Western Slope Loses Defender of the Poor

Greg Greer is all about defense.

He defends people accused of crimes who can't afford attorneys. He has helped coach the defense for Glenwood Springs High School's football team.

He's leaving the position of chief public defender for the Glenwood Springs region after 20 years in the office, but will still be a defender.

"I think in addition to being a good trial lawyer and wonderful friend, he is one of the strongest lawyers our system has ever had," said Ann Aber, training director for Colorado's public defenders. She's known Greer for 17 years.

"I really feel like poor people in Colorado are losing one of their most tireless champions," Aber said.

Today was planned to be his last day as public defender. He's starting a solo private practice, Greer Law Firm PC, in which he'll continue his 25-year dedication to criminal defense work. Greer said the State Public Defender's Office is bringing on someone new to replace him but he didn't want to say too much about it.

Some people say it's demanding, working in a public defender's office and handling 80 to 100 open cases at any time. Greer calls it a luxury.

"As a public defender, you can dedicate yourself solely to the practice of law," he said. Public defenders get lots of serious felony trial experience and can focus on developing their criminal defense strategies, he added.

"The government is dangerous and someone needs to be that check," he said. "It's just exposure to the need to protect people against the extraordinary power of police and prosecution," he said.

But he said he's eligible for retirement at 50, after 20 years at the Glenwood office, and he wanted a change.

"I'm looking forward to giving the kind of detailed attention that private practice will allow," Greer said.

Glenwood Springs Independent

Watching the Detectives - NJ

I found this post on Governing Through Crime which explains how the murder rate in NJ is going up even though the city adopted the "broken windows" community policing.

Two recent stories in the NYT spotlight different strategic innovations that are very common today in American policing. Both raise concerns about the futility of creating more secure and prosperous cities by continuing to govern them through crime. They also raise concerns about the ways race and racism are at work whenever we govern through crime.

In several fascinating articles and video reports in the Regional section of the Times, Andrew Jacobs has reported on a multi-night mini-ethnography he did with Newark police officers in some of the sections of that beleaguered city. (Newark Battles Murder and Its Accomplice, Silence). The very title of Jacob's story represents how powerful the pull of crime is on his imagination after a few nights with the police in Newark (metaphors of war and of criminal law intertwine).

The background of rising murder rates over the last several years is truly alarming (since it has wiped out most of the homicide reductions that Newark like most American cities had in the 1990s--- On the general phenomenon See, Zimring's The Crime Decline). But as the accompanying charts show, the rape and robbery rates, which also plunged in the 1990s, have continued to fall. This suggests that the that homicide spikes in Newark (and cities like Oakland California as well), are largely due to score settling among a very specific network of young men.

Yet rather than a strategy aimed at addressing that network, the Newark Police Department has embraced the widely used "broken windows" method of intensive policing of low level criminal activity in an entire neighborhood in an attempt to deter more serious crime. The flaws in this strategy have been widely aired (See Bernard Harcourt's Illusions of Order). For our purposes one need only note that it is a strategy totally invested in the unity of "crime" as a category (rather than structure of knowledge and power created by governing through crime).

Governing through crime

District Attorneys Need Character

Most of us felt relieved when we learned that Mike Nifong, the rogue district attorney from Durham, N.C., was facing serious charges for his abuse of power in the Duke University lacrosse case. However, the search for justice does not end when a single corrupt prosecutor is caught and removed.

The sad truth is that the list of prosecutors who have put pride and politics ahead of justice is longer than any of us would like to believe. Last year, Bob Herbert of the New York Times chronicled quite a list of just such occurrences. He concluded that analysis by pointing to the government's "pervasive indifference to injustice in the justice system." Those are harsh words, but he reached that conclusion only after pointing to innocent people unnecessarily going to prison and much more.

We must be certain that the district attorneys we elect possess unimpeachable character because the reality is that we place a special burden on the government, those who prosecute cases for all of us, to be sure that all of their investigations are thorough, that confessions are not coerced, that lineups are done correctly, that forensic testing is accurate and that those test results are readily shared.

All prosecutors must also be confident that the witnesses they call (law enforcement people, experts, snitches, eye witnesses, etc.) are competent and honest. And, unlike Nifong, we expect them to be ready to admit a mistake and change directions the moment contradictory facts emerge.

Unfortunately, some honest-appearing prosecutors with latent character flaws suffer a lapse when they are driven by a zeal to win, political ambition or pride in wrongly holding to an announced position.

Opinion Greeley Tribune

Prison Women Working on Farms

The farmers are paying 9.60 an hour for women in prison to work on their farms. The women are only making 60 cents a day. The last report that we heard was that they were looking forward to bonus incentives that would equal 4.50 an hour for working on the farms. This report says that bonus only equals out to $2.00 a day. Where is the rest of the money going? DOC only has to pay for transportation, a sack lunch and one officer to guard the women all day long. Just do the math.
Ten women working 8 hours a day is 768.00 a day or 3,840.00 a week. Even if the guard is making $20.00 an hour that's only $160.00. Maybe $100.00 for gas for the van, that's about 266.00. So where does the other $500 a day go? Not to the women who are working in the fields. That money would sure go a long way into paying off restitution and give them something to work with when they are released.

A small crew of women inmates from a medium security prison in Pueblo is pioneering a new concept on local farms - using inmate labor to replace Mexican migrant workers who aren't here this summer because of the inhospitable climate of Colorado immigration law.

State Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, proposed the idea last summer, when some farmers said they were unable to get their crops harvested in the wake of a special legislative session that enacted some of the most stringent immigration measures in the nation.

The pilot project under the Department of Corrections' industrial program features 10 women from La Vista prison in Pueblo, formerly called Pueblo Minimum Center. The prison was renamed when it was upgraded to a medium security facility.

This week, the inmates were at work hoeing weeds on the farm of Joe Pisciotta Jr. near Avondale. In the past three weeks, they also worked at farms of Russ and Patti Dionisio and Steve Mauro.

Pisciotta said the farmers are paying the DOC $9.60 per hour for the inmates, compared to the minimum wage of $6.85 for a migrant farm worker. The inmates get 60 cents a day, and they also may receive incentive bonuses up to $2 a day on Correctional Industries jobs, according to Katherine Sanguinetti of the DOC. The rest of the farmer's payment goes for the expenses including a guard and transportation.Pueblo Chieftain

Public Defender Skeet Johnson Retiring

Growing up with his parents and two brothers in the projects of Chicago - in an atmosphere of intimidation "where you didn't know what was going to happen next" - Skeet Johnson says he was surrounded by love at home.

"My mother was a steadying influence. She vowed that the streets wouldn't get us," Johnson recalls.

And his dad, a chauffeur to wealthy Chicagoans, was "the strongest man I know."

Johnson, 59, retired this month after nearly 23 years as a lawyer with the Colorado State Public Defender's office, representing in court those accused of crimes.

The Colorado Criminal Defense Bar recently awarded Johnson its 2007 Alvin Lichtenstein Life Achievement Award for his "remarkable accomplishments."

The Denver Post

MI - Prison Reforms Not Optional

Facing a $1.6-billion budget gap next year, Senate Republicans continue to treat Michigan's $2-billion prison system like a sacred cow. With 51,000 inmates -- more than at any time in the state's history -- Michigan spends far more on prisons than surrounding Midwest states, but its streets and communities are no safer. The answer is not more of the same.

Yet that's essentially what a report by a state Senate subcommittee on prisons and public safety, headed by Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, called for Tuesday. In the name of public safety, it opposed even modest changes in sentencing and parole policies proposed by the Department of Corrections. Those reforms could enable the state to close two or three of Michigan's 42 prisons over the next year and a half.Michigan Free Press

Judges Need Discretion in Sentencing

Des Moines --Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal criminal sentencing rules as unconstitutional. Some in Congress, fearing bleeding-heart federal judges would go soft on criminals, vowed to override the ruling. They needn't worry - if all federal appeals courts behave like the one that covers Iowa, at least.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals based in St. Louis for the second time ordered that an Iowa man convicted of distributing methamphetamine be sentenced to a term at least twice as long as the two years set by U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett in Sioux City. Just to be safe, the court reassigned the case to a different federal judge in Iowa, because it didn't trust Bennett to follow its dictate.

The result, in this case, is that Jason Pepper - now working and going to school in Illinois, after completing is original two-year sentence - will be going back to prison. He will likely serve at least two more years, perhaps more. Federal prosecutors in the case recommended a sentence of nearly seven years.
Read the Article Here

Prisoner's First Amendment Trial Begins

Mark Jordan wants to share his thoughts with the world.

The problem is, Jordan is an inmate at Supermax, the nation's most secure federal prison and home to such well-known prisoners as Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

Prison regulations have prohibited inmates from acting as reporters or publishing under a byline because of security concerns.

Jordan argued that the rule isn't applied consistently. Some prisoners have been published without getting in trouble; others, himself included, have been disciplined.

So in a case that could have implications for other federal prisoners, Jordan filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the rule violated his First Amendment rights.

Rocky Mountain News

Prison Mess and Politicians - CA

CATHERINE CAMPBELL:
Our prison mess: Politicians just make them worse
By Catherine Campbell
05/26/07
Fresno Bee
For the past 30 years, the California Legislature has passed laws lengthening prison sentences, built prison gulags all over the state, emptied the taxpayers' treasury to the prison guards union and its candidates, used crime to frighten and manipulate the voting public and refused to acknowledge the catastrophic prison system they created -- all out of self-interest.

Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines' self-congratulatory, chest-thumping commentary in The Bee May 3, titled "California's Prison System in Crisis," would have us believe that he and the rest of the Legislature stood tall in the face of a possible "takeover" of California prisons by a federal judge.

Politicians love crime. Give a politician a good crime, preferably a sex crime against a child, and he will pop up on the front page with a new piece of sentencing legislation, named after the victim, of course, having consulted his advisers on the political up-tick such a photo op will give to his political fortunes.

Before 1977, politicians did not set prison sentences, the state's Adult Authority set sentences. Most convicted criminals went into prison not knowing how long they would spend there, and their release date was determined by a rather harsh board of former cops and parole agents who periodically reviewed their crimes, history and prison behavior in determining their sentence lengths.

The Adult Authority was arbitrary; it tended to be racist, and it punished prisoners who spoke out. But it was, in the end, more humane than what we've got now.

Prisoners had a motive to behave well in prison and to rehabilitate, because that was the key to freedom. True fiscal conservatives, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, were running our state then.

Prison sentences were relatively short, and our prisons were dungeons where corruption, brutality and neglect were rampant. Given what has happened since, perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps we should have left well enough alone.

Instead, in 1977, with the passage of the Indeterminate Sentencing Law, we gave the issue over to politicians, who love defining whole new crimes and increasing sentences, and have gone at it with an enthusiasm that would make one think they actually believe in what they are doing.

But their enterprise is cynical. Every study done, whether by law enforcement or pin-headed intellectuals at the University of California at Berkeley, establishes that longer sentences do not make us safer in the long run; they just make more prisoners and more prisons.

Real Cost of Prisons

Homeless and On Parole

(AP) DENVER Homeless shelters are increasingly becoming a haven for ex-inmates just released from prison, with a new study finding nearly one in four in the Denver metro area taking refuge there.

"They're in partnership with us," said Tim Hand, assistant director of adult parole for the Department of Corrections. "It's almost like they're part of our structure."

The study by the Piton Foundation and Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition found that housing, difficulty in finding jobs, overcoming substance abuse, and dealing with a patchwork parole-support systems are some of the challenges facing parolees.

Piton is an organization that studies social problems in Denver and seeks alternatives to incarceration.

Piton analyzed the home addresses of about 6,600 Colorado parolees as of early May. Of 1,377 parolees in Denver, about 37 percent were at homeless shelters or other temporary housing. Across the metro area, about one-fourth of the 3,379 parolees were in temporary housing, which is defined as two or more parolees at the same address.

Many live in the shelters immediately after their release from prison, while others end up there after they fall upon hard times, said Christie Donner, director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
CBS 4

Letter to the Editor - A Prison State

This letter appeared in the Rocky today...

Like all of the new metro-area courthouses, the new Denver courthouse will symbolize injustice and lack of transparency by having no windows in the courtrooms (“Justice taking shape,” Spotlight, May 19).
The present courthouse has large windows that let in the light of day as all human spaces should have. By contrast, the new courthouse symbolizes what America has become — a prison state where our constitutional rights have become mere platitudes.

Thomas K. Carberry, Denver

Prison Nursing Homes - New York

Yet another complication of "get tough on crime." We have a population of people who are old or sick and in prison for years, and that population is going to continue to grow.

FISHKILL, N.Y.- In the day room, white-haired men in robes watch "The Price is Right." Out on the balcony, another looks through bars as he fidgets from side to side.

Prisons have been dealing with the special needs of older prisoners for years, but the one here in Fishkill state prison is considered unique because it specializes in dementia-related conditions.

The unit—30 beds on the third floor of the prison's medical center—is a first for New York and possibly the nation, through experts say it likely won't be the last as more people grow old behind bars.

The unit has the clean-white-wall feel of a nursing home—but for the prison bars. A marker board in the day room includes a picture of a sun with a smiley face and a reminder to "Have a great day." The activity calendar lists puppies on Thursday and bingo on Friday. As long as they behave, patients can wander from their rooms to the day room.

"They're still in prison," said Fishkill superintendent William Connolly. "This is just a unique environment within a prison environment."

Connolly said the men's crimes are not considered in the screening process, though their prison record matters. The idea is to provide proper care and a safe environment.

"A lot of guys, when they were confined to the general population, they stayed in their rooms, they wouldn't come out," said nursing director Angela Maume. "They were in a cocoon."

Denver Post

Parent in Prison - Void At Home

CHICAGO, May 27 -- When 12-year-old Heaven Carr wakes up, her mother is not
there to make her breakfast. As the school year ends, Heaven is already sad that
her mother will not be around to do the back-to-school shopping come
August.
Carr's mother, Elaine, has been behind bars for five years. Her
father, Shaun, who was once jailed himself, does his best to pick up the slack,
even as he runs a home remodeling business during the day and a cleaning service
at night. But Heaven says it's not the same.
"There are no services for men
in this position -- none," Shaun said. "You'd think that if a man decides to
stay with his kids, people would embrace you and help you pull through. But it's
the opposite."
The stakes are high for Heaven and her three siblings. Those
who deal regularly with the incarcerated suggest that 50 to 70 percent of
children of imprisoned parents will end up behind bars. Such children are also
less likely to do well in school, a growing body of research suggests.
In the Chicago area, where there are an estimated 90,000 children of the
imprisoned and paroled, a fledgling coalition of community groups and state
politicians is developing strategies to create better lines of communication
between children and their jailed parents, and to diminish the severe shortage
of help.
The Chicago-based Community Renewal Society is working with
legislators and state officials to expand family-oriented programs, to be run by
nonprofits, in prisons.
Washington
Post

Meth 101?

I cannot believe that this actually happened. The DEA held a "Meth 101" class at Metro to show people how easy it is to make methamphetamine. They call it a community awareness class.
Considering that the problem seemingly has finally become more of an importation issue than a local problem, what's the DEA trying to do, bring it back home? It's Fun! It's Easy! It's Toxic!

Cooking methamphetamine takes only a few hours and requires simple household ingredients, like striker plates from matchbooks, the guts of lithium batteries, drain cleaner.

"It's pretty gross," said Matt Leland, who works in career services at the University of Northern Colorado and who recently helped cook the drug in a lab. "If someone was truly interested in manufacturing meth, it would not be that hard."

The Drug Enforcement Administration invited Leland and other citizens - such as software engineers, a teacher, a pastor and a school principal - to make methamphetamine last week in a lab at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

"At first, I thought, 'Man, I cannot believe they showed us how to do

it.' But you can find the recipe on the Internet," Leland said. "It just goes to show anybody who really wants to do it probably could."

The class was held as part of the DEA's first Citizens Academy in order to give the public a close-up view of what the agency does to keep drugs off the street.

Although meth remains a significant problem across the U.S., the number of clandestine labs has dropped because some of the ingredients are harder to obtain.]

Denver Post

Drug Court, Juveniles and Yoga

A juvenile court magistrate is sentencing kids to yoga class in Larimer County. It doesn't address the problems of those who are going home to poverty, abuse and addiction but it does give them a space to focus on themselves without outside pressures, even if it's for a short time.

FORT COLLINS - Eric Campbell was not particularly enthusiastic when he learned that, as part of juvenile drug court, he would have to attend weekly yoga sessions.

"I thought it was crap," he said, quickly apologizing for his language. "It wasn't going to help me. I was just going to go and mess around."

Six months later, the 18-year- old feels differently.

"It's cool," he said. "It's like a mental and physical thing. Right now, I wouldn't know what to do without it."

His concentration was evident he and 14 other teens followed the direction of yoga teacher Cathy Wright.

She asked her students to keep their spine straight, roll their arms in and breathe.

"You come to yoga to learn to relax your tensions, but you have to be able to perceive it to relax it," she told the young men, who are all dealing with some form of substance abuse and were ordered to attend the class by Magistrate Mary Jo Berenato.

A year after Berenato became the juvenile magistrate for the 8th Judicial District and took over juvenile drug court, she launched the yoga program.

Rocky Mountain News.

Paroling Homeless in Colorado

For the last two years we have been working on a study with the Piton Foundation about people who are paroling to Denver and the problems they face. We surveyed our members who were in prison on a revocation and we also surveyed people as they visited local parole offices. We met one man who was trying to get a check cashed for $5.61, he had just been released and dropped off out on Smith Road. With no I.D. and no home to go to. That is all he was released with.

Griffin has been in the Denver shelter since he was paroled about two weeks ago. The 44-year-old says he would probably be allowed to live on his own once he finds a job and can afford rent.But, in his view, it's nearly impossible to find work while living out of a homeless shelter.

"I'm grateful for a place to stay," Griffin says, sitting in a folding chair at the Crossroads Shelter on a recent evening. "But you shouldn't put people in a place like this."

The Department of Corrections says parolees must have a fixed address, and sometimes a shelter is the only option.

"This is keeping them from living on the streets, and this is our way to manage and supervise them," says DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti. "We know where they are every night. We can keep them safe and the public safe."

Parolees at Crossroads do not blame the Salvation Army but say the facility is not conducive to staying straight. They say drugs are readily available just outside. Hanging out with other parolees isn't exactly helpful either. Related article

We have a 65% recidivism rate in this state for people who are trying to serve a mandatory parole piece. A startling number of those nearly 85% are being returned to prison for a technical violation. This isn't new criminal activity. It's a violation of a condition of parole. Not having an address, missing a meeting, not having a job or drug or alcohol use. These violations cost the state $28,000 per person per year. Alternatives work and we aren't taking the initiative to use them.

We are missing the boat when it comes to recidivism. The governor recently unveiled his Recidivism Reduction Plan that adds more beds to community corrections but still doesn't help people who are running up against so many brick walls that they finally lose hope. We need real reform and real change if we are going to tackle the basic problems that are failing the people who are returning to community from prison. Our thanks to Burt Hubbard for taking on this story and illuminating the issue of homelessness.

More than one in three parolees in Denver and one in four in the metro area are living in homeless shelters or other temporary housing after getting out of prison, a new study has found.

A lack of affordable housing, combined with a rising number of parolees, has led prison officials to increasingly turn to shelters to house ex-inmates.

In one shelter, sophisticated electronic monitors have been installed to track as many as 75 parolees at the same time, and prison specialists routinely make the rounds of shelters, checking on parolees.

"They're in partnership with us," said Tim Hand, assistant director of adult parole for the Department of Corrections. "It's almost like they're part of our structure."

The study, by the Piton Foundation and Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, found that housing was just one of several challenges faced by parolees. Others included difficulty in finding jobs, overcoming substance abuse, supporting themselves and dealing with a patchwork parolee-support system.

"It's really a crisis," said Christie Donner, director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.

The nonprofit Piton Foundation studied parolees as part of its ongoing research into social issues in Denver. It seeks alternatives to incarceration.

Rocky Mountain News

Hard to Be Homeless and On Parole - Rocky Mountain News

Wall Street Journal Predicts Prison Boom

We know that the unprecendented building of private prisons has exploded in the last few years and with new immigration laws coming into play it's only going to get worse. State's are shying away from looking at smarter alternatives that would work, as they tiptoe around the issues of addiction, poverty and the lack of decent education. It seems as though it's easier to look away then deal with the problems thoughtfully and head on. The private prison system are just the carpetbaggers of this century and we act as though they are welcome to handle our social ills.

The prison business looks ready to stage a breakout.

Tougher mandatory sentences were already straining the nation's jails. Now, the Department of Homeland Security's Border Initiative and its detention of undocumented immigrants has further burdened the system. Federal prisons already have 33% more inmates than they were designed to house and state prisons are similarly overcrowded.

The upshot? A severe shortage of prison space -- and a robust outlook for the three biggest private jailers.

A Need to Outsource

The vast majority of prisons are still owned and operated by federal or state governments; less than 8% of prisons are outsourced to private operators. But the private market -- dominated by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group and Cornell -- is expected to grow substantially over the next five years.

A February report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit research foundation, forecasts a 13% increase in the inmate population by 2011 -- in line with past growth rates, but further compounding the overcapacity problem. That amounts to as much as $27.5 billion in new prison construction and operation.

That kind of burden leaves states and the federal government with little choice but to outsource incarceration to private companies.

Corrections, Geo and Cornell are "far and away the biggest beneficiaries of that trend," says Patrick Swindle, an analyst with boutique investment bank Avondale Partners in Nashville, Tenn.

h/t to Grits for Breakfast

Wall Street Journal

WESTWORD - Casey's Making Moves

We've been following Alan's story of Casey Holden who was recently released from the Colorado State Pen and how he's doing on parole. Here's the latest installment. There's a link to the previous installments imbedded in this article.

When we last checked in with Casey Holden, he was scraping by as a wage slave at a pizza joint in Grand Junction. This was a better life than being locked down in the Colorado state pen, mind you, but a bit short of Holden's dreams of getting an education, getting his own place and making some real dough — the green kind, not the stuff you plaster with tomato sauce and shove in an oven.

But things are looking up.

Holden, 26, has three years of parole to complete after spending most of the last ten years in prison — and he's letting us tag along by occasional blog (previous entries can be found here ) as he navigates the maze of financial, legal, and family issues confronted by parolees trying to make it on the street.

For a healthy young man looking for quick cash — to pay for restitution and classes, drug tests and rent — the oil-and-gas fields of the Western Slope are a powerful lure. But Holden's parole officer has told him he doesn't want him working in that high-paying industry yet, out of concerns over a possible criminal environment among roughnecks and the logistics of making it back to town for random drug tests. This seems highly ironic to Holden; oilfield workers get drug-tested all the time, and he's met plenty of sketchy characters at his low-paying pizza job. But you can't argue with the Man.

Westword

WESTWORD - 16th St. Mall Cops Out of Control

You'd think after Evan Herzoff got his settlement for $8,500 from the city because of a cops bad behavior, the cops would think twice before manhandling citizens and refusing to give up their identity. A friend of my daughters was recently on the mall after work (he's 16, weighs about 140 lbs, and it was 1:00 in the afternoon) during that horrific cold snap in January. He had lost his bus money and asked someone for a quarter so that he could get home. Two mall cops threw him up against a wall and ticketed him for "aggressive panhandling." The case was dropped in court when his dad threw a fit, but that doesn't change the perception that this young man now has of what "to serve and protect" means.

Here's Luke Turf's story in Westword..

Angelina Hergenreder doesn't usually give money to the homeless men who call out to her as she leaves her hostess job at a restaurant on the 16th Street Mall. But the man who asked for spare change one Wednesday evening in early April was so polite — even after she'd denied his request — that when Hergenreder returned her movies to McDonald's, she bought him a cheeseburger. Then she took it over to the panhandler and gave him a dollar, too. The nineteen-year-old do-gooder was crossing the mall, ready to catch her bus, when suddenly someone grabbed her left arm from behind and pulled it up, yanking her in the opposite direction. Hergenreder screamed and tried to hit whoever had her arm in his grasp. "I thought I was being attacked," she says. But then the man caught her other arm, identified himself as an undercover police officer, and briefly flashed his badge.

By the time the undercover cop pulled Hergenreder back by the 7-Eleven, where she'd handed the buck and the burger to the homeless man, another undercover officer was arresting him. The cop who'd grabbed Hergenreder took the burger and tossed it in the trash, then threw the dollar at her. He said he could arrest her for giving something of value to a panhandler after dark, she remembers. When she questioned whether such a law existed, the cop told her to leave. She then asked for the officer's name and badge number, but he told her that he "didn't have time for that," she says. If she wanted to complain, he said, she could write to the mayor.

"And that's when I walked away," Hergenreder says. "I wasn't going to try anything after that."

Westword

NY - Drug Dealer Registry

A senator in New York is pushing for a registry for convicted drug dealers. Much like a sex offender registry program. This is just too much. Why just drug dealers, why not embezzelers and drunk drivers? At this rate people who have committed a crime will eventually just have their own yellow pages.

....ALBANY - First a sex-offender registry. Now one for drug dealers?
A Southern Tier senator said yesterday that he would introduce a bill to create a
statewide roll call for convicted felony drug dealers. Similar to the one for
sex offenders, convicts would have to registe with the state for up to 10 years,
notifying the Department of Criminal Justice Services of any address changes,
and the list would be available on the Internet.
"I think it would be one of
those extra deterrents and I think it would clearly be effective," said Sen.
George Winner, R-Elmira. "Drug dealers are not out there wanting to advertise
their location. And it would make neighbors and others aware and very vigilant
of their activities."
The Republican said that similar legislation has been
proposed in Maine and New Mexico. Also, he noted that the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency recently launched a "Meth Site Registry" that posts locations
in each state where methamphetamine clandestine labs or dumpsites have been
found.
Winner got the idea from Police Chief David Rouse of Bath, in Steuben
County.
"Absent of a drug-dealer registry, drug dealers can conceal their
identities and criminal pasts, moving undetected from one jurisdiction to
another while continuing their illicit trade," Rouse said in a statement. "When
encountered by law enforcement they provide bogus identification and their true
identifies are not known until they are subsequently arrested and
fingerprinted."
Real
cost of Prisons

Some Records Should Be Sealed

Second chances

Some criminal records should be sealed

May 22, 2007

That those who break the law should pay for their transgressions is beyond dispute. The penalty, however, should be proportionate to the crime - and in that the law should recognize the need for fairness to society as well as justice for the perpetrator.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has a chance to advance the interests of both justice and fairness by signing House Bill 1107, a measure to allow the records of some crimes to be sealed. Doing so would allow those who have committed relatively minor crimes - and who have since met their legal obligations and otherwise behaved themselves - to get on with their lives and contribute to society.

The idea of a proportionate penalty only goes so far, of course. There can be no full atonement for murder, for rape or for crimes against children. But nothing like that is at issue here.

What is under consideration is whether someone who did something wrong can ever return to the ranks of respectable citizens. Within careful limitations, HB 1107 says "yes."

If signed by the governor, the bill would allow those who have been convicted of nonsexual crimes to petition a judge to seal their criminal records. That would then allow them to check "no" next to the question about having been convicted of a crime on employment applications.

A series of restrictions would apply. Those convicted of sexual offenses would not be eligible, nor would anyone guilty of domestic violence or crimes against pregnant women. Applicants would have to show 10 years of good behavior since completing their prison term, probation or parole stemming from their original conviction. And the records in question would not be sealed to law-enforcement agencies or those required by law to run background checks, such as schools or day-care centers.

Sealing of criminal records would have to be approved by a judge. In addition, the district attorney in the jurisdiction where the original crime was committed would be able to veto the request. And as the result of an objection by the Colorado Press Association, third parties - newspapers, for example - would be able to ask a judge to review the record and decide if disclosure would be in the public interest.

The upshot of all those limitations is that career criminals, child molesters and serial killers need not apply. Even if a judge would go along, district attorneys would never risk sealing the records of a violent predator. Nor would they be likely to approve anyone who did not show a real record of success.

Who might be allowed to seal their records? The Denver Post pointed to two examples: A 44-year-old man was caught with $25 worth of cocaine and has lived with that criminal conviction for 22 years. Another, a Fort Lewis College graduate, served as an Air Force policeman and was headed for a career in counseling before he stupidly struck a cop, 20 years ago, after a night of partying in a bar.

What those two did was illegal, and both have paid for their actions. Now, after years of living within the law, they should be allowed to move on.

More to the point, society should be allowed to reap the full benefit of whatever they have to offer. Gainful, taxpaying employment would both complete their rehabilitation and allow them better to contribute.

Gov. Ritter should sign HB 1107.

Durango Herald

Minimum Wage Increase Passes Through Congress

For the first time in 10 years a minimum wage increase will be handed to the president as part of the larger Iraq spending package. Minimum wage will increase nationally up to 7.25 in stages over the next three years. Colorado passed a minimum wage increase to 6.85 last year, however our legislation is tied to the consumer price index and will continue to go up automatically.

WASHINGTON, May 24 — Congress handed a major victory to low-income workers on Thursday night by approving the first increase in the federal minimum wage rate in a decade.

By a vote of 348 to 73, the House approved the measure as part of a deal on Iraq spending. Less than two hours later, the wage increase was approved in the Senate, where it was combined with a bill providing more money for the Iraq war. That vote was 80 to 14.

The measure would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 in three stages over two years. The bill includes $4.84 billion in tax breaks for small businesses. They have made a case, supported by Republicans and the White House, that the wage increase would be a burden for them.

President Bush said he would sign the measure as part of the bigger spending package that had been negotiated between Democratic lawmakers and the administration.

After the bill is signed, the wage increase will become the first item in the “Six for ’06” agenda of the new Congressional Democratic leadership to become law.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said the increase was overdue.NY TIMES

Criticism in Ohio Execution

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Death penalty opponents called on the state to halt executions after prison staff struggled to find suitable veins on a condemned man's arm to deliver the lethal chemicals.

The execution team stuck Christopher Newton at least 10 times with needles Thursday to insert the shunts where the chemicals are injected.

He died at 11:53 a.m., nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The process typically take about 20 minutes.

''What is clear from today's botched execution is that the state doesn't know how to execute people without torturing them to death,'' American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio attorney Carrie Davis said Thursday.

''Having one botched execution is too many; that Ohio has now had two botched executions in as many years is intolerable.''

Officials said the delay was due to Newton's size -- he weighed 265 pounds. In May 2006, the execution of Joseph Lewis Clark was delayed about 90 minutes because the team could not find a suitable vein. He was a longtime intravenous drug user.

A group of Ohio inmates is suing over the state's injection method, saying it is unconstitutionally cruel, and Thursday's delay helps show that the state is unable to smoothly complete executions, said Greg Meyers, chief counsel for the Public Defender's Office.

NY TIMES

Pregnant Smokers May Contribute To ADHD

We all know that smoking is bad for pregnant women, we are finding out more reasons why. Kids with ADHD are more likely to become substance abusers as well.

Science Daily — Women smokers who become pregnant have long been encouraged to reduce or eliminate their nicotine intake. A new study being published in the June 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry provides further reason to do so, as it presents new evidence that in utero exposure to smoking is associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) problems in genetically susceptible children.

The study investigated male and female twin pairs, aged 7--19 years, to assess the relationship between genetic variations, prenatal substance exposures, and ADHD sub-types. Rosalind Neuman, Ph.D., one of the study's authors, explains the findings: "When genetic factors are combined with prenatal cigarette smoke exposure, the ADHD risk rises very significantly. When the child has either or both of two specific forms of dopamine pathway genes (DAT and DRD4), and was exposed to cigarette smoking in utero, the risk for having combined type ADHD (many inattention and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms) increased 3 to 9 fold."

John H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated with both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, adds, "These data highlight a new risk of maternal smoking, increasing the risk for ADHD in their children. ADHD, in turn, increases the risk for substance abuse. Thus, it appears that in utero exposure to nicotine may help to perpetuate a cycle across generations that links addiction and behavioral problems."

SCIENCE DAILY

Sheriff Wants To Force Drugs on Mentally Il

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is crafting legislation that would let county jail officials forcibly medicate mentally ill inmates who won’t take prescribed drugs.

Sheriff Terry Maketa said the jail has become the de facto largest mental health treatment center in the county and needs the same authority as a mental hospital to force medication.

“We’re there. The day has arrived,” Maketa said last week. “We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend it is not an issue, but it is.”

After years of budget cuts to state mental health programs, the jails of Colorado have become the primary mental health providers in Colorado, according to sheriffs and mental health advocates.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, 18 percent to 22 percent of jail inmates here have “significant mental health issues.”

The jail employs one part-time and five full-time mental health counselors and a director of mental health, and it contracts with a psychiatrist. But when a severely mentally ill inmate won’t take medication, they lack the authority to force the issue.

The state mental hospital in Pueblo, which is supposed to take severely mentally ill inmates off the jails’ hands, has had its own problems. This year, two state officials nearly faced contempt of court charges because of the hospital’s inability to accept inmates from counties, despite court orders mandating they be treated there.

Maketa said severely mentally ill inmates who refuse treatment face long waits to get into the state hospital. The number who refuse is small, three to five a year, but growing, Maketa said.

Colorado Springs Gazette

CSP II To Break Ground

Even though the state didn't receive any bids during the bidding process to build another maximum security prison they are starting the process anyway.

Heavy equipment has moved into the prison complex east of Cañon City in preparation of groundbreaking this week for the new Colorado State Penitentiary II, the Fremont County Commissioners learned Tuesday morning.

Melvin Cole of the Colorado Department of Corrections told the commissioners no bids were received during the official bidding process for the new prison. Regardless, the state elected to begin the work for the new prison, which has been at a standstill for years as the state struggled to fund construction funds.

CSP II will mimic the original Colorado State Penitentiary in architecture and purpose. Situated near CSP, the second penitentiary will have 960 beds for the DOC’s most violent, dangerous and disruptive offenders. It has a scheduled completion date of 2010, Cole said.

Canon City Record

On The Lighter Side -- Love Is A Drug

This is an article that was posted in the Washington Post a few months ago and replayed by the Situationist. It will make you smile as you realize that our brains are our natural dope peddlers and we don't need to take anything to become addicted to love.

It’s all about dopamine, baby, this One Great True Love, this passionate thing we’d burn down the house and blow up the car and drive from Houston to Orlando just to taste on the tip of the tongue.

You crave it because your brain tells you to. . . .

Dopamine.

God’s little neurotransmitter. Better known by its street name, romantic love.

Also, norepinephrine. Street name, infatuation.

These chemicals are natural stimulants. You fall in love, a growing amount of research shows, and these chemicals and their cousins start pole-dancing around the neurons of your brain, hopping around the limbic system, setting off craving, obsessive thoughts, focused attention, the desire to commit possibly immoral acts with your beloved while at a stoplight in the 2100 block of K Street during lunch hour, and so on.

“Love is a drug,” says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of “Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.” “The ventral tegmental area is a clump of cells that make dopamine, a natural stimulant, and sends it out to many brain regions” when one is in love. “It’s the same region affected when you feel the rush of cocaine.”

Passion! Sex! Narcotics!

Why do we suspect this isn’t going to end well?

Because these things are hard-wired not to last, all of them. Short shelf lives. The passion you fulfill is the passion you kill. The most wonderful, soaring feeling known to all mankind . . . amounts to no more than a narcotic high, a temporal state of mania.

“Being in love, having a crush on someone is wonderful . . . but our bodies can’t be in that state all the time,” says Pamela C. Regan, a professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and author of “The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex and Marriage.” “Your body would fizzle out. As a species, we’d die.”

Some of these love chemicals in the brain, scientists measure by the picogram, which is a trillionth of a gram.

How fragile, this [crazy little] thing called love.

Private Prison Costs Soar in NM

By Steve Terrell | The New Mexican
May 24, 2007

New Mexico pays significantly more than nearby states to house inmates in private prisons, according to a report presented Wednesday to state lawmakers.

The 100-page audit by a Legislative Finance Committee review team says New Mexico's private-prison spending rose 57 percent in the past six years, while the inmate population increased only 21 percent.

"Business decisions across two administrations may result in New Mexico paying an estimated $34 million more than it should pay for private prison construction costs," the report says.

But Corrections Secretary Joe Williams defended the private prisons, saying the higher operating costs are justified.

The major private prison operator in the state is The GEO Group, which operates facilities in Hobbs and Santa Rosa and will operate a prison being built in Clayton.

GEO, formerly known as Wackenhut, was brought in to manage private prisons by former Gov. Gary Johnson and has been embraced by Gov. Bill Richardson.

New Mexico pays nearly $69 a day per inmate at the private prison in Hobbs and more than $70 at the prison in Santa Rosa.

In Texas, the cost is $34.66 a day. Colorado pays $50.28 a day for inmates at private prisons. In Oklahoma, the rate is $41.23. Other states listed in the study include Idaho, $42.30, and Montana, $54.58.

Santa Fe New Mexican

Sentencing Commission Bill Signed

Governor Ritter signed 15 bills into law today including one that begins the implementation of a sentencing commission in Colorado. The Commission will be comprised of 26 people who are mostly from government positions. There are three at large positions that will allow the possibility of community representation in the overall committee. HB 1107 which would allow people to have their records sealed after ten years has not been signed yet.

The Denver Post ....Ritter also said he hoped the state would become a "national leader" with the creation of a Criminal Justice Commission that will take an ongoing look at sentencing guidelines.

Ritter presided over a noisy, 1 1/2-hour event in the Capitol's west foyer. With each bill, Ritter ushered a bill sponsor to the microphone to give remarks.

The education reform bills that were signed call for better data collection to measure school performance and to monitor online schools.

Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, called Senate Bill 215, which regulates online schools, the "Kumbaya bill of the year" because it survived a contentious debate.

The criminal justice bills establish the commission and close a loophole in current law related to sex crimes by licensed professionals. In the future, the state's professional licensing panels will refer matters to criminal prosecutors.

Jim Scarboro, a lawyer who is part of the nonprofit Colorado Lawyers Committee, said efforts to revamp prison sentences are "dear to the governor's heart."

The Denver Post

Prescription Drug Abuse Rampant

Addiction is addiction. Whether the drugs are prescribed from a legal doctor or the one dealing off the street corner.

Abuse of prescription medications is rampant - reaching literally every corner of the country, according to data compiled by Denver Health's nationwide surveillance system.

The system analyzed reports of drug abuse and found that incidents involving prescriptions for opioids - a class of pain-relieving drugs that includes Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin and Dilaudid - occurred in 93 percent of the nation's postal-code regions.

"The really important thing to understand as a parent is every place - in every town, every county in the U.S. - has prescription-drug abuse occurring," said Dr. Richard Dart, director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, a part of Denver Health.

The findings follow a 2005 federal report that found prescription-drug abuse increased 42.5 percent nationwide between 2001 and 2005.

That report, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said that in 2005, 11.4 million people had abused prescription drugs in the past 12 months, up from 8 million in 2001.
Dart said contracts with private buyers of the data prohibit the release of specific age and regional information.
He did say people between 20 and 30 years old account for the greatest share of prescription-drug abuse.
Typically, teenagers start out by snatching the pills from their parents' medicine cabinets, Dart said.

DENVER POST

Prison Business Competes With Private Sector (California)

Colorado's version is Correctional Industries.

The Real Cost Of Prisons - Established in 1982, the Prison Industry Authority's mission is to rehabilitate inmates by putting them to work, and also to reduce the operating costs of prisons. But the authority -- which operates with little legislative oversight -- only employs a small fraction of the state's 172,000-plus inmates.

At present, the authority provides work for about 5,900 inmates and operates more than 60 service, manufacturing and agricultural operations at 22 prisons. Inmates earn from 30 cents to near $1 an hour to make flags, shoes, printing services, eye wear, gloves, office furniture, license plates, clothing and more. The authority can sells its products to federal, state and local government agencies. The state has been the biggest customer.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation views the authority as a key part of a renewed effort to boost rehabilitation programs. But some lawmakers say the added responsibility might have to be accompanied by greater legislative oversight.

"There clearly is some benefit to the PIA, but at the same time I am concerned when the PIA is misusing its authority and unfairly competing with small businesses," said Assembly Member Juan Arambula, D-Fresno, who leads a budget subcommittee that oversees prisons.

By law, state agencies, with some exceptions, are required to purchase products from the authority, even if private businesses sell the items for less.

Businesses complain

The state auditor in a 2004 report found the authority's pricing to be fairly competitive, but said its cost savings claims were "questionable."

Last year, the authority posted a $4.7 million operating loss on $179 million in revenue, though the authority says it would have posted a small profit if it weren't for significant one-time costs associated with a streamlining effort.

The food packaging business was launched in 2003-04 and today includes cookies, bread and, most recently, peanut butter and jelly. But the move into the new enterprise has been plagued by delays and has generated plenty of complaints from small-business owners.

American Copak in Southern California, an Adolph supplier, says it faces the possibility of worker layoffs.

"We may be talking about 50 to 100 people, between our company, Adolph and the vendors who supply us," said American Copak president Steven A. Brooker. "This will cause a ripple effect."

Brooker's firm produces millions of peanut butter and jelly squeeze packets each year. The prison contract produces 25% to 30% of his overall revenue, he said.

"As a company, we knew we were going to compete against other small businesses," Brooker said. "But I never would have imagined that we would have to fight against the government for our business."

Other prison suppliers also are concerned. Christian Bartels, owner of CB Enterprises in Ceres, said 90% of his produce and other grocery items goes to the state prisons.

"What they are trying to do is do their own packaging and be their own manufacturer," Bartels said. "And once that happens, they won't need people in the private sector like me -- people whose employees are paying taxes, buying things and stimulating the economy."

Real Cost Of Prison

8,000 Prisoners to Be Transferred Out Of California

California will resume sending an estimated 8,000 prisoners to other states next month after an appeals court ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can do so while he challenges a prior ruling that halted the transfers.

Schwarzenegger praised the decision by the Third District Appellate Court, which was filed late last week and announced Monday, saying it would let the state take a critical step toward reducing prison overcrowding. Critics, however, warned that shipping inmates against their will could be dangerous for guards, prisoners and the public.

For the governor, the decision couldn't have come soon enough. Three judges have scheduled separate hearings next month to consider appointing a panel that could cap the state's inmate population - which could potentially order the release of thousands of prisoners. The state now has 172,000 prisoners living in space designed for fewer than 100,000.

Schwarzenegger issued a statement saying the transfers will help California avoid the court-ordered release of dangerous felons and even increase safety for overburdened guards.

"Out of state transfers will improve the safety of California's institutions for our correctional officers and staff as well as the inmates, and will provide much needed space for rehabilitation programs," Schwarzenegger said. "Transferring of inmates out of state is a critical component of the state's overall plan to relieve overcrowding."

The decision follows the Legislature's approval in April of a $7.8 billion plan also designed to help stave off a federal takeover. The plan calls for heavy state borrowing to pay for adding 53,000 new beds, as well as boosting education, job training and other rehabilitation programs. The plan also authorizes the governor to continue transferring inmates out of state until 2011 to relieve overcrowding.

Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which sued the state over the transfers and prevailed in a Sacramento County Superior Court in February, said the transfers will expose guards to serious dangers.

He pointed to a riot in an Indiana prison last month as evidence. That riot, involving about 500 inmates, apparently began after prisoners recently transferred from Arizona refused to return to their living quarters.

"Inmates who are forced to leave the jurisdictions in which their families have the opportunity to visit them creates a very volatile situation that's unsafe for the inmates, unsafe for the guards, and unsafe for the public," Corcoran said.

REAL COST OF PRISONS

Cure For Hepatitis C Announced

A leading researcher has announced that the treatment of hepatitis C is a cure for the virus. Thanks to the h/t from Corrections Sentencing. This is great news considering the number of people who contract Hep C in the prison system or through high risk lifestyles. The problem is whether people can get treatment started while they are in prison.

Science Daily — The use of peginterferon alone, or in combination with ribavirin, points to a cure for hepatitis C, the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer and the need for liver transplant, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher recently said.

Mitchell Shiffman, M.D., professor in the VCU School of Medicine, and chief of hepatology and medical director of the Liver Transplant Program at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, is one of the lead investigators in the study, which was presented at the 38th annual Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, D.C. VCU was among about 40 sites worldwide studying pegylated interferon alfa-2a, manufactured by Roche Inc.

Nearly all -- 99 percent -- of patients with hepatitis C who were treated successfully with peginterferon alone, or in combination with ribavirin, had no detectable virus up to seven years later. Researchers say this data validates the use of the word "cure" when describing hepatitis C treatment as successful treatment is defined as having undetectable hepatitis C virus in the blood six months following treatment.

"We at VCU are encouraged by this data because it is rare in the treatment of life-threatening viral diseases that we can tell patients they may be cured," Shiffman said. "In hepatitis C today, we are able to help some patients achieve an outcome that effectively enables them to put their disease behind them."

SCIENCE DAILY

America's Prison Addiction (Maine)

American's addiction to prison plays itself out state-by-state. The thoughtfulness that goes behind how state governments are dealing with their individual "addiction" can often be measured the same as measuring the efficacy of a drug treatment program.

Maine, like the rest of America, is addicted to prisons. The only way we are going to beat this addiction is if we stop using our drug of choice — more prisons — for our current problem of prison overcrowding. The answer to prison overcrowding is fewer prisoners, not more prisons.

The principle reason our prisons are overcrowded is that jail time is our society’s preferred method of treating people who commit crimes primarily because they are addicted to drugs or alcohol, or are mentally ill. Half of all prisoners in America have these conditions as the primary problems that led to their crimes. If, as part of their sentences, we aggressively treated those prisoners for the illnesses they have instead of simply incarcerating them, and devoted more resources to treating these problems before they resulted in crimes, we would need fewer prisons, not more.

In recent discussions about running out of jail cells in Maine we have been doing just what addicts usually do when they run out of their drug — scramble desperately for more drugs. Recent proposals put forward as the answer to Maine’s prison overcrowding have primarily been ways of housing more prisoners, including sending state prisoners to county jails, outsourcing Maine’s prison overcrowding problem to other states by sending prisoners to a for-profit prison in Oklahoma, building a new prison in Cutler, and expanding the Charleston Correctional Facility.

Read the Article Here

Who's A Rat. Com

Thanks to Doug Berman for the h/t
on this fascinating story in the New York Times about a guy who started a website to out informants. He was originally busted on a drug charge because of one. Now the Justice Department prosecutors are stepping in.

There are three “rats of the week” on the home page of whosarat.com, a Web site devoted to exposing the identities of witnesses cooperating with the government. The site posts their names and mug shots, along with court documents detailing what they have agreed to do in exchange for lenient sentences.

Last week, for instance, the site featured a Florida man who agreed in September to plead guilty to cocaine possession but not gun charges in exchange for his commitment to work “in an undercover role to contact and negotiate with sources of controlled substances.” The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet.

“The reality is this,” said a spokesman for the site, who identified himself as Anthony Capone. “Everybody has a choice in life about what they want to do for a living. Nobody likes a tattletale.”

Federal prosecutors are furious, and the Justice Department has begun urging the federal courts to make fundamental changes in public access to electronic court files by removing all plea agreements from them — whether involving cooperating witnesses or not.

“We are witnessing the rise of a new cottage industry engaged in republishing court filings about cooperators on Web sites such as www.whosarat.com for the clear purpose of witness intimidation, retaliation and harassment,” a Justice Department official wrote in a December letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States, the administrative and policy-making body of the federal court system.

“The posting of sensitive witness information,” the letter continued, “poses a grave risk of harm to cooperating witnesses and defendants.”

In one case described in the letter, a witness in Philadelphia was moved and the F.B.I. was asked to investigate after material from whosarat.com was mailed to his neighbors and posted on utility poles and cars in the area. NY TIMES

California Prison Budget To Trump Colleges

Here in Colorado we aren't far behind as our prison budget grew nearly as much as our budget for higher education this year. Our Higher Ed budget increase was barely a of million dollars more than our prison budget increase. It's a dangerous and disturbing trend that is being played out. The minute we took one dollar out of our education budget to fund prisons was when the train wreck began.

James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, May 21, 2007

As the costs for fixing the state's troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone -- for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.

Based on current spending trends, California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.

But California has all but guaranteed that prisons will eat up an increasingly large share of taxpayer money because of chronic failures in a system that the state is now planning to expand.

Under a new state law, California will spend $7.4 billion to build 40,000 new prison beds, and that is over and above the current annual operating budget of more than $10 billion. Interest payments alone on the billions of dollars of bonds that will be sold to finance the new construction will amount to $330 million a year by 2011 -- all money that will not be available for higher education or other state priorities.

"California is just off the charts compared with other states in corrections spending," said Michael Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, a leading research organization. "Budgets are a zero-sum game, essentially. The money for corrections comes from other places. The shame of it is that California could have improved crime rates and a better funded higher education system if they ran things better."REAL COST OF PRISONS

Another Private Prison Buyout

ROSELAND, N.J., May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Community Education Centers, Inc. (CEC), the leading provider of offender reentry services, today announced that it has acquired CiviGenics, Marlborough, Mass., the largest provider of in- prison treatment programs. The move creates the largest offender reentry services company in the United States. The combined company provides services ranging from residential and non-residential reentry programs, in-prison treatment services, and jail management services.

The company will have a staff of more than 3,500, annual revenues in excess of $200 million and will operate 97 facilities in 22 states, which includes reentry centers, in-prison treatment programs, and jail management contracts. The company will be headquartered in New Jersey and will have an estimated 20,000 individuals in its daily care.

"The leaders of America's prison systems are increasingly aware that recidivism reduction is the best policy for government and incarcerated individuals," said John J. Clancy, Chairman and CEO of CEC. "CEC has been committed to recidivism reduction since its inception over a decade ago and now our national reach will have an even larger impact. I'm excited about CEC's increased ability to provide effective reentry services and the growth potential for all facets of the company."

According to federal statistics, the U.S. incarcerated population has grown from 0.5 million in 1980 to 2.3 million in 2005, more than quadrupling in 25 years. The number of offenders either incarcerated or back in the community is expected to increase from roughly 7.1 million to 8.5 million by 2012. As a result, the public sector is now turning to companies such as CEC and CiviGenics that provide effective reentry services that reduce recidivism rates.

Read the Article Here

Money To Help Children of Addicts

Now if we can just get some money in Colorado to help the addicts.

Children of parents or siblings addicted to alcohol or drugs often feel their loved one’s addiction is their fault.

Many times those children internalize the problems so much that they become alcohol or drug addicts themselves, care providers say.

Today, a prevention and educational program aimed at teaching children ages 7 to 12 that others’ addictions are not their fault and they can’t cure it for loved ones was announced in Denver.

The program, The Betty Ford Center Colorado Children’s Center, received a $1.5 million grant from the Daniels Fund to expand the program in Colorado. The Center has programs in Dallas and Rancho Mirage in California.

Mary Pat Woodard, coordinator for the program in Colorado, said the Center started a pilot program in Colorado in 2003 and has helped about 300 Colorado children so far through monthly programs.

Early Release Causes Clash

Early U.S. inmate-release rules lead to clash

DOJ calls sentencing panel's broad guidelines a 'dead letter.'

Marcia Coyle / Staff reporter
May 21, 2007

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Sentencing Commission are at loggerheads over a commission proposal to expand the extraordinary circumstances that make prisoners eligible for so-called compassionate release or reduction in sentence.

The commission in early May sent to Congress a proposed sentencing guideline that, for the first time in 24 years, would give courts guidance on what should be considered extraordinary and compelling grounds for adjusting a sentence.

The guideline broadens the grounds beyond current policy at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which decides whether to make motions for sentence reductions after receiving prisoners' applications. And the guideline comes at a time when the Justice Department is in the final stage of approving a regulation that narrows even further the current policy.

The American Bar Association, Families Against Mandatory Minimums and other groups had urged the commission for years to act on a mandate to the commission in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. In that law, Congress mandated that the commission issue policy statements on how the law's compassionate-release section should operate and what factors should be considered extraordinary and compelling.

The Bureau of Prisons has interpreted the law narrowly, generally only approving motions for cases in which a prisoner is terminally ill or incapacitated by illness.

The Justice Department warned last summer that any expansion of current policy would be a "dead letter." A department spokesman reiterated that opposition to the commission's new submission to Congress.

"The [commission] should have limited the examples of extraordinary and compelling reasons to the inmate's terminal medical condition, with a life expectancy of one year or less, or medical conditions that are profoundly debilitating in nature," the spokesman said. The requirement that the prisoner have a life expectancy of one year or less is contained in the department's proposed regulation.

Despite the department's opposition, the commission defines extraordinary and compelling reasons as: terminal illness; a permanent physical or medical condition, or deteriorating physical or mental health because of the aging process, that "substantially diminishes" the prisoner's ability to provide self-care; the death or incapacitation of the prisoner's only family member capable of caring for the prisoner's minor child or minor children; or, as determined by the Bureau of Prisons, there is an extraordinary and compelling reason other than, or in combination with, the reasons described.

'Grossly underutilized'

Since 1990, the Bureau of Prisons has filed an average of 22 sentence-reduction motions each year despite a steadily increasing federal prison population.

"Logic would say it has to be true that this provision is grossly underutilized," said Professor Stephen Saltzburg of George Washington University Law School, who presented the ABA's views to the commission. "We know in prisons we have rising levels of hepatitis and less adequate medical care. All circumstances suggest as the population rose and conditions didn't get any better there would be more occasions for use of the statute."

But the statute has never been a priority of the bureau or the department, he added, even though it is an important feature of sentencing law.

However, the Justice Department spokesman said the guideline "could undermine the determinate sentencing system established by the Sentencing Reform Act by treating compassionate release as an open-ended, parole-like early-release mechanism."

Mary Price, vice president and general counsel of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said, "We feel very strongly the commission left open the possibility that a future Bureau of Prisons — not this one — might take a more generous view of this authority."

As long as the commission did nothing, said Saltzburg, it was "almost certain" the statute would remain, in the words of the Justice Department, "a dead letter." But the guideline, he added, will allow interested observers, including those in Congress, to ask the bureau and the department why they aren't considering those standards, as the law requires.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1179479101288
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New Private Prison Company

The Inland Group has hired all of Centracore's senior staff after it was bought out by the GEO company. The Inland Group tried to buy Centracore but was outbid by the Florida-based GEO.The used to focus on building shopping malls. Now they want to build prisons.

Inland Group Inc. wants to spend some time behind bars.

Known mainly for its far-flung shopping center empire, the Oak Brook-based company is getting into the prison development business. After falling short in a bid to acquire Florida-based prison owner CentraCore Properties Trust last year, an Inland Group affiliate recently hired three CentraCore executives, including its president and CEO, to start up its own prison development business.

The appeal: With overcrowding at many state prisons, it’s a growing industry, not to mention recession-proof.

“There is a tremendous need for correctional facilities in Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and California,” says Chuck Jones, president and CEO of Inland Public Properties Development Inc., a unit of Inland American Real Estate Trust Inc.

Mr. Jones, CentraCore’s former president and CEO, joined Inland American earlier this year after selling his company for $356 million to Florida-based Geo Group Inc., a prison owner and operator. Inland American had bid for CentraCore last year, but walked away empty-handed.

The new Inland unit will build and own prisons and other government buildings, mainly at the state and local level. It will lease the properties, not run them.

“We’re doing exactly the same thing that we were doing before. It’s just a different platform,” says Mr. Jones, 58, who is based in Austin, Texas. “I would be disappointed if by the end of ’08 we haven’t done somewhere between $300 million to $400 million in new projects
Real Cost of Prisons

Smokeless Pot

SAN FRANCISCO, May 17 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have created a cannabis-vaporizing device to produce the same biological effect as does smoking marijuana but without harmful toxins.

The University of California-San Francisco research focused on delivery of the active ingredient delta-9-tertrahydrocannibinol, or THC.

The study's lead author, Dr. Donald Abrams, noted smoked cannabis alleviates the chronic pain caused by HIV-related neuropathy but concerns had been expressed that smoking marijuana was not safe.

"This study demonstrates an alternative method that gives patients the same effects and allows controlled dosing, but without inhalation of the toxic products in smoke," said Abrams, a University of California-San Francisco professor of clinical medicine.

Patients rated the "high" they experienced from both smoking and vaporization and there was no difference between the two methods by patient self-reporting. In addition, patients were asked which method they preferred.

Science Daily

Governing Through Crime Or Governing By Race

An immpresive post at Governing through Crime that Michael at CORR SENT
points us to that discusses the war on the poor and racial disparity.

Does America accept the moral necessity of a war on crime despite its clear tendency to reinforce almost every aspect of racialized disadvantage and disparity, or is that war on crime a barely disguised strategy to maintain a system of unequal citizenship on the basis of race?

Denver Rescue Mission Marathon

One of those stories that show that people are salvageable and that with support they can get past the "demons" that chase them. There is a saying that recovering from addiction isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.

Crack addiction burned almost every relationship in Shannon Chandler's life. He hurt most of his friends and family. But through it all, his mother, Nancy Chandler, stood strong and supported him.

On a sunny Sunday morning, amid cheers and banners and balloons, Shannon Chandler, 41, lumbered across the finish line of the Colorado Colfax Marathon. With tears running down his face, he still had the energy to embrace Mom, waiting at the finish line.

"She stuck with me through my addictions, and she was there for me at the end of the race," said Chandler, one of 17 men in the Denver Rescue Mission's drug rehabilitation program who took on the race.

trickled in wearing their bright yellow Rescue Mission T-shirts - all completing a goal they set out to accomplish when they began an intense training program in January.

A few who had started the program dropped out before the race.

Some, like Chandler, ran/walked the half-marathon. Nine men took on the entire 26.2-mile course from Aurora west through Denver and Lakewood, finally finishing at Colorado Mills mall.

DENVER POST

HB 1107 - On It's Way to the Governor

I would like to thank the Post for running this article. We hope that you will call or email the governor and ask him to support HB 1107.

Ray Hupp was 22 when he got caught with $25 worth of cocaine. That screw-up has trailed the 44-year-old construction- company owner half his life, and he'd like to erase it.

It's possible he could, under a proposed law awaiting Gov. Bill Ritter's signature.

People convicted of certain nonsexual crimes could petition a judge to seal their criminal records 10 years after completing prison time, probation or parole, wiping their pasts clean.

"I kick myself all the time," said Hupp, recalling all the job applications he filled out, checking the "yes" box on whether he had committed a crime. "Nobody ever called."

Some say House Bill 1107 offers the gift of a second chance. But to critics, who imagine an employer unknowingly hiring someone convicted of embezzlement to keep their books, it strips away the public's right to know.

The proposal would reverse a 1988 law that shut down the process to seal criminal convictions in Colorado.

Under current law, judges can seal arrest records only when there is an acquittal or the charge is dropped. State law does not allow someone convicted as an adult to seal records of a conviction.

The bill under consideration by the governor says a person with a sealed conviction can check "no" to the question about criminal history on job applications.

"It's a very strong incentive for people - do well, and there will be a light at the end of the tunnel," said Christie Donner, director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.

Only people who do not commit a crime in the 10 years after completing prison, probation or parole are eligible to seal their records. They could not seal convictions involving sexual offenses, domestic violence or crimes against pregnant women.

The Denver Post

226 Kids In Texas Improperly Sentenced - To Be Released

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The agency that runs the Texas state juvenile prison system said it will release 226 inmates after a review found their sentences were improperly extended.

Advocates for Texas Youth Commission inmates and their families have complained that sentences are often extended inconsistently or in retaliation for filing grievances.

Jay Kimbrough, who is heading an investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the agency's facilities, formed a panel to review the records of nearly all inmates with extended sentences. The six-member panel, which included community activists and prosecutors, reviewed the cases of 1,027 inmates whose sentences were extended.

"For the youth we're releasing, we did not find that the extensions were warranted," agency spokesman Jim Hurley said Friday. "The others will be reviewed on a regular basis."

Hurley said the 226 inmates will be released on parole as soon as guardians can pick them up or they can be transferred to an interim halfway house.

Kimbrough said in March that the panel would review the documentation on each inmate's sentencing extension and discuss whether the decision was just and appropriate, and then refer their recommendation to a retired judge.

The review is one of many ongoing reforms to the state's juvenile system after the disclosure of allegations of sexual abuse of inmates by staff and a possible cover-up by agency officials. The commission incarcerates about 4,700 offenders ages 10 to 21

CNN

More Probation Support.

We need to reduce recidivism in Colorado, everyone should know that by now. One of the best ways to reduce the prison population is by making sure people don't end up there in the first place.

The failure rates on probation are just as bad as the failure rates on parole. Part of that problem is exacerbated by the huge numbers of people that probation officers have on their case load. We've already added new parole officers, now if we can just take some of the load off of the public defenders we might be getting somewhere.

The Colorado Judicial Branch says it is expanding its probation-services department by about 13 percent with the addition of probation supervisors, officers and administrative staff.

The department expects to add 81 probation officers, 12 probation supervisors and 18 support positions by the end of the summer.

Group Coming Out Against HB 1313

There is a group of people (Sec. of State and friends) who are coming out against HB 1313. Please call the Governor and tell him to sign this important bill. One of the pieces of this legislation would allow people to get an ID using their Department of Corrections identification card in conjunction with a birth certificate or social security card. The barriers to housing, employment and services are huge just because of a lack of an identification card and the difficulty in obtaining one.

If Gov. Ritter truly wants to reduce recidivism in Colorado then he has to take a serious "boots on the ground" look at what people are facing when they are coming back to community.

A bill that would make it easier to get a Colorado driver's license also would encourage illegal immigration and therefore Gov. Bill Ritter should veto it, a coalition of political leaders said Wednesday.

House Bill 1313 would expand the list of documents a person could use to prove residency and citizenship, undercutting efforts to curb illegal immigration, identity theft and terrorist threats, said members of the group, including Secretary of State Mike Coffman and former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm.

"This bill allows for the use of hospital records, school records, religious records and tax returns to provide proof of identity and lawful presence," Coffman said. "It's a dramatic shift from current practices and could open loopholes to allow individuals to obtain a driver's license or identification card who are not entitled to one."Rocky Mountain News

Crime and Poverty

Not surprising to find that those who come from poor neighborhoods are less likely to receive a suspended sentence.

The relatively high imprisonment rates of African American men from poor neighborhoods raise a question of whether felony sentences are influenced by ecological factors, separately from or in conjunction with a defendant's race. To provide insight on the topic, both legal and extralegal effects on imprisonment and sentence length were modeled for nearly 3,000 convicted felons from more than 1,000 census tracts in Ohio. Neighborhood effects were estimated with empirical bayes coefficients as outcomes, derived from hierarchical analyses, to adjust for the small ratio of defendants to tracts. Findings revealed that convicted felons from more disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to receive nonsuspended prison sentences, whereas a defendant's race was unrelated to imprisonment. By contrast, neighborhood disadvantage was unrelated to sentence length for imprisoned defendants, whereas African Americans received significantly shorter terms relative to Whites. The processes through which ecological context may operate to affect sentence severity are discussed.

Hawaii May Reject Federal Marijuana Drug War Funds

Hawaii is starting to rethink it's policies regarding the eradication of marijuana on the big island. It's a good start to rethink our policies nationwide. As one alert reader noticed that we shouldn't piecemeal our marijuana legislation we need to get far more aggressive in our approach to federal legislative change.

HILO » With Hawaii County Councilman Bob Jacobson calling for an end to the "marijuana war," the Council rejected three federal grants totaling $582,000 for marijuana eradication.

That could mark the end of 30 years of "Green Harvest" eradication efforts by Hawaii County police.

But there was no certainty. A second vote must be taken before the money can be removed from the county's 2007-2008 budget.

And the Council has rejected federal eradication money before, voting against it in 2000 but resuming acceptance in 2001.

---

HILO » The Hawaii County Council voted this week to remove $582,000 of federal anti-marijuana money from the county's 2007-2008 budget.

The move could be the end of 30 years of so-called Green Harvest eradication missions, or it could be a signal that the program will survive, but with a major face lift.

"I'm stoked," said marijuana legalization advocate Roger Christie. "It's the beginning of the end of cannabis eradication."

STAR BULLETIN

Suicide in Larimer County Jail

LARIMER COUNTY - A jail inmate committed suicide by hanging himself with a T-shirt from a top bunk in his cell, officials said Friday.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS _ Douglas Wade Russell, 37, of Fort Collins, was pronounced dead at 12:25 a.m. Friday at Poudre Valley Hospital. An autopsy showed that he died from strangulation.

Deputies found him unconscious and unresponsive at 11:52 p.m. Thursday after he apparently hanged himself. He was given CPR before being taken to the hospital.

Russell's suicide was the first in the jail since December 2003. Last year, three deputies received Life Saving Awards from Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden for thwarting inmate suicide attempts. This year, three suicide attempts were interrupted.

Russell, who had an extensive history of drug and assault charges in Colorado and other states, was arrested May 9, accused of violating parole on a third-degree assault charge in Fort Collins. When he came in, he was on drugs and considered "uncooperative" so he was put on a drug withdrawal program and placed in "red tag" status.

Rocky Mountain News

Colorado Prisons Outpace Libya

Myths have a way of hiding what we don’t want to see.

Americans, for example, are quick to charge third world dictators with abusive prison policies. But prison incarceration rates tell a different story. Reports show that 45 of the 50 democratically elected state governments in the United States, including Colorado, imprison their residents at a faster pace than any of the foreign governments headed by dictators.

Rulers in Libya, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan made Parade Magazine’s 2005 world’s worst dictators list. And the Oakland, Calif.-based National Council on Crime and Delinquency has issued a report, U.S. Rates of Incarceration: A Global Perspective, which shows the incarceration rates for these five dictatorships — the number of persons in prison for every 100,000 population — ranging from a low of 57 in Pakistan to a high of 207 in Libya.

By comparison, prison policies made in Denver locked up 457 state residents for every 100,000 population in 2005. In other words, Colorado imprisons its people at a rate more than two times faster than Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya and eight times faster than Pakistan under Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

If inmates held in local jails in Colorado were added in, the spread would be even wider.

Only five states — Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Minnesota and North Dakota — have prison incarceration rates less harsh than Libya’s. All other states enforce prison policies that put dictators around the world to shame, including more than 600 inmates per 100,000 population in Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

Read the Article Here

SAFER To Run A New Pot Initiative

Denver police would have to make possession of small amounts of marijuana by adults their lowest law enforcement priority under a proposal a pro-pot group is pushing.

"We're doing this because the city has been unwilling to recognize the fact that people in Denver do not think adults should be punished for using marijuana, a less harmful drug than alcohol," Mason Tvert, executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, said Thursday.

In 2005, voters approved Initiative 100, which legalized the possession and private use of 1 ounce or less of marijuana by adults.

Since then, arrests for misdemeanor possession have gone up.

"The people of the city have no other option but to move forward with a measure to tell the city how they want it run," Tvert said.

Tvert is meeting with city officials at 2 p.m. Monday for a "review and comment" hearing on the proposed ordinance. Tvert said he will then begin a signature-gathering drive to put an initiative on the November ballot.

Similar initiatives have been adopted in Seattle and Oakland.

But David Broadwell, an assistant city attorney, said there's still a question whether a policy through an initiated ordinance can be enforced here.

Initiative 100 "clearly related to a law of the city and changed that law," he said. "But this one is obviously quite different in terms of purporting to direct administrative behavior in the executive branch in a very specific way. I don't think we've ever had an initiative quite like this one."

The proposal also calls for the creation of an 11-member Marijuana Policy Review Panel "to assess and report on the effects of this ordinance."

Rocky Mountain News

Women's Prison Rape Case

A teached at the Denver Women's Correctional facility has been charged with rape for having sex with two different women.

A teacher at the women's facility in Denver was charged Thursday with repeatedly having sex with two female inmates from December to May.

Brandon Gonzales, 33, who taught Adult Basic Education at the facility, was charged with nine counts of sexual conduct in a penal institution.

One of the alleged victims, who attempted suicide, told nurses that Gonzales had raped her, according to court documents.

The second alleged victim told Denver police Detective Louis Estrada that Gonzales had sex with her on five occasions, the documents said.

Gonzales has been released from custody on a $50,000 bond and is to appear in Denver County Court on May 29 to be advised of the charges. Denver Post

Cop Watch -- Video Tape Catches The Story

The officer involved got punished, but we aren't allowed to know what that is.

• DENVER POST - If you pay taxes in Denver and would like to see where your money is going, go to ACLU-CO.org. Click the May 16 news release. Then, click the link to the videotape of a policeman arresting a CopWatch volunteer for trying to record someone else's arrest.

  Listen carefully and you will hear the worst truth about this city's finest: Even with civilians keeping tabs, it's hard to say how Denver police might behave.

  "Sir, here's your ID back," Denver cop Jeffrey Morgan says to college student and CopWatch volunteer Evan Herzoff. "Why don't you step into the alley so I don't have to take you to jail?"

  "No problem," replies Herzoff. "By the way, can I have your card?"

  "Actually," Morgan responds, "let's take you to jail."

  "I'm just asking for your card," Herzoff says.

  "He's going to jail for trespassing," the cop concludes.

  That conversation will cost Denver taxpayers 8,500 bucks.

  It also shows how a single officer's abuse of police power helps undermine confidence in an entire department.

  Herzoff captured his exchange with Morgan in the audio portion of a videotape he made April 8, 2006. Herzoff taped police arresting another person. But Morgan decided to also charge Herzoff with trespassing and haul him off to jail for a night. The videotape became the basis for a cash settlement the city reached Wednesday with Herzoff and the American Civil Liberties Union.

  If Herzoff had not captured Morgan's words on tape, there would have been nothing but the claim of a civilian against a cop. That might have saved Denver residents some money. It would not have made them safer.

  "The videotape was certainly significant evidence," said Richard Rosenthal, the city's independent police monitor.

  "If I hadn't had that tape," Herzoff added, "it might have turned out worse."

  Prosecutors dropped Herzoff's trespassing charge as soon as they heard his tape.

• The Denver Post

USSC Crack Report to Congress

FAMM urges Congress to heed message from Sentencing Commission
New report finds crack disparity unjustifiable,
up to Congress to fix the problem

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Federal crack cocaine penalties overstate the harmfulness of the drug, apply mostly to low-level offenders, and hit minorities hardest, concludes the U.S. Sentencing Commission in a new report to Congress, "Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy," released today, May 15. Based on these findings, the Commission maintains its consistently held position that current crack cocaine penalties significantly undermine the congressional objectives of the Sentencing Reform Act, including fairness, uniformity and proportionality. The solution? Congress should act, says the report.

The following may be attributed to Mary Price, vice president and general counsel of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a national, nonpartisan sentencing reform organization.
"The prisoners, children and families torn apart by these unjustifiably harsh penalties are watching closely and will welcome crack sentencing reforms that restore some justice to crack penalties. Only Congress can change our harsh mandatory minimum crack laws. Lawmakers should not squander the important opportunity presented by the most recent set of findings and recommendations by the Sentencing Commission. The time is ripe for reform, especially given the bipartisan support for crack sentencing reform that has emerged in recent years." In its report, the Commission again unanimously and strongly urged Congress to act promptly on the following recommendations:

(1) Increase the five-year and ten-year mandatory minimum threshold quantities for crack cocaine offenses to focus the penalties more closely on serious and major traffickers,

(2) Repeal the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine and

(3) Reject addressing the 100-to-1 disparity by decreasing the five-year and ten-year mandatory minimum threshold quantities for powder cocaine offenses, citing no evidence to justify such an increase in quantity-based penalties for powder cocaine offenses.

Fewer Public Defender's Visits at Jail

Chief Public Defender Doug Wilson states that we are at 65% of capacity for public defenders statewide. It is indicative of budget woes and an overburdened jail system. (h/t to Greg at PD stuff)

This week, the jail court docket was filled with cases, some that had been on hold since last week. In what is becoming customary nowadays, the docket was split in two — felonies and misdemeanors — because there were 32 defendants scheduled to see the judge.

Jail Cmdr. Ed Torres said Tuesday's traffic in the jail courthouse is catching up to Mondays, which is notoriously busy after a weekend of arrests.

Sheriff Joe Pelle, who runs the jail, said he is unaware of inmate numbers increasing because of the reduction in visits by public defenders. In fact, Pelle said, the inmate population is down slightly from the same time last year.

Prosecutors voiced their concerns to the public defender's office last week.

"We're trying to find a resolution to have a public defender where a public defender needs to be," said Boulder County Deputy District Attorney Tim Talkington, who used to be a defense attorney. "It's affecting the ability to administer justice."

Talkington said he doesn't know how many defendants the once-a-week visits have affected, but he knew of people who sat in jail for days or as long as two weeks before even speaking to a lawyer.

The cutback in visits by public defenders wasn't noticeable until classes ended at the University of Colorado, and all the law school students who render free legal aid went away for the summer, he said.

Boulder Daily Camera

Westword - East Colfax Motel Hell

The homeless recieve another blow as the track of hotels on East Colfax move out for developers. Luke Turf from The Westword follows the story and the families affected by this latest development.

MOTEL HELL -Looking through the window of room 105 at the Dunes Motel, Amy Limon could see the kids playing outside. She opened the door and slowly navigated her wheelchair down a wooden ramp that she'd had the motel maintenance guy install. The parking lot was littered with cigarette butts, empty beer cans and soda bottles, abandoned shopping carts and old mattresses. A doll lay on the ground, caked in soot and dirt. Two of the kids from room 226 were playing on a car; a boy from room 325 was shooting a half-deflated football through a basket that was really just a cardboard box tied to the second-floor balcony with a dirty pink ribbon. Usually the five kids who called 226 home were forbidden from playing in the dirty lot, just like the kids who lived in room 325. But the Dunes was closing for good on April 1, and both families were giving their children a little leeway now that most of the motel's addicts, dealers, gangsters, hookers, crazies and other shady characters had vacated the premises.

The cockroaches and bedbugs weren't checking out, though, and as residents left the motel, many abandoned clothing, sofas and beds, stuff the Korean conglomerate that sold the place had bought dirt-cheap from garbage pickers. The motel's new owners didn't care if their "guests" had lived at the Dunes two days or two years; anyone who wanted the furniture was welcome to take it with them. But no one did. "Go away or die," someone had written on one of the motel-room doors.

WESTWORD

Strong Prescription Drug Use Spike In Teens

TRENTON, N.J.- The number of adolescent girls taking drugs for Type 2 diabetes nearly tripled in just five years, while use of chronic medicines for psychotic behavior and insomnia roughly doubled among boys and girls aged 10 to 19, a study shows.

Meanwhile, adolescents' use of drugs for depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, leveled off or dropped in the last two years, after widespread new warnings about safety concerns.

The study, an analysis of prescription drug use from 2001 to 2006 among 370,000 insured children aged 10 to 19, was conducted by Medco Health Inc. of Franklin Lakes, N.J., the country's biggest prescription benefit manager, and released exclusively to The Associated Press.

Experts say the findings raise questions about physical and mental health problems in youth, the appropriateness of putting them on strong, long-term medicines mostly designed for adults, and whether it might be better to focus on other strategies, such as counseling, exercise and changes in diet, caffeine intake and bedtime routine.

"There's increasing use of medication in children the last 20 years, but does that mean we're treating them successfully or that we're overmedicating?" said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Probably both, he said, but some children aren't getting needed help.

Dr. Wayne Snodgrass, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on drugs, said the levels of medication usage found in the study might be appropriate, but it's hard to know without details on why each prescription was written.

"It deserves watching," he said, particularly because adolescents' brains are still developing. Snodgrass said worried parents should question their child's doctor about their treatment or seek a second opinion.

Denver Post

Man Jailed For Asking For Police ID: City To Pay 8,500

All he did was ask for the officer's identification card. He was arrested and thrown in jail for his request. There is no report that the officer in question was ever reprimanded.

Rocky Mountain News - A Denver man who was arrested after he asked to see a police officer’s business card has settled his lawsuit against the city.

Evan Herzoff, a University of Colorado at Denver student and local CopWatch volunteer, was arrested April 8.

Herzoff had been videotaping the arrest of another individual in a parking lot as part of his CopWatch work. Police asked for his identification, which Herzoff produced, and then told him he was free to go.

But when Herzoff asked for Officer Jeffrey Morgan’s business card, the officer told him, "Let’s take you to jail instead." Herzoff was handcuffed and spent the night in jail.

A charge of trespass against Herzoff later was dismissed.Rocky Mountain News

Club Fed No More

Here's a great article (h/t to Doug Berman)

It was in the American and it outlines the prison stay of a white collar criminal. It's a story of a man's stay in a minimum security camp and outlines the differences between the Club Fed of the old days and new federal prison system now. It's a very long article so give yourself some time, but take the time because it is good.

I. Just Another Felon

Alfred A. Porro Jr. came to Allenwood in a large transport bus guarded by a handful of armed correc­tions officers. Like the five other prisoners on board, he arrived in full shackles. As the bus rumbled to a stop, the officers escorted the new inmates off the vehicle and turned them over to their keepers.

Porro disembarked with relief. Over the past two days, he had been whisked from one prison to another—no one would tell him where he was headed. Now, at least, Porro knew he would be serv­ing his time at a minimum-security prison camp. Good news, he thought. And the grounds, Porro had to admit, were less than intimidating. With sweeping grasslands and thickets of trees, the camp presented none of the chilling images that the term “prison” calls to mind. No fences, no coiled razor wire, no sharpshooters on towers. It might as well have been a college campus.

The American

No Prison, So What's Next For Ault?

Greeley Tribune Editorial -- There's nothing like a missed opportunity -- at least from which to learn. That's how we feel about the latest news that the state Department of

Corrections has rescinded its offer to the GEO Group to build a private prison in Ault.

The idea had merit, and we're sorry to see the plan go away. But, we're also glad state officials had the wherewithal to put a stop to discussions with a company that was drawing some questions on its operations and tactics.

We liked the idea of a prison because it's a clean industry; it would have provided jobs and commerce, in short, another economic engine for northern Colorado.

This, however, could just be the beginning of interest in Ault, where land prices will make it more attractive for Greeley and Fort Collins residents to relocate, as well as potential businesses that would follow suit. Just because this town ducked the growth spurt the rest of Weld County has seen in the last decade, there's nothing to say that that will continue.

If the GEO Group -- a global, public company -- showed interest in Ault, imagine what's next.

This Weld town is at an interesting intersection: at the corner of traffic that commutes from Greeley to Fort Collins, on the U.S. 85 and Colo. 14 corridor, which remains a major transportation system in northern Colorado, and its residents and town board are willing to grow.

Here comes the opportunity.

For Ault's town board, here's the chance to ensure that land zoning assures proper and smart growth in your community. We know the town is desperate for revenue, and the prison would have afforded as much for the community to make some major improvements.

We've also heard that Ault is considering teaming with Upstate Colorado Economic Development, which could put the town in touch with several nationwide business looking to relocate. That's a good move that could bring several types of industry to this town.

For residents who fought so diligently to keep the prison from their backyards, here's your chance to have a say in what lies ahead. Don't sit back and relax. Ault residents felt disenfranchised when they learned of the prison proposal after the town board signed a letter agreeing to the concept of putting a prison in their town.

Greeley Tribune

The New "Cheese" Incident

Michael over at Corr Sentencing alerts us to a new phenomenon of a drug called cheese. Heroin mixed with cold medicine and sold in small amounts. Inconsistencies in purity are causing deaths among teenagers in Texas. The article is in Newsweek.

Cheap, addictive and often deadly, the new drug has spread virulently in the Dallas area. Since 2005, the year of the first confirmed cheese death, an estimated 21 people have died from the drug. Most of them were young, white or Hispanic males. Cheese arrests among students in the Dallas Independent School District jumped from 90 in the 2005-2006 school year to 145 so far in 2006-2007. The drug's surge in Dallas bucks the national trend in heroin consumption, which declined from 94,000 users age 12 to 17 in 2002 to 60,000 in 2005, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Now the Drug Enforcement Administration is worried that cheese will spread to other parts of the country. The agency is investigating a few possible cases, including one in California.

Cheese is made by grinding up cold medication and mixing it with black-tar heroin, which is typically smuggled in by Mexican drug cartels. A $30 purchase of heroin can yield 40 to 50 cheese hits, each costing about $2—more affordable for users and more profitable for mixers. The drug, which is snorted, derives its name from a supposedly Parmesan-like appearance, though in reality, it looks more like coarse sand. Because the amount of heroin in cheese is sometimes small—as little as 3 percent—the drug rarely shows up in field tests. But the heroin quantity can be inconsistent. "Kids will be scoring 3 percent and all of a sudden, they get 9 or 10 percent, and you are dead," says James Capra, Special Agent in charge of the DEA's Dallas field division.

Second Chance Act to Be Voted On Today

Second Chance Act voted on by full House May15 Urge your federal rep to support H.R. 1593

H.R. 1593, The Second Chance Act, will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives tomorrow, Tuesday, May 15, 2007. Two-thirds of the full House of Representatives must vote in favor of H.R. 1593 for the legislation to pass through the House. The floor debate should begin tomorrow afternoon, with the actual vote coming Tuesday night.

Please take action now to help convince your representative to vote for this bill. Please click on the "Take Action" link on the right or scroll down to email your federal representative in support of this bill. You can also look up other information, including your rep's telephone number. Your action can make a difference in the future of this positive legislation. CLICK HERE TO ACT NOW

Colorado Confidential - Dealing With Drugs - Part One and Two

Kerri Rebresh posted this over at Colorado Confidential she will follow up with part 2 tomorrow.

About 20 percent of Colorado’s 22,000 inmates are incarcerated on drug charges. At a cost of $28,000 per inmate per year, the state spends about $117 million each year to lock up non-violent drug offenders, and that number does not include other costs such as enforcement and prosecution. Drug offenders are often given the option of going to treatment instead of prison, but access to programs that meet their needs – and are affordable – is scarce.

But many studies have found that drug treatment is a much more effective way of dealing with drug offenders than putting them behind bars. A 2004 analysis of several treatment programs in Maryland found that "on the whole, providing drug offenders with treatment is a more cost-effective way of dealing with substance addicted, drug and nonviolent offenders than prison." The study found that the treatment programs behind bars yielded a benefit of $1.91 for every dollar spent, but programs for offenders outside of prison yielded $8.87 worth of social benefits for every dollar spent.

Faced with an overflowing prison population and an exploding corrections budget, Colorado legislators took an important step this session that could result in reform of the state's criminal justice policies. When signed by Gov. Ritter, House Bill 1358 will create the Colorado Criminal and Juvenile Justice Commission, which will be charged with reviewing four specific issues: prevention, alternatives to incarceration, sentencing policies and juvenile justice policies. The commission will be comprised of 26 members including: executive directors of the departments of Public Safety, Corrections, Human Services, and Higher Education the Attorney General, State Public Defender, chairperson of the Parole Board, and chairperson of the Juvenile Parole Board 4 legislators 2 members appointed by the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court 12 members appointed by the Governor continued...

Kerri Rebresh :: Dealing With Drugs, Part II

Department of Public Safety Executive Director Peter Weir spoke Tuesday on KCFR's Colorado Matters about the commission. Weir described three categories of offenders: violent offenders, drug dealers and drug users. The latter group, he said, "is really a group that I think we can make a difference with." Weir said drug users are often given several chances before they end up behind bars, but many appear in front of the court again and again. It's an indication that probation alone doesn't work, he said. There needs to be other services, such as drug treatment, that are used in conjunction with probation. "We have very, very few programs that are addressing both the mental health issues and the substance abuse and the alcohol issues," Weir said.

Colorado Confidential

Homeless Off The Streets For the Convention

If the chronically homeless don't want to go to a shelter I wonder if they will coerce them into the jail for a short stay until after the convention.

Rocky Mountain News - Denver plans to clear downtown streets of the homeless during the Democratic National Convention here in 2008.

The city will open an emergency shelter normally used during winter deep freezes, and keep other shelters in the city open 24 hours during the August gathering. In addition, an army of outreach workers will fan out across downtown to persuade the homeless to come inside during the convention.

"Shelters will be open the entire time to make certain everyone can go inside and that the outreach folks have a place to take any person from the streets," said Roxane White, Denver's manager of human services.

White said the effort is motivated by security concerns and is not just an effort to spruce up Denver's image at a time when the city will be under a media spotlight.

Rocky Mountain News

Put Prisoners To Work Building Affordable Housing

Here's a new twist: Using prisoners to build affordable housing. Does that mean that we can give them someplace to live once they are released as well? Forty percent of people released from prison in Colorado are released homeless.

The state budget can only grow 6 percent a year. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t when you’re staring at a zillion hands asking for money like so many Ethiopians lusting after a Big Mac.

“The state will have to have a discussion about this. Six percent won’t be enough,” said Sen. Johnson, in a “the-end-is-near” tone of voice. “Money is tight.”

Pothole, paving, prisons and prisoners are all expensive.

Those incarcerated in state prisons cost $27,000 per year, and the judicial system is locking away 1,000 new prisons every year.

One suggestion solution is to put those prisoners to work building affordable housing. Prisoners get to help solve a problem they’re indirectly helping cause, plus they can learn skills for which people will pay money. But is that really a solution or even part of a solution? Do you really want people locked away for various violent crimes handling power tools on your property?

“Colorado must balance its budget every year, unlike the federal government,” Johnson said, stopping short of saying that it’s also unlike most people swimming in a sea of credit card debt, which is beginning to be most people.”

Vail Trail

Lisl Auman and Hunter S. Thompson

Yesterday was warm and windy, thunderclouds threatened as they often do in Denver in May.
On the steps of the capitol, I stood with my friend Lisl Auman as she prepared to sing a song with her dad before the crowd that had gathered to honor Hunter S. Thompson and Lisl. We were joined by Hunter's lovely widow Anita who read from her new book, "The Gonzo Life". The message that she delivered was clear and necessary. "The most important word in politics, is we."

I was proud and honored to be able to stand on those steps and give my thanks to Hunter for his work in getting Lisl released from prison.

Rocky Mountain News-On May 14, 2001, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson staged a rally on the state Capitol steps to call for freedom for convicted cop killer Lisl Auman. Notables such as rocker Warren Zevon were there, too.

On Sunday - a day short of six years later - a happy-looking Auman stood on those same steps a free woman.

"Lisl would not be out and none of this would have happened without Hunter S. Thompson," said Mary Ellen Johnson of the Pendulum Foundation. "We never want to forget that."

The Pendulum Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to oppose the trend of juveniles being sentenced as adults, organized this year's rally not only to commemorate Thompson but to remember the "forgotten 45" - the 45 people sentenced as juveniles to life without parole in Colorado.

Organizers, who called for an examination of juvenile sentencing laws, released 45 red balloons - each one carrying the name of one of the "forgotten 45."

Auman, who has kept a low profile since her release from a halfway house about a year ago, sang a song by Sarah McLachlan, I Will Remember You. Her father, Don, accompanied her on guitar.

Auman, 31, dedicated the lyrics to the people she served time with in prison. Later, she said the song was also for victims' families.

Auman told the roughly 30 people gathered that she wanted to carry on Thompson's legacy of seeking justice for "those who don't have a voice."

She said she will continue to protest excessively harsh sentences. She also gave her mother flowers and a Mother's Day card, something she said she longed to do while incarcerated.

Rocky Mountain News.

No State Funds For Gambling Addicts

Addiction is addiction. Whether it's drugs, alcohol, or gambling it doesn't matter and the state should address those needs just like it should address the needs of substance abuse.

The Denver Post-In the throes of a week-long gambling binge, Larry all but forgot about food and drink until he collapsed on the flight home from Las Vegas.

At a Denver hospital, intravenous fluids revived him as emergency-room workers hooked him to a heart monitor. Later, after he had demanded his release and slipped into bed at home, his wife sleepily laid her hand on his chest - and was startled to find an electronic lead still taped there.

He assured her he was fine, that he just "overdid it" on his trip - grossly understating the gambling addiction that was just dawning on him.

"For one week, I'd lost all control, gambled away a lot of money and, more important, put myself in harm's way," he recalls. "I realized something pathologic was going on."

Larry, now a 41-year-old member of the recovery group Gamblers Anonymous, continued gambling hard for a decade more - from dog tracks to Powerball to Colorado's mountain casinos to Vegas to the Internet. He nearly lost everything, including his marriage, before confronting his problem.

His ordeal offers a glimpse of the collateral damage from legalized gambling in a state that reaps hundreds of millions of dollars from the increasingly popular pastime.

Denver Post

Direct File Destroying Children's Lives

In the early nineties in a knee-jerk reaction to the "Summer of Violence" lawmakers took the decision out of judges hands whether to treat children as children, or children as adults. They put that decision into the hands of District Attorneys. District Attorney's are prosecutors who are elected and may or may not have a political agenda.

Near the end of a day cruising northeast Denver and Aurora while draining three 40-ounce bottles and a six-pack of beer, 16-year-old Dietrick Mitchell turned a corner.

Seconds later, the car he was driving slammed into 17-year-old Danny Goetsch as he walked in the gutter along East 13th Avenue with two friends strolling on the sidewalk and the grass.

Goetsch died.

Mitchell kept driving - didn't slow, didn't stop the car. He turned himself in two days later.

Shortly after the August 1991 incident, Arapahoe County prosecutors bypassed juvenile court and charged Mitchell as an adult. A jury found him guilty of murder with extreme indifference, and suddenly Mitchell, who insisted the hit-and-run was an accident, began serving a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

Prosecutors call it an appropriate prosecution of murder. Critics call it a prime example of how the adult system turns teens who could be rehabilitated into "throwaways."

"Had they kept him in the juvenile system, he could have been treated for the alcoholism that caused the death," says Carrie Thompson, one of the public defenders who initially handled Mitchell's case. "But decisions were made that this kid was a throwaway, that he didn't matter. To say that about a 16-year-old with alcohol problems is ridiculous. He was salvageable. But the minute you direct-file, you say he's unsalvageable."

Mitchell put a face on a controversial trend in Colorado that reaches back to the early 1990s: Lawmakers equipped prosecutors to put increasing numbers of teens on a path to prison while slashing juvenile programs geared toward rehabilitation.

Between 2001 and 2005, funding for state juvenile justice programs was cut by nearly $30 million, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice. Even a "middle ground" program for violent young offenders created within the Department of Corrections suffered.

The Denver Post

New Jersey - Drug Courts Work

By LAWRENCE AARON
RECORD COLUMNIST

NEW JERSEY'S prison population has declined by thousands in the past few years, a good sign that court-managed drug diversion programs are paying off. They have been so effective that the state's Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing wants to see them expanded.

The drug court's diversion programs has kept 6,700 non-violent offenders from having to serve time behind bars since the mid-Nineties. Were it not for the hands-on approach of teams of probation officers, counselors and judges, most of them would be added to the present population of 23,000 inmates being held in the Department of Corrections prison facilities. The strict court-managed monitoring regulates every aspect of the participant's daily life -- down to his curfew. Only 14 percent get rearrested for new offenses, recent drug court figures show.

In a report issued Friday, the New Jersey Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing recommends reshaping the statutory foundation so that more defendants get access to drug courts. The recommendation would allow defendants with two or more prior third-degree convictions to be eligible for the special probation status that determines who can join the diversion program.

Most often prison-reform advocates push cost savings as a rationale for diversion programs like drug courts. But you can't ignore the blossoming of human potential: That's priceless. Chronic alcohol and drug abusers get sober, begin working steadily and connect with society. Lives are salvaged and the cost of running state prisons is reduced.

The Department of Corrections' new budget estimates spending $34,600 per inmate. The savings potential could be significant: Theoretically every 50 inmates kept out of jail for the next year would represent a savings of about $1.7 million.

Real Cost of Prisons

Drug Testing Children At Home

When parents start testing their children for drugs at home it sets a bad precedent and lowers the parent/child trust factor. Talking to your kids and knowing where they are spending their time is far more important. There is a level of sophistication involved with drug testing that certainly isn't possible from your kitchen.

The Boulder mother had been down this road with one child and swore she would never make a return trip. When she became suspicious her younger son was trying drugs, she went to Walgreens, plunked down $38 for a home drug-test kit and told him to pee in a cup.

The high school junior was furious. And busted.

"Don't you trust me?" he wailed.

His mother would not budge.

Finally, reluctantly, the 16-year-old, whose name is not being used to protect his privacy, confessed: The reason he didn't want to take the test was that it would be positive.

His mother thanked him for his honesty and gave him 30 days to clean up his act. There would be another test when he least expected. A month later, she sent him back to the bathroom, cup in hand. He passed.

In the year since, she hasn't tested him again. But that doesn't mean she won't. She keeps a test in the house, just in case.

What makes this mother's private act of parental vigilance so extraordinary is not that she and tens of thousands of other parents have bought into the multimillion-dollar industry of home drug testing.

It's that parents do so despite warnings from most major drug-abuse and treatment professionals, the nation's medical establishment, parenting experts and even the White House. All call home-testing teens a bad idea.

"I guess home testing is better than no testing," said a skeptical Bertha Madras, the White House's deputy drug czar.

But her Office of National Drug Control Policy does not encourage parents to take matters into their own hands. Instead, the Bush administration backs random school drug testing, arguing schools are better equipped to help with counseling and referrals if a problem is found.

"By the time a parent tests, it's already far down the road," Madras said.

The Denver Post

Zavaras Hopes To Help Cut Recidivism

Vic Vela
The Daily Record

The Colorado Department of Corrections director told local officials Wednesday that inmate numbers are growing at a rate of “one prison a year” and more needs to be done to reduce recidivism before budgetary problems get further out of hand.

DOC director Ari Zavaras met with Fremont County representatives at West Central Mental Health in Cañon City to discuss issues ranging from inmate work crews to private prisons, as well as other areas of interest to local residents.

Among those in attendance were Cañon City Mayor Bill Jackson, Florence Mayor Cindy Cox and Fremont County Commissioner Ed Norden. Other interested attendees included local business representatives.

Upbeat and charismatic during the hour-long session, Zavaras said he is hopeful for changes within DOC to come soon, but he cautioned the rising costs of housing inmates is something that cannot be ignored by Colorado communities.

“It costs $27,500 a year to house an inmate,” he said. “Prison beds cost $125,000. Imagine what you could do with education with that kind of money.”

Zavaras said DOC recidivism — the percentage of offenders released who return to prison within three years — is at 50 percent. With costs rising and more inmates entering facilities than are leaving, Zavaras said more money will continue to be needed, causing other state necessities suffer, unless these issues are addressed.

“We have got to make an impact,” he said. “If we don’t, we’re going to be driving on dirt roads; schools will be nonexistent.”

Canon City Record

Aumans at Hunter S. Thompson Memorial

My friend Lisl is going to sing with her dad at Hunter Thompson's memorial this weekend. Why is that remarkable? She was never supposed to be able to. They will both be there to help advocate for the 45 people who were given life without parole when they were juveniles.

Rocky Mountain News -Now at age 53, given everything he has gone through, I figured Don Auman would long ago have found a hammock on a quiet beach somewhere - any place far from controversy, the spotlight and headlines.

Yet there his name was, at the bottom of a press release announcing a Mother's Day demonstration for the 45 juvenile offenders who now are serving life terms in Colorado's prison system.

His daughter, Lisl - absolutely the last person I ever figured would make another public appearance - is expected to join her father on the west steps of the Capitol on Sunday, the exact same spot where the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson headlined a celebrated rally seeking her release from prison on a felony murder conviction stemming from the murder of a Denver police officer.

"She is going to sing," her father said in an interview.

He will accompany her on the guitar, he said, insisting he did not know what the song might be.

The event is being sponsored by the Pendulum Foundation, a 6-year-old Colorado organization that says its mission is to educate the public about the issue of children in adult prisons, and to attempt to transform the lives of juveniles now serving life behind bars.

The memorial, as it is called, is an outgrowth of a PBS Frontline program that aired last Tuesday that documented the crimes and sentences of five Colorado youths, all convicted of murder or felony murder.

That there are now 45 people sentenced as juveniles serving life in prison in Colorado prisons stems from a crackdown in the late 1980s and 1990s on juveniles who kill, the PBS program maintained.

Last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles, Colorado became the first state to pass a reform bill limiting juvenile life sentences to 40 years before eligibility for parole.

The problem is, getting the bill through the state legislature meant making it not retroactive. Hence, the 45.

Each one of them outrages Don Auman. As many know, his daughter, Lisl, was accompanying Matthaus Jaehnig the day in 1997 when - after clearing her things out of a boyfriend's apartment - Jaehnig engaged in a police chase, got out and shot and killed Denver officer Bruce VanderJagt. He then killed himself.

Lisl Auman did not pull a trigger, was not with Jaehnig when Bruce VanderJagt was killed. Indeed, she was in police custody before the fatal shot was fired.

It was enough, however, that she was with Jaehnig in his car, involved in the chase, in the hours before the officer was killed, which resulted in her being convicted of felony murder.

Since the day his daughter was sentenced to life in prison on the felony murder conviction, Don Auman fought for her release, which did not come for eight years, when the Supreme Court finally remanded the case for review and the state cut a work-release deal.

"I made a lot of connections over those years," Don Auman explains of his participation on Sunday. "For me, life has gone on, but there are still a lot of miscarriages (of justice) going on. The (Pendulum) Foundation has a lot of valid points to make and has made great inroads in educating people."

None of it, he says, is at all to minimize the pain of the families of the victims of the 45 now serving life. He wants this made clear.

"I have so much sympathy for them and their families," Don Auman said. "At the same time, I believe there are two sides to every story, and in these cases, often only one side gets told."

No, he is hardly obsessed with his daughter's experience, he said. He is, he simply says, grateful that he was able to advocate for her.

She is now working and going to school, he said, already having finished two years of college. They have not spoken of Matthaus Jaehnig, of what occurred that day, he said.

"We don't need to."

Rocky Mountain News

Child Arrested For Not Testifying - Minnesota

NY TIMES--

VINELAND, Minn. (AP) -- The 11-year-old boy was led from his school in handcuffs, held overnight in a juvenile detention center, and hauled into court in shackles and an orange prison jumpsuit.

His crime? Missing a court date to testify as the victim of an assault.

The treatment of the boy, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, has reignited a decades-old feud between the tribe and officials from the surrounding county in central Minnesota.

''There's other people out there they could have picked to make an example of,'' said Kristie Lee Davis-Deyhle, the boy's mother, in her first interview about the case. ''Not an 11-year-old.''

Tribal leaders are calling for the resignation of the Mille Lacs County attorney, Jan Kolb, who says she was just carrying out policy in the face of a long history of band members ignoring subpoenas.

''I don't know that it should have been done differently,'' said Kolb, who was first elected in 1993. The uproar, she said, ''is a way to make Mille Lacs County look like it's racist.''

The Mille Lacs Band, now the largest employer in the county, and some of its neighbors have long had a tense relationship in their shared home around Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota's second-biggest lake and a choice spot for walleye fishing and other outdoor recreation.

The official policy of the county is that the Mille Lacs Band's reservation no longer exists because of legal decisions dating to the early 20th century. Federal courts have rejected a lawsuit to that effect, but Kolb and the Mille Lacs County Commission maintain their position.

Kolb caused a flap last year by detailing the policy in a memo to county department heads. Soon after, members of the local American Indians Veterans Post 52 and the Ladies Auxiliary were booed by some spectators while riding a float in the Fourth of July parade in the Mille Lacs County town of Isle.

Against that backdrop came the arrest of the 11-year-old band member.

The boy was allegedly the victim of an assault by a 13-year-old classmate. But, Kolb said, the county was having trouble prosecuting the 13-year-old because the younger boy and his mother ignored subpoenas and missed several court dates. Davis-Deyhle said the family never got the subpoenas, and a tribal lawyer said the county is not diligent in making sure subpoenas are served. NY TIMES ARTICLE

Hudson Voters Okay Prison

The important thing to note is that Cornell wants build a 832 bed women's prison, when we can't possibly fill it for years. Does Hudson actually think that Cornell is just going to let that prison sit empty? We also know that Cornell just bought the women's prison in Brush, and it's not full either. You have to wonder where all of these prisoners are going to come from. Importation? Or, are they just going to turn it into a men's prison after it gets built.

One struggling Weld County town may get an economic boost thanks to a women's prison, while another community is canceling plans to bring in a similar facility.

Voters in Hudson - home to about 1,200 people about 30 miles northeast of Denver - decided Tuesday night to rezone about 320 acres northwest of town for a women's lockup. Plans call for an 832-bed facility.

The annexation and rezoning proposal passed 135-63, a good turnout for the town, which has 629 registered voters. "It was one of the best turnouts in a long time," Town Clerk Judy Larson said.

Proponents said the prison - to be run by Houston-based Cornell Cos. - would pump $27.5 million into a town with dirt roads and a tiny local economy.

Opponents said the projections were overblown and the prison would ruin the town's down-home image. A majority of residents, however, thought otherwise, Mayor Neal Pontius said.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of Corrections has rescinded its offer to build a 1500 bed prison in Ault.

The Denver Post

Colorado's Working Poor

THE DENVER POST - When Gina Aleman got a job as a leasing agent and left public assistance, for the first time in her life she felt relief.

No more food stamps, childcare help or rental subsidies for the former foster child and single mom of three.

But it took only two months to realize that her $2,300-a-month income was not enough to cover rent, child care, health care, car insurance and food.

"When I got the job, I was so happy and relieved that I didn't need any services," she said. "And as time went on, it was revealed that I did. You think you can do it alone, but you can't."

Aleman's family is one in the "policy gap" described in a 50-page study released today by the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute. The study "Overlooked and Undercounted: Struggling to Make Ends Meet in Colorado," found that one in five Colorado working families lives below what the institute calls the self-sufficiency standard.

The institute developed the county-specific standard for Colorado in 2001 and updated it three years later. In Denver the threshold for a single adult is $18,732; for an adult with two children it is $44,991; two adults and two children is $48,065. The standard includes taxes, insurance and work-related expenses along with basics such as rent, food and childcare.

Denver Post

Colorado Juvenile Clemency Board

Representative Cheri Jahn at the "Kids Doing Life" event at Regis Tuesday night, announced that Governor Ritter has created a Juvenile Clemency Board.

The Board was created by Executive Order rather than through the bill process. I will get more information about who will staff the board and it's duties when I recieve it. This board will allow the people who have been sentenced as juveniles an opportunity to be released. Our thanks goes out to Gov. Ritter for this opportunity.

When Kids Get Life -

We would like to thank PBS for airing this thoughtful and devastatingly important film. We would also like to thank Maureen Cain, Tom Carberry and Maryellen Johnson for the wonderful work they did on this film. If you were unable to watch it is available for viewing at the PBS website.

If you would like to help make a difference please go to the Pendulum Foundation's website for instructions on how to contact the Governor.

Private Prison Contract in Ault Rescinded

CCJRC signed on with Rep. Buffy McFadyen asking the Colorado Department of Corrections to rescind the contract with the GEO group. Rep McFadyen was specifically concerned because of the controversy surround the procurement process and the role that former DOC employee Nolin Renfrow had in helping GEO to win that contract. The CBI investigation into Mr. Renfrow's role has yet to be completed.

The Department of Corrections has not decided whether it will issue another RFP.

The Greeley Tribune - Plans for a private prison in Ault came to a halt recently when Colorado Department of Corrections rescinded its offer to GEO Group.

Ault Mayor Brad Bayne said board members haven’t discussed the prison for months.

“Until there was some sort of guarantee, we’d just rather not talk about it,” he said. “There is probably some disappointment from me and a few board members who believe we still could have made it work for the town.”

Talk of the 1,500-bed medium-security prison surfaced last spring and produced some turmoil in the town of fewer than 1,500 residents. Some said a prison coming to town would boost the town’s economy, but others said it would be too dangerous because of its proximity to the town. The plan was to build on 40 acres in the southeast part of town.

Last spring, the GEO Group entered into a tentative agreement with the town — which approved the prison in concept only — so it could secure state approval to build there. Months later, the town board passed an ordinance requiring resident approval before any prison could be built. Town officials haven’t heard from a GEO Group representative since September, when GEO hosted a public forum answering questions from residents, he said.
Greeley Tribune

Wyoming Drug Court Changing Lives

Rocky Mountain News.LARAMIE - The Albany County Drug Court saves lives - at least four of its participants think so, anyway.

Doug Spriggs, a drug court graduate, said that before participating in the program he was about to become his "mom's worst fears." But several weeks ago, Spriggs used what he called "leadership skills that used to lead people into trouble" to volunteer in Biloxi, Miss., providing hurricane relief aid.

Randy Williams hated authority figures, but now, he says, he can deal. In fact, since being enrolled in the drug court program, he has earned his GED and is a student in the Laramie County Community College construction technologies program.

Michael Flores, who said he was going "straight to prison" before the program, is currently employed and says he plans to go to the University of Wyoming in the fall. He wants to earn a degree in business and someday own his own business.

Rocky Mountain News.

Broken Windows Policing Tactics

From the Denver Post - Twice in the past two weeks, community organizer Roger Cobb has been pulled over by police in his Cole-Whittier neighborhood. He believes it's solely because he is black.

On Wednesday, Cobb was among two dozen community leaders meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper to address their concerns that stepped-up policing of Cole-Whittier - referred to by some as the "broken windows" campaign - was resulting in unfair treatment of the poor and minorities.

Hickenlooper said the city would listen to community input in designing the policing effort but assured residents that the goal was to make the neighborhood safer.

"I'm not going to say that racial profiling doesn't happen, but it exists less now than it did three years ago and it will exist even less in two or three years," Hickenlooper said. "We can't just snap our fingers and have it all suddenly be right."

the denver post

Lockdown, USA

In observance of the 34th anniversary of the failed Rockefeller Drug Laws, hip-hop megastar Jim Jones has just released his new rap single, “Lockdown, USA,” a powerful song calling for real reform of the laws and an end to the war on drugs. The song is a single from the forthcoming documentary, Lockdown, USA. Watch the Video here

In 1973, New York State enacted the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which are the harshest drug control measures ever passed in any democratic nation. President Reagan declared the National "War on Drugs" in 1982 and cited The Rockefeller Laws as the model for new drug regulations. By 1983, 48 states had passed drug control measures based on the Rockefeller Drug Laws. These laws have resulted in the US prison population quadrupling and prisons becoming a thriving, profitable industry. There are currently over two million people behind bars in America. One out of every 38 Americans is currently in prison or on parole and or probation. The US now spends over $100,000,000 dollars a week building new prisons.
In the fall of 2001, Darrell Best was convicted of possession of cocaine. Darrell had been doing handy work at his uncle's house and signed for a Fed-Ex that was addressed to a neighbor. The package contained a pound of cocaine. The District Attorney offered Darrell Best a one-year plea bargain, if he admitted guilt. Darrell refused to take the plea, insisting on his innocence and claiming he wanted to set an example of integrity and honesty for his children. The Judge apologized as he read Darrell Best his sentence, 15 years to life; the minimum sentence he could give Darrell under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The film will bare witness to the devastating impact Darrell's incarceration has had on his family and the noble fight his wife Wanda has launched, in an effort to bring him home.
In the spring of 2003, the Best family got a glimmer of hope. An unusual Coalition, helmed by Russell Simmons, assembled to fight the "War on Drugs" and declared that the first battle would be to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The film follows Russell Simmons as he orchastrates a high profile campaign, to raise awareness around the Rockefeller Drug Laws, with the intention of creating tremendous public pressure, forcing the politicians to enact reform. Russell recruits high profile artists such as P Diddy, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey and Tim Robbins to join the campaign and speak out on the issue; he rallies tens of thousands of people and works throughout the night in heated behind the scenes negotiations with New York State Governor George Pataki and the State's top politicians. The question remains, will they be able to make a deal?
"Lockdown, USA" captures the stranger than fiction, historic series of events as they have unfolded; where the political establishment has been forced to reconcile with the burgeoning power of hip-hop.

After you watch the video and listen to the song, please take action by sending New York Governor Elliot Spitzer and President George W. Bush a message urging them to end the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York, and to stop the failed war on drugs in America.

New Nat. Institute of Corrections Website

Good catch by Michael at Corrections Sentencing on the new National Corrections Institute website on work programs for people who are being released.

The Offender Workforce Development Division (OWDD) was created to coordinate the efforts of Federal, state, local, and non-profit agencies to improve employment programs for offenders and ex-offenders. The division assists professionals who provide direct services to offenders and ex-offenders.

» Download the OWDD Brochure

» Current Offender Workforce Development Specialist (OWDS) State and Local Partnerships

Cornell Private Prison Posts Profits

HOUSTON, May 8, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN) today reported results for the three months ended March 31, 2007.

James E. Hyman, Cornell's chairman and chief executive officer, said, "We have started 2007 by meeting our earnings expectations for the first quarter. At the same time, we have also embarked upon several projects that both improve the company's risk profile and position it for growth in future years. These projects include expansions at our D. Ray James Prison and Big Spring Correctional Center, the recently-announced acquisition of the Correctional Facility at Brush, Colorado, and a new contract with the Arizona Department of Corrections announced last week. We believe that 2007 will be another productive year, building upon the successes we achieved in 2006."

Link Here

How Long Does He Get Punished For?

When Weldon Long got out of prison in 2003, the only job he could find was working for a heating and air conditioning company. Nobody else wanted to hire a convicted felon.

After work slowed and Long lost his job, he started his own company, then befriended an ex-policeman who offered to bankroll him. Today, Long is the region’s largest mechanical contractor.

Long faces a hearing Wednesday that could threaten the life he rebuilt after nearly two decades of crime and incarceration. He has asked the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department to upgrade the license he needs to do heating and air conditioning work.

That application is at the center of the building department’s struggle to balance protecting the public from unsafe contractors against a rehabilitated felon’s right to make an honest living.

At issue is how convicted felons disclose their criminal history when they apply for a license and how vigorous the department is in learning about the applicant. In Long’s case, the building department could grant his upgraded license, deny it, or even revoke his existing license, effectively forcing him out of the company.

Long, 43, has been waiting more than two months for an answer on his application. He said he has paid for his crimes and created a successful firm that employs 50 people.

“I have worked hard these last two years to build a company on a solid foundation of integrity and sound business philosophies,” Long said. “These last two months have been like everything was turned upside down. It is like somebody threw a switch and turned the hourglass over.”

The building code under which the department operates bars people convicted of felonies committed in “work related to the building trades.” Until 2005, the agency didn’t ask contractors about their criminal records.

Bob Croft, the department’s operations manager, said the agency doesn’t know how many convicted felons hold contractor licenses because the agency hasn’t done background checks on all license holders.
Colorado Springs Gazette

Colorado Kids Doing Life Without Parole

Pendulum Foundation is presenting this at Regis University tonight. If you would like to attend it will be at 7 p.m. in the Cafeteria. Also, in a follow up event there will be rally on the Capitol steps on Sunday for the forgotten 45. That event will be at 2:00.

THE DENVER POST -Colorado was once considered progressive in matters regarding juvenile court. But in a gut-wrenching documentary tonight on "Frontline," cases of minors sentenced to life without parole illustrate how backward Colorado can be.

The system tends to operate without consideration of age or youthful circumstances.

In the wake of Denver's so-called summer of violence, in 1993, state policymakers endorsed a $45 million tough-on-crime initiative, saying youths who commit adult crimes should be treated as adults, including life without parole.

"The whole identity of children got lost," says attorney Maureen Cain. It was "very reactive."

The matter was taken out of the hands of judges. Denver Juvenile

Court Judge Karen Ashby notes the district attorney's office simply makes the call about trying the defendant as an adult based on the charge; the juvenile court hasn't seen a transfer to adult court in years.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey confirms that in cases involving first-degree murder by minors, "Most of the time we treat them as adults. ... These are egregious crimes."

The harsh aftermath is demonstrated repeatedly in Ofra Bikel's 90-minute film, "When Kids Get Life," at 9 tonight on KRMA-Channel 6.

There are 46 people incarcerated in Colorado without hope of being released, for crimes they committed before their 18th birthdays.

"All my conscious life I've been more in prison than out," says convict Jacob Ind, now 29, who was 15 at the time of his crime. The Denver Post

Broken Windows Policing Tactics

There will be a meeting with Mayor Hickenlooper tonight at the Matthews Center in Denver to discuss the use of Broken Windows policing methods in the Cole Whittier neighborhoods. The event will take place from 5-7 at 3030 Downing St. Colorado Progressive Coalition and the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition will be among the groups that are providing the discussion.

Strained Relations in Aurora

There will be a discussion with Mayor Hickenlooper tonight in the Cole-Whittier neighborhood about the use of Broken Windows policing tactics. Panelists include Christie Donner from CCJRC.

Aurora - Residents upset over what they see as racial profiling and harassment spoke out Monday night at a forum designed to improve relations between police and the community.

"Unfortunately, a few (bad officers) make the whole spectrum look bad," said resident Myron Wilson. She was one of more than 40 residents who attended the start of three days of forums Monday at the New Beginnings Cathedral of Worship.

The Rev. Larry Brown said he was on his way to the forum when he saw a black man sitting on a curb surrounded by at least five police cars.

"You talk about something that is embarrassing, intimidating," Brown said. "It's definitely a strained relationship."

Police, however, said their actions are sometimes misunderstood.

"People nowadays do not want to accept responsibility for their actions," said Officer Tony Cancino, adding that he judges people by how they respond to him. "It's not because of the color of their skin."

But residents called certain police actions unfair.

Connie Wint said her son got in trouble after staying late at school one day. On his way home, six police cars surrounded him because, she said police told her, "he fit the description" of a robbery suspect.

"He's a young man who had never been in trouble, the student body president," Wint said. "Since that time, he's been traumatized."

The Denver Post

Drug Court on the Western Slope

Drug court gets people's lives back

Relationships key to program's successes

Pete Fowler
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
May 6, 2007

What is drug court

Drug court is a four-phase program designed to give people with substance abuse problems a chance to improve their lives and avoid conventional punishment. Participants must have a direct link between substance abuse and criminal behavior. They must be sentenced to probation and pass a mental health evaluation. It starts with more intensive testing, court appearances and counseling. As people are promoted to subsequent phases, they gain more freedom and often mentor those new to the program. Sanctions for violations and positive reinforcement for success are used to help guide people through the program.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — There's a black, 1,000-pound telephone sitting on the rail between the audience and the court.

It actually weighs only a couple pounds, but the fake barbell on the phone with "1,000" written on it gives people a simple reminder: It's hard for anyone to pick up the phone and say, "I need help."

That's what drug court is all about - getting help.

"We want people to reach out because one of the biggest risk factors for addicts is isolation," probation officer Terry Shanahan said.

Shanahan took charge of drug court on the probation department's end in March 2006.

At a recent drug court session, Shanahan's pumping everyone up before Judge Denise Lynch comes in. He offers encouraging words and advice to help keep people on track. He discusses second chances. He talks about goings on and good attitudes to have in the drug court community.

"Is softball tonight?" someone asks, excitedly.

Softball games are one outlet drug court uses to develop pro-social activities. The idea is to relearn how to socialize and engage in healthy activities without drugs or alcohol.

That's what drug court is about.

Today no one goes in or out during court. Shanahan says there was some disturbance at a previous session.

"People's lives are on the line here," Shanahan said. "It requires a great degree of commitment and concentration," and there can be no disruptions.
Post Independent Article HERE

OP-ED Rocky- Chambers Is Too Controversial

It's not good when a district attorney is the focus of controversy more often than the cases he or she may be prosecuting.

And there's no question that Carol Chambers, chief prosecutor for the district covering Arapahoe and three other suburban counties, frequently turns herself into a lightning rod, embroiling herself in needless trouble.

Most recently she has been accused of trying to intimidate a judge, a charge that will be investigated by the Colorado Supreme Court's Attorney Regulation Counsel.

It's the second time in less than a year that she's drawn the attention of the ARC. Last December it publicly censured her for abusing her office to help out an acquaintance.

OPED here

When Kids Get Life

Don't miss:

When Kids Get Life-- The latest offering from PBS' Frontline documentary series is a disturbing, but eye-opening film that examines five Colorado-based cases in which juveniles have been sentenced to life without parole. Colorado was a pioneer in juvenile justice, focusing on the rehabilitation rather than punishment. But in the late 1980s and 1990s, when a sharp increase in violent crimes by young offenders made major headlines, legislators had free rein to crack down. Among those interviewed is Jacob Ind, who was physically and sexually abused for years by his stepfather and mother until, as a 15-year-old in 1992, he murdered them both.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007, from 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS
www.pbs.org/frontline/whenkidsgetlife

Hunter S. Thompson Memorial Rally

THE PENDULUM FOUNDATION
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THE FORGOTTEN 45

LIVE FROM PRISON PHONE CALLS

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FEATURING:
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Private Prison In Oklahoma to Reopen

Apparently, Arizona is going to try it again. Last month a riot in Indiana broke out at a GEO Corporation private prison facility where Arizona prisoners were housed. Now Arizona has opted to send 2000 prisoners at a Cornell facility in Oklahoma (Hinton) where 200 people were laid off earlier this year when that prison was closed. Of course the state of Oklahoma can't receive any more prisoners in their state facilities because they are full.

Private prison in Hinton to reopen

HINTON, Okla. A private prison in Oklahoma will reopen later this summer after getting a contract to keep two-thousand inmates from Arizona.

Houston-based Cornell Companies owns the Great Plains Correctional Facility and has agreed to a one-year deal with the Arizona Department of Corrections with four one-year options to follow. The prison in Hinton, Oklahoma was shut down and nearly 200 workers laid off earlier this year after the Oklahoma Department of Corrections pulled out the last of its more than 800 inmates.The prison is currently equipped with 812 beds and the contract calls for it to open with 916 beds. The prison is to expand to hold the two-thousand inmates by the fourth quarter of next year.The first inmates are expected in August or September.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

Death Penalty Foe Pleads Guilty

LOS ANGELES : A former death penalty investigator pleaded guilty Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court to perjury, forgery and falsifying documents on behalf of four death row inmates.

Under terms of a settlement deal, Kathleen Culhane pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery, one count of perjury and one count of filing false documents, said Culhane's defense attorney, Stuart Hanlon.

Culhane, 40, faces five years in prison when she is sentenced in mid-August, said David Kravets, a spokesman for California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.

In a statement, Brown said Culhane "crossed the line from vigorous defense to unethical and illegal conduct."

In a telephone interview, Hanlon said, "This was a very difficult case to plead. It involved emotional and moral issues that made it hard for both sides to make reasonable judgments about what she did.

"The state attorney general is very upset about her actions, saying these are very serious crimes and deserve prison time," Hanlon said. "But my client did what she did because of her lifelong anti-death-penalty beliefs. She felt she did what was necessary to stop the inhumane and immoral death penalty.
LA Times

Atlanta Narcotics Team Under Federal Investigation

From Stop the Drug War: Last Thursday, two Atlanta narcotics officers pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in the shooting death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid, but that is just the beginning in what looks to be an ever-expanding investigation into misconduct in the Atlanta narcotics squad.

A federal investigation is already underway, and yesterday, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to launch a thorough investigation of issues raised by the case, including police misconduct, the use of confidential informants, arrest quotas, and the credibility of police officials.
Stop The Drug War

Wyoming Struggles With Understaffed Prisons

What happens when you don't have enough people to staff the prisons you build?

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — More than a third of the correctional officer jobs at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins are unfilled, making the remaining officers work extraordinary hours in a high-security environment.

State corrections officials say the shortages haven't affected safety at the prison, which now holds more than 600 inmates. But the head of the guards' union says officers are working so many hours that it's grinding them down and affecting their judgment.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has a long-running lawsuit against the state over conditions at the Rawlins prison, says it's concerned the officer shortage may have contributed to an incident in which an inmate was beaten by other inmates early this year.

Dee Garrison, who has worked at the prison since 1998, is president of the Wyoming Association of Correctional Employees, the union representing about 50 officers at the Rawlins prison.

"You're tired, you're exhausted. You're not as patient as you should be," Garrison said. "And in a prison, you definitely need to have patience, because it's a people business and you're dealing with people who do not have patience. You lose your sense of patience, you lose your sense of really great judgment."

Bob Lampert, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said the department maintains a minimum staffing level at the Rawlins prison that "exceeds almost any facility in the nation."

Lampert also says the long hours aren't exhausting officers. "It depends on the individual," he said. "Some individuals have a tolerance for long hours that never affects their performance."

The Rawlins prison is authorized to have 322 employees in security positions but as of early April it had 116 vacancies — more than 36% of authorized positions — department spokeswoman Melinda Brazzale said. Of those vacancies, she said 107 were in correctional officer positions.USA today

A New Bottom Line For the War On Drugs

Posted on Huffington Post in light of the recent tragedy and scandal in Atlanta.
By Bill Piper

Now that two of the Atlanta police officers responsible for killing 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston have pled guilty to manslaughter, planting evidence and a cover-up, it is time for policymakers to change the policies that led to her death. Obvious reforms are requiring substantial evidence before a warrant to raid someone's home is issued and severely limiting the use of "no knock" raids.

Less obvious is the need to change the underlying incentive structure under which law enforcement agencies operate.

Drug war tragedies happen, in part, because law enforcement agencies are graded on such Vietnam-like "body count" statistics as the amount of drugs seized and the number of people arrested. Yet arrests and seizures have little if any impact on drug availability or the problems associated with substance abuse. Furthermore, measuring success by these statistics alone can breed corruption and impropriety.

Because the amount of funding narcotics taskforces receive is often based on how many people they arrest and the amount of drugs they seize, individual officers can advance their careers significantly by making a large number of arrests, even if they are just drug users. This incentive structure has led to fabricating informants, raiding homes on false evidence, lying to judges, and planting evidence. Anything to increase the "body count." Federal prosecutor David Nahmias recently told The New York Times:

"The [Atlanta] officers...were not corrupt in the sense that we have seen before. They are not accused of seeking payoffs or trying to rob drug dealers or trying to protect gang members. Their goal was to arrest drug dealers and seize illegal drugs, and that's what we want our police officers to do for our community. But these officers pursued that goal by corrupting the justice system, because when it was hard to do their job the way the Constitution requires, they let the ends justify their means."

Posted on Huffington Post

Michigan to Release 3,200 Non-Violent to Parole

h/t to Corrections Sentencing
In Michigan they have decided to release the chronically ill and non-violent to relieve their overcrowded prisons. They were originally planning on releasing up to 5,000 people but have scaled that back now.

LANSING -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration is scaling back plans to release 5,000 parole-eligible prisoners to make sure only nonviolent or sick inmates get out.

Under a revised plan obtained by The Associated Press, officials trying to slow Michigan's prison spending are eyeing up to 3,200 inmates for parole -- about 36 percent fewer than originally proposed.

That includes 2,200 nonviolent, non-sex offenders and possibly another 1,000 with chronic health problems, regardless of their crime. The inmates will be paroled from prisons around the state.

Previous lists of inmates targeted for release were winnowed down by 2,000 to eliminate prisoners whose main crimes were nonviolent but who committed violent secondary offenses or used weapons in committing a crime.

"When we talked about those numbers, those were the maximum numbers that we thought we could find," Dennis Schrantz, deputy director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, told the AP. "Now that we've had two months of getting it completely planned, we see it's going to be about 3,200."

As state government grapples with a budget deficit, its $2 billion corrections system is housing a record-high 51,000 inmates.
ARTICLE HERE

Paris is Going To Jail

...although the judge did give her until June to report to the jail..

Los Angeles - A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress' famous high life.

Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail on June 5 and she will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or any electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.

The judge ruled that she was in violation of the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

"I'm very sorry and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything. I'm sorry and I did not do it on purpose at all," she told the judge before he announced the sentence.

She was then ordered to report to a women's jail in suburban Lynwood on the set date or face 90 days behind bars

The Denver Post

The 2007 Legislative Session Comes To An End

The skinny on our legislation is as follows

HB 1313 ( The Identity Bill) will allow people to use their DOC ID in conjunction with a birth certificate or social security card to get their state ID. The laws surrounding the procurement of identification have made it extremely difficult for people to get the ID they need when they are released from prison and has been one of the stumbling blocks for people to get a job. Our thanks goes out to Deb Deboutez from the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless for her tireless work on carrying this bill! HB 1313 is currently on the Governor's desk.

SB 260 (Raising the Threshold) raises the threshold of dollar amounts for crimes that become felonies. The Joint Budget Committee calls it an effort to reduce the amount of petty theft felonies that get people sent to prison.

HB 1107 (The Record Sealing Bill) allows people to petition the court to have their record sealed after they have been out of the system for ten years. Our thanks goes out to Maureen Cain for her exceptional work on getting this bill passed.

SB 83 (Parolee Voting) parolee voting was stripped out of the Election Bill in the final stages although we did make it through the Senate thanks to all the calls and emails and work from such groups as the ACLU, Colorado Progressive Coalition and Common Cause.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the wonderful show of support that we received from members and people statewide who care about these issues!! Congratulations!!

DA To Open Cop Shootings To Public

The manager of safety has a backlog of cases under administrative review (which is unsettling enough) Denver DA Mitch Morrissey has decided to open those cases to the public instead of waiting for Al LaCabe to finish his investigations.

Denver's district attorney has decided to allow the public to view files on recent shootings by police, departing from an agreement to keep them sealed until administrative reviews of those cases are completed by the city's manager of safety.

District Attorney Mitch Morrissey announced this week that he won't wait for Manager of Safety Al LaCabe, who oversees the Police Department, to complete detailed reports on several officer-involved shootings in 2005 and 2006.

LaCabe has said he is trying to deal with the backlog of unfinished reports while overhauling the review system and has shifted personnel to do it.

"We respect the fact that Al is trying to resolve it," said Chuck Lepley, first assistant district attorney, "but it's in the best interest of the community to get these things open."

When someone is shot by a police officer, Morrissey's office determines whether there was any criminal wrongdoing. LaCabe's office investigates whether proper police tactics were used and whether department policy was followed. A series of controversial shootings by police led to a 2005 city ordinance mandating that the manager of safety make his findings public.

Denver Post

Will Paris Really Go To Jail?

Los Angeles - Paris Hilton's life in the fast lane could slow down significantly.

The hotel heiress faces a hearing today for allegedly violating the terms of her probation for an alcohol-related reckless driving conviction. Prosecutors have asked that she be jailed for 45 days.

Prosecutors also want Hilton to stay away from alcohol for 90 days, wear a monitoring device that will chart whether she complies, and they seek to have her license suspended for an additional four months.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said Hilton is being treated the same as anyone else.

Denver Post

Legislature Overrides Governor's Veto

Lawmakers threw down the gauntlet, saying they have a constitutional duty to defend their right to set the state’s $17.8 billion spending plan and decide how it should be spent. The Senate set the stage for a constitutional turf war today when it unanimously voted to override Gov. Bill Ritter’s veto of budget notes containing instructions from lawmakers on how the state’s money should be spent next year.

"It’s a separation-of-powers issue," said Senate Minority Leader Ken Gordon. "The legislature has the power of the purse. We decide how much money goes to each department. We’re framing the issue for court case." Following the lead of previous governors, Ritter vetoed what are commonly known as 88 head notes and footnotes attached to the budget by lawmakers.

Moments after the Senate's vote, Ritter walked into the Senate chambers to greet lawmakers and a group of East High School Constitutional Scholar competition winners. In an equally surreal final day moment, a jovial Ritter entered the House chamber and began shaking lawmakers’ hands just as the clerk was annnoucing the Senate override of his veto.

The House is expected to vote on whether to override this afternoon.

Rocky Mountain News

SB 260 Moves Through the House

Prison bill moves to next House vote

DENVER - State lawmakers are about to make it a little harder to go to prison.

The House on Thursday gave its initial OK to Senate Bill 260, which raises the threshold for many crimes of theft to be considered a felony.

For example, stealing a car worth at least $15,000 is currently a Class 4 felony. The bill would raise the threshold to $20,000.

Sponsors tried unsuccessfully to reduce sentences for convicts who escape. Almost all escapes are from community corrections and halfway houses. Escapees draw a mandatory sentence that begins once their original time has been served.

Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, wanted to give judges discretion over escape sentences to keep minor criminals from going back to prison.

"The person who's late for three or four hours can be charged with the same thing" as convicts who go on the run, Carroll said.

But representatives defeated the plan amid fears that it could encourage escapes.

"We need to have public confidence in community corrections. It's an important part of our corrections system down in Durango," said Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango.

The bill is part of Gov. Bill Ritter's efforts to curb the spiraling costs of prisons. It was introduced April 24 and has quickly moved through the Legislature.

The Legislature's analysts say SB 260 could save the state more than $5 million during the next five years by keeping people out of prison or imposing shorter sentences.

The Senate already has approved the bill. It faces one more House vote today, on what could be the last day of the legislative session.

Durango Herald

California To Ship Out 8,000 and Build 53,000

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday signed a sweeping prison-reform plan that adds more than 50,000 new beds to an overcrowded system, even as key lawmakers and prison experts warned that it fails to solve the most pressing long-term problems.

Lawmakers reached the $7.8 billion deal last week in the hopes of satisfying federal judges who have threatened to release inmates early if California failed to address its severe overcrowding.

Schwarzenegger said the bipartisan plan should go a long way toward addressing the judges' concerns. He said the addition of 53,000 prison and county jail beds represents the biggest building commitment to California's corrections system in a generation.

High recidivism

The governor also said the plan contains provisions that will help prisoners break a cycle that sees 70 percent of ex-convicts return to prison after committing further crimes or parole violations. California's recidivism rate, one of the highest in the nation, is one reason the prison system is chronically overcrowded.

The plan signals "a monumental shift in how we manage prisons in California," Schwarzenegger said during Thursday's bill-signing ceremony.

"In the critical few months before an inmate is released, our re-entry facilities will focus on job training and placement, on education, on anger management, substance abuse and family counseling and housing placement," he said.

Critics said the plan, as ambitious as it seems, doesn't go nearly far enough.

Romero disappointed

The $50 million it adds for rehabilitation programs is merely "a drop in the bucket," said Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, one of the Legislature's experts on corrections issues.

"The bill that was passed was a prop that the governor asked for so he can walk into court and look like he's tough on crime," Romero said Thursday in a telephone interview. "The bill that the Legislature sent him was a fig leaf so he doesn't walk into court naked."

Mercury News

Cap Removed From College Promise

Last spring there was quite a to do when a local oil magnate and the mayor made a promise to poor high school students that they could apply for a new scholarship that would pay for their college tuition, books, and fees. Children and parents were thrilled to the point of tears. Previously unreachable schools were suddenly at their fingertips.

Then yesterday it was reported that there was going to be a $3,000 cap on the promise...

Read the Denver Post article here

CCA Continues to Post Profits

First Quarter of 2007 Compared with First Quarter 2006

For the three months ended March 31, 2007, CCA reported net income of $32.6 million, or $0.52 per diluted share, compared with $21.3 million, or $0.35 per diluted share, for the same period in the prior year. Financial results for the first quarter of 2006 included a charge of $0.01 per diluted share for refinancing transactions completed in January 2006. Excluding the refinancing charge in the prior year quarter, earnings per diluted share increased 44.4% representing the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year double digit increases in diluted earnings per share.

Press Release

Dogs in Prison

The dog training program in Canon is a great therapeutic tool...it's set up as a job training program but it is more than that.

Shalom, the most recent addition to the Schwartz family, loves to play fetch, is good with kids and loves other dogs. He barks at strangers but little else, and trots around the house with the constantly curious look of a dog adjusting to new surroundings.

In many respects the 1½ year old German Shepherd mix is just like any other dog who has just found a new home. But in one way, he is very different.

When Karen Schwartz went looking for her four-legged companion she bypassed the traditional humane society or pet shop routes and went right to prison.

Shalom is one of 2,000 dogs that have been molded in the past 15 years by Colorado's Prison Trained K-9 Companion Program, which uses inmates at various Colorado prisons to train dogs.

"We laugh and say, 'if we come home and the jewels are gone, then the dog has them,' " Schwartz said.

The program is a Colorado State licensed Animal Rescue and has 120 handlers who each train one dog at a time. The program is also recognized as a Vocational Program by the Colorado Community College System.

Inmates train dogs at the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility, Arrowhead Correctional Center, Denver Women's Correctional Facility, Skyline Correctional Facility, Buena Vista Minimum Center, Trinidad Correctional Facility, Limon Correctional Facility, Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility, and Brush.

Article Here

Ritter Signs Budget

Gov Ritter signed of on the new budget with a mention that he wanted to reduce recidivism. The Governors Recidivism Reduction Plan was added to the budget that Bill Owens submitted before he left office. A 6.3% budget increase that will add money to mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment and community corrections beds.

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter signed the $17.8 billion state budget Wednesday, saying he put his own stamp on the spending plan he inherited from Republican Gov. Bill Owens and included a few course changes as well.

However, Ritter followed Owens' lead by vetoing 88 budget notes containing instructions from lawmakers on how the money should be spent. Ritter told majority Democrats they can't tell him what to do.

Ritter said he tried to give voters what they asked for during his campaign last year - responsible, conservative spending - although the budget was being worked on when he took office.

Ritter said he changed the spending plan, which includes a 6.3 percent increase in the operating budget, to focus more on keeping people out of prisons, instead of building new ones, and put more money into mental health treatment.

"We're changing how government works and how we can be smarter about how we spend taxpayer dollars," Ritter said.

Despite bipartisan support for the budget, Ritter sided with his predecessors in a long-running dispute between the legislature and the governor's office over who controls state spending.

Rocky Mountain News

Hard-hitting DA Chambers In Trouble - Again

Legal observers say Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers may not be as fortunate this time around.

Chambers, who received public censure in December for using her office to help a fellow Republican, is being investigated for an e-mail she sent that one attorney called a "veiled threat."

If she is found to have violated rules of conduct again, she may receive more than the slap on the wrist she got last time, some said.

Chambers did not return phone calls Wednesday, although she told 9News earlier that she hadn't threatened anyone.

"Just like the people Carol prosecutes, those with bad records get treated more harshly," said Denver attorney Phil Cherner, who defends lawyers with grievances against them.

Chambers' legal-defense bills for the last case amounted to about $100,000, she told 9News, with about 10 percent paid by insurance and the rest by tax money.

The Colorado Supreme Court's Attorney Regulation Counsel is investigating the complaint against Chambers.

9News first obtained the e-mail from Chambers to Chief Judge William Sylvester and other district officials. She wrote about the stormy relationship between the DA's office and judges and public defenders in the 18th Judicial District.

The Denver Post

Colorado Confidential on Morgan Carroll's Town Meeting

CCJRC thanks Colorado Confidential for reporting on this event. Erin Rosa :: Correcting Corrections, Part 1 Is crime decreasing because the state is incarcerating people? What are the most effective ways to prevent crime and repeat offenders? Those are a few of the questions a panel of experts hoped to answer last night, in a town hall forum dealing with the subject of corrections. The event was hosted by Rep. Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat and vice-chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Attendees included executive directors for the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Department of Public Safety, Attorney General John Suthers, and a representative with the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC). It's arguably the top budget crisis in Colorado. In 1977, approximately 89 citizens per 100,000 were incarcerated, and now the number has grown significantly. It's estimated that 438 out 100,000 were incarcerated in 2004, and the DOC is routinely being pushed to the breaking point. "It's a fixed ratio and the ratio itself is growing at a pretty staggering pace," said Rep. Carroll, before introducing the speakers. But while panelists agreed that there was a problem, they disagreed on the ways to fix it. Ari Zavaras, DOC Executive Director Zavaras, who headed the DOC under former-Gov. Roy Romer, stressed a theme of public safety. "If we don't take some steps, if we don't try to address a little bit of what's happening within the Department of Corrections, we are basically going to be the state budget before too much longer," he said, before commenting that the Ritter administration was dedicated to fixing the problem. Zavaras said the DOC should take advantage of modern technology to monitor and individuals in the community and also lauded the Governor's push for a crime commission to examine corrections issues. "The state went through some difficult times. People in the department over time have had to make some difficult decisions as to resources, and some things were cut within that department that really hurt and contributed to the recidivism rate we're now seeing," Zavaras explained. Two arms that were adversely affected were programs to modify inmate behavior and the state's parole system, which is dealing with arduously high case loads. "When they're so many cases, and they see somebody getting even close to the line as far as problems go, they're going to revoke them back. They're going to send them back to prison," said Zavaras. Peter Weir, Department of Public Safety Executive Director Weir, a self-described "life long Republican" and former judge, started by saying that there were two groups of offenders in the DOC: those who were sentenced under mandatory minimum sentences without a judge's discretion, and those who worked their way in there. "That last thing that I wanted to do as a judge, and my colleagues wanted to do, was to sentence people with addiction problems to DOC, but they are there because they literally worked there way into the department of corrections," Weir said. Weir also lauded Gov. Ritter's plan to do things differently, and further explained the creation of the Colorado Criminal and Juvenile Justice Commission, which is set to be approved this year by the legislature. According to Wier, the commission has three objectives: to look at preventative measures for offenders so they don't return to corrections, to look at alternatives to incarceration such as mental-health and substance-abuse programs, and to examine the state's sentencing structure which hasn't been reviewed since 1973. CHRISTIE DONNER (CCJRC)

Donner started by speaking on the impact and limitations of the corrections in Colorado. She also stressed a preference for alternative measures and services outside of the criminal justice system. "Please, if anyone ever...whether it's a politician or a professional or anyone...says to you that the answer to reducing crime in our communities is simply to 'get tough,' please tell them to answer that," she said. Getting tough can also mean focusing on health care and education Donner said, while noting that such services have been defunded to support corrections. She also commented that when services are offered, they are only available after incarceration and not before, making prevention very difficult. "Most of the dollars that are invested in substance abuse and mental health are tied to the criminal justice system. So you have to get busted in order to access services," said Donner. Another aspect that was touched upon was the the simple fact that most inmates who go to prison will be released eventually. That means individuals who are looking for income and shelter. "People are coming out and they are not prepared. They are not able to find jobs, they are not able to find housing," said Donner. "They can't afford all of the expectations in terms of fines, fees, costs, [urinary analyses], classes, ankle monitors, all these things." Attorney General John Suthers Suthers stuck with a theme of public safety, but he also spoke about how he would support the new criminal justice commision in different ways. Suthers then commented on prison populations rising dramatically due to the doubling of many state sentences in the 1980s and the implementation of mandatory minimum sentences. Suthers also said he supports giving more discretion to judges, and that released inmates are less likely to return to prison if they stay out of trouble during their first year in society. That is another reason why the Attorney General said he approves of educating inmates.

Colorado Confidential

RECORD SEALING BILL - YOU DID IT!!

The Record Sealing Bill made it through the Senate today. We could not have done it without the testimony, emails, calls and letters that were sent out to the legislators. Congratulations!!
(Hopefully, the Guv will sign it!)

WHAT THE BILL DOES -- Colorado law does not allow a person with a criminal conviction
to seal their record – regardless of the nature of the criminal conviction, the length of time since the
conviction, or evidence of rehabilitation. Even after people have completed their sentence
and been law abiding for years or even decades, they are forever stigmatized by having a criminal record.
Even minor offenses, committed many years ago, can prevent someone from
obtaining housing and meaningful employment or advancement in their career field.

The possibility of being able to seal a criminal record is a strong and real incentive for a person to turn his/her life around.

A recent study found that, after six or seven years from an arrest, the likelihood of offending
for young men with criminal records looks quite similar to those with no criminal history.
For employers concerned about hiring people with criminal records, a criminal record offers
vanishingly little relevant information once a critical period of time has passed. Therefore, overtime,
a criminal history is both less relevant and less accurate in predicting future criminal activity.
However, the stigma and bias remains. Scarlet Letters and Recidivism: Does An Old Criminal Record
Predict Future Offending?,Kurlycheck, Brame and Bushway, Criminology and Public Policy, Vol 5, No 3 (August 2006)

HB 1107 would allow people convicted of select crimes to petition the Court
to seal a criminal record after they completed their sentence and been offense free for 10 years.
· Convictions for some crimes would not be eligible to be sealed including:
Class 1 or 2 misdemeanor traffic offenses or class A or B traffic infractions, DUI/DWAI,
sexual offenses, domestic violence, offense involving a pregnant women or convictions
for crimes involve aggravating circumstances, high risk, or special offender sentencing enhancements.

· The Court does not have to order the sealing. The Court is required to balance
the privacy rights of the petitioner against the public’s right to know on a case by case basis.

· For offenses committed before July 1, 2007, the District Attorney will have
to agree before the Court can order the record sealed.

· Law enforcement will always have access to any sealed record.

· The petitioner must have paid all of the fines, fees, costs and
restitution ordered in the criminal case. The petitioner will also
pay a filing fee that is sufficient to cover the cost of the proceeding.

HB 1107 has many checks and balances in it that strike a
good balance between the public’s (and employers) right to know and a person’s right to privacy.

Cocaine - Better and Cheaper

The ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) recently admitted that despite the billions of dollars spent on Plan Columbia, it didn't quite work out the way they had planned....Mission Not Accomplished seems to be the theme for the War on Drugs.

Despite the billions being spent on drug interdiction and eradication as part of
"Plan Colombia," retail cocaine prices fell 11 percent between February 2005 and
October 2006, drug czar John Walters acknowledged in a letter to a leading
Republican lawmaker.

Average cocaine purity also increased, Walters said.
The Associated Press reported April 27 that Walters told Sen.
Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) that cocaine prices have fallen to $135 per gram,
about the same price as in the early 1990s and far short of the $600 per gram
the drug cost in 1981. ONDCP has repeatedly asserted that Plan Colombia has
made cocaine more expensive and less potent for U.S. consumers.
Grassley, the co-chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, said the data showed that while the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) "has gotten quite good at spinning the numbers ... cooking the books doesn't help our
efforts to curb cocaine and heroin production and consumption.
Join Together Article.

Arizona Farmers and Prisoners

The difference between the Colorado program and the Arizona one, is that in Arizona they make a wage that allows them to save money for when they are released.

Some farms use inmates for relief from labor shortages

Dennis Mitchell, Cronkite News Service

ARLINGTON - At the entry gate to Hickman’s Egg Ranch southwest of Phoenix, a visitor will be greeted by a worker in an orange jumpsuit with the letters “ADC” stamped down the pant leg.

About 50 prisoners from the Arizona Department of Corrections work here, packing egg cartons, loading trucks, constructing new barns, welding and making compost.

Inmates such as Courtney Reynolds, who is serving a six-year sentence at the Perryville State Prison Complex for drug-related crimes, say working here allows them to learn job skills and earn money for when they are released. Some go on to work for Hickman’s as regular employees.

“This program is really a good opportunity for those of us that put forth the effort,” said Reynolds, who has worked at the egg ranch for five months. “A lot of these guys have never used a tool before.”

It’s also a good opportunity for Hickman’s, which began using inmate labor about 12 years ago as a way to maintain a steady supply of workers in an industry that faces constant labor shortages, said Clint Hickman, vice president of sales for the company.

East Valley Tribune

Meth Bigger Than Coke On The Western Slope

Meth use is more prevalent than cocaine on the western slope, according to the Garfield County Meth Task Force.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Data presented at the first public meeting of the Garfield County Methamphetamine Task Force showed the number of methamphetamine cases has overtaken the number of cocaine cases in the county.

"We're seeing the barometric pressure rising with regards to meth and that a storm is coming," Assistant District Attorney Jeff Cheney said. But people who filled the county commissioners' meeting chambers Tuesday night hope to work proactively to fight the problem.

About five years ago, Glenwood Springs Police were surprised when they saw meth, Chief Terry Wilson said. Now, they're surprised to see many crimes that don't involve it.

Michael Gizzi of Mesa State College presented some results of initial data collected from 244 felony drug cases mostly from the 2006-2007 fiscal year.

The data showed 47 percent of the cases examined related to meth, 44 percent related to cocaine, 18 percent related to marijuana and 12 percent to other drugs. But authorities know that many other crimes are tied to meth use in some way. The most common crimes associated with it were traffic violations, DUIs, thefts, burglaries and an increasing number of weapons charges.

"People will do anything to get their fix," Gizzi said.
Post Independent

Corporate Greed and Private Prisons

Here's a good article I found on private prisons with some interesting links...

Using cheap prison labor to build profits

• Follow the Prison Money Trail ..to elected officials (In These Times, 09-04-2006)
• The Prison Industrial Complex: Crisis and Control (CorpWatch, 1999)
• Private Prisons for Dummies (Paul's Justice Page)

LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) - The Prison Industrial Complex is a growing industry comprised of a number of American corporations which develop household and business products, but human rights groups condemn them for netting profits which roll off the backs of prison inmates they claim are unjustly paid cents on the dollar.

At issue, they charge, is a criminal justice system which herds primarily Black youth into the hands of private prison enterprises to work illegally under a modern-day slave system called involuntary servitude, disguised as prison work release programs.

According to a 2006 Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, approximately 8 percent of Black males between 25 and 29 were incarcerated in 2005, compared to 2.2 percent Latinos and 1.1 percent Whites. Black males in general accounted for nearly 550,000 of the 1.4 million federal and state prison inmate population, and Black females almost 30,000.

Overall, the 2005 prison labor pool derived from the more than 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S., which included federal, state and territorial prisons; local jails; immigration, customs enforcement and military facilities; Indian Country jails; and juvenile facilities.

Because of this herding, private companies like Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) (New York Stock Exchange symbol: CXW) one of the nation's largest prison builders, owners and operators reaps major benefits. In 2006, CCA earned $1.3 billion and its 2006 Annual Report indicates these numbers will increase based upon the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety, Public Spending Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007-2011 report, which anticipates that by 2011, federal and state prison populations will climb by more than 192,000 new inmates.

Read the Article here

Legislative Update

The rumor is that the session will be over as early as Friday, here is the update on the bills that we are following:

HB 1107 (The Record Sealing Bill) made through Second Reading in the Senate yesterday and will be heard on third in the morning.

HB 1313 (the Identity Bill) is still on the Governor's desk.

SB 260 which raises thresholds for some felony classes, has made it through the Senate and is on it's way through the House.

HB 1358 (Sentencing Commission) has made it to Senate Appropriations

Support the Second Chance Act

Families Against Mandatory Minimums has an opportunity on their website for you to send an email to your Senators to support The Second Chance Act. It's a very easy process for such an important piece of legislation. It could be up for a vote this week!!
FAMM

Gambling Court -- NY Times

Addiction is addiction is addiction. It doesn't matter if it's drugs, alcohol or gambling. A new court in New York is focusing on how to help people overcome their addictive tendencies through treatment options. The docket isn't full of illeagal gamblers, but just like with drugs it's a rash of folks who will break the law to get the funds necessary to feed the addiction.

AMHERST, N.Y. — The docket in front of Justice Mark G. Farrell one recent Tuesday afternoon looked like a routine roster of small-time crime: petty larceny, attempted burglary, check forgery. But the offenders shared a single motivation: money to gamble.

Such is the criminal parade in the country’s first and only gambling treatment court. Following the model of about 2,000 “therapy courts” devoted to drugs and spousal abuse that have opened nationwide in the last two decades, the setup here allows defendants to avoid jail time if they follow a court-supervised program that includes counseling sessions, credit checks and twice-monthly meetings with Justice Farrell.

“I realize this is demanding,” the judge said the other day as he ordered Andrew Hallett, 19, who forged his father’s checks to feed a bingo and lottery addiction, to attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings twice a week. “If you continue to apply yourself to the program, and you continue to go to the self-helps, we’ll get you through it.”

Mirroring the rise in gambling nationally and the opening of two new casinos near this suburb of Buffalo, the court’s caseload has grown steadily since it opened in 2001, to several dozen cases a year from a handful. And as gambling has become more popular, with the growth of online poker and with New York State lottery revenues nearly doubling to $6.8 billion over the past six years, Justice Farrell’s docket includes middle-aged parents with college degrees and steady jobs as well as young drug users with criminal records.

Ny Times Article

Day Care Lacking in Denver

There is $46 million dollars in unused funding to get the poorest kids into daycare. That's where it all starts. Parents are confused about standards and what type of help they can get.

Thousands of Colorado's poorest kids are without adequate day care because their parents aren't tapping into nearly $46 million in unused funding for low-income families.

State and county officials say one reason is that they stiffened qualifications for Colorado's Child Care Assistance Program - anticipating federal funding cuts in 2001.

The cuts never came. But the number of children covered by the program dropped by 16,000, or 30 percent.

"The number of children getting help has dropped drastically," said Leslie Bulicz, child care programs administrator for the Colorado Department of Human Services.

"Families simply quit walking through the door," Bulicz said.

State and county officials are scrambling to get more families on the rolls, reduce the puddle of money that has built up and get children into day care.

If they don't use the funds within two years, the money could revert to the general welfare program for redistribution to counties.

"These kids are going somewhere for care, and anecdotally we hear of older kids staying at home to care for brothers and sisters," said Roxane White, director of Denver's Department of Human Services.

"There's a huge difference between quality child care and babysitting," White said.

Denver Post

California - Close the Youth Prisons

They are talking about closing the youth prisons in California and replacing them with therapeutic communties near the cities where these kids live.

SACRAMENTO – A bill that calls for closing down the state’s youth prisons, including Stockton’s N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility, has passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee in a first big hurdle.

The bill would place youthful offenders at therapeutic facilities in their home counties near relatives. If finally adopted into law, the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice would stop accepting new wards by 2008 and abolish the youth prison system by 2009.

The proposed bill comes in response to harsh criticism in recent years that the state fails to rehabilitate wards despite massive reform efforts. It costs $216,000 this year to house one ward, money that would go to the counties under the bill.

Rep. Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, sponsored the bill pushed by the Oakland-based human rights organization Books Not Bars.

Record article here