Gov. Jerry Brown

If you can’t stop using heroin, San Francisco is willing to violate state and federal law so you can do it safely. In July, the city plans to open two sites that will allow shooting up under secure conditions.

San Francisco + Golden Gate Bridge

“I’m fully supportive of the city moving forward, just like we did with needle exchange before it was technically legal,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) said in a San Francisco Chronicle column. “We need to do everything in our power to keep people healthy, to get people off the streets so they’re injecting in a safe space indoors instead of on people’s doorsteps or in public parks and to make sure we can intervene quickly if they overdose.”

Intravenous drug use is against both state and federal law, but Wiener has a bill that, if passed into law, would protect anyone associated with safe injection sites from facing state charges. The Assembly passed the bill last year, but it is two votes short in the Senate and would still need Gov. Jerry Brown’s approval.

“We consider the use of clean needles as a public health issue”

Still, San Francisco isn’t waiting on the state law or worrying about Pres.Donald Trump targeting them.

“I’m more worried about people dying in our streets,” Barbara Garcia, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said in the Chronicle article.

The total drug-overdose deaths was 64,070 in the 12 months through January 2017.” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 27, 2017 wsj.com/usnews

“Opioids, such as fentanyl, heroin, oxycodone and hydrocodone, killed more than 34,500 people in 2016.” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 27, 2017 wsj.com/usnews

An estimated 22,000 drug users openly shoot up in public areas, often scattering dirty needles on San Francisco sidewalks. Public Health officials expect 85 percent of San Francisco’s intravenous drug users to use the safe sites, keeping dirty needles off the streets and saving the city $3.5 million a year in medical costs. Medical and social services will also be available at the safe sites.

With 343 homicides in 2017, Baltimore “had the highest murder rate in its history, and by far the highest among the nation’s 30 largest cities,” according to The New York Times 1-17-18

The concept isn’t new. Canada, Australia and Europe provide safe injection sites. Also, cities like Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia are considering opening their own.

The public supports safe injection sites. A survey conducted in January by David Binder Research surveyed 500 registered city voters in English and Cantonese. They found that 67 percent of respondents back the idea while 27 percent opposed.

At San Quentin State Prison, state certified drug counselors, who once used drugs, support safe injection sites.

“Ideally we opt for total sobriety; however, we recognize that harm reduction is beneficial in the initial stages of recovery,” said Martin Walters, 50, incarcerated. He’s a California Association for Drug/Alcohol Educators (CAADE) counselor. “We consider the use of clean needles as a public health issue, like preventing AIDS, rather than addressing addiction. But, it’s a great start.”

Quinton Walker, 60, agrees. In the past he used heroin and nobody could tell him anything or do anything to get him to quit until he had a realization that the drug was going to kill him. Thereafter, he sought help and beat his addiction. Now he’s a CAADE counselor.

“I don’t think people are going to start using drugs because the needles are free,” Walker said. “I think the sites will keep people alive until they reach the point in their lives where they find hope and are ready to seek help quitting.”

California is releasing more lifers on parole, according to a Stanford University report.

Between 2008 and 2015, the parole grant rate increased from 8 to 25 percent for those who appeared before the Parole Board in 2015.

“Parole has been viewed increasingly as a means of managing the state prison population,” according to the April 2016 Federal Sentencing Reporter (Stanford Report).

This has not always been the case. Between 1980 and 2008, the grant rate for lifers was virtually zero. Not only were there few grants, California’s reliance on indeterminate life sentences differs significantly from other states.

While California has approximately 35,000 lifers, Texas is in second place with fewer than 9,000. More than 30 percent of California’s prison population is serving indeterminate life sentences, followed by Utah (29.2 percent) and Nevada (21.5 percent).

The Stanford Report authors acknowledge that “the number is enormous, representing not only a significant percentage of California prisoners, but a substantial portion of the nation’s lifers.”

The developing trend toward parole grants and release decisions is due to the courts, legislation and Gov. Jerry Brown.

CA Supreme Court

The California Supreme Court issued two rulings in 2008 (In re Lawrence and In re Shaputis) that said an inmate could not be denied parole based solely on the outrageousness of the crime committed. Rather, the assessment must be based on the “current dangerousness” of the inmate.

These rulings were counter-balanced with the passage of Proposition 9, Marsy’s Law, in November 2008. Prior to 2008, the default denial length was one year. Marsy’s Law changed parole denials’ default length to 15 years, which could only be reduced where there was “clear and convincing evidence that safety considerations did not require longer incarceration.”

Even after the passage of Marsy’s Law, the parole grant rate continued to increase. The 2011 U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Plata ruling that California’s overcrowded prisons violate the Eighth Amendment has forced the state to take numerous actions to reduce prison population.

With lifers as a significant portion of California’s inmate population, Governor Brown led a restart of the parole process. Brown appointed Jennifer Shaffer as the executive officer of the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) in 2011.

Shaffer has overseen both administrative changes and new professional development training resulting in an increase in grant rates to over 25 percent in 2015. These suitability findings are overturned rarely under Brown. Since 2011, Brown has reversed fewer than 20 percent of the rising number of BPH grants.

The Stanford Report brings Money Ball-style statistical reasoning to understanding the BPH decision-making process. The next article in this series will present a crude statistical model for predicting outcomes.

The model is based on knowledge — meaning anything that increases your ability to predict an outcome. It will help you make better predictions than trusting your cell-mate. In the Stanford Report, the statistical model has over 150 different factors and it determines how much weight to give each particular factor.

A copy of the above-mentioned Stanford Report is available through the Prison University Project (PUP) to all PUP students.

Higher age, fewer write-ups boost parole chances

Prison reform could free 30,000 inmates says CSJ

http://sanquentinnews.com/tasty-graduation-for-the-first-class-of-sq-chefs/
Boatwright

San Francisco offers safe injection sites

Study explores lifers going before the parole board