San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Misleading Report About Arizona Inmates

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A report saying the majority of Arizona inmates are violent or repeat offenders is being criticized as inaccurate and misleading.

REPORT

The report was released last year by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys Advisory Council.
“The most serious problem with the report is the conflation of ‘repeat’ and ‘violent’ offenders – two categories that reflect very different classes of criminal. This configuration is misleading,” according to a response by Caroline Isaacs, program director of the Arizona office of the American Friends Service Committee.
“Just over 50 percent of individuals are incarcerated for a violent offense, according to an October report from the Arizona Department of Corrections. And 51.4 percent are serving their first prison term,” Isaacs wrote in her December critique.
“Drug addicts, alcoholics, and people with mental illnesses often commit multiple offenses due to their inability to control their behavior. This does not mean they belong in prison,” Isaacs wrote.

ARIZONA

The most contrary assertion in the report is that Arizona’s truth-in-sentencing law (and high incarcerating rate) is credited for the recent decline in crime, Isaacs stated.
“Yet, the data demonstrate the crime rate increased and decreased both before and after introduction of truth-in-sentencing. Many other states have deliberately reduced their prison population through sentencing reforms and seen an even greater drop in crime rates.”

ACLU Calls for Immigration Investigation

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ACLU of Southern California is among the groups calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to investigate the substandard medical care at Adelanto Detention facility. The ACLU and nine other legal service providers and human rights organizations list numerous instances that place detainees at unnecessary risk.
“It goes above and beyond individual cases,” ACLU attorney Michael Kaufman said in a phone interview with the San Bernardino County Sun. “What we’ve seen is a systemic pattern of delaying treatment, misdiagnosing or just not giving treatment. We’ve seen that for years now across many different detainees.”
Contrary to the ACLU reports, Pablo E. Paez of the GEO Group says the Adelanto facility had a score of 100 percent in its most-recent American Correctional Association review. The GEO Group has had a public-private partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs.
However, the ACLU letter points to problems at other facilities around the world operated by GEO. A 2012 Department of Justice report found “systematic, egregious, and dangerous practices,” including inadequate medical care, at a GEO Group facility in Mississippi and deaths at other facilities as recently as March when GEO Group was found negligent in prisoners’ deaths.
GEO Group plans to add 640 beds, house women and LGBT individuals there for the first time, the newspaper reported.
In a letter to ICE, ACLU requests immediate intervention to ensure the health and safety of the current and future detainees housed at Adelanto. They also request steps be taken to appoint an independent investigator and that plans to expand the site stop due to errors by staff.
ICE found that the death of Mexican immigrant Fernando Dominguez was due to “egregious errors” committed by medical staff, the letter noted.
The ACLU points to a second death it says was also caused by inadequate medical care.

Arizona Tent City shut down

Class action lawsuit against GEO

Luring more prison doctors with big raises

Norway’s Halden prison ranked most humane


 
 

‘Ban the Box’ Movement Gains National Traction

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Efforts are underway to help former prisoners find jobs. The focus is to “ban the box” on job applications that would disclose any criminal convictions.
Tamisha Walker recalls her first encounter with the box.
“Right then and there, it was like the air went out of my tires,” Walker told reporter Lydia DePillis, who was writing for the Washington Post’s online feature Storyline.
Walker said she got an interview but didn’t get that job; however, she did get another job as a community organizer.
Since then, Walker has helped pass a law in the city of Richmond that bans city government and its contractors from asking about criminal history on initial job applications.
Soon after, California passed a law requiring state agencies to delay asking the question until after determining the applicant meets the basic requirements of a job.
“Meanwhile, the ‘ban the box’ movement was sweeping the country,” DePillis reported. “Since Hawaii became the first jurisdiction to protect the employment prospects of people with criminal records in 1998, 12 more states and 97 cities and counties have passed some version of ‘fair chance’ hiring.”
In September Walker attended a White House meeting to urge the federal government to take similar action. A number of community-based organizations have joined the effort, asking President Obama to “ban the box” for federal agencies and their contractors.
“Now is the time for President Obama to act boldly to open up employment opportunities for the large numbers of Americans who have been unfairly locked out of the job market because of a criminal record,” says a report drafted by the National Employment Law Project.
DePillis is described as a reporter focusing on labor, business and housing. She worked previously at The New Republic and the Washington City Paper.

California Improves Discipline Policies for the Mentally Ill

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California has changed policies to improve treatment for mentally ill inmates, officials have announced. The action is in response to a federal court order.
“This is a very significant reform of the disciplinary process for prisoners with mental illness,” said Michael Bien, an attorney for the mentally ill prisoners who brought the legal action.
The change means mentally ill inmates who create problems will get counseling rather that going automatically to isolation cells or staying in prison longer.
The alternative treatment program was implemented after a federal judge ruled a year ago that its current procedure was unconstitutional and violated protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton acted after the release of video made by correctional officers, showing guards pumping pepper spray into cells of mentally ill inmates, some screaming and delirious. The tactic was used on one inmate who refused to take his medication.
Court-appointed monitor Matthew Lopez found that for more than seven years the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to follow court-directed policy on evaluating mentally ill inmates.
Bien credited CDCR Secretary Jeffrey Beard for making policy changes without waiting for another court order. In August the prisons agreed to create specialized housing and provide more treatment for mentally ill inmates.

Judge Rules Vermont’s Out-of-State Male Only Transfers Unconstitutional

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A judge has ruled Vermont’s practice of sending only male inmates to out-of-state prisons is unconstitutional.
The case involved Vermont inmate Michael Carpenter, incarcerated for three years, who was sent to a Kentucky prison despite having twin 5-year-old sons and a fiancée, reported the Brattleboro Reformer.
SANCTION
“The court cannot sanction (the Department of Correction’s) policy of sending male inmates far from home, regardless of whether they have close bonds with their young children, while keeping all women nearby,” Judge Helen Toor wrote.
While in Vermont, Carpenter played weekly with his children, court documents show. His family could not afford to travel to Kentucky, and Vermont provided no funds for families to visit prisoners in other states.
POLICY
DOC reported it has no policy to send men only inmates to out-of-state prisons, and it does not question prisoners about whether they have minor children before transferring inmates.
Vermont sends about 500 of its 2,000 prisoners to private prisons in Kentucky and Arizona, court documents show.
Suzi Wizowaty, executive director of the group Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, said the only remedy is to reduce inmate population.

States Choose Ways To Compensate the Wrongfully Convicted

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States have a variety of ways to compensate persons determined to be innocent of crimes for which they were wrongfully convicted, NPR.com reports.
Twenty-one states provide no money, but the former prisoner can sue for compensation. Some former prisoners have been awarded $1 million for each year they served in prison, NPR said.
Twelve states and the District of Columbia pay on an individual case basis.
Seventeen states pay a fixed amount for each year of imprisonment, ranging from $80,000 per year in Texas and $70,000 in Colorado to $5,000 in Wisconsin. California pays $36,500 per year.
Several states and the federal government pay $50,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration. The states are Alabama, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina and Washington.
The fixed amounts usually require a former prisoner to agree not to take the case to court.
States that pay the wrongfully convicted might actually be trying to save money, according to Brandon Garrett, University of Virginia law professor and author of Convicting the Innocent.

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