Virginia and its localities should stop building more prisons and jails because a decade-long building program has led to undercrowding, a state budget analyst said yesterday.

As a cost-saving step, the General Assembly should consider delaying corrections projects or deferring operating costs for the next five years, he said.

That was good news for budget-writers looking for ways to save money in a budget that could be $1.6 billion out of balance by June 30, the end of the 2010 fiscal year.

Another looming budget problem -- federal health-care reform -- is so uncertain as to its cost effects on Virginia that the General Assembly is considering going into recess after it convenes Jan. 13 to await further action by Congress, said Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford.

Putney is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

State budget analyst Susan E. Massart, cautioning that the fate of the federal bills being considered by the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate remains up in the air, said each bill would appear to be more likely to push up health-care costs in Virginia than to bring them down.

Between 2014, when the program is scheduled to begin, and 2019 the extra cost to the state in Medicaid and the FAMIS plan for children (also known as CHIPS) would amount to $1 billion, in part because of newly eligible adults and children.

Concluding her review, Massart asked: "Will reforms bend the cost curve and slow health-care expenditures?"

She cited last week's analysis by the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services , which estimated the House version would have "a relatively small savings impact." The House version is expected to be more costly than the Senate version.

Briefing the committee members on jail and prison costs, Van Lenten noted that by 2014, the local jail population will be 3,000 fewer than the 23,000 that was estimated several years ago. The prison population will be 5,000 fewer than the estimated 44,000, he said.

"There has been a marked decline in the number of serious drug charges," he said.

Since 1994, the state has spent $547 million on prison construction, Van Lenten said. A new prison costs $1 billion. Since 1993, 48 jail construction, expansion and renovation projects have cost $1 billion, with the state share being $469 million, he added.

Van Lenten said the St. Brides Correctional Center has 800 vacant beds, while a medium-security facility under construction in Grayson County will provide 1,038 added beds. At the local-jail level, 1,736 new beds came online in this biennium, he added.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/state_regional_govtpolitics/article/BUDG19_20091118-223004/306678

"No One Should Go Through What I Went Through"

That’s what Bethany Cajúne told me the first time we spoke about her experience in Montana’s Lake County Detention Facility. “No one should go through what I went through.” We filed a case earlier today to make sure that Bethany’s desire to protect other women becomes a reality.

This past March, Bethany voluntarily reported to the detention facility to complete an outstanding short-term sentence for traffic violations. At that time, she was approximately four to five months pregnant, raising five small children, and attending GED classes four days a week. She was also about to successfully complete her first year in a medication-treatment program for a diagnosed addiction to opioid drugs. What Bethany didn’t know when she reported to the facility was that detention officials would withhold her medication, which was prescribed to suppress withdrawal symptoms and facilitate Bethany’s recovery, and was now critical for protecting the health of her pregnancy.

Despite several attempts by Bethany’s treating physician and drug treatment counselor to ensure that Bethany continue receiving her medication, facility officials, including its chief medical doctor, denied her this care. As a result, Bethany suffered complete and abrupt withdrawal, experienced constant vomiting, diarrhea, rapid weight loss, dehydration, and other withdrawal symptoms, all extremely dangerous during pregnancy. Despite repeated warnings of the serious risk abrupt withdrawal posed to Bethany’s health and pregnancy, including miscarriage, the facility continued to withhold her medication. Instead of receiving appropriate medical care, she was at various times confined in an unsanitary and windowless solitary confinement cell, told to “tough it out,” and shackled during an ultrasound examination. It took the intervention of a public defender to secure her release so that she could resume the treatment. In the end, Lake County knowingly put Bethany’s health and pregnancy at severe risk for nine days.

Luckily, Bethany’s story has a happy ending. After she resumed treatment, Bethany regained her health and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She has also since completed her GED and is looking forward to the next chapter in her life. Part of moving on for Bethany is ensuring that no one else will go through what she went through.

Hear from Bethany & her experience and the case the ACLU filed today on her behalf by watching this video:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/no-one-should-go-through-what-i-went-through

Donna Pfender, President – Fight For Lifers West

Good afternoon to the Chairman, Senator Greenleaf; to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee; to Senator Greenleaf’s aide, Gregg Warner; Ladies and Gentlemen.
I wish to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to testify today about the impact that transferring inmates to other states will have, not only on the inmates themselves, but on their family members and loved ones.
When I first heard that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections was in negotiations with other states to transfer inmates in a bid to alleviate overcrowding, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I couldn’t believe that human beings were being treated as commodities to be bought, sold or bartered for any reason. I knew about the Interstate Compact Act, but this was on a whole new level. I wondered why this wasn’t considered as an Eighth Amendment violation for “deliberate indifference” as well as an “objectively serious deprivation?” I felt not only that inmates were being dehumanized but that their family structures would fall apart.

I told her I would see what I could find out. When the topic came up on the agenda, I asked her to tell the other members what she had told me. Ruby rarely speaks in meetings but she courageously told the others what she had learned. You could have heard a pin drop. As I looked around the room, I could see the incredulous faces of those in attendance who had not yet heard about the transfers or thought that it couldn’t be possible. At that time, nothing had been confirmed. I later spoke with prison advocates in California who told me that they were also shipping in prisoners from the state of Oregon. Later that week, we were to learn that even more states were being considered to ship Pennsylvania prisoners to and that inmates had already been informed that they would be moving out of state. We were all in shock!
We all understand that the problem of overcrowding leads to dangerous conditions not only for the prison staff, but for the inmate population, visitors, outside vendors and society in general. Overcrowding can contribute to outbreaks of physical aggression, disease, medical neglect, abuse, extensive isolation, suicides, suspicious deaths, chronic mental and physical problems, insufficient or no education and a population not ready for re-entry back into society. Every time a human being is locked away in a facility where they are warehoused and treated as non-human, they become a further threat to society and more victims will likely result. While prison costs keep escalating, funding is taken from outside education and social programs to build yet more institutions and the prison system continues to burst at the seams.
Not only have I heard reports from California, about shipping prisoners either in or out of state, but also from other associates throughout the United States. This is not a problem confined to Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania seems to be doing it on a grander scale. It seems prisoners are being shuffled around from state to state to appease overcrowding laws and court orders, while the public is unaware of the increased burden in taxes that are being levied on them in order to accomplish this.
As a member of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee to the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole in Pittsburgh, I asked District Director, Larry Ludwig, if inmates could be paroled if the institution didn’t give a recommendation and he told me no. I had countless letters from inmates who said they were still sitting in prison even after they had complied with all of their program requirements. They said that often, they were told they needed to have additional, newly adopted, programs and that the waiting lists to get on them were very long. So, they continued to sit in prison. I question why such programs couldn’t be handled upon release? Wouldn’t it create jobs and relieve overcrowding? I had reports that inmates due for parole had been told that their records had been lost. At the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs, 300 such records were found and a guard was reported by another officer who had located them months later.
One woman, housed at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, sent me a copy of a court order from a Judge remanding her into the community, but she was still in Muncy nine (9) months later. It made me question if there were people still in prison who should have been sent home or to other facilities? I also learned that inmates with drug or alcohol records were held back when their parole minimum dates came up, even though they had no history of violent crime. Why couldn’t they have been given further treatment outside of prison walls? They too, remained in prison, padding the institutional profiles.
I also question how inmate advocacy groups can keep track of prisoners who were sentenced in Pennsylvania, but will now be housed elsewhere? What will happen with the “Right to Know Act?” Will it cross state lines? How can prison advocacy groups serve our fellow Pennsylvanians when we don’t know where they are located? Will this information be made readily available? Will families and loved ones be informed? Will the families survive? Questions, unanswered questions.
And then, we worry about the high cost of exorbitant phone bills that will only increase if a loved one is moved even farther away. We worry about higher traveling expenses to visit them and if we will ever be able to see them again? Under the Department of Corrections Handbook for Visitors (DC-ADM 812, p.20, enclosed), it states that, “Visitation by relatives and friends are encouraged by the Department. Visitation helps to keep the inmate’s family together. A child needs to know that his/her mother or father is still a part of his/her life and that he/she will be able to see his/her parent. A husband and wife need to be able to share his/her daily struggles and joys with each other. Visitation is also important to the morale of the inmate. Research has shown that an inmate who receives regular visits readjusts much better once he/she is released from prison.”
Those who don’t have loved ones on the inside may reason that some inmates don’t receive visitors because their families don’t care. I have spoken to many family members that, for a variety of reasons, are unable to visit although they would like to. For example, many offenders are housed at opposite ends of Pennsylvania from where their families live. Family members often don’t have the resources to visit so far away, or get days off from work that match the days when visits are allowed. (See: DC-ADM, p. 47, Family Finances, enclosed)
Sometimes, loved ones travel far distances of up to 10 hours with small children or elderly relatives, only to be turned away. Days to visit have been scaled down and there are numerous reports of prison officials treating visitors with distain and disrespect. Some family members need to work more than one job just to support their families on the outside and then there is the added cost of helping their loved ones on the inside with the high commissary costs. Inmates are employed at slave wages making anywhere from nineteen (19) to forty five (45) cents/hr. and the food budgets for the institutions keep being cut.
Not only are families paying taxes at work to support their loved one on the inside, but they typically also help them with commissary and medical co-pays so they can maintain some manner of human dignity and health.
I have heard many times, that families will save for months or even years to make a costly trip to visit a loved one on the inside. Work schedules, school schedules, institution visiting days and the weather are other factors that impact families that must travel long distances. Imagine if they were in another state?
We worry about ever increasing commissary costs, phone fees and no choice in vendors. We worry about “out of sight, out of mind” and what will happen to those on the inside that we love. If they report problems, we won’t be able to visit them to assure ourselves that they are alright. Will there be groups in other states such as the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s Official Visitors that will be able to visit our loved ones and intervene if necessary? Will the PA Official Visitors be allowed to visit out of state institutions?
Secretary Beard is quoted in the 10/15/2009 edition of the Philadelphia Enquirer “that the other states would not require any special programming, only basic religious, recreational and similar perfunctory programs.” Nothing is mentioned about education or preparing them for re-entry. Nothing is mentioned of how much it will cost Pennsylvania tax payers for each inmate transferred.
On 11/13/2009 there was a report by Andy Sheehan on KDKA news about the high cost of housing elderly lifers. It stated that housing inmates convicted of serious crimes are elderly, infirm and expensive and that their risk of committing a new crime is negligible. Rep. Frank Dermody argues that the state should more aggressively pursue alternative sentencing for many of the elderly inmates to make room for younger, violent criminals currently being housed out of state.
In the 11/04/2009 edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Bill Dimascio wrote an excellent article titled “Bizarro” (enclosed) about the state ignoring solutions to costly prison overcrowding. I recommend that everyone here read it.
In closing, I would just like to ask this panel to think about how they would feel if someone in their family was arrested for a crime and sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania? What if later they were told that their loved one would be moved to a far away state? Of course, no one ever thinks that one of their loved ones will ever wind up in prison. I didn’t either. Thank you.

PUBLISHER SUES VIRGINIA DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS OVER CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS, MAGAZINES SENT TO PRISONERS

Richmond, VA – Prison Legal News (PLN), a non-profit monthly publication that reports on criminal justice-related issues, filed suit today in U.S. District Court against Gene M. Johnson, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), and other prison officials. PLN contends that the VDOC violated its rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by censoring magazines and books sent to Virginia prisoners.

According to PLN's complaint, the VDOC has regularly censored PLN's monthly publication, claiming that it is "detrimental to the security, good order, discipline of the facility, or offender rehabilitative efforts or the safety or health of offenders, staff or others," or because it "presents information geared toward a negative perception of law enforcement. " However, VDOC officials have provided no explanation as to why PLN's coverage of criminal justice issues is considered detrimental to security or rehabilitation, or casts law enforcement in a negative light.

The VDOC's censorship policy does not provide for timely and adequate notice that allows publishers, including PLN, to challenge such censorship. Further, the VDOC does not permit prisoners' families or friends to purchase books or magazine subscriptions for prisoners. PLN's lawsuit notes that Virginia prisoners, "many of whom are indigent, may not receive purchases on their behalf by family members, friends, or charitable organizations. "

VDOC prisoners must obtain permission from prison officials before ordering, subscribing to or receiving publications. However, the VDOC has prohibited prisoners from receiving correspondence from PLN that contains information about magazine subscriptions, renewals and book sales. PLN contends that these policies "serve no neutral, legitimate, penological purpose," and therefore infringe upon its rights.

"Prisoners are adults and should not be treated as children by the VDOC by requiring approval by prison officials before prisoners can order legal and self-help materials," stated PLN General Counsel Dan Manville.

"Although prisoners lose many of their constitutional rights when they are incarcerated, the First Amendment does not end at the prison door," noted attorney Jeffrey Fogel, who represents PLN. "The Virginia Department of Corrections has censored numerous issues of Prison Legal News on the flimsiest of grounds. Moreover, the Department's procedures do not comply with the law, which requires a meaningful opportunity for a publisher to challenge censorship decisions."

"We have made good faith efforts to communicate with the VDOC to resolve these problems," added PLN editor Paul Wright, "but those efforts have been unsuccessful. PLN has a well-established right under the First Amendment to send our magazine and books to prisoners, and we have filed suit to enforce that right."

PLN is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief as well as monetary damages. The case is Prison Legal News v. Johnson, et al., U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Case No. 3:09-cv-00068. PLN is represented by attorneys Jeffrey E. Fogel and Steven D. Rosenfield in Charlottesville, and by PLN General Counsel Dan E. Manville in Ferndale, Michigan.

Prison Legal News (PLN), founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting human rights in U.S. detention facilities. PLN publishes a monthly magazine that includes reports, reviews and analysis of court rulings and news related to prisoners' rights and criminal justice issues. PLN has almost 7,000 subscribers nationwide and operates a website (www.prisonlegalnew s.org) that includes a comprehensive database of prison and jail-related articles, news reports, court rulings, verdicts, settlements and related documents. PLN is a project of the Human Rights Defense Center.

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), a project of Rainbow Bookstore, is a volunteer nonprofit organization that provides books to prisoners free of charge. Since the project began in 2006, it has put thousands of books into prison cells statewide.

The project currently receives more than 40 book requests a week. These requests show that prisoners love to read, want to learn more about the world, and want to improve their prospects when they get out of prison.

"I am interested in any books by or about African Americans. Do you have any books by James Baldwin or Alice Walker?" wrote another prisoner.

The most frequently requested books by prisoners are collegiate dictionaries and thesauruses. The project also frequently gets lists of topics from prisoners who hope some of their interests will be fulfilled.

A recent request, for example, listed the following topics: "1. Beginning Japanese or a Japanese/English dictionary; 2. Barn owls; 3. Vultures or other birds of prey; 4. Ancient Roman society; 5. Ice age animals and humans; 6. Warships of the U.S. from the revolution through WWII; 7. Iron mining, logging, railroads; 3. Something about Upper Peninsula Michigan, 9. Salamanders and amphibians. Thanks for your time," he wrote. "I hope you have something for me. I look forward to hearing from you."

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners was able to fulfill requests like this until May 2008, when the Department of Corrections (DOC) banned the project. After months of negotiations with the DOC, we succeeded in overturning the ban on new books, but the project is still barred from sending used books to prisoners.

The department's justification for the no-used-book policy is that the likelihood of contraband being concealed in used books is greater than that in new books. WBTP thinks this is excessively cautionary, unfairly preventing thousands of prisoners from engaging in much-valued self-education.

Nearly every study on corrections recommends reading in prison as a meaningful way of occupying time behind bars and as a preparation for a successful re-entry into society after incarceration.

The no-used-books policy not only undermines the state's interest in rehabilitating prisoners, it infringes on the Constitutional rights of prisoners to read. The policy also ignores the fact that all prisons in Wisconsin have stringent security procedures for incoming publications.

Ninety-seven percent of prisoners will eventually return to our communities. A policy that denies them meaningful literature, and provokes frustration and bitterness, just lacks common sense.

Wisconsin is the only state banning used books to prisoners.*
Camy Matthay is from Madison.

* I received this email after posting this article:
" Colorado also denies used books. All books must come from online catalogs such as Amazon or major retailers such as Borders, and be new, no "private" people. I know, I was "in the system" for three years, (unjustly, even from an unjust system.)"

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20091116/GPG0602/911160549/1269/GPG06/Keep-books-flowing-to-prisons

CHESHIRE, Conn. — In many ways it was just another day, another class of Wesleyan University, one of the more selective colleges in the Northeast. The topic was multiculturalism in schools. The discussion focused on methods of evaluating the rhetorical skills of various commentators, from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to Dinesh D’Souza.

One student pored over the text, his glasses perched at the tip of his nose. Another raised his hand again and again, eager to speak. A third lobbed grenades into the discussion. Several worried aloud about their homework, a research paper due in a few weeks.

After years of slim pickings for prisoners who craved higher education, two Wesleyan University students convinced their school to bring an elite college education to inmates at a high-security prison.

Though community colleges and others, like Boston University, have long had inmate programs, the two-month-old Wesleyan program is one of a few in the country where the selection process is highly rigorous, where academic potential is the primary criterion and where past criminal conduct, however heinous, is not considered in admission.

Some 120 inmates applied at Cheshire for 19 spots in the program. The process required them to submit essays, some of which can be read here, on weighty matters like Frantz Fanon’s view that language helped “support the weight of a civilization” or Sigmund Freud’s thoughts on happiness.

The instructors were impressed with Jose Cordero’s answer to one admission question: What figure, past or present, would he like to meet? Mr. Cordero, who is serving 65 years for murder, said he would like to meet the Constitution, since it is a “living” document.

He got a fat envelope, filled with blank paper for his future assignments. The rejected got those dreaded skinny ones.

Next semester, the inmates will study chemistry, biology and politics. This fall, their courses consist of expository writing and Sociology 152, the same introductory course Professor Charles C. Lemert has been teaching to generations of Wesleyan students at its nearby Middletown campus where tuition, room and board cost roughly $51,000.

“My father does college planning,” said Michael Luther, a 23-year-old who has been incarcerated since he was 15, “and a lot of students he recommends for Wesleyan don’t even get in. When he heard I had this opportunity, he was proud.”

On Wednesdays, students from the Wesleyan campus come to the prison for joint discussion groups with the inmates. The prison is a high-security center that houses roughly 1,350 inmates. It is the place where all of Connecticut’s license plates are made, and it offers a variety of other classes beyond the Wesleyan program, though not college level. The motto posted in the school wing reads “Non Sum Qualis Eram,” or “I am not what I once was.”

Indeed, all the inmates in the program have records that speak clearly about their past wrongdoing. The class has six convicted murderers, two convicted drug dealers and a kidnapper. Collectively, the class faces more than 600 years in prison. Several students, in fact, have little prospect of ever using their college credits in a career: prison will be their home for this lifetime.

But many of them speak with pure clarity about the reasons they were drawn to school again: idle curiosity, intellectual interest, a longing to be part of the big conversations of the day, and a desire for self-respect.

“It’s rejuvenating,” said Antonio Rivera, 23, who likes to read history and is less than halfway through a 12-year sentence for drug dealing.

Clyde Meikle, 38, of Hartford is serving a 50-year sentence for fatally shooting a man with whom he tussled over a parking spot. Ten years ago, he earned his high school diploma in prison. He likes to set a positive example for what he calls “the younger cats.”

“For me, it was a self-esteem thing,” he said.

Across the country, colleges faced with shrinking endowments are trying to cut corners, not add programs, and many colleges have given up their inmate education programs in the years since the Clinton administration decided it would no longer subsidize them with Pell grants.

Four years ago, in fact, Wesleyan balked at a proposal to install such a program.

But the university has a long history of civic engagement that traces back to its Methodist roots. It is named after John Wesley, an 18th-century minister who championed prison reform and helping the downtrodden. Two students, Russell Perkins and Molly Birnbaum, who had volunteered in prisons as students, revived the idea last year when they were seniors and figured out a way to finance it.

They obtained nearly $300,000 from the Bard Prison Initiative, a program that already pays to offer Bard College courses in a handful of New York prisons. That should fully pay for Wesleyan’s program for two years and provide partial financing for two more.

“Wesleyan has taken a courageous stand here,” said Max Kenner, the executive director of Bard’s program, who said he is convinced that education is a key tool for reducing recidivism.

How to finance the program over the long term is still under discussion, as is the question of whether an inmate who completes the course work will necessarily receive a Wesleyan degree.

But the instructors insist that the standards are identical — that an A in prison is the same as an A on campus and that the inmates will be entitled to use the university’s career services upon release.

Crime victims and their advocates question whether the investment will be worthwhile. “I appreciate the need to educate offenders, but I’m saddened we don’t spend that kind of money or take that kind of time to rebuild the lives of crime victims,” said Michelle S. Cruz, Connecticut’s independent victim advocate.

Sam Rieger, a Waterbury man whose 19-year-old daughter was murdered by a man now incarcerated at the Cheshire prison, agreed. “This does not make sense to me,” he said of the Wesleyan program. “What is the point?” He said the money should be spent on victims or on trying to help young people make better choices.

On a recent Monday at the prison, Beth Richards, the inmates’ English professor, looked around the class and sought to assure them that they have the same ability to succeed as their main campus counterparts. “Remember,” she said, “for most of literary history, people did it with pencil and paper. I agree you have limitations, but you have no limit on your brain.”

The discussion turned to whether multiculturalism had a place in schools.

Damien Thomas, 33, who is serving a 120-year sentence for two murders, said he took issue with the concept of the melting pot. “The salad bowl theory is better,” he said. “Everyone keeps their different shapes and forms but still contributes something to the salad.”

University administrators say they will raise additional money to finance the program privately so as not to siphon money from Wesleyan’s core mission. That was among the concerns raised by the faculty when it gathered to vote on the proposal last spring.

The vote was first scheduled to be taken on May 6, but it was postponed when a Wesleyan junior, Johanna Justin-Jinich, was murdered that day at the bookstore, turning a tranquil campus into a raucous crime scene. The faculty endorsed the plan two weeks later by a show of hands, with some dissent.

“If anything is unanimous at a Wesleyan faculty meeting, we’d be worried,” said Michael S. Roth, Wesleyan’s president. He said he shared some of the faculty’s initial concerns, but “the students convinced me.”

The university has not fully wrestled with what it would do if inmates were released before completing their studies. Bard faced this issue in May, when a female inmate became eligible for release weeks before her graduation. She extended her stay to receive her diploma.

“Oh, my,” Dr. Roth said upon hearing about the inmate. “I don’t know if that would be the solution I’d want to hear.” He said Wesleyan would be “as helpful as possible to someone who had that kind of dedication.”

During her class in the prison, Professor Richards walked a fine line between energizing her students with the demands of real scholarship and scaring them back into their cells. “My job,” she said, “is to make you at least partially paranoid.”

“Mission accomplished,” said Michael Fauci, 28, a convicted robber.

Vasco Thring, 34, wanted to know whether unwittingly using a phrase like “education begins at home,” which may have been said by someone else before, in a paper constituted plagiarism.

“You are all worriers,” the professor said. “That’s fine. If I have a choice between a group that doesn’t give a rip or worriers, I’ll take the worriers. But trust your intelligence.”

“You’re allowed,” she said, “to make mistakes here.”
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/college-ivy-sprouts-at-a-connecticut-prison/

MARYSVILLE, Ohio - The only thing missing from tiny Takeem Maffett's world are black and white prison stripes.

On the campus of the Ohio Reformatory for Women, convicts shuffle across from one spot to the next under watchful eyes.

Takeem's mother Takaya Patterson is exempt.

In contrast to the other buildings at the sprawling complex surrounded by razor wire and blinding lights, the nursery is colorful and dotted with Sesame Street characters.

Takeem's mother wears a prison jumpsuit. Takeem, with cherub cheeks and long slender fingers, sleeps in her arms as she rocks.

Just 2 months old, Takeem lives in prison.

Some experts say that approach is best for both mothers and their children because the women are less likely to commit crimes when they get out, and children get to be with their moms during critical periods of their development.

One critic calls the program a waste of taxpayer money and says prison should be a place for punishment, not somewhere to raise babies.

Either way, one thing is not in dispute: the number of women in prison has skyrocketed in the last three decades, and most female prisoners are single mothers.

In Ohio, being a prison mom is a full-time job for up to 18 months.

In Kentucky, infants can bond with their mothers, but for only a few hours at time.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of women behind bars has increased 843 percent in the last three decades, growing from 12,279 in 1977 to 115,779 last year.

In that same time, Ohio saw a 577 percent increase in female inmates, from 577 in 1977 to 3,905 last year; Kentucky experienced a whopping 1,573 percent increase from 139 in 1977 to 2,326 last year.

With so many more women landing behind bars, who is left to take care of the children?

In a 2004 survey, 84 percent of imprisoned parents said they left their child with the child's other parent. The rest went elsewhere - including 3 percent who went into foster care, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Parent in Prison and their Minor Children.

Ohio is one of nine states with prison nurseries.

Guidelines are stringent for Ohio's program. Since opening in 2001, 137 women have raised babies behind bars.

Still, the benefits are indisputable, said Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Bonding key issue

Establishing an early bond between the infant and mother is imperative to childhood development. And for the mothers, having that strong bond with their children tends to be the impetus to play it straight on the outside.

"It is well known that family support and family bonds are among the top factors that increase a returning citizen's chance of having a successful re-entry," Collins said.

Ohio set up a nursery in 2001. Indiana followed last year. Kentucky has a nursery, but children are not permitted to live with their mothers.

The Women's Prison Association, a New York-based agency that advocates for women with criminal records, recently studied babies behind bars and urged states to allow moms to serve sentences in the community or to start nurseries similar to Ohio's.

"I think people are realizing more and more women are going to prison and the reality is that women are mothers," said Chandra Villanueva, of the Institute on Women and Criminal Justice, part of the Women's Prison Association. "It makes sense to keep mothers and children together and give them the foundation to build a healthy relationship with their child."

Earlier this year, Villanueva released a report that found that women who participate in prison nursery programs are less likely to commit another crime, and their babies get to be with their mom during critical development months.
Birth of a child/program

The idea for an Ohio prison nursery was hatched in 2000 by two local women, former state Rep. Cheryl Winkler, R-Cincinnati, and convict Barbara Turner, a former nurse convicted of prescription drug offenses. Turner was pregnant when entering Marysville and successfully fought to have the baby's father present at her birth.

Turner wasn't allowed to keep her daughter with her.

Winkler proposed the nursery program, which was passed into law and officially got under way in 2001. Turner has since been released.

That program allows Takeem to live in prison.

Patterson, 29, is one of 11 women currently in the program.

A judge gave her a deal in 2003: Pay back the more than $5,000 she stole from her employer, Fifth Third Bank, and be monitored with five years probation.

In the end, Patterson didn't make good on the deal.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ralph "Ted" Winkler, the son of one of the program's originators, sent Patterson to prison in April.

At the time, she was six months pregnant and a mother of a 3-year-old girl, Tiyann. While standing before the judge again, the reality stung.

"In that courtroom I was thinking about my daughter, my family," Patterson said.

Tiyann went to live with her grandmother.

Patterson went to a Franklin County prison because it was close to a Columbus hospital where she would give birth.

On June 25, with two guards at her side, Patterson was loaded into a van for the 10-minute ride to the hospital. Twelve hours later, she gave birth to 3-pound, 11-ounce Takeem. She left the hospital three days later. Takeem stayed another 11 days while he gained weight and then he joined his mother in prison.

"I wanted to be with him and bond with him, and I didn't want to put that stress on my mom," she said.
Life inside prison

Patterson and her son share a room with another convict and her son. Two beds and two cribs leave little space in the small room.

The Ohio program can handle up to 20 mothers. Of Ohio's 3,000 female prisoners, 69 were pregnant, officials said recently.

Some babies are destined for the nursery program. Others will be released before giving birth. The rest will have to surrender their child to care outside prison walls.

To qualify in Ohio, mothers have to be scheduled for release before their child turns 18 months old to be eligible for the program. Experts think that children that age will have no memory of where they spent their early life.

If there is such as being lucky behind bars, Patterson says she was because she met the criteria. "There are a lot of mothers here who don't get to be with their children," she said. "I want him with me, and I think he wants to be with me."

She vows she's going to make a fresh start when she's released in April.

Programs for convicts and their babies are relatively new, and little research about their effectiveness has been done, according to Villanueva of the Woman's Institute.

In her study, she found Ohio prison officials looked at the program at its five-year mark and found 118 mothers had participated, with just 3 percent of the women committing another crime within three years of being released. Of the general female prison population 30 percent commit another crime.

The Ohio nursery is run on grants and federal programs for the poor that these mothers would have received even if they weren't incarcerated. A $69,000 federal grant pays for most of the program, nearly half of which is paid to a visiting pediatrician.

Mothers also have the option of seeking child support from the child's father and the prison has a case manager to help with that paperwork.

As with all convicts who give birth behind bars, taxpayers pick up the hospital tab.

"The citizens of Ohio should not be paying for this (program)," said state Rep. Joe Uecker, R-Miami Township, a former law enforcement officer who worked at several area police departments. "With the economy the way it is - and even if it were good - these women made a mistake and they need to be held accountable."

Uecker said he researched the program earlier this year when looking at the prison budget and said he found nothing to prove it was best for the child. Foster care, he said, would be a better option than prison life for an infant.

"You first have to convince me it's best for the child and then convince me this is more than a burden borne on those of us who work for a living," Uecker said. "I would be hard pressed to vote for this if we were given an opportunity to."

Collins of the Ohio Department of Corrections said he's proud of the program and called it money well spent.

"These women will be coming back into the community," Collins said. "Is it better for them to have a program where they can learn how to be a good mother and care for their children, or have that child given up to foster care where maybe we're starting another cycle of people coming to prison 18 years down the road?

"These are programs that teach responsibility and hold people accountable and give them skills they don't have and hopefully makes then law-abiding citizens instead of tax burdens," he said.
Mothers for a day

At the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Woman, a line of women all dressed in drab khaki jumpsuits stop and stare as three infants are carted past.

A little girl with-doe shaped eyes and Minnie Mouse ears is really starting to resemble her prison mother, some comment. The children are ushered into the chapel where three inmate mothers sit anxiously on hard chairs waiting.

"No bottle today?" asked prisoner Erica Bowman, 23, as she unpacks a sack lunch that was brought in with her son Tayland by his caretaker Cheryl Dugan.

"No bottle," Dugan boasted of the soon to be 1-year-old's development.

"Wow, I am so proud of you," Bowman cooed to her son.

Dugan has cared for Tayland since he was 2 days old. She and Bowman met through Operation Open Arms just two weeks before Tayland was born.

The group, a licensed private child-placement service, operates on the principle that children shouldn't have to pay for their mothers' crimes. The program does not receive any state or federal money.

Of the roughly 650 woman doing time at the prison between 80 to 90 percent are mothers. About 100 babies are born each year to mothers at this prison. In August alone, there were close to 70 pregnant prisoners, officials said. The correctional center is Kentucky's prison that allows pregnant inmates, so it also houses pregnant woman who would otherwise be sent to jail, as jails don't usually have the staff to care for pregnancies.

The prison allows children ages 3 and under to visit with their mothers for two hours on bonding days, which can be several times a week. About a fifth of the prison moms have children in that age range, but only a handful see their children with regularity because of the time, money and the distances the children's caretakers have to drive to Shelby County to visit the moms.

"These children did not commit the crime," said Laura Carpenter, the executive director of Operation Open Arms, one of two private groups that cares for children of prisoners and brings the babies to see their mothers weekly.

Mothering is fairly foreign to Bowman. Nurturing and raising her children, she admitted, took a back seat to the frenetic lifestyle crack cocaine fueled when she was living on the outside.

Tayland is Bowman's fourth child. The third was born addicted to the drug and was taken away from her. Bowman also relinquished her parental rights to her two oldest children to family during her crack cocaine days.

Now, Bowman says she's done: Done having children; done with dope.

She said her bubbly son with a carpet of dark hair is her inspiration to get her life together so she can provide for her him on the outside.

As Bowman headed to a microwave to heat up her son's lunch, prison mom Shanise Washington, 30, worked on her daughter's hair: changing it from a single ponytail to two puffs of hair above her ears.

A judge allowed Washington, a repeat felon, to stay out of prison until after her daughter was born.

Washington left Ke'syna Burgess with her husband. After five months, he said it was too much. She never saw her child during those months, nor for a long time after.

Ke'syna was eventually handed over to Operation Open Arms, and over the past year Washington has been getting to know her daughter, who will be 3 this month.

Ke'syna is shy around her mother. The two played dolls in a small nursery as another pregnant prisoner filled out forms so that her soon-to-be born child will be placed with a volunteer caregiver through Operation Open Arms.

"(Washington) is going to do the right thing," said prison Chaplain Kenny Talbott.

Seeing Ke'syna with regularity keeps Washington motivated. "She inspires me," she said of her daughter.

Washington finished her GED and has been taking classes in carpentry. She's supposed to stay in prison for another 15 years, but Washington, like Bowman, thinks she'll be out sooner rather than later.

And should she get out?

"I am never going to wear khaki again," she said.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091113/NEWS01/911150306/Babies+behind+bars

Gov. David A. Paterson has proposed severe spending reductions to close New York's projected $3 billion deficit for this fiscal year. Aid for public schools, Medicaid and other health and mental health programs, libraries, summer special education programs, and HIV-AIDS services are poised to take big hits.

Another place in the state's budget is primed for cutting: prisons.

But, largely for political reasons, the state did not close any correctional facilities during most of those years. Spending on prisons actually increased over that time, even as the number of people in prison fell. It wasn't until earlier this year, confronted with the current fiscal crisis, that Albany policy-makers managed to muster the will to shut down about 2,250 prison beds, at a savings of $52 million over two years.

The state's prison system still has more than 5,000 unused spaces. With state government in such desperate need of economies and with the evidence that having fewer inmates doesn't threaten public safety, it's time to close underutilized prisons.

State leaders can enact additional measures that will reduce the prison population and make the cost-savings step of shutting facilities easier to take:

Full Rockefeller drug laws repeal: Even after reforms were enacted earlier this year, mandatory sentencing provisions remain on the books that will cause the imprisonment of thousands of minor drug offenders each year.

Expand work release: In 1994, more than 27,000 state inmates participated in this proven and cost beneficial program, which aids incarcerated people in their safe transition back to the community. Now, only about 2,500 are enrolled.
connections

Expand graduated sanctions for technical parole violations: Last year, more than 9,000 people were returned to state prison for technical parole violations - like showing up late for an appointment or breaking curfew - not for committing new crimes. Instead of returning people to prison, the state could step up their level of supervision.

Increase parole release and expand merit time eligibility: The state's Parole Board often denies individuals release due to the nature of their crime, despite their positive institutional records, and merit time, which allows inmates to earn time off their sentences, isn't available to those convicted of violent offenses. Combined, these two policies delay the release of thousands of people every year.

When New York State passed the Rockefeller drug laws in 1973, only about 12,500 people were confined in its prisons. About 300,000 people were locked up across the nation. Those harsh laws effectively triggered a mandatory sentencing movement that swept the country. Today our nation's correctional facilities house nearly 2.4 million people, a growth of more than 600 percent.

New York can now address its budget woes while performing a pivotal role in pointing criminal justice practice in a more constructive direction. At a press conference this past spring, Paterson seemed to support this point of view when he said: "Sometimes I wonder what planet I'm living on when I'm in here defending closing prisons. You know when you close prisons? When there aren't enough prisoners to fill them up."

We look to the governor and legislative leaders to exercise leadership that continues New York's emphasis on progressive measures that reduce resources for incarceration and save the state money, while favoring approaches that actually cut recidivism rates and restore the well-being of our people and communities. That's the planet we would all prefer to live on.

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/opinion-ease-state-budget-woes-by-closing-more-prisons-1.1584229

ardwick, Georgia (CNN) -- White fuzz covers his bald head. His sallow skin sags. A wheelchair and cane support limp legs.

This is not the typical image of a prison inmate. But 73-year-old George Sanges is among the burgeoning elderly population behind bars, a group expected to continue to grow as baby boomers age and states implement longer sentences.

Sanges, who is serving a 15-year sentence at Men's State Prison in Georgia, has cerebral palsy and takes multiple medications twice a day. His condition has worsened since he entered prison in 2005 for aggravated assault against his wife of 48 years. Twice while in prison, he was rushed to the hospital for heart problems.

As health care sparks debate across the nation, the prison community faces its own battle against rising medical costs. The elderly constitute the fastest-growing sector of the inmate population, experts say. It is a group that needs more frequent and costlier treatment, which states are required to provide under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

An analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics data found that the male prison population over age 55 ballooned by 82 percent in eight years, from 48,800 inmates in 1999 to 89,900 in 2007. The definition of "elderly" varies by state. The National Corrections Institute, a prison research organization, calls inmates over 55 elderly, and some states place inmates over 50 in that category. An inmate's body ages faster than the body of someone not in prison.

Georgia, one of the 10 largest prison systems in the country, spends about $8,500 on medical costs for inmates over 65, compared with about an average of $950 for those who are younger, corrections officials say. Across the county, inmate medical care costs about $3 billion a year.

Men's State Prison holds the largest number of sickly elderly inmates in Georgia. The medium-security facility, in a quaint rural town, is enclosed by barbed wire just like any other prison. But inside, inmates play card games and checkers rather than shooting hoops or lifting weights. The oldest inmate here is 89. There are veterans who served in World War II.

Gang fights here are rare, though there is still bickering and catfights from the wheelchair seat. Diapers, breathing machines and hospital beds wrapped in plastic for easy cleanup are visible in almost every corner of the hostel-style room where prisoners sleep.

Every inmate here has a medical condition; dementia, hypertension and diabetes are the most common, the warden says. "With the elderly population, we're beginning to run something comparable to nursing homes," says Sharon Lewis, medical director for the Georgia Department of Corrections. "This is one of the unhealthiest populations found anywhere. They really lived life hard."

In the last few decades, a growing number of prisons have improved their quality of medical care, says Edward Harrison, president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, an accreditation organization based in Chicago, Illinois.

Elizabeth Alexander, director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, says investigations revealed that inmates were often denied access to certified doctors in the 1970s. In some instances, inmates were providing medical and dental care to one another. There continues to be lawsuits filed against prisons and jails for providing poor medical care, she says, but overall, the care has vastly improved.
This is one of the unhealthiest populations found anywhere. They really lived life hard.
--Sharon Lewis

Some states, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, have built geriatric prison facilities that resemble mini-hospitals, equipped with medical devices and oxygen tanks. Prisons are being licensed as acute-care settings with a crew of registered nurses, correctional health experts say.

Placing elderly prisoners into separate facilities or wings can help the state consolidate costs. Nearly 75 hospice programs exist in prisons -- up from less than 10 a decade ago, says Carol McAdoo of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

"I would argue that the health care that is rendered behind bars is better than what is received in the general population," says CEO Rich Hallworth of Prison Health Services, a private medical corrections company in Tennessee that serves 172 jails and prisons around the country.

To ease budget woes in California, one bill up for debate would allow nonviolent elderly prisoners to be released into hospice care or monitored with ankle bracelets. In the past few years, Georgia officials say, the state has released more frail and dying inmates on medical reprieve than ever before. Other states, including New York and Virginia, have also allowed early release of ailing elderly inmates.

But critics, including victims' advocacy groups, have scrutinized this policy. Will Marling, executive director of the National Organization for Victims Assistance in Virginia, said most victims believe offenders will strike again after they are released.
The health care that is rendered behind bars is better than what is received in the general population.
--Rich Hallworth

"If a person is sentenced to life, we know they are naturally going to get old," Marling said. "A life sentence should mean life."

Most of the elderly inmates at Men's State Prison in Georgia are serving lengthy sentences for crimes committed when they were younger, officials said. A "three strikes law" passed in the 1990s contributed to much of the growth in the state's geriatric prison population.

But there remains a group of elderly inmates who committed violent crimes during their golden years, proving the point that many victims worry about.

Research has shown that arrests of elderly offenders have risen. Their imprisonment has also contributed to the aging inmate population, but little is known about why the elderly commit crimes.
As much as I feel for them, they are in a situation of their own making.

With his sight nearly gone, George Sanges peers through thick glasses at an old photograph from his locker. After several seconds, he slowly distinguishes his wife's face.

"That's Betty," he says.

Sanges cannot explain why he attacked his wife. He was 69 years old then, a grandfather without a criminal history.

"I got in trouble," he repeats several times. "I'm really sorry."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/13/aging.inmates/

U.S. Identifies 111,000 Immigrants With Criminal Records
By JULIA PRESTON - NY Times
Published: November 12, 2009

Federal authorities have identified more than 111,000 immigrants with criminal records being held in local jails, during the first year of a program that seeks to deport immigrants who have committed serious crimes.

Among the immigrants identified through the program, known as Secure Communities, more than 11,000 had been charged with or convicted of the most serious crimes, including murder and rape, domestic security officials said Thursday. About 1,900 of those have been deported.

At a news conference in Washington, John Morton, the top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called the program “the future of immigration enforcement,” because, he said, it “focuses our resources on identifying and removing the most serious criminal offenders first and foremost.”

About 100,000 of the detained immigrants identified through the system had been convicted of less serious crimes, ranging from burglary to traffic offenses, the officials said. Of those, more than 14,000 have been deported.

Obama administration officials have worked to distinguish their immigration enforcement strategy from the Bush administration’s, which centered on high-profile factory raids and searches in communities for immigration fugitives.

The Bush operations drew an outcry from immigrant advocates, who said they led to racial profiling, especially of Latinos, and ensnared many immigrants who lacked legal status but had not committed crimes.

Obama administration officials said Secure Communities, which was started under President George W. Bush but rapidly expanded under President Obama, is a relatively low-cost way for the authorities to concentrate resources on deporting the most dangerous immigrants.

Immigration lawyers remain skeptical, saying the program lumps together relatively minor offenses with serious felonies. They said the program encouraged the local police to arrest anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

“All you have to do is get them in jail and their immigration status can be checked,” said Joan Friedland, immigration policy director at the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy group. Under the program, which started in October 2008 in Houston, the fingerprints of every person booked into jail by the local authorities — including legal and illegal immigrants and United States citizens — are checked against federal immigration databases as well as criminal databases.

When the check produces a match showing both an immigration record and a criminal one, ICE agents can place a hold to ensure the immigrant will remain in custody.

Under an agreement with agencies in the program, ICE agents must take action within 48 hours to detain or initiate deportation proceedings against the most serious offenders. Legal immigrants are subject to deportation if they are convicted of certain crimes, while illegal immigrants can be deported even if they have committed no crime.

In the first year, 95 cities or counties in 11 states have joined the program. The police department of Washington, D.C., announced on Thursday that it would join. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at the news conference that she hoped the program would expand to the whole country by 2013.

Most immigrants identified in the program remain in this country because the immigration authorities generally allow criminal prosecutions and sentences to run their course before they carry out deportations.

The database checks still have flaws, lawyers said. According to ICE figures, about 5,880 people identified through the program turned out to be United States citizens.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 13, 2009, on page A13 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13ice.html?sq=Immigration&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=2&adxnnlx=1258135272-f20ItTzFAroSVg4kL0Hyqg

November 11, 2009

Dear Friends & Supporters of Sex Worker’s Rights:

In 2009, sex workers from around the globe met gruesome deaths and endured unspeakable violence. Some died at the hands of a solitary perpetrator; others were victims of serialprostitute killers. While some of these horrific stories received international media attention ( Boston, Grand Rapids, Albuquerque, Tijuana , Hong Kong , Moscow , Great Britain ,Cape Town , New Zealand ), other cases received little more than a perfunctory investigation. Many cases remain unresolved, sometimes forever.

Each year, December 17th marks the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Last year’s event in Washington, D.C. was a big success and this year, sex workers and their allies from across the U.S. will gather together in Tucson, Arizona to remember and honor sex workers who have been victimized by virtue of their chosen profession - including rape, assault and murder.

You are invited to join us on December 17, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona to honor the memories of the fallen. (A schedule of events is at the end of this letter). This year is especially poignant for us in Arizona because in May, 2009, Marcia Powell, an inmate at the Perryville women’s prison outside of Phoenix who was serving 27 months for prostitution, died when she was left outside in a holding cage in 107 degree heat without shade, food or water. Marcia Powell’s death is not only a travesty of justice and a failure of the prison system, but of the unjust laws which continue to oppress sex workers everywhere. We are outraged and saddened by both the loss of freedom and of lives, and we ask for your participation in putting an end to the violence.

Here’s How You Can Help

Please join us in honoring sex workers who have fallen victim to the travesties of violence and injustice. You can:

* Attend the IDEVASW event in Tucson, Arizona on December 17th; we have plenty of resources for free housing and transportation.
* If you can’t join us in Tucson, organize your own IDEVASW event in your hometown.
* If you’re a business who’d like to help the Tucson event by sponsorship, please contact info@swop-tucson.org. We need both money and volunteers.
* Circulate this letter to your own listservs and use social media to get the word out - blog about this, add this letter to your website, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.
* Donate to the Sex Workers Outreach Project. Visit http://swop-usa.org to find out more.

If silence is the voice of complicity, then your presence in Arizona on December 17th would be a powerful message for justice to be heard across the world. Thank you.

In Solidarity,

Sex Workers Outreach Project - USA Sex Workers Outreach Project -Tucson
For more event information, please visit: http://swop-tucson.org

_________________________@@@_____________________
IDEVASW Event Schedule - Tucson, Arizona

Volunteers are still needed – please contact info@swop-tucson.org !
December 17, 2009

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. “No Human Involved” Event El Presidio Park, 160 West Alameda Street, Tucson, AZ. Performance art/art installation with the theme, “No Human Involved.” The central image will be a physical representation of the Perryville Prison which will honor Marcia Powell and sex workers everywhere who have been victims of violence; a performance piece/die-in and live music.

6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. “Remembrance Memorial” El Tiradito Shrine, 354 South Main Avenue, Tucson, AZ. Join us in remembering and honoring sex worker who have been victims of violence. Live music, performance poetry, ritual, candlelight vigil and refreshments. El Tiradito is a national historic shrine dedicated to the “castaway sinner” and holds a special place in the hearts of Tucson sex workers.
December 18, 2009

Political Rally at the downtown Phoenix offices of the Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections to protest current anti-prostitution laws and prison conditions. Did you know that in Arizona, a fourth conviction is a mandatory Class 5 felony with 180 days of prison for consensual sex between a client and a sex worker? Please visit http://swop-tucson.org for more details. Volunteers are needed to organize this day!

Florida leads nation in locking up kids in adult jails
By Colleen Jenkins, St Petersburg Tims Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009

TAMPA — This week, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard appeals in two Florida juvenile cases, scholars took note that the state leads the nation in locking up kids for life who committed crimes in which no one died.

That isn't Florida's only distinction.

The state sends more children to adult jails and prisons, period. Laws make it easy for prosecutors to pluck young people out of the juvenile justice system before they turn 18.

Six Tampa Bay area counties — Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus and Manatee — deemed juveniles in 1,410 cases bad enough to be charged as adults. On the other end of the spectrum, seven counties in Florida didn't send any young people to the adult system.

Local prosecutors say the numbers reflect an aggressive stance against juvenile crime, but they stress that the decision to charge teens as adults isn't made lightly. Kids who wind up in felony court can still walk away with juvenile sanctions.

"It gives them one more bite at the apple, but we have a much bigger hammer over their head," Hillsborough Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi said.

Advocates for juvenile justice reform argue that the statutes Florida enacted in the 1990s response to a surge in juvenile crime need updating. Researchers say the laws fail to consider that adolescents, less developed than adults, are often capable of change. Or that, all things equal, juveniles are more likely to re-offend if convicted in adult court.

The stain of an adult conviction, they say, threatens a young person's ability to join the military, get a job or enroll in school.

"You essentially pull the rug out from under these kids, and it's no wonder that they end up back in the system," said Liz Ryan, chief executive officer of the Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington, D.C., an organization dedicated to keeping youth out of the adult criminal justice system.

Statewide during the 2007-08 fiscal year, the number of juveniles transferred to adult court increased to 3,592. That's a 45 percent jump since 2003-04, but only about half as many transfers as the state had at its peak in the mid 1990s.

Hillsborough County prosecutors sent 660 juvenile cases to adult court in 2007-08, the most in the state. Hillsborough also had the most juvenile arrests in 2007 and 2008, according to data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Pinellas prosecutors transferred 517 cases, up from 271 cases four years earlier. Pasco County transferred 84 cases, down from previous years; Hernando had 46, Citrus had 33 and Manatee had 70.

In five of the six counties, burglary was the most common ticket to the adult system.

Researchers say the majority of juvenile cases land in adult court through "direct file," meaning at the discretion of prosecutors. Florida is one of just 15 states that give prosecutors that power.

Some juvenile advocates contend that the decision to transfer juveniles to adult court should be left up to judges because they are neutral parties in the criminal justice system. Pinellas-Pasco Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett counters that the current arrangement includes sufficient checks and balances, allowing judges to give young offenders juvenile sanctions or youthful offender sentences if they don't feel the cases merit adult punishment.

Florida statutes require prosecutors to direct file or seek indictment for certain violent crimes — such as murder — in adult court no matter the offender's age. Beyond that, prosecutors say their filing decisions are dictated by each offender's individual circumstances rather than strict guidelines.

Some crimes are so heinous that the public interest requires adult charges, prosecutors say. That was the rationale they used to pursue adult charges against 13-year-old Jose Guadalupe Walle, who was suspected in a string of rapes and robberies at restaurants in St. Petersburg and Apollo Beach and a Gibsonton home.

"He was 13 going on 25," Bartlett said this week. Some young offenders are "behaving as adults, and the crime itself warrants them to be charged as adults."

Prosecutors also turn to the adult system to deal with repeat offenders.

"Frankly, there are some of the kids we have in juvenile court who have not been amenable to any sanctions we can impose," said Pinellas Judge Raymond Gross. "You run out of options."

The charging decision isn't always clear cut. Defense attorneys and prosecutors spent weeks wrestling over whether Davis Islands teen Jordan Valdez should be charged in juvenile or adult court with fleeing the scene of a fatal crash when she was 16. The teen's attorneys said she was a good kid who made a mistake, and they worried that a felony charge would dash her college scholarship hopes.

Prosecutors ultimately filed an adult charge, saying only that they based the decision on the nature of the crime. Valdez is expected to plead guilty and be sentenced Nov. 24.

In Pinellas, Bartlett admits he struggled with the decision to charge five teenagers as adults after they terrorized neighborhoods over two nights in January and February with firebombs, slashed tires and shattered windows. Though the young men were good students, Bartlett said the amount of property damage and the repeated offenses tipped the scale for him to adult charges.

"I was pretty comfortable in my mind that those kids would never reoffend," he said. "But there's a certain level of punishment that has to be attached to it."

Last month, a judge sentenced the teens as youthful offenders to varying combinations of prison and probation.

Advocates acknowledge that young offenders need to be punished, but they lament that the state's tough stance on juvenile crime has shifted the focus, and funding, away from rehabilitation and prevention.

There are bright spots. After terrible crime rates in the 1990s, Miami-Dade is now considered a national model for effective juvenile justice. The county puts special emphasis on getting services for first-time offenders based on their needs rather than their crimes, a model Hillsborough and Pinellas counties have watched with interest.

Taking a holistic view with juvenile offenders is the only approach that makes sense, said Hillsborough Public Defender Julianne Holt.

"If you don't modify the behavior of the child and you don't create a values system," Holt said, "there's no doubt that the community suffers at a later time and so does that child."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-leads-nation-in-locking-up-kids-in-adult-jails/1051218
This and other news about youth and mass incarceration can be found at www.realcostofprisons.org/glbo/

WASHINGTON -- Congress has ordered the panel that advises judges on prison terms to conduct a review of mandatory-minimum sentences, a move that could lead to a dramatic rethinking of how the U.S. incarcerates its criminals.

The review is a little-noticed element of the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last month by President Barack Obama. The defense-spending bill calls on the commission to perform several tasks, including an examination of the impact of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and alternatives to the practice.

Amid cost concerns in recent years, states have tried to reverse the trend. At least 26 states have cut corrections spending recently and at least 17 are closing prisons or reducing their inmate populations, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit that studies sentencing and criminal-justice policies.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which advises judges on all other sentences, has now been charged with issuing recommendations on mandatory minimums. Any final change in sentencing law would have to come from Congress.

"It's going to be a massive undertaking," said the new chairman of the Sentencing Commission, William Sessions III.

Mr. Sessions, who is also the chief federal judge in Vermont, said the review would include everything from determining the effects of minimums on the size of the prison population, to spending and the social impact of the policies. "In my view," he said, "it's a very open-ended request."

The inmate population in federal prisons has risen from 24,000 in 1980 to 209,000 as of Nov. 5. Over the same period, the federal Bureau of Prisons staff has grown from 10,000 to about 36,000 employees.

The commission has pushed for changes in mandatory minimums, such as ending the disparity in sentencing for crimes involving crack-cocaine and powder cocaine. Several proposals are pending in Congress to address the crack-cocaine issue. But the commission has not done a full-scale examination of federal sentencing laws since 1991. At the time, there were only 60 mandatory-minimum laws on the books. Now there are about 170.

According to a limited review released by the commission in July, most mandatory-minimum cases in 2008 concerned drugs or weapons crimes. The review found that 21,023 offenders were convicted of crimes that could have triggered the mandatory-minimum sentence. Many got more lenient sentences for a variety of reasons, including cooperation with authorities.

The commission will examine the effects of mandatory minimums on plea agreements. Critics of the system say the threat of such sentences is used to coerce plea bargains.

Members of the commission have been traveling the country to meet with judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Many have pressed the commission to provide alternatives to imprisonment for nonviolent, low-level drug defendants.

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement labor organization, said officers believed it was appropriate to review the system. But he said it shouldn't happen "in a way that will result in criminals not being held accountable."

Mary Price, vice president and general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said it was too early to tell where the review might lead.

"Certainly from FAMM's perspective, as much information as the commission can provide on the operation and impact of mandatory minimums can only help us better understand and advocate for their elimination."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125798793160144461.html

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | November 10, 2009

The Patrick administration has shelved plans to build special treatment units for hundreds of seriously mentally ill inmates, two years after advocates for prisoners alleged in a federal lawsuit that the state’s practice of keeping such inmates in solitary confinement 23 hours a day was inhumane and causing suicides.

Citing the state budget crisis, lawyers for top state prison officials said negotiations to settle the civil rights suit by the Disability Law Center against the Department of Correction out of court have ended. The center has asked a federal judge in Boston to schedule a trial for January 2011, while the state wants it to start a year later.

The collapse of negotiations, made public in court filings Friday, marks a startling reversal from where things stood a year ago. Last November, Harold W. Clarke, the correction commissioner appointed by Governor Deval Patrick, and Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said they expected the suit would be resolved shortly with the announcement of plans to build maximum-security residential treatment units.

Inmates would be exposed to more types of therapy in such units, and advocates want the prisoners to have more time out of their cells.

“We’re hoping to be able to say, ‘We don’t have to go to court, we can avoid litigation,’ which I’m certain will serve all parties best,’’ Clarke said in a Globe report Nov. 16.

On Friday, however, lawyers for the prison system filed a document in US District Court that said, “Due to the fiscal crisis, the parties have discontinued formal settlement negotiations.’’ The state’s lawyers did not elaborate on the financial constraints.

The nonprofit Disability Law Center sued the state in March 2007, alleging that hundreds of mentally ill prisoners were kept in closet-size solitary confinement cells in response to unruly behavior. The conditions had led to self-mutilation, the swallowing of razor blades, and numerous suicides, said the center.

The suit, which resembled legal challenges that led to changes in other states, said Massachusetts ignored repeated calls from its mental health providers and consultants to provide high-security treatment units for violent, mentally disturbed inmates.

A Globe Spotlight Team series in December 2007 reported 15 suicides in the prisons from 2005 through 2007, most by those in solitary confinement with histories of mental illness or drug addiction. There had also been more than 3,200 suicide attempts and self-inflicted injuries in the prior decade, the Globe found.

Walker, of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which helps represent the Disability Law Center in the suit, said yesterday that she was “deeply disappointed that we’re not going to be able to resolve this case short of trial.’’ She said she could not comment further because settlement talks were confidential.

In a brief statement, Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the prison system, said correction officials plan to “continue providing appropriate levels of service to segregation inmates with serious mental illness.’’ She declined to elaborate, citing the litigation.

There is nothing appropriate about the segregation of inmates with mental illness, according to Laurie Martinelli, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts, an advocacy group that supports the lawsuit.

She said keeping such prisoners in their cells 23 hours a day violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and that the state’s fiscal crisis was irrelevant.

“You can’t get around a constitutional violation by saying, ‘We don’t have money,’ ’’ she said.

Fred Cohen, a retired criminal justice professor at the State University of New York at Albany and an expert on the treatment of the mentally ill in prisons, agreed, saying no federal court has ruled that finances trump an inmate’s constitutional rights. If the case goes to trial, however, plaintiffs would have to prove that the isolation of inmates violates their civil rights. In some states, Cohen said, politicians were glad for judges to order them to improve conditions for inmates; that way, judges, rather than the politicians, had to take the heat from the public for spending scarce tax dollars on convicted criminals.

“It’s not unheard of, and it’s especially popular during times of economic duress,’’ he said.

Several states, including Connecticut, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin have faced lawsuits in recent years that have been resolved by settlements or court orders requiring improvements in the treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Kevin M. Burke, Patrick’s public safety secretary, was quoted as saying in 2007 that it would cost “several million’’ dollars to fully fund high-security treatment units. A spokesman for Burke, whose office oversees the prison system, said yesterday that the secretary would not comment on the litigation. Patrick also declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

Prisoner rights groups as well as specialists on the treatment of inmates have repeatedly criticized the Massachusetts prison system for failing to address the needs of inmates with mental illnesses.

An independent study of the state prison system released in February 2007 found that the number of mentally ill inmates increased by nearly 1,000 between 2000 and 2005 but that the state was not responding adequately to the challenges they presented. There are about 11,000 inmates in the state system.

Lindsay M. Hayes, a national specialist in prison suicide prevention who wrote the report, said suicidal inmates were being punished instead of being helped. The study, commissioned by the department after an increase in prisoner suicides in 2005 and 2006 left the state’s rate nearly double the national rate over the prior decade, made 29 recommendations. They ranged from improving the suicide-prevention training of correction officers to increasing the frequency of observation of at-risk inmates.

Although prison officials immediately said they embraced all of the recommendations, the department never endorsed a blanket ban on the segregation of mentally ill inmates. Inmates in segregation are typically allowed out of their cells for an hour only to shower or to get exercise in a small caged space.

In April 2008, the state prison system took a modest step to improve treatment of mentally ill inmates when it opened a unit for such prisoners at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison in Shirley. The unit is called the Secure Treatment Program and it houses 14 prisoners, Wiffin said.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/11/10/treatment_units_for_mentally_ill_inmates_on_hold?mode=PF

Bill Would Limit Needle Exchanges
By KATIE ZEZIMA - NY Times
Published: November 8, 2009

BANGOR, Me. — For years, the location of this city’s needle exchange program, in a nondescript strip mall close to highways and bus lines, was seen as a major asset.

A heroin addict picking up a clean needle as part of a program run by the Down East AIDS Network in Ellsworth, Me.

But now, AIDS activists say, that very location could undermine what happens inside the exchange.

A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ban of more than 20 years on using federal money for needle exchange programs. But the bill would also ban federally financed exchanges from being within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, college, video arcade or any place children might gather — a provision that would apply to a majority of the country’s approximately 200 exchanges.

Under a separate bill, all exchanges in Washington within the 1,000-foot perimeter would be barred from receiving city money as well as federal money.

“Let’s protect these kids,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who introduced the Washington bill. “They don’t need to be playing kickball in the playground and seeing people lined up for needle exchange.”

Both bills have passed the House and a Senate subcommittee and await Senate action.

Advocates and organizations including the N.A.A.C.P. are lobbying Congress to kill the 1,000-foot provisions. The promise of federal money could not come at a better time, these officials say, as states are cutting their health and human services budgets and private donations are dropping precipitously. At least four needle exchanges have closed this year because of a lack of financing.

Many exchanges are run by organizations that provide broad-based health services like testing for the AIDS virus and hepatitis C, mental health counseling, medical referrals and condom distribution. Advocates worry that if needle exchanges disappear, drug users will lose access to those other services.

The rule “is going to kill us,” said Ellis Poole, executive director of the Harm Reduction Center of Southern Oregon, which is 997 feet from a high school in Roseburg. The center runs a needle exchange and offers antidrug programs to high schools in the area. With donations plummeting, it has a $374,000 budget deficit for 2009. Mr. Poole said he worried that the center’s programs would be threatened if the bill passed.

“We could move a few feet down, but the building is more expensive at the other end,” Mr. Poole said. “I have to beg for money for computers. I have to ask people to come clean the carpet at no charge.”

Officials at exchanges in cities like Chicago, New York and Washington say there are few, if any, places that could house a needle exchange under the rule.

“I was thinking, ‘A thousand feet, how much is that?’ ” said Raquel Algarin, executive director of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center in Manhattan. “And then I found myself thinking, ‘We’d probably be doing syringe exchange in the middle of the East River, and any exchange on the West Side would be in the Hudson River.’ How do you work that out?”

Many advocates also worry that smaller, rural exchanges, which lack the fund-raising abilities and infrastructure of many larger, urban exchanges, will be affected by the 1,000-foot rule.

In Maine, which officials say has one of the highest rates of prescription drug abuse per capita in the country and is grappling with a recent influx of heroin, AIDS activists worry that they will receive less money just as their client base is growing. The state’s four exchanges — in Augusta, Bangor, Ellsworth and Portland — would be ineligible for federal money.

“The federal funding would be key for us,” said Patricia A. Murphy, executive director of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network in downtown Bangor.

Upon entering the office, squeezed between a veterans center and a music store, drug users are escorted into a small room, where a trained staff member checks them in, using only first names and case numbers, and carefully counts their needles.

Under Maine law, drug users may receive one clean needle for every dirty one they turn in. The exchange offers users a variety of needle sizes, along with tourniquets, antiseptic ointment, condoms and information on safe needle use, and helps refer clients to clinics and treatment centers that deal with sexually transmitted diseases. The center also has a food bank, which clients are urged to use.

Those who have built a level of trust with Ms. Murphy and her staff send fellow drug users to the office. The number of users enrolled in the needle exchange here has doubled in the past year, while funding fell by about 15 percent.

The federal money, Ms. Murphy said, would allow the exchange to grow with the number of clients, many of whom come from rural northern and eastern Maine, and set up mobile needle exchange units in communities more than 100 miles from Bangor.

“This is a critical piece of harm reduction,” Ms. Murphy said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intravenous drug use directly or indirectly accounts for about one-fifth of the nation’s 1.1 million H.I.V. cases, and needle exchanges are an effective way to stem the spread of infection. The World Health Organization said in a 2004 report that there was “compelling evidence” that increasing needle exchanges reduced H.I.V. transmission. It cited studies showing that the rate of infection dropped up to 18 percent in cities with an exchange.

Luke, a 30-year-old Bangor resident who did not want to give his last name, said he exchanged his needles, and sometimes those of his friends, about once a week. He said he had become addicted to Suboxone, a drug intended to treat opiate addiction that officials say more people are starting to abuse.

In a black hooded sweatshirt and red sneakers, Luke said he often also picked up condoms and guides on how to inject drugs more safely. He said he came to the facility because its location made it discreet and few people knew what it was.

A 23-year-old man who is addicted to heroin and exchanges needles at the Down East AIDS Network in Ellsworth called the 1,000-foot limit “ridiculous.” The man, who did not want to give his name because of his addiction, said he started using heroin eight years ago and exchanging needles four years ago. He said he often picked up needles he saw on the ground and brought them in for safe disposal.

“It’s a dangerous thing to do,” the man said of his heroin use, “but it’s best to take every precaution you can. If you’re going to do this stuff, you should do it right.”
A version of this article appeared in print on November 9, 2009, on page A9 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/health/policy/09needle.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Needle%20Exchange&st=cse