San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Taking Aim to Stop Childhood Violence

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There is a new effort to prevent childhood violence, and address the needs of America’s youngest victims according to a report by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and Esta Soler.
The new push comes at a time when violence against children in America is at an all-time high. According to a report by the U.S. Attorney General’s Defending Childhood Task Force, children are experiencing or witnessing violence on an alarming scale. Approximately two out of three children in the U.S. are exposed to violence, with as many as one-in-10 experiencing multiple layers of violence, the report said.
Health care professionals have amassed a wealth of knowledge about violence prevention as well as how to help children exposed to violence and developed a plan of action.
The plan calls for a national effort to make homes, schools, and communities safer, supportive, and healthier places for American children. To achieve this goal, health care professionals are insisting on a “change in public policies to support prevention and healing for children and families, using key policy shifts such as health care reform, the Violence Against Women Act and the Victims of Crime Act,” according to Harris and Soler’s article.
The next step would be to set up routine screening programs to identify children who have been exposed to violence and to “establish prevention programs within the health care system, schools, and youth organizations to protect children from future violence” the report said.
The plan also calls for a change in spending. Monies spent on punitive programs such as juvenile justice facilities would be re-invested in programs that can help children heal and thrive. The programs would keep troubled kids safe in school and under the guidance of responsible adults.
Finally, education about the effects of violence is essential to the plan’s success. “Make violence a public issue and educate all Americans about this problem and the role each can play to ensure our children are safe,” the report said.
Violence can occur in any community, and there are many forms. Sexual, physical, and verbal abuse are among the most prevalent. Violence can occur in or out of the home, against friends, family members, and innocent bystanders. It is important to note that experiencing the violence first hand is not the only way a child can be affected; witnessing violence done to others can be just as traumatic.

“With their brains and bodies still being formed, children are uniquely vulnerable to the impact of toxic stress on their physical, mental, and emotional health”

Children exposed to violence are at risk for a lifetime of disciplinary, learning, and health deficiencies. “With their brains and bodies still being formed, children are uniquely vulnerable to the impact of toxic stress on their physical, mental, and emotional health” the Bay view Child Health Center concluded.
The human body responds to violence by producing hormones intended to fuel the fight or flight response. The body’s emergency response system could save a child’s life in the face of violence.
However, constant stimulation of the body’s emergency response system can damage your health and well-being the Bay view Child Health Center said. Examples of the health risk include heart and lung disease, as well as hypertension and neurological disorders. Without intervention, “many of our children will experience lifelong consequences from exposure to violence and the toxic stress it causes” Harris and Soler wrote.
“We must not allow violence to deny any child the right to grow up safe and secure,” according to Harris and Soler. “Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm” (President Barack Obama, Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 2013)

A Texas Prison Official Finds Inmate Friendship

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Texas prison officials determined that Facebook friendships alone do not violate the ban on fraternization between prisoners and staff, according to an American-Statesman news story.
The decision came after a correctional sergeant at Huntsville State Prison was fired last May for being Facebook friends with an inmate at the prison.
Huntsville Warden James Jones fired Heath Lara, the correctional sergeant, according to the report. The regional director upheld the decision.
Lara appealed because the prisoner, Gary Wayne Sanders, who is currently serving 72 years for a 1990 murder conviction, was “merely a high-school acquaintance.” Lara said he did not know Sanders was a prisoner at the institution where he was employed, the report states.
Through his own efforts, Lara found that Sanders was Facebook friends with more than a dozen other correctional employees, including Jerry McGinty, the director of finance for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, according to the report. According to Jason Clark, a representative for the department, McGinty was also unaware that Sanders was incarcerated.
Because of this revelation, Lara, a 10-year veteran with the department with no previous rule violations, was reinstated.
“Additional investigation showed he had no relationship with this inmate,” Clark said. “There was no correspondence or anything. There was no security concern there,”
Facebook is a social networking site where, among other things, users can contact and maintain ties with long lost friends and relatives. Users type in the name of the person they wish to befriend, and it is then up to the other party to accept or deny the friendship request.
In the months following Lara’s case, many wardens have ordered investigations into Texas prison guards’ Facebook accounts. At least three other employees have been fired for having Facebook friends who are either currently or formerly incarcerated, and many say they have been ordered to remove anyone they do not personally know from their friends.

Investing Towards a Lower Cost of Crime and Crime Rate

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Investing in police forces would lower the crime rate and cost of crime, according to a study conducted by the Center on Quality Policing of the RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment Center.
The six jurisdictions named in the study are Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and Miami-Dade County. The crime cost exceeded $1 billion annually in each county. Homicide generates the most expense, costing more than $8 million per case, the study reported. Victims bear 77 percent of tangible violent crime-cost, with taxpayers paying 14 percent, and employers covering the remaining 8 percent.
There are three primary methods used to estimate the cost of crime.
The first method, the accounting-based method, measures the cost of crime by attempting to identify the cost paid by individuals and society as a whole. These costs include installing lighting or other defense products, property loss, medical cost for injuries, investigations, prosecutions, and incarceration.
However, the Accounting method is deficient because it fails to account for intangible cast, such as the psychological effects of victimization. Failing to account for intangible cost leads to the underestimation of crime cost.
The second method, Contingent Valuation, is a survey-based strategy that elicits information about citizens’ willingness to pay for hypothetical programs that reduce crime.
Contingent Valuation, unlike the Accounting method, identifies the intangible cost of crime.
The Hedonic Valuation examines the relationships between neighborhood crimes and the housing prices within those neighborhoods to measure the value of the neighborhood. However, citing numerous methodological problems, the RAND study excluded all research results employing Hedonic Valuation.
There are four isolated factors used to identify the effects of increased police presence on crime rates and the subsequent cost of crime.
The first factor, hiring programs, increases police staff through federal initiatives and funding. The second factor, election cycles, found that police forces were significantly increased during state and local elections. The third factor, reallocation, is the increase of police presence do to circumstances such as terrorist threats. The final factor is the timing of police personnel changes. Personnel changes are a typical response to crime rates. When crime rates demonstrate a need for more police presence, departments respond by training new officers.
Over an 11-year period, spanning 2,074 U.S. cities, studies showed that a one percent increase in police staffing led to a decrease in violent crimes by one percent. Further, a 10 percent increase in police staffing generated a reduction of up to five percent, the RAND study said.
However, increased staffing does not impact rape or larceny rates, the study notes. Additionally, some police activities, such as excessive use of force or racial profiling, generate social costs, the study said.

Study Links PTSD to Criminal Behavior

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A recent study has concluded that post-traumatic stress disorder can contribute to crime and recidivism.
The study by the National Center for PTSD reported that symptoms include flashbacks, anger and irritability, exaggerated startle response, as well as heightening and numbing of the emotions. They often lead PTSD sufferers to engage in socially unacceptable behaviors, the study said.
According to the Traumatic Stress Treatment Center, as much as 48 percent of incarcerated women, and 30 percent of incarcerated men, four to six times those of the general population, currently suffer from PTSD. These statistics do not account for cases that remain undiagnosed.
Flashbacks cause PTSD sufferers to relive their pasts, to the extent that some believe they are re-experiencing traumatic events, the study noted. When flashbacks occur, “persons with PTSD [may] commit … criminal acts believing that they are in danger again.”
Symptoms such as anger, irritability and exaggerated startle responses are mental and physical anxiety symptoms, which the report said can cause violent altercations. For example, anger and irritability symptoms stem from the survival response called “fight or flight.” When this response is triggered, “someone with PTSD is more likely to respond aggressively” and may even shoot someone in a fit of uncontrollable rage.
Moreover, the exaggerated startle response symptom may cause people with PTSD to react to perceived threats with extreme aggression. The study cites the example of a person with PTSD instinctively pushing back “aggressively when accidentally jostled in a crowd.”
In addition, heightening and numbing of the emotions are typical reactions to traumatic experiences. As noted by the study, people with PTSD often have higher levels of negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, and depression.
“Negative emotions may lead those with PTSD to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol” which “clouds judgment and causes disinhibition.” Also, feelings of guilt “may lead [trauma] survivors to commit acts that will likely result in punishment, serious injury, or death.”
Numbing is the extreme opposite. Emotional numbing increases the likelihood that a survivor will commit acts of violence because they lack compassion, empathy, and concern for the rights of others. According to the study, numbing can “also lead some survivors to engage in sensation-seeking [socially condemned] behavior in an effort to experience some sense of emotion.”
One explanation for the higher rates of PTSD among inmates is that inmates are much more likely to have experienced one or more traumatic events. Experiences such as child abuse, neglect, rape, assault, being shot, and car crashes, or even witnessing such events, are common among prison populations. Absent adequate care, inmates with PTSD will return to their communities and likely engage in the same behaviors that led to their initial incarceration, the report said.

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