Old Brown tries to fix a young Brown's mistake

— Hang around long enough and you might see things turn full circle. People included.

Like a comet, they come back around.

Gov. Jerry Brown is a comet. He dominated the Capitol cosmos two generations ago, floated off and circled back.

Now one of the major public policy issues of 40 years ago also has returned, meteor-like. It concerns criminal sentencing.

Like too many things involving government, however, the jargon is wonky: "determinate" and "indeterminate."

Put simply, it's about whether a judge determines how long a felon will be locked up, or left undetermined, with parole boards having the flexibility to retain or release an inmate based on behavior and perceived rehabilitation.

In 1976, young Gov. Brown was a reformer who signed legislation changing sentencing from indeterminate to determinate.

Last week, he proposed a new reform: Scrap that 1970s reform and return to basically the way things had been for six decades before.

Times change. Situations change. Ideas? Not so much.

I asked Brown why he and the Legislature had changed the system in the first place four decades ago.

Back then, he'd been thinking about it for a long time, he recalled, even when his father, Pat Brown, was governor in the 1960s.

"People were lingering in prisons and didn't know when they were going to get out," he said. "Racial minorities might be in longer."

Prisoners, the governor continued, were compelled "to mouth certain words" to demonstrate their readiness for freedom. White parole boards seemed to be "trying to get the prisoners to have a certain mentality, messing with their heads. It didn't seem right to me.

"It came to me that if they did the crime, they should do the time. And then get out."

That became many legislators' attitude: The whole system was arbitrary and unfair — sometimes political and racial.

What else could you expect from sentences so broad? For example, one to 14 years or five to life.

Republican Sen. John Negedly, a former Contra Costa County district attorney, had sponsored the bill that switched sentences from flexible to more fixed.

"Punishment should be swift, certain and definite," Brown said after signing the measure. But soon he began having second thoughts, mentioning "ambiguities" in the new law.

There was bipartisan criticism.

Then-LAPD Chief Ed Davis, a conservative Republican, planning to run against Brown, complained that prisoners no longer would "have to pay much attention" to guards. Brown "is going to blow these prisons up before I can take over as governor."

State Sen. Alan Sieroty, a liberal Democrat from Los Angeles, feared that fixed sentencing would lead to longer terms. That would only "further brutalize the individual and make his reentry into society less possible."

Both were right.

"Liberals thought the Legislature would jack up the sentences, which it did," Brown told me. "And it never stopped. I never imagined there'd be thousands of [increased sentencing] laws and enhancements."

State government embarked on a prison-building, lock-em-up binge. There was a political stampede in the 1990s after the L.A. riots and the gripping kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Voters and the Legislature passed "three strikes and you're out" — meaning you're "in" for life.

When Brown was governor the first time, there were 21,000 inmates in state custody. By the time he returned in 2011, the number had ballooned to 170,000 — packed like sardines into bunks and sleeping on cots in gymnasiums. At one point, taxpayers were spending more on prisoners than on college kids.

Prisoners-rights groups sued. A federal judicial panel ordered the state to knock it off. Voters and the governor got the message.

The California electorate softened three-strikes and other sentencing laws. Brown, through what he calls "realignment," began shifting control of low-level felons to the counties.

The state prison population is now down to 127,000.

Brown has wanted to eliminate determinate sentencing for years — calling it an "abysmal failure" in 2003 — but said he first needed to achieve realignment and form a political coalition.

"If I'd done it right out of the box, I might have made mistakes," he told me.

Brown added that he'd also been pretty busy.

"No one has done more than I have," he said, listing such things as pension reform, water programs and fighting climate change. "I haven't been sitting on my ass."

The governor's sentencing proposal is targeted for the November ballot as an initiative. It would affect only inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes. Murderers and rapists, forget it.

A nonviolent felon would need to complete his time for the basic crime. But he could earn credits for good behavior and rehab. And before serving added time for an enhancement — such as gang activity — he could seek parole for being a model prisoner

An "unintended consequence" of the law he signed 40 years ago, Brown told reporters, "was the removal of incentives for inmates to improve themselves, refrain from gang activity, using narcotics, otherwise misbehaving. Because they had a certain [release] date and there was nothing in their control that would give them a reward for turning their lives around."

Why the ballot and not the Legislature? It would require a two-thirds legislative vote, and that's a hassle. And he has $24 million in leftover campaign money begging to be spent.

This reform seems to make sense. The old one did, too — at the time. But this is another time.

The lingo also should change. Junk "determinate" and call it "fixed" or "flexible."

Via: http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-sac-cap-20160201-column.html 

Conservatives are still trouncing liberals on prison reform

States don’t get any bluer than California, so last November’s vote adopting Proposition 47 – reducing six felonies to misdemeanors – could easily be taken as evidence that liberals and Democrats are leading the nationwide de-incarceration movement..

And that stands to reason. In image, at least, conservatives carry the tough-on-crime banner while liberals favor lenience and prefer rehabilitation to incarceration. The Obama administration won federal sentencing reforms. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that in 2014 the federal inmate population dropped – the first net reduction since 1980. Liberal officials, liberal policies, right?

So the American Conservative’s Feb. 3 Q. and A. with Mark Earley, a Republican Virginia lawmaker and attorney general and now a criminal defense lawyer, was a useful reminder that much of the real thinking and action on criminal justice reform has come from the right. Interviewer Chase Madar nailed the essential dichotomy in conservative politics by noting that conservatives “tend to value order and authority but also limited government.” There’s an obvious tension there – but it’s nothing new. Conservatives who once lined up behind the law-and-order part of their creed have begun questioning what mass incarceration means to the concept of limited government.

"I saw that in the ’80s and ’90s, criminal-justice policies were driven more by what constituents wanted, what worked in the short term," Earley said in the American Conservative. "But if you do that long enough, then all your constituents wind up having family members in jail."

The Times has noted with approval the reform-minded approach from conservatives on prisons and criminal justice reform.

“Many of the progressive innovations in criminal justice are coming not from supposedly liberal states and officials, but from conservatives who are determined to focus on cost and outcomes while keeping justice in the forefront,” the Times wrote in a 2011 editorial, just after criminal justice realignment took effect in California.

“The group Right on Crime is setting the pace in states such as Texas. At the same time, leaders on the left, in California and elsewhere, have been conspicuously quiet about making realignment work.”

Three years later, a few elected Democrats – but only a few – felt comfortable endorsing Proposition 47. Meanwhile, the Times ran an op-ed co-authored by Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the founders of Right on Crime, urging passage and pointing out reforms made in conservative states like Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi.

“If so many red states can see the importance of refocusing their criminal justice systems, California can do the same,” Gingrich wrote.

Relatively few of California’s elected Republicans have chosen the red state path of seeing criminal justice reform as central to their limited-government creed. For the most part, the law-and-order approach prevails among Republican lawmakers in this most liberal of states.

So one of the most important aspects of the sweeping approval of Prop. 47 at the polls on Nov. 4 may be the signal it sends to California lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike: Update your view of the electorate. This is not 1990 or 2000. It’s OK to do thoughtful criminal justice and prison reform. You won’t automatically be punished at the polls for saying “no” to a new prison or a new get-tough-on-crime measure. There are good reasons, rooted in conservative as well as liberal politics, to focus on restorative justice and rehabilitation rather than simply retribution.

Law Enforcement, Health Advocates, and Members of Congress Push to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails

WASHINGTON, DC—Not long ago, Paton Blough stood before a class of law enforcement officers to teach them effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs. It’s a topic Blough knows all too well: He’s been arrested six times, in each instance while experiencing a mental health crisis. He remembers one arresting officer who wanted to help him.

“If there would have been an opportunity to take me some place besides an ER or a jail, he would’ve loved to have taken it,” Paton told a crowded room during a Capitol Hill briefing last week. “We’ve got to get behind these programs that prevent problems, improve lives and save us money while making the communities safer.”

Programs that can help reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails, ranging from police training to certified peer support, are the basis for a new wave of national efforts highlighted Tuesday as Congressional leaders joined the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the National Association of Counties (NACo) to discuss potential federal reforms and a new national initiative driven by the two organizations.

The briefing, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Al Franken (MN-D) and U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL), underscored bipartisan commitment to prioritize this issue for the 114th Congress, highlighted successful local efforts, and introduced a new national initiative emphasizing state-local collaboration and targeted action on the ground level.

“This is a moral issue and an economics issue,” said Sen. Franken. “When we use our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses, we burden the judicial system, the public health system, our law enforcement offices, and the taxpayers. In confronting this problem, we know that some of the most innovative solutions come from our local communities. It’s our job to make sure they’re properly supported.”

Rep. Nugent added: “Senator Franken and I are probably a couple of odd fellows because on most of instances we won’t agree. But on this one we do agree, and this is where bipartisanship really has to come together. We have the ability to change where we go forward … This is one area that the federal government can actually make an impact on the people we represent, a typically unrepresented population.”

NACo and the CSG Justice Center, together with other leaders in behavioral health and criminal justice, also discussed plans for an unprecedented effort to lower the number of people with mental illnesses in jails by improving access to effective mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment, strengthening criminal justice collaborations with behavioral health stakeholders, and advancing public safety goals.

“Counties are working to reduce the number of people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs in jails across the country,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “This cutting-edge initiative will help counties focus on results and take their efforts to the next level. It will support action-oriented, comprehensive strategies to provide needed services in appropriate settings.”

The problem is clear: Jails in this country have replaced in-patient mental health facilities as the largest institutional treatment provider for adults with mental illnesses. Each year, more than 2 million people with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails, as well as millions more coping with less serious mental illnesses that jails are required to address. The majority of these individuals also have co-occurring substance use disorders, increasing their chances of staying longer in jail and being reincarcerated following their release.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Call to Action,” in which county leaders commit to a concrete, multi-step planning and implementation process that is supported by state policymakers, behavioral health and criminal justice practitioners, and other stakeholders to help achieve measurable results. The Call to Action will be launched in spring 2015.

John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and a member of the CSG Justice Center’s Board of Directors, provided closing remarks at the event, where he urged public officials and other stakeholders to “step up and do the right thing” regarding individuals and offenders with mental illnesses.

“Prisons were not designed to treat individuals with mental disorders, but the courts send these offenders to us and we must do everything possible to provide them with appropriate mental health services,” Wetzel said. “But in addition to these efforts, society in general needs to address this issue and seriously consider mental health courts and diversionary programs to ensure treatment for this segment of our population that does not include sending them to prison.”




via: http://csgjusticecenter.org/mental-health/posts/law-enforcement-health-advocates-and-members-of-congress-push-to-reduce-the-number-of-people-with-mental-illness-in-jails/

Cop widow becomes unlikely public face for Proposition 47

The policeman's widow stood in the Oakland courtroom and poured out her broken heart.

She told the jury about a young daughter who would never see her daddy again, a teenage boy who lost his father figure, a wife stripped of her soul mate. She begged that the convicted killer, whom she branded a "beast," be given the death penalty so he could "burn in hell." After the tears had been wiped away, the jury agreed with Dionne Wilson, sentencing to death the man who shot San Leandro Officer Dan Niemi seven times during a routine stop.

But the 2007 verdict didn't bring the mother of two, who met Niemi while working in a South Bay gun shop, peace of mind. Consumed with rage, Wilson clung even more fiercely to the belief that the law should crack down hard on all offenders -- even on someone who just steals "a Popsicle."

When she could no longer live with her anger, the police widow underwent a spiritual journey that's led to an unlikely outcome. Nine years after her husband was gunned down, Wilson has become the public face for a sentence-reduction initiative on the November ballot that she once would have scorned as the work of "mentally ill liberals." Proposition 47 would require misdemeanor sentences rather than longer felony sentences for six crimes, including petty theft under $950.

"Dan would probably say, 'Who are you and what have you done with my wife?' " Wilson, 45, said of her new outlook. "But we need to think about where this whole cycle of crime started. If we can get in front of it, maybe there won't be a person on the other end who is killing a police officer like Dan."

Wilson joins a growing chorus of tough-on-crime advocates from across the country who now agree with social justice champions on the left that the prison-only approach for nonviolent offenders is failing, and that there are more efficient uses of taxpayer dollars to make communities safer.

Last year, 35 states passed less-restrictive laws, including conservative Mississippi and Alabama. The year before, Californians voted overwhelmingly to ease the state's Three Strikes Law, then the toughest in the nation. And in a landmark decision earlier this year, the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to reduce lengthy sentences for most federal drug offenders and make thousands of current inmates eligible for resentencing under the new guidelines.

Proposition 47 itself has netted another unexpected champion. Conservative Christian Republican and Public Storage founder B. Wayne Hughes Jr. has contributed $750,000 so far, with plans to spend $5 million.

"This is a situation where the walls of partisanship ought to come down immediately," the millionaire wrote in the ballot statement.

But other crime victims with tragic tales similar to Wilson's disagree. Three victims groups oppose the measure, including the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which objects that it would make possession of date-rape drugs and other narcotics an automatic misdemeanor. Misdemeanors carry lighter sentences than felonies, often just probation or short stints in jail.

The initiative also has drawn serious opposition from law enforcement -- including associations of district attorneys, sheriffs and police -- and from groups of retailers and grocers, who contend that property crime would increase. So far, only former San Diego and San Jose police Chief Bill Landsdowne and two California district attorneys have come out in support -- George Gascon in San Francisco and Paul Gallegos in Humboldt County.

"Someone can commit petty theft 10,000 times," San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, "and we'd still have to always charge it as a misdemeanor." Also under Proposition 47, Wagstaffe noted, about 10,000 nonviolent inmates in overflowing jails and prisons would be eligible to apply for early release.

Proponents say that's exactly the point. The hundreds of millions dollars that the secretary of state's office estimates would have been spent annually to house prison inmates would instead go to education, mental health and drug treatment programs, and victims assistance.

Such leniency once would have been unthinkable for Wilson.

From the moment she heard the knock on the door in the middle of that awful night at her Milpitas home, and saw three police officers crying, the pain was unrelenting.

After the single mother and Niemi had met in the gun shop, they had never been apart. Married in 1999, they had a daughter, Jordan, and Niemi became close to her son, Josh Hewett.

"It was just one of those fairy-tale love stories," said Wilson, sitting in her Morgan Hill home.

But her sense of safety was shattered and her life became a blur of grief on July 25, 2005. Niemi, 42, who had become a policeman just three years earlier, was shot to death by Irving Ramirez, 23, while responding to a noise complaint. Carrying two handguns and some drugs, Ramirez was on probation and didn't want to go back to jail.

Wilson had hoped the death verdict two years later would start a healing process. In her case, it didn't. Even as she remarried, "moving on" eluded her.

She suffered health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. She drank, favoring appletinis. She tried, and failed, to distract herself, buying things such as technology gadgets and a succession of nine horses.

"Everything was an outward expression of my hate toward Irving and anybody who had ever committed a crime," Wilson said.

Seeking to quiet her roiling mind, she began a "mad quest" of spiritual teachings that brought her to meditation and Buddhism, finding comfort in the concepts of compassion and overcoming suffering.

At some point, she was stunned to realize that she no longer hated the man who had torn apart her family's life. In 2010, she drafted a letter to Ramirez, writing that she regretted making him seem "less than human" at the trial. She no longer supports the death penalty.

"I'm really proud of her to be able to get through the difficult times and be able to forgive," said her son, Hewett, 24, who was close to his stepfather. "I'm pretty sure some people disapprove, but they also don't understand how hard this has been on her and what it's taken for her to get to this point."

Now, she is on the board of the Insight Prison Project, a restorative justice agency based in San Rafael, which tries to find something redemptive even in society's worst as they accept accountability for what they have done. Wilson also is the survivor outreach coordinator for Californians for Safety and Justice, Proposition 47's sponsor, meeting with crime survivors across the state and helping them put their lives back together.

The state remains under enormous pressure to comply with a federal court order and reduce prison overcrowding. And Wilson sees Proposition 47 as another step toward a smarter criminal justice system that would prevent more families from going through what hers has endured.

"I want to get ahead of crime instead of just playing cleanup," Wilson said. "Instead of calling the coroner, let's get into the schools and invest in the families and communities who are filling the prisons. Isn't that what this whole public safety discussion is about?"

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.

Plans for the savings

Under a fixed formula, hundreds of millions of dollars a year that would have been spent annually to house prison inmates will be reallocated.65 percent -- to the Board of State and Community Corrections for mental and drug treatment programs and diversion programs
25 percent -- to K-12 education, for programs aimed at helping at-risk kids
10 percent -- to Victims Compensation Fund, for grief and mental health counseling, and relocation

April Action Days

My name is Amanda and I am a product of Time for Change Foundation where I have also become a leader in my community. I recently had the opportunity to attend April Action Days in Sacramento with other organizations like California Partnership and Hunger Action L.A.  to raise our voices about bills that affect low-income communities and women's economic security.

Senate Bill 935, authored by Senator Mark Leno, which would increase the minimum wage to $13 by 2016 really resonates with me because  I am a recovering addict who comes from a life of dysfunction and chaos and now I have a job and the opportunity to bring my daughter home with me; raising the minimum wage would reunite me with my daughter and help us to live a better life. 

I am so thankful to have had this opportunity to visit the capitol, it was actually my first time being involved in something like this and it was so empowering not only to be a part of it, but to know that my voice really does matter. I never knew that I could be a part of something much bigger than myself. I became a part of the process in determining society’s future.

Time for Change Foundation Leaders from left:
Crystal, Jeannine, Cecilia, Amanda

My name is Crystal and my experience at the State Capitol was exhilarating! I felt so empowered as a constituent. Seeing other people like me using their time to speak on behalf of their families and communities gives me hope that more will find the courage to raise our voices and remind our representatives that we are the ones who put them there. 

I went to advocate for SB 1029, authored by Senator Loni Hancock, which would lift the lifetime ban on CalWORKS and CalFresh for people that have been convicted of any offense classified as a felony that has an element the posession, use or distribution of a controlled substance.

Being a part of Time for Change Foundation's transitional housing program I have met many women that are out of prison or jail and ready to move forward with their lives but continue to hit this brick wall. 

Removing the lifetime ban would help women like myself give our children the opportunity to thrive and have successful lives.  

This experience has taught me that we can change the laws and injustices that our communities face on a daily basis, but only if we stand up and use the strength of our voices. Together we can!

Come out to the Justice Reinvestment Committee Hearing Tomorrow!

Join Take Action California Members Time for Change Foundation, CURB and California Partnership at the Select Committee on Justice Reinvestment's Hearing tomorrow at the California Science Center in Los Angeles!

Committee Co-Chair Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr. is convening a hearing in Los Angeles. Come discuss local programming practices in Southern California which have promise toward reducing recidivism. The Select Committee will hear from law enforcement, courts and community service providers from a number of Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange.

Friday, February 28, 2014
10 am - 12 pm

California Science Center 

Loker Conference Room
700 Exposition Park Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90037

The Select Committee's goal is to develop real data-based, long-term solutions that preserve public safety without spending excessive money on prisons. We can focus more on investments that grow our economy and provide opportunity. 

Jerry Brown vetoes bill to make some drug crimes 'wobblers'

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation Saturday that that would have given local prosecutors discretion when deciding whether a person charged with possessing a small amount of illegal drugs should be charged with a felony or a misdemeanor.

Under Senate Bill 649, by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, possession of cocaine, heroin and other specified drugs would have been downgraded to the status of methamphetamine, Ecstasy or hashish, "wobblers" treated as felonies or misdemeanors depending on the circumstances.

Brown said in his veto message that state officials dealing with prison crowding in California are preparing "to examine in detail California's criminal justice system, including the current sentencing structure."

The Democratic governor said that "will be the appropriate time to evaluate our existing drug laws."

Supporters of the Leno bill had said it would reduce recidivism by eliminating some employment barriers resulting from a felony record. The California District Attorneys Association opposed the measure.

PHOTO CREDIT: A police officers conducts a traffic stop in Lincoln on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. The Sacramento Bee/Randall Benton

via http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/

Victory! California adopts Ban the Box - A Message from Dorsey Nunn

The signing of AB 218, the Fair Chance Employment Act, by Governor Brown creates enormous potential for California, formerly incarcerated people, and the community as a whole.  Now people with records will have a better chance to become employed, and thus to sustain themselves, their families, and contribute to their larger community.

Criminal background checks undermine fair hiring practices and discriminate against a class of people solely based on prior conviction history. The new law prohibits initial inquiry about convictions on job applications for state agencies and local government jobs, postponing any background check until later in the hiring process.

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and All of Us or None have been on a march to secure the full restoration of the civil and human rights of formerly incarcerated people for approximately 10 years. Our dedication to this mission is why we have been fighting to end structural discrimination in hiring and housing, represented by the question, “Have you been convicted...”

Over 10 years ago, All of Us or None initiated our Ban The Box campaign, which aims to prohibit employers, housing providers, and other quality-of-life providers from discriminating against people with records. Now thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations, service providers, and elected officials around the country have joined in the campaign for fair chances in employment.

We are grateful for everyone’s contribution no matter how large or small. We want to thank Governor Brown for signing AB 218, and Assemblymember Dickinson for authoring it and being a champion for the bill. Most of all we appreciate the hard work and tireless efforts of our co-sponsors, the National Employment Law Project and PICO California. With them, we mobilized people all over the nation to support an end to discrimination based on prior records, and to opening up employment opportunities in California for people with past convictions. This new law is a tremendous victory for all of us.

Real public safety and public health means that everyone has access to sustainable employment, affordable housing, and a productive quality of life absent of any forms of discrimination.

The signing of AB 218 is one step towards equality. We now need to prohibit others, including private companies and contractors, from legally eliminating people with conviction histories from job opportunities. We need to create more meaningful and accessible jobs so that people returning to our communities can have a legitimate way to support themselves, and contribute to our society as a whole.

In pursuit of justice,

Dorsey Nunn
Executive Director

California signs private-prison deal

SACRAMENTO -- California has signed a contract with private prison contractor Geo Group to lease space for 1,400 inmates in overcrowded state lockups.

The company announced the contract early Monday morning, even before Gov. Jerry Brown learns whether federal judges will grant his request for a three-year delay in the courts' orders to cap the prison population. The governor's lawyers have asked judges to make their own decision by Friday.

Geo Group issued a news release Monday from its Florida headquarters announcing the company had inked deals with the state for two lower-security prisons it owns in California, in Adelanto and McFarland. The company said the contracts are for five years, and it expects to begin receiving inmates by the end of the year.

It estimated its annual revenue from the deal at more than $30 million.

Brown has asked federal judges to delay its order to remove some 9,600 inmates from state prisons by the end of December, in trade for promising to restore $150 million to a grant that funds community probation and rehabilitation programs.

Brown's lawyers have said the state will go ahead with some private prison leases within California even if the delay is granted. The state corrections department has already begun the process of identifying inmates to be moved.

When Prisoners Protest

THERE aren't many protests in prison. In a world where authorities exercise absolute power and demand abject obedience, prisoners are almost always going to be on the losing side, and they know it.

The typical inmate doesn't want trouble. He has little to gain and too much to lose: his job, his visits, his recreation time, his phone privileges, his right to buy tuna, ramen and stale bread at inflated prices in the commissary. The ways even a bystander to the most peaceful protest can be punished are limited only by the imagination of the authorities. Besides, logistics are difficult: men from cell block X can’t just stroll down to see the inmates in cell block Y. Strategizing must be done furtively, usually through intermediaries, any one of whom might snitch.

And yet, sometimes things get so bad that prisoners feel compelled to protest, with work stoppages, riots or hunger strikes. On July 8, some 30,000 inmates in the custody of the California Department of Corrections went on a hunger strike to demand improvements in prison conditions. Their biggest complaint was the runaway use of solitary confinement, the fact that thousands of prisoners are consigned to this cruelty indefinitely, some for decades.

I know something about solitary confinement, because I’ve been there. I spent a total of 12 years in various solitary confinement cells. And I can tell you that isolating a human being for years in a barren cell the size of a small bathroom is the cruelest thing you can do to a person.

Deprived of all human contact, you lose your feeling of connectedness to the world. You lose your ability to make small talk, even with the guard who shoves your meal through the slot in the door. You live entirely in your head, for there is nothing else. You talk to yourself, answer yourself. You become paranoid, depressed, sleepless. To ward off madness, you must give your mind something to do. In 1970, I counted the 358 rivets that held my steel cell together, over and over. Every time the walls seemed to be closing in on me, I counted them again, to give my mind something to fasten on to.

There are men like Thomas Silverstein, in the federal prison system, who has been in solitary 30 years, and Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who have been in Louisiana cells for some 40 years each. These men become examples of abuse of power and sometimes a rallying point for their fellow prisoners, who know they could one day face the same fate.

The prison protests in California are on an unprecedented scale; amazingly, they involved, at their peak, about two-thirds of the state’s penal facilities. At the beginning of this week, more than 2,500 inmates were still refusing food.

If prison authorities do not understand why thousands of inmates not directly affected by solitary confinement would join the protests, at great risk to themselves, they have only themselves to blame. They are victims of their own censorship.

If they were to listen to the inmates, they would understand that protests are almost always the product of what prisoners perceive to be officials’ abuse of arbitrary power. They are generally done by men made desperate by the lack of options to address their grievances. At the heart of the problem is a lack of open communications and freedom of expression.

As a practical matter this is easy to resolve: institute mechanisms for authorities to meet regularly with inmates to discuss their problems without fear of reprisal. But this goes against entrenched attitudes, and too many officials see it as a surrender of their authority.

Too bad, because making responsible inmates partners in managing prison problems has worked extremely well in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where the warden and sub-wardens have, for decades, regularly met with inmate leaders to discuss problems. It has gone from being one of the bloodiest to one of the safest maximum security prisons in America.

And if prison officials actually listened to inmates, they would find that their demands are often reasonable. It goes without saying that some inmates must be isolated for security reasons. And the California protesters acknowledge as much. They don’t demand a total end to the use of solitary confinement, but only reasonable limits to who is locked up and for how long, as well as some simple improvements like more educational and rehabilitative programming for those in solitary.

Why should you be concerned about the inhumane conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, with all the social, emotional and mental deterioration that it entails? Well, every year men from California’s Pelican Bay and other supermax prisons around the nation are released directly from the vacuum of their cells into free society, to live and work among you and your loved ones. As a matter of self-preservation, maybe we should all join the prisoners’ request for rehabilitative opportunities that will improve the mental health of those in solitary.

Wilbert Rideau, who served nearly 44 years for manslaughter, mostly at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, is a journalist and the author of the memoir “In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance.”

via New York Times

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Jail expansion tab rises $10 million more

San Bernardino County supervisors are expected to approve a $10 million increase for the Adelanto jail expansion on Tuesday, June 25, because of project costs that continue to increase.

The change order is the latest in a series that have boosted the project budget from $120 million, when the contract was awarded in December 2010, to $144 million.

It also will mean a delay in the completion of the jail, which originally had been expected to be finished by this fall and now is scheduled to be done by late January 2014.

Last month, the board approved an $8 million increase to the jail project budget and in February signed off on a $6 million increase. The item for the latest changes is on the Board of Supervisors’ consent calendar, a list of usually non-controversial items that can be approved on a single vote.

Board Chairwoman Janice Rutherford said she’s not happy with the cost increases but said the county’s focus is on getting the project done by the late January deadline, which is a condition of state funding.

“I hope this is it,” she said. “We’ve said that in the past and additional problems have cropped up so fingers crossed.”

As with the previous change orders, the main reason for the increase was design problems with the smoke control and fire sprinkler system, said Carl Alban, director of the county's architecture and engineering department. Resolving those problems also caused delays that increased costs for other construction on the project, he said.

Another increase was because of a water well that had a high level of fluoride that required additional treatment. The well will supply drinking water to the facility.

The county was awarded state funding for three-quarters of the cost of the project, up to $100 million, as part of a $1.2 billion jail construction bill approved by the state Legislature in 2007.

The latest increase puts the state’s share of the projects costs at the $100 million threshold, with the county picking up the remaining $44 million. Any more increases will be the sole responsibility of the county instead of being split with the state, as has been done so far, Alban said.

The project consists of three four-story housing buildings plus a support building that includes booking and holding cells and a medical clinic.

The expansion comes at a time when the county jails have been dealing with crowding because of the state’s realignment law that shifted to county jails some prisoners who would have gone to state prisons.

Between January 2012 and last week, 6,932 prisoners have been released early because of crowding, sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said.

The county’s four jails have a capacity of about 6,000 prisoners. The Adelanto project will add 1,392 beds to the existing 706-bed jail, but sheriff’s officials plan to move into the new facility in phases. County officials still are working on a plan to pay for the $37.9 million in ongoing costs to staff the new jail.

Via Press Enterprise BY IMRAN GHORI June 24, 2013; 05:20 PM 

http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/imran-ghori-headlines/20130624-san-bernardino-county-jail-expansion-tab-rises-10-million-more.ece

Mass Incarceration & Immigrant Detention: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Saturday, June 29, 2013

10:00 am - 1:30 pm

Holman United Methodist Church

3320 West Adams Blvd - Los Angeles

RSVP Required: admin@justicenotjails.org

No More Cages Petition

In addition to fighting prison and jail construction in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area, Critical Resistance is launching a statewide petition calling for an immediate halt to all prison and jail expansion projects across California.

JOIN US TO DEMAND: NO MORE CAGES IN CALIFORNIA!

Prisons and jails have devastating impacts on our communities. People who have lived through prison and jail time often come back to their communities less able to secure the basic life necessities. Imprisonment harms people's physical and mental health and formerly imprisoned people often lose their jobs, homes, and children.  Inside jails and prisons, people face medical neglect, constant harassment, and physical and sexual violence. The racist violence of imprisonment takes away vital economic and emotional support from mostly poor communities of color.

Our goals are to:

• Eliminate statewide funding sources for prisons and county jails.
• Persuade cities, counties and the State to adopt a resolution to halt all current and future construction of jails and prisons.
• Educate people about how inhumane and costly imprisonment is.
• Build relationships with allies also working to reduce imprisonment and abolish jails and prisons.

We demand that decision-makers across the State of California take the following steps:

• Immediately end any and all planning, construction, and/or expansion of prisons and jails across the state. Cancel all lease revenue bonds sales to investors who would profit from prison and jail construction. Stop creating tens of billions of dollars in debt for future generations.
• Invest in projects that improve the health and well-being of our communities and increase public safety. We need schools, job training centers, youth centers, rehabilitation facilities, housing, not more jails and prisons.
• Implement well-known strategies to reduce rates of imprisonment, and create innovative programs that support the real needs of people coming home from prison and jail. Current policies have resulted in the prison population growing from 20,000 in 1980 to over 170,000 in 2007. Repeal repressive sentencing laws and policing policies that have targeted and destabilized communities of color.

 SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

 follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend 

Copyright © 2013 critical resistance, All rights reserved. 
You received this email because you signed up to get information about Critical Resistance, Californians United for a Responsible Budget alliance, or the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition. 

Our mailing address is:
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St.
504
Oakland, CA 94612

War on drugs: The 'wobbler' option

The state should change its policy to allow possession of small amounts of addictive drugs to be charged as felonies or misdemeanors.

Simple possession of small amounts of methamphetamine — enough for personal use but presumably not for dealing — is a "wobbler" in California, meaning that offenses can be charged as either felonies or misdemeanors. It's different with possession of cocaine, opiates such as heroin and many other addictive drugs; they currently can be charged only as felonies.

The state Senate has now passed a bill to bring criminal handling of those drugs into line with methamphetamine, and the measure is before the Assembly. SB 649, by Democrat Mark Leno of San Francisco, is good policy and should be adopted.

The bill is an improvement over a version Leno offered last year to convert possession to a misdemeanor, with no felony option.

True, there is something perverse about locking people up for any period for possessing highly addictive drugs for their own use. Most offenders have the stuff on hand because they are hooked. For years California sent such addicts to prison, where little or no treatment was available. They were released on parole, which they were practically fated to violate by using drugs again — because they were, after all, addicted.

This foolhardy approach gave California a steady supply of unrecovered addicts shuttling between prison and the streets. That meant continuing damage to neighborhoods dealing with the addicted, plus overcrowded prisons. At the end of last year, for example, there were more than 4,000 inmates in state prison for possessing drugs for personal use.

It would be better to divert addicts from the criminal justice system entirely if they could be successfully treated without ever going to jail or even to court. But for many addicts, there remains a role for punishment, or at least the threat of punishment. Addiction may be a disease, but the afflicted include families, neighborhoods and, ultimately, all of society, and they all have a stake in successful rehab. When the carrot of a clean life is insufficient to keep an addict in recovery, the stick — the prospect of a criminal sentence — remains there for backup.

Some argue that these drugs ought to be decriminalized altogether, as California has done with marijuana. Simple possession of cannabis for personal use is now not even a misdemeanor here but a traffic-ticket-like infraction, punishable by a fine.

The key distinction, though, is the addictive nature of cocaine, heroin and the other drugs covered by current felony laws. Addiction affects the user's behavior — and thus imposes its damage on society and not just on the user — well past the period of intoxication. There is room for a conversation about whether decriminalization is nevertheless a more rational approach for addictive drugs, but it's not the conversation, or the bill, at hand. Either SB 649 is a smart reform, or it's a good first step in a more far-reaching sentencing revamp. Either way, it's better than the status quo.

Opponents of the bill offer a number of arguments against the measure, but they fall flat. Reducing the penalties doesn't make a drug any less dangerous or addictive, they say. True enough, but so what? The existing law doesn't keep users from getting hooked in the first place. There is little point in locking up addicts for as long as three years if it's not part of a larger program to get them clean.

Misdemeanor convictions mean a year in county jail instead of up to three years in state prison, prosecutors argue, and jails are already filled to capacity. But this argument practically answers itself. Prisons too are filled well past capacity and have been under orders from a panel of federal judges to reduce their inmate populations.

And the point is moot anyway for people convicted of simple possession since October 2011, when the public-safety realignment program went into effect. They already are spending their 18 months (and up to three years) in county jail, not state prison. That's not some unforeseen and unfortunate consequence of realignment but is instead the essence of the program's design: Counties have the opportunity and now the incentive to offer treatment and alternative monitoring, and inmates and outpatients alike are treated closer to the neighborhoods to which they will (one way or another) soon return. They can begin the process right away of reconnecting with family and other positive influences in their lives, but they do so while they are still being supervised, so that the negative influences of their old neighborhoods can be monitored and mitigated. Offenders housed and treated closer to home show greater continuing success than those isolated in prisons hundreds of miles from home.

What if prosecutors and judges see a pattern of resistance and antisocial behavior in the addict? What if there is evidence, although not a record, of earlier crimes? That's one of the smart parts of this bill — the felony option is still available.

Moving from a straight felony to a wobbler is not without its hazards. The change would grant additional discretion to prosecutors and judges, and where there is discretion, there can be discrimination — by race, by class, by geography. Will African American defendants be more likely to be tried on felony charges than whites? Will district attorneys in one county file only misdemeanors and in another only felonies?

If the last three decades of criminal justice policy have taught California anything, it's that there can be no autopilot when it comes to sentencing. There must be constant vigilance — and in the modern era, that means arrest and sentencing data must be collected and available for public scrutiny. It should fall to the state attorney general to pick through those numbers, see to it that wobbler charges are not unfairly targeting any particular group and flag problems when laws need to be adjusted to ensure equal justice.

Via latimes.com

Drug laws panel supports reducing possession crimes to misdemeanors

Most but not all members of a drug-law-reform panel convened Tuesday by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi supported reducing simple drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The panel, which included San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, was part of a Justice Summit held annually by the Public Defender's Office.

Gascon led off in supporting a change in California law, as is currently being proposed in SB 1506, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

"For me, this has been a long journey," said Gascon, who is also a former police chief. But "I truly have felt, in my years of working in public policy, that the war on drugs has been a failure," he said.

Gascon said sending young people to prison for drug possession is equivalent to sending them to a "university of crime" and making them more likely to re-offend in the future.

A dissenting voice came from Martin Vranicar, the assistant chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Association.

Vranicar said some drug users may need the threat of a possible felony conviction and sentence to motivate them to go into treatment programs.

Vranicar noted that most counties currently have diversion programs, but some offenders don't make use of them.

"We've got these programs that allow offenders to escape from criminal sanctions, but people just don't take advantage of them," he told the audience in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Main Library.

At present, California law requires that possession of certain drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, is a felony punishable by 16 months to three years in jail. Possession of some other drugs, such as concentrated cannabis, sometimes known as hashish, can be either a felony or a misdemeanor punishable by no more than a year in jail.

Possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, however, is now only an infraction, punishable by a fine.

Leno's bill, as of Tuesday pending in the Senate, would change the drug possession crimes now classed as felonies to misdemeanors.

In a video message to the conference, Leno said felony convictions make it harder for reformed drug users to obtain the housing, education and jobs they need to turn their lives around.

"We really perpetuate a chronic underclass, which benefits none of us," under the current drug laws," Leno said.

The three other panelists -- San Francisco Probation Chief Wendy Still, Deputy Public Defender Tal Klement and Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelman - supported changing the law and also called for broader societal reforms.

"You have to look at the underlying problem, and not just lock people up," Still said.


Via: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/drug-laws-panel-supports-reducing-possession-crime/nPGy9/

Protesting prisons-for-profit that prey on the poor, powerless immigrant detainees

Occupy Wall Street groups march on Wells Fargo bank in Harlem

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 4:00 AM

Updated: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 4:00 AM

Handout

More than 200 members of Occupy Wall Street groups rally outside a Wells Fargo bank branch in Harlem to protest investments in prisons-for-profit.

Incarcerating poor, powerless people for profit is a despicable business, but it sure is profitable.


“Hello Harlem, we’re here to help” reads an unintentionally ironic sign in a Wells Fargo bank, a major investor in two private prison companies, the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) that in 2010 made a whopping $2.9 billion in profits.


On Monday 200 people took to the streets to protest the scandalous connection between investment in private prisons and the mass jailing of prisoners and immigrant detainees for profit. The demonstration was organized by the Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice working group and the OWS Prisoner Solidarity working group, "[For these corporations\] the more people in prison the better it is for business,” said Mariano Muñoz of the Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice working group.


Not surprisingly, both GEO and the CCA spend a pretty penny lobbying at both the state and federal level for laws like the infamous Arizona and Alabama anti-immigrant legislations.
“[Those laws\] place greater numbers of non-U.S. citizens in the immigrant detention and deportation system,” Muñoz added. “And that’s good for business.”


Private prison corporations that profit from detention and deportation policies make tons of money by locking up poor, powerless immigrants for months and even years with little federal supervision. One of these jails is located in Springfield Gardens, Queens, and many voices have been raised in protest.


A spokesman for Wells Fargo denied the company owns shares of GEO or CCA or that it is invested in either company. "Wells Fargo Advantage Funds currently holds a small position in mutual funds that we administer as a trustee on behalf of fund shareholders. Wells Fargo is not the owner. Public filings and website listings can give the incorrect impression that Wells Fargo is an owner of a company’s stock – we are not. These shares are owned by various Wells Fargo mutual funds. Wells Fargo is not a beneficial owner of these mutual funds, but serves as an adviser,” he said.


The rally last week focused on the role those private prison companies have played in supporting anti-immigrant policies, leading to record detention and deportation rates.


The rally began in front of the Lincoln Correction Facility in Harlem, one of the city’s many African-American neighborhoods devastated by the explosive growth in prisons over the past few decades. From there, protesters marched to a Wells Fargo bank branch.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/protesting-prisons-for-profit-prey-poor-powerless-immigrant-detainees-article-1.1026328#ixzz1nLZXHy4B


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/protesting-prisons-for-profit-prey-poor-powerless-immigrant-detainees-article-1.1026328#ixzz1nLZL5UJr

Occupy movement stages day of protests at US prisons

via: theguardian

Occupy demonstrators participated in a nationwide day of action to protest against the US prison system on Monday, with demonstrations carried out at over a dozen sites across the country, including prisons in California, Chicago, Denver and New York.

The call to protest was issued by activists with the Occupy Oakland movement and was co-ordinated to coincide with waves of prison hunger strikes that began at California's Pelican Bay prison in July. Demonstrators denounced the use of restrictive isolation units as infringement upon fundamental human rights. The hunger strikes followed a US supreme court ruling in May which stated that overcrowding in the California prison system had led to "needless suffering and death." The court ordered the state to reduce its overall prison population from 140,000 to 110,000, which still well-exceeds the state's maximum prison capacity.

Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer – the American hikers who were held for over a year by Iranian authorities – took part in demonstrations outside San Quentin prison in Marin County, California. Addressing the crowd, Shourd described the psychological impact of solitary confinement, saying her 14 and a half months without human contact drove her to beat the walls of her cell until her knuckles bled. Shourd noted that Nelson Mandella described the two weeks he spent in solitary confinement as the most dehumanising experience he had ever been through.

"In Iran the first thing they do is put you in solitary," Fattal added.

Bauer said "a prisoner's greatest fear is being forgotten." He described how hunger strikes became the hikers' own "greatest weapon" in pushing their captors to heed their demands. According to Bauer, however, the most influential force for changing their quality of life while being held in Iran was the result of pressure applied by those outside the prison. It was for that fact, Bauer argued, that "this movement, this Cccupy movement, needs to permeate the prisons."

Occupy supporters are calling for a fundamental change in the US prison system, which today houses one quarter of the planet's prisoners; more than 2.4 million people. As of 2005, roughly one quarter of those held in US prisons or jails had been convicted on a drug charge. Activists point out that in the past three decades the nation's prison population has increased by more than 500%, with minorities comprising 60% of those incarcerated. The number of women locked up between 1997 and 2007 increased by 832%.

Demonstrators are broadly calling for the abolition of inhumane prison conditions, and the elimination of policies such as capital punishment, life sentences without the possibility of parole and so-called "three strikes, you're out" laws.

Some demonstrators were also demanding changes in their own specific states. Activists in Columbus, Ohio, for example, highlighted the fact that their state is second only to Texas in rates of capital punishment and planned to deliver letters to several elected officials, including governor John Kasich.

Ben Turk, an activist with Red Bird Prison abolition, noted that rising prices in prison commissaries have also been an issue with many Ohio prisoners. According to Turk, prices at the commissaries where prisoners purchase food and other amenities have risen, while the amount of money prisoners are able to make have largely remained the same.

"We work with prisoners and ask them what their grievances are," Turk said. "A lot of them talk about how commissary prices have been continually rising for the last couple of decades, while state pay remains the same."

At least 20 prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary chose to fast for the day in solidarity with Monday's action.

In Washington DC, demonstrators protested new prisoner visitation policies that will include the installation teleconference TV screens in place of glass partition.

In New York City, Mercedes Smith, a Brooklyn mother, took the streets along with roughly 250 others who marched from the Lincoln Correctional Facility through Harlem. Smith said she and her 21 year-old son had both been personally impacted by the criminal justice system. Smith said her son had been stopped and searched by the police throughout his life and is now incarcerated.

Smith carried a sign that read "End the War On Drugs". She said that people who were addicted to drugs had a "sickness" that was "not a reason to put them in prison."

"This war is costing more money. All the money that they using to keep this war going on, they could open up more centers, more programmes to help people," Smith told the Guardian.