by TChris

Courts can't solve the problems spawned by legislatures, but sometimes they can force improvements. As TalkLeft reported, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson is using receivership to force California to correct its woeful administration of prison health care.

This happened after shocking testimonies given by two investigative physicians, each with 20-years-plus experience, who compared California's medical crisis to that of Angola, one of the worst prisons in the country. Both physicians stated that in all their decades in practice in correctional settings, they had "never seen such callousness and gross incompetence so widespread." They reported scores of preventable deaths verified from the medical records. At least 64 more per year are predicted to happen until the bureaucratic mess is cleaned up.

As Cayenne Bird explains, the problem isn't caused by a lack of money. It's caused by politicians who adopted a "lock 'em up" mentality with no thought to the consequences of ever-increasing prison populations.

by TChris

The consequences of the “lock ‘em up” mentality that pervaded the United States over the last quarter century are now felt by taxpayers as prisons warehouse an increasingly geriatric population. But the consequences of that failed philosophy are most acutely felt by the individuals who endure large parts of their lives behind bars, paying a ridiculous price for their mistakes. Junior Allen, who served 35 years in the Alabama prison system for stealing a $140 television set, is an example of a man who continues to be punished after he paid (or overpaid) his debt to society.

Despite extensive prison records in North Carolina, where he has spent more than half his life as inmate No. 0004604, Allen has been unable to establish his identity in rural Georgia, where he now lives with his sister, or in Alabama, where he was born 65 years ago to sharecropper parents. The monthlong effort to get a birth certificate and photo ID only hints at the new challenge he faces - that of transforming himself from less-than-model inmate to average senior citizen.

Allen was denied parole 25 times. Now, having finally been released, he’d just like to go fishing and find a job--if he could only get ID.

by TChris

Litigation over the sorry state of California's prison health care system (covered by TalkLeft here and here) prompted U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to announce yesterday that he will appoint an independent authority to supervise the administration of inmate health care.

Henderson, ruling in San Francisco in a class-action lawsuit, is expected to appoint a receiver during a hearing July 8, when he also will set the scope, authority and duration of the receivership. The judge could choose one or more receivers from among candidates suggested by the state prison system and attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Calling the system "terribly broken," Judge Henderson found it necessary to step in, given the state's inability to fix its own mess. In the words of Judge Henderson, "We're dealing literally with life and death."

Reform advocates were pleased with the decision.

by TChris

Drug offenders who pay their societal debt by finishing a prison term return to a society that often continues to punish them by denying them employment. Out of despair or necessity, many return to the world of drugs, and then to prison.

Illinois is experimenting with a program to end that cycle. Its Sheridan Correctional Center will soon be the country's largest drug treatment prison. Unlike many drug treatment prisons, Sheridan focuses on repeat offenders.

Illinois recognized that, with 40,000 inmates coming out of its prisons this year, and with 80 percent likely to return to crime within three years, the simple-minded "lock 'em up" strategy has failed. It also recognized that treatment alone won't prevent recidivism. Inmates at Sheridan participate in educational or job training programs. Critically, support for offenders continues after their release into society.

Major kudos to Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack who is restoring the right to vote to felons who have completed serving their sentences.

The governor's order, which he plans to sign on July 4, will make an estimated 80,000 ex-felons eligible to vote. Advocates hope that the order, which comes after a similar restoration of voting rights in Nebraska, will encourage other states with similarly restrictive laws to broaden voting privileges for ex-felons.

Nationally, about 4.7 million people are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, about 500,000 of them war veterans, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes alternatives to incarceration. About 1.4 million are black men.

Iowa had one of the most restrictive bans in the country.

Go read James Capozzola at Rittenhouse on the latest New York mob arrests....Yesterday's Mobsters Today: Bum Knees Have Replaced Broken Kneecaps....Jim asks if it's funny or sad. I'd say both, but more on the sad side. He's talking about this New York Times article:

According to this DOJ press release, President Bush granted seven pardons this week. Law Professor Ellen Podgor of White Collar Crime Blog has the breakdown and analysis.

The pardons are mostly for "white collar" offenses, but one marijuana defendant from Texas is in the group. I wonder if an enterprising reporter or blogger will uncover a connection between Bush and this pardonee:

James Edward Reed
Kaufman, Texas
Offense: Conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute marijuana; 21 U.S.C. § 846.
Sentence: January 10, 1975; Northern District of Texas;
18 months imprisonment; two years special parole.

Update: Could he have any connection to Bush White House political director Ron Kaufman? Never mind, Kaufman is the city in Texas, not the pardoned man's name. Thanks to the commenter who pointed this out.

Manson follower Susan Atkins has been denied parole for the 11th time. She is now 57 years old.

"They primarily cited the gravity of the crime, the fact the murders were carried out in an especially cruel and callous manner," Kindel said. He said Atkins "listened without reaction and then was escorted out of the room" at the California Institution for Women in Corona.

We last checked in with Ms. Atkins here, when she had filed a civil rights lawsuit against Gov. Gray Davis. Her compatriot in crime, Leslie Van Houten, has also been denied parole repeatedly.

It's always the heinousness of the crime that the parole board focuses on. What about their rehabilitation during 30 years of prison? When will that count for something?

In Houston, former felon Darrell Bruines has been granted a full scholarship at Texas Southern University. Bruines served 34 months in prison on drug charges, after losing one of his legs in a shootout. After jail, he went on to graduate from Community College with a 4.0 average.

Bruines wasn't always so focused. As a youth, he joined the wrong crowd, started dealing drugs and quit high school. He went to prison in 1994, a year after he was shot when someone tried to steal the rims from his tires; his right leg had to be amputated. Today, he considers that experience, including his 34 months in prison, a blessing.

"I feel this way because it took me off the streets and eventually led me to where I am now," he said. "Once I decided to change, I found out people were willing to help me."

Rehabilitation works.

A federal judge in California is considering appointing a receiver to take over the state's prison medical system:

Saying "I can see myself appointing a receiver to stop 60-some people a year from dying," a judge indicated Tuesday that he's inclined to order a federal takeover of California's prison medical system.

The remark by Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson came in response to expert testimony that poor health care is causing probably one to two preventable deaths per site per year" at the state's 32 penal institutions.

33 years after stealing a $140 black and white television set, Junior Allen has been released on parole. He is now 64 years old. He is not a habitual offender and he didn't rack up a bad prison record. But a North Carolina judge imposed a life sentence.

TalkLeft wrote about Mr. Allen after his 26th parole hearing denial.

More news background here

Prosecutor Mike Beam became Allen's most unlikely ally two years ago, when he worked for the county that put Allen behind bars. "I've never heard anything like this," Beam said. "In my personal opinion, it's time to let him go, turn the key."

by TChris

The Saginaw County (Michigan) Jail isn't a good place to be held after an arrest for a traffic violation. Just ask Linda Rose, who was arrested for drunk driving.

Linda Rose says she spent three hours crouched in the corner of a concrete cell at the Saginaw County Jail, shivering and sobbing, after deputies stripped her of her clothes and left her naked in front of a surveillance camera.

With good reason, Rose says that the jailers stripped her of her dignity as well as her clothing. At least dozens (and possibly hundreds) of other inmates experienced the same humiliating treatment at the hands of Saginaw County jailers. The County contended that stripping prisoners was necessary to assure that they didn't hang themselves. Why a drunk driving arrest would provoke suicidal behavior is difficult to explain, and the jailers had no particular reason to believe that the inmates who were forced to strip were suicidal. Some of them were naked for days.

A federal judge hearing a lawsuit on behalf of the detainees didn't buy the County's argument. The judge ruled that the routine practice of stripping inmates and forcing them to remain naked in a cell violates their constitutional rights. To be determined: how much money to award the class action plaintiffs as a result of the County's unlawful behavior.