Overcrowding
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Shipping Prisoners Out of Sight
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Going Beyond Band-Aids to Stop Suicides in French Prisons
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Smart on Crime: More Safety at Less Cost
Massachusetts Steps Away from Mandatory Minimums
Published November 19, 2009 @ 08:57AM PT
The Massachusetts Senate yesterday passed a bill that would open the possibility of parole for prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Many were sentenced under mandatory minimum laws and aren't currently eligible for parole. Finally, amidst budget difficulties, another state is seeing the light.
On its website, Families Against Mandatory Minimums profiles Robert Anger, a Massachusetts prisoner who could potentially be eligible for parole if the bill becomes law. Anger, from Vermont, became addicted to OxyContin as a teenager and soon transitioned to heroin. He began selling cocaine to support his habit and was arrested in Massachusetts in 2004 buying cocaine worth $15,000. He was 22 when a judge sentenced him under mandatory statute to 15 years in prison, saying "I wish I had discretion" as he did it. His full story is here.
Another Reluctant Prison Plan from the Governator
Published November 13, 2009 @ 06:10AM PT
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger handed over another version of his court-ordered plan last night to address prison crowding in the state. The state is starting a budge a bit, but Arnold won’t let sweeping reform happen without a fight.
Schwarzenegger’s second try at the plan admits that the federal court has the power to order the changes without a vote from the legislature, and lawyers for the plaintiffs in the class action suit said the new offering from the state is at least “in the ballpark.”
The state’s first offering was rejected and a three-judge panel threatened Arnold with contempt for offering a half-hatched plan. At least he didn’t code an f-bomb through the first letter of each line, as he’s been known to do.
Hiding ‘Problem Prisoners’ to Pass Inspection
Published October 20, 2009 @ 03:48PM PT
A fresh scandal in the U.K. reveals that officers at two London prisons routinely shuffled prisoners between facilities in order to pass inspections.
Reports released today from an independent examiner find that the practice -- known as “ghosting” -- was commonly used at two London facilities, where prisoners were transferred from one to the other in anticipation of an audit, and then returned immediately after the review. Justice Secretary Jack Straw ordered a nationwide investigation.
The frequent moving of prisoners is a common practice around the world, and under normal circumstances it can be destructive -- interrupting medical care, education and positive relationships, moving prisoners far from families and support networks and causing violence by forcing prisoners to repeatedly prove themselves to new populations. But hiding prisoners from inspectors is a new low.
I’ve known people who have been moved more than ten times during a 15 year sentence -- some in New York call it the “upstate tour.” Of course, there can be legitimate reasons for moves as well -- prisoners can request transfers to facilities with certain programs or to avoid violent circumstances.
Kids Outside, Parents Inside
Published October 07, 2009 @ 05:47AM PT
The sprawling prison system in the United States doesn't only affect the 2.3 million people behind bars. These disappeared prisoners create holes in their communities, and their absence is often felt most profoundly by the children they leave behind.
A documentary film in progress, The Word is Love, gives us an intimate portrait of the lives and thoughts of kids with incarcerated parents. And filmmaker Marika Turano will be a guest on the web radio show Family Life Behind Bars for a live chat tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Click here to join the conversation (and to listen to archived episodes of the show, which launched in March).
‘A Really Bad Person’
Published September 29, 2009 @ 07:21AM PT
Steve Poizner, a candidate for governor of California, recently told the Sacramento Bee: “You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison.” He went on to explain that because everyone in prison must be dangerous, he can’t support any early releases.
Last week, I wrote about labels like offender, prisoner and inmate. Where does ‘ really bad person’ fall on that scale? This is about as clear as you hear it from politicians: any ideal of rehabilitation is false, once you go to prison, you may as well disappear.
Just A Guy, a California State Prisoner (and therefore a really bad person) who writes a blog at the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about Poizner’s blanket dismissal recently and the wrongheaded way California is confronting the court order to reduce its prison population from 150,000 to 110,000 by 2011.
Held Without Trial in Nigeria
Published September 22, 2009 @ 06:55AM PT
An NGO report released this summer uncovered serious problems with the criminal court process in Nigeria -- finding that more than two-thirds of the country’s approximately 40,000 prisoners are held without charges. Some prisoners have been behind bars for nine years without a trial, the report found. In some of these cases, the paperwork has been lost and there is little hope of piecing together a fair trial.
A May report from the Nigerian Centre for Social and Legal Studies (CSLS) found that 85 percent of prisoners in one facility were held without charge. Last year, Amnesty International found that 65 percent of the country's prisoners haven't been formally charged.
The Amnesty report also pointed to serious human rights abuses in Nigeria's prisons:
Living conditions in the prisons are appalling. They are damaging to the physical and mental well-being of inmates and in many cases constitute clear threats to health. Conditions such as overcrowding, poor sanitation, lack of food and medicines and denial of contact with families and friends fall short of UN standards for the treatment of prisoners. The worst conditions constitute ill-treatment. In many Nigerian prisons inmates sleep two to a bed or on the floor in filthy cells. Toilets are blocked and overflowing or simply nonexistent, and there is no running water. As a result, disease is widespread.
1,500 Prisoners Freed in Zimbabwe
Published September 13, 2009 @ 01:07PM PT
I've written in recent months about severe overcrowding and deadly conditions in Zimbabwe's prisons, and I wanted to share the news that the country finally started addressing the problem on Friday. President Robert Mugabe pardoned 1,500 people -- mostly women and children and men serving more than 20 years for a non-violent convictions. The prisoners were released on Friday.
Amnesty International has reported that more than 1,000 people had died in Zimbabwe's prisons this year alone due to starvation and disease. The mass release is a welcome step, but it doesn't go far enough to address conditions in the prisons or the inconsistent system that puts some people behind bars in Zimbabwe for crimes they didn't commit, or even for years while they await a trial.
