Correctional Forum

IMPORTANT NEWS

Regarding the Prison Society's Pardons Board case, the latest word is that oral argument is scheduled for 10:30 am on Sept. 19 -- NOT on Sept. 20, as previously reported.

A Field Day for Democrats -- But Is It Justice?

As most everyone knows by now, uber-Republican Idaho Sen. Larry Craig plead guilty to disorderly conduct after a vague encounter with an plainclothes police officer in a Minnesota airport bathroom. Craig, a longtime opponent of gay rights, had been rumored to be gay in the past, and has now denied such claims. Pro-gay-rights advocates are understandably gratified that the hypocrisy of Republican rhetoric continues to be exposed, but there's something tragic about reading Craig's arrest report, criminal complaint and guilty plea (available here via CNN). Good thing for Craig this is just a misdemeanor. If he were convicted of a sex offense, his life would be over.

Political Prisoner Speaks About Conditions

This is a video of Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American who is well-known scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. When she left the U.S. to visit her mother, who still lives in Iran, she was arrested and incarcerated in the notorious Evin prison. It's not clear what happened to her there, but this is the video of her after her release. It's believed she is only saying the kind things about her captors so that she might be able to leave Iran and come back to her husband and family in the U.S. For more videos, including a CNN report, about Haleh, go here.

Headlines about Rendell's proposal

Pa. considers sentencing changes in effort to turn around inmates [AP]

Rendell's plans aim to ease prison strain [PennLive]

Sentencing changes [Easton Express Times]

Suggested changes in sentencing could help local jails [Shamokin News Item]

Feel-Good Story of the Week: Inmates Training Dogs

The Altoona Mirror reports on a new SCI Smithfield program that allows inmates to train dogs. Similar programs have yielded great success -- and many human-interest stories on the nightly news. Now a partnership between Smithfield and Canine Partners for Life allows nine inmates to share their cells with dogs. The program is already in place at Graterford, Muncy, Cambridge Springs and Albion.

Smithfield inmates train service dogs

[Photo by jbelluch]

Making international headlines today

Thousands of prison officers are on strike today in the United Kingdom. The Prison Officers Association was unable to reach an agreement regarding pay rates, so 90 percent of the officers did not report to work.

What happens to prisoners in that situation? They're in lockdown, of course, and it's hard to say how long the strike will continue. From the BBC:

Mark Leech, founder of the Prisons Handbook and a commentator on the penal system, said striking officers were "effectively taking prisoners hostage through this action".

"Every part of prison life comes down to the prison officers," he told the BBC News website.

"Visits will be cancelled, education and offending behaviour courses will not be running."

As is so often the case, it's the prisoners who lose.

Prison officers in strike action

 

Nicely Said

Okay, so it's not international, but when a Correctional Forum reader responds to something we've written here, it's global news, goshdarnit! In response to the tragic story of a murder of a physician's family, Bob Friedman writes:

I hope that at some point in the context of these horrendous and unthinkable events, there will be public discussion, preferably by experts in the various fields of mental health, that focus on how such a tragedy could only be explained adequately by addressing the factor of mental illness.

Children come into the world with multiple factors that are already established and all too frequently, despite the most heroic efforts by parents, professionals and a loving community, a predisposition to mental illness emerges. Disorders of conduct, personality disorders, brain dysfunction, (and in some cases, actual brain disease), converge such that antisocial behavior becomes inevitable. The tragedy is further intensified when these individuals enter our penal system, which is often woefully inadequate at addressing mental illness.

Dangerous (and often deranged) individuals are often placed in prison environments where there are poor or no mental health services. The incarcerated are then exposed to conditions that allow their antisocial personalities to fester, their anger to become further fueled, and often they encounter abuse that is unimaginable.

The end result, unfortunately are crimes that are equally unimaginable. But mental illness of this sort is not unimaginable. It is all too real. I therefore hope that as the dialogue about these crimes occurs, the role of mental illness will be included and explored, rather than simple discussion of how there is no explanation for such events. This would not be to excuse the reality, but to inform the public and raise awareness about a very real and prevalent set of issues–Our penal system and the care of the criminally mentally ill.

Tuesday's International: More Sweet Europe News

The French major daily Le Monde published an article condemning the U.S. use of the death penalty, especially in the case of death row inmate Kenneth Foster. From Workers.org:

Le Monde also covered the broader use of the death penalty in the United States and that Texas carried out 139 executions while now-President George W. Bush was governor of the state. This focus on Bush might have been inspired by a desire to tarnish French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s vacation in New England and his lunch with Bush around the date of the article.

Other major French papers, including “Marianne,” picked up the story after the Le Monde coverage.

No country in the European Union has the death penalty. Public opinion in France is dead set against it and it is a nonissue in French elections. Just a few far right, racist and xenophobic politicians openly support executions.

Should you be sophisticated enough to read the original, click ici.

Tuesday's International: Pretty Easy Being Green

Norway is the first country in the world to develop what will surely become de rigeur -- albeit decades in the future: an environmentally correct prison. But despite its reduced carbon footprint, Norwegian officials say the prison's green agenda is meant mostly to help prisoners. From Stuff.co.nz:

Justice Minister Knut Storberget said the most important idea behind the "ecologically driven prison" is to develop a sense of responsibility in inmates and prepare them for life outside its non-existent walls.

Norway's relaxed prison policy is intended to reduce re-offending by released offenders, and Bastoey prison [pictured above] aims to bring new values to the handling of criminals.

The minister calls the prison the "island of hope," and indeed, as prisons go, it's not tough to be buoyed by its features:

[The prison] sprawls over much of the island in the beautiful Oslo fjord. [It] gained international media attention a few years ago for its living conditions, resembling a summer camp with activities like tennis, horse riding, and even swimming in the summer, when the North Sea waters warm up.

But before you make those country-club comparisons, know that Bastoey has lower running costs than typical prisons. It is, in fact, one of the cheapest facilities in Norway. And now it makes environmental sense, too.

Norway's minimum security Bastoey Prison goes ecological

Speaking of overcrowding ...

But on a local tip, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports an appalling all-time high for Philadelphia inmates. From an article by staff writer Robert Moran:

On Aug. 6, the prison population hit 9,123, an all-time high that is more than double the average of 4,000 inmates held in the late 1980s.

It also exceeds by about 1,600 the number of inmates the city's six detention centers were designed to hold.

If you think you're hot and irritable on these sweltering summer days, imagine being held three to a cell for 23 hours a day, with no air conditioning. City Solicitor Romulo Diaz once again says the city is taking various measures. Back in March, Diaz told the Prison Society he was concerned about summer 2007: "We're trying to reasonably address expected conditions," he told us then. Now he says Philadelphia should consider building another prison.

But the Inquirer article points to other solutions, quoting scholars from the Vera Institute, as well as Ralph Taylor, from Temple University.

[Taylor] said more focus must be put on the after care of inmates so they don't become repeat inhabitants of city prisons.

"The real trick is to get people to think of post-prison care as part of their public-safety dollars," Taylor said.

That money should go to preventing recidivism, not building another prison, Taylor said.

For the full text of Robert Moran's Inquirer article, click here.

Statewide in Pennsylvania, it's heartening to know there's real awareness that this problem can no longer be ignored. Gov. Ed Rendell has released details of an expansive package to reduce overcrowding in state and county facilities, with a focus on finding a new way to deal with nonviolent offenders.

From Sarina Rosenberg's article in Sunday's Inquirer:

Aspects of the governor's package aim to cut prison costs by streamlining prisoner transportation, paperwork and parole administration. ...

The proposal also would transfer some inmates serving sentences between two and five years from county to state prisons. That change could add about 2,500 inmates - at least 700 from Philadelphia alone - to the approxmately 45,600 in state prisons, according to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. ...

The administration said the state system, though overbooked, could absorb the transfers with the early-release programs in place: The changes are expected to open up hundreds of state-prison beds, and save dollars, in coming years.

It's unclear when the consideration of Rendell's proposal will actually happen, but it's sure to generate plenty of press and controversy when it does, primarily due to the relentless legislator worry about being "tough on crime" -- despite the fact that correctional change resulting from that philosophy has not ensured public safety.

This version of the proposal comes after a lot of negotiation. Again, from the Inquirer:

Earlier versions of the legislation ... would have extended the option to current prisoners. But district attorneys across the state fought to keep the program limited to nonviolent offenders entering the state system after the legislation's approval.

The district attorneys were concerned about retroactively changing sentences, Hart said.

County judges can release some prisoners early for good behavior, but that practice is not tied to any formal rehabilitation program and does not apply to state inmates, many of whom have committed more serious crimes.

Although the district attorneys have signed off on it, the early-release provision could face fierce opposition from lawmakers concerned that such a policy might appear soft on crime.

For the full text of Sarina Rosenberg's article, go here.

 

[For more on the photographer, Macwagen, click here.]