Court of Appeals Nixes Medical Pot Use While On Probation

the Denver Post

Defendants on probation in Colorado may not use medical marijuana even if they have a medical marijuana identification card authorizing them to do so, the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled.
The court overturned 18th Judicial District Judge Carlos Samour's decision to allow Leonard Charles Watkins, who was sentenced to six years probation for felony sexual exploitation of a child, to use medical marijuana.
Senior Deputy District Attorney David C. Jones of the 18th Judicial District appealed Samour's decision.
"We conclude that the trial court erred in approving such use by defendant," wrote appeals court Judge Robert Kapelke.
The appeals court found that Colorado's Medical Use of Marijuana Amendment does not permit a court to exempt a probationer from complying with federal law, which outlaws possession and use of marijuana.
"Does the statutorily mandated condition of probation requiring a probationer not to 'commit another offense' while on probation include commission of offenses under federal law?" the court's opinion reads. "We conclude that it does."
The case will be sent back to Samour's court to revise Watkins' terms of probation.

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DOC January 2012 Monthly Population Reports

Cuts to ex-cons' job program cost them and us

The Denver Post

Ron Sena still hasn't found a job. He's the ex-con who worked for more than a decade, but was laid off and so learned no matter how long he'd been out, his felony record still hangs over his head.
The column triggered an avalanche of calls and letters from ex-cons in similar situations. One reader, still behind bars, writes to answer Sena's question. "When is the debt to society repaid?
"NEVER."
It also brings a call from Steven Saiz, projects coordinator for The Empowerment Program's prisoner re-entry program. The nonprofit also has been the agency that distributes federal grant money to other local prisoner re-entry programs.
Come to our meeting, Saiz says, and so, last week I ended up in a room full of people who work with those freshly out of prison. They saw the storm building long ago.
It looks like this: Every month, Colorado's prisons release about 900 inmates on parole. From month to month, another 2,800 inmates are living in halfway houses where they must pay rent and find work to pay that rent.
These two groups jump into the job pool to compete with the thousands of unemployed people who don't have a rap sheet. You know who gets hired. Federal Department of Labor money that helped ex-offenders with job training and work support is disappearing. So, too, is Department of Corrections money for vocational ed and GED classes — the classes that help an inmate find work once released.
"Our education department took a $33 million cut last year," says Katherine Sanguinetti, Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman. "Right now, we're trying to recruit volunteers to teach."
Put that all together and there's your storm.
Sympathy is not required. The economic argument wins here. A working ex-con is an ex-con less likely to commit another crime is an ex-con paying taxes instead of costing us ours.
"In the past six years, we served close to 900 people, and 86 percent found work," Saiz tells me. "Only about 10 percent ended up going back to jail. It costs about $33,000 a year to incarcerate someone, so what's that save?"
At least $25 million.
You might think last week's meeting would be heavy on despair. It was not. Nor did it consist of wishful thinking for government funding. It was a full-bore brainstorming session among people who understand, as Garrett Coulter, co-chair of Denver's Road Home Employment subcommittee, put it: "We have to think completely out of the box. It's either do that or die." (If you're wondering why someone representing the homeless is at the table, it's because ex-offenders are or are in danger of becoming homeless.)
The people at the meeting also see what the public does not: They have been the bunker in the storm. "Without us keeping (ex-cons) from being reincarcerated, the community would go to hell in a handbasket," said William Cash , career development coordinator for the Community Reentry Project.
The discussion centered on better education of and outreach to employers about advantages, such as tax credits, in hiring ex-cons. But much was said about greater collaboration and entrepreneurship and enterprises that might look something like Bud's Warehouse.
The home-improvement thrift store sits adjacent to Interstate 70 just east of Colorado Boulevard. I'd never been before, but I'll be going back because unbelievable deals are to be had on new sinks, doors, windows, lighting, cabinetry, appliances. All of the inventory is donated and most of it is new. Most of the staff live in halfway houses. They work at the warehouse, run by the nonprofit Belay Enterprises, for six months, earning $8 to $10 an hour. More than 80 percent of those who stay for six months find other work. Bud's has spun off several viable businesses, including Good Neighbor's Garage and Baby Bud's/Freedom Cleaning Company
But it can't offer near enough jobs to meet demand.
"It's heartbreaking, really," says Jim Reiner, executive director of Belay Enterprises. "The No. 1 factor that determines whether ex-offenders will go back to jail is whether they have a job. Many employers aren't willing to be a felon's first employer, but they are willing to be the second. So, we're the first."
I'll leave you with Patrick Stewart, an ex-con working at New Beginnings, Bud's custom woodworking shop. Stewart is 33 and has been out nine years. He'd never built anything before, he tells me. Now he's making beautiful cabinets and wine racks. He's gone from prison to welfare to work. "At one point in my life, I was just empty flesh walking around," he tells me. "Now, I have confidence. Now, I actually have hope."
Creative thinking is required. The money is drying up. Saiz's prisoner re-entry program is being shuttered. His last day of work is Feb. 29.

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Young Inmate Dies Of Treatable Condition

The Denver Post
Inmate Terrell Griswold's inability to urinate was never treated and ultimately led to his death, a medical investigator says.
"I feel very strongly that if they treated this he'd still be alive today," said Shawn Parcells, a medical investigator and forensic pathologist assistant from Kansas City who was hired by Griswold's mother to review circumstances leading to his death.
Griswold, 26, was serving a three-year sentence for theft at Bent County Correctional Facility. He was found slumped over a toilet 12 hours after a nurse said he looked fine on Oct. 28, 2010, said Griswold's mother Lagalia Afola, of Kansas City.
"This is so rare," Afola said. "For a young man to die of a urinary blockage is unheard of. My son should not be dead."
The prison is run by a private company Corrections Corporation of America.
"We take the medical care of inmates in our custody seriously," CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in a written response. He could not comment about Griswold's case because of confidentiality issues, he said. "But we do refer you to the cause of death in the public record."
The El Paso County coroner's office determined that the cause of death was cardiac hypertrophy, hypertension, obstructive uropathy and hereditary cardiac hypertrophy.
The coroner, Dr. Robert C. Bux, characterized Griswold's urinary condition as a secondary cause of death to hypertension and an enlarged heart. However, he added that the blockage could have caused hypertension and contributed to an enlarged heart.
Parcells said he believes Griswold's cause of death should have been listed as "complications of obstructive uropathy."
A nodule on Griswold's prostatic urethra accounted for his urine retention and severe kidney problems, Parcells wrote. It also caused high blood pressure. He had been seen repeatedly by medical staff at the prison for recurring bladder-related symptoms including abdominal pain and an inability to urinate. He received medicines that didn't address his condition and never got a thorough examination by a urologist, he said.
"In the end, his body was not able to adjust to the increasing amounts of waste products in his system and the heart had increasing loads of 'fluid retention' it had to deal with," he wrote. "Terrell was in metabolic disarray and an imbalance of electrolytes. This would explain the sudden death..."
Afola said her son played basketball nearly every day. She said on the last week of his life he was sleeping a lot and complaining of intense abdominal pain.
DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti said Griswold came to the prison with a long history of neurological and urological issues. She said the state will conduct a mortality review of the case.

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Solitary confinement reform is welcome sign of progress | solitary, prison, confinement - GUEST COLUMN - Colorado Springs Gazette, CO

Solitary confinement reform is welcome sign of progress | solitary, prison, confinement - GUEST COLUMN - Colorado Springs Gazette, CO

DENISE MAES

GUEST COLUMNIST

This month, the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) announced that it would begin transitioning more than 300 inmates out of administrative segregation, commonly known as solitary confinement, and send them back to locations within the general prison population.

It might not sound like earthshaking news. But as we reflect on this decision to move toward a safer, less costly and more humane state prison system, it is important to note that every person in Colorado has a stake in this.

In this country, we believe that if someone is punished for a crime, they should have a clear picture of what their punishment will look like — especially of when it will end. In Colorado, however, hundreds of inmates have languished in solitary confinement for years at a time, with no clear path out, even when they have fully complied with all the rules and regulations of the institution.

There have long been cries for reform. Last year, State Senator Morgan Carroll introduced legislation to fundamentally change solitary confinement practices, calling for policy that would reaffirm our core values, effectively prioritize scarce law enforcement resources, and protect the safety of our communities. Carroll’s Senate Bill 176 was scaled back to allow the CDOC to audit its own practices and determine the best course of action. The result is the announcement of reducing solitary numbers made by CDOC Director Tom Clements.

Despite the depiction in the movies that solitary confinement is reserved for the worst of the worst, the independent audit found that most of those in solitary confinement in Colorado are not disruptive and have been in good standing with prison rules for a long time. In fact, the average length of stay in solitary confinement is not the 30 days that you see on TV, but instead two years or more. The independent consultants recommended a more transparent system that would allow an inmate to return to the general population in no more than nine months, if they are in compliance with all the rules.

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/solitary-132524-prison-confinement.html#ixzz1kqvojq00

The State Of Sentencing

Sentencing Project
he Bureau of Justice Statistics recently reported the number of people in
prison declined in 2010 for the first time since 1972; state and federal prison
populations fell by more than 9,200 between 2009 and 2010, a decline of
0.6%. Currently, more than 7.1 million men and women are under some form of
correctional supervision. The majority of persons – 4.8 million – under criminal
justice supervision are in the community on probation or parole, while 2.2 million
are incarcerated in prison or jail. The United States continues to maintain the
highest rate of incarceration in the world at 731 per 100,000 population.
Reductions in the scale of incarceration are the result of declining crime rates and a
mix of legislative and administrative policies that vary by state. Lower demand for
correctional capacity resulted in at least 13 states closing prison institutions or
contemplating doing so during the past year. One salient reason for prison closures
is the reduction in state revenues caused by the recession. According to a report by
the National Governors Association, at least 40 states made cuts to correctional
expenditures between 2009 and 2010 by reducing labor costs, eliminating prison
programs, and making food-service changes. Additionally, states have increasingly
focused on finding ways to downscale prisons.

Care for Aging Inmates Puts Strain on Prisons

Wall Street Journal
Prison systems in the U.S. have an aging problem, one that has nothing to do with steel bars and cement walls.
The fastest-growing population in federal and state prisons are those 55 and older, a trend that is forcing cash-strapped local governments to wrestle with the growing cost of caring for the aging inmates. Some experts are pushing states to take the controversial step of releasing certain older prisoners before their sentences are up.
According to a study being released Friday by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, the number of state and federal prisoners 55 or over nearly quadrupled to 124,400 between 1995 and 2010, while the prison population as a whole grew by only 42%.

Human Rights Watch

A 69-year-old inmate at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility.

Some legal experts cite the drug wars of the 1980s and 1990s, which sent away thousands of young men to decades-long prison sentences. In addition, tougher sentencing laws, including the abolition of parole in many states and the advent of three-strikes-you're-out laws in others, have fueled the growth in the overall prison population.
"Prisons are facing a silver tsunami," said Jamie Fellner, the author of the Human Rights Watch study. "Walk through any prison and you'll see a a surprising number of wheelchairs and walkers and portable-oxygen tanks."
At current rates, a third of all prisoners will be 50 or older by 2030, according to a study to be released next month by the American Civil Liberties Union.
"It's a simple calculation—during the last 30 years, more people went to prison for longer periods of time," said Martin Horn, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the former commissioner of New York City's Department of Correction. "Those people are getting older now."
All prisoners are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution adequate health care and the basic necessities of life. But according to some prison-system experts, prisons aren't equipped to handle many of the most predictable woes that come with aging, like problems with seeing, hearing and moving around, and age-related illnesses. Basic activities, like washing or climbing out of a narrow bunk bed, become difficult, if not impossible, they say.
"Heart problems, diabetes, cognitive impairment and end-stage liver disease from hepatitis or cirrhosis, these are becoming increasingly common problems in our nation's prisons," said Robert Greifinger, a former chief medical officer for the New York City department of correction.
Several states have established medical facilities on or near prison grounds to treat problems most closely associated with aging. In 2006, for instance, New York opened a facility that specializes in treating inmates with dementia. Prisons in Mississippi, Texas and California have centers that offer specialized treatment for geriatric medical problems.

GED's in jail: A Way to Be A Better Person

Anthony Harvey dropped out of eighth grade and went on to become an established small-business owner in Fort Collins.
But it wasn't until he was charged with running one of Northern Colorado's largest cocaine-trafficking operations that he got his GED, or General Educational Development, diploma.
"The rug's been pulled out from under my feet," said Harvey, 35, of Fort Collins, adding that he "finally" had the time for the test.
Harvey was one of 55 Larimer County Jail inmates in 2011 to receive a GED certificate, taking the high school equivalency exam while behind bars. Hundreds of inmates receive tutoring for the test each year, but many leave the shorter-term facility before they take it.
Harvey was arrested Sept. 30. Less than a month later, he had his diploma.

'A step higher'

Inmates arrive at the jail with a variety of educational backgrounds. Some are ready for the test in a few weeks, and others take four to five months, said Vicky Connell, programs manager with the Larimer County Sheriff's Office.
"We are a GED-testing site, and I believe we were the first facility in the state of Colorado to become a testing site," she said, adding that all materials are provided, tutors volunteer to help and test results are immediate.
The jail has graduated more than 1,300 inmates since it began offering the GED program in 1986.
About 10 to 15 inmates have requested to take the test in February, because it is one of several programs intended to help people from myriad backgrounds leave jail better prepared to be productive and law-abiding.