Overcrowding
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.
Going Beyond Band-Aids to Stop Suicides in French Prisons
Published August 30, 2009 @ 02:34PM PT
French officials are taking the first steps this month to stem a rising tide of suicides in the nation's prisons. One facet of the response involves removing the physical tools of suicide from prison cells. While this may save lives, it won't address the deeper problem of despair in France's crowded prisons.
At least 88 people have killed themselves so far this year in the nation's prisons. This means suicides in the country are on pace to rise for a third straight year, and that the suicide rate among French prisoners continues to far eclipse that of the U.K. or the U.S.
Prison administrators in France will soon be issued "suicide kits" - including paper pajamas and tear-proof bedding to prevent hangings, which account for 96 percent of suicides. This may be a start, but preventing suicides by denying the physical tools is one thing. Addressing the overall mental health of prisoners is another.
There are also plans to train staff on identifying signs of possible suicide and to partner long-term prisoners with high-risk new arrivals. These programs are aimed in the right direction, and I hope they become the heart of the French response to this crisis, rather than simply sending "suicide kits" and calling it a solution.
Psychiatrist Louis Albrand, whose report on the state of French prisons is expected in October, said the steps announced this month were "disappointing."
"This is not a serious response. We need genuine penitentiary reform," said Albrand, who wants an overhaul of jails in favour of smaller-scale structures, and curbs on the use of solitary confinement, from 45 to 20 consecutive days.
Smart on Crime: More Safety at Less Cost
Published August 14, 2009 @ 05:59AM PT
[Editor's Note: Kamala Harris is currently the District Attorney of San Francisco, the first woman to be elected to the office in the city. She is a candidate for Attorney General of California in 2010, and we're excited to have her guest blog about an innovative approach she has taken to addressing a chronic problem in San Francisco, which impacts all of California: prisoner re-entry.]
When the California State Legislature reconvenes Monday, dealing with the corrections crisis will no doubt be on the top of everyone's "to do" list. The Governor signed a budget requiring a $1.2 billion reduction in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget, and a panel of three federal judges recently ordered a cap on the state prison population that could result in the release of more than 40,000 inmates. If ever there was a time to think outside the box and break with the approaches of the past, the time is now. We have to do something different.
Over the last thirty years, California's prison population has soared. In 1980, California had a prison population of about 24,000 in a state of 24 million. Today we have an inmate population of 172,000 out of 36 million people. This means that since 1980, our population has grown by 50% while our prison population has grown 617%.
Today, the majority of those inmates are not first-time offenders. Each year, approximately 70 percent of those released from California prisons commit another offense, resulting in the highest recidivism rate in the nation. These repeat offenses are preventable crimes that claim more victims and harm communities' quality of life. It costs on average more than $10,000 to prosecute just one felony case, and about $47,000 per year to house each inmate in prison. Every time an inmate is released and commits a new crime, local and state jurisdictions pay those costs over and over again. Most importantly, individuals and communities pay the highest price when they are re-victimized by crime. To keep our communities safe and use public money wisely, we must insist that people coming out of the criminal justice system become productive citizens and stay out.
In San Francisco, I have developed a smart on crime approach: we must be tough on serious and violent offenders while we get just as tough on the root causes of crime. In my office, we have raised felony conviction rates and sent more violent offenders to state prison, at the same time we have launched innovative, cost effective approaches to reduce recidivism and break the cycles of crime.
Tension Boils Over at Crowded California Prison
Published August 10, 2009 @ 06:57AM PT
A riot on Saturday night at the California Institution for Men in Chino left 250 prisoners injured and several housing areas uninhabitable. At left, one of the prison's dormitories was burned.
By many accounts, the riot was ignited by fights between African-American and Latino prisoners, and the violence was starkly divided along racial lines. But overcrowding clearly had a role in this disaster. Chino was built in 1941 for 3,033 prisoners and currently holds 5,911.
As I've written here before, racial divisions and violence are serious problems inside prisons across the country. The prevalence of gangs - usually divided along racial lines - exacerbates the problem. Friends who have served time across the country have told me about the hyper-awareness prisoners develop to race - and the difficulty to shake prejudices upon release.
Skipp Townsend, who served time in California prisons and jails and now works as the executive director of 2nd Call, a community organization addressing violence reduction in L.A., spoke with NPR's Tony Cox about race behind bars last year.
"In the prison system, in the jail system, it's a tension that is immediate. As soon as being incarcerated... the tension is there," Townsend said. "The guy who might be my friend on the street, I can no longer be friends with him inside of L.A. County Jail."
But we can't blame this riot on unavoidable racial tensions and move on. There are deeper causes, and until they are addressed, we'll see more revolts like this across the country. Overcrowding and the lack of education and other services contribute to uprisings like this one. Until these issues are addressed, we'll see more violence inside prison, continued recidivism, and officials will have no choice but to crack down and punish prisoners after the fact.
Judges Order California to Cut Prison Population by 27%
Published August 05, 2009 @ 06:10AM PT
A three-judge panel, handling a series of class-action lawsuits that have dragged on for 15 years, took its strongest action yet yesterday in ordering the California Department of Corrections to reduce the prison population by 40,000 inmates (27 percent) in two years. The judges ruled that overcrowding in the system is so severe it is a violation of prisoners' constitutional rights, and causes one at least unnecessary death per week.
“In these overcrowded conditions, inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent, infectious diseases spread more easily, and lockdowns are sometimes the only means by which to maintain control,” the panel wrote. “In short, California’s prisons are bursting at the seams and are impossible to manage.”
The state said it would appeal, because the ordered changes will cost the state money it doesn't have. But columnist Dan Walters coined a new phrase in the Sacramento Bee (new to me at least), that applies well to the situation.
There's an old saying in police and prosecutorial circles: Don't do the crime unless you want to do the time. A political corollary should be: Don't crack down on crime unless you're willing to spend the dime.
Fighting Tough on Crime in California
Published July 28, 2009 @ 04:57AM PT
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the state's messy new budget today, after marking it up with his line-item veto pen. The final budget will include deep cuts to the state's out-of-control corrections spending, but the decision on how to achieve those cuts has been pushed back into August.
The delay in handling the tricky politics of corrections cuts came after Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee threatened to withdraw his support of the entire budget if the cuts meant that even a single elderly, drug-addicted, non-violent prisoner was released from prison before they had served every last day of their sentence.
In a great post yesterday on California Progress Report, David Dayen took the tough-on-crime crowd to task for their inability to see the disaster that tough-on-crime created. Dayen wrote:
Using the buzzword of "early release" of "dangerous prisoners" is an old Tough on Crime ploy from way back, evoking memories of the Willie Horton ad in the 1988 Presidential race. It's irresponsible and not relevant to what is being discussed. We have the perfect Tough on Crime prison policy right now - and it's not working in every respect, to the extent that federal courts have stepped in to take control of it.
Overcrowded prisons cannot fulfill their core mission of rehabilitating those jailed, and that's especially true where nonviolent offenders who need medical treatment for addiction and not incarceration are concerned. Brute force has not worked in making the state safer and has certainly caused our budget to skyrocket. And the truth is that more sensible policies can save money and create better prisons at the same time.
Will 'Tough-on-Crime' Derail the California Budget?
Published July 22, 2009 @ 05:43AM PT
Hours after California lawmakers reached a tentative agreement on a budget deal Monday night to begin the process of bailing the struggling state out of debt, Republicans balked at the details behind $1.2 billion in anticipated cuts to the prison budget.
The plan would send some sick elderly prisoners to non-prison hospitals, transfer some non-violent prisoners to house arrest for the last year of their sentence and shorten sentences for non-violent prisoners who earn a GED. A sentencing commission would review the state's policies and recommend adjustments that aren't such a budget drain. These are sensible reforms, and it's a shame that it takes a budget crisis to bring them about. But we'll take progress any way we can get it, and the enemies of sensible prison policy will stop it any way they can - usually by screaming about how 'dangerous' these non-violent prisoners will be when they get on the street.
"Budget negotiations depend on the good faith actions of all parties," Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo said in a statement.
A proposal to release inmates early was "never discussed or agreed to by Republicans," he said. "We made it abundantly clear during negotiations that such policies would endanger the public and were unacceptable."
Leigh Graham wrote yesterday about the deep cuts proposed across the California system, and I share her sadness over for the many Californians who will be harmed by cuts to health insurance, public schools and public housing. It upsets me even more that one of the few lines in the budget that could be improved through some serious cuts - the bloated and overcrowded warehouses of state prisons - is among the hardest to cut.
I've written before about the budget woes forcing states (including Kentucky, Washington, Michigan, Alabama and North Carolina) to reconsider sentencing and prison policy. As I said above, it's a shame that it's the budget - rather than compassion or increased awareness of alternatives to incarceration - that bring us to these crossroads, but money is often at the root of reform.
These cuts and reforms are among the best hopes we have for holistic sentencing improvements in our country, and we may need to wait a few years for the cutbacks to have a statistical impact. Shortening sentences and offering incentives and alternatives to incarceration are smart policy. They don't increase the crime rate, they decrease it by providing people a way out of the system. It would be a grave mistake for California to miss this opportunity.
