The Philadelphia Tribune has an important, must-read series of articles this week, gathered into a report, Life Behind Bars.

A population behind bars: According to the Philadelphia Prison System's current figures, 70 percent of the incarcerated population is Black - and growing. ....Today, Black women are seven times more likely to be imprisoned than white women.

Black youth are also being incarcerated in greater numbers.

For every 100,000 Black juveniles living in the United States, more than 750 are in custody in a juvenile facility.

by TChris

A review of Inside: Life Behind Bars in America by Michael Santos:

Mainly, though, [the book is] a diary of "a gladiator school," "a walled city of madness." Guards act savagely -- a natural outcome in a culture where "the only thing lower than an inmate is an 'inmate lover,' a 'hug-a-thug.' " They can also be infuriatingly petty. "Guards are the only people I see throwing cigarettes on the ground," one prisoner says. "They walk across lawns and then order inmates to rake up behind them." Meanwhile, prisoners stab and rape one another and make weapons out of everything from a heavy pipe to a tube sock filled with combination locks. Violence, or the threat of it, permeates Santos's life.

Not surprisingly, Santos sees a need for change:

Cheers today to Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr, who has been actively using his pardon power to correct injustices.

Since taking office in 2003, Ehrlich ® has granted clemency to 190 former convicts, reversing a two-decade trend among state and national chief executives, who have largely shelved their power to issue pardons.

Some examples:

[T]he governor has also tackled cases that his predecessor wouldn't touch: a backlog of clemency appeals from lifers who had convinced state parole officials that they were ready to be released. "You have these situations where race may have played a part, insufficient counsel may have played a part, where the shooter is out and the accomplice is still in," Ehrlich said. "Those needed to be addressed."

The LA Times has a long profile, gleaned from hours of interviews, on how former SLA member Sara Jane Olson is coping in prison. Even if you're not interested in Olson (formerly known as Katheen Soliah) or her case (TalkLeft coverage is assembled here), it's a great read because it really conveys the dismal, grey, barren life of a female state prison inmate.

Shortly after 8 each weekday morning, Inmate W94197 reports for work on the prison yard. She earns 24 cents an hour emptying trash cans and tidying up. She is grateful for the job.

....[Olson] is now a white-haired woman of 59, serving out her seven years. Her experience, related in letters and a series of conversations, reveals much about punishment and survival in a state system that holds 11,730 women.

[More...]

by TChris

The second installment in the "Revolving Door" series -- "exploring what happens when convicts leave prison and return to their communities" -- appeared in yesterday's New York Times. The first installment, reporting on Iowa's onerous residency requirements for sex offenders, appeared in March.

Yesterday's story examines Rhode Island's effort to understand why "some women and many more men cycle repeatedly through the state's prisons."

Rhode Island is among the states beginning to make progress in easing offenders' re-entry to society with the goal of bringing the revolving door to a halt, or at least slowing it. But sometimes it can be hard to see much of a difference.

These efforts are a counterweight to the "tough on crime" thinking that dominated policy-making during the last quarter century. By focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation, politicians filled the nation with prisoners who, after finishing harsh sentences, are frequently doomed to return to the unsettled lives that led them to prison in the first place.

The New York Times today reports on recommendations for loosening federal regulations on using experimental drugs on prison inmates made in June by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections.

Under current regulations, passed in 1978, prisoners can participate in federally financed biomedical research if the experiment poses no more than "minimal" risks to the subjects. But a report formally presented to federal officials on Aug. 1 by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences advised that experiments with greater risks be permitted if they had the potential to benefit prisoners. As an added precaution, the report suggested that all studies be subject to an independent review.

This is a sensitive area, particularly for those who recall what happened at Holmesburg prison in Philadelphia between 1951 and 1974 and even worse, the Tuskegee syphilis studies, both of which prompted the current regulations.

Received by e-mail:

The Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review is publishing its first ever article written by a prison inmate, Thomas C. O'Bryant, who is a jailhouse lawyer serving two consecutive life sentences in prison without hope of release. Having taught himself the law from prison, O'Bryant has represented himself and other inmates in numerous criminal and civil lawsuits in state and federal courts over the past ten years.

In his law review article, O'Bryant describes the difficult process that he and other indigent inmates must endure to challenge their state convictions. O'Bryant argues that the combination of federal laws and stringent prison conditions make it impossible to challenges wrongful convictions effectively. O'Bryant describes his own case, in which his lawyer assured him that if he pled guilty, he would be eligible for release after ten years, even though he discovered from prison that he would never be eligible for release.

The entire summer issue of the Journal, including O'Bryants article, is available here.

by TChris

Some people think that prisoners deserve any evil that befalls them during incarceration. Some don't think about prisoners at all -- out of sight, out of mind. But prison violence should concern everyone, because most prisoners will eventually be released, and years of victimization can destroy an inmate's ability to begin a law-abiding, productive life. Worse, it can turn a casual criminal into a vicious predator. That's why society should pay attention to prison rape.

"It's a real and serious problem," said Malcolm Feeley, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. "It may be the single largest shame of the American criminal justice system, and that's saying a lot."

The problem of prison rape is exacerbated by laws that treat juvenile offenders as adults, setting up vulnerable young men as prey for violent inmates.

A federal judge has ordered the state of Missouri to provide transportation to a female inmate who wants an abortion.

The judge held that prisoners have a constitutional right to abortion, just like everyone else. How Appealing has posted the opinion here. The Kansas City Star has more.

"The right to abortion survives incarceration," Rothert said.

From the opinion:

by TChris

Inmates are frequently forced to make collect calls if they want to talk to family members. Shockingly, jail and prison authorities are happy to sign contracts that permit telephone carriers to charge outrageous tolls for those calls, on the condition that the jail or prison gets a kickback from the overcharging. Burdening the ability of inmates to stay in touch with their families so that the government can turn a profit is ultimately counterproductive because it inhibits rehabilitation, as TalkLeft noted in this story about a lawsuit that tried to end the practice in New York.

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, was dismissed, and that dismissal was affirmed on appeal. There's still reason to hope for a just outcome, however, as the New York Court of Appeals has agreed to hear the case.

Wow. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking in California yesterday:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy yesterday criticized the federal Sentencing Guidelines and the lobbying efforts of correctional officers' unions.

"The only thing worse than sentencing under the guidelines is sentencing without them," he told judges and lawyers from across the Ninth Circuit yesterday. "I think the guidelines are far too severe," he added, explaining that spending money on prisoners while failing to invest in efforts to inform at-risk groups about sentencing undermined the principle of deterrence.

"The fact that the prison guards' association lobbies for higher penalties is sick," he added emphatically.

Best thing I've read all day. [Via How Appealing.]

Mark Fiore cartoon today: United States of Incarceration. "You don't have to go to Guantanamo to find a broken, unjust prison system." We've got one right here.