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July 31, 2007

Al Gore's Son...if only everyone could get the same treatment

Al Gore's 24-year-old son pleads guilty to possession of drugs July 31, 2007

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (AP) - Al Gore's son pleaded guilty Monday to possessing marijuana and other drugs, but a judge said the plea could be withdrawn and the charges dropped if he successfully completes a drug diversion program.

Authorities have said they found drugs in Al Gore III's car after the 24-year-old was pulled over on July 4 for going 100 mph in his Toyota Prius.

He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of drug possession, two misdemeanor counts of drug possession without a prescription, and one misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, the district attorney's office said.

Jaime Coulter, senior deputy district attorney, said Gore's sentencing will be continued until Feb. 7. If he has complied with all the conditions of the diversion program, the sentencing will be continued again for another year, with charges possibly being dropped in 2009.

"At that point, he will be able to withdraw his guilty plea as if he never entered it," Coulter said.

Gore was expected to enter the drug diversion program immediately, said Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.

Posted by lois at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

AZ:States Export Their Inmates as Prisons Fill

July 31, 2007
States Export Their Inmates as Prisons Fill
By SOLOMON MOORE

ELOY, Ariz. — For Bob Weier, a Hawaiian convicted of armed robbery, incarceration at the Red Rock Correctional Center on the outskirts of this dusty town is the latest stop in a far-flung and nomadic exile.

Since his imprisonment 12 years ago on Maui, Mr. Weier, 53, has served his sentence in prisons in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Arizona. He last saw his daughter 11 years ago and has five grandchildren he has never met.

“To them, I’m just a voice who talks to them on the phone for a while,” said Mr. Weier, a heavyset man who expects to be released next year.

Chronic prison overcrowding has corrections officials in Hawaii and at least seven other states looking increasingly across state lines for scarce prison beds, usually in prisons run by private companies. Facing a court mandate, California last week transferred 40 inmates to Mississippi and has plans for at least 8,000 to be sent out of state.

The long-distance arrangements account for a small fraction of the country’s total prison population — about 10,000 inmates, federal officials estimate — but corrections officials in states with the most crowded prisons say the numbers are growing.

One private prison company that houses inmates both in-state and out of state, the Corrections Corporation of America, announced last year that it would spend $213 million on construction and renovation projects for 5,000 prisoners by next year.

“They find that their prison populations are at or beyond capacity and they have to relieve that capacity,” Tony Grande, the company’s president for state relations, said of states turning to private prisons. “They quickly turn to us and we have open prison capacity where we can accommodate growth.”

About one-third of Hawaii’s 6,000 state inmates are held in private in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. Alabama has 1,300 prisoners in Louisiana. About 360 inmates from California, which has one of the nation’s most crowded prison systems, are in Arizona and Tennessee.

But while the out-of-state transfers are helping states that have been unwilling, or too slow, to build enough prisons of their own, they have also raised concerns among some corrections officials about excessive prisoner churn, consistency among the private vendors and safety in some prisons.

Moving inmates from prison to prison disrupts training and rehabilitation programs and puts stress on tenuous family bonds, corrections officials say, making it more difficult to break the cycle of inmates committing new crimes after their release.

Several recidivism studies have found that convicts who keep in touch with family members through visits and phone privileges are less likely to violate their parole or commit new offenses. There have been no studies that focused specifically on out-of-state placements.

Paige M. Harrison, a researcher for the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, said the out-of-state inmates faced problems familiar to the large number of in-state prisoners incarcerated hundreds of miles from their homes. A study in 1997 found that more than 60 percent of state inmates were held more than 100 miles from their last place of residence.

“If you’re being held on the other side of Texas or California, you better believe that for many inmates, they’re beyond visitation,” Ms. Harrison said.

The frequent moves can also have a disruptive effect on prisons, whether the transfers occur within a state or not, corrections officials said. In California, a federal court official overseeing a revamping of the prison medical system reported more than 170,000 prisoner moves within the state in the first three months of this year. The moves were found to be inhibiting the ability of inmates to receive health care and draining resources.

In Arizona, where more than 2,000 inmates have been exported to prisons in Oklahoma and Indiana, corrections officials are struggling to provide consistent and effective programming for them, said Dora B. Schriro, the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.

“Having a long-term impact on public safety and recidivism is that much more challenging,” Ms. Schriro said of the arrangements.

The number of inmates shipped out of Arizona would be even larger, but plans for additional transfers to Indiana had to be called off in April after 500 inmates from Arizona rioted at a privately run prison in New Castle, Ind., in part because of complaints about the long distance. Two correctional officers and five inmates were injured in the two-hour incident. Officials there assigned blame to poorly trained guards, many of whom were hired just days before the transfers.

Ms. Schriro said the riot showed how desperate the situation had become. The state’s overcrowding worsened, she said, after two private prisons in Texas now run by the GEO Group, canceled Arizona’s contract and instead signed more lucrative deals with federal corrections agencies.

“We started to add provisional beds in-state through double-bunking, converting several kitchens to bed space and making preparations to bring additional tents online,” Ms. Schriro said.

Eli Coates, a 26-year-old inmate from Arizona serving 10 years for armed robbery, did time at six Arizona prisons and one in Oklahoma before arriving at the New Castle prison early this year. New Castle is managed by the GEO Group.

Mr. Coates said his frequent moves had made it hard to complete educational programs that he hoped would help him get a steady job upon release.

“I was on my way to being able to finish a college program and vocational programs to get a trade,” Mr. Coates said. “But they snatched me up from those opportunities, and here I have to start all over again.”

Mr. Weier, the Hawaiian prisoner here in Arizona, said that each time he moved, he had to reapply for phone privileges, a process that can take six months. Even when he was allowed to call home, he said, he could not always afford the long-distance bills.

“You lose your family identity,” said Mr. Weier. “And that’s not good, because when we go back into society — and more than 95 percent of us will — the only ones who are going to take care of you are your family.”

Without big construction plans or radical sentencing reforms in the offing, Arizona will continue to rely on out-of-state alternatives. The state has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the country and an inmate population exceeding 37,000, or 127 percent of the state’s official prison capacity. Several public prisons are already surrounded by tent cities to accommodate the overflow.

Adam Ramirez, 35, an inmate from Tucson serving six years for a parole violation, sat sweating recently in a 16-man tent at the 100-year-old Florence State Prison, about 15 miles northeast of Eloy in Florence, Ariz.

“It’s always crowded in here,” said Mr. Ramirez, pointing to an empty bed next to his. “They sent that guy out to Oklahoma today and there will be somebody else here today or tomorrow.”

Overcrowding has been a problem in prisons for decades, and the country’s prison and jail population has never been higher, rising 2.8 percent from July 2005 to July 2006 to reach 2,245,189, according to the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics bulletin. A report by the Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that the prison population will grow by another 192,000 in the next five years.

State corrections officials and prison industry executives say that prison companies are an attractive alternative when cash-strapped state governments need additional prison space faster than they can build it. Private prisons can also provide political cover to elected officials seeking to avoid charges of coddling criminals and spending large sums on prison construction.

Alabama officials turned to the Corrections Corporation of America for space after a judge threatened to hold the overloaded state corrections department in contempt for failing to pick up inmates from county jails, said Mr. Grande, the company official. The company found out-of-state space for 1,500 inmates within 30 days. When hurricanes beset Florida in 2003, Mr. Grande said, the company found alternative prison space within 72 hours.

But state governments often pay a premium for those spaces. The riot in Indiana in April came after Ms. Schriro, the Arizona corrections director, agreed to pay about $14 million a year to house 610 prisoners there. That is about $3 million more than the state would have paid for inmates at in-state public prisons, said a spokeswoman for Arizona corrections, Robin Wilkins.

Ms. Schriro is moving forward with plans to expand prison space for Arizona prisoners locally and in private prisons in Oklahoma. But she expects the state prison population to exceed capacity by the time those expansion projects are complete.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/us/31prisons.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

At Bronx Latino Festival, the Army Sponsors the Music

July 30, 2007
At Bronx Latino Festival, the Army Sponsors the Music
By FERNANDA SANTOS

A young recruiter with bulging biceps tapped his fingers against his stomach, following the thumping melody emanating from the stage nearby. A line of people stretched along the steel barricades surrounding his makeshift office, a black-and-gold tent erected by the Orchard Beach promenade. Beside him, a poster depicting a group of soldiers in military fatigues offered, in Spanish, an invitation of sorts:

It said: “Están entrenando para ser más que soldados.” (“They’re training to be more than soldiers.”) “Están entrenando para la vida.” (“They’re training for life.”)

Each Sunday until Labor Day weekend, a different organization pays $20,000 to $50,000 to cover most of the day’s expenses for the Tropical Music Festival, an annual series of Latin concerts at the beach on Long Island Sound, a mile-long stretch of sand known as the Riviera of the Bronx.

On July 22, the festival’s opening day, American Airlines was the principal sponsor. Yesterday, to the dismay of some local officials, it was the United States Army.

“I know we all have our opinions,” said the festival’s M.C., Casper Martinez, a stand-up comedian from the Bronx who broadcasts on a New York Spanish-language radio station, La Mega 97.9 FM. “But we do want to thank the U.S. Army for being here with us.”

Most of those clustered around the stage, about 200 people who swayed animatedly to the beat of salsa and reggaetón, seemed oblivious to the Army’s presence, or simply did not care about it, regardless of how they felt about the war.

Not too far away, though, near steps connecting the parking lot to the beach, two local elected officials, surrounded by about a dozen supporters, stood in protest.

“We should not be allowing our public recreational space to be used for recruiting our youngsters to get killed in Iraq,” said Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx.

“Our children are not for sale,” added City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents East Harlem and the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Ms. Mark-Viverito said the Army, which was doing most of the fighting in Iraq, had increasingly focused its recruiting efforts on the city’s low-income and minority neighborhoods. Last year, the Army opened a recruitment station on 103rd Street in East Harlem, which is predominantly Hispanic, much like the crowd yesterday at Orchard Beach.

Army representatives at the concert declined to be interviewed.

John Velez, 18, who lives in Washington Heights, another of the city’s heavily Hispanic areas, said he was considering joining the Army once he graduates from high school next May, even as he conceded being “a little bit scared” about possibly going to war.

“I’m looking for some direction, and I think maybe the Army could give it to me,” said Mr. Velez, who is entering his senior year at the Manhattan Occupational Training Center. “And they could make me strong.”

Mr. Velez was standing in line outside the Army tent, waiting to pick up one of the T-shirts and dog tags given away by the recruiters. Lillian Robles, who had already collected her giveaways, said one of the men under the tent asked her to write down her name, address, date of birth and phone number on a form before he handed her the items.

“Sounds like a lot of information to give out for free stuff,” said Ms. Robles, who lives in the West Farms section of the Bronx.

“I got a shirt, and I guess I’m going to get a call, too,” she said, though at 45, she does not seem to be a potential Army recruit.

The recruiters, wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the black-and-gold Army star over the words “Go Army,” did not approach anyone outside the fenced-in area surrounding the tent. At least one of them attracted the attention of passers-by by doing occasional pull-ups on a bar behind the tent.

The Army has 46 recruitment centers across the five boroughs, but despite its aggressive push, recruitment numbers have fallen by 19 percent in the past three fiscal years, to 1,044 in 2006 from 1,295 in 2004, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research organization that works with mostly liberal causes.

Nationwide, however, the Army said it recruited about 80,600 people in the 2006 fiscal year, or some 7,000 more than in the previous fiscal year. For 2005, it missed its recruiting goal. From 2001 to 2005, Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent.

Brooklyn led the city last year in new Army recruits, with 391, followed by Queens (261), the Bronx (230), Manhattan (109) and Staten Island (53), the National Priorities Project said.

This is the third consecutive year in which the Army has sponsored one of the days at the festival, which has been put together for 11 years by Ralph Paniagua, a longtime promoter of Latino events in the city. In the event’s news release, the “Army Day” was characterized as “an opportunity to acquaint the public with our armed forces in an ambience of mutual camaraderie.”

“We have a lot of Latinos who have joined the military and become very successful,” said Mr. Paniagua, whose 37-year-old son, Joseph, enlisted in the Army when he turned 21.

“This is not about boosting the Army’s ranks,” he added. “This is about the Army showing appreciation for our culture, and us showing appreciation for their service to our country.”

Posted by lois at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

TN:Changing focus on state prisons. 1800 new cages under construction

Changing focus on state prisons
As two projects proceed, officials debate design shift

By Tom Humphrey
Sunday, July 29, 2007

NASHVILLE — The cost of building a new state prison in Morgan County has reached $155 million, and the head of the state’s Department of Correction says that unless changes are made, the price for a similar facility in Bledsoe County could pass $200 million.

Altering current plans for the Bledsoe prison, however, will mean scrapping a contract that has already paid more than $2 million in state funds to architects and consultants who were following the original design.

“That bothers me. I’m just afraid there’s something not on the up-and-up about this,” said state Rep. Philip Pinion, D-Union City, one of several legislators who expressed skepticism about the idea at a meeting this month of the Correction Oversight Committee.

Department of Correction Commissioner George Little insisted that a move to let other architects bid to become the Bledsoe “design team,” which he supports, is a legitimate recognition of the need for “a new generation” of prisons in Tennessee rather than following a “cookie-cutter” approach.

But he backed away from directly asking the committee to approve such a change in plans at the recent meeting. Several legislators said they would have voted no if he had.

The proposed change will be back before the committee at an Aug. 21 meeting.

The prison construction projects will add almost 1,800 beds to the state prison system’s capacity. Little cautions that the increase will not be enough for the long run.

New laws passed during the 2007 legislative session will mean longer sentences for many convicts, including child rapists and those using guns in violent crimes. Little said that preliminary estimates are that the new laws will create the need for 1,000 new prison beds in 10 years.

Even before the new laws took effect, Little said, the projected need was for 1,500 new beds by 2017. Now it’s expected that the state will need a total of 2,500 new beds if the preliminary estimates are confirmed by a more detailed analysis this fall, he said.

Also this fall, Gov. Phil Bredesen is expected to appoint a special commission, authorized by the Legislature earlier this year, that will study the corrections system and eventually make recommendations on how to deal with the anticipated influx of new prisoners.

Options include alternatives to hard-time prisons, especially for those committing less serious offenses, Little said.

For now, however, the more immediate corrections challenge is bringing the Morgan County and Bledsoe County facilities into operation.

The Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility, after some delays and a dramatic increase from the initial cost estimate of $80 million, is on track and should be in full operation next year, Little said.

The first prisoners should move into a completed building this fall, he said. They will be minimum-security inmates who will work on landscaping for the rest of the prison grounds, Little said. When the new prison opens, the state will close the aging Brushy Mountain State Prison but still net an increase of 838 new beds.

The increase in construction costs mostly came from corresponding increases in the cost of concrete, steel, other building materials and fuel, he said.

The new Bledsoe prison, officially known as Southeastern Tennessee Regional Correctional Facility, is still in the initial stages of development with a projected completion date of late 2010 or early 2011.

That means it’s not too late to change plans, even though $1,871,975 has already been paid to the architects under the original design contract, Cope Associates of Knoxville and Kaatz Binkley Jones and Morris of Mount Juliet.

The design contract would be worth $4.6 million if carried to completion, said Lanny Cope, president of Cope Associates.

Another $348,352 has already been paid to Mark Golman Associates, an Atlanta-based consulting firm that recommended the change in design being embraced by state officials.

Little said new projections show that sticking to the original plans for Bledsoe would add at least $20 million to the latest estimated cost “based on very conservative figures.”

The latest estimate is $182 million, meaning the total would be pushed to $202 million. The original estimate when the project was announced in March 2004 was $102 million.

“So we hired a consultant for $350,000 to tell us we’re doing it the wrong way — now that we’ve got started — and we need to start over?” asked Rep. Mike Turner, D-Nashville, at this month’s committee meeting. “And the architects are doing a good job, but you want to replace them?”

That is basically correct, Little acknowledged, because the initial “cookie-cutter” designed failed to take some things into account, such as recent advances in security technology that should be incorporated into the plans, and the new facility’s proximity to an existing prison that must be kept secure while work is going on.

“We were going to take what we did in Morgan, drop it down to Bledsoe and do the same thing,” he said.

Unlike Morgan County, the Bledsoe project also involves a water treatment plant, linked to a new pipeline that will bring water from the Tennessee River to the area. There are also environmental problems associated with runoff from a dairy farm operated by the state prison industries program, TriCor.

“It is far more complex than anything this department has taken on,” said Little. “We learned a lot at Morgan County.”

The new approach, if the committee agrees, may also translate into more competitive bidding for the final construction project, he said, and allow faster completion. At Morgan County, only two companies bid on construction, with Ray Bell Construction the winner.

Rep. Bill Harmon, D-Dunlap, chairman of the Correction Oversight Committee, said he is not yet sold on the idea of changing plans for Bledsoe, though he believes perhaps $500,000 of the $1.8 million in work done by architects will apply to the new plan.

Harmon said the increased costs in materials also make much of the escalating expenses at Morgan and Bledsoe understandable.

“That’s happening in every construction job. There are astronomical increases in the cost of concrete, steel and fuel,” he said.

At the committee hearing, Pinion and some other legislators questioned whether the current architects were being treated fairly and whether criteria in the new bidding for architects would effectively exclude Tennessee companies and favor larger, out-of-state firms. Little said that would not be the case.

Cope said he was “reluctant to take any position” on the proposed change and is hopeful that, if the change takes place, “we will still be part of the team.”

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/jul/29/major-prison-projects/
E.W. Scripps Co.
© 2007 Knoxville News Sentinel

Posted by lois at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

MO: Inmate numbers are down in Missouri

When Gov. Matt Blunt took office in January 2005, Missouri's prison population was growing by about two a day, said Commissioner of Administration Mike Keathley. At that rate, the state would have had to build a new prison every two years. Missouri officials point to the community supervision centers as one key factor in the state's decline in inmates. "For the best public safety, you need to reserve the beds for the most dangerous and violent," said Larry Crawford, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections."

St. Louis Post Dispatch
Inmate numbers are down in Missouri
By Virginia Young and Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
07/29/2007

FARMINGTON ‹ The supervision center is across a narrow road from the double fence and looping razor wire of a state prison. Out the back door, a garden sprouts with cantaloupe, zucchini and watermelon.

All of the center's residents are on probation or parole, and most have violated the terms that gave them freedom. They could have been ordered behind the razor wire, but the state is giving them a supervised second chance and in the process reducing the state's inmate population. One thing they do is tend the garden.

"I enjoy helping the plants grow," said Michael Goesmann. "It gives me peace."

He could use it. Goesmann, 54, served 15 months for a drug offense and said he'd been an addict for years. He was released from the prison in St. Joseph, Mo., in March and wasn't ready for the outside world.

On Tuesday, he was one of 23 men and five women assigned to the Farmington Community Supervision Center, which opened in January 2006 ‹ the first of two such centers in Missouri. The state plans to open five more in hopes of keeping stumbling offenders away from prison's revolving door.

Such stumbles have fed a decade of explosive inmate growth that required the state to double its number of prison beds. But thanks to alternatives, officials say, Missouri is leading the nation in reducing its inmate population.

In the year that ended June 30, 2006, the number of people behind bars in Missouri declined by nearly 3 percent, the largest percentage in any state.

Only eight states reported a decline, according to the Department of Justice. Illinois reported an increase of 1.7 percent.

When Gov. Matt Blunt took office in January 2005, Missouri's prison population was growing by about two a day, said Commissioner of Administration Mike Keathley. At that rate, the state would have had to build a new prison every two years.

Missouri officials point to the community supervision centers as one key factor in the state's decline in inmates.

"For the best public safety, you need to reserve the beds for the most dangerous and violent," said Larry Crawford, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Crawford said the state also provides a special "re-entry" program for inmates leaving prison. They live in transitional housing units, learn how to write a résumé and get a state-issued nondrivers identification card needed for everything from applying for jobs to renting a movie.

"It's all about making people successful," Crawford said.

Rep. Danie Moore, R-Fulton, stresses the taxpayer benefit of the supervision centers. She heads the House committee that oversees the $624 million operating budget of the Corrections Department.

The system now holds 29,901 inmates. Each prisoner costs the state $39.43 a day or $14,392 a year.

'DRAMATIC' CHANGE

The community centers were an outgrowth of an effort to revamp how criminals are sentenced.

Today, new reports prepared for judges analyze whether a community-oriented program is likely to keep an offender from committing more crimes. Sentencing recommendations emphasize alternatives to prison for nonviolent felonies.

Since probation officers began issuing the new sentencing reports in November 2005, Missouri's prison population has dropped by nearly 700 inmates. By contrast, the number of inmates grew by 850 in the preceding fiscal year.

David Valentine, a senior analyst at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri-Columbia, called the turnaround "dramatic."

"Missouri is on the beginning edge of what should be a long-term, downward trend," said Valentine, former director of research for the Missouri Senate.

The state's approach has been crafted quietly the past two years by a team led by Supreme Court Judge Mike Wolff. He heads the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission, which developed the format for the "sentencing assessment reports."

The commission also developed a simple-to-use application on its website ‹ www.mosac.mo.gov ‹ that allows judges to get suggested sentences from their computers. The program recommends probation, prison time or an alternative sentence based on information such as the offender's age, work history and education, as well as his criminal history.

Wolff said the reports give judges crucial information. For example, if the probation officer recommends drug treatment, the report spells out the date when a treatment bed will be available.

Prosecutors say they see the logic in reserving prison space for the most violent criminals. But they say the new sentencing recommendations are based on average sentences for a particular offense and fail to take into account how crimes differ.

Using averages "is just not a good way to decide who should be going to prison," said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. "We don't need judges if that's the way they do it."

Under the new system, felons are assigned a "risk class" ranging from "good" to "poor." The sentencing reports no longer include a detailed narrative about the offender's family background, education and crime.

"The new version is more of a cookie-cutter justice, as opposed to a thorough background investigation," said Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.

Prosecutors also say the increase in the state's inmate popu lation was a natural outgrowth of the passage in 1994 of legislation dubbed "truth in sentencing."

Under the law, people convicted of any of seven major crimes ‹ second-degree murder, rape, sodomy, kidnapping, first-degree assault, arson and first-degree robbery ‹ must serve 85 percent of their prison sentence. Before the law, inmates were often paroled after serving half or a third or even less of their sentence.

During the administration of former Gov. Mel Carnahan, the state built five prisons. From 1994 to 2004, Missouri's inmate population doubled, from 14,000 to 30,000.

To help provide more sentencing options, Missouri opened the community supervision centers in Farmington and St. Joseph. Five more are planned or under construction ‹ in Hannibal, Kennett, Poplar Bluff, Kansas City and Fulton.

At the centers, nonviolent offenders can get drug treatment, attend employment workshops or earn a high school diploma by passing a GED test.

"It's a pretty intensive intervention," said Laura Hibbs, district administrator for probation and parole in St. Joseph. "Our goal is to get them turned around fairly quickly," generally in 30 to 60 days.

The centers differ from traditional halfway houses, which are transition points from prison to parole. Supervision centers generally are for those already on parole after time served or offenders who get probation, a sentence that usually doesn't include prison time as long as conditions are met.

Goesmann works at a local garden center and gets to see his adult son, daughter and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in the area. He plans to move into an apartment in nearby Park Hills in about a week.

"This has given me time to move back into society," he said.

District administrator Shelly Crump said most of the center's residents had committed drug-related offenses and, while free, abused drugs again. Those who relapse with more serious offenses usually don't get the deal.

Crump oversees 1,300 probationers and parolees in St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve and Madison counties. Her staff of 47 works from the supervision center, a one-story brick building with a sloping green roof and no fence or window bars.

Inside are living quarters for as many as 40 men and six women. In the men's ward, beds are separated by partitions 4 feet high. The women share a small, open room. Residents stay from one to four months.

They relax and eat in a multipurpose room, with food from the Farmington Correctional Center across the road. There are classrooms for GED, drug counseling and other courses.

Ross Downey, who runs the center, said most residents have jobs outside and can leave for approved visits. They could sneak away, but their ankle bracelets would trip an electronic perimeter outside. With privileges at stake, they don't run, he said.

"This place allows for consequences short of going to prison," Downey said. "We don't make choirboys here, but if we can get them back into productive lives, they and the state are much better off."

Matthew Hathaway of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/B6
58013F26DC305C86257327000BB199?OpenDocument

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

New Connecticut Law May Save a Troubled Prison for Juveniles

"Resistance to such a move, he said, has been led "first and foremost" by the unions that represent employees at the youth prison, the largest of which, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has substantial lobbying muscle in Hartford. The unions do not "want it to close," Mr. Lawlor said of the youth prison, adding that "if you create alternate programs, you have to site them somewhere, and there's a great deal of resistance" from local communities. "Those two factors together have made it almost impossible to shut down" the place, he added."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/nyregion/30juvy.html?ref=nyregion>

New York Times
New Connecticut Law May Save a Troubled Prison for Juveniles

Published: July 30, 2007

The state's child advocate labeled the youth prison, called the Connecticut Juvenile Training School and opened in 2001 during Gov. John G. Rowland's administration, "beyond repair." Legislators piled on, and the current governor, M. Jodi Rell, called for it to be closed by next year, saying, "I cannot allow the failure of this institution to continue."

Instead, the $57 million facility, which houses all but the state's most serious juvenile offenders, is gearing up for a likely increase of its population, and an infusion of about $40 million a year. That is because of a state law Mrs. Rell signed last month that will raise the age at which criminal suspects are automatically charged as adults, to 18 from 16, starting in 2010.

Some say that the youth prison's possible revival has been the result not only of the new law, but also of the power of the unions that represent the 300 employees who staff the place. Others cite a lack of resolve among politicians to shut down a boondoggle, while some point to fiscal and political realities, saying it would cost much more to close the prison and start again elsewhere.

Part of the reason, though, rests in the youth prison itself, which has undergone significant improvements during the last two years.

The building where the teenage offenders with the worst behavior problems had been housed in drab rooms, with slits for windows, has been converted into a youth center complete with arcade games and an art therapy room. Cinderblock cells once likened to "tiger cages" by Donald E. Williams Jr., a Democrat from Brooklyn, Conn., who is president pro tempore of the Senate, now have better shelving, desks, bulletin boards and carpet.

"It used to be a hellhole," said Fred Phillips, a longtime youth services officer at the prison. What is there today, he said, "is a great improvement."

Jeanne M. Milstein, the child advocate, said the prison, which opened six years ago, has improved enough that in April she agreed to shift the monitor she had installed there for the previous two years to a psychiatric hospital for children nearby.

She still favors closing the Middletown prison and opening smaller institutions for young offenders scattered around the state, so they can stay connected to their communities.

But, she said,"I don¹t think there"s the political will right now by the legislature to close it."

Connecticut has been one of three states, along with New York and North Carolina, that have set the age threshold at 16 for routinely charging criminal suspects as adults (and, as is common across the country, adult status is often given to those younger than 16 accused of serious felonies).

Under the new law, some of the 250 to 300 16- and 17-year-olds now sent each year to adult prisons run by the State Department of Correction will need to be housed in juvenile facilities. Those accused of the most serious felonies will still be handled in the adult system.

The change means the 16- and 17-year-olds who are to be treated as juveniles will get services including mental health treatment, family counseling and a probation officer as soon as they enter the system. Their records will also remain confidential ‹ and invisible when they apply for jobs, professional licenses and schools.

³What we were doing was not working," said Judge William J. Lavery, Connecticut's chief court administrator. State Senator Toni N. Harp, a New Haven Democrat who pushed the legislation, said the old approach "hardens, rather than softens," teenagers at risk of a life of crime.

Most states set the threshold for adult charges at 18, according to Melissa Sickmund, a senior policy associate for the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, but 10 states have long used 17 as their cutoff age, and Rhode Island recently became the 11th, lowering from 18 largely because of budget pressures.

Incarceration at juvenile facilities is generally far more expensive than at adult prisons, even for inmates of the same age, because of the differing approaches used ‹ one punitive, the other therapeutic.

In Connecticut, Leo C. Arnone, director of the Bureau of Juvenile Services, part of the Department of Children and Families, said the cost difference could be tenfold: The current annual budget for the Connecticut Juvenile Training School is $27.6 million, or $276,000 for each of about 100 residents, while the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire, a correctional facility, spends about $27,000 per year for each of its 700 inmates.

"We either invest now or pay later," said Ms. Milstein, the child advocate, arguing that the additional services rehabilitate young offenders and curtail recidivism.

But with the new state law, the budgetary considerations grow more complicated.

A report by the General Assembly's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis predicts that the cost of absorbing some of the additional teenage offenders at the Middletown center would run $38.8 million to $43.2 million per year. Housing them elsewhere ‹ whether at existing private or public facilities or in some new state institutions ‹ would cost an additional $5.5 million to $11.3 million annually beyond that. And that is on top of one-time capital costs estimated at $7.5 million to $10 million for improving the youth prison, or $22.5 million to $25 million to build alternatives.

The youth prison here, whose original capacity was estimated at 240, now has 97 teenagers on site, and officials say 50 empty beds could be available immediately.

Abby Anderson, a senior policy associate with the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, a Bridgeport-based advocacy group, said the conversation among policymakers amounted to: "How do we close a facility that has all these beds if we're going to bring all these 16- and 17-year-olds into the system?"

The Middletown center played a key role in the corruption case against former Governor Rowland, who served 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to having conspired to deprive the public of his honest services and to commit tax fraud.

In the plea, Mr. Rowland acknowledged having approved the funding for the juvenile prison, which was built by the Tomasso family of New Britain, without disclosing that the Tomassos had previously given him gifts worth $15,000.

In the two years since Mrs. Rell and others denounced the youth prison as a boondoggle, some of its shortcomings have been addressed. Building 2, once Exhibit A of the dysfunction and faulty design, has been converted into a comfortably furnished chapter of the Boys and Girls Club, where residents can participate in life-skills training workshops. Painted murals and makeshift walls hide the ugly cells that ring the perimeter of the building and now sit empty; the interior has a pool table and an art therapy room where teenagers one recent afternoon were making go-carts.

Across the courtyard, in the younger children's living area, kites dangled from the rafters. An Oriental-style carpet covered the floor in another wing. "That, we just bought ourselves to home up the unit," said Susan Kunst, the staff member who runs it.

The residents of that unit, mostly older teenagers, occasionally get to cook their own breakfast and leave campus for driving lessons. Unlike inmates at Manson, residents can make free phone calls home and are given some access to the Internet. Recreational offerings include Frisbee golf and a driving range.

At the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire ‹ whose warden, Christine Whidden, said her charges were young enough that she had to remind them "to brush their teeth and pull up their pants ‹ the sports tend to be basketball and more basketball. Trees hardly exist. "They used them as climbing devices," explained Ms. Whidden. Cellblocks lacked air-conditioning until this summer.

Chris Cooper, a spokesman for Mrs. Rell, a Republican, said she remained adamant that the Middletown center was not appropriate for younger teenagers, who are sent there starting at age 13. He said the governor had ordered the Department of Children and Families to develop other options, but the legislature had not funded that effort.

"You can¹t just shut something down without any alternatives," Mr. Cooper said.

As for the new population of 16- and 17-year-olds who could be sent here once the new law takes effect, Mr. Cooper said that Mrs. Rell was "willing to have it looked at."

State Representative Michael P. Lawlor, a Democrat from East Haven who is co-chairman of the Joint Judiciary Committee, said he agreed with the governor and Ms. Milstein, the child advocate, that it would be better to house juvenile offenders in small facilities throughout the state.

Resistance to such a move, he said, has been led "first and foremost" by the unions that represent employees at the youth prison, the largest of which, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has substantial lobbying muscle in Hartford.

The unions do not "want it to close," Mr. Lawlor said of the youth prison, adding that "if you create alternate programs, you have to site them somewhere, and there's a great deal of resistance' from local communities.

"Those two factors together have made it almost impossible to shut down" the place, he added.

Posted by lois at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2007

CA: State Seeking a Stay of the Federal Judges' Orders

"The state also is seeking a stay of the federal judges' orders that would prevent the three-judge panel from meeting while the appeal is being heard."

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_6485411>

Governor to appeal panel prison study
Panel ordered to study effects of prison overcrowding.

By Don Thompson, Associated Press
Article Launched: 07/27/2007 11:03:57 PM PDT

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signaled his intention to appeal a federal court decision that orders a special judicial panel to examine severe overcrowding in California's prison system. The governor's action comes a day after the chief judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals created the three-judge panel, following the recommendation of two federal judges.

The panel will be charged with examining how overcrowding is affecting inmate health care, mental health, services for the disabled and other prison operations. Among the possible remedies are a cap of California's inmate population and early release of some prisoners.

The three-judge panel could start meeting before the governor's appeal is being considered.

If it does, "We will show the panel the aggressive efforts being made by the administration to address prison overcrowding, explaining why a prison release order is not necessary," Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile said. "We will continue to do all we can to ensure public safety."

The administration wants to avoid a federal takeover of the state prison system. It says it needs time to implement a $7.8 billion prison and jail building program approved by state lawmakers this spring.

The state also is transferring up to 8,000 inmates to private prisons in other states to ease crowding and adopting changes to its parole policies that are designed to keep more ex-convicts from quickly returning to prison.

In defending the state, Attorney General Jerry Brown said the Schwarzenegger administration has not had sufficient time to solve the overcrowding crisis but is taking significant steps to do so.

"The state is addressing the issue as evidenced by the landmark prison reform package, AB900, which was signed into law a mere two months ago, in May 2007," Brown wrote in the notice of appeal.

The potential of the three judges ordering the early release of inmates while the administration's appeal is pending "would pose a risk to public safety," the attorney general's office said in its filing.

The state also is seeking a stay of the federal judges' orders that would prevent the three-judge panel from meeting while the appeal is being heard.

"Their request for a stay is based on the same arguments that have already been rejected," said Don Specter, director of the San Francisco-based Prison Law Office, who favors the three-judge panel.

Last Monday, U.S. District Court judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco ordered the panel to be created. In doing so, they ruled that the state's prison-building program is likely to make conditions worse because the corrections department already cannot handle the number of inmates it oversees.

The judges ruled that the crowding of 172,000 inmates into quarters designed for about half that number is contributing to unconstitutional conditions.

Karlton and Henderson were named to the special panel on Thursday by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder. The third member is Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, a Yale Law School graduate who was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

"I don't think it particularly bodes well for the state's case," said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, an expert on prison issues who knows all three justices.

Reinhardt "is someone who values civil liberties, who values the U.S. Constitution," she said. He is likely to be sympathetic to the views of Karlton and Henderson, Romero said.

Posted by lois at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2007

Editorial, NY Times: Fixing the Scam on Collect Calls

Editorial, NY Times
Fixing the Scam on Collect Calls
Published: July 27, 2007

New York’s Gov. Eliot Spitzer set an important example earlier this year when he abandoned the longstanding practice of charging prisoners bankrupting fees for collect calls. Telephone rates in New York have since dropped by about half. Those rates are likely to fall further now that Mr. Spitzer has signed a bill requiring the state to consider the cost of inmate phone calls when it negotiates the next contract for prison telephone services.

That’s a far cry from how business is done elsewhere. In most states, contracts are awarded to the company that pays the state the largest “commission” for such calls — essentially a legalized kickback. The states and the companies both rack up the cash because inmates are only allowed to make collect calls while the person who accepts the call is charged a massive premium, sometimes as much as six times the going rate for regular calls.

This amounts to a hidden tax on inmates’ families, who tend to be among the country’s poorest. It also weakens family ties, making it harder for inmates to make successful transitions to outside life.

Even at a reduced price, the collect-call-only approach is not the only option. The federal prison system uses a more affordable debit calling system, in which inmates use money from computer-controlled accounts. New York and other states should adopt the debit system. No families should have to choose between putting food on the table or accepting a collect call from a loved one behind bars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/opinion/27fri4.html

Posted by lois at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

Extreme Isolation in Prisons Is Never Justified

Guest Opinion
Extreme isolation in prisons is never justifiable
CAYLOR ROLING
Salem OR Statesman Journal
July 27, 2007

When does punishment in our prisons go too far? When people with mental-health concerns -- even some with only months to go before release -- commit suicide rather than face the extreme isolation of the segregated cells in state prisons.

Reporter Alan Gustafson's series on suicides in state prisons shines a much-needed light on the conditions facing people who are incarcerated. The rate of prison suicides in Oregon is disturbing, and we encourage more coverage about what happens to the people in prisons.

The often-invisible populations of incarcerated people have families, children and friends who must also survive the imprisonment of their loved ones. While for much of society, people in prison are locked up and easily forgotten, for their families, the added potential for suicide is another fear they grapple with daily. When people are imprisoned with no outside oversight, alarming things can happen, as Mr. Gustafson pointed out in his compelling series.

The Statesman Journal's series identified one very significant common theme running through many of the suicides: extreme isolation, often in Intensive Management Units.

IMUs are prisons within prisons where some inmates are sent for long periods of time. IMUs are places where the sun never shines, the lights never go completely out, any real human contact is forbidden and more than 23 hours a day are spent completely alone in a tiny box. Leaving the box means shackles, cuffs and being led by a leash.

IMUs create such dehumanizing and degrading conditions that a U.N. report described incarceration in these units as torture. Yet some Oregon prisoners can spend months or even years in IMUs, even if they have identified mental illnesses that are greatly exacerbated by the extreme isolation and dehumanization of the units.

While the Oregon Department of Corrections suggests it is taking steps to curb suicides in prison, never do they discuss ending the damaging isolation of the segregation units. In fact, Mr. Gustafson's article states that the Department of Corrections is moving the Disciplinary Segregation Unit into the Intensive Management Unit. This will only lead to more isolation, illness and deaths of people confined in that space.

While separating some people from the general prison population might at times be justified, the extreme isolation of the Intensive Management Units is never justifiable. Never does the Department of Corrections explain how such disturbing conditions serve a rehabilitative function because they don't. And because they don't help rehabilitate, Oregonians should be concerned.

We're not alone in suggesting that Oregon put an end to the dangerous conditions in the Intensive Management Units. The bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons calls for limiting the use of segregation and ending the conditions of isolation in segregation.

We encourage the Department of Corrections to develop less dehumanizing and more rehabilitative ways of separating prisoners from the general population when needed.

Most people eventually get out of prison, and what happens to them while they are imprisoned can either positively or negatively shape what happens when they return to the community. Oregonians should end the isolating and disturbing conditions in segregation units. This will save lives, and it's in everyone's best interest.

Caylor Roling of Portland is the prison program director of the Partnership for Safety and Justice, a statewide advocacy organization that promotes safe and sensible solutions to public-safety issues. She can be reached at Caylor@safetyandjustice.org.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070727/OPINION/707270310/1049

Posted by lois at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)

1986 Article by Harmon Wray: CCA/Private Prisons: "Cells for Sale"

This was posted on: http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/

Southern Changes. Volume 8, Number 3, 1989
Cells for Sale
By Harmon L. Wray, Jr.

Vol. 8, No. 3, 1986, pp. 3-6

The rush to transfer government services and functions from public to profit-making hands has lately found its way to the "field" of incarceration and corrections. The current leader in this new growth industry is the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, chartered in January of 1983 and financed by Hospital Corporation of America founder Jack Massey of Massey Burch Investments, Inc., the South's largest venture capital company. According to CCA president and former Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Tom Beasley, the Corrections Corporation of America alma to ~be to jails and prisons...what Hospital Corporation of America has become to medical facilities nationwide."

Declaring that "the market is limitless," Beasley (age 43) hopes to "solve the prison problem and make a lot of money at the same time." CCA currently has seven contracts to own and/or manage detention centers, treatment facilities, jails and workhouses for federal and local jurisdictions in several Southern states--three in Tennessee, one in Florida, two in Texas (for illegal aliens), one in North Carolina. But this is small potatoes compared with what CCA intends to do: take over the entire prison system of particular states, and prepare for a bid on the federal system. "The private jail market is ripe," reports Barron's, the business weekly. "And it is brokers, architects, builders, and banks-not the taxpayers-who will make out like bandits.. In less than a year, CCA has more than doubled the size of its staff, now at 500.

The proposal CCA made to the State of Tennessee in the fall of 1985 was the boldest move yet in prisons-for-profit and showed why the company is considered the most aggressive and well-connected of the capitalist corrections firms. CCA initially proposed to buy out and operate the state's prison system, under federal court order since 1982, as well as build and manage two new prisons (later expanded to five new institutions). Thanks to effective lobbying by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the CCA bid was tabled last year by the Democratically-controlled state legislature. The action came during a special session called for the prison crisis by Republican governor Lamar Alexander, a CCA supporter who once rented a garage apartment to law student Tom Beasley. Alexander has spent seven years overseeing an unconstitutional prison system but has never set foot inside one of his state's prisons.

This year, the General Assembly, under the influence of nine full-time, high-powered CCA lobbyists paid an estimated $100,000, passed a more moderate privatization bill. Before the session Tom Beasley had

Page 4
said, "I intend to get a chunk of this system." Soon he will: the 180-bed Carter County work camp opens September 1, probably under CCA operation. But the legislation (which AFSCME plans to challenge in court) prohibits further privatization of Tennessee prisons for three years.

The ambitions of Beasley and other prison entrepreneurs are not limited to Tennessee. In fact, once CCA lost its bid for all Tennessee prisons, it pursued a smaller "chunk" primarily in order to avoid the embarrassment of having no home-state contracts to advertise in its sales pitch to other jurisdictions. Last December Beasley said that if the Reagan administration decided to sell the federal prison system (as the The Wall Street Journal had just reported it might), CCA would make an offer. CCA was one of three firms bidding for the multi-million dollar Moundsville, W.Va., prison, site of a New Year's Day prisoner rebellion. Reportedly, CCA has been working on proposals for state prison systems in Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Misissippi, and Kentucky, as well as several western states. At this writing, CCA contracts to operate jails are pending in Sante Fe, N.M., and Key West, Fla. Meanwhile, CCA's Tennessee competitor, Corrections Associates Inc. (CAI), recently landed Tennessee and Alabama county jail contracts and a prison consulting contract with the Alexander administration. CAI's good fortune came on the heels of the resignation of its new president, Hubert McCullough, as Governor Alexander's finance commissioner.

The McCullough-Alexander connection is only one of many personal, business, and political linkages evident in the prisons-for-profit field. Like CAI's McCullough, CCA lobbyist Tom Ingram, 39, a former journalist and social worker, has been a prime mover with the anti-labor Tennessee Business Roundtable. Ingram also managed Alexander's two winning gubernatorial campaigns and served as his chief-of-staff for four years before forming his own public relations and business consulting firm. Others in the CCA-Alexander circle include CCA stockholders who are current and former Alexander cabinet officers, CCA administrators who are former state GOP chairpersons, a CCA lobbyist who was a Democratic state senator, and two prominent public figures who in 1985 sold their CCA stock to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest: Honey Alexander (the governor's wife held $5,000 of stock) and House Speaker Ned Ray McWherter ($33,000), the Democratic nominee to succeed Alexander. In this fall's general election, McWherter faces former Republican governor Winfield Dunn, a Memphis dentist who became a multi-millionaire as an executive for Hospital Corporation of America. Both Dunn and McWherter have called for the state to experiment with private operation of some prisons.

Another connection is the US Military Academy. Before graduating from Harvard's law and business schools, CCA treasurer and major investor Doctor R. Crants was Beasley's West Point roommate. CCA stockholder Samuel W. Bartholomew, of the Nashville law firm Donelson, Stokes &Bartholomew, was their classmate ('66).

Three of Bartholomew's children are also stockholders. Another West Point alum and major CCA investor is T. Don Hutto, the corporation's executive vice-president. Hutto, an ex-prison guard who became commissioner of corrections in Virginia and Arkansas, has since 1984 been president of the American Correctional Association, which oversees prison accreditation standards. Unlike other corrections-related professional associations-the National Sheriffs Association, the National Conference of State Trial Judges, the National Association of Criminal Justice Planners, and the American Bar Association--the ACA under Hutto's tenure has supported prison privatization.

While the prisons-for-profit trend has national dimensions, CCA leadership has focused much of the attention onto the South, where all of CCA's current contracts and most of its financial backers are located (investors include Vanderbilt University, Hospital Corporation of America, and that symbol of public service delivery, the Tennessee Valley Authority, itself often the target of privatization initiatives). Many members of CCA's management staff have worked in corrections departments in Southern states, including Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama.

Critics of corporate punishment have raised a number of issues which call the privatization trend into serious question. Tennessee Attorney General Michael Cody and the ACLU National Prison Project note that the state would retain ultimate legal and fiscal responsibility for assuring private prisons' compliance with state and federal constitutions and court orders. It also appears clear that governments cannot contract their civil liability to private concerns. Noting CCA's lack of a track record in operating a state prison for long-ternm adult offenders, Cody also questions its estimates of operating and capital expenses and doubts the state's

Page 5
ability to buy back its prisons in case of a private firm's bankruptcy, incompetence, or unwillingness to continue. Cody suggests that privatization might encourage the public to believe, mistakenly, that Tennessee can solve its corrections problems simply by building more prisons.

A 1985 Tennessee legislative report points out that privatizing does not mean that construction costs are not a liability of the state; rather, the liability has been deferred." Mark Gray of AFSCME wonders if an artifically low cost presented in an initial contract would lead to government dependency on the private firm, making it "impossible to resume operations in the future without huge capital investments. The private contractor is then in a position to raise its prices" in order to maximize profits. Former Minnesota corrections chief Ken Schoen has pointed to "defense" contractors' use of similar tactics as a way of "capitalizing on the public's fears to assure an ever-expanding system, while the basic insecurities remain."

Closely associated with such economic concerns is the question of just how a private firm will be able to operate prisons as inexpensively as it claims. Public employee unions like AFSCME and the Tennessee State Employees Association point to workers' loss of civil service rules and benefits under private prison managers, along with the possibility of lower wages, a minimal workforce, an anti-union atmosphere, and inadequate training of correctional officers. It may be no accident that corrections capitalists' favorite hunting ground for contracts has been the historically low-wage and under-unionized South. And, whether they are called "prison guards" or "correctional officers," those workers who staff our society's cages are already among the lowest paid of all government employees.

Certainly, prisoners themselves could suffer harmful effects from possible cost-cutting for the sake of profit maximization. CCA's initial proposal to Tennessee proclaims the intention of developing a "full-employment economy within the correctional system." Given the history of Tennessee's and other Southern states' "privatization" and "profitization" of prisons, one might be excused for expecting some contemporary variations on the old convict lease systems and chain gangs. Journalist Ronnie Dugger's discomfort over the proposed privatization of the Texas prison system might also apply to other Southern states: "In the company prison, we will be putting state-sentenced inmates under the command of the employees of the corporation and forcing the state-sentenced inmates to labor for the profit of the corporation. What will keep a privately-owned Texas prison from being in its very nature a state-created system of slave labor for private profit?" Constitutionally, slavery is legal as punishment for crime, and our Southern prison populations are, of course, overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black and Hispanic.

Apprehensions on the part of prisoner advocates and those who abhor slavery may not be unfounded when one considers the professional history of T. Don Hutto, the man CCA touts as its foremost corrections expert. The CCA's executive vice-president's career includes a stint as warden of the Ramsey Unit in Huntsville, Texas, in the 1960s, when the system of using inmates to guard and discipline other inmates, later outlawed in federal court, was "at its strongest," according to the Texas Observer. A 1985 article in The Nation reported that during Hutto's tenure as corrections commissioner in Arkansas the US Supreme Court ruled that state's prison system unconstitutional and found that officials "evidently tried to operate their prisons at a profit." "Inmates were required to work on prison farms ten hours a day, six days a week, often without suitable clothing or shoes, using mule-drawn plows and tending crops by hand....Punishment for minor misconduct included lashing with a wooden-handled leather strap...and administering electric shocks to 'various sensitive parts of the inmate's body.' The trial court called the prisons 'a dark and evil world completely alien to the free world.'" When confronted with this criticism, a CCA offical responded that The Nation essay was "a libelous article" and that Hutto had in fact cleaned up the unconstitutional Arkansas system.

The questions raised by Hutto's track record and by a look at the history of profit-making out of the hides of prisoners were echoed by Michael Walzer in The New Republic: "Helpless men and women have never fared well at the hands of profit-seeking entrepreneurs. The incentive system is all wrong. Who will look after the interests of prisoners? Who will be watching the prison owners as they run their 'own' business?"

Prisoners and their advocates in many Southern states lock at the decades of class-action litigation efforts to remedy their unconstitutional prison systems (now ten years in Tennessee) and wonder how much longer it would have taken had the prisons been

Page 6
privately owned during that time. The potential for foot-dragging and buck-passing would surely increase substantially under private ownership and implementation of state functions. The Tennessee Senate Speaker's favorable response to the privatization concept speaks volumes: "If somebody else ran it, somebody else would be in court. We wouldn't."

An analogy with recent corporate mobility trends, another point made by Walzer, is especially striking when seen in a Southern context: "This is probably the chief economic advantage of privatization-that it offers a (temporary) escape from the enforcement of constitutional norms. The resulting savings are like the profit added when a factory moves from a union to a non-union territory. If the union catches up, the old situation is restored. Similarly, if the courts catch up, we will find oursleves again where we are now, with judges struggling to do what state legislatures and Congress ought to do-reform the prison system."

Perhaps the most critical flaw in the privatization move is that it is inherently expansionist. A corporation paid per prisoner and per diem will look to lock up more and more people for longer and longer stretches. Recall the historic Southern practice of determining the county sheriffs' pay according to their jail counts. CCA's Tennessee proposal assumed a steadily expanding prison population (despite the falling crime rate), and its preferred per diem method of being paid has already led to cost overruns for local taxpayers at its Chattanooga penal farm.

The US locks up a larger percentage of its population than any country in the world, with two exceptions: South Africa and the Soviet Union. Some of our Southern states rank even higher than those nations. We ought to be reducing our costly, ineffective, cruel, race- and class-biased overreliance on incarceration in favor of community-based alternative sentences for non-violent offenders, such as victim restitution programs. Other effective alternatives to incarceration include intensive probation, community service work, victim-offender mediation, and required drug and alcohol treatment, GED preparation, vocational training, and job placement. Such options are used frequently with white collar criminals, but perpetrators of street crimes are scarce in these programs.

Organizations such as AFSCME, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Sheriffs Association, the Vera Institute of Justice, and the National Association of Criminal Justice Planners have all voiced the fear of an inevitable expansionism in this new "growth industry." Vera Institute's Michael Smith, noting that "the private sector has an enormous investment in stimulating demand," fears corporate advertising campaigns to heighten the public's fear of crime and trigger a "lock 'em up" reaction resulting in an increasing number of cages, captives, and dollars.

NACJP director Mark Cunniff, calling CCA's Tennessee takeover proposal "incredible," points out that "private contractors can lobby in ways that a public agency cannot." When those doing the lobbying are close friends and political advisers of governors and legislators, many of the traditional lobbying techniques will be unnecessary.

Perhaps Ken Schoen has put it best: "Private operators whose growth depends upon an expanding prison population may push for ever harsher sentences. With the public's unabating fear of crime, and the lawmakers shrinking from any move that appears to be soft on criminals, the developing private prison lobby will be hard to resist. Any drop in the crime rate will be attributed to long prison sentences. An increase will add weight to the call for more prisons. And the taxpayers will finance the profit-makers while double-locking their doors at night."

Michael Smith says that the scenario sketched out above "worries me enough so that I want to look first at making government innovative and responsive." This points toward a possible third option, between the inefficient and incompetent status quo and the CCA-type prisons-for-profit. Walzer suggests, "...we should deputize nongovernmental agencies to perform some prison-like functions....we all might benefit, prisoners, too, from a little flexibility, unorthodoxy, experimentation. But this will have to be the work of nonprofit agencies, with publicly recognized programs and explicit authorization. We should not be contracting out, as if these were not our prisoners; we should be bringing new ideas into the orbit of public service."

The most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from all this is simply that the citizens and legislatures of our Southern states should avoid the new "dungeons for dollars" game like the plague. The privatization debate distracts us from the real issue of our society's failure to deal with crime in any way other than a knee-jerk, repressive fashion. This is especially true in the South, which tends to have the highest incarceration rates, the longest sentences, and the most executions.

Most citizens-white and black, rich and poor, male and female-regularly report that crime and punishment constitute one of the most salient and urgent issues in their lives. Almost no one, however, is satisfied with our criminal justice system as it is.

As I have suggested, there are alternative approaches to the issue of crime and punishment, but only a few prisoners, lawyers, academics, and prison reform advocates seem to know or care much about them. As in the field of health, our society's primary approach to crime ought to be a preventive, environmental, "public health" strategy. The implications of this approach reach beyond even such a necessary action as the denial of easy handgun access. We must resist and recast the media glorification of violence, insist upon economic and political equality irrespective of race and sex, confront the climate of national militarism, and reconstruct an American culture and economic system propelled by human greed. Meanwhile, we will continue to have to lock up violent, dangerous offenders, but, for the many others, our motto should be "from the cage to the community," which is largely where the problem is and must be dealt with. We must refuse the exploitation of public hysteria and institutional fatigue by the entrepreneurs of captivity.

Harmon L Wray, Jr., lives in Nashville where he is a staff consultant with Project Return and teaches prison ministry at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Go to Article List for Southern Changes. Volume 8, Number 3, 1989
Previous: The Shame of Contra Aid Article Vol. 8, No. 3, 1986, pp. 18-19

The Beck Center Southern Regional Council

Posted by lois at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2007

Real Cost of Prisons Project Website Reminder

The Real Cost of Prisons Project website (www.realcostofprisons.org) is constantly updated with new research and papers focused on providing ideas and information to strengthen the work of organizers, family members, students, policy makers and others. PDFs of our three comic book are on line in addition to individual comic book pages which can be downloaded free and used for flyers, tabling, newsletters. There also links to hundreds of organizations. Two of our newest sections: "Comix from Inside" and "Writing from Prison" include political and analytical writing and artwork by men and women who are incarcerated.

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

CO: Need for New Prison is Debated

Need for new prison debated
Critics: Isolated inmates in state twice U.S. average

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
July 26, 2007

Colorado's first new maximum security prison in 14 years will be built this year following years of legal wrangling.

But even before ground is broken on the 948-bed prison near Cañon City, a public policy debate is raging on the wisdom of spending $102.8 million more to lock up the state's worst offenders in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement.

Colorado State Penitentiary II will be built across the street from the original Colorado State Penitentiary, which was the last maximum security prison built by Colorado when it opened its doors in August 1993.

Corrections officials have argued that building the facility is a matter of public safety because it will house the most dangerous prisoners. There is a waiting list for inmates who are now housed in less secure facilities, DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti said.

But prison reform advocates such as Christine Donner, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, contend that Colorado - which confines about 6 percent of its male prisoners in "administrative segregation" - is housing nearly twice as many inmates in that category as the national average. Plus, the state's inmate population has soared 400 percent between 1985 and 2005, taxing the DOC's budget of $534 million in 2005-06.

"It isn't that we have so many bad prisoners," Donner said. "It's that the people who are sent to administrative segregation never leave."

Dubbed CSP 2, the new prison was approved by state lawmakers in February 2003. However, construction was stalled by litigation over the way the project was to be financed.

The prison is to be built through certificates of participation, a lease-purchase agreement.

That means the cost of the new construction will be paid by investors through a type of bonding arrangement. The state will enter into a lease, and at the end of the lease, it will own the structure.

The coalition filed a lawsuit in 2003 challenging the constitutionality of the financing. The group lost at the district level and before the Colorado Court of Appeals.

Snapshot of system

Colorado's male inmate population

19,559

Security classification

€ Administrative segregation 1,152, or 5.9 percent*

€ Close security 3,099, or 15.8 percent

€ Medium security 4,795, or 24.5 percent

€ Minimum-restricted 4,962, or 25.4 percent

€ Minimum security 5,394, or 27.6 percent

€ Unclassified 157, or 0.8 percent

ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5291
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5645520,0
0.html

Posted by lois at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

NY: Inmates can get health benefits when released

Star Gazette, Elmira, NY
Inmates can get health benefits when released
Advocates say new law will help keep people from returning to jail. July 25, 2007

By Cara Matthews

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer has signed legislation that will suspend rather than terminate Medicaid benefits for prisoners while they are incarcerated so they can re-enter society without having to wait two to three months for benefits to restart.

The legislation is being hailed by advocates, who have been pushing it for about 10 years, and the New York State Association of Counties.

"The initiative's been pushed for years, and we've always made the argument that this is a cost saver," said Glenn Liebman, head of the Mental Health Association of New York State. "It's one of those bills that's been around forever -- that were so logical and made sense -- and yet never happened."

Stephen Acquario, executive director of the Association of Counties, said the new law gives former inmates access to health care and mental health treatment, "two of the tools they need to stay out of jail and become productive members of their community."

"It costs considerably less -- in taxpayer dollars and in social capital -- to provide health care treatment and mental health service than it does to fund the revolving door of recidivism into our county jails," he said in a statement.

The legislation is one of nearly 200 the governor has signed or vetoed in recent days. The Medicaid bill is an important one that will especially help former inmates with chronic diseases who "need immediate and uninterrupted attention, and will provide a more seamless transition from prison to community living and increase the chance that offenders will not return to prison in the future," said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for Spitzer.

The daily cost for housing an inmate in a local jail ranges from $291 in New York City to more than $100 for counties outside the city, according to the Association of Counties. Counties and New York City house hundreds of inmates awaiting transfer to state prisons, representing a total of $38 million in annual expenses for counties, the group said.

Currently, New York terminates Medicaid benefits to prevent fraud, the bill's sponsors, state Assemblyman Keith Wright, D-Manhattan, and state Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau County, said in a memo supporting the legislation. Federal law prohibits using Medicaid funds for health care services in correctional facilities, but it does allow for suspending them. Even people who spend a few days in jail can have their Medicaid benefits terminated, the sponsors said.

The federal government pays half the cost of Medicaid, with state and local governments splitting the rest.

Even with a process aimed at expediting the application process prior to release, there are still significant lag times before benefits are reinstated, the memo said, and re-enrollment adds administrative work to the system.

A large percentage of prison inmates are poor and eligible for Medicaid, and many suffer from health and substance-abuse problems, such as HIV, psychiatric conditions, drug and alcohol addiction and chronic ailments, such as diabetes and asthma, Wright and Hannon said.

Among New York City inmates, 70 percent have a history of substance abuse, 20 percent require detoxification upon admission, 40 percent require mental-health services, and 8 percent of males and 18 percent of females are HIV-positive.

A recent study by Hunter College found that in the year after being released from a New York City jail, women with Medicaid coverage were more likely to participate in a residential drug-treatment program and less likely to be rearrested.

Of the bills Spitzer signed, a number of them are crime-related. They include making cemetery desecration a felony; increasing the penalty for failing to register as a sex offender from a Class A misdemeanor to a felony; creating the crimes of aggravated vehicular assault and aggravated vehicular homicide for intoxicated drivers; and providing prison inmates and individuals calling them with cheaper telephone rates.

Others are school-related -- laws that request students entering school to present dental-health certificates; increase the amount of surplus operating funds school boards can maintain; and require that children riding in small vans used as school buses wear seat belts.
http://www.stargazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070725/NEWS01/707250
330/1001/NEWS

Posted by lois at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2007

Study of Wrongful Convictions Raises Questions Beyond DNA

July 23, 2007
Sidebar, NY Times
Study of Wrongful Convictions Raises Questions Beyond DNA
By ADAM LIPTAK

In April, Jerry Miller, an Illinois man who served 24 years for a rape he did not commit, became the 200th American prisoner cleared by DNA evidence. His case, like the 199 others, represented a catastrophic failure of the criminal justice system.

When an airplane crashes, investigators pore over the wreckage to discover what went wrong and to learn from the experience. The justice system has not done anything similar.

But a new study does. Brandon L. Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has, for the first time, systematically examined the 200 cases, in which innocent people served an average of 12 years in prison. In each case, of course, the evidence used to convict them was at least flawed and often false — yet juries, trial judges and appellate courts failed to notice.

“A few types of unreliable trial evidence predictably supported wrongful convictions,” Professor Garrett concluded in his study, “Judging Innocence,” to be published in The Columbia Law Review in January.

The leading cause of the wrongful convictions was erroneous identification by eyewitnesses, which occurred 79 percent of the time. In a quarter of the cases, such testimony was the only direct evidence against the defendant.

Faulty forensic evidence was next, present in 55 percent of the cases. In some of those cases, courts put undue weight on evidence with limited value, as when a defendant’s blood type matched evidence from the crime scene. In others, prosecution experts exaggerated, made honest mistakes or committed outright fraud.

Most of the forensic evidence involved problems with the analysis of blood or semen. Forty-two cases featured expert testimony about hair, an area that is, Professor Garrett wrote, “notoriously unreliable.”

Informants testified against the defendants in 18 percent of the cases. (In three cases, it turned out they had an unusually powerful motive for their false testimony, as DNA evidence proved they were in fact guilty of the crime they had pinned on the defendant.)

There were false confessions in 16 percent of the cases, with two-thirds of those involving defendants who were juveniles, mentally retarded or both.

The 200 cases examined in the study are a distinctive subset of criminal cases. More than 90 percent of those exonerated by DNA were convicted of rape, or of both rape and murder, rape being the classic crime in which DNA can categorically prove innocence. For other crimes, there is often no biological evidence or, if there is, it can give only circumstantial hints about guilt or innocence.

Only 14 of those exonerated had been sentenced to death, 13 in rape-murders. There is a widespread misconception that DNA evidence has freed many inmates from death row, but it is actually a rare murder not involving rape in which biological evidence can provide categorical proof of innocence.

“DNA testing is available in fewer than 10 percent of violent crimes,” said Peter Neufeld, a founder of the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School, which was instrumental in securing many exonerations. “But the same causes of wrongful convictions exist in cases with DNA evidence as in those cases that don’t.”

Professor Garrett’s study strongly suggests, then, that there are thousands of people serving long sentences for crimes they did not commit but who have no hope that DNA can clear them.

In a second forthcoming study of false convictions, this one focused on capital cases, two law professors — Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan and Barbara O’Brien of Michigan State — cautioned that “exonerations are highly unrepresentative of wrongful convictions in general.”

“The main thing we can safely conclude from exonerations is that there are many other false convictions that we have not discovered,” the Michigan study said. “In addition, a couple of strong demographic patterns appear to be reliable: black men accused of raping white women face a greater risk of false conviction than other rape defendants; and young suspects, those under 18, are at greater risk of false confession than other suspects.” Professor Garrett also found that exonerated convicts were more apt to be members of minority groups than was the prison population generally. For instance, 73 percent of the convicts cleared of rape charges were black or Hispanic, compared with 37 percent of all rape convicts.

The courts performed miserably in ferreting out the innocent. Thirty-one of the 200 exonerated prisoners, for instance, had appealed to the United States Supreme Court, but the justices refused to hear 30 of the cases. In the one case they did hear, they ruled against the inmate. Of course, appeals courts do not typically reconsider a jury’s factual findings, focusing instead on asserted procedural errors. Only 20 of the 200 even appealed on the ground that they were innocent; none of those claims were granted.

Perhaps the most troubling finding in Professor Garrett’s study was how reluctant the criminal justice system was to allow DNA testing in the first place. Prosecutors often opposed it, and 16 courts initially denied requests for testing.

Yet DNA evidence can do more than free the innocent. In many cases, it also identified the person who actually committed the crime.

In 40 percent of the cases handled by the Innocence Project, Mr. Neufeld said, DNA not only exonerated the innocent prisoner but also provided evidence that helped identify the person who committed the crime. “In every single one of those cases that perpetrator had committed violent crimes in the intervening years,” he said.

The era of DNA exonerations should be a finite one. These days, DNA testing is common on the front end of prosecutions, meaning that in a few years, the window that the 200 exonerations has opened on the justice system will close. We should look carefully through that window while we can.

Posted by lois at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

Technical Violations Leading to Prison

Technical violations leading to prison
July 23, 2007
By David Angier News Herald Writer 747-5077
dangier@pcnh.com

In some legal circles, probation is called “the delayed entry program.”

It is when a prosecutor with weak evidence in a serious case offers a defendant a plea deal to probation, knowing the defendant will violate probation and be sent to prison. It is when defendants, sitting in jail for months and facing a lengthy prison term, see a chance for freedom despite warnings against the pitfalls of probation.

Many defendants spend a short time on probation before violating and going to prison for many years, without the state ever having to prove a crime was committed.

“It is much easier to obtain a finding that the defendant has violated his probation than it is to select a jury and present evidence to obtain a conviction beyond the exclusion of a reasonable doubt,” said Circuit Judge Glenn Hess. “When the State Attorney’s Office comes to me and has offered this defendant a plea to probation, the first thing they’re telling me is that person is not a danger to the community in their estimation; that this is a person that, with some work, can straighten out their life. I will accept probation on these basis.”

But the guidelines for probation have changed since 2003, when the Department of Corrections began a zero-tolerance policy on technical violations. Any violation of probation, from missing a scheduled appointment with a probation officer to falling behind in restitution payments, can lead to an arrest and prison term.

Years ago, probation officers would work with a probationer to provide the direction they needed to complete their sentence, he said. Hess now signs many more warrants for probation officers seeking the arrest of a probationer on technical violations. “As a result, my probation docket has gone through the roof,” Hess said.

There are several recent examples of probation deals in serious felony cases resulting in quick prison sentences:

David Randy Polk pleaded no contest to sexual battery on a child in Gulf County in 2000, despite insisting he was innocent, in return for a probation sentence. He violated his probation because he missed an appointment with his probation officer and was sentenced to prison. While in prison, he submitted a public records request to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and obtained DNA results that exonerated him. He was released from prison last year but is awaiting additional DNA testing to see if he will be released from the charge.

Michael Freebarin and Ralph Woolam, both transients and alcoholics, were given plea deals to probation in 2004 on charges of being accessories after the fact to murder. The pleas came after accused killer George Holzerwood was acquitted at trial. Freebarin and Woolam quickly violated their probations and were sentenced to prison.

Johnny Easterling was given probation in 2005 on three counts of sexual battery on a child in Washington County. He violated his probation by failing to register as a sexual offender and was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2005, the 14th Judicial Circuit, which includes Panama City, had 4,562 people under some form of probation or supervised release — fifth lowest out of 20 circuits in the state. The Department of Corrections did not have more recent statistics.

Department statistics show a gradual increase in judges statewide revoking probation, usually resulting in a prison term, for technical violations, and a gradual decrease in prison sentences based on new law violations. There were about 4,000 more people sentenced for technical violations in 2005-06 than in 2000-01. Over the same period, the number of new offenses that led to probation revocations dropped by 1,125.

Due process

Deputy Public Defender Walter Smith said the “delayed entry program” could be a violation of a defendant’s due process.

“If the prosecutor has a case and the victim doesn’t want to go forward or there’s some other problem, they’ll plead him to probation knowing the guy’s going to violate,” Smith said. “It’s easier to prove a violation of probation instead of the underlying offense.”

Smith said this is not a recent development.

“It’s just one of the dirty little secrets of the criminal justice system,” Smith said.

Smith said he has begged clients not to accept a plea and take a weak case to trial, but the prospect of spending months in jail awaiting trial and possibly spending years in prison if a jury convicts them is a powerful incentive to accept probation. “Nobody wants to run the risk,” Smith said.

The State Attorney’s Office declined to participate in this story unless provided a list of questions in advance. The News Herald uses this method of interviewing as a last resort when extenuating circumstances necessitate it.

Once on probation, Smith said, the demands can be impossible — especially for those who have to register as sexual offenders. Cities within Bay County have expanded buffer zones around schools, churches and parks that essentially have prohibited a person registered as a sexual offender from living within city limits. That makes having a permanent resident, stable income and reliable transportation difficult — all elements that easily could lead to a probation violation.

Smith said the majority of sexual offenders are young men who have had consensual sexual relations with an underage girlfriend. He said the Legislature changed the law this year to require juveniles who have been convicted of having sex with other juveniles to register for life as sexual offenders.

“These laws were enacted to go after dirty old men that go after children,” Smith said. “The net keeps getting wider and wider. A girl with a phony ID is in a bar drinking and a guy picks her up. She’s 17 and he’s 24. He could go to prison for a long time.”

Jonathan Dingus has been on both sides of the issue. As a prosecutor, he offered defendants probation to clear a weak case, with the expectation that the defendant would violate and go to prison.

“Some people we knew were going to screw up,” Dingus said. “Some people we wanted to give them one last chance to prove themselves.”

As a defense attorney, he has seen those same offers come along. Dingus said he tries to explain to his clients the dangers of accepting such a plea.

Dingus said he doesn’t see an abuse of the system.

“I don’t think it happens that often,” he said. “I don’t see people abusing that. It’s not the lawyers; it’s just the system.”

http://www.newsherald.com/headlines/article.display.php?a=2396

Posted by lois at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2007

In Memory of Harmon Wray

The Tennessean
Wednesday, 07/25/07
Prisoner advocate Harmon Wray, 60, dies
By John Egerton
For The Tennessean

Harmon L. Wray was about to graduate from Southwestern College in Memphis in April 1968 when, a short distance across town, an assassin's bullet took the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the lightning rod of the Civil Rights Movement.

Countless people around the world have been moved to lives of service
by the martyrdom of Dr. King. Harmon Wray was one of them.

When Mr. Wray died of a massive brain hemorrhage in Nashville's St. Thomas Hospital Tuesday, he was in his 40th year of selfless commitment to a particular class of American outcasts: the more than 3 million men and women in the nation's prison population.

"He left campus to march with the sanitation workers in Memphis," recalled Mr. Wray's mother, Celeste Wray, "and he was in the audience when Dr. King made his last speech, the night before he was killed. No mother could want a better son than Harmon. He gave his life for others. I was intensely proud of him."

Mr. Wray was born in Memphis on Nov. 10, 1946, the only child of Celeste Hardy and her husband, Harmon Lee Wray. He graduated with honors from Southwestern (now Rhodes College) in 1968 and then earned a master's degree in religion from Duke University in 1970.

During that time, he entered the process of ordination into the ministry of the United Methodist Church.

Though he pursued a doctorate in ethics at Vanderbilt Divinity School in the 1970s, Mr. Wray stopped short of completing his dissertation - a study of religious radicals in the 20th-century South - and chose to be an activist rather than a scholar.

"I got what I came for," he told friends after he quit. "I got the experience, the knowledge, the personal associations. The only thing I left behind was the degree itself, and it meant nothing to me - and even less to the people I wanted to serve."

It was during those years that Mr. Wray began working with two Nashville-based organizations, the Southern Prison Ministry and Tennesseans Against the Death Penalty, both of which had religious motivations but no church affiliation. He was employed from time to time at the state and national levels of the United Methodist Church to work with task forces on various social issues.

"Somewhere along in there," recalled Don Beisswenger, now retired from the Vanderbilt Divinity School faculty, "Harmon decided not to seek ordination. It was an act of personal integrity for him, based on his understanding of the radical gospel of Jesus."

In the 1990s, while teaching part-time as an adjunct professor at the divinity school, Mr. Wray developed a course entitled "Theology and Politics of Criminal Justice." Over time, he inspired others to explore the subject with him - members of the divinity school faculty, professors from elsewhere in Nashville, people from beyond the campuses.

Mr. Wray's inspiration was to teach classes at Riverbend Prison in Nashville, the main correctional facility in Tennessee, with equal numbers of divinity school students and inmates taking part. He first got clearances to do that in 2003. In every academic term since then, he and some of his colleagues have taught there.

"Harmon gave much of lasting value to this institution and its population, and he will be sadly missed," said Riverbend warden Ricky Bell.

Tennessee Corrections Commissioner George Little said Mr. Wray "touched many lives at Riverbend, staff and prisoners alike. I greatly respected and valued his unique commitment, his passion and compassion. He was a bridge between the inside and the outside, and what he started will not die with him."

Three of Mr. Wray's colleagues - social worker Judy Parks, Lipscomb University historian Richard Goode, and Janet Wolf, a United Methodist minister who also teaches at American Baptist College in Nashville - met late Tuesday at Riverbend with more than a dozen inmates to give them the news of Mr. Wray's death.

These were some of the prisoners' reactions: "He donated a piece of himself to us, and he will be with us always . . . More than a teacher, advocate, friend, he was family, and this is like a death in the family . . . He told us, 'You are my church.'"

A memorial service for Mr. Wray, who donated his organs for transplant, will be Saturday at 10 a.m. in the sanctuary of Belmont United Methodist Church in Nashville, with former Tennessee Bishop Kenneth Carder and several Nashville UMC ministers presiding.

There will be visitation for family and friends tomorrow evening from 6 to 8 p.m. at Edgehill UMC at 15th and Edgehill Avenues.

The family requests that contributions be sent to Edgehill UMC, Box 128258, Nashville 37212, designated to a fund for the continuation of Mr. Wray's work.

Mr. Wray was married for a few years in the early 1970s, but the love of his life was Judy Parks, a career social worker (now retired). Janet Wolf knew them as a couple for more than 30 years.
"Harmon had three great loves in his life," Wolf said. "Jesus, Judy, and justice."
---------------------------------------------------------
The Harmon Wray Fund has been set up at Edgehill United Methodist Church which will be used to continue Harmon’s prison ministry life work. Please write checks to Edgehill United Methodist Church noting that the gift is for The Harmon Wray Fund and send it to:

Edgehill United Methodist Church
The Harmon Wray Fund
PO Box 128258
Nashville, TN 37212

------------------------------------------------------------
Harmon Wray died Tuesday, July 24, 2007 from complications of a massive stroke. His ministry with Edgehill United Methodist Church, the Tennessee Conference, Vanderbilt University and beyond provided profound inspiration for those who knew and loved Harmon and his life partner, Judy Parks. Harmon’s ability to see himself as “no better than” was a gift. He regarded people on death row to be as human and as filled with God’s spirit as any of the rest of us. For many years he was a volunteer in the Visitor On Death Row program which fostered friendships between free world people and those condemned to death by the state. He was willing to put everything on the line for his beliefs and did so many times over. His ear was available to people regardless of their station in life.

Visitation will be Friday evening, July 27 at Edgehill UMC (15th and Edgehill Ave.) from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. The Memorial Service will be Saturday morning, July 28 at 10 a.m. at Belmont UMC. Condolences may be sent to: Judy Parks, 1109 Graybar Lane, Nashville, TN 37204

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
In Memory of Harmon Wray

Harmon Wray, a tireless crusader to end the death penalty, suffered a massive stroke yesterday and was removed from life support this afternoon. Harmon was an organizing member of TCASK and has been relentless in his work to end the death penalty in our state. Harmon was a champion for prison reform and upholding the dignity of those who are incarcerated.

As a teacher and author, he educated countless numbers of people concerning the myriad problems with our current criminal justice system. As adjunct faculty of Vanderbilt Divinity School, Harmon created and coordinated a class at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, comprised of both Vanderbilt students and inmates. Harmon was also a founder of the Restorative Justice Coalition of Tennessee, seeking to transform the current criminal justice system from a system primarily focused on punishment to one which facilitates healing and restoration. Most recently, he authored, Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for our Failed Prison System.

Harmon was formerly with the Tennessee Conference Correctional Ministries staff of the Methodist Church and the General Board of Mission. Harmon continued to be an active member of Edgehill United Methodist Church.

Harmon Wray followed the way of Jesus to the end, still giving of himself, even in death as an organ donor. He took Jesus' call to visit the prisoner to heart and spent his life as a fierce advocate for those who are incarcerated. I count him as a mentor and a friend, and today my heart is very heavy as I cannot imagine the world without him. Still, I know that Harmon's spirit will remain with us and will continue to inspire all of us as we struggle together to end the death penalty in Tennessee.

Stacy Rector
Executive Director
Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing
PO Box 120552
Nashville, TN 37212
615-256-3906

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

ALEC orchestrating attack on second chance type bills

This is something to watch out for! ALEC is a/or the major creator and proponent of state-based legislation in the country.

"Hough, of the American Legislative Exchange Council, said he believes the Ohio bill is likely to meet some opposition in the Legislature, and he doubts that if it does pass other states will rush to draft similar legislation."

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3405428

I've Got a Secret Criminal Past

Ohio Bill Would Let Some Felons Hide Their Records From Employers to Boost Job Prospects

By LAURA E. DAVIS

July 24, 2007‹

A controversial bill working its way through the Ohio Legislature would help state residents with multiple felony convictions hide their criminal records from prospective employers.

Opponents said the initiative is unfair to employers, who fear they would not have all necessary information when making hiring decisions. But supporters of the proposed "second chances'' bill said it would stem recidivism rates and help those who have shown they can live law-abiding lives find work beyond minimum wage jobs. Prospective applicants must go five years without being arrested before they are eligible to have their records sealed.

People who are convicted of the worst felonies -- class one or two -- will not be eligible for the proposed program, and the bill includes a list of crimes that would automatically disqualify candidates, including murder, kidnapping, abduction and sex crimes.

Police, public school districts, health care agencies and some government institutions would always have access to the documents, regardless of whether ex-offenders' attempts to have them sealed succeed or not. Journalists, employers and the rest of the public wouldn't be able to view them.

The process would require a judge to review an applicant's record following a recommendation from a prosecutor before making a final decision.

Employment Doors Closed

The bill is designed to help people like Susan, an Ohio woman who spoke to ABC News on the condition that her last name not be used.

Susan was a human resources executive for a major corporation before she pleaded guilty in 2000 to 43 felony counts related to prescription drug abuse after she acknowledged writing herself hundreds of prescriptions for Adderall and other medications. Facing a lengthy prison sentence, she agreed to a plea bargain that spared her from incarceration.

Susan got court-ordered treatment for her addiction, and after spending the three years of her probation going to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and receiving chemical dependency counseling, she said she looked forward to re-entering the work force.

But that task proved harder than she thought, and by 2005, Susan said she had hit her ultimate low -- what she called an unplanned suicide attempt caused by the frustration of not being able to return to her normal life.

"I couldn't even get a job at McDonald's," she said. "Society would not accept me, and I didn't want to go back to a life of crime. I was so utterly in despair."

Today, Susan hasn't given up her job search, but so far has had little luck in finding employment.

"I just got turned down from Wal-Mart when they did the background check," she said. "As soon as they found I'm a convicted felon, they immediately eliminated me. Company policy is company policy."

Instead of working a paid job, Susan said she now volunteers at Alcoholics Anonymous and has recently joined the effort to pass state senate bill 197.

The bill's sponsor is Ohio State Sen. Shirley Smith, who introduced a similar unsuccessful measure as a state representative that would have required ex-offenders to wait seven years before applying to have their records shielded from public view.

Smith's own son is a convicted felon, although this bill would not apply to him because of the serious nature of his crimes. Her son, William Allison, is currently serving a prison term for drug trafficking.

Smith said she hopes her bill, which the state senate will consider in the fall, will help ex-offenders reach their full potential in the workplace after they have served their time and demonstrated they have reformed their lives.

"Those people cannot take care of their families, become part of our community, and it causes our recidivism rate to rise," Smith said. "Usually, most of these crimes & they really happen in a person's youth, thereby saying these things are done when it's a bad judgment call."

'Radical Departure'

Some groups representing private employers said Ohio's current laws on ex-offenders are adequate, and the bill doesn't go far enough to protect employers.

"A person's criminal history is available today for a very good reason -- it allows employers to make very good hiring decisions," Tony Fiore, director of labor and human resource policy for the Ohio chamber of commerce, told ABC News.

Current Ohio law allows one-time offenders to apply to have their records sealed. Although most states have legislation regulating who is eligible to have criminal records sealed, Smith's bill is unlike other such laws, said Michael Hough, task force director of criminal justice and homeland security at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

"I think [Smith's] bill goes a lot further than most states do" in broadening eligibility to have records sealed, Hough said. "This would tend to be more on the liberal side."

Most states either require ex-offenders to wait longer before having records sealed, or they allow only one-time offenders or one offense to be sealed, according to a document provided to ABC News by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Smith's bill broadens both of these rules, so a person who has any number of lower-level felony convictions or misdemeanors -- excluding any crime on the exceptions list -- can potentially have his or her records sealed.

The proposed bill is a "radical departure" from Ohio's current system, said John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. "You've got to draw the line somewhere, and we've always drawn it at one [offense], and we think it should not go beyond that," he said. "[Ex-offenders] should be able to get jobs, but the employer who's going to employ them should know what they're getting themselves into."
Small employers, where every hire has an impact on the business, would be disproportionally affected, according to Roger Geiger, Ohio executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. "The fastest-growing area of litigation for businesses is employment issues," Geiger told ABC News. "Small employers are not afraid of taking risk with their employees, but it's already very litigious, it's already very contentions as is, and we're saying don't add to that problem."

Geiger said an employer's ability to view an applicant's criminal background is important to honesty in the employer-employee relationship. "It at least allows an employer, if they see somebody has a conviction, they can ask the right kind of questions," he said.

'The Past Is the Past'

Susan acknowledged her criminal past but wants to move on with her life after serving probation and becoming sober following more than 20 years of addiction.

"I'm not saying I'm not a criminal; I am a criminal, and I know that. I made some bad choices," she said. "There are certain things I understand, but why can't I work in an office? I'm not looking to be the president of a company. I just want to make a decent salary so I can save for retirement."

Susan said it wasn't until after she pleaded guilty to 43 class four and five felonies that she learned from her lawyer the facts about having a criminal record: It would follow her everywhere under Ohio's current law because of her guilty plea to multiple charges committed over a period of two years.

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said he supports the concept of the bill and favors second chances for people being released from Ohio's prisons.

"Doors shouldn't be slammed on you merely because you had a felony conviction," he said. "All people have a right to try to change their lives. And we in society at some point have to say, the past is the past."

The bill will most likely be revised as it moves through the state senate in the fall, Smith said, but she believes she can get it passed.

Laws on sealing and expunging criminal records vary from state to state, many of them covering employment by public agencies. Only Hawaii bars an employer from asking about an applicant's criminal record until the applicant is offered a job. And many states have laws that allow records to be sealed, but in a much tighter set of circumstances than Smith's bill envisions.

Hough, of the American Legislative Exchange Council, said he believes the Ohio bill is likely to meet some opposition in the Legislature, and he doubts that if it does pass other states will rush to draft similar legislation.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Posted by lois at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

Former Prisoners Reforming Prisons

Former Prisoners Reforming Prisons

Politicians and correctional officials are recognizing that, in conversations about prison reform, they must reserve a seat at the table for those who have lived it.

Beth Schwartzapfel | June 28, 2007
American Prospect

Elizabeth Gaynes has worked with people involved in the criminal justice system for more than 30 years: as a young law student in the early 1970s, she was galvanized by the uprising at Attica, and helped to defend some of the incarcerated people who were involved. Later, she took the reins as executive director of the nonprofit Osborne Association, which provides services to incarcerated people and their communities.

But until her daughter turned 16 and started speaking up about prison issues, Gaynes kept a rather relevant piece of personal information close to her chest: her kids' own father was incarcerated, and had been for a decade. "We really didn't volunteer that information very much in the world," she says. "Even people like me who worked in this business felt pretty restrained."

All of that's changed now. Part of it, Gaynes says, was her daughter's outspokenness. Part of it, however, was a larger cultural shift that is now reaching a tipping point. People affected by incarceration are raising their voices and telling their stories in ever-larger numbers. And, for the first time, politicians, policymakers, correctional officials, and foundations are listening.

"There are more formerly incarcerated people speaking up, organizing to fight for civil and human rights," says Dorsey Nunn of the San Francisco-based nonprofit organization Legal Services for Prisoners With Children.

There is now more funding than ever before available for organizations doing work around issues of incarceration -- some $40 million in federal and foundation dollars, up from almost nothing in 1999. More organizations working in the field are employing people affected by incarceration, and graduating those employees to leadership positions. And politicians and correctional officials are recognizing that, in conversations about correctional policy, they must reserve a seat at the table for those who have lived it.

"Especially in the last year and a half there's been a tremendous change in the attitudes of correction personnel," says Scott Washington, an attorney with the Dayton, Ohio-based nonprofit, Workplace Reconnections. Washington served some three years in prison and jails after spending his youth as a crack addict and member of the Crips gang. He later went on to college and then law school. "There's always going to be an ‘us against them' mentality," he says. "But the attitude of politicians is changing."

The U.S. prison system is in the midst of a unique historical moment. Federal "Truth in Sentencing" laws and mandatory minimums have recently turned 20, and the stringent state laws which followed suit -- California's 1994 ‘three strikes' law, for instance -- are coming of age, such that the first generation of people who have served 10- and 20-year sentences under these laws are re-joining their communities in record numbers. They're arriving home at a time of increasing political consciousness about incarceration -- the term "prison-industrial complex" was coined only a decade ago, by activist and historian Mike Davis in a 1995 article in The Nation -- as well as a growing awareness on both sides of the political spectrum that the current system is not sustainable. More than 2 million people are incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. If you include people on probation and parole, that number jumps to over 7 million, or 1 in every 32 adults, according to the Bureau for Justice Statistics. At least 95 percent of them will come back home: 1700 people a day are released from state and federal prison.

The staggering numbers of people being released are, at least in part, at the root of this new trend towards a larger role for formerly incarcerated people in the criminal justice policy discussion. In 1999, Jeremy Travis was director of the National Institute of Justice when then-Attorney General Janet Reno asked him what was happening to all the people coming out of prison. The answer was Travis's 2005 book, But They All Come Back, and a shift in the conversation from its previous focus, rehabilitation to the new buzz-word: re-entry.

"Rehabilitation was seen as a pure left kind of issue," says Amy Solomon, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, who worked with Travis when he was a senior fellow there. "It was a discussion about helping offenders, coddling offenders." Re-framing the debate to be about re-entry, she explains, meant "rethinking how people are released into the community, [putting it in the context of] public safety, about doing things smarter so we prepare people for work and family when they get out. It really galvanized people on the right and the left."

Further, the sheer number of those incarcerated, and the reach of the war on drugs, has meant that "we've now gotten to the point where there are very few people left who have not been personally touched," says Gaynes of the Osborne Association. "It's hard for it to keep being ‘them' all the time." Suddenly, politicians on both sides of the aisle could listen to those with a bent towards reform without being seen as soft on crime.

In the past, says Glenn Martin, co-director of the H.I.R.E. Network, which seeks to increase job opportunities for those with criminal records, "we were caught in such a tough-on-crime era that people would stay away from taking advice from those directly affected because they were worried that their constituents would say, ‘what are you doing taking advice from these criminals?'" Now, says Martin, who served six years in New York state prison for armed robbery before being hired as a receptionist at the H.I.R.E. Network and working his way up to his current position, "I have to pinch myself. I'm sitting here with the head of criminal justice services, or I'm sitting here with the top Republican in a state somewhere."

Susan Tucker, program director at the Open Society Institute's After Prison Initiative, one of the key funders in the field, says that six or seven years ago, meetings and panels about re-entry rarely included the perspectives of formerly incarcerated people. Now, she says, including formerly incarcerated people on the agenda is "pro-forma."

State and federal funds are pouring into re-entry programs, which means there is more money than ever allocated for positions specifically for formerly incarcerated people. President Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union Address, proposed a $300 million prisoner re-entry initiative, citing Bureau of Justice Statistics data that some 600,000 inmates are released each year. "We know from long experience that if they can't find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit crime and return to prison," Bush said.

The resulting $25 million Prisoner Re-entry Initiative was funded in fiscal year 2005 and now has 30 grantee organizations nationwide that work to transition formerly incarcerated people back into the workforce. State-financed programs have followed, and with them, more employment and advocacy opportunities for former inmates.

Critics are quick to point out that re-entry work is, in the words of one person in the field, "tinkering around the edges." Which is to say, it doesn't address the real problem: the massive numbers of incarcerated people in the United States, and the socio-political structures which cause poor people and people of color to be locked up in numbers vastly disproportionate to their numbers in the country as a whole.

"Out of the punishment industry comes a group of people who says, let's try something different," says a skeptical Nunn of Legal Services. "I don't know how different it is--they're just acknowledging that we're releasing a lot of people." In other words, politicians may be able to make changes to the way people are released without seeming soft on crime, but it would be a different story for a senator to propose changing the way we approach incarceration altogether.

These types of proposals, more often than not, come from formerly incarcerated persons themselves. A 1998 conference was convened by formerly incarcerated people, including Nunn and Angela Davis, to examine ways of dismantling the prison-industrial complex. Nunn says the organizers were expecting some 500 attendees -- instead thousands flocked to New York City, and the weekend led to the birth of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization which seeks to "build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe," according to its website.

Organizations like Critical Resistance are still considered relatively fringe, but they have been successful in raising awareness and helping to politicize the issue. "We took an obscure term out of a Mike Davis [article]-- prison-industrial complex -- we turned that into common language," says Nunn.

Nunn, who notes that after years of being the only one in his organization to be directly affected by incarceration, now up to 50 percent of his coworkers have done time, says that an increased political consciousness among people affected by incarceration has made the community speak out with a louder voice than before.

"I used to run from being this particular thing. Now I'm not running anymore. That's absolutely new. Used to be a time we would internalize it," he says. He used to tell himself, "Maybe I'm not good enough for the apartment. Now, I say, I have a right to get an apartment. Maybe I don't deserve a job. No, I deserve a clean application."

Foundation money has supported the push of the political envelope further to the left, allowing organizations to focus not just on re-entry, but on more systemic issues raised by incarceration, such as poverty and racism. "Most everybody agrees from right to left, people are coming out, they deserve a second chance, they need services, they need help," says the Open Society Institute's Tucker. "A more nuanced understanding is that incarceration itself is both a cause and an effect of political, economic, and social disenfranchisement."

Since it was launched in 2000, the Institute's After Prison Initiative has distributed $16 million in grants to some 100 organizations doing work "to decrease U.S. over-reliance on mass incarceration and harsh punishment," according to its website. And this year the Funding Exchange, a national network of local community foundations, under its Criminal Justice Initiative, released its first request for proposals specifically targeting organizations with formerly incarcerated persons in leadership roles.

Now that politicians and policy makers are listening, formerly incarcerated people have seen their stories go from being a source of shame to a force for change. Scott Washington of Workplace Reconnections, which helps people coming out of prison to lay the groundwork for successful re-entry, says, "I tell the guys that I work with, you're experts. If you transition fully back to community life, you have a commodity: your story."

"I'm the storyteller in my organization," says Patty Katz, a program director at the Oregon-based nonprofit Partnership for Safety and Justice. "My claim to fame is I can make a legislator cry in two minutes." Katz, who served a cumulative total of some six years in prison and jail as a result of her 14-year drug and alcohol addiction, says, "you don't wish to shut the door on your past because your experience can benefit others. I had to believe that if I were brave enough to stand up out of my box of anonymity and publicly tell my story, I would be delivering hope to decision makers."

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=former_prisoners_reforming_prisons
Beth Schwartzapfel is a freelance journalist and MFA student in creative nonfiction at the New School. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Posted by lois at 03:07 PM | Comments (0)

CA: U.S. judges order review of California prison crowding

From the Los Angeles Times
U.S. judges order review of California prison crowding
Saying Schwarzenegger's plans fall short, they clear the way for a cap on inmate populations.
By Nancy Vogel
Times Staff Writer

July 24, 2007

SACRAMENTO — Federal judges seeking to improve prison medical care called the state's latest efforts insufficient Monday and ordered creation of a three-judge panel to consider capping California's inmate population.

The move — the first for a state prison system — has the potential to prompt early release of inmates. Experts and elected officials, however, said that less-drastic measures might appease federal courts and that releases, if necessary, could be made in ways that minimize any threat to the public.

The rulings are an escalation of federal intervention in California's prisons, which now house nearly 173,000 inmates, 17,000 of them in gymnasiums, day rooms, classrooms and other areas not designed as dormitories. Prompted by class-action lawsuits on behalf of inmates, federal courts have declared the level of medical and mental health care in the prison system unconstitutional and turned over healthcare operations to a court-appointed receiver.

Inmates' attorneys sued to request a population cap in November 2006, five weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the prisons. The lawyers suggested that instead of releasing thousands of prisoners, state officials could use home detention, electronic monitoring or residential drug treatment programs to divert low-risk convicts and parole violators from prison.

"I'm really pleased," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office in San Quentin. "We fought long and hard for this."

In separate rulings, U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco concluded that a $7.4-billion prison reform package enacted by the Legislature and Schwarzenegger in May could worsen prison conditions because it calls for adding beds without bolstering staff.

The judges expressed hope that the governor and Legislature would swiftly find ways to make early release of prisoners unnecessary.

Henderson called early release "a radical step."

"This court would like nothing more than to have the three-judge court be able to enter a consent judgment without the need for a prisoner release order," he wrote.

In a written statement, Schwarzenegger said he would appeal the ruling, but he also expressed confidence that recent efforts to reduce overcrowding — including the forcible transfer of 40 inmates to a Mississippi prison last week — would satisfy the courts. Nearly 400 inmate volunteers had already been sent to prisons in Arizona and Tennessee.

"Today, the federal judges encouraged the state of California to continue with our efforts to reduce overcrowding," Schwarzenegger said. "The judges said that if we are successful, further population orders will not be necessary. There is no immediate threat of inmate release.

Karlton has issued at least 77 orders since February 1996 in his effort to bring proper screening and timely, skilled care to the mentally ill in California's prisons.

Despite some progress, he wrote in his ruling, care remains in violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on the infliction of "cruel and unusual" punishment.

State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) hailed the ruling as "profound" and "the right decision."

She said the Legislature and executive branch in California have "largely abdicated their responsibilities" to operate effective, humane prisons.

She urged Schwarzenegger to sign her pending legislation, SB 110, which would create a sentencing commission to simplify and organize California's 1,000 felony sentences and 100 felony sentence enhancements, which were largely passed piecemeal by the Legislature.

Romero also urged prison officials to begin figuring out which inmates might be suited to getting out of prison before finishing their sentences.

"To some extent we do early release already — it's called parole," she said. "We have to take out our risk assessment measurements and figure out who might be eligible for release, because we're going to have to have that ready when the judges convene that panel."

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) called early release "not an option because it will jeopardize public safety" and said Assembly Republicans would try to intervene legally so that they can address the three-judge panel when it takes testimony to weigh a prison cap.

He expressed disappointment that Karlton and Henderson dismissed this year's prison bond package, known as AB 900, as insufficient.

That legislation calls for construction of 53,000 prison and jail beds and creation of "reentry" facilities where inmates could get drug and alcohol treatment, anger management lessons, job training and other counseling before being paroled.

"When we passed AB 900, we were working on a time frame that acknowledged that we would address and solve the overcrowding by the middle of next year," Spitzer said. "We had bipartisan support for AB 900, and we deserve — and California deserves — to allow that legislation to be fully implemented."

Karlton concluded that the multibillion-dollar prison package would have no appreciable effect on overcrowding in the next two years, if ever. The legislation neglects the critical issue of staffing, he said, noting that every level of the mental health care system is already understaffed.

Henderson pointed out that the legislation will not create enough beds to house the projected population of the most dangerous inmates.

"It is unclear whether the legislation would reduce the impacts of overcrowding in any meaningful way," he wrote.

Karlton and Henderson acted under a 1995 federal law that requires a panel of three federal judges to weigh a prison population cap before a limit can be imposed. That law dictates that the chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — Mary Schroeder of Phoenix — appoint the panel, which must include the federal judge that issues the order convening the panel. Because in this case two judges have issued such orders, it is not clear whether Schroeder will appoint Karlton, Henderson or both to consider a cap.

It also is not clear how long the process will take, although Schwarzenegger administration legal experts said the panel could take testimony and ponder actions for as long as a year.

"They issue this order, the chief judge then appoints," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who is an expert on federal courts. "I think it's pretty uncharted territory what happens after that."

"I've seen reports saying they're just going to release people," Tobias said. "I think that's too easy. I think it will be much more complicated than that."

John Boston, director of the Prisoners' Rights Project of the New York City Legal Aid Society, said that only twice before have three-judge panels been created to address prison overcrowding.

In 1998 in Washington, D.C., lawyers on both sides agreed to a settlement that involved lowering the population of one facility to 1,200 from 1,400. And in Mahoning County, Ohio, in February, attorneys for inmates and the sheriff reached a settlement that called for no more than 315 male prisoners in the jail.

"What's going on in California is the first time this process has been invoked on a statewide level," Boston said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-prison24jul24,0,7420565,full.story?coll=la-tot-topstories
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nancy.vogel@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

Posted by lois at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)

TX: Activists Decry CCA & Hutto Detention Center

Even if protesters don't have an impact in closing the corporation down, Jose Orta, the founding member of the Taylor council of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said it's important for everyone to do what they can. "CCA needs to understand people in the community are holding it accountable for what it's doing," Orta said."

7/23/07, Daily Texan, UT Austin
Activists decry for-profit prison facilities
Protests have helped force policy changes, local leaders claim

By Amanda DeBard

More than 50 activists lined the sidewalk in front of the headquarters of the Corrections Corporation of America on Friday along the 8000 block of Shoal Creek Boulevard, accusing the corporation of running for-profit prisons.

The Corrections Corporation of America is the largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities in the nation, according to the Texas Civil Rights Review. It runs the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas, which has been under recent scrutiny for policies concerning the imprisonment of immigrant children and families awaiting their immigration hearings.

"It sickens me they're taking families and children and putting them in cells," said Laura Hitt, an concerned Austin resident and mother of three. "Especially being a mom, I can't imagine what it's like to be a mother and have kids in there or to live as a family in that type of situation."

Hitt heard about Friday's protest through a Listserv for peace organizations and is involved with Code Pink, a women-initiated group that focuses on peace and social justice movements.

"This is my first time to protest against CCA, but I'm outraged because of all the things the administration has done," Hitt said.

In addition to protesting against the corporation, some grassroots activists say immigrants will show up to their hearings and don't need to be imprisoned.

"Research shows that almost everyone would show back up to their immigration hearings, which proves [locking immigrants up] isn't necessary," said Bob Libal, an activist against CCA and facilities such as Hutto. "CCA are beneficiaries, and they didn't used to do these things."

Even if protesters don't have an impact in closing the corporation down, Jose Orta, the founding member of the Taylor council of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said it's important for everyone to do what they can.

"CCA needs to understand people in the community are holding it accountable for what it's doing," Orta said. "It's still in the mind set of treating people as prisoners. That's what its bread and butter is."

Orta said the corporation made some changes as a result of all the protesting outside the Hutto facility. CCA has rewritten manuals and hired an activity director for the children, the guards no longer dress in prison uniforms, and children receive seven hours of education a day, he said.

Before the protest, Orta's young niece asked him if his efforts are a waste of time and if he really thought people would change.

"I want the community to be aware [that protesting] is not a waste of time and what CCA is doing is unjust," Orta said. "It needs to treat prisoners like human beings."

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2007/07/23/StateLocal/Activists.Decry.F
orProfit.Prison.Facilities-2926233.shtml>

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

Review of "Prison Town, USA" in the NY Times

July 24, 2007
Television Review | Prison Town, USA
Welcome to Susanville, Home to Prisons
By NEIL GENZLINGER

The “before” debates tend to get plenty of news coverage: some town in New England or the Midwest or wherever is torn apart over whether to allow a dump or power plant or mega-whatever to come in. Rarely, though, does the “after” get much attention. Once the project in question went forward, did the promised economic benefits accrue? Was the social fabric shredded?

“Prison Town, USA,” a smartly constructed documentary tonight on the PBS series “P.O.V.,” explores the “after” in Susanville, a small city in Northern California that a decade ago underwent a substantial makeover with the construction of three huge prisons. The hopes were that the complex would take the place of lumber and other major businesses that were fading. The fears were — well, myriad.

The film, made by Katie Galloway and Po Kutchins over two years, looks at the big-picture issues Susanville now confronts through a collage of small stories. There are no documentary-style talking heads or charts here, just some very ordinary-looking people trying to find their places in a changed community.

A man who has lost a good lumber job tries to make it through correctional-officer training. A recently discharged prisoner struggles to find work and support his wife and children. The owner of a local dairy tries to fight a state decision to cancel his prison contract, which he contends would violate a pledge that the prisons would buy locally whenever possible.

The film is light on specifics, beyond the intriguing factoids interspersed in stark white-on-black lettering between scenes. (“Nearly half the adults in Susanville, California, work at one of the area’s three prisons.”) But the impact of the prisons is more subtle than numbers can capture. It’s in how neighborhood dynamics change when the population includes many women and children who have moved to Susanville while Dad does time. (Can the children of prison guards play with the children of inmates?) It’s in how domestic life is affected by the militarylike training a corrections officer goes through.

“Be fair, firm, consistent,” one instructor tells recruits. “If you’re a jerk, be a jerk all the time.” And one woman comments: “I think it’s hard for you to turn off being in a position of authority all the time. You’re coming home and doing the same thing to your families. There’s a lot of domestic violence.”

Those “before” debates seldom get to such personal places.

P.O.V.

Prison Town, USA

Tonight on most PBS stations; check local listings.

Po Kutchins and Katie Galloway, producers and directors; Beth K. Segal, editor; Evan Eames, cinematographer; American Documentary, series producer. Produced by KQED/Truly California, the Center for Independent Documentary and Independent Television Service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/arts/television/24genz.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

Posted by lois at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2007

RI: Child Advocates Blast Law Sending 17-year Olds to ACI

Child advocates blast law sending 17-year-olds to ACI
By: JIM BARON , Times staff writer
Pawtucket Times

The purpose of the measure was to save money - but it may cost more.

PROVIDENCE - When they changed the law to subject 17-year-olds to adult courts and the ACI, state officials acknowledged that the only reason for doing so was to save money - it costs twice as much (about $90,000 a year), they say, to keep an inmate in the state training school as it does to incarcerate the average prisoner at the ACI (about $40,000 a year).

That was the theory.

When it was put into practice, Corrections Director A.T.
Wall determined that the only way to keep the 17-year-olds safe was to hold them at the most secure section of the prison - the so-called Supermax. The problem that has arisen, youth advocates say, is that it costs about the same amount to keep a prisoner at the high-security Supermax (about $100,000 a year) as it does to keep one at the Training School.

That, asserts Elizabeth Burke Bryant, who led a Rhode Island Youth Justice Coalition press conference outside the Supermax on Wednesday, "evaporates the cost savings that was the premise for this plan."

As a result, she told reporters, the coalition will try to convince policymakers in the governor's office, DCYF, the Department of Corrections and the General Assembly to get the new procedure reversed and return all but the most serious and violent 17-year-old offenders back to the juvenile justice system and the State Training School.

"We have hope that this will be turned around," Burke Bryant said, "we know that our policymakers will listen and hopefully make a decision. This is a huge policy change for Rhode Island and it was done on the false premise that there would be a cost savings. Young people do not belong in high security. We will do whatever it takes to ultimately turn this around."

That may be easier said than done.

Spokesmen for both Gov. Donald Carcieri and House Speaker William Murphy told The Times Wednesday that the program needs to be given more time to determine whether it can be done in a way that will achieve cost savings.
Asked how the state got itself into a situation where it took an admittedly drastic step to save money, only to find that it might not save any money after all, each side pointed at the other.

"It was the governor's proposal," said Larry Berman, spokesman for the House leadership. "They brought testimony that it would save money and the House Finance Committee went along."

As for the possibility of a reversal, Berman said, "This is only the second week in July. We have to wait and see if it is going to save money. When the budget is proposed next year, if they want to revise it," the administration can recommend doing so. But, he added, "Where it stands, there are no plans at present to revise it."

"A.T. Wall doesn't have to put kids in protective custody," Berman said.

Berman pointed out that Wall came before the House Finance Committee to discuss the corrections department budget and never mentioned there would be extra costs involved in incarcerating 17-year-olds at the ACI.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal noted that, "the recommendation in the governor's budget was one side of a two-sided proposal."

"The governor also proposed to reduce the inmate population at the ACI, that would have allowed the Department of Corrections to find a less expensive way to hold 17-year-olds," Neal said, but those proposed reforms never won General Assembly approval. "Once they chose not to enact the reforms to reduce the inmate population, it became much more difficult than anticipated" to accommodate the 17-year-olds at the ACI.

But when asked about making changes anytime soon, Neal's response was close to Berman's.

"We are at the beginning of a process to evaluate what can be done given the results of the legislative session," he said, adding that it will take time "before we will know how much savings can be achieved. It is much more responsible to know what the facts are before plotting a course of action."

Asked about Burke Bryant's contention that 17-year-old offenders are technically children and are by law entitled to education and other benefits not readily available at the Super Max, Neal said, "the entire intention from the beginning was to go through a process by which we developed all systems necessary" for dealing with the young prisoners while at the same time saving money for taxpayers.
That is what is being done now, Neal said.

Greg Pare, spokesman for Senate President Joseph Montalbano, said the Senate passed a plan proposed by West Warwick Sen. Stephen Alves to divert young offenders away from the Training School and into community treatment slots that are available and funded.

That plan was applauded by Burke Bryant and other advocates such as Brother Michael Reis of Tides Family Services.

While Rhode Island was passing the law to put 17-year-olds in the adult justice system, Connecticut was going about returning its 16 and 17-year-olds to the juvenile justice system after several years of being one of only three states that treated them as adults.

Abby Anderson, senior policy associate for the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, said that after a two year study they determined that "incorporating 16- and 17-year-old youth into the juvenile justice system will not only promote public safety in Connecticut by fostering positive youth development but it will also, in the long run, cost state taxpayers less than handling this distinct category of youth in the adult criminal justice system.

"This is going to generate violence in our society," warned Teny Gross, of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, "and therefore the costs and destruction. This stands out as the top bad policy for this past legislative session."

Child Advocate Jametta Alston asserted that, "the policies that passed showed that the people who developed them didn't think the children that would fit into this category mattered. These children matter. These children are important. These children have families and lives and dreams and hopes that will be shattered and broken when you place them in facilities like this," she said pointing to the Super Max. "Because this facility is not designed to give children a new hope, a new future, a new beginning."

"The issue has always been about money," said Steven Brown of the R.I. Affiliate of the ACLU, "to our knowledge, nobody promoting this proposal has ever suggested that this represents good or progressive public policy or that there is something good about slapping all 17-year-olds with a criminal record that cold follow and haunt them for years after the offense is dealt with.

"It is not worth sacrificing juveniles on the basis of phantom savings," Brown said.

http://www.zwire.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=1713&dept_id=24491&newsid=18576838

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

PA: Prison Plans

$200 million for 2,000 prisoners in Smithfield Township
$200 million for 2,000 prisoners in Rockview
$200 million for 2,300 prisoners at Graterford
$6.5 million for 230 'special needs' prisoners & kitchen/dining room _____ TOTAL = $607 million for 6500 more prisoners (rounded)

Prison plans

Huntingdon County among areas targeted for construction of lockups

By Rebecca Berdar

HUNTINGDON ‹ If the state fulfills its promise to build more prisons, Huntingdon County will have one more correctional facility.

The budget signed last week calls for hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction and expansion of prisons across the state.

Projects include a $200 million, 2,000-bed medium-security prison on Department of Corrections land in Smithfield Township, where the Huntingdon and Smithfield prisons already stand.

The State Correctional Institution at Smithfield is slated for expansion, with a $6.5 million allocation to design and build a 230-bed unit for restricted housing and special-needs inmates and to enlarge existing kitchen and dining facilities.

Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said the department is seeing a steady increase in inmate population and a subsequent demand for more housing.

ŒŒWe don¹t see an end in sight,¹¹ she said, adding that a surge in nonviolent offenders bound for state incarceration is driving the prison population upward.

The department wants to implement treatment programs catering to those inmates, whose criminal behavior is linked to drug addiction and other underlying problems, McNaughton said.

ŒŒThe idea is to get these inmates into a treatment program with the hope it will reduce criminal behavior, and over time, we could start closing down our older institutions,¹¹ she said.

Until these programs bear results, she said, the need for housing remains critical and older prisons¹ doors will remain open.

The State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, which opened in 1889 as the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory, is the second oldest prison operating in the state behind the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh, which was built in 1882.

Two more of Pennsylvania¹s oldest prisons ‹ the State Correctional Institution at Rockview (circa 1915) and the State Correctional Institution at Graterford (circa 1929) ‹ are among sites slated for new construction.

The state budget also is allocating $200 million toward a 2,000-bed facility at Rockview, in Centre County north of State College, and $200 million toward a 2,300-bed facility at Graterford, the state¹s largest maximum-security prison 30 miles west of Philadelphia.

Now that the budget is signed, the the department¹s next step is to wait for the state to release the funds.

ŒŒIt¹s hard to say how long that could take,² McNaughton said.

She said on top of that, it takes years to plan and build a prison.

SCI Huntingdon, which became a state prison for adult offenders in 1960, likely would remain open for some time after the completion of a new prison.

McNaughton said SCI Huntingdon and SCI Smithfield, which are within sight of each other, already share some resources and would extend that relationship to a third facility.

Construction of a facility that eventually will replace it tops any change SCI Huntingdon has experienced in its 118-year history.

Prison spokeswoman Dorina Varner said the facility served as a state industrial reformatory from 1889-1945, when it was converted into a home for delinquents ages 15 to 25.

ŒŒI was told that when it opened, it cost $75 per year to house one inmate. Today, it costs over $26,000 per year per inmate,¹¹ Varner said.

Expansion over the years has included addition of a restricted housing unit, installation of modular units for minimum-security inmates and extension of visitor facilities.

Until 1995, SCI Huntingdon was a maximum-security prison for men and housed capital case inmates. Today, the facility houses maximum-, medium- and minimum-security inmates.

SCI Smithfield spokeswoman Lisa Hollibaugh said the goal is to begin construction of the new housing unit this fall and open it in early 2009. The expansion means additional employment, including corrections officers, a unit manager and counselor, she said.

The Department of Corrections is by far the single largest employer in Huntingdon County.

SCI Huntingdon and SCI Smithfield top the list of largest employers, ahead of major manufacturing firms such as FCI, MeadWestvaco and AGY, according to Huntingdon County Business & Industry.

Mirror Staff Writer Rebecca Berdar is at 946-7458.

http://www.altoonamirror.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=13724>

Posted by lois at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times Editorial: "PHANTOM VOTERS IN NEW YORK"

PHANTOM VOTERS IN NEW YORK
New York Times Editorial
July 23, 2007

Prison-based gerrymandering is especially egregious in New York, where prison inmates -- who are denied the right to vote -- are routinely counted as "residents" to pad out legislative districts. This practice falsely inflates the political power of districts with prisons, while undercutting districts with larger voting populations.

State senators who owe their seats to prison gerrymandering defend it tooth and nail. But a new study from the New York-based research group Prison Policy Initiative, entitled "Phantom Constituents in the Empire State," found that 13 counties have excluded inmates from the local redistricting count because they thought it unfairly stacked the political deck. Some of the counties came to that conclusion after learning that imprisoned people would have made up 30 percent or more of proposed county legislative districts.

The Board of Supervisors for Essex County got it right when it wrote that counting prison inmates as residents unfairly diluted the voting weight of the county's actual residents, especially since inmates "live in a separate environment, do not participate in the life of Essex County, and do not affect the social and economic character of the towns."

The study found 16 counties where inmates were still counted as residents for redistricting purposes. But that is likely to change as citizens learn that districts with prisons are wielding undeserved influence in county affairs. The same thing needs to happen in the New York State Legislature.

* * *
The reported cited by The Times, "Phantom Constituents in the Empire State," is available at http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/nycounties/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23mon3.html

Posted by lois at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2007

Glenn C. Loury: Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? Race and the Transformation of Criminal Justice

"The political scientist Vesla Mae Weaver, in a recently completed dissertation, examines policy history, public opinion, and media processes in an attempt to understand the role of race in this historic transformation of criminal justice. She argues—persuasively, I think—that the punitive turn represented a political response to the success of the civil-rights movement. Weaver describes a process of “frontlash” in which opponents of the civil-rights revolution sought to regain the upper hand by shifting to a new issue. Rather than reacting directly to civil-rights developments, and thus continuing to fight a battle they had lost, those opponents—consider George Wallace’s campaigns for the presidency, which drew so much support in states like Michigan and Wisconsin—shifted attention to a seemingly race-neutral concern over crime: Once the clutch of Jim Crow had loosened, opponents of civil rights shifted the “locus of attack” by injecting crime onto the agenda. Through the process of frontlash, rivals of civil rights progress defined racial discord as criminal and argued that crime legislation would be a panacea to racial unrest. This strategy both imbued crime with race and depoliticized racial struggle, a formula which foreclosed earlier “root causes” alternatives."
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR32.4/article_loury.php

Boston Review
July/August 2007 Issue

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?
Race and the transformation of criminal justice

Glenn C. Loury

The early 1990s were the age of drive-by shootings, drug deals gone bad, crack cocaine, and gangsta rap. Between 1960 and 1990, the annual number of murders in New Haven rose from six to 31, the number of rapes from four to 168, the number of robberies from 16 to 1,784—all this while the city’s population declined by 14 percent. Crime was concentrated in central cities: in 1990, two fifths of Pennsylvania’s violent crimes were committed in Philadelphia, home to one seventh of the state’s population. The subject of crime dominated American domestic-policy debates.

Most observers at the time expected things to get worse. Consulting demographic tables and extrapolating trends, scholars and pundits warned the public to prepare for an onslaught, and for a new kind of criminal—the anomic, vicious, irreligious, amoral juvenile “super-predator.” In 1996, one academic commentator predicted a “bloodbath” of juvenile homicides in 2005.

And so we prepared. Stoked by fear and political opportunism, but also by the need to address a very real social problem, we threw lots of people in jail, and when the old prisons were filled we built new ones.

But the onslaught never came. Crime rates peaked in 1992 and have dropped sharply since. Even as crime rates fell, however, imprisonment rates remained high and continued their upward march. The result, the current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history.

According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States—with five percent of the world’s population—houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000
residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.

Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.

How did it come to this? One argument is that the massive increase in incarceration reflects the success of a rational public policy: faced with a compelling social problem, we responded by imprisoning people and succeeded in lowering crime rates. This argument is not entirely misguided. Increased incarceration does appear to have reduced crime somewhat. But by how much? Estimates of the share of the 1990s reduction in violent crime that can be attributed to the prison boom range from five percent to 25 percent. Whatever the number, analysts of all political stripes now agree that we have long ago entered the zone of diminishing returns. The conservative scholar John DiIulio, who coined the term “super-predator” in the early 1990s, was by the end of that decade declaring in The Wall Street Journal that “Two Million Prisoners Are Enough.” But there was no political movement for getting America out of the mass-incarceration business. The throttle was stuck.

A more convincing argument is that imprisonment rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen because we have become progressively more punitive: not because crime has continued to explode (it hasn’t), not because we made a smart policy choice, but because we have made a collective decision to increase the rate of punishment.

One simple measure of punitiveness is the likelihood that a person who is arrested will be subsequently incarcerated. Between 1980 and 2001, there was no real change in the chances of being arrested in response to a complaint: the rate was just under 50 percent. But the likelihood that an arrest would result in imprisonment more than doubled, from 13 to 28 percent. And because the amount of time served and the rate of prison admission both increased, the incarceration rate for violent crime almost tripled, despite the decline in the level of violence. The incarceration rate for nonviolent and drug offenses increased at an even faster pace: between 1980 and 1997 the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent offenses tripled, and the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses increased by a factor of 11. Indeed, the criminal-justice researcher Alfred Blumstein has argued that none of the growth in incarceration between 1980 and 1996 can be attributed to more
crime:
The growth was entirely attributable to a growth in punitiveness, about equally to growth in prison commitments per arrest (an indication of tougher prosecution or judicial sentencing) and to longer time served (an indication of longer sentences, elimination of parole or later parole release, or greater readiness to recommit parolees to prison for either technical violations or new crimes).

This growth in punitiveness was accompanied by a shift in thinking about the basic purpose of criminal justice. In the 1970s, the sociologist David Garland argues, the corrections system was commonly seen as a way to prepare offenders to rejoin society. Since then, the focus has shifted from rehabilitation to punishment and stayed there. Felons are no longer persons to be supported, but risks to be dealt with. And the way to deal with the risks is to keep them locked up. As of 2000, 33 states had abolished limited parole (up from 17 in 1980); 24 states had introduced three-strikes laws (up from zero); and 40 states had introduced truth-in-sentencing laws (up from three). The vast majority of these changes occurred in the 1990s, as crime rates fell.

This new system of punitive ideas is aided by a new relationship between the media, the politicians, and the public. A handful of cases—in which a predator does an awful thing to an innocent—get excessive media attention and engender public outrage. This attention typically bears no relation to the frequency of the particular type of crime, and yet laws—such as three-strikes laws that give mandatory life sentences to nonviolent drug offenders—and political careers are made on the basis of the public’s reaction to the media coverage of such crimes.

* * *

Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history. Why?

The question has no simple answer, but the racial composition of prisons is a good place to start. The punitive turn in the nation’s social policy—intimately connected with public rhetoric about responsibility, dependency, social hygiene, and the reclamation of public order—can be fully grasped only when viewed against the backdrop of America’s often ugly and violent racial history: there is a reason why our inclination toward forgiveness and the extension of a second chance to those who have violated our behavioral strictures is so stunted, and why our mainstream political discourses are so bereft of self-examination and searching social criticism. This historical resonance between the stigma of race and the stigma of imprisonment serves to keep alive in our public culture the subordinating social meanings that have always been associated with blackness. Race helps to explain why the United States is exceptional among the democratic industrial societies in the severity and extent of its punitive policy and in the paucity of its social-welfare institutions.

Slavery ended a long time ago, but the institution of chattel slavery and the ideology of racial subordination that accompanied it have cast a long shadow. I speak here of the history of lynching throughout the country; the racially biased policing and judging in the South under Jim Crow and in the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West to which blacks migrated after the First and Second World Wars; and the history of racial apartheid that ended only as a matter of law with the civil-rights movement. It should come as no surprise that in the post–civil rights era, race, far from being peripheral, has been central to the evolution of American social policy.

The political scientist Vesla Mae Weaver, in a recently completed dissertation, examines policy history, public opinion, and media processes in an attempt to understand the role of race in this historic transformation of criminal justice. She argues—persuasively, I think—that the punitive turn represented a political response to the success of the civil-rights movement. Weaver describes a process of “frontlash” in which opponents of the civil-rights revolution sought to regain the upper hand by shifting to a new issue. Rather than reacting directly to civil-rights developments, and thus continuing to fight a battle they had lost, those opponents—consider George Wallace’s campaigns for the presidency, which drew so much support in states like Michigan and Wisconsin—shifted attention to a seemingly race-neutral concern over crime: Once the clutch of Jim Crow had loosened, opponents of civil rights shifted the “locus of attack” by injecting crime onto the agenda. Through the process of frontlash, rivals of civil rights progress defined racial discord as criminal and argued that crime legislation would be a panacea to racial unrest. This strategy both imbued crime with race and depoliticized racial struggle, a formula which foreclosed earlier “root causes” alternatives. Fusing anxiety about crime to anxiety over racial change and riots, civil rights and racial disorder—initially defined as a problem of minority disenfranchisement—were defined as a crime problem, which helped shift debate from social reform to punishment.

Of course, this argument (for which Weaver adduces considerable circumstantial evidence) is speculative. But something interesting seems to have been going on in the late 1960s regarding the relationship between attitudes on race and social policy.

Before 1965, public attitudes on the welfare state and on race, as measured by the annually administered General Social Survey, varied year to year independently of one another: you could not predict much about a person’s attitudes on welfare politics by knowing their attitudes about race. After 1965, the attitudes moved in tandem, as welfare came to be seen as a race issue. Indeed, the year-to-year correlation between an index measuring liberalism of racial attitudes and attitudes toward the welfare state over the interval 1950–1965 was .03. These same two series had a correlation of .68 over the period 1966–1996. The association in the American mind of race with welfare, and of race with crime, has been achieved at a common historical moment. Crime-control institutions are part of a larger social-policy complex—they relate to and interact with the labor market, family-welfare efforts, and health and social-work activities. Indeed, Garland argues that the ideological approaches to welfare and crime control have marched rightward to a common beat: “The institutional and cultural changes that have occurred in the crime control field are analogous to those that have occurred in the welfare state more generally.” Just as the welfare state came to be seen as a race issue, so, too, crime came to be seen as a race issue, and policies have been shaped by this perception.

Consider the tortured racial history of the War on Drugs. Blacks were twice as likely as whites to be arrested for a drug offense in 1975 but four times as likely by 1989. Throughout the 1990s, drug-arrest rates remained at historically unprecedented levels. Yet according to the National Survey on Drug Abuse, drug use among adults fell from 20 percent in 1979 to 11 percent in 2000. A similar trend occurred among adolescents. In the age groups 12–17 and 18–25, use of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin all peaked in the late 1970s and began a steady decline thereafter. Thus, a decline in drug use across the board had begun a decade before the draconian anti-drug efforts of the 1990s were initiated.

Of course, most drug arrests are for trafficking, not possession, so usage rates and arrest rates needn’t be expected to be identical. Still, we do well to bear in mind that the social problem of illicit drug use is endemic to our whole society. Significantly, throughout the period 1979–2000, white high-school seniors reported using drugs at a significantly higher rate than black high-school seniors. High drug-usage rates in white, middle-class American communities in the early 1980s accounts for the urgency many citizens felt to mount a national attack on the problem. But how successful has the effort been, and at what cost?

Think of the cost this way: to save middle-class kids from the threat of a drug epidemic that might not have even existed by the time that drug incarceration began its rapid increase in the 1980s, we criminalized underclass kids. Arrests went up, but drug prices have fallen sharply over the past 20 years—suggesting that the ratcheting up of enforcement has not made drugs harder to get on the street. The strategy clearly wasn’t keeping drugs away from those who sought them. Not only are prices down, but the data show that drug-related visits to emergency rooms also rose steadily throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

An interesting case in point is New York City. Analyzing arrests by residential neighborhood and police precinct, the criminologist Jeffrey Fagan and his colleagues Valerie West and Jan Holland found that incarceration was highest in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, though these were often not the neighborhoods in which crime rates were the highest. Moreover, they discovered a perverse effect of incarceration on crime: higher incarceration in a given neighborhood in one year seemed to predict higher crime rates in that same neighborhood one year later. This growth and persistence of incarceration over time, the authors concluded, was due primarily to the drug enforcement practices of police and to sentencing laws that require imprisonment for repeat felons. Police scrutiny was more intensive and less forgiving in high-incarceration neighborhoods, and parolees returning to such neighborhoods were more closely monitored. Thus, discretionary and spatially discriminatory police behavior led to a high and increasing rate of repeat prison admissions in the designated neighborhoods, even as crime rates fell.

Fagan, West, and Holland explain the effects of spatially concentrated urban anti-drug-law enforcement in the contemporary American metropolis. Buyers may come from any neighborhood and any social stratum. But the sellers—at least the ones who can be readily found hawking their wares on street corners and in public vestibules—come predominantly from the poorest, most non-white parts of the city. The police, with arrest quotas to meet, know precisely where to find them. The researchers conclude: Incarceration begets more incarceration, and incarceration also begets more crime, which in turn invites more aggressive enforcement, which then re-supplies incarceration . . . three mechanisms . . . contribute to and reinforce incarceration in neighborhoods: the declining economic fortunes of former inmates and the effects on neighborhoods where they tend to reside, resource and relationship strains on families of prisoners that weaken the family’s ability to supervise children, and voter disenfranchisement that weakens the political economy of neighborhoods.

The effects of imprisonment on life chances are profound. For incarcerated black men, hourly wages are ten percent lower after prison than before. For all incarcerated men, the number of weeks worked per year falls by at least a third after their release.

So consider the nearly 60 percent of black male high-school dropouts born in the late 1960s who are imprisoned before their 40th year. While locked up, these felons are stigmatized—they are regarded as fit subjects for shaming. Their links to family are disrupted; their opportunities for work are diminished; their voting rights may be permanently revoked. They suffer civic excommunication. Our zeal for social discipline consigns these men to a permanent nether caste. And yet, since these men—whatever their shortcomings—have emotional and sexual and family needs, including the need to be fathers and lovers and husbands, we are creating a situation where the children of this nether caste are likely to join a new generation of untouchables. This cycle will continue so long as incarceration is viewed as the primary path to social hygiene.

* * *

I have been exploring the issue of causes: of why we took the punitive turn that has resulted in mass incarceration. But even if the racial argument about causes is inconclusive, the racial consequences are clear. To be sure, in the United States, as in any society, public order is maintained by the threat and use of force. We enjoy our good lives only because we are shielded by the forces of law and order, which keep the unruly at bay. Yet in this society, to a degree virtually unmatched in any other, those bearing the brunt of order enforcement belong in vastly disproportionate numbers to historically marginalized racial groups. Crime and punishment in America has a color.

In his fine study Punishment and Inequality in America (2006), the Princeton University sociologist Bruce Western powerfully describes the scope, nature, and consequences of contemporary imprisonment. He finds that the extent of racial disparity in imprisonment rates is greater than in any other major arena of American social life: at eight to one, the black–white ratio of incarceration rates dwarfs the two-to-one ratio of unemployment rates, the three-to-one ration of non-marital childbearing, the two-to-one ratio of infant-mortality rates and one-to-five ratio of net worth. While three out of 200 young whites were incarcerated in 2000, the rate for young blacks was one in nine. A black male resident of the state of California is more likely to go to a state prison than a state college.

The scandalous truth is that the police and penal apparatus are now the primary contact between adult black American men and the American state. Among black male high-school dropouts aged 20 to 40, a third were locked up on any given day in 2000, fewer than three percent belonged to a union, and less than one quarter were enrolled in any kind of social program. Coercion is the most salient meaning of government for these young men. Western estimates that nearly 60 percent of black male dropouts born between 1965 and 1969 were sent to prison on a felony conviction at least once before they reached the age of 35.

One cannot reckon the world-historic American prison build-up over the past 35 years without calculating the enormous costs imposed upon the persons imprisoned, their families, and their communities. (Of course, this has not stopped many social scientists from pronouncing on the net benefits of incarceration without doing so.) Deciding on the weight to give to a “thug’s” well-being—or to that of his wife or daughter or son—is a question of social morality, not social science. Nor can social science tell us how much additional cost borne by the offending class is justified in order to obtain a given increment of security or property or peace of mind for the rest of us. These are questions about the nature of the American state and its relationship to its people that transcend the categories of benefits and costs.

Yet the discourse surrounding punishment policy invariably discounts the humanity of the thieves, drug sellers, prostitutes, rapists, and, yes, those whom we put to death. It gives insufficient weight to the welfare, to the humanity, of those who are knitted together with offenders in webs of social and psychic affiliation. What is more, institutional arrangements for dealing with criminal offenders in the United States have evolved to serve expressive as well as instrumental ends. We have wanted to “send a message,” and we have done so with a vengeance. In the process, we have created facts. We have answered the question, who is to blame for the domestic maladies that beset us? We have constructed a national narrative. We have created scapegoats, indulged our need to feel virtuous, and assuaged our fears. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is them.

Incarceration keeps them away from us. Thus Garland: “The prison is used today as a kind of reservation, a quarantine zone in which purportedly dangerous individuals are segregated in the name of public safety.” The boundary between prison and community, Garland continues, is “heavily patrolled and carefully monitored to prevent risks leaking out from one to the other. Those offenders who are released ‘into the community’ are subject to much tighter control than previously, and frequently find themselves returned to custody for failure to comply with the conditions that continue to restrict their freedom. For many of these parolees and ex-convicts, the ‘community’ into which they are released is actually a closely monitored terrain, a supervised space, lacking much of the liberty that one associates with ‘normal life’.”

Deciding how citizens of varied social rank within a common polity ought to relate to one another is a more fundamental consideration than deciding which crime-control policy is most efficient. The question of relationship, of solidarity, of who belongs to the body politic and who deserves exclusion—these are philosophical concerns of the highest order. A decent society will on occasion resist the efficient course of action, for the simple reason that to follow it would be to act as though we were not the people we have determined ourselves to be: a people conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we all are created equal. Assessing the propriety of creating a racially defined pariah class in the middle of our great cities at the start of the 21st century presents us with just such a case.

My recitation of the brutal facts about punishment in today’s America may sound to some like a primal scream at this monstrous social machine that is grinding poor black communities to dust. And I confess that these brutal facts do at times incline me to cry out in despair. But my argument is analytical, not existential. Its principal thesis is this: we law-abiding, middle-class Americans have made decisions about social policy and incarceration, and we benefit from those decisions, and that means from a system of suffering, rooted in state violence, meted out at our request. We had choices and we decided to be more punitive. Our society—the society we have made—creates criminogenic conditions in our sprawling urban ghettos, and then acts out rituals of punishment against them as some awful form of human sacrifice.

This situation raises a moral problem that we cannot avoid. We cannot pretend that there are more important problems in our society, or that this circumstance is the necessary solution to other, more pressing problems—unless we are also prepared to say that we have turned our backs on the ideal of equality for all citizens and abandoned the principles of justice. We ought to ask ourselves two questions: Just what manner of people are we Americans? And in light of this, what are our obligations to our fellow citizens—even those who break our laws?

* * *

To address these questions, we need to think about the evaluation of our prison system as a problem in the theory of distributive justice—not the purely procedural idea of ensuring equal treatment before the law and thereafter letting the chips fall where they may, but the rather more demanding ideal of substantive racial justice. The goal is to bring about through conventional social policy and far-reaching institutional reforms a situation in which the history of racial oppression is no longer so evident in the disparate life experiences of those who descend from slaves.

And I suggest we approach that problem from the perspective of John Rawls’s theory of justice: first, that we think about justice from an “original position” behind a “veil of ignorance” that obstructs from view our own situation, including our class, race, gender, and talents. We need to ask what rules we would pick if we seriously imagined that we could turn out to be anyone in the society. Second, following Rawls’s “difference principle,” we should permit inequalities only if they work to improve the circumstances of the least advantaged members of society. But here, the object of moral inquiry is not the distribution among individuals of wealth and income, but instead the distribution of a negative good, punishment, among individuals and, importantly, racial groups.

So put yourself in John Rawls’s original position and imagine that you could occupy any rank in the social hierarchy. Let me be more concrete: imagine that you could be born a black American male outcast shuffling between prison and the labor market on his way to an early death to the chorus of nigger or criminal or dummy. Suppose we had to stop thinking of us and them. What social rules would we pick if we actually thought that they could be us? I expect that we would still pick some set of punishment institutions to contain bad behavior and protect society. But wouldn’t we pick arrangements that respected the humanity of each individual and of those they are connected to through bonds of social and psychic affiliation? If any one of us had a real chance of being one of those faces looking up from the bottom of the well—of being the least among us¬—then how would we talk publicly about those who break our laws? What would we do with juveniles who go awry, who roam the streets with guns and sometimes commit acts of violence? What weight would we give to various elements in the deterrence-retribution-incapacitation-rehabilitation calculus, if we thought that calculus could end up being applied to our own children, or to us? How would we apportion blame and affix responsibility for the cultural and social pathologies evident in some quarters of our society if we envisioned that we ourselves might well have been born into the social margins where such pathology flourishes?

If we take these questions as seriously as we should, then we would, I expect, reject a pure ethic of personal responsibility as the basis for distributing punishment. Issues about responsibility are complex, and involve a kind of division of labor—what John Rawls called a “social division of responsibility” between “citizens as a collective body” and
individuals: when we hold a person responsible for his or her conduct—by establishing laws, investing in their enforcement, and consigning some persons to prisons—we need also to think about whether we have done our share in ensuring that each person faces a decent set of opportunities for a good life. We need to ask whether we as a society have fulfilled our collective responsibility to ensure fair conditions for each person—for each life that might turn out to be our life.

We would, in short, recognize a kind of social responsibility, even for the wrongful acts freely chosen by individual persons. I am not arguing that people commit crimes because they have no choices, and that in this sense the “root causes” of crime are social; individuals always have choices. My point is that responsibility is a matter of ethics, not social science. Society at large is implicated in an individual person’s choices because we have acquiesced in—perhaps actively supported, through our taxes and votes, words and deeds—social arrangements that work to our benefit and his detriment, and which shape his consciousness and sense of identity in such a way that the choices he makes, which we may condemn, are nevertheless compelling to him—an entirely understandable response to circumstance. Closed and bounded social structures—like racially homogeneous urban ghettos—create contexts where “pathological” and “dysfunctional” cultural forms emerge; but these forms are neither intrinsic to the people caught in these structures nor independent of the behavior of people who stand outside them.

Thus, a central reality of our time is the fact that there has opened a wide racial gap in the acquisition of cognitive skills, the extent of law-abidingness, the stability of family relations, the attachment to the work force, and the like. This disparity in human development is, as a historical matter, rooted in political, economic, social, and cultural factors peculiar to this society and reflective of its unlovely racial
history: it is a societal, not communal or personal, achievement. At the level of the individual case we must, of course, act as if this were not so. There could be no law, no civilization, without the imputation to particular persons of responsibility for their wrongful acts. But the sum of a million cases, each one rightly judged on its merits to be individually fair, may nevertheless constitute a great historic wrong. The state does not only deal with individual cases. It also makes policies in the aggregate, and the consequences of these policies are more or less knowable. And who can honestly say—who can look in the mirror and say with a straight face—that we now have laws and policies that we would endorse if we did not know our own situation and genuinely considered the possibility that we might be the least advantaged?

Even if the current racial disparity in punishment in our country gave evidence of no overt racial discrimination—and, perhaps needless to say, I view that as a wildly optimistic supposition—it would still be true that powerful forces are at work to perpetuate the consequences of a universally acknowledged wrongful past. This is in the first instance a matter of interpretation—of the narrative overlay that we impose upon the facts.

The tacit association in the American public’s imagination of “blackness” with “unworthiness” or “dangerousness” has obscured a fundamental ethical point about responsibility, both collective and individual, and promoted essentialist causal misattributions: when confronted by the facts of racially disparate achievement, racially disproportionate crime rates, and racially unequal school achievement, observers will have difficulty identifying with the plight of a group of people whom they (mistakenly) think are simply “reaping what they have sown.” Thus, the enormous racial disparity in the imposition of social exclusion, civic ex-communication, and lifelong disgrace has come to seem legitimate, even necessary: we fail to see how our failures as a collective body are implicated in this disparity. We shift all the responsibility onto their shoulders, only by irresponsibly—indeed, immorally—denying our own. And yet, this entire dynamic has its roots in past unjust acts that were perpetrated on the basis of race.

Given our history, producing a racially defined nether caste through the ostensibly neutral application of law should be profoundly offensive to our ethical sensibilities—to the principles we proudly assert as our own. Mass incarceration has now become a principal vehicle for the reproduction of racial hierarchy in our society. Our country’s policymakers need to do something about it. And all of us are ultimately responsible for making sure that they do. <

Glenn C. Loury is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the department of economics at Brown University. He is the author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, and he was a 2002 Carnegie Scholar.

Originally published in the July/August 2007 issue of Boston Review.

Posted by lois at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times Magazine Cover Story: How Can You Distinguish a Budding Pedophile From a Kid With Real Boundary Problems?

July 22, 2007
Cover Story
How Can You Distinguish a Budding Pedophile From a Kid With Real Boundary Problems?
By MAGGIE JONES

In the early 1980s, a therapist named Robert Longo was treating adolescent boys who had committed sex offenses. Their offenses ranged from fondling girls a few years younger than they were to outright rape of young children. As part of their treatment, the boys had to keep journals — which Longo read — in which they detailed their sexual fantasies and logged how frequently they masturbated to those fantasies. They created “relapse-prevention plans,” based on the idea that sex-offending is like an addiction and that teenagers need to be watchful of any “triggers” (pornography, anger) that might initiate their “cycle” of reoffending. And at the beginning of each group session, the boys introduced themselves much as an alcoholic begins an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: “I’m Brian, and I’m a sex offender. I sexually offended against a 10-year-old boy; I made him lick my penis three times.”

Sex-offender therapy for juveniles was a new field in the 1980s, and Longo, like other therapists, was basing his practices on what he knew: the adult sex-offender-treatment models. “It’s where the literature was,” Longo, a founder of the international Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, told me not long ago. “It’s what we’d been doing.”

As it turns out, he went on to say, “much of it was wrong.” There is no proof that what Longo calls the “trickle-down phenomenon” of using adult sex-offender treatments on juveniles is effective. Adult models, he notes, don’t account for adolescent development and how family and environment affect children’s behavior. Also, research over the past decade has shown that juveniles who commit sex offenses are in several ways very different from adult sex offenders. As one expert put it, “Kids are not short adults.”

That’s not to say that juvenile sexual offenses aren’t a serious problem. Juveniles account for about one-quarter of the sex offenses in the U.S. Though forcible rapes, the most serious of juvenile sex offenses, have declined since 1997, court cases for other juvenile sex offenses have risen. David Finkelhor, the director of Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, and others argue, however, that those statistics largely reflect increased reporting of juvenile sex offenses and adjudications of less serious offenses. “We are paying attention to inappropriate sexual behavior that juveniles have engaged in for generations,” he said.

The significant controversy isn’t whether there is a problem; it’s how to address it. In other words, when is parental or therapeutic intervention enough? What kind of therapy works best? And at what point should the judicial system get involved — and in what ways?

Longo and other experts have increasingly advocated for a less punitive approach. Over the past decade, however, public policy has largely moved in the opposite direction. Courts have handed down longer sentences to juveniles for sex offenses, while some states have created tougher probation requirements and, most significant, lumped adolescents with adults in sex-offender legislation.

The best-known example is Megan’s Law. Since 1994, federal legislation has required many sex offenders to register with the police, which can aid sex-crime investigations. But Megan’s Law, which went into effect in 1996, mandates that law enforcement also notify the public about certain convicted offenders in their communities. One of the ways states do this is through publicly accessible Web sites. At least 25 states now apply Megan’s Law, also known as a community-notification law, to juveniles, according to a recent survey by Brenda V. Smith, a law professor and the director of the National Institute of Corrections Project on Addressing Prison Rape at American University’s Washington College of Law. That means on many state sex-offender Web sites, you can find juveniles’ photos, names and addresses, and in some cases their birth dates and maps to their homes, alongside those of pedophiles and adult rapists.

Now that concept has reached the federal level. In May, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed guidelines for the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, named for a 6-year-old boy (and son of John Walsh, the host of TV’s “America’s Most Wanted”) abducted from a Florida store and murdered in 1981. Among other things, the legislation, sponsored by Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, and signed into law by President Bush last year, creates a federal Internet registry that will allow law enforcement and the public to more effectively track convicted sex offenders — including juveniles 14 and older who engage in genital, anal or oral-genital contact with children younger than 12. Within the next two years, states that have excluded adolescents from community-notification laws may no longer be able to do so without losing federal money.

Community notification makes people feel protected — who wouldn’t want to know if a sex offender lives next door? But studies have yet to prove that the law does, in fact, improve public safety. Meanwhile, when applied to youths, the laws undercut a central tenet of the juvenile justice system. Since juvenile courts were created more than 100 years ago, youths’ records have, with exceptions in some states, been sealed and kept out of the public’s hands. The theory is that children are less responsible for their actions, and thus less blameworthy, than adults and more amenable to rehabilitation. But by publishing their photographs and addresses on the Internet, community notification suggests that juveniles with sex offenses are in a separate, distinct category from other adolescents in the juvenile justice system — more fixed in their traits and more dangerous to the public. It suggests, in other words, that they are more like adult sex offenders than they are like kids.

Last year, an eighth grader at a Delaware middle school arrived one morning to find kids in the hallway pointing at him and snickering. At first, the boy, Johnnie, who asked me protect his privacy by identifying him by a friend’s nickname for him, was confused. He thought it might be because of his new haircut. Then one kid called him a rapist. Another jeered, “Hey, aren’t you a sex offender?” One teenage boy threatened to beat him up.

Four years earlier, when Johnnie was 11, he put his hand on his 4-year-old half-sister’s vagina over her underwear. And then several months later, he told her to perform oral sex on him, which she did. When Johnnie’s mother found out, she called the police. She may have felt she could no longer control Johnnie, who, according to his grandmother, both adored his sister (he made pancakes and snowmen for her) and tormented her (he punched and bullied her). Perhaps his mother also worried that her son might abuse other children. It’s hard to know what went through her mind that day, because she never explained it to Johnnie or to her own mother, with whom Johnnie eventually went to live. And she did not return my phone calls.

Johnnie, who has sandy-colored hair and freckles, did not resort to violence or use a weapon, according to police records, and when a detective interviewed him, the fourth grader admitted what he’d done. Soon after, Johnnie was sentenced to a residential juvenile-sex-offender program, where he spent 16 months. By the time he was released, he was considered a role model in his program, according to records that Johnnie’s therapist, Marc Felizzi, of the Delaware Guidance Services, received from the facility. His mother, though, had little interest in reuniting the family, so Johnnie bounced from a foster home to his uncle’s before going to live with his grandmother and then, ultimately, his father.

It was just two months after starting at a new school near his grandmother’s house that Johnnie’s childhood offense became the gossip of the hallways. It wasn’t entirely clear how kids found out. Johnnie heard that the mother of a girl to whom he’d written a love note discovered him on the Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry Web site. The mother may have typed in Johnnie’s last name. Or she may have been scanning her ZIP code for local sex offenders. In any case, she found him. And there on the Internet was a photo of Johnnie when he was 11, along with his address, birth date, height and weight at the time of his offense. Below that were two police charges: one was a misdemeanor for the touching over his sister’s underwear; the other was a felony for engaging his sister in oral sex, which because it involved mouth-to-genital contact was charged as “rape second degree.”

In dozens of interviews, therapists, lawyers, teenagers and their parents told me similar stories of juveniles who, after being discovered on a sex-offender registry, have been ostracized by their peers and neighbors, kicked out of extracurricular activities or physically threatened by classmates. Experts worry that these experiences stigmatize adolescents and undermine the goals of rehabilitation. “The whole world knows you did this bad thing,” notes Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate psychology professor at the Medical University of South Carolina and an expert on juveniles with sex offenses. “You could go to treatment for five years; you could be as straight as an arrow; but the message continues to be: You are a bad person. How does that affect your self-image? How does that affect your ability to improve your behaviors?”

It wasn’t long ago that therapists and victim advocates had to fight to get the justice system to take sex abuse by adults, much less by juveniles, seriously. If a case even made it past the police, the charges were often dismissed in court, notes Craig Latham, a Massachusetts psychologist who treats sex offenders and consults with law enforcement.

Around the same time, though, the victims’ rights movement began to burgeon, bringing much-needed attention to sexual abuse. Rape-crisis lines and centers were created; the federal government started providing states with money for victim services; and men, women and children went public with their stories about being sexually assaulted.

Robert Longo, now the director of clinical services at Old Vineyard Behavioral Health Youth Services, a psychiatric hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., remembers appearing on “Donahue” and “Oprah” in the 1980s, making pronouncements like: “Sex offenders can’t be cured.” And: “Victims are damaged for life.” Neither statement was based on good research, he now says. “We were desperately trying to bring attention to the issue,” Longo says of himself and other sex-abuse experts, “and we went way overboard.”

Sex crimes became a media sensation. Though the overwhelming majority of offenses against kids — 80 percent to 90 percent — are committed by someone the victim knows, the news media focused on the rare and very chilling rapes and murders of young girls by strangers. Children as sex offenders became the next obvious step in our national anxiety about sex crimes, Philip Jenkins, author of “Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America” and a professor of religious studies and history at Pennsylvania State University, told me. “First it’s adult predators, and then it’s what about children? To draw attention, you have to up the ante. The issue moves up a notch, and you can’t move it back easily.”

Among states that do include juveniles in community-notification laws, there is little consistency in terms of who is eligible and for how long. Some jurisdictions allow for judicial discretion on whether to include juveniles or permit youths to petition to be removed after a number of years. In some states, a juvenile has to be 14 to be listed on public sex-offender registries. In others, they may be eligible at 10 or 12. And while some states list only a handful of youths on their Web sites, Kansas currently includes about 340 on the Internet, and Texas lists more than 3,400 people for offenses committed when they were juveniles. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, anyone — whether adult or child — who is placed on its Internet registry is there for life.

When I heard about these juveniles, I wondered who they were and what types of offenses they’d committed. How old were they? Had they used violence or assaulted numerous children? Would they become adult offenders? I asked Mark Chaffin, one of the country’s leading experts and the director of research at the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Chaffin notes that while most juveniles who have committed sex offenses are boys around 13 or 14, in other ways they are not a homogeneous population. Though a small percentage — no one knows how many — will become adult rapists or pedophiles, the vast majority, 90 percent or more, will not, Chaffin says. Most have not committed violent assaults or abused multiple children repeatedly. Usually they have had sexual contact — from fondling to oral sex to intercourse — with a child who is at least two years younger than they are. Also, many of the juveniles have been sexually abused themselves, and as a consequence, they act out sexually, typically for a transitory period.

Some, whether they have been abused or not, are what therapists call “naïve experimenters” — overly impulsive or immature adolescents who are unable to approach girls or boys their own age; instead, they engage in inappropriate sexual acts with younger children. Others are generally delinquent juveniles for whom sexual abuse is just one of the ways they break laws, and according to studies, they are much more likely to commit a property crime than they are to commit a second sex offense. They are from working-class, middle-class and upper-middle-class homes, from intact families as well as very broken ones. There are also a number of children — how many is unclear — who are adjudicated for what some therapists would say is “playing doctor” or normative “sexual experimentation.” These are broadly considered to include sexual acts that are spontaneous, intermittent and “consensual” (legally, children under 16 usually cannot consent to sex) between youths within a couple of years age. Similarly, there are the so-called Romeo and Juliet cases, like the highly publicized one in Georgia involving Genarlow Wilson, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a party when he was 17. There have also been court cases of 12- and 13-year-old boys who grabbed girls’ breasts or buttocks in school hallways and were adjudicated as “sex offenders.”

It’s not hard to categorize an act in which a 12-year-old grabs a girl’s rear end. And, on the other extreme, it’s not difficult to classify a 17-year-old who rapes young children. But many juveniles adjudicated (a term used in juvenile court to indicate a determination of delinquency) for sex offenses fall somewhere in between, both in terms of ages and offenses. How, for instance, should we categorize a 13-year-old who rubbed his penis against the rectum of a 9-year-old? Or a 14-year-old who was sexually aroused and asked a kindergarten-age girl to lick his penis? Both were adjudicated in juvenile court and placed on an Internet registry. Their offenses don’t fall under what therapists consider childhood experimentation. Any parent would be very upset if her elementary-school daughter was asked to perform oral sex — much less if she did it — by an adolescent boy; and depending on the offense and circumstances, there could be lasting damage to the victim. But should these adolescents be in a different legal category than teenagers who commit robberies or physically assault young children?

Under the Adam Walsh Act, a 35-year-old who has a history of repeatedly raping young girls will be eligible for the public registry, and so will a 14-year-old boy adjudicated as a sex offender for touching an 11-year-old girl’s vagina. According to the law, the teenager will remain on the national registry for life. He will have to register with authorities every three months. And if he fails to do so — not an unlikely prospect for some teenagers, especially those without involved parents — he may be imprisoned for more than one year.

Also, under the proposed guidelines issued by the attorney general’s office in May, the law is retroactive: hundreds of juveniles who are on probation for sex offenses that preceded the law could be eligible for the nationwide registry. Regardless, the Adam Walsh Act sets only the minimum guidelines; many states will retain their own, more stringent community-notification laws for juveniles. Already the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia and other organizations are considering challenges to the law based on, among other things, the fact that juveniles are subject to the same registration requirements as adults without the benefit of a jury trial or similar protections.

Amie Zyla was 8 years old when a 14-year-old family friend named Joshua Wade molested her. Wade was adjudicated for a misdemeanor in juvenile court in Wisconsin, where he and Zyla lived, and sent to a residential juvenile facility. That was the last Zyla knew about Wade until almost a decade later, in 2005, when she heard a TV news report that Wade was arrested for sexually assaulting numerous children. At the time of his arrest, Wade was 23. Authorities said that Wade befriended children, molesting many in his apartment and secretly videotaping some of them in the shower. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

It is a disturbing story that still haunts Zyla, who is now 19 and has become an advocate for including juveniles on public registries. If Wade had been subject to community notification as a teenager, parents and other community members would have been able to find out about his past record. During her testimony to the House Judiciary Sub-Committee in support of the Adam Walsh Act, Zyla said, “The simple truth is that juvenile sex offenders turn into adult predators.”

That was certainly the case for Wade, who showed signs of heading for trouble long before he became an adult. When he was at his juvenile treatment program for molesting Zyla, Wade made almost no progress and admitted that he had also assaulted numerous other children, according to records obtained by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (His defense attorney said that the police were never able to confirm those assaults.) He was also considered a high-enough risk that he was sent to a detention facility following his juvenile program.

Experts say there are, indeed, warning signs that one teenager may be at higher risk for committing repeat offenses. Not surprisingly, a pattern of multiple sexual offenses is of greater concern than a single instance, and the prognosis for a 16- and 17-year-old is typically worse than it is for a 12- or 13-year-old boy. And though age alone doesn’t predict recidivism, a 16-year-old with a long list of criminal and antisocial behaviors, who fails to complete a court-mandated therapy program, as Joshua Wade failed to do, and has a clear and persistent sexual interest in very young children is at real risk for becoming a pedophile, experts say.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a diagnosis of pedophilia requires a person to be at least 16 years old and with “recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies” over a period of six months or longer, that he acts upon with a child who is at least five years younger. Many sex-abuse therapists, however, say they’d be wary of diagnosing pedophilia in even a 16- or a 17-year-old. At 16, a teenager’s history of sexual interest is relatively short, notes David Prescott, a therapist and the president-elect of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and it is still subject to change, compared with the history of a 40-year-old who is sexually attracted to young children.

Though there is no definitive way to predict, unfortunately, who will be the next Joshua Wade, some juvenile-assessment tests — which include questions about a youth’s sexual history, antisocial behavior and support system — can help clinicians evaluate the risk of that individual committing another offense. The questionnaires, however, have not been scientifically validated, and no single actuarial tool — even for adults — is airtight. For juveniles, the task is even trickier because, by definition, adolescence is a time of development and flux; a boy who seems at high risk for repeat offenses at 14 may no longer be so at 16. And a low-risk 14-year-old boy could become higher risk by the time he is 16. Indeed, the manual of one juvenile-assessment test highlights the complications: “No aspect of their development, including their cognitive development, is fixed or stable. In addition, their life circumstances often are very unstable. In a very real sense, we are trying to assess the risk of ‘moving targets.’ ”

The image of 15-year-old boys as moving targets is not terribly comforting for those of us worried about whether a neighborhood teenager might be a budding pedophile. And the fear of the unknown sexual predator certainly influences public policy. As Mark Green, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin and one of more than three dozen co-sponsors of the 2006 Adam Walsh Act, told me: “If we are going to have a sex-offender registry that’s a useful tool for authorities and the public, it has to cover a broad enough spectrum of offenders. I err on the side of covering more offenders because these crimes are so destructive to victims, families and communities.”

But the Adam Walsh Act and similar legislation may risk ensnaring low-risk teenagers who were never headed toward becoming adult sex offenders. Numerous studies show that recidivism for juveniles who commit sex offenses is about 10 percent. That’s lower than most other juvenile offenses, including property and drug crimes. It’s also a significantly lower recidivism rate than that of adult sex offenders, which ranges from about 25 percent to, for the most serious offenders, 50 percent or higher. (Official recidivism rates are lower than actual rates; some sex offenders commit later offenses that go undetected.) And though the Adam Walsh Act requires many first-time teenage offenders to publicly register for life, if an adolescent hasn’t committed another sex crime within five years of his first offense, research suggests that he is unlikely to do so, notes Mark Chaffin of the University of Oklahoma.

As Elizabeth Letourneau, the professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains, most adolescents don’t have the sexual deviancy that prompts an adult predator to offend repeatedly. “If you’re an adult child molester, you’re violating clear age and legal boundaries. You’re crossing over a lot of lines, so you have to be highly motivated,” she said. “Kids typically don’t cross as many lines when they offend; they do stupid things all the time because their brains aren’t developed.”

As research by the National Institutes of Health shows, our brains don’t finish maturing until we are in our mid-20s. In its 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, the United States Supreme Court acknowledged this when it said that adolescents, even those as old as 17, were not eligible for the death penalty because they “cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders,” because of their immaturity.

The last part of the brain to develop is the frontal lobe, which is responsible for impulse control, moral reasoning and regulating emotions — the things that adolescents lack when they decide, if they make a conscious decision, to molest a younger kid. So, instead of being compulsive like pedophiles, adolescents tend to be impulsive, which means tactics like “grooming,” in which an offender woos a child for weeks or months before a sexual assault, tend not to apply to the majority of juveniles, Chaffin notes. It’s not that juveniles can’t distinguish right from wrong; it’s that they don’t perceive risks and consequences the way adults do — as parents of teenagers know all too well. “I’ve been arguing for a classification called ‘puberty in the first degree,’ ” said Timothy Kahn, a Seattle therapist who has treated and evaluated thousands of juveniles with sex offenses, “which gives them a break for what they do when they are 12, 13, 14.”

After being adjudicated for a sex offense, a juvenile is often sent to a community-based or residential treatment program, where he might spend anywhere from a few months to a few years or more. In some cases, a judge might recommend a residential program because a boy has sexually abused a family member and the family can’t adequately supervise him. But in other cases, adolescents wind up in residential programs simply because their community lacks outpatient programs.

Whether residential or outpatient, the treatment philosophies among the programs vary widely. Some focus on family dynamics and teaching boundaries and understanding social cues, as well as helping immerse juveniles in mainstream activities. Other programs embrace the model that Longo and some of his colleagues once practiced but now see as outdated, in which youths are treated much like adult offenders.

In a Newton, Kan., program, teenagers keep logs of their masturbation habits, in which they detail their fantasies and how often they masturbate to those fantasies, which therapists then read, in addition to working on anger management and doing other exercises. Some of the teenagers also participate in what’s known as psychodrama. During these exercises, a teenager stands in front of an audience of peers, parents and other relatives who attend the group therapy. Then, the teenager describes the victim — hair color, personality, age — and what the offender did.

The teenager often chooses a friend in the program to play the role of the victim, whose task it is to pepper the teenager with questions: “Why me?” “Did you molest other kids?” “I thought we were friends; will we ever be friends?” Then audience members offer their own questions, along with praise for the teenager’s bravery and honesty, during a process that lasts about an hour and a half. Jeffrey King, the director of the program, explains the rationale behind psychodrama, saying: “Sharing is a way of getting it out of their soul. If they are moving forward with treatment, they’ll be able to say, ‘I was only thinking of myself and getting my needs met.’ ”

But Longo argues that when these exercises re-enact offenses, they may shame boys and reinforce their self-image as “sex offenders” with bad, deviant traits rather than as kids needing lessons in setting boundaries and creating better relationships. Critics complain, too, that intensive monitoring of adolescents may have similar consequences. Adolescents in some therapy and probation programs, for example, aren’t allowed to go to playgrounds or swimming pools, even with adult supervision. “You can’t see what they are doing underwater,” a Colorado probation officer, DeeDee Cagle, told me, referring to the pool rule, which applies to adolescents with a single sexual offense, as well as those with multiple offenses.

But Barbara Bonner, a longtime expert on children and sex offenses and a co-director of the Adolescent Sex Offender Treatment Program at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, questions such practices. For 20 years, the program has been letting kids go on supervised visits to parks and swimming pools. “We’ve never had an incident,” she told me. Her program, whose population includes juveniles adjudicated for a wide range of offenses, does have rules: no baby-sitting; no supervisory role with young children; no pornography. But the program also makes a point of encouraging mainstream activities with peers as much as possible. “It’s different if a particular child has a history of going to the park and grabbing kids,” notes Bonner, who was recently the president of the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. “But why make it a rule for everyone?”

Some programs also monitor adolescents by requiring them to undergo polygraphs. While the exams are not typical in other juvenile-delinquent programs, according to a 2002 report by the Safer Society Foundation, a sexual-abuse research and advocacy organization, about 44 percent of outpatient adolescent-sex-offender programs use polygraphs — up from 25 percent eight years earlier. Researchers have long questioned the reliability of the polygraph as a lie detector, and Elizabeth Letourneau says that adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to “admitting” to more than they actually did. “A polygrapher might say, ‘You failed this part; is there something else you’re not telling me?’ Then you may give up more information to try to pass.”

Judith V. Becker is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and is considered one of the foremost experts in juvenile-sex-offender evaluation and treatment. She told me that she and her colleague Kurt Bumby have visited adolescent-sex-offender programs and asked teenagers if polygraphs ever failed to pick up lies the boys told. Yes, some of them said. Becker and Bumby also asked if the boys ever told the truth and polygraph results indicated it was a lie. That happened, too. Similarly, Mark Chaffin, co-director of an Oklahoma program for adolescents, said that teenagers there told counselors that in previous programs they felt pressured to confess to sex offenses they didn’t commit. “They thought they would never get out of there otherwise,” he told me. “It’s not an uncommon occurrence; it’s part of the culture of some facilities.”

Adolescents’ treatment progress may also be delayed by unfavorable results from a test known as PPG, or penile plethysmography, in which a band is placed around a boy’s genitals to measure his erectile response to audio or visual stimuli. Only about 10 percent of adolescent outpatient programs in the United States still use PPGs, according to a 2002 Safer Society report. “Years ago, people were using them on children as young as 11 and 12,” says Peter M. Byrne, the C.E.O. of Behavioral Technology Inc., which distributes PPG technology in the United States. Now Byrne doesn’t generally recommend PPG for anyone under the age of 16.

But according to Colorado’s state guidelines on juvenile sex offenders, adolescents 14 and older are eligible for PPGs. Cagle, the probation officer, told me that while she requires every adolescent client with a sex offense to undergo either a PPG or a much less invasive viewing time test, which measures sexual interest by the length of time someone looks at photographs, she prefers the PPG. “I like to know what kind of kiddo I’ve got,” she said. But no one has ever done a controlled trial of PPG comparing “normal” adolescents to those with sex offenses. “Kids are aroused by anything,” said Craig Latham, the psychologist, who along with other sex-abuse experts have been trying to ban the use of PPG with adolescents. “They are aroused by sitting there with this thing on their penises.”

Last October, Johnnie, the Delaware teenager on the sex-offender registry, sat slumped in a chair in his therapist’s office. After the bullying incidents at his middle school earlier in the year, he enrolled in an alternative school for juvenile delinquents. He wasn’t required to attend, and he didn’t particularly like it. But there wasn’t a lot of choice. And now he was telling his therapist, Marc Felizzi, about a new incident that took place two weeks earlier on the school bus. “He said, ‘Hey, dude, you’re a sex offender.’ And the other one said, ‘You tried to rape your sister!’ ”

Trying to catch Johnnie’s gaze, which was focused at his feet, Felizzi said: “Maybe you need to talk to a teacher and say you need to have your back covered. If you don’t tell someone at school and you smack some kid, you could pick up a new police charge,” Felizzi said. Johnnie had already been suspended for mouthing off to a teacher shortly after the incident on the school bus.

For much of his life, Johnnie has struggled with anger and depression. Twice, he spent several days in a psychiatric hospital. The first time was last year after he walked into oncoming traffic near his grandmother’s house; he told the police officer who found him that he wanted to die. The second time was several months ago. He had transferred to yet another school and sought out a counselor to tell her he felt both suicidal and so enraged at a fellow student who continually taunted him that he wanted to kill the student. “He was at the end of his rope, and he knew where to turn when he needed help,” said a school staff member who asked that I not use her name to protect Johnnie’s privacy. Johnnie, she told me, had no disciplinary problems at her school and is a “wonderful and very respectful student and a leader in the school.”

It has been five years since Johnnie sexually abused his sister and, though it is impossible to know with certainty if he has sexually assaulted anyone since then, no one I spoke to knew about any other offense: not the staff at his school, not Felizzi, not Johnnie’s prosecuting and defense attorneys. And Johnnie, whom Felizzi told me had always been forthcoming about his past, repeatedly told me he’s never sexually abused anyone else. “I was young and stupid,” he said, recalling what he did to his sister. “It was really terrible.”

In part, he said, his struggles with depression are related to his guilt about his sister, as well as his troubled relationship with his mother, who, family members told me, verbally and physically abused her son. Added to that, Johnnie was sexually assaulted by a family friend when he was 5. (In abusing his sister, Felizzi said, Johnnie “was re-enacting what was done to him.”) And then there’s the Internet registry. His first suicide attempt was two weeks after his sex offense became known at school. The day students found out, he told me, “my whole world dropped to the ground.”

Marc Felizzi has seen the pattern before. Kids Google one another’s names; curious neighbors type in their ZIP codes on sex-offender Web sites. And the problems begin. “A large part of treatment,” he said, “is coping mechanisms: ‘ What do I do when I’m found out?’ ”

I spoke to a 14-year-old girl who was on a state’s public registry. When she was 11, she repeatedly fondled a 7-year-old boy’s penis and had him touch her vagina; the incidents were then reported to authorities by a therapist. “I was going to try out for the basketball and volleyball teams,” she told me, but decided the team wasn’t worth the risk, after one of the players sent her an instant message on her computer: “What did you do? I saw you on the Internet!” While posted on the Internet registry, she said, she lost all of her friends but one. (“People think I’ve done something worse than I did,” she told me. “They think I’m not a virgin.”) She also received anonymous phone calls from guys wanting to “hook up” with her, while neighbors asked her family to move away. And her father was worried that his daughter’s Internet listing made her easy prey for adult men looking for adolescents who they assume are sexually experienced. But the girl is fortunate in one respect. She lives in a state that recently gave judges discretion about placing juveniles on public registries. Several months ago, her lawyer won a motion to have her information removed.

Lucy Berliner, the director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress, in Seattle, notes that the stories of teenagers like these are only anecdotes; there are no studies on how community notification affects children’s development and self-image. And, as Berliner says, some juveniles stay on public registries for a limited period and are unscathed by it. But given that few labels carry as much stigma in our society as “sex offender,” it makes sense that some adolescents become depressed and isolated.

Certainly, one consequence of community notification is that as these adolescents move into adulthood, they may struggle to stay in the mainstream because they have a hard time finding and holding jobs. Becoming a teacher or a doctor or joining the military may be virtually impossible for those labeled as sex offenders on public registries. Even job prospects at Target, McDonald’s or any business that performs background checks aren’t promising. In interviews, people in their 20s told me that they have been either fired or turned down for jobs at retail stores, fast-food restaurants and social-service organizations after employers discovered they were adjudicated as juveniles for sex offenses.

Another unintended consequence may be that some families will remain silent to protect their children from decades on an Internet registry rather than seek intervention that would benefit both the victim and the offender. One mother I spoke to regretted not keeping quiet. When she discovered that her 11-year-old son had engaged in a sexual act with his younger sister (the mother wouldn’t specify the offense except to say that it did not involve penetration and no force was involved), she called a therapist. “I thought it was the right thing to do,” she told me. “I figured counseling would help.” She thought she knew how the law worked and that her son’s behavior might be reported to law enforcement. “But I thought: O.K., it will teach him a lesson. He’ll get a little probation, but his record will be sealed.” She didn’t realize that one year earlier her state had made children as young as 10 eligible for the state’s Internet sex-offender registry. Police entered her son’s DNA into a database. They took his fingerprints and mug shots. And they placed him on the state’s Web site. That’s where his photo and address have been for the past four years. “I feel it was my fault,” the mother told me. “I did it.”

Of all the worries the public registries create, though, the most frightening for many families is vigilantism. In 2005, a man killed two adult sex offenders he tracked through a Washington State community-notification Web site. And last year, a 20-year-old Canadian man with a list of 29 names and addresses from the Maine Sex Offender Registry went to the homes of two convicted offenders, shooting and killing them. Both men were strangers to the killer. One of the offenders had raped a child. The other was convicted for statutory rape; he was 19 when he had sex with his girlfriend, who was two weeks shy of her 16th birthday.

One question about juveniles with sex offenses that remains unanswered is what kind of treatment works best. New studies are, however, beginning to suggest potential directions. One of the most promising is what’s known as multisystemic therapy, which tries to minimize antisocial behavior by helping caregivers more effectively supervise their children. Multisystemic therapy typically focuses on improving parent-child bonds and encouraging teenagers’ involvement in class work and after-school activities, as well as healthy friendships. Two small, controlled studies with juveniles who committed sex offenses suggest MST reduces recidivism more effectively than individual psychotherapy and some other treatments. In a third, a federally financed clinical trial led by Elizabeth Letourneau, researchers are looking at 127 juveniles adjudicated for sex offenses, between ages 11 and 18, and their families. About half of the kids were randomly assigned to multisystemic therapy and half to a traditional sex-offender treatment program that focuses on, among other things, relapse prevention. Both programs are outpatient. (No published study, Letourneau notes, has ever shown that residential programs — which she and other critics contend are overused — are more effective than less costly outpatient programs.) According to Letourneau, early results from the MST study are promising.

And last year, Mark Chaffin, at the University of Oklahoma, and other researchers published the results of a longitudinal study of 135 children ages 5 to 12 who had sexual-behavior problems and participated in a therapy program. The program took just 12 weeks, during which counselors addressed inappropriate sexual behavior, concrete sexual-behavior rules, self-control techniques and sex education. Given that the children were under 13, it’s hard to know if the results can be replicated with older adolescents, though Chaffin has just such a study under way. But in the study of younger children, the 10-year recidivism rate was 2 percent. “You can’t get a whole lot lower than that,” Chaffin said. “That’s a functional definition of a cure.”

Best, of course, would be stopping juveniles before they offend. While some sex education in schools includes lessons on how kids can avoid perpetrators, it is much less common for children to learn how to avoid committing sex offenses themselves. “It is morally wrong,” said Timothy Kahn, the Seattle therapist, “to do nothing to educate kids about the laws and then have them have to register as sex offenders and they haven’t even hit puberty.”

In his book “An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending,” Franklin E. Zimring, a professor of criminal law at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests, as an alternative to community-notification laws for juveniles something known as “time-conditional record sealing.” Under Zimring’s plan, if an adolescent with a sex offense goes on to commit another offense as an adult, law enforcement would be able to access the juvenile records to help assess the offender’s recidivism risk and make judicial decisions accordingly. “The number of career sex offenders who would be able to hide official records behind the protective policies of juvenile justice would fast approach zero,” Zimring writes. “The number of low-risk juveniles kept from permanent stigma would be quite large.” Other experts have suggested a restricted registration system that would allow certain child-centered employers — like camps and schools — to access high-risk juveniles’ records for several years to help ensure that those adolescents and young adults don’t work with children.

As Zimring notes, keeping juveniles off public Internet registries isn’t just a civil rights issue. “It’s also about bringing some kind of rationality into law enforcement,” he says, given that including low-risk offenders in these laws adds to police workloads with no proof that it’s actually effective.

In the meantime, if thousands of juveniles do accumulate on state and federal Internet registries, Mark Chaffin argues that at the very least we should be studying the impact on these adolescents. “We’d need to follow these kids for 10 years to look at their different experiences and outcomes,” he said. “Frankly, we could easily find these policies do more harm than good.”

As Elizabeth Letourneau told me recently, “If kids can’t get through school because of community notification, or they can’t get jobs, they are going to be marginalized.” And marginalized people, she noted, commit more crimes.

Maggie Jones is a contributing writer for the magazine. Her last article was about boys in Japan who refuse to leave their homes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22juvenile-t.html?ref=magazine

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

Jena 6: Take action!

Perhaps you heard the mothers, fathers and others talking about the Jena 6 on democracy now!. Here is another outrageous but true example of segregation-era oppression happening today in Jena, Louisiana. I signed onto ColorOfChange.org's campaign for justice in Jena, and wanted to invite you to do the same.
http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=2131-200043

Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place." But it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press. Together, we can make sure their story is told and that the Governor of Louisiana intervenes and provides justice for the Jena 6. It starts now. Please join me:

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=2131-200043

The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were later arrested for the theft of the gun.

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.

Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.

Mychal is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years. Theo Shaw's trial is next. He will finally make bail this week.

The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. But if we act now, we can make a difference.

Join me in demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for Mychal Bell, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=2131-200043

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

July 21, 2007

NACLA Article: Detention archipelago: jailing immigrants for profit

COMMENT
Detention archipelago: jailing immigrants for profit
By Forrest Wilder
18 July 2007, 10:00am
The US experience of detaining asylum seekers and migrants in centres operated by private companies has many parallels with what is happening in the UK.

Below we reproduce an article that appeared in the May/June issue of the journal NACLA - Report on the Americas, on the private companies involved in the detention of asylum seekers in the US.

'The child's drawing says it best. Beneath a crayon sketch of a little girl standing next to a prison is the simple inscription: feo, meaning ugly, nasty, awful. That's how Nixcari, a nine-year-old Honduran girl, described her new home in the United States, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a 512-bed, privately run facility that opened last year in Taylor, Texas, about 20 miles northeast of Austin. She made the drawing while she was a prisoner there, along with her pregnant mother and her four-year-old sister, from December 2006 until last February, when they were suddenly released.

The mother, Denia, 27, says she fled Honduras with her children because her partner was abusing her.[1] Seeking asylum for herself and her kids, she crossed into Texas from Mexico on foot, where she met a man who offered to help. He took Denia and her daughters to his house, but his wife suggested Denia turn herself in. Thinking the authorities would take pity on a five-months-pregnant woman with two children, she went to the nearest Border Patrol station. They were immediately detained. An immigration judge set her bond at $18,000, plus $3,000 for each child; unable to raise the money, the family was sent to Hutto, where they joined about 400 other prisoners from more than two dozen countries.

Now living in Houston with her mother, Denia describes her experience at Hutto as miserable. 'They treat you badly, as if you aren't worth anything,' she tells NACLA. With 20 minutes allowed for each meal, she says she had only enough time to try to coax her girls into eating. When she smuggled fruit out of the cafeteria, guards would seize it. At one point, a doctor at Hutto told her that her baby wasn't developing properly because of her improper and insufficient diet, but she says officials refused to adjust her meals. Denia later joined 25 other detainees in a brief hunger strike to protest the food; despite official promises, nothing changed.

She also says the guards threatened to separate her from her children if she didn't obey orders, traumatizing her daughters. '[The children] haven't forgotten what happened there,' she says. 'They're scared they'll have to go back. They start crying. They're scared even when they see police in the street.'

Denia's account is typical of detainees at Hutto, which is owned and run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a publicly traded company that receives at least $2.8 million each month from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for operating the facility. In sworn affidavits obtained by NACLA, current and past detainees report insufficient medical care, rampant depression, guards routinely threatening deportation, widespread weight loss due to unpalatable and rushed meals, and poor care for pregnant women.

One 12-year-old Salvadoran girl testified, 'There were days when I would get really depressed. I would cry and tell my mom that all I wanted to do was to go home to my country, my El Salvador. I was tired of being locked up, mistreated, and not allowed to do anything.' In another affidavit, dated October 23, a pregnant Nicaraguan woman attests that she went for months without a prenatal exam and that, after being diagnosed with a kidney infection, was told to drink water instead of being prescribed medicine. Margaret Thompson, an obstetrician, asserts in a related affidavit that this woman's care was 'grossly inadequate and jeopardized the health of her and her unborn child.'

A December 2006 Homeland Security inspector general's audit of five detention facilities, not including Hutto, found evidence of similar conditions. Many detainees, the audit says, were sickened by unsafe food and received inadequate medical care.[2] Similar findings are included in a scathing report on family detention issued in February by two refugee rights group.[3] The report's authors, who interviewed detainees in December, concluded that ICE had developed 'a penal detention model that is fundamentally anti-family and un-American,' and called for Hutto to be shuttered.

With pressure mounting, ICE allowed reporters to tour the detention center, a former medium-security jail, in February. Gary Mead, assistant director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal, led the hour long tour. Tagging along were CCA's head of corporate communications, the director of the San Antonio ICE field office, and three ICE public affairs officers.

Mead and the government minders whisked reporters to six of the facility's sites, where government or CCA employees discussed their areas of expertise. Reporters were warned not to talk to the 'noncriminal deportable alien families with children,' as ICE labels its Hutto inmates, so as to respect their 'privacy rights.'

We were shown parents and their kids eating Jell-O and pizza in the cafeteria; an English-language class of about 20 children learning computer skills; and families watching television and hanging out in a small lounge (common to each of the facility's 11 dormitory 'pods') overseen by a surveillance camera. Their uniforms, worn by both adults and children, aren't exactly prison jumpsuits, but green or blue scrubs, like those at hospitals. The detainees' eight-by-12-foot cells, which they clean themselves daily, consist of a metal bunk bed, sink, and toilet, behind a thick metal door. CCA officials say the doors are never locked, but a laser sensor alerts personnel to opening doors at night. Children must be in bed by 9 p.m., adults by 10.

Mead and other officials insisted that families are never threatened with separation and that their detainees are well behaved. 'We don't really have discipline problems here,' he said. 'If someone became that disruptive, they would be taken to a traditional facility.' But a provision in the contract between ICE and Williamson County for managing the facility stipulates that jail authorities 'may separate unruly residents' while awaiting removal by ICE.

Bleak as the detention center looks, the tour guides put a humane face on it. Danny Coronado, a CCA employee, noted that new detainees aged five and under get a teddy bear, 'just to ease them.' As we were shown the facility's playground (detainees are allowed outside one hour each day), Mead said the razor wire surrounding three sides of the facility would soon come down. And daily classroom instruction, we were told, had recently been increased from one hour to four and would soon reach seven, complying with Texas education standards. Jean Bellinger, who heads education at Hutto, extolled the 'fun' involved in 'sharing cultures in this environment.'

Detaining families is the logical, if extreme, result of U.S. immigration policy. While attention has been directed toward hard-line enforcement strategies - the deployment of National Guard troops to the southwestern border, ICE's sensationalistic raids on undocumented workers, and the vigilantism of groups like the Minutemen - a vast network of immigrant jails has emerged to facilitate this crackdown. Hutto is but the latest example.

The number of beds reserved by ICE for noncitizens has exploded, from fewer than 7,500 in 1994 to 26,500 today. Sometime this year the number is expected to reach 32,000. The private prison industry has absorbed almost all of the growth in new detention beds, as the federal government has moved away from managing its own facilities. Just in the past year, GEO Group opened a 1,900-bed ICE facility in Pearsall, Texas; CCA unveiled the 1,524-bed Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia; and Management and Training Corporation built a 2,000-bed tent city in Raymondville, Texas. In January 2006, Homeland Security awarded KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, a contract worth up to $385 million to build temporary immigrant detention facilities in case of an 'emergency influx of immigrants,' according to a KBR press release.

Private prison companies control about 20% of federal prison and detention beds, up from 3% in 2001, according to George Zoley, CEO of GEO Group. 'That's a remarkable turnaround,' he told analysts in a 2006 conference call. Zoley attributed the boom to the federal government's appetite for locking up immigrants.

And because the average stay in ICE detention is short (about 40 days and falling), the number of people moving through the detention system is vast - 230,000 each year and growing. This does not include the increasing number of noncitizens charged with federal immigration crimes who cram the dockets of border courthouses, a population that is helping to fuel the parallel explosion in U.S. Marshals Service jails. (The Marshals Service holds accused criminals awaiting adjudication.)

Detainees include border crossers, workers swept up in raids, residents whose legal status is in jeopardy, asylum seekers, and 'criminal aliens' plucked from jail or prison. They are of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds. Between fiscal years 1994 and 2004, Mexicans accounted for about one quarter of detention bed days, followed by Cubans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Chinese, Jamaicans, Haitians, and Dominicans, according to the Congressional Research Service.[4] (The CRS's report contained no information on how the detainee population breaks down by gender.)

Nearly all the ICE facilities are located in the South and Southwest or near major ports, such as Miami and New York. The private sector operates most of the recently opened facilities for profit, with CCA and GEO Group dominating the market. The federal government now spends about $1 billion annually on immigrant detention; the average rate for an immigrant body is $95 per day.

CCA, the industry leader, has posted six consecutive quarters of double-digit earnings increases. For an industry that struggled through the late 1990s under mountains of debt and an onslaught of high-profile scandals, the Bush administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants has been a propitious, and profitable, development.

Private prison developers often build their facilities on an 'if we build it, they will come' basis. These speculative jails are designed to maximize market share, luring both ICE detainees and criminal populations, especially from the U.S. Marshals Service. For example, when CCA lost a contract for Bureau of Prisons inmates at its detention center in Eloy, Arizona, it landed 1,500 immigrant detainees from ICE a few months later. At the nearby Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence, CCA has a veritable cornucopia of inmates from the Marshals Service, ICE, the U.S. Air Force, and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.

The detention archipelago has risen largely in poor, remote areas, effectively keeping immigration attorneys, family members, advocates, and the media out of reach. An added advantage for prison developers is that desperate communities can be talked into hosting and underwriting prisons.

Take the facility in Raymondville, an impoverished town in south Texas nicknamed Prisonville for its three other jails. The town's $60.7 million privately run detention center was financed using taxpayer-subsidized bonds issued by the county. The district attorney for the county alleges that the facility's builder, Houston-based Hale-Mills, overcharged by $15 million. The bonds, held by private investors, must be paid back within two years, an extraordinarily short period of time, from a revenue stream dependent on filling the jail to the rafters with detainees. In the event of a default, the county, one of the poorest in the nation, will be left with the debt, while the facility's operator, Management and Training Corporation, is guaranteed at least $28.75 per detainee each day from ICE. Thus the private prison industry privatizes profit while socializing the risk.

ICE boasts that at $79 a head each day (up to $4.7 million each month), Raymondville's jail is a bargain. Immigration rights advocates, on the other hand, are calling the place Ritmo, after Gitmo, the nickname for the naval base at Guantánamo Bay. The reported conditions at Raymondville resemble those reported at detention centers for prisoners of the war on terror: Lights are kept on 24 hours a day; there are no windows; the toilets and showers are open; group punishment is used for minor infractions; and detainees are allowed outside one hour each day and, until recently, were forced to eat with their hands. They have alleged racism, inadequate medical attention, spoiled food, and nonfunctioning phones.

Those detained in the immigration crackdown thus face the same legal limbo as do their counterparts from the war on terror. In a legal sense, 'detention' is not a punitive measure; it is not, strictly speaking, 'incarceration.' But for detainees, this is a distinction without a difference. They are not being charged with a crime yet are still effectively serving time. 'My clients repeatedly express that-"Why am I being treated like a criminal?'" says Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney. Depending on their circumstances, detainees may have little access to immigration court. If they do, they must represent themselves before a hostile judge from the Justice Department, because they have no right to a government-paid attorney.

The line between 'corrections' and 'detention' is further blurred by the nature of the facilities. At least 80% of ICE beds for immigrants are located in local and state jails, many privately operated, as well as in for-profit detention centers.

'Whenever we talk about immigrant detention, we hear that it's civil detention, not criminal detention. But they're housed in places that look and smell like a jail,' says Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyer's Guild. 'People are suffering violations that almost amount to constitutional violations of their rights. And when that happens, detention becomes punitive.'

The rise of the immigrant detention complex can be traced to the 1990s, when a number of factors converged to increase the demand for space to hold noncitizens. First, the Border Patrol adopted a strategy of amassing its agents and other enforcement assets near major border cities such as San Diego and El Paso. A surge in the number of apprehensions resulted. Once in the custody of immigration authorities, these border crossers had to be disposed of. While Mexicans could be quickly returned across the border, other nationalities ('other than Mexicans,' or OTMs) had to be either let go with an order to appear in immigration court or held until they could be deported. With detention space lacking, most were let go. Anti-immigrant advocates derided this as a policy of 'catch and release,' as it is popularly known today.

Second, sweeping immigration reform laws passed in 1996 by Congress and signed by President Clinton allowed the deportation of noncitizens convicted of such crimes as drunk driving, writing hot checks, shoplifting, and reentering the United States after being deported. The legislation required that any illegal immigrant deemed a 'criminal alien'-that is, a noncitizen convicted or even suspected of breaking the law-be detained. The laws also authorized 'expedited removal,' which speeds up the deportation process by curtailing access to immigration courts for those nabbed along the border or at ports.

Third, anti-immigrant sentiment consolidated around draconian political initiatives like California's Proposition 187, which denied public benefits to undocumented workers and authorized the enforcement of immigration laws by local police. Though it was eventually overturned, Prop. 187's approval by voters signaled to politicians that a hard line on 'illegal aliens' could reap benefits.

Finally, the Bush administration reacted to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by escalating the immigrant crackdown. Suddenly the land borders of the United States, primarily the one shared with Mexico, became renewed sites of crisis. In 2003, regulating immigration became the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, whose security apparatus bolted into action. Authorities began rounding up immigrants on minor violations, and federal prosecutors began aggressively prosecuting immigration crimes. Immigration surpassed drugs as the No. 1 federally prosecuted crime in 2004.[5]

In October 2005, President Bush, while signing off on $7.5 billion for immigration enforcement, including $90 million for 2,000 new detention beds, summed up the situation: 'Today we capture many more illegal immigrants than we can send home, especially non-Mexicans. And one of the biggest reasons for that is, we don't have enough bed space in our detention facilities. When there's no bed space available, non-Mexicans who are caught entering our country illegally are given a slip that tells them to come back for a court appearance. And guess what-they don't come back.' Later in his speech Bush laid down the law. '[O]ur goal is clear: to return every single illegal entrant, with no exceptions.'

This ambitious goal is laid out in the ominously titled 'Endgame,' the 10-year plan for ICE's Office of Detention and Removal (DRO), created in 2002 as part of Homeland Security.[6] DRO will 'remove all removable aliens' from the United States by 2012, according to the plan, including the 500,000-plus people who have ignored deportation orders, as well as the 300,000 'criminal aliens' serving sentences in jail or prison at any given time. It would also seem to include the majority of the tens of thousands of non-Mexicans who illegally enter the United States every year. 'Catch and release' becomes 'catch and remove.'

To this end, 'zero tolerance' programs have been implemented in certain border sectors to register and punish every wayward border-hopper. Funding for border security has more than doubled, from $4.6 billion in 2001 to $10.4 billion in 2007. During the same period the Border Patrol ranks swelled by 63% to about 15,000 agents. ICE has received millions in fresh appropriations to chase 'absconders' living in the interior United States. And funds have been loosed to identify 'criminal aliens' in jails or prisons who could be deported at the end of their sentences.

Despite the growth in the prison industry, it hasn't kept pace with the demand generated by growing enforcement. An April 2006 inspector general's report found that of 774,112 'illegal aliens' apprehended over the previous three years, 36% were let go due to a lack of detention space.[7] The Bush administration has nonetheless made considerable progress. In less than a year and a half, about 8,500 new beds have been secured. Last August, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff announced that thanks to all the new detention capacity added over the previous year, the policy of catch-and-release had been effectively ended, replaced by '100% catch-and-remove for everybody caught at the border.'

The liberal use of 'expedited removal' has greatly facilitated this accomplishment. Authorized in 1996, expedited removal wasn't applied to the entire length of the two U.S. land borders until 2006. Under this program, certain OTMs are subject to mandatory detention, stripped of court relief, and flown back to their country of origin as quickly as possible. 'It's a very summary procedure, lacking in the fundamental due process rights,' says Meredith Linsky, director of South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation.

Expedited removal, as implemented, has its limitations. Asylum seekers and other protected individuals are excluded, together with anyone who has been in the country longer than 14 days or has been picked up farther than 100 miles from the border. This policy hardly touches the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. But that could change soon, according to Lee Teran, a law professor at St. Mary's University Law School in San Antonio. 'The next step would be to do [expedited removal] farther and farther into the interior of the country,' Teran said last year.

Indeed, Homeland Security has already begun taking the fight to undocumented immigrants settled in the United States. In a series of high-profile raids and SWAT-like ambushes called Operation Return to Sender, ICE agents have swept up about 14,000 people in dozens of states since June 2006. In an interview with National Public Radio in January, John Torres, director of DRO, said the sweeps targeted 'the worst of the worst,' creating 'an atmosphere of deterrence so that ultimately we gain the compliance that we're looking for.'

While some nabbed certainly are criminals, ranging from violent offenders to people with DUIs, the internal dragnet has largely caught your run-of-the-mill undocumented worker. For example, the largest Return to Sender action, the raid of Swift & Company meatpacking plants across several states last December, netted 1,297 undocumented workers, of whom 274 currently face criminal charges related to immigration violations and identity theft (that is, using the Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens to gain employment).

Many of these workers' children have lost their parents, who have either been detained or deported. 'In many cases, the children were born here, and the parents were undocumented,' the Reverend Juan Antonio Albaladejo of Cactus, Texas, where ICE arrested 292 workers, told the Dallas Morning News. 'Then the state has to take the children and put them into foster care, separating families. They haven't taken that into account.'

Making life miserable for undocumented immigrants has been a triumph. Border arrests are down 27% in the first quarter of 2007, compared with the same period in 2006, according to Homeland Security statistics. While apprehensions neither measure nor necessarily correlate with the number of people illegally entering, strict border enforcement, the threat of criminal prosecution, and catch-and-remove may have something to do with the trend. And for many U.S. citizens, this is a success story despite the human consequences. There will be calls for more of 'what works.'

But tens of thousands of people will continue attempting to illegally enter every year, no matter how dangerous the undertaking or punitive the consequences. And there are 12 million others living illegally in the United States, just waiting to be snatched up, thrown in jail, and deported.

As for Denia and her children, they are comparatively lucky. Her attorneys speculate that she was let go in February because reporters were sniffing around, she was due to give birth soon, and she was a complainer. She has found attorneys to work pro bono on her asylum case, and the family is awaiting a hearing with an immigration judge. Meanwhile, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Chertoff on behalf of 10 children jailed at Hutto, calling for them to be released along with their parents.

Denia appeared with her children in March at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. She and her daughter Nixcari talked about their experience at Hutto. While they are not plaintiffs in the suit, they have chosen to use their relative freedom to speak up about those still detained at Hutto. 'I would ask that immigration [authorities] and the president just, what's it called?' Denia said. 'Have a little heart.''

Reproduced with kind permission of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) from NACLA - Report on the Americas, Vol. 40, No. 3, May/June 2007.
NOTES: [1] Denia's attorneys asked that her surname and hometown be withheld from this article. [2] Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, "Treatment of Immigration Detainees Housed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Facilities," December 2006, www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_07 01_Dec06.pdf. [3] Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, "Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families," February 2007, www.womenscommission.org/pdf/famdeten.pdf. [4]Alison Siskin, "Immigration-Related Detention: Current Legislative Issues," Congressional Research Service, April 28, 2004, p. 15, www.fas.org/irp/ crs/RL32369.pdf. [5] According to the research group Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, about one third of all federal prosecutions in fiscal year 2004 were for immigration (mostly for crimes of illegal entry and reentry after deportation), whereas about a quarter involved narcotics. See http://trac.syr.edu/tracins/latest/current. [6] Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "Endgame: Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan, 2003-2012," August 2003, www.ice.gov/doclib/pi/dro/endgame.pdf. [7] Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, "Detention and Removal of Illegal Aliens," April 2006, p. 5, www.dhs.gov/xoig/ assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_06-33_Apr06.pdf. Forrest Wilder is a staff writer for The Texas Observer. He lives in Austin, Texas. Reproduced with kind permission of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) from NACLA - Report on the Americas, Vol. 40, No. 3, May/June 2007.
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

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

NY: New Report Finds Some Counties Count Prisoners in Population Count and Others Do Not

Ulster, Columbia include prisoners in population count
By Michael Hill, Associated Pess
07/18/2007

ALBANY - Prison towns can wield disproportionate local political clout in the New York counties that count inmates as constituents, according to a report from an advocacy group Wednesday.

The Prison Policy Initiative identified 15 counties in the state - including Ulster and Columbia - plus New York City that rely on Census tallies including prisoners when they draw lines for county legislative districts or weight the votes for county boards of supervisors. (County governments usually use one system or the other.)

Critics long have contended that the practice of counting state and federal prisoners, who cannot vote, as local residents creates "phantom constituents" and gives undue political power to places withprisons. Theeffect can be especially acute in sparsely populated rural counties.

The report found five counties - Chautauqua, Livingston, Oneida, Madison and St. Lawrence - contained districts that consisted of at least 20 percent prisoners. Report author Peter Wagner said this creates a "crisis" in those counties because it gives people in the prison districts more concentrated voting power than their neighbors in other parts of the county.

"It allows certain parts of counties to dominate the future of their
counties," Wagner said.

For example, the report said 62 percent of the residents counted by the Census in the Livingston County town of Groveland are incarcerated. That means every four residents there have the same say over county affairs as 10 residents elsewhere in the county, according to the report.

James Merrick, chairman of the Livingston County Board of Supervisors, saidhe did not want to comment on a report he had not seen. But Merrick,Groveland's supervisor, said the county's system works fine.

"I don't think there has been any talk of any change," he said, "everybodylikes the system."

Wagner said five other counties had at least one district with 8 to 15
percent prisoners: Columbia, Chenango, Fulton, Jefferson and Wayne. New York City also fell within that range.

Researchers measured relatively small effects in five other counties, like Monroe, where the average district size is more than 25,000 and the lone state prison holds 90 inmates. The other counties in that group were Ulster,Erie, Saratoga and Westchester.

Thirteen counties - including Dutchess, Greene, Sullivan and Orange -
exclude prisoners for redistricting purposes.

Wagner called for counties to end the practice of counting inmates when drawing district lines.

The Prison Policy Initiative is a not-for-profit group based in Northampton,Mass., that works for new criminal justice policies by documenting what it
calls the "disastrous impact of mass incarceration."

AT A GLANCE

NEW YORK counties that include prisoners in population:
Chautauqua
Chenango
Columbia
Erie
Fulton
Jefferson
Livingston
Madison
Monroe
Oneida
New York City
Saratoga
St. Lawrence
Ulster
Wayne
Westchester

***

COUNTIES that exclude prisoners from population:

Cayuga
Chemung
Clinton
Dutchess
Essex
Franklin
Greene
Orange
Orleans
Schoharie
Sullivan
Washington
Wyoming

ttp://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18597571&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=
74958&rfi=6

©Daily Freeman 2007

Posted by lois at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

NY Times Editorial: "The Wrong Approach to Gangs"

July 19, 2007
Editorial, NY Times

The Wrong Approach to Gangs
No city has failed to control its street gangs more spectacularly than Los Angeles. The region has six times as many gangs and double the number of gang members as a quarter-century ago, even after spending countless billions on the problem. But unless Congress changes course quickly, the policies that seem to have made the gang problem worse in Los Angeles could become enshrined as national doctrine in a so-called gang control bill making its way through both the House and Senate.

This issue is underscored in a study released this week by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington. It shows that police dragnets that criminalize whole communities and land large numbers of nonviolent children in jail don’t reduce gang involvement or gang violence. Law enforcement tools need to be used in a targeted way ­ and directed at the 10 percent or so of gang members who commit violent crimes. The main emphasis needs to be on proven prevention programs that change children’s behavior by getting them involved in community and school-based programs that essentially keep them out of gangs.

Prevention programs have worked extraordinarily well in New York, where street gangs ceased to be a big problem decades ago. But these prevention programs are difficult to sell in Congress, where lawmakers like to show the folks back home how tough they are on crime, even if it means embracing failed policies. By some analyses, the gang control bill circulating in Congress commits nearly 70 percent of the government’s resources to policing and only about a third to prevention.

Proponents of the bill are assuring the rest of us that the statute will be modified to provide more money in support of research-based prevention programs and less for the failed policies of the past. But this bill is shaping up to be a disaster ­ a policy that would do little about the gang problem where it in fact exists, while filling the jails to bursting with children who would have left the gangs on their own in a year or two. Once jailed, these children will inevitably become hardened criminals and spend the rest of their lives in and out of prison.

==========================================

Posted by lois at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2007

NY: Governor, lawmakers agree on solitary-confinement bill

Governor, lawmakers agree on solitary-confinement bill
By CARA MATTHEWS
ALBANY BUREAU, The Journal News

July 17, 2007)

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer and lawmakers announced yesterday that they have agreed on a compromise bill to ban solitary confinement for seriously mentally ill prison inmates because legislation passed this session faced a certain veto by the executive.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously during a special session yesterday, and the Assembly is scheduled to vote on the measure when it returns to Albany later this year.

About 12 percent of the prison population in New York, or some 8,000
inmates, has serious psychiatric disabilities, according to the bill's
sponsors, Nozzolio and Assembly Correction Committee Chairman Jeffrion
Aubry, D-Queens.

The bill would not ban solitary confinement entirely for this population. This is how it would work:

- Inmates with severe mental illness (such as schizophrenia or bipolar
disorder) would be diverted or removed from solitary confinement if the isolation term could potentially be for more than 30 days. They would be assessed by a mental-health clinician within one business day of being placed in the solitary unit.

- Inmates with minor mental disorders, or who required limited intervention, would be assessed by a professional within 14 days. If the prisoner were found to have a serious mental illness, the prison system would have 14 days to decide whether the inmate should be removed from solitary confinement.

- Prison officials could decide not to remove someone from the box if doing so would place in jeopardy the safety and security of the inmate, another person or the facility.

- Prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities who were not removed from solitary confinement would receive a heightened level of treatment consisting of at least two hours a day, five days a week, of out-of-cell therapeutic care.

Senators gave final passage to the original bill at the end of their regular session last month, but negotiations had not concluded with Spitzer's office about how to hold down costs, provide special services only to the sickest of the sick, and ensure inmates without severe mental illnesses could not take advantage of the system.

The governor's administration had raised concerns about the price tag of diverting mentally ill prisoners from solitary confinement to residential treatment centers run by the prison system.

The Senate and Assembly passed the bill during the legislative session.

Spitzer had questioned whether a new law was necessary since an April
settlement agreement over a lawsuit filed on behalf of mentally ill inmates required a number of changes and expenditures to improve the quality of care for that population.

Provisions of Disability Advocates' settlement with the state include giving inmates with severe mental illness who are in the box at least two hours a day of out-of-cell treatment, setting up residential programs for about 400 prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, improving suicide-prevention assessments, and other changes.

A spokeswoman for Spitzer did not immediately respond to requests for
comment yesterday.

According to advocates, state officials have estimated the legislation could result in spending another $60 million and diverting hundreds more prisoners than expected when the governor put about $60 million in the state budget in anticipation of the court settlement.

The state will have to hire additional treatment staff, require training for department staff, and retrofit existing correctional facilities or construct
new ones.

It would take several years for all the new units to be operational.

The Legislature passed similar legislation in 2006, but former Gov. George Pataki vetoed it.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070717/NEWS05/707
170351/1026/NEWS10>

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

Virginia Supreme Court Slams Prisoner Health Services and It's Employees

Virginia Supreme Court Slams Prisoner Health Services and It's Employees

On June 8, 2007, the Virginia Supreme Court in the case of Oludare Ogunde v. Prison Health Service, et al., Record No. 061121, dealt a blow to Prison Health Services (PHS) and five of its current and former employees at the Greensville Correctional Center (Greensville). In an appeal filed by Ogunde, a Virginia prisoner formerly housed at Greesnsville, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ogunde in all but one of the issues reviewed and remanded the case to the Greensville County Circuit Court for further proceedings.

In summary, the Supreme Court ruled, based on the provisions of the contract between PHS and the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), that PHS and it's employees are not entitled to sovereign immunity. Therefore, Ogunde is entitled to sue PHS and its employees for medical malpractice. The Court also reversed the dismissal of Ogunde's gross negligence and breach of contract claims. In ruling on the breach of contract claim, the Court agreed with the PHS and VDOC intended to provide a benefit to, among others, Ogunde." And for this reason, Ogunde was a third-party beneficiary entitled to sue for breach of the contract by PHS. Finally, the Court reversed the dismissal of Ogunde's claim that the failure to provide medical treatment was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of Art. I, Section 9 of the Constitution of Virginia and also reversed the Greensville Court's refusal to grant Ogunde leave to amend his motion for judgment.

Overall, this is a monumental decision and a victory for all Virginia prisoners, especially those under the care of PHS and its employees. The Court has drawn the line, and inmates should now be able to seek legal remedies against PHS and its employees for, among others, medical malpractice, negligence, breach of contract, and violation of Art. I, Section 9 of the Constitution of Virginia in state courts. It is no secret that many Virginia prisoners have unnecessarily suffered, and some have even lost their lives due to lack of care or substandard care provided by PHS and its employees. The Ogunde decision now makes those who provide health care to inmates in Virginia more accountable, and for this we thank the Supreme Court for doing the right thing.

This decision is published and will be available in all prison law libraries soon. A full copy of this Supreme Court decision is available at RIHD office for review.

This monumental decision and victory happened due to the endless work by prisoner Oludare Ogunde a member with the nonprofit group, PAFERJ and RIHD. On behalf of the all prisoners, their family/love one, and supporters for prison reform, we "thank you" him.

"Even when you feel as though there isn't a lot you can do to change unhappiness or problems, you can always do a little -- and a little at a time eventually makes a big difference" -- Barbara Cage

Posted by lois at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. Conference of Mayors Declare Drug War A Failure

U.S. Mayors Declare Drug War a Failure
July 18, 2007

News Feature
By Bob Curley

The mayors of America's large cities have unanimously approved a resolution stating that the drug war "has failed" and calling for a harm-reduction oriented approach to drug policy that focuses on public health.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted the resolution during its June 21-26 annual meeting in Los Angeles, calling for a "new bottom line" in drug policy that "concentrates more fully on reducing the negative consequences associated with drug abuse, while ensuring that our policies do not exacerbate these problems or create new social problems of their own; establishes quantifiable, short- and long-term objectives for drug policy; saves taxpayers money; and holds state and federal agencies responsible."

Sponsored by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the resolution states that the drug war costs $40 billion annually but has not cut drug use or demand. It slams the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) drug-prevention programs -- specifically, the agency's national anti-drug media campaign -- as "costly and ineffective," but called drug treatment cost-effective and a major contributor to public safety because it prevents criminal behavior.

"This Conference recognizes that addiction is a chronic medical illness that is treatable, and drug treatment success rates exceed those of many cancer therapies," the document states.

The resolution condemns mandatory minimum sentences and incarceration of drug offenders, particularly minorities, and called for more control of anti-drug spending and priorities at the local level, where the impact is most acutely felt.

"U.S. policy should not be measured solely on drug-use levels or number of people imprisoned, but rather on the amount of drug-related harm reduced," according to the resolution. The document calls for more accountability among federal, state and local drug agencies, with funding tied to performance measures, more treatment funding and alternatives to incarceration, and lifting the federal funding ban for needle-exchanges.

The resolution, which will be used to guide the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Washington lobbying on addiction issues, passed with minimal debate, clearing two committees and the general assembly by unanimous votes.

"The mayors are clearly signaling the serious need for drug policy reform," said Daniel Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), who worked with Anderson's staff to draft the resolution. Daniel Robelo, a DPA legal research assistant, said the resolution could become an "incredibly powerful" advocacy tool for DPA and other drug-reform groups. "While it has no legal effect, it has a powerful symbolic effect," he told Join Together.

Alexa Eggleston, director of national policy for the Legal Action Center, which advocates for increased investment in addiction treatment and prevention, praised the mayors for acknowledging "that alcohol and drug addiction is a treatable medical illness and is supportive of expanding treatment to the approximately 21 million Americans with alcohol and drug problems who need it, expanding effective prevention initiatives in communities nationwide, and fighting discrimination against people with addiction histories by repealing discriminatory laws and policies that prevent them from accessing employment, insurance, and other necessities of life."

But Tom Riley, a spokesperson for ONDCP, called the resolution a "grab bag" of DPA positions and a publicity stunt by proponents of drug legalization. "We don't think it's very serious," he said of the resolution, adding that to declare the drug war a failure "is a slogan rather than a policy proposal."

"Most of the mayors our office talks to consider drugs a huge problem in their communities and are anxious to get more resources for prevention, treatment and law enforcement," said Riley. "I don't know many mayors who are in favor of drug legalization."

Anderson is no newcomer to the drug issue; he has previously called the drug war "phony, inhumane, and ineffective," and his official biography calls him "an outspoken advocate for drug policy reform." He received the DPA's 2005 Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award for outstanding achievements in the field of drug policy reform.

Nor is Anderson alone in his harsh criticism of the drug war: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, seen as a rising political leader, recently stated that he's prepared to go to jail to protest a war on drugs that he sees as shackling African-Americans into poverty and feeding crime and murder in his city.

"I'm going to battle on this," Booker recently told the Newark Star-Ledger. "We're going to start this in the gentlemanly way. And then we're going to do the civil disobedience way. Because this is absurd."

Booker says he wants to see nonviolent drug offenders placed in treatment programs and halfway houses, not prisons, and to stop banning ex-offenders from jobs. "The drug war is causing crime," he said. "It's just chewing up young black men. And it's
killing Newark."

http://www.jointogether.org/news/features/2007/us-mayors-declare-drug-war.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=33423995

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

NH: Giving prisons the attention they deserve

July 19, 2007
Laconia NH, Laconia Citizen
Giving prisons the attention they deserve

To say that the state prison facility in Laconia is inadequate would be overstating the situation. But now is certainly the time for the state to begin taking a long, hard look at how much longer before the facility ceases to make sense from a dollars-and-cents standpoint.

Prisons are by their very nature high-maintenance operations and the fact that our state's prisons are bursting at the seams only adds to the problem.

The prison in Laconia — formally called the Lakes Region Facility — is comprised of a series of a retrofitted structures built to house mentally retarded and other developmentally disabled people. As the state shifted from an institutional model to community-based housing and programs for its retarded citizens, residents of the Laconia State School gradually were moved out of the sprawling facility, and the buildings — many old, some new — began to sit idle. When the state decided that something needed to be done to deal with the growing number of prisoners, the decision was made to convert some of the former State School buildings into a prison. It was a move borne out of expedience, not out of thoughtful planning.

For some 15 years, the Laconia prison has been a place where many minimum- and medium-security inmates have been housed. Ensuring that the buildings where they are held are adequate — in terms of space, security and safety — has been an unending challenge. Now, after all these years, the question is being asked, "How much longer can these buildings continue to be used for a purpose for which they were never intended?"And also, "At what point does putting money into these buildings become a case of throwing good money after bad?"

In a series of articles published in last week's Citizen, comments by Department of corrections officials and current and former rank-and-file corrections officers showed that now is the time to start asking those questions. When it comes to prisons, it would be irresponsible to wait for a crisis to erupt before taking a long, hard look at the situation.

The Department of Corrections, under Commissioner William Wrenn, has come up with proposals designed to make sure that the prisons can safely accommodate the growing prisoner population and that the facilities are adequate for that purpose.

The department this past year requested $30 million for capital improvements. Most of that money — $22 million — would have paid for a 500-bed addition to the State Prison in Berlin. But, the request also included $4.8 million for upgrades in Laconia, including roof and building renovations and repairs to the boiler house and overhauls to the heating and ventilation system. Most of the requested projects were cut from the capital budget and the only capital improvement for Laconia which survived the legislative process was $1.3 million to repair the storm water and sewer system — nothing to pay for building improvements.

Whatever those upgrades would have cost, they will certainly cost more in the future. And there are troubling aspects about the Laconia facility, the main one being that the buildings where prisoners are housed are ill-suited from the standpoint of security and safety. The dropped-tile ceilings give prisoners potential access to fittings which could be turned into makeshift weapons or provide hiding places for all sorts of contraband. These building were not built with prison needs and safeguards in mind. That begs the question of whether these are places to invest more money.

Deciding what to fund with state revenues is a balancing act. Many legitimate budgetary requests get cut during the process all the time. It would be a fallacy to suggest that money for prisons is more critical than money for highway repairs, or schools, or services for elderly citizens in county nursing homes. But it would be equally wrong to say it is less critical.

Given the existing situation, the state should consider evaluating the Correction Department's fiscal priorities in a way similar to how highway projects are prioritized. The so-called 10-Year Plan for highway improvements is not perfect, either. But that kind of omnibus approach might prove beneficial to the state prison system and give the leaders of the Corrections Department a better sense of what the future holds — which currently is not the case.

http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20070719&Category=CITIZEN_05&ArtNo=107190332&SectionCat=CITIZEN&Template=printart

Posted by lois at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2007

Justice Policy Institute: New Report on Gang Violence- link to report and related articles

The Justice Policy Institute published a new report today arguing that the billions of dollars spent on traditional gang suppression activities have failed to promote public safety and are often counterproductive.

"Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies," by Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis, says that in cities like Los Angeles where gang activity is most prevalent, more police, more prisons and more punitive measures haven’t stopped the cycle of gang violence. The authors say that gangs are responsible for a relatively small share of crime; gang activity has not grown in the U.S.; whites make up a large proportion of gang members; most gang-involved youth quit before reaching adulthood; and heavy-handed suppression tactics can increase gang cohesion while failing to reduce violence.

The report is available online, at http://www.justicepolicy.org/reports_jl/7-10-07_gangs/report.htm and was featured today in a number of news articles:

Report: Anti-Gang Strategy Failing Badly
BY ANDREW GLAZER, Associated Press
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-gang-report,1,2136752.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Social Programs to Combat Gangs Seen as More Effective Than Police
Area Officials Advocate Mix of Prevention and Enforcement
By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701716.html

U.S. gang crackdowns called a 'tragic failure'
By Betsy Powell, Crime Reporter
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/237060

Posted by lois at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)

New Report: Gang Suppression Doesn't Work

Jul 18, 9:06 AM EDT
Report: Gang suppression doesn't work
By ANDREW GLAZER
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Anti-gang legislation and police crackdowns are failing so badly that they are strengthening the criminal organizations and making U.S. cities more dangerous, according to a report being released Wednesday.

Mass arrests, stiff prison sentences often served with other gang members and other strategies that focus on law enforcement rather than intervention actually strengthen gang ties and further marginalize angry young men,according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank
that advocates alternatives to incarceration.

"We're talking about 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds whose involvement in gangs is likely to be ephemeral unless they are pulled off the street and put in prison, where they will come out with much stronger gang allegiances," said Judith Greene, co-author of "Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies."

The report is based on interviews and analysis of hundreds of pages of
previously published statistics and reports. And though it is valid and accurate, the ideas raised in it are not new, said Arthur Lurigio, a psychologist and criminal justice professor at Loyola University of Chicago.

"These approaches, although they sound novel, are just old wine in new
bottles," he said. "Gang crime and violence in poor urban neighborhoods havebeen a problem since the latter parts of the 19th century."

Lurigio, other academics and gang intervention workers have echoed elements of the report that found gangs need to be viewed as a symptom of other problems in poor communities, such as violence, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and unemployment.

The report says Los Angeles and Chicago are losing the war on gangs because they focus on law enforcement and are short on intervention.

It cites a report this year by civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who was hired by Los Angeles to evaluate its failing anti-gang programs. Her report called for an initiative to provide jobs and recreational programs in impoverished neighborhoods.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton both commended Rice's report. But in February, they unveiled a strategy that focused on targeting the city's worst gangs with arrests and civil injunctions that prohibit known gang members from associating with one another in public. Rice describes the city's policy on arresting the city's estimated 39,000 gang members as "stuck on stupid."

Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators
Association, dismissed the findings of the report, which he said was writtenby "thug-huggers." The investigators association is a professionalorganization for police officers.

"Are they saying we can't put a thief in jail, we can't put a murderer in jail, that we should spank them, put a diaper on them, pat them on the bottom, hug them and let them go?" McBride said. "It's obviously a think tank report, and they didn't leave their ivory tower and spend any time on the streets."

"Gang Wars" also criticizes politicians who overstate the threat of criminal gangs and seek tougher sentences.

Greene specifically criticized a bill introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would make it illegal to be a member of a criminal gang and would make it easier to prosecute some minors as adults.

But Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber said the bill also calls for spending more than $400 million on gang prevention and intervention programs, which he said would be the largest single investment of its kind.
------
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GANG_REPORT?SITE=NYPLA&SECTION=ASIA&T
EMPLATE=DEFAULT

Posted by lois at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2007

Public Defenders Who Are Salaried Do Better at R epresentation than Those Who Bill by the Hour

July 14, 2007
Public Defenders Get Better Marks on Salary
By ADAM LIPTAK, NY Times

Some poor people accused of federal crimes are represented by full-time federal public defenders who earn salaries, others by court-appointed lawyers who bill by the hour. A new study from an economist at Harvard says there is a surprisingly wide gap in how well the two groups perform.

Both kinds of lawyers are paid by the government, and they were long thought to perform about equally. But the study concludes that lawyers paid by the hour are less qualified and let cases drag on and achieveworse results for their clients, including sentences that average eight months longer.

Appointed lawyers also cost taxpayers $61 million a year more than salaried public defenders would have cost.

There are many possible reasons for the differences in performance. Salaried public defenders generally handle more cases and have more interactions with prosecutors, so they may have a better sense of what they can negotiate for their clients. Salaried lawyers also tend to have superior credentials and more legal experience, the study found.

The study will add a new layer to the debate over the nation’s indigent defense systems. In 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that poor people accused of serious crimes were entitled to legal representation paid for by the government.

The federal system handles about 5 percent of all criminal prosecutions and is relatively well financed. The implications of the new study for the states may therefore be limited.

But more than half the states use a combination of public defenders and appointed lawyers, and most indigent defendants are not represented by staff public defenders at the trial level.

In the federal courts, roughly three-quarters of all defendants rely on lawyers paid for by the government, about evenly divided between salaried public defenders and appointed lawyers paid by the hour. Most of the rest hire their own lawyers, with about 2 percent representing themselves.

Before the new study, the debate over how best to provide poor defendants with adequate representation had largely concerned whether lawyers for indigent defendants were paid enough to ensure a fair fight with prosecutors. The debate did not much consider how the lawyers were paid, and whether that made a difference.

The new study looked at federal prosecutions from 1997 to 2001. It was performed by Radha Iyengar, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard, and presented as a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research last month.

Judge Morris B. Hoffman, a Colorado district court judge and a co-author of a 2005 study on the representation of indigent defendants, said the new study’s innovation was in its noticing that public defenders and appointed lawyers were assigned randomly in many federal judicial districts.

That meant, Ms. Iyengar wrote, that the two sorts of lawyers had “the same underlying distribution of guilt in the cases they represent and thus are equally likely to lose at trial.”

Court-appointed lawyers — known in federal judicial jargon as Criminal Justice Act panel lawyers — are needed when public defenders’ offices have conflicts of interest in cases involving multiple defendants. They can also fill in as the volume of prosecutions requires.

The vast majority of federal prosecutions end in plea bargains, and only about 5 percent of them reach trial. Ms. Iyengar found that court-appointed lawyers were slightly more likely to take cases to trial and slightly more likely to lose.

But her most important finding, given all the plea bargains, was that defendants represented by court-appointed lawyers received substantially longer sentences. That suggests that appointed lawyers are less adept at assessing which cases to pursue through trial and at negotiating with prosecutors.

Over all, defendants represented by court-appointed lawyers received sentences averaging about eight months longer. People convicted of violent crimes were given five more months, while those convicted on
weapons charges received nearly a year and half more. But those convicted of immigration offenses received sentences that averaged 2.5 months less if represented by appointed lawyers.

Appointed lawyers took longer to resolve cases through plea bargains — 20 days on average, a 10 percent difference.

“These results appear consistent with the hourly wage structure,” Ms. Iyengar wrote, as that structure creates incentives for appointed lawyers to take longer to resolve cases.

She concluded that appointed lawyers impose an additional $5,800 in costs to the system for every case they handle.

Analyzing data from California and Arizona, the study found that appointed lawyers were less experienced and had less impressive credentials.

“The court-appointed lawyers tend to be quite young, tend to be from small practices and also they tend to be from lower-ranked law schools,” Ms. Iyengar said in an interview. “They have a smaller client base and fewer interactions with prosecutors.”

Judge Hoffman said a number of the study’s conclusions were unsurprising given that finding. However they represent their clients, less experienced lawyers tend to do less well in plea negotiations, in deciding which cases to take to trial and in trial outcomes, he said.

Jon M. Sands, the federal public defender in Arizona, said he did not recognize the picture painted in the study. Court-appointed lawyers, Mr. Sands said, “are seasoned and committed, and their sentences on the whole don’t vary that much from those obtained by public defenders.”

David Carroll, the research director for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, said the study’s most important point was economic. “There is,” Mr. Carroll said, “a cost savings in establishing staff public defender offices.”

Posted by lois at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

CA: Schwarzenegger says ending acclaimed program would save $55 million annually toward $3 billion budget gap

Schwarzenegger says ending the acclaimed program would save $55 million annually toward $3-billion budget gap.

By Lee Romney and Scott Gold
Times Staff Writers

July 14, 2007

A nationally lauded program that has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless men and women break the cycle of psychiatric hospitalization, jail time and street life is now on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's list of budget cuts.

The governor has proposed eliminating Integrated Services for Homeless Adults With Serious Mental Illness, which receives $55 million annually, as part of his attempt to close a budget gap estimated at more than $3 billion.

Mental health advocates, clients and concerned legislators are lobbying fiercely to save the program, which served as the blueprint for California's ongoing efforts to radically retool the state's mental health system.

Gov. seeks to cut mental services for homeless

They have pledged to sue the administration if they fail, contending that the cut would violate the 2004 voter-approved Proposition 63, which aimed to remake the state's mental health system in the image of the homeless program's "whatever it takes" style of treatment, and prohibits the state from reducing mental health funding below its commitment at the time the measure passed.

Proposition 63 channels funds from a 1% income tax on Californians earning more than $1 million a year to mental health care and will ultimately bring billions of dollars into a starved system. But advocates fear that the gains will be neutralized if successful existing programs are cut with the other hand.

"If we don't succeed" in stopping the cut, "it sends a signal to the state government and county governments that they can do similar things," said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), an author of the legislation that created the homeless program and Proposition 63.

If the program is eliminated in the coming days or weeks, as many as 4,700 men and women could face a return to homelessness, advocates say.

The proposed cut comes three years after Schwarzenegger praised the program in his budget for creating "significant savings at the local level." In the eight years since it was instituted, it has substantially reduced costly hospitalization and jail time for participants, while increasing the number of days they are able to work.

Among them are people like Karen Balsamico. For most of a decade, Balsamico bounced around the streets, homeless shelters and hospitals of San Rafael and San Francisco, tormented by schizophrenia and weakened by heart disease and diabetes.

In 2001, a caseworker plucked the quiet woman from a psychiatric emergency room and enrolled her in a state-funded program that is so successful it has been held up as a national model.

Today, Balsamico, 57, rents her own apartment and works at a food pantry. She has a caseworker, peer counselors and a web of other medical and psychiatric workers available to her at any time for emotional support, medication adjustments - or just about anything else.

"This program has given me confidence and stability," Balsamico said recently. Without it, "I'm afraid I could get lost in the crowd again."

In a form letter response to those who have flooded Schwarzenegger's office with pleas to save the program, the governor justified his proposed cut, saying that the homeless mentally ill program "was one of the few voluntary or non-mandated programs available for consideration for reduction."

Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said the governor has not made a final decision on eliminating the funding.

But Steinberg said he is hopeful that Democrats will refuse to approve a budget unless the funding is restored.

Proposition 63 included language that prohibited the state from cutting existing "funding levels for mental health services below current levels" as the new money poured in. It also forbade counties to use millionaire tax funds for existing programs.

The governor's office argues that halting the money for the homeless mentally ill program would not violate Proposition 63 because the state's overall dollar commitment to mental health programs has not decreased from 2004 levels. The state was required by the federal government to increase funding for a children's mental health Medi-Cal program in response to growing caseloads.

State officials have suggested that counties could "cushion the blow" of the cut - not by illegally restoring funds to the homeless mentally ill program with Proposition 63 money, but by using it to create comparable programs.

But Proposition 63 money can only be spent after lengthy community input, and current funds are already committed elsewhere. Advocates fear that any new program would come too late.

"You're dis-enrolling some people while reaching out to others," said Marin County mental health Director Bruce Gurganus, whose county would lose $1.4 million if the state program ended, leaving Balsamico and others in limbo and nearly wiping out gains from the $1.8 million in Proposition 63 funds Marin County has received in the last year. "Does that make any sense?"

The program at stake was created as a $10-million pilot project in 1999, enrolling 1,000 people in Los Angeles, Stanislaus and Sacramento counties. It achieved almost immediate successes. Within six months, participants had registered a 75% reduction in hospitalization and significant declines in time spent on the street or in jail.

The Legislature expanded funding to $55 million for 34 counties. Proposition 63 was the next step.

The philosophy was simple: Services had previously been rigidly targeted to addressing one component of a client's problems - mental illness, for example, or addiction or housing. But many severely mentally ill people needed coordinated help that addressed a host of problems.

The new funds allowed counties to treat the whole person, starting with the notion that stable housing is key to wellness. Substance abuse, chronic medical conditions, job training and education - all are managed along with psychiatric needs in a centralized way, tailored to each individual.

The program changed everything for Daniel Peters, who bottomed out after moving to Los Angeles from Boston in 2001. Struggling with psychosis and rage, broke and on the run from creditors, he became homeless.

With medication and intensive guidance, he is now stable, on disability and in his own apartment. But he worries about the proposed cuts.

"The first thing that would happen is that people would go right back to using" drugs and alcohol, he said. "Second, people would land right back in prison. And then, the last thing - people will die. I'm just telling you the truth. People will have no place to turn."

Marvin J. Southard, mental health director of Los Angeles County - which receives nearly a third of the state funds and serves 1,700 people - called the program "stunningly effective" and said he'll search for a way to compensate if it is cut. But that effort would come in the midst of a financial crisis that already has the department curtailing services elsewhere.

Jim Preis, executive director of Mental Health Advocacy Services, a public interest law firm serving Los Angeles County, said that in the end, "clients are going to get much less than they are getting."

Most smaller counties have already frozen new admissions and are scrambling to wean existing participants off housing subsidies. Tehama County, in Northern California, last year received $733,000 in state funding for its program - more than its $709,000 allotment of Proposition 63 funds, mental health Director Ann Houghtby said. Of the 54 men and women in her program, 23 will lose their housing if the cuts go through.

The county's Proposition 63 money is already earmarked to provide help to youth and the elderly. And even if a homeless program is eventually created with the new tax, by law parolees are excluded from any Proposition 63 services.

That has left people like Larry Chaney staring into a void. Beaten by his stepfather and abandoned by his father, Chaney began drinking and using methamphetamine as a child.

It wasn't until a recent prison stint, after years of burglaries and other legal run-ins, that Chaney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

He now has a room in a five-bedroom home rented by the program. Stabilized on psychiatric medication, he said, his urge for street drugs all but vanished.

"All I knew was how to do drugs and criminal activity," said Chaney, 43, who received help applying for disability and is reestablishing ties with his 7-year-old. "The program here, it just teaches you to live life on life's terms."

Soon, Chaney could find himself with no housing (there is no homeless shelter in Tehama County) and no money (his disability has not yet come through). If he falters and fails to check in with the parole clinic, he will be in violation of his parole, subject to being sent back to prison.

Chaney said: "I'm scared. I really am scared. I know how to live that other lifestyle, but I don't want to go back to it."

lee.romney@latimes.com

scott.gold@latimes.com

--

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Results of AB 2034

The program for homeless mentally ill adults has served more than 13,000 men and women since November 1999. As of Jan. 31, the program had 4,444 participants. They showed marked improvement in several areas over their pre-enrollment days, according to the organization that evaluates the program for the state. Program participants had:

81% fewer days of incarceration.

65% fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization.

76% fewer days of homelessness.

162% more days of employment.

Source: National Mental Health Assn. of Greater Los Angeles
atimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mental14jul14,0,4648416.story?coll=la-home-center

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

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Detainee centers fail immigrants, report alleges

Immigration - Detention sites miss the mark on legal aid and other areas, study says
Friday, July 13, 2007
ESMERALDA BERMUDEZ

The Oregonian

A yearlong investigation of immigrant detention centers nationwide found widespread failure to provide detainees facing deportation access to legal services, a fundamental standard required by the federal government.

In addition, recent media focus of 62 detainee in-custody deaths since 2004 is prompting some members of Congress to question U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about safe and humane conditions for immigrants awaiting court hearings.

The report was released last Friday by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal agency assigned by Congress to watchdog governmental organizations. Driven by complaints brought by advocacy groups about the treatment of immigrant detainees, Congress ordered the investigation.

The report covers 23 detention facilities nationwide, including the Cowlitz County Juvenile Detention Facility in Washington and Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center, where most of the 167 workers arrested in a recent North Portland raid were sent.

Judged by eight standards, the report produced mixed results, with legal access failing across the board. In addition, the immigrant detention system fell short of effectively tracking detainee complaints.

At nearly all facilities, results show a pervasive lack of access to a free telephone service to reach respective consulates, an approved list of legal-aide lines and the federal complaint hot line.

"If you were arrested in a foreign country, you would have the expectation that you could contact your consulate or legal representation, and that couldn't be done at these facilities," said Rich Stana, the GAO's director for homeland security and justice.

The report shows that the number of detainees has more than tripled from 95,000 to 283,000 in the past five years, prompting a quick expansion of detainment facilities.

"Despite enormous growth, the vast majority of cases are in compliance," said Lorie Dankers, an ICE spokeswoman.

In a lengthy response to the report, the immigration agency stated that it will follow the recommendations. But it argued that the phone access problem was not investigated accurately and that all other discrepancies are isolated incidents.

"We stand by the fact that these isolated deficiencies will be dealt with, and there are not patterns of noncompliance nationally," Dankers said.

A variety of flaws

At the Cowlitz County Juvenile Detention Center, GAO inspectors found that no medical screening was performed at admission and first-aid kits were not available, as required. Juveniles are kept at the facility an average of 24 hours before they are transferred.

In addition to other food complaints, the investigation found that juveniles at the facility received one hot meal per day rather than two as required by ICE Juvenile Food Standard. The facility also did not include grievance procedures in its handbook.

At Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center, the primary problem was telephone access. Detainees were offered only two voice prompt options when attempting to use the free system: to place a "collect call" and to place a "credit card call," the GAO report says.
Neil Clarke, field office director for the immigration agency's detention and removal operations in the Northwest, has been working to correct problems, Dankers said.

She pointed out the agency's last annual review of the Tacoma center earned a "superior" ranking.

"We recognize the national phone contract has flaws," Dankers said, adding that the phone system is being monitored weekly and there have been no detainee complaints about it since April.

"If you think of the myriad of services we provide, I would say the facility in Tacoma and in the northwest area of operation is well run," she said.

That's an assertion Congress, government agencies and advocacy groups have put to the test more than once this year.

In January, a report released by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General found noncompliance in, among other areas, medical care, suicide watch, safety and disciplinary policy.

In addition to the current report detailing problems at detention facilities, the GAO will begin another investigation of medical conditions in detention centers.

Recently, members of Congress have raised questions about ICE's acknowledgement of 62 in-custody deaths, reported by The New York Times in late June. That's more than the 20 previously known. According to the report, immigration officials declined to release information about the deaths.

"I'll be honest and say I thought the agency's defense was quite cavalier and, hopefully, is not a reflection of their responsibility in the deaths," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who was among the lead requesters of the GAO investigation.

"We had heard some very serious reports about problems in some facilities," Lofgren said, adding that the investigation results are a sampling, not a complete review. "This has been a helpful first step forward."

Advocates fight back

Critics of unregulated immigration say the GAO report does not tell the full story behind the immigration system's flaws. A fix would require an overhaul and quicker deportation.

Throughout, the agency falters because it is overloaded, mired in politics and weighed down by mismanagement, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group favoring tougher immigration laws.

To make matters worse, Mehlman said, immigration advocates, attorneys and families "throw sand in the gears" to fight and in turn, delay, deportation and "then turn around and complain about the inadequate facilities."

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed several lawsuits against a family detention center in Texas and two lawsuits against a facility in San Diego. Complaints range from overcrowding to health care and too much restriction for detained children.

At the root of the scrutiny are the federal government's standards adopted in 2000 to steer detention centers. While they set 38 guidelines for facilities, the standards are not legally binding.

Advocacy groups nationwide have launched campaigns to change that, and in January, one group filed an official petition to the Department of Homeland Security to turn the standards into rules.

Michael Wishnie, clinical professor of law at Yale Law School, submitted a petition to the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of 80 detainees and a half-dozen immigrant defense groups. Until now, the agency has failed to provide a response, he said.

"They are now a larger jailer, and they need to start behaving like a mature jailer," said Wishnie.

Esmeralda Bermudez: 503-294-5961; ebermudez@news.oregonian.com

©2007 The Oregonian

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Cuba: Silvio Rodriquez to perform in Cuban Prisons

Silvio, famous singer/song writer to perform in Cuban prisons
Cuba Daily News, July 13, 2007 Silvio Rodriguez, a famous Cuban singer and song writer, is going on an unusual tour: he's visiting Cuban prisons as part of an initiative to promote human values and virtues. His aim is to help transform Cuban penitentiaries into real schools of salvation, instead of warehouses that stockpile, punish and ultimately produce more proficient criminals and offenders.

Silvio Rodriguez, a famous Cuban singer and song writer, is going on an unusual tour: he's visiting Cuban prisons as part of an initiative to promote human values and virtues. His aim is to help transform Cuban penitentiaries into real schools of salvation, instead of warehouses that stockpile, punish and ultimately produce more proficient criminals and offenders.

In this way 'Silvio' -after so many years we have stopped calling him by his last name- is just going back to an old unrealized dream from his early rebellious years. He is once again floodlighting the shadows of apathy and deafening the silence of comfort.

The gesture of going behind bars with his song cannot pass unnoticed. The fact is that Silvio's visit will not need advertising, much less media campaigns or marathons. His artistic genius is great enough; his talent famous worldwide. What then is he pursuing this time?

In the same way people decipher their personal meanings of the parables and symbols hidden in his songs, today I am going to make my own interpretation of Silvio's initiative, seeking the light that could illuminate the way through the challenges that still lie ahead for Cuba and its revolution in these complex times.

Perhaps the singer is warning us about the necessity of adding and multiplying, disregarding barriers and prejudices. The objective is to overcome internal and external obstacles, to emerge -as national poet Jose Marti once said- "with all and for the well being of all." Is this an excess of ecumenicalism?

At least I see it that way, when I see how much damage can be done to the unity of the Cuban people -so strategically important these days- by those who have specialized in subtracting and dividing, by those who enjoy labelling and stigmatizing. Those are the same ones who don't have the flexibility to embrace everyone in a manner like Fidel, ignoring differences or even flaws. Those extremists don't trust human diversity, and they see themselves as the alpha and omega, something that usually vanishes when they remove their disguise, revealing their lies, their exaggerated primping, and their keen instincts for self-preservation.

I side completely with Silvio's democratic spirit. He is calling on Cuban artists and writers to burrow holes of trust through the prison walls to give light to the prisoners, to build bridges to those who -while maybe
wrong- are not lost. He is calling on every Cuban to do so. It is extremely important to think that way, with a social perspective, in order to heal mistakes with our limited resources, and not just be satisfied with major accomplishments.

The transgressors and those who lost their way, the isolated and sceptical, the ones who mumble about their sorrows and discouragement... all of them cannot be conveniently excluded from our society. If we see them as our failure, as the bruised fruit of our effort, as parts poorly attached to our mechanism, we will be able to give them a hand and pull them back into the world where they can find happiness. We must examine our own mistakes, marked by subtracting and dividing sings. This island might be small, but there is space enough for all Cubans with such hearts.

Let Silvio sing, let his message go beyond the bars of the penitentiaries; let his message go beyond the mental bars holding back the Revolution, as a dream for all Cubans.

Source: By Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, Juventud Rebelde
Submitted by editor on Fri, 2007-07-13 14:33. http://www.cubaheadlines.com/2007/07/13/4417/silvio_famous_singer_song_write
r_to_perform_in_cuban_prisons.html

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July 12, 2007

Maine: New "regional" prison considered

Prisons see solutions for crowding
By Mal Leary, Capitol News Service
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

AUGUSTA ‹ Many of the short-term fixes for the overcrowding in the state's prison system included in the new state budget may be part of the long-term solution to the problem, says Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson.

These include housing of some female inmates at the former Bangor Mental Health Institute and of minimum- and medium-security prisoners at the Charleston Correctional Facility.

"All of the items that were in the budget have been put in place or are being put in place as fast as we can," Magnusson said in an interview Tuesday, "but we are also seeing more inmates coming into our system every day."

In one recent week, he said, 36 new inmates were added to the state system even as other inmates were being transferred to county jails.

The two-year state budget that took effect July 1 addressed the overcrowding problem ‹ which some lawmakers had branded a "crisis" ‹ but only through next June 30. The Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will meet this fall to review corrections policies and decide what recommendations to make for the January session of the Legislature to consider.

"Some of what has been described as short-term will probably be part of the long-term solution," Magnusson said. "I think there is a realization of that, at least on the committee."

For example, he said, one floor of a building at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor is being renovated for use as a transition facility for women inmates nearing the end of their sentences at the prison in South Windham. He said the renovations will be completed next month and bids are being evaluated for services and staffing that will be needed.

"That's going to be an ongoing need, as is the staffing at the [Maine State Prison in Warren], and, I think, for many of the steps we have taken," he said.

Magnusson said the state has completed moving 44 inmates into a vacant section of the York County Jail and is providing the staff to operate that part of the facility. In addition, he said, an additional 102 inmates have been placed in county jails to ease the overcrowding.

The staff to open an unused portion of the Charleston Correctional Facility has been hired and trained, and Magnusson said the first 20 inmates have been sent to the facility. The number will grow to as many as 55 inmates later this summer.

"From what I understand, things are going relatively smoothly," said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, co-chairman of the criminal justice panel. "I know they are having problems getting all the staff hired at the prison [in Warren], but that has always been a problem."

Diamond said he agrees that some of the steps taken and funded for only a year will need to be part of the long-term solution the panel will work to develop this fall. He expects both the expansion at Charleston and the new transition facility for women in Bangor will be part of the committee's recommendations, but he says that will be a committee decision.

"People don't realize that Maine has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country, yet we have an overcrowding problem," he said. "If we had rates like other states, we would be in much worse shape."

Rep. Pat Blanchette, D-Bangor, a longtime committee member, agreed. She said the state needs to look at the corrections issues from a broad perspective and "get creative" with the approaches used to deal with prisons and prisoners.

"The commissioner is going to need to sit down with the county commissioners across the state and look at whether there is a way for all to cooperate and build a regional minimum-security facility," she said. "We will eventually need one, and they all know that."

Blanchette agreed that many of the changes that have been funded for just one year will be part of a long-term solution and need additional appropriations, but she also said the committee needs to look at other options, including sentencing alternatives.

"We want to lock up those that are a threat to society," she said. "But there are some we are locking up today that we could use other means, like those electronic bracelets, to confine these inmates in their homes."

Rep. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, the House chairman of the committee, said the panel has a lot of work to accomplish before the January session. He said the solution is not just more guards and more jail cells but a review of what people are being jailed for and why.

"We have to look at the minimum and mandatory sentences we have," he said. "We have to look at the criminal code. We have to look at everything."
http://bangordailynews.com/news/templates/?a=151929&z=500>

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NY Times Edtitorial: Juvenile Justice and Mississippie: Lawsuit : Girls Abused at Detention Hall

July 12, 2007
Editorial, NY Times
Juvenile Justice
One of Congress’s most crucial tasks will be to strengthen and update the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Passed in 1974, the law required the states to move away from the practice of locking up truants and runaways — and to refrain from placing children in adult jails — in exchange for federal grant dollars.
Congress’s goal then was to move the states away from failed policies that often turned young delinquents into hardened criminals and toward a framework based more on mentoring and rehabilitation. But the states have increasingly classified ever larger numbers of young offenders as adults, trying them in adult courts and holding them in adult prisons. The damage wrought by these policies is vividly outlined in a federally backed study issued this spring. It reports that children handled in adult courts and confined in adult jails committed more violent crime than children processed through the traditional juvenile justice system. Other studies show that as many as half of the juvenile offenders sent to adult courts were not convicted there — or were sent back to the juvenile system, but often after spending time in adult lockups. Equally disturbing is the fact that youths of color are more likely to be sent to adult prisons than their white counterparts.
Reauthorization hearings begin today and members need to listen closely to what the experts are saying. Trying children as adults — except in isolated cases involving extreme violence — is both inhumane and counterproductive.

July 12, 2007
Lawsuit: Girls Abused at Detention Hall
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NY Times
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Girls at a Mississippi detention center were sometimes shackled for 12 hours a day and subjected to ''horrendous physical and sexual abuse,'' a youth advocacy group claims in a federal lawsuit. The Mississippi Youth Justice Project sued the state Wednesday on behalf of six girls, ages 13 to 17, and called for the shutdown of the troubled Columbia Training School. All the girls involved have mental illnesses and were committed for nonviolent offenses, said Sheila Bedi, the Mississippi Youth Project director. One of the girls in the lawsuit says she was sexually assaulted. Another says a guard sent her a sexually explicit letter. Others were subjected to excessive use of restraints, a lack of mental health care and other abuses at Columbia, the lawsuit says. Five of the girls say that in May they were shackled for 12 hours a day from a week to about a month. ''At times, Columbia staff failed to 'double-lock' the shackles so that they would tighten around the girls' ankles with every step they took. This caused excruciating pain, and they frequently complained to Columbia staff about the injuries they sustained as a result of the shackling,'' the lawsuit said. Julia Bryan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, which oversees the school, said the agency had not reviewed the lawsuit and would have no comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit names Gov. Haley Barbour and DHS executive director Don Taylor among the defendants. After the abuse allegations surfaced in May, Taylor suspended six employees with pay and launched an investigation. DHS officials have said they will release a report when an investigation is complete. The center, which houses about 33 girls and has an annual operating budget of $5 million, has been accused of abuse before. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state over conditions at Columbia and the state's facility for troubled boys, Oakley Training School. Among the accusations were claims that youngsters at Columbia were forced to eat their vomit and were tossed nude into isolation cells. Mississippi entered an agreement in May 2005 to end the lawsuit. As part of that four-year consent decree, a court monitor oversees progress at the facilities. The latest report, released last month, says some conditions are improving but there are still problems at the schools. ''The fact that these violations persist, is incredibly telling about how broken this system is,'' Bedi said. One of the girls in the lawsuit, identified only as a 15-year-old with the initials M.S., said she was sexually assaulted in May by a male guard at the facility. The guard ''proceeded to grab M.S. in an embrace, kiss her, and rub her breasts and genitals with his hands over her clothes,'' the lawsuit said. He ''returned later that same night ... again entered her cell, grabbed her around the waist and attempted to put his hand in her underwear.'' The girl struggled, and the guard left the room, the lawsuit said. The girl described the alleged abuse to reporters during an emotional interview Wednesday in which her mother broke down in tears. She said she reported the abuse, but ''nothing was done about it.'' ''They told me I was lying,'' she said. ''They told me that I was wrong for reporting it, that I shouldn't have brought it up.'' A 17-year-old girl identified as E.S. told reporters she was shackled in leg irons for three weeks. ''I have nightmares at night. I have scars on my ankles. I cry when I see shackles or handcuffs,'' she said. E.S., who is white, said she was discriminated against because of her race and witnessed a guard asking another girl to show her breasts. It is Associated Press policy not to identify suspected victims of sexual abuse. State Rep. George Flaggs, chairman of the House Juvenile Justice Committee, said in a statement that lawmakers need to fix the problems at Columbia so the state doesn't end up in court again. ''The time has come to transform Columbia from a facility notorious for abuse and neglect to a facility that contributes positively to the future of all Mississippians,'' the Democrat said.
------
On the Net: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/miss--oakley--cd.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Juvenile-Corrections.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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AL: State will sell land & use money to bring back AL prisoners back from LA

"Other steps DOC officials said will help ease prison crowding include the following: A 400-bed Community Education Center in Columbiana for nonviolent inmates will open in November. Inmates at the center will receive job training and drug abuse treatment for six months before transferring to work release. The center will open up 800 prison beds each year.A renovated warehouse at Limestone Correctional Facility will begin housing 300 inmates in September. The Montgomery Pre-Release Facility behind Kilby Correctional Facility in Mount Meigs is being converted into a new women's facility to house 300 inmates. Construction is expected to be complete by November."

State to sell land, reclaim inmates

Thursday, July 12, 2007
KIM CHANDLER, Birmingham (AL) News
News staff writer
MONTGOMERY - The Department of Corrections will sell nearly 6,000 acres and use the money to bring state inmates back from Louisiana, make improvements to aging prisons, and take other steps to relieve prison crowding, Gov. Bob Riley announced Wednesday.

The number of inmates on work release will be increased from 1,800 to about 3,300, about the same number that were on work release four years ago, said Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen. And certain inmates near the end of their sentences will be moved to halfway houses to receive training under a supervised re-entry program.

DOC had a record 29,029 inmates as of May, department spokesman Brian Corbett said.

Sale of the land, in the Montgomery area and in Greensboro, could generate up to $22 million, DOC officials said.

"These properties are a financial drain on the taxpayers and aren't needed. It makes no sense to hold on to them," Riley said Wednesday. "We will sell them, relieve this burden on the taxpayers and use the money for some long-needed improvements to correctional facilities."

Riley said the land sale will not stop with corrections, and other agencies with large land holdings, including the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, might soon sell excess property. He said all state property to be sold will be appraised, advertised and sold to the highest bidder.

Riley said the state plans to terminate a contract with two private Louisiana companies that house 1,300 Alabama inmates - 900 men and 400 women. The inmates were sent to Louisiana because of crowding at state prisons.

All of the inmates will be back in Alabama by the end of November, Riley spokesman Jeff Emerson said.

Critics and inmate advocates had denounced the housing of inmates so far from their families and lawyers.

Opening up space:

Prison officials said increasing inmates on the work-release program, which is open only to nonviolent offenders, will open space in state prisons for violent offenders.

Prisoners on work release give a portion of their salaries to the state, and their earnings could mean $9 million more for state prisons, according to information from Riley's office. "Work release and bringing prisoners home saves money," Emerson said.

Putting more inmates who are due to be released before long in halfway houses also would help ease crowding in prisons, as well as offering training to inmates in the hope they will not commit more crimes.

"Supervised re-entry will make our communities safer. It helps inmates who are about to be released to adjust to life outside of prison," Allen said.

Diverting nonviolent offenders to work release and other changes to open prison beds could ease crowding. However, it's uncertain how long the relief would last because the flow of newly sentenced felons continues.

Additional changes:
Other steps DOC officials said will help ease prison crowding include thefollowing:

A 400-bed Community Education Center in Columbiana for nonviolent inmates will open in November. Inmates at the center will receive job training and drug abuse treatment for six months before transferring to work release. The center will open up 800 prison beds each year.

A renovated warehouse at Limestone Correctional Facility will begin housing 300 inmates in September.

The Montgomery Pre-Release Facility behind Kilby Correctional Facility in Mount Meigs is being converted into a new women's facility to house 300 inmates. Construction is expected to be complete by November.

PRISON LAND PLANNED FOR SALE

1,851 acres of the 2,215 acres at Red Eagle Honor Farm in Montgomery
The remaining 3,869 acres of the Farquhar State Cattle Ranch in Greensboro
An empty 16,000-square-foot building in downtown Montgomery
32 acres in Wetumpka
10 acres at the old Kilby prison in Montgomery
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1184230293107070.
xml&coll=2

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NY: Disenfranchisement and the Legacy of Slavery

From the Sentencing Project
July 12, 2007 Disenfranchisement: News/Updates
New York: Disenfranchisement and the Legacy of Slavery

Last month, the New York State Assembly passed a bill apologizing for slavery in an effort to acknowledge the state's hand in the nation's unfortunate legacy which, amongst many other things, restricted black people from the polls - and continues to do so, according to an op-ed by Te-Ping Chen and Maggie Williams. New York law currently bans those incarcerated and on parole from voting. Hayden v. Pataki, a New York case brought before the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the current law, was unsuccessful. The court dismissed the case in February 2005 concluding that "Congress did not intend the Voting Rights Act to cover such [felon disenfranchisement] provisions" and that such an application "would alter the constitutional balance between the States and the Federal Government." The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Community Service Society urged the Court to reconsider its decision last January. For coverage, see the Gotham Gazette. (http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/fea/20070709/202/2224)
http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/felon/hayden_case_summary.pdf

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20070709/202/2224

Keeping Felons from Voting
by Te-Ping Chen and Maggie Williams
09 Jul 2007

In a scene from the documentary Election Day, Leon Batts, who has a felony conviction holds up his ballot as he votes for the first time in his life. Batts' vote in 2004 was ruled invalid because of a problem with his registration, but he has vowed to try again.

Last month, the New York State Assembly unanimously passed a bill expressing regret for New York’s role in the slave trade. The move was a recognition of the state’s history as much as it was an apology. “A lot of people don’t even think slavery happened here,” said its prime sponsor, Assemblymember Keith Wright of Manhattan.

But it did. Slavery was not simply a Southern affair. Neither were the laws used to keep former slaves and their descendants from the polls. Today, New York’s laws depriving some people with felony convictions of their right to vote serve as an ongoing, painful reminder of that legacy.

Currently, under New York law, people with felony convictions lose the right to vote while they are incarcerated and on parole. They can vote while on probation. (People on parole and probation both live in the community under supervision. In some cases, after a person is convicted, the judge can sentence him or her to probation. While this can include jail time, it does not have to. Parole is granted by the parole board to a person who has served some of his or her sentences in prison and is awarded for “good behavior.’) These felon disenfranchisement laws currently bar 122,000 New Yorkers from the polls. Nearly 87 percent of those disenfranchised are black and Latino.
Origins of Injustice

New York began disenfranchising its black citizens even before the end of slavery. At the 1821 Constitutional Convention, the racial motivations behind felon disenfranchisement were clear. One delegate urged his colleagues, “Survey you[r] prisons…and what a darkening host meets the eye! More than one-third of the convicts and felons which those walls enclose are of your sable population.”

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed blacks the right to vote. That is, on paper. But for nearly a century, states across the nation — New York among them — continued to pass laws to prevent blacks from voting. Poll taxes and literacy tests are some of the more infamous examples of such efforts, but they are by no means the full story.

American history gives us many moments to be proud of. One was the civil rights movement, whose brave efforts led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But while that legislation swept away most legal obstacles suppressing the black vote—for example, the poll tax—felon disenfranchisement laws remained on the books.
The Effects of Disenfranchisement

Nationwide, 13 percent of all black men cannot vote due to such laws: a rate seven times that of any other group in America. The story is nearly universal—except for Maine and Vermont, all states deprive individuals with felony convictions of the right to vote for varying periods of time. In New York City, where the criminal justice system remains particularly rife with racial disparities, the situation is especially stark. According to the Federal Household Survey, 72 percent of current illicit drug users and dealers are white, yet over 92 percent of those serving drug-related sentences in New York are black and Latino. And among defendants convicted of felonies, blacks are significantly more likely than whites to be sent to prison and denied probation.

In some areas in the South Bronx, where the Voter Enfranchisement Project is based, nearly one in five men—family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers—will end up in prison over the course of their lives. As a result, felon disenfranchisement laws strip these communities of their most basic democratic right: a political voice.

Today, few, if any, Americans cite the need to keep blacks from the polls as an argument for felon disenfranchisement. The modern case for barring people with felony convictions from voting takes a different tact: that these people do not deserve—or cannot be trusted—to help make public policy. But if an individual has returned to our communities and is paying taxes, why should they be denied the right to participate in the democratic process?

Apart from their pockmarked origins, such laws fly in the face of the belief that our criminal justice system is grounded in rehabilitation. The right to vote is a cornerstone of democracy, one affirmed in other nations for all citizens, regardless of their criminal backgrounds. Among all Western democracies, the United States has the harshest felon disenfranchisement laws.
Ending Felon Disenfranchisement

A broad movement has emerged to restore the right to vote to formerly incarcerated people. In recent years, several states—Nebraska, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Florida among them—have elected to reduce barriers to voting for people with felony convictions. While attempts in the recent case Hayden v. Pataki brought before U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to reverse New York’s laws on the grounds of discrimination were unsuccessful, similar suits are pending in Arizona and Washington state.

During his campaign last year, Governor Eliot Spitzer told the Better Ballots Voter Guide that he supported giving people with felony convictions who had been released on parole the right to vote. They have “been deemed fit to return to society, and deserve the right to participate in the electoral process,” candidate Spitzer said. That’s a step forward, but felon disenfranchisement didn’t change with “Day One.” In fact, the governor has not commented on the issue since.

Meanwhile, partisan deadlock in Albany continues to frustrate attempts to address even the most basic issues with New York’s voting laws. In 2006, a joint study (in pdf) released by Demos and the Brennan Center found that over one third of all election boards in New York disenfranchised even people with felony convictions who are eligible to vote by providing inaccurate information. Many of the boards, for example, erroneously tell people on probation that they cannot vote. During this past legislative session, the Democratic-controlled Assembly passed a bill to bring elections boards into compliance with the current law. Yet the majority-Republican Senate refused to introduce a companion bill.

As partisan politics continue to roadblock reform, the governor’s support for ending felon disenfranchisement is more vital than ever. Recognizing the injustices of the past is important but, given the persistence of discriminatory laws, it is not enough. As New York begins accounting for its role in the slave trade, we must continue to dismantle the legacy of racial discrimination at the polls. As an important step, the governor should issue an executive order restoring the vote to people on parole.

Te-Ping Chen is an intern and Maggie Williams is the Project Director of the Voter Enfranchisement Project at The Bronx Defenders

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20070709/202/2224

Posted by lois at 03:47 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2007

Call for Papers and Creative Submissions for a Special Issue of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal: WOMEN AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

WOMEN AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

POLICING, PROSECUTION, AND INCARCERATION

Call for Papers and Creative Submissions for a Special Issue of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal

Despite the fact that women constitute the fastest growing segment of the U.S. prison population, the ways in which women encounter and are affected by the criminal justice system remain largely understudied. In an effort to make a significant contribution to the scholarship in this arena, “Women and Criminal Justice: Policing, Prosecution, and Incarceration” is a special issue of the NWSA Journal dedicated to exploring the global connections among the many ways in which women experience various aspects of the criminal justice system. This issue will examine the broad range of specific challenges faced by women encountering the courts, police, and prisons. It serves as a means of documenting and bearing witness to the struggles of women whose voices are frequently silenced, while at the same time providing theoretical and analytical frames with which to discuss these issues.

The questions we are interested in exploring include but are not restricted to the following: How have shifts in laws and police procedures contributed to the rapidly rising numbers of women being sent to prison in the U.S. since the 1980s? In what ways do criminal justice systems intervene in, and even sever, legal and emotional ties between mothers and children? How are women engaging criminal justice issues as community leaders and activists? In instances when incarceration displaces significant numbers of women from a single community, how does their absence affect whole communities and also shape the ways in which people perceive and construct individual and group identities? We seek explorations and answers to these questions that engage notions of gender, place, and culture as well as documentation and analysis of leadership and activism.

The following topical areas broadly outline the subject matter that we see as most relevant to the documentation and analysis of women’s experiences with various criminal justice systems around the world. These can be used as starting points for papers, but authors are not restricted to them:
The incarceration of women
How the parole system affects women
Laws which specifically target women, such as anti-prostitution laws
Police brutality against women
Families and criminal justice, including the high divorce rate among prisoners, single parenthood caused by incarceration, and the loss of parental rights because of incarceration
Social relationships among incarcerated women
Mothering incarcerated children
Healthcare in women’s prisons
Women’s labor in prisons
Educational opportunities, or lack thereof, for incarcerated women
Scholarly neglect and/or institutional exclusion of issues relating to women and criminal justice
The pedagogy of teaching about or to women prisoners
Representations of incarcerated women in the media
Representations of incarcerated women in various art forms
How women prisoners represent themselves
Women and the death penalty
International/transnational struggles and movements connected to women and criminal justice
The failures of law enforcement and legal systems to effectively respond to crimes against women
Comparative studies of issues related to women and criminal justice in different parts of the world
Women prisoners displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequently housed in men’s prisons
International responses to crimes against women, including the on-going murders of women in Juárez, México
The particular challenges which face women who work as prison guards, attorneys, and police officers

We are interested in both academic papers and creative explorations of the above topics. Creative submissions could include but are not limited to poetry, autobiographical or narrative writings about women and criminal justice, and visual artwork. We encourage currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families to submit.

Guest Editors: Jodie Lawston, Department of Sociology, California State University San Marcos
Ashley Lucas, Department of Dramatic Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Submission Process: Proposals for academic papers and creative submissions, no longer than two pages, should be emailed to Jodie Lawston at jlawston@csusm.edu by October 15, 2007. Author(s) must include all identifying information on the proposal, including name, title, institutional affiliation, address, phone numbers, and email. After the deadline, we will review proposals and contact authors as to which manuscripts we will pursue for the special issue. Manuscripts that we decide to pursue will be subject to blind review and must adhere to the publishing guidelines of the NWSA Journal, found at: http://www.nwsaj.engl.iastate.edu/.

Feel free to contact either Ashley (lucasa@email.unc.edu; 919-962-2496) or Jodie (jlawston@csusm.edu; 760-750-4623) with any questions or concerns about the submission process.

People without access to email may submit proposals by mail to:
Ashley Lucas, Center for Dramatic Art
CB#3230
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3230

DEADLINE FOR ALL PROPOSALS: October 15, 2007 to Jodie Lawston at jlawston@csusm.edu

Posted by lois at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2007

NAACP can find toughest challenge inside prisons

NAACP can find toughest challenge inside prisons

July 10, 2007, Detroit Free Press

NAACP members buried the N-word Monday as part of the organization's national convention in downtown Detroit. But on the city's east side Saturday afternoon, 100 inmates, including 50 dues-paying NAACP members, got a jump with their own service at Ryan Correctional Facility.

Sponsored by Ryan's NAACP committee, the symbolic funeral included an obituary of the N-word by E. Rocklin Jackson, a stirring speech by NAACP committee chairman Darryl Woods, and an off-the-chain concert by the prison rap group Full Clip, which pledged to banish the N-word from its rhymes.

It would have made the national folks downtown proud. Too bad none of them accepted invitations from the inmates. They missed not only a moving performance, but also a chance to raise the issue of how African Americans are affected by the nation's race to incarcerate.

U.S. prisons are a $60-billion growth industry. With the world's highest incarceration rate, the United States locks up more than 2 million people, half of them African Americans. In Michigan, which has one of the nation's highest lockup rates, African Americans make up 14% of the population but more than half of the state's 51,000 inmates.

These trends have reshaped the struggle for a just and equitable society. Despite the gains African Americans have made on many fronts, the number of black men in prison has increased five-fold in the last 20 years, with rippling effects. More than 1 million black men cannot vote after leaving prison because of state laws that disenfranchise felons. One in 14 black children have an incarcerated parent, greatly increasing the chances that they, too, will go to prison.

The men I watched perform at Ryan Correctional Facility Saturday were not pointing fingers. No one was excusing or glorifying crime. Their message to each other was to rise up, take responsibility for your actions, and love your communities instead of victimizing them through crime and self-hatred.

But the problem, unlike what many whites believe, is deeper than individual pathology. Uneven drug laws and policies, racial profiling and other biases in the criminal justice system are real. African Americans make up a minority of drug users, for example, but a majority of those in prison for drug possession. Legal representation for poor people of any color generally mocks the constitutional right to an adequate defense. The lack of educational and employment opportunities for many urban youths has created a sense of hopelessness that can approach nihilism.

"When I grew up here, I had hope that if I did the right things it would pay off," Michigan State University Professor Carl Taylor told me. He's a nationally known activist-scholar who, during the 1960s, grew up in a working class neighborhood on Detroit's west side. "Now, there's a lot of hopelessness," he said. "It's really every dog for itself, which reflects the culture of corporate America."

NAACP officials have not ignored these problems. They've scheduled workshops on criminal justice issues during this week's convention. They have supported federal "Second Chance" re-entry legislation that would provide more assistance to the 650,000 Americans released from prison each year. They have stressed self-help and empowerment. The Detroit branch, under its president, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, and executive director Heaster Wheeler, has shown real leadership, most recently with its "And Justice for All" campaign to reform Michigan's criminal justice system.

But, as the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP must take an even stronger lead. Nowhere is the nation's inability to solve its problems of race and class more glaring than inside the steel gates of its prisons.

Those failures are costing billions of dollars that could be used for education, health care and transportation needs that would benefit everyone. They're also costing something far more valuable: the priceless potential of so many people, especially young African-American men, to contribute to their communities and country.

JEFF GERRITT is a Free Press editorial writer.

Copyright C 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070710/OPINION02/707100330
/1068/OPINION&theme=NAACP072007&template=printart

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

Prisons and jails are the wrong places to treat mental illness

Prisons and jails are the wrong places to treat mental illness

By Marcia Kraft Goin
Special to The Washington Post

Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated:07/09/2007

Last month the Supreme Court rightly blocked the execution of Scott Panetti, a Texas man who was convicted of a double murder and who suffers from delusional schizophrenia. The case drew public attention to the intersection between mental illnesses and executions.
But what about those who are mentally ill and imprisoned, but not on death row? A national conversation on this issue is urgently needed.
There is a pervasive attitude that such people are getting what they deserve: After all, like Panetti, they are in jail for something.

But did you know that the Los Angeles County Jail houses the largest psychiatric population in the country? That's not justice. That's emblematic of a national emergency.
Before the 1960s, people with mental illnesses were generally cared for in institutional settings, mostly state-run psychiatric facilities. Many advocates rightfully saw this as "warehousing" people who could be cared for in less-restrictive settings. Federal legislation and the courts powered a move toward deinstitutionalization, calling on states and counties to provide resources for social services, vocational rehabilitation and treatment services. The introduction of effective antipsychotic medications also drove the trend toward deinstitutionalization.
In the decades since, community-based services have helped many people. But the situation today constitutes a national failure.
What's gone wrong?
Most important, the necessary community resources didn't materialize in anywhere near the level that was needed. Also, antipsychotic medications, while powerful treatments, don't work in isolation. Patients need a relationship with a psychiatrist, clinic or other stabilizing force to ensure adherence to drug regimens and achieve the best possible recovery.
Deinstitutionalization has succeeded in decreasing the overall number of hospital beds, but an unforeseen consequence has been the proportional increase in the number of people with mental illnesses housed in the criminal justice system. Worse, once imprisoned, people with mental illness are shown to have much longer incarcerations than other inmates, primarily because a prison environment and lack of treatment aggravate the very illness that has led to their objectionable or antisocial behavior.
While no one would argue that Panetti belongs on the streets, his case compels us to consider the justice system's role: Is it to mete out punishment that seeks retribution, or are there cases where real justice means effective treatment that seeks rehabilitation?
Consider again Los Angeles County: In 2002 there were 38,600 psychiatric evaluations at the inmate reception center of the Twin Towers jail. Of these, 23,190 people (60 percent) were found to be in need of mental health treatment. A reasonable person could not fail to see the correlation between decreased funding for mental health resources, the closure of hospital beds, homelessness and the criminalization of mental illnesses. Untreated and lacking access to long-term care, people with mental illnesses often end up with symptoms and behaviors that result in jail time.
Cuts in state Medicaid budgets promise to exacerbate these problems. Not only is this shift in funding a blight on our society, it also costs money - a lot of money. Corrections officials, mental health workers, medication, amortization of buildings and time spent by police in court all cost more than treating patients appropriately in their community. This doesn't make financial sense, much less humanitarian sense.
When considering the direction of public policies that affect those with mental illnesses, politicians and other officials must be guided by the latest research.
Government-funded studies have shown in recent years that jail-diversion programs, which help people get the treatment they need, result in positive outcomes for individuals, communities and the criminal justice system. While jail diversion does generally result in lower criminal-justice costs and greater treatment costs, studies are underway to analyze the differential.
The question the court answered in the Panetti case was about one's fitness to be executed, but in many more cases, the question is about the appropriateness of incarceration at all.
---
Marcia Kraft Goin is a past president of the American Psychiatric Association and director of residency training in the Psychiatric Outpatient Department at Los Angeles County General Hospital/University of Southern California School of Medicine.

http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?artic
leId=6334477&siteId=297

Posted by lois at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

NY & CA: "Correcting the Guards- Correcting the Guards officers is doubly harmful to the American left.

Correcting the Guards
Why the shaky relationship between organized labor and correctional officers is doubly harmful to the American left.
Adam Doster | July 2, 2007
American Prospect

California State Assemblyman Fabian Nunez has been on the right side of a lot of legislation. But last May, prison reform activists were angered when the Democrat eviscerated a bill regarding elections reform and turned it into a measure to issue bonds for increased prison construction. While boosting rehabilitation efforts or easing the system’s overcrowding may have been his primary concern, the $3,300 check his campaign received a week later from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) likely made an impact.

Nunez’s action highlights the interconnectivity of two pressing issues for progressives that aren't typically considered related: the rise of the prison-industrial complex and the decline of organized labor. On one hand, prison systems are expanding across the country. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed law AB900 in May, which requires the state to add 53,000 new prison beds. As a result, California taxpayers will spend more on incarceration then on public universities by 2012.

Overall, the United States has five percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics cites that union membership declined sharply in 2006, dropping from 12.5 percent of all workers to just 12 percent. Even public-sector membership fell slightly.

Who has played a role in both troubling developments? Prison guard unions and associations, the men and women whose economic livelihood depends on the existence of such institutions. Given the liminal space they inhabit, understanding the guard unions could be helpful in reversing both trends.

First off, it should be made clear that, when under the auspices of the larger organized labor movement, prison guard unions can aggressively advocate for their workers' interests while promoting sound public policy. The Corrections United Division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is arguably the strongest example of such an organization. AFSCME Corrections United (ACU) represents 60,000 correctional officers and 23,000 other corrections employees in states like Illinois, Minnesota, and Oregon. Through collective bargaining, corrections officers have gained a critical voice in their workplace and won pay raises, increased benefits, and additional training. Such affiliated guard unions don't, in fact, usually push for prison expansions. "Like a traditional union, [ACU] doesn't usually find itself lobbying for conservative prison legislation," says Heather Ann Thompson, a labor historian at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte, who is writing a book about the 1971 prison riot in Attica, New York. "It sticks to making sure that all guards have [things like] bargaining rights, counseling, and healthcare for guard families."

ACU members agitate through their international union to support legislation that benefits all working people. For example, ACU and other AFSCME members forced congress to include $20 billion for aid to state governments in the President's 2003 tax cut package, $10 billion of which was funneled into federal Medicaid payments and an additional $10 billion that went to general revenue sharing grants to states.

Unaffiliated prison guard associations are a different story. The rise of such organizations is tied to difficulties faced by organized labor in the correctional sector. Aside from ACU's success, labor unions and prison guards have long experienced a chilly relationship. Moreover, misguided labor laws that negatively affect public employees have also impeded a productive partnership. When the National Labor Relations Act failed to grant public employees collective bargaining rights at the national level, only protecting worker’s rights to freedom of speech and association as promised in the U.S. Constitution, organizers had to fight tooth and nail for a mélange of federal, state, and local laws lacking universal coverage, range, or security.

Frustrated with the limitations, many guards abandoned organized labor entirely beginning in the 1980s to form their own representative associations. These bodies staunchly protect their workers while appealing to lawmakers who are receptive to tough-on-crime legislation that might prove profitable down the road. "The labor movement has largely given up on capturing the hearts and minds of guards and into that vacuum has stepped the associations," says Thompson. "And they are much more conservative."

The most notorious of these groups is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the gatekeepers to the biggest prison system in the land. Organized under the California State Employees Association for 25 years, California's guards broke away from the union in 1982 and joined forces with Youth Authority supervisors and parole officers to consolidate organizational strength. Concurrently, public anxiety about rising crime led politicians to advocate increasingly punitive initiatives, causing a dramatic rise in arrests and a subsequent prison boom (in California, two-thirds of state facilities have opened since 1984). The shrewd CCPOA organizers leveraged these trends and built an association that some argue wields a disproportionate amount of political power.

Public Affairs Director Ryan Sherman is quick to point out the success CCPOA has achieved in safeguarding its 30,000 members, including "pay raises, improved benefit packages, psychological screening for new officers, added training, and improved safety equipment and practices." But the CCPOA is not your run-of-the-mill machinist union; by spending over $7 million a year on political activities, the CCPOA has significantly shaped the state's prison-industrial complex.

Many of CCPOA's financial contributions push incarceration directly. In 1994, CCPOA contributed to the campaign for Proposition 184 -- more commonly known as the Three Strikes Law -- which substantially lengthened prison sentences for persons who had previously been convicted of a violent or serious crime. As Thompson says, "many argue that it could not have passed had it not been for the CCPOA." Ten years later, the guards spent over $1 million to help defeat Proposition 66, a Three Strikes reform initiative that would have limited the crimes that triggered a life sentence.

CCPOA also leans heavily on politicians to promote prison-friendly laws. Former Governor Gray Davis, who received more than $3 million from the prison guard union while in office, emphasized prison funding in lieu of money for schools during successive budget cuts. Besides legislators, California's guards invest liberally in local district attorney races too, both to fill the judiciary with law enforcement agents privy to incarceration and to stave off prosecutions of corrections officers accused of prisoner abuse or misconduct of fellow guards.

They have also bankrolled conservative victim's rights groups, a prosperous marriage that stokes public fear of politically weak prisoners by wedding the financial strength of guards and the public-relations strength of victims. "The victim's rights groups should definitely have a voice in public policy," says Rose Braz, an organizer for the prison abolitionist organization Critical Resistance, "but I think traditionally those groups have come from a very right-wing perspective on this issue, whereas there are a lot of people who have suffered harm at the hands of others who don't identify with their philosophy."

While the CCPOA is distinctive because of its size and political strength, other state guard associations have executed similar actions. The New York State Correctional Peace Officers and Benevolent Association (NYSCPOBA) is working to derail a commission proposed by Governor Elliot Spitzer that would study the advantages of closing some of the state's 12 penitentiaries. NYSCPOBA has found allies in Upstate Republican lawmakers whose districts house the facilities. And according to research by Sasha Volokh, a visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Florida and Rhode Island guards have at times endorsed tough-on-crime candidates.

The division among guards complicates the relationships of otherwise natural allies. The manner in which the guard associations maneuver politically alienates sympathetic organizers. But while the interests of guards, prison reformers, and labor activists won't always align, these groups do share common ground. Most obvious, all have a stake in shutting down private prisons. Guards in privately run facilities aren't provided sufficient training and pay, human rights activists decry the inadequate health care and living conditions supplied to the incarcerated, and labor must battle the unequal competition of cheap prison labor. A coordinated effort of lobbying and direct action could go a long way towards passing two House bills that ACU supports, one that would prohibit the privatization of federal prison facilities and another that would require private prisons to make information available on levels of staffing, pay, and the availability of training opportunities.

Other sensible reforms might appeal to a broad coalition as well. One would be easing the punitive nature of the system, including long sentences that contribute to overcrowding or solitary confinement that causes mental distress and can provoke violence. The expansion of public-sector jobs to offset prison closure could be another avenue to investigate. "I don't have an issue with the fact that California's prison guards make a good living. I think they should make a good living," says Braz. "I just wish they were doing things under state employment that I believe are productive for the community."

But until the guards and unions meet halfway, broad-based affiliation following the ACU model seems unlikely. "For us, it's not about trying to reinvigorate organized labor," says Sherman. "We're just interested in taking care of our members."


Adam Doster is a freelance writer based in Chicago.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=correcting_the_guards

*********************************************************************************************************************
And, additional context from someone fighting prisons in NY....

Regarding this article's paragraph (below) on the situation in NY:

* All of the labor unions representing prison workers in NY have lobbied aggressively to prevent any prison closures here - not just NYSCOPBA.

* Downstate as well as upstate Democrat lawmakers (as well as Dem. U.S. Senator Schumer) have lobbied against prison closures here.

* This year, the Democrat-controlled New York State Assembly joined the Republican-controlled New York State Senate in rejecting Governor Spitzer's Executive Budget proposal to establish a ³Temporary State Commission on Prison Capacity² to study and make recommendations regarding state prison consolidation and closure.

* In 2005, the Democrat-controlled Assembly and the Republican-controlled Senate gave near unanimous approval to legislation enacted 'in the middle of the night' as part of the 2005-06 state budget that radically restricted the ability of this state to close any prisons. This legislation was supported by *many* public employee unions and 'copycat' legislation was pushed by these unions to enact similar restrictions on closing juvenile prisons, as well as a range of other non-prison state institutions.

Posted by lois at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)

UK:; The true price of private prisons

UK Politics
The true price of private prisons
Jonn Elledge
New Statesman
Published 09 July 2007

Jonn Elledge investigates the problems that PFI prisons are causing

Imagine you're the Minister of Justice. Your government has a tough approach to crime which has won plaudits from the tabloids. The only problem is that Britain's prison population is at an all time high, with more prisoners than places to put them. What do you do?

One option, of course, would be to lower sentences, but it's risky: the Daily Mail would have you for breakfast. Attempts to lower crime rates have so far proved stubbornly unsuccessful. That leaves only one option: more prisons - and quickly.

So last February John Reid, then still the man in charge of such matters, announced plans to extend Britain's creaking prison system by a massive 8,000 places. Most of these will be created by extending existing jails or, in one case, converting a disused mental hospital. But the announcement also included plans for two brand new prisons in London and Merseyside.

The thing is, announcing new prisons is easy. (So easy, in fact, that the government did it twice: Reid's statement was a rehash of one made by Charles Clarke a year earlier.) But actually building the things is rather harder - particularly when your department is facing a budget freeze until 2011. Luckily there's a trusted way of spreading spending across 30 years and slashing a prison's running costs, all in one go: the private finance initiative.

While they've been less high profile than the schools and hospitals, Britain already has nine PFI prisons. And in some ways they've been pretty successful. The new jails have been built quickly, and cost a good 15% less to run than their government-owned equivalents.

What's more, they've been commended for taking innovative approaches to training and other activities, and for the respect with which they treat their inmates ("This is the first time in 10 years anyone has called me 'Mister'", one rather confused prisoner told a government inspector in 2003). Indeed, the Prison Inspectorate's report on Altcourse Prison, Merseyside, in 1999, said it was "by some way the best local prison we have inspected."

But, of course, not all reports have been quite so glowing. Concerns have been raised about both the safety record of PFI prisons, and the effectiveness of their rehabiliation efforts. Prisoners in private jails are more likely to be involved in serious assaults - and more likely to re-offend once they've been released.

One problem is that PFI prisons negotiate their own staff contracts - and thus pay their officers a good 50% less than the state sector. This does a good job of cutting costs. But it means private prisons tend to have fewer, younger, and less experienced warders. They also don't tend to stick around for very long. A 2002 report from a government auditor gloomily concluded that, "The upshot of trimming costs is that safety may be compromised for both staff and prisoners."

An even bigger concern is the effect private prisons may have on criminal justice policy. For one thing, private jailers are paid by the prisoner. This gives them an incentive to pack in as many inmates as possible, encouraging overcrowding.

Even more worryingly, the existance of private prisons may actually stop the government from taking steps to reduce Britain's burgeoning prison population. "What we'd like to see is a shrinking market," says Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust. "But good business practice demands that you grow your market. A vested interest will develop in having a sizable prison population."

And while the government is dependent on that vested interest to escape the current crisis, it's likely to have some influence on policy. Already there are signs this is happening: there are moves afoot to further deregulate private prisons, by removing the government-appointed controllers that monitor them. This is happening despite a BBC report on Rye Hill jail earlier this year, which found widespread intimidation of staff, and prisoners who had easy access to drugs and mobile phones. "Private prisons are a very expensive way not to cut crime," adds Lyon.

This may be why, for all the enthusiasm with which the new prisons were announced, the government has kept strangely quiet about the way they'll be paid for. But in hushed tones, the Ministry of Justice will admit the role PFI plays in their plans - and the private sector are licking their lips in anticipation. The justice ministry get their prisons, the police get their cells back, and the government gets to look tough in front of the tabloids. Everybody's happy.

Except, perhaps, the prisoners and the guards.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200707090002

Posted by lois at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 09, 2007

CA: Female inmates: Jammed behind bars?

Sacramento Bee
Female inmates: Jammed behind bars?
Chowchilla lockups are at more than double their capacity, provoking health concerns

By E.J. Schultz -
Monday, July 9, 2007

State corrections officials have crammed hundreds of inmates into two already overstuffed women's prisons in Chowchilla -- an influx that the state's prison medical czar says could cause health care services to "collapse entirely" in one of the prisons.

By moving about 600 inmates from Southern California, prison officials have worsened crowding in the state's three all-female prisons. And with most of the attention on the state's jampacked male prisons, not much relief is in sight.

"Because of the sheer numbers of men, women have just become what we call 'correctional afterthoughts,' " said Barbara Owen, a criminology professor at California State University, Fresno, and a national expert on women's prisons.

Populations at the Valley State Prison for Women and the Central California Women's Facility have swelled by 8 percent, leaving both prisons housing more than twice as many inmates as they were designed to hold.

About 400 women are sleeping in prison gymnasiums, squeezed side by side in bunk beds. At Valley State, the increasing demand for medical care forced officials to shut down a preventive care clinic to focus on urgent aid.

The prison is providing the care required under legal guidelines, but only because medical staff members are working overtime, said Dr. Daun Martin, Valley State's acting health care manager.

"We are struggling every day," she said. "We're constantly under the gun to make sure that our patients get good care."

The transfers started in April when the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shut down the women's wing of the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. The aging facility did not have the space needed to properly care for female inmates, officials say.

The transfers, completed in late June, had been planned for a long time. But Robert Sillen, the court-appointed overseer of prison medical care, said he wasn't consulted enough on the decision and that the transfers would have a "severe" impact on medical care.

Medical care at Valley State is "already at a crisis stage" and the influx of new prisoners "may well cause the medical delivery system at (the prison) to collapse entirely," Sillen said in a recent update to a federal judge.

Wendy Still, associate director for female offender programs, said Corrections and Rehabilitation has responded to Sillen's concerns. A representative from his office now sits in on weekly population meetings, she said.

"I think it's important that we work very closely together," she said.

Martin said Valley State needs more medical staff members and more vehicles to take inmates to off-site hospitals and clinics.

Sillen -- who has complete control of the prison medical system -- has ordered more than 100 vans for all of the state's prisons, and Valley State should get new vehicles later this summer, said Rachael Kagan, the medical overseer's spokeswoman. Also, Sillen is reviewing Valley State's request for 17 more nurses and one doctor at the prison, which now has five full-time doctors, six nurse practitioners and more than 30 nurses.

"We have massive, massive health care needs," Martin said. Many inmates "haven't taken care of themselves. They haven't eaten right. They've been prostituting, living on the streets."

Long-range plans call for moving thousands of inmates from the state's three women's prisons to several community-based facilities, where women would get better access to rehabilitation services, corrections officials say.

But the Legislature has failed to pass the proposal, which is opposed by unions.

This year's version -- contained in Assembly Bill 76 by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View -- would have added 2,900 beds at community-based facilities, with no more than 200 beds in each facility. But Lieber had to take the proposal out of the bill in the face of opposition from Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which feared the bill would result in "privately operated facilities that lack proper oversight." Lieber and other supporters -- including the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department
-- still hope a deal can be cut this year.

The recently approved $7.9 billion prison construction plan mostly ignores women. Some 16,000 beds will be added at male prisons, but none at women's prisons.

Owen blames the inattention on "the tyranny of the numbers." Of the state's 166,171 prisoners, just 11,136 are women.

Yet female prisons are just as crowded as male prisons -- and getting worse. About 4,600 more women are imprisoned now than in 1990, leaving women's prisons stuffed to nearly double their capacity.

Owen and other experts say the spike is due to stiffer penalties for drug crimes.

Nearly 65 percent of female inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent drug or property crimes, compared with about 40 percent of male inmates, according to a 2004 study by the Little Hoover Commission.

Historically, female prisoners have been treated like male prisoners. But research suggests women have different needs.

A majority of female inmates have mental health problems, and four in 10 were physically or sexually abused before age 18, according to the Little Hoover report. Many are the primary caretaker of a child, yet the state isolates the women in "large, remotely located prisons" with limited access to counseling, the report found.

The result: Half of those released from prison violate parole and end up back in prison.

Owen, who consults with the state on prison issues, said Corrections and Rehabilitation has a good plan in place but that the "processes to implement the plan are very slow-moving." The community-based facilities are a key part of the strategy to free more space for counseling and drug treatment. But without significant new money for the facilities, the department has had to take a piecemeal approach.

Today, about 10 percent of female inmates are housed in community-based centers, Still said. The goal is to move nearly 50 percent of inmates into the centers.

Meanwhile, prisons like Valley State struggle to keep up with the growing population. Martin, the health manager, said she's been lobbying for modular buildings to provide more clinic space.

"We have to have more space," she said. "We cannot continue doing what we're doing and do it well ... without more space."

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/262850.html

Posted by lois at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)

VT: Vermont can't afford to keep locking up nonviolent offenders

"The plan's focus for reductions is on facilities because roughly 75 percent of the corrections budget is spent on incarceration, thus any significant reductions will need to be in prison beds."

Rutland Herald
Perspective
Vermont can't afford to keep locking up nonviolent offenders
July 8, 2007
By SEN. RICHARD SEARS

A seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee is one that is coveted by most senators, and I have been fortunate to have served on that committee for several years. Membership is, however, not without some downside. One of the hardest things we have to do is say "no" to worthy projects and programs. We are often forced to cut, or in some cases eliminate, services because we know that we are limited in what we can spend by the state's long-term fiscal outlook, and that all spending on continuing programs must be sustainable for the foreseeable future.

There is, however, one budget area that is growing at unsustainable rates and every recent attempt to control its growth has not tamed the monster. That monster is, of course, corrections.

In 10 years, Vermont's incarceration rate has increased 73 percent, compared with 19 percent nationwide. In those same 10 years, Vermont's violent crime rate has increased by 2 percent and property crime has decreased by 31 percent. A recent study, released in February by the Pew Charitable Trust, estimates that, "By 2011, without changes in sentencing or release policies, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Vermont can expect to see one new prisoner for every three currently in the system."

Over the past 10 years, Vermont has seen an increase of about 100 beds per year. On June 6, 2006, Vermont's in-state prison population was 1,591, and there were 562 out of state, for a total of 2,153. In fact, state spending on corrections has risen faster than any other area of state government; double-digit increases have been the norm for several years.

Between 2006 and 2008 the budget rose by 16.4 percent, from $110 million in 2006 to nearly $129 million for fiscal year 2008, and if nothing changes, that trend can be expected for the foreseeable future. To put it another way, a family of four will pay an average of $800 in state taxes just to support corrections.

It may be little consolation, but we are not alone: In 1982 American taxpayers spent $9 billion for corrections; by 2002 that number had mushroomed to $60 billion. The Pew Charitable Trust study found that "one in every 32 U.S. adults is currently under some form of correctional supervision" and that "by 2011 Š one in every 182 U.S. residents will live in prison."

I doubt many would argue the need for prison space for violent offenders, but in Vermont between 40 percent and 45 percent of the males who are incarcerated are in prison for offenses that the Corrections Department classifies as nonviolent. With females, roughly 70 percent are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. That means that on any given day, from 900 to 1,000 offenders are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.

This year's Town Meeting Day survey by Sen. Bill Doyle, while not scientific, asked: "Should we reduce the Vermont prison population through the use of alternatives for nonviolent offenders?" ‹ 68 percent of those who responded said yes, with 18 percent opposed.

In 2006 the Legislature and the governor came together in support of Senate Bill 156, a corrections reform bill designed to reduce overcrowding. While many of the elements of that law, such as term probation, have yet to have an impact, we expect they will help reduce future prison populations. However, other initiatives in that bill, such as the establishment of a second work camp for 100 offenders and the use of electronic monitoring, have stalled.

This year during the Senate Appropriations Committee's budget deliberations I was trying to find $100,000 for a desperately needed intensive substance abuse program in my district, but the money just was not there. At the same time, I began looking at the cost per bed by correctional facilities in Vermont. The cost to house one offender at the Dale facility in Waterbury in 2006 was $66,667 per year, equivalent to the cost of tuition for six in-state students at the University of Vermont. The overall average in Vermont facilities in 2006 was $42,000 per year, while out-of-state costs averaged about $20,000 per year.

This frustration led to a plan I proposed to the Appropriations Committee that with some modification made its way into law as part of the 2008 budget bill. That plan, while controversial, articulates an effort to reduce the unsustainable growth in the cost of corrections, while at the same time keeping Vermont one of the safest states in the nation.

The plan's focus for reductions is on facilities because roughly 75 percent of the corrections budget is spent on incarceration, thus any significant reductions will need to be in prison beds. The plan includes the option of closing the Dale facility, changing the use of the women's facility in Windsor, renovating the Chittenden facility to make it into a women's facility, and using one or more facilities for detention. In addition, the plan requires the state to seek contracts for out-of-state facilities that are as close to Vermont as possible.

The plan also requires the department to come up with options to reduce operating costs by $4 million ‹ one half of which shall be invested in re-entry services. Finally, it requires the department to come up with a plan to reduce the number of nonviolent offenders incarcerated by 10 percent by July 1, 2008.

In the long term we must do more to prevent crime, and we need to double our efforts in finding reasonable alternatives for nonviolent offenders while holding our limited and valuable prison beds for those we and our families truly need protection from.

Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070708/FEATURES15/
707080301/1030/FEATURES15

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

CT: Out of Prison, But Not Money

"Under the law, the state will automatically deduct 10 percent of any funds that come into an inmate's commissary account - which includes earnings from prison jobs and money from family - and deposit it into a separate savings account. But there is a limit - once an inmate's savings account hits $1,000, the forced savings end and the state will instead deduct 10 percent of all new deposits into an inmate's commissary account to reimburse itself for the cost of the inmate's incarceration. The state's deduction is dictated by state law; it took in $1.9 million from inmates in the 2005-06 fiscal year.Department of Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz, who tried four previous times to push the law through the legislature, hopes mandatory savings will impress upon the system's roughly 18,800 inmates the importance of setting aside money for re-entry, instead of "spending money on honey buns" in the prison commissary."

Hartford Courant
Out Of Prison, But Not Money
By KATIE MELONE
July 7, 2007

The door of the prison van swung open on Sept. 18, 2002, and Linda Anthony emerged in a prison sweat shirt and pants, the only clothes she owned. Her 90 days in jail were now behind her, and she stood on Lafayette Street in Hartford, free.

But free from what? She still craved crack. And she had no money. So even if she wanted to change, to stop using, how would she fund such a life?

"They just drop you off, and you're on your own," said Anthony, a Hartford resident who for years battled drug addiction and worked the streets to fuel her habit. "You go your own way."

A new law that took effect July 1 aims to prevent current inmates from facing a similar fate: It mandates savings and establishes a savings account for each inmate to build up a nest egg to take upon release.

Battling recidivism rates and grappling with preparing thousands of inmates for release, several states have set up similar "discharge accounts" for inmates. The hope is that such a reserve, along with other measures, will facilitate a quicker transition to a law-abiding life, and, in turn, stop the recycling of inmates through the court and prison systems.

Under the law, the state will automatically deduct 10 percent of any funds that come into an inmate's commissary account - which includes earnings from prison jobs and money from family - and deposit it into a separate savings account. But there is a limit - once an inmate's savings account hits $1,000, the forced savings end and the state will instead deduct 10 percent of all new deposits into an inmate's commissary account to reimburse itself for the cost of the inmate's incarceration. The state's deduction is dictated by state law; it took in $1.9 million from inmates in the 2005-06 fiscal year.

Department of Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz, who tried four previous times to push the law through the legislature, hopes mandatory savings will impress upon the system's roughly 18,800 inmates the importance of setting aside money for re-entry, instead of "spending money on honey buns" in the prison commissary.

"At least it will get the offender some pocket change," Lantz said. "Hopefully they'll use it for the right reasons."

As it stands, inmates receive the balance of their commissary accounts upon release, but few inmates have enough money for a security deposit on an apartment or to pay for other necessities. Connecticut wardens have the discretion to hand certain inmates up to $50 on the day of release, but officials say "gate money" is rarely distributed because of tight budgets.

After being dropped off at the courthouse in 2002, Anthony, sick of the street life, landed that night at a hotel, then shelters, then in her own apartment with the help of Community Partners in Action, a Hartford nonprofit. With the exception of one relapse, she has stayed clean.

There is no way of knowing whether a cache of money would have smoothed Anthony's transition to the outside world in 2002 or years earlier. In 1997, when a friend picked her up from jail, she got high almost immediately after arriving in Hartford. Her life at that point stood in stark contrast to her late teens and early 20s, when Anthony had attended the University of Hartford for two years and studied early childhood education in the hopes of becoming a teacher.

Anthony likes the idea of a savings account but knows that newly released inmates armed with a pile of cash will be tempted to squander the money on drugs. "Am I going to stay out of trouble? That's basically the thing," she says. "Will I go back to this lifestyle? Can I deal with this? It's not the easiest when it's what you've done for the last few years."

The law eventually won the endorsement of legislators of both parties and, in its final version, sailed through committees with few objections. Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed the bill into law June 25.

"The savings account is a great idea because the re-entry phase is very important," said state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, a co-chairman of the judiciary committee. "Obviously, the vast majority of people are leaving prison with nothing."

As a general concept, inmate savings accounts are praised by social service providers and former inmates. But the two groups point out some practical problems with the law.

They wonder if the challenges of setting up a bank account will make it tough for the newly free to find a safe place to keep and maintain funds saved while in prison. They also question the provision that allows the DOC to keep a portion of an inmate's commissary account - once the savings account hits $1,000 - to reimburse the state for the costs of incarceration.

But if the savings account law hadn't passed, inmates might have faced a more draconian situation when it comes to deductions. The correction department was prepared to start enforcing a state statute that directed the DOC to take 10 percent of an inmate's commissary account and divert it to the state's general fund. The DOC and Department of Administrative Services already monitor inmates who receive "windfalls" and try to recoup the cost of that inmate's prison stay.

State Rep. Minnie Gonzalez, D-Hartford, who has a 25-year-old son in prison, said she stepped in to propose that the department allow inmates the cushion of hitting $1,000 in the savings account before any deductions from the state kick in. She points out that inmates already pay fees for certain services, such as doctor's visits, and saving $1,000 would take a long time in prison, so most inmates will never see deductions.

"They have inmates who only get a few dollars a month, and they have to pay for their expenses. And on top of that they have to take the 10 percent?" she said. "No way."

Still, some former inmates see any deductions as unfair.

"Ten percent?" said Janette Rodriguez, another former inmate, who for years bounced in and out of jail but is now drug-free. "I think that's crazy. Some people in jail, they make $5.35 a week." Pay in the facilities can range from 75 cents a day to $1.75 an hour or slightly more, depending on the position.

Without any outside help, inmates with shorter jail or prison terms, like Anthony, would have trouble earning enough to make a significant difference in quality of life, some former inmates say. The savings accounts will not bear interest, said Brian Garnett, a Department of Correction spokesman.

"If you could come out for $1,000, it just sounds like you'd have to be in there for years," Rodriguez said.

Even if an inmate walked out of the prison with a check in hand, setting up an outside bank account can be difficult for discharged inmates because many do not have proper identification, said Deborah Rogalla, resettlement program manager at Community Partners in Action, which, among other things, assists prisoners in "living honorably," according to its website.

The department is close to working out an arrangement with the state Department of Motor Vehicles to provide inmates with some sort of state identification at the prison gate, Lantz said. "We know that a lack of an ID is a major issue, and we've worked on that to ensure that folks going out the door do have an ID," Garnett said.

Rogalla suggests that the DOC could make an even greater impact by allowing inmates to keep their actual savings accounts when they are released. It would eliminate the problems the released inmates face with obtaining identification and "would be significant in having them develop budgeting skills," she said.

Lantz said that the department is still working on logistics of the savings accounts but that a portable account is something the department could look into trying to arrange for inmates. "We've still got a ways to go," she said.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-prisonbank0707.artjul07,0,3344863.story

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

New England: Don't expect R.I. to send inmates to other states

"Of the 2,150 inmates in the Vermont system, 570, or about 26 percent, are serving time in private correctional facilities in Kentucky and Oklahoma, says John Perry, director of planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections.Perry says the state has no choice but to send inmates out of state since no local community is willing to host a new prison. "If we could find Vermont communities willing to have a prison we would build, but no one wants them," Perry says. So for the last five years, Vermont has contracted with Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, with 64 facilities in 19 states."

Providence Journal

Don't expect R.I. to send inmates to other states
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, July 8, 2007
By Tom Mooney

Journal Staff Writer
With much discussion this legislative session about relieving prison crowding, one option, adopted by at least eight other states, received no attention here: transferring inmates out of state to privately run prisons ‹ often for significant savings.

But don't look for Rhode Island to consider the move anytime soon, says Ellen Alexander, assistant director of administration at the Department of Corrections.

While the department does have 57 inmates serving time in other states for security reasons, the department is philosophically opposed to moving inmates away from their families and lawyers for the purpose of saving money, says Alexander.

"One of the best incentives to rehabilitation is through [inmates'] reunification with their families," Alexander says. "We have one of the most liberal visitation policies in the country because we believe maintaining ties with families is important."

Despite the concern voiced this year about prison crowding, the situation at the Adult Correctional Institutions is comparatively much better now than during the late ¹80s when the prison was constantly over capacity, declared unconstitutional, and under the thumb of a federal judge demanding that prisoners be released early.

Last week the ACI population fluctuated around 3,817 ‹ 75 beds below its operational capacity. Under a federal court agreement, corrections officials can house another 193 inmates once they reach that capacity if they use every single bed, including those in infirmaries and solitary confinement.

VERMONT CORRECTIONS officials would characterize that as envious elbow room.

Of the 2,150 inmates in the Vermont system, 570, or about 26 percent, are serving time in private correctional facilities in Kentucky and Oklahoma, says John Perry, director of planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections.

Perry says the state has no choice but to send inmates out of state since no local community is willing to host a new prison.

"If we could find Vermont communities willing to have a prison we would build, but no one wants them," Perry says. So for the last five years, Vermont has contracted with Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, with 64 facilities in 19 states.

"It was our last choice,² says Perry, who admits: ³It¹s not a good thing."

Perry says Vermont lawmakers enacted the program over the objections of prisoner advocacy groups and inmate families who said the program was unfair and perhaps unconstitutional since it created obstacles for inmates seeking legal appeals.

The Vermont Supreme Court struck down a legal challenge to the program, but prison officials did install video conferencing so Vermont inmates out of state could have electronic visits and meetings with their families and lawyers.

MAINE IS another New England state that has considered transferring inmates to other jurisdictions to make space and save money.

The Maine legislature took up the matter this year only to realize "we don't have the legal authority to board inmates out of state in private facilities," said Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections.

Besides hearing similar opposition to its plan to move 125 Maine inmates to Oklahoma for a $1-million savings, the debate in Augusta also became a philosophical one, says Lord.

"I think the feeling was we should be able to take care of this ourselves," says Lord, "and we shouldn't be using prisoners for profit."

The plan died in the legislature. Lord says she's not sure what next step Maine may take to ease prison crowding.

Even if Rhode Island prison officials wanted to transfer inmates out of state, there would be other hurdles, says Alexander.

For instance, while state law gives the director of corrections the power to request and then send inmates to other state prison facilities for safety and security reasons, Alexander says it's unclear whether the director would have that same power to send them to private facilities simply to save money.

Moreover, the days of a corrections director acting single-handedly when it comes to prison crowding are over, says Alexander. The federal court agreement that freed Rhode Island from years of court supervision of its prison created the Criminal Justice Oversight Committee to address future problems of crowding.

That committee, made up of representatives from various branches of government, now makes those decisions in conjunction with corrections officials. And while the committee acknowledged in a 1998 resolution that the director of corrections should have the power to transfer inmates out of state in case of future crowding, the language of the resolution may have actually limited his options, Alexander conceded.

The resolution allows the director to transfer inmates only to "other state facilities."

There are no public prisons in any state now renting out cell beds. The only vacancies are in privately run prisons.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY did pass legislation this session eliminating minimum sentences for drug crimes which supporters say would reduce the prison population. The legislation would give judges more flexibility in determining which criminals should receive prison time and which would be better served by drug treatment.

But Governor Carcieri vetoed the bill, saying state law already gives judges so much discretion that the minimums "exist more in theory than reality."

The legislature also passed a bill eliminating the mandatory night in prison for those criminals who are heading out on home confinement.

Legislators, however, did not take up the issue of expanding the eligibility for home confinement, which supporters have said for years could reduce the prison population as well.

The legislature more than a decade ago clamped down on who could enter the program after two high-profile 1994 cases. In one case Juan Taveras, convicted of selling cocaine, was allowed to serve his 30-month home confinement in a University of Rhode Island dormitory. And in the other case, David Vial, authorized to leave home for a court hearing, ended up using his free time to help rob at gunpoint the Dexter Credit Union in Central Falls.

Home confinement "is a very complex issue that deserves more thorough study," House Speaker William J. Murphy said in a statement. "I will be meeting during the off-session with leaders of our court system in order to reach a consensus and introduce legislation next year."

tmooney@projo.com
http://www.projo.com/news/content/prison_transfers_08_07-08-07_5I69H9D.31e80
ee.html

Posted by lois at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

'War on drugs' has specific targets

'War on drugs' has specific targets
Since 2001, the Bush administration has invested just $2.5 billion in crime-fighting initiatives, including Project Safe Neighborhoods and DNA testing. Yet, the federal government spent roughly $45.4 billion on the war on drugs.
By: Colin Pace
Posted: 7/9/07
University of Texas: Daily Texan
Last week's column, "System in justice?" focused on the disproportionate numbers of the U.S. prison system - the numbers of U.S. citizens incarcerated compared to other countries, the disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos compared to whites and the percentage of inmates held for drug offenses.

But important questions remain. Could it be that the U.S. is simply more effective at catching criminals, partially as a result of the high amount of money we spend on it? Do we have more criminal activity in the U.S. than in other countries? If drug offenses compose 57 percent of our prisoners, is that an indication that there is a problem with our drug laws?

The United States detains a large number of criminals precisely because so much money is spent on law enforcement. Since 2001, the Bush administration has invested just $2.5 billion in critical crime-fighting initiatives, including Project Safe Neighborhoods and DNA testing. Yet, according to the White House's National Drug Control Strategy Report, the federal government spent roughly $45.4 billion on the war on drugs, including the funds needed to control the supply of illegal drugs, to pay government employees involved in waging the war and to satisfy rehabilitation costs. Spending that amount of money might be appropriate if the United States had high crime rates compared to other countries. However, the United States has a lower property crime, burglary and violent crime rate than Canada or Germany. Overall, U.S. crime rates are fairly similar to that of other industrial nations.

Yet, international comparisons can be misleading because of differences in measuring crimes and definitions of crime types. Some use these difficulties to claim that increased spending on the war on drugs is a result of increased crime within the United States. Reagan's policies may have decreased the rate of violent crime, but the war on drugs hasn't decreased drug use. According to the Rand Monograph Report, the use of cocaine increased more than fivefold between 1972 and 1988, and the use of the two most prevalent drugs, methamphetamine and ecstasy, increased in similar ways.

But the problem with the United States' drug policy is that the system is set up to disadvantage the poor and people of color. Policing impoverished areas where small amounts of drugs on the street are likely, racial profiling, large sentencing discrepancies between powder cocaine and crack cocaine (convicts receive the same sentence for five grams of crack as they would for 500 grams of cocaine) and mandatory minimum sentences are reasons why the demographics of the prison systems in the U.S. are so skewed.

The late author Michel Foucault calls this system of surveillance "disciplinary power:" a mechanism that allows institutions to "track" individuals throughout their lives. As Foucault writes, "visibility is a trap." The Massachusetts-based Real Cost of Prisons Project describes this visibility as "policing targets [in] inner cities, where poor people of color do business and socialize out on the street, where whites do the same thing safe behind the doors and fences of suburbia." Targets of policing don't decide crime policies - politicians and high-level administration officials decide how these campaigns focus on specific demographics.

Some of the harshest legislation that enforces discrimination comes from the so-called "liberals," as well as the conservatives, of the 1990s. President Bill Clinton increased sentences for drug offenses, slashed welfare programs for recipients with prior drug convictions such as food stamps and subsidized housing and denied student loans to anyone who was incarcerated. That approach won't help society and the drug addicts and criminals that are battling with addiction and desperate situations - it will only exacerbate their situation.

Clinton was not alone with tough-on-crime policies, but followed in a long line of more conservative politicians. Moderate Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller initiated tough sentencing in New York in 1973, Ronald Reagan started the "War on Drugs" in 1981, and California Gov. Pete Wilson initiated the three-strikes law in 1994.

Money spent on catching criminals, law enforcement and prison systems is heavily focused on continuing to bring prisoners into the prison-industrial complex and perpetuating of the myth of high crime rates in the United States. But it is clear that budgets and policies governing prisons, and the law enforcement that fills them, disadvantage those who need help at the outset.

Pace is an anthropology and history junior. © Copyright 2007 The Daily Texan
http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/07/09/Opinion/war-On.Drugs.Has.Specific.Targets-2921751.shtml

Posted by lois at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2007

CT: NY Times Editorial: Back Where They Belong

July 5, 2007
Editorial
Back Where They Belong

Gov. M. Jodi Rell vaulted Connecticut to the forefront of the juvenile justice reform movement when she signed a bill that removes 16- and 17-year-old offenders from the adult courts and puts them back into the juvenile justice system where they clearly belong. This new law comes in response to studies showing that children who do time in adult jails are more likely to become hardened criminals — and to commit more violent crime — than youthful offenders who are handled by the juvenile system.

The rush to try children as adults began in the early 1990s, after high-profile crimes like the Central Park jogger case, in which a young woman was badly beaten and raped in New York’s Central Park. Extreme violence and sexual assault clearly merit severe punishment. But today, in too many states, young people are routinely tried as adults, even those who commit nonviolent offenses.

In adult jails, these youthful offenders have little protection from being battered or sexually assaulted. Even those who leave jail determined not to go back, find that a conviction in adult courts closes off their chances for finding decent jobs.

After Connecticut’s law takes effect, New York and North Carolina will be the only two remaining states that automatically transfer 16-year-olds who commit crimes to adult courts. Unfortunately, nearly every state has laws that encourage prosecutors to try children as adults. The country needs to abandon these failed, destructive policies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/opinion/05thu2.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

RI: Bill eliminating minimum drug sentences vetoed

Bill eliminating minimum drug sentences vetoed
July 6, 2007
By Elizabeth Gudrais

Providence Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s mandatory minimum sentences for drug charges will remain on the books, at least for now. Governor Carcieri has vetoed a bill that would have eliminated the minimum sentences.

The General Assembly passed the bill in the last week of the legislative session, hoping to ease overcrowding at the Adult Correctional Institutions and to give judges discretion to sentence offenders to drug treatment, rather than prison time.

“We’re shocked. We’re disappointed. We’re confused,” Mimi Budnick, who lobbied for the bill on behalf of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, said yesterday.

Lawmakers enacted the mandatory minimums in 1988, during a nationwide push to get tough on drug crimes. The majority of states have already repealed mandatory minimums, and advocates hoped this would be the year for repeal here.

But Carcieri says the Rhode Island law gives judges so much discretion that the minimums “exist more in theory than reality.”

Currently, a conviction for possessing more than one ounce of heroin or cocaine, or more than one kilogram of marijuana, carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years. For possessing larger quantities — more than one kilogram of heroin or cocaine, or more than five kilograms of marijuana — the mandatory minimum is 20 years.

But the law allows judges to make exceptions based on several factors, including “the character and background of the defendant” or the defendant’s cooperation with law enforcement.

“Current law avails to the third branch of government any and all means to render the punishment they deem most appropriate in light of the circumstances of a particular case,” Carcieri wrote in his veto message.

But, Budnick asked, “If the governor has no objection to the judge being able to have more flexibility, why not facilitate a process where it’s more the norm than the exception?”

The state police opposed the bill because in addition to eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, it would have substantially shortened the maximum sentences for serious drug offenses. Carcieri wrote that he shared those concerns.

Rep. Joseph S. Almeida, the Providence Democrat who sponsored the House version of the bill, said the governor should not be taking his cues from the state police. “The state police are prosecuting agents,” Almeida said. “Their job is to lock people up.”

“If somebody does something wrong, they need to go to jail,” Almeida, a former Providence police officer, said. But, he added, “the governor should have listened to what the people want, not what a prosecuting agent wants.”

General Assembly leaders have not yet said whether they will return to override vetoes before the next legislative session begins, in January.

The veto message on the mandatory-minimum bill was one of 36 such messages the governor’s office transmitted yesterday. The governor vetoed nearly as many bills in two days — Tuesday and Wednesday — as he did in all of 2006.
http://www.projo.com/news/content/mandatory_minimum_veto_07-06-07_I869BNA.36827a7.html

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

NY Times: California Investigates a Mother-and-Child Prison Center

The New York Times
July 6, 2007
California Investigates a Mother-and-Child Prison Center
By SOLOMON MOORE

LOS ANGELES, July 5 - The authorities in California are investigating accusations that poor health care at a center where mothers serve prison terms with their young children led to the stillbirth of a 7-month-old fetus and endangered the lives of several children.

Staff logs, statements by prisoners and interviews with investigators, staff members and prisoners' families depict a facility where inmates and their children were denied hospital visits and medications, and where no one kept adequate records of accidents involving injuries that included a skull fracture and a broken collarbone.

The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, one of several agencies investigating, is expected to decide this month whether to continue licensing the center, which houses nonviolent offenders, most convicted of drug crimes.

The problems at the center coincide with continuing intense scrutiny of health care delivery in California's prisons. A court-appointed receiver was handed control of prison medical services more than a year ago after a federal court found widespread neglect and malpractice. The 40-bed facility, located in San Diego and offered as an alternative to serving time in the customary penitentiary setting, has dormitory-style rooms for inmate and child adjoining shared living areas. It is run under the banner of the Family Foundations Program by a nonprofit contractor, Center Point Inc., which did not return calls seeking comment.

An official with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Wendy Still, said the department had looked into accusations surrounding the center and had ordered Center Point, based in San Rafael, Calif., to hire a part-time doctor for the facility and keep a registered nurse there. Disciplinary action could be taken against Center Point, depending on the results of the investigation, Ms. Still said.

The San Diego police would not comment on the inquiry, except to confirm that their child abuse unit was taking part. A spokeswoman for the court-appointed receiver, Robert Sillen, said it was unlikely that his authority extended to the care of children at the center.

"We don't think that these kids are part of our mandate, because they are not incarcerated," said the spokeswoman, Rachel Kagan.

With the state dogged by prison overcrowding, the Family Foundations Program had been considered a model for nonviolent female offenders. A provision for a similar program in Fresno, the state's sixth for incarcerated mothers and their children, is in a new law that, to accommodate 53,000 more prisoners, provides $7.7 billion for prison construction and new initiatives.

Though only a small fraction of the total prison population, female inmates are growing in number in California and other states. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics announced last week that the nation's prison and jail population grew 2.8 percent from midyear 2005 to midyear 2006, the largest rise since 2000, and that the number of incarcerated women grew at almost double the overall rate, to a total of 111,403.

Sharp increases in imprisonment of women began after the enactment of stiffer drug sentencing laws in the 1980s and 1990s, said Robert J. LaLonde, an economist at the University of Chicago."A lot of women who probably wouldn't have gone to prison before are now going in for Class 4 drug felonies - the least serious felonies," Dr. LaLonde said, referring to crimes that in some instances had previously resulted in nothing more than probation.
Studies show that about 75 percent of imprisoned women across the country are mothers, most of whom had custody of their children before their incarceration. In most cases, the children are left in the care of grandparents or other members of the extended family, but about 10 percent are placed in foster care.

Only a handful of states offer imprisoned mothers the opportunity to live with their children, and even those states allocate few spaces to them. The most such spaces are in California, where 140 women live with their children at five small centers, including the one in San Diego.

Advocates of mother-child prison programs say they can reduce recidivism while retaining family bonds and easing pressure on the state's child welfare system. But even supporters worry that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or C.D.C., may be too dysfunctional to provide sufficient oversight.

"This program has fallen by the wayside," said Karen Shain, co-director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, based in San Francisco. "I don't want to say that they should shut it all down, but I don't know that the C.D.C. has the capacity to take care of women and children."

Accusations of neglect and incompetence at the San Diego center abound.

For instance, one inmate, Marsha Strickland, complained to the staff about her 5-year-old daughter's blinding headaches and constant nausea for at least six weeks before the girl was allowed a hospital visit in January, according to accounts by inmates and former staff members. The child is now living with relatives and undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

In April, another prisoner, Sonya Bradford, delivered a stillborn fetus. According to interviews with former staff members and to witness statements offered to the San Diego police, the prison's staff had ignored Ms. Bradford's complaints that the fetus, which was 7 months old, had stopped moving. Corrections officials deny responsibility for the stillbirth because it occurred only two days after Ms. Bradford's arrival at the center.

Yet another inmate, Dinesha Lawson, says she told the staff for several days that her infant daughter's breathing was labored. Finally, on May 3, Ms. Lawson and the baby, Esperanza, were taken to the emergency room of a children's hospital, driven there by Trish Hoban, a vocational counselor later fired by Center Point on the ground, she says, that she had shared inmates' confidential health information with other inmates, an accusation she denies.

"They took the baby into the trauma ward to a room called the resuscitation room," Ms. Hoban said of Esperanza. "They said the baby's heart rate was 32. She was in cardiac arrest."

Esperanza's father, William Ramirez, says she had double pneumonia and was later given a regimen of antibiotics and a blood transfusion.
Ms. Still, the corrections official, denies that the girl was in cardiac arrest but acknowledges that she required placement in an incubator.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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

July 05, 2007

CA: Panel hopes roadmap paves the way for prison reform

Panel hopes roadmap paves the way for prison reform
Wednesday, July 04, 2007

By Raheem Hosseini
Seeking to turn around a state prison system battered by overcrowding and high recidivism rates, a panel of national experts and California corrections officials met with reporters on Friday to unveil a plan designed to address those issues.

The report, entitled "A Roadmap for Effective Offender Programming in California" and commissioned by the state Legislature, found that rehabilitative programs have been devalued and underfunded in California, according to expert panel Co-Chair and Strike Team Member Dr. Joan Petersilia. "The question we're asking is, 'Does California even have the programs we think would make a difference?'" she said.

The panel looked at 11 vocational, education and rehabilitation programs in detail, out of a nominated group of 34, finding that many were effective, but didn't target enough prisoners or the prisoners about to be released. The panel also found that the state has "a one-size-fits-all parole system" for the state's 122,000 parolees, Petersilia said. Unlike many other states, she added, the panel found very few incentives for parolees to succeed, contributing to the state's high recidivism rate, which hovers around 70 percent.

"We knew the lay of the land wasn't going to look good," Petersilia said about researching the state prison system.

The panel focused on "the science of reducing recidivism" in making its 11 key recommendations, said expert panel member Joe Lehman, with panel experts highlighting inmate populations, incentive programs and more community outreach during the press conference. The overcrowding issue, he said, has to be dealt with if any of the other recommendations will work. Inmates can't properly participate in programming when they're stuffed in triple-bunked gyms and day rooms, he added.

Asked how overcrowding could be immediately dealt with, with relief from the state's prison reform bill, AB 900, at least 18 months away, Lehman answered that parole reform was the best way.

Lehman also said risk and needs assessments would be important tools for reform. Using what he called "a new science" to identify offenders' characteristics and needs, Lehman said a care management system anchored by a set core of programs could be put in place to make integration into society more effective. With more than 90 percent of inmates expected to reenter society, Lehman, said building better relationships with the community is a critical aspect of reducing recidivism. "Ultimately, the community owns this issue of public safety and has to be invested in it," he said.

James Tilton, secretary of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told reporters his department has already been working with the panel for the past six months. He said they would have to show the success of the new strategy to the state Legislature to justify increased spending. "We're going to require more money for programs," he said.

Of the estimated $43,000 each inmate costs the state annually, roughly 5 percent is spent on programming, according to Petersilia.

One of the institutions suffering from the chronic overcrowding problems is Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, which was designed for 1,750 inmates but currently holds more than 3,900. Prison spokesman Chris Weathersbee said he hopes the panel's roadmap will mean an end to the prison system's revolving door. With 173,000 inmates incarcerated in the state and 90 percent of those expected to reenter society, he said the state needs a better matrix in place to reintegrate offenders back into society.

Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice released last month showed the largest increase in prison and jail growth since 2000. The Bureau of Justice Statistics survey found that six out of 10 incarcerated people were African American or Latino, and that California was responsible for one out of every five new people added to prison nationally.

"I'm just so hopeful that something positive results of the reform plan," Weathersbee said.
http://www.ledger-dispatch.com/news/newsview.asp?c=218687>

Posted by lois at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2007

Letter to the Editor NY Times by David Dow on Libby Commutation

7-4-07
To the Editor NY Times
When George W. Bush was governor of Texas, he presided over more than 150 executions. In more than one-third of the cases — 57 in all — lawyers representing condemned inmates asked then-Governor Bush for a commutation of sentence, so that the inmates would serve life in prison rather than face execution.

Some of these inmates had been represented by lawyers who slept during trials. Some were mentally retarded. Some were juveniles at the time they committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death.

In all these cases, Governor Bush refused to commute their sentences, saying that the inmates had had full access to the judicial system.

I. Lewis Libby Jr. had the best lawyers money can buy. His crime cannot be attributed to youth or retardation. He has expressed no remorse whatsoever for lying to a grand jury or participating in the administration’s effort to mislead the American people about the war in Iraq. President Bush’s commutation of Mr. Libby’s sentence is certainly legal, but it just as surely offends the fundamental constitutional value of equality.

Because President Bush signed a commutation, a rich and powerful man will spend not a day in prison, while 57 poor and poorly connected human beings died because Governor Bush refused to lift a pen for them.

David R. Dow
Houston, July 3, 2007

The writer is a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who represents death row inmates, including several who sought commutation from then-Governor Bush.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/opinion/l04libby.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by lois at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2007

CCA begins contruction of new prison and expansion of another in Mississippi

"The Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour added, "I am pleased Corrections Corporation of America has taken advantage of development opportunities available in the state of Mississippi and has agreed to build a new prison in Adams County and further expand its facility in Tallahatchie County. These new operations will do even more than help fill a need for more prison beds; they also enhance the economy of southwest Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta regions, and represent a significant investment by CCA in our state."

Jul 02, 2007 17:39 ET

Press Release

Corrections Corporation of America Commences Construction of a New Prison and an Expansion of an Existing Prison

NASHVILLE, TN--(Marketwire - July 2, 2007) - Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW) (the "Company" or "CCA"), the nation's largest provider of corrections management services to government agencies, announced today the commencement of construction of a new 1,668-bed correctional facility in Adams County, Mississippi. Construction of the new facility is estimated to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 at an estimated cost of approximately $105.0 million. The Company does not currently have a management contract to utilize these new beds, but expects to market the new beds to various existing and potential customers.

Additionally, CCA expects to commence another expansion by 848-beds of its Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The Company previously announced that it would complete a 720-bed expansion of this facility during the fourth quarter of 2007. The latest expansion is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2008 at an estimated incremental cost of approximately $52.0 million. Following the completion of these expansions the Tallahatchie facility will have a total design capacity of 2,672 beds. CCA currently expects to make these additional expansion beds available to California under an existing contract, or to other states that have a need for additional bed capacity.

At the beginning of 2007, CCA established a goal of beginning construction of an additional 4,000 to 6,000 new beds during 2007. Including today's announcement, CCA has initiated construction of approximately 4,500 beds. We continue to diligently explore other expansion and new development opportunities that we believe will allow us to stay ahead of the increasing demand from many of our customers.

Commenting on the development activity, President and CEO, John Ferguson, stated, "As we continue to see a strong demand for prison beds, the commencement of construction of the new facility and the additional expansion of the Tallahatchie facility will further strengthen our development pipeline and help to meet ongoing demand while providing our customers a just-in-time solution to their prison bed needs." Ferguson continued, "We are pleased to contribute to the economic vitality of several Mississippi communities and are especially pleased to participate in the restoration and development of the gulf coast regions affected by several hurricanes during 2005 through the development of the facility in Adams County."

The Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour added, "I am pleased Corrections Corporation of America has taken advantage of development opportunities available in the state of Mississippi and has agreed to build a new prison in Adams County and further expand its facility in Tallahatchie County. These new operations will do even more than help fill a need for more prison beds; they also enhance the economy of southwest Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta regions, and represent a significant investment by CCA in our state."

About the Company
Corrections Corporation of America is the nation's largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States, behind only the federal government and three states. We currently operate 65 facilities, including 41 company-owned facilities, with a total design capacity of approximately 75,000 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia. We specialize in owning, operating and managing prisons and other correctional facilities and providing inmate residential and prisoner transportation services for governmental agencies. In addition to providing the fundamental residential services relating to inmates, our facilities offer a variety of rehabilitation and educational programs, including basic education, religious services, life skills and employment training and substance abuse treatment. These services are intended to reduce recidivism and to prepare inmates for their successful re-entry into society upon their release. We also provide health care (including medical, dental and psychiatric services), food services and work and recreational programs.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements as to the Company's beliefs and expectations of the outcome of future events that are forward-looking statements as defined within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties associated with: (i) fluctuations in our operating results because of, among other things, changes in occupancy levels, competition, increases in cost of operations, fluctuations in interest rates and risks of operations; (ii) changes in the privatization of the corrections and detention industry, the public acceptance of our services, the timing of the opening of and demand for new prison facilities and the commencement of new management contracts; (iii) our ability to obtain and maintain correctional facility management contracts, including as a result of sufficient governmental appropriations and as a result of inmate disturbances; (iv) increases in costs to construct or expand correctional facilities that exceed original estimates, or the inability to complete such projects on schedule as a result of various factors, many of which are beyond our control, such as weather, labor conditions and material shortages, resulting in increased construction costs; and (v) general economic and market conditions. Other factors that could cause operating and financial results to differ are described in the filings made from time to time by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Posted by lois at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)

CT: Governor Signs Bill to Raise of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction from 16 to 18

Connecticut: Victory! Governor Signs Bill to Raise the Age

On June 29, 2007, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell signed into law a budget bill that includes a provision and funding to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction from 16 to 18.

Connecticut is taking a significant step toward ensuring that Connecticut's young people receive age-specific programming and rehabilitative services within the juvenile justice system, which will give them the opportunities they deserve for better lives. Right now, too many of Connecticut's children are being cycled through the system, which puts at risk the futures of these young people and the state's public safety.

Key sponsors of the legislation, Sen. Toni N. Harp and Rep. Toni E. Walker stated in a January editorial of the Hartford Courant, "Each year, 10,000 Connecticut children can be expected to go through the adult judicial system. About two of them will have killed someone. We believe it is better to design a system for the 10,000 than for two. There will still be a provision to move violent youths to the adult system - we are not talking about giving anyone a pass for serious crimes. The vast majority of minors, however, could be better held accountable in the juvenile system, where rehabilitative services have been proven to put kids back on track, rather than in the adult system, an ideal environment to create career criminals. The experience of other states proves this."

The state budget includes $20 million to expand services and ready the system for the new population of young people who will enter the system in 2010. The budget also includes funding to enhance services for status offenders and their families.

Congratulations to the Connecticut residents who made this incredible victory happen, especially to Abby Anderson and Hector Glynn of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, Representative Toni Walker, State Senator Toni Harp, and all the parents, youth, and community groups who were part of helping pass this bill into law.

About Campaign for Youth Justice

The Campaign for Youth Justice is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system.

Posted by lois at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

Idaho Potato Fields: Prisoners Relace Migrants

ID potato fields: cons replace migrants

By JOHN MILLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Last updated June 29, 2007 6:22 p.m. PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600AP_ID_Ag_Jobs_Idaho.html

BOISE, Idaho -- Potatoes are worth gold to Idaho's economy, but
that's not why an armed guard oversees red T-shirted workers at the
SunGlo packing plant located deep in tuber country.

Workers from Mexico have become more scarce, so the Sugar City, Idaho-
based company's managers have a different source of employees: prison.

"We've gone as far as hiring the college students just to get
through," Tom Sessions, a supervisor at SunGlo, told The Associated
Press on Friday. "We got rid of that and got the inmates."

Idaho isn't alone in shoring up farmworker shortages with convicts.
Colorado started a program last month.

States using inmates to augment crews picking fruits and vegetables
highlight a reality in agricultural America: Hispanic workers are in
tight supply. Jobs in the construction economy lure them from the
farms and the intensifying spotlight on illegal immigration along
America's e southern border has cut the number of prospective
laborers willing to come north.

A comprehensive immigration reform bill pushed by President Bush
collapsed Thursday in the U.S. Senate.

Still, some Western lawmakers now say they'll try to resurrect an
"AgJobs" provision of Bush's plan that could open the way to legal
status for those migrants who work in U.S. agriculture and fulfill
certain conditions. They aim to combine the provision with Bush's $4
billion plan to enforce border security.

"I started immediately seeing if it would be possible to put together
a border enforcement package along with a guest worker program for
American agriculture," said U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, long an
advocate of the guest-worker plan. "Following the 4th of July break,
I'll explore the possibility of doing that in Congress."

Craig was among supporters of Bush's bill, which fell 14 votes short
of the 60 needed to stay alive.

Among Northwest senators, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and
Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state voted with Craig.

While Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, opposed
the measure, both are more likely to support a scaled-back initiative
that excludes controversial provisions some lawmakers said amounted
to amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens.

Smith, who owns a frozen foods company, sponsored a 1999 AgJobs bill.
It would have given permanent resident status to farmworkers who'd
worked here for five years.

"The senator has said Congress needs to act first on border
enforcement, then turn to a clearer path to citizenship - and a jobs
program that meets the needs of the economy," R.C. Hammond, a
spokesman for Smith in Washington, D.C., told the AP when asked about
the guest-worker program.

Crapo co-sponsored Smith's legislation eight years ago.

He said Friday he'd work with Craig.

"Even though the particular bill on the floor was rejected, that
doesn't mean that a majority - a very strong majority of senators -
don't think we need to do something," Crapo said.

Farmers from Washington state to New York lament labor shortages that
have cost them millions, ranging from orchard owners who left
thousands of trees unplanted to unpicked asparagus. The Western
Growers Association, which represents 3,000 fruit and vegetable
farmers in California and elsewhere, estimates labor shortages of
between 20 percent and 30 percent across California.

More than half of the nation's 1.8 million farmworkers are estimated
to be here illegally.

"We want a legal work force, and the only way we can get that is
through immigration reform," said Jasper Hempel, a lobbyist for the
Western Growers Association. "While we're not pushing for AgJobs as a
separate issue, we'll consider it, if that was the only thing we
could get."

Meanwhile, states such as Idaho that have bolstered farmworkers with
felons say it's a temporary solution. Their prisons are virtually
tapped out.

Six years ago, Idaho had 18 inmates from the St. Anthony Work Camp at
potato plants. Today, there are 120.

"The reduction in the labor pool of migrant workers has increased
probably 10-fold the use of offenders," said Idaho Correction
Department Lt. Jim Woolf, who oversees inmate workers. "I've got
several potato warehouses that would love to have a crew of 15 to 20
inmates to offset the labor shortages. We don't have enough inmates."

Posted by lois at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

New Zealand Herald: Inside America's packed Gulags

"Our incarceration rates show that America's crime and punishment policy is completely out of control," says Tracy Huling."
" Prisons are big business in the US. California's system has been called the "Golden Gulag" (Ruth Wilson Gilmore's The Golden Gulag says that since 1980 the US prison population has increased 450 per cent, despite falling crime rates), showering money on the powerful prison guards union, on remote communities that house prisons, and on corporations."

All Rights Reserve: The New Zealand Herald
July 2, 2007 Monday
Inside America's packed gulags

If there was any upside to the whole Paris Hilton brouhaha, it is that her brief incarceration in the Los Angeles County jail system has exposed a real scandal: the dramatic growth of the US prison population and the chronic overcrowding in a penal archipelago bursting at the seams.

In December, the US Justice System announced that 7 million adults - 3 per cent of the US population - were either doing time, on probation, or on parole at the end of 2005. Of that total, 2.2 million were in federal, state or local jails, 4.1 million were on probation, and 784,000 were on parole. Over the past decade, said the Justice Department, the US prison population grew by 35 per cent, with blacks (40 per cent]), whites (35 per cent) and Latinos (20 per cent) making up most inmates.

A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a US non-profit organisation, sent an even starker message. Unless these grim statistics are improved then, at present growth rates, America's convicts will outnumber the combined populations of Atlanta, Baltimore and Denver within five years.

"Our incarceration rates show that America's crime and punishment policy is completely out of control," says Tracy Huling, a national consultant on prison issues. A tough-on-crime political culture and harsh mandatory sentences for minor crimes, especially drug offences, had criminalised huge numbers. "We send people to prison today for long sentences that 25 years ago would have drawn probation."

This grotesquely swollen prison population evokes the Soviet gulags, or even the 18th-century British penal system.

Take California, where Hilton's sentence highlighted the crisis in state and local jails.

In 2005 America's most populous state had 170,676 convicts - 70,000 over capacity. Some 16,000 sleep in gyms and corridors. Many minor offenders are routinely released early in Los Angeles to ease overcrowding.

The situation is so dire that last month federal judges began hearings on whether the state should cap its prison population.

Last October, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger offered a startling
solution: let convicts serve their time outside the state, a unique upgrade of Britain's 18th-century transportation system. Technically, this would be illegal - inmates were sentenced to California time, not incarceration in Mississippi or Tennessee, two potential destinations - and would also separate prisoners, perhaps by thousands of miles, from their lawyers and families.

"It would impose great hardships on low-income families," says Kara Gotsch, advocacy director of the Sentencing Project, which presses for alternatives to prison. She says people from poor backgrounds - many convicts have led hardscrabble lives - are unable to afford the cost of visiting relatives "warehoused" in institutions far away.

Nonetheless, California's scheme has legs. In April, lawmakers, concerned the ailing prison system would be taken over by the federal government, approved the largest prison expansion in state history, earmarking US$8.3 billion to add 53,000 beds and send 8000 inmates out of state.

Not everyone is happy. "This is not a plan," complained the Senate majority leader, Democrat Gloria Romero. "All we have done is dig ourselves in a deeper hole." While the bill will likely incite a host of legal and fiscal challenges, it reflects a deeply ingrained official culture.

Prisons are big business in the US. California's system has been called the "Golden Gulag" (Ruth Wilson Gilmore's The Golden Gulag says that since 1980 the US prison population has increased 450 per cent, despite falling crime rates), showering money on the powerful prison guards union, on remote communities that house prisons, and on corporations.

The human cost of this trend - and the prospect that at current growth rates 50 per cent of American youth will be enmeshed in the criminal justice system by 2050 - is examined by Prison Town, USA, a new documentary. It focuses on what happens to Susanville, a high-desert Californian town with an economy dominated by two state and one federal prison.

It is a prison colony with more inmates than free people. And although convicts are not allowed to vote, their inclusion as individuals, and often as members of black or Latino minorities, into local population statistics funnels census dollars into the community.

Susanville is part of a growing US penal archipelago. It absorbs tax dollars, either directly for publicly run prisons, or via government contracts for privately run institutions, that add up to a huge windfall for beneficiaries such as the Corrections Corporation of America.

"A lot of special interests are feeding off what is a self-perpetuating system," says Ms Huling. "So any attempt to reduce the size of the system is met with very stiff opposition."

This is expensive for taxpayers. The soaring cost of keeping people behind bars is increasing as inmates age. California spent $1.8 billion on medical care alone last year. At the same time recidivism rates across the board - from federal, state, and local jails - average 40-70 per cent.

Once people are ensnared by the criminal justice system many find it very hard to escape. In recent years there have been tentative steps to confront this issue, most obviously with helping drug addicts. Yet, says Ms Gotsch, there is still "limited access to drug rehabilitation".

Ms Huling says convicts are often sent back to prison for technical violations of their parole, rather than for new crimes. Nonetheless, despite "re-entry" schemes that stress aggressive counselling, job training and monitoring of released convicts, going straight is a daunting prospect.

If life on the street is grim, the rosy view from the prison lobby's boardrooms has stunted political debate on penal philosophy. "The problem is, you can't just change the culture of the prison system," argues Ms Huling. "The system doesn't exist in isolation from the larger culture."

That culture still embraces the penitentiary system, which believes convicts need to become penitent in solitude. The problem is not the system, it says, but the individuals who find themselves locked up. "Sending someone away to sit in a cell is still our primary strategy for addressing crime."

But, given overcrowding - which makes solitary confinement impossible for many convicts - and soaring costs that eat into the public purse, is this philosophy sustainable?

"There's this growing realisation that getting tough on criminals is getting tough on taxpayers," says Adam Gelb, project director for the Pew Charitable Trust's Public Safety Performance Project, which looks at the bottom line.

Certainly, money is probably the major engine for driving US policy makers. Most usually, this results in trade-offs. Thus a scheme to, say, increase funds for rehabilitating convicts via re-entry schemes will likely be countered by handouts for prison construction.

"The interests that are feeding off prisons have the money to influence the legislative process," says Ms Huling. Still, the bottom line is where change might just emerge. In October Steve Aos, an analyst with the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, examined how prison costs might be reduced whilst contributing to lower crime rates.

In essence, Mr Aos concludes that, from both a safety and an economic perspective, the public return on their tax dollars diminishes with greater reliance on incarceration. Instead, more emphasis should be placed on prevention.

Which is hardly balm to the prison lobby. But for those who take their chances sleeping in hallways in overcrowded and volatile prisons, confronting the questions raised by Mr Aos's report can't come fast enough.

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

NY Times Editorial: A Much-Needed Second Chance

July 2, 2007
NY Times Editorial
A Much-Needed Second Chance

The United States now has more than two million people behind bars, a number that has been rising steadily for decades. But state lawmakers who once would have rushed to build new prisons have begun to see that prison-building is not the best or most cost-effective way to fight crime or protect the public’s safety.

Several states have instead begun to focus on developing community-based programs that deal with low-level, nonviolent offenders without locking them up. And they have begun to look at ways to control recidivism with programs that help newly released people find jobs, housing, drug treatment and mental health care — essential services if they are to live viable lives in a society that has historically shunned them.

Texas and Kansas have recently made important strides in this area. But corrections policy nationally would evolve much faster if Washington put its shoulder to the wheel. Congress needs to pass the Second Chance Act, which would provide grants, guidance and assistance to states and localities that are developing programs to reintegrate former inmates into their communities.

The states have made a good start, thanks in part to the efforts of the Council of State Governments and its prison policy arm, the Justice Center. The center’s analysis of corrections patterns has led to sweeping changes in Texas, where the Legislature was facing a projected upsurge in the prison population and a projected outlay of more than a billion dollars to build several new prisons.

The surge in Texas was not being driven by crime, which had risen only slightly, but by a breakdown in the parole and probation systems, which were unable to process and supervise the necessary numbers of released prisoners. Mental health and drug treatment services were also lacking. By expanding those services, along with other community-based programs, the Legislature projects that it could potentially avoid the need for any new prisons.

A similar solution was found in Kansas, where about 65 percent of the state’s admissions to prison were traced to technical violations of probation or parole, often by people with drug addictions or mental illnesses. The Legislature has expanded drug treatment behind bars and created a grant program that encourages localities to provide more effective supervision and services as a way of keeping recently released people away from crime and out of prison.

The social service networks that are necessary for this kind of work are virtually nonexistent in most communities. To put those networks together, the states need to require that disparate parts of the government apparatus work together in ways that were unheard of in the past.

It is encouraging that state officials are willing to break out of the old patterns. But they need help. The Second Chance Act would bolster the re-entry movement with money, training, technical assistance — and the federal stamp of approval.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/opinion/02mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by lois at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2007

NY: New Bill Encourages People To Report Dubious Behavoir

Newsday
If suspicious, speak up
New bill encourages citizens who witness dubious behavior to report it to authorities without fear of lawsuits
BY MELISSA MANSFIELD
June 27, 2007

ALBANY - New legislation awaiting the governor's approval would allow people to report suspicious, possibly terrorist, behavior without fear of a lawsuit. It's an effort to encourage citizens to turn in those acting in a dubious fashion.

In November six Muslim imams were taken off a plane in Minneapolis after a number of passengers and airline employees complained the men were praying loudly, making comments about Allah and Saddam Hussein, and moving around the cabin.

The Council on American Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit against the airline and the "John Does" who reported the imams' behavior. Security experts voiced concerns that the lawsuit would discourage people from speaking up.

"Sept. 11 changed the way all of us have to think in terms of protecting ourselves," said state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), the bill's Senate sponsor. "We see in airports and train stations warnings to report things that are suspicious. We're all encouraged to do this, but now ... [some who did] are being sued."

Assemb. Rory Lancman (D-Flushing) noted the need for law enforcement officials to get information from "ordinary" New Yorkers. "It would be a tragedy if a terrorist attack that could have been foiled wasn't because someone didn't want to be sued," he said. "It's important to law enforcement to report what we see. I don't want anyone to feel afraid of doing that."

The "freedom to report terrorism act" passed both houses unanimously late last week. The governor's office would not comment until the governor had a chance to review it.

The New York State Trial Lawyers Association, a 4,600-member group, supported the measure. "It strikes a reasonable balance between encouraging people to make reasonable reports, with a genuine basis of terrorist risk and the need to protect citizens from being harassed because they might look or act slightly different," said a spokesman, Gene DeSantis.

The legislation was introduced in April but gained momentum earlier this month after four people were arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up a fuel line for Kennedy Airport that runs through residential neighborhoods in Queens.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stterr275271578jun27,0,4273731.st
ory?coll=ny-statenews-headlines

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

Marie LaPinta's Brother, Leonardo Crociata, freed after 23 years

Killer of abusive husband to be freed
BY CARL MACGOWAN
Newsday

June 28, 2007, 5:51 PM EDT

A Brooklyn man who killed his sister's abusive husband will soon be released from prison after 23 years behind bars.

Leonardo Crociata, 73, was granted parole on Tuesday, a month after being resentenced for killing Michael La Pinta in his West Islip home in 1983. Crociata's conviction was overturned in March by State Supreme Court Justice Robert Doyle.

Crociata's sister, Marie La Pinta, had her murder conviction vacated two years ago. Doyle ruled that both received an unfair trial because they were represented by the same law firm and were not notified of the conflict of interest by the trial judge.

Crociata was "relieved, speechless, hopeful and just looking forward to being back with his family," said attorney Anthony La Pinta of Hauppauge, who is Crociata's nephew and Marie La Pinta's son.

"We felt that he served more than enough time for his actions," La Pinta said. "If his jury would have known about the family dynamic and the issue of spousal abuse in his family, the jury never would have reached the decision that they did."

Michael La Pinta was killed on March 27, 1983, during a scuffle in which his wife beat him with a baseball bat and Crociata shot him. Crociata and Marie La Pinta wrapped Michael La Pinta's body in a mattress and dumped it in a landfill.

In 1984, Crociata and his sister were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Marie La Pinta was released after her conviction was thrown out in 2005.

Crociata entered a new guilty plea in March and was sentenced in May to 15 years to life, making him eligible for parole because he already had served the minimum sentence.

Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said last month that "no legitimate societal or correctional purpose" was served by Crociata's continued incarceration.

Crociata will be released in early August from Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, Anthony La Pinta said. He will live in Bensonhurst with his wife, Lucy, with whom he has three grown children, La Pinta said.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lilapi0629,0,7486232.story?c
oll=ny-linews-headlines

Posted by lois at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

PA: New Prison at SCI Dallas Likely Dead

Prison Proposal Likely Dead
Thursday, June 28, 11:59 p.m.
By Bianca Barr

Opponents of a plan to expand the state correctional facility in Luzerne County celebrated victory at a meeting Thursday night in the Back Mountain. They learned that money earmarked for the project has been removed from the state's proposed 2007-08 capital budget and is not likely to be put back in before a final spending plan is passed.

The public meeting took place In Jackson Township, where SCI-Dallas is located. The state Bureau of Corrections wanted to build a new prison to house more than 2,000 inmates and eventually close down the current lockup. Now, it looks as though that's not going to happen within the next year.

"We are not going to have another Wal-Mart or superstore. This is a warehouse for very bad, nasty people. We don't need this in our backyard," said Paul Niezgoda, a member of the Jackson Township Planning Commission.

Sharon Ellsworth lives in Jackson Township and is one of many residents who oppose the prison plan.

"Every prison in this state is overcrowded," she said at the meeting. "They say they will close the existing prison once the other is open. I don't believe that."

SCI-Dallas was built in the 1960s and is a medium-security facility for male inmates. Concerned residents made it clear they do not want a larger prison built on the property.

Pat Rusiloski said, "They were bent on putting it here until people spoke up, people called, people wrote letters and get petitions and now they aren't going to."

Township Supervisor John Wilkes added, "The voices of the township were heard in Harrisburg. We're proud our legislators took the time and opportunity to listen to what was said."

Representatives from the offices of several state lawmakers attended the public meeting in Jackson Township. A staffer for Senator Lisa Baker, whose district includes the Back Mountain, said it's not likely that the funding will be reinstated before a final capital budget is passed. However, the plan to expand the state correctional facility in Luzerne County could resurface in the future.
http://www.wnep.com/global/story.asp?s=6726848>

Posted by lois at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

TX: Release of teenagers from youth prisons slow

June 30, 2007
Release of teen offenders from youth prisons slow
Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN — More than 500 teenagers serving time in Texas youth prisons for misdemeanor crimes remained incarcerated more than a month after an April deadline for most to be released from the scandal-wracked system.

They include five teenagers who should have been released in 2005, according to a Texas Youth Commission internal report that is raising questions about the pace of the releases following sweeping agency reforms enacted by the Legislature.

"They should be moving these youths out as quickly as possible," said Rep. Jerry Madden, a Richardson Republican who heads a special joint panel overseeing the troubled agency.

Earlier this month, Gov. Rick Perry signed into law a bill intended to radically overhaul the state juvenile justice system. It put in motion attempts to revamp an agency rocked by allegations of sexual abuse of inmates by staff and a possible cover up by agency officials.

In March, the panel led by Madden called for most misdemeanor offenders to have their cases reviewed and be discharged by April 30. But 503 misdemeanor offenders remained locked up as of June 13, according to the internal report.

After some lawmakers raised questions, 19 were paroled and three were discharged within a week.

Youth commission officials couldn't provide the most up-to-date numbers, but agency spokesman Jim Hurley said he believed most should have been released by Friday.

"We are working as quickly as we can to release them responsibly, not just kick them out on the street," Hurley said.

Legislative leaders are also pressing the agency to more quickly transfer 156 offenders ages 19 or 20, who are now too old to be part of the state juvenile justice system under the new reforms. The majority of those are headed for parole, with 17 likely to be transferred to an adult prison and five whose future remains undecided.

Under the changes in state law, youths convicted of misdemeanors and offenders 19 and older may no longer be incarcerated in state youth prisons.

Madden said agency officials told him that reviews of imprisoned offenders 19 and older will be completed by July 6.

"This is something the Legislature is going to be staying on top of," Madden said.

Information from: Austin American-Statesman, http://www.statesman.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/4934510.html

Posted by lois at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

CA: Here's an idea!: Rehabilitation programs can cut prisons cost, report says

Rehabilitation programs can cut prisons cost, report says
By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
:06/29/2007
SACRAMENTO—Of the roughly $43,000 California spends annually to house each of its prison inmates, just 5 percent goes toward rehabilitation programs.

That will have to change—in a big way—if the state is reduce its inmate population and avoid a federal court takeover of its troubled prison system, according to a report released Friday.

New programs and policies for inmates and ex-cons could eliminate the need for as many as 48,000 prison beds, the report said. The experts who developed the study estimated that could save California taxpayers $561 million to $684 million per year—about 5 percent of the total amount proposed for next year's corrections budget.

Rehabilitation programs can cut prisons cost, report says
By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
:06/29/2007
SACRAMENTO—Of the roughly $43,000 California spends annually to house each of its prison inmates, just 5 percent goes toward rehabilitation programs.

That will have to change—in a big way—if the state is reduce its inmate population and avoid a federal court takeover of its troubled prison system, according to a report released Friday.

New programs and policies for inmates and ex-cons could eliminate the need for as many as 48,000 prison beds, the report said. The experts who developed the study estimated that could save California taxpayers $561 million to $684 million per year—about 5 percent of the total amount proposed for next year's corrections budget.

More money spent on education, job training, drug treatment, anger management and other programs would lead to less money needed for incarceration because fewer paroled inmates would get in trouble again and return to prison, the report said.

The study was requested by state Sen. Mike Machado as a part of his oversight of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget through a Senate subcommittee. He called the recommendations, compiled by a panel of 17 national experts, "sound principles for managing our prisons."

The report comes at a time when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers are trying to avoid a federal takeover of the overcrowded prison system, which is about 70 percent over capacity.

They have approved a $7.8 billion building program that will add prison and county jail beds, as well as space for mentally ill inmates and those needing health care services.

The panelists said a significant boost in rehabilitation funding could be enough to deter draconian steps being considered by federal judges who have oversight of some prison operations. Those judges are considering steps that could lead to the early release of inmates or a capping of the prison population.

Just $2,053 of the $43,287 California spends to house an inmate is for rehabilitation or training. Such programs are crucial if inmates are to avoid a return visit, the study said.

"Half of all prisoners being released (in 2006) had sat idle during their entire prison stay," without participating in a single rehabilitation program, said Joan Petersilia, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, and co-chair of the panel.

The report said the state should spend between $628 million and $652 million a year on new rehabilitation programs for inmates and parolees, expenses that would be offset by the savings from having fewer inmates in the system. In addition, the $300 million now going toward such programs could be spent more effectively, according to the experts.

California prisons also offer few incentives for inmates to improve themselves, the report said.

The panelists urged lawmakers to imitate efforts in Pennsylvania, Washington and Ohio in offering shorter sentences or minimal pay to inmates who complete rehabilitation programs.

California inmates, for example, get paid for sweeping their cellblock but earn nothing for attending classes, said panel member Joseph Lehman, who formerly headed corrections departments in Washington, Maine and Pennsylvania.

In response to the report, Corrections Secretary James Tilton ruled out reducing inmates' sentences and releasing them early as an incentive for completing various programs.

But he did embrace lesser incentives, such as increased visitation rights, long-distance telephone calls or vouchers inmates can use to purchase goods.

He also said the state needs to take other steps, such as finding community treatment programs for parole violators who now are sent back to prison for a few months.

"They test dirty for drugs, put them in a drug treatment program" instead of a prison cell, he said.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, also was skeptical of early release incentives. He said most inmates already are released after serving half their sentences, even if they don't participate in rehabilitation programs. "We are already way too generous with incentives," said Spitzer, chairman of the Select Committee on Prison Construction and Operations.

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On the Net:

Read the report at http://www.corr.ca.gov/
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6263893?nclick_check=1

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