San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Distance Determines if Prisoners Receive Visits

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Research indicates prisoners who are visited by family and friends are less likely to return to incarceration.
Distance plays a major role in why many prisoners’ visits are infrequent and in many cases why others do not receive visits at all, according to Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) research. The study exposes how less than one-third of state prisoners are visited by loved ones during an average month.
“Distance from home is a strong predictor for whether an incarcerated person receives a visit,” said Bernadette Rabuy, the Oct. 2015 study author. “I hope this report gives policy makers more reasons to change the course of correctional history.”
When someone is imprisoned far from home it impacts their visitors in many ways, one of which is by discouraging them from visiting, it was reported.
“We found that among incarcerated people locked up less than 50 miles from home, half receive a visit in a month, but the portion receiving visits falls as the distance from home increases,” the study says.
Prison Policy Initiative said it found “the breakdown of how far people in state prisons reported being locked up (is determined by their distance) from their home communities.”
Distance % visited last month
Less than 50 miles 49.6%
50-100 miles 40.0%
101-500 miles 25.9%
501-1,000 miles 14.5%
Based on a survey covering 14,500 state prisoners done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the initiative calculated the proportion of inmates housed at various distances from family and friends:
Distance Proportion
Less than 50 miles 15.7%
50-100 miles 20.9%
101-500 miles 53.2%
501-1,000 miles 7.9%
Over 1,000 miles 2.2%
According to a Yale Law School report, “Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Study,” “Thirty jurisdictions (including California) promote or encourage visitation at the outset of their policy directives or regulations.”
However, the Yale study noted these states “are not necessarily the ones in which visitation is most liberally permitted, and indeed some have policies that severely limit visitation.”
The Yale study said 32 jurisdictions place limitations on the number of approved visitors a prisoner may have.
“In contrast, California affirmatively places no limit on the number of approved visitors,” the Yale study says. Citing prison regulations, the study said, “‘Limitations shall not be placed on the number of visitors approved to visit an inmate.’”
The initiative’s study also said distance is not the only factor that affects prisoners’ families or friends’ decision to pay them a visit. It said harassment by prison staff is a deciding issue too.
“States such as California and Massachusetts should stop their unnecessary and dehumanizing strip and dog searches of visitors,” the initiative’s study said.
The Yale study says all states provide prison visitation, and each state screens visitors and places limitations on visiting times and determines who is allowed to visit.
“All states provide a substantial level of discretion to each prison’s warden or superintendent in implementing the policy directives,” the Yale study said.
The Yale study commented, “Many inmates are incarcerated far away from friends and family; sheer distance serves as a major barrier to visitation.”

PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.

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Annual Report Strives End Mass Incarceration

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After more than a decade of research and advocacy to end the harmful effects of mass incarceration, the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) continues to reach new heights. Throughout its history, PPI has relied on volunteers and interns to gather research information and to analyze and produce reports that raise awareness for policy makers and the public. Now the organization is branching out, according to its 2014-2015 annual report.
“This year, we’ve finally grown to the point where we can create a new network that allows less frequent but more focused contributions from working people throughout the country,” writes PPI Executive Director Peter Wagner in the report.
In a study on the racial geography of mass incarceration PPI exposes how gerrymandering gives undue voting representation to those living near prisons. That’s because the Census Bureau counts prisoners based on where they are confined instead of their home county.
“We hope these campaigns will encourage other states to address the problem of prison gerrymandering and compel the Census Bureau to implement a standard, national solution,” said Alison Walsh, PPI’s Policy and Communications Associate.
In its study, Prisons of Poverty, PPI unveiled the pre-incarceration incomes of prisoners to show how they are “shut out of the economy even before they are incarcerated,” writes Wagner, adding that this data was made accessible by data scientist Daniel Kopf.
In recent years PPI has worked to bring fairness to the phone rates that family and friends must pay to stay in touch with prisoners while they are confined.
“Recognizing yet another way that mass incarceration punishes entire communities, we’ve made it a priority to help the FCC understand and regulate this previously hidden market,” PPI reported.
“Since we published our annual report, the Federal Communications Commission has approved new fee limits and a rate cap” on interstate calls, said Walsh. New protections are expected to extend to intra-state calls.
“We are also working with criminal justice and immigration advocates in California to encourage the use of video technology to supplement, not replace, in-person visits,” said Walsh.
In the report Screening Out Family Time by Policy and Communications Associate Bernadette Rabuy and Wagner, PPI revealed how video visitation is used to discontinue human contact with those who are incarcerated.
PPI research provided a comprehensive national survey of the video visitation industry and held the industry’s alleged benefits up to the scrutiny of families of the incarcerated. The first year of its campaign to protect in-person visits produced many victories.
“Bernadette’s January report has transformed this industry, empowering families and facilities to fight back against bad contracts,” said Wagner.
PPI has also joined forces with attorney Stephen Raher, said Wagner, “to take on another expanding predatory industry.” According to Wagner, prepaid release cards are being issued when someone leaves jail or prison. If they are due money, instead of receiving a check or cash they are given prepaid MasterCards that come with “exorbitant fees.”
 

|“Bernadette’s January report has transformed this industry,

empowering families and facilities to fight back against bad contracts”|

 
“These cards charge some of the poorest people in this country,” said Wagner. “That’s just unconscionable.” He said Raher’s research caught the attention of the media and was “the core of our letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calling for regulation.”
Other issues covered in the report include sentencing enhancement zones that restrict where the formerly incarcerated may reside, as well as driver’s license suspension for those convicted of drug crimes having nothing to do with driving. The report also addresses the practice of some jails halting letters to inmates.
“Controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio began a misguided trend in 2007 when he banned families from sending letters to loved ones in jail, requiring personal correspondence to take place on postcards,” PPI reported.
“Most recently, we analyzed Bureau of Justice Statistics data finding there is a national crisis of suicide in local jails, a problem far more prevalent in jails than in state prisons or the US,” PPI reported.
PPI is expanding its reach to reveal how mass incarceration at local, state and national levels continues to erode sociological conditions in the US. In this era of Black Lives Matter, it analyzed Gallup’s public opinion surveys that reveal how people feel about law enforcement.
“American confidence in police has reached a 22-year low,” PPI reported. “Black Americans consistently report having less confidence than whites in the police.”
According to PPI’s annual report, it produces original research and edits multiple databases “to empower activists, journalists and policy makers to shape effective criminal justice policy.”
The idea to start PPI came from a group of students (which included attorney Peter Wagner) in 2001. “We are also enormously grateful to the small network of generous individuals who sustain our work,” the report said. Its website can be accessed at www.prisonpolicy.org.

Prison Policy Initiative Highlights Improvements

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A prisoners’ rights research organization highlights in its annual report accomplishments and reforms made in the criminal justice system.
The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) published its first annual report November 2013.
“The non-profit, non-partisan PPI produces cutting edge research to expose the broader harm of mass incarceration and then sparks advocacy campaigns to create a more just society,” according to the report.
The report analyzed these four core issues that have drawn national attention:
• Prison gerrymandering,
• The high cost of phone calls made from prison,
• Proposals to end letters to prisoners,
• Geography-based punishments.
When PPI learned that for years millions of prisoners throughout the U.S. were being counted in the wrong place by the Census Bureau, it exposed the gerrymandering practice. This raised awareness, later creating the impetus for legislation to change this policy at the local, state, and national levels.
“For more than a decade, we’ve been leading the movement to keep the prison system from exerting undue influence on the political process,” PPI reported.
The Census Bureau has now been urged to tabulate incarcerated individuals in the communities from which they come from by the 2020 census, instead of where these inmates are confined, PPI reported.
“The public was unaware that prison gerrymandering was distorting our democracy and impeding criminal justice reform,” PPI reported.
Two reports released by PPI exposed the inherent nature of price gouging by prison telephone companies such as Global Tel Link that provides service to inmates.
The Price To Call Home, and Please Deposit All of Your Money revealed kickbacks to prisons, exorbitant rates, and hidden fees in the prison telephone industry.
The reports “explained how prison systems and private companies collude to charge unconscionable sums to poor families that simply want to stay in touch with an incarcerated loved one,” PPI reported.
“We wrote this report (Please Deposit…) to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prevent companies from creating arbitrary fees out of thin air to negate any caps that the FCC might impose on the cost of a call. It is clear from the FCC’s historic ruling in August that they heard our concerns and took action accordingly,” said Peter Wagner, Executive Director of PPI.
Recently PPI learned about a progression of sheriffs around the country attempting to ban letters written to inmates. The then impending jail mail policy was to allow postcard only mail communication from family members.
Later, PPI policy analyst, Leah Sakala, released her report Return to Sender. With the help of Sakala’s report, inmate advocates in California were able to halt the implementation of the mail policy in the Santa Clara County Jail, according to the report.
“A growing number of sheriffs are experimenting with a harmful idea: banning letters from loved ones. We are pushing back,” PPI reported. “We wrote the first comprehensive report exposing the harm of letter bans in local jails.”
In its report titled, The Geography of Punishment, PPI details how sentencing enhancement zones do harm to communities while failing to protect children. The zones “miss the mark.”
“Increased penalties in school zone areas worsen racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” PPI reported. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick endorsed PPI’s proposal to reduce enhancement zones to 100 feet. This was done to reduce the state’s prison population, which in turn saved taxpayers money.
PPI’s Wagner testified as an expert witness in a Colorado case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union where the City of Englewood created an ordinance restricting where certain sex offenders and their families may live. The ordinance was subsequently overturned.
“When a legislature decides everywhere is special, nowhere is special. Aside from our main campaigns and ongoing projects, we’ve had several opportunities to support our colleagues’ campaigns in advancing larger discussions about mass incarceration,” PPI reported.
PPI formed in 2001 out of the idea three students had to make public and document how the affects of mass incarceration undermines the national welfare of the United States.

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