Lawyers For DNC Protesters Battle Gag

Lawyers critical of the decision to prosecute protesters arrested on the first night of the Democratic National Convention say Denver's city attorneys are trying to shut them up.

They say the city has twice asked a Denver County judge to issue a gag order to keep defense lawyers quiet about the validity of the Aug. 25 arrests.

Judge Karen Bowers has denied the requests.

"They want to stop me from criticizing them and telling the public about this," said Robert Corry, an attorney representing several DNC defendants. "I thought it was remarkable they would try this in a First Amendment case."

The judge's order says city prosecutors accused the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers for the People's Law Project of trying to poison the jury pool by publicly criticizing the cases.

"Despite apparent efforts by third parties to influence these cases, the court believes that the juries have been honest in the selection process and able to listen fairly to the evidence presented," the order says.

The order also says that the ACLU is not representing any of the clients and that she cannot gag that entity. The record says there was no evidence that any individual lawyer associated with a DNC case is responsible for the release of information.

City Attorney David Fine said no motion for a gag order was made.

"We did not move for a gag order and, in fact, deliberately decided not to," he said. "I cannot understand why the order is written that way."

Fine did say attorneys who have entered appearances on behalf of their clients have an ethical obligation not to talk about the case.

The Denver Post

New Rules For State ID

A huge round of applause goes out to Carol Peeples for the volumes of work she did on this!!

IMPORTANT CHANGES IN DMV’S IDENTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

1-CCR-204-13

The Department of Revenue has passed a significant rule change on an emergency basis, effective immediately, that is likely to enable thousands of Coloradans to obtain a driver’s license or identification card without the necessity of Exception Processing or administrative appeal.

These are the highlights of the new rules:

1. An individual with a Colorado driver’s license (DL) or ID card expired within the last 10 years (previously one year) may use that document by itself to obtain a new DL or ID, provide there is an image of the applicant on file with the Department of Revenue (DOR). (Rule 2.3.1.1)

2. If an individual had a Colorado DL or ID expired within the last 10 years and their image is not on file with the Department of Revenue, only an additional document verifying lawful presence (such as a Social Security card or U.S. birth certificate) will be required. (2.3.2.1)

3. A Colorado Department of Correction or Federal Bureau of Prisons ID card will now be accepted to establish identity, and only a birth certificate will be needed (so long as the first and last names match) to establish the other 3 elements (age, name and lawful presence). (2.3.2.6) No longer will the absence or failure to match a middle name be grounds for denying an ID or DL under these circumstances.

4. An individual who no longer has an expired DL or ID may still be able to qualify if there is a department record of the DL or ID, and the applicant’s facial image, signature and fingerprint match that record. The applicant must also provide either his/her Social Security number (not necessarily the card itself) or an additional document. (2.3.1.11)

5. Exception Processing should only have to be used when an individual has never had a Colorado ID or DL and when he/she cannot provide sufficient documents as listed in the rules and on the matrix.

The new matrix is not yet available on the DOR website, but it is hoped that it will be available on line within a week. I have attached a scanned copy provided by DOR for your use until that time.

Call (303) 866-9377 or e-mail me (lolson@colegalserv.org) if you have any questions about these changes or run into any problems. Since the rules were just faxed to the DMV offices on Friday, 11/1/408, there are likely to be some mistakes and misunderstandings in the beginning. Roni White, the Director of Licensing Programs, will be monitoring the implementation of these new rules and Exception Processing.

Prisoners Building Homes For Habitat

This is the type of program that should be happening in every community. This is a program that teaches real world skills and helps real world people.

RIFLE, Colorado — Julio Ramirez has some experience in construction, and he’s using those skills to help build the first Habitat for Humanity home in Rifle.

He spends all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays working on the home with a crew of about seven other men before he goes home.

But home for Ramirez, and the rest of his crew, is the Rifle Correctional Center — at least for the time being.

“I do a little bit of everything — whatever needs to be done — siding, cement work, framing...,” Ramirez said. “I look forward to it. I like doing the work, and it’s for a good cause — it’s a home for two families.”

The community labor program is a win-win situation for both the community and the inmates themselves, according to Dave Scherbarth, associate warden at RCC.

“First and foremost, we are here to protect the public,” Scherbarth said. “But we believe we can have inmates in the community safely.”

No sex offenders are allowed at the RCC facility.

RCC is a 192-bed minimum security prison located eight miles north of the city of Rifle and part of the state Department of Corrections system. Along with community labor, it also offers inmates secondary education, vocational training and a reintegration program to successfully reintroduce inmates back into society upon their release. The prison is also home to a certified firefighting crew, which has responded to wildfires all over the state.

Glenwood Springs Independent

Return of The Pell Grant?

BY KEITH HERBERT

Citing research that shows inmates who take college courses are less likely to return to prison upon release, advocates said Thursday they hope the Paterson and Obama administrations will restart the state and federal programs.

Federal funding for prison higher education, in the form of Pell Grants, was cut in 1993 when then- President Bill Clinton signed anti-crime legislation. In New York, former Gov. George Pataki denied inmates access to the state's Tuition Assistance Program in 1995.

But with a new chief executive in Albany, and a new president in Washington in January, advocates hope to get funding restored, despite troubled financial outlook in both capitals.

"We should be relentless," said the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, president of SUNY at Old Westbury, who supports returning higher education funding to prisons. "We must not stop even in the face of this terrible financial crisis we find ourselves in."

Studies show that education of prison inmates, particularly higher education, reduces recidivism rates, said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit advocacy group in New York City.

A 1991 study of New York prisoners compared college program inmates with those who took no college courses and found that 26.4 percent of college program inmates returned to prison, compared with 44 percent of inmates who had no college courses while incarcerated, Gangi said.

Returning public money for prison higher education also pays off in the form of higher employment rates, less homelessness and lower rates of crime once inmates are released, he said.

"There could be significant return on investment," Gangi said.

New York's prison population has a high percentage of African-Americans when compared to their percentage of the population, mostly because state illicit drug laws are too harsh, Butts said.

However, the political climate is ripe for change, Butts said, because Gov. David A. Paterson is from Harlem, and President-elect Barack Obama worked as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, a historically black neighborhood.

In 1994, 27,000 inmates receive public money to take college courses while incarcerated, said Anna Crayton, deputy director of research with the Prisoner Re-Entry Institute at John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York City.

That figure dropped by 44 percent in the years following, Crayton said.

Jail Death Settlement at $3 Million Dollars

I can't tell you how lucky we are to have Darrold, David and Mari working for us in Colorado. They continue to keep the accountability card on the table at all times.

The city of Denver is poised to pay $3 million to settle a federal lawsuit brought on behalf of the family of Emily Rae Rice, who bled to death in the Denver City Jail while her cries for help went unheeded.

The settlement is the largest ever by the city in a personal-injury case, said Darold Killmer, the lawyer who represented the Rice family. The city also agreed to make significant changes in how it disciplines sheriff's deputies and how it handles inmates with medical problems.

"We call those 'Emily's rights,' " Killmer said.

The city's settlement follows an earlier $4 million settlement between the Rice family and Denver Health Medical Center, in which Denver Health also agreed to significant changes in patient screening and treatment at both the medical center and the jail.

Rice, 24, died Feb. 19, 2006, in the jail 20 hours after she was released from the hospital. She had suffered a lacerated spleen and liver and bled to death from injuries she sustained in a drunken-driving crash. Her injuries went undetected at the hospital, and her cries for help were ignored in the jail.

Her blood-alcohol content was 0.12 percent at the time of the crash. The legal limit for drivers in Colorado is 0.08 percent.

An internal-affairs investigation resulted in three-day suspensions for two deputies at the Denver jail who failed to make required visits to the wing where Rice died and then falsified reports. Another deputy, with past discipline problems, resigned after lying to investigators about making her required rounds.

The Denver Post

Mapping DUI's

BY NATE TAYLOR
NateTaylor @coloradoan.com

Local law enforcement agencies believe new maps will help them better enforce drunken-driving laws.

With the help of new data-plotting map technology implemented in the past year, Colorado State Patrol at Troop C in Fort Collins can see where the most DUI-related accidents have occurred during the past three years.

As a result, they can target their patrols to those areas.

"I think the biggest and the whole reason we did this is to focus our enforcement efforts," said CSP Captain Rob Marone. "The maps have helped our troopers to be able to find the areas that need the focus, and that's something we've not had in the past."

The maps feature color-coded pins indicating the locations of accidents and the types of accidents during each season. Marone said for now, the maps are used to pinpoint where activity occurs. With time, the troop will be able to see if it's making a difference by targeting patrols.

"It's our first year doing it, so there is no data to show the effectiveness yet," Marone said. "I hope it's something we can continue so we can compare our new efforts to our efforts before."

The map-plotting technology is not only benefiting the CSP troop but also the patrol division of the Larimer County Sheriff's Office.

LCSO Major Justin Smith said the collaboration between the two agencies has improved their ability to enforce the law.

The Coloradoan

DOC October Population Reports

October Population Reports

Criminal Justice Recommendations For New Administration

Released From The Sentencing Project last week-

"Americans of all political stripes, and especially professionals with experience in every aspect of the criminal justice system, recognize that the system is failing too many, costing too much, and helping too few," said today's report. Included among the recommendations to overcome these challenges are: · Eliminate the crack cocaine sentencing disparity; · Expand alternatives to incarceration; · Fund prisoner reentry through the Second Chance Act; · Extend federal voting rights to people released from prison; · Restore welfare and food stamp eligibility to individuals with drug felony convictions; and · Analyze and reduce unwarranted racial and ethnic disparity in the federal judicial system. The policy catalogue will be distributed to the Obama/Biden transition team and key leadership on Capitol Hill. The administration's transition team has already identified the need to eliminate crack cocaine sentencing disparities as one of its civil rights agenda items. Both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden have been supportive of criminal justice reforms while in the U.S. Senate and could aid efforts to address unfairness in the system. On the issue of crack cocaine sentencing, Senator Biden introduced, and Senator Obama cosponsored, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007 (S. 1711), which would eliminate the 100 to 1 quantity-based sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. The legislation would also focus federal law enforcement efforts on serious drug traffickers instead of the neighborhood crack sellers frequently targeted under current law.

Nationwide - Decrim Wins

Barack Obama wasn't the only big winner in Tuesday elections; marijuana polled just as well, if not better. A medical marijuana initiative in Michigan -- the first in the Midwest -- and a decriminalization initiative in Massachusetts both won by convincing margins, and scattered local initiatives on various aspects of marijuana policy reform all won, too.

In both the statewide initiatives, reform forces overcame organized opposition on their way to victory, mostly from the usual suspects in law enforcement and the political establishment. Michigan enjoyed the dubious distinction of a visit from John Walters, the drug czar himself, who popped in to rail against medical marijuana as "an abomination."

"We could be seeing a sea change in more ways than one in this election," said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), which backed both state initiatives. "These are not just wins, but huge wins. In two very blue states, marijuana reform outpolled Barack Obama. At this point, we can look members of Congress in the eye and ask them why exactly they think marijuana reform is controversial."

The results are also an indicator of the decreasing influence of the drug czar's office, said Mirken. "A clear public mandate has emerged, and it's particularly noteworthy coming as it does after eight years of the most intense anti-marijuana campaign from the feds since the days of Reefer Madness," he said. "Despite all the press releases and press conferences, despite all the appearances and campaigning Walters has done to try to convince Americans that marijuana is some sort of scourge, the voters just said no."

Stop The Drug War

Citing Workloads Public Lawyers Reject Cases

New York Times - Public defenders are notoriously overworked, and their turnover is high and their pay low. But now, in the most open revolt by public defenders in memory, many of the government-appointed lawyers say that state budget cuts and rising caseloads have pushed them to the breaking point.

In September, a Florida judge ruled that the public defenders’ office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many of those arrested on lesser felony charges so its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Over the last three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer in a year has climbed to close to 500, from 367, officials said, and caseloads for lawyers assigned to misdemeanor cases have risen to 2,225, from 1,380.

“Right now a lot of public defenders are starting to stand up and say, ‘No more: We can’t ethically handle this many cases,’ ” said David J. Carroll, director of research for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

The Miami-Dade case, which is being closely watched across the country, was appealed by the state, which says that defender offices must share the burden of falling revenues. On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court sent the case to an appellate court for a ruling. If the judge’s decision is upheld, it will force courts here to draw lawyers from a smaller state office and contract with private lawyers to represent defendants, at greater expense.
New York Times

Connerly May Turn To Prison Reform

Anti-affirmative-action guru Ward Connerly will likely halt his nationwide push to end race and gender preferences. Connerly, a part black California businessman, spoke with the Colorado Independent an hour after Amendment 46 toppled by an extremely thin margin.

The so-called Colorado Civil Rights Initiative was the first Connerly amendment to flop after making it onto a state ballot. It was also a key measure in Connerly’s Super Tuesday for Equal Rights campaign, a nationwide thrust to dismantle affirmative action programs in five states this year. In three of those states, the measure failed to make it onto the ballot, and Thursday, after a feverishly close tally, it collapsed in Colorado. Nebraska was the only state this year to approve the proposal.

In a wide-ranging, hour-long phone interview with The Colorado Independent, Connerly said he now intends to turn his focus to prison reform. He downplayed the importance of Colorado’s rejection of a ban on affirmative action programs, and also weighed in on President-elect Barack Obama’s historic win.

When asked how he planned to proceed now that Colorado voters had rejected Amendment 46, Connerly said that he might curb his 12-year-long effort, which produced wins in California, Michigan and Washington state in years past and in Nebraska this year. “Well, I love to read. I love to write. I do have other interests,” he said. “I would like to pursue those things. I would rather do those things than get involved in these initiatives.”

“Contrary to what is said, I don’t need this for my financial well-being. I don’t need it for my psychological well-being,” he added, referring to an allegation that he paid himself $7 million from the two nonprofits that funded his Super Tuesday for Equal Rights campaign. Connerly spent more than $350,000 in Colorado this year, according to campaign finance reports.

But rather than continue the fight against racial preferences, Connerly said he will focus on reforming the criminal justice system. He has developed a passion for the issue because, he said, “I know someone for whom I have great affection who is in this situation. I had to learn a lot more about the system than I ever knew before.”

Connerly said that in the past year, he has contributed “frequently and heavily” to Families against Mandatory Minimums, a national organization dedicated to changing sentencing laws. And he is a proponent of alternatives to incarceration, such as ankle monitors for some convicts.

“I don’t want to mislead you. I don’t want to say I am no longer going to be interested in race equality in our public policies,” he said. “I think this whole business of what we are doing to people who are incarcerated is far more pressing.”

The Colorado Independent

Ritter's Attempt To Cut Prison Rolls

Rocky Mountain News: It's time for some thinking outside the box when it comes to corrections - particularly as Colorado's recidivism rate, which is a measure of how many inmates wind up back in prison within three years of their release, has jumped to 53.4 percent. Gov. Bill Ritter wants to focus on stemming the flow of return offenders - and promises a hefty return on a relatively small investment.

But can Ritter's anti-recidivism plan - targeted at a prison population where 78 percent are said to have substance-abuse problems and 28.7 percent are deemed to be in need of mental-health services - really eliminate the need for growth in prison beds without jeopardizing public safety?

We think it's worth the investment to find out, while advising a healthy level of skepticism.

The governor touts his anti-recidivism package as costing $10.6 million in its first year while saving $380.5 million over five years. The bulk of those savings would come from not having to expand the Trinidad Correctional Facility by 2,061 beds but the savings also assume no more new beds throughout the entire system by fiscal year 2013-14.

Current Division of Criminal Justice statistics project 4,444 more offenders in the corrections system between the 2009-10 fiscal year and 2013-14. The governor's anti-recidivism plan promises to have 4,965 fewer offenders coming through the system in that time period. In other words, Ritter plans to halt the growth in incarcerated offenders - a laudable but highly ambitious goal given the history of the past two decades.

Rocky Mountain News

WESTWORD - Can A Troubled Colorado Prison Change The Way Inmates Think?

The newest article from Alan on our prison system appears in this weeks Westword. This time he takes on Cheyenne Mountain.

By Alan Prendergast

published: November 06, 2008

Subject(s):

Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center, Colorado Department of Corrections

Can a privately run "re-entry center" change the way prisoners think?

Jay Lewis assumes the position. He slouches, arms folded across his chest, knee bent and foot braced on the wall behind him. He looks like your typical green-tunic-clad felon, lazily taking in the passing show at the Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center, a 750-bed private prison in Colorado Springs.

"He's jailin'," explains fellow inmate Charles Cook. "That's something we try to deter. If I saw Mr. Lewis doing that for real, I'd pull him up on that and tell him that he's going back to his old behaviors."

Lewis straightens up immediately. "Thank you," he says. "I'll get right on top of that."

The demonstration is neatly scripted, like a lot of interactions among inmates at CMRC. But that seems to be part of the appeal of the place to prisoners like Cook and Lewis; it's a new script for convicts who've found that the old ways haven't gotten them anywhere they want to be. At CMRC, the trappings and the terminology defy expectation. Inmates are known as "residents" and call each other "mister"; the warden is the "director." Staffers dress like corporate executives and motivational coaches rather than prison guards. The living units feature spartan eight- and twelve-man rooms with bunk beds rather than barred cells. Huge signs line the corridors, exhorting residents in an almost Orwellian pitch:

IF YOU DON'T LIKE YOURSELF CHANGE

BE RIGHT-SIZED

MAKE BETTER DECISIONS

EXAMINE YOUR MOTIVES

ANGER IS ONE LETTER AWAY FROM DANGER

HAVE HOPE

Although classified as a medium-security prison, the facility is a radical departure from the typical lockup operated by the Colorado Department of Corrections. Most of CMRC's residents are nearing the end of their sentences and are likely to be paroled soon; about 20 percent are parole violators getting a little attitude adjustment before hitting the streets again. Under a DOC contract that pays the private operators $52 per head per day, the facility tries to prepare inmates for release by offering basic education, job-hunting and computer skills, drug treatment programs and classes in what could loosely be described as "lifestyle change" — efforts to challenge well-established prison culture by, for example, having inmates confront each other over unacceptable behavior.

There are eighteen possible levels of "intervention" that residents and staff can try, Cook explains, before a misbehaving resident might get thrown into the hole or out of the program. His mild rebuke of Lewis is known as a verbal pull-up, and the only right response to a pull-up is thank you, I'll get right on that. If a resident provides a less compliant answer, along the lines of get your face out of my business before I shank your sorry ass, stronger measures are taken. The offender might have to face his peers in a staff-run meeting, standing in a spot in the middle of the room marked by the outline of two large red feet.

"A lot of guys come here with a sense of closed-mindedness," Cook says. "We're just trying to open them up. There's no chain of command among residents, but there is a line of communication. We have static groups, we have hot seats, we have confrontation groups. Staff are present and overseeing things, but a great deal of it is actually facilitated by the residents."

Like many in his unit, Cook is a firm believer in the CMRC approach. He points proudly to his name listed as unit coordinator at the top of a "structure board," delineating the various lines of communication within his pod. He has been at the prison since February and expects it might be another year before he makes parole. "This is how I want to be when I'm released," he says. "I don't want to go back to DOC and get into a situation where I have to abide by that convict mentality."

Some residents can be almost evangelistic about the program, which they hope will better their chances of being granted an early parole. Serving a ten-year stretch for assault and burglary of a Taco Bell, Eric Erickson has been turned down by the state parole board three times already. He calls his arrival at CMRC three months ago "a huge blessing."

"It's not like DOC, where you can sleep and do nothing all day," he says. "At 6 a.m., it's feet on the floor for everyone. I've seen some good, positive things since I've been here. The staff are respectful and helpful, and I've seen this program help other inmates get out."

But not every journey through CMRC has been so positive. Regular visits by DOC monitors have turned up a slew of management and operational blunders at the prison since it opened three years ago. Documents obtained by Westword show a history of staff shortages and high turnover, inadequate training and security lapses, assaults and gang activity, and several instances of female staffers being fired for fraternization or even sexual relationships with residents. And some inmates who have completed the program claim the place has more problems with violence, contraband and bogus classes than the inspection reports suggest.

"It's a joke," says Douglas Bullard, a 45-year-old parolee who left CMRC in September. "The only time they had people doing what they were supposed to do was when the director was coming through with his cronies. Other than that, it's a free-for-all. You got kids running amok. You got people climbing around in the ceilings, breaking into offices and stealing stuff. You got booze, you got drugs, you got guys smoking in the bathroom. You're supposed to be confronted by other inmates, but the staff are the only ones who are doing it."

"There is very little control," adds Cecil Mercer, who left CMRC last summer after eleven months. "Every day someone gets beat down, and most of the time it's five or six on one. The last five or six months there, I did not feel safe."

Kevin Estep, CMRC's third director since it opened in 2005, insists that the situation has improved markedly since he arrived last spring and that inmates' stories about chronic assaults are greatly exaggerated. "I've heard the same things you've heard," he says. "But we haven't had a serious assault since I've been here. We do have fights, and we take those very seriously, but I've seen prisons that are much worse than what we have."

Officials at Community Education Centers, the New Jersey-based company that runs CMRC and other re-entry and halfway house programs in 22 states, acknowledge some "glitches" in the early phases of the Colorado Springs operation but point to the company's track record elsewhere. Research studies tracking ex-cons who've been through CEC facilities indicate that they are less likely to commit additional crimes than other parolees. "We've had some growing pains," says CEC senior vice president William Palatucci. "It hasn't been a perfect start-up, by any means. But we have a great deal of confidence in our model and the direction that we're heading."

WESTWORD

CA - Voters Oppose Proposition 5 and 6 and Support 9

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

(11-04) 23:04 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- California voters were trouncing a pair of contrasting anti-crime measures, one that aimed to shrink prisons and another that promised to grow them while boosting funding for law enforcement.

Proposition 5 would expand programs to divert drug addicts and nonviolent offenders from prison to rehabilitation. It was designed to keep them from cycling in and out of overcrowded prisons that cost taxpayers more than $10 million a year.

Opponents said the programs were ripe for abuse.

With about a third of precincts reporting, voters were also rejecting Proposition 6, which would require spending at least $965 million a year on programs for police, prosecutors, jails and juvenile lockups - a $365 million increase from current spending, said the state's legislative analyst. The measure would also increase some penalties for convicts.

A third measure backed by crime victims, Proposition 9, held a significant lead. It would allow victims to speak at bail hearings and limit a defendant's ability to gain evidence from a victim before trial. The measure would also limit the release of inmates due to crowding. That could cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, the legislative analyst said.

SF Gate

Staffing New Prison A Daunting Task

While Colorado has begun construction on a new 320-bed super maximum security prison, public officials are still wondering how it will be staffed adequately under a sluggish economy and a statewide hiring freeze.

Colorado State Penitentiary II (CSP II) is set to be completed by 2010 to assist in detaining what both law enforcement members and civil liberties advocates agree is a swelling inmate population.

But staffing the new prison could prove problematic during hard financial times when the state is trying to save money.

In September, following the national banking crisis, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter ordered the state to halt new construction projects and the hiring of new employees.

So far the hiring freeze only applies only to the 2008-09 financial year, and even if it was extended, there are provisions making budgetary exceptions for public safety projects such as the prison, which will be located in Cañon City.

“Still, it’s going to be a very daunting task in the state’s budget to staff all of CSP II, certainly,” said Rep. Buffie McFadyen, a Democrat from Fremont County where the prison will be located. “Especially since I’m not sure if we’ve completed staffing back before the last recession in 2001-02.”

Colorado experienced a 400 percent increase in the state’s prison population from 1985 to 2005, and since the beginning of the decade the population increased by nearly 7 percent from approximately 16,000 inmates in 2000 to 23,000 in 2008 (PDF), according to state reports.

The Colorado Independent

Governor Ritter's New Budget

Press Release

Prisons Benefit From Going Green

I'm surprised that the Governor hasn't jumped on this...

LITTLEROCK, Wash. — Of all the things convicted murderer Robert Knowles has been called during his 13 years behind bars, recycler hasn't been one of them.

But there he was one morning, pitchfork in hand, composting food scraps from the main chow line and coffee grounds from prison headquarters — doing his part to "green" the prison.

"It's nice to be out in the elements," said Knowles, 42, stirring dark, rich compost that will amend the soil at the small farm where he and fellow inmates of the Cedar Creek Corrections Center grew 8,000 pounds of organic vegetables this year.

Inmates of the minimum-security facility, 25 miles from Olympia, the state capital, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf.

"It reduces cost, reduces our damaging impact on the environment, engages inmates as students," said Eldon Vail, secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, which oversees 15 prisons and 18,000 offenders. "It's good security."

As around-the-clock operations, prisons are voracious resource hogs, and administrators are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and conserve energy and water.

In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion to feed, house, clothe, treat and supervise 2.3 million offenders, reports the Pew Center on the States.

To keep costs down, the Indiana Department of Corrections installed water boilers that run on waste wood chips and built a wind turbine at one prison that generates about 10 kilowatts an hour and saves $2,280 a year.

At Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, Calif., 6,200 solar panels send energy back to the grid, enough to power 4,100 homes a year.

At Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, Ore., inmates recycle scraps from old prison blues to make diaper bags for women's shelters and dog beds for animal shelters.

"We try to model pro-social behavior," said Vern Rowan, business manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections.

The Denver Post

Garfield County Civil Rights Lawsuit Costing Taxpayers

County attorney says ACLU lawsuit will force continued spending

By Pete Fowler
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado,

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — It’s cost Garfield County taxpayers well over a half-million dollars so far to defend against an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit claiming excessive use of force with Tasers and other problems at the county jail.

As of last week, Garfield County was billed $569,641 by a Boulder law firm for thousands of hours of work to lead the defense against the ACLU’s claims that were filed in July 2006, according to accounts payable records.

“It’s a tremendous amount of money that the taxpayers have spent on this case and will continue to spend,” said Garfield County attorney Don Deford. “The lawsuit has been brought, and we have to defend against it if we don’t agree.”

The figure doesn’t take into account costs of work the county attorney’s office has done to help defend against the ACLU’s claims. The county is also defending against four other ongoing lawsuits the Sheriff’s Office is involved in. But the county doesn’t have to pay anything for those cases outside of the dues it’s paying to an insurance carrier that’s covering those cases.

Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said the costly litigation could have been avoided if Sheriff Lou Vallario had been willing to discuss jail policy. But Vallario said the ACLU is on a mission to oppose the use of Tasers with frivolous lawsuits, and it will go jail to jail filing them until it finds a judge that agrees.

The law firm handling defense of the ACLU case is Berg, Hill, Greenleaf and Ruscitti, LLP. It has been submitting monthly bills based on a $200 per hour rate for the lead attorney, $180 per hour for two more attorneys working on the case, and $110 per hour for a paralegal. The largest bill was a June 2007 check for more than some people make in a year at $55,285.

Grand Junction Sentinel

Locking Down Rising Prison Costs

Friday, October 31, 2008

Gov. Bill Ritter wants to spend $10.6 million over the next two years in hopes of saving $380 million in prison costs in the coming five years.

Spending a little to save a lot is nearly always a sensible notion, so long as the anticipated savings are real and not pie-in-the-sky.

The vast majority of the savings in the governor’s prison reform program would come from one source — not building the planned $336 million addition to the state’s Trinidad Correctional Facility. That’s not pie-in-the-sky or smoke-and-mirrors savings. That’s real steel, bricks and concrete, the money for which wouldn’t be spent.

To achieve that, Ritter’s plan aims at reducing recidivism — crimes committed by those recently released from prison — which has been creeping up in Colorado in the past few years. It also calls for more prevention programs for troubled youths, and more diversion and substance-abuse programs for people convicted.

The goal is to reverse the forecast of 4,444 new state inmates in the next five years, and actually reduce the prison population by 521 inmates in that time.

That’s an unquestionably ambitious goal. But such programs are not without precedent. Here in Mesa County, a program to treat methamphetamine addicts, rather than sending them immediately to jail, has helped stem the growth in the county jail population. And, when 80 percent of people in state prisons are known to have substance-abuse problems, dealing with addiction clearly must be a top priority.

Grand Junction Sentinel

Prostitution On The Ballot In San Francisco

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — When Proposition K was added to Tuesday’s ballot, many people likely snickered at the possibility that San Francisco might take its place alongside such prostitute-friendly havens as Amsterdam and a few rural counties in nearby Nevada.

But this week, it became readily apparent that city officials are not laughing anymore about the measure, which would effectively decriminalize the world’s oldest profession in San Francisco. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other opponents seemed genuinely worried that Proposition K might pass.

“This is not cute. This is not fanciful,” Mr. Newsom said, standing in front of the pink-on-pink facade of a closed massage parlor in the Tenderloin district. “This is a big mistake.”

Supporters of the measure say it is a long-overdue correction of a criminal approach toward prostitutes, which neither rehabilitates nor helps them, and often ignores their complaints of abuse.

“Basically, if you feel that you’re a criminal, it can be used against you,” said Carol Leigh, who says she has worked as a prostitute for 35 years and now works as an advocate for those who trade sex for money. “It’s a really serious situation, and ending this criminalization is the only solution I see to protect these other women working now.”

The language in Proposition K is far-reaching. It would forbid the city police from using any resources to investigate or prosecute people who engage in prostitution. It would also bar financing for a “first offender” program for prostitutes and their clients or for mandatory “re-education programs.”

One of the measure’s broadest prohibitions would prevent the city from applying for federal or state grants that use “racial profiling” in anti-prostitution efforts, an apparent reference to raids seeking illegal immigrants.
New York Times