Substance Abuse Growing in Colleges

Corrections Sentencing points us to this report that was put out from the National Center on Addiciton and Subsance Abuse at Columbis University. Binge drinking and prescription drug use is on the rise.

By Justin Pope, Associated Press | March 15, 2007

Substance abuse on college campuses is nothing new, but it is taking a more extreme and dangerous form, with higher rates of frequent binge drinking and prescription drug abuse, and more negative consequences for students such as arrests and risky sexual behavior.

That's the portrait painted by a comprehensive report tying together a range of recent research on substance abuse by college students and new survey data.

The report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University argues that substance abuse isn't an inevitable rite of passage for young adults. But the report concludes that a culture of excessive consumption has flourished on college campuses, and it calls on educators to take bolder stands to combat the drinking.

"If they make this a priority they can do something about it," said Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the center. Among other steps, he called on colleges and the NCAA to stop allowing alcohol advertising during high-profile events such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament.

The report, being released today , relies largely on research that has appeared in various forms, but assembles it to emphasize findings particular to college students.

Among the highlights:

The proportion of students who drink (about 68 percent) and binge drink (40 percent) has changed little since 1993. But substantial increases have been made in the number of students who binge drink frequently (take five drinks at a time, three or more times in two weeks), who drink 10 or more times a month, and who get drunk three or more times in a month.

Though still used by far fewer students than alcohol, hundreds of thousands of more students are abusing prescription drugs including Ritalin, Adderall, and OxyContin than during the early 1990s. The proportion of students using marijuana daily has more than doubled to about 4 percent.

Lawmakers Consider Reducing Crack Penalties

Lawmakers consider lessening crack penalties

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

Momentum is building in Congress to ease crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say have filled prisons with low-level drug dealers and addicts whose punishments were much worse than their crimes.

Federal prison sentences for possessing or selling crack have far exceeded those for powder cocaine for two decades. House Crime Subcommittee chairman Robert Scott, D-Va., a longtime critic of such sentencing policies, plans to hold hearings on crack sentences this year. In the Senate, Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama is drawing bipartisan support for his proposal to ease crack sentences.

"I believe that as a matter of law enforcement and good public policy that crack cocaine sentences are too heavy and can't be justified," Sessions says. "People don't want us to be soft on crime, but I think we ought to make the law more rational."

The mandatory federal sentencing guidelines passed by Congress in 1986 require a judge to impose the same sentence for possession of 5 grams of crack as for 500 grams of powder cocaine: five years in prison.

Congress passed the sentencing laws just after the fatal crack overdose of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias on June 19, 1986, and as crack was emerging in urban areas, says Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who researches crime. Crack cocaine was associated with violent, open-air drug markets, he says.

USA Article

Jailer Released on Bond

ARAPAHOE COUNTY - Arrest affidavits from the Arapahoe County court say a jail employee who was suspended for bringing a knife into the jail and being in contact with a convicted felon, admitted to giving inmate Robert Ray personal food items during work hours.

In addition, the affidavit says Nicole Sue Beal received personal phone calls at home from Ray who called her "collect" from prison.

Beal worked in the maximum security section of the jail.

Ray is no longer in the jail, and was not in the jail when she brought in the knife. He is serving time at a state prison.

Beal is charged with introducing contraband, which is a first-degree class-four felony; and first degree official misconduct, a class two misdemeanor.

Ray was sentenced to 108 years in prison for his role in the July 4, 2004 killing of Gregory Vann at a park in Aurora. Additionally, he is charged with the death of a witness and his girlfriend in the July 4 case.

Beal has posted a $200,000 bond. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson says he found out about the allegations on March 8 and Beal was suspended that day.
9 news

Dying Woman Loses Appeal For Medical Marijuana

How many more people have to suffer until they die because of the insane War on Drugs in this country? Don't let anyone smoke pot for their illness when they can depend on pharm companies. Click here for the article on how pharm companies make millions off of sleeping pills that cause strange and erratic behavior.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14 — Federal appellate judges here ruled Wednesday that a terminally ill woman using marijuana was not immune to federal prosecution simply because of her condition, and in a separate case a federal judge dismissed most of the charges against a prominent advocate for the medicinal use of the drug.

The woman, Angel McClary Raich, says she uses marijuana on doctors’ recommendation to treat an inoperable brain tumor and a battery of other serious ailments. Ms. Raich, 41, asserts that the drug effectively keeps her alive, by stimulating appetite and relieving pain, in a way that prescription drugs do not.

She wept when she heard the decision.

“It’s not every day in this country that someone’s right to life is taken from them,” said Ms. Raich, appearing frail during a news conference in Oakland, where she lives. “Today you are looking at someone who really is walking dead.”

In 2002, she and three other plaintiffs sued the government, seeking relief from federal laws outlawing marijuana. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, and in 2005, the court ruled against Ms. Raich, finding that the federal government had the authority to prohibit and prosecute the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes. But the justices left elements of Ms. Raich’s case to a lower court to consider.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that while they sympathized with Ms. Raich’s plight and had seen “uncontroverted evidence” that she needed marijuana to survive, she lacked the legal grounds to exempt herself from federal law.

The court “recognizes the use of marijuana for medical purposes is gaining traction,” the decision read. “But that legal recognition has not yet reached the point where a conclusion can be drawn that the right to use medical marijuana is ‘fundamental.’ ”

NY Times article here

HBO's "Addiction" Premieres Tonight -NY Times Review

This just in from pseudoscience: Addiction documentaries contain an element that excites dopamine receptors, shuts down the frontal lobe and causes intense cravings.

Pseudoscientists don’t know yet whether drug-documentary addicts are hooked by the gruesomely thrilling scenes of tourniquets and needles, the photos of pre-Vicodin fifth graders or the promise of redemption through higher powers. But something definitely sets the brain reeling with manic questions: How could they fall so far? How could so many of us? Whom will addiction strike next, and will the culprit be the demon rum or the demon OxyContin?

The American addiction story, as refined by Alcoholic Anonymous, tells of good folks turned bad — of men taking drinks and drinks taking men. No wonder we crave this story: It’s the master narrative of innocence and fall, complete with the possibility of deliverance. Nor is it any wonder that HBO has embraced the genre with its current authoritarian gusto. That channel’s “Addiction,” an anthology of short films by famous documentary filmmakers, has its premiere tonight.

Peace March on Saturday

Stop the War at Home and Abroad

Where: Halliburton (1125 17th Street, downtown Denver) and later at the State Capitol Building

When: March 17th, Begins at Halliburton at 11 am and there will be a march down the 16th Street Mall to the State Capital.

Police Complaints on the Rise

A Denver police officer used a Taser on the neck of a handcuffed drunk who ended up serving four days in jail after the officer filed a report falsely accusing the suspect of assaulting another officer.

"It jolted all the way through my body down to my toes and my feet," recalled Kenneth Rodriguez, 46, of Tucson. "He just held it and held it."

That Jan. 6, 2006, incident was detailed in an annual report from the monitor who reviews misconduct allegations against Denver police. The report shows citizen complaints against Denver police rose more than 23 percent last year while overall complaints rose 8 percent.

Denver Post

New Mexico - House Reverses Vote on Medical Marijuana

House reverses on medical marijana vote

Alamogordo Daily News
By Diana M. Alba, Santa Fe Bureau

Article Launched: 03/14/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

SANTA FE -- In a reversal of a decision last week, the House approved a measure Tuesday to legalize marijuana use for medical purposes.

The House, on a 35-25 vote, passed a Senate bill that will allow patients to seek approval from the state to use marijuana to treat certain diseases. Thursday, the House on a 33-36 vote objected to a similar proposal.

Gov. Bill Richardson had said earlier in the day Tuesday he was working on House members to get them to reconsider their vote.

Legislators repeated several arguments that were made last week.

Supporters of the measure maintained that medical marijuana use will help ease pain among sufferers of certain diseases, while opponents contended an approval will give children the impression lawmakers support illegal drug use.

How's Casey Doin' on Parole?

Here's the fifth installment of Westword's story about Casey Holden. He is trying hard to do the things that he needs to do to keep everyone happy.

Locked down for years, Casey Holden hardly ever talked to anyone. He lived inside his head because there was no one around but the guards, and they were, well, guards. His social skills, never elaborate to begin with, devolved into a series of grunts and cold stares.

Now Holden is 26 and on the streets, with three years of parole to complete —a journey he’s agreed to let us follow in a series of blogs (previous installments can be found here ). And he’s finding out that doing what the authorities expect of him and carving out a life for himself aren’t entirely incompatible pursuits.

Holden’s been out for more than two months now. That’s longer than a lot of parolees last; the staggering failure rate of parole in Colorado is the chief force driving the prison boom, as detailed in our article “Over and Over Again.” He’s holding down a job, going to school, passing his drug tests, paying his restitution, showing up for his appointments with his parole officer — and getting an occasional glimpse of what his life might be down the line, once he’s out of the system for good.

Sentencing Reforms

The Sentencing Project released their report this month on how we are changing directions in response to our overburdened prison populations.

The Sentencing Project has released a new study reporting growing momentum for sentencing reform designed to limit prison population growth and reduce ballooning corrections budgets in the United States.

Changing Direction? State Sentencing Reforms 2004-2006 finds that at least 22 states have enacted sentencing reforms in the past three years. The report further identifies that the most popular approach for reducing prison crowding -- implemented by 13 states -- was the diversion of low-level drug offenders from prison to drug treatment programs. Additional policy changes included:

• expansion of alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders;
• parole and probation reforms designed either to reduce time served in prison or to provide supervision options to reduce the number of revocations to prison;
• and broader sentencing reform, such as modifying controversial mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

Changing Direction? State Sentencing Reforms 2004-2006 argues that in order to build on these positive legislative developments, lawmakers must continue to enact evidence-based criminal justice policies.

Recommendations of The Sentencing Project urge that policymakers:

• expand the use of drug treatment as a sentencing option;
• utilize intermediate sanctions for technical violations of parole and probation;
• repeal mandatory minimum sentences;
• and reconsider sentence lengths.

Robert King Wilkerson -- Freed After 30 Years

This is the story of one of Angola Three who was released, and now spends his days making candy.

Robert King Wilkerson eases out of bed. He pulls on a black shirt, a watch cap and sandals, and shuffles into the tiny kitchen of his East Austin duplex.

The shirt covers his tattoos, most self-inscribed decades ago using pencil lead. A long dagger extends down his left forearm; a spider rests on his left hand. The tops of his fingers say "L-O-V-E" and, below that, "H-A-T-E." The initials of a long-ago girlfriend grace his right forearm.

He assembles his ingredients: butter, milk, sugar, baking soda, vanilla and salt. He pulls a pot off a high shelf.

"I was arrested in 1961 for armed robbery," he begins. "Did I do it? Nah, not that one. But I wasn't ready to pay no poetic justice. Gee whiz, I was just a young man. I'd only been out of the reformatory for a year.

"I got sentenced to 10 years," he says. "That was the first time."

He moved to Austin last year after being chased out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, and some friends here offered to help out.

From the Real Cost of Prisons

Corrections Sentencing

Michael has a great collection of blogstuff for your viewing pleasure. Please check out the Zimbardo follow up, (the prison experiment is what got me interested in prison reform in first place ) also the moving of prisoners from AZ to Indiana etc....

SB 83 Laid Over Till Wednesday --Contact Your Senator

WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW
SB 83 Is In Trouble!
HELP PAROLEES GET THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Contact your Senator TODAY! We have to mobilize quickly!
If your organization/church/group supports giving parolees the right to vote,
please contact CCJRC immediately so that we can add your
organization's name to our position paper. Your support is extremely important!

SB 83 is scheduled for a third reading in the Senate early this week,
and right now the parolee voting amendment is in danger.
The Senate Democrats have supported parolee voting but some are wavering.

If we lose more than two of the democrats, parolee voting will be stripped from the bill.
As you may know, right now people who are on parole are not allowed to vote.

SB 83 would allow them to. Both the Attorney General's office and the Secretary of State's office has declared their opposition and are trying to strip parolee voting from SB 83.

The Colorado constitution says that persons confined in prison may not vote,
but it leaves the voting rights of parolees as the discretion of the legislature,
granting that body the power to define "term of imprisonment."
Today our General Assembly has an opportunity to reverse the decision to disenfranchise parolees.

SB 83 brings more consistency to Colorado policy around voting
eligibility of people involved in the criminal justice system.

Currently, people on probation and people in jail serving a misdemeanor
sentence are allowed to vote. Since people on parole, like people on probation are
living in the community, working and paying taxes they should be allowed to vote as well.

Voting is one of the critical components to becoming a full member of society.
Allowing people on parole to vote is one way to create an opportunity
for civic participation and social connection to encourage a successful reintegration
for people leaving prison.

The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition is asking for your help
to show how important this issue is to our community,
the people who are part of it, and those who will be returning.

Contact pam@ccjrc.org if you would like to add your name to our position paper.

Please Contact Your Senator Today!!!

Go to www.votesmart.org to find out who your
Senator is and how to contact them or go to www.leg.state.co.us if you already know who your
Senator is.

Man Dies While In Custody

A 29-year-old man may have died of a drug overdose Monday after snatching methamphetamine that Lakewood police had taken from him during his arrest, officials said Tuesday.

Joshua Giebel was in a holding cell when he allegedly reached around a partition and grabbed the drugs without police noticing, said Steve Davis, Lakewood police spokesman. Giebel died later at the Jefferson County Jail.

Lakewood officers and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office are investigating Giebel's death, which happened within hours of his arrest Sunday night.

Giebel was driving a motorcycle when he was stopped at about 11 p.m. Sunday for several traffic violations near West Alameda Avenue and South Depew Street, Davis said. He was later arrested on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, he said.

Denver Post Article Here.

Arapahoe County Jailer Arrested

The Rocky Mountain News reported today that a woman who was working in the Arapahoe County jail was arrested for carrying a knife.

A woman working at the Arapahoe County jail was arrested for allegedly possessing a folding knife while on duty in a maximum security section of the facility.

The woman was identified as Nicole Sue Beal, 23.

Sheriff Grayson Robinson said his office was investigating a possibly inappropriate relationship between Beal and a murder suspect who was previously housed at the facility.

He said the relationship between Beal and the inmate included the exchange of mail and phone calls and during the investigation, they found her carrying a folding tactical knife on duty.

She was taken into custody and charged with introducing contraband in the first-degree, a crime punishable by up to six years in the state penitentiary.

Rocky Article Here

Westword -- Head Games

What's it like to be locked up, mentally ill and unable to get anyone to listen or help? Alan did a story late last year on what happens at the Colorado State Pen in that situation. Here's the follow up and a link to the original story. Once again a huge thank you goes out to Alan for all the excellent work he has done.

The last time we reported on Troy Anderson, known on the street as Evil, he’d been trying for more than a year to get an appointment with a psychiatrist at the Colorado State Penitentiary. Being locked down with little human contact for year after year can do things to your head, but Anderson already had a long history of mental illness and violence before he ever reached CSP, including several suicide attempts and two shootouts with the cops.

Thanks to our inquiries and the resulting article, “Head Games,” Anderson finally saw a shrink and was evaluated for new medication. But it hasn’t been smooth sailing since; Anderson recently wrote to complain that Colorado Department of Corrections medical staff are still messing with him.
Westword article here.

NY Times Magazine -- When the Brain Takes The Stand

I. Mr. Weinstein’s Cyst When historians of the future try to identify the moment that neuroscience began to transform the American legal system, they may point to a little-noticed case from the early 1990s. The case involved Herbert Weinstein, a 65-year-old ad executive who was charged with strangling his wife, Barbara, to death and then, in an effort to make the murder look like a suicide, throwing her body out the window of their 12th-floor apartment on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Before the trial began, Weinstein’s lawyer suggested that his client should not be held responsible for his actions because of a mental defect — namely, an abnormal cyst nestled in his arachnoid membrane, which surrounds the brain like a spider web.
NY TIMES MAGAZINE

Justice Fails Kids When Prosecutors Are in Charge

Judges should be in charge when it comes to deciding the fate of children. Not prosecutors.

Read the Denver Post editorial here.

The two teens allegedly responsible for a horrible murder in Lafayette probably deserve to be tried as adults. But a judge, not a prosecutor, should have made the call.

The Colorado law that allowed the Boulder County district attorney to put 17-year-old Bryan Grove and 15-year-old Tess Damm on trial as adults contradicts much of what America's criminal justice system stands for.

Letting elected DAs whose jobs depend on seeming tough on crime unilaterally move juveniles into adult court ensures that justice is not blind. It also ignores presumed innocence, rehabilitation and a whole bunch of other crucial concepts.

There's every reason to let an objective third party decide how these two teenagers get tried.

"I believe the best practice is not to have one of the attorneys doing the case make the decision," Ashby said.

The elected status of prosecutors just adds to their dilemma in deciding about adult charges, Ashby said.

"That's why you need a neutral party," the judge explained. "Most district attorneys are ethical. But it is a difficult position for an elected official."

This is not exactly radical thinking. It is the rule in many states, and it reflects the policy of the national organization of juvenile judges to which Ashby belongs. The need for judges to decide if juveniles are tried as adults recognizes the obvious: If you leave it up to prosecutors, they will almost always go with adult trials, the same way that if you left it up to defense attorneys, every teen perp would stay in the juvenile court system. That's how advocates properly operate.

Seven years in a prison facility is the most time you can get for the worst crime in juvenile sentencing, said defense attorney Kurt Metsger.

Eight years in the penitentiary is the least time you can get in a routine adult court sentencing for a Class 2 felony.

Of course, you don't do the crime if you can't do the time. But that is not how the fates of teen criminals are supposed to be determined in America.

Transfer hearings, where judges weigh arguments for trying juveniles as adults, are "absolutely necessary," Metsger said.

This isn't about coddling the likes of Bryan Grove and Tess Damm. It's about proving this country's justice system can meet its stated expectations.

Prosecutors may ask for transfer hearings by judges but almost never do.

The opposite should be true.

"We've not had a transfer hearing for 8 1/2 years," Ashby said of Denver's juvenile court. In that time, plenty of juveniles have been tried as adults.

It is the same across Colorado. Prosecutors motivated by their natural role determine if teenagers are tried where they can go to prison for decades, if not life.

"There's no guidance for the district attorneys to consider," Ashby said. "They may just look at the nature of the offense." By law, Ashby added, judges at transfer hearings must answer a list of questions about community interests, maturity, mental health and the like.

In the Colorado Revised Statutes, that list stretches a page and a half.

It is long because trying teens as adults is a serious call.

A lot more serious than leaving it up to prosecutors.

Denver Post Article here

Over and Over Again -- Westword

In case you missed this article in last year's Westword. Things haven't changed. People are being released homeless at a staggering rate and our prison population is still being driven by the recidivism factor of parole revocations. The drivers aren't new crimes, they are technical violations of parole conditions.

OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Spending half a billion dollars on new prisons won't solve the state's biggest crime problem: the staggering failure rate of parole.

By Alan Prendergast

Published: April 6, 2006
Having been deep in it most of his life, John "Jake" Johnson can smell trouble coming. So last year, when the fifty-year-old inmate found out he would be paroling from a private prison in Trinidad to a homeless shelter in downtown Denver, the news smelled very bad indeed.

"I told my case manager,'I can't go back to a shelter,'" he recalls. "You put me in that atmosphere, people drinking and shooting dope and smoking crack, and man! I can't help what I am."

What Johnson is, among other things, is an alcoholic and a thief. He started drinking heavily in his teens, around the time his father died and his large family had to move from an upper-middle-class neighborhood in east Denver to a housing project on the west side. "That changed my life right there," he says. "I'm not using it as an excuse, but it might have been a defining moment. My dad died, we went to the projects, and that was it." He dropped out of high school, picked up a juvenile record, then an extensive adult rap sheet -- burglary, robbery, auto theft -- that has kept him weaving in and out of the prison system for most of the past three decades.

Throughout his erratic criminal career, Johnson has been consistent in one area: He's been a thoroughly unsuccessful parolee. Each time he received parole, he'd get a job, start drinking -- and end up going back to prison on a parole violation. The first few times that happened, he'd complete his sentence behind bars ("kill his number," in convict lingo), then return to the streets.

Read Alan's article here in Westword

Drug Offenders Being Released in California

Reducing the prison population and giving people some support when they get out. It's aggressive and California will reduce the prison population immediately without throwing people out on the streets.

Thousands of California inmates serving time for drug offenses will soon enjoy an early release from prison, followed by a chance to cut their parole time down from three years to just 150 days.

A Senate bill that became law Jan. 1 mandates that non-violent offenders complete a 90-day drug rehabilitation plan while in prison, then immediately parole into a closely supervised five-month residential drug program on the outside.

"After that, they are completely off parole," said Robert Story, a senior parole agent from Folsom.

The intent of the law, authored by former state Sen. Jackie Spier, is to alleviate prison overcrowding and cut down on recidivism — the rate at which released offenders return to prison for committing new crimes.

According to statistics from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the state experienced a 44 percent increase in recidivism between 1991 and 2001.

Story currently works for the Division of Addiction and Recovery Services, a newly formed state agency that has taken over drug rehabilitation programs administred during incarceration, and immedately after release.

He said the division is already screening low-risk inmates for eligibility in the accelerated parole program. A target date of April 1 has been set to have the first wave of inmates released and enrolled in a residential setting, Story said.

Read the whole story here

Son Questioned About Dad's Pot Use

Student questioned about dad's use of pot in Minnesota

The controversy surrounding a bill to allow the use of medical marijuana hits home for a junior-high student in Brooklyn Park.

By Mark Brunswick, Star Tribune

Shannon Pakonen told a House committee Thursday that his 15-year-old son, Sam, was interrogated this week by a teacher at Brooklyn Junior High School in Brooklyn Park about his father's use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The incident, Pakonen said, demonstrates the need for legislation to authorize medical use of the drug.

Lisa Hunter Jensen, the Osseo School District's director of school/community relations, said the district had only sketchy information about the incident from the school's principal but said the district is investigating the matter further.

Telephone calls and e-mails to the school's principal and assistant principal as well as the Osseo School District's superintendent and school board members were not returned Thursday.

Sam Pakonen was pulled out of math class and told to report to his speech teacher, his father said. While there, the teacher asked him about his father. Were there marijuana plants in his house? Did he ever see his father smoke pot?

No, he replied. Read the article here

Pardoned From Marijuana Life Sentence

DALLAS, March 10 (AP) — A man sentenced to life in prison 17 years ago after smoking marijuana while on probation for his part in an armed robbery is to be set free.

Gov. Rick Perry granted the man, Tyrone Brown, a conditional pardon on Friday. Mr. Brown was 17 when he went on probation in the robbery case, but after testing positive for drug use, he was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Keith Dean.

Mr. Perry chose not to terminate Mr. Brown’s sentence as recommended by Dallas County officials and the Texas parole board.

Mr. Brown, whose case has attracted national attention since it was publicized last year, will have to live with his mother, report to a parole officer, find a job and work with a therapist, The Dallas Morning News reported online on Friday.

Violating any of those terms would cause the conditional pardon to be revoked, said Ted Royer, a spokesman for the governor. In prison, officials said, Mr. Brown fought with guards and joined a gang before cleaning up his act in recent years.

Prison Goats and Cows Mean Business

CANON CITY - The state's largest goat dairy just got a whole lot bigger, welcoming more than 350 newborn kids to the herd in the past month.

Colorado Correctional Industries has doubled its goat milk production since the fledgling dairy was started a year ago at the East Canon Prison Complex.

That's good news for its Longmont, Colorado-based goat cheese producer, Haystack Cheese Factory, which is buying every bit of the average 500 gallons of goat milk produced each day.

Pueblo Chieftain article.

Heroin Deaths Up in Boulder

The more we criminalize drug use, the farther underground people will go. People are afraid to ask for help when they believe that they are going to be arrested.

"For fear of being caught with a Schedule I drug, people don't call for help on an overdose," he said. "Our message is that if people are shot up, get them medical attention first and don't worry about the legal culpability."

He said law enforcement is far more concerned with catching the heroin sellers and distributors in the county. Just last week, the task force formally applied for grants valued at $134,000 to cover detectives' overtime and to pay for "buy money" used in undercover narcotics purchases, among other costs.

Daily Camera article here

Drug Court Progressing

Biggest obstacles to installing drug court is money and treatment options, committee says

By Joshua Roberts, Daily Press writer

Michael O'Hara, chief judge of the 14th Judicial District, recently presided over a criminal court case in which a Craig woman was found guilty of selling methamphetamine and child abuse because she sold the narcotic with her son in the room.

The woman faces up to 16 years in prison.

"It's those sort of cases we can make a difference in with a drug court," O'Hara said at Thursday night's Communities Overcoming Meth Abuse public forum at Craig City Hall.

The drug court is Moffat County's proposed response to the meth problem.

The drug court is a rigid treatment program that gives convicted users an alternative to a prison sentence. It is a collaborative effort between the court, law enforcement and treatment providers.

Although the tentative March 1 date for implementing the drug court has passed, Judge O'Hara said a committee of officials working on the drug court has not wavered in its intention to implement the program in Moffat County.

"We're close," O'Hara said to the 50 to 60 people attending the meeting. "We're sort of on the cusp. ... It is going to happen."

The drug court program would require 18 months of voluntary participation. Users involved would have to complete four phases, O'Hara said. The program would require a participant's acquiescence to random drug tests, home and vehicle searches, regular meetings with the court, probation officers and therapy sessions, among numerous other provisions.

O'Hara said the drug court committee has not established a new timeline for when the drug court would be installed, but the committee hopes to do so in the near future.

The drug court's biggest obstacle, the judge said, is money and local treatment options.

Craig Daily Press

NY Times Op-ed --Education, education, education

Here's a great Op-Ed from the New York Times on how education may be the silver bullet in reducing incarceration. Misplaced priorities once again rears its ugly head.

It’s an article of faith that the key to success in real estate is location, location, location.

For young black boys looking ahead to a difficult walk in life, the mantra should be education, education, education.

We’ve watched for decades — watched in horror, actually — as the lives of so many young blacks, men and boys especially, have been consumed by drugs, crime, poverty, ignorance, racial prejudice, misguided social pressures, and so on.

At the same time, millions of blacks have thrived, building strong families and successful careers at rates previously unseen. By far, the most important difference between these two very large groups has been educational attainment.

If anything, the role that education plays in the life prospects of black Americans is even more dramatic than in the population as a whole. It’s the closest thing to a magic potion for black people that I can think of. For boys and men, it is very often the antidote to prison or an early grave.

NY Times Op-Ed here

Andre the Giant

Local attorney Michael Andre died last month from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Westword has put together this story to tell a little more about the man who was considered a giant in his circle.

The 38-year-old was most recently in the news for representing Willie Clark, a man whom police had pegged as a possible source of information on the unsolved murder of Denver Bronco Darrent Williams. But within certain circles, Andre was best known as Denver's top lawyer for the high-end escort industry.

Andre could often be spotted in the hallways of the Denver County Courthouse wearing a pricey suit along with a tight-fitting black beanie on his head. With his gregarious smile and hyperactive conversation, he gave off a presence that was closer to an ever-cool, quick-witted street hustler than a stereotypical sleazy lawyer. It was this persona that perhaps ingratiated Andre with so many in the underground adult entertainment business, where legality is a fog that must be navigated.

Westword article here

Preferential Treatment in Laptop Theft?

Colorado judicial authorities knew that former district court judge and then-Denver City Attorney was suspected of stealing a $1,600 state computer when they told police they didn’t want him prosecuted "at this time."

That fact and others were contained in a news release by the State Court Administrator’s office Thursday.

However, the judicial authorities said Larry Manzanares did not receive "any preferential treatment" by administrator’s office, which they said was conducting its own investigation, independent of Denver police

Hudson Postpones Decision on Private Prison

Private prison companies are going after Weld County, but the citizens are balking. CCJRC has already joined Rep Buffie McFadyen in the call for the rescinding of the contract that GEO has in Ault. There is a citizens group in Ault that is trying to stop private prisons from invading their town also. Now the folks in Hudson are voicing their concerns as well.

Hudson town board members decided Wednesday night to postpone a decision to move forward with plans on annexing a portion of unincorporated Weld County for future use as a private women's prison.

Close to 50 residents from Weld County were at the meeting to voice concerns they had regarding the economic impact the proposed prison would create.

Hudson Mayor Neal Pontius said the town plans to begin annexing what would be close to 320 acres northwest of Hudson. Once the area becomes part of the town, he said he would like to leave it up to the residents to vote on whether the area should be zoned for the use of the prison. Pontius said the vote is tentatively set for May.

"I want to get all the information and I want to make a smart choice for the town," Pontius said. The annexation was postponed to get more residents' comments.

Last June, the Colorado Department of Corrections awarded Houston-based Cornell Companies the bid to build an 832-bed women's prison in Hudson, a potentially $16 million annual contract. Cornell Companies runs prisons in 18 states throughout the country, including one juvenile treatment facility in Cañon City. The proposal for the prison was put forward to the city's town board last April.

Some residents already have begun working to convince the community that a prison would be a bad choice for the town, said Laura Moreland, who lives outside the city limits in Fort Lupton.

"We are opposed to private prisons in general," Moreland said.

Greeley Tribune

Parolee Voting Becoming a Hot Issue

People on parole should be allowed to vote, if the climate is truly changing in Colorado.
We know that recidivism is reduced when people feel that they are part of their
community. People who are on parole have done most of their time, have jobs and pay taxes and should be involved in the process of elections, it helps them to reengage as full participants in society.

What was supposed to be a technical bill cleaning up Colorado's election procedures has been snarled by floor amendments that make it worth defeating.

One change to Senate Bill 83 would allow parolees to vote; another would bar candidates who've lost one party's nomination from running as another party's nominee for the same office in the same election.

If they stay on the bill it should be defeated. SB 83 won preliminary passage in the Senate Tuesday, but final passage may be delayed until next week because a few members will be out of town until then.

Rocky Mountain News

Why all the hubbub? Here's the Sentinel's take on it.

Suthers said the parolee portion of the bill, added by Senate Majority Leader Peter Groff, D-Denver, during this week’s floor debate and affirmed by Democrats on a party-line vote Tuesday, will likely “cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal expenses, just to plow old ground that was tilled less than eight months ago.”

“Senate Bill 83, which was originally intended to improve the integrity of Colorado’s electoral process, has been saddled with a provision that I believe is unconstitutional,” Suthers said. “I would urge the Legislature to amend the bill to comply with our state’s guiding document.”

In the July 31 decision that Suthers cited, Justice Gregory Hobbs wrote for the court: “A person who is serving a sentence of parole has not served his or her full term of imprisonment.”

Under current law, anyone serving a prison sentence or is out on parole cannot vote.

Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, who attempted to overturn Groff’s amendment earlier this week, called Groff’s amendment an attempt to legislate ideas from outside the mainstream.

“Giving the right to vote to murderers, rapists who are still on parole is probably unconstitutional, and it is certainly horrible public policy,” Penry said. “This is the latest in a long line of bizarre left-wing tangents that may be mainstream in Boulder, but (are) not mainstream anywhere else in Colorado.”

John Redifer, a political science professor at Mesa State College, said the concerns of Penry and Suthers might amount to politics more than constitutional law.

“What it really boils down to is such a large percentage of our prison population are minorities who are seen as generally supporting the Democratic Party,” Redifer said. “When you are excluding a certain percentage of that minority from participating in elections, you reduce the influence that group has on the elections.”

He said if this demographic is allowed to vote, it could push Democrats closer to controlling a majority in districts where Republicans might hold a slim majority and bolster districts that Democrats already control. Colorado had 8,567 people released on parole in 2006, according to statistics from the Colorado Department of Corrections. Last year, Mesa County was home to 493 parolees.

Of Colorado’s parolees last year, 32.6 percent were Hispanic and 16.9 percent were black.

Tupa’s bill could return for its third and final floor vote as early as today.

Grand Junction Sentinel

Re-Entry Prison? Or, Just Prison....

One of CCJRC's members recently recounted his story about what things were like at The Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center. The lack of qualified teachers, the violence, the drugs. As with any "flagship" facility you have to wonder if you are getting the real story, or just dressing up what's happening with smoke and mirrors. I will have the opportunity to print our members' letter here next week. For now, here is what the Colorado Springs Independent has uncovered.

The 18-month-old private facility houses around 500 inmates in a re-entry boot camp of sorts. Offenders spend hours each day in résumé-writing and life-skills classes meant to boost their chances on the outside and keep them from coming back.

Many residents see the facility at 2925 E. Las Vegas St. as the final stop before exiting prison. But they don't speak in dreamy absolutes about it, and the programs within don't guarantee they'll get out or stay out.

"I volunteered to come here, hoping I would be paroled," inmate David Randell said one day in January. "I was denied again for the third time. ... People are here for treatment, and it is not being used. For me, I am taking what I can, using tools, using the signs and trying to hang out with the positive guys."

"The fallacy is that you can designate a prison as a re-entry prison," says Christie Donner of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. "It is not in the community people are going to be released to, for the most part. They could be going anywhere. And re-entry is all about the specific opportunities you can access in the community where you are going."

Yet CMRC has taken quiet steps toward this goal, instigating what it calls the "Arapahoe Project," which will set up exiting offenders with jobs across the state. CMRC executive assistant Thomas McGuire did not disclose details, saying he "wouldn't want to venture a guess" as to when the project will launch.

CS INDY

John Suthers Throws Slurs at Dems

Attorney General John Suthers told a statewide gathering of fellow Republicans that Democratic lawmakers don't care as much about public safety as Republican lawmakers.

To back up his point, Suthers singled out the House Judiciary Committee, which he called "a perfect storm of liberal lawyers from Denver and Boulder."

The committee chairman, Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, was livid when he learned of Suthers' comments.

"The attorney general said what?" Carroll demanded to know Tuesday.

He called Suthers' comments "unprofessional" and a "cheap political potshot."

Suthers' remarks came during an address to the Republican State Central Committee on Saturday, in which he referred to recent votes by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

"They voted to abolish the death penalty. They voted to let parolees vote, despite my belief it is unconstitutional in the state of Colorado. They have voted to allow people to seal their criminal records after 10 years . . . " Suthers said.

RMN article here

HB 1313 - Assigned to State, Veterans & Military Affairs

Summarized History for Bill Number HB07-1313
(The date the bill passed to the committee of the whole reflects the date the bill passed out of committee.)
02/20/2007 Introduced In House - Assigned to Transportation & Energy
02/27/2007 House Committee on Transportation & Energy Pass Amended to House Committee of the Whole
03/02/2007 House Second Reading Special Order - Passed with Amendments
03/05/2007 House Third Reading Passed
03/06/2007 Introduced In Senate - Assigned to State, Veterans & Military Affairs
(Senator Groff, Chairman; Senator Romer, Vice-Chairman; Senator May R., Senator Schultheis, and Senator Windels)

Denver Post Letters to the Editor

Should prisoners be used as cheap farm labor?

Re: "Inmates may step in as farmworkers," Feb. 28 news story.

Colorado farmers are hurting. Many lost half their crops last year and are on the verge of financial ruin because they couldn't find workers to harvest their fields. Contracting convict labor is not a viable solution, however.

Read More

CSP II Funding Fight

By CHARLES ASHBY
CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU

DENVER - The Legislature's Capital Development Committee didn't flinch Tuesday in its game of chicken with the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

Immediately after the two six-member panels met to discuss what to do about the $38.6 million the Colorado Department of Corrections needs to open bids on a new penitentiary in Canon City, the CDC voted to stay the course on its plan to pressure the JBC to come up with additional funds.

Last week, the CDC approved its annual priority list of capital construction projects for the next year.

That list included the additional money that DOC needs to build the planned 980-bed Colorado State Penitentiary II project, which was delayed four years because of a lawsuit over the way the Legislature wanted to fund the project.

Pueblo Chieftain

Presentation of Private Prison

Yesterday, CCJRC presented to the House Judiciary Committee about our concerns about private prisons in our state. We were joined by the moving testimony of Tracy Masuga whose son had been moved to Oklahoma, Ryan Sherman from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and Cherry Trine, whose lawfirm is currently suing CCA. We want to thank them for their testimony.

Critics say Colorado's private prisons are driven by shareholder profits and that, ultimately, society pays when businesses "cut corners" on staffing costs and inmate rehabilitation.

The result is incidents such as a 2004 riot at a CCA prison in Crowley County, witnesses told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on private prisons Tuesday.

State Department of Corrections officials had to come to the rescue of 33 private prison officers who lost control of 1,112 inmates.

The state fined CCA $126,000 in June for short-staffing at Crowley and another facility after the state auditor blasted CCA for having a staff-to-inmate ratio that was one-seventh of a state prison at the time of the Crowley riot.

Rocky Mountain News Article

"I'm unconvinced that they're more effective, and I'm unconvinced they actually are cheaper than state-run facilities," Carroll said. "But anything we do in the way of reform is going to involve them, so we need to have a better understanding of how they operate." Pueblo Chieftain

The nation's largest private-prison company said Tuesday it has helped the state avoid $646 million in construction costs over the past decade.

Executives from Corrections Corporation of America, which houses about 20 percent of all inmates sent to prison in Colorado, added that they pay $40 million per year to 900 employees in the state.

The company disclosed the financial data during a special hearing by state lawmakers into the costs and benefits of relying on privately owned prisons.

While the company touted its economic impact, opponents of private prisons talked about the human cost. Tracy Masuga, whose son was moved from a Colorado-based prison to a CCA facility in Oklahoma in December, said she can no longer visit her son every other week, as she has for the past six years. "We won't be able to see him very often," said Masuga, who choked back tears as she began her testimony, noting that it now costs at least $300 per trip to see her son.

The Denver Post

Fort Collins Weekly Editorial on Ault

Fort Collins Weekly Editorial on Ault

Prisons change the character of a town as the families of those incarcerated move in without a breadwinner or employment. And the new jobs promised by the prison companies often turn out to be a low wage, high turnover endeavor that creates as much unemployment as it creates. For these reasons as well as the questionable circumstances surrounding the procurement of the current contract, we agree with representative McFayden that the governor should cancel the contract with GEO for a private prison in Ault.
Fort Collins Weekly Editorial here

Clarification on SB 83

Several people have read SB 83 and have not been able to find the parolee voting information. That piece is an amendment to the original bill. What it says is that we should change the statute to read (basically), "You cannot vote if you are confined in a public prison." Right now the statute reads "if you are confined to a public prison or on parole."

Renfrow's Response to Rescission

Christie Donner, executive director for the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, and Chantell Taylor, director of the Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government, also joined McFadyen at the event.

In November, a state auditor's report found that a former DOC official had helped Geo Group Inc. in developing the winning bid, McFadyen noted.

She identified the former DOC official as Nolin Renfrow, who is being investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for his alleged role in the Geo Group's award.

Renfrow said he did not want to comment on McFadyen's actions Monday.

"I don't know why she would do that," he said, "other than she has had issues with private prisons. The department (of corrections) made a decision to accept Geo as an acceptable contractor." He referred questions about his involvement with the bidding process to his attorney, who did not return calls Monday. Rocky article here

Parolee Voting Passes 2nd Reading

SB 83 passed second reading and moves on to third today. (Wednesday)

Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, fought unsuccessfully to kill a provision added by Senate Majority Leader Peter Groff to give felons on parole voting rights.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last year that parolees did not have the right to vote.

"When you look at moving people from prison to society, the more we can get them to be responsible, the less likely they are to go back in," Groff said.

Denver Post article

Call To Terminate Private Prison Contract

Here is the article posted in the Denver Post from yesterday's press conference. We will be presenting this morning to the House Judiciary Committee at the Capitol.

Colorado state Rep. Buffie McFadyen on Monday called on the state to cancel a private-prison agreement after auditors found that a former top prison official was working on behalf of the company selected to build the prison.

Auditors said the former official launched a prison-consulting business five months before he retired from the department.

McFadyen - one of the legislature's leading critics of state contracts with private prisons - also assailed Geo Group Inc. for seeking a guarantee that the state fill a set number of the 1,500 beds in its proposed facility in Ault.

The Democrat from Pueblo West announced in a news conference at the Capitol that she had sent a letter to Ari Zavaras, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, airing her concerns.

She was joined by two advocacy groups - the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition and Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government.

"The minute the ink was dry on the contract they started demanding both bed guarantees and public financing for the Ault construction," said Christie Donner, executive director of the reform coalition. "That is not negotiating in good faith as far as we're concerned."

The calls for rescinding the contract stem from a November 2006 state auditor's report. At that time, auditors concluded that Nolin Renfrow helped Geo Group prepare its bid to construct and operate the Ault prison.

The audit said Renfrow, the state's former director of prisons, had private business activities that "arguably present a conflict of interest and result in a breach of his fiduciary duty and the public trust."

Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government, said Renfrow took paid sick leave - earning $14,000 - to pursue his private business work on behalf of Geo Group. According to the auditor's report, Renfrow's company could earn as much as $1 million if Geo Group builds the prison.

The Denver Post Article

Greeley Tribune Article here

(excerpt from the Tribune) The Northern Colorado take

DENVER -- Saying GEO Group Inc. can't be trusted, a Pueblo lawmaker asked state officials Monday to rescind a contract with the company to build a private prison in Ault.

Plans for the prison, which would house 1,500 inmates and would be built east of the railroad tracks along U.S. 85, has stalled on two fronts. Ault leaders decided they would not approve the facility until the public voted on it, and GEO wants to change its contract to ensure payment for its beds.

Rep. Liane "Buffie" McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, a vocal critic of private prisons, said Monday that the proposed change and other issues regarding GEO's integrity should negate the Ault contract.

"Anybody living in Ault should be concerned that a company that would bid this way on a contract might have a business in their town," she said.

Philip Tidwell, spokesman for the town group Coalition Against Ault Prison, said residents hope no one else bids on the Ault prison if GEO's contract is rescinded.

Pueblo Chieftan (The Southern Colorado take)

..........Though McFadyen already has called for the state to rescind the 2006 contract to GEO, she said she decided to make it official when she heard "rumors" that the company might try to relocate the Ault facility in Pueblo

"Why would we believe that GEO Group would perform in Pueblo in 2007 when they never performed in 2003?" she asked.

She also said the contract award was tainted because it came with the aid of Nolan Renfrow, who helped GEO get the contract while he still was DOC's director of prisons.

McFadyen wasn't alone in her call.

The Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government and the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, also demanded that the contract be rescinded.

"We, too, have no confidence in the integrity of the procurement process," said Christie Donner, executive director of CCJRC, which also is a long-time opponent of private prisons. "Due to GEO's failure to perform on the 2003 contract, we find it impossible that the GEO could have met the statutory requirements" to qualify for another state contract.

Fortress America - Part 3

Eagle Pass, Texas

Climbing out of a white Border Patrol SUV, agent Randy Clark scans the barren golf course. It's not much to look at, empty except for a hardy foursome hacking at the ocher-colored grass. The Rio Grande - low at this point in early winter - snakes slowly nearby.

Still, a wide smile breaks across the agent's face. On this golf course at this moment, "nothing" is exactly the point.

A year ago, "you could sit here and watch dozens of (illegal immigrants) come out of those houses on the other side of the river and wade across. ... Groups of 40 or 50 or 60 would come across in broad daylight, and just cross in a straight line," Clark said.

Denver Post Article here

NY Times Article on Sex Offenders -- Part Two

ARCADIA, Fla. — Inside a privately run treatment center here for pedophiles and rapists who have completed their prison sentences, where they are supposed to reflect on their crimes and learn to control their sexual urges, bikini posters were pinned to walls.

Two men took their shirts off, rubbed each other’s backs and held hands, while others disappeared together into dormitory rooms. Some of the sex offenders appeared to be drunk from homemade “buck” liquor secretly brewed and sold here.

And some of the center’s employees, who openly ignored the breaking of rules (“As long as they are happy, we let them go,” one explained), reported that a high turnover rate among staff members was mostly because of female employees leaving their jobs after having had sex with the offenders.

These and other observations were included in a memorandum composed in 2004 by six employees on loan here from Pennsylvania. They had been dispatched by the Liberty Behavioral Health Corporation, which ran the facility, the Florida Civil Commitment Center, and a facility in Pennsylvania.

Nineteen states have laws that allow them to confine or restrict sex criminals beyond prison in a trend that is expanding around the country, with legislators in New York last week announcing agreement on a new civil commitment law there.

Call To Rescind Private Prison Contract

Today, Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government, CCJRC and Rep. Buffie McFadyen (D-PuebloWest) called a press conference to ask Governor Ritter and of DOC Director Ari Zavaras to terminate the contract that was signed by the State of Colorado and the GEO group to build a 1500 bed private prison in Ault.

CCJRC states that we have no confidence in the integrity of the bidding and procurement process given the clear conflict of interest and misconduct when Nolin Renfrow, who is currently under investigation by the CBI for his role in the negotiations, provided private consultation services to the GEO Group in the development of their bid in response to the 2005 RFP while still employed by the Department of Corrections. Mr. Renfrow's private company stands to make $1 million dollars off the contract.

Given the GEO group's failure to perform on a prior contract to build a private prison in Pueblo, CCJRC doesn't believe that the GEO group could have met the statutory requirements for receiving another contract to build and operate a private prison.

The evidence also suggests that the GEO Group did not submit their bid in response to the 2005 RFP in good faith and failed to disclose their intention to ultimately request public financing and a bed guarantee, if awarded the contract. Since being awarded the contract, the GEO Group's demand for a bed guarantee and/or public financing is an attempt to change the material terms of the contract which is, in and of itself, grounds to terminate the contract. Neither a bed guarantee nor public financing are in the best interests of Colorado taxpayers and must be rejected.

Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government issued an open records request today to determine
whether the GEO Group was legitimately awarded the Ault prison contract and to what extent Mr. Renfrow unlawfully influenced the bidding process.

Tomorrow morning, CCJRC is making a presentation on additional concerns about private prisons before the House Judiciary Committee. If you would like to join us, we will be there at 9:30 in Room 0112 in the basement of the Capitol.

HB 1313 Passes on Third Reading

HB 1313 Passed With 49-16 Vote. Now we head to the Senate....
We will keep you updated.

SB 83 was debated on the floor for over an hour and
no vote was taken. The bill was laid over until tomorrow.

Danger Grew With Pot -- Ken Gorman

Denver Post Article

The powerful lamps that threw light on some 50 marijuana plants at Ken Gorman's home were as distracting to neighbors as a blinking neon sign.

Unlike most pot growers, Gorman didn't bother to cover his windows with tar paper to conceal his lucrative cultivations. And neighbors complained to the cops about the bright lights.

Gorman, 59, was well-known as a medical-marijuana provider and a spirited advocate for legal pot. Everyone knew what he was doing - including criminals who robbed him a dozen times, apparently viewing him as easy prey.

Then, on Feb. 17, someone shot Gorman to death.

Police still haven't said whether Gorman was killed for his pot, or his money. They have no suspects, Denver police spokeswoman Virginia Quiñones said Friday, adding that the killer did not take any of Gorman's marijuana plants.

But when Gorman's fellow marijuana activists are asked about his death, they talk about pot.

Corrections Sentencing - Performance Reviews

Here's an article posted by Michael Connelly that discusses changes in how Oklahoma reviews recidivism. It is my position that this plan should be implemented in all areas of criminal justice. Probation, parole and community corrections. They are in the business of accountability, and generally aren't held accountable.

Interesting idea being floated by that conservative House Speaker in OK I mentioned a week or so ago. He has a bill out right now to start a "Transformational Justice Interagency Task Force with its own revolving fund. What would the fund be used for? Bonuses for corrections officials who can demonstrate improvement in reducing the recidivism rates of inmates in their custody. The bill also requires the state DOC to come up with rules and policies to ensure that recidivism rates are included in performance reviews, promotions, and raises.
corrections sentencing

Denver Post Letters to the Editor

Re: "Inmates may step in as farmworkers," Feb. 28 news story.

I don't anticipate much incentive for comprehensive criminal justice reform if prisoners continue to be a source of virtually free labor. Let's face it, this "pilot" program is not about providing inmates with job skills; it's about increasing the profits for corporate America.

Replacing immigrant farm workers with "slave" labor is no answer to some of the most pressing issues facing Colorado: comprehensive immigration reform and curbing the ballooning prison population. Without the right to organize for humane and fair working conditions, prisoners are especially vulnerable to exploitation by corporations.

I challenge our policymakers to take the profits out of prisons and create true opportunities for rehabilitation.

Crystal Middlestadt, Denver

Long ago, when former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton had the idea to put inmates to work on chain gangs, I thought that maybe the government wants to incarcerate more people in order to create a cheap labor force. It seems that this idea has been revived by state Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, and endorsed by Department of Corrections director Ari Zavaras to provide cheap labor for farmers who find it harder to employ undocumented workers.

John Cleveland, Centennial

Re: "Benefits of inmate farm labor," March 1 editorial.

Slavery was abolished in the U.S. by the 13th Amendment. Nevertheless, The Denver Post appears to support the use of slave labor to fill a shortage of farmworkers in Colorado. Your editorial paints a rosy picture of reduced recidivism and increased job skills for inmates. However, inmates would perform backbreaking labor in hot, potentially dangerous conditions for a couple of dollars a day, at most.

Colorado's agricultural sector depends upon immigrant labor. Rather than criminalize the hard-working farmworkers, we should recognize their efforts by supporting AgJOBS, which would create a stable, legal supply of labor for agriculture and provide temporary residency and a path to legalization for immigrant farmworkers. We should pay a living wage and offer benefits to the people who prepare and harvest our food.

David Strauss, Executive Director, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, Washington, D.C.

Fortress America - Building a Border Part 2

In the multibillion-dollar effort to build a Fortress America, nothing has gained as much attention as the effort to wall off America's borders through a combination of one of the oldest technologies in the world - the fence - and some of the newest - advanced radar, infrared cameras, minidrones.

Sheriff Says War on Drugs is a Failure

Newly elected Routt County Sheriff Gary Wall has removed his agency from a joint drug task force in northwestern Colorado, saying investigator tactics have violated individual rights and seized a "shockingly low" amount of illegal drugs.

"I ran to protect the citizens of Routt County," said Wall, whose county abuts Wyoming. "We will enforce drug laws, but it's going to be done right." "Their investigation and arrest tactics are violations of individual rights," Wall said, speaking of the task force. "They try to get people to do things for them by intimidating them. When somebody says they want to see what their attorney thinks, as far as I'm concerned, the conversation is over."

Rocky article here

Fortress America - Denver Post

They are the new carpetbaggers and with the promise of thousands of new customers the private prison industry is absolutely giddy these days. Stock prices have skyrocketed for such companies as GEO and CCA as they promise to build prisons across the country to hold immigrants. These companies prey on human lives and they have to answer to stockholders, so they are required to make a profit, no matter what the cost is to the people and communities that they are holding prisoner.

PRISON BOOM

John Ferguson, chief executive of Corrections Corporation of America, certainly does. And for private prison companies like his, these are giddy days.

Over the past year, the stock price of Ferguson's company has climbed 86 percent. The stock of its main competitor, Geo Group Inc., has done even better, rising 155 percent.

The prosecution offensive by U.S. attorneys on the border has meant a boom in demand for rented detention space by the U.S. Marshals Service, most of which will go to companies like his, Ferguson noted in an optimistic conference call to investors in February 2006.

More important, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mi chael Chertoff announced in August an ambitious plan to remedy one of the border's long-standing problems: There aren't enough beds to hold everyone the Border Patrol catches.

Immigrant detainees held in Raymondville are confined in the windowless super-tents for 23 hours a day, with no partitions closing off toilets or showers, according to immigration attorneys who have visited the facility. Lights are on day and night, and prisoners complain of insufficient clothing and spoiled food.

"I still have clients who complain about rancid milk being served to them and people vomiting," said Jodi Goodwin, a Harlingen immigration attorney who visited the facility several times before officials began limiting access to many areas two and a half months ago.

"There are no windows, so there's very little direct light. The detainees sleep, live and stay in the same space for 23 hours a day," she said.

While officials for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say all facilities meet federal standards, critics say problems are likely to grow because of the government's reliance on companies with a motive to skim services and increase profits.

"It's almost like a futures market. You have private prison companies gambling on expansion of the immigrant detention system, and basically prison speculators who are convincing communities to do this," said Bob Libal, an organizer with South Texans Opposing Private Prisons (STOPP).

Denver Post Article

CCJRC, Prisoners and Farms - NY Times

In a pilot program run by the state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

A group calling for changes in sentencing, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, is also uneasy about the program. The group views the inmates’ pay as problematic.

“This feels like the re-invention of the plantation,” said Christie Donner, the group’s executive director. “You have a captive labor force essentially working for their room and board in order to benefit the employer. This isn’t a job training program. It’s an exploitative program.”

But Ari Zavaras, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, said the merit of a hard day’s work outdoors was invaluable to an inmate.

“They won’t be paid big bucks, but we’re hoping this will help our inmates pick up significant and valuable job skills,” Mr. Zavaras said. “We’re also assisting farmers who, if they don’t get help, are facing an inability to harvest their crops.”

With the start of the farming season looming, Colorado’s farmers are scrambling to figure out which crops to sow and in what quantity. Some are considering turning to field corn, which is mechanically harvested. And they are considering whether they want to pay for an urban inmate who could not single out a ripe watermelon or discern between a weed and an onion plant.

NY Times Article Here

NY Times Article -- States Hold Sex Offenders After Prison Term

First of a Three-Part Series

The decision by New York to confine sex offenders beyond their prison terms places the state at the forefront of a growing national movement that is popular with politicians and voters. But such programs have almost never met a stated purpose of treating the worst criminals until they no longer pose a threat.

About 2,700 pedophiles, rapists and other sexual offenders are already being held indefinitely, mostly in special treatment centers, under so-called civil commitment programs in 19 states, which on average cost taxpayers four times more than keeping the offenders in prison.

In announcing a deal with legislative leaders on Thursday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, suggested that New York’s proposed civil commitment law would “become a national model” and go well beyond confining the most violent predators to also include mental health treatment and intensive supervised release for offenders.

Gang Violence on the Rise?

We have deprioritized working with kids for years. Funding streams have been diverted to building prisons and the kids and our communities are the ones who suffer.

Of eight homicide victims in Denver this year, half died in suspected gang violence, though none of the four was involved in a gang themselves. "I'm stunned," Denver city councilman Michael Hancock said of the number of suspected gang-related homicides. "It's worse than what I thought."
Rocky Mountain News

Denver Post -- David Harsanyi and Prisoners on Farms

This was so good I had to post the whole thing..

By David Harsanyi

Have you heard about this brilliant proposal to allow state prison inmates to work as farmhands?

Prison officials claim that the plan would offer local farmers the help they need while teaching inmates new beneficial real-world skills.

The first question that comes to my mind is this: Why are farmers the only ones being offered this magnificent new opportunity?

For instance, there's plenty of grunt work to be done around the Harsanyi household. An offender could learn the priceless skill of alphabetizing an eclectic CD collection or opening a bottle of Guinness with nothing more than a butter knife.

Surely you have your own pressing needs. An extra pair of hands can never hurt. I mean, if government is giving out slaves and all.

If this preposterous plan hatched by state Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, and endorsed by new Colorado corrections executive director Ari Zavaras moves forward, the state would be creating a workforce that would be paid an arbitrary income, determined by farmers and government rather than the market.

By "arbitrary," I mean "cheap."

What's most bizarre about the plan is that the inmates would be bailing out farmers who find themselves in this predicament because - more than likely - they've been breaking the law for decades.

Listen to their complaint: Farmers maintain that immigrants have been scared away from working in Colorado - and crops have been left to rot in the fields - because of harsh new immigration laws. What they mean, of course, is that illegal immigrants have been scared away because of enforcement.

As a person who believes in a remarkably liberal immigration policy, I'd like to see those migrants return to work in Colorado. Then again, I'd like to see polygamy and hashish made legal. Sadly, we don't choose the laws we follow.

Farmers are grousing about how tough life is now that immigration policy is sporadically enforced. I hope they weren't under the impression that using illegal immigrants to pick tomatoes was legal before last year.

Though you do have to begrudgingly admire a farmer who not only has the chutzpah to complain that he can't break the law anymore ... but actually goes out and finds a state representative to help circumvent the market price for labor by unearthing some poor schmoes willing to work for the same low price.

If a business struggles to find employees at a certain pay rate, don't they offer more dough? And if paying that amount puts a company in the red, doesn't the owner come to the conclusion that the business is no longer viable?

If you're a farmer, I suppose, you just ask for more subsidies.

At the very least, Colorado should allow other industries to bid on the services of these inmates. See who brings in the best price. Surely, busboy and landscaping concerns would be interested.

Since I enjoy peppers and tomatoes as much as the next guy, I will beseech Colorado's congressional delegation - specifically Tom Tancredo - to confront this shortage of workers and come up with a munificent guest-worker program that allows the movement of people and products across our borders.

But until Tancredo gets that done, I have some alternative suggestions for inmates. Why not use this labor force in the public sector?

This way, we could save Colorado taxpayers millions of dollars and teach inmates the vital skill of doing shoddy work at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Off the top of my head, I've compiled a short list of some tasks that inmates could help us with:

Shoveling snow.

Mowing lawns.

Filling in potholes.

Collecting garbage.

Sifting out my recyclables.

Manning the 311 line.

Sure, it'll be somewhat awkward with security officers with shotguns milling about, but I'm sure you'd be willing to live with it.

Pet Projects Lose Out to Prison

CCJRC filed the lawsuit that kept CSP II from being built. We don't believe we need another maximum security prison. The money that is going to be used can be spent on much better things.

By CHARLES ASHBY
CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU

DENVER - The additional money that the Colorado Department of Corrections needs to start its planned expansion of the state penitentiary in Canon City became a funding football on Thursday.

In its final approval of its annual priority list, the Legislature's Capital Development Committee kicked back to the Joint Budget Committee the decision on what to do about the extra $36.8 million the department needs to begin construction of its 980-bed Colorado State Penitentiary II project that DOC has been trying to build for the past four years.

CDC members sought to use lobbyists and government liaisons, whose projects didn't get funded, to help them pressure the JBC for more money - approximately $100 million more.

Read the article

Heroin Use Up in Boulder County

As reported by the Rocky Mountain News today:

Heroin use is up in the county, the Boulder County Drug Task Force reported today. The task force says that, according to police reports and records from the Boulder County Coroner, that since Oct. 1, 2006:

Five heroin related deaths, four in the city of Boulder and one in Longmont.

Two heroin related overdoses where the users were revived and treated in Boulder.

Three patrol arrests involving heroin use in public restrooms in Boulder.

16 heroin related reports or incidents reported to the Boulder Police Department.

Rocky Article here

Keep Up Those Calls, Emails and Letters--HB 1313 Passes

HB 1313 (The Identity Bill) has passed through second reading and is now going for a third. Keep the pressure up on your representatives.

SB 83 (Parolee Voting Bill) has repeatedly been laid over. Please call your senators and tell them you support the right of people on parole to vote!!!

Corrections Sentencing

Michael Connelly has so much good stuff over at Corrections Sentencing, I couldn't pick just one. The one that was kind of funny though was about the guys who held a hostage in a TN prison until someone threw them a pack of cigarettes. They got their smokes and quietly went back to their room. Never underestimate the power of addiction....

Stimulant Replacement Therapy

Fascinating story coming out of Canada. We have used methadone to treat opiate releated addiction for years. Now the Drug Policy Alliance reports that the same sort of therapy will be used for those addicted to stimulants.

Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan has introduced a pilot program to determine whether prescribing oral stimulants can help people struggling with addiction to cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit stimulants.

The program, the Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment program (CAST), will administer oral doses of stimulant drugs through local pharmacies. CAST will target people who volunteer for treatment, giving priority to sex workers and those who are frequently arrested. The project also will include counseling and homelessness services. ARTICLE HERE

Killing Highlights Risk of Selling Marijuana

Here's a story on Ken Gorman that was published in the New York Times today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ken's family.

DENVER, March 1 — Ken Gorman, an aging missionary of marijuana, was found murdered in his home here two weeks ago. The unsolved crime is exposing the tangled threads at the borderland of the legal and illegal drug worlds he inhabited.

Some legal experts say Mr. Gorman’s death could lead to a reconsideration of how medical marijuana is administered here and elsewhere. Providers are often left exposed and vulnerable because of the nation’s conflicting drug laws, with marijuana use illegal under federal law but legalized for some medicinal purposes here and in 10 other states.

Since 1997, after the first medical marijuana law was passed in California, as many as 20 legal marijuana providers have been killed around the country, mostly in robberies, said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington.

Some in law enforcement, including Colorado’s attorney general, John W. Suthers, say the Gorman killing illuminates more clearly than ever that crime and marijuana cannot be disentangled.

“Mr. Gorman showed that the law is abused and can be abused,” said Nate Strauch, a spokesman for Mr. Suthers.

Many people in the medical marijuana supply system say the central risk comes down to the fact that they work in the shadows, where law enforcement officials are often either conflicted or hostile and crime is rampant....

The Denver police have revealed little about the murder investigation.

A spokesman, Sonny Jackson, said the police responded to reports of shots fired at Mr. Gorman’s home around 7 p.m. on Feb. 17 and found Mr. Gorman with a gunshot wound to the chest. He died shortly thereafter.

Mr. Jackson said that there had been an incident the previous night in Mr. Gorman’s home; someone had been arrested and neighbors reported shots fired. But investigators said they did not believe that incident and the slaying were connected.

Colorado’s medical marijuana law, enshrined in the state’s Constitution by a statewide vote in 2000, protects people from prosecution under state law. Acquiring the drug illegally, however, puts those people in very dangerous company.

Mr. Gorman’s home, still taped off by a police ribbon, has become a kind of shrine to the subculture he celebrated.

“He was the most compassionate, kind man I knew,” said a young man who identified himself as Vuddah, as thick curls of smoke shrouded the group. “We want to keep this place open so that the patients can keep coming,” he added. “That’s what we’re going to do.

“That’s what Ken would have wanted,” he continued. “To us, he was a medical marijuana freedom fighter.
NY TIMES article here

Plantation Revisited -- Prisoners on Farms

This editorial appeared in the Denver Post today and the one following appeared in the Pueblo Chieftain. According to the Post's information, prisoners working on farms are going to make around minimum wage. If that's the case, they will the highest paid inmates in Colorado, and I would applaud. I don't believe it though.

The gate check for people being released from prison on parole is $100. That has been the case since 1973. And they only get that check once.If they are back in prison on a revocation they don't get anything from the state, they only have what they earn. Typical inmate pay is .60 a day. They are required to pay for their own hygiene, stamps, medical supplies, and exboritant phone rates to call home. A trip to medical costs $5.00 a visit. Add to that the 20% that comes off the top for child support and restitution. The things that they buy from Canteen for hygiene are at the same price or more than you would pay for at the store. Average monthly pay is about $10. Correctional Industries top earners make $2.00 a day, but those jobs are limited and not available statewide. We are trying to reduce recidivisim, and according to D.O.C, seventy percent of the people being released are being released homeless (932 people were released in Colorado last month) and with little or no money to get started on.

A plan to enlist prison inmates to work on Colorado farms that are experiencing a labor shortage has the potential to solve a host of problems at once.

The benefits of the opportunity to inmates can be substantial. Even if the farm skills aren't marketable outside prison, the learned work ethic can be a huge plus. Inmates who work in prison industries have a recidivism rate of 25 percent, half the rate for prisoners who don't work.

Regular labor shifts also mean the inmates have less time and incentive to get into trouble while in prison, said Steve Smith, agriculture manager for Colorado Correctional Industries. "We want to send them home tired," he said.

Details of the program have yet to be worked out, but authorities hope to get it off the ground within the next few months. Farmers would pay the cost of supervision, but since inmates typically make only a few dollars a day, the hourly rate is likely to be about minimum wage. About 4,500 inmates are eligible to work in the voluntary program, Morgan said, but it probably will start small.

Denver Post

Now, according to the Pueblo Chieftain, small communities around the state (Reps. Rafael Gallegos, D-Antonito, Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, and Sen. Jack Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs, all said their areas, too, are suffering from the same labor shortages) are jumping on the prisoner farm bandwagon, but they are told they would have to wait until the Pueblo pilot program was ready. The cost of transportation and supervision would not allow for the farmers to pay the exorbitant rate of minimum wage and the Chieftain reports that the prisoners would only be making 60 cents a day. So, what's really going on? Slave labor or real opportunity?

Butcher said contracts for five Pueblo County farms are in the draft stage that would call for about 100 inmates to work area fields, though Butcher said more farms in the county are hoping to be included.

Those farmers, who could employ the inmates from March until November, are expected to pay minimum wage, plus the cost of getting them to and from the fields. The inmates would only make 60 cents a day, the regular rate prisoners make in other work programs.

Butcher said the program not only has the potential to helps farmers statewide deal with the labor shortage, but also teach inmates valuable skills and help reduce recidivism in the state's prisons.

Pueblo Chieftain