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August 31, 2007

Sex offenders---Costs Mount to Support Sex Offender Laws

Sex offenders
Costs mount to support sex offender laws
Aug 30, 2007 @ 09:34 AM
By LAUREN FITZPATRICK
GateHouse News Service

Laurie Peterson was surprised to find her husband's photo suddenly appear on the New Hampshire online sex offender registry last fall, thanks to a new addition to the law.

But not as surprised as her neighbors when they realized their property values would drop once Michael Peterson’s registry information, from a night of casual party sex as a 19-year-old with a younger teenaged girl, hit the Internet.

“They’re concerned that if they move, they won’t be able to sell their properties for the full value,” Peterson said of her next-door neighbors who plan to sell. “And there’s also a concern – is there a duty to tell a prospective home buyer?”

A tangible connection between home prices and registered sex offenders exists, according to a Columbia University study done in North Carolina. It’s one of the subtler ways that strictly regulating offenders costs ordinary Americans.

Other costs also add up: maintaining registry information, enforcing residence restrictions, litigating for or against strict residence laws. Tighter restrictions on where all these offenders can work, live and loiter aren’t cheap, since offenders require a lot of surveillance. And 34 states post every adult convicted of a sex crime on their Internet registry, adding to the bill for taxpayers.

The Adam Walsh Act of 2006 created a national registry and ranked offenders, which added a $47 million federal request to the taxpayers’ 2007 tally. The U.S. Marshals Service also has requested an additional $7.8 million and 54 more employees (43 of them deputy marshals) to track down sex offenders who drop off the registry, according to the budget for 2008.

So as the number of offenders on the registry rises – it has already surpassed 600,000 in 2007 compared with about 330,000 in 2000 – so will the price tag of keeping tabs on every single one.

Regulating offenders like Mike Peterson, who pose no further risk, is a waste of time and money, Laurie Peterson said. When the couple moved into their home almost five years ago, they explained his conviction to neighbors, most of whom allow their children to play with the Peterson brood. Peterson keeps her husband’s police reports in her kitchen to share in case anyone wonders about the details.

Massachusetts earmarked nearly $4 million in 2007 for the Sex Offender Registry Board, which ranks and regulates some 8,000 sex offenders in the state. Illinois spends more than half million dollars a year, according to the 2006 and 2007 state budgets. New York has budgeted $1 million to maintain its sex offender management department, and another million to set up a GPS pilot program in Monroe, Suffolk and Rensselaer counties.

Twice a year, for example, a fat envelope arrives in Laurie Peterson’s mailbox containing her husband's registration papers and a $9.31 stamp. With New Hampshire’s registry reporting 3,677 offenders in June 2007, that’s more than $68,000 in postage alone for offenders to check in with police.

“If the police were to actively enforce these things, there would be more costs,” said Corey Rayburn Yung, a professor at John Marshall law school in Chicago who runs the Sex Crimes blog (http://sexcrimes.typepad.com).

Pennsylvania State Police dedicate 11 people to track convicted sex offenders and to ensure their information posted on the registry is up to snuff.

More than 20 states now track certain offenders using GPS devices to make sure they’re not going places they shouldn’t. Six of those states require the ankle bracelet for life. The average cost is about $10 per offender per day, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimated. GPS will cost that state $88.4 million a year to supervise and monitor its offenders, according to the corrections department.

“These costs would grow to about $100 million annually after 10 years, with costs continuing to increase significantly in subsequent years,” the corrections department reported. “Because the measure does not specify whether the state or local governments would be responsible for monitoring sex offenders who have been discharged from state parole supervision, it is unclear whether local governments would bear some of these long-term costs.”

Massachusetts and Illinois use GPS for their most dangerous predators on parole and supervision. The Illinois system is supposed to alert police if the person enters any restricted zone.

And the Florida Department of Corrections anticipates it’ll have to monitor almost 13,000 offenders for about 20 years – at a $46 million cost per year. Ohio, Georgia and Oklahoma also make offenders pay for their own GPS monitoring, provided they are able to do so. Realistically, the taxpayers foot the bill, Yung said.

“The way the legislature ends up doing it – offenders have to pay for their own monitoring,” Yung said. “But given the financial status of most offenders, most won’t afford it.”

Offenders have fired back against tightening residence laws by suing, with help from the ACLU and Southern Center for Human Rights. All over the country, offenders have fought to stay in the homes they moved into before the new residence laws kicked in.

A group of nine Georgia offenders, among them men and women convicted as teens, sued the state attorney general in 2006, claiming the law allows them no way to prove they no longer pose a risk to anyone. Georgia’s residence ban, considered one of the strictest in the country because it includes bus stops, prevented the offenders from finding homes – and threatened to kick elderly and sickly offenders out of nursing homes.

In Oklahoma, a John Doe sold his house twice when told both times he was too close to a school and violated the state’s 2,000-foot safety ring around schools and educational institutions. Only after consulting registry staff did he finally find an approved place to live. But months later, Oklahoma City Police Department told him their “new and improved” measuring techniques put his new place once again too close to a school.

Doe settled his 2006 lawsuit later the same year and was allowed to remain without fear of criminal charges.

But a lawsuit over Iowa’s 2,000-foot residence law dragged on for years through three courts, with the state’s highest court saying that residence laws are not further punishment. The state ACLU tried to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case, but it has not been accepted.

The more offenders whose profiles are posted online, the more home prices that will drop, according to a 2006 Columbia University study. The study, which was done in North Carolina, showed that the value of homes within a tenth of a mile area around a registered sex offender’s house falls by an average of 4 percent – about $5,500. Houses outside that circle show no price decline, according to the report, which measured the timing and location of offender move-ins in making its calculations.

“Our estimates suggest that homeowners who live extremely close to a sex offender and sell their homes lose between $4,500 and $5,500, relative to the amount they would have received if the offender did not move in,” the report said. “Each offender thus causes an average loss to local homeowners of $156,912. Countywide (in Mecklenburg County), the 373 offenders known to live in private residences depress property values by an estimated $59.5 million.”

And a 2003 look at Montgomery County, Ohio, found a 17 percent drop in housing prices within a tenth of a mile from a sex offender’s house, and other changes in price in the circle up to a third of a mile away.

But all that’s cheaper than keeping offenders locked up, according to the Justice Department’s Center on Sex Offender Management.

Treating a released sex offender ranges between $5,000 and $15,000 per offender per year, according to the center. And because offenders who’ve gone through good therapy reoffend at lower rates than those merely imprisoned, mental health treatment eliminates the need to pay for investigation, prosecution, incarceration and other victim services, according to the center.

Keeping a person behind bars costs taxpayers about $22,000 a year, the center said, and that price tag doesn’t even include any therapy.

Copyright © 2007 GateHouse Media, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.
Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license,except where noted.
http://www.townonline.com/utica/sexoffenders/x676316819

Posted by lois at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

ME: Baldacci details jail takeover plan

"The governor's plan would consolidate 15 county jail systems and the state corrections system into a statewide system managed by the Department of Corrections.He said a new system would eliminate the need to build new jail and prison facilities in the near future.According to the administration, local property taxes to support county jails amounted to $66 million in 2006 and an estimated $71.2 million in 2007. The administration also jail operations could cost $148 million by 2013 and $184 million by 2015. The governor's plan envisions closing four jails, in the counties of Oxford, Franklin, Piscataquis and Waldo, and one or two special programs providing prisoners with mental health treatment."While constraining costs and relieving the pressure on property taxpayers is a high priority, our plan will also lead to better outcomes for prisoners," Baldacci said in his statement."

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070830/NEWS0104/70830035
>

Thursday, August 30, 2007
Baldacci details jail takeover plan

By FRANCIS X. QUINN
Associated Press Writer

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) _ Gov. John Baldacci outlined in a written statement Thursday how he would like to see the state take over the county jail network, asserting that "our current system is intolerable" and that annual savings from such a move could grow from $10 million in the first year to nearly $38 million over time.

"We must act," Baldacci said in his statement. "The state prison system and a number of counties with older facilities don't have enough room to house inmates while other counties have beds left empty."

In explaining the rationale behind the plan, Baldacci administration finance chief Rebecca Wyke said the proposal relies on efficiencies to lower operating costs and avoid construction expenses.

The administration statement said the current county assessment for jails would be frozen and the state would take over responsibility for future growth in costs.

As details were being released, some lawmakers expressed positive interest in the concept.

"Based on what little I know, I would say that it makes sense," said Republican Sen. Karl Turner of Cumberland, a ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee.

There was also skepticism.

"There's something to be said for streamlining the system and designating specific facilities for specific uses and cutting back on transportation costs," said Democratic Rep. Janet Mills of Farmington, another Appropriations panelist.

"But I don't think we'd see the savings overall that they're projecting," she added, saying there would likely be limits on how much personnel costs could be reduced.

Baldacci has been talking with legislative leaders about the jail takeover idea and has suggested that it might be desirable to take up the matter in a special legislative session this year rather than wait for the next regular session to begin in January.

On that score, Turner was doubtful and Mills was dismissive.

Turner said there would need to be "a lot more work done than what I've seen so far."

Said Mills of a special session devoted to such a complicated issue: "A waste of our time."

The governor's plan would consolidate 15 county jail systems and the state corrections system into a statewide system managed by the Department of Corrections.

He said a new system would eliminate the need to build new jail and prison facilities in the near future.

According to the administration, local property taxes to support county jails amounted to $66 million in 2006 and an estimated $71.2 million in 2007. The administration also jail operations could cost $148 million by 2013 and $184 million by 2015.

The governor's plan envisions closing four jails, in the counties of Oxford, Franklin, Piscataquis and Waldo, and one or two special programs providing prisoners with mental health treatment.

"While constraining costs and relieving the pressure on property taxpayers is a high priority, our plan will also lead to better outcomes for prisoners," Baldacci said in his statement.

The administration pointed to statewide corrections systems in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont.

"This isn't new ground. Other places have been very successful with similar initiatives, and Maine can be too," Baldacci said.

Currently, four counties and the state are considering new construction for next year, the administration said.

State officials say that over the last three years, the cost for counties to operate jails has increased by about 12 percent per year, while the cost to operate the state prison system has increased by about 6 percent per year.

Posted by lois at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

LA: Federal Magistrate Finds 30 Segregation of Angola 3 Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Magistrate finds lock down for Angola 3 cruel
Inmates kept in isolation for 30 years

By PENNY BROWN
Advocate staff writer, Baton Rouge
Published: Aug 28, 2007

A federal magistrate has found once again that three inmates who remained in lockdown at Louisiana State Penitentiary for more than three decades could be victims of cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S Magistrate Docia Dalby for a second time refused to recommend throwing out a lawsuit filed by two inmates and a former inmate known as the Angola 3.

She made a similar finding in 2005, and that ruling continues forward after it was adopted by a judge.

In a 50-page report earlier this month, Dalby concluded that prison authorities should have known that “being housed in isolation in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day for over three decades results in serious deprivations of basic human needs.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Ralph Tyson will look to Dalby’s findings in making a ruling on whether the case will continue toward trial.

The report comes in a 7-year-old case brought by former imprisoned Black Panther Party activist Robert King Wilkerson and still-imprisoned activists Herman “Hooks” Wallace and Albert Woodfox. The trio insist they have been political prisoners at Angola because they have been continuously confined in the lockdown unit for decades.

Wilkerson was freed in 2001 after his 1973 conviction of murdering a fellow inmate was overturned and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Woodfox and Wallace are serving life sentences after being convicted in the 1972 slaying of Angola correctional officer Brent Miller during a riot.

All three were put in the lockdown unit in 1972. Woodfox and Wallace remain there.

Inmates in the unit get one hour a day to shower and walk alone along the tier on which his cell is located. Three times a week, the inmates can choose to spend that time exercising alone in a fenced yard, if weather permits. There are restrictions on personal property, reading materials, access to legal resources, work and visitation rights.

Prison authorities contend the three posed a serious security risk. But the Angola 3 have argued they haven’t been in trouble in decades. They blame their extended confinement in the lockdown unit for numerous health ailments, including diabetes, hypertension and insomnia.

In her report, Dalby noted lockdown conditions themselves may pass constitutional scrutiny if imposed for a short period of time, but not for three decades.

“With each passing day its effects are exponentially increased, just as surely as a single drop of water repeated endlessly will eventually bore through the hardest of stones,” Dalby writes. “By 1999, these plaintiffs had been in extended lockdown more than anyone in Angola’s history, and more than any other living prisoner in the entire United States, according to plaintiffs’ evidence.”

Dalby also concluded that it appears prison authorities had no legitimate reason for keeping the men isolated for such a long period.

“These men, now in their 60s, do not, and have not for some time, presented a threat to the ‘safety, security and good order of the facility,’” Dalby writes.

She notes that officials cite only the “original reason for lockdown” as the reason the three inmates remained — even though the prison changed its own policy in 1996 to eliminate that as justification for prolonged confinement.

The magistrate suggests a jury could find prison authorities were deliberately indifferent to the plight of the men. However, she recommends dismissing Department of Public Safety and Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder from the case.

“A reasonable official at (the prison) would have realized in 1999 that an inmate’s being held in extended lockdown for 27 years constitutes a sufficiently serious deprivation of basic human needs to trigger the protections of the Eighth Amendment,” Dalby writes.

“Not only (have the courts) consistently noted the severity and terrible deprivation associated with such confinement, it has long been the subject of research, and even of television and movies,” she writes. “It is also a matter of common sense that three decades of extreme isolation and enforced inactivity in a space smaller than a typical walk-in closet present the antithesis of what is necessary to meet basic human needs.”

Lawyers on both sides of the case have yet to respond to Dalby’s recommendations. Tyson will make a final ruling after considering their pleadings. http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/suburban/9412521.html?showAll=y&c=y

For more information see: http://www.angola3.org/

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

August 30, 2007

Denver Univ. law students win prisoner byline rights

DU law students win prisoner byline rights
The three represented an inmate punished for writing an article. A district judge says the Federal Bureau of Prisons must allow it.
By Felisa Cardona
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/10/2007

Three University of Denver law students who represented a federal prisoner fighting for the right to publish articles from prison won their case against the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger ruled that the prison byline regulations prohibiting prisoners from writing stories for the news media violated the First Amendment rights of prisoners and the press.

D

DU law professor Laura Lee Rovner, who oversaw the students' work, could not be reached Thursday evening for comment about the ruling. Donald Bounds, Jack Hobaugh and Michelle Young worked on the case for a year.

They represented Mark Jordan, a prisoner at Supermax, the ultra-high-security prison in Florence where many of the nation's most notorious are held, including Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

Jordan was convicted of bank robbery, and in 1999 he stabbed an inmate to death at the adjacent U.S. Penitentiary in Florence. He is scheduled to serve another 41 years behind bars.

Jordan had published several stories on prison life in Off!, a New York publication.

He was punished by prison officials in 2001 for publishing under a byline.

Krieger's ruling is not exclusive to Jordan. It says that the Federal Bureau of Prisons may not punish any inmate who decides to publish under a byline.

The government argued that inmates who act as reporters or publish under a byline could rise to undue prominence within the inmate population, thereby becoming a security risk. Also, the government was concerned that inmates could make a business out of it.

"No historical evidence that any inmate's publications in the news media created such security problems were presented," Krieger wrote in her ruling.

The judge also noted that punishment for the violation was inconsistent and said that Kaczynski had written articles under bylines without disciplinary action being taken against him.

"The Court finds that the evidence is insufficient to correlate a bylined publication in the news media with the danger of an inmate conducting a business," the judge wrote. "To the extent that there is a risk, the existing regulation prohibiting inmates from conducting a business is an easy and effective alternative to the regulation at issue."

ttp://www.denverpost.com//ci_6587810?IADID=Search-www.denverpost.com-www.denverpost.com

Posted by lois at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)

MD: Keeping Hagerstown as a "former Prisoner Free-Zone

This statement by the Hagerstown mayor is chilling by itself but one wonders what kind of public message Gov O'Malley is sending via his apparently politically-driven policy response and apparent public silence on the mayor's declaration of Hagerstown as a 'former prisoner-free zone'... ________________________________________________________________

"The bottom line is this," Mayor Bruchey wrote. "If you weren't a resident of Hagerstown or Washing ton County before your incarceration, we definitely don't want you as one when you are released."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-prisons0829,0,4109181.story

Baltimore Sun

State to change policy on prisoners' release
New plan addresses concerns by moving inmates to facilities closer to home before discharge

By Greg Garland | Sun reporter
9:36 PM EDT, August 29, 2007

Reacting to concerns of elected officials in Western Maryland, the O'Malley administration announced Wednesday that it is changing the way inmates are released from state prisons.

Most inmates in the rural prisons in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore are from the Baltimore-Washington metro area. When an inmate's sentence ends, he is given $50 in cash and dropped off at a bus station.

Under the new policy, corrections officials say, inmates will be transported to a prison in Baltimore or one closer to their home community a day or so before discharge.

Releasing an inmate to a more familiar environment, closer to family members, makes good sense from a policy standpoint, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

"It is sound correctional practice to let inmates out where they are most likely not to re-offend," Vernarelli said.

Maryland Public Safety Secretary Gary D. Maynard discussed the policy change at a meeting of the Ha gerstown-Washington County Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.

"I'm enormously pleased about it," said Hagerstown Mayor Robert E. Bruchey II. "I think it addresses one of the major concerns we've had."

Bruchey and other community leaders had been pushing for the change, contending that some inmates remain in Western Maryland after their release and drive up crime rates.

But a study done by the department found only eight of the 622 inmates from other areas who were released from prisons near Hagerstown and Cumberland between January and June of this year remained in the area. The five prisons in those two communities house about 9,000 inmates.

Six of the eight were working in jobs that they started before their release, and the other two have family in the area, corrections officials said.

The state's inmate release policies have nevertheless been a continuing controversy in Hagerstown.

The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown recently published an opinion piece by the mayor, in which he responded to a letter to the editor an inmate had written on the issue of prisoner releases in Hagerstown.

"The bottom line is this," Mayor Bruchey wrote. "If you weren't a resident of Hagerstown or Washing ton County before your incarceration, we definitely don't want you as one when you are released." Gov. Martin O'Malley said in a statement that releasing inmates closer to their homes and to where they have access to re-entry programs and services "can help ensure that these individuals become full, productive members of our community."

greg.garland@baltsun.com

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

MI: Strengthen parole guidelines to safely cut state prison costs

Free Press
Detroit, MI

Editorials
IN OUR OPINION
Strengthen parole guidelines to safely cut state prison costs
August 29, 2007

State legislators are considering important changes to the guidelines that help determine who goes to prison and who doesn't.

However, to safely control Michigan's $1.9-billion prison system, the state also must do a better job of deciding who among the incarcerated should be let out.

Michigan needs more accountability from the 10-member Parole Board on how it uses the guidelines it's required by law to follow. Too often, these guidelines, based on a statistical assessment of the prisoner's risk of reoffending, appear to be ignored. A bill introduced by state Rep. Paul Condino, D-Southfield, would provide some needed oversight.

The bill would enable inmates to appeal parole denials in court if they were evaluated as a low risk to reoffend, and it would require the department to record their interviews. Condino's bill also would apply board guidelines to the more than 800 lifers in Michigan who are eligible for parole. Currently, there is no way to enforce parole guidelines. A statistical assessment -- including prior record, prison conduct and age -- scores an inmate's probability for release. However, MDOC records obtained by the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending show that the board last year released only 53% of those inmates who scored a low risk to reoffend. In 1996, it released 81% of such inmates, said CAPPS Executive Director Barbara Levine.

Altogether, roughly 16,000 inmates -- nearly one-third of the prison population -- are eligible for release. That's double the rate of the early 1990s.

To be sure, there are good reasons -- such as poor prison-conduct records -- for keeping inmates beyond their minimum sentences. But the large number of parole-eligible inmates in Michigan raises questions about whether some prisoners -- perhaps thousands -- are held longer than necessary. Parole Board decisions have contributed mightily to large increases in Michigan's prison population -- and to the enormous costs of running the system.

In recent years, the Parole Board, under the leadership of John Rubitschun, its former chairman and now an MDOC deputy director, has done a better job of reviewing certain cases. But the parole process in Michigan needs more safeguards -- and accountability.

Condino's bill is good step toward getting it.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070829/OPINION01/708290355
/1069

Posted by lois at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

MA: In Our Opinion: Second chance in Amherst

Editorial: Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA
News and information for Thursday, August 30, 2007

In Our Opinion: Second chance in Amherst

The Amherst Regional School District has taken some criticism for its decision to hire Talib Sadiq as a middle school counselor. The critics have focused on the fact that Sadiq was in prison for 3½ years for an armed robbery in 1993. He paid for his crime, and he has taken constructive steps to get his life back on track.

His hiring represents something of a gamble for the schools and for Sadiq. The spotlight is him and the scrutiny in this first year will no doubt be intense.

Sadiq is not an unknown quantity, despite the efforts of a few to question his suitability for the job. He has the necessary education, as well as an impressive list of references - including his former professors at the University of Massachusetts - who are willing to vouch for him, and he has already spent one year interning as a counselor in the middle school under the tutelage of former counselor Barry Brooks, who retired this year.

Here are the particulars of Sadiq's background:

In December 1993, Sadiq, known at that time by his birth name, Vincent E. Bias, was arrested after robbing a bank in Springfield with a loaded handgun. He served 31/2 years in prison on a five- to seven-year sentence. Prior to his arrest, Sadiq, a graduate of Amherst Regional High School, had served in the Army in the Persian Gulf during the first Iraq war.

After his release from prison, Sadiq worked to turn his life around. He changed his name - partly, he says, because of his conversion to Islam, but also because of a desire to separate himself from the person he used to be. He then attended UMass, where he earned his B.A. in communications and his M.A. in education, with an emphasis on school counseling. He is now married, with three children, and coaches youth football in Amherst. By any definition, Sadiq has become a productive member of the Amherst community.

Those who have seen him with young people speak highly of his skills in working with students. Those who have watched him coach a youth football team for the past three years also sing his praises as a positive role model.

Some have questioned whether the interviewing and hiring process was flawed, or whether the district was entirely forthcoming about Sadiq's background. There are complaints that only one member of the interview committee was aware of Sadiq's criminal record.

From what is known of the search process, the educational credentials and experience of the seven candidates interviewed for the position were very similar. The interview committee's task is to assess the skills of candidates and determine their ability to do the job based solely on qualifications. Criminal background checks are not required until a job is offered to a candidate. Superintendent Jere Hochman took the interview committee's recommendations, which have been described as glowing, and, based on all other information, made the hiring decision. That's his job, and he's clear about taking responsibility for it.

The school's principal, Fran Ziperstein, also fully supports the hiring. Ziperstein observed Sadiq during his internship and liked what she saw. In our opinion, the process was followed and it worked.

While there have been local cases of people with questionable backgrounds slipping onto the public payroll without adequate background checks - which no doubt accounts for the heightened sensitivity - that is not the case with Sadiq. He has made no effort to hide his background, nor does he make any excuses for it; rather, he believes that students might be able to learn a lesson from the mistakes he made.

The hiring is now clouded by the state Department of Education's decision to deny Sadiq the necessary state certification. They refuse to state the reason. Sadiq has appealed, and Hochman says he will work to get the certification question settled. Meanwhile, this week Sadiq has joined his colleagues at the middle school in preparing for the new school year.

Was Talib Sadiq the best-qualified candidate? That's always a judgment call. He certainly has the necessary qualifications, and his track record of working with young people says a lot. In the end, the test of any hiring decision is performance, and what parents should expect is that Sadiq will be evaluated by the standards Amherst has set for its counselors.

The district plans to hold events to give parents and new students a chance to meet the faculty. Parents should take advantage of that opportunity, and give Sadiq a chance to speak for himself. It will be up to him to demonstrate how he can make a positive contribution at the Amherst Regional Middle School.

http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=56275&CSAuthResp=1188482352053798%3AMzQ7Uu7QCFoyWQ%3D%3D%3ACSUserId%7CCSGroupId%3Asuccess%3AyG7P05%2F3%2FcmnruPRxjx3hg%3D%3D&CSUserId=&CSGroupId

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

August 29, 2007

PA: All-time high for Philadelphia prisons

Ralph B. Taylor, a Temple University criminologist, said more focus must be put on the after care of inmates so they don't become repeat inhabitants of city prisons. "The real trick is to get people to think of post-prison care as part of their public-safety dollars," Taylor said."

Philadelphia Inquirer
All-time high for Phila. inmates
City prisons now house 9,123, much more than they were meant to hold.

By Robert Moran
Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia's prisons are choking on a record number of inmates.

On Aug. 6, the prison population hit 9,123, an all-time high that is more than double the average of 4,000 inmates held in the late 1980s.

It also exceeds by about 1,600 the number of inmates the city's six detention centers were designed to hold.

As a result, the prison system has been pushed to its limits. Cells designed for two inmates now house three. Shortages of correction officers trigger frequent lockdowns - keeping inmates in their cells 23 hours a day.

Lorenzo North, president of the correction officers' union, said the bulging prison population and lack of officers was a recipe for increased inmate assaults on officers and one another - and for potential riots.

"Locked down in a cell, three to a cell, no air-conditioning - how do you think they're going to feel?" North said.

City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said the city was taking various measures, including hiring more correction officers, to alleviate the problem.

He said Philadelphia, as part of a long-term strategy, needs to consider building another prison.

The increase in prison population comes at a time when the city has had a spike in fatal violence. Experts say, however, that the rising inmate count has more to do with a long-term crackdown on drug offenders in the city and tougher prison sentences.

Some small relief may be on the way. State legislation has been devised to reduce overcrowding across Pennsylvania, and part of the change could send at least 700 Philadelphia inmates to state facilities.

Seeking answers to the overcrowding problem, the city commissioned Temple University researchers led by John S. Goldkamp to conduct a yearlong study of the prison system.

The Goldkamp report, issued in November, found that more than half the population were pretrial inmates who could not make bail. "This subpopulation may rank as the most productive area for review and development of population-reduction strategies," according to the report.

University of Pennsylvania law professor David Rudovsky, who has repeatedly taken the city to court over prison conditions, agreed. "On any given day, there are several hundred people you could probably release," he said.

The Goldkamp report also pointed out that 88 percent of inmates serving sentences were nonviolent offenders, mostly doing time for drug convictions. "When the role of drug offenders and nonviolent offenders is so pronounced, there is a sizable pool of offenders who could potentially be candidates for alternative sentencing options not now employed," the report said.

Diaz said the city was looking at alternatives to incarceration, including increased electronic monitoring and daily outpatient drug-treatment programs.

To make room for more inmates in Philadelphia, the city pays facilities outside Philadelphia to house inmates.

The Goldkamp report said 475 inmates were held in other jurisdictions in late 2005. Diaz could not provide a current count, but said the city had increased its outside capacity and would continue to do so.

As a result, in part, the actual population in city-run prisons changed little from last year, Diaz said. On Aug. 13, 2006, the city population was 8,647. On the same date this year, the population was 8,614 - a slight drop.

Those numbers, however, proved to be a strain on the system last summer, when the city began packing inmates in police and prison holding cells with no beds or toilets and no access to showers and medical care.

In response, Rudovsky sued on behalf of 11 inmates, and on Jan. 25, U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick ordered an end to the "unconstitutional conditions" that he witnessed firsthand during tours of the city prisons.

Those conditions have been alleviated, both sides agreed, and Diaz said, "We believe that we're fully in compliance with these constitutional protections."

In contrast to Philadelphia, New York City has dramatically reduced its city jail population while pursuing aggressive policing that has led to historic reductions in crime.

Michael P. Jacobson ran those New York jails when the inmate population began to fall because of management practices. In the early 1990s, New York's jail population peaked at nearly 23,000. Now it is down to around 14,000.

Reflecting New York's success, Jacobson said any city with jail overcrowding problems needs to analyze the efficiency of its criminal justice system. Reducing the time inmates stay in jail, even by a few days, can make a great difference, he said.

"Are there ways to speed up the time to get cases disposed?" he asked, pointing to, as examples, how many times court cases are continued and how quickly plea bargains are achieved.

"It's clear you can get both reduced crime and reduced prison population," said Jacobson, now director of the Vera Institute for Justice, a nonprofit think tank in New York.

Continual lockdowns and triple-celling, he said, is "not the way you want to run a system."

A study released last year by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, showed that of the 106,849 people who were incarcerated in Philadelphia prisons from 1996 to 2003, half of them - 53,621 - had been jailed and released an average of 3.5 times during that period.

Ralph B. Taylor, a Temple University criminologist, said more focus must be put on the after care of inmates so they don't become repeat inhabitants of city prisons.

"The real trick is to get people to think of post-prison care as part of their public-safety dollars," Taylor said.

That money should go to preventing recidivism, not building another prison, Taylor said.

But if the city decides it needs a new prison, Diaz said, any such facility would be years away.

"In the meantime, we have to manage our population efficiently," he said.

Read the Temple University report on the city's prison at http://go.philly.com/prisonreport
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20070827_All-time_high_for_Phila__inmat
es.html

Posted by lois at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

MA: License denied: DOE rejects Sadiq; Amherst school's choice files appeal

'He's the one we selected,' Hochman said.
License denied: DOE rejects Sadiq; Amherst school's choice files appeal
BY BOB DUNN STAFF WRITER
Daily Hampshire Gazette, Friday August 24, 2007

Page 1

AMHERST - Talib Sadiq, the controversial choice to take over as Amherst Regional Middle School's seventh-grade guidance counselor, has had his application for state certification denied, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education.

According to the department, Sadiq has filed an appeal of that decision, but no determination has been made yet on his request. Teachers, teacher specialists, professional support personnel and administrators must be licensed to work in the public schools of Massachusetts, the DOE states. Sadiq was hired by the Amherst Regional Public Schools to replace longtime middle school guidance counselor Barry Brooks, who retired at the end of last school year. Sadiq's hiring came under scrutiny when the Gazette reported that he served jail time for armed robbery after he held up a bank in Springfield with a loaded 9 mm handgun in 1993. When he committed that crime, he was known by his birth name, Vincent Bias. Since his arrest, Sadiq converted to Islam, changed his name, completed the necessary coursework to become a guidance counselor and served a one-year internship under Brooks' tutelage at the middle school.

Sadiq could not be reached for comment.

Heidi Guarino, spokeswoman for the DOE, said she could not divulge the reason for Sadiq's denial for confidentiality reasons. She said that a decision to reject an application for certification can be made for any number of reasons, and each application is handled on a case-by-case basis. According to the DOE's Criminal Offender Record Information policy, a criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant for a license. Amherst Superintendent Jere Hochman said by telephone Thursday that he had not received official notification from the Department of Education about Sadiq's application process but expected word soon. Hochman said the school will do whatever it can to install Sadiq as counselor. Hochman wrote in a recent email to the Gazette that the school will 'exhaust the avenues we can take to have someone we wish to employ in place.' According to the DOE, the Amherst school district can apply for a one-year waiver on behalf of a candidate whose certification is not complete. Waivers may be renewed, but a candidate who is employed under a one-year waiver must demonstrate 'continuous progress' toward completion of certification for the waiver to be renewed. Those waivers are reviewed and accepted on a case-by-case basis as well, Guarino said. Despite the delay in a decision on certification, Hochman said Sadiq will assume his duties as scheduled Aug. 27. The Gazette also received a flurry of comments from readers, reflecting a mix of views, after news reports revealed that all but one of the members of committee that interviewed Sadiq were unaware of his criminal record before interviewing him.

Hochman wrote the Gazette that Sadiq's record was not shared with the committee so that they could make a decision based solely on his skills and qualifications. Hochman was unsure what course of action the school district would take if Sadiq loses his appeal and is deemed unfit to work in a public school. 'We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,' Hochman said. Hochman and middle school Principal Fran Ziperstein have both said that Sadiq was the top candidate out of a large field of applicants. 'He's the one we selected,' Hochman said.

http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=55677&CSAuthResp=1187961964364474%3AqFA3DHN9Lo6pdw%3D%3D%3ACSUserId%7CCSGroupId%3Asuccess%3A3e5TEM%2BBdYKeqSRyIz1t%2Bg%3D%3D&CSUserId=&CSGroupId=

Posted by lois at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

School Does the Right Thing By Hiring Someone with a Previous Conviction

Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA
Sadiq has earned the right to work as school counselor

To the editor:

Your Aug. 18 front-page headline "Most of ARMS hiring committee didn't know of counselor's criminal history" creates a mistaken impression that something was amiss in what the hiring committee was told.

In fact, if one reads on Superintendent Jere Hochman states that, as a matter of routine, Criminal Offender Record information (CORI) checks are not conducted until after a candidate has been offered a position. This is completely within the guidelines of the Department of Education.

The ARMS hiring policy is also reflected in the Public Safety Act of 2007-2008 which would strengthen anti-discrimination protections for people with criminal records. The bill supported by our Hampshire County legislators, would make it illegal to refuse a person a job simply because he or she has a CORI.

I concur with Alberto Morales that everyone deserves a second chance, but unlike him I believe that the second chance should include the opportunity for meaningful work based on the experience and credentials of the job seeker. Talib Sadiq's education and training qualify him for the position for which he was hired. I hope that if the Gazette continues to cover this story, the thoughts include those of some of the many people who support the decision of the Amherst Regional Middle School and the School Committee. They have done the right thing in hiring Mr. Sadiq.

Lois Ahrens

Northampton

Posted by lois at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2007

SC: Report criticizes management of S.C. prisons

Posted on Sat, Aug. 25, 2007
Exclusive: Report criticizes management of S.C. prisons
Committee’s staff raises concerns about safety, operations, personnel issues, misuse of resources
By CLIF LeBLANC
cleblanc@thestate.com

A road map to a legislative investigation of state prisons alleges the public, prisoners and employees are either at risk or being mistreated.

The staff of a committee examining complaints of mismanagement has compiled a 12-page, preliminary report in preparation for a committee meeting Monday.

The report, obtained by The State, covers five broad areas of concern in what is described as a politically charged Corrections Department. It highlights about 45 incidents or examples. The report states the complaints are based on first-hand accounts but should not be considered findings of fact.

Some key complaints are:

• Prison safety — ranging from escapes and other security lapses to covering up a sexual assault of an employee by a convicted rapist for election-campaign reasons

• Questionable operations —abusive treatment of inmates, which includes use of a stun gun on a prisoner in a restraint chair. Prisoner surgeries for broken jaws are increasing, the report states.

• Misuse of resources — inmate labor and agency equipment were spent on a hunting and fishing reserve at a Sumter County prison. In addition, the report states the agency has done business with a tree-clearing company owned by a convicted felon who has personal ties to a prison employee.

Questions also are raised about prisons director Jon Ozmint’s selection of an inmate housekeeper and whether he gave her special treatment.

• Personnel issues — a hostile work environment that uses arbitrary procedures to punish detractors and requires lie detectors to track leaks and alters employment test scores for some applicants.

Ozmint challenged the report as “tired, recycled complaints raised by disgruntled employees,” and questioned the fairness of the committee staff. Senate staffers talked to anyone, “who might have some dirt on us,” yet have not given the agency a chance to respond, he said.

Ozmint said the report “found no major problems that are valid. No mismanagement. No corruption that we had failed to uncover.”

The report is intended as a starting point for the eight-member panel, which will select the issues it will examine more closely through sworn testimony or audits.

Committee chairman Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, declined to respond to the report, saying it was intended only for the panel’s use. He said the staff on Monday would provide details not contained in the report. Fair would not elaborate.

The document was compiled after numerous interviews with prison workers, former employees, inmates and their relatives, as well as the public. They came forward voluntarily, though many feared retaliation from the agency, the report states.

Their complaints — presented privately to a staff of two legislative lawyers and a former senior prison official — have not been substantiated by the committee.

PRISON SECURITY

Rules intended to keep prisons safe have been ignored, compromised or broken under Ozmint’s administration, according to the preliminary report.

Violations of generally accepted prison practices resulted in:

• A female employee being taken hostage and repeatedly assaulted by a convicted rapist Nov. 3 at Ridgeland Correctional Institution in Jasper County.

After the rape, prison leaders did not immediately intervene as procedures require, the report states. It said they hoped to contain the tense situation out of concern it “could have a negative impact on the gubernatorial election.”

Five days later, Gov. Mark Sanford became the second governor in 28 years elected to a consecutive term. The Corrections Department is a Cabinet agency that answers directly to the chief executive.

Authorities handled the standoff “in accordance with best practices,” Ozmint said in a nine-page written response to the newspaper.

He said the governor’s office was notified a hostage had been taken and when the situation was resolved. “We will not dignify a baseless lie with any further response.”

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer called the allegations of political considerations “both irresponsible and disgusting.”

Committee member Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, questioned why the convicted rapist was at a medium-security prison in the first place.

Rapist Lloyd Isaac was a maximum-security risk and had been moved to Ridgeland, a medium-security prison. Isaac was moved to serve as an informant for an agency investigator, the senator wrote in a Feb. 22 letter to Ozmint.

Isaac is awaiting trial in February on charges of kidnapping, hostage-taking and rape in that incident, prosecutor Duffie Stone said. If convicted, Isaac would be sentenced to life without parole, Stone said.

• Two inmates escaped in December 2003 from Ridgeland after telling agency leaders — in writing — they would do so.

It was the tandem’s second escape within weeks from the same prison. Normal procedures are to place escaped inmates in a more restrictive prison, the report states.

Ozmint did not respond to the newspaper’s questions about that complaint.

The report cites three other escapes, two of which occurred from Columbia’s Broad River Correctional Institution after guards lost track of prisoners. The most recent was this month by a murderer and a burglar after a supervisor failed to count prisoners correctly. Both were captured.

Ozmint said those were “mistakes made in selected instances.” Overall, escapes are down dramatically. Figures he released show there were 17 escapes last fiscal year, half the rate in 2003.

• During an August 2005 parole hearing at Lee Correctional Institution, a major provided a violent criminal a six-inch knife that had been seized as contraband. The major directed the prisoner to pull it on two women correctional officers, the report states.

Providing a weapon to an inmate is a felony punishable by up to 10 years. The major was neither disciplined nor charged, the report states.

Ozmint said in a March 1 letter to Knotts the prisoner did not threaten the women. The episode was an exercise to show they were negligent in their search procedures, Ozmint wrote. The women missed the shank when they patted down the inmate.

“It was a great idea, except for the use of the actual shank” Ozmint wrote.

Such exercises usually occur in classrooms and do not involve the use of inmates, the report notes.

The women said the episode was intimidation by the major for filing a sexual harassment complaint against him, the report states.

Other security issues mentioned include missing guns and keys inside prisons, and an inmate in a maximum-security prison having a drawing showing all internal and external access points with which inmates might not be familiar.

PRISONER TREATMENT

Several inmates or their relatives reported assaults while prisoners were handcuffed.

Corrections employees also reported abuse. They say there is an increase in the number of broken jaws and medical treatment. The report offers no details.

Ozmint said the complaints are false. “There has been no increase in allegations or confirmed instances of excessive force complaints.”

He said stun guns are not authorized in prisons.

Earlier this year, an inmate was awarded $600,000 from a lawsuit alleging beatings. It is being appealed, Ozmint said.

Prisoners also complained they have been denied food for breaking grooming and talking rules.

Ozmint has said a federal court upheld a similar practice in Wisconsin. But other courts have ruled against it.

WASTED RESOURCES

Prison facilities at the Wateree Correctional Institution near the rural Sumter County town of Rembert have been upgraded using inmate labor and agency materials and equipment, the report states.

Other details alleged include:

• A staff house has been converted into “a guest cottage.” A boat shed and fishing pier were built.

• About 30 deer stands constructed at Trenton and MacDougall correctional institutions were shipped to Wateree.

• A cattle-hauling vehicle was repainted, had chairs installed and got a new roof to convert it for use in dove hunting.

Agency administrators invite guests to hunt or fish.

The report contains no figures on the cost of the improvements.

Ozmint, who has complained for years the Legislature does not provide enough money to run prisons adequately, called the allegations false and reckless.

“No residence at Wateree ... has been renovated as described. We will gladly show you every residence.”

In another complaint, a tree-cutting company owned by an inmate was hired for at least three jobs, despite notification to agency administrators.

“Allegedly, there was a personal relationship between a staff member and the inmate,” the report states.

The company was the lowest bidder, and state law requires the agency to accept the low bid in all contracts, he said.

Ozmint said he banned the company from doing business with the prisons as soon as he learned of the connection with the inmate.

Other concerns listed include use of prison computers to view sexually explicit images and complaints of misuse of agency vehicles.

OZMINT’S HOUSEKEEPER

Dianne Graddick, convicted of murder in Aiken County two decades ago, works for the Ozmint family as a housekeeper. Ozmint calls her a model prisoner and a woman of Christian character.

She was one of several inmates recommended to work in the house by wardens, Ozmint said.

Ozmint changed Graddick’s security rating to allow her to work at his house and live in a nearby prison that has no fences. Ozmint said he made the change for convenience of her daily transports to the house, which is on prison property.

A maximum-security prison is nearby, but moving inmates from there is more restricted.

Graddick works at the 4,500-square-foot house weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Ozmint said. She earns $18.25 every two weeks.

Guards do not routinely patrol the house while Graddick works.

Ozmint said he has the authority to override any agency policy.

“If anybody else wants to ... take the director’s job and live surrounded by eight prisons and 6,500 inmates ... then they should be welcome to chose the inmate of their choice to work in their home around their wife and children,” Ozmint said.

Laws grant the department head “exclusive management and control of the prison system.” But statutes do not say explicitly the director may override any rule.

Committee chairman Fair and committee member Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, question Ozmint’s choice.

“It certainly raises concerns ... about his decision-making,” said Leventis, a longtime critic of Ozmint. “It seems like (Graddick’s selection) would have created a special class of inmates who have special dispensation from the director. There’s not anyone else that could tidy up around his house?”

HOSTILE WORKPLACE

Hirings, promotions and firings have become tools to target critics and reward favorites, the report states.

Employment test scores and inmate and vehicle-use records are altered, often “to cover mistakes.”

The scores are adjusted to hire favorites over more qualified candidates, the report states.

Several staffers complained about the use of lie-detectors to determine who is sharing information with whom, even when a criminal investigation is not under way.

Ozmint called the complaints “intentionally misleading and ... false in all respects.”

The agency uses lie detectors appropriately within the law and policy, and will continue to do so, he said.

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.

IF YOU GO

A Senate committee examining complaints of mismanagement in the state prison system is meeting to review a preliminary report by its staff.

When: 1 p.m., Monday

Where: Room 209 of the Gressette office building on the State House grounds

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

" JUSTICE FOR ALL" : How We Can Reduce Crime: Awareness & Feed the Homeless Day

" JUSTICE FOR ALL"
How We Can Reduce Crime
AWARENESS & FEED THE HOMELESS DAY
SATURDAY OCTOBER 20th, 2007
12 NOON - 4PM
MONROE PARK
1848 Moore Street (Belvidere/Main/Franklin)(Near VCU)
RICHMOND VIRGINIA 23220

Stop the Warehousing - Instead - Prisoner Education/Rehabilitation
Youth at-Risk Prevention Programs - Prison Reform - RIHD Prisoner Dictionaries Drive

Fair & Equal Housing, Employment for Ex-offenders & Homeless
Save Lives - Saving Families - Saving Communities -

Restoration of Rights & Voter Registration
***************

Come One - Come All
It's Free
Bring the Youth, the Entire Family, Friends, Neighbors, Communities
All are Welcome - Meet & Greet - You'll amongst Friends
Leave feeling Inspired & Empowered
An Event inspired by the People and for the People
Special Radio, TV and many other Guest Speakers
Various Musical Groups & other Entertainment

Prison Awareness Reading Play "Count" (show-time 1pm)
Resource & Informational Tables/Booths
Petition Signature Drives - 2008 Voter Registration Drive

Prisoner Artistic Works "4" Sale Fundraiser

FREE FOOD PACKAGES FOR OUR HOMELESSand MUCH MORE

--always do a little and a little at a time eventually makes a "BIG" difference --Barbara Cage

We are asking everyone to donate one (1) can food good to feed the homeless, which a high percentage are ex-offenders. To donate contact persons below
Additional Information Contact:
Sean: VaPrisonJustice@riseup.net
Ms. K: InMateResource@aol.com

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

August 24, 2007

Increase in inmates opens door to private prisons

Note: There are two graphics at the article's web site.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-prisons24aug24,0,368937.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntothtml
Los Angeles Times
Increase in inmates opens door to private prisons
California officials want to ease crowding and cut costs. Owners of the facilities foresee growth.
By Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 24, 2007

FLORENCE, ARIZ — . -- Mark Childress knows prisons -- from the inside.

Though only 36 years old, he's done stretches in 10 state lockups, including some of the toughest around. And now California has locked him up again -- this time in Arizona.

Childress is a part of a first wave of about 700 male convicts that California has shipped to privately owned and operated prisons in Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi. "I feel good, like I could do another 10 years," he said, half-jokingly.

The nation's big private prison companies like it too. Having long lusted after a share of California's 173,000-inmate population, they now foresee a steady stream of business.

Depending on the outcome of legal challenges, California could be "one of the longtime drivers of growth for the private prison industry," industry analyst Kevin Campbell said.

Until December, the state had not put a medium- or maximum-security prisoner in a private lockup since 1852, when it replaced a private prison ship in San Francisco Bay with California's first public prison, San Quentin.

Private companies say they can build secure prisons faster and cheaper than state governments and are not saddled with the high salaries and pension costs paid by public agencies.

Critics counter that states that use private prisons get what they pay for: Guards are poorly paid and trained, and private prisons experience more escapes and more disciplinary problems than state-run institutions, they contend. And the state is sending away its better-behaved prisoners, they say, making California prisons even more dangerous.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the Justice Department, said in a 2001 study that limited research showed that "privately operated prisons function as well as publicly operated prisons." Management problems usually are caused by poorly drafted contracts and poor oversight of private operators by states, the study said.

The public-private dilemma is hitting California head-on -- with corporate America battling the prison guard establishment.

The search to find more room for California prisoners -- and pressure from federal judges -- led to a $7.4-billion plan proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and approved by lawmakers in April. It gave the private prison companies the opening they've long sought.

For decades, these companies attempted to win contracts to house convicts in privately owned or leased in-state prisons, only to see their efforts thwarted by the wealthy, politically influential California prison guards union.

Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, the industry leader, even built a 2,300-bed, maximum-security prison as a speculative investment in Kern County in the mid-1990s. The state balked, and the facility now holds federal prisoners.

Now, California has signed a contract with Corrections Corp. to house as many as 4,000 prisoners at a per-prisoner price of $63 a day. That compares with the average of $123 a day that the state estimates it costs to keep an inmate in one of California's 33 prisons.

Opposition to private prisons from the 30,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., other state employees organizations and prison watchdog groups remains potent. They sued in Sacramento Superior Court to halt the transfers and won. But the judge put her ruling on hold pending an appeal in February.

"I'm dubious that it's a good idea for the state to embrace" private prisons, said Steve Fama, an attorney with the nonprofit inmate advocacy group Prison Law Office near San Quentin. Prisons are "a core state function," he said.

The governor should control the prison population by releasing nonviolent offenders and reducing parole revocations, not by building more prisons and sending inmates to other states, Fama said.

California is one of at least 30 states that have turned to the private prison industry for help after realizing that they couldn't build enough prisons to keep pace with a flood of new inmates as lawmakers passed ever-tougher sentencing laws.

Over the last decade, the number of inmate beds in private prisons has jumped sixfold to about 112,000 in mid-2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Most of the growth was at three major operators -- Corrections Corp., Boca Raton, Fla.-based Geo Group and Houston-based Cornell Cos.

"We think we can play a significant role in a solution to the problem" in California, said Tony Grande, Corrections Corp.'s vice president for state government relations. So far, California has sent 317 prisoners to Arizona, 312 to Mississippi and 80 to Tennessee.

Prison industry analysts, impressed with the growing demand for private prison beds, are upbeat. The stocks of the three big companies have shown solid growth this year. "We remain bullish," said Jeffrey T. Kessler, a Lehman Bros. equity researcher in a recent report.

Nowhere is the growth of the private prison industry more in evidence than in Florence in the Sonoran Desert. The town is a sort of prison-industrial complex that hosts 11 Arizona state prisons, a federal immigration detention center and four private lockups. It is home to 8,000 residents and about 17,000 inmates.

At the 2,200-bed Florence Correctional Center, Childress shares a cell with one inmate. Childress says he's far more comfortable in Arizona than he was when he bunked in a gym packed with more than 100 men at a California prison in a remote part of northeastern California.

Unlike most California prisons, the Florence facility is air-conditioned to handle the Arizona heat. But the Arizona prison is no country club, says Childress, California inmate No. P-24277. He and other California inmates, waiting for lunch in an austere cellblock day room, complained about the food at Florence and the lack of enough outdoor-exercise time.

Childress says he feels safer in the Arizona prison than he did in California, where racially segregated gangs often rule the exercise yards and guards watch inmates with automatic rifles at the ready.

"We're not around too much danger. Most people here are trying to get away from that," he said.

Corrections Corp. says its prisons are clean, safe and secure. But the company acknowledges that its prisons are not immune from occasional assaults, disturbances and violence.

"Safety and security is the obvious No. 1 priority for CCA," spokeswoman Louise Grant said. "We have a very strong record that compares very favorably with our public counterparts."

Government reports show that Corrections Corp. has had fewer escapes, suicides and homicides than comparable public prisons, she said.

In Florence, Corrections Corp.'s facility radiates little of the watch-your-back tension among inmates that permeates massive California prisons.

"It's less tense, and it's quiet," said Francisco Barrios, 37, of Burbank, doing five years for illegal discharge of a firearm. "The people who came here want to do their time and go home."

California is not shipping out prisoners wholesale. The state sends only medium-security and some minimum-security inmates out of state. Maximum-security prisoners, including those on death row, and others with mental illness or serious health problems are ineligible. Inmates at women's prisons, which are not as crowded as male institutions, are not sent out of state.

Bill Sessa, a spokesman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, says there's no evidence that the transfers have made California prisons more dangerous. Inmates to be transferred must meet legal and security criteria and "are being matched to the security level of institutions available to us," he said.

Corrections officials say they want to ease crowding, at least temporarily, and avoid the possibility that federal judges might put a limit on convict populations and force the governor to release felons before their sentences are completed.

Turning to private prisons is "not a policy of choice," Sessa said. "It's a policy of circumstances."

But California prison guard unions, with many members making more than $100,000 a year with overtime pay, aren't eager to give up any jobs to their less well-paid colleagues at the private prisons.

Private prisons are "making a fortune off of people's misery," said Ryan Sherman, a spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. "It's dungeons for dollars."

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

Posted by lois at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

The Nation: Locked Up in New Orleans

It's not so far from the way things were more than a century ago. Antebellum city records refer to what is now the Orleans Parish Prison as the Workhouse. In addition to those arrested for crime, the jail was a repository for slaves whose masters chose to lease them to the Workhouse. The same archives also reveal that African-Americans were committed to the Workhouse for "claiming to be free": In the space where the master's name was usually recorded, these inmates were referred to as "so-called free." After the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans arrested in New Orleans for black-code crimes like vagrancy and unemployment were taken to the parish Workhouse. During Reconstruction, the incarcerated former slaves provided a critical pool of forced labor for railroad companies, agriculture and industry. In its first regular session post-Katrina, the state legislature amended a law regulating parish jail labor in order to grant immunity to prison authorities "for injuries or damages caused or suffered by prisoners participating in any work program during incarceration at parish jail facilities." When I asked a legislative staffer about the origins of the post-Katrina amendment, she said, "I believe it was because there was a labor shortage."

The Nation

Locked Up in New Orleans

by ROBIN TEMPLETON

[from the September 10, 2007 issue]

"I never got paid," Dewitt Solomon tells me. Nine months before the levees broke, Solomon had a minimum-wage job busing tables and washing dishes at Messina's, a popular New Orleans tourist restaurant. But instead of paying him directly, Messina's gave Solomon's paychecks to the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office. Solomon, who was serving time in the Orleans Parish Prison--the eighth largest penal institution in the country and the largest correctional facility in Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina--was enrolled in the sheriff's work-release program.

"
The prison was supposed to give him his wages, minus the $500 a month it deducted for room and board, the day it returned to Solomon his freedom. Solomon says that the sheriff still owes him $1,500.

Sitting at the kitchen table at his home in New Orleans's West Bank, Solomon and I are feeding bottles to his twin sons. The babies weighed less than two pounds at birth. Now, at 13 months, they're startlingly small but chugging away at the formula like they're in a race to catch up. Solomon's 5-year-old daughter is prancing around the room with a Dora the Explorer coloring book. She has proclaimed that the cartoon heroine is her twin sister. The resemblance is, actually, striking.

Solomon says he tried for months to recoup his lost earnings and never got a call back from the sheriff's office. He gave up after floodwater washed away his only proof, the pay stubs he'd saved from the restaurant.

Solomon sounds more resigned than bitter. "It's not that I couldn't still use the money," he says. "I'm just glad I got in and out before it got any worse." Solomon describes how his brother-in-law was arrested on trespassing charges when he went to check on storm damage to his father's home. His cousin was also arrested for a nonviolent crime weeks ago, and no one in the family has been able to make contact or even determine where he's being held.

New Orleans has the highest incarceration rate of any major US city--double the national rate. Louisiana also locks up more people in local jails than any state due in part to state laws, unheard of in other parts of the country, that paralyze due process.

District attorneys have sixty days from the time of arrest in a felony case and forty-five days in a misdemeanor case to decide whether to press charges and typically use the full statutory time limit. From there, it takes an average of three months for detainees to get a court date. It can take up to three years to get to trial. According to a recent study by the Vera Institute of Justice, 41 percent of those entering the Orleans Parish Prison would qualify to be released on their own recognizance. Instead, the city opts to lock people up if they can't post bail, which is true of three-quarters of the jail's detainees.

While it was bad before the storm, "now the system is only working to pick people up," says Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley. "It's a vacuum, sucking poor people in and keeping them in. Being arrested now equals being sent to prison."

Nearly a year after Katrina, the city's backlog of cases reached at least 6,000. Judge Arthur Hunter of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court declared that "it is a pathetic and shameful state of affairs the criminal justice system finds itself in" and said that he would mark the one-year anniversary of the storm by beginning to release poor defendants.

But just as Hunter was declaring a constitutional state of emergency last summer, New Orleans was hit by a devastating crime wave. With half its former population, the city saw its crime rate escalate back to pre-Katrina levels. By the time it was gearing up for its second post-Katrina Mardi Gras celebration, national media were pronouncing New Orleans the murder capital of the United States.

Under the headline "Dysfunction Fuels Cycle of Killing in New Orleans," the New York Times reported in February that a "uniquely poisoned set of circumstances" was fueling the violence, including the destruction of the city's only crime lab, friction between police and prosecutors, community distrust and fear of the police, uncooperative or vanished witnesses and "murderers' brutalized childhoods." The majority of victims and suspects have been young African-American men--many teenagers--caught up in a drug trade that was reinvigorated, reorganized and made more lethal amid turf wars in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The crime crisis is part and parcel of a wider social crisis. Two years after the storm, only one-third of the childcare centers and 45 percent of the public schools in Orleans Parish have reopened. Mental health services for residents suffering from depression, drug addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder are practically nonexistent. The city's Housing Authority has slated thousands of units of public housing for demolition, the majority of which were not damaged by the storm.

Bill Quigley has represented hundreds of families fighting to reclaim their homes and possessions from the Housing Authority. "One of the reasons they say they don't want to reopen public housing is that they don't want to let crime back into the city," Quigley explains. "But crime is already back in.

The truth is that there are a lot of young people here without their families. The families don't have housing. So kids are coming back on their own, without their aunts and their mothers and their grandparents. Neighborhoods are breaking down because we don't have the families back. We don't have a lot of the churches. We don't have the infrastructure in poor communities that we had before.

"Some of us in the city think it's a bigger crime to keep thousands of families out of their apartments than to sell drugs," he notes. "But law enforcement doesn't see it that way."

Indeed, city officials responded to the crime wave with a troop surge. The city's police department is nearly staffed back up to its pre-Katrina size and budgeted all the way back up. Local law enforcement has been joined by sixty state troopers and 300 National Guard troops in Humvees and military uniforms--they've christened themselves "Task Force Gator"--at a cost to the state of $35 million.

Police have been making a record number of arrests, now averaging over 1,300 a week. But as the crime problem persists, they don't seem to be getting the bad guys. According to recent exit interviews with detainees leaving the parish jail, conducted by the local criminal justice reform organization Safe Streets/Strong Communities, 80 percent were being held for nonviolent offenses, mostly on low-level drug or alcohol charges. "The city is plagued by violent crime, residents who will never be charged with a crime spend weeks in jail," the Vera Institute recently reported, "and some serious offenders are released with no charges."

Ursula Price, Safe Streets's outreach and investigations coordinator, describes the case of a woman in the jail "who had called 911 about a domestic violence incident. Instead of trying to help her, the police ran her name and ended up arresting her on an outstanding traffic violation."

Safe Streets provides first responders to the city's incarcerated. The group has racked up huge phone bills accepting collect calls from the Orleans Parish Prison and the diaspora of correctional facilities to which arrestees were scattered in the wake of the storm. Some callers just want to know why they're there--it can take days for police, whom one criminal defense lawyer described as "functionally illiterate," to complete a report. Others wonder how long they might be in, whether they have a court date, how they can get legal support or how they can contact their family or boss.

Callers from Orleans Parish Prison also report dungeonlike conditions: twenty-five people held in cells built for ten, so many people sleeping in one area that you can't even see the floor, no fresh or conditioned air, overflowing toilets, inconsistent electricity and iffy plumbing. The prison has yet to regain the accreditation it lost in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when hundreds of inmates were abandoned in fetid floodwaters in what local writer and criminal defense attorney Billy Sothern described as "the biggest prison crisis since Attica" [see "Left to Die," January 2, 2006].

This summer Glenn Thomas, the 29-year-old son of Rosetta James, a member of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, died in Orleans Parish Prison. James didn't learn of her son's death from the sheriff's office, she says, but by word of
mouth: "One of the inmates was able to call his mother and tell her that Glenn had died, and she came and found me. I said, 'Nobody tell me nothing. I'm going to the jail.'" When she got there, the morning of July 4, James was told that her son, who had no known medical problems, had died the night before at 11 pm of "natural causes," and that she could call back in another month for the official report.

Thomas died waiting for his day in court. On May 19, 2004, he was arrested for simple drug possession. He was slated to appear in court about a year later, on August 31, 2005, when the city was uninhabitable. Nonetheless, a warrant was issued for his arrest for failing to appear. In October 2006, Thomas was arrested and detained in the Orleans Parish Prison. His new court date, the one he didn't live to see, was set for August 2007.

Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman's public information officer, Renee Lapeyrolerie, said they couldn't provide details about Thomas's death but said, "Well, in his criminal history he had a lot of drug arrests. Those things can be linked to health problems."

"This is the third death there's been in there this year," says Safe Streets co-director Norris Henderson. "It's all the same story. The jail says they don't know why any of these people died. Anything wrong that happens in his facilities the sheriff blames on the inmates or on not having enough money," Henderson says. "But you really can't blame Glenn for his own death, and you can't blame it on the money, because he's got that."

As mandated by a 35-year-old consent decree intended to remedy abusive conditions in the jail, the city pays the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office a per diem amount for each local inmate, plus $3.2 million annually to provide medical services. In his 2007 budget request to the City Council, Gusman asked for an additional $5 million for medical services, a request that was granted.

Henderson is solemn when asked what it will take to get public officials to pay attention to the crisis. "It's not like I want a Rodney King situation where people burn the city down, because we don't have much of a city left to burn. But we need to do something, a sit-down, a walkout, something. It's getting to the point where we need some drama."

Dana Kaplan of the Center for Constitutional Rights summarizes the essential problem facing reformers. "Right now Gusman's funding is tied to the number of the people in the jail. How are we going to get money for schools and services and jobs programs with so much money tied up in the jail?"

Gusman's recent budget requests make it clear that he is banking on crime. His 2007 "budget request for these payments is based on our expected City inmate population," the sheriff wrote to the City Council. "The inmate population is driven primarily by the number of arrests made by the Police Department. Since the storm, the arrest rate has consistently increased in an attempt to stem the rising crime rate." In his 2005 request, Gusman explained that the depopulation of the jail in the immediate wake of Katrina represented a "90 percent reduction in revenue, but our fixed costs remain high."

Gusman has never publicly said that his aim is to build Orleans Parish Prison, which can now accommodate 2,500 inmates, back up to its former size, which was 8,000 before Katrina. But in written testimony to the US House of Representatives in April 2007, he listed as chief among his critical needs "the restoration of our four largest jail facilities." This, Gusman wrote, "would increase our capacity (an additional 4,100 beds) to hold some of New Orleans [sic] most violent and repeat offenders."

In other words, "build them and fill them," says Henderson, "and we know who'll be filling them."

Henderson and other local advocates formed Safe Streets/ Strong Communities in the wake of Katrina, in the words of their founding statement, "to demand that elected officials address the root causes of our decades-long public safety crisis, cease blaming the victims, and stop investing time and money on tactics that have never worked.... Many of our children have been given nothing to reach for except guns and little to own and be proud of but their street corners."

While Safe Streets has scored some recent victories--helping win the appointment of a new Indigent Defender Board and funding to launch the Office of the Independent Monitor to oversee police policies and practices, for instance--the real challenge for activists is the fight to reallocate public resources, out of law and order and into community recovery.

But to Sheriff Gusman, these are one and the same; he has made sure that the city's path to recovery will be paved by his inmates--literally. Since Katrina, Gusman has used his Community Service Program and Neighborhood Response Team to deliver cheap labor for reconstruction projects. His office's website features photos of inmates in orange jumpers and sweatshirts emblazoned with Sheriff Gusman Community Service Program next to road signs announcing, Project Clean-Up. Inmates Working.

It's not so far from the way things were more than a century ago. Antebellum city records refer to what is now the Orleans Parish Prison as the Workhouse. In addition to those arrested for crime, the jail was a repository for slaves whose masters chose to lease them to the Workhouse. The same archives also reveal that African-Americans were committed to the Workhouse for "claiming to be free": In the space where the master's name was usually recorded, these inmates were referred to as "so-called free." After the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans arrested in New Orleans for black-code crimes like vagrancy and unemployment were taken to the parish Workhouse. During Reconstruction, the incarcerated former slaves provided a critical pool of forced labor for railroad companies, agriculture and industry.

In its first regular session post-Katrina, the state legislature amended a law regulating parish jail labor in order to grant immunity to prison authorities "for injuries or damages caused or suffered by prisoners participating in any work program during incarceration at parish jail facilities." When I asked a legislative staffer about the origins of the post-Katrina amendment, she said, "I believe it was because there was a labor shortage."

Lieut. Eric Donnelly, director of the sheriff's work-release program, the one that Dewitt Solomon took part in before the storm, told a local business paper that the program played a vital role in restarting the city's economic engine. "As soon as the hurricane ended and we got a new phone, it was ringing off the hook from employers saying they needed their inmates," Donnelly said. "So as soon as we were getting them back in we had [employers] coming to pick them up themselves. That's how much they rely on this program."

But, as Solomon says, "you shouldn't have to go to jail to get a job."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070910/templeton

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

Study Relates Racial Discrimination with Alcohol and Other Drug Use

Study Relates Racial Discrimination with Alcohol and Other Drug Use August 23, 2007

People who say they are victims of racial discrimination are more likely to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, researchers say.

UPI reported Aug. 20 that researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of California at San Francisco and Harvard University collaborated on a study that found that 89 percent of African-Americans reported being victims of discrimination, compared to 38 percent of white Americans.

Alcohol, tobacco and other drugs use was higher among those reporting discrimination regardless of their race. Black victims of discrimination tended to be more educated and wealthier, while whites reporting discrimination tended to be less educated and poorer.

"It is possible that use of a recreational drug helps to cope with life stress resulting from perceived unfair treatment because of one's race/ethnicity," study leader Luisa Borrell of the Mailman School of Public Health.

http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2007/study-relates-racial.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=33861362

Posted by lois at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2007

Those on parole have paid their debts

Here’s an excellent Op-Ed by Kim Carter, founder and executive director of Time for Change Foundation

Those on parole have paid their debts
by Kim Carter
San Bernardino County Sun 08/22/2007

When is enough enough? How would you like it if after you paid your bill, debt collectors continued to call you three and four times a day?

What if you honestly answered the question, "Have you ever lied?" and then you were condemned to being called a liar for the rest of your life?

For those of you who consider yourselves perfect and have never fallen short in the eyesight of God, what are you still doing on earth, angels?

People on parole have paid their debts to society. They are human beings on parole - not "parolees."

People on parole have served their time in prison to pay their debts. They paid. When will the punishment stop?

Instead of counting how many people are on parole in this city, the question should be: What is wrong with a city that produces so many people on parole?

Let's take the housing issue first.

Conditional-use permits have become political devices, and thus far any social service agency that has tried to create housing for people coming home from prison has been turned down.

For people with arrest histories, the housing authority has a 10-year waiting period just to apply for low income housing.

Other property owners - who also require background checks as well as a verified income of three times the monthly rent - do not rent to people with arrest histories.

So let's see, where are these people supposed to live? Not your problem, right? Not in your city, right?

And then some foolish taxpayers are going to spend $46,000 a year to house that same person in prison when he doesn't check in with his parole agent.

Ask yourselves, if you slept up under the bridge all night or behind a Dumpster, would you wake up in the morning to rush and see a parole agent who doesn't have any food vouchers, bus tickets or a warm blanket for you?

People on parole cannot vote, which makes them easy targets, sitting ducks for political abuse, particularly for politicians who are lacking credibility and must grandstand on the backs of the defenseless.

Second, employment: Why don't "these people" get a job? Besides residents' and employers' prejudice against the formerly incarcerated, they are systematically denied occupational licenses such as barbering, cosmetology and landscaping. This further perpetuates the problems with re-entry and their inability to secure the basic human necessities.

At this point, employers are screening people based on their application acknowledging past criminal history, without ever having interviewed the potential employee. If people coming home from prison cannot get a living-wage job, participate in our tax base, pay back child support and become financially responsible for their children, then guess what? Oops, there go those foolish taxpayers again - jail instead of jobs.

Unfortunately, our legal system is not color-blind, nor is it equitable and just. Those who have financial means are able to pay for their version of justice, while those who are dependent upon a public system, that is dependent upon a government, well, you know the story about dependents, right?

When you are dependent, you have lost your independence and fall at the mercy of others' time, talent and treasure.

I speak as a person who has been off parole for 15 years, as a stakeholder in this city, a property owner in this city and a long-standing community activist.

I want you to think about this: When former Sheriff Floyd Tidwell was convicted of stealing over 500 guns from the sheriff's department, none of which has been returned, he was excused from going to prison to "pay his debt to society," and there wasn't a public outcry.

There were no NIMBYs on duty in his neighborhood, and somehow no one thought to send in the troops to track down all of the guns that kill people.

When Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was recently convicted of all those federal charges and sentenced to prison, he too was excused from "paying his debt to society."

And now we have Mary, 23, mother of two children, convicted of writing bad checks in the amount of $623 - and sentenced to three years in prison.

The judge said, "There is no excuse," as Mary pleaded that there was no one to take care of her children.

So Mary went to "pay her debt to society" at a cost of $142,000.

Her children went into the system at a cost of $385,000.

And who paid for this? Oops, there go those foolish taxpayers again.

Now rumor has it that infamous celebrity Martha Stewart might be coming to San Bernardino, and that she's thinking of doing something really, really big. But I don't think the fact she was once on parole has ever been a problem for her. Do you?

After all, she is Martha Stewart, not "a parolee."

Kim Carter is founder and executive director of Time for Change Foundation.

http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_6682924?source=email

Posted by lois at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)

Governors of LA, PA, WA, IL: "Better models for juvenile justice"

"Now, in partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Models for Change initiative, we are working to further improve juvenile justice policy and practice across the country. However, these efforts could be at risk if public opinion becomes unnecessarily inflamed again."

Christian Science Monitor: Opinion

Better models for juvenile justice
By Rod R. Blagojevich, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Edward G. Rendell and Chris Gregoire Wed Aug 22, 2007

Springfield, Ill.; Baton Rouge, La.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Olympia, Wash. -

Amid news stories that raise the specter of increasing juvenile crime, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that crime rates overall, particularly for violent crimes, are still near 30-year lows. The cries of alarm are reminiscent of those heard in the early 1990s, when a rise in violent juvenile crime and myths of superpredators helped transform a system that had been focused on individualized treatment and rehabilitation for nearly a century into one that was increasingly harsh and punitive.

The impact of these policies began to hit home. Thousands of adolescents, locked up during a critical period of development, returned to their communities without the skills or support to lead productive lives. A disproportionately large number of them were young minorities. The cost of "get tough" policies was measured not only in escalating budgets of prisons and detention centers and rising recidivism rates, but also in reduced public safety and the loss of human potential.

Over the past decade, groundbreaking research on adolescent development and on what works to help young people steer clear of crime has brought about more rational and effective policies. Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington were among the first to incorporate this new knowledge in reshaping our juvenile justice systems.

Now, in partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Models for Change initiative, we are working to further improve juvenile justice policy and practice across the country. However, these efforts could be at risk if public opinion becomes unnecessarily inflamed again.

Illinois launched the nation's first juvenile justice system more than a century ago. But, like many other states in the 1990s, it turned away from its historic rehabilitative mission, transferring a growing number of youths to adult court. The result was a sharp rise in recidivism rates and a growing racial disparity in incarceration rates.

Illinois is now renewing its commitment to juvenile justice by enacting a new law to separate the juvenile and adult systems to better protect young people. Redeploy Illinois, a model demonstration in four counties, provides incentives to place nonviolent juvenile offenders in community-based programs. As a result of this program, Illinois has reduced commitments of nonviolent juveniles by 44 percent at its pilot sites since 2004.

In the 1990s, Louisiana had the highest juvenile incarceration rate in the nation and some of the worst juvenile prisons. A lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice spurred major reforms, including the closing of a large juvenile correction facility. Louisiana also separated juvenile from adult corrections, first by executive order and then by statute.

In less than a decade, the state has reduced the number of incarcerated youths by more than 70 percent while also lowering crime rates. Now Louisiana is developing alternatives to the court system that will hold youths accountable while engaging their families and communities.

Pennsylvania has long had fiscal incentives to encourage community-based programs. The state introduced "balanced and restorative justice," an individualized approach that considers the goals of accountability, community protection, and youth development at the same time. Pennsylvania is now establishing high-quality aftercare programs to help young offenders acquire life skills and become productive citizens. It is also one of the first states to mandate that counties report race and ethnicity data at key points in case processing, a critical step in reducing disparities.

Washington has a long history of using research to inform juvenile justice policy-making. Ongoing evaluation of its programs and services has demonstrated which ones effectively reduce juvenile crime and recidivism.

Now the state is expanding these evidence-based programs throughout the state to reach youths before they become deeply involved in the juvenile justice system. The state's functional family therapy program has reduced recidivism rates by 38 percent and saved taxpayers $10.69 for every $1 invested.

Change under way in our states and others appears to be the beginning of a new wave of reform. Juvenile justice is returning to its founding principles of protection, treatment, and rehabilitation, while embracing the equally important principles of accountability and public safety.

These reforms are firmly rooted in scientific research, ongoing assessment, and continuing evolution in policy and practice. We hope that other states will join us. With every state that participates in these efforts, our knowledge increases and, with it, the prospects for success.

€ Rod R. Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco is the governor of Louisiana. Edward G. Rendell is the governor of Pennsylvania, and Chris Gregoire is the governor of Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070822/cm_csm/ygovernors

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

Grace Paley, Writer and Activist, Dies

New York Times
August 23, 2007
Grace Paley, Writer and Activist, Dies
By MARGALIT FOX

Grace Paley, the celebrated writer and social activist whose acclaimed short stories explored in precise, pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died Wednesday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84 and lived most of her life in Manhattan before moving to Vermont in 1988. .
Her husband, Robert Nichols, told the Associated Press that she had battled breast cancer. The agency did not say whether her death was directly connected to that illness.

Ms. Paley's output was modest, just 45 stories in three volumes: "The Little Disturbances of Man" (Doubleday, 1959); "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974); and "Later the Same Day" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985). But she attracted a devoted following and was widely praised by critics for her pitch-perfect dialogue, which managed to be surgically spare and unimaginably rich at the same time.
Her "Collected Stories," published by Farrar, Straus in 1994, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. From 1986 to 1988, Ms. Paley was New York's first official state author.
Ms. Paley was among the earliest American writers to explore the lives of women - mostly Jewish, mostly New Yorkers - in all their dailyness. She focused especially on single mothers, whose days were an exquisite mix of sexual yearning and pulverizing fatigue. In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud's men had loved and left behind.
To read Ms. Paley's fiction is to be awash in the shouts and murmurs of secular Yiddishkeit, with its wild onrushing joy and twilight melancholy. For her, cadence and character went hand in hand: her stories are marked by their minute attention to language, with its tonal rise and fall, its hairpin rhetorical reversals and its capacity for delicious hyperbolic understatement. Her stories, many of which are written in the first person and seem to start in mid-conversation, beg be read aloud.
Some critics found Ms. Paley's stories short on plot, and in fact much of what happens is that nothing much happens. Affairs begin, babies are born, affairs end. Mothers gather in the park. But that was exactly the point. In Ms. Paley's best stories, the language is so immediate, the characters so authentic, that they are propelled by an inherent urgency - the kind that makes readers ask, "And then what happened?"
Open Ms. Paley's first collection, "The Little Disturbances of Man," to the first story, "Goodbye and Good Luck":
"I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the flesh. In time to come, Lillie, don't be surprised - change is a fact of God. From this no one is excused. Only a person like your mama stands on one foot, she don't notice how big her behind is getting and sings in the canary's ear for thirty years. Who's listening? Papa's in the shop. You and Seymour, thinking about yourself. So she waits in a spotless kitchen for a kind word and thinks - poor Rosie.
"Poor Rosie! If there was more life in my little sister, she would know my heart is a regular college of feelings and there is such information between my corset and me that her whole married life is a kindergarten."
Hooked.
For Ms. Paley's immigrant Jews, the push and pull of assimilation is everywhere. Parents live in the East Bronx or Coney Island; their grown children flee to Greenwich Village. A family agonizes over its lively daughter's starring role in her school's Christmas pageant.
Later stories were even darker. Women are raped; children died of drug overdoses. Threading through the books are familiar characters, in particular Faith Darwin, the subject of many of Ms. Paley's finest stories, grown older and world-wearier.
Though Ms. Paley's work also rings with Irish and Italian and black voices, it was for the language of her childhood, a heady blend of Yiddish, Russian and English, that she was best known. Reviewers sometimes called her prose postmodern, but all of it - even the death-defying, almost surreal turns of logic that were a stylistic hallmark - was already present in Yiddish oral tradition. For instance:
A man meets a friend on the street.
"So, how's by you?" the friend asks.
"Ach," the man replies. "My wife left me; the children don't call; business is bad. With life so terrible, better not to have been born."
"Yes," his friend says. "But how many are so lucky? Not one in ten thousand."
Grace Goodside was born in the Bronx on Dec. 11, 1922. (The family changed its name from Gutseit on coming to the United States.) Her parents, Isaac and the former Manya Ridnyik, were Ukrainian Jewish Socialists who had been exiled by Czar Nicholas II - Isaac to Siberia, Manya to Germany. In 1906, they were able to leave for New York, where Isaac became a doctor. They had a son and a daughter, and, approaching middle age, a third child, Grace.
Her childhood was noisy and warm. There were stories and singing and good strong tea. Always, there was argument. The Communists hollered at the Socialists, the Socialists hollered at the Zionists, and everybody hollered at the anarchists.
Ms. Paley studied for a year at Hunter College before marrying Jess Paley, a film cameraman, at 19; the marriage ended in divorce in 1972. Hoping to be a poet (she studied briefly with Auden at the New School), she wrote only verse until she was in her 30's. But little by little, the narrative speech of the old neighborhood - here, that of young Shirley Abramowitz in "The Loudest Voice" - began to assert itself:
"There is a certain place where dumb-waiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash; every window is a mother's mouth bidding the street shut up, go skate somewhere else, come home. My voice is the loudest.
"There, my own mother is still as full of breathing as me and the grocer stands up to speak to her. 'Mrs. Abramowitz,' he says, 'people should not be afraid of their children.'
" 'Ah, Mr. Bialik,' my mother replies, 'if you say to her or her father "Ssh," they say, "In the grave it will be quiet." ' "
A self-described "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist," Ms. Paley was a lifelong advocate of liberal social causes. During Vietnam, she was jailed several times for antiwar protests; in later years, she lobbied for women's rights, against nuclear proliferation and, most recently, against the war in Iraq. For decades, she was a familiar presence on lower Sixth Avenue, near her Greenwich Village home, smiling broadly, gum cracking, leaflets in hand.
Ms. Paley, who taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence and the City College of New York, was also a past vice president of the PEN American Center.
Some critics have called Ms. Paley's work uneven, but what they really seemed to mean is that it was too even: similar people in similar situations in similar places. But the stories that worked - and many did - were so blindingly satisfying that the lesser ones scarcely mattered. In her best work, Ms. Paley collapsed entire worlds into a few perfect paragraphs, as in the opening of "Wants," from "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute":
"I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.
"Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
"He said, What? What life? No life of mine.
"I said, O.K. I don't argue when there's real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.
"The librarian said $32 even and you've owed it for eighteen years. I didn't deny anything. Because I don't understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.
"My ex-husband followed me to the Books Returned desk. He interrupted the librarian, who had more to tell. In many ways, he said, as I look back, I attribute the dissolution of our marriage to the fact that you never invited the Bertrams to dinner.
"That's possible, I said. But really, if you remember: first, my father was sick that Friday, then the children were born, then I had those Tuesday-night meetings, then the war began."

Her other books include a collection of essays, "Just As I Thought" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), and three volumes of poetry, "Leaning Forward" (Granite Press, 1985); "New and Collected Poems" (Tilbury Press, 1991); and "Long Walks and Intimate Talks" (Feminist Press, 1991). A film, "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute," based on three stories in the collection and adapted by John Sayles and Susan Rice, was released in 1983.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1978, Ms. Paley put her finger on the grass-roots sensibility that informed her work.
"I'm not writing a history of famous people," she explained. "I am interested in a history of everyday life."

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company


--

Posted by lois at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

2 New York prisoners sue to get their banned religious books back

International Herald Tribune
2 New York prisoners sue to get their banned religious books back

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

NEW YORK: Two New York inmates challenging a ban on some religious books in chapel libraries at U.S. prisons are trying to take the fight nationwide, asking that their lawsuit be given class action status so it can benefit thousands of others behind bars.

Moshe Milstein, an Orthodox Jew, and John J. Okon, a Protestant, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Tuesday. They withdrew a similar lawsuit two months ago after a judge said they needed to register complaints with the prison system first.

The men accused the government of the "indiscriminate dismantling of religious libraries" at federal prisons nationwide.

Prison libraries limited the number of books for each religion to between 100 and 150 under new rules created after a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice review of how prisons choose Muslim religious services providers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Feldman said.

Feldman said the study was done out of a concern that prisons "had been radicalized by inmates who were practicing or espousing various extreme forms of religion, specifically Islam, which exposed security risks to the prisons and beyond the prisons to the public at large."

The lawsuit says hundreds and perhaps thousands of religious books and media used by inmates have been banned and removed from prisons across the United States since February without any effort to learn if they are inflammatory or extremist.

"This purge is an unnecessary, unconstitutional and unlawful restriction of the ability of federal inmates nationwide to practice and learn about their religion and has substantially burdened their ability to exercise their religion," the lawsuit says.

Among the books banned at their prison were "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, and "The Purpose-Driven Life" by the Rev. Rick Warren, the lawsuit said.

The Muslim portion of the chapel library has been reduced to the Quran and two other titles after the removal of prayer books, prayer guides and the Hadith, the most important source for Muslim practice and faith after the Quran, the lawsuit says.

A spokeswoman for government attorneys had no comment Wednesday.

The men's lawsuit did not say why they were in prison, but it said Milstein is scheduled to be released Aug. 28.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/22/america/NA-GEN-US-Prison-Book-Ban.php

Posted by lois at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)

Electronic anklet has potential for prison system

Mangold said the data collected during his weekend test will help show state legislators what the device can do.He expects to travel with Tidwell to Cheyenne to discuss what changes to state law might need to be made to allow for its use. Mangold said the device may be a way to help ease prison crowding, address a shortage of jailers and save the state money on working with low-risk offenders, all while helping get parolees back to work. "We need to try something else," he said. "Building new prisons doesn't work."

Billings (MT) Gazette

8/21/07

Electronic anklet has potential for prison system, Mangold says.
By RUFFIN PREVOST Gazette Wyoming Bureau

CODY - Elected officials can sometimes be hard to find, but Powell Mayor Scott Mangold could be located with a few keystrokes on a computer over the weekend, as a network of satellites tracked his every move.

Mangold strapped on an electronic monitoring anklet Thursday and wore it until Sunday morning to test a system being marketed by Freedom Fighters, a Wyoming company seeking to sell the gear to law enforcement.

Powell Police Chief Tim Feathers wrote in a memo to Mangold that he sees potential advantages in using the device as a possible alternative to incarceration for certain nonviolent, first-time offenders.

Mangold said he thinks it could save taxpayers money at a time when hundreds of the state's prisoners are housed out of state, and finding qualified jailers can be difficult when competing with high oil and gas wages.

"Prison is a place for repeat, violent offenders, but this offers an alternative," said Boone Tidwell of Freedom Fighters, who will be pitching the device to Wyoming sheriffs and prison managers.

Tidwell, a retired sheriff's detective and former bail bondsman, is marketing the device in Wyoming for manufacturer SecureAlert, a Utah company that also monitors offenders wearing the anklets.

Equipped with a global positioning unit and a cell phone, the TrackerPal is a little larger than a pack of cigarettes, uses detachable, rechargeable battery packs, and is attached with a custom tool.

Police can use the TrackerPal's cell phone to speak with offenders.

Tidwell said the device differs from older electronic monitoring anklets, which allowed offenders to stay within a few yards of a fixed base station, typically located in their homes.

With the latest generation of equipment, probation or parole officers can set up an exclusion zone where the wearer is not allowed, such as a school or park, in the case of a registered sex offender.

Or, they may be allowed only at home, work and the road between the two places, he said.

Future versions of the device available by early next year will be able to take readings from the wearer's skin and detect drug or alcohol use, Tidwell said.

"This would help a lot of the 'meth moms' that we're giving those massive jail sentences of 10 or 15 years to," Mangold said.

"You could attach one of these to them after they've completed a treatment program and get them back to their families and into the work force. If it detects meth, they go back to jail," he said.

Because offenders would wear the anklets instead of being locked up, they would be volunteering for the program, and could be required to help pay for some or all of its costs, he said.

Tidwell figured the anklets would cost around $15 to $25 per day, including monitoring, which could be done by local law enforcement or through SecureAlert.

"When you consider we're shipping hundreds of prisoners out of the state to be housed at a cost of $60 per day, this could mean a savings of several millions of dollars a year," he said.

Mangold said the device was set up to alert if he traveled more than about three miles from Powell, and it vibrated and issued a recorded warning as he drove to the Powell Municipal Airport Saturday, about nine miles away.

A dispatcher from the monitoring company called the anklet's cell phone to warn Mangold that he was outside his allowed area, he said.

"It's a little startling when your ankle starts to vibrate," he said. "It's even weirder talking to your ankle and hearing someone talk back."

Mangold said the anklet took a little getting used to at first, including while he was sleeping.

He decided to take it off before going waterskiing on Bighorn Lake, where a reporter coincidentally spotted Mangold without the anklet.

Tidwell said the device is waterproof and can be worn in the shower and briefly immersed in up to about 9 feet of water.

Mangold said the data collected during his weekend test will help show state legislators what the device can do.

He expects to travel with Tidwell to Cheyenne to discuss what changes to state law might need to be made to allow for its use.

Mangold said the device may be a way to help ease prison crowding, address a shortage of jailers and save the state money on working with low-risk offenders, all while helping get parolees back to work.

"We need to try something else," he said. "Building new prisons doesn't work."
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/08/21/news/wyoming/18-anklet.tx
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Posted by lois at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

Isotopes Used to Track Origins of Marijuana

Isotopes Used to Track Origins of Marijuana
August 21, 2007

News Summary

The Marijuana Signature Project at the University of Utah is using stable isotopes as a means of tracking the geographic origin of seized marijuana, research that could improve targeting of law-enforcement resources, the New York Times reported Aug. 21.

Funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, researcher Jason B. West is part of a new movement of using stable isotopes for forensic purposes. "Stable isotopes are a signature on plant materials and things that are derived from plants," said West. "Using them, you can get information about where something grew and its growth environment."

Most marijuana used in the U.S. is grown here, although supplies also come from Canada and Mexico. California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington account for most of the domestic marijuana supply. ONDCP hopes that West's work not only will help pinpoint the origins of the drug but also whether it is grown indoors or outdoors.

"Plants maintain the fingerprint of the climate and the environmental conditions," said Gene Kelly, professor of soil science at Colorado State University. "Theoretically, high-elevation pot plants should have one sort of signature, coastal California plants another."

West's research already has revealed that most marijuana seized in San Diego comes from elsewhere, not grown locally as previously assumed. "There's considerable movement from multiple sources," said ONDCP chief scientist David Murray. "And it ends up that multiple streams of marijuana were present in a single location being offered for sale."

http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2007/isotopes-used-to-track.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=33841891

Posted by lois at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

Springfield MA: Statistics: Violent crime down

Statistics: Violent crime down
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - Violent crime was down 14 percent during the first six months of 2007 compared with the same period last year, another sign that crime strategies are paying off, Police Commissioner Edward A. Flynn said yesterday.

Flynn released the statistics yesterday at police headquarters, comparing the first six months of 2007, ending June 30, with the first six months of 2006.

The statistics show that crime overall is down 7 percent, compared with the same period last year.

The latest statistics follow decreases in violent crime in Springfield already reported in 2006, compared with statistics in 2005.

"Our ambition is to keep building on these positive results," Flynn said. "I recognize that numbers alone are never going to affect people's perceptions of safety. It has taken Springfield a long time to get where it is, and fear is an issue separate and distinct from our crime data."

The department recognizes its obligation "to reduce crime, to reduce disorder and to reduce the level of fear," Flynn said.

Violent crime, down 14 percent during the first half of 2007, consists of cases of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, in line with the FBI's unified crime reporting system, officials said.

Flynn said he is particularly encouraged by double-digit percentage decreases in aggravated assault and gun assault.

"Why that is significant for Springfield is that much of our reputation is driven by our reputation for gun-related violent crime," Flynn said. "As we have said for the last year and a half, our goal is to disrupt that cycle of violence through intelligent planning and intelligent deployment relying on good data analysis, and that appears to be bearing some fruit."

The decline in crime is "tangible proof that our community-based, problem-oriented data-driven strategy is working," Flynn said.

In addition, Flynn continued to state that people are far less likely to be victims of violent crime if they do not deal drugs, do not join gangs and are law-abiding citizens.

Some crime categories increased. There were 11 homicides the first six months of 2007, as compared with nine during the first half of 2006. Four of the 2007 homicides were domestic-related, a high rate that cannot be curbed by police deployment, Flynn said.

There were significant decreases in rapes and car thefts, he said.

There was a slight increase in burglary, cause for concern, and a slight decrease in larceny in the first half of 2007 statistics, Flynn said.

Strategies that are helping reduce numbers include "removing the anonymity of street criminals, deploying based on data, not emotion, and providing officers with appropriate resources," Flynn said.

The latest crime statistics were released immediately after Flynn and other Police Department officials met with the City Council Public Health and Safety Committee to discuss crime statistic trends in contrast to public perceptions.

Committee Chairman Domenic J. Sarno, who is a candidate for mayor, said he hears many expressions of fear about crime despite the positive trend in statistics.

Flynn and Sgt. Peter Albano, who heads the Crime Analysis Unit, said the statistics are closely monitored and accurate. Past problems with crime statistics reporting have been corrected, with the FBI giving the department a high ranking for its methodology, Albano said.

http://www.masslive.com/republican/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-2/118768714718780.xml&coll=1

Posted by lois at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2007

Cornell To Reopen Federal Hector Garza Treatment Center for Youth

Cornell Announces Plan to Reopen Hector Garza Treatment Center
Raises Guidance for the Second Half of 2007

Last Update: 9:01 AM ET Aug 20, 2007
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=2585BA056A6F4D5EB792D7BE300962D1&siteid=nbs

HOUSTON, Aug 20, 2007 (PrimeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Cornell Companies, Inc. announced plans today to reopen its Hector Garza Residential Treatment Center ("Hector Garza") facility in San Antonio, Texas effective August 27th. As part of the Company's Abraxas Youth and Family Services Division, the Hector Garza facility, closed since October 2