1 Denver police officer fired, 2 suspended - The Denver Post

1 Denver police officer fired, 2 suspended - The Denver Post

Denver Manager of Safety Charles Garcia has fired one officer who was found in contempt of court and suspended without pay two officers involved in secretly videotaping a supervisor.

Garcia's orders are dated May 24 and 25. He dismissed Det. Kenneth Briggle, who was found in contempt in relation to his divorce proceedings.

David Bruno, a lawyer for the Denver Police Protective Association, wouldn't comment on Briggle's dismissal.

Garcia suspended Sgt. Bryan O'Neill for 30 days for failure to obey departmental rules in two rule categories, to be served concurrently.

O'Neil surreptitiously filmed Cmdr. John Burbach, the head of police internal affairs, in an effort to expose what he believed was bias against his officers.

Garcia also suspended Lt. Daren Ciempa for 40 days for conduct prejudicial and 40 days for failure to obey department rules.

Ciempa reportedly approved of the use of a video recorder disguised as a pocket pen in the effort.

"I don't believe they are justified," Bruno said of the suspensions. "From the perspective of both officers, what they were doing is justified by the operations manual."

Read more: 1 Denver police officer fired, 2 suspended - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18176745#ixzz1Nzjouxcj
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Inmate, 51, found dead in Denver jail - The Denver Post

Inmate, 51, found dead in Denver jail - The Denver Post

A Denver deputy making routine checks discovered a 51-year-old inmate who was dead in his cell Saturday morning, officials say.

The name of the inmate is not being released pending notification of family members, said Capt. Frank Gale, jail spokesman.

"It looks like it's something medical," Gale said. "It did not involve the use of force."

The jailer was making rounds at the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center, 490 W. Colfax Ave., about 7 a.m. when he saw the man lying on his bunk bed.

"There was no indication that he harmed himself or someone else did," Gale said.

The man was arrested Wednesday for failure to appear on an arrest warrant and on a separate parole violation, Gale said.

The Denver Coroner's Office will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death, and the police department will investigate the death.

Read more: Inmate, 51, found dead in Denver jail - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_18164120#ixzz1NvpcmgxZ
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

New Colorado rules not curbing growth of medical-marijuana industry - The Denver Post

New Colorado rules not curbing growth of medical-marijuana industry - The Denver Post

As Colorado's new tougher regulations on the medical marijuana business take hold — rules its sponsors predicted would curb sales — the industry is showing remarkable resilience.

The state Department of Revenue is preparing to issue its first dispensary licenses and to aggressively enforce the new regulations.

Still, of the 818 dispensaries that originally applied for licenses in August, 759 have managed to navigate the rules and remain on track to receive one. That is a drop-off of about 7 percent.

If there is a pot bubble in Colorado, it hasn't popped yet.

When the bill creating the new rules was passed by the legislature last year, one of the sponsors, then-state Sen. Chris Romer, predicted it would "close down as much as 50 percent of the existing retail structure."

That doesn't appear to have happened yet due to a combination of a product "that so many need" and the industry's ability to cope with the changing rules, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group.

"There will be probably some fallout, but I think this industry is pretty well grounded," Smith said.

Romer, a Denver Democrat, and co-sponsor Rep. Tom Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican, say dispensary numbers are likely to shrink after July 1, the date when Revenue Department auditors begin actively checking on compliance.

"My priority was responsible regulation, so I'm pleased that the initial phase has worked to ensure compliance with the law," Romer, who is running for Denver mayor, said in a statement. "As we move into full implementation, I expect we'll see additional dispensaries that don't meet the strict state regulations closed."

Dispensary license application fees run between $7,500 and $18,000. The mandated security systems and other items run thousands more.

Faced with such bills, some dispensary owners have called it quits — by selling to dispensaries looking to expand.

"At some point, there's got to be competition in the market that's going to eliminate some of the centers that are less viable," Massey said.

Ryan Cook, a co-owner of The Clinic in Denver, said his business plans to double its number of locations to four.

Read more: New Colorado rules not curbing growth of medical-marijuana industry - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_18173169#ixzz1NvoEjTwl
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Study Casts Doubt On Whether Private Prisons Save Money

Colorado Independent
In the wake of news that private prison corporations are spending millions of dollars lobbying for tougher immigration laws comes a study that says privatizing prisons does not save taxpayers any money and may increase costs in some cases.
With five private prisons currently operating in Colorado, the state seems to be benefiting from the arrangement.
From The New York Times:

The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
The state’s experience has particular relevance now, as many politicians have promised to ease budget problems by trimming state agencies. Florida and Ohio are planning major shifts toward private prisons, and Arizona is expected to sign deals doubling its private-inmate population.
The measures would be a shot in the arm for an industry that has struggled, in some places, to fill prison beds as the number of inmates nationwide has leveled off. But hopes of big taxpayer benefits might end in disappointment, independent experts say.
“There’s a perception that the private sector is always going to do it more efficiently and less costly,” said Russ Van Vleet, a former co-director of the University of Utah Criminal Justice Center. “But there really isn’t much out there that says that’s correct.”

Corrections Corporation of America owns and operates three prisons in Colorado. The GEO Group operates one and Community Education Centers operates one, according to state records. One CCA facility is currently empty as is one GEO prison.
According to Katherine Sanguinetti, director of public relations for the Colorado Department of Corrections, the question of whether private prisons save the state money is a complicated one.
“It has been a challenge for states to determine whether private prisons save money,” she told The Colorado Independent. “It is not an apples to apples comparison,” she said.
Currently, there are 4290 Colorado prisoners housed in private prisons. The state pays the for-profit companies $59.10 per day per prisoner. This compares to a cost of $88.60 per prisoner per day in state facilities. If that looks like an apples to apples comparison favoring private prisons, rest assured there is more to it than that.
The state pays a variety of other costs associated with prisoners held privately. It picks up much of their medical costs, all of their clothing costs and all of their transportation costs. Additionally, only the easiest to care for prisoners are housed in private prisons, which are all minimum or medium security. State law requires that all maximum security prisons be owned and operated by the state. Any prisoner with unusual medical needs is housed in a state facility as well, Sanguinetti said.
On a prisoner to prisoner basis, it is hard to say whether or not it is more cost-effective to house prisoners privately. The real benefit to the state, Sanguinetti says comes when prisons need to be built. It is practically impossible for the state to build a new prison in this economic environment.
“When the prison population was growing, it made sense for them (private companies) to build prisons in Colorado,” she said. Today, though, the prison population in Colorado is actually declining and some of the private prisons in the state are empty, while another houses prisoners from out of state.
The only cost to Colorado of using private prisons is the per prisoner/per day fee agreed to in annual contracts with the firms running the prisons. Those companies take the risk of building the prisons and further take the risk that the state could choose not to renew a contract in any given year, Sanguinetti said.

Aspen-area law enforcement upset over feds' unannounced drug raid - The Denver Post

Aspen-area law enforcement upset over feds' unannounced drug raid - The Denver Post

Miffed about not being informed in advance of a recent federal drug raid, Aspen-area law enforcement officials met with a top DEA agent Wednesday to smooth tensions.

But while participants did not return calls after the meeting, the session seemed unlikely to change a long-running Drug Enforcement Administration policy of keeping locals out of the investigative loop during drug probes in Pitkin County.

A federal grand jury last week indicted six Aspen and four Los Angeles residents on drug charges after a year-long DEA investigation.

Immediately, complaints were raised about the lack of coordination between the federal government and local police, who weren't told about the investigation even as DEA agents began rounding up suspects.

Acting DEA Agent-in-Charge Steve Merrill said agents purposely didn't tell locals about the investigation in part because former Sheriff Bob Braudis, who left office in January, and his successor, Joe DiSalvo, knew the suspects. Merrill didn't want the investigation compromised.

In fact, two of those arrested last week, Joseph Burke and Jack Fellner, contributed a combined $200 to DiSalvo's election campaign last year, and Burke gave $100 to Braudis' campaign four years earlier.

"Aspen is a very small town," DiSalvo said, explaining why he would know the suspects as acquaintances and some of them would give to his campaign. "Degrees of separation are two or three degrees maximum."

Aspen and Pitkin County authorities have for decades publicly stated their disdain for undercover drug operations. They don't conduct them.

"Aspen is a different kind of place," said Ted Conover, author of "Whiteout: Lost in Aspen," who now lives in the Bronx in New York City. "It's not the drug trade as we picture the drug trade from the (TV) shows. Especially in this case, it seems to be more of a friend-based trade."

Nonetheless, Conover said he understands why the DEA wouldn't contact local authorities about a drug operation.

Read more: Aspen-area law enforcement upset over feds' unannounced drug raid - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18142184#ixzz1NSeEmzCs
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

SB 241 - Parole Board Bill Signed by the Governor

Colorado General Assembly

Colorado school discipline review to be signed into law - The Denver Post

Colorado school discipline review to be signed into law - The Denver Post
Gov. John Hickenlooper is headed to Arvada to sign a bill setting up a statewide review of school discipline.

Hickenlooper planned to sign the bill into law at Arvada High School Monday.

The measure requires the state to review school discipline strategies to reduce cases of students being referred to law enforcement for matters that aren't serious.

Senate Bill 133 passed easily in the Legislature amid concerns from both parties that some youths are unnecessarily being expelled or sent to the juvenile justice system for minor offenses.

Read more: Colorado school discipline review to be signed into law - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_18119880#ixzz1NHTPDrGq
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Steady Decline in Crime Baffles Experts

NY Times
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.

Readers' Comments

Share your thoughts.

• Post a Comment »
• Read All Comments (35) »

In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year.
The news was not as positive in New York City, however. After leading a long decline in crime rates, the city saw increases in all four types of violent lawbreaking — murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — including a nearly 14 percent rise in murders. But data from the past few months suggest the city’s upward trend may have slowed or stopped.
Criminology experts said they were surprised and impressed by the national numbers, issued on Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and based on data from more than 13,000 law-enforcement agencies. They said the decline nationally in the number of violent crimes, by 5.5 percent, raised the question, at least in some places, of to what extent crime could continue to fall — or at least fall at the same pace as the past two years. Violent crimes fell nearly the same amount in 2009.
“Remarkable,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. “Given the fact that we have had some healthy declines in recent years, I fully expected that the improvement would slow. There is only so much air you can squeeze out of a balloon.”

Justice's Tell California To Cut Prison Population

New York Times
WASHINGTON — Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, described a prison system that failed to deliver minimal care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health problems and produced “needless suffering and death.”
Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed vigorous dissents. Justice Scalia called the order affirmed by the majority “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” Justice Alito said “the majority is gambling with the safety of the people of California.”
The majority opinion included photographs of inmates crowded into open gymnasium-style rooms and what Justice Kennedy described as “telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets” used to house suicidal inmates. Suicide rates in the state’s prisons, Justice Kennedy wrote, have been 80 percent higher than the average for inmates nationwide. A lower court in the case said it was “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.”
Monday’s ruling in the case, Brown v. Plata, No. 09-1233, affirmed an order by a special three-judge federal court requiring state officials to reduce the prison population to 110,000, which is 137.5 percent of the system’s capacity. There have been more than 160,000 inmates in the system in recent years, and there are now more than 140,000.
Prison release orders are rare and hard to obtain, and even advocates for prisoners’ rights said Monday’s decision was unlikely to have a significant impact around the nation.
“California is an extreme case by any measure,” said David C. Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, which submitted a brief urging the justices to uphold the lower court’s order. “This case involves ongoing, undisputed and lethal constitutional violations. We’re not going to see a lot of copycat litigation.”
State officials in California will have two years to comply with the order, and they may ask for more time. Justice Kennedy emphasized that the reduction in population need not be achieved solely by releasing prisoners early. Among the other possibilities, he said, are new construction, transfers out of state and using county facilities.
At the same time, Justice Kennedy, citing the lower court decision, said there was “no realistic possibility that California would be able to build itself out of this crisis,” in light of the state’s financial problems.
The court’s more liberal members — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — joined Justice Kennedy’s opinion.
The special court’s decision, issued in 2009, addressed two consolidated class-action suits, one filed in 1990, the other in 2001. In 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor, said conditions in the state’s prisons amounted to a state of emergency.
The majority seemed persuaded that the passage of time required the courts to act.
Justice Scalia summarized his dissent, which was pungent and combative, from the bench. Oral dissents are rare; this was the second of the term. Justice Kennedy looked straight ahead as his colleague spoke, his face frozen in a grim expression.

Guest Commentary: What's wrong with solitary confinement? - The Denver Post

Guest Commentary: What's wrong with solitary confinement? - The Denver Post

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you've been alone for years and years, lying on a cold, concrete slab, in a stark windowless room, with virtually no human to communicate with - except yourself.

Imagine being locked behind a solid steel door, in a space, tighter than most bathrooms, for 23 of every 24 hours. In hour 24, you go into a "vented dog run;" that's your only exercise. Imagine how the most resilient individual might react to this existence; to permanent bright lighting, extreme temperatures and forced insomnia. Imagine, too, the most vulnerable: inmates with serious mental illness.

There's often little sympathy for the incarcerated and even less for those who find themselves in long-term solitary confinement. We often think they must have done something heinous to not only be in prison, but in the bleakest part of a prison: solitary confinement, isolation, permanent lockdown, the hole.

As the former Chief of Psychiatry for the Colorado Department of Corrections, with responsibility for directing the psychiatric care of inmates around the state, I can tell you that solitary confinement doesn't play out like we imagine it from popular media. It doesn't always house only "the worst of the worst." In my experience, the smallest infraction can end with a solitary placement. It's not a 30-day experience like that often shown on television; inmates typically serve two, three, or more years in solitary. There are no victories; no Shawshank Redemption. Solitary confinement is not redemptive. For many, it's cruel and unusual punishment. And warehousing prisoners who are mentally ill in solitary confinement, well, that's just a losing proposition.

It's ineffective, it's inhumane, and its costs are higher than most Coloradans know.

In this legislative session, a bill was passed that made some limited changes to the landscape of solitary confinement. Senate Bill 176 establishes a new earned time provision and changes the definition of a security threat group. But what we need is change that affects those prisoners with serious mental illness; changes that begin right at the cell front door that separates a prisoner who is mentally ill from both sanity and humanity.

The time for these changes is now.

As a medical professional with intimate knowledge of the state's network of prisons and prisoners, I know that solitary confinement of prisoners who are mentally ill is a problem that should command the state's immediate attention - and action.

Nearly 1,500 of Colorado's 23,000 inmates are currently housed in what is officially called "administrative segregation." About 37 percent of those inmates have been diagnosed as mentally ill or developmentally disabled (a far higher percentage than found in the general population). For them, "ad seg" is hell. Their mental health conditions deteriorate. They act out in ways that speak to the sensory deprivation of being denied human contact. They imagine suicide -- and homicide. They get no better; they get worse.

There is not enough prison staff to meet the needs of all the inmates with mental illness in solitary. Perhaps that is because there are just too many inmates with mental illness.

Read more: Guest Commentary: What's wrong with solitary confinement? - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_18098132#ixzz1Mu0GKDfG
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

U.S. Justice Department weighs investigation of Denver law enforcement - The Denver Post

U.S. Justice Department weighs investigation of Denver law enforcement - The Denver Post

The U.S. Department of Justice is in the "threshold stage" of deciding whether to investigate Denver's law enforcement agencies for civil-rights violations.

"We are reviewing the information to make a judgment and see if one is warranted," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil-rights division. "We are reviewing that in the case of Denver."

After a decade of arrests involving alleged brutality, more than $6 million in settlements, questionable fatal shootings and the recent death of a man in the Denver jail, some Denver residents renewed their call for a federal investigation of the city's police and sheriff's departments.

The most recent catalyst was the death of homeless preacher Marvin Booker, who died last year after a scuffle with Denver sheriff's deputies in the jail. The deputies were cleared of wrongdoing.

This week, a video surfaced showing Deputy Joseph Webster using a chokehold on an inmate in the same jail. Webster was fired in January for using excessive force and lying about the incident, first reported by KDVR-Channel 31.

The Sheriff Department, which runs the jail, is separate from Denver police, but community groups still lump them together when citing what they call a pattern of abuses by law enforcement.

Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman declined to comment, and Sheriff Department Director of Corrections Gary Wilson couldn't be reached. The Manager of Safety's Office, which governs both the police and sheriff departments, referred calls for comment to the mayor's office.

"Denver will cooperate fully if an investigation into Denver's law enforcement practices is launched," said Mayor Guillermo "Bill" Vidal. "We are proud of the reforms we have implemented in the Department of Safety during the past few years — creation of discipline matrixes for the Police and Sheriff Departments, establishment of the Office of the Independent Monitor and the Citizen Oversight Board, and the elimination of the Discipline Review Board to speed the discipline process — and we are confident that any such investigation would find that Denver's police and sheriff departments follow best practices and standards of law enforcement."

Probes skirted in past

The Justice Department has come close to examining Denver law enforcement for civil-rights violations in the past but an investigation has never materialized, partly because the city responded to complaints before a federal probe was launched.

Read more: U.S. Justice Department weighs investigation of Denver law enforcement - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18101735#ixzz1MtmgKfGn
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Private Prison's Cost Benefits Debated

The New York Times
PHOENIX — The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
The state’s experience has particular relevance now, as many politicians have promised to ease budget problems by trimming state agencies. Florida and Ohio are planning major shifts toward private prisons, and Arizona is expected to sign deals doubling its private-inmate population.
The measures would be a shot in the arm for an industry that has struggled, in some places, to fill prison beds as the number of inmates nationwide has leveled off. But hopes of big taxpayer benefits might end in disappointment, independent experts say.
“There’s a perception that the private sector is always going to do it more efficiently and less costly,” said Russ Van Vleet, a former co-director of the University of Utah Criminal Justice Center. “But there really isn’t much out there that says that’s correct.”
Such has been the case lately in Arizona. Despite a state law stipulating that private prisons must create “cost savings,” the state’s own data indicate that inmates in private prisons can cost as much as $1,600 more per year, while many cost about the same as they do in state-run prisons.
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.
“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”
In the 1980s, soaring violent crime, tougher sentencing and overcrowding led lawmakers to use private prisons to expand. Then, as now, privatization advocates argued that corporations were more efficient. Over time, most states signed contracts, one of the largest transfers of state functions to private industry.
Nationally, the number of state inmates in private prisons grew by a third over the past decade to more than 90,000, but it has stagnated, and some states have reduced total prison populations — shifting nonviolent offenders to treatment programs while bolstering probation. Now, Ohio lawmakers want to privatize prisons with 6,000 inmates, and Florida will transfer institutions with 15,000 inmates to private management. The Arizona plan would add 5,000 private prison beds.
Matthew Benson, spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican, did not dispute the state research. But he said officials had a “pretty wide lens” to interpret the cost-savings mandate, like taking into account the ability of private companies to recoup hundreds of millions in construction costs over the life of contracts.
“It is a significant advantage to have a private firm be able to come in and front the costs,” he said.
Privatization advocates play down the data. Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian research organization, questioned whether all costs were included and said the figures were too narrowly drawn, particularly on medium-security prisons, to prompt conclusions. “It is looking at a limited slice,” Mr. Gilroy said.

Prison Rape Survivors Story Going International

Westword
The story of Scott Howard, who endured extortion and rape by an inmate gang in Colorado's prison system, was told in detail for the first time in my feature "The Devil's Playground" three months ago. But our account quickly went viral -- and Howard, now free to speak out about prison rape, has become a high-profile presence on an issue long considered a media taboo.
As our piece recounts, Howard went public with his ordeal last year at a hearing on the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act -- a piece of legislation that's been many years in the making and still hasn't put much of a dent in the estimated 200,000 sexual assaults that occur in America's prisons and jails every year. But a more startling breakthrough occurred just days after our article went online.
Howard was invited on behalf of Just Detention International, a nonprofit crusading against prison rape, to speak at the national "congress" of the American Correctional Association, a trade group dominated by prison administrators and corrections officers. He electrified the room with his account of how prison officials ignored his pleas for protection and told him he was being a "drama queen." When he was done, the crowd greeted him with thunderous applause. One veteran prison administrator told him, "Scott, it wasn't your fault" -- and hugged him.
"I could never have expected the ACA to invite JDI -- much less a prisoner rape survivor -- to address its membership," JDI executive director Lovisa Stannow wrote on the group's website. "Just one year ago, this would have been unthinkable."
And last week, a story in The Economist about the slow march to implementing the Prison Rape Elimination Act led with a discussion of Howard and his battles with prison officials.
Howard is on federal parole now. He settled a lawsuit against prison officials for $165,000, much of which went to his lawyers. He keeps a low profile in his community and workplace, concerned about possible retaliation from the 211 Crew members he identified as his attackers and blowback from employers who don't want to hear that one of their own is a prison rape survivor. But none of this has kept him from emerging as one of the country's most powerful speakers on one of its most shameful secrets.

PRISON PAMPERING: Prison Plans Could Include Butterfly Garden and Yoga Space

PRISON PAMPERING: Prison Plans Could Include Butterfly Garden and Yoga Space

MITCHELLVILLE IA

Advertisement

Prison or pampering? Plans for an expanded Mitchellville Prison could include a softball field; a butterfly garden; yoga space; trails for quiet reflection and maybe even an amphitheater.

Iowa State University Landscape Architecture students worked with Mitchellville Women's Prison to produce plans for landscaping the new 68-million dollar prison expansion.

"(We) told them what we wanted . What we did not want," Warden Patti Wachtendorf says, "They came here and viewed the prison, talked to some offenders and they talked to some staff about what would you like the land scaping to look like."

"I expected, not hardened criminals but something of the sort," student Alicia Adams says, "And actually speaking to them, they're people. They had a lot to say about the landscape. They were very concerned for the well being of the staff and the visitors and each other. And they really knew what they wanted."

What they wanted is a calming environment that's less like a prison.

"How nice for somebody to look, from a hospice room out to a butterfly garden," Wachtendorf says, "It's peaceful. It's serene."

"These are people and yes they have committed crimes but our goal is to rehabilitate them to get them back out into the world," Adams adds.

But isn't a prison supposed to be unpleasant?

"It's gonna be progressive." Wachtendorf says, "It's gonna be bright and cheery. It's also gonna have razor wire and fences. It's gonna have concrete. It's gonna have locked doors. But it's gonna be an environment where women can come and make changes. I don't consider this a country club. I don't want this to be a country club. I want this to be a positive safe environment for both staff and offenders."

Medical marijuana in Colo. gets scant attention from federal prosecutors - The Denver Post

Medical marijuana in Colo. gets scant attention from federal prosecutors - The Denver Post

When Colorado U.S. Attorney John Walsh wrote to state officials last month about the state's medical-marijuana rules, the warning could not have been clearer.

"The department would consider civil actions and criminal prosecution regarding those who set up marijuana growing facilities and dispensaries," Walsh wrote.

If that happened, it would throw into disarray Colorado's medical-marijuana industry, which, after all, operates in obvious violation of federal law.

But a close examination of court cases in Colorado over the past three years reveals that federal prosecutors spend few resources pursuing marijuana crimes of any kind.

That was true both before Colorado's medical-marijuana boom began and since. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, officials pursued fewer than 10 marijuana-specific cases in each year, out of hundreds of criminal prosecutions.

When federal prosecutors have tackled marijuana issues — most frequently in civil cases seeking to seize assets — they often act only after local officials have first alleged violations of state law.

"Our approach in the prosecution of marijuana has not changed," said Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for Walsh. "The U.S. attorney's office focuses on large-scale drug traffickers, large-scale marijuana growers. It is not the U.S. attorney's office's intent to prosecute an individual user or an individual caregiver providing for an individual user."

In October 2009, the Justice Department issued a memo urging federal prosecutors not to expend resources targeting individuals in clear compliance with state medical-marijuana law. That memo was seen by many in Colorado's medical-marijuana community as a green light to set up a state-legal industry.

Read more: Medical marijuana in Colo. gets scant attention from federal prosecutors - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_18084197#ixzz1Mi5VzsJm
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Johnson: An attempt to return a disquieting message - The Denver Post

Johnson: An attempt to return a disquieting message - The Denver Post

Some of this, some of that . . .Mark called me the other day. I am ticked that I missed him, though his message kind of got to me.

I never understood his last name. It was garbled in the voice mail. But he was calling me from a Boulder Community Hospital nursing station. He had tried and failed again to kill himself.

He had wanted to tell me of his incarceration. He wasn't looking for pity, he told me. Maybe, he said, his story could help others.

He was in prison for four full years, he said. Every day of it was spent in solitary. He didn't know why they kept him there, he said.

"I only got to come out once a week for 15 minutes to take a shower," he said.

And then one day they paroled him, put him out on the streets. Just like that. And he still does not know what to do with himself.

"I'm not used to being around people," he said. "I am living right now like a scared dog."

He has tried several times to kill himself. Someone always saves him, he said.

I called the number he left. A nurse at the desk said he was no longer there.

Mark, if you read this, call me again. Leave a good number.

• • •

Marvin Booker only wanted to retrieve his shoes. For that, Denver sheriff's deputies killed him.

No matter how many times you watch the videotape released last week of the man's killing at the Denver jail, you just can't get past that sad and simple fact.

Indeed, you can almost hear Marvin Booker yell at the deputy who first grabbed him, "I just want my shoes!"

I've wondered if the other four deputies who arrived, jumped on the scrawny little man and proceeded to choke the life out of him even knew about the shoes, or cared.

Mayor Guillermo "Bill" Vidal, I believe, is a good and decent man. As regards his no-discipline ruling last week, he got that one all wrong.

Read more: Johnson: An attempt to return a disquieting message - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/billjohnson/ci_18070470?source=rsshomecol#ixzz1MWvpWJVr
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

In Prison Reform Money Trumps Civil Rights

NY Times
Columbus, Ohio
THE legal scholar Derrick A. Bell foresaw that mass incarceration, like earlier systems of racial control, would continue to exist as long as it served the perceived interests of white elites.
Thirty years of civil rights litigation and advocacy have failed to slow the pace of a racially biased drug war or to prevent the emergence of a penal system of astonishing size. Yet a few short years of tight state budgets have inspired former “get tough” true believers to suddenly denounce the costs of imprisonment. “We’re wasting tax dollars on prisons,” they say. “It’s time to shift course.”
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, shocked many earlier this year when he co-wrote an essay for The Washington Post calling on “conservative legislators to lead the way in addressing an issue often considered off-limits to reform: prisons.”
Republican governors had already been sounding the same note. As California was careering toward bankruptcy last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lamented that more money was being spent on prisons than on education. Priorities “have become out of whack over the years,” he said. “What does it say about any state that focuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns?” Another Republican governor, John R. Kasich of Ohio, recently announced support for reducing penalties for nonviolent drug offenders as part of an effort to slash the size of the state’s prison population.
A majority of those swept into our nation’s prison system are poor people of color, but the sudden shift away from the “get tough” rhetoric that has dominated the national discourse on crime has not been inspired by a surge in concern about the devastating human toll of mass incarceration. Instead, as Professor Bell predicted, the changing tide is best explained by perceived white interests. In this economic climate, it is impossible to maintain the vast prison state without raising taxes on the (white) middle class.

California Appeal Court Holds Virtual Life-Without-Parole Sentence Imposed on 14-Year-Old Child Is Unconstitutional | Equal Justice Initiative

California Appeal Court Holds Virtual Life-Without-Parole Sentence Imposed on 14-Year-Old Child Is Unconstitutional | Equal Justice Initiative

EJI won a ruling from the California Court of Appeal yesterday striking down a 175-year sentence imposed on 14-year-old Antonio Nunez for an offense in which no one was injured. The court held that the logic of Graham v. Florida, which declared life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences unconstitutional for children convicted of nonhomicide offenses, applies to term of years sentences that are the practical equivalent of life in prison without parole.

In 2007, EJI challenged the life-imprisonment-without-parole sentence imposed on 14-year-old Antonio Nunez, arguing that condemning young children to die in prison is unconstitutional.

The California Court of Appeal agreed, and in a 2009 decision, declared the sentence to be cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and the California Constitution. After the appellate court invalidated his sentence, the trial court imposed a sentence requiring Antonio to serve 175 years before qualifying for a parole hearing, and EJI appealed.

EJI's Bryan Stevenson argued that, under the constitutional ruling in Graham and the California court's ruling in In re Nunez, there was no difference between a life-without-parole sentence and a sentence to 175 years.

The appeals court agreed, finding that a "term of years effectively denying any possibility of parole is no less severe than an LWOP term." The court concluded that "[f]inding a determinate sentence exceeding a juvenile's life expectancy constitutional because it is not labeled an LWOP sentence is Orwellian. Simply put, a distinction based on changing a label, as the trial court did, is arbitrary and baseless." It reversed Antonio's sentence "because it violates the state and federal Constitutions by denying his a meaningful opportunity for release within his lifetime."

Parole Reentry Guide Helps Freed Former Convicts

Westword
There's nothing quite like the transition from doing hard time to looking for a job in hard times. Every year, Colorado's prison system sends about 10,000 felons back to society -- and roughly two-thirds of them end up back in prison within three years. In most cases, their return is not due to new crimes but for falling short of parole conditions, such as failing to find employment, a place to live or make court-ordered payments for restitution and treatment.
The jobless rate for people with a prison record is estimated to be between 40 and 60 percent. That alone makes a pretty good case for the just-released new edition of Getting On After Getting Out: A Re-entry Guide for Colorado, a compendium of resources and advice for parolees published by the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
When it was first issued in 2007, the "GO Guide" was one of the first efforts of its kind in the country, assembling essential info on everything from how to get a driver's license to how to tap into community groups that assist with job-hunting skills and leads -- stuff that parolees previously had to collect from a dozen different bus stops while their funds dwindled into dust. The new edition features an expanded list of agencies that can help with everything from housing to education to health care -- and cut into the $80-$100 million a year taxpayers spend on prison costs as a result of parole failures.
"This guide is more than just a list of community resources," says Christie Donner, one of the guide's authors and founder of CCJRC. "It's trying to address some of the re-entry barriers that have been brought to our attention throughout the years."
Foundation grants have allowed the organization to distribute thousands of copies of the guide to state prisoners for free. Individual copies can also be ordered for $10 from the CCJRC website of by calling 303-825-0122.

No discipline for deputies in Marvin Booker's death at Denver jail - The Denver Post

No discipline for deputies in Marvin Booker's death at Denver jail - The Denver Post

Deputies violated no jail policies when they subdued, held and shocked inmate Marvin Booker leading to his death, and will not face discipline in the case.

Denver Manager of Safety Charles Garcia announced this morning that the internal review of the case had found that five deputies complied with policy last July 9 when they held Booker down after he scuffled with a deputy.

"After a thorough review of the investigation and after considering the recommendations of the city's Independent Monitor, this office concludes that the deputies did not violate the department's use of force police or any other department rules related to use of force," Garcia said.

Battle over bail bond as session wraps up - The Denver Post

Battle over bail bond as session wraps up - The Denver Post

Colorado's bail bondsmen are determined to kill a bill due up in a House committee Tuesday, but one sponsor is afraid time will run out on the bill whether it gets committee approval or not.

Senate Bill 186 won final Senate approval by an 18-17 vote last week, and would allow some suspected criminals to post bond without using a bail agent. The state's bail bondsmen have rallied at the Capitol to protest a bill they say would cost them business.

The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and in the House by Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, would allow defendants to post an "alternative bond" directly to the government instead of paying a bail bond agent to guarantee their appearances at

trial. This option would be available only if the option got the approval of the chief judge in the judicial district handling the case.

Professional Bail Agents of Colorado Vice President Steve Mares called the bill "ugly" and "an attempt to abolish the bail bond industry in Colorado."

With the legislature set to adjourn Wednesday, Mares said he was hopeful time would run out before the House could approve the bill.

"Hopefully the bill will run off into the 'sunset' and die," he said.

Read more: Battle over bail bond as session wraps up - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_18027806#ixzz1LvCJM2vK
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

GOP's Jail Sell

Mother Jones

Last August, two prisoners escaped from an Arizona penitentiary and fled to New Mexico, where they ambushed a couple, shot them to death, and lit their bodies on fire inside a trailer.
These fugitives didn't escape from just any facility: They were housed in a privately run prison managed by the Utah-based Management Training Corporation. After the incident, a review [1] by the Arizona Department of Corrections concluded that the prison had poorly trained staff and deficient equipment—including a faulty security system that emitted so many false alarms, the prison staff simply ignored it.
Episodes like this have raised concerns about the privatization of prisons, with critics long arguing that such facilities pose a threat to public safety and don't save states much—if any—money in the long run. They also argue that such facilities pose a perverse incentive to keep people locked up. Still, the nation could soon see a major private-prison boom, as Republican governors and legislators across the country push privatization proposals to address budget shortfalls.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich has proposed [2] selling five prisons to private companies—a move that would bring in an estimated $200 million up front—while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal plans to sell [3] three state prisons to private operators. In Florida, the GOP-controlled Legislature is making [4] an even broader push, hammering out a budget bill that would require the state to privatize the prisons in South Florida, where one-fifth of the state's 100,000-plus inmates reside.
Likewise, Maine's new GOP governor, Paul Le Page, has vowed to bring private prisons to his state for the first time, backing a bill that would also allow Maine to house out-of-state prisoners. In Texas, where prison privatization began decades ago, Harris County is now deliberating [5] a plan to privatize the state's largest jail. And in Minnesota, Republican state lawmakers have introduced [6] a bill that would require the state to solicit offers from private companies to manage the state's inmates.
The prison industry saw a big boom in the 1980s and 1990s, but growth slowed [7] during the recent recession. Strapped for cash, state corrections agencies have been trying to squeeze prisoners into fewer facilities and reducing sentences for nonviolent criminals. Now, with Republicans back in power on the state level and in Washington, the new prison-privatization fervor could bring back business once again. "Private prisons may be taking a bit of a hit right now, at least in the US," says Chris Hartney, a senior fellow at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit research and public policy organization. But this year's state budgets could create an "uptick in privatization" if lawmakers succeed in passing such proposals, he adds.
Many of the proposals now under consideration would open prison management and sales up to competitive bidding, often requiring the companies to reduce costs by at least 5 percent. The private corrections industry has claimed it can save taxpayers anywhere between 5 and 15 percent a year, and supporters have cited recent studies [8] to that effect. But critics contend that these promised savings are questionable at best. "If there's cost savings, it usually comes in the form of something short-term, early on, and it fades over time," says Travis Pratt, a criminology professor at Arizona State University who's researched private prisons.
According to a 2007 study [9] by the University of Utah, there isn't much evidence to show that private prisons actually save any money. "Our conclusion is that prison privatization provides neither a clear advantage nor disadvantage compared to publicly managed prisons," the researchers concluded.
In Florida, three recent cost-effectiveness studies of the state's private prisons came up with similarly contradictory [10] results. Likewise, Dr. Gerry Gaes, a former director of research at the federal Bureau of Prisons, told [10] Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning think-tank: "Direct comparisons of cost and quality neither favor the public nor the private sector."  Click headline to read more

Pot DUI bill back with teeth in Colo. - The Denver Post

Pot DUI bill back with teeth in Colo. - The Denver Post
DENVER—A bill to prosecute drivers under the influence of pot has been revived with teeth after it was watered down so it was just a study on the issue of marijuana impairment.

The proposal is scheduled to be heard this week in the Senate. It would set a blood-content threshold that would allow prosecutors to charge drivers with a DUI if they have a level of at least 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

That level would be the country's most liberal limit under the law for what's legally considered too high to drive. But it has angered some medical marijuana users who fear they'll be unfairly targeted.

The bill was changed to become a study last month but it was restored to its original form Friday.

Read more: Pot DUI bill back with teeth in Colo. - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_18024401#ixzz1LrSLRfTC
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Canoes, motorcycles drive inmate workers beyond license plates - The Pueblo Chieftain: Local

Canoes, motorcycles drive inmate workers beyond license plates - The Pueblo Chieftain: Local: "CANON CITY — Eager to do more than make license
plates, inmate workers here are bustin' out."
CANON CITY — Eager to do more than make license plates, inmate workers here are bustin' out.
   Canoes and custom motorcycles are among the newest products being made by inmates working under the Colorado Correctional Industries program. Fishing rods and flies also are recent additions.
   Correctional Industries oversees about 60 inmate work programs in the agricultural, manufacturing and service fields. Offerings range from furniture making to a commercial fish farm.
   The managers of the programs say they're always willing to think outside the fence — and also eager to tap inmates' specific work talents.
   So when inmates at the fiberglass shop at the medium-security Fremont prison aren't building fish tanks, they're making fiberglass-sealed canoes.
  Across town, inmates at the medium-security Territorial prison are building their first custom motorcycle during their down time from making license plates.
  "When we're slow, we try to see what we can do," said Dennis Dunsmoor, who supervises both the fiberglass and license plate plants.
  "Making license plates is not something they are going to do when they get out.

Wild Horse Inmate Program in Colorado

News
It’s been 25 years since the Bureau of Land Management decided to speed up adoptions of wild horses by using prison inmates to train them. Since then nearly 5,000 animals have been gentled or saddle trained in the Wild Horse Inmate Program and adopted out.

Fran Ackley, who runs the BLM wild horse facility outside of Canon City, Colo., says the U.S. Border Patrol buys many of the inmate-trained horses.

“American mustangs working to protect America's borders, it just seems like a natural fit. We've adopted 95 horses to the U.S. Border Patrol, mostly on the southern border, but we have almost 30 horses on the northern border as well.”

Agents on horseback can patrol remote terrain where motorized vehicles just can’t get. And when it comes to horses, Mustangs bred in the wild are toughest and most sure-footed there are.

That’s why, Ackley says, they are the preferred choice of the Border Patrol. “They really like the quality of the horses (and) they use them all day, every day. And they can handle it: they're durable, they don't give out, they have really tough feet.”

With the nation’s renewed emphasis on border security, the Border Patrol plans to increase the use of horse patrols. Another 70 Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP) animals are on order.

Using inmates to do the training saves taxpayers money in several ways. Saddle-trained WHIP animals cost $1,025 each. That’s about the same as it would cost to lease a comparable horse for a year, and less than half what it would cost to buy one from a private seller.

And trained horses not bought by the Border Patrol are much more likely to get adopted by members of the general public. In 2010, more than 40 percent of the BLM’s $64-million Wild Horse and Burro budget went to the care and feeding of animals that no one would adopt. Taxpayers no longer have to pay for animals adopted out. Untrained horses can be adopted for just $125, but takers for unbroken horses are much harder to find.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/06/wild-horse-inmate-program-colorado-benefits-mustangs-prisoners/#ixzz1LlTzFaOp

Mat Su Prison Won't Get Start-up Funds

Anchorage Daily News
The huge Goose Creek prison in the Mat-Su won't open on time and a security company will have to be hired to keep people out of the empty prison, corrections officials said Thursday.
The new state operating budget about to be passed by the Legislature doesn't have enough money to enact a start-up plan that would open the facility next spring with a batch of 30 prisoners, said Shalon Harrington, the legislative liaison for the Alaska Department of Corrections.
She said the shortfall also throws into question the date that the prison might be fully operational.
"Right now we just have to take a few steps back and re-evaluate the entire situation," she said.
The $240 million Goose Creek prison is being built at Point MacKenzie across Knik Arm from Anchorage. The project has been under heavy pressure after the Senate Finance Committee in March heard the expected costs of operating it.
A top senator even talked about just mothballing it and dropping the plan to bring back 1,000 Alaska inmates who are being housed in a Colorado private prison.
The corrections department asked the Legislature for $3.6 million to ramp up operations. The Senate voted to give no money, saying there are too many questions. The House wanted to provide the entire amount sought by corrections officials.

Denver police monitor says two should have faced harsher penalty - The Denver Post

Denver police monitor says two should have faced harsher penalty - The Denver Post
A police officer and a Denver Sheriff Department captain who were both suspended for lying should have received stiffer penalties, the city's police monitor said in a report Thursday.
In the first case, though independent monitor Richard Rosenthal didn't name the officer in his quarterly report, the details appear to match the case of Officer Eric Sellers, who was suspended from his job for 40 days for what Rosenthal said was an unwarranted attack on a firefighter.
Sellers should have been terminated, Rosenthal said, but if kept on the force, he should be restricted from any position in which he would interact with the public.
In the second case — without naming her — Rosenthal found that a 70-day suspension without pay given to sheriff's Capt. Cheryl Arabalo was unreasonable.
Arabalo should have been busted down to deputy because she filed a false report about the way deputies at the county jail were conducting "rounds" to check on inmates, Rosenthal said.
"The monitor is concerned that by allowing the subject officer to remain in a command position, the department sends the wrong message about the importance of honesty and integrity in relationship to leadership positions," Rosenthal said in his quarterly report.
On Dec. 28, 2009, Sellers was working off-duty but in uniform at a Lower Downtown bar when volunteer Brighton firefighter Jared Lunn complained to him that a man punched him in the face and threw his pizza to the ground.
Sellers accused him of being drunk and when Lunn made a sarcastic comment, Sellers put him in a chokehold, wrestled him to the ground, handcuffed and berated him, according to the report.
Former Safety Manager Ron Perea imposed a 45-day suspension on Sellers, who was found to have lied about the use of excessive force, and allowed him to serve a second 10-day suspension concurrently, saying he declined to fire the officer though the presumptive penalty for lying is termination.
Rosenthal recommended that Chief Gerald Whitman assign Sellers to a non-patrol position where he won't have contact with the public, be forbidden to work "off-duty" in uniform, and be assigned to a position where there would be no need for either the district attorney or the city attorney to use his testimony in future cases.
Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Thursday that Sellers is already working a non-line assignment that doesn't require him to patrol the streets. As for the other recommendations, Jackson said the chief would follow the ordinance that created the independent-monitor position, indicating that the department is not bound by Rosenthal's opinions.

Read more: Denver police monitor says two should have faced harsher penalty - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18004974#ixzz1LZikcPdy
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Internet Lets A Criminal Past Catch Up Quicker

New York Times

By ERICA GOODE

Convicted of robbing a video store in California in 1997, Ayanna Spikes decided to change the trajectory of her life. In 14 years, she has had no further brushes with the law.
The eight months she spent in prison, she said, were “the best thing that ever happened to me,” persuading her to pursue training in medical administration and complete coursework for a degree in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. At 38, she is a far different person from the confused young woman who strayed into crime, she says.
But employers, initially impressed by her credentials, grow leery when they learn her history through criminal background checks. She has been turned down for more than a dozen jobs since finishing college in 2010.
The pool of Americans seeking jobs includes more people with criminal histories than ever before, a legacy in part of stiffer sentencing and increased enforcement for nonviolent crimes like drug offenses, criminal justice experts said. And each year, more than 700,000 people are released from state and federal prisons, a total that is expected to grow as states try to reduce the fiscal burden of their overcrowded penal institutions.
Almost 65 million Americans have some type of criminal record, either for an arrest or a conviction, according to a recent report by the National Employment Law Project, whose policy co-director, Maurice Emsellem, says that the figure is probably an underestimate.
Some, like Ms. Spikes, have left their criminal pasts far behind. Others have been convicted of minor offenses, or of crimes that appear to have little relevance to the jobs they are seeking.

Man beaten by Denver officers awarded $795,000 by City Council - The Denver Post

Man beaten by Denver officers awarded $795,000 by City Council - The Denver Post

A man left bloodied by Denver police officers two years ago after a routine traffic stop was given a $795,000 settlement by the City Council on Monday.

It is among the largest payouts in city history to resolve a police-brutality case.

Alexander Landau sued the city in federal court, saying three police officers tried to cover up a Jan. 19, 2009, beating that left Landau scarred and suffering "persisting neurological damage."

The officers hit Landau with their fists, flashlights and a radio, and called him a racial epithet, according to the suit.

Police say Landau reached for one of their guns during a stop for allegedly making an illegal left turn.

Two of the three officers in the suit were recently fired for lying on reports concerning other violent incidents.

"I am so deeply disappointed that this took so long to see the light of day," said Councilwoman Judy Montero. "I wouldn't wish this on any community or any member of our community."

The council unanimously approved the payout.

The department's Internal Affairs Bureau originally reviewed the case but refused to begin a formal investigation.

"That investigation was poorly handled," said Mayor Guillermo "Bill" Vidal, who called the settlement "just."

Landau's suit includes graphic photos of the bloodied and beaten then-19-year-old college student.

Vidal said "chances were good we would lose this case in court."

The officers named in the suit were Cpl. Randy Murr and Officers Ricky Nixon and Tiffany Middleton. Chief Gerry Whitman was named in his official capacity.

Murr was fired in March for lying on a police report about an incident in Lower Downtown in April 2009 that was caught on videotape, showing officers beating up Michael DeHerrera. Nixon was fired last month for lying in a police report about a violent incident caught on camera outside the Denver Diner in 2009.

The city has reopened an internal-affairs investigation into the case.

Read more: Man beaten by Denver officers awarded $795,000 by City Council - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17978835#ixzz1LIBhe9Yr
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Recidivism's High Cost and A Way to Cut It.

NY TIMES
Corrections costs for the states have quadrupled in the last 20 years — to about $52 billion a year nationally — making prison spending their second-fastest growing budget item after Medicaid. To cut those costs, the states must first rethink parole and probation policies that drive hundreds of thousands of people back to prison every year, not for new crimes, but for technical violations that present no threat to public safety.
According to a new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States, 43 percent of prisoners nationally return to the lockup within three years. The authors estimate that the 41 states covered in the study would reap a significant savings — $635 million in the first year — if they managed to cut their recidivism rates by just 10 percent. For California’s hugely costly prison system, that would mean $233 million in savings; for New York, $42 million; and for Texas, $33.6 million.
The study, which looked at prisoner release data in 1999 and 2004, found recidivism rates varied widely. Some of the highest rates were in California (57.8 percent) and Missouri (54.4). New York is slightly under the national average (39.9 percent). Oregon had the lowest: only 22.8 percent of inmates released in 2004 returned within three years. Crime has also declined significantly.