San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

No housing for returning citizens in California

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California released a record numbers of prisoners without an appropriate place for them to go. Often, the formerly incarcerated are put in programs that offer no real help for the problems they face.

The parole board grants parole, but a prisoner must show that he or she has a place to stay upon release; 80% of those released are placed in state funded or philanthropically supported transitional housing, according to an article in Mother Jones.

People are placed in drug programs when they don’t have drug problems and wind up living in conditions that resemble those in prison, reported Marissa Endicott.

Terah Lawyer, after 15 years in prison needed to show the parole board she had a place to stay upon release. She had already secured a job working for the California Coalition of Women Prisoners.

Her reentry placement turned out to be a drug treatment facility with strict schedules and restrictions requiring her to attend treatment classes that she did not need. In fact, she had become a certified drug counselor while in prison.

She had to delay starting her new job for 90 days due to the program’s restrictions..

“The whole process of transitioning was hindered and stalled. It handicapped me in in certain areas because I didn’t have that immediate exposure I needed to see what life was like out there,” Lawyer told Endicott.

Thousands of parolees are released each year, with stable housing being critical to their future success. Problems occur when home owners are reluctant to rent to them or allow placement of transitional housing in their neighborhood.

Few appropriate reentry options exist for those who have served long sentences, increasing the chance of former prisoners soon becoming homeless.

California is ground zero for this problem due to its lack of affordable housing. In the midst of criminal justice reform, California’s prison population has dropped by 25%. New reform laws implemented are putting more people back on the streets.

Between 2017 and 2018 there was a 7% increase in the number of lifers released, 25% increase in 3-strikes releases, a 48% increase in releases for people who were serving life without the possibility of parole, and 50% increase in releases for those who were once sentenced to death, according to Mother Jones.

It is a crisis within a crisis: the special housing needs of people released from prison while an affordable housing crisis spreads across the state. Crystal Wheeler, served 22 years, struggling with trauma issues from the years spent in prison and the mental and physical abuse by her husband.

With no family, her parole conditions mandated she stay in a re-entry housing program, a six-month program in Claremont Calif., which specialized in drug and alcohol treatment.

Despite her never having a drug or alcohol problem, Wheeler was forced to attend daily AA meetings at 6 a.m. “That time could have been better used for teaching us things that our husbands never let us do,” she said.

The department of corrections acknowledges shortcomings in re-entry housing and has a policy to reduce the number of people without drug problems ending up in drug treatment centers.

In 2016 the state allocated $10 million for re-entry services for people who had served long sentences, starting a six-month transitional housing program the following year.

By 2018, CDCR’s long term transitional housing had produced 257 facility beds. But, the demand continues to grow. According to Mother Jones, 902 people were paroled in 2014 and an estimated 20,500 long term incarcerated people will be up for a parole hearing in the next 10 years.

Charles Manson’s follower recommended for release

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The California parole board recently recommended the release of one of Charles Manson’s followers, Bobby Beausoleil, who has served almost 50 years and been denied for parole 18 prior times.

In 1969, Beausoleil was convicted of killing musician Gary Hinman. According to testimony, Hinman was tortured for three days. Beausoleil’s original death sentence was reduced to life in prison by an appeals court in 1973, The Associated Press reports.

Beausoleil is now 71 years old and serving his time at California Medical Center. The California parole board found him suitable for parole, but Governor Newsom will have the final word. Inmates serving a life sentence have to go in front of a parole board that either grants or denies a parole date. Then it is up to the governor to rule on the parole decision, accord- ing to a CNN report.

Gary Hinman’s cousin, Kay Hinman Martley, told the AP, “I constantly have hope that they will do the right thing and keep these people in prison, and now my hopes have to go with the governor.”

She added that she plans to reach out to Newsom to tell him, “This man does not belong outside the walls of prison.” She also told CNN, “I’m very angry and disappointed with the justice system…I don’t understand why you would let someone out who has committed such a gruesome crime. Do you want him walking down the street next to you? This is a matter of public safety.”

According to Beausoleil’s attorney, Jason Campbell, his client is no longer dangerous, and his release is overdue. Campbell told CNN, “He has spent the last 50 years gradually growing and improving himself. …He’s a very conscientious, thoughtful and introspective person.”

Campbell added, “I am his lawyer, but beyond that, I have a family of my own, and I would have no problems inviting him over. He’s a very kind man, and I consider him a good man too.”

Collateral consequences of incarceration still linger

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Jay Jordan’s story is an example of the barriers the formerly incarcerated face when trying to make a new life outside of prison.

He was paroled in 2011 following seven years in prison. He filled out 30 applications as a barber, a skill he learned while locked up. He remained unemployed. Everywhere he went, his past convictions stopped employers from even considering him, reports Kay Wicker for thinkprogress.org.

These circumstances are anything but unusual. One in five Californians have convictions, according to a report published by Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ), an organization for which Jordan now works.

The report showed that a “vast majority have never done any time,” but their convictions are barring them from living a productive life. In fact, nearly 75 percent of parolees are unemployed a year after they are released.

A conviction in California can act as a barrier for attaining safe housing, public benefits and gainful employment. It also complicates issues of immigration and can negatively affect one’s health, medical or mental, according to the article.

Jordan managed to turn his frustrations into activism, taking on a number of jobs involving community organizing or political campaigns before CSJ hired him in 2016. However, employment was only one of his hurdles.

He and his wife cannot apply for adoption because of his conviction. They bought a home recently, but Jordan is not allowed to join the Home Owners’ Association. They have discussed a dream of starting a company, but Jordan cannot apply for licensing.

“I’m affected by every other (barrier),” said Jordan.

The CSJ report shows the systemic marginalization of living with convictions.

“A wealth of evidence indicates educational programming is one of the most effective approaches to reducing recidivism,” reported CSJ. “Still, individuals with convictions, particularly if they have been incarcerated, must overcome significant obstacles in accessing educational and vocational training programs.”

Approximately 40 percent of those incarcerated nation-wide do not have a GED or a high school diploma, and 46 percent have no secondary education. This hinders access to jobs, making it harder to reestablish community ties and abstain from criminal behavior. Those who make it into colleges or technical schools still face massive systemic hurdles in completing their degrees. For example, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VC- CLEA) prohibits the incarcerated from getting Pell Grants, which do not need to be repaid, unlike loans, noted the CSJ study. Additionally, those who committed drug offenses while receiving federal financial aid are no longer eligible for “federal financial aid to attend an institute of higher learning.”

The CSJ report, which Jordan helped compose, is the first step in a campaign called Time Done, which hopes to clear a path toward sunsetting convictions.

“This is not about shorter sentences,” Jordan said.” This is about people who are out and have served their time, have paid their debts and remain crime-free and have proven they can live in society and be productive. All we are saying is, ‘Let’s not put our foot on their necks as a country.’”

Some states seeking input on wrong parole decisions

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Some states are still seek- ing input from the wrong people on parole decisions a Prison Policy Initiative report maintains.

The report says the wrong people are prosecutors and crime victims.

In California, prosecutors and victims must be notified when a person is being considered for parole. Yet the only information they can provide to parole commissioners is about the crime itself and who that person was, not the individual’s rehabilitative efforts.

Victims and prosecutors should have a right to be heard but the information they provide is not helpful in determining if the person has been rehabilitated, writes Jorge Renaud in the Oct. 25, 2018 report.

This is important given a 2016 survey commissioned by the Alliance on Safety and Justice. The survey indicated that “60 percent of victims preferred shorter prison sentences and more spending on prevention and rehabilitation to longer prison sentences,” Renaud reported.

The report also showed that victims were “three times more likely to prefer” accountability through options other than prison, like “rehabilitation, mental health, drug treatment and community supervision.” They also believed that prison did more to create criminals than to rehabilitate them.

Renaud argues it is “counterintuitive” to seek the opinions of prosecutors and victims during parole hearings, given their goal of putting offenders behind bars. Yet some criminal justice experts still endorse this antiquated process. Many reformers believe that parole decisions should be left to professionals who know how to identify transformation, psychological growth and increased maturity.

The American Law Institute has recommended a “second-look” provision to the Penal Code to review the cases of incarcerated individuals who have spent “at least 15 years in prison,” reports Renaud. Still, the institute also recommends notifying prosecutors and victims of these proceedings, undermining the reform effort.

“Prosecutorial overreach” is partially responsible for mass incarceration, reformers believe. Restorative justice, at the other end of the spectrum, offers a progressive approach that allows survivors of violence to heal, by confronting, meeting and talking with those who have wounded them.

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