Denver Cops To Test Body Cameras

The Denver Post

Denver could join a growing list of cities where police wear digital cameras to record encounters with the public, a move the local ACLU says could increase officers' accountability but one that raises concerns among privacy advocates.
In two weeks, the Denver Police Department​ will launch a 60-day pilot program with 23 officers testing the "body-worn digital recording devices," which can be clipped to uniforms or, in the case of one model, worn as a headset. All record audio as well as video. Once that testing is done, the department will decide whether to use the cameras.
The technology will provide evidence that can be used in court and cut down on cases that hinge on the officer's word versus the suspect's, said Lt.

An officer would wear the body camera on his chest. The device records audio as well as video, and one model can be worn as a headset. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

Ernie Martinez of the department's Special Investigations Bureau. They also could record incidents of excessive force by police, said Jessie Ulibarri, public-policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. A police surveillance camera mounted near a Lower Downtown nightclub caught the 2009 beating by police of Michael DeHererra and led to the dismissal of two cops in March.
"Based on concerns raised about the pattern of abuse in our law enforcement community, this is a great first step," Ulibarri said of the body cameras.
At least during the trial period, the officers testing the technology will decide when to activate their cameras. If police adopt the devices, protocols could be designed that would remove discretion from officers and specify when they must turn on their camera.
It takes time to get accustomed to the devices, and giving officers discretion over their use will assure that a cop isn't preoccupied with triggering the camera when entering a critical situation, Martinez said.
The ACLU's Ulibarri said the cameras should be on throughout the day.

Inmates To Get Help In Jefferson County

Between 1,130 to 1,150 inmates are housed per day at the Jefferson County Jail in Golden.
In that population, some inmates have substance-abuse disorders or mental illness that have either gone untreated or required the relocation of inmates.
But a recent $107,100 grant from the state will change that and, if successful, reduce incarceration time and recidivism. The money will allow the jail to contract two mental health and substance-abuse professionals to provide in-jail treatment. Inmates with substance-abuse disorder typically receive detoxification supervision and medication is made available to the mentally ill.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office grant specialist Beth Mundell said, “This (grant) will give us a chance to address those issues in the jail to not only provide seamless exit release, but immediately put them in community services that will help keep them out of jail. We are trying to reduce recidivism.”
Manager of the state’s Jail-Based Behavioral Health Services, Jagruti Shah, said, “Providing treatment services improves public safety by reducing substance use behavior and the likelihood that individuals will have further contact with the criminal justice system.”
Mike Fish, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Detention Services manager, said master-level clinicians will provide counseling and transition planners will help inmates get basic services as they move out of jail and into the community.
“If the assessment identifies them as appropriate for treatment, they will receive in-house treatment from local providers,” said Fish.
Mundell said there has been a big gap in services to inmates who exhibit both mental illness and substance-abuse disorders.
“It’s a discussion we have been having for quite some time with local service providers (such as Jefferson Center for Mental Health, Arapahoe House and Community Corrections Services),” Mundell said.
In 2007 the jail initiated a $30 booking fee to cover a transitional planner for inmates. The planner works with inmates to help connect them with the necessary community mental health services they might need upon release.

Billions Behind Bars: Colorado's Prison Industry Gets It's Close-Up

Westword
​A few years back, reporting on a convention of prison officials and vendors who supplied them with everything from stab-proof vests to suicide-proof toilets, I noted that America's spending on the corrections industry had reached $40 billion a year. According to two new documentaries worth checking out, that figure has almost doubled in the past decade.
The CNBC special Billions Behind Bars: Inside America's Prison Industry, which premiered last night and airs again on Friday, estimates that annual state and federal spending on locking people up is now at $74 billion -- an indication of the industry's resilience, even in an era of declining crime rates and economic collapse. Colorado's prison population has flattened out in recent years, but state, private and federal hoosegows continue to be a significant source of jobs and revenue in several counties.
CNBC's Scott Cohn drops in on our state, mainly to examine the use of convict labor in Colorado Correctional Industries, the state operation that puts prisoners to work breaking mustangs, making furniture, raising tilapia, and other ventures. The producers claim that CCI generates $56 million in annual revenues, but that's a bit misleading, since some of the transactions involve other state agencies making required purchases of furniture and other goods from CCI at inflated prices; check out this robust rant on how a $50 desk ends up costing taxpayers $1,400.
Another, somewhat edgier exploration of for-profit lockups aired last night on PBS courtesy of Frontline and the Investigative Reporting Workshop. In "Lost in Detention," correspondent Maria Hinojosa takes a look at the booming private system for immigration detainees and the abuses of human rights to be found there -- a growing scandal beneath the Obama administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Portions of that show can be found online here.
For a glimpse of CNBC's tour of Colorado Correctional Industries, check out the clip ...Westword

Portugal's Drug Experiment

The New Yorker
This week in the magazine, Michael Specter looks at Portugal a decade after it decriminalized personal drug use. Here Specter talks with Blake Eskin about why it makes sense to treat drug abuse as a public-health problem rather than a crime, and what lessons the U.S. could take from Portugal’s example.
Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right-click here to download.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/10/17/111017on_audio_specter#ixzz1boKPzJVL

The Death Penalty's Defacto Abolition

New York Times Opinion
A new Gallup poll reports that support for the death penalty is at its lowest level since 1972. In fact, though, the decline, from a high of 80 percent in 1994 to 61 percent now, masks both Americans’ ambivalence about capital punishment and the country’s de facto abolition of the penalty in most places.
When Gallup gave people a choice a year ago between sentencing a murderer to death or life without parole, an option in each of the 34 states that have the death penalty, only 49 percent chose capital punishment.
That striking difference suggests that more Americans are recognizing that killing a prisoner is not the only way to make sure he is never released, that the death penalty cannot be made to comply with the Constitution and that it is in every way indefensible. But there are other numbers that tell a more compelling story about the national discomfort with executions.
From their annual high points since the penalty was reinstated 35 years ago, the number executed has dropped by half, and the number sentenced to death has dropped by almost two-thirds. Sixteen states don’t allow the penalty, and eight of the states that do have not carried out an execution in 12 years or more. There is more.
Only one-seventh of the nation’s 3,147 counties have carried out an execution since 1976. Counties with one-eighth of the American population produce two-thirds of the sentences. As a result, the death penalty is the embodiment of arbitrariness. Texas, for example, in the past generation, has executed five times as many people as Virginia, the next closest state. But the penalty is used heavily in just four of Texas’s 254 counties.
Opposition to capital punishment has built from the ground up. It is evident in the greater part of America’s counties where people realize that, in addition to being barbaric, capricious and prohibitively expensive, the death penalty does not reflect their values.

Tangles in the Ties That Bind

Boulder Weekly

Colorado prisons' high phone charges invite scrutiny

By Carolyn Cosmos

It’s a well-known fact that prison inmates with strong family and community ties are less likely to wind up back inside the joint once they are released.

So why are state prison systems, including Colorado’s, charging inmates high rates for phone calls, rates that discourage prisoners’ often frayed home attachments?

* * *

Hassan Latif spent 18 years in Colorado prisons.

“My first few years inside, all I thought about was escaping,” he says. “I got high in the county jail. Even if I got out, I didn’t see options. I saw myself as prey.”

Released in 2006, he’s now a case manager at Turnabout, a Denver nonprofit that provides assistance to returning inmates — 5,000 of them in 2010.

This April Hassan and Turnabout’s director, the Rev. Tina Yankee, spent two days teaching ethics classes at Metropolitan State College of Denver — a surprising undertaking for a man who, his wife says, “always felt he was going to go down in a hail of bullets.”

Imani Latif met Hassan in New York City when both worked for the Department of Health.

“He was my best friend,” she says. “I fell in love with him, but he was engaged to someone else.”

They married other people. She had a son. He moved to Colorado. Her marriage ended. When Hassan’s former wife wrote to Imani saying, “I’m leaving him. He’s in prison,” the two picked up where they left off.

She moved to Colorado and they married in 1992.

“My wife stayed with me for 18 years inside, and if not for that support I wouldn’t be talking to you now,” Hassan says.

“My perception of his life was different than his,” she says.

They wrote letters. Imani drove two hours each way to visit. An AIDS counselor, she couldn’t afford prison call costs, but Hassan got a “high-paying” job, $150 a month, in a prison print shop and phoned her once a week.

“It was cheaper back then,” he says. “She told me I was a good person, I could go back to school, have a life,” Hassan explains. “That seemed far-fetched, but the chance to go to that visiting room and see her made me walk away from trouble.”

Imani is now the founding director of It Takes A Village, a nonprofit that addresses health issues among people of color.

Hassan thinks prison phone-call costs in Colorado are “prohibitive.” Add in the difficulties of visits, he says, and “it appears they don’t want families to be together. It’s something deliberate.”

He suspects that call profits go to wealthy owners of the phone companies.

* * *

“Studies show family contact helps motivate prisoners to do well and complete programs,” says Margaret diZerega, director of the Family Justice Program at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City. “An outlet to talk about frustrations lowers violence, and inmates with family support have fewer parole violations and less homelessness.”

Charlie Sullivan is director of international CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation for Errants) in Washington, D.C., a prison reform group. He says inmate phone calls to families are “rehabilitative opportunities” easily scotched by “exorbitant” costs. A Vera Institute report labels such costs “a tax on poor families,” penny wise and pound foolish.

Families complement or substitute for public programs, especially when prisoners get back out, so “it doesn’t make economic sense to put barriers in place,” diZerega explains. Barriers to contact include the cost of phone calls, driving from a distance, child care costs and time off work.

And both the American Correctional Association and the American Bar Association have policy statements supporting low-cost inmate phone access.

* * *

Taxpayers don’t pay for prison phone calls. Inmates and their families do.

You can’t call an inmate. The inmate calls you from a public phone in a cellblock, but only if you’re on a pre-approved list. An automated voice tells you the call is from a particular prisoner and asks if you want to accept it. Calls are limited to 20 minutes.

One reason rates for calls are high is that prisons pay for specialized phone equipment and security costs.

However, if a state corrections department adds a surcharge to each call — and all but eight do — or hikes up the charge for each minute, or both, the resulting rates generate large profits. These profits, or “commissions,” usually go back into corrections budgets.

Commissions have been called “kickbacks,” but courts have repeatedly ruled them legal.

Last April, Prison Legal News (PLN), a national monthly based in Vermont, published a groundbreaking 50-state study of prison phone contracts. It detailed the millions of dollars in profits states extract from prisoner phone use. The national total came to $152.44 million in 2007-08, PLN said.

The PLN state survey also showed that Colorado prisons had, and still have, the highest rate in the United States for local collect calls — $7.35 for 20 minutes.

According to PLN, Colorado’s 2007-08 commissions came to $3.1 million. That was $2.6 million net.

Current inmate phone use is providing Colorado corrections with $2.024 million net in commissions, DOC says.

* * *

“I was born in Denver,” says Don Walker, “and I have a lot of family here, mostly incarcerated.”

A repeat offender finally sentenced to 16 years on drug charges, he did time with his own dad: “He was my cellie. They’ll put you with a family member if you’re both inside because people will stay out of trouble if they’re in a cell with an older brother, an uncle.”  *(Click the title to read the rest of the article)

Budge Cuts Force Adams County to Consider Jail Cap

The Denver Post

BRIGHTON — Adams County is inching toward toughening its policy regarding housing municipal prisoners in hopes of easing overcrowding and cutting costs at the Adams County Detention Facility.
But the ideas being floated — including locking out many misdemeanor offenders already sentenced by municipal judges — is making many local mayors and police officials uneasy.
"The last thing we want is our judges releasing someone and he murders somebody," Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally said at a meeting with jail officials on Friday.
Federal Heights Police Chief Les Acker added the changes proposed by Adams County Sheriff Doug Darr could lead to someone who is truly dangerous but facing only a minor offense being set free.
"(Oklahoma City bomber) Timothy McVeigh​ was pulled over for a bad tail light," Acker said.
Darr, however, said changes have to be made because budget woes have forced drastic cutbacks in jail personnel and other parts of the Sheriff's Office.
"I hate to do this, I really do," Darr said. "But we can't go on like this, we are working our people to death."
County officials are proposing a "soft cap" on the number of municipal inmates that can be held at the jail. Under the plan, no one cited for a petty offense or "unclassified" misdemeanor in any Adams County city would be housed at the jail.
The cap could be waived on case-by-case basis at the request of the city, and with the permission of the jail commander. However, each city would be limited to a certain number of beds based on its population.
Also, if the number of inmates arrested in a certain city exceeds its allotted number of beds, the city will be charged a fee, which is proposed at $55 a day.

We Fabricated Drug Charges Against Innocent People To Meet Quota

NY Daily News
A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.
The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.
Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.
"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.
"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.
"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.
NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/13/2011-10-13_excop_we_fabricated_drug_raps_for_quotas.html#ixzz1ahIgbzuh

Philanthropia

In October 2011, we were honored to learn that a group of 127 experts identified Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) as 1 of 21 high-impact nonprofits working in criminal justice in the U.S. on a local/state level. Some of reviews experts had about our impact were:

“They have helped pass major sentencing reform and prison downsizing policies over the past few years”

“They have a unique ability to earn media attention and shape policy reform.”

“CCJRC has had a long history of advocating for sensible criminal justice reform in Colorado.  They have a deep understanding of the political arena and have steadily built a reputation within the criminal justice advocacy community, state public safety agencies, and the legislature.  This is a very high impact organization organization in Colorado and one that should be studied as a model for other statewide criminal justice advocacy coalitions from around the country.”

To read more about experts in the field have to say about Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) click on the Expert Reviews section on our organization profile here: http://myphilanthropedia.org/top-nonprofits/local/criminal-justice/colorado-criminal-justice-reform-coalition-ccjrc-colorado.

Philanthropedia (at GuideStar) is a nonprofit organization working to help donors make smarter donations by connecting them with some of the highest impact nonprofits in a cause. They are different from other online rating sites or donation sites because they use experts to identify high-impact nonprofits.

Jefferson County deputy kills inmate trying to escape

The Denver Post

A Jefferson County sheriff's deputy shot and killed an inmate late Tuesday morning after the man attempted to escape from a medical clinic where he had been taken for treatment of an unspecified injury.
The incident occurred in a common hallway on the lower level of a clinic at 660 Golden Ridge Road, which is just a few blocks from the Jefferson County jail.
"I heard some yelling, some cussing, and about two seconds later I heard a gunshot," said Nickie Donnell, who was in a waiting room adjacent to the hallway while her husband underwent knee surgery.
The identities of the inmate and the deputy were not released Tuesday.
According to Golden police Sgt. Ryan Custer, the trouble started shortly before 11:40 a.m. after a deputy took the inmate to Advanced Medical Imagery for treatment. While there, the inmate's handcuffs and shackles were removed, and he attempted to escape down a hallway.
The deputy shot the man, who was taken to St. Anthony Hospital, Lakewood, where he died.
Golden police did not release other information about the shooting, including whether the inmate had — or insinuated he had — a weapon or made threats.
Custer said investigators would not release information about the man, including the charges on which he had been jailed, until his family had been notified.

IRS Ruling Strikes Fear in the MMJ Industry

MSNBC
In a potentially crushing blow to the burgeoning medical marijuana industry, the IRS has ruled that dispensaries cannot deduct standard business expenses such as payroll, security or rent.
Harborside Health Center, one of the nation's largest medical marijuana dispensaries and considered a model for the industry, is on the hook for $2.5 million in taxes from 2007 and 2008.  That is $2 million more than the Oakland, Calif.-based company paid for those tax years.
“I see only two outcomes here,” said Steve DeAngelo, director and chief executive of Harborside. “Either this IRS assessment has to change or we go out of business. There really isn’t a middle ground for us.”
DeAngelo says the ruling will likely be appealed. He has 90 days to respond to the ruling.
The IRS ruling is based on an obscure portion of the tax code -- section 280E -- passed into law by Congress in 1982, at the height of Reagan administration’s “war on drugs.” The law, originally targeted at drug kingpins and cartels, bans any tax deductions related to "trafficking in controlled substances."
Although 16 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing medical use of marijuana, the federal government still considers it a Schedule I drug, the most restrictive category with the harshest penalties.
The Internal Revenue Service refused to comment on the specific case, but letters sent from Andrew Keyso, IRS deputy associate chief counsel, to some members of Congress spell out the official position:

“Section 280E of the Code disallows deductions incurred in the trade or business of trafficking in controlled substances that federal law or the law of any state in which the taxpayer conducts the business prohibits. For this purpose, the term “controlled substances” has the meaning provided in the Controlled Substances Act. Marijuana falls within the Controlled Substances Act.”

2011 Drug Policy Alliance Reform Conference

There is still time to get registered and attend this Conference.  It's a once in a lifetime experience that I have been to three times now.  Join CCJRC and support the Drug Policy Alliance.  2011 Reform Conference

Program

• Call for Proposals
• Schedule
• Continuing Education

The International Drug Policy Reform Conference takes place every two years and draws a wide range of participants including students, grassroots activists, scholars and other researchers, city, state and federal elected officials, people in recovery as well as active drug users, law enforcement officers, treatment providers and public health advocates.
For 2011, there are 55 sessions over the course of three days, including three plenary sessions.  All sessions are 90 minutes long: usually 60 minutes of presentations or discussion (depending on the format) and 30 minutes of question & answer.
To see the timeline of the day plus all sessions and speakers, check out the Conference Schedule. Or you can download a PDF version to print and take with you.

Criminal Justice

Spotlight Session:
Surveillance vs Incarceration: Reducing Prison Population Isn’t the End
Prison reformers, largely based on a cost savings argument, are turning the tide on prison expansion. However, states are now looking for cheaper ways to exact punishment and to monitor those suspected or convicted of breaking the law. As prison populations shrink, is the expanded criminal justice surveillance of (more) Americans inevitable?  And what does this mean for a criminal justice system that is marked by extraordinary, institutionalized racial bias?
Other Sessions
• Making Sense of Drug Testing
• Drug Treatment and the Criminal Justice System: What Should It Look Like?
• Reducing Drug Arrests and Convictions: Strategies to Shift Law Enforcement Funds, Practices and Priorities
• Stigma and Exclusion: How Can We Overcome Consequences of Convictions and Suspicion of Drug Use?
• Sentencing and Prison Reform Is Real: Lessons and Warnings from Recent Successes

Harm Reduction

Spotlight Session:
Innovative Policy Responses to Overdose
The number of overdoses has climbed dramatically in the last decade, mostly because of prescription drugs. Drug overdose is now the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Significant federal funding is directed toward preventing HIV/AIDS and homicide, but virtually no federal dollars are designated for overdose prevention – even though overdose kills more people than murder or HIV/AIDS.  What effective policy responses are available to stem this easily preventable epidemic?
Other Sessions
• Drug Sellers as Harm Reduction Allies
• Nightlife Harm Reduction: the Next Harm Reduction Frontier?
• Crack Pipes, Cow Wormer, and Controversy: Stimulants and Harm Reduction
• Too High a Cost: HIV and Drug Policy Reform
• Drugs, Criminalization, and Public Health: Social Justice as Harm Reduction
• Supervised Injection Facilities and Other Good Ideas

Marijuana

Spotlight Session:
State of the Movement: What’s It Going to Take to Make Marijuana Legal?
Marijuana legalization is the leading edge of drug policy reform in the U.S. mainstream today. So how’re we doing in the fight to end this obstinate and failed prohibition? What can we expect to see on the ballot in 2012 and beyond? Prominent national political consultants help sort out prospects for victory at the state and national level, including insights from the most extensive marijuana reform public opinion research ever conducted.
Other Sessions
State of the Movement: Is Medical Marijuana Still Relevant?
• How Does Money Shape Marijuana Reform?
• Innovative Approaches to Medical Marijuana Distribution and Services
• Marijuana Policing Targets Urban Youth
• Medical Marijuana Science: Latest Advances
• The New, Improved Marijuana Reform Coalition
• How Are We Ever Going to Clarify Medical Marijuana in California?
• Marijuana Reform Hotspots: Colorado and Washington

Treatment

Spotlight Session:
Substitution and Maintenance  Therapy:  Confronting Ignorance, Prejudice and Stigma
Although decades of evidence overwhelmingly shows that substitution and maintenance therapies are cost-effective, humane, and beneficial to public health, they are still not widely accepted as legitimate treatments for people struggling with addiction. What will it take to move the acceptance of substitution and maintenance therapies forward?
Other Sessions
• Health Care Reform Meets Drug Policy Reform
• The Recovery Movement and Its Role in Ending the Drug War

Psychedelics

Spotlight Session:
Psychedelic Research: What Does the Future Hold?
We are now in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance, with clinical research studies under
way at top medical schools and research institutes world-wide. What new directions will the
future hold?
Other Sessions
• Psychedelic Science: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
• Psychedelic Healing: Can Psychedelics Reinvent Medicine... and Society?
• Psychedelics, Religion and Cultural Translation
• Salvia, Synthetic Marijuana, and Emerging Drug Criminalization Trends     

Youth

Spotlight Session:
The (Drug) War on Young People: Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline
Youth leaders from diverse communities know firsthand how the drug war and social and
economic disinvestment in young people and draconian education policies are fuelling
the school to prison pipeline. Share in their discussion of how to put a stop to these
damaging practices.
Other Sessions
• Building a Global Movement for Drug Policy Reform: Can Young People Lead the Way?
• No Child Left Behind? Creating Drug Policies to Include Young People
• Hip Hop and the Drug War: Moving from Reference to Real Talk
• Youth Drug Education: When D.A.R.E. Fails

Trainings

Spotlight Session:
Know Your Rights: How to Deal with Law Enforcement and NOT Get Arrested     
The Bill of Rights provides each of us with certain inalienable rights. Flex Your Rights’ Know Your Rights training incorporates practical scenarios designed for easy application during police encounters. Learn practical methods for retaining and protecting your rights during car stops, street encounters and when the police knock at your door.
Other Trainings
• Bad Trips: How to Respond to Unwanted or Dangerous Side Effects of Opiates, Psychedelics
and Stimulants
• From Enthusiast to Entrepreneur: How to Make Marijuana Your Business
• Messaging for Change
• More Money, Fewer Problems: Fundraising Tips from the Inside and Outside
• How to Engage and Utilize the Ever-Changing Media World
• Throwing a Monkeywrench in Drug War Strategies: How to Use Their Money and Data to Build and Support Your Anti-Drug War Program
• What Do You Say To That Question? How To Have Conversations About Drug Use And Harm Reduction

Movement Building

Spotlight Session:
Ban the Box: Ending Attacks on Civil Rights in Employment and Beyond
The drug war  leads to the criminalization and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. every year, creating extraordinary obstacles that often prevent full participation in community and civic life – for instance, gaining employment can often be nearly impossible when employers won’t hire people with criminal records. This important discussion will provide conference participants with tools to fight discrimination based on arrest or conviction records. Speakers will highlight numerous successful campaigns, led by formerly incarcerated people, which suggest new strategies and possibilities for removing barriers to employment, housing, and other vital components of community life.
Other Sessions
• Detention, Deportation, and the Drug War: The Impact of the War on Drugs on Immigrant Rights in the U.S.
• Sex, Drugs, and Building a Movement
• Think Global, Act Local: Grassroots Engagement to End the Drug War
• Connecting Juvenile Justice and Drug Policy Reform: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead
• Conservatives, Libertarians and Drug Policy Reform
• Elected Officials: Hearing From Our Representatives on Drug Policy Reform

International

Spotlight Session:
Spillover Activism: The Bi-National Movement to End the Drug War in Mexico
The drug war  leads to the criminalization and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. every year, creating extraordinary obstacles that often prevent full participation in community and civic life – for instance, gaining employment can often be nearly impossible when employers won’t hire people with criminal records. This important discussion will provide conference participants with tools to fight discrimination based on arrest or conviction records. Speakers will highlight numerous successful campaigns, led by formerly incarcerated people, which suggest new strategies and possibilities for removing barriers to employment, housing, and other vital components of community life.
Other Sessions
• Innovations in Drug Policies and Strategies in Latin America
• European Roundtable, Special Focus: Portuguese Decriminalization
• Global Roundtable

With Fewer Kids held, Colorado to Close Two Facilities

The Denver Post

Colorado is closing two youth detention centers after the number of kids being sent to such locked facilities dropped to levels not seen since 1998.
The closures come as the total number of youths in the detention system dropped 32 percent, from 1,480 to 1,000, since 2006.
"That's a pretty dramatic shift in youth corrections," said John Gomez, state youth corrections director. "It is good news. There are fewer kids going to detention."
The reduction in Colorado juvenile detentions follows a national trend, Gomez said.
He credited programs that identified substance abuse, delinquency and familial problems earlier with reducing the number of youths entering the juvenile justice system.
The Division of Youth Corrections will close the 20-bed Sol Vista Youth Services Center in Pueblo and the 24-bed Marvin W. Foote Youth Services Center in Englewood.
The Sol Vista building, which is on the grounds of the Colorado Mental Health Institute, will be used for a substance-abuse program.
Youths now at Sol Vista will be transferred to other detention centers, and those at Marvin W. Foote will go to Mount View Youth Services Center in Jefferson County.
Reggie Bicha, executive director of the Department of Human Services, said the state will try to place employees in vacant department or state positions.
The decrease in the number of kids going to secure youth facilities also happened as the state moved more kids out of locked facilities and into private community-based residential programs.
Youths who primarily have a substance- abuse issue are getting treatment at a community facility instead of going to detention, he said.
"The right kids get the right level of intervention," he said.
Officials are weighing the risks that kids pose to the community and making decisions whether to send them to detention or treatment based on those assessments, Gomez said.
"We don't want to over-incarcerate kids," he said.

Legalizing Pot Would Make Colorado Safer

The Denver Post

Consider this a front-line report from Colorado's War on Marijuana. As a 36-year veteran of the Denver Police Department, I'm joining many of my fellow law enforcement officials to say that the battle is being lost.
Our combined efforts to stop marijuana use have not only failed, but they've actually made Colorado communities more dangerous, not less, and at a tremendous expense in lives and dollars.
Unless we change strategies, drug use won't be reduced, respect for the law will continue to erode, and untold numbers of Coloradans' lives will be ruined — all at an ever-increasing cost.
While elected officials are reluctant to act, Coloradans are taking the issue into their own hands, forcing much-needed change at the ballot box next year.
Since Richard Nixon declared a joint federal-state-local War on Drugs in 1971, we've pursued two strategies: interdiction (seizing the drugs to choke off supply) and prosecution of users (to discourage demand).
Pursuing those strategies, my fellow officers arrested 12,358 otherwise law-abiding Coloradans in 2007. Almost all these arrests, 94 percent, were for simple possession (as opposed to sale) of marijuana.
Although we don't have specific figures for the fiscal cost to Colorado taxpayers, we know that nationwide, enforcing marijuana laws costs taxpayers roughly $8 billion every year.
Pot prohibition adds to Americans' increasing disregard for the law, and any patrolman can tell you how widespread — and dangerous — this lack of respect has become.
Just as with prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, our efforts have created a criminal class that reaps billions of dollars satisfying America's steady appetite for marijuana.
Since arrests and seizures haven't worked, let's try the only approach left: restrict the possession and sale of marijuana to adults age 21 and above and set up a system to regulate and tax it, just like alcohol.
A measure is likely to appear on the November 2012 ballot that would do just that, making Colorado the first state in the nation sensible enough to face the facts of marijuana prohibition and pursue a better approach.
Under the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012, marijuana prohibition will be repealed: adult Coloradans will be able to purchase and possess limited amounts of marijuana for their own private use.
Instead of permitting criminal gangs and foreign drug cartels to profit from street-level drug sales, this new law will enable local and state government to take in revenue, just as they do with alcohol.

Knox's Dad: She's Strong, but it's been tough

The Denver Post
SEATTLE—The emotional strain built steadily for years as Amanda Knox​ sat locked away thousands of miles from her loved ones, all the while maintaining her innocence, wondering whether anyone who mattered would ever believe her.
Knox's father, Curt, suggested that at least some of that pressure was released when she gained her freedom. "She pretty much squished the air out of us when she hugged us," he said.
Curt Knox, for the time, is no longer a legal advocate, he's only a father. And, as Amanda Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle on Tuesday after being acquitted on murder charges after four years in prison, he shifted his concern to her future.
"The focus simply is Amanda's well-being and getting her re-associated with just being a regular person again," he said in front of his home in West Seattle.
He said Amanda would like to return to the University of Washington at some point to finish her degree, but for now, he's apprehensive about what four years in prison may have done to his daughter, though there are no immediate plans for her to get counseling. "What's the trauma ... and when will it show up, if it even shows up?" he said. "She's a very strong girl, but it's been a tough time for her."
The 24-year-old's life turned around dramatically Monday when an Italian appeals court threw out her conviction in the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of her British roommate. On Tuesday, photos of Amanda Knox crying in the courtroom after the verdict was read appeared on the front pages of newspapers in Italy, the U.S., Britain and around the world.

September DOC Monthly Population Reports

September Monthly Population

Federal Government Clouds Medical Marijuana in Colorado

The Denver Post

Medical marijuana may seem prevalent in Colorado, but its precarious place in the eyes of the federal government is evident in two unfortunate recent developments.
Last month, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent a letter to gun sellers saying it is illegal for medical marijuana patients to own firearms. And last week, the lone bank in the state that openly worked with the industry closed an estimated 300 marijuana-related accounts for fear that the companies are breaking federal law.
The episodes are concerning given that, like it or not, medical marijuana is recognized in numerous states, including Colorado, where it was legalized following the passage of Amendment 20 in 2000.
The assault on constitutional rights by the ATF is especially troubling.

As The Post's John Ingold reported, the agency's position was laid out in a September letter to gun dealers from Assistant Director Arthur Herbert: "Any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her State has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition."

So users of medical marijuana are faced with two choices: pass on gun ownership or illegally lie about their use of marijuana.

Unbelievable. Equally unconscionable is the silence on the issue from gun-rights groups.

Granted, there is evidence of people who game the medical marijuana system as a form of de facto legalization, but many users are following their doctors' advice. And all medical pot users are doing so under laws established in 16 states (and the District of Columbia) where it is legal. To strip them of their right to bear arms based on a health-care choice strikes us as an onerous and dangerous overstep.

Denver residents offer input on search for new police chief

The Denver Post

Denver needs a police chief who is willing to reach out to the community, has zero tolerance for police brutality, and wants to protect and serve a diverse population, some residents told a committee that will help pick a replacement for Chief Gerald Whitman.
More than 70 people participated in the town hall at Manual High School on Monday to give the six-member review committee their ideas on the qualities a chief must have.
The head of the 1,400-member police department should be someone who "will do the right thing when no one is looking," said Wil Bradford.
Amber Tafoya, a lawyer who lives on Denver's west side, said a police commander recently told her that he moved from a Denver neighborhood because it had become too rough. "I want a chief willing to live in our neighborhoods," she said. "We need a chief who has a heart for every neighborhood."
Derek Blass said officers who join the force with the best of intentions can change under the pressure of the job. "Over time, due to situations, they can become a menace."
A chief should be willing to initiate rigorous and regular psychological testing of officers, Blass said.
The discipline process for officers accused of wrongdoing can take too long, said Miriam Pena, co-executive director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition. For victims of police brutality, lengthy delays cause frustration, she said.
Several people said that even though Mayor Michael Hancock has launched a national search to replace Whitman, they would like to see Division Chief Tracie Keesee get the job. "She understands the need for community input," said Pena.

Opinion | Prohibition: A parallel to modern war on drugs | Seattle Times Newspaper

Opinion | Prohibition: A parallel to modern war on drugs | Seattle Times Newspaper

KEN Burns' new documentary on alcohol prohibition, premiering on PBS Sunday, reportedly begins with a Mark Twain quote: "It is the prohibition that makes anything precious."

As a retired police officer who worked to enforce today's prohibition — the "war on drugs" — I think it's a lesson we would do well to remember.

It was the prohibition of alcohol that made it so valuable to criminals, providing the tax-free dollars that turned neighborhood street gangs into national crime syndicates headed by the likes of Al Capone and Charles ("Lucky") Luciano.

Prohibition did little to curb liquor consumption,

Aurora Cops To Go To Training After Latest Shooting

the Denver Post

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates has ordered every officer to attend safety and use of force training following the city's eighth officer-involved shooting of the year.
While expressing his pride in officers and not inferring any wrongdoing in the early Thursday fatal shooting, Oates, in a letter to the department this morning, ordered a previously-scheduled training session scrapped and replaced it with one focused on shooting-related topics.
"After this week's shooting, we decided that we need to do this," Oates wrote.
Oates met this morning with Lt. Ernie Ortiz, commanding officer of the Training Section and ordered an "entirely new" curriculum for upcoming scheduled training, "one that reflects our best practices

• Read the letter from Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates to all officers.

and tactics on use of force." In the letter, Oates noted a "disproportionately high number of officer-involved shootings" this year.