DOJ Standards Finally Set for 2003
Prison Rape Elimination Act
The long wait is over. The Department of Justice released on May 17 what it calls tthe "Final Rule to prevent, detect and respond"to sexual abuse in all confinement facilities.|
This landmark rule, issued, in accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), national standards for four categories of facilities: adult prisons and jails, lockups, community confinement facilities and juvenile facilities. The rule is the first-ever federal effort to set standards aimed at protecting inmates in all such facilities at the federal, state and local levels.
The rule is binding on all federal “confining” facilities (including those run by executive departments and other agencies) and will penalize states that do not comply with reductions in federal funds. Local jails are also required to comply with the prevention, detection and response to sexual abuse. Training, support, research and technical assistance will be offered through the DOJ-funded National Resource Center for the Elimination of Prison Rape.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/May/12-ag-635.html
See what Human Rights Watch had to say, including, “ The Justice Department leaves no doubt that the old ways do not and cannot suffice.”.
http://www.corrections.com/news/article/30863-new-prison-rape-standards-offer-landmark-protection
17th State Abolishes the Death Penalty
Calling our system of justice “imperfect,” the governor of Connecticut quietly signed a bill behind closed doors to abolish all future death penalty sentences and replace them with life without the possibility of parole. That leaves 11 men still on death row facing execution although legal experts predict defense attorneys will try to use the new law to seek life sentences.
Governor Dannell Malloy said his experience as a prosecutor convinced him that innocent people could be executed. “I learned firsthand that our system of justice is very imperfect,” he said. Fifteen other states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. Oregon and California are debating a repeal.
www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-deathpenalty-connecticut-idUSBRE83O1CM20120425
Lifers Censored, Muzzled in Efforts
To Publicize Anti-Gang Violence Plan
The Prison Ministry Task Force has joined with other members of a Community Support Coalition (CSC) to back up a small group of lifers and long-termers in promoting a Peace Initiative to slow gang violence.
The Peace Initiative, aimed at gang members inside and out in the community, was highlighted late last year when the lifers’group known as the Extra Legalese Group, Inc., (ELG) received an Innovator of the Year Award from TheDaily Record newspaper.
The six men did not expect to be present when the award was made, but they learned that four of them could not be interviewed or photographed by the newspaper because of a “Victims’ Family Services policy,” or objections by the victims or their families. A request for a copy of that policy or regulation was not provided--only a policy statement. Efforts to locate a statutory or COMAR regulation dealing with interviews or photographs have failed.
At the same time, a documentary producer with PBS successes seeks to do a documentary about the Peace Initiative and the men of the ELG. Llewellen Smith of Vital Pictures Inc., of Boston faces similar barriers to interviews and filming a documentary.
The ACLU has encouraged The Daily Record to protest the blackout, but it is not interested in taking on the case. The ELG members have filed suit for their rights. The CSC and the ELG, meanwhile, continued to plan for other symposiums inside the prison and out in the community with the hope for an eventual
statewide conference supported or keynoted by the governor
.
‘Secondary Victims’ of Crime’
Prisoners’ Families Write ‘Bill of Rights'
The 4th Annual Prisoner's Family Conference held in Albuquerque Feb. 22-24 has created a Prisoner's Family Bill of Rights after three years of hearing horror stories.
The conference, sponsored by Solutions for El Paso, brought together families, corrections and social services officials, community, faith-based and justice advocates. A core group spent two evenings brainstorming to come up with a dozen recommendations for the Bill of Rights. The majority of the ideas dealt with a failure of communications and transparency. Participants were urged to persist -- to contact wardens, legislators, governors and advocacy groups like the ACLU when they are stonewalled.
The conference focused on every subject useful to families who, "...through no fault of their own are inadvertent secondary victims of crime," said Carolyn Esparza, founder.
Nearly 100 conferees heard New Mexico's new secretary of corrections promise to be more responsive to family concerns, especially about obtaining information about inmates' health crises, injuries and locations. Secretary Gregg Marcantel also said he would involve families in a new Task Force on Recidivism. "We will create some better form of communicating with the families," said Secretary Marcantel. "We've got a lot of work to do."
The Episcopal Church's contribution to the 4th Prisoner's Family Conference in Albuquerque was a workshop, "Sunshine for the Smallest Victims of Crime." It was co-chaired by the Rev. Stephen R. Caldwell, founder of the first Episcopal camp in the Diocese of Rio Grande for children of the incarcerated --- Hope Camp -- and Val Hymes -- Camp Amazing Grace in the Diocese of Maryland. The workshop spelled out guidelines for starting and growing a camp, fundraising tips and discipline, worship and fun-making advice.
"They don't trust us until Wednesday," Caldwell told the workshop. "They don't know who we are...until mid-week when we have shown them unconditional love. Change does happen.”
A resolution for $150,000 over three years to create and support more camps in more dioceses was proposed by Maryland Bishop Eugene T. Sutton and endorsed by Bishops James “Bud" Shand, Diocese of Easton, and Clifton Daniel III of East Carolina, and will be considered at General Convention in Indianapolis in
Click here to read or download Bill of Rights as a pdf .
New Law Is Shortening Federal Sentences for Crack Convictions
As many as 12,000 prisoners are starting to see a shortening of their sentences by about three years and 1,800 inmates became eligible for immediate release from federal prisons.
The Fair Sentencing Act when into effect retroactively Nov.1, reducing the disparity between federal crack and powder cocaine sentences from 100:1 to 18:1, and eliminating the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine. The new guidelines were made retroactive by the United States Sentencing Commission.
The change finally came 25 years after the disparity was created by the Antidrug Abuse Act of 1986. The sentencing Project says that 12 states have unfair disparity measures on the books. While some fear an increase in crime, others point to the savings in corrections costs and the disproportionate number of black and Hispanic arrests for nonviolent crimes.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm
Drug Terms Reduced, Freeing Prisoners
By John Schwartz, NYTimes
http://tinyurl.com/3zb3tzd
'We will keep fighting’
Senate Justice Reform Measure Fails
As Republicans Cite 'States Rights'
Although Republicans using states’ rights arguments, blocked passage of legislation that could begin the reform of the criminal justice system, Senator James Jim Webb (D.VA) said he is not backing down.
“We will keep fighting,” he said, “for a comprehensive review of the justice system, with the help of the thousands of sheriffs, police, mayors and justice advocates who have joined us in pressing for reform.” Out of a needed 60 the vote was 57-43. The legislation passed the House last year.
It would establish a bipartisan National Criminal Justice Commission to recommend reform and has the support of more than 100 organizations including The Heritage Foundation and law enforcement groups.
“Today Senate Republicans blocked an important opportunity to make our criminal justice system more fair and effective,” said Webb. "Their inflammatory arguments defy reasonable explanation and were contradicted by the plain language of our legislation. To suggest, for example, that the non-binding recommendations of a bipartisan commission threaten the Constitution is absurd."
Charlie Sullivan of CURE USA said progress was made; debate was "vigorous" and that even opponents said "There were ‘good things’ in the idea of a commission.” He also noted that Republicans Brown from Massachusetts, Graham from South Carolina, Hatch from Utah and Snowe from Maine voted for it.
Sen. Webb first introduced the legislation in March 2009.
See Politico’s take at http://tinyurl.com/3cx5l8u
250th Convict Exonerated
Through DNA Testing
The Innocence Project on Feb. 3 announced the 250th exoneration of a prisoner through DNA testing.
Freddie Peacock, 60, of Rochester, N.Y., was convicted in New York in 1976 of a rape he didn't commit based on a false eyewitness identification and a false confession that police claim he made during an interrogation. Peacock, who has severe mental illness, was freed in 1982, but continued the fight to clear his name..
His fight to clear his name after release is the longest of any DNA case so far. He spent the last 28 years pushing for complete exoneration, even turning down chances to end his parole. Finally, with the help of the Innocence Project, his name has been cleared.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/2350.php
A report issued by the Innnocence Project “250 Exonerated – Too Many Wrongfully Convicted -- describing the 250 cases -- may be found at http://innocenceproject.org/news/250.php
Its findings conclude that :
• There have been DNA exonerations in 33 states and the District of Columbia.
• 76% of the wrongful convictions involved eyewitness misidentification.
• 50% involved unvalidated or improper forensic science.
• 27% relied on a false confession, admission or guilty plea.
• 70% of the 250 people exonerated are people of color (60% are black; nearly 9% are Latino; 29% are white).
The National Coalition Against the Death Penalty (NCADP) points out that 17 percent of the exonerated were serving under threat of the death penalty. "While exonerating 250 citizens, the cases also identified 90 real perpetrators and 40 of them were convicted of subsequent crimes."
In December, James Bain, 54, was exonerated in Florida after spending 35 years in prison for the rape of a child and Donald Eugene Gates, 58, was freed in Arizona after serving 28 years in prison for rape and murder.
Congress Begins Fight to Restore
Ex-Offenders' Voting Rights
Justice advocates, unhappy that an estimated 5.3 million Americans cannot vote or participate fully in civic life because of a criminal conviction, are pressing for Congressional action to establish a federal standard restoring voting rights in federal elections. Sen Russell Feingold and Rep. John Conyers introduced the Democracy Restoration Act as S.1516 and H.R. 3335.
The provisions of the Democracy Restoration Act would:
• Restore voting rights in federal elections to nearly 4 million Americans who have been released from prison and are living in the community.
• Ensure that probationers never lose their right to vote in federal elections.
• Notify people about their right to vote in federal elections when they are leaving prison, sentenced to probation, or convicted of a misdemeanor.
Passage of the Democracy Restoration Act would:
• Create a uniform standard across the country in federal elections.
• Strengthen our democracy by creating a broader and more just base of voter participation.
• Aid law enforcement by encouraging participation in civic life, assisting reintegration, and rebuilding ties to the community.
• Facilitate election administration by streamlining registration issues and eliminating the opportunity for erroneous purges of eligible voters.
• Eliminate the confusion about who is eligible to vote.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law, 35 states continue to disenfranchise
people after release from prison. http://tinyurl.com/lxb73b
Virginia Ex-Offenders May Vote Next Year
Virginia 's governor has urged all ex-offenders who served time for nonviolent crimes to ask for a return of their voting rights. The Sentencing Project reports that Gov. Tim Kaine said in a broadcast interview with WSLS 10 he cannot by law restore voting rights across the board; it must be done one by one by name. He maintained that he has restored the rights of all nonviolent ex-offenders who applied and that those convicted for a violent felony require an investigation.
Here's a link to the story by the Sentencing Project: http://tinyurl.com/y8rhfge
It should be noted that Robert McDonnell, who will take office as governor in January, has a voting record in the state legislature far to the right of many of Gov. Kaine's political views, so the future of the program may be in question.
Innocent Man Executed –
The Fallout
News reports that Texas executed an innocent man in 2004 have led to bipartisan discussions and support for forensic reform--scientific standards nationally. The New Yorker magazine ran an extensive, detailed story about the father who was put to death for setting a fire that killed his three children. It turns out he was convicted on faulty evidence, according to arson experts and the story, ”Trial by Fire” by David Grann. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann
But the former prosecuto,r who is now a judge, still believes Cameron Todd Willingham was guilty. He told a Nightline interviewer "without question" the scientific evidence was not valid, but went on to claim that Willingham was “likely a devil worshipper and was therefore guilty.”
Gov. Rick Perry recently fired the head (and two members) of a special commission he had appointed to investigate the case two days before a report by a fire expert was due to be delivered. The Innocence Project called it a Nixon-like “Saturday Night Massacre.”
Justice Scalia: “not a single case…the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.” NCADP Campaign: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty quotes Supreme Court justice Antonin Scully when he wrote in 2006 that “there has not been ‘a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops.’”
The NCADP calls on everyone to get out the word that the state of Texas has executed an innocent man. Suggestions and references to a report about Willingham and three other innocent men are found here: http://www.ncadp.org/index.cfm?content=96
To find state NCADP affiliates:www.ncadp.org/affiliateDirectory.cfm
Science-Based Federal Forensic Standards Supported
A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing showed that bipartisan support exists for science-based federal forensic standards. Senators also focused on the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences to establish an independent, science-based entity to oversee forensic science research and standards.
Chairman PatrickLeahy noted that one in five labs do not meet accreditation standards set by the National Academy of Crime Lab Directors. "We cannot allow these nationwide deficiencies in forensic sciences to continue." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112681135
Feds Require Inmates Who Plead Guilty to Waive DNA Tests
The Washington Post reports that the attorney general has ordered a review of the Bush administration policy that was apparently initiated to get around The Innocence Protection Act of 2004 allowing federal inmates to seek post conviction DNA tests to prove their innocence.
"The waivers are filed only in guilty pleas and bar defendants from ever requesting DNA testing, even if new evidence emerges," Jerry Marcon wrote in an Oct. 11 story. http://tinyurl.com/yg6gs7e
DNA Test Exonerates 241st After 23 Years; Episcopal Church Urges Inmate Testing
The Innocence Project has announced the exoneration of another innocent man – held for 23 years in Texas for a rape he did not commit. DNA tests proved Ernest Sonniers’ innocence and identified the two men who committed the 1986 rapes. He was released Aug. 7.
In June, the Supreme Court said prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing. “ The decision was based in large part,” said a Washington Post editorial, “on the assertion that federal judicial intervention was unnecessary because the great majority of state legislatures already had passed laws to give prisoners adequate access to the revolutionary technology.”
While 47 states allow some statutory access to DNA testing, the laws are limited and sketchy and motions for testing are often denied, even where the inmate offers to pay for it and the test could confirm guilt or innocence.
At this writing, 241 wrongly incarcerated individuals have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 16 who were on death row. In almost 40 percent of the cases, the real perpetrator has been identified by DNA.
In July, the Prison Ministry Task Force of the Diocese of Maryland drafted a resolution for introduction at the Episcopal Church's General Convention that urges the church and all Episcopalians to “call on their legislators and members of Congress to ensure that all those accused and convicted have broad access to DNA testing, not only to exonerate those who are innocent but also to identify the true perpetrators of crimes they have been accused or convicted of.” It was sponsored by three bishops and was enacted.
Passage of the resolution means the church’s government relations office in Washington can go to work lobbying for appropriate legislation before congress. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee chair, is author of the Innocence Protection Act that is part of the Justice For All Act of 2004, which is up for reauthorization. It provides grants to the states that protect crime scene evidence and make DNA testing available to prisoners. The IPA would save innocent men and women from execution by making available to those on death row adequate counsel and DNA testing.
Senator Leahy’s comment about the Supreme Court ruling: This decision only creates new procedural roadblocks and unnecessary hurdles to getting at the truth in this and many other cases. As Justice Stevens wrote in dissent, ''The DNA test [the defendant] seeks is a simple one, its cost modest, and its results uniquely precise . . . . Yet [the state] refuses to allow [the defendant] to test the evidence at his own expense and to thereby ascertain the truth once and for all.' To overcome this result, I will continue to work to make modern DNA testing available whenever possible to strengthen our criminal justice system."
The Innocence Project is building a petition to call for an independent federal agency to oversee forensic science following a recommendation by the National Academy of Science that Congress create a National Institute of Forensic Science. A bill is expected in September or October.
The Justice System Is Sending
Entire Communities
Back to Prison
But States Seek Ways to Reverse Revolving Door
(See entire program and transcript at http://tinyurl.com/q5yhor)
The criminal justice system is sending whole communities back to prison and jail, says Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly’s May 22 feature broadcast over the PBS network. And how some states are taking new approaches to reverse the revolving doors by rewarding with tax dollars parole and probation departments that reduce the prison population.
Correspondent Phil Jones visited Brownsville in Brooklyn, N.Y., where community activists, including the Justice Mapping Center, are pushing for new approaches.
ERIC CADORA (Director, Justice Mapping Center): The current overuse and overdependence on criminal justice is a complete failure. It’s having no impact on these issues of public safety and crime. That’s not to say there isn’t a need for a level of criminal justice. But this radical overuse is not accomplishing those goals. Cadora said he found about 150 blocks in New York City where the authorities were spending more than a million dollars a year just to send people back and forth from prisons upstate to the neighborhood than back to prison again.
GREG JACKSON (Community Activist): Incarceration is not just the individual going to jail, but it’s the whole family going to jail, for Brownsville. Everybody’s suffering from it. There are no reentry programs to help them get jobs or kick drug habits or find housing -- especially when felons are not allowed to live in public housing.
Mr. CADORA: Let us take the investments that had been built up over the years from criminal justice, redirect them to investments in civil institutions in those neighborhoods — better schools, better health care, better mental health support, and so on. In many of the states where the Justice Reinvestment initiative has taken root, prison populations are either dropping or the trend line in growth has been radically reduced, and that’s from Connecticut to Kansas — liberal to conservative. In Kansas, when they found that 60-65 percent were being sent back to prison because of a parole or [probation revocation, the legislature turned it around.
JONES: That was the case in Kansas, so legislators passed a new law — a new direction —committing taxpayer dollars to cities and communities that change parole and probation regulations that'll reduce the prison population by 20 percent.
Mr. CALDORA: That’s kind of what the reinvestment project is about. It’s about saying, “Look, if you can reduce it, we’ll give you the money to keep reducing it.”
New Policy In Maryland for Parole, Probation Violators
Frank Dunbaugh, director of the, Maryland Justice Policy Institute, has been saying that for years. And he repeated it to the Maryland Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Gary D. Maynard, at a meeting several early this spring. Maynard's reply was that he is putting into place a new policy. When ex-offenders violate parole or probation, they will be turned over to the Department of Parole and Probation for discipline and not sent back to the prison facilities.
Sen. Webb Calls America’s Criminal
Justice System a 'National Disgrace’
Bill Calls for Commission to ‘Reshape’ System
Sen. James Webb (Democrat of Virginia) has introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 to “bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.”
He said, “ America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.
”We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.
“The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.
“Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:
-- With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
-- Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
-- Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
-- Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
-- Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.
Fact Sheet -- http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FactSheeti.pdf
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR PRISONS?" asks Senator Webb on the front cover of Parade Magazine March 29. The issue is worth tracking down at your library because he dominates the issue with the subject of the lead article, "Why We Must Fix Our Prisons."
By Val Hymes
The Episcopal Church is not only taking to the streets to fight for an end to the death penalty; it is now fighting smarter.
Legislation in at least 11 states calls for a repeal of the death penalty and two others want a moratorium with a study, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Bills are moving forward in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Nebraska. Bills also have been introduced in New Hampshire, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois and New Hampshire. Maryland’s bill was amended to restrict the use of the death penalty.
Alaska, on the other hand, has a bill in to reinstate the death penalty and Georgia is trying to broaden its reach. A bill passed by the Virginia Assembly specifying additional offenses as eligible for the death penalty was recently vetoed by Gov. Timothy Kaine.
In Maryland, Bishop Eugene T. Sutton marched with other religious leaders and the governor through the streets of Annapolis to the State Capitol to call on the legislature to repeal the law. The Senate, however, scratched the repeal and called for more proof of guilt for death sentences. The bishop said that will not stifle his opposition.
“I vow to continue the struggle to end the death penalty without restrictions,” he said. “If the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s has taught us anything, it is that nonviolence is still the most powerful weapon that we have to deter the evil of violence and murder…more powerful than the electric chair, more effective than a lethal injection. State-sponsored killing is not going to end the cycle of violence that we all decry.”
At the same time, Episcopalians were urged to contact their legislators and they are doing it across the nation.
“The religious community across the board has taken up the mantle on this issue,” said Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to End the Death Penalty (NCADP). “They are stepping up their moral leadership, encouraging their parishioners to put their faith in action.”
It is made easy for them to contact their legislators and governors by going to the Web site of a local affiliate. In Maryland, it’s Citizens Against State Executions (CASE) and clicking on “Take Action.” In New Mexico, it’s the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty (NMCADP); in Colorado, Coloradans Against the Death Penalty (CADP). NACDP has affiliates in every state and works closely with them when legislation is pending.
This new bolder activism was reflected in a 2007 “Clergy Voices” survey of mainline Protestant clergy by Public Religion Research released March 6. It found that 81 percent of the Episcopal clergy surveyed supported an end to capital punishment, compared with 66 percent overall. The national church has formally opposed the death penalty for the last fifty years.
The Roman Catholic Church, said Rust-Tierney, has responded with the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty. “We are using technology to make it easier” for people to speak to their lawmakers and governors.
Maryland ’s bill is “a significant step,” she said. “Narrowing the death penalty is a recognition that we need to change, that it doesn’t work. It is a serious indictment of the death penalty.”
As it moved – no longer a repeal -- to the Maryland House of Delegates, Bishop Sutton’s words echoed outside the State House, “I implore all of our legislators, follow your conscience.”
+++
Val Hymes is coordinator of the Prison Ministry Task Force, Diocese of Maryland. To locate state affiliates: www.NCADP.org
Clergy Fights Death Penalty
With Internet and the Pen
The church waded into the death penalty issue with op-ed pieces in The Washington Post by the Bishop of Maryland, Eugene Taylor Sutton, and the Bishop of Washington, John Bryson Chane: “A Moral Test for Maryland Legislators”, and in the Baltimore Sun by the Suffragan Bishop of Maryland, John R. Rabb, and the Bishop of Easton, James “Bud” Shand.: “Execution Isn't Path to a Peaceful Society.” www.ang-md.org
An interfaith group of clergy – Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish -- also spoke out at a a news conference Jan. 14 and signed a letter to the governor and General Assembly urging the end of the death penalty, saying, “Common to all of us are the sanctity of life and forgiveness.”
http://tinyurl.com/cwxxgw
There were 37 executions in the nation last year. New Jersey repealed the death penalty late in 2007. Death penalty repeal efforts were narrowly defeated in Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico last year. Those states are trying again this year..
http://tinyurl.com/cxrj4c
The Numbers Climb;
The Problems Grow
5.1 million on parole or probation
By end of 2006, one in every 31 adults: 7.2 million were in the adult correctional population;.. At the end of 2007, 5.1 million adults were out on parole or probation. Now, at the end of 2008, how many will go back inside? RTwo-thirds arfe expected to be rearrested within three years, and they will be responsibler for 10 million new crimes by 2013. In 2009, 700,000 will be released and 3.5 million will return to their communities over the next five years . http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pandp.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. adult correctional population -- incarcerated or in the community -- reached 7.2 million men and women, an increase of 159,500 during the year(2006), the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today in a new report. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults, was in the nation's prisons or jails or on probation or parole at the end of 2006.
The number of men and women who were being supervised on probation or parole in the United States at year-end 2006 reached 5 million for the first time, an increase of 87,852 (or 1.8 percent) during the year. A separate study found that on December 31, 2006, there were 1,570,861 inmates under state and federal jurisdiction, an increase of 42,932 (or 2.8 percent) in 2006.
During 2006 the number of inmates under state jurisdiction rose by 37,504 (2.8 percent). The number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction rose by 5,428 (2.9 percent).
In 2006 the number of prisoners in the 10 states with the largest prison populations increased by 3.2 percent, which was more than three times the average annual growth rate (0.9 percent) in these states from 2000 through 2005. These states accounted for 65 percent of the overall increase in the U.S. prison population during 2006. The federal system remained the largest prison system with 193,046 inmates under its jurisdiction. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/p06ppus06pr.htm
|
Edited by Val Hymes
Updated 5/18/2012
Inmates Restore Black Cemetery;
Will Demolish House of Correction
One of the oldest graveyards in the country for African Americans is Baltimore City’s long-neglected Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Known as “The City of the Dead for Colored People,” it overlooks the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. With the governor presiding on May 14, it was rededicated May 14 after four years of restoration work by Maryland prisoners.
More than 40 inmates worked to transform the overgrown, collapsing 34 acres of 55,000 graves. “That’s 55,000 families who are out here now looking for graves of family they couldn’t find in the past,” said Gary Maynard, Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Since 2007, when Maynard became secretary, inmates have taken part in what he calls “restorative justice” projects. The 110 crews of state prisoners have planted 50 million oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, built a retaining wall along the C&O Canal, and restored the woods north and west of the Antietam Battlefield, among other projects.
Among future plans is the demolition of the abandoned Maryland House of Correction, which can teach inmates skills in lead paint and asbestos abatement.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/breaking/bs-md-inmate-cemetery-restoration-20120514,0,3202153.story
Nonprofits Press Maryland to Give
Abandoned Hospital to Community
The State of Maryland continues to resist taking action that could save a sprawling complex of brick buildings on a landscaped and shaded campus near the State Capital.
Four decades ago across the nation, states began closing their mental hospitals, sending patients to community programs and leaving behind large, tree-shaded campuses with empty brick buildings.
Some became college annexes; others became hospital expansions. But many have stood empty, their roofs caving in, broken windows gaping and historians saddened by the deterioration. Crownsville State Hospital in Maryland, originally built for the “Negro Insane” in 1910 is one of them. Sitting on 500+ acres are 66 buildings – some of them considered worthy of permanent protection.
The state wants a developer to purchase it for real estate tax revenue; the community fears development, traffic congestion and destruction of the rural landscape. But a group of nonprofits have a vision for a “Village of Health, Healing and Hope” – a one-stop center for community, veterans and reentry services, a sports complex, hiking and biking trails and a museum to tell the story of the agrarian community and the “hospital for the negro insane.” It has been a four-year saga of frustration for the volunteers.
www.prisonministry.episcopalmaryland.org
Miss America: ‘I’ve been there’
Miss America 2012, once a child with a father in prison, has dedicated her platform during and after her reign to promoting mentoring of children of prisoners.
“I’ve been there. I’ve lived it,” said Laura Kaeppeler, 23, of Kenosha, Wis. “A lot of times these children feel this experience that is out of their control defines them. A lot of time, incarceration cycles in families. They don’t think there is another way out for them.”
When she was in high school, her father served a year in prison for mail fraud. He supports her long-term plans to work for children of prisoners.
Since her January crowning, she has met with 200 inmates at Racine Correctional Institution. “No matter what they’re there for,” she said, “they can only move up from where they’ve been. And kids still deserve a relationship with them as parents,” Kaeppeler said.
She also met with U. S. Dream Academy officials in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. She hopes to become a partner and spokesman with the academy is a national organization for at-risk children with learning centers in 10 cities.
Although she is an accomplished musician, she plans to seek a law degree in child advocacy. Her organization, Circles of Support, is at www.laurakaeppeler.com.
Read more on the Huffington Post by clicking on this link: http://tinyurl.com/88hfffe
Supreme Court to Consider Banning
Life Without Parole for Killers 13-14
There are about 75 juveniles in 18 states serving sentences of life without parole for killing when they were 13 or 14 years old. The Supreme Court agreed Nov. 7 to determine whether that sentence in two Alabama cases is ”cruel and unusual” and violates the Constitution
According to the Associated Press, the cases involving killings by juveniles when they were 13 were brought by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. They will be heard next year. The court ruled last year that juveniles whose crimes did not involve killing could not be denied the possibility of parole.
http://tinyurl.com/cv8utoq
Newspaper Honors Lifers' Group
For Gang Peace Initiative
Six lifers and long-termers in a Jessup, Md. prison who created a program to stop gang violence inside and outside prisons have won an Innovator of the Year award from The Daily Record in Baltimore.
The newspaper selected the Legalese Group, Inc.,(ELG,Inc.,) the only incorporated prisoner think tank in Maryland, for "creating a new program that has helped their communities with imagination and vision,” demonstrating “the ability to see a need and fill it, and the courage to make change happen."
They were slated to be recognized in absentia Oct. 26, at a reception at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore. Jennifer Adkins, the mother of a teenager, Christopher Jones, 14, who was killed by gang members, was asked by the prisoners to accept the award for them.
Adkins and Christopher’s father, a deputy sheriff, had one inside the Jessup Correctional Institute a year earlier to meet with the ELG about its Peace Initiative. At one of the meetings, touched by Christopher’s story, a dozen gang leaders and members stood to pledge a stop to random violence.
“If we can’t stop the violence in our communities outside prisons,” said Adkins, “then we’ll go inside to find answers.”
The men plan to work with gang leaders in the prison as they move in and out of the corrections system and to redirect gang members to help stop bullying in schools and to volunteer to provide security at community meetings.
JCI Warden John S. Wolfe said, “We have to reach across walls to address these problems. You men have been there. They’re apt to listen to you.”
The ELG grew out of a prisoner newsletter, Extra Legalese, that offered legal tips and information about court rulings and law. It led to Legal Awareness Seminars in four facilities in Maryland and to other programs.
A Community Support Coalition, which is helping the ELG, is made up of attorneys, educators,and community and reentry program leaders, including representatives of the NAACP, Fusion, the Justice Policy Institute, Safe Streets Baltimore and the Jericho program.
Prisoners' ‘Lifelines’ Are Cut
As Libraries'
Hours Are Reduced
A Dan Rodricks column in the Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland prison libraries have no money in the budget for new books and now have cut their evening hours at all state prisons.
Many prisoners use the libraries to increase their chances of succeeding when they get out, working on a GED, for example. He writes:
Many who are within a year or two of release use library services to prepare for re-entry -- to get their GED, to improve their vocabularies and language skills. The recidivism rate in the United States varies, from 50 percent to as high as 67 percent in some states, and there are two main reasons for that level of failure: the employment challenge facing ex-offenders on the outside and the lack of preparation for re-entry on the inside.
In Maryland, as in most states, re-entry services remain woefully inadequate for the thousands of men and women up for release each year. And given that we don't invest corrections dollars for better outcomes, the very least we can do is keep the prison libraries well-supplied and adequately staffed. As a knowledge base and information bridge, the prison library is often the only resource the short-timer has.
Prisons are for punishment. Prisons exist to protect the public. But given that so many of their inhabitants eventually get out of them, they should be places of second chances, too,” writes Rodricks.
The Department of Corrections maintains that it has in operation all necessary reentry programs for those due to get out within a year. Shutting down the libraries and cutting all book money is not the way to do it.
The chief librarian, Glennor Shirley, says they are “lifelines” for the inmates. And that includes lifers and long-termers.
http://tinyurl.com/yzem7gr
'Financial Expediency, Not Justice'
States Move to Ban
Mandatory Minimums
Legislators in Rhode Island this fall Outlawed mandatory minimum sentences. Two other states, Massachusetts and Ohio considering sentencing reforms, according to the Washington Post.
Numbers released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that states are sending fewer people to prison in order to lessen the high cost of their corrections departments.. They are also reevaluating sentencing, parole and drug policies. The irony of these changes was caught by the head of a victims’ organization when he noted that they are economic and not justice reasons.
The good news is that the incarceration rate for African-Americans has dropped, but not far enough. "... The scale of racial disparity in imprisonment still dramatic," said Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project's executive director.
http://tinyurl.com/yhsf4zf
New Bill Introduced
to Cut Corrections Costs
New bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress Nov. 17 that is designed to cut corrections costs and increase public safety. It's called the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act of 2009.
It would authorize the Attorney General to make grants to state and local governments and tribes to help them analyze criminal justice trends, develop options to reduce expenses and increase efficiency to make communities safer, to put into place better policies and programs, and measuring the impact of these changes.
In 1988 state spending on corrections was $12 billion. The cost had increased to more than $50 billion by 2008, yet most inmates released from state prisons were back inside within three years.
The Council of State Governments Justice Center worked in several states with policymakers on these ideas and saw hundreds of millions of dollars saved in corrections spending. The bills, S. 2772 and HR. 4080 grew out of programs tried in 11 states.
After clicking on the following link, select "Nov. 17 -- Justice Reinvestment Bill."
http://tinyurl.com/yed4f9a
Prison Ministry Wins
Justice Resolutions
At Episcopal Church General Convention
The Episcopal Church holds a General Conventions every three years. Actions approved by the convention or the executive council means the church’s government relations office in Washington can go to work lobbying for appropriate legislation before Congress. A successful resolution in 2006 calling on Episcopalians to actively support reentry legislation helped lead to the passage and signing of the Second Chance Act in 2008.
Despite the huge workload of about 400 resolutions facing them at the July 2009 Convention, the bishops and deputies of the Diocese of Maryland won the successful passage of three resolutions proposed by the Prison Ministry Task Force.
- B021 urges Episcopalians to press their legislators and members of Congress to ensure that prisoners have “broad access” to DNA testing. It was sponsored by Bishop John L. Rabb, Bishop John B. Chane of Washington and Bishop James J. “Bud” Shand of the Diocese of Easton. Passage permits the church’s Government Relations Office to lobby for appropriate legislation like the reauthorization of the 2004 Justice for All Act providing grants to states for DNA testing programs.
- C075 includes $75,000 in the budget for the creation and support of more summer camps like Camp Amazing Grace for children of the incarcerated. It was sponsored by the diocese, having been approved at the May Diocesan Convention. [However, the Budget Committee later failed to fund it. " Efforts will be made to ask the Executive Council to restore it if the economy improves.]
- D095 calls for a Prison Ministry Sunday in all dioceses and congregations, but was amended to ask that they “focus on ways to minister to God’s children behind bars, those returning to the community, and their families and victims.” The title, however, remains “Prison Ministry Sunday.” --- Val Hymes
States, Cities Tell Hill
What They Will Do
With Second
Chance $$$
As the full court press for funds for the Second Chance Act came to a head, the chief sponsor, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL), sponsored a special symposium April 1 to highlight what states and cities want to do with reentry funds if they are approved.
The Second Chance State and Local Reentry Initiative Symposium on Capitol Hill focused on half a dozen state and city corrections officials and eight bipartisan congressional supporters. They planned to spell out what they believe those programs in the new reentry law can do to make corrections more efficient and less costly and neighborhoods safer if the money can be found.
Attendees were also to hear from Gary Dennis, the Justice Department point man in the Bureau of Justice Assistance about fund solicitation requirements and deadlines.
The Second Chance Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law in April 2008, authorizes $165 million for programs that will improve coordination of reentry services and policies at the state and local levels. While advocates are pressing for full funding, President Obama included $75 million in his budget for SCA.
It all came about because governors and state officials had discovered that corrections were costing them more than colleges and something had to be done to build more prisons or to find a way to stop the revolving door of recidivism. See what NPR says: http://tinyurl.com/crc4ng
Officials taking part in the symposium were: Jerry Madden, Texas State Representative Deanne Benos, Illinois Assistant Director of Corrections, Secretary Rick Raemisch, Wisconsin Department of Correction Commissioner Martin F. Horn, New York City Department of Correction Bonnie Cosgrove, Maryland Public Safety & Correctional Services Dennis Schrantz and Michigan Deputy Director, Planning & Community Development.
The new law includes a $55 million program for Adult and Juvenile Offender State and Local Reentry Demonstration Projects, which improve coordination of reentry initiatives and implement evidence-based practices.
The Second Chance Act also authorizes a $15 million program for Mentoring Grants to Nonprofit Organizations, which provide mentoring and other transitional services to adult and juvenile offenders reentering the community.
State and local governments and nonprofit organizations around the country are eager to launch innovative reentry programs, and families and communities are desperate to access the services the Second Chance Act will provide.
Why Was the Second Chance Act So Important?
Read about it here
Shocking New Numbers
On Rise in Prison Costs
1 in 100 Adults Now in Prison
2.3 million behind bars in 2008, most of any nation. – Baltimore Sun
New High in U. S. Prison Numbers
Growth attributed to more stringent sentencing laws -- Washington Post.
All over the country, the report of the Pew Center on the States made the lead story. Talk about “shock and awe.” The 50 states alone spent more than $49 billion on corrections. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending.
The study, done by a recognized organization, notes that the costs of corrections is now $11 billion more than it was 20 years ago, and that fact is making the states consider reentry programs despite the fear of looking “soft on crime.”
Republican support of the Second Chance Act is a sign that this message of cost is a strong one. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/b2wehg
The Barriers Outside
A US News and World Report story by Alex Kingsbury makes it clear that the biggest challenge is the willing coordination of federal, state and community services for those getting out.
There are also “Invisible Punishments – the Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment” as spelled out by co-editor Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project in his book. The magazine notes:
Some states, including New York, have laws restricting employers from considering of criminal records in hiring, but many others do not. Ex-cons are further handicapped because employers can now easily gain access to criminal offender databases when they are performing background checks. The Army, for example, found that more than 8,000 of its new recruits last year had criminal histories. It granted them waivers, but other professions are off limits to ex-cons—teaching and child-care work, of course, but also embalming, limousine driving, firefighting, and haircutting.
Senator Leahy of Vermont, chief sponsor of the Second Chance Act in the Senate, is also concerned about these collateral consequences. http://tinyurl.com/atwqha
Can a Parolee
Have a Drink?
A court says Pennsylvania cannot bar parolees from alcohol unless their crime was based on it.
http://tinyurl.com/atwqha
Mandatory Minimum
Crack Sentences Unfair
The Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission say judges may have discretion in sentences involving crack and cocaine and that it can be retroactive.
The New York Times struck an editorial blow for basic fairness and judicial independence http://tinyurl.com/awevhk
The Sentencing Project and Marc Mauer deserve a lot of credit for this. They are asking for contributions to continue the fight at: www.sentencingproject.org/Contribute.aspx
Shorter sentences?
The JFA Report says major criminologists and penal experts recommend shorter sentences for technical parole and probation violations.
“…there is little if any scientific evidence of a causal relationship between crime rates and incarceration rates,” says James Austin, president of the JFA Institute and report co-author. :”There is no evidence that keeping people in prison longer makes us any safer.” And it is “financially wasteful.”
“Unlocking America” calls for improving prison conditions by reducing overcrowding and expanding access to health care, academic and vocational programs and by lifting barriers to employment and restoring voting rights. It also calls for decriminalization of the possession and sale of recreational drugs, and claims that it would generate savings of $20 billion. Today, $60 billion is spent on corrections.
The JFA Institute seeks research-based solutions to criminal justice issues.
FinalCall.com quotes the Nation of Islam about the report’s findings, especially that blacks and minorities are imprisoned six times more often than whites.
Abdullah Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam’s National Prison Ministry, offered a simple solution. “Give the Nation of Islam three years unhindered to teach the life-giving teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the country’s prisons. We have a complete program to have our people totally freed to build a reality for ourselves,” he said.
Releasing the Elderly
Being Tried in Midwest
From: Charles Sullivan <cure@curenational.org>
Guidelines for the Illinois bill include:
*Have to be age 50 and served 25 consecutive years to be eligible to submit petition to the sentencing court. Many researchers use 50 as age to define elderly in prison due to stress, medical care and pre prison life style. Recidivism rate for elderly much, much lower than any other group. Pennsylvania study indicated prisoners with age of those covered by HB 4154 was about 2%,
*Bill includes a provision that a program similar to Impact of Crime on Victims Class (ICVC) program currently used in Missouri prison. Mothers of Murdered Children from metro East Louis area currently do restorative justice part of ICVC program in Missouri and are eager to do the same in Illinois. They are supportive of HB 4254 and will provide testimony as will Missouri prison officials.
*HB 4154 will reduce IDOC expenditure by $70,000 for each prisoner who is released.”
*Identify yourself as a member of Citizens for Earned Release (CER) and mention that our coalition can reach several thousand people. Mention Illinoisprisontalk as internet blog for information as well as CER website.”
www.ilcer.org or www.illinoisprisontalk.com
Adult System Said to Worsen
Juvenile Recidivism
A CDC report says juveniles tried as adults and sent to adult prisons come out to commit more violent crimes more often. www.cdc.gov.
And in The Washington Post:
http://tinyurl.com/arhty8
Don’t give up on them
Studies and polls say the public wants juveniles rehabilitated and not tried as adults. In Maryland, 14-year-olds can be handled as adult criminals. Our state is trying what has been successful in Missouri, but it seems to be an uphill struggle. The public wants us to try.
Solutions Include
40-hr. Work Week
The Third Way proposes Required Rehab Programs
The 40-hour Work Week program would require prisoners to spend 40 hours on self-improvement each week. They would take part in individually tailored activities that instill personal responsibility and a strict work ethic. The curriculum could include education, counseling, substance abuse treatment, anger management and skills trainings
Support for prison rehabilitation programs inside climbs from 55 percent to 90 percent when they are defined as a requirement and not a benefit to the prison population.
By a margin of 90 to 6 percent, Americans said they were more likely to support a candidate who says, “Prisoners should be forced to work, get an education and learn skills …
http://tinyurl.com/daevqu
Collateral Consequences and Barriers:
Ex-offenders are finding still that felony convictions throw up a dozen barriers in many communities.
The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution hosted Dec. 5 at the National Press Club a policy discussion on the challenges of prisoner reentry, featuring remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and a keynote address by U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.). The event also included a policy roundtable with a diverse group of experts on the need for a national prisoner reentry strategy.
One idea is to put ex-offenders into a year of transitional employment in community service. http://tinyurl.com/p6yuvx
Relief from Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions State by State: The Sentencing Project has listed some of the consequences and how to mitigate them. Talk to your legislators about what you find in your state.
http://tinyurl.com/qlzkua
Reentry is spreading across the country as states recognize that the cost of corrections can exceed the cost of colleges
A Google “reentry” alert in one day brought up programs in Rhode Island, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Minnesota that work to provide jobs, drug counseling, housing and mentors to ex-offenders.
Live from Death Row
150 Hear Troy Davis on Georgia’s Death Row –
Three Times Readied to Die
Mike Stark of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) writes:
Last night, over 150 people turned-out at American University (AU) to hear a live phone conversation with Georgia death row prisoner, Troy Davis. The event, a stop of the "Live from Death Row" national tour organized by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), was locally sponsored by AU's Justice Not Jails and Black Student Alliance. It also featured in-person appearances by Troy Davis' sister Martina Corriea and former death row prisoner and Black Panther Lawrence Hayes (who later told his own story of wrongful incarceration on New York’s death row).
The audience was visibly moved as Troy described his ongoing struggle for justice and the daily horrors of living in death row. "When Troy told his story, I felt I was back there with him," Lawrence said.
As audience members handed around a model Troy had created of his tiny cell on death row, he described how he refused to abandon hope even during his darkest hours as he endured the macabre rituals and humiliations as he was prepared for execution on three separate occasions.
He described undergoing dehumanizing medical exams and the sick-routine of having to submit details for his own funeral. Troy described how he could see the death chamber from his holding cell and during his 'final' visits with family and friends, both he and Martina recalled how correctional staff wept along with the Davis family as they gave were their final goodbyes.
But far from having been beaten down by these inhuman experiences, Troy’s dignified and optimistic voice was an inspiration to everyone in the room. He was generous in his thanks to all his supporters and reminded the audience that the struggle against the death penalty went beyond the details of his own case….
"The answer [to crime] is not killing," Lawrence instructed the audience, "You need to start with human beings. When people are taken care of, the rest will take care of itself." http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/index.php
Federal Prisons Offer
Inmates E-mail Access
From CURE National:
By the spring of 2011, all 114 U.S. prisons are expected to have e-mail available for inmates.
The program, started several years ago, has reduced the amount of old-fashioned paper mail that can sometimes hide drugs and other
contraband. Just as important, officials say, e-mail helps prisoners connect regularly with their families and build skills they can use when they return to the community.
The system inmates use isn't like programs used in most offices and homes. Inmates aren't given Internet access, and all messages are sent in plain text, with no attachments allowed. Potential contacts get an e-mail saying a federal prisoner wants to add them to their contact list and must click a link to receive e-mail, similar to accepting a collect
call from a lockup.
Once approved, prisoners can only send messages to those contacts - they can't just type in any address and hit send. And contacts can change their mind at any time and take their name off the prisoner's list.
Scott Middlebrooks, the warden at Coleman federal prison northwest of Orlando, said his inmates sent more than 3,200 messages and received some 2,800 a day last month through the system, which is called TRULINCS
and run by Iowa-based Advanced Technologies Group Inc.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons says the system pays for itself with some of the proceeds from prison commissaries. Inmates also pay 5 cents per minute while composing or reading e-mails.
Security, of course, is a concern. That's why the messages can be screened for keywords that suggest an inmate may be involved in a crime, or read by a corrections officer, just like paper letters. That can create some lag time between when messages are sent and received.
Without analyzing the program specifically, it would be impossible to tell whether inmates could abuse their e-mail privileges, said Bruce
Schneier of the security firm BT Counterpane. Coded messages could be sent over e-mail, but that could happen just as easily over the phone, he said.
The e-mails don't replace phone calls, but those are limited to five hours a month. And Torres still sends letters, some sprayed with perfume.
By JESSICA GRESKO
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