PROCLAMATION
10/04/2006
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PROCLAMATION
by the
Governor of the State of California
WHEREAS, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is required by California law to house inmates committed to state prison; and
WHEREAS, various trends and factors, including population increases, parole policies, sentencing laws, and recidivism rates have created circumstances in which the CDCR is now required to house a record number of inmates in the CDCR prison system, making the CDCR prison system the largest state correctional system in the United States, with a total inmate population currently at an all-time high of more than 170,000 inmates; and
WHEREAS, due to the record number of inmates currently housed in prison in California, all 33 CDCR prisons are now at or above maximum operational capacity, and 29 of the prisons are so overcrowded that the CDCR is required to house more than 15,000 inmates in conditions that pose substantial safety risks, namely, prison areas never designed or intended for inmate housing, including, but not limited to, common areas such as prison gymnasiums, dayrooms, and program rooms, with approximately 1,500 inmates sleeping in triple-bunks; and
WHEREAS, the current severe overcrowding in 29 CDCR prisons has caused substantial risk to the health and safety of the men and women who work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in them, because:
With so many inmates housed in large common areas, there is an increased, substantial risk of violence, and greater difficulty controlling large inmate populations.
With large numbers of inmates housed together in triple-bunks, there is an increased, substantial risk for transmission of infectious illnesses.
The triple-bunks and tight quarters create line-of-sight problems for correctional officers by blocking views, creating an increased, substantial security risk.
WHEREAS, the current severe overcrowding in these 29 prisons has also overwhelmed the electrical systems and/or wastewater/sewer systems, because those systems are now often required to operate at or above the maximum intended capacity, resulting in an increased, substantial risk to the health and safety of CDCR staff, inmates, and the public, because:
Overloading the prison electrical systems has resulted in power failures and blackouts within the prisons, creating increased security threats. It has also damaged fuses and transformers.
Overloading the prison sewage and wastewater systems has resulted in the discharge of waste beyond treatment capacity, resulting in thousands of gallons of sewage spills and environmental contamination.
And when the prisons “overdischarge” waste, bacteria can contaminate the drinking water supply, putting the public’s health at an increased, substantial risk.
WHEREAS, overloading the prison sewage and water systems has resulted in increased, substantial risk of damage to state and privately owned property and has resulted in multiple fines, penalties and/or notices of violations to the CDCR related to wastewater/sewer system overloading such as groundwater contamination and environmental pollution; and
WHEREAS, overcrowding causes harm to people and property, leads to inmate unrest and misconduct, reduces or eliminates programs, and increases recidivism as shown within this state and in others; and
WHEREAS, in addition to all of the above, in the 29 prisons with severe overcrowding, the following circumstances exist:
Avenal State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 5,768 inmates, but it currently houses 7,422 inmates, with 1,654 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 64 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 31 of them against CDCR staff — along with 15 riots/melees, and 27 weapon confiscations.
The California Correctional Center has an operational housing capacity of 5,724 inmates, but it currently houses 6,174 inmates, with 450 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 128 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 16 of them against CDCR staff — along with 34 riots/melees, and 21 weapon confiscations.
The California Correctional Institution has an operational housing capacity of 4,931, but it currently houses 5,702 inmates, with 771 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 125 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 79 of them against CDCR staff — along with 5 riots/melees, and 57 weapon confiscations.
Centinela State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,368, but it currently houses 4,956 inmates, with 588 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 141 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 30 of them against CDCR staff — along with 10 riots/melees, and 151 weapon confiscations.
The California Institution for Men has an operational housing capacity of 5,372, but it currently houses 6,615 inmates, with 1,243 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 170 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 57 of them against CDCR staff — along with 21 riots/melees, and 47 weapon confiscations.
The California Institution for Women has an operational housing capacity of 2,228, but it currently houses 2,624 inmates, with 396 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 65 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 26 of them against CDCR staff — and 6 weapon confiscations.
The California Men’s Colony has an operational housing capacity of 6,294, but it currently houses 6,574 inmates, with 280 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 151 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 33 of them against CDCR staff — along with 11 riots/melees, and 29 weapon confiscations.
The California State Prison at Corcoran has an operational housing capacity of 4,954, but it currently houses 5,317 inmates, with 363 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 147 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 58 of them against CDCR staff — along with 5 riots/melees, and 111 weapon confiscations.
The California Rehabilitation Center has an operational housing capacity of 4,660, but it currently houses 4,856 inmates, with 196 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 65 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 28 of them against CDCR staff — 9 riots/melees, and 34 weapon confiscations.
The Correctional Training Facility has an operational housing capacity of 6,157, but it currently houses 7,027 inmates, with 870 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 85 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 26 of them against CDCR staff — along with 9 riots/melees, and 27 weapon confiscations.
Chuckawalla Valley State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 3,443, but it currently houses 4,292 inmates, with 849 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 50 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 11 of them against CDCR staff — along with 5 riots/melees, and 21 weapon confiscations.
Deuel Vocational Institution has an operational housing capacity of 3,115, but it currently houses 3,911 inmates, with 796 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 114 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 54 of them against CDCR staff — along with 7 riots/melees, and 37 weapon confiscations.
High Desert State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,346, but it currently houses 4,706 inmates, with 360 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 351 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 44 of them against CDCR staff — along with 6 riots/melees, and 289 weapon confiscations.
Ironwood State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,185, but it currently houses 4,665 inmates, with 480 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 96 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 19 of them against CDCR staff — along with 14 riots/melees, and 52 weapon confiscations.
Kern Valley State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,566, but it currently houses 4,686 inmates, with 120 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 146 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 60 of them against CDCR staff — along with 10 riots/melees, and 46 weapon confiscations.
TheCalifornia State Prison at Los Angeles has an operational housing capacity of 4,230, but it currently houses 4,698 inmates, with 468 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 211 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 123 of them against CDCR staff — along with 4 riots/melees, and 101 weapon confiscations.
Mule Creek State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 3,197, but it currently houses 3,929 inmates, with 732 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 65 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 35 of them against CDCR staff — along with 1 riot/melee, and 28 weapon confiscations.
North Kern State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 5,189, but it currently houses 5,365 inmates, with 176 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 135 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 43 of them against CDCR staff — along with 16 riots/melees, and 70 weapon confiscations.
Pelican Bay State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 3,444, but it currently houses 3,604 inmates, with 160 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 256 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 88 of them against CDCR staff — along with 9 riots/melees, and 106 weapon confiscations.
Pleasant Valley State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,368, but it currently houses 5,112 inmates, with 744 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 205 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 59 of them against CDCR staff — along with 12 riots/melees, and 26 weapon confiscations.
The Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility has an operational housing capacity of 4,120, but it currently houses 4,720 inmates, with 600 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 244 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 118 of them against CDCR staff — along with 11 riots/melees, and 96 weapon confiscations.
The California State Prison at Sacramento has an operational housing capacity of 2,973, but it currently houses 3,213 inmates, with 240 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 264 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 159 of them against CDCR staff — along with 5 riots/melees, and 118 weapon confiscations.
The California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran has an operational housing capacity of 6,360, but it currently houses 7,593 inmates, with 1,233 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 120 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 53 of them against CDCR staff — along with 20 riots/melees, and 124 weapon confiscations.
The Sierra Conservation Center has an operational housing capacity of 5,657, but it currently houses 6,107 inmates, with 450 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 61 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 18 of them against CDCR staff — along with 19 riots/melees, and 50 weapon confiscations.
The California State Prison at Solano has an operational housing capacity of 5,070, but it currently houses 5,858 inmates, with 788 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 60 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 26 of them against CDCR staff — along with 4 riots/melees, and 114 weapon confiscations.
San Quentin State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,933, but it currently houses 5,183 inmates, with 287 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 262 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 123 of them against CDCR staff — along with 15 riots/melees, and 118 weapon confiscations.
Salinas Valley State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 4,200, but it currently houses 4,680 inmates, with 480 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 181 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 82 of them against CDCR staff — along with 7 riots/melees, and 91 weapon confiscations.
Valley State Prison for Women has an operational housing capacity of 3,902, but it currently houses 3,958 inmates, with 56 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 125 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 75 of them against CDCR staff — and 15 weapon confiscations.
Wasco State Prison has an operational housing capacity of 5,838, but it currently houses 6,098 inmates, with 260 inmates housed in areas designed for other purposes. At the same time, in the last year, there were 226 incidents of assault/battery by inmates — 97 of them against CDCR staff — along with 32 riots/melees, and 82 weapon confiscations.
WHEREAS, some of these 29 severely overcrowded prisons may even be housing more inmates, because the inmate population continually fluctuates among the CDCR prisons; and
WHEREAS, in addition to the 1,671 incidents of violence perpetrated in these 29 severely overcrowded prisons by inmates against CDCR staff last year, and the 2,642 incidents of violence perpetrated in these prisons on inmates by other inmates in the last year, the suicide rate in these 29 prisons is approaching an average of one per week; and
WHEREAS, the federal court in the Coleman case found mental-health care in CDCR prisons to be below federal constitutional standards due in part to the lack of appropriate beds and space; and
WHEREAS, the use of common areas for inmate housing has severely modified or eliminated certain inmate programs in the 29 prisons with severe overcrowding; and
WHEREAS, the severe overcrowding has also substantially limited or restricted inmate movement, causing significantly reduced inmate attendance in academic, vocational, and rehabilitation programs; and
WHEREAS, overcrowded prisons in other states have experienced some of the deadliest prison riots in American history, including:
In 1971, the nation’s deadliest prison riot occurred in Attica, New York, resulting in the death of 43 people. On the day of this riot, the prison — which was built for 1600 — housed approximately 2,300 inmates.
In 1981, a riot occurred in the New Mexico State Penitentiary. More than 30 inmates were killed, more than 100 people were injured, and 12 officers were taken hostage, some of whom were beaten, sexually assaulted, and/or raped. On the day of this riot, the prison — which was built for 900 — housed approximately 1,136 inmates.
In 1993, a riot occurred in Lucasville, Ohio. One officer was murdered, four officers were seriously injured, and nine inmates were killed. On the day of this riot, the prison — which was built for 1600 — housed approximately 2,300 inmates.
WHEREAS, I believe immediate action is necessary to prevent death and harm caused by California’s severe prison overcrowding; and
WHEREAS, because of the housing shortage in CDCR prisons, the CDCR has current contracts with four California counties to house 2,352 additional state inmates in local adult jails, but this creates the following overcrowding problem in the county jails:
According to a report by the California State Sheriffs’ Association in June 2006, adult jails recently averaged a daily population of approximately 80,000 inmates. On a typical day, the county jails lacked space for more than 4,900 inmates across the state.
Based on the same report, 20 of California’s 58 counties have court-imposed population caps resulting from litigation brought by or on behalf of inmates in crowded jails and another 12 counties have self-imposed caps.
Most of California’s jail population consists of felony inmates, but when county jails are full, someone in custody must be released before a new inmate can be admitted.
The 2006 Sheriffs’ Association report states that last year, 233,388 individuals statewide avoided incarceration or were released early into local communities because of the lack of jail space.
WHEREAS, overcrowding conditions are projected to get even worse in the coming year, to the point that the CDCR expects to run out of all common area space to house prisoners in mid-2007, and will be unable to receive any new inmates; and
WHEREAS, in January 2006, I proposed $6 billion in the Strategic Growth Plan to help manage inmate population at all levels of government by increasing the number of available local jail beds and providing for two new prisons and space for 83,000 prisoners to address California’s current and future incarceration needs; and
WHEREAS, the California Legislature failed to act upon this proposal; and
WHEREAS, in March 2006, a proposal was submitted as part of my 2006-07 budget to enable the CDCR to contract for a total of 8,500 beds in community correctional facilities within the state; and
WHEREAS, the California Legislature denied this proposal; and
WHEREAS, on June 26, 2006, I issued a proclamation calling the Legislature into special session because I believed urgent action was needed to address this severe problem in California’s prisons, and I wanted to give the Legislature a further opportunity to address this crisis; and
WHEREAS, the CDCR submitted detailed proposals to the Legislature to address the immediate and longer-term needs of the prison system in an effort resolve the overcrowding crisis; and
WHEREAS, the California Legislature failed to adopt the proposals submitted by the CDCR, and also failed to adopt any proposals of its own; and
WHEREAS, in response, my office directed the CDCR to conduct a survey of certain inmates in California’s general population to determine how many might voluntarily transfer to out-of-state correctional facilities; and
WHEREAS, the CDCR reports that more than 19,000 inmates expressed interest in voluntarily transferring to a correctional facility outside of California; and
WHEREAS, the overcrowding crisis gets worse with each passing day, creating an emergency in the California prison system.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Governor of the State of California, in light of the aforementioned, find that conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist in the 29 CDCR prisons identified above, due to severe overcrowding, and that the magnitude of the circumstances exceeds the capabilities of the services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of any geographical area in this state. Additionally, the counties within the state are harmed by this situation, as the inability to appropriately house inmates directly impacts local jail capacity and the early release of felons. This crisis spans the eastern, western, northern, and southern parts of the state and compromises the public’s safety, and I find that local authority is inadequate to cope with the emergency. Accordingly, under the authority of the California Emergency Services Act, set forth at Title 2, Division 1, Chapter 7 of the California Government Code, commencing with section 8550, I hereby proclaim that a State of Emergency exists within the State of California’s prison system.
Pursuant to this proclamation:
I. The CDCR shall, consistent with state law and as deemed appropriate by the CDCR Secretary for the sole purpose of immediately mitigating the severe overcrowding in these 29 prisons and the resulting impacts within California, immediately contract for out-of-state correctional facilities to effectuate voluntary transfers of California prison inmates to facilities outside of this state for incarceration consisting of constitutionally adequate housing, care, and programming.
II. The CDCR Secretary shall, after exhausting all possibilities for voluntary transfers of inmates, and in compliance with the Interstate Corrections Compact and the Western Interstate Corrections Compact, and as he deems necessary and appropriate to mitigate this emergency, effectuate involuntary transfers of California prison inmates, based on criteria set forth below, to institutions in other states and those of the federal government for incarceration consisting of constitutionally adequate housing, care, and programming. In such instance, because strict compliance with California Penal Code sections 11191 and 2911 would prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the severe overcrowding in these prisons, applicable provisions of these statutes are suspended to the extent necessary to enable the CDCR to transfer adult inmates, sentenced under California law, to institutions in other states and those of the federal government without consent. This suspension is limited to the scope and duration of this emergency.
A. The CDCR Secretary shall prioritize for involuntary transfer the inmates who meet the following criteria:
1. Inmates who: (a) have been previously deported by the federal government and are criminal aliens subject to immediate deportation; or (b) have committed an aggravated felony as defined by federal statute and are subject to deportation.
2. Inmates who are paroling outside of California.
3. Inmates who have limited or no family or supportive ties in California based on visitation records and/or other information deemed relevant and appropriate by the CDCR Secretary.
4. Inmates who have family or supportive ties in a transfer state.
5. Other inmates as deemed appropriate by the CDCR Secretary.
B. No person under commitment to the Division of Juvenile Justice may be considered for such transfer.
III. The CDCR Secretary shall, before selecting any inmate for transfer who has individual medical and/or mental-health needs, consult with the court-appointed Receiver of the CDCR medical system and/or the court-assigned Special Master in the Coleman mental-health case, depending on the healthcare needs of the inmate, to determine whether a transfer would be appropriate.
IV. The CDCR Secretary shall, before effectuating any inmate transfer, carefully and thoroughly evaluate all appropriate factors, including, but not limited to, the cost-effectiveness of any such transfer and whether an inmate selected for transfer has any pending appeals or hearings that may be impacted by such transfer.
V. The CDCR shall, as deemed appropriate by the CDCR Secretary, contract for facility space, inmate transportation, inmate screening, the services of qualified personnel, and/or for the supplies, materials, equipment, and other services needed to immediately mitigate the severe overcrowding and the resulting impacts within California. Because strict compliance with the provisions of the Government Code and the Public Contract Code applicable to state contracts would prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the severe overcrowding in these prisons, applicable provisions of these statutes, including, but not limited to, advertising and competitive bidding requirements, are suspended to the extent necessary to enable the CDCR to enter into such contracts as expeditiously as possible. This suspension is limited to the scope and duration of this emergency.
I FURTHER DIRECT that as soon as hereafter possible, this proclamation be filed in the Office of the Secretary of State and that widespread publicity and notice be given of this proclamation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 4th day of October 2006.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Governor of California
ATTEST:
BRUCE McPHERSON
Secretary of State
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
PRISON BREAK- LIFER PAROLE'S
My name is Carl McQuillion. I was ordered released on parole by the Ninth Circuit after Governor Wilson's "no-parole" board rescinded my 1979 grant of parole 7 months after my 1994 release date expired. He reversed all of them. It took me nine years of pro se litigation before the Ninth Circuit found the rescission board had NO EVIDENCE at all to justify reversing a grant that had been given 15 years earlier and been repeatedly approved by at least 15 subsequent commissioners at Progress Hearings. I learned to be a paralegal inside, and now own and operate my own freelance service. I do exclusively lifer parole litigation for several law firms throughout California, and have been hired as a consultant by attorneys working on some of the most notorious cases. I am considered an expert in this field. I live in a nice neighborhood, work 7 days a week most of the time, have a nice little house, two cars, a new wife, and am very happy. I am considered a compassionate, honorable, and honest person, and am very respected by the lawyers who know me and the life prisoners inside. I have spoken on national radio twice, on KQED earlier this year, and often speak out on prison issues at the State capital. I keep in touch with many of the paroled lifers who are doing quite well out here, living honest lives.
I know that the parole board is ethically and morally bankrupt and populated with people paid a lot of money to deny most lifers. I know they manipulate the law to give the appearance of doing their jobs, but in reality they only let out a few to give that apparance. I know that Arnold tightened up on paroles after the Victims Rights groups, like the loudmouth Harriet Solarno, and the CCPOA held a rally in 2004 criticizing Anrold for letter 94 lifers out. He reduced that by 2/3rds, and recently, as elections drew near, he cut even that to a trickle. This is all politics, and such decisions should be made on the law, not politics, and certainly not politics warped by "mob rule" mentality.
I know that the CCPOA needs a serious RICO action taken against it for the corruption it manifests throughout the system, and for allowing and defending the incredible brutality and horrific conditions inmates suffer now.
I know that if I were the Director of Corrections with full authority I could straighten the entire system out within a years time. But the CCPOA likes the Department of Chaos the way it is. It, and its members, make lots of money the way it is.
What is needed is not deference to the CCPOA or the victims rights groups, nor to the board members themselves. The reality is that they are all breaking the laws to do what they do, and the media should understand that. And expose it. ... As long as the media and the officialdom operate with the view that the commissioners are doing an honest job, the corruption will continue unchecked. One only has to read some of the state and federal court cases to see what is going on.
Arnold is no bleeding heart. He is doing what his advisors say to do, and early on his main advisors were Pete Wilson and James Nielsen, who were responsible for the onslaught of the no-parole policy in the first place. No one can see Arnold directly who would be able to tell him the truth about all this. His advisors won't allow it.
Carl McQuillion
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| Posted on Sun, Oct. 29, 2006 |  | |
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| MERCURY NEWS SPECIAL REPORT PRISON BREAK Mercury News Locked up in a state prison cell in Tracy, Alan Mann was so excited he had to put down his newspaper when he got word that Gov. Gray Davis had been tossed from office in the historic 2003 recall election. As a convicted felon serving a life sentence for killing his best buddy in a San Jose field in 1980, Mann couldn't vote. But he had more than a passing interest in seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger replace Davis -- and it had nothing to do with traditional politics or the state's energy crisis. For Mann and the 29,000 state inmates serving life sentences for murder and other serious crimes, there was virtually no chance of parole under Davis. In fact, just months earlier, the parole board had voted to free Mann, but Davis reversed the decision. With Schwarzenegger' s election, there was renewed hope that the politics of parole could shift in California. ``Word was all over the place that Schwarzenegger had won,'' Mann says now. ``I was like `Wow. Maybe I can get a chance to get out.' '' A year later, Mann became one of the state's lucky ``lifers.'' In California's fickle parole system, prisoners serving life terms have had a much better chance of release under Schwarzenegger. A Mercury News review of the 126 cases in which Schwarzenegger paroled lifers shows that dozens of them involved the same inmates Davis rejected. To experts, it's a clear sign that a Republican governor with a ``Terminator' ' role on his résumé feels better insulated against political attack on the issue than a Democrat worried about looking soft on crime. The odds are still against convicted murderers and others serving life terms because Schwarzenegger reverses his parole board's decision to release lifers about 75 percent of the time. But he has let 126 of these inmates go free in his three years in office, while Davis paroled just nine lifers in about five years. Schwarzenegger also has nearly surpassed former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who allowed 132 lifer inmates to be paroled in eight years. Luck of the draw • Same set of facts, but different outcomes Lifer inmates striving for a chance to start new lives outside prison are depending on the luck of the draw from one governor to another. Mann's case is typical. Like nearly half the lifers paroled by Schwarzenegger, the facts of his case were essentially the same as when Davis had reversed his parole. The decision to free an inmate is supposed to be based on an objective set of standards, but everyone involved in the system acknowledges that the outcome partly depends on a governor's subjective view of whether an inmate still poses a risk to the community. Andrea Hoch, Schwarzenegger' s legal-affairs secretary and lead adviser on parole matters, concedes, ``It's not science. We're dealing with human beings.'' And luck. Schwarzenegger has avoided the type of Willie Horton episode that haunted former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in his 1988 campaign. Unlike Horton, California lifers are for the most part behaving after they get out. One of them is an ordained Episcopalian priest at a church in Berkeley. Five lifers paroled by Schwarzenegger have violated parole, four of those for drug relapses, well below the recidivism rate of 60 percent for the state's overall prison population, prison figures show. Governors do not have any direct say over the thousands of parole decisions made each year in cases involving inmates eligible for parole who are not serving potential life terms. While parole has not been a major issue in the contest between Schwarzenegger and his Democratic rival, Phil Angelides, California is just one of three states that gives a governor the power to overturn a parole board's decision to release a prisoner serving a life term for crimes ranging from kidnapping to first-degree murder. And California has by far the largest such inmate population in the nation. ``This is really something that needs to be one of the most non-political things a governor does,'' said Eric George, Wilson's deputy legal-affairs secretary. ``You are dealing with a question of life and a question of liberty.'' Within months of taking office, Schwarzenegger paroled dozens of lifers, signaling that he would be different. Schwarzenegger was keenly aware of Davis' reluctance to grant parole and personally reviews each case during weekly meetings, said Peter Siggins, the governor's legal-affairs secretary until last year. ``He felt the possibility of parole meant a possibility, '' said Siggins, now a San Francisco appeals court justice. ``Not, `No way, no how, no possibility. ' '' An analysis of thousands of pages of parole hearing transcripts shows that the typical lifer inmate earning parole from Schwarzenegger was under 21 years old at the time of the crime, often a teenager, and in many instances was not the main culprit. They have usually spent at least 20 years in prison. Twenty-two of the parolees have been women, nearly every one of them arguing they committed crimes because they were battered by spouses or boyfriends. Parole experts say lifer inmates who are released generally fare better than repeat offenders who cycle through the prison system, in part because they tend to have grown into middle age behind bars and have used their time for self-improvement. Ollie Johnson • Battered woman kicks drugs, behaves herself Ollie Johnson is one such inmate. The East Palo Alto native was serving a 16-years-to- life term for stabbing her boyfriend to death in the chest with a butcher knife in 1986. She had gone through rehab for drug addiction, taken vocational courses and stayed out of trouble in prison. And she had lawyers on her side, contending that she was entitled to parole because of strong evidence her boyfriend had battered her before the crime. In 2002, the parole board recommended that she be released, over the objections of San Mateo County prosecutors, who argued that she was unfit. But Davis overturned the board. ``It was very sad for him to tell me I wasn't suitable for parole based on the past,'' Johnson says now. ``I worked hard to become the person I should have been a long time ago, before I got to prison.'' Last year, Schwarzenegger agreed. Johnson became one of about 20 female inmates who successfully argued that they had been battered at the time they killed and should be paroled. Johnson, 49, is now living in a drug-treatment home in East Palo Alto, looking for work, hoping to move out on her own and helping with a battered women's organization in San Francisco. She stays in regular touch with other female inmates who were paroled. She savors life outside prison, including frills that didn't exist two decades ago. While ordering a caramel frappuccino at Starbucks recently, she gushed to the cashier that it was only her ``second one in 21 years.'' ``I appreciate those who did open the door to me and I'm entitled to a second chance,'' Johnson said as she sipped her frappuccino. Growing caseload • Sometimes good policy takes political heat Paroling inmates serving life terms has become a more pressing issue over the past 10 to 15 years, as California has put more inmates behind bars for life than ever. Davis and Schwarzenegger have been forced to confront the issue more than their predecessors at a time when it is considered good politics to look as tough on crime as possible. And governors will continue to face unprecedented numbers of parole decisions for lifers as a generation of inmates sentenced under California's 1994 ``three strikes, you're out'' law reach parole eligibility in coming years. Davis reversed his own board's parole recommendations with such regularity that his stance was challenged to the California Supreme Court. In a crucial decision, the court in 2002 deferred to a governor's power to deny parole as long as there is some factual justification for the decision. Davis, now in a Los Angeles law firm, did not respond to interview requests for this story, but during his tenure defended his policy and the need to protect public safety. Prison and sentencing experts say Davis' approach was consistent with national trends, particularly for Democratic governors who do not want to look soft on crime. Schwarzenegger has his critics on law-and-order issues, but crime has not been a political vulnerable spot. Davis had to constantly stress his tough-on-crime credentials to offset fallout from his days as former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's chief of staff. ``The Democrats tend to be more cautious,'' said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., non-profit that last year studied the national increase in inmates serving life terms. ``I don't know what they are afraid of, but they are afraid.'' Angelides campaign spokesman Dan Newman criticized the governor's record, saying he has ``failed to protect the public.'' Victims' rights advocates also criticize his parole of convicted murderers. ``I know he looks like he's tough on crime, but we have a great concern about it,'' said Harriet Salarno, president of California's Crime Victims United. ``We're watching it -- we don't want one of them to explode.'' Broken pledge? • Critics want governor to parole even more Critics on the other side insist that while Schwarzenegger has been more receptive to parole than Davis, he's still too stingy. He's gone back, they say, on his early pledge to defer to the parole board in most instances. The governor has upheld about 25 percent of parole recommendations. The board has approved parole dates in more than 500 lifer cases during the Schwarzenegger administration, still a relatively small percentage of the thousands of cases it considers each year. The governor's critics also say he's playing politics by tightening his parole policy as this year's election has drawn near. Schwarzenegger permitted the parole of 72 lifers in 2004, but just 13 this year, according to parole board figures. Prisoner rights advocates say the system remains arbitrary, with many inmates rejected for parole who are little different from some who are released. They have filed court challenges. Last year, an appeals court ordered a San Mateo County man, George Scott, to be released, overruling Schwarzenegger' s decision to block parole because he failed to justify keeping Scott behind bars. Scott, in his 60s, had served 19 years for killing his wife's lover. ``I don't think there's an appreciable difference in this governor's approach -- it's still only a handful of people who get out, out of 5,000 hearings every year,'' said Keith Wattley, a lawyer for San Quentin's Prison Law Office. Hoch, Schwarzenegger' s current legal-affairs secretary, said the governor emphasizes public safety and decides each case on the facts. ``This is an area where it's totally about someone's life,'' Hoch said. ``Politics does not play a role at all.'' Alan Mann • Prototypical parolee of Schwarzenegger' s Alan Mann may not agree. But he's turned out to be the prototypical Schwarzenegger parolee. He was 20 when he got into a late-night argument with a friend over whether he ought to confront a drug dealer for owed money. Mann killed him with a sawed-off shotgun in a booze and LSD haze near San Jose's Guadalupe Creek. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sent to San Quentin to serve a 15 years to life sentence. In prison he sobered up, earned a high school degree, embraced church and set his sights on parole. Mann, now 47, expresses remorse for the killing, which he blames on the drugs and booze. ``It's something I'll never forget,'' he says. ``He was a friend of mine.'' Santa Clara County prosecutors opposed parole for Mann at hearings before the parole board. Deputy District Attorney Ron Rico, who supervises the county's lifer cases, expressed concern at a 2003 hearing about Mann's potential threat to public safety and past substance abuse problems. Rico declined to discuss Mann's parole, but had this to say generally: ``If a lifer inmate gets a date and is released, I certainly hope that the board is right,'' he said. These days Mann lives in Milpitas where he works as a yard supervisor for a company that refurbishes gas stations. Helped by an old friend from church, he had his job lined up when he left prison. He attends church, dotes on his new truck and hopes to travel to visit a brother in Idaho when he gets off probation in about three years. He makes a point of saying he doesn't drink or smoke. He understands that breaking the law now would make Gray Davis's decision to keep him in prison right and he's intent on not proving Schwarzenegger wrong. ``If I screw up and go back, they are going to say, `See?' '' Mann says. ``It's not only a bad mark on the parole board and the governor and me, it's real bad for the other lifers trying to get out. That keeps me on the straight and narrow.'' Contact Howard Mintz at hmintz@mercurynews. com or (408) 286-0236. | ||
http://www.mercuryn ews.com/mld/ mercurynews/ news/local/ crime_courts/ 15878573. htm?source= rss
Carol Leonard
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Suicide- the new death sentence
I urge everyone to read and take much needed action...
C. AREY
P.O Box 660
Binghamton, NY 13905-0660
cfareyx3@aol.com
October 25, 2006
After numerous letters to media, state officials and civil rights organizations, I have yet to get a response indicating that any action has been taken to investigate or publicize the daily abuse and torture occurring the Polunksy Unit in Livingston, Texas. A time has come that we, the family and friends of inmates, anti-death penalty groups and inmates housed at this unit, are crying out for your help. This issue gone ignored, swept under the rug for too long.
Recently I sent a letter to the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice indicating what inmates at this unit describe as dehumanizing acts of excessive force. Gabriel Gonzalez, an inmate at Polunksy says, “The prisoners here release bouts of displeasure through shouts, screams, gnashing of teeth, and sounds so foreign one wonders if it’s a sign of masculinity or insanity? “ Excessive gassings, beatings, isolation, sensory deprivation, deplorable living conditions and invasion of mail privileges are just a few of the cruel and inhumane actions occurring at Polunsky. We urge you to PLEASE, take action, PLEASE expose this hidden world of that exists behind prison walls. The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice replies to my letter stating how well they do their job, only hiring competent staff, and taking every measure to ensure safety for inmates and staff. The next day an inmate on death row, killed himself hours away from his state funded execution. Writing on the wall, “I didn’t do it” with his own blood“. The inmate was on death watch, being monitored every 15 minutes. How could this happen if the Texas DOC was doing their job as well as they claim? I will include the previous letter I have sent to media and officials, only to be ignored. Several inmates on death row at Polunksy are participating in a hunger strike to protest the conditions and abuse. The hunger strikers’ demands include better meals, cell maintenance, adequate health care and proper hygienic and laundry necessities. They are also calling for a halt to the excessive punitive measures used against death row prisoners, especially those making protests. Inmates on hunger strike are: Gabriel Gonzalez, Kenneth Foster, Steve Woods, Rob Will, Reginald Blanton and Da’mon Simpson.
As I mentioned this is yet another attempt to seek the help of the media, we desperately need your help. In 1980 Dan Rather from CBS 60 Minutes, interviewed Johnny Fort, an inmate at Union Correction facility, otherwise known as the “The Rock”. This interview led to a 3 year investigation into the lies, deception and corruption of the Florida DOC. This interview also led to the murder trial and the ultimate destruction of “The Rock” This one interview sent the employees of the Florida DOC running to cover their blood trail. The same can be done now with Texas DOC. To learn more about the conditions, the inmates involved, and what these inmates are saying go to www.drive.org, or email me at cfaeyx3@aol.com
Thank you.
Carmen Arey
Previous letter sent to media and officials:
C. AREY
P.O Box 660
Binghamton, NY 13905-0660
cfareyx3@aol.com
Dear Media:
One of the biggest denials of human rights is occurring on a daily basis in the United States. This denial of human rights is causing individuals to lose touch with their own humanity and killing them mentally and physically, isolated in tiny cages and subjected to constant acts of violence that have become as routine as breathing. Suicides, depression, gassing (sometimes to the point of suffocation), physical beatings that can cause such unbearable pain on levels one cannot imagine, and shouting that becomes piercing screams.
Imagine … being isolated 23 hours a day, no physical contact even for visits, random and unnecessary degrading strip searches where guards mock and ridicule, cell temperatures that are freezing in the winter, scorching in the summer and living in cages that leak badly when it rains.
Imagine …lack of medical care resulting in deaths of those who desperately needed it and countless inhumane and sub-human conditions.
Imagine … complete isolation resulting in Sensory Deprivation, the break down and loss of one’s senses (touch, taste, hearing, sight, and smell), resulting in hallucinations, depression, anxiety, bizarre thoughts and antisocial behavior. Sensory Deprivation has been used for psychological experiments, torture or punishment.
The Irish Government on behalf of men who had been subjected to Sensory Deprivation took a case to the European Commission on Human Rights (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788-94 (Eur. Comm’n of Hum. Rts.)). The Commission stated that it "considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture"#. This consideration was overturned on appeal. In 1978 in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial "Ireland v. the United Kingdom" ruled that the five techniques "did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture ... [but] amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 1986 United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture listed "sensory deprivation" among the techniques constituting torture. Another group, such as the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, for example, lists sensory deprivation as a type of "mental torture"#.
This sounds like treatment that we have had of which occurred at Guantanamo Bay and other housing units for terrorist suspects. But this, of which I speak, is occurring now in the United States, in Livingston, Texas..
From the words of an inmate at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, whom I will not name to protect him from retaliation, “ I cannot describe what goes on here except that the souls of many men here are gone; though physically alive, they are not living. Some men sink into a depression and never recover. Others become more aggressive like a tortured, beaten and starved lion. What will happen when that lion is released from his cage?”
He goes further to say, “Not long ago another man was gassed and beaten beyond recognition, all while handcuffed and shackled. The administering guards laughed as they bragged about who did the most damage. All of this “excessive force” inflicted on a man who was helpless and otherwise harmless. THIS IS BARBARIC AND MUST BE STOPPED.” The inmates on death row at the Polunsky Unit in Texas have tried to reach out for help by writing to friends and family with desperate hopes that this will get the attention of someone, anyone with the authority to stop this abuse of power.
“The prisoners here release bouts of displeasure through shouts, screams, gnashing of teeth, and sounds so foreign one wonders if it’s a sign of masculinity or insanity? “ In attempts to combat these issues of abuse and deplorable living conditions, some inmates at the Polunsky Unit along with a little help from outsiders have organized a vanguard. “Death Row Inner Communalist Vanguard Engagement” (DRIVE). The objective of “DRIVE” is to unite the Death Row community to stand in solidarity against inhumane and atrocious conditions that brutally rape our Human Rights, as well as protesting the gross ritual of human sacrifice called the Death Penalty. The inmates who have been active with this vanguard have been subjected to beatings, excessive gassings with riot control gas, stripped and left naked in freezing cells for 72 hours at a time, given less food rations, visitation denials (legal, media and personal visits), retaliatory shakedowns, property seizures, denied meals, showers, recreation and mail has been maliciously scrutinized or thrown away. One inmate says, “What goes on here is like a sick experiment to see if the will and spirits of men can be broken, which is why the system is so bent on trying to quiet and suppress our movement. We’re exposing the truth about this oppressive/ repressive system”
We do not wish to bring attention to this matter to endanger these inmates any further. Our wish and desperate plea is to bring attention to the issues of violation of human rights, physical and mental abuse, abuse of power, and unnecessary occurrences of strip searches and degrading of inmates. We urge you to investigate this matter, investigate the living conditions and disciplinary actions of inmates of the Polunsky Unit in Livingston Texas. Interview the inmates, judge for yourself what is morally right and wrong. Please help put a stop to the abusive actions of correctional officers and staff at this unit.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizens
Why keep checking for Mail? The all-new Yahoo! Mail shows you when there are new messages.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
CAPITOL TOWNHALL MEETING ON CDCR
CAPITOL TOWNHALL MEETING ON CDCR
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Public Townhall Meeting
CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONS in CRISIS
FOCUSING on SOLUTIONS
&
Survivors Breaking Barriers
A Candlelight Vigil Memorial Rally
Join TiPS for our August 10th public town hall
meeting in our State Capitol building to be a part of the decision making process and help craft a plan of action for CDCR with a select panel of respected leaders. Be a part of this historic event and share your experiences, insight, and ideas on ways to reform the California prison system, including the possibility of having a federal receiver take control of all of CDCR.
Our expert panel has been specially chosen for their leadership in making public policy, as well as their vision to make our department of corrections work as intended to improve public safety. The forum is the first ever public opportunity to interact directly with these experts and have your input heard.
After the forum there will be a rally to honor our loved ones, as well as a moment of silence for those we have lost.
This is a day for all persons to come together and restore common sense to our correctional system. Participation prior to and or during the rally is encouraged.
The rally is to commemorate those PERSONS WHO HAVE:
v Lost their lives while incarcerated
v Lost loved ones due to crime
v Loved ones whose lives have been impacted by neglect or abuse
Volunteers may contact:
Marie Wallach Capp Director roscocat@msn.com
Mary Tunstall: National PRUP Coordinator Marerob_2000@yahoo.com
When: August 10th, 2006
Time: Town hall meeting 1-5 Memorial Rally 5-8 pm
Where: State Capitol Building, Sacramento
TiPS CaPP PRUP
Uniting Ideas Hopes and Understanding
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Public Townhall Meeting
CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONS in CRISIS
FOCUSING on SOLUTIONS
&
Survivors Breaking Barriers
A Candlelight Vigil Memorial Rally
Join TiPS for our August 10th public town hall
meeting in our State Capitol building to be a part of the decision making process and help craft a plan of action for CDCR with a select panel of respected leaders. Be a part of this historic event and share your experiences, insight, and ideas on ways to reform the California prison system, including the possibility of having a federal receiver take control of all of CDCR.
Our expert panel has been specially chosen for their leadership in making public policy, as well as their vision to make our department of corrections work as intended to improve public safety. The forum is the first ever public opportunity to interact directly with these experts and have your input heard.
After the forum there will be a rally to honor our loved ones, as well as a moment of silence for those we have lost.
This is a day for all persons to come together and restore common sense to our correctional system. Participation prior to and or during the rally is encouraged.
The rally is to commemorate those PERSONS WHO HAVE:
v Lost their lives while incarcerated
v Lost loved ones due to crime
v Loved ones whose lives have been impacted by neglect or abuse
Volunteers may contact:
Marie Wallach Capp Director roscocat@msn.com
Mary Tunstall: National PRUP Coordinator Marerob_2000@yahoo.com
When: August 10th, 2006
Time: Town hall meeting 1-5 Memorial Rally 5-8 pm
Where: State Capitol Building, Sacramento
TiPS CaPP PRUP
Uniting Ideas Hopes and Understanding
My story should be told!
I was the victim of a violent crime here in Cherokee County, Georgia, and I was FALSELY ARRESTED as the PERPETRATOR! I filed a report that same day, yet critical statements that I told the deputy were left out of my report. When I got a copy of the report I franticly attempted to contact the deputy to correct this. He did not return several calls so I went to the precinct to file a “Supplemental Report” with the correct facts, and I was DENIED THIS RIGHT and THREATENED WITH ARREST! I was then FALSELY ARRESTED and after my arrest, the former detective Peavy committed heinous crimes in his every attempt to MANUFACTURE my guilt. The only witness at the scene, a very respectable citizen, was NEVER interviewed. A recorded interview with the accuser contradicted virtually every statement in her initial report! A transcript from a recorded conversation with the accuser and I, that proved my innocence, was DOCTORED to end just before statements were made by the accuser that CLEARED ME and PROVED THE ACCUSER TO BE VIOLENT AND A LIAR. Critical exculpatory evidence was IGNORED when collected by the State and then this critical evidence was ALTERED before being brought into MY TRIAL.
The only reason I WON THIS BATTLE was because I was always a step ahead of them. I had recorded the other end of the conversation of the doctored transcript. I had gotten an expert witness to observe this evidence that cleared me, months before it was collected by the State and then altered before being brought into my trial.
The crime of Felony Tampering with Evidence was committed in order to eliminate critical evidence that was the crux of my defense. Then the judge made light of this crime and covered up for it!
This NIGHTMARE IN GEORGIA when on and on and on. I went to nine more trial calendars, but they would never take me to trial again. It was four years and three months from the date of the incident before I received the order that ALL MY CHARGES had been DISMISSED. Sadly and tragically, two weeks after the death of my beautiful, sweet and talented mother.
Patrick Swiney is innocent, just as I was innocent. I should, by all indications, be sitting in prison for 20 to 35 years for AGGRAVATED ASSAULT and several misdemeanor crimes that I DID NOT COMMIT. IN FACT I WAS THE VICTIM!!!!! The LEGAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN and the IMMUNITY LAWS ARE ABSURD, and each individual must have the courage to stand up to it in order to bring about the change that is so desperately needed.
Simply put “Kerry Walker Story” in a search engine and read all about my REALITY. This should NEVER HAPPEN IN AMERICA but it happens so much that it should make you sick! Now I lost my home and only own a small cabin. I have no money and I have not been able to find a regular job. My health has been ruined and it's difficult to function for long periods of time. I wonder if we should call this winning...
Kerry Craig Walker
Shared by:
Sherry Swiney
Director, P.A.T.R.I.C.K.
www.patrickcrusade.org
Member of the Board, NJCDLP
http://www.njcdlp.org/
Patrick Swiney-innocent in prison (GSR exonerates him)
www.patrickswiney.com
http://www.patrickswiney.com/legal_index.html
"The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing" Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Irish philosopher, statesman. "The courts are completely dysfunctional and the system is utterly broken."
The only reason I WON THIS BATTLE was because I was always a step ahead of them. I had recorded the other end of the conversation of the doctored transcript. I had gotten an expert witness to observe this evidence that cleared me, months before it was collected by the State and then altered before being brought into my trial.
The crime of Felony Tampering with Evidence was committed in order to eliminate critical evidence that was the crux of my defense. Then the judge made light of this crime and covered up for it!
This NIGHTMARE IN GEORGIA when on and on and on. I went to nine more trial calendars, but they would never take me to trial again. It was four years and three months from the date of the incident before I received the order that ALL MY CHARGES had been DISMISSED. Sadly and tragically, two weeks after the death of my beautiful, sweet and talented mother.
Patrick Swiney is innocent, just as I was innocent. I should, by all indications, be sitting in prison for 20 to 35 years for AGGRAVATED ASSAULT and several misdemeanor crimes that I DID NOT COMMIT. IN FACT I WAS THE VICTIM!!!!! The LEGAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN and the IMMUNITY LAWS ARE ABSURD, and each individual must have the courage to stand up to it in order to bring about the change that is so desperately needed.
Simply put “Kerry Walker Story” in a search engine and read all about my REALITY. This should NEVER HAPPEN IN AMERICA but it happens so much that it should make you sick! Now I lost my home and only own a small cabin. I have no money and I have not been able to find a regular job. My health has been ruined and it's difficult to function for long periods of time. I wonder if we should call this winning...
Kerry Craig Walker
Shared by:
Sherry Swiney
Director, P.A.T.R.I.C.K.
www.patrickcrusade.org
Member of the Board, NJCDLP
http://www.njcdlp.org/
Patrick Swiney-innocent in prison (GSR exonerates him)
www.patrickswiney.com
http://www.patrickswiney.com/legal_index.html
"The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing" Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Irish philosopher, statesman. "The courts are completely dysfunctional and the system is utterly broken."
Striking Down Hope for Inmates
Striking Down Hope for Inmates
By Mark L. Earley
"What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons," a distinguished bipartisan private commission said in a sobering report issued earlier this month. "It comes home with prisoners." And, of course, it affects whole neighborhoods, cities and even states. In other words: The violence bred inside our nation's prisons endangers the safety of our communities.
By coincidence, this report by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, whose members include a former U.S. attorney general and a former FBI director, came out just six days after a federal judge in Iowa declared one very effective faith-based program for prisoners unconstitutional. It was the kind of decision that can only worsen a situation cited by the commission: the severe lack of programs to help prisoners prepare for reentry to society.
The commission rightly notes that nothing contributes more to violence and danger in prisons than idleness. "But because lawmakers have reduced funding for programming," it says, "prisoners today are largely inactive and unproductive. Highly structured programs are proven to reduce misconduct in correctional facilities and to lower recidivism rates after release."
You'd think, then, that the last thing the courts would do would be to take a proven tool away from prison administrators by closing down a highly structured, intensive program that offers character education, community service, pre-release training and mentoring by community volunteers on the outside.
But that's precisely what a federal judge in Iowa did this month. In deciding a lawsuit filed by Barry Lynn and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt ruled such a program unconstitutional and ordered it shut down within 60 days. Why? Because the program -- run by the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) -- is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. As such, he ruled, it cannot contract with and receive funds from the state of Iowa, even though 60 percent of IFI's funds were privately donated and even though state funds are used only for nonsectarian aspects of the program.
Never mind that independent studies by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the University of Pennsylvania have shown that IFI reduces recidivism. Or that the judge himself recognized that recidivism is a major problem in Iowa and that the primary purpose of the Iowa Department of Corrections' contract with IFI was to reduce recidivism. Never mind that no other organization offers such comprehensive and intensive treatment and educational opportunities for inmates.
The judge ruled that IFI "coerced" prisoners into enrolling. How? Basically by offering them a quality program and the tools they need to succeed on the outside. As if drug treatment, job preparation and general education are some kind of bait to lure unsuspecting prisoners into a Christian program where they can be converted.
Every single prisoner who testified at trial said that he was not coerced into enrolling in the program. Participants are exposed to the religious aspects of the program only as a result of their voluntary choice to enroll. Every potential participant is told about the religious aspects of the program. And participants may leave it at any time without penalty. (By the way, the IFI program is continuing to operate while the case is appealed.)
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the court's decision was its gross oversimplification of evangelical Christianity. The court relied heavily on "expert" testimony that evangelical Christians by definition must seek to convert others and that any actions they take must be construed to that end. That generalization weighed more heavily in the judge's decision than did testimony from IFI staff members that they did not try to convert inmates to Christianity and that IFI made allowances for non-evangelical Christian inmates to attend services of their choice, observe Ramadan or attend sweat-lodge ceremonies.
To add injury to insult, the judge ordered that IFI refund the $1.5 million it had received from the state of Iowa for services rendered -- funds that Iowa believes have been well spent and does not want back. This is unprecedented and unfair. Under a valid contract arrived at through a competitive bidding process, Prison Fellowship and IFI in good faith spent time, resources and human capital providing needed services to prisoners. And prisoners and Iowa corrections officials testified that the program is working.
The extreme and punitive nature of the judge's ruling sends a clear message to faith-based organizations that provide needed social services -- social services that few governments or other private organizations have the resources to provide. The judge's message is this: Go away. Go away, even if your program is working and inmates are volunteering and asking for the services.
Given the warehousing of prisoners today and the tragically disproportionate number of minorities behind bars, that's the worst message any government could send. With 2.3 million Americans in prison, this year alone, more than 600,000 of them will be released back to our communities. And within three years, two-thirds of them will be arrested for new crimes against new victims.
"We all bear responsibility for creating correctional institutions that are safe, humane, and productive," the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons concludes. "This is the moment to confront confinement in the United States."
It is certainly not the moment to exclude programs -- faith-based or not -- that offer "safe, humane, and productive" solutions.
The writer, a former attorney general of Virginia, is president of Prison Fellowship (http://www.prisonfellowship.org), which works with prisoners and their families.
By Mark L. Earley
"What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons," a distinguished bipartisan private commission said in a sobering report issued earlier this month. "It comes home with prisoners." And, of course, it affects whole neighborhoods, cities and even states. In other words: The violence bred inside our nation's prisons endangers the safety of our communities.
By coincidence, this report by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, whose members include a former U.S. attorney general and a former FBI director, came out just six days after a federal judge in Iowa declared one very effective faith-based program for prisoners unconstitutional. It was the kind of decision that can only worsen a situation cited by the commission: the severe lack of programs to help prisoners prepare for reentry to society.
The commission rightly notes that nothing contributes more to violence and danger in prisons than idleness. "But because lawmakers have reduced funding for programming," it says, "prisoners today are largely inactive and unproductive. Highly structured programs are proven to reduce misconduct in correctional facilities and to lower recidivism rates after release."
You'd think, then, that the last thing the courts would do would be to take a proven tool away from prison administrators by closing down a highly structured, intensive program that offers character education, community service, pre-release training and mentoring by community volunteers on the outside.
But that's precisely what a federal judge in Iowa did this month. In deciding a lawsuit filed by Barry Lynn and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt ruled such a program unconstitutional and ordered it shut down within 60 days. Why? Because the program -- run by the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) -- is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. As such, he ruled, it cannot contract with and receive funds from the state of Iowa, even though 60 percent of IFI's funds were privately donated and even though state funds are used only for nonsectarian aspects of the program.
Never mind that independent studies by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the University of Pennsylvania have shown that IFI reduces recidivism. Or that the judge himself recognized that recidivism is a major problem in Iowa and that the primary purpose of the Iowa Department of Corrections' contract with IFI was to reduce recidivism. Never mind that no other organization offers such comprehensive and intensive treatment and educational opportunities for inmates.
The judge ruled that IFI "coerced" prisoners into enrolling. How? Basically by offering them a quality program and the tools they need to succeed on the outside. As if drug treatment, job preparation and general education are some kind of bait to lure unsuspecting prisoners into a Christian program where they can be converted.
Every single prisoner who testified at trial said that he was not coerced into enrolling in the program. Participants are exposed to the religious aspects of the program only as a result of their voluntary choice to enroll. Every potential participant is told about the religious aspects of the program. And participants may leave it at any time without penalty. (By the way, the IFI program is continuing to operate while the case is appealed.)
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the court's decision was its gross oversimplification of evangelical Christianity. The court relied heavily on "expert" testimony that evangelical Christians by definition must seek to convert others and that any actions they take must be construed to that end. That generalization weighed more heavily in the judge's decision than did testimony from IFI staff members that they did not try to convert inmates to Christianity and that IFI made allowances for non-evangelical Christian inmates to attend services of their choice, observe Ramadan or attend sweat-lodge ceremonies.
To add injury to insult, the judge ordered that IFI refund the $1.5 million it had received from the state of Iowa for services rendered -- funds that Iowa believes have been well spent and does not want back. This is unprecedented and unfair. Under a valid contract arrived at through a competitive bidding process, Prison Fellowship and IFI in good faith spent time, resources and human capital providing needed services to prisoners. And prisoners and Iowa corrections officials testified that the program is working.
The extreme and punitive nature of the judge's ruling sends a clear message to faith-based organizations that provide needed social services -- social services that few governments or other private organizations have the resources to provide. The judge's message is this: Go away. Go away, even if your program is working and inmates are volunteering and asking for the services.
Given the warehousing of prisoners today and the tragically disproportionate number of minorities behind bars, that's the worst message any government could send. With 2.3 million Americans in prison, this year alone, more than 600,000 of them will be released back to our communities. And within three years, two-thirds of them will be arrested for new crimes against new victims.
"We all bear responsibility for creating correctional institutions that are safe, humane, and productive," the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons concludes. "This is the moment to confront confinement in the United States."
It is certainly not the moment to exclude programs -- faith-based or not -- that offer "safe, humane, and productive" solutions.
The writer, a former attorney general of Virginia, is president of Prison Fellowship (http://www.prisonfellowship.org), which works with prisoners and their families.
Arresting prison reform
From the Los Angeles Times
EDITORIAL
Arresting prison reform After starting strong early in his term, Gov. Schwarzenegger has backpedaled on important changes.
June 28, 2006
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S collapse on prison reform is one of the most disappointing failures of his tenure. Soon after taking office in 2003, he embraced initiatives to reduce the inmate population. The extent of his retreat in the face of opposition from the guards union is evident in his new four-part plan for the prisons.
The centerpiece of the governor's plan is a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) to build two prisons using lease revenue bonds, which are advantageous for politicians because they don't require voter approval. The downside is that they are horribly expensive, with higher interest rates than voter-approved bonds. The two prisons, which would cost at least $500 million each to build, could end up costing taxpayers a total of at least $2 billion.
The expense might be worth it if building new prisons were the solution to California's correctional problems. It is not, which is why voters refuse to back them. New prisons are much like new freeways, in that they don't do much to solve overcrowding problems — as soon as you build them, they fill up. Further, although overcrowding is a serious issue, the state's corrections system also is plagued by ineffective management and a dangerous shortage of guards; building more prisons alone would only exacerbate the latter two problems while doing little to solve the former.
The governor also wants to use lease revenue bonds to build "parole reentry facilities" — secure detention centers in communities where male inmates would be released and where those near the end of their sentences could be sent for mental health counseling and job training. It's a fine idea, though politically impractical — if there is a community in California that would welcome the construction of a small prison, we'd like to see it. The costs of these facilities are unknown, but the funding mechanism guarantees that they would be steep.
Equally problematic is the governor's proposal to shift 4,500 nonviolent female inmates to community rehab centers near their homes. This might work if there were enough existing centers to house the inmates or guards to staff them, but there aren't. That means building even more expensive mini-prisons in communities that don't want them.
The governor's plan does nothing to address the concerns of a federal judge investigating abuses of inmates by guards. It doesn't address the shortage of guards nor the management problems that make California's prisons a national embarrassment. Though ostensibly aimed at overcrowding, it doesn't even propose genuine solutions to that problem, such as reforms in sentencing laws and a major boost in rehabilitation programs. If the Legislature, which met in special session Tuesday night to discuss the governor's proposals, wants to set things right, a radical shift in approach is required.
EDITORIAL
Arresting prison reform After starting strong early in his term, Gov. Schwarzenegger has backpedaled on important changes.
June 28, 2006
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S collapse on prison reform is one of the most disappointing failures of his tenure. Soon after taking office in 2003, he embraced initiatives to reduce the inmate population. The extent of his retreat in the face of opposition from the guards union is evident in his new four-part plan for the prisons.
The centerpiece of the governor's plan is a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) to build two prisons using lease revenue bonds, which are advantageous for politicians because they don't require voter approval. The downside is that they are horribly expensive, with higher interest rates than voter-approved bonds. The two prisons, which would cost at least $500 million each to build, could end up costing taxpayers a total of at least $2 billion.
The expense might be worth it if building new prisons were the solution to California's correctional problems. It is not, which is why voters refuse to back them. New prisons are much like new freeways, in that they don't do much to solve overcrowding problems — as soon as you build them, they fill up. Further, although overcrowding is a serious issue, the state's corrections system also is plagued by ineffective management and a dangerous shortage of guards; building more prisons alone would only exacerbate the latter two problems while doing little to solve the former.
The governor also wants to use lease revenue bonds to build "parole reentry facilities" — secure detention centers in communities where male inmates would be released and where those near the end of their sentences could be sent for mental health counseling and job training. It's a fine idea, though politically impractical — if there is a community in California that would welcome the construction of a small prison, we'd like to see it. The costs of these facilities are unknown, but the funding mechanism guarantees that they would be steep.
Equally problematic is the governor's proposal to shift 4,500 nonviolent female inmates to community rehab centers near their homes. This might work if there were enough existing centers to house the inmates or guards to staff them, but there aren't. That means building even more expensive mini-prisons in communities that don't want them.
The governor's plan does nothing to address the concerns of a federal judge investigating abuses of inmates by guards. It doesn't address the shortage of guards nor the management problems that make California's prisons a national embarrassment. Though ostensibly aimed at overcrowding, it doesn't even propose genuine solutions to that problem, such as reforms in sentencing laws and a major boost in rehabilitation programs. If the Legislature, which met in special session Tuesday night to discuss the governor's proposals, wants to set things right, a radical shift in approach is required.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET Doing too much time
From the Los Angeles Times
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET Doing too much time When job applications
ask for conviction records, former inmates rarely get an interview or a
chance to start a new life.
June 3, 2006
CALIFORNIA'S PRISONS AND JAILS are overflowing largely because so many
of their inmates are like boomerangs: Throw them out the front gates
and before long they're headed right back where they came from. That's in
part because crime is often the only career choice for felons rejected
for legitimate jobs.
The state prison system bears part of the blame for its high recidivism
rate because it does very little to train inmates for the work world.
But it isn't just about the prisons. Most job applications ask whether
prospective employees have ever committed a felony; when a screener sees
that box checked, the application usually goes straight to the reject
pile, with the applicant given no chance to demonstrate that he or she
has gone straight. The city and the county of Los Angeles are taking
steps to change that.
Last week, county supervisors ordered a study on whether it would be
feasible to remove the requirement that all prospective county employees
reveal their history of convictions on initial job applications, and a
similar measure was sent last week to the L.A. City Council's Personnel
Committee. The measures are patterned on policy changes recently
adopted in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.
If the measures eventually are approved, the city and the county
wouldn't start hiring felons without knowing it. That would be a recipe for
trouble, given the sensitive information and valuable public property
municipal employees often manage. The laws only would apply to the
initial applications, in which prospective workers are screened before being
called in for interviews and more paperwork. In that later phase,
applicants still would have to reveal whether they had been convicted of a
felony.
The point of the measures is that they would give ex-convicts a foot in
the door; an opportunity to see employers face to face without being
routinely screened out. Many would still be rejected, just at a later
stage of the hiring process. But at least they would be able to make the
case that they deserve a second chance.
Americans tend to believe that redemption is possible; that once a
felon has done time, the slate is wiped clean. But that belief is not
really reflected in Americans' hiring practices. Ex-cons represent a risk
that few businesses are willing to take on. The city and county laws
under consideration are a very small step toward encouraging employers to
give felons a second chance, and they won't make much of a dent in the
prison population. But they're a start.
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Saturday, June 03, 2006
Plea to Place The Entire Dept of Corrections under Federal Receivership
Honorable Judge Thelton Henderson
United States District Court
450 Golden Gate Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94102
RE: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concerns!
Dear Judge Henderson,
I am writing this letter out of concern for the appalling conditions of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the recent placement of its medical care under Federal Receivership. Since the receivership was ordered nothing has changed for the inmates. We are still losing inmates the same as before and there are several hundred who are literally walking dead due to the lack of proper medical diagnosis and treatment. In the last week, a critically ill inmate with a feeding tube was transferred to a non medical prison without notice and died in less than a week. This could have been prevented, but wasn’t.
In the last two months the CDCR has seen two Secretaries resign due to problems with the CDCR’s employee CCPOA union. It is quite clear that the entire system is on the brink of failure. The news is reporting that Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to find someone from outside the state to take over and straighten out the CDCR’s problems. Judge, with all due respect, none of this will amount to anything more than a continuation of the same problems we see now, and our loved ones will continue to suffer and die inside CDCR’s walls and fences.
As noted previously in letters to you, the entire CDCR system is plagued with racial tension and is on the verge of collapse. The CCPOA union is responsible for all of this and continually makes and enforces decisions to create chaos, turmoil, and violence to assure their staff receives optimum benefits and nearly impossible overtime pay. The action of placing violent offenders in population is simply a tool by the CCPOA to create and maintain their hold on the CDCR system through violence which in turn guarantees union employee benefits and excessive overtime pay to the tune of more than $100,000.00 per year for several hundred CDCR employees. Now the CCPOA has forced the second CDCR Secretary from her position by use of its powerful union and political clout. This matter is beyond state control and the CDCR is heading into a quagmire it won’t escape without untold numbers of assaults and deaths of both inmates and staff. Something must be done now.
The CDCR system has collapsed and is not about corrections or rehabilitation. The only viable option is to take the steps to place the entire system under receivership and bring in federal authority to recoup the system before a total breakdown occurs and countless inmates are allowed to die from medical neglect or murder in a hostile environment meant to rehabilitate and return them to society.
There are hundreds of thousands of family members, friends, and concerned citizens who urge prison reform on the failed CDCR system. Please consider all of our pleas to correct this system by placing the CDCR under complete federal receivership before it is too late.
United States District Court
450 Golden Gate Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94102
RE: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concerns!
Dear Judge Henderson,
I am writing this letter out of concern for the appalling conditions of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the recent placement of its medical care under Federal Receivership. Since the receivership was ordered nothing has changed for the inmates. We are still losing inmates the same as before and there are several hundred who are literally walking dead due to the lack of proper medical diagnosis and treatment. In the last week, a critically ill inmate with a feeding tube was transferred to a non medical prison without notice and died in less than a week. This could have been prevented, but wasn’t.
In the last two months the CDCR has seen two Secretaries resign due to problems with the CDCR’s employee CCPOA union. It is quite clear that the entire system is on the brink of failure. The news is reporting that Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to find someone from outside the state to take over and straighten out the CDCR’s problems. Judge, with all due respect, none of this will amount to anything more than a continuation of the same problems we see now, and our loved ones will continue to suffer and die inside CDCR’s walls and fences.
As noted previously in letters to you, the entire CDCR system is plagued with racial tension and is on the verge of collapse. The CCPOA union is responsible for all of this and continually makes and enforces decisions to create chaos, turmoil, and violence to assure their staff receives optimum benefits and nearly impossible overtime pay. The action of placing violent offenders in population is simply a tool by the CCPOA to create and maintain their hold on the CDCR system through violence which in turn guarantees union employee benefits and excessive overtime pay to the tune of more than $100,000.00 per year for several hundred CDCR employees. Now the CCPOA has forced the second CDCR Secretary from her position by use of its powerful union and political clout. This matter is beyond state control and the CDCR is heading into a quagmire it won’t escape without untold numbers of assaults and deaths of both inmates and staff. Something must be done now.
The CDCR system has collapsed and is not about corrections or rehabilitation. The only viable option is to take the steps to place the entire system under receivership and bring in federal authority to recoup the system before a total breakdown occurs and countless inmates are allowed to die from medical neglect or murder in a hostile environment meant to rehabilitate and return them to society.
There are hundreds of thousands of family members, friends, and concerned citizens who urge prison reform on the failed CDCR system. Please consider all of our pleas to correct this system by placing the CDCR under complete federal receivership before it is too late.
CDCR- Facts & Figures 2006
About the Department
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) operates all state prisons, oversees a variety of community correctional facilities, and supervises all parolees during their re-entry into society.
Budget: $7.4 billion (2005-2006 Budget Act)
Avg. yearly cost: per inmate, $34,150; per parolee, $4,067
Staff: 54,868 currently employed including 47,256 in Institutions, 3,067 in Parole, and 4,545 in Administration (about 33,428 sworn peace officers)
Total offenders under CDCR jurisdiction: 309,476; One year change: +7,928 (2.6%)
About the State Budget
While it is the largest in terms of staffing, Corrections' operating budget is just 5.7% of the state General Fund in the 2005-2006 Budget Act.
About Prison Capacity
As of February 2002, the maximum prison capacity was approximately 170,100. Upon completion of the administrative segregation housing units and the Delano II maximum-security institution, the California Department of Correction's maximum housing capacity will increase to approximately 176,500
About Prisons
Facilities: 33 state prisons ranging from minimum to maximum custody; 40 camps, minimum custody facilities located in wilderness areas where inmates are trained as wildland firefighters; 12 community correctional facilities (CCF's); and 5 prisoner mother facilities.
Population
All Institutions: 170,475; One year change: +8,302 +2.6%
Prisons: 160,473
Camps: 4,408
Community Facilities: 5,460
Outside CDC: 1,959
Escaped: 244
USINS Holds: 15,963
Top 5 counties: LA; 33.%
San Diego 8%
San Bernardino 7%
Riverside 7%
Orange 5%
Characteristics
Males: 93%
Females: 7%
Parole Violators: 11%
Race: 28% white
29% black
37% hispanic
6% other
Offense: 50% persons
21% property
21% drugs
8% other
Lifers: 28,912
LWOP's: 3,400
Condemned: 652
Avg Reading Level: Seventh grade
Average Age: 36
Employed: 53.6%
Ineligible: 28.7%
Waiting List: 17.7%
Avg Sentence: 48.1 months
Avg Time Served: 24.1 months
Commitment Rate: 445.9 per 100,000 California population
Assault Rate (per 100 ADP): 3.5 in '04
3.5 in '03
4.6 in '02
4.6 in '01
Escape Rate (per 100 ADP): 0.01 in '04
0.01 in '03
0.01 in '02
0.01 in '01
About Parole
FACILITIES: 19 re-entry centers, and 2 restitution facilities. Most are operated by public or private agencies under contract to CDCR. Parole staff monitor these facilities.
OFFICES: 190 parole units and sub-units in 84 locations. Parole outpatient clinics and 150 clinicians.
Population
Total: 115,699; One year change: -392 -0.3%
Paroled to county of last legal residence: 90%; Other: 10%
Region I (North/Central Valley): 26,476
Region II (Bay Area/North, Central Coast): 22,645
Region III (LA County): 35,817
Region IV (San Diego/S. CA): 30,761
Return rate (per 100 avg daily pop) with new prison term: 15%
Return rate (per 100 avg daily pop) as parole violator: 47%
Top 5 counties: LA 31%
San Bernardino 7%
Orange 7%
San Diego 6%
Riverside 6%
Characteristics
Males: 89%
Females: 11%
Race: 32% white
25% black
38% hispanic
5% other
Offense: 26% persons
30% property
31% drugs
13% other
Median Age: 36
Updated: 05/08/2006
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) operates all state prisons, oversees a variety of community correctional facilities, and supervises all parolees during their re-entry into society.
Budget: $7.4 billion (2005-2006 Budget Act)
Avg. yearly cost: per inmate, $34,150; per parolee, $4,067
Staff: 54,868 currently employed including 47,256 in Institutions, 3,067 in Parole, and 4,545 in Administration (about 33,428 sworn peace officers)
Total offenders under CDCR jurisdiction: 309,476; One year change: +7,928 (2.6%)
About the State Budget
While it is the largest in terms of staffing, Corrections' operating budget is just 5.7% of the state General Fund in the 2005-2006 Budget Act.
About Prison Capacity
As of February 2002, the maximum prison capacity was approximately 170,100. Upon completion of the administrative segregation housing units and the Delano II maximum-security institution, the California Department of Correction's maximum housing capacity will increase to approximately 176,500
About Prisons
Facilities: 33 state prisons ranging from minimum to maximum custody; 40 camps, minimum custody facilities located in wilderness areas where inmates are trained as wildland firefighters; 12 community correctional facilities (CCF's); and 5 prisoner mother facilities.
Population
All Institutions: 170,475; One year change: +8,302 +2.6%
Prisons: 160,473
Camps: 4,408
Community Facilities: 5,460
Outside CDC: 1,959
Escaped: 244
USINS Holds: 15,963
Top 5 counties: LA; 33.%
San Diego 8%
San Bernardino 7%
Riverside 7%
Orange 5%
Characteristics
Males: 93%
Females: 7%
Parole Violators: 11%
Race: 28% white
29% black
37% hispanic
6% other
Offense: 50% persons
21% property
21% drugs
8% other
Lifers: 28,912
LWOP's: 3,400
Condemned: 652
Avg Reading Level: Seventh grade
Average Age: 36
Employed: 53.6%
Ineligible: 28.7%
Waiting List: 17.7%
Avg Sentence: 48.1 months
Avg Time Served: 24.1 months
Commitment Rate: 445.9 per 100,000 California population
Assault Rate (per 100 ADP): 3.5 in '04
3.5 in '03
4.6 in '02
4.6 in '01
Escape Rate (per 100 ADP): 0.01 in '04
0.01 in '03
0.01 in '02
0.01 in '01
About Parole
FACILITIES: 19 re-entry centers, and 2 restitution facilities. Most are operated by public or private agencies under contract to CDCR. Parole staff monitor these facilities.
OFFICES: 190 parole units and sub-units in 84 locations. Parole outpatient clinics and 150 clinicians.
Population
Total: 115,699; One year change: -392 -0.3%
Paroled to county of last legal residence: 90%; Other: 10%
Region I (North/Central Valley): 26,476
Region II (Bay Area/North, Central Coast): 22,645
Region III (LA County): 35,817
Region IV (San Diego/S. CA): 30,761
Return rate (per 100 avg daily pop) with new prison term: 15%
Return rate (per 100 avg daily pop) as parole violator: 47%
Top 5 counties: LA 31%
San Bernardino 7%
Orange 7%
San Diego 6%
Riverside 6%
Characteristics
Males: 89%
Females: 11%
Race: 32% white
25% black
38% hispanic
5% other
Offense: 26% persons
30% property
31% drugs
13% other
Median Age: 36
Updated: 05/08/2006
Convict Nation
Convict Nation
By Silja J. A. Talvi, senior editor at In These Times
Let me tell you what hurts the most
I'm a convicted felon and I can't work
No matter where I go to try to get paid
That's the everyday life of a convict
Trying to make it while they're saying to me:
The judge said, "Don't trouble nobody,"
Probation said, "Don't trouble nobody,"
"Stay out of trouble, don't trouble nobody,"
And I'm a tryin' not to trouble nobody
Picture lookin' at your babies in the face
When they hungry and they need to eat
Trying not to do wrong, But they won't let me do right.
Even though I done change my life
Criminal record's what they're judging me by.
Akon, "Trouble Nobody."
In May, I traveled to McNeil Island Corrections Center, a
medium-custody men's prison in Washington state. I made the journey out there
because I had been invited to experience the Native American prisoners'
annual Pow Wow, which brings together spiritual elders, prisoners and their
families, for a powerfully intense four-hour ceremony.
The biggest challenge, as I quickly discovered, wasn't taking in all of
the emotion surrounding the event, but having even the briefest moment
of privacy for thinking, taking notes, or taking to prisoners.
Increasingly, American prison life doesn't allow for privacy -- not even for
outsiders like myself. I could discern no possible security risk from a
small-statured woman with a pen and a notepad at an island prison,
surrounded by barbed wire and frigid waters. Regardless, for four hours, my
every move and word was followed, intercepted and occasionally
interjected upon. I could barely endure it for the half a day I was there.
Millions of Americans don't have that choice.
Of course, many prisoners are indeed guilty of precisely the crimes
they've been charged with -- or some version of the crime for which
they've been sentenced. And some are absolutely innocent, doing time on
trumped up charges, or because a snitch got out of prison time by "rolling"
on some of his friends. But assessing the consequences of our country's
soaring imprisonment rates has less to do with the question of guilt
versus innocence than it does with the question of who, among us, truly
deserves to go to prison and face the restrictive -- and sometimes
brutally repressive -- conditions found there.
Mass Incarceration: Who Is It Good For?
The latest statistics on the U.S. prison and jail population from the
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) barely seemed to register on the news
radar when they were released in late May.
Between glimpses of the Enron trial and the President's surreal
projections of "progress" in Iraq, Americans were informed on CNN's electronic
ticker tape that, by mid-year 2005, the official U.S. incarceration
count stood at 2,186,230 inmates. Over the course of one year, our nation
saw an increase of 56,428 prison and jail inmates, amounting to an
average of 1,085 new adult prisoners each week. In just one decade, the
number of prisoners in the United States has risen by more than 600,000
men and women, so that 738 out of every 100,000 Americans are sitting in
some kind of a prison or jail. Our rates already far exceed those of
Russia's, a politically and economically unstable country which throws
594 out of 100,000 citizens in the slammer. In contrast, the U.K. does so
at a rate of 144 per 100,000, and France's incarceration rate stands at
just 88 out of 100,000.
As was the case last year, six of 10 of prisoners in our state
facilities are people of color. That number is likely to be higher, as BJS
doesn't keep comprehensive, national statistics on Native American or
Latino prisoners. (This is a result of individual states that choose not to
report those demographics separately.) Both groups are heavily,
disproportionately represented in states such as New Mexico, Montana, South
Dakota and Washington.
People are understandably a bit more familiar with the impact of mass
incarceration on Black men. At least one in eight African American men
ages 25-29 are doing time. Over the years, I've gotten to know many of
these folks as they've cycled in and out of the system, trying to make
ends meet just as Senegalese-born Akon describes in the song excerpted
above. Many organizations, including the Drug Policy Alliance, have
rightfully characterized this overincarceration of African Americans one of
our greatest present-day civil rights issues.
Women now account for nearly 7 percent of state and federal prisoners,
and 13 percent of the nation's jail population (compared with 10
percent in 1995). Black women are four times more likely to be incarcerated
than white women.
"The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a sad new
milestone," says Kara Gotsch, Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project
in Washington, D.C.
"Over 200,000 women are now incarcerated," Gotsch explains. "Since
1980, [especially] as women became entangled in the 'war on drugs,' the
number in prison increased at nearly double the rate of incarceration for
men. The impact of their incarceration devastates thousands of children
who lose their primary caregiver when mom goes to prison."
The "War on Drugs," indeed. I've personally started likening this war
to our short-sighted, grossly miscalculated War on Terror -- only the
War on Drugs has gotten a serious head start on the body count. Like
terrorism, drugs are still everywhere -- they're even more pervasive, in
point of fact. The people best at "the game" are hiding out,
strategizing, doing damage and raking it in -- this is a multi-billion dollar
industry, after all -- while the regular ol' users, addicts, street-level
hustlers, and even unwitting bystanders and girlfriends charged with
"conspiracy" end up locked down by the thousands.
This is in spite of the findings of a recent poll conducted by Zogby
International for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. American
voters insisted by almost a 9-to-1 margin that they favored
rehabilitative services for nonviolent prisoners over a punishment-only system.
Right now, at least 530,000 are incarcerated on drug-related sentences.
I'm still trying to figure out how any of that is making a dent in the
struggle and strife I see on urban street corners.
Statistics like these give us a sense of how out-of-control the
situation is. They give journalists something to hang stories on; they also
give prison activists and correctional employees alike a perspective of
how their immediate realities fit into a far larger picture.
But prison statistics have become their own version of a double-edged
sword. When we're talking about numbers as big as these, statistics
easily obscure the individual stories and struggles of those caught in the
sticky, far-reaching net of American mass incarceration.
The Girls Of Today; The Prisoners Of Tomorrow?
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a group of girls in a drab,
concrete juvenile detention pod in King County. I was there as a volunteer, to
facilitate a writing workshop under the auspices of a
Seattle-based-group, Powerful Voices. In doing so, I also hoped to gain more insight
into the lives of these girls, who are increasingly locked for crimes
ranging from truancy to drug dealing. I told the girls what I wanted to
know about them and their lives, and most of them opened up to me, a
complete stranger, with the kind of searing, brutal honesty that still
surprises me.
One of the 15-year-olds was pregnant, although most of the other girls
didn't know that yet. She held her stomach tenderly from time to time.
Some of the girls were loud and boisterous, competing for attention and
trying to show precisely how "fierce" they were. (Coming from 13 and
14-year-old girls, that's an easy enough bluff to see through.) One girl,
just a few months shy of turning 18, admitted to the group that this
was her twelfth time being locked up in some kind of an institution. Her
first had been in another state, where she had been thrown into a mixed
juvenile/adult psychiatric facility as a 12-year-old--with
understandably traumatic consequences.
I asked all of the girls to participate in a few writing exercises with
me about their fears and dreams. One of those writing exercises had to
do with the first night that they were incarcerated in juvenile
detention. This caused a fair amount of consternation. "Do you mean this time
or the first time," one girl bellowed. As it turned out, most of the
girls had been in juvie more than once. The cycle of incarceration and
re-incarceration, for them, had already begun.
When we finally settled that they were to write about their first time
ever, everyone got to work, munching on microwave popcorn and drinking
Tang as they went along.
"It was scary, dirty, and just not a place for me," wrote one
14-year-old. "I felt sad and lonely."
I asked the her, later, where she saw herself five years from now.
She laughed. I got her to talk a bit about why she found this question
so ridiculous, and this is what she finally said: "I don't even know me
five minutes from now."
Eventually, this is what she wrote on a piece of paper: "How am I
supposed to know that tomorrow is even promised? If I make it to five years
from now, I hope that I'll have a job, a boyfriend, and [that] I'm
doing good. But that's never promised."
I told her, as she walked out, that she was right. Nothing's promised
to us in this world. But I, for one, believed in her ability to make it
to the next day. And then next. And that day, five years from now, when
she could actually defy her odds, to live a fulfilling life in what
prisoners commonly refer to as the "free world."
I'm still hoping, writing, and looking toward living in the kind of
country that actually gives her that chance.
Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative
journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and
magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter,
Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is at work on a book about
women in prison (Seal Press/Avalon).
By Silja J. A. Talvi, senior editor at In These Times
Let me tell you what hurts the most
I'm a convicted felon and I can't work
No matter where I go to try to get paid
That's the everyday life of a convict
Trying to make it while they're saying to me:
The judge said, "Don't trouble nobody,"
Probation said, "Don't trouble nobody,"
"Stay out of trouble, don't trouble nobody,"
And I'm a tryin' not to trouble nobody
Picture lookin' at your babies in the face
When they hungry and they need to eat
Trying not to do wrong, But they won't let me do right.
Even though I done change my life
Criminal record's what they're judging me by.
Akon, "Trouble Nobody."
In May, I traveled to McNeil Island Corrections Center, a
medium-custody men's prison in Washington state. I made the journey out there
because I had been invited to experience the Native American prisoners'
annual Pow Wow, which brings together spiritual elders, prisoners and their
families, for a powerfully intense four-hour ceremony.
The biggest challenge, as I quickly discovered, wasn't taking in all of
the emotion surrounding the event, but having even the briefest moment
of privacy for thinking, taking notes, or taking to prisoners.
Increasingly, American prison life doesn't allow for privacy -- not even for
outsiders like myself. I could discern no possible security risk from a
small-statured woman with a pen and a notepad at an island prison,
surrounded by barbed wire and frigid waters. Regardless, for four hours, my
every move and word was followed, intercepted and occasionally
interjected upon. I could barely endure it for the half a day I was there.
Millions of Americans don't have that choice.
Of course, many prisoners are indeed guilty of precisely the crimes
they've been charged with -- or some version of the crime for which
they've been sentenced. And some are absolutely innocent, doing time on
trumped up charges, or because a snitch got out of prison time by "rolling"
on some of his friends. But assessing the consequences of our country's
soaring imprisonment rates has less to do with the question of guilt
versus innocence than it does with the question of who, among us, truly
deserves to go to prison and face the restrictive -- and sometimes
brutally repressive -- conditions found there.
Mass Incarceration: Who Is It Good For?
The latest statistics on the U.S. prison and jail population from the
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) barely seemed to register on the news
radar when they were released in late May.
Between glimpses of the Enron trial and the President's surreal
projections of "progress" in Iraq, Americans were informed on CNN's electronic
ticker tape that, by mid-year 2005, the official U.S. incarceration
count stood at 2,186,230 inmates. Over the course of one year, our nation
saw an increase of 56,428 prison and jail inmates, amounting to an
average of 1,085 new adult prisoners each week. In just one decade, the
number of prisoners in the United States has risen by more than 600,000
men and women, so that 738 out of every 100,000 Americans are sitting in
some kind of a prison or jail. Our rates already far exceed those of
Russia's, a politically and economically unstable country which throws
594 out of 100,000 citizens in the slammer. In contrast, the U.K. does so
at a rate of 144 per 100,000, and France's incarceration rate stands at
just 88 out of 100,000.
As was the case last year, six of 10 of prisoners in our state
facilities are people of color. That number is likely to be higher, as BJS
doesn't keep comprehensive, national statistics on Native American or
Latino prisoners. (This is a result of individual states that choose not to
report those demographics separately.) Both groups are heavily,
disproportionately represented in states such as New Mexico, Montana, South
Dakota and Washington.
People are understandably a bit more familiar with the impact of mass
incarceration on Black men. At least one in eight African American men
ages 25-29 are doing time. Over the years, I've gotten to know many of
these folks as they've cycled in and out of the system, trying to make
ends meet just as Senegalese-born Akon describes in the song excerpted
above. Many organizations, including the Drug Policy Alliance, have
rightfully characterized this overincarceration of African Americans one of
our greatest present-day civil rights issues.
Women now account for nearly 7 percent of state and federal prisoners,
and 13 percent of the nation's jail population (compared with 10
percent in 1995). Black women are four times more likely to be incarcerated
than white women.
"The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a sad new
milestone," says Kara Gotsch, Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project
in Washington, D.C.
"Over 200,000 women are now incarcerated," Gotsch explains. "Since
1980, [especially] as women became entangled in the 'war on drugs,' the
number in prison increased at nearly double the rate of incarceration for
men. The impact of their incarceration devastates thousands of children
who lose their primary caregiver when mom goes to prison."
The "War on Drugs," indeed. I've personally started likening this war
to our short-sighted, grossly miscalculated War on Terror -- only the
War on Drugs has gotten a serious head start on the body count. Like
terrorism, drugs are still everywhere -- they're even more pervasive, in
point of fact. The people best at "the game" are hiding out,
strategizing, doing damage and raking it in -- this is a multi-billion dollar
industry, after all -- while the regular ol' users, addicts, street-level
hustlers, and even unwitting bystanders and girlfriends charged with
"conspiracy" end up locked down by the thousands.
This is in spite of the findings of a recent poll conducted by Zogby
International for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. American
voters insisted by almost a 9-to-1 margin that they favored
rehabilitative services for nonviolent prisoners over a punishment-only system.
Right now, at least 530,000 are incarcerated on drug-related sentences.
I'm still trying to figure out how any of that is making a dent in the
struggle and strife I see on urban street corners.
Statistics like these give us a sense of how out-of-control the
situation is. They give journalists something to hang stories on; they also
give prison activists and correctional employees alike a perspective of
how their immediate realities fit into a far larger picture.
But prison statistics have become their own version of a double-edged
sword. When we're talking about numbers as big as these, statistics
easily obscure the individual stories and struggles of those caught in the
sticky, far-reaching net of American mass incarceration.
The Girls Of Today; The Prisoners Of Tomorrow?
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a group of girls in a drab,
concrete juvenile detention pod in King County. I was there as a volunteer, to
facilitate a writing workshop under the auspices of a
Seattle-based-group, Powerful Voices. In doing so, I also hoped to gain more insight
into the lives of these girls, who are increasingly locked for crimes
ranging from truancy to drug dealing. I told the girls what I wanted to
know about them and their lives, and most of them opened up to me, a
complete stranger, with the kind of searing, brutal honesty that still
surprises me.
One of the 15-year-olds was pregnant, although most of the other girls
didn't know that yet. She held her stomach tenderly from time to time.
Some of the girls were loud and boisterous, competing for attention and
trying to show precisely how "fierce" they were. (Coming from 13 and
14-year-old girls, that's an easy enough bluff to see through.) One girl,
just a few months shy of turning 18, admitted to the group that this
was her twelfth time being locked up in some kind of an institution. Her
first had been in another state, where she had been thrown into a mixed
juvenile/adult psychiatric facility as a 12-year-old--with
understandably traumatic consequences.
I asked all of the girls to participate in a few writing exercises with
me about their fears and dreams. One of those writing exercises had to
do with the first night that they were incarcerated in juvenile
detention. This caused a fair amount of consternation. "Do you mean this time
or the first time," one girl bellowed. As it turned out, most of the
girls had been in juvie more than once. The cycle of incarceration and
re-incarceration, for them, had already begun.
When we finally settled that they were to write about their first time
ever, everyone got to work, munching on microwave popcorn and drinking
Tang as they went along.
"It was scary, dirty, and just not a place for me," wrote one
14-year-old. "I felt sad and lonely."
I asked the her, later, where she saw herself five years from now.
She laughed. I got her to talk a bit about why she found this question
so ridiculous, and this is what she finally said: "I don't even know me
five minutes from now."
Eventually, this is what she wrote on a piece of paper: "How am I
supposed to know that tomorrow is even promised? If I make it to five years
from now, I hope that I'll have a job, a boyfriend, and [that] I'm
doing good. But that's never promised."
I told her, as she walked out, that she was right. Nothing's promised
to us in this world. But I, for one, believed in her ability to make it
to the next day. And then next. And that day, five years from now, when
she could actually defy her odds, to live a fulfilling life in what
prisoners commonly refer to as the "free world."
I'm still hoping, writing, and looking toward living in the kind of
country that actually gives her that chance.
Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative
journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and
magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter,
Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is at work on a book about
women in prison (Seal Press/Avalon).
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Criminal justice issues—a springboard for discussion
Criminal justice issues—a springboard for discussion
Written by : Barry D'Andrea
I have worked in the adult and juvenile prisons for over 16 years. Until March 2006, I was the Program Supervisor for the Violence Prevention Program at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. I have developed an awareness of issues of injustice and ethics in the criminal justice system.
1—Systemic Racism and Class Oppression in the Criminal Justice System.
The criminal justice system is designed to arrest and prosecute persons who have committed "blue collar" crimes. These crimes are committed usually by persons who are poor, minority, desperate, addicted to drugs or alcohol, or mentally ill. The criminal justice system is NOT designed to arrest and prosecute persons who have committed "white collar" crimes. These are crimes of fraud and environmental destruction that are committed by persons who are wealthy, educated and in positions of power and influence in society.
For example, a policeman who wants to arrest a criminal can easily find a person addicted to drugs who is committing some kind of crime to maintain his or her addiction, such as prostitution or drug dealing or shop lifting. To find such a person the police officer simply needs to drive into poor communities where drug dealing or prostitution can be seen easily. This policeman would never consider going to banks, mortgage companies, realtors, corporate presidents to arrest them for fraud, false advertising, toxic waste dumping or environmental destruction.
2—Prisons as Institutions for Persons with Mental Illness
When Ronald Reagan was president, he advocated the release of persons with mental illness from institutions. However, President Reagan did not ensure that programs to help persons with mental illness in the community were sufficiently funded. As a result, the prisons of America have become the new institutions for persons with mental illness. What is worse is that prisons are not designed to provide persons with mental illness with a therapeutic environment that would help them function better.
3—Prisons as Institutions for Persons with Alcoholism or Addictions
Many persons with alcoholism or addictions end up in the prison system. Most prisons have few or no programs to assist them in their recovery from alcohol and drugs.
There should be new alternative to incarceration for persons who have committed a crime due to an addiction or alcoholism issue.
I propose that an alternative to incarceration could be mandatory treatment. That is to say, a person who has been arrested for a crime related to alcoholism or addiction should be given the option to enter into a mandatory and secured treatment facility. If he completes the treatment program satisfactorily, then he does not have to go to prison. His or her detention in the secured treatment facility would NOT be regarded as a punishment or a sentence for a crime. The record of his detention in a secured treatment facility would not be regarded as part of his criminal record. Further, if the person satisfactorily completes the treatment program, the record of his arrest and conviction is then expunged.
The purpose of this proposal is to ensure that addicts and alcoholics are dealt with as persons who have an illness that needs to be treated, not as criminals.
4—No Methadone in Prisons
In most prisons, the medical staff do not provide methadone to new inmates who are withdrawing from heroin addiction. Persons who have been using heroin for many years may have severe withdrawal symptoms. Also, they may have other serious medical conditions (i.e. heart conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, infections) while they are going through a difficult withdrawal. The severe withdrawal symptoms for some addicts may exacerbate other medical conditions and cause new complications or even death. Last summer a woman who was an addict suddenly died at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. Apparently she had some kind of other medical condition that worsened as she entered into withdrawal without the support of methadone.
I propose that medical officers in prisons develop new policies and procedures so that the medicine of methadone can be provided to inmates under certain conditions.
5—No Classification Protocols in Juvenile Detention Facilities or Orphanages
The juvenile detention centers are in chaos and full of violence. The staff are under so much stress that there is a high turnover of personnel in juvenile detention centers. Unfortunately, the children who are detained in juvenile detention facilities do not have the option to leave, as adult employees can do.
There is no effective classification of juvenile offenders into minimum, medium or maximum security facilities. Juveniles who are violent and abusive are detained in minimum security juvenile detention center where they terrorize children who are not aggressive. Due to the absence of a rational classification process in juvenile detention facilities, vulnerable and non-violent children are housed in the same facility with other juveniles who are bullies and violent. The vulnerable and non-violent children then can be easily bullied or abused by the older more aggressive juveniles.
Administrators in juvenile detention facilities or orphanages are reluctant to transfer out of their facility juveniles who are bullies or abusive to the other children because they then would lose funding.
6—Elimination or Reduction of Treatment Programs
At the Hampden County Correctional Center, administrators have implemented a new policy that has not been approved by the superintendents or communicated to the public. This policy is to eliminate or reduce treatment programs wherever possible and to replace them with education based programs only.
Some inmates have severe emotional or psychological disorders for which the medicine of treatment and psychotherapy is essential.
The HCCC prison administrators (Thomas Rovelli, Guy Prairie and Basil Tsagaris) eliminate the treatment based programs claiming that they are too expensive to operate in a prison. However, after eliminating the treatment based programs the prison administrators can then award themselves salary increases. This is exploitation of powerless inmates. The prison administrators harm inmates by removing from them the medicine of psychotherapy and treatment based programs. Then these same prison administrators take the money that previously had been budgeted for treatment programs and then put that money into their own paychecks.
7—No Community Supervision of Prisons
The community members are not involved in the administration or supervision of prisons. Thus, prison administrators can implement unethical policies and procedures in secret from concerned citizens in the community.
I propose that community representatives be permitted to attend high level administration meetings with superintendents in the prisons. In a democracy, the administration of prisons should be transparent to the community and not held in secret.
8—No Voting for Inmates
Inmates are not permitted to vote local, state or federal elections. It is impossible to lead inmates to become good citizens participating in democracy when the right to vote is taken from them.
I propose that inmates be permitted to vote and to register to vote while they are in prison.
9—Convicted Felons Lose Professional Licenses
Persons who have been convicted of a felony often lose their professional licenses. For example, a lawyer who is convicted of a drug charge may lose his license to practice law. This hinders them from succeeding in the community as law abiding persons because they cannot return to their previous profession.
I propose that persons who were convicted of a felony that is unrelated to the duties of their profession be permitted to retain their professional license after their sentence is completed. After their debt to society has been paid in full by completion of their sentence in prison, they can then return to gainful employment in their previous profession.
10—Cover-up of Sexual Exploitation of Inmates
At the Hampden County Correctional Center, an unqualified white female therapist sexually exploited a vulnerable black man who was her client in therapy in the prison. This female therapist did not have any degree in counseling. She was completely unqualified to work as a therapist in a specialized field. However, she was given the position as therapist because she was a close friend of Sheriff Ashe's daughter.
This man's recovery from addictions and criminal conduct was undermined by his having been sexually abused by his incompetent therapist. The man relapsed back to criminal conduct and was convicted of a new crime and sent back to prison. However, the unethical conduct by his therapist was quickly covered up by administrators at the Hampden County Correctional Center. The woman who sexually abused her client later obtained a license as a social worker.
This is a case where the criminal justice system is quick to prosecute a black man who is an addict but fails to punish or prosecute a white woman who sexually exploited a vulnerable man in her care. The black man goes to prison and the white woman enjoys gainful employment as a social worker at liberty in the community.
I propose that there should be an open community investigation to determine why the administrators at the HCCC did not inform the state licensure board about the unethical conduct of this woman who sexually exploited her vulnerable client.
11—Absence of Treatment Programs
In most prisons there are few or no treatment programs to assist inmates with their personal issues. Many inmates need the medicine of psychotherapy or group therapy in order to maintain sobriety and to correct their past patterns of criminal conduct. To deny inmates the opportunity for such treatment is "cruel" punishment (although probably not "unusual").
I propose community supervision of prisons to ensure that inmate receive group therapy and treatment specific to their needs in rehabilitation. This treatment should be compassionate but also challenge inmates to take responsibility for correcting their abusive or criminal conduct and to maintain sobriety from alcohol and drugs.
12—More Prisons
The plans to build a new prison for women in Chicopee has sparked new discussion about an old issue. When state administrators invest in new prisons, judges will fill these new prisons with inmates. However, the state prison administrators should be increasing investment in community corrections or other alternatives to incarceration.
I propose that there be a moratorium on the construction of new prisons. During the moratorium, concerned citizens can discuss with state prison administrators new strategies for holding criminals responsible for their conduct that would be an alternative to incarceration.
Written by : Barry D'Andrea
I have worked in the adult and juvenile prisons for over 16 years. Until March 2006, I was the Program Supervisor for the Violence Prevention Program at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. I have developed an awareness of issues of injustice and ethics in the criminal justice system.
1—Systemic Racism and Class Oppression in the Criminal Justice System.
The criminal justice system is designed to arrest and prosecute persons who have committed "blue collar" crimes. These crimes are committed usually by persons who are poor, minority, desperate, addicted to drugs or alcohol, or mentally ill. The criminal justice system is NOT designed to arrest and prosecute persons who have committed "white collar" crimes. These are crimes of fraud and environmental destruction that are committed by persons who are wealthy, educated and in positions of power and influence in society.
For example, a policeman who wants to arrest a criminal can easily find a person addicted to drugs who is committing some kind of crime to maintain his or her addiction, such as prostitution or drug dealing or shop lifting. To find such a person the police officer simply needs to drive into poor communities where drug dealing or prostitution can be seen easily. This policeman would never consider going to banks, mortgage companies, realtors, corporate presidents to arrest them for fraud, false advertising, toxic waste dumping or environmental destruction.
2—Prisons as Institutions for Persons with Mental Illness
When Ronald Reagan was president, he advocated the release of persons with mental illness from institutions. However, President Reagan did not ensure that programs to help persons with mental illness in the community were sufficiently funded. As a result, the prisons of America have become the new institutions for persons with mental illness. What is worse is that prisons are not designed to provide persons with mental illness with a therapeutic environment that would help them function better.
3—Prisons as Institutions for Persons with Alcoholism or Addictions
Many persons with alcoholism or addictions end up in the prison system. Most prisons have few or no programs to assist them in their recovery from alcohol and drugs.
There should be new alternative to incarceration for persons who have committed a crime due to an addiction or alcoholism issue.
I propose that an alternative to incarceration could be mandatory treatment. That is to say, a person who has been arrested for a crime related to alcoholism or addiction should be given the option to enter into a mandatory and secured treatment facility. If he completes the treatment program satisfactorily, then he does not have to go to prison. His or her detention in the secured treatment facility would NOT be regarded as a punishment or a sentence for a crime. The record of his detention in a secured treatment facility would not be regarded as part of his criminal record. Further, if the person satisfactorily completes the treatment program, the record of his arrest and conviction is then expunged.
The purpose of this proposal is to ensure that addicts and alcoholics are dealt with as persons who have an illness that needs to be treated, not as criminals.
4—No Methadone in Prisons
In most prisons, the medical staff do not provide methadone to new inmates who are withdrawing from heroin addiction. Persons who have been using heroin for many years may have severe withdrawal symptoms. Also, they may have other serious medical conditions (i.e. heart conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, infections) while they are going through a difficult withdrawal. The severe withdrawal symptoms for some addicts may exacerbate other medical conditions and cause new complications or even death. Last summer a woman who was an addict suddenly died at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. Apparently she had some kind of other medical condition that worsened as she entered into withdrawal without the support of methadone.
I propose that medical officers in prisons develop new policies and procedures so that the medicine of methadone can be provided to inmates under certain conditions.
5—No Classification Protocols in Juvenile Detention Facilities or Orphanages
The juvenile detention centers are in chaos and full of violence. The staff are under so much stress that there is a high turnover of personnel in juvenile detention centers. Unfortunately, the children who are detained in juvenile detention facilities do not have the option to leave, as adult employees can do.
There is no effective classification of juvenile offenders into minimum, medium or maximum security facilities. Juveniles who are violent and abusive are detained in minimum security juvenile detention center where they terrorize children who are not aggressive. Due to the absence of a rational classification process in juvenile detention facilities, vulnerable and non-violent children are housed in the same facility with other juveniles who are bullies and violent. The vulnerable and non-violent children then can be easily bullied or abused by the older more aggressive juveniles.
Administrators in juvenile detention facilities or orphanages are reluctant to transfer out of their facility juveniles who are bullies or abusive to the other children because they then would lose funding.
6—Elimination or Reduction of Treatment Programs
At the Hampden County Correctional Center, administrators have implemented a new policy that has not been approved by the superintendents or communicated to the public. This policy is to eliminate or reduce treatment programs wherever possible and to replace them with education based programs only.
Some inmates have severe emotional or psychological disorders for which the medicine of treatment and psychotherapy is essential.
The HCCC prison administrators (Thomas Rovelli, Guy Prairie and Basil Tsagaris) eliminate the treatment based programs claiming that they are too expensive to operate in a prison. However, after eliminating the treatment based programs the prison administrators can then award themselves salary increases. This is exploitation of powerless inmates. The prison administrators harm inmates by removing from them the medicine of psychotherapy and treatment based programs. Then these same prison administrators take the money that previously had been budgeted for treatment programs and then put that money into their own paychecks.
7—No Community Supervision of Prisons
The community members are not involved in the administration or supervision of prisons. Thus, prison administrators can implement unethical policies and procedures in secret from concerned citizens in the community.
I propose that community representatives be permitted to attend high level administration meetings with superintendents in the prisons. In a democracy, the administration of prisons should be transparent to the community and not held in secret.
8—No Voting for Inmates
Inmates are not permitted to vote local, state or federal elections. It is impossible to lead inmates to become good citizens participating in democracy when the right to vote is taken from them.
I propose that inmates be permitted to vote and to register to vote while they are in prison.
9—Convicted Felons Lose Professional Licenses
Persons who have been convicted of a felony often lose their professional licenses. For example, a lawyer who is convicted of a drug charge may lose his license to practice law. This hinders them from succeeding in the community as law abiding persons because they cannot return to their previous profession.
I propose that persons who were convicted of a felony that is unrelated to the duties of their profession be permitted to retain their professional license after their sentence is completed. After their debt to society has been paid in full by completion of their sentence in prison, they can then return to gainful employment in their previous profession.
10—Cover-up of Sexual Exploitation of Inmates
At the Hampden County Correctional Center, an unqualified white female therapist sexually exploited a vulnerable black man who was her client in therapy in the prison. This female therapist did not have any degree in counseling. She was completely unqualified to work as a therapist in a specialized field. However, she was given the position as therapist because she was a close friend of Sheriff Ashe's daughter.
This man's recovery from addictions and criminal conduct was undermined by his having been sexually abused by his incompetent therapist. The man relapsed back to criminal conduct and was convicted of a new crime and sent back to prison. However, the unethical conduct by his therapist was quickly covered up by administrators at the Hampden County Correctional Center. The woman who sexually abused her client later obtained a license as a social worker.
This is a case where the criminal justice system is quick to prosecute a black man who is an addict but fails to punish or prosecute a white woman who sexually exploited a vulnerable man in her care. The black man goes to prison and the white woman enjoys gainful employment as a social worker at liberty in the community.
I propose that there should be an open community investigation to determine why the administrators at the HCCC did not inform the state licensure board about the unethical conduct of this woman who sexually exploited her vulnerable client.
11—Absence of Treatment Programs
In most prisons there are few or no treatment programs to assist inmates with their personal issues. Many inmates need the medicine of psychotherapy or group therapy in order to maintain sobriety and to correct their past patterns of criminal conduct. To deny inmates the opportunity for such treatment is "cruel" punishment (although probably not "unusual").
I propose community supervision of prisons to ensure that inmate receive group therapy and treatment specific to their needs in rehabilitation. This treatment should be compassionate but also challenge inmates to take responsibility for correcting their abusive or criminal conduct and to maintain sobriety from alcohol and drugs.
12—More Prisons
The plans to build a new prison for women in Chicopee has sparked new discussion about an old issue. When state administrators invest in new prisons, judges will fill these new prisons with inmates. However, the state prison administrators should be increasing investment in community corrections or other alternatives to incarceration.
I propose that there be a moratorium on the construction of new prisons. During the moratorium, concerned citizens can discuss with state prison administrators new strategies for holding criminals responsible for their conduct that would be an alternative to incarceration.
Go inside a level 3 prison.....
CBS2.com goes inside Ironwood State prison....reporter calls it "a powderkeg".....
Please insert this link into your browser to view the video......
http://cbs2.com/video/?id=18719@kcbs.dayport.com
Please insert this link into your browser to view the video......
http://cbs2.com/video/?id=18719@kcbs.dayport.com
US Report: 2.2 Million in prisons & jails
U.S. report: 2.2 million now in prisons, jails
Almost 1,100 inmates added every week from 2004 to 2005, agency finds
WASHINGTON - Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.
The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.
Of particular note was the gain of 33,539 inmates in jails, the largest increase since 1997, researcher Allen J. Beck said. That was a 4.7 percent growth rate, compared with a 1.6 percent increase in people held in state and federal prisons.
Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Beck, the bureau’s chief of corrections statistics, said the increase in the number of people in the 3,365 local jails is due partly to their changing role. Jails often hold inmates for state or federal systems, as well as people who have yet to begin serving a sentence.
“The jail population is increasingly unconvicted,” Beck said. “Judges are perhaps more reluctant to release people pretrial.”
The report by the Justice Department agency found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial.
Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 725 at mid-2004. The states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia, with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind bars was growing at a faster rate, said Paige M. Harrison, the report’s other author.
Racial disparity persists
The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years, Beck said. In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.
Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, which supports alternatives to prison, said the incarceration rates for black people were troubling.
“It’s not a sign of a healthy community when we’ve come to use incarceration at such rates,” he said.
Mauer also criticized sentencing guidelines, which he said remove judges’ discretion, and said arrests for drug and parole violations swell prisons.
“If we want to see the prison population reduced, we need a much more comprehensive approach to sentencing and drug policy,” he said.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
pd_top('Story','handheld','12901873','U.S. report: 2.2 million now in prisons, jails','Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars. Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.'
Almost 1,100 inmates added every week from 2004 to 2005, agency finds
WASHINGTON - Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.
The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.
Of particular note was the gain of 33,539 inmates in jails, the largest increase since 1997, researcher Allen J. Beck said. That was a 4.7 percent growth rate, compared with a 1.6 percent increase in people held in state and federal prisons.
Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Beck, the bureau’s chief of corrections statistics, said the increase in the number of people in the 3,365 local jails is due partly to their changing role. Jails often hold inmates for state or federal systems, as well as people who have yet to begin serving a sentence.
“The jail population is increasingly unconvicted,” Beck said. “Judges are perhaps more reluctant to release people pretrial.”
The report by the Justice Department agency found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial.
Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 725 at mid-2004. The states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia, with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind bars was growing at a faster rate, said Paige M. Harrison, the report’s other author.
Racial disparity persists
The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years, Beck said. In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.
Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, which supports alternatives to prison, said the incarceration rates for black people were troubling.
“It’s not a sign of a healthy community when we’ve come to use incarceration at such rates,” he said.
Mauer also criticized sentencing guidelines, which he said remove judges’ discretion, and said arrests for drug and parole violations swell prisons.
“If we want to see the prison population reduced, we need a much more comprehensive approach to sentencing and drug policy,” he said.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
pd_top('Story','handheld','12901873','U.S. report: 2.2 million now in prisons, jails','Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars. Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.'
State-By-State Prison Population
WASHINGTON -- Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer. Here is how the data breaks down state by state.
State Total Inmates Rate Per 100,000
Ala. 40,561 890
Alaska 4,678 705
Ariz. 47,974 808
Ark. 18,693 673
Calif. 246,317 682
Colo. 33,955 728
Conn. 19,087 544
Del. 6,916 820
D.C. 3,552 n/a
Fla. 148,521 835
Ga. 92,647 1,021
Hawaii 5,705 447
Idaho 11,206 784
Ill. 64,735 507
Ind. 39,959 637
Iowa 12,215 412
Kan. 15,972 582
Ky. 30,034 720
La. 51,458 1,138
Maine 3,608 273
Md. 35,601 636
Mass. 22,778 356
Mich. 67,132 663
National 2,186,230 738
Minn. 15,422 300
Miss. 27,902 955
Mo. 41,461 715
Mont. 4,923 526
Neb. 7,406 421
Nev. 18,265 756
N.H. 4,184 319
N.J. 46,411 532
N.M. 15,081 782
N.Y. 92,769 482
N.C. 53,854 620
N.D. 2,288 359
Ohio 64,123 559
Okla. 32,593 919
Ore. 19,318 531
Pa. 75,507 607
R.I. 3,364 313
S.C. 35,298 830
S.D. 4,827 622
Tenn. 43,678 732
Texas 223,195 976
Utah 11,514 466
Vt. 1,975 317
Va. 57,444 759
Wash. 29,225 465
W.Va. 8,043 443
Wis. 36,154 653
Wyo. 3,515 690
State 2,003,043 676
Federal 183,187 62
Total 2,186,230 738
State Total Inmates Rate Per 100,000
Ala. 40,561 890
Alaska 4,678 705
Ariz. 47,974 808
Ark. 18,693 673
Calif. 246,317 682
Colo. 33,955 728
Conn. 19,087 544
Del. 6,916 820
D.C. 3,552 n/a
Fla. 148,521 835
Ga. 92,647 1,021
Hawaii 5,705 447
Idaho 11,206 784
Ill. 64,735 507
Ind. 39,959 637
Iowa 12,215 412
Kan. 15,972 582
Ky. 30,034 720
La. 51,458 1,138
Maine 3,608 273
Md. 35,601 636
Mass. 22,778 356
Mich. 67,132 663
National 2,186,230 738
Minn. 15,422 300
Miss. 27,902 955
Mo. 41,461 715
Mont. 4,923 526
Neb. 7,406 421
Nev. 18,265 756
N.H. 4,184 319
N.J. 46,411 532
N.M. 15,081 782
N.Y. 92,769 482
N.C. 53,854 620
N.D. 2,288 359
Ohio 64,123 559
Okla. 32,593 919
Ore. 19,318 531
Pa. 75,507 607
R.I. 3,364 313
S.C. 35,298 830
S.D. 4,827 622
Tenn. 43,678 732
Texas 223,195 976
Utah 11,514 466
Vt. 1,975 317
Va. 57,444 759
Wash. 29,225 465
W.Va. 8,043 443
Wis. 36,154 653
Wyo. 3,515 690
State 2,003,043 676
Federal 183,187 62
Total 2,186,230 738
Surviving in Prison
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm
I could not stop reading this one. Its long but
fascinating. If you have friends in prison or jail
than this may be for them.
I could not stop reading this one. Its long but
fascinating. If you have friends in prison or jail
than this may be for them.
Valley Fever
Dear Sir/Madam
I am the owner/director of PrisonMovement - a group that helps families of prisoners as well as the prisoners with issues from medical to abuse. I am hoping to draw attention to a serious issue that is affecting not only the prisoners, also staff and visitors. The issue at hand is Valley Fever - a lung infection; It is a fungus that becomes airborne when dust around construction areas and agricultural areas is transported. When spores are inhaled, Valley Fever can result. The Medical name for Valley Fever is coccidioidomycosis. Spores are hardy and can live for along time in harsh environmental conditons such as heat, cold and drought.
Valley Fever symptoms can develop in one to four weeks. Men are more likely to be infected versus women; And African Americans & Filipinos are more likely to develop this when considering race. People with compromised immune systems are more at risk also. About 60% of infected persons have no symptons. The rest develop flu-like symptoms thay can last for a month and tiredness that can sometimes last for longer than a few weeks. A small percentage of infected persons can develop disease that spreads outside the lungs to the brain, bone and skin (disseminated tissue). Without proper treatment, Valley Fever can lead to severe pnuemonia, meningitis,and even death.
Valley Fever is diagnosed with a blood test or culture and can be treated with with fungus killing medicines.
There has been a widespread outbreak of Valley Fever at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. The newly constructed hospital behind the prison has been cited as the cause of this outbreak- as the soil was disturbed. There are many, far too many prisoners that have this treatable disease- some have died. Why? Lack of medical treatment and a desire by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to keep this quiet. I have documentation showing that there are in fact many who are infected and not receiving any medcial care. I would appreciate your assistance in getting this most serious issue the attention it requires, as this may help to prevent future cases of this disease and more deaths. Please feel free to contact me in regards to this matter. I will gladly provide copies of the documents that I have. Your prompt reply is anxiously awaited and any assistance or referrals you can give, will be most appreciated.
Regards,
Carol Leonard
owner/director
PrisonMovement
I am the owner/director of PrisonMovement - a group that helps families of prisoners as well as the prisoners with issues from medical to abuse. I am hoping to draw attention to a serious issue that is affecting not only the prisoners, also staff and visitors. The issue at hand is Valley Fever - a lung infection; It is a fungus that becomes airborne when dust around construction areas and agricultural areas is transported. When spores are inhaled, Valley Fever can result. The Medical name for Valley Fever is coccidioidomycosis. Spores are hardy and can live for along time in harsh environmental conditons such as heat, cold and drought.
Valley Fever symptoms can develop in one to four weeks. Men are more likely to be infected versus women; And African Americans & Filipinos are more likely to develop this when considering race. People with compromised immune systems are more at risk also. About 60% of infected persons have no symptons. The rest develop flu-like symptoms thay can last for a month and tiredness that can sometimes last for longer than a few weeks. A small percentage of infected persons can develop disease that spreads outside the lungs to the brain, bone and skin (disseminated tissue). Without proper treatment, Valley Fever can lead to severe pnuemonia, meningitis,and even death.
Valley Fever is diagnosed with a blood test or culture and can be treated with with fungus killing medicines.
There has been a widespread outbreak of Valley Fever at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. The newly constructed hospital behind the prison has been cited as the cause of this outbreak- as the soil was disturbed. There are many, far too many prisoners that have this treatable disease- some have died. Why? Lack of medical treatment and a desire by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to keep this quiet. I have documentation showing that there are in fact many who are infected and not receiving any medcial care. I would appreciate your assistance in getting this most serious issue the attention it requires, as this may help to prevent future cases of this disease and more deaths. Please feel free to contact me in regards to this matter. I will gladly provide copies of the documents that I have. Your prompt reply is anxiously awaited and any assistance or referrals you can give, will be most appreciated.
Regards,
Carol Leonard
owner/director
PrisonMovement
Prison-The Fundamental Change of my Life
Prison
The Fundamental Change of my Life
Other than focusing on all of the unjust treatment, the
dehumanization of people, and the constant negative environment that
totally consumes the everyday life of a prisoner in CDC, I choose to
take this time in my life to build or create something good for
myself and others who also choose to look beyond the bullshit. I
have been in the hole since December 12, 2005 and from that time on
I have made a conscious decision to change my life by taking an
honest look at my past and current behavior. I am taking complete
responsibility for my actions, both in and out of prison.
Never in life have I been motivated to do "normal things" like
school and many other healthy things that young people do. I have
been defiant of pretty much everything since I was about eleven
years old. I have spent much of my time until July 26, 2005, doing
a wide variety of illegal activities, that I will not go into detail
about due to the reality that it doesn't matter. It is in the past
and I am moving forward. For all those miserable years, I was a
very dark and miserable person. From a young age, (too young) I
have had skeletons in my closet.
Since I have been incarcerated, I refuse to live like that any
longer. I have started to make positive changes. I started small
by implementing an exercise and stretching routine into my daily
schedule. Exercise is a big key to relieving stress. I have found
that a sound body equals a sound mind. After the physical exercise,
I switch to mental exercise. I stimulate my mind by doing a lot of
writing and even more studying. For the first time in my life, I
feel motivated and even eager to soak up the knowledge.
In the hole, resources are extremely limited. It is very helpful to
have someone on the outside to help with desired resources. In my
case, I am fortunate to have a wonderful Mom. I realize that not
everybody has the support I do and I do my best to share materials
and information with others.
Now that I am feeding the urge to conquer my lower life condition by
both physical and mental challenges, I can truly say that I am happy
with my current life position, despite my location. I feel that no
matter what they say to me or do to me, I refuse to let them have
control over my spirit. I encourage anyone reading this to take
complete control and responsibility for their lives no matter where
they are. Remember it is unacceptable to be in a place where you
are depressed. Remember to be true to yourself. Always.
Adam
The Fundamental Change of my Life
Other than focusing on all of the unjust treatment, the
dehumanization of people, and the constant negative environment that
totally consumes the everyday life of a prisoner in CDC, I choose to
take this time in my life to build or create something good for
myself and others who also choose to look beyond the bullshit. I
have been in the hole since December 12, 2005 and from that time on
I have made a conscious decision to change my life by taking an
honest look at my past and current behavior. I am taking complete
responsibility for my actions, both in and out of prison.
Never in life have I been motivated to do "normal things" like
school and many other healthy things that young people do. I have
been defiant of pretty much everything since I was about eleven
years old. I have spent much of my time until July 26, 2005, doing
a wide variety of illegal activities, that I will not go into detail
about due to the reality that it doesn't matter. It is in the past
and I am moving forward. For all those miserable years, I was a
very dark and miserable person. From a young age, (too young) I
have had skeletons in my closet.
Since I have been incarcerated, I refuse to live like that any
longer. I have started to make positive changes. I started small
by implementing an exercise and stretching routine into my daily
schedule. Exercise is a big key to relieving stress. I have found
that a sound body equals a sound mind. After the physical exercise,
I switch to mental exercise. I stimulate my mind by doing a lot of
writing and even more studying. For the first time in my life, I
feel motivated and even eager to soak up the knowledge.
In the hole, resources are extremely limited. It is very helpful to
have someone on the outside to help with desired resources. In my
case, I am fortunate to have a wonderful Mom. I realize that not
everybody has the support I do and I do my best to share materials
and information with others.
Now that I am feeding the urge to conquer my lower life condition by
both physical and mental challenges, I can truly say that I am happy
with my current life position, despite my location. I feel that no
matter what they say to me or do to me, I refuse to let them have
control over my spirit. I encourage anyone reading this to take
complete control and responsibility for their lives no matter where
they are. Remember it is unacceptable to be in a place where you
are depressed. Remember to be true to yourself. Always.
Adam
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