I really hope you can come out and support! And, remember - if you can't attend the event, you can still help us reach our goal of raising $5,000 to distribute this unique Survival Guide!

Imagine learning that someone you love has just been sentenced to prison – where do you turn? What should you expect? How do you keep yourself and your family together?

Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment launches our original Survival Guide, on November 14, 2009 - a unique reference created BY and FOR people with incarcerated loved ones. And now YOU have an OPPORTUNITY to make sure that information gets into the hands of those who need it most! Don’t miss this exciting event!

FREE! IS RAISING $5,000 TO DISTRIBUTE OUR "SURVIVAL GUIDE" FOR FAMILIES AND WE NEED YOUR HELP! IF 100 PEOPLE DONATE JUST $50 EACH WE WILL REACH OUR GOAL QUICKLY! ALL DONATIONS OF $25 OR MORE WILL RECEIVE ONE TICKET TO OUR SURVIVAL GUIDE LAUNCH PARTY AND YOUR OWN COPY OF OUR SURVIVAL GUIDE! (You can request that your copy be sent to a family member of your choice, or to a low-income member of FREE!)

The Survival Guide Launch Party will be held November 14th, 2009, from 4-7pm, at La Pregunta Arts Cafe, 1528 Amsterdam Avenue, Harlem, NY (btw 135th/136th Streets).

Featuring live entertainment, a Prison Art Auction by Inside Out Art, Inc., this event is also an opportunity to announce leadership transitions as our Founder and Acting Director, Kym Clark, steps aside, and we welcome Marion Rodriguez back into the Organizer position, and other members step forward to carry various torches of our work! Bid farewell to Kym, Happy Birthday to Cheri, Kym and Denise, and make your very first donation to Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment - FREE!

Go to: www.freefamilies.us and click on the CHIPIN widget to donate, or to http://survivalguide.chipin.com/free-survival-guide-launch-party. BE SURE TO INDICATE THE NAME AND ADDRESS FOR THE LAUNCH PARTY TICKET AND GUIDE when you donate!

DON’T WANT TO DONATE ONLINE? Make checks payable to our Fiscal Sponsor, "Brecht Forum", and write "FREE Families Rally" in the memo section.

Mail to: Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment
c/o Fortune Society
Long Island City, NY 11101

Please drop us an email at prisonfamz@gmail.com or leave a phone message so we can look out for your donation. 718-706-0195.

The Survival Guide was made possible in part by the North Star Fund, and the New York Foundation, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

GRANTS - An emergency community relations meeting organized by the New Mexico Women's Correction Facility and supported by the Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce in effort to keep the facility open was held on Nov. 5 at La Ventana Steak House. Area prisons and law enforcement agencies regularly meet monthly, however, because of the possible closure of the women's facility in Grants, this month's meeting was identified as an emergency meeting in effort to keep the women's correctional facility open.

The facility employs approximately 150 people and its closure could make a substantial effect on the local economy. The facility currently houses 590 women and is managed by Corrections Corporation of America.

NMWCF Warden Assistant Lisa Riley said the meeting was to update the community on the possible closure and to organize efforts to fight back in order to keep the facility open. Contact numbers of area legislators were handed out at the meeting along with copies of a letter published in today's Beacon on page 4. A group is also being organized to visit the governor soon.

The budget cuts proposed were passed by the New Mexico State Legislature during the recent special session called by the governor.

For more information on the effort call the chamber at 287-4802 or the women's prison at 287-2941.
http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2009/11/05/news/doc4af367fc9522e854703147.txt

The 2010 U.S. Census will soon be upon us, and by now you may have heard one of the patriotic pitches to comply.

Every breathing soul must be tallied during the massive federal endeavor, the national headcount taken every decade. The census is central to the functioning of our democracy, we're told. The data are used to distribute $400 billion in government spending, to compile countless reports on educational needs, to plan for economic development and formulate public policy.

More important, census data have a direct bearing on congressional districts and the Electoral College. The information is crucial to help us uphold the constitutional principle of one person, one vote.

One distortion this way of counting population causes is what some activists call "prison-based gerrymandering." Because population figures are used to determine legislative districts, voting power is diluted in some areas and falsely ramped up in others.

The NAACP, no doubt recalling how black people were once considered three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation, was among the first organizations to call for reform. Because 12 percent of black men in their 20s and 30s are in prison at any one time, urban areas lose out on the strength of those uncounted inmates.

But it's actually rural communities, where prisons are often built, that suffer the most from the distortions. Peter Wagner, a Massachusetts-based advocate for the Prison Policy Initiative, has found 173 counties where more than half of the black population is made up of inmates. Seven state senate districts in New York alone, he argues, would need to be redrawn if inmates were omitted from population figures for the areas where they are doing time.

Local officials in some parts of the country have responsibly attempted to eliminate the distortions. Bravo. The town of Anamosa, Iowa, changed the way it elects city council members after discovering that the population of a state penitentiary created a ward where a candidate got elected on the strength of two write-in votes. His inmate constituency of about 1,300 prisoners was roughly as populous as the town's other wards.

With census-takers already completing the process of verifying addresses for the spring headcount, it's too late for the government to change how it plans to conduct the 2010 Census. Recording the true home address of inmates would be costly (an estimated $250 million), and many prisons don't have the information readily available. What the government can do to help rectify the situation is release the prison data earlier than planned, in time for states to take the information and delete those numbers for redistricting purposes.

Criminals forfeit a lot when they get locked up. They lose the right to vote, in all but two states. They lose daily interaction with loved ones and the chance to engage in meaningful work. What they shouldn't lose is the sense that their presence counts.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.
http://www.sacbee.com/846/story/2309929.html

Kevin Braciszeski - Daily News Staff Writer

Friday, November 6, 2009
BALDWIN — The closed — and recently expanded — prison near Baldwin is being considered as a possible home for low-security federal prisoners from foreign countries.

There is competition for that role, however, coming from Lake City, Fla., where a company has proposed building a prison if it receives a contract from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Area residents will have a chance Tuesday, Nov. 24 to comment on the issue during a public hearing scheduled for 5 p.m.

Paul Griffith estimated 135 people attended the BOP’s July 7 public scoping hearing on the issue at Baldwin and he expects many people will also attend the public hearing Nov. 24.

“This community of Baldwin realizes what 220 jobs mean and what it means when they are taken away,” Griffith said about the prison, which closed in 2005.

About 22 percent of those employees lived in Lake County with the other 78 percent living in neighboring communities in Mason, Manistee, Oceana, Newaygo, Mecosta, Osceola and Wexford counties.

Baldwin prison history

The Geo Group owns the currently empty prison and is spending about $60 million to expand the facility by 1,225 beds to potentially attract contracts to house prisoners from different states or the federal government. It now has 1,725 beds.

Construction of the facility — which was formerly known as the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility and originally operated by what was then known at Wackenhut Corrections of Florida — began in 1998 and it opened as a “punk prison” for up to 480 13- to 19-year-old boys and young men.

It closed in 2005 and about 220 people had to find new jobs.

The corporation changed its name to The GEO Group and is calls the Lake County prison building the North Lake Correctional Facility. GEO is seeking a contract for housing federal government prisoners.

Baldwin vs. Lake City Fla.

The federal government is now seeking a new, privately owned prison to house 900 to 2,500 low-security male prisoners who are not American citizens.

The BOP will choose between the existing North Lake Correctional Facility near Baldwin, which has the capacity to house 1,889 inmates, according to the BOP’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the issue, and an as-yet unbuilt prison near Lake City, Fla., that would house up to 1,268 inmates.

If the contract is awarded to Lake City, the contractor would have one year to construct the facility.

Among the findings listed in the DEIS are:

• locating the prisoners at either site would not result in significant adverse impacts to the environment.

• beneficial economic impacts are expected in the Baldwin area with the creation of 327 permanent jobs; and are expected in Lake City with new permanent jobs there and the short-term gains from construction activities.

• neither alternative is expected to cause significant negative impacts on community services, including emergency services, hospitals and schools.

• roads at both sites would be able to handle traffic increases associated with the prisons.

• neither alternative would cause a significant impact on air quality.

• neither alternative would cause a significant impact on noise levels.

• no historic properties near the Baldwin facility would be impacted by the contract, and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians concurred. The southern half of the Lake City site was identified as a prehistoric site, but it is not eligible for listing on the National Register of Historical Places due to prior extensive disturbances.

• the contract would not cause impact on the geology, topography, soils or vegetation at the Baldwin site because the facility already exists. There would be minor impacts to the topography and soils at the Lake City site as it is cleared for construction of a prison. Wetlands are also present at the Lake City site.

• an excess level of lead was found in a groundwater sample taken about 800 feet north of the Baldwin facility and a potential exists for the contaminated groundwater to migrate. The Lake City site does not have an environmental condition that would indicate the presence of hazardous contaminants or petroleum products.

Next

The BOP is accepting comments on the DEIS and people can make them in person during the 5 p.m. Nov. 24 public hearing at Webber Township Hall or send them in writing to Richard A. Cohn, Chief, Capacity Planning and Site Selection Branch, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 320 First St. NW, Washington, DC, 20534.

Cohn’s telephone number is (202) 514-6470.

The public comment period on the issue began Oct. 30 and is scheduled to end Dec. 14.
http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=46485

From the Business of Detention http://www.businessofdetention.com/
In earnings reports released this week the nation’s two largest private prison operators cited “significant growth opportunities” for detaining immigrants, driven largely by the Obama administration’s emphasis on detaining “criminal aliens.”

The GEO Group – an international private prison operator that draws about 75 percent of its revenue from controlling a quarter of the U.S. private prison industry – said it believes that “this federal initiative to target, detain, and deport “criminal aliens” throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years.”

Today Corrections Corporation of America – which manages more than 50 percent of all prison beds under private contract in the United States – said in its Third Quarter earnings report that revenue from its federal customers increased 4.9 percent, “primarily driven by the commencement of our new management contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at our newly constructed Adams County Correctional Center.” This facility in Natchez, Mississippi houses 2,567 “criminal alien offenders – low-security illegal immigrants who committed offenses in the United States and will be returned to their country of origin upon completion of their sentence.”

The company’s newly appointed CEO, Damon Hininger, told investors during a conference call that the company continues to focus on filling vacant capacity. He said he was pleased with an increase of 1,300 detainees in CCA’s U.S. Marshall’s facilities since January 2009. The company recently completed renovations of its 502-bed North Georgia Detention Center. It began receiving detainees from ICE in October and currently houses about 100 detainees there.

Hininger said CCA has its eye on an ICE contract to build and operate a 2,200-bed detention center in Los Angeles, and expects a procurement as early as December, though the company is not listed among the interested vendors on a government website listing the request for proposals for the contract.

Funding for expanded immigrant detention is provided in the FY2010 budget for the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a member agency. President Obama signed the budget into law on October 29. It includes $5.4 for ICE, about half a billion more than in FY2009. From this amount, $2.5 million is allocated for detention and removal operations, including $1.5 million for the identification and removal of “criminal aliens” who are at large or already incarcerated. At least $200 million is provided for the Secure Communities program, which began in 2008 to screen for undocumented immigrants by taking the fingerprints of anyone booked into a local jail and checking for a match in ICE’s database.

Critics like Joan Friedland, Immigration Policy Director for the National Immigration Law Center, have noted that as of March 22, 2009, “19,495 individuals were identified as undocumented through the Secure Communities program. Of these, only 1,436 were identified as ‘Level 1 criminals.’ The rest were arrested for lesser crimes, which include minor traffic offenses like driving without a license.”
http://www.businessofdetention.com/2009/11/05/secure-communities-increases-demand-for-private-detention-business/

SPRINGFIELD – State and local police and federal officials Wednesday afternoon arrested three women on prostitution charges and six others for immigration violations during simultaneous raids on several area massage salons in Hampden and Hampshire counties, officials said.

Assistant District Attorney Michael H. Cahillane of the Northwestern District Attorneys office in Northampton said the raids were all part of the same investigation, which remains ongoing.

In Hadley, two women, each from Flushing, N.Y., were arrested at two Route 9 salons and charged with engaging in sexual activity for a fee, according to Hadley police.

The owner, identified as Xiuli Li, 48, of Springfield, was also charged with operating an unlicensed massage facility, police said.

She is due to be arraigned Wednesday in Springfield District Court.

Li is also the owner of Chinese Massage, 217 Belmont Ave., which was also raided by police. Officials charged three employees there with being in this country illegally, officials said.

In Hadley, a deployment totaling 30 town and state police and officials with Immigration and Diplomatic Security moved in on Jane’s Spa, 206 Russell St., and Hadley Massage, 215 Russell St.

Xiumei Zheng, 43, of Flushing, N.Y., was arrested at 206 Russell St., and Zenshu Li, 47, also of Flushing, was arrested at 215 Russell St., police said. Each was charged with soliciting sexual conduct in exchange for a fee, police said.

The two are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown.

Another employee, a 47-year-old women whose name was not released, was cited for being an unlicensed massage therapist, police said.

A brochure optioned at 215 Russell St. indicates that Jane’s Spa is affiliated with two other locations, Jane’s Spa, 249 Belmont Ave., Springfield and Fiona’s Spa, 1888 Memorial Drive. Each of those locations was among the salons being raided Tuesday.

Springfield police Capt. Peter J. Dillon, head of the vice unit, said police had been investigating the two Springfield locations for some time for allegations of prostitution, but did not find enough evidence to arrest anyone on those charges.

In addition to the raid at 271 Belmont Ave., Dillon said police also moved in on Jane’s Spa, 249 Belmont Ave. The business was cited for being an unlicensed massage parlor, he said.

Longmeadow police obtained a search warrant for 809 Maple Road and an arrest warrant for Li after a lengthy investigation into the business being a front for prostitution, said police Lt. Gary LaFontain.

As part of the investigation, Longmeadow police learned the business was not properly licensed and gathered evidence that it was engaged in prostitution.

Li is licensed as a massage therapist in Massachusetts, but the state Division of Professional Licensure has no record of her business in Longmeadow or in Springfield.

East Longmeadow police also took three women into custody on immigration charges following a raid at Korean Massage Therapy, 611 North Main St., police said.

In addition to being in the country illegally, the three women were also living in the salon, a violation of town zoning and health codes, police said. Two of the three were also found not to be properly licensed to give massages by the state, police said.

Police identified the owner of the business, Shuz Zi Li, of Flushing, N.Y., and he did not have a license from the state to operate a massage parlor.

The town health and building inspectors were also called to inspect the property for code violations for modifying a part of the shop into living quarters, police said.

Paula Grenier, spokeswoman for the Boston regional office of Immigration and Custom Enforcement, said the six people arrested for immigration violations will remain in custody pending removal proceedings before a federal immigration judge.

The hearing will either be at the immigration court in Boston or Hartford. She was not sure of which location or when it would take place.

She did not have any information on the identities, ages or countries of origin of the six people.

She said immigration officials regularly take part in local police actions if notified in advance of the possibility of illegal aliens being involved.

West Springfield police detectives, accompanied by federal and state officials, also executed a search warrant at an unnamed massage therapy salon at 2260 Westfield St., said police detective Scott A. Manser said.

The salon, which had no name on the door, was open for business.

He said no arrests were made but evidence was recovered and the investigation is ongoing and charges may later be filed.

Chicopee Detective Bureau Capt. William R. Jebb said five Chicopee detectives and four federal immigration and customs officers raided Fiona’s Spa at 1888 Memorial Drive, and confiscated paperwork and computers. No one was arrested.

The business was operating without a state license and charges may be filed on that, he said.

Police began investigating after receiving an anonymous tip from a customer who reported being offered sex in exchange for money during a massage.

Undercover officers went to the salon more than once but were never propositioned, he said.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/3_women_arrested_on_prostituti.html

Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW) (the "Company" or "CCA"), the nation's largest provider of corrections management services to government agencies, announced today its financial results for the third quarter and nine-month period ended September 30, 2009.
extensive financial review at:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0555368.htm

OKLAHOMA CITY, Nov 04, 2009 (Tulsa World - McClatchy-Tribune California officials plan to send more than 1,300 inmates to a private prison in Sayre.

Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, says the move will create about 200 jobs, company spokesman Steve Owen said.

CCA houses 7,900 California inmates in its facilities in various states.

Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, said moving California prisoners to the Sayre prison "should lessen some of the political pressure at the Capitol to fill the empty private beds with Department of Corrections inmates."

He said that area of the state needs jobs and that the added prisoners will create jobs with benefits.

Terrill is chairman of the House Public Safety and Judiciary Subcommittee, which oversees the budget of the Department of Corrections.

The California prisoners will be housed in medium-security space, said Renee Watkins, administrator of private prisons and jails for the DOC.

The inmates are expected to arrive in December or January, she said.

Private prisons in Oklahoma now house 4,849 out-of-state inmates from California and Arizona, Watkins said.

The Sayre prison holds 1,036 California inmates. The Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, which is also run by CCA, holds 2,053 Arizona inmates, she said.

The Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton holds 1,760 Arizona inmates, she said. That prison is run by Cornell Cos.

Private prisons in the state also hold 4,725 Oklahoma offenders, Watkins said.

JEFFERSON CITY — An all-time high number of inmates in Missouri prisons has officials searching for the reasons.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Jacqueline Lapine said three factors are probably leading to the prison population growth: more crimes being committed, more stringent sentencing and, in some areas such as St. Louis, an attempt to push cases through the courts more quickly.

The high of 30,720 inmates has dropped off by about a dozen since originally announced at the end of September by the Corrections Department. Corrections officials said the number does not worry the department. No matter what, officials said, they are more than ready to handle the large number of prisoners.

Rep. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, said Missouri prisons have "severe overcrowding" that creates many problems, such as safety concerns.

For one thing, it is harder to manage the large number of prisoners, Hoskins said. Because of that, the safety of the prisoners, guards and staff comes into question.

"These people have a dangerous enough job as it is; we need to make sure they're safe," Hoskins said.

Between July 2008 and the record high in September, the state's prison population rose 2.3 percent, adding 687 inmates.

These numbers, while high for Missouri, do not pose a problem of forcing early release for some prisoners because of overcrowding, Lapine said.

As of Monday, about 500 vacancies were available for prisoners. If necessary, certain facilities, such as the women's facility in Chillicothe, can be opened for more prisoners.

One factor contributing to the high prison population is a 39 percent increase since July 2008 in incoming inmates who have been sentenced for a new or first offense, Lapine said.

The sentence length tends to be longer for this type of offender. Their average sentence is three years, while parole returnees, for example, average a one-year sentence. The number of parole violators has risen only 5 percent, said David Oldfield, Corrections Department director of research and evaluation.

Hoskins said an increased prison population is "a problem we have to take in the legislature," and he said Missouri lawmakers should further research other options, like private prisons.

Missouri has two private prisons, in Holden and Bethany. Hoskins said there may need to be more. Creating more private prisons is "a viable option," he said, but first he would like to make sure that the two Missouri has are being used efficiently.

Hoskins represents Missouri's 121st House District, which includes Holden.

The two private prisons house inmates moved as a result of overcrowding in Missouri and other states.

Another option that could decrease the number or people sentenced to prison would be alternative sentencing for minor drug offenses, said Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia.

"Treatment through drug court is a more cost-effective method for some drug offenders, rather than prison," he said.

Oldfield said the prison population increase from last year is relatively low compared to the past 30 years.

Since July 2008, 1.9 prisoners have been added each day, Oldfield said, but over the past 30 years, the average daily increase was more than 2.5 prisoners.

"While our numbers are high — and granted it's not a huge spike — we have plenty of room to accommodate those intakes," Lapine said.
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Comments
William Thomas November 3, 2009 | 1:26 p.m.

INCARCERATING PEOPLE "FOR PROFIT" IS IN A WORD....WRONG!
Even if one does not ask or pretends not to see the rope and the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing solemnly at attention in the middle of the room, it remains apparent that the mere presence of a private “for profit” driven prison business in our country undermines the U.S Constitution and subsequently the credibility of the American criminal justice system. In fact, until all private prisons in America have been abolished and outlawed, “the promise” of fairness and justice at every level of this country’s judicial system will remain unattainable. We must restore the principles and the vacant promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to "job-out" its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the correctional and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect. There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicism, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.
My hope is that you will support the National Public Service Council to Abolish Private Prisons (NPSCTAPP) with a show of solidarity by signing "The Single Voice Petition"
http://www.petitiononline.com/gufree2/petition.html

Please visit our website for further information: http://www.npsctapp.blogspot.com

A startling petition arrived at the New York City Bar Association in October 2008, signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the middle of Manhattan.

Daniel I. Miller, a former detainee at the Varick Street center, complained of abuses there. “These people have no rules,” he said.

In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day.

The petitioners were among 250 detainees imprisoned in an immigration jail that few New Yorkers know exists. Above a post office, on the fourth floor of a federal office building in Greenwich Village, the Varick Street Detention Facility takes in 11,000 men a year, most of them longtime New Yorkers facing deportation without a lawyer.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement considers the access to legal services at Varick Street as a good model,” said Sean Smith, a spokesman for Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, who oversees immigration enforcement.

But the lawyers doing the work have reached a different conclusion, after finding that most detainees with a legal claim to stay in the United States are routinely transferred to more remote jails before they can be helped. The lawyers say their effort has laid bare the fundamental unfairness of a system where immigrant detainees, unlike criminal defendants, can be held without legal representation and moved from state to state without notice.

In a report to be issued on Monday, the association’s City Bar Justice Center is calling for all immigrant detainees to be provided with counsel. And an article to be published this month in The Fordham Law Review treats the Varick jail as a case study in the systemic barriers to legal representation.

The new focus on Varick highlights the conflict between two forces: the administration’s plans to revamp detention, and current policies that feed the flow of detainees through the system as it is now. A disjointed mix of county jails and privately run prisons, where mistreatment and medical neglect have been widely documented, the detention network churns roughly 400,000 detainees through 32,000 beds each year.

“Any attempt to get support or services for them is stymied because you don’t know where they’re going to end up,” said Lynn M. Kelly, the director of the Justice Center.

When she asked that the lawyers’ letters of legal advice be forwarded to detainees who had been transferred from Varick, she said the warden balked, saying he had to consider the financial interests of his private shareholders: 1,200 members of a central Alaskan tribe whose dividends are linked to Varick’s profits under a $79 million, three-year federal contract.

Federal officials would not discuss their transfer policies, but asked for patience as they try to make the detention system more humane and cost-effective.

“We inherited an inadequate detention system from the previous administration that does not meet ICE’s current priorities or needs,” said Matthew Chandler, a Homeland Security spokesman. Officials say they are committed to a complete overhaul, including less-penal detention centers with better access to lawyers.

The volunteer lawyers and the petition’s author, an ailing refugee from torture in Romania who spent eight months inside Varick, say many problems persist there, though the added scrutiny has led to improvements. Detainees who want a Gideon Bible no longer have to pay the commissary $7. Immigration officials are more responsive when a lawyer complains that a detainee in pain is not getting treatment.

But most detainees do not have a lawyer, and the few who do include men who have fallen prey to incompetent or fraudulent practitioners. Recurrent complaints include frigid temperatures, mildew and meals that leave detainees hungry and willing to clean for $1 a day to pay for commissary food. That wage is specified in the contract with the Alaskan company, which budgeted 23,000 days of such work the first year, and collects a daily rate of $227.68 for each detainee.

The Alaska connection is one of the stranger twists in the jail’s fitful history. Opened as a federal immigration detention center in 1984, Varick became chronically overcrowded after 1998, when new laws mandated the detention of all noncitizens who had ever committed a crime on a list of deportable offenses, expanded to include misdemeanors like drug possession.

A Dominican man there died of untreated pneumonia in 1999 — the first reported death in the nationwide detention system, which now counts 106 since October 2003.

The Varick facility, which is on the corner of Houston Street, fell short of national detention standards adopted in 2000, because it lacks any outdoor recreation space. But under a grandfather clause, it was allowed to remain open until 9/11, when the terror attack, blocks away, forced its evacuation. For years, it was shuttered. It quietly reopened in February 2008, operated by Ahtna Technical Services Inc., a subsidiary of Ahtna Inc. — still with no access to fresh air.

As an Alaska Native corporation, Ahtna has won numerous federal contracts without having to compete with other companies; last year it paid its tribal shareholders about $500 each in dividends. It hires a Texas subcontractor to supply guards and transportation, along with the shackles and belly chains routinely used on detainees being moved in or out.

Varick’s population includes illegal immigrants, asylum-seekers and legal immigrants who face deportation because they have past criminal convictions. Almost half of those screened by the volunteer lawyers have already been in detention for four to six months, according to the bar association report, and nearly 40 percent have legal grounds to contest deportation.

A few, the report says, have a possible claim to citizenship, which would make their detention unlawful. But the volunteers, including lawyers from 16 corporate firms, say they can offer only rudimentary legal triage to a handful of detainees a week.

The Department of Justice is asking Congress for money to expand the law project, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement invites Washington officials to visit the weekly triage sessions. The agency allowed a reporter to observe a session, but not to tour the jail. On a recent Thursday, only 11 of 35 detainees who had signed up made it into one of five glassed-in booths where they could consult with pairs of legal volunteers.

One, a 25-year-old Mexican, had been delivering food for an Italian restaurant on Madison Avenue until his detention. After a week in Varick, the government had not served him with a “notice to appear” telling why he was detained and setting the date and place where he would be heard by an immigration judge.

Volunteers were researching his case a week later when he was transferred to Atlanta. It could just as easily have been Louisiana or Texas, far from any free legal help, said Maria Navarro, a Legal Aid lawyer who supervises the volunteers. Even in cities, she said, lawyers are reluctant to represent detainees who may be suddenly moved far away.

Another 25-year-old, who had come to New York as a legal immigrant from Belize at age 2, told lawyers he had worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken to support his 5-year-old daughter, a citizen, when his sickle-cell anemia permitted. After a standing huddle, the lawyers told him that because his notice listed old convictions for possession of marijuana, he was ineligible for release on bond or with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

A Haitian, who had served time for at least one drug-related offense, had a lawyer but wanted a second opinion after being held in Varick for 16 months. He described himself as a barber, interpreter and legal resident of Brooklyn for 23 years.

“It is double jeopardy,” he protested, nursing a swollen jaw with teeth missing. “I become a diabetic here, because of anxiety, stress and suicidal conditions.”

Yet a detainee from the former Soviet Union praised the jail. “Varick is heaven” compared with some county jails in New Jersey (Bergen and Monmouth) and Florida, he said, citing abuse by anti-immigrant guards.

A century-long line of Supreme Court decisions holds that immigration detention is not a punishment or deprivation of liberty, and does not require legal counsel for fundamental fairness.

But Daniel I. Miller, 39, the Romanian whose petition reached the bar association, said his own case showed how high the stakes can be. Mr. Miller, a chef, fled his native land in 1994 after the secret police mutilated him for advocating gay rights. In New York, he had already been paroled for a criminal conviction — for signing his partner’s name on a contract — when immigration authorities detained him.

To no avail, records show, his lawyer and an outraged doctor at St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan urged his release from Varick for treatment of tumors on his liver. Instead, he was transferred in April to the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y., where he said he also circulated a petition. The authorities there accused him of trying to start a riot and sent him to segregation with a murder defendant.

“These people have no rules, that’s the main problem,” Mr. Miller said, speaking from the Midtown office where he is starting an organic catering business. He credits his lawyer, Howard Brill, for that turnaround: On Sept. 2, after almost a year in custody, an immigration judge granted him the right to stay in the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/nyregion/02detain.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

By DENNIS HEVESI
Published: October 31, 2009
New York Times

Peter Shellem, whose relentless digging into dusty court records, erroneous crime-lab reports and coerced confessions during his 23 years as a reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., led to the release of five wrongly convicted prisoners, died Oct. 24 at his home in Gardners, Pa. He was 49.

In one case, a man who was a teenager when he was convicted of killing a neighbor was released after 28 years in prison. In another, DNA evidence that Mr. Shellem recovered from a professor’s refrigerator in Leipzig, Germany, exonerated a retarded man of rape and murder.

Although Mr. Shellem’s investigative work was not widely known outside of central Pennsylvania, Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, called him “a rare, one-man journalism innocence project.”

“He got into the nitty-gritty details of cases, and when he began to believe that somebody was wrongfully convicted he wouldn’t stop until he got justice,” Mr. Scheck said Monday. “Justice from the Fourth Estate has always been a great safety valve of our legal system, and Pete Shellem was that safety valve in Pennsylvania.”

In a profile in 2007, American Journalism Review wrote of Mr. Shellem, “No one keeps records on such things, but experts on journalism and the wrongly convicted cannot think of a present-day reporter who by himself has compiled a résumé of freed prisoners as thick as Shellem’s.”

Among them is Steven Crawford, who was arrested in 1970, when he was 14, after a friend was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. In 2001, Mr. Shellem learned that an old briefcase had been found in the attic of a deceased detective who had worked on the case. Notes in the briefcase suggested that a state police chemist had altered laboratory results to help convict Mr. Crawford. The Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office supported Mr. Crawford’s release after 28 years in prison.

In 1988, Barry Laughman, a man with an IQ of about 70, was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a distant relative, Edna Laughman. Fifteen years later, Mr. Shellem’s series in The Patriot-News pointed to flaws in the case, including a confession that appeared to have been coerced. He also tracked down microscope slides of semen recovered from the victim’s body that had been taken to Germany by a professor who had tried, but failed, to identify the DNA. DNA techniques that had improved since the trial showed that Mr. Laughman was not the killer. He was freed in 2003.

“In the Laughman case, Pete was beating his head against the wall for years and no one would listen to him,” Bill Moushey, director of the Innocence Institute of Point Park University in Pittsburgh, said Monday. “Some law enforcement people brought personal attacks against him, trying to debunk his work, but he stood strong and eventually that retarded kid walked out of prison.”

Among the other prisoners freed by Mr. Shellem’s investigations is David Gladden, who was convicted in 1995 of killing a 67-year-old woman, Geneva Long, and burning the body. Ten years later, Mr. Shellem discovered that a convicted serial killer had lived next door to Ms. Long; he had killed his known victims in the same way.

Mr. Shellem interviewed a witness who had testified that he was with Mr. Gladden at the time of the crime. The witness recanted, saying he had been coerced into confessing a role in the crime. Mr. Gladden walked out of prison on Feb. 16, 2007.

“I don’t start writing until I’m sure I’m right,” Mr. Shellem told The American Journalism Review, “and if people need to be embarrassed into doing the right thing, I’m happy to oblige them.”

Peter Joseph Shellem was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 6, 1960, one of five children of Harry and Josephine Shellem. Besides his son Philip, he is survived by his wife of 24 years, the former Joyce Elser; another son, Alek; a brother, Paul; and a sister, Karen Cain.

Mr. Shellem graduated from Temple University with a degree in journalism in 1983. While in college, he worked at The Delaware County Times. He was a reporter for The Mercury, in Pottstown, Pa., before being hired by The Patriot-News in 1986.

A bearded, barrel-chested man, Mr. Shellem could have been cast as a B-movie reporter. He knew the first names of many bartenders in Harrisburg. He would sit in a bar poring over court transcripts and interviewing sources.

“I don’t want to lead anyone to believe I go to bars only to get stories,” he once said, “although it would be nice if my editors did.”
A version of this article appeared in print on November 1, 2009, on page A37 of the New York edition.

The closure of the Standish prison will eliminate 340 jobs. Residents and politicians in Standish, a town of 1,600 near the coast along Saginaw Bay, first embraced the possibility of housing Guantanamo detainees before cooling to the idea. But a number of local and county officials continue to be in favor of the move.

Federal officials toured Standish in April to assess its suitability to house Guantanamo detainees. A military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., was also among sites considered.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, had expressed concerns about taking the detainees, saying she would need assurances from the White House that moving terrorist suspects to Michigan wouldn't pose a risk to the state.

Ms. Granholm had hoped to keep the Standish prison open by offering space there to a state in need of additional capacity, and Michigan kept the prison open months longer than expected with this in mind.

Michigan is one of six states Pennsylvania is considering to help with overcrowding in its prisons. Pennsylvania is considering relocating as many as 1,500 inmates out of state.

"Quite frankly…we are still hopeful that we'll be able to find another use for that facility," said Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for Ms. Granholm, this week. "The bottom line is we have a budget to handle."

The state has closed more than a half-dozen prisons this year alone. The move is part of an effort to slash roughly $100 million from its prison budget and help the state address a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. The last prisoners were moved out of the facility Wednesday, a state Department of Corrections spokesman said.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Republican and a candidate for governor in next year's election, is in favor of bringing prisoners from other states but is opposed to Guantanamo detainees being housed in the state.

"It'll be a danger," he said Thursday. Standish "will become a potential target."

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Criminals at Navajo holding facilities like this one in Kayenta, Ariz., are usually released within a day of being booked. Kayenta and two other towns will get new jails next year, thanks to a grant from the Justice Department.

October 31, 2009-- LA Times

Reporting from Tuba City, Ariz. - More than 50,000 people are arrested across the Navajo reservation each year -- yet there are only 59 jail beds here.

Officials say the lack of jail space has led to a revolving door for criminals, most of whom are released within a day of being booked, and few of whom serve out an entire sentence.

Tribal leaders are hoping that may change soon, thanks to a $224-million Justice Department stimulus grant that has been set aside to build and repair jails on Indian land. The Navajo Nation, the country's largest tribe, received the biggest share of the money -- more than $74 million for the construction of three new jails.

The jails will add 144 beds to the Navajo reservation and will house alcohol counseling programs to help curb the high rate of repeat alcohol-related arrests, which corrections officials say is the main cause of overcrowding.

The money comes after years of unsuccessful Navajo lobbying for more federal help with law and order.

The federal government is required to fund jails on reservations as part of its trust responsibility to the nation's tribes. The Bureau of Indian Affairs pays to run jails on Indian land, and the Justice Department pays to build them.

But the BIA has a bad track record with tribal jails -- a 2004 Interior Department Inspector General report of Indian detention facilities found that some "were egregiously unsafe, unsanitary, and a hazard to both inmates and staff alike."

The Justice Department has for the last several years had an annual budget of less than $10 million to construct facilities and fund repairs for the 80 or so existing jails on reservations across the country.

Indian advocates say overcrowded and underfunded tribal jails have contributed to disproportionately high rates of crime in Indian country. According to a Justice Department survey, Indians experience almost twice as much violence as the rest of America.

On the Navajo reservation, which straddles 27,000 square miles of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, tribal officials say gang activity is at an all-time high, and chronic alcoholism and substance abuse have helped make domestic violence and drunk driving common.

There have been no jail facilities constructed here since a juvenile facility was built in the 1980s.

Two years ago, two of the tribe's main jails were condemned and closed, leaving just three jails, in the towns of Shiprock, Window Rock and Crownpoint. Those facilities -- cinder-block structures built in the 1950s and 1960s -- are barely habitable, corrections officials say, and are so overcrowded that jail workers are frequently forced to release prisoners early to make room for new ones.

"We're always playing musical chairs -- or musical jail beds," said Delores Greyeyes, who heads the Navajo Nation Department of Corrections. "We just pump [prisoners] through."

Navajo courts are responsible for prosecuting only misdemeanor crimes -- such as burglary, battery and drunk driving -- and the maximum punishment for a conviction is one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Inmates accused of committing felonies are transferred to prisons off the reservation and are prosecuted federally.

Peterson Wilson, the prosecutor for the Tuba City District, one of nine judicial districts on the Navajo Nation, said, "A lot of crimes go unreported because there's an impression that we won't hold the criminal." And prosecutors and judges are disinclined to push for harsh sentences when they know there's no place to house criminals, he said.

He hopes the new jails, which will be built next year in Tuba City; Kayenta, Ariz.; and Ramah, N.M., will help fix that.

Tuba City, the biggest town on the reservation, received the largest single Justice Department grant -- $38 million for a 62-bed jail. It will offer inmates mental health and alcohol rehabilitation counseling.

Although alcohol is illegal on the Navajo Nation, alcoholism is widespread, and the vast majority of inmates are booked for public intoxication. Jails have become a catch-all for people who need help, McDonald-Lonetree said. She hopes the rehab programs will help stop that.

"We don't want to have to build another 100-bed facility in the future. We don't want to go into the business of warehousing individuals like the rest of America does," she said. "We want to rehabilitate people."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-jails31-2009oct31,0,7038957.story

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Posted By William Petroski On October 30, 2009

Newton, Ia. — The mood was tense and somber at the Newton Correctional Facility during Thursday’s first shift change, as rank-and-file prison workers await the outcome of union negotiations that could determine their fates.

The Newton prison, which houses 1,100 inmates, is among nine state prisons and eight community corrections districts where 515 Department of Corrections workers face layoffs if budget-cut negotiations falter between union leaders and Gov. Chet Culver.

“People feel disappointed. They feel like the governor hasn’t supported us,” said correctional officer Edwin Dean, who has worked at Newton’s medium-security unit since it opened in May 1997. The prison also houses a minimum-security facility for inmates nearing release from prison.

“I think the state of Iowa should honor the contract that we have,” Dean said. “I don’t think they should have layoffs.”

Dale Higgins, who has been a correctional officer for four and a half years, doesn’t think prison employees will be willing to give up previously negotiated pay raises. Prison workers have made contract concessions in the past, he said, and he opposes doing it again.

“It’s time for the public to pay for the services that they want. Not on our backs this time,” Higgins said.

However, another worker, John Guthrie, said he is resigned to having union officials make some sacrifices at the bargaining table.

“Nobody is going to like it, but everybody is going to have to do their part,” Guthrie said. “You can’t have a recovery if you are laying people off.”

Guthrie described the mood inside the institution as “very tense.”

“Everybody is waiting for the ax to fall,” he said. “It affects everybody. Not only seeing your co-workers go through this, but also for the added risk that is there when you are short-staffed.”

Corrections spending relatively low in Iowa

Culver has set a deadline of Nov. 6 for unions to agree to concessions to avoid layoffs for the final $45 million in a package of $565 million in budget reductions throughout state government, a 10percent cut in general fund spending.

Danny Homan, president of the Iowa council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents most Iowa prison employees, has agreed to meet privately with the governor to discuss reducing layoffs. “We are unsure of where these talks will lead, other than to say AFSCME will do its part to consider all options that are put on the table,” he said in a statement.

Culver is also asking the Iowa United Professionals and the State Police Officers Council to amend their contracts. The Iowa Department of Public Safety faces layoffs of 53 state workers, including 20 state troopers.

Those arguing against layoffs in the corrections system can point to data showing Iowa ranks low on prison spending, compared with other states. Iowa ranked second-lowest in the nation in per-capita spending on corrections, at $121, as of 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The only state lower was North Dakota, at $116. The national average was $210.

Iowa has the 11th-lowest incarceration rate in the nation, putting 291 people behind bars for every 100,000 residents, a federal report shows. The report, based on June 2008 prison populations, shows the average state puts away 450.

The Department of Corrections had an annual budget of about $357 million from the state’s general fund before Culver ordered the 10 percent budget cut. The Department of Public Safety had a pre-cut budget of $89 million from the state’s general fund.

Workers rank security among top worries

Some of workers’ biggest concerns center on security, and some of the biggest security concerns in Iowa’s system center on the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, where Iowa’s most dangerous inmates are housed.

Four towers used to monitor the prison yard would be left unstaffed by proposed cuts, although towers would still be staffed in critical areas, state officials say. Two inmates escaped from the Fort Madison prison in November 2005 by climbing over a wall where a tower was left unstaffed because of budget cuts. Both inmates were eventually recaptured.

Newton prison officials have said in budget documents that proposed spending cuts would reduce essential security duties, such as searches of cells, to below acceptable levels.

Assaults by inmates on prison staffers are routine in Iowa’s prisons; they happened 29 times statewide during the four months ending June 30, ranging from punching correctional officers to throwing food or spitting on them. Officers are worried that assaults could intensify or become more difficult to stop if fewer of them are in cellhouses.

Staff and inmates are also worried about the impact on rehabilitation efforts.

Budget documents say the layoffs will lead to reductions in substance abuse treatment, delaying the release of convicts or decreasing the number of inmates who obtain treatment before they are released from prison.

“We try to do a good job here,” said Michelle Gonzales, a correctional counselor the past 16 years. “We try to keep everybody safe and rehabilitate people. We don’t want to lose any of that.”

Frustration sets in for veteran officers

Correctional officer Roger Filson, who has spent nearly 30 years working in Iowa’s prison system, said he isn’t worried about losing his job. But he knows plenty about state government layoffs, having seen them four or five times during his career. In addition, his wife lost a job of more than 20 years when Maytag Corp. closed its appliance plant in Newton.

“It is sad to see programs eliminated and people’s livelihoods eliminated,” Filson said. “I don’t know why the state waited so long to cut its budget. With the private sector suffering, they had to know it was going to come.”

The prospect of reopening a previously approved labor contract doesn’t thrill Kim Richardson, a correctional officer for 16 years. But if the union takes that step, “I would like to see that from the top down, from all the wardens, all the directors, with everybody taking their pay cuts,” Richardson said. “It is not fair to balance it just on the backs of AFSCME members.”

Culver has said that he and his state agency heads have agreed to accept 10percent pay cuts. In addition, he has ordered 3,258 nonunion employees, including many managers, to take seven days off work without pay between now and the end of the budget year, on June 30.

Part of workers’ frustration stems from the sense that poor decision-making on many fronts — within state and federal government, on Wall Street and in corporate offices of big businesses — have combined to hurt workers.

“It started with the George Bush administration, and I don’t think it is getting any better under Obama right now,” said correctional officer John Hutchins. “Once again, the working man is taking it, and is going to pay for the mistakes of the privileged. When is it going to end?”

Article printed from Des Moines Register Staff Blogs: http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr

URL to article: http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2009/10/30/possible-layoffs-unsettle-prison-officers-workers/

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday overturned thousands of juvenile-offender convictions handed down by a judge now charged in a corruption scandal.

The judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, and Michael T. Conahan, a fellow judge who for a time was the chief of that court, are charged with taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from the owner of two privately run youth detention centers in exchange for their sending teenagers there.

The decision followed advice the court received from Arthur Grim, a Berks County judge whom it appointed in February to review juvenile cases involving Judges Ciavarella and Conahan.

Judge Ciavarella, who along with Judge Conahan awaits federal trial on charges of income-tax and wire fraud, routinely held juvenile hearings that lasted just minutes, failing to ask the youths before him whether they understood the consequences of waiving their right to a lawyer and pleading guilty.

“We concluded,” the justices wrote Thursday, “that the record supports Judge Grim’s determination that Ciavarella knew he was violating both the law and the procedural rules promulgated by this court applicable when adjudicating the merits of juvenile cases without the knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of counsel by the juveniles.”

Under the justices’ ruling, the only cases that will be eligible for retrial are those in which youths are still under court supervision. The district attorney’s office has been directed to notify Judge Grim of those cases it wishes to prosecute again. He will then make a determination on each case.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 30, 2009, on page A18 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30judges.html?_r=1&ref=us