San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Archives for August 2012

Releasing Older Prisoners Would Save Money

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With an increasingly aging prison population in the United States, a new report says it would be less costly to release elderly prisoners who are no longer a danger to public safety.
There has been overwhelming evidence showing that prisoners age 50 and older are far less likely to commit new crimes, according to the report released by the American Civil Liberties Union.
RESEARCH SHOWS
The report also states that research conclusively shows that arrest rates drop to just over two percent at age 50 and almost zero percent by age 65.
The aging epidemic is the result of various federal and state “tough on crime” laws and provisions from the mid-1970s through the 1990s, such as “mandatory minimum” sentences, the “war on drugs,” and “three-strikes-and-you’re-out,” as well as restrictions on parole that were enacted during those years.
20 YEARS OR MORE
Many of those affected would have been sentenced to much shorter periods for their crimes prior to 1979, the report concludes. Instead, they received sentences of 20 years or more.
State corrections spending grew by more than 674 percent over the last 25 years, becoming the fourth largest category of state spending, the report says. The costs are mainly spent on incarceration, including incarceration of aging prisoners.
Nationally, the report says it costs approximately $68,270 per year per aging prisoner. That cost is double the $34,135 per year for the average prisoner in all states and about $30,000 more than the average American household income. The California average is about $50,000 for most prisoners.
The report estimates there are approximately 246,600 aging and elderly prisoners in the United States, making up 16 percent of the prison population nationwide. That number is expected to increase by 4,400 percent from 1981 to 2030 for prisoners age 55 and older.
HIGHER PERCENTAGE
The largest segment of aging prisoners is white, at 42 percent. However, African-American and Hispanic prisoners make up a much higher percentage of aging prisoners than they do the general population, at 33 percent for blacks and 15 percent for Hispanics.
California leads the nation with about 27,680 prisoners 50 or older, the report says, with the majority in prison for low-level, nonviolent crimes.
SHORT-TERM CHANGES
The ACLU report also recommends a number of short-term changes to begin addressing the problem, including:

  • Granting conditional release to aging prisoners who pose little safety risk.
  • Utilizing and expanding existing medical parole laws and provisions.
  • Increasing accountability and transparency of parole boards and encouraging the boards to utilize existing age-based and medical-based release programs.
    The report also proposes doing away with the “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” policies and recommends such long-term systemic reforms as:
  • Repeal laws mandating a minimum sentence, which prevent judges from tailoring punishments to individual cases.
  • Give crime-appropriate sentences, rather than life sentences, to repeat offenders who commit multiple low-level, non-violent crimes.
  • Repeal laws that eliminate good-time credits, which result in inmates serving longer sentences. Good-time credits are awarded for good behavior and completing positive programs.

Seven Ways State Prison System Can Save Money

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California has tremendous potential to save money by revamping its prison system, says a college professor in a Los Angeles Times column.
“We need the political will to pursue proven measures and to counter fear-based rhetoric,” wrote Barry Krisberg, research and policy director at UC Berkeley’s law school.
With budget woes a huge concern for many Californians, Krisberg says there are several policy choices that would ease spending without jeopardizing public safety.

  • releasing low-risk inmates
  • allowing low-level offenders to do their sentences in local jails instead of state prison
  • revising the way low-level offenders are assessed so that they would qualify for county jail time instead of state prison
  • give low-risk offenders with dependent children the opportunity to serve their sentence in a halfway house
  • commuting “holds” on illegal immigrants
  • modest reform of the three-strikes law
  • investment in evidence-based rehabilitation programs

California’s policy makers have already begun to have some success in reforming its prison system, says Krisberg. The state has reduced the prison population by 20,000 so far through prison realignment, “without a detectable decrease in public safety.”
“Legislative leaders have pledged to examine all options to avert further crippling reductions in state funding for higher education, the court system and social support for poor and vulnerable families. They should be looking at the state criminal justice system; there are savings that could help us avoid harsher cuts,” Krisberg wrote.
“Plans for prison expansion have been halted, and plans for prison closures have begun. The governor has proposed ending the practice of sending California prisoners to private prisons in other states, and he has explored new rules to reduce corrections department staffing,” he added.

California Schools Struggling to Help Students

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LAYOFFS, LARGER CLASS SIZES AND FEWER INSTRUCTIONAL DAYS ADDING STRESS
A new report says 6.2 million K-12 students in California’s 30 largest school districts may not reach their full academic potential. Contributing factors to the problem are teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, fewer instructional days, fewer counselors, cutbacks in summer school, declining enrollments, increasing childhood poverty, and high unemployment.
“The number and intensity of internal and external stress factors on California schools and school districts are on the rise as a result of state budget deficits and the nation’s struggling economy,” says the research organization Edsource in a report titled Schools Under Stress: Pressures Mount on California’s Largest School Districts.
Even before the Great Recession, California was spending less per student than the national average, according to the California Budget Project. In 2001–02, California spent $691 less per student than the national average. By 2010–11, the gap had grown to $2,856.
Making matters worse is the dysfunctional school finance system, shaped partly by Proposition 13, passed in 1978. One result of Proposition 13 was shifting public schools financing from local communities to the state. It also made it tougher for local school districts to raise revenues, according to Edsource.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s solution is to ask voters to increase the sales tax by a quarter-cent on the dollar and to raise income taxes on individuals making more than $250,000 a year, according to the Sacramento Bee. The ballot measure, Proposition 30, will be decided this November.
A different plan on the ballot, Proposition 38, “would provide seven times more to the schools than Gov. Brown’s plan,” according to the measure’s author, Molly Munger.
“Sacramento will be kept out of the loop by putting the money in a trust fund that automatically goes to the school districts on a per-child basis,” Munger said on the NBC television show Class Action.
She said it is not necessary to choose between the two plans. Voting yes on both propositions would require the one gathering the most votes to be employed.
Munger said her plan has the support of the 900,000-member PTA.
“California must move to relieve its schools of some of the stresses that threaten to smother their attempts to help children succeed. If it is unable to do so, the academic gains California schools and students have been striving for the past two decades will become an even more elusive target. In addition, major new reforms, such as the Common Core State Standards, new accountability measures, and linking schoolwork more closely to student careers, will be far more difficult to implement,” concludes Edsource.
Proposition 38’s details can be found at www.ourchildrenourfuture2012.com.

‘Forgiving the Unforgivable’ – WORKSHOP EXPLORES HEALING AFTER MURDERS

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Kia Scherr recently led a workshop in Marin called “Forgiving the Unforgivable.” The title is a paradox, and in Scherr’s case a misnomer as well, because, as incredible as it may seem, she has forgiven the terrorists who murdered her husband and 13-year-old daughter.
“When we’re feeling angry and vengeful and wanting retaliation, what happens is that our hearts are contracted,” she says, quoting St. Augustine: “It’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy dies.”
Scherr’s husband, Alan, 56, and daughter, Naomi, were among the 168 people killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008.
At the time, she was visiting her family in Florida for Thanksgiving while her husband and daughter were in Mumbai on a meditation retreat.
A year after the deaths, Scherr, 56, who lives in Virginia, formed One Life Alliance, a Virginia-based organization dedicated to teaching people to honor the sacredness of life as a counter-balance to terrorism.
She is in Marin this weekend to participate in the 16th International Forgiveness Day events at Dominican University in San Rafael organized by the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance, a nonprofit headed by Mill Valley lawyer Robert Plath. Information on Marin events is available online at www.forgivenessday.org or by calling 381-3372.
“She has been enlightened enough in life that she knows that it doesn’t pay to dwell on revenge and hatred,” Plath says.
“It wouldn’t allow her to do the work she’s doing.”
 

“It was beyond comprehension…

There was so much shock and grief and sadness

that I didn’t have room for anger.”

 
Part of the work she’s doing with the One Life Alliance is to provide education, meals and medical check-ups for 1,000 children in the largest slum in Mumbai, the teeming Indian city where her husband and daughter were shot to death by Pakistani-trained gunmen as they sat down for a meal in a restaurant.
“It was beyond comprehension,” she says, recalling the phone call from the U.S. State Department that delivered the tragic news. “There was so much shock and grief and sadness that I didn’t have room for anger.”
Within a few hours, it occurred to her that the terrorists were ignorant of the interconnectedness of all people, what she calls “the life force that empowers each and every one of us.”
Through her organization, she has been on a mission to spread that message, but she couldn’t have done that without first forgiving her family’s killers.
“Forgiveness,” she says, “was the bridge to bring me to that point.”
Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, has been sentenced to death and is in prison awaiting execution.
While she has compassion for the terrorists and harbors no hatred of Kasab, she also believes he must pay for what he’s done.
“There is a misunderstanding about forgiveness,” she explains. “It does not mean condonement. It does not in any way mean that this young man should not be exactly where he is right now, which is awaiting execution. Forgiveness does not mean to let him go. Actions have consequences and he needs to be accountable to the full extent of the law for the lives he took.”
–This copyrighted story is reprinted with permission from the Marin Independent Journal.

Education Department Scheduled to Expand

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Plans to begin San Quentin’s newest vocational programs are now underway, said the prison’s educational principal.
Sacramento has approved the hiring of instructors for building maintenance and computer literacy, the first new vocational programs, said Acting Principal Tony Beebe.
“Sacramento and the prison’s administration are fully behind this expansion,” Beebe said.
Programs expected to be operational by July 2013 are carpentry, heating ventilation and air conditioning, masonry, plumbing, small engine repair and green technology. The Education Department will add three teachers to its Volunteer Education Program, three teachers to its GED program and four instructors to its Adult Basic Education, Beebe said.
Teachers and instructors who were previously laid off would be given priority to the new positions, Beebe said.
San Quentin has “surpassed the goals set by the Office of Correctional Education” in Sacramento, Beebe said. “I’m very proud of the teachers and staff; they’re dedicated and self-motivated . . . They focus on what they need to do to make it better.”

S.Q. Veteran’s Group Awards Scholarships

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Two children of U.S. armed service members wrote compelling essays and won scholarships of $1,250 dollars each from San Quentin’s military veterans group.
RECIPIENTS
Winners were Olivia Piazza of Tomales High School and Saskia Tingley of Healdsburg High School.
The scholarships were presented to the high school graduates at the Vietnam Veterans Group of San Quentin at its 26th Annual Awards Banquet.
“I’m a single mother. I really appreciate and am honored by the financial assistance,” said Piazza.
“I wore my dress blues (military uniform) on the plane when I returned to the U.S. from overseas” during the Vietnam War, said Eugene Piazza, Olivia’s father. “When I arrived, I was spit on. This night makes up for a lot of what I felt at that moment,”
Tingley was unable to attend the event. Veterans from past and recent military conflicts attended the banquet in the Protestant Chapel.
MENSA MEMBER
Piazza is a member of MENSA, an organization for persons with high IQs, and attends Santa Rosa Junior College, where she maintains a 4.5 (A-plus) grade-point average. She plans to get her degree in biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley
VVGSQ members Garvin Robinson, Ernest Vick, James Snider and Darryl Farris chose Piazza and Tingley’s essays out of 200 candidates.
SELECTION
They selected winners based on essay content, GPA, plans for further education, and their volunteer work.
Piazza’s mother and sisters attended the banquet along with her father.
Her dad served in the 7th Artillery from 1966 to 1968. “As I accept this scholarship, I think of how proud I am that my father served his country,” said Olivia.
The June 17 banquet featured Presentation of the Colors by San Quentin’s Color Guard, including the American and Prisoner of War flags.
“One of the best things the VVGSQ does, they do for the community by giving out scholarships to kids who are in need,” said Gloria Godchaux of Operation Mom.
SPONSORS
Also attending were correctional Lt. Ken Evans, the group’s chief sponsor, co-sponsor correctional Lt. Rudy Luna, Outside Veteran Coordinator the Rev. Terry Wolf and Veteran Service Officer Sean Stephens.
“I did four tours in Afghanistan for the U.S. Army 29th Infantry Battalion,” said Stephens. “Coming in here and working with Ron Self and these guys helps me more than I help them.”
The VVGSQ has awarded scholarships to the children of American veterans since 1990.
— JulianGlenn Padgett contributed to this story.

Technology Used for Blocking Prison Cell Phones Problematic

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A plan to block inmate use of contraband cell phones with new technology is plagued with problems, according to a new study by the California Council on Science and Technology.
The nonpartisan study raised serious concerns about California prison officials’ plan to allow Global Tel Link to install Managed Access System technology in its 33 state prisons to block illegal cell phone use by inmates.
The study reports that capturing cell phone signals is a technology that is still evolving.
TECHNOLOGY
The 71-page study concludes MAS technology is not mature enough for immediate large-scale deployments, such as the deal between GTL and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Managed access as proposed will not do the job that the CDCR wants done,” said Susan Hackwood, executive director of the study.
The study focuses on a litany of problems, which include the technological inability to triangulate radio signals and stop frequency leakage that may disrupt cell phone use by people outside the prison. Nor does the technology prevent 4G, wireless internet, MiFi, text messages, or satellite transmissions, according to the study.
Test of the system was “rudimentary and would, at best, constitute a proof of concept, not an acceptable operational pilot test,” the study finds.
SECURITY ISSUES
“Cell phones in prisons are a growing state and national security issue,” and inconsistent screening at state prisons is “less rigorous than screening found at a normal airport,” according to key findings in the report.
The study noted, “There is no evidence that CDCR has fully or reliably identified the size of the contraband cell phone problem,” adding that prison officials should find out the amount of contraband cell phone usage prior to implementing the technology.
The study recommends CDCR conduct thorough searches of all items, vehicles, and personnel, and test the use of other technologies within confined prison locations.
Dana Simas, a CDCR spokesperson, said staff screenings would be “shortsighted” because it does not bear down on the problem.
Simas also said the study’s concerns are unfounded and that the Federal Communications Commission backs the technology.
In 2011, officials reported 15,000 contraband cell phones were confiscated inside state prisons and conservation camps.
INCREASED PENALTIES
In October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 26, authored by Sen. Alex Padillia, which makes it a misdemeanor to smuggle wireless communication devices to inmates. It is punishable by six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000 per device. The increased penalty for inmates found guilty of possessing a cell phone is a loss of up to 90 days good-time credit.
The study was prepared at the request of state Senators Elanin Alquist, Loni Hancock, Christine Kehoe, and Alex Padilla.

Stanford Law Professors Answer Questions About Their Three-Strikes Ballot Measure

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Three law professors explained legal details of the Three Strikes initiative on the November ballot for about 200 San Quentin prisoners, volunteers and staff members.
An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 California prisoners could be affected if voters approve the measure, Proposition 36, reported Stanford University law professors Michael Romano and David W. Mills, who led the successful initiative petition campaign that requires the election, and Anne Deveraux.
Before the July 27 forum, the lawyers met with the executive body of the San Quentin three strikes self-help group, Hope for Strikers. It includes prisoners who has been sentenced under the Three Strikes Law for at least the last 16 years. The inmates discussed their problems while in society which led them to crime, how they have rehabilitated themselves while incarcerated, and articulated their plans and aspirations for the future.
Patten College instructors and others asked questions and received information pertinent to Proposition 36.
Here are answers to questions posed to the professors:
According to Brown v. Poole, if the government agrees to give a defendant a specific sentence on a prior plea agreement, is the government obligated to honor the agreement?
Yes. If it’s on the record, the government must honor the agreement.
Why won’t this initiative cover all three strikers?
Public opinion dictates the scope of the initiative in tandem with the law itself.
Will this affect those falling under the Cunningham law?
Yes, and hopefully it will give people relief.
What can we do to help the initiative pass?
Let your people on the street, your family, your loved ones, know about the initiative and where to go on the Internet to receive information: www.Prop 36.org.
How can those released by the initiative help the others still inside?
By staying clean and staying out of trouble. The last thing we need is people coming home, then getting into trouble. Those opposed will use you as an example.
There is a provision in the initiative that states the petitioner has up to two years to submit a petition for resentencing to the court. Does this also mean that the court has up to two years to answer the petition?
No. Generally the court will have 30 to 45 days to answer the petition. The D.A. in most cases will ask for an extension.
In the provision of the initiative, the judge can deny the petitioner resentencing in spite of him meeting the criteria. Does this mean that the judge can arbitrarily deny the petition without substantial proof that petitioner is an unreasonable risk to society?
No. The petitioner is deemed by the initiative not to pose a risk to society, merely due to his/her meeting the criteria. Hence, the D.A. in this case has the burden to prove that the petitioner is a threat to society, not based on past conduct rather current behavior. A similar measure was passed regarding the resentencing of a defendant sentenced for possession of crack cocaine and 88 percent of the criminal defendant convicted for crack as oppose to powder cocaine were resentenced. We expect a similar turnout in this case.

Rupa and The April Fishes

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POPULAR LATIN BAND PERFORMS DURING DAY OF PEACE EVENT

Wow! Who are those guys?

That was the buzz around San Quentin when the April 28 Day of Peace featured the captivating music of Rupa and The April Fishes.

The April Fishes’ Latin sound had prisoners’ head bopping and dancing around the yard. The sound was different from the usual prison bands, said one prisoner.

The music they make defies simple labeling. They flow effortlessly between international styles and languages. Their socially conscious messages and fiery spirits are a true reflection of the global struggles of the times. From the U.S. Occupy movements to the civil war in Syria, they represent the soul of a new generation.

The group began when Rupa Marya and cellist Ed Baskerville were playing on the streets of San Francisco, in streetcars and art galleries. From there the musicians formed a band that produced three albums, La Pêcheuse (2006), eXtraOrdinary rendition (2008), and Este Mundo (2009). A fourth album, Bills, is scheduled for release in October.

Their band grew and they got their first big performance at the Red Poppy Art House. They have toured the U.S., Canada, along the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as far as Budapest.

Their name is from an April Fools tradition in France to stick paper fishes on unsuspecting peoples’ backs. According to legend, a French king decided to switch from the pagan calendar, when the New Year fell in April, to the Roman calendar. Those who resisted the change would continue to celebrate the New Year in April by giving out the fish.

“During the Bush Administration, we were feeling like April Fishes,” said Marya. “People who don’t believe the reality that’s handed to them by some higher order, but instead insist on the reality they perceive in front of them. It’s a political and social commentary.”

The band’s current world tour, the “April Fools Tour,” includes band members Safa Shokri (upright bass), Misha Khalikulov (cello), Mario Silva (trumpet), Aaron Kierbel (drums), and Rupa Marya (songstress,voice, guitar).

The band’s web site is www.theaprilfishes.com and www.facebook.com/aprilfishes.

Poll Shows Strong Support For Three Strikes Initiative

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A large majority of Californians say they want to change the state’s Three Strikes Law so it only applies to violent and serious repeat offenders, according to two recent polls.
In the polls, CBRT Pepperdine found that 71 percent and 78 percent of likely voters would change the law.
The polls were conducted July 16 –17 and July 30-Aug 1 with 812 and 873 participants, respectively.
Voters will decide in November whether to approve Proposition 36, which would revise the Three Strikes Law. If approved, between three and four thousand offenders whose third strike was nonviolent would be eligible for resentencing by the original trial judge or his or her replacement. The determining factor would be whether the person poses a danger to public safety.
If the person has a prior conviction for rape, murder, or child molestation, they are automatically ineligible for re-sentencing under the measure.

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