San Quentin News

Written By Inmates - Advancing Social Justice

Conditions unsafe for the incarcerated in some southern prisons

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Many prisons in the South lack air conditioning and this creates life-threatening conditions in heat spells, the Prison Policy Initiative reports.

“The lack of air conditioning in Southern prisons creates unsafe — even lethal –conditions,” the report stated. “Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can cause dehydration and heat stroke, both of which can be fatal.”

Some courts have ruled that prison standards on incarcerating people in extreme cold or heat violates prisoners’ constitutional 8th Amendment rights. Those states include Arizona, Mississippi and Wisconsin.

Ninety-five percent of households in the South have air conditioning, but almost none of southern state prisons do.

“The lack of air conditioning in Southern prisons creates unsafe — even lethal –conditions”

“People outside of prison who experience extreme heat have the options that prisoners lack — they can take a cool shower, drink water, move into the shade, or go to a place that is air conditioned,” quoted Prison Legal News in a 2018 article. “For prisoners, those options are generally unavailable.”

Heat related illnesses can be exacerbated by certain prescribed medications. These are but not limited to Zoloft, Cymbalta, Prozac, and Lexapro, (do not stop taking any medication with- out your doctors permission). There are also certain medical conditions that can lead to heat related illnesses such as diabetes, and obesity. Heat has a greater effect on those that are older. This demographic has an increased risk of cardiovascular, and respiratory illnesses.

“Everyone understands that if you leave a child in a car on a hot day, there’s a serious risk this child could be injured or die,” said ACLU Director David Fathi to The Intercept. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing when we leave a prisoner locked in cells when the heat and humidity climb beyond a certain level.”

Most prisons are constructed from heat retaining materials such as concrete and rebar. This can contribute to higher temperatures inside prison cells.

A fan could possible make a difference in regulating heat, but a fan in a Texas prison commissary costs $20, an astronomical fee when prisoners in Texas are not paid for their labor.

“It routinely feels as if one’s sitting in a convection oven being slowly cooked alive,” said Benny Hernandez, a Texas prisoner. “There is no respite from the agony that the heat in Texas prisons inflicts.”

Prison Policy Initiative believes air conditioning should be a human right and not an amenity or privilege. When it’s withheld, it can subject people to conditions that can constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In some cases, death sentences, according to the article.

Arizona rethinks its ban on prison literature

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The state of Arizona lifted its ban on the book Chokehold after gaining national attention for banning the book written about the US criminal justice system policing Black men.

“An uproar over the ban of Chokehold: Policing Black Men, including threats of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, prompted Arizona prison officials to review a publication blacklist and reverse suspending the book,” National Public Radio (NPR) reported.

A growing number of state prison systems, including California, bans prisoners from possessing certain books, deeming them contraband.

Chokehold was written by Georgetown University criminal law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler. His publisher notified him in March that the book was “un- authorized” in Arizona prisons.

“The notice did not specify what led to the decision,” The Associated Press reported.

The ban drew criticism from a number of prisoner and First Amendment advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“In order for them to ban a book, they have to show the restriction is related to a legit- imate prison interest,” ACLU attorney Emerson Sykes said. “There’s no interest to keep inmates from learning about the criminal justice system and policing.”

Sykes challenged the book ban in May with a letter written to Charles Ryan, Arizona’s director of corrections, the Arizona Republic reported.

“The very people who experience extreme racial disparity in incarceration cannot be prohibited from reading a book whose purpose is to ex- amine and educate about that disparity,” Sykes wrote.

In a blog, Anne Branigin said, “America is taking more and more books out of its prisons…” She said books critical of mass incarceration are often banned.

Chokehold is “the metaphor of the deadly police tactic used to force people into submission,” Branigin wrote.

Five years ago, Eric Garner, a Black man died after Daniel Pantaleo, a White New York City police officer, used the choke hold to subdue him.

“I can’t breathe,” were Garner’s last words before he succumbed to cardiac arrest, the San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press) reported. “The medical examiner ruled (his) death a homicide caused by a police choke hold.”

“To prohibit prisoners from reading a book about race and the criminal legal system is not only misguided and harmful, but also violates the right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and…the Arizona Constitution,” wrote Sykes.

The U.S. Supreme Court case, Turner v. Safley, makes an allowance for banning certain books in prisons if the ban serves penological interests such as preventing violence, riots, resistance, a work stoppage or anything that may jeopardize the safe- ty, security or orderly operation of an institution.

“Corrections does not have a blanket list of prohibited magazines, newspapers, books, or music,” the Republic reported.

The California Code of Regulations, Title 15, section 3134.1 (e), contains the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) Centralized List of Disapproved Publications. Books not included on the list are sometimes banned by officials arbitrarily and later challenged in court.

“Under certain circumstances, it is permissible to prevent incarcerated people from reading materials of their choosing,” Sykes wrote. “However, it is unconstitutional to censor a book that educates prisoners on how legal, penal, and other institutions have shaped their own lives and poses no threat to the safety and security of the facility.”

Butler, who is Black, wrote Chokehold after he was falsely accused of assault and arrested, “an event that dramatically changed his view of the justice system,” the Republic reported.

“During the trial, I experienced for myself a lot of things that defendants I’d prosecuted said were evidence of how unfair the system was: Police lied, witnesses who knew what happened didn’t come forward,” the Republic reported Butler telling The Guardian in 2017.

Butler said he was acquitted in ten minutes because “I could afford the best lawyer in the city, had legal skills and social standing, and because I was innocent.” But he said “the experience made a man out of me. It made a Black man out of me.”

When Chokehold was banned, the ACLU said Arizona corrections officials gave no explanation for it.

“I am concerned that many people in custody are subject to other illegal and unfair acts by jailers that most people on the outside never hear about,” Butler said to NPR. “Providing books to inmates promotes literacy, rehabilitation and civic engagement.”

According to Branigin’s blog, Sykes’ letter “points out that Chokehold explicitly dis- avows violence…” She also pointed to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Washington forbidding free books sent to prisoners.

After the ban was lifted, Sykes wrote a letter stating he is pleased Arizona corrections officials removed the ban on Chokehold. He did, however, state the long fight over what books prisoners can access is far from over, NPR reported. “These bans are taking place in prisons and jails around the country,” he told NPR.

In 2015, Prison Legal News sued the Arizona Department of Corrections for censorship after the department stopped allowing the monthly publication into its prisons. The department spokesman at that time, Andrew Wilder, told Capitol Media Services the department’s action was ensuring “the safe, secure and orderly operation of (its) prisons.”

“If rehabilitation is taken seriously and preparation for a life after prison is taken seriously, then prison officials have every interest in promoting education among those who are trying to understand how they got to where they are, and how to make sure they don’t come back,” Sykes said.

Arizona crisis for low-level drug offenders

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Arizona is wasting millions of dollars by imprisoning low-level drug offenders and failing to treat drug addicts, a recent report concludes.

“Arizona imprisonment crisis removes thousands of people from the economy and costs tax- payers more than $1 billion each year (for the state Department of Corrections budget)-preventing the state from investing in other critical priorities like education, social services for families, and child safety,” said the report by FWD.us.

FWD.us is a bipartisan political group founded by Silicon Valley leaders, according to the Arizona Republic.

The FWD.us report relies on an analysis of about 500,000 records that span 30 years, reported the Republic.

Arizona could enact reforms to reduce prison population, thus reducing taxpayer expense for prisons, contended FWD.us researcher Felicity Rose. Instead, she said enactment of Proposition 301 in 2006 gave judges the ability to sentence first-time drug offenders of methamphetamine possession to prison. Previously they received only counseling and treatment, the newspaper noted.

FWD.us, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Pew Charitable Trust take the position that laws and policies of Arizona which allow that state to incarcerate for first-time drug possession is giving Arizona the “fourth- highest imprisonment rate in the nation,” the story said.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery opposed the reforms .

“If we were to lessen punishment for drug trafficking, what’s the message that we would be sending? We would just see more of that particular type of crime.” Montgomery said.

Arizona keeps people in prison 25 to 100 percent longer than national average, FWD.us said. It cited prison rates and crime have been reduced in 32 other states with programs, not prison.

NEWS BRIEFS September 2018 USA, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania & Arizona

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1. USA – The stocks of two of the world’s biggest private prison companies are outperforming the market amid the current immigration crisis. Both the GEO Group and CoreCivic sup- ported Donald J. Trump’s presidency. The companies donated $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee, with GEO hav- ing donated $225,000 to a Trump Super PAC during the 2016 election.
2. USA — There were 56 percent fewer criminal convictions of illegal immigrants than of native- born Americans in Texas in 2015, a new report shows. The report by the Cato Institute found that the criminal conviction rate for legal immigrants was about 85 percent below the native-born rate. The data shows comparable patterns for violent crimes such as homicide and property crimes such as larceny. The study did find that immi- grants in the United States illegally were more likely than native-born people to be convicted of “gambling, kidnapping, smuggling, and vagrancy.” But those crimes represented little effect on overall crime rates in Texas that year. Another study, published in March in the journal Criminology, showed that states with larger shares of undocumented immi- grants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares in the years 1990 through 2014. Among other things, they found that the relationship be- tween high levels of illegal immigration and low levels of crime continue even after controlling for factors such as age, urbanization, labor market conditions and incarceration rates.

The studies conclude that not only does illegal immigration not increase crime, but it may contribute to the drop in overall crime rates seen in the U.S. in recent decades.

3. Texas — Chris Young, 34, was executed by an injection of compounded pentobarbital on July 17 for a 2004 robbery and murder of a San Antonio storeowner.
4. Ohio — Gov. John Kasich commuted the death sentence of Raymond Tibbetts to life in prison with- out possibility of parole, re- ports UPI. Kasich’s office cited “fundamental flaws in sentencing phase of his trial,” as the reason for commuting the death sentence in a statement regard- ing his decision July 20. In particular, “an inaccurate description of Tibbetts’ childhood by the prosecution, essentially prevented the jury from making an informed decision about whether Tibbetts deserved the death penalty,” the office said. On the same day, Kasich also granted a reprieve to delay the execution of Cleveland Jackson, who was scheduled to be executed between Sept. 13 and May 29, 2019.
5. Pennsylvania — Gov. Tom Wolf signed a bill that allows Pennsylvanians to seal nonviolent misdemeanor records that carried a sentence of a year or more in jail if they have stayed out of trouble for 10 years and paid all fines and costs, reports Tribune News Service. The law also automatically seals re- cords for second-degree or third-degree misdemeanor convictions that carried sentences of two years or less if the individual has no other convictions for a decade and for arrests that did not result in a coviction. Offenses involving guns, sexual assaults/ rapes, murder, kidnapping, child endangerment and endangering the welfare of children are not subject to the law.

6. Phoenix, Arizona — A judge found the state’s prisons chief to be in civil contempt of court and imposed a $1.4 million fine to the state for not improving, adequately, health care for inmates. The lawsuit said some prisoners complained their cancer went undetected or they were told to pray to be cured after begging for treatment, The Associated Press reports. It also claims the failure of the medical staff at one prison to diagnose the metastasized cancer of an in- mate resulted in his stomach swelling to the size of a pregnant woman at full term.

 

Arizona Tent City shut down

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Arizona’s infamous Tent City outdoor inmate lodging touted by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has finally collapsed under new Sheriff Paul Penzone, reported The New York Times.

“This facility is not a crime deterrent,” Penzone said in a news conference. “It is not cost-efficient. And, it is not tough on criminals. That may have been the intent when it was first opened, and there was a need.

“But this facility has become more of a circus atmosphere for the general public. Starting today, that circus ends, and these tents come down,” Penzone continued.

Penzone announced his plans to shut down the facility after he took office on Jan. 1, ending Arpaio’s six-term reign as county sheriff.

Transfers have been underway since May with the final 370 prisoners transferred to other detention centers and the official shutting down of the 24-year operation in October, according to the article.

Arpaio defended the Tent City. “It’s been a great program, a great deterrent,” he said. “Had over half a million people come through the tents. All convicted, doing their time.

“To this day, people approach me and thank me — parents about their kids having to go to the tents, and they straighten out,” Arpaio said reported the Times.

Arpaio’s “tough on crime” stance focused largely on illegal immigration. The Federal Court convicted him in July of ignoring an order to stop racially profiling Latinos. President Trump pardoned him in August.

“Women of color in Arpaio’s jails were particularly mistreated,” said Brian Tashman, a political researcher and strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Latina detainees were “denied basic sanitary items” and were “forced to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation,” said Tashman, citing a Justice Department report.

They were put into “solitary confinement for extended periods of time because of their inability to understand and thus follow a command given in English,” the report added.

Arpaio had bragged about his implementation of chain gangs for men and women. 

“We had so many different programs. Chain gangs. I put the women on chain gangs,” Arpaio said. “First one in the world.”

Tent City opened in 1993 and helped reduce housing costs for a surging inmate population. The seven-acre campus was outfitted with dozens of Korean War tents.

At its peak it held 1,700 inmates. The last several years had only 700 to 800 housed there, according to the article. 

The county formed a committee to investigate the jail’s effectiveness. Interestingly, Penzone and Grant Woods, chairman of the committee, found that inmates preferred Tent City to traditional jails. The committee discovered that inmates preferred to stay outdoors instead of being cooped up in a cell most of the day.

“If the inmates voted, I’m telling you, it would be in the high 90 percentile or even 100 percent, they would like it to stay open, which is exactly the opposite of the image that’s been portrayed,” Woods said.

Tent City, with an annual operating cost of $8.5 million, was a tremendous economic burden, according to Penzone. He expects that shutting it down would save Maricopa County $4 to $4.5 million a year.

University helps prisoners learn

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The University of Arizona English Department, with the encouragement of the state of Arizona, has initiated a writing and literary program to rehabilitate prisoners, reports The Arizona Wildcat.

They started the Prison Education Project, now called Prison Instruction to Change Minds (PRISM) last spring and enroll up to 20 inmates each term. The goal of the curriculum is to improve prisoners’ critical thinking and comprehension skills, gain rhetorical awareness, and engage with the texts to reflect on their lives and hopes for the future.

“Part of the overall purpose of the program is to reach out to a community that is underserved and give them a sense of purpose—that they are doing something constructive with their time,” said Marcia Klotz, project director and assistant professor in the department of English.

“There is something profound about having that kind of interaction, being able to come into a group that has such a deep appreciation for what you are able to help them with,” Klotz told Arizona Wildcat reporter Tori Tom.

The fall program which started Oct.4, is not an accredited course, instead it offers certificates of completion.

“I would love to have these classes count for credit,” Klotz said. “That’s the long-term goal.”

A high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate is a prerequisite to enroll in the classes.

The Arizona Department of Corrections population data showed the Tucson prison complex housed 4,963 inmates in September, of which 2,230 qualified for PRISM in Whetstone and Catalina facilities, according to the article.

“We would like to expand (the program,)” said Klotz. “There’s a lot more interest than we can accommodate.”

“According to a RAND analysis, every $1 invested in such [inmate] education generates at least $4 in economic return,” reports Fast Company.

“The state typically spends $71,000 a year to house an inmate. It costs about $5,000 total to help put one [incarcerated] student through community college”, reports Fast Company.

Bryan A. Smith, convicted in California in 1982 for attempted robbery, second degree murder, and attempted murder, is both a University of Arizona psychology graduate (class of 2012), and a mitigation specialist for the Pima County Public Defender’s Office.

Smith conducts local motivational talks to tell his story and convince inmates that they too can succeed academically. Smith said he, like other inmates, always assumed that he was academically inadequate and that “college is not for them.” 

The 55-year-old Smith, a former inmate at San Quentin State Prison, spent 26 years of his life behind bars, and obtained an Associates of Arts Degree in 2003 through San Quentin State Prison’s Patten University Project.

“Growing up, I never thought I’d be able to get a higher education,” Smith said. “But I realized at some point that ‘I’m going to graduate to get a degree.’ This energized my future and opened up my world.

“The reason why I am an activist for education in a prison system is because it is a very strong activity for personal transformation,” Smith said. “Taking those preparatory classes, getting the individual help, seeing my peers do it and the environment [all] helped me grow to learn about myself.”

PRISM plans to broaden the program for inmates next semester by having any retired or current faculty members come to lecture for a day.

The purpose of this expansion is to expose Whetstone inmates to more classes, in the event that they decide to pursue a college education upon their release from prison.

http://sanquentinnews.com/game-theory/

NEWS BRIEFS: November 2018

Art Prison Program

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