The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog: May 2009 Archives

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May 31, 2009

The Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, Champion of Haitian Rights in U.S., Dies at 62

By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: May 28, 2009- NY Times

The Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, a Roman Catholic priest who championed the rights of Haitians in the United States and was twice imprisoned in Haiti for his staunch support of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and criticism of the interim government installed in 2004, died Wednesday in Miami. He was 62.

The cause was complications of a stroke and a lung problem, his brother Kernst told The Associated Press.

Father Gerry, as he was often called, came to prominence in the late 1970s as director of the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami, where he became a vocal advocate of Haitians seeking asylum in the United States. Through demonstrations and legal action, he fought tirelessly to force the United States government to change its policy of regarding Haitians as economic rather than political refugees, in sharp contrast to its policy toward Cubans.

After decades spent in exile from the governments of François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, he returned to Haiti in 1991 when Mr. Aristide was elected president, taking the post of minister representing Haitians abroad. His fearless criticism of the government installed to replace Mr. Aristide, and his work for the poor at the Church of Ste. Claire, in Delmas, a suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince, made him one of Haiti’s most popular political figures.

Father Jean-Juste (pronounced zhahn-ZHOOST) was born in Cavaillon, Haiti, and studied for the priesthood in Canada. In 1971 he became the first Haitian ordained in the United States in a ceremony at the Church of St. Avila in Brooklyn, where he was a deacon. He then returned to Haiti and worked in a remote parish. An adherent of liberation theology, he regarded political activity and service to the poor as his priestly mission.

He left for the United States in 1971 after refusing to sign an oath of loyalty to the government of Jean-Claude Duvalier. While living and working at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology from Northeastern University in 1974 and a second bachelor’s in civil engineering from Northeastern in 1977.

In the 1970s, facing political turmoil and grinding poverty, thousands of desperate Haitians sought asylum and economic opportunity in the United States, where they were put into detention centers and, in all but a small number of cases, sent back to Haiti. Father Jean-Juste helped found the Haitian Refugee Center to help refugees, protest government immigration laws and fight local discrimination. He was often seen, bullhorn in hand, at the head of street demonstrations.

“Haitian people had no rights in Haiti, and they have no rights here,” he told The Miami Herald in 1980. “They are starving, they are being separated from their families, they cannot work.”

Marleine Bastien, executive director of the nonprofit organization Haitian Women of Miami, told The Associated Press: “We were out in the streets, demonstrating nearly every day on behalf of other Haitian immigrants. I can still in my mind’s eye see him lying on the ground when buses were taking refugees without process — lying there in the path of the buses.”

Father Jean-Juste also incurred the wrath of the archdiocese of Miami by conducting funeral services for non-Catholic Haitians who drowned at sea and by picketing Archbishop Edward McCarthy of Miami, who he said was a racist failing to defend the rights of Haitian refugees.

“When he first came to the Haitian Refugee Center, most of the church agencies wanted to treat the Haitian refugee issue as one of charity,” Jack Lieberman, a founder of the refugee center, told New Times, a Miami newspaper, in 2005. “Jean-Juste pointed out that there was an injustice.”

In 1980 the center won an important victory when a district court, ruling that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had committed “wholesale violations of due process” and shown racial bias in ordering mass deportations of refugees, ordered that new hearings be held for the more than 4,000 Haitian refugees represented in the class-action suit brought by the center and other organizations.

Father Jean-Juste’s return to Haiti in 1991 plunged him into the country’s turbulent politics. When Mr. Aristide was ousted by a military coup after seven months in office, Father Jean-Juste went into hiding for three years, resurfacing when Mr. Aristide returned to the presidency in 1994. He resumed his work as a rector at the Church of Ste. Claire, in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince, where he operated a soup kitchen to feed the poor.

After Mr. Aristide was deposed a second time, in 2004, by a rebellion, Father Jean-Juste became a target of the interim government, which arrested and imprisoned him twice. After his second arrest, in July 2005, he faced charges of involvement in the death of Jacques Roche, a journalist.

By then, he was being put forward as a candidate himself, and the murder charges, universally regarded as politically motivated, caused an international outcry from human rights organizations. After several months, the main charges were dropped, but he was indicted on lesser charges of weapons possession and criminal conspiracy. While he was imprisoned, his supporters tried to register him as a candidate for the 2006 presidential elections, a move that was blocked by the government.

In December 2005 Father Saint-Juste discovered that he had leukemia, and in early 2006 he was released from prison to seek treatment in a Miami hospital. In November 2007 he appeared before an appeals court in Haiti to answer remaining charges against him. Questioned about weapons, he told the judge, “My rosary is my only weapon.” Eventually all charges against him were dropped.
Sign in to Recommend More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on May 29, 2009, on page A23 of the New York edition.

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

May 30, 2009

The parallel world of Europe's anti-terror regimen

The parallel world of Europe's anti-terror regimen
By Liz Fekete
28 May 2009, 5:00pm
Below we reproduce the introduction to the latest edition of the European Race Bulletin.

In the eighteen months since the European Race Bulletin carried out its last audit of the anti-terrorist laws, national governments, building on the blocks provided by the EU Common and Framework Decisions on Countering Terrorism and the European Union's list of proscribed organisations, have introduced a whole host of anti-terrorist laws, legal changes and other administrative procedures. A separate and more punitive criminal justice system, beyond the ordinary rule of law, has now been firmly established. The primary purpose of the summaries documented in this report was to provide a snapshot of the parallel structures that have emerged from emergency laws. But the academic credibility given to counter-terrorism laws by a growing number of 'terrorism' and 'integration' experts has emerged as a secondary and complementary focus of the research.

What, we ask, are the fundamental underpinnings of this parallel criminal justice system? And how do they impact on European Muslims, foreign nationals and on asylum seekers and refugees? Despite different traditions within European criminal justice and immigration systems, several common features emerge.

First, vague EU definitions of terrorism have led to the introduction by national governments of equally vague new crimes, which dramatically lower the standard of evidence needed to charge and convict terror suspects, and are often based on 'guilt by association'. Thus, amongst the novel new crimes introduced are: 'justification or glorification of terrorist acts', 'association with international terrorism', 'threatening to commit a terrorist crime', 'membership of a criminal organisation with terrorist intent', 'possession of books or items useful to a terrorism' or, indeed (in the case of Spain) the catch-all of 'any other crime' committed with the aim of 'subverting constitutional order or altering public peace'. In the UK, civil rights lawyers have warned that more and more young Muslims are being brought to the courts on the basis of the vaguest of charges while, in France and Spain, NGOs have deplored the fact that the wives and relatives of primary suspects are also detained, interrogated and remanded in pre-trial detention on the basis of minimal proof.

Yet, in legislating for new crimes, governments are not always having it their own way. Not only has trenchant criticism come from the UN Special Rapporteur for the protection and promotion of human rights while countering terrorism, but national courts, particularly in the UK, Netherlands and Norway, have set stricter rules for the standard of evidence needed in terrorism cases, established that words and threats cannot in themselves be construed as proof of terrorist intent in the criminal courts, and argued that there must be a direct connection between the object possessed (in the case of books or internet material) and the act of terrorism. But the same standards of evidence do not apply when administrative tribunals assess the risk to national security posed by an individual and whether deportation is justified. Where these tribunals are concerned, anything goes - words, threats or association.

On the other hand, there are barely any legal interventions to stop the spread of the second salient feature of the parallel criminal justice system - namely the special detention regime for terrorist suspects. Under this regime, those detained on suspicion of terrorism (but not yet convicted and in some cases not even charged) can be held in custody in high security prisons for years on end, in complete violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which holds that a person suspected of crime must be brought to trial within a 'reasonable time'. And the use of administration detention (i.e. under immigration law) avoids these obligations altogether. In the UK, this is achieved through the administrative detention of foreign nationals pending their deportation (there is no time limit to this form of detention): on the European mainland, mainly via pre-trial detention (the time limits for pre-trial detention are two years in the Netherlands, four years in Spain, and four years and eight months in France).

In addition, the special detention regime also involves other ways of depriving an individual or his or her liberty, through house arrest (France, Spain), control orders (UK) or a 'disturbance of an individual' administrative order (Netherlands). And in this way, we witness a massive extension of what constitutes a prison - no longer four walls, but your home, the streets you walk. It must seem at times, to those under suspicion that prison is everywhere. Many of those caught up in this special detention regime develop symptoms of severe mental illness and are driven into madness and attempted suicide. Within high security prisons, suspected terrorists in pre-trial or administrative detention can expect to experience much of the following: denial of recreation and exercise, sleep deprivation and intrusive night-time cell checks, subjection to long periods of cold or extreme light, frequent strip searches, blindfolding, abuse of detainees' religion, threats related to their national origin, beatings and other methods of coercion to incriminate fellow detainees. And even if eventually released from detention, or found not guilty at trial, once labelled a terror suspect means you are always a terror suspect. Witness the cases of Mustapha Labsi and Farid Hilali, freed in one country only to be rearrested (on the basis of the same secret evidence) and incarcerated in another, with imprisonment with no formal charge stretching on for years on end.

The third feature of this parallel world is the threat of extradition or deportation to countries which practise torture and/or the death penalty (most notably Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Pakistan, Russia and the US) in complete violation of the UN Convention Against Torture. Removal usually takes place through the use of immigration laws which conveniently bypass the more stringent procedural safeguards built into the criminal justice system. In the following pages, a total of 33 cases involve individuals who have either been removed to a country that practises torture (10 cases) or are currently under threat of removal (23 cases). (In one case, a young man died following his removal from Sweden to Libya. Reports indicate that the young political dissident was tortured for nine days by the Libyan security services before his family was contacted and told to collect the corpse.)

The UK has even gone so far as attempting to undermine the whole philosophy of the UN Convention Against Torture by arguing (unsuccessfully) before the European Court of Human Rights that the right of a person to be protected from torture or ill-treatment should be balanced against the risk the suspect posed to the deporting state. In practice, though, it is France and Italy which have gone furthest in undermining the Convention, through the handing over of terror suspects to Algeria and Tunisia, despite their long history of torture. It is unbelievable that at the same time as several European countries conduct inquiries into complicity with the US system of extraordinary rendition and torture, they establish a new system for administrative rendition which will increase the risk of torture still further. And it is not only foreign nationals or asylum seekers who are at risk of deportation to torture, but, in a number of cases, French Muslim citizens of Algerian origin have actually been stripped of their French nationality and deported. Now many Muslims of dual Spanish-Moroccan nationality living in the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla (where Mohamed el Bay is currently under threat of extradition to Morocco) watch nervously as a close partnership develops between the Spanish and Moroccan intelligence agencies. If the extradition of Mohamed el Bay goes ahead, could other Spanish Muslims not have their nationality revoked?

The final feature of this parallel criminal justice system is secrecy. Special courts are set up for foreign nationals under threat of deportation on national security grounds, with the use of secret evidence justified on the basis that the evidence against the appellant is too sensitive for disclosure to him or her. The interests of the appellant are represented by a state-appointed 'special advocate' who, after being given access to classified evidence, is barred from contact with the appellant or his lawyers. Disturbingly, the UK's much discredited Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) could be the model for other countries, such as Denmark and Norway, to follow. (Germany already has a special panel within the Federal Administrative Court in Karlsruhe which acts as the sole court of appeal in national security expulsion cases.)

This is what makes the parallel world that emerges from a separate criminal justice system so Kafkaesque. Terror suspects can be left to rot in prison for years without knowing what the evidence is against them. Not only that, but this secret evidence is linked to Europe's growing acceptance of evidence extracted under torture. Too often it emerges that those held within the special detention regime are there because another 'terror suspect', tortured under interrogation in countries such as Pakistan, Algeria, United Arab Emirates, as well as at Guantánamo Bay, has incriminated them. Although the European Court of Human Rights has recently condemned the reliance on secret evidence, we do not anticipate that its use will diminish.

At the very heart of this parallel criminal justice system, lies a political culture in which torture, and its evidential by-products, are seen as a necessary evil in the 'war on terror'. To accept that our intelligence services 'outsource' torture as part of an official interrogation policy, to accept that our governments can mount prosecutions on the basis of secret evidence extracted under torture, is to eat away at justice and to degrade public morality.

The report Secrecy, detention, torture: the parallel world of Europe's anti-terror regimen is an edition of the European Race Bulletin, a journal published by the the Institute of Race Relations.
http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/may/ha000048.html

Posted by lois at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

Ariz. halts use of outdoor prison holding cells

By JONATHAN J. COOPER 5-30-09

PHOENIX (AP) — The director of Arizona state prisons has suspended the use of unshaded outdoor holding cells in the wake of an inmate's death.

Authorities said Friday that crews will retrofit the cells to provide shade and water.

The move follows the death last week of 48-year-old Marcia Powell. She was left in an unshaded enclosure for nearly four hours May 19 as temperatures topped 100 degrees.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan says Powell, who was serving a sentence for prostitution, should not have been left in the cell for so long. He placed three officers on administrative leave pending a criminal investigation.

The outdoor cells hold inmates temporarily when they are being transferred from one area in a prison to another.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsV8vjqxQYd1axkrcnJIPHOyKSFAD98G29380

Posted by lois at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2009

What addiction really costs your state: detailed state by state expenditures

A message from Join Together at CASA*
====================================
May 28, 2009
Dear Colleague,

According to a report CASA issued this morning, federal, state and local governments spend almost half a trillion dollars every
year -- almost 11 percent of their total budgets -- as a result of alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse and addiction. The
worst part is that, for federal and state spending, about 95% of that money is spent "Shoveling Up" the mess created by a failure
to provide enough money for prevention and treatment.

That's right. Out of every dollar federal and state governments spent on substance misuse in 2005 (the latest data available),
95 cents paid for the enormous burden of this problem on health care, criminal justice, child welfare, education, and other
programs. And only 2 cents were invested in prevention and treatment programs that could reduce many of these costs -- and
save lives.

1. See detailed expenses for your state and download the report:
http://www.jointogether.org/NO

Our researchers studied all federal, state and local budgets for 2005 using careful, conservative methods to determine how much
of each major budget category was directly linked to substance misuse. For example, they determined how much of each state's Medicaid and other health care expenses were due to one of over 70 medical diagnoses that are caused or made worse by alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse and addiction. They did the same for criminal justice, welfare and other key government budgets. They also identified all government spending on prevention, treatment and research, regulation of alcohol and tobacco
products and drug interdiction.

When the numbers are added up, the total is really shocking: 467.7 billion dollars. Spending less than 2% of the federal and state costs for prevention and treatment, and more than 95% shoveling up the mess, is upside down public policy that wastes
billions in taxpayer dollars at a time when resources are scarce, and results in untold human suffering.

David L. Rosenbloom
President and CEO
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University

*The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University is neither affiliated with, nor sponsored by, the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (also known as "CASA") or any of its member organizations with
the name of "CASA."

Posted by lois at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

Santa Barbara CA: Officials Mull Privatizing Mental Health Services by signing contract with Prison Health Services

Prison System for Sale
Officials Mull Privatized Jail Mental Health Services
Thursday, May 28, 2009
By Benjamin Gottlieb

Santa Barbara County’s jail mental health system officially is for sale. The prospective buyer — a private Tennessee-based prison health company — is already lined up with a July 1 move-in date.

This is the way the Sheriff’s Department broke the news at a special meeting of the Santa Barbara County Mental Health Commission on Tuesday, informing the council of the proposed transition of mental health services from county Mental Health to the private company Prison Health Services (PHS). The pitch, helmed by Sheriff Bill Brown, touched on the department’s various budget problems and the need to improve mental health services in County Jail, which oversees the largest number of the mentally ill in the county. “Over the years — with the closure of mental health facilities across the state — County Jail has become the de facto mental health facility,” Brown explained. “The jail is not the best place for people with mental health problems; however, there will always be people in the county’s jail with mental illness because of the nature of the crimes committed.”

According to the proposed plan, PHS would sign a two-year contract to operate its jail mental health services, with an option to extend the contract for an additional two years. A contract with PHS would allow the jail to obtain what officials call crucial mental health objectives currently unmet by county Mental Health: Institute for Medical Quality accreditation, two on-site licensed social workers, 24/7 coverage for mental health assessments, and others. With one out of five incarcerated Americans suffering from mental illness, Sheriff’s officials say the ailing, 38-year-old jail is not only grossly overcrowded — around 50 inmates above capacity each day — but unable to meet its mental health needs.

A decision on transferring jail mental health services to PHS has already been reached on the part of county officials. The plan was received with unanimous support from Mental Health, the Sheriff’s Department, and of course PHS. Additionally, Mental Health officials stated that the new management would operate with no additional cost. Ann Detrick, county Mental Health director, said her office understands how important programs such as the 24/7 coverage for mental health assessments are to the jail. “I support what the Sheriff is planning to do,” Detrick said.

Brown said the PHS contract would save more than $500,000 in a so-called apple-to-apple comparison. In layman’s terms, PHS could provide the services conducted by Mental Health, plus more, $500,000 cheaper. Both Brown and Mental Health officials assured council and community members repeatedly that the plan to privatize jail mental health services is not a reflection of the performance of current county Mental Health staff. However, George Green — a member of SEIU Local 620, representing jail mental health workers — argued that the plan would wrest jobs away from Santa Barbarans. “I respect Sheriff Brown a great deal, [however] I am shocked by this group’s decision,” Green said. “The county must first engage in bargaining with the union before such a plan in finalized.”

Rod Holliman, PHS’s president of community corrections, stated his company could solve the county’s jail mental health problems. “Medical practice behind bars is the most complex,” Holliman said, noting that PHS provides mental health services to 40 facilities and possesses the resources to improve what’s currently being offered. To the company’s credit, PHS’s accreditation record includes the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Correctional Association — one of the oldest and largest correctional associations in the world. The private company made its money in the incarceration business, boasting $576 million in annual revenue for 2009.

Lacking a quorum, the Mental Health Commission was unable to rule on the proposal, however 3rd District Councilmember Ann Eldridge spoke of it confidently. “We cannot take a vote today, but I feel very comfortable about what I heard,” Eldridge said. If Brown has his way, Santa Barbara will welcome PHS in July.
http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/28/prison-system-sale/

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

Judge Sotomayor's dissent on Hayden v. Pataki

* ProgressiveSouth's diary--

Voting experts point to two areas where Judge Sotomayor's rulings have stood out:

FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT: Judge Sotomayor's biggest voting rights case has likely been Hayden v Pataki. In this 2006 case in the 2nd Circuit, ex-felon Joseph "Jazz" Hayden brought a challenge under the Voting Rights Act against New York's law banning ex-felons from voting. Civil rights advocates had mobilized around the case, saying felon disenfranchisement laws showed a clear history of racial discrimination.

The majority dismissed the case, but Judge Sotomayour dissented, saying the issue of discrimination was actually quite simple, as SCOTUSBLOG reports:

[Sotomayor] opined that the issue was actually much simpler than the majority and concurring opinions would suggest: the VRA "applies to all 'voting qualifications,'" and - in her view - the state law "disqualifies a group of people from voting." "These two propositions," she concluded, "should constitute the entirety of our analysis."

From: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/26/735575/-Sotomayor-nomination-sets-up-big-battle-over-voting-rights

Posted by lois at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)

Interfaith group seeks second chance for youths sentenced to life The coalition delivers a message of redemption in sermons at some 200 California churches, synagogues and mosques.

Interfaith group seeks second chance for youths sentenced to life
The coalition delivers a message of redemption in sermons at some 200 California churches, synagogues and mosques.
By Dana Parsons
May 25, 2009
The major faith traditions teach that the young are special in the eyes of the Almighty. So what does God do when one of them commits a horrible crime and is consigned to a life in prison?

He cries.

That was the message delivered over Memorial Day weekend at some 200 churches, synagogues and mosques around the state by an interfaith coalition trying to change people's attitudes about long sentences for juveniles -- especially those facing life without the possibility of parole.

"When children commit certain actions, we stop thinking of them as children," Javier Stauring, director of Faith Communities for Families and Children, told a group of about 90 people Sunday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. "We start fearing them, we start demonizing them."

The Bible virtually sanctifies children. That doesn't change, Stauring suggested, when the legal system tries a young teenager as an adult. While not condoning their crimes, Stauring said a society with redemption in mind would not foreclose a second chance to someone so young.

"It's a lot easier to lock up a problem and throw away the key and not have to think about it, and to think that's going to make us safer," he said. What will make society safer from young criminals, Stauring said, is going after the "layers of woundedness" that often afflict them -- wounds that may stem from violence or abuse.

In an interview before he spoke Sunday, the 47-year-old Stauring said he met his first juvenile inmate 18 years ago while volunteering through his church. Now a lay chaplain, Stauring said he wasn't particularly religious when he volunteered.

"I now consider that a blessing," he said of the experience. "I formed my vision of God. We find him in the fringes. That's where, if we look at Jesus as a model, that's who he hung around with."

Stauring shared the microphone Sunday with Elias Elizondo, who took a plea bargain 16 years ago on a murder charge that got him a sentence of 15 years to life instead of life without parole. Now 32 and living in Sun Valley, Elizondo was paroled four months ago and said he's a different person than he was at 16.

"I don't justify my actions," he said, without explaining the details of the crime. He told the group that he not only deserved prison but that, at the time, he wasn't sure he ever should be released. Only when he matured, he said, did he realize that he could change course. Instead of blaming other people or his education, which stopped at sixth grade, he set out to improve himself.

"I started thinking, 'Is it possible I could turn my life around?' "

The answer, Elizondo said, was yes. "The parole board gave me a chance when it didn't have to," he said. "I was redeemable."

Elizondo is the kind of person Stauring's group wants to reach. The coalition is advocating for state Senate Bill 399, which would permit anyone under 18 sentenced to life without parole to ask for resentencing after serving 10 years. If the inmate met certain conditions, he or she could be eligible for a new sentence of 25 years to life.

Even that seemingly small window, Stauring said, would give hope to the still-young person.

The coalition's efforts are aligned with Human Rights Watch, an international organization that has called on Congress to end life-without-parole sentencing for young offenders. "Sentencing juveniles to die in prison is cruel, costly and unnecessary," the organization's U.S. program director said this month.

The group reported that at least 2,574 inmates in the United States were sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed before the age of 18. California has 250 of them. The United States is the only country that imposes such harsh sentences on juveniles.

Stauring knows the statistics but said the holy books of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are his references on the subject.

"This comes from our faith convictions," he said, "that we should never ever give up on a child -- children are always changing -- and that we should not look at them and declare that the worst thing they did as a child is how we're going to label them for the rest of their lives."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-juvenile-justice25-2009may25,0,7391881.story

Posted by lois at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

AZ: Opponents Stop Federal Detention Center

SAN XAVIER DISTRICT NO LONGER CONSIDERING NOGALES HWY SITE FOR FEDERAL DETENTION CENTER
May 21, 2009
Tohono O’odham Nation and District Leaders Working Together to Identify Alternative Location

SELLS, AZ --- The San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation announced today that it is no longer seeking to construct a federal detention center on Nogales Highway, north of Pima Mine Road. The decision comes after an extensive public review process with both the Tohono O’odham Nation and surrounding communities.

The decision was finalized at a meeting that included San Xavier District representatives, the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council and Chairman Ned Norris, Jr. At the meeting, leaders voiced their support for identifying positive economic development opportunities in cooperation with regional planning efforts.

Chairman Ned Norris Jr. said, “The Nation strongly supports economic development and is committed to diversifying the Nation’s economy with projects that provide jobs and opportunities for Nation’s members and nonmembers alike. We are equally committed to pursuing economic development opportunities that compliment and expand the regional and southern Arizona economies.”

The San Xavier District and Tohono O’odham leaders are working together expeditiously to identify an alternative location for the proposed federal detention center. San Xavier District Chairman Austin Nunez said, “We appreciate the leadership role the Tohono O’odham Nation has taken in this process and its commitment to economic development in the San Xavier District. At a more suitable site, the federal detention center will bring hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars in positive economic impacts to the area.”

The proposed federal detention center is designed for short-term detention of up to 750 individuals apprehended by the US Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agencies. The San Xavier District is one of eleven districts of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a federally-recognized sovereign tribe. Additional background information on the Tohono O’odham Nation can be found at http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/.

Posted by lois at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

Netherlands to close 8 prisons due to lack of prisoners

Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals
by NRC International
20-05-2009

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Deputy Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.

The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry's research department expects to continue for some time.

Belgian prisoners
Some reprieve might come from a deal with Belgium, which is facing overpopulation in its prisons. The two countries are working out an agreement to house Belgian prisoners in Dutch prisons. Some 500 Belgian prisoners could be transferred to the Tilburg prison by 2010.

The Netherlands would get 30 million euros in the deal, and it will allow the closing of the prisons in Rotterdam and Veenhuizen to be postponed until 2012.

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/090520-Dutch-prison-closures

Posted by lois at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)

Stealing their right to vote

Lee Wengraf examines a hidden scandal of American "democracy"--the disenfranchisement of millions of people for no other reason that that they were convicted of a crime.

May 28, 2009

IN NOVEMBER, American voters made history by electing the first African American president, a symbol of the promises long denied to those who fought in the civil rights' movement of the 1960s.

But the dreams of that struggle are far from fulfilled, and one need look no further than the ballot box to see why--an estimated 5.3 million Americans are legally barred from voting for no other reason than that they have been convicted of a felony. Nearly 4 million of these disenfranchised--around three of every four--are out of prison, but are still denied the right to vote, often for decades and sometimes for life.

Maine and Vermont are the only states where all prisoners and former prisoners can vote. Virginia and Kentucky are at the other end of the spectrum, permanently disenfranchising anyone with a felony conviction unless they receive a pardon from the governor. In eight other states--Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, Tennessee and Wyoming--prisoners convicted of certain crimes (usually murder and sex crimes) are barred for life. Other states restore voting rights upon release from prison, probation and parole, while others impose waiting periods before former prisoners can vote.

In all, 35 states ban the right to vote--in some form or another--to former prisoners even after they are out from behind bars.

People around the country and the world learned about voter disenfranchisement after the 2000 presidential election, when the fiasco in Florida allowed George W. Bush to steal the White House from the actual winner of the election, Al Gore.

Some 57,700 voters without a felony record--54 percent of them Black--along with 8,000 former prisoners who had the right to vote, were illegally purged from the voter rolls before the election.

"Al Gore would have picked up 60,000 additional votes in Florida, home to 1,088,667 ex-felons and 293,396 current felons in the fall of 2000," author Paul Street wrote on ZNet. "This was more than enough to have pre-empted the subsequent melodramas over 'hanging chads,' Jewish votes for Buchanan, butterfly ballots, and the role of Ralph Nader's third-party candidacy."

Even after these disgraceful facts came to light, however, Florida continues to maintain harsh restrictions on voting rights. Some former prisoners must wait 15 years after completing their sentence (during which they can't be convicted of any new crime) to apply for their voting rights to be restored without a hearing. Or they can petition the authorities directly for a review and in-person hearing.

As of the 2004 election, 1,179,687 people in Florida were barred from voting due to felony disenfranchisement; 293,545 of them, or one in every six, were African American. All told, 31 percent of African American men in Florida are disenfranchised.

Michael Hargrett, an African American former prisoner in Florida, knows what it takes to regain the right to vote.

After serving a four-year sentence that ended in 1997, he petitioned the state, with the help of the state ACLU. There were several years of interviews and investigations before he finally received a hearing before the Executive Clemency Board. "They thoroughly vetted me like I was interviewing to be an FBI agent," Hargrett recalled in a Sentencing Project publication.

Felony disenfranchisement mirrors the larger trends in voting and access to democracy--the U.S. denies a greater percentage of its population access to the vote than any other "democracy" in the world. According to Project Vote, the U.S. is the only country that permits permanent disenfranchisement of felons even after completion of their sentences.

But as the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University--author of numerous reports on this subject--has put it:

This disenfranchisement by law of millions of American citizens is only half the story. Across the country, there is persistent confusion among election officials about their state's felony disenfranchisement policies...which leads to the de facto disenfranchisement of untold hundreds of thousands of eligible would-be voters throughout the country.

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THESE LAWS disenfranchising former prisoners are nothing short of a vestige of Jim Crow surviving to the modern day. As Erika Wood of the Brennan Center put it in an article for the Politico Web site:

There is no greater scourge on our country's moral standing than our history of slavery and its progeny of Jim Crow, mass imprisonment and disenfranchisement.

And make no mistake, America's felony disenfranchisement laws trace their roots straight back to Jim Crow. They were enacted alongside the notorious poll taxes, grandfather clauses and literacy tests. Targeted criminalization and felony disenfranchisement combined to create the legal loss of voting rights, usually for life, effectively suppressing the African-American vote for decades...

If current incarceration rates continue, three in 10 of the next generation of Black men will lose the right to vote at some point in their lives. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40 percent of Black men may permanently lose their right to vote.

The racism inherent in this system of disenfranchisement echoes the inequality that runs through the entire criminal justice system. With just 5 percent of the world's population, America has nearly 25 percent of the world's reported prison population. And while only 12 percent of the U.S. population is African American, Blacks make up 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, 59 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.

There is another, insidious side to prisoner disenfranchisement--the way that political representation and public funding is determined by Census counting methods that do include local prison populations. As Tracy Huling wrote in Mother Jones of the 2000 Census:

The prisoner "share" of the nearly $2 trillion in federal funds tied to population counts distributed nationwide over the next decade will go to the mostly rural hometowns of their keepers. Moreover, even though prisoners in all but a few states can't vote, their numbers can affect how the lines are drawn and how political power is distributed. When the census count is used to draw legislative districts, prisoners will be re-apportioned to the largely rural (and Republican) areas hosting their prisons...

Add to that incentives such as those which private prison companies have offered to potential prison towns: home price guarantees (should the price of homes surrounding prisons be deflated); the building of vocational training institutes next to prisons; and criminal justice scholarships to local universities, to name just a few.

For example, according to the Brennan Center report "Incarcerated People and the Census," the prison-driven population increase drew an additional $120,700 to rural Virginia's Sussex County for primary and secondary education alone. However, urban Henrico County, which hosts no prisons but is home to many residents sent away to them, lost $292,900 in education funds.

In 2005, George W. Bush signed into law a requirement that the U.S. Census Bureau study the feasibility of counting people in prison using their pre-incarceration addresses rather than their prison addresses. Amazingly, the Census Bureau concluded the task would be too complex and unworkable.

Yet according to the Sentencing Project's "Expanding the Vote: State Felony Disenfranchisement Reform, 1997-2008," public policy is out of step with public opinion. It reports that 8 in 10 Americans support voting rights for people who have completed their sentence, and nearly two-thirds support voting rights for people on probation or parole.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SOME OF this dissent has grown into sustained opposition, and grassroots organizing and advocacy efforts have translated into voter reforms for felons in 20 states over the past decade.

For example, a group called Justice Maryland launched its "Got Democracy, Maryland?" project, resulting in the restoration of voting rights to about half of those disenfranchised. According to Human Rights Watch, Maryland was one of four states in which Black men comprised more than half of all disenfranchised people.

In early May, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law the Voting Rights Restoration Act, eliminating the requirement that people coming out of the criminal justice system pay any fees, fines and restitution, including surcharges and interest, before being allowed to vote. "We have come to understand we can't create a debtor's prison here," Gregoire said.

Virginia and Kentucky--the two states barring all former prisoners from voting--have now eased restrictions, allowing some former felons to apply for restoration, which then have to be approved by the governor.

And in March, Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. John Conyers announced the Democracy Restoration Act of 2008, which would restore voting rights in federal elections to people with felony convictions who are out of prison.

Prisoners themselves have fought for voting rights from behind bars. In the case of Muntaqim v. Coombe et al, former Black Panther Jalil Abdul Muntaqim sued the New York State prison system. Citing the vastly disproportionate number of African American and Hispanic inmates, Muntaqim wrote that state voting laws violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But a federal appeals court turned down his case, claiming the "absence of findings that disenfranchisement laws were a tool of discrimination."

The crisis in U.S. prisons today--with an exploding prison population of 2.3 million--has been intensified by the economic crisis and unsustainable prison budgets. Nationally, 31 states reported a total budget gap of nearly $30 billion in December 2008, which has helped drive politicians, in spite of their tough-on-crime instincts, towards reforms such as drug treatment centers and other alternatives to incarceration.

Calling U.S. prisons a "national disgrace," Virginia Sen. Jim Webb has called for a National Criminal Justice Commission to investigate prison reform. And in April 2009, New York state made high-profile changes to its infamous Rockefeller drug laws, which had set the tone for decades of harsh, mandatory minimum sentencing.

This climate of change is welcome, but there is much, much further to go. The logic of decades of "law and order" prison-building policies is unparalleled brutality and injustice, which has devastated the lives of millions. Raising the call for equal voting rights for all--behind bars or on the outside--must be a demand of a new civil rights movement that challenges America's incarceration nation.
http://socialistworker.org/print/2009/05/28/stealing-their-right-to-vote

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

May 28, 2009

NY: Prosecutors fight rule in new state drug laws that lets records be sealed

Prosecutors fight rule in new state drug laws that lets records be sealed
By Joseph Spector • Albany Bureau • May 28, 2009

District attorneys across New York are criticizing a little-known provision in the state's new drug laws that lets judges seal the records of drug offenders from potential employers.

Prosecutors said the provision of the law, which takes effect June 8, could hide the past of offenders from employers, including for jobs such as school bus drivers, day-care workers or bank tellers.

"If you look at the list of jobs and licenses that you are going to be able to get without having your criminal drug activity revealed to a potential employer, [it's] remarkable," said Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, who heads the state's district attorneys association.

Sen. Eric Schneiderman, D-Manhattan, who sponsored the changes to the state's so-called Rockefeller-era drug laws, indicated yesterday that he will seek to delay the implementation of the provision so it can be reviewed further.

"Just administratively it was too aggressive a time frame," he said.

Schneiderman's original bill included exemptions from the sealed-records provision for employers who are legally required to do criminal background checks. But most of the exemptions were not included in the final bill, which was approved as part of the state budget last month.

Schneiderman, however, defended the law, saying prosecutors already had the right to petition a judge to expunge or seal a drug offender's record. Now a judge will have that authority to do so after an offender completes a treatment program, he explained. "A defendant should be able to go to a judge and say 'the prosecutor wouldn't do this for me,' " he said. "Now the judge can overrule the prosecutor."

But district attorneys said the new law lets judges seal not only the record of a current case, including a non-violent felony offense, but also records of three previous misdemeanor convictions.

Also, the judge's record-sealing discretion can apply to cases not related to drugs, prosecutors said.

Putnam County District Attorney Adam Levy said the "state Legislature has seen fit to enact a law with no real public debate." Letting convicted drug dealers' criminal records be sealed, he said, allows "drug dealers to work in day-care centers, caring for our children, and in senior centers, caring for our parents and grandparents."

"The state Legislature's main responsibility should be to protect its citizens," Levy said. "This law fails to protect our community."

Lawmakers "in their zeal to give people in court-ordered treatment a fresh start in life have gone way too far," said Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe. "You can't pretend these convictions never happened or people weren't addicts. Many addicts go back, and employers who hire them are unaware of their history."

Zugibe said that realistically, bus companies likely won't hire former addicts as drivers, while schools won't hire them as teachers and families won't hire them as nannies.

"Many employment opportunities will be lost, and they should be," Zugibe said.

Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore's office declined to comment yesterday.

Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D-Mount Vernon, chairwoman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, said in a statement that the criticism "is an alarmist attitude of a few who refuse to accept the notion that many of these former addicts have served their time and proven themselves worthy of a second chance."

The provision is part of sweeping changes to the drug laws that the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Gov. David Paterson agreed to last month.

The new measures strip the remaining pieces of drug laws imposed in 1973 under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to give mandatory sentences for many drug crimes.

The changes repeal mandatory minimum prison sentences for people convicted of low-level drug felonies and let judges send some offenders to treatment facilities instead of prison.

It also shortens prison sentences for some who are incarcerated. Republicans in the state Senate, who had blocked similar bills when they were in the majority, this week proposed repealing the record-sealing provision, but the bill has not been advanced.

Democrats won the majority in the Senate in January.

"The state Legislature's main responsibility should be to protect its citizens," Levy said. "This law fails to protect our community."

Zugibe said that realistically, bus companies likely won't hire former addicts as drivers, while schools won't hire them as teachers and families won't hire them as nannies.

"Many employment opportunities will be lost, and they should be," Zugibe said.

Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore's office declined to comment yesterday.

The provision is part of sweeping changes to the drug laws that the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Gov. David Paterson agreed to last month.

The new measures strip the remaining pieces of drug laws imposed in 1973 under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to give mandatory sentences for many drug crimes.

The changes repeal mandatory minimum prison sentences for people convicted of low-level drug felonies and let judges send some offenders to treatment facilities instead of prison.

Democrats won the majority in the Senate in January.

http://lohud.com/article/20090528/NEWS05/905280393/-1/newsfront

Posted by lois at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

States and cities attempt to charge prisoners to stay

Debt to society costs some criminals $60 a night
By Tracy Loew, USA TODAY
May 28, 2009
Get arrested in Springfield, Ore., this fall, and you might spend the night in jail — then get a bill for your stay.

The city plans to charge convicted criminals up to $60 a night, depending on their ability to pay, when a new 100-bed lockup opens in October, Springfield Police Chief Jerry Smith says. Thus, the city could recoup most of its cost of about $70 a day.

"These people are the ones who cause the cost to operate a jail, so they ought to be the ones to pay it, not private citizens," Smith says.

The economic recession is spurring several local governments to turn to pay-to-stay programs, says Sara Totonchi, public policy director for the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, which fights legislation that imposes such fees on inmates.

"In these difficult economic times, policymakers are looking for different options to save money," Totonchi says.

Springfield is one of at least five city and county jails that this year started billing inmates for jail time if they are found guilty.

• In Utah, the Salt Lake County Metro Jail charges inmates $40 each day, Sheriff James Winder says. The Box Elder County Jail in Brigham City, costs $10 per day. Since the plan started April 1, about a third of the inmates have paid the fee, Box Elder's jail commander Sandy Huthman says.

• Missouri's Taney County, which includes Branson, charges $45 for a day at the jail in Forsyth, county prosecuting attorney Jeffrey Merrell says.

•Richmond, Va., began charging inmates $1 per day April 15. The few who can't afford that small amount can work jobs in the jail to earn the money, Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. says. The city hopes to raise between $60,000 and $200,000 a year, he says.

Woody says Richmond started the fee because taxpayers are tired of footing the bill to house criminals while other vital services are being cut from municipal budgets.

"I'm just getting on board to relieve some of the responsibility off of taxpayers," Woody says.

Not everyone can pay. In Springfield, unpaid accounts will be turned over to a collection service, Smith says, and debtors could end up in small claims court.

The Douglas County Jail in Roseburg, Ore., also uses a collection agency, jail spokesman Dwes Hutson says. The jail has charged inmates $60 per day since 2002 but recently cut the fee to $20.

"We found that inmates got such a huge bill that it was hard for them to pay," Hutson says. "We collect more money charging a more reasonable rate."

In Salt Lake County, indigent inmates are not billed, and some who participate in improvement programs can work off their debt, Winder says.

A few jails have been collecting similar fees for years. Klamath County Jail in Oregon has charged $60 per day since 2003, District Attorney Ed Caleb says. Overland Park, Kan., bills inmates $35 for a day in the county jail, Overland Park Municipal Court Administrator Robin Barnard says. Last year, though, Overland Park collected only 39% of the user fee, Barnard says.

Totonchi says the fee can be a burden on inmates' families, who often end up footing the bill. Jailers acknowledge that the fee can be difficult to collect.

"We're not stupid. We realize we're not going to recover 60 bucks from everybody," Springfield's Smith says.

Loew reports for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2009-05-27-payforjail_N.htm

Posted by lois at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

Ohio to release some very sick prisoners to nursing homes

Some ailing Ohio inmates going to nursing homes
The Associated Press
May 28, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio ‹ Officials say Ohio plans to send as many as 40 ailinginmates to nursing homes to ease prison overcrowding and save money.

Prisons system assistant director Michael Randle says terminally ill orotherwise bedridden prisoners are expensive.

He says the inmates going to homes will be considered released, as if onparole, making them eligible for Medicaid or Medicare.

A law in effect since March allows for early parole for prisoners who meet certain medical criteria.

The head of a group of nursing home operators says the inmates will have to be screened carefully. But Peter Van Runkle of the Ohio Health Care Association says those coming to the homes will essentially be incapacitated, so patients and their families will have nothing to fear.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/some-ailing-ohio-inmates-going
-to-nursing-homes-136729.html

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

CA: CCA to build prison for illegal immigrants in San Diego Co.

San Diego County approves immigrant prison
SAN DIEGO, May 26, 2009 (UPI) -- Local officials in the San Diego area have approved a private company's plans for a prison to house more than 2,000 illegal immigrants.

The 40-acre site on Otay Mesa is close to a San Diego County prison and to the San Diego Correctional Facility, which Corrections Corp. of America already operates under contract to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

CCA's plans call for 1,488 beds in the first phase of the new facility and 684 in the second, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tuesday. The existing immigrant detention center holds 700 people. The county planning commission approved the plans last month, the newspaper said.

The existing CCA facility is on land with a lease that expires in 2015. The company has bought the site for the new prison.

"In order to retain federal inmate populations we currently manage in the San Diego Correctional Facility, we may be required to construct a new facility in the future," the company said in a report.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/05/26/San-Diego-County-approves-immigrant-prison/UPI-30141243390315/

Posted by lois at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

NY: Solar "farmer" is top bidder on closed prison farms

Mid-Hudson region's prison farms may harvest sun
Solar panels could provide 9 megawatts
By Adam Bosch
Times Herald-Record
Posted: May 27, 2009

A fashion designer from New Paltz wants to install solar energy panels at three prison farms that were shut as part of state budget cuts.

Anthony Sicari came out on top when the state opened bids this month to lease prison farms at Eastern, Sullivan and Wallkill Correctional facilities. Sicari said he wants to install enough solar panels at each of the farms to produce a total of 9 megawatts, or enough to power 9,000 homes. On Tuesday, Sicari said he would sell the power to New York state at a reduced rate to help power the prisons, and then sell the remaining power back into the grid.

One hurdle stands in his way. Current rules only allow the farms to be used for an agricultural purpose. Sicari said he's going to chat with Gov. David Paterson and other state lawmakers about changing that rule. He's looking for farmers to hay the fields and plant crops in the interim.

"It's not something I expect a fight on," Sicari said of the possible rule change. "It's just a matter of will it take one year, two years or three?"

Sicari, chairman of the company New York State Solar Farm, outbid six other people, including some who only bid on individual farms. He hasn't yet signed the lease with the state Office of General Services, but records show he'll pay about $48,000 for the farms this year. OGS spokesman Brad Maione said Sicari will be allowed to renew the lease annually for the next five years, after which time the terms of the deal will be subject to review.

Bigger projects in works

The prison project would supplement plans already in development. Earlier this year, Sicari pitched an $18 million plan to build solar energy farms in Gardiner and the hamlet of Wallkill. The solar panels, on a combined 45 acres of land, would produce enough energy to power 25,000 homes.

In November, the state announced it would shut 12 of its prison farms to save an estimated $3.4 million. The move was decried by unions, community groups and business people who opposed losing the jobs and said shuttering farms would bite a chunk out of the local economy, about $1 million-$1.5 million, according to one local estimate.

The state said it chose to cut the prison farms because they weren't part of the "core mission" of correctional services. The local prison farms produced more than 2 million quarts of milk and 161,000 pounds of beef for consumption by the inmates — food that will now be purchased from vendors.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090527/COMM/9052703
23/-1/NEWS

Posted by lois at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

CA: Valley is the best place for Gitmo prison

Valley is the best place for Gitmo prison
Wednesday, May. 27, 2009
By Bill McEwen / The Fresno Bee

President Barack Obama has a problem, and I've got a solution.

He wants to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center, but most American politicians don't want anything to do with housing suspected terrorists in their backyards.

I say bring them on -- the detainees, not the politicians.

If any region deserves a brand new supermax prison and the opportunity to keep some of the world's most dangerous figures under lock and key, it's the San Joaquin Valley.

Let's face it: the Obama administration -- married as it is to environmental interests -- isn't going to send enough water this way to sustain agriculture, our lifeblood.

But the president can show us some love and inject an estimated $1 billion a year into one of America's poorest economies by letting us help him shutter Gitmo.

If executives at the Regional Jobs Initiative aren't working on this plan -- code name: Operation Gitmo Money for Us -- they should be fired.

Already, we've got competition.

The townsfolk of Hardin, Mont. -- population 3,384 -- have a new $27 million prison sitting empty. The prison was built in belief that the state would send them inmates, but things didn't pan out.

Residents there are clamoring for detainees, but not everyone is keen on the idea.

"We're not going to bring al-Qaida to Big Sky country. No way. Not on my watch," Sen. Max Baucus of Montana told Time magazine.

There's also talk of building a supermax in Michigan for Guantánamo detainees as a way of alleviating the economic crisis triggered by the woes of Detroit's automakers.

But nobody does prisons like us. Minimum security. Medium security. Maximum security. Private. State. Federal.

We've got 'em all.

Plus double-digit unemployment spiking to 40% on the Valley's west side.

It's not like hard-working, God-fearing, gun-toting Valley residents would lose sleep over 240 more hard cases in their ZIP code.

One-third of California's state prisons are in the Valley. One of them -- Corcoran -- is home to both Charles Manson and Juan Corona.

Besides, nobody has escaped a supermax facility, and 347 convicted terrorists already are imprisoned on U.S. soil.

So, how do we turn Operation Gitmo Money for Us into reality?

Our local congressional delegation -- Democrats and Republicans -- must unite and tell Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer that the Central Valley is ready to go into the detainee business.

The senators then relay to the president that they have a win-win proposition. If Obama says that he doesn't think the state will accept the detainees, they can trot out this old maxim: "The Valley isn't part of California; it's another planet altogether."

Who knows? This might be the start of something bigger -- maybe even a temporary suspension of the Endangered Species Act.

How? If he sees the chance to end an international scandal over Guantánamo by putting a new prison in the Valley, there's no way that Obama will let any critter -- be it smelt or kangaroo rat -- stand in the way.
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/story/1431497.html

Posted by lois at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2009

More calls for California to shut down its youth prison system

More calls for California to shut down its youth prison system
By Karen de Sá
Mercury News
Posted: 05/25/2009

With California mired in near-catastrophic budget woes, a growing number of researchers are calling for the state to shut down its youth prison system, which they say has become too expensive, too mired in abusive practices, and too ineffective in enhancing public safety.

There are just six remaining prisons for the state's most serious juvenile offenders, and they house the lowest number of inmates ever recorded in modern history. That has left taxpayers in an era of deep cuts to education and social services footing a bill of a quarter-million dollars each year for each of the 1,600 youthful offenders now left in state custody.

In a report headed this week to legislators wrestling with a $21.3 billion budget shortfall, the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice describes a way out: Shut down the state prison system for youthful offenders, and turn the population back to county probation departments that are sitting on empty beds in new and refurbished juvenile halls. The report echoes similar findings of the state's own Little Hoover Commission and Legislative Analyst's Office, which have also concluded that given adequate time and resources, counties could house even the most troubled juvenile offenders in far cheaper and more effective institutions.

"These wards are going to get out. They're coming back to every one of their communities," said Stuart Drown, executive director of the bipartisan Little Hoover Commission,
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which advises the state on improving efficiency. "Why not get them the programs they need to stay out of jail and not go back? They're not getting that at the state."

Bernie Warner, head of California's Division of Juvenile Justice, argues there must always be a state system for the most serious, violent, gang-involved youth offenders, the majority of whom need specialized treatment for crimes as serious as murder and sexual assault.

"The counties do a great job in managing over 99 percent of all those in the juvenile justice system in California," Warner said, but "given who's left in the state system — the highest-risk, highest-need youth — I don't think it's in the best interest of public safety to have those youth in local detention facilities."

Burden to counties

Expanding on Warner's position, the president of the Chief Probation Officers of California says counties facing deep budget cuts simply cannot assume more responsibility. "This is probably one of those things where the state needs to stay in the business of corrections," said Don Meyer, Yolo County's probation chief. "There isn't any other place for them."

Yet in a report released late last year, the Little Hoover Commission advised the state to get out of the juvenile justice business by 2011, stating: "It is untenable to continue to invest money into a system that has failed for many years." The commission advised that Californians deserve an accounting for a poor investment by the state, given that 74 percent of youth offenders leaving the state system end up back in trouble with the law. The problems don't end there: The state also has done little to meet the requirements of a 4-year-old court order to improve conditions, according to an Alameda County Superior Court judge monitoring the case.

Now, Dan Macallair of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, has issued a report going one step further.

Using figures from the state's Corrections Standards Authority, his report states there are a sufficient number of beds in California's 58 county-based juvenile justice systems to absorb the entire state population of 1,637, "and still have nearly 600 empty beds remaining."

Even given the additional costs of creating treatment units within juvenile halls that are traditionally simply holding pens, the report says a shift to counties could result in significant savings: Counties spend about $25,000 a year on youth offenders — 10 times less than the state spends.

Counties up and down the state — including Santa Clara County — expanded their juvenile hall capacity in recent years following a mini-building boom. Now many of these facilities, including state-of-the-art high-security juvenile halls, remain partially empty. Santa Clara County has 390 beds in its juvenile hall, with a current population of about 300. Macallair's report identifies the county as one of the least-reliant on state institutions; there are now just 33 county youths in state custody, down from 328 in 2000.

Santa Clara County Probation Chief Sheila Mitchell said her department has worked hard to keep kids out of state prisons. She would not comment on the recommendation to shut down the state system, other than noting that the county's newly expanded juvenile hall — designed as a short-term detention facility — would be ill-suited for those serving years-long sentences and requiring intensive treatment.

Rehabilitation

Reformers say using surplus county beds for juvenile offenders in state custody would improve the prospects of rehabilitation, a notion many parents echo. Sharon James, a Merced transit worker, said she can only visit her 18-year-old son in a Central Valley prison twice a month, which has caused his condition — in a massive institution mired in violence — to worsen.

"I can look at him and see that he's given up on himself," James said of her son, charged with a robbery and fighting while on probation. The teen landed in a Stockton youth prison with the credits of a high school senior, but after almost two years in custody has not graduated.

"If he were closer, I could visit him every day, or as often as visits are allowed," James said. "I just don't want him to come home totally broken down — that's my biggest concern."
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12431880

Posted by lois at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

Budget crisis could curtail Oregon's prison boom

Budget crisis could curtail Oregon's prison boom
by Susan Goldsmith, The Oregonian
Monday May 25, 2009, 9:20 PM

With nearly 14,000 people locked up in state prisons and another 35,000 under supervision from the Department of Corrections, criminal justice has been one of Oregon's most recession-proof industries.

The department's budget has grown at a 20 percent clip each biennium since 1995, and every household in the state pays $1,414 every two years to fund corrections.

But with a $4 billion state budget shortfall, legislators have tough choices to make about crime and punishment. If any real reform is to be made, however, it must pass one giant hurdle: Voter-passed initiatives.

In 1994, the public approved a measure that mandated much longer sentences for 16 crimes. That in turn drove the number of inmates in the state much higher, while keeping them there longer.

Lawmakers face either overhauling the criminal justice system or continuing down the same path, watching corrections eat up more and more revenue.

While the state's prison population has grown to nearly 14,000 people, crime has plummeted in every category. Criminal justice advocates say Oregon's model is a success, but researchers and data from here and across the nation show something different: Only a small percentage of the drop in crime can be attributed to more prisons and longer sentences.

In Salem these days, the criminal justice debates under way are philosophical: Should the state simply let large numbers of inmates walk free to balance the budget in the short term or retool the way Oregon manages corrections?

Some legislators and even the head of the Department of Corrections, a former Republican legislator, are quietly pushing for a new approach to criminal justice -- one that allows for a range of sanctions for lawbreakers so fewer people end up in prison.

"This is a structural nightmare. This is the box the Legislature is in," said Max Williams, director of Oregon's Department of Corrections. "If we can't change the size of the box, we are going to be stuck."
Ballot-box mandates

When Oregon voters handcuffed the Legislature in 1994 with Measure 11, they imposed long mandatory prison terms for 16 violent and sex-related offenses, required juveniles be prosecuted as adults for those crimes, and prohibited any earned time credit for anyone who received a Measure 11 sentence. At the same time, voters changed the state constitution to prevent lawmakers from tampering with sentences.

Then last fall, voters approved Measure 57, which mandated longer sentences for repeat property thieves and is expected to cost the state another $74 million in the next two years alone.

"We've got to do something to slow the growth of corrections in the short term and long term," said Rep. Chip Shields, D-Portland. "There is a tendency to want to be tough on crime no matter what. I think it takes courage to be more critical about what works and what doesn't in our corrections system."

Oregon is not alone in facing skyrocketing corrections costs. A March report from The Pew Charitable Trusts found that one in 31 people in the United States is in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.

In the past two decades, Pew found that the nation's correctional spending rose by 300 percent, outpacing every other government service from education to transportation. As correctional spending soared, crime rates fell to historic lows, even in states that put far fewer people behind bars, like New York. In Oregon, violent crime has plummeted 45 percent since 1996.

But criminal justice data show that get-tough-on-crime policies, like Oregon's Measure 11, account for a small percentage of the crime decrease across the nation. Here, the state's Criminal Justice Commission credits 13 percent of the 45 percent decrease in violent crime since 1996 to Measure 11.

Explaining the dramatic declines in crime rates is complex. No one is certain exactly why crime has fallen so low, but think tanks, researchers and Oregon's Criminal Justice Commission point to numerous factors, including demographic shifts, more people behind bars, improved economic conditions throughout the 1990s, and changing illegal drug manufacturing.

But Oregon district attorneys and crime victim advocates say the state's criminal justice template should be celebrated, not eviscerated by legislators.

"To undo two decades of success in the face of a budget crisis is ill-advised and will make Oregon a more dangerous place," said Kevin Neely, spokesman for the Oregon District Attorneys Association. "Oregonians have worked hard to craft a responsible sentencing scheme that offers alternatives to incarceration for less violent offenders and incapacitates our most dangerous criminals."
Experiment in Texas

But data from other states, like New York, make for a much more complicated picture. There, crime fell 51 percent between 1995 and 2007, and people were let out of prison in record numbers. Williams, the Oregon corrections chief, wants the discussion to be data-driven and believes a Texas correctional experiment has important lessons for Oregon.

Two years ago, according to the Council of State Governments, the Texas Legislature faced a dilemma: spend half a billion dollars building and operating state prisons, or rethink criminal justice.

A bipartisan group of legislators conducted a detailed analysis of criminal justice spending and spent half the funds earmarked for prison construction on a range of strategies. They included expanding drug treatment and mental health services for those in and out of prisons, along with the creation of intermediate sanctions, facilities, and programs for offenders under correctional supervision who were at risk of returning to prison.

According to the Council of State Governments, this radical reworking yielded stunning results. In one year, the Texas prison population increased by 529 people instead of the 5,141 who would have been incarcerated had the new policies not been implemented.

Shields, the Portland legislator, has proposed a number of criminal justice reforms, several of which legislators have, so far, refused to back. He'd like to see his colleagues delay implementation of Measure 57 and take on Measure 11 sentencing so that offenders could be eligible to shave some time off their sentences through earned time credit.

He also supports a bill to allow a judicial review of juvenile sentences under Measure 11 to determine if the offender could be moved from incarceration to community supervision without impact on public safety.

Crime Victims United and the Oregon District Attorneys Association oppose both options.

Neely's group and Crime Victims United have proposed a one-time release of nonviolent, low- and medium-risk offenders who were not sentenced under Measure 11 and are within six months of completing their sentence. They say this proposal will save the state between $78 million and $99 million during the next two years.

David Rogers, executive director of the nonprofit group Partnership for Safety and Justice, would like legislators to look at what other states have done to reduce prison costs. "States all over the country have woken up and found they are dumping way too much money into incarceration, and it's the most expensive and least effective way of maintaining public safety."

Oregon's revised budget numbers, released late last week, require the Department of Corrections to reduce spending by $77.8 million in the next two years -- a 9.3 percent cut.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Michael Marcus hopes the grim budget picture will prompt legislators to engage in a much more vigorous analysis of sentencing decisions.

"We should find out what's working and require that we drive our decisions that way," said Marcus, who has studied sentencing in Oregon for decades. "We use prisons the way addicts use drugs. The more prisons you build, the more you need."
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/budget_crisis_could_curtail_or.html

Posted by lois at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

Reps. Kenyatta Johnson and Ronald Waters Call for Review of Criminal Justice System in PA

Pa. lawmakers want to examine criminal-justice from all angles
By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News
May 23, 2009
Two months after federal lawmakers announced plans for a top-to-bottom study of the nation's criminal-justice system, two state lawmakers from Philadelphia yesterday called for a similar reform-minded review of Pennsylvania's system.

Reps. Kenyatta Johnson and Ronald Waters detailed legislation they recently introduced - now in the Senate Judiciary Committee - during a news conference yesterday outside the Criminal Justice Center in Center City.

"Pennsylvania's criminal justice system is in much need of repair," said Johnson, D-Phila. "Prisons are overcrowded, sentencing policies are uneven and often unfair, ex-convicts are poorly integrated into society, and the growing problem of gang and street violence has not received the attention it deserves."

The lawmakers have ambitious plans for the study, saying it should address the costs of incarceration; crime and gang activity in and out of prison; prison health care; mentally ill inmates; reintegration programs for ex-offenders; jail overcrowding, infrastructure and living conditions; the overrepresentation of minorities in prison; and other issues.

The state remains too focused on housing its swelling population of inmates rather than proactively addressing the problems that landed them behind bars, Waters said. Plans to build four new prisons are under way in a state that already has 26.

"We are preparing for more people to become victims of crime," Waters said. "Taxpayers should be outraged at the amount being spent on corrections, and they still can't feel safe walking down the street. There's something wrong with the way we are responding to crime, and we need to fix it."

The study would be conducted by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Johnson said.

Bill DiMascio, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, applauded the plan.

"During the past two to three decades, Pennsylvania's population has remained pretty steady, yet the growth in our prison population has almost quadrupled," DiMascio said. "It's not because our people are getting more lawless. It really is an issue of our criminal justice policies."

The federal plan, introduced in March by Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Jim Webb, D-Va., would create a commission charged with conducting an 18-month comprehensive review of the nation's criminal justice system and offering recommendations for reform. *
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/45901367.html

Posted by lois at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

Texas Dept of CJ begins screening immigrant prisoners in trial run of nationwide Department of Homeland Security program

Inmate screening put to test in Texas
By STEWART M. POWELL WASHINGTON BUREAU
May 25, 2009
WASHINGTON — Texas prisons are test-driving the Obama administration’s planned nationwide immigration screening and are relaying for the first time the digital fingerprints of roughly 1,500 arriving inmates each week to the Department of Homeland Security.

The statewide screening at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s 24 facilities will likely extend to the nation’s 1,200 state and federal prisons and 3,100 local jails during President Barack Obama’s first term — all part of a high profile crackdown on criminal aliens who have committed serious crimes such as major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping while living illegally inside the United States.

The cost to federal taxpayers is about $200 million this year and could grow to $1.1 billion by 2013, a fivefold increase in barely four years.

California is expected to be the next state to participate.

“We’re accelerating (screening) because it works,” says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former federal prosecutor and two-term governor of Arizona. “Our goal is looking at the public-safety aspects of illegal immigration.”
Targeting thousands

The program potentially targets tens of thousands of criminals who happen to be immigrants rather than the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who have entered the United States illegally but often remain law abiding after their arrival.

That focus on criminal aliens rather than undocumented immigrants “will be part of our enforcement strategy moving forward,” Napolitano says.

Texas authorities eventually plan to check the immigration status of the remaining 155,000 inmates in the state prison system, as well, says Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The statewide program builds upon a pilot program that has been providing immigration screening since last fall to jails in 48 counties nationwide including 17 in Texas, one of which is Harris County.

“We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of corrections and new technology,” Lyons said. “We were certainly glad to have the opportunity to use this new technology to improve upon our exchange of information with ICE.”
‘Positive development’

Sen. John Cornyn, R-San Antonio, an architect of earlier attempts by Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform, applauded the Obama administration’s bid to identify criminal aliens inside prisons.

“It’s a very positive development,” Cornyn said in a Senate hearing.

Greg Palmore, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent based in Houston, said Texas’ prison officials are learning the immigration status and criminal profile of incoming inmates within minutes because of the federal-state partnership.

“This is an additional tool in our arsenal,” Palmore said. “State officials now know exactly where that individual inmate stands.”

Imprisoned criminal aliens who entered the country illegally or have disobeyed a deportation order can be processed for deportation during their prison terms to get them out of the country faster once their sentence is complete.

As many as 450,000 criminal aliens are imprisoned in federal, state and local facilities across the nation.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6441017.html

Posted by lois at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2009

Bid to divert California prisoners to county jails denounced

From the Los Angeles Times
Bid to divert California prisoners to county jails denounced
Local officials say they don't have the room or the funding to house the low-level felons that the governor wants to send them.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Winton

May 23, 2009

Local officials have vowed to fight a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to shave $1 billion from the state budget by shifting 23,000 state prisoners to overcrowded local jails during the next three years.

"This presents a serious danger to public safety," said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. "We are putting in jeopardy gains that have resulted in crime plunging in L.A. to its lowest level in 50 years."

The state's 33 prisons house about 155,000 inmates and are under a federal court order to relieve overcrowding. If state officials do not address the problem soon, a panel of three federal judges could set a cap on new prisoners and order thousands released.

"We are having to look at all options to reduce our population and avoid a cap or an inmate release order," said Seth Unger, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "We have in many ways cut to the bone."

The governor wants to slow the stream of offenders being sent to prison by changing state sentencing guidelines so those who commit low-level felonies such as fraud or grand theft, known as "wobblers," would be prosecuted for misdemeanors and sentenced to jail instead.

Facing a possible $24-billion state budget deficit, the governor's office estimates that changing the sentencing laws could save $99.9 million in the next fiscal year, $360 million the following year and $566 million the third year, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the Department of Finance.

"The goal is to have flexibility in the sentencing but to keep the hardest offenders behind bars," Palmer said.

Before the proposal could take effect, state legislators would have to approve sweeping changes to the penal code, which some local officials hope is unlikely given the current gridlock in Sacramento. Lawmakers have, however, agreed to stem the flow of inmates to state prisons in recent years by prohibiting any legislation that would convert misdemeanor crimes into felonies.

Members of the governor's staff have been preparing legislation to support the proposal that they plan to present to legislative leaders during budget negotiations in coming days, Palmer said.

Local officials said much of the cost saved by the state would be passed on to them.

"It's another example of the state taking their problems and pushing it down to the local level even though all of us have equal economic problems," said William T Fujioka, Los Angeles County's chief executive.

The governor's plan would force counties to house the equivalent of the populations of four state prisons, including about 12,000 drug offenders.

Los Angeles County has about 19,000 inmates in its seven jails and is among 20 California counties that face court orders to relieve jail overcrowding.

The governor's office had not released estimates this week of how many prisoners would be sent to L.A. County under the plan, but local officials estimate that the number would be at least several thousand in the first year alone. In the last fiscal year, the county sent about 4,500 "wobbler" offenders to state prison, more than half for property crimes such as vehicle theft or receiving stolen property, according to county court records.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca met with state Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate last week to discuss the governor's proposal, which Baca said would force him to release inmates early to make room for the influx.

Los Angeles County Chief Probation Officer Robert Taylor said the plan, which he called unrealistic, would also strain the county's underfunded system for supervising probationers.

Civil rights advocates who have pushed to improve conditions at local jails said the proposal would worsen inmates' plight.

"Local jail overcrowding is already an unconstitutional epidemic in California," said Melinda Bird, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Many of the state's most powerful law enforcement groups have vowed to fight the plan. They include the Chief Probation Officers of California and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents L.A. police.

Paul Weber, the union's president, said many "wobbler" offenders are dangerous criminals who belong in prison, not jail. "The label 'low level' for offenders is often misleading," Weber said. "A great number of criminals currently designated low-level have serious criminal records or have plea-bargained to avoid more serious arrest charges."

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed, saying the plan could overwhelm jail and probation systems statewide.

"To have this extent of an infusion of state prisoners to a system that can't handle them capacity-wise or management-wise would be really problematic, not just for L.A. but for San Francisco, Yolo, Mono" counties, Yaroslavsky said. "County jails are not state prisons."

Don Meyer, probation chief in Yolo County and president of the statewide council, said that for smaller counties, the governor's proposal amounts to an untenable budget cut.

Yolo County is considering closing one of its two jails, Meyer said, and won't have anywhere to put state prisoners.

The governor also proposed several other cost-cutting measures for state prisons last week after statewide ballot measures failed and the budget gap widened. Those include transferring 19,000 illegal immigrants to federal custody and releasing 26,000 nonviolent offenders 20 months early.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jails23-2009may23,0,5415230.story

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

May 22, 2009

Fingerprinting Plan Will Dramatically Increase Deportations 'Secure Communities' Would Ensnare People with Minor and More Serious Convictions

Fingerprinting Plan Will Dramatically Increase Deportations
'Secure Communities' Would Ensnare Minor as well as Serious Offenders
Washington Independent
By Daphne Eviatar 5/22/09

The idea of deporting illegal immigrants who are also hardened criminals wouldn’t seem like a controversial idea. So when David Venturella, Executive Director of the Secure Communities Program at Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified to Congress in April, he proudly announced the expansion of his program as part of a “comprehensive effort to increase national security and community safety by identifying, processing, and removing deportable criminal aliens.”

But while there’s strong support for deporting dangerous criminals, federal programs such as this one are extending far beyond that goal and detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants for such minor infractions as running a stop sign or carrying an open container of alcohol.

The Secure Communities program, highlighted in a Washington Post story this week, started as a pilot program by President Bush last year. It requires local police to check the immigration status of everyone booked into a local jail. When suspects are fingerprinted, their identifying information is immediately sent to ICE to determine the suspect’s immigration status. (ICE maintains fingerprint data on all individuals who’ve had contact with immigration authorities.) Undocumented immigrants (and even some immigrants who are legal residents) can eventually be deported after their criminal cases are resolved and any sentence is served. If fingerprints from all 14 million suspects booked into local jails each year were screened this way, DHS estimates, about 1.4 million immigrants would be deemed “criminal aliens” and deportable. By contrast, only 117,000 “criminal immigrants” were deported last year.

But the large numbers of immigrants that could be swept up in the program’s snare is causing serious concern among immigrants’ advocates. Although ICE says its goal is to deport the most serious offenders, under the program, identifying information on all suspects arrested for any sort of alleged crimes will be immediately sent to ICE. If the person shows up in an ICE database as an undocumented immigrant, ICE can place a retainer on the individual — meaning they could begin deportation proceedings against him. So an undocumented immigrant wrongly arrested for a traffic violation could be deported under the Secure Communities initiative as easily as could a convicted felon.

Few statistics are available on who is being targeted and deported under the program so far, since it only began in a few communities last October. But since then, the program has been operating in local facilities that have booked 288,000 people, said Richard Rocha, a spokesman for ICE. Of those, almost 3,000 have been “aliens arrested for or convicted of Level 1 offenses,” said Rocha. A Level 1 offense is a crime that carries a sentence of more than a year in prison, such as murder, robbery, rape or drug crimes. “But we’ve lodged detainers on more than 6000,” said Rocha. So about half of the offenders to be deported were either charged with or found guilty of relatively minor offenses. (Rocha said he did not know how many of the 6000 were categorized as Level 2, and how many were Level 3.)

“It’s deceptively benign,” said Joan Friedland, Immigration Policy Director at the National Immigration Law Center, talking about the Secure Communities program. Friedland and others are particularly concerned because other federal programs aimed at seizing and deporting criminal aliens, such as the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws, have led to charges of racial profiling and, according to the General Accountability Office, deportation of undocumented immigrants picked up for such minor infractions as speeding, carrying an open container of alcohol, and urinating in public. Local police also worry, as a report released this week from the Police Foundation points out, that the program deters undocumented immigrants from reporting crimes and cooperating with local investigations.

Particularly brazen sheriffs in communities with high anti-immigrant sentiment — such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff known for marching illegal immigrants past news cameras in leg irons and prison underwear — appear to be taking advantage of the law to try to rid their counties of as many immigrants as possible. Arpaio is now under federal investigation for racial profiling and other potential civil rights violations.

Immigrant advocates worry that the Secure Communities program could cause even more problems because 287(g) at least trains local officials on using the immigration laws and targeting dangerous criminals. The Secure Communities initiative, by contrast, has no safeguards to prevent its abuse by local authorities or to ensure that ICE focuses on deporting felons or other serious or repeat offenders rather than those arrested for minor infractions or as a pretense.

“Because of how other programs have operated you’d think you’d want something in place when this one starts to prevent its abuse,” said Friedland. Yet, as Rocha confirmed, the program has no regulations that govern how ICE or local authorities are supposed to implement it.
“The problem with Secure Communities,” said Marty Rosenbluth, an immigration lawyer with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina, “is there’s no way that we know of to be able to track it. There’s no accountability, there’s no reporting procedures, there’s no way to document in any systematic fashion who’s getting into deportation proceedings because of Secure Communities.” Secure Communities is now operating in 12 communities in North Carolina, and 48 nationwide. DHS plans to expand it to all local law enforcement agencies by the end of 2012.

“Under 287(g) in North Carolina, most people deported have been picked up for driving-related offenses. With Secure Communities, since the identification process is when people are booked, not when they’re convicted, our fear is that the same pattern will duplicate itself,” said Rosenbluth.

Indeed, Ivan Ortiz, an ICE spokesman, told the North Carolina News & Observer when asked about the program: “If the person ran a light, then we need to prioritize our work, and we may not be able to send an agent to the local jail to get them,” Ortiz said. “But I guarantee you, we will catch up to them later.”

Rocha, the ICE spokesman in Washington, confirmed that. “The goal of this plan is to identify and remove all criminal aliens in jails and prisons.” he said. Although the focus will first be “on those who present the greatest risk to public safety and national security,” ICE will also deport other lower-level criminals “as resources permit.”

Immigration lawyers worry that in fact, the low-level criminals will be the bulk of the program’s victims. “Based on my personal experience with 287(g),” says Rosenbluth, “I find it very unlikely that if someone is arrested on a driving-related offense, that if ICE has the capacity to pick that person up, that ICE will just leave them.”

The other problem is that due to flawed databases, the program can ensnare people who are in the United States legally, including U.S. citizens. “I had a client who was in a local jail for three months on an immigration detainer,” said Rosenbluth. “It took me three months to prove he was a U.S. citizen and couldn’t be deported,” he said.

Unlike in criminal court, immigrants don’t have the right to have an attorney represent them in immigration proceedings. So if someone is acquitted of a crime but shows up in a database as being in the United States illegally, he can be deported even if he’s here legally, simply because he can’t prove his legal status and doesn’t have the right to a lawyer who can help him.

“Once Secure Communities hits, particularly in rural areas where there there are very few lawyers, it’s going to be devastating,” said Rosenbluth, who said he’s one of only two immigration lawyers in North Carolina devoted full-time to representing immigrants in deportation proceedings. “People are going to get picked up at a traffic stop, fingerprinted and identified as undocumented even though they have a right to be here.”

What’s more, the program can target people who are innocent, too. “It applies when anyone is fingerprinted by a cooperating law enforcement agent,” said Tom Barry, who directs the TransBorder Project of the Americas at the Center for International Policy. “So if someone is booked for driving without a license and indeed they had a license,” if they’re undocumented, it applies to them, too.

Even people who are legal residents in the United States can be eligible for deportation under the program if they’re arrested and in the past had been convicted of a crime. “It may have been two decades ago,” said Barry. “So people who are longstanding members of a community and legal residents can be deported.”

Ultimately, the determination is made by the ICE officer and whether ICE has room to detain the person. “It depends if they have enough beds, rather than if the person is a dangerous criminal,” said Barry.

According to David Venturella, the Secure Communities program director, between October 2008 and the end of February of this year, ICE has processed “more than 117,000 fingerprint submissions under the program, which resulted in the identification of over 12,000 criminal aliens.” Of those, 862 “have been identified as dangerous criminals,” or Level 1 offenders — which includes nonviolent drug crimes. Even if 862 is a significant number of criminals who can now potentially be deported, that’s only seven percent of the total number of immigrants the program has identified as eligible for deportation. What will happen to the 93 percent of aliens — both legal and illegal — who were arrested for minor infractions remains to be seen.
http://washingtonindependent.com/44141/fingerprinting-plan-will-dramatically-increase-deportations

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

OK: Bill passes that would send immigrant prisoners to federal prisons for deportation.

Oklahoma bill would deport imprisoned aliens

By The Associated Press
Published: May 22, 2009

Legislation that authorizes state prisons to send illegal alien inmates to federal immigration officials for deportation has passed the state House. The bill would also prevent the government from transferring terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp to private prisons in Oklahoma.

Lawmakers approved the measure Friday and sent it to the Senate for final passage.

Its author, Rep. Randy Terrill of Moore, says the deportation provisions will save the state millions of dollars in incarceration costs. The provisions apply only to illegal aliens who are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes and have served at least one-third of their sentence.

The bill also makes it illegal for private prison contractors to provide housing, care and control of detainees designated as enemy combatants by the federal government.

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-bill-would-deport-imprisoned-aliens/article/3371840?custom_click=headlines_widget

Posted by lois at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)

WA: Gov moves to deport illegal immigrants in prisons. Will not take part in ICE "rapid removal"

"The governor made it clear that the state would not join in ICE's rapid removal program.
For immigrant advocates, the shift in policy was welcome news. From the beginning, the main concern for immigration groups was protecting due process. Deportation procedures are conducted under a different court system than criminal cases. In many cases, legal representation is hard to obtain and immigrants who may be eligible to stay in the country end up signing deportation papers, advocates argue.
"We're not opposed to the underlying scheme, but we wanted to make sure there's a due process all along," said Shankar Narayan, legislative director for Washington's ACLU chapter."

May, 19, 2009
Gov moves to deport illegal immigrants in prisons
By MANUEL VALDES / Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE -- Gov. Chris Gregoire is moving forward with clearing Washington prisons of illegal immigrants to save money, but at what may be a slower rate than originally planned after lawmakers failed to pass a bill that would have hastened the process.

In a letter sent last week to the state Department of Corrections, Gregoire outlined the state's approach to transferring illegal immigrant prisoners to federal custody. Her proposal, though, does not give the state as much authority as the original bill.
The slower rate of transferring prisoners to federal custody may also mean less savings for taxpayers because not as many prisoners are expected to be moved to immigration authorities.

"Time equals money here, so as long as we have to house them, it runs up additional charges for the state of Washington," Department of Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail said Tuesday.

The original bill aimed to save the state $8 million in the next two-year budget cycle. The measure was part of a slew of bills to cut state costs in the face of a $9 billion deficit.

The bill's demise left an $8 million gap in the Department of Corrections' budget. Vail said state budget writers assumed the bill would pass, and now the department has to fill the budget hole. He added that it's not known how much the department will be able to recoup.

Earlier, Vail said there are about 350 prisoners in Washington who would be eligible to be transferred. On average, he said, it costs the state $90 a day to imprison an inmate.

The bill would have allowed the Department of Corrections more flexibility in transferring illegal immigrant inmates. Now, Vail said, the department will have to coordinate with prosecutors and judges to work out a system in which the state asks for early release of inmates.

Originally, the state had considered copying an Arizona program in which corrections workers would have been trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help process inmates suspected of being in the country illegally.

In her letter, Gregoire moved away from such a plan.
The "federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over the determination of immigration status and deportation activities," Gregoire wrote. "At no time shall our state Department of Corrections or its staff be delegated a decision-making role."
Gregoire also said that the Department of Corrections should provide access to information on obtaining legal representation to any inmate being considered for transfer. The governor made it clear that the state would not join in ICE's rapid removal program.
For immigrant advocates, the shift in policy was welcome news. From the beginning, the main concern for immigration groups was protecting due process. Deportation procedures are conducted under a different court system than criminal cases. In many cases, legal representation is hard to obtain and immigrants who may be eligible to stay in the country end up signing deportation papers, advocates argue.
"We're not opposed to the underlying scheme, but we wanted to make sure there's a due process all along," said Shankar Narayan, legislative director for Washington's ACLU chapter.

For most of the legislative session, the two bills relating to clearing the way for the state to remove illegal immigrant prisoners cruised through committees and the Senate floor. However, lawmakers did not begin considering final passage of the measure until the waning hours of the session. Then gridlock hit - and other bills took priority.

Meanwhile, several lawmakers in the House introduced a handful of amendments, which helped shelve the legislation as the session ran out of time.

"One of the concerns that I was trying to address through the amendment was to point out that the policy would affect not only individuals without proper documentation, it would also affect permanent legal residents as well as U.S. citizens," said Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle.

She added: "So while it's convenient to talk about it as a measure that is intended to address this so-called illegal alien offender, it misses the understanding that individuals who are here legally with proper documentation, who may mistakenly be arrested for a felony charge, are considered automatically deportable."
Vail said his department is in talks with ICE to create an agreement between the state and the agency, but that none has been reached yet.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/latestheadlines/story/916474.html?story_link=email_msg

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

Supermax prisons not super enough?

Supermax Prisons in U.S. Already Hold Terrorists

By Carrie Johnson and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 22, 2009

In news conferences, speeches and debates this week, lawmakers from both parties, as well as the director of the FBI, have sounded alarms about moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to federal prisons, where they could launch riots, hatch radical plots or somehow be released among the populace.

"No good purpose is served by allowing known terrorists, who trained at terrorist training camps, to come to the U.S. to live among us," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.).

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said Tuesday, before saying he was open to changing his position, "Part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States."

But the apocalyptic rhetoric rarely addresses this: Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.

Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

Inmates in Florence and those at the maximum-security disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., rarely see other prisoners. At Leavenworth, the toughest prisoners are allowed outside their cells only one hour a day when they are moved with their legs shackled and accompanied by three guards.

"We have a vast amount of experience in how to judge the continued incarceration of highly dangerous prisoners, since we do this with thousands of prisoners every month, all over the United States, including some really quite dangerous people," Philip D. Zelikow, who was counselor to Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

For many of the most serious terrorists and violent criminals, Justice Department and prison officials impose special restrictions, allowing few visitors, for example, and closely monitoring mail. The inmates also are kept in solitary confinement.

But on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told the House Judiciary Committee about his "concerns about providing financing to terrorists, radicalizing others with regard to violent extremism, the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States. . . . If it's Florence or something, I think it would be very difficult for the person to get out and very difficult for the person to undertake any activity. However . . . there are individuals in our prisons today . . . who operate their gangs from inside the walls of prison."

Two years ago, an official from the Federal Bureau of Prisons told the House Committee on Homeland Security that authorities were monitoring inmates who might try to spread extremist ideologies, screening clerics and moving terrorist inmates to special facilities in Colorado and Terre Haute, Ind. The bulk of al-Qaeda-affiliated convicts in the United States are housed in those two facilities, law enforcement officials said yesterday.

Still, one economically pressed community in Montana is bucking the trend of "not in my back yard." Some residents in Hardin are volunteering to open their unused, 464-bed Two Rivers Regional Detention Facility to the detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The City Council recently passed a resolution in support.

But Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) put his foot down. "We're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country -- no way, not on my watch," he told Time magazine this month.

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu, research editor Alice Crites, and staff researchers Madonna Lebling and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052102009_pf.html

Posted by lois at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2009

PA: Gary Tucker, a prisoner held in control unit found not-guilty of assault on a guard

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HRC-FedUp! Courthouse Update
Tucker Found Innocent!
Prisoner beats false charges with HRC help
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary Tucker Found Non-guilty! HRC and Family Support the Deciding Factor

Torture survivor Gary Tucker, a state prisoner currently confined in 23-hour control unit lockdown at SCI Frackville, was found not-guilty of assaulting a prison guard by an all-white jury at the Cumberland County courthouse in Carlisle, PA on Thursday morning.

In an emotional trial which featured gripping testimony by Gary and six other state prisoners-all of whom testified via videoconference-testified that it was in fact Mr. Tucker who was assaulted during the incident in question, and that he only responded to the guards actions to defend himself.

HRC/Fed Up! organized courthouse support and provided witness testimony when Bret Grote took the stand to affirm Mr. Tucker's version of events and speak of the organization's work exposing human rights violations in PA prisons.

In January of 2008 Gary's cell door was opened in the Special Management Unit at SCI Camp Hill after he and a guard had a heated argument. Mr. Tucker exited his cell prepared to defend himself with bars of soap in a sock. After chasing one guard away from his cell he was jumped from behind, subdued, handcuffed, and then dragged into a cell out of camera view and beaten bloody. Mr. Tucker suffered a laceration requiring stitches, lost two teeth, and had a bruised, swollen, and bloody face.

Mr. Tucker filed an excessive force grievance. On June 18, 2008 he was informed that it was denied. The next day guards under the command of Unit Manager Chris Chambers began denying him lunch and dinner. After a week of this he was then denied all three meals for two weeks. He only began receiving food again after several prisoners contacted HRC/Fed Up!, reporting that SMU staff were attempting to starve Gary to death. An action alert was sent out and the prison eventually yielded to the pressure.

Seven months after the January assault the District Attorney's office of Cumberland County brought charges against Gary, claiming he assaulted a guard. The trial began Monday, May 18, 2009.

Mr. Tucker plans on pursuing a lawsuit against Camp Hill and the DOC for the hell they put him through.

A longer article and analysis will be forthcoming.

Posted by lois at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Phoenix: Prisoners at Maricopa County Jail on Hunger Strike

"In the past four days, the number of inmates refusing to eat has grown. On Thursday, 1,504 refused the evening meals. On Friday, 1,800 refused to eat. On Saturday 1,219 did not eat and on Sunday night, 1,080 inmates turned down the evening meal, Arpaio said."

Hunger Strike Leads To Lockdown
Omadelle Nelson
Reporter, KPHO.com
UPDATED: 3:11 pm MST May 18, 2009

PHOENIX -- Three out of seven Maricopa County jails were placed on indefinite lockdown at 3 p.m. as a security precaution in the midst of an inmate hunger strike, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

The lockdown means inmates are be required to remain in their cells, and no visitors are allowed. Nearly 4,200 medium and maximum security inmates are affected, Arpaio said.

The pro-immigration movement Puente said in a statement, "Sheriff Joe Arpaio announcement to put prisoners on lockdown for exercising their right of free speech is a blatant disregard of human rights of prisoners."
CSI collection of products

Puente leaders said they plan to hold a candlelight vigil at the Fourth Avenue and Madison jail at 7:30 p.m.

In the past four days, the number of inmates refusing to eat has grown. On Thursday, 1,504 refused the evening meals. On Friday, 1,800 refused to eat. On Saturday 1,219 did not eat and on Sunday night, 1,080 inmates turned down the evening meal, Arpaio said.

Arpaio said the strike began two weeks ago the day of a protest against him.

The inmates said they don't like the quality of the food.

Jail officials said they're concerned that it could become a violent situation for those who don't want to participate in the hunger strike.

Arpaio said inmates get 2,500 calories a day, and he does not plan to change the menu.

"They may not like the food. The food is rather bland, but you know what, they're getting it free right now, said Arpaio, "We've got people on the streets lining up; people out of work that have no money, trying to find jobs and feed their families, and these guys are complaining."

Arpaio said six inmates had asked to be put in protective custody because they wanted to eat but were afraid of retaliation from other inmates.
http://www.kpho.com/news/19488085/detail.html

Posted by lois at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

AZ: Women serving a 27 month sentence for prostitution dies in holding cell after four hours in 103 degree heat.

Tragic cage death ends woeful life
May. 24, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Marcia J. Powell, a mentally ill prostitute and drug addict, died like a dog last week, roasting in a cage in the fearsome sun at the state prison at Perryville.

She was 48 years old.

Her final tortured hours in an outdoor enclosure last Tuesday mimicked those of a five-year-old law-enforcement canine named Rik that died at Perryville in 2007 after having been left by handlers in an exercise run for three hours. Temperatures that day reached 105.

The temperature in Powell's cage last week exceeded 107. She was locked up for an hour longer than the dog before she collapsed.

There are many questions to be answered by the Department of Corrections about Powell's final hours. But her death is only the gruesome exclamation point on a long list of institutional failures that got her there.

DOC officials say that Powell had a rap sheet going back decades and included at least 10 sex and six drug convictions. She'd been in and out of Arizona prisons since 1994.

Records indicate that she left home in California at 15 with a ninth-grade education, no marketable skills and a serious mental illness. A presentencing report describes her as bipolar.

Last summer, she was sent to prison for more than two years on a prostitution charge.

"It's awful the way this woman died," said Donna Leone Hamm, executive director of Middle Ground Prison Reform Inc., which for years has advocated for Arizona inmates and their families. "No one cared much about her when she lived. I hope at least that we care about the way she died."

DOC is investigating the incident. Several employees already are on administrative leave.

After Powell collapsed, she was taken to the hospital and placed on life support. A DOC spokesman told me that the department was unable to locate any family members.

So when the time came to decide whether to pull the plug on the machines keeping her alive, it fell to prisons Director Charles Ryan. Powell was taken off life support at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday; she died at 12:42 a.m. Wednesday.

"The death of Marcia Powell is a tragedy and a failure," Ryan said later. "The investigation will determine whether there was negligence and tell us how to remedy our failures."

I'm not so sure.

For one thing, DOC should not be conducting the investigation. It should fall to an outside agency. The governor should demand it.

According to Hamm, she contacted then-prisons Director Dora Schriro in late 2007 about the practice of placing prisoners in outdoor cages.

"Because no one had died or had been permanently injured, I couldn't get anyone - including the press - interested," Hamm said.

Questions like that are only a beginning.

Powell's horrific death and her woeful life should finally get us to ask why Arizona's failed mental-health system transforms county jails and prisons into mental-health institutions.

It should get us to ask why we criminalize people like this but don't adequately treat them, since it's clear that taxpayers end up footing the bill for their care one way or another.

Powell told state officials that she had two children who were given up to foster care, but DOC says the state has no record of that. Police also checked the address of a name she'd listed as a friend on prison records but found no one living in the abandoned house.

In spite of spending years in the system, Powell's life remains a mystery. Her death is a tragedy, although perhaps not on the level of Rik the law-enforcement dog.

There was a public outpouring for him.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/05/23/20090523Montini0524.html

Ariz. inmate dies after hours in outdoor cell
By JONATHAN J. COOPER-5-22-09

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona inmate who died after spending nearly four hours in the desert heat was left in an outdoor holding cell for twice as long as she should have been, the state prisons director said Wednesday.

Three corrections officers have been put on paid leave while the state investigates Wednesday's heat-related death of Marcia Powell, who was left in her unshaded cell in 103-degree heat at a prison in Goodyear.

"The death of Marcia Powell is a tragedy and a failure," prisons director Charles Ryan said. "The investigation will determine whether there was negligence and will tell us how to remedy our failures."

Powell, who was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution, was placed alone in the cell while being moved to an onsite detention unit. Ryan said officers placed Powell in the cell after a disturbance at the detention unit, but he would not elaborate on the nature of the disturbance.

Officers gave Powell, 48, bottled water, as required under prison policy, Ryan said. Corrections officers were 20 yards away in a control room while she was in the cell. Investigators will try to determine how much water she was given and whether she drank it.

Officers did not remove her after two hours as they should have done under department policy, Ryan said at a news conference.

"It is intended to be temporary," he said. "It is not intended to be a place where they are held for an inordinate amount of time."

The criminal probe, conducted by the Corrections Department's investigations unit, will seek to determine whether officials were negligent in their treatment of Powell, who collapsed at 2:40 p.m. Tuesday and died later at a hospital.

Ryan said he hopes to release a report into Powell's death by late next week. The Maricopa County Attorney's office will then decide whether to charge the corrections officers involved.

Ryan would not release the names or disciplinary records of the deputy warden, captain and lieutenant placed on paid leave.

He said he told all state prison wardens to monitor the temperatures at outdoor holding cells while they are housing inmates.

Powell is the 79th person to die in state prisons since July 2008, according to Ryan. He said most of the deaths were from natural causes, but there were three suicides and one murder.

Corrections officials were unable to locate family members for Powell.

Posted by lois at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2009

Key Findings from America's Invisible Children: Latino Youth and the Failure of Justice

Key Findings from America's Invisible Children: Latino Youth and the Failure of Justice:

On any given day, close to 18,000 Latino youth are incarcerated in America. The majority of these youth are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Most Latino youth are held in juvenile detention facilities (41%) and juvenile long-term secure facilities (34%). However, one out of every four (24%) incarcerated Latino children is held in an adult prison or jail even though youth in adult facilities are in significant danger of suicide and rape.

Latino youth are overrepresented in the U.S. justice system and receive harsher treatment than white youth. In order of rising disparities, Latino youth are 4% more likely than white youth to be petitioned, 16% more likely than white youth to be adjudicated delinquent, 28% more likely than white youth to be detained, 41% more likely than white youth to receive an out-of-home placement, 43% more likely than white youth to be waived to the adult system, and 40% more likely to be admitted to adult prison. States with the highest levels of disparity of Latino youth in adult prison (rates over 5 times that for white youth) were California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Nine out of ten (90%) Latino youth ages 10 to 17 live in states that permit pre-trial detention in adult jails for youth prosecuted in the adult system. According to a study of 40 large urban jurisdictions, Latino youth prosecuted in the adult system are routinely incarcerated in adult jails. Overall, a higher proportion of white youth are released pretrial (60%) than any other racial or ethnic categories. Most (54%) of Latino youth prosecuted in the adult system were detained pretrial; of the Latino youth detained pretrial, 72% were held in adult jails.

Recommendations for Congress and the Administration:

Reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) this year with strengthening provisions such as updating the "Disproportionate Minority Contact" (DMC) core requirement to give states specific guidance on action steps to reduce both racial and ethnic disparities and by closing the loophole that allows youth to be placed in adult jails.

Substantially increase federal investments to improve culturally and linguistically appropriate, community-based programs and alternatives to incarceration for Latino youth.

Oppose legislation that increases the transfer of youth to the adult criminal system or expands mandatory minimum sentences such as gang enhancements.

State and Local Policymakers should:

Immediately stop housing young people in adult jails and prisons.

Redirect resources from incarceration to culturally and linguistically competent in-home and community-based services for at-risk youth and youth already in the juvenile or adult justice systems, such as the programs profiled in this brief.

Reduce the transfer of youth to adult court by repealing statutory exclusion and prosecutorial discretion laws.

The National Council of La Raza is the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., working to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.
The entire report can be viewed at:
http://campaignforyouthjustice.org/documents/Latino_Brief.pdf.
May 20, 2009

Posted by lois at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2009

MI: Several More Prisons to Close & More Parole

Monday, May 18, 2009
Michigan inmates fall to seven-year low
Charlie Cain / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

Lansing -- Michigan's prison population is at a seven-year low and for the first time a limited number of maximum security prisoners are being double-bunked as a way to save money.

The state has 47,706 inmates, down more than 7 percent from the record population of 51,454 in December 2006.

Corrections officials say they are on track to reduce the population to 44,000 by Oct. 1. That should allow the state to close several prisons besides the two prisons and one prison camp that have ceased operations this year.

With tax collections tanking, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and state lawmakers are eager to trim prison costs, which at $2 billion annually account for about one-fifth of all general fund spending.

The governor's budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1 calls for a $120 million cut in prison spending.

"We have been paroling inmates at a rapid rate and the prison intake is down as well," said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Corrections Department.

He said it looks like 1,070 people will be paroled from prison during May -- up 30 percent from last year.

Granholm beefed up the size of the parole board this year to speed up the release of non-violent inmates who have served longer than their minimum term.

There are 1,400 empty beds in state prisons that were once filled to capacity.

Last week, corrections officials closed three housing units at two Upper Peninsula facilities to save $1.3 million by Oct. 1.

The 184 inmates at two closed units at Alger Maximum Correctional Facility in Munising were shipped to other state prisons.

Another unit with 103 inmates was closed at Marquette Branch Prison in Marquette. More than 60 inmates were transferred, while 50 were moved to other units at the facility to share cells with other inmates, a first for the state.

"We won't double-bunk maximum security inmates who will be a danger to other inmates or corrections officers," Marlan said.

But Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization, which represents 8,500 prison officers, said he fears the move will endanger inmates and guards.

"We totally oppose double-bunking maximum security inmates because it compounds an already dangerous situation," he said.

"They are bad guys, the real worst of the worst. When trouble starts in places like that, it spreads very quickly.

"This just increases the danger of the situation out there."

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090518/METRO/905180331/1409/METRO/Michigan-inmates-fall-to-seven-year-low

Posted by lois at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. to Expand Immigration Checks to All Local Jails Obama Administration's Enforcement Push Could Lead to Sharp Increase in Deportation Cases

U.S. to Expand Immigration Checks to All Local Jails
Obama Administration's Enforcement Push Could Lead to Sharp Increase in Deportation Cases
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Obama administration is expanding a program initiated by President George W. Bush aimed at checking the immigration status of virtually every person booked into local jails. In four years, the measure could result in a tenfold increase in illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and identified for deportation, current and former U.S. officials said.

By matching inmates' fingerprints to federal immigration databases, authorities hope to pinpoint deportable illegal immigrants before they are released from custody. Inmates in federal and state prisons already are screened. But authorities generally lack the time and staff to do the same at local jails, which house up to twice as many illegal immigrants at any time and where inmates come and go more quickly.

The effort is likely to significantly reshape immigration enforcement, current and former executive branch officials said. It comes as the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress vow to crack down on illegal immigrants who commit crimes, rather than those who otherwise abide by the law.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made it "very clear" that her top priority is deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, said David J. Venturella, program director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"We mean this, we're serious about it, and we believe we need to put in an all-out effort to get this done," said Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security. He has led calls to remove illegal immigrants convicted of crimes after their sentences are served.

The program began as a pilot effort in October and operates in 48 counties across the country, including Fairfax County. This year, fingerprints from 1 million local jail bookings will be screened under the program. It also operates Dallas, Houston, Miami, Boston and Phoenix, according to ICE, and will expand to Los Angeles this year and nearly all local jails by the end of 2012.

The effort differs from programs in several Northern Virginia counties where local law enforcement officers have been deputized to question suspects about whether they are in the country legally. In Montgomery County, police provide immigration authorities the names of those arrested on charges of violent crimes and handgun violations.

Under the new program, the immigration checks will be automatic: Fingerprints currently being run through the FBI's criminal history database also will be matched against immigration databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. The effort would not catch people who have never been fingerprinted by U.S. authorities.

Based on the pilot program, the agency estimates that if fingerprints from all 14 million bookings in local jails each year were screened, about 1.4 million "criminal aliens" would be found, Venturella said. That would be about 10 times the 117,000 criminal illegal immigrants ICE deported last year. There are more than 3,100 local jails nationwide, compared with about 1,200 federal and state prisons.

The program, known as Secure Communities, "presents an historic opportunity to transform immigration enforcement," said Julie Myers Wood, who launched it last year while head of ICE.

In his proposed 2010 budget, President Obama asked Congress last week for $200 million for the program, a 30 percent increase that puts it on track to receive $1.1 billion by 2013.

The program could help answer for the first time a question that has been intertwined with debates over immigration policy: How many illegal immigrants in the United States are convicted of non-immigration crimes?

But even some supporters of the program wonder whether it can be implemented smoothly and whether there will be sufficient funding. A surge in deportation cases, noted Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of homeland security for policy, would require more prosecutors, immigration judges, detention beds and other resources.
Venturella also acknowledged that integrating federal, state and local databases is complex and that the capabilities of local jurisdictions vary. Some counties may take several years to be linked in.
"It's a good program. It's a very expensive program," said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that advocates tighter immigration controls. "I don't know if it's feasible or sensible for all state and local governments."

Venturella said ICE will give priority to deporting the most dangerous offenders: national security risks or those convicted of violent crimes. Based on initial projections, the agency estimates that 100,000 of these are "Level 1 offenders" and that deporting them would cost $1.1 billion over four years. Removing all criminal illegal immigrants would cost $3 billion, ICE estimated last year.
Critics say that deporting the worst criminal illegal immigrants, by itself, does not go far enough because it would not fully address the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States or deter further illegal immigration.

"If the Obama administration abandons immigration enforcement in all but the most serious criminal cases, then they will create a de facto amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants and will encourage even more illegal immigration," said Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
He said the Obama administration should complete construction of a border fence, enforce laws against hiring illegal workers and deport illegal immigrants before they commit crimes.
Amnesty International and immigrant advocates warn that the change could lead to immigration checks in other arenas and the "criminalization" of illegal immigration.

Tom Barry, an analyst for the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit research and policy institute in Washington, said the initiative could sweep up foreign-born U.S. residents who have served time for offenses but were not deported.

"Many, many legal immigrants are going to be pulled into this net even for minor violations that they're booked for -- traffic violations, drunk driving, whatever -- and after they've lived here 10 or 20 years, they're going to be deported," Barry said.
By checking all people who are booked, supporters say, the program avoids racial profiling. It also could stem what some see as overzealous efforts by some local authorities who, through a $60 million-a-year ICE training program, have stepped up their pursuit of illegal immigrants through measures such as neighborhood sweeps and traffic stops.

"The administration should reassert the primacy of the federal government's role in enforcing immigration law," said Donald Kerwin, vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington. He said, however, that such action should be coupled with efforts to find lawyers for immigrants in deportation proceedings. Unlike in criminal courts, the immigration court system does not provide public defenders.

Posted by lois at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)

Minnesota Becomes First State to "Ban the Box", Narrows Employer Liability for Criminal Records

Minnesota Becomes First State to "Ban the Box", Narrows Employer
Liability for Criminal Records

On May 11th Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed into law a public
safety policy omnibus bill (House File 1301) which includes two
provisions that begin to address the growing problem of individuals
with criminal records finding employment.

One provision requires all Minnesota public employers to wait until a
job applicant has been selected for an interview before asking about
criminal records or conducting a criminal record check, except for
positions that already require a background check. Passage of this
legislation makes Minnesota the first state to adopt a statewide "Ban
the Box" law since the initiative was started by a group called All of Us or None in California several years ago.

The other provision limits the admission of evidence of an employee's
criminal record against an employer if: (1) the duties of the position did not expose others to a greater degree of risk than that created by the employee interacting with the public outside of the duties of the position or that might be created by being employed in general; (2) a court order sealed any record of the criminal case; or (3) the record did not result in a criminal conviction.

Development of the legislation and direct lobbying for it has been ledby the Minneapolis-based Council on Crime and Justice. According toCouncil President and former Hennepin County Judge Pamela Alexander:
"Over the last several decades increases in criminalization combined
with easier access to criminal records and heightened fear and
scrutiny have created an entire class of people who are subject to
permanent punishment and find it extremely difficult to become
fully-contributing members of their communities through stable housingand gainful employment. It includes hundreds of thousands of
Minnesotans. Passage of this legislation is an important first step
towards alleviating this situation, making our communities more safe,
economically stable, and just."

According to the Council's Director of Public Policy and Advocacy,
Mark Haase, the "Ban the Box" law reduces discrimination and confusion based only upon initial application, does not limit access to the criminal record, saves public employers time and money and gives them a more diverse applicant pool, Increases employment opportunities for otherwise-qualified applicants, and does not limit private employer discretion but provides them with a best practice model. The civil liability, or "Safe Hiring" law, gives employers some tools in knowing when criminal records are relevant and which types of records need not be considered at all. Employers will need to be trained on how this law can help them increase employment opportunities for individuals with criminal records.

The bills' chief authors were Senators Mee Moua and Ron Latz and
Representatives Sheldon Johnson and Bobby Champion.

This legislation was passed with the support of the Second Chance
Coalition, a diverse coalition of 24 community organizations,
including: 180 Degrees, Inc., AMICUS, Goodwill/Easter Seals MN,
Council on Crime and Justice, Rebuild Resources, Jacob Wetterling
Foundation, RS Eden, Minnesota Council of Churches, MN Catholic
Conference, Minnesota Fathers & Families Network, Northside Policy
Action Coalition, People Escaping Poverty Project, Project for Pride
in Living, Children's Defense Fund, Peace Foundation, Minneapolis
Urban League, HIRED, LIFE in Recovery, NAMI MN, the Barbara Schneider
Foundation, Elim Transitional Housing, Emerge Community Development,
Greater Minneapolis Council on Churches, and Juel Fairbanks Chemical
Dependency Services.

Posted by lois at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2009

Tamms: Scrutiny Promised For Illinois' Supermax Prison

Scrutiny Promised For Illinois' Supermax Prison
05-16-09 07:22 PM
Huffington Post
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Tamms Correctional Center's first warden made no apologies for christening the tough southwest Illinois prison a home for a "very unhappy inmate population." Critics wasted no time dubbing it an inhumane endeavor.

Eleven years later, the debate over the lockup where the worst offenders spend 23 hours a day in their cells remains unchanged, but Gov. Pat Quinn expects a newly minted Department of Corrections chief to take a long look at the super maximum-security prison where inmates are meant to serve hard time.

Quinn on Thursday tapped Michael Randle, second in command of Ohio's prison system, as Illinois' new department head. The Chicago-born Randle won't start his new job until next month, but Quinn already has made clear one assignment will be to examine prisoner treatment at Tamms.

"I'm going to ask Director Randle to meet with all of those who are concerned about the issue of Tamms in deep southern Illinois in Alexander County," Quinn said. "It is an issue we have to listen to everyone on, but Director Randle will make the final decision on what is best and recommend that to me."

Those who question the humaneness of typically giving Tamms' populace no more than an hour a day outside 7-by-12-foot cells square off against the prison's backers who call the segregation essential to safely containing the most dangerous of a 45,500-inmate, 28-prison state system.

"We have a very unhappy inmate population," Tamms' first warden, George Welborn, proudly declared in 1998.

State Rep. Brandon Phelps, a Democrat whose district includes the prison and its 242 inmates in long-suffering Alexander County, argued this week that Tamms "doesn't have to be messed with."

"Those people have earned their way to Tamms - when they were around people, they murdered them, they raped them," Phelps said.

Opponents say Tamms warehouses mentally ill inmates and isolates others for so long that they develop psychological issues. One state lawmaker has introduced legislation to limit terms at Tamms to one year in most cases, bar seriously mentally ill inmates from being sent to Tamms and make it more difficult to keep inmates there indefinitely.

Amnesty International, a leading human rights organization, recently has found Tamms "may breach international standards for humane treatment" and the prison has drawn numerous lawsuits alleging the inmate mistreatment.

"I can tell you there is concern when it comes to mental health and how you treat offenders in certain levels of confinement," Randle said this week. "The issue of Tamms as it relates to mental health is something I would have to look at once I get there. If, in fact, there are serious concerns about that, then I would make the appropriate recommendations to the governor for changes."

State figures show Illinois has sent more than 540 prisoners to Tamms in 11 years, amounting to just .14 of 1 percent of the people who have gone to Illinois prisons in that time. But much of the current attention has focused on long-term inmates - 156 who've been there at least eight years, 69 of them for more than a decade.

"We're not trying to close Tamms," said State Rep. Rep. Julie Hamos, the suburban Chicago Democrat behind the legislative push to change the prison, including allowing an inmate to earn increasingly less-isolated conditions for good behavior. "To leave them in that setting 10 years or longer is inhumane, in my estimate, and a human rights violation. It just cannot be condoned."

Phelps counters that he's seen nothing unfair or inhumane during his handful of visits to Tamms, which is located the identically named community he says "is dying on the vine" economically and doesn't need anything happening to the prison or its jobs. The prison has 275 employees, down more than 100 from just six years ago.

"I've heard the argument that the inmates are in confinement 23 hours a day and need to be around more people. When I heard that, I was beside myself," Phelps fumed. Hamos' legislation, he adds, "is talking about trying to make some of the worst criminals better. But some of them there don't care. They're never going to behave."

Corrections department spokesman Derek Schnapp says the state would "like to have no inmates at Tamms, but we feel Tamms has a purpose."

Backers of the prison have legal precedent on their side. In an Ohio case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found in 2005 that the state's "first obligation must be to ensure the safety of guards and prison personnel, the public and prisoners themselves."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, found "prolonged confinement in supermax may be the state's only option for control of some inmates," including those assigned to the Ohio prison built in 1998 after a deadly inmate riot five years earlier at a state prison.

"Courts must give substantial deference to prison management decisions" against the "brutal reality of prison gangs," Kennedy added.

Still, the justices expressed some concerns about the harsh conditions, with Kennedy writing that inmates "are deprived of almost any environmental or sensory stimuli and of almost all human contact." Lights were always kept on in the cells, he said, and the treatment was more harsh than that of death row inmates.

The court did not address the issue of whether the detentions are unconstitutionally cruel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/16/scrutiny-promised-for-ill_n_204183.html

Posted by lois at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)

AZ: Community activists, immigrant-rights advocates, tribal critics and local elected officials don't want to see a federal detention center

Tucson Region
Prison plan opposition grows
County's help sought to fight US facility slated for O'odham land near Sahuarita
By Erica Meltzer
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.18.2009

Community activists, immigrant-rights advocates, tribal critics and local elected officials don't want to see a federal detention center built near Pima Mine Road on the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Opponents, including residents of Rancho Sahuarita and the Rev. Robin Hoover of Humane Borders, asked the Pima County Board of Supervisors last week for the county's help in stopping the prison's construction.

The county's power lies only in raising questions and asking the federal government to require more study of the impact before signing off on the project. The county has no direct jurisdiction over projects built on sovereign Indian territory.

Pima County Supervisors Ramón Valadez and Sharon Bronson joined County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry in sending a letter Friday to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They raised numerous concerns about the project, including impacts on regional flooding, archaeological resources near the Santa Cruz River, traffic and conservation efforts.

The comments are in response to an environmental assessment prepared for the project that critics say ignores effects the prison would have outside the reservation.

The county asked that the federal government require an environmental-impact statement, which is a much more thorough study.
Many residents of neighboring Sahuarita say the assessment treats the project as if its impact stopped at the San Xavier District boundaries. The assessment does not address the schools, homes and parks in Rancho Sahuarita, less than a mile away.
"While they may be a quasi-sovereign nation, they do not exist in a vacuum," Rancho Sahuarita resident Linda Cooper said.
District Chairman Austin Nuñez said anyone who lives near the Tohono O'odham land should have known there was the potential for development there. He said the request for input from other communities is "more a courtesy than anything else."

"We feel the project is being considerate of the neighbors in terms of light pollution, in terms of noise pollution," he said. "We moved it further north of Pima Mine Road. It's a single story and should not be visible. The security will be maximum, even though it's a medium-security facility."

The district is hoping to build a 750-bed, 140,000-square-foot prison on 48 acres just east of the Santa Cruz River and about 4,000 feet north of Pima Mine Road. The prison would create around 300 jobs, and the district would be paid a percentage of the bed fee.

Pima Mine Road is the boundary between Sahuarita and the San Xavier District, one of 11 districts within the Tohono O'odham Nation. It's also the northern boundary of Sahuarita's largest population center, the 4,200-home Rancho Sahuarita master-planned community.
"On a personal level, I just think it's going to change a lot of people's lifestyles," said Julia Whetten, a Rancho Sahuarita resident. "We came here looking for safety and wanting to raise our children with the values we grew up with. To have something that's so close that is a reminder of the evils of the world is just not what I want for my children."
And Rancho Sahuarita residents aren't the only ones opposing the project.

Former Tohono O'odham Tribal Council member David Garcia, who is not a member of the San Xavier District, said the U.S. Border Patrol detention centers that have been built on the reservation should raise questions about the project, including what sort of liability the tribe and the district would face if prisoners were to file lawsuits over their treatment at the planned facility. He said hearings on the proposal are needed.

Hoover told the Board of Supervisors he is concerned that the prison will not meet state and federal standards for treatment of detainees because there is not the same accountability on tribal land.
Nuñez said the facility will meet the highest standards.

Valadez said he believes new prisons should be built in the same area as the existing state and federal prisons on South Wilmot Road, where residents knew what they were getting when they bought houses there.
Bronson said she has serious concerns about possible flooding from the reservation site.

Officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs could not be reached Friday to talk about whether they would require the San Xavier District to do more to address community concerns.
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/293306

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

NY: Prison play canceled in NY over fight with unions

Prison play canceled in NY over fight with unions
May 17, 2009

WOODBOURNE, N.Y. - The show won't go on after all.

A troupe of 18 inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility were scheduled to perform an original play Wednesday.

But the New York State Department of Correctional Services canceled the show because union workers threatened to picket.

The unions have been angry since last November when the state announced it would close 12 prison farms as part of budget cuts.

In January 2008, inmates began writing and rehearsing a play about living behind bars and keeping a family.

But Kevin Walker, regional vice president for prison guards' union, says the union sees no value in theater work for inmates.

He called it a "waste of manpower and funding."

It's unclear if the show will be rescheduled.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bcny--prisonplaycancele0517may17,0,4424464.story

Posted by lois at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

Review of new books on Christian moral practice/punishment/imprisonment

"...both Logan and Redekop think that the underlying problem is our captivation with the idea of retributive punishment. Punishment, says Redekop, is "a historical artifact passed from one generation to the next without much thought and supported by force of habit and by unexamined assumptions and presuppositions." Logan asks why there is a presumption that criminal justice must issue in retributive punishment, and Redekop queries why there is a presumption that we should punish at all. Whereas Logan offers a theology of "good punishment," Redekop believes we should "remove punishment from our repertoire of responses to conflict" altogether."

Article printed from:The Christian Century Magazine
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6938
Books
May 19, 2009
Punitive measures
by Tobias Winright

Good Punishment? Christian Moral Practice and U.S. Imprisonment
Eerdmans, 271 pp., $20.00 paperback
by James Samuel Logan

Changing Paradigms: Punishment and Restorative Discipline
Herald, 296 pp., $18.99 paperback
by Paul Redekop
As an undergraduate student 25 years ago, I found myself behind bars—not as an inmate but as a correctional officer. One of the youngest members of a large metropolitan sheriff's department on the west coast of Florida, I worked full-time at the maximum-security jail in order to pay for college. Those four years working in the slammer schooled me, and they raised a number of questions for me as a Christian, especially about the death penalty and the use of force. I am continuing to unlearn certain attitudes and assumptions I held then, including some about punishment itself.

By vividly putting into words much of what I have personally pondered about prisons and punishment, these two books should help American readers—Christian or not, possessing firsthand experience with incarceration or not—to step back and take an honest look at what is happening in our current practice of large-scale imprisonment. Each book also asks why we insist on continuing down this punitive path.

Why is it, for example, that the U.S., which has 6 percent of the world's population, incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prisoners? We currently have some 2.3 million persons in federal, state and local jails and prisons—an estimated half-million more than are locked up in China, whose population is more than triple that of the U.S. We spend more money building and maintaining prisons than public schools—to the tune of $50 billion a year. Some 644,000 persons are incarcerated per year and about 625,000 are released, but then 50 to 75 percent of those who are released end up returning to prison within a few years. No other democratic nation today imprisons people on such a scale or for as long as the U.S. Yet what are we accomplishing?

Both of these authors observe that re tributive punishment has become the primary engine driving large-scale im prisonment. James Samuel Logan, a Men nonite ethicist who teaches religion and African-American studies at Earl ham College, gives attention to the various ways punishment has been understood in theory and in practice, historically and today, focusing on how punishment in the U.S. system of imprisonment is especially demeaning to offenders. This approach to punishment boils down to chastising people to teach them their proper place. Paul Redekop, who teaches conflict resolution studies at Menno Simons College at the University of Winnipeg, also zeroes in on how retributive punishment is degrading to offenders. Unlike Logan, however, Redekop extends his analysis of punishment beyond criminal justice to other areas in which "teaching a lesson" is prominent: parenting, education and international relations.

The punitive approach to imprisonment not only has adverse effects on prisoners, it leads to results that are the reverse of what society expects. According to Logan, the prison-industrial complex, which is "rife with practices of violence and degradation," reproduces criminality. Redekop writes that imprisonment creates a "criminal culture" that amplifies "the likelihood that people will commit crimes" and will be "therefore more likely to return to prison." Especially disturbing in this connection is how common it is for inmates to be raped, or "punked out," in jails and prisons that Logan refers to as "punk factories." He quotes ex-offender David Lewis, president and cofounder of the California-based outreach program Free at Last, who says, "Prison is a school and violence is the curriculum." This is particularly troubling given that 75 percent of new inmates are imprisoned for crimes that don't involve violence.

Logan and Redekop also detail the effects of large-scale punitive imprisonment on prison staff, prisoners' families and communities, and the wider society. In their view, this form of punishment has brutalizing effects and brings out the worst in people. Logan notes a number of times that jail and prison personnel are also "doing time," albeit in eight-hour shifts, and that they bear the scars of imprisonment too. In the rest of society, Logan contends, retributive degradation exacerbates alienation, atomistic individualism, racism and an overall decline in "fellow feeling."

Logan describes the effect of large-scale imprisonment on the African-American community. Black males make up less than 7 percent of the U.S. population, but they constitute approximately 37.5 percent of its jail and prison population. More than a half-million fall between the ages of 20 and 39; this devastates families and neighborhoods because in that age bracket lies human capital necessary for a community's social, economic and political stability.

Black females now constitute the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. Most incarcerated women are mothers. Their imprisonment results in collateral emotional and psychological damage to around 1.5 million prison "orphans." The retributive approach to criminal justice "ends up punishing the families of offenders by leaving them destitute," Redekop writes.

Given that retributive punishment leads to all of these negative results, why do we continue to practice it? Part of the answer is that jails and prisons are now big business. In addition to for-profit correctional corporations, many other companies benefit from expanding imprisonment, including food-service companies, construction contractors, furniture manufacturers and the "specialty item" industry (makers of handcuffs, fencing and drug detectors). Major companies—Logan mentions Microsoft, Honda and Victoria's Secret—employ cheap prison labor. Small rural communities used to object to plans to build prisons in their areas. Now they welcome prisons to boost their struggling economies.

Beyond such economic pressures, both Logan and Redekop think that the underlying problem is our captivation with the idea of retributive punishment. Punishment, says Redekop, is "a historical artifact passed from one generation to the next without much thought and supported by force of habit and by unexamined assumptions and presuppositions." Logan asks why there is a presumption that criminal justice must issue in retributive punishment, and Redekop queries why there is a presumption that we should punish at all. Whereas Logan offers a theology of "good punishment," Redekop believes we should "remove punishment from our repertoire of responses to conflict" altogether.

Drawing on Stanley Hauerwas's work in Christian ethics, including a recent essay called "Punishing Christians," Logan calls on the church to imagine and model a better response to crime and to help the rest of society construct one. Hauerwas's account of Christian punishment—which includes excommunication, penance, reconciliation and forgiveness—offers a "politics of healing memories" that Logan considers promising for the formulation of an alternative to punitive, large-scale imprisonment.

To Hauerwas's contribution Logan appends a "politics of ontological intimacy," whereby human interrelatedness amidst diversity encourages us to signal to an offender: "We care about you, you are still one of us, even as we must now insist that you take serious responsibility for your offense." Instead of confronting, Logan advocates "care-fronting." The final chapter of his book identifies some places where there is evidence of such a politics—in restorative justice programs, calls for "decarceration" and efforts to decriminalize nonviolent acts such as drug use, welfare fraud and prostitution.

Drawing on the work of Howard Zehr in restorative justice, Redekop calls for an approach that enables offenders to be active participants in making things right for all stakeholders—victims, offenders, the community and society as a whole. Citing examples from Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Canada, he presents an alternative paradigm for all situations in which punishment has been assumed to be both necessary and morally legitimate, from parenthood to the aftermath of armed conflict. Two mottoes held in tandem summarize this restorative approach to justice: "No more victims" and "No one is disposable."

Both authors allow for the confinement of dangerous inmates, though in places much smaller and more humanizing than current prisons. They could have devoted more imagination to this sad necessity. Shortly before his death, John Howard Yoder shared with me an unpublished working paper on providing "a life for lifers" in secure communities modeled after the cities of sanctuary in the Hebrew scriptures. What if churches undertook such a project, just as in the past they built and operated schools and hospitals?

Despite this shortcoming, Logan and Redekop's efforts will help us to rethink punishment and create new ways to deal with perpetrators as persons.
Tobias Winright is a former law enforcement officer who teaches Christian ethics at Saint Louis University.

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

May 17, 2009

UK: Our prisons are failing women Using punitive male models of imprisonment for vulnerable women results in tragedy – and does nothing to tackle crime

Our prisons are failing women
Using punitive male models of imprisonment for vulnerable women results in tragedy – and does nothing to tackle crime
o Frances Crook
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 May 2009

In pay, pensions, politics and promotion, the gender gap is a disgrace. But in justice, women face a national scandal. A report published today by the Fawcett Society reveals a justice system that is "institutionally sexist". This is of no surprise to organisations such as the Howard League, which have long campaigned against the hopeless situation of women rotting in our prisons.

Today, as we sit outraged in our armchairs, 4,274 women and girls languish in our jails. These are not the dangerous criminals one might imagine, but often sad victims of circumstance and violence – often at the hands of men. More than half have been victims of domestic violence, a third have experienced sexual abuse, and 25% have been in care as children. Two-thirds of women in prison have dependent children under 18; of these, just one in 20 remain in their own home once their mother has been sentenced.

A sharp increase in the severity of sentencing has seen this number soar by 60% in a decade. Two-thirds of women are in for less than six months: these are damaged people in jail for petty offences. Women and children with mental health problems and addictions are then warehoused temporarily in our flooded and failing jails. Rotting in the security-driven prisons, which follow the rules designed for high security men's prisons, simply serves to exacerbate problems and will most likely lead to more serious and frequent reoffending on release. The idea that public protection is served by this vicious circle is not one many victims of crime would recognise.

The appalling consequences are all too stark. Forty-three women have taken their own lives in prisons in the last five years, with two more added to the toll so far in 2009. Already this year we have seen the tragic suicide of Alison Colk, a young woman who had just entered Styal prison on a petty 28-day sentence for theft. She was found suspended from a ligature on her first night in the prison, which is notorious for violence and self-injury. More than half of the thousands of acts of self-injury which take place every year in our jails are committed by women and girls. This is despite the fact that they comprise just 5% of the prison population.

The Howard League for Penal Reform has succeeded in forcing the government to hold a public inquiry into the treatment of "Susan", who was jailed after an extraordinarily traumatic and abusive childhood. Repeatedly abandoned by a mother who tried to kill her, she was transferred to an adult prison on her 17th birthday. In prison she spent several months in solitary confinement, eating meals on her own and taking her only exercise in a metal cage. Susan made repeated attempts on her own life and was hospitalised with deep lacerations to her wrists and arms, on one occasion losing six pints of blood.

This is the first time a public inquiry concerning the principle of the "right to life" will hear from the person at the heart of the proceedings, as previous inquiries have concerned deaths (Stephen Lawrence and Victoria Climbié, for example). The inquiry will expose the fact that prisons are a totally inadequate response to women and girls who offend, particularly those who have mental health problems and who injure themselves because of their misery and distress. We hope it will lead to significant changes. When the gender equality duty came into force, it was hoped that systems, structures and organisations would adjust practice and tailor it to the specific needs of women. Nowhere is the failure to do so more apparent than in the area of the penal system. Instead, their treatment at the hands of criminal justice agencies is increasingly punitive, following male models of imprisonment as punishment, regardless of the offence, background, vulnerability or family circumstances of the woman involved.

These vulnerable women, damaged at the hands of men through violence, sexual abuse, neglect, or trafficking, are victims themselves. The revolving door at the prison gates is an appalling and hopeless cycle – and the taxpayer funds each pointless prison place to the tune of over £40,000 a year for each female we incarcerate. Tragically, the dire consequences leave blood on the male-dominated government's hands.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/13/prisons-women-human-rights

Posted by lois at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2009

My Return to Prison: Views on the Failed Drug War from Inside Sing Sing

May 15, 2009
My Return to Prison: Views on the Failed Drug War from Inside Sing Sing
By Wayne Kramer
Huffington Post

On Saturday, May 2nd 2009, I returned to prison. Again.

Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell, Billy Bragg, Perry Farrell & Etty Lau Farrell, Gilby Clarke, Boots Riley, Carl Restivo, Dave Gibbs, Don Was, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Eric Gardner and the Road Recovery staff went with me. The prison was the infamous Sing Sing maximum-security facility in Ossining, New York. I talked with the prisoners and we played music for them.

And we went in with the blessing of the New York State Department of Corrections to inaugurate a new program focusing on inmate rehabilitation. To tell you the truth, I didn't think it would happen. I could not have been more wrong. We had all played a concert the night before in Manhattan for Road Recovery, a non-profit organization that works with at-risk kids. The show was sold out with the help of my comrade Iggy Pop and it was a resounding success.

The Sing Sing show was a bonus. To say it was memorable would be a massive understatement. As would be understating the importance of reaching out to the people on the receiving end of the greatest failure of social policy in America's domestic history

You would have to be living on the moon to not know what a disaster the "War On Drugs" has been. Twenty billion dollars a year for the last 30 years, two million Americans in prison -- 60% of them non-violent drug offenders -- and you can go out on any American street corner and buy cheaper, higher quality heroin and cocaine than you could anywhere in America 30 years ago. The political expediency of "get tough on crime" along with the sure-fire vote getting "lock them up and throw away the key" mentality has successfully created the highly profitable Prison Industrial Complex.

On Saturday, I asked a corrections officer at Sing Sing what the prisoner population in New York State is right now. "Just over 50,000," she replied. Then, it occurred to me: When I was imprisoned for drug offenses in the 1970s, the entire Federal Prison population totaled just over 50,000 inmates. Then the C.O. added that, when she started her career in corrections 20 years ago, there were 23 prisons in New York State. As I write this today, there are over 60!

Crime stats have stayed consistent over the last 30 years, but incarceration rates have more than quadrupled. It's the human cost that has been the most damaging. I'm talking about non-violent drug offenders. Countless families broken up, the marriages destroyed, three generations of kids with fathers (and mothers) in and out of the system. These are mostly brown and black people. People from America's cities who, as screenwriter David Simon describes them, "Leftover people. People who were necessary in an industrial America but who are of no use to the economy today." Non-violent drug offenders who are locked up are people who are pawns in urban political gamesmanship. Nobody talks about them. There's no political will to look at it. There's no political capital in it. It's a no-winner. But, there's certainly money in prison building and guard hiring.

Out here in California, the prison guards union is one of the most powerful political lobbies in the state. I don't have any naive ideas about this changing anytime soon. Make no mistake, though, this situation is a crime against humanity. Government should be helping, but it's not. Instead, it has created a self-fulfilling monster that eats humans whose judgment has been, at one time in their lives, critically flawed and then the monster shits out profit and political gain.

What I can do as an artist is the same thing you can do as a friend and neighbor -- stand up. Speak out. Get involved.

At Sing Sing, I talked to men who had been locked up for eight, 10, 17, 30 years but had somehow managed to hold on to hope. Men who sang along with Billy Bragg on Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" still had hopes and dreams. Their spirit was strong. I doubt any of them ever heard of the MC5 or Jane's Addiction or Audioslave, but it didn't matter one bit. They all connected with the music. What mattered was they knew, by our simple presence, that not everyone has thrown them away. I certainly haven't. Neither have all the musicians who went with me to this historic visit. Not everyone in this country believes in the Draconian approach to drug enforcement that has been the status quo for the last 30 years.

Kudos to Gov. Paterson and the NY Dept. of Corrections for inviting us in. Maybe other governors will start to wake up to the economic and human disaster that is their failed policy. Maybe Barack Obama can step up and bring justice and reason to one of our nation's greatest failures.

Handsome Dick wrote to me the following day, "Seeing those prisoners slowly shuffle back through that door, and go back to jail, got to me. Can't stop thinking about it. And me being free... and... how much I appreciate everything I have." Tru dat, Richard.

Yesterday's HuffPost ran the headline "White House Czar Calls For End to War On Drugs." Sounds good. Now let's see who steps up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-kramer/my-return-to-prison-views_b_204077.html?view=print

Posted by lois at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2009

Radio interview with Tina Reynolds of WORTH and Chandra Villanueva of Women's Prison Assoc. on WPA report on prison nusuries

Chandra Villanueva, the author of the Women’s Prison Association (WPA) talks about a new report on prison nursery programs and Tina Reynolds, founder of Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH), who spoke about her thoughts on the report and her personal experience with having a child while incarcerated. A link to the Report: "Mothers, Infants and Imprisonment" is below.
http://livesinfocus.org/prison/2009/05/13/listen-live-prison-nursery-report/

Link to the paper:
http://www.wpaonline.org/pdf/Mothers%20Infants%20and%20Imprisonment%202009.pdf

Posted by lois at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

Black prison population in Iowa could grow--now 2% of population and 24 % of prisoners

Black prison population in Iowa could grow

By MIKE GLOVER | Associated Press Writer
May 14, 2009
Chicago Tribune
DES MOINES, Iowa - Blacks continue to be incarcerated in Iowa prisons at a number far out of proporation to their overall population in the state, and that disparity is expected to grow over the next 10 years, state prison officials were told Wednesday.

The state began to study the racial breakdown of prison inmates under former Gov. Tom Vilsack, and that initial study found that 24 percent of the state's prison beds are occupied by blacks who make up roughly 2 percent of the population.

The Iowa Board of Corrections was told that those numbers remain unchanged as of last year but are expected to grow.

"The projections are that the percent of African-Americans in prison will slightly increase over the next 10 years," said Lettie Prell, research director for the Iowa Department of Corrections. She said tougher penalties for crimes like robbery will likely lead to the increase.

Prell also said there is a disparity in sentencing practices when sentences are measured by race.

She said 48.3 percent of blacks convicted of serious drug charges receive prison time, compared to 36.5 percent of whites. That same disparity is seen throughout the range of felony drug cases.

Looking at the correctional population as a whole, just over 20 percent of whites in the corrections system are in prison or confined in community facilities, while nearly 40 percent of blacks in the corrections system are in prison or confined in community facilities.

"On the whole, incarceration rates for African-Americans is higher than for whites for the various types of crimes," Prell said.

Prell said studies have shown a broad array of social and economic forces account for the disparity in prison population.

"They go way beyond the scope of corrections itself," she said.

Prell said corrections officials have launched pilot projects in Waterloo and Des Moines that begin before an inmate is released and are designed to closely supervise inmates and offer a variety of counseling programs. Early results are encouraging, though a tight state budget has reduced available funding for those efforts, she said.

"We're doing what we can to grow those initiatives," Prell said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-blacks-prisons,0,4971654.story

Posted by lois at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

May 13, 2009

Justice Policy Institute: 2010 Department of Justice Budget Likely to Increase Incarceration in U.S.

2010 Department of Justice Budget Likely to Increase Incarceration in U.S.
Overspending in law enforcement, prisons and under-spending in prevention, treatment and communities won’t yield long term improvements, will cause increased costs for states
May 13, 2009

WASHINGTON—The President’s Department of Justice (DOJ) budget will likely lead to growing incarceration rates, according to an analysis by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), a Washington, D.C.-based public policy organization. JPI’s analysis of the budgets released by the Administration late last week points to increases in spending for law enforcement and decreases in juvenile justice expenditures – what research says is the opposite of what is needed to have a long term impact on public safety and the number of people incarcerated in the United States.

Fact sheet at- http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/09-05_FAC_FY2010%20Budget%20Factsheet_PS.pdf

“Police serve an important role in the United States, but overpolicing can be just as problematic as underpolicing,” said Tracy Velázquez, executive director of JPI. “What we have seen is that the more money spent on law enforcement, the more people are arrested for nonviolent drug offenses. This results in millions of dollars in incarceration costs for states, with little impact on public safety or, for that matter, rates of illicit drug use.”

JPI observed that the Administration itself recognizes that increased law enforcement leads to increased incarceration: the DOJ budget includes funding for two new federal prisons and 1,000 new contracted (private) prison beds. Currently, half of the people locked up in federal prisons were convicted of a drug offense. Velázquez indicated that the lack of investment in juvenile justice programs was especially troubling.

“Back in 2002 we spent over $546 million on programs to prevent and address youth delinquency. Unfortunately, this Administration is choosing to keep juvenile justice funding at the levels of the last eight years – their 2010 budget is less than 60 percent of the 2002 budget, not even taking inflation into account. Getting and keeping kids on the right track is a proven way to improve public safety, and it means more kids going on to become responsible adults that contribute to their communities and the economy.”

JPI did laud the Administration for their investment in the Second Chance Act, a program that provides services for people re-entering the community from prison. JPI noted that the majority of people released from prison are re-arrested within three years; by improving their chances of success, states stand to reduce their incarceration rates substantially. However, Velázquez remarked, “We can’t just focus on ‘re-entry,’ we need to invest in ’no-entry’ policies – those that will keep people out of prison in the first place.”

Recommendations to the Administration and Congress focus on investing in programs and policies that have been shown to have positive and long-lasting effects on individuals and communities. These programs include: community-based substance abuse and mental health treatment; evidence-based prevention programs for youth; employment, job skills, and education resources for underserved communities; diversion programs that keep people from entering the corrections system; and re-entry services for people leaving the criminal justice system.

“We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with little to no evidence that these increasing rates are improving public safety,” said Velázquez. “We can’t arrest and incarcerate our way to public safety. We hope the Administration takes a harder look at where they want to spend their money. While politicians may think that ratcheting up law enforcement spending is politically popular, it may not be the best investment if the goal is to build safer, healthier communities rather than more prisons.”

Posted by lois at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)

NJ: New state initiative seeks to reduce prison overcrowding

New state initiative seeks to reduce prison overcrowding
by Chris Megerian/The Star-Ledger
May 10, 2009

After five months in prison for dealing drugs, Nashon James was going straight.

He cut hair at his mother's barbershop, tried making money on eBay and even joined a bowling league.

But James' past caught up with him. After smoking pot with friends on New Year's Eve, he said he began using cocaine and within months was struggling with a full-blown addiction.

"I just came to a hump in the road that I couldn't get over," said James, 29, of Ridgefield Park.

After breaking his parole by failing a drug test, James is back in a cell.

But he's not in prison. Along with a few dozen New Jersey parole violators, James is locked up in a special program intended to divert low-risk parolees away from jail and back into society.

State Parole Board officials say it's the first of its kind in the nation.

"We have to take full credit for this one," said Director of Community Programs Lenny Ward. "This is a New Jersey initiative."

The idea is to take technical parole violators -- people who haven't committed a new crime but may have failed a drug test or missed a meeting -- and house them for 15 to 30 days at secure facilities run by a private company, Community Education Centers, in Newark or Trenton.

Officials hope the program, which can house 45 parole violators at a time, will help the state avoid $14 million in incarceration costs in the coming budget year.

In New Jersey, the overwhelming majority of parolees returning to prison each year -- about 85 percent of almost 3,000 -- committed technical violations, not new crimes. Lowering that number would help take a bite out of prison overcrowding at a time when state prisons have about 5,500 more inmates than what they were designed for.

Like other states, New Jersey struggles with the high rate of ex-offenders returning to prison. Of the 14,000 inmates released each year, 65 percent are back behind bars within five years.

Jeff Mellow, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that's changing how people view minor parole violations.

"There has been a shift across the country due to the high costs of incarcerations, prison overcrowding, and a new emphasis on rehabilitation that makes us rethink this whole notion of 'zero tolerance,'" Mellow said. "Everyone is realizing that they can no longer incarcerate their way out of this problem."

For several years, New Jersey has used a system of "graduated sanctions," in which parole officers have more options than simply returning their offenders to prison. Parolees who have not committed a new crime can receive increased supervision, electronic monitoring or substance abuse treatment. As a result, the number of technical violators returning to prison dropped 37 percent from 2001 to 2008.

The Residential Assessment Centers, which opened last summer, use the same concept. According to state officials, 46 percent of technical violators who passed through the centers returned to prison, compared with 81 percent who did not. A total of 810 parolees were diverted from prison as of February, saving more than $2 million.

That doesn't mean the program is cheap. The state has already spent $4.51 million on it and is expected to fork over another $3.786 million in the budget year that begins July 1.

But parole officials say that money will pay dividends, as more parolees receive the attention they need to get their lives back on track.

"Every day that the person is not in county jail or in a state prison, New Jersey basically saves money," Ward said.

One of those parolees is Khalil Muhammad, who was released from jail in October after serving a year for drug possession.

Muhammad was working at a home improvement company for six months when he moved out his brother's home and into his own place. But he made one mistake: He didn't tell his parole officer that he was moving.

Muhammad was arrested and brought to Delaney Hall in Newark. But he said it's better than prison.

"You can't even compare this to prison," said Muhammad, 47, of Elizabeth. "This is like a hotel compared to prison. You got murderers in there. You got thieves. You got rapists."

Muhammad and other parolees are housed in a separate section of the facility. Behind green doors, they sleep in bunk beds with white bedding, surrounded by white cinderblocks. Motivational posters hanging in other parts of the building read, "Risk being optimistic."

There's no simple way to determine whether a parolee at one of these centers will commit another crime if released. Staff members question them on their criminal history, job status, living arrangements and mental health.

Hoping to be back on the street as soon as possible, parolees are generally on their best behavior during their assessment, said clinician Cathy Velazquez.

"A lot of times, they want to talk about what went wrong and how they can fix it," she said.

Muhammad said he has no interest in going back to crime.

"My mother told me I could put a suit on or I could be a gangster. My mother told me that when I was about 18," he said. "I should have listened to her."

He said he has a good lead on a job if he gets out: working on the planned commuter rail tunnel between New Jersey and New York.

For parolees like James, the struggle to live within the law is ongoing.

A tattoo on his forearm reads "Valentino," after silent-film star and sex symbol Rudolph Valentino.

It's his street name, a reminder of his drug dealing, womanizing alter ego -- and an identity James said he no longer wants.

"When I go out with my friends, I got to turn into something completely different," he said. "I just want to be me."
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/new_state_initiative_seeks_to.html

Posted by lois at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

Congressional Black Caucus Justice and Civil Rights Taskforce and Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School presents Rethinking Federal Sentencing Policy: 25th Anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act.

Congressional Black Caucus Justice and Civil Rights Taskforce and Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School presents Rethinking Federal Sentencing Policy: 25th Anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act.
Start: 2009/06/24 - 4:00pm
End: 2009/06/24 - 7:00pm
Schedule:

Welcome and Opening remarks by
Rep. Danny Davis (5 minutes)
Rep. Charles Rangel (5 minutes)

Welcome and Introduction of A.G. by CBC Justice & Civil Rights Task Force, Rep. John Conyers (5-10 minutes)

Remarks by Eric Holder, Attorney General (15 minutes), U.S. Department of Justice

Introduction of Justice O’Connor by Sen. Patrick Leahy, Charles Hamilton Houston, Institute for Race & Justice (5 minutes)

Remarks by Hon. Sandra Day O’Connor (15 minutes), Supreme Court of the United States

Mandatory Minimums
Panel One: Rep Maxine Waters (CA) History of Mandatory Minimums

Hon. Terry Hatter, Judge, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Hon. J. Spencer Letts, Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Eric Sterling, President, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
Charles E. Black, formerly Incarcerated

Panel Two: Rep. Bobby Scott (VA) the need for repeal and how to repeal, including legislative update

Hon. Ann Williams, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit
A.J. Kramer, Federal Defender, Federal Public Defender of the District of Columbia
Julie Stewart, President, Families Against Mandatory Minimums

Disparity between Crack and Powder Cocaine
Panel Three: Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX)

Hon. Reggie B. Walton, Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Hon. William Sessions, Vice Chairman, U.S. Sentencing Commission
Brace Nicholson, Legislative Counsel, American Bar Association
David Kirby, Former United States Attorney for the District of Vermont

Good Time

Panel Four: Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL)

Hon. Consuelo B. Marshall, Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for Central District of California
Nancy Gertner, Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Marc Mauer, Executive Director, Sentencing Project
Harley G. Lappin, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Discuss overcrowding)
U.S. House of Representatives -- Committee on Ways and Means
1100 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC
United States

Posted by lois at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2009

States expand videoconferencing in prisons

"Relying on technology to keep inmates behind bars makes them “disappear more and more from the public consciousness, and I think there’s a (negative) long-term consequence of that,” said Nancy Stoller, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz and the coordinator of a jail and prison task force at the American Public Health Association."

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
States expand videoconferencing in prisons
By John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Faced with the high costs of transporting and escorting sick inmates to the doctor, states are expanding their use of videoconferencing to provide health consultations to prisoners without resorting to costly — and sometimes dangerous — off-site trips.

Illinois is considering joining at least 26 other states that use “telemedicine” to help sick prisoners get advice from doctors, according to Derek Schnapp, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections. State prison officials recently met with their counterparts from Texas — which has been using telemedicine for years and is considered a national leader — to discuss whether it should be introduced in Illinois, Schnapp said.

Elsewhere, videoconferencing in prisons and jails is replacing inmates’ in-person trips to the courtroom or parole board, and even the way family members visit.

Supporters say the technology saves money when few states have funds to spare; Arizona, for instance, saved $237,000 in 2008 by using telemedicine at nine correctional facilities, according to the state Department of Corrections. But some have criticized the expansion of videoconferencing.

Relying on technology to keep inmates behind bars makes them “disappear more and more from the public consciousness, and I think there’s a (negative) long-term consequence of that,” said Nancy Stoller, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz and the coordinator of a jail and prison task force at the American Public Health Association.

Telemedicine is not a new invention, but experts say the recession could drive more states to consider it. Many of those that already rely on telemedicine, meanwhile, are using it for a wider range of purposes.

In Georgia, about 700 of the state prison system’s 1,000 monthly videoconference consultations between doctors and inmates are for psychiatric — not physical — problems, said Alan Adams, director of the Office of Health Services for the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Adams said he is surprised at how popular “telepsychiatry” — as the practice is called — has proven among doctors and inmates alike. Prisoners who might otherwise have reservations about face-to-face psychiatric evaluations, Adams said, tend to speak more openly when they are connected to doctors through a video link.

“It takes some of the personal nature of the contact away and allows the inmate to be more open and free,” Adams said, predicting that more states will use telepsychiatry.

Telemedicine and telepsychiatry work by letting inmates and doctors communicate with each other using interactive, real-time audio and video links.

The practice — which has been praised by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care — is most often used for consultation, not treatment. Doctors, for example, can check up on inmates after they have had surgery and recommend further action. On-site nurses usually assist the doctors by employing stethoscopes, taking inmates’ blood pressure and carrying out other in-person tasks.

Cost savings can be especially significant when inmates are located in rural prisons that can be hundreds of miles away from specialists. A 2006 California legislative audit, meanwhile, noted that telemedicine also can save taxpayer money because it allows a larger pool of medical providers — not just those in the vicinity of a state prison — to compete for state contracts.

Many states also are using videoconferencing to avoid transporting prisoners to court for arraignments and other initial appearances, according to Greg Hurley, an analyst with the National Center for State Courts, which researches court trends across the nation. Parole hearings also can be conducted by videoconference.

Connecticut last year finished installing videoconferencing equipment at all 18 of its state correctional facilities and the state’s court system is studying ways to expand the practice. The state’s corrections commissioner, Theresa Lantz, noted that videoconferencing saves the state money it would otherwise have to spend on vehicles, gasoline, correctional officers and overtime.

Illinois and other states also are looking at videoconferencing to let prisoners talk with family members who might not be able to make the trip to visit them in person.

Four states — Florida, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin — recently have changed their laws to allow so-called “virtual visitation” as an option in family court, allowing some divorced parents to “visit” their children using Skype and other video communications programs. Now, there is a growing push among prisoner advocates to allow virtual visitation for those behind bars as well.

The Pennsylvania Prison Society, a nonprofit advocacy group, has partnered with the state Department of Corrections since 2001 to allow inmates’ families to come to the organization’s offices and speak on a video link with their loved ones serving time. A 55-minute session costs the family $20, according to the group’s Web site.

While virtual visitation has primarily been hailed for making visitations between inmates and their families easier, some state officials see savings for the taxpayer as well.

When family members don’t come to visit inmates in prison, “that’s one less person that has to be searched. That’s one less person you need to use full-time staff to keep an eye on during visitation,” said Michael Nail, deputy director of the corrections division for the Georgia Department of Corrections. In addition, Nail said, videoconferencing reduces the possibility that contraband material — such as drugs or weapons — will find its way into prison.

Indeed, concerns about public safety have played a major role in the expansion of videoconferencing behind bars. That is particularly true in states that have seen correctional officers, medical professionals or others assaulted — or even killed — during inmate trips away from prison.

In June 2007, for example, a 27-year-old white supremacist doing time at the Utah State Prison stole a gun from a 60-year-old correctional officer who was overseeing him during a trip to a Salt Lake City medical center for an MRI. The inmate, Curtis Allgier, killed the officer before being tracked down and arrested by the authorities at a city fast-food restaurant.

The incident — which rocked Utah and made national headlines — resulted in a series of changes in the Utah’s correctional facilities, said Angie Welling, a spokeswoman with the state corrections department. Utah State Prison now offers MRIs and dialysis on site, and the state has expanded its use of telemedicine to cover specialized areas of medicine: cardiology, dermatology, obstetrics and orthopedics. The aim is to cut down on potentially deadly trips to the hospital.

“It’s sad to think that something of that tragic nature is necessary to kick-start some of these initiatives,” Welling said.

But the proliferation of videoconferencing equipment in prisons and jails has not come without criticism.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a state workers’ union, has criticized Illinois officials for considering using telemedicine — which may cut down on the need for correctional officers in some settings. “At face value, we don’t believe telemedicine in prison settings is a good idea,” an AFSCME spokesman told the Quad-City Times.

Others have questioned the long-term implications of using videoconferencing for health care and other purposes. Stoller, the University of California-Santa Cruz professor, questioned whether the quality of care offered through telemedicine consultations compares to seeing a doctor in person.
Expanded videoconferencing could have long-term consequences on prisoners’ mental health and their ability to interact effectively with others, she said.
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=399298

Posted by lois at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

Life Sentence for Juveniles?

May 12, 2009
Letter to the Editor, NY Times
Life Sentence for Juveniles?

To the Editor:

Re “Justices Agree to Take Up Life-Without-Parole Sentences for Young Offenders” (news article, May 5):

There are currently almost 2,500 people serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed before age 18. Fifty-nine percent received their sentences for their first-ever criminal conviction. Sixteen percent were between 13 and 15 when they committed their crimes, and 26 percent were sentenced under a felony murder charge where their offenses did not involve carrying a weapon or pulling a trigger.

Our society recognizes that juveniles differ from adults in their thinking, reasoning and decision-making capacities. Research also demonstrates that adolescents actually use their brains in fundamentally different ways from adults. As a result, they are more likely to act on impulse, without fully considering the consequences of their actions.

This fall, the Supreme Court will decide if juvenile offenders should be eligible for life without parole. One hopes they will concur with the growing public sentiment that it’s time to stop sentencing young people to die in jail.

David Fassler
Burlington, Vt., May 5, 2009

The writer is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinio/l12juvenile.html?ref=opinion

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

NY: AFTER 'ROCK' REFORM: WHAT HAPPENS TO REHAB?

AFTER 'ROCK' REFORM: WHAT HAPPENS TO REHAB?
Expanded drug courts and holistic re-entry planning are under discussion, along with up to 3,000 more slots for addiction treatment.
By Casey Samulski
City Limits WEEKLY #686
May 11, 2009

Now that New York state's Rockefeller drug laws have been reformed, mandatory prison sentences no longer come with convictions for any but the highest level of non-violent offenders found guilty of drug possession. Now judges can send drug addicts who would have gone to prison to treatment programs instead. Viewing addiction more often as an affliction rather than a crime – better treated through rehabilitation than confinement – will mean a stream of new clients at drug rehab centers, which are planning for the influx.

Under the reforms, an additional 1,000 to 2,000 offenders per year could be diverted from prison to drug treatment, raising questions around the state about how to handle the increased caseload. Gov. Paterson recently announced the creation of a group called ACTION – the Addictions Collaborative to Improve Outcomes for New York – a council of commissioners from 20 state agencies as well as the nonprofit and private sectors. Its mandate is to identify “ways in which statutes, regulations, rules and policies may be revised in order to promote addiction prevention, treatment and recovery efforts.”

Accompanying the planning group is an additional $50 million appropriation for treatment to be disbursed through the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS,) which regulates and certifies all operating drug treatment centers in the state. Over 1,500 certified treatment centers work with an estimated 110,000 New Yorkers every day. The state currently spends close to $2 billion annually – across a number of agencies – on substance abuse, treatment, and recovery, and the new funding is an addition to OASAS’ current $713 million budget. The $50 million will be distributed over the next three years to help build and improve residential and outpatient capacity, to help treatment networks to meet the increased demand that's anticipated.

OASAS Commissioner Karen Carpenter-Palumbo praised the changes to the Rockefeller laws, congratulating the governor in an interview for “leading the country,” calling the changes a “landmark reform.” Carpenter-Palumbo expressed confidence that the additional funding would cover increased use of the treatment system, saying, “I’m confident we have the resources we need to make it real.”

While recidivism for those who successfully finish a course of treatment is on average far lower than for those who have been imprisoned, the commissioner called addiction “a chronic illness.”

“There is no magic bullet,” she said. “Some people do relapse.”

It is organizations like Phoenix House that will be recipients of the additional funding. Phoenix House is a network of treatment centers spread across nine states, including New York. It runs more than 120 programs for drug and alcohol treatment and prevention and serves about 7,000 individuals every day, treating everyone from adolescents to the homeless; in New York alone it serves 2,400 individuals per day.

Norwig Debye-Saxinger, vice president and director of public policy and government relations at the New York office, said it's too early to tell what effect the changed policies will have on his organization. Of the increased funding, he said, "Percentage-wise it’s not a big increase, but it’s hard to tell how many additional people will be diverted.” Debye-Saxinger has heard estimates ranging from as few as 600 to as many as 3,000 additional offenders entering treatment.

As rehab facilities acclimate, OASAS may be urged to consider temporarily waiving space regulations to help increase capacity faster. “The only regulations that might need tweaking are the physical plant standards that require a certain square footage per client,” he said, suggesting that returning to the lower standard from before 2002 would help build additional treatment space faster.

Working in an advisory capacity to ACTION will be the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, who help in the training, startup, and organization of drug courts across the country. Judge John Schwartz, founder of New York’s first drug court in Rochester and former chairman of the drug court association's board, reached out to the governor to be a part of the council in helping with ACTION. Schwartz says that while New York has a drug court for every county – one of the largest systems in the country – he anticipated that his group would be advocating to improve and expand the drug court system. “Everyone who fits the criteria should be given the opportunity” to be assessed for treatment, he said.

Drug courts function as the intermediary between the criminal justice system and the drug treatment network, strategizing side by side with treatment professionals to determine the best course of action for those diverted from prison. “It’s not the normal courtroom that one thinks of,” Schwartz said. “It’s really a treatment court. Treatment services are provided right through the court system.”

Schwartz said increasing the capacity of the drug court system, making more courts, making them larger, and thus making them able to divert more people from prison would actually save the state money. “It costs about $6,000 for a drug court placement compared to $30,000 for staying in prison,” he explained.

Dr. David Deitch, senior vice president and chief clinical officer of Phoenix House, explained his concerns for those in need of treatment but already imprisoned. He called the Rockefeller reforms “enlightened legislation” but warned that the effort could be “tossed on its rear end if indeed people are released and commit crimes simply because they are returning to a lifestyle of drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior.”

Deitch was adamant that a part of preventing this sort of cycle would be treatment options for those nearing the end of their sentence. He said, “Providers like Phoenix ought to be given the opportunity to case manage those who are due for release" – thus helping an individual re-enter society and deal with issues like welfare, mental health, employment, housing, and family reunification.

This is the sort of cooperation with the prison system that Deitch and others would like to see expanded even further by the ACTION council, particularly for those individuals who may achieve retroactive release if their crimes fall under the guidelines for a diversionary treatment program. The transition of taking people out of prison and into treatment can be a difficult one, he said. “Most offenders after years in prison are not interested in being committed to a mental health program.”

Deitch is not the only one thinking long-term. When discussing aftercare and case management, Commissioner Carpenter-Palumbo made it clear that effective drug treatment was a long and involved process. “The science tells us that after any treatment involvement, the person has to maintain contact [with the program] for at least one year, many even longer. The reason they say 'one day at a time' is that it is truly one day at a time.”

- Casey Samulski

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

U.K.: Prison Radio Shines

Media
Prison Radio Shines
Parmy Olson, 05.11.09, 12:35 PM ET

LONDON--Johnny Cash made a mint when he recorded part of his 1968 album At Folsom Prison amidst the whoops and shouts of a roomful of inmates. Today's entertainment for prisoners is a more sobering affair: interviews with politicians, hard-hitting programs about suicide and self-harming. But it too is finding success.

A tiny prison radio station in South London is up for four prestigious Sony awards on Monday night, putting it alongside the some of the top talent of the BBC and other commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom.

Electric Radio in Brixton Prison is run by the Prison Radio Association, a British charity, and broadcasts to just 800 inmates--but it has a rich array of programming. Weekly discussion programs about taboo subjects such as self-harming, mental and sexual health and the prison environment are mixed in with a daily dose of editorials and of course, music. The studio is located under the prison chapel and manned by inmates.

Its nominations include an award for talk radio and the all-important Interview Award. For this, one of Brixton Prison's inmates interviewed former U.K. government minister Jonathan Aitken, who was sentenced to 18 months in Belmarsh prison in 1999 for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

The interviewer was half-way through a four-year sentence when he conducted the interview, and the two men were "socially, culturally and educationally poles apart," the Prison Radio Association says. But while Aitken comes across as well-spoken and slightly pompous, Tis' is not afraid to ask probing questions, creating an intriguing interview in which Aitken opens up about his divorce, bankruptcy and experiences in jail. The interview can be listened to here.

Brixton is one of 20 prisons in the U.K. that operate its own radio station or offers training in the area. The first was established in the Feltham Young Offenders Institution in 1994 by the Prison Radio Association when its young inmates called for its establishment. The organization got legal charitable status in June 2006.

There is as yet no clear evidence that prison radio contributes to rehabilitation, but Electric Radio Brixon, launched in November 2007, claims it is a useful source of information for prisoners with literacy problems and does help with rehabilitation.

The Prison Radio Association says it is working on the development of a National Prison Radio Service, with the potential to eventually reach every prisoner in England and Wales.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/11/prison-radio-brixton-markets-faces-media_print.html

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

May 11, 2009

MI: Robert Scott Women's Prison to Close

Women's prison to close Sunday to save state money

BY CECIL ANGEL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • May 10, 2009

The Robert Scott Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Northville Township, is to close May 17 as part of the state's cost-savings measures, meaning dozens of jobs will leave the township.

But the closure also could mean a boost in property taxes for the township after the land is sold and owned privately.

Township officials say they would like to be included in meetings about the future of the prison, which will be turned over to the real estate division of the state Office of Management and Budget.

For now, the township collects only $10,000 annually from the state in lieu of taxes to provide fire protection for the prison and the 1-square-mile Maybury Park, the other state-owned property in the township, Northville Township Manager Chip Snider said.

The 35-acre prison property is well-placed near freeways. The township's appraiser said that if the area was zoned commercial, real estate could go for about $150,000 an acre, and if it is zoned residential, it would be priced at $50,000 an acre.

By the end of the month, the facility will be mothballed and the last of the staff reassigned to other prisons, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. The 880 inmates are being moved to the former Huron Valley Complex-Men in Ypsilanti, and will be out of the facility by May 17.

"It's on schedule," Marlan said.

Snider said he expects calls from people interested in buying the property, which is in the Beck Road and 5 Mile area.

The former 414-acre Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital closed in July 2003 and was sold for $31.5 million to Real Estate Interests Group Inc. Northville in 2005. The township is in talks to buy 332 acres.

Township officials have no specific zoning plans for the prison site but Snider says it's likely that it will be zoned commercial.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090510/NEWS02/905100536/1004/NEWS02/Women+s+prison+to+close+Sunday+to+save+state+money+

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

Florida prison becomes faith-based penitentiary

By Lois K. Solomon | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 11, 2009

Belle Glade - Glades Correctional Institution's 1,390 inmates have faith.

State prison officials hope to tap into that faith to boost morale, improve prisoner rehabilitation and minimize the immense boredom of life behind bars.

On Tuesday, the Palm Beach County prison becomes South Florida's first faith- and character-based penitentiary.

"Guys need programs and other things to do instead of running around in the rec yard all day," said Jerry Gary, 44, a Pompano Beach man serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and sexual battery.

Florida is the only state with prisons focused exclusively on faith and character. The program started at Lawtey Correctional Institution in 2003. It expanded to Hillsborough Correctional Institutional in 2004 and Wakulla Correctional Institution in 2006. Twenty-one states have or are developing faith dormitories, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kathy Conner said.

Corrections officials say they expect the expansion of the program to Glades will help lower the rate at which prisoners return to prison. According to the state, 32.8 percent of released inmates return to prison within three years. Florida's rate is better than the national rate of 50 percent to 66 percent, depending on the study.

At Florida's other faith- and character-based institutions, the rate of return is even lower: 10 percent or below, according to preliminary state statistics. However, "the data is not mature enough to make any conclusions at this time," according to the Department of Corrections Web site.

Prison staff members and inmates say they are thrilled by the coming changes, but some criminologists and church and state observers are hesitant. They say states across the country are investing in faith-based prisons even though they have not proved to be more effective.

"It's a topic that's getting increasingly more attention, but there isn't much research to support them," said Daniel Mears, a Florida State University criminology professor. "The programs are likely to have better outcomes because any prisoner who is volunteering is likely willing to do the work …"

Glades inmates were given the choice of participating in the nondenominational program or being moved to another prison. Those accepted had to have good disciplinary records and promise to attend their programs, which include meetings and counseling, at least once a week after work.

About 10,000 of the state's nearly 98,000 prisoners are on waiting lists for the faith- and character-based prisons and seven faith-based and self-improvement dorms in traditional prisons.

The Florida programs depend on volunteers and there is no cost to the state. State employees are not allowed to teach the faith programs, a rule intended to guard against religious coercion by the government, Glades Warden Robert Shannon said.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is closely watching the growth of Florida's faith-based prisons, an attorney for the organization said. It successfully sued the state of Iowa for allowing Prison Fellowship Ministries to supervise a prisoner unit; the suit also alleged discrimination against inmates who did not subscribe to its evangelical theology.

"When prisons start linking where inmates live to religious programs, that's where serious constitutional issues arise," said Alex Luchenitser, an Americans United attorney. "The question is, 'Are inmates being given incentives to enroll in a prison with a religious environment?'"

James Wilson attended a Christian fellowship meeting last week at Glades and gave the program a thumbs up. Wilson, 43, is scheduled for release in November after a 2006 conviction for lewd behavior and indecent assault on a child.

"I thought it would be a good idea for the betterment of guys going back into society," he said.

Rabbi Menachem Katz, director of prison outreach for the Surfside-based Aleph Institute, said he hopes the transformation leads to improvements for Glades' Jewish prisoners. Katz and volunteers visit and send gifts to about 15 Glades inmates. He said he hopes the new program makes the staff more amenable to allowing Jews to have Sabbath services Friday evenings instead of afternoons. Prison officials restrict gatherings among some inmates after dark.

"Now that there is a faith-based prison in South Florida, we hope we can get more rabbis and Jewish volunteers to visit Jewish inmates," Katz said.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/corrections/sfl-glades-correctional-faith-p0.ar0pnmay11,0,3144790.story

Posted by lois at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

IA: New Maximum Security Prison--A new vision" ?

Penitentiary will express Iowa's vision for its prisons
ROX LAIRD May 10, 2009
Des Moines Register

One of Iowa's largest building projects was authorized with a single sentence in a legislative spending bill last year: "For the costs associated with the building of a new Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison: $130,677,500."

The details of what that new penitentiary should look like were left up to the people who run Iowa's prisons. That may not be unusual for major state projects, but this is not an ordinary building.

This project could have a major role in shaping state prison policy and the lives of inmates for generations to come. Iowa has built only one fully maximum-security prison in the past 170 years. Given how long this institution has lasted, it is important that Iowa get it right in designing a replacement. Done right, it could be a model for other Iowa prisons.

The Iowa State Penitentiary is no ordinary prison. Unlike the eight other prisons with minimum- and medium-security levels, The Fort is an exclusively maximum-security facility. It houses the toughest cases, men with records of violence who are difficult to manage and pose the greatest escape risk. These inmates - a fourth of whom have serious mental-health issues - require intensive supervision. Some are serving very long sentences. Some who are serving life sentences will die there.

This prison should be designed, equipped and staffed in a way that provides a humane, secure and safe environment for all inmates and staff, of course. But it also should provide the proper environment and opportunities for those criminal convicts who will return to society to benefit from their time spent in the institution.

Thus, designing a new penitentiary is a rare opportunity to work from a clean slate and to create a maximum-security prison that could allow for fundamental changes in how inmates are housed, managed and presumably reformed.

The planning process is now under way. Fifteen teams of state prison workers and corrections officials are meeting with national corrections consultants and architectural firms. Those discussions will result in a written "program," which will describe how the facility will be used, from guard-prisoner interaction to how meals will be served. This is the most important part of the process because the program details will dictate the physical design and ultimately how the prison functions.

Old prison is inefficient, has been very dangerous

Whatever form the new penitentiary takes, it will be dramatically different from the current prison, which has occupied the same site on the west bank of the Mississippi River since 1839, seven years before Iowa became a state. Though the penitentiary has been expanded, renovated and modernized many times over the past century and three quarters, the original building - Cell House 17 - is still standing, though it no longer is used to house inmates.

Photographs from the turn of the century show inmates in long rows of barred cells, which are little changed from the cells used today. The stacked cell "ranges" - up to four levels of stone-walled boxes of roughly 50 square feet, with barred doors enclosing the open end - make management difficult, because guards cannot monitor inmates inside their cells without physically making rounds. Inmates move throughout the prison complex for all activities, whether it be for meals, classes, exercise in the yard or work details. This is not only staff-intensive, but dangerous.

At one point, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was some question whether the institution was run by inmate gangs or the guards. A riot in 1981 left one inmate dead and caused $1 million in damage, and the prison was put under federal court supervision for several years after a court ruling that conditions were "cruel and unusual."

Another wake-up call came in 1997, when a federal court ordered the state to provide better care for seriously mentally ill inmates confined to what was known as the "bug range," for the howling and banging inmates who threw feces and urine out their cell doors.

Although conditions have improved dramatically, two prisoners managed to escape four years ago by slipping away from a work detail and, taking advantage of a vacant guard tower, made their way over the wall. They were eventually apprehended, but the incident nonetheless shocked state leaders. The warden was replaced, and several major structural and procedural changes were made.
Design will determine how guards, prisoners interact

The impetus for replacing the penitentiary altogether came from a 2007 consultant's study of the state's overall correctional system, which also led to creation of a new system of classification that more precisely identified how many inmates belong in the maximum-security institution. Besides needing a huge investment in structural and mechanical improvements, the consultant concluded that a new prison would be far more secure and efficient to operate. State corrections officials have picked a site just north of the existing penitentiary near two prison farms operated by the institution.

There is much more to planning a new prison than arranging cells and guard towers, of course. Inside the walls of the Fort Madison prison is a Prison Industries plant, where inmates make and refinish furniture, a hobby-crafts shop and a small factory where cabinets and modular components are made for Habitat for Humanity home-building organizations in Iowa. There are classrooms for earning GED diplomas, space for treatment of drug and alcohol abusers and sex offenders, a library, a gymnasium and an outdoor exercise yard with baseball diamonds, tennis courts and weight-training equipment.

Those facilities are integral to the lives and rehabilitation of inmates. Just how they will be duplicated in the new prison is critical.

Also critical is a decision about how the inmates will be housed and managed by guards. State corrections officials envision a "pod" design, in which cells are clustered around common areas, where all meals are served and classes held without having to move inmates from place to place. This allows guards to directly interact with inmates and to see into all cells.

Beyond general concepts, prison officials are working on precise details of how the new prison should operate. Ultimately, these decisions will dictate not just how the prison is designed but how it functions, and more important, how it works for the lives of inmates.

There are many factors that dictate how effective prison will be for inmates, and the condition and operation of prisons is one important factor. Just as design of any building is an expression of the builder's vision, a new prison will be an expression of the state of Iowa for what it hopes to accomplish with the new penitentiary.
___
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090510/OPINION03/905100317/-1/OPI NION05&hl=en%3E

Posted by lois at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

CA: Obama's Budget includes $105 million to finish two federal prisons including one in Mendota

May7, 2009: The $17 billion worth of cuts proposed Thursday accompanied the administration's overall budget package, which expands on a budget outline released in February. For instance, the overall budget includes $105 million to finish two new federal prisons, including a long-stalled facility in the town of Mendota.
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Obama's budget contains $49.4 million for Mendota federal prison
By Michael Doyle
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A long-delayed federal prison in the economically troubled town of Mendota will be equipped starting next February with the help of $49.4 million in the Obama administration's proposed new budget.

Local residents say it's about time.

"This is something we've been waiting for," Mendota Mayor Robert Silva said in a telephone interview Monday. "This is going to mean a lot for our community."

The funding for Federal Correctional Institution Mendota is part of a $105 million package included within the Bureau of Prisons' proposed fiscal 2010 budget. The $105 million would be split more or less equally between Mendota and another new facility in West Virginia.

Construction is still underway on the 960-acre, 1,152-bed Mendota prison, located several miles west of the Fresno County town. The $49.4 million in so-called activation funding will pay for everything else that's needed.

"(It) would be used to support the hiring of staff, the purchase of furniture and equipment, and obtaining all vehicles necessary to safely patrol and accommodate the needs of a new institution," Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Felicia Ponce said.

The prison would also open next year, though a formal opening date has not yet been set.

With total completion costs now approximately a quarter of a billion dollars, the Mendota prison is far more expensive than originally estimated. It is also smaller. The Bureau of Prisons dropped earlier plans for an accompanying minimum-security camp and associated prison-industry facility.

Stop-and-start funding and a rise in material costs delayed completion and contributed to a final price tag that's 45 percent above original estimates, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office reported last year. Restoring the minimum-security camp and prison-industry facilities would add about $33 million to the total cost, the Bureau of Prisons estimates.

The medium-security Mendota prison that remains will employ roughly 350 workers. While upward of half of the workers may be brought in from other federal facilities, the prison's job potential has attracted many local allies in a town where the current unemployment rate is a staggering 41 percent.

"It's not a total cure-all for the community, but we will benefit," Silva said.

With pay incentives, designed to help the federal facility compete with higher-paying state prison jobs, guard salaries will start at about $44,000 a year, the Bureau of Prisons estimates.

In addition to direct employment benefits, Silva said area vendors will gain business by selling food and supplies to the prison once it opens. The Mendota facility should have an annual operating budget of between $15 million and $25 million, congressional offices have been told.

On Capitol Hill, the Mendota prison has its champions. The city of Mendota this year has paid $10,000 to the lobbying firm DPV Solutions to help secure final funding, lobbying records show.

Two years ago, lawmakers including Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno, had to lean on the Bush administration to secure final construction funding. In January, Costa met again with top Bureau of Prisons officials to press for the final activation money.

"This is a step in the right direction," Costa's press secretary, Bret Rumbeck, said of the administration's budget request.

The prison funding still must be approved by Congress, following release of the Obama administration's 2010 budget late last week. Rumbeck said he is not aware of any opposition.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1043204.html

McClatchy Newspapers 2009

Valley towns struggle to break dependency on ag
Published online on Saturday, May. 09, 2009
By Tim Sheehan / The Fresno Bee

MENDOTA -- Less than two miles from downtown, a section of flat-as-a-pancake farmland is giving way to a concrete monolith that eventually will house about 1,200 federal prison inmates.

That's just about the only tangible effort to create nonagriculture jobs in this farming town of about 10,000 people -- and it's nowhere near enough to help employ the thousands who have lost work amid an unprecedented crisis.

For years, Mendota and other west side farm towns have sought to broaden their job base and wean themselves from the vagaries of irrigated agriculture -- the very basis of their existence. But geographically and economically, the deck has been stacked against them.

The new Federal Correctional Institution-Mendota, scheduled to open sometime in 2010, will be staffed by about 314 employees. How many of those jobs will -- or can -- be filled by west side residents?

And it's an even greater challenge now.

A national recession, three years of drought and severe cuts in farm water deliveries this year to the sprawling Westlands Water District have driven Mendota's unemployment rate to 41%. Never has the city's jobless rate been higher, according to state employment data.

The same thing is happening in Firebaugh, San Joaquin and Huron.

"These are strictly agricultural working communities," said Richard Howitt, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California at Davis. "The effects ripple all the way through the system."

It's not that there isn't any nonfarm commerce. But the merchants, restaurants, insurance and real estate offices and almost every other business rely on farmers or their workers and families spending money on goods and services, Howitt said. Between direct employment on farms and jobs in agriculture-related businesses such as packinghouses and processing plants, nearly every facet of life in these communities depends on farming.

It doesn't help that the cities are isolated in the vast acreages between California's asphalt arteries Interstate 5 and Highway 99.

Unhitching from the plow

In 1996, the nonprofit I-5 Business Development Corridor was created by the cities of Firebaugh, Mendota, Kerman and San Joaquin, the community of Tranquillity and Fresno County to promote economic development.

"We want to bring in other jobs, some other industries or anything that's not related to agriculture," said Danny Wade, one of the group's board members and general manager of the Tranquillity Irrigation District. "We want to be prepared for times when the agriculture economy turns upside down -- like it is now."

Economic diversification "is something we've been talking about out here for many years," said Bob Tharp, owner of Tharp's Farm Supply in Firebaugh. "Sure, it would be good, but how do you do it without money we don't have?

"Everyone around here has something to do with farming," he added. Though not a farmer himself, Tharp and nearly everyone else in Firebaugh and other west side towns depend on farmers and their workers for their livelihoods.

But what's happening now, as west side farmers fallow acreage and hire fewer workers, is something Mendota businessman Alan Hansen has never seen to such a degree.

"I think the only thing that's reasonably close is back in the '30s, after my grandfather started this business," said Hansen, general manager of Sorensen Machine Works and Auto Parts. "But even during the Depression, farming was doing well."

The 84-year-old business is a machine shop, parts house and hardware store that serves both farmers and farmworkers. Hansen said sales now are down perhaps 30% from last year.

"The only reason we're still here is because everything's bought and paid for, and we run very lean," he said. "But it's bad enough that we've had to let someone go, and everyone's job is in jeopardy."

Aside from the prison, the only other source of potential economic development is Interstate 5, Howitt added. "These communities might want to reproduce Modesto's trucking and warehouse industry," he said. "But all of these towns are quite a distance from I-5, and it's much better to do it right along the highway."

The west-side freeway is the key to efforts by the I-5 Business Development Corridor because trucking and warehousing are exactly the types of businesses the group is after.

But a crippled economy has stymied any would-be opportunities. "Our property out here is cheaper compared to other areas of the state," Tranquillity's Wade said. "But industries aren't doing anything to move or expand right now."

And a lack of funds has forced the organization to lay off its executive director this month, Wade added. Mendota's Silva holds out hope for the eventual construction of State Route 180 as a four-lane, east-west freeway linking I-5 and Highway 99.

"There's federal money and [Fresno County] Measure C money, so it's going to get done someday," Silva said. "Freeway 180 would be a straight shot from Mendota to I-5 and Fresno, and I believe we're going to have warehousing along the way."

There are other signs of progress, as well. A solar-energy company, Cleantech America Inc., is ready to begin construction on a 40-acre, 5-megawatt "solar farm" in Mendota. The company has pledged money to train solar installers and will eventually create 65 installation and maintenance jobs, and as many as 100 manufacturing jobs.

And Mendota has prepared to accommodate hoped-for industrial growth by improving its infrastructure in recent years.

"You can invite people in," Silva said, "but without the infrastructure. you're not going to get anywhere."

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1392168.html

Posted by lois at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2009

OH: Plans for prison labor at Capitol on hold

Plans for prison labor at Capitol on hold
Saturday, May 9, 2009 3:04 AM
By Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Concerns from lawmakers and union leaders have prompted the Strickland administration to temporarily halt a plan to have prisoners do maintenance and grounds work at the Statehouse.

Andrea Carson, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said prisons Director Terry J. Collins "wants to slow down the process a bit."

The plan was for minimum-security, nonviolent inmates from the Pickaway Correctional Institution in Orient, Ohio, to work cleaning the Statehouse at night and doing outside work on the grounds during the day. Officials with the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, the agency that oversees the Statehouse and grounds, were in discussion with the prison agency.

"We never had a date. We were just in the talking stages," Carson said. "We don't have a timetable."

The Capitol Square leaders saw prison labor as a chance to fill a gap cause by budget-driven cutbacks that reduced the workforce from 71 to 52, most of them members of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, the largest labor union representing state workers.

After the Capitol Square board approved the arrangement, complaints rolled in from union leaders and some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Finance & Financial Institutions Committee which is considering the agency's request to boost its budget by $300,000 over two years.

As a result, Collins ordered a reassessment, Carson said.

"We still think it's a good idea. The prisoners will be carefully screen. We feel safe with the inmates that we send outside the fence."

Minimum-security inmates frequently work at community-service projects across the state, including gardening at the Governor's Residence in Bexley.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/05/09/STATEHOUSE_INMATES.ART_ART_05-09-09_B2_16DQEF5.html?sid=101

Posted by lois at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Editorial: Reform sentencing to save money, reduce crime

Editorial: Reform sentencing to save money, reduce crime
GateHouse News Service
Posted May 08, 2009

The case for reforming criminal sentencing in Massachusetts has been evident for years. Mandatory minimum sentences handcuff judges, denying them the flexibility they need to ensure justice and protect public safety in light of the specific case at hand. They pack the prisons with people who come out more dangerous than they went in. And they deny courts and prosecutors the most effective tools for keeping released prisoners from offending again.

Those serving mandatory minimum sentences, most of them drug offenders, aren't eligible for work release programs, "good conduct" credits or parole. As a result, nearly a thousand inmates a year are released back into the community with none of the post-release supervision proven to keep ex-offenders from committing crimes again.

The state's Criminal Offender Record Information system suffers from similar unintended consequences. Designed to protect the innocent by giving prospective employers access to criminal records, CORI too often denies those who have served their sentences the jobs they need to keep away from crime.

But the case for reforming sentencing and CORI has been lost on the risk-averse state Legislature. Mandatory minimums aren't as politically popular as they were 20 years ago, but convicted criminals don't vote, and those who like policies that look "tough on crime" do - even if those policies don't actually work.

Gov. Deval Patrick is challenging legislators to choose effective crime-control strategies over outdated political assumptions. Patrick is introducing bills to modify mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, allowing them to apply for parole after serving two-thirds of their sentences and making post-release supervision mandatory. Drug offenders serving mandatory minimums would be eligible for work release and community corrections programs.

Patrick calls for CORI reforms that would tighten administration and give offenders the opportunity to contest CORI decisions and respond to those reviewing their records.

These reforms are a good first step, but only that. The state should be creating options for drug treatment instead of incarceration for some drug offenders. Community corrections and post-release supervision should be expanded, as should drug treatment programs in the prisons.

In the past, the Legislature has too often ignored the governor's reform initiatives. His response, in this and other areas, has been to offer more modest reforms, which the Legislature dilutes further, so that they hardly qualify as reforms at all.

In this case, the Legislature should make Patrick's reforms even stronger. If the research into preventing recidivism isn't convincing enough, lawmakers should consider the cost of "lock-em-up-and-forget-about-them" policies. It costs about $47,000 a year to house each inmate in Massachusetts' overcrowded prisons. With the state facing its worst ever fiscal crisis, taxpayers can no longer afford politically popular policies that do little to reduce crime.

The MetroWest Daily News
http://www.enterprisenews.com/opinions/x2133277840/Editorial-Reform-sentencing-to-save-money-reduce-crime?view=print

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

"Aging Behind Bars" by James Ridgeway

Aging Behind Bars
April 21, 2009 ·
By James Ridgeway

Among the grotesque realities of modern American life is the exponential rise of geriatric prisoners–men and women in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s, who committed crimes decades ago, are feeble and ill, yet remain incarcerated not only as a punitive measure, but on the premise that are a threat to society. Many of these people want to get out of prison only so they can die in what many call the “free world.”

People age faster behind bars faster than they do on the outside: Studies have shown that prisoners in their 50s are on average physiologically 10 to 15 years older than their chronological age, so 55 is old in prison. And even by conventional standards, the United States is experiencing an exponential jump in the number of old people in prison. The causes of this increase go beyond the graying of the population at large: Long mandatory sentences without parole mean that offenders who enter prison while still in their teens or twenties may remain there until they are old–if they don’t die first.

The problem is most acute in states like California, Texas, and Florida, which have large prison systems and strict and harsh sentencing laws. In California, the population of prisoners over 55 doubled in the ten years from 1997 to 2006. This contributes to the overcrowding that has reached crisis proportions. It also yields a sense of utter hopelessness within prison walls. At the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, some 85 to 90 percent of the men who pass through the prison gates will never leave. Angola has its own hospice, mortuary, and graveyard.

Older offenders are of course more likely to suffer from serious medical conditions, and unlikely to receive the care they require. Old people in any institutional setting may find that their health complaints are not taken seriously, due to some combination of dismissive attitudes and cost-cutting. In prison, such factors apply in the extreme. When I spoke with health care providers working in one Southern prison, they described a diabetic man’s illness was misdiagnosed by the prison, resulting in months of excruciating pain and the amputation of toes and part of one foot. Back in prison, the man asked for prosthetic shoes so he could get around by walking; his request was denied. Another man complained of an earache for months. He was given drops, but the pain persisted. Eventually he was sent to a local hospital emergency room, where doctors discovered the earache was in fact brain cancer, which might have been treated if discovered back when he first complained. Now he is terminal.

Brie Williams of the University of California Medical School at San Francisco and Rita Albraldes, an independent researcher, recently completed a study that was published as a chapter in the book Growing Older: Challenges of Prison and Reentry for the Aging Population. They found that the cost for each geriatric inmate came to $70,000 a year. In addition to the chronic diseases that increase with age, these offenders have have problems such as paraplegia because of gunshot wounds, and advanced liver disease, renal disease, hepatitis and HIV from drug and alcohol abuse. Living under prison conditions, they are more likely to get pneumonia and flu.

Many older offenders suffer from serious mental illness–some of it lifelong, and some of it produced by their incarceration. One study revealed depression among male prisoners was 50 percent higher than for those living outside. All in all, 54 percent of older prisoners met standards for psychiatric disorders. Williams and Abraldes write, “In one report from a maximum-security hospital, 75 percent of elderly prisoners were admitted between age 20 and 30 and the majority were schizophrenic.” At Angola, the warden reported that 2,000 of over 5,000 inmates were on psychotropic drugs. Many mentally ill prisoners are simply warehoused and fed drugs to keep them under control. Even worse, some are labeled “discipline” problems, and end up in solitary confinement.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and founder of the Project for Older Prisoners, has written extensively about alternatives for aging offenders: for lower risk prisoners, various forms of supervised release, including electronic bracelet monitoring; and for higher risk prisoners, geriatric units, where the cost of better care could be more than balanced by reducing the number of corrections officers. “Although a geriatric prisoner may still be a risk for a given category of crime,” Turley writes, “he is unlikely to toss his walker over a razor-wire fence or outrun perimeter guards.”

In 2008, the federal government finally launched the Elderly Offender Home Detention Pilot Program, under which old prisoners can be released into a kind of supervised house arrest. As outlined by Families Against Mandatory Mimimums, eligibility guidelines are strict: Offenders must be over 65, and must have served at least 10 years and 75 percent of their sentences; no lifers and no perpetrators of “crimes of violence,” including sex crimes and firearms violations. Total number expected to participate: 80 to 100 nationwide, out of a total federal prison population of over 200,000. In Pennsylvania, after lengthy study conducted by a special Advisory Committee on Geriatric and Seriously Ill Inmates, the state also launched a pilot project. Total prisoners released in one year: eight to ten.

http://unsilentgeneration.com/2009/04/21/aging-behind-bars/

Born in 1936, James Ridgeway has been reporting on politics for more than 45 years. He is currently Senior Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones, and recently wrote a blog on the 2008 presidential election for the Guardian online. He previously served as Washington Correspondent for the Village Voice; wrote for Ramparts and The New Republic; and founded and edited two independent newsletters, Hard Times and The Elements.

Ridgeway is the author of 16 books, including The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11, It’s All for Sale: The Control of Global Resources, and Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture. He co-directed a companion film to Blood in the Face and a second documentary film, Feed, and has co-produced web videos for GuardianFilms.

Additional information and samples of James Ridgeway’s work can be found on his web site, http://jamesridgeway.net.
He is now writing a blog called: http://unsilentgeneration.com/ and is focusing some of his work on elderly prisoners.

Posted by lois at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2009

VT: Legislature using budget bill to keep St Johnsbury prison for the jobs

Legislature using budget bill to save St Johnsbury prison
Fri May 8 2009

The Legislature has included in the state budget language intended to keep open the prison in St Johnsbury. Among the Douglas Administration's budget reduction proposals was closing the Northeast Regional Correctional Facility and laying off most of the employees. The inmates likely would be sent to prisons out of state. It costs the state less to pay another state to house inmates than to incarcerate them in Vermont. The House and Senate Appropriations Conference Committee included language that would require the governor to get legislative approval before he could close the prison.

“The prison in St Johnsbury is a vital part of our economy in the Northeast Kingdom, which is why I worked closely with the conference committee to make sure this language was included in the budget,” said Representative Robert South, D-St. Johnsbury. “Our region is one of the hardest hit by the current economic crisis and it’s critical the state do everything it can to keep Vermonters working, our businesses open and our communities vibrant.”

The budget language stipulates that the Douglas Administration cannot close or significantly reduce operations at the St Johnsbury facility without approval from both the legislative Joint Corrections Oversight Committee and the Joint Fiscal Committee.

“The Northeast Kingdom has among the highest unemployment rates in the state already,” said Representative Lucy Leriche, D-Hardwick.

“With so many families in the region relying on jobs at the prison and so many local businesses counting on the facilities positive impact on our local economies, I am happy to follow Rep. South’s lead fighting for these jobs.”

The House is expected to take the final vote on the budget on Saturday.
http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/may/legislature-using-budget-bill-save-st-johnsbury-prison

Posted by lois at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2009

WA: Voting Rights Restored to people with felony convictions

Voting rights restored to former felons in Washington state
by Elizabeth Hovde, Oregonian columnist
Tuesday May 05, 2009

Cheers to Washington state lawmakers for following Oregon and numerous other states in allowing former felons to vote.

Washington state Governor Chris Gregoire recently signed legislation allowing ex-convicts to get their voting rights restored once they've served their prison sentences and community supervision. The law takes effect July 26.

Currently, ex-cons have not been eligible to vote until hard-to-track and hard-to-pay court costs and restitution have been paid. A press release from Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed's office says those costs "carry an annual interest rate of 12 percent and some ex-cons are essentially barred from voting for life because they can't pay off the obligation." Some have likened the old system to a poll tax of sorts on the poor. It is.

Reed, a Republican, strongly backed the measure. Not only will it make the administration of elections easier (it's laborious and confusing determining who can and cannot vote based on lingering monetary obligations), it will help ex-convicts do exactly what the rest of society needs them to do: reintegrate into society. That's hard to do when you feel like a second-class citizen or when you can't engage in the political process in the most elemental of ways.

The bill rightly allows a crime victim or county clerk to request that a judge revoke a former felon's restoration of voting privileges if he or she does not keep up with restitution or other financial commitments.

Laws regarding voting rights for former felons vary from state to state, making voter registration somewhat confusing for those who have served time. In Washington and Oregon the law is now simple: If you aren't incarcerated, you can register to vote and be a part of the election process.

Voting is important. It helps people feel connected to their communities. And feeling connected is exactly what ex-cons need to help them steer clear of crime and lead constructive lives after prison.
http://www.oregonlive.com/hovde/index.ssf/2009/05/voting_rights_restored_to_form.html

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

Stitch by Stitch: Unraveling the Crazy Quilt of Laws that Locks Millions of Americans out of the Electoral System

Stitch by Stitch: Unraveling the Crazy Quilt of Laws that Locks Millions of Americans out of the Electoral System
May 6th, 2009
By Erika Wood- Brennan Center for Justice
The Hill

On Monday, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed into law the Voting Rights Restoration Act, a new law that eliminates the requirement that people coming out of the criminal justice system pay all fees, fines and restitution, including hefty surcharges and accrued interest, before being allowed to vote. The right to vote in Washington will no longer hinge on one’s ability to pay. With this new law, Washington becomes the twentieth state in the last decade to ease voting restrictions on people with criminal histories who are out of prison and living in the community.

But there remain more than five million American citizens who are disenfranchised because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly four million of these citizens are out of prison – living in the community, working, raising families, and paying taxes alongside the rest of us but still denied the right to vote, often for decades and sometimes for life.

State felony disenfranchisement laws form what some advocates have termed a “crazy quilt” across the country. Maine and Vermont do not withdraw the franchise based on criminal convictions; prisoners may vote there. Virginia and Kentucky are the last two remaining states that permanently disenfranchise all people with felony convictions unless they receive individual, discretionary clemency from the governor. The rest of the states run the gamut in between, but a total of 35 states continue to disenfranchise people after release from prison.

The right to vote forms the core of American democracy. Once a privilege reserved for a few white men, Americans have fought hard to make it a right guaranteed to all. Generations have marched through the streets, onto battlefields, and into courthouses to expand the franchise beyond the privileged few. Our modern democracy stands for nothing if not the fundamental tenet that each citizen is entitled to one vote, and each vote counts the same regardless of who casts it. Voting is the essence of political equality, and it is that equality that forms the very foundation upon which the legitimacy of our government relies.

Removing four million Americans from the electorate creates an undeniable inequity – an entire population of second-class citizens. Their lives are governed by leaders whom they have no role in choosing — from the President to members of their local school board. With each crack in the foundation, our democracy weakens.

There is a growing national chorus calling for reform of these laws, including many law enforcement and criminal justice leaders, and prominent clergy and religious organizations, all of whom understand that bringing people back into the political process makes them stakeholders in the community and helps steer them from future crimes.

Despite the recent progress in the states, millions of American citizens remain disenfranchised. And because of documented widespread and persistent confusion among elections officials across the country, untold hundreds of thousands of eligible voters believe they cannot vote because of a criminal conviction in their past.

Congress now has the opportunity to restore democracy, and there is a movement underway to do just that. The Democracy Restoration Act, soon to be introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI), would automatically restore the right to vote in federal elections upon release from prison. People on probation would never lose the right to vote. This law would make every adult American citizen living in the community eligible to vote. The last blanket barrier to the franchise would topple.

http://blog.thehill.com/2009/05/06/stitch-by-stitch-unraveling-the-crazy-quilt-of-laws-that-locks-millions-of-americans-out-of-the-electoral-system/

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

LA: Free From Prison At Last: For an Aging Angola Inmate, Death Is the Only Release

Free From Prison At Last: For an Aging Angola Inmate, Death Is the Only Release
May 8, 2009
By James Ridgeway

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the growth in harsh sentencing and parole restrictions are filling the nation’s prisons with old and infirm prisoners. While these prisoners couldn’t do much damage if they tried, they are rarely shown any mercy, and there is little interest in alternatives such as letting them out for monitored house arrest as they near death, so that they can spend their final moments in the “free world.”

The Shreveport Times earlier this year profiled one such prisoner, Douglas Dennis, 73, a severely ill, wheelchair bound inmate at the Lousiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Dennis had been convicted of killing an accountant in the Shreveport city jail in 1957 and killing another inmate at Angola in the 1960s, and was serving two life sentences. In January, he appeared before the parole board, asking for clemency on the basis of his recent good record and good works at Angola, and his age and health problems, saying he wanted to be set free before he died. The request–which his lawyer called his “last chance,” since it only happens once every five years–was unanimously rejected by the board. As the paper reported, his case was far from unusual:

Louisiana’s prison system holds 5,023 adult offenders over age 50 — more than three times the number in 1997, when about 1,500 inmates over age 50 were in the system. Age 50 is considered geriatric by corrections standards. Hard lives of drug abuse and poor health can make a 50-year-old inmate appear 10 or 20 years older, experts say….

Nationally, fewer than 5 percent of older inmates who are released commit new crimes. In Louisiana, of all inmates who were released in 2003 and who later returned to prison, only 1.3 percent were age 50 or older. For inmates age 55 or older, that figure drops to 0.6 percent, according to Louisiana Department of Corrections data as of June 30, 2008. By comparison, the highest recidivism rate for inmates released in 2003 was 9.9 percent for two age groups — 21-24 and 25-29.

At Angola, some 85 to 90 percent of those imprisoned die within its walls. Living death is such a matter of fact within Angola that the place has a hospice to ease the final passage, an elaborate funeral setup, and a large graveyard. Angola’s notorious warden, Burl Cain, has made it clear that he believes, quite literally, that the only way out of the place should be through the redempton found in embracing Christ; he has made it his mission to bring salvation to prisoners facing death by natural causes, as well as by lethal injection in Angola’s death house. As a result of his ministry, Cain has become the subject of heroic profiles in evangelical publications, and Angola has become a popular stop for Christian fundamentalist groups, who are welcomed on tours.

This week, the Shreveport Times reports the death of Dennis, apparently from a heart attack, in Angola’s hospital. The paper reports that state will conduct an autopsy, then hs body will be released to a funeral home and cremated. After that Dennis’s friend, author Abigail Pagett, will send him off in a manner not exactly dictated in Christian practice.

Padgett will place the ashes in a Viking boat that Dennis crafted in prison and set it on fire in the ocean. She said she and Dennis had planned this kind of funeral during Padgett’s visits to the prison.

At his January hearing before the parole board, those testifying in favor of Dennis included several corrections officers, a former warden, the former FBI agent who tracked Dennis after he escaped in 1979 (and lived a crime-free life in California for six years before being caught), and “the daughters of Elayn Hunt, late head of the corrections department, who said their mother’s dying wish had been that Dennis, who had served as her inmate chauffeur, be released.”

But the family of Dennis’s Shreveport victim told the Times that they strenuously opposed his release. And a reader commenting on his death in prison summed up what may be the dominant public opinion on the subject: “Life should mean life. So many others deserve to have life in prison for taking someone else’s life and are still out today. I don’t care if you are sorry and old and sick now. If you make mistakes when you are young, they tend to follow you until you are gone.”
http://unsilentgeneration.com/

Posted by lois at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2009

Mothers in Crisis Turn to Temporary ‘Parents’

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: May 6, 2009- NY Times

INDIANAPOLIS — After resolving to leave her longtime but violent partner in March, Janai Parahams, 25 and jobless, wanted to make a fresh start. But she felt trapped: she was tending four small children with no family support or child care. She could scarcely leave her house, let alone find a job and a new place to live.

Safe Families, a nonprofit group, allowed Janai Parahams to leave a violent domestic situation without having to worry about what would happen to her children.

“I needed stability so I wouldn’t go back into an abusive relationship,” she said of those first days of confusion and fear.

A social worker told Ms. Parahams about a nonprofit group, Safe Families for Children, that places the children of parents in crisis with volunteer families, on a temporary basis — from a day to a year or more. Ms. Parahams could approve the caretakers, see her children whenever she wanted and get them back with no courts involved.

This unusual offer of extended respite to overwhelmed parents is part of a broader national trend in child welfare to keep many cases out of the courts and foster care systems. State agencies traditionally had a stark choice between breaking up families in turmoil or leaving children in potentially risky homes. Now many are doing more preventive work to forestall abuse and neglect.

Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio are among the states redesigning official programs to identify families at risk and offer counseling or parenting classes. Other states are making intensive efforts to help families in more serious trouble stay together, placing a social worker in the home for weeks at a time to assess and advise parents, refer them to needed therapies and secure help with day care, housing and even emergency cash.

The group that Ms. Parahams turned to, Safe Families for Children, takes a different approach, finding mentoring families to take children temporarily, without the formalities and potential legal battles of foster care.

“It’s consistent with the whole movement in child-welfare agencies to find a broader range of responses for families in need,” said Mark Courtney, a family expert at the University of Washington.

Safe Families, which was founded in Chicago about five years ago, says that requests for help have accelerated this year along with the rise in unemployment and foreclosures.

Not all child welfare experts agree that removing children, even temporarily, is a good idea if there is no imminent risk.

Started by David Anderson, a child psychologist who heads a Christian service agency, Safe Families draws mainly on churches to find families who will take in children, with no compensation or expectation of adoption.

The approach has recently spread to Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Davenport, Iowa; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; and Rockford, Ill.; with the blessing of state welfare officials.

“Where parents recognize issues they need to address and ask for support before abuse or neglect takes place, it’s a great thing,” said Erwin McEwen, Illinois director of child and family services.

In the Chicago area, Safe Families has placed more than 1,200 children, helping out single mothers who are suddenly homeless, fleeing domestic violence or, in one case, seeking a home for a baby born in prison while the mother served out her term.

Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, criticized the removal of children from homes with no evidence of abuse. “Volunteers could bring the respite to the mom’s home by baby-sitting or mentoring there, instead of taking the children away,” he said.

Mr. Anderson said some Safe Families programs were planning to experiment with in-home mentoring, but stressed that all the parents involved had decided themselves that they needed a break from child-rearing to get back on their feet.

Removing children from parents should be avoided when possible, experts in child welfare agree. Placing them with relatives is next best, but when there are no acceptable alternatives, encouraging contact between parent and child during the separation, and friendship between the two families, can minimize the trauma, said Peter J. Pecora, director of research with Casey Family Programs, a nonprofit group in Seattle that develops child welfare programs.

Safe Families must deal with many of the safety and legal concerns of foster care. It makes background checks of potential hosts, visits homes to make sure things are going well and carries insurance in case of accidents. Mr. McEwen said he had not heard of any safety problems or other complaints in Illinois.

Legal arrangements vary: in Illinois, parents must sign over formal guardianship, while Indiana requires only a temporary placement agreement, with power of attorney granted for emergency medical decisions.

In Chicago, Safe Families expects to place 1,000 children this year, for average stays of 45 days. Administrative costs total $350,000 a year, with $100,000 coming from the state and the rest from churches and foundations. If those children ended up in foster care instead, Mr. Anderson noted, the cost to the public would be millions.

In Indianapolis, where several dozen children have been placed in the last year, and elsewhere, the group screens the children and does not take those with major behavioral problems, who need trained therapists.

Ideally, and as often happens, Mr. Anderson said, the hosts “become like extended family,” helping mothers and staying in touch with the children.

Such ties appear likely in the case of Brenda Bailey, 51, of Indianapolis, who has lung disease and lost her lease in October. She moved into a women’s shelter but could not provide for her sons, then ages 10, 16 and 17.

“I decided the kids would be better off without me,” she said, recalling the night she took handfuls of Valium. But when she woke up the next morning, she said, she swore she would reunite the family.

Her middle son moved in with an older half-sister, while the oldest and youngest sons were taken in by Safe Families. Then Ms. Bailey’s lung collapsed, requiring months of recovery. Her youngest son, Elijah, now 11, stayed with one family for four months, and in February moved into the suburban home of his gym teacher, J. T. Crook, and his wife, Samantha. Ms. Bailey, largely recovered and planning to rent an apartment, has become friends with the Crooks, and agreed that Elijah would stay with them until school ends, then spend weekends with them in the summer.

Ms. Parahams, the woman seeking a fresh start, used her month away from her four children to finish a job-preparation course. On April 20, she started work with the Census Bureau, and three days later, her children moved into her new home.

The families that looked after her children, she said, “helped me at a time of great need.”

“They showed real love, which is all you need,” Ms. Parahams said.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 7, 2009, on page A20 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/us/07safe.html?ref=us

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

Girls on Our Streets

Op-Ed Columnist
Girls on Our Streets
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: May 6, 2009- NY Times

Jasmine Caldwell was 14 and selling sex on the streets when an opportunity arose to escape her pimp: an undercover policeman picked her up.

The cop could have rescued her from the pimp, who ran a string of 13 girls and took every cent they earned. If the cop had taken Jasmine to a shelter, she could have resumed her education and tried to put her life back in order.

Instead, the policeman showed her his handcuffs and threatened to send her to prison. Terrified, she cried and pleaded not to be jailed. Then, she said, he offered to release her in exchange for sex.

Afterward, the policeman returned her to the street. Then her pimp beat her up for failing to collect any money.

“That happens a lot,” said Jasmine, who is now 21. “The cops sometimes just want to blackmail you into having sex.”

I’ve often reported on sex trafficking in other countries, and that has made me curious about the situation here in the United States. Prostitution in America isn’t as brutal as it is in, say, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Malaysia (where young girls are routinely kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by brothel owners, occasionally even killed). But the scene on American streets is still appalling — and it continues largely because neither the authorities nor society as a whole show much interest in 14-year-old girls pimped on the streets.

Americans tend to think of forced prostitution as the plight of Mexican or Asian women trafficked into the United States and locked up in brothels. Such trafficking is indeed a problem, but the far greater scandal and the worst violence involves American teenage girls.

If a middle-class white girl goes missing, radio stations broadcast amber alerts, and cable TV fills the air with “missing beauty” updates. But 13-year-old black or Latina girls from poor neighborhoods vanish all the time, and the pimps are among the few people who show any interest.

These domestic girls are often runaways or those called “throwaways” by social workers: teenagers who fight with their parents and are then kicked out of the home. These girls tend to be much younger than the women trafficked from abroad and, as best I can tell, are more likely to be controlled by force.

Pimps are not the business partners they purport to be. They typically take every penny the girls earn. They work the girls seven nights a week. They sometimes tattoo their girls the way ranchers brand their cattle, and they back up their business model with fists and threats.

“If you don’t earn enough money, you get beat,” said Jasmine, an African-American who has turned her life around with the help of Covenant House, an organization that works with children on the street. “If you say something you’re not supposed to, you get beat. If you stay too long with a customer, you get beat. And if you try to leave the pimp, you get beat.”

The business model of pimping is remarkably similar whether in Atlanta or Calcutta: take vulnerable, disposable girls whom nobody cares about, use a mix of “friendship,” humiliation, beatings, narcotics and threats to break the girls and induce 100 percent compliance, and then rent out their body parts.

It’s not solely violence that keeps the girls working for their pimps. Jasmine fled an abusive home at age 13, and she said she — like most girls — stayed with the pimp mostly because of his emotional manipulation. “I thought he loved me, so I wanted to be around him,” she said.

That’s common. Girls who are starved of self-esteem finally meet a man who showers them with gifts, drugs and dollops of affection. That, and a lack of alternatives, keeps them working for him — and if that isn’t enough, he shoves a gun in the girl’s mouth and threatens to kill her.

Solutions are complicated and involve broader efforts to overcome urban poverty, including improving schools and attempting to shore up the family structure. But a first step is to stop treating these teenagers as criminals and focusing instead on arresting the pimps and the customers — and the corrupt cops.

“The problem isn’t the girls in the streets; it’s the men in the pews,” notes Stephanie Davis, who has worked with Mayor Shirley Franklin to help coordinate a campaign to get teenage prostitutes off the streets.

Two amiable teenage prostitutes, working without a pimp for the “fast money,” told me that there will always be women and girls selling sex voluntarily. They’re probably right. But we can significantly reduce the number of 14-year-old girls who are terrorized by pimps and raped by many men seven nights a week. That’s doable, if it’s a national priority, if we’re willing to create the equivalent of a nationwide amber alert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/opinion/07kristof.html?ref=opinion

Posted by lois at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Boston Globe Editorial: Better sense in sentencing

Better sense in sentencing
May 7, 2009
Boston Globe Editorial

MANDATORY MINIMUM sentences for nonviolent drug crimes don't prompt offenders to clean up their acts. But they do pick the pockets of taxpayers, who cover the $47,000 annual cost of holding an inmate in state prison. Today, the Patrick administration is taking a sensible step to address this imbalance in the criminal justice system.

Part of the governor's new crime prevention bill would allow parole for drug offenders after serving two-thirds of their mandatory minimum sentences. Parole eligibility would provide offenders with access to addiction treatment and work release programs, which are now foolishly barred to them. The offer of parole, however, would be decided case-by-case by the Parole Board. That check adds an important layer of protection for the public.

Legal experts ranging from the US Justice Department to the Massachusetts Bar Association have been pointing out flaws in drug sentencing structures that do little to reintegrate offenders and fall disproportionately on minorities in crowded cities. A prime example is the two-year mandatory minimum sentence for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school zone. It can apply to adults involved in drug deals regardless of whether school is in session.

The public needs to pay attention when Kevin Burke, the state secretary of public safety, says that "some people are doing too much time for nonviolent offenses." District attorneys, including Middlesex DA Gerry Leone, are also embracing the effort because it gets at the root of recidivism. The bill wisely requires that all offenders, not just drug offenders, remain under mandatory supervision by the Parole Board for a period equal to 25 percent of their sentence. That requirement, says Leone, makes the bill a sound approach to crime prevention. He warns, however, that lawmakers must be willing to fund prevention and reentry programs for offenders.

Mandatory minimum sentences were the reaction to a frightening outbreak of drug-fueled gang violence in the 1980s. More than 20 years later, the sentences are ensnaring low-level drug users who pose minimal safety risks. Patrick's bill reflects the best current thinking in criminal justice circles.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/05/07/better_sense_in_sentencing/

Posted by lois at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2009

CA: Yolo City Supervisors Vote No On Rural "Re-Entry" Prison

Doors closed on county rural prison idea
By CRYSTAL LEE
Created: 05/06/2009

The Yolo County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to kill construction of a proposed rural state re-entry prison.

Supervisors decided that with a looming $24 million budget deficit and limited staff resources, continuing to pursue the re-entry prison is no longer worth the time and effort.

It was a different story last September, when supervisors offered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation a site in the small community of Madison, against the angry protests of rural residents.

In the deal, Yolo County was eligible for $30 million for an expansion of its overcrowded jail in Woodland. The funding was part a statewide prison reform effort, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in May 2007.

Now with the state struggling with financial problems of its own, the availability of the funding is increasingly dubious.

State Corrections officials told county staff that the Madison site could require infrastructure improvements that the county would have to fund.

Add to that, state Corrections staff were frustrating to work with, said Supervisor Helen Thomson, who supports the policy behind re-entry prisons. The facilities are intended to rehabilitate inmates in their final year of imprisonment by offering counseling and job skills opportunities.

"The policy is the right policy," Thomson said, "and it's not going to happen for a very long time in California."

The state Corrections Office seems "unable to cope with any kind
of progressive program or any kind of funding issue," Thomson said.

Supervisor Matt Rexroad agreed with Thomson that the idea behind the project was a good one, but the process for its execution is too difficult.

"I don't think we need to chase our tails anymore ... but it's too bad," Rexroad said.

Yet members of "Save Rural Yolo County," the grassroots organization protesting the re-entry prison, could not contain their joy at hearing their battle was won.

They exited the meeting chambers whooping and clapping.

Carla Phillips, the group's leading organizer, said she was not entirely surprised to see the project fail in the end. She said the Board of Supervisors tried to force the issue when the Madison site never met the specifications required by Corrections staff, which included existing urban infrastructure and community support for the project.

"If you're going to make it successful, set it up for success," Phillips said. "Don't set it up for failure."

Phillips said she would have supported a re-entry prison only if it were privately run and served Yolo County residents exclusively.
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_12306066

Posted by lois at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2009

Justices Agree to Take Up Life Without Parole for Youth

Justices Agree to Take Up Sentencing for Young Offenders
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: May 4, 2009- NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether the reasoning that led it to strike down the death penalty for juvenile offenders four years ago should also apply to sentences of life without the possibility of parole.

The court accepted two cases on the issue, both from Florida and neither involving a killing. In one, Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life without the possibility of release for raping a 72-year-old woman in 1989, when he was 13. In the other, Terrance Graham received the same sentence for participating in a home invasion robbery in 2004, when he was 17 and on probation for other crimes.

In the majority opinion in the death penalty case, Roper v. Simmons, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that teenagers were immature, unformed, irresponsible and susceptible to negative influences, including peer pressure.

“Even a heinous crime committed by a juvenile,” Justice Kennedy concluded, is not “evidence of irretrievably depraved character.”

Outside the context of the death penalty, however, the Supreme Court has not shown much interest in cases from prisoners claiming that the sentences they received were too harsh. But Douglas A. Berman, an authority on sentencing law at Ohio State University, said the factors cited by Justice Kennedy concerning juveniles might well apply in noncapital cases.

“The principles driving Roper,” Professor Berman said, “would seem to suggest that its impact does not stop at the execution chamber.”

The United States is alone in the world in making routine use of life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Human rights groups say more than 2,000 prisoners in the United States are serving such sentences for crimes they committed when they were 17 or younger. A vast majority of those crimes involved a killing by the defendant or an accomplice.

At the argument of the Roper case in 2004, Justice Antonin Scalia said the rationales offered against the juvenile death penalty applied just as forcefully to sentences of life without the possibility of parole.

“I don’t see where there’s a logical line,” said Justice Scalia, who voted in dissent to retain the juvenile death penalty.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that life sentences would continue to deter young criminals after the death penalty became unavailable.

“The punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person.”

Lawyers for the two Florida inmates cited international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits sentences of life without parole for juveniles. Justice Kennedy’s invoking foreign and international law in the Roper decision was controversial, and the new cases will reopen the question of how much attention the Supreme Court should pay to international law.

Bryan S. Gowdy, a lawyer for Mr. Graham, said in an interview that his client had never been convicted of the robbery that sent him to prison for the rest of his life. Though evidence was presented concerning the robbery, the trial judge found only that Mr. Graham had violated the terms of his probation after an earlier conviction for armed burglary and attempted armed robbery when he was 16.

“When our children make mistakes, are we going to lock them up and throw away the key for life?” Mr. Gowdy said. “If you follow the rationale of Roper, that’s not appropriate.”

In rejecting a challenge to Mr. Graham’s sentence last year, a Florida appeals court acknowledged that “a true life sentence is typically reserved for juveniles guilty of more heinous crimes such as homicide.” But the court added that Mr. Graham “rejected his second chance” in violating the terms of his probation “and chose to continue committing crimes at an escalating pace.”

A ruling in favor of the prisoners in the two cases — Graham v. Florida, No. 08-7412, and Sullivan v. Florida, No. 08-7621 — could be quite narrow. The Supreme Court may leave for another day, for instance, the question of how murders committed by juveniles may be punished.

Last year, drawing a similar distinction, the court said in Kennedy v. Louisiana that crimes against individuals that do not involve killing, including the rape of a child by an adult, cannot be punished by death.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 5, 2009, on page A16 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/us/05scotus.html?scp=1&sq=Justices%20Agree%20to%20Take%20Up%20Life-Without%20Parole&st=cse

Posted by lois at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)

NV: Another "heart-warming" story about the value of exploited priosner labor

When things get tough in Tonopah, residents call on inmates to help fix roofs and fight wildfires. Now state budget cuts threaten to close the prison.
By Ashley Powers
May 5, 2009
Tonopah, Nev. -- Diane Perchetti couldn't pull off the Easter celebration alone. Her to-do list was too lengthy: stack chairs, mop floors and haul out the decorative jail cell from the recent Muckers Ball fundraiser.

She phoned Bob Bottom, who oversees the local minimum-security prison camp. As usual, he sent over the inmates.

In this former boomtown forgotten by much of the state, the small prison is a savior for residents and the cash-strapped town manager. Supervised inmates shovel snowed-in driveways, yank out weeds, clean rain gutters, slash brush and dig graves.

"They do everything but herd cattle," said Perchetti, 63, who runs the Tonopah Convention Center. "Shoot, they fixed my plumbing a few times."

So when state officials proposed mothballing the camp to help narrow Nevada's $3-billion budget gap, residents prepared for battle. They repeatedly car-pooled to the capital -- a 460-mile round trip. To lawmakers and their staff, they handed out save-the-camp pleas written by senior citizens, high school principals, the Salvation Army, students.

If Tonopah, population 2,600, prevails, it will have accomplished something notable in this recession: staving off government cuts with little more than scrappiness.

In recent months, a number of revenue-deficient states, including New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey, have considered closing prisons. Kansas and Michigan have already locked up lockups, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Even communities that once balked at housing prisons are fighting for the jobs and cheap labor they provide. Across the nation, prisoners fix tractors, mow lawns and fish scrap metal from landfills. Their towns -- often remote and economically forlorn -- have staged letter-writing campaigns and rallies on their behalf.

Nevada is saddled with the nation's largest budget gap by percentage, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Some of the budget cuts proposed by Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons target the Nevada Department of Corrections.

The 150-inmate Tonopah camp needs less than $2 million a year, some of which the state Division of Forestry provides. But sitting more than 200 miles from both Las Vegas and Reno, the camp has struggled to hire and retain staff, said Suzanne Pardee, a corrections department spokeswoman.

"If it's just counting dollars and cents, it doesn't make sense to keep it open," said Republican Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea of Eureka, who emerged as one of the camp's top advocates. "But these communities depend on it in so many ways."

Tonopah certainly does. Though it touts itself as the "Queen of the Silver Camps," the town has seen more regal days. The ore discovered in 1900 eventually dried up, and the railroad was dismantled. A modern job provider, the Stealth Fighter plane, was relocated in the 1990s from nearby Nellis Air Force Range to New Mexico.

Now, the town subsists on annual revenue of $750,000. The once-grand Mizpah Hotel is an abandoned stack of stone. Some yards are all car parts and dirt, and on the town's outskirts, mining equipment rusts near pits big enough to swallow buildings.

Still, longtime residents have few complaints. The median home price is about $78,000, and the night sky is a stargazer's dream. In fact, before the camp opened in 1990, some folks worried it would shatter the town's tranquillity.

"I thought a band of criminals were going to be running around," said Perchetti, who wrote a letter to the local newspaper in opposition. "I'm eating my words now."

Bottom, the 42-year-old supervisor of the Tonopah facility and two other camps, started here in 1993. He mostly led inmate crews on wildfires around the West, which remains the prisoners' primary task.

Yet as he moved up the ranks, Bottom realized the inmates could patch up his crumbling hometown. One day he walked into the convention center while Perchetti was shampooing the carpet.

"You know," he told her, "the prisoners can do that for you."

The inmates are paid $1 an hour for firefighting and $2.10 a day for other labor. (Their pay costs the town only $8,400 a year.) They've built an award-winning replica train engine for the Nevada Day parade and carved miles of trails in the Tonopah Historic Mining Park. When a storm tore off the gift shop roof, the prisoners swooped in with tarps.

At the town's sandstone library, librarian Carolina Loncar, 77, praised them for tidying her garage before her husband's funeral.

"They're good little organizers," she said. Loncar pointed out the children's reading nook -- prisoners had installed the white stair-step seating.

A few years back, Marcus Woods, 26, was imprisoned in Tonopah on a robbery conviction. He said there were fights between corrections staff and inmates and occasional food shortages. But working for hours in town made him feel purposeful.

"People would give us hot chocolate and McDonald's," he said. "It felt good because everyone who goes to prison isn't a bad person."

Woods, who spent about four years behind bars, said the camp also helped prepare him for his job as a fundraising coordinator for a Reno halfway house. "It got me ready to get out and not lay in bed all day," he said.

Last year, Tonopah leaders got word of the camp's shaky status. Denise Nelson, the Chamber of Commerce director, had only recently moved from Las Vegas, but she was determined to save it.

"I've seen what happens when people sit on their hands and say, 'There's nothing we can do,' " said Nelson, 55, recalling how her Iowa hometown withered after its slaughterhouse closed.

The e-mails, letters and long drives to hearings -- "No one expected you to show up," they were told -- apparently are paying off.

Last week, a key legislative panel recommended that the camp remain open. Before townsfolk can declare victory, however, they must wait for a final budget. The legislative session is scheduled to end June 1.

Meanwhile, the inmates keep tidying Tonopah.

On a recent morning, a dozen prisoners in denim shirts and ski caps responded to Perchetti's note: "Please move jail and clean."

They carried chairs and wiped stove tops for an hour, their faces blank, their responses limited to "yes" and "no."

As soon as it finished, the crew was whisked away to its next task: picking up trash in a neighborhood park.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-natonopah5-2009may05,0,1320205,full.story

Posted by lois at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2009

OR: Business Group Says Suspend Measure 57 for Two Years

Oregon lawmakers might curb prison spending
5/2/2009, 3:41 p.m. PT
BRAD CAIN
The Associated Press

(AP) — SALEM, Ore. - A business group floated a plan this week aimed at protecting school funding by suspending implementation of a get-tough-on-crime measure endorsed by Oregon voters last fall.

It's a politically charged proposal, though. Opponents say it would thwart the will of voters who approved Measure 57 to lengthen prison sentences for repeat property and drug crimes and mandate drug and alcohol treatment for certain offenders.

However, the idea is gaining some traction at the Capitol as lawmakers and Gov. Ted Kulongoski struggle to find ways to pay for key services at a time of shrinking state revenue and an increasing prison population.

The Oregon Business Association's Ryan Deckert appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to urge lawmakers to set Measure 57 aside at least for the next two years. That could save $75 million and free up the money for other programs, he said.

"If we want to set a floor for education funding, then we have to be willing to take on issues such as Measure 57," Deckert, a former state lawmaker, said in an interview.

Deckert is among those who think a series of tough sentencing laws and other measures adopted by voters over the years has left the state spending a disproportionate amount of money on prisons-at the expense of education, human services and other programs.

Lawmakers traditionally have been reluctant to override the decisions of voters, but these are especially tough times in terms of the state budget. The next state revenue forecast, due out on May 15, is expected to show the state facing a shortfall of $4 billion or more.

That's why the notion of suspending Measure 57 has gotten as far as it has.

Kevin Neely, spokesman for the Oregon District Attorneys Association, said local prosecutors aren't wild about suspending something adopted by voters just last November. But he said that depending on how it's written, district attorneys could sign off on the plan that's aimed at cutting the $1.5 billion prison budget for the coming two years.

"There's no question that Measure 57 is good public policy. But the budget situation has changed since it was approved in the November election," Neely said.

In fact, the districts attorneys have also suggested that lawmakers consider, as a one-time cost-cutting step, some form of early release for certain nonviolent offenders. He said, however, that such a proposal would be no panacea for the state's budget problems.

"Releasing offenders is a complicated notion. There aren't a large number of low-risk offenders that could be immediately released," he said.

The gloomy economic climate at the 2009 Legislature would seem to provide an effective backdrop for critics of Oregon's get-tough-on-crime policies to argue that the state no longer can afford to spend so much money on incarcerating prisoners.

State Rep. Chip Shields, who's been a leading critic of the Measure 11 mandatory sentencing law passed by voters in 1994, said he's hoping this session can take some steps to restore more "balance" to the public safety system to put more emphasis on rehabilitation and prevention.

Shields said, though, that the dire fiscal situation has many lawmakers focused on balancing the next two-year budget and trying to protect key state services from damaging cuts.

"It's going to be a challenge to get people to focus on the long-term issues around public safety, and not just the short-term" budget crunch, the Portland Democrat said.

Kevin Mannix, the former lawmaker and Salem attorney who has sponsored various get-tough-on crime initiatives over the years, said lawmakers should leave Measure 57 alone and find other ways to balance the state prison budget.

"I know they are in tough times. But it will be a violation of the public trust for them to fail to implement Measure 57," said Mannix, who was the sponsor of a more expensive and stringent alternative to the measure that was turned down by voters.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-11/124130562977490.xml

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

CT: Criminal Defense Attorney Suggests a Different Kind of Background for Supreme Court Justice

Pattis Helps Out Senators
New Haven Independent
by Melinda Tuhus | May 4, 2009
A New Haven criminal defense attorney posed the first question for the potential next U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Norm Pattis posed the question not at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing, but during the closing panel Saturday of a conference called Tools for Ending the Drug War. The event was sponsored by People Against Injustice, a local criminal justice reform group, at Dwight Chapel on the Yale campus.

“Here’s my proposal,” Pattis said. “When the U.S. Senate vets the next appointee for the U.S. Supreme Court [to replace Justice David Souter, who’s retiring], do not confirm any person who cannot answer in the affirmative the following question: ‘Have you ever represented a human being in turmoil who made less than the median family income in this country?’

“If you look at everyone whose name is being circulated, there’s probably not a single person who could answer that question in the affirmative. I want a lawyer like [fellow panelist and local progressive attorney] Mike Jefferson, who knows what it’s like to stand in front of the court and beg for justice long after our client has run out of money and we don’t know how we’re going to pay our employees. I don’t want a justice in the U.S. Supreme Court who’s never stood by a [client] and heard them cry when they’ve lost everything, including hope — hope that only a lawyer who’s in touch with the people can give.”

Pattis said his proposal would “address not only the drug war, but the indifference in the courts to the people I see in my legal practice every day. I’m going to write to the president of the United States and agitate everywhere I go. I’m going to start a campaign that President Obama appoint a trial lawyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. I don’t want a former judge where people have to rise when he enters the courtroom. I don’t want a governor who lives in a mansion. And I don’t want someone with power. I want someone who’s close to powerless people.”

Local participants in the conference included State Sen. Martin Looney, State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield and Alderman Allan Brison. The event also drew some national heavy hitters, like Ira Glasser, former director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and current president of the board of the Drug Policy Alliance; and Kemba Smith , who was pardoned by President Clinton after serving six years of a 24-year sentence for her boyfriend’s illegal drug business. She now speaks around the country about the failed drug war and its many victims.

LEAP — Law Enforcement Against Prohibition — was also represented at the conference. LEAP members are mostly former or retired police officers (and chiefs), district attorneys, judges, and politicians, but a few members are currently in their criminal justice-related positions.

One is Richard van Wickler, the superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of Corrections in New Hampshire. He said he joined after attending a national drug policy conference in 2007. “I learned so much about the impact of the war on drugs on society, on the citizenry, on the entire global economy and the environment,” he said. “And I had an awakening with respect to the war on drugs and how damaging it is.”

Van Wickler said his new understanding has not affected how he does his job, because he has always treated inmates humanely.

LEAP supports legalization of all drugs. “We are not in favor of decriminalization, because that means the user would not go to jail, but would simply pay a fine and forfeit the drugs,” van Wickler said. “The harm in that is that the criminal element remains alive and well. They would still be battling for turf. Some estimates are that that’s a $500 billion a year industry. So the only way to remove that — remove that profit motive — if there’s no profit, it all goes away. The drugs don’t cause these problems in our country. It’s the prohibition of these drugs that’s the problem.”

Barbara Fair (pictured) of People Against Injustice, a principal organizer of the event, said she was pleased with the conference. “I would have liked, of course, to have had more people from the community, as always, because this was really about educating them,” she said. “But I appreciate people coming from all over the country just to be with us.”

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/05/a_modest_propos.php

Posted by lois at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2009

Wesleyan University (CT): Students Push for Prison Classes

Students Push for Prison Classes
Jan. 30th, 2009 — Vol. CXLV, No. 1
Wesleyan Argus
By Jae Aron, Features Editor

Students are asking the school to award prisoners academic credit. STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER / CHARLOTTE ROBERTSON Students are asking the school to award prisoners academic credit.

In his opening address at the College in Prison Symposium held last Monday, Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, Daniel Karpowitz, described a course he teaches on Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” in which students study the relationship between law and literature. The catch? His classroom and his students are behind bars.

“The students are never called upon to reflect on themselves, but are called upon to do exactly the same thing as students at Bard College,” Karpowitz said. “The core principle of the program is to maintain the same academic rigor, scope, ambitions and spirit of what we do on the conventional campus.”

Karpowitz, who is the Director of Policy and Academics for the Bard Prison Initiative, and Max Kenner, its founder, have been directing two satellite colleges inside two long-term maximum-security prisons and two transitional medium-security prisons for the past 11 years. Approximately 160 students are currently enrolled in the competitive program, which culminates in a Bard degree.

25 years ago, only 200,000 Americans were incarcerated; today, that number has risen to over 2 million. In fact, one out of every 100 Americans is now in prison. In the state of Connecticut, public investment in the prison system is greater than its investment in education.

These types of statistics have motivated students like Russell Perkins ’09, who for the past two years has been a part of the Prisoner Solidarity Project, a group of students who hope to bring a College in Prison program to Wesleyan modeled after Bard, Boston University and others.

“There is a conventional sense in which prisoners are the last people qualified to go to Wesleyan, but in that they largely represent a population that the educational system has profoundly failed, they are precisely the kind of students a place like Wesleyan should try to serve,” Perkins said. “Part of why I’m doing this is that I feel very strongly about Wesleyan as an institution. By incorporating this program, what we’re doing is actually committing to our belief that an education is a truly powerful thing.”

The Prisoner Solidarity Project is an offshoot of WesPREP, the Wesleyan Prison Research and Education Program, a prison advocacy group that leads workshops in prison and promotes activism on campus. Students and faculty involved in the project are proposing a two-year College-in-Prison pilot program at Cheshire Correctional Institution in Connecticut, located about half an hour away from campus.

Molly Birnbaum ’09 joined WesPREP her freshman year and has been deeply committed to the Prisoner Solidarity Project since then, working with faculty and staff to develop the program. She is also helping to write a grant for funding and organizing the symposium with other students.

“Coming from my neighborhood, prison and policing were all around me, but it was the type of thing that was just a given in the makeup of urban life,” Birnbaum said. “I wanted to address those issues of systemic racism and class oppression that plagued the place where I grew up.”

According to Perkins, the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education proposal pilot program would be highly competitive, with only 15 inmates being admitted, and taught exclusively by faculty. Admitted students would enroll in two courses per semester for “non degree seeking” academic credit, at least initially.

“Academic credit is something Wesleyan takes very seriously, and it comes along with extremely rigorous expectations,” Perkins said. “We’re asking Wesleyan to make a significant investment in the sense that Wesleyan academic credit and faculty are two of our most precious resources.”

The Center is also proposing “Critical Pedagogy,” a service-learning seminar where conventional Wesleyan students will learn about incarceration as well as tutor prisoners not accepted into the credit-bearing program.

Jason Kavett ’09 started volunteering in prison his first year at Wesleyan. Since then Kavett and about 30 other students have led workshops at Cheshire and also at York Women’s Prison on subjects like anthropology, poetry and non-fiction writing.

“Those [professors] who participate will find not just excited and talented students, but also a fresh outlet to share what they do best,” he said. “I think this will happen because, while being innovative, it is really only a reflection of the kind of engagement that defines Wesleyan as an institution. The program is actually quite conventional for us.”

Birnbaum said the level of commitment of incarcerated students often surpasses that of the average Wesleyan student.

“I’ve heard stories about professors who become reinvigorated as teachers through their experience working with incarcerated students,” she said. “Professors would not be diverting attention away from the Wesleyan classroom, but rather enriching their tenure with different experiences and new ways of approaching the process of learning.”
Karpowitz and Kenner were joined by two other panelists on Monday night in the Memorial Chapel: Dr. Robert Cadigan, who directs a Prison Education Program at Boston University, and Theater Professor Ronald Jenkins, whose course “Activism and Outreach through Theater” allows Wesleyan students to perform alongside prisoners in the Connecticut Juvenile Training School and York Women’s Prison.

While all five panelists advocated the program’s implementation at Wesleyan, there were differences of opinion as to how to carry out the program, even amongst colleagues. Questions about the value—or lack thereof—of interactions between traditional students and students in prison, as well as concerns about censorship and rules were common, as well as what one panelist called “anti-training”: that is, whether or not to allow faculty to discuss their students’ own “crime and punishment.”

“The panel gave the community a chance to see a large spectrum of approaches and even politics that advocates for this program have,” Kavett said. “We saw that even though you could say there is an obvious kind of progressive politics in the background, there is no dogmatic set of beliefs one has to have to understand why the program is so compelling.”
http://wesleyanargus.com/2009/01/30/students-push-for-prison-classes/

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What does it mean to have College in Prison?
By Sylvia Ryerson
Wesleyan Argus May 1, 2009

Dear Wesleyan Faculty and Fellow Students,

In the midst of all the excitement over the near approval of a Wesleyan College in Prison pilot program for the coming academic year, I wish to take a step back to consider the possible implications of the proposed program, and to re-imagine the best way to move forward at this moment in time. [1] As a citizen and activist passionate about the urgent need to actively oppose the U.S. prison industrial complex, as a current workshop facilitator at York Prison in Niantic, CT, and as a former member of the student group working to establish the WCPE (the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education), I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Wesleyan College in Prison program. Before it is too late, I urge us as a community to give this proposal the critical attention it deserves.

The goal of the WCPE is undoubtedly a worthy one: to offer college-level courses taught by Wesleyan professors to incarcerated individuals for credit. The program is meant to take place at the Cheshire Correctional Institution in Cheshire, CT, the largest male high-security prison in the state. As the mission statement of the WCPE proposal reads, the aim is to offer courses to “those who are systematically denied access to educational opportunities,” because “we believe access to a college education should be a right for all.”

Yet in making this claim, the proposal fails by its own logic. Cheshire Prison incarcerates approximately 1,361 people. This two-year pilot program will admit fifteen students in the first year and thirty in the second year, .01 percent and .02 percent respectively of the total prison population. In order to determine who gets to participate, the project states, “we propose a rigorous application process that will evaluate reading comprehension, writing ability and critical thinking skills of potential applicants.” Thus rather than enacting the belief that college education should be a right for all, this program explicitly outlines how individuals will be judged in order to determine whether or not they are worthy of this education, by a process that will necessarily privilege those coming from more advantaged backgrounds.

Rather than allowing inmates to elect the option of attending classes, this framework perpetuates a system of denied access for a population that has already been “systematically denied access to educational opportunities,” in a space that offers few alternatives. And in admitting only .01 percent of the population, this program will re-institute a social hierarchy throughout the entire prison structured on exclusive access to privileged forms of knowledge.

This is not the only way a college in prison program can exist. This is simply the model that has been dictated to the WCPE by a grant offered from the Bard College in Prison program. In some Connecticut prisons, community colleges offer open access courses for degree-granting credit (the WCPE offers only “non-degree seeking” transferable credit, meaning that participants will not be granted Wesleyan degrees). It is possible that Wesleyan could become an ally to these programs. Another starting point could be to set up an open access lecture series at Cheshire by Wesleyan professors.

Some argue that as a pilot, this program will grow to admit more people. Between year one and year two of the pilot, the program will expand from excluding 99.99 percent of Cheshire’s population, to excluding 99.98 percent. Given these statistics, how much expansion can we truly hope for down the road? Some argue that the intense competition for admission is necessary to uphold the belief that the “same standards of academic rigor that adhere at Wesleyan can be upheld in a class taught to prison inmates.” [2] Such an argument remains entirely within the paradigm that accepts prison as a space where rehabilitation is possible – yet only allows the possibility of redemption to a select few, within the terms of the intellectual order that has created the category of their exclusion.

The significance of this decision extends far beyond the relationship between Cheshire and Wesleyan. The hope of the WCPE (as it has been explained to me) is to make this a satellite program to be replicated in colleges and prisons across the country. I see this potential national expansion as re-creating the paternalistic logic of development that offers band-aid solutions in moments of crisis, effectively diverting attention and energy from meaningful radical organizing for social change.

There are many, many more things to be said here that this space will not allow. But I want to end by saying that I deeply respect the incredible amount of work that my fellow students have put into making this program happen. I know that the hardest time to re-evaluate is when things feel so close to completion. Yet personally, I find no sense of completion in the institutionalization of a program that lacks a broader vision and strategy for how to confront and transform the present crisis of the U.S. prison system. It is a dangerous game to theorize about the horror of the prison industrial complex, and then separate this from our own involvement in its recreation – especially at a moment when we have the opportunity to begin something new.

I know that there are many people on this campus who care deeply about these issues, and for this reason I urge us to talk to each other about the significance of this proposal. It is happening now, and it is in our name.

Sincerely,
Sylvia Ryerson
[1] The proposal has passed the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), but must still be passed by a faculty vote.
[2] From the WCPE proposal.
Ryerson is a member of the class of 2009.
http://wesleyanargus.com/2009/05/01/what-does-it-mean-to-have-college-in-prison/

Posted by lois at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)

Federal prisoners travel unescorted from prison to prison by bus

Federal convicts travel unescorted from prison to prison
Monday, April 27, 2009
By JASON WHITELY / WFAA-TV
DALLAS – Among the hundreds of bus passengers arriving everyday in downtown Dallas, there are some the government doesn't want the public to know about.

"It's an inherent safety and security risk for the industry as a whole," said Kim Plaskett, a spokeswoman with Greyhound Bus Lines.

German Cruz is one of the passengers at issue.

With a record of felony assault in New York ten years ago, a federal judge recently sentenced him to 41 months in prison for repeatedly sneaking into the United States.

Cruz is now serving that sentence in federal prison.

But, he was recently discovered at a bus stop – ticket in hand – transferring himself from one federal prison in Minnesota to another in Texas.

There wasn’t a guard in sight.

"We don't want our bus system to turn into Con Air, but you would think there would be some safety measures that could be put into place here, which doesn't seem to be the case," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D) Minn., who is also a member of the U.S. Senate Transportation Committee and was unaware of the practice of unescorted prisoners.

Our affiliate in Minneapolis tracked Cruz from Rochester, Minn. to Dallas on his way to Houston.

The reporter was the only one watching the convict as he made a 1,400 mile journey – alone.

"Certainly this would be something we would like to have known and we didn't know that," said Charlie Zelle, president of the Jefferson Bus Lines.

While a Jefferson bus carried Cruz, the company never knew he was on board.

Dallas-based Greyhound has carried convicts as well without knowing.

Both companies have urged the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to stop the practice, but have said the prison system refuses to end the practice.

The Bureau of Prisons said unescorted transfers are for convicts moving from one minimum security prison to another, heading to halfway houses or prison camps.

"Inmates assigned to either camps or halfway houses do not present a significant risk to the community," said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the bureau.

Since April 2006, more than 5,300 federal inmates have transferred themselves to a different prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons. More than 54,000 inmates have taken a bus unescorted to halfway houses.

Still, dozens escape.

Take the case of Dwayne Fitzen. He was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison for conspiracy and distribution of cocaine. Fitzen, 60 and a member of a biker gang, took advantage of being unescorted in 2004. He slipped off a bus in Las Vegas and escaped.

U.S. Marshals have yet to apprehend Fitzen and now consider him armed and dangerous.

Between 2003 and 2005, Fitzen was one of more than 77 inmates who escaped during “unescorted transfers,” and one of at least 19 not immediately recaptured.

In a September 2005 letter to Greyhound, the Bureau of Prisons said it allowed for this practice because it was the low-cost option.

"And that's why we are concerned about this,” Plaskett said of Greyhound's concerns. "These are not people who have paid their debt to society."

"Although, I don’t have specific data regarding cost savings, we know the savings is substantial,” Billingsley said. “To transfer these types of inmates using BOP staff, or U.S. Marshals services or contract services would result in a large, unnecessary cost to the government and ultimately the taxpayer, especially given the minimal security requirements of these offenders.”

Federal prison officials defend the practice.

Unescorted inmates haven't caused any type of incidents on buses, the companies said.

They have little recourse in getting the government to end the practice.

The Bureau of Prisons said it mainly uses buses, but sometimes transfers minimum security inmates in taxis and even allows for a convict's own family to move them from prison to prison.

After traveling 30 hours and 55 minutes, Cruz finally arrived in Houston, caught a cab and reported back to federal custody.
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090427_mo_unescorted.119677c3c.html

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