News

A Prisoners’ Rights Plague That Kills from the Inside

Mar 31, 2014 No Comments

There is a plague in the prisoners’ rights community that will destroy us all, from the inside out, if we don’t find a cure. Slowly it creeps into our minds, then our interactions and advocacy, and finally our organizational policies. It’s like institutional racism, just of a different breed. This is the disease of selectivity, of triaging the freedom of various groups of prisoners, and it is very prevalent.

As I sit to write this, I’m coming off an intense few days. Someone I trust and respect shared their thoughts concerning prisoners — more specifically, prisoners convicted of violent and sex related offenses. In her mind, there was perhaps no punishment strong enough or complete enough to adequately fulfill retribution for these sorts; to say nothing about the social stigmatization of having contact with these sorts. While I was saddened to hear this, I was heartened that she isn’t a prisoners’ rights warrior, but more of someone who works in this field due to circumstances — a reliable and dedicated helper, but not a true believer. In any prisoners’ rights organization, there are bound to be a few of these non-true believers who are incredibly hard workers but do not share our zeal for reform. She is one of them.

While my personal interactions concerning this were unfortunate — after all, I am a true believer in the power of education and rehabilitation to reform even the most damaged of characters — what is alarming is that there are actual organizations in the national spotlight that do the exact same thing. In fact, there are several name brand prisoners’ rights organizations which plainly refuse to advocate for all prisoners, and instead focus on very targeted groups. While this is their prerogative, it’s more harmful than many believe.

Global Tel Link: The Nation’s Leader in Exorbitant Prison Phone Rates

Mar 21, 2014 No Comments

By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy newblackman.blogspot.com

For many years prisoners and their families have bemoaned the exorbitant rates charged by companies that provide telephone services to the incarcerated. Prisoners and their families, two groups chronically economically disadvantaged, have been abused and taken advantage of time and time again when merely trying to stay in contact. This is plainly unacceptable from a prisoners’ rights standpoint and a social morality standpoint, too. But it gets worse. As we delve into the murky waters of prison phone contracts, those who do not yet understand how insidious and extortionate these contracts truly are, will come to demand for change, not for their own sakes or for society’s, but based upon a moral conviction and the desire to help keep families together, a term of incarceration notwithstanding.

The problem with prison phone contracts ironically enough doesn’t hinge on the various departments of corrections or the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It isn’t even promulgated by prison phone providers either. The issue, instead, has to do with the awarding of prison phone contracts.

Prison phone contracts are awarded based on a profit share model. Companies such as Global Tel Link agree to charge prisoners and their families high phone rates and to share profits with either the local jail or prison, or the central administration of the prison system. As such, the incentive to lower phone rates is actually reduced. Instead, both corrections’ departments and prison phone providers strive to tack on as many fees and increased prison phone rates as much as possible to increase profits, as has been reported frequently in Prison Legal News and at the Prison Law Blog. Often, these contracts are awarded to the prison phone company which offers the largest kick-back rate. In fact, prison phone companies are known to also give premiums away to encourage contracts. Local jails have been known to receive free booking computer systems. Sheriffs have been known to receive campaign donations. And police departments have received free police cruisers.

CDCR Granted Two-Year Extension on Population Reduction

Mar 14, 2014 No Comments

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has been granted a two-year extension to comply with court-ordered inmate population reductions. This order came from the federal, three-judge panel overseeing the case. This extension will alter the manner in which the state of California spends funds on reducing the CDCR’s inmate population. Previously, funding would

U.S. Felon Disenfranchisement Laws Questioned

Mar 13, 2014 No Comments

By Christopher Zoukis

In a surprising move, Attorney General Eric Holder has teamed up with Tea Party-backed Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee to fight against felon disenfranchisement — the reality of a person convicted of a felony subsequently losing certain civil rights due to the felony conviction. This group of strange bedfellows is primarily concerned with the voting rights of those previously convicted of felonies.

According to news reports, 11 states deny or restrict voting rights to persons who have been under some form of correctional control (i.e., incarceration, probation, parole). This equates to approximately 5.8 million disenfranchised felons. In states like Florida that have particularly onerous felon disenfranchisement laws, upwards of 10 percent of the population is barred from voting. According to Attorney General Holder, 1 in 13 black American adults are prohibited from voting due to felon disenfranchisement laws; 1 in 5 in Virginia, Kentucky, and Florida.

Now, with Attorney General Holders’ legacy as a justice reformer in question, he has stepped up his work to revise some of these harmful laws, which some have suggested actually encourage repeat crime and recidivism. On February 11, 2014 he and Senators Paul and Lee participated in a forum at the Georgetown Law School to discuss the issues of mandatory minimum sentencing, prison expansion, and felon disenfranchisement.

While this is a laudable step in the right direction, most recent public policy discussions concerning American criminal justice reform have tended to cherry pick small groups of offenders to help. This group, as others, has focused on nonviolent drug offenders. For example, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), has also focused almost exclusively on drug offenders. Even the Obama administration has their favorite group to help: nonviolent, minority crack cocaine offenders who have served long sentences under the old, draconian crack cocaine sentencing guidelines.

Open Books’ Prison Book Project: Reforming Prisoners One Book at a Time

Feb 21, 2014 No Comments

By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy www.nbbd.com

Even in the darkest of nights the moon gives off a faint glow. The same is true of the world of American corrections, even in Florida’s private prison paradise. This light — and the hope it brings — comes from an unlikely source with an unusual mission: Open Books’ Prison Book Project.

The Prison Book Project is a volunteer books-to-prisoners operation. Founded in the year 2000, when it used to be based in the now closed Subterranean Books (Pensacola, Florida), it is presently hosted at Pensacola’s Open Books.

Open Books, a nonprofit bookstore located at 1040 N. Guillemard Street in Pensacola, Florida is open every day from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Its volunteer operators can be found selling discounted books to the public. But on Wednesdays, the real transformational magic is breathed into being.

Every Wednesday, the Prison Book Project volunteers take over and get to work. They open stacks of mail from prisoners across the state of Florida. While they can handle around 40 requests each week (due to mailing expenses), they receive around 70 requests a week from prisoners seeking books, an outlet to something greater than their prison cells. The backlog of hundreds of requests shows the value, importance, and respect prisoners have for this project.

America On Probation

Feb 18, 2014 No Comments

By Dianne Frazee-Walker

There is good news about the condition of America’s criminal justice system. Both conservatives and liberals are agreeing that the time has come to revamp the prison system. Everyone is on the same page about how mass incarceration is costing the country too much money. For some reason when an out of control problem hits people’s pocketbooks, collaboration happens. When incarcerating a prisoner for a year reaches the same cost as student tuition at Harvard University, it is time to make a change.

Realization that American prisons are being financed to perpetuate social insufficiency, recidivism, and desperateness has caused legislation to reconsider the high cost of incarceration. The result is crime rates have decreased and the public is beginning to support non-violent offender reform as opposed to long-term prison sentences.

Over the last three years prison doors have been shutting on the outside instead of the inside. The prison population is not large enough to fill America’s prisons and they are gradually going out of business. From academics, progressive law enforcement groups, innovative rehabilitation programs and victim crime advocates to even fundamentalists, all have been struggling to repair our broken justice system, which has turned into a perpetual misery machine.

America’s mass incarceration dilemma has forced society to take a long hard look at what can be done to transform criminals into productive citizens.

Even states that use punitive law-and-order approaches in an attempt to conquer crime are now desperate enough to embrace tolerant rehabilitation programs once thought of as bleeding heart liberalism alternatives only a few years ago.

The Numbers: Who’s in American Prisons, and for What Crimes?

Feb 13, 2014 No Comments

By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy aclu.org

American prisons are currently experiencing a shortage of space and an abundance of prisoners; in a word, overcrowding. The United States incarcerates 25 percent of the world’s prisoners despite accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population. The Federal Bureau of Prisons alone is experiencing overcrowding at a rate of 40 percent in its facilities, with projections indicating this rate will continue to increase. With this overcrowding, prisoner unrest, violence, and misconduct increase. The system is broken, and the phrases “Prison Nation” and “Incarceration Nation” continue to become more apt every year. Something must be done, but first, the extent of the problem must be understood. Triage is required.

While much of this overcrowding is due to our country’s policies concerning crime control (i.e., incarceration as a solution of the first resort), a significant cause of this problem is due to recidivism — the instance of prisoners or probationers returning to criminal activities and being sanctioned for doing so. While many understand and agree that the initial instance of crime can be reduced through stronger social and educational programs for children, we find ourselves faced with a problem of returns on our current efforts. We must stem the blood flow of recidivism now so that the system can be patched up well enough for us to focus on future generations of children, some of whom are destined to turn to crime without reform to the services currently being provided to them.

And with this, I present the following statistics in the hopes that the extent of our broken criminal justice system problem can be realized, and solutions of the same magnitude can be envisioned:

The Current State of American Corrections

· In 2009, the U.S. prisoner population totaled 1,617,417 inmates.
· In 2010, there were 500 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents.
· The South incarcerates the most prisoners, followed by the West, Midwest, and Northeast.
· Black males are incarcerated 6.7 times the rate of white males.
· Black men and women are significantly more likely to be incarcerated than all other races.
· Males are over 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than females.
· Federal prisons are currently operating systemwide at 140 percent of capacity.
· In 2010, 53 percent of released male prisoners recidivated.

A Cold Hand for Old Cases

Feb 12, 2014 No Comments

By Dianne Frazee-Walker Image courtesy kpho.com

Maricopa County Sherriff Arpaio has a new approach up his sleeve for solving cold cases.

Who could be better to help solve cold cases than an inmate? After all, they have plenty of time on their hands and plenty of available card playing buddies.

Silent Witness is a resourceful program that uses playing cards to publicize cold cases. The cards reveal pictures and details about 52 local unsolved cases.

Phoenix Police and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office are joining forces with Silent Witness handing out 3,000 of these decks to Maricopa County inmates in hopes that some of the prisoners will have helpful information that will help solve some of these cold cases.

One good hand in the right inmate’s hands could be a lucky draw for a grieving family.

The program is graciously funded by an anonymous individual who was fortunate enough to have their case solved by a Silent Witness card that was dealt to the right hand.

Silent Witness, Sgt. Darren Burch pronounces how each card has significant importance.

Recidivism and Prisons: A Culture of Failure

Feb 12, 2014 No Comments

By Christopher Zoukis

The American criminal justice system is broken. Wrongdoers go to prison, become hardened by the experience, only to be released and commit additional crimes, thus reentering the criminal justice system. This cycle of crime, punishment, crime, and then back to punishment is often continual, and it is intergenerational, too. According to the latest RAND Corporation/Correctional Education Association study, 43 percent of released prisoners will recidivate within 3 years of their release from prison. While this is in line with several Pew Center on the States’ studies, the Bureau of Justice Statistics actually states that the 3 year recidivism rate is in the 50th percentile. Something clearly needs to be done.

Prisons: The Warehousing of People

While there are many causes for such a high recidivism — or failure — rate, in my mind they all come down to one component: wrongdoers are going to prison and are not being transformed by the experience. This is quite a sad statement considering that the American taxpayers spend tens of thousands of dollars per year to incarcerate each offender. We are essentially paying for the state to house people in concrete and cinderblock rooms, wait the prescribed time, and then release them as the same people they were when they went in in the first place. To call this ineffectual and simpleminded would be a gross understatement.

A Transformational Experience

What is needed is to manufacture a transformational experience for those Americans we incarcerate. We need to come up with some way to change people, not merely warehouse them. The research indicates that prison education, substance abuse and mental health treatment, as well as a structured reintegration plan, will make all the difference in the world. Let’s take each in turn.

Calling All College Students

Feb 11, 2014 No Comments

Are you a college student who is looking for an internship? A professor in search of a worthy project for your students? Are you skilled in academic research, web design, public relations, or marketing? Do you want to make a difference in the world around you and have a chance to shape modern public policy?

News

A Prisoners’ Rights Plague That Kills from the Inside

Global Tel Link: The Nation’s Leader in Exorbitant Prison Phone Rates

CDCR Granted Two-Year Extension on Population Reduction

U.S. Felon Disenfranchisement Laws Questioned

Open Books’ Prison Book Project: Reforming Prisoners One Book at a Time

America On Probation

The Numbers: Who’s in American Prisons, and for What Crimes?

A Cold Hand for Old Cases

Recidivism and Prisons: A Culture of Failure

Calling All College Students

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