeraldcompanies.com).

Meanwhile, New York attorneys Joshua Bardavid and Ted Cox are scheduled to arrive in Dallas Wednesday morning to file federal habeas corpus motions in behalf of Suzi, Mirvat, their father, and two brothers, who have all been held at Haskell since "armed and armored officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a middle of the night 'raid' " of their home on November 2.

According to the habeas writ that will be filed Wednesday, the Hazazha family arrived in the USA with temporary visas from Jordan during the summer of 2001, and they applied for political asylum. Once the appeals for asylum had been exhausted, the family was placed under a warrant of deportation in the summer of 2005, but the family was not notified about the warrant until they were abducted during pre-election immigration raids known as "Operation Return to Sender."

Suzi's mother Juma and youngest brother Mohammad were released Feb. 6 from the Hutto jail only days before a media tour of that facility. But on Feb. 12 ICE filed notice that it intended to keep the rest of the family imprisoned at Haskell as "flight risks." Where they would flee to is a good question since Jordan refuses to take the family back, while Palestine and Israel have declined to reply to requests for deportation there.

At Haskell prison, lawyers say housing units meant to house eight prisoners are frequently supplemented with sleeping bags or "boats" that allow for ten to fourteen prisoners to spend the night. When inspectors arrive, the "boats" are hidden from view.

When it comes to culturally appropriate food for Muslims, the prison serves eggs for breakfast, lunch, and supper. At prayer, the Hazahzas report they have been mocked by guards and threatened with suspension of prayer privileges.

Lawyers are only allowed to visit with prisoners for thirty minutes at a time, and only "within regular hearing distance of a stationed guard." The three Hazahza men have never been allowed to live together "despite written requests to be united in the same, or adjacent, pods."

17-year-old Ahmad Hazahza was placed in solitary confinement for three months because he was a minor at Haskell's adults-only facility. When Ahmad began urinating blood shortly after his arrival, guards mocked his medical condition and "told him that he was 'probably dying' of a disease and that there was nothing that could be done to save him." For ten days, his requests to see a doctor were denied.

Suzi and Mirvat spent the first 48 hours at Haskell sleeping on the concrete floor of a drunk tank, because no beds were available. They both ran high fevers for two weeks after that, and were also denied requests to see a doctor.

The sisters were "strip searched" each time they met with an outside visitor, including humiliating inspections that took place in full view of male guards "on multiple occasions." When taken to the recreation area, they were made to "walk the gauntlet" in front of male prisoners who sexually harassed them with techniques that included exhibition and public masturbation while guards laughed.



The prison population at Haskell is a mix of immigrant detainees from Texas and felony convicts imported from Wyoming.

As with the attorneys' previous habeas corpus motion filed in behalf of the Ibrahim family, Bardavid and Cox argue that ICE has had no legal authority to arrest or detain the family; therefore, the five Hazahzas should be immediately released.

Another family released from both Hutto and Haskell following the last Texas visit by Bardavid and Cox have been spending time on Isenberg's schedule these days. Isenberg says he's helping the Ibrahim family put together their immigration petitions so that they can stay and work. He says working with the family took several hours Tuesday. It's not the first time he's said that. And the way things look, it won't be the last time--not for weeks to come.
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/56423.php

Posted by lois at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)

Overview of Prison Expansion in Idaho and Eastern WA

“Last fall, Kootenai County voters rejected a $50 million jail expansion and county leaders opted against putting a similar $55 million sales tax proposal to expand the jail on the November ballot.

Capt. Jerry Brady, the Spokane County jail commander, said the regional jail is a preliminary idea. If it gains momentum, the first step would be to hire a consultant to figure out how big the regional jail should be -- perhaps 4,500 beds -- and to determine the best way to pay for it. It's possible both Idaho and Washington could contribute in addition to the federal government, Brady said.”

“The Spokane-Coeur d'Alene region has an opportunity to use the challenges of jail overcrowding to improve the quality of not only the region's criminal justice system but also our ability to respond to natural and manmade disasters and attacks. It is an opportunity that should not be wasted.”

Overview of Prison Expansion News (Idaho/Eastern WA)

Bi-state effort answer to jail overcrowding

By William McCrory, Special to The Spokesman-Review, March 2, 2006

Both Spokane County and Kootenai County experience jail overcrowding and want to build bigger jails. Spokane County's could cost from $81 million to $410 million while Kootenai County estimates its jail expansion might cost as much as $50 million.

State, local and tribal leaders from Idaho and Washington and from Kootenai and Spokane counties should discuss creating a regional criminal justice center near the Idaho- Washington border. A regional center with facilities for public safety training, state correctional programs, a combined post-conviction jail, emergency management and community education is ripe for consideration.

Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk has proposed building a regional law enforcement training center between Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base at an estimated cost of $75 million to $100 million. North Idaho has no reasonably accessible and fully equipped training center for local and tribal law enforcement officers.

One element of Sterk's proposal -- certification training for civilian bomb technicians -- would draw students from other parts of the United States, because the only other certification school is in Huntsville, Ala. That would be a revenue producer for area businesses.

In 2002 Kootenai County rejected an Idaho Department of Correction effort to put a state transition/work release center in Kootenai County. Regional leaders should reconsider that proposal. Putting a community work center, a correctional alternative placement program or both on a regional criminal justice campus makes fiscal and security sense.

It also offers correctional training and education opportunities for both criminal justice practitioners and the community. Corrections is as important as law enforcement, juvenile justice and the courts, but educating the public about corrections has been neglected.

Assessing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Sept. 11 commission noted: "Imagination is not a gift usually associated with bureaucracies." Though the commission was directing its criticism primarily at national-level agencies, public safety officials know that the first responders to emergencies will always come from nearby local agencies regardless of the emergency's size or n