Colorado Inmates tame wild horses
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!
CCJRC
CCJRC’s 2014 6th Annual Fundraiser
VOICES FOR JUSTICE
Thursday, September 18, 2014
5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m
COCKTAILS AND CUISINE
BOXES AND BASKETS SILENT AUCTION
MILE HIGH STATION
2027 West Lower Colfax
Denver, CO.
CATERED BY FOOTERS
Early bird tickets: $70
After June 22 - tickets are $85
PLEASE JOIN US FOR ANOTHER WONDERFUL EVENING!
This year, we are honoring Claire Levy for her
invaluable contribution to criminal justice reform. As House
Representative, she carried a significant number of bills vital to
reducing recidivism, implementing smarter sentencing and drug policy,
expanding funding for treatment, increasing alternatives to
incarceration, and providing resources to people with criminal
convictions. Her work on the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice
(CCJJ) was exemplary as is her current work as Executive Director of
the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.
CCJRC has been successfully advocating for
sensible criminal justice reform in Colorado for more than a decade. We
were founded in 1999 when Senator Dorothy Rupert, in alliance with
Representative Penfield Tate, introduced legislation calling for a
three-year halt on prison expansion and the creation of a task force on
sentencing reform. Today, CCJRC includes more than 100 community
organizations and faith communities and nearly 6,500 individual members
statewide. We have worked diligently over the years to develop criminal
justice policies and grassroots campaigns that effectively promote
public safety and rehabilitation while reducing the prison population.
The Rupert Tate Game Changer Award honors
its two co-founders and their prescience in challenging the criminal
justice status quo in Colorado. It is a great honor to extend this award
to
Claire Levy
$1000--Contributing Sponsors
Prax (us) Jan and Dave Mackenzie
$500 – Freedom Fighter Sponsors
$250 – Justice Sponsors
Elizabeth Anderman Tony and Leigh BubbBrian Connors Councilman Albus Brooks Endpoint Direct
Advocates for Change St. Francis Center Candy Campbell
Colorado Behavioral Health Council
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Jail inmate booking fees raise concern, may violate Colorado state law
The Denver Post
Metro area
sheriff's departments have collected millions of dollars in booking fees
from inmates, and the departments often run an ongoing tab for those
who can't afford to pay when they're arrested. The tabs have left some
people owing hundreds of dollars that may eventually be confiscated if
they return to jail.
Legal experts say the practice may be a
violation of state law — a legal conclusion that Denver's city attorney
also reached last year before the sheriff's department discontinued
collecting old debts for booking fees.
Now, after being contacted
by The Denver Post, a number of other departments are also reconsidering
whether they have the authority to charge people for previous jail
bookings.
Advocates warn that tracking and collecting unpaid fees
from people repeatedly booked into jail may unfairly target the
mentally ill and homeless.
"A key purpose of this fee was to
benefit mentally ill and indigent inmates, and I was concerned that — in
practice — it could be disproportionately impacting these very
populations," said Denver's independent police monitor, Nicholas
Mitchell.
In 2004, legislators passed a law allowing sheriff's
departments to collect up to $30 from everyone who is booked into a
county jail. The law requires that the fee be collected when someone is
booked into the jail, but it does not allow deputies to collect unpaid
fees if someone is booked into the jail multiple times, according to a
review by the Denver city attorney's office and the Office of the
Independent Monitor.
The Denver Sheriff's Department's decision to
stop collecting debts caused the revenue collected from fees to drop to
a seven-year low in 2013, reducing the yearly total by more than
$113,000. But the decrease — by default — also reduced funds the
department dedicates to treatment programs and deputy training by more
than $45,000 from the previous year.
Interactive: Denver Crime Map
Mitchell said the fee was intended to help care for people who are mentally ill and indigent. But a complaint his office received early last year revealed that the fee — and the inability to pay it — was creating possibly overwhelming debts for people who are repeatedly booked into jail for low-level crimes.
In October 2012, Robert Lowe was booked into the downtown Denver jail for the seventh time in 19 months. Lowe — who listed his return address as a state-run, inpatient mental health institute — had incurred more than a dozen municipal charges, the most serious of which including trespassing and urinating in public.
But when Lowe was released, the $200 he had in his pocket when he was booked into the jail was gone. The money was confiscated and used to cover booking fees he could not pay during previous stints in the jail, according a letter from the sheriff department's internal affairs bureau.
Even though $200 was all he had, it wasn't enough. Lowe still owed $7.
"I was concerned about the possibility that there were others like this individual — folks who are indigent or homeless — who are possibly being arrested for low-level street offenses and developing these large tabs with the sheriff's office," Mitchell said. "It seems to me there is quite a bit of risk that the practice of collecting past fees could negatively impact the poorest and neediest folks."
Mitchell commended Denver Sheriff Gary Wilson, who quickly addressed the concerns and changed the department's procedure, and Lowe was issued a full refund. But at least six of Colorado's largest sheriff departments — Arapahoe, Boulder, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson and Larimer counties — continue to collect previously unpaid fees.
None of those departments use collections agencies or issue tickets for those who do not pay. Most departments have been collecting unpaid fees from inmates since the program launched 10 years ago.
Funds raised from the fee in Denver go toward deputy training and two programs in the city's two jails, Wilson said. One program is designed to treat people with severe mental illness and-or co-occurring substance abuse. The second works to provide people a 30-day prescription for their non-controlled, mental health medications.
"The goal is trying to utilize those funds to benefit those who are in our custody and the taxpayers," Wilson said.
But the practice of keeping tabs on those who do not pay the booking fee singles out people who are least able to pay, said Sean McDermott, president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. He said other sheriff's departments should rethink their practices.
"The plain reading of the statute says they should collect the fee up front," McDermott said. "It is similar to a low-income person running up a debt, whether it be a payday loan or a credit card they cannot pay off."
After The Post alerted other sheriff departments, several said they were unaware of Denver's policy change.
Jefferson County Sheriff Department officials began reviewing their policy, said spokesman Mark Techmeyer. The Larimer and Boulder counties sheriff's departments have no plans to change their policies, but the departments will reach out to Denver to learn more about their decision. Sgt. Ron Hanavan said the Douglas County Sheriff Department may evaluate the practice in the future, but it had no immediate plans to change it.
The El Paso County Sheriff Department presented the issue to its legal adviser a few years ago and decided the practice was allowed under the law, Sgt. Greg White said Thursday.
Opponents have called the fee a tax on the poor. Supporters argued that earmarking funds to help with the growing demand for mental health treatment would help decrease inmate populations and some claimed the fee would not be paid by the mentally ill or indigent.
"It is an unfair tiered system as far as people who have those resources and those who don't," said Eric Smith, programs manager for The Mental Health Center of Denver.
Smith works with a program designed to help people with mental health disorders who come up against the criminal justice system. While people who are mentally ill or indigent should be held accountable for their crimes, Smith says there should be more wiggle room in applying the booking fee.
Individuals with a limited or fixed income often have an average of $30 of spending money a week, but many have as little as $10, Smith said.
"It's a no-win situation for them. If they don't have the money now, why do you think they would have the money later?" Smith said. "There should be a little bit more room to accommodate people who are in difficult straits."
If someone is cleared of all charges, they may apply to have the fee refunded. That process, however, can be tricky to navigate, Mitchell said.
Each department said the revenue collected from the fees accounts for a small portion of their overall budget.
Between 2005 and 2013, the Denver sheriff's department collected $4.7 million in booking fees — 4 percent of the department's overall budget in 2013.
At any given time, 30 to 40 percent of inmates housed in Denver's two detention facilities are dealing with a mental health disorder. On average, it costs about $56 a day to house someone in the general population, but it costs more than double that amount to house someone who needs medical attention or mental health treatment, Wilson said
Read more: Jail inmate booking fees raise concern, may violate Colorado law - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25770213/jail-inmate-booking-fees-raise-concern-may-violate#ixzz31pAnbgbe
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Friday, May 02, 2014
Thursday, May 01, 2014
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014)
Description
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States:
Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014)
After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States more than quadrupled during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society.
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm.
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States recommends changes in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy to reduce the nation's reliance on incarceration. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. The study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.
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