Conservative Case Against More Prisons

I recommend reading this article recently published in The American Conservative: “The Conservative Case Against More Prisons,” by Vikrant Reddy and Marc Levin of Right on Crime.

For its arguably humonetarian overtones, my favorite passage is this quote from the governor of Georgia:

Texas is just the beginning. In 2012, Georgia, under Republican Governor Nathan Deal, passed the nation’s most sweeping corrections reform bill. Deal has shown a particular interest in rehabilitating drug offenders, and he has framed his arguments in recognizably conservative language on taxes: “If we fail to treat the addict’s drug addiction, we haven’t taken the first step in breaking the cycle of crime—a cycle that destroys lives and wastes taxpayer resources.”

Book Review: Life After Death by Damien Echols

The West Memphis Three case, which attracted much public attention due to Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s HBO series Paradise Lost, Revelations, and Purgatory, resulted in an Alford plea in 2011. The aftermath of the case, and many details previously unrevealed, were told in the recently released West of Memphis. And now, there is an opportunity to get the personal perspective of the major protagonist in this riveting epic miscarriage of justice: Damien Echols, author of Life After Death.

The book offers very little information on the trial itself, which has been extensively covered elsewhere. Instead, Echols offers a rich account of his family background and personal history. Born to an unstable home, frequently on the road, and labeled a troublemaker, Echols befriended to-be codefendant Jason Baldwin. Some context for his arrest is provided by his interactions with overzealous police officers obsessed with Satanism and eager to label and stigmatize misfits they associated with occult practices. And, we hear a bit more about the birth of his son during the course of the trial.

The book’s chronology leaps back and forth between memories of these events and current writings of prison experience, deliberately undated because of the harmful psychological effect the passage of time had on Echols on Death Row. But we do get descriptions of the other inmates, many of which are incredibly disconcerting. We have rules against executing the mentally defective, Echols says, but segregation and Death Row are not only a home, but a catalyst for mental disorders and defects.

These stories ring authentic, but they are not unnecessarily sensationalized; Echols’ focus is directed inward, into his personal growth and enrichment experience behind bars. In an effort to avoid going mad or stifled, he turns his cell, as some inmates advise him, into “a school and a monastery”, becoming a voracious reader and immersing himself in spiritual practices, primarily Catholicism and Zen Buddhism. This inner journey is the focus for much of the book, as it drives not only the memories of the past, but also a way to handle and manage the expectations and hopes for the future. It is particularly poignant to read of this inner journey on a week in which we are holding an event to reignite the struggle against solitary confinement in CA, in which we expect to host people who have spent time in the SHU, as well as a life-size model of a SHU cell.

The book does offer a suspenful, blow-by-blow account of the events leading to the Alford plea, and some of Echols’ experiences post-exoneration, which will be of interest to those who have followed the case. And much of the book is a love letter to Echols’ devoted wife Lorri, as well as a recognition of friendship and gratitude to the many people on the outside who worked tirelessly for his exoneration. Those of you who have seen the movies and read about the case will find Life After Death a reflective companion to the facts and procedures, and appreciate the unique window into Echols’ inner life.

Reviving the Fight Against Solitary Confinement

It’s going to be a momentous week: On Tue, March 19, we’ll hold an event to reignite the struggle to end long-term solitary confinement in California.
The Louis B. Mayer Lounge at UC Hastings, at the ground floor of 198 McAllister Street, will host a life-size model of a SHU cell. Everyone is invited to come and take a tour of the SHU throughout the day. And when you do, think of what it’s like to live in a cell like that… not for a five-minute tour, but for years, 22.5 hours a day.
And at 6pm, we’ll be holding a panel featuring people who have done time at the SHU, activists, lawyers, and family members. 

The event is free and open to the public. More information on the event’s Facebook page.

And of course, two days later, on Thu, March 21, we’ll hold our big conference, California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform. Please register, come, and bring friends.

Film Review: Life With Murder

A gentle, quiet, middle-aged Canadian couple is faced with one of the most horrific dilemmas imaginable: How do you cope with having your child been murdered… by your other child?

The excellent 2010 documentary Life With Murder follows Brian and Leslie Jenkins from Chatham in this horrific ordeal. A short driving distance from Detroit, where a murder occurs every day, in Chatham a murder occurs every year. “Unfortunately,” says Leslie, “1999 was our year.”

Jennifer Jenkins, 18, was a much-beloved and popular girl, and the town was stricken with grief when she was found shot to death in her home. Suspicion quickly fell on her brother, Mason (20 years old at the time), who tried to escape the house… on a horse.

Mason, Brian and Leslie’s interviews at the police station are shown on camera, as is the original 911 call from the parents who discovered the body. Mason insisted, against a mountain of condemning evidence, on his innocence and filed numerous appeals. His parents stood squarely behind him, not speaking about the events of the night of the murder for many long years, until Mason exhausted his appeals… and changed his story. And after these developments, their choices as a family are nothing short of remarkable.

Of special interest to readers of this blog is the incredible footage from Canadian prison. Mason is on friendly terms with a correctional officer, with whom he comfortably and amiably shares details of the night of the murder. Visitation happens in a natural, home-like setting: Mason’s parents grill meat with him in a yard with lawn around the cottage in which they visit; they get to spend visiting weekends with him in the little cottage. In one scene that will stun U.S. viewers, Mason and his mother cook a meal in a kitchen with knives on the wall. The contrast to the visitation experience in U.S. institutions is palpable.

But the most interesting aspect of the film is its gentle, and yet painfully honest, treatment of denial and detachment, and its subtle probing into the psyche of loving, introverted people gradually uncovering untold horror and coming to terms with it in their own way. In his insightful commentary about the film, director John Kastner talks about the difficulty of conducting “a major investigation of a subject when the participants don’t want to discuss it.” He writes:

Brian and Leslie were generous with their time, but would they open up to us? Or were they living – as some suggested — in a kind of Never-Never land, refusing to face facts about Mason? And how to explain their steadfast support of him, visiting him in prison regularly? (How could they talk to him? Look at him? Have anything to do with him?) 

A colleague and I began meeting them in Chatham for well over a year, often twice a month, gradually peeling back the layers of their psychological armour. At first they revealed very little. But it became apparent they were more aware of the awful details of the murder than they had initially let on. They parked the information in a mental drawer, so to speak, as a survival mechanism to help get them through the day. 

Eventually they decided they had bottled up their story for too long; it would be therapeutic to discuss it with someone besides a shrink who was sympathetic and who was familiar with the criminal justice system. Important to them, too, was helping other families learn from observing their own tortured efforts at healing and reconciliation. 

I think the Jenkins are wonderful people. I so admire their great character and integrity. Many in their shoes would have tried to protect their son by fudging the facts to the authorities. But the Jenkins’ remarkable, often painful, honesty is apparent in their videotaped interviews with the police – not to mention in their interviews with us.

Life With Murder streams on YouTube and on Netflix.

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Props to Katie Morrison for the recommendation.

Realignment and Long Jail Terms

An inmate in the Madera County Jail is taken to the inmate
housing unit. Photo courtesy The Press Enterprise.

Realignment was initiated, in part, as a reaction to the ruling in Brown v. Plata and the belief that, whatever the conditions in local jails, surely nothing could be worse than state prisons. But is that true? The Press Enterprise reports that more than 1,100 people are serving terms between 5 and 10 years in county jails, some of which are seriously ill equipped to handle such long sentences.

Authorities originally believed that the maximum jail sentence under realignment would be three years, and anyone with a lengthier sentence would go to prison.

But judges found no legal grounds to send convicted inmates to state prison for most violations detailed under realignment. The number of inmates getting lengthy sentences to county jails has been rising ever since.

County law-enforcement officials are concerned that increasing the number of long-term jail inmates will lead to a new round of prisoner rights-violation lawsuits. Jails originally were meant to hold sentenced inmates for no more than a year. They don’t have the medical, mental health, disability and work-program facilities found at state prisons

Fresno County already has been sued by inmates claiming mental health and medical care in its jails is inadequate. A prison-rights law firm has been reviewing Riverside County’s facilities.

The piece goes on to document some anti-Realignment bills aimed at minimizing its effects by excluding more categories of offenders or setting a sentencing limit. The fact that there is now one person sentenced to 42 (!) years in L.A. County Jail (presumably for a nonserious, nonviolent, nonsexual offense) should be an indication that reform is being done in a horribly wrong fashion.

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Props to Josh Page for the link. Come talk to us about realignment at our conference, California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform, on March 21-22.

Book Review: Jumped In by Jorja Leap

Jumped In, by UCLA gang anthropologist, educator, and activist Jorja Leap, follows her professional footsteps in researching gangs and establishing contacts with current and former gang members. Along the way, it weaves narratives from gang members’ lives with the story of Leap’s professional and personal development and struggle in conducting the research.

For many, Los Angeles gangs primarily mean bloods and crips (and the stories of those gangs are fascinating and important), but Leap walks us through neighborhoods and projects that are home to many hundreds of latino gangs, a geography that changes weekly on the streets. Making connections with gang interventionists who can provide her with introductions as well as safety, Leap interviews gang members, trying to assure them early on of her confidentiality (except in child abuse cases, which she is obliged to report.)

Her conversations with homies and homegirls reveal a wealth of details about gang life. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to gang tattoos and their significance, as well as the importance of tattoo removal for those interested in leaving gang life. Other chapters examine drug abuse, mental illness, personal histories of poverty and abuse, and the difficulties of changing one’s life around.

Among these chapters, Leap’s stories on women’s role in gang life, informed by intimate conversations with women on the ground, stand out. Her empathy for the women she interviews, and her genuine attempt to understand and help, are particularly touching, and she does a great job exposing domestic violence, which she considers the one unaddressed problem in gang intervention. Her narrative is nuanced enough to accommodate battering that victimizes men (a phenomenon often underreported and misunderstood). She handles the parallels to the abusive aspects of her own first marriage with subtlety and grace, understanding the class difference and respecting the common and unique features of the experience.

Another theme in the book is the strength of gang connections and the pull of street life. Here, the narrative is somewhat less successful. Leap rejects the oversimplification of the popular notion that “you can never leave the gang”, but her own interviews and examples confirm the immense difficulty of doing so, as people derive so much of their identity and community from the gang. Her upset at juries and district attorneys disbelieving change is therefore left empty, and the reasons behind it (beyond belief in this or that person’s innocence) unpacked.

Leap also speaks to the complex relationship between gangs and drugs, rejecting the notion that drugs are sold in corporate-like hierarchies, and instead revealing a less structured drug trade stemming out of poverty and lack of opportunity.

The book is on shakier ground where policy prescriptions are concerned, and when thrown together at the end of the book, they read a bit disjointed. Leap’s overall preference for long-term holistic solutions over emergency interventionism, of which she is ambivalent. The book oozes contempt for David Kennedy’s slick marketing of his “ceasefire” plan (“give me 50 million dollars and I’ll solve the gang problem”), but not a lot of actual arguments against it. In fact, Leap has respect for some forms of interventionism as heroic and important in acute situations. Where the book takes an unequivocal stance is in its justified support for the incredible work of Homeboy Industries and the relentless work of Father Greg Boyle.

This is not an academic book, and as such it offers a dimension seldom explored in academic texts – the experience of the researcher herself. Leap weaves her gang research journey with her personal life, including her candid examination of her second marriage to a widowed LAPD officer and adoption of his daughter. The account of the marriage unflinchingly explores the frictions between Leap and her husband over professional approaches to gang violence and danger on the job. Far from another self-serving “women can’t have it all” essay, this is an expose of a professional woman’s struggle to be respected, not only on the streets but at home, for what she does. There is also hope offered, for after Leap’s husband’s retirement from the LAPD, his approach becomes more flexible and he finds himself joining the efforts to rehabilitate gang members. Another way in which this personal approach might speak to researcher is its gentle exploration of the thin line between researcher and activist. Leap’s description of her subjects is refreshingly empathetic; she is deeply involved in their lives and spends her time not only evaluating projects, but writing grants and actually teaching life skills. At times, the contrast between her values and those of her subjects is jarring, but she handles it with grace and tact, honestly exposing her internal conflict for the readers.

All in all, Jumped In is an engaging read that makes you care about Leap’s friends and acquaintances on the street and confront our ignorance about gangs, but for rigorous, in-depth understanding of gangs we should read her academic publications.

California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform!

We’re very excited about the upcoming California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform conference! Our conference preparations are well under way and we have terrific speakers and panels. Please check our program to the left!

The conference is free and open to the public, and we offer MCLE credits for lawyers. Registration is through the conference website.

When: Thu-Fri, March 21-22, 2013

Where: California State Building, 350 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA

What: An up-to-date conversation about the politics, economics, and day-to-day practice of corrections in California, in light of Plata, the Realignment, the recent election, and more!

Who: Senators Mark Leno and Leland Yee, Death Penalty Focus chair Jeanne Woodford, Federal Receiver Clark Kelso, Michael Bien of Rosen, Bien, Galvan and Grunfeld, CDCR General Counsel Benjamin Rice, Judges Richard Couzens and Elizabeth Lee, and various academics, activists, and policymakers.

This is a two-day conversation you don’t want to miss – so please join us!

The Limits of Savings: Cutting Prisons but Not Populations

Inmate working on a flag at the Prison Industries Autority at CCWF.
Image from story on struggle to maintain
vocational programs in prison.
Credit Lea Suzuki for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Over the last five years, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time on this blog discussing the impact of the financial crisis on reversing the punitive trend, a phenomenon that I refer to, in my forthcoming book with UC Press, as humonetarianism. A recent story by Truthout’s Victoria Law is more skeptical about the potential of the crisis for changing real policies, and in fact highlights the perverse ways in which closing prisons and shifting populations negatively affect prison conditions.

Law provides some examples of how consolidating inmates in fewer institutions makes overcrowding worse:

In December 2011, on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s decision that the overcrowding in the California state prison system is unconstitutional, the CDCR proposed converting Valley State to a men’s prison and transferring its women and transsexual prisoners to the neighboring Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF). That month, CCWF was at 160 percent capacity with 3215 people.

“The CDCR has been talking about gender-responsive and gender-humane prisons. They said that women have different needs than men, but look at us now – women are overcrowded with eight to a room,” Wendy stated. A room, according to the Merced Sun-Star, is 348 square feet.

After the CDCR announced the conversion, despite threats of retaliation, 1000 people inside VSP and 200 inside CCWF sent letters against the plan to advocacy groups the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) and Justice Now. “Women are not cattle. You can’t just shove us into a barn and [expect that] we will be all right,” wrote one woman. As of January 16, 2013, with Valley State having been emptied of all but five women, CCWF is at 187 percent capacity with 3748 women, making it the state’s most crowded prison.

During the transfers, medications were withheld. Once at CCWF, women reported difficulties receiving them. CCWP campaign coordinator Colby Lenz told Truthout that one woman was taken off her medications for two weeks before she was able to appear before a 12-doctor panel; they reassigned a new medication regimen.

Medical staff reportedly told an 81-year-old woman that she was old and going to die anyway, so they weren’t going to give her anything. Others complained about a particular nurse who was randomly withholding medications.

In addition, those in VSP’s mental health programs must be placed on a waiting list before accessing any mental health counseling. Wendy noted that, although CCWF only has six self-help groups, VSP’s 56 self-help groups, run by the women themselves, have been discontinued.

“No one was able to take their materials to start a [new] group. They [prison staff] are citing overcrowding and the cost to taxpayers of shipping these papers across the street,” said Lenz.
“People [transferred] are in a really horrible state. They are really traumatized,” she said. “The prison wasn’t giving people blankets, pillows, toilet paper, tampons or cleaning supplies.”

Claiming a shortage of staff to supervise the increased numbers, the prison placed many under lockdown. CCWP has been told that some women were transferred from general population at VSP directly into segregation units at CCWF. In addition, women reported that guards were provoking violence against the VSPW “bitches.” The mother of one transferee told Truthout that her daughter had said that conditions were so awful that she was contemplating suicide.
I don’t doubt any of this for a moment. Not only good things have happened in the correctional world since the financial crisis; bad and ugly ones abound. This is not just about increased overcrowding in consolidated institutions. Private prison companies have been making more profit offering local governments savings. Educational and vocational programs have been slashed (in fact, here’s an example of that in the very prison Law writes about). More inmates are housed in presumably more efficient out-of-state settings, taken away from relatives and friends. The trend of rolling incarceration expenses on the backs of the inmates themselves has increased as a “creative solution” for incarceration costs.

But I maintain that a lot of this comes from a misguided, short-term view of the expense argument. When seeking an emergency way to save money, correctional policymakers are likely to make these mistakes, ignoring the potential expensive implications they might have on the future in terms of recidivism rates. It is easier to adopt emergency measures than to think holistically about the challenges of mass incarceration and how they affect our spending later.

Short-term thinking about incarceration is not a new mentality. In a way, you could say this is what started the whole thing. What characterized our thinking about prisons in the 1970s was lack of actually thinking about them. The Nixon administration fueled money into law enforcement, and the expansion of prisons was an afterthought, a result of the increased number of arrests by a better funded and empowered police force. Even our way of funding prisons is a way of passing the buck to future generations, not through taxes we pay in real time but through hidden bonds that will be due later. Is it any wonder that, when trying to patch up the hole in our finances, we’re not considering the possibility that unprogrammed, overcrowded institutions, are a recipe for deteriorated health and decreased skills, which mean more costs and more recidivism?

The key to changing this is to transform the cost argument in a way that incorporates consideration of future recidivism rates into the assessment of everything we try to do. This is not easy to do, because measuring recidivism is tricky, and so is predicting recidivism. But I really hope we can do it, because there doesn’t seem to be any other motivation for change that holds the same amount of public appeal.

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Props to Caitlin Henry for the link.

Ninth Circuit Revives Inmate Lawsuit for Pagan Chaplaincy

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has acknowledged, apriori, that Pagan inmates complaining about the lack of a paid chaplain might have two valid legal claims, and remanded the case to a lower court for consideration of such claims.

Some background: CDCR employs a five-faith policy, which acknowledges, for purposes of religious accommodation, Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Native American spirituality. For years, volunteer Wiccan prison chaplain Patrick McCollum waged a legal struggle to obtain ackowledgment, and lost due to lack of standing: The right to a chaplain belongs to the inmates, not the chaplain.

A recent survey of religion in prison has revealed that Paganism, or Earth-based spirituality, is one of the fastest growing faiths in correctional institutions, and according to McCollum, the survey is tainted by underreporting on the part of inmates that were concerned about the repercussions.

In Hartmann and Hill v. CDCR, decided a few days ago, inmates argued that the lack of an official chaplain position also leads to other forms of religious discrimination and lack of accommodations. Their main contention is that the “five-faith policy” is not based on any neutral considerations, and that in Chowchilla, where the plaintiffs are incarcerated, there are more Pagan inmates than members of some of the approved five faiths.

In reversing the district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim, the Ninth Circuit court was careful to state that the First Amendment does not require CDCR to provide all faiths with a chaplain. Nor did the Court find an equal protection violation. However, the court did find that the inmates’ claim that CDCR violated the Establishment Clause is valid; that is, that the existing arrangement potentially unreasonably burdens the practice of religion on the basis of preferential treatment. The plaintiffs also have a valid claim based on the California Constitution. In remanding the case to the lower court, the Ninth Circuit court instructed to view the Establishment Clause argument through the lens of facts – conditions of employment for chaplains, number of inmates in need of religious services, etc.

For excellent, informed commentary on the decision, including from Patrick McCollum himself, see Jason Pitzl-Waters’ blog The Wild Hunt. Or, for a dosage of ignorance and bigotry, see Debra Saunders’ poor excuse for a column on the Chron.