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January 30, 2009

UK: Arrests of teenage girls and women reach record levels * More than 250,000 detained by police in one year

Arrests of teenage girls and women reach record levels
* More than 250,000 detained by police in one year
* Crime gap narrowing between men and women

* Alan Travis, home affairs editor
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 January 2009 17.15 GMT

Annual arrests of teenage girls and women have reached record levels, with more than 250,000 detained by the police according to the latest official figures.

Ministry of Justice statistics published today show that last year youth offending teams dealt with 22% more crimes committed by girls aged 10 to 17, fuelling fears that a new "ladette culture" is emerging on Britain's streets.

Youth Justice Board figures show that the number of personal violent attacks by girls dealt with by youth offending teams rose by 48% over the past five years, from 10,412 in 2003 to 15,413 by 2008. They also show sharp increases in the number of public order offences, up 37% to 5,852, and racially aggravated crimes, up 113% to 758, committed by girls under 18 over the same period.

The report, Women and the Criminal Justice System, confirms the conventional view that women are less involved in crime than men but says the gap is now starting to narrow.

"The overall picture to emerge from the various statistics is that there is a degree of convergence between the sexes in less serious offending, but that males remain disproportionately involved in more serious crime," says the ministry's annual report by the Institute of Criminal Policy Research in London.

The criminologists quote findings from the 2008 Home Office's offending, crime and justice survey showing that 26% of males under 25 admit they were involved in anti-social behaviour in the previous 12 months, compared with 17% of females. But the authors note that the 17% figure for females is up from 11% in the 2006 survey, while the 26% for males is unchanged. The peak age for girls' offending has fallen from 18 to 15 over the same period.

"It is possible that girls' willingness to admit offences has increased in tandem with society's expectations about their behaviour," say the criminologists.

Further evidence that the gap between the sexes in relation to crime is beginning to narrow comes from the youth offending team figures. While the number of offences dealt with involving girls under 18 between 2004 and 2008 rose by 22%, the number of offences for teenage boys fell by 9%.

The arrest figures of 251,000 women and girls in 2006/07 is an increase of 39,000 compared with five years before. Arrests of teenage girls aged 10 to 15 rose from 53,800 to 71,100 over the same period. The numbers dealt with by a caution or warning increased from 38,500 to 58,600 over the same period.

A ministry spokesman stressed that young women only accounted for 21% of all crime and the figures were for the number of offences, not the number of young women involved.

"The Youth Justice Board has commissioned research into patterns of offending by young females, which is expected to be published in 2009," he said.

The shadow justice secretary, Dominic Grieve, said ministers needed to get to grips with "this shocking trend".

Posted by lois at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

MI: Sacred Cows Block Real Prison Reform

Wednesday, January 28,2009
Sacred cows block real prison reform
by Kyle Melinn
Don't claim to be a Korean War veteran if you're not. In Michigan, it's a three-year felony.

Sodomy is still a crime in Michigan, as is dueling, adultery and compelling a woman to marry.

Yet, trying to get Republicans to strip these arcane crimes from the books or to be a bit more sensible on sentencing for real crimes like low-level drug offenses, forgery and counterfeiting is like trying to make real reform in the state's prison system.

It’s next to impossible.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration told legislative Republicans 18 months ago that if it was serious about cutting corrections costs, there's really only one way to do it: Lower the state's comparably enormous prison population with realistic sentences that aren't driven by political opportunism.

But in order to do it, the Democrats have to give too, and that means lessening labor costs in the union-driven prison system.

Everybody wants to cut the Department of Corrections these days, but for different reasons.
During last May’s swank Detroit Chamber of Commerce shindig on Mackinac Island, Granholm pledged that if the business community got the Legislature to cut prison costs, she’d roll back the new Michigan Business Tax surcharge.

So off to work they went. The Detroit Chamber and other business groups spent the next several months tearing apart the state’s prison budget, trying to find a way to imprison our bad guys for less money.

If you haven’t heard yet, Michigan’s prison system is huge, like $2 billion huge. The biggest in the Midwest by far and by any measuring stick you want to use. We lock up more prisoners than any of our neighbors and at a higher cost.

During the economically flush 1990s, then-Gov. John Engler made prison construction a cottage industry. Get-tough-on-crime Republican lawmakers were more than happy to fill these new facilities by jacking up prison sentences and installing more mandatory minimums.

Ah, but public safety comes at a price. In the fear-driven culture in which we live, where any middle-class child abduction or spousal murder has the potential to make national headline news for weeks on end, no amount of money is too much to lock up the crooks.

Until, the piggybank is empty, that is.

And in Michigan, the state piggy bank has been collecting dust bunnies since 2001. We’ve shifted money here and there. Cut money to cities, townships, universities, and certain parts of state government. Taxes were raised in 2007, and the business community was ticked.

That returns us to the Detroit Chamber, which came back last October with $800 million in prison reform, more than enough to cover a business tax surcharge. Their plan was to cut sentences and cut labor costs.

The governor and the Legislature stared at each other. The stand-off began.

The Republican-led Senate is all about privatization and slashing the union-driven labor costs within the state’s prison system, but not giving up their "bad-guys-are-going-to-kill-you-in-your-bed-in-the-middle-of-the-night” fear card.

The Democrats are OK letting out non-violent offenders as long as they’ve served their minimum sentences. They’re also fine with giving judges more sentencing discretion, but not if they have to throw their union buddies under the bus by cutting labor costs.

The Council of State Governments’ Justice Center was called in to help. It called in the Republicans, Democrats and DOC officials and went to work.

Last week, amid much bipartisan fanfare, the report was released. What did Republicans and Democrats come up with?

Squat.

Not only did the Council only find $16 million in savings for next year (less than 1 percent of the entire DOC budget), but it suggested that the money saved go toward local police and DNA crime labs. So much for rolling back the business tax.

Faced with the charge of fixing state government, the Republicans and Democrats came back with a tin can and square tires.

Now the state has a $1.4 billion budget hole, the little sister to a $1.8 billion hole of two years ago that required major tax increases to fill.

Prison cuts must happen this year. The “Obama-bucks” won’t balance the state budget in the long term.

The sacred cows need to be led to the slaughterhouse. Republicans need to pitch the "lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" mentality, but Democrats will need to give a little, too, even if it means less overtime or fewer union workers in prisons.

To not meet halfway can't be an option.
http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/article-2562-sacred-cows-block-real-
prison-reform.html

Posted by lois at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

REPORT AFFIRMS BENEFITS OF IN-PRISON COLLEGE PROGRAMS, CALLS FOR RENEWED FUNDING

NEW CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION REPORT AFFIRMS BENEFITS OF IN-PRISON COLLEGE PROGRAMS, CALLS FOR RENEWED FUNDING

http://www.correctionalassociation.org/publications/download/ppp/Higher_Education_Full_Report_2009.pdf

Inmates that participate in post-secondary education programs have a lower recidivism rate than incarcerated comparison groups, several studies show.

New York, New York: The Correctional Association of New York, the state’s oldest criminal justice organization, released today, Education from the Inside, Out, a report examining the multiple benefits of in-prison college programs. In addition to conversations with formerly incarcerated people and program practitioners, the paper includes a survey of statistically-based studies supporting the significance of post-secondary correctional education in reducing recidivism and improving prison management.

The report recounts the recent history of federal and state cuts that have virtually eliminated in-prison college programs in New York and across the country:

* Since 1994, due to a provision in legislation signed into law by then President Bill Clinton, the nation’s inmates have been denied access to federal Pell Grants – small grants for low-income people to help pay for college. This act essentially cut off public support from Washington for college programs in prison. In 1995, under the leadership of then Governor George Pataki, New York banned inmates from receiving the State’s Tuition Assistance Program grants, effectively shutting down nearly all New York’s 70 in-prison college programs. Currently only eight programs in 16 facilities offer higher education courses to New York inmates.

Education from the Inside, Out presents strong evidence that in-prison college programs have a significant and direct impact on the rate at which people return to prison. Among other research, the report includes the results of a New York State Department of Correctional Services study:

* In 1991, the Department view published Analysis of Return Rates of the Inmate College Program Participants that tracked men and women who had earned a degree in the Inmate College Program during the 1986-1987 academic year, finding the rate of return for degree-earners to be significantly lower than that of participants who did not earn a degree. Of those earning a degree, 26.4 percent had been returned to the Department's custody, whereas 44.6 percent of participants who did not earn a degree were returned to custody. Degree earning inmates also returned to prison at a lower rate than would be expected when compared to the overall male return rate.

Robert Gangi, Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York, said, “The policy of most states and the federal government of locking up thousands of people each year, some for disproportionately long sentences, some for the second and third time, does little to reduce crime and often leads to hazardous conditions of confinement.” Gangi, a regular visitor to New York’s correctional facilities, continued: “Our report points government leaders and concerned citizens in a different direction, making the case for the positive value of in-prison college programs.”

The report includes a full examination of the tangible benefits of post-secondary correctional education:

* Reduced rate of recidivism. Experts maintain that inmates who participate in college programs return to prison less often because higher education increases opportunities for meaningful, steady employment and improve cognitive functions.

* A safer, more manageable prison environment. Prison administrators and program practitioners alike report that college programs in prison provide an incentive for good behavior; produce mature, well-spoken leadership who have a calming influence on other inmates and on correction officers; and, communicate the message that society has sufficient respect for the human potential of incarcerated people.

* A cost-effective method of improving public safety. The short- and long-term benefits of a better educated population makes investment in higher education for incarcerated individuals and people in the community smart fiscal policy. A cost-benefit analysis conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles and referenced in Education from the Inside, Out found that the cost to the state per crime prevented by offering education to inmates is about $1,600; the cost per crime prevented by extending prison sentences is $2,800. In other words, “[a] $1 million investment in incarceration will prevent about 350 crimes, while that same investment in education will prevent more than 600 crimes. Correctional education is almost twice as cost effective as incarceration.”

According to Jackie Ross, principal author of Education from the Inside, Out: “Higher education in prison is highly valuable because it bolsters men and women who are among the most underserved in our society and critically in need of a college education and degree. College level learning serves to decrease anti-social behaviors and increase self-efficacy among inmates.”

Education from the Inside, Out also includes a review of six model post-secondary correctional education programs and first-hand testimony from program directors in New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Massachusetts. Statements from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people are also highlighted throughout the report, further substantiating the importance of college programs in correctional facilities.

* Wes Caines, an inmate at Eastern Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York and a participant in the Bard Prison Initiative, an in-prison college program sponsored by the well-regarded liberal arts institution Bard College, told Correctional Association’s visitors: “Prison culture is an extension of street culture. You must consciously withdraw from prison culture, street culture, and negative culture that is detrimental to progress. Bard [college] is a way to disengage from the prison mentality.”

The report concludes with specific recommendations for New York policymakers:

* Restore and expand public funding for college programs in prison primarily by lifting the ban on inmate eligibility for Tuition Assistance Program grants.

* Expand access to higher education opportunities for formerly incarcerated people as a means of supporting successful re-entry and community well-being.

* Require New York’s Board of Parole to consider participation in college programs as a qualifying indicator for parole release.

Posted by lois at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2009

MA: The department of incorrection Prisoner kept beyond term, despite state's vow to change

The department of incorrection
Prisoner kept beyond term, despite state's vow to change
Mark Taylor was held in prison beyond his release date. Mark Taylor was held in prison beyond his release date.
By David Abel
Globe Staff / January 29, 2009

In the fall of 2006, halfway into a five-year sentence at the Massachusetts Treatment Center, the inmate asked prison officials why he was not accruing time off his term for good behavior. An official in the records division responded in writing, erroneously telling Taylor that he was not eligible because he was a habitual offender.

One afternoon last month prison officials realized the mistake and abruptly told Taylor he was leaving, more than seven months after he should have been released, even though he had nowhere to go. An officer then took Taylor, who has a history of drug problems, to a homeless shelter in Worcester, where he said he spent a long night watching other men smoke crack and shoot heroin.

"I couldn't believe what was happening," said Taylor, now 47, who had been imprisoned for assaulting a friend while they were high on cocaine. "They gave me no warning and no choice. When I asked to make a call, they said it would have to be collect. They just gave me a few trash bags to gather my stuff, but I couldn't take everything. Then I was rushed out."

The error occurred more than 18 months after the Globe reported that the state Department of Correction confined at least 14 inmates beyond their release dates. Department officials subsequently vowed to make sweeping changes to their system for calculating sentences.

Last summer, the department paid a $100,000 settlement to Rommel Jones, a mentally ill inmate who spent more than four years in prison after he should have been released.

Now Taylor is threatening to sue the state for depriving him of his freedom by failing to take into account 217 days he earned for participating in rehabilitation programs, a miscalculation that raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the department's new system.

Correction officials insist their new system worked as designed. They have yet to issue an apology to Taylor, a schizophrenic who is temporarily staying with a cousin while he awaits a bed at a Department of Mental Health facility.

"It was a serious mistake that was made, and it was quite unfortunate, but the system worked," said Commissioner Harold W. Clarke of the Department of Correction, adding that he knows of no other inmates held beyond their release dates, other than those reported two years ago.

"I say the system didn't fail, because it caught the mistake," Clarke said. "It was an official at the facility who made the mistake. She just misunderstood the rules. After she sent the information, the mistake was discovered."

Asked whether the records official had been fired or demoted because of the error, which was discovered Dec. 4, Clarke declined to discuss "personnel issues."

But he said the official has since received new training. "Her supervisor went over appropriate practices," he said. "She now knows that [habitual offenders] are allowed to earn good-time credits."

Neither Taylor nor his lawyer - James R. Pingeon, director of litigation for Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services - was satisfied with the department's explanation.

Pingeon argued that the state made the same mistakes as it did with Rommel Jones, whom he also represented, and that Taylor's case demonstrates the department's promises to fix the system were hollow.

"It's absurd for them to say the new system didn't fail, when it was supposed to ensure that no one is held beyond their proper release date," Pingeon said. "That obviously didn't happen. The system is all of its parts. . . . It sounds like the commissioner is trying to make excuses for the incompetence of his staff and trying to avoid addressing a very serious, systemic problem. It's just pathetic."

The department redesigned the system to centralize in one facility the sometimes complex calculation of inmate sentences, rather than having each prison calculate them separately. The complicated formulas include statutory good time, which can reduce a maximum sentence by up to 40 percent for those who committed crimes before July 1, 1994. There is also earned good time, which Taylor should have received, that allows inmates to receive 7.5 days a month off their sentences for taking part in work, programs, or educational activities.

"What I find appalling is that in 2007 the Department of Correction said they were going to change the system, but they keep making the same errors," said Pingeon. "Sure, there was human error, but they were supposed to develop a system that would protect against human error and poorly trained people at the institutions. There's a combination of arrogance and incompetence, and it makes them extremely resistant to reform."

Department officials said that they were doing the best they can and that no system can be foolproof, particularly against human error. They said a new date computation unit has been reviewing sentences of all male inmates in state custody since February and all female inmates since September. But to date, the department has only reviewed the cases of about 3,000 of 11,500 inmates in state custody.

"This review encompasses several elements to include the validation of existing release dates, statutory requirements, verification of jail credits, statutory good time when applicable, and earned good time," Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correction, said in an e-mail. "This review covers the inmate's entire incarceration."

Wiffin blamed the slow pace on reviews that can take several hours, varying formulas, the need to train staff, and a new computer system that requires "a lot of tweaking."

"The review is very time consuming, as it entails a great deal more than just the main elements I listed," Wiffin said.

Despite all the changes, the system still relies on prisons to compile sentencing information about inmates and, for all the inmates whose cases have yet to be reviewed, does not verify their discharge dates until 60 days before their scheduled release.

That is why, in Taylor's case, they did not discover the mistake with his release date - originally set for Jan. 14 without any time off for good behavior - until last month.

On the day of his release, Taylor said, he was flustered.

He kept telling prison officials that there must have been a mistake, that he would need time to arrange somewhere to stay. He also wanted to take his possessions - including a 13-inch television set, a Super 3-channel radio, a stack of self-help books, several pairs of sneakers, all his clothing - but he had no way to carry everything on his own.

As he waits for a more permanent home and looks for work, Taylor said he expects to be compensated for the time he lost.

"At the least, I want some kind of apology," he said. "A sorry would be nice, and whatever else goes along with that."

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/01/29/the_department_of_incorrection/?page=full

Posted by lois at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2009

MA: FAMM instroduces reform bills on mandatory minimum sentencing and school zones

Families Against Mandatory Minimums has just introduced two sentencing reform bills. They are comprehensive sentencing reform bills that go beyond similar bills that were filed in previous sessions. One would repeal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses while the other would reform the school zone drug sentencing law. As of this moment they do not have Bill numbers. FAMM is seeking sponsors of these Bills from our legislators in the Senate and the House.

Please call or please email your Senator and Rep. If you do not have their email address or phone # you can go to this site.....
http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenu.htm
Please remember to ask them to get back to you on their actions. All of this will take not more than 5 minutes.
Thank you!
Lois
After you have contacted your senator and rep....please forward to others!!

This message is from FAMM...
Please ask your legislators to sign on as co-sponsors! The deadline is February 4. Use FAMM's action center to help you make your calls to your representative and senator (you'll make two calls total). After each call, be sure to give us feedback on the response and click the "submit" button at the end of both calls. Call by going to this URL: http://capwiz.com/famm/callalert/index.tt?alertid=12519506

Mandatory minimum repeal bill. The repeal bill is called, "An Act to Repeal Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws for Drug Offenses." It would do away with one-size-fits-all sentencing for drug offenses. Instead, courts would be allowed to once again base sentences on the facts of the case and the offender's circumstances. It would also allow drug offenders to apply for parole, work release and earned "good conduct" credits. Identical versions of the bill were filed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Benjamin Swan and in the Senate by Sen. Thomas McGee. For more information, see our summary of the bill (
http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/Mass_repeal_summary_for_members___1-23-09_%5B1%5D.pdf )
and fact sheet. (http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/Mass_general_repeal_fact_sheet__1-21-09_%5B1%5D.pdf)

School zone drug sentencing bill. The school zone bill is called, "An Act to Reform the School Zone Law for Drug Offenses." It was filed in the House by Rep. Benjamin Swan (there is no Senate sponsor). This bill would reduce the size of drug-free school zones to 100 feet and get rid of the mandatory prison sentence for school zone violations. In addition, school zone penalties would no longer apply to drug sales that take place in private residences. (The drug offense would still be illegal, but there would no longer be an additional penalty due to the location of the home.) Finally, school zone sentences could be served at the same time as the sentence for the drug offense itself. For more information, see our summary of the bill (http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/Mass_repeal_summary_for_members___1-23-09_%5B1%5D.pdf)
and fact sheet. (http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/Mass_school_zone_fact_sheet__1-21-09_%5B1%5D.pdf)

Posted by lois at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)

VA: Death in another ICE jail

"The parallels with detainee accounts of Mr. Newbrough’s treatment are striking to Jeff Winder, an organizer for the grass-roots Virginia group People United, who was contacted by several inmates at Piedmont who also spoke to a reporter. The latest death has heightened the group’s opposition to plans by private developers and city officials to build another immigration detention center in Farmville, with 1,000 to 2,500 beds."

“ICE has no obligation to send detainees there after the next detainee dies,” Mr. Winder said. “Farmville could be left with the reputation as a place where detainees die of medical neglect.”

January 28, 2009
Another Jail Death, and Mounting Questions
By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times

He lived 42 of his 48 years in the United States, and had the words “Raised American” tattooed on his shoulder. But Guido R. Newbrough was born German, and he died in November as an immigration detainee of a Virginia jail, his heart devastated by an overwhelming bacterial infection.

His family and fellow detainees say the infection went untreated, despite his mounting pleas for medical care in the 10 days before his death. Instead, after his calls for help grew insistent, detainees said, guards at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Va., threw him to the floor, dragged him away as he cried out in pain, and locked him in an isolation cell.

"The parallels with detainee accounts of Mr. Newbrough’s treatment are striking to Jeff Winder, an organizer for the grass-roots Virginia group People United, who was contacted by several inmates at Piedmont who also spoke to a reporter. The latest death has heightened the group’s opposition to plans by private developers and city officials to build another immigration detention center in Farmville, with 1,000 to 2,500 beds."

“ICE has no obligation to send detainees there after the next detainee dies,” Mr. Winder said. “Farmville could be left with the reputation as a place where detainees die of medical neglect.”

January 28, 2009
Another Jail Death, and Mounting Questions
By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times

He lived 42 of his 48 years in the United States, and had the words “Raised American” tattooed on his shoulder. But Guido R. Newbrough was born German, and he died in November as an immigration detainee of a Virginia jail, his heart devastated by an overwhelming bacterial infection.

His family and fellow detainees say the infection went untreated, despite his mounting pleas for medical care in the 10 days before his death. Instead, after his calls for help grew insistent, detainees said, guards at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Va., threw him to the floor, dragged him away as he cried out in pain, and locked him in an isolation cell.

Mr. Newbrough, a construction worker who had served jail time for molesting a girlfriend’s young daughter, was found unresponsive in the cell several days later, on Nov. 27, and died at a hospital the next day without regaining consciousness. An autopsy report last week cited a virulent staph infection as an underlying cause of his death from endocarditis, an infection of the heart valves that is typically cured with antibiotics.

Accounts of Mr. Newbrough’s last days echo other cases of deaths in immigration custody, including one at the same jail in December 2006, which prompted a review by immigration officials that found the medical unit so lacking that they concluded, “Detainee health care is in jeopardy.”

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement never released those findings, even when asked about allegations of neglect in that death, of Abdoulai Sall, 50, a Guinea-born mechanic with no criminal record whose kidneys failed over several weeks. Instead, officials defended care in that case and other deaths as Congress and the news media questioned medical practices in the patchwork of county jails, private prisons and federal detention centers under contract to hold noncitizens while the government tries to deport them.

The 2006 report — and a set of talking points the agency produced for its press officers to use when discussing deaths in detention — were only recently obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act; the group provided copies to The New York Times, which first reported Mr. Sall’s death.

“This facility has failed on multiple levels to perform basic supervision and provide for the safety and welfare of ICE detainees,” the six-page report concluded shortly after he died. “The medical health care unit does not meet minimum ICE standards.”

The report said the jail had failed to respond adequately as Mr. Sall grew sicker, and that even when he was found unconscious on the floor, employees “stood around for approximately one minute” before trying to revive him. The jail’s superintendent, who said he never saw the report, adamantly denied those conclusions this week.

But Tom Jawetz, a lawyer with the civil liberties union’s National Prison Project, said the new death at the same jail underscored the lack of accountability in immigration detention nationwide.

“Piedmont is a facility that was understaffed and underresponsive to clear medical needs,” Mr. Jawetz said. “The reports of Mr. Newbrough’s death raise serious questions about whether those failures were ever remedied.”

Asked Monday what measures it had taken after Mr. Sall’s death, the immigration agency promised a response but did not provide one. Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman, said earlier that an investigation of Mr. Newbrough’s death was under way.

The 780-bed Piedmont jail, run by governments of six Virginia counties, typically houses about 300 immigration detainees, and is now down to fewer than 150. But Ms. Nantel denied rumors that the agency was pulling them out, as it did last month at a detention center in Central Falls, R.I., where a Chinese computer engineer’s extensive cancer and fractured spine went undiagnosed until shortly before his death on Aug. 6.

In that case, investigators for the federal immigration agency found that the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, had been denied proper medical treatment, and dragged from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain six days before his death.

The parallels with detainee accounts of Mr. Newbrough’s treatment are striking to Jeff Winder, an organizer for the grass-roots Virginia group People United, who was contacted by several inmates at Piedmont who also spoke to a reporter. The latest death has heightened the group’s opposition to plans by private developers and city officials to build another immigration detention center in Farmville, with 1,000 to 2,500 beds.

“ICE has no obligation to send detainees there after the next detainee dies,” Mr. Winder said. “Farmville could be left with the reputation as a place where detainees die of medical neglect.”

Ernest L. Toney, the jail superintendent, denied accounts that Mr. Newbrough had been mistreated, saying, “That is not our protocol here.” He referred all other questions about his death to the federal immigration agency.

But Dr. Homer D. Venters, an expert in detention health care who learned about the case from Mr. Newbrough’s family and reviewed the autopsy, said available evidence showed violations of detention standards that let the detainee’s treatable local infections rage out of control. Dr. Venters, a public health fellow at New York University, was critical of the medical care in immigration detention when he testified last year at a Congressional subcommittee hearing, and is on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement advisory group.

“First, Mr. Newbrough’s medical complaints were apparently ignored,” he wrote in a preliminary analysis of the case for Mr. Newbrough’s parents. “Second, Mr. Newbrough was placed in a disciplinary setting while ill and despite having voiced medical complaints. Third, Mr. Newbrough was not adequately (if at all) medically monitored” in the isolation cell.

During those last days, Dr. Venters added in an interview, even guards should have noticed that Mr. Newbrough was in critical condition as the bacteria colonizing his heart broke loose, creating abscesses in his brain, liver and kidneys. “When endocarditis is not treated, it kills people,” he said. With modern hospital care, the death rate is 25 percent or less.

“We were sitting here, powerless,” said Mr. Newbrough’s stepfather, Jack Newbrough, 70, a former Air Force sergeant who met Guido’s mother, Heidi, and Guido, then 2, when he was stationed in their native Germany. “I am just so disappointed in my country, this homeland security system they got set up.”

Mrs. Newbrough, 65, said her son, who had an estranged wife and three American-born children, had quit drinking after serving 11 months for molestation and, on probation, moved back to his childhood home in Manassas, Va., from a trailer park in Stafford. A 1999 article about life in the park, in the first issue of Tina Brown’s Talk magazine, featured him prominently — under the rubric “Dialing America.”

“Nobody knew he wasn’t American,” his mother said. “Even he didn’t know. He found out the day they picked him up here.”

His arrest last February, immigration records show, was a result of Operation Coldplay, which combs probation records to find past sex offenders whose immigration status makes them deportable. Mr. Newbrough had taken what is known as an Alford plea to charges of “indecent liberties with a minor,” and aggravated sexual battery in 2002 — denying his guilt, but acknowledging that prosecutors had evidence that could cause a jury to convict him of molesting his girlfriend’s 4-year-old.

Mr. Newbrough, who spoke no German, would have automatically become a citizen if his American-born stepfather had formally adopted him when he was a child, or if his mother had been naturalized while he was a minor, rather than just four years ago.

While Mr. Newbrough waited at Piedmont for nine months, an immigration lawyer argued that he had derived citizenship from his stepfather. An immigration judge disagreed. The appeal was pending in mid-November when Mr. Newbrough began to complain in phone calls of terrible back pain and stomach aches, his family said. When they urged him to tell the medical staff, they said, he replied: “ ‘I did. They just don’t care.’ ”

Several detainees interviewed by telephone last week said that in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, Mr. Newbrough’s back pain grew so bad that he began sobbing through the night, and some in the 90-man unit took turns making him hot compresses. By the Sunday before Thanksgiving, he was desperate, two detainees said, and banged at the door of the unit’s lunchroom, yelling for help. They said by the time guards responded, he was seated at a table.

“They told him to get up, and he said he couldn’t get up because he was in a lot of pain,” said Salvador Alberto Rivas, who identified himself as Mr. Newbrough’s bunk mate, awaiting deportation to El Salvador. “Because of the pain, he started crying, and he was trying to tell them he had put in requests for medical and didn’t get any. And then one of the guards threw him to the floor.”

“They drag him by his leg, in front of about 30 people,” said another detainee, who gave his name only as Jose for fear of retaliation, adding that many witnesses had since been transferred to other jails or deported.

“We didn’t know that he was dying,” added Jose, who wrote about the case in a letter published online by a Spanish weekly. “They took him to the hole. He was yelling for help in the hole, too.”

That information, he said, came from a detainee in the isolation section at the same time, but since deported, who was so upset by Mr. Newbrough’s death that he left his name and alien registration number — Rene Cordoba Palma, No. 088424581 — in case anyone wanted his testimony.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/28detain.html?_r=1

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

January 27, 2009

PA: Another New Prison Authorized by General Assembly

January 27, 2009
State to build new prison at Rockview
By Shannon Simcox Email
Collegian Staff Writer

The Pennsylvania General Assembly authorized state funds Monday to build a medium-security prison at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview.

The facility will house up to 2,000 inmates and share administrative and warehouse facilities with the existing prison, according to a press release.

The prison will cost about $200 million, said Ed Myslewicz, Department of General Services Public Relations representative. He expects construction to begin by this summer, he said.

Building of the new facility is part of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections' efforts to minimize the stress of an overcrowded prison system, according to the press release.

Centre County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jon Eich said Rockview State Correctional Institution currently houses about 2,000 inmates. Population within the prison system has grown 21 percent over the past six years and is expected to have an average growth rate of 4 percent per year through 2012, according to the statement.

Eich said the new prison will benefit the community.

An estimated 650 new jobs will be brought in by the prison, helping Centre County keep its unemployment rate at one of the lowest unemployment rates of the state, he said.

"Unfortunately, prison is a growth industry," Eich said. "But it does provide jobs that provide good wages and benefits for family."

The new prison is one of seven new projects in the $862 million program, according to the release. New prisons will be built in Fayette and Montgomery counties, while additional housing units will be added to prisons in Crawford, Forest, Indiana and Northumberland counties, according to the release.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/01/27/state_to_build_new_prison_at_r.aspx

Posted by lois at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Another suicide at Souza-Baranowski

Inmate found dead in Shirley prison cell
Suicide believed to be the cause
By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | January 27, 2009
A state prison inmate was found dead in his cell yesterday morning in an apparent suicide. The death came despite the man's known history of mental illness and at least one past suicide attempt, according to a state official and lawyers involved in his case. It was the second such death in a state prison facility in less than a month.

Donovan Walker, a 42-year-old who was originally from Haverhill and was serving a life sentence for murder, was found at 8:44 a.m. in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in Shirley. He was found hanging by a T-shirt and was pronounced dead two hours later at Leominster Hospital, said Diane Wiffin, spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction.

Wiffin said the death was referred to the local district attorney's office for investigation, and that the prison followed proper emergency response procedures.

But the apparent suicide has worried inmate advocates and lawyers who worked with Walker and said his death could have been prevented, given his history of mental illness and the previous suicide attempt.

The death was particularly troubling, advocates said, given the department's recent success in preventing suicides after an alarmingly high rate of deaths several years ago.

"There's a long history here," said Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, an inmate advocacy group.

The Department of Correction reported no suicides in 2008, after seven in 2005, and 15 deaths from 2004-2006. This month, Richard J. Sharpe, 54, the cross-dressing dermatologist who fatally shot his estranged wife, was found dead of an apparent suicide at the state prison in Norfolk.

Wiffin said yesterday that the deaths of Sharpe and Walker remain under investigation.
Leslie Walker's agency became familiar with Donovan Walker - they are not related - last week after receiving a tip alleging that the inmate was beaten by a correctional officer so badly that he was brought to an outside hospital.

Early last week, an advocate attempted to visit Walker but could not because he was on mental health watch. On Friday, he was removed from suicide watch and an advocate was able to see him. Walker reported that he was beaten for not tucking in his shirt.

Wiffin would not comment on reports that Walker was beaten by an officer, or that he had been placed on suicide watch days earlier, saying the case remains under investigation.

The death is a tragedy for a man whose history of mental illness was part of the case against him, lawyers said. Walker was convicted of the 1999 fatal stabbing of a man outside an American Veterans Post bar in Haverhill. He was chased out of the bar by the man he eventually stabbed.

But lawyers had tried to raise a self-defense argument, saying Walker's limited mental capacity made him unaware of his surroundings or any alternatives to resorting to the stabbing, such as fleeing.

According to Ruth Greenberg, a Swampscott lawyer who represented Walker during an appeal, her client did not know well enough to get away. He did not have a criminal record before the stabbing. He worked as a home aide for elderly people. And even in his limited capacity, he was a good man, she said.

"It was sad every step of the way," she said. "He didn't understand what was happening around him that much, but he was a good person. He was kind. This is tragic."

Posted by lois at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)

From National Advocates for Pregnant Women: a victory in the Texas v. Lovill case!

From National Advocates for Pregnant Women: a victory in the Texas v. Lovill case! (January 27, 2009) www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org

In this case, Amber Lovill's probation was revoked because the State thought that sending her to jail would protect her fetus. Ms. Lovill had been on probation for forgery. A condition of probation was not using any illegal drugs. Ms. Lovill was in fact working hard to achieve abstinence, but experienced a relapse on the road to recovery. This relapse constituted a probation violation. Typically probation officers do not recommend putting a person in jail for this kind of probation violation. Rather, they typically seek to increase the number of drug screens that the probationer must submit to, or increase the amount of drug treatment that a person is required to attend. However, in Ms. Lovill's case, because she was pregnant, they recommended terminating her probation and locking her up. She was sent to Nueces County Jail, where she spent the duration of her pregnancy without appropriate prenatal care, drug treatment, or even sanitary facilities.

On appeal, Amber Lovill argued that the probation revocation constituted a form of selective prosecution based on the fact that she was pregnant, in violation of the 14th Amendment's prohibition against sex discrimination. NAPW and the ACLU of Texas filed an amicus brief in support of Ms. Lovill on behalf of numerous national and grassroots public health and advocacy organizations The Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District of Texas agreed. For the first time in any case or written order that we are aware of, a court has squarely held that probation revocation and imprisonment because of pregnancy violates the 14th Amendment's prohibition on sex discrimination. The Court of Appeals carefully read the record and found extensive evidence of the fact that the probation officers were unwilling to consider any alternative to incarceration – because Ms. Lovill was pregnant. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's findings of fact, holding that:

In this case, the trial court was not free to disregard the overwhelming evidence presented at the hearing showing a discriminatory effect and purpose which allowed only a single conclusion. We hold that the fact finding is not supported by the record. The evidence shows (1) that Lovill was treated differently than others who violated the terms of their probation but were not pregnant, and (2) that her pregnancy was a motivating factor in the decision to prosecute.

The State argued that even if pregnancy was a factor in their decision, that would not constitute discrimination, explaining that "pregnancy causes added stress, anxiety and physical sickness to the expectant mother, which makes it difficult to comply with conditions of probation and to maintain the willpower necessary to overcome a drug addiction." The Court of Appeals squarely rejected this extraordinary claim, finding that it was based on "archaic and outdated views of pregnancy and of women." The court held that "even if the State acts with the intent of protecting a pregnant woman's health, it still may overstep the boundaries of the constitution when its actions result in discriminatory treatment based on pregnancy."

Ms. Lovill's counsel had hoped that the Court of Appeals would issue an order dismissing the entire prosecution. The Court of Appeals decision, however, only addresses whether Ms. Lovill established sex discrimination claim. This means that the case is not over. Nevertheless, Ms. Lovill's attorney is confident that he will be able to obtain a speedy and favorable resolution of her case.

NAPW and the ACLU congratulate Ms. Lovill for her persistence in her defense. We also congratulate Brian Miller, Ms. Lovill's counsel for his zealous representation and excellent defense work in this case.

Posted by lois at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

"The Epidemic That Wasn’t" ---"crack babies"

January 27, 2009
The Epidemic That Wasn’t
By SUSAN OKIE
NY Times--Pag1 Science Section
BALTIMORE — One sister is 14; the other is 9. They are a vibrant pair: the older girl is high-spirited but responsible, a solid student and a devoted helper at home; her sister loves to read and watch cooking shows, and she recently scored well above average on citywide standardized tests.

There would be nothing remarkable about these two happy, normal girls if it were not for their mother’s history. Yvette H., now 38, admits that she used cocaine (along with heroin and alcohol) while she was pregnant with each girl. “A drug addict,” she now says ruefully, “isn’t really concerned about the baby she’s carrying.”

When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely damaged children. Newspapers carried headlines like “Cocaine: A Vicious Assault on a Child,” “Crack’s Toll Among Babies: A Joyless View” and “Studies: Future Bleak for Crack Babies.”

But now researchers are systematically following children who were exposed to cocaine before birth, and their findings suggest that the encouraging stories of Ms. H.’s daughters are anything but unusual. So far, these scientists say, the long-term effects of such exposure on children’s brain development and behavior appear relatively small.

“Are there differences? Yes,” said Barry M. Lester, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University who directs the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a large federally financed study of children exposed to cocaine in the womb. “Are they reliable and persistent? Yes. Are they big? No.”

Cocaine is undoubtedly bad for the fetus. But experts say its effects are less severe than those of alcohol and are comparable to those of tobacco — two legal substances that are used much more often by pregnant women, despite health warnings.

Surveys by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2006 and 2007 found that 5.2 percent of pregnant women reported using any illicit drug, compared with 11.6 percent for alcohol and 16.4 percent for tobacco.

“The argument is not that it’s O.K. to use cocaine in pregnancy, any more than it’s O.K. to smoke cigarettes in pregnancy,” said Dr. Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician at Boston University. “Neither drug is good for anybody.”

But cocaine use in pregnancy has been treated as a moral issue rather than a health problem, Dr. Frank said. Pregnant women who use illegal drugs commonly lose custody of their children, and during the 1990s many were prosecuted and jailed.

Cocaine slows fetal growth, and exposed infants tend to be born smaller than unexposed ones, with smaller heads. But as these children grow, brain and body size catch up.

At a scientific conference in November, Dr. Lester presented an analysis of a pool of studies of 14 groups of cocaine-exposed children — 4,419 in all, ranging in age from 4 to 13. The analysis failed to show a statistically significant effect on I.Q. or language development. In the largest of the studies, I.Q. scores of exposed children averaged about 4 points lower at age 7 than those of unexposed children.

In tests that measure specific brain functions, there is evidence that cocaine-exposed children are more likely than others to have difficulty with tasks that require visual attention and “executive function” — the brain’s ability to set priorities and pay selective attention, enabling the child to focus on the task at hand.

Cocaine exposure may also increase the frequency of defiant behavior and poor conduct, according to Dr. Lester’s analysis. There is also some evidence that boys may be more vulnerable than girls to behavior problems.

But experts say these findings are quite subtle and hard to generalize. “Just because it is statistically significant doesn’t mean that it is a huge public health impact,” said Dr. Harolyn M. Belcher, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician who is director of research at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Family Center in Baltimore.

And Michael Lewis, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., said that in a doctor’s office or a classroom, “you cannot tell” which children were exposed to cocaine before birth.

He added that factors like poor parenting, poverty and stresses like exposure to violence were far more likely to damage a child’s intellectual and emotional development — and by the same token, growing up in a stable household, with parents who do not abuse alcohol or drugs, can do much to ease any harmful effects of prenatal drug exposure.

Possession of crack cocaine, the form of the drug that was widely sold in inner-city, predominantly black neighborhoods, has long been punished with tougher sentences than possession of powdered cocaine, although both forms are identically metabolized by the body and have the same pharmacological effects.

Dr. Frank, the pediatrician in Boston, says cocaine-exposed children are often teased or stigmatized if others are aware of their exposure. If they develop physical symptoms or behavioral problems, doctors or teachers are sometimes too quick to blame the drug exposure and miss the real cause, like illness or abuse.

“Society’s expectations of the children,” she said, “and reaction to the mothers are completely guided not by the toxicity, but by the social meaning” of the drug.

Research on the health effects of illegal drugs, especially on unborn children, is politically loaded. Researchers studying children exposed to cocaine say they struggle to interpret their findings for the public without exaggerating their significance — or minimizing it, either.

Dr. Lester, the leader of the Maternal Lifestyle Study, noted that the evidence for behavioral problems strengthened as the children in his study and others approached adolescence. Researchers in the study are collecting data on 14-year-olds, he said, adding: “Absolutely, we need to continue to follow these kids. For the M.L.S., the main thing we’re interested in is whether or not prenatal cocaine exposure predisposes you to early-onset drug use in adolescence” or other mental health problems.

Researchers have long theorized that prenatal exposure to a drug may make it more likely that the child will go on to use it. But so far, such a link has been scientifically reported only in the case of tobacco exposure.

Teasing out the effects of cocaine exposure is complicated by the fact that like Yvette H., almost all of the women in the studies who used cocaine while pregnant were also using other substances.

Moreover, most of the children in the studies are poor, and many have other risk factors known to affect cognitive development and behavior — inadequate health care, substandard schools, unstable family situations and exposure to high levels of lead. Dr. Lester said his group’s study was large enough to take such factors into account.

Ms. H., who agreed to be interviewed only on the condition that her last name and her children’s first names not be used, said she entered a drug and alcohol treatment program about six years ago, after losing custody of her children.

Another daughter, born after Ms. H. recovered from drug and alcohol abuse, is thriving now at 3. Her oldest, a 17-year-old boy, is the only one with developmental problems: he is autistic. But Ms. H. said she did not use cocaine, alcohol or other substances while pregnant with him.

After 15 months without using drugs or alcohol, Ms. H. regained custody and moved into Dayspring House, a residential program in Baltimore for women recovering from drug abuse, and their children.

There she received psychological counseling, parenting classes, job training and coaching on how to manage her finances. Her youngest attended Head Start, the older children went to local schools and were assigned household chores, and the family learned how to talk about their problems.

Now Ms. H. works at a local grocery, has paid off her debts, has her own house and is actively involved in her children’s schooling and health care. She said regaining her children’s trust took a long time. “It’s something you have to constantly keep working on,” she said.

Dr. Belcher, who is president of Dayspring’s board of directors, said such programs offered evidence-based interventions for the children of drug abusers that can help minimize the chances of harm from past exposure to cocaine or other drugs.

“I think we can say this is an at-risk group,” Dr. Belcher said. “But they have great potential to do well if we can mobilize resources around the family.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html?_r=1&hp

Posted by lois at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

Strapped states eye prison savings---including double celling and sending prisoners out of state

Monday, January 26, 2009
Strapped states eye prison savings
By John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer

State of the States 2009

Faced with a surging prison population and a state budget more than $1 billion in the red, Gov. Steve Beshear and Kentucky lawmakers last year took a dramatic step that they hoped would save $30 million over two years: granting early release to more than 1,800 inmates, including some felons convicted of murder, rape and other violent crimes.

Kentucky’s prisoner release plan, which touched off a political firestorm and prompted a court challenge from the state’s attorney general — like Beshear, a Democrat — is an example of the difficult criminal justice decisions some states could face this year.

From California to Connecticut, states are under mounting pressure to bring corrections spending in line with the reality of gaping budget shortfalls.

Lawmakers in some states are slashing prisoner rehabilitation programs, releasing inmates early or packing them more tightly into crowded facilities to save money. Others are using technology, such as satellite tracking, to monitor sex offenders, drunken drivers and other criminals instead of keeping them behind bars. To avoid building new prisons, many states ship inmates to private facilities that often are thousands of miles away.

Other states are exploring long-term strategies aimed at preventing recidivism, a leading factor behind overcrowded prisons and jails — and rising costs. At any given time, more than 2.3 million people are locked up in federal, state and local facilities in the United States, and more than half of those released from prison are back behind bars within three years, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“We’re at a crossroads. I think there is an acknowledgment that if we continue the status quo, we’re going to continue to have a prison population that increases to untenable levels,” said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst with The Sentencing Project, which lobbies for changes in sentencing laws as a way to reduce incarceration rates.

For the first time, one in every 100 adults in the United States is behind bars, according to a February 2008 report by the Public Safety Performance Project (which, like Stateline.org, is part of the Pew Center on the States). The booming prison population cost states nearly $50 billion in 2007, but the high incarceration rate has had no discernable effect “either on recidivism or overall crime,” the report said.

Nationally, corrections trails only health care, education and transportation in consuming state dollars. Prison spending increased 127 percent from 1987 to 2007, and at least five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont — now spend as much or more on corrections as they do on higher education, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers and the Public Safety Performance Project.

The statistics are alarming state lawmakers in all regions of the country and, increasingly, on both sides of the political aisle. Criminal justice reform — for years a controversial issue for legislators wary of being labeled “soft on crime” — is finding new proponents as public officials seek ways to save money. But a single strategy to tackle incarceration costs has yet to emerge, and some critics say state policymakers are dragging their feet and avoiding comprehensive changes that have become necessary.

King and other advocates of sentencing reform say the nation’s incarceration rate will continue to rise unless criminal penalties are reduced, even for felons serving 20 years or more. They support curtailing or eliminating mandatory-minimum sentences and want to change other policies, such as “truth in sentencing,” that restrict parole opportunities for many offenders.

“That’s a difficult conversation, but it’s one that — if we really want to address the growth of the prison population — we need to have,” King said. He singled out California, home to a prison system so strained it faces a federal takeover, as a state where sentencing reforms are urgent. “We’re talking about huge, huge issues, and they’re all the way back at the starting line, quibbling about the rules of the race,” he said.

Releasing prisoners early — which remains a politically explosive way to cut costs in some cases — has emerged as a common strategy, debated or approved in at least eight states last year. Some, such as Alabama and North Carolina, agreed to release elderly or terminally ill inmates who cost taxpayers millions for health care while behind bars; at least 34 other states also allow so-called compassionate releases of prisoners who pose little threat to society.

But Kentucky and other states have considered much more aggressive plans that apply to the general inmate population: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), for example, sought to free more than 22,000 offenders, including thieves and drunken drivers, from California’s severely crowded prison system. But state lawmakers rebuffed his plan as too risky.

Crimes committed by released prisoners can spark public outrage and re-evaluation of corrections policy. In Pennsylvania, a man granted parole by the state last August fatally shot a Philadelphia police officer a month later, prompting Gov. Ed Rendell (D) to temporarily halt the parole process to conduct a “top-to-bottom review.” In December, the review concluded the prisoner was properly released but recommended a series of improvements to the parole system.

Kentucky’s prisoner release program also drew criticism when a newspaper reported that at least 14 percent of those released were accused of committing new crimes within months, even though recidivism rates nationwide typically are much higher.

Other states are trying different approaches to save money. In cash-strapped Massachusetts, where state prisons are operating at nearly 50 percent above capacity, the state corrections chief last year proposed double-bunking inmates at a maximum-security facility and called for legislation to ease mandatory-minimum sentences, which he said were partly to blame for overcrowding. Elsewhere, budget cuts have targeted rehabilitation programs. A budget crisis in New York forced cuts to substance-abuse programs for ex-offenders in New York City. Nevada scaled back education for inmates at some facilities.

Drug courts — which exist in all 50 states and permit drug users to avoid jail time if they meet rigorous sobriety and other conditions set by a judge — also could be a target for funding reductions, despite evidence that they are successful. More than 70 percent of those who participate in drug courts avoid incarceration, said C. West Huddleston III, executive director of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

But Huddleston said he expects less funding because of states’ budget problems.

“My experience in the last decade of working in policy is that, pretty much 100 percent of the time, drug dependent offenders are at the end of the line when it comes to funding priorities,” he said. “It is my fear that in these lean times … legislatures [might] see drug court as just an extra expense on the books that they can cut to save money.”

Not all states are relying solely on cutbacks. A politically and geographically diverse group of states, including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, last year launched new efforts to help offenders during and after their time in the criminal justice system.

In Arizona, the Republican Legislature teamed up with Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, a former prosecutor who was tapped for President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, to approve a program that rewards counties whose recidivism rate is significantly reduced. Kansas approved a similar program two years ago. Arizona’s program includes incentives for people on probation; they can reduce their sentences by 20 days for each month they comply with court-ordered conditions of their probation, such as making child-support payments and undergoing therapy.

Barbara Broderick, chief probation officer in Maricopa County, Ariz., said earned time credits for probationers provide a carrot-and-stick approach that previously focused only on sending delinquent offenders to jail or prison.

“What I didn’t have,” she told Stateline.org, “is the option to say, ‘Work with me. Lead a law-abiding life. Do the things the court has ordered.’”

In Pennsylvania, Rendell and the politically divided Legislature worked together last year to enact a reform package that, among other things, expands rehabilitation opportunities for inmates and offers earned-time credits. It also shifts offenders from crowded local jails to more secure state facilities.

Plans to address recidivism such as those in Arizona and Pennsylvania have enjoyed bipartisan support in part because they do not reduce criminal sentences and can pay off in smaller prison populations. But experts still point out that the recent emphasis on helping ex-prisoners become productive members of society contrasts sharply with the “tough-on-crime” policies that became popular during the 1970s and 1980s, when rampant use of crack cocaine fueled an increase in crime.

Even in the fiercely partisan hallways of Washington, D.C., so-called re-entry programs have attracted support. Congress last year passed the Second Chance Act, which authorizes millions of dollars in grants to state and local governments to help rehabilitate former offenders. President George W. Bush signed the act into law in April, though it was not immediately funded.

“After 20 years of going down the ‘tough-on-crime’ road and seeing what it has wrought, we now know better,” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va), a backer of the Second Chance Act, told a group of criminal justice professionals in a speech at George Washington University.

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both supported the Second Chance Act as members of the U.S. Senate, and there are strong expectations that the administration will fund the act.

Graphs at this URL:
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=365279

Posted by lois at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2009

Organizations Press Congress to Adopt More Comprehensive Approach to Public Safety in Recovery Bill $4 Billion to Byrne and COPS programs will do little to strengthen communities, make us safer, or improve economy

Please feel free to circulate the letter pasted below to other organizations and to congressperson.
Lois
=========================

Organizations Press Congress to Adopt More Comprehensive Approach to Public Safety in Recovery Bill
$4 Billion to Byrne and COPS programs will do little to strengthen communities, make us safer, or improve economy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 26, 2009

Washington, DC--Leading national organizations concerned with criminal justice, health and civil liberties today urged Congress to support a comprehensive and targeted approach to improving public safety instead of focusing funds on state and local law enforcement. Their action was in response to $4 billion in earmarks for law enforcement grants included in the economic stimulus package now being considered by the House.

Although applauding policymakers for understanding that improving public safety and justice systems are important to economic recovery, the 15 organizations, which included the Justice Policy Institute, the American Psychological Association and the American Civil Liberties Union (full list of organizations is below) warned that a "stimulus" directed at law enforcement is misguided and could be counterproductive by increasing costly arrests and imprisonment for lower-level offenses. The groups called for the allocation of the $4 billion to more comprehensive approaches that will improve public safety and will decrease spending on jails, prisons, and law enforcement. The groups mentioned education, job training, treatment and other programs proven to strengthen both economies and communities.

"Economic security is a crucial element of an effective public safety strategy, but this funding will stimulate neither Main Street nor safe streets," said Tracy Velázquez, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), a research organization that studies alternatives to incarceration. "Instead of placing our limited resources in the most expensive, deep end of the system- police and prisons-it's time we move more funding upstream, to the kinds of jobs and programs that are proven to promote safety and support communities."

In the current House draft of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $3 billion in funding is earmarked for state and local law enforcement assistance through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (Byrne Grants), and an additional $1 billion is set aside for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) programs. The Byrne Grant program has suffered from scandals associated with overzealous anti-drug task forces, and a lack of accountability that has led critics to call the program "a big pile of pork" (www.reason.com).

Funding for Byrne grants was slashed under the Bush administration, which found in the fiscal year 2007 budget that the grants were "not able to demonstrate an impact on reducing crime," and that "the program's lack of long-term goals and measures inhibited targeting of resources to address real crime needs" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget_fy2007_justice/). The COPS program, which is designed to support the expansion of law enforcement and has the potential to add 13,000 new officers to communities, was also cut due to lack of demonstrated performance.

The bill comes at a time when violent crime in the U.S. continues to drop, and states and municipalities struggle to pay for already bloated prisons and jails while facing budget cuts for critical programs that have been shown to preserve public safety and reduce incarceration. In their letter to Congress, the groups argue that rather than focusing federal stimulus funds on law enforcement, lawmakers should help states invest in programs that reduce the number of people behind bars and that help people re-entering the community from prison. They also believe that Congress should invest in programs and policies that have long-lasting effects. Education and job promotion in America's poorest communities is one of the most effective public safety strategies. Velázquez said that while states have the option to use Byrne funds for prevention, re-entry and intervention, the federal government should directly fund such programs in an intentional fashion that creates more accountability.

"A $4 billion mistake now will be magnified in the future; jails and prisons will continue to grow at the expense of states and counties, which will be forced to find funds to imprison people by cutting critical community services," said Velázquez. "Let's seize this opportunity to move in the right direction by investing in a more positive future."

###

January 26, 2009

Dear Member of Congress:

On January 15th, the House Appropriations Committee released the draft of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In this draft, $3 billion in funding was earmarked for State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, and an additional $1 billion is set aside for hiring law enforcement officers under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The undersigned organizations applaud the Appropriations Committee for recognizing that economic stimulus can be achieved through improving public safety and justice systems. However, we believe that focusing solely on law enforcement is misguided and could be counterproductive in terms of improving the state and national economy; we urge the reallocation of this $4 billion to a broader, more comprehensive set of services and programs that not only will improve economies, but improve public safety and decrease spending on jails, prisons and law enforcement. Below are some key points for you to consider when making your spending decisions:

Byrne Grants and COPS programs have not been shown to have a significant positive impact on public safety. According to the United States Government Accountability Office, "Factors other than COPS funds accounted for the majority of the decline in crime during this period [the 1990s]. For example, between 1993 and 2000, the overall crime rate declined by 26 percent... [with] 1.3 percent decline due to COPS."[1] Other studies of the impact of the grants on crime have been inconclusive. Congress should focus on funding what works, not just what might be popular with local officials.
There has been no significant increase in crime that would support beefing up law enforcement. In fact, violent crime in the U.S. continues to drop: The most recent FBI Crime reports show a 3.5 percent drop in violent crime during the first half of 2008. It is unclear why, with resources so scarce right now, Congress would invest in more police when there is not a clearly demonstrated need.

These programs have often resulted in increased arrests and incarceration of nonviolent drug users. In particular, the program funds hundreds of regional anti-drug task forces across the country. While reducing drug production and violence related to drug trafficking are important law enforcement activities, too often those who are caught up by these task forces are individuals who should be in treatment, not jail. The U.S. prison population tripled from 1985 to 2005;[2] with the average cost of a prison bed over $30,000 per year, these federal programs can actually end up costing states money without increasing public safety.
Improving re-entry services can increase public safety and help people contribute to the economic recovery. Many states and municipalities are contemplating cuts to services that help people re-entering the community from prison or jail. The inability of formerly incarcerated people to successfully transition back to the community leads to unacceptably high rates of recidivism. Rather than focusing solely on federal grants to law enforcement, Congress should help states invest in re-entry programs such as mentoring, job training, housing, and substance abuse and mental health services.

Congress should invest in programs and policies that have positive and long-lasting effects on communities. Education and job creation in America's poorest communities is one of the most effective public safety strategies. Only 46 percent of incarcerated individuals have a high school diploma or its equivalent, as compared to 82 percent of men aged 18 to 34. [3] Other evidence-based programs include community-based substance abuse and mental health treatment; and prevention programs for youth. Putting resources toward these positive opportunities is the most effective way of increasing public safety, while also creating jobs by investing in communities.

Fund diversion programs. If Congress wants to support public safety and law enforcement, they should provide funding for Crisis Intervention Training for officers; this can help reduce the arrest and incarceration of people whose "crime" was having a mental illness. And treatment diversion programs can be a cost effective way to safely keep people out of prison and jail and in the treatment they need.

Investments in community-building social institutions like education and employment have not only been shown to improve public safety, but such investments broadly meet with law enforcement approval. In a 2002 poll, 71.1 percent of surveyed chiefs of police, sheriffs and prosecutors agreed that providing more educational and after-school programs would make the greatest impact in reducing youth crime and violence.[4] Only 14.9 percent said that hiring more police would have the greatest impact.

Finally, we would like to also note that past Byrnes and COPS grants have had the unintended consequence of perpetuating racial disparities and civil rights abuses. This is especially true of the regional anti-drug task forces, which have very little state or federal oversight and therefore are prone to mismanagement and, in some cases, corruption.

The undersigned organizations urge you to reconsider using the economic stimulus money to fund Byrne and COPS grants, and implore you to instead use these scarce funds to invest in a comprehensive approach to improving public safety that will enrich communities and improve the economic well-being of all Americans. Thank you.

American Civil Liberties Union
Washington, DC

American Humane Association
Alexandria, VA

American Psychological Association
Washington, DC

Center for Children's Law and Policy
Washington, DC

Drug Policy Alliance
Washington, DC

Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative
Washington, DC

Justice Policy Institute
Washington, DC

Open Society Policy Center
Washington, DC

National Black Police Association
Washington, DC

National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Oakland, CA

The Rebecca Project for Human Rights
Washington, DC

The Sentencing Project
Washington, DC

Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Washington, DC

United Methodist Church
Washington, DC

Youth Represent
New York, NY

[1] United States Government Accountability Office. (October 2005). COPS Grants Were a Modest Contributor to Declines in Crime in the 1990s. www.gao.gov/highlights/d06104high.pdf
[2] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Corrections Populations at a Glance, http://ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/corr2tab.htm; National Association of State Budget Officers, State Expenditure Reports, www.nasbo.org
[3]C. W. Harlow, Education and Correctional Population, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: 2003), NCJ 195670; US Census Bureau, "Educational Attainment in the United States: March 2002, Detailed Tables (PPL-169)," Table 1a. Available online at census.gov/population/socdemo/education/ppl-169/tab01a.pdf.
[4] National Law Enforcement Leadership Survey, Fight Crime-Invest in Kids, August 2002, www.fightcrime.org/reports/nationalkidspoll2002.pdf

Posted by lois at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

Isn't the Free Labor of Prisoners Wonderful? Towns Are Sad to See Their Prisons Leaving the Scene of the Grime Hard Times Cut Into Free Labor by Convicts Who Mop Town Hall, Rip Out Beaver Dams

Towns Are Sad to See Their Prisons Leaving the Scene of the Grime
Hard Times Cut Into Free Labor by Convicts Who Mop Town Hall, Rip Out Beaver Dams

By JENNIFER LEVITZ
Wall Street Journal
January 26, 20009

CHARLESTON, Maine -- One morning recently at the town hall here, Selectwoman Terri-Lynn Hall set out some fresh coffee, crackers and dip for the cleaning crew. "I also make 'em turkeys, bake 'em hams, and serve spaghetti," she said -- "with homemade sauce."

One of the crew, Rex Call, put down his mop and helped himself to a piping hot mug of joe. "I'd rather be working here than sitting in the cell all day," said Mr. Call, who -- when he's not out on work-release -- is serving two years in state prison for car theft.

Although many people fight fiercely to block prisons from coming to town, Charleston and other communities are feeling an opposite impulse these days. They are fighting to keep their prisons from going away.

Many states, including Maine, Ohio, Washington and New York, want to close or consolidate prisons to save money. Here in Maine, Gov. John Baldacci wants to mothball part of Charleston Correctional Facility and relocate nearly 40% of the inmates, which would cut work-release crews.

But this farming town of 1,500 wants its criminal element to stick around. Town leaders say they don't know what they will do without the free or ultra-cheap labor the jailbirds provide. "Oh my goodness, gracious, they are such an asset -- they are our public-works department," said Ms. Hall.

Last year, Charleston's prisoners did 39,337 hours of community work, prison officials say, roughly the equivalent of 19 full-timers. Inmates maintain the five local cemeteries, set up election booths and hang Veteran's Day flags. They built the log-cabin "snack shack" at a local park, and helped bust up beaver dams in a stream that runs along Bacon Road.

When a minimum-security prison was built in downtown Wooster, Ohio, a decade ago, "we took a lot of heat" from people who didn't want it, says Capt. Charlie Hardman of the sheriff's department there. But now that budget cuts could close the facility, he says, "People are concerned. Who is going to pick up the litter?"

Originally, Sandra Hull was antiprison. She heads Main Street Wooster, a downtown-revitalization group -- and a building full of criminals wasn't her idea of an improvement. "I didn't really want them there," she says.
'Wonderful Neighbors'

Today, she wants them to stay. They turned out to be "wonderful neighbors," Ms. Hull says. Among other things, prisoners shovel snow in front of local shops.

Closure is also being fought by city officials and the local Habitat for Humanity. Habitat's truck driver, Jesse Smith, has a bad back, so he uses convicts to help him lug around fridges and other heavy items. Sometimes, he says, the inmates gripe about prison life. "I tell these boys, 'Don't get an attitude, you're the one who done it,' " Mr. Smith says.

County Commissioner Jim Carmichael says closure is being considered because the prison isn't profitable, and it's not fair for cities and towns to get "free labor at a cost to the county."

In the small city of Medical Lake in eastern Washington, Mayor John Higgins pleaded with his state representative to help keep the nearby Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women from shuttering. The state is thinking about closing the 350-inmate prison by 2010.

"We use the inmates to run our recycling center -- four women five days a week, seven hours a day," saving the city at least $150,000 a year in labor costs, says Doug Ross, the city administrator. "I don't exactly know how we're going to run it without the crew." Female felons from Pine Lodge also split and stack wood for senior citizens.

Emily Echols, who is 35 and serving time for burglary, shovels snow at a center for disabled adults and doesn't want to leave Medical Lake. "I'm not too happy," she says. "I feel like I'm part of this little community," referring to the town. In addition, moving means "more upheaval and trying to start over again in another prison."

Inmates typically get little or no pay for their work, but they can earn reduced sentences. Depending on their job, they can also learn a trade, such as construction work or forklift-driving, "rather than just sitting and rotting in a jail," said Jim Zecca, director of solid waste for Madison County, N.Y. His county is home to a minimum-security state prison that Gov. David Paterson is looking at shuttering to help close a $15.4 billion budget gap.

Mr. Zecca said inmates generate $200,000 in annual revenue for the county by rummaging through its landfill for copper and other valuable scrap. "I just hate to see it go," said Mr. Zecca of the prison.

There's a long history of putting prisoners to work. Inmates make license places in Colorado, mattresses in Louisiana and orange safety vests for highway crews in North Carolina. Typically, only prisoners from minimum-security facilities qualify for jobs outside prison walls.

In most instances, work-release inmates are nonviolent offenders who are already near the end of their sentences, giving them very little incentive to stray from the rules. Typically, work crews are supervised by at least one prison official.

Occasionally there is trouble. After all, "You are dealing with an inmate population," Mr. Zecca says. Once, inmates clearing brush at a local park wandered away, but were eventually found because they got lost in the woods.

At Charleston's prison, escape attempts in general are rare, officials say, partly because of the nearby wilderness. "If you escape, it's almost like walking into 'Deliverance' out there," says prison supervisor George Peterson, referring to the movie in which four friends get stalked in the woods by a toothless mountain man.

Once, Mr. Peterson says, an inmate fled and hid in a swamp, but was munched on by so many insects that when the guards found him, he was "screaming to go back to prison." Mr. Peterson also says work-release inmates sometimes manage to persuade people in town to toss beers over the prison fence.
Earning Their Stripes

Andrew Sargent

Some inmates use work-release to try to right previous wrongs. Andrew Sargent, 25 years old, landed in the clink in 2006 after breaking into a convenience store in Dexter, near Charleston. When Dexter's tiny police department needed its station repainted, Chief Art Roy called for a prison work crew -- but specified that he didn't want to see Mr. Sargent on it, because he had caused trouble in town.

Determined to show he'd changed, Mr. Sargent wrote the chief a letter apologizing for his convenience-store break-in, which involved the theft of cigarettes.

"He had a new attitude," says Chief Roy.

Mr. Sargent ended up being such a good worker that the chief says he now plans to give him a job reference when Mr. Sargent goes free this month.
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292972043314021.html

Posted by lois at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2009

Pahrump NV: Opponents raise their voices

"The PUC "isn't four or five stiffs that live in Pahrump or Tonopah," he said. Smith said each inmate needs 150 gallons of water per day. He appealed to fears over the sinking water table adding, "CCA is going to be sucking that with the biggest straw you've ever seen ... They've come here and sold this proposal to a county commission that doesn't know any better, that should know better."

Jan. 23, 2009
Opponents raise their voices

By MARK WAITE
PVT (Pahrump Valley Times)

Whether the controversy over the proposed federal detention center will bring national publicity to Pahrump remains to be seen.

A film crew from Dan Rather Reports, a program aired on HD Net, a subscriber network available on high-definition TV, was on hand to tape about 80 opponents of the Corrections Corporation of America project crammed into a strategy meeting in a back room at the Pahrump Community Library last Thursday night.

Cameraman Derek Reich is from Park City, Utah. Reporter Kim Balin is based in New York.

Balin said she didn't want to be quoted but said for publication they were researching how prisons affect towns on a national level.

There is no guarantee the excerpt will be aired on Dan Rather's show, she said.

Opponents of the proposed 1,500-bed facility for inmates awaiting trial in federal court or deportation, however, made their presence visible during a hearing in federal court Wednesday and plan to bring the fight to state district court and hearings before the Public Utilities Commission on water and sewer service.

"We're going to continue to fight this thing. We're going to fight it in state court. We're going to fight it in the Public Utilities Commission. It isn't a done deal. Don't get discouraged," Jeff Wiest told the crowd at the library.

Field organizer Frank Smith, from the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes the privatization of prisons, said Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada has yet to receive permission to annex the site into their service area.

Smith urged the crowd to "raise holy heck" at PUC meetings. He suggested they find out the addresses of PUC members and write letters to newspapers in their home towns.

The PUC "isn't four or five stiffs that live in Pahrump or Tonopah," he said. Smith said each inmate needs 150 gallons of water per day. He appealed to fears over the sinking water table adding, "CCA is going to be sucking that with the biggest straw you've ever seen ... They've come here and sold this proposal to a county commission that doesn't know any better, that should know better.

"They came to a little town like Pahrump and they said, 'We're going to bring development to you, we're going to bring jobs to you, money will rain from the sky.'"

Smith said the plans were originally for a facility with 350 beds, then 500 beds, then 1,072 beds, now 1,500 beds. He claimed CCA actually wants to house 3,000 prisoners here.

Smith also claimed there aren't enough federal prisoners from Nevada to fill the detention center. He added, the purpose of the facility will change from just housing federal inmates.

Smith exhorted the crowd with an impassioned speech. "They are going to fill this up with gangbangers from California because California has three people to a cell. They have them sleeping in gymnasiums. They don't know what to do with them all and CCA is looking at that market. This federal detention center is just BS. It's a pretense. It's a charade, and if the county commissioners didn't know that, they deserve to be recalled for stupidity if nothing else."

Smith repeated accusations CCA will buy their products nationally, not from local vendors.

When CCA Marketing Manager Louise Grant told Storey County Commissioners in Virginia City last week there were only a few residents in Pahrump opposed to their project, Smith jokingly remarked she was using "new math." Smith said 1,500 people signed a petition against the project in Pahrump.

Smith charged Pahrump residents were kept in the dark about the project until CCA "had all their ducks in a row" with county commissioners, the planning department and others in approval.

In fact, discussions with CCA were outlined in some detail in the PVT.

Hector Velarde, one of four residents who showed up to protest the rezoning of the East Mesquite Avenue property in front of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission in July 2007, said he was one of only two people who received notice of the proposed zone change.

Attorney Nancy Lord said she needs donations to pay her legal aide and other expenses.
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2009/Jan-23-Fri-2009/news/26457741.html

Posted by lois at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

The End Of A Prison Offers New Hope To Camden Area

Jan 24, 2009
The End Of A Prison Offers New Hope To Camden Area
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) ―

On the south side of the bridge, there's a spiffy red brick minor-league baseball stadium where families go for a good time; on the north side, chain link fences topped by razor wire surround a cluster of grimly functional buildings—Riverfront State Prison, where convicts go to serve time.

After years of requests, the state is preparing to close the prison. Activists see that as not only an opportunity to redevelop a 17-acre tract of prime riverfront land with its view of the Philadelphia skyline, but as the catalyst for the rebirth of the original neighborhood in a city that consistently ranks as one of the nation's poorest and most crime-ridden.

"The prison needs to be out of there for anything to happen on this waterfront," said Rodney Sadler, a marina owner, community activist, president of the advocacy group Save Our Waterfront and chairman of Camden's planning board.

The state Corrections Department said earlier this month that it would shutter the prison by midyear and has already moved some inmates to other prisons around the state. The prison can hold about 1,000 inmates, but fewer than 800 remain. Corrections officials say employees will be transferred to other facilities.

There is no certain plan for what will happen to the prison property, although Rutgers University, whose Camden campus occupies nearby land on the south side of the bridge, is interested in using some of it.

The prison was never a popular addition to the waterfront. In the early 1980s, the city was in the midst of a long decline and hurting for revenue, and then-mayor Randy Primas took a deal from the state: $3.4 million for the land. The prison was opened in 1985.

Primas tried to persuade residents that it would provide jobs, too. From current Mayor Gwendolyn Faison to neighborhood activists, almost no one in the city believes it brought much lasting benefit.

Within a few years, the waterfront south of the bridge began to change. RCA and Campbell Soup Co. closed their last factories there and an aquarium opened. It was the first of several attractions, including the baseball park and an amphitheater, which have turned the area into an entertainment destination for suburbanites. Luxury apartments and an upscale tavern followed. All that has made the prison seem increasingly out of place.

Despite the activity on the south waterfront, the city has continued its long decline. Things got so bad that in 2002 that the state took over some functions of the city government and ponied up $175 million designed to jump-start redevelopment.

Save Our Waterfront was formed in the early 1990s to turn back a state proposal to build a second prison in the North Camden neighborhood. That time, the activists prevailed.

Since then, the group has focused on rebuilding the entire neighborhood, which has nearly 9,000 residents, including growing populations from the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Central America. Like other areas of the city, it is made up mostly of row houses and there are areas known for drug dealing.

Save Our Waterfront worked with planners and consultants to come up with an overall plan for the area's future, which was approved by the city last year.

The concept calls for putting up 880 units of housing in the interior residential areas to replace dilapidated homes and vacant lots, a park along the riverfront and businesses and housing in the areas between the park and the residential areas.

So far, the only part of the redevelopment plan that has moved ahead is infill housing. And so far, it has been only subsidized homes put up by nonprofit agencies.

One idea for the prison property was high-rise condominiums; another would include a boardwalk and splash pool. The most tangible idea to emerge so far, though, is Rutgers' plan to put up a parking deck, police station and lacrosse field on some of the land.

Although the area is only a stone's throw from the campus, an expansion there would be significant. Historically, students have heard that they'll be safe as long as they don't venture into the neighborhood north of the bridge. Frank Fulbrook, an activist who lives just south of the bridge, said he tells students not to park in North Camden, because it's more likely their cars will be broken into there.

Rutgers-Camden spokesman Mike Sepanic said that if the university built north of the bridge, its police force would patrol not only its property, but parts of the surrounding neighborhood. Rutgers has not secured money to build the facilities, however.

In Camden, grand plans for neighborhoods are common. Seeing them realized is rare.

Some of the boldest—including a developer's proposal in 2002 to remake the Cramer Hill section—have been unceremoniously withdrawn after litigation and neighborhood opposition.

The North Camden plan has had more community involvement than most. More than 200 residents participated in eight major meetings, and the nonprofit agencies in the neighborhood are on board. "We're talking about positives instead of, 'We're going to come up with a redevelopment plan and take what you have and give it to others,"' said Sadler of Save Our Waterfront.

Sadler hopes the heavy community involvement and a pledge not to displace any current residents will make it possible for this plan to come true.

The demise of the prison, he says, gives it the first nudge.

Now, he said, he can start courting developers in earnest.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/prison.camden.area.2.916811.html

Posted by lois at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)

Guantánamo Detainees? Not in My State

Guantánamo Detainees? Not in My State
Fifty to 100 of the remaining detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, may face federal trials.
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 23, 2009

WASHINGTON — Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you?

One day after President Obama ordered that the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered, lawmakers in Washington wrestled with the implications of bringing dozens of the 245 remaining inmates onto American soil.

Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama’s plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantánamo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States. If the detainees were convicted, the Republicans continued, American prisons housing terrorism suspects could become magnets for attacks.

Meanwhile, none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners.

Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, taunted the chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, by suggesting that the authorities reopen Alcatraz Prison in the San Francisco Bay.

On Friday, a spokesman for Mrs. Feinstein countered that Alcatraz now was a “national park and tourist attraction, not a functioning prison,” and that the senator “does not consider it a suitable place to house detainees.”

But Mrs. Feinstein does believe that some Guantánamo prisoners could be moved to maximum-security civilian or military prisons in the United States, the spokesman said, not naming any specific ones.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in response to a question on Friday that Guantánamo detainees who were moved to the United States “should be held at maximum-security federal facilities wherever they are available.” Like other Democrats queried Friday, Mr. Levin did not specifically address the question of prisoners moving to his state.

One of the first Democrats in Congress to address the not-in-my-backyard issue directly was Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, who told reporters this week that terrorism suspects would be no more dangerous in a secure Pennsylvania prison than they were in Cuba.

“There are thousands of dangerous prisoners being held securely behind bars in supermax prisons across the United States,” Mr. Murtha said Friday. He noted, however, that there was no supermax facility in his district.

The number of detainees who may face federal trials — by various estimates, 50 to 100 of the remaining Guantánamo inmates — is tiny by the standards of the federal prison system, which currently holds 201,375 people in 114 facilities, according to Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Those include 9 detention centers that hold defendants awaiting trial, 21 high-security penitentiaries and a supersecure prison in Florence, Colo., where several convicted terrorists are already locked up.

Obama administration officials are beginning to review the files on the remaining detainees at Guantánamo to decide where they should go. Some have been judged not dangerous and cleared for release, but officials have not found a country to take them. Others, including Mr. Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, will almost certainly face trial, either in a federal or a military court.

But incoming administration officials admit that every option is imperfect. “There aren’t pretty choices for what we have to do with them,” Dennis C. Blair, the nominee for director of national intelligence, told senators on Thursday.

Republican lawmakers have watched these struggles with a certain relish.

Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said, “As people start getting an indication that they’re going to Kansas, that they’re going to California, that they’re going to Illinois or to Michigan, people are going to say, ‘No, why would we want them here and put them in a general prison population and make our hometowns a target for terrorists?’ ”

Despite speculation about the possibility of moving large numbers of detainees to a single military jail, like those in Leavenworth, Kan., or Charleston, S.C., government officials and legal experts say it is more likely that inmates would be sent to civilian or military facilities across the country. That would reduce the burden on any single location and make each site less of a potential terrorist target.

Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a study of options for closing Guantánamo, said it would be best if detainees facing prosecution were indicted while still at Guantánamo and then moved into federal pretrial facilities in the United States, which routinely house people accused of murder and other dangerous inmates.

“We’ve had extremely dangerous terrorists tried in various courts and put away,” Ms. Mendelson said.

Federal courts have convicted 145 people on terrorism-related charges since 2001, according to one review, while the military commissions at Guantánamo have been plagued with delays and legal setbacks.

“The Obama administration has to have a little more of a conversation with the American people” about the feasibility of prosecuting terrorism suspects in the United States, she said. “There are plenty of Americans who would want to see some of these guys prosecuted and locked up.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 24, 2009, on page A13 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/us/politics/24intel.html?_r=1&hp

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

VA: Delegates weigh prison savings

Delegates weigh prison savings
By Tyler Whitley

Published: January 24, 2009

Sixty percent of the new commitments to Virginia's prison system have a history of substance abuse, the director of the Department of Corrections told the House Appropriations Committee yesterday.

About one-fourth of the new entrants committed drug offenses, Gene M. Johnson added, as he outlined Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's proposals to save money and manage inmate behavior.

Saying some people could be let out early without endangering society if they behave while in prison, Johnson said "we want to lock up people we are afraid of and not ones we're mad at."

Currently, inmates who have served longer than a year can be released 30 days early. Kaine has proposed giving the Department of Corrections the authority to release some nonviolent offenders up to 90 days early at a savings to the state of $5 million a year.

Republican budget writers greeted the proposals skeptically.

"This is a wild-haired idea," said Del. Robert Tata, R-Virginia Beach. Tata said people would be released into a bad economic environment in which they would be unable to get jobs and would go out and commit crimes again.

Del. Beverly J. Sherwood, R-Frederick, said the Kaine plan to release inmates 60 days earlier might "unravel" the truth-in-sentencing program that began with Republican Gov. George Allen in 1995.

The proposal would free up state prison space, so inmates now kept in local jails could be moved to the prison system, Johnson said. He estimated 835 inmates now in state prisons and 364 in jails could qualify for early release.

The Department of Corrections has closed five prisons employing 702 people. Johnson said all but 30 have retired or found jobs elsewhere in the system. Expected layoffs of 300 people will be fewer than 30, he said.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/state_regional_govtpolitics/article/CORR24_20090123-202218/187218/

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

January 23, 2009

MI: Getting smart on crime — and prison time

Getting smart on crime — and prison time
Jeff Gerritt
January 22, 2009

A study by a far more credible source than me — the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments — backs what I’ve been saying the last eight years: We’re locking too many people up. Michigan’s way high incarceration rates are bankrupting the state while failing to make us safer. The Justice Center reports are available here.)

The policies of the Michigan State Parole Board — which denies releases for often inexplicable reasons, even when people are old and sick — have caused much of the problem. The Parole Board has loosened up in the past year, but there are still 12,000 prisoners in Michigan past their earliest release date. Those 12,000 people, together, cost taxpayers $420 million a year.

One of the council’s recommendations — and it’s a good one — is to direct the parole board, through legislation, to release most inmates before they serve more than 120% of their sentences. This is not, as a Freep.com headline indicates, an early release.

These prisoners have served more than the minimum time dictated by their sentences, and they are parole-eligible.

Right now, the average parolee in Michigan has served 127% of his or her sentence. Just reducing time served to 120% would cut the overall prison population by more than 4,300 by 2015. That’s four fewer prisons.

Studies show that length of sentence has little to do with how likely a person is to commit another crime. The parole board now has too much discretion. Legally requiring releases after a certain period would take some of the heat off them.

Money saved with fewer prisons could put more cops on the street and increase intervention work with young men. Males 17-24 now commit 26% of the violent crimes. Intervention programs, like Flip the Script in Detroit, would reduce that number. In other words, spend more money on preventing crime and less after the damage is done.

Other states have made similar changes. They save hundreds of millions of dollars and still report lower crime rates than Michigan. We’ve tried tough on crime. Now let’s get smart on crime.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090122/BLOG2505/90122088/1068/opinion/Getting+smart+on+crime+%E2%80%94+and+prison+time

Posted by lois at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

NAACP to hold voter registration drives at Maine prisons

January 16, 2009 -
NAACP to hold voter registration drives at Maine prisons
Starting this year, the civil rights group will bring more education about voting to prisoners.

By ELBERT AULL
Portland Press Herald

PORTLAND, Maine — The NAACP will hold annual voter registration drives at every prison in Maine under a recently negotiated agreement with the state Department of Corrections.

The agreement sets Aug. 6 - the anniversary of a landmark law that expanded voting rights - as the annual kickoff for a week of registration events at state-run correctional facilities. A little more than a month ago, national NAACP President Benjamin Jealous visited the state to lobby for changes at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

The agreement will expand the civil rights group's efforts to bring more voter education to prisons in Maine, where state law allows every inmate to vote. The organization held drives at three of the six state correctional facilities last year.

''Clearly, it was not enough. This is the kind of piece that needs to have a repetitive, educational component,'' Rachel Talbot Ross, president of the Portland NAACP chapter, said Thursday.

Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord said the agreement will take effect this year.

Lord said the civil rights group will hold an annual drive on Aug. 6 at the state prison and bring the event to the other five state-run facilities over the next week or so.

The events will be held at no cost to the state, she said.

The date is the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed tactics designed to prevent blacks from registering to vote in many southern states.

The NAACP held a voter-education workshop at the state prison in May and registered 200 inmates. Prisoners also met representatives from the state's Democratic, Republican and Green Independent parties during the event.

Organizers considered the workshop a success, but were frustrated that it took so long to arrange.

The Portland NAACP said it spent more than two years trying to persuade prison officials to allow the chapter to hold a voter-education and registration drive there.

Ross said the back-and-forth over the registration drive was one of the reasons she requested a visit from Jealous, who met with prison officials last month. NAACP leaders hope to finalize a broader cooperation agreement with state prison officials next month, Ross said.

Maine and Vermont are the only two states that allow felons to vote while incarcerated.

Inmates in Maine cast absentee ballots in the towns where they lived before prison. The state does not track the number of prisoners who vote, said Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn.

Those who are working to expand inmates' voting rights in other parts of the country say registration events like those sponsored by the NAACP are too often taken for granted by prison officials.

Allowing inmates to vote is only one step to keep them connected with society, said Charles Sullivan, co-founder of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, a Washington, D.C.-based reform organization.

''The second step - the actual voting - is very, very challenging,'' Sullivan said.

Prisoners in Washington, D.C., may vote as long as they are not serving felony sentences, but turnout figures for eligible inmates have historically been low, he said.

''It's hard to get voter education'' in correctional facilities, Sullivan said. ''I think we've got to make this a priority.''

Copyright 2009 Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.
http://www.correctionsone.com/news/1775898-NAACP-to-hold-voter-registration-drives-at-Maine-prisons

Posted by lois at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2009

Michigan can save millions on prison costs, group says

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Detroit News
Michigan can save millions on prison costs, group says
Gary Heinlein and Charlie Cain / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

LANSING --Michigan can save $262 million in five years on prison spending with new policies that include targeted crime fighting and expanded job services for probationers and parolees, a national study group said today. The Council of State Governments also recommends the state reduce its crime lab backlogs and respond to probation violations with "swift, certain and proportional sanctions."

Corrections Director Patricia Caruso said the policy options presented today are "a critical step toward an affordable and effective corrections system that helps us go beyond what we have achieved in cost savings since 2003." Council findings included:

• Violent crime arrests dropped 22 percent between 2000 and 2007, while such crime dropped only 2 percent.

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• 50 percent of people on probation and 50-70 percent of those on parole lack jobs.

• People released from prison have served, on average, 127 percent of their original minimum sentences.

The recommendations come from the council's Justice Center, which is involved in a 2- to 3-year study to help Michigan trim its $2-billion corrections budget.

The recommendations are a first step toward trimming Michigan's $2 billion prison budget.

Michigan runs the nation's sixth-largest prison system at a cost of $5.48 million a day or about $200 a year for each resident. The state also is one of just four that spends more on prisons than on state universities -- $1.19 on prisons for each $1 spent on schools.

There's a growing sense that the prison system, at its current size, no longer is sustainable, given the state's longstanding fiscal problems.

The state's corrections budget is under closer than usual scrutiny as lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer Granholm look for ways to resolve a projected $1.6 billion revenue shortfall in the state budget year that starts Oct. 1.

The Legislature has resisted making any major changes in sentencing and parole policies, expressing worries the result would be more crimes by inmates set free before they were rehabilitated. But the study by the prestigious council could provide justification for significant overhauls in the prison system.

In a two-day special series last April, The Detroit News reported:

• The prison population has grown four-fold in the last quarter-century and now numbers nearly 50,000.

• The $31,325 it costs to house a Michigan inmate for a year could pay three years worth of tuition for a student at a state university.

• Michigan incarcerates inmates at a higher rate than any other Midwest state and estimates are that the state could save $500 million annually if it locked-up criminals at a rate more like its neighboring states.

• Mushrooming prison spending has not stopped the state from ranking 10th among the states in the rate of violent crimes -- the only Midwestern state in the top 10.

• Today's prison population equals the combined populations of Ferndale, Mount Clemens and Harper Woods.

• Because of Michigan's stringent parole practices, about 12,000 inmates who've served their minimum sentences remain locked up.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090122/METRO/901220434/1
409/METRO

Posted by lois at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

NJ: Guard union fights prison closing with scare tactics

"The guards' union should be ashamed for distributing an atrocious flier depicting murderers, rapists and gang members breaking into homes and harming children after the prison closes. Needlessly scaring people isn't the way to save union jobs. Riverfront's inmates are going to be relocated, not released on to the streets of Camden."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinio/20090121_Editorial__Camden.html

Posted on Wed, Jan. 21, 2009
Editorial: Camden
Another step forward
Philadelphia Inquirer

Finally, some good news for Camden. Riverfront State Prison, long a demoralizing presence on the city's waterfront, is to be closed, possibly this summer.

The razor-wire-enclosed compound occupies potential prime real estate just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The medium-security prison opened in 1985, when the struggling city became the dumping ground for facilities other communities did not want, including a sewage plant and garbage incinerator.

With development dreams slowly being realized on the waterfront south of the bridge, planners and North Camden residents have looked at the prison as an ugly obstacle to future growth, a monument to the failure to recognize the property's potential "best use."

Given the recession, this isn't a good time for development. But as the economy improves beyond the year or so it will take to tear down the prison and move its 800 inmates, the site will become attractive.

Already, stakeholders have a credible plan to remake North Camden offered by the grassroots Save Our Waterfront organization, which envisions a mix of residential and retail development for the 17-acre prison site. The plan would rehabilitate North Camden's core neighborhood and reconnect it to the waterfront that surrounds it on three sides.

With that plan in hand, once the economy does pick up, developers will be in position to move quickly, expanding cash-starved Camden's tax base and giving tenants in the new high-rises across the river another reason to pay for a view.

Gov. Corzine has promised to close the prison. Closing the facility now will save the state money when it is struggling to keep up with costs.

Removing the prison is opposed by its corrections officers and by local families of inmates who don't want to see their relatives moved to more distant lockups.

The guards' union should be ashamed for distributing an atrocious flier depicting murderers, rapists and gang members breaking into homes and harming children after the prison closes. Needlessly scaring people isn't the way to save union jobs. Riverfront's inmates are going to be relocated, not released on to the streets of Camden.

The state has been effectively using alternative incarceration programs to reduce prison populations. As a result, Camden's prison can finally be closed. Good riddance.

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

My Shawshank Redemption The prison system is broken. But the Honor Program works. Save it. By Dortell Williams

My Shawshank Redemption
The prison system is broken. But the Honor Program works. Save it.
By Dortell Williams
from the November 10, 2008 edition

Lancaster, Calif. - Next September will mark my 20th year in jail. It is not an anniversary I'm particularly proud of. I was convicted of murder and hopelessly sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

When I arrived at the infamous Pelican Bay Prison, I was shocked right out of my criminal-minded circuit of stupidity. The flow of in-house narcotics profits didn't appeal to me anymore. My drug-dealing days had already brought me to terrestrial hell.

Like the majority of prisoners on the yard, I just wanted to do my time as trouble-free as possible. I simply wanted to build on the better part of me, redeem whatever part of me was possible.

As the cycle of drug abuse, negative peer pressure, and unfettered rebellion roiled around my years of confinement, I began to long for something better. I wanted to be productive, do something better.

That desire to build on the better part of me swelled, but with little comfort and no outlet. With fervent disillusion, I came to see the California Department of Corrections (CDC) as nothing more than an empty shell.

It's a colossal department with two overriding modes of operation: 1) behavior control with a heavy stick as its main prod; and 2) the fostering of survival of fittest, thus encouraging a cut-throat atmosphere of criminal cronyism. In other words, if you don't join a clique, you could be swallowed up as a loner in the predatory food chain.

Scarce are the rewards for positive behavior, especially for lifers. Still, I managed to remain disciplinary free for 14 consecutive years (dodging the racism, prison-styled hazing, and violent clique initiations), in spite of the pervasive violence, negativity, and hopelessness.

Ironically, it wasn't until I found myself in trouble (for being too friendly with a nurse), that I was transferred to the state prison in Los Angeles County, host of the Prison Honor Program.

Suddenly, my lack of cognitive stimulation and productivity was turned on its head. There was such a wide array of self-help opportunities to choose from, I didn't know where to start: yoga, creative writing, critical thinking, painting, and many other classes and activities.

I also experienced a different type of peer pressure. My first day out, I was approached by a succession of other prisoners, echoing the same guidance as the first guy: "We don't 'bang' here; we don't play [prison] politics, racial or any other kind; and we respect every one, including the guards." That speech has been an indelible part of my daily living for the past six years.

I later learned that the program was initiated in 2000 by other reform-minded prisoners. Prisoners who also had an avid desire for inner growth and change. With the support of open-minded staff, peer-instructed classes were allowed, using inherent individual talents to sharpen the masses.

To my amazement, not a single class was racially segregated. Everyone interacts and we've come to understand one another better. On the yard, all races play and exercise together, a freakish sight after years of being programmed the other way. Graffiti is nowhere to be found, replaced instead by colorful, creative murals and other works of art.

Since I've been here, racial riots, rapes, work stoppages, and the wide range of other wickedness are all memories of the past. I believe this is the only facility in the states that can make such a positive claim.

The success of the Honor Program cannot be denied. According to a study conducted by prison staff, the Honor Program saved the CDC (and taxpayers) more than $200,000 in its first year alone. Meanwhile, weapons infractions decreased 88 percent, and violence and threatening behavior dropped 85 percent.

In a state that features one of the nation's highest recidivism rates – two-thirds of Cailfornia's offenders return to prison within three years – such tangible evidence of behavioral correction is welcome indeed.

The secret to this is that it is a completely volunteer program. To our dismay, our success has earned only partial and inconsistent support from the institution and past secretaries of the department at headquarters in Sacramento.

Sadly there is still a school of thought that doesn't believe in incentive-based programs or rehabilitation. For members of this camp, continuation of the failed model is sufficient. They want the stick and nothing but the stick. Sadly, the violence, deaths, and costly court interventions don't help them see the light.

My hope is that the new secretary of the department, Matthew Cate, will see the light and help move corrections out of the shadows of the dark ages.

It would be a shame to see such a proven success – and a single tree that could yield a much fuller set of branches – go by the wayside.

• Dortel Williams is an inmate at California State Prison, Los Angeles County.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1110/p09s02-coop.html

Posted by lois at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

Calif. AG challenges $8 billion prison proposal

Calif. AG challenges $8 billion prison proposal

By DON THOMPSON, The Associated Press
January 21, 2009

SACRAMENTO ‹ California's attorney general asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to block what he described as an extravagant spending proposal for prison medical facilities.

The Legislature has refused to act on the request for $8 billion made by the court-appointed receiver overseeing reform of California's prison health care system. Receiver J. Clark Kelso is seeking an immediate $250 million as a down payment.

In his court filing, Attorney General Jerry Brown argued that a federal judge cannot order the money from the state treasury without violating federal law and state sovereignty.

Brown also criticized the receiver's spending proposal, saying it has not been subject to proper review. He said the plan includes regulation-size basketball courts, electronic bingo boards, music and art therapy rooms, and landscaping to hide fences.

Brown cited additional amenities in a news release accompanying his court filing, including yoga rooms and horticulture therapy, that were included in an earlier draft from the receiver's office. They did not make it into the most recent plan Kelso submitted to the court.

"Quite clearly, these amenities go well beyond what is required by the Eighth Amendment," which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, the attorney general said in the brief.

He added that a court hearing is needed to judge the validity of the
spending plan. In his news release, Brown said it was time for the court to "rein in" its receiver.

"Federal law does not allow the receiver to commandeer the finances of the state to spend $8 billion for unaccountable and extravagant prison construction," he said.

Spread over 25 years, the prison medical plan would cost California
taxpayers about $14 billion with interest.

Kelso has asked a federal judge to hold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in
contempt of court for refusing to turn over the money. He said
administration officials initially cooperated in his planning and cannot suddenly object when the bill comes due.

"The fact that the governor and the state are now trying to walk away from those agreements is a classic case of buyer's remorse," Kelso said in an e-mail response.

He said many of the amenities in his plan are required by state law or previous court decisions. Most of the criticism is directed toward a draft plan that was never approved and is no longer under consideration, he said.

Kelso said he has invited state officials and others to comment on his plans to reform the prison medical system and will continue to do so: "I am not running away from state oversight; to the contrary, I have endorsed it."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments in the case Feb. 12.

Health care is one of several aspects of California's corrections system to be placed under federal control. The courts have ruled that inmate medical care is so poor that it violates prisoners' civil rights.

On Tuesday, Kelso proposed transferring up to 7,000 ailing inmates from rural prisons to those with quicker access to better medical care. He said the transfers are needed because the state has not provided money for the larger reform plan.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jan/21/ca-california-prisons-012 109/?zIndex=40896

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

MA: Gov. Patrick pushes for a state takeover of county jails, but at least one sheriff isn’t giving up his turf so easily

Of course, even where the jails are supposedly controlled by the state as in Hampden County, the sheriff still has free reign. In Hampden County, (sheriff) Ashe has found a way to both build a new jail for women AND move jail-like programs into the community...all under the guise of knowing what is best for the community and those in cages.

Patrick pushes for a state takeover of county jails, but at least one sheriff isn’t giving up his turf so easily
By Bruce Mohl
Commonwealth Magazine
Winter 2009

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson is headed for a high-noon showdown with Gov. Deval Patrick. The Patrick administration is trying to rein in Hodgson and the state’s other elected sheriffs in an effort to consolidate control over an overcrowded state and county corrections system that oversees more than 25,000 inmates and has a combined budget of $1 billion. Patrick wants more coordination between the officials who run state prisons and the sheriffs, who run county jails and houses of correction. And his aides want the sheriffs to stop dabbling in law enforcement and start taking a more prominent role in preparing inmates for life outside prison.

Hodgson, a tough-talking Republican with an entrepreneurial flair, wants no part of Patrick’s consolidation effort. He says it makes no sense to turn sheriffs into an appendage of the stifling state bureaucracy.

“They’re trying to redefine the mission of the sheriff,” Hodgson says outside the governor’s office after a meeting in November. “This whole homogenizing of things is not in the best interest of taxpayers.”

The showdown, when it comes, will be in the Legislature and will revolve around money. The governor’s aides are playing financial hardball with Hodgson and a handful of other sheriffs, threatening to cut off all state aid unless they take off their cowboy hats and become team players.

“We’ll fund the sheriffs adequately, as long as everyone comes into the fold with the same terms and obligations,” says Kevin Burke, the governor’s secretary of public safety. “We are all part of the whole. Sheriffs and state corrections have got to work together to be efficient.”

Most of the county sheriffs say they will come into the fold, in part because they have little choice. “We have one foot in bankruptcy and the other on a banana peel,” says Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald Jr., a Republican who is facing a $10 million deficit this year. Norfolk County Sheriff Michael Bellotti, a Democrat who is facing a $6 million deficit, says there’s nothing wrong with working cooperatively with the state on corrections issues. “I don’t see any bogeyman in the details,” he says.

Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral, a Democrat, is grappling with a $25 million deficit. She says the sheriffs need more secure state funding, but she is waiting to see the details of any legislation that emerges before taking a stand.

Hodgson, facing a $6 million shortfall, is openly defiant. He calls the Patrick administration’s budgetary brinkmanship an idle threat because it will only lead to a public safety crisis. He says the consolidation of state control over county corrections is bad public policy that will result in waste and inefficiency.

“They aren’t looking at this from a public policy perspective,” says Hodgson on a telephone call from Washington, where he was holding meetings with Homeland Security officials and the Portuguese ambassador to the United States. “They’re saying, ‘How can we gobble up more control and money to take care of our state problems?’”

Constant budget shortfalls

The state’s 14 sheriffs may not be well known outside their counties, but they are politically powerful. Elected to six-year terms, they collectively employ several thousand workers, oversee more than 14,000 prisoners, and control a combined budget of $556 million. Their primary job is to lock up people from their counties who are awaiting trial or who have been sentenced to jail terms of less than two-and-a-half years.

Seven of the sheriffs — those in Berkshire, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, and Worcester counties — are already financial wards of the state. They stopped being county operations in the late 1990s, after Middlesex County went into bankruptcy. Like district attorneys, they are elected officials who seek funding from the Legislature every year. Their employees work for the state and participate in the state’s health plan and pension system.
A cell at the Ash Street
Jail in New Bedford.

The seven remaining sheriffs — those in Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Suffolk Dukes counties — are part of what’s left of county government, relying on a hodgepodge of funding from the state, assessments on municipalities in each county, and excise taxes collected on county real estate transactions. All the funding is thrown into a pot and then appropriated by the County Government Finance Review Board, a Beacon Hill entity that includes officials from the administration, the Revenue Department, and the state auditor’s office.

The last few years have been rocky ones financially for the county sheriffs. With the real estate market tanking, and state and county appropriations failing to keep pace, sheriffs have been facing budget shortfalls year after year. Last year, Norfolk County Sheriff Bellotti said several vendors stopped making deliveries to him because of his inability to pay bills. He had to borrow supplies, including toilet paper, from better-off sheriffs. All of the county sheriffs have been relying on late-in-the-year supplemental appropriations from the state to make ends meet.

Leslie Kirwan, the governor’s secretary of administration and finance, says the best way to stabilize the county sheriffs financially is to make them state sheriffs, giving each of them their own line item in the budget and transferring their employees to the state payroll. Her plan would disband the County Government Finance Review Board and transfer the revenue it receives from the deeds excise tax to the state’s general fund. Municipalities would no longer have to financially support their county sheriffs, saving them about $10 million, she says.

The approach would allow state officials to monitor sheriff spending more closely, since all expenditures would show up on the state’s computer system. It would also put all 14 sheriffs on the same financial footing. Kirwan said Patrick has been clear about that: “He doesn’t want to have a hybrid situation,” she says.

Kirwan thought she had the county sheriffs’ support for a conversion bill last year, but it died, causing some hard feelings. The Patrick administration is now working with the sheriffs on a new version of that bill, but Kirwan’s patience is running thin. If a bill doesn’t pass this year, she says, the Patrick administration will seek to cut off all state funding to the county sheriffs. With the exception of Dukes County, which has no jail and relies entirely on local funds, state aid currently accounts for about two-thirds of each county sheriff’s budget.

Most of the county sheriffs are pledging to cooperate, but they insist that their budget problems are largely of the state’s own making. They say the state constantly underfunds them, and then when it bails them out at the end of the year, it doesn’t roll that money into the following year’s appropriation. “Every year it’s back to the future,” says one sheriff’s aide.

Hodgson has actually seen his state aid decline over the years. In fiscal 2001, his state aid amounted to $37.4 million. This year it’s down to $30.1 million, a drop of nearly 20 percent, even though his inmate population has increased more than 40 percent over that period.

“It’s all about control,” Hodgson says of the administration’s budget maneuvering. He says he and the other county sheriffs have asked why they can’t get a line item in the state budget while remaining county sheriffs. He quotes Kirwan’s general counsel, David Sullivan, as saying: “If we’re going to give you the money, we want more control.”

Renting beds to the feds

Seven sheriffs moonlight as federal innkeepers, renting space in their jails and prisons to the federal government. It started as a way to fill a few empty beds and bring in some extra cash, but it has mushroomed into a booming $33 million side business. The sheriffs were holding 1,200 federal inmates in November, two-thirds of them people who have been swept up in the federal government’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

“It’s the crack cocaine of county corrections,” says Sheriff James DiPaolo of Middlesex County, a Democrat whose space constraints have prevented him from holding illegal immigrants. “It’s quick money and it can be addictive.”

It is also controversial. State and county correctional facilities in Massachusetts are already overcrowded, yet many sheriffs are adding to the problem by squeezing federal detainees into their facilities. State officials grumble that some sheriffs th.
en complain about overcrowding and ask the state for more money.
Immigration detainees can spend months or years in custody awaiting deportation or fighting to stay in the country. Most of the immigration detainees haven’t committed a crime, but five sheriffs lock them up with people who have been charged with or convicted of crimes.

In a report issued in December, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said federal immigration detainees are being crammed into sheriff cells, receiving inadequate medical care, and being deprived of their civil rights. The ACLU said the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is failing to supervise local sheriffs properly.

The sheriffs deny that immigration detainees are being treated poorly, but they make no secret of the reason they are holding them. “I need the money,” says Norfolk County Sheriff Bellotti, who earned $2 million last year holding illegal immigrants. His facilities are operating at 194 percent of design capacity, according to figures compiled by the state Department of Correction.

Frank Cousins, the Republican sheriff of Essex County, whose facilities are operating at 255 percent of capacity, says he uses his $2 million in federal revenues to pay the cost of utilities. Plymouth County Sheriff McDonald, who made $15.6 million last year holding federal prisoners and illegal immigrants for the federal government, says he is aggressively marketing his facility to land more federal business.

Hodgson is perhaps the most aggressive innkeeper of all. When he first became sheriff in the late 1990s, he closed a gym set aside for inmate exercise, giving the bleachers to a nearby community and the scoreboard to a boys and girls club. He then converted the gym into a makeshift jail for illegal immigrants detained by the federal government, eventually turning enough profit on that operation to build a separate facility that he essentially leases to the feds. His federal business brought in $6 million last year but he says it cost only $3 million to run, leaving an operating profit of $3 million that was used to pay for other sheriff operations.

The sheriffs dabble in law enforcement as well. The Barnstable and Plymouth County sheriffs, for example, do all of the crime scene investigations for their local communities. Many sheriffs run emergency dispatch systems and regional lockups and deploy K-9 units, mobile command centers, and even mounted patrol units. Middlesex Sheriff DiPaolo staffs a marine unit, complete with a boat paid for with a federal grant.

Plymouth County Sheriff McDonald says the law enforcement initiatives of sheriffs are a form of county regionalization, a top priority of the Patrick administration. He says sheriffs help relieve the financial burden of cities and towns. “Cutting funding for county sheriffs is cutting local aid,” he says.

But some sheriff spending has attracted criticism. Hodgson, for example, recently proposed a contract with his corrections officers featuring a 5 percent wage increase for each of the next three years. He said the increase was warranted because his officers earn less than any others in Massachusetts, but state officials, who must give approval for contract offerings, rejected it as excessive. “To put out ‘fives’ in an environment like this, when people are struggling just to hang on to their jobs,” Kirwan says, shaking her head. “For one, it’s unaffordable. Two, it’s inappropriate.”

Kirwan and her legal counsel also say Hodgson’s relentless appeals of a court judgment were a waste of money. In 2001, Hodgson was sued by five corrections officers who claimed the sheriff suspended them in retaliation for their union activities; he claimed they violated work rules by engaging in non-corrections activities on the job. He says two of the officers left a jail door open, putting everyone in the facility at risk.

A US District Court judge ruled against Hodgson, ordering him to pay the officers nearly $18,000 in back pay, plus their legal expenses. Hodgson appealed to the US Court of Appeals, where he lost again. Hodgson then appealed to the US Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case last month. In all, the sheriff spent more than $500,000 on legal fees and owes the corrections officers and their attorneys another $300,000.

“This is not about me being stubborn,” Hodgson says. “I have to look at the ramifications for the future if we can’t invoke our own work rules.”

But Kirwan calls Hodgson’s appeal “frivolous.” Philip Beauregard, the attorney representing the corrections officers, says the lawsuit exemplifies the free-spending ways of sheriffs. “By any standard, it is outrageous and absurd, but he gets away with it,” he says.

Bulging at the seams

At an early November meeting with the governor, several sheriffs said Patrick assured them he had no “grand scheme” to bring them under the control of the state Department of Correction, but he was looking for operating efficiencies.

What he meant by “efficiencies” is unclear, but there have been some hints. A consultant hired by the state to review long-range capital needs for corrections asked for feedback from the sheriffs on a proposal to have state prison facilities expand their clientele to include inmates with sentences longer than a year, instead of longer than two-and-a-half years. The flipside to that recommendation was a proposal to have most state inmates transferred to sheriff facilities within 12 to 18 months of their release to prepare them for community re-entry. To free up jail space at the county level, the consultant suggested that sheriffs get rid of their federal inmates and immigration detainees.

The consultant’s report is not completed yet, but the queries to the sheriffs offer some clues on what corrections consolidation might look like. State officials say they want the Department of Correction and the sheriffs to work as a team to address two of the corrections system’s major problems: overcrowding and recidivism.

Prisons in Massachusetts are bulging at the seams. State officials say their facilities, built to hold 7,900 inmates, were operating at 144 percent of capacity during the third quarter of 2008, holding 11,400 prisoners. Facilities run by sheriffs, designed for 8,700 prisoners, were operating at 161 percent of capacity, holding nearly 14,000 during the same time period.

Some facilities are more of a problem than others. The state’s maximum security prison in Shirley, which holds inmates that pose a serious threat to themselves, other inmates, or staff, is preparing to add a second prisoner in each cell. But union officials who represent corrections officers say double-bunking will lead to increased violence.

The state’s Framingham facilities for women are also badly overcrowded, in part because most sheriffs don’t have jail space for women. The state prison for women in Framingham was designed to hold 388 inmates, but it held an average of 479 women during the third quarter. The Framingham unit where women are held while they await trial is the most overcrowded corrections facility in the state. It was designed to hold 64 women but held nearly four times that number on average during the third quarter. (To reduce overcrowding there, the consultant hired by the state suggested sheriffs hold most women awaiting trial at their facilities.)

The state’s prison overcrowding problem is accentuated by a 40 percent recidivism rate, which means four of every 10 released inmates end up back in prison within three years.

Harold Clarke, the state’s corrections commissioner, says inmates who leave prison the same way they come in are far more likely to return. He wants the state to spend far more money preparing inmates for reintegration into society by addressing their literacy, vocational training, medical, and drug addiction “deficits.”

“This is not coddling offenders,” he says. “This is the best public safety we can do.”

Clarke also wants to “step down” inmates nearing release to facilities run by sheriffs, who would oversee the prisoner’s return to society. Clarke is running a pilot step-down project now with Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe Jr., but mandatory sentences and prison rules limit how many inmates can participate and what they can do. Only three inmates are currently participating.

Jay Ashe, the sheriff’s brother and the Hampden County jail superintendent, says he favors legislation that would give corrections officials more flexibility in reintegrating prisoners into local communities as their sentences come to an end. Some prisoners, he says, should work during the day and stay at a pre-release center overnight. Other prisoners could work and live in the community and check in with prison officials on a daily basis. “It’s not being soft on crime,” he says. “The worst thing we can do is open the jail door and just let them out.”

Reaction from sheriffs has been mixed. Many are enthusiastic about the step-down proposal but nervous about being held responsible for an inmate who goes missing while on a program outside the prison. Hodgson says he is opposed to releasing inmates unsupervised into the community. He says they often return with drugs that they sell to other inmates. “I’m not interested in work release,” he says.

‘Close to the end’ for Norfolk County?

Gov. Patrick consolidated control over the state’s educational establishment, and now he’s trying to do the same thing with transportation. Corrections may be next on his list, but administration officials are talking only in general terms about it at this point.

From a policy standpoint, the administration is beginning to argue that better top-to-bottom coordination of corrections will reduce overcrowding and, possibly, recidivism. But officials haven’t yet identified any significant savings that would result, an argument that would carry significant weight in the current economic environment.

Politically, county corrections is a minefield. The governor is dealing with 14 elected officials, and each one defines his or her job differently. They also wield considerable power in the Legislature, and most county officials will probably oppose any attempt to transfer a county sheriff’s operation to the state payroll.

Francis O’Brien, chairman of the Norfolk County commissioners, says the loss of Sheriff Bellotti’s operation to the state would remove roughly 400 of the county’s 520 employees and leave the remaining operations — an engineering department, a golf course, an agricultural school, the Registry of Deeds, and particularly the county’s pension system — in a precarious situation. “It will be close to the end if we lose the sheriff,” he says.

Sen. James Timilty, who represents Bristol County and is the Senate chairman of the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, is a huge fan of Sheriff Hodgson (“He’s one of the closest things to a private sector entity in government”) and a skeptic when it comes to giving the state more control over the sheriffs.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t like county government because of the historical problems with it, but that’s largely gone,” he says. “This is not the time to kill regional government. In fact, it’s the time to look at it as the regional answer.”

Among the county sheriffs, most are so desperate for money that they will jump at the chance to get a line item in the state budget. The exceptions are Hodgson, Nantucket County Sheriff Richard Bretschneider (who doesn’t run a jail and receives almost no state money), and possibly Suffolk County Sheriff Cabral.

Plymouth County Sheriff McDonald says the pressure he is feeling is enormous. “The bottom line message is: You’re coming over to the state willingly or we’re going to bankrupt you and take you over,” he says. He hopes acceptable legislation passes soon, but he says everyone is jittery. “It takes many people to pass legislation, but only one to derail it.”

© 2007 MassINC

Posted by lois at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

King's legacy demands reforms in criminal justice system

King's legacy demands reforms in criminal justice system

BY JEFF GERRITT • DETROIT FREE PRESS EDITORIAL WRITER • January 20, 2009

For the last three years, I've celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Ryan Correctional Facility, a guest of prison members of the NAACP. It seems right to commemorate the holiday with some of the 2.3 million Americans locked up. If King were alive, he would understand, as Malcolm X certainly would, that mass incarceration has become an economic, social and human rights problem the nation can ignore no longer.

This year, Monday's event at the east-side Detroit prison took on deeper meaning. Even inside the walls, President-elect Barack Obama has sparked hope and joy. "People around the world are rejoicing," inmate Kenneth Foster-Bey, 55 and serving a life sentence, told nearly 100 other prisoners during a program of singing and speeches. "They can't wait until tomorrow."

A nation where millions of African Americans couldn't vote 50 years ago has elected its first black president and embraced the change he represents. Still, King's dream of racial equality remains unfulfilled. The world's most powerful democracy is also its leading incarcerator. African Americans -- 13% of the population -- make up nearly half of all those in jail or prison. The nation that elected its first black president also has 1 million black men behind bars.

America's criminal justice system is a political land mine, but Obama will have some cover if he dares to step across it. U.S. Sen. James Webb, D-Va., a decorated Marine who served as Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan, plans to push national prison reform. He has spoken with surprising candor about class, race and the criminal justice system, and the soft-on-crime tag won't work on him.

With government budgets busting at all levels, the time is right. The country cannot afford a $60-billion growth industry that has ripped urban communities and failed to make us safe. Michigan now spends more on prisons -- $2 billion a year -- than on higher education.

U.S. prison populations have increased nearly eightfold over the past 35 years, while crime rates, like gas prices, have gone up and down. Recent crime rates are similar to what they were in 1970, before the prison-building boom started. Harsh drug sentences that have hit African Americans especially hard have fueled much of the race to incarcerate. One study showed that African Americans make up an estimated 13% of drug users, while accounting for 74% of all prison sentences for drug possession.

More than one in 100 Americans are now locked up, and more than 95% of them will get out. Mass incarceration actually increases crime by severing social networks, leaving one in 14 black children with a parent in prison, and creating lifelong barriers to employment. The collateral consequences of criminal convictions affect a big chunk of the population. In Michigan, one out of every six adults is a felon.

Even so, mainstream civil rights organizations remain relatively quiet about the human and economic costs of a criminal justice system that affects mainly poor people.

"I think it is a class issue," ex-inmate Joseph Williams told me. "A lot of these leaders are more focused on the middle class." Williams, 55, earned two college degrees after getting out of prison in 1975 and now runs prisoner re-entry and other programs as the CEO of New Creations Community Outreach.

When I think of Williams and other ex-inmates I've written about, like Raphael B. Johnson, 33, who spent 12 years in prison for second-degree murder, I understand why we shouldn't give up on people. After his release from prison 3 1/2 years ago, Johnson earned a master's degree, started a family and a business, and gained national attention for his work with ex-prisoners and young people.

No doubt, we need prisons. But when too many young men grow up in neighborhoods where most of their peers go to prison or jail, it's time to consider where the get-tough policies of the last 35 years have taken us.

Getting the number of incarcerated to a rational level will take more than re-entry and training programs. It will take serious reforms in sentencing. Figuring out who should go to prison -- and for how long -- and who should not, must become part of a new urban and civil rights agenda, backed by the nation's leader.

Obama's election tapped the pride and hope of millions of Americans. We've come a long way. But with one in nine young black men behind bars, we've got a long way to go.

JEFF GERRITT is a Free Press editorial writer.
ttp://www.freep.com/article/20090120/OPINION01/901200318/King+s+legacy+demands+reforms+in+criminal+justice+system

Posted by lois at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

Obama to Close Foreign Prisons and Guantánamo

By MARK MAZZETTI and WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: January 21, 2009
NY Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

The orders, which would be the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, would rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They would require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.

Obama to Shut Guantánamo Site and C.I.A. Prisons
And the orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.

But the orders would leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the Guantánamo prison, including whether, where and how many of the detainees are to be prosecuted. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured.

The new White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, briefed lawmakers about some elements of the orders on Wednesday evening. A Congressional official who attended the session said Mr. Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that new restrictions on C.I.A. methods might be unwise and indicated that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other the 19 techniques allowed for the military.

Details of the directive involving the C.I.A. were described by government officials who insisted on anonymity so they could not be blamed for pre-empting a White House announcement. Copies of the draft order on Guantánamo were provided by people who have consulted with Mr. Obama’s transition team and requested anonymity for the same reason.

The executive order on interrogations is certain to be received with some skepticism at the C.I.A., which for years has maintained that the military’s interrogation rules are insufficient to get information from senior Qaeda figures like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Bush administration asserted that the harsh interrogation methods were instrumental in gaining valuable intelligence on Qaeda operations.

The intelligence agency built a network of secret prisons in 2002 to house and interrogate senior Qaeda figures captured overseas. The exact number of suspects to have moved through the prisons is unknown, although Michael V. Hayden, the departing director of the agency, has in the past put the number at “fewer than 100.”

The secret detentions brought international condemnation, and in September 2006, President Bush ordered that the remaining 14 detainees in C.I.A. custody be transferred to Guantánamo Bay and tried by military tribunals.

But Mr. Bush made clear then that he was not shutting down the C.I.A. detention system, and in the last two years, two Qaeda operatives are believed to have been detained in agency prisons for several months each before being sent to Guantánamo.

A government official said Mr. Obama’s order on the C.I.A. would still allow its officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term detentions.

Since the early days after the 2001 attacks, the intelligence agency’s role in detaining terrorism suspects has been significantly scaled back, as has the severity of interrogation methods the agency is permitted to use. The most controversial practice, the simulated drowning technique known as water-boarding, was used on three suspects but has not been used since 2003, C.I.A. officials said.

But at the urging of the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 authorized the agency to continue using harsher interrogation methods than those permitted for use by other agencies, including the military. Those exact methods remain classified. The order on Guantánamo says that the camp, which received its first hooded and chained detainees seven years ago this month, “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.”

The order calls for a cabinet-level panel to grapple with issues including where in the United States prisoners might be moved and what courts they could be tried in. It also provides for a new diplomatic effort to transfer some of the remaining men, including more than 60 that the Bush administration had cleared for release.

The order also directs an immediate assessment of the prison itself to ensure that the men are held in conditions that meet the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Convention. That provision appeared to be a pointed embrace of the international treaties that the Bush administration often argued did not apply to detainees captured in the war against terrorism.

The seven years of the detention camp have included four suicides, hunger strikes by scores of detainees, and accusations of extensive use of solitary confinement and abusive interrogations, which the Department of Defense has long denied. Last week a senior Pentagon official said she had concluded that interrogators at Guantánamo had tortured one detainee, who officials have said was a would-be “20th hijacker” in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The report of Thursday’s expected announcement came after the new administration late Tuesday night ordered an immediate halt to the military commission proceedings for prosecuting detainees at Guantánamo and filed a request in Federal District Court in Washington to stay habeas corpus proceedings there. Government lawyers described both delays as necessary for the administration to make a broad assessment of detention policy.

The cases immediately affected include those of five detainees charged as the coordinators of the 2001 attacks, including the case against Mr. Mohammed, the self-described mastermind.

The decision to stop the commissions was described by the military prosecutors as a pause in the war-crimes system “to permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration time to review the military commission process generally and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically.”

More than 200 detainees’ habeas corpus cases have been filed in federal court, and lawyers said they expected that all of the cases would be stayed.

Mr. Obama had suggested in the campaign that, in place of military commissions, he would prefer prosecutions in federal courts or, perhaps, in the existing military justice system, which provides legal guarantees similar to those of American civilian courts.

Some human rights groups and lawyers for detainees said they were concerned about the one-year timetable. “It only took days to put these men in Guantánamo; it shouldn’t take a year to get them out,” said Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which has coordinated detainees’ lawyers.

But several groups that had criticized the Bush administration’s policies applauded the rapid moves by the new administration. Mr. Obama’s actions “reaffirmed American values and are a ray of light after eight long, dark years,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and William Glaberson from New York. Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.
More Articles in US » A version of this article appeared in print on January 22, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/us/politics/22gitmo.html?hp

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

January 21, 2009

Report Faults Treatment of Women Held at Immigration Centers in AZ

Report Faults Treatment of Women Held at Immigration Centers
By DAN FROSCH
Published: January 20, 2009

Some 300 women held at immigration detention centers in Arizona face dangerous delays in health care and widespread mistreatment, according to a new study by the University of Arizona, the latest report to criticize conditions at such centers throughout the United States.

The study, which federal immigration officials criticized as narrow and unsubstantiated, was conducted from August 2007 to August 2008 by the Southwest Institute of Research on Women and the James E. Rogers College of Law, both at the University of Arizona. It was released Jan. 13.

Researchers examined the conditions facing women in the process of deportation proceedings at three federal immigration centers in Arizona. An estimated 3,000 women are being held nationwide.

The study concluded that immigration authorities were too aggressive in detaining the women, who rarely posed a flight risk, and that as a result, they experienced severe hardships, including a lack of prenatal care, treatment for cancer, ovarian cysts and other serious medical conditions, and, in some cases, being mixed in with federal prisoners.

Katrina S. Kane, who directs Arizona detention and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, dismissed the study as unsubstantiated accounts from a limited number of detainees and their advocates.

“Reports such as this, while alleging to be unbiased, do great harm to the public’s understanding of the complex issues involved in immigration law enforcement,” Ms. Kane said.

The director of border research for the institute on women, Nina Rabin, an immigration lawyer who led the study, countered that interviews with detainees, former detainees and their lawyers corroborated a pattern of endemic mistreatment.

And Ms. Rabin said she had spoken with immigrant advocacy groups around the United States, many of whom stated that mistreatment of women at the centers was not unusual.

“We were pretty shocked to learn about all the ways in which life is made endlessly difficult for these women,” Ms. Rabin said, especially those who were pregnant or had recently given birth.

The immigration department has been under increasing pressure to improve conditions at its detention centers. The federal Government Accountability Office and the inspector general’s office at the Department of Homeland Security have each released reports in the last three years criticizing standards at such centers, many of which are operated by private contractors.

Last September, the immigration department announced plans to improve conditions at its detention centers, but the new rules will not fully take effect until 2010. Meanwhile, Congress has been weighing whether to impose its own requirements on the department after a New York Times article on immigrants who died in federal custody.

The three centers that the study focused on are not run by the immigration department but by the Pinal County Sheriff’s Department and the Corrections Corporation of America.

“We strictly enforce all national ICE standards,” Ms. Kane said, “and if we find those standards are not being met and we feel the deficiencies are not being corrected, we locate our detainees to other facilities.”

In one of several cases documented in the study, a woman being held at the Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence who experienced excruciating abdominal pain for months after she had been forced to undergo female genital mutilation in West Africa was told by the center’s staff to “exercise and watch her diet,” her lawyer at the time, Raha Jorjani, said. After nearly six months, the woman, who had been convicted of a nonviolent crime, was taken to a hospital where an ultrasound revealed a cyst the size of a five-month-old fetus, Ms. Jorjani said.

Immigration officials then suddenly released the woman with no money or health insurance to treat the cyst, Ms. Jorjani said.

“That she had to remain in detention at all during this period is egregious,” Ms. Jorjani said. “She shouldn’t have had to get that sick for immigration to consider her request for release.”

Ms. Kane, the department spokeswoman, said that this was the first the agency had heard of the case and that it took accusations of mistreatment seriously.

In one case the study described, an illegal immigrant identified as Ana, who had come to the United States from Mexico as a baby and served a brief stint in jail for using a fake credit card, was being held at the Central Arizona Detention Center.

Although Ana was six months pregnant and had an ovarian cyst, she was ordered to use a top bunk and denied a sonogram and prenatal vitamins during the five weeks she was held, the study said.

Three women also told a local immigrant rights group that they had suffered miscarriages while in detention in the last three years, according to the study.

Ms. Kane said that while her department could not corroborate any of the report’s accusations, it had found that a detainee’s contention that she had not received treatment for cervical cancer had proved false.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 21, 2009, on page A23 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/21immig.html?ref=us

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

WI: Artists Against the Prison Industrial Complex

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners/Rainbow Books
426 W. Gilman St.
Madison, WI 53703
www.rainbowbookstore.org/b2p

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners a project of Rainbow Bookstore, is sponsoring an exhibit ARTISTS AGAINST THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. The show will run from Jan 30 – Feb 5th at Project Lodge, 817 E. Johnson in Madison. Opening reception is at 7 pm, Friday Jan 30th.

Over 70 drawings by prisoners that address the use of prisons, policing and punishment as a “solution” to social, political and economic problems will be on display.

The show was inspired by printmakers from the Justseeds Radical Artists’ Cooperative (www.justseeds.org) who created more than 20 posters in 2008 in honor of the 10th anniversary of Critical Resistance, a prison abolitionist movement. Twenty-five posters from Justseeds, which include Wisconsin artists Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes will be on display. Other political artists in Wisconsin have also contributed prints to the show.

Spoken word artists from the First Wave Spoken Word and Urban Arts Learning Community, including Sophia Snow, Alida Carlos Whaley and others will perform pieces topical to the show. Again, please join us for the opening reception on Friday, January 30th, from 7 pm -10 pm.

Contributions to support the costs of shipping books to prisoners are appreciated. Those unable to attend the show are welcome to send donations to Wisconsin Books to Prisoners/Rainbow Books, 426 W. Gilman St.. Madison, WI 53703. Tax-deductible donations can be made out to our fiscal sponsor "PC Foundation” with "WI Books to Prisoners" in the memo line.

Since the inception of Wisconsin Books to Prisoners in the fall of 2006, WBTP has sent over 12,000 books to prisoners nationwide. Although Wisconsin Books to Prisoners is still banned by the WI Department of Corrections from sending used books to prisoners in WI, it continues to send books to federal and state prisoners nationwide, including an outreach program for LGTB prisoners.

Wisconsin prisoners deserve the right to read and access to books from book to prisoner projects. Those concerned about the ban should phone the Governor’s office at 608-266-1212; the WI DOC Administrator at 608-240-5104; and the WI DOC secretary at 608-240-5055 to voice their objections.

Posted by lois at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2009

OK: Report: Rethink corrections policies or risk federal oversight

Report: Rethink corrections policies or risk federal bout

by Marie Price, The Journal Record
January 14, 2009
http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=95123

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma’s swelling inmate population shows the
need to rethink corrections policies to avoid another bout with
federal-court oversight of the prison system or a state budget
where corrections needs crowd out funding for others, members
of the Oklahoma Academy were told Tuesday.

In the organization’s report “Oklahoma’s Criminal Justice
System: Can We be Just as Tough but Twice as Smart?” a key
recommendation is a hard look at a state law that requires
those convicted of certain serious crimes to serve at least 85
percent of their sentence before being considered for parole.

Report Co-Chairman Marc Edwards, an Oklahoma City attorney,
said the “85-percent rule” was initially adopted in 1996 along
with a new sentencing matrix, which was jettisoned while the
85-percent requirement remains in place.

Neville Massie, executive assistant to the corrections
director, said a recent audit showed that most of the growth in
the state’s prison population is attributable to the longer
sentences required under laws such as the 85-percent rule.

Other recommendations include reducing incarceration of women
and preventing people from entering the prison system through
increased use of alternatives such as drug courts, more
regional and community alternatives and addressing addiction
and mental health issues.

Academy Chairman Howard Barnett said the report is the result
of work that began at a three-day town-hall conference in
Ardmore last October.

Secretary of State Susan Savage said the academy took on a
tough issue, one that is always at the forefront of legislative
and budgetary matters.

Savage said addressing some issues can only be accomplished
over the long term.

“It is not a quick fix,” she said.

Former state Rep. David Braddock said improving the state’s
criminal justice system is the right thing to do, but a
difficult task from which some lawmakers shrink for political
considerations.

Braddock said Oklahoma’s “tough on crime” stance has been used
by opponents to defeat some more reform-minded legislators.

“Our job, if anything, is to point out that the system is not
working,” he said.

Braddock said statistics such as being number one in the
incarceration of women are unacceptable.

“We need some common-sense, intelligent reforms that will serve
us better for the future,” he said. “We can change Oklahoma’s
criminal justice system, but it has to be ‘we.’”

Braddock said the state is in for a “huge train wreck,” with
the possibility of a $1.5 billion corrections budget in 10
years, if nothing is done.

Former state Sen. Cal Hobson said the state has pulled back on
laws that provided for some relief on the prison population by
releasing some inmates early, as well as adopting the
85-percent rule, which originally targeted only severe crimes
deemed the “seven deadly sins.” He said it now covers about 19
offenses.

“There’ll be more by May,” Hobson said, referring to the end of
the legislative session.

Hobson said Oklahoma’s corrections budget is “number three and
battling to be number two.”

He pointed out that the cap law was enacted in the early 1980s,
when the state faced a fiscal problem due to plummeting oil
prices.

“This problem will only be solved in a time of crisis,” Hobson
said.

Lawmakers were recently told they will have much less to
appropriate this session than last.

Commissioner Terri White, of the Oklahoma Department of Mental
Health and Substance Abuse Services, outlined her agency’s
“Smart on Crime” proposal, which calls for addressing addiction
and mental illness as the diseases science has proven them to
be, to stem the flow into the prison system of individuals who
suffer from them.

“If we locked up people for having diabetes, there would be a
public outcry,” White said.

The proposal also calls for screening, prevention and
intervention strategies to identify these issues early on, as
well as treatment of those incarcerated.

The agency estimates that the plan will cost about $30 million
per year.

White also said that 76 percent of women in Oklahoma prisons
have some form of mental illness, compared with about 40
percent of men.

Massie said meeting the needs of women in prison involves
addressing issues such as trauma and abuse, which many female
inmates have experienced in their private lives, as well as
their responsibilities regarding children.
Bruce DeMuth, chief of staff with the Oklahoma Department of
Career Technology and Education, stressed the need to improve
Oklahoma’s educational statistics, as a way to reduce the
prison population.

He said that in Oklahoma about 62 percent of inmates are high
school dropouts.

Improving the state’s graduation rate by just 6.4 percent would
increase overall income by $830 million, the gross state
product by $2 billion and state revenues by $76 million, DeMuth
said.

The Rev. Stan Basler, director of Criminal Justice and Mercy
Ministries at Oklahoma Conference United Methodist Church, said
the best policy is to keep people from going to prison in the
first place. However, he said the state needs to do more to
assist those just-released from prison, who face hurdles in
securing housing, jobs and other support, as well as basic
items such as driver’s licenses.

Posted by lois at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

ICE to terminate agreement to house detainees at Wyatt RI Detention Facility

ICE to terminate agreement to house detainees at Wyatt
Detention Facility
January 15, 2009
http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0901/090115washington.htm

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) has notified the Central Falls Detention
Facility Corporation of the agency's intention to terminate the
agreement to house detainees at the Donald Wyatt Detention
Facility in Rhode Island. ICE will terminate the agreement
effective 60 days from Friday, January 16, 2009. Due to an
investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of
Mr. Hiu Lui Ng at Wyatt, ICE took precautions and promptly
ceased sending additional detainees to the Wyatt contract
facility and quickly relocated the remaining 153 ICE detainees
from the facility in December 2008.

The investigation, which was completed on January 12, 2009,
revealed a consistent lack of communication regarding Mr. Ng's
healthcare needs between medical and security personnel at
Wyatt. The investigation also revealed that there were
instances of non-compliance by Wyatt contract personnel with
the ICE National Detention Standards and multiple failures to
adhere to the facility's rules and policy. As part of the
investigation, ICE reviewed the policies and procedures used by
Wyatt to evaluate the health care needs of Mr. Ng and to
provide him with access to health care. ICE further reviewed
the procedures used to distribute medication to detainees and
the use of wheelchairs to assist in the transportation of
detainees, including Mr. Ng.

ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) found that
contract personnel at Wyatt failed to provide Mr. Ng a
wheelchair on a number of occasions, resulting in Mr. Ng
effectively being denied access to his counsel as well as to a
medical appointment. ICE OPR also found that the facility
guards and medical staff failed to adhere to the facility's use
of force policy.

ICE strives to maintain safe, secure and humane detention
conditions and quality health care. We make every effort to
enforce all existing standards and whenever possible, to
improve upon them. ICE requires that all facilities housing
detainees meet our National Detention Standards, which meet or
exceed industry standards. When we find that our standards are
not being met by contract facilities, we take immediate action
to ensure the safety and well being of all ICE detainees.

-- ICE --

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established
in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the
Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of five
integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement
agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland
security priorities.

Posted by lois at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

ICE: Secure Communities: A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens

Secure Communities: A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and
Remove Criminal Aliens
November 19, 2008
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/secure_communities.htm

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest
investigative agency in the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), is improving community safety by transforming the way
the federal government cooperates with state and local law
enforcement agencies to identify, detain and remove all
criminal aliens held in custody. Secure Communities: A
Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens will
change immigration enforcement by using technology to share
information between law enforcement agencies and by applying
risk-based methodologies to focus resources on assisting
communities remove high-risk criminal aliens.

Although ICE has made considerable progress over the past
several years in identifying and removing criminal aliens
through its Criminal Alien Program (CAP), a fundamental change
in ICE’s current approach is required to reach the goal of
identifying and removing all aliens convicted of a crime. ICE
currently screens all inmates referred to ICE who claim to be
foreign-born at all federal and state prisons. In addition, any
law enforcement agency can query the immigration status of an
individual they encounter through ICE’s Law Enforcement Support
Center (LESC). CAP officers routinely visit or are dispatched
to local jails requesting assistance and have contributed to
the increased success of identifying and removing criminal
aliens in custody.

In FY 2008, ICE identified and charged more than 221,000 aliens
in jails for immigration violations – more than triple the
number charged just two years ago. Leveraging integration
technology that shares law enforcement data between federal,
state and local law enforcement agencies, ICE is now able to
expand coverage nationwide in a cost effective manner.
Interoperability between the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
(FBI’s) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
(IAFIS) and DHS’ Automated Biometric Identification System
(IDENT) will help ICE and local law enforcement officers
positively identify criminal aliens in prisons and jails.

Given that a nationwide jail/prison reporting system does not
exist to determine the total number of criminal aliens in the
United States, ICE extrapolated from various sources and
estimates that about 300,000 to 450,000 criminal aliens who are
potentially removable are detained each year at federal, state,
and local prisons and jails. Criminal aliens who are
potentially removable include illegal aliens in the United
States who are convicted of any crime and lawful permanent
residents (such as holders of a U.S. Permanent Resident Card)
who are convicted of a removable offense as defined by the
Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Strategic Goals for Secure Communities

ICE has delineated four key strategic goals for the Secure
Communities plan:

* Strategic Goal 1 – Identify and process all criminal
aliens amenable for removal while in federal, state, and
local custody;
* Strategic Goal 2 – Enhance current detention strategies
to ensure no removable alien is released into the community
due to a lack of detention space or an appropriate
alternative to detention;
* Strategic Goal 3 – Implement removal initiatives that
shorten the time aliens remain in ICE custody prior to
removal, thereby maximizing the use of detention resources
and reducing cost; and
* Strategic Goal 4 – Maximize cost effectiveness and
long-term success through deterrence and reduced
recidivism.

The following three levels are illustrative of the plan’s
risk-based approach. These levels will be used to allocate
appropriate resources to identifying and determining the
immigration status of aliens arrested for a crime that pose the
greatest risk to the public.

* Level 1 – Individuals who have been convicted of major
drug offenses and violent offenses such as murder,
manslaughter, rape, robbery, and kidnapping;
* Level 2 – Individuals who have been convicted of minor
drug offenses and mainly property offenses such as
burglary, larceny, fraud, and money laundering; and
* Level 3 – Individuals who have been convicted of other
offenses.

Ensuring the identification and expedited removal of so many
criminal aliens on an ongoing basis will require a sustained
effort. The cornerstone of the plan is to increase state and
local partnerships to ensure time sensitive screening of all
foreign-born detainees and identification of criminal aliens.
ICE is assessing technology solutions to seamlessly integrate
local booking data so that ICE can determine eligibility for
removal and quickly prioritize each case to initiate the
appropriate level of response.

The plan brings together the expertise and commitment from all
parts of ICE, the interagency community, and state and local
law enforcement agencies. ICE’s partners within DHS include
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), and the United States Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) Program. ICE’s
federal interagency partners include the Bureau of Prisons
(BOP), Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), U.S.
Attorneys, Department of State (DOS), Department of Justice
(DOJ), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and FBI’s Criminal Justice
Information Services Division (CJIS). Ongoing success will
require enhancements to the nation’s immigration strategy and
providing even greater disincentives for recidivists.
Overview of ICE’s Criminal Alien Program

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) established
the Institutional Removal Program (IRP) in 1988 as a result of
the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. IRCA
required the INS to initiate deportation proceedings for all
criminal aliens, at federal, state, and local prisons as
expeditiously as possible after the date of conviction. At the
INS, the Office of Investigations (OI) and Detention and
Removal Operations (DRO) jointly managed the IRP, which covered
about 30 federal institutions and a limited number of state
institutions. INS/OI also had responsibility for the Alien
Criminal Apprehension Program (ACAP). The ACAP was responsible
for the identification, processing, prosecution, and removal of
all criminal aliens in institutions not participating in the
IRP.

When ICE was established in 2003, the agency recognized that
additional effort and resources were needed to address the
criminal alien problem at federal, state, and local jails and
prisons. In June 2007, DRO assumed complete responsibility and
oversight of both IRP and ACAP and combined both programs into
the Criminal Alien Program (CAP). ICE adopted a risk-based
approach to address the criminal alien population in U.S. jails
and prisons and deployed CAP teams to institutions whose
inmates posed the greatest threat to the community if released.
CAP began utilizing video teleconference (VTC) equipment to
expand its reach into more jails and prisons. In June 2006, DRO
formed the Detention Enforcement and Processing Offenders by
Remote Technology (DEPORT) Center in Chicago, IL. Today the
DEPORT Center screens and processes criminal aliens at 87 BOP
facilities. CAP also works closely with the United States
Attorney’s Office to prosecute aggressively criminal aliens who
have reentered the United States after having been previously
removed thereby creating a deterrent to illegal reentry by
previously removed criminal aliens.

CAP teams focus on identifying, detaining, and removing
criminal aliens and in FY 2008 the teams issued charging
documents on more than 221,000 removable aliens in federal,
state, and local custody. Many of these aliens are still
serving sentences. In FY 2008, ICE removed 350,000 aliens,
nearly 110,000 with criminal histories. In FY 2007, ICE removed
approximately 278,000 aliens, about 95,000 with criminal
histories.

In order to ensure that current CAP resources are deployed
effectively, ICE conducted a risk assessment of federal, state,
and local prisons and jails. The risk assessment provides
valuable information for determining which facilities house the
most removable aliens and which represent institutions of
highest risk. The assessment classified all facilities into
four tiers, with Tier 1 representing the highest risk to
national security and public safety and Tier 4 representing the
lowest risk. In rank order, ICE is moving toward 100 percent
screening of foreign-born individuals in each facility.
Currently, all Tier 1 and Tier 2 facilities have 100 percent
screening, including all BOP institutions and state prisons. In
order to achieve screening at all remaining facilities, an
infusion of new partnerships, technology, process improvements,
and resources will be necessary.

To address the high-risk BOP correctional institutions, ICE
established the DEPORT Center in Chicago. DEPORT supports the
screening, interviewing and removal processing of all criminal
aliens incarcerated in BOP facilities nationwide, often using
video teleconferencing. Since its inception, DEPORT has
screened over 33,000 cases, issued more than 17,000 charging
documents to begin removal proceedings, and lodged more than
11,000 detainers. The success of DEPORT is a combination of
shared databases including BOP Sentry - a real-time computer
system updated 24 hours a day by BOP staff in field offices.
Staffers enter and update inmate information from the time the
inmate is sentenced until he/she is released from federal
custody.
Resource Overview for Secure Communities

The total costs estimated to remove all Level 1, 2, and 3
convicted criminal aliens each year in all federal, state, and
local prisons ranges from roughly $2 billion to $3 billion.
This cost range assumes that aliens incarcerated in local jails
have an average length of time in custody of three to six
months. The costs are high level estimates that will be revised
regularly as the plan is implemented based on detailed business
requirements, inputs from ICE partners, and updates to criminal
alien population figures. ICE estimates that it may take up to
two years to develop an automated process to search and
prioritize leads from Interoperability based on the levels of
criminality. Until such time, ICE will develop strategies for
implementing the gradual rollout of Interoperability using a
more manual searching process. Cost estimates therefore will
need to be modified as implementation begins, and resources may
need to shift to fill the gap between start-up and full
implementation.
Level One Implementation

ICE plans to phase-in the implementation of this initiative,
starting with Level 1 criminal aliens. The total Level 1 costs,
including systems and infrastructure, are estimated to be
between approximately $930 million and $1.1 billion. ICE
anticipates an implementation timeline of 3.5 years to remove
all removable Level 1 criminal aliens to ensure program
efficiency and effectiveness. Congress provided $200 million in
the FY 2008 Appropriations bill to begin implementing this plan
and an addition $150 million for FY’s 2009 and 2010.
Identifying criminal aliens in the past

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) established
the Institutional Removal Program (IRP) in 1988, which only
covered approximately 30 federal institutions and a limited
number of state facilities. INS also had responsibility for the
Alien Criminal Apprehension Program (ACAP). Under ACAP, INS
officers were responsible for identifying, processing,
prosecuting, and removing criminal aliens in institutions not
participating in the IRP.

In FY2003, there were only two signed 287(g) agreements to
train and authorize local officers to enforce immigration law.
The way it works now

In June 2006, ICE formed the Detention Enforcement and
Processing Offenders by Remote Technology (DEPORT) Center in
Chicago. Today ICE screens and processes criminal aliens at all
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities. In addition, ICE began
using video teleconference (VTC) equipment to expand its reach
into more jails and prisons.

Criminal Alien Program (CAP) teams respond to local law
enforcement agencies’ requests to determine the alienage of
individuals arrested for crimes and other immigration violators
as resources permit. Under CAP, ICE identified and issued
charging documents on more than 221,000 incarcerated criminal
aliens in FY 2008. CAP teams identified more than 164,000
incarcerated criminal aliens in FY 2007 and 67,000 in FY 2006.

ICE conducts screenings of all inmates who claim to be
foreign-born at all federal and state prisons. In addition, any
law enforcement agency can query the immigration status of an
individual they encounter through ICE’s Law Enforcement Support
Center (LESC). CAP officers routinely visit or are dispatched
to local jails requesting assistance and have contributed to
the increased success of identifying and removing criminal
aliens in custody.

ICE 287(g) program has provided more than 40 local law
enforcement agencies with access to DHS databases at their
detention centers where trained officers can review the
immigration information, determine alienage, and initiate
removal proceedings. There are a total of 67 jail, task force,
or combined 287(g) agreements nationwide credited for
identifying more than 75,000 individuals for possible
immigration violations. Most local law enforcement agencies
notify ICE of a foreign-born detainee; then an ICE officer must
conduct an interview to determine the alienage of the suspect
and initiate removal proceedings, if appropriate.
Key Enhancements in Secure Communities

* ICE will continue working with its partners to distribute
integration technology that links local law enforcement
agencies to both FBI and DHS biometric databases.
* Currently, as part of the routine booking process, local
officers submit an arrested person’s fingerprints through
FBI databases to access that individual’s criminal history.
With interoperability, those fingerprints are also
automatically checked against DHS databases to access
immigration history information.
* The automated process notifies ICE when fingerprints
match those of an immigration violator. ICE officers
conduct follow-up interviews and take appropriate action.
* ICE will identify removable criminal aliens and
prioritize their removal based on the threat they pose to
the community.
* ICE will continue working with local, state and federal
detention centers and the Department of Justice Executive
Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) to increase the number
of facilities that use video teleconferencing technology.
* Working with ICE, U.S. Attorney’s Offices will seek to
prosecute more criminal aliens who illegally re-enter the
country. This initiative is aimed at deterring recidivism.
* ICE will streamline processes for Detention and Removal
Operations including the expanded use of the Alternatives
to Detention Program (ATD) and by more efficiently
obtaining removal orders and travel documents before
criminal aliens are released from local custody.
* ICE will continue and expand the use of its Rapid REPAT
(Removal of Eligible Parolees Accepted for Transfer)
program whereby criminal aliens serving state sentences
receive early parole in exchange for assisting in their
removal from the United States. The programs are restricted
to criminal aliens who have not been convicted of serious
felonies and who have no history of violence. The program
has proven successful in New York and Arizona thus far and
ICE seeks to establish Rapid REPAT programs in four
additional states by the end of FY 2008.
* ICE will provide 24/7 nationwide operational coverage for
the Criminal Alien Program by assigning additional
personnel in field offices, standing up command centers in
priority areas, and expanding use of video teleconferencing
to remotely interview and process suspected aliens.
* ICE will seek to increase local law enforcement
partnerships through 287(g) cross-designation that allows
trained officers to interview and initiate removal
proceedings of aliens processed through their detention
facilities.

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

January 17, 2009

Many in U.S. Prisons Lack Good Health Care Report finds high rate of chronic disease that often goes untreated

U.S.News & World Report
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Many in U.S. Prisons Lack Good Health Care Report finds high rate of chronic disease that often goes untreated
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- The 2.3 million Americans currently being held in correctional facilities across the country suffer a much higher rate of serious and chronic illness than the general population does, a new report finds.
Related News

These individuals -- representing about 1 percent of the total U.S. population -- also have difficulty accessing care both inside and outside the correctional system, according to research published online Jan. 15 and set to appear in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

It's the first such study to look at the health of all inmates nationwide at once, the researchers said.

"We largely ignore mental health in our society, and it's exacerbated here," said Craig Blakely, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of health policy and management at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health in College Station. "The findings suggest that health and mental health problems are linked to higher rates of arrest and incarceration."

"Devoting more resources to community mental health care could reduce crime rates and reduce incarceration," added study author Dr. Andrew P. Wilper, an instructor in medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Largely due to the war on drugs, the U.S. prison population has increased fourfold in the past 25 years, surpassing any other nation in the world in number of people incarcerated per capita, according to background information in the paper.

Prisoners have a constitutional right to health care via the Eighth Amendment concerning cruel and unusual punishment, yet such services are often sorely lacking, the report's authors contend.

Good data on the subject is also lacking, Wilper added. He said that he filed two federal government freedom-of-information requests -- both of which were denied -- to review copies of an U.S. Surgeon General's report on prison health care.

In their study, the authors analyzed responses contained in two Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys: the 2002 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails and the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities.

"Of these roughly 2 million inmates, about 800,000 suffered from a chronic condition that generally requires medical attention: diabetes, hypertension, a prior heart attack or a previously diagnosed cancer, among a few other diagnoses," Wilper said.

Compared to non-incarcerated citizens, inmates in state jails were 31 percent more likely to have asthma, 55 percent more prone to have diabetes, and 90 percent more likely to have suffered a heart attack.

In federal, state and local jails, 38.5 percent of inmates, 42.8 percent of inmates and 38.7 percent of inmates, respectively, had a chronic medical condition.

Among inmates with mental conditions that had been treated on the outside, 69.1 percent of federal prison inmates, 68.6 percent of those in state facilities, and 45.5 percent of those in local jails were not taking their medication at the time of their arrest. The treatment rate for mental health woes tripled after incarceration.

Fourteen percent of those in federal prisons, 20 percent of state prison inmates and 68.4 percent of those in local jails had not yet seen a health-care provider since their incarceration, despite persistent health problems, the report found.

"There's some alarming data that suggests that those [inmates] with chronic conditions don't get the care they need when incarcerated and that's Eighth-Amendment illegal," Blakely said. "The whole war on drugs has made a disaster of our judicial system and created a nightmare we can't control."

"Given the huge cost of incarceration, we're foolish not to ensure that inmates get the basic care that would allow them to have a better chance of rehabilitation," he continued. "This suggests the need for universal access to health care."

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/01/16/many-in-us-prisons-lack-good-health-care.html

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

January 16, 2009

U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention

January 16, 2009
U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
NY Times
Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.

As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.

The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.

The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail’s policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.

The jail’s overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.

Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to “stop whining.”

Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and “continued to scream,” the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.

John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng’s family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report “damning” but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng “should not have been detained in the first place.”

“The people involved in that torturous treatment,” he said, “should be ashamed of themselves.”

Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation “disappointing.” Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.

“We will continue to look at ways to reverse this,” Mr. Bellini said. “We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee’s death.”

Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. “We took stern and appropriate action,” Mr. Bellini said.

Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.

The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain’s instructing Mr. Ng that “he needed to move on his own,” telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.

“Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing,” the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.

“Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs,” the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: “She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=detention%20center&st=cse

Posted by lois at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

Two reports: Many prisoners sick, access to care poor: study and Less Than One in Five Prisoners Needing Addiction Treatment Gets Help, NIDA Reports

Many inmates sick, access to care poor: study
Thu Jan 15, 2009

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Inmates in U.S. prisons and jails have rates of serious illness that far exceed those of the general population and many lack access to healthcare, researchers said on Thursday.

They found that 800,000 inmates -- about 40 percent of the U.S. prison population -- have a chronic medical problem such as diabetes, asthma or heart or kidney problems.

And more than 20 percent of sick inmates in state prisons and 13.9 percent in federal prisons had not seen a doctor or a nurse since their incarceration began.

"A substantial percentage of inmates have serious medical needs. Yet many of them don't get even minimal care medical care," said Dr. Andrew Wilper of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, whose study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.

Wilper did the research while at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. He and colleagues analyzed data from a 2002 survey of inmates in local jails and a 2004 survey of prison inmates.

They found a far higher incidence of chronic disease among inmates. Compared to other Americans of the same age, state prison inmates were 31 percent more likely to have asthma, 55 percent more likely to have diabetes, and 90 percent more likely to have suffered a heart attack.

Access to care was worst in local jails and best in federal prisons. One-quarter of jail inmates who had suffered severe injuries had received no medical attention, versus 12 percent in state prisons and 8 percent in federal prisons.

The researchers also looked at mental illness. While about a quarter of inmates had a history of chronic mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression or anxiety, two-thirds of them were off treatment at the time of their arrest.

Only after their imprisonment did most of these inmates receive treatment.

A study this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association found inmates with drug problems are not getting adequate treatment.

The study by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, found about half of all prisoners -- including some guilty of non-drug offenses -- are dependent on drugs. Yet less than 20 percent of inmates suffering from drug abuse or dependence get formal treatment.

They said the criminal justice system was in a position to encourage drug abusers to enter and remain in treatment, disrupting the cycle of drug use and crime.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Will Dunham and Xavier Briand)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50F02Z20090116

AND....

Less Than One in Five Inmates Needing Addiction Treatment Gets Help, NIDA Reports
January 13, 2009

Half of all prison inmates are dependent on drugs -- including many incarcerated on non drug-related offenses -- but less than 20 percent get the treatment they need, according to a new report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

"Addiction is a stigmatized disease that the criminal justice system often fails to view as a medical condition; as a consequence, its treatment is not as available as it is for other medical conditions," said Redonna K. Chandler, principal author of the report and chief of NIDA's Services Research Branch.

NIDA researchers stressed that the criminal-justice system is ideal for getting people into treatment and applying pressure to complete therapy. They noted that a dollar spent on drug courts, for example, saves $4 in healthcare costs, while a dollar spent on prison-based treatment saves $2-$6.

The study appears in the Jan. 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
This article summarizes an external report or press release on research published in a scientific journal. When available, links to the sources are provided above.

Treating Drug Abuse and Addiction in the Criminal Justice System

Improving Public Health and Safety

Redonna K. Chandler, PhD; Bennett W. Fletcher, PhD; Nora D. Volkow, MD

JAMA. 2009;301(2):183-190.

Despite increasing evidence that addiction is a treatable disease of the brain, most individuals do not receive treatment. Involvement in the criminal justice system often results from illegal drug-seeking behavior and participation in illegal activities that reflect, in part, disrupted behavior ensuing from brain changes triggered by repeated drug use. Treating drug-involved offenders provides a unique opportunity to decrease substance abuse and reduce associated criminal behavior. Emerging neuroscience has the potential to transform traditional sanction-oriented public safety approaches by providing new therapeutic strategies against addiction that could be used in the criminal justice system. We summarize relevant neuroscientific findings and evidence-based principles of addiction treatment that, if implemented in the criminal justice system, could help improve public heath and reduce criminal behavior.

Posted by lois at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)

No evidence Jessica's Law works, California officials say

There's no evidence Jessica's Law works, California officials say
A state board says tight residency limits on sex offenders have driven many to homelessness, which could propel them back into crime. The state spends $25 million housing some of the offenders.
By Michael Rothfeld
January 14, 2009
LA Times

Reporting from Sacramento -- A state panel is urging the governor and legislators to change "Jessica's Law," saying its restrictions on where sex offenders can live are counterproductive and calling the nearly $25 million a year spent to house them a poor use of taxpayers' money.

The residency restrictions, passed by voters more than two years ago in Proposition 83, have never been shown to prevent new crimes and may reduce public safety, the panel says.

Since 70% of voters approved the initiative, "the availability of suitable housing has plummeted," the state's Sex Offender Management Board said in a report sent to lawmakers this week.

The state previously had more modest residency limits that applied only to certain sex offenders. Jessica's Law expanded the restrictions to all sex offenders and greatly reduced the locations where they could reside.

Barring sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks and other areas where children gather has driven many into homelessness, an unstable situation that can propel them back to crime, according to the board.

State corrections officials say they find housing and pay rent for about 800 who are on parole, but they cannot house them all; the number of homeless sex offenders on parole is 12 times as large as it was when the law was passed.

"It seems unwise to spend such resources as a consequence of residence restriction policies which have no track record of increasing community safety," board members wrote.

Proposition 83 expanded both the categories of sex offenders included and the limits on where they could live.

Scott Kernan, undersecretary for adult operations at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said his agency is discussing plans to scale back its housing of sex offenders, some of whom have their rent paid by the state for several years while they are on parole, to a shorter period such as 60 or 90 days.

"I don't know that we can continue to pay long-term for sex offender housing in the current fiscal situation," Kernan said.

He said the housing, often in motels or halfway-house settings where multiple sex offenders live, was always meant to be transitional. But with the passage of Jessica's Law, he said, many have been housed for longer because they have little money and their families' residences may fall in a prohibited zone.

And Kernan said some local officials have created extra barriers -- for example, creating parks on highway medians to make certain neighborhoods off-limits.

The Sex Offender Management Board was created in 2006, with 17 members to be appointed by lawmakers and the governor. It includes state and local officials from law enforcement, judicial and social services backgrounds.

It has advocated for the state to focus on the offenders who pose the highest risk and to use practices -- such as treatment -- that have been shown to work. The state does not provide treatment while offenders are in prison. Jessica's Law makes little distinction between high- and low-risk offenders, addressing all of them equally with lifetime residency restrictions and satellite tracking.

State lawmakers can alter the initiative with a two-thirds vote. Robert Coombs, a spokesman for the board's chairwoman, said the members found it infeasible to call for abolishing the residency restrictions, given the sweeping voter approval of Proposition 83. He said state and local officials have the power to interpret the law to allow more housing for sex offenders, but the board believes that the likelihood of legislators fixing the problems in more comprehensive ways -- at least in the short term -- is slim.

"I can't imagine a policymaker who would put their name on something that says we want to make it easier for sex offenders to find housing," Coombs said. "Even though it's a strong public safety concept," lawmakers would be setting themselves up for political attack.

Responding to the criticism that residency restrictions have no benefit to public safety, state Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), an author of the initiative, said, "I do believe the general public would say a child molester should not live across the street from a school."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong supporter of Proposition 83, has said he is open to revisions but has not suggested any.

Jeanne Woodford, a former state corrections secretary under Schwarzenegger, said the residency restrictions should be abolished. She said many states are reexamining their handling of sex offenders in light of studies showing that there is little utility in registration requirements and other laws the public has supported to keep track of them.

"The bottom line is, this is really what happens when we allow our emotions to get the best of us, as opposed to dealing with the facts," she said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-offenders14-2009jan14,0,7229747.story

Posted by lois at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2009

LA: Did Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Others Push Up Mandatory Sentences

"Why, then, is the country just now getting around to talking about cutting criminal justice costs by reducing the prison population?
As Mauer said, the states have finally reached a point fiscally where leaders must choose between costly prisons and less expensive alternatives. Was the delay about fear of politically powerful groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers?That group and others successfully pushed for mandatory sentences for selected crimes, driving the number of prison inmates higher."

Will La. reduce prison population to save money?
By Robert Morgan January 14, 2009

*
Some states reportedly are considering cutting expenses by letting some convicts out of prison and relieving others of supervised parole as a means of cutting expenses.

According to the Associated Press, Kentucky is implementing a temporary cost-cutting plan that has seen murderers and other violent offenders benefit.

Early-release programs are being considered in California, Virginia and New York to avoid budget shortfalls.

The AP stated, "Collectively, the pending and proposed initiatives could add up to one of (the) biggest shifts ever in corrections policy, putting into place cost-saving reforms that have struggled to win political support in the tough-on-crime climate of recent decades."

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration, said hard financial times are doing what politics could not.

"Many political leaders who weren't comfortable enough, politically, to do it before can now -- under the guise of fiscal responsibility -- implement programs and policies that would be win-win situations, saving money and improving corrections," Mauer said.

This story comes on the heels of an earlier AP article about proposed layoffs in the Louisiana Department of Corrections.

Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc did not mention anything about cutting costs by reducing the number of inmates but that would have to be legislative decision.

Perhaps it was always inevitable that cuts in housing prisoners would have to be made.

Several years ago, in a Town Talk article, local sheriffs and Corrections officials said about 85 percent of the state's incarcerated population had drug or mental problems. There has been nothing reported since to alter that assessment.

Why, then, is the country just now getting around to talking about cutting criminal justice costs by reducing the prison population?

As Mauer said, the states have finally reached a point fiscally where leaders must choose between costly prisons and less expensive alternatives.

Was the delay about fear of politically powerful groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers?

That group and others successfully pushed for mandatory sentences for selected crimes, driving the number of prison inmates higher.

When The Town Talk story was published, it was noted that the cost of keeping one prisoner locked up was $18,000 per year, and the cost went to more than $30,000 annually when expenses for prison construction were added.

Will Louisiana join the other states in considering ways to reduce the prison population, possibly providing less expensive drug and psychiatric treatment rather than incarceration?

Gov. Bobby Jindal has said Louisiana is not facing the economic crisis to the extent that the rest of the nation is suffering.

Will he wait until the state is in a worse fiscal crisis before considering a practical means for cutting expenses?

http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20090114/NEWS01/901140326

Posted by lois at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2009

JPI: Violent Crime Fell in 2008; Prisons and jails experienced less growth than previous years

Violent Crime Fell in 2008; Prisons and jails experienced less growth than previous years
Justice Policy Institute: January 14, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Violent crime in the United States fell by 3.5 percent and property crimes fell by 2.5 percent in the first half of 2008, according to an analysis released today by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI). The analysis, which is based on the FBI Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, finds that this drop in crime came at a time when state corrections spending continued to grow, although at a lower rate than the previous year, and when the prison and jail rates also continued to grow, also at lower rates than in previous years.

According to the analysis, violent and property offenses were down across U.S. cities of all sizes in the first six months of 2008. From 2005-2006, violent crime had increased slightly (1.9 percent), while prison and jail populations also grew (by 2 and 2.5 percent, respectively). However, as the growth rate of prisons and jails has slowed, the violent crime rate declined as well, down 1.4 percent from 2006 to 2007.

"The drop in violent crime is good news for public safety," said JPI Executive Director Tracy Velázquez . "The question policymakers must answer is why prison and jail growth continues despite drops in violent crime. This suggests that more people are being locked up for nonviolent offenses or more people are being returned to jail or prison because of revocations of probation or parole. In both these cases, officials need to look at whether there are ways to improve or expand programs that help people succeed under community supervision, while preserving public safety."

The Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy group that promotes fair and rational justice policies, cautions that no single factor can explain changes in crime across the nation, or within a jurisdiction. JPI has assembled key findings from these new crime and prison surveys to put the new figures in their appropriate context. "This data also confirms that increasing incarceration is not necessarily the best way to preserve public safety," Velázquez added. "For the greatest return on investment, policymakers should focus on increasing spending at the front end, such as in education and job training, as well as more and better treatment and services at the 'back end' to help people who are diverted from prison or jail or who are re-entering the community."
An analysis at this URL:
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/uploa/09-01_FAC_FBIUCR2008_PS.pdf

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

THE PEOPLE’S AGENDA: VIRGINIA PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY

THE PEOPLE’S AGENDA

Adopted unanimously Jan. 10, 2009, by the VIRGINIA PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY

In this time of deepening economic crisis, the working people of Virginia are looking to the government to protect our interests. Instead, it is the Big Banks and Corporations that are receiving bail-outs, while we are faced with more layoffs, more cutbacks and more attacks on our standard of living. Obviously, the rich and powerful have their representatives. The working people need ours.

On Jan. 10, 2009, nearly 100 representatives from dozens of organizations and communities throughout Virginia met in Richmond to found a People’s Assembly to protect and promote the interests of working-class people and communities of color. After much discussion and listening to each other’s concerns, the delegates unanimously adopted this People’s Agenda which we are presenting to the Virginia General Assembly. Our first demands are the following:

Don’t Balance the Budget on the Backs of Virginia’s Workers!

We demand a Moratorium on Cutbacks, Layoffs, Evictions & Foreclosures!

We know there are alternatives to cutting the state budget. Virginia’s 6% corporate tax rate is the 7th lowest in the country and hasn’t been raised in more than 30 years. Raise it! Reinstate parole for Virginia prisoners so the state’s prison population can be reduced. Close the barbaric and unnecessary Red Onion SuperMax prison. No more state money to promote slavery-defending Confederate traitors. Bring home Virginia members of the National Guard and Reserves now stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, we demand the following:

LABOR

No layoffs of public employees — Remove all legal restrictions to the right to collective bargaining and the right to organize (HJ-60) — Pass a living wage bill — Create permanent, sustainable employment for all Virginians willing and able to work; promote “green” jobs — Equal pay and pay equity for women and people of color — Provide economic protection for retirees — Promote equal opportunity in all facets of state government — Support passage of the federal Employee Free Choice Act — Support repeal of the federal Taft-Hartley Act — Support the repeal of the federal NAFTA and CAFTA trade treaties

BLACK COMMUNITY

Remove barriers to effective support of the development and sustenance of neighborhood, community-based initiatives that will effect youth development, continuing education and/or job skills — Promote training and apprenticeships and small business and nonprofit organizational development to meet the needs of the community — ake Juneteenth an “Emancipation Day” state holiday; form a state-level Juneteenth Commission to coordinate cultural and educational programs — Increase procurement contracts to minority-owned businesses — For every dollar spent on Confederate culture commemoration, a matching dollar should be spent to fund Black culture and achievement commemoration, especially in regards to science, math and history

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Declare a moratorium on anti-immigrant raids, deportations and foreclosures — Respect the right of residents to remain with their families — Prohibit local enforcement of the Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act — Prohibit public funding for the implementation of UNJUST migratory laws — Prohibit the use of abstract and nonspecific legal terminology like “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause” that allow racial profiling and indiscriminate arrests — Prohibit police from using individual interpretation of laws for their own implementation — Stop linking illegal immigration and terrorism — Respect the human rights of immigrant detainees and prevent inhumane treatment — Prohibit detention centers like the planned Farmville Detention Center — Enforce and expand labor & wage protection laws — Allow in-state tuition for undocumented Virginia residents — Allow people to obtain a driver’s license or identification without presenting a Social Security number, to prevent arrests, criminal records and deportations — Allow all Virginia residents to benefit from social programs -- health, education and other social services; no denial because of lack of a Social Security number — Prohibit public service workers from denouncing people because of their migratory status — Prohibit the use of the term “illegal alien” and any official use of discriminatory terms or concepts against people of color or immigrants

EDUCATION

Restructure public education to focus on critical thinking and practical life skills along with promotion of both higher education and vocational training, rather than test-taking skills to the exclusion of all others — Include worker and labor history in public education — Include partnerships with local initiatives in the standard curriculum for skills building and self-sufficiency — Build in vocational learning connected to local employment industries starting in middle school — Improve accuracy of the history and social studies curricula — Improve relevancy of civics in public schools curriculum by providing hands-on engagement with local government and school board processes from kindergarten through 12th grades

HEALTH CARE

Support universal health care — Promote real access to health care — Protect access to safe abortions and birth-control — Stop the privatization of health care services — No cutbacks in Medicare — No cutbacks in the WIC program — Provide for realistic explanation of patients’ legal medical rights — Stop stigmas based on morals related to health care — Stop the closing of the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents — Legalize needle exchange — Provide condoms in prisons — Make “queer bashing” a hate crime — While paying proper attention to child welfare, allow people to freely parent and give birth in any method they prefer, including those in prison and on welfare

PRISONER ADVOCACY

Pass the Prisoner Literacy and Rehabilitation with “EARNED” Sentence Credit Allowance for Virginia state prisoners under the non-parole sentencing law who seek an “earned” second chance in society — Parole Board Oversight Committee to ensure fair and responsible parole for 9,000 prisoners remain incarcerated 13 years after parole abolishment. Remove barriers to medical care in prisons and jails — Recognize the right of prisoners to education — Revamp state law to allow for the speedy restoration of civil rights of convicted felons — Close the Red Onion SuperMax prison — Reform drug crime laws — Raise the pay for public defenders assigned to indigent defendants.
VPA Real Prison Reform Representatives:
Janet (Queen Nzinga) Taylor: OneRastaQueen@hotmail.com
Cassandra (Imani) Shaw: Shawthesavvy1@aol.com
Lillie (Ms. K) Branch-Kennedy: RIHD23075@aol.com

STUDENTS

Make academic programs and faculty/staff wages the first financial priorities — Protect and expand tuition financial aid programs — Ensure academic diversity through equal support for academic programs — Ensure job security and fair pay for faculty and staff — Create a more democratic system of oversight at the state level and in universities — Promote college and university expansion that takes into account the needs of the host communities

ANTI-WAR

Bring Virginia GIs and National Guard members home now — Support veterans when they get home — End the “poverty draft” and fund alternatives to military service; fund “green” civilian corps with same benefits as military service — Divest state funds from Israel until it complies with UN resolutions — Mandate truth and full disclosure in recruiting — Forbid military recruiters from entering public schools — Make higher education affordable

OTHER

Raise the state corporate tax rate — Repeal the Dillon Law — Redraw Virginia’s voting districts so they are equitable and not based on race — Promote ecology and environmental conservation and protection; increase spending on state parks — Cancel the Wise County power plant — Stop coal extraction while meeting the economic needs of the people of Appalachia — Ensure available, affordable housing — Make Virginia friendlier to small businesses.

VIRGINIA PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY
PO Box 38441, Richmond, VA 23231
Web: www.RichmondJwJ.org

Posted by lois at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Justice Department appointee hired 65 of 63 "right-thinking Americans"...not "mold spores" or "commies" for civil rights and voting sections

Justice appointee wanted to purge liberals
By AP Wire
Created 01/14/2009

WASHINGTON - To Bradley Schlozman, they were "mold spores," "commies" and "crazy libs."

He was referring to the career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights and voting rights sections. From 2003 to 2006, Schlozman was a Bush appointee who supervised them. Along with several others, he came to symbolize the mid-level political appointees who brought a hard-edged ideology to the day-to-day workings of the Justice Department.

"My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section," he said in an e-mail in 2003. "I too get to work with mold spores, but here in Civil Rights, we call them Voting Section attorneys," he confided to another friend.

He hoped to get rid of the "Democrats" and "liberals" because they were "disloyal" and replace them with "real Americans" and "right-thinking Americans."

He appears to have succeeded by his standards, according to an Inspector General's report released Tuesday. Among the newly hired lawyers whose political or ideological views could be discerned, 63 of 65 lawyers hired under Schlozman had Republican or conservative credentials, the report said.

"Bitch slapping a bunch of (these) attorneys really did get the blood pumping and was even enjoyable once in a while," Schlozman wrote three years later when he left to become the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

The Inspector General concluded Schlozman violated the civil services laws while at the Justice Department. Although the president's appointees are entitled to run the department and set policy, they are prohibited from considering "political affiliations" in deciding on who serves in career positions in the federal government.

"We found that Schlozman inappropriately considered political and ideological affiliations in hiring career attorneys," said the report issued jointly by Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, who heads the Office of Professional Responsibility. The report cited the abusive language as evidence of the harsh political tone.

Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said it "describes troubling conduct" from the recent past, but added, "We are confident that the institutional problems identified in today's report no longer exist and will not occur."

Separately, the U.S. attorney's office in Washington announced it will not seek to prosecute Schlozman for giving false testimony to Congress. Patricia Riley, a spokeswoman for that office, said the acting U.S. attorney Jeffrey Taylor stepped aside from the case, and six career prosecutors looked into the case against Schlozman.

Joseph Rich, the former chief of the Voting Rights section, said the report "confirms the disdain and vitriol they had for career civil rights attorneys. He called us `mold spores.' That kind of us epitomizes his view. He was probably the most miserable person I ever worked for," said Rich, who retired in 2007 after a 37-year career at the Justice Department.
Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2008 All rights reserved
Source URL: http://www.gazettenet.com/2009/01/14/justice-appointee-wanted-purge-liberals

Posted by lois at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

VA: Doctor refused to treat woman while she is shackled

The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, VA

Shackles not what doctor ordered
A Fredericksburg doctor this week refused to treat a handcuffed inmate

Date published: 1/14/2009

BY JIM HALL

When Dr. Declan Burke, a Fredericksburg obstetrician/gynecologist, walked into his exam room Monday, he discovered that his patient, a female jail inmate, was in handcuffs.

"Please take off the manacles," he said to the correctional officer who was with the inmate.

"No, I can't," the guard replied.

Burke insisted, so the officer called her supervisor at the Rappahannock Regional Jail. The supervisor agreed with the officer. The handcuffs would remain in place during the exam.

Burke said he wanted the handcuffs removed to examine the patient completely. It was the first time in 20 years that he has refused to treat a jail inmate.

The superintendent of the regional jail in Stafford County said that restraints are needed to prevent violent behavior.

"I respect his office policy," said Joseph Higgs, "but I am not going to compromise the safety of that doctor, his nurse or my officer by removing restraints on an inmate that may well have created a problem."

Health workers must sometimes restrain unruly patients. But what about the patient who arrives for treatment in shackles? Can a doctor insist that they be removed?

Several hospitals, state legislatures and departments of corrections nationwide have debated the shackling of pregnant inmates during labor and delivery.

At Mary Washington Hospital's emergency department, prisoners from the Rappahannock Regional Jail are not shackled while being treated.

"The handcuffs are removed, and a prison guard sits one-on-one with the patient," said Kathleen Allenbaugh, hospital spokeswoman.

When state inmates are taken for medical care, the decision whether to shackle during treatment is made on a case-by-case basis, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

"Several factors come into play," Traylor said in an e-mail. "The most significant being the offender's history of behavior. When possible we will consider removal of either the handcuffs or the leg irons depending on the area that requires treatment."

Burke described his patient as a "small, frail-looking woman" in her 30s. He said he did not know her criminal history. She was there because of complications of a hysterectomy.

Burke said the guard removed the prisoner's leg shackles for the pelvic exam. He also said he wanted the handcuffs removed to do a breast exam.

With the handcuffs in place, "I could have done a limited exam. I couldn't have done the adequate exam I wanted to do," he said.

Burke said he did not fear for his safety. His nurse and the guard were in the room.

The guard and inmate eventually left Burke's Central Park office without the inmate being treated.

Higgs said the jail's policy is consistent for all prisoners, male or female, sentenced or accused.

"Normally, when we take them out into the community, even to funerals, they remain cuffed," Higgs said.

Burke's patient had been convicted in Stafford County and had a history of violence, Higgs said.

"The doctor has no knowledge of the history of this inmate at this facility. We do," he said.

The inmate will see another doctor and will be handcuffed during the exam, he said.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/012009/01142009/438371

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

January 13, 2009

Sex Workers Outreach Project: articles in the Washington Post and Newsweek on Protests in DC

Sex Workers Criticize Law Enforcement

By Theola Labbé-DeBose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2008; B03

Dozens of sex workers marched through the streets of downtown Washington yesterday, demanding better treatment from law enforcement officials of prostitutes who become crime victims.

Clutching red umbrellas and carrying signs that read, "Sex Work Is Real Work" and "Stop Shaming Us to Death," the men and women came from San Francisco, New York and other cities across the country to publicize a rarely discussed issue that they say is not taken seriously.

The rally and march was organized by the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, and coincided with today's fifth anniversary of the sentencing of Gary Leon Ridgway, a Seattle man known as the "Green River Killer" who was convicted of murdering 48 prostitutes in 21 years. The lowly status of prostitutes in society, rally participants said yesterday, explains why the crimes went unsolved for so long.

"I'm just so tired of hearing, 'If I choose to do X, then I put myself on the line,' " said Charmus, 34, a transgender woman who gave only her first name. She lives in Maryland and said she has worked as a prostitute. "Transgender women, prostitutes, you have a right to fight for due process," she said to the crowd assembled at a downtown park.

As professional workers filed out of buildings in suits and ties on their way to business lunches, the rally crowd marched from Franklin Square at 14th and I streets NW to the Justice Department in the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Along the way, the marchers encountered some bemused looks at signs reading, "Be Nice to Sex Workers."

A 33-year-old man from New York City who gave his name as Wally said he works as an escort in Manhattan. He has been fortunate not to be a crime victim, he said, but he made the trip to show solidarity.

"I do this to survive," he said.

Once the protesters reached the Justice Department, they stood on the sidewalk and told their stories under the watchful eyes of federal police officers. Leila, a 24-year-old woman from San Francisco, shared an experience that she said showed the importance of sex workers banding together.

Leila said a client wanted to pay her at the end of their date and even provided his passport as collateral. She was skeptical, but agreed. Then the client said he needed to take money out of the bank, and she went with him. But at the teller, the client asked for his passport back for identification. When Leila handed it back, the man ran.

Leila told the protesters that she chased the man and even caught up with him. He punched her in the face. But when she complained to police, she said, they threatened to arrest her for working as a prostitute.

Since the date was arranged online, Leila said, she went to her computer and noticed warnings about the client posted by other women. The women shared information about him, and eventually they found his workplace and told his boss that the man had been meeting prostitutes during the workday and assaulting them. He was fired, Leila said.

"Alone, we're just prostitutes on the corner and no one respects us," she said. "Together we are a political movement, and we can change things."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/17/AR2008121703357_pf.html

What Sex Workers Want

Will decriminalizing prostitution make it any safer?
Dina Fine Maron
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Sharmus, a tall transgendered woman, bundled up in a hooded-coat and scarf, looked out at the crowd gathered earlier this week in Washington. The crowd, mostly young and middle-aged women, were clutching red umbrellas and signs proclaiming, "STOP SHAMING US TO DEATH" and "STOP THE WAR ON WHORES." Sharmus, who uses that name for her work in the sex industry, was speaking at the sixth annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

Ignoring the stares of a few passers-by, Sharmus took a deep breath and began to talk about an incident in early December when a customer shot at and tried to rob her. It wasn't the first time she'd been threatened with a weapon or assaulted. During her seven years in the sex industry she says she has contacted the police on four separate occasions to report an attack. And each time, she felt blamed by the police or the prosecutor for what happened. Twice, she says, police officers have reprimanded her for putting herself in a risky situation.

According to the rally's organizers, and other similar organizations, the only way to really protect sex workers like Sharmus, is to make what they do both legal and legitimate. That, they say, would make it easier for them to go to the police for protection without fear of prosecution or callous treatment. But would legalizing the sex industry make its workers any safer? The question is far from settled.

Carol Leigh, a San Francisco-based advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution who attended the D.C. event, says she was raped at age 28 while working as a prostitute. "I couldn't call the police because I certainly felt that they wouldn't take the crime seriously," she says. She feared they would just close down the place where she worked.

In Sweden, authorities have made it legal to sell sex but not to buy it. In 1999 they passed a law that encourages law enforcement to aggressively prosecute johns. Their theory is that sex workers will be more likely to come forward and get help or report a violent customer if they don't fear prosecution. The Swedish national police board reports that since it began levying charges against johns, the number of prostitutes has decreased by as much as 40 percent, and there's been a significant reduction in the number of women trafficked into the country for use in the sex trade.

However, some sex-work advocacy organizations suggest sex workers in Sweden have just become further marginalized and conduct their affairs more privately. Stacey Swimme, a national board member for the Sex Worker Outreach Project-USA, a group that helped organize the D.C. march, does not think the model would be a good fit in America. She says that sex workers will protect their source of income, the johns, and thus will be hesitant to report them. "Anything that pushes sex workers and their clients further into the underground economy is still compromising the safety and the health of sex workers," she explains.

Prostitution is legal in only a few parts of Nevada, but legalization initiatives elsewhere in the United States have failed. On Nov. 4, San Franciscans voted down a proposal that would have prevented city government from using city funds to prosecute either johns or prostitutes. Sex worker activists and the San Francisco Democratic Party supported the legalization efforts. But whether legalization would help reduce violence against sex workers is unclear. A 2007 study by San Francisco psychologist and prostitution expert Melissa Farley found that in places where commercial sex is legal—such as some Nevada counties, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands—both illegal prostitution, as well as the number of rapes and assaults against prostitutes, has increased.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and Mayor Gavin Newsom strongly opposed the proposition's passage, saying it could compromise their ability to prosecute human traffickers and would not do much to help protect sex workers from violence. Maxine Doogan, the founder of the Erotic Services Providers Union and the proponent of the proposition, said that by repeatedly linking prostitution and human trafficking, the D.A. and the mayor were simply using "fear tactics" to defeat the ballot initiative.

Swimme and other legalization advocates say blurring that definition of human trafficking and sex trafficking is a mistake. They note that human trafficking numbers also include forced labor, a kind of modern-day slavery. The U.S. government estimates that the human trafficking industry involves 600,000 to 800,000 people worldwide—about 80 percent of those trafficked are women and up to 50 percent are children. It is difficult to identify how many of those women and men engage in non-consensual sex work in the United States because the practice often occurs in isolated settings like massage parlors or is organized via the Internet or phones. But it's clear that individuals trafficked across country borders or within the United States are prone to sexual coercion. And the U.S. Department of Justice reports that among those trafficked worldwide "there are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as 5, who fall victim to the sex trade."

Despite these numbers, some anti-trafficking advocates suggest that U.S. policy on human trafficking is too focused on prostitution. Ann Jordan, director of the Anti-Trafficking Initiative of the International Human Rights Law Group, said in her congressional testimony last year: "The broad scope of the U.S. anti-trafficking policy has been gradually narrowed to fit an anti-prostitution agenda that is based on the unproven belief that all prostitution (even legal prostitution in Nevada) is trafficking; and so criminalizing prostitution, as well as clients, is promoted as a purported means to stop prostitution and to stop trafficking for prostitution." But this policy is unlikely to change in an Obama administration. When questioned by pastor Rick Warren during the campaign, the president-elect drew a connection between prostitution and modern day enslavement, so it seems doubtful that he would consider a platform that would legalize the sex trade.

Short of legislative change, sex workers in the D.C. march are hoping for a seat at the table, says Swimme. Her organization and others want to be included in discussions by the secretary of state and the Department of Human Services on human trafficking, sex work and HIV-AIDs-prevention efforts. "Right now, while everybody is a criminal, nobody is talking about safety," she says. "And that is really what our message is: by criminalizing us we are being silent and our health and our safety are at risk. We are vulnerable."
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/176267

Video from demonstration................

http://blip.tv/file/1619080

This and other news about organizing can be found at www.realcostofprisons.org/b

Posted by lois at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

Guantanamo and U.S. Control Units

Statement by Lois Ahrens on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights given at commemorative event in Northampton, MA Dec 12 2008

Yesterday leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report stating that Donald Rumsfeld bore major responsibility for torture at Guantanamo and Abu Gharib.

Speaking today, I must call your attention to this same kind of torture that goes on every day in U.S. prisons. President Obama can take the lead in ending this inhumane practice in Federal Prisons and call for the Justice Department to investigate the inhumane practices which go on in every state.
Solitary confinement of prisoners exists under a range of names; isolation, control units, supermax prisons, the hole, SHUs, administrative segregation or maximum security. Prisoners are placed in these units by prison authorities not as a result of a specific crime. They are used for punishment, for behavior modification, as retribution for political activism. Once in them, it is very hard to get out.
Solitary confinement includes
• confinement behind a solid steel door for 23 hours a day
• limited contact with other human beings
• infrequent phone calls and rare non-contact family visits
• grossly inadequate medical and mental health treatment
• restricted reading material and personal property
• physical torture such as hog-tying, restraint chairs, and forced cell extraction
• mental torture such as sensory deprivation, permanent bright lighting, extreme temperatures, and forced insomnia
Practices used in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were developed here and used every day.
In 1985 there were a handful of control units across the county. Today more than 30,000 people in them. Prisoners are often confined for months or even years, with some spending more than 25 years in segregated units.
Increasingly isolation units house the mentally ill who struggle to conform to prison rules. An independent investigation from 2006 reported that as many as 64% of prisoners in SHUs were mentally ill. Contrary to media driven perception that control units house "the worst of the worst', it is often the most vulnerable prisoners, not the most violent who end up in extended isolation.
Article 5 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” On this day of Commemoration of the Declaration of Human Rights, I ask each of us to take a stand against daily torture of thousands of men and women here in the U.S. and demand an end to prison isolation and segregation units.

Posted by lois at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

UT: DOC cuts drug programs and parole violator center not cages

Public safety cuts go deep, affect police and prisons
Slashing spending » Trooper, prison guard jobs on the block

By Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 01/12/2009 08:56:24 PM MST
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11438864

The state's belt-tightening could mean 42 fewer highway patrol
troopers on the streets, elimination of 283 positions in the
state court system and reduction of 22 mid-level officers in
the state prison system.

"I think we're all feeling a real lot of pain this year," said
Senate President Michael Waddoups. "It isn't like this is fun
for us. It's our constitutional duty, and I would just say the
more help we can get the better."

The recommended cuts Monday were a sort of first shot at
balancing the state budget, which is facing a gaping shortfall
over the current budget year and the next. The proposals will
be refined next week, so lawmakers can act soon after they
convene on Jan. 26.

The Department of Corrections would wipe out drug offender
treatment for about 1,400 offenders a year, would cancel a
contract for a 300-bed parole violator center, and further
delay the construction of a 192-bed addition to the Gunnison
prison.

The department would have to eliminate 22 middle management
staff positions. Corrections director Tom Patterson said that
could mean a greater safety risk for prison guards and fewer
opportunities for promotion as positions are phased out.

The juvenile justice system would see double-bunking of its
youth inmates and closure of four "receiving centers" which
provide short-term housing for youth as they enter the justice
system.

Public Safety Commissioner Scott Duncan said the recommended
cuts would mean 42 highway patrol troopers would be taken off
the roads. Additionally, the reductions would force grounding
of the department's Aero Bureau and selling off the four
aircraft -- two helicopters and two fixed-wing planes.

The aircraft have been used to lift equipment during the
Crandall Canyon mine collapse, help evacuate civilians during
wildfires and to assist in security during the Warren Jeffs
trial.

"Some of these were a shock to me today and to some other
people in our department," said Duncan, who said he was
concerned about the number of troopers shrinking at the same
time the number of people on the road continues to increase.
"We'll do everything we can," he said, and assured legislators
the department would keep the public safe.

And the state courts are facing the elimination of 283
positions and looking at some sweeping changes, including
potentially closing the courthouse in Bountiful and eliminating
all of the small claims filing in the state courts, pushing it
off to the local justice courts.

Posted by lois at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2009

Lullabies Behind Bars In a few innovative prisons, babies find a safe haven with their moms

NATIONAL NEWS | fall 2008
Ms. Magazine
Lullabies Behind Bars
In a few innovative prisons, babies find a safe haven with their moms

By Beth Schwartzapfel

It's midday on a recent Tuesday, and Rachael Irwin, 27, scurries across the floor on her hands and knees, playing peekaboo with her 10-month-old daughter, Gabriella. The baby’s big blue eyes dance with delight. Like many children her age, Gabriella is in day care. Unlike most children her age, though, Gabriella is in prison. She and her mother are participating in the Bedford Hills (N.Y.) Correctional Facility’s nursery program, one of only nine programs in the country that allow incarcerated women to keep their babies with them after they give birth.

Nationwide, nearly 2 million children have parents in prison. The number of those with incarcerated mothers, in particular, is growing exponentially: A recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the number of minors with mothers in prison increased by more than 100 percent in the last 15 years.

“These children are sort of victims by default,” says Paige Ransford, research assistant at the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston, and coauthor of the recent report “Parenting from Prison.” Most of the children go live with grandparents or other relatives; one in 10 is placed in foster care. About half are separated from their siblings. These children are prone to a whole host of social developmental difficulties, and are more likely than their peers to be in trouble with the law later in life.

In the case of women who enter the system as mothers-to-be, the usual excitement of pregnancy is replaced with a sense of dread. The choices that, on the outside, are understood to be a woman’s right—such as where and how to give birth, and whether or not to breastfeed—are transferred from the woman to bureaucrats and officers at the state Department of Corrections (DOC).

Of the 115,308 women incarcerated in the U.S. as of 2007, some 4,000 women—4 percent of women in state custody and 3 percent in federal— were pregnant when they entered prison. In the vast majority of cases, babies are removed from their mothers immediately after birth and placed with relatives or in foster care. However, a small but growing number of states are recognizing that the mother-child bond formed in the first few months of life is crucial to the child’s development, and that the bond need not be broken.

“We’re definitely seeing more states grapple with what it means to send women to prison, some of whom are pregnant,” says Sarah From, director of public policy and communications for the Women’s Prison Association (WPA) and coauthor of the agency’s forthcoming report on prison nurseries. Eight states now have some sort of program to house female offenders together with their newborns, the newest being Indiana. The West Virginia legislature recently passed a bill establishing a program in its correctional facility for women, which is slated to open in 2009.

babys playing togetherThese programs vary widely in the length of time babies are allowed to stay with their incarcerated mothers and in the services provided while they’re in prison with them. South Dakota’s program allows babies to stay for just 30 days—with the mother in her regular cell—while Washington state allows children to stay for up to three years with their mothers in a separate wing of the prison. The Washington facility offers a federal Early Head Start program for prenatal health and infant-toddler development, and partners with the nonprofit Prison Doula Project to provide doula services to the women during and after pregnancies.

Originally started way back in 1901 when the prison was a state reformatory, the Bedford Hills Program is the oldest and largest in the country, with its own nursery wing and space for up to 29 mother-baby pairs. Women live with their babies in bright rooms stuffed with donated toys and clothes. During the day, while the women attend DOC-mandated drug counseling, anger management, vocational training and parenting classes, their children attend a day care staffed by inmates who have graduated from an intensive two-year Early Childhood Associate vocational training program.

Although the idea of babies living the first months of their lives behind bars is sad to contemplate, many experts say that the alternative—separating them from their mothers—is far worse. “If a woman is serving a short sentence and can look forward to a life with her child…so much research addresses the importance of that early bonding relationship,” says Sylvia Mignon, associate professor and director of the graduate program in human services at UMass Boston and coauthor, with Ransford, of the “Parenting from Prison” report. “The reality is, an infant does not know that she is in prison. All she knows is that she’s getting the warmth and love and attention of this wonderful being called mom.” Among women serving sentences of more than a decade, however, there is no clear consensus on what’s best for the child; the Bedford Hills program generally only accepts women serving sentences of five years or less. “We don’t want to create a bond that’s guaranteed to be broken,” says the children’s center program director, Bobby Blanchard.

Unlike in the general prison population, doors in the program are never locked; inmates must be able to come and go freely in order to warm bottles, do laundry and comfort crying children out of the earshot of other sleeping babies. Rooms are decorated with photographs and handmade posters that say things like, “Loving yourself is something to be proud of!” Danielizz Negron, 23, rocks her 4-month-old son, Jeremiah, while he naps in a stroller. She was six months pregnant when, after a year of fighting burglary charges, she accepted a plea deal and turned herself in. “If I had not known about this program, I would not have came in. I would’ve been in Mexico somewhere by now,” she says, only half-joking.

As the number of prison nurseries continues to grow, some caution against becoming overly sanguine. Prison nurseries are wonderful programs, says the WPA’s Sarah From, however “we shouldn’t be looking to build more prison nurseries, but rather work in the community to put less women in prison.”
http://www.msmagazine.com/Fall2008/LullabiesBehindBars.asp

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

How the Madoff Mess Hits Women

How the Madoff mess hits women
With two progressive organizations forced to shutter, it isn't just wealthy individuals being affected by the investment scandal.
Salon.com
Nancy Goldstein

Jan. 07, 2009 |

For all the ink that's been spilled on the Madoff investment scandal, I've read nothing about its impact on funding for progressive women's causes -- which is considerable. Simply put, only a small pool of foundations are funding litigation and advocacy work related to criminal justice or constitutional rights; the pool that supports related programs targeted to women is smaller still. With the recent shuttering of two of Madoff's clients, the Picower Foundation and the JEHT Foundation, that pool has shrunk to a puddle.

Picower was one of a handful of foundations willing to stick their necks out and significantly fund the three organizations that handle virtually all major reproductive rights-related litigation and legal advocacy in the United States. Now the Center for Reproductive Rights needs to make up a $600,000 shortage in 2009; Planned Parenthood is out $484,000; the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project is off $200,000.

The economic crisis makes it particularly difficult to replace that kind of money. Meanwhile, there's a backlog of bad new laws that need to be contested. It's likely to grow this year with the popularity of mandatory ultrasound laws for abortion patients, one of the favorite new litigation strategies of antiabortion activists. (Seventeen states considered more than 30 ultrasound bills in 2007 alone.)

Consequently, there's a lot riding on the Center for Reproductive Rights' recent challenge to Oklahoma's law, the harshest in the country. It compels physicians one hour prior to performing an abortion to do an ultrasound on the patient and point out various features, while -- per CRR's press release -- "preventing a woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus, such as a severe developmental defect." (Translation: information that might influence a woman to terminate a risky pregnancy.)

But who's going to fund this very expensive suit? Or the challenges to similar laws that will pass while this case is in court? Women also stand to lose ground with the closing of the JEHT Foundation, one of the country's premier funders of criminal justice reform initiatives, including drug policy reform. Both issues have particular resonance for women. Thanks to stringent mandatory sentences for even first-time, nonviolent drug offenders, women's rate of incarceration grew by 757 percent between 1977 and 2006 -- nearly twice the rate for men. Women of color, who are scrutinized, prosecuted and punished more harshly for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, bear the brunt of these policies.

JEHT, like Picower, was a rare grant maker in an already select field. It funded initiatives aimed at ameliorating the hardships women face as a consequence of their involvement with the criminal system, including grants to the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the Stop Prisoner Rape Project. Additionally, Sarah From, director of public policy and communications for the Women's Prison Association, lauds JEHT for "being one of the few foundations to fund criminal justice policy reform." (JEHT provided WPA with seed money to start its national Institute on Women and Criminal Justice.)

"They addressed a real need in the field," says From. "Now there will be fewer resources for this work overall, and we'll have to work harder to convince new funders to take a look at our issues for the first time."

Vivian Lindermayer, CRR's director of development, sounds uncannily similar talking about Picower. "They understood the critical role litigation and legal advocacy play in securing women's equal access to quality reproductive healthcare. Picower's closing will have a major impact on CRR and organizations like us."

The media's obsession with wealthy individuals who have been ruined by Madoff and feel betrayed is understandable. But when that story wears thin, let's hope the cameras will document the effect of the $42 million shortfall that progressive nonprofits will face in 2009 without funding from JEHT and Picower. We've only just begun to understand the implications of that loss for women's health and human rights.

-- Nancy Goldstein

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/01/07/madoff_health/print.html

Posted by lois at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

WA: Cost of prison system must be reined in

Cost of prison system must be reined in
Sunday, January 11, 2009 11:25 AM PST

Jan. 11 Daily News editorial

Virtually every state agency is targeted for cuts in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget blueprint. The Department of Corrections is asked to cut $125 million from its spending plan for the next biennium to help cope with a projected $5.7 billion revenue shortfall. Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail says that may require the early release of some inmates, an increase in the use of monitoring bracelets and a reduction in the supervision ex-convicts.

There are substantial savings to be made in the corrections budget without seriously compromising public safety, we’ve no doubt. Eliminating supervision for offenders who served time for gross misdemeanors could save $31 million, according to The Tacoma News Tribune. The newspaper reports that another $10 million could be saved by eliminating post-release supervision for other offenders considered low-to-moderate risk to reoffend.

But lawmakers would do well to use this occasion to enact more permanent cost-cutting reforms in corrections — reforms aimed at slowing the growth of Washington’s prison population. As the Tacoma newspaper noted, even after the DOC cuts $125 million from its spending plan, it still will have 72 more employees and $53 million more in the next biennium.

The Legislature has taken some important steps to address prison overcrowding in recent years. In 2003, state lawmakers made changes in the 1989 minimum sentencing laws for drug crimes that played a big part in almost tripling Washington’s prison population over the past two decades. Legislation was passed to reduce prison time and expand drug treatment options for nonviolent, first-time offenders. In 2007, the Legislature approved a $30 million plan to reduce recidivism by strengthening rehabilitation efforts. The plan involves providing inmates with literacy education, job training and drug treatment.

The 2009 Legislature can and should build on these reforms. A 2007 study by Pew Charitable Trusts found that 42 percent of new prisoners in the state were repeat offenders. That high recidivism rate has a lot to do with overcrowding in state prisons. Absent a more deliberate legislative effort to deal with the problem, it’s only going to worsen. The Pew study projects that Washington’s inmate population will grow by 28 percent over the next three years. It’s doubtful that the state can build enough prisons between now and 2011 to accommodate that growth, even allowing for some early releases.

The fact is, Washington hasn’t been able to keep up with the growing demand for prison beds for some time now. In 2005, for example, the Legislature provided $229 million for a 1,792-bed expansion to the prison at Connell in Eastern Washington. Corrections officials have said the state will be about 1,000 beds short of demand when that expansion is completed later this year.

Washington’s corrections bill has risen from about $500 million a little more than a decade ago to nearly $1.8 billion in the current biennium. Clearly, it’s time to get creative in exploring rehab programs and alternatives to incarceration.

Copyright © 2009, The Daily News All rights reserved.
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/01/11/editorial/doc496a47219ca7d394615140.txt

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

January 11, 2009

Budget woes prompt states to rethink prison policy

"Of the states we do business with, none have made prison construction a priority in this economic environment," said Tony Grande, CCA's executive vice president. "Our partnership with the states will become even stronger. ...We want to be a part of their financial solution."

Budget woes prompt states to rethink prison policy

By DAVID CRARY
January 10, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — Their budgets in crisis, governors, legislators and prison officials across the nation are making or considering policy changes that will likely remove tens of thousands of offenders from prisons and parole supervision.

Collectively, the pending and proposed initiatives could add up to one of biggest shifts ever in corrections policy, putting into place cost-saving reforms that have struggled to win political support in the tough-on-crime climate of recent decades.

"Prior to this fiscal crisis, legislators could tinker around the edges — but we're now well past the tinkering stage," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration.

"Many political leaders who weren't comfortable enough, politically, to do it before can now — under the guise of fiscal responsibility — implement programs and policies that would be win/win situations, saving money and improving corrections," Mauer said

In California, faced with a projected $42 billion deficit and prison overcrowding that has triggered a federal lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate parole for all offenders not convicted of violent or sex-related crimes, reducing the parole population by about 70,000. He also wants to divert more petty criminals to county jails and grant early release to more inmates — steps that could trim the prison population by 15,000 over the next 18 months.

In Kentucky, where the inmate population had been soaring, even some murderers and other violent offenders are benefiting from a temporary cost-saving program that has granted early release to nearly 2,000 inmates.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is proposing early release of about 1,000 inmates. New York Gov. David Paterson wants early release for 1,600 inmates as well as an overhaul of the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws that impose lengthy mandatory sentences on many nonviolent drug offenders.

"These laws have neither curbed drug use nor enhanced public safety," said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Instead, they have ruined thousands of lives and annually wasted millions of tax dollars in prison costs."

Policy-makers in Michigan, one of four states that spend more money on prisons than higher education, are awaiting a report later this month from the Council of State Governments' Justice Center on ways to trim fast-rising corrections costs, likely including sentencing and parole modifications.

"There's a new openness to taking a look," said state Sen. Alan Cropsey, a Republican who in the past has questioned some prison-reform proposals. "What we'll see are changes being made that will have a positive impact four, five, six years down the road."

Even before the recent financial meltdown, policy-makers in most states were wrestling with ways to contain corrections costs. The Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project has projected that state and federal prison populations — under current policies — will grow by more than 190,000 by 2011, to about 1.7 million, at a cost to the states of $27.5 billion.

"Prisons are becoming less and less of a sacred cow," said Adam Gelb, the Pew project's director. "The budget crisis is giving leaders on both sides of the aisle political cover they need to tackle issues that would be too tough to tackle when budgets are flush."

In contrast to past economic downturns, Gelb said, states now have better data on how to effectively supervise nonviolent offenders in their communities so prison populations can be reduced without increasing the threat to public safety.

Safety remains a potent factor. In California, for example, the state correctional officers' union contends Schwarzenegger's proposals will fuel more crime.

In Idaho, a combination of budget cuts and prison overcrowding contributed to an uprising Jan. 2 in a former prison workshop that was converted into a temporary cell block. Inmates who engaged in vandalism and arson had been placed there as part of a cost-cutting effort to move other prisoners back to Idaho from more expensive quarters at a private prison in Oklahoma.

Thomas Sneddon, a former Santa Barbara, Calif., prosecutor who is now executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said he and his colleagues support reappraisals of corrections policies yet worry constantly that dangerous criminals will be released unwisely.

"I don't think the public at large has any idea of who's in these prisons," Sneddon said. "If they went and visited, they'd say 'My God, don't let any of these people out.'"

He noted that many states are seeking to send fewer offenders back to prison for technical violations of parole conditions. Some of these violations are indeed relatively minor, Sneddon said, but often they are accompanied by more serious criminal behavior that warrants a return to prison.

As budgetary pressures worsen, some advocacy groups are concerned that spending cuts will target the very programs needed to help inmates avoid re-offending after release — education, vocational and drug-treatment programs.

"The idea that we'd cut programs and then release inmates early is a toxic combination," said Pat Nolan, vice president of Prison Fellowship. "Just opening prison doors and letting people out with no preparation — that's cruel to the offender and dangerous to public."

However, Nolan, a former California legislator who served time in a federal prison on a racketeering charge, sees the current climate as ripe for the kind of reforms Prison Fellowship has advocated with its Christian-based outreach programs.

"It's forcing the legislators to see the actual costs of imprisonment, because it's coming out of the budget for schools, roads, hospitals," he said.

The Council of State Government's Justice Center has been working with 10 states to develop options for curbing prison populations without jeopardizing public safety. Tactics used in Texas and Kansas have included early release for inmates who complete specified programs, more sophisticated community supervision of offenders, and expanded treatment and diversion programs.

"There's an unprecedented level of interest in this kind of thinking," said the Justice Center's director, Michael Thompson. "It's a combination of fiscal pressure and a certain fatigue of doing the same thing as 20 years ago and getting the same return."

In Florida, where prisons are so crowded that the state has acquired tents for possible use to house inmates, officials say 19 new prisons may be needed over the next five years. As an alternative, Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil told lawmakers they should re-evaluate the state's hard-line sentencing policies and look at ways to help released inmates avoid returning to prison.

One important variable is the role of private prisons, which some advocacy groups consider less accountable that state-run prisons. Elizabeth Alexander of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project expressed concern that fiscally struggling states would rely increasingly on private operators.

The largest private prison firm, Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, operates in 20 states and says some of them have asked if CCA can expand its capacity so more beds don't need to be added to the state-run system.

"Of the states we do business with, none have made prison construction a priority in this economic environment," said Tony Grande, CCA's executive vice president. "Our partnership with the states will become even stronger. ...We want to be a part of their financial solution."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHn029Sj9CfEhAVrg16Q5ij1YNtQD95KDPK80

Posted by lois at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

NC: Close to $20m OK'd for Bertie County prison expansion

Published on HamptonRoads.com
Close to $20m OK'd for Bertie County prison expansion
By Connie Sage
Correspondent
January 11, 2009
Money for a nearly $20 million expansion of the Bertie County state prison - and with it 115 new jobs - has been authorized by the state.

The state treasurer's office received the OK to borrow a total of $106 million for additions to five correctional facilities in North Carolina, including $19.9 million for Bertie County. The state General Assembly approved the expansion plans last summer.

The Council of State, which includes the governor and many of the state's top officials, announced plans Tuesday to fast-track more than $744 million in capital improvement projects designed to create 26,000 jobs and stimulate the state's economy.

Included is $18 million for a School of Education building at Elizabeth City State University, the governor's office said.

Work on a new dormitory to house 504 prisoners at the Bertie Correctional Institution at Windsor should start by summer, said Bill Stovall, deputy secretary of the North Carolina Department of Correction in Raleigh.

With November unemployment at 9.1 percent in Bertie County and reaching double digits in neighboring Chowan and Halifax counties, the prospect of new jobs is welcome news.

"It's good because we need additional bed space," said Anthony Hathaway III, the Bertie Correctional Institution's administrator. "When you're looking at today's economy, it also will provide opportunity for jobs for people. We hire from surrounding counties. It's a plus."

The new jobs will be primarily for correction officers but will also include some education and support staff ers, Stovall said.

The Bertie prison, which opened in August 2006, is 20 miles southwest of Edenton. It houses 975 men in a facility that can hold 1,000 inmates, Hathaway said. The inmates range in age from 21 to 68.

The level of security at the Bertie prison is "close," or one level down from the state's only maximum security prison, in Raleigh. The new dormitory will be for prisoners requiring a medium level of security.

Stovall, who also is in charge of state prison construction, said a request to house 252 more inmates at Bertie could be made as early as the upcoming session of the General Assembly. Those would be minimum-security prisoners. Bertie eventually could be built out to hold 1,756 prisoners, he said.

North Carolina's inmate population, now at 39,814, is "still growing fairly robustly," Stovall said, with 800 to 1,000 new beds expected to be needed annually for the next decade.

Expansion of the Bertie prison could start "as soon as cash flow is available," Stovall said, possibly by March or April.

"We'd buy the materials immediately and likely start construction in the summer," he said.

Stovall said his department is considering using inmates to build the new dormitory to save money and teach inmates marketable skills leading to journeyman certification.

Facilities for a total of 1,008 beds also will be added to state prisons in Lanesboro, Scotland County and Tabor City, Stovall said.

An expansion of the women's health and mental health facility in Raleigh will cost $45.2 million, according to a press release from the governor's office.

The Bertie prison is one of six correctional institutions built between 2001 and 2008 that were designed to be expanded, Stovall said.
Source URL (retrieved on 01/11/2009 - 13:02): http://hamptonroads.com/2009/01/close-20m-okd-bertie-county-prison-expansion

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

January 10, 2009

Cocaine and White Teens

White teens use cocaine at 4 times that of Black teens....and who is incarcerated?

January 10, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Cocaine and White Teens
By CHARLES M. BLOW

Last month, President Bush touted the results of a government-sponsored study by the University of Michigan called Monitoring the Future. It reported a broad decline in drug use among young people since 2001. This included a 24 percent drop in the overall use of illicit drugs. There was one exception he said: abuse of painkillers. But, one important metric that wasn’t mentioned, and that stubbornly resisted the downturn, was the use of cocaine.

According to data from the group that produced the report, the percentage of both black and white 12th graders who confessed to using cocaine in the past 30 days has essentially stayed flat since 2001. The major difference is that white usage outweighs black usage 4 to 1. (If you take a longer view back to 1991, when cocaine usage bottomed out following the outrageous ’80s, usage among white 12th graders since then has nearly doubled, while usage among black 12th graders has fallen a bit.)

While we turned our attention to pills being swiped from parents’ medicine cabinets, the number of youngsters snorting white lines continued virtually unabated, producing a striking consequence.

According to the most recent data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, admissions of white teenagers to drug treatment centers for crack and cocaine abuse soared 76 percent from 2001 to 2006. Crack and cocaine was the only illicit drug category in which the number of admissions for white teens grew over this period, and in 2006 the number was at its highest level since these data have been kept. By contrast, admissions among black teens for crack and cocaine over the same period held steady. By 2006, white admissions outnumbered those for blacks by more than 10 to 1. (It should be noted that admissions for white youths abusing painkillers in 2006, while growing, was still less than half the number of admissions for those abusing cocaine that year.)

And there are ominous signs. According to the Monitoring the Future study, the risk of using crack and cocaine, as perceived by teenagers, is going down. The newly released 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment puts it this way: “The decrease in perceived risk suggests that adolescents are becoming less wary of trying cocaine, which may sustain demand for the drug in the near future.”

But, in a phone interview, David Murray, chief scientist in the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, insisted that there was good news: a sharp rise in the price of cocaine and a drop in its purity since 2006, among other things, have cut into overall usage.

So, I thought, until policy makers put more of a focus on this issue and figure out how to reach these students, should we just hope that teens are too broke for this weak coke? I don’t think so. We need a real strategy, right now.
Graphs at this URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/opinion/10blow.html

Posted by lois at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)

Florida needs more education, not more prisons

Florida needs more education, not more prisons
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Editor’s note: Below is a reprint of a Dec. 30 editorial in The (Lakeland) Ledger, courtesy of The Associated Press. Although Florida’s overall population is about 16 percent black, its prison population is more than 50 percent black, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Corrections and the U.S. Census Bureau.

This month, Florida's prison population exceeded 100,000 for the first time.

Only California and Texas have more inmates. And Florida Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil says the Department of Corrections may have to put up tents to house all the inmates. McNeil said at the current growth trend, Florida will need 19 new prisons in the next five years. That will require the DOC budget to nearly double, to about $4 billion.

But that's not what McNeil is recommending. Instead, he wants lawmakers to re-evaluate tough mandatory-sentencing laws and concentrate on reducing high recidivism rate so inmates are less likely to return to prison once released.

The 100,000 mark “is sort of a demarcation point,” McNeil said. “For me it's a statement that our prisons are becoming a burden, and the building of prisons is becoming a greater burden on the taxpayers.”

One way to reduce recidivism is to ensure that inmates have access to education, vocational, mental health and substance-abuse programs.
Unfortunately, when budgets are cut, those are usually the first things to go.

“Research data show that correctional education and associated academic achievement provide a positive turning point for incarcerated offenders in their post-release lives,” says Tom Blomberg, dean of the Florida State College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “They are more likely to gain employment and therefore less likely to re-offend...”

In Florida, about one in three inmates is back in prison within three years of release. Of the 100,000 current inmates, 46 percent are in for a second time.

Building more prisons will cost Florida taxpayers a one-time investment of $76,923 per prisoner to build new prisons. Add $20,000 per year to that amount to keep each prisoner locked up. And to that add a projected increase of 5,000 prisoners each year through 2014.

In short, Florida needs to stop throwing money at new prisons and become a lot smarter about whom it locks up, what happens to inmates while they are incarcerated and how well prepared they are to re-enter society after their sentences are up.

ON THE NET

http://www.theledger.com/article/20081230/NEWS/812300309/1036/EDIT?T itle=Florida_s_Prison_Budget__Imprison_With_Precision
Last Updated ( Friday, 09 January 2009 )

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

Idaho DOC still assessing damage from uprising

IDOC still assessing damage from uprising
Story Created: Jan 9, 2009

By Associated Press
BOISE (AP) — Idaho Department of Correction officials are still piecing together just why some prison inmates staged an uprising in a temporary cell block, but say the agency has learned a lot of valuable lessons in how to respond, and hopefully prevent, future problems.

Prison overcrowding and budget cuts created conditions that helped lead to the disturbance, said Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke and Deputy Chief of Prisons John Hardison in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

Idaho's prisons have long been overcrowded, forcing officials to house more than 600 inmates in a private prison in Oklahoma. It costs more to keep inmates in out-of-state prisons then it does to incarcerate them at home, so when Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter ordered all state agencies to cut their budgets because of the poor economy, the Idaho Department of Corrections began looking for ways to bring 300 out-of-state inmates back to Boise.

Reinke said they had to think creatively, but found room for some prisoners in a building on the ISCI campus that had formerly been used as an upholstery shop as part of an inmate work program.

The building is essentially a metal warehouse, but it's well-insulated, well-lit and fairly nice, Reinke said. The department quickly installed two wing-style walls to separate two day rooms from the larger, dormitory-style sleeping area. Old bunks, once used when Idaho still had prisoners living in tents, were moved to the building and 199 inmates were brought in.

Unlike traditional cell blocks, the warehouse unit does not have individual rooms or electrical outlets for every inmate. That meant that the inmates had to do without their personal property — televisions, radios, fans and other items belonging to the inmates were sent to storage, Hardison said.

"That's a very significant issue for inmates," Reinke said. "We did have dayroom areas with television, but it's quite a shift."

Department officials purposely chose inmates who had been brought in on parole violations and were still awaiting parole hearings for the temporary unit, on the belief that those inmates would have less personal property and so would adjust better to the more austere setting. Still, many of the inmates in the unit had to give up their electrical equipment as part of the move, prompting some complaints.

Officially, the department isn't saying what prompted last week's disturbance until its own incident review investigation and the investigation by the Ada County Sheriff's Department is complete. But Hardison said he has his own theory.

"A few of that group of inmates probably should not have been put there because of past behaviors, and there were several privileges that they were not going to have for some time," he said. "They began voicing that, and that got a mob mentality going."

The violence began at about 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 2, Reinke said. Fewer than 50 of the inmates were involved, with many of the rest sitting down and interlacing their fingers over their heads to show they weren't participating.

"Beds were turned over, tables were turned over. Inmate property was strung all over the place. A couple microwaves were destroyed, one television set was destroyed, a couple of the wing walls had some damage," Reinke said.

The two guards staffing the unit locked themselves in a secure office area when the inmates became boisterous, Hardison said. When inmates began throwing microwaves at the office window in an effort to break in, the guards climbed out another window, Hardison said.

Inmates broke into the office by climbing through the ceiling and lit a fire that triggered the sprinkler system. The smoke helped corrections officials quell the disturbance without force.

"Offenders wanted out of the building once it started filling with smoke," Hardison said.

Some inmates had minor injuries, but all were treated at the local medical clinic and none had to be hospitalized, officials said.

"We're taking this as a lot of lessons learned here," Reinke said. "I know command staff and wardens are going to take (the lessons) very seriously."
http://www.2news.tv/news/local/37336459.html

Posted by lois at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2009

WI: Consultants say thousands more cages and prison upgrades needed

Consultants say prison system needs $1.2 billion upgrade
By Steven Walters of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Jan. 8, 2009

Madison - Consultants recommended Thursday that the state spend more than $1.2 billion over the next decade to expand and update its prison system.

The consultants said 8,920 new prison beds and 2,681 replacement beds for juveniles and adults will be needed to replace aging facilities and ease overcrowding.

State Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch said the report from the Mead & Hunt firm will be used to help develop the agency's future goals and options, but said state government cannot afford everything recommended by the consultants.

"Given the massive (budget) deficit Wisconsin is facing, the plan provides a blueprint of where we don't want to be in 10 years," Raemisch said in a statement.

"The plan reaffirms that unless something changes, the demand for prison space will continue to grow over the next decade, bringing with it a high price tag for new prison space," Raemisch said.

For example, it would cost about $160 million to build one new medium-security prison for 2,000 inmates - not including land or annual operating costs, officials said.

In their report, the consultants said several prisons - including Dodge, Kettle Moraine, Green Bay, Waupun, Fox Lake and Oakhill - are so old that they pose major daily maintenance, equipment and staff problems. And emergency barracks-like dormitory prisons built in the mid-1990s "have reached the end of their useful life," the consultants said.

One other problem, according to the report, is assigning two inmates to cells in Waupun and Green Bay prisons that were built for individual inmates - cells with up to 54 square feet of space each.

That practice "is far below current accepted correctional standards and this practice should be discontinued," the consultants said.

On Jan. 2, Wisconsin prisons held 22,624

Posted by lois at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)

AL: As His Inmates Grew Thinner, a Sheriff’s Wallet Grew Fatter

January 9, 2009
As His Inmates Grew Thinner, a Sheriff’s Wallet Grew Fatter
By ADAM NOSSITER
NY Times

DECATUR, Ala. — The prisoners in the Morgan County jail here were always hungry. The sheriff, meanwhile, was getting a little richer. Alabama law allowed it: the chief lawman could go light on prisoners’ meals and pocket the leftover change.

And that is just what the sheriff, Greg Bartlett, did, to the tune of $212,000 over the last three years, despite a state food allowance of only $1.75 per prisoner per day.

In the view of a federal judge, who heard testimony from the hungry inmates, the sheriff was in “blatant” violation of past agreements that his prisoners be properly cared for.

“There was undisputed evidence that most of the inmates had lost significant weight,” the judge, U. W. Clemon of Federal District Court in Birmingham, said Thursday in an interview. “I could not ignore them.”

So this week, Judge Clemon ordered Sheriff Bartlett himself jailed until he came up with a plan to adequately feed prisoners more, anyway, than a few spoonfuls of grits, part of an egg and a piece of toast at breakfast, and bits of undercooked, bloody chicken at supper.

The shock in the courtroom on Wednesday was palpable: a sheriff was going to jail — if, as it turns out, only for one night — because his prisoners did not like the food. The world was upside down.

“You’re never going to satisfy any incarcerated individual,” grumbled the head of the Alabama Sheriffs Association, Bobby Timmons. Besides, Mr. Timmons said, “an inmate is not in jail for singing too loud in choir on Sunday.”

Melanie Velez, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, which represents the inmates, took a different position. “Our clients, all they want is sustenance,” Ms. Velez said. “They shouldn’t be punished by not being given adequate nutrition. After every meal, they are hungry.”

The sheriff’s defenders, like Mr. Timmons, said Sheriff Bartlett, who told the court his salary was about $64,000, was merely following the law — Alabama law.

“He has not violated any laws of the state of Alabama,” Mr. Timmons said. “Everything he has done is by the rules, including the feeding allowance.”

But that was the whole problem, in Judge Clemon’s view. An unusual statute here dating from the early decades of the 20th century allows the state’s sheriffs to keep for themselves whatever money is left over after they feed their prisoners. The money allotted by the state is little enough — $1.75 a day per prisoner — but the incentive to skimp is obvious.

That is what the sheriff did, Judge Clemon found. As Mr. Bartlett’s wallet got fatter, according to testimony, the prisoners got thinner and thinner. One testified to losing 30 pounds in the brick jail by the railroad tracks in this quiet courthouse town of clean and empty streets near the Tennessee border.

The judge expressed no regret about sending Mr. Bartlett to jail. The Alabama law is “almost an invitation to criminality,” he said in the interview. Sheriffs, he said, “have a direct pecuniary interest in not feeding inmates.”

The practice is thought to go on in other counties, though it is difficult to be certain, as sheriffs in Alabama are notoriously unforthcoming about their finances.

“The sheriff has a responsibility to feed his inmates, but he’s also got an incentive to line his own pocket,” said Ms. Velez, the human rights center lawyer. She said, “We were shocked to learn that the sheriff had pocketed over $100,000.”

The inmates’ complaints came to light because the jail, which holds about 300, was already under a federal consent decree governing conditions there.

“Given the testimony about the fairly blatant violations of the consent decree, I knew of no more efficient means of impressing on the sheriff the seriousness of the matter than by placing him in jail until he indicated a willingness to comply,” the judge said.

Sheriff Bartlett was released from jail on Thursday afternoon, after he submitted a plan that satisfied the judge. He will now spend all the food money solely on food and will “no longer keep any funds for his personal use,” Judge Clemon said.

After his release, Mr. Bartlett did not appear at his offices and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not return phone calls.

With precision and some wonder, Judge Clemon, who is retiring shortly, recounted a typical inmate lunch here: “Two peanut butter sandwiches, with small amounts of peanut butter, chips, and flavored water.” Hunger pains were not uncommon.

One inmate interviewed from the jail, William Draper, said he had lost 15 pounds since his incarceration on marijuana trafficking charges in October. “Yeah, you stay hungry,” Mr. Draper said. “Hunger is something you live with.”

Inmates were forced to supplement the meager meals with purchases at the high-priced jail store, he said. “We have clients who are indigent who are very, very thin,” said Ms. Velez. Some spend as much as $100 a week at the store, a severe burden for their often impoverished families.

“If you can’t catch store, you’ll starve to death,” Mr. Draper said. Complaints, he said, were met with cold stares from the guards: “They look at you like, ‘you’ve got to deal with it,’ ” he said.

Mr. Draper said he was glad that someone in authority had finally listened to his and others’ complaints. “If I’m going to be held accountable for breaking the law, other people should be too,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09sheriff.html?_r=1

Posted by lois at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 07, 2009

MI: State's policy has imprisoned its future

State's policy has imprisoned its future
A Lansing State Journal editorial
January 1, 2009

Before lawmakers return to Lansing to begin their work, they should take a pledge:

"I will not leave the Capitol at the end of 2009 without enacting
fundamental reforms in how Michigan handles prisoners."

Lawmakers' performance on this issue will reverberate through the rest of state government. Corrections reform gives Michigan a chance to invest in its people and public services. Failure means Michigan residents will see a state government impotent to help them.

Michigan is the Midwest's king of incarceration. The state has about 50,000 prisoners and another 70,000-plus on parole or probation. Michigan's incarceration rate towers over those of neighboring states.

To house prisoners, the state has opened 35 prisons since 1985 alone, notes the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. The Department of Corrections employs more than 17,000 people, or about one in every three on the state payroll. It costs taxpayers $34,000 a year to house a prisoner.

To do all this, DOC consumes between $1.9 billion and $2 billion a year from the state's general fund. This burden has long hampered the state's ability to ramp up key investments, such as higher education. And that has been when the state has had $9 billion or so to spend.

For the coming 2010 budget year, the Senate Fiscal Agency projects only $7.8 billion available.

Do the math. If Michigan spent $1.9 billion on corrections for 2010, that would leave $5.9 billion. Combine the current spending rates for higher education, Human Services and Community Health and you quickly sail to the $6 billion mark.

And that's a budget deficit - even before you've tried to fund everything else the state does.

Now, you will hear from lawmakers who will say that Michigan cannot afford to go soft on criminals. They will say that increased paroles or early releases will lead to more crime, more mayhem, more victims.

Yes, there have been tragedies in which former inmates preyed on the
law-abiding.

These events, however, don't alter the fact that Michigan is imprisoning its future with the DOC.

These events don't explain why other Midwestern states have been able to avoid chaos in the streets even with much smaller prison complexes.

These events don't explain how keeping tens of thousands of people behind bars will make Michigan an engine in the 21st century economy.

Lawmakers can tackle prison reform and give this state hope, or they can stand idle and leave Michigan a hostage to its prison policies.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090101/OPINION01/901010321/1086/OPINION01

Posted by lois at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2009

CA: Group cites deep flaws in juvenile justice plan

Group cites deep flaws in juvenile justice plan
By Dana M. Nichols
Record Staff Writer
January 06, 2009 6:00 AM

SAN ANDREAS - The $93 million effort to reform California's juvenile justice system by transferring many young offenders to county custody is deeply flawed, with inadequate guidelines for how the money should be spent and contains no system for tracking the effectiveness of local programs, according to a report being issued today by the Prison Law Office.

The Prison Law Office is a nonprofit advocacy group that has participated in lawsuits over the treatment of wards at former California Youth Authority facilities in Stockton and elsewhere. Those suits resulted in agreements that have dramatically reduced the number of youths locked up in state facilities.

The critical report comes out at the same time that the temporary state Juvenile Justice Commission is expected to make its recommendations for improving the system. Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the Juvenile Justice Commission, said he would check the status of the commission report that was due Jan. 1. He did not have the information by The Record's deadline.

Patty Mazzilli, assistant chief probation officer for San Joaquin County, said she was not surprised that the Prison Law Office found deep flaws in the state's implementation of SB81, the 2007 law intended to reform the Division of Juvenile Justice, formerly known as the California Youth Authority.

The report noted that counties were expected almost immediately to receive offenders transferred from state lockups. And counties had only a month to come up with plans once they received state guidelines at the end of November in 2007.

"Thirty days is not a long time to come up with a real thorough plan to deal with a lot of kids ... to come up with community interventions that are well thought out," Mazzilli said.

Another major flaw described in the report: The reform law does not require counties to disclose how they spend future allotments of state money they get in return for taking a larger role in juvenile justice, and the law gives no state entity the authority to monitor the spending anyway.

Mazzilli said she is confident that San Joaquin County is spending its money well, in part, because the county already was running a number of programs which included careful measurements of the programs' success. Still, those programs can't be compared with efforts for getting state money elsewhere in California because of a lack of state standards, even for such seemingly basic pieces of information as how many young offenders end up getting in trouble again within a certain period of time.

Last month, David Steinhart, a member of California's Juvenile Justice Commission and director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program in Mill Valley, said the upcoming commission report will recommend a variety of reforms, including how to gather data on the success of various probation and treatment programs for young offenders. Steinhart also said he fears current state budget woes will derail the effort.

The juvenile justice reforms, and possible future reforms of the adult prison system, are all happening in the midst of a financial crisis. In the case of the juvenile justice system, abuses such as students forced to attend classes in cages and a 2005 suicide at N.A. Chaderjian School in Stockton prompted lawsuits against CYA and its successor the DJJ.

Those suits resulted in orders and agreements that required the youth prison system to upgrade its schools and health care and to remake itself so that it would succeed at rehabilitating young offenders. That proved expensive, and the per-ward cost of housing the offenders jumped to $178,000 per year per youth in 2006 and was well more than $200,000 per year per ward by 2008, according to a Little Hoover Commission report published last summer.

So, state officials have been working to reduce the cost by reducing the number of youths in state lockups and, at the same time, meet the terms of settlements requiring more humane treatment by transferring lower-risk offenders to the counties.

Some in the criminal justice system say the adult prison system - whose rising population and costs are a factor in the current state budget crisis - could be next. But they warn that compared with the juvenile programs, there are very few county programs set up to help adults succeed in living lawful lives outside prison walls.

"It is night and day," Mazzilli said. "There has historically been funding to work with juveniles up front, where there has not been for adults."
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090106/A_NEWS/90106032
1

Posted by lois at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)

LA: Gov. to close Tallulah prison and hopes to sell it to private detention center

The News Star
State to lay off 151 in Tallulah

ASSOCIATED PRESS JANUARY 6, 2009

BATON ROUGE ‹ Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to close a $341 million budget
gap will cost at least 335 state employees their jobs ‹ largely in the Department of Corrections ‹ including 151 in Tallulah

The state plans to sell the Steve Hoyle Rehabilitation Center in
Tallulah to a private company. LeBlanc said the per-day costs of
running the facility were out of line with costs at other prisons.

The facility has been a source of controversy for years because it
once was a juvenile prison notorious for abuse of the young inmates.
It was reopened by the state as an adult substance abuse facility,
mostly for convicted DWI offenders.

LeBlanc said closing and selling the Tallulah facility may require
legislative approval.

Once sold, LeBlanc said the facility may be used as a federal
detention center, and if so, the private firm running the facility
could hire back the laid off employees to staff it. Otherwise, he said the correctional officers could be shifted to vacant posts at other prisons, though there are none nearby. The officers would have to be willing to move or travel long distances for work.

"I know that it's not an ideal situation, but it's something," he said.

Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc said he believes many laid off
employees could be rehired for other positions, particularly guard
jobs at state prisons, where openings are frequent because turnover is high.

"We're going to do everything we can to try to avoid anybody losing a
job, at least trying to help them find jobs in another area," LeBlanc
said in an interview Monday.

The number of layoffs could grow if statewide elected officials and
public colleges choose to cut staff to cope with budget reductions in
the fiscal year that ends June 30.

Jindal can make some of the budget cuts, but the Legislature's joint
budget committee must approve the rest. The committee meets Friday to
vote on the governor's proposal.

While state agencies largely have stopped hiring new employees, most
have yet to suggest layoffs will be needed to shrink costs. The Jindal administration estimates a partial hiring freeze enacted in November will save at least $31 million this year.

LeBlanc's department, which oversees state prisons, is one of only two agencies so far that plans layoffs to cut costs. The corrections
department intends to lay off 323 of its 6,400 employees, plus dozens
of student workers, to help cut $11 million from its $554 million
annual budget.

Seventy people hired for a new skilled nursing unit for prisoners will be let go because the facility at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel won't expand as planned.

LeBlanc said as many as two dozen of those laid off will be
correctional officers who will have first priority when other guard
jobs open.

The other laid off employees will be medical workers, and LeBlanc said he expected they would find jobs outside state government because of the shortage of medical professionals in Louisiana.

"I just don't see anybody really being hurt," he said.

Meanwhile, 102 positions will be cut throughout the corrections
department. LeBlanc said those positions were people who were "on
call" for when needs arose, mainly correctional officers.

The only other state agency to announce layoffs so far is the
Department of Veterans Affairs, which intends to eliminate 12 filled
administrative jobs at the state's five war veterans homes, out of 827 jobs in the department.

The move wouldn't necessarily mean unemployment for the people in
those jobs. Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson said several
employees are eligible for retirement, some can be moved to other
direct patient care jobs at the veterans homes and others would be
offered jobs with a new federally funded homeless veterans program.
http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage>

Posted by lois at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)

VA: Time to rethink goals of prison

Time to rethink goals of prison
Editorials Opinion

The Virginian-Pilot
© January 5, 2009

In prosperous times, state and federal lawmakers wanting to polish their get-tough-on-crime image pass bills putting more people in prison and keeping them longer for offenses such as drunken driving, drug possession and dog fighting.

When the economy tanks, those mandatory sentencing laws stay in place, and budget cuts instead dig into drug treatment and job-training programs.

It's no mystery, then, why prison populations are growing while recidivism rates remain obstinately high. The cycle continues this year, with the shuttering of day-reporting centers in Norfolk, Suffolk and nine other locations in Virginia. Worse, behavioral service staff is being reduced, and community programs are being cut in the juvenile justice system, forcing more youth into detention centers. Similar cuts are being implemented in other states faced with deficits.

At both the federal and state levels, the corrections system is as aimless and hopeless as the 2.3 million men and women living behind bars. The incarceration rate in the United States, now exceeding 1 in 100 adults, is the highest in the world, according to the Pew Center on the States. Governments have busied themselves in the past two decades constructing 1 million new prison cells and rolling out miles of razor wire, but amid the frenzy they have forgotten the point of incarceration.

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb recognizes the need to refocus and re-evaluate the goals of the criminal justice system. He plans to introduce legislation this spring establishing a national panel tasked with recommending reforms. His proposal deserves the support of his colleagues in Congress.

Webb has no desire to pare back the correctional system's primary function, to protect the public from serious, violent and chronic criminals. But he also understands the need to find more humane and cost-effective methods for dealing with less dangerous offenders.

Although he wants national experts to have a hand in drafting comprehensive reforms, Webb has revealed some of his own ideas. He supports drug courts, in which offenders participate in weekly meetings with judges, drug treatment, group therapy, mental health counseling and parenting classes as an alternative to incarceration. There are 15 drug courts in Virginia, but the state funds only a fraction. Webb also criticizes laws that make it difficult for felons to regain their citizenship rights once they complete their sentences.

More broadly, the panel should look at performance-based funding for state and local programs that can demonstrate success through low recidivism rates, successful job placements, effective drug treatment and victim-restitution collections.

The convoluted criminal justice system that now exists is the product of years of incremental and disconnected actions. Only a holistic approach will clean up the mess. It's not a project that promises high popularity ratings, but fortunately, Webb appears less concerned with polls than he is with fixing problems.
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/01/time-rethink-goals-prison

Posted by lois at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

January 05, 2009

AZ: Arpaio Gets A TV Series on FOX

"Maricopa County has many times more federal prison condition lawsuits than New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston combined. In September of last year, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care revoked its accreditation of the jails
Sheriff Arpaio runs on the grounds of failure to provide adequate health care for inmates."

January 5, 2009
The Media Equation
A Star Turn for a Sheriff on Fox TV
By DAVID CARR

With his reputation for being tough on crime and his way with a good quote, Joseph M. Arpaio, the sheriff and jailer of Maricopa County in Arizona would seem to be a reality show waiting to happen.

The wait is over. In the last two weeks, the Fox Reality Channel has broadcast “Smile ...You’re Under Arrest,” a prank-fueled effort to bring nonviolent offenders with outstanding warrants in or near Phoenix to justice.

Television producers, with Mr. Arpaio’s enthusiastic assent, sent out notices to scofflaws suggesting that they had won a contest and need only show up to claim a $300 prize. Once there, they are hoodwinked into participating in fake fashion shows or movie shoots before uniformed deputies come out from behind the curtain and slap bracelets on them.

“I don’t care how you do it,” Mr. Arpaio, who likes to be known as “America’s toughest sheriff,” says on camera in the first episode. “I just want to put these guys in jail.”

The alliance between law enforcement and reality television is a durable one, with “Cops” serving as a long-running proof that law-abiding citizens love watching nonlaw-abiding citizens being brought to justice. And if they are drunk and shirtless, well, so much the better.

“It’s ‘Punk’d’ meets ‘Cops’,” says Scott Satin, who conceived “Smile...You’re Under Arrest” and serves as its executive producer. “There have been a lot of hidden camera shows, but we wanted to take it one step further.”

Entertaining? Sure, but it’s worth looking at who’s doing the punking.

Even though this is his first crack at a reality show, Mr. Arpaio is already a staple of television in Arizona. Among other stunts, he set up tent cities as jails, organized immigration sweeps of Hispanic neighborhoods, staged training operations in Honduras and last year, his office arrested journalists who had written negatively about his tenure.

He has also been at war with various municipalities in his jurisdiction, but has been re-elected five times by a wide margin since 1993. And while many of the people of Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, clearly love him, they have paid a very dear price.

According to a report issued on Dec. 2 by the Goldwater Institute — which, as the name implies, is hardly a hotbed of liberal mollycoddling — the county has paid out over $30 million in the last five years to settle legal claims from prisoners.

Some of the payouts have gone to families of prisoners who died in custody, including three of the biggest settlements, which involved complaints of excessive force on behalf of inmates who had not been convicted of anything at the time of their deaths.

Maricopa County has many times more federal prison condition lawsuits than New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston combined. In September of last year, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care revoked its accreditation of the jails Sheriff Arpaio runs on the grounds of failure to provide adequate health care for inmates.

In October, a federal judge ruled that Sheriff Arpaio’s department had violated the Constitution by depriving inmates of medical care, fed them unhealthy food and housed them in unsanitary conditions.

The Goldwater report suggested that the picture beyond corrections was equally grim, citing the department’s tendency to “clear” cases without any resolution or arrest, and suggested that resources were being diverted to efforts to find illegal immigrants through sweeps that other departments characterized as dangerous.

As a result of the raids, Phoenix’s mayor, Phil Gordon, wrote a letter to the United States Department of Justice accusing Mr. Arpaio of “a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests.”

This guy is hilarious, no?

Somebody thinks so. “Smile... You’re Under Arrest” was initially conceived as a pilot for Fox Broadcasting. Executives took a pass and Fox Reality, an offshoot of the network, picked up the pilot. Three episodes are being broadcast with an option for more if they’re successful.

The first installment focuses on a hapless guy who is warmed up by a busty hostess before the ostensible designer of Average Guy Clothing talks him into working as a model of prison garb on the catwalk, which is actually a plank that leads to his arrest.

The setup is incredibly elaborate and silly, with an entire nightclub taken over as a set and then decorated with actors and off-duty deputies in plain clothes. Mr. Satin said that everyone taken in by the ruse had willingly signed a release to be part of the show.

“Sheriff Arpaio has been wonderful to work with and totally open with everything we wanted to do,” said Mr. Satin. “He said, ‘If you want to help me catch some of these people, be my guest’. He let us do our thing.”

The Goldwater report suggests that the trade-off for the letting the sheriff do his thing may not benefit his constituents. Although his department was “adept at self-promotion and is an unquestionably ‘tough’ law-enforcement agency, under its watch violent crime rates recently have soared, both in absolute terms and relative to other jurisdictions.”

Homicides in the county were up 167 percent in the three-year period ending in 2007 and the report stated that the budget for the department, excluding corrections, had doubled since 2001.

“We have 40,000 unserved felony warrants — murderers and rapists — and instead of serving those warrants, we have this buffoon who spends his time popping out from behind curtains for a reality television show,” said Michael C. Manning, a Phoenix lawyer who has sued the department on behalf of clients repeatedly and successfully in wrongful death suits. “He continues to demean our community by chasing publicity and acting the buffoon.”

One might assume that with the change in administration in Washington, Sheriff Arpaio’s record might come in for some scrutiny, but Arizona’s governor, Janet Napolitano, an official who has backed Mr. Arpaio in the past, is Barack Obama’s choice to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Back in 1997, according to reporting done by Phoenix New Times, United States Attorney General Janet Reno lodged a complaint against the sheriff over the conditions in his jails, and a settlement was reached. Sheriff Arpaio spun it as a victory, and Ms. Napolitano, who was about to run for Arizona’s attorney general, joined Mr. Arpaio at his press conference and offered support, suggesting that the agreement was based on “technicalities.”

Both The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix New Times newspapers have traced the improbable arc of Mr. Arpaio’s tenure, but The New Times has been in conflict with the sheriff from the first day he was elected. That grudge match took a breathtaking turn in 2007 when its two founders, James Larkin and Michael Lacey, were arrested in the dead of night and accused of revealing the secrets of a grand jury. After an uproar, the men were released and the charges were dropped.

Bob Boden, senior vice president at the Fox Reality Channel, said the controversy and charges that have dogged Sheriff Arpaio’s tenure are not the network’s concern.

“He is not the face of our network nor do we necessarily support anything and everything he believes in terms of law enforcement,” he said. “This is an entertainment vehicle and we take no position on any of the politics involving the sheriff.”

Of course the show is entertainment, but these televised goofing-on-bad-guys stunts have gone wrong before. On NBC’s “Dateline,” in the series of reports called “To Catch a Predator,” a suspect who had not been convicted of anything missed the joke and killed himself.

The disregard for the rights of people who are accused of something illegal is all too common. Mr. Arpaio’s jails are full of people awaiting trail who cannot make bail; by his own accounting, 117 people have died in his custody, including many with serious mental health problems.

But the Tasers and pepper spray that are very much a part of the toolbelt of “America’s toughest sheriff” don’t get a lot of airtime on “Smile.”

“Joe Arpaio is passionate about locking people up who are wanted criminals. He adds a terrific style and a sense of humor to the show,” said Mr. Boden.

Given the decertification of his correctional facilities and the charges in the Goldwater report and press accounts, Mr. Arpaio would seem to have his hands full, but he seemed fully engaged in his star turn on Fox Reality.

“Take ’em down! Take ’em down!” he says into a microphone backstage at the nightclub.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/business/media/05carr.html?_r=1&sq=David%20Carr&st=cse&scp=5&pagewanted=print

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

MI: Sexual Abuse of Women Went Unheeded- 2 of 5 articles and Human Rights Watch Report

SPECIAL REPORT | CHAPTER 1
Sexual assaults on female inmates went unheeded
Detroit Free Press
BY JEFF SEIDEL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • January 4, 2009

First of five parts

For years, rights groups warned that male guards were sexually assaulting female inmates in Michigan prisons. For years, those warnings went unheeded. Now, state taxpayers may pay a price too. More than 500 women are suing. They stand to collect $50 million so far, with more trials to come. This is their story.

Toni Bunton heard the guard coming down the hallway. He wore cheap cologne, and his breath smelled like cigarettes.

He scuffed his boots against the floor and opened the door to her cell in Scott Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Plymouth Township.

"Come here," he ordered.

The guard pulled Bunton into a bathroom. She wore jogging pants, a T-shirt and socks.

She was the guard's prized possession, a pretty young thing, as he said, "just the way I like 'em," -- short and cute with brown hair, brown eyes and porcelain skin.

"Shhh!" he demanded.

He yanked down her underwear and pushed her against the sink.

"No!" she screamed in her head. "No, please, no!" But she was scared to death, and the words wouldn't come out. "I'm choking, please, stop, I'm going to die," she thought.

And he raped her.

Bunton said nothing. It would become the theme of her life, a way to survive the next 16 years in prison.

When he was done, he stepped back. "Shhh!" he said, with his finger to his lips. He smiled and left. Bunton stood there, numb, her pants at her ankles.

She was 19.

Bunton said she was raped seven more times by prison guards between 1993 and 1996. She is among more than 500 women who say they were sexually assaulted by guards at several Michigan prisons in the 1990s as officials ignored or dismissed warnings by human rights groups that male guards were preying on female inmates.

A class-action lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections has already yielded verdicts reaching an estimated $50 million, when interest and fees are included. And that's only for the first 18 women. With most yet to testify, and lawyers for the state insisting they have no intention of settling, Michigan's beleaguered taxpayers could face hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

"A prison is not supposed to turn you back out to society with more harm than when you came in," said Deborah LaBelle, an Ann Arbor civil rights lawyer who led a team that sued on behalf of the women. "No one, no one in this country, no one in a civilized society is sentenced to be raped and assaulted in prison."
The state's defense: Why didn't they speak up?

It wasn't just the rapes. Many women said they were routinely molested by guards who took advantage of rules that required them to meet a daily quota of pat-down searches for weapons, drugs or other contraband.

Inmates said guards ran their hands over the women's legs, buttocks and breasts under the guise of security. When it became clear the guards wouldn't be punished, some grew so brazen that they fondled women in front of other inmates and guards, or openly masturbated in the prison yard, according to trial testimony.

It is against the law for guards to have sexual contact with prisoners, even if there is consent. Some guards convinced women to submit to ongoing sexual relations in return for "protecting" them from fellow guards.

For years, Bunton kept quiet. She was afraid to speak up. She was a prisoner, after all, a convicted felon, afraid the allegations would not be taken seriously. Afraid of retaliation.

But after years of delay, the case involving the first 10 women, including Bunton, reached a courtroom last winter.

The state had a simple defense: These women are prisoners, and prisoners lie; if something did happen, it was the act of a few rogue guards; and if something did happen, the women didn't report it. So how could the Department of Corrections prevent what it didn't know was happening? The state said it thoroughly investigated any allegations it knew about and the claims of abuse were exaggerated.

"To say the department just sat back and did nothing, just let everybody run the place is just totally false," Allan Soros, an assistant attorney general, said at the first trial.

Nonetheless, a series of human rights reports throughout the 1990s said sexual assaults on female inmates were rampant and corrections officials tolerated the climate.

Since then, the state says it has made changes. They include refined work rules to prevent sexual misconduct or harassment by guards, tougher legal penalties for guards who have sexual contact with inmates and a policy to refer allegations to the Michigan State Police, as well Corrections Department internal affairs, for investigation.
No matter their pasts, listen to their stories

LaBelle said the legal action, at its heart, was about human rights. About women coming out of the shadows and getting a chance to tell their stories.

Bunton and the other women who testified are no saints. The group includes convicted murderers, thieves and drug dealers.

But Bunton, now 35, says it's important to listen to all of them, no matter their past.

"People don't know what goes on inside prison," Bunton said. "I think a lot of people don't care, unless it directly affects them. I want people to know this is going on in your backyard, and you might not care because it might not affect you, but you should care. This is not really about sexual harassment. This is about civil rights, basic fundamental rights of human beings."
June 10, 1991: A favor turns to murder

Bunton knew the guys as Pook and Timbo and Poodle, friends of her cousin, all of them teens in Detroit. They were planning to sell marijuana, and the deal was set, but they needed a ride, according to Bunton. One of the guys said: Let's steal a car.

Bunton said: Oh, no, I'll take you.

At the time, she said, it didn't sound monumental or deadly, a trip that would ruin the lives of nearly all involved.

"I know it's stupid now," Bunton said recently. "I think it is really stupid ... but at 17, uh, I didn't see the harm in it."

Bunton had a clean record, no history of drug involvement. According to records from the case, she dropped off the teens at a gas station on Livernois in southwest Detroit.

"Just drive around the block and come back," she said she was told.

She was in a white Mustang, and was halfway around the block when she heard gunshots.

She began driving faster and ended up going down a dead-end street. Bunton turned the car around and, now, the teens were running toward her -- Pook and Timbo and Poodle -- and they were waving guns. She said later she had no idea they had guns. They jumped into her car, screaming and shouting, saying they had "popped" somebody.

The two buyers had been shot.

Police found Omar Kaji, 19, dead from a single gunshot wound to his head. He was slumped at the wheel of a Monte Carlo. He had a 9-mm automatic pistol.

His twin, Ayman, was shot several times. He was lying by the passenger door.

Later, police would suggest, it was a setup -- by both sides. The buyers didn't have money to make a deal. All they had was a wad of blank paper, wrapped with a $20 bill. The sellers, meanwhile, didn't have any pot.

Ayman Kaji admitted that he and his brother planned to steal the marijuana.

He identified one of the teens with Bunton that night, Jose Burgos, 16, as the shooter.

"He got in the car and just started shooting," Kaji said. Kaji remains paralyzed from the neck down.
A murder conviction, and a harsh sentence

Bunton said she dropped the teens off and went home.

The next day, police took her to police headquarters for questioning.

After signing a statement detailing her role, Bunton thought she was going home. She said she didn't know that, even though she didn't pull the trigger, she could be held just as culpable as the teen who did.

Burgos was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison. The other two teens never went to trial.

Kaji was wheeled into court at Bunton's sentencing. He spoke in a whisper, and the emotional scene tugged on the heart of Judge Clarice Jobes. Three years later, in a 1994 newspaper interview about her retirement from Detroit Recorder's Court, Jobes singled out the case as an example of the endless violence she saw from the bench and admitted that she was so moved that she later cried.

Bunton was convicted of second-degree murder, armed robbery and assault with intent to murder. She was sentenced to 25 to 50 years, a term that some legal experts now say appeared excessive, given her role.

Kaji does not share that view. He insists Bunton must have known that his brother was going to be shot.

He said he has no sympathy for what Bunton went through in prison.

"I'm a Christian, but I'll never forgive," he said. "There is no way in hell that I'll ever forgive her."

For her part, Bunton has accepted responsibility for the tragedy, even as she insists she was only the getaway driver.

"I feel horrible," she says now. "I deserve to be punished, and you know, I have spent half of my life thinking about the (Kaji) family. ... I am so sorry."
Inmate No. 221034, for the rest of her life

Bunton wore a flowery dress, the same clothing she wore in court, when she was shipped to Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti in December 1991.

At the intake area, she was given five white bras and nine pairs of white cotton underwear. "Your number will be 221034," a guard said. "Remember it because you will have this number till you die."

Another guard told Bunton to read Psalm 23.

"This is the Valley of Death, baby girl," Bunton recalled the guard as saying. "All you have to do is read that verse, and God will carry you through all the way."

Just a few hours after arriving, Bunton met a woman returning to prison.

"Girl, I can't wait for shift change," the woman told her. "My man's gonna flip when he sees me here."

"Your man?"

"Yeah, my man."

She meant her sex partner at Huron Valley. A guard.
Welcome to Scott: The nightmare begins

Bunton stayed for six months before she was transferred to Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth Township in the summer of 1992.

On one of her first nights at Scott, she woke up from a loud voice outside her door.

"Damn, girl, you wanna hurt a brother," a guard said.

Bunton tiptoed to the door. She looked out the window and saw a prisoner performing oral sex on a guard.

This was Bunton's new home, a facility she described as wild, with few rules and almost no physical boundaries between the guards and inmates.

At 4 foot 11, Bunton was small and meek when she entered prison.

One day, she was taking a shower, and one of the male guards pulled back the curtain.

"I'm naked," Bunton said, scrambling to cover her body.

"Oh, hush," the guard said. "I got a wife at home, I know what it all looks like."
Search policy becomes an excuse for sexual contact

At Scott, as in every Michigan prison at the time, every guard was required to pat down five prisoners every shift for weapons, food, drugs, whatever. It didn't matter which prisoners they picked. Some officers did it the proper way, quickly and with professionalism. But others exploited this directive, picking out the pretty women to search, the ones who were young and had long sentences.

Bunton said she was a daily target.

"The officers would come and feel us up whenever they wanted," she said. A guard "would cup the breast. He would rub his hands down your stomach and around your thighs and buttocks, legs.

"All the way up your thighs, to the end."

State prison officials would claim later they had no idea that some guards abused the search policies by sexually assaulting the women. They said they properly trained officers and had written policies against improper behavior. The rules have changed since. Men are not assigned to housing units and are not allowed to pat down women.

But the Michigan Women's Commission reported in 1993 there was an alarming level of sexual abuse and harassment by state prison guards.

In 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice found "pervasive" sexual abuse in Michigan women's prisons.

In 1996, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting sexual harassment, sexual abuse and privacy violations by guards and other employees in Michigan prisons.

The report, based on interviews with prisoners and prison rights advocates, cited rapes by guards in a "highly sexualized and excessively hostile" environment.

"Rather than seeking to end such abuse, the Michigan Department of Corrections has consistently refused to acknowledge that there is a problem of sexual misconduct in its women's prisons."
Handed from 1 guard to the next as others watch

The brazen nature of that abuse was laid bare one day, when Bunton was stopped in the recreation yard by a guard.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Eighteen," she replied.

"Umm, just the way I like 'em, young and fresh.

"Give me a shakedown," he said.

She lifted her arms, standing in a group of prisoners, according to what she wrote in her prison journal. The guard rubbed his hands down her neck, across her back and around to her chest. He caressed her breasts.

He rubbed her stomach. He squeezed her buttocks, rubbing up and down her thighs.

His hand brushed against her pelvic bone, as he pulled himself closer to her.

Another officer watched.

"That's the way you do it," the second officer said.

The first officer started the pat-down again.

"Yeah, let me show y'all how it's done properly," the second officer said.

Bunton said she wanted to scream, but she was too afraid.

The second officer took his turn with Bunton. He rubbed her neck, then her back. He moved around to her breasts and the officers egged each other on. The other prisoners cheered and applauded.

"Aww, you got it down, rookie," the first guard laughed.

"All yard units report to segregation," a voice said over the speakers.

The crowd dispersed. Bunton rushed back to her cell.
Other inmates' stories show pattern of abuse

Bunton's account echoed the abuse testimony of other women at the civil trial last year in front of Judge Timothy Connors.

Jennifer Pruitt, who was serving life in prison for murder, entered Scott at age 17. Days after arriving, a guard forced her to perform oral sex. "You'll get better," the officer said.

Michele Bazzetta, sent to Scott after being convicted of second-degree murder, said an officer frequently took her to an isolated place. "He had a bald head and he wanted me to rub his head at the same time that I had my hand on his penis," she said.

Amy Black, who also entered prison at 17, had sex with a guard two or three times a week over several years.

"He promised he would treat me right and make sure none of the other officers were bothering me," said Black, serving life for murder. "He promised to make sure I was safe."

She ended the relationship when she found out that he was having sex with another prisoner, who she had heard had a sexually transmitted disease.

"For him, I think it was about sex," Black said. "For me, it was about staying alive."
'Make it your garden, where you can grow'

Bunton learned to keep her mouth shut. The guards controlled everything: when she ate, when she slept, when she went to the bathroom, when she spoke.

Each time she was raped, each time she was groped, Bunton buried the pain deep inside.

Dr. Frank Ochberg, a psychologist who examined Bunton in prison, later told jurors she had been "systemically, overtly degraded" by the assaults, the "humanity just beaten out of her."

"I call them battle scars because they never go away," Bunton said. "Being a prisoner is the lowest you can be in life. Being a female prisoner is so much worse."

She tried to hide in her cell, reading and thinking and praying. She kept her mouth shut.

"There was someone very close to me, who told me a long time ago, 'Scott Correctional Facility is a very bad place,' " Bunton said. " 'But it is up to you to find the good in the place. So you can look around in that very bad place and you can make it your garden, where you can grow, no matter what is going on around you. It's up to you to remove yourself from the bad and only concentrate on the good.'

"So that's what I did. I made that place my garden. I grew."
Education builds up the courage to tell her story

Bunton, a high school dropout, focused on her education, earning associate's and bachelor's degrees in business administration and a master's degree from a correspondence program.

She earned vocational certificates in food management, computers and graphic arts.

She became a yoga teacher and fitness trainer. "Every time I accomplished something, I felt better about myself," she said.

She grew stronger. She gained confidence and found her voice.

Toni Bunton, inmate No. 221034, was learning to stand up for herself.

After suffering in silence, she took a gamble. She summoned the courage to join a lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections. She decided to speak up and tell her story, hoping it would force some changes, hoping that it would end the attacks.

LaBelle, the Ann Arbor attorney who specializes in women's prison issues, had been working for years on sexual abuse issues before coming across Bunton.

Believing the problem was growing and the state was doing nothing to stop it, LaBelle filed a lawsuit in 1996 on behalf of female inmates.

The case would eventually involve more than 500 prisoners, including Bunton.

After years of sexual brutality, Bunton found there were people -- strangers, even -- willing to fight with her: civil rights lawyers and law students at the University of Michigan.

They would push for her voice to be heard in court. They would fight for her freedom.

Contact JEFF SEIDEL at 313-223-4558 or jseidel@freepress.com.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090104/NEWS06/901040419/1007

Article 2
SPECIAL REPORT | CHAPTER 2 |
For female inmates, much is at stake as rape trial begins

BY JEFF SEIDEL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • January 5, 2009

Second of five parts

The story so far
Toni Bunton landed in a Michigan prison after being convicted for participating in a drug deal that led to a murder. She and other female inmates say they became victims there, helpless to defend themselves against male guards’ sexual advances.
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Last January, one day before her civil lawsuit went to trial, Toni Bunton sat on the top bunk in her prison cell at Scott Correctional Facility, a place she had lived almost half her life.

The place where she said she was raped, over and over, by prison guards.

She cried and prayed and wrestled with old doubts that swirled through her head.

Should she stand up in court and tell the world what happened to her? Should she risk her freedom at a time when she was seeking to have her 25- to 50-year sentence commuted? Or should she keep her mouth shut, once more, and hope that her silence was the key to getting out?

She felt trapped.

Once a meek teenager who had silently endured assaults by male guards, Bunton had grown into a confident and respected member of the prison population at Scott, on the border of Northville and Plymouth townships. Even so, she was a convict. With no physical evidence to support her, would jurors believe she had been raped? Would they even care? Bunton was among 500 women who claimed in a lawsuit that prison officials had willfully ignored years of sexual abuse by male guards.

Now, at 34, Bunton was among the first 10 prisoners to reach a courtroom.

"Some people are telling her to lay low, keep your head down until you get out," Dick Soble, one of the lawyers in the prisoners' suit, said of Bunton's fears.

Would the lawsuit help her pitch for commutation or kill it? Even on the eve of her court testimony, the old doubts resurfaced.

The following morning, Jan. 15, Deborah LaBelle woke in a panic, worried about what she would say in her opening statement.

For several days, LaBelle had tried to find the right words, forming thoughts and writing ideas on paper, but she couldn't get it right. She feared her statement was flat, lacking the passion she felt for a case that had consumed her for 12 years.

LaBelle handles civil rights cases from her Ann Arbor office, many involving female inmates. It was while meeting with inmates on visitation and education issues that LaBelle began to hear complaints of sexual abuse. Over the years, as the prison case grew and became more complex, she added likeminded attorneys in private practice.
The chance to speak up

As she prepared for trial, LaBelle knew she had to set the right tone from the start, there was so much at stake. She felt pressure to honor these women, who had waited so long to tell their stories.

So she scribbled on a legal pad, writing and rearranging her notes. As she walked down the sidewalk to the Washtenaw County Courthouse, she was still writing.

Dressed in a simple black dress and coat, intended to convey her serious and somber message, LaBelle continued to scribble as lawyers and spectators filed into the courtroom.

The Department of Corrections had fought the case for years, arguing variously that the statute of limitations had expired on the women's claims; that it should not be considered a class-action; that the hundreds of women in the suit should have their trials held separately; that prisoners don't have the same rights as normal citizens. The appeals went all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Five days earlier, Allan Soros, an assistant state attorney general representing the prison system, filed a motion seeking 10 separate trials for the women. Judge Timothy Connors denied the motion.

LaBelle finished writing as the court was called into session for opening statements. She faced the jury and cleared her throat.

"OK," she said. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen."

Behind her, against the wall, the 10 women sat in chairs, dressed in civilian clothing -- pink sweaters, blouses, dress pants -- the kind of clothing seen at a PTA meeting. Seven of the women, including Bunton, were still prisoners. They had changed from their prison garb at the courthouse.

"We've all been waiting for this trial for a very long time," LaBelle told jurors.

Her voice was calm. Her mind was racing, trying to find the right balance of emotion. She wanted to scream out loud about how the guards preyed on the pretty ones, the ones who were small and weak, the ones who had been abused as children; how the women had to see the guards every day, yet couldn't report what happened to them, couldn't say no and couldn't fight because guards had all the power.

But the suit wasn't against the guards. They didn't create the system. They didn't have money to pay for damages.

Instead, this lawsuit was filed against the Department of Corrections, former DOC Director Kenneth McGinnis and former Scott Correctional Warden Joan Yukins.

To win, it would not be enough for LaBelle to show the guards had abused the women. LaBelle and her legal team had to convince jurors that prison officials knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it.
The 1st hurdle: Jury selection

All of the women said they were touched inappropriately -- some, several times a day -- as the guards filled a daily pat-down quota. LaBelle contended that this constant touching emboldened some guards to sexually molest the prisoners.

On the other side of the room, the 10 jury members listened closely. Normally, in a civil trial, six jurors are used and five are needed for a verdict, but Connors said that the trial would last so long that he would lose a few. He kept 10, just in case.

Jury selection took 11 hours.

Several potential jurors said prisoners deserved whatever they got, even though it is a crime for a guard to have sexual contact with a prisoner. Others were dismissed because they said they themselves were sexually abused.
The case against the state

"I want to start with a little history and context," LaBelle told the jury. "Historically, in Michigan ... women used to be supervised in their cells and in their living units and in their showers and in their bathrooms by women. That is the way it was."

But that changed in 1986, when the DOC assigned men to work closer with female inmates.

LaBelle glanced at her notes, but spoke from memory.

She looked into the eyes of the jurors to make sure they were listening, to see whether they were engaged.

"You will hear that these guards -- not all of them, certainly not all of them -- these male guards went further," LaBelle said. "They sexually assaulted these 10 women. After the gropings, after the viewing, after the watching, then they assaulted them. They assaulted them over a period of years.

"Michigan, you will hear, invited men into the women's prison unit areas without training, without restriction and without precautions for these women's safety."

LaBelle told jurors how prison officials had ignored years of warnings.

The Michigan Women's Commission, a governor-appointed group, reported in 1993 an alarming level of sexual abuse and sexual harassment by prison guards. Two years later, the U.S. Department of Justice called it "pervasive." One year after that, Human Rights Watch, the international watchdog group, released a report that said there was a "highly sexualized and excessively hostile" environment.

"Had the wardens and directors looked, they would have seen," LaBelle said. "Had they read, they would have known. Had they listened, they would have heard."

After 47 minutes, she was done.
The state's defense

It was the state's turn.

Soros rose.

Speaking in a dry, steady voice, with little flash or emotion, Soros explained that he represented the prison system and its top officials, not the guards.

Soros, too, offered jurors a history of Scott, and how the facility switched to female prisoners in late spring 1992. At the time of the alleged assaults, there were 860 female inmates and nearly 400 employees.

Admittedly, he said, there are problems in every prison.

"You cannot have a perfectly running correctional facility. There is always going to be some problem that needs to be addressed."

He said the department knew of some allegations of sexual assault and made changes, improving the way it investigates abuses. He added: "You can't solve everything."

He then stressed what would become the backbone of the state's defense: The women had had opportunities to tell the warden and others that they had been assaulted years earlier.

"They didn't report their allegations in a timely manner," he said. "That's crucial."

Over and over, he repeated the point: "You have to know about a problem before we can help resolve it. We didn't get notice. We couldn't do anything about it.

"And we are not at fault."

Human Rights Watch studied abuses

January 4, 2009

The following excerpt comes from a December 1996 report, “All Too Familiar,” by Human Rights Watch. The organization examined sexual abuse of female prisoners in the United States. The full report is available here. It was one of a series of reports in the 1990s that described abuses of female inmates in Michigan prisons.
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The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is currently being sued by seven female prisoners on behalf of all others similarly situated for sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and inappropriate visual surveillance within its correctional facilities for women. The suit comes on the heels of a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finding in 1995 that sexual misconduct pervades Michigan's women's prisons, including rape, sexual abuse, sexually aggressive acts by guards, and violations of the female prisoners' legitimate privacy interests. Our own investigation, conducted from 1994 through 1996, and based on interviews with current and former female prisoners as well as attorneys, prisoner rights advocates, and MDOC, revealed that rape, sexual assault or abuse, criminal sexual contact, and other misconduct by corrections staff are continuing and serious problems within the women's prisons in Michigan have been tolerated over the years at both the institutional and departmental levels.

Rather than seeking to end such abuse, the Michigan Department of Corrections has consistently refused to acknowledge that there is a problem of sexual misconduct in its women's prisons. As noted below, MDOC dismissed the female prisoners' class action suit as "erroneous" and issued a written statement characterizing the DOJ's findings as "vindictive and distorted" and "full of half truths, innuendo, distortion and lies." (658) The state has taken the positive steps of establishing minimal grievance and investigatory procedures as well as disciplinary and criminal sanctions for custodial sexual contact; however, its stated policy of "zero tolerance" for such abuse is belied by a pervasive bias against prisoner testimony, a high incidence of retaliation against complainants, and a consistent problem with the enforcement of appropriate penalties.

MDOC cooperated with Human Rights Watch's on-site investigations at its women's facilities and was prompt in its reply to our requests for additional information. Moreover, we commend the state for expressly criminalizing custodial sexual touching and for establishing clear disciplinary penalties for this crime. However, a significant gap exists between MDOC policy and its practice with respect to sexual misconduct. We strongly urge MDOC to enforce its criminal and administrative prohibitions against sexual misconduct, including rape, sexual abuse, and assault, criminal sexual contact, verbal degradation, and privacy violations; to protect prisoners' right to an effective remedy in cases of sexual misconduct by prison staff; and to end impunity for abusive employees. Moreover, we urge the department to publish regular reports of the nature and results of its sexual misconduct investigations to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice and other independent monitors in their efforts to uncover and remedy on-going custodial sexual misconduct in Michigan's prisons for women.
CONTEXT

Custodial Environment

Female prisoners in Michigan, held in increasingly overcrowded facilities, are guarded by a largely male staff. According to recent figures, men constituted from nearly one-half to over two-thirds of the corrections staff in the state's two largest prisons for women, the Florence Crane Women's Facility (Crane) and the Scott Correctional Facility (Scott). (659)

As noted in the legal background chapter of this report, Human Rights Watch does not oppose the presence of male officers in contact positions in female prisons per se. Nor do we believe that all male staff abuse prisoners or that custodial abuse is carried out only by males. However, we are concerned that Michigan has not taken adequate steps to protect against the potential for custodial sexual misconduct that arises out of this cross-gender guarding situation. Although Michigan does expressly prohibit sexual misconduct in both prison rules and criminal law, it fails to train male staff adequately to uphold these prohibitions and does not consistently investigate and discipline those employees found to violate them.

Corrections officials have also failed to inform female prisoners adequately regarding the nature of custodial sexual misconduct and the mechanisms available to seek redress. Christina Kampfner, a clinical psychologist who had worked extensively with women in Michigan's prisons, told us that in these relationships, officers often target "like a radar" women with histories of sexual or physical abuse or prisoners in emotionally vulnerable positions, such as those who lack support from family or friends, who are alienated or isolated by other prisoners or staff, and younger women who are incarcerated for the first time. (660) According to Kampfner, many of these prisoners are so in need of attention that they are easily exploited by the officers.

The gap between policy and practice in Michigan with respect to sexual misconduct is occurring at a time when the women's prisons are increasingly crowded. According to the most recent figures available from MDOC, there are a total of 1,616 prisoners in its women's facilities. (661) The majority of women are held in the Scott Correctional Facility, located in Plymouth, and the Florence Crane Women's Facility, (662) located in Coldwater, which house 771 and 447 women respectively. (663) MDOC also operates Camp Branch, a female camp in Coldwater that holds approximately 400 women. MDOC currently operates both women's prisons in overcrowded conditions--prisoners are double- and triple-bunked — and areas once used for recreational space are being used to house prisoners. (664)

State Legal and Regulatory Framework

Under Michigan's criminal code, any sexual touching with a prisoner by an employee of or a volunteer with MDOC constitutes fourth-degree "criminal sexual conduct," a misdemeanor. (665) The provision was added in 1988 to a pre-existing section of the criminal code that outlawed sexual touching with someone between the ages of thirteen and sixteen who is physically or mentally incapacitated or that is accompanied by force or coercion. The law applies to sexual contact irrespective of a prisoner's alleged consent. (666) Given the position of authority held by a corrections employee over a prisoner, the Michigan legislature found "the usual notions of consent do not apply." (667) The MDOC employee manual reiterates the prohibition on sexual contact with a prisoner and informs employees that such conduct constitutes a crime under Michigan law. (668) Under certain circumstances, corrections officers who engage in sexual intercourse with prisoners may be charged with third or first degree criminal sexual conduct. Third degree criminal sexual conduct occurs when an individual uses force or coercion to have sex. First degree sexual conduct applies to intercourse that occurs under specified aggravating circumstances. (669)

At present, MDOC operates both of its women's prisons and Camp Branch under a court order issued in 1981, in Glover v. Johnson. (670) While the issues raised in Glover are outside the scope of this report, the authorities' persistent defiance of both the judicial authorities and the other external monitors involved in Glover are indicative of similar problems in MDOC's approach to addressing sexual misconduct in its women's prisons.

At the time Glover was decided, it was a landmark decision for incarcerated women regarding their rights and an influential precedent for female prisoners in other states to seek more equal programming. Despite its precedential value, however, women incarcerated in Michigan continue to be denied the full implementation of the judge's order. (671) Attorneys representing female prisoners have been forced to file repeated contempt motions seeking compliance with Glover orders. The district court has found that the state disobeyed the 1981 order in two major contempt rulings. (672)

MDOC's continued noncompliance led the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in 1991, to issue a stern rebuke to the department and to uphold the appointment of a special administrator, a remedy the Circuit Court once found overly intrusive. The Sixth Circuit concluded:

[The] history of this case shows a consistent and persistent pattern of obfuscation, hyper-technical objections, delay, and litigation by exhaustion on the part of the defendants to avoid compliance with the letter and spirit of the district court's orders. The plaintiff class has struggled for eleven years to achieve the simple objectives of equal protection under the law generally, and equality of opportunity specifically. (673)

While the court upheld the creation of a special administrator, MDOC was permitted to designate who would serve in that position. The director of MDOC, Kenneth McGinnis, appointed Nancy Zang, a former parole officer in Illinois as special administrator of the Female Offenders Program. Zang is based in the director's office and reports directly to him.

The Sixth Circuit's rebuke did not appreciably affect MDOC's recalcitrance, and women have continued to face difficulties gaining the remedies ordered by the court. Deborah LaBelle told us there have been more than eight contempt motions filed against MDOC since 1991. (674) The court has issued nine orders to force compliance since 1991, and in March 1995 issued an opinion finding that MDOC had still not obtained compliance, despite MDOC's insistence that they were fully compliant in all areas. (675) On July 19, 1996, the court again issued an opinion and orders to compel compliance. United States District Judge John Feiken concluded: "… Defendants [MDOC et al.] have clearly, positively, and repeatedly violated orders of this court. … In fact, in the nineteen years of this case, Defendants have demonstrated a galling pattern of disrespect for the inmates they hold, the taxpayers of the State of Michigan, and the dignity of this court." (676)

National and International Law Protections

As discussed in the legal background chapter of this report, sexual misconduct is clearly prohibited under both U.S. constitutional law and international treaty law that is binding on the the U.S. federal government and its constituent states. (677) The eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars cruel and unusual punishment, has been interpreted by U.S. courts to protect prisoners against rape and sexual assault. This constitutional shield is further augmented by the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of the rights to privacy and personal integrity, which, in a series of lower court cases, has been interpreted to prohibit male guards from strip searching female prisoners, conducting intrusive pat-frisks, or engaging in inappropriate visual surveillance.

Constitutional protections on prisoners' rights are enforceable via lawsuits filed by or on behalf of prisoners, or by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Historically, U.S. prisoners have achieved most of their landmark prison victories through private litigation, particularly by suits litigated by prisoners' rights groups such as the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union or the National Prison Project of the National Women's Law Center. However, if certain stringent intent requirements are met, the DOJ may criminally prosecute abusive prison officials under federal civil rights provisions. In addition, the DOJ has the statutory right to investigate and institute civil actions under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) whenever it finds that a state facility engages in a pattern or practice of subjecting prisoners to "egregious or flagrant conditions" in violation of the constitution.

In addition to constitutional protections, prisoners' rights are also protected under international and human rights treaties that are legally binding on the United States. The primary international legal instruments protecting the rights of U.S. prisoners are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by the United States in 1993, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment, ratified in 1994. Both treaties bar torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which authoritative institutional fora have interpreted as including sexual abuse. To constitute torture, an act must cause severe physical or mental suffering and must be committed for a purpose such as obtaining information from the victim, punishing her, intimidating her, coercing her, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind. Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment includes acts causing a lesser degree of suffering that need not be committed for a particular purpose. The ICCPR guarantees the prisoners' right to privacy, except when limitations on this right are demonstrably necessary to maintain prison security.

When prison staff members use force, the threat of force, or other means of coercion to compel a prisoner to engage in sexual intercourse, their acts constitute rape and, therefore, torture. Torture also occurs when prison staff use force or coercion to engage in sexual touching of prisoners where such acts cause serious physical or mental suffering. Instances of sexual touching or of sexual intercourse that does not amount to rape may constitute torture or cruel or inhuman treatment, depending on the level of physical or mental suffering involved. Other forms of sexual misconduct, such as inappropriate pat or strip searches or verbal harassment, that do not rise to the level of torture or of cruel or inhuman treatment, may be condemned as degrading treatment. (678)
ABUSES (679)

The abuses discussed in this section occurred over a ten-year period from 1986 to 1996. Our own investigation took place from March 1994 through November 1996. We found a serious problem of sexual misconduct in Michigan women's prisons, including rape, sexual assault and abuse, criminal sexual contact, inappropriate visual surveillance, and verbal degradation. Unless indicated by the use of a full name, the names of the prisoners have been changed to protect their anonymity. In some cases, the location and exact date of prisoner interviews have also been withheld.

Rape, Sexual Assault or Abuse, and Criminal Sexual Contact

On March 27, 1996, prisoners' rights attorney Deborah Labelle filed a class action suit, Neal/Nunn, on behalf of seven female prisoners and all other females incarcerated in Michigan charging MDOC and several other named defendants with various degrees of sexual assault, sexual harassment, violations of privacy, and physical threats and assaults. (680) Two of the plaintiffs, Tracy Neal and Ikemia Russell, allege sexual assault by male officers at the Scott Correctional Facility in 1994. A third, Helen Gibbs, alleges that she was sexually assaulted by a male officer at the Florence Crane Women's Facility in 1994. Bertha Clark alleges that a male officer at Scott squeezed her breasts and grabbed her crotch during pat-frisks, and Linda Nunn alleges sex-based, derogatory and abusive name calling and sexually threatening comments by a male officer at Scott. Stacy Barker, whose case is described in more detail below, alleges constant harassment and retaliation at Scott for reporting sexual misconduct by staff members, and "Jane Doe" alleges that male officers at Crane subjected her to constant viewing while dressing and undressing, showering, and using the toilet facilities. All seven women report experiencing sex-based insults, sexual harassment, excessively intrusive cross-gender body searches, constant viewing by male staff and threats of retaliation for reporting staff misconduct.

Such allegations of sexual misconduct are not new to Michigan's women's prisons. Documentation we obtained indicates that these charges are consistent with a pattern and practice of conduct in the women's prisons since, at least, the mid-1980s. In 1984 a prisoner accused a resident unit officer, Alfred Beaster, at Huron Valley Women's Facility, (681) of rape. He ultimately confessed to having sexual relations with a prisoner, but asserted the prisoner was the aggressor. He told the prison investigator that:

The prisoner dropped her pants, he took his penis out, but she did all of the manipulation. That is, she backed onto his erection. Officer Beaster maintained he didn't lay a hand on her. Beaster told the officers that he wasn't sure if he was inside of her or not as she was backing up on him. He did tell the officers that he ejaculated and that she asked him if he squirted inside of her. (682)

Then, in 1986, a corrections officer at Crane, Raymond Raby, was dismissed after admitting during a police interview that he had sexual relations on a nightly basis with different women incarcerated at Crane. Raby's exploits came to light after a prisoner, Jackie K., reported that Raby molested her. According to Jackie K.'s statement, Raby entered her cell at night and woke her up. He took her into a visiting room where he grabbed her and kissed her, then fondled her breasts and put his finger in her vagina. (683) Shortly after Jackie K. complained about him, another prisoner reported seeing an officer fitting Raby's description having oral intercourse with a third prisoner. (684)

In 1988 another woman incarcerated at Crane, Kim J., alleged that she was raped by an officer during the night shift. Kim J. reported the incident to the prison psychologist, who then informed other officials in the prison. (685) According to a statement Kim J. made, the officer raped her in the laundry room after she submitted to a "shakedown" (pat-frisk). The next morning, she awakened to find the officer in her cubicle with his hand between her legs. The authorities took no action against the officer because the only evidence was her accusation.

In another incident, Officer Bernard Rivers in 1990 admitted entering a prisoner's segregation cell and sexually assaulting her. According to the prisoner, Lisa G., Rivers entered her cell in April 1988 and told her he could positively or negatively affect her parole, depending on how she responded to his sexual advances. (686) She involuntarily submitted to sexual relations with him. Lisa G. came forward eighteen months later, after Rivers was again assigned to her housing unit, out of fear that he would force her to have sexual relations with him again. MDOC largely ignored Lisa G.'s allegations for four months until she, with the help of her attorney Deborah LaBelle, obtained a court order and wore a wire inside the prison. (687) She successfully taped a conversation with Rivers. His statements acknowledged the sexual assault and resulted in the sheriff's office recommending prosecution. He committed suicide before trial.

In 1992 the Michigan Women's Commission, a governor-appointed body, launched an investigation into the problems facing incarcerated women, focusing in particular on women incarcerated in county jails. (688) The commission interviewed fifty-nine women who were formerly held in jail and were either released or transferred to Michigan's prisons or community-based programs. (689) In each interview, a pre-established series of questions was asked regarding jail conditions including a final, open question, "Are there any concerns you would like to share about conditions here at the prison?" (690)

The prisoners raised a number of concerns in response to the final question, including incidences of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment committed by corrections officers. A majority of the women reported sexual harassment and sexual abuse by the guards, ranging from corrections staff demanding sex or sexual favors, often in exchange for certain items, to intrusive pat-downs, to male guards walking through the showers and rooms while the women were undressed. (691) The women's responses to the last question were used to create a final chapter, "Special Report: Women in Prison," of the Women's Commission's Report. At MDOC Director McGinnis's insistence, the section was ultimately deleted from the published report, released in July 1993; the chapter has never been made public in any form. (692)

In February 1993 the Office of the Legislative Corrections Ombudsman, a post attached to the state legislature, conducted a second investigation of sexual misconduct at both Scott and Crane. (693) McGinnis asserts that the ombudsman's findings refuted the information compiled by the Women's Commission, even though a significant percentage of the women surveyed reported that sexual harassment and sexual misconduct were problems in the prison. (694)

In June 1994 the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into prison conditions for women incarcerated at the Scott and Crane facilities pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). The purpose of the investigation was to determine whether there were any violations of the prisoners' constitutional rights. On March 27, 1995, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick wrote a twelve-page letter to Michigan Governor John Engler that detailed the DOJ's findings. The DOJ concluded:

[T]he sexual abuse of women prisoners by guards, including rapes, the lack of adequate medical care, including mental health services, grossly deficient sanitation, crowding and other threats to the physical safety and well-being of prisoners, violates their constitutional rights. (695)

According to the DOJ letter, "nearly every woman . . . interviewed reported various sexually aggressive acts of guards." (696) The DOJ found that prisoners at Scott and Crane had been raped, sexually assaulted, and subjected to groping and fondling during pat-frisks. Additionally, they were subjected to "improper visual surveillance by guards" who:

routinely stand outside the cells of individual prisoners and watch them dress or undress, stand in the shower areas and observe showers and use of toilet facilities. Male maintenance workers stand and watch women inmates who are naked or in various states of undress as well--all on a regular basis without legitimate need. . . . We are unaware of any effort to accommodate the legitimate privacy interests of prisoners. (697)

The status of the DOJ's investigation is discussed in more detail below.
In 1994 we interviewed two women--Stacy Barker and Charlene Billups-Hein--who both sued MDOC for repeated sexual abuse by male corrections officers that they endured at the Huron Valley Women's Prison, now closed, and Scott. Barker was raped and sexually assaulted by the same officer, Craig Keahy, over a period of nearly a year and a half, beginning in October 1989. (698) She told us, "He would come to my room or detail [once or twice a week] and force me to perform different sexual acts on him. He would threaten or harass me, like 'I'll make your time hard for you … I have the keys.'" (699) He was discovered by other officers on various occasions leaving Barker's room off-duty but was always allowed to return to her unit and never reprimanded for violation of rules. After a while, his attacks became more violent. She told us, "He'd say things like, 'Come on and suck my dick'. … He'd pull my hair, unzip his pants and force himself in my mouth." Keahy was subsequently discovered by other prison officers, in August 1991, leaving the room of a second woman prisoner. They looked into the prisoner's room and saw that she was naked. While the prisoner initially denied anything had occurred, she was taken to the hospital and an examination was performed which detected the presence of semen. Keahy was convicted in December 1991 on two counts of fourth-degree sexual conduct with a prisoner, a misdemeanor. (700) He was sentenced to community service.

Charlene Billups-Hein was housed in segregation when a male corrections officer, David Rose, started coming to her cell in the early mornings in June and July 1992. (701) According to Billups-Hein, Rose came and spoke with her one night when she was crying and upset. Rose told her he had been having sexual relations with other prisoners and asked her to have sexual intercourse with him. He listed the names and identification numbers of the women with whom he was having sex, many of whom were housed in the segregation unit. According to Billups-Hein, he stated that he had been watching her for a long time and that she would be his fourteenth resident. He had not approached her earlier, Rose said, because she was "with women," implying that she was a lesbian. She told us that she submitted to sexual relations with the officer because she felt that she did not have any choice. When he approached her on subsequent occasions, the officer allegedly brought her various things, such as cigarettes, makeup, perfume, candy, and cookies. She said they had sexual intercourse and that she performed oral sex on him a number of times. Officer Rose was charged with criminal sexual conduct third degree and acquitted. He was returned to Scott where he is currently employed and is reportedly under investigation for renewed charges of sexual misconduct with a different prisoner.

Other women we interviewed in 1994 reported similar assaults by male officers and staff. In late 1993, Anne B. was taking a break from her work assignment in a back room when her supervisor came in. (702) He approached her from behind and started kissing her. He then pulled her to the ground and had sexual relations with her. She told us, "I felt uncomfortable. It wasn't something I wanted. . . . After that, he acted as if nothing happened. He did his job, I did mine." Anne B. discussed the rape with other women on her work assignment, who described similar encounters with the same employee, although none of them admitted actually submitting to sexual intercourse.

Another incarcerated woman we interviewed, Gloria P., told us that Officer A was assigned to guard her room when she was admitted to a hospital outside the prison for medical treatment. (703) During her stay in the hospital, he became increasingly assertive, touching her, making comments like, "You need a man like me," or suggesting she take a shower and helping her undress. He once turned on a nude dance show on the television in the hospital room and made comments such as, "I like women with a lot of butt" or made reference to their breasts. One day, he sat on the edge of her bed and kissed her. On another occasion, she told us, he kissed her breasts and she performed oral sex on him.

According to Gloria P., "It went on from there, and we had a relationship in the sexual sense" in the hospital and once she returned to the prison. Everyone, including staff, she said, knew about the relationship. She explained, "That person never gets tickets [disciplinary write-up], never needs a pass, could go wherever they wanted and, if anybody ever had a problem with her, he'd [take care of it]." (704) During this time, he brought her various things, such as nail polish, money, a ring, and candy. One night, she stated, the relationship "got really intense"--he started rubbing her hair while other prisoners were watching, and they went into a nearby closet to kiss. Within days, Gloria P. was moved to another unit but continued to see Officer A in the yard, or he would switch shifts with officers on either her unit or a neighboring unit in order to see her.

On February 22, 1996, we interviewed an attorney representing a female prisoner who was charging a male officer at Scott with sexual assault. (705) The assault occurred during the midnight shift on July 31, 1995. The prisoner was asleep in her cell when the officer entered, tied her down to her bunk, sexually abused her, and hit her repeatedly. The officer eventually left and during the early hours of the morning, another officer found the prisoner tied to her bed and badly beaten. The prisoner was taken to the hospital and then returned to Scott. The officer was placed on leave immediately and eventually charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He pled guilty to assault with intent to commit criminal sexual contact and received four years probation, one of which he must serve in jail. (706)

In mid-1996, we obtained information about a December 26, 1995, sexual assault by a male officer on a female prisoner at Scott. The assault allegedly occurred during the midnight shift when the officer on duty came into the prisoner's cell, unzipped his pants, and raped her. After hearing a noise outside her cell, he told her to meet him in the bathroom area, where he raped her again. After coming into her cell later in the night and raping her another time, he told her the rapes would be "our little secret." The prisoner reported the rapes on January 9, 1996. She was visited by an inspector at the facility that same day and by a state police officer the following day. At this writing, the prisoner is still incarcerated at Scott and has no knowledge about the progress of the investigation. The officer has not been assigned to her unit but is still working at the facility.

On November 4, 1996, we received reports of an alleged sexual assault at the Camp Branch facility. The assault occurred on October 29, 1996 and was allegedly committed by a civilian food service employee. State troopers were contacted and are investigating the case. To date, no warrant has been issued.

Prisoners who are not involved with officers often witness their sexual activities with other prisoners. According to Frances U., when she worked nights in the school building, she often saw officers in the library with their pants down with a prisoner. She told us, "We would watch officers taking women to the basement. If you couldn't find an officer, you would wait to see which room he came out of. It runs rampant." (707)

Mistreatment of Prisoners Impregnated by Guards

As a result of custodial sexual misconduct, some prisoners have been impregnated by corrections staff. These women are particularly vulnerable to harassment by staff and to the punitive investigatory measures at times employed by MDOC. The experience of one woman, Anne B., whom we interviewed in 1994, is particularly telling. In 1993 Anne B. reported that she had been sexually assaulted by a corrections employee and requested a pregnancy test. Almost immediately after the test results returned positive, the authorities removed her from the prison where the assault occurred and placed her in a segregated cell at Huron Valley Men's Prison (HVM) infirmary.

While at HVM, Anne B. was locked in for nearly twenty-four hours a day and denied access to a phone. Attorney Deborah LaBelle told us that she learned of Anne B.'s predicament only through another prisoner at HVM who contacted LaBelle. (708) Anne B. was removed from her cell only for meetings with MDOC staff investigating her pregnancy. According to Anne B., these investigators repeatedly interrogated her about the circumstances of her pregnancy. One investigator threatened to keep her in segregation throughout her pregnancy, take away her accrued good time, and return her to the facility where she was assaulted unless she assisted with the investigation. Anne B. also told us that this investigator pressed her to have an abortion, repeatedly asking her, "Don't you think it'd just be better for you and the child to just have an abortion?" (709) She resisted this pressure and carried her pregnancy to term.

Anne B. was released from segregation after nearly three months and placed in the general population at another women's prison in the state. She told us that in this new facility she had been continuously harassed by prison staff about what she had told investigators and whether she reported who impregnated her. The doctor at this prison reportedly refused to treat Anne B. during her pregnancy, and she had to receive prenatal care from a doctor in a nearby town.

In February, 1996, we learned of another female prisoner who had been sexually assaulted by a male officer during an August 1995 stay in a hospital at the Huron Valley Men's Prison, where she had been sent for treatment for an ongoing medical problem. The prisoner had taken a shower and was toweling off in the bathroom when the officer, an employee of the HVM who had been guarding her, entered the room and had sexual relations with her. Subsequent to the incident, she requested a pregnancy test and was found to be pregnant. The baby was determined by a paternity test to be his, and he was charged with fourth degree criminal sexual misconduct, to which he pled no contest. (710) A person familiar with the case told us that after the prisoner decided to report the officer, she was harassed by other officers at Scott. One officer reportedly told her that it might make her time easier if she did not pursue the case.

Privacy Violations

Despite clear decisions in U.S. courts and relevant international law, Michigan has no policy in place to ensure the privacy of incarcerated women. MDOC makes no distinction between male and female corrections officers in conducting pat-frisks or searches of a prisoner's cell or the shower and toilet areas. (711) In practice, male corrections officers patrol these areas and are in a position to view incarcerated women in a state of undress or while using the shower or toilet facilities.

MDOC's use of male corrections staff in the housing units of the women's prisons and the dearth of restrictions on their job assignments appear to be rooted in a 1982 federal court decision, Griffin v. Michigan Dept. of Corrections. (712) Griffin was a class action lawsuit filed by female corrections officers who alleged that they were unfairly discriminated against, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning sex discrimination, because MDOC limited their job assignments to female facilities and they were denied positions in the over twenty men's prisons. These assignments, in turn, adversely affected their professional advancement. At the time, the MDOC restricted female corrections officers from working on the housing units in the men's prisons for the security and safety of the female officers and for reasons of prisoner privacy and rehabilitation. (713)

The judge in Griffin flatly dismissed the contention that prisoners had a constitutionally protected right to privacy. He found that:

Any contention by [MDOC] that they are entitled to the Title VII [bona fide occupational qualification] exception on the basis of the prisoner's right to privacy . . . is without merit. Prisoners do not possess any protected right under the Constitution against being viewed while naked by corrections officers of the opposite sex. (714)

The judge's blunt denial to prisoners of a constitutionally protected right to privacy was made without reference to or consideration of any legal precedent and was strikingly inconsistent with similar decisions from other jurisdictions that predated Griffin. Prior to 1982, other courts repeatedly recognized that prisoners had a constitutionally protected right of privacy, including the right to be protected from being unduly observed while naked or while using the toilet. (715) Where the employment rights of corrections officers were at issue, the courts directed the state to balance the equal employment opportunities of the corrections officers with the need to protect the prisoners' right to privacy. Griffin, however, decided otherwise.

MDOC has chosen to rely on Griffin rather than on other federal court decisions since Griffin that ordered or allowed prison officials to protect prisoners from unwanted and unwarranted intrusions on their privacy by guards of the opposite sex. (716) The court did not address the privacy rights of female prisoners which subsequent courts have acknowledged are entitled to a different analysis. A number of decisions have specifically dealt with the role of male corrections officers, upholding or directing limitations on cross-gender pat-downs or frisks by corrections officers of the opposite sex, (717) and permitting the removal of male officers from the housing units. (718) In some of these decisions, the court has explicitly stated that Griffin is the exception rather than the rule. (719) Strikingly, in contrast MDOC's combative approach to Glover and its tendency to appeal virtually every adverse district court ruling, it did not appeal Griffin.

Abusive Pat-Frisks

MDOC does train corrections officers in the proper procedure for conducting pat-frisks: they should use the back of their hand, rather than the palm, when searching the chest and genital areas. (720) MDOC policy requires each nonhousing corrections officer to search at least five "randomly selected" prisoners per shift. These searches are intended to prevent prisoners from possessing contraband; under departmental policy "no search shall be conducted for the purpose of harassing or humiliating a prisoner." (721)

Nonetheless, male corrections officers frequently abuse their power to conduct random pat-frisks in a degrading and sexually hostile manner. During pat-frisks and pat-searches, male officers often use their open hands and fingers to grope or grip a women's breasts and nipples, vagina, buttocks, anus, and thighs. They reportedly target certain women, usually the younger ones, while older, long-term prisoners are rarely frisked. Joann F. told us:

The male officers sit by the door to the kitchen and shake the women down as they leave. We watch the way they do it and who they pick. I watched one who felt a woman down in front of everyone else as she left. It's always male officers at the door in the kitchen who do the shakedowns. (722)

Carol H. noted, "The [women] look ashamed because they have the officer pawing at their body. It depends on what you look like, what you have on. You can guess who and when they are going to shake a [woman] down." (723)
Corrections officers have used the frisks and pat-searches to exercise undue power and control over incarcerated women. When ordered to submit to a frisk or pat-search, a woman must comply or risk disciplinary action. In some instances, women who have requested that a female corrections officer conduct the frisk or who have pulled away during an offensive frisk have received major misconduct tickets for disobeying a direct order. Such tickets have resulted in administrative segregation and loss of good time and disciplinary credits. According to one grievance we reviewed, prisoner Maxine Q. was being pat-frisked by Officer W when, she alleged, he cupped her breasts and then groped her vagina as he ran his hands between her legs. Maxine Q. pulled away and requested the presence of a female officer. A second prisoner who witnessed the frisk contacted a female officer. Maxine Q. then agreed to con

Posted by lois at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

PA: Rendell Wants No Parole for People Convicted of Repeated Violent Crimes

Rendell Wants No Parole For Repeat Violent Offenders
Last Edited: Sunday, 04 Jan 2009
Governor Ed Rendell

PHILADELPHIA -- Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has put forth his first order of business for 2009. He wants to get rid of parole for repeat violent offenders.

"In 2008, four Pennsylvanians were brutally murdered by men who had served state time for violent crimes and were out on parole at the time," said Governor Rendell. "These murders cry out for changes in how we sentence our violent repeat offenders."

Currently, in the state of Pennsylvania, offenders are given indeterminate sentences, requiring a minimum and maximum time to be served. Gov. Rendell proposes that any adult or juvenile convicted of a violent crime with a deadly weapon would be unable to get out on parole. He has told the General Assembly to start working on this legislation.

He cited the case of Daniel Giddings, accused of shooting and killing Philadelphia Police Sgt. Patrick McDonald. Giddings had been out on parole.

"Howard Cain, Levon Warner, and Eric Floyd, all on parole...shot and killed Sgt. Steven Liczbinski," said Gov. Rendell.

The sentencing guidelines for crimes wouldn't change but judges would give offenders a sentence that would be served fully, no time off for good behavior. He says most repeat violent offenders have learned "to game the system," entering programs in prison to help them get out at the earliest possible time.

The prison system, already overcrowded, may see an increase due to the legislation, but Rendell says non-violent offenders would be fast tracked out of the state prison system. He says he believes the state prisons are for violent offenders. He says the state is also working on building additional prisons.

"Nobody, myself included, will tell you that just locking people up solves the problem, but it does buy us some valuable time. Instead of one of these offenders being in prison for four years, if they can be in prison for nine years, that's five years more of safety for the citizens of Pennsylvania," said Rendell.

The legislature is scheduled to reconvene in a week and Rendell hopes they will take up the matter immediately.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=8190722&version=10&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Posted by lois at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2009

CA: Schwarzenegger's plan would cut number of parolees in half and reduce the prison population by 10% in a year

His proposal would cut the number of parolees in half and reduce the prison population by almost 10% within a year...

Schwarzenegger plan would save nearly $1 billion in prisoner and parolee costs
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published Friday, Jan. 02, 2009

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal would reduce by tens of thousands the number of criminals behind bars and under community supervision.

Parole would be eliminated for all nonserious, nonviolent and non-sex offenders. The proposal would cut the parole population by about 65,000 by June 30, 2010, or more than half of the Christmas Eve count of 123,144.

At the same time, the corrections plan calls for increasing good-time credits for inmates who obey the rules and complete rehabilitation programs. Combined with the new parole policies that would result in fewer violators forced back into custody, the proposal would reduce the prison population by 15,000 by June 30, 2010. It stood at 171,542 on Dec. 24.

Department of Finance Director Mike Genest said the state's worsening budget scenario again forced the administration to look at prison and parole population cuts as front-burner proposals to save money.

"I don't think there are very many proposals in this whole budget that are easy for us, or for anybody," Genest said in an interview. "They're all difficult. That one's difficult, but we think we've structured it in such a way as to protect public safety."

Genest said that California's parole population far outstrips any other state, and that the administration's plan would bring its policies for released offenders mostly in line with the rest of the country.

"We're just paring back the whole parole program here," Genest said. "Other states do this with no noticeable impacts on public safety, and I think it's time California takes a hard look at doing that."

Details on the latest edition of Schwarzenegger's early-release plan emerged when officials unveiled their budget proposals Wednesday for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

The governor's plan calls for an $842 million budget cut for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, an 8.7 percent slash that would take the agency's overall spending down to about $9.6 billion.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, still at odds with Schwarzenegger over a new contract, blasted the plan.

"What it means is residual costs to all citizens of California and higher insurance rates and more crime," said CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran, whose union represents about 30,000 correctional officers and parole agents. "These are individuals who do not take advantage of opportunities for change, and they are not going to change," he said of the offenders who stand to benefit from the proposals.

Corcoran said that the current definitions of "serious" and "violent" felonies exclude crimes such as spousal abuse, stalking and possession of destructive devices, and that offenders convicted under those laws would not be subject to parole supervision.

In the prisons, thousands more offenders would become eligible to have their sentences cut in half, with the time credits kicking in while they are in county jails waiting for their transfers to state custody. Prisoners also would be in line for additional time credits if they complete drug, vocational and educational programs.

Democratic majorities in the state Senate and the Assembly approved legislation in the recent special session on the budget that closely mirrors the administration's most recent population proposals. The bill, Assembly Bill X1 8, is on Schwarzenegger's desk. But it includes language that it cannot become law unless the rest of the Democrats' budget plan - still under negotiation with the governor - also is enacted.

One critic of California's correctional policies welcomed the administration's budget proposals but said the move to cut the population doesn't jibe with pending measures to increase inmate capacity.

"They need to immediately reduce the number of people in prison and there are many ways to do that, including changing parole and sentencing policies," said Rose Braz of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. "But they can't do that and keep building more prisons."

Besides the prison and parole plans, the governor's budget also proposes a $180 million cut in funding for federal medical care receiver J. Clark Kelso's programs, at a time when he is seeking $8 billion for long-term-care facilities.

Call Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.

Posted by lois at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2009

NY State Law requires employers to provide jobseekers with criminal records with anti-discrimination info

In 2008, the first bill drafted by the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP) at the Fortune Society, The Employer Education Act, was passed by the New York State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Paterson. The law:

(1) Requires employers to provide a copy of Article 23-A of the Correction Law—which makes it illegal to automatically deny employment to qualified job seekers with criminal records and provides guidance on how criminal history information can be appropriately and legally considered amidst the hiring process—to job seekers when relying on a criminal background check during the hiring process; and

(2) Requires the conspicuous posting of Article 23-A in the workplace.

After months of working on implementation, including sending letters about the new law to employment law practices, business that produce workplace signage and other businesses in NYS, DRCPP is pleased to report that the Labor Law Compliance Center (LLCC), one of the largest suppliers of Labor Law Posters in the United States, is now contacting all of its NYS customers to advise them to purchase the updated 2009 poster with the requirements specified in the Employer Education Act. According to LLCC's corporate office, they have "thousands of employers in NYS that rely on LLCC to be in compliance."
DRCPP is currently working on a larger education and communications campaign, which will further educate New York State employers, jobseekers and other stakeholders about the Employer Education Act. We look forward to touching base with you when the campaign rolls out in 2009.

The Fortune Society
David Rothenberg center for Public policy

Posted by lois at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

Helen Suzman, Anti-Apartheid Leader, Dies at 91

"She was also remembered for efforts to ease p[prison conditions for Mr. Mandela and other political captives, ensuring that they were able to receive books."

January 2, 2009
Helen Suzman, Anti-Apartheid Leader, Dies at 91
By ALAN COWELL and CELIA W. DUGGER
NY Times
Helen Suzman, the internationally known anti-apartheid campaigner who befriended the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and offered an often lonely voice for change among South Africa’s white minority, died on Thursday, a family member said.. She was 91.

Her son-in-law, Jeffrey Jowell, said she died peacefully in her Johannesburg home after a brief illness. He did not specify the cause of death.Mrs. Suzman was for many years among the most venerated of white campaigners urging an end to the injustices of racial rule. But, while she challenged apartheid at a time of violent protests among the black majority, she advocated peaceful change and differed sharply with more radical campaigners inside and outside South Africa supportive of economic sanctions to pressure the country’s white rulers toward reform.

“I understand the moral abhorrence, and pleasure it gives you when you demonstrate,” she told a New York audience in 1986, at a time when some Americans favored sanctions. “But I don’t see how wrecking the economy of the country will insure a more stable and just society.”

Her stance angered some Americans.

On American campuses, she said in an interview at the time, “I think people were probably rather disappointed by my attitude.”

A diminutive, spry, elegant and often acerbic politician, Mrs. Suzman became her country’s longest-serving legislator, pressing for changes from the benches of the whites-only Parliament for 36 years before she retired from the assembly in 1989. For 13 of those years, she was the sole parliamentary representative of the Progressive Party, the only party to reject racial discrimination. The party initially promoted only a limited franchise for the black majority but later embraced the idea of universal suffrage, Prof. Jowell said in a telephone interview.

After stepping down from Parliament, she created a pro-democracy foundation.

In the country’s first fully democratic elections in 1994, she acted as an election commissioner. The ballot spelled the formal demise of apartheid and brought Mr. Mandela to power as the country’s first black president.

The ruling African National Congress paid tribute to Mrs. Suzman saying she “became a thorn in the flesh of apartheid by openly criticizing segregation of Blacks by a Whites-only apartheid system.”

In her lifetime, her campaigning drew wide acknowledgment from academic institutions. Harvard, Columbia and Brandeis were among 26 South African and overseas universities that awarded her honorary doctorates. In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II made her an honorary Dame of the British Empire — the female equivalent of a knighthood in 1989. In 1997, Mr. Mandela bestowed on her one of South Africa’s highest civilian honors — the Order of Meritorious Service (Gold).

Virtually to the end of her life, she remained a critic of what she viewed as official wrongdoing. Only this month, she joined a growing list of well-known South Africans asking for a new inquiry into dubious government arms contracts in the 1990s.

Mrs. Suzman “seems never to have been content to fight her battle against apartheid only in Parliament,” Vincent Crapanzano, an author, wrote in a review of her memoir, “In No Uncertain Terms,” published in New York in 1993.

“She took advantage of her status as an M.P. to gain access to prisons, resettlement areas, black townships and homelands barred to ordinary white South Africans,” Mr. Crapanzano wrote. “She visited Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and countless other political prisoners, and was able to argue with some success for prison reform. She did this by describing in Parliament what she observed, enabling the liberal press to publish what would otherwise have been censored, for what was said in Parliament was not subject to censorship.”

She was also remembered for efforts to ease p[prison conditions for Mr. Mandela and other political captives, ensuring that they were able to receive books.

Mrs. Suzman was born Helen Gavronsky on Nov. 17, 1917, in Germiston, a gold-mining town outside Johannesburg, a descendant of Lithuanian Jews who had emigrated to South Africa. Educated in a Roman Catholic school in Johannesburg, she married Moses Suzman, a doctor, in 1937.

For many years, Mrs. Suzman lived a life of privilege common to wealthier white South Africans used to servants and big homes. Indeed, in 1994, she signed a reader’s letter to The New York Times defending the way many whites treated their domestic staff.

“Most employers in South Africa treat their live-in domestics with consideration,” she wrote. “Weekly half-days and alternate Sundays are accepted minimum ‘off-times,’ and so are paid annual holidays. Many employers assist their domestics to educate their children, especially as there are a great number of one-parent families. Many domestics are regarded as members of the families for whom they have worked for years.”

She traced her opposition to apartheid to her university years when she studied racial laws that incensed her, particularly the so-called “pass laws” defining where and how black people in South Africa could live. Even in a favored vacation resort — Plettenberg Bay on South Africa’s southern coast — she campaigned to improve the status of non-white residents living in a nearby segregated township. She once said she was driven by a profound dislike of bullying.

Mrs. Suzman first visited Mr. Mandela in the Robben Island prison, just off Cape Town, in 1967, where he was serving a life sentence imposed in 1964.

Reuters reported that Mr. Mandela, remembering her first visit with him in B-Section of the prison, once said: “It was an odd and wonderful sight to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells.”

The Nelson Mandela Foundation on Thursday that said South Africa had lost a “great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid.”

She ran for Parliament in the up-market and whites-only Houghton district of Johannesburg and remained a legislator from 1953 to 1989. First elected to represent the United Party, she was a founder of the liberal Progressive Party, which favored a more inclusive franchise, and was its sole parliamentary representative from 1961 to 1974.

According to Mr. Crapanzano, she was heckled and verbally abused in Parliament for her gender, liberal politics and religious roots, labeled “the lady from Lithuania,” a “sickly humanist” and a “dangerous subversive.”

Her nemesis was P. W. Botha, South Africa’s penultimate white president, who accused her of supporting “people who want to bring this country to its knees,” Reuters reported. She once said that if Mr. Botha had been “female he would arrive in Parliament on a broomstick.”

The outside world saw her in a different light than many of her fellow white lawmakers and she was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Celia W. Dugger reported from Cape Town, South Africa, and Alan Cowell from London.

Posted by lois at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)