Cruel and Unusual: Arpaio's new jail visitation limits hurt families, children.

(EDITED 1/31/2014 12:15pm)

I discovered that visits have been reduced to one 30 minute visit/prisoner today when I went to visit someone at the jail, and my heart sank. This reduction in visits to only one 30-minute visit each week (and a max of 2 visitors) must have been devastating for prisoners and their loved ones when it went into effect - still is, I would bet. I hope people are grieving this policy and sue over it, especially since the mail policy still only allows for postcards - no letters are allowed in unless they qualify as legal mail. That means no paperwork about one's medications, or one's rights while incarcerated, or issues related to one's case unless a lawyer sends it. They don't even allow letters from children, or cute pencil drawings on the postcards. It's bad enough to do that to someone who has been convicted of a crime - but, as Kelly Flood from the AZ ACLU said: 

"It seems particularly unjust and unfortunate when we’re talking about pre-sentence detainees,” Flood said. “For those folks to be completely deprived of their families’ visitation, it’s unjust and unfortunate and dehumanizing."

Many are trapped in pre-trial custody just because they can't afford bail, not because they are necessarily more dangerous or guilty or evil than those who are free pending trial. Do you know how hard it is to defned yourself when all the information you can get from the outside world is what Sheriff Joe allows on the TV screen and what you can get from a postcard?

So many folks in the general public say criminals shouldn't have the right to visits, that it's a privilege for the law-abiding that they don't deserve, but maintaining family connections is critical to mitigate the harm that incarceration does to the imprisoned as well as their loved ones, like their kids, who are undoubtedly being hurt by losing contact with their parents. 

This visitation restriction is probably also pretty hard on the mentally ill being held in solitary confinement, getting only more disturbed the more they're isolated, abused, and separated from support. Evidence-based practice suggests that visitation and close family/community ties are critical for helping prisoners succeed once back in the community...unfortunately, the MCSO doesn't abide by contemporary professional corrections practices, as we can all see.


So not only is cutting everyone to a single 30-minute visit cruel to people who haven't even been convicted yet,  it's really dumb on crime as far as those who have been. It certainly isn't "fair" to hurt everyone equally, which is the justification for cutting back visitation where there shouldn't be any disruption of the visitation areas for these kiosks to be installed. It's simply justifying being abusive to more prisoners than he really has to be hurting, that's all.
 
For those of you looking for current jail policies and info for families, here they are (effective December 1, 2013). If the link is broken, its probably outdated, so head to the MCSO main website.


THE POSTCARD-ONLY POLICY WAS FOUND UNCONSTITUTIONAL IN OREGON, AS IT VIOLATES THE 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF PRISONERS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO WRITE TO THEM FROM THE FREE WORLD (that means people like me have standing to sue if MCSO rejects my letters...).

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MCSO to allow video jail visits – for a price

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:58 PM

 

Maricopa County jails are installing a new video system that will allow inmates to have virtual visits with family, while earning the county Sheriff’s Office hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but make it harder for some relatives to see loved ones.

The high-tech system, which will be the largest of its kind in the country, according to the manufacturer, will let family and friends anywhere in the world talk with inmates via video, so long as they have access to a computer with a camera and a credit card to pay $12.95 for a 20-minute conversation.

The system, which is expected to be in place early next summer, is meant to make visits easier and improve security at the county jails, which book 100,000 people every year. But as work begins on installing the Internet-based system, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office cut regular visiting time from three hours per week to 30 minutes.

Although sheriff’s officials say the system will make visiting inmates easier, it’s not being welcomed by prisoner-rights advocates. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona criticized MCSO for planning to eliminate face-to-face visits at its Towers, Estrella and Durango jails because it could mean fewer people have access to inmates.

Visitors to the county’s other three jails communicate with inmates through closed-circuit video accessible at terminals inside jail lobbies.

ACLU senior staff attorney Kelly Flood said the need for people to have access to a video-enabled computer to visit with an inmate would make it harder for some families and prevent people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who eschews technology and relies on a typewriter, from having a virtual visit with an inmate in his jails.

The vast majority of jail inmates have not been sentenced for their crimes, she said, and many remain in custody because their friends and family members cannot afford to bail them out.

“They’re making it harder and harder. It seems particularly unjust and unfortunate when we’re talking about pre-sentence detainees,” Flood said. “For those folks to be completely deprived of their families’ visitation, it’s unjust and unfortunate and dehumanizing.”

The $2.6 million system, which the manufacturer is installing at no cost to Maricopa County, will also turn into a money maker for the Sheriff’s Office once it gets paid off and the agency starts to receive a 10 percent cut of the fee paid for every conversation.

The sheriff’s share, which would average more than $300,000 each year if the agency maintained its current visitation rate, is designated to go into the Inmate Services Fund, a pool earmarked for drug-rehabilitation programs and other services for inmates.

The Sheriff’s Office has come under scrutiny in the past for using the inmate funds, which topped $12 million in fiscal 2012, to pay for deputies who didn’t work in the jails, a violation of county policy.

State leaders have also swept those funds in the past to help balance the budget.

Both the Sheriff’s Office and the system’s manufacturer expect jail visits to increase once the system is in place, because friends and family will have virtually unlimited access to inmates from anywhere with a reliable Internet connection.

“You can use this system in China, Russia, on the moon, wherever they have an Internet system, including airplanes,” Arpaio said.

Other agencies in Arizona that have converted to video-visitation systems have seen an increase in visitors after inmates’ friends and family members became familiar with navigating the software and comfortable with paying a fee for each visit.

Pinal County opened its video-visitation system in April, and inmates have received more than 15,000 video visits in the first eight months. The agency still allows on-site visits and averages slightly more than 1,500 each month.

Apache County used the same company installing Maricopa County’s system and launched video visitation about six weeks ago. The jails have seen an increase in visitation, in addition to providing an opportunity for out-of-state inmates who were arrested for motor-vehicle violations on Interstate 40 to see family members from their home states and countries, Apache County sheriff’s Cmdr. Michael Cirivello said.

The system has allowed the jail to expand visiting hours from one day per week, with a maximum of 30 minutes, to five days a week with inmates receiving as many visits as their friends and relatives are willing to pay for, he said.

Apache County, which stretches 200 miles, also has inmates whose relatives find it cheaper to pay the $20 fee for a 20-minute video conversation than to drive to the facility in St. Johns, Cirivello said.

“I had one guy in here who got a visit from Okinawa (Japan),” he said. “And the people that get visited a lot, they’re getting visits every day now, sometimes a couple times a day.”

Three of the six Maricopa County jail facilities have used video systems for several years that allow visitors to meet with inmates through kiosks set up in the jail lobby and mobile units that detention officers move around to inmates’ cells. The other three jails still offer face-to-face visits, but the visiting hours were reduced systemwide in an attempt to be fair, sheriff’s Deputy Chief Mike Olson said.

Once the new system is installed, visitors will have to register through Securus Technologies’ website and wait for sheriff’s investigators to conduct a background check to ensure the visitors are not felons.

After the visitor is approved, he or she can schedule a visit with an inmate 24 hours in advance and engage in the virtual visitation from any computer with a camera.

The virtual visitation system will present some hurdles for detention officers intent on keeping felons from visiting inmates, which is possible if a non-felon registers for a visit and a felon sits down in his place, but sheriff’s officials said visitors would be barred if they were discovered attempting to game the system.

A Securus representative said he hoped the prospects of easy virtual visitation would dissuade criminals from engaging in any illicit activity.

“We believe $12.95 and their visitation rights to visit in the future are on the line, and they’re not going to game the system,” said Darrin Hays, a Securus account manager. “We believe they’re going to say, ‘There’s value in this, and we just want to get our visits.’ ”

But the advent of virtual visitation also means the Sheriff’s Office will likely have to abandon its long-standing and highly promoted policy that prohibits undocumented immigrants from visiting inmates in Maricopa County jails.

As the system is accessible from anywhere in the world, Hays said, the visitor’s residency status in the United States or any other country should become irrelevant.

“What this really does is promote the relationship with the community,” Hays said. “If I’m here illegally, I don’t think I want to step into the jail, and famously, Arpaio’s jail. So, what can I do? I can actually get online, and I can at least apply. If I’m denied, I’m denied. They can’t find me, I’m on an Internet connection.

“You don’t know where they’re visiting from, so you really can’t say they’re here illegally.”

Re-entry for youth with disabilities.

For the full report on re-entry programs for youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system, go here.

------------from Education Week-------------

After Jail, Youth With Disabilities Need Special Support to Stay Out

By Nirvi Shah 

December 30, 2011 

Education Week

 

When young people with disabilities end up in the juvenile justice system, they're less likely to return to youth prisons after their sentence is up if they have jobs or go to school quickly after being released, a new paper says.

However, comprehensive programs that help these youth go from prison to the outside world are scarce, says this piece from Project Forum at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education. And juveniles with disabilities have a high recidivism rate—more than the 55 percent rate for youth without disabilities.

The report looks closely at the practices in four states—Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, and Oregon—when it comes to supporting all juveniles, including those with disabilities, who are leaving the justice system.

Some common practices the report found in states with programs intended to reduce recidivism for these young people include: a continuum of supports for youth that begins in prison and keeps going once they leave; transition facilitators or coordinators who are dedicated to working with these youth; and programs for reentering society that are comprehensive, addressing education, employment, social and behavioral skills, mental health, substance-abuse issues, housing, and transportation. Another common theme in the report? Budget problems often keep these programs from going long-term.

Here are some details of individual state's programs:

•Before youths' release, Arizona's Department of Juvenile Corrections assigns them a transition coordinator who establishes a relationship and supports them after they leave. Four of these coordinators travel the state and work with parole officers, the state director of special education, and school districts to ensure these juveniles are enrolled in the right programs at the end of their sentences. These coordinators even go to students' IEP meetings.

•Georgia's "Think Exit at Entry" program provides educational planning, progress reviews, transition facilitators, and other supports to youth in the juvenile justice system, including those with disabilities. The program has been scaled back since a federal grant expired in 2007, although some parts of it have kept going because of the partnerships already established among state agencies.

•Hawaii's Olomana School serves students in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, and youth participate in regular meetings about their behavior and school work. Because the state runs all schools in Hawaii, transferring records back to schools when students are released is seamless—and transfer of records is critical to a successful reentry for students with disabilities, the report says.

•Oregon's Project STAY OUT—Strategies Teaching Adolescent Young Offenders to Use Transition Skills—is specifically for youth with an IEP, 504 plan, or mental health diagnosis. Youth work on self-determination skills, social skills, finding work, and other goals. One study found that 66 percent of STAY OUT participants were either employed or in school during the first six months after their release from juvenile justice programs, the very things that are likely to keep them from returning.

Community & family ties reduce recidivism.

Anyone who has done research into evidence-based practice knows this...AZ legislator John Kavanaugh only shows his ignorance in the article below...

Prisoners have families, too.
AZ State Capitol Complex, Phoenix
(November 2009)

---------from the Huffington Post-------

Prison Visits Make Inmates Less Likely To Commit Crimes After Release, Study Finds

John Rudolf Huffington Post

Posted: 12/ 7/11 07:27 PM ET

Just a single visit from a family member or a friend can make a big difference in whether or not a prisoner ends up back behind bars after their release, a new study finds.

The study, by researchers with the Minnesota Department of Corrections, determined that prisoners who received at least one personal visit at any time during their incarceration were 13 percent less likely to commit another felony and 25 percent less likely to end up back in prison on a technical parole violation. Data showed that the more visits prisoners received, the lower their chance of re-offending after release.

The study tracked 16,000 prisoners over nearly five years, making it the largest such study of its kind, according to Grant Duwe, director of research for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, who led the research team. The study will be published in the Criminal Justice Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Duwe said prison officials in Minnesota were already weighing how to apply its results to the state's corrections policies.

"I think the completion of this study gives us some tangible evidence to show that if we can increase visitation, we can give offenders more of the social support they need to succeed," he said.

Several previous, smaller-scale studies have found an even larger correlation between prison visitation and inmates' likelihood of re-offending. But most state prison systems continue to see visitation as a privilege, not a tool to help inmates establish law-abiding lives after their release, Duwe said.

"I think visitation has been largely viewed as a concession that's given to inmates," he said. "I don't know if there has been a great deal of thought given to the public safety benefits that visitation might have."

As the economic slowdown has bitten into state budgets, some prison systems have already altered visitation policies in order to save money. In Minnesota, a temporary government shutdown earlier this year led to the suspension of all prisoner visitation as a cost-saving measure.

In July, Arizona lawmakers imposed a one-time $25 fee on all adult visitors to inmates. Funds from the fee are to be directed to maintenance of state prisons. Middle Ground Prison Reform, an advocacy group, filed suit against the state, calling the fee an "unconstitutional tax."

"If this policy results in delaying or diminishing or eliminating prison visitation for anyone, the state is shooting themselves in the foot in terms of rehabilitation," Donna Hamm, a retired municipal court judge and executive director of the group, said in September, according to the Associated Press. "That's a very short-sighted view of public safety policy."

John Kavanagh, the Republican legislator who wrote the provision, scoffed at the idea that the fee would discourage prison visitors, however.

"If a one-time charge of $25 is enough to dissuade you from visiting your loved one, then I'm wondering how much of a loved one he or she is," he told the Arizona Daily Star.

Duwe declined to comment specifically on the Arizona policy. But he said the results of the Minnesota study clearly suggested that states have a fiscal incentive to encourage visitation, not discourage it.

A single parole violation that returns a released inmate to prison, even briefly, costs upwards of $9,000. A prisoner who commits a new felony and spends additional years behind bars will cost far more.

"The benefits we could see from a reduction in recidivism could vastly outweigh the cost of increasing visitation," he said.

A few states, such as Idaho and Virginia, are already experimenting with a novel and cost-effective way to boost interaction between inmates and their loved ones: internet-based video visitation systems, which have proven popular with inmates and administrators.

Yet while a growing body of research shows that overall, visits by family, friends, religious figures and community mentors are overwhelmingly positive for inmates, data from the Minnesota study shows that one type of visitor should probably be avoided. Visits by an ex-wife or ex-husband, it found, can actually lead inmates to commit more crime after their release.

"Visits from ex-spouses could do more harm than good," Duwe said. "That was kind of an interesting finding."

Maricopa County Probation: Evidence-based practice works

For all the hassles and gripes I've heard about probation in Maricopa County, I must say that Chief Barbara Broderick is on the ball and has made a world of difference here. The following post is taken from the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy website. I personally believe most drugs should be legalized and users decriminalized, but until then, I think people like Chief Broderick are doing what they can to mitigate harm of criminalization and help addicts recover in the community, instead of return to prison.

If the rest of the criminal justice system could get on board with evidence-based practice and sentencing guidelines, we'd likely see a drastic reduction in our incarceration rates and far more people with substance abuse issues making it successfully in the community.

--------------------------

Maricopa County Works to Break the Cycle of Drugs, Crime, and Incarceration

Posted by Barbara Broderick
November 22, 2011 at 12:47 PM EST

The 2011 National Drug Control Strategy recognizes that many individuals who use drugs become involved in the criminal justice system. This is also the case in Maricopa County, Arizona. The most recent Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network (AARIN) Annual Adult Report, which provides data on arrestees in Maricopa County, indicates that in the 30 days prior to arrest 56% used marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroin.

Many of the principles identified in the Strategy that are intended to break the drugs and crime cycle are being implemented in Maricopa County by the Maricopa County Adult Probation Department. Below are some accomplishments and ongoing projects focused on assisting offenders.

• Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) - The department is committed to using evidence-based practices (EBP) in its supervision strategies and has translated EBP into practical approaches that probation officers can incorporate into their daily supervision practices, such as using validated risk and needs assessments and reassessments to develop probationer case plans. Individuals with drug abuse disorders are referred to drug court or other relevant treatment programs.
  

• Reentry - In January 2010, through a federal stimulus grant, the department implemented a Prison Reentry Unit, changing the way released offenders are supervised. A key priority is ensuring these offenders report to the probation department following their release from the Arizona Department of Corrections. In the first year, over 1200 offenders received services from the unit. The rate of offenders failing to report to probation following release from prison dropped from 23% to 2.3% with the grant. In addition, the rate of petitions to terminate probation and return the offender to the Department of Corrections (called “petitions to revoke”) filed in the first twelve months after release dropped from 10.1% to 4.9% with the program, and the rate of new felony arrests dropped from 13.8% to 10.8% with the program.

• Earned Time Credit (ETC) - Effective January 1, 2009, the State of Arizona implemented Earned Time Credit (ETC), providing eligible offenders the opportunity to earn 20 days of credit for every 30 days they comply with their court-ordered financial obligations, community restitution hours and are making progress towards their case plan goals. In the short-term, it is anticipated that this legislation will reduce the length of time on probation while increasing the likelihood of successful completion of probation. In the long term, we expect that the likelihood of recidivism will be reduced following termination from probation.
  

• Probation Outcomes - While evaluations of the effectiveness of these initiatives are ongoing, we have seen positive results. Crime reduction is a key goal in the department’s strategic plan and is measured through three main results: successful completion of probation, termination of probation and returning to the Department of Corrections, and new felony sentences. From FY2008 to FY2011, the percentage of offenders successfully completing probation increased from 66% to 80.3%; the percentage of offenders returned to the Department of Corrections decreased from 28% to 18.4%, and the percentage of offenders with new felony sentences decreased from 8.0% to 4.9%. How does this affect public safety? In FY2011, an additional 1,340 offenders successfully completed probation, 1,601 fewer offenders were returned to the Department of Corrections, and 885 fewer offenders were sentenced for new felony offenses.

These results are encouraging. It suggests that offenders can be effectively supervised in the community without negatively affecting public safety. And we can break the cycle of drugs, crime and incarceration.

Barbara Broderick is Chief Probation Officer at the Maricopa County Adult Probation Department

The long way home: Catching up to Davon Acklin.

Some of you may recall Davon Acklin, the Arizona state prisoner who let us use him as a poster child when his mom, Julie, was fighting to get him treatment for Hepatitis C. I corresponded with him for a year while he was in Tucson prison, and had the wonderful experience of greeting him with his family as he was freed this spring. Then my own life fell apart and we lost touch.

Today I saw Davon for the first time since the day he headed home. Sadly, it was to visit him at the 4th Avenue Jail. He's facing at least four felony charges, and - needless to say - violated his probation. He's going away for a long time this time; it may be more than ten years before we see him walk free again...except that he was once a free man in prison. I keep telling myself that, hoping that wherever he lands he can find himself again - what's he's been wearing lately are the worst kind of chains, anyway.

I still don't know just what happened over the course of the past five months, and will leave that story for him to tell when he's ready. I can say, though, that when I saw Davon today he was calm, rational, and appropriately remorseful for hurting those who love and believed in him. He reports that he's getting his psych meds, at least; the place is just a miserable place to be, and he's sick as a dog right now. I suspect he's going through withdrawal. He denied being suicidal, expressed appreciation for those who have tried to help him, and apologized "for being such a fuck-up". I tried to reaffirm that some folks still haven't bailed on him, and that his mom isn't about to give up.

Despite his effort to begin to make amends, I don't think Davon has any idea of how badly he really hurt people this time - I'm figuring out just how to tell him, though. The hurting from this binge has only just begun, too. He didn't just break Julie's heart and devastate his sister, he invited violence into his family's home that may not leave with him when he goes. He compromised the fight to overcome all the barriers to getting Hep C treatment for people with psychiatric disorders and addictions by giving the state a reason to say "I told you so." He may lose his own battle to get interferon now. His mother may well have to recover his body from prison, or see him buried there.

Davon is not responsible for having a mental illness, or even for being an addict any more so than if he had diabetes. He is responsible for his recovery, though, and made decisions when he was well that compromised his ability to make good choices in a very short period of time. Whether or not he was competent at the time he committed the crimes he's accused of is for him and the courts to work out - we didn't discuss any of that. Today he seems to be in his right mind, though - and almost relieved at the prospect of going back to prison. I think he copped out on us all early on, frankly, and I'm mad as hell at him. I'm also angry that I wasn't able to be there for him when he came home myself, though. There were a lot of things I had wanted to share with him, and before I knew it he was gone again. I know it's my egocentricity that makes me think I might have changed this outcome had I been more present for him upon his release; I wish I had been, though.

I never really expected a fairy tale ending to Davon's relationship with the criminal justice system. He grew up in it - he even accidentally referred to returning to prison as going "home". There's absolutely no meaningful treatment or rehab in prison for the vast majority of dually-diagnosed young men like Davon - or for the women, for that matter. He had a lot of good community support - the probation department was awesome, I guess - but few new tools for coping with stress and expectations when he got out. That's not to excuse him from what he needs to own here, but that's the way it is for far too many prisoners I see who have cycled through the system more than once, so I think there's more at work than just Davon's pathology here.

This isn't the end of this young man's story or his struggle to keep from succumbing to either despair or Hep C - nor is his life yet over. In recovery from addictive disorders - especially for those with mental illness as well - relapse is common, and is often so much worse than before because one has to be sicker in order to go back into denial. But Davon doesn't necessarily forget what he learned before - he matured once, and can continue in that direction wherever he lands. Even in prison he can be a positive influence in the lives of others, if he's given the right support so he's able to make informed and capable decisions. Psychiatric disability or not - in prison or at home - Davon can still choose what kind of human being to be. Only when he surrenders that will I believe he's really lost his freedom.

Anyway, I'll let you know when he moves, but will otherwise be giving Davon and his family a break from my blogs while they sort things out. If you've been a correspondent of his, I think it would help him to know that even in back prison he's accountable to his fellow beings for his behavior and commitments. You can trust his mom and I to kick his ass over this, so to speak, but feel free to do so as well if you've been hurt, too. Just try to keep a door open for him if you can; he should be safe, but he really doesn't deserve exile. He needs to make amends and reconcile with not only his family but the community that supported him in order to grow and reduce the chances of this happening again.

Summer Solstice 2011
Firehouse Gallery and Cafe'
Phoenix, AZ

Another chance for the Second Chance Act

Signed into law on April 9, 2008, the Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199) was designed to improve outcomes for people returning to communities from prisons and jails. This first-of-its-kind legislation authorizes federal grants to government agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services that can help reduce recidivism.

Please contact your senators today.

More can be found at the National Reentry Resource Center

----------------------------

Dear Second Chance Act Advocates,

Recently, the Senate eliminated funding for the Second Chance Act in their version of the FY 12 funding bill for the Department of Justice. In July, the House Appropriations Committee provided $70 million in their fiscal year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill.
Although funding was eliminated in the Senate bill, there is still time to restore funding for the program when the House and Senate Appropriations Committees attempt to resolve differences between the two spending bills. It is crucial that the field respond quickly with letters to the Hill to ensure that the Second Chance Act is funded in FY 2012.

The Second Chance Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law in April 2008. It is a common sense, evidence-based approach to improving outcomes for people returning to communities from prisons and jails. This first-of-its-kind legislation authorizes federal grants to government agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services that can help reduce recidivism.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1. Please contact your members of Congress and send a letter of support by visiting http://www.capwiz.com/csgjusticectr/home/. If you would like to personalize your letter with examples from your state or community, please email Jay Nelson at jnelson@csg.org for a MS Word version of the sample letter.

2. Sign the national sign-on letter <http://councilofstategovernmentsjusticecenter.createsend5.com/t/r/l/tdvhkk/jityihidy/d/> in support of Second Chance Act funding by contacting jnelson@csg.org

3. Visit the Justice Center/Reentry Policy Council page at http://www.reentrypolicy.org/government_affairs/second_chance_act to access talking points, fact sheets, list of Second Chance Act grantees and additional information.

4. Share this information and ask your colleagues and friends to help protect funding for the Second Chance Act.

TIMING

The Senate and House are working on FY12 funding now, so it is imperative that you contact your Members of Congress as soon as possible.

Thank you for your continued support for the Second Chance Act. Together, we can show Congress the need to continue funding for this important program that improves the lives of people returning prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities.

Jamal (Jay) Nelson

Government Affairs

Council of State Governments Justice Center

4630 Montgomery Ave., Suite 650

Bethesda, MD 20814

240.482.8580 (direct)

www.justicecenter.csg.org

The Council of State Governments Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization that serves policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels from all branches of government. It provides
practical, nonpartisan advice and consensus-driven strategies—informed by available evidence—to increase public safety and strengthen communities.

Jail Re-entry: Elected Official's Tool-kit.

From the Urban Institute. They aren't abolitionists, but they do interesting research. It would be wise for some of our local politicians and policy-makers to download this manual and re-think their approach to criminal justice in Arizona...

-----------------------------

The Elected Official's Toolkit for Jail Reentry

Jesse Jannetta, Hannah Dodd, Brian Elderbroom

The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the entire report in PDF format.

Introduction

Every year, millions of people are released from incarceration, and the vast majority—about 9 million individuals—exit from local jails. Within this population, recidivism rates are high, resulting in a damaging cycle of incarceration, release, and reincarceration. Recidivism harms local communities and places a tremendous burden on local governments trying to maintain public safety and manage costs.

Local governments spent an estimated $109 billion on criminal justice in 2006, a 17 percent increase over the 2003 level and 138 percent more than was spent on criminal justice functions in 1992. These criminal justice expenditures reflect in part the cost of failing to reintegrate individuals returning from our nation's prisons and jails. Many released inmates face serious problems that contribute to the commission of new crimes, including drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, unemployment, and homelessness. Neglecting these issues not only raises criminal justice costs but increases the demand for social services, such as homeless shelter beds and emergency rooms. It also carries social costs that are difficult to quantify, including harm to victims, strain on communities, and hardships imposed on the families and social networks of released inmates.

Focusing on jail reentry is an opportunity for local governments to reduce recidivism and associated costs. Jail reentry initiatives encourage jails, social service providers, and other agencies to work together to identify and address factors that increase the risk that inmates will recidivate. Jail reentry initiatives also focus on changing the behavior of returning inmates and promoting accountability. Such initiatives help local communities strategically deploy limited resources to reduce harm and maximize community benefit.

Local elected officials play a vital role in jail reentry initiatives by bringing diverse stakeholders together in a shared effort with a common mission and vision. Local governments are wellpositioned to coordinate the reentry process. Not only do they operate law enforcement and jails, they run health and human services, housing authorities, workforce development boards, and local schools, which are key partners in any comprehensive reentry effort. Elected officials also have standing with community service providers and faith-based organizations that already provide many of the social services urgently needed by those leaving jail.

Jail reentry initiatives offer numerous benefits for communities in addition to improving outcomes for individual inmates. Jail reentry initiatives have the potential to reduce crime; affect community problems, such as homelessness; and increase public health, safety, and well-being. Reentry initiatives can also improve system performance by increasing coordination and information-sharing among criminal justice agencies, community- based organizations, and other groups. This can reduce duplication of efforts and enhance the impact of existing resources. Taxpayers ultimately reap the benefits of smaller jail populations, reduced need for new jail facilities, and lower costs across the criminal justice system.

Jail reentry initiatives have found support from a broad array of stakeholders, including law enforcement, corrections, social service providers, the faith community, and victims' groups. These groups increasingly recognize their role in the reentry process and are looking to elected officials for support and leadership. Jail reentry initiatives supported by elected officials bring these groups to the table and encourage them to work together to develop effective interventions. By spearheading a cooperative reentry effort, elected officials foster shared responsibility and ensure a common approach to addressing this problem.

This toolkit is designed to help elected officials meet the challenges of addressing jail reentry in their communities. It provides information and tools to improve the jail-to-community reentry process, whether that involves implementing a jail reentry initiative for the first time or expanding an existing initiative.

It is important to note that the toolkit is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to developing a reentry initiative. While we have sought to include the most significant information for elected officials who want to get involved in jail reentry, the reader should treat the toolkit as a starting point rather than a final destination. To this end, we have included a short directory of more extensive and in-depth resources that address the process of implementing a jail reentry initiative as well as specific needs of returning inmates. Many helpful reentry resources covering a wide range of topics are easily accessible online. We encourage readers to access these resources for more information about the topics introduced here, as well as for detailed guidance on the particular challenges their communities may face.

End of excerpt. The entire report is available in PDF format.

Debtors and Prisoners: The high cost of impoverishing felons.

This is an excellent column about a serious cause of re-offending and recidivism that's too often neglected: court fees and the perpetual economic punishment we impose on ex-felons. I see this happening far too often here in Arizona; the courts and legislature really need to examine the cost of excess fees and restitution levied against people at sentencing. It seems like it should be sufficient punishment to take a chunk of their lives from them and their families and destroy their ability to earn a living after prison that we don't need to continue to hound and re-incarcerate people for the life of poverty we imposed on them, too. Talk about setting people up...

Arizona really needs to check out the Clapham Set if we're serious about saving money. Looks like such a model would also help us save lives, reducing both incarceration rates and victimization. Unfortunately, punishment in the American system of Capitalist Justice pays off for politicians and corporations far more than public safety does. Furthermore, brutalizing people in this country is a contact sport - a form of entertainment - that we can't seem to get enough of, so it's easily justified by otherwise "decent" Americans who just never give these issues critical thought.

That we have failed to pursue evidence-based sentencing reform options in the state legislature thus far (thanks Ron Gould, for blocking that from being heard in the Judiciary Committee) suggests there are motives at work that have nothing to do with cutting the budget, promoting public safety, facilitating rehabilitation, restoring justice, or any of the garbage legislators claim when they're running for office with promises to be"tough on crime". Too many people are profiting from our continued vulnerability - they're banking on us being raped, murdered, robbed, or otherwise victimized tomorrow so they can make another buck from punishing the perpetrators. We will never have safe communities so long as this is how our criminal justice policy is driven.

Please contact your state legislators and push to put evidence-based sentencing reform on the table in the next session.

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June 9, 2011, 9:10 pm

Out of Prison, Into a Vicious Circle of Debt

New York Times
By TINA ROSENBERG

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

On Tuesday, I wrote about the Clapham Set, a Boston program that works with recently released prisoners. It asks judges to waive their court fees if the prisoners complete an academic course and work with a coach who helps them get jobs and services they need to turn their lives around.

The cost of putting debtors in jail far outweighs the money collected.

Surly and Old, from Virginia (5) expressed surprise that the program was needed at all. “I’m at least a thousand years old, and this is the first I’ve heard that states burden ex-cons with debt just as they’re trying to re-start their lives,” he wrote.

The fees levied on prisoners are put there by state legislatures who have found a group few people will stick up for. But this is short-term thinking at its finest. For example, a report on the issue by the Brennan Center for Justice studied Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, which in 2009 arrested 564 people for failing to pay their debts and jailed just under half of them for several days before their hearings. The cost of jailing them — even for a short time — far outweighed the money eventually collected.

“Look at the cost of year in jail for just one person,” said Rebekah Diller, an author of the report. ($30,000 per year is the low end.) “If this only drives a few people back into the system you’re already undermining any revenue you might raise.”

These debts would seem to drive more than a few back into the system. Probation officers are the front line people pushing probationers to pay, and one of their most effective weapons is the threat of arrest. But this drives probationers into hiding if they don’t have the money. “They end up going underground, not fulfilling their probation requirements because they can’t fulfill the court fees,” said Abrigal Forrester, a program coordinator for StreetSafe Boston, which does gang intervention and other work to help reduce crime in tough neighborhoods. If you skip your meetings with probation, you are probably going back to prison.

In most cases, you can’t get off probation until the debt is paid. Here’s a vicious circle: the longer probation lasts, the more money you owe. Nor are fees waived for indigence in the vast majority of cases. The Brennan Center found that of the 15 states with the largest number of prisoners, 13 of them charge fees for using public defenders — charging clients who are indigent by definition. For sheer outrage, perhaps nothing beats the story told by a reader, Kate Levine of New York (36), of an indigent client she represented as a student lawyer. All charges were dismissed. Let me repeat: the client was not convicted of a crime. But she was still assessed $150 in court fees. This is not an infrequent occurrence.

The American Civil Liberties Union also wrote a report on the subject last fall about five states’ criminal justice fees. It found that Louisiana, for example, charges people hundreds of dollars for programs such as rehab that are a condition of their probation. Probationers who can’t pay the charges drop out of the program — and are then sometimes arrested for violating the terms of probation.

The current system of fees not only cheats taxpayers, its constitutionality is questionable.

The debt also makes it harder to get a legitimate job. Anyone convicted of a drug crime in Massachusetts, for example, loses his driver license. He cannot get it back until the debt is paid. Many states suspend someone’s license as a penalty for missing payments. In most of the country, holding a job is next to impossible without driving.

The system not only cheats taxpayers, its constitutionality is questionable. Debtor’s prisons were abolished in the United States in the early 1800s and the Supreme Court has ruled it is unconstitutional to jail someone for failing to pay a debt. Courts get around the ruling by arguing that they are jailing people not for debt but for violating a court order. Charging people for using a public defender violates the spirit, if not the letter, of Gideon v Wainwright, the 1963 decision requiring state courts to provide counsel for criminal defendants who cannot afford it. Many states also block ex-offenders from recovering the right to vote until all fees are paid — making the fee effectively a poll tax.

Several readers wondered whether these fees are part of a conspiracy to keep the prison-industrial complex in business. Others wrote that they are a symptom of the risky politics of being anything less than hard-line on crime. “The motivation behind our criminal ‘justice’ system isn’t correctional; it’s punitive,” wrote Martha Shelley (12) from Portland, Ore. “That’s why prisoners and their families are charged exorbitant fees when they phone each other, when every study shows that a prisoner who maintains strong family ties is much less likely to re-offend,”

My view is that the imposition of more and more fees is simply a reflexive reaction from state legislators who haven’t focused on how counterproductive they are. But with states drowning in prison costs — and California under Supreme Court order to lessen prison overcrowding by shedding more than 30,000 inmates — it would be helpful for them to figure it out.

Obviously, one solution to this problem is to fund court systems through taxes, the way other government programs are funded. It would certainly be cheaper for taxpayers. The Clapham Set program, while small and new, points the way to another possible solution. It is an idea similar to one we’ve written about before in Fixes: conditional cash transfers. These are programs, in use in dozens of countries but employed on the widest scale in Mexico and Brazil, that give poor people welfare payments if they keep their children in school, take the family for health checkups and attend workshops on health issues. Different countries use conditional cash transfers for different ends — to encourage people to get H.I.V. tests, for example, or to improve family nutrition.

Related

More From Fixes

Read previous contributions to this series.

The Clapham Set gives its clients more choices than conditional cash transfer programs do. The men enrolled in it can choose the activities they need most, be it drug treatment, schooling or job search help, and the Clapham Set will seek to get credit from judges for those activities. (Another difference: it has two dozen clients, rather than hundreds of millions.) But the basic template is the same.

For the past several decades in America, the debate about the underclass, poverty and criminality has centered in large part on whether it is possible to change an immediate-gratification mindset into one that looks to the future. People who care little about the long-term consequences of their actions, even for themselves, are likely to stay mired in poverty and crime. It is not the only reason, but it is a major reason. Ironically, another important reason for the persistence of the underclass is a similar lack of future orientation on the part of policymakers. Our political system tilts in the direction of scrimping now, even if it will cost us more later. Court fees are a perfect example. If politicians want to help people on the margins of society acquire more future orientation, they might try developing some themselves.

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Prisons not the answer to crime problems: Holder

August 3, 2009
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH
Political Reporter- Chicago Sun Times

More prisons are not the answer to America’s crime problems, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the nation’s lawyers Monday.

“We will not focus exclusively on incarceration as the most effective means of protecting public safety,” Holder told the American Bar Association delegates meeting here for their annual convention. “Since 2003, spending on incarceration has continued to rise, but crime rates have flattened.”

Holder conceded that the massive build-up of prisons — a seven-fold increase over the past 40 years — probably has something to do with the crime rate dropping 40 percent since 1991.

“Today, one out of every 100 adults in America is incarcerated — the highest incarceration rate in the world,” he said. But the country has reached a point of diminishing returns at which putting even greater percentages of America’s citizens behind bars won’t cut the crime rate.

That’s in part because once people spend time in prison, they’re likely to keep engaging in the kind of behavior that sends them back to prison, he said.

“Most crimes in America are committed by people who have committed crimes before,” Holder said. “About 67 percent of former state prisoners and 40 percent of former federal prisoners are re-arrested within three years of release. If we can reduce the rate of recidivism, we will directly reduce the crime rate.”

Prisoners who undergo drug treatment and/or work training in prison are 16 percent less likely to re-offend after their release, he said.

Diverting non-violent drug offenders away from prison and into treatment programs, as New York State does, saves taxpayers money, better rehabilitates offenders and helps reduce the crime rate, Holder said.

“Every state in the union is trying to trim budgets,” Holder said. “States and localities are laying off teachers, cutting back on public health, and canceling after-school programs for our children. But in almost all cases, spending on prisons continues to rise. This is unsustainable economically.”

Holder provoked applause from the delegates when he complained that across the country, state and local governments are under-funding public defenders, whose growing caseloads make it difficult for them to adequately represent their clients.

Holder did not speak on the delegates overwhelming voice vote to ask Congress to repeal part of the Defense Of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex partners receiving federal benefits even in states that have legalized gay marriage.

This and other news about mass incarceration can be found at www.realcostofprisons.org/blog/