The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

October 20, 2009

“Criminalizing” Poverty, How Public Policies Result in the Over-Incarceration of Low-Income Communities in America"

“Criminalizing” Poverty, How Public Policies Result in the Over-Incarceration of Low-Income Communities in America"
By Tracy Velázquez, Executive Director, Justice Policy Institute
October 13, 2009:

One of the early lessons in school civics is that “justice is blind”—that is, all citizens get equal treatment in the eyes of the law. Unfortunately, this ideal has become an American myth. First, people living in poverty get swept into the criminal justice system more often than their better-off counterparts. Once there, they are at a real disadvantage in a court system where money can buy freedom through quality representation. And after they are incarcerated, they are relegated to poverty once again because of the punitive barriers society has set up to prevent their success.

This system is not only unfair, it’s counterproductive to our country’s overall well-being. Unless we as a nation take ownership of this flaw in our current system, we will continue to be the world’s biggest jailor, with the social and economic costs that accompany that shameful moniker.

Policing the poor

Recently, I was visiting my friend Rachel, who lives and teaches in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. Having started as a Teach for America participant who chose to stay on after her two-year stint, she is well connected with her predominantly Dominican neighborhood’s assets and challenges. In commenting on her experience taking classes at Columbia’s Teachers College on the Upper West Side, Rachel said, “You know, I finally get why people in this neighborhood end up in trouble more. Compared to down by Columbia, the cops are everywhere here in the Heights, all the time. And judging by the warnings I get from campus, it doesn’t look like there’s any more crime up where I live.”

Rachel had, on her own, come to see what those who advocate for low-income communities have known for a long time: America over-polices the poor. It makes sense that places with more crime would have a stronger police presence than communities with less. However, more policing in low-income areas results in more arrests and incarceration for offenses that would likely be handled informally or not at all in another neighborhood. For example, someone smoking a marijuana joint on a bench or their front porch in a more affluent neighborhood is unlikely to be observed by a police officer who would arrest them. More police can also mean more encounters with police – what some might consider “hassling” – which also can result in arrests that just wouldn’t occur otherwise.

Many have asserted that a significant component of over-policing is race. For instance, between January 2006 and September 2007, “random” frisks by New York City police included 453,042 blacks and only 94,530 whites. However, with race and income so closely intertwined, it is often difficult to separate the two. And the result is still that low-income individuals are more often the target of police attention, which means more are arrested and move deeper into the criminal justice system.

“When the lawyer you choose matters most”

The above phrase shocked me as I listened to public radio on my way to work recently. It was the tagline for a law firm that was underwriting the program, and it was impossible for me not to think about it in terms of what it means for people in poverty that have been arrested.

In this day and age of complex proceedings, a multitude of laws, and serious and lasting consequences of a criminal record, the idea of not having a lawyer represent you in court seems almost unfathomable. In fact, in 1963’s Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court stated that “reason and reflection require us to recognize that, in our adversary system of justice, any person hauled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” However, individuals of lower income generally don’t choose their lawyer; one is assigned by the court. Or one should be, anyway; unfortunately, over one in four people in jail charged with misdemeanor offenses reported not having been represented by counsel.

The vast majority of public defenders are qualified, dedicated attorneys, but many work in conditions they describe as “assembly line justice.” Small budgets – which are now shrinking during this economic downturn – mean many public defenders have barely met their client before they have to go into court and defend them. Of people in prison with court-appointed counsel, only 37 percent in state facilities and 54 percent in federal facilities spoke with their attorneys within the first week after arrest. In contrast, of people with hired counsel, three in five in state facilities and three-fourths in federal facilities had been in contact with their attorneys about their charges within a week of arrest. In an effort to manage their caseloads, public defenders are under pressure to resolve cases quickly, with little time to investigate leads that might have resulted in the case being dismissed or the charges lessened.

What is the result? State defendants with a public defender are sentenced to prison or jail more often than those with private attorneys. People who can afford a private attorney are less likely to go to state prison.

In addition, about half of individuals using a public defender or assigned counsel were released from jail prior to trial, compared to over three in four with a private attorney. Part of this may be a result of differences in representation; it is likely also because people who use public defenders are generally the same people who can’t afford to post bond. With courts demanding higher bail amounts, fewer and fewer people are able to post bond and be released from jail while awaiting trial. Currently, more than 60 percent of people in jails across the country have not been convicted of any offense. The inability to post bond not only makes it harder for people accused of crimes to meet with their lawyer and talk to people who might be able to aid in their defense, it also makes it harder to hold down their job and maintain custody of their children—even though they are still considered innocent.

Substituting corrections for treatment

Adult and juvenile correctional facilities are now among the country’s largest providers of mental health care: this is true both in large, urban areas (the Los Angeles County Jail is now the largest mental health facility in the country) and smaller, more rural ones (the largest provider of mental health care in Alabama is the prison). A key driver of this is lack of access to community mental health services. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, over a third of the poor and 30 percent of the near-poor (incomes ranging from the poverty line to twice the poverty line) lack health coverage. And according to the National Survey of Drug Use and Mental Health, 42 percent of those who needed mental health treatment but didn’t get it said the primary reason was that they couldn’t afford it. Underinsurance is also a problem: 34 percent of insured people who had unmet mental health needs indicated that cost was a barrier to seeking treatment.

The manifestations of untreated mental illness often lead to behaviors that draw the attention of police—public order offenses that often accompany homelessness, crises that cause law enforcement to intervene, and “self-medicating” with alcohol and illegal drugs. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly a quarter of the people in state prisons experienced mental health issues in the year preceding incarceration, and nearly two-thirds of people in jails live with mental illness. Some parents of children with serious emotional disturbances who are uninsured or underinsured turn their own children over to the police, in an effort to get at least minimum treatment through the juvenile justice system.

People with no access to health care are also likely to return to prison after being released. In a visit I made to a state prison, an individual with a serious mental illness told me that earlier that year he had been released from prison with 10 days worth of medicine and $100 in cash. He was left on his own to figure out how to manage his illness. He relied on a local clinic for pharmaceutical “samples” for a time, but ended up homeless and self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs. This eventually led to his being re-incarcerated.

A large percentage of incarcerated people also have a substance abuse disorder. Over half of people in state prisons meet the criteria for drug dependence or abuse. Once again, low-income people with a substance abuse addiction are disproportionately incarcerated as they cannot access treatment. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicated that 37.4 percent of people who sought substance abuse treatment indicated they didn’t receive it because they had no health coverage and couldn’t afford the cost of treatment. This lack of access, combined with the criminalization of addiction, mean thousands of people end up in prison or jail for drug possession or distribution or other offenses that would support an addiction.

Continuing barriers to opportunity

Currently, one in 31 people in the United States is under correctional supervision—whether in prison or jail, or on parole or probation. And millions more have a felony record that will never be erased, creating hardships for those trying to regain their lives and be a productive member of their community.

Adding to these difficulties is the fact that the correctional population is already largely made up of lower-income people. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2002, eighty-three percent of people in jail reported income of less than $2,000 in the month prior to arrest, one-third lower than the average monthly wage of the general public.

Many people who have been incarcerated face obstacles when attempting to find a job and housing. In a report for the Brookings Institution, Richard Freedman found that jail time reduced the probability of employment by between 15 and 30 percentage points. In addition, people leaving prison, regardless of their pre-incarceration status, are especially vulnerable to homelessness, often banned from federal housing, face challenges reconnecting with family and friends, and lack the funds to afford available housing. Often, the obligations of parole fees and years of child support that went unpaid during their period of incarceration make it almost impossible to become economically successful.

Conclusion

The impact of the criminal justice system on low-income communities can’t be ignored. At every stage of the process – from who is arrested to who is convicted and who eventually loses out on their rights – the poor are disproportionately affected. Policymakers continue to incarcerate millions of people, most of whom would not be in the system if there were more adequate resources in their communities. How can this situation be addressed, so that poverty and prison aren’t inevitably intertwined?

The U.S. should provide meaningful access – regardless of ability to pay -- to community-based treatment that would ensure that people get the mental health and substance abuse treatment they need before they collide with the justice system; this would improve both public safety and individual life outcomes. A healthcare “safety net” that will cover formerly incarcerated individuals also will save states millions in reduced rates of recidivism and re-incarceration.

Instead of overfunding incarceration and policing, we should make investments in resources for low-income communities that are already at a disadvantage due to their socioeconomic status. This means better schools, more job development, and more programs that can help people – and particularly youth – succeed. These types of investments will create healthier, safer communities and reduce the use of prisons as an answer to poverty and other social problems.

Tracy Velázquez is Executive Director of the Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit working to promote effective solutions to social problems and dedicated to ending society’s reliance on incarceration

http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/ExclusiveCommentary.aspx?id=5f13e0fe-a47d-4ce4-a945-187fc331e81d

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

October 17, 2009

The California Fix: As 40% of money for rehab programs are cut, prisons do less to keep prisoners from returning

THE CALIFORNIA FIX
As rehab programs are cut, prisons do less to keep inmates from returning
By Michael Rothfeld
October 17, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento - Gina Tatum spends her days in a compound surrounded by electrified fence in the sun-baked heart of the Central Valley, hoping to change her life.

She will soon turn 50, and after two decades in and out of prison, she says she is tired of victimizing others, tired of stealing, tired of doing drugs.

"I can't afford any more years up here -- I've lost too many," said Tatum, who is serving a four-year stint for forgery at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla. "I'm trying to learn things to change my thinking, change everything about me, so I can go home. It's so easy to get caught up here and never leave. I don't want to die in prison."

But because of cuts in the state budget, Tatum and thousands of other inmates and parolees in California are about to lose access to many of the programs the prison system has offered to help them turn their lives around.

Officials plan to chop $250 million a year from rehabilitation services, more than 40% of what the state now devotes to them and a quarter of the $1 billion it is slicing from its prison system.

The cuts occur four years after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded lawmakers to change the name of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"We don't want to just put the name on it," he said in 2007, proposing to expand rehabilitation services for prisoners. "We have to heal them. We have to get them ready to go out so they can get a job, connect with society and never commit a crime again."

Federal pressure

The rehabilitation services are being slashed at the moment when they may be most needed: The state is under pressure from federal courts to reduce overcrowding driven by the high rate at which inmates return to prison after they are released.

Substance-abuse treatment, vocational training and educational programs, all scheduled to be cut back, were designed to give offenders skills to help them hold jobs and make other changes. They are taught to handle anger, build self-esteem and search for the roots of their decisions to commit crimes, the better to avoid repeating them.

At eight prisons, substance-abuse programs will close; scaled-down versions will remain at only 12 of the state's 33 lockups and one of its privately run prisons. Up to 900 instructors and staff, many of whom provide academic and vocational education, could be laid off. Arts programs will no longer be available.

State officials say they will attempt to use their reduced resources more efficiently, by cycling inmates through programs for shorter periods.

"We're very much targeting the resources on those who most need it," said Elizabeth Siggins, who is in charge of rehabilitation for the state prison system.

But advocates for rehabilitation and program providers contend that the cuts mean a return to an old way of thinking, in which prisons were intended to punish but not improve those society sends there. And they say the changes could have an effect on safety in California streets and within its prisons.

Kathy Jett, formerly Schwarzenegger's top aide for prisoner rehabilitation, said gangs may attempt to fill the void created by the absence of programs.

"I think you'll start to see a shift back to lots of violence," she said. "These are pretty draconian, pretty severe cuts. . . . The wardens really are not going to have many tools to manage those inmates."

The changes could also subvert the state's recent moves to lower incarceration costs and ease crowding.

The governor and state lawmakers last month agreed to reduce supervision of parolees so fewer would be returned to prison for failing drug tests and other low-level violations. At the same time, the state is eliminating 45% of the seats in its substance-abuse programs for parolees, which experts say increases the likelihood that they will commit new crimes and go back to prison anyway.

And the state may undermine another recently enacted measure that gives inmates more time off their sentences for participating in such programs: Prisoners cannot earn the credit without access to the programs.

At Valley State, two nonprofit groups hired by the state provide rehabilitation to 756 women four hours a day, five days a week. The state has canceled a contract with one of the groups, Phoenix House, as of this month and will end a contract with Walden House as early as December. After that, officials plan to award a new contract for only 175 women to receive services.

At Walden House's program one recent day, about 125 women arrived at a building that resembles a small civic center. They sat quietly for "accountability time," arms folded, feet tapping, while attendance was checked. When the session began, women stepped to the center to perform a previously assigned task intended to teach responsibility.

One read a poem. Another recounted the day's news from television reports. A third offered inspirational proverbs. The women sang a boisterous "Happy Birthday to you -- Woooo" for one inmate.

The goal, counselors said, is to get inmates, some of whom are required to attend against their will, to connect with others and learn trust. The program is for women who have used drugs or committed drug-related crimes, but the curriculum extends beyond controlling addiction to maintaining relationships, parenting and anger management.

'The tears start'

"We ask them, 'Why are you here? What has happened in your life that brought you to prison?' " said Charmaine Hoggatt, a program director for Walden House.

"We get them to try to be honest about some of the choices they made. That's when the tears start to come, the confusion starts to come, and the guilt and the shame."

Mary Rubio, in the 23rd year of a life term for a crime she would not discuss, completed the program in 2005 and is a paid mentor to others.

"This program saved my life," said Rubio, 54. In "the jungle" of the prison dorms and yards, she said, she never could have reflected on her life, on how self-destructive she had been. In prison, "it's, you know, eat or be eaten," Rubio said. "So when I came into this program, it gave me a safe place . . . to look at my behaviors and the reason for them."

Not all inmates engage. Informed about the cutbacks, some applauded, Hoggatt said. As several women sat talking about the coming changes, they said that though they had initially resisted participating in the program, encouragement from fellow inmates and counselors helped them believe that they could make the future better than the past.

Tatum, shedding tears and brushing back hair streaked with gray, called the program "one of the best things I've ever done in my life." It could also be her last chance to save herself, she said, because with two strikes on her record, even a fight after her release could land her back in prison for the rest of her life.

'Let us stay'

"I know you help some people even though they don't want to be helped," Tatum told Hoggatt. "Those of us who want to be here, let us stay."

Tatum won't be eligible, because the state plans to put inmates in that rehabilitation program for only the three months immediately before their release dates, rather than the current three-year maximum. She is not scheduled to get out until the end of 2011.

Siggins said the inmates chosen for such services will be those deemed to be most in need or at the highest risk to offend again.

Similarly, the state will give preference in education programs to those who can most benefit, Siggins said.

With fewer teachers, the most classroom time will go to prisoners with lower reading levels, while those at higher levels or who are preparing for graduate equivalency tests will have more individual "self-study."

But David Beck-Brown, an artist and former instructor who left his job at a San Diego prison earlier this year, said that with little to do, prisoners grow restless.

"We have to have programs," he said. "We have to treat inmates with dignity. All that is going under now."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-merehab17-2009oct17,0,3388203.story
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Posted by lois at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

October 01, 2009

Parole holds key to California prison overcrowding

Parole holds key to California prison overcrowding
Between 60,000 and 70,000 California parolees return to custody annually for violations, many of them minor. Reforms passed this month could help cut prisoner tallies.
By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer

Tracy, calif.

Standing in a dim prison gymnasium that's been converted into a vast cell to house 300 inmates, Phillip Nelson talks about how he's spent much of his adult life incarcerated. He's been in and out of the Deuel Vocational Institution, a 1950s-era penitentiary that is now California's most overcrowded prison, partly due to parole violations since being convicted of receiving stolen property in the 1980s.

"I wouldn't be in prison if it weren't for the parole system," says Mr. Nelson, who was most recently sent back to prison for violating the terms of his parole because, he claims, he missed a "class."

Many of his fellow inmates, who sleep in cots lined up in rows stretching the width of the gym, also say they returned to prison for parole violations.

That is set to change. California has made sweeping changes to its parole system that experts and government officials say are key to reducing dangerously high populations in the nation's largest correctional system.

"Until we get parole under control, we can't get prison crowding under control," says Joan Petersilia, a law professor at Stanford University who has written extensively on California's parole system.

Between 60,000 and 70,000 California parolees return to custody annually for violations. They may have failed a drug test, gone missing, or even committed a new crime for which they were not prosecuted. They're sent back to a system that is so overcrowded and underserved that a federal judicial panel, describing conditions as "woefully and constitutionally inadequate," in August ordered the state to reduce its 170,000 prison population – double its capacity – by 40,000 inmates.

It was partly in response to that order that California lawmakers passed a prison reform bill this month.

Efforts to change the state's parole system have met fierce resistance for years from tough-on-crime advocates, says Ms. Petersilia. This time, too, concerns about relaxing parole rules were raised after the arrest of Phillip Garrido, a convicted sex offender and parolee, for the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

But the state now faces a perfect storm of problems surrounding its system of incarceration: a federal lawsuit, a fiscal crisis crippling its economy, and public opinion that has slowly been shifting away from rigid sentencing laws.

And in August, just four days after the judicial order, 55 inmates were injured and a dormitory burned down in a prison riot in Chino that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blamed on overcrowding.

No parole for low-risk criminals

Following the passage of the prison reform bill Sept. 11, state prison officials submitted a more ambitious plan to reduce overcrowding to the federal judicial panel. Even this doesn't go as far as the court wanted in cutting inmates – just 18,000 over two years versus 40,000.

But the prison bill does introduce parole reforms that have been long called for.

The crux of these reforms lies in reserving active parole supervision for only the most violent offenders. Instead of a system in which even the least violent offenders are put under some sort of supervision, low-risk criminals will now be placed on "banked parole," which means they can still be subject to warrantless searches by police but are not under regular supervision.

Also, parolees will be less likely to be sent back to prison if they commit a "technical" violation, such as failing a drug test. Instead, many will be sent to community-based programs.

This will mean many fewer people cycling through California's prisons. That will reduce prison populations and almost halve the caseload for each parole officer, with the intent that officers can spend more time supervising the most dangerous prisoners.

"The centerpiece of this legislation is the parole reform that protects public safety," says Rachel Cameron, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman.

Busting state budgets

California's reforms mirror other states' moves to rethink a tough-on-crime attitude first adopted by politicians – and demanded by the public – in the 1970s, attitudes that extended through the drug war of the 1990s.

The recession has highlighted the burden of overcrowded prisons nationwide. As budgets shrink, prison spending continues to swell as inmate populations grow. California spent about $10 billion to house roughly 170,000 inmates in 2008 – a 32 percent increase in spending since 2005.

States such as South Carolina, Ken­tucky, and Illinois have set up senten­cing commissions in the past few years to rethink tough sentencing laws that many say are at the root of overcrowding. (In California, those laws indirectly led to the adoption of universal parole supervision.)

Life-term sentences, for instance, quadrupled over the past 24 years, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington group that advocates for prison reforms. That's largely due to "three strikes" laws that mandate 25 years to life for third-time felony offenders.

The fact that California's reforms don't include a sentencing commission suggests to some that state politicians are still hesitant to seem soft on crime. The prison bill originally held proposals for such a commission, as well as provisions to allow some offenders to serve the last year of their sentence under house arrest, but they were removed in an effort to win over Republicans, who said it went too easy on criminals.

Parole reforms are still opposed by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, a powerful force in state politics. "If hardened criminals are released early – without supervision or support – crime will increase and lives will be lost," said the association's acting president, Chuck Alexander, in a statement.

Dingy, crowded cells

Whether parole reform alone can fix the problem of prison overcrowding is unclear; what's not is that it desperately needs fixing.

At the Deuel prison in Tracy, 3,900 inmates crowd into a facility designed for 1,700. It's a vocational institute in name only. Gilbert Valenzuela, the public information officer, says that when he arrived 20 years ago, Deuel had a vocational shop where inmates could learn a trade. "[That] would have really benefited the inmates a lot and also the community," he says.

Chief Deputy Warden Ron Rackley acknowledges crowding has taken a toll on infrastructure and on staff and prisoners. In his airy office, seemingly a world away from the dingy cells, he says, "When you are sleeping with your head at the foot of another man, you tend to be irritable."

Jenaro Torres, a tattooed inmate with thick braids, is blunter: "At least in a cell you only have to deal with the other person," he says. "This isn't even made for living."•
September 27, 2009 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0929/p20s01-usgn.html

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

September 12, 2009

Prison Comix by Jim Ridgeway

Prison Comix
September 5, 2009

With more and more older people going to prison there is a growing demand for educational materials to keep their minds alive and well amid the deadening atmosphere of the American correctional system—created in large part by government and supervised and informed by the judiciary. Not to mention the thousands upon thousands of young and middle-aged people whose “rehabilitation” has been cut short by the cruel sentencing laws.

There are all sorts of projects afoot in this area, but one is of special interest. It is called the Real Cost of Prisons, and is run by Lois Ahrens of Northampton, Mass., on a shoestring. You can get a feel for her work by obtaining the Real Cost of Prisons Comix book which includes three comics: Prison Town about the financing and placement of prisons and their effect on rural communities; Prisoners of the war on Drugs, a history of the war on drugs; and Prisoners of a hard Life,which includes stories of women trapped by mandatory sentencing. To me, this last book is the most telling. PM Press publishes the book at $12.95 a copy.

Ahrens got the idea of doing comic books,partly because she wanted to find a way of communicating with prisoners in a simple,direct way providing them especially up to date information and new research. She hit on the idea,in part from years of going to Mexico, and watching women engrossed in photo novellas while tending market stalls or sitting on park benches. Then trade unionists from South Africa gave her publications chock full of graphics, pictures and text that they were using to educate people in their campaign to stop privatization and in the fight against globalization. She also got ideas from “A Field Guide to the US Economy” by James Heintz and Nancy Foibre which also uses graphs, cartoons and ordinary language to explain the economy.

Because prisoners can’t ordinarily take advantage of the information that currently proliferates on the internet, comic books which speak to their lives and needs, are available and free, she says.

Comic books have been received by prisoners in every state prison system,every federal prison and numerous jails. Thousands more have been sent to prisoners through 13 Books through Bars organizations. We know that comic books are passed hand to hand by prisoners,since as soon as a set is sent to one prisoner,not a week passes before we begin receiving requests from other prisoners at that prison..One prisoner wrotethat he found one on a pew in the prison

Ahrens web site is an up to date resource on prison news.

http://unsilentgeneration.com/category/prisons-criminal-justice/

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

September 02, 2009

ColorLines Review: The Real Cost of Prisons Comix: Vivid comics show the impacts of mass incarceration on communities of color

Issue #52, Sept/Oct 2009
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix
By Jenna M. Lloyd
Vivid comics show the impacts of mass incarceration on communities of color.

September 2, 2009

Locking 2.3 million people behind bars is a vast social project. It takes work to hide the equivalent of a large US city in plain sight. The explanations served up on the nightly news and by tough-on-crime politicians graphically focus on violent crime, despite its decline. More prisons, they say, will create safe and drug free communities.

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix (PM Press), winner of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s PASS Award, asks whether the billions of dollars invested annually in mass incarceration delivers on these promises.

Hidden behind these fear-provoking images, the book documents the steep human costs exacted on individual health and freedom, family unity, and community well being. What else could be done with the social wealth and creativity now trapped into cycles of cage-building and neighborhood abandonment?

Through powerful graphics and a wealth of grim statistics The Real Cost of Prisons Comix depicts how the past 30 years of unprecedented prison growth have reshaped the landscape of our urban and rural communities. By showing the concrete work that goes into building and maintaining the prison-industrial complex—from the peddlers of fear to the parole officer—the book serves as a smart, accessible primer on the politics and economics driving prison expansion. Prisons are filled with people who have dreams, raise children, and belong to communities most will rejoin.

The RCPC shows visceral narratives of their lives and the collision of racism, poverty, sexism to trace the systematic ways in which mass incarceration builds on and exacerbates these powerful inequities. Most importantly, it suggests concrete alternatives that can help rebuild safe, healthy communities.

Shrinking the system becomes as important a harm reduction strategy as needle exchange and drug treatment.

Three accomplished comic artists collaborate with long time activists and draw on the work of dozens of researchers imprisoned people, and advocates, to examine one dimension of mass incarceration. Kevin Pyle’s "Prison Town: Paying the Price" shows how millions of dollars poured into moving people hours away from their homes fails to generate promised economic growth for struggling rural communities.

In "Prisoners and the War on Drugs," Sabrina Jones takes on racial disparities in drug laws and policing practices that result in African American and Latino people comprising 93% of those incarcerated in New York, and that lock up more drug users than dealers.

Susan Willmarth’s "Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children" examines how women are the fastest growing group of people being imprisoned. Most women are imprisoned for non-violent crimes, half of them drug offenses. But lifetime bans on welfare, public housing, and student loans for felony drug convictions only exacerbate already serious problems of poverty, racism, abuse, and drugs women face in their daily lives.

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix grew out of a popular education project Lois Ahrens began in 2000. Since the first printing in 2005, over 115,000 copies have been distributed free of charge, and project’s website receives over 30,000 page views each month. One of the great things about this book as an organizing tool is that it includes letters from readers of the comic books—imprisoned people, political organizers, policy makers, teachers, social service providers—which give us a sense of how resonant these comics have been, and all of the ways they have been put to work on the ground.


The economic depression and fiscal crises facing so many states make the alternatives to mass incarceration the book outlines all the more timely. But it’s also a time when the government is pouring even more money into locking up immigrants. Doing away with prisons isn’t just an issue of pure economics, but will also require confronting the racism, economic inequalities, and sexism that work to fuel the futureless future that they represent.

Larson, a man who is imprisoned in Sing Sing, reminds us: “Anyone planning a prison they’re not going to build for ten or fifteen years is planning for a child, planning prison for somebody who’s a child right now.” What dreams are never realized when billions go to jails and prisons instead of to rebuilding our decimated cities? The Real Cost of Prisons Comix gives us a solid place to begin building the healthy, safe, and free futures we want.

Jenna M. Loyd is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is also co-editing a collection, Beyond Walls and Cages, that analyzes the connections between US migration policy and mass incarceration, and activist efforts to the brutalities of both systems. She can be reached at jloyd@gc.cuny.edu.
http://colorlines.com/article.php?ID=598

Posted by lois at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2009

Study shows that denying prisoners parole does little to reduce crime

August 26, 2009
Study: Late parole is no deterrent
Karen Bouffard / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

Lansing -- Keeping inmates in prison past their earliest parole dates does little to reduce crime, according to a study released today by a Michigan public policy group.

The findings come as Michigan plans to parole 3,000 more felons this year than in previous years to curb rising prison costs.

The study by the nonprofit Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending followed for four years 76,721 Michigan prisoners released for the first time between 1986 and 1999 to determine whether they came back to prison for a new crime or parole violation.

Researchers concluded that denying parole when prisoners first become eligible does very little to reduce crime rates.

The data showed those convicted of homicide and sex offenses rarely commit new crimes against people, and serving more time does not increase the likelihood of success upon release.

The study found:

• While 18 percent returned to prison with a new sentence within four years of their release, only 4.5 percent were returned for a new crime against a person. Returns for larceny, drugs and burglary were by far the most common.

• Re-offense rates vary widely by crime type. Criminals who commit financially motivated crimes are the most likely to return to prison; 3 percent of sex offenders returned for a new sex offense and less than 1 percent of homicide offenders returned for another homicide.

• Overall, 61 percent were released when first eligible but that also varied widely by offense. About 30 percent were kept one or two additional years, then released. Prisoners with the lowest re-offense rates were most likely to be denied parole.

• Length of time served was not associated with success upon release, although older age, lack of prior prison terms and good institutional conduct were.

The Lansing-based group, which advocates policies that prevent crime and rehabilitates offenders, estimates that if everyone denied parole for up to two years had been released when first eligible, on average, it would have saved more than 2,300 beds a year.

http://detnews.com/article/20090826/METRO/908260362/1409/METRO/Study--Late-parole-is-no-deterrent

Posted by lois at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2009

Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter now can be found on the Real Cost of Prisons website

As many of you know, the C.P.R. newsletter was published for 34 years. In June 2009, they mailed an announcement to their 9,100 subscribers ... almost all of whom are prisoners saying the could no longer afford to keep printing and sending the newsletter. The Real Cost of Prisons believes in the work of the C.P.R. To reach out to families, friends, allies of prisoners, we will post the C.P.R. Newsletters in PDF format beginning with July, 2009. Each month, we will post a new newsletter. The Newsletter is now 2 pages. We encourage you to download the newsletter and send it to prisoners so that they will continue to receive this important source of information and inspiration for organizing that the Newsletter provides.
http://www.realcostofprisons.org/coalition.html

Posted by lois at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2009

Editorial NY Times: California Is Failing the Prison Test

Editorial
California Is Failing the Prison Test
Published: August 26, 2009- NY Times

The California Legislature has failed several times to change backward sentencing and parole policies that keep the state’s prisons dangerously overcrowded with too many minor offenders sent to jail for too long. These failures, which have driven up corrections costs by about 50 percent in less than a decade, came home to roost earlier this month, when a federal court ordered the state to cut the prison population significantly. Days later, an ominous riot broke out in the men’s prison in Chino.

The time for ducking this issue has clearly passed, but a reform plan approved by the State Senate after being championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in danger of being gutted in the Assembly. Democratic lawmakers who should know better are running scared of the prison guards’ union and of being labeled “soft on crime.”

The heart of the problem is California’s poorly designed parole system. A vast majority of states use parole to supervise serious offenders who require close monitoring. California has historically put just about everyone on parole. According to a federally backed study released last year, more people are sent to prison in California by parole officers than by the courts, and nearly half of those people go back on technical violations like missed appointments and failed drug tests.

The reform package that passed in the Senate would allow the state to focus parole efforts on serious offenders and end the costly practice of cycling people back to jail for technical violations. Under another provision, low-risk offenders like the elderly and the infirm could be removed from costly medical care in prison and sent to alternative custody nursing homes, where they would be monitored with electronic ankle bracelets. Low-risk inmates who completed college degrees or vocational programs would earn credits shortening their sentences.

This bill should have easily passed in the Assembly, which has a Democratic majority supposedly in favor of reform. But the Democrats, many of whom are running for other offices, are clearly fearful of even taking a vote that would allow a sick, 80-year-old inmate to spend what remains of his life in a nursing home wearing an ankle bracelet.

This is a low moment for Democrats in California. Those who put their parochial career interests ahead of the public good deserve to be called to account for it.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 27, 2009, on page A30 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27thu2.html?ref=opinion

Posted by lois at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2009

Second Chance Act- a total of $100 million proposed by House and Senate Bill half that amount

U.S. House of Representatives recommends mark of $100 million for the Second Chance Act in FY2010. An infinitesimal sum for the 700,000 men and women expected to be released from federal and state prisons this year and over 9 million people are expected to be released from jail.

The House Bill recommends:
that provides $100 million for Second Chance Act programs in FY10, including:

- $37 million for state and local reentry demonstration projects (Section 101)

- $10 million for state, tribal, and local reentry courts (Section 111)

- $7.5 million for family-based substance abuse treatment (Section 113)

- $2.5 million for grants to evaluate and improve education in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities (Section 114)

- $5 million for technology careers training demonstration grants (Section 115)

- $13 million for substance abuse and criminal justice collaboration grants (Section 201)

- $15 million for mentoring grants to nonprofit organizations (Section 211)

- $10 million for reentry research (Section 245)

-----------------
Senate Appropriations Committee has approved an appropriations bill for the Department of Justice that provides $50 million for Second Chance Act programs. The Senate bill would provide funding to only three of the Second Chance Act grant programs listed above: it provides $25 million for state and local reentry demonstration projects, $5 million for family-based substance abuse treatment, and $15 million for mentoring grants to nonprofit organizations.

Posted by lois at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2009

TX: After 15 years, waiting list ends for prison drug treatment programs

After 15 years, waiting list ends for prison drug treatment programs
New facilities helped curtail backlog.
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 05, 2009

For the first time since the Texas prison system's substance-abuse treatment programs began nearly 15 years ago, amid controversy over their cost and effectiveness, programs have no waiting list, prison officials said Tuesday.

In years past, thousands of drug- and alcohol-addicted convicts had to wait for months — in some cases years — for space to open up in the treatment programs, filling prisons with felons who could have been paroled, and confounding a smooth transition of convicts from prisons to programs to parole.

But officials said that because the Legislature voted two years to ago greatly expand the treatment programs, the chronic backlog that had plagued them since their inception, at the behest of then-Gov. Ann Richards, is now gone. At the same time, the prison population has decreased slightly in recent months, part of a national trend.

"It shows all the parts of our criminal justice system are working together right now ... and that's the first time in 16 years that I've been able to say that," said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, a Democrat from Houston who helped Richards push the treatment programs through the Legislature in the early 1990s.

"This will go down as a very important day in the history of our system," he said. "What it will mean for most Texans is it will enhance public safety. If inmates can get the treatment they need, when they need it, they will come out a better person than when they came in."

It was not clear how long the absence of a waiting list would last.

Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the waiting lists had dwindled until Friday, when all major prison substance-abuse treatment programs caught up with demand — thanks in part to the recent opening of a 400-bed contract treatment center in Burnet.

Another treatment center with 550 bunks is slated to open soon in the East Texas city of Henderson, she said.

"There are a few inmates with special needs that may be waiting for a day or so, but the backlog is gone for now," said Stuart Jenkins, the state's parole director whose division of the prison system oversees 78,000 ex-convicts on parole. "It's good news, definitely."

Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the agency in past years had approved thousands of convicts for parole on the condition that they complete a treatment program, only to see them sit in prison for months — even years — because no space was available.

"We can actually vote them into a program now and have them get in," she said. "That's great."

Billed as the biggest shift for Texas corrections policy in years, the 2007 expansion of treatment programs by lawmakers greatly expanded the capacity of in-prison drug- and alcohol-treatment programs, opened transition treatment centers to help convicts succeed once they got out, expanded counseling and specialized drug-treatment programs, and opened lockups designed especially for habitual drunken drivers. The cost was more than $227 million.

In 2007, Gov. Rick Perry proposed building two medium-security prisons, but legislative leaders opted for expanding the treatment programs instead, despite some concern about whether the initiative would work.

More controversial was the expansion of prison treatment programs in the early 1990s by Richards, who touted her experience as a recovering alcoholic. But owing to wary legislators and a tight budget, many of the proposed 12,000 beds were never built — and many of those that were built were used to house regular convicts, not those in treatment.

Budget red ink in 2003 cut those programs further.

State Rep. Jerry Madden, a Republican from Richardson who co-authored the 2007 legislation with Whitmire, said that having treatment beds available for convicts will mean that they can complete therapy programs before they are released from prison, giving them a better chance of success upon release. "This is exactly what we had in mind, where we wanted to be someday — even though I'm somewhat surprised we got here so quickly," Madden said. "We know the history of the programs shows they work if they're done right."

"I always thought I'd be a really old man before I saw this day come, and I'm surprised it didn't take that long," said Whitmire, who turns 60 on Aug. 13.
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/2009/08/05/0805drugrehab.html

Posted by lois at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2009

CT: Prison Life 'After Cheshire' Suspicions increase, parole opportunities decrease and understanding is stalled

Prison Life 'After Cheshire'
Suspicions increase, parole opportunities decrease and understanding is stalled
Published on 8/2/2009 in The Day
By Chandra A. Bozelko

Cheshire changed us. The July 23, 2007, murders of Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela Petit in Cheshire, allegedly by parolees Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, recently reached its second anniversary, our yearly reminder to check the locks and set the alarm.

As a prison inmate in Connecticut, I often hear about Cheshire. Almost all discussion of our sentences include the phrase “after Cheshire.” After Cheshire a national media spotlight intensified on a small Connecticut town and the state's Department of Corrections, provoking questions surrounding three p-words we use when we talk about letting someone out of jail: punishment, parole and propensity to re-offend.

Parole is largely misunderstood by many who think paroled offenders are just cut loose, released early from their punishments for good behavior. In truth, parolees are still considered to be in custody, but they live outside the facility, in the community, subject to rules. Think of parolees as inmates tethered to the prison, whose leashes extend beyond the prison walls.

At any time the facility can yank that leach and re-incarcerate the person. This is what happened two summers ago. Connecticut pulled back on all violent offenders on parole, regardless of how long they had been out or how much success they had created.

All inmates waiting for parole were stalled for months as the state reviewed parole standards. After Cheshire, suspicion about every offender's propensity to re-offend shot up because of a hideous crime.

Pundits lambasted parole. Citizens in every state complained about cream-puff correctional models that released animals instead of punishing them. All of the voices merged into one deafening chorus: “Why did you let them out?”

The irony is that Connecticut's prosecutors and judges work together to make the state one of the toughest criminal justice systems in the country. Criminal defense attorneys call Connecticut “Little Texas” for its severe sentences. As an inmate sentenced to five years in prison I would advise you not to fool around with Connecticut, especially after Cheshire.

After Cheshire no state leader can afford to have another Cheshire.

Human behavior unpredictable

Yet, ultimately, Cheshire was not about parole, punishment or propensity to re-offend, but about prediction. The three gruesome murders confronted everyone with a reality we collectively deny every day - our inability to predict human behavior.

People surprise us daily, from quirks to savage violence. How often have you started a sentence with, “Geez, you think you know someone and then ...”

In addition to the horror of Cheshire itself, is the horrible reality that we are powerless to predict the next one.

After the murders, Connecticut's Board of Pardons and Paroles released statements, correct statements, that there was no way to forecast the violence Hayes and Komisarjevsky allegedly wreaked on the Petit home. The two men were thieves and addicts, not killers. Even without paroles, each would have been released eventually. Does this mean Cheshire would have happened later?

In their fear and grief, people conclude that the inability to predict is tantamount to an inability to prevent, which is not necessarily true.

If we want to truly try to prevent such atrocities we must concentrate on another p-word: post-traumatic stress. I have not met one inmate here at York Correctional Institution who lacks a trauma history. Trauma is the demon that drives busloads of prisoners to Niantic. Trauma makes stops at drug addiction and abusive relationships along the way, but trauma's final destination, when left untreated, is prison.

Traditionally trauma has been treated by lengthy one-on-one psychotherapy or rapid-eye-movement desensitization, costly cures that no state can afford for each inmate. However, education about the mechanics of traumatic stress, taught in laymen's terms in a group setting, might work.

Current research indicates that certain experiences, when they resemble a past trauma, trigger “inner alarms” that cause emotional dysregulation, the cradle of all bad decisions.

By implementing the right psychoeducational programs in prisons, - courses about how trauma colors actions - correctional facilities can improve outcomes and reduce repeat offenders.

After Cheshire, understanding post-traumatic stress can change us even more, for the better.

Chandra A. Bozelko is an inmate at the York Correctional Institution serving time for crimes including credit card fraud, larceny and identification theft.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=b48fc9a3-9b46-4ac2-a583-efb2d920a558

Posted by lois at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2009

CA: Editorial- No more options in state prisons' future

Editorial- No more options in state prisons' future
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, August 2, 2009

When it comes to California's broken prison system, the budget crisis may have finally left us with no option other than to do the right thing.

Sacramento has known what the right thing is for years. We must avoid sending so many people to prison, through a combination of rehabilitation, parole reform and changes in our draconian sentencing laws.

For decades, the corrections budget has swallowed more and more of the state's general fund, starving priorities like higher education. But the political ramifications of looking "soft on crime" cowed legislators and governors alike. So we built prison after prison and stuffed them all to overcapacity.

Now, in a desperate gambit to close the state's $26.3 billion budget gap, legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to cut $1.2 billion from the prison budget. Furious Republicans in the Legislature immediately threatened to torpedo the whole thing, claiming that "early releases" could put public safety at risk.

In fact, the governor's plan would simply push forward important reforms to keep people from going into prison in the first place. These are simple reforms that prison experts have been asking the state to make for years.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation used the 2007 recommendations of the Expert Panel on Adult Offender Reentry Recidivism Reduction, along with recommendations from the 2004 Deukmejian Commission, to craft a package of smart, sensible reforms. Some of them are technical. The dollar-value threshold for grand theft, a felony, will be raised from $400 to $2,500. The dollar-value threshold has not been raised since 1982, and the corrections department estimates that raising these thresholds can keep 5,600 low-level property criminals out of state prison. This is an easy fix that.

But the bulk of the reductions center on our overburdened, ineffective parole system. This is the ideal place for reform - with around 70,000 prisoners returning to prison every year, California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation. The corrections department would lower that rate using "alternative custody" for "low-risk" offenders (nonviolent, non-sex offenders) and certain elderly or infirm prisoners. Rather than having these prisoners take up space in prison, where they can cost the state more than $100,000 every year, they'd be placed on house arrest or in a medical facility - with a Global Positioning System device.

The same would apply for parolees who commit certain low-level parole violations (like missing a meeting with a parole officer). Rather than sending them back to prison, to cool their heels at taxpayer cost of $48,000 a year, they'd get a GPS device. Local police would also be allowed to perform search-and-seizure operations on these parolees without a warrant.

This is one of the reforms that has Republicans crying foul, claiming that it's "easy" on crime. Thanks for the input, but the California Police Chiefs Association disagrees, and we're going to stick with their assessment.

"There's a recognition that the population of the state prison systems does need to be reduced, for a variety of reasons," said association President Bernard Melekian. "This is a dramatic step in the right direction. I think there's a number of things in this plan that will allow them to do this without jeopardizing public safety."

It's sad that it took a financial crisis for California to make these crucial changes to its crumbling prison system. Judges have called our system unconstitutional and ordered us to change it, public education officials have decried the diversion of funds for years - and yet it took an unprecedented financial crisis to get Sacramento to even consider it.

This article appeared on page E - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/01/EDH7190F20.DTL#ixzz0N2JExG9E

Posted by lois at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2009

MA: An Act to Reform CORI, Restore Economic Opportunity and Improve Public Safety H. #3523, S. #1608

From Boston Workers Alliance
An Act to Reform CORI, Restore Economic Opportunity and Improve Public Safety
H. #3523, S. #1608
Background

Growing access to criminal background information prevents hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents from obtaining work, housing and educational loans every year. Unregulated CORI practices lead employers to overlook qualified and motivated applicants from work. Meanwhile, ex-offenders who are unable to secure legal employment and housing are more likely to re-offend, and enter a costly cycle of re-incarceration. CORI reform in 2009 presents an immediate, cost-free strategy to reduce state expenses while improving public safety.

Summary of CORI Reform

Ban the Criminal History Question from Initial Job Applications

- An employer should only ask about a criminal record after reviewing an applicant and deciding that they are otherwise qualified for the position. Employers should consider an applicants’ resume, references and an interview before using criminal histories to screen out employees.

- Removing the criminal record question from initial job applications alters the timing of a criminal record inquiry, but does not limit an employer’s access to such information

- This law is modeled off of a CORI Reform Ordinance unanimously passed by the Boston City Council in 2005, and subsequently replicated in cities such as Cambridge, Worcester, Chicago, San Francisco and Austin. More recently, Massachusetts removed the CORI question through Executive Order for state jobs and health and human service vendors, and Minnesota became the first state to pass a “ban the box” statute for all public jobs.

Allows those who have not re-offended to seal old misdemeanor cases after 3 years and old felony records after 7 years

- Currently, a person’s felony record is accessible for 15 years and a misdemeanor is open for 10 years, which prevents people who want to be productive members of society to move on and work

- Countless longitudinal studies have shown that if an ex-offender stays crime free for 5-6 years, the likelihood of his/her re-offending drops to statistically non-significant levels

- The court system sets a precedent by requiring jury duty for those with felony convictions over 7 years in the past

Automatically remove not guilty and dismissed cases from the CORI

- Job applicants should not be punished for cases in which there was no finding of guilt

- Our judicial system maintains innocence until proof of guilt. Those who are exonerated by the courts should not forced to endure discrimination by employers and other gatekeepers
www.BostonWorkersAlliance.org

Posted by lois at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2009

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Vera Institute of Justice’s Third Annual Justice Address

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Vera Institute of Justice’s Third Annual Justice Address
Thursday, July 9, 2009

Laurie, thank you for that wonderful introduction. When I asked Laurie to come back to the Justice Department to lead our Office of Justice Programs, I was keenly aware of how much she would have to give up to join us. Not only did she take leave from the University of Pennsylvania, but she also had to give up her Chair of Vera’s Board of Trustees. I know that the polite thing to do would be to apologize for taking her from you – but the truth is, your loss is our gain. We hope that Laurie stays at the Department for a long time.

It is a privilege to join you this evening as your keynote speaker. Your past speakers have been Nicholas Katzenbach and James Comey, who reflected on the law after their government service. Perhaps one day I might have that kind of conversation with you as a former Attorney General. For now, I stand before you in a different posture, to share some ideas about how I think the American people can best be served by the Department of Justice going forward.

The Vera Institute of Justice has been an extraordinary partner to government in the administration of justice. I thank you in particular for your work with the federal government across a range of issues – from your contributions to the national commission to eliminate prison rape to the administration of Legal Orientation Programs for non-citizens in immigration proceedings. Your practical, rational, data-driven, results-oriented approach can best be described as post-partisan. In the five months that I have served as Attorney General, I have tried to take that same approach, and that is what I would like to talk about this evening: how we can move past politics and ideology in order to get smart on crime.

Getting smart on crime requires talking honestly about which policies have worked and which have not, without fear of being labeled as too hard or, more likely, as too soft on crime. Getting smart on crime means moving beyond useless labels and instead embracing science and data, and relying on them to shape policy. And it means thinking about crime in context – not just reacting to the criminal act, but developing the government’s ability to enhance public safety before the crime is committed and after the former offender is returned to society.

It is imperative that we get smart on crime now, for much has changed since some of our basic, governing assumptions about criminal law enforcement were developed. In the middle years of the twentieth century, America went through an historic increase in crime and illegal drug use. In the 1960s and 70s, the overall crime rate increased more than five-fold. Violent crime nearly quadrupled. The murder rate doubled. And heroin, cocaine and other illegal drug use surged.

Many lawmakers in the 1980s responded by declaring, in rhetoric and in legislation, that we needed to get tough on crime. States passed truth-in-sentencing and three strikes and you’re out laws. Some state parole boards became more cautious, while other states eliminated discretionary parole altogether. The federal government adopted severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws, eliminated parole, and developed the federal sentencing guidelines.

The federal government and states spent billions of dollars in new prison construction. The result was dramatic: the number of inmates in American prisons has increased seven-fold since 1970. Today, one out of every 100 adults in America is incarcerated – the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Few would dispute that public safety requires incarceration, and that imprisonment is at least partially responsible for the dramatic drop in crime rates nationwide in recent decades. By 2007, the nation’s violent crime rate had dropped by almost 40% from its peak in 1991. But just as everyone should concede that incarceration is part of the answer, everyone should also concede that it is not the whole answer. Simply stated, imprisonment is not a complete strategy for criminal law enforcement.

To begin with, high rates of incarceration have tremendous social costs. And, of course, there also is the matter of simple dollars and cents, and the principle of diminishing marginal returns. Every state in the union is trying to trim budgets. States and localities are laying off teachers and canceling sanitation department shifts, but in almost all cases, spending on prisons continues to increase. Not only is this unsustainable economically, but it is also not proving to be effective at fighting crime. For while prison building and prison spending continue to increase, public safety is not improving. Since 2003, spending on incarceration has continued to rise, but crime rates have flattened. Indeed, crime rates appear to have reached a plateau, and no longer respond to increases in incarceration.

So what can we do to lower the crime rate further, to make American communities safer, to get smarter on crime? We need new tools – and one way to develop new tools is to look several steps past getting people into prison, and to consider what happens to people after they leave prison and reenter society.

We know that offenders who have participated in the federal Bureau of Prisons’ residential drug abuse treatment program are 16% less likely to be re-arrested, have their supervision revoked, and be returned to prison, than similar inmates who did not receive such treatment before their reentry into society. They are also less likely to use drugs once released. We also know that inmates who work in prison industries are 24% less likely to commit crimes again, compared to inmates who have not participated in such programs – which, incidentally, operate at no cost to the taxpayer. The Bureau of Prisons’ educational programs designed to address educational deficiencies – ranging from Adult Basic Education to high school level classes – are also effective in reducing recidivism: inmates who participate in these programs are 16% less likely to commit crime again as compared to their non-participating peers. And inmates who are released through halfway houses are more likely to be gainfully employed, and therefore less likely to commit crime again, as compared to inmates who are released from prison directly to the community.

That recitation of statistics might not sound exciting, but what we do with it is. We rely upon evidence-based methods to innovate in agriculture, transportation, environmental safety, and public health – and it is my belief, that the Department of Justice likewise should embrace modern, evidence-based methods for developing policy.

In particular, it is critical that we work to develop policies – rooted in data – to address what happens after incarceration. For the statistics I cited are even more compelling when coupled with another fact: most crimes in America are committed by persons who have committed crime before. About 67% of former state prisoners and 40% of former federal prisoners are rearrested within three years. Logically, if we reduce the recidivism rate, we will directly lower the crime rate. Even a modest reduction in recidivism rates would prevent thousands of crimes and save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. In other words, being smart on crime means understanding that our work does not end when prison time begins.

Smart risk assessments can identify which offenders can safely remain in their communities and which require continued detention and more intensive supervision. Data analysis can determine which offenders pose a higher recidivism risk based on the type of crime the offender was charged with and the offender’s prior record. For example, risk assessments might determine that removing a 16-year-old, non-violent, first-time offender from his family and school and placing him in a juvenile detention facility is a bad idea because it would actually increase the risk of recidivism, and waste taxpayer dollars besides.

One specific area where I think we can do a much better job by looking beyond incarceration is in the way we deal with non-violent drug offenses. We know that people convicted of drug possession or the sales of small amounts of drugs comprise a significant portion of the prison population. Indeed, in my thirty years in law enforcement, I have seen far too many young people lose their claim to a future by committing non-violent drug crimes.

One promising, viable solution to the devastating effect of drugs on the criminal justice system and on American communities is the implementation of more drug treatment courts. Drug court programs provide an alternative to incarceration for non-violent offenders by focusing on treatment of their underlying addiction. Program participants are placed in treatment and routinely tested for drug use – with the imposition of immediate sanctions for positive tests balanced with suitable incentives to encourage abstinence from drug use. These programs give no one a free pass. They are strict and can be extraordinarily difficult to get through. But for those who succeed, there is the real prospect of a productive future.

New York has been a leader in this area, diverting some non-violent offenders into drug court programs and away from prison, and extending early release to other non-violent offenders who participate in treatment programs. And while national prison populations have consistently increased, in New York the state prison population has dropped steadily and has 12,000 fewer inmates now than it did in 1999. And since 1999, the overall crime rate in New York has dropped 27%. Other states have followed New York’s example. And most importantly, studies show significant reductions in re-arrests, from about 15 to 30 percentage points, for drug-court participants as compared to criminals simply incarcerated.

Furthermore, smart criminal justice policies are not, of course, exclusively reactive – we can also use data and evidence-based methods to prevent crime before it occurs. We have models, for example, in New York’s CompStat program: it uses data to map where crime is most likely to occur, deploy police to those areas to disrupt criminal activity, and evaluate the effectiveness of the enforcement strategies. We can also extrapolate from available data to identify youth that are highly at-risk to commit crimes in the future. For example, it seems that children who are exposed to domestic violence at home are more at-risk. Once we have identified at-risk youth, we can intervene with targeted programs, and I have asked the Department to make a priority of focusing on the issue of children exposed to violence. There is much work to be done in this area, but the underlying premise is already clear: we need to understand crime in context in order to prevent it – and with better understanding and more information, we can develop new approaches to old and seemingly intractable problems.

Although this Administration is still young, we have already started to put into practice what I believe is a data-driven, non-ideological, post-partisan approach to crime. For example, I have asked attorneys throughout the Department to conduct a comprehensive, evidence-based review of federal sentencing and corrections policy. Specifically, the group is examining the federal sentencing guidelines, the Department’s charging and sentencing advocacy practices, mandatory minimums, crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparities, and other racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing. The group is also studying alternatives to incarceration and strategies that help reduce recidivism when former offenders reenter society. We intend to use the group’s findings as a springboard for recommending new legislation that will reform the structure of federal sentencing.

I have also called upon the Department to focus on another part of the criminal justice system: the very difficult issue of indigent defense. Putting politics aside, we must address the fact that, simply put, there is a crisis in indigent defense in this country. Resources for public defender programs lag far behind other justice system programs, constituting only about 3 percent of all criminal justice expenditures in our nation’s largest counties. In many cases, contract attorneys and assigned lawyers receive compensation that does not even cover their overhead. We know that defenders in many jurisdictions carry huge caseloads that make it difficult for them to fulfill their legal and ethical responsibilities to their clients. We hear of lawyers who cannot interview their clients properly, file appropriate motions, conduct fact investigations, or do many of the other things an attorney should be able to do as a matter of course.

This growing crisis is troubling not just because of the government’s constitutional duty to ensure the right to counsel. When defendants fail to receive competent legal representation, their cases are vulnerable to costly mistakes that can take a long time to correct. Lawyers on both sides can spend years dealing with appeals arising from technical infractions and procedural errors. When that happens, no one wins. Addressing the American Council of Chief Defenders last month, I committed to several steps to help improve the indigent defense system, including hosting a national conference with the goal of developing a set of best practices and practical solutions.

I have also made it clear that this Department of Justice will use the available data to improve our handling of the forensics sciences – such as fingerprints, trace evidence, firearms matching. We are studying a recent report from the National Academies of Science that diagnosed problems in the use of forensics sciences and suggested ways forward, and we are working with our partners in the Executive Branch and Congress to act on the report’s insights and recommendations. Our goal is to ensure that forensic science is practiced at the highest level possible, and always in the pursuit of truth. Because we put a premium on truth-seeking – because, indeed, this Administration is committed to using the best science possible whenever possible, including in criminal justice – I also believe that defendants should have access to DNA evidence in a range of circumstances. DNA testing has an unparalleled ability to exonerate the wrongfully convicted as well as to identify the guilty. Federal law already guarantees access to DNA evidence held by the federal government under specific conditions, and I hope that all states will follow the federal government’s lead on this issue.

Many of the things I have mentioned in these remarks are still in early stages or under review. There are numerous areas I have not even mentioned – for example, the prevention and detection of economic crimes and on-line crimes – where we can similarly get smarter with a research-driven approach. I am already certain, however, that change is both necessary and it is possible – if we are willing to make it. Challenges have changed with time: Prison populations are at an all-time high and still climbing, yet the crime rate is no longer declining. States are in serious financial distress. But opportunities have changed too. We are able to compare the cost and suitability of different criminal justice strategies. We no longer must choose between more crime and more prisons: we can reduce crime rates and reduce our dependence on incarceration, and at the same time increase the integrity of our criminal justice system. We can harness science and data to tackle emerging problems and also to preserve our foundational principles. The more we know, the better we can do, the more sophisticated we can be. With the help of the scholars and experts in this room, state and local law enforcement, corrections officials across the country, judges, victims of crime, and always with the fine work of attorneys at the Department of Justice, there is no question that a smarter and better criminal justice system is within our grasp.

Thank you very much.

Posted by lois at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2009

Review of The Real Cost of Prisons Comix in Feminist Review

Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix
Edited by Lois Ahrens
PM Press

As activists know all too well, crafting a political message and effectively mobilizing an audience is an elusive task. In The Real Cost Of Prisons, Lois Ahrens and her contributors beautifully stage a difficult dialogue—about mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and the “war on drugs”—with comics. Comics are an accessible, popular form of education, and most importantly, addictive, and hence become a subversive way to raise awareness. The Real Cost of Prisons Project has distributed 115,000 comics to the incarcerated, affected families, and social justice organizations free of charge. Comics are just one part of the organization’s mission to end mass incarceration; since Lois Ahrens founded organization in 2000 a coalition of artists, activists, and researchers has produced and distributed educational materials about the costs—material and affective—of the prison industrial complex and it’s devastating impact on family preservation, women’s reproductive rights, rural economies, and much more.

“What does it cost to lock up 2.3 million people each day in the world’s biggest prison system?” ask Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore in the introduction to The Real Cost Of Prisons. In addition to the staggering economic costs (the U.S. spends $60 billion per year on prisons) that could otherwise be directed at health care, public education, and other social services, the human costs are immeasurable. In the comic “Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children,” illustrated by Susan Willmarth, we learn about the cost of incarceration for women and their children:

*One out of every 109 women in American is incarcerated, on parole, or on probation.
*Half of all women in prison are incarcerated more than 100 miles from their families.
*Seven million children have a parent in prison, on probation, or on parole.
*Seventy-nine percent of all women in New York State’s prisons are Black or Hispanic.

The Real Cost Of Prisons documents the vital efforts of the movement to end mass incarceration, and is an exceptional resource for all activists seeking creative ways to build and sustain a political movement.

Review by Jeanne Vaccaro

Posted by lois at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 09, 2009

WI: Both Dems and GOP irked as govenor vetoes key prison release terms. Some changes made.

All but people convicted of the most violent offenses will be eligible for "earned release."
"While the final decision over who gets out early will be up to a newly created Earned Release Review Commission appointed by the governor, which will replace the Parole Board, the vetoes ensure that the Department of Corrections will have control over much of the process that will allow offenders to get out of prison early."

Both Dems, GOP irked as gov strips budget of key prison release terms
Steven Elbow — 7/09/2009

No one expected critics of Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to allow criminal offenders a way to get out of prison early to be happy with its inclusion in the state budget.

"Citizens of Wisconsin beware: Thousands of dangerous criminals will be out of jail early and they may soon be coming to a neighborhood near you," Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, fumed in a press release after Gov. Jim Doyle signed his "earned release" plan into law as part of the budget last week. The plan has also been criticized by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

But the final version of sentencing reform that Doyle signed into law disappointed some within Doyle's own party as well.

"What the governor did was a start, but we could have accomplished so much more," says state Rep. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, chairman of the Assembly Corrections Committee.

Doyle's plan represents a sea change in the tough-on-crime philosophy that dominated debate on corrections for the past two decades. It would make all but the most violent offenders and sex offenders potentially eligible for early release, just as they were under the old system of parole, before truth-in-sentencing legislation took effect in 1999 to make offenders serve the entire duration of their sentence. Parole was renamed "extended supervision," and was also part of the mandatory sentence, to be served in full.

Doyle's earned release plan was presented last spring as a way to chip away at a burgeoning prison population, which grew by 14 percent between 2000 and 2007 and is projected to balloon by another 25 percent by 2019, costing the state $2.5 billion in prison construction and operating costs.

But Democrats wanted more. They inserted several additional sentencing reform measures into the budget, only to see most of their efforts fall victim to the Democratic governor's veto pen.

Those proposals were recommended by the Justice Center of the Council on State Governments, a nonpartisan association based in Washington, D.C. The center has had success dealing with prison overcrowding problems in other states using an approach it calls the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

Parisi says "those recommendations are tested, they're evidence-based, they've been used in a number of other states. And definitely not soft-on-crime states. We're talking Texas. We're talking Kansas."

While the Justice Center is currently working with 10 states on sentencing reform, Texas and Kansas are often cited as success stories, both because the group was able to gain the support of both Democrats and Republicans to overcome a stringent law-and-order mind-set, and because those states saw significant drops in the numbers of offenders who landed back in prison after their release into the community.

In Texas, where the prison population was projected to grow by more than 5,000 in 2007 and 2008, new inmates instead numbered only 529, and parole revocations that landed offenders in prison dropped by 25 percent. In Kansas, the parole revocation rate decreased by 48 percent and the prison population declined by 7.5 percent since 2004, when the state enacted strategies endorsed by the Justice Center to stem its prison population. At the same time, reconviction rates by parolees under supervision dropped by 35 percent.

Last year in Wisconsin, the governor, the state Supreme Court chief justice, the Republican Assembly speaker and the Democratic Senate president commissioned an analysis from the Justice Center on the factors driving the state's prison population growth. The center made its recommendations to a legislative committee, which endorsed them.

The center found that Wisconsin prisons are increasingly populated by offenders who violate the terms of their extended supervision but commit no new crimes. The 2007 average stay for such violations was 18 months, costing the state $99 million that year, according to the analysis. The center recommended capping prison time for such rule violations at six months.

Other recommendations included limiting the time offenders spend on extended supervision to 75 percent of the time they spend behind bars, setting a goal to reduce recidivism by 25 percent by 2011, expanding community-based mental health and job placement services for offenders and giving judges the authority to hand out shorter sentences if offenders complete court-ordered treatment programs.

In the budget he signed last week, however, Doyle vetoed the 25-percent goal in recidivism reduction, the cap on extended supervision and the six-month limit on prison time for revocations. While the Legislature didn't propose allowing judges to hand out shorter sentences contingent upon successful treatment programs, it would have allowed judges to review sentences that have been reduced. Doyle vetoed that, too.

"We were surprised by the vetoes," says Tony Fabelo, director of research for the Justice Center. "But we have no comment. That's the prerogative of the governor."

One of the Justice Center's proposals that survived, points out Doyle's budget director, Dave Schmiedicke, is money for community-based treatment programs. While it falls short of the Justice Center recommendation of $30 million, the Legislature set aside $10 million, and Schmiedicke says that money should help clear up some of the bottlenecks to programs.

What the governor's vetoes did, Schmiedicke says, "were really to strengthen the provisions and improve on what the Legislature had put in."

But the governor's vetoes make it clear that he wants the Department of Corrections to have a free hand in implementing the new program.

While the final decision over who gets out early will be up to a newly created Earned Release Review Commission appointed by the governor, which will replace the Parole Board, the vetoes ensure that the Department of Corrections will have control over much of the process that will allow offenders to get out of prison early.

Schmiedicke says provisions such as judicial oversight over caps on prison stays would have tied the hands of Department of Corrections officials charged with getting eligible offenders out of prison while still keeping the streets safe.

"The department really needs to have flexibility in those issues because you really can't create a one-size-fits-all policy for every single offender," he says.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/457516

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

California grants early release of some parole violators

From the Los Angeles Times
California grants early release of parole violators
Dealing with overcrowding and fiscal constraints, officials have set free some inmates and approved early release for others.
By Michael Rothfeld

July 9, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento — California prison officials, facing severe overcrowding and a financial crisis, have been granting early releases to inmates serving time for parole violations.

State officials said the dozens of prisoners set free from the California Institution for Men in Chino and from lockups in San Diego and Shasta counties had 60 days or less left on their terms, or had been accused of violations and were awaiting hearings. The releases were approved by the state parole board.

At least 89 inmates have been freed or approved for early release during the last two months. Others have been sent to home detention, drug rehabilitation programs or similar alternative punishments.

They were screened to ensure that they had never been convicted of the most serious crimes, such as murder, manslaughter, kidnapping or sexual offenses, the officials said. The inmates may have been convicted of grand theft, weapons possession, driving under the influence of alcohol or other crimes. Their parole may have been revoked for missing an appointment with a parole agent, failing a drug test, committing robbery or any number of other offenses.

The move came as county authorities in Los Angeles and elsewhere said they could no longer house -- and in some cases, threatened to release -- inmates awaiting transfer to state prisons from their own teeming jails. Counties routinely hold newly convicted prisoners or those picked up on parole violations until the state can take them.

But California's $26.3-billion deficit has left the state without enough money to pay for all of those its laws designate for punishment. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers are considering numerous ways, including the early release of inmates, to save money by reducing a prison population of nearly 170,000.

No budget decisions have been made, and Schwarzenegger spokesman Matt David said the governor had been unaware of the recent releases, most of which were in response to complaints by Los Angeles County that the state had left nearly 2,000 prisoners in its jails. That number represents about 10% of the prisoners in the county's jail system, which has a court-ordered population cap.

"This was an emergent crisis," said Terri McDonald, the state's chief deputy secretary for adult operations at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "We don't want a system failure in the county jail."

The inmates released from Chino opened up beds for some of those being held in Los Angeles County. McDonald said the state, to be "good partners" with the county, put other inmates in prison gymnasiums that officials had planned to stop using as dormitories, and took additional measures to free up space.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, however, said that the burden had not been alleviated and that the inmates, who cost the county $70 million a year to house, were the state's responsibility.

"If they're releasing them . . . that's their call," Baca said. "For them to blame me for their decision is absurd. All I'm saying is, 'I don't want them in my jail any longer. You're not paying me, and we're not offering a free ride.' "

In a June 30 e-mail, a state parole administrator told agents that the Chino prison would be the "first target" for releasing parole violators. Because of the fiscal crisis, the e-mail said, "we are starting to experience some resistance and refusals of the counties to hold our prisoners" and the state was "incapable" of taking them.

Shasta County, for instance, had recently been forced to close a jail wing because sheriff's deputies were laid off, wrote the administrator, whose e-mail was provided to The Times without a name attached.

The county had notified the state the week before that unless "30 or so" inmates were transferred, it would "release them to the streets over the weekend," the e-mail said.

Five were evaluated and released early, with approval from the parole board; the rest were transferred to state prisons, corrections officials said.

In San Diego, 200 inmates are transferred from local jails to state prisons each week. After the state abruptly stopped accepting them in May, then-Sheriff William Kolender warned prison officials that he would release 138 parole violators to avoid exceeding his jails' court-ordered population cap.

"We regret to take this drastic action, but we have no other alternative given our responsibility to adhere to a court order," Kolender wrote in a letter dated May 5. He added that the county had been "burdened with holding state prisoners for an inordinate amount of time and cost."

The county did not carry out its threat because the state approved two inmates for early release, sent some home on alternative sanctions and transferred others to state prisons.

California has one of the nation's most stringent policies of supervising ex-convicts once they are released; parole violations account for 70,000 prison admissions each year.

Joan Petersilia, a prisons expert who has advised Schwarzenegger's administration, said it makes "good public-policy sense" to reduce that number and reserve prison beds for those who are most dangerous.

"We simply can't afford the punishment that we've had in California," Petersilia said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons-release9-2009jul09,0,4952196.story

Posted by lois at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2009

PA: No parole for people convicted of violent offences...not so fast critics warn.

No parole for repeat violent offenders? Not so fast, critics warn

By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News

WITH EVERY violent crime committed by a repeat offender, get-tough politicians and police bemoan crime's incalculable cost to society - the lost victims, the rising public-safety fears, the ruined reputation of a thug-choked city.

Now there's a preliminary price tag on a plan that would stiffen sentences and end parole for repeat violent offenders in Pennsylvania: $55.8 million.

The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing estimates that State Rep. Brendan Boyle's bill - introduced this spring - could dump an additional 1,685 inmates into the state's 50,653-inmate system, at a projected 30-year cost of $55.8 million.

In this violence-weary city and state, Boyle's bill quickly got a high-five from the governor and other bigwigs, and is getting fast-tracked through the state House.

"These are the people we have to use our resources for," Seth Williams, the Democratic nominee for Philadelphia district attorney, said at a recent news conference to rally support for the bill.

But as policymakers ponder how to shrink ballooning correctional costs in a state that spends $1.6 billion on prisons yearly, the staggering sum has some folks questioning whether the plan is worth it.

Critics complain that the bill is a knee-jerk reaction to the recent police slayings and will only make things worse.

Eliminating parole removes the incentive for inmates to behave behind bars, said Bill DiMascio, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

The projected cost also virtually ensures that the state will have to build another prison to lock up the baddies who'll be affected, DiMascio added. Plans to build four new prisons already are under way in a state that now has 27, state Department of Corrections Spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said.

Pennsylvania already has a three-strikes law that allows prosecutors to request mandatory 10-to-20- year sentences for second-strike felons and 30-to-50-year sentences for third-strikers.

But convicts often are able to dodge that law, in large part due to the prevalence of plea bargains, lawmakers and experts agree. The average minimum sentence now served by the sort of second-strike felon that Boyle's bill targets is about eight years, data show.

Under Boyle's bill, persistent perpetrators automatically would be charged under the three-strikes law, eluding mandatory sentencing only if prosecutors ask for an exemption. And the bill will boost the mandatory minimum penalty for second-strikers to 15 to 30 years, essentially doubling the punishment they typically now face.

Advocates for juvenile offenders already vow to challenge the bill, which would allow courts to count juvenile convictions when tallying a person's strikes.

"Kids at juvenile court don't get jury trials, unlike their peers who did not get decertified, as well as adults," said Marsha Levick, deputy director and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center. "So, there's a due-process violation."

But Boyle, in insisting that juvenile convictions should be included, cited studies showing that the younger that offenders are when they first commit crimes, the likelier they are to commit more.

He also defended his bill's cost as a long-term savings, saying that removing problem predators from communities should drive down crime rates. The $55.8 million cost averages less than $2 million a year, a tiny fraction of the prisons system's annual budget, he added.

The cost projection is a guideline, said Mark H. Bergstrom, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. The bill's actual cost will depend on everything from its final wording to unforeseen trends, Bergstrom added.

"Keeping repeat violent offenders in prison longer obviously will add to the cost to run our prisons," said Boyle, a Democrat whose district in Northeast Philadelphia and Montgomery County is where many of the slain Philadelphia officers either worked or lived.

"But it is an incomplete analysis to only look at prison costs," Boyle said. "Violent crime in America has a cost one way or another: We either pay it in prisons or we let them out on the streets and pay the cost in loss of life, medical costs, lost jobs. If lives are saved through this legislation, then it is worth any cost to pay."
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/50004072.html?cmpid=15585797

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

July 01, 2009

MA: Organizations and Officials Call for Reform of CORI

Changes urged to state criminal records law
June 30, 2009
By Vivian Nereim, Globe Correspondent

Legislators, government officials, and community organizers called today for changes to the state's criminal records law that they said would help ex-offenders reenter society, including shortening the waiting period to seal records and a simplification of the sealing process.

Supporters of the changes to the Criminal Offender Record Information law, speaking at a State House rally, argued that revisions to the law would help people released from prison to find jobs and housing, reducing recidivism.

"The CORI law is broken, and on a daily basis opportunity is lost," said Kevin Burke, secretary of the state Executive Office of Security and Public Safety.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino urged immediate action. "Let's do CORI reform this session. Let's get it done now," he said, adding, "I just put a young man to work who spent 15 years in jail."

Under current state law, a criminal record may be sealed after a waiting period of 10 years for a misdemeanor and 15 years for a felony.

Victoria Binney, who attended the rally, said she was arrested for for driving to endanger and possession of marijuana when she was 18. Now, at age 25, she has been unable to find the healthcare job she said she has always wanted because of her record, so she is working as a barber in Worcester. "I've had problems getting mediocre jobs at Blockbuster," she said. "It's been a real big struggle." Under current law, she will have to wait another seven years before her record can be sealed.

The rally included supporters of three CORI reform bills, each with differing details. Governor Deval Patrick filed a bill in May that would reduce the waiting period to seal a record to five years for a misdemeanor and 10 years for a felony. A bill filed in January by Representative Elizabeth Malia, a Democrat from Boston, and Senator Harriette Chandler, a Democrat from Worcester, would reduce the waiting period to three years for a misdemeanor and seven years for a felony. Another bill filed in January by Representative Gloria L. Fox, a Democrat from Roxbury, and supported by Menino, would prevent many employers from inquiring about criminal record information.

Malia and many other speakers argued that CORI reform would provide economic benefits. "Every person without a job requires some kind of state or city resource," she said.

Tommie White, of Worcestor, who attended the rally as a member of EPOCA, Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing Community Advancement, said members of her family who have criminal records have been unable to find jobs. "I can't understand how you can train a man in jail and then you don't open up jobs when they get out," she said. "They're just going to go right back out and do more crime."

Hakim Cunningham, a community organizer for the Boston Workers' Alliance, echoed White. "You get the violence, the crime and the drugs because you have people who can't work who have the time to do the devil's work," he said.

Chandler said she hopes legislators will be able to work together to take the best from each of the three bills. "I think this is the year," she said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/06/changes_urged_t.html

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

June 30, 2009

CA: Program for parolees ends

Parolee re-entry program to end
By Lanz Christian Bañes
Contra-Costa Times-Herald

Posted: 06/28/2009

Solano County's parolee re-entry program will cease operations Wednesday.

"It's completely over with," said Tony Pearsall, executive director of Fighting Back Partnership, which runs the program.

Founded three years ago on a $600,000 state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation grant, the parolee re-entry program provided skills training, case management and support for about 900 parolees released into Solano County.

The program has since depleted the funding and has been unable to obtain more -- despite Fighting Back Partnership's contention that the program saves the state money by keeping parolees from re-offending and returning to prison.

The program's closure will result in the loss of three staff members. About 200 parolees will still be in the program when it shutters Wednesday.

"It's sad, because with everything else that's working against us, this one thing gives us hope that somebody out there is willing to work with us," said Peter Duena, 36, one of the 200 parolees still in the program.

When Duena was released from a four-year stint in prison, he spent a year looking for a job with no luck. But after being introduced to the parolee

re-entry program's basic building trades program, Fighting Back Partnership was able to secure Duena temporary contract work with the city of Vallejo.

"They're showing us that there are people out there that care and help us go straight," Duena said, adding that the re-entry program was his last
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hope.

Pearsall and other Fighting Back leaders contend that the parolee program is successful because only 20 percent returned to prison since 2007. The corrections department reports 52 percent of parolees returned to prison within two years after being released in 2006.

It costs $44,000 a year to incarcerate one prisoner, which amounts to millions of dollars in savings for the state, Pearsall said.

"It just doesn't make any sense, but I guess (the state doesn't) look at the back-end savings. They have to look at the front-end costs in trying to balance the state budgets," said John Allen, Fighting Back Partnership member who works closely with the parolees.

Pearsall and Allen will try one last time to save the program by pleading their case in front of the county Board of Supervisors early this week.

Parolees often struggle with barriers when released from prison, including a negative reputation among the public. At one point Pearsall, a former Vallejo police captain, shared those views.

"I never even contemplated a program like this would exist, nor did I contemplate at all, from a police point of view, that these parolees would be ones that are successful in the program and not re-offend," Pearsall said, describing the parolee sweeps the police department and parolee officers would do to arrest offenders.

The re-entry program takes parolees away from the same environments that led them to prison, said Pearsall, who also noted that other factors besides environment played into the initial offense.

"It takes you away from the drugs. You have to give 100 percent to this program .... If you're not serious, don't bother," Duena said.

Both Pearsall and Allen described the 200 employees in the program as devastated.

"It's kind of a sense of abandonment, I guess .... They're resigned also to the fact that stuff like this happens, but it's kind of like getting the rug pulled out from under your feet .... In a way, we're casting them adrift," Allen said.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_12707340?nclick_check=1

Posted by lois at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2009

Mass. prison system overcrowded; Patrick aims to fix it

"The presence of inmates in the system taxes an already stretched prison system at a higher cost to the taxpayer. It costs $2,500 to supervise a person through parole, while it costs about $43,000 annually to incarcerate someone. And unsupervised transitions from prison lead to more crime and more victims, as an ex-inmate without parole supervision is twice as likely to go back to prison than a released inmate who goes on parole.
With the state taking away the option of doing more time for no post-release supervisions, "consequently we free up beds," Burke said.
The Patrick administration wants to make the matter a non-issue by requiring mandatory supervision for all who serve a state prison sentence equal to 25 percent of their sentence, with a minimum of nine months parole and a maximum of five years parole."

Mass. prison system overcrowded; Patrick aims to fix it
By Dan McDonald/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jun 28, 2009
FRAMINGHAM —

The prison system in the state is overtaxed, and MCI-Framingham is no different.

As of last week, the Southside prison held 593 inmates - its capacity is 452.

The state system is at 146 percent capacity, state Public Safety Secretary Kevin Burke said. While the state considers creating "better space" inside the prison, "There isn't anyone you talk to who says we can build our way out of this."

Instead, state officials like Burke seek policy tweaks.

Gov. Deval Patrick's administration is pushing reform that allows for a loophole letting prisoners opt to spend more time in jail and avoid parole supervisions upon release.

Some prisoners chose that option, which Burke's office says bogs down the system and causes higher recidivism rates.

More than 500 prisoners annually who are up for parole choose to stay in prison for the length of their terms, so that when they get out there is no parole supervision.

"It sounds strange, but it does happen. Whatever the reason, we've got to get those folks under supervision," Burke said.

All told, 965 inmates left correctional institutions unsupervised in 2008 because of sentencing restrictions, institutional behavior that precludes parole, or inmates opting to stay in prison for more time to avoid supervision.

The lack of parole is problematic for several reasons, state officials say.

The presence of inmates in the system taxes an already stretched prison system at a higher cost to the taxpayer. It costs $2,500 to supervise a person through parole, while it costs about $43,000 annually to incarcerate someone. And unsupervised transitions from prison lead to more crime and more victims, as an ex-inmate without parole supervision is twice as likely to go back to prison than a released inmate who goes on parole.

With the state taking away the option of doing more time for no post-release supervisions, "consequently we free up beds," Burke said.

The Patrick administration wants to make the matter a non-issue by requiring mandatory supervision for all who serve a state prison sentence equal to 25 percent of their sentence, with a minimum of nine months parole and a maximum of five years parole.

The governor is also taking aim at another prison reform that could shorten sentences and free up room inside the prisons.

State law hinders those nonviolent inmates serving mandatory minimum time for drug offenses to participate in work release-like programs, according to Burke's office.

But Patrick's administration wants to have those imprisoned to mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes to be eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of their maximum sentence.

The mandatory minimum sentences, in some cases cause nonviolent criminals to serve a sentence that is "disproportionate to the risk that these individuals pose to the community," according Burke's office.

As of Jan. 1, 26 percent of prisoners in the state system were imprisoned for drug offenses. Of MCI-Framingham's nearly 600 inmate population, 24 percent are there because of drug-related crimes.

"Mandatory drug sentences don't allow us to be as smart as we can be," he said. "Public safety shouldn't come with a price tag, but we should be smart."
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x768070128/Mass-prison-system-overcrowded-Patrick-aims-to-fix-it?view=print

Posted by lois at 05:03 PM | 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.

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.

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

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

May 19, 2009

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 13, 2009

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 10, 2009

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)

April 25, 2009

CA: State prisons chief proposes $400 million in cuts

State prisons chief proposes $400 million in cuts
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published Friday, Apr. 24, 2009

California corrections officials today unveiled $400 million in cost-cutting proposals that would reduce the state prison population by 8,000 inmates by next summer.

Agency Secretary Matt Cate said a proposed change in parole policies would cut the prison population by 4,000.

He said it would result in fewer offenders being returned on technical violations while at the same time lowering parole agent caseloads so they can spend more time supervising more serious and violent parolees when they are released.

The other half of the population reductions would come through expanded good behavior credits for inmates who complete education or job programs and through changes in the dollar value of property crimes, which would turn some thefts now prosecuted as felonies into misdemeanors.

The proposed changes in parole policies, the time credits and the adjustment on property crimes each require approval from the Legislature. Cate said the agency plans to submit a package of bills to the Legislature next week.

Cate said the department also plays to cut 150 of the 2,000 position at its headquarters office in downtown Sacramento. He also said that corrections officials are planning to close down one Division of Juvenile Justice youth prison.

The cuts came in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's open-ended $400 million line-item veto earlier this year on Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spending budget, issued as part of the state's recent resolution to close its $40 billion budget gap.
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/1808030.html

Posted by lois at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2009

Three book reviews: Abolishing The Prison Industrial Complex and Freeing All Political Prisoners

Abolishing The Prison Industrial Complex and Freeing All Political Prisoners
Sunday, April 19 2009
By Hans Bennett
Prisons Above all, these three highly-recommended books (available online at www.akpress.org) argue that prison-related issues are inseparable from racism, classism, sexism, and all oppression, so the more we know about prisons, the better informed multi-issue activist strategies will be. They conclude that in working to abolish all oppression, we must also work to abolish the PIC and free all political prisoners.
Abolishing The Prison Industrial Complex and Freeing All Political Prisoners
A Book review of:

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix, edited by Lois Ahrens, PM Press, 2008.

Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners, edited by Matt Meyer, PM Press, 2008.

Abolition Now! Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against The Prison Industrial Complex, edited by the CR10 Publications Collective, AK Press, 2008.

2008 marked the ten-year anniversaries of both the prison abolitionist Critical Resistance (CR) conference in Oakland, CA that coined the phrase "prison industrial complex" (PIC) and the National Jericho Movement’s march in Washington DC that demanded the release of all US political prisoners and prisoners of war. To commemorate the 1998 events, the CR10 conference was held in Oakland in September, and Jericho organized a march to the United Nations in October.

These two important events in 1998 successfully re-energized the prison-activist and political prisoner support movements rooted in the 1960s and 1970s. However, while recognizing this accomplishment, three new books document how the prison industrial complex has actually grown bigger and stronger since 1998, while the post-911 climate has further escalated political repression. While recognizing this frustrating reality, these new books look honestly at both the accomplishments and shortcomings of the last ten years.

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix

The new book The Real Cost of Prisons Comix, reprints three comic books published as part of the Real Costs of Prisons Project (RCPP), which began in 2000. So far, 125,000 comic books have been printed, with over 100,000 distributed for free to community groups and college classes alike. Featuring artwork by Kevin Pyle, Sabrina Jones and Susan Willmarth, all three comic books can be freely downloaded at www.realcostofprisons.org.

Prison abolitionists Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore write in the book’s introduction that the RCPP’s value "has been to show us how the system of mass incarceration permeates our lives, who is paying the costs of that system and the many ways the system is vulnerable to people who put their thought and effort into organizing to shrink it." Significantly, the RCPP’s comics "demonstrate that the ideas we need to change the world can be explained simply enough and packaged attractively enough to be used by all kinds of readers." Prisoners and their families can "understand material usually circulated only among academics and those who focus on policy."

Editor Lois Ahrens writes that "a central goal of the comic books is to politicize, not pathologize." She argues that the "deregulation and globalization" of the last 30 years has "resulted in impoverishing urban economies, limiting opportunities for meaningful work and slashing funding for quality education, marginalizing the poor, and creating more inequality. The comic books place individual experience in this context and challenge a central message of neo-liberal ideology: the myth that people can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. In this paradigm, racism, sexism, classism, and economic inequality are not part of the picture. Most people now believe that change happens through personal transformation rather than political struggle and change."

The recent growth of the PIC and mass incarceration is staggering. Ahrens writes that "every year from 1947 through the beginning of the 1970s, approximately 200,000 people were incarcerated in the US. Today, there are more than 2.3 million men and women incarcerated, with more than 5 million more on parole and probation."

The 'Prison Town' comic book debunks the myth that building a new prison actually helps to revitalize a town with an ailing economy, and instead illustrates the many negative costs that a new prison can impose. Importantly, Prison Town also documents how many towns learned by example and cited the prisons’ negative impact in successful campaigns to stop prison construction in their community.

'Prisoners of the War on Drugs' is a heart-wrenching look at the victims of the so-called "war on drugs." At least according to its official purpose, the "war on drugs" has been a total failure, resulting in the mass incarceration of non-violent drug offenders at a huge, inefficient expense to tax-payers. Prisoners emphasizes "harm reduction" and treatment as a better solution, stating that the "war on drugs locks up more users than dealers. Most want to quit, but can’t. A year of treatment costs much less than a year of incarceration, plus: the person can work, pay taxes & take part in family life." While drug laws may seem insane, they appear to have unofficial motives that are highly rational. For example, they have served to accelerate mass imprisonment, the criminalization of poverty, and the erosion of civil-liberties.

'Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women & Their Children' concludes the three-comic book series. The stories presented here are mostly fictional, but are based on the writers’ research and personal experience working with women prisoners. Therefore, Ahrens explains that the stories "represent the lives of hundreds of thousands of people suffering as a result of the war on drugs." Perhaps most outrageous is the true story of Regina McKnight, the first woman in the US to be convicted of murder because of behavior while pregnant. When McKnight’s baby was delivered stillborn and an autopsy found traces of cocaine in the fetus she was arrested and convicted of murder with a 20-year sentence. In 2008, following several appeals and eight years in prison, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously reversed her conviction, after concluding that there is no medical evidence of cocaine causing stillbirths.

Let Freedom Ring

Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners, is an epic 877-page compilation of both pre-existing documents and original articles. Explaining the context of its release, editor Matt Meyer cites the recent persecution of the San Francisco Eight, who are former Black Panther Party (BPP) members being charged with a 30-year old crime. Beginning with the 2006 grand jury, "the state threw down a gauntlet. When it became clear that the investigations were reopening cases based on evidence obtained primarily through torture, the message was unmistakable: Be afraid, be very afraid, and don’t even think of fighting back. When these same men stood strong, firm on the principle that they would not take part in a new, government sponsored witch-hunt, they sent a counter-message on behalf of us all: we will not allow our communities, our struggles, our communities, our very lives to be criminalized by a corrupt and racist criminal justice system." This spirit of resistance to state repression flows throughout Let Freedom Ring.

The book’s many sections focus on a wide range of US political prisoners, featuring both facts about their case, and actual writing from the prisoners themselves. One particularly interesting section is titled Resisting Repression: Out and Proud, which includes the classic 1991 interview "Dykes and Fags Want to Know: Interview with Lesbian Political Prisoners," featuring Laura Whitehorn (released in 1999), a well as Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg, who were both pardoned by President Clinton in 2001. Also notable is a 1991 speech given by former BPP political prisoner Dhoruba Bin-Wahad, who was released after 19 years. Considered a groundbreaking speech from a Black Muslim revolutionary, Bin-Wahad declared that "we can not build a new society if we premise that society on the oppression of other people." Continuing the legacy of BPP co-founder Huey P. Newton, he argued that fighting the oppression of women and GLBTs is inseparable from the fight against capitalism, racism, and all oppression. Also featured is a tribute to the late Kuwasi Balagoon, who died in prison of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1986. In the words of poet Walidah Imarisha, Balagoon "was an anarchist in a Black nationalist movement, he was queer in a straight dominated movement, he was a guerrilla fighter after it was ‘chic,’ and he...demanded to be seen not as a revolutionary icon, but as a person, beautiful and flawed."

Abolition Now!

Abolition Now! was published to coincide with the CR10 conference. The introduction explains that Critical Resistance (CR) is not only "struggling to tear down the cages" of the prison industrial complex (PIC), but "also to abolish the actions of policing, surveillance, and imprisonment that give the PIC its power. We are also reminded that abolition is the creation of possibilities for our dreams and demands for health and happiness—for what we want, not what we think we can get."

The book features reflections and constructive criticism from a variety of CR organizers and activists. For example, Mills College professor Julia Sudbury emphasizes the "need for healing as an abolitionist practice. Many of us come to this work with our own wounds," and while "many of us draw energy and inspiration from these wounds," we are "also drained by these traumas...As a result our movement can be very ‘head’ oriented—talking, planning, thinking, writing—and not body and emotion oriented." Sudbury concludes that a "movement against a violent and violating phenomenon like the PIC cannot hope to be successful if we don’t directly address and heal the effects of that violence."

Former political prisoner Bo Brown argues that the movement should have more "street awareness" and not be limited to "legislative" goals and actions. "You have to do both. I think you can get lost in that and you can stay there and consider yourself a good person and never really get your hands dirty in a human kind of way...I’d like to see us come up with some kind of support group for families with prisoners that’s real. We need to figure out how to support the prisoners when they’re coming home. We need to understand post-traumatic shock on an ongoing, day-to-day basis."

Andrea Smith, co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence argues that "the criminalization approach proffered in the mainstream anti-violence movement doesn’t work. And, also, this criminalization approach obfuscates the role of the state in perpetrating gender violence. At the same time, we have to deal with the practical concerns for safety for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Thus, we are working on developing community accountability strategies that do not rely on the state, and also do not depend on a romanticized version of ‘community’...This intersects with work in indigenous rights movements, which have concepts of indigenous nationhood that are not based on nation-state forms of governance that rule through violence, domination, and control."

Abolition Now! also spotlights examples of organizations putting abolitionist strategy into practice, like with the LEAD Project’s group of transition homes for women returning from imprisonment in the Watts District of Los Angeles, called "A New Way of Life." Also, the UBUNTU Coalition in Durham, NC, works at responding to violence without reinforcing the PIC.

Prisons Are Everywhere

Above all, these three highly-recommended books (available online at www.akpress.org) argue that prison-related issues are inseparable from racism, classism, sexism, and all oppression, so the more we know about prisons, the better informed multi-issue activist strategies will be. They conclude that in working to abolish all oppression, we must also work to abolish the PIC and free all political prisoners.

--Based out of the SF Bay Area, Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist (www.insubordination.blogspot.com) and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia (www.abu-jamal-news.com).

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

April 02, 2009

FL: Bill would assess $3,300 fee for people using GPS monitors

Mar. 31, 2009
Fla. bill would make monitors pricey for offenders
By JESSICA GRESKO
Miami Herald
Offenders sentenced to wear ankle bracelets would have to pay for their own monitoring, up to about $3,300 a year, under a bill Florida lawmakers advanced Tuesday.

The provision could save the state up to $5 million a year and is supported by the Department of Corrections. At least eight other states, including neighboring Georgia, require offenders to pay for some or all monitoring costs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"The idea is that all of our punishment is geared toward making sure the person pays back his debt to society, and I think that's what this seeks to do," said Department of Corrections head Walter McNeil.

The state currently monitors about 2,300 people statewide, approximately three-quarters of them sex offenders. Last year, monitoring them cost the Department of Corrections approximately $5.5 million. Right now, only people under house arrest have to pay for the devices, and the department was only able to get ten percent of its money back, about $500,000.

The bill lawmakers considered Tuesday broadens the payment requirement to all people wearing the devices. However, people who are handicapped, unable to find work or only making a small amount could have the requirement waived by a judge or only be required to pay a portion of the monitoring cost. Florida Public Defender Association president Skipp Babb said that provision made him more comfortable with the legislation, though he said he worried about the cost to poorer offenders.

McNeil acknowledged that the money the state would be able to recover would be only a fraction of the department's $2.2 billion budget, but he said it was important Florida citizens not pay for the monitoring. The department already requires probationers to pay for required drug tests and sometimes polygraphs.

The state uses two types of ankle bracelets. One is a GPS bracelet that tracks offenders using satellites and records their location once a minute. The bracelet notifies a probation officer when an offender has gone outside set boundaries or when the bracelet has been removed. The device has two pieces, one worn in a fanny pack while outside and an ankle bracelet that weighs about as much as an iPod. GPS monitoring costs $8.94 per day or $3,263.10 over the course of a year.

About 100 low-risk offenders wear a simpler and less expensive bracelet. It lets probation officers know whether an offender is at home during curfew but does not track them during the day. That kind of monitoring costs $1.97 a day and would cost an offender a little more than $700 a year.

The bill containing the provision (HB 7085) passed a House committee unanimously Tuesday. Its Senate companion (SB 2298) is still in committee.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/977203.html

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

March 30, 2009

Real Cost of Prisons Comix wins National Council on Crime and Delinquency PASS Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Announces
The 2008 PASS Award Winners
Oakland, CA, March 20, 2009

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency is pleased to announce the 2008 Winners of its respected PASS Awards (Prevention for a Safer Society). NCCD honors the media’s success and vital role in illuminating the people and programs that uncover the root causes of crime and those that promise to protect our most precious resource—our youth—against involvement in crime.

A critical link in successful policies related to youth and justice is the education of the public. The media is uniquely positioned to be this link, and we gratefully acknowledge their efforts to fulfill that responsibility. Each year the PASS Awards honor media professionals in the fields of print, literature, broadcast media, television, and film in recognition of thoughtful and factual coverage of the issues. Special consideration is given to those stories that highlight solutions to criminal and juvenile justice and child welfare problems.

NCCD is the nation's oldest private organization working to attain responsive and effective criminal justice, juvenile justice, and child welfare systems. For over 100 years, NCCD has been committed to promoting criminal justice strategies that are fair, humane, cost-effective, and uncompromising in public safety. The issues that have defined NCCD since its inception are the need for a separate and humane justice system for children, alternatives to incarceration, and the fundamental connection between social justice and public safety.

For more information on NCCD, please visit our website at www.nccd-crc.org

FILM
Ice T Presents “25 to Life” Deloss Pickett, Michael Dallum
“At the Death House Door” Steve James, Peter Gilbert

LITERATURE
American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment by Sasha Abramsky

Chasing Justice by Kerry Max Cook, Sandra Kaye Pressey, Kerry Justice Cook, Peter Hubbard

From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King by Robert Hillary King and Andrea Gibbons

I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison by Walley Lamb

Letters From the Dhamma Brothers by Jenny Phillips, Pariyatti Press, Ron Cavanaugh

Maximum Security: The True Meaning of Freedom by Alan Gompers

Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration by Paul Wright, Tara Herivel and Dianne Wachtel

Stanley Tookie Williams Street Peace Series by Stanley Tookie Williams and Barbara Becnel

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix by Lois Ahrens, Kevin Pyle, Sabrina Jones, Susan Willmarth, Ellen Miller-Mack and Craig Gilmore

MAGAZINE
San Jose Mercury News
“A Painful Choice for Moms in Prison” Edwin Garcia, Karen Borchers, Miller-McCune
“Is This the Future of the War on Drugs?” by Vince Beiser,John Mecklin

NEWSPAPER
East Valley Tribune “Reasonable Doubt” by Ryan Gabrielson, Paul Giblin, Patti Epler
Long Beach Press-Telegram “Lots of Answers, but No Easy Fixes” byWendy Thomas Russell andTracy Manzer
Seattle Weekly “Neverminded” by Laura Onstot and Mike Seely
The Daily Review “Educate to Break Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline” by Tammerlin Drummond
The Sacramento Bee “Unprotected” Marjie Lundstrom, Sam Stanton, Autumn Cruz, Mitchell Brooks
The Village Voice “Teen Murders at Rikers Jail” by Graham Rayman, Tony Ortega
The Washington Post “Rehabilitating Juvenile Offenders” by Robert Pierre, Carol Morello Westword
“Stand and Deliver” byAdam Cayton-Holland, Patricia Calhoun, Anthony Camera

RADIO
American Radioworks -“Gangster Confidential" Michael Montgomery and Catherine Winter
KALW Radio “Prisons in Crisis: A State of Emergency in California” JoAnn Mar, Alyne Ellis
KQED/Forum “Prisoner Health” by Scott Shafer, Nick Vidinsky andDan Zoll

TELEVISION/ VIDEO
HBO - “The Wire, Season 5” by David Simon, Nina Kostroff Noble, Ed Burns, Joe Chappelle.Karen L.Thorson
SoCal Connected/KCET -“Inside Locke High” Angela Shelley andAlexandria Gales, Brett Wood, Michael Bloecher,Bret Marcus
NBC/Wolf Films “Law and Order: SVU - Confession” Dick Wolf, Neal Baer, Ted Kotcheff, Peter Jankowski, Arthur Forney, Judith McCreary

WEB
AlterNet -“Meet Gus Puryear” by Silja J.A. Talvi and Jan Frel
City Limits -“A Ballot’s Breadth Away from Rejoining Society” by Karen Loew, Curtis Stephen, Rosie McCobb
City Limits “Debating How to Police a Challenging Population” Karen Loew, Tram Whitehurst

Posted by lois at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)

NH To Create Department-Level Agency For Parolees

NH To Create Department-Level Agency For Parolees
March 29th, 2009

New Hampshire Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn, with the support of Gov. John Lynch, is creating a new state division to help keep parolees free even after they have violated their parole agreements, as long as the violations do not involve new crimes.

Wrenn estimates the division, called the Division of Community Corrections, will cost between $1.4 million and $2 million and involve hiring between 10 and 20 case managers at 10 local parole offices around the state. He hopes to have at least some of the programs up and running by summer. “I’d like these positions to work with individuals out in the community, keep (parolees) in their houses and jobs and with their families,” Wrenn said. “If they do step over the line, deal with them there; don’t always bring them back.” The aim is to help parolees succeed and reduce costs, Wrenn said …

According to Wrenn, keeping an inmate in prison costs about $100 a day plus their full medical care, while keeping someone under the direction of field services costs about $2.80 a day. Even if the cost went up to $5 to $10 a day with new programming, he said, that would be a substantial savings …

Veteran probation/parole officer Keith Phelps said the pressure is coming from the top of the Department of Corrections to work with offenders in the community rather than return them to prison when they violate parole. He also said he understands why Commissioner Wrenn is exerting that pressure. “It’s budget-driven. I blame the Legislature for slashing budgets,” Phelps said … Keeping parole violators out of prison without adequate services only increases the likelihood they will commit new crimes, and there are not enough substance-abuse and mental health treatment options available in the community, Phelps said …

Paul Cascio, a corrections lieutenant and president of local 255 of the New England Police Benevolent Association… believes budget dollars, not public safety, are driving changes in the DOC … Cascio said Wrenn’s parole plan won’t work because there aren’t enough treatment programs in the community to support it, especially when some parole and probation officers’ caseloads already are more than double what they should be. “If you’re going to put more people on the street, more supervision is required — more enforcement and more programs,” Cascio said. “There are not enough programs to meet the needs of people getting out of prison already” …

Parole Board Chairman George Khoury said Wrenn promised there would be more substance-abuse counselors at local parole offices. Khoury also expects greater participation from community treatment services working under contract with the state. “Nobody is minimizing how difficult it is to overcome drug and alcohol problems, but we need to give them all the assistance we can,” Khoury said. “Our job is to do the best we can and never at the public risk.” In preparing to open the Division of Community Corrections, according to Wrenn, state officials are working with the National Institute of Corrections on writing policies and procedures.
http://www.correctionsreporter.com/2009/03/29/nh-to-create-department-level-agency-for-parolees/

Posted by lois at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2009

MA: Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc The real reason law-and-order types love mandatory-minimum sentencing? It's money in their pockets.

News Features, The Boston Phoenix
Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc
The real reason law-and-order types love mandatory-minimum sentencing? It's money in their pockets.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | December 9, 2008

With aromatic puffs of change, Bay State stoners rejoiced on Election Day. But even the haziest of revelers may have missed the full significance of Question 2, a statewide ballot initiative to decriminalize marijuana possession in small amounts. Not only will this bring more humane and responsible marijuana laws, it will also suppress — however slightly — an insidious, contemporary offshoot of what President Dwight Eisenhower famously referred to as the "military-industrial complex": the idea that if private industry and government joined in promoting ever-increasing defense spending, war as well as national bankruptcy were more likely.

Almost a half-century later, that mindset has extended to both the local and federal law-and-order sectors, which have argued for, and experienced, virtually unabated growth. Today, law-enforcement groups regularly lobby against criminal-punishment reforms, and for the creation of new criminal statutes and overly harsh prison sentences. While these efforts are cloaked as calls for public safety, they are essentially creating more business for themselves.

The problem has become so widespread that some private correctional corporations — companies that subcontract services, and even privately owned jails and prisons, to all levels of government — have even lobbied the government to enact and maintain ever broader criminal laws and higher sentences. Those private prisons are now rolling in the profit, and taking on more prisoners every day as federal and state prisons run out of room to house their inmates.

But these lobbyists' success — and that of various law-enforcement groups — has given rise to a veritable "prison-industrial complex" that not only uses fear to suppress these groups' true intentions — it leaves taxpayers footing the bill.

Bleak house of detention
It was with these self-aggrandizing interests in mind that the Massachusetts Districts Attorneys' Association (MDAA) and other tough-on-crime groups fiercelyopposedthe marijuana-decriminalization referendum.

After all, if the penalties for minor marijuana possession were to remain on the statute books, more police, prosecutors, prison guards, and parole officers — and their lucrative overtime — would also be retained.

To their dismay, however, Question 2 passed by an overwhelming 65 to 35 percent voter margin, and will be implemented 30 days after election results are certified. As a result, many law-enforcement officials may soon be without an important source of job security and additional revenue — namely, the $30 million a year (as one study by a Harvard economics professor estimated) spent enforcing the soon-to-be-history current marijuana-possession laws.

Never mind that the forthcoming statutory reform is, from even a moderate law-and-order perspective, relatively benign. According to Question 2, anyone caught with less than one ounce will forfeit the substance and pay a $100 fine, while minors will additionally have to complete a drug-awareness program (including group sessions and community service). Current penalties for growing and trafficking in marijuana, as well as the prohibition against driving while high, will remain exactly as they are.

These facts were conveniently left out of the MDAA's efforts to "inform" voters.The group could not legally make direct contributions to ballot campaigns — publicly funded groups are unable to do so, thanks to a 1978 Supreme Judicial Court decision — yet in opposing Question 2, it still managed to fuel a whisper campaign and add misleading info to its Web site (hosted, by the way, on the state's ".gov" domain).

Thus, these law-enforcement officials were able to avoid any technical wrongdoing while lobbying for an increased legislative arsenal — feathering their own nests at the expense of liberty and sensible public policy.

Bear in mind, though, that our First Amendment protects not only speech, but also "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So state and local law-enforcement personnel, like other citizens, do have the right to lobby voters and even members of the legislature to promote more expansive criminal laws and stricter penalties. But self-serving lobbying and public-relations offensives, disguised as seeking protections for society, should be treated with exceptional scrutiny and skepticism.

Though disheartening, their actions are an age-old fact of life best described by Charles Dickens in his classic 1853 novel Bleak House: "The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself."

Coke vs. crack
A similar battle waged in Massachusetts last summer, when law-enforcement groups sought once again to thwart criminal-justice reform. At the time, a legislative effort to help nonviolent offenders find employment opportunities by changing Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) laws was brought before the State House of Representatives — and, thanks to the efforts of state Attorney General Martha Coakley and other law-enforcement officials, essentially squashed.

The proposed bill would have restricted the type of personal information that some employers receive, thereby assisting the many individuals saddled with CORI records who struggle to find employment and end up back behind bars.

Massachusetts's recidivism rates are nearly 40 percent, according to a study by the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center. And the CORI law's branding of even the most innocuous offender is, by all accounts, partly responsible for this dismal situation. So advocates of the bill asserted that changing CORI could ease the massive overcrowding at the state's prison system, which the Department of Corrections recently estimated to be operating at "144 percent of capacity." (Currently, there are 12,000 inmates imprisoned — a disgraceful state record.)

Another aspect of that same failed bill would have reduced mandatory-minimum sentences for certain drug offenses, which advocates said also contribute to overcrowding.

As the law stands, anyone convicted of selling drugs within 1000 feet of a school zone automatically receives a two-year prison term — leaving no room for judicial discretion. That means a first-time offender with no record could receive more prison time than, say, an armed robber. And the mandatory nature of these sentences eliminates the possibility of parole.

Because of the numerous schools in dense urban areas, poor, black, and Hispanic populations are at a greater risk of facing the mandatory-minimum measures, according to a recent Prison Policy Initiative study.

Yet despite the clear inequalities in the current law, as well as the benefits that reform holds out to both taxpayers and public safety — not to mention liberty — the legislative term ended in July with no action taken on the reform legislation.

This problem with drug sentencing is nothing new. For more than two decades, prison-reform supporters have condemned the federal sentencing disparities for the mostly middle and upper-class defendants caught using cocaine, and the mostly lower-class, inner-city habitants caught with cheaper crack cocaine.

Part of the now-infamous war on crime, a 100-to-1 ratio was implemented in sentencing for crack cocaine. So, a person caught selling five grams of crack received the same prison sentence as someone dealing 500 grams of powder cocaine.

The mandatory-minimums were harsh, too. That same person caught selling five grams of crack received a five-year minimum sentence; 50 grams or more and the minimum was 10 years.

Despite clear racial, economic, and cultural disparities, cries from constituents fell on deaf ears while law-enforcement lobbyists successfully cajoled and frightened congressional leaders.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, for one, strongly opposed reducing the crack-cocaine minimums. The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a 325,000 member national organization that bills itself as "the voice of our nations' law-enforcement officers," also spent $550,000 lobbying Congress over the past three years. Among their interests: stopping the Powder-Crack Cocaine Penalty Equalization Act, along with promoting a litany of other Draconian measures.

Prison business
To be fair, government employees weren't the only ones to lobby against crack-cocaine sentence equalization. A little-recognized subset of this vast prison-industrial complex lobbying community is composed of private correctional corporations, which sign lucrative contracts with governments to house inmates for profit, often shipping them to facilities out of state.

It is, of course, in these private prisons' economic interests to see more people in prison serving longer sentences. And with current facilities bursting at the seams, times for this burgeoning industry are good. The country's largest private prison provider, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), spent more than $2.7 million from 2006 through September 2008 on lobbying for stricter laws. Last year alone, the company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, generated $133 million in net income.

For the past 25 years, the CCA has built itself into a corrections powerhouse — it operates nearly 70 facilities housing more than 75,000 detainees. As it does for, say, contractors in Iraq, though, privatization comes with an inevitable lack of oversight. The CCA has been involved in numerous wrongful-death lawsuits, and it has been a constant target of prison-reform groups who claim the private facilities are understaffed and their detainees abused.

Yet another private prison provider, the GEO Group, which has annual revenue topping $1 billion, has come under intense scrutiny for dozens — if not hundreds — of inmate deaths in the past decade. One such prisoner death led to the recent indictment of Vice-President Dick Cheney on November 18, in which a rather ornery Texas state prosecutor claimed that Cheney's substantial investments in the GEO Group made him partly responsible for prisoner abuse — a dubious prosecutorial theory (in fact, it was dismissed this Monday), but with a grain of practical truth.

Nonetheless, states facing prison overcrowding turn to these corporations to outsource inmates. California, for example, has commissioned the CCA to ship convicts as far away as Tennessee (where financially strapped relatives and friends frequently cannot visit). The CCA has exported nearly 4000 California prisoners to states across the country under a $115 million contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Over the next three years, 8000 more are planned to be shipped out of the Golden State.

The societal costs — both human and financial — of these policies and practices are enormous, and growing. California — which carried a $15.2 billion deficit into this fiscal year — spends $10 billion per year on more than 170,000 inmates. Like the Bay State, California also faces high recidivism rates; state records show that more than two-thirds of released inmates return to prison within three years. In this context, a ballot battle — possibly more contentious than Massachusetts's Question 2 scuffle — raged this past election season. Two separate initiatives, each from vastly different perspectives, concerned the state's approach to criminal justice.

The first, Proposition 5, would have expanded treatment programs for those convicted of drug-related and nonviolent crimes. While the costs for more rehabilitation were estimated at $1 billion a year, analysts said $2.5 billion would have been saved from the reduction in prison costs. But, much like what transpired in Massachusetts, the California District Attorney's Association, along with other law-enforcement agencies, vehemently opposed the initiative. These agencies raised nearly $400,000 and, through the Web site of their umbrella group, People Against Proposition 5, issued "facts" such as "Proposition 5 creates an 'Express Lane' for drug dealers to get back on the streets and peddling dope to our kids."

Conversely, nearly $1 billion would have been added to the cops' coffers under Proposition 6, which proposed new laws for prosecutors to fight gang activity. Many of the same law-enforcement agencies that opposed Prop 5 supported Prop 6, joined by some "tough-on-crime" lawmakers who slashed $3 billion in education from the state's 2008 budget. Included among the Prop 6 supporters was — you guessed it — the CCA.

The CCA's lobbying efforts, as well as those of publicly funded law-enforcement agents, wasn't enough to convince Californians, as nearly 70 percent of voters opposed Prop 6. Yet similarly high numbers opted against Prop 5.

Maybe the cops' Prop 6 push for more crime-fighting money and power were too transparent for voters. Interestingly, though, their appeals to public safety in opposing Prop 5 seemed to work. California voters were quite possibly unaware that, by maintaining strict criminal laws and closing off alternatives to incarceration, law-enforcement agencies maintained their strength.

The 1 percent solution?
From Niccolò Machiavelli to Rudy Giuliani, fear has been the foundation of ever-expanding political power (and, for some, job status and security). And it continues to drive the prison-industrial complex.

Just as the United States Department of Justice was able to pressure Congress to enact the infamous USA-Patriot Act in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, here in the Bay State, an appeal to fear ("protect the children") prevailed in stampeding the legislature. In late July, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law "An Act Further Protecting Children," a bill providing stricter mandatory-minimum sentences for sex offenders who target children.

The way this legislation was presented made opposition appear callous and irresponsible. Who, after all, wouldn't want to keep child predators off the streets?

Yet tucked away in this bill are provisions that do far more than simply protect the young. The proposal enables prosecutors to obtain private records from Internet and telephone providers by issuing an "administrative subpoena." Prosecutors, having only to assert that records are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation," were granted ever-expanding access into otherwise personal data. The telecoms, in turn, were granted blanket immunity from claims of privacy violation. There was no mass protest from the customers.

But at least one person did object. Newton's Democratic state senator Cynthia Creem voiced skepticism in a July 29 Newton TAB op-ed. Mindful that the most egregious provisions of the Patriot Act have been used to target not just terrorists but journalists, activists, and Muslim charities, she wrote: "I cannot support this attack on privacy rights when less-invasive and equally effective means are available. Our liberties should never be sacrificed in the name of prosecutorial convenience." A few other scattered voices in the State Senate echoed Creem. But perhaps Creem's reference to "convenience" missed the point — prosecutorial power appears to have been the more likely goal.

When the bill was passed by the Massachusetts House and presented to the Senate, Coakley, having learned that other politicians were questioning the bill's scope, lobbied hard so that no language would be changed (which would have required passage again through the House). With robust MDAA support, as well as the backing of key legislative leaders, 11 different role-call votes for amending provisions of the bill were voted down. Less than two weeks after this truncated debate, the bill became law. Experienced observers of the legislative process marveled at the ability of Coakley and her allies to forestall changes to the legislation.

The United States — "land of the free" — has five percent of the world's population, but it also, thanks to the lobbyists and officiants behind the prison-industrial complex, shamefully holds 25 percent of the world's incarcerated. It has a higher rate of imprisonment than the planet's most notorious despotisms. One in 100 Americans is in jail.

These citizens are not only unproductive, they cost the public $45 billion a year, according to a June report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. And yet they also keep a small army of officers and other law-enforcement support personnel on the job. The monumental taxpayer's tab that would be unnecessary with saner criminal-justice laws is virtually incalculable.

It is long past the time to re-think how much credence we should give to those who claim to be experts in law enforcement, but who, in reality, have simply discovered a steady and ever-increasing source of job security.

Their First Amendment right to lobby for endless new criminal laws and ever-tougher prison sentences is indeed constitutionally protected, but this does not mean that these law-enforcement officials' criminal "expertise" should endow them with a free pass from critical scrutiny. Legislators and the public need not sit by idly as their fellow citizens are unjustly arrested, prosecuted, and often incarcerated for increasingly lengthy periods of time as the law-enforcement industry's wallet grows fat. The next time prison-industrial-complex adherents tell us we need tougher laws and sentences for our own good, we should point out precisely whose good is being served.

Harvey Silverglate is a criminal defense and civil-liberties lawyer and writer. Kyle Smeallie, former associate editor of the Boston College Heights, is Silverglate's research assistant and paralegal. Silverglate's next book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, is forthcoming next year from Encounter Books.
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/73092-Freedom-watch-Jailhouse-bloc/
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Posted by lois at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2009

The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009- will undertake a top-to bottom review of our entire criminal justice system and offer recommendations for reform"

Senator Jim Webb of VA has introduced The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009 today.

I encourage you to take a few minutes and read the full-bill http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/CriminalJusticeReform_Legislation.pdf

Here is a fact sheet on the Bill (http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FactSheeti.pdf), which according to Senator Webb will be "undertake a top-to-bottom review of our entire criminal justice system" and to offer recommendations for reform."

Please encourage your Senators and Congresspeople to support passage of the Act.

Here is part of Webb's statement:

The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009 that I introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.

Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:
With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

Posted by lois at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)

MD: Parole Fee Burdens People Trying to Rebuild Their Lives

Parole fee burdens ex-offenders

Average $750 debt hinders efforts to rebuild life after prison, study says
Baltimore Sun
By Julie Scharper
March 23, 2009

Andrea Brinkley, a mother of three, says she did not realize that she owed a parole supervision fee until she received a bill for $2,200. She works as a housekeeper at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore. (Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox / March 20, 2009)

A monthly fee charged to Maryland parolees often grows to a burdensome debt that hinders their attempts to build a life after prison and runs counter to the mission of the parole program, according to a study that will be released this week.

More than 80 percent of parolees do not pay the state parole supervision fee on time and some consider committing crimes to pay the fee, which amounts to an average of $750, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School. The report recommends that the state abandon the fee or streamline the process for financially strapped parolees to apply for an exemption.

"The population of people on parole is more or less indigent," said Rebekah Diller, the study's principal author. "They're struggling at the most basic level to find housing and to find a job. The people we interviewed talked about the fact that this was yet another source of pressure. They felt like they were behind before they even started their lives after prison."

But advocates for lower taxes said it only seems fair that parolees should shoulder some of the costs of the services that they receive.

"I would suggest that, rather than being abolished, this fee should be raised," said Herb McMillan, president of the Maryland Taxpayers' Association and a former state representative. "Fees save money for taxpayers. I think it's fair that the individual should bear some of the cost of their parole."

The $40 monthly fee, which was mandated by the state legislature in 1991, generates about $350,000 a year for the state's general fund, according to the report.

Most people on parole do not have the money to pay the fee, Diller said. At the end of their parole, only about one-third of former inmates have found a job and many do not have permanent housing, according to the report.

Andrea Brinkley, 38, a mother of three, said her parole debt is difficult with the money she earns cleaning a hospital. She said that she did not realize that she owed the fee until she received a bill for $2,200 in October - six months after she completed parole.

"I couldn't believe it," Brinkley said. "I had just cleaned up my credit from when I was living the wrong life, and then here I was back in debt again."

Brinkley, an East Baltimore resident, said that when she was sent to prison for two years for a drug conviction in 2002, she had spent nearly her entire adult life selling drugs and had no job skills. Since then, she has stopped using drugs, regained custody of her children and worked hard - first as a waitress at IHOP and now as a housekeeper at Mercy Hospital - but the debt is disheartening, she said.

"As hard as I've worked to get where I am, the last thing I want is something like this hanging over my head," she said.

Only 17 percent pay the fee before they complete parole. Many parolees are intimidated by letters that inform them that they could be found in violation of parole for not paying the fee, according to the report, which is based on records provided by the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation and interviews with parole officers and parolees.

Offenders are not charged with violating parole solely for not paying the supervision fee, although it is one of the factors considered if the person had committed other offenses, said Patrick McGee, director of the Division of Parole and Probation.

The supervision fee is one of many that parolees might be required to pay, McGee said. Many owe restitution, court costs and charges for drug testing. Parole officers are responsible for drawing up payment plans and collecting those fees, in addition to helping parolees seek work and readjust to life outside prison.

"We collect millions of dollars each year; that's a huge impact on our workload," McGee said. "If we didn't have to collect the money and it was done by someone else, we'd have more time to work with offenders in other things like finding jobs."

Although parole officers are responsible for collecting the supervision fee, they do not help parolees obtain exemptions. Only the Maryland Parole Commission, a separate office, can excuse a parolee from paying. Because the process is complicated, only a fraction of eligible parolees apply for and are granted an exemption, according to the study.

Once a person completes parole, the unpaid debt is turned over to the state's collection agency. The bills can be staggering for someone newly released from prison, said Monique Dixon, the head of the crime and juvenile justice program at the Open Society Institute, which sponsored the study along with the Abell Foundation.

"Even through $40 a month is not a big hardship for many people, it's a huge hardship for people making minimum wage," Dixon said. "The stress of trying to pay this and the stress of trying to live day to day can be very discouraging for people trying to put their lives back together after prison."

The fee will be discussed at a forum at the Open Society Institute on Thursday.

Although the fee creates some problems, McGee said, he does not recommend that the state do away with it.

"In many ways, imposing fees and fines is a good way for people to pay back their debts to society," he said.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loca/bal-md.parole23mar23,0,431181.story

Posted by lois at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2009

"Resistance Behind Bars- The Struggles of Incercerated Women" by Vikki Law

I just finished reading "Resistance Behind Bars" written by Vikki Law. In case you don't know about it or haven't had the chance to I recommend you buy a copy and read it.
I will quote a little from the introduction in which Vikki writes about her response to the comment: "Women (in prison) don't organize."
"I began to search for stories---and women--who would disprove this assertion. I found mentions of lawsuits, and using various state department of corrections' websites looked up their address addresses and wrote them letters asking if they would share their experiences with me." And "To ensure that I was representing their struggles accurately and to give them the opportunity to add, update or delete any of the tales they do not want to share with the public, I sent each woman draft after draft of the chapters her voice and experience(s) appeared in. "
The voices of women form form the majority of the book which took 8 years to complete. The chapters reflect the concerns of the women with whom Vikki corresponded and include Barriers to Basic Care, Mothers and Children, Sexual Abuse,Education, Women's Work, Grievances, lawsuits and the Power of the Media. Other chapters focus on Breaking the Silence, Resistance Among Women in Immigrant Detention and an Historical Background.
The book is written in plain English. It frames resistance by women very differently than the kinds of resistance by men prisoners which has come to define "resistance."
The book is published by PM Press and you can order a copy on-line (https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=91) or I am sure your local bookstore can order it for you.

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

KS: Johnson County’s prison avoidance operation could lose more than $868,500 from the state

Johnson County’s prison avoidance operation could lose more than $868,500 from the state
Posted:03/21/2009

Mark Winton’s handshake was firm and his voice strong when he said he was a former drug addict on his last chance to stay out of prison.

“I know I can make it,” the Olathe man pledged.

Supporting him is one of the largest prison avoidance operations in Kansas. He’s among about 245 residents at a sprawling site at New Century AirCenter — a $12.8 million-a-year operation funded by Johnson County, the state, grants and user fees.

Most offenders there leave to work and make money. Governments save money.

These kinds of community alternatives are far cheaper than prisons. A recent Pew Center on the States report urged states to use them more and praised Kansas for helping fund the programs.

But when budgets are stressed, money for alternatives tends to shrink. The proposed state budget in Kansas now calls for cutting about $2 million that helps pay for the residential offender programs in Johnson and Sedgwick counties.

Johnson County stands to lose more than $868,500 from the state, and with its own tight budget, the county might have to reduce the $6.1 million it pays, said Betsy Gillespie, director of county corrections.

All that would boost other costs, Gillespie said, when offenders go to jail or prison instead.

It also would be a step back for a Johnson County operation that began with one building and 33 beds in the 1980s and gradually grew to four buildings, hundreds of beds and many operations.

Drunken drivers

Society and governments struggle with what to do with a constant flow of repeat drunken drivers, and the New Century complex provides one option.

Under Kansas law, a felony drunken driver can go to a county jail for up to one year but not to prison. This saves the state money on prisons but throws the cost onto the counties.

Two years ago, Johnson County started a work-release program for those with four drunken-driving convictions or more. The 60-bed unit generally runs near capacity, and 134 people were admitted last year. More than eight in 10 successfully served their time.

Repeat drunken drivers actually have more going for them than many other criminals, said Antonio Booker, a director at the county corrections center.

They tend to be older and have stable jobs, he said.

Michael Sesto, 47, of Shawnee, said last week that he was due for release in two days.

“This was a needed program for me,” the carpenter said, and it allowed him to keep working and keep his house. He got in trouble because he kept trying to meet the right woman in nightclubs, he said, and now he’s part of a church singles group.

For the DUI offenders, he said, alcohol treatment begins when they leave the program and start parole.

“That’s where the rubber meets the pavement,” he said, and more challenges are ahead.

‘Legal side of the law’

Don Womack, 34, breezed down a hallway waving a certificate of completion, which he got after serving 96 days for possessing cocaine.

He was among 155 criminals in another program, which allows them to work while attending self-improvement programs. They stay two to four months.

More than 500 people were admitted to that operation last year. More than three of four graduate successfully, according to past studies.

Here, as in the rest of the complex, residents can be seen by a nurse or mental health worker. Throughout the New Century complex, about 65 percent of residents get medicine for mental illnesses.

Womack, who came to the center from prison, stopped at the credit union on site, where people can deposit or cash checks and save money. Many can’t get a bank account on the outside or have never had one.

Womack found a good job at a Lenexa manufacturing company while serving time at New Century program and saved money toward a car.

“It gave me a chance to live on the legal side of the law,” he said. “I was at a point in my life when I was ready.”

Another building in the complex houses the therapeutic community, which is six months of substance abuse treatment and self-improvement work. It holds 40. Addicted clients can’t leave until they finish the six months. Many then move to work release.

Winton, 37, recently graduated from the treatment community into work release, where he hopes to learn to be an electrician.

He’s a cocaine addict who has been in and out of the system for more than 15 years, he said, including three stints in prison. He said the long drug treatment and improvement work got him past personal problems that fed anger, resentment and bad behavior.

“I came here with low self-esteem,” he said.

Winton said he intended to go straight and be a better father to his nine children by six women. He’ll really do it this time, he said.

He said he got to this point after using drugs while on probation. A judge sent him to New Century as a last chance to avoid prison.

Winton said he would make good on that chance.

So far, Booker said, “he’s done an excellent job.”

If Winton finally stops breaking the law, he’ll save the state the cost of locking him up. The Pew Center study puts the national average at $29,000 a year.

Every little bit helps.

In fiscal year 2008, the study reported, Kansas spent $341 million on corrections, or 5.6 percent of its general fund.
http://m.kansascity.com/kcstar/db_10893/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=A7A42481212D882B1F56AE46E8669453?contentguid=XKtKydiX&storycount=19&detailindex=1&full=true#display

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

March 21, 2009

MA Bar Association: MBA-backed criminal reform legislation returns for 2009-10 session

Lawyers Journal
MBA-backed criminal reform legislation returns for 2009-10 session
By Kelsey Sadoff
March 20, 2009

Criminal reform bills that failed to make it through last year’s legislative session are being reintroduced for the 2009-10 session with high expectations for their passage, which would usher in significant changes to the state’s criminal policies.

Last year, the Massachusetts Bar Association championed reforms to both sentencing guidelines and the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law, but the legislation was released from committee too late to advance before the end of the 2008-09 session. Immediate Past President David W. White Jr. made sentencing and CORI reform a priority for his term, and 2008-09 President Edward W. McIntyre has continued the push for reform.

The MBA is supporting a CORI bill that the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and a coalition of groups, under the name of Massachusetts Alliance to Reform CORI (MARC), are focused on having addressed by the Legislature. The MBA has proposed recommendations for the CORI bill, which includes addressing access (law enforcement access versus non-law enforcement entities), accuracy and sealing old records.

The MBA’s Drug Policy Task Force is also set to issue a report this year that will include comprehensive data and facts that will strongly support arguments for sentencing reform in Massachusetts.

“This new legislative session holds much promise in the advancement of criminal sentencing and CORI reform legislative measures,” said MBA General Counsel and Acting Executive Director Martin W. Healy. “Criminal justice reforms have been identified as a priority area of interest by a number of legislators. We are in the second half of the (Gov. Deval) Patrick administration and the governor is considered a veteran on the Hill. We are hopeful that Patrick will push hard on these greatly needed reforms.”

More than 20 years ago, mandatory minimum sentencing reforms for drug offenders were enacted in Massachusetts to deal with crimes including trafficking, possession with intent to distribute, distribution in a school zone and distribution to a minor. The mandatory minimum sentences effectively ended an offender’s opportunity for parole if incarcerated.

Speaking against the current mandatory minimum sentencing policy at the Jan. 15 MBA House of Delegates meeting, the Drug Policy Task Force received HOD endorsement on two pieces of drug and treatment legislation that the MBA will support during the 2009-10 legislative session.

HOD unanimously voted in favor of the proposed legislation, which would revise the drug sentencing structure by eliminating mandatory minimums for most drug dealing crimes and expand parole and work release opportunities for incarcerated drug offenders, while also enhancing the existing system of diversion of drug offenders to drug treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration.

“The MBA is taking a position because current drug policies have failed; because they are expensive (Department of Correction’s inmate cost is more than $47,000; county jail is $39,000) and growing exponentially,” said MBA President Edward W. McIntyre.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Correction, the state prison population increased by 384 percent from 1980 to 2008 and the number of drug offenders increased 2,394 percent, from 109 in 1980 to 2,610 in 2008. Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing reforms, drug offenders have made up more than 25 percent of the state prison population, as opposed to the 4 percent of drug offenders making up the state prison population in 1980.

“Essentially, the MBA’s position is about deploying a public health approach rather than a failed criminal justices paradigm to drug offenders,” said McIntyre. “It’s about treatment rather than incarceration; about accelerated reintegration into the family unit, the community’s social structure and workforce. Studies from across the country and around the world demonstrate that intelligent policies that move away from the incarceration model to a treatment, accelerated assimilation program, reduce the rate of crime and the staggering cost of incarceration — which is the second most rapidly growing budget item next to health care.”

“Parole is really a function of getting a person in a productive relationship with society and their community,” said MBA immediate Past President David W. White Jr. and founding member of the Drug Policy Task Force. “Offering parole allows prisons to make room for more dangerous criminals, reducing the rate of crime overall by restoring families, neighborhoods and communities by making ex-offenders better citizens, and saves the taxpayers money.”

In the November 2008 general election, Massachusetts citizens voted to decriminalize marijuana. Legislators, who for years have been focused on discussion revolving around the belief that constituents want stronger punishments for low-level drug offenders, now have proof that the public actually wants to reduce the resources designated to punishment of low-level drug offenses. White believes the “commonwealth, now in severe economic crisis, can handle the drug sentencing issues in a way to save millions and millions of dollars.”

Furthermore, current mandatory minimum drug sentences have disproportionately impacted cities and their minority populations. Current school zone laws, which increase punishment drug offenses within 1,000 feet of a school with mandatory sentences — regardless of prior knowledge if school is in session, intent to distribute, time of day or awareness of proximity to a school — have created a situation where almost an entire city can be considered a school zone.

“The result is an impact on minorities,” said White. “The bill didn’t have that intent when it was enacted, but it has discriminatory consequences. We would like the statute changed to 100 feet.” White pointed out that approximately 300 people are sentenced for school zone offenses each year.

“In the commonwealth, we spend more money on jails and prisons then on higher education,” White said. “It is time for more sensible priorities.”
ttp://www.massbar.org/for-attorneys/publications/lawyers-journal/2009/march/mba-backed-criminal-reform-legislation

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

March 14, 2009

Real Cost of Prisons Comix (the book)

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix
edited by Lois Ahrens
PM Press
Reviews: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php?story=loisahrens#reviews
Ordering info:
https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=48

One out of every hundred adults in the U.S. is in prison. This book provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher. This volume collects the three comic books published by the Real Cost of Prisons Project. The stories and statistical information in each comic book is thoroughly researched and documented.

Prison Town: Paying the Price tells the story of how the financing and site locations of prisons affects the people of rural communities in which prison are built. It also tells the story of how mass incarceration affects people of urban communities where the majority of incarcerated people come from.

Prisoners of the War on Drugs includes the history of the war on drugs, mandatory minimums, how racism creates harsher sentences for people of color, stories on how the war on drugs works against women, three strikes laws, obstacles to coming home after incarceration, and how mass incarceration destabilizes neighborhoods.

Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children includes stories about women trapped by mandatory sentencing and the "costs" of incarceration for women and their families. Also included are alternatives to the present system, a glossary and footnotes.

Over 125,000 copies of the comic books have been printed and more than 100,000 have been sent to families of people who are incarcerated, people who are incarcerated, and to organizers and activists throughout the country. The book includes a chapter with descriptions about how the comix have been put to use in the work of organizers and activists in prison and in the "free world" by ESL teachers, high school teachers, college professors, students, and health care providers throughout the country. The demand for them is constant and the ways in which they are being used is inspiring.

The Buzz:

"I cannot think of a better way to arouse the public to the cruelties of the prison system than to make this book widely available."
--Howard Zinn

"The Real Cost of Prisons comics are among the most transformative pieces of information that the youth get to read. We take it with us to detention centers, group homes, youth shelters and social justice organizing projects. Everywhere we go we see youth nodding with agreement and getting excited to see their reality validated in print. The Real Cost of Prisons helps youth know what's up and gives them the push they need to get active in the struggle to make interpersonal and community-wide change."
--Shira Hassan, Co-Director Young Women's Empowerment Project, Chicago, IL

Posted by lois at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2009

Tennessee: State eyes cost-effective alternatives to prison

Commissioner George Little: “We can figure out how to better manage those populations,” he said. “What I think it opens up is a discussion of who we are locking up, how long they are being locked up and do we have the right people in our prisons and jails.”

Tennessee: State eyes cost-effective alternatives to prison
Monday, March 9, 2009
By: Lauren Gregory
Chattanooga Times Free Press

Housing a prisoner costs about $60 a day in Tennessee, so locking someone up for not paying $45 a month in probation fees doesn’t make sense, according to Tennessee’s corrections commissioner.

Allowing nonviolent inmates approved for parole to sit behind bars for days or weeks, racking up costs the state could cut in half if they immediately were placed in halfway houses also is counterproductive, Commissioner George Little said.

“We can figure out how to better manage those populations,” he said. “What I think it opens up is a discussion of who we are locking up, how long they are being locked up and do we have the right people in our prisons and jails.”

With the state’s budget crisis forcing $42 million in cuts to a corrections program that will receive almost no federal stimulus money, Mr. Little is championing an increased emphasis on community corrections programs such as halfway houses.

He asked Gov. Phil Bredesen to include money for the facilities, which help paroled offenders transition into society by providing housing, structure and assistance finding employment, in his 2010 budget.

The governor’s budget should be complete later this month, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said.

State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, introduced legislation that would establish a pilot halfway house program for the state with that money.

The pilot program would increase state expenditures by $410,900, according to documents, and for that reason faces an uphill battle, said Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga.

PAY NOW OR PAY LATER

Rep. McCormick is a member of the House’s State and Local Government Committee, which has the bill. He said he doesn’t anticipate the legislation surviving if Gov. Bredesen doesn’t approve money for it.

“If it’s not already included in the governor’s budget, there is a very, very, very little chance it will pass,” Rep. McCormick said. “I’d have to vote against it. It’s not that it’s not a good cause, but there are a lot of good causes out there and, in this environment, it would be unfair to put that one at the top.”

Committee Chairman Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville, agreed.

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” he said.

Rep. Hardaway did not return calls or an e-mail seeking comment.

State Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, said he will be disappointed if his colleagues focus on a program’s upfront costs without considering ultimate savings.

“In state government, we need to continue to look for ways to save money in the long run, and that means ensuring that money we spend today will save us money in the future,” Sen. Berke said.

Supporters of halfway houses say there is good reason to view community corrections that way. A small initial investment in halfway houses will save billions of dollars in prison construction costs down the road, said Tim Dempsey, chief executive officer of Chattanooga Endeavors, a nonprofit organization that helps ex-prisoners find employment.

“On the one hand, you say, ‘How can we afford to take on anything new?’” Mr. Dempsey said. “But on the other hand, this is an extremely cost-effective way to keep people out of prison and keep them from returning in the long term.”

The Washington, D.C.-based Pew Center on the States released a report last week that concluded Tennessee, along with all other states, would benefit from that type of thinking.

“New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, which generated the report.

“Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn’t,” Mr. Gelb said. “It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions and still more imprisonment.”

potential impact

Calvin Figgures, director of prison ministry at Shady Grove Baptist Church in Chickamauga, Ga., has recognized a local need and doesn’t want to wait for state funding. He hopes to be able to secure a grant through the federal Second Chance Act, which former President George W. Bush signed into law last year to provide support services to ex-prisoners, to open several halfway houses in Chattanooga.

An ex-offender himself, Mr. Figgures spent eight years in prison on drug charges. He says a halfway house was behind his successful turnaround.

“It’s like a family,” he said. “It’s loving, and it gives a person a sense of self. And not only that, it helps give you a solid foundation. In prison, they tell you what to do, when to shower, when to go to bed. In a halfway house setting, they give you a sense of responsibility again but with monitoring.”

Mr. Little said that ultimately makes the entire community safer.

“The argument (for creating more halfway houses) is fiscal, but the long-term benefit is going to be quality of life and public safety,” he said.
BY THE NUMBERS

* $645 million: Department of Correction budget last year

* $60: Cost to house an inmate for a day

* $25: Cost to keep someone in a halfway house for a day

* 40: Percentage of all inmates incarcerated for technical violations of probation or parole

* $100,000: Prison building cost, per bed

* $50 million: Annual operating cost for recently expanded Morgan County Correctional Complex

* $1 billion: Cost to operate the 2,400-bed Morgan County facility over the next 20 years

HALFWAY HOUSES

* Nashville — 55

* Knoxville — 10

* Memphis — 9

* Chattanooga — 1

Source: Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole

Source: Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner George Little
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2009/mar/09/tennessee-state-eyes-cost-effective-alternatives-p/?local

Posted by lois at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2009

Re-Entry Policy Council: U.S. House of Representatives Approves Over $133 Million for Prisoner Reentry in FY 2009, Including $25 Million for the Second Chance Act

February 26, 2009

U.S. House of Representatives Approves Over $133 Million for Prisoner Reentry in FY 2009, Including $25 Million for the Second Chance Act

On February 25, 2009, the House of Representatives passed an omnibus appropriations bill for the remainder of fiscal year 2009, which includes funding for the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The omnibus bill (H.R. 1105) is now under consideration in the Senate. Democratic leaders hope to take action on this bill by the end of next week, as the continuing resolution currently providing funding expires on March 6, 2009.

The omnibus bill passed by the House includes funding for the following criminal justice priorities:

* $25 million for the Second Chance Act, including $15 million for state and local demonstration grants and $10 million for nonprofit grants
* $108,493,000 for Department of Labor ex-offender activities
* $10 million for the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (which represents a $3.5 million increase over the FY08 appropriation)
* $532 million for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program
* $30 million for the Byrne Competitive Grant Program
* $40 million for drug courts
* $400 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)
* $10 million for Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT)

The Justice Center will send out an update on the omnibus bill when it passes in the Senate.

President Obama Requests $75 Million for the Second Chance Act in FY 2010

In the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2010 released on February 26, 2009, President Obama requested $109 million for prisoner reentry programs, including $75 million for Second Chance Act programs. "I am indeed pleased that the President's proposed budget includes $75 million for Second Chance and I applaud him," said Second Chance Act sponsor Rep. Danny Davis (IL). "This investment of $75 million will bring tremendous returns. However, throughout the budget and appropriation processes, I shall be advocating and working for more."
More info at http://www.reentrypolicy.org/government_affairs/second_chance_act

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

February 25, 2009

TX: Study finds major interruptions in antiretroviral therapy after release from prison

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Study finds major interruptions in antiretroviral therapy after release from prison
Feb 24, 2009

GALVESTON, Texas – The vast majority of HIV-infected Texas prison inmates who receive antiretroviral therapy while incarcerated experience significant interruptions in HIV treatment after their release into the community. This disturbing finding is the result of a 4-year study of more than 2,000 inmates with HIV infection released from Texas Department of Criminal Justice prisons between January 2004 and December 2007. The study, led by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston epidemiologist and associate professor Jacques Baillargeon, will appear in the Feb. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Using databases maintained by the Texas Department of State Health Services and TDCJ, Baillargeon and his co-investigators found that only 18 percent of inmates filled a prescription for antiretroviral medications within 30 days after release. Moreover, only 30 percent did so within 60 days. "These remarkably high rates of lengthy HIV treatment interruptions are troublesome from a public health perspective," said Baillargeon. "Several studies suggest that many released inmates who discontinue antiretroviral therapy also resume high-risk behaviors such as injection drug use or unsafe sex, and this combination may result not only in poor clinical outcomes for these individuals but also in the creation of drug-resistant HIV reservoirs in the general community."

Dr. David Paar, a co-author and director of the clinical virology division of UTMB Correctional Managed Care, said that this high rate of treatment interruption appears related in large part to multiple barriers faced by newly released inmates in accessing community-based health care. "A solution to this problem will require carefully coordinated efforts between the criminal justice system, public health agencies, and community healthcare systems," Paar noted.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uotm-sfm022309.php

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

February 11, 2009

CA: The Prison Overcrowding Fix

News Analysis
The Prison Overcrowding Fix
By SOLOMON MOORE
Published: February 10, 2009

In San Francisco last week, a federal court was hearing final arguments in the prison overcrowding lawsuit that led Monday to an unprecedented decision to reduce the nation’s largest prison system by one-third. Just a few blocks away, a state appellate court was affirming a life sentence for Ali Foroutan, convicted of possession of 0.03 gram of methamphetamine.

Critics of California’s justice system say Mr. Foroutan’s sentence under the “three-strikes law,” which mandates 25 years to life in prison for three-time felons, is the kind of punishment that has made the state’s prisons the most overcrowded in the nation.

Federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that packed facilities were the chief impediment to adequate health care in prisons — a system so flawed it was tantamount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Monday’s ruling signaled the court’s intention to cap the number of prisoners at about 101,000, a reduction of 55,000. It came after more than a decade of federal court orders from exasperated judges who demanded that the state improve its facilities and personnel, after the appointment of the most powerful federal receivership since the days of forced racial integration in the South, and after the death of scores of prisoners who committed suicide or died of preventable illnesses.

The judges encouraged the state to negotiate with inmates’ lawyers to cut the prison population from 156,000, which is about double the system’s capacity, within three years. If the state refuses to negotiate such a plan, the judges could order specific actions, including shortened prison sentences, diversion of nonviolent felons to county programs, and parole reforms that would cut down recidivism.

Few releases of prisoners would be necessary to reduce the prison population if the state carried out sentencing and parole reforms, which could save $903 million a year, according to the federal judges. They also argued that such reforms could be achieved without jeopardizing public safety.

Attorney General Jerry Brown of California vowed to appeal the judges’ final order to the United States Supreme Court, a prospect that could delay the carrying out of the prison population cap or overturn it.

The case is significant because of the scale of the proposed prisoner reduction, and also because it shines a harsh light on the failures of state government to address the problem for years.

Decades of tough-on-crime laws coupled with a failure to finance prison programs have left prisoners stacked three bunks high in prison gymnasiums and hallways throughout the state. With few probation and parole programs available, about two-thirds of all ex-convicts return to prison within three years.

California’s 13-year-old three-strikes law, which doubles sentences for second-time felons, and reserves life sentences for even nonviolent third-felony offenders like Mr. Foroutan, has also increased the prison population by thousands. As of March 2008, there were 41,284 prisoners serving time under the three-strikes law. In 2005, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that the law cost the state $500 million annually.

California is the only state in the nation that paroles 98 percent of released inmates, even if they have completed their sentences. About 70,000 parolees return to prison every year. Nationally, states parole an average of 40 percent of their released inmates.

“That is a major reason for the overcrowding problem,” said Joan Petersilia, a parole expert at the RAND Corporation. “Everybody goes on parole in California,” she said. “Everybody serves at least one year” on parole. Many parolees go back to prison for violations, including failed drug tests.

But Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, a state-financed watchdog organization, said sentencing reform was the key to reducing prison population.

The Legislature, Mr. Drown says, has added thousands of new penalties for new and old crimes. “We don’t track how judges are sentencing people on a statewide basis,” he said. “We don’t have a sentencing policy.”

In other states, sentencing commissions monitor penalties to help policy makers anticipate how many prisoners will be coming and for how long.

California has no such data, Mr. Drown said. Proposed sentencing commissions have been defeated in the Legislature at least 10 times, according to Ms. Petersilia.

This case began not as an overcrowding lawsuit but as an effort to address inadequate health care. After the state failed to improve its care, Judge Thelton E. Henderson appointed a federal receiver to take over the medical system, and the receiver has demanded billions of state dollars to build health care facilities.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has responded with a mix of conciliatory gestures — supporting an as-yet underfinanced initiative to build space for 53,000 prisoners — and defiance, as when he called for the dissolution of the receivership.

Eventually the receiver concluded that new prison facilities could not be added quickly enough to stem the deaths and injuries to prisoners or to outpace the rising prison population.

Lawyers for the state have argued that the federal courts lack the authority to order prison reforms costing billions of dollars, especially at a time when California is facing a $40 billion deficit.

Counties in California say they cannot afford to serve parolees’ rehabilitation needs without additional financing, as many other states do.

Kara P. Dansky, a lecturer at Stanford Law School, believes that the judges may have the authority to push through sweeping reforms, including more financing for counties, under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

The state disagrees that the court has such authority and plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, which could delay any outcome. Ms. Dansky said policy makers would be watching the case closely. “This is one of the areas that the law is unclear on because we’ve never seen a case like this,” she said.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 11, 2009, on page A17 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/us/11prisons.html?ref=todayspaper

Posted by lois at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

February 06, 2009

NY: Sentencing Commission Calls for Drug Law Reform and Critical Response from NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

Sentencing Commission Calls for Drug Law Reform
February 3, 2009

Panel also recommends determinate sentencing, graduated sanctions for parole violators

A bi-partisan panel that spent nearly two years studying New York State’s sentencing statutes today called for further reforms to the state’s drug laws and provided the Governor, Legislature and Judiciary with several different options for historic reform.

The Commission on Sentencing Reform agreed on five major principles of drug law reform:

* Community-based drug treatment, especially when required in a criminal justice setting where the offender faces clearly defined sanctions for program failure, works and should be an available option in every region of the state.

* The state’s network of existing diversion programs and drug courts has been effective for thousands of drug-addicted offenders, and any new diversion model must be structured so as not to undermine these programs.

* New York should adopt a comprehensive plan to provide statewide access to substance abuse treatment programs.

* New York must continue to reserve costly prison resources for high-risk offenders and make greater use of alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders while not jeopardizing the state’s significant gains in public safety.

* While New York has a large network of successful drug treatment courts and prosecutor-based diversion programs (such as DTAP – “Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison), these programs are not always made available to deserving offenders in need of treatment. The result is a “hit-or-miss” system that leaves many non-violent, drug-addicted offenders ─ and particularly persons of color – without access to this potentially life-changing alternative. To help close this gap, the Commission supports the adoption in statute of a uniform statewide drug diversion model.

The Commission considered several different alternatives for achieving those objectives and included five different options for reform.

Under one of the proposals, the “judicial diversion” model, judges would have discretion to divert certain addicted, non-violent first- and second-felony drug offenders into treatment programs rather than prison. The Commission noted that if this model had been in place in 2006, approximately 3,000 offenders – 89 percent of them African American or Hispanic – might have been diverted from prison and instead steered toward treatment.

Other options are: the Court Approved Drug Abuse Treatment (CADAT) model that is part of a comprehensive drug reform bill pending in both houses of the Legislature; judicial diversion, but only with the consent of the prosecutor; and two variations of a proposal that would allow first-time Class B drug felons to receive a probation or local jail sentence in lieu of a one-year state prison term.

Denise E. O’Donnell, chair of the Commission and Deputy Secretary for Public Safety, said all of the five proposals have benefits and drawbacks that the Legislature should take into account before implementing drug law reform.

“The Commission has heard from the prosecution, the defense, and the judiciary,” Deputy Secretary O’Donnell said. “We have solicited advice from advocates and renowned experts from around the nation. We held public hearings in New York City, Albany and Buffalo. We formed focus groups. We studied drug courts and drug diversion programs around the state and visited drug treatment facilities and New York State’s prisons in an effort to determine which approaches are most successful at ending the cycle of addiction and incarceration.

“I believe our report provides Governor Paterson and the Legislature with the balanced, objective and evidence-based information they need to make informed decisions about the future of New York’s drug laws,” Deputy Secretary O’Donnell added.

The 11-member Sentencing Commission, which was established by Executive Order in March 2007 to perform a comprehensive review of New York’s sentencing statutes, also recommended:

* Adopting a largely “determinate” sentencing system to promote greater uniformity, fairness and truth-in-sentencing. Currently, New York utilizes a hybrid of “determinate” sentences where the court imposes a fixed sentence, and “indeterminate” sentences where the court imposes a minimum and maximum term and the Parole Board decides when the offender is actually released. Under a determinate sentencing system, defendants, crime victims, judges and the public have a clear understanding of how long an offender will actually spend behind bars. The Commission reviewed more than two decades of sentences that had been imposed through the indeterminate system and used that data to construct a proposed range of sentences for particular offenses.

* A comprehensive system of graduated responses, which would allow parole officers throughout the state to respond quickly and proportionately to technical parole violations. Since incarceration is an expensive and, often, unnecessary response to parole violations, the Commission recommends expanded use of “graduated sanctions” – such as curfews, electronic monitoring, increased reporting – coupled with use of evidence-based risk assessments to identify parolees who pose the greatest risk to public safety.

* Expanding effective and cost-efficient “shock incarceration” and “merit time” initiatives that reduce recidivism and reserve costly prison space for the most dangerous offenders.

* Enhancing the rights of crime victims. The Commission recommends moving all of the various victim’s rights statutes into a single article of law, or cross-referencing to a single article, so that victims, judges and practitioners can readily ascertain the rights and benefits that may be available. Additionally, the Commission recommends enhancing victim’s rights training requirements for prosecutors and judges, as well as new laws to enhance the ability of victims to collect restitution.

* Establishing a permanent sentencing commission. Over the past 40 years, portions of New York’s sentencing statutes have been amended and altered countless times, resulting in an overly complex, Byzantine structure replete with the potential for injustice. The Commission recommends the establishment of a permanent body of experts to advise the Executive and Legislative branches on proposed legislation.

Jeremy Travis, president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the “Sentencing Commission has performed a valuable service, at a critical time in the state’s history.”

“By focusing squarely on the connection between public safety and sentencing policy, the Commission has provided a roadmap that will guide the state during difficult fiscal times,” President Travis said. “The Commission’s recommendations, if followed, will bring clarity to our patchwork quilt of accumulated sentencing reforms, improve reentry outcomes, and support more rational uses of our prisons and our parole system.”

Deputy Secretary O’Donnell said the report is “the product of an extraordinary effort by an extraordinary group of professionals.”

“This comprehensive report reflects the wide diversity of experience represented on the Commission, and the seriousness with which every member approached this very difficult and time-consuming mission,” Deputy Secretary O’Donnell said. “Although we come from different areas, different professions and different backgrounds, our overarching goals were identical – justice, fairness and public safety. I believe that, with this report, we have met that goal.”

Also on the Commission were: Anthony Bergamo, Chairman, Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, Inc.; Brian Fischer, Commissioner, New York State Department of Correctional Services; Michael C. Green, Monroe County District Attorney; Joseph R. Lentol, member of the New York State Assembly; Michael P. McDermott, O’Connell and Aronowitz in Albany; Judge Juanita Bing Newton, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Justice Initiatives; Felix Rosa; Executive Director, New York State Division of Parole; Eric T. Schneiderman, member of the New York State Senate; Tina Marie Stanford, Chair, New York State Crime Victims Board; and Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., of Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer in Manhattan

“A lot of talented people put a lot of work into this report, which I believe will serve as a positive stepping stone for the legislature as we consider reforms to our state’s costly ─ and at times overly-punitive ─ criminal justice system,” said Senator Schneiderman, the new chair of the Senate Codes Committee. “I am especially heartened by the fact that the Commission is recommending by nearly unanimous agreement that judges be given the power to divert drug-addicted offenders to treatment, even without prosecutorial consent.”

Added Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, Commissioner of the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services: “I applaud the Governor and the Sentencing Commission for recognizing addiction is a chronic illness that is better to treat than to incarcerate. We know that 72 percent of state parolees have a substance abuse problem and effective treatment is the best way to help them return to their communities, not to prison.

“OASAS is proud to partner with the Governor and Legislature on insuring that appropriate treatment is available to those individuals who can be diverted from State prison to our not-for-profit system of care,” she added. “New York State is a national leader in diversion programs, such as drug courts, and the action of this Commission once again puts New York in the forefront.”

Commissioner Fischer said the “shock incarceration” and “merit time proposals would build upon effective and cost efficient programs already being utilized by the Department of Correctional Services.

“Expanding eligibility for shock incarceration and creating limited credit time for good behavior and enhanced program participation during prison are sound, common-sense ideas based upon many years of practical experience in what works best,” Commissioner Fischer said.

“Shock has saved state taxpayers nearly $1.3 billion directly over two decades through reduced need for prison space, in addition to lowering recidivism by better preparing its participants to return to society,” he added. “Credit time would build on our very successful merit time program by providing incentives that have been shown not only to help in the rehabilitative process for offenders but also to make our correctional facilities safer and to enhance public safety.”

Added Ms. Stanford, Chair of the Crime Victims Board: “I am pleased to note that victims’ rights and concerns were studied and considered as part of the extensive process of reviewing sentencing in New York. The final product reflects fairness and forward thinking in an effort to share practical suggestions and best practices to achieve just results.”

Mr. Vance said that the “Commission’s report provides sound and bold recommendations to reform New York’s complex, sometimes unfair and often incomprehensible sentencing laws. We hope our work will be a roadmap to a more fair and effective criminal justice system for all of us.”

http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/pio/press_releases/2009-02-03_pressrelease.html
Critical Response to Report from Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NY Assembly
http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/11304/silver-thumbs-down-on-dru g-law-reform-report

Silver: Thumbs down on drug law reform report
February 3, 2009 at 12:51 pm by Casey Seiler

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has wasted no time in calling the drug law reform commission’s report a “missed opportunity.” Here’s his letter to commission Chairwoman Denise O’Donnell:

Dear Commissioner O’Donnell:

I write to express my deep disappointment with the final report of the Commission on Sentencing Reform. Unfortunately, the Commission’s report represents a historic missed opportunity to advance meaningful reform of New York’s antiquated “Rockefeller-era Drug Laws”. The Commission held in its hands a unique opportunity to help undo thirty-five years of failed drug policy and set New York on the path to establishing a more just, more humane and more effective approach to combat drug crime and drug abuse.

I am saddened that it failed to do so.

More than 35 years after they were enacted, it is clear that the Rockefeller laws have failed to combat drug abuse or effectively impact the incidence of violent crime across New York State. Rather, they have succeeded in imprisoning tens of thousands of low-level non-violent offenders, who are predominantly African-American and Latino, with no history of committing violent crimes at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayers. By restoring to judges their discretion not to mandate a prison sentence when they deem it inappropriate, non-violent drug offenders and taxpayers will be
better served by driving resources toward strategies that have been proven far more effective at combating substance abuse and the street level crime associated with it.

Fore nearly a decade, the New York State Assembly, led by Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry, has passed legislation to reform these laws, with an emphasis on restoring discretion to judges and providing alternatives to incarceration where appropriate and drug treatment for offenders where needed. Policy reforms encapsulated in that legislation were proposed to this Commission by Assemblymember Joseph Lentol. I was very sorry to learn
that the Commission rejected them.

I am troubled that the Commission’s report fails to address a system that has ignored, and still ignores, the health and societal implications of drug abuse, and has ignored the failed laws that have led to African- Americans and Latinos constituting 90% of those incarcerated in our state prisons for drug offenses. This profound discriminatory impact is even more shocking when the rates of illicit drug use are 8.1 percent for Whites, 7.2 percent
for Latinos and 8.7 percent for African-Americans.

In 2004, under the leadership of the New York State Assembly and drug law reform advocates, New York undertook an important first step in correcting failed policies by lowering maximum prison sentences through converting indeterminate to determinate sentences, eliminating life sentences, doubling weights for the top 2 classes of drug offenses and providing other sentencing relief. Further amendments have enabled some of those who were previously sentenced under the laws to seek limited reconsideration of their sentences.

But still, more than 35 years after enactment of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, individuals convicted of a class B felony drug offense must go to state prison, often regardless of the quantity, quality or type of drugs involved and regardless of other options that combat drug crime and drug abuse.

While I believe the Commission missed a historic opportunity to address these issues, the Assembly is committed to ensuring that in 2009, New York finally enacts real reform of the Rockefeller-era Drug Laws. We believe the following principles should guide any efforts at enacting reform:

Mandatory minimum sentences for low-level non-violent offenders must go. Judges must have the discretion to impose sentences that make sense. Mandating that judges sentence drug users and very low level street sellers to state prison has not appreciably impacted crime or
reduced addiction but, rather, has led to a massive increase in New York’s prison population with a disproportionate number of Latinos and African-Americans being incarcerated. Thus, real reform means untying the hands of our judiciary by ending mandatory minimum
prison sentences for Class B felony drug offenses and second time,
non-violent drug offenders, and placing an emphasis on probation,
alternatives to incarceration, and treatment. Except for the most serious and violent crimes, judges in New York already have had and continue to have the discretion to fashion appropriate sentences for criminal acts. Judges should have the ability to make an informed decision whether circumstances warrant imposing a state prison sentence in drug crimes just as they do in cases of many assault, larceny, property damage and any number of other crimes.

Illegal drugs should remain illegal. Adults who sell drugs to children, individuals who use guns in drug deals, and drug kingpins deserve harsh punishment. In addition, existing maximum
determinate sentences for first and second class B level felony and below offenders should also be maintained so that if a judge decided circumstances warrant, those who commit the crime will do serious time.

District Attorneys should continue to play a key role in the process, but they should not be able to veto a judge’s discretion. Indeed, to the extent there are district attorney-sponsored initiatives, such as Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) programs that have proven success rates with the limited populations they serve, judges will have the discretion to continue them.

This approach is fair, sensible and cost effective. We spend almost $45,000 per year incarcerating each drug offender in state prison, many of whom are non-violent individuals suffering from substance abuse. This is money that could be spent on breaking the cycle that has driven New York’s apparent addiction to sending people to prison rather than ending the drug abuse and recidivism.

I reiterate my disappointment at this missed opportunity. I remain
committed to eliminating the most ineffective and inhumane aspects of the Rockefeller-era Drug Laws. I am hopeful that this year my colleagues in the Legislature can create a partnership with the Governor to complete this work.

Sincerely,
Sheldon Silver
Speaker
New York State Assembly

Posted by lois at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2009

MI: State should expand Parole Board to cut prison stays and costs

State should expand Parole Board to cut prison stays and costs
February 4, 2009

Michigan's $2-billion-a-year prison system holds thousands of inmates who have served their minimum sentence and are eligible for release. Not all of them merit paroles, of course, but many do, costing taxpayers millions of dollars that could be better spent on higher education and other state services. To give these cases a thorough and timely review, Gov. Jennifer Granholm ought to expand the 10-member Parole Board.

Longer prison stays, dictated by past Parole Board practices, are largely responsible for Michigan spending hundreds of millions of dollars more on prisons than surrounding states -- states with crime rates no higher than Michigan's.

At least 12,000 inmates who are eligible for parole remain in Michigan's 41 prisons, even though parole rates have increased over the last year. If even half of them could be safely released, it would save the state nearly $200 million a year.

With 49,000 inmates, Michigan has one of the nation's highest incarceration rates. The Parole Board must determine, as soon as possible, who should stay in prison and who can go home. To do the job, the Parole Board needs to expand by two, four or even six members.

Delaying the review of worthy cases is immoral and expensive. Even under normal circumstances, the board grants about 12,000 paroles a year and reviews twice that number of cases. But over the last 18 months, board members have gotten hundreds of additional cases from the governor's new Executive Clemency Advisory Council, which recommends medical and other commutations that require public hearings. The Parole Board is also personally reviewing hundreds of parolable lifers, after a federal judge ruled that the Department of Corrections had violated their constitutional rights.

Parole Board members serve rotating four-year terms and earn $89,000 a year. To make their decisions more impartial and accurate, they are learning how to use new validated assessment tools that predict risk based on a variety of information, including crime history, release plan, institutional record and age. But the Parole Board must have enough members to ensure that every eligible inmate gets a thorough, and safe, review.

Michigan cannot afford a prison system that is much larger than necessary to protect its citizens.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090204/OPINION01/902040356

Posted by lois at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2009

MI: Sacred Cows Block Real Prison Reform

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

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

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

It’s next to impossible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until, the piggybank is empty, that is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Squat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 29, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 23, 2009

MI: Getting smart on crime — and prison time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 22, 2009

Michigan can save millions on prison costs, group says

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

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

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

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

Advertisement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 14, 2009

THE PEOPLE’S AGENDA: VIRGINIA PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY

THE PEOPLE’S AGENDA

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

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

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

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

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

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

LABOR

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

BLACK COMMUNITY

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

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

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

EDUCATION

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

HEALTH CARE

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

PRISONER ADVOCACY

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

STUDENTS

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

ANTI-WAR

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

OTHER

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

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

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

January 05, 2009

PA: Rendell Wants No Parole for People Convicted of Repeated Violent Crimes

Rendell Wants No Parole For Repeat Violent Offenders
Last Edited: Sunday, 04 Jan 2009
Governor Ed Rendell

PHILADELPHIA -- Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has put forth his first order of business for 2009. He wants to get rid of parole for repeat violent offenders.

"In 2008, four Pennsylvanians were brutally murdered by men who had served state time for violent crimes and were out on parole at the time," said Governor Rendell. "These murders cry out for changes in how we sentence our violent repeat offenders."

Currently, in the state of Pennsylvania, offenders are given indeterminate sentences, requiring a minimum and maximum time to be served. Gov. Rendell proposes that any adult or juvenile convicted of a violent crime with a deadly weapon would be unable to get out on parole. He has told the General Assembly to start working on this legislation.

He cited the case of Daniel Giddings, accused of shooting and killing Philadelphia Police Sgt. Patrick McDonald. Giddings had been out on parole.

"Howard Cain, Levon Warner, and Eric Floyd, all on parole...shot and killed Sgt. Steven Liczbinski," said Gov. Rendell.

The sentencing guidelines for crimes wouldn't change but judges would give offenders a sentence that would be served fully, no time off for good behavior. He says most repeat violent offenders have learned "to game the system," entering programs in prison to help them get out at the earliest possible time.

The prison system, already overcrowded, may see an increase due to the legislation, but Rendell says non-violent offenders would be fast tracked out of the state prison system. He says he believes the state prisons are for violent offenders. He says the state is also working on building additional prisons.

"Nobody, myself included, will tell you that just locking people up solves the problem, but it does buy us some valuable time. Instead of one of these offenders being in prison for four years, if they can be in prison for nine years, that's five years more of safety for the citizens of Pennsylvania," said Rendell.

The legislature is scheduled to reconvene in a week and Rendell hopes they will take up the matter immediately.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=8190722&version=10&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

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

January 03, 2009

CA: Schwarzenegger's plan would cut number of parolees in half and reduce the prison population by 10% in a year

His proposal would cut the number of parolees in half and reduce the prison population by almost 10% within a year...

Schwarzenegger plan would save nearly $1 billion in prisoner and parolee costs
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published Friday, Jan. 02, 2009

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal would reduce by tens of thousands the number of criminals behind bars and under community supervision.

Parole would be eliminated for all nonserious, nonviolent and non-sex offenders. The proposal would cut the parole population by about 65,000 by June 30, 2010, or more than half of the Christmas Eve count of 123,144.

At the same time, the corrections plan calls for increasing good-time credits for inmates who obey the rules and complete rehabilitation programs. Combined with the new parole policies that would result in fewer violators forced back into custody, the proposal would reduce the prison population by 15,000 by June 30, 2010. It stood at 171,542 on Dec. 24.

Department of Finance Director Mike Genest said the state's worsening budget scenario again forced the administration to look at prison and parole population cuts as front-burner proposals to save money.

"I don't think there are very many proposals in this whole budget that are easy for us, or for anybody," Genest said in an interview. "They're all difficult. That one's difficult, but we think we've structured it in such a way as to protect public safety."

Genest said that California's parole population far outstrips any other state, and that the administration's plan would bring its policies for released offenders mostly in line with the rest of the country.

"We're just paring back the whole parole program here," Genest said. "Other states do this with no noticeable impacts on public safety, and I think it's time California takes a hard look at doing that."

Details on the latest edition of Schwarzenegger's early-release plan emerged when officials unveiled their budget proposals Wednesday for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

The governor's plan calls for an $842 million budget cut for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, an 8.7 percent slash that would take the agency's overall spending down to about $9.6 billion.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, still at odds with Schwarzenegger over a new contract, blasted the plan.

"What it means is residual costs to all citizens of California and higher insurance rates and more crime," said CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran, whose union represents about 30,000 correctional officers and parole agents. "These are individuals who do not take advantage of opportunities for change, and they are not going to change," he said of the offenders who stand to benefit from the proposals.

Corcoran said that the current definitions of "serious" and "violent" felonies exclude crimes such as spousal abuse, stalking and possession of destructive devices, and that offenders convicted under those laws would not be subject to parole supervision.

In the prisons, thousands more offenders would become eligible to have their sentences cut in half, with the time credits kicking in while they are in county jails waiting for their transfers to state custody. Prisoners also would be in line for additional time credits if they complete drug, vocational and educational programs.

Democratic majorities in the state Senate and the Assembly approved legislation in the recent special session on the budget that closely mirrors the administration's most recent population proposals. The bill, Assembly Bill X1 8, is on Schwarzenegger's desk. But it includes language that it cannot become law unless the rest of the Democrats' budget plan - still under negotiation with the governor - also is enacted.

One critic of California's correctional policies welcomed the administration's budget proposals but said the move to cut the population doesn't jibe with pending measures to increase inmate capacity.

"They need to immediately reduce the number of people in prison and there are many ways to do that, including changing parole and sentencing policies," said Rose Braz of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. "But they can't do that and keep building more prisons."

Besides the prison and parole plans, the governor's budget also proposes a $180 million cut in funding for federal medical care receiver J. Clark Kelso's programs, at a time when he is seeking $8 billion for long-term-care facilities.

Call Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.

Posted by lois at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2009

NY State Law requires employers to provide jobseekers with criminal records with anti-discrimination info

In 2008, the first bill drafted by the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP) at the Fortune Society, The Employer Education Act, was passed by the New York State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Paterson. The law:

(1) Requires employers to provide a copy of Article 23-A of the Correction Law—which makes it illegal to automatically deny employment to qualified job seekers with criminal records and provides guidance on how criminal history information can be appropriately and legally considered amidst the hiring process—to job seekers when relying on a criminal background check during the hiring process; and

(2) Requires the conspicuous posting of Article 23-A in the workplace.

After months of working on implementation, including sending letters about the new law to employment law practices, business that produce workplace signage and other businesses in NYS, DRCPP is pleased to report that the Labor Law Compliance Center (LLCC), one of the largest suppliers of Labor Law Posters in the United States, is now contacting all of its NYS customers to advise them to purchase the updated 2009 poster with the requirements specified in the Employer Education Act. According to LLCC's corporate office, they have "thousands of employers in NYS that rely on LLCC to be in compliance."
DRCPP is currently working on a larger education and communications campaign, which will further educate New York State employers, jobseekers and other stakeholders about the Employer Education Act. We look forward to touching base with you when the campaign rolls out in 2009.

The Fortune Society
David Rothenberg center for Public policy

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

December 24, 2008

WI: Univ. of WI-Federal Prison to end 4 year college program

UW-Baraboo, prison end relationship
By Matthew Ryno / News Republic
December 24, 2008-- Baraboo, WI

Working toward a four-year university degree while behind bars will no longer be an option at a nearby federal prison, due to a push to make it easier for more ex-convicts to secure employment upon their release.

Inmates will finish their lessons with long-time University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County instructors, and by June, a new educational provider will teach an anticipated 50 to 100 inmates how to push mops and buckets.

After about 35 years of working together, officials at the Federal Corrections Institute at Oxford specifically requested instruction in job fields not offered at UW-Baraboo, like custodial services and computer work. UW-Baraboo has not submitted a bid for these services, which are classified as part of a $6.5 million contract on the bid request.

About 17 full-time equivalent students from FCI-Oxford are enrolled in the current program. Losing these students pushes the number of full-time students at UW-Baraboo below an enrollment target — which could impact state aid next year.

Thomas Pleger, dean, said he predicts college enrollment will continue to increase and he was more concerned that such a beneficial relationship has ended.

"We have enjoyed the relationship over 30 plus years, and our faculty and staff have found it very rewarding," Pleger said. "In a number of meetings we have pointed out success of our program to FCI-Oxford."

Christine Montonna, executive assistant at the prison, said in a faxed statement, "eligible inmates would benefit more effectively from occupational oriented programs, by obtaining marketable skills designed to enhance post-release employment opportunities."

Specifically, Montonna said the shift in programming gives FCI-Oxford a new contract that "accommodates the most recent policy guidelines for education and accommodates the needs of the inmate population at FCI-Oxford."

Though the opportunity to obtain a two-year associate degree applicable to continuing a four-year degree at a school like UW-Steven's Point might no longer be offered in the future, FCI-Oxford was considered "one of the most heavily programmed institutions in the Federal Bureau of Prisons," Jerry Bednarowski, of the Correctional Education Association of Wisconsin, wrote in an annual newsletter last year.

In the newsletter he listed FCI-Oxford's programs which included GED programs, apprenticeship programs, continuing education programs, food service training, arts and crafts programs and some technical education through the Madison Area Technical College. All of these programs are part of FCI-Oxford's Occupational and Vocational Education Program.

Bednarowski, a retired educational director at the Waupun Correctional Institution, said though he has no experience with a Federal Correctional Institution, he said supporting work toward a four-year degree requires a lot of resources to get prisoners eligible. According to the National Institute of Literacy, 70 percent of all prisoners function at the lowest literacy levels.

"The levels of the inmates coming into the (state correctional) institution are usually quite low. The first goal (of state correctional institutions) is to get them a GED, then get them a trade to get them employable upon release," he said.

A partnership between a Federal Corrections Institute and a four-year degree program does exist elsewhere though, like at Boston University and Arizona State University.

Some programs in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections are also pioneering easier ways to cross the divide to a four-year degree while also expanding training for the workplace.

The Milwaukee Area Technical College is partnering with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections through a satellite-based distance learning group called the Corrections Learning Network to offer courses which lead to an Associate of Arts degree.

A recently awarded $2 million four-year study is now looking at how their economical way of offering courses which ultimately leads to an Associate of Arts degree (an intermediate goal to completing a four-year degree), can be successful.

Bednarowski said there is value in a liberal arts education.

"A liberal arts education doesn't exist much in the state system, but it has great value and it gets into supporting the moral development and value system of the inmates. I think its major effect is in those areas, in addition to preparing for employment upon release," he said.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1997, (the most recent date the study was completed) about 23.9 percent of federal inmates have a post-secondary education, compared to 48.4 percent of the general population.

About 80 percent of inmates who did not complete high school or an equivalency degree were recidivists. This compares with 66 percent with some college education who were recidivists.

Nearly 60 percent of federal inmates reported taking advantage of educational opportunities while they were incarcerated.

No educational service bids have been selected so far by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Though multiple requests have been made, no copies of received bids have been provided by the prison system and no data is available regarding the success rate of those completing any educational services at FCI-Oxford.
http://www.wiscnews.com/util/print.php?pub=bnr&ntid=325131&ref=%2Fbnr%2Fnews%2F%2Findex.php%3Fntid%3D325131

Posted by lois at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2008

VT putting criminal records on line.

States putting criminal records online
by John Curran - Dec. 21, 2008
Associated Press

WATERBURY, Vt. - Worried your daughter's new boyfriend might have a nefarious past? Want to know whether the job applicant in front of you has a rap sheet?

Finding out can be a mouse click away, thanks to the growing crop of searchable online databases run directly by states. Vermont launched its service Monday, and now about 20 states have some form of them.

The Web sites provide a valuable and time-saving service to employers and businesses by allowing them to look up criminal convictions without having to submit written requests and wait for the responses. And they're popular: Last month alone, Florida's site performed 38,755 record checks.

But the Internet debut of information historically kept in courthouses in paper files can magnify the harm of clerical errors, expose states to liability for mistakes and spell new headaches for people who've long since done their time, only to have information about their crime bared anew.

"It's unfortunate in that it threatens what I see as the uniquely American ideal of being able to start over, after you've paid your penance, to go to a new community without the blemish of your crime and starting a new life," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group focused on civil liberties online.

Vermont's system, which costs $20 to query one person's records, includes information on criminal convictions dating to the 1940s. It taps into the Vermont Criminal Information Center database used by law- enforcement agencies, which state officials claim has fewer mistakes than courthouse records or the data sold by private information brokers working off those records.

All you need to make an inquiry is a person's name and date of birth, and a credit card to pay the fee.

If the query finds a record, the system lists the date of conviction, charge, sentence and venue. It won't show the original charge filed, or give information about the victim or the circumstances of the crime.

Also inaccessible, according to officials, are records that have been expunged or sealed. And people can report mistakes in the records on them and ask for changes.

Allen Gilbert, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Vermont chapter, opposed the state's move, in part because it sets up a two-tiered system of records - one set at the courthouse and another online. The online system gives only a slice of information about the cases, he said.

"There might be something about the conviction that if you looked at the court record, you'd better understand about what happened and what's behind the conviction. It would give the person whose record you're looking at a chance to have the full story explained, rather than just the end result," Gilbert said.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/12/21/20081221online-rapsheet1221.html

Posted by lois at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2008

HOME DEPOT ACCUSED OF VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS OF JOB APPLICANTS WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS---Legal Action Center and National Employment Law Center seeking poeple with complaints

HOME DEPOT ACCUSED OF VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS OF JOB APPLICANTS WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS
Please see the notice below regarding a Title VII national class charge recently filed against Home Depot based on its failure to hire applicants due to their prior conviction history:
HOME DEPOT ACCUSED OF VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS OF JOB APPLICANTS WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS
Two African-American men have filed charges of discrimination against Home Depot alleging that the company's rejection of their job applications based on their past criminal records violates federal civil rights laws forbidding race discrimination because the practice has an adverse impact on African Americans and Hispanics. The charges were filed with the New York office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The charging parties are being represented by the Legal Action Center (www.lac.org), Outten & Golden LLP (www.outtengolden.com), the National Employment Law Project (www.nelp.org) and Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian (www.gdblegal.com).

As part of their investigation of these claims, the charging parties counsel are interested in speaking to other African Americans and Hispanics who have been rejected for employment by Home Depot because of a past criminal record. People in New York State should contact the Legal Action Center, 212-243-1313 (outside of NY City, call 800-223-4044), and ask to speak to a paralegal about the Home Depot case. People in California should contact the National Employment Law Project, 510-409-2427. People outside of New York or California should contact Justin Swartz at Outten & Golden, 212-245-1000.

Posted by lois at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2008

PA: State resumes parole for people convicted of violent offences

State resumes parole for violent offenders
Monday, December 01, 2008
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania's parole system must do a better job of identifying violent offenders who pose the greatest threat to public safety, an independent review found.

Gov. Ed Rendell lifted a moratorium on paroling violent offenders today after accepting the report's recommendations for improving the system. The review, which found most of the state's existing procedures were sound, was conducted by Temple University's John Goldkamp, a nationally recognized expert on incarceration.
The state should classify violent offenders into two categories -- those most likely to commit another offense and those less likely to pose risks to public safety, Mr. Goldkamp said in his report. The review also calls for the state to use certain criteria to evaluate an offender's potential to commit violence, such as the use of a gun in committing a crime, and to improve training of parole agents.
"Recent tragedies have made clear that we must do a better job of evaluating and supervising parolees with a history of violence," Mr. Rendell said.
Mr. Rendell ordered the review and temporarily halted the parole of state prison inmates in September after a Philadelphia policeman was killed by a paroled felon during a traffic stop.
Last month, on Mr. Goldkamp's recommendation, Mr. Rendell lifted the moratorium for offenders serving time for nonviolent crimes but maintained it for those convicted of violent offenses.
The state Probation and Parole Board also accepted Mr. Goldkamp's findings and has begun releasing eligible offenders under stricter supervision policies, Mr. Rendell said.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press.

Posted by lois at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)

Calif.'s Prop 5 Battle Exposes Fault Lines Between Treatment Groups, Drug Courts

Calif.'s Prop 5 Battle Exposes Fault Lines Between Treatment Groups, Drug Courts
December 5, 2008
News Feature
By Bob Curley

The battle over California's recently defeated Proposition 5 has led to a schism between drug courts and addiction treatment providers -- putative allies in the drive to shunt drug offenders into treatment rather than prisons -- with advocates on both sides lamenting a lost opportunity to reform a justice system that most agree places too much emphasis on punishment and not enough on rehabilitation.

When the Nonviolent Offenders Rehabilitation Act (NORA) was shot down by about a 60-40 margin in November, it was partly due to the advocacy efforts of drug-court judges, who allied themselves with law enforcement, prison guards, and some prevention groups in opposing the measure. NORA backers, who undertook a low-key campaign to build on and improve the Proposition 36 reforms approved by state voters in 2000, instead suffered a unexpected and crushing defeat.

NORA opponents cast Prop 5 as the work of drug-legalization groups like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), saying it diluted drug-court judges' power to hold offenders accountable if they failed in treatment. In announcing its opposition to NORA, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) cited concern that the measure would "extend DPA's influence at the expense of public safety, proven judicial interventions, and DPA's political and philosophical adversaries; [and] endorse treatments and practices associated with the harm-reduction and legalization movements that are unproven and objectionable."

The pro-NORA forces were indeed led by the DPA (which does not officially endorse drug legalization but has championed medical marijuana and marijuana decriminalization laws nationally). Supporters and opponents of the measure described the drafting of the measure as a closed process, with those outside DPA learning details of the plan only when it was certified for the state ballot.

"We did discuss the contents with experts in academia, judges, some in law enforcement," said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, DPA's deputy Prop 5 campaign manager and deputy state director in California, "but it's absolutely correct that we did not seek the consensus of the addiction field or law enforcement."

Regardless, the ranks of Proposition 5 supporters included the bulk of the "mainstream" addiction groups in California, including the California Society of Addiction Medicine, the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, the Coalition of Alcohol and Drug Associations, the California Association for Alcohol and Drug Educators, and prominent individual groups like Phoenix House and a pair of NCADD chapters.

A review of the No on Proposition 5 website shows that NADCP was joined by law enforcement groups, some state lawmakers and civic groups, and prevention organizations such as D.A.R.E. America, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Californians for Drug Free Schools, and a variety of conservative antidrug groups, including the Drug Free America Foundation.

'Locking Horns'

Doug Marlowe, chief of science, policy and law at NADCP, was dismissive of the state treatment community's support for NORA. "There were some California providers in favor of NORA because they would have benefitted [financially] from it," said Marlowe.

Marlowe expressed concern, however, that the battle over NORA had driven a wedge between drug courts and treatment providers. "There is no drug court without treatment," Marlowe said. "To say that we are locking horns may be true, unfortunately, but it's not what we want."

"We are very clear that we are in favor of treatment and that drug courts are an alternative to incarceration," he added. "We're not a law-enforcement group, we're not a punishment group -- we are a treatment-support group."

NORA supporter John DeMiranda, executive director of the National Association on Alcohol, Drugs and Disability and Pacific Southwest regional representative for Faces and Voices of Recovery, said that the treatment community in California "jumped on the bandwagon and talked about NORA as a treatment initiative," even though DPA mainly cast Prop 5 as a drug-policy reform effort. Some California treatment providers were reluctant to back NORA, but DeMiranda contended that this had less to do with DPA's involvement than fear of bucking the criminal-justice programs that control their funding.

"If we were to do our own initiative it would be very different, and the politics would be very different," said DeMiranda. However, he scorned the state's drug courts for failing to embrace the reforms embodied in NORA. "We need wholesale decriminalization, not retail decriminalization," said DeMiranda, noting the relatively small number of clients currently served by drug courts.

For DPA, Tried-and-True Meant Go-it-Alone

Both DeMiranda and Marlowe said that DPA erred in not allowing the addiction field and drug courts greater involvement in drafting NORA, although DeMiranda said that the compromises that likely would have resulted -- such as allowing for more sanctions or removing language related to marijuana decriminalization -- probably would have cost DPA the financial backing needed to forward the measure.

"George Soros doesn't want to expand treatment -- he wants progressive reform," DeMiranda said.

Marlowe said that the "all or nothing" approach taken by DPA forced drug courts and others to choose sides rather than compromising. "As a result, groups that have shared interests couldn't come together," he said.

NADCP has a long list of concerns with NORA, but Marlowe said there were a number of areas of agreement, including the initiative's general philosophy of providing treatment rather than incarceration, greater emphasis on needs assessment, and added accountability for offenders compared to California's earlier attempt at shunting more offenders to treatment, Prop 36.

"Drug courts could have had common ground with [DPA], but it was too late," said Marlowe.

Building a broader coalition might have helped neutralize opposition to NORA, but Dooley-Sammuli pinned blame for NORA's overwhelming defeat largely on ballot language that emphasized the cost of Prop 5, combined with the economic collapse in October.

She said DPA based its go-alone strategy on a string of previous successes with ballot initiatives in other states, and added that while "we're not afraid to try to talk to folks," the group had felt burned by the experience of working with drug-court judges on a bill that modified Prop 36 -- and ultimately included jail sanctions opposed by DPA. "We made a good-faith effort, but in the end it was a case where consensus meant wanting us to agree with them," she said.

Post-NORA: Confronting California's Looming Budget Crisis

The defeat of NORA may have been seen as a victory by some in the prevention and drug court community, but few are celebrating the loss of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in new state spending on treatment that would have been mandated by Prop 5.

Moreover, the treatment community is facing potentially catastrophic budget cuts as California grapples with a $28-billion budget shortfall, with continued treatment funding possibly hanging on legislative approval of an alcohol tax increase proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

DPA officials, members of the California treatment communities, and other NORA backers met on Dec. 3 to discuss the future of drug-policy reform efforts in the state.

"We are definitely open to compromise going forward," said NADCP's Marlowe, who said he was unaware of the meeting. "NORA did take some steps forward in terms of accountability and sanctions, but in our opinion erected too many barriers to applying them ... We are absolutely open to a conversation about shared interests and values with DPA."

"We'd love to have an amazing coming together of NORA opponents and supporters, but time is running out," responded Dooley-Sammuli. "I don't know how it's going to play out when we're looking at dramatic budget cuts in the next few months."

DeMiranda expressed a similar hope for cooperation around the state budget issue but also said that California's treatment and recovery movement needs to find it own voice on drug-policy reform issues, such as by pushing forward its own "people-powered" treatment-funding ballot initiative in 2010.

In the wake of the NORA defeat, "It's no longer possible for [the treatment and recovery community] to piggyback on public sentiment," said DeMiranda. "We have to get our people to the ballot box so it's not so easy ... to demonize this kind of initiative."
http://www.jointogether.org/news/features/2008/califs-prop-5-battle.html?print=t

Posted by lois at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2008

MA: Want to know the real reason the law-and-order set backs mandatory-minimum sentencing? They get their pockets lined by the 'prison-industrial complex.'

Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc
Want to know the real reason the law-and-order set backs mandatory-minimum sentencing? They get their pockets lined by the 'prison-industrial complex.'
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | December 3, 2008

With aromatic puffs of change, Bay State stoners rejoiced on Election Day. But even the haziest of revelers may have missed the full significance of Question 2, a statewide ballot initiative to decriminalize marijuana possession in small amounts. Not only will this bring more humane and responsible marijuana laws, it will also suppress — however slightly — an insidious, contemporary offshoot of what President Dwight Eisenhower famously referred to as the "military-industrial complex": the idea that if private industry and government joined in promoting ever-increasing defense spending, war as well as national bankruptcy were more likely.

Almost a half-century later, that mindset has extended to both the local and federal law-and-order sectors, which have argued for, and experienced, virtually unabated growth. Today, law-enforcement groups regularly lobby against criminal-punishment reforms, and for the creation of new criminal statutes and overly harsh prison sentences. While these efforts are cloaked as calls for public safety, they are essentially creating more business for themselves.

The problem has become so widespread that some private correctional corporations — companies that subcontract services, and even privately owned jails and prisons, to all levels of government — have even lobbied the government to enact and maintain ever broader criminal laws and higher sentences. Those private prisons are now rolling in the profit, and taking on more prisoners every day as federal and state prisons run out of room to house their inmates.

But these lobbyists' success — and that of various law-enforcement groups — has given rise to a veritable "prison-industrial complex" that not only uses fear to suppress these groups' true intentions — it leaves taxpayers footing the bill.

Bleak house of detention
It was with these self-aggrandizing interests in mind that the Massachusetts Districts Attorneys' Association (MDAA) and other tough-on-crime groups fiercelyopposedthe marijuana-decriminalization referendum.

After all, if the penalties for minor marijuana possession were to remain on the statute books, more police, prosecutors, prison guards, and parole officers — and their lucrative overtime — would also be retained.

To their dismay, however, Question 2 passed by an overwhelming 65 to 35 percent voter margin, and will be implemented 30 days after election results are certified. As a result, many law-enforcement officials may soon be without an important source of job security and additional revenue — namely, the $30 million a year (as one study by a Harvard economics professor estimated) spent enforcing the soon-to-be-history current marijuana-possession laws.

Never mind that the forthcoming statutory reform is, from even a moderate law-and-order perspective, relatively benign. According to Question 2, anyone caught with less than one ounce will forfeit the substance and pay a $100 fine, while minors will additionally have to complete a drug-awareness program (including group sessions and community service). Current penalties for growing and trafficking in marijuana, as well as the prohibition against driving while high, will remain exactly as they are.

These facts were conveniently left out of the MDAA's efforts to "inform" voters.The group could not legally make direct contributions to ballot campaigns — publicly funded groups are unable to do so, thanks to a 1978 Supreme Judicial Court decision — yet in opposing Question 2, it still managed to fuel a whisper campaign and add misleading info to its Web site (hosted, by the way, on the state's ".gov" domain).

Thus, these law-enforcement officials were able to avoid any technical wrongdoing while lobbying for an increased legislative arsenal — feathering their own nests at the expense of liberty and sensible public policy.

Bear in mind, though, that our First Amendment protects not only speech, but also "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So state and local law-enforcement personnel, like other citizens, do have the right to lobby voters and even members of the legislature to promote more expansive criminal laws and stricter penalties. But self-serving lobbying and public-relations offensives, disguised as seeking protections for society, should be treated with exceptional scrutiny and skepticism.

Though disheartening, their actions are an age-old fact of life best described by Charles Dickens in his classic 1853 novel Bleak House: "The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself."

Coke vs. crack
A similar battle waged in Massachusetts last summer, when law-enforcement groups sought once again to thwart criminal-justice reform. At the time, a legislative effort to help nonviolent offenders find employment opportunities by changing Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) laws was brought before the State House of Representatives — and, thanks to the efforts of state Attorney General Martha Coakley and other law-enforcement officials, essentially squashed.

The proposed bill would have restricted the type of personal information that some employers receive, thereby assisting the many individuals saddled with CORI records who struggle to find employment and end up back behind bars.

Massachusetts's recidivism rates are nearly 40 percent, according to a study by the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center. And the CORI law's branding of even the most innocuous offender is, by all accounts, partly responsible for this dismal situation. So advocates of the bill asserted that changing CORI could ease the massive overcrowding at the state's prison system, which the Department of Corrections recently estimated to be operating at "144 percent of capacity." (Currently, there are 12,000 inmates imprisoned — a disgraceful state record.)

Another aspect of that same failed bill would have reduced mandatory-minimum sentences for certain drug offenses, which advocates said also contribute to overcrowding.

As the law stands, anyone convicted of selling drugs within 1000 feet of a school zone automatically receives a two-year prison term — leaving no room for judicial discretion. That means a first-time offender with no record could receive more prison time than, say, an armed robber. And the mandatory nature of these sentences eliminates the possibility of parole.

Because of the numerous schools in dense urban areas, poor, black, and Hispanic populations are at a greater risk of facing the mandatory-minimum measures, according to a recent Prison Policy Initiative study.

Yet despite the clear inequalities in the current law, as well as the benefits that reform holds out to both taxpayers and public safety — not to mention liberty — the legislative term ended in July with no action taken on the reform legislation.

This problem with drug sentencing is nothing new. For more than two decades, prison-reform supporters have condemned the federal sentencing disparities for the mostly middle and upper-class defendants caught using cocaine, and the mostly lower-class, inner-city habitants caught with cheaper crack cocaine.

Part of the now-infamous war on crime, a 100-to-1 ratio was implemented in sentencing for crack cocaine. So, a person caught selling five grams of crack received the same prison sentence as someone dealing 500 grams of powder cocaine.

The mandatory-minimums were harsh, too. That same person caught selling five grams of crack received a five-year minimum sentence; 50 grams or more and the minimum was 10 years.

Despite clear racial, economic, and cultural disparities, cries from constituents fell on deaf ears while law-enforcement lobbyists successfully cajoled and frightened congressional leaders.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, for one, strongly opposed reducing the crack-cocaine minimums. The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a 325,000 member national organization that bills itself as "the voice of our nations' law-enforcement officers," also spent $550,000 lobbying Congress over the past three years. Among their interests: stopping the Powder-Crack Cocaine Penalty Equalization Act, along with promoting a litany of other Draconian measures.

Prison business
To be fair, government employees weren't the only ones to lobby against crack-cocaine sentence equalization. A little-recognized subset of this vast prison-industrial complex lobbying community is composed of private correctional corporations, which sign lucrative contracts with governments to house inmates for profit, often shipping them to facilities out of state.

It is, of course, in these private prisons' economic interests to see more people in prison serving longer sentences. And with current facilities bursting at the seams, times for this burgeoning industry are good. The country's largest private prison provider, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), spent more than $2.7 million from 2006 through September 2008 on lobbying for stricter laws. Last year alone, the company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, generated $133 million in net income.

For the past 25 years, the CCA has built itself into a corrections powerhouse — it operates nearly 70 facilities housing more than 75,000 detainees. As it does for, say, contractors in Iraq, though, privatization comes with an inevitable lack of oversight. The CCA has been involved in numerous wrongful-death lawsuits, and it has been a constant target of prison-reform groups who claim the private facilities are understaffed and their detainees abused.

Yet another private prison provider, the GEO Group, which has annual revenue topping $1 billion, has come under intense scrutiny for dozens — if not hundreds — of inmate deaths in the past decade. One such prisoner death led to the recent indictment of Vice-President Dick Cheney on November 18, in which a rather ornery Texas state prosecutor claimed that Cheney's substantial investments in the GEO Group made him partly responsible for prisoner abuse — a dubious prosecutorial theory (in fact, it was dismissed this Monday), but with a grain of practical truth.

Nonetheless, states facing prison overcrowding turn to these corporations to outsource inmates. California, for example, has commissioned the CCA to ship convicts as far away as Tennessee (where financially strapped relatives and friends frequently cannot visit). The CCA has exported nearly 4000 California prisoners to states across the country under a $115 million contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Over the next three years, 8000 more are planned to be shipped out of the Golden State.

The societal costs — both human and financial — of these policies and practices are enormous, and growing. California — which carried a $15.2 billion deficit into this fiscal year — spends $10 billion per year on more than 170,000 inmates. Like the Bay State, California also faces high recidivism rates; state records show that more than two-thirds of released inmates return to prison within three years. In this context, a ballot battle — possibly more contentious than Massachusetts's Question 2 scuffle — raged this past election season. Two separate initiatives, each from vastly different perspectives, concerned the state's approach to criminal justice.

The first, Proposition 5, would have expanded treatment programs for those convicted of drug-related and nonviolent crimes. While the costs for more rehabilitation were estimated at $1 billion a year, analysts said $2.5 billion would have been saved from the reduction in prison costs. But, much like what transpired in Massachusetts, the California District Attorney's Association, along with other law-enforcement agencies, vehemently opposed the initiative. These agencies raised nearly $400,000 and, through the Web site of their umbrella group, People Against Proposition 5, issued "facts" such as "Proposition 5 creates an 'Express Lane' for drug dealers to get back on the streets and peddling dope to our kids."

Conversely, nearly $1 billion would have been added to the cops' coffers under Proposition 6, which proposed new laws for prosecutors to fight gang activity. Many of the same law-enforcement agencies that opposed Prop 5 supported Prop 6, joined by some "tough-on-crime" lawmakers who slashed $3 billion in education from the state's 2008 budget. Included among the Prop 6 supporters was — you guessed it — the CCA.

The CCA's lobbying efforts, as well as those of publicly funded law-enforcement agents, wasn't enough to convince Californians, as nearly 70 percent of voters opposed Prop 6. Yet similarly high numbers opted against Prop 5.

Maybe the cops' Prop 6 push for more crime-fighting money and power were too transparent for voters. Interestingly, though, their appeals to public safety in opposing Prop 5 seemed to work. California voters were quite possibly unaware that, by maintaining strict criminal laws and closing off alternatives to incarceration, law-enforcement agencies maintained their strength.

The 1 percent solution?
From Niccolò Machiavelli to Rudy Giuliani, fear has been the foundation of ever-expanding political power (and, for some, job status and security). And it continues to drive the prison-industrial complex.

Just as the United States Department of Justice was able to pressure Congress to enact the infamous USA-Patriot Act in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, here in the Bay State, an appeal to fear ("protect the children") prevailed in stampeding the legislature. In late July, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law "An Act Further Protecting Children," a bill providing stricter mandatory-minimum sentences for sex offenders who target children.

The way this legislation was presented made opposition appear callous and irresponsible. Who, after all, wouldn't want to keep child predators off the streets?

Yet tucked away in this bill are provisions that do far more than simply protect the young. The proposal enables prosecutors to obtain private records from Internet and telephone providers by issuing an "administrative subpoena." Prosecutors, having only to assert that records are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation," were granted ever-expanding access into otherwise personal data. The telecoms, in turn, were granted blanket immunity from claims of privacy violation. There was no mass protest from the customers.

But at least one person did object. Newton's Democratic state senator Cynthia Creem voiced skepticism in a July 29 Newton TAB op-ed. Mindful that the most egregious provisions of the Patriot Act have been used to target not just terrorists but journalists, activists, and Muslim charities, she wrote: "I cannot support this attack on privacy rights when less-invasive and equally effective means are available. Our liberties should never be sacrificed in the name of prosecutorial convenience." A few other scattered voices in the State Senate echoed Creem. But perhaps Creem's reference to "convenience" missed the point — prosecutorial power appears to have been the more likely goal.

When the bill was passed by the Massachusetts House and presented to the Senate, Coakley, having learned that other politicians were questioning the bill's scope, lobbied hard so that no language would be changed (which would have required passage again through the House). With robust MDAA support, as well as the backing of key legislative leaders, 11 different role-call votes for amending provisions of the bill were voted down. Less than two weeks after this truncated debate, the bill became law. Experienced observers of the legislative process marveled at the ability of Coakley and her allies to forestall changes to the legislation.

The United States — "land of the free" — has five percent of the world's population, but it also, thanks to the lobbyists and officiants behind the prison-industrial complex, shamefully holds 25 percent of the world's incarcerated. It has a higher rate of imprisonment than the planet's most notorious despotisms. One in 100 Americans is in jail.

These citizens are not only unproductive, they cost the public $45 billion a year, according to a June report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. And yet they also keep a small army of officers and other law-enforcement support personnel on the job. The monumental taxpayer's tab that would be unnecessary with saner criminal-justice laws is virtually incalculable.

It is long past the time to re-think how much credence we should give to those who claim to be experts in law enforcement, but who, in reality, have simply discovered a steady and ever-increasing source of job security.
Topics

Their First Amendment right to lobby for endless new criminal laws and ever-tougher prison sentences is indeed constitutionally protected, but this does not mean that these law-enforcement officials' criminal "expertise" should endow them with a free pass from critical scrutiny. Legislators and the public need not sit by idly as their fellow citizens are unjustly arrested, prosecuted, and often incarcerated for increasingly lengthy periods of time as the law-enforcement industry's wallet grows fat. The next time prison-industrial-complex adherents tell us we need tougher laws and sentences for our own good, we should point out precisely whose good is being served.

Harvey Silverglate is a criminal defense and civil-liberties lawyer and writer. Kyle Smeallie, former associate editor of the Boston College Heights, is Silverglate's research assistant and paralegal. Silverglate's next book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, is forthcoming next year from Encounter Books.
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/73092-Freedom-watch-Jailhouse-bloc/

Posted by lois at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2008

NY: Judge Supports Soldier With Police Record Seeking to Join Force

November 14, 2008
Judge Supports Soldier With Police Record Seeking to Join Force
By ANNE BARNARD
NY Times

They called themselves a “band of brothers,” and they all wore their paratrooper badges as they stood in front of the judge: Specialist Osvaldo Hernandez, recently returned from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan; his lawyer, James D. Harmon Jr., a former prosecutor who served in Vietnam; and their expert witness, Randy Jergensen, a retired New York police detective who parachuted into battle in Korea.

They appeared in court on Thursday to argue that Mr. Hernandez, who served a year on Rikers Island for illegal gun possession, a felony, before joining the Army, had turned his life around so impressively that he deserved the judge’s help to realize his dream: joining the New York police force.

Justice Henry Kron, who had presided over Mr. Hernandez’s guilty plea in State Supreme Court in Queens in 2002, granted their wish Thursday by issuing a certificate that restores certain civil rights that New York State strips from felons, such as the right to vote, and prevents employers from automatically refusing to hire them. On Monday, his parole board had issued a certificate of good conduct that allows him to apply to carry a gun legally and states explicitly that the board would not object to his bearing arms as a police officer.

Mr. Harmon believes those actions remove any legal barriers to Mr. Hernandez’s joining the police force.

The decision is now up to police officials, who have said that no matter how exemplary an applicant, the city’s administrative code forbids hiring anyone with a felony conviction as a police officer. The Police Department declined to comment on the case Thursday.

Mr. Hernandez’s allies acknowledge that military service does not in itself qualify someone for police work, but they do hope that Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, himself a combat veteran, will be moved to make him the first reformed felon on the force. They put their hope not only in the soldier’s high score on the police entrance exam and the glowing character references from his military commanders, but also in the impassioned support from the court that sentenced him.

“He’s done his penance,” Robert Masters, who prosecuted Mr. Hernandez in 2002, told the judge on Thursday. “He’s paid his debt to society.”

In granting the certificate, Judge Kron cast the soldier as a model of rehabilitation. “The whole point,” he said, “is for someone who’s made a mistake in the past to have a chance to reclaim their life. Mr. Hernandez has done so in very concrete and epic terms.”

Mr. Hernandez, who is now in the Reserve, grew up in Corona, Queens. In 2002, when he was 20, the police found a semiautomatic .380 pistol under his car seat. He told them that a friend had given it to him and that he had never used it himself. Justice Kron sentenced him to the minimum one year.

After his release, the Army granted him a waiver allowing him to sign up despite the felony; it is an exception that has been granted more frequently in recent years as the overtaxed military struggles to fill its ranks.

Waivers have often been criticized as a lowering of standards, but Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick of the Army Recruiting Command defended them in discussing recruitment on Oct. 10.

He said that the Army has accepted 372 felons so far this year, down from 511 last year, and that a recent military study showed that such recruits were promoted faster, were more likely to re-enlist, and received more awards.

Mr. Hernandez ended up serving in Nawa, Afghanistan, on an isolated firebase near the Pakistani border, where he received several citations and medals.

Capt. Chris DeMure, his commanding officer, said that he was a role model to other enlisted men, and that had not looked for praise but had always done “the right thing,” like taking the initiative to help set up a radio station for villagers in the remote area.

Mr. Harmon read about the soldier’s problem in The New York Times earlier this year and enlisted his friend, Mr. Jergensen, to help.

“I would be glad to have Specialist Hernandez as my partner,” Mr. Jergensen said on Thursday.

If the police job does not work out, Mr. Hernandez said, he will look for other ways to serve his community.

“A paratrooper always has a reserve chute,” Mr. Harmon said. Continuing the military metaphor, Mr. Hernandez said he was now just waiting on the police: “Right now we’re hooked up and standing by.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/nyregion/14soldier.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print

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

November 12, 2008

NY Cuts Funding for Treatment Programs Aimed at People Who Have Been Incarcerated

N.Y. Cuts Funding for Treatment Programs Aimed at Ex-Offenders
November 10, 2008

Massive state budget cuts are leaving some New York ex-convicts without addiction treatment, the New York Times reported Nov. 7.

The state Division of Parole will be ending its drug-treatment programs at the end of November. In addition, the Department of Corrections did not renew an annual contract with prominent drug-treatment facility, Stay'n Out that aids ex-convicts in their transition from prison to communities. A total of $8.6 million in contracts has been cut.

A spokesperson said that the corrections department will continue funding a drug-treatment program inside prisons, which serves 11,000 inmates, costing the state $20 million a year – the more "cost effective" alternative, according to Kriss.

"It is a panicky response," said Harry K. Wexler, who conducts research for the National Development and Research Institutes, a New York-based nonprofit. "They are cutting their nose off to spite their face." Wexler's research suggests that community drug-treatment programs halve re-arrest and re-incarceration rates over five years.

The state's Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services will receive an additional $2 million for parolees to offset the cuts, said Matt Anderson, a spokesman for the state's Division of the Budget. "With the state facing record budget deficits, the unfortunate reality is that there will be many worthy programs with laudable goals that will experience reductions in funding," he said.

http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2008/ny-cuts-funding-for.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=46318312&print=t

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

November 10, 2008

CA: Press Release from Pro Prop 9 Orgnaizers which passed- harsher parole- more power to "victims rights "

PRESS RELEASE
California Voters Pass Historic Crime Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008
Prop. 9 Gives Victims in California Unprecedented Constitutional Rights

Last update: 12:26 p.m. EST Nov. 5, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Nov 05, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Crime Victims throughout California celebrated the historic passage of Proposition 9: The Crime Victims' Bill of Rights of 2008. Proposition 9 is a constitutional amendment that gives crime victims 17 enumerated rights in the California Constitution.

"This is a historic moment for all crime victims throughout our state and nation," said Harriet Salarno, mother of homicide victim Catina Salarno and President and Founder of Crime Victims United of California. "California voters have acknowledged the need for crime victims to be fully recognized in our criminal justice system. As a mother of a murder victim, I have worked for 29 years to ensure that my rights and those of other victims are treated with the same respect and importance as the rights of criminals in our justice system. Proposition 9's success has made that a reality."
Written by crime victims, Proposition 9 - Marsy's Law provides victims with rights to justice and due process by creating a constitutional Crime Victims' Bill of Rights, streamlines the parole system, and prevents politicians from releasing dangerous inmates solely to alleviate prison overcrowding, while ensuring resources to keep Californians safe without the state incurring additional costs.
"Voters throughout California agreed that California's crime victims deserve better," said Senator Jim Nielsen, former Chair of the Board of Prison Terms and a leader in the Yes on Prop. 9 campaign. "Proposition 9 not only gives victims and their families constitutionally protected rights, including the right to information and the right be heard, but it also ensures the criminal sentences, handed down by judges and juries, are enforced and adhered too."
"I am absolutely thrilled that the voters of California have approved Proposition 9," said Bilenda Harris-Ritter, who lost her parents to a double homicide and served as a Parole Commissioner in California. "I hope others will never face the terrible crimes and tragedies that inspired this proposition, but in the event that they do, they can rely on Proposition 9 as it has given them a voice in the system as they seek justice. Proposition 9 provides California real solutions with lasting impacts including true justice, due process for all and accountability."
A true grassroots effort inspired by the real life injustices suffered by crime victims throughout California, Proposition 9 was supported by a broad based coalition including crime victims, law enforcement officials, and elected officials.
"California voters have ensured that the state will no longer favor the rights of criminals over the rights of the victims as they seek justice in the criminal process," said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, statewide Yes on Prop. 9 chairman. "Now victims will have an equal voice in the criminal justice process that, all too often, has treated them as second class citizens."
"Proposition 9 does not bring Marsy back to me or my son, but it has helped my family turn a personal tragedy into a positive for society," said Marcella Leach, mother of the initiative namesake. "We are proud to have been a part of the effort and are grateful for the support from California voters."
About Prop. 9
Proposition 9, the Crime Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008: Marsy's Law, provides constitutionally-protected rights for victims in California, ensuring they are treated with fairness and human decency throughout the criminal justice process. Proposition 9 has strong bipartisan support from Crime Victims Advocacy Organizations including Justice for Homicide Victims, Crime Victims United, Parents of Murdered Children, District Attorneys, Sheriffs, Police Chiefs, community organizations and public safety leaders throughout California and the nation. For more information on the initiative and to view a complete list of supporters, please visit www.marsyslaw.com.

SOURCE: Yes on Prop 9 - Marsy's Law

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

October 28, 2008

PA: State hopes new prisons, early release cut crowding

State hopes new prisons, early release cut crowding
Monday, October 27, 2008
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- A steady rise in the number of inmates and the political risks of paroling prisoners early are complicating the state's efforts to ease crowded conditions in its prisons.

The 27 existing lockups now hold nearly 47,000 inmates, which is up from a population of just over 36,000 in 1998. The number of inmates is now 8 percent over the current capacity of 43,300.

And the tide keeps on rising. State Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard estimates that the overall prison population could top 57,000 by the end of 2012. Legislators' desire to be "tough on crime" and the public's fear of rising drug-related crimes have led to longer and more mandatory sentences.

Correctional costs, at $1.6 billion for 2008-09, are the third biggest item in the $28 billion state budget, after education and welfare costs.

Progress to ease the crowded cells is going slowly. The Department of Corrections wants to build three new state prisons, each costing $200 million and holding 2,000 inmates. But the first of the three new prisons won't be open before mid- to late 2011.

The state Legislature has enacted a new law, one advocated by House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, R-Philadelphia. It's aimed at making more nonviolent prisoners eligible for early release. They would have to complete programs to ease their transition back into society, such as anger management and overcoming drug use, before being paroled.

By paroling more appropriate prisoners, officials believe they can moderate the rising tab for prison construction and operational costs, and thus ease the financial strain on state taxpayers.

But giving parole to the wrong inmate -- one who later commits another crime -- can spell political disaster. It happened in September, when an inmate released early from the State Correctional Institution Frackville shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer just a month after getting out of prison. The parolee had been jailed for a 1998 robbery and aggravated assault.

Gov. Ed Rendell, a former mayor of Philadelphia, found himself under pressure from police unions and citizens groups, and imposed a temporary moratorium on all parolees, nonviolent as well as violent.

The moratorium was lifted last week for nonviolent prisoners, whom Mr. Rendell defines as prisoners "with no history of a violent offense."

The corrections department and the Board of Probation and Parole will decide if an inmate qualifies as nonviolent and thus can be let out of prison early.

But deciding if an inmate is truly nonviolent can be tricky, said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo. Sometimes an inmate is jailed for a nonviolent offense, such as drug buying or selling, burglary or other crimes against property, but more serious charges had been dismissed or plea-bargained away.

Violent crimes include things like murder, assault, robbery and rape. State parole and prisons officials will take an inmate's complete history into account before allowing him to be released on parole, Mr. Ardo said.

Mr. Rendell named a Temple University official, John S. Goldkamp, to study whether nonviolent inmates could be safely paroled. He recommended last week that parole "be restarted for nonviolent offenders [only]."

Mr. Rendell said, "The moratorium on paroles for all violent offenders remains in effect."

Prisons spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said a thorough review will be made of all inmates considered nonviolent, but she couldn't say how many of them would eventually be eligible for paroles or when the paroles would start.

As for the three new prisons, the first will go on the grounds of the existing SCI Rockview in Centre County. A construction manager and an architect will soon be chosen by of the state Department of General Services. A ground-breaking is expected in 2009 and the project would take about two years to complete.

"Rockview was selected because there is plenty of state-owned land there to build upon and the new prison can share functions, such as warehouses and a business office, with the prison that's already there," said Ms. McNaughton.

A second new prison is to be built somewhere in Fayette County, which already has one. Corrections officials are now scouting several other sites in Fayette County for the second prison, with a decision expected by next spring.

There are several counties where the third new prison could be built, including two sites in Schuylkill and one each in Northumberland, Huntingdon and Luzerne. Another possibility is on the grounds of Graterford state prison outside Philadelphia.

Mr. O'Brien this fall pushed for House Bill 4, which is designed to help nonviolent inmates turn their lives around while behind bars and qualify for early release. A judge would outline the incentive program to a convict at his post-trial sentencing.

"The incentives would encourage nonviolent inmates to follow a path that gives them a much better chance at re-entering society without committing new crimes," Mr. O'Brien said.

Such programs would include recovery from drug and alcohol abuse or addiction; literacy and high school diploma equivalency courses; job training; and anger management.

The program for inmates "will enhance public safety and provide large financial benefits to governments and taxpayers," Mr. O'Brien said.

First published on October 27, 2008
Copyright ©1997 - 2008 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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

October 25, 2008

NY Times Editorial: The California Prison Disaster

October 25, 2008
The California Prison Disaster
Editorial NY Times

The mass imprisonment philosophy that has packed prisons and sent corrections costs through the roof around the country has hit especially hard in California, which has the largest prison population, the highest recidivism rate and a prison budget raging out of control.

According to a new federally backed study conducted at the University of California, Irvine, the state’s corrections costs have grown by about 50 percent in less than a decade and now account for about 10 percent of state spending — nearly the same amount as higher education. The costs could rise substantially given that a federal lawsuit may require the state to spend $8 billion to bring the prison system’s woefully inadequate medical services up to constitutional standards.

The solution for California is to shrink its vastly overcrowded prison system. To do so, it would need to move away from mandatory sentencing laws that have proved to be disastrous across the country — locking up more people than protecting public safety requires.

In addition, the state also has perhaps the most counterproductive and ill-conceived parole system in the United States. More people are sent to prison in California by parole officers than by the courts. In addition, about 66 percent of California’s parolees land back in prison after three years, compared with about 40 percent nationally. Four in 10 are sent back for technical violations like missed appointments or failed drug tests.

Later this year, the state is expected to begin testing a new system that redirects the lowest-risk drug addicts to treatment. But that will only work if the state and the counties dramatically expand treatment slots.

The heart of the problem is that California’s parole system is simply too big. Most states keep dangerous people behind bars or reserve parole supervision for the most serious offenders. California puts virtually everyone on parole, typically for three years.

Under this setup, about 80 percent of the parolees have fewer than two 15-minute meetings with a parole officer per month. That might be adequate for low-risk offenders, but it’s clearly too little time for serious offenders who present a risk to public safety.

A good first step would be to place fewer people on parole. The second step would be to reserve the most intensive supervision for offenders who present the greatest risk.

State lawmakers, some of whom are fearful of being seen as soft on crime, have failed to make perfectly reasonable sentencing modifications and other changes that the prisons desperately need. Unless they muster some courage soon, Californians will find themselves swamped by prison costs and unable to afford just about anything else.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/opinion/25sat1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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

October 21, 2008

PA: State parole freeze bloating prison populations

State parole freeze bloating prison populations
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
October 13, 2008
Two weeks after Gov. Rendell halted paroling state inmates, the population of Pennsylvania's 27 prisons continues to swell.

Officially, the Sept. 30 monthly census - taken one day after Rendell froze paroles in response to the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Patrick McDonald by a paroled felon - showed that the inmate population of 46,883 was eight percent above what prison officials say is needed to maintain "quality of life and safety for both staff and inmates."

Prison experts now say overcrowding is actually closer to 17 percent above capacity and they worry about how the system will hold up without that monthly release of 1,100 parolees.

"If this lasts two months, you're talking about enough people to fill a completely new large prison," said William DiMascio, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a 221-year-old inmate advocacy group.

Rendell named John S. Goldkamp, head of Temple University's criminal justice department, to do a top-to-bottom review of how the Board of Probation and Parole decides who gets paroled. Goldkamp's review will presumably be expedited, though Rendell set no deadline.

"We're awaiting [Goldkamp's] recommendation," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said. "Clearly, the danger posed by an error for a citizen outweighs the impact on the system."

Still, Ardo said, Rendell will keep open the option of restoring parole for inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes if prison conditions warrant.

Meanwhile, the parole freeze is being felt throughout Pennsylvania.

"A lot of people involved in the system are beside themselves," DiMascio said. "They think the freeze was unnecessary, or could have been done without freezing all paroles."

Betty Jean Thompson, state leader of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, said several families had called her about relatives whose release was stopped.

Thompson, a Philadelphia teacher who got involved with CURE 12 years ago when her son was in prison, said the freeze meant those about to be paroled could lose promised jobs, places to live, and the chance for new lives.

"Many of these people are men and women who deserve a second chance," Thompson said.

The action affects more than inmates; correctional officers have long complained about being outnumbered by often-volatile prison populations, a situation that is likely to become more uneasy as the moratorium increases inmate populations - and potentially explosive stress.

Roy Pinto, vice president of the 10,500-member Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, said that there were 500 vacant officer jobs and that 200 more officers were on active duty with the National Guard or reserves.

Pinto said he was also worried that the parole moratorium comes at the same time the U.S. economy is flagging, traditionally a time when more people wind up in prison.

"We're trying to cut a few people loose early, but they're pouring in the other end," said Pinto, an officer for 17 years at Rockview in Central Pennsylvania.

Correctional officers have reason to worry.

Overcrowding was considered a major cause of the Oct. 25, 1989, riot at Camp Hill prison near Harrisburg. The four-day rampage injured 138 prison officers and 70 inmates and destroyed half the prison.

Pinto said demand for cell space has been so high that the old state prison in Pittsburgh, closed in January 2005, was reopened last year.

"It's even worse for parole agents," Pinto added. "Their workload has increased so much they can't really do their job."

Sherry Tate, a spokeswoman for the Board of Probation and Parole, said agency officials would not comment until after the parole review.

County prisons will also feel the impact of the freeze.

Bob Eskind, spokesman for the Philadelphia prison system, said the city system typically released 630 people a week who made bail, completed a county sentence, or were released on probation or parole. Some are state inmates who, for various reasons, are housed in county facilities.

An additional 89 local inmates a week are sent to serve state prison sentences.

In a seriously overcrowded system - Philadelphia's prisons now hold about 145 percent of their rated 6,433-bed capacity - Eskind said officials depend on "one in and one out."

As the moratorium continues, some prisoner advocates are considering a lawsuit.

Angus Love, a veteran prisoner advocate and executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, said, "There is nothing in the statute [creating parole] that says the governor has a unilateral right to end parole."

Love said many people assumed that Rendell's order was just for inmates convicted of violent crimes; they were stunned to learn the moratorium affected all potential parolees.

Rendell issued the moratorium just days after he signed a package of bills that allow early release of nonviolent offenders who agree to complete education and job-training programs and who show good behavior in prison.

CURE's Thompson said she found the wholesale halt to parole illogical: "If a surgeon kills his patient, we don't stop all surgeries."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/30881134.html

==========================
Posted on Wed, Oct. 1, 2008
Temple professor ponders role in Phila. parole review
By Mario F. Cattabiani and Andrew Maykuth
Inquirer Staff Writers
The Temple University professor who hastily accepted Gov. Rendell's request Monday to conduct a "top-to-bottom" review of Pennsylvania's parole system knows very little about the new assignment or how long it will take to complete.

John S. Goldkamp, head of Temple's criminal-justice department, said yesterday that he planned to focus on how other states release violent offenders into society and whether those practices can be used here.

Rendell asked Goldkamp to take on the task in the wake of the second slaying in four months of a city police officer by a paroled felon.

Goldkamp said yesterday that he did not yet know what his budget is, whether he can hire consultants, or his deadline. He did not even know until he read about it in yesterday's newspapers that Rendell had put a hold on all early prison releases until Goldkamp gets his job done. Each month, about 1,000 prisoners typically are released on parole from Pennsylvania's prisons.

"That makes for a lot of pressure," Goldkamp said. "I have the pressure of knowing that to some extent, our work is holding up the release of some people who are fully prepared to be released."

As part of the review, Goldkamp said he would examine the cases of the parolees who gunned down Sgt. Patrick McDonald last week and Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski in May. But he stressed yesterday that he was "not interested in finding blame, although that seems to be the environment right now."

Instead, he added, he plans to "look at the process of the system, and its strengths and weaknesses and what might be done to make it better."

Rendell contacted Goldkamp on Monday afternoon, hours after the Fraternal Order of Police and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey called on the state to declare a moratorium on paroles pending a systematic review.

Speaking outside McDonald's funeral yesterday, John J. McNesby, president of FOP Lodge 5, expressed gratitude for Rendell's quick action.

"It seems like there's some light at the end of the tunnel, when the governor agreed to do that yesterday," said McNesby. "He's doing the right thing, and that means a lot for the cops on the street."

Goldkamp, a nationally recognized expert on corrections and parole issues, said he expected to meet with Rendell administration officials soon to set the scope of the review and other logistics, including a time frame.

The last time he was hired to do a systemwide review was in 2005, when he examined crowding in Philadelphia's prisons.

That review took a year to complete, he said, adding, "This won't take a year."
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/29989909.html

Posted by lois at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2008

Justice Policy Institute Report: Moving Target: A Decade of Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex

The Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a new report this week examining the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)--the relationship between government and private interests that use imprisonment, policing, and surveillance as a solution to social, political, and economic problems. Moving Target: A Decade of Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex, examines the progress of reform 10 years after Critical Resistance first launched its efforts to dismantle the PIC. The report underscores:

Despite crime rates at 30-year lows, the criminal justice system has under its control more people than ever.

* More than seven million people live their lives under the control of the criminal justice system in the United States.
* More than seven million people live their lives under the control of the criminal justice system in the United States.
* Spending on the criminal justice system, including police, corrections, the judiciary, has increased 64 percent between 1996 and 2005 to a total of $213 billion.
* The prison system disproportionately impacts communities of color. African Americans and Hispanics make up one third of the U.S. population but makeup 61 percent of the imprisoned population.
* Incarceration rates continue to increase whether crime rates are up or down.

Economic incentives encourage the growth of prisons and support increased surveillance, arrests, and imprisonment.

* Private Prisons: Corrections Corporation of America's stock price has been steadily rising. CCA recently posted a $35 million profit in the last quarter of 2007, up from $32 million in the same period in 2006.
* Prison Industries: Federal Prison Industries, a corporation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has an online catalogue of merchandise for purchase by other federal agencies, including office furniture and clothing. State prison industries employed 56,000 people in prison in 1999 and, according to research published in Labor Studies Journal in 2002, generated $3 billion in sales and $67 million in profits for the states.
* Private Industry in Prison: In 1979, Congress established the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program to authorize private companies to employ people who are held behind bars and to execute contracts. Companies frequently pay people in prison below minimum wage for these "low-skilled" jobs and prisons garnish their wages further by charging for room and board. This process ensures that resources are pumped back into prisons and that individuals see little of their earnings.
* Industry for Surrounding Communities: Although public officials will often claim that prisons will bring jobs to rural or economically depressed areas, actually there is often little or no economic improvement or revitalization of the community.

Investments in policing and surveillance have increased, thereby widening the gateway to the criminal justice system.

* Although local police still receive the majority of funding, increases at the federal level are the most dramatic. Between 1982 and 2005, federal expenditures on police protection have increased 945.1 percent, from $2.15 billion in 1982 to $22.5 billion in 2005.
* Law enforcement agencies have significantly increased their surveillance capacity and presence in certain areas: in just three years the number of police departments using video cameras increased 15 percentage points. In 2000, 45 percent of local police departments regularly used video cameras. By 2003, 60 percent regularly operated video cameras, and an estimated 48,800 in-car cameras were in use.
* Cop-watching groups are increasing and becoming more organized in cities across the counties as a way to monitor police behaviors.
* Specialized police, particularly in schools, has also increased dramatically. In 1999, 54.1 percent of students ages 12 to18 reported the use of security guards and/ or assigned police officers at school, compared to 67.9 percent in 2005.

The prison industrial complex relies on the criminalization of certain actions to thrive.

* Federalization of certain offenses: The U.S. has added one new federal crime to the books every week for the past 7 years. This increase in crimes has directly added to the federal prison system, which has grown at triple the rate of state prison populations.

* War on Drugs: The war on drugs is increasingly waged with paramilitary-style tactics. In the past 20 years, there has been a 1,400 percent increase in the total number of SWAT team deployments.

* Criminalizing Poverty: More cities are relying on policies that are meant to address "quality of life crimes" by having a zero tolerance approach to behaviors such as panhandling, loitering, and "camping." A report in 2006 that surveyed 224 cities around the country on their laws involving the criminalization of homelessness and found that 27 percent of cities prohibited sitting or lying in certain public places and 43 percent prohibited begging in certain places.

* Criminalization of Immigration: The number of USBP agents nearly tripled between 1990 and 2005. In FY 2006 alone, 1,500 more agents were added. Since 1995, the number of people held by ICE in prisons and jails has increased more than 200 percent.

Media messages, public opinion, social policy, and government agencies legitimize the criminalization of certain behaviors to the benefit of the prison industrial complex.

* Crime and Public Safety: The frequency with which media reports crime does not fluctuate with actual crime rates. In 1994 when the violent crime rate was at its peak, there were more than 2,500 media crime stories. But as the violent crime rate continued to fall, the number of crime stories continued to fluctuate for the next 10 years, regardless of trends in violent or property offenses.

* Criminalization of Poverty: Researchers have found that television media relies on stereotypical assumptions about poverty and the symptoms of poverty (crime, drug use, mental illness) by linking those symptoms to visual cues and language ("abandoned house" or "drug-infested"). In one study, of the 239 news stories that mentioned symptoms of poverty, approximately 147 stories showed crime, drugs, and gangs as a manifestation of poverty.

* Criminalization of Immigration: Public opinion polls document public fear about Latino immigrants coming to the United States not to commit a terrorist act but to take jobs and use services typically guaranteed to U.S. residents, and to commit crimes. This is despite research which shows that while the number of undocumented immigrants increased 57 percent from 1990 to 2000, crime rates plummeted to some of the lowest in U.S. history.

Communities of color and people living in poverty are overwhelmingly disproportionately affected by the prison industrial complex.

* Data shows that in 2002, 8.5 percent of whites used illicit drugs, compared to 9.7 percent of African Americans. However, African Americans are admitted to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of whites.

* Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that 83.5 percent of people in jail in 2002 earned less than $2,000 per month prior to arrest.

* People of color are disproportionately affected by poverty and, thus are also more likely to be imprisoned. African Americans made up about 13 percent of the general population but approximately 22 percent of the people living in poverty and 40 percent of people in prisons and jails in 2006.

The report concludes that advocates must be just as innovative and flexible as the prison industrial complex in order to dismantle the system, while resisting so-called reforms that inadvertently expand the reach of the criminal justice system. Positive social investments in education, employment, mental health services, and substance abuse treatment are cost effective means of creating strong communities
Find the report here:
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-09_REP_MovingTargetCR10_AC-PS.pdf

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

September 10, 2008

Bay Area: September 24 to 29th: Book events for the Real Cost of Prisons Comix

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
7 PM. Book Launch
Green Arcade Bookstore
1680 Market Street, San Francisco

Speakers:

Lois Ahrens, editor, Real Cost of Prisons Comix and director/founder, The Real Cost of Prisons Project.

Marlon Altan is a social studies teacher with 5 Keys Charter School. 5 Keys charter school is a high school that works out of the San Francisco County Jail.

Amie Dowling is an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts Dept at the University of San Francisco and through Community Works leads theater/writing workshops in the San Francisco jails.

Debbie Reyes, OSI Fellow, Central Valley Coordinator, California Prison Moratorium Project, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, Fresno.

Karen Shain is Co-Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, a San Francisco-based 30-year-old prisoners' rights organization that advocates for the rights of incarcerated women, their families and communities.

Mara Taub from Santa Fe, NM, is the coordinator/editor Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter. Since 1976, the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights has worked to gather and disseminate information and analysis for those imprisoned, formerly imprisoned and their allies.

Thursday, September 25th, 7 PM
“Political Prisoner/Incarcerated/Prison Industrial Complex”
Discussion and book launch
First Congregational Church, Oakland
Co-sponsored with KPFA. C.S. Soong, host of “Against the Grain”, Moderator.

Panelists will be PM authors: Robert King (Angola 3), Lois Ahrens, Vikki Law (author of the forthcoming The Invisibility of Women’s Resistance), Matt Meyer (editor of the documentary anthology Let Freedom Ring), Bo Brown, former political prisoner (George Jackson Brigade) and one of the founders of Out of Control, a lesbian prisoners group. Ashanti Alston, former Black Panther and Black Liberation political prisoner. Bo Brown and Ashanti Alston are contributors to Let Freedom Ring. $10—no one turned away.

Monday, September 29th
7 PM. Book launch
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, San Francisco

Speakers:

Lois Ahrens, Ashanti Alston, Bo Brown and Matt Meyer and others.

****************************
"I cannot think of a better way to arouse the public to the cruelties of the prison system than to make this book widely available."
--Howard Zinn

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher. This volume collects the three comic books published by the Real Cost of Prisons Project.

Through the comics, and associated campaigning, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, their allies, and activists, have had the grisly facts and consequences of mass incarceration and its devastating effects on communities, families and the poor, made accessible. Each comic includes alternatives to the costly and inhumane system we have now. More than 30 organizers in and out of prison write about how they use the comix in their work. Founder and Director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project and the book’s editor, Lois Ahrens discusses the Project and an introductory essay by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore places the comix within a political context.

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix includes:

Prison Town: Paying the Price by Kevin Pyle and Craig Gilmore
Prisoners of the War on Drugs by Sabrina Jones, Ellen Miller-Mack and Lois Ahrens
Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children by Susan Willmarth, Ellen Miller-Mack and Lois Ahrens.

For more information:Ramsey Kanaan: Publisher: PM Press: ramsey@pmpress.org

Book orders can be placed after September 24th at :https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=48
Books will be available at all events and at Critical Resistance 10.

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

August 29, 2008

Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide Accessibility, Digital Divide, Prison Libraries, Interface

Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide Accessibility, Digital Divide, Prison Libraries, Interface
Volume 30, Number 1, Spring 2008

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Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide
Brenda Vogel
Retired Library Coordinator, Maryland Correctional Education Libraries

As ASCLA librarians our close association with digitally disadvantaged library patrons gives us an insight into their information needs and a responsibility to stand up for them.

The digital world is alien to the vast majority of men and women who have been serving time in U.S. prisons from before the eras of the PC and the coming of the Digital Age.

Over two million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, of which sixty percent are minorities. Ninety-five percent of these people will be released at some time during their lives and become part of the migration of more than 600,000 ex-offenders returning from prisons and jails to American communities each year.

T

Because an inmate occasionally hacking into a correctional staff computer for nefarious Internet use makes the headline; not one correctional librarian in the U.S. is allowed to permit a patron to access the Internet. 1

Why should we care if criminals who have been removed from society as punishment do not have Internet access?

Setting digitally dysfunctional people (information outsiders) back into a culture revolutionized by the Digital Age lowers the expectation of a successful life for them, their children, and our community.
Without the practical skill-sets of information-literate people, most prisoners cannot conceptualize an information need, seek reliable sources, or internalize and apply their findings.
The ex-offender, unable to cope with computerization, is devoid of the cultural capital that drives behavior and decision-making. Upon release this person will likely be shut out from the technology-driven marketplace.

By refusing to allow correctional librarians to assist their patrons in understanding Internet information-seeking strategies, correctional practice has created a greater obstacle to the assimilation of ex-offenders into the outside world. This is the legacy from twentieth-century corrections.

Current public policy in the form of the correctional transition program is based on the realization that more than half a million former incarcerees are headed for their old neighborhood or home town. The goal of transitioning is to ready an inmate for entry into the labor market as a law abiding, self-sufficient citizen. This effort fails to recognize the vital digital connection that an ex-offender must have in order to at least participate, if not compete, in twenty-first century America.

Today there are hardware and software solutions to the legitimate correctional security concerns regarding Internet mischief and malice. Librarian and information technology expertise can identify secure hardware and software systems that address these concerns and support the introduction of digital literacy programs for inmates.

Correctional librarians alone cannot stand against this digital denial tyranny; they seek the support and the voice of all information providers.

For more information, contact Brenda Vogel. A revised edition of Vogel's book, Down for the Count: A Prison Library Handbook, is forthcoming (Scarecrow Pr., 2008).

Note: 1. The federal Bureau of Prisons and several state and local correctional agencies are now piloting local area network (LAN) e-mail systems for inmates so they can communicate without fees with families and attorneys. Many prisons and jails do have stand-alone computers in libraries and offer vocational programs in computer use and repair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sara Laughlin, Interface Editor
E-mail: laughlin@bluemarble.net

Posted by lois at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2008

AL: Nightmare' complaints spur action on uncertified faith-based drug treatment programs

Nightmare' complaints spur action on uncertified drug treatment programs
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
DAVE PARKS
News staff writer

Mental health officials are strengthening oversight of Alabama's uncertified drug treatment programs after hearing "nightmare" stories about predatory practices and medical incompetence occurring in faith-based facilities housing thousands of drug-court defendants and prison parolees.

"We're not taking this lightly," said John Ziegler, a spokesman for the state Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. "It's critical."

Ziegler said the department plans to inspect more than 100 halfway houses, many of them operating under ministries that are accepting referrals from courts and prisons while claiming to provide drug treatment services.

Most of the facilities appear to lack certification for drug treatment, something that is required by law, Ziegler said. He said the state is willing to help programs achieve certification, but is unwilling to let them operate indefinitely without certification, which requires providing residents with medically accepted treatment services, not just prayer services.

The subject is expected to be discussed at a meeting Wednesday of state officials, drug treatment providers and consumer advocates.

Scores of addiction treatment programs have sprung up in Alabama in recent years to handle referrals from drug courts and parolees being released from crowded jails and prisons. Many of these people have mental illnesses accompanied by drug dependency, and are ordered to complete addiction treatment programs in lieu of criminal conviction or incarceration.

Couple that with Gov. Bob Riley's call for faith-based action in dealing with community problems, and the result has been a proliferation of ministries aimed at addiction recovery for people in trouble with the law.

"It's a nightmare ... and that's a kind way of putting it," said T. Michael McLemore, who heads a north Alabama chapter of Alabama Voices for Recovery, a consumer advocacy group. "These people are being ordered into treatment, and none is being offered."

'They're not qualified'

Complaints about faith-based, uncertified drug treatment centers pour into his Eva office daily, he said. His organization has counted 112 uncertified drug treatment programs operating in Alabama, housing about 5,000 residents. He reported the problem to the state Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, but the situation is complicated because so many other government agencies are feeding residents into these uncertified programs.

"It's being condoned by the Department of Corrections; it's being condoned by Pardons and Paroles; it's being condoned by community corrections," he said. "It's being condoned by everybody."

McLemore said it is certainly appropriate for ministries to get involved in community affairs, but government officials should not give them tacit approval to operate medical programs without certification or credentials.

"I'm not saying their intent is not good, but they're not qualified to treat dependency issues," he said.

The system is open to abuse because there are no standards for what constitutes a "faith-based" drug program. Anybody can call himself a minister, create his own method of addiction treatment and hold the power to send people back to prison or to face criminal charges.

Some use that power to shake down residents and their families, McLemore said. "It's a money-making machine."

Recently, he took a group of families and consumers to tell their stories to officials at the state Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Afterward, officials decided to act on the problem, according to minutes from a July 9 meeting of the state's Substance Abuse Coordinating Subcommittee.

One parent's story

One of the consumers making the trip was Glenda Lockhart of Falkville, whose 22-year-old son, Patrick Holloway, has had numerous run-ins with the law for breaking and entering, theft and drug violations.

Lockhart said her son has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder accompanied by schizophrenia. He has been in and out of four halfway houses offering uncertified drug treatment.

None of the programs had qualified medical personnel or counselors to handle her son's problems, but the last program, one called The Bridge Inc. in Double Springs, was the worst, Lockhart said. The Double Springs halfway house is not affiliated with a well-known, respected and certified drug treatment program by the same name in Gadsden.

In March, shortly after her son was ordered into The Bridge in Double Springs by a court officer in Guntersville, Lockhart got a call from the facility asking her to come in for a talk.

Lockhart said she was told that her son had violated a rule by smoking after hours, and he would be discharged and sent to jail unless she paid a hefty fine. "So I wrote a $500 check," she said.

Then, Lockhart said, she got a similar call a week later, and this time the fine jumped to $1,000. "Then it was $1,500," she said. "The next time was $2,000."

In all, she paid The Bridge more than $18,000 over three months, and her son ended up getting expelled after she refused to pay any more money, she said. "They kicked him out for being late to chapel."

Lockhart provided copies of eight checks made out to The Bridge between March 7 and May 28, totaling $11,700. Two of the checks had "donation" written as a memo. She also provided copies of two checks, each written for $2,000 in cash, during the same period of time. She said that money was paid to The Bridge, too.

Lockhart said she got to know other residents at The Bridge, and learned that many were recruited from jails and prisons under the condition that they would have to get a job and turn over portions of checks to cover living expenses and drug treatment, a common practice in halfway houses.

After they arrived, the halfway house controlled where they worked and how much they were allowed to keep from their checks, Lockhart said. They had to abide by whatever rules The Bridge set, or end up back in prison or before a judge.

"They were using these guys as slave labor, here in the great state of Alabama," Lockhart said.

While at The Bridge, she said, her son was taken off his psychiatric medications and was told God would heal him. He went wild and got into more trouble with the law, she said.

"This needs to be stopped," Lockhart said.

In addition to losing thousands of dollars, her son has never received the treatment that he desperately needs, she said.

"I could have cared less about the money," she said. "My job was to try to save Patrick's life."

Defending The Bridge

Jeremy Turner, office manager at The Bridge, denied any wrongdoing.

"Anybody who would try to accuse us of anything like that is wrong," he said. "We do charge people money, because that's really the only way we can keep our doors open. We've had to let our program director go recently because of lack of funds."

Turner acknowledged there have been problems. "Our program is going through a lot of drastic changes lately," he said.

The executive director recently resigned, and other workers either quit or had to be let go. There were two licensed counselors, but now there are none, he said.

The halfway house can hold 50 residents, but there are about 30 remaining. They attend chapel services and listen to Christian speakers who come in to talk about recovery, Turner said.

Chris Lee, program director at The Bridge, said he was aware of Lockhart's complaints. "Lovely lady as far as I know, but her opinion is not exactly our opinion," he said. "I don't think I can legally respond. I'm just learning about some of these things myself. This comes from a previous regime."
http://www.al.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/1218528929249610.xml&coll=2

Posted by lois at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2008

"Real Cost of Prisons Comix' book events in the SF Bay Area September 24th through September 29th, 2008

Wednesday September 24th - Lois Ahrens, editor of the ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’ at The Green Arcade 7pm.
Book launch for the ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’, edited by Lois Ahrens and published by PM Press.
“One out of every hundred adults in the U.S. is in prison. This book provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher.”
Through the comics, and associated campaigning, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, their allies, and activists, have had the grisly facts and consequences of mass incarceration and its devastating effects on communities, families and the poor, made accessible. Each comic includes alternatives to the costly and inhumane system we have now. More than 30 organizers in and out of prison write about how they use the comix in their work. Long-time activist and organizer, Lois Ahrens discusses The Real Cost of Prisons Project and introductory essay by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore frames the comix within a political context.

Join the editor speaking about the book, and the wider project, together with the following activists who will talk on how they’ve used the comic books, and their work:
Marlon Altan is a social studies teacher with 5 Keys Charter School. 5 Keys charter school is a high school that works out of the San Francisco County Jail.
Amie Dowling is an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts Dept at the University of San Francisco and through Community Works leads theater/writing workshops in the San Francisco jails.
Debbie Reyes, OSI Fellow, Central Valley Coordinator California Prison Moratorium Project, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, Fresno, California.
Karen Shain is Co-Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, a San Francisco-based 30-year-old prisoners' rights organization that advocates for the rights of incarcerated women, their families and communities.
Mara Taub from Santa Fe, NM, is the coordinator/editor ‘Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter’. Since 1976, the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights has worked to gather and disseminate information and analysis for those imprisoned, formerly imprisoned and their allies. Their short, free, monthly ‘Newsletter’ features news from/for prisoners nationwide; offers a variety of resource lists; and emphasizes analysis of the U.S. punishment system.
Part of the ‘Great Rehearsal’ Week of ’68 Events.
The Green Arcade
1680 Market Street (at Gough.)
San Francisco CA 94102
www.thegreenarcade.com
info@thegreenarcade.com

Thursday September 25th – ‘Incarceration, Resistance, Costs And Consequences: A Discussion with Authors, Activists And Former Political Prisoners’. At the First Congregational Church in Oakland 7pm. $10 (no-one turned away).
Co-sponsored with KPFA. A benefit for the Angola 3 Defense Fund.
A lively discussion on the rising costs, and consequences of incarceration. And of those that are resisting the Prison Industrial Complex.
Panelists include:
Robert Hillary King, author of the new autobiography ‘From The Bottom Of The Heap: The Autobiography Of Black Panther Robert Hillary King’ (PM Press). Robert Hillary King is better known as one of the Angola 3, who served over 31 years in Louisiana’s ‘slave plantation’ at Angola, 29 of them in solitary confinement. He, together with his Angola 3 comrades, Herman Bell and Albert Woodfox, organized within the prison the first (and only) Black Panther chapter behind the walls. The state reacted (unsurprisingly) accordingly.
Lois Ahrens, editor of the ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’ (PM Press). Through the comics, and associated campaigning, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, their allies, and activists, have had the grisly facts and consequences of mass incarceration and its devastating effects on communities, families and the poor, made accessible. Each comic includes alternatives to the costly and inhumane system we have now.
Victoria Law, author of ‘Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women’ (PM Press), and longtime prison activist. About the forthcoming book: In 1974, women imprisoned at New York's maximum-security prison at Bedford Hills staged what is known as the August Rebellion. Protesting the brutal beating of a fellow prisoner, the women fought off guards, holding seven of them hostage, and took over sections of the prison. While many have heard of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, the August Rebellion remains relatively unknown even in activist circles. ‘Resistance Behind Bars’ is determined to challenge and change such oversights. As it examines daily struggles against appalling prison conditions and injustices, ‘Resistance’ documents both collective organizing and individual resistance among women incarcerated in the U.S. Emphasizing women's agency in resisting the conditions of their confinement through forming peer education groups, clandestinely arranging ways for children to visit mothers in distant prisons and raising public awareness about their lives, ‘Resistance’ seeks to spark further discussion and research into the lives of incarcerated women and galvanize much-needed outside support for their struggles.
Matt Meyer, editor of the monumental (all 912 pages!) ‘Let Freedom Ring’ (PM Press/Kersplebedeb), and activist with Resistance In Brooklyn:
‘Let Freedom Ring’ presents a two-decade sweep of essays, analyses, histories, interviews, resolutions, People’s Tribunals verdicts and poems by and about the scores of U.S. political prisoners and the campaigns to safeguard their rights and to secure their freedom. Represented here are the radical movements that have most challenged the U.S. empire from within: Black Panthers and other Black liberation fighters (several still held after 30+ years), Puerto Rican independentistas, Indigenous sovereignty activists, Chicano/Mexicano freedom strugglers, white anti-imperialists, environmental and animal rights militants, and others. This invaluable resource guide details the diabolical methods--from isolation to sensory deprivation to parole denial--used to suppress these freedom fighters, as well as the creative--and sometimes winning--strategies to bring them home.
Ashanti Alston, former Black Panther, Black Liberation Army political prisoner, and longtime activist, and a contributor to ‘Let Freedom Ring.’
Rita ‘Bo’ Brown, former member of the George Jackson Brigade, political prisoner, and longtime prisoner and queer activist, and a contributor to ‘Let Freedom Ring’
Moderated by KPFA host to be announced.
First Congregational Church of Oakland
www.firstoakland.org
2501 Harrison St
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 444-8511

Friday 26th September thru Sunday 28th September is the Critical Resistance 10th Anniversary Conference in Oakland.
Vikki Law and Matt Meyer are doing workshops. Robert Hillary King and Lois Ahrens will be in attendance. The PM films ‘The Angola 3’, ‘Jena 6’ and ‘Black & Gold’ are all being shown during the conference as part of the Critical Resistance Film Festival
www.criticalresistance.org

Monday 29th September - Book launch for ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’ and ‘Let Freedom Ring’ anthology, at Modern Times 7pm.
Last of the month long series of events as part of PM Press as ‘Publisher Of The Month’ at Modern Times. Featuring ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’, editor and activist and organizer Lois Ahrens:
“One out of every hundred adults in the U.S. is in prison. This book provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher.”
Through the comics, and associated campaigning, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, their allies, and activists, have had the grisly facts and consequences of mass incarceration and its devastating effects on communities, families and the poor, made accessible. Each comic includes alternatives to the costly and inhumane system we have now. More than 30 organizers in and out of prison write about how they use the comix in their work. Long-time activist and organizer, Lois Ahrens discusses The Real Cost of Prisons Project and introductory essay by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore frames the comix within a political context.
‘Let Freedom Ring’ editor Matt Meyer:
Let Freedom Ring’ presents a two-decade sweep of essays, analyses, histories, interviews, resolutions, People’s Tribunals verdicts and poems by and about the scores of U.S. political prisoners and the campaigns to safeguard their rights and to secure their freedom. Represented here are the radical movements that have most challenged the U.S. empire from within: Black Panthers and other Black liberation fighters (several still held after 30+ years), Puerto Rican independentistas, Indigenous sovereignty activists, Chicano/Mexicano freedom strugglers, white anti-imperialists, environmental and animal rights militants, and others. This invaluable resource guide details the diabolical methods--from isolation to sensory deprivation to parole denial--used to suppress these freedom fighters, as well as the creative--and sometimes winning--strategies to bring them home.
Ashanti Alston, former Black Panther, Black Liberation Army political prisoner, longtime activist, and a contributor to ‘Let Freedom Ring’.
Rita ‘Bo’ Brown, former member of the George Jackson Brigade, political prisoner, longtime prisoner and queer activist, and a contributor to ‘Let Freedom Ring’.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of ‘Golden Gulag’ and co-author (with Craig Gilmore) of a new introduction to the ‘Real Cost Of Prisons Comix’.
Modern Times
www.mtbs.com
888 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 282-9246

Posted by lois at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2008

MA: CORI background checks should have been reformed

CORI background checks should have been reformed
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Created 08/05/2008 - 09:42
To the editor:

According to some, the last legislative session may have been a success, but in reality, the Legislature failed again to reform one of the worst aspects of criminal justice policy. This time legislators came closer than usual but when HB#5004 stalled in the Judiciary Committee, Senate President Therese Murray failed to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

If Senators had the opportunity to vote as their House colleagues affirmatively did, desperately needed CORI reform would have been under way. Now we must wait until January 2009 for the chance to bring some justice to an unjust system.

Criminal record checks are an important part of the hiring process for many jobs: however, they should not create an insurmountable barrier to employment. The Boston Workers Alliance, a key player in the reform effort stated: "CORI reform is about second chances. Many people with CORIs have never been convicted of any crime. Those who have been convicted, and then rehabilitated, should be able to both repay their debt to society and to have a second chance to become productive citizens."

With HB#5004, employers could still ask about a candidate's criminal record, as long as it was not the very first question a candidate is asked. CORI reform would let all candidates get in the door and have their work experience and skills evaluated, allowing employers to perform criminal background checks on qualified candidates.

HB #5004 contained many other positive and necessary reforms, such as sealing misdemeanor convictions in less time, 5 years instead of 10, and felony convictions in 10 years instead of 15. Had it been voted into law, the lives of thousands of residents of Hampshire County could have changed for the better. It is unfortunate that the Gazette did not find this important story was worth covering.

Lois Ahrens
Northampton
Daily HampshireGazette © 2008 All rights reserved
Source URL: http://www.gazettenet.com/2008/08/05/cori-background-checks-should-have-been-reformed

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

July 28, 2008

UK: study and article relevant to the U.S. :The real cost of prison. Moral, social and political arguments for and against prison are all very well. But what about value for money?

The real cost of prison
Moral, social and political arguments for and against prison are all very well. But what about value for money?
by Kevin marsh
Monday July 28 2008

In 1993, the UK prison population was 44,000. Today it is over 83,000. This trend is set to continue: the government has recently announced an extra £3.8bn to create 20,000 more prison places.

In the UK it is estimated that each new prison place costs £119,000 and that the annual average cost for each prisoner exceeds £40,000. Such huge public expenditure should not be spent without question. But where value for money models are widely applied in other state services like healthcare, they have rarely been used to test the value of the criminal justice sector.

It might be true that incarceration reduces re-offending, but the cost of the prison system still has to justify that reduction. Is the cost of cutting offending through prisons too high? Could alternatives provide better value for money?

These are the questions I and my colleagues from the Matrix Knowledge Group
(http://www.matrixknowledge.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/the-economic-case-for-and-against-prison_web.pdf)
have sought to address in our latest research. Using data from the US and the UK from 1996, we measured the net benefit of alternatives to prison. The result? Alternatives to prison seem to deliver a better return on public money.

Residential drug treatment programmes, for example, offer a £200,000 net benefit over prison over the lifetime of an offender. This is because drug treatment programmes are cheaper to run than incarceration systems and because they deliver lower re-offending rates. Similarly, using surveillance instead of cells saves £125,000 per convict.

This research could be used to argue that we simply have to reduce the cost of prison per prisoner to make it deliver value for money. If we cut corners and McDonald's-ise our cells, wouldn't prisons then deliver value for money? Our research suggests not. Once you crunch the numbers, investing more in prisons per head actually delivers increased savings in the long run. Because of associated reductions in re-offending rates, prisons which include educational and vocational programmes save society £50,000 for each inmate whilst prison with drug treatment saves £125,000.

Other work supports our findings, with some key studies indicating that prison as we know it is completely unjustifiable on economic grounds. Cynthia McDougall and colleagues point out that for every $1 spent on prison, only $0.24 to $0.36 is saved on avoiding offending. This contrasts to spending on probation, which delivers $1.70 in benefits for every dollar spent.

The debate for and against prisons has historically focused on the moral, political and social arguments for sentencing. But public money is scarce; we need to make sure that the benefits of our prisons outweigh their costs. Whatever penal policy we decide to pursue, ignoring the economic dimension to this argument is something we can no longer afford to do.
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This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday July 28 2008. It was last updated at 19:30 on July 28 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/justice.prisonsandprobation/print

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July 10, 2008

Boston Review: 3 articles in Special Issue including: : "No Further Harm: What we owe to incarcerated fathers", "Guarded Hope:Lessons from the history of the prison boom" and "Reentry: Reversing mass imprisonment"

JULY/AUGUST 2008--- Boston Review
all at:
http://bostonreview.net/BR33.4/prison.php

No Further Harm
What we owe to incarcerated fathers by Mary Fainsod Katzenstein and Mary Lyndon Shanley
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Guarded Hope
Lessons from the history of the prison boom by Robert Perkinson
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Reentry
Reversing mass imprisonment by Bruce Western

The British sociologist T.H. Marshall described citizenship as the “basic human equality associated with full membership in a community.” By this measure, thirty years of prison growth concentrated among the poorest in society has diminished American citizenship. But as the prison boom attains new heights, the conversation about criminal punishment may finally be shifting.

For the first time in decades, political leaders seem willing to consider the toll of rising incarceration rates. In October last year, Senator Jim Webb convened hearings of the Joint Economic Committee on the social costs of mass incarceration. In opening the hearings, Senator Webb made a remarkable observation, “With the world’s largest prison population,” he said, “our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity.” Like T.H. Marshall, Webb recognized that our political compact is based on a fundamental equality among citizens. Deep inequalities stretch the bonds of citizenship and ultimately imperil the quality of democracy. Extraordinary in the current political climate, Webb inquired into the prison’s significance, not just for crime, but also for social inequality. The incarceration bubble has not burst yet, but Webb’s hearings are one signal of a welcome thaw in tough-on-crime politics.

There are now 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons and jails, a fourfold increase in the incarceration rate since 1980. During the fifty years preceding our current three-decade surge, the scale of imprisonment was largely unchanged. And the impact of this rise has hardly been felt equally in society; the American prison boom is as much a story about race and class as it is about crime control. Nothing separates the social experience of blacks and whites like involvement in the criminal justice system. Blacks are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites, and large racial disparities can be seen for all age groups and at different levels of education. One-in-nine black men in their twenties is now in prison or jail. Young black men today are more likely to do time in prison than serve in the military or graduate college with a bachelor’s degree. The large black-white disparity in incarceration is unmatched by most other social indicators. Racial disparities in unemployment (two to one), nonmarital childbearing (three to one), infant mortality (two to one), and wealth (one to five) are all significantly lower than the seven to one black-white ratio in incarceration rates.

Though lurid portrayals of black criminality are easy to find on the local news or reality TV, the deep class divisions in imprisonment may be less apparent. Nearly all the growth in imprisonment since 1980 has been concentrated among those with no more than a high school education. Among young black men who have never been to college, one in five are incarcerated, and one in three will go to prison at some time in their lives. The intimate link between school failure and incarceration is clear at the bottom of the education ladder where 60 percent of black, male high school dropouts will go to prison before age thirty-five. The stigma of official criminality has become normal for these poorly educated black men, and they are thereby converted from merely disadvantaged into a class of social outsiders. These astonishing levels of punishment are new. We need only go back two decades to find a time when imprisonment was not a common event in the lives of black men with less than a college education.

***

The effects of the prison are not confined within its walls. Those coming home from prison, now about 700,000 each year, face an narrowed array of life chances. Mostly returning to urban neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, men with prison records are often out of work. The jobs they do find pay little and offer only a fraction of the earnings growth that usually supports the socially valuable roles of husband and breadwinner. Ex-prisoners are often in poor health, sometimes struggling with mental illness or chronic disease. A University of California, Berkeley study attributes most of the black-white difference in AIDS infection to racial disparities in incarceration. In many cases people with felony records are denied housing, education, and welfare benefits. In eleven states they are permanently denied the right to vote.

The social penalties of imprisonment also spread through families. Though formerly incarcerated men are just as likely to have children as other men of the same age, they are less likely to get married. Those who are married will most likely divorce or separate. The family instability surrounding incarceration persists across generations. Among children born since 1990, 4 percent of whites and 25 percent of blacks will witness their father being sent to prison by their fourteenth birthday. Those children, too, are to some extent drawn into the prison nexus, riding the bus to far-flung correctional facilities and passing through metal detectors and pat-downs on visiting day. In short those with prison records and their families are something less than full members of society. To be young, black, and unschooled today is to risk a felony conviction, prison time, and a life of second-class citizenship. In this sense, the prison boom has produced mass incarceration—a level of imprisonment so vast and concentrated that it forges the collective experience of an entire social group.

Viewed in historical context, mass incarceration takes on even greater significance. The prison boom took off in the 1970s, immediately following the great gains to citizenship hard won by the civil rights movement. Growing rates of incarceration mean that, in the experience of African-Americans in poor neighborhoods, the advancement of voting rights, school desegregation, and protection from discrimination was substantially halted. Mass incarceration undermined the project for full African-American citizenship and revealed the obstacles to political equality presented by acute social disparity.

Skeptics may concede that mass incarceration injured social justice, but surely, they would contend, it contributed to the tremendous decline in crime through the 1990s. Indeed, the crime decline of the ’90s produced a great improvement in public safety. From 1993 to 2001, the violent crime rate fell considerably, murder rates in big cities like New York and Los Angeles dropped by half or more, and this progress in social wellbeing was recorded by rich and poor alike. Yet, when I analyzed crime rates in this period, I found that rising prison populations did not reduce crime by much. The growth in state imprisonment accounted for 2-5 percent of the decline in serious crime—one-tenth of the crime drop from 1993 to 2001. The remaining nine-tenths was due to factors like the increasing size of local police forces, the pacification of the drug trade following the crack epidemic of the early 1990s, and the role of local circumstances that resist a general explanation.

So a modest decline in serious crime over an eight year period was purchased for $53 billion in additional correctional spending and half a million new prison inmates: a large price to pay for a small reduction. If we add the lost earnings of prisoners to the family disruption and community instability produced by mass incarceration, we cannot but acknowledge that a steep price was paid for a small improvement in public safety. Several examples further demonstrate that the boom may have been a waste because crime can be controlled without large increases in imprisonment. Violent crime in Canada, for example, also declined greatly through the 1990s, but Canadian incarceration rates actually fell from 1991 to 1999. New York maintained particularly low crime rates through the 2000s, but has been one of the few states to cut its prison population in recent years.

More importantly, perhaps, the reduction in crime was accompanied by an array of new problems associated with mass incarceration. Those states that have sought reduced crime through mass incarceration find themselves faced with an array of problems associated with overreliance on imprisonment. How can poor communities with few resources absorb the return of 700,000 prisoners each year? How can states pay for their prisons while responding to the competing demands of higher education, Medicaid, and K-12 schools? How can we address the social costs—the broken homes, unemployment, and crime—that can follow from imprisonment? Questions such as these lead us to a more fundamental concern: how can mass imprisonment be reversed and American citizenship repaired?

***

We can begin to tackle these issues by understanding how we got here. The origins of today’s mass incarceration can be traced to basic political and economic shifts in the 1960s. On the economic side, the prison population swelled following the collapse of the urban manufacturing industry and subsequent cascade of social ills that swept poor inner-city neighborhoods. Serious crime—the traditional target of the penal system—was an important part of these urban social problems. Murder rates in large cities grew dramatically from 1965 to 1980. But in addition to the problem of serious crime, the penal system was used to manage many of the byproducts of persistent poverty: untreated drug addiction and mental illness, homelessness, chronic idleness among young men, and social disorder. It was the management of these social problems, not serious crime, that fuelled incarceration rates for drug users, public-order offenders, and parole violators.

As the social crisis of urban America supplied the masses for mass incarceration, the penal system itself became more punitive. The tough-on-crime message honed by the Republican Party in national politics since the Goldwater campaign of 1964 spoke to the racial anxieties of white voters discomfited by civil rights protests and summertime waves of civil unrest felt in cities through the decade. Conservatives charged that liberals coddled criminals and excused crime with phony root causes like poverty and unemployment. President Nixon launched a war on crime, only to be surpassed by President Reagan’s War on Drugs, which applied the resources of federal law enforcement to the problem of drug control. Policy experts abandoned rehabilitation, concluding that prisons could only deter and warehouse those who would otherwise commit crime in society. These politics produced a revolution in criminal sentencing. Mandatory minimum prison sentences, sentencing guidelines, parole abolition, and life sentences for third-time felons were widely adopted through the 1980s. The no-nonsense, tough-on-crime politics reached a bipartisan apotheosis with President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which launched the largest prison construction project in the nation’s history. As a result of these changes, prison time—as opposed to community supervision—became the main criminal sanction for felony offenders.

The failure of the great experiment in mass incarceration is rooted in three fallacies of the tough-on-crime perspective. First, there is the fallacy of us and them. For tough-on-crime advocates, the innocent majority is victimized by a class of predatory criminals, and the prison works to separate us from them. The truth is that the criminals live among us as our young fathers, brothers, and sons. Drug use, fighting, theft, and disorderly conduct are behavioral staples of male youth. Most of the crime they commit is perpetrated on each other. This is reflected most tragically in the high rates of homicide victimization among males under age twenty-five, black males in particular. Some young men do become more seriously and persistently involved in crime, but neither the criminal-justice system nor criminologists can predict who those serious offenders will be or when they will stop offending. Thus the power to police and punish cannot separate us from criminals with great distinction, but instead flows along the contours of social inequality. Visible markers like age, skin color, and neighborhood become rough proxies for criminal threat. Small race and class differences in offending are amplified at each stage of criminal processing from arrest through conviction and sentencing. As a result the prison walls we built with such industry in the 1980s and ’90s did not keep out the criminal predators, but instead divided us internally, leaving our poorest communities with fewer opportunities to join the mainstream and deeply skeptical of the institutions charged with their safety.

Second, there is the fallacy of personal defect. Tough-on-crime politics disdains the criminology of root causes and traces crime not to poverty and unemployment but to the moral failures of individuals. Refusing to resist temptation or defer gratification, the offender lacks empathy and affect, lacks human connection, and is thus less human than the rest of us. The diagnosis of defective character points to immutable criminality, stoking cynicism for rehabilitative efforts and justifying the mission of semi-permanent incapacitation. The folk theory of immutable criminality permits the veiled association of crime with race in political talk. But seeking criminality in defects of character, the architects of the prison boom ignored the great rise in urban youth unemployment that preceded the growth in murder rates in the 1960s and ’70s. They ignored the illegal drug trade, which flourished to fill the vacuum of legitimate economic opportunity left by urban deindustrialization. They ignored, too, the fact that jobs are not just a source of economic opportunity but of social control that routinizes daily life and draws young men into a wide array of socially beneficial roles. Lastly, they ignored the bonds of mutual assistance that are only weakly sustained by communities of concentrated poverty. Thus young men would return home from prison only to easily surmount once again the same stunted social barriers to crime that contributed to their imprisonment in the first place.

The final fallacy of the tough-on-crime perspective is the myth of the free market. The free market fallacy sees the welfare state as pampering the criminal class and building expectations of something for nothing. Anti-poverty programs were trimmed throughout the 1970s and ’80s, and poor young men largely fell through the diminished safety net that remained. For free marketeers, the question was simply whether or not to spend public money on the poor—they did not anticipate that idle young men present a social problem. Without school, work, or military service, these poor young men were left on the street-corner, sometimes acting disorderly and often fuelling fears of crime. We may have skimped on welfare, but we paid anyway, splurging on police and prisons. Because incarceration was so highly concentrated in particular neighborhoods and areas within them, certain city blocks received millions of dollars in “correctional investment”—spending on the removal of local residents by incarceration. These million-dollar blocks reveal a question falsely posed. We never faced a choice of whether to spend money on the poor; the dollars diverted from education and employment found their way to prison construction. Our political choice, it turned out, was not how much we spent on the poor, but what to spend it on.

***

Getting tough on crime created a sustained public policy mistake of immense proportions. If the prison boom was indeed produced by a historic collision between the jobless ghetto and a punitive politics of civil rights backlash, retreating from mass incarceration will involve equally fundamental shifts in politics and economics. What would a new politics of criminal justice look like, and what policies would it promote?

There are small signs of change in the public conversation about crime, punishment, and poverty, though bold ideas have not yet penetrated the mainstream. By supporting education and treatment programs for prisoners, leaders from both parties have offered one answer to Senator Webb’s question about the future of punishment in America. In April this year, President Bush signed the Second Chance Act, which funds literacy programs, drug treatment, and other services for prisoners and ex-prisoners. While prison reform advocates supported Second Chance, a bipartisan majority was ensured by Christian conservatives like Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, who spoke up for a law that promoted a message of redemption and faith-based prison programs.

Second Chance can be viewed as one achievement in a broader movement for improved prisoner reentry policy. Jeremy Travis, president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, has been a leading voice in naming the social problem of prisoner reentry and proposing policy solutions. In his 2005 book But They All Come Back Travis writes: “The reality of mass incarceration translates into the reality of reentry . . . [T]he harmful effects of high rates of incarceration and reentry call for . . . policies that promote reintegration, not retribution.” Here the reentry movement challenges mass incarceration by reasserting the importance of rehabilitation, but deliberately stops short of recommending a reduction in prison populations.

If the employment problems of young minority men in poor urban neighborhoods are a prime precondition for mass incarceration, prisoner reentry programs that promote employment may offer a way out of the street-prison cycle in which so many are caught. A wide variety of programs aim to help people move from prison to the labor market. GED classes, vocational training, prison work-programs, and job readiness instruction all seek to improve prisoners’ preparation for working life. In part, the wide variety of programs reflects the sheer range of behavioral and cognitive deficits of the prison population.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for these programs is that many men and women coming out of prison—most in their thirties or older—have never held a steady job. The newly released behave awkwardly around coworkers and have never cultivated daily work habits; these shortcomings may be no less debilitating than illiteracy or a shortage of vocational skills. Social scientists refer to the necessary traits of reliability, motivation, and sociability as “non-cognitive skills.” While education programs in prison can help develop the cognitive skills of math and verbal ability, the non-cognitive skills that promote success in free society are hard to develop while incarcerated. To learn these skills, people coming out of prison must repeatedly rehearse the habits of regular work. But precisely because they have so little work experience and carry the added penalty of a criminal record, formerly incarcerated men and women have little access to the steady jobs that can make them more productive. For ex-prisoners, extreme economic insecurity is a trap that prevents them accumulating the kind of work experience that enables a return to mainstream social life.

Building everyday work habits means working every day; instead of relying only on a wary labor market, some programs try to break the cycle of economic insecurity by offering jobs immediately after release from prison. The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in New York provides transitional jobs in combination with job placement services to move prisoners into the open labor market. CEO takes people straight out of prison, and puts them in a week-long training program before assigning them to a seven-hour day, four-day week in small supervised crews doing groundskeeping and other manual work at the New York minimum wage of $7.15 an hour. On the fifth day of each week, the CEO participants take vocational and job readiness classes that prepare them for job searching and interviews. CEO’s transitional jobs generally last a month or two and program graduates receive transport and supermarket vouchers if they remain employed.

CEO, in a move rare among reentry programs, has sought to study the effectiveness of its program through experimentation. The experiment randomly assigned parolees either to transitional jobs or to a control group composed of former inmates who received job-search assistance from the support staff, but not transitional work. Parolees who took on transitional jobs within three months of release from prison saw their arrest rates reduced by about 20 percent compared to the control group. However, parolees who entered the transitional jobs more than 3 months after prison release experience no reductions in recidivism. It seems that timely intervention, immediately after prison, provides the greatest benefits.

CEO’s method shows promising results, but is narrowly directed toward alleviating unemployment. A small but intensive program run by the Brooklyn District Attorney suggests how a more comprehensive program might operate. Charles “Joe” Hynes is unusual among prosecutors. He actively incorporates alternatives to incarceration into the work of his office. Beginning in 1990 Hynes promoted a diversion program that sent nonviolent drug offenders to substance abuse treatment instead of prison. By the later part of the decade, the D.A. was convening regular meetings of community groups throughout Brooklyn to connect parolees and probationers to drug treatment, housing, and jobs.

The meetings were run by Hynes’s energetic First Assistant District Attorney, Patricia Gatling. Gatling did not saw the D.A.’s role as simply seeking the toughest justice for Brooklyn’s criminal defendants. In her view, the D.A. is a community lawyer, charged with strengthening neighborhoods and improving public safety in a broad sense. The community meetings in Brooklyn’s poor neighborhoods were Gatling’s effort to replenish the area’s flagging social capital—the web of networks and supports that greases the wheels of social life. After a few years, Hynes hired a full-time social worker and developed his own prisoner reentry program. At first it operated only in a few precincts with high parole caseloads, but later it spread across the whole borough.

Called ComALERT (Community and Law Enforcement Resources Together), the program provides parolees with drug treatment, transitional employment, and housing. Most ComALERT participants, have prior convictions for drugs or violence, and all have been ordered into drug treatment. Some homeless parolees enter the Ready Willing and Able (RWA) program that provides a full year of employment and supportive housing in return for a promise of complete drug and alcohol abstinence and a biweekly regime of drug testing. RWA participants work in street cleaning and other unskilled jobs for $7.50 an hour, share small apartments, and receive drug counseling and educational programming. A recent evaluation found that two years after release from prison, ComALERT clients were 18 percent less likely to be rearrested than a comparison group with a similar history of crime and drug use. ComALERT participants also earned about $1000 more each quarter and were about 20 percent more likely to be employed.

A large-scale effort to assist the reintegration of those coming home from prison can be justified on the grounds of restoring citizenship to America's new carceral class.

These positive outcomes suggest three policy lessons. First, transitional jobs are large-dose interventions that can reduce recidivism at least for a while by providing close supervision and paying wages. Regular work habits cannot be built cheap, though these programs are still less expensive than incarceration. Second, the programs that work best are comprehensive, bundling together a variety of services including drug treatment and housing. Because released prisoners often cope with a range of problems, additional supports must be in place for transitional jobs to help. Third, timely intervention is imperative; successful schemes provide a job immediately out of prison.

While the results from transitional jobs and supplementary programs are encouraging, we must be realistic about what these projects can achieve. Most initiatives operate at the local level. Sometimes their efforts span a city, but more often several neighborhoods. The high quality results that stem from local efforts will not scale to counties and states. Even in the best-case scenario, if recidivism is reduced by 10 or 20 percent, ex-prisoners would still be re-arrested at rates of around 40 percent or more.

Still, a large-scale effort to assist the reintegration of those coming home from prison can be justified on the grounds of restoring citizenship to America’s new carceral class. Instead of focusing assessment of reentry programs narrowly on the decrease in recidivism achieved, we should account for the benefits of families reunited, the paychecks that help support the children of ex-prisoners, and the value of literacy for its effects on quality of life in addition to its role in averting crime. The cost-benefit calculus looks quite different when we include these social goods. For nonviolent drug and public-order offenders, intensive, large-dose treatment in the community (which is relatively cheap) begins to look like a good alternative to custody in prison (which is expensive). Here we count as benefits not just reductions in crime, which may be modest, but all the ways in which social life is made more normal by drawing our erstwhile outsiders back into society, instead of building more walls to keep them out.

***

What would a different kind of penal system look like: one that viewed the unemployment of ex-prisoners as a key problem to solve and the deficit of noncognitive skills a central obstacle to steady work? Projecting our exemplary local programs on to the national stage, all parolees leaving prison in need of a job would move into closely supervised community-service work paying minimum wage. Like Brooklyn’s RWA program, these jobs might be offered for up to a year and coupled to job placement with the goal of parolee self-sufficiency. Those with drug problems would enroll in a rigorous program of treatment and testing. Those living on the streets would move into supportive housing.

How many would participate in this national reentry program, and at what cost? Employment statistics for prisoners suggest a national transitional jobs program would enroll about 180,000 out of the 700,000 prisoners released each year. Around 200,000 would fill new places in drug treatment programs. Another 100,000 would require housing. A national program of transitional jobs, drug treatment, and supportive housing would represent a significant expansion of the social services available to ex-prisoners. The total cost of this effort would be about $7 billion each year, roughly one-tenth of total current spending on corrections. In the present climate such a program seems entirely fanciful—how could we pay for it?

One source of funds is the vast treasury expended on large-scale incarceration itself. By cutting the size of prison populations and redirecting some of the spending on custody to community programs, we could dramatically expand services to prisoners after they have been released. Unlocking America, a recent proposal from the Washington, D.C.-based JFA Institute, recommends four ways to reduce the size of prison populations.

First, Unlocking America recommends decriminalizing drug offenses and other “victimless” crimes. The authors argue that arresting drug dealers has no crime reducing effect because new dealers will fill the vacancies opened by incarceration. Since the mid-1990s, prominent conservatives, too, have supported the view that incarceration for drug dealing fails to curb the drug trade. In 1995 John DiIulio and Anne Piehl—the former would become an appointee in the second Bush administration—wrote that their “best estimate of the incapacitation effect (number of drug sales prevented by incarcerating a drug dealer) is zero,” and they therefore “value drug crimes (sales and possession) at zero social cost.” Though the War on Drugs failed to reduce drug use or the prices of drugs, it boosted incarceration and racial disparity. Drug convictions account for about a third of the increase in state prison populations and about three-quarters of the increase in the federal prison population through the 1980s and ’90s.

Second, time served in prison can be reduced. In the mid-1970s prisoners were incarcerated for relatively short periods, given their offenses. Since then, life sentences have become common for violent offenders and those with prior felony convictions. Three-strikes provisions add long stretches of prison time for repeat convicts. Truth-in-sentencing requires felony offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. These measures serve to lengthen prison time account for about half of the growth in state prison populations over the last twenty years.

Third, the length of probation and parole-supervision periods could also be reduced. People on probation and parole are likely to return to prison, but usually as a result of a technical violation, not a new crime. Unlocking America finds little evidence that lengthy parole and probation terms reduce crime. Probationers and parolees are most likely to fail in the first twelve months. After that first year, the authors write, “supervision is more of a nuisance than a means for assisting people after prison or preventing them from committing another crime.”

Finally, the authors argue that re-imprisonment should be eliminated for technical violations of parole and probation. Parolees and probationers are released to the community subject to a large number of conditions that typically include employment, drug testing, and regular meetings with case officers. When they violate these conditions, supervising officers can send them back to prison. Many parolees and probationers are sent back to prison for failing a drug test or missing an appointment—their reappearence behind bars may have nothing to do with crime. Incarceration for technical violations of parole or probation was a significant driver of state imprisonment rates through the 1990s. In some states, like California, most of those on parole are re-incarcerated for technical violations, adding a year or more to their time in prison.

Of all the proposals to reduce prison populations, restricting re-incarceration for technical parole violators seems most politically feasible. Some states are already trying to reduce parole revocation, sometimes by imposing more intensive community supervision or a few days in lock-up instead of months and years in prison. Kansas now conducts a risk assessment for parolees. Some are assigned to a low-risk group that receives only loose supervision. Case managers place high-risk parolees in special programs, and enforce a variety of punishments short of return to prison. Since adopting these measures in 2003, Kansas has halved the number of parole violators. Half a dozen other states, like Arizona, Illinois, New York, and Texas, have also adopted a system of graduated sanctions to reduce parole revocation. At the national level, eliminating re-incarceration for technical violations would reduce prison admissions by about 30 percent each year. By itself this measure could save much of the funds needed for a national prisoner reentry program.

Eliminating re-incarceration for technical violations would also support a reintegrative model of corrections. Given that over half of state prisoners struggle with problems of drug addiction, we should anticipate that many will fail and become involved again in drugs or miss work or parole appointments. These failures should be viewed as a component of reentry. Relapse is part of a learning process in which new non-cognitive skills of reliability and persistence develop. If failure is a likely stop on the path to steady work, parole supervision must also allow people to fail and remain in their communities.

***

So far I have argued that we can edge away from mass incarceration by promoting two kinds of policies: expanding support for the reentry of prisoners into society and scaling down the size of the prison population. The two steps are linked; we expand our support for ex-prisoners in the community by using incarceration more sparingly and revoking freedom less willingly. Money that we now spend on prison can be spent on treatment and jobs.

There are more advocates now for reentry programs than decarceration, but a real policy debate over the future of mass incarceration has barely begun. Though Congress dipped a toe in the pool of reintegrative criminal justice by passing the Second Chance Act, a national large-dose reentry program is a much larger effort. Faced with mounting correctional budgets, governors in Kansas and elsewhere have experimented with parole reform. Some states are also considering sentencing reforms. Commissions in New York and California are now reviewing three-strikes and mandatory minimums. Despite these signs of change, the reform process remains in its infancy. Few correctional facilities have closed, and incarceration rates continue to rise.

While an expanded reentry policy and a revision of the penal codes may stop the growth of prisons, the future of mass incarceration depends very much on its past. A less punitive criminal justice system cannot by itself solve the deep social problems of poor urban neighborhoods. These problems—disorder and addiction largely flowing from chronic idleness—set in motion the politics and policy choices that delivered mass incarceration. As America’s meager welfare state failed to prevent school dropout and persistent unemployment among unskilled inner-city residents, prisons and jails expanded to fill the vacuum of social control formerly occupied by the education system and the labor market. The police, the courts, and correctional administrators were charged with solving the social problems of idleness, addiction, and mental illness, while also controlling their natural jurisdiction over serious crime. But they were given just a few tools: the powers of arrest and imprisonment. Mass incarceration contains an unruly population beset with trouble; wholesale confinement makes the population more manageable but leaves their troubles undiminished.

To expect a rehabilitative criminal justice alone to reverse mass incarceration is, in an odd way, to repeat the mistakes of the tough-on-crime movement. We would again be turning to line officers to manage the byproducts of deep social inequalities. While we might spend billions on a jobs program for former prisoners, we would still send them out to look for work in labor markets where half of the young men are jobless. We would still be asking them to stay sober amid a thriving street trade in illegal drugs. This is what prisoners mean when they say they are set up to fail. This is not just a recidivist’s special pleading: it reflects the deficiencies of a theory in which society’s losers have only themselves to blame.

The police, the courts, and correctional administrators were charged with solving social problems, but their only tools were the powers of arrest and imprisonment.

Reversing mass incarceration will ultimately require that social problems be solved with social policies. The two most urgent priorities are the prevention of school dropout and the creation of a viable and legitimate economy in poor inner-city neighborhoods. Not even the most rehabilitative criminal justice policy can solve these problems. We normally think of education and employment as sources of economic opportunity. In the era of mass incarceration, we also see that they are positive sources of social control, providing order in people’s daily lives.

School failure and joblessness, of course, lie deep at the core of American urban inequality. Even if our policy knowledge is equal to these problems, the political will is weak, especially since carceral stigma now clouds the neighborhoods of the urban poor. It seems unlikely under these conditions that communities of concentrated poverty will somehow launch new programs of urban renewal or that middle class voters will discover sympathies for the poor. Are new efforts at social investment impossible?

The upcoming election season holds more promise for an expanded social policy than we have seen in years. The coming debate over national health insurance holds enormous significance for communities most affected by mass incarceration. If a plan emerges that covers treatment for substance abuse, mental health problems, and chronic disease, and if the plan is truly universal, carrying no exclusions for those in prison or with felony convictions, it can significantly improve the lives of those entangled in the penal system. By aiming to cover everyone, national health insurance creates a common cause between the urban poor wracked by mass incarceration and the suburban middle class. We have recently seen this kind of cross-class support in defense of Social Security—a universalistic and venerated institution operating with great anti-poverty effect. Supporters repelled the threat of privatization not because Social Security slashes poverty among the elderly, but because it guarantees the material dignity of all citizens in retirement.

Policies narrowly tailored only to the needs of released prisoners can at best attract the support of altruists and the poor themselves. The ineffectiveness of these constituencies is reflected in the quality of these targeted policies as they currently stand. But by actively constructing the common citizenship of the poor and the middle class, a universal social policy provides a powerful force for social integration.

***

Nearly a century ago, Eugene Debs, at his sentencing under the Sedition Act in 1918, offered a moving account of the moral significance of the prison. “Your Honor,” he said, “years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Debs’s vision was radically egalitarian. Because we are joined by a common humanity, the imprisonment of one incarcerates us all.

Be it health care, education, or job opportunities, universal provision in any domain of public policy—and the bonds of citizenship on which that sense of universality is built—joins us to a common destiny, and might be the best chance for the redevelopment of urban schools and labor markets. If the duty of the citizen is to stay in school and go to work, then the political will to maintain good schools and promote employment is woven into the social fabric. This political logic implies that special projects targeting special populations will not do the job. If poor schools are to improve, it is more likely they will do so as a result of an effort to improve educational opportunity nationwide. If we are to promote jobs for unskilled men in the inner-city, the attempt will receive its greatest impetus from a national employment policy that aims to improve the working lives of all citizens.

Clearly we are not there yet. The norms of good citizenship, however, develop in tandem with the institutions of civic life. Political will can grow in small increments led by the promotion of institutions that provide on the basis of Marshall’s “basic human equality.” Such a renewal of an authentically American social citizenship would sweep away the jobless ghetto and the mass incarceration that it has spawned.

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

July 08, 2008

Georgia sex offender law criminalizes homelessness

Georgia sex offender law criminalizes homelessness
USA Today, July 7, 2008

ATLANTA (AP) — A strict new Georgia law is designed to keep sex offenders away from children by monitoring how close they live to schools, parks and other spots where kids gather — and threatens them with strict penalties if they fail to register.

But what about the offenders who don't have an address?

Georgia's Supreme Court on Monday considered whether the law unfairly subjects homeless offenders to a life sentence if they fail register a home address.

The case involves William James Santos, a homeless man and convicted sex offender who was kicked out of a Gainesville homeless shelter in July 2006 and was arrested three months later on charges he failed to register with Georgia's sex offender list.

His lawyers say the law creates a guessing game for Santos and other homeless offenders because it bars them from giving a post office box or simply saying they are homeless.

They also argue that homeless offenders will become a prime target for the measure's tough criminal penalties, which call for a mandatory life in prison sentence for offenders who fail to register their address for a second time.

"These sex offenders, unfortunate enough to have no street address, are subject to life in prison," said Adam Levin, an attorney for Santos. "This gives Mr. Santos and every other sex offender with no address no other right but to fail to comply with the law."

Prosecutors warn that allowing offenders to mark themselves as homeless risks defeating the purpose of the measure. It could "invite sex offenders to not enter a lease, not purchase a property, to declare themselves homeless," said assistant district attorney Vanessa Sykes.

Sykes also contended the law can be interpreted to give the homeless some leeway to mark down a temporary address, such as a shelter.

But that can lead to a cumbersome process. The homeless offenders who move from spot to spot every night would have to notify the local sheriff's department each time, she said.

"I guess, practically, sex offenders who are homeless should find places that are near sheriff's offices," offered Justice Carol Hunstein.

"Yes, and I'm sure sheriff's officers would appreciate that," Sykes responded.

The Santos challenge is among a growing number of cases targeting Georgia's sex offender law, which sponsors declared one of the toughest in the nation when it was adopted in 2006.

It bans sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather. That includes schools, churches, parks, gyms, swimming pools or one of the state's 150,000 school bus stops.

Since it was adopted, though, it has been under attack.

The Georgia Supreme Court last week heard arguments targeting the section that mandates a life prison sentence for sex offenders who twice fail to register. A federal lawsuit filed last month claims that a provision banning sex offenders from volunteering at churches is illegal. And federal courts are already considering challenges to provisions that would evict offenders who live near churches and school bus stops.

Santos' attorneys asked the court to declare the law illegal because it amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment." But they told the justices they hope the court's decision will at least give the homeless a "safety valve" to put down a general location, such as a street or a park.

"We're not asking for specific special treatment for the homeless," said Brett Willis, another Santos attorney. "We're just looking for a way to comply."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-07-georgia_N.htm

Posted by lois at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

MA: Update on CORI Reform & Governor's Executive Order

Update on CORI Reform & Governor's Executive Order

July 17th, 2008 10AM
Boston City Hall - Piemonte Room
5th floor

The Massachusetts Alliance to Reform CORI, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and the Boston Worker's Alliance have actively engaged the Executive office on Health and Human Services in crafting language that implements fair CORI hiring practices inline with Governor Deval Patrick's Executive Order "Regarding the Use and Dissemination of Criminal Offender Record Information by the Executive Department."

On July 17th at 10AM in the Piedmont Room on the 5th floor of Boston City Hall you will be updated on the current status of the amended employment practices and polices requested by Governor Deval Patrick's Executive Order.

In his Executive Order Governor Patrick mandated "Each agency in the Executive Department shall examine and, if necessary, amend its employment practices and policies to reflect the policy set forth in this Section.."

The order in part states:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Deval L. Patrick, Governor of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by virtue of the authority vested in
me by the ConstittioPna, rt 2. c. 2, § 1, Art. 1, do hereby order as
follows:
Section 1. It shall be the policy of the Executive Department
with respect to employment decisions that a criminal background
check will only occur, and its results will only be considered, in those
instances where a current or prospective employee shall have been
deemed otherwise qualified and the content of a criminal record is
relevant to the duties and qualifications of the position in question.
Such instances will include, without limitation, those in which a
criminal conviction creates a statutory disqualification for the posi.tion,
or the position requires interaction with vulnerable populations and a
criminal background check is necessary to ensure that the applicant
does not pose a public safety risk.

In implementing this policy, the employer should consider the
nature and circumstances of any past criminal conviction; the date of
the offense; the sentence imposed and the length of any period of
incarceration; any reasonably available information concerning
compliance with conditions of parole or probation, including orders of
no contact with victims and witnesses; the individual's conduct and
experience in the time since .the offense, including, but not limited to,
educational or professional certifications obtained since the time of
the offense or other evidence of rehabilitation; and the relevance of
the conviction to .the duties and qualifications of the position in
question. Charges that did not result in a conviction will be
considered only in circumstances in which the nature of the charge
relates to sexual or domestic violence against adults or children,
consistent with Executive Order No. 491, Establishing a Policy of
Zero Tolerance for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, or
otherwise indicates that the matter has relevance to the duties and
responsibilities of the position in question.

Each agency in the Executive Department shall examine and, if
necessary, amend its employment practices and policies to reflect the
policy set forth in this Section and in Executive Order No. 491. The
Secretary of each Executive Office shall be responsible for ensuring
that each agency within her Secretariat conducts this review. All
Secretaries shall report to the Commonwealth's Chief Human
Resources Officer the results of their review and the steps taken to
comply with this policy no later than March 31, 2008. Thereafter, the
Chief Human Resources Officer shall take whatever actions are
necessary and appropriate to ensure that this policy is implemented
fully.

Section 2. The EOHHS, in consultation with agencies under
the Secretariat and the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance,
shall promulgate a consolidated set of regulations that provide clear
guidelines to be followed by EOHHS and its agencies, as well as their
vendor programs, when reviewing the criminal records of current or
prospective employees.
Without compromising the Secretariat's commitment to ensure
the safety and security of .the vulnerable populations it serves, the
EOHHS regulations shall ensure rehabilitated individuals with criminal
backgrounds be given a fair opportunity to be employed and
reintegrate successfully into the workforce.
The EOHHS regulations shall ensure that the rights of current
and prospective employees are protected by (a) providing individuals
with information regarding EOHHS hiring policies and procedures
regarding CORl and individuals' rights to dispute the accuracy and
relevancy of any CORI; (b) creating a systematic means for
employers to document all factors taken into consideration, including
evidence of rehabilitation, in making employment decisions; (c)
specifying strong penalties for vendors that fail to comply with any
requirement; and (d) streamlining and simplifying,

Posted by lois at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)

Boston Globe: Making a start on CORI

Making start on CORI
By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist | July 8, 2008

The idea of making it easier for convicts to get jobs has always been a tough sell at the State House.

But even though the Legislature appears almost militantly opposed to passing bills this session, there is a good chance that some changes are in store for the much-maligned Criminal Offender Record Information law, better known as CORI.

Reform would be too strong a description, especially for legislation that has literally been years in coming. The finished product will shorten the period before records are sealed and may make it easier for those who are arrested, but not convicted, to have their record cleared.

People hoping for more are frustrated by what it will not include. Advocates were especially hopeful that employers could be banned from asking applicants right off the bat whether they had ever been convicted of crimes. Employers would have been able to ask about criminal history later in the process.

Most of all, they worry that if a watered-down bill is passed this session, the Legislature will not revisit the issue for years. "It is a major concern, because we know that CORI has not been touched in any significant way in decades," said Aaron Tanaka of the Boston Workers Alliance, which has taken a leading role in lobbying for the bill.

There isn't much dispute in the Legislature that CORI needs fixing, but there is vast disagreement over what is wrong with the law and how to repair it. Before Governor Deval Patrick essentially seized control of the issue, there were more than two dozen bills on file purporting to address it. Some would ease access to records, some would limit it. While the warring bills have been eliminated, the factions that produced them remain vital.

Representative Eugene O'Flaherty, the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told me he worries that a flurry of competing and contradictory amendments could still sink efforts to change the law. He said he hopes to persuade his colleagues to stick as closely as possible to the legislation as written.

I realize many people view CORI as a remote issue. But the reality is that almost everyone convicted of a crime will eventually reenter the work force or will try to. There is strong argument for making that path easier than it is now.

One of the great complications in reforming CORI, as O'Flaherty points out, is that different kinds of employers have different needs. Obviously, employers in areas affecting public safety, for example, need to know the background of the people they are hiring, and they may as well know right up front. Some would argue that in other areas, a long-ago conviction for a relatively minor infraction is less crucial. But crafting a bill that takes every possibility into account is impossible. Flaherty says he hopes to persuade legislators to buy into this bill as a first step, which can be refined down the road.

CORI is interesting because it mirrors our whole conflicted view of how to deal with people who commit crime. We struggle with whether we really believe in rehabilitation, whether we want convicts living down the street, whether we want them as co-workers, whether a debt to society is ever really paid.

The bill O'Flaherty is proposing will include several provisions unrelated to CORI, including one that would ease penalties for first-time drug offenders arrested in school zones.

"My whole district is a school zone," notes O'Flaherty, whose district includes Chelsea and Charlestown. "I don't think someone arrested at 3 a.m. should necessarily go to prison because they are arrested within 1,000 feet of a school." Yes, O'Flaherty is a defense lawyer, as many will no doubt point out.

This bill doesn't solve every problem with criminal records, but some action is preferable to the lip service this issue has received to date. Helping criminal offenders restart their lives is no simple task. One hopes that the governor and the Legislature are sincere when they suggest that this bill is just a start, rather than the last word, on how we plan to treat people with prison in their past.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/08/making_start_on_cori?mode=PF

Posted by lois at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008

The Sentencing Project's response to George Will's Column: "More Prisons, Less Crime"

The Sentencing Project
www.sentencingproject.org

Do More Prisoners Equal Less Crime? A Response to George Will

In a recent syndicated column (“More Prisons, Less Crime,” Washington Post, June 22, 2008), commentator George Will argues that the world record incarceration rate in the United States has produced safer streets and has been beneficial in particular to African Americans, who are disproportionately victims of crime. Will’s selective use of data and limited vision provide an inaccurate portrayal of current criminal justice policy and its effects. Following is an assessment of some of the key arguments raised in the column.

“Liberalism likes victimization narratives and the related assumption that individuals are blank slates on which ’society’ writes. Hence liberals locate the cause of crime in flawed social conditions that liberalism supposedly can fix.”

Decades of research documents that people in low-income, minority communities are at greater risk of entering the criminal justice system because of the paucity of prevention programs, early intervention programs, and alternatives to incarceration. While privately run social services programs are widely available in most middle and upper class communities, their limited presence where they are most needed means that the first “intervention” that those less fortunate encounter is often prison.

Evidence-based social programs that address the contributing factors to crime have been demonstrated to be more cost-effective than incarceration. Research shows that quality preschool programs can save the public $17 for each dollar that is invested. Other programs with documented cost-effectiveness include initiatives to improve high school graduation rates and a variety of substance abuse treatment strategies.

“…Obama said that ‘more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities.’ Actually, there are more than twice as many black men ages 18 to 24 in college as there are in jail.”

Will is technically correct that Senator Obama misspoke in his reference to young black men, as opposed to black men of all ages. But current and projected rates of incarceration for black men are indeed dramatic. One of every nine black males in the age group 20-34 is in prison or jail on any given day, and if current trends continue one of every three black males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.

“…from 1999 to 2004, violent offenders accounted for all of the increase in the prison population”

Will is both wrong and misleading on this statistic. First, the violent offense proportion of the state prison population increase, 75%, was substantial, but did not account for “all of the increase.” More importantly, the crisis of incarceration in the U.S. did not begin in 1999. In fact, the incarcerated population has been rising at a dramatic rate for more than three decades. The combined prison and jail population has risen by more than 600% since 1972, increasing from 300,000 to 2.3 million today. A longer term view of the rise in the prison and jail population shows that changes in drug policy have been most significant in contributing to this expansion. From 1980 to today, the number of drug offenders in prison and jail has risen by 1100%, from 41,000 to 500,000.

“In the overwhelming majority of cases, prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending. Absent recidivism or a violent crime, the criminal-justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the state or federal slammer.”

The unprecedented rise in the prison population described above was brought about primarily as a result of changes in policy, not crime rates. State and federal legislatures passed numerous “tough on crime” laws intended to put more people in prison and keep them there longer than in the past. An analysis of incarceration patterns between 1980 and 2001 by noted criminologists Alfred Blumstein and Allen Beck concluded that fluctuations in crime rates played no role in the 316% growth in imprisonment. The researchers found that the entire growth was related to changes in sentencing policy, with 53% attributable to an increased likelihood of incarceration following an arrest and 47% resulting from increased time served in prison.

“But [Heather] Mac Donald cites studies of charging and sentencing that demonstrate that the reason more blacks are disproportionately in prison, and for longer terms, is not racism but racial differences in patterns of criminal offending.”

While differential crime offending is one contributing factor to racial disparities in prison, a wealth of research documents that it only explains a portion of the patterns in imprisonment. A comprehensive review of research in the field conducted for the National Institute of Justice concluded that "race and ethnicity do play an important role in contemporary sentencing decisions. Black and Hispanic offenders -- and particularly those who are young, male, or unemployed -- are more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced to prison; in some jurisdictions, they also receive longer sentences...than do similarly situated white offenders."

“As for the charge that the incarceration rate of blacks is substantially explained by more severe federal sentences for crack as opposed to powder-cocaine defendants…[citing Mac Donald] ‘it’s going to take a lot more than 5,000 or so [federal] crack defendants a year to account for the 562,000 black prisoners in state and federal facilities at the end of 2006.’”

The movement to reform federal penalties for crack cocaine offenses is not based on the assumption that these policies represent the entire problem of disparity in the criminal justice system. Instead, as respected organizations including the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the American Bar Association have documented, the crack penalties are both ineffective as drug policy and contribute to unwarranted racial disparities. They are also representative of many of the misguided policies and practices of the “war on drugs,” which has resulted in over-incarceration of low-level offenders and disproportionate targeting of communities of color.

“ . . . 10 years of scholarly studies ‘have shown that states that sent a higher fraction of convicts to prison had lower rates of crime . . . [a] high risk of punishment reduces crime. Deterrence works.’”

The relationship between incarceration and crime is far more complicated than is suggested by this quote. During the 1990s, a time of historic declines in crime, there was no discernible correlation between incarceration rates and criminal offending. Between 1991 and 1998, states with above average increases in the rate of incarceration (72%) experienced a 13% decrease in crime rates. But states with below average increases in the rate of incarceration (30%) actually experienced a greater decline in crime rates, 17%. During this time the notable “tough on crime” state of Texas experienced a 144% rise in incarceration between 1991 and 1998, and its crime rate fell 35%. However, New York’s crime rate declined by a greater extent, 43%, during this period, despite an increase of incarceration of only 24%. New York continues to experience historic lows in crime while its prison population continues to decline, and there is widespread discussion of closing four prisons in the state because of excess capacity.

In truth, imprisonment has only played a limited role in reducing crime. An analysis of the drop in crime during the 1990s estimated that the growth of imprisonment accounted for about one-quarter of the decline in violent crime. Other contributing factors likely included a growing economy, changes in drug market dynamics, strategic policing, and community engagement in crime prevention efforts. While imprisonment may work at some level to reduce crime through deterrence and incapacitation, there is little evidence supporting the deterrent effect of increasingly longer prison sentences. Research suggests that any deterrent effect is more a function of the certainty of punishment, not the severity.

“‘Deterrence works.’ [Quoting Heather MacDonald] It works especially on behalf of blacks, who are disproportionately the victims of crimes by black men.”

While prison has had only a limited impact on crime, it is increasingly resulting in negative consequences for individuals, families, and communities. As a result of mass incarceration there are now 1.5 million children with a parent in prison, including 1 in 14 African American children.

African American communities are also affected by the challenges of reentry for the 700,000 people leaving prison each year. Many persons leaving prison are ill-equipped to handle life on the outside because they have received few services for mental health, substance abuse, education, and vocational skill-building programming while incarcerated.

Upon leaving prison or jail, individuals encounter a tangle of legal restrictions which severely limit their ability to become productive members of society. In addition to longstanding barriers to employment and education, in recent years policymakers have enacted a host of restrictions, many applying solely to drug offenders. These include a federal ban on welfare and food stamps for those with a felony drug conviction, a federal mandate that limits access to public housing, and restrictions on student loans for higher education.

An estimated 5.3 million individuals are unable to vote because of laws that deny this fundamental right to participate in the democratic process to those with felony convictions. These restrictions fall disproportionately on African Americans, with13% of black males currently unable to vote. These policies affect black communities as a whole, whereby even persons who are not disenfranchised experience vote dilution as a result of high rates of legal disenfranchisement in their communities.

Conclusion

Issues of crime and justice are critical ones for all Americans. As such, we need to encourage a national dialogue on promoting safety that assesses the appropriate balance of approaches among prevention, strengthening communities, and criminal justice sanctions. For more than three decades our nation has made unprecedented investments in prison expansion at the expense of other policy options. We now need a national dialogue that is centered on evidence-based research regarding the relative effectiveness of various interventions. Such a dialogue would produce better public safety outcomes for all Americans.

June 28, 2008

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

June 25, 2008

MA CORI Reform Update

June 24, 2008
MA CORI Reform Update
The following information regarding the status of CORI legislation is based on an update by Aaron Tanaka of the Boston Worker's Alliance (BWA), an organizational member of the Mass. Alliance to Reform CORI to which CJCP belongs. There are four sections:

1) New Health and Human Services Regulations
2) Urgent CORI Bill Update
3) Call for Action!
4) Fact Sheets and Background

1) Executive Office of Health and Human Service (EOHHS) CORI regulations

In January of 2008, Governor Deval Patrick signed Executive Order No. 495 "Regarding the Use and Dissemination of Criminal Record Information." The campaign to secure an Executive Order on CORI was led by the BWA, the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner along with the CJPC. While broader efforts for CORI reform were still stalled in the legislature, advocates pressed Patrick to make good on his campaign promises to take timely and meaningful action on CORI. While the Executive Order and the proposed CORI bill falls short of the Governor's lofty campaign rhetoric, several key provisions will have positive, broad scale impacts for job seekers across the Commonwealth.

Within the Executive Order, three central reforms have been identified as key victories for the CORI reform movement.

CORI Reform Update

The first major reform is a requirement for employers receiving CORI reports to complete training on how to properly read the records. CORI reports are written in difficult to decipher code and employers are often unable to distinguish between cases that were dismissed or found not guilty and those resulting in a conviction. A single incident also often results in multiple entries on a CORI, leading employers who are unable to read records to assume that the applicant was arrested more than once. Under the new regulations, employers must pass a written examination on reading a CORI before being certified to receive the sensitive data.

A second major reform will create Fair Hiring policies for all state agencies that hire public workers. Through the Executive Order, a CORI check can only be conducted after an applicant has received an interview and is considered otherwise qualified for the position. The Executive Order moves the CORI check to the last step in the hiring process, and prevents applicants from being weeded out before having their resume, references and motivation considered. As the largest employer in the Commonwealth, these changes to the state's internal hiring policies will have broad implications for tens of thousands of government jobs.

Third, the Executive Order broadly reformed regulations that prevent those with CORI from working in health and human service fields. Previous Health and Human Service regulations required employers to follow a crime table that disqualified many CORI applicants from work. Additinally, an employer was only allowed to hire people with certain CORIs by obtaining a positive letter from a law enforcement agent or by paying a certified counselor for a mental health evaluation of the applicant. This impractical requirement had effectively barred qualified health care professionals with CORI from obtaining work.

Changes to the Executive Office of Health and Human Service regulations have now reopened this large employment sector to those with criminal records. The new regulations remove the assumed disqualification of those with CORI, and instruct health agencies to only consider misdemeanors that are less than 5 years old and felonies that under 10 years old. The requirement to obtain a letter from law enforcement or from a therapist has also been removed, and a number of crimes have been removed from the crime tables. New EOHHS are also expected to remove the criminal record check box from initial job applications forms.

These EOHHS regulations affect 495 state health and human service agencies, and also apply to the tens of thousands of businesses and agencies that receive contracts from the Health and Human Services Department. In total, the new CORI friendly regulations will affect over 180,000 employees in the human services field across the Commonwealth.

2) Urgent CORI Bill Update

The state legislature is planning to bring a CORI reform bill to a vote before the end of this session. If a bill does not pass before summer recess on July 31st, no new reforms will be considered until 2009. Currently, CORI reform has been stalled in the Judiciary Committee chaired by State Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty (D., Chelsea,) and State Senator Robert Creedon (D., Brockton). The next month represents a critical window to gain desperately needed reforms.

Sealing Old CORI

The Judiciary Committee has settled on Governor Patrick's timid recommendations to reduce the sealing periods to 5 years for misdemeanor and 10 years for a felony from the current 10 years for misdemeanor and 15 or felony. Because the forthcoming bill does not go far enough, the Mass Alliance to Reform CORI continues to build legislative support for 3 and 7 years respectively and will introduce an amendment once a bill is released.

"Ban the Box"

The Chairs are still undecided regarding whether to include our key demand to remove the CORI question from all initial job application forms. Divulging a criminal history in an initial application discourages employers from considering resumes, references or relevance of the offense.

Based solely on the job form, employers are 50% less likely to offer interviews to white applicants and 64% less likely to callback black applicants with a record (Statistics from the BWA factsheet. See below for a more complete discussion.) Ending upfront discrimination by banning the box would visibly improve job access for residents across the state.

As O'Flaherty and Creedon are still undecided on this provision, widespread public pressure can help ensure that the "ban the box" is included in the upcoming bill. Boston and Cambridge have already removed the criminal question from job applications, and we are calling on the state to expand those model guidelines to all Massachusetts employers.

3) Call for Action!

* Call your legislators and tell them to support CORI Reform. Ask your representative to speak with Chairman O'Flaherty in support of removing the criminal history question from all initial job applications and moving the bill out of committee with a positive recommendation.

Find out who your state representative is at www.wheredoivotema.com / then call the State House operator at (617) 722-2000 to get connected.

* Target the following key decision makers. Write an email, make a phone call or request a meeting! We are a grassroots coalition, so please gather your friends or share your organizational clout to help influence these key politicians.

Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty - 617 722-2396 / :Rep.GeneOFlaherty@Hou.State.MA.US
"Please remove the criminal record question from all initial job application forms. Employers should only consider criminal records for applicants who are otherwise qualified for the job. "

Speaker Sal DiMasi - 617 722-2500 / Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@Hou.State.MA.US
"Please ensure that a CORI bill is passed this session before summer recess. Reduce the sealing period to 3 and 7 and take the CORI question off of all job applications."

Governor Deval Patrick - 617 725-4005/ Governor Patrick email -
"Please fulfill your campaign promises and your public commitment to pass CORI reform this year. Ensure that the criminal record question is removed from all initial job application forms."

Please email info@cjpc.org to let us know what you have done and any response you receive so we can track legislators. If you need help in meeting with your legislator, call Joel Pentlarge, CJPC Interim Executive Director at 617-426-5222 or Jpentlarge@cjpc.org .

Please help spread the word and thank you for supporting this grassroots movement for jobs, dignity and justice. The time for change is now!

4) Fact Sheets and Background

(a) Remove the Question from Initial Job Applications

The proposed amendment removes the criminal record question from initial jobs application forms. This measure encourages employers to consider the skills and qualifications of an applicant before considering the existence of a criminal history. Removing the criminal record question from initial job applications alters the timing of a criminal record inquiry, but does not limit an employers' access to such information.

Employers who use job applications to screen ex-offenders must delay criminal record inquires until after the applicant is interviewed and deemed otherwise qualified for a position.

According to the BWA employers who use initial employment applications to screen ex-offenders have grown from 56% in 1996 to over 80% of all employers in 2004. Once someone with a CORI record self-reports a criminal history on a job application, most employers will not consider resumes, references or personal character. Based solely on the criminal record question, employers are 50% less likely to offer interviews to white applicants and 64% less likely to interview black applicants. This type of job discrimination effectively bans people with CORIs from most entry-level jobs, and causes employers to overlook skilled members of our workforce.

In 2004-2005 Boston instituted model CORI reforms by removing the criminal history question from all municipal job applications and requiring over 8,000 private city vendors to also revise their application forms. Following Boston's lead, cities across the country including Cambridge, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Austin, San Francisco, and Oakland removed the question from job applications and moved criminal history inquiries to the last step in the hiring process. Any state level CORI reform should begin with the expansion of the Boston and Cambridge successful hiring model to all Massachusetts state, municipal and private employers.

(b) Reduce the Waiting Period to Seal CORIs

Reduce the sealing period of CORI reports to 3 years for misdemeanors and 7 years for felonies after court supervision is complete.

Studies across the country by state Departments of Corrections show rates of recidivism are high in the first two years after release, but are significantly lower in the third year, and approach zero risk by the fifth year. Someone who has not re-offended within 7 years have less than a 1% recidivism rate.. "Almost half (47%) of inmates who recidivated did so within one year of being released; by 18 months after release, 67percent of those who recidivated had returned to prison."(Massachusetts Recidivism Study, pg.2) Those individuals who have not re-offended within 7 years have less than a 1% recidivism rate..

Key elements of the proposed amendments are:

· Law enforcement agencies as well as agencies that work with vulnerable populations would maintain access to sealed records.

· Records can only remain sealed if a person does not violate the law again. Any new conviction revives the old convictions, and restarts the waiting period.

· Sex offense records and crimes against children would not be changed by this proposal

Other States

Other states have adopted sealing periods that are significantly shorter than the current Massachusetts waiting time of 10 years for a misdemeanor and 15 years for a felony. Massachusetts should join other states and adopt CORI reform that increases the opportunities for people with CORI records to become fully integrated members of society.

Sample States:

· Michigan: An individual convicted of no more than one offense can have the conviction record set aside 5 years after imposition or completion of sentence, whichever is later. Certain traffic offenses, certain sexual offenses, and some serious offenses cannot be sealed. (In Massachusetts, traffic offenses which carry no incarceration penalty are not a part of CORI, according to CMR 803.203)

· Utah: 15 years for certain multiple "class B and C" misdemeanors, 10 years for alcohol- or drug related traffic offense; otherwise 7 years for most felonies and 3-5 years for a misdemeanor. .

· Oregon: Except for certain violent, sexual, and traffic offenses, many adult convictions may be sealed after 3 years after the completion of the sentence, including class C felonies, misdemeanors for which imprisonment may be imposed.

· Ohio: Non-convictions can be sealed. First offenders may apply to have their record expunged 3 years after a felony conviction, or 1 year after a misdemeanor conviction. Except for murder and certain sexual offenses, juvenile adjudications of unruliness and delinquency may be sealed after 2 years have elapsed since discharge.

Reducing the long waiting period to seal CORIs promotes the idea that employers should only access records that matter, and to the degree that it increases employment of those with criminal records, and employment of ex-offenders is major factor in reducing recidivism which reduces crime.

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

June 23, 2008

Faith takes a leap in jailhouse conversions. New programs test theory that religion can salvage "criminals"

"Bolstered by President Bush's recent signing of the Second Chance Act, which promises more money for faith-based programs to help rehabilitate prisoners,corrections officials and religious volunteers are testing the largely unproven theory that faith can not only salvage criminals, but ‹ in the long run ‹ make the rest of us safer, too."

June 22, 2008
Faith takes a leap in jailhouse conversions
New programs test theory that religion can salvage "criminals"
By KEVIN SIMPSON
Denver Post
DENVER — Like countless others before him, Jonathan Willis rediscovered God in the solitude of a jail cell, 10 months after he'd been thrown into the Adams County lockup to await trial for murder.

The blur of his crimes crystallized: The coke binge, the break-in, the brutal beating. Then desperation, arrest and, once in jail, the hell-raising that landed him in solitary.

"It went from dream to reality," recalls Willis, 25. "When you reflect, with all the distraction cut away, you're left with the core of life — what matters."

He cried out to God, who answered with a challenge to get serious about his faith. He read the Bible, and the words spoke to him anew. His heart changed.

It was a classic jailhouse conversion.

"It's natural to reach out to God in a period of duress," said Michael Spotts, a volunteer assistant chaplain at the Adams County facility who witnessed the change in Willis. "The thing that tinges the jailhouse conversion with cynicism is that people like Jonathan killed someone. It's inexcusable, horrible. But the genuineness of conversion can be found in absolute confession of what was done wrong, a seeking of repentance."

Spiritual transformation
Against the advice of his lawyer, Willis pled guilty, knowing that he was essentially sentencing himself to life without the possibility of parole.

His spiritual transformation began a chain reaction that already has touched others locked up around him. And, in a broader sense, it touched on a concept of faith-based rehabilitation that's gaining traction as a burgeoning prison population now is going back into the community.

Bolstered by President Bush's recent signing of the Second Chance Act, which promises more money for faith-based programs to help rehabilitate prisoners, corrections officials and religious volunteers are testing the largely unproven theory that faith can not only salvage criminals, but — in the long run — make the rest of us safer, too.

Nearly 700,000 inmates return to the community each year nationwide.

Faith and prisons have been intertwined since the dawn of corrections, with criminal behavior often addressed as a moral issue. But church-and-state legal concerns temper the search for new faith-based ways to attack recidivism, which approaches 70 percent, according to one Department of Justice report.

A new solution?
In Colorado, a volunteer network of chaplains offers 216 programs and the Department of Corrections recognizes 36 faiths. Although those traditions range from Asatru, a polytheistic Norse religion, to Native American rituals to nature-based Wicca, the vast majority of volunteers represent Christian denominations.

Credible research on the effectiveness of faith-based programs remains sparse and inconclusive. But corrections experts and volunteers agree that such efforts, coupled with education, counseling and other therapies, could be part of the solution.

"I get asked all the time what's the best predictor of success when somebody's coming out of prison," says Ari Zavaras, executive director of Colorado's DOC. "Without question, if somebody had a true spiritual conversion — not the jailhouse kind that gets all the jokes, but the kind where they develop a spiritual base — I'd be almost able to bet a year's pay without worry that they're not going to re-offend."

On a pleasant spring evening, about 70 offenders — roughly half the inmates at the minimum-security Camp George West in Golden — crowd a concrete-floored gymnasium to take in two hours of music, humor, feats of strength and Christian testimony.

Strongman and ex-con Mike Benson, who experienced his own jailhouse conversion, takes the stage and proceeds to tear a deck of cards in half, twist a horseshoe into an "S," roll a frying pan into a burrito shape and snap a wooden baseball bat.

After breaking the bat, he briefly holds the two pieces before him to form a cross.

"Before I knew Jesus, this was malicious destruction of property," jokes Benson. "Now, it's ministry."

Prison Fellowship Ministries claims more than 22,000 volunteers at 1,800 institutions.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5849277.html

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June 21, 2008

Jamie Fellner: Onward and Ever Upward -- But Not in a Good Way

June 21, 2008
Onward and Ever Upward -- But Not in a Good Way
Huffington Post
by Jamie Fellner
NEW YORK -- Two new federal reports highlight the profound disconnect in the United States between crime and punishment.

According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the US prison and jail population has now grown to all-time high of 2.3 million. The United States not only incarcerates the greatest number of people in the world, it also incarcerates at the highest rate: last year 762 out of every 100,000 people in the United States were behind bars, a rate five to ten times that of other western democracies.

The endlessly growing rate of incarceration does not, however, reflect growing rates of crime. The newest FBI crime report shows that violent and property crime declined last year, and remain near historical low levels. Indeed, over the last two decades, prison populations have grown steadily regardless of whether crime was up or down, and for some years now the trend has been down.

So why the never-ending prison growth?

The short answer is that for at least a quarter of a century American criminal justice policies have not been very sensible. Prison should be used parsimoniously, reserved for those who have committed such dangerous or egregious crimes that imprisonment is the only commensurate response. Using prisons this way would protect the public, save money and meet human rights requirements.

But this is not how US prisons are utilized. Three ill-considered policies drive incarceration rates.

First: the war on drugs. Launched more than two decades ago, it is still going strong. About one third of all people entering prison with new sentences were convicted of drug charges. Few of them are kingpins or major traffickers. US prisons are swollen with men and women who sell drugs at the retail level or have menial jobs in the drug business as couriers or lookouts. More than two decades of punitive drug policies should have taught the nation a few things: That as long as a demand for drugs exists, there will be a supply. That aggressive drug law enforcement has little effect on the proportion of adults who regularly use hard drugs or even marijuana. That for every low-level drug seller sent to prison, someone else will take his or her job. Unfortunately, politicians seem to be slow learners: they continue to fund this futile and costly war rather than embracing effective and less expensive public health and harm reduction approaches to drug use.

Second: draconian sentencing laws. Politicians running on "tough on crime" platforms in the 1980s and 90s ratcheted up prison sentences by adopting a spate of laws that require imprisonment even for low-level nonviolent crimes and that require long sentences based on one or two criteria - for instance, weight of drugs sold, or a prior record. But in 2008, who really believes a life sentence makes sense for someone whose third offense consists of stealing some videos from Kmart? Who really believes that selling a small quantity of drugs to an adult should yield a decade or more behind bars?

Third: punitive parole practices. Last year, 240,000 people entered prison because their parole had been revoked, about one third of the total incoming population. Parole should be a time of supervision and support to enable former offenders to get their lives together. But too often it's a game of "gotcha." In most cases parole is revoked not because the parolee committed a new crime (although that happens) but because he or she failed urine tests for drug use, did not come to treatment meetings, or in some other way committed a technical violation of the conditions of parole. Offenders on parole should be held accountable for not complying with parole requirements. But there are cheaper and more productive ways to encourage compliance than automatic returns to prison.

The extraordinary rate of incarceration in the US is not necessary to protect the public -- community-based sanctions and treatment for addiction would be even more effective at reducing most kinds of nonviolent crime and at far less cost. Meanwhile, the unnecessary incarceration of Americans damages individuals (few are better off for being in prison), families (children suffer when parents are sent away) and communities (the social capital of already vulnerable communities is further frayed by high incarceration rates.)

People who care about racial justice have spoken up to challenge a prison population that is overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. People who believe punishment should fit the crime have spoken up to criticize unduly severe sentences.

But Americans who are concerned about taxes and who want a sound return on public investments, including criminal justice investments, have remained silent in the face of the needlessly expanding, wildly expensive ($49 billion last year) prison population. It is time for them to speak up too. Until they do, the prison population may just continue endlessly and senselessly upward.

Jamie Fellner is senior counsel at Human Rights Watch and author of numerous works on US criminal justice policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-fellner/onward-and-ever-upward_b_108382.
html

Posted by lois at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2008

NY Times Editorial: A Court for Veterans

June 4, 2008
Editorial, NY Times
A Court for Veterans

There is a small bright spot on the normally bleak terrain for military veterans who return home and fall into addiction, mental illness and crime. Buffalo has established a specialized court to give veterans and their family members, mainly those accused of nonviolent crimes, a chance to avoid jail and rebuild their lives.

The program — the only one in the country, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs — operates on the same principles of temperate justice and guided rehabilitation that govern “drug courts” and “mental-health courts,” which have been strikingly successful around the country in reducing crime, saving money and repairing lives.

Buffalo’s experiment, profiled in USA Today, began after a city court judge, Robert Russell, and his office noticed more veterans, many with drug and psychiatric problems, coming through the system. It offers defendants a chance to stay out of jail or avoid more serious charges in return for entering addiction or mental health treatment and taking other steps to right their lives.

The court also puts the sturdy bonds of military service to good use. It enlists other veterans as volunteer mentors to help overcome participants’ resistance to treatment and “to point them in the right direction,” as one mentor told the newspaper.

Other cities would do well to study and learn from Buffalo’s experiment, and the federal government should do more to help, with grants for programs that direct troubled people out of the prison stream and into life-saving treatment. The effectiveness of alternative-sentencing programs is no longer in question, and the nation’s responsibility to its veterans and their families is undeniable.

For soldiers, mental trauma and debilitating stress are part of the job description. When former soldiers go astray, they deserve all the creativity and support the system can muster to get them back where they began: clean, sober and on the right the side of the law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/opinion/04wed4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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

NC: Hotels could be used to house people convicted of sex offenses

Jun 03, 2008
Hotels could house sex offenders
Public would pay for temporary stays
Charlotte News and Observer
Dan Kane, Staff Writer
Tough new laws preventing pedophiles, rapists and other sex offenders from living near schools, child-care centers and parks have made it hard for some to find housing when they leave prison.

It has become so difficult, state prison officials say, that they want to put them up temporarily in hotels at public expense.

A provision in a state budget bill that could be voted on this week would let prison officials spend public money on hotel rooms or other temporary housing to prevent them from wandering the streets. It's cheaper than keeping sex offenders in prison, where the average annual cost of housing and feeding an inmate is about $26,000.

Some lawmakers learned about the proposal late last week when House leaders rolled out portions of their budget proposal.

"It was just a shock," said Rep. Pat Hurley, an Asheboro Republican.

State prison officials, though, say they are out of options.

It's not just that prisons are full. Prison officials say some sex offenders are finding it so hard to find a place to stay once they are paroled that they eventually give up and serve the remainder of their sentence behind bars. That happened 10 days ago when a sex offender's housing plans fell through -- he was rejected from a homeless shelter -- and no other alternative could be found, Correction Department spokesman Keith Acree said.

The inmate decided to spend the remaining nine months of his sentence in prison, at a cost of about $19,000 to taxpayers. Prison officials say about a half dozen others have chosen the same option in the past 18 months.

"We're certainly not saying these are bad laws," said Mary Lu Rogers, an assistant prisons director. "We're saying it adds to the complexity of finding a place for them to live."

Girl's death a spur

In 2006, lawmakers prohibited sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or child-care center. The law was part of a flurry of legislation in many states after a convicted pedophile murdered a 9-year-old girl in Florida.

Some communities have passed ordinances preventing sex offenders from living near parks, and judges often require sex offenders on parole or probation to avoid living in a home with children.

Those actions, along with improved online registries that show where sex offenders live, have stigmatized them to the point where places such as the home of a relative or a homeless shelter are no longer options, prison officials say.

Acree said he is not anticipating the state will start paying hotel bills for hundreds of released sex offenders if the provision becomes law. But hundreds of sex offenders are released from North Carolina prisons each year.

As of Friday, there were 5,280 inmates in state prisons convicted of offenses that would require them to register as sex offenders. Last year, the system released 1,460 sex offenders. State law defines more than 25 crimes as sex offenses. Many involve children, but some include adult victims.

'Benefit for ... public'

Correction Department officials said they went to the leaders of the budget subcommittee that oversees justice and public safety spending two weeks ago. They are Democrat Reps. Alice Bordsen of Mebane and Jimmy Love of Sanford. Bordsen said she and Love included the provision because it does not add to the budget and it provides officials a better opportunity to monitor sex offenders on parole than releasing them to the streets.

"It's not a benefit to the released offender," Bordsen said. "It's a benefit for the general public."

The one-paragraph provision does not mention hotels. Nor does it specifically mention sex offenders. It simply says the Correction Department may use "funds available" to "secure appropriate temporary housing for offenders on post-release supervision, probation, or parole."

It also says the department may contract with "homeless shelters, halfway houses, and other housing providers to provide temporary housing for offenders who do not have a viable home placement plan and are at risk of being homeless."

If housing can't be found in shelters or halfway houses, prison officials would turn to hotels, particularly those that offer reduced rates for extended stays. Those hotels are less likely to cater to families, Acree said. Sex offenders would be required to notify local sheriffs.

Acree said some homeless shelters have started refusing sex offenders out of fear that donations and public funds would dry up.

Robert Harris, executive director of the Zion Shelter and Kitchen in Washington, said the shelter continues to accept sex offenders whose victims are adults, but not pedophiles. The 12-bed shelter for men changed its policy two weeks ago after a parole official warned that it had a liability problem accepting pedophiles. The shelter is in the basement of a church that has youth programs on the weekends.

Harris said he has never had a problem with anyone released to his shelter from state prison in the shelter's 22-year history.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/story/1094282.html

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

June 02, 2008

Can New York Break Its Incarceration Habit?

Despite these signs of success, New York is subject to the same difficult policy and practical challenges faced all over the country. "Parole is hard," said Horn. "It really gets deep into social and psychological factors [of parolees], and operates in a world where there are so many factors outside of its control." For now, one of those factors seems to be New York State's commitment to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prisons -- even without the prisoners to fill them.

Gotham Gazette
Can New York Break Its Incarceration Habit?
by Aubrey Fox
02 Jun 2008

It’s an experiment that has arguably run its course.

In the last 20 years, states across the country have quadrupled their spending on jails and prisons from $11 billion in 1987 to $44 billion last year, while imprisoning 2.3 million individuals – or one in 100 American adults, according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. While some criminologists give incarceration partial credit for cutting crime in the 1990s, many argue that these public safety benefits are evaporating and that money for jails would be better spent in other areas such as health care and education.

Among policymakers and experienced corrections officials, there is a palpable sense of optimism that the political will exists to tackle the issue of mass imprisonment. To them, the Pew Center report’s eye-catching title, "One in 100," has helped focus a long-running debate about the fiscal and human costs of incarcerating so many Americans for so many years. "The report is engaging people who are normally not part of the conversation," said New York City’s Probation and Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn. "I think it’s created a real opportunity."

Even conservative states like Kansas and Texas are beginning to embrace prison reform, with legislators from both sides of the aisle coming together to make change. "There is a growing realization around the country that we can’t build our way out of the crime problem with more prisons," said Adam Gelb, one of the authors of the Pew report.
For New Yorkers this shift in attitude poses a number of questions. How will the state respond? Will it close the prisons that now play such a major role in the upstate economy? And, if the state does realize savings on prisons, how could that money best be used to further reduce crime?

The New York Exception

New York is exhibit number one for reformers who seek to reassure citizens that it is possible to cut crime and incarceration rates at the same time. Virtually alone among states, New York has seen the number of inmates in its prisons decline over the past decade. It has 9,000 fewer state prison inmates than it did 10 years ago, a 12 percent decrease, as crime rates have continued to drop. By the end of 2007, there were a total of 62,260 individuals in state prison. At the same time, the number of people held in New York City jails awaiting trial or imprisoned for a short period shrank from a high of 23,000 in 1993 to just over 13,000 in 2007.

These sharp drops have been driven largely by the city’s plunging felony arrest rate. Violent crime in New York City declined by 75 percent between 1991 and 2004. The city now sends about 8,000 inmates each year to the state’s prison system, down from 20,000, according to Michael Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice and a nationally known expert on incarceration.

Other parts of the correctional system have seen similar declines. In New York City, the number of individuals under probation supervision dropped from 50,870 in 1998 to 45,844 in 2007. The population on parole dropped by 18 percent over the same period for the state as a whole, fueled entirely by a dramatic, 30 percent decline in the number of parolees under supervision in New York City. That translates to 24,756 parolees in New York City in 2007, down from 35,286 in 1998. Probation is a city program that supervises offenders as an alternative to prison or jail. Parole, which in New York is run by the state, supervises offenders after they are released from state prison.

This drop has helped relieve pressure on New York’s budget at a time when other states are grappling with exploding incarceration rates. For example, California spends $8.8 billion a year on corrections, a staggering 216 percent increase in inflation-adjusted dollars over the last 20 years and 8.8 percent of the state’s budget, according to the Pew Center. By contrast, New York spends $2.6 billion on corrections, or 5.1 percent of the budget.
The Politics of Prison Closings

Despite the decline in prisoners, though, New York has had mixed success in meeting another challenge posed by prison reformers: shutting prisons and re-allocating the money spent on them to other uses, such as providing drug treatment, job training and other services to recently released prisoners.

If anything, the process of closing prisons has gotten harder, not easier, in recent years. For example, in 2006 the state legislature passed a bill requiring that employees must receive a year's notice before any prison can be closed.

Then in April Gov. David Patterson quietly withdrew his predecessor's plan to close four upstate prisons. The move would have saved taxpayers $70 million over the next two years, but was shelved in the face of objections from state Senate Republicans, many of whom represent upstate communities where the prisons are located.

The prison system is a $2.7 billion a year industry in New York State, concentrated in many upstate communities. As the economies of these areas have declined, the prisons have remained a source of jobs, income and people. While about two thirds of the prisoners in the state are from New York City, the U.S. Census counts them as residents of the place where they are incarcerated. This boosts the populations of many rural communities, giving them more votes in the legislature than they might otherwise have, along with other benefits.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer had attempted to neutralize political objections to prison closures by proposing that a state commission look into the issue in 2007. Modeled after the federal government's successful effort to shut excess military bases, the idea was the panel would present the legislature with a comprehensive plan that would be difficult to oppose.

The legislature, though, blocked that effort. Spitzer then turned to his state Department of Correctional Services. After what department spokesperson Erik Kriss has described as a "thorough internal review," officials proposed closing a medium security prison, the Hudson Correctional Facility in Columbia County, as well as three minimum security facilities. The department had even begun to transfer "a few dozen" employees out of the facilities slated for closure.

That was clearly premature. When the state budget was announced in April, it restored full funding for all four.

Advocates responded with outrage. "It’s really a jobs program for economically depressed communities," Robert Gangi, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, told the New York Times. Gangi holds out hope that Patterson will fight for prison closures in the future. He notes that Patterson has a record of opposing mass incarceration and was even arrested at a demonstration protesting the state's harsh drug laws in 2002. "Maybe [Patterson] will return to it when he gets his sea legs under him," said Gangi.
Reforming Parole

The failure to close state prisons is a blow to state officials who hoped to use the savings to comply with tighter supervision standards for sex offenders, introduced by the legislature in 2006. It also gives the state less flexibility to help re-invigorate parts of the correctional system, like parole and probation, which have long suffered from neglect and under funding.

Advocates are particularly interested in transferring money from prisons to parole, which they see as key to reducing incarceration rates and increasing public safety. Improving parole would have a kind of domino effect: Better supervision of released offenders would reduce the number of offenders who go back to prison, thereby further diminishing the need for prisons, which in turn would free up more money for parole.

In recent years, however, parole officials have had to fend off challenges to the institution’s basic legitimacy. In 2005, the Urban Institute released a report, entitled http://www.urban.org/publications/311156.html "Does Parole Work?" It found that parole had little to no effect on re-arrest rates among offenders. After controlling for demographics and differences in criminal histories, the researchers found little difference between offenders released from prison with no conditions and those released under parole supervision. Roughly 60 percent of offenders in each group were re-arrested within two years. Some groups, such as white males with histories of violence and a long arrest records, actually fared worse under parole supervision than when they were released unconditionally.

In addition, observers credit -- or blame -- parole for helping to fuel the country’s prison boom. Put simply, in many states, parole provides the reason to put many released convicts back in jail. Studies show that about a quarter of all released offenders are re-incarcerated within three years of their release on so-called "technical violations" of their parole, such as failing a drug test or missing a curfew, as opposed to a new arrest.

In some states like California, the problem is particularly acute: According to Michael Jacobson, the state sends three quarters of its parole population back to jail every year for technical violations. In 2001, close to 15 percent of parolees were returned to jail in New York for technical violations, although that accounted for a large share (about one third) of all new prison admissions.

As Jacobson and others describe it, over-taxed parole officers return parolees to jail for minor infractions in an effort to manage caseloads that average 65 or more. The irony is that the parole system, one of the government’s most poorly funded functions, has essentially unchecked authority to authorize millions of dollars of government expenditures by citing offender for violations, guaranteeing their return to jail and the need for more prisons.

Some of parole’s toughest critics are system insiders such as Horn, the former executive director of New York’s Division of Parole. In a 2001 article in Corrections Management Quarterly, Horn called for "ending parole as we know it." He proposed replacing it with vouchers that would allow parolees to purchase needed services like drug treatment, job training or housing on their own. Before being released to the community, inmates would be placed in halfway houses to ease their reentry into society. The role of parole would shift from surveillance to supporting inmates and helping to link them to services. "I’m more convinced than ever that this is the right way to go," said Horn.

Other prominent correctional reformers, such as Jacobson and Jeremy Travis, the president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argue that it would be politically difficult to win support for any plan, like Horn's, that does away with post prison supervision of offenders. Instead, Travis favors transferring parole from the executive branch to the judicial branch. He would create "re-entry courts" in which judges would supervise the reentry process.

Jacobson focuses more directly on reforms to parole itself, which include allocating resources so that recently released parolees get the most attention, limiting the length of time that a person stays on parole and curtailing the use of technical violations.

What all these proposals share, however, is the urgent sense that parole in its current form simply does not work. "If almost any of the state parole systems were a Fortune 500 company, the CEO would take one look at it and shut it down," Jacobson writes.
The View from New York

Here again, New York looks pretty good – at least in comparison to other states.

Although New York City’s plummeting crime rate gets most of the credit for the state’s declining incarceration population, some modest changes in correctional policy have had an impact as well. Some state prisoners are eligible for early release if they complete a so-called "shock incarceration" program that includes six months of hard labor. According to the state Department of Correctional Services, the program, in operation since 1987, has saved $1.18 billion in prison costs by granting over 36,000 participants a release an average of 345 days early.

Small changes to the state’s Rockefeller Drug Laws, enacted by the state legislature in 2004, have resulted in the early release of about 3,000 individuals, according to the New York State Criminal Justice 2007 Crimestat Report. Finally, in April, four state agencies, including the Division of Parole, launched a new drug treatment center in Harlem aimed at reducing the rate at which parolees, including those who fail a drug test or commit other technical violations, return to prison.

Perhaps most importantly, New York City offers a number of resources for the 15,000 parolees who returned home in 2007. Well-respected non-profit organizations like the Center for Employment Opportunities], the Fortune Society, the Women’s Prison Association and Family Justice all work with this population.

For example, the Center for Employment Opportunities provides short-term paid jobs and other services to about 2,000 parolees every year. Participants spend about eight weeks painting classrooms on college campuses, mopping courthouse floors or filling other temporary positions. After finishing these paid internships, job experts work to match participants to permanent jobs. The goal is to help released inmates manage the transition from incarceration to paid work.

"We feel strongly that a person coming home needs more than help than just creating a resume," said Marta Nelson, the director of policy and planning. "They need someone who can connect them to an employer." The program has cut re-incarceration rates among parolees by almost half, but only for individuals who begin the program within three months of their release. This finding mirrors national research that shows the importance of linking parolees to services immediately.

Despite these signs of success, New York is subject to the same difficult policy and practical challenges faced all over the country. "Parole is hard," said Horn. "It really gets deep into social and psychological factors [of parolees], and operates in a world where there are so many factors outside of its control."

For now, one of those factors seems to be New York State's commitment to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prisons -- even without the prisoners to fill them.
Aubrey Fox is project director of Bronx Community Solutions, aimed at changing the Bronx court system’s approach to low-level crime.

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20080602/200/2545

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

June 01, 2008

VA: Churches add to effort to restore voting rights

Effort seeks to restore felons' voting rights
The local project will involve sermons, distributing information and conducting workshops.
Daily Press, Newport News VA
By DAVID SQUIRES
May 24, 2008

M.V. Cooke realizes that she made her own bed — hard. She didn't realize that she'd have to sleep in it so long — years after she paid for her crime and made peace.

Roderick Hart feels pretty much the same way.

Both plan to be in church Sunday as local pastors spur a grass-roots effort to help nonviolent offenders get voting rights restored in time for the Nov. 4 presidential election. For the next two Sundays, local churches will announce the program, pass out the necessary forms and plan workshops for offenders wanting their voting rights restored.