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November 30, 2007

CDC and Campaign for Youth Justice Reports: Adult System Worsens Juvenile Recidivism

Adult System Worsens Juvenile Recidivism, Report Says
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007

Youths tried as adults and housed in adult prisons commit more crimes, often more violent ones, than minors who remain in the juvenile justice system, a panel of experts appointed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

Longer sentences and the transfer of juvenile offenders to the adult system gained traction in the 1980s and 1990s as youth crime increased. The trend raised fears in statehouses and in Congress about young predators, and laws to push more juvenile offenders into the adult system flourished.

Those laws have not deterred other youths from committing crimes, nor have they rehabilitated the youths sentenced under them, said Robert L. Johnson, dean of the New Jersey Medical School, a member of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, which was assembled by the CDC.

"Not only does it not deter youth crime, it actually makes them more violent," Johnson said. "It may salve our desire to punish. But don't get that confused with rehabilitation. Don't make the mistake of believing that punishment will help anything."

The panel's findings were based on a review of six studies across the nation that examined the effect of juvenile transfers to the adult system. Those studies followed youths for periods ranging from 18 months to six years. One of them found that in Florida, after stronger juvenile justice laws were enacted in 1990 and 1994, youths sent to the adult system had 34 percent more felony rearrest than those retained as juveniles. The youths had equivalent criminal records. The panel of experts examined not only the findings but also the methodology to ensure that offenses were the same.

Early this month, the Campaign for Youth Justice, a Washington-based advocacy organization, reported that, on an average day, 7,500 people 18 or younger are being held in adult jails and prisons. It said that youths detained in adult jails are more likely to become victims of sexual abuse or to commit suicide than those detained in the juvenile system.

The two reports come as the Senate prepares next week to consider reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act which, in part, calls for youths in adult jails to be housed separately -- something that does not always occur. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Prosecutors and victims advocates have long challenged the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system, which they say is often unprepared to deal with even nonviolent offenders.

Shay Bilchik, a former prosecutor in Florida, said he once thought the same way: that transferring youths who had reoffended to the adult courts was better. Now, he says, there is mounting evidence that such policies do not help youths or make communities safer.

"You couldn't ask for any worse results," said Bilchik, director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. "We're getting faster recidivism for more serious crimes."

Most law on this issue is made at the state level, and there is much disparity in the treatment of juvenile offenders. Some youths are automatically considered adults, no matter the crime, at 17. Others have a hearing before a juvenile judge. Some jurisdictions, including the District, allow for 16- and 17-year-olds accused of crimes such as rape or murder to be sent directly to the adult system.

Here is the link to the Campaign for Youth Justice Report
http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/Downloads/NationalReportsArticles/CFYJ-Jailing_Juveniles_Report_2007-11-15.pdf

The CDC Task Force Report is available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/rr/rr5609.pdf.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/29/AR2007112901936.html

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

CO: DOC expands program of using prisoners to pick farmers crops

11/30/07 DOC agrees to provide more inmate farm workers

By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A pilot program to use inmates from the Department of Corrections as farm workers opened a new chapter Thursday when DOC officials said they would expand the program to assist five additional farms in Pueblo County.

At a meeting organized by state Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, state prison officials called last summer's pilot program a great success and agreed to provide work crews to five additional farmers who attended the meeting.

Steve Smith, the acting director of DOC's Correctional Industries, said the additional farm crews would be male inmates, but the department would organize new crews to help the farmers who attended Thursday's meeting at the Pueblo Chamber of Commerce.

"Frankly, we were concerned there would be an even bigger turnout with even larger number of farms wanting work crews," Smith said.

He said the program would benefit from slower expansion. "It takes us 13 or 14 hours of work to provide you a work crew for an eight-hour day," Smith said.

Even so, Karl Spiecker, DOC's chief financial officer, said the department considered last summer's program to be a huge success for the state, as well as for farmers. At the peak of the season, the DOC provided five work crews of 15 female inmates to work on Pueblo County farms. The women inmates were needed to harvest watermelons, squash, onions, pumpkins and other crops.

The farmers who came to Thursday's meeting said they would need crews starting in April and running through next January. The reason is that few migrant workers came to the region this summer as result of stricter immigration controls, leaving farmers, in some cases, wondering how to harvest their crops. Butcher said state lawmakers would help the DOC expand the program as much as possible.

"The alternative is to plow under $4.1 million in vegetables, so I'm sure we'll be able to work something out," she told Smith in a half-joking tone that still carried the message that the Legislature would have the final word over the program.

Deputy Director Lou Archuleta explained to the farmers that additional crews would have to come from male inmates, but the DOC would screen them for suitability. No sex offenders would be used and inmates nearing the end of their sentences would be given a priority.

He said any farmer wanting to participate in the program would have to take an eight-hour instruction class on how to deal with inmate workers.

Several farmers who used the women crews last summer said there were no problems with the crews except for turnover - inmates who decided they didn't like the work, requiring the farmers to frequently retrain new workers.

"But that happens anyway, even with migrant workers," Butcher acknowledged.

http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1196434909/1

Posted by lois at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)

TX: The Power of Drug Courts. Drug courts can keep addicts in treatment and out of jail — if judges let them

The Power of Drug Courts
Drug courts can keep addicts in treatment and out of jail — if judges let them
Dave Mann | November 30, 2007 | Features
TX Observer
For nearly 20 years, Joel Bennett shuttled drug addicts through courtrooms. He dutifully sent them off to prison, first as a prosecutor and later as a state district judge in Austin, though he knew he was accomplishing little. Incarceration wouldn't puncture their addiction. They would use again. Predictably, case files bearing familiar names would pile again on his desk. A sense of futility hung over the exercise. "What I saw was the same people returning to the system over and over again. And their children coming into the system," Bennett says. "No one talked about breaking the cycle of crime." Bennett recognized, as an ever-growing number of judges do, that to keep drug offenders from landing back in prison, he had to help addicts free themselves from the fog of substance abuse.

Bennett and Leon Grizzard are the two judges who oversee Travis County's drug diversion court. They steer addicts into a court-supervised treatment program instead of prison. In the past decade, drug courts like the one in Travis County have successfully handled nonviolent defendants with drug and alcohol addictions—if success is defined as increasing public safety at the least cost to the taxpayer. People who complete drug-court programs rarely tumble back into substance abuse. According to four drug-court judges surveyed, about 10 percent of program graduates commit new crimes—a recidivism rate roughly one-fifth that of traditional probation routines. That means drug courts can ease the strain on overcrowded prisons and save taxpayer money. A study of the Dallas drug court by Southern Methodist University showed that every government dollar spent on diversion courts saved taxpayers more than $9.

Though criminal justice reform groups have advocated drug courts for years, Texas until recently lagged behind the rest of the country. There are more than 1,200 drug courts nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. At one time, tiny Delaware had more drug courts than the Lone Star State. But Texas' bulging prison system is forcing Texas to catch up. Drug courts in Texas have ballooned from three in 2002 to 35 in 2007. The movement has sprung organically from the bottom up: Judges, prosecutors, counselors, and county officials have volunteered to create the programs in their jurisdictions. "Anyone who hears this becomes an advocate for it," says Ana Yáñez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. "It's been a domino effect."

More drug courts are on the way. Last spring, the Texas Legislature passed a bill requiring all counties with populations exceeding 200,000 to institute a drug court. The bill is expected to divert more than 2,300 addicts away from prisons during the next few years. In late October, Gov. Rick Perry awarded $4.4 million in state grants to drug courts, a much-needed boost in funding.

But as drug courts become more widespread, it appears that—like the narcotics they were created to fight—the courts can be abused. State and federal governments have instituted few regulations and set up no oversight. Judges have wide latitude to decide people's fates. In the hands of the right judges, the drug court model performs marvelously. Other judges appear to have trouble reconciling their punitive role with this new therapeutic one. The U.S. Department of Justice designed a set of guidelines and best practices—but they're the criminal justice equivalent of blueprints without building codes. The guidelines suggest that judges receive ongoing training and partner with treatment programs and community groups.

Because drug courts grow mostly from the local level, there is little standardization. Texas law broadly defines a drug court, but places hardly any restrictions on what judges can do. There is no oversight specifically for the drug courts. A recent case in Houston demonstrates the potential risks behind the courts' expansion. Judge K. Michael Mayes of Montgomery County is facing a federal lawsuit by a defendant who claims his treatment in Mayes' drug court was arbitrary and violated his rights to due process.

"The issue is following best practices," Yáñez-Correa says. In 2005, the group worked successfully with legislators to add to the budget bill some loosely standardized requirements for drug courts. Ostensibly, if a program takes state money, it's required to follow the Justice Department's broad guidelines for drug courts, including a recommendation that defense attorneys be present at all hearings. "We've taken the first step to make sure there is an expansion of the drug courts," she says. "Now, as the program increases, those who haven't tried it before need technical assistance from judges who are doing it right."

On a Wednesday night in early November, recovering addicts streamed into a drab courtroom in downtown Austin for their regular drug court session. The court, the second-oldest in Texas, has been in operation since 1993. Seated in the audience was a young, diverse crowd: white, black, and Latino; rich and poor; businessmen; college students; and manual laborers. Judge Bennett took the bench. On this night, the first order of business was a graduation. Each drug court is different—localities design their own programs and decide who can be admitted to them—but the foundations are the same. Prosecutors or judges refer nonviolent addicts or alcoholics to drug courts, which oversee treatment. Judges, along with teams of probation officers, attorneys, counselors, and family members, monitor each addict's progress. On average, it takes 22 months for defendants to complete the Austin program's three phases, after which their charges will be dismissed and, in some cases, expunged. If graduates remain clean, it can be as if they were never arrested.

The bailiff called a name, and a young black man with braided hair in a red button-down shirt, tie, and black pants rose and walked before Bennett. (Drug courts are confidential, and the Observer was allowed to witness the proceedings on the condition that participants' names wouldn't be printed.) "I know you've thought a lot about what you wanted to say," Bennett said. "Now I want you to address the group." The young man turned to face a roomful of fellow recovering addicts. His feet poked at the carpet. He clasped his hands behind his back.

"These people are really here to help you," he said. "I used to see it as a burden. Now I see it as a blessing." He looked sheepishly at Bennett. "Is that enough?" he whispered.

"No, that's not enough," Bennett bellowed. The audience laughed. The young man stumbled on for another minute, describing the stubbornness of his addiction, until Bennett smiled. "OK, I'm proud of you. Let's give him a hand. He's done a great job." Everyone applauded. The young man walked through the courtroom's double doors and, perhaps, into a life clear of addiction—or so Bennett hopes. Though drug courts offer a way to avoid prison time, the programs can be demanding: several counseling sessions a week, community service, weekly random drug tests, support group meetings, and frequent appearances before the judge are common. If a defendant stumbles, the judge can send them to jail for several days. If someone drops out, they likely will end up in prison.

Bennett questioned defendants in various stages of the program. They stood alone, directly in front of the bench, like kids before the teacher's desk. Drug court sessions are part probation hearing and part counseling session. The jagged edge of law enforcement blends with the encouragement of 12-step recovery programs. The result is addicts standing before judges, prosecutors, and probation officers—people who normally try to put them away—to divulge the most intimate and important details of their lives. During visits to hearings in several Texas cities, the Observer witnessed a woman ask a judge for help with a divorce, and another who inquired if having a child would impact her recovery. Several participants asked for help finding jobs.

"You're studying for your GED? How's that going?" Bennett asked one man in a striped shirt. Another wanted permission to travel to Houston to see his family for Thanksgiving, which Bennett grudgingly approved as long as the man kept up his community service. The random drug tests don't halt for the holidays, either.

Next, Bennett brought forward a short, white youth who, despite several stints of rigorous inpatient drug treatment, had just tested positive for marijuana on his first urine sample in the program. "It's like you haven't learned anything," Bennett yelled at him. "Each time you use, you're going to jail. I've done that before." As the kid slinked away, the judge eased back into a warmer tone: "Let's give him a hand to encourage him." Everyone clapped.

In Corpus Christi, District Judge Sandra Watts has run the drug court for nearly four years. Her intimate, Tuesday-night court sessions have become known as "Tuesdays with Sandra." She says, "I'm a different judge on Tuesday nights than I am during the day. There is a different philosophy when you're running a drug court. There is a rapport being developed between the participants and the judge. I know a lot about their lives."

In the last 10 years, District Judge John Creuzot has molded Dallas County's drug court into one of the most extensive and successful diversion programs in the state. (Watts referred to him as the drug court "granddaddy.") In Dallas, addicts receive a clinical assessment when they enter the program to determine the kind of treatment they need, including mental health assistance. Many drug courts attempt to treat the root of the defendant's addiction. But with the ability to refer addicts to a wider range of treatment facilities, Dallas may have the model program. The essential element that such courts must share, Creuzot says, is that treatment cannot work unless a judge connects with an addict.

"The point is to get as far in [to people's lives] as you can, and to get to know them," he says. "It's a different mind-set. You have to be engaged in who they are ... what their strengths and weaknesses are. Not everyone wants to do that.

"You have to develop trust between them and you. They have to trust that you're making decisions in their best interests, because they're not accustomed to that in the criminal justice system. Nobody is, really. They have to get to know you and trust you and the decisions you're making on their behalf."

Violating the rules of a program might land some participants in jail for the weekend to set them straight. But Austin's Judge Bennett says it's important not to punish too severely. "I'm not trying to break them down," he says. "I'm trying to build them back up. I want them to feel better about themselves."

Paul Burns never considered himself an addict, though he concedes he drank too often. At 46, Burns lives near Conroe, a growing exurb north of Houston, with his wife and four kids. He operates a small oil company—it has eight wells—along with several other small businesses.

His trouble with drug court began last April. Burns—already on probation for a minor drug possession charge—submitted a urine sample that tested positive for alcohol, a violation of his probation. Judge Mayes of Montgomery County's 410th District Court gave Burns a choice: Enter Mayes' drug court treatment program, or the judge would revoke Burns' probation and send him to prison for several years. Burns didn't see that as much of a choice. He joined Mayes' Substance Abuse Program. In addition to counseling and support group sessions, offenders in the program must submit to several random urine tests each month. On July 5, Burns was called in for a random drug test. His sample tested negative for drugs and alcohol, according to court records, but the sample was labeled "dilute," which means, essentially, it was watered down. (Addicts sometimes try to dilute their urine to mask evidence of drug use.) Under Mayes' strict policies, anyone submitting a diluted urine sample is immediately hauled off to jail, without a hearing to explain themselves to the judge.

Burns contends he's been sober for eight months. He says he skipped breakfast on the morning of his urine test and drank several cups of coffee, which diluted his urine. He was shocked it landed him in jail.

Burns remained there for 44 days, until late August. Five others in Mayes' program have been jailed in recent months because of a diluted urine sample, according to court records. Burns also claims that Mayes barred him from contacting his family during his stint in the county lockup.

His lawsuit, filed in federal court, contends that his jailing without an opportunity to challenge his detention or go before a judge violated his constitutional right to due process. Normally, judges have wide discretion in handling offenders on probation. But Randall Kallinen, a Houston civil rights attorney who's representing Burns, argues that probation requirements can't violate someone's civil rights. "There's nothing in the Code of Criminal Procedure that says you can't give an African American two extra years in prison because he's an African American. That's not written down anywhere, but everyone knows federal law won't allow it. It's a civil rights violation."

Mayes has refused to comment on the suit. He didn't return two calls from the Observer seeking comment. But when the Observer visited Mayes' court in early November—before the lawsuit was filed—the judge argued that his policies helped free offenders from their addictions. Mayes' program does boast a record of success. Of the 41 people who have graduated from his program, he says not a single one has committed another drug offense. Several offenders in the drug court that morning sobbed and effusively thanked Mayes for helping them fight addiction and stay out of jail.

"The immediate sanction, immediate consequence is huge. Everyone in the program knows it," Mayes says. "Probation officers know in this court that if somebody has a [urine test] that looks like it's diluted or maybe it's a positive, they don't file motions and wait for me to sign something. They immediately type up a one-page sheet—order of arrest—and we sign.

"Here's my philosophy: You're on probation. I don't have to prove you're dirty; you have to prove to me you're clean. You know why that's so fair? This is what I tell them: Let's say you apply for a job, you're going to have to prove to them you're clean, sober, doing well. So when you get out in the real world, you can handle the real heat. So that's why we have the immediate consequence. I just decide how long I'm going to put them in jail. There's always a consequence, and it's always immediate. Otherwise, it just doesn't have any impact." Numerous law enforcement sources around the state say that dilute urine samples may—emphasis on may—indicate drug use or suspicious activity. Toxicologists say it is possible for addicts to mask drug use by diluting their urine, either by drinking a lot of water or taking pills that purportedly dilute urine enough to pass the test.

Other judges find Mayes' methods overly harsh. All the other drug court judges interviewed for this story said they never jail an offender for dilute urine alone, simply because dilute urine has many causes, including overhydration. A dilute sample will lead to tighter scrutiny—more random drug screening, careful attention to the person's performance—to watch for signs they may be relapsing. In most drug courts, an offender must fail at least two drug tests to spend even a weekend in jail.

For Mayes, a dilute sample is a violation, period. His drug court program forbids dilute urine for any reason. He said he would jail offenders in his program for dilute urine even if they actually were clean.

"Some people, let's say, drink a lot of water—it's a legitimate dilute. [I] still don't care," Mayes says. "A lot of guys say, well, I work out in the sun, I drink a lot of water. I say too bad. ... But here's what Auggie [program counselor Agustin Gutierrez] tells them: You can avoid that—vitamins, multivitamins. Pregnant women, there's some kind of vitamin he gives them. In other words, if you're clean, you can keep yourself healthy enough so you won't have a dilute problem."

Judge Creuzot in Dallas finds Mayes' approach exceedingly harsh. "We just don't throw people in jail," he says. In fact, long jail stints can be self-defeating—Creuzot says most research shows that jail terms longer than about five days for drug court offenders can be harmful—isolating someone who needs support.

Judge Watts pointed out that defense attorneys are present at all her drug court hearings to guard offenders' rights to due process. In fact, drug court guidelines issued by the Department of Justice stipulate that defense attorneys be present at all hearings. No defense counsel was present when the Observer witnessed a session in Mayes' court on November 6.

Still, the judges interviewed for this story said lawmakers shouldn't place any restrictions on drug courts. "Judges and the community should decide what works best for that community," Bennett says.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who helps refer cases to Bennett's court, put it this way: "You can't make the list [of restrictions] long enough for a half-wit judge. A wise judge doesn't need a list."

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

OK: Myth of "Crack Baby" still must be challenged

Effect of drugs challenged
November 15, 2007 By Jeff Raymond
NewsOK.com
Deepening research shows babies who are exposed to cocaine or methamphetamine in the womb fare similarly to other babies as they age.

Moreover, terms such as "crack baby” and "meth baby” are pejorative and not based in scientific research, said scientists, physicians and social workers who spoke at the "Women, Pregnancy and Drug Use: Medical Facts, Practical Responses and the Well-Being of Children and Families” seminar Wednesday afternoon at the Presbyterian Health Foundation Conference Center.

Barry Lester, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics who heads the Brown University Center for Study of Children at Risk, worked to debunk the notion that prenatal exposure to cocaine and meth is extremely damaging to babies.
Two studies Lester has contributed to, including one ongoing in Tulsa, show minor differences between babies born to cocaine- and methamphetamine-using mothers and those born to mothers who don't use the drugs.

Born earlier, lighter
Lester said long-term research showed babies exposed to cocaine and meth in the womb were born slightly earlier and weighed slightly less than babies born to clean mothers.
Drug-exposed babies had slightly higher rates of referrals to special education classes and slightly higher rates of behavioral problems, he said. However, problems seldom were found in more than 5 percent of children studied.
Should a person try to spot drug-exposed babies in a nursery, they wouldn't stand out, he said.
"By and large these are term babies,” he said, meaning the infants were born largely on time at an appropriate weight.
The "crack baby” scare of the 1980s and, more recently, fears of "meth babies” were based on "insufficient and inaccurate information” that caused society to overreact and split families, he said.
In the 1990s, children nationally in foster care reached 500,000, an all-time high that panelists attributed to tough-on-drugs policies.
Speakers said prosecution of pregnant women for drug abuse deterred them from seeking drug treatment and prenatal care, and negatively affected their children.
Dr. Eli Reshef, an obstetrician-gynecologist and assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, compared prosecution of pregnant drug abusers to punishing obese mothers and those who smoke.
"A smoker has more risk of harming the baby than someone who uses meth,” he said.
Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmonson, Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma and 10 others sponsored the seminar.
In 2006, 3,000 pregnant women were in need of substance abuse treatment, according to the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
Fifteen to 20 percent of pregnancies end in loss, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and nearly 1 million U.S. women suffer miscarriages annually.

Posted by lois at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2007

CT: More stringent surveillance of people on parole, protests, etc.

Editorial and two articles: protests on parole ban & more stringent surveillance of people on parole.
An on-line registry of ALL parolees, probationers and probation violation warrants?

courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-crimeplannov27,0,7208336.story
Tougher Crime Laws Coming- November 27, 2007
Granted, the comprehensive bill to reform Connecticut's criminal justice system that was unveiled recently by the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee has a few kinks in it that must be ironed out. But a variation of the plan should in the end have little trouble winning bipartisan support.

The measure attempts to rectify many of the systemic failures identified by Democrats and Republicans in the wake of the horrific slayings of a Cheshire mother and her two daughters by a pair of parolees in July.

Expect the legislature to debate the bill and 13 related proposals over the coming weeks for a final vote on the plan at a special session in January.

Lawmakers agree almost unilaterally that electronic communication among all criminal justice agencies needs a major upgrade to allow for instant access to police reports, pre-sentence investigations, sentencing transcripts and prison, parole and probation files.

Had a pre-sentencing report reached the parole board in a timely fashion, as already required by law, one suspect in the killings might not have been released.

Among other proposals that deserve to pass easily are using global positioning technology to track parolees; an online listing of current parolees, probationers and probation violation warrants; and hiring a staff psychologist to help the Board of Pardons and Parole identify potentially violent offenders.

Legislators are further urged to approve a provision that elevates home invasion — first- and second-degree burglary — to a violent felony carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a minimum mandatory sentence of five years.

The more difficult provisions in the bill relate to adjusting the flow of prisoners into and out of the correction system so that truly dangerous criminals are not released prematurely.

They include reconciling six different proposals to toughen the state's "three strikes" law (which puts third-time violent felony offenders away for life) without overcrowding the prisons.

Other sensitive issues to be debated are the dimensions, cost and potential sites for two proposed new prisons, one of which would be reserved for inmates with mental health problems, and the degree to which nonviolent offenders can be released.

Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, who is co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee with Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, says that what will emerge when the full legislature takes up the crime package in January is a more punitive criminal justice system that will exceed the spending cap.

We trust that lawmakers will strike a reasonable balance among punishment, fairness and public safety.
Copyright © 2007, The Hartford Courant
Protest against parole ban

by Chief Capitol Correspondent Mark Davis
Posted Nov. 26, 2007
5:55 PM
New Haven (WTNH) _ The state's prison population has ballooned since Governor Rell banned parole for violent offenders and tonight the families of those who have been denied parole protested outside the New Haven Correctional Center.
The governor's parole ban was a response to the deadly home invasion in Cheshire, allegedly committed by two, non-violent career criminals.
"Hundreds, maybe thousands are being punished for the actions of a few people. Just two people," said Shelton Tucker of New Haven.
In addition to the family members of inmates, activists like Barbara Fair from the group Coalition Against the Ban, protesting outside the Whalley Avenue prison.
"The message is end the parole ban and look into these conditions that are in these prisons," Fair said.
Governor Rell says the severe overcrowded conditions will be relieved as soon as the state starts paroling non-violent offenders. The problem is that many of those individuals also need other forms of community services, like help with a drug problem or a mental illness. Because the state also lacks space in halfway houses, letting out non-violent offenders may pose a problem as well.
"We need to step up to the plate, fight back against this growing prison problem and do something about the parole ban because we already have a problem with prison overcrowding. This parole ban just exemplifies this problem," Fair said.
State lawmakers will be discussing a plan tomorrow to build two new prisons, a halfway house and community treatment facilities. The price tag for the new facilities is an estimated half a billion dollars.
Crowded jails, ban on parole protested
Community members urge overturning of Rell’s parole suspension
Lea Yu
Staff Reporter, Yale Daily News
Published Tuesday, November 27, 2007
As the light of street lamps illuminated a swirl of mist and drizzle, more than 65 protestors rallied Monday evening in front of the Whalley Avenue jail, demanding that the state provide its citizens with “books, not bars.”
Community members and activist groups, joining together in protest of state legislation that would spend $260 million for two new prisons, called on Governor M. Jodi Rell to rescind her temporary ban on parole for violent offenders. Critics have charged that since being implemented in September, the ban has led to a swell in prison populations in Connecticut, which has exacerbated overcrowding and resulted in unsanitary conditions and increased violence among inmates.
But state Department of Corrections officers interviewed said state jails provide clean and adequate resources and have not witnessed increased violence in the wake of the ban.
Legislators on the state Judiciary Committee have said they will debate 15 bills relating to parole and prison reform at the state capitol today. A special session will convene in January to pass the legislation.
Rell enacted the ban after the July murder of a woman and her two daughters in Cheshire at the hands of two criminals who were out on parole. Rell will lift the ban once the legislature reforms the parole process, state Department of Corrections external affairs director Brian Garnett said.
But ralliers said the proposed new-prison legislation — which would classify home invasion as a persistent dangerous felony and strengthen the state’s “three strikes” law — is inadequate and detrimental to public safety. The ban should be lifted immediately, rather than in January when legislation passes, so that inmates who would otherwise be free on parole are not detained unjustly, they said.
“I’m concerned that a tiny fraction of the bill is dedicated toward rehabilitating people when they’re coming out of prison in comparison to the amount of money that’s going to be spent on building two new prisons,” said Megan Fountain ’07, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Acción, which is a nonprofit in Fair Haven. “Prisons are overcrowded, and what we need are solutions to integrate people into society, not create more beds.”
According to a Nov. 16 article in the New Haven Independent, inmates at the Whalley jailhouse have recently reported finding maggots in the showerheads and being forced to walk around in dirty, stained linen.
Garnett said the DOC is cognizant of the state’s overcrowded jails, but the increased inmate populations have not resulted in a decline in sanitation and safety.
Contrary to what was reported in the Independent, he said, Whalley jailhouse inmates have access to laundry machines, and those sleeping on cots in the gym do not fight over one bathroom but have access to 16 urinals and toilets.
Although Garnett said the DOC does not keep a record of prison capacities because state jails cannot deny criminals who are sent to them, state Rep. State Rep. Mike Lawlor said Connecticut prisons can hold about 17,500 prisoners.
As of yesterday, Garnett counted 19,630 inmates in Connecticut jails — over 1,000 of whom were added since Rell announced the ban, Lawlor said.
“Despite the fact the system is crowded, our performance measures — and we define those as assaults on staff, inmates, use of force by our staff — those measures all remain at historically low levels,” he said. “No one is sleeping in dirty linen, and no one’s fighting over toilets.”
Lawlor, who co-sponsored prison reform legislation with his judiciary committee co-chair State Sen. Andrew McDonald, said the committee today will openly debate numerous alternatives to new jail facilities, such as the expansion of existing jailhouses and shorter incarceration penalties for nonviolent offenders.
A permanent elimination of parole would lead to massive and dangerous overcrowding, he said, but the temporary parole ban is necessary for the sake of comprehensively reforming the parole process.
Connecticut’s jails are already crowded to the point of posing a safety hazard, Lawlor said, but until the state builds more facilities, the rehabilitative programs that critics have been calling for will be nonexistent, since Corrections officers must first deal with inmates who are sleeping on the floors of counseling rooms and school rooms.
“I don’t want [more jails] either, but it’s not a question of what people want — it’s a question of what people need, and what you need is enough facilities for the inmates you have,” Lawlor said.
Among the 15 initiatives the legislature will consider Tuesday are six different “three strikes” proposals, the creation of an electronic criminal-justice database, the enhancement of nurse training and recruitment and the application of GPS technology to the monitoring of criminals on parole.
The Coalition Against the Parole Ban organized Monday’s event, which was endorsed by People Against Injustice, Youth Rights Media, Unidad Latina en Accion, A.N.S.W.E.R. CT, Connecticut Center for a New Economy and Yale’s Undergraduate Organizing Committee.

Posted by lois at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Activists push civil fines for pot

Activists push civil fines for pot

Daily Hampshire Gazette, November 27, 2007

BOSTON (AP) - Activists pushing a ballot question to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana say it will save the state millions of dollars in law enforcement costs and spare thousands of state residents from arrest.

Instead of facing a criminal record, those caught with a small amount of marijuana for personal use would instead pay a civil fine of $100 - much like a traffic ticket.

Backers say they've already collected 105,000 signatures, far more than the 67,000 required to get the question on the 2008 ballot. Those signatures have to be delive the secretary of state's office next week.

They said the tide of public opinion is on their side. They point to more than two dozen nonbinding referendum questions placed on local ballots in Massachusetts in the past six years. In each, a majority of voters supported the idea of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

About a dozen states have already adopted similar laws.

"The public is definitely in favor of this," said Whitney Taylor of the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy. "The science and the voters are ahead of the politicians."

Surprisingly, some of the toughest criticism of the proposed ballot question is coming from other activist groups also pushing for the decriminalization of marijuana.

They point to a portion of the proposed ballot question that would define possession of marijuana to include finding traces of the drug "in the urine, blood, saliva, sweat, hair, fingernails, toe nails or other tissue or fluid of the human body."

"It uses the drug laws to identify marijuana smokers, not who are impaired, but who might have smoked in the past six weeks or so," Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, a national nonprofit group advocating for the easing of marijuana laws.

"If it makes it to the ballot, a lot of people who would be strong supporters of decriminalizing marijuana may not be able to support this fatally flawed language," said Stroup, who was arrested for smoking a marijuana cigarette at a rally on Boston Common.

Longtime marijuana activist Steven Epstein, of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, said the group hasn't decided if it will support the question.

He said under the question, a person who smoked marijuana in a location where it is legal could be fined weeks later after returning to Massachusetts.

He pointed to another potential glitch in the ballot question, which equates an ounce of marijuana with an ounce of tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of the marijuana - essentially a much more concentrated version of the drug.

"It won't kill anybody and should probably be legal too, but will the voters of Massachusetts support it?" said Epstein, who said he hasn't decided whether he will vote in favor of the question if it reaches the ballot.

Other critics say they oppose decriminalizing any amount of marijuana, saying it could send a signal to children that smoking pot is no big deal.

Michael Mather, a retired police officer and head of the anti-drug education group DARE-Massachusetts, says easing the marijuana laws is a bad idea. "It's not the right thing to do to our youth. Our youth needs to be strong and not have these drugs inside of them," he said.

He also said marijuana could act as a so-called "gateway drug" to other, more harmful drugs.

"I'm not saying that everyone who smokes pot will do heroin, but almost everyone who does heroin didn't start out with heroin," he said.

Marijuana activists dismiss the gateway argument.

"It's like saying every one who rides a bicycle goes on to ride a motorcycle," Taylor said.

The ballot question isn't the only effort under way to ease the state's drug laws.

A bill working its way through the Statehouse would also decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of the drug, but set a higher fine of $250.

The bill has already received a public hearing, but won't come up for debate and a possible vote until next year.

Asked if he would support the bill, Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday he was focused on other priorities.

http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=69051&CSAuthResp=119
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6dWKUUdi%2FX7ese98zw%3D%3D&CSUserId=8254&CSGroupId=5

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

MA: State jails said overcrowded, often unsafe

State jails said overcrowded, often unsafe
Daily Hampshire Gazette November 27, 2007
BY TONI SCOTT AND AMY RAFFERTY

The jail at the top of the Middlesex County Courthouse has been ordered shut down because of asbestos issues. The jail was built in 1971 to hold 160 inmates. It now houses 372,

Each day in Massachusetts, prisoners, correctional officers, judges and lawyers find themselves in state facilities that are old, overcrowded and, sometimes, deteriorating and unsafe.

Bristol County's Ash Street Jail in New Bedford is the oldest operating jail in America. Built in 1828, it has been the subject of lawsuits challenging conditions in the largely windowless lockup. The jail's cells lack automatic door locks: in the case of a fire, a correctional officer must unlock each door.

The Middlesex County jail, located at the top of the Cambridge courthouse, was ordered shut in 2005 because of asbestos. Inmates remain in the jail because there are few other places to hold them.

Funding for emergency repairs at the state's 110 courthouses is running low. Court officials say they need at least $30 million to fix problems at many of the older facilities. They say hundreds of millions will be needed in the long term.

Gov. Deval Patrick has pledged $143 million to the commonwealth's corrections department from a proposed billion-dollar bond bill. The money would include $500,000 for a yearlong study of jails and courthouses. But needs created by the state's surging prisoner population may overwhelm those funds.

Worcester County Jail has been beset with financial, staffing and population problems for years. Today, a jail designed for 822 inmates holds 1,569 who sleep in rows of bunk beds laid out in the jail's gymnasium.

The jail is under an order from a federal judge to reduce the number of inmates by 300 next month.

The Middlesex County jail, built in 1971 to house 160 inmates, houses 372. Another 186 inmates of the county are locked away in other facilities across the state.

The jail in Plymouth County has a capacity of 1,140. In recent months, its population has hovered around 1,640.

Counties aren't alone when it comes to overcrowded facilities. Of the 23 facilities under the state Department of Corrections, only three were operating at or below their capacity rate for the months of June to September.

A recent report found the DOC is operating at 142 percent of its design capacity. There are 11,136 inmates in state facilities that have a combined capacity of 7,802. Concord Correctional Facility is 228 percent of its capacity; the Framingham Awaiting Trial Unit operates at 350 percent capacity.

Although overcrowding is not an issue at the Ash Street jail in New Bedford, conditions there are a harbinger for the future as other county and state facilities age.

Peter Costanza, an attorney with Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said the building is too old to continue functioning as a jail.

"It's very primitive," Costanza said. "It was built for the standards of the time, which is almost 200 years ago. There's no natural lighting. It's like a dungeon."

At the time of a 1998 lawsuit, the jail held 205 inmates, but only a percentage of the 200 cells were in use due to disrepair. Some cells housed three people, with prisoners sleeping on mattresses or hard shells on the floor.

"They were in there like sardines," Costanza said. "It wasn't healthy or safe."

Although a state court judge ruled the jail could only house one prisoner per cell, he did not close the jail or require it to install automatic door locks.

Costanza concedes that the conditions at Ash Street have improved, but he is quick to point out that they still aren't where they should be.

"The courts and sheriff have made the conditions better, but they're never going to make them good. It's just less extreme," Costanza said.

But Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson doesn't see the need to build a new facility.

"We meet the basic requirements and it seems to me that we're in good shape," Hodgson said. "We shouldn't have the taxpayers pick up a tremendous cost to improve a facility that should be a secondary priority."

Toni Scott and Amy Rafferty report for the Gazette from the Boston University Statehouse Program.

http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=69121&CSAuthResp=1196174640530059%3AkupF26ki3cyU8g%3D

Posted by lois at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2007

Orange Co. CA: Editorial: Too many of us in prisons. Prison overcrowding reflects tougher sentencing, often for victimless offenses, not more crime

Monday, November 26, 2007
Editorial: Too many of us in prisons
Prison overcrowding reflects tougher sentencing, often for victimless offenses, not more crime
An Orange County Register editorial

It was more than a year ago that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at the 175,000 prisoners crammed into a state prison system built for half as many and proclaimed a state of emergency.

So far, this emergency has been addressed largely in terms of prison "supply" – more beds. As we have argued before in these pages, a truly comprehensive solution for California's prison overcrowding must focus also on reducing prison "demand": reducing the number of criminals by reforming sentences for those lawbreakers who don't threaten public safety. But lest our readers think these suggestions are unique, a research institute that works closely with corrections departments around the country conducted an analysis of the nation as a whole, and it found both the same problem and the same necessary solution.

California's jails hold one of every 200 Californians, at an annual cost to taxpayers that rivals that of the state's university system. But as the report issued last week by the JFA Institute demonstrates, this follows the pattern of the nation as a whole, which now warehouses 2.2 million prisoners at a cost of $100 billion a year: a tenfold increase from three decades ago. JFA Institute, based in Washington, D.C., works with various levels of government and philanthropic agencies to evaluate criminal-justice policies and design research-based policy solutions ( www.JFA-associates.com).

Who are these 2.2 million people? Among them are Elisa Kelly and George Robinson, sentenced to 27 months in prison for hosting a drinking party for their son's nine friends in their own home. There's Jessica Hall, sentenced to 24 months for throwing a cup of McDonald's coffee at a car that cut her off. And then there are the hundreds of thousands of people imprisoned for nonviolent drug crimes.

As these examples suggest, and the JFA report demonstrates with statistical evidence, the primary reason for overcrowded prisons is not an explosion of crime, but an explosion of prison sentences. Not only are these sentences many times the length of those for equivalent crimes in other industrialized nations, they are "significantly longer than they were in earlier periods in our penal history." The result is greater expense for less effect, as is testified by rates of recidivism and crime alike.

The JFA Institute argues that its recommendations would save the U.S. taxpayer $20 billion a year and, eventually, reduce prison rolls by half. Certainly, they represent the real reforms that California and America as a whole need: reducing sentences, eliminating the use of prison for parole violators, reducing parole and probation supervision periods and, most importantly, decriminalizing victimless crimes, particularly those related to drug use and abuse.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/prison-jfa-sentences-1928993-reducing-institute#

Posted by lois at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

New Book: Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration

Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration
Paul Wright & Tara Herivel
This is the third and latest book in a series of Prison Legal News anthologies that examines the reality of mass imprisonment in America.
Locking up 2.3 million people isn¹t cheap. Each year federal, state, and local governments spend over $185 billion annually in tax dollars to ensure that one out of every 137 Americans is imprisoned. Prison Profiteers looks at the private prison companies, investment banks, churches, guard unions, medical corporations, and other industries and individuals that benefit from this country¹s experiment with mass imprisonment. It lets us follow the money from public to private hands and exposes how monies formerly designated for the public good are diverted to prisons and their maintenance. Find out where your tax dollars are going as you help to bankroll the biggest prison machine the world has ever seen.

Contributors include: Judy Greene on private prison giants Geo
(formerlyWackenhut) and CCA; Anne-Marie Cusac on who sells electronic weapons to prison guards; Wil S. Hylton on the largest prison health care provider; Ian Urbina on how prison labor supports the military; Kirsten Levingston on the privatization of public defense; Jennifer Gonnerman on the costs to neighborhoods from which prisoners are removed; Kevin Pranis on the banks and brokerage houses that finance prison building; and Silja Talvi on the American Correctional Association as a tax-funded lobbyist for professional prison bureaucracies; Tara Herivel on juvenile prisons; Gary Hunter and Peter Wagner on the census and counting prisoners; David Reutter on Florida's prison industries; Alex Friedmann on the private prisoner transportation industry; Paul Von Zielbauer on the sordid history of Prison Health Services in New York; Steven Jackson on the prison telephone industry; Samantha Shapiro on religious groups being paid to run prisons and Clayton Mosher, Gregory Hooks and Peter Wood on the myth and reality of building rural prisons.

This is an exclusive paperback printing made just for Prison Legal News.
Price: $19.95
Order at this link: https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/104_ProductDetails.aspx

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

Vermonters help ease life on the outside

Vermonters help ease life on the outside
Towns trying to keep ex-cons on right path

By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | November 24, 2007

BARRE, Vt. - Vermont corrections officials are trying a radical new strategy to reintegrate the state's worst offenders into society: Team them up with groups of students, parents, businesspeople, and retirees in the towns they return to after prison, and let these surrogate families and friends show them how they can fit in again.

Modeling their efforts on a successful Canadian program, towns across Vermont are matching felons who have served time in prison for sexually abusing children, beating up family members, dealing drugs, and other offenses with artists, barbers, lawyers, teachers, and retirees. The volunteers help the returning offenders find jobs and apartments, give them rides and advice, and socialize with them. The idea, which is backed by studies of the Canadian program, is that former inmates who feel connected to the places where they live are less likely to break laws again.

The Vermont Department of Corrections is one of the first in the United States to embrace the approach, using a three-year $2 million federal grant it received in 2003, said Derek Miodownik, the grant manager.

Support teams, called "circles of support and accountability," meet weekly to check on former prisoners in Newport, St. Johnsbury, Barre, Montpelier, and Brattleboro. Each offender works with a small team of volunteers, who begin meeting with the offender before he or she leaves prison. The teams are supervised by local community justice centers, state-funded agencies that work with crime victims and offenders. Paid coordinators, who are employed by the centers, lead the groups and help make sure offenders stay on track. The offenders have been released from prison under state supervision; all have counselors or probation officers who also keep tabs on them.

To make them feel part of the team, the volunteers refer to the offenders as "core members." The teams discuss the effects of the crimes the offenders committed on their victims and the community.

Eric Horowitz, 45, of Brattleboro, said he would probably be back in prison if not for his four team members. They have taken him bowling, to restaurants, and on walks, said Horowitz, who served six years for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor and aggravated domestic assault.

When he saw that the members of his team did not condemn him, "it was a great surprise to me," he said. He said the group has boosted his self-esteem and taught him an important lesson: "When you do something to society, it loses trust in you, and you have to rebuild that trust."

The fate of the Vermont project is uncertain. The federal grant funding will run out at the end of the year, and legislation that would provide more money remains tied up in Congress, said Miodownik. The grant money pays the salaries of the group coordinators.

For now, Vermont has set up 23 trained support teams in five towns and cities. Most of the offenders have returned to the towns where they lived and committed their crimes.

The new initiative has attracted volunteers such as Howard and Elinor Yahm, 64-year-old retired psychotherapists who moved to Vermont almost a year ago from New York. They said they have grown close to the young man their team is trying to help, a 20-year-old who recently served 18 months in prison for possession of child pornography.

Asked about his progress, the Yahms said proudly that the young man is doing "terrifically," thriving in the job they helped him find as manager of a deli and dating a new girlfriend.

"The more successful he is, the more protected the community is," said another volunteer, Jeannie MacLeod of Barre.

A trained mediator and the mother of a young son, MacLeod, 40, is on a team that is helping another former convict, a man who served nine months for assaulting a family member.

MacLeod said she volunteered because she knew the family of her offender. But she quickly found herself riveted by the drama of helping another person struggle through the adversity of returning from prison.

Wilson said recruiting volunteers has been the toughest task facing the program in Canada. In Barre, a blue-collar city of 9,000 people, project leaders said recruitment took off, driven by word of mouth, after Katherine Paterson, the local author of the bestselling children's novel "Bridge To Terabithia," decided to volunteer. About 30 volunteers now serve on nine support teams.

Colorado and a handful of other states are also setting up volunteer teams, and there are other signs that the model may be gaining momentum. Canadian psychologist Robin Wilson, a leading proponent, was in Boston last week to explain how the program works in Canada to clergy members, legislators, and social workers.

Getting residents involved in the lives of felons improves public safety, says Wilson and other proponents. The volunteers become invested in the successful reintegration of the former inmates and serve as role models who help steer their charges away from activities that could lead to crime. In an interview, Wilson said former prisoners fare better under the Canadian approach than when they are shunned in their communities.

"We have to get our heads around the idea that most of them are going to come back to the same places they left," he said. "We can't put them on an island somewhere."

Between 150 and 200 of the circles are operating in Canada, where they serve mostly sex offenders. Another 40 to 50 are in place in the United Kingdom, Wilson said.

A Canadian study compared 60 convicted sex offenders who were deemed most likely to reoffend but who had the help of support teams with 60 felons convicted of similar crimes who lacked such support. The study, conducted by Wilson in 2005, found that the returning felons without support teams were about three times more likely to commit new sex crimes than those with support teams, and more than twice as likely to commit any violent crime within four to five years of their release from prison.

Vermont corrections officials say it is too soon to judge the outcome of the program, which started teaming volunteers with felons in 2005, but they are encouraged: Of the 23 offenders currently participating in the project, some of whom have been in the program for more than a year, only two have been charged with new offenses. One of those two was convicted of providing alcohol to a minor, a lesser crime than his original drug offense, said Miodownik, the grant administrator.

Nationwide, about two-thirds of the people released from prison were arrested for another serious crime within three years of their release, according to a 1994 government study.

The effort in Vermont has drawn little criticism, but some supporters of crime victims say the state should make sure that their needs receive equal attention.

"We hope this is helpful in preventing future victims," said Sharon Davis, special projects coordinator for the Vermont Center for Crime Victims Services. "But on the other side, we should also worry about what we're doing in the longer term for victims."

At a dinner for members of the nine support teams in Barre church basement this month, Howard and Elinor Yahm looked on, smiling, as their young charge dashed back and forth in a Red Sox T-shirt, delivering steaming bowls of squash and potatoes from the kitchen to the table. The former prisoner, who asked that his name not be published, said he hopes one day to be a chef and own a restaurant.

In and out of the criminal justice system for years, the young man said a lot of people have tried to help him, but his group members are different.

"They're not paid to help," he said. "They do it of their own free will."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2007/11/24/vermonters_help_ease_life_on_the_outside?mode=PF

Posted by lois at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2007

OH: MANDATORY SENTENCING- Politicians ask packed prisons to take more

MANDATORY SENTENCING
Politicians ask packed prisons to take more
Sunday, November 25, 2007 3:23 AM
By Jim Siegel
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The same week that Ohio's prison population roared past 50,000 for the first time in history, the Ohio Senate approved mandated prison time for soliciting sex from minors and increased the penalty for inducing panic at a school.

A month earlier, the Senate approved major penalty increases for cocaine-related offenses -- even as Terry Collins, the man who oversees an Ohio prison system that is at 133 percent capacity, argued that his cells were stuffed with low-level drug offenders who would fare better elsewhere.

Politicians like to appear tough on crime, even in the face of criticism that their efforts can be short-sighted and counterproductive.

Since January, Ohio lawmakers have introduced at least 42 bills that increase criminal penalties, expand penalties to new offenses, mandate prison time or create new crimes.

"I do have concerns about the number of pending legislation that will have an impact on our already crowded prison system," Collins said, noting that it costs Ohio taxpayers about $25,000 per year to house an inmate.

But it's a trend unlikely to reverse soon. No one loses an election for being too tough on crime. And longtime observers say that as the public grew increasingly aware of such offenses as child sex abuse, identity theft and repeat drunken driving, lawmakers grew more eager to ratchet up punishments.

During the past two-year legislative session (2005 through 2006), 16 bills enhancing criminal penalties were enacted. At least 20 punishment-boosting measures became law in the 2003-04 session. Four such bills have made it into law so far this year.

Meanwhile, Ohio has a record number of inmates and has spent $800 million building 23 prisons since 1987.

So be it, say some lawmakers.

"We don't create criminals," said Sen. Timothy J. Grendell, R-Chesterland, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "It is a basic function of state government that we protect law-abiding citizens from those who are lawbreakers. I hope we do not … fail to perform that duty simply because we have more criminals today than we did yesterday."

Rep. Jim Hughes, a Columbus Republican and former assistant county prosecutor, said stronger punishments increase deterrents and keep criminals away from the vulnerable.

Hughes said he proposed tougher penalties for identity theft against seniors when he heard stories of the elderly losing their savings to swindlers. As the child sex offender problem grew, or at least gained publicity, he and others have proposed more prison time.

"The issue is apparently that these people aren't getting the message that we're serious about protecting our children," he said.

But Sen. Dale Miller, D-Cleveland, said his colleagues are pushing a short-sighted agenda by increasing penalties.

"I particularly have concerns about bills that are named after somebody," he said. "One terrible thing happens, and granted it's a terrible thing, but then the legislator wants to increase the penalty. We are gradually ending up with a patchwork of penalties that aren't consistent with each other."

Miller was the only senator this month to vote against Senate Bill 183, which mandates jail time of six months to two years for importuning, the crime of soliciting sex from a minor. Those who bust the bad guys -- troopers, police and sheriffs -- support the measure. But those who put them away -- county prosecutors and judges -- oppose the bill.

John E. Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said mandating prison sentences for fourth- and fifth-degree felonies pushes more cases to trial where, in cases of importuning, children may have to testify in open court.

"That doesn't mean some of these people shouldn't go to jail," Murphy said. "But in some of these cases, where you're dealing with a 14- or 15-year-old victim, we question whether we ought to have mandatory penalties."

It's a battle Murphy has fought many times.

When a bill to increase penalties is introduced, he said he "fairly often" finds himself thinking the current law is already adequate. On numerous occasions, he has talked down fervent lawmakers who want to hit criminals with a sledgehammer when a ball-peen would do.

As lawmakers increase penalties for low-level felonies, or turn more misdemeanors into felonies, it consumes time for prosecutors, clogs the court system and reduces plea-bargain options, Murphy said.

"That's becoming a big problem," he said. "But we are not opposed to mandatory penalties for higher-level offenses."

Murphy said prosecutors strongly support a proposed "three strikes" measure that would allow judges to double the sentences of offenders convicted of their third violent first- or second-degree felony.

Meanwhile, Collins is looking for some relief from the overcrowding. Alternatives such as halfway houses and intensive probation are available for low-level felons, he said, but they're full, too.

His department is studying the feasibility of re-opening the Lima Correctional Institution, but Collins said more cells haven't been a long-term solution in the past.

"I think we've found we're worse off today," he said. "I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but that tells me there needs to be some other solution for us to look at."
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/11/25/MorePrison.ART_ART_11-25-07_A1_8E8I8DS.html?sid=101

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

Immigrant Workers Caught in Net Cast for Gangs

November 25, 2007
Immigrant Workers Caught in Net Cast for Gangs
By NINA BERNSTEIN

GREENPORT, N.Y. — It was still dark the morning of Sept. 27 when armed federal immigration agents, guided by local police officers, swept into this village on the East End of Long Island. Within hours, as the team rousted sleeping families, 11 men were added to a running government tally of arrests made in Operation Community Shield, a two-year-old national program singling out violent gang members for deportation.

“Violent foreign-born gang members and their associates have more than worn out their welcome,” Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said at an October news conference announcing the arrests of 1,313 people in the operation over the summer and fall nationwide. “And to them I have one message: Good riddance.”

But, to the dismay of many of Greenport’s 2,500 residents, the raid here did not match her words.

Only one of the 11 men taken away that morning was suspected of a gang affiliation, according to the Southold Town police, who patrol Greenport and played the crucial role of identifying targets for the operation.

The 10 others, while accused of immigration violations, were not gang associates and had no criminal records.

Instead, they were known as good workers and family men. When they suddenly vanished into the far-flung immigration detention system, six of their employers hired lawyers to try to find and free them. Some went further, like Dan and Tina Finne, who agreed to take care of the 3-year-old American-born daughter of a Guatemalan carpenter who was swept up in the raid, if her mother was detained, too.

“This is un-American,” said Ms. Finne, 41, a Greenport native, echoing other citizens who condemned the home raids in public meetings and letters to The Suffolk Times, a weekly newspaper. “We need to do something about immigration, but not this.”

Greenport’s experience with Operation Community Shield sheds light on the inner workings of an antigang crackdown that has brought immigration raids to private homes across the country. The crackdown relies heavily on local police forces to identify suspects, often based on loosely defined or subjective criteria.

But the raid in Greenport also underscores the potential for backlash from local residents and officials when results conflict with expectations.

As the details of the Sept. 27 raid spread through this village, where about 17 percent of residents are Hispanic, some citizens began to protest the very premise of the operation — and the participation of local officers.

David Nyce, Greenport’s mayor, said, “The whole gang issue is something to keep the white majority scared about the Latino population, and to come in and bust as many people as they want.”

“I spoke to the police chief,” he added, “and I said, ‘This is going to set you back a lot.’ ”

Elsewhere in Suffolk County, many welcomed the sweep. The Suffolk County police, who patrol towns in the western part of the county, had only praise for the operation.

‘Collateral Arrests’

But the county executive and the county police commissioner in neighboring Nassau County disagreed. They said that the vast majority of those arrested in their county were not gang associates, and that residents and police alike had been endangered by what they called the agents’ “cowboy mentality,” including armed raids on the wrong homes.

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement dismiss such criticism. They say that the operation was properly conducted and methodically planned, based on intelligence provided by the local police departments themselves. “Collateral arrests” of illegal immigrants who are not gang suspects are always appropriate to the agency’s mission, they said.

“We’re not here stomping all over anybody’s rights,” said Peter J. Smith, the special agent in charge of the Long Island operation, which led to the roundup of 186 men. “We’ve got immigration powers.”

One of the things that clearly unsettled residents of Greenport was that the immigrants were arrested in their homes, without warrants, an immigration enforcement tactic that has been used more and more since 2005.

By law, immigration agents without judicial warrants may enter homes only with the consent of the residents. They may not use racial or ethnic profiling to single people out. But they have broad authority to detain anyone they encounter if they have grounds for suspicion that the person is not in the country legally. The legality of recent home raids has been challenged in federal court in New York and elsewhere.

Case law on the constitutional limits of immigration powers in home raids is still unsettled, said Prof. Daniel Kanstroom, a legal historian of deportation at Boston College. For decades, such raids were rare, in part because the idea of home as an inviolable space has been enshrined by the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. “We are now in the midst of a major resurgence” in home raids, Professor Kanstroom said.

The operation in Greenport began a month before the raid, with a phone call from Agent Smith to the Southold Town police, said Detective Sgt. John Sinning. The federal agency was planning an antigang sweep on Long Island, and he was asked if he had names of gang members who might also be deportable immigrants.

Like many police departments, the Southold force keeps a database of young men suspected of gang ties, in many cases because of their clothes, their tattoos or the company they keep.

Planning the Raids

Since there is no legal definition of criminal street gang membership, officers have tremendous discretion in deciding whom to classify as a gang associate, notes Jennifer Chacon, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who has written critically about Operation Community Shield.

In Greenport, Detective Sinning, 43, took the lead. He speaks no Spanish, but after years of regional meetings on the topic, he said, he knows the signs of gang participation.

“I gave them 15 or 16 names that we had as gang members or gang associates,” he said. “They ran them through their systems and came back with four, late the night before the raid.”

Detective Sinning said he suspected that two of the four, Salvadore Salazar-Orellana and Carlos Enrique Campos, were already in custody on assault and robbery charges. But he plugged all four names into a general database, and came up with six or seven home addresses roughly associated with the names he had been given.

The next day, accompanied by two uniformed officers, he guided the federal agents to those addresses.

In the end, only one of the men they were seeking was found: Pedro Rodriguez, a 19-year-old Greenport High School graduate who was facing his first criminal indictment, for assault. He had been released on bail to his mother’s house, protesting innocence.

The fourth man sought by the team was José Fuentes, an 18-year-old with no criminal record, who had been designated a gang associate by a Southold officer, Detective Sinning said. But at each address they were told he had moved or had never lived there.

One address on the list turned out to be the home of a Greenport firefighter, James Berry, who lives across the street from the mayor. Mr. Berry, 48, an American citizen, said a dozen armed agents and officers were on his lawn. “I thought they were going to kick the door in,” he recalled. But when he opened the door with a curse, an agent said, “I think we have the wrong address.”

Detective Sinning said agents also left an address where the residents who opened their door did not appear to be Hispanic. But at several other houses on the detective’s list, Latino residents answered the door, and the agents gained entry. They searched the premises, demanded immigration papers, and arrested any man who could not produce the right documents. Women and children were left behind.

At one house where the agents were looking for Mr. Fuentes, they arrested three men who had been asleep in separate bedrooms when an aunt opened the door. Two were cousins from El Salvador, Marvin Lopez, 21, a packer of baby vegetables at Satur Farm in Cutchogue, and Omar Lopez, 25, a Shelter Island landscaper, who had been asleep with his fiancée and infant son. The third man, Valentin Rudy Escobar Montenegro, a Guatemalan carpenter, also was with his wife and baby.

At an apartment mistakenly linked to Mr. Campos, one of the men who were in jail, the agents instead arrested Israel Salazar, 54, a full-time gardener for a retired couple in nearby Orient.

At Mr. Rodriguez’s home, agents handcuffed him in the basement bedroom he shared with his American fiancée, who was pregnant. Then they took six other men in the house: Mr. Rodriguez’s cousin, Arturo, 17; Walter Tzun, the Guatemalan carpenter who worked for Mr. Finne; and — from a separate apartment upstairs — four Guatemalan landscapers who had worked for the same Shelter Island company for five years.

For the first six to eight days, the Lopez cousins and Mr. Salazar were held incommunicado, without access to counsel, at the maximum-security Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Muslim immigrants considered terror suspects were held after 9/11.

Moving From Jail to Jail

Eberhard Müller, the former executive chef of Lutèce, who runs Satur Farms with his wife, hired a lawyer to find Marvin Lopez, the vegetable packer. Two weeks after the raid, the lawyer found him: he had been sent in shackles from Brooklyn to a detention center in Rhode Island, and on to a New Jersey jail.

Mr. Tzun was sent through two county jails to a federal detention center in York, Pa. But even as his boss was driving to York to hire a Pennsylvania lawyer to seek bond, Mr. Tzun was being flown to a privately run prison in rural New Mexico.

Until recently, men like these, with no criminal record or outstanding deportation orders, would have been released pending a deportation hearing. But none of those arrested in the September sweep in New York were released by the New York field office. The whereabouts of four of the men — the Guatemalan landscapers — could not be learned.

Still, several of the others eventually managed to return to Greenport, and some are fighting to stay. Mr. Salazar, after three weeks behind bars, was released from the jail in Hudson County, N.J., on $10,000 bond paid by Charlotte Gemmel and Maureen Sanders, the retirees who employed him as a gardener. Marvin Lopez is also out on $10,000 bond, posted by the owners of Satur Farms. Both are applying for asylum.

Omar Lopez hopes to do so, too, based on his fear of violent gangs in El Salvador. For now, though, he worries what will happen to his fiancée, Yanci, and son, Kevin, if he is deported.

“I cry here inside prison, just thinking about Yanci,” he said recently from jail in Monmouth County, N.J.

Mr. Tzun, who overstayed a visa in 2000, was released on $10,000 bond on Nov. 6 after he agreed to leave for Guatemala by Dec. 15. He has returned to say goodbye to his daughter, Sarah, and her mother, Amanda Rodriguez, with whom he had lived for six years. Mr. Tzun considered himself the stepfather of Ms. Rodriguez’s three other children, including Pedro Rodriguez, who was on the original target list. Pedro Rodriguez said he was persuaded in detention to sign deportation papers — as were his cousin Arturo and Mr. Montenegro. Mr. Rodriguez, who was 12 when his mother brought him to the United States, was deported to Mexico in late October.

But that deportation left unresolved the misdemeanor assault case that Detective Sinning had brought against him in August — to the frustration of both the detective and the defendant.

The detective wanted a grand jury to indict Mr. Rodriguez for a gang-related felony in the case. The defendant wanted to clear his name, and had asked to testify and to bring alibi witnesses to a grand jury.

Mr. Rodriguez’s criminal defense lawyer, Luis A. Pagan, said he was startled to learn that Detective Sinning had given Mr. Rodriguez’s name to immigration agents as a target while the case was pending.

“That’s scary,” Mr. Pagan said. “They’re not even giving this guy the right to defend himself.”

The misdemeanor charge remains on the defendant’s record, but because he was deported before he could be heard by the grand jury, prosecutors say they can no longer pursue a felony indictment. That matters, the detective said, because he expects Mr. Rodriguez to eventually make his way back to Greenport, where he has family and a child on the way.

Detective Sinning said he stood ready to help immigration agents again. But he added, “In this case, the one system is working against the other system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/nyregion/25raid.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)

The Geography of Hate

The important part of this is the huge map which you can view by going to this URL. The graphic, above, shows some of the reported sightings of nooses in the past two years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25potok.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
November 25, 2007
Op-Chart, NY Times
The Geography of Hate
By MARK POTOK, LUKE VISCONTI, BARBARA FRANKEL and NIGEL HOLMES

FROM the 1880s to the 1960s, at least 4,700 men and women were lynched in this country. The noose remains a terrifying symbol, and continues to be used by racists to intimidate African-Americans (who made up more than 70 percent of lynching victims).

In the past decade or so, only about a dozen noose incidents a year came to the attention of civil rights groups. But since the huge Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., where tens of thousands protested what they saw as racism in the prosecution of six black youths known as the “Jena 6,” this country has seen a rash of as many as 50 to 60 noose incidents. Last Tuesday, for example, a city employee in Slidell, La., was fired after being accused of hanging a noose at a job site a few days earlier.

These incidents are worrying, but even more so is the social reality they reflect. The level of hate crimes in the United States is astoundingly high — more than 190,000 incidents per year, according to a 2005 Department of Justice study.

And the number of hate groups, according to the annual count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has shot up 40 percent in recent years, from 602 groups in 2000 to 844 in 2006.

It seems that the September rally in Jena — much as it was seen by many civil rights activists as the beginning of a new social movement — signaled not a renewed march toward racial and social justice, but a surprisingly broad and deep white backlash against the gains of black America.

Mark Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Luke Visconti is the co-founder and Barbara Frankel is the executive editor of the magazine DiversityInc. Nigel Holmes is a graphic designer.

Posted by lois at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2007

Trying to Break Cycle of Prison at Street Level

"The Fifth Ward, an east Houston neighborhood, has one of the city’s highest concentrations of former prisoners. At least 125 state parolees resettled in the neighborhood in 2006, according to the mapping studies. Their prison terms cost Texas $9 million."

November 23, 2007
Trying to Break Cycle of Prison at Street Level
By SOLOMON MOORE
NY Times, Page 1

HOUSTON — Corey Taylor, a convicted drug dealer, recently got out of prison and moved into his grandmother’s house in Sunnyside, a south central Houston neighborhood of small, tidy yards.

During his first days home, Mr. Taylor, 26, got a sharp reminder of the neighborhood’s chronic problems.

“Out of 10 of my partners, only one is doing anything different,” he said, referring to his former drug-dealing companions. “I have some friends I haven’t seen for 10 years because either I was locked up or they were locked up.”

Last year, 32,585 prisoners were released on state parole in Texas, and many of them returned to neighborhoods where they live among thousands of other parolees and probationers.

Sunnyside is one of 10 neighborhoods in Houston that together accounted for 15 percent of the city’s population, yet received half of the 6,283 prisoners released in Houston in 2005, according to the Justice Mapping Center, a criminal justice research group.

The group, which is based in Brooklyn, has done work for the Texas Legislature that helped lead to a $217 million expansion of rehabilitation services.

Neighborhoods like Sunnyside can be found in virtually every big city in the nation. Even as violent crime statistics trend downward, incarceration rates throughout the country remain at a historic high of 750 per 100,000 residents. Each year about 650,000 prisoners are released on parole, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Mapping studies in neighborhoods as distant as the Phoenix suburb of South Mountain and the Newhallville area of New Haven show incarceration rates far higher than the national rate.

The parolees are almost always coming back to areas where support systems, like schools and public assistance programs, receive less money and attention than incarceration does, the studies show. In an effort to break the cycle, Texas this fall began its expansion of services for former inmates, including job training classes, drug treatment programs and psychological counseling.

The approach, based in part on legislative presentations by the Justice Mapping Center, is a sharp departure from the state’s longtime criminal justice focus on retribution.

The shift is intended to save the state money by slowing the revolving door between state prisons and neighborhoods like Sunnyside. The parolees released last year cost the state $100 million over the course of their prison terms; the 85 who returned to Sunnyside, population 21,000, accounted for almost $8 million of that, according to data by the mapping group.

“It’s not uncommon for children of criminal justice system clients to themselves go into the criminal justice system,” said State Senator John H. Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

“Certain lower socioeconomic areas produce clients for the criminal justice system in a way that is analogous to the way that the welfare system created a cycle of first- and second- and third-generation welfare recipients.”

Despite declining crime and lower arrest rates, Texas’s adult prison expenditures have grown to $2.8 billion a year, tripled since 1990. Decades of tough-on-crime legislation and low parole rates have quadrupled the state prison population since 1985.

The prisons are about 4,000 inmates beyond their legal capacity, according to prison officials.

A variety of groups, including the Council of State Governments and the Open Society Institute, are investigating the economic cost of communities with high rates of prison admissions and releases and the effectiveness of incarceration policies.

Eric Cadora, a founder of the Justice Mapping Center, said high incarceration rates hinder government efforts to turn around troubled neighborhoods by taking people out of the work force, compelling families to rely on government assistance and scaring away investment.

The Fifth Ward, an east Houston neighborhood, has one of the city’s highest concentrations of former prisoners. At least 125 state parolees resettled in the neighborhood in 2006, according to the mapping studies. Their prison terms cost Texas $9 million.

Mark Wright, 31, stood outside a house in the Fifth Ward recently selling drugs just weeks after completing a prison term for drug possession. Altogether, Mr. Wright said he had served 10 years for four drug-related convictions and one parole violation.

“I was bred into this life,” said Mr. Wright, who said he still made his living selling drugs. “It’s survival of the fittest out here.”

Mr. Wright said that “damn near 99 percent” of his friends had served prison terms, mostly for drug possession, including his younger brother, who is currently in prison.

“Half these dudes dropped out of junior high,” he said, pointing to several friends standing with him sipping from plastic foam cups of “Purple Drank,” a brain-battering draft of prescription-strength codeine cough syrup cut with soda. “Some of them dropped out of elementary school. All they got is this hustle. They got no backup.”

In east Houston, another of the city’s troubled neighborhoods, Marilyn Gambrell, the founder of No More Victims Inc., a support group for students at M. B. Smiley High School with incarcerated parents, said that more than half of the 1,250 students there have relatives in prison or who have done time in the past. Ms. Gambrell is a former parole officer who supervised many of the parents.

Each day, several dozen of the teenagers gather in a carpeted classroom with plush sofas and cushioned chairs to talk about what it is like to have a family member in jail or prison.

During a recent discussion, drugs, violence and poverty were running themes. One boy said he had accompanied his stepfather on drug runs, and most of the students said they themselves had already had run-ins with the police.

Tangenea Miller, 20, is considered a graduate of the support group. She works as a corrections officer at a Houston lock-up. “I see a lot of people there from my old neighborhood,” Ms. Miller said.

The situations described in the high school sessions were front and center one recent day in the Houston neighborhood of Kashmere Gardens. Weeds curled out of broken windows and open doorways in abandoned homes. Mounds of trash sat in empty lots flooded with stagnant water.

Young men, most of them unemployed, stood in front of shotgun houses sipping Purple Drank. Others dealt dope in front of strip-malls and on side streets in broad daylight. The Justice Mapping Center estimates that Texas taxpayers spent $10 million to incarcerate the 117 state prison inmates who were paroled to Kashmere Gardens last year.

Al Jarreau Davis, 26, was released back to Kashmere Gardens five months ago after serving less than a year in state jail for drug possession. It was his second jail term. Mr. Davis and his older brother, Bay Davis, also a recently released drug offender, support themselves by selling marijuana and crack cocaine.

A third Davis brother was shot to death a year ago during an argument after a traffic accident.

“There ain’t no jobs out here for someone like me,” said Al Jarreau Davis. Both brothers said they fully expected to be arrested again, or worse.

“I’m probably going to stay out on the street until somebody murders me,” said Bay Davis, matter-of-factly.

And new parolees keep coming. Every few weeks, several dozen inmates assemble in the chapel of the state prison in Huntsville on the eve of their release for a two-hour orientation program by Christian outreach workers. The prisoners are offered phone lists of clinics, churches, shelters and drug treatment programs. Then they file out of the chapel and back to their cells for one more night of restless confinement.

It is a shoestring program and most inmates do not participate, said the Rev. Emmett Solomon, a prison minister who leads the classes. “Most of what they get to prepare them for their release, they get right here,” Mr. Solomon said. “But it’s probably too little, too late.”

Mr. Taylor, the Sunnyside drug dealer, was in a recent class. He left for the bus station the next morning, with about 40 other men, wearing tattered, unfashionable donated clothes and carrying their possessions in mesh bags.

As Mr. Taylor got off the bus in Houston later in the afternoon, a passing stranger who called himself Ice welcomed him home.

“Hey man, I know how it is,” he told Mr. Taylor. “I just got out, too.”
Map at this URL http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/us/23mapping.html?pagewanted=all

Posted by lois at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2007

Georgia Justices Overturn a Curb on Sex Offenders

November 22, 2007
Georgia Justices Overturn a Curb on Sex Offenders
By BRENDA GOODMAN
NY Times

ATLANTA, Nov. 21 — The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law Wednesday that limited where registered sex offenders could live, ruling that the statute was so restrictive it unconstitutionally deprived the offenders of their property rights.

The law, described when it was adopted in 2006 as the nation’s toughest restriction on sex offenders, prohibited them from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches or any other place that children might congregate, including more than 150,000 school bus stops in the state. The ban applied even when a school, a church or the like opened in an area where an offender was already living.

“Under the terms of that statute, it is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected,” said the seven-member court’s opinion, written by Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein.

The court ruled that the statute violated Fifth Amendment protections against the public taking of private property without compensation.

The law “looms over every location” that registered sex offenders might choose to call home, with the potential to force them from their residence any time “some third party chooses to establish any of the long list of places and facilities encompassed within the residency restriction,” Justice Hunstein wrote.

The law was challenged by Anthony E. Mann, 44, of Hampton, Ga., who pleaded no contest in 2002 to a North Carolina charge of taking indecent liberties with a child. “It just didn’t even pass the smell test,” said Stephen Bailey Wallace, the lawyer who represented Mr. Mann before the justices. “It’s terribly myopic.”

State Representative Jerry Keen, a Republican who sponsored the legislation, said the court had superseded the will of both the legislative and executive branches of Georgia’s government. Mr. Keen vowed to redraft the law and reintroduce it when the legislature, formally the General Assembly, next meets in January.

“In the meantime, convicted felony sex offenders will be allowed to live next door to day care centers, school bus stops or anywhere else they choose,” Mr. Keen said in a statement.

But courts around the nation have begun to show their discomfort with new state laws that impose such residency restrictions, which in some cases are so broad they have forced sex offenders to become homeless when they cannot find an address that meets the legal requirements.

Wednesday’s ruling applies only to the residency restrictions of Georgia’s law. A separate lawsuit has challenged parts of the law that bar sex offenders from working or loitering in places where children gather.

Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights, the civil rights group that brought the second suit, said Wednesday’s decision was the beginning of the end of a poorly conceived statute.

“It’s a law that’s impossible to comply with and impossible to enforce,” Ms. Geraghty said. “And it does nothing to protect kids, because it forces sex offenders to go underground.”

Mr. Mann said in a telephone interview that the court’s decision brought great relief.

“You live kind of every day wondering if the sheriff’s office is going to come out and tell you that you have three days to move,” Mr. Mann said. “It’s happened to me twice.”

Mr. Mann said he had challenged the law to protect his family, but also because he had felt he was being unfairly punished for the sake of political pandering.

“Politicians love to do the popular thing, and sex offenders are the popular thing,” he said. “I think this will challenge them to rewrite that law, and this time I think they need to ask the experts what to do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/us/22offender.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1195743994-AafQ0TIl6YnVtgYeoMnTdA

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

November 20, 2007

“Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America’s Prison Population”

http://www.jfa-associates.com/publications/srs/UnlockingAmerica.pdf
“Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America’s Prison Population”
The JFA Institute, November 2007. Includes “Crime Rates and Incarceration”, “Three Key Myths About Crime and Incarceration”, “Decarceration, Cost Savings and Public Safety.”
A very interesting report.

Posted by lois at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

Editorial NY Times: Raising Children Behind Bars

November 20, 2007
Editorial, NY Times
Raising Children Behind Bars

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 created a far-sighted partnership between the federal government and the states that agreed to remake often barbaric juvenile justice systems in exchange for federal aid. Unfortunately, those gains have been steadily rolled back since the 1990s when states began sending ever larger numbers of juveniles to adult jails — where they face a high risk of being battered, raped or pushed to suicide. The act is due to be reauthorized this year, and Congress needs to use that opportunity to reverse this destructive trend.

As incredible as it seems, many states regard a child as young as 10 as competent to stand trial in juvenile court. More than 40 states regard children as young as 14 as “of age” and old enough to stand trial in adult court. The scope of the problem is laid out in a new report entitled Jailing Juveniles from the Campaign for Youth Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington. Statistics are notoriously hard to get, but perhaps as many as 150,000 young people under the age of 18 are incarcerated in adult jails in any given year.

As many as half of the young people who are transferred to the adult system are never convicted as adults. Many are never convicted at all. By the time the process has run its course, however, one in five of these young people will have spent more than six months in adult jails.

Some jails try to protect young inmates by placing them in isolation, where they are locked in small cells for 23 hours a day. This worsens mental disorders. The study says that young people are 36 times more likely to commit suicide in an adult jail than in a juvenile facility. Young people who survive adult jail too often return home as damaged and dangerous people. Studies show that they are far more likely to commit violent crimes — and to end up back inside — than those who are handled through the juvenile courts.

The rush to criminalize children has set the country on a dangerous path. Congress must now reshape the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act so that it provides the states with the money and the expertise they need to develop more enlightened juvenile justice policies. For starters, it should rewrite the law to prohibit the confinement of children in adult jails.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/opinion/20tue3.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)

"Watch and Release " by Jeremy Travis

November 18, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor, NY Times
Watch and Release
By JEREMY TRAVIS

THE news media have a penchant for reliving major events on significant anniversaries. So it came as no surprise this year that we were bombarded with 30-year-old memories of the summer of 1977, when the Bronx was burning, the Son of Sam was on the loose and a blackout led to days of widespread looting.

Before the 1977 nostalgia passes, we should recall another series of frightening events from that year that hold lessons for today. In the space of a month, four New York State prisoners assigned to temporary release programs escaped. Three committed horrific crimes. In the uproar that followed, New York clamped down on these programs, leaving a policy legacy that still hamstrings our ability to reduce crime.

The first to escape was Salvador Agron, the “Cape Man.” As a 16-year-old gang leader, wearing a black cape, Agron stabbed three teenagers, two of whom died. After his death sentence was commuted to life, Agron became eligible for parole, was admitted to an education release program and attended classes at New Paltz State College. On April 16, 1977, eight months before his parole date, nearly 18 years after his arrest, he absconded. Two weeks later, he was apprehended in Phoenix.

Three weeks after Agron disappeared, Richard Gantz, on a two-day pass from a Manhattan work-release center, abducted and raped a 19-year-old college student. A few days later, Harry Elmore received a one-day pass from the same center and murdered 45-year-old Ethel Loney. About a week later, Jerry Williams, on furlough from another work-release center, was arrested for the rape of a 20-year-old nurse.

Headlines in New York reflected the public’s outrage. “State Prisoners in Escapist Mood.” “Rape Rap Hits Third Con on Release.” Within a month, Benjamin Ward, the state commissioner for correctional services, was on the hot seat before the State Senate’s Crime and Corrections Committee. He marshaled persuasive evidence to support the early-release programs: Only 114 of the 3,053 participants had absconded, for a remarkably low failure rate of 3.7 percent. Prisoners released directly committed crimes at higher rates than those released through transitional programs. Because participants earned nearly $1 million in wages, paid taxes and saved money to smooth their transition home, the programs were cost-effective.

These arguments did not stand a chance in the summer of 1977. On July 15, the Legislature approved sweeping changes in the state’s temporary release policies. Eligibility was limited to those prisoners with serious medical problems or relatives near death. Prisoners convicted of violent crimes or sexual assault could participate only if the corrections commissioner approved. By December, the number of participants was cut in half.

In the summer of 1977, New Yorkers lost sight of two realities of prisoner re-entry. First, except those who die in prison, all prisoners, including those who are highly dangerous, ultimately come home.

Second, the immediate post-release period poses the highest risk of failure. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, two-thirds of returning prisoners are rearrested within three years, but almost half those arrests occur within the first six months. When New York clamped down on temporary releases, it curtailed those programs that provide support when failure rates are highest.

Today, New York’s re-entry policies still reflect the political calculations of 1977. Only nine of the state’s 70 correctional facilities offer temporary release programs. Fewer than four percent of state inmates participate. No one is enrolled in an educational release program.

New York could simply restore eligibility for temporary release programs, but this reform would miss the mark. Instead, we should seek significant reductions in the rearrest rates of everyone leaving prison, not just those assigned to special programs.

Moreover, we should shift support and supervision resources to the front end of the re-entry period. In addition to transitional work and education programs, we should invest in halfway houses, residential and outpatient drug treatment and family mediation services.

In doing so, the state should also make safety planning a priority. We should secure protection orders for victims fearful of a repeat attack. Police and parole officers should work together to prevent retaliatory violence when a gang member leaves prison.

The state should also finance organizations of formerly incarcerated community residents to guide newly released prisoners along the path to reintegration. In short, we should align resources with risk, and invest in proven interventions that reduce new arrests during this critical transition period.

Meeting this goal is even harder today than 30 years ago. New York’s prison population has more than tripled. This year, more than 25,000 men and women will be released from our prisons. No network of re-entry programs provides a guarantee against horrific crimes. But, with a focus on results, we can reduce crime by helping these men and women return home safely.

Jeremy Travis, the president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, is the author of “But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Re-entry.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/nyregionopinions/18CItravis.html

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

Whites Take a Majority on New Orleans’s Council

November 20, 2007
Whites Take a Majority on New Orleans’s Council
By ADAM NOSSITER
NY Times

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 19 — In one of the clearest signs yet of Hurricane Katrina’s lasting demographic impact, the City Council is about to have a white majority for the first time in over two decades, pointing up again the storm’s displacement of thousands of residents, mostly black.

In local elections on Saturday, a veteran white politician, Jacquelyn B. Clarkson, defeated an African-American candidate, Cynthia Willard-Lewis, by 53 percent to 47 percent, in a contest for an at-large Council seat decided largely along racial lines. In addition, substantially more whites than blacks appear to have voted. Ms. Clarkson will become the fourth white member on the seven-member Council.

The total number of votes cast in the election — 52,614 — was sharply down from 113,000 in the election for mayor in May 2006. The low number called into question recent optimistic estimates that the city’s population had attained as much as two-thirds of its prestorm level, which was about 450,000.

In the 2006 election, many of those displaced by the hurricane voted absentee or drove into New Orleans to cast ballots. That vote from elsewhere appears to have been largely absent on Saturday, over two years after the storm.

“I think many people have moved on,” said Gregory C. Rigamer, a local demographic analyst whose work has been widely cited here. “When you look at this, you have to think the lower voter turnout would indicate that some people who previously cast votes from afar have lost interest.”

Since the mid-1980s, black politicians have held virtually all of the reins of power in a city where interest groups are sharply factionalized along racial lines and blacks were once two-thirds of the population. Saturday’s vote indicated a transition is in the making, perhaps similar to the one that occurred at the end of the segregation era here.

White candidates made other gains on Saturday, taking two New Orleans seats in the Louisiana Legislature long held by blacks, and a state court judgeship that had also been occupied by a black judge.

Voting was largely along racial lines. The apparently greater number of votes cast by whites — 29,700, compared with 22,900 black votes, according to an analysis by Mr. Rigamer — makes uncertain widely quoted estimates that blacks, despite a disproportionate population loss, are still substantially in the majority here.

The weekend election appeared to confirm what many had predicted immediately after the storm in 2005: New Orleans became almost overnight a smaller, whiter city with a much reduced black majority. And the results suggested that the election for mayor last year, where voting percentages were closer to pre- Katrina norms, might have been something of a fluke.

“Either blacks have really decided not to come back, in numbers, or they just voted by not voting,” said Cheron Brylski, a veteran political consultant here. “I’m really amazed at the number who just didn’t show up, knowing what was at stake.”

“I think this is the new normal,” she added. “We have to accept the fact that this is who is here, and this is who is back.”

The results on Saturday were greeted with gloom in black political circles.

“It is somewhat disheartening,” said Bill Rouselle, a veteran African-American consultant here. “It’s an indication that a lot of people have given up hope. A lot of people feel abandoned.”

Though not as highly publicized as the mayor’s race last year, the race for one of two at-large seats on the seven-member Council was nonetheless closely watched in New Orleans. The event that prompted the contest — the resignation of a popular black councilman who pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge — shocked the city as few events in public life here have, appearing as confirmation that a miasma of corruption still held sway in New Orleans.

Virtually none of the post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction projects planned by the city have gotten off the ground. Racial divisions on the Council have been sharp, and confrontations with Mayor C. Ray Nagin are frequent, though usually fruitless.

Ms. Brylski, the consultant, suggested that this might change under the newly constituted Council. “I do think the power shifts to the City Council,” she said, “and it’s incumbent on them to do something.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/us/nationalspecial/20orleans.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by lois at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2007

CO: The Poisoned Pen of Fort Lyon Prison

The Poisoned Pen of Fort Lyon Prison
Bought by the state for a dollar, Fort Lyon is rich in history, asbestos, sick inmates — and trouble.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: November 15, 2007

History Lesson #1

In 1829, William Bent headed west to join his older brother in the fur business. William was twenty years old, the son of a Missouri supreme court justice — and, like his brother Charlie, who would one day be the first governor of the New Mexico Territory, he soon fell in love with the lawless vastness that would become southern Colorado.

After he hid two Cheyenne from their archenemy, the Comanches, William became a trusted friend of the Cheyenne nation. Their chief, Black Kettle, called him Little White Man. At 26, Bent married a Cheyenne woman; after her death, he married her sister. He built a log stockade not far from what is now Pueblo and then, using laborers from Mexico, a sturdier adobe fort on the eastern plains, a haven for travelers along the Santa Fe Trail.

For several years, Bent's Fort hummed with trade. Wagon trains, Indians, soldiers and buffalo hunters all came to do business with Bent and his partner, Ceran St. Vrain. But as the pace of settlement increased, relations with the local tribes deteriorated — and so did commerce. In 1849, St. Vrain offered to sell the fort to the Army.

The offer came a decade too early. Within a few years, the Colorado gold rush would bring thousands of whites to the territory and increasing trouble with the Indians. There would be great need for an Army post along this stretch of the Santa Fe Trail — and great grief over actions staged from the new fort that would be built there. But in 1849 the government didn't see any reason to buy Bent's Fort. Some officials believed they could take over the place for nothing after the owners, bedeviled by hostile tribes, finally gave it up as a bad deal.

But Bent refused to give the Army his creation. Instead, he placed kegs of gunpowder along the adobe walls and blew up the whole shebang.

The Far Side of the Dollar

On November 15, 2001, a century and a half after Bent destroyed his fort, a group of federal, state and Bent County bureaucrats gathered less than twenty miles away, on the handsome 556-acre campus of Fort Lyon. The site had been an Army post, then a Navy sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, then a psychiatric hospital, then a chronic-care center operated by the Veterans Administration. Now, for the princely sum of one dollar, the feds were about to turn over Fort Lyon to the State of Colorado, which planned to transform the property into a special prison for elderly and mentally ill inmates.

Some observers described the transfer ceremony as "bittersweet," but any sweetness was hard to find. Then-governor Bill Owens sought an upbeat note, declaring that the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility "will make Colorado a safer place" and would be "a lot cheaper than building a prison from the ground up." A few old-timers in the crowd cracked wise about the kind of society that would turn a hospital for military vets into a rest home for geriatric felons. Locals wondered glumly if the job opportunities offered by a new prison, many of which would be filled by longtime Department of Corrections employees, could begin to make up for the lost federal jobs.

In its heyday, Fort Lyon had been a sprawling town unto itself, populated by more than a thousand patients. It had an Olympic swimming pool, a miniature golf course, tennis courts and an array of living quarters and other buildings dating back to the 1860s. But in recent years, the VA had directed its patients to more readily accessible centers and turned Fort Lyon into a nursing home and outpatient clinic; at the time of its closure, it had only 56 beds occupied, with a staff of fewer than 200.

The DOC's plans for the place were ambitious, to say the least. The department didn't have any use for the pool, the golf course or many of the 102 buildings on the campus, but some workers could live in former officers' quarters, and a few hospital buildings around the parade ground would accommodate a mix of inmates. According to the plan presented to the state legislature, the prison would soon house 500 medium-security prisoners — 50 percent of them able-bodied, the rest made up in equal parts of the physically infirm and mentally ill. There would be 300 employees, almost half of whom would be medical, nursing or mental-health professionals. Eventually, the place could be home to a thousand of the state's 20,000 prisoners, with a thriving correctional-industries operation and a special program for mentally ill prisoners who are also battling substance abuse. Best of all, by using inmate labor to accomplish many of the needed renovations, officials estimated that Fort Lyon could be converted to a prison for a mere $13 million, with another $18 million a year in operating costs.

"The modifications that are planned for the Fort Lyon facility are very limited and will primarily improve security," one briefing document explained, then added a quick cautionary note: "We may discover problems, or situations may develop over the next few years that require funding beyond the operating budget to resolve."

Six years later, situations have indeed developed at Fort Lyon. The place now has more than 500 inmates, but fewer than a hundred are the "special medical needs" prisoners who were supposed to go there. Fort Lyon has inmates with moderate mental illness, but none of the "high psychiatric needs" cases originally planned for. Like the VA, the DOC has had trouble attracting qualified medical personnel to the area and has only half of the nursing staff originally projected. The prison has had six wardens in six years. Maintenance costs for the aging facility have been significantly higher than expected, and the daily operating cost per inmate has made Fort Lyon one of the five most expensive of the state's 27 prisons.

Yet Fort Lyon's greatest problem was already lurking there when the state took it over. Instead of making Colorado a safer place and protecting sick prisoners, the move may have exposed them and staff to a range of environmental hazards. Many of these hazards, such as lead paint, were known at the time of the transfer, but the most serious — asbestos contamination in almost all of the buildings and even in the air — has turned out to be much more extensive than anticipated. In the past year, cost estimates for asbestos abatement at Fort Lyon have jumped from $6 million to $10 million — and that doesn't include the cost of dealing with asbestos-tainted soil, which officials hope to manage by spreading a little road base, growing more vegetation and not disturbing the stuff.

In the summer of 2006, a team of asbestos inspectors from Gobbell Hays, a private environmental consulting firm, collected hundreds of samples from Fort Lyon's buildings and soils. The team found "moderate to significant amounts" of asbestos-containing materials in most of the buildings, including widespread use of asbestos in steam-pipe insulation, wall plaster, baseboard and floor-tile adhesives and some ceiling and roofing materials. They also identified numerous hot spots in the dirt where buildings had been demolished decades earlier. The records of these demolitions were sketchy or non-existent, the consultants discovered, and many of the most contaminated zones weren't even tested in previous assessments of the site.

One of the worst areas was an ancient building called the Dairy Barn, which was being used by prison maintenance crews to store spare parts and equipment. For months, several inmates and staffers had crawled all over that barn, storing excess plumbing and HVAC materials and fetching parts, unaware that half a century ago the building had been used as a "hammer mill," where insulation from old pipes had been stripped off and reused. The place was crawling with asbestos fibers, Gobbell Hays found. The barn was quickly sealed, at a cost of $18,000 (not counting the loss of the inventory inside), and the outside premises micro-vacuumed.

One prisoner, who asked that his name not be used out of concerns about retaliation, followed a Gobbell Hays employee named Jose Montoya during the inspection. "He took samples of floor tiles, insulation, paint chips, ceiling tiles," the inmate remembers. "He told me he saw asbestos in the boiler room, mechanical rooms, and in the dirt outside the buildings." The inmate was stunned that no one had brought this up before, since the prison had already been operating for four years. He'd been at Fort Lyon since early 2003 and had done maintenance work in mechanical rooms, above drop ceilings and behind walls, in places where he saw stickers warning against the use of drills because of asbestos.

A few months ago, this inmate, along with 206 other former Fort Lyon maintenance workers, was ordered to report for chest X-rays. The doctor who examined the X-rays told him he had "severe abnormalities" in both lungs, he says, and ordered a CAT scan. The doctor who did the scan told him he was fine and probably had a cold. But the inmate worries it might be something worse — even though asbestos-related diseases, including lung cancer and mesothelioma, don't typically show up for fifteen years or more.

"Until last year, inmates doing maintenance were not prevented from entering any and all areas of Fort Lyon," he says. "I was not given any training or protective gear. The few inmates who did protest the working conditions were transferred out to other facilities."

Last year, the DOC finally hired an asbestos coordinator: Jose Montoya, the Gobbell Hays employee the inmate had followed.

But Phil DeFelice, the physical plant manager for Fort Lyon for the past three years, says that no prisoners have ever worked on asbestos abatement projects at the prison. "The inmates don't do any work that has to do with asbestos at all," he says. "It's all done by staff."

However, DeFelice and other officials acknowledge that there have been situations, including the Dairy Barn fiasco, in which inmates or staff were accidentally exposed to asbestos. Several have been documented by state health inspectors investigating inmate complaints. The DOC administrators insist that these incidents are isolated and have been blown out of proportion; the procedures they've put in place since the Gobbell Hays inspection, they say, are more than adequate to prevent further exposures. But sealing off or removing the asbestos, a project that falls outside the prison's operational budget, is being done in incremental stages as funding becomes available and may take twenty years or more. And some prisoners who are knowledgeable about asbestos abatement claim the documented incidents are only the tip of a costly, pervasive problem at Fort Lyon that the DOC failed to adequately address in its eagerness to ship prisoners there.

"The first thing they're going to do is say that we're felons and we lie," says Jerry Bachota, a prisoner with a background in construction who spent two years at Fort Lyon. "But there's a reason the feds gave up this property for a buck."

History Lesson #2

In 1853 William Bent built a new fort several miles east of the old one. The location, not far from present-day Lamar, struck the Army as a good area in which to erect its own fort, a sandstone compound that could offer protection to travelers between Kansas and Santa Fe.

The construction of Fort Wise, named after Henry Wise, the fancy-pants, well-connected governor of Virginia, began in 1860. Soldiers called the place Fort Fauntleroy. The name was changed to Fort Lyon the following year, after the War Between the States made Wise a secessionist and claimed the life of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon.

Troop strength at Fort Lyon dwindled during the Civil War, as many of its soldiers were sent elsewhere. But the holdouts did see some action against the Indians, including one of the most notable atrocities of the period. In 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington came to Fort Lyon to commandeer additional forces to aid his regiment of hard-drinking irregulars. With the blessing of his close personal friend, territorial governor John Evans, Chivington was on a mission to suppress troublesome Indian factions who were defying a treaty that had been signed at the fort in 1861. The Treaty of Fort Wise ceded vast stretches of land to the whites that had been guaranteed to the Plains tribes only a few years earlier.

The morning after his visit to Fort Lyon, Chivington staged a dawn attack on a peaceful, largely unarmed village of Cheyenne and Arapaho. Most of the village's adult males were out hunting. Although some soldiers refused to fire, Chivington's bunch slaughtered and mutilated hundreds of women, children and elders. Trophies from the raid, including scalps and genitalia, were displayed in saloons in Denver. Public revulsion followed, and the incident became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. William Bent's son Robert, forced to serve as a guide to Chivington, testified against him in the subsequent official investigations. But the colonel was never charged with any crime.

Still, some taint from the mass murder — bad karma, sin, a vengeful spirit or just rotten luck — seemed to find its way back to Fort Lyon. In 1867 a spring ice dam backed up the Arkansas River and flooded the post, forcing the Army to abandon it. The deluge also plucked the bodies of dead soldiers from the fort's cemetery. The waterlogged corpses were piled on wagons and put on a train, to be reburied at Fort Leavenworth.

Flaking Out

Lance Coats arrived at Fort Lyon in 2002, in the first wave of inmates who were put to work building a fence around the perimeter and renovating the cellhouses. He was handed gloves and a bucket, ordered to watch a training video, and informed that he was now a porter.

A nonviolent offender serving time for a telephone harassment case and parole violations, Coats was never officially assigned to renovation work. But his job sometimes took him into the construction zone. He remembers being called to one room to clean up blood after an inmate cut his hand while installing drywall.

"When I walked in, the place was so cloudy," he recalls. "Clouds and clouds of dust. They were breaking drywall and tearing the place apart. I asked, 'You guys don't wear masks?' They said, 'They don't have none.'"

No one could get away from the dust, he says — not just drywall dust, but airborne bits of pipe insulation, particles of torn-up flooring and so on. The inmates doing the renovations would come back to their four-man or eight-man rooms and shake their dusty clothes off in front of you. After they removed sections of the drop ceiling in the living quarters, stuff would flake off the exposed pipes above and drift down on you. When the wind blew hard, as it often did, the windows would rattle and the flakes would fall like Christmas in an old Jimmy Stewart movie.

"We'd go to chow, and when we came back, we'd have to wipe our beds clean," Coats says, shaking his head. "The place was terrible. I feel everybody was exposed."

Other inmates who were at Fort Lyon during the first couple of years of renovation tell similar stories of dust and flakes everywhere. No protective gear. No adequate partitions or plastic sheeting to seal off work areas from the rest of the building. No procedure for preventing contamination from the work area being tracked back to living spaces. Exposed pipes with deteriorating insulation above their beds.

According to DOC officials, the inmate accounts overstate the degree of potential airborne exposure they faced. Asbestos isn't like radioactive waste; it's a stable, fibrous mineral with superior heat resistance and insulation properties, which is why for decades it was widely used in everything from brake pads to roofing shingles. The primary danger it poses comes from inhaling the fibers from friable (crumbling or pulverized) asbestos; actual removal is often more hazardous than "managing in place." The VA had managed much of the asbestos at Fort Lyon by encapsulating it or leaving it alone, and the state's plan was to do the same.

The DOC's DeFelice, who arrived at Fort Lyon two years after Coats, is skeptical of claims that routine renovation work exposed inmates to asbestos. The ceiling pipes in the cellhouses are covered with fiberglass insulation, he notes, with asbestos underneath. As long as nobody was cutting through the fiberglass, the asbestos would not have been released. "Not all of the insulation has asbestos under it," he says. "I personally did a glove-bag test in one building, and the asbestos on the pipe was hard, hard material. The stuff I encountered was not that friable."

DeFelice also discounts claims of exposure during drywall work; the DOC hired private contractors to do asbestos abatement early in the renovation process, he says. But the DOC's own consultant, Gobbell Hays, refers cryptically in its report to "varying levels of asbestos abatement" by the DOC and "a minimal amount" on some housing units done by the VA years ago. Inmates had already been moved onto the campus in 2002 while the DOC abatement was under way, and two of the asbestos contractors hired by the state were fined for violations of proper procedure by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. One of those contractors, Occupational Health Technologies, protested that DOC staff interfered with the abatement process, denying access to critical areas and letting inmates and other contractors work in places that hadn't been cleared for use.

"We were told that we were to stay out of areas...where asbestos was suspected of being present," OHT director Thomas Antonson wrote to a state inspector. "The Department of Corrections was utilizing convict labor to help defray demolition and construction costs.... I walked out in frustration because I felt we were being prevented from completing our contract as it was written."

Antonson said that a DOC supervisor had asked that one of his employees be replaced because he was "wearing his respirator and possibly causing alarm among the convict laborers.... What was unknown to me was the indifference to Regulation 8 by the DOC." Regulation 8 is the state's lengthy set of procedures for proper asbestos management, removal and disposal.

Some of the first prisoners to arrive at Fort Lyon were housed in Building Seven, one of the large hospital buildings by the parade ground. A 2003 state health inspection, made after inmates had already been living there several months, found several rooms with inadequate lighting, insufficient ventilation, damaged floors and ceilings, bedsheets used as restroom doors and more bunks per room than the law allowed.

As Fort Lyon expands, Building Seven is slated to hold up to 250 prisoners. But right now it's unoccupied — because there are still outstanding asbestos problems there that need to be addressed. According to last year's Gobbell Hays inspection, the most serious areas include thousands of feet of pipe insulation in "good to poor condition," and contaminated soils and dislodged asbestos materials in crawl spaces.

DeFelice and other DOC officials interviewed by Westword couldn't explain why inmates were moved to Fort Lyon before basic asbestos abatement processes were completed. "I can't answer that," says Lou Archuleta, the DOC's assistant director of prisons, who was the fifth of six wardens at Fort Lyon. "The decisions were made elsewhere. One of the things I found out in the year I was there is that asbestos is everywhere. You can still buy materials off the shelf that contain asbestos. But we put in a process so that if you get a leak, if something happens, all work stops until we check it. I think we've learned that we've got to do this differently than the way we were doing it before."

Archuleta says the department "attempted to do the right thing" by offering X-rays to staff and inmates who worked on maintenance crews. But Fort Lyon administrators haven't seen the results of those tests because of medical privacy laws. Not that a benign result at this stage means anything; although there are documented cases in the medical literature of intense, short-term exposure leading to asbestosis, the more typical case involves occupational exposure over a long time, with a latency period of up to forty years. Still, three inmates who contacted Westword claim that their results were positive for some kind of lung damage, including one who says that medical staff told him the calcification in his lungs was "most likely from asbestos exposure."

Many Fort Lyon inmates were never given X-rays at all. Coats says he asked for one and was refused because he hadn't worked in maintenance and thus was considered not at risk. "I was there longer than any of these guys they're X-raying," he sighs. "I'm kind of angry that they won't give me one."

After four years at Fort Lyon, Coats was sent to a halfway house in Denver a few months ago. His chronic stomach problems were recently diagnosed as giardia — something he apparently picked up at Fort Lyon when the water system, which draws on local wells, became contaminated with fecal matter a couple of years ago and had to be shut down for weeks. (DOC officials say the problem is fixed now; inmates say that guards still bring in bottled water for themselves and avoid the taps.)

Coats admits that he was known as a chronic complainer at Fort Lyon. He filed several grievances and was put in the hole his last week there. He says he's just grateful to be out of the place.

"They'll tell you to your face that if you keep talking about the problems they're having out there, you won't get parole," he insists. "You won't get the halfway house. Guys are scared. They want to go home. I don't blame 'em."

History Lesson #3

In the summer of 1867, work began on a new Fort Lyon to replace the flooded post. The latest (and final) location was a few miles east of Las Animas. Some of the original adobe structures along "officers' row" still stand today on the grounds of the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility, although time and the elements have had their way with them.

The new, improved post was soon visited by its first military vet in need of medical care. After an illustrious career as a trapper, guide and soldier, an ailing Kit Carson settled on a farm in nearby Boggsville. He came to the fort to seek the services of the post surgeon and ended up dying there of an aneurysm at age 59.

Troops from Fort Lyon continued to play a supporting role in the Indian wars, but the real fighting was elsewhere, with George Custer's Seventh Cavalry. In 1868, Custer hunted down William Bent's old friend Black Kettle, who'd pushed for the treaty with the whites and survived the Sand Creek Massacre. The Cheyenne chief died with dozens of his people in Oklahoma, in the Battle of Washita River.

A few months later, the Army decided it no longer needed a fort in southeastern Colorado. Two years after it opened, Fort Lyon was abandoned again.

Grossly Contaminated

In the spring of 2004, W. Thomas Bain, an industrial hygienist who works for the air-pollution-control division of the state health department, visited Fort Lyon twice in the course of three weeks. Bain was responding to inmate complaints that they were being forced to remove asbestos and threatened with disciplinary write-ups — which could affect their parole prospects — if they refused.

One inmate said that he'd worked in crawl spaces under staff housing for days at a time trying to fix steam-pipe leaks, a job that involved cutting through asbestos insulation covering the pipes. "I had white powder all over my clothes from cutting the asbestos," he wrote. "Before I started, I asked my boss if he would give me something to protect my eyes and nose and mouth when doing this job. I also told him I didn't no [sic] anything about asbestos. He told me it would not hurt me, just get under the house and get the job done."

The same inmate claimed he was ordered to dump debris from a pipe trench, including asbestos, out by some fish ponds, where the DOC's correctional-industries division raises koi and operates a pheasant farm.

The inmate's supervisor told Bain that the story was hogwash. No prisoners had been involved in any asbestos removal, he said, and no one was ever threatened with write-ups for refusing work. But Bain's subsequent investigation found asbestos debris piled exactly where the inmate said it would be. Donning protective gear, Bain attempted to enter the crawl space where the inmate had worked but decided to stay out after determining that the soil below the house was "grossly contaminated" with asbestos; stirring it up could "result in a substantial release of fibers into the occupied portions of the house."

Bain talked to the prison's "life safety officer" — who, it turned out, didn't have adequate training in asbestos issues and didn't know how to interpret asbestos inspection reports. It was the officer's house, he learned, that had the badly contaminated crawl space Bain had declined to enter. Bain also discovered that staffers' children had been playing around utility tunnels where asbestos debris had been dumped and that the debris had been raked across a yard by a prisoner. Deeming the contamination to be a major spill, Bain ordered that 160 square feet of dirt near the utility tunnel be sealed off to prevent access and further release of asbestos fibers.

"For all practical purposes...the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility did not have an asbestos program sufficient to prevent exposure," Bain wrote in his report. He recommended that the prison halt all inmate work on buildings until the DOC could hire an experienced asbestos coordinator.

Fort Lyon did not hire Montoya for another two years. In the meantime, prisoners continued to work on routine maintenance, and the problems kept multiplying. A Gobbell Hays team that arrived in the fall of 2004 to deal with the cleanup of the previous spill found DOC staff trying to apply a sealant over tainted soil in a crawl space of another house. The crew wore protective suits and respirators but had failed to seal the area effectively. The original spill area, which was supposed to have been sealed off with plastic sheeting, had been exposed again by wind and weather. And continuing steam leaks from aging pipes had damaged asbestos-laden walls and insulation in another location.

Bain found more trouble on an inspection in June 2005. Workers employed by the private contractor in charge of disposing of asbestos-containing materials, which must be specially bagged and taken to a hazmat landfill, strayed from proper procedure on several counts just in the short time Bain observed them. (Because of the glacial pace of the regulatory process, a warning letter noting the violations wasn't issued until last month, more than two years later.)

Asbestos has also complicated the prison's water problems. Water leaks in one tunnel exasperated the maintenance staff last year because of asbestos pipe insulation and asbestos contamination of the soil above the pipe. At the time, the prison was losing up to 50,000 gallons of water a day because of leaky pipes and had spent $24,000 in an effort to re-drill one well, only to come up with a dry hole. The situation led to restricting the hours for inmate showers, which further aggravated prisoners already worried about the blowing grit and dirt they'd acquired while working on the grounds.

Jerry Bachota, a commercial contractor who had experience with asbestos on the outside before a theft conviction brought him to Fort Lyon, says he clashed with staff about pulling up tiles that he recognized as containing asbestos; being ordered into crawl spaces that had warning signs about asbestos; and proper procedures to contain possible contamination. "I know how it's supposed to be done," Bachota says. "At first they sealed things off. Then, after the inspectors left, the plastic came down. Next thing you know, they had us working hot spots in the dirt. I was mowing lawns and digging fences well into this year. Other people still are."

Bachota likens his asbestos exposures to the proverbial ticking time bomb. "It's like HIV," he says. "It'll never show up in your X-ray, and one day you wake up and you're full-blown. What are you supposed to do? They were aware of this when they bought the property."

Asbestos coordinator Montoya says he reviews every work order to ensure that no possible asbestos issues are involved before inmates are permitted to do the work. But documents indicate that the procedure has only been in place for the past year, since Montoya was hired; state health inspectors haven't been able to confirm or disprove most inmate accounts of exposure prior to late 2006, in part because the renovations records the DOC maintained were so skimpy.

Montoya insists that the asbestos problems, including the much-debated soil contamination, are under control now. He personally went out on a mowing operation and tested air quality; the results yielded acceptable results, and most of the "hot spots" contain only trace amounts of asbestos. "Yes, we have contaminated soils, but we're way below where we have to be in terms of asbestos releasing into the air," he says. "If we have changing conditions or changing terrains, then we'll change how we need to go."

Bain's latest inspection came in August of this year. He found that the facility had "made demonstrable progress" in its asbestos program, but areas of concern remain, including the degree to which inmates could still be exposed to contaminated soil. The state health department is now reviewing the DOC's proposal for managing the soil in place rather than spending the tens of millions of dollars it would take to scrape off the contamination.

As for inmate claims of retaliation for refusing to work, the current warden, Michael Arellano, says he has an open-door policy for offenders and staff — but he's only been there a few weeks. His predecessor, Lou Archuleta, acknowledges that an inmate can get written up for refusing an assignment but says he doubts that would happen where asbestos is involved. "There would be no retaliation," he declares. "We're not going to jeopardize anybody's health and safety."

Recently, Bachota was moved to another prison. He claims that staff have messed with his paperwork and calculations on the amount of time he's supposed to serve, threatened to deny him admission to the honor camp he believes he's earned, and otherwise lowered the boom on him for complaining about asbestos at Fort Lyon.

"This is how the DOC gets back at inmates who blow the whistle," he says. "Every day, I'm having something thrown in my face."

History Lesson #4

The same year that the Army abandoned Fort Lyon, William Bent died, a heartbroken and anguished father. His sons Charles and George had joined the Dog Soldiers, the Cheyenne who refused to accept the treaty, and tried to drive the bluecoats from the plains. A price was put on Charles's head, and Bent disowned him before he expired of pneumonia.

In 1876, Colorado became a state. And Custer got his.

The old fort remained a ghost town for another thirty years. Then the Navy decided it would make a swell place for tuberculosis patients. They made a go of it for a few years, then turned it over to the United States Public Health Service, which handed it off to the Veterans Bureau. Stately brick buildings began to rise around the former parade ground.

A person visiting Fort Lyon in the 1950s would have found a comforting slice of mid-century America: a vast complex of modern conveniences and technology at the service of veterans of two world wars, set in a scenic corner of the rural landscape, the kind of place half the population still preferred to big cities. But in the decades that followed, the rapid growth of the Front Range, the development of clinics in Colorado Springs and Pueblo for the dwindling, aging group of veterans, and the increasing isolation of the area led to Fort Lyon's decline.

By the late 1990s, Fort Lyon was ranked the second-most inefficient VA facility in the nation, a distinction based on overall costs per client served.

Cheap Fixes and Hidden Costs

Seven years ago, when Stephen Raher first learned that the state was thinking about turning an obscure veterans' hospital into a geriatric prison, he launched a fervent but lonely campaign to stop it. The organization Raher worked for at the time, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, was strongly opposed to further expansion of the state's burgeoning prison system, and the Fort Lyon project struck Raher as poorly planned and thinly justified. The main rationale for turning Fort Lyon into a prison seemed to be that the feds were willing to hand it over for nothing.

At legislative hearings, Raher presented a range of logical, economically grounded arguments against the new prison. The DOC would have trouble bringing qualified medical staff to the area, he pointed out. It made more sense to house special-needs inmates closer to urban medical facilities, and many of the so-called geriatric prisoners (the DOC defined "geriatric" as inmates who were fifty or older) were eligible for parole. The operating costs would make Fort Lyon the most expensive medium-custody prison in the state, at a time when increasing budget restrictions were making it more difficult to fund the type of re-entry programs that could help relieve the overcrowding pressures the prison system was facing.

As for the argument that taking over the facility was the way to save jobs in the area, Raher rejected that one outright. There had to be a better economic engine for eastern Colorado than prisons; the region already had the huge Arkansas Valley, Limon and Sterling facilities, as well as private prisons in Burlington, Las Animas and Olney Springs. "I'm willing to bet that any citizen of Las Animas could come up with better ways to use $30 million to encourage economic development than building a geriatric prison," he told one state senate committee.

In 2001, Raher's group managed to halt construction briefly, after he discovered that the DOC was already cutting down trees before the environmental review process had been completed. But nothing could stop the inevitable march of the prison bureaucracy, which kept expanding steadily throughout the lean and lush years of the Owens administration. Now in law school, Raher still marvels at the way the DOC steamrolled the acquisition past lawmakers.

"They were so eager to get their hands on it," he recalls. "They made a lot of claims about what they were getting that turned out to be incorrect. They weren't making a public case of any physical plant issues. Yes, there was asbestos, there were other problems, but they were completely minimized. All they were focused on were the benefits."

Anthony Swift has a hard time seeing the benefits. Having sampled prison life in four states — Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Colorado — the 37-year-old ex-roofer has some strong views on what makes one lockup worse than another. In his experience, Fort Lyon was the worst of the lot.

Lying in a hospital bed in Denver, he shifts his leg painfully to show off his prime souvenir from his stay at Fort Lyon: a deep, quarter-sized hole in his ankle that affords an unimpeded view of his Achilles tendon. He got bit by spiders in Fort Lyon's sweat lodge, he explains. (Under federal law, the DOC is required to provide facilities for a wide spectrum of inmate religious beliefs, including sweat lodges.) A prison nurse gave him a bag of ice and sent him limping back to work. Within a few days, he developed a virulent staph infection, was sent to a halfway house in Denver and ended up in the hospital. "If they would have done something for me back at Fort Lyon, none of this would have happened," he growls, rubbing the griffin emblazoned on his right arm.

Swift hopes that staph is the only thing he picked up at Fort Lyon. He's serving a one-year sentence on cocaine and fraud charges and was only at the prison a few weeks. But during that time, he worked on several roofing projects, with nothing more than gloves to protect him. His supervisor told him that the asbestos was only in the tar under the shingles and thus safe, but Swift had his suspicions about some dark-yellow insulation board that crumbled like crazy when he touched it. When he was a roofer in the civilian world, such stuff was handled by guys in special suits and masks. But not at Fort Lyon.

"We put it in trash bags and threw it off the roof," he says. "Where it went from there, I have no idea. A couple guys wouldn't touch it, and they sent them back to their cell. One of the guys actually transferred to another job."

Asked why he kept working if he didn't think it was safe, Swift shakes his head. "Prison isn't what it was years ago," he says. "Prison now is more of a mind game. They keep you down by telling you they're going to give you a disciplinary action and add time to your sentence. I only have a year to do. I'm waiting on this halfway house. One write-up would have kicked me out of it. I can't quit work. That's refusing a direct order."

Although it's going to take some time for his leg to heal, Swift is relieved to be in Denver and headed for a halfway house. Even before the spiders got him, he didn't feel well at Fort Lyon. The water, the air — something seemed wrong from day one.

"Something about the place made me feel sick, fatigued, a little loopy," he says now. "Seems like I've been sick since I got there."

To read Alan Prendergast's previous prison coverage, go to the Crime & Punishment archive.

http://www.westword.com/2007-11-15/news/poisoned-pen/full

Posted by lois at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

VA: Keeping the faith in prison

Keeping the faith in prison

Monday, Nov 19, 2007
By FRANK GREEN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Dalvert Gilchrist stuffed two tote sacks with bags of chips, ramen noodles and other goodies purchased from the prison commissary this month.

Stepping back from a pickup window, the James River Correctional Center inmate said he spends $20 to $30 a week there, but this order was larger than most.

"I don't eat all that in a week," he said, laughing.

Income from commissary sales of food, cigarettes and even television sets to the state's 30,000 prison inmates goes to a fund for their welfare. Traditionally, it has paid for cable-television fees, library books, recreation equipment and the like.

Unknown to Gilchrist, legislators in 2002 amended the state budget and directed that $100,000 from the commissary fund be used to pay for faith-based services.

In just five years, that amount has ballooned to $600,000, and the inmate commissary fund has quietly become the largest source of income for the Chaplain Service of the Churches of Virginia Inc., a Protestant prison-chaplain organization. While the chaplain service has become dependent on the infusion, it threatens to deplete the commissary fund.

Since 2002 the group has won the Department of Corrections' faith-based services contract. Next year, it is asking for $825,000, nearly a third of the fund's annual income of $2.7 million.

Jean Auldridge, director of the inmate-advocacy group Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, supports the work of the chaplain service but was taken aback by the amount it is receiving from the inmate fund.

"I would never have dreamed $600,000," she said. Auldridge said the commissary prices have long been a topic of complaint from inmates, who can only make small amounts of money from prison jobs to pay for extras from the commissary. Families can send money to their prison accounts.

Gilchrist is not concerned about how the fund is used and said the prices at the commissary -- 36 cents for a can of soda, $3.99 for a pack of Newports -- are reasonable.

But the Virginia Department of Corrections does not believe paying for faith-based services from the commissary fund is a suitable, long-term strategy.

Since 2002, when the payments to the chaplains began, more money has been spent by the commissary fund each year than has been taken in. As a result, the fund's ending balance has dropped from $5.6 million in 2002 to $3.9 million this year.

In a 2005 report requested by legislators, the department cautioned that "at the current rate of contributions to chaplain services and other expenditures, the commissary fund will be significantly depleted in a number of years."

Ted C. Link, controller of the Department of Corrections, said this month that for now the payments are not a problem. But as the fund balance drops, other uses for the money will have to be cut or prices increased.

Prisons with commissaries are charged for faith-based services based on the number of inmates they hold.

"The people who manage the commissary funds at the individual institutions will say, 'This is killing us,'" Link said.

The 2005 report said an increase in prices or a reduction in other fund uses could lead to inmate unrest. It suggested using some of the profit from inmate telephone use -- money now sent to the state general fund as if it were tax revenue -- as an alternative.

But instead of cutting or eliminating the amount from the commissary fund that goes to faith-based services, the General Assembly increased it to $600,000.

State Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who has helped the chaplain service with budget requests for commissary funds, said legislators "are used to voting [for] that, and that's just been the best way for us to do it."

"We've never, to be frank . . . really debated it," he said. If the cost is larger than the fund can handle, "maybe we can be creative and look at other things."

"I would scramble . . . and try and find other ways to do it" if necessary, he said of providing the chaplain service. "I don't think there's a more important thing that goes on in prisons" than faith-based programs, Cox said.

In Virginia, in addition to performing services and other functions of their own religious denominations, chaplains with the chaplain service perform the administrative job of trying to make sure the religious needs of all inmates are met.

For 82 years, until 2002, the chaplain service had provided those services to state prisons at no cost to the state.

The group was funded by various Protestant denominations and other private groups including Media General, the parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

However, the income from churches and private sources has not kept up with prison growth in recent years. According to the chaplain service, the group now gets more money from the commissary fund than churches.

In addition to the $600,000 from the commissary fund, it hopes to take in $426,900 from churches and $321,000 from other sources this year.

Among other things, the money is used to pay for the $42,000 annual salaries for 14 full-time chaplains. There are also 24 part-time chaplains, some of whom the chaplain service wants to make full-time.

"Everything in the last 12 years has just skyrocketed -- the number of prisoners, the number of prisons," said Cecil E. McFarland, president of the chaplain service.

When McFarland took his job in 1995, the chaplain service budget was $410,000 and there were four full-time chaplains.

"That was before they built nine new prisons and the chaplain salaries were a lot less," he said.

"The commissary fund has been an invaluable asset for us, and I think it's appropriate to use that money because it's designed for the use of the inmates," McFarland added.

If the fund money is lost, he said, "we're going to be right back where we were for 82 years. We're going to have to depend upon the churches, services are going to be cut and chaplain positions eliminated."
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-11-19-0160.html

Posted by lois at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2007

Full House Approves Second Chance Act Reentry Legislation . Senate to vote next.

Full House Approves Second Chance Act Reentry Legislation

On November 13th, the full U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 1593, the Second Chance Act of 2007, by a 347 to 62 vote. There were 218 Democratic members and 129 Republican members voting for passage. Although the Second Chance Act has been introduced during the past two Congresses, this marks the first time that the legislation has received a vote before the full House. The Senate version of the Second Chance Act, S. 1060, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in August. The Second Chance Act is expected to be reviewed by the full Senate before the end of the year.

The Second Chance Act, legislation that seeks to help States and localities better address the needs of individuals reentering the community from the criminal justice system, was introduced in the House in March by Representatives Danny Davis (D-IL), Chris Cannon (R-UT), John Conyers (D-MI), Howard Coble (R-NC), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), Randy Forbes (R-VA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY). H.R. 1593 currently has 92 bi-partisan co-sponsors.

The Second Chance Act would reauthorize a Department of Justice (DOJ) grant program for people returning to the community from incarceration. H.R. 1593 would provide grants to States and local areas to create or strengthen the systems that help adults and youth transition into the community when they are released from incarceration by providing drug addiction and mental health treatment services, job training and education opportunities, housing and other necessary services. In order to receive grant funds, applicants would be required to provide an analysis and identification of regulatory and statutory barriers to an individual’s reentry into the community. In addition, the legislation has a number of provisions requiring coordination between various agencies, including State substance abuse, child welfare, and criminal justice agencies. H.R. 1593 would authorize $55 million in appropriations for these grants each year for the next two fiscal years.

H.R. 1593 would also authorize a number of other grant programs focused on strengthening drug and alcohol addiction treatment services for incarcerated and reentering individuals. In particular, H.R. 1593 would authorize:

A grant program to State and local prosecutors to develop and implement qualified drug treatment programs as alternatives to incarceration for individuals convicted of non-violent offenses; $10 million would be authorized for this program for each of the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years
A Department of Justice (DOJ) grant program to States, localities and Indian tribes to improve the provision of drug addiction treatment to people incarcerated in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities; and to reduce the use of alcohol and other drugs by individuals with long-term addiction problems; $15 million would be authorized for this program for each of the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years
A grant program to States, localities and Indian tribes to 1) develop, implement or expand comprehensive family-based addiction treatment programs as alternatives to incarceration for parents convicted of non-violent offenses and 2) to provide prison-based family treatment programs for incarcerated parents; $10 million would be authorized for this program for each of the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years
A grant program through the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice, in consultation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), to evaluate the effectiveness of depot naltrexone for the treatment of heroin addiction; $5 million would be authorized for each of the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years

H.R. 1593 would also authorize a number of grant programs aimed at improving support for educational and job training and placement services for incarcerated and reentering people. H.R. 1593 would authorize:

A grant program to nonprofit organizations through the Department of Labor aimed at helping formerly incarcerated people find and retain employment through mentoring, job training and placement services, and other comprehensive transitional services; the legislation states that grantees could coordinate efforts with the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) One-Stop system; $20 million would be authorized for this grant program for each of the two 2009 and 2010 fiscal years
A grant program to States, local governments, Indian tribes and other public and private entities to evaluate and implement methods to improve academic and vocational education for people in prison, jails and juvenile facilities; best practices for such educational programs would then be recommended to the Attorney General; $5 million would be authorized for this program for each of two fiscal years
A grant program to States, local units of government and Indian tribes to establish technology career training programs within prisons, jails and juvenile facilities; $10 million would be authorized for this program for each of two fiscal years
In addition, H.R. 1593 would require the Attorney General, in coordination with the Director of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), to establish a reentry program, subject to the availability of funding. Under the legislation, the BOP would be required to assess each individual at the beginning of their imprisonment to identify areas of need and to generate individual skills development plans to monitor skills enhancement. The BOP would also be required to help reentering individuals in obtaining identification cards, such as driver’s licenses, prior to their release and to implement programs aimed at increasing the hiring of formerly incarcerated people by educating employers and the WIA one-stop system about existing incentives for hiring formerly incarcerated people.

It is unclear when the full Senate will vote on the Second Chance Act, but consideration may occur in the coming weeks. Congress is recessing on November 16th for the Thanksgiving holiday but is expected to return to session in the beginning of December for two to three weeks. The text and status of both the House and Senate versions of the Second Chance Act can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/.

Posted by lois at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

Pew Research Center: Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class. Optimism about Black Progress Declines

Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class
Optimism about Black Progress Declines

November 13, 2007

African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race.

The new nationwide Pew Research Center survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey.

Whites have a different perspective. While they, too, have grown less sanguine about black progress, they are nearly twice as likely as blacks to see black gains in the past five years. Also, a majority of whites (56%) say life for blacks in this country will get better in the future.

Telephone interviews for this survey were conducted among a nationally representative sample of 3,086 adults from September 5-October 6, 2007. African Americans and Hispanics were over-sampled - a total of 1007 interviews were completed with blacks, and 388 with Hispanics.

Other key findings include:

* Asked whether blacks can still be thought of as a single race, given the increasing diversity within the black community, 53% of blacks say they can, but 37% of blacks say they cannot.
* Big gaps in perception between blacks and whites emerge on many topics. For example, blacks believe that anti-black discrimination is still pervasive in everyday life; whites disagree. And blacks have far less confidence than whites in the basic fairness of the criminal justice system.
* But there are also areas of agreement. For example, blacks and whites concur that there has been a convergence in the values held by blacks and whites. On the popular culture front, large majorities of both blacks and whites say that rap and hip hop have a bad influence on society.
* Blacks and whites express very little overt racial animosity. As they have for decades, about eight-in-ten members of each racial group express a favorable view about members of the other group. More than eight-in-ten adults in each group also say they know a person of a different race whom they consider a friend.
* The most newsworthy African American figure in politics today - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama - draws broadly (though not intensely felt) favorable ratings from both blacks and whites. But blacks are more inclined to say that his race will detract from his chances to be elected president; whites are more inclined to say his relative inexperience will hurt his chances.
* Three-quarters of blacks (76%) say that Obama is a good influence on the black community. Even greater numbers say this about Oprah Winfrey (87%) and Bill Cosby (85%), who are the most highly regarded by blacks from among 14 black newsmakers tested in this survey. By contrast, just 17% of blacks say that rap artist 50 Cent is a good influence.
* Over the past two decades, blacks have lost some confidence in the effectiveness of leaders within their community, including national black political figures, the clergy, and the NAACP. A sizable majority of blacks still see all of these groups as either very or somewhat effective, but the number saying "very" effective has declined since 1986.
* A 53% majority of African Americans say that blacks who don't get ahead are mainly responsible for their situation, while just three-in-ten say discrimination is mainly to blame. As recently as the mid-1990s, black opinion on this question tilted in the opposite direction, with a majority of African Americans saying then that discrimination is the main reason for a lack of black progress.
* On the issue of immigration, blacks and whites agree that most immigrants work harder than most blacks and most whites at low-wage jobs. Also, blacks are less inclined now than they were two decades ago to say that blacks would have more jobs if there were fewer immigrants.
http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/700/black-public-opinion graphs at this page

http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/Race.pdf the complete report

Posted by lois at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2007

NV: Judge says 500 remain in Nevada prisons despite being paroled

November 16, 2007
Las Vegas Sun
Judge says 500 remain in Nevada prisons despite being paroled

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - More than 500 inmates still are in Nevada prisons despite the fact they have been granted parole, the state Board of Prison Commissioners has been told.

Justice Jim Hardesty told the panel, chaired by Gov. Jim Gibbons, that many of the parolees aren't getting out because there's no room for them in programs mandated as a condition for their release - and in some cases all the conditions aren't necessary.

"There is a lack of facilities or treatment capability to meet the conditions that were imposed," said the Supreme Court justice, who is chairing a study commission reviewing prison overcrowding and Nevada's sentencing laws.

"A number of inmates have had conditions imposed on them - for example, inpatient treatment - who may not need inpatient treatment," he added Thursday.

State Corrections Director Howard Skolnik told the board that there are another 500-plus inmates who are eligible for parole hearings but, because of the state Parole Board's heavy workload, haven't had a hearing yet. He said that number will be about 800 by year's end.

Hardesty said that means, "there are over 1,000 inmates in who should be out. If we can figure a way to get this bubble out of the prison, the impact to this department's budget and the state's budget would be huge."

The Parole Board's workload was increased by recent law changes that retroactively doubled the amount of good-time credits an inmate can earn, and allowed inmates to attend parole hearings and to have a representative present.

Skolnik said the result is the average parole hearing is now 45 minutes - three times as long as it used to be.

Skolnik also said Nevada's prison population is now more than 13,400, about 250 more than his department was budgeted for. He noted the Southern Desert Correctional Center, which was built for a maximum of 750 inmates, now holds nearly 1,700 convicts.

He also said more prison beds are needed for women inmates, a facility for aging convicts should be set up, and part of the High Desert prison in southern Nevada should be upgraded to maximum-security to eliminate double-bunking at the existing "max" Ely State Prison.

The oldest cellblock at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City will have to be shut down because it's too old and no longer cost-effective to run, Skolnik added.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2007/nov/16/111610717.html
Information from: Nevada Appeal, http://www.nevadaappeal.com

Posted by lois at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2007

Clara Fox, Tireless Advocate for Subsidized Housing, Is Dead at 90

November 16, 2007
Clara Fox, Tireless Advocate for Subsidized Housing, Is Dead at 90
By DENNIS HEVESI

Clara Fox, an advocate of subsidized housing for poor and moderate-income people and the founder of the Settlement Housing Fund, a nonprofit organization that now houses 2,200 families in 44 buildings in New York City, died on Nov. 9 in Manhattan.

She was 90 and lived in Manhattan Plaza, the twin-towered complex on West 42nd Street that she helped save from bankruptcy in the mid-1970s.

The cause was kidney failure, said Carol Lamberg, the current director of the Settlement Housing Fund, who succeeded Mrs. Fox in January 1983.

Mrs. Fox formed the Settlement Housing Fund in 1969 by bringing together housing experts from 35 settlement houses, the neighborhood agencies created in the first decades of the 20th century to aid newly arriving immigrants. And though she retired from the organization as its founding executive director, she never stopped advocating for affordable housing.

Until her death, she remained co-chairwoman of the New York Housing Conference, a coalition of more than 70 organizations representing developers, bankers, architects, housing advocates and owners of nonprofit buildings. Among other activities, the group, an affiliate of the National Housing Conference, lobbies the government on housing policy.

“Clara originated the idea of combining low- and moderate-income housing with social programs,” said Conrad Egan, the president of the national conference. When rental buildings were converted to cooperatives in the 1960s under a New York State subsidy program, Mr. Egan said, Mrs. Fox was the first to train former renters in how to manage co-ops.

Ms. Lamberg said: “Clara was one of the first people who advocated for low-income cooperatives. She was also one of the first to bring together social agencies and housing groups to work for better housing. Now there are all kinds of nonprofit groups that create and sustain affordable housing. She had a lasting effect.”

Clara Leon was born in the Bronx on May 10, 1917, a daughter of Ralph and Lillian Frankel Leon. She graduated from the University of Chicago, then earned a master’s degree in sociology there. Her marriage to William Fox ended in divorce in 1950. She is survived by her daughter, Roberta Fox, of Manhattan, and a sister, Florence Blank, of the Bronx.

In the early 1960s, Mrs. Fox, who had been the director of a private nursery school, became New York City’s first coordinator of Head Start, the federally sponsored program that provided eight weeks of education and social enrichment for prekindergarten children from poor families. After leaving Head Start in 1965, Mrs. Fox was asked to become housing coordinator for United Neighborhood Houses, the organization of 35 settlement houses that four years later established the Settlement Housing Fund.

“Clara was very proud of putting together the plan that saved Manhattan Plaza,” Ms. Lamberg said.

Built by a major developer in the mid-1970s, Manhattan Plaza, a complex of 1,688 apartments in two towers between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, was supposed to house middle-income renters. By the time the buildings were completed, Times Square was squalid and inflation was in the double digits. With few renters, Manhattan Plaza faced default.

The city wanted to turn it into a low-income project, a plan opposed by Broadway theater owners. Mrs. Fox led a committee that came up with an alternative: Manhattan Plaza would house performing artists, theater workers and community residents receiving federal rent subsidies. Those who could afford it — later to include Mrs. Fox — would pay market-rate rents.

In 1983, because of her work on the plan, Mrs. Fox was named an honorary member of Actors’ Equity, the professional actors’ and stage managers’ union.

On her retirement from the Settlement Housing Fund, Mrs. Fox told The New York Times: “The thing I feel strongest about is the incredible indifference that seems to exist in government about what’s happening to subsidized housing. We have done worse than any other social program, and what we hear from Congressional representatives is there is no constituency in Washington for low-income housing.”

Posted by lois at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)

Denver Post: Path to justice unclear. Empower the tribes, or beef up the federal role? Each side has its own history of failure.

Path to justice unclear
LAST IN A SERIES: Empower the tribes, or beef up the federal role? Each side has its own history of failure.

The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 11/14/2007

BROWNING, MONT. ‹ On a bitter February morning four years ago, a well-armed federal SWAT team rolled across the cheat-grass prairie of Montana's Blackfeet reservation on a mission to re-establish order in a lawless land. They started by firing the entire tribal-run police force - such as it was. In truth, the tribe's slipshod police had long ago ceased to be much of a deterrent. Serious crimes routinely went uninvestigated. In one notorious incident, a prisoner released from jail unsupervised to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting instead went to the house of a former girlfriend, where he beat and raped her.

Promising to hire more officers, modernize the jail and enforce the rule of law, the takeover of police powers by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs was cheered by many residents on this 1-million-acre reservation. Fast forward four years and many of those residents say the situation has, if anything, gotten worse: Under federal control, a promised force of 32 uniformed officers has fallen to just 12. The jail is still a mess. Nearly 200 criminal charges were dismissed from tribal court last year because federal police never finished an arrest report.

For anyone looking for a comprehensive solution to the public-safety crisis plaguing the country's Indian reservations, the episode is telling. To those who complain that federal authorities do a poor job and that tribes should run their own full- fledged justice systems like cities or states, skeptics can point to examples of incompetent tribal police forces or meddling by tribal leaders in the affairs of their courts and cops. To those who argue that only the feds have the resources and expertise to solve the enormous public- safety crisis in Indian Country, there is a long history of underfunding, lack of attention and the federal government's own stunning failures.

So those are the horns of the dilemma: There is little doubt that the current system, which severely limits the law-enforcement powers of American Indians on their own land and makes the federal government solely responsible for prosecuting felony crime on reservations, is badly flawed. Tribes have been complaining about it for years. And many in the federal government, including key Washington lawmakers, agree it doesn't work. "I think what's going on is appalling. ... The option of doing nothing is not an option. We have to solve this problem," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat and chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Two popular paths considered

But finding a way to do that is another matter.
Most agree it means one of two paths. Either pour in significant new federal resources to better fight reservation crime or rewrite federal Indian law to give tribes more authority to do the job themselves - allowing them to prosecute felony crime, for one; giving them jurisdiction over non-Indians, for another.

The first would mean diverting Justice Department resources from high-priority efforts such as anti-terrorism to vast and isolated Indian reservations with stunning crime problems but few voters. The second would be costly, legally complex and politically dicey.

For as bad as the status quo is, any comprehensive solution that enhances the legal authority of tribes holds risks for leaders on both sides.

Lawmakers from Western states face strong pressures from white communities that border reservations not to cede jurisdiction over their residents even on tribal land. And tribal governments' own spotty record in exercising the limited authority they have gives plenty of others pause.

In one case in New Mexico three years ago, the tribal chairwoman of the Jicarilla (hick-a-ree-ya) Apache asked for federal help to investigate corruption in the tribe's police force - including accusations of sexual assault against female prisoners - and was summarily fired by her own tribal council. In another in Washington state, the governing council of the Spokane tribe responded to claims by a federal investigator that he had uncovered a web of tribal police corruption by demanding he be transferred. The agent's bosses in Washington complied.

For their part, many tribal officials aren't eager to trade the political points easily made decrying lousy federal law enforcement for the massive task of fixing the crime problem on reservations themselves. "It's beautiful to have someone else to blame, but tribes don't necessarily want to take it on themselves," said Kevin Washburn, a Minnesota law professor and a member of the Oklahoma Chickasaw, who advocates giving tribes more criminal jurisdiction.

"I've thought that here I am, saying what I think is all these important things about Indian Country criminal justice, and people are going to rally behind everything I say. And that hasn't necessarily happened."

As those forces have slowed reform, the result has been a peculiar Washington ritual: At least once a decade for the past 30 years, a blue-ribbon commission or congressional hearings cite the breakdown of public safety on reservations, without being able to muster the political momentum necessary to solve it.

There has been some progress. Since a Clinton administration task force cited a "public safety crisis in Indian Country" in 1997, Congress has steadily increased funding for Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement programs through the Department of the Interior, more than doubling it to $201 million over 10 years. That money pays for patrol officers and tribal police investigators on most reservations.

But staffs were so low to begin with that a 2006 BIA analysis found that the number of police officers protecting reservations is still 42 percent below the minimum necessary.

New lines of authority proposed

Now, advocates for comprehensive reform believe there is a new window of opportunity. An Amnesty International report earlier this year blamed the jurisdictional maze for high rates of domestic violence and rape suffered by American Indian women. Spurred by the report, lawmakers on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee are preparing a bipartisan reform bill they hope will finally rein in the public-safety crisis roiling Indian lands.

If passed, it would reshape lines of authority on reservations for the first time in decades, giving Indians some law enforcement authority over non-Indians accused of sexual or domestic crimes on tribal lands - a major complaint of some tribes today.

"To the extent that the federal government is willing to return jurisdiction over non-Indians to Indian tribes right now, it may be because they know they're doing a bad job and are tired of getting yelled at," said Virginia Davis of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), a lobbying group for the tribes in Washington.

Some longtime observers are skeptical.

Ted Quasula, former Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement chief, was part of the previous reform effort during the Clinton administration. He remembers sitting in the same hearings a decade ago, dissecting the same problems.

The result was an administration proposal to double Justice Department funding for reservation law enforcement programs - the biggest increase in history and one that would have hired 500 more tribal police officers, 30 more FBI agents and 33 new federal prosecutors who focus solely on reservation crime.

Congress funded just 60 percent of the request in the first year. Some of the prosecutors ended up being used for other priorities, insiders say, and the number of dedicated Indian Country FBI agents has increased by just 12. Despite millions of dollars spent to build new tribal prisons, the unmet need is still $400 million, a recent analysis found.

And this year, none of four major Justice Department grant programs directed at reservations - money for prisons, police, tribal courts and youth crime prevention - are funded in President Bush's 2008 budget request. (Though Congress has restored a portion of the the programs' combined total budget of $42 million, that appropriations bill faces a veto threat.)

"For a lot of (lawmakers), it's out of sight, out of mind - it's-not-my-problem sort of thing," said Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who recently offered an amendment to provide $20 million to U.S. attorneys to boost reservation prosecutions. The amendment failed in a vote. "I'm not saying people just tune it out. There just isn't a groundswell out there," he said.

Still, Thune believes that the problems are desperate and getting worse. The rich profits from casino gambling that have poured in for some tribes over the past 10 years have created a Native American renaissance of sorts, but there are other forces - just as powerful - pulling the other way. Meth - a scourge in much of the rural West - has hit reservations especially hard, feeding a wave of crime and violence that's shaken some tribes to the bone. American Indian gangs are also on the rise.

Statistics from the Indian Health Service in 2003, the latest available, show that the chances of an Indian living on a reservation being murdered is more than double that of the average American. An adult male on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota can expect to live to just 57 years old - 17 years less than the national average.

So distant from the political calculations of Washington, tribal and federal law enforcement officials are taking things into their own hands: Small, sometimes desperate steps, those involved point out, but better than nothing.

Members of the Lummi tribe in Washington state recently burned the house of drug dealer to the ground, a ritual act of communal justice.

Many others - the San Juan Pueblo in New Mexico, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa in North Dakota and the Eastern Cherokee in North Carolina among them - have aggressively revived the practice of banishment - forbidding tribal members or non-Indians who have broken certain laws from entering the reservation. It's a civil process not limited by the restrictions on tribal criminal courts.

Different view in Colorado

Ultimately, Colorado's top federal law-enforcement officer says, the only real solution is something much more sweeping. Troy Eid, Colorado's U.S. attorney, has turned into one of the Justice Department's most vocal advocates for jettisoning much of its current role on reservations. It's more simple than it sounds, he says. Eid has called for transferring to American Indian tribes wholesale authority for prosecuting felony crime over all suspects, Indian and non-Indian alike.

The system he envisions would be optional. Those tribes that wanted the responsibility would opt in. And in exchange, the tribes would have to upgrade their legal codes and judicial systems, agreeing to meet strict benchmarks designed to guarantee individual rights.

"I look at this issue something like the reunification of Germany," Eid said. "They used to say it was absolutely impossible for East Germany to come back into the West without massive dislocation and unthinkable cost. But you know, it's been done."

The scale of the job implied by the metaphor may be closer to the mark than Eid intends: Many tribal judges and prosecutors now at work don't have law degrees. Tribal legal codes are often out of date or incomplete. Suspects on most reservations have a right to a defense attorney only if they can pay for one.

Federal prosecutors quietly concede that weak cases that should fall under their jurisdiction are routinely sent instead through tribal court, where guilty verdicts are easier to obtain.

"The tribal council appoints the judges and the courts, and they don't have to have experience in legal matters. And as appointees, there is political sway there. Those are all problems," said Thune, who as a South Dakota senator represents not only some of the country's largest reservations but also many adjacent communities worried about the vagaries of tribal justice. And then there is the question of who would pay for it.

Davis, the NCAI lobbyist, said that as much as tribes want the kind of law enforcement powers that cities and states have, running those systems is incredibly expensive. Police forces and courts would have to be overhauled. And hundreds of millions of dollars in new prisons would have to be built. The tribes that need it the most don't have the money. Many that do believe that paying the cost is part of the trust responsibility the federal government assumed when it took Indian lands.

"Of course they're not going to pay for it," said Philip S. Deloria, director of the American Indian Law Center in Albuquerque and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. "It may be a mandate that the Indians have been begging for, but no matter. There's your headline. 'Inconsistency discovered in Indian position,' a brand- new thing in politics."

More important, Deloria said, even with significant federal help there are only a handful of tribes that could ever muster the resources and expertise to handle felony crime. While it's a great applause line, he says, significantly expanding American Indian law enforcement authority would most likely leave the problem on most reservations untouched.

"What most people overlook is that 70 percent of tribes are 1,000 people or fewer. We're not talking about the Navajo police system, where they can afford undercover officers," he said. "We're talking about Andy and Barney. You give Andy and Barney felony jurisdiction over everyone in Mayberry, and what are they going to do?"

Small steps in Senate bill

The Indian Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate is currently drawing up a bill that takes a different approach: Combining limited expansion in tribal jurisdiction with an effort to push the feds to be more effective at pursing Indian Country crime.

Politically more viable - in part because it is less sweeping - that approach largely has the support of the NCAI, the tribes' primary lobbying group in Washington.

But even supporters concede that it represents a series of small steps in the face of what is admittedly a problem of staggering dimensions.

Jurisdictionally, a pilot program would expand the power of tribes to include misdemeanor criminal authority over non-Indians who commit domestic or sexual violence on reservation lands, an early summary of the bill indicates.

Tribes would gain no jurisdiction over felony crime. And a non-Indian convicted of rape could serve at most a year in tribal jails. But supporters say it would give tribes a powerful tool to address at least one chronic
problem: domestic violence committed by non-Indians who live on reservations.

On the federal side, the bill would create a series of benchmarks against which the performance of federal investigators and prosecutors responsible for the most serious reservation crime could be judged. And tribal prosecutors could be appointed as special assistant U.S. attorneys, allowing them to bring reservation cases in federal court.

"This is a really complicated system and there are a whole lot of different approaches you could take to fixing it, and our hope is that if you do enough of those at the same time, it will make a meaningful difference," the NCAI's Davis said.

But even the political prospects of that effort are uncertain. Any expansion of tribal authority over non-Indians is likely to be a tough sell in the Senate, and an early, more expansive jurisdictional proposal has been whittled to a pilot program.

"The only chance I've got to pass legislation is if I can put legislation together that has pretty broad support," said Dorgan, who expects a bill to be ready by February.

And while the bill could reauthorize and even increase the budgets for dozens of programs meant to bolster reservation law enforcement, that's no guarantee the money will ever leave federal coffers. Longtime observers point out that many of the best efforts in the past were authorized but never fully funded, habitual losers in Congress' Byzantine appropriations process.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Colorado's former senator, views those failures with the cynical eye of a lawmaker who, on this issue at least, was often on the losing side.

As the former head of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Campbell said he spent endless hours talking and negotiating with his fellow senators over the problem of public safety on tribal lands. He tried for years to strengthen the authority of tribal courts, always without luck. "I tried over and over," Campbell said. "But it goes back to old prejudices. 'I don't trust those Indians. I'm not going to let them try me.' "There is still a lot of latent prejudice out there just under the surface," he said. "I think it prevents any meaningful change." Always "a niche issue"

Doris Meissner, who was part of a Ford administration effort to examine the Justice Department's enforcement role on reservations long before she gained prominence as Bill Clinton's immigration chief, insists you don't need racism to explain the failures. You only need the tried-and-true math of power politics.

After months spent touring reservations, listening to the complaints of tribal authorities and crime victims, that effort in the 1970s ended with only minimal tinkering, none of it focused on the problem of criminal enforcement. The only significant change was a new section in the Justice Department to represent tribes' interest in civil litigation.

"We talked to a lot of people about the criminal side," Meissner said, "and we discussed it in our report in exactly the same way people are talking
now: There are insufficient resources available from the community itself; the FBI has lots of other demands on its time; it's not a priority for the U.S. attorneys."

But "we are a system where those voices that can be backed up by votes at the ballot box are going to be the ones that prevail, and that's never been the case with Native Americans."

"It's a little along the lines of trying to get the vote for (Washington) D.C.," she said. "No matter how compelling it is, it always ends up being a niche issue."
http://origin.denverpost.com/ci_7454999

Posted by lois at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Brennan Center for Justice: NY- Testimony on Disenfranchisment

Today 87% of those currently disenfranchised in New York are Latino and African American.

http://www.brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download_file_50919.pdf
Testimony of Brennan Center for Justice
Before the New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform November 13, 2007. For the complete testimony go the URL above.

________________________

Sentencing Reform Commission Gets It Right On Voting Rights
For the first time in 40 years, New York's hodge-podge sentencing procedures are poised for a thorough review and revision.

In March Governor Spitzer tasked the State Commission on Sentencing Reform, an 11-member body of law enforcement officials, state legislators and criminal justice experts, with creating a proposal for streamlining the state's sentencing structure.

The Commission's preliminary report, which was released last month, includes an enlightened recommendation to restore voting rights to people on parole in New York.

It's about time. A quick peek into the history of the state's felony disenfranchisement law reveals ugly origins:

Back in 1821, delegates at the state¹s Constitutional Convention brainstormed how new requirements could be used to exclude African Americans from the polls. Their efforts resulted in Article II of the state constitution which imposed special property requirements on African Americans and established a felony disenfranchisement provision which the delegates believed would target African Americans.

Fast-forward to the present, and that same misguided felony disenfranchisement provision remains in tact today, and it has achieved its intended result: 87% of those currently disenfranchised in New York are Latino and African American.

The disenfranchisement provision not only makes election administration more confusing (Brennan Center surveys have revealed that even a good portion of Board of Elections officials get confused about who can vote), but also dilutes the voting power of New Yorks communities of color.

On Tuesday, advocates and experts had a chance to give the Commission comments at a public hearing at the New York City Bar Association. (A hearing in Albany is being held today, and one is scheduled for next Monday in Buffalo).

The Brennan Center's Erika Wood testified in favor of restoring voting rights upon release from prison and outlined how the Governor could change the current law through executive order.

The Commission recognizes that fostering civic participation is one way to facilitate the re-entry process, and that restoring the right to vote to people on parole is fundamental to that participation. Hopefully the Governor will heed the Commission's wise counsel.
http://reformny.blogspot.com/2007/11/sentencing-reform-commission-gets-it.ht
ml
--Jude Joffe-Block, Research Associate, Democracy Program

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

CT: State Considers Overhaul in Parole System

State Considers Overhaul In Parole System
By Susan Haigh , Associated Press Writer
Published on 11/15/2007
The Day, CT.
Hartford — Lawmakers are grappling with how to appease residents calling for changes to the state's parole system after the July slaying of a mother and her daughters, allegedly at the hands of two recently paroled burglars.

But in some ways, the state is still experiencing fallout from abolishing parole in 1981.

Residents of suburban Southbury were outraged recently when a serial rapist moved into their neighborhood to live with his sister. Because David Pollitt was sentenced when the state replaced parole with a complicated system of reduced sentences for good behavior, his original sentence of 60 years in prison, suspended after 45 years, was reduced to about 24 years.

A review of records provided to The Associated Press under the state's Freedom of Information Act shows more than 1,000 offenders sentenced between 1981 and 1994, when there was no parole, will be released into the community over the next 10 to 30 years. They include murderers, sex offenders, thieves and drug dealers who've had their sentences reduced through good time credits.

While Pollitt had five years of probation attached to his sentence, the majority of offenders reviewed by AP do not, according to documents provided by the Department of Correction.

And even though many of those inmates will still be eligible for parole, those who were convicted of serious, so-called parole-ineligible crimes, such as felony murder and first-degree aggravated sexual assault, may not receive that intense supervision when they walk out the prison gates.

That fact has raised concerns with the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which worries that some serious criminals who have been incarcerated for decades could suddenly find themselves in the outside world without any oversight.

“The Pollitts of the world don't fall under those rules,” said Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee. “It's better to have a parole system than to not have a parole system. And these cases illustrate this point.”

In September, the board asked the attorney general whether it could commute a non-parole-eligible offense to parole-eligible. The board had received requests from 13 non-parole-eligible murderers, some teenagers at the time of their crimes. Of those, 11 have no probation or any other form of community supervision once their prison sentences end.

“These individuals will be discharging soon from prison with no supervision, and in the interest of public safety, it would be beneficial to commute certain applicants' sentences to parole-eligible sentences,” wrote Robert Farr, the board's chairman.

But Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the board has no legal authority.

“No parole means no parole,” he wrote to Farr.

The corrections department, meanwhile, is trying to work with inmates who have been incarcerated for many years, helping them transition back into the community. For example, some inmates sentenced under the old rules spend the final 18 months of their sentences in halfway houses.

“Letting someone out the front door or the front gates on the very last day of incarceration is nowhere near as good as transitioning the person back into the community, which has a much higher success rate,” said DOC spokesman Brian Garnett.

Later this month, the legislature's Judiciary Committee and a task force created by Gov. M. Jodi Rell will hold public hearings to gauge public support for possible law changes in light of the July home invasion in Cheshire. Besides alterations to the parole system, each group is looking at other issues facing Connecticut's criminal justice system, such as crowded prisons, a need for more halfway house beds, and changes to criminal sentences.

Lawlor said he hopes the General Assembly will convene a special session in January to vote on a package of reforms recommended by both groups.

A Quinnipiac University Poll released last week showed 98 percent of voters had heard of the Cheshire murders, which attracted national media attention. The two parolees allegedly broke into the home of Dr. William Petit and his family and held them hostage for hours. Petit, who was beaten, managed to escape. His wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, was strangled and the couple's two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, died of smoke inhalation during a fire set by the intruders, authorities say.

The poll showed 72 percent of registered voters believe the current parole system lets offenders out on the streets too soon. Ten percent disagreed. Meanwhile, 60 percent of voters said they now have less confidence in the parole system since the Cheshire murders, while 33 percent said it has no effect.

Two law professors from Quinnipiac, Jeffrey A. Meyer and Linda Ross Meyer, want parole abolished, questioning the parole board's ability to predict future dangerousness of parolees. They are calling for a system used by the federal government that requires criminals to serve most of their sentences, followed by supervised home release.

But Lawlor said he hopes people will take a breath and consider the consequences before making wholesale changes to the parole system.

“In 1981, we abolished parole in the same kind of climate we have now,” Lawlor said. “You just kind of get caught up in this cycle. But often, the simple answers are not the best answers. This is one of those times.”

John Lahda, executive director of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, was a counselor in the late 1980s when Connecticut had no parole. Prisons became so crowded, he recalled, that officials waived certain criteria to free up beds.

“With parole, you never see that. You never see any waiving of the criteria. You have to stick by the standards,” he said. “I hope they don't abolish parole, but if they do, they're going to have to have something in place or they're going to have to build more prisons.”

http://www.theday.com/re_print.aspx?re=fff80d5f-e39a-416d-a18b-9e12df932a91

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

Excellent Testimony by Gabriel Sayegh on the Rockefeller Drug Laws to the NY State Commission on Sentencing Reform

Testimony to New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform

Re: Rockefeller Drug Laws

by Gabriel Sayegh, Director, State Organizing and Policy Project
Drug Policy Alliance

Tuesday, 13 November 2007 --9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

I’d like to start by thanking the Commission for the opportunity to testify today. There were nearly a hundred people who applied to testify here this morning, dozens of whom were turned down because of time constraints. For this reason, I ask that the Commission creates more opportunities for those in New York City and around the state to give their perspective and comments to this process.

You have a difficult task ahead of you—bringing consistency and clarity to NY State’s sentencing structure. This effort could not come at a more important time. It was Ms. O’Donnell who described the current system as Byzantine. And as the preliminary report clearly indicates, the need for consistency, clarity, and evidence-based practices in the penal law is plainly obvious and extremely urgent.

In reading over the preliminary report, it is clear that this body has the capacity, know-how, and the Executive mandate to make substantive recommendations for effective reform in this state. It is precisely for this reason that my organization, Drug Policy Alliance, and dozens of allied organizations in the large coalition Real Reform New York, were utterly shocked and dismayed by the Commission’s lack of meaningful reform recommendations regarding the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In fact, it was much worse than a lack of reform recommendations—in the report, the Commission, against all common sense and science, raises questions about whether or not further reform is even necessary, concluding that “more study is needed.”

This was shocking unto itself. But what I found even more alarming was that I could not find the word “race” or “racism” even once in the entire report. Now, on page 27, the term “disparity” appears, in reference to disparities in mental health and drug treatment services in urban and rural communities. Yes, this is as good a place as any to start addressing the disparities in our state that impact sentencing issues in one way or another. But to stop there stuns the conscience, given what is transpiring under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. It’s nearly unbelievable.

Almost everyone locked up under the state’s Rockefeller Drug Laws are people of color—91% of nearly 14,000 people, despite the fact that whites and people of color use and sell illegal drugs at roughly equal rates. Some studies show that whites use and sell drugs at higher rates than people of color –and certainly, whites are the majority in the state of New York. Isn’t this a disparity that warrants the Commission’s urgent attention? Yet it’s not even mentioned in the preliminary report. Why? How can the Commission possibly ignore this crisis?

The report correctly identifies DOCS as the largest treatment provider in the State of New York. Yet there is no questioning of whether or not this even makes sense. Why would the prison system be the largest treatment provider in New York? It doesn’t make fiscal sense given that community based treatment is much more cost effective. Treatment in prison is not supported by science, since studies show, and existing programs prove, that alternatives to incarceration and community based drug treatment programs do more to restore people, are more lasting, and are more effective at reducing recidivism and promoting public safety. By not even mentioning this issue of racial disparities under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the Commission is tacitly saying that treatment for drug offenses for people of color can take place only when those people are locked in a cage. Can this be happening in 2007? It’s an outrage.

With regard to real reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws—the studies have been done. The research is in. The editorials have been written. The stories of injustice have been told. The terms are widely understood. The polling has been done. And the politics are clear. The overwhelming consensus is that Real Reform is absolutely necessary: restoring judicial discretion, reducing sentences, expanding community based drug treatment programs and alternatives to incarceration, and retroactively bringing fairness to those currently serving inhumane Rockefeller sentences.

So why doesn’t the Commission address these disparities? Why didn’t the Commission make recommendations for Rockefeller Drug Law reform? It’s beyond me. I was not part of the deliberations and can only surmise three possible reasons. One, perhaps the Commission is callous, and the set of policies known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws-- which by any honest account are the last vestiges of Jim Crow left on the lawbooks today—are simply not enough to move this body to action. I don’t think this is the case. I know some of the Committee members as people of conscience, as are, I’m sure, the rest of you serving on this Committee.

A second reason could be that the Commission has prioritized politics over sound research, at the expense of your mandate and the research at hand. This is more likely the case, and if it is, the first point could be true or not and it wouldn’t matter.

A third potential reason to ignore Rockefeller Drug Law reform could be that the Commission has decided that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the prosecutors who testified before you about how “useful” and “critically important” the Rockefeller Drug Laws have been are actually correct. To believe this, the Commission would have to suspend its own judgment, ignore the existing research and science on these issues, ignore successful evidence-based programs and practices from around the country, and buy wholesale into what is, at its base, a political claim of the worst order. That is, a specious claim made by prosecutors for one purpose alone—to maintain discretionary power in drug cases at the expense of justice. I pray that this is not the reason that the Commission punted with regard to the Rockefeller Drug Laws, because it’s not better than any of the other possible scenarios I’ve laid out here, and in fact may be worse.

Right now, as I sit before you, many of our allies are holding a press conference outside to express frustration with the lack of RDL reform recommendations, and to demand meaningful reforms. Prominent religious leaders, treatment experts, people formerly incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, family members of those incarcerated under the laws, experts in alternatives to incarceration and dozens of community members are outside with reporters in the cold rain, because of one thing: the need for real reform is clear, and the time for real reform is now. For the vast majority of New Yorkers, the time for debate is over. It is now time for action—and that action must meet basic standards of justice, fairness, scientific rigor, and human rights. We need real reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Thank you for your time.

Posted by lois at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2007

VA lawmakers discuss prison options

Va. lawmakers discuss prison options
Budget analyst suggests steps that could reduce need for new facilities

Thursday, Nov 15, 2007

FREDERICKSBURG -- Virginia could be forced to build one prison every year to keep up with its growing prison population, the House Appropriations Committee was told yesterday.

But the pressure could be eased by changing the sentencing terms of technical parole violators, said Paul Van Lenten Jr., a budget analyst for the committee. A technical parole violator is someone who has not been convicted of a new crime but has broken the terms of his parole, frequently by failing a drug or alcohol test.

Between 2002 and 2006, the number of technical parole violators grew 41 percent, Van Lenten told the committee.

The House Appropriations Committee completed a two-day retreat yesterday at the Holiday Inn Select Hotel and Conference Center in Fredericksburg.

About 25 legislators attended yesterday's meeting.

Van Lenten said lighter sentences for a violation, and diversion programs that allow offenders to work and pay for a part of their upkeep, could eliminate the need for about 900 beds.

Another option would be constructing a dormitory-style correctional facility for technical parole violators, he said. This would be cheaper to construct and cheaper to operate than a typical prison because fewer security officers would be needed, he said.

There is a political problem with the lighter sentences, said Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee.

A lot of judges are giving short sentences with longer parole, he said. If the terms of the parole are violated and the parolees still get a light prison sentence, it would look like "we are soft on crime," Albo said. Members of the courts committee need to be shown that the alternative would be building more prisons at a great cost to the state, he said.

The committee also reviewed the status of the state's mental-health system.

Budget analyst Susan E. Massart said state funding for community-health services has more than doubled in the past 10 years. However, much of the increase has been targeted toward people with serious mental illnesses, she said.

The state's 40 community service boards are serving more individuals with mental illness but not in proportion to the increased funding for services, she said.

Dr. James Reinhard, commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, said the risk of people with mental illness becoming violent is about the same as the risk in the general population.

The risk of violence is greater among the mentally ill than in the general population if substance abuse is involved, he said.

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/state.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-11-1
5-0158.html

Posted by lois at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

CA: LAPD Scraps Muslim Mapping Program

From the Los Angeles Times
LAPD scraps Muslim mapping program
The plan, aiming at spotting potential enclaves where terrorists might develop, had been criticized by many. In its place, the department will try a 'community outreach' strategy.
By Richard Winton
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 14, 2007

The LAPD today abruptly scrapped its controversial plan to create a mapping program for the city's Muslim community, saying instead it would focus on a "community outreach" strategy more palatable to local civil rights activists.

The decision marks a major retreat for the department, which had said the mapping was necessary to better identify isolated Muslim communities where home-grown terrorism could breed.

But over the last week, the plans has been roundly criticized by Muslim groups and civil libertarians, and others have questioned whether it's possible to map the far-flung community.

Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing said today that in the wake of the protests, officials would drop the mapping aspect of the plan but continue its attempt to make inroads into the Muslim community through outreach efforts.

In a document reviewed by The Times last week, the LAPD's counter-terrorism bureau proposed using U.S. Census data and other demographic information to pinpoint various Muslim communities and then reach out to them through social service agencies.

Originally, the LAPD planned to partner with USC's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events to help build the mapping program. But after details of the effort were made public last week, USC officials said they were carefully studying whether to join the endeavor.

During Oct. 30 testimony before Congress, Downing described the program broadly as an attempt to "mitigate radicalization." At that time, he said law enforcement agencies nationwide faced "a vicious, amorphous and unfamiliar adversary on our land."

Downing and other law enforcement officials said police agencies around the world are dealing with radical Muslim groups that are isolated from the larger community, making potential breeding groups for terrorism. He cited terror cells in Europe as well as the case of some Muslim extremists in New Jersey arrested in May for allegedly planning to bomb Ft. Dix.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-muslim15nov15,0,6998542.story?coll=la-home-center

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

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

November 14, 2007

Tullulah LA: A small Louisiana town struggles to shut down a prison and build a school

Education Versus Incarceration
A small Louisiana town struggles to shut down a prison and build a school

by Jordan Flaherty / November 13th, 2007

Tallulah is a small town in Northeastern Louisiana, one of the poorest regions in the US. It is about 90 miles from the now-legendary town of Jena, and like Jena it is a town with a large youth prison that was closed after allegations of abuse and brutality. Also like Jena, residents of Tallulah are involved in a modern civil rights struggle. Their town has become a battleground in the national debate on whether to spend money to educate or incarcerate poor, mostly Black, youth.

On a recent Saturday afternoon I visited Hayward Fair, a civil rights movement veteran from Tallulah. Mr. Fair is one of the founders of People United for Education and Action, a grassroots organization dedicated to transforming the local prison (now called Steve Hoyle Rehabilitation Center and primarily holding adults convicted of nonviolent offenses) into a “success center” which would give classes and training. If they succeed in their struggle it will be the first time in this country — where for decades funding for education has been cut while prisons have been built — that a prison has been shut down and replaced by a school, a groundbreaking reversal of the nationwide trend.

When I met with Mr. Fair he was going door to door with activists from the grassroots organizations Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, Southern Center for Human Rights and Safe Streets Strong Communities. At nearly seventy years old, with muscular arms and a shaved head, he shows no sign of slowing down. “I’ve been doing a little community organizing,” he explained, modestly. As he went from house to house, it seemed everyone in the city knew and respected him, and everyone had an opinion about both the prison and what Tallulah needs. Wielding respect from both his age and his reputation for fighting for justice locally, Fair was bringing a vision of a new Tallulah to residents who have seen a town die around them.

Speaking in a gravelly voice and a deliberate step weighted with experience, Mr. Fair led me to the site of the prison. “When the prison came to town most people weren’t even aware of what it was going to be,” he said. “It was something that produced jobs and people needed jobs so there wasn’t no real resistance to it.” But now, the local economy is devastated, and Fair blames the prison, at least in part. “It’s killing the economy of the area, in my opinion,” he claims. “Prisons only bring money to the owners.”

When you enter the city limits, the first thing you see after you pass the “Welcome to Tallulah” sign is the prison, a large complex of 33 buildings surrounded by fence and barbed wire. Standing nearby, Fair gestures down the street. “We’re about a block and a half from the junior high school, we’re about 5 blocks from the senior high school. Our children have to walk out from the classroom and the next thing they see is all these bars and towers and all these big buildings. It had a psychological effect on the children and the adults as well. It really just devastated this whole city.” For several years, the people of Tallulah, aligned with Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, have fought this struggle, to not just close the local prison, but to open something different in its place, to demonstrate that small rural towns don’t have to turn to prisons for jobs.

Tallulah, which is seventy percent Black, used to be a town that Black folks would travel from all around the region to visit. To demonstrate his point, Fair took me to the downtown, to street of shuttered storefronts, with virtually no people out. “On a day like this, on a Saturday evening, you could hardly walk down the streets of Tallulah, you’d be bumping into people. You had all businesses on this end of town,” he gestured across the street. “All the way down, nothing but businesses; grocery stores, cafes, clothing stores, barrooms, you name it. The town was wide open, stayed open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Now Fair says, the town is a very different place. “We are working trying to bring our image back up, but we are now labeled as a prison town.” As in much of the country, prisons are a big business in rural Louisiana, and this part of the state has several. “You go east you got a youth prison. West down here you got this facility, you go south you got two prisons right outside the city limits.” Tallulah is now far removed from its former glory. Young people move away as soon as they’re able. “We lose maybe 70% of our young people,” he says. “Why should they stay? There’s no opportunities here for them.”

The prison in Tallulah has a long and notorious reputation. Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone visited in 1998, and incarcerated kids broke onto a roof to shout out complaints about their treatment. The New York Times wrote several articles that same year, including a front page report calling Tallulah the worst youth prison in the US, and the US Justice Department sued the state of Louisiana over the systematic abuse at the prison, where even the warden said, “it seemed everybody had a perforated eardrum or a broken nose.”

New Orleans-based journalist Katy Reckdahl chronicled the beginnings of the struggle to transform this prison in an important series of articles several years ago. But now the effort is nearing its final days. Activists have lined up local and statewide support for this important transition, from the community level to meetings with the Governor, to support of national allies such as the Center for Third World Organizing and the Southern Center for Human Rights. With a new Governor on the way, the next few weeks will be crucial for this struggle, and for the fate of Tallulah. If the people of Tallulah win, it will be an important victory for people everywhere concerned about issues of race, education, and criminal justice.

Mr. Fair is proud of the civil rights history of Tallulah, which is located not far from where the Deacons for Defense, a pioneering Black armed self-defense group active during the civil rights movement, was formed. “We had some people here that went off to world war two, then they come back here and were second class citizens,” he explained. “They had to ride in the back of the bus. They said were not going to put up with this. So we started a movement ourselves, to eliminate that.”

Fair experienced intense white resistance to basic rights for Black folks. “At one point the Klan met about three miles outside of town and had a rally and they was going to come into town that evening. They thought they were going to run all the Blacks out of town,” Fair says. But resistance in the town was strong. “When they came into town the streets was crowded. People were walking stiff legged, with their shotguns down under their pants. We told the police were going to take care of ourselves; we don’t need you to take care of us. They thought they were going to scare somebody, but nobody here was afraid of them.”

I asked Fair how Tallulah fits into a wider struggle. “All the eyes of the world is focused on the Jena Six. But every small community in the south, and in the north, has its Jena Six. Maybe you can’t visualize it or maybe you don’t want to visualize it, but this is not just small rural towns. Look at New Orleans, during the storm. When the people was trying to cross the bridge to get out of the flood, there were people on the other side, armed, that would not let them cross. In the rest of the nation people are being treated the same way. Chicago, New York, it don’t matter where you are.”

Before leaving, I asked Fair what kept him in the struggle. “I ain’t struggling, I’m free,” he answered, explaining that this struggle is not about him. “I’m gonna do what I know is right, and I don’t care who you are. I see the young people in the community that need help. That’s what keeps me going. If you see something and you feel it aint right, don’t say they ought to change it, get in there, roll your sleeves up and say lets change it. That’s the only way. You gotta keep a cool head and do the thing that’s right. When you know right and fight for it, you’re gonna win.”

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/11/education-versus-incarceration/

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

November 13, 2007

CA: In Exchange for "re-entry facility", state offers money to expand local jails

The ideal location, according to Petersilia, would be in an area close to public transportation, low-wage jobs and faith-based and other commA new kind of prison for Santa Clara County?
IN EXCHANGE FOR 'RE-ENTRY FACILITY,' STATE OFFERS FUNDS TO EXPAND LOCAL JAILS
By Deborah Lohse
Mercury News
Article Launched: 11/13/2007 01:35:25 AM PST

Santa Clara County officials are about to tackle a potentially explosive question: Should they allow the state to build a new type of prison here, in exchange for badly needed funds to expand the county jails?
Proponents say state prison inmates are coming back to the county anyway to serve parole, and building a "re-entry facility" to give them job training and other counseling before release will make them less likely to re-offend once they're back on the street.
But county officials are raising questions.
"Having a state prison located in our community? I think that's something the community is going to care very much about," said District Attorney Dolores Carr, who will be part of a group studying the issue.unity service providers.

Although any vote on the issue by the county board of supervisors is months away, some observers predict the Agnews Developmental Center site in North San Jose and several properties near the county's main jail on Hedding Street could emerge as possible locations.
Crowding at the main jail and the Elmwood Correctional Complex in Milpitas make the idea at least worth considering, the county executive's office believes, given the financial incentives state officials are dangling to expand jails.
Supervisor Ken Yeager, however, isn't so sure.
"They will make this sound like a great deal to the counties," said Yeager, who sits on the supervisors' Public Safety and Justice Committee. "But we've had a long string of broken promises from the state."
Should supervisors warm to the idea, Santa Clara County could join more than a dozen others that have agreed to let the state build re-entry facilities within their borders. The facilities are like locked-down halfway houses for prisoners in their last 12 months of incarceration.
Born out of a recent state law, the idea is to bring up to 500 lower-risk inmates in each facility closer to where they will be released, and to start providing them services such as drug treatment and job assistance. The goal: to cut the state's eye-popping 70 percent rate of recidivism. Many ex-convicts land right back in prison for violating parole or committing new crimes.
The idea sounds like a winner to Andrew Ricondo.
During his recent eight-month stint in San Quentin Prison for violating parole, Ricondo said he hoped family and friends in San Jose could help with his financial troubles so he could keep his $750-a-month apartment. But it was too hard to communicate from the prison 60 miles away, he said, so he lost the apartment.
Recently released, Ricondo, a 28-year-old whose initial offense was selling drugs, now must find housing as well as a job. "I have to start all over," he said.
A likely candidate for a re-entry facility, Ricondo would have been closer to friends and family had such a center existed here. He says inmates he knew could have been fulfilling their drug treatment or other release conditions while still in prison.
"If you can get all that done in that year," he said, "that gets you more on the ball to get a job."
State corrections officials say they're planning to build the facilities in at least 32 counties, using $6 billion in bond money. They say they will pay for the ongoing services out of the state's budget - even though the facilities will cost two or three times the typical bill of $45,000 a prisoner per year.
"If you reduce the return rate by even 10 percent, the programs pay for themselves," said Joan Petersilia, a University of California-Irvine professor and consultant to the state on prison reform.
Among the issues that are likely to turn the proposal into a red-hot debate: Will the prisoners, once they are released, siphon already-burdened county resources from non-criminal residents? And what about the difficulties and delays that those on probation or parole already face getting services to re-enter society?
"One of the challenges we face in Santa Clara County, in my opinion, is we don't have sufficient resources for people who are placed on probation," Carr said.
Petersilia and others argue that opponents are being short-sighted, because released state prisoners are required to be sent back to their last county of residence - and must stay there for a mandated period, under a parole officer's supervision.
Proponents say it's better to get them after a year of focused treatment and contact with their families and local law enforcement, than having them sent home with no more than "$200, less the cost of a bus ticket."
The main reason the county is considering such a facility at all is that the state is offering incentives. Any county that agrees to let the state build one will get extra consideration for some of the $1.2 billion in state funds earmarked for expanding county jails. That's especially tempting, given that a federal court is now considering whether there needs to be a cap on the number of prisoners in state prisons - which would cause as many as 1,500 inmates a year to land back in Santa Clara County's lap.
The county's two primary jails already are operating at about 124 percent of state-recommended levels, with an average daily population of about 4,800 in both jails.
The biggest debate, most say, would be where to put the facility if the board of supervisors decides to allow it.
The ideal location, according to Petersilia, would be in an area close to public transportation, low-wage jobs and faith-based and other community service providers.
Supervisor Blanca Alvarado said it's not the county's job to ease the state's overcrowding problems.
As for re-entry centers, she said: "I still have very major concerns."

Posted by lois at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

WA/MA: Embattled Corrections Chief on his Way to MA

“Three weeks earlier, Corrections had agreed to pay $541,000 in legal fees and fines in connection with a separate, years-long denial of records to Prison Legal News. The watchdog newspaper, founded by a former inmate, had sought records showing backgrounds of prison medical staff that inflicted injuries on inmates through negligence. After years of wrangling over the records, Corrections eventually was fined more than a half million dollars for its failure to release the records in a timely fashion.”

Published November 12, 2007
The Olympian
Olympia, WA

Openness is key for new prisons chief

Embattled state prison chief Harold Clarke is on his way to Massachusetts, getting out of Washington state before a portion of his employees could take a vote of no confidence in his administration.

Gov. Chris Gregoire will appoint Clarke’s successor as secretary of the state Department of Corrections. As she interviews candidates, the governor must question each one about commitment to open public records. We say that because Corrections officials and their state attorneys have a terrible record in that regard. The next prison chief must change the culture within Corrections to one of openness and transparency.

The state prison system recently settled a lawsuit over its refusal to disclose certain public records in electronic form, agreeing to pay $65,000. It was just the latest Corrections payout for its failures to disclose records.

In the most recent case, the Department of Corrections refused to hand over electronic records related to health-care benefits for employees. Other agencies complied with the request, but not Corrections. Then Gregoire undercut Corrections in September when she signed an executive order to all agency directors urging them to comply with requests for electronic copies of records. Clarke and his staff turned over the health records and agreed to pay the $65,000 fine.

Earlier dispute

Three weeks earlier, Corrections had agreed to pay $541,000 in legal fees and fines in connection with a separate, years-long denial of records to Prison Legal News. The watchdog newspaper, founded by a former inmate, had sought records showing backgrounds of prison medical staff that inflicted injuries on inmates through negligence. After years of wrangling over the records, Corrections eventually was fined more than a half million dollars for its failure to release the records in a timely fashion.

Those two settlements in public record lawsuits in a month’s time paint a picture of a state agency that prefers secrecy to transparency.

That’s a governing philosophy the next prison chief must correct. Corrections officials need to understand that they are the mere custodians of records — that the records themselves belong to the public and it’s the agency’s responsibility to release those records when requested.

Tense years

The public records problem was only one of the difficulties that led to Clarke’s departure after three tense years at the helm of Washington’s prison system. He takes over the Massachusetts’ prison system Nov. 26.

For many of the 8,000 Corrections employees, the change means the end of a difficult relationship.

“ ‘Rocky’ is not the word. It’s more ‘frosty,’ ” said Tim Welch, spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees. “He had real trouble engaging his frontline workers and just kind of kept them at arm’s length. That’s not a good thing in an agency secretary.”

The union represents community corrections officers, who supervise convicts after they leave prison. It was that parole-like system that took a great deal of criticism — primarily from Republicans — during Clarke’s tenure. The heat was turned up after released prisoners killed three police officers in King County last year.

The community officers called for a no-confidence vote in Clarke, saying he wasn’t up to leading the department. The vote had not been scheduled.

But Clarke had his successes, too. A portion of his “re-entry initiative” was passed by the Legislature this year. Clarke’s plan was designed to better prepare offenders for life outside prison and reduce the number who commit new crimes.

“We are in the business of public safety. And we know how to build a safe and secure institution. We know how to lock people up. But to me, the real measure of public safety is what happens when we release those offenders, the choices they make,” Clarke said when he began his push for the changes last year.

Clarke’s departure gives Gregoire the opportunity to find someone who will continue Clarke’s focus on prisoners re-entering society, but also an agency director who is committed to operating the Department of Corrections in an open and transparent fashion.

http://www.theolympian.com/opinion/story/267393.html

Posted by lois at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2007

LA Times: Justice Department Opposes "Mass Commutation" of People with Crack Convictions

"Justice Department officials question the wisdom of releasing drug dealers earlier than planned without sufficient time to train them to assimilate back into their communities. The department estimates that about a third of those who could be released were convicted on related weapons charges and would pose a worrisome threat."

"The unexpected release of 20,000 prisoners . . . would jeopardize community safety and threaten to unravel the success we have achieved in removing violent crack offenders from high-crime neighborhoods," the department said in a letter to the commission this month."

Los Angeles Times
Panel may cut thousands of prison terms
The early release of 19,500 inmates could result as officials try to address perceived unfairness in sentencing under federal cocaine laws.

By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 12, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from federal judges, inmate advocacy groups and civil rights organizations, federal authorities are considering a sweeping cut in prison sentences that could bring early release for thousands of federal inmates.

The proposal being weighed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission would shave an average of at least two years off the sentences of 19,500 federal prisoners, about 1 in 10 in the 200,000-inmate system. More than 2,500 of them, mainly those who have already served lengthy sentences would be eligible for release within a year if the rule is adopted.

Such a mass commutation would be unprecedented: No other single rule in the two-decade history of the Sentencing Commission has affected nearly as many inmates. And no single law or act of presidential clemency, such as grants of amnesty to draft resisters and conscientious objectors after World War II and the Vietnam War, has affected so many people at one time.

The far-reaching move is aimed at addressing what is seen as an unfair disparity in federal cocaine laws dating to the mid-1980s that have imposed much harsher punishment on crack cocaine users and dealers than in powder cocaine cases. About 80% of those sentenced on federal crack charges every year are African American.

The Justice Department is warning of dire consequences if the proposal goes through, including the possibility that returning thousands of serious drug offenders to the streets would compound a recent increase in violent crime across the country.

"The unexpected release of 20,000 prisoners . . . would jeopardize community safety and threaten to unravel the success we have achieved in removing violent crack offenders from high-crime neighborhoods," the department said in a letter to the commission this month.

The congressionally chartered commission, which sets sentencing guidelines for federal judges, has already adopted reduced penalties for new crack cases hitting the courts effective Nov. 1. That decision will affect about 4,000 a cases a year. The debate now is about its plans to make those changes retroactive to inmates. The seven-member commission is considering the proposal at a hearing Tuesday; a vote is expected next year.

Congress started enacting tougher penalties for crack offenders in the 1980s, at the height of public fears about spreading street violence associated with the drug, and amid concern that crack was more dangerous and addictive than powder cocaine.

The distinction became embedded in federal law and shaped the guidelines that the Sentencing Commission promulgated for two decades. For example, it takes 100 times as much powder cocaine as crack to trigger mandatory five- and 10-year prison terms under federal law.

Most experts now believe that the penalties exaggerate the relative harmfulness of crack compared with powder cocaine.

Another concern is that setting such relatively low thresholds for punishing crack offenders has led to the lengthy imprisonment not of major drug traffickers but of low-level street dealers, couriers and lookouts.

The disparity is under siege on several fronts. There is bipartisan legislation in Congress that would narrow the penalties for crack compared with those for powder cocaine. The Supreme Court is considering a case this term that would give judges even more discretion to reduce sentences in crack cases.

The widely differing treatment of crack offenders is "fundamentally unjust," said Reggie B. Walton, a federal judge in Washington.

As a top White House drug-control official in the 1980s, Walton advocated tougher sentences in crack cases. But the penalties have become too severe, he says. Walton is testifying at the hearing Tuesday on behalf of the policymaking arm of the federal courts, which supports the sentencing proposal.

Walton is greatly concerned that the distinction has eroded confidence in the courts, he says. In Washington, potential jurors often refuse to serve in crack cases, knowing that the penalties hurt African Americans more, he said.

He noted that a few years ago the commission made retroactive reductions in sentences for LSD offenders, who were mainly white. If it does not do the same for defendants in crack cases, he said, it could be accused of a double standard.

"If you are trying to send the message to the greater society that our process is a fair and just process, it becomes very difficult to say, Well, we lower the sentences retroactively for other types of drugs, but in reference to crack cocaine, which we know has had a significantly greater adverse impact on people of color, we are not going to do it," Walton said.

Advocacy groups for inmates, such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums, are being flooded with calls about the Sentencing Commission proposal. Mary Price, the general counsel of the Washington-based group, says a co-worker has two sons in prison who would benefit from the sentencing change.

"It is one of the very important civil rights issues of our day," said Hilary O. Shelton, director of the Washington office for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which has long pushed for changing cocaine laws.

Potential beneficiaries of the proposal include Willie Mays Aikens, a former Major League Baseball star with the Kansas City Royals, who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 1994 for selling 63 grams of crack to an undercover cop.

Aikens' case illustrates the effect of the crack/powder divide: If the charges against him involved a similar amount of powder cocaine, he would have received a sentence of no more than 27 months.

Now, if the proposal passes, he will be eligible for release in 2009, about three years earlier than his current release date, said his attorney, Margaret Love.

Justice Department officials question the wisdom of releasing drug dealers earlier than planned without sufficient time to train them to assimilate back into their communities. The department estimates that about a third of those who could be released were convicted on related weapons charges and would pose a worrisome threat.

The department also said it was concerned about the courts being swamped with applications for reduced sentences.

"This surge of litigation, much of which may be frivolous, would detract from our ability to investigate and prosecute current crime and will impede the courts' ability to deal with pending cases, both criminal and civil," Assistant Atty. Gen. Alice Fisher said in a letter to the commission this month.

But federal judges said they would be willing to shoulder the load.

While acknowledging the possible risk to public safety, they also note that judges have discretion under the proposal to decline to reduce the sentence of a defendant who is considered a threat based on criminal history and other factors.

Some experts believe the quandary is the price for a tough-on-crime mentality that at the federal level has included longer sentences, the abolition of parole, and under the Bush administration, the virtual elimination of executive clemency.

They said that in the war on drugs over the last two decades, these measures had not necessarily worked out as expected: Despite prisons crowded with inmates, massive amounts of illegal drugs continue to flow into the country.

"We are struggling to find ways to introduce some flexibility into this very rigid system," said Love, the Justice Department pardon attorney in the 1990s. "The only question is whether we are willing to give people currently doing hard time the benefit of this change of heart."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sentencing12nov12,1,1224925,full.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Posted by lois at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

Marc Mauer Testimony on Crack Cocaine Retroactive Sentence Reductions at the U. S. Sentencing Commission

Nov 13, 2007 Marc Mauer testimony before the U.S. Sentencing Commission to urge the Commission to make retroactive its recent guideline amendment on crack cocaine offenses. If the Commission does so, an estimated 19,500 persons in prison will be eligible for a sentence reduction averaging more than two years.
Including:

Public Safety - Many of the persons who will benefit from retroactivity will have served many years in prison, far longer on average than persons convicted of powder cocaine offenses. They are thus likely to be "aging out" of crime and can benefit from reentry programming in the federal prison system.
Consistency in Sentencing - The Commission has called for crack cocaine sentencing reform since 1995, and therefore it is only proper to apply the amendment to persons in prison, the vast majority of whom have been sentenced since that time.

Racial Disparity - Since previous drug amendments which were more likely to benefit whites and Hispanics were made retroactive, there would be serious concerns about bias in the system if the crack amendment is not made retroactive. An estimated 85% of the persons who would benefit from such a policy are African American.
Cost Issues - While there would be some additional court and corrections costs associated with applying the amendment retroactively, these would be more than offset by the long-term reduction in incarceration that would occur.
Full testimony @
http://sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/dp_ussctestimony.pdf

Posted by lois at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)

San Francisco: The Homeless Prenatal Program

November 12, 2007
Forging Ahead With Life’s Tests, One Day at a Time
By LAURA NOVAK, NY Times

San Francisco

SHE is 40 and pregnant for the first time. One morning in late September she took a yoga class wearing shorts and a bright pink T-shirt with the words Miss Congeniality emblazoned across the front. After an hour of posing and stretching, the woman tossed back her blond ponytail, grabbed some yogurt and fruit and joined 20 other women in various stages of pregnancy for a prenatal education class. As part of the group discussion, she shared her problems with sleeplessness, heartburn and soreness. Then, evoking much laughter, she said, “But all in all, I’m stoked!”

Her euphoria may be difficult to comprehend. The woman is homeless, subsisting on $342 a month in government checks and battling what she calls a “garbage can” of drug addictions that include methamphetamine, marijuana and crack cocaine.

But she has made a soft landing at one of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets: the Homeless Prenatal Program, a nonprofit center created 19 years ago that could help turn her and her baby’s lives around.

The Homeless Prenatal Program has evolved from its original mission of helping destitute women give birth to and then keep healthy babies to become a resource dedicated to stabilizing entire families. It offers what this particular woman excitedly described here as “a plethora of services” for mental health, housing and substance abuse problems. It combines those with an array of alternative health approaches not usually available to the poor, like yoga, massage and chiropractic treatments.

“People call me a reckless optimist, and you have to be to do this kind of work,” said Martha Ryan, founder and executive director of the Homeless Prenatal Program. “But I see enough success. I see people really able to turn their lives around, and I see their children be able to move forward and have a different life.”

The program sees 3,000 people a year, 91 percent of them women. Twenty people arrive each day for an intake session, referred by other agencies or through word on the street. Sixty percent of the clients are homeless, and the most pressing problem, Ms. Ryan said, is finding safe, affordable housing, especially for women who are at risk of losing their children to Child Protective Services.

But Ms. Ryan said the real common denominator was poverty and abuse as a child. More shocking than the sheer numbers, she added, was that the cycle keeps going. Children of women she treated 18 years ago are now clients, pregnant or with children and living in poverty like their mothers.

Half of the 53 staff members have been homeless, abused or drug addicted themselves. As part of turning their lives around, they trained as community health workers in a 12-month program that teaches office and outreach skills. Some find permanent work at the center. Others move on to nonprofit groups.

Here, working out of offices decorated with family pictures and their children’s drawings, the women speak a shared language with those whose lives have hit bottom.

“There’s a sense that people who don’t have lots of money or don’t have certain requirements can’t take care of their children — but that’s just not the case,” said Laure McElroy, a community health worker whose son was born two months after she finished a methadone program. “I have hope for everyone who comes through the door, because I know as a parent you have to make things work. You just have to.”

One morning, Ms. McElroy started a file for a 41-year-old drug-addicted homeless woman who is pregnant with her second child. Five years ago, her newborn son had been put into foster care and later adopted, and she was terrified the authorities would take this baby, too. Ms. McElroy gently guided her through the forms and arranged for a follow-up visit with a case manager to sort out housing, health and welfare issues.

But the woman didn’t return for the appointment. When someone from the program called, looking for her at the mental health clinic where she receives two medicines for depression, her case manager said she had not come back recently for the medication.

“That’s the trick, how do you engage someone who is out there?” Ms. Ryan said. “It’s all about creating trust with somebody, having them come in here and begin to take care of themselves. It doesn’t always work. But if you save one, you’ve paid for the program.”

Ms. Ryan, a family nurse practitioner specializing in maternal and child care, got the idea for a program working in a family shelter while finishing her master’s degree in public health at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988. She had spent years nursing at refugee camps in Somalia, Uganda and Sudan and thought she would return to that work. But in San Francisco she found that pregnant homeless women received no care and had nowhere to go until they turned up at the county hospital to give birth.

“And everybody said, ‘Wow, that’s terrible,’ and nobody did anything,” Ms. Ryan said. She took a grant-writing class and a year later received her first award, for $62,000.

“I knew I wouldn’t be going back to Africa,” she said. “I’d found the third world in America.”

According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, an estimated 3.5 million people will experience homelessness every year nationwide. Forty percent will be in families. Eight percent of poor families will become homeless at least once a year.

The center reports that among homeless women under age 50, 8 percent reported being pregnant at the time that they were homeless. Ninety-two percent of homeless women say they had been physically or sexually abused severely either in childhood or adulthood.

The Homeless Prenatal Program’s statistics are impressive. Of the 115 births to clients each year, 92 percent of the babies are of normal weight, and 95 percent are drug free. Last year, 360 families moved into permanent housing. Ms. Ryan said she recognized early on that pregnancy was the perfect time to catch a homeless client, but that the major work began after the baby was born. So, to keep women from feeling they must be pregnant to receive services, her team devised a program to address the family.

Computer and language classes and tax preparation and Narcotics Anonymous sessions are provided. Housing, mental health and immigration problems are addressed, and child care and art classes are available. The San Francisco Food Bank delivers more than 1,000 pounds of produce every Monday morning.

Yoga and prenatal classes provide consistency to the women who enroll in eight-week sessions, which culminate in a baby shower. The women appear preoccupied, exhausted and tense. But laughter comes as the yoga teacher tries to describe Kegel exercises in Spanglish. And when she dims the lights to sing a chant, her voice provides a moment of relaxation for the women, some of whom don’t know where they will sleep.

The program’s annual budget is $4 million. About half comes from the City of San Francisco. Ms. Ryan says she has applied for state and federal money but never received any, which mystifies her. (She has hired two grant writers to work on that.) Foundations provide 40 percent of the money. But there is a 10 percent gap, so Ms. Ryan must find more private donors. She is considering holding lunches at the offices, which are in the Potrero District. The building vibrates with life and hope, and Ms. Ryan will hold the deed when she pays off the mortgage in a year.

“I really believe that some of us are born with a lot of opportunities, and others with absolutely none,” Ms. Ryan said, adding: “If a hundred people come in here, they might not move out of poverty, but they might move into a little better life for themselves and for their children. If they are kinder to their children and believe more in themselves, then that’s worth it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/giving/12PRENATAL.html?pagewanted=print

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Posted by lois at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

MI: Successful challenge of a "life" sentence

"Mr. Hessell was released the other day, thanks in part to a decision from a federal judge in Detroit last month ruling that the state had violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution when it changed the parole rules. The clause says the government cannot increase punishments retroactively."

November 12, 2007
Sidebar
Contemplating the Meaning of ‘Life’
By ADAM LIPTAK, NY Times

In 1977, when Gerald L. Hessell was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder, a gallon of gas cost 62 cents and a life term in Michigan meant about 15 years.

But Michigan changed its parole system in 1992, replacing a parole board made up of civil servants with political appointees. The new board summarized its thinking in a presentation to the state’s judges in 2001: “A life sentence means life in prison.”

Mr. Hessell was released the other day, thanks in part to a decision from a federal judge in Detroit last month ruling that the state had violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution when it changed the parole rules. The clause says the government cannot increase punishments retroactively.

Mr. Hessell was 19 when he was sentenced, and he is 50 now. “I was told by my attorney at the time that I could look to do about 12 to 15 years provided I had a clean record,” he said last week. “It was a 31-year fight to get out.”

It is not clear how the federal judge’s decision will affect about 1,000 other Michigan lifers sentenced before 1992. The judge, Marianne O. Battani, has yet to decide exactly what should follow from her ruling, and the state has said it will almost certainly appeal once she does.

Mr. Hessell, a plaintiff in the federal case, was resentenced to time served on Nov. 2 by a state judge. The decision was unusual. Judge Battani’s eventual order will almost certainly address only parole board procedures, and there is no particular reason to think that other Michigan lifers will get a sympathetic hearing from state judges in the meantime.

Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the state corrections department, said Judge Battani’s decision was incorrect.

“We don’t agree that there has been an ex post facto violation,” Mr. Marlan said. “There was no fundamental shift, no change in philosophy. These offenders who received a life sentence received a life sentence for very serious crimes.”

Mr. Hessell could barely describe the sensation of freedom.

“I am driving an automobile right now, and I have my sister in my car, and her son,” he said, talking on a cellphone, a device that was new to him. “When I went in, she was a 3-year-old in diapers, and now she’s got a 15-year-old son.”

In 1976, Mr. Hessell participated in a plot against a suspected police informant that left a woman dead and a man badly injured. Mr. Hessell’s biological father, a career criminal he had just met, was by all accounts the driving force in the plot, and no one accuses Mr. Hessell of killing anyone.

Life in prison may well be the correct sentence for crimes like Mr. Hessell’s. But there is little question that Michigan and other states have changed the rules in the middle of the game.

It used to be, the plaintiffs in the Detroit suit said, that more than 5 percent of lifers were paroled every year. These days, the number has dropped to less than a fifth of a percent.

A survey of 95 current and retired judges by the Michigan bar released in 2002 indicated that a majority thought that lifers eligible for parole would serve fewer than 20 years. In the old days, if judges really wanted prisoners to spend the rest of their days in prison, they would impose terms of life without parole or what they called “basketball score sentences,” like 90 to 120 years.

Mr. Marlan, the corrections department spokesman, said the better practice was to give words and numbers their ordinary meanings.

Courts in other states have also been struggling with how far states can go in changing their pardon and parole systems retroactively. In 1997, for example, the Pennsylvania board of pardons reserved a seat for a crime victim and required a unanimous rather than majority vote.

Last year, a lower court ruled that those changes violated the ex post facto clause. Last Monday, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia said the particular plaintiffs in the suit may not have had standing to sue and ordered the trial judge to look into that. It did not address the central question in the case.

There is strong evidence that most offenders age out of violent crime. And keeping them inside can cost $40,000 a year. That adds up, said Paul D. Reingold, a law professor at the University of Michigan and the lead lawyer in the Detroit case.

Assume, Professor Reingold said, that only half the people he represents had been freed around the time that the judges who sentenced them thought they would get out.

“If the state had not been violating the Constitution for the last 15 years,” he said, “it would have saved, oh, $20 million a year.”

Online: Documents and an archive of Adam Liptak’s articles: nytimes.com/adamliptak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/us/12bar.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2007

OR: Proposed Bill Seeks Racial-disparity Impacts of prison-related legislation before new laws are passed

There is an article about this Bill in Fall 2007 issue of The Sentencing Project Newsletter. Here is the Bill submitted by Chip Shields of Oregon. If passed the Bill:
“ Requires preparation of racial and ethnic impact statements that assess impact of prison-related legislation and certain prison-related rulemaking on racial and ethnic profile of prison population.”

74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session

NOTE: Matter within { + braces and plus signs + } in anv amended section is new. Matter within { - braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within v{ + braces and plus signs + } .

LC 3085

House Bill 2933

Sponsored by Representative SHIELDS (at the request of Jess
Barton)


SUMMARY

The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's brief statement of the essential features of the measure as introduced.

Requires preparation of racial and ethnic impact statements that assess impact of prison-related legislation and certain prison-related rulemaking on racial and ethnic profile of prison population.

A BILL FOR AN ACT
Relating to criminal justice; creating new provisions; and amending ORS 137.656 and 144.050.
Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1. { + Section 2 of this 2007 Act and the amendments to ORS 137.656 and 144.050 by sections 3 and 4 of this 2007 Act may be cited as the Racial and Ethnic Impact Statement Act. + }
SECTION 2. { + (1) Any legislation that could change the state's prison population shall be accompanied by a racial and ethnic impact statement.
(2) Before any legislative committee hearing on legislation that would affect the state prison population, the committee shall submit a written request to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission to prepare and submit to the committee a racial and ethnic impact statement as described in ORS 137.656. + }
SECTION 3. ORS 137.656 is amended to read:
137.656. (1) The purpose of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state and local criminal justice systems by providing a centralized and impartial forum for statewide policy development
and planning.
(2) The primary duty of the commission is to develop and maintain a state criminal justice policy and comprehensive, long-range plan for a coordinated state criminal justice system that encompasses public safety, offender accountability, crime reduction and prevention and offender treatment and rehabilitation. The plan must include, but need not be limited
to, recommendations regarding:
(a) Capacity, utilization and type of state and local prison and jail facilities;
(b) Implementation of community corrections programs;
(c) Alternatives to the use of prison and jail facilities;
(d) Appropriate use of existing facilities and programs;
(e) Whether additional or different facilities and programs are necessary;
(f) Methods of assessing the effectiveness of juvenile and adult correctional programs, devices and sanctions in reducing future criminal conduct by juvenile and adult offenders; and
(g) Methods of reducing the risk of future criminal conduct.
(3) Other duties of the commission are:
(a) To conduct joint studies by agreement with other state agencies, boards or commissions on any matter within the
jurisdiction of the commission.
(b) To provide Oregon criminal justice analytical and statistical information to federal agencies and serve as a clearinghouse and information center for the collection, preparation, analysis and dissemination on state and local
sentencing practices.
(c) To provide technical assistance and support to local public safety coordinating councils.
(d) To receive grant applications to start or expand drug court programs as defined in ORS 3.450, to make rules to govern the grant process and to award grant funds according to the rules.
(4) The commission shall establish by rule the information that must be submitted under ORS 137.010 (9) and the methods for submitting the information. A rule adopted under this subsection must be approved by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court before it takes effect.
{ + (5)(a) The commission shall develop a standardized protocol for the preparation of racial and ethnic impact
statements.
(b) A racial and ethnic impact statement shall include the
following:
(A) An estimate of how proposed legislation would change the racial or ethnic profile of the state's prison population, for racial and ethnic groups for which data are available.
(B) A statement of the methodologies and assumptions used in preparing the estimate.
(c) Upon receipt of a legislative committee's request for a racial and ethnic impact statement on proposed legislation, the commission shall prepare and submit the statement to the committee before its hearing on the legislation. + }
SECTION 4. ORS 144.050 is amended to read:
144.050. { + (1) + } Subject to applicable laws, the State Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision may authorize any inmate, who is committed to the legal and physical custody of the Department of Corrections for an offense committed prior to November 1, 1989, to go upon parole subject to being arrested and detained under written order of the board or as provided in ORS
144.350.
{ + (2) + } The { - state - } board may establish rules applicable to parole. { + In the establishment of any such rule, the board shall, consistent with the process described in ORS 137.656 (5), prepare and consider a racial and ethnic impact statement. + }
----------
http://www.leg.state.or.us/shieldsc/

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

November 10, 2007

Rhode Island to Reclassify 17-Year-Olds

November 10, 2007, NY Times
Rhode Island to Reclassify 17-Year-Olds
By KATIE ZEZIMA

Rhode Island criminal courts will again treat 17-year-olds as juveniles after Gov. Donald L. Carcieri let a bill repealing a four-month-old law become law without his signature.

The old law was intended to save money by housing 17-year-old offenders in the state prison, rather than its juvenile detention center. It ignited intense criticism from children’s advocates and law enforcement officials who said it was unfair to 17-year-olds and did not save money.

John J. Hardiman, the state’s public defender, said the new law took effect on Thursday morning.

The change in the law is a defeat of sorts for Mr. Carcieri, whose administration championed the original move to treat 17-year-olds as adults. Jeff Neal, a spokesman for Mr. Carcieri, said the governor did not sign the law because the “vast majority” of bills become law without his signature.

“I think at this stage there was a consensus in the General Assembly, certainly, that moving the age back to 18 was something that people wanted to do, and the governor did not object to that idea,” Mr. Neal said.

Mr. Hardiman and others, however, are concerned about the legal status of 17-year-olds convicted under the previous law.
Mr. Hardiman filed a motion in district court on Friday asking that the dozens of 17-year-olds who had been treated as adults have their cases transferred to juvenile court. The bill stipulates that the records of those offenders are now sealed.
However, “there’s still a lot of issues to work out with those kids who were adjudicated during that time,” Mr. Hardiman said.
“They’re going to seal the records, but what does that mean? If a kid was convicted during that time and if they try to get a job and ask if they’re convicted, what do they say?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/us/10juvenile.html?pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)

On the Bottle, Off the Streets, Halfway There

November 11, 2007
This Land
On the Bottle, Off the Streets, Halfway There
By DAN BARRY, NY Times

SEATTLE

The Moocher introduced them years ago down by the ferry terminal, near that “No Loitering” sign scratched up to read “Know Loitering.” It was Ed, meet Daryl, Daryl, Ed, between sips and slugs of bottom-shelf whiskey and high-octane beer.

Soon, in the blathering small talk that kills time, Ed Myers and Daryl Jordan identified a bond beyond a shared dislike for the Moocher, who drank but never bought. They both had survived the same firefight in Vietnam, it seemed; brothers now, in blood and booze.

Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.

Now and then they came in from the elements, sometimes to the same shelter, sometimes to separate shelters, sometimes to the Sobering Support Center on Boren Avenue, where you store your shoes and coat in a black plastic bag, have your vitals checked, accept the soup and juice or not, then fold up on a thin mat over concrete.

If separated, Daryl would spend the early morning pacing the dark streets, until finally here would be Ed, already to drinking to quell those first shakes of the day. And the two would return to Know Loitering.

They came to know the jagged pieces of each other’s bottle-shattered past, the broken marriages, the lost jobs, the ghosts. Daryl still sees what he saw in Vietnam. As for Ed, he was working on a fifth one day in his Iowa hometown when suddenly, there before him, stood his father and grandfather, telling him for shame. That both were dead only underscored the point.

Ed dumped the bottle and didn’t drink for 12 years — until one day he did. Back he fell to the hard, hard streets, which at least offered up another man who understood. Daryl.

Hell, Daryl was there that Thanksgiving time when a woman slipped Ed two twenties; they gave thanks with two days of beer, whiskey and chicken-fried-steak dinners. And Daryl was there when some young cop poured out most of a fifth and tossed the bottle on the ground, prompting Ed to say he didn’t appreciate littering.

Early last year, some people, not cops, tracked Daryl down at the sobering center, where he had slept off a drunk 360 times in one calendar year. They were from a homeless outreach organization and they had some news, good for a change.

The organization had just built a 75-unit residence for homeless chronic alcoholics at 1811 Eastlake Avenue, and was offering rooms to the frailest and costliest to the system, as determined by time spent in the sobering center, the emergency room and jail. The idea: provide them first with housing and meals, gain their trust, then encourage them to partake of the available services, including treatment for chemical dependency.

No mandatory meetings or church-going. And one more thing, crucial to all: You can drink in this place.

Welcome, Daryl. A month later: Welcome, Ed.

“I damn near bawled,” Ed recalls.

The $11 million project has endured the angry complaints of some that it uses public money to enable, even reward, chronic inebriates. And Bill Hobson, the director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center, has met that anger with some of his own.

First, he says, the complaints reflect no understanding of the grip of alcoholism: Do you really think these men and women would rather live on the streets? Second, the cost to the public appears to have dropped as the number of visits to the emergency room, jail and the sobering center has plummeted.

Finally, he asks, what kind of equation of humanity is this: Since you refuse to stop drinking, since you refuse to address your disease, you must die on the streets.

“These guys have nothing going for them,” he says. “They could not be more dispossessed.”

So, welcome. Pay a third of your disability income for rent, and remember to behave; this isn’t a party house.

The handsome building at 1811 Eastlake stands on the shores of Interstate 5, a short walk from both the sobering center and a convenience store that sells cheap staples like cans of Icehouse and Midnight Special tobacco. Its first floor includes a laundry, a nurse’s office, counseling rooms and a bulletin board adorned with photos of smiling residents.

Captured in those snapshot smiles, evidence of this life: missing teeth, ill-fitting clothes, faces disfigured by subdural hematomas — from beatings and falls to the pavement. Some residents snatch these photos to decorate their rooms, along with the cardboard signs they once used while panhandling.

Above are three floors of studio apartments, including one for Daryl and one for Ed, both immaculately maintained. Daryl, 59 and with a left forefinger burnt orange by tobacco, was July’s resident of the month. Ed, 61 and with a taste for western-style clothes, was August’s. The poster boys for visiting journalists , forever twinned, it seemed.

Then something happened. On July 1, one day not blurred in memory, Ed felt he needed some nutrients, so he fixed himself a tomato beer: tomato juice and a can of Rainier. He took a sip, winced, took another sip, winced, and that was that. He hasn’t had a drink since.

“It didn’t taste good anymore,” Ed says.

Ed has been drinking ginger ale, and Daryl has been struggling. For a long while Daryl would not go to Ed’s apartment, with its coffee table and La-Z-Boy, and the occasional sound of a resident falling to the floor upstairs. He didn’t want to drink in front of Ed because he didn’t want to tempt his friend, and because, because — “I’m done trying,” he says, eyes tearing.

The other day Daryl was back in Ed’s cozy apartment. Ed was drinking coffee he had just brewed, and Daryl was drinking a can of Rainier from that six-pack Ed never finished. They talked around old and fresh wars for a while, but it was clear that whatever Ed was looking at, Daryl could not yet see.

Online: Voices from Seattle’s 1811 Eastlake Project. www.nytimes.com/danbarry
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11land.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)

CT: Gov. opposed to $260 million plan for two new prisons

Saturday, November 10, 2007 6:08 AM EST
Gov. opposed to $260 million plan for two new prisons
BY PAUL HUGHES REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

HARTFORD -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday she opposes a $260 million plan jointly proposed by the chairs of the judiciary committees in the House and Senate, to build two new prisons that would house an additional 2,200 inmates.

The Democratic plan proposes the construction of a $110 million, 1,000-bed, medium-security prison and a 1,200-bed facility costing $150 million to house inmates who are mentally ill or medically infirm.

Rell said she prefers freeing up prison beds by releasing nonviolent offenders into supervised community programs and sees no need at this time to build new prisons in Connecticut or to consider sending inmates out of state as was done several years ago.

"Before you go down that road," she said, "you have to look at all the other alternatives first."

The governor also disputed the need for a new specialized facility for the mentally ill, saying the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown serves that function.

"I think it is premature to be talking about another facility for that purpose," Rell said.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/11/10/news/296905.txt

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

November 09, 2007

LAPD anti-terrorism unit maps Muslim "enclaves"

Below are two stories on the new(?) LAPD strategy to map Iranians, Chechians & Pakistanis in LA. The first (from today's print edition) describes the project. The second features the mayor and police chief trying to re-spin the story.

LAPD to build data on Muslim areas
Anti-terrorism unit wants to identify sites 'at risk' for extremism.
By Richard Winton, Jean-Paul Renaud and Paul Pringle
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

November 9, 2007

An extensive mapping program launched by the LAPD's anti-terrorism bureau to identify Muslim enclaves across the city sparked outrage Thursday from some Islamic groups and civil libertarians, who denounced the effort as an exercise in racial and religious profiling. Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing, who heads the bureau, defended the undertaking as a way to help Muslim communities avoid the influence of those who would radicalize Islamic residents and advocate "violent, ideologically-based extremism."

"We are seeking to identify at-risk communities," Downing said in an interview Thursday evening. "We are looking for communities and enclaves based on risk factors that are likely to become isolated. . . . We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities."

Downing added that the Muslim Public Affairs Council has embraced the vaguely defined program "in concept." The group's executive director, Salam Al-Marayati, said Thursday that it wanted to know more about the plan and had a meeting set with the LAPD next week "We will work with the LAPD and give them input, while at the same time making sure that people's civil liberties are protected," said Al-Marayati, who commended Downing for being "very forthright in his engagement with the Muslim community."

Others condemned the project, however.

"We certainly reject this idea completely," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. "This stems basically from this presumption that there is homogenized Muslim terrorism that exists among us." Syed said he is a member of Police Chief William J. Bratton's forum of religious advisors, but had not been told of the community mapping program. "This came as a jolt to me," Syed said.

Hussam Ayloush, who leads the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the mapping "basically turns the LAPD officers into religious political analysts, while their role is to fight crime and enforce the laws." During Oct. 30 testimony before Congress, Downing described the program broadly as an attempt to "mitigate radicalization." At that time, he said law enforcement agencies nationwide faced "a vicious, amorphous and unfamiliar adversary on our land."

Downing and other law enforcement officials said police agencies around the world are dealing with radical Muslim groups that are isolated from the larger community, making potential breeding groups for terrorism. He cited terror cells in Europe as well as the case of some Muslim extremists in New Jersey arrested in May for allegedly planning to bomb Ft. Dix.

"We want to map the locations of these closed, vulnerable communities, and in partnership with these communities . . . help [weave] these enclaves into the fabric of the larger society," he said in his testimony."To do this, we need to go into the community and get to know peoples' names," he said. "We need to walk into homes, neighborhoods, mosques and businesses."

To assemble the mapping data, Downing said in an interview Thursday, the LAPD intends to enlist USC's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, which was founded four years ago with $12 million in federal funds.

In 2003, university officials said the center would focus on threats to power plants, telecommunications and transportation systems. It recently was tapped to strengthen security at Los Angeles International Airport. Downing said the effort would not involve spying on neighborhoods. He said it would identify groups, not individuals.

"This has nothing to do with intelligence," he said, comparing it to market research.

But in his congressional testimony, Downing said the LAPD hoped to identify communities that "may be susceptible to violent, ideologically-based extremism and then use a full-spectrum approach guided by an intelligence-led strategy." Downing told lawmakers the program would "take a deeper look at the history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socioeconomic status and social interactions."

He added that the project was in its very early stages, and that its cost and full scope have not been determined. "Physically the work has not begun," Downing said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and some community groups sent a letter Thursday to Downing expressing "grave concerns" about the program and asking for a meeting. "The mapping of Muslim communities . . . seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths," the letter states.ACLU Executive Director Ramona Ripston compared the program to the Red Scare of the 1950s and said: "This is nothing short of racial profiling."

But Al-Marayati said he believed that Downing was working in good faith."He is well-known in the Muslim community," he said. "He's been in a number of mosques and been very forthright in his engagement with the Muslim community."

.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd9nov09,0,1646403.story?coll=la-home-local
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

************

From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. officials defend mapping of Muslim areas
Mayor Villaraigosa says the LAPD has 'good intentions' in gathering intelligence. Chief Bratton says the effort should be seen as 'community engagement.'
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

11:13 AM PST, November 9, 2007

City officials this morning defended the LAPD's decision to identify Muslim enclaves across the city, saying that instead of "mapping," Angelenos should see the program as "community engagement."

Civil rights groups have harshly criticized the new initiative as racial profiling that unfairly targets Muslims. The American Civil Liberties Union along with other community groups sent a letter to the LAPD this week saying the prospect of such a measure raised "grave concerns."

At a press conference about police recruitment in Elysian Park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Chief William Bratton and Councilman Jack Weiss said they stood behind Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing's decision to gather extensive intelligence about local Muslim communities.

"Chief Downing has good intentions here," said Villaraigosa, who added that he had only learned of the new program through newspaper articles and at a short briefing. The Police Department respects "the civil and human rights of Muslims in Los Angeles," Villaraigosa said. The mapping program would be headed by Downing, who is in charge of the LAPD's anti-terrorism bureau.

"We want to map the locations of these closed, vulnerable communities, and in partnership with these communities . . . help [weave] these enclaves into the fabric of the larger society," Downing said in testimony about the program before Congress on Oct. 30.

At the hearing, Downing said his intentions were to "mitigate radicalization," and that law enforcement agencies everywhere faced "a vicious, amorphous and unfamiliar adversary on our land."The LAPD hopes to identify communities that "may be susceptible to violent, ideologically based extremism and then use a full-spectrum approach guided by an intelligence-led strategy," Downing said during the hearing.

Bratton tried to recast the program this morning, saying that incorrect words had been used to describe the LAPD's actions.
"We are seeking contact with many communities," he said. "We are doing it in a very transparent way here. We got hung up on the word 'mapping', this is 'community engagement.' "

Bratton then used an anecdote from his first days as police commissioner in New York City in the early 1990s, saying that officers there raided what appeared to be a store but turned out instead to be a mosque. Police can sometimes be ignorant of what is actually in their neighborhood, Bratton said, referencing the officers' mistake. The new initiative is designed to get officers out into communities, meeting with people and learning the local landscape, he said.

City officials repeatedly praised the LAPD for its transparency in describing the program, but police have yet to give any details of how the mapping would be carried out or which communities would be affected.

"Right concern, wrong program," Weiss said.

Concerns over clandestine racial profiling and spying by law enforcement are important concerns but do not apply to Downing's initiative, Weiss said. "This is not a program of subterfuge, it is a program of transparency." Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, has embraced the vaguely defined program "in concept" and was on hand this morning to support the city officials. In an earlier interview, Al-Marayati said he wanted to know more about the plan and that he would meet with the LAPD next week.

Other Muslim groups have harshly condemned the project. "We certainly reject this idea completely," Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, said in an earlier interview. "This stems basically from this presumption that there is homogenized Muslim terrorism that exists among us."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd10nov10,0,3960843.story?coll=la-home-center

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

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

CT: Group To Push For Gambling Courts

CT is home to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, two of the largest casinos in the country.

Group To Push For Gambling Courts
By Stephen Singer , Associated Press Writer
Published on 11/9/2007
Hartford — An advocacy group in Connecticut, home to two of the world's largest casinos, is pushing for new courts that would provide treatment rather than jail time for chronic gamblers charged with stealing to support their habits.

Just as counseling is ordered in prosecutions of drug users, gamblers who commit fraud to keep up with spiraling financial troubles also should be offered a way out of their problems, advocates say.

“In prisons they're gambling. There's practically zero help with gambling problems,” said Marvin Steinberg, executive director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling. “They often come out and do it again.”

The group has organized a conference today and invited Judge Mark Farrell of Amherst, N.Y., who founded the first gambling treatment court in the United States.

“Most people look at compulsive gambling as a character flaw, irresponsible, not able to control themselves. That's only the tip of the iceberg,” Farrell said. “I've had people in my court, 18 or 20 years old, stealing from their parents, losing $2,000 in Texas hold 'em games. It's a problem that sits just below the surface.”

Steinberg said many gamblers caught stealing from employers, forging checks or finding other ways to illegally support their gambling addiction or pay off gambling-related debts would otherwise be law-abiding citizens.

The problem is getting worse as legalized gambling explodes with more casinos, lotteries, Internet-based poker, video slots and other enticements to gamble.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said federal prosecutors have seen a spike in financial crimes due to gambling addiction.

“Twenty years ago when you saw people committing these crimes it was due to drug addiction,” he said.

Prosecutors have limited choices, he said.

“We only have one choice, prosecute or not prosecute,” O'Connor said.

Authorities can, however, be innovative with the sentencing judge by requiring treatment for gambling addiction and banning gamblers from ever going to a casino, O'Connor said.

John Cipolla, a Providence man who spent more than two years in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, said the legal system taught him a lesson but could have been more flexible.

He said jail time was the prod he needed, though “a more community-based sentencing should have been more productive.”

Cipolla, 49, stole more than $240,000 from a Providence city agency where he worked. He said courts helped drug addicts, but none assisted gambling addicts such as himself.

“I felt as though there should be something, expert testimony, that could make a judge or prosecutor know what was driving me,” he said.

His gambling, he said, started slowly, but intensified when Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun opened in southeastern Connecticut in the early 1990s. In addition, racinos are close to home in Rhode Island, Cipolla said.

“When I went to those places, it really took off,” he said.

Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee, said he approves of the concept, but said specialty courts handling drugs, mental health, domestic violence and gambling could complicate the state's judicial system.

“It's still a crime. You still have to be held accountable,” Lawlor said.

Farrell blames government's self-interest for failing to establish gambling courts.

“The biggest obstacle to expansion has been government itself,” he said. “Look who's partnering with gaming. It's much easier to go after drugs and alcohol.”

———

On the Net:

Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling: www.ccpg.org

Gambling Court: www.gamblingcourt.org
http://www.theday.com/re_print.aspx?re=7b37e3c9-0766-4277-aa31-2ae88050cd6f

Posted by lois at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

Time Magazine: Being Fair to Crack Dealers

Wednesday, Nov. 07, 2007
Being Fair to Crack Dealers
By Julie Rawe

Drug dealers are bad guys, but even they should be treated fairly. That's why advocates of sentencing reform are cheering a recent federal move to narrow the jaw-dropping disparity in sentences for trafficking in two versions of the same drug, cocaine. But it's way too early for them to be declaring victory.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which was created in 1984 to help ensure that people convicted of similar crimes end up with similar prison terms, has finally shortened its recommended penalties for crack cocaine. Crack offenders have traditionally been treated more severely than those caught with powdered cocaine, a disparity that has weighed heavily on the minority community: last year 82% of crack offenders were black, while 72% of powder-cocaine offenders were white or Hispanic. The new federal sentencing guidelines, which took effect Nov. 1, are expected to drop the average prison term for crack offenders from a little over 10 years to less than nine.

Yet these changes in no way affect the mandatory minimum sentences Congress set in the '80s for drug trafficking. Back then, crack cocaine was associated with inner-city violence and drug-addicted babies, while the powdered version of the drug was considered yuppie nose candy. Congress cracked down so hard on crack that users who get caught with five grams of the stuff — about five Sweet'N Low packets' worth — get a minimum of five years in prison, which is more than the statutory maximum for simple possession of any quantity of powder cocaine, heroin or any other controlled substance. If that sounds draconian, the disparity in the penalties for trafficking is even greater. If dealers get nailed with 500 grams of powder cocaine, they automatically get five years in prison. But if they get caught with five grams of crack, they get the same penalty. Likewise, a mandatory 10-year sentence kicks in for offenders with 5,000 grams of coke (enough to fill a briefcase), but just 50 grams of crack (enough to fill a candy-bar wrapper).

Two decades ago, this 100:1 drug-quantity ratio appealed to legislators who believed crack was instantly addictive and caused violent behavior. And the sentencing commission worked these dramatically different drug thresholds into its otherwise nuanced sentencing guidelines, which add jail time for aggravating factors like the presence of a firearm and reduce it for such things as acceptance of guilt.

Since then, science has shown there is little difference between the two cocaine variants, but that didn't change the way the law treated them. Congress blocked the Commission's first attempt, in 1995, to reduce the sentencing disparity and so far has refused to change the laws that disproportionately affect low-level crack offenders. So while the new guidelines have reduced the penalties above the mandatory minimums, those minimums are still firmly in place.

In revising its guidelines, the federal commission in some ways is simply catching up with the states. Amid almost universal criticism of the federal government's 100:1 ratio, only 13 states still make a legal distinction between crack and powder cocaine, and none of these states applies as harsh a ratio as 100:1. But according to Douglas Berman, a professor and sentencing expert at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, prosecutors have an extraordinary amount of discretion in deciding whether a case gets tried in state or federal court. "Ironically," he says, "the more lenient a state is on these issues, the more likely the local federal prosecutor will say, 'Well, I have to take these cases to really bring the hammer down.'"

And that's not likely to change soon. While the new guidelines may inspire Congress to reexamine the federal mandatory-minimum laws, no one wants to be perceived as soft on crack dealers. Thus most of the proposed legislation to equalize cocaine sentences ratchets up the penalties for the powdered version, rather than reducing them for crack.

What's more, even the changes in the guidelines will have only a limited effect unless the sentencing commission makes them retroactive — an issue it is expected to discuss at a Nov. 13 meeting. As of now, the new guidelines will affect only new offenders. If the commission decides to go retro, the move could shorten the prison terms for some 19,500 inmates by an average of 27 months.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1681595,00.html

Posted by lois at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

PA: Plan to redevelop Graterford is scuttled

Plan to redevelop Graterford is scuttled

By Diane Mastrull

Inquirer Staff Writer
Pennsylvania has quietly scrapped a plan to move Graterford Prison out of Skippack Township and allow the development of its 1,780 largely untouched acres in central Montgomery County.

Housing nearly 3,000 inmates - 170 over capacity - the 78-year-old corrections facility will remain where it is for the foreseeable future, an official of the state Department of General Services has told The Inquirer.

Closing Graterford would have been part of a complex deal to build two or possibly three prisons elsewhere in the Philadelphia region. General Services, which handles all state real estate matters, dropped the idea because of uncertainty about the cost to the state and the "legislative hurdles" that would have to be cleared, said Joanne Phillips, the department's director of real estate.

Another factor in the decision, she said, was "community concerns" about the potential development of the Graterford land, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of the 14-square-mile township. Ever since February, when the state's plan was revealed, opposition has been intense among the 6,000 residents, many of whom already were feeling overwhelmed by Skippack's growth. Just since the 2000 census, 1,200 homes have been built there.

Phillips' office told area legislators of the decision, made in early summer, to spare Graterford. But the word apparently never got to the Skippack community.

"We never had any direct contact with anyone" in the township, Edward Myslewicz, General Services spokesman, acknowledged yesterday.

The lack of notification aggravated at least one township official, who complained that he had been shut out of the process all along. Mark Marino, chairman of the Skippack supervisors, learned that the plan would be shelved from an Inquirer reporter this week - the same way he heard in February of the state's intention to relocate Graterford.

Marino and other Skippack officials, as well as state legislators representing the township, had promised to fight any effort to change the Graterford site's zoning. It currently allows only correctional facilities, farms or open space.

"It doesn't surprise me that they abandoned the idea and didn't tell anyone," Marino said. "I'm sure the state and the prison are going to continue to look at ways to generate money from that piece of property. I hope as they do, they certainly will welcome the township into the talks."

The state's original plan had been an unprecedented way "to tap in to the private side for a creative idea to get some value out of the Graterford property," Phillips said. The main motive was "to explore all the possibilities we have to . . . save money."

The state put out a call for developers who, in exchange for the rights to Graterford's acreage, would build two 2,000-bed prisons - one maximum security, one medium - and maybe a third 2,000-bed medium-security facility.

To qualify, a developer had to identify available land within a 50-mile radius of Graterford where the prisons could be built. The state had not decided whether it would sell the Skippack site or swap it for the ground where the replacement prisons would go.

Before that could happen, though, the legislature would have to sign off. State Sen. John Rafferty, a Republican who represents parts of Berks, Chester and Montgomery Counties, including Graterford, said yesterday he had put General Services on notice that he would not support opening up the prison site to development.

However, only three developers responded by the state's March 5 deadline. Phillips said none of them identified any relocation sites, nor did they provide much information beyond their development qualifications.

"There was not a lot of detail to evaluate," Phillips said of the trio of Pennsylvania-based companies.

The tabling of the plan may be welcome news in Skippack, but the mood is not so joyous at the state Department of Corrections. With the state prison population at nearly 46,000 - 111 percent of capacity - "it's really important that we do expand," said spokeswoman Susan McNaughton.

The department's pending capital budget request includes a proposal for three 2,000-bed prisons to be built on the grounds of existing state correctional facilities. They would include a medium-security prison on the Graterford property.

The new prisons, which would cost upward of $200 million each, would require approval from the legislature and Gov. Rendell. McNaughton said they would take two to three years to build.

Meanwhile, she said, the number of state prison inmates continues to grow by 200 a month.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/11140002.html

Posted by lois at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2007

Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans

November 8, 2007
Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans
By ERIK ECKHOLM
NY Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.

Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans’ accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.

“We’re beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters,” said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. “But we anticipate that it’s going to be a tsunami.”

With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.

“Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness,” Pete Dougherty, the V.A.’s director of homeless programs, said.

Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.

Frederick Johnson, 37, an Army reservist, slept in abandoned houses shortly after returning to Chester, Pa., from a year in Iraq, where he experienced daily mortar attacks and saw mangled bodies of soldiers and children. He started using crack cocaine and drinking, burning through $6,000 in savings.

“I cut myself off from my family and went from being a pleasant guy to wanting to rip your head off if you looked at me wrong,” Mr. Johnson said.

On the street for a year, he finally checked in at a V.A. clinic in Maryland and has struggled with PTSD, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. The V.A. has provided temporary housing as he starts a new job.

Tracy Jones of the Compass Center, a Seattle agency that has seen a handful of new homeless each month, said she was surprised by “the quickness in which Iraqi Freedom veterans are becoming homeless” compared with the Vietnam era. The availability of meth and crack could lead addicts into rapid downhill spirals, Ms. Jones said.

Poverty and high housing costs also contribute. The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington will release a report on Thursday saying that among one million veterans who served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.

Mr. Dougherty of the V.A. said outreach officers, who visit shelters, soup kitchens and parks, had located about 1,500 returnees from Iraq or Afghanistan who seemed at high risk, though many had jobs. More than 400 have entered agency-supported residential programs around the country. No one knows how many others have not made contact with aid agencies.

More than 11 percent of the newly homeless veterans are women, Mr. Dougherty said, compared with 4 percent enrolled in such programs over all.

Veterans have long accounted for a high share of the nation’s homeless. Although they make up 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless on any given day, the National Alliance report calculated.

According to the V.A., some 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006. That represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, Mr. Dougherty said, as housing and medical programs grew and older veterans died.

The most troubling face of homelessness has been the chronic cases, those who live in the streets or shelters for more than year. Some 44,000 to 64,000 veterans fit that category, according to the National Alliance study.

On Wednesday, the Bush administration announced what it described as “remarkable progress” for the chronic homeless. Alphonso R. Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said a new policy of bringing the long-term homeless directly into housing, backed by supporting services, had put more than 20,000, or about 12 percent, into permanent or transitional homes.

Veterans have been among the beneficiaries, but Mary Cunningham, director of the research institute of the National Alliance and chief author of their report, said the share of supported housing marked for veterans was low.

A collaborative program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the V.A. has developed 1,780 such units. The National Alliance said the number needed to grow by 25,000.

Mr. Dougherty described the large and growing efforts the V.A. was making to prevent homelessness including offering two years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.

One obstacle is that many veterans wait too long to seek help. “I had that pride thing going on, ‘I’m a soldier, I should be better than this,’” Mr. Johnson said.

Kent Richardson, 49, who was in the Army from 1976 to 1992 and has flashbacks from the gulf war, said, “when you get out you feel disconnected and alone.”

Mr. Richardson said it took him two years to find a job after leaving the Army. Then he became an alcoholic. He now stays at the Southeast Veteran’s Service Center in Washington, awaiting permanent subsidized housing.

Joe Williams, 53, spent 16 years in the Army and the Navy, including a deeply upsetting assignment in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the dead from the gulf war were taken for autopsies.

For the past three years Mr. Williams has lived in a bunk bed in a Washington shelter. He was laid off, his car and house were repossessed, and his wife left him. He moved to Georgia, where he lost another job.

Broke and depressed, he walked from Georgia to a V.A. hospital in the Washington area, where schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now, after three years of medication and therapy, he feels ready to start looking for work.

“I have a mission I’ve got to accomplish,” Mr. Williams said.

Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting from Pittsburgh, Michael Parrish from Los Angeles and J. Michael Kennedy from Seattle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/us/08vets.html?ei=5070&en=461e52b7e5a34a0e&ex=1195102800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1194531063-3Ptn0JbAv6dQdnkRvC83pg&pagewanted=print

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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November 07, 2007

CT: Crime bill seen costing $500M and 2 new prisons

11/06/2007
Crime bill seen costing $500M and 2 new prisons
Brian McCready , Milford Bureau Chief
New Haven Register

A proposal by Democratic lawmakers to help prevent another tragedy like last summer’s home invasion in Cheshire that resulted in three deaths will cost $500 million and calls for funds to create both a new prison and a mental health prison.
One of the bill’s authors, Judiciary Committee Co-Chairman Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said the entire package, which also includes funds to expand the staff of the Department of Correction, will spawn "painful, complicated and difficult decisions."

But one prominent Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Leonard Fasano, R-North Haven, said the proposal is a "considerable step toward making Connecticut safer." He added that Lawlor and Judiciary Committee Co-Chairman Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, have "done a very good job addressing the issues of concern."

Fasano predicted the state’s lawmakers will spend whatever it takes to safeguard residents.

"Nobody should ever tell a family that a violent offender was let go because we did not have enough money to keep (him or her) in prison," Fasano said.

Lawlor said the heart of the proposal is to redefine exactly what a "home invasion is" under the law. Currently, a home invasion is defined as second-degree burglary, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But Lawlor said legislators want to see a "home invasion" rise to first-degree burglary, which is punishable by up to 20 years, and requires a minimum mandatory sentence of five years.

First-degree burglary is defined as when someone is hurt or if the suspect is armed, but Lawlor said the state has learned that someone breaking into a home without a gun doesn’t mean no one will be harmed.

In the Cheshire triple homicide in July, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 27, and Steven Hayes, 44, allegedly broke into the home of Dr. William Petit Jr. and killed his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters. The pair also allegedly savagely beat Petit, 50, but he escaped as his home was set on fire.

"Whether or not you have a weapon, if someone breaks into an occupied home, you are much more likely to get hurt," Lawlor said. "(Komisarjevsky and Hayes) did not have guns but they (allegedly) killed three people."

Fasano said designating a home invasion as a violent crime and requiring a minimum mandatory sentence of five years is "very critical." It also requires offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for parole.

Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes were paroled burglars who met in a Hartford halfway house prior to their release. But what has inspired some of the most vocal outrage following the Petit slayings is that parole officials did not have transcripts and other documents when deciding to release Komisarjevsky early.

That included a judge’s description of Komisarjevsky when he was sentenced to nine years in prison for breaking into 18 homes between 2001 and 2002, while wearing night vision goggles and latex gloves. Superior Court Judge James Bentivegna called Komisarjevsky "a calculated, cold-blooded predator."

The proposed bill will require a judge to publicly explain how they decide bail amounts set for those arrested.

"In this case, there was nothing on the record and there was no accountability," Fasano said.

The costs center on Lawlor and McDonald’s plan to commit $260 million in bonding for the construction of a 1,000-bed medium security prison and a 1,200-bed medical and mental health prison. The bill calls for the addition of 200 residential treatment beds for sex offenders leaving prison, and significantly increasing the staff of the Department of Corrections.

Lawlor said the prison space is vital because the prison population has spiked by about 1,000 since the Cheshire homicides. Currently, there are about 20,000 prisoners in the state.

While Lawlor said he thought the funds are necessary, the request will be controversial because Gov. M. Jodi Rell will have to raise the spending and bonding cap. Rell, through a spokesman, declined to comment specifically on the proposal but said she "believes we need to make Connecticut’s laws tougher and we need to continue to crack down on violent offenders — particularly repeat violent offenders."

The bill requires the Office of Adult Probation to compile a list of all outstanding violation of probation warrants on the Internet, including photos and the offender’s last known address. Additionally, a "SHIELD" electronic information system would be created to provide state-of-the-art communication between all criminal justice agencies, including instant access to police reports, pre-sentence investigations and sentencing transcripts.

Lawlor said if the law passes, people will be able to access an individual’s conviction information online, including criminal records and police reports. He said the goal is to enact a new law before the beginning of the 2008 legislative session in February.

There will be a public hearing on the proposal at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27 at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, in Room 2E.

ttp://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18992460&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=590581&rfi=6

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November 06, 2007

Immigration detainees are at record levels

Immigration detainees are at record levels
To cope with the numbers, federal officials speed up deportations, transfer more people between facilities and use more private jails.
By Anna Gorman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 5, 2007

Aggressive immigration enforcement has led to record numbers of detainees in California and around the nation, prompting the federal government to speed up deportations and increasingly rely on transfers and contracts with local jails and private companies.

The detainee population jumped to nearly 27,900 nationwide in fiscal year 2007, up from about 19,700 the previous year, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In California, the population increased to more than 3,700, up from a little more than 3,200 last year.

Two weeks ago, the population surpassed 30,000 nationally and nearly reached 4,000 in California.

The main reason cited for the upward trend is the government's decision to end its practice of catching immigrants and immediately releasing them.

Detention is the only way to guarantee that people leave the country when their deportation is ordered, immigration officials said. Fewer than a third of people out of custody leave the country when ordered to do so, despite being under intensive supervision.

"If we have them detained and they are ordered removed, it's almost a virtual certainty that they will, in fact, be removed," said Gary Mead, assistant director of the immigration agency's Detention and Removal Operations.

"Everything short of detention is less effective to one degree or another."

The number of immigrants deported has risen to more than 261,000 in fiscal 2007, up from about 177,000 two years ago. The 2007 fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

Organizations opposing illegal immigration praise the government for locking up and deporting more immigrants.

"The administration has finally realized they needed to dramatically ramp up their detention capacity if immigration enforcement is ever to be credible," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.

But immigrants and their advocates say the high numbers have led to crowded conditions and have limited some immigrants' access to medical care.

Detainees at the San Pedro Processing Center on Terminal Island often had to sleep on inflatable beds on the floor and had difficulty getting access to phones, immigrants and their attorneys said.

The detention center, opened in the 1930s, was temporarily shut down last month for maintenance.

"The overcrowding at San Pedro was crazy," said former detainee Eugene Peba, who was denied asylum from Nigeria and is awaiting a federal appellate court ruling. "They didn't have enough employees to take care of the detainees' day-to-day problems."

In July, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that populations at four facilities, including San Pedro and a center in San Diego, were over capacity. The report also noted "systemic" problems with telephones in detention centers and isolated problems with medical care and use-of-force policies.

"When the number of people in detention is increasing but the number of people assigned by the government to oversee that detention is not, problems are bound to increase and keep increasing," said Ranjana Natarajan, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Immigration officials defended conditions and said there is no overcrowding. In fiscal 2007, they said, the facilities run by ICE were at 95% capacity and the contracted private centers were at 98% capacity. The phone situation has been fixed and the centers' telephones, along with speed-dial numbers for attorneys and consulates, are checked weekly to make sure they are working, they said.

The agency also has taken several steps in recent months to improve oversight, including working with a private company that provides full-time inspectors and placing outside "quality assurance" specialists at the 40 biggest facilities, authorities said. Previously, inspections were done once a year at each facility.

"When we find a deficiency, we correct it," Mead said. "I don't believe we have any systemic problems."

The immigration agency's budget for bed space skyrocketed to $945 million last year, up from $641 million in fiscal year 2005.

The majority of detainees, about 63%, are held at hundreds of city and county jails around the nation. The rest are housed at eight centers operated by the immigration agency and seven private facilities run by companies such as the Corrections Corp. of America and the GEO Group.

The agency releases some detainees on bond or electronic monitoring, depending on the risk of flight.

Because of the cost of maintaining aging facilities such as San Pedro, the immigration agency has no plans to build more of its own detention centers and is considering whether to transfer more facilities to private control. Contracting with private facilities provides two main benefits: flexibility in placing centers where they are needed and speed in getting them open, Mead said.

The agency is also contracting more with city and county jails, which accept immigrants when space is available.

Advocates and attorneys criticize the government's reliance on local jails, saying immigrants are being mixed with the regular criminal population. Many immigrant detainees have not committed any crime other than being in the U.S. illegally, they said.

"You have 300 jails running in 300 different ways, and it's hard for ICE to manage that," said Natarajan of the ACLU. "There is no training of local jail officials and guards on ICE detention standards."

But Krikorian said the use of city and county jails is an ideal way to increase detention space without building new centers. "It's not as if arsonists and bank robbers are being let go to make room for illegal immigrants," he said. "That is unused capacity."

Immigrant rights advocates also criticize the use of transfers because they separate families, can delay cases and make it hard for detainees to communicate with their attorneys.

"Attorneys are constantly complaining about literally losing their clients," said Alison Parker, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who has researched immigration detention.

Fernando Cabrera, a Salvadoran green card holder fighting to stay in the U.S. despite a criminal conviction, said he was transferred suddenly in December 2006 from California to Alabama. Some of his legal papers were lost in the transfer, he said. Cabrera was sent back to California and then to Texas after San Pedro shut its doors.

The immigration agency began transferring large numbers of detainees at the end of 2006, when it created a center to coordinate the movement of detainees. In 2007, the agency spent more than $10 million to transfer nearly 19,400 detainees.

The transfer system enables the agency to balance the population and plan enforcement operations. For example, when more than 1,300 fugitives and criminals were arrested in the Los Angeles area this fall, immigration agents prepared for the influx by locating open beds around the country.

To keep immigration court cases moving, the agency changes venues in some and relies on videoconferencing in others. Mead said that security concerns prevent advance notification of detainees or their attorneys but that the agency informs attorneys of record as soon as the transfer takes place.

Mead acknowledged that families are affected but said immigrants have access to telephones.

"That's just an unfortunate circumstance," he said. "But the reason they are in custody is because of an immigration violation, and that is going to present a hardship on their family regardless of where they are."

One of the areas of immigration detention that has drawn the most controversy is medical treatment. Since 2004, 66 people have died in custody, including a detainee at San Pedro with AIDS who advocates say died after being denied vital medical care.

"When there are too many people in a facility, medical personnel are overwhelmed and their ability to respond effectively completely breaks down," said Parker of Human Rights Watch.

Peba, the Nigerian immigrant, said it was very difficult to get medical attention at San Pedro and at a facility in Lancaster run by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.

"It takes months even begging to see a doctor," said Peba, who said he has post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic wrist pain. "That's inhuman treatment."

Immigration officials defend the agency's medical treatment, saying it spent almost $100 million during fiscal 2007 to treat detainees for myriad physical and mental health issues, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Mead said the agency takes every death seriously but that more than 1 million immigrants have been in agency custody since 2004.

"Given the number of people that go through our custody and given the fact that many of them do not come from a history of exceptional healthcare and health habits, our mortality rate is extremely low," he said.

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig5nov05,0,5449841.story?coll=la-home-local

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New York's juvenile justice system is costly and ineffective

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, www.fightcrime.org/ny

________________________________________________________
Group says NY juvenile justice system broken, costs too much
By WILLIAM KATES | Associated Press Writer
November 1, 2007

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - New York's juvenile justice system is costly and ineffective, says a statewide coalition that proposed a series of reforms Thursday.

It costs about $150,000 a year to keep a juvenile in a detention center, and yet three out of every four are arrested again within three years of release, according to "Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York," a nonprofit, anti-crime organization led by more than 300 sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys, and victims of violence.

"The state's detention centers are a revolving door," said Skaneateles Police Chief Lloyd Perkins, president of the New York State Chiefs Association. "It's clear that our current system is putting too many juveniles on a path to becoming career criminals. It's expensive, it's not working, and it's time to change."

Too many of the state's most dangerous young offenders are not receiving the intensive interventions needed to address their aggression, substance abuse problems and anti-social behavior, according to the 29-page report titled "Getting Juvenile Justice Right in New York."

Meanwhile, for the larger number of juveniles who do not need to be detained, the custody approach is ineffective and costly. That group would be better off in proven, community-based rehabilitation programs and special foster care placement, the report said.

None of the recommendations came as a surprise to state Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion, who agreed New York's juvenile justice system is not working.

"The system has moved to a very correctional, penal kind of approach to dealing with adolescents and is not really providing them with services that are developmentally appropriate, or looking at families and how we can wrap services around them so juveniles can be successfully reintegrated into the community," Carrion said.

She said the state has already embarked on a number of reform initiatives, including adding more mental health staff and educational programs.

"We are trying on all fronts ... this is going to take time, and more thinking and resources. We welcome everybody's help," said Carrion, who oversees a system that operates 44 juvenile facilities, including three dozen residential centers that hold approximately 1,200 juveniles between the ages of 7 and 21. About 15 percent are girls.

In New York, police arrest almost 50,000 juveniles every year. Of those, approximately 15,000 are detained in state facilities before trial while roughly 2,500 end up in state custody after their trials.

The report said 72 percent of those held in the state juvenile justice system were arrested again within three years of their release, and 42 percent were arrested for a violent felony.

"These rates indicate that New York is failing its young people and endangering its communities" and "show that most of those young offenders are not learning to change their ways and far too many are on their way to becoming chronic criminals as adults," the report said.

Although the report said "nothing will make juvenile crime totally disappear," the study looked at reforms taken in other states and made a series of recommendations. If fully implemented, "the reforms New York state is beginning to put in place can eliminate 40 percent of the repeat crimes now committed by juvenile delinquents," the report said.

Among its general recommendations:

_The most serious and troubled juveniles in custody need effective interventions to become productive citizens instead of career criminals.

"Research shows punishment alone will often not be enough ... Sanctions that include strict and effective interventions can direct anti-social and dangerous juveniles onto a different path that will make New York safer."

_Use intensive foster care as an alternative to lockup for less dangerous juveniles.

So-called "Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care" _ foster care with specially trained foster parents _ is becoming more widely used in a number of states, including New York. But there are currently only 50 MTFC beds in New York and hundreds more are needed, the report said.

Research shows the MTFC approach can cut the average number of arrests in half, the report said.

_Combine community sanctions with effective interventions as an alternative to out-of-home placement for many youth.

The report recommended using a "carrot-and-stick approach" for high-risk offenders _ a combination of intensive police supervision, expedited sanctions for repeated violence, community pressure and expedited access to jobs, drug treatment and other services.

_Reduce pretrial detention for low-risk juveniles following arrest.

To help reduce pretrial detention, the report urged better screening, reducing bureaucratic delays, timely warnings and follow-ups, parental supervision, electronic monitoring and evening reporting centers.

_Collect data and increase accountability.

The report said that research-based approaches for cutting juvenile aggression and substance abuse problems could reduce current custody costs and future crime by between $15,000 to $75,000 per delinquent.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--juvenilejustice1101
nov01,0,2037588.story
___

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November 04, 2007

Johtje Vos, Who Saved Wartime Jews, Dies at 97

November 4, 2007
Johtje Vos, Who Saved Wartime Jews, Dies at 97
By DENNIS HEVESI
NY Times

Johtje Vos, a Dutch woman who with her husband hid three dozen Jews in their home during World War II, shepherding them through a tunnel under the backyard and into the woods whenever the Gestapo pounded on the door, died on Oct. 10 in Saugerties, N.Y. She was 97, and had lived in Woodstock from 1951 until a year ago.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter Barbara Moorman.

During the war years, Mrs. Vos and her husband, Aart, lived in a three-bedroom house on a dead-end road in the town of Laren in the Netherlands, with acres of forest behind it. Mr. Vos, who died in 1990, grew up in Laren and knew every stream and field in the area. That allowed him to lead Jews through the woods to the house at night and back into the woods when the Nazis were coming. Each time a German raid was imminent, a sympathetic Dutch police chief in Laren, a friend of the Voses, would dial their phone, let it ring twice, hang up, then repeat the code.

In all, 36 people were saved by the Voses, with as many as 14 hiding in their home at any one time after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940.

Evelyn Loeb Garfinkel and her mother, Ilse Loeb, were among the three dozen.

“If Johtje hadn’t done what she did, my mother wouldn’t have survived and I wouldn’t be alive,” Mrs. Garfinkel, of Delmar, N.Y., told The Times Union of Albany after attending Mrs. Vos’s funeral on Oct. 16.

Mr. and Mrs. Vos resisted the notion that they had done something out of the ordinary. Interviewed for the 1992 book “Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust,” by Gay Block and Malka Drucker (Holmes & Meier), Mrs. Vos said, “I want to say right away that the words ‘hero’ and ‘righteous gentile’ are terribly misplaced.”

“I don’t feel righteous,” said Mrs. Vos, who, like her husband, was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, “and we are certainly not heroes, because we didn’t sit at the table when the misery started and say, ‘O.K., now we are going to risk our lives to save some people.’ ”

It started one night in 1942 when a Jewish couple asked to be sheltered for just that night as they ran from the Germans. Soon after, another friend asked them to keep a suitcase containing valuables before he was sent to a ghetto.

The Voses were surprised to discover that their friend was Jewish. “We never talked about Jews,” Mrs. Vos recalled. “They were all just Dutch, that’s all.”

A 3-year-old boy, Mark de Klijn, was later taken in by Mr. and Mrs. Vos as his parents faced deportation. Word filtered through the Jewish community, and other escapees began seeking shelter. Soon, mattresses covered the floor. Unless they were trying to flee even farther, the guests would never leave the house.

Except when the phone rang twice, then twice again. Then Mr. Vos would lead them into a shed attached to the back of the house, down through a camouflaged trapdoor under a coal bin and into a 150-foot tunnel through which they would crawl before slipping into the woods.

Every time the Gestapo came, Mrs. Vos said, “I would take questions from them and lie and lie and lie.”

Johanna (she preferred the nickname Johtje, pronounced YO-tya) Kuyper was born on Dec. 29, 1909, in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, the second of three daughters of Guillaume and Henrietta Storm van Leeuwen Kuyper. Her father, a retired army officer, was the mayor of Amersfoort. Her grandfather Abraham Kuyper had been prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905.

As a young woman, Johanna Kuyper went to Paris to work as a freelance journalist, “which was a scandalous thing at the time,” she said. There, she married a young German artist, Heinrich Molenaar, who hated Hitler, she said. The couple left France and moved into the family-owned house in Laren, where their two children were born: Mrs. Moorman, of Glenford, N.Y., and Hetty Crews, who died in 2001. The marriage ended in divorce.

In 1942, Johanna Kuyper and Aart Vos were married. They had four sons, three of whom survive: Dominique, of Woodstock; John, of Saugerties; and Sebastian, of the Netherlands. Their son Peter died in 1973. Mrs. Vos is also survived by 15 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

As far as Mrs. Vos’s children are concerned, they have another sibling: Moana Hilfman Brinkman, of Amsterdam.

When Mr. and Mrs. Vos were living in the house in Laren, they regularly beseeched Moana Hilfman’s parents to take refuge with them. The Hilfmans refused.

“They said: ‘We are Jews. This is our fate,’ ” Mrs. Vos once recalled. “I begged them to at least let me take their 3-year-old daughter, Moana.”

Only on the night that the Gestapo came did the Hilfmans hand over their daughter to a friend, who spirited her to the Vos home.

“She lived with us for years after the war,” Mrs. Moorman said on Friday. “We consider her our sister.”

Posted by lois at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

CO: Gov. Private prisons are a must

Gov. Ritter: Private prisons are a must
Officials say state cannot afford to build needed prison space.
By CHARLES ASHBY
CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU
November 4, 2007

DENVER - Private prisons are here to stay, Gov. Bill Ritter and his corrections chief said.

Because of the state's lack of capital construction dollars, it still doesn't have the ability to build expensive new prisons despite the projected growth in inmate population over the next few years.

That's why private prisons are needed to augment the state's bed needs, Ritter and Department of Corrections Executive Director Ari Zavaras said last week.

Still, both men are working on ways that they hope will mitigate not only the need for more private prison space, but public as well. That's why they are spending additional state dollars on programs designed to reduce recidivism.

"It is less expensive to build a private bed ... and private prisons provide the same quality of staffing, they provide the same kinds of benefits, and they also are able to do the kind of programmatic things that we expect of our public prisons - the substance abuse, mental health treatment," Ritter said. "We are investing money in our programs that are in public prisons that are related to vocational training and job training."

In the governor's proposed budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which begins July 1, Ritter is proposing earmarking about $5.9 million for 12 programs designed to reduce the state's high recidivism rate, which currently stands at about 52 percent.

The programs, which would be operated by the DOC and the departments of Public Safety and Human Services, include such things as job training, substance abuse and mental health treatment, and programs designed to prevent juveniles from ending up in the state's prisons when they become adults.

Of the 22,500 state prisoners, about 5,000 are being held in the state's five private prisons, three of which are located in Southern Colorado. Nearly 480 of them are being housed in a private prison facility in Oklahoma, something Zavaras said he doesn't care to do, but has little choice over.

"Having prisoners out of state is an absolute last resort for us," he said. "We only do it because we don't have the capacity in state. It's our desire to get them back here just as quickly as we have capacity in the state, and we're hoping that will be relatively soon."

The state spends about $54 a day per inmate to house those out-of-state prisoners, compared to the $52 a day it pays in-state private facilities.

"Quite frankly, they're our overall better-behaved (inmates), and it's a little bit tragic that somebody behaves themselves and then gets shipped out of state," he said. "Two of the privates here in the state are currently doing expansions as a result of a (bid) that they won from us. So yes, they will be part of our system probably forever."
©1996-2007The Pueblo Chieftain Online
http://www.chieftain.com/print.php?article=/metro/1194157215/2

Posted by lois at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2007

FL: Rights-restoration process needs to focus on finding jobs

Article published Oct 26, 2007
Tallahassee Democrat
Rights-restoration process needs to focus on finding jobs
By Mark Schlakman
MY VIEW

The governor and Cabinet, sitting as Florida's Board of Executive Clemency, changed the clemency rules several months ago to enable more ex-offenders to regain their civil rights to vote, to serve on a jury and to hold public office after they complete their sentences. At the time, the prevailing view was that Gov. Crist accomplished as much as was possible in the face of strong opposition from Attorney General Bill McCollum and measured resistance from Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson.

Notwithstanding the governor's determination and support that he received from CFO Alex Sink, that simply wasn't the case. And Crist readily acknowledged that the rule changes amounted to an important step forward but fell short of achieving comprehensive reform.

He maintained that, “Once a prisoner serves his or her debt to society, the state should automatically restore his or her civil rights so that the ex-offender may vote and become gainfully employed."

Under the new rules, more ex-offenders are eligible to regain their civil rights without a hearing before the Clemency Board after they complete their sentences. Others are subject to higher levels of scrutiny and in many instances will require a hearing.

Recent trends suggest the vast majority of rights restoration cases that now go to hearing ultimately will be denied.

The Department of Corrections advised that, from April 5 to Oct. 10, it reviewed 600,000 ex-offender case files that date back to 1980. About 150,000 appeared to be eligible for rights restoration without a hearing. All of the rights restoration case files are sent to the Parole Commission, which serves as the investigative arm of the Clemency Board, for further review. In addition to the historical cases, about 3,000 ex-offenders are released from DOC custody every month.

It was reported that 35,000 ex-offenders regained their civil rights since the new rules were adopted. State officials claim that more ex-offenders regained their civil rights during this period than during any other comparable period in recent memory. Despite this progress and setting aside independent studies that indicate there may be as many as 950,000 ex-felons residing in Florida without their civil rights, it may nevertheless take years to process all of the pending cases.

Crist's efforts to change certain aspects of the rights-restoration process were laudable but it is now abundantly clear that the governor and Cabinet must revisit and reengineer that process to achieve more comprehensive reform.

Two fundamental problems must be addressed:

Employment restrictions: Ex-offenders are ineligible for a wide array of state occupational licenses and jobs that require state certification unless they can demonstrate that their civil rights have been restored.

Florida appellate courts have been critical of this misplaced reliance upon rights restoration. Employment eligibility issues and related public-safety concerns that may correspond to any given job must be separated from clemency deliberations and redirected to state regulatory agencies and licensing boards where they could be more effectively addressed. The rights restoration process was never intended to serve this larger purpose.

Gov. Bush's Ex-Offender Task Force recommended such a course of action in late 2006 in an effort to remove some of the arbitrary barriers to post-release employment which, in turn, would help to reduce relatively high recidivism rates. The Legislature passed a bill this year that implemented these Task Force recommendations within the construction industry.

Rather than wait until next spring for the Legislature to consider whether to expand these provisions to all occupational licenses and jobs that require state certification, Crist can sign an executive order at any time directing the agencies and boards that he oversees to implement these recommendations immediately.

Bronson and Sink oversee the agencies and boards that do not report to Crist. They can issue similar directives. Legislators can revisit these matters during the next regular session to codify executive action and reconcile other laws that may be at cross-purposes with the task force recommendations.

Once the linkage between rights restoration and ex-offender eligibility for various jobs is broken, there would be no compelling need to distinguish violent offenses from non-violent offenses to determine fitness to vote. Similarly, there would be no need to subject rights-restoration cases to multiple levels of scrutiny and cumbersome and costly investigations.

Restitution rule: Significant numbers of ex-offenders owe restitution. They are currently ineligible to regain their civil rights by rule until they satisfy that obligation in full. If, as a result, they are ineligible for otherwise appropriate jobs that pay living wages and therefore unable to earn sufficient income to make restitution payments, the rule perpetuates the problem. Everybody loses, including the crime victims.

As a matter of public policy, ex-offenders should be required to pay all court-ordered restitution; however, it is counter-productive to require that it be paid-in-full as a pre-condition for rights restoration. The governor and Cabinet should repeal or substantially modify this long-standing clemency rule. Apart from clemency, the state could improve relevant enforcement mechanisms to facilitate restitution payments along the lines of legislation that was enacted years ago to address delinquent child support payments.

Only then will civil-rights restoration in Florida reflect the kind of fundamental fairness that the governor has been talking about.

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

November 02, 2007

NY Times Editorial: Marijuana and College Aid

November 2, 2007
Editorial, NY Times
Marijuana and College Aid

Anything that keeps ex-offenders from attending college makes it more likely that they will be caught in the revolving door that leads to prison. Tens of thousands of people have been pushed in that direction since the 1990s when Congress passed a law that barred even minor drug offenders from receiving federal education aid. The law applies even to offenses so minor that they are normally punished by probation, a small fine or community service.

Congress softened the law last year, eliminating a provision that denied assistance to people with even petty drug offenses more than a decade old. Now it’s time to repeal the remaining part of the law, which affects students who commit crimes while actually receiving aid.

The law is wrong-headed on several counts. It primarily affects low-income students and exempts the wealthy, who don’t need aid to attend college. It targets young people of color, who are disproportionately prosecuted for drug offenses and already less likely to complete college. It does not deter drug use, especially among addicts who need treatment to break their habits.

Beyond that, young people who commit errors in judgment, as young people can be counted on to do, are penalized twice — once by the courts and once by the student aid system. They are also placed at risk of never getting an education at all.

Federal college aid was never intended to be used as a weapon of enforcement. Any attempt to employ it that way inevitably results in perverse and unintended results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02fri4.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Posted by lois at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Patrick to select new chief of prisons. Washington official seen as an agent for changing focus

Boston Globe
Patrick to select new chief of prisons
Washington official seen as an agent for changing focus
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | November 2, 2007

Governor Deval Patrick today is expected to appoint as corrections commissioner Harold W. Clarke, the top corrections official in the state of Washington, who has built a national reputation for improving prisons despite encountering controversy.

Officials who know Clarke, who previously ran Nebraska's prison system, said his appointment would mark a shift in Massachusetts away from the hard-nosed policies established during 16 years of Republican governors. Clarke is at the "top of the heap" among national penal experts, with a record of reducing violence in prisons and professionalizing staff, said Martin Horn, New York City's top prison official and a specialist on prison reform.

Clarke has been criticized after incidents in which felons on post-release supervision killed police officers, and also for a controversial release of felons from overcrowded jails, but his reputation remains high, Horn said. "He is a true professional with rock-solid integrity," Horn said.

Officials in Patrick's administration said Clarke accepted Patrick's offer to take the post late yesterday, making him the second African-American to lead the Massachusetts Department of Correction. His mandate, the officials said, will be to revamp a corrections department that has focused for years on tough-on-crime policies while cutting to a bare minimum training and reentry programs.

Former attorney general Scott Harshbarger, a member of Patrick's six-member selection panel, said Clarke is up to the job of overhauling a system that has been supervised under harsh policies articulated in 1991, when former governor William F. Weld vowed to "reintroduce Massachusetts prisoners to the joys of busting rocks."

"It will be a major shift in philosophy and approach, one that will balance top-flight professional leadership and public safety with effective reentry of inmates," Harshbarger said. "This is a major-league selection."

Until Clarke's name surfaced recently, the seven-member panel, headed by Secretary of Public Safety Kevin Burke, had struggled to find a replacement for Kathleen Dennehy, who was let go last spring. Clarke is expected to be paid about the same salary as Dennehy, $140,000 a year.

Clarke will manage a system that has 11,000 inmates, a $500 million budget, and about 5,000 staff members while dealing with one of the toughest public unions, the Massachusetts Corrections Officers Federation Union. The system has 18 facilities.

Clarke, a native of Panama who headed Nebraska's prison system for 14 years before taking over Washington's system in 2005, will be Massachusetts' first black commissioner in 33 years, since John O. Boone.

Clarke has come under fire in Washington since being appointed by Governor Chris Gregoire two years ago.

He faced a crisis this year when two freed felons under post-release supervision killed two Seattle police officers in separate car accidents, and another shot and killed a county sheriff.

In addition, a work-release program in Seattle this year faced an investigation after six workers were accused of sexual misconduct and falsifying drug tests.

At the same time, an infuriated Gregoire said that she was "outraged" when Clarke's department released 90 felons from county jails because of overcrowding.

Last summer, the leadership of the Washington Federation of State Workers called for a no-confidence vote in his management. Gregoire headed off a vote by the union membership.

Harshbarger said the selection panel looked at those issues and found nothing that would alarm its members about his management abilities.

He said he expects the same sort of resistance to change in Massachusetts, but that the state needed to move beyond the legacy of Willie Horton, the convicted murderer who, while on a weekend furlough in the 1980s, went to Maryland where he raped a woman and stabbed her male companion. National Republicans used the issue to help defeat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

"Is Willie Horton going to dominate our correctional philosophy forever?" Harshbarger said. "Some risk is always inherent. But the risk we have now is more expensive and more dangerous than a policy of being tough but with support programs for reentry."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/02/patrick_to_select_new_chief_of_prisons/

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

Federal Sentencing: More equity in cocaine sentencing

November 02, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1102/p01s02-usju.html
More equity in cocaine sentencing
Revised guidelines lessen disparity in prison terms for crack versus powder.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

New York

A change in federal sentencing guidelines has quietly narrowed the huge discrepancy in prison time for convictions involving powder versus crack cocaine, after a 20-year battle over the issue.

Since 1988, possession of five grams of crack cocaine – an amount equal to five packets of sugar substitute – landed a person in jail for five years. But people caught with cocaine powder would have to possess 100 times that amount, or 500 grams, to get the same five-year stint behind bars.

It's known as the 100-to-1 ratio. And because most people convicted of crack offenses are black and most convicted of powder cocaine offenses are white, critics have long argued that the disparity represents an egregious racial inequity in America's criminal-justice system.

This week the US Sentencing Commission, with little fanfare, officially reduced its recommended sentences for crack-related offenses. The commission announced last spring that it intended to make the change, and Congress had until Nov. 1 to stop the move. It didn't, and the revised guidelines became effective Thursday.

As a result, up to 4 in 5 people found guilty of crack-cocaine offenses will get sentences that are, on average, 16 months shorter than they would have been under the former guidelines. Opponents of the 100-to-1 ratio applaud the commission's move, but they say it's just a first step because the so-called mandatory minimum sentences set by Congress remain on the books.

"We really commend the commission for taking this modest but important step," says Mary Price, general counsel and vice president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington-based advocacy group. "The commission has told Congress for years that the crack-cocaine penalties are unduly and unnecessarily severe."

In a May report to Congress, the US Sentencing Commission said the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing guidelines "continues to come under almost universal criticism from representatives of the Judiciary, criminal justice practitioners, academics, and community interest groups, and inaction in this area is of increasing concern to many, including the Commission."

That was the fourth time the commission had recommended that Congress change the law, but it never has. So the commission on its own reduced its recommended sentences. That gives judges more discretion, but the "mandatory minimum" law that requires five years for possession of five grams of crack still stands.

"The commission emphasized and expressed its strong view that the amendment is only a partial solution to some of the problems associated with the 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio," it said in a statement in April. "Any comprehensive solution to the 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio would require ... legislative action by Congress." It also urged Congress to act swiftly.

To make sense of that, one needs to understand the difference between federal sentencing guidelines and the congressionally imposed mandatory minimum sentences. In the 1980s, Congress created the US Sentencing Commission to guard against "unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar criminal records who have been found guilty of similar criminal conduct," according to the commission.

While the commission was developing its guidelines, Congress in 1986 approved a law establishing "mandatory minimum" penalties for many drug offenses. At the time, the crack epidemic was ravaging inner-city neighborhoods, mostly, and the related violence helped provoke a "get tough on crime" backlash. Many lawmakers expected that long, mandatory sentences for possessing or selling crack would discourage drug use. And because many perceived crack to be much more destructive than powder cocaine, Congress established the 100-to-1 ratio. In 1988, it passed another law that established a mandatory minimum penalty for simple possession of crack cocaine.

"This wasn't a racially motivated thing," says Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, a conservative think tank. "Crack was destroying the inner cities; even the Congressional Black Caucus supported it."

Since then, studies have shown that the crack-versus-powder sentencing disparity disproportionately affects minorities. Last year, 82 percent of crack defendants were black, according to the sentencing commission, compared with 9 percent who were white. For powder cocaine, it was almost the opposite: About 80 percent of powder-cocaine defendants were white and less than 14 percent were black.

Such statistics have led many conservatives to agree that the sentencing disparity is too harsh.

Several bipartisan bills pending in Congress would whittle the disparity by increasing the penalties related to powder cocaine while reducing the mandatory minimum related to crack. One Republican-sponsored bill would simply increase the powder-cocaine penalty to the penalty level for crack.

Critics of the 100-to-1 ratio, meanwhile, are urging the commission to make its change retroactive. Commissioners plan a Nov. 13 hearing to determine if that's feasible. If the change were retroactive, more than 19,500 people now serving time for crack offenses could see their sentences reduced by an average of 27 months.

"We believe it would be cruelly ironic to recognize and correct the injustice of the guideline that has lengthened thousands of sentences, and then deny the benefit to the very prisoners whose unjust sentences they identified and relied on for evidence of its flawed operation and injustice," says Ms. Price of FAMM.

Previously, when the commission lessened sentencing guidelines for LSD and possession of marijuana plants, the changes were retroactive. But that is unusual. Of 696 amendments made to guidelines since their inception, only 25 were applied retroactively, says a commission spokesman.

Posted by lois at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2007

For Women Behind Bars, "Health Care" Can Be Deadly. Why a book about women in prison?

AlterNet
For Women Behind Bars, "Health Care" Can Be Deadly
By Silja J.A. Talvi, Seal Press

Why a book about women in prison?

Readers of Women Behind Bars might ask the logical question of why an entire book should be focused on female incarceration while men are still, by far, the majority of people getting arrested and locked up. To many criminologists and writers who cover prison issues, the percentage of women in prison is so small as to warrant little, if any, attention or analysis. (Indeed, at many of the prison-related conferences that I have attended over the years, prisoners are referred to by the male pronoun almost exclusively.)

This question is entirely valid, and deserves a response. Men do face unique issues and hardships in prison, and the overrepresentation of men of color (especially African Americans), the mentally ill, and poor people in general has been more of an overall focus in my work than women's issues in prison until this point.

The deeper I began to delve into the underlying reasons for the rapid growth of girls and women in lock-up, the more insight I gained into a world that few outsiders see, much less understand. Once I began to pay particularly close attention to the ways in which females in the criminal justice system were portrayed in the media, it became clear to me that stereotypes and judgments about "fallen women" from centuries ago were still holding fast.

There's much more to all of this, of course, from the overt medical neglect of women's chronic health needs; to the prevalence of sexual coercion and abuse in women's detention facilities (primarily at the hands of correctional officers, as opposed to other inmates); to the fact that girls and women enter the criminal justice system with far higher rates of drug abuse, sexual violence, childhood abuse, mental illness, and experiences with homelessness. Women are also being punished heavily with undeserved federal "conspiracy charges" for their general unwillingness (or inability) to "snitch" on their loved ones or friends in drug cases -- to the point that this has began to be known as the "girlfriend problem" in the criminal justice system.

Today, the number of girls and women doing time is utterly unprecedented in U.S. history. In 1977, there were just slightly more than 11,000 women in state or federal prison. By 2004, the number of women in prisons had increased by a breathtaking 757 percent. At the end of 2006, there were 203,100 women in jails, state and federal prisons, plus another 1,094,000 women on probation or parole, for a total of 1.3 million females under some form of correctional supervision. (Another 15,000-20,000 girls are being held in juvenile detention.) While Euro-American women still outnumber any other demographic group in jails and prisons, African American women are four times more likely to be locked up than their Euro-American counterparts. (Collectively, African American women and Latinas represent more than 60 percent of women doing time.)

The following excerpt provides just one woman's story from Women Behind Bars. She did not live to tell it, but I am able to share it with you here.

****

I was already several months into the process of writing Women Behind Bars when I received an e-mail from a woman by the name of Grace Ortega. Grace had heard about the book project, and wanted to know if she could tell me what happened to her daughter, Gina Muniz, after she was incarcerated for the first (and last) time in her life. In truth, I already had enough women's stories to fill the pages of a few books -- if anything, I was overwhelmed trying to figure out which stories not to include -- but there was something about Grace's letter, the sheer urgency of it, that made me want to talk to her.

In our first conversation, Grace and I talked for two hours -- or, to be more precise, I listened for those two hours. It actually didn't click until a few days after that conversation that something sounded very familiar about what Grace had been telling me in great detail. Sure enough, I had once actually written about Gina, albeit briefly, in an article about the allegations and emerging evidence surrounding shoddy, abusive, and sometimes life-threatening medical "care" in two adjacent women's prisons: Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) and the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla.

Grace and I stayed in touch, and I made it known that I would be interested in researching the details of her case for Women Behind Bars. I asked her to send me court documents, medical records, prison memos, grievances, or anything else she might have that would enable me to grasp the chronology of events in Gina's life, and to look more deeply into her situation. A few weeks later, a cardboard box the size of an orange crate arrived at my home. Grace had taken my request seriously and literally; from what I could tell, she had sent me absolutely everything she possessed pertaining to her daughter's case.

I didn't actually examine the contents of the box closely until I was already well into a few chapters of this book. When I did finally start to sort through the material, I saw that Grace had included four 8" x 11" color photos of her daughter. I set them down on my kitchen table and just stood there, staring at them. I don't know how much time passed, but I know it was long enough that the images were actually seared into my mind.

When I mentioned earlier that I was haunted by Gina's story, I meant that I have also been haunted by these images. For a time, I actually buried the photos under piles of paper in a strange attempt to block out my emotional reaction to them. It didn't matter; my mind couldn't erase any of it.

As I write this, these pictures are out of hiding, because I can finally give Gina's story a voice. The photograph that I have placed next to me is of her emaciated body, shackled to a bed in a community hospital near CCWF. Another of Gina's photos, which was taken just two months before her arrest on August 8, 1998, is on top of my desk. This is a snapshot of a naturally, strikingly beautiful woman with thick, dark curls framing her wide smile. Gina's warmth and kindness radiate from that picture, just as the one taken just a few weeks before her death conveys the agony of living in a body taken over by cervical cancer, which had started out as an entirely treatable, early-stage illness.

Gina's face in the hospital picture is that of a much, much older woman. The only parts of her that still look young are her hands and long fingers, which resemble a pianist's. Her left arm is shackled to the bed, per the requirement of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that even terminally ill prisoners be shackled to their beds and guarded twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Her right arm tenderly cups the head of her then-eight-year-old daughter, Amanda.

Her eyes give away the intensity of her suffering, which started out as horribly as it ended. When she was first taken to the LA County Jail, Gina began to bleed so profusely that she would go through many sanitary pads in the space of a few minutes; most of the time, she was just left to bleed all over herself and her cell. When her cries got loud enough, jail guards would typically come over and look at her with disgust, and then throw toilet paper rolls into her cell.

All of this went on until Gina passed out while talking to her mother on the phone after nearly eight months of nonstop bleeding in jail. Gina's collapse was apparently what it took for her pleas for medical assistance to be heard. Even then, it would be months before she was examined properly and diagnosed with Stage IIB cervical cancer, which has a high success rate of being treated and stopped in its tracks if it is treated aggressively and consistently.

Gina's pleas for justice, however, were not heeded. She received a life sentence in state prison, with an additional seven years tacked on. A life sentence would seem to indicate that she had committed a heinous crime, and most certainly a crime of violence. But Gina had actually committed a nonviolent act, although even she thought she should be punished for stealing $200 from a fifty-one-year- old Vietnamese American woman. Gina did not have a gun, knife, or any other weapon with her, but she admitted that she "strong-armed" the woman into going to a nearby ATM and giving her the money. Even the victim herself, when the police arrived on the scene, stated that Gina had not hurt her in any manner. Gina hadn't been a career criminal by any stretch of the imagination.

Her only violations were for car-related misdemeanors, including a June 30, 1998 charge for driving without a permit. (Gina did not do jail time, although the incident did go on her record.) What happened that pushed this twenty-seven-year-old, with no history of criminal behavior, to the point of rob- bing someone?

Grace explained to me that Gina's father's death on April 22, 1998, triggered a serious, debilitating spiral of depression in her daughter's life. Although Gina's father had periodically been a heavy cocaine and heroin user, and Grace had left him when Gina was just a child, Gina still adored him and tried to see him as much as possible.

By all accounts, cocaine hadn't even been a part of Gina's life until after her father died. Although she had gotten involved with men who hadn't exactly done right by her, Gina had set her sights on becoming a nurse and paving the way for a good life for Amanda.

Seeing her grief, a much older, married male family member offered his "support" to Gina, and then gave her a taste of a drug that he promised would help her get through the pain. His encouragement of her cocaine use was obviously far from being in Gina's best interest. When her use turned into dependency, he started demanding sexual favors, which she provided to him for a time in exchange for money to buy more drugs.

The "exchange" went on for a few months, until a day when she asked for $200 and this relative demanded another sexual favor. As Gina later admitted to her mother, she was suddenly consumed by hatred and disgust -- toward him and toward herself. She refused his advances, and he in turn refused the money. But Gina's desire for more cocaine overtook her ability to think clearly. As her mom put it, "Gina did something that she would have considered unthinkable" in the not-so-distant past.

A mere surface examination reveals that Gina's poor attempt at a crime was obviously a fumbling act of desperation by a woman addicted to drugs. But that's not how the court saw it. Gina's own defense attorney took Grace's hard-earned money (which he was eventually forced to return when Grace filed a complaint with the California Bar Association), did nothing to argue her case, and then urged Gina to plead guilty in exchange for a short sentence. While the judge was announcing the terms of her sentence, Gina heard the words "life" and "seven years," and anxiously asked her lawyer what was happening.

As a bailiff would later testify, Gina's lawyer had lied to her, telling her that entering a guilty plea would get her only a seven-year sentence, not life in prison. Gina did not find out until she was sent to CCWF that she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison. Medical "decisions" made at some level in the process ensured that she was denied the necessary hysterectomy, radiation, and chemotherapy that would have saved her life. In essence, her already cruel and unwarranted life sentence was hastened into a death sentence over just a few horrible months of pain and suffering, during which she and her mother pleaded constantly for medical intervention and urgent treatment.

It took many months of letter writing, and the volunteer assistance of the San Francisco-based advocacy group Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, for Grace to get her daughter out of a depressing community hospital room under the constant watch of prison guards. Gina wanted to die at home, and so she did. On September 29, 2000, Gina Muniz slipped away in silence, surrounded by her immediate family, just two days after her mother took her home.

Where is the healing or hope in a story like this? Gina was certainly not given the chance to experience either.

Instead, they have manifested themselves in Grace's ability to turn her own grief into advocacy on the part of other women in prison. Grace has traveled across California, testifying before legislators and advocating for compassionate release for terminally ill women in prison so that they do not have to endure anything akin to the needless and slow death that Gina suffered.

Grace still looks at the pictures of her daughter every day, and she worries that her daughter's life will be forgotten entirely or, worse yet, dismissed as the plight of a criminal whose life and death were of no particular significance. "Please," she asked me again at the end of our last conversation, "Please make sure that Gina isn't forgotten."

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/66637/

Posted by lois at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Leadership Needed on Sentencing Reform

Sun Oct 28, 2007

For many people - too many people - prison is a place where you lock up the bad guys and forget about them. That attitude gained political currency in the 1990s, and persists even in politicians who should know better.

Those who know best what happens in our prisons tell a different story. They see overcrowded prisons with revolving doors. Thanks to mandatory minimum sentences, misguided "truth in sentencing" laws and feel-good "tough on crime" policies, recidivism has soared, treatment and rehabilitation have been cut, post-release supervision has all but disappeared and justice has suffered.

Massachusetts now spends nearly $1 billion on corrections, which doesn't include the cost to victims or the cost of running the courts. The prison population has quadrupled since 1999, to 11,000, and we are no safer as a result. More than half all prisoners are arrested again within three years of their release.

It's time we stopped "warehousing offenders so they come out more dangerous than they were when they went in," Gov. Deval Patrick said this week. A panel of experts invited to the State House for a symposium put together by the Mass. Bar Association agreed.

Some of the resistance to meaningful reform comes from district attorneys, who think filling the prisons is a way of keeping score. But the biggest problem is in the Legislature, where entrenched incumbents cower in fear that someone will call them soft on crime.

For years, that fear has paralyzed the committee chairs who could make sentencing reform happen, Sen. Robert Creeden and Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty. "When the senator and I move on these issues, there's no one behind us," O'Flaherty told the Bar Association symposium. "They're gone."

O'Flaherty should look again. House Speaker Sal DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray have endorsed reform of mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses and elimination of tougher sentences for crimes committed within 1,000 yards of a school - a gimmick that unfairly punishes offenders in urban areas. Attorney General Martha Coakley, who no one considers soft on crime, argues that "truth in sentencing" laws make it harder for prosecutors to control dangerous offenders.

Lawyers, judges, sheriffs, academics and advocates agree that giving prisoners education, mental health and drug treatment are far more effective than long sentences at keeping criminals from offending again. Supervised parole reduces recidivism and saves taxpayer money. It costs $45,000 a year to house someone in a Massachusetts prison, money that could be far better spent turning today's criminal into tomorrow's productive citizen.

Leadership is about changing public attitudes, especially when they run counter to the public interest. It's time for Beacon Hill leaders to turn the growing consensus on sentencing reform into legislation that will make our criminal justice system more effective and our communities safer.
http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/x855421792

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

Superbug at prisons a big fear

" Schnapp said that between July and September, there were an estimated 90 reports of MRSA in the state’s prison population."

Superbug at prisons a big fear

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:13 PM CDT

By Kurt Erickson
kurt.erickson@lee.net

SPRINGFIELD — The state’s largest employee union says the Blagojevich administration is not doing enough to prepare for the possible outbreak of a potentially deadly “superbug” behind the walls of the state’s prisons.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union is concerned that prison guards and other workers are being exposed to MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Agency officials, however, say there has been no outbreak of the infection within the state’s sprawling prison system and that prison health workers have plans in place to deal with the situation.

“They know how to properly address these cases,” Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Derek Schnapp said Wednesday.

In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and has spread through gyms and locker rooms. MRSA is often contracted through an open wound on the skin. It develops into a red swollen lesion and can potentially infect a person’s blood.

“We’re taking it seriously,” Schnapp said. “We’re not hiding anything.”

Recently, state lawmakers approved a new law that would heighten testing for MRSA at hospitals. The legislation, however, didn’t affect the prison system.

AFSCME Regional Director Buddy Maupin said the agency needs to implement more rules regarding the treatment and prevention of the spread of MRSA in prisons.

“It is time for the department to exhibit leadership in this area to prevent further transmission of this disease,” Maupin wrote in a July letter to prison chief Roger Walker.

AFSCME wants the state to impose testing of inmates who appear to have the tell-tale weeping sores that are associated with MRSA.

The union also wants rules that would allow those who test positive to be isolated, as well as measures aimed at cleaning cells, testing cellmates and improving the protection of guards from being exposed to the germ.

“It is on the precipice of an epidemic,” said Maupin. “Every day we waste, it gets worse.”

Schnapp said cases are being handled on an individual basis.

“We’re leaving it up to our medical professionals. We have all the faith that they are handling it properly,” Schnapp said.

Schnapp said that between July and September, there were an estimated 90 reports of MRSA in the state’s prison population.

But, Schnapp downplayed that number, saying there are over 46,000 inmates spread across 36 adult and juvenile facilities.

“We wouldn’t heighten it as an outbreak,” said Schnapp. “We haven’t seen a cluster.”

Prison officials are working with the Department of Public Health and health facilities at each prison to make workers aware of what needs to be done to ward off an outbreak.

“Clean, clean, clean,” said Schnapp.

Copyright © 2007, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/10/31/news/doc47294418988c2251758128.prt

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

CT: Building Prisons No Panacea

"When an event as tragic as the Petits' occurs, obviously, the first response is to identify why it happened and to do everything to prevent it from happening again," said Ryan King, policy analyst for The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based prison reform advocacy organization. "Unfortunately, that response has traditionally been longer sentences of some kind, restricting parole release, those sorts of things. And the fact of the matter is there's been very little empirical evidence that any of them have had the advertised effect."

Hartford Courant
Building Prisons No Panacea

Stan Simpson

October 31, 2007

Just eight months ago Connecticut was singled out in a private report for its enlightened approach to managing its prison population.

The state was focusing more on prison diversion and drug treatment for nonviolent offenders than on incarceration. Then, along came Cheshire.

The attention generated in July from the horrifying slayings during a break-in at the Petit family's house spurred a governor's task force on sentencing and parole, a parole moratorium for violent offenders and calls for more prisons.

Meanwhile, the state's inmate population inches toward a record high of 20,000. And there's talk, reminiscent of more than a decade ago, of prison expansion.

If Connecticut goes there again, it will mean that it hasn't learned much.

The last time the state went on a massive prison expansion escapade, it spent $1 billion to build 12 new prisons - the last in 1996. The overcrowding problem got worse, not better. Inmates were sent to out-of-state facilities.

Prison expansion was costly and largely ineffective. The state Department of Correction's budget ballooned, from $92.4 million in 1985, with 5,379 inmates, to $605 million this year. In recent years, Connecticut got smarter and embraced prison-diversion alternatives for nonviolent offenders.

The Pew Charitable Trusts released a private report in February projecting that the country's inmate population will rise by 200,000 in the next five years - three times the rate of the nation's population growth - and cost $27 billion.

Connecticut and Delaware were the only states in which no growth in the prison population was projected. That changed for CT, but research has traditionally shown that it is better to invest in community re-entry programs than in bricks and mortar. The large majority of inmates get released.

"When an event as tragic as the Petits' occurs, obviously, the first response is to identify why it happened and to do everything to prevent it from happening again," said Ryan King, policy analyst for The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based prison reform advocacy organization. "Unfortunately, that response has traditionally been longer sentences of some kind, restricting parole release, those sorts of things. And the fact of the matter is there's been very little empirical evidence that any of them have had the advertised effect."

While Connecticut takes this pause to reflect on its current correction system, here's a suggestion for our legislators: Don't overreact, folks. Invest in job training, drug counseling and housing assistance programs. Reserve prison beds for the true incorrigibles.

"The conversation that can't be lost in this dynamic is that at the end of the day, creating and maintaining comprehensive re-entry services for individuals is a better way of increasing safer communities," said Maureen Price-Boreland, a member of the governor's task force and executive director of Community Partners in Action, which runs re-entry programs for former offenders.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's judiciary committee, said that lawmakers will be engaged in weighing philosophical arguments of expanding prisons vs. the practical ones.

"If we're going to make policy changes which result in more people incarcerated, then we have to provide the resources to manage those people," Lawlor said.

One way to quiet the philosophers talking about expansion is to insist that all future pens be built in their backyards.

Then, we can get practical.

Stan Simpson's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He can be heard live Saturday on WTIC NewsTalk 1080 from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Copyright © 2007, The Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctstan1031.artoct31,0,2068490.column

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

MA:CORI WORKING GROUP ANNOUNCES PUBLIC HEARING ON NOVEMBER 7

CORI WORKING GROUP ANNOUNCES PUBLIC HEARING ON NOVEMBER 7

The CORI Working Group formed by Gov. Patrick following the Sept. 18 judiciary committee hearing has announced that they will hold a public hearing on November 7. The hearing will be be chaired by Secretary of Public Safety Kevin Burke, who will be joined on the panel by Undersecretary for Criminal Justice Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, Health & Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, and Suzanne Bump, Secretary of Labor & Workforce Development. The panel will also include Joint Committee on the Judiciary chairs Sen. Robert Creedon and Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty, as well as other committee chairs who are participating in the working group. Your presence and/or testimony at this hearing is important as we continue to push forward on this important issue! If you are interested in providing oral or written testimony, please let me know. Following are the details of the hearing:

CORI WORKING GROUP PUBLIC HEARING
Wednesday, November 7
4:00-7:00 p.m.
Gardner Auditorium, State House
www.cjpc.org

Posted by lois at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)

Feds cut sentences for crack cocaine

Feds cut sentences for crack cocaine
November 1, 2007

By Erik Potter Post-Tribune staff writer

New federal sentencing guidelines are set to go into effect today that will reduce the average sentence for a crack cocaine offense by 15 months.

The change, put in place by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, could be applied retroactively, which would mean an early release for more than 260 prisoners in Northern Indiana, and 19,500 nationwide.

"This is a clear recognition by Congress that the penalties imposed (for crack) were unfair," said Kerry Collins, a community defender at the federal courthouse in Hammond.

The reason for the sentence reduction is to address a disparity created in the 1980s when Congress established mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

The law set up a system where crack cocaine -- which is made from powder cocaine -- carried much stiffer penalties than its powdered derivative.

A crime involving five grams of crack cocaine carries a mandatory sentence of five years in prison, and 50 grams carries a 10-year penalty. However, it takes 500 and 1,000 grams of powdered cocaine to trigger the same five and 10 year sentences.

That disparity has earned particular criticism because of the racial overtones it carries, as crack offenders are more likely to be black and powder cocaine offenders are more likely to be white or Hispanic.

For instance, of the 19,500 prisoners nationwide convicted of crack cocaine offenses who would be eligible for reduced sentences, more than 85 percent of them are black and only 6 percent are white.

"That's the (biggest) issue: What community are we targeting?" Collins said. "It's pretty clear that the crack guidelines have targeted the black community."

In a report to Congress this spring, the sentencing commission called the disparity an object of "universal criticism from representatives of the judiciary, criminal justice practitioners, academics, and community interest groups."

The sentencing commission cannot change the minimum sentence law, but its recommendations can effect sentences for drug amounts that fall below, between or above the five and 50 gram levels.

"The (sentence) reduction is good," said David Vandercoy, professor of criminal law at Valparaiso University. "Most people would think it's long overdue ... (though) they would probably think (the disparity) is still too great."

The sentencing commission has tried multiple times before to bring crack and powder cocaine sentences in line with each other.

It attempted to change the guidelines in 1995 to treat both drugs the same, but that effort was overruled by Congress. It pushed for action again in 1997 and 2002, but nothing happened.

The changes will take effect unless Congress passes legislation to stop it, which it had not done by Wednesday afternoon.

The sentencing commission is still considering applying the guideline changes to people already in prison. It is accepting public input at least through Nov. 13 and it is not clear how long after that it will take to make a decision.

(http://www.post-trib.com/news/630662,crack.article)

Posted by lois at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

Funding Received for Musical Instruments for Prisoners

Funding Received for Musical Instruments for Prisoners

The Prisons Foundation, in conjunction with the England based Jail Guitar Doors project (http://www.jailguitardoors.org.uk/), has received funding to purchase guitars to be sent to prisons and jails in the United States where they will be utilized by prisoners. If you know of any jail or prison whose prisoners could benefit from participation in this program, please ask a representative of that institution to email Joe Shade, coordinator of the program at joeyshade@gmail.com

Posted by lois at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)