TEXAS USES AN ARCANE LAW TO POSSIBLY—JUST POSSIBLY—HOLD ACCOUNTABLE A PROMINENT FORMER PROSECUTOR, NOW A JUDGE, FOR OBSCURING AND WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE THAT LIKELY WOULD HAVE KEPT AN INNOCENT MAN FROM GOING TO PRISON FOR 25 YEARS

The LA Times’ Molly Hennessy Fiske drew our attention to this story with her write-up
that runs on Tuesday. Here’s a clip:

In emotional testimony Monday, a Texas man told a judge how it felt spending 25 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

“Brutal,” Michael Morton said. “But after a couple decades, I got used to it.”

Morton, 58, who grew up in Los Angeles, was convicted in the 1986 beating death of his wife, Christine, at their home. He was exonerated and released almost a year and a half ago after DNA tests confirmed his innocence. Another man has since been charged in connection with the killing.

Now the man who prosecuted Morton, Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson, faces an unprecedented “court of inquiry” about 30 miles north of Austin in which a judge will decide whether the then-district attorney lied and concealed evidence that could have cleared Morton.

It is the first time the state has convened such a hearing for prosecutorial misconduct. Although part of Texas law since 1965, the court of inquiry has typically been used to consider allegations against elected officials. Some hope this week’s hearing will lead to a greater examination of alleged misconduct by prosecutors not just in Texas, but nationwide.

However, it is Texas Monthly’s Pamela Colloff whose reporting we must follow on this story. Last fall, Colloff wrote a stunning two-part series on Morton and his case.

Now she is following the unusual court proceedings examining the actions of former prosecutor Ken Anderson.

She writes:

Starting on Monday, Anderson will be the subject of a “court of inquiry,” an arcane legal procedure unique to Texas that can be used to investigate wrongdoing, most often on the part of state officials. It has never been used before to probe allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. The unprecedented legal proceeding will try to determine whether Anderson withheld critical evidence from Michael’s defense attorneys which would have helped Michael prove his innocence more than a quarter-century ago.

Anderson is now a state district judge. That a former prosecutor, much less a sitting judge, will face such intense scrutiny is remarkable. Prosecutorial misconduct rarely results in even disciplinary action from the Texas bar. But if the presiding judge in the court of inquiry finds probable cause to believe that Anderson broke the law, he will face criminal charges and a warrant will be issued for his arrest….

It is not just that prosecutors are rarely held accountable in Texas; they are rarely held accountable anywhere. If a surgeon is careless in an operation and thus paralyzes you, there are legal remedies. But if a prosecutor deliberately withholds crucial evidence that would almost certainly have cleared you, and instead your family is shattered, your young son is raised by someone else, and you go to prison for life, lose 25 years, then by wonderful luck you are released through work by the Innocence Project —there is no legal way to hold the prosecutor to answer.

However, this week in Texas, perhaps there is a way. If so, perhaps, as Molly Hennessy-Fiske suggested, it will have resonance beyond the lone star state’s boundaries.

IS IT LEGAL FOR CALIFORNIA’S LOCAL MUNICIPALITIES TO BAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES? THE CALIFORNIA SUPREMES WILL DECIDE

This article by the always excellent Howard Mintz, Legal Affairs guy for the San Jose Mercury News, lays out this interesting issue in lively and informative terms. Here’s a big clip from the story’s opening:

California’s experiment with medical marijuana has sparked a hazy version of the old Not-in-My-Backyard syndrome.

From Hollister to Antioch, from Scotts Valley to Petaluma, from Seaside to Moraga, city after city has banned medical marijuana dispensaries, sending a message that even the sickest of patients must go elsewhere for that state-permitted dose of prescribed medical weed.

But on Tuesday, this fear-and-loathing approach to outlawing medical pot providers will face an unprecedented test in the California Supreme Court. The seven justices are to hear arguments on whether local governments can ban the dispensaries in view of the state’s 1996 voter-approved law legalizing pot for medical use.

The case involves the Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center, which more than two years ago sued to block Riverside’s dispensary ban, arguing that cities and counties cannot bar activities legal in California. A state appeals court sided with Riverside, and now the Supreme Court, faced with similar legal tangles across the state, has jumped into the fray.

The stakes are high in California’s ongoing struggle pitting medical marijuana advocates against cities worried about problems associated with some of the dispensaries, such as lax control over the distribution of a drug that remains illegal under federal law.

“The Riverside case is a fascinating example of our ‘laboratories of democracy’ in action,” said Julie Nice, a aw professor at the University of San Francisco, where the Supreme Court will hear the arguments. “It illustrates the difficulties created when each level of government … stakes out a different regulatory position on a controversial subject….”

Read more here. And naturally, we’ll be keeping an eye out for the Cal Supremes’ ruling on this question.

TOO MANY MENTALLY ILL IN STATE AND COUNTY LOCK-UPS

One topic on which justice reform advocates, custody experts and county sheriffs tend to agree, is that a large portion of those incarcerated in California’s jails and prisons are mentally ill, and that this is not a good thing. Put more plainly, in most cases, jails and prisons are the most costly and the least effective places for the mentally ill to be.

As we look at reforming our budget-draining and problem-plagued incarceration systems in ways that balance public safety and basic justice, one of the areas that requires a hard look is the intersection between jails and prisons and mental illness.

Monday’s Huffington Post’s Alana Horowitz has a good overview of the issue. Here are some clips from her story:

….A 2006 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that over half of all jail and prison inmates have mental health issues; an estimated 1.25 million suffered from mental illness, over four times the number in 1998. Research suggests that people with mental illness are overrepresented in the criminal justice system by rates of two to four times the normal population. The severity of these illnesses vary, but advocates say that one factor remains steady: with proper treatment, many of these incarcerations could have been avoided.

“Most people [with mental illness] by far are incarcerated because of very minor crimes that are preventable,” says Bob Bernstein, the Executive Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “People are homeless for reasons that shouldn’t occur, people don’t have basic treatment for reasons that shouldn’t occur and they get into trouble because of crimes of survival.”

Bernstein blames these high rates on a lack of community mental health services. In the past three years, $4.35 billion in funding for mental health services has been cut from state budgets across the nation, according to a recent report. Because of the cuts, treatment centers have had to trim services and turn away patients.

State hospitals have also been forced to reduce services. A report by the Treatment Advocacy Center even found that there are more people with severe mental illness in prisons and jails than in hospitals.

[SNIP]

Once people with mental illness are incarcerated, Bazleon’s Bernstein says, it becomes a tough cycle to break.

“Most people are there for minor crimes but then they deteriorate,” he explains. “They can’t follow the rules there and so they stay a long time, and they become difficult to release.”

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, most inmates with mental illness don’t receive treatment while in prison.

Patti Jones’ nephew Tony Lester was sent to state prison in Tucson, Ariz., for aggravated assault. Like Armando Cruz, Lester heard voices. He told his aunt that before he was incarcerated, he had only heard two voices. After he was admitted, there were seven.

Lester was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was prescribed medication but didn’t always take it while in prison, Jones said. Lester was placed among the general prison population with little treatment available.

His symptoms grew worse….

FUN TIMES WITH TOY PRISONS FOR THE 4 AND UP CROWD

“Imagine my shock and alarm to see that toy prison play-sets are being sold and were SOLD OUT during the holidays!” wrote Susan Burton in an email she sent to friends and colleagues on Thursday.

Burton, who is the executive director of A New Way of Life Reentry Program, was talking about the Playmobil “Police Prison Extension” toy, literally a small “prison” that can attach to a Playmobil Police Station.

“The fact that there is a toy available that allows children to ‘play prison’ tears at my heart and saddens my soul,” Burton wrote of the item that, according to the manufacturer, is aimed at kids ages 4 and up.

As it happens, Burton knows quite a bit about prison. A New Way of Life, the non-profit she founded in 2000, runs five transitional residences in Los Angeles to aid women in restarting their lives after incarceration, helping them with lodging, food, legal aid and job training.

She also knows a great deal about prison on a purely personal level. For two decades, Burton cycled in and out of lock-ups after her 5-year-old son ran into the street and was struck and killed by a passing motorist. A grief-stricken Burton began dulling the pain with drugs, got badly addicted to crack cocaine and served six prison terms in a row for drug offenses.

Finally, in 1997, after she was released for the last time, Burton entered a rehab program and managed to get herself clean and sober. Three years later, with the aid of friends who recognized her drive, charisma and talent, she started A New Way of Life to help women like herself. Ten years after that, she was named one of CNN’s “Heros.” Other honors have followed.

So, no, Burton doesn’t think prison is a healthy play activity.

“Lessons learned from the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment that traumatized its student participants still do not resonate with a public that seeks to incarcerate rather than rehabilitate,” she wrote, referring to the famous 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University in which some students played “prisoners” and others “guards.” The experiment, which was to have lasted for two weeks, had to be shut down prematurely after six days when the “guards” began behaving sadistically and the “prisoners” showed signs of depression and extreme stress.

SO HOW ABOUT THOSE NEW, COLLECTABLE SLAVE AND SLAVEOWNER DOLLS?

Fanya Baruti, who works for Burton in an offshoot of A New Way of Life, and who has also served time, was equally appalled by the toy. “Our youth do not need to be taught to play prison games.”

Baruti pointed out that the Playmobil prison wasn’t the only bad taste toy this past season— and brought up the controversy over the Django Unchained action figures. “Seriously, slaveowner dolls!” he said.

In case you’ve missed this charming bit of news, all the main characters from Quentin Tarantino’s film— prominently including the slave and slaveowner characters played by Kerry Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio—have been faithfully reproduced in high quality plastic, for ages 15 and up.

In response, a growing list of people, like LA activist Najee Ali, of Project Islamic Hope, called for the things to be removed from store shelves.

Since this story was researched and written after regular business hours, I was not able to reach anyone at Playmobil or NECA, the action figure people, to ask them what the thought of the objections to their products.

I assume that Playmobil, which is a division of the Brandstätter Group, headquartered in Zirndorf, Germany, would justify the prison for kindergartners as a logical companion piece for their police station, and might rightly point out that little kids playing at being police is a perfectly positive healthy activity. So why not the prison play too?

And perhaps if the U.S. didn’t incarcerate a larger percentage of our populace than any other nation on the planet, we might more easily buy that logic.

On the other hand, according to Wikipedia’s Playmobil entry, things could be worse. It seems that, in the past, some of the toymaker’s proposed sets have included “Chinese Railroad Workers and a Grave Digger for the Western theme, as well as a Medieval Torture Room.” The company went so far as to make prototypes of these cheery items before someone mentioned that they might be “considered insensitive and inappropriate for young children.” (Ya think?) Whatever the case, they were never released.

AND IN OTHER NEWS….

AT SCHOOL SHOOTING IN TAFT, CA, A TEACHER & AN ADMINISTRATOR DISARM THE SHOOTER AFTER ONE STUDENT IS CRITICALLY WOUNDED AND THE ARMED SECURITY GUARD IS ABSENT DUE TO SNOW. See story by Reuters for the details.

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR FOR SHERIFF BACA’S YOUTH NON-PROFIT HAS TIES TO MARIJUANA DISPENSARY Robert Faturechi and Martha Groves have that story for the LA Times.

HOSTAGE SITUATION AT NORDSTROM RACK IN WESTCHESTER’S HOWARD HUGHES SHOPPING CENTER GOES ON INTO THE NIGHT, CAUSING ALL CITY LAPD TAC ALERT, WITH BYSTANDERS LOCKED DOWN IN NEARBY MOVIE THEATER FOR HOURS BECAUSE OF FLUID AND DANGEROUS CIRCUMSTANCES. One woman being held by two armed men. Mother of hostage at nearby movie theater, frantic. More hostages gotten out earlier, it seems, but details on when exactly, still sketchy.

BY 3:30 am, the SWAT action was over. All hostages okay, including woman with scared mom waiting, but evidently no arrests.

There’s more.. Dennis Romero of LA Weekly has a good stream of minute by minute updates.

GOVERNOR SAYS PRISON POPULATION CRISIS IS OVER, THAT FEDS SHOULD REMOVE THE POPULATION CAP—MEANWHILE SOME CA LOCK-UPS STILL RUN AT WAY PAST CAPACITY

On Thursday, California Governor Jerry Brown will introduce his new proposed state budget which is expected to have some innovative and possibly controversial ideas about how better to run the state’s prison system.

In the meantime, in a press conference this past Tuesday, Brown was also talking prison policy when he announced that the prison population crisis is at an end, and that the gaggle of interfering federal judges should buzz off and give the responsibility of running the California state prisons back to the state of California.

Here’s a clip from the San Francisco Chron’s coverage of the story:

A defiant Gov. Jerry Brown declared an end to the overcrowding emergency in state prisons on Tuesday and said that the courts should return all the responsibility of overseeing prisons to state officials.

That action came hours after the state faced a deadline to inform a federal court how officials plan to further reduce the prison inmate population by June. State attorneys instead filed an appeal requesting that federal judges undo an order that had set a limit on California’s prison inmate population.

“We’ve gone from serious constitutional problems to one of the finest prison systems in the United States,” Brown said at a news conference, where he announced that he had signed a proclamation declaring an end to a state of emergency in state prisons.

That emergency was declared in 2006 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger because of overcrowding. But since then, the population of inmates has decreased by about 43,000 to 119,200, largely because Brown’s prison realignment program shifted incarceration of inmates from prisons to county jails. Some sheriffs now say their jails are overcrowded.

(One of the finest prison systems in the U.S…? Oh, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! Improved, yes. One should hope so. But one of the finest…? Uh, no.)

While we can understand Brown’s desire to do away with outside overseers and meddlers, and certainly, we don’t want to see the courts force some kind of crazy prisoner release, advocates and experts, who are not quite the Calif. prison system boosters that Brown was on Tuesday, feel it’s important that the pressure stays on the governor and the California Department of Corrections for just a bit longer.

And, although progress has been made, stories like this one by Joshua Smith in the Merced Sun-Star remind us that there are still challenges that remain, on the prison pop front. For instance, according to the Sun-Star, Chowchilla prison for women is running at 180 percent of intended capacity with 3,608 inmates, while earby Avenal prison is running at 171 percent capacity.

Here’s a clip:

More than a dozen groups from around the state – including the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and Californians United for a Responsible Budget — have organized a rally to protest the conditions.

“These cells were set up for two to four people max, and they’re up to eight people again,” said Colby Lenz, campaign coordinator for the coalition. “They’re not enough resources in terms of hygiene. They’re not getting cleaning supplies or tampons. It’s a public health disaster.”
The protest will be held at 3 p.m. Jan. 26 in front of Valley State Prison outside Chowchilla.
However, corrections officials dismissed the groups’ concerns.

“We’re not overcrowded,” said Dana Simas, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman. “No inmate is being housed in nontraditional beds. We’ve been far more overcrowded than where we are now.”

(NOTE TO CDCR’S DANA SIMAS: “We’ve been far more overcrowded” is not a reassuring thing to say at this juncture. Yes, of course we know you’ve been far more overcrowded. Catastrophic overcrowding is what brought the state the years of federal oversight, plus a US Supreme Court ruling that said the state’s lock-ups are in violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution!)

Squabbles over prison oversight aside, we are looking forward to hearing Brown’s budget proposals on Thursday.

USING TEST SCORES TO EVALUATE TEACHERS CAN DEFINITELY WORK, SAYS NEW GATES STUDY, BUT ONLY IF COMBINED WITH OTHER MEASURES

As the argument over how to measure teacher effectiveness continues, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation weighs in with a just released 3-year study involving 3000 teachers, which provides lots of data-driven food for thought. Their main conclusion was that, yes, the so-called value-added method of evaluating teachers by using changes in yearly student test scores to measure teacher performance can, in fact, be very useful. But the study also determined that the value added model works best if combined with other methods, like student surveys and certain systems of classroom observation and direct evaluation.

Here’s a clip from the executive summary.

Despite decades of research suggesting that teachers are the most important inschool factor affecting student learning, an underlying question remains unanswered: Are seemingly more effective teachers truly better than other teachers at improving student learning, or do they simply have better students?Ultimately, the only way to resolve that question was by randomly assigning students to teachers to see if teachers previously identified as more effective actually caused those students to learn more. That is what we did for a subset of MET project teachers. Based on data we collected during the 2009–10 school year, we produced estimates of teaching effectiveness for each teacher. We adjusted our estimates to account for student differences in prior test scores, demographics, and other traits. We then randomly assigned a classroom of students to each participating teacher for 2010–11.

Following the 2010–11 school year we asked two questions: First, did students actually learn more when randomly assigned to the teachers who seemed more effective when we evaluated them the prior year? And, second, did the magnitude of the difference in student outcomes following random assignment correspond with expectations?

They found that, yes, effective teaching can be measured.

Read the rest of the photo and diagram-laden study for the details.

CITY COUNCIL WANTS REPORT FROM LAPD ABOUT REDUCING GANG VIOLENCE BY WORKING WITH GANG INVERVENTIONISTS

David Fonseca of Highland Park Patch has the story. Here’s a clip:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday stated in a dual press conference with LAPD Charlie Beck that gang crime has been reduced by 47.5-percent since he took office and that a “record-low” 152 gang related homicides were reported in 2012.

Despite the marked reduction in gang crime, Chief Beck said the problem still required is “still unacceptable” and “requires much work.”

One of the two motions passed on Tuesday, which was authored by Councilman Tony Cardenas, would require the Los Angeles Police Department to provide within 30 days a report detailing the level to which the department collaborates with gang intervention programs.

“Given the significant steps that have been taken to further professionalize the field of community-based gang intervention within the City of Los Angeles and the historic partnership that has developed among law enforcement and interventionists, a report from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) affirming the integral role of community-based gang intervention in helping to reduce violence would substantially contribute to demonstrating the overall effectiveness and necessity of intervention services during these difficult economic times,” Cardenas’ motion states.

JUVENILE JUSTICE EXPERTS CALLED IN TO TALK TO THE WHILE HOUSE AND CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE

We know the White House is meeting with a lot of people on this issue, but it’s nice to know that juvenile justice experts are among them. Moreover a glance over their list of participants is heartening as they’ve got a lot of the right people included, people like Liz Ryan, founder and CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice; Mark Soler, founder and CEO of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, and more of that ilk.

Kaukab Jhumra Smith of Youth Today has the story. Here’s a clip:

Representatives from a group of more than 300 juvenile justice and delinquency prevention organizations at the national, state and local level have met with White House staff and Congressional minority leaders at their invitation in recent weeks to provide evidence-based expertise on ways to reduce gun violence in the country, a coalition leader said.

As tasked by President Barack Obama in the wake of mass shootings at an elementary school last month, Vice-President Joe Biden and his staff have spent the last few weeks meeting with gun-control advocates, pro-gun rights groups and dozens of concerned organizations in preparation for the release of the vice-president’s recommendations for the prevention of gun violence.
According to Politico, Biden indicated today that the president could use an executive order to act on some of his recommendations, which are expected to be made public next week.

THE UNLIKELY AND POSSIBLY TRUE STORY OF THE AFFECT OF LEAD GASOLINE ON THE AMERICAN CRIME RATE

Yes, it sounds loopy. But the seemingly whacked-out notion that there may be a cause-and-effect relationship beween the discontinued use of leaded gas and the dive—20 years later—in America’s crime rate, is a theory that is slowly gaining traction among serious researchers.

Even sober-minded law prof Doug Berman over at Sentencing, Law and Policy, calls Kevin Drum’s story about the relationship between lead and crime in the January/Fberuary issue of Mother Jones’ Magazine “the the first ‘must read’ of 2013 for crime and punishment fans.”

No single clip really does the story justice, so I recommend reading the entire thing. But here’re a couple of snippets that will give you at least a feeling for what Drum is on about:

….it’s not just New York that has seen a big drop in crime. In city after city, violent crime peaked in the early ’90s and then began a steady and spectacular decline. Washington, DC, didn’t have either Giuliani or Bratton, but its violent crime rate has dropped 58 percent since its peak. Dallas’ has fallen 70 percent. Newark: 74 percent. Los Angeles: 78 percent.

There must be more going on here than just a change in policing tactics in one city. But what?

THERE ARE, IT TURNS OUT, plenty of theories. When I started research for this story, I worked my way through a pair of thick criminology tomes. One chapter regaled me with the “exciting possibility” that it’s mostly a matter of economics: Crime goes down when the economy is booming and goes up when it’s in a slump. Unfortunately, the theory doesn’t seem to hold water—for example, crime rates have continued to drop recently despite our prolonged downturn.

[BIG SNIP]

…..More prisons might help control crime, more cops might help, and better policing might help. But the evidence is thin for any of these as the main cause. What are we missing?

Experts often suggest that crime resembles an epidemic. But what kind? Karl Smith, a professor of public economics and government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has a good rule of thumb for categorizing epidemics: If it spreads along lines of communication, he says, the cause is information. Think Bieber Fever. If it travels along major transportation routes, the cause is microbial. Think influenza. If it spreads out like a fan, the cause is an insect. Think malaria. But if it’s everywhere, all at once—as both the rise of crime in the ’60s and ’70s and the fall of crime in the ’90s seemed to be—the cause is a molecule.

A molecule? That sounds crazy. What molecule could be responsible for a steep and sudden decline in violent crime?

Well, here’s one possibility: Pb(CH2CH3)4.

YOGA TURNS OUT TO BE A LOW-COST, HIGH BENEFIT PROGRAM FOR CASH-STRAPPED U.S. PRISONS, INCLUDING CALIFORNIA’S 33 ADULT LOCK-UPS

The NY Times’ Mary Pilon has the story. Here’s a clip:

….The ancient art of yoga, a physical, spiritual and mental practice whose benefits have been promoted as improving relaxation, has found an unlikely home: prisons.

When many states have cut their wellness and education programs for inmates, citing cost and political pressure, some wardens looking for a low-cost, low-risk way for inmates to reflect on their crimes, improve their fitness and cope with the stress of overcrowded prison life are turning toward yoga.

The number of yoga programs is not officially tracked, but many wardens said they were interested in pursuing them. Typically programs start informally, a hodgepodge of volunteer efforts by instructors and correctional facilities. At least 20 prisons now offer yoga through the Prison Yoga Project, a program that began in California 12 years ago when its founder, James Fox, began teaching yoga to at-risk youth. Mr. Fox holds trainings for yoga teachers and said he has sent more than 7,000 copies of his manual to inmates to practice yoga on their own.

States’ spending on corrections has quadrupled during the past two decades, to $52 billion a year, according to a 2011 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Despite a focus on rehabilitation and deterrence of future crimes, however, roughly 4 in 10 adult American offenders return to prison within three years of their release, the report found.

“Any program that gives an inmate a chance to reflect is going to have positive benefits,” said Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which has expanded yoga offerings to most of its 33 adult prisons.

“What we’re trying to do with any program is get is get inmates to think about how responsible they are for the crime they’ve committed and the consequences.”

DO ARMED GUARDS REALLY MAKE SCHOOLS SAFER?

Approximately one third of the nation’s public schools have armed security staff on campus.

In an Op Ed for the San Diego Union, Barbara Raymond, director of schools & neighborhoods policy for The California Endowment, looks at whether armed guards really make schools safer.

Here’s a clip:

In the 2009-10 school year, about one-third of all public schools had armed security staff. These are typically sworn officers who are part of local police or sheriff’s departments. Additionally, many large school districts operate their own police departments, with the Los Angeles Unified School District having the largest force in the nation with more than 350 officers.

Despite the growing number of school police, research does not support the thesis that an armed presence improves school safety. What is proven, however, is that more police on campus means more young people are sent into the justice system. Police are not typically trained in youth development, child psychology, or how to best respond to youth misconduct, which sometimes leads to an escalation of conflict and charges filed for misbehavior that used to be handled by the school. One study found that campuses with school resource officers had nearly five times the rate of arrests for disorderly conduct as schools without an officer, even when accounting for school poverty. And in Los Angeles in the last three years, school police issued 33,000 tickets to young people that required them to go to court – with 40 percent of those tickets going to kids younger than 14.

Yes, yes, we’re still on hiatus, but here are some quick stories that surfaced while everyone was drinking eggnog, and we didn’t want you to miss ‘em.

33 CALIFORNIA TEENAGERS REMIND US THAT 14 KIDS ARE KILLED BY GUN VIOLENCE EVERY SINGLE DAY

In the 60-second video above, 33 California teenagers have some strong words about what will or will not help to keep American kids safe.

Here’s a clip from the statement by the video’s sponsors at The California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative:

“Don’t lock down our schools,” said one teenager in the video. “A solid plan doesn’t begin and end with who has access to guns and how many police officers we have,” said David Valdez, Director of the Youth Institute at the Weingart East Los Angeles YMCA, who helped coordinate production of the video.

“Students want schools to be safe,” said Valdez. “But they are wary of solutions that only call for more police in schools. Instead, they’re calling for more school counselors, mentors, health services on school campuses, and other approaches that help young people in need of support.”

An average of 14 young people are murdered every day in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a U.S. Department of Justice report released last week found that two out of three American youth experienced violence in the last year….

ASSAULT WEAPONS 101

The conversation about guns will continue after the new year, so it helps to have a good, quick primer on the topic of assault weapons for the civilian market. My pal Tom Diaz is arguably the nation’s expert on the topic, and he runs it down cleanly and clearly on Terry Gross’s Fresh Air.

It’s worth your while to listen.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS MODIFY ISOLATION UNIT POLICY, SOME SAY NOT ENOUGH

While the California Department of Corrections is nowhere nowhere close to discontinuing controversial use of isolation cells—or Secure Housing Units (the SHU)—it is experimentally overhauling its system for determining who is put in those units and what they can do to get out.

The Ap’s Paul Elias has the story. Here’s a clip:

Prison officials tossed convicted killer Todd Ashker into California’s notorious Security Housing Unit 25 years ago after “validating” him as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood gang.

He’s still there today, along with some 2,000 other SHU prisoners classified as gang member or associates serving indeterminate sentences in windowless cells in almost complete isolation.

They say their only way out of the 8-foot by 10-foot cells with few creature comforts for many is to inform on other gang members, which they say is really no choice because they face deadly retaliation if they do “debrief.”

A recent system-wide hunger strike by 6,000 inmates called attention to the living conditions of the thousands of prisoners held in the units. But the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says they are the worst of the worst — inmates who when not isolated threaten other inmates and run gang and drug operations from inside prison walls.

Nonetheless, CDCR is in the midst of what it calls a “dramatic” policy shift in how it determines who belongs in isolation and what SHU inmates need to do to return to the general population. It intends to review the case file of thousands of SHU inmates to determine if they should be transferred to better living conditions.

Since October, CDCR officials have reviewed 88 SHU cases and decided that 58 SHU inmates will be transferred. Another 25 have been placed in a “step-down” program and can work for their transfer to the general population….

TOM HAYDEN ON WHY THE FEDS DROPPED THE CHARGES AGAINST ALEX SANCHEZ

Former state senator, Tom Hayden, has some additional thoughts about why the federal charges were dropped earlier this month against well-known gang intervention leader, Alex Sanchez.

Here’s a clip:

In a development few imagined possible, US Attorney Andre Birotte, on December 17, recommended the dismissal of all charges against Salvadoran gang peace leader Alex Sanchez, admitting that the prosecution’s case was “flawed.” Sanchez, his wife and two young children were rousted by police and federal agents at dawn on June 24, 2009, when Sanchez was handcuffed and accused of gang conspiracy to murder and sell drugs.

Those charges were dropped quietly this week, with none of the ceremony and fanfare that occured when Chief William Bratton, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the FBI held a nationally broadcast press conference to announce the indictments three-and-one-half years ago. It was widely assumed, even among leading local civil liberties figures, that Sanchez was either guilty or had zero chance of overcoming the odds. Some feared his indictment would harm the fragile reputation of the gang prevention and intervention program then being launched at City Hall.

The record now shows that the prosecutors knowingly fed false evidence to the grand jury, and failed to admit for three years that their case was wrong on the facts.

Even in admitting its “flaw,” the prosecution vowed its “express intention of re-filing” certain of the dismissed charges against Sanchez. The government has a six-month window to make the decision. Meanwhile, federal judge Dale Fischer has until January 16 to accept or amend the terms of the government’s request.

LGBT SERVICEMEMBERS STILL BRAVE INJUSTICE IN MILITARY

A year after the landmark repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (and a day after Veteran’s Day), the LGBT military community—and their partners—are still faced with the harsh discrimination of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the continued ban on transgender servicemembers serving openly.

The above video was recently released by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Freedom To Marry.

Think Progress’ Zack Ford has the story. Here’s how it opens:

It has been more than a year since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was implemented, ending a legacy of blatant discrimination in the U.S. military. Unfortunately, it did not mark the end of inequality. As the nation honors Veterans Day, various other policies continue to treat the LGBT community second-class citizens. For example, though gay, lesbian, and bisexual servicemembers can now serve openly, the Defense of Marriage Act still prevents them and their families from receiving the same protections and benefits as their straight military brethren.

…In addition, the military still does not allow transgender individuals to serve openly, deeming them “disordered.” Given the American Psychiatric Association is declassifying trans identities as a disorder in the coming year, this could be an important opportunity to advocate for change within the military.

CASH INCENTIVES FOR CORRECTIONS FACILITIES’ PERFORMANCE

A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice takes a look at a new concept to help reduce prison recidivism called Performance Incentive Funding programs or (PIF)s. These PIFs provide funding incentives to local jurisdictions—in other words, cities and counties—to persuade them to provide services that keep men and women from going back to prison. The fewer inmates that return from any given county, the larger their PIF reward.

As it stands now, perversely, local jurisdictions have fiscal and political incentives to allow parolees to return to the state’s care, rather than the reverse. Vera charts how this new system can benefit public safety, both state and local budgets, and the actual human beings who would have otherwise been caught in the revolving prison door cycle.

Here are some clips from the Vera report:

America’s tough-on-crime sentencing policies are often cited as the primary reason the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Yet there is another contributing factor that is often overlooked: a structural flaw in the way most states fund their criminal justice systems that discourages local decision makers from supervising offenders in the community and makes it easier to send them to prison.

It is the state corrections agency that bears the cost of incarcerating people in prison. However, both the decision to send an offender to prison and the cost of keeping an offender in the community almost always rest with a different state agency or a local jurisdiction. This is true for either a new conviction or a revocation from probation or parole. In the eyes of local decision makers and in cases involving low-level offenders, sending someone to prison is all too often the preferred option because it saves the actual expense of supervision and avoids the political cost should an offender commit a serious crime while in the community.

[SNIP]

PIF programs are premised on the idea that if the supervision agency or locality sends fewer low-level offenders to prison—thereby causing the state to incur fewer costs—some portion of the state savings should be shared with the agency or locality. With PIF, agencies or localities receive a financial reward for delivering fewer prison commitments through reduced recidivism and revocations that, in turn, must be reinvested into evidence-based programs in the community.

Here’s a clip from what the report has to say about the California PIF program:

In the first year of its PIF program, California experienced a 23-percent drop in prison commitments of felony probationers and a savings of almost $180 million. Nearly $88 million of the savings was distributed to county probation agencies to fund new or expanded supervision programs.

CA TO DROP SOME PAROLE VIOLATION WARRANTS

In an effort to combat the severe overcrowding in CA correctional facilities, next week, state corrections officials will consider releasing certain parole violators from state supervision.

The LA Times’ Paige St. John has the story. Here’s a clip:

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to begin a massive review next week of more than 9,200 outstanding warrants, starting with individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes and absconded from supervision. Over the next eight months, parole field offices across the state will be given lists of missing felons, 200 at a time, to review and determine if retaining them on parole “would not be in the interest of justice.”

The mass purge is an attempt to ease the burden on counties in July, when the state hands off responsibility for parole revocations to local courts, said agency spokesman Jeffrey Callison. Weeding out cases that are years old, or of parolees nobody is looking for, will make it easier to focus on those who pose a threat, he said.

“It will not,” Callison said, “allow some parolees to ‘get off the hook.’”

“I have been told that discharging people is not the point of the exercise,” he said Friday.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While this program is potentially a good idea, the key to its success is wise triage—aka looking clearly at parolees’ entire records to determine who should be relieved from these warrants, and who still needs close supervision. In other words, the guy who has no violent convictions anywhere in his (or her) past, but who fails to report to his parole officer because he knows he’s going to test dirty for weed, might not be the guy we need to lock up for another 6 to 10 months. There are more productive approaches.

Nor do we really need to lock up the guy who failed to report because his brother-in-law offered him a job in Riverside, after he could find nothing in South LA where he grew up. Then when he couldn’t get his parole transferred from LA County to Riverside, he stopped reporting. (We’ve seen multiple cases like the two we just describe. Most parole officers have seen a lot more.) However, if a PO thinks the guy on his caseload is truly a danger to public safety, so should be kept under supervision, it would likely behoove us to listen.

KIDS’ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT

Socioeconomic status plays a role in the development of certain parts of kids’ brains associated with memory, learning, and stress response, according to a Columbia University report.

Youth Today’s James Swift has the story. Here’s a clip:

According to the study, researchers observed a correlation between the education and income level of parents and the development of several areas of their children’s brains – in particular, the areas vital to stress reception, learning and memorization.

“Socioeconomic disparities in childhood are associated with remarkable differences in cognitive and socio-emotional development during a time when dramatic changes are occurring in the brain,” the report states.
Using a broad base of subjects, from families that lived at the poverty threshold to families that made more than $100,000 annually, researchers found that the hippocampi – the portion of the brain essential in memorization and learning functions – of children living with parents with higher incomes had a larger “volume” than those in subjects raised by parents with lower incomes. Similarly, researchers found that the amygdalae – the portion of the brain that processes stress – of children living with parents with more educational experiences had lower “volumes” than those in children raised by parents with less educational experiences.

The report, which is behind a pay wall, seems to focus on family income and parents’ education levels. The larger picture, however, points to the fact that children in poorer families with lower education levels are faced with more trauma than their more affluent counterparts.

In a phenomenal September episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass looks at, among other things, the relationship between brain development and education. About a third of the way through the show, Glass introduces SF pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris, who explains why early childhood trauma stunts cognitive growth. Here’s his introduction to Burke’s work:

It’s well-documented that poor children do worse on tests and worse in school than better-off ones. This is the so-called achievement gap.

What this new science seems to indicate is that what is holding these children back is not poverty. It’s not the lack of money or resources in their homes. It’s stress. If you grew up in a poor household, it is more likely to be a household the just stresses you out in ways that kids in better-off homes are not stressed out. And that stress prevents you from developing these non-cognitive skills.

Be sure to listen to the whole thing—it’s important and we’ll definitely be coming back to these issues.

PRETRIAL PROGRAMS WORK FOR SF

Pretrial release programs are seeing success in the Bay Area, with a reported 97% of San Francisco participants showing up to their court dates. Because of the developed pretrial programs, SF boasts jail populations far below capacity, unlike…you know…LA. Advocates say the release of qualified defendants awaiting trial would ease CA jail overcrowding, save taxpayer dollars, and allow nonviolent detainees to continue providing for their families while they wait.

The SF Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos has the story. Here’s a clip:

Advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union and some Democratic lawmakers, say the programs promote both public safety and justice by using scientific evaluations to help judges decide whether it is safe to release a defendant before they go to trial. The current bail system, they say, favors wealth and strands low-income people behind bars because they cannot afford bail amounts. They also argue that a defendant who gets out of jail is less likely to accept a plea deal and has a better chance of an acquittal or a shorter sentence if they go to trial.

Opponents, including the bail bond industry and some law enforcement and victims rights groups, say defendants pose a lesser flight risk when they have put up money for a bail bond and that pretrial programs pose a risk to public safety, because they do not focus on the crime a person is charged with.

Under the programs, nonviolent defendants who qualify for pretrial release are either freed on their own recognizance – that is, only a promise to appear, though often there are restrictions on their behavior – or placed on supervised release, which can range from mandated group therapy to probation-like check-ins or electronic monitoring.

In San Francisco, for example, someone placed on supervised release may have to go to an anger management group once a week until the case is adjudicated and will have a case manager checking in to make sure that person appears in court.

Supporters believe the programs help counties better manage overcrowded jails. Jail populations in some counties have increased since Gov. Jerry Brown’s realignment program started a year ago. Under the program, judges sentence some offenders to jails who in the past would have gone to state prisons.

But while some counties have overcrowded jails, San Francisco has been able to keep its jail population well below capacity for years, officials say, in part because of its 15-year-old pretrial release program.

“Last year, we released about 1,300 (pretrial defendants). … Our cases are predicated on public safety, and by and large, our folks are indigent,” said Will Leong, director of the city’s Pretrial Diversion Project, who said that as many as 97 percent of participants show up for their court date. “If they could afford to bail out, they do so before we can get to them.”

PRISON MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS’ SALARY CONTROVERSY

A 2001 class-action lawsuit (Plata v. Schwarzenegger) against the State of California over the ghastly quality of medical care in the state’s 33 prisons resulted in California’s prison health care system being handed over to a federal receiver in 2005 after the court found that things were SO bad that they violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (cruel and unusual punishment). But nothing is ever simple. And so it appears one of the unintended consequences was that the receiver’s unchecked power to set medical staff’s pay grades and make hiring decisions seems have sent him off the rails. The average salary of CA prison doctors last year was nearly $379,000, with the highest salary paid to a Salinas psychiatrist to the tune of over $800,000.

ABC News has the AP story. Here’s how it opens:

A doctor at California Medical Facility was paid more than $410,000 last year, while a registered nurse at High Desert State Prison made nearly $236,000 — more than twice the statewide average in both cases.

A pharmacist at Corcoran State Prison was paid more than $196,000, nearly double what is typical across the state.

Compensation for medical providers has soared in the prison system since a federal judge seized control of inmate health care in 2006 and appointed an overseer with the power to hire and set pay levels.

As the official begins to wind down his oversight, the medical hiring and salary increases have helped lead to an improvement in inmate care, but it has increased the bill for taxpayers too.

It has also led to criticism that the official — called a receiver — provided a “Cadillac” level of care for convicted felons. A state review found that only Texas pays its state prison doctors more that California.

“The problem that we had is that the receiver was not accountable to anybody,” said former state Sen. George Runner, a Republican who has frequently criticized the program.

“So the receiver could just do or choose to spend whatever amount of money he thought was necessary to solve his problem, and unfortunately now the state is stuck with that,” he said.

The receiver for medical care, J. Clark Kelso, said the state has been free to collectively bargain health care providers’ salaries since a court order increasing their wages expired three years ago.

The receiver’s goal was to correct a prison medical system that was ruled unconstitutional for its substandard care and, at one point, contributed to an inmate death each week through negligence or malfeasance.

To do that, the receivership increased salaries, created new positions at high pay and hired hundreds of employees to fill longtime vacancies.

Total spending on medical, dental and mental health care for inmates, numbering 124,700, has more than doubled over the last decade, from $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2003-04 to a projected $2.3 billion this year.

Yes, the governor signed the bill at the last possible minute. (Today was the cutoff.) But sign it, he did. We are grateful.

Rather than ramble on about the importance of SB9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, yet again, I’ve reprinted in its entirety, the statement from the office of bill’s sponsor, Senator Leeland Yee.

And, for those of you who are going to start shrieking about social justice advocates caring only about “criminals” and not about the victims, here’s the deal:

Fortunately for all of us, the application of compassion and simply decency to a situation isn’t a zero sum game. It’s not an either/or proposition. Thankfully, toughness and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Okay, enough said. I’m climbing off my soapbox. Here’s the story:

Today, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senator Leland Yee’s Senate Bill 9 – the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act – which will give youth serving life without parole an opportunity to earn a second chance.

Approximately 300 youth offenders have been sentenced to die in California’s prisons for crimes committed when they were teenagers. SB 9 will give some youth sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) a chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison.

“I commend Governor Brown for having the courage, understanding, and leadership to sign SB 9,” said Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), who is a child psychologist. “The Governor’s signature of SB 9 is emotional for both the supporters and the opposition, but I am proud that today California said we believe all kids, even those we had given up on in the past, are deserving of a second chance.”

The United States is the only country in the world where people who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crime serve sentences of life without parole.

Under Senate Bill 9, courts could review cases of juveniles sentenced to life without parole after 15 years, potentially allowing some individuals to receive a new minimum sentence of 25 years to life. The bill would require the offender to show remorse and be working towards rehabilitation in order to submit a petition for consideration of the new sentence.

“SB 9 is not a get-out-of-jail-free card; it is an incredibly modest proposal that respects victims, international law, and the fact that children have a greater capacity for rehabilitation than adults,” said Yee. “The neuroscience is clear – brain maturation continues well through adolescence and thus impulse control, planning, and critical thinking skills are not yet fully developed. SB 9 reflects that science and provides the opportunity for compassion and rehabilitation that we should exercise with minors.”

“SB 9 becoming law speaks volumes for who we are as a society – that we value our children,” said Yee.

Supporters of SB 9 included child advocates, mental health experts, medical organizations, faith communities, and civil rights groups. In recent weeks, SB 9 also gained high level support from the Democratic Leader of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, as well as a number of law enforcement leaders including San Francisco’s police chief, sheriff, and district attorney.

“In California, a sentence of life without parole is a sentence to die in prison,” said Elizabeth Calvin, children’s rights advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Teenagers are still developing. No one – not a judge, a psychologist, or a doctor – can look at a sixteen year old and be sure how that young person will turn out as an adult. It makes sense to re-examine these cases when the individual has grown up and becomes an adult. There’s no question that we can keep the public safe without locking youth up forever for crimes committed when they were still considered too young to have the judgment to vote or drive.”

In California, prosecutors and judges have some discretion on whether to pursue LWOP for juveniles. However, several cases call such discretion into question.

One such case involves Christian Bracamontes, who was 16 and had never before been in trouble with the law. One day when Christian’s friend said, “Hey do you want to rob this guy?” Christian replied in what can only be described as a quintessential adolescent response, “I don’t care.” When the victim refused to comply with his friend’s demand, Christian said he thought the bluff was called, and he remembered turning away and bending down to pick up his bike and leave, when he heard a gunshot.

The prosecutor offered a lower sentence, but in Christian’s teenage mind he could not see how he would be responsible for the other person’s actions and he turned down that deal. The DA was quoted in the newspaper as saying, “It’s hard for teenagers to understand concepts like aiding and abetting.” Christian was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A report published by Human Rights Watch found that in many cases where juveniles were prosecuted with an adult for the same offense, the youth received heavier sentences than their adult codefendants.

Despite popular belief to the contrary, Human Rights Watch found that life without parole is not reserved for children who commit the worst crimes or who show signs of being irredeemable criminals. Nationally, it is estimated that 59% of youth sentenced to life without parole had no prior criminal convictions. Forty-five percent of California youth sentenced to life without parole for involvement in a murder did not actually kill the victim. Many were convicted of felony murder, or for aiding and abetting the murder, because they acted as lookouts or were participating in another felony, such as a robbery, when the murder took place.

One prosecutor who has publically supported Yee’s bill, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said, “I recognize the ability of young people to reform their behavior and be rehabilitated as they mature. SB 9 holds youth responsible for their actions. It creates a rigorous system of checks and balances, and provides a limited chance for young offenders to prove they have changed – both to a judge and to a parole board.”

California also has the worst record in the nation for racial disparity in the imposition of life without parole for juveniles. African American youth are serving the sentence at a rate that is eighteen times higher than the rate for white youth, and the rate for Latino youth is five times higher.

Each new youth offender given this sentence will cost the state upwards of $2.5 million. To continue incarcerating the current population of youth offenders already sentenced to life without parole until their deaths in prison will cost the state close to $700 million.

BROWN SAYS AB1270, THE PRESS ACCESS TO PRISONS BILL, WOULD GIVE CELEBRITY STATUS TO CRIMINALS

In vetoing AB1279, the sunshine law that would have allowed greater press access to Californi’s state prisons, Jerry Brown used the same rationale that a list of previous governors have used in axing similar bills.

They say that if reporters are allowed to request interviews with specific prisoners, this inevitably means that high profile bad guys like Charlie Manson will quickly become media stars.

It is a rationale that has perplexed most of the journalists who would be those actually going into the prisons to report had the governor signed the bill on Sunday. The last thing most of us would wish to do is to rush to interview the Charlie Mansons of the world.

Regrettably, however, there is a small group of reporters who would.

In any case, it’s back to the drawing board on the necessary concept of bringing more light and thus more accountability to California’s prisons

LA SUPERVISORS DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF CAMP KILPATRICK’S SPORTS PROGRAM

There are concerns that Camp Kilpatrick, an aging LA County juvenile probation camp scheduled to undergo a $41M renovation, will not resume its well-known sports program once the facility is rebuilt. Kilpatrick is the only juvie detention facility that has a sports program for the kids. (You can read WitnessLA’s previous post on Kilpatrick here.) The issue was discussed Tuesday during the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Zev Yaroslavsky, who coauthored a motion with Mark Ridley-Thomas, urged the board to proceed with a motion that would have Probation Chief Jerry Powers commission a study gauging the benefits of sports programs for incarcerated youth. (Apparently there are few, if any, studies on the ability of inter-mural sports programs to lower recidivism in incarcerated kids.) All members seemed to agree that the sports program should resume once Kilpatrick reopens. Ridley-Thomas had this to say:

“The sports program at Camp Kilpatrick has already been widely acknowledged… The work that is happening at Camp Kilpatrick to make it a better environment is essentially the principle cause for the temporary—and I want to underscore ‘temporary’—termination of the sports program there… I think it’s fair to suggest that there is no intention on the part of this board to terminate the sports program…”

Sup. Knabe suggested looking at another evaluation of a different program that the Supervisors had previously ordered up a couple of years ago, this one of the outcomes for probationers who, after they were released, went through a program at Homeboy industries. “…If I could make a friendly amendment to include that comparison,” he said.

The question seems to be whether or not a study is necessary to include sports programs in the “evidence-based” treatment programs that the DOJ requires. (We at WitnessLA think that including money for program evaluation in funding is a good thing! These studies and evaluations allow us to see what works, what doesn’t, and give us an idea of what might work better.)

Here’s a clip from Yaroslavsky and Ridley-Thomas’ motion:

The County Probation Department is under ongoing U.S. Department of Justice scrutiny of the facilities and programming it provides for its young wards. The U.S. DOJ requires that the county offer “evidence-based integrated treatment programs.” While such activities as group therapy sessions and mental health counseling have been proven through rigorous study to help the plight of these teenagers and reduce recidivism, intermural sports programs have not been similarly studied. There is apparently no “evidence” to show that participation in team sports can play a positive role in rehabilitating these young people.

Recent history, however, suggests otherwise. The 2006 film “Gridiron Gang” portrayed real-life Camp Kilpatrick wards learning to play football and win together despite coming from rival gangs. In 2010, the Camp Kilpatrick basketball team made the state play-offs, failed to advance to the championship game but nonetheless won its league Sportsmanship Award. In 2011, a team from neighboring Camp David Gonzalez competed successfully in an intermural contest to design, build and race a solar-powered boat. While these small triumphs may not speak to long-term therapeutic advancement or reductions in recidivism, they do seem to provide concrete “evidence” of pro-social behavior among these troubled youth.

Also, if you feel so inclined, you can read Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting transcript here.

GOP PLATFORM CALLS FOR BETTER REHABILITATION STRATEGIES…AMONG OTHER THINGS

While the newly adopted Republican platform supports capital punishment, the Defense of Marriage Act, and Arizona’s immigration laws, it also called for better inmate rehabilitation and recidivism reduction strategies—which is one thing that both parties can agree upon.

The Crime Report’s Ted Gest has the story. Here’s a clip:

The platform endorsed “new approaches, often called accountability courts,” and said, “government at all levels should work with faithbased institutions that have proven track records in diverting young and first time, non-violent offenders from criminal careers.” Republicans back state and local initiatives “trying new approaches to curbing drug abuse and diverting firsttime offenders to rehabilitation.” The platform assailed federal “overcriminalization,” noting that the number of U.S. criminal offenses has jumped from 3,000 in the early 1980s to 4,450 in 2008. It says Congress “should withdraw from federal departments and agencies the power to criminalize behavior, a practice which, according to the Congressional Research Service, has created tens of thousands of criminal offenses.”

You can access the complete GOP platform here.

NY PRISONS USE NEW VIDEO VISITATION FOR INMATES

New York prisons are implementing a new video conference visitation system for those prisoners who are locked up in facilities far away from their families. This would be great to see instituted in CA, where most prisons are in remote locations, making visits for working family members and kids extremely difficult.

The New York Daily News’ Oren Yaniv has the story. Here’s how it opens:

Tayshona McDuffie used to meet her inmate mother only twice a year after making a grueling, 400-mile journey to a prison near the Canadian border.

These days, the daughter gets to see her mom twice each month while sitting in a videoconference room in downtown Brooklyn.

“It improves our relationship,” said McDuffie, 19, whose mother is nearing the end of a 12-year sentence for an assault conviction. “I look forward to it every month.”

The fledging program of prison visits via closed-circuit TV — the first one in the state — is set to more than quadruple in size this fall, the Daily News has learned.

“The research shows that people will do better when they’re released if they stay connected with their families,” said Elizabeth Gaynes, executive director of the Osborne Association, a nonprofit that has been conducting the meetings known as televisits for the past two years.

WOLF-DOGS PATROL LOUISIANA PRISON IN LIEU OF HUMAN GUARDS

Amid hefty budget (and personnel) cuts, Angola Prison has employed 80 wolf-dogs to patrol parts of the facility at night. (We at WitnessLA are in favor of full employment for wolf-dogs, as illustrated by the photo above.)

The Wall Street Journal’s Gary Fields has the story. Here’s a clip:

The wolf dogs, as they are called here, are the brainchild of Warden Burl Cain and his staff, and they were brought in last year in response to a steady decline in the prison’s annual budget from $135 million five years ago to $115 million today. The prison, which is known as Angola, has laid off 105 out of 1,200 officers, and 35 of the 42 guard towers now stand empty on the 18,000-acre prison grounds.

The animals regularly guard at least three of the seven camps that make up the complex.

Mr. Cain says the wolf dogs are a strong psychological deterrent. “The wolf ate Grandma,” he said.

They also save money. The average correctional officer at Angola earns about $34,000 a year, a prison spokesman said. By comparison, the canine program, which includes about 80 dogs—the wolf hybrids along with other breeds for other tasks— costs about $60,000 annually for medical care, supplies and food.

GOLDMAN SACHS TO INVEST ALMOST $10M IN NYC JAIL PROGRAM TO REDUCE RECIDIVISM RATE

Leviathan investment banking firm, Goldman Sachs, is investing $9.6M in Adolescent Behavioral Learning Experience a program aimed at reducing the recidivism rate of male youth at Rikers Island. Goldman use of the new “social impact bonds” means the company will only break even if the recidivism at Rikers drops by 10% at the end of the four-year program. Critics worry that the program will give an incentive for people to cook the stats.

The NY Times’ David W. Chen has the story. Here’s a clip:

The city will be the first in the United States to test “social impact bonds,” also called pay-for-success bonds, which are an effort to find new ways to finance initiatives that might save governments money over the long term.

First used in Britain and now being explored in Australia, the bonds are rapidly capturing the imagination of some public officials in the United States: on Wednesday, Massachusetts announced that it was completing negotiations with two nonprofit groups to finance juvenile justice and homelessness programs, with the promise of repayment only if the programs work.

The federal government, Connecticut, New York State and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, among others, are at various stages of considering using the bonds to harness new funds for human-services programs.

In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday that Goldman Sachs will provide a $9.6 million loan to pay for a new four-year program intended to reduce the rate at which adolescent men incarcerated at Rikers Island reoffend after their release.

The money is not a huge amount for Goldman, which last month reported over $900 million in second-quarter profit, and the investment promises a public-relations benefit for the Wall Street bank. For the city, the money allows the Bloomberg administration to demonstrate, and test, several of its priorities: enlisting private sector help in financing public needs, and tying program money to rigorous outcome evaluations.

The Goldman money will be used to pay MDRC, a social services provider, to design and oversee the program. If the program reduces recidivism by 10 percent, Goldman would be repaid the full $9.6 million; if recidivism drops more, Goldman could make as much as $2.1 million in profit; if recidivism does not drop by at least 10 percent, Goldman would lose as much as $2.4 million.

Check out Mayor Bloomberg’s press release and briefing to learn more about Social Impact Bonds and ABLE.

“UNINTERRUPTED SCHOLARS ACT” TO ALLOW FOSTER CARE AGENCIES ACCESS TO STUDENT RECORDS

The Uninterrupted Scholars Act, a new bill introduced Wednesday by Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, aims to give social workers access to the school records of kids in foster care. The bill addresses a snag in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that makes it hard for those acting as guardians of foster kids to access school records. (WitnessLA has previously posted about a similar bill—the A+ Act.)

Foster care journalist/advocate Daniel Heimpel has the story in his publication, The Chronicle of Social Change. Here’s a clip:

Yesterday, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) introduced the Uninterrupted Scholars Act, which would amend educational privacy law to allow foster care administrations’ access to student records. The bill was co-sponsored by Charles Grassley (R-Iowa.), Mark Begich (D-Ala.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects students’ records from most parties other than parents or schools. A broad array of advocacy and other groups from around the country have long argued that an unintended consequence of FERPA is that foster care social workers, administrators and even foster parents have a hard time accessing educational records, which are critical to assisting children successfully navigate school.

“There are some real horror stories from the field that we have heard about how this is really impeding our ability to help nurture and love these children and get them to a safer place,” Landrieu said in an interview.