America Is Abolishing the Death Penalty—but Let’s Fix the Criminal Justice System

(TakePart)  Earlier this week, Nebraska became the first conservative state in 40 years to abolish the death penalty. The Republican-controlled legislature in one of the deepest-red states overrode the veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts, also a Republican, effectively dismantling what has been a cornerstone of conservative criminal justice policy for much of the last half-century. Nebraska lawmakers also voted to make life without parole the highest criminal penalty in the Cornhusker State.

With seven states in as many years abandoning the death penalty—for a total of 19 abolition states and 31 remaining death penalty states—it is heartening to see America moving toward an end to capital punishment. However, we must urgently, and smartly, fix the underlying issues that still drive people into the criminal justice system.

What Baltimore Tells Us About America’s Racism and Inequality

(TakePart)  The unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray—who died of a severed spine while in police custody—seemed to have caught elected officials, the public, and the media off guard. And those who are far removed from the problems, the challenges, and the indignities facing poor and disenfranchised communities in that city shake their heads in disbelief and wonder why this is all happening.

Surely, the distant observer or armchair pundit has questions. Why are they protesting? Why are they destroying their own neighborhoods? Why did they loot the CVS? Why didn’t the suspect simply comply with the police and avoid causing his own death?

These questions reflect the very real disconnect between the haves and the have nots in the land of the free, and the gaping chasm on matters of race. It’s impossible to comprehend what’s happening here and now—or know the issues we have yet to face—without having an intimate awareness of black America’s history.

Sorry Bill Clinton: The effects of your drug, prison policies need more than a ‘my bad’

(theGrio)  They always say better late than never.

But in the case of Bill Clinton’s apology for the war on drugs and mass incarceration, is it too much, too late?

President Bill Clinton admitted what few politicians ever do. He said he was wrong. He conceded that the policies of his administration played a role in today’s mass incarceration of America.

As CNN reported, the former president admitted that he and his administration touted the “three strikes” provision of his 1994 omnibus crime bill, while also pointing the finger at Republicans. The legislation provided for mandatory life sentences for people convicted of a violent felony after at least two prior convictions, including drug-related offenses.

America’s 1.5 million missing black men is nothing short of genocide

(theGrio)   Where have all the brothers gone?

The numbers are staggering.

According to a report in The New York Times, black women between the ages of 25 and 54 outnumberblack men by 1.5 million, based on an analysis of data from the 2010 U.S. Census. There were 7.046 black men of that age group not incarcerated, to 8.503 black women.

To put it another way, for every 100 black women, there are 83 black men. This is not the case in white America, where for every 100 women, there are 99 men, almost complete parity.

What that means, effectively, is that black men have disappeared. This reality lends credence to the idea that black men are an endangered species — not just symbolically or rhetorically, but based on the hard numbers.

Video visitation: Jails and corporations profit from the poor

(theGrio)  Video visitation is coming to a county jail near you.

Families can take advantage of new technology and talk to their loved ones through video conferencing. On the surface, the concept sounds good.

What could go wrong? What’s wrong is when you mix prisons and profits and companies make money off the backs of prisoners and their loved ones.

Texas is embarking on a revenue-generating scheme that is catching on across the country. Of the 254 counties on the Lone Star state, 13 have signed contracts with a private company to provide video visitation to inmates in county jails. Sixty percent of the people in Texas jails are awaiting trial and are guilty of nothing except not being able to afford to post bond, while the remaining 40 percent are serving a sentence.

Why Rand Paul’s presidential bid should matter to black America

(theGrio)  It is official.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is running for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. But why should black America care?

Pay close attention to his views on mass incarceration and the war on drugs, which could move the Republican Party forward on criminal justice reform and possibly attract blacks, younger voters and other Democratic base voters. But don’t lose sight of the senator’s past statements against civil rights, which sound a lot like the same ol’ GOP story. And that story, brought to you by the tea party, has not been very friendly to black people these days.

“I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government,” Paul said on his campaign website.

'Hurricane' Carter, may you rest in peace

With the death of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, we have lost a great fighter in the ring and a powerful advocate for the wrongfully convicted.  In many ways, he helped open the eyes of many to the injustices of a system that far too often throws innocent people behind bars.

Carter knew firsthand about the plight of the wrongly accused because he had spent 19 years behind bars for crimes he did not commit.  He and co-defendant John Artis were charged with a triple murder at the Lafayette Grill in Paterson, New Jersey in 1966.  There was little physical evidence in the case, and the so-called eyewitnesses who testified against them were two convicted felons.  And Carter and Artis maintained their innocence and passed a lie detector test.  However, an all-white jury found them guilty.  Carter was sentenced to three life sentences.

More at theGrio

In theGrio this week: Holder on sentencing reform, and civil rights families in shambles

Check out my two contributions to theGrio this week, including a report on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement on sentencing reform for low-level drug offenses, and a commentary on the sad state of affairs with the children of civil rights families.

This week: No Ray Kelly for Homeland Security, and California prison strike

A criminal justice double header this week:

In theGrio, my thoughts on why Obama should NOT tap NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly for the head of Homeland Security (hint: racial profiling).  Click HERE for more.

And in McClatchy-Tribune News Service, a look at the mass hunger strike taking place in California's prison system.  Click HERE for more.

Rikers Island Prisoners Were Left Out Of New York’s Evacuation Plan

Hurricane Irene is gone and the damage was done across the eastern coast of the U.S. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the shutdown of the city's transit system, and the evacuation of a quarter of a million people in low-lying areas. But the city had no plans to evacuate the 12,000 prisoners on Rikers Island. There was no plan because there is no plan, no plan in place to evacuate these incarcerated individuals in case of a disaster.

Really now?

I can't help but believe that if the island was occupied by investment bankers or other "important" people worthy of protection, perhaps like the Hamptons, maybe things would have been a little different. After all, prisoners are perhaps the least regarded segment of society. And while no harm was visited upon these prisoners this time around, what will happen the next time? Given the effects of global warming, more hurricanes and tornadoes surely will come--more frequently and more intense.

Disasters - whether environmental or financial, both of which include those created by human beings - impose a system of triage that negatively impacts the poor, neglected and politically powerless.

The U.S. saw that in action in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina six years ago. The impoverished black residents of the Lower Ninth Ward caught Hell, to be sure, and suffered the most damage as an indifferent federal government looked the other way. And the men, women and children who occupied Orleans Parish Prison at the time, the second-class citizens that they are, suffered some of the greatest injustices of the storm. Stray pets received better treatment. Guards left their posts unattended, with prisoners locked up without water, food or ventilation, and sometimes up to their chests in dirty water. As New Orleans was being evacuated, the sheriff declared "The prisoners will stay where they belong."

And that spirit of callous neglect is evident in today’s financial crisis, the product of an unsavory mix of greed on Wall Street, and greed and deregulation in Washington. Through their water carriers, plutocrats and oligarchs are using the recession as a pretext for austerity measures, a job-killing assault on poor, working and middle-class families. As a Koch Brothers-funded Congress and Tea Party-endorsed governors and state legislatures slash budgets and taxes for the rich in the name of deficit reduction, everyday folks are blamed for getting the country into the mess we’re in. And the everyday people are left to suffer in this bad economy.

But back to Rikers. It should not escape us that Rikers Island is about 95 percent black and Latino. The students in the New York City public school system, the largest district in the nation, are overwhelmingly of color--86 percent. Mayor Bloomberg controls both. And it is not such a stretch to suggest that the Big Apple's richest man and the thirteenth richest American may have interests that clash with New York's prisoners and public school students.

Black males in New York City have a 28 percent high school graduation rate and a 50 percent unemployment rate.  

Moreover, the mayor's two previous schools chiefs demonstrate a tendency to view public education as a commodity to be exploited by business executives for profit. His immediate past chancellor, Cathie Black, is a magazine executive with no education experience who suggested birth control as a means to solve classroom overcrowding. The man who headed the schools before Black, Joel Klein, is Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man and consigliere, hired to investigate (perhaps clean up) a scandal-plagued News Corp., and head up the corporation's new for-profit education division. Murdoch's hacking scandal just cost Wireless Generation, his education technology business, a $27 million contract with the state of New York-- most likely because hacking into students' records is generally frowned upon. I can't think of any corporation more averse to the interests of people of color than News Corp., the parent company the New York Post and Fox News, the former employer of madman and hatemonger Glenn Beck.

And so, the inmates at the Rikers penal colony likely have few champions, an unpopular constituency lacking any highly-paid lobbyists to do their bidding. Surely some of these captives have committed some heinous crimes. Others are caught up in the criminal justice system through no fault of their own, or due to racial profiling, or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let’s not forget, Rikers Island also holds people awaiting trial who couldn't afford their bail, some awaiting bail hearings and even those awaiting arraignment - all of whom are innocent under our justice system. Whatever the reason, the occupants of Rikers Island, Orleans Parish Prison and elsewhere are human beings entitled to basic human rights. One would think that these rights include the right to not be left to die during a hurricane.

Sadly, from the time that slaves were thrown overboard for the "safety" of a ship, whether ostensibly to fight the spread of contagion or to collect the insurance money, people of African descent have been no strangers to triage. The circumstances have changed since then, but have they really?

Harmful Policies Are Giving All Americans a Black Experience

Whenever you take a look at a bad law that is on the books, or a policy that the government has put into place, you can bet that someone paid for that.  And in this most horrid of political seasons, you'd better believe that attached to each deplorable piece of legislation is a sales receipt.

Case in point: the proliferation of guns in our urban centers.  It is an irresponsible policy, to be sure.  Garry McCarthy, Chicago's new police superintendent, told some truth-telling that you rarely hear from a public official in his position these days.  "So here's what I want to tell you.  See, let's see if we can make a connection here.  Slavery.  Segregation.  Black codes.  Jim Crow.  What did they all have in common? Anybody getting' scared?  Government sponsored racism. I told you I wasn't afraid [of race]. I told you I wasn't afraid," said Chicago's top cop.  He added: "Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country, and tell me if I'm crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children."

McCarthy received the predictable criticism from Andrew Breitbart, the gun lobby and others, but that doesn't change the fact that he spoke the truth.  In fact, their response validated the truthfulness of that which he spoke.  There is no reason for the sale, distribution and trafficking of these weapons of mass destruction, other than to kill people.  Corporate greed on the part of arms manufacturers has turned an obscure and anachronistic amendment dealing with militias into a license to kill, literally, on a massive scale.  The result is a gun for every American, with no system of licensing, registration and background checks.

And there is no valid or logical purpose for these guns, which injure nearly 100,000 Americans each year, killing a third of them and costing us $100 billion annually, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.  Of the large high-income nations, 80 percent of firearm deaths occur right here.  Over a million have died since Martin Luther King's assassination, and they are disproportionately black and brown.  In 2007, African Americans accounted for 13 percent of the population, but 49 of all homicide victims.  Black juveniles are five times more likely than their white peers to die from firearms.  And we export our violence to other countries.  The U.S. arms race fuels the Mexico drug war by supplying 70 percent of the weapons used by the drug traffickers in the carnage to our South.

The U.S. war on drugs has been an abysmal failure--primarily a war on poor people and black and brown people who fill the prisons and are separated from their families.  A color-coded law enforcement policy hunts for drug activity not in the affluent suburbs, but in the inner cities, where such activity is more conspicuous, out in the open.  President Jimmy Carter has called for an end to the global drug war, which was declared 40 years ago.  During that time, Carter noted, worldwide consumption of opiates has jumped 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and marijuana 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008.  Our drug policies have created a burgeoning prison population, busting at the seams.  With 743 people in prison for every 100,000, America boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world.  Government spending on incarceration has skyrocketed.  And I don't see anyone challenging us for bragging rights.  Over three percent of the U.S. adult population finds itself under the supervision of the criminal justice system, either in prison, on probation or on parole.

Meanwhile, America's attempts to craft positive alternatives to incarceration are thwarted by private prison profiteers, who lobby lawmakers, network and contribute handily to political campaigns, according to a new report from the Justice Policy Institute.  Private prison companies work hard to put more people behind bars, and their efforts have paid off, for them that is.  Last year, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies, generated over $2.9 billion in revenue.  The three major corporations have given $835,514 to candidates for federal office, over $6 million to state races, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying.  In case you believe that the Arizona immigration debate was really about the interests of ordinary Americans and safe and secure borders, keep in mind that 30 of the 36 Arizona lawmakers who sponsored that state's atrocious anti-immigrant, anti-Latino law received contributions from the private prison lobby.  Apparently, in the land of opportunity, if a profit can be made from the suffering of others, that extra buck has been tagged and will be claimed by someone.

And someone seeks to profit from the nation's failing public schools, which funnel poor, black and brown children into a school-to-prison pipeline.  Groups such as the Koch Brothers--financiers to the Tea Party--and the Amway and Blackwater-affiliated DeVos family are pouring resources into radical rightwing schemes to privatize public funds, kill the public schools and pocket the money.  When Tea Party types such as the Koch Brothers peddle vouchers and "school choice," feigning concern about poor children and children of color, it is time to walk the other way.  

African-Americans and Latinos are the disproportionate victims of the deregulation craze, which led to predatory lending, the Great Recession, and a foreclosure crisis that decimated homeowners of color and eviscerated billions in private wealth.  And at 16 percent, black unemployment has reached Depression-era levels, double that for whites.  For black men, it is 17.5 percent, and for black teens, 41 percent.  In New York City, 34 percent of black men between 19 and 24 are out of work and out of luck.    

But really, Americans as a whole are out of luck-- the victims of deceptive policies created in the backrooms and boardrooms, by corporate lobbyists and rightwing think-tanks, and paid for by the fortunate few under a legalized system of bribery called campaign finance.  Bad policies gutted Main Street, and facilitated a concept known as the jobless recovery.  The wealthy--getting richer by the day and paying less in taxes-- are sitting on their money.  They only need the rest of us to the extent that they can squeeze more money out of us.  Yet, there are no new jobs, and the poor have nothing to spend.

Some of those who are elected to serve the people are really on the take, water carriers for the plutocracy.  They are paid by wealthy interests to bring ordinary people down, to strip them down to the bone.  Dressed up as shared sacrifice, a regressive regime of trickle-down economics and union-busting has hollowed out working people.  Corporate socialism and welfare for the banks has meant austerity and crippling budget cuts for the common folk.   The hallmark of such policies is America's upward income redistribution and rising inequality, the shame of the industrial world.  The richest 400 Americans own $1.37 trillion, which is more than bottom 50 percent of all U.S. households combined.

And to that extent, everyone is having a black experience now.  Get used to it, or do something about it. In boom times and bust, Black folks in America are used to being poor, of living without, and making do with very little or nothing.  They always made it through with the help of the church, the blues, and each other.  But somewhere in there, there was a movement, too, hint hint.

America's "Shoot 'Em Up, Lock 'Em Up" Mentality Is Its Undoing

Remember all the talk of a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Since that time, U.S. defense spending has ballooned, nearly doubling since 2001.

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, it will be hard for the war hawks to defend keeping American troops in Afghanistan. But they will, even as a majority of people want to cut military spending in order to reduce the deficit, rather than cut important social programs such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. There's lots of money in the Pentagon, and a group of experts has recommended cutting almost $1 trillion from defense over the next decade. People know that the military-industrial-complex is a drain on the nation's economy -- a threat to economic security, and a parasite that is eating its host bit by bit.

It is hard to shake off bad habits and the U.S. has a number of them. This addiction to remaining in a permanent state of war is one of the largest and most problematic. There is the war on terror and the war on drugs. The former is used to justify the behemoth that is the national security apparatus. Meanwhile, the latter facilitates the growth of the prison-industrial-complex, and the incarceration of predominantly poor, uneducated black and Latino men, in a country with no jobs for them. These two systems are equally exploitative and destructive to human lives, and corporations have found their niche in profiting from the suffering of others.

And while profiting in such a manner is an unsustainable model for the long-term success of a nation, some remain undeterred from pursuing this path. America spends almost as much on military as the rest of the world -- combined. We imprison more people than any other nation, including the most repressive dictatorships you can imagine. In fact, the land of the free is home to only 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prisoners.

Here, we lock 'em up and shoot 'em up. And we'll go visit someone else's backyard and lock 'em up and shoot 'em up too. And our voracious appetite for guns at home perversely complements our lust for senseless war abroad. With 90 guns for nearly every 100 people, the U.S. is the most armed nation on the planet, and we have shocking homicide statistics to prove it. The second amendment is used as a pretext for an astounding level of gun proliferation that is unheard of in -- and incompatible with -- a stable democratic society. But we know that the National Rifle Association, which, by the way, is increasingly allied with right-wing extremists, militias and domestic terrorists, is funded by the gun industry to the tune of millions of dollars. This, as illegal firearms ravage our urban communities

If so-called American exceptionalism is to be found in war, then Americans are in deeper trouble than they realize. The U.S. has the most advanced military weaponry and high-tech toys for its soldiers to kill and destroy, while American cities crumble under the weight of their low-grade, early-twentieth century infrastructure. Europe and Asia are decades ahead in high-speed rail because they actually have it, and this nation elects politicians who attack high-speed rail as some big government welfare giveaway program. And the rest of the world laughs as we wage war on ourselves, with culture wars, a war on intelligence and progress, and assaults on women's rights, workers and immigrants.

Sounds like a winning strategy, if your goal is to fail miserably -- exceptionally miserably.

Disproportionality is Killing America

The word disproportionality has been on my mind a great deal lately. The definition of disproportionality is the state of lacking symmetry or proportion; of being out of proportion, as in size, shape or amount; of being unequal. In order to better understand the concept of disproportionality, consider a punishment of ten years' imprisonment for littering. Now that's out of whack. That's disproportionality.

Unfortunately, when you look around you at life in the United States, at the culture and the politics of the place, this country is rife with disproportionality. And it seems as is if this dysfunctional state of affairs has been normalized.

Children are introduced to this concept in public schools, with zero tolerance policies that lead to the expulsion, if not the imprisonment, of students for minor infractions and silliness. At the same time, troubled youth-- lacking outlets, encouragement, self-esteem, and a person who will listen-- have not learned conflict resolution skills. Their approach is to react to all arguments and perceived disses through acts of violence, you know, just like nations do.

America's criminal justice system certainly is disproportional. In the land of the free, 5 percent of the world's population boasts 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Bad drug laws and sentencing guidelines fill the prison cells with nonviolent offenders. The vast majority of these prisoners are black and Latino, not to mention poor and uneducated. The vast majority of the judges and lawyers are white. And not only are these poor black and Latino inmates warehoused in rural white districts, they are counted in the population of those districts, thereby benefiting those areas. In the days of the Great Recession, state governments are smothered by the prison boom, as corrections spending competes with education and social welfare, and aims to win.

Disproportionality reigns supreme in our economic, social and political systems. In America, guns are in abundance, while millions of people cannot find a job or afford to keep their home. There is a right to own a weapon, but no right to employment or shelter. Such is the state of affairs in a banana republic such as the United States, equally bankrupt in finances and ethics. And a small group of people have all of the money, or most of it, at least, with the top 1 percent owning 42 percent of the wealth. Corporations are people, too, with just as much freedom of speech as the average human being, and just as much of a right to pour millions of dollars into a political campaign. Banks destroyed that artifact once called the American middle class, yet were rewarded for their failure and greed with a bailout. We were told the perpetrators needed that money, or else the entire economic system would have collapsed. But where is the bailout for the victims?

These days, the U.S. Senate is one of the more blatant examples of pure disproportionality in action. In this august body, great ideas find their final resting place, and laws are sold to the highest bidder. Under Senate rules, the minority has the power to control the game, although they lost the election. An individual senator can become king or queen for a day, a petty dictator with the power to shut down the entire joint by simply blocking the body's ability to vote. One person--whether through a manifestation of greed, vanity, cruelty, ignorance, mental instability, or other--can deny a million people an extension to their unemployment benefits, furlough thousands of federal workers, block a White House nominee, or shoot down crucial health care or financial reform. These are things of which crumbling empires are made.

Disproportonality from within, disproportionality from without. A nation that is supposedly broke has adequate resources to fight two unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and accounts for 41.5% of the world's military expenditures. America maintains military bases in many countries, including wealthy and technologically advanced countries such as Germany, Japan and South Korea. And as their children are groomed for a high-tech world of computers, millions of America's children are hungry, undereducated, and groomed for a life behind bars. And yet, the U.S. has to protect these nations because they are vulnerable?

Am I the only one who is concerned here? Perhaps I'm just blowing all of this out of proportion.

New census prisoner policy could benefit American cities

From theGrio:

America's prison population could play an important role in the country's redistricting battles, and help reshape America's electoral map.

A new federal policy will change the way in which prisoners are counted in the 2010 Census. Census officials plan to make prisoner data available earlier than in past years. Prisoners were always counted in the national tally, but the federal government provided prisoner data to states after they completed their redistricting. Now, states will have access to that information prior to redistricting.

This move is important because now, the states will now have the option of counting prisoners based on their home districts--typically urban areas--rather than the rural districts where many of them are imprisoned. Districts with prisons have received more federal dollars because they were able to use their inmate headcount to boost their population. Meanwhile, urban areas have experienced a drop in federal funds, and a loss of representation in Congress, because their populations have declined. After all, the cities have involuntarily donated many of their young men, and increasingly women, to fill up these rural penitentiaries.

And we cannot escape a discussion of the racial dynamics involved in the counting of prisoners. Inmates throughout the United States are disproportionately of color. Nearly two-thirds of America's prisoners are black and Latino. At the same time, the prisons that house these inmates are in predominantly white neighborhoods. With globalization, outsourcing and the shipping of jobs overseas, the prison town has replaced the factory town in depressed, rural white areas. The prison boom has benefited them. But for the inner cities, there is merely more despair.

Some have compared this dynamic to the Three-Fifths Compromise of 1787, which allowed Southern states to count three-fifths of their slave population, who could not vote, for the purposes of tax distribution and Congressional representation. The compromise artificially inflated the influence of the South, on the backs of African-Americans who were regarded as less than human. Similarly, today the warm bodies of black and brown prisoners, who cannot vote, are counted for the benefit of the white communities that imprison them.

In New York, seven state senate districts meet minimum population requirements solely because they count incarcerated people in their population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. With 44,000 mostly black and Latino New York City residents counted as residents of upstate prisons, these small towns are receiving undeserved political clout. And according to a recent report, 1,912 of the 6,980 residents in Brown County, Illinois, were inmates in 2000. The county's black population was 1,265, fully one-fifth of the total population. However, 1,260 of them--99.6 percent of the county's African-Americans-- were prisoners.

But the new census policy is welcome news for cities that are running out of people and running out of money. The recession is crippling municipal and state budgets alike. But so, too, is unchecked prison growth. One should not underestimate the crippling effects of the prison spending boom on urban life, in the nation that locks up more people than any other. Families are separated not only by prison bars, but often by hundreds of miles. Poor families of the incarcerated often cannot go upstate to visit their loved ones on lockdown, or can do so only through great personal and economic sacrifice. In the case of rehabilitated and nonviolent offenders who don't belong behind bars, their communities are suffering from their absence. They could be raising their families, engaged in occupations, and contributing to the neighborhood as leaders and productive members of society.

Cities are the lifeblood of America, as centers of business, media, culture, learning and the arts. But they have been losing out in recent years, as rural communities have exploited these ghost constituents of color that live behind bars. The new census rules will help urban areas flourish by allowing states to count prisoners in their home districts. A number of states have introduced similar census reform legislation. This is a good start. The next step is to bring some of these prisoners home.

California chooses education over prisons

From theGrio:

With California a fiscal basket case, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently unveiled a draconian 2010-2011 budget for his state. He hopes to close a shortfall of nearly $20 billion through $6.9 billion in federal funds and $8.5 billion in budget cuts. On the chopping block are state aid to public transportation, schools, services for immigrants, in-home care and prisoner health care. Plus more than 200,000 children will no longer be eligible for health insurance.

Part of the problem is that prison spending is too costly, unsustainable, and indefensible. In California, prisons eat up over 10 percent of the state budget, while the state's public universities are only 7 percent. And California spends $18,000 more per prisoner than the ten largest states, according to the Governor's office.

Schwarzenegger recently proposed changing the state constitution so that no less than 10 percent of the budget would be allocated for higher education, and no more than 7 percent would be spent on prisons. California has the right idea when it comes to ending its prison boom and investing more in its future. But other states should follow suit as well.

"Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future," Schwarzenegger said in his January 6 State of the State speech. "What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns? It simply is not healthy. I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education."

For the Golden State-- the largest economy in America, crippled by high unemployment and the housing crisis--harsh fiscal realities are forcing lawmakers to seriously question the ways in which taxpayer funds are allocated. In many ways, California's prison problem is a profoundly American story, the culmination of years of misplaced priorities and failed policies.

Politicians, eager to please voters with a tough-on-crime stance, passed draconian laws that were popular yet made no sense. These unfair laws--with catchy names such as "Three Strikes"-- led to a swelling of the prison population, with more people behind bars and with longer sentences. Special interest groups such as the powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) have donated millions of dollars to political campaigns and successfully lobbied for stiff drug laws and longer prison terms. Prison overcrowding has become such a problem that a federal court found the conditions unconstitutional, and ordered California to cut its prison population by as many as 55,000 inmates.

The poor, African Americans and Latinos have been disproportionately affected by the prison boom. Three-quarters of incarcerated men in California are of color.

Meanwhile, California's students cannot afford to go to college. The state's public university system has suffered from budget cuts and a recent 32 percent tuition hike, which has sparked student protests.

Throughout the country, state governments are faced with a cash shortage and expensive, burgeoning prison populations. Unfortunately, desperation often serves as a factory for bad ideas. For example, Arizona is considering privatizing its 40,000 inmate prison system, including its death row. And Pennsylvania has decided to ship 2,000 prisoners to cash-needy Michigan and Virginia in February to address overcrowding issues.

But ultimately, states cannot outsource, privatize or ship all of their problems away. The answer is to develop thoughtful and effective alternatives to incarceration, decriminalize nonviolent drug offenses, and broaden opportunities for educational and economic advancement. And Black and Latino youth should have a future filled with something better than prison bars. Spending more on prisons than colleges is a recipe for disaster.

New York's Juvenile Prisons Are A Crime

If you can judge a society by the way it treats its children, then New York fails in a big way. In fact, the Empire State should be found guilty of child abuse and neglect.

The New York Times recently reported on the deplorable state of New York's juvenile justice system. Gov. David Paterson appointed a task force to look into the matter. A draft report prepared by the task force--a stinging indictment of the state's treatment of juveniles in state custody--comes three months after a federal investigation found constitutional violations at four facilities. The abuse was so severe, including broken bones, concussions, knocked-out teeth and other injuries, that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) threatened to take over the prison system.

The task force was assembled as a result of years of complaints, and incidents such as the death of an emotionally-disturbed 15-year-old boy after he was pinned down by prison staff. The bottom line is that New York's juvenile centers are broken, expensive, unfair and a failure.

It is shocking that the state spends close to $210,000 per year to incarcerate a youth. More than 1,600 juveniles enter the system each year. In these days of budget cuts, shortfalls and economic triage, that is money that will not go to that child's education and development. What does the taxpayer, or the juvenile, for that matter, actually get for $210,000? Not much, it appears. Although the system was meant for those juveniles who are a danger to society if not themselves, there is no system to assess whether they are a risk to public safety. Over half of the children are placed in these detention centers for misdemeanor offenses such as drug possession, truancy and theft. And three-quarters of those youths who are released from custody return within three years.

Many of these children have problems that are not being addressed, including developmental disabilities, drug or alcohol addiction problems, and mental illness. But the facilities are understaffed, with only 55 psychologists and clinical social workers, and absolutely no psychiatrists that can prescribe medication. Moreover, juveniles are locked up with violent adult criminals and susceptible to physical abuse, while staff use force as a form of discipline for the most minor infractions.

Race and the criminal justice system are inseparable, and the New York system is proof of that. Blacks and Latinos are less than half of the state's juvenile population. Yet, at over 80 percent, black and Latino youth are the overwhelming majority of the occupants of its juvenile prisons. And while seventy-six percent of these children come from the New York City area, they are imprisoned upstate, far away from their families, out of reach, and accessible only through a great expense. With a median age of 16 and one-third of them reading on a third grade level, they have learned nothing in a school system that has failed them. Not surprisingly, they receive no education in these centers.

"The DOJ report makes clear what many system stakeholders have been saying for a very long time: namely, that New York's juvenile justice system is failing in its mission to nurture and care for young people in state custody," the task force said of the previous federal investigation. "The state's punitive, correctional approach has damaged the future prospects of these young people, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, and violated the fundamental principles of positive youth development." Further, the task force concluded that New York State is endangering the public by placing thousands of children in these facilities.

The report concludes that institutionalizing youth should only be used as a last resort for small percentage of them, and to protect public safety. In those cases, the goal should be to rehabilitate them, rather than harm or harden them. Some of the recommendations made in the report include reducing the use of institutional placement; addressing the racial disparities; reinvesting in communities, expanding community-based alternatives to institutional placement; funding education and mental health treatment programs that prepare juveniles for release and reentry, and creating a system of transparency and accountability.

For those who are familiar with the dysfunction and inequities of the criminal justice system, this report should not be surprising. This author has no shortage of commentaries written on this very subject. Nevertheless, this report should shock the conscience of expert and layperson alike. In poor communities and communities of color, children are funneled through a cradle-to-prison pipeline, as the Children's Defense Fund so effectively reported in recent years. With a broken education and no employment opportunities, these children are being set up for a life behind bars. Schools are a holding pattern for prisons, and with metal detectors and armed police with the power to arrest, many urban schools resemble prisons. Society's answer is to incarcerate more and more people, and to criminalize and punish at a younger age. This tragic situation plays itself out throughout the nation, with the same results. And as the nation with the world's largest prison population, what does America have to show for it?

Gov. Paterson's task force report provides a warning not only to New York concerning its miserable juvenile justice system, but to other states as well. And in the end, they should be applauded for finding constructive solutions to a problem that should concern us all. In Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, California, Texas and everywhere else, no longer can we ignore the consequences of our inaction.

Absolute Corruption is the Rule in America

Often, people will look at a high-profile example of corruption, and conclude that the egregious act is an exception to the rule. In reality, it might be the tip of the iceberg.

On October 29, 2009, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania did a wonderful thing when it expunged the records of as many as 6,500 juveniles in Luzerne County. That’s not a misprint.
 
Two judges in that county were sent up the federal river for locking up thousands of innocent children over five years, in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks from private juvenile detention centers.  Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan helped the developers secure the county contracts to build the prisons.  Moreover, they filled the detention centers with warm bodies— many of whom were first-time offenders with minor infractions— and illegally denied the teens access to an attorney.

In the case of Luzerne, the “cash for kids” scheme was a coldblooded expression of greed, and we should not downplay the seriousness of the crimes committed.  Yet, what happened in this rural county in northeastern Pennsylvania is a reflection of what America’s criminal justice system has become— a for-profit, money-making enterprise. 

Often, our poorer children, disproportionately of color, are funneled into a cradle-to-prison pipeline through adulthood.  With a criminally negligent public school system, and job opportunities outsourced abroad, many children at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are ensured a future of little else than street corners or prison bars.  In fact, many urban schools are nothing more than prison prep, complete with police and metal detectors. 

Interestingly, the children of Luzerne, a county which is nearly 97% white, did not resemble the “usual suspects” in the criminal justice system.  But that really is not the point— when prisons are a capitalistic endeavor, warm bodies are needed as the raw materials, and so they must come from somewhere.  And consequently, justice takes a backseat to dollars.  From the foodservice industry and the phone companies, to the Wall Street bankers and the investors, many people have a vested interest in filling up those empty prison beds and maximizing their cut.  American capitalism made the U.S. prison population the world’s largest at 2.5 million, with mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses and victimless crimes.

And American-style capitalism is problematic for the culture of corruption it has enabled, in the absence of an effective regulatory framework.  Much attention has been paid to Bernie Madoff, that poster child of the Ponzi schemes, who defrauded investors out of $65 billion.  The damage he created is impressive, from the family savings that were forever lost, to the charities that went under.  But like the judges in Luzerne County, Madoff was merely a cog in a wheel of corruption that enabled greed.

Madoff himself said he was surprised his scheme lasted so long, and that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigators were so clueless about his fraudulent activities over 16 years.  The fact is, some members of the SEC staff were inexperienced or just idiots.  Further,Madoff had too much credibility with the SEC and was not properly investigated, with red flags uncovered yet ignored. 

With the deregulation of the financial sector and the evisceration of the Glass-Steagall Act came the financial crisis of 2008.  The system had become the Ponzi scheme.  The economy was built on paper shuffling and no tangible products.  Consumers were preyed upon with sketchy, deceptive and destructive subprime mortgages.  Banks gambled people’s money in high-risk, high-stakes poker games.  And with a revolving door between Wall Street and the Treasury department, the same people with the gambling problem are running the casino, and “monitoring” it as well. 

The banks that ruined the country swore by the free market when it suited them.  But now, they gladly accept their corporate welfare bailout checks, and scoff at the rest of us.  Wall Street has rebounded, business as usual, and Gordon Gekko is smiling.  Meanwhile, America’s former middle class is joining the ranks of the poor, and the foreclosed are filling the nation’s homeless shelters.  Short of bold government action of Rooseveltian proportions, there will be no economic recovery for everyday people.  After all, the unemployed, the homeless, and the soon-to-be unemployed and homeless generally are not big spenders.

The moneyed interests also have corrupted the political process, and a prime example is the behavior of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and the “Blue Dog” Democrats in the health care reform debate.  Lieberman has earned a special place in the hearts and minds of progressives of late for vowing to stand with Republicans, and filibuster any health care bill that contains a public option.  He has even said he would rather have no bill at all than a bill with a public option.

In American political folklore, the Senate is presented as an august deliberative body where cooler heads prevail, where genteel statesmen and stateswomen put the brakes on rash and potentially harmful legislation, for the betterment of all.  In reality, the Senate is a place where bold legislation for the public good is killed, because industries put a contract out on democratic ideas.  And they instruct their employees, the senators, to stop these ideas in their tracks.  This is a bipartisan endeavor.  The Blue Dog Democrats, who are the self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives of their party, distinguish themselves from other Democrats by their greed and hypocrisy.  They receive the most corporate money, and have rejected less costly health reform bills that would hurt their benefactors.  Ask Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chair of the Senate Finance committee, and a key player in this year’s health reform debate.  Baucus received $3.4 million from health and insurance industry interests between 2003 and 2008, more than any other member of Congress.  Judging from the sad excuse for a health reform bill that came out of his committee, the industry got its money’s worth.

And Lieberman, the dirty dog that Democrats love to hate, is a fully-owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.  Over the course of his career, he has received $2.6 million from the insurance companies.  In addition, his wife is a health care industry lobbyist.  Despite the overwhelming popular support in Connecticut for a public option, Lieberman has decided to follow the money.  The Democrats must take Lieberman to the woodshed for his double-crossing ways, and relieve him of his coveted chair in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee.  Not to be outdone, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), whose wife has made at least $2 million sitting on the board of a major health insurance company, hinted that he would filibuster the public option as well.  Apparently, faced with the prospect of the Democratic leadership opening a big can of whup ass on him, he backed off.

The problem here is not just Senators Lieberman, Baucus, Bayh and a few other unscrupulous politicians.  The fact is the entire political game, the link between money and politics, is rancid and is killing democracy.  In the case of health care reform, the corrupting influence of money is literally sucking the country’s life blood. 

As in the days of old before the 1929 stock market crash and the New Deal, corporations have far more influence in this society than they are entitled.  Citibank gleefully proclaimed in a series of reports in 2005 and 2006 that the U.S. is a plutonomy— a system of wealth inequality in which the richest 1% hold a disproportionately large share of wealth.  The rich are likely to get even wealthier, at the expense of labor.  This rising inequality, Citibank predicts, will lead to a political backlash. 

And some backlash is needed now.  It is certain that the outrageous displays of greed and corruption deserve our attention and our outrage.  But to dismiss them as exceptions to the rule, rather than products of a systemic, vulturous culture that must be attacked, is to choose a perilous path.   

Ohio rapist shows high price of prisons ignoring rehabilitation

From theGrio:

http://www.thegrio.com/2009/11/ohio-rapist-shows-high-price-of-prisons-ignoring-rehabilitation.php 

Second Chance for Michael Vick and Other Ex-Felons

Much has been said about Michael Vick’s return to the NFL after serving 18 months in a federal prison for dog fighting.  And I don’t have too much more to add to the discussion.  As a pet owner, I cringe at the thought of someone torturing puppies.  At the same time, there are many people in this world that are not treated as well as dogs.  And not so long ago, this country used dogs as a weapon to torture other people.

I’d imagine that Vick has had more than ample time to ponder over his poor life choices, and the stupidity and cruelty that cost him a $130 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons.  The Philadelphia Eagles are giving him a second chance, and I guess that’s their decision.

But there are thousands, no, millions, of everyday people who have served their time and paid their debt to society, yet they can’t get a minimum wage job flipping burgers.  They need a second chance just to survive. 

This army of lost men and women is unable to support their families and become productive members of society because society will not let them.  They wear a scarlet “F” for felon on their shirt.  And they are punished not only for the crimes they committed.  They receive extra punishment above and beyond their sentence, in the form of life, career and educational opportunities from which they are forever barred.  A person with a criminal record cannot work in certain occupations, is ineligible for certain college tuition loans, and may not qualify for public housing and other public welfare benefits.  That is the sign of a society built on vengeance and retribution, rather than rehabilitation.  It is what some observers call a public banishment or civil death.  Society has cast out the individual in a sense— unable to fully participate in a free society after regaining freedom, remaining a virtual prisoner even after the bars are removed.

And what has all of this punishment for punishment’s sake actually done for America?  The tough on crime approach has helped the careers of some politicians, but surely it hasn’t made us any safer.  I suppose there are some crimes that merit prison time, and people must be held accountable for the harm they do.  But there are few creative, constructive forms of alternative punishment that make the community whole and make the prisoner a better individual. 

At the same time, the U.S. has an overdependence on incarceration, if not an addiction to it.  The nation uses prison bars as its primary method of social control, and as a way to earn profits, too.  The so-called “land of the free” has the most prisoners— in absolute numbers and per capita—in the world.  One in four of the world’s prisoners are locked up in a nation with only 5% of the world’s population.  Brutal dictatorships and repressive communist regimes don’t even come close. 

Broken schools, poor healthcare and early childhood development, and the disappearance of jobs prepare many poor children for little else than a cradle-to-prison pipeline.  Prison walls do not create nurturing environments, but more proficient criminals, who during their lives walk through a revolving prison door.  Many are imprisoned for nonviolent, drug-related offenses for longer and longer periods of time.  Three-strikes laws and other draconian sentencing schemes are way out of proportion to the crimes committed.

The consequences of over-punishment are seen across the country, as states in need of cash cannot afford their ballooning prison budgets.  In California, a federal court has ordered the state to reduce its overcrowded prison population by 40,000 inmates.  If so many inmates are to be released, it makes you realize that many of them probably shouldn’t have been in there in the first place.

America’s reliance on punishment only serves to break up families and communities, rarely helping to rebuild them or those who have served their time.  Many would be surprised to know that the right to vote, a cherished right of citizenship, is denied to 5.3 million Americans with felony convictions.  These felony disenfranchisement laws are a holdover from the Jim Crow era, a time filled with all sorts of bad intentions.  This madness must stop, and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI) have introduced legislation to restore voting rights in federal elections to millions of disenfranchised people.  How do you expect ex-felons to become productive citizens when they can’t find a job, can’t afford to better themselves through education, and can’t even vote?       

Some are behind bars for the crimes they have committed.  Others are there for crimes they did not commit.  Either way, when they return to the street, the punishment continues.  Punishment on top of punishment does not work, and we have to build up the formerly incarcerated so they do not fall down again.  We have to ensure that they have the opportunity to contribute as full-fledged members of society.

Plea Bargains In The Criminal McJustice System

By David A. Love, Daily Kos and Open Salon

In Philadelphia, it is time for a new district attorney. The current D.A. Lynne Abraham is retiring, and none too soon— after 18 years in the position, she has been called “America’s deadliest D.A.” for her exceptionally voracious appetite in seeking the death penalty. Without question, most of the people sentenced to death were African American.  

A report by the Death Penalty Information Center noted that Amnesty International characterized Pennsylvania’s death penalty as one the most racist in America. Philadelphia, with 14% of Pennsylvania’s population, has accounted for more than half of the state’s death sentences. Further, Blacks in Philadelphia were far more likely to get the death penalty than similarly situated defendants—3.9 times to be exact. The report also said the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania’s death row prisoners are Black, and 84% of death row inmates from Philadelphia are Black. 

Yet, despite the complaints about Abraham over the years, someone voted her back into office, election after election, didn’t they?

Seth Williams recently won the Democratic primary for the D.A.’s race, which means he stands a better than good chance of becoming Philadelphia’s next prosecutor in this heavily Democratic city. If he wins, he will have lots of power. But will he use those powers for good? His platform looks promising, including dealing with violent rather than nonviolent crime, employing preventative measures, and most of all, reducing the number of plea bargains.

A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case where the defendant pleads guilty to a crime—usually to a lesser crime than the original charge—and waives his or her right to a jury trial, and the right against self-incrimination. At its worst, I view plea bargaining as a shortcut to justice, sometimes an injustice in and of itself. A plea bargain is to justice what fast food is to gourmet cooking. Quicker doesn’t necessarily mean better, and 90% of criminal cases end up in plea bargains. It gives the impression that justice is a deal that can be bartered. Perhaps these plea bargains are the grease that helps to lubricate an often frustratingly slow and overburdened justice system. Or perhaps they are the grease that clogs up the arteries of the justice system, and makes that system hardened, calcified, inelastic and diseased— unable to allow justice to flow.

Perhaps some plea agreements serve a legitimate purpose. But what happens when the defendant didn’t commit a crime at all, and is pressured into taking the deal by his or her defense lawyer or coerced by the D.A.? What if the crime should not have been prosecuted at all, such as the case of marijuana possession, or a good kid with no prior offenses? A criminal record—in most cases secured as a result of a plea bargain, whether or not the defendant actually did the crime—can mean prison time, social stigma, and a bar to many educational and employment opportunities. Prosecutors have a lot of power, and they have a lot of discretion in deciding who gets prosecuted and for what offenses. They may choose not to prosecute a nonviolent, victimless crime, or choose not to seek punishment that serves no legitimate social purpose. And as they say, you can indict a ham sandwich.

The fact of the matter is that many prosecutors build their careers on the backs of the prosecuted. The number of convictions one racks up become notches in the belt of one’s political career, rungs in the ladder of success. And whether those people actually committed crimes is secondary in importance, if important at all. 

The American Bar Association (ABA) Rules of Professional Conduct, as well as the Pennsylvania rules, say the following about the role of a prosecutor:

Rule 3.8 Special Responsibilities Of A Prosecutor

The prosecutor in a criminal case shall:

(a) refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause;

(b) make reasonable efforts to assure that the accused has been advised of the right to, and the procedure for obtaining, counsel and has been given reasonable opportunity to obtain counsel;

(c) not seek to obtain from an unrepresented accused a waiver of important pretrial rights, such as the right to a preliminary hearing;

(d) make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense, and, in connection with sentencing, disclose to the defense and to the tribunal all unprivileged mitigating information known to the prosecutor, except when the prosecutor is relieved of this responsibility by a protective order of the tribunal.

 
The realities of how some prosecutors behave fly in the face of these sensible rules— rules which assume that the ultimate goal is getting to the truth, rather than the personal aggrandizement of the lawyers and others who oversee the criminal justice system.  

Consider the town of Tenaha, Texas, where the D.A. and the police are being sued for, literally, highway robbery: A federal class-action lawsuit alleges that cops have been illegally stopping hundreds of mostly out-of-town, Black and Latino motorists, and giving them the choice of taking a felony charge, or handing over their money and valuables. A black grandmother from Akron, Ohio was forced to give up $4,000 after Tenaha police pulled her over. Meanwhile, an interracial couple from Houston surrendered over $6,000 to police, who had threatened to take their children and place them in foster care. Between 2006 and 2008, the town has seized around $3 million under this perverse use of Texas’ forfeiture law, which requires such seized money to be used for law enforcement purposes. But in Tenaha, proceeds from these illegal seizures went to a church and a little league baseball team, and one officer received a $10,000 check. “We try to enforce the law here,” George Bowers, the town’s mayor said. “We’re not doing this to raise money.”

And consider the town of Tulia, Texas (there seems to be a pattern with these Texas towns), where a racially-motivated drug sting led to the arrest of 46 people, nearly all African American, on bogus drug charges. No drugs, money or weapons were seized because no crimes had been committed. Yet, some of these people were sentenced to very hard time, 99 years in one case. Fourteen of the defendants took pleas and were sent to prison. Prosecutors relied on the testimony of a sketchy undercover narcotics agent with a checkered past. The regional, 26-county drug task force that masterminded the sting was allowed to play by its own rules. They received federal money, and were funded based on the number of arrests and convictions they helped win. Such disasters cannot occur without the participation of sheriff's departments, disreputable police officers and unscrupulous district attorney's offices that are looking to make that big score.  

And society participates in the madness by putting profit into imprisonment, and by endorsing public officials who thrive on a “tough on crime”, “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” stance.

Two judges in Luzerne County, PA were looking for that big score when they collected $2.6 million in kickbacks from private juvenile detention centers. In return, the judges helped the centers secure their contracts, and filled the centers with over 5,000 children, many first-time offenders who committed minor offenses. The judges denied many of these juveniles access to an attorney. Like the law enforcement agent or the prosecutor who racks up arrests or convictions for personal advancement, it is amazing what happens when dollars are at stake.

When justice is reduced to a hustle or a deal—not unlike the economic system that the justice system has undergirded for so long—we all become cheapened in the process. And all you have left is a fast food justice system, a McJustice system.