Politics

For prosecutors nationwide November’s election may heat up

September 30, 2020 by Harry C. Goodall Jr.

The November election can bring swift and significant changes to the current criminal justice system. This will be based on the outcome of many prosecutors’ races.

Reform activists have supported the election of district attorneys who have “promised to reduce reliance on incarceration, increase transparency and promote equity,” according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey will battle for re-election in a November run-off. She was elected in 2012, and ran unopposed in 2016. This year she faces George Gascon, former San Francisco district attorney.
“If Lacey loses to Gascon, maybe he’ll do for LA what he’s done for SF. Lacey seems to not want to change her ‘lock up everyone and throw away the key’ mentality,” said Bobby John, a San Quentin resident.

In Houston, incumbent prosecutor Kim Ogg faces a contested general election in November.

Mike Kennedy, a Texas native housed at SQ said, “I doubt Texas will ever have reform when it comes to criminal justice. It’s not as bad as Cali, but it clearly needs to work their (Texas courts) death penalty stance.”
In Chicago, Kim Foxx will face multiple challengers in the Democratic primary.

The historical nature of prosecutor elections is that they usually run unopposed and serve multiple terms. There are over 2,300 jurisdictions in America that have to vote for prosecutor positions, but only 700 jurisdictions presented the voters with a choice of candidates, according to the Daily News.

In 2015 the prison reform movement took a strong hold in state legislatures. There has been a notable shift in the national conversation about criminal justice, according to the article.

In his 2016 nomination acceptance speech, Pres. Donald Trump told the Republican National Convention that as president he would return the country to a “law and order” agenda. He now reportedly sees criminal justice reform as a way to woo African American voters, the article said.

Advocates in Oakland push to end LWOP

March 16, 2020 by Marcus Henderson

Participants gather after the event for a photo

California has an estimated 5,000 people serving life without parole (LWOP), and their plight is almost never discussed—especially the way the sentence affects female prisoners.

A campaign to drop California’s use of LWOP received a public airing late last year. Kelly Savage, Tammy Cooper-Garvin, Brandi Taliano and Susan Bustamante shared their pain and the trauma of serving a LWOP sentence with a packed audience.

The Oakland event marked the first time the women were able to participate in a town hall meeting similar to one that first created public awareness of their situation. Then-Governor Jerry Brown commuted the women sentences.

Their stories and those of others still imprisoned are described in an audio storytelling project titled “A Living Chance,” released through the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP).

“The event was eye-opening; people really don’t know what LWOP is,” said Laverne Shoemaker, another panelist, whose sentence was commuted. “Once I was in a group of 23 San Francisco police officers, I had to explain and I mean really break it down to them what an LWOP sentence is and what a life sentence is.”

In criminal cases involving “special circumstances” a person may be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole instead of condemned to death in the penalty phase of a trial. The sentence is not restricted only to the person who pulls the trigger, but also to anyone else who was a participant in the crime as well, under California’s “felony murder rule.”

The advocates are fighting to have LWOP eliminated from the state’s penal code. They argue that it is worse than the death penalty, because it is really a living death sentence.

“I was praying that I wasn’t going to get the death penalty,” shared Taliano. “I was praying for LWOP, ironically—it seemed like the lesser of the two. Then I go to [prison]… and my counselor says, ‘do you understand that you’re going to die in prison?’ And it hit me. It literally hit me.”

Shoemaker said she was distressed to discover that many law enforcement officers have no idea what LWOP means, “I was frustrated and couldn’t understand it, because they really did not know. I had to ask them are you guys freaking kidding me? Am I being punked? They were really, like, shocked and flabbergasted.

Drop LWOP group addressing the audience about the struggles and problems they are facing

“I could see the confusion—they were perplexed and had mixed emotions that they could potentially be a part of giving someone ‘the other death penalty,’” added Shoemaker.

“We also needed to bring awareness to intimate partner battering,” Tammy Cooper-Garvin, told SQ News. “When I tell my story it makes me feel better and I pray that I am helping someone.

“There are many layers to my story and I get emotional when I tell my story, because I can still feel that little girl who wanted to be loved.

“I don’t regret coming to prison,” added Cooper-Garvin. “I needed to be incarcerated for that period of time to work on myself, and to show society that I was a changed woman who valued, and respected others, and also valued myself. Taliano and Cooper-Garvin both joined the Long Termer’s Organization, while incarcerated, a group of like-minded people serving LWOP supporting each other. They credit the program for helping turned their lives around.

“Prison taught me how to be a better person, it showed me how to deal with life,” said Cooper-Garvin. “I went to many self-help groups. I wanted to know what was different from me and my siblings. I knew I wanted to change, so I surrounded myself around positive lifers.

“I also knew I was a LWOP and that I had to make a life for myself. I didn’t have a good life in the world but with change I could have a life in prison, so I took full advantage of what CDCR had to offer,” added Cooper-Garvin.

With a second chance at life, the women are taking their stories and plight to Sacramento, lobbying for policy changes legislator by legislator. With support of other reform organizations such as CCWP, All of Us or None, Legal Services for Children and many others, the women are giving their time, energy and resources to change the narrative for all incarcerated and those finishing their sentences and returning home.

“We’re working on things like getting fair wages for all the incarcerated,” said Shoemaker. “We’re also trying to get the gate money raised to $1,000 (currently the funds upon release are limited to $200, unchanged for decades). We’re fighting for things that will make your conditions better in there and make your transition easier in the free world,” added Shoemaker.

CCWP hosted the “Drop the LWOP” event. Adrienne Skye Roberts moderated the affair and has work tirelessly to bring the “A Living Chance” campaign to Californians and legislators through the audio stories, portraits and postcards of the women who are still serving the LWOP sentence.

The newly released women thought they were supposed to die in prison. They felt they were held in bondage and captive to their shame and guilt, but have made that transition for success.

“If I could achieve my freedom anyone can,” said Cooper-Garvin. “It was hard work for me and it will be hard work for you also, but the pay-off is truly worth it.

“We may think people are closed minded about giving us a chance and it is just the opposite— they welcome us with our past because many see the good in us,” she concluded.

Adrienne Roberts examines portraits of female LWOPS

CDCR leader and others seek prison reform answers in Norway

March 16, 2020 by Ike Dodson

Secretary Diaz calls for a sense of urgency for prison reforms

CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz (back row, 5th from right) and formerly incarcerated Adnan Khan (in center)

As they covered 5,000 miles and an ocean on an international flight on Sept. 14, CDCR Secretary, Ralph Diaz and Connie Gipson had plenty of time to consider their doubts.

“It won’t work here.”

“California is too big, too violent and plagued by prison gangs.”

Those thoughts soon gave way to excited optimism, as the pair, CDCR’s Secretary and Division of Adult Institutions (DAI) Director, bonded with senior staff from the governor’s office, formerly incarcerated people, peace officer union representatives and criminal justice advocates in a life-changing environment across the globe.

Over six days, Diaz and Gipson toured Norwegian prisons, training facilities and reentry programs, witnessing famed humanistic practices that deliver wellness, safety and empowerment to everyone involved.

The trip, funded by philanthropic programs and organized by an ambitious visionary at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), made significant impact on CDCR leadership. “The world shrunk,” Diaz explained. “I saw staff and inmates engaging in a very positive way, as if the environment belonged to all of them, not just inmates or staff.

“At that moment I saw aspects of this that can be done.”

The team

Diaz and Gipson were joined by California Men’s Colony. Warden Josie Gastelo and Salinas Valley State Prison Warden Matthew Atchley and Captain Edward Brown. Governor Newsom [sent] representatives Daniel Seeman, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, and Kelli Evans, Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary for Criminal Justice in the Office of the Governor.

Other attendees included formerly incarcerated advocates Adnan Khan (Co-Founder of Re:Store Justice) and Sam Lewis (Executive Director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition), or representatives from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

“I think it was the right people in the room, and what was so fascinating was that we all came to our discoveries throughout the week,” Gipson said. “It was really beneficial to have so many different perspectives going through the same experience.”

“We chose Norway because they have a very public health approach to corrections. They say that people go to court to get punished and go to prison to become better neighbors,” said Williams. “Every single policy/procedure and contact with a program is seen as an opportunity to bring health and well-being to people who are incarcerated, and simultaneously this gives staff and correctional officers the opportunity to change people’s lives for the better.”

To make the trip happen, Amend partnered with the community-based nonprofit organization Smart Justice to raise philanthropic funds. The biggest contributors included The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

Advocates for all

In Norway, the only human right an incarcerated person loses is liberty. The system, including architecture and habitat, is designed to mimic the community those citizens will return to. Interactions with staff are specifically structured to champion wellness and safety.

“I believe we have segments of what is happening in Norway going on in our institutions,” Diaz said. “We have to line it up, put it on paper and give employees the permission to care about the inmate population and remind them that rehabilitation has been a part of their job since the day they signed up.”

There are clear benefits to the normalcy of the environment for staff as well as inmates. Williams said initial reports from Norway show health and life expectancy metrics for correctional staff mirror the outcomes of other citizens. She pointed to research in California that has highlighted a public health crisis among correctional employees, who are more prone to depression, suicide and poor life expectancy.

Khan, whose work at Re:Store Justice brings victims and offenders together for dialogue and forgiveness, said, “My advocacy has always been about crime survivors, bringing them in to prison, and currently/formerly incarcerated people, but when Brie talked about suicides and life expectancy of staff — that bothered me. I had to reevaluate my advocacy. Am I choosing to be the leader of a specific demographic of justice reform or an advocate for public health and humanity? Human rights and public health advocacy has to include correctional officers that are suffering and in pain.”

How Norway changed

Norway’s prison model, thriving at a reported recidivism rate of 20%, wasn’t built overnight. Advocates point to demands by the Norwegian Parliament that authorized a shift to rehabilitation and humanistic practices in the late 1990s.

Over time, accompanied by changes in sentencing laws, massive changes to all aspects of the correctional system began to take hold.

Those changes go far beyond the supportive housing units with private restrooms, couches, stocked kitchen units or even small forests in recreational yards that keep offenders connected to the world around them.

Officers interact warmly and respectfully on a first-name basis with incarcerated people and are trained much longer—two years versus CDCR’s 13-week Basic Correctional Officer Academy. They are schooled on psychology, criminology, human rights and ethics. The process includes a lot of perspective shifts, like placing an officer in the role of an offender and experiencing different custodial tactics.

“I always look at experiences, trainings with an open mind, but I admit, I was pretty apprehensive about this,” Gipson said. “Early on I felt like this was too good to be true, but the more I started to listen to their concepts and principles of normality, humanity, the more I bought in. Everything clicked, and I was just blown away. I came back excited because I feel there are a lot of possibilities for us.”

CDCR and CCPOA leaders at Norwegian prison

The California way

A theme understood by trip-goers and emphasized by Norwegian officials is the practicality of change.

Norway didn’t evolve into a better form of correctional care immediately, and uprooting the same system and dropping it into a vastly different population is not the solution for California.

“We are not trying to make it the Norway way or the European way but the California way,” Diaz said. “We are a unique, diverse populace with cultures within cultures, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make necessary changes.”

“We just have to make it the California way. That doesn’t mean saying no to security but yes to a different way of doing business that improves the workplace and makes a better life for people returning to our communities,” he added.

Diaz said he looks forward to collaborating with other states that strive for similar innovation and emphasized the importance of supporting an environment that both acknowledges the suffering of crime victims and delivers on a promise to create fewer victims in the future.

He joined Gipson in a presentation to CDCR wardens across the state on Nov. 6, highlighting the most impactful concepts and practices that simultaneously promote wellness, safety and rehabilitation.

“We have to look at our historic policies and ask ourselves about each one: Why? Is it humane?” Diaz said. “As policy makers it is our job to change policies and explain why, because in the end we have to create a more humane prison system.”

The insight inspires action.

“My first step is getting a workgroup together to look at what policies and procedures we have in play that escalate vs. de-escalate,” Gipson said. “I also want to look at our training and talk about giving staff the comfort to manage situations within their authority without fear of making a mistake.”

“My big takeaway is a sense of urgency to make these necessary reforms because we have witnessed positive impact for all those involved in a correctional setting and for those returned to communities,” Diaz said. “I know what can be done. I know the department’s abilities and the ability of staff to get things done.”

That’s the California way.

Newsom proposes reducing probation and boosting rehabilitation programs

March 16, 2020 by Dillon Kim

Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom talking with Juan Haines

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing major changes in California’s criminal justice system by reducing probation to two years and boosting rehabilitation programs for offenders.

Newsom said the change is aimed at cutting costs and reducing recidivism.

He said he proposes spending “an unprecedented amount of money” — $210 million over four years – in rehabilitation programs early in the probation period, where they are believed most effective, The Associated Press reported Jan. 11.

The plan sets probation at a maximum of two years, down from five for felonies and three for misdemeanors.Probation officers support the change but police chiefs are opposed.

Longer probation terms allow officers to search offenders, their homes and vehicles to find drugs, weapons, stolen items or other evidence, said Ron Lawrence, president of the California Police Chiefs Association. According to him, this tends to reduce crimes.

Lawrence said his group opposes changes that would lessen accountability. “Lessening the tail on probation would frankly lessen that accountability.”

Support is voiced by the Chief Probation Officers of California. The group agrees that focusing on rehabilitative services is the best way to help change their behavior and reduce re-offense.”

“The data and the evidence and the science bears out,” Newsom said. “You front load services – those first 18 months are determinative. He said the change was prompted by a major increase in car burglaries following passage of a proposition that reclassified some felonies as misdemeanors.

“This goes directly to the car break-ins, this goes to the petty crime issue, this should be celebrated by the law enforcement community because of the intensity of services we want to provide,” Newsom said.

Longer duration of supervision not only costs money,” he said, “For small petty things you throw people back in the system and that cycle of violence perpetuates itself.”

The reform group Californians for Safety and Justice points out that ten times as many offenders are sentenced to probation than to prison but probation receives only a fraction of the funding.

Trump creates committee to address equality in law enforcement

March 16, 2020 by Amir Shabazz

President Donald Trump used another one of his executive orders to create a committee dealing with how to enforce the law equally and without bias, according to Tom Jackman of the Washington Post. With endorsements from organizations like the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and others, the law would deal with equal protection, adding more people of color and females to the police force, and using 21st century techniques to fight crime.

“The thrust of the order,” said Nina J. Ginsberb, a Virginia-based lawyer who is president of the defense lawyers’ association, “begs the question as to how interested this commission will be in solving the deep and structural problems in America’s criminal justice system, as opposed to simply delivering on certain law enforcement requests.”

The U.S. attorney general will have the authority to determine the composition and the procedures for the functioning of the commission.

The measure was signed in October 2019, and those in charge have less than 10 months to complete their work. A similar bill is pending in Congress, the Dec. 23, 2019 story noted.

According to the article, the bill calls for review of policing poor communities, handling of the homeless issue, the needs of the mentally ill, and mass incarceration

Finding a way to make this happen presents a challenge not just for law enforcement, but other government agencies, said Terry Cunningham, deputy executive director for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Cunningham said that working groups have to find a bipartisan way in Congress to implement all of these things. “We’ll have their report, but how do you get it funded?”

The story reported finding funds requires a bipartisan panel and when the bill goes before the various committees the concern is that certain elements of the bill be phased-out. Across the aisle participation has been hard to achieve when working to iron-out delicate issues. This bill, however, affects the whole country. Law enforcement, along with the Justice Department, will try to get their way.

Biden reverses his past position on criminal justice

March 16, 2020 by Alfred King

Presidential candidate Joe Biden says his history of tough-on-crime legislation that led to mass incarcerations needs changes, The Intercept reports.

With upward of one in every two? families suffering the harms of mass incarceration, “Too many people are incarcerated,” Biden is quoted as saying in the Sept. 17 article.

During his time as leading Democrat in the U.S. Senate, he led a number of legislative actions to increase anti-crime laws.

He supported increased funding to states to build prisons and criticized then-President Jimmy Carter, a fellow Democrat, for not being tough enough on the war on drugs, the story says.

Under Carter the federal prison population actually fell by a quarter, though rising at the state level. A federal program Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) provided resources to states for policing and prisons was being dismantled in the last days of the Carter administration, the article states.

“The American people believe we have waged war on crime and failed. Therefore, they concluded that nothing can be done about it,” Biden said at the time.

Biden worked to shed his party’s image of being soft on crime, reported The Intercept.

“As most old-line Democrats view it, the only ways we can deal with violence will have a negative impact on civil rights and liberties… I think that’s malarkey,” Biden told the New York Times.

A Biden-Thurmond bill would have increased penalties for drugs, expanded civil asset forfeiture, eliminated parole at the federal level, and would have created a drug czar position. Reagan vetoed the bill.

Biden supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that lengthened sentences for many offenses such as 100:1 crack cocaine sentencing disparities.

These new laws led to an explosion of federal prisoners from 24,000 in 1980 to 216,000 in 2013, the article said.

In 1994, Biden pushed through a massive crime bill that authorized more than $30 billion in funding to expand state prisons and local police forces, the story noted.

SF Mayor to close City Hall jail

February 13, 2020 by San Quentin News Contributer

By Dillon Kim, Journalism Guild Writer

San Francisco Mayor London Breed ordered City Hall to close down the Hall of Justice, including its jail, by July 2021 because the jail is structurally vulnerable to earthquakes.

This deadline has prompted city officials to try to find alternatives to rehouse the 300 inmates that are currently housed there, according to the San Francisco Examiner. While it searches for a place for the inmates, the city is already relocating the other departments also located within the Hall of Justice.

Possible rehousing options for inmates include renovating the currently unused jail in nearby San Bruno and transferring the inmates to Alameda County’s Santa Rita jail.

A member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Matt Haney said, “I do not support sending folks to Alameda County. I don’t support building a new jail. I do support a plan for us to move forward and close this facility as soon as possible in an effective way.”

Haney and other supervisors think that a better solution would be to find alternatives to incarceration. Indeed, in 2015 the City of San Francisco made a commitment to seek alternatives to incarceration, establishing the Work Group to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project. Matt Haney said,

“I don’t support building a new jail. I do support a plan for us to move forward and close this facility as soon as possible in an effective way”

The MacArthur Foundation awarded $2 million to District Attorney George Gascon’s office to address racial disparities in jails and reducing the inmate population to 1,044 within two years. Alternatives to incarceration can save substantial money. It costs the city an average of $250.11 per day to incarcerate an individual.

Mayor London Breed said if the inmate population doesn’t decline by the time of the jail closure, the inmates will be sent “to an alternative facility on a temporary basis.”

Haney stated he was “con- cerned about a lack of a plan” regarding Mayor Breed’s announcement. He continued, “Without having a plan, my fear is that the result of that is trying to back us into some- thing that we should not be doing. The sheriff herself said that it would be horrible for us to send people over to Alameda County. Then why are we considering that? Why are we acting as though that is a viable option in any way?”

Haney apparently believes that Mayor Breed’s “alternative facility” is the Alameda County Jail located across the bay in Alameda County.

Board members think the Santa Rita facility is a bad alternative in part because it further distances incarcerated individuals from their families and attorneys.

Sandra Fewer, the board’s Chairperson of the Budget Committee, said she is “look- ing to identify strategies to further reduce the jail population” and is seeking alternatives “to avoid a scenario where we have to send any people to Santa Rita or jails out of the county.”

Warren and criminal justice reform

December 12, 2019 by San Quentin News Contributer

Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) finally focused her attention and political career on criminal justice reform. Her plan includes combatting crime and improving public safety, according to an August Vox article.

Warren’s proposal emphasizes establishing a clemency board for early release, investing more on addiction treatment, ending the death penalty, eliminating solitary confinement, allowing inmates to make phone calls free of charge, improving mental health treatment and increasing police reforms. She also calls for repealing the 1994 crime law.

Warren’s proposed plan joins those of other Democratic presidential candidates who also support criminal justice reform.

The Vox article pointed out that the sheer mass of incarcerated people in America surpasses even that of authoritarian regimes such as those in Cuba, Russia, and China.

The article noted however that even if she does win the nomination and later the presidency, criminal justice reform may be an uphill battle for Sen. Warren. Eighty-eight percent of inmates are under state control rather than federal. In the past, state governments have resisted federal reform incentives, particularly in Republican-controlled cities and states, according to Vox.

Furthermore, two multi-billion dollar industries will oppose aggressively her most controversial proposals: a ban on private prisons and allowing inmates to make free phone calls while they are incarcerated.

Vox questions how much of Warren’s plan could get Congressional approval. The article cites the years that it took Congress to pass the “fairly mild criminal justice reform bill” in the First Step Act.

If Warren is also pushing for passage of her many other proposals, Vox noted, that may reduce “the possibility that Congress even gets to sweeping criminal justice reform at all.”

Maine and Vermont encourage the incarcerated to cast their vote even while in prison

November 18, 2019 by Amir Shabazz

When most felons go to prison they lose their right to vote in most of the 50 states, the strongest exceptions being Maine and Vermont, reported Mother Jones.

Depending on what you were convicted for, states like Mississippi, Alaska and Alabama let some of their prison population vote.

Volunteers at the Maine and Vermont prisons come into the facilities to register prisoners to vote and give them encouragement, by letting them know that their vote is very important.

Law librarian John Sughrue, who works at one of Vermont’s prisons, thinks that voting is imperative, the only “effective tool” prisoners have. Yet he noted that only a small percent of the population exercise their right to vote.

“It seems the current political climate has rendered us inexorably divided,” he wrote via the prison email system.

Madeline Motta, who volunteers in Vermont’s prisons and helps register prisoners to vote, said of her effort that most of the prisoners are their own worst enemies, according to the article.

“We explained to inmates that elected officials are making decisions about your quality of life both while you are incarcerated and once you are out,” she noted.

More variables need to be looked at as to why those who are incarcerated and can vote, don’t vote. They feel that their votes will not make a difference. A high percentage of the inmates cannot read or write, so filling out a registration ballot becomes an issue. Since they are cut off from the Internet, most can’t get news or form opinions about issues or candidates.

Executive Director of Prison Legal News, Paul Wright, says that lower turnouts among prisoners are to be expected.

“We don’t have much of a democracy when it comes to candidate choice,” he said. “Making the conscious choice in refraining from exercising your rights is just as important as exercising them,” Wright told the Mother Jones reporter.

Just like outside on the streets, inside prison walls you have voter apathy among the incarcerated.

Several states are working on solutions that will allow the incarcerated to vote or get back their voting privileges/rights once out of prison.

Ten states and Washington, D.C., are currently trying to pass legislation to get prisoners the right to vote while in jail, according to Mother Jones.