CA SENATE DECIDES WED. JUVIE LWOP CASES SHOULD BE GIVEN A CHANCE AT RESENTENCING.
Progress! Patrick McGreevy of the LA Times has the story:
A sharply divided state Senate on Wednesday approved giving minors who are sentenced to life in prison without parole a chance to get out.
The bill by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) would allow those under 18 to have their cases reviewed by the courts after 15 years with the possibility of having their sentences changed to eventually allow parole. Yee said the United States is unique in allowing minors to be sentenced to life without parole.
“These youngsters did in fact commit a rather horrible crime,’’ Yee told his colleagues. But he said young people are more prone to impulsive acts and have a better chance of rehabilitation. “This bill is about giving kids a second chance,” Yee said.
Onward to the the state assembly!
FORGET SCHOOL VOUCHERS, WHAT ABOUT PRISON VOUCHERS?
Alexander Volkh has written a provocative paper for the Penn Law Review about the idea of prison vouchers. “School vouchers,” he writes, “have been proposed as a way to bypass the political pathologies of school reform and improve school quality by transforming students and parents into consumers. What if we did the same for prisons – what if convicted criminals could choose their prison rather than being assigned bureaucratically?
“Under a voucher system, prisons would compete for prisoners, meaning that they will adopt policies valued by prisoners….”
Volkh is serializing the article on his blog in two parts here and here.
And here’s a larger clip:
We should care about prison quality even if we don’t care about prisoners: Bad prison conditions often indirectly hurt the rest of us too. Brutal conditions, as well as excessive use of high-security segregation, make prisoners less useful members of society and more likely to reoffend. The low level of educational, vocational, or rehabilitative programs also contributes to recidivism. And communicable diseases can spill over into the outside world when infected inmates are released. “Every year, more than 1.5 million people are released from jail and prison carrying a life-threatening contagious disease.” The risk in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in New York in the 1980s and early 1990s may have been linked to poor medical treatment in prisons and jails.
There are thus clear opportunities for gains from prison vouchers—not just to prisoners but also to society at large—as competing prisons seek to attract prisoners by offering better security, medical care, and vocational programs.
I can see some obvious problems with this plan. (Plus certain labor unions I could mention will hate the idea.) Yet the notion is intriguing.
U.S. ATTORNEY BIROTTE TALKS ABOUT BALANCING SAFETY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
The issues of public safety and civil liberties should not, and must not, be mutually exclusive. Most of us know this in theory but when there are threats to public safety sometimes government agencies in general and law enforcement in particular, can forget about that essential balance between the two.
For this reason it was especially refreshing to read this weekend’s Op Ed in the Daily News about the the necessity of safeguarding civil liberties, written by U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte.
The Op Ed is smart and thoughtful, yet what is the most notable about it is that Birotte decided to declare his intentions publicly, thus implicitly telling us that we may hold him to this better standard.—which can a very good thing.
Here’s how it opens:
The upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was on the minds of many at last month’s International Counter-Terrorism Conference in Los Angeles where national security experts gathered to compare strategies.
Since 9-11, we have learned that terrorists can strike anywhere, anytime, and without warning. To meet this asymmetrical threat, we have studied terrorist organizations and their tactics, and developed strategies for combating them. The counter-terrorism conference reflected this work, addressing topics such as recruitment and radicalization, counter-insurgency strategies and the emerging threats to the Internet, collectively known as “e-terrorism.”
One workshop at the conference was of special interest to me: “Civil Liberties in Post 9-11 America.” This workshop was a powerful reminder that, even as we affirm our resolve to use all our tools to stop violent extremists who plot against us – as demonstrated by the Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that led to the death of 0sama bin Laden – we must also acknowledge the vital importance that civil liberties play in our society.
As United States attorney for the Central District of California, I am tasked with both combating terrorism and protecting civil rights – responsibilities I view as complementary, not conflicting…..