Prison Conditions
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No Grisham in Prison? Reverse TX's Absurd Book Ban
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A U.S. Blind Spot: Kids in Prison
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The World's Overflowing Prisons
Two Million Prisoners' Wasted Potential
Published February 09, 2010 @ 08:53AM PT
Nearly two and half million people are locked in our country's prisons and jails. Most of them will someday be freed, only to get locked up again within three years.
In a great Huffington Post piece this week, Alan Elsner reminds us of this fact as he goes inside a New Hampshire state prison for women to take part in a writer's forum with prisoners. What he found there, he writes, was a world of wasted potential and missed opportunities.
Elsner, who has written extensively about the criminal just system, says he was impressed by the women's passion and intelligence, but saddened to think that so many would serve years inside without learning the skills they need to survive once they leave. When they're released, they're starting already lagging in the game.
It's an issue I write about frequently here, but the picture painted by Elsner caught my attention. What if every American had the chance to visit a prison and see what Elsner saw last week? Maybe then we wouldn't stand for three-strike laws and 10-year sentences for nonviolent crimes.
A Voice from the Hole
Published January 28, 2010 @ 03:11PM PT
I've written recently about the very welcome arrival of prisoners to the blogosphere -- from Change.org contributor Michael Santos to the posts of Theodore Braden at Teen in Jail, technology is giving a voice to the previously silenced millions in our jails and prisons. Now, this revolution has even reached into the deepest recesses of our prison system -- solitary confinement.
Thanks to the great new blog, Solitary Watch, I came across the writings of a Nevada prisoner named Coyote Sheff, who has been in Nevada prisons for more than a decade, spending much of it in disciplinary segregation. He writes blog posts, poetry and zines from a cell he inhabits 23 hours a day, and somehow manages to keep his thoughts positive:
I deal with the struggles of being in prison and I keep moving. I deal with the despair, I deal with the agony, the suffering, the misery, and I keep living. I deal with the depression, I deal with the destruction and I deal with the hate. I keep loving life and I keep living my life. Life is beautiful, I'm thankful to be alive. I live in a graveyard, but I'm not dead, I'm alive and well.
Writing From Beyond Prison Walls
Published January 23, 2010 @ 09:17PM PT
Some of the greatest books ever written were penned behind bars. The Guardian has compiled a list of the 10 most important books written in prison, and Amazon user Robert Moore weighs in with an even more extensive list here. I have no doubt that more potential masterpieces are languishing in our prison cells today, and the PEN American Center, which recently announced this year's winners for its Prison Writing Program, again reminds us of that fact.
The winning essay, Charles P. Norman's "I Wore Chains to My Father's Funeral," is a moving memoir about the experience of losing a loved one in prison -- an experience that's almost universal among long-term prisoners. Dozens of winners in poetry, drama, memoir, fiction and essay categories are also represented -- take a look.
I recently read "Couldn't Keep it To Myself," an excellent collection of personal stories written by women in a Connecticut prison and collected by Wally Lamb. The collection was heartbreaking, and a reflection of the remarkable passion that can be channeled through exposure to writing instruction. (Unfortunately, prison officials weren't happy with the book's success. The state sued former prisoners who had written, though they eventually settled the lawsuit and allowed the program to continue)
Criminal Justice Commission Gets a Leg Up
Published January 22, 2010 @ 10:45AM PT
A bipartisan bill that would form a commission to evaluate the U.S. criminal justice system took a step forward yesterday, passing the Senate Judiciary Committee by a voice vote. A note to newly elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown: please don't kill this on top of healthcare, too.
Sponsored by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (left), the bill raises the hope that the federal government might finally put the brakes on the tough-on-crime prison explosion that's wasted millions of lives and billions of dollars over the past four decades. Groups from Families Against Mandatory Minimums to the Sentencing Project immediately praised the committee's passage of the bill. Yet even among criminal justice reformers, not everybody's on board.
Would You Joke About This Woman's Rape?
Published January 22, 2010 @ 08:20AM PT
If you knew a young boy down the street had been raped, would you joke about it? If you knew your friend's sister was being raped, would you help her?
What if you made both of those people wear prison jumpsuits -- what about then?
That's what a new campaign from JUST DETENTION International (JDI) wants to know. Long a cultural staple, prison rape jokes -- never funny to begin with -- start to look even more like an appalling vestige of the past when confronted with the real stats. Try this one on for size: the Justice Department's January report says that over 12% of kids in juvenile prisons are sexually abused while in custody. In some facilities, like Maryland's Backbone Mountain Youth Center, that figure vaults as high as 36%.
Human Rights Watch wrote a searing report on the subject of male rape in prison a number of years back, which is well worth a re-visit. Here's one man's account, excerpted below:
When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat....
This is a man who was in prison for a D.U.I. offense (his third). HRW has more, including the case of Rodney Hulin, whose 17-year-old son hanged himself after being sodomized and repeatedly abused by other inmates, and his requests for protective custody denied.
By all means, civil liberties and human rights advocates should continue to keep the pressure up on Guantanamo, and in calling the White House out on its limp-noodle stance on investigating past torture and abuse. But it's important not to forget, either, that greatest number of mass atrocities visited on prisoners by the American justice system happen right here in this country, on our soil.
Photo Credit: Just Detention International
The Best Criminal Justice Reporting of 2009
Published January 22, 2010 @ 06:53AM PT
Each year, John Jay College of Criminal Justice honors great reporting on crime, courts and prisons. This year, top awards recognized reporting that cuts at the heart of two key issues: wrongful convictions and long-term solitary confinement.
In the Austin Chronicle, reporter Jordan Smith gets inside the story of a couple convicted for allegedly abusing children at a day care center. Fran and Danny Keller have spent 17 years in prison under these allegations, which they adamantly deny. In his story, Smith turns up evidence that suggests the Kellers are not guilty after all -- and in fact were convicted based on allegations coerced from the children.
When it comes to wrongful convictions, hysteria in child care situations and false sex assault allegations are common. In one of the more high-profile cases of late, two Ohioans were exonerated -- after 15 years in prison -- from charges of molestation at a childcare center. The 2009 documentary Witch Hunt, which explores the wrongful convictions of several Californians likewise accused of sexual assault in a day care setting, and Capturing the Friedmans, are also examples of great documentary work like Smith's on the issue.
Inside a Prison Hospice
Published January 21, 2010 @ 07:35AM PT
What does the end of life look like in prison?
Over the past three years, photographer Lori Waselchuk has visited the hospice at Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary to document the prison's groundbreaking hospice program. Her images are an illustration of the system of cooperation and compassion between prisoners that can exist, and I'm glad they're touring the world to open people up to that reality.
Angola's hospice, started more than a decade ago, is still one of only a few such programs in the nation. It is overseen by a nurse, but run mostly by prisoners who take care of one another. A quilting program helps the hospice raise money for basic needs. And prisoner by prisoner, it's helping change perspectives inside the system.
At first, as Waselchuk told the Morning News, prison staff thought the hospice "was a scam; they thought these guys were going to abuse the system. It was all suspicion. " But in the past 10 to 12 years, he says, the prisoners working there have "really convinced a lot of people," and also taught many staff members "about compassion and that crime does not define the person."
"I wanted to make pictures," she says, "that rose to how much I felt they could share."
To view Waselchuk's moving images, you can check out the exhibition website here. As I've previously written, the documentary The Farm: 10 Down includes interviews about the hospice program and some footage of the program, and is also very much worth checking out.
Photo Credit: Lori Waselchuk
