Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Overtime served: Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality

Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system. Johnson is following the lead of Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker, who claims -- wrongly -- that "Florida is funding prisons less and less" while preparing to release offenders early.

Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.

Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.

At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)

Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.

Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.

Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.

The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.

An Editorial from the Daytona News Journal published 12/29/09

Overtime served Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality

Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system. Johnson is following the lead of Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker, who claims -- wrongly -- that "Florida is funding prisons less and less" while preparing to release offenders early.

Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.

Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.

At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)

Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.

Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.

Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.

The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Why are innocent persons sentenced to prison?

It took 35 years for the criminal justice system to face the fact that it had wronged James Bain, a man convicted of the heinous crime of raping a 9-year-old boy in Lake Wales and sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. For nearly a decade Bain was denied requests for a DNA test on the evidence. It took a state attorney finally agreeing this year for the test to be done. The results ruled Bain out as the perpetrator.

Bain joins at least 11 other Floridians who were convicted of crimes and imprisoned only to be later found factually innocent of the offense in recent years. The revolution in DNA testing makes it possible to identify these miscarriages of justice with absolute certainty, but it doesn't say anything about how these errors occurred. Florida needs a commission to study these cases, breaking them down to see the system's flaws, just like the National Transportation Safety Board analyzes every plane crash.

On Friday, a group of renowned attorneys that includes former Florida Supreme Court justices, former presidents of the American Bar Association and former Florida Bar leaders, petitioned Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince for the formation of an actual innocence commission. The request is modeled after a similar undertaking in North Carolina that brought together judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates and academics for a two-year review of procedures in the criminal justice system. The commission isolated factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions and recommended changes.

Bain was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness testimony. That sort of account by eyewitnesses has incredible power to sway juries even though it is notoriously faulty. Bain's blood type didn't match the semen found on the victim's underpants. He also had an alibi: Bain and his sister had been at home watching television when the crime occurred. But a jury convicted him anyway. Bain was 19 years old at the time and had no prior criminal record.

An innocence commission would comprehensively evaluate investigatory and court procedures, including those for eyewitness identification in cases like Bain's, and suggest new safeguards. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification contributed to almost 80 percent of the 245 convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide. (The Innocence Project works to find and free innocent people imprisoned in Florida. An actual innocence commission would look at established cases of wrongful conviction to determine what went wrong within the criminal justice system.)

The timing of a commission is important. Florida needs to know why it sends innocent people to prison, whether through individual errors or systemic problems. With DNA testing leading to exonerations of the wrongly convicted with increasing frequency, this is an ideal moment for public acceptance of a commission and its findings.

Once these old cases of injustice proved through DNA testing are exhausted there won't be another opportunity to demonstrate actual innocence with the same level of certainty. But there are still plenty of crimes such as embezzlement, where wrongful convictions occur but DNA is typically not part of the proof. In order to prevent these kinds of injustices, the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system need reform.

Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, former Florida State University president and a former ABA president, is behind the push for a commission. He points out that the state high court has regularly investigated administration of justice issues. Earlier efforts include commissions looking into racial bias in Florida courts, the impact of cameras in state courts and whether attorneys should be required to report their pro bono hours. An innocence commission falls within the court's scope of duties, and its establishment was one of the lead recommendations of a 2006 report from the ABA Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. It's time to get started.

When an innocent person goes to prison it is a tragedy for society as well as for the wrongfully convicted and his family. His life is ruined, taxpayers pay for his upkeep and the real criminal is still at large. Florida needs to know how and why these mistakes happen so another innocent person doesn't spend most of his adult life behind bars.

A St. Petersburg Times Editorial Dec 09

Justice for mentally ill must evolve:

It shouldn't require a hero to fix this.
Judge Steven Leifman certainly qualifies for the appellation, leading (or, more accurately, dragging) Miami-Dade away from ineffective, costly, cruel policies that turned the Miami-Dade County jail into the nation's second-largest mental-health ward (after the Los Angeles County Jail) .

Judge Leifman spoke at a symposium Wednesday morning about considerable progress that Miami-Dade has made these past few years, diverting the mentally ill, many of them serial recidivists, out of the criminal justice system.

Miami Police Lt. Jeff Locke talked about the evolution of police policies toward psychotic behavior. Before 1999, police essentially acted as ``goons'' when they dealt with mentally ill transgressors, he said, ready to answer violence with violence. And sometimes deadly force. ``I was one of those cops.''

A BETTER APPROACH

Locke now trains local police officers in crisis intervention. Most police agencies in Miami-Dade County now have trained squads dedicated to defusing these confrontations. Judge Leifman talked about results: Half the subjects of police calls involving psychotic episodes are now diverted into treatment programs.

But it never should have come down to cops and jailers and a heroic judge to fix this medieval system. Leifman and Locke and the criminal justice system have been forced to deal with a massive community failure, 40 years in the making. As Florida closed its mental hospitals, most for good reason, the state failed to provide the outreach to keep the mentally ill treated, sheltered and safe.

We left them to their own devices. Until they became a police problem.

Here's what neglect got us: Some 125,000 of our mentally ill will take up space in Florida's jails and prisons this year, most for minor transgressions. Leifman said that on any given day, Florida houses 17,000 mentally ill prisoners in the state correctional system, another 15,000 in local lock-ups. Yet another 40,000 are on community control, and given the paucity of treatment, twice as likely to flunk probation.

THE FINANCIAL TOLL

Treatment costs behind bars devour budgets. Jails make for massively expensive, utterly ineffective mental hospitals. But for 40 years, Florida has cycled the mentally ill from the streets to jail to the streets to jail. With in-jail treatment mostly consisting of a regime of pills designed to keep them placid, not manage their illness.

Leifman said Wednesday that the fastest growing sub-set of prisoners in the state's corrections system are mentally ill defendants sent to a state institution until they're deemed competent to stand trial. He pointed out that competency training is not about treatment, but only about meeting the legal threshold necessary to try a prisoner. The overwhelming majority (currently occupying about 17,000 beds) finally will be hauled into court, then turned loose, sentenced to time served. And they'll be back.

In the next 10 years, Leifman said, their number will double to 35,000. They'll require 10 new prisons and an annual budget of $3.5 billion in a state that's going broke. ``It's insane,'' the judge said.

Yet a bill to divert these prisoners into community-based managed care, at a fraction of the cost, has languished for two years in the Legislature.

It shouldn't take a hero to fix this.

Posted on Wed, Dec. 09, 2009

By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice:

In the next several months, the Supreme Court will decide at least a half-dozen cases about the rights of people accused of crimes involving drugs, sex and corruption. Civil liberties groups and associations of defense lawyers have lined up on the side of the accused.

But so have conservative, libertarian and business groups. Their briefs and public statements are signs of an emerging consensus on the right that the criminal justice system is an aspect of big government that must be contained.

The development represents a sharp break with tough-on-crime policies associated with the Republican Party since the Nixon administration.

“It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The left and the right have bent to the point where they are now in agreement on many issues. In the area of criminal justice, the whole idea of less government, less intrusion, less regulation has taken hold.”

Edwin Meese III, who was known as a fervent supporter of law and order as attorney general in the Reagan administration, now spends much of his time criticizing what he calls the astounding number and vagueness of federal criminal laws.

Mr. Meese once referred to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the “criminals’ lobby.” These days, he said, “in terms of working with the A.C.L.U., if they want to join us, we’re happy to have them.”

Dick Thornburgh, who succeeded Mr. Meese as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and stayed on under President George Bush, echoed that sentiment in Congressional testimony in July.

“The problem of overcriminalization is truly one of those issues upon which a wide variety of constituencies can agree,” Mr. Thornburgh said. “Witness the broad and strong support from such varied groups as the Heritage Foundation, the Washington Legal Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the A.B.A., the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society and the A.C.L.U.”

In an interview at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group where he is a fellow, Mr. Meese said the “liberal ideas of extending the power of the state” were to blame for an out-of-control criminal justice system. “Our tradition has always been,” he said, “to construe criminal laws narrowly to protect people from the power of the state.”

There are, the foundation says, more than 4,400 criminal offenses in the federal code, many of them lacking a requirement that prosecutors prove traditional kinds of criminal intent.

“It’s a violation of federal law to give a false weather report,” Mr. Meese said. “People get put in jail for importing lobsters.”

Such so-called overcriminalization is at the heart of the conservative critique of crime policy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce made the point in a recent friend-of-the-court brief about a federal law often used to prosecute corporate executives and politicians. The law, which makes it a crime for officials to defraud their employers of “honest services,” is, the brief said, both “unintelligible” and “used to target a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”

The Supreme Court will hear three cases concerning the honest-services law this term, indicating an exceptional interest in the topic.

Harvey A. Silverglate, a left-wing civil liberties lawyer in Boston, says he has been surprised and delighted by the reception that his new book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” has gotten in conservative circles. (A Heritage Foundation official offered this reporter a copy.)

The book argues that federal criminal law is so comprehensive and vague that all Americans violate it every day, meaning prosecutors can indict anyone at all.

“Libertarians and the civil liberties left have always had some common ground on these issues,” said Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason, a libertarian magazine. “The more vocal presence of conservatives on overcriminalization issues is really what’s new.”

Several strands of conservatism have merged in objecting to aspects of the criminal justice system. Some conservatives are suspicious of all government power, while others insist that the federal government has been intruding into matters the Constitution reserves to the states.

In January, for instance, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Comstock, about whether Congress has the constitutional power to authorize the continued confinement of people convicted of sex crimes after they have completed their criminal sentences.

Then there are conservatives who worry about government seizure of private property said to have been used to facilitate crimes, an issue raised in Alvarez v. Smith, which was argued in October.

“A joint on a yacht, and the whole thing is forfeited,” said Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush.

Some religious groups object to prison policies that appear to ignore the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption, and fiscal conservatives are concerned about the cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population.

“Conservatives now recognize the economic consequences of a criminal justice leviathan,” said Erik Luna, a law professor at Washington and Lee University.

The roots of the conservative re-examination of crime policy might also be found in the jurisprudence of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The two justices, joined by liberal colleagues, have said the original meaning of the Constitution required them to rule against the government in, among other areas, the rights of criminal defendants to confront witnesses.

“Scalia and Thomas are vanguards of an understanding by the modern right that its distrust of government extends all the way to the criminal justice system,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.

The court will hear another confrontation clause case, Briscoe v. Virginia, in January. It is a sequel to a decision in June that prosecutors may not use crime lab reports without live testimony from the analysts who prepared them.

The conservative re-evaluation of crime policy is not universal, of course. Two notable exceptions to the trend, said Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute’s criminal justice project, are Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

“Roberts and Alito are coming down consistently on the side of the government in these criminal justice cases,” Mr. Lynch said.

Some scholars are skeptical about conservatives’ timing and motives, noting that their voices are rising during a Democratic administration and amid demands for accountability for the economic crisis.

“The Justice Department now acts as a kind of counterweight to corporate power,” said Frank O. Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri. “On the other side is an alliance between two strands of conservative thinking, the libertarian point of view and the corporate wing of the Republican Party.”

Mr. Meese acknowledged that the current climate was not the ideal one for his point of view. “We picked by accident a time,” he said, “when it was not a very popular topic in light of corporate frauds.”

By ADAM LIPTAK New York Times

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Instead of more prisons, less crime:

One of the more encouraging things happening in Florida is the movement for "smart justice." The goal is to reduce the number of repeat offenses by ex-inmates.

This would be a good idea.

No, it would be a great idea.

As matters stand now, almost exactly 33 percent of those released from Florida prison are back behind bars within three years.

This means the population keeps growing, and we have to keep building prisons. They cost $100 million a pop to build, and $25 million a year to run.

We just passed 100,000 inmates in the state prison system. Last year the whole shebang cost us $2.4 billion.

So …

What if we could turn out inmates who were less likely to re-offend? We would save tax dollars, reduce future crime, and maybe even salvage some lives.

There's no single magic wand to do this. But there are several tools that seem to be working, such as:

• "Re-entry" programs that begin to prepare inmates for their return to society as the end of their sentence approaches.

• Treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse, which affect a large percentage of the prison population. This might be the best money spent ever — some programs have dramatically cut that 33 percent, three-year recidivism rate.

• "Character-based" programs based on broad networks of community volunteers working with inmates in a structured curriculum.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Florida Legislature has declined to expand or has even cut some programs in recent years, especially in substance abuse treatment.

This brings us to the group called the "Coalition for Smart Justice," which held a "justice summit" on Monday and Tuesday in Tampa. About 300 people attended.

The coalition has a fascinating array of signers: past state attorneys general and corrections secretaries, social and political leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.

It's interesting that some of the backers are business groups: Florida TaxWatch, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Associated Industries of Florida.

"If we're going to be taxed," Associated Industries chief Barney Bishop told the audience during a panel discussion, "we want to get the most bang for the buck."

Three department heads under Gov. Charlie Crist were there: Walt McNeil of Corrections, George Sheldon of Children and Families, and Frank Peterman of Juvenile Justice.

McNeil said he hopes that by expanding these efforts, Florida can reduce its 33 percent rate by 18 to 20 percentage points by 2014.

The main challenge to the Coalition for Smart Justice is political. It has to prove to the Legislature that reducing future crime is actually more "conservative" than just building prison after prison.

Nobody is talking about throwing open prison doors.

Nobody is talking about hand-holding, mollycoddling or feeling sorry for criminals.

Most of all, nobody is talking about not sending to prison the people who ought to be there.

What they are talking about is whether we can keep more of them from coming back.

Learn more about the Coalition for Smart Justice on the Web site of the Collins Center for Public Policy at Florida State University:

www.collinscenter.org.



By Howard Troxler, St. Petersburg Times Columnist

Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Do justice like Texas. Really

For two days, conservatives and liberals told each other how much they agree on one of Florida's most important issues.

That issue is criminal justice, and the new choir sang Monday and Tuesday in Tampa at Justice Summit 2009. Sponsored by the Collins Center for Public Policy and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the gathering amounted to a pep rally for change that the state has needed for two decades.

What's different? The issues now include money, and Florida's leading business groups care.

For 25 years, Florida's criminal justice policy has been to lock up as many people as possible for as long as possible. The Legislature has approved sentencing guidelines and minimum mandatory sentences. The Legislature has required inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. Even Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, one of Florida's most hard-line prosecutors, says, "We take away a driver's license for durned near everything."

It's the easy political call. No one ever lost an election by being "tough on crime." As more states are learning, however, it's more important to be smart on crime. Lock up only the dangerous. Try to rehabilitate the others. Don't criminalize mental illness or addiction. Treat it. Help ex-offenders reenter society. Turn around a person's life, and you prevent a crime. Smarter. Cheaper. Safer.

Sure, Florida's crime rate is down 16 percent in the past 10 years. But Florida's incarceration rate is up 47 percent, crime has decreased nationally and the tough-on-crime tab has come just when Florida is tapped out.

This year, the Department of Corrections informed the Legislature that Florida would need 19 new prisons. Each would cost about $100 million to build and $25 million to operate. Every year. At $3 billion, the DOC is the third-largest part of the budget. So the big news was that the Legislature approved no new prisons. The Legislature passed no laws that affect who goes to prison or for how long. The price tag was a show-stopper. DOC Secretary Walter McNeil, a former police chief, supports reform.

Most of those in Tampa had seen each other at similar rallies. They run the not-for-profit substance-abuse treatment centers. They serve on the boards of agencies that work to change lives. They minister in faith-based prisons, where the rate of inmates who return to prison — known as recidivism — is lower than for traditional prisons.

The new participants were representatives of the Florida Chamber and Associated Industries of Florida. As speaker after speaker noted, the Legislature, especially the House, listens first to business. AIF President Barney Bishop told the do-gooders not to sound like do-gooders when they lobby legislators next year: "You're business people. You have numbers to show that your business works."

Other numbers show that the status quo doesn't work. One-third of the 30,000-plus inmates released each year go back to prison within two years. Think of all those victims. Think of all that wasted human potential. We could spend a whole other column on the need to keep the Department of Juvenile Justice from becoming just a farm system for the Department of Corrections.

The real star of the show in Tampa was not someone from Florida. It was Jerry Madden, a self-described "hard-line conservative" Texas legislator who sponsored the bill in 2007 that shifted his state away from incarceration at all costs to rehabilitation and treatment where appropriate. "My god, Texas," exclaimed Vickie Lopez Lukis, a Republican who chaired the Governor's Ex-Offender Task Force in 2006. If Texas can be smart on crime, why not Florida?

As Rep. Madden explained: "We didn't touch any sentencing laws. We just started shifting money." In 2008, he survived a primary challenge from a Republican who charged that Rep. Madden was "soft on crime." In 2009, he fought off attempts to undercut the reforms. He's going to run once more in 2010 "because by 2011, we'll have all the numbers to show that it really works."

Florida hasn't done smart for a long time. Here's a good place to start.

By RANDY SCHULTZ Palm Beach Post
Published Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is Schultz@pbpost.com

Monday, November 16, 2009

Criminal Justice Reform Conference this week:

Florida ranks near the top of the nation on spending for its prison system, according to research by the Pew Center on the States.
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."

Criminal Justice Reform Conference this week:

Florida ranks near the top of the nation on spending for its prison system, according to research by the Pew Center on the States.
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Let's talk death penalty in 2010 by

Raoul G. Cantero III and Mark R. Schlakman

Three years ago, the American Bar Association released a Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team report that documented numerous concerns about Florida's death penalty process. Since then, neither the government nor The Florida Bar has done much to remedy the problems.

To study Florida's death penalty, the ABA assembled a highly credentialed eight-member team that reflected prosecutorial, defense, judicial and academic perspectives, among others. After almost two years of research and analysis, the team resolved that its findings and recommendations had to be unanimous to be included. Individual members' perspectives ran the gamut, but the final report was intended to promote fairness and accuracy in our criminal-justice system without regard to one's views on capital punishment.

Among the findings was that legal representation of death penalty defendants in postconviction proceedings is often abysmal. The report makes several recommendations, including reinstating the capital collateral regional counsel office (CCRC) in the Northern Region of Florida. This office was disbanded as part of a still-ongoing pilot project launched during Jeb Bush's tenure that, in effect, privatized the northern office of the CCRC, thereby relying almost exclusively upon private registry counsel to handle postconviction appeals in death penalty cases.

Gov. Charlie Crist has expressed support for reinstating the Northern CCRC office.

Another recommendation embraced a unanimous Florida Supreme Court opinion that called upon the Legislature to revisit the death penalty statute. The report, like the opinion, observed that Florida is the only death penalty state (out of 35) "that allows a jury to decide that aggravators exist and to recommend a sentence of death by a mere majority vote."

Despite the court's strongly worded opinion, the Legislature has been unresponsive. It was reported that Gov. Bush said the issue was "definitely worth consideration" and cautioned legislators not to ignore the court. Yet Gov. Crist has voiced opposition to the recommendation.

Another alarming problem with Florida's death penalty is the number of defendants on Death Row who were later exonerated. The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides independent analysis on issues concerning capital punishment, advises that Florida has exonerated more death-sentenced inmates than any other state since 1973. One was exonerated after he died of cancer on Death Row.

The report also expresses concern about socioeconomic and geographic bias, the latter attributable in part to the fact that Florida's 20 state attorneys do not have uniform protocols to decide when to seek the death penalty. When prosecutors from different judicial circuits assess substantially similar criminal cases, prosecutors from one circuit might opt for the death penalty while prosecutors from another might opt for life without parole. This heightens concerns over whether the death penalty is applied consistently.

The report contains many other recommendations.

As the 2010 campaigns for statewide office and the Legislature take shape, conventional wisdom suggests that both Republicans and Democrats will resist taking positions that could be perceived as anything but tough on crime and strong on the death penalty. Circuit judges, who preside over capital cases, while nonpartisan and subject to the judicial canons, are not completely immune from such dynamics, given that they also face the voters periodically.

The challenge for those who hold and aspire to elected office, including Florida's 20 state attorneys, is to ensure that personal perspectives and the public outrage arising out of heinous crimes do not overshadow the fact that Florida's death penalty process is fraught with problems. Floridians expect a system of justice that engenders confidence based upon fairness and accuracy. With regard to the state's death penalty process, in many respects that standard has proven to be elusive.

We hope that this election cycle will provide an opportunity to openly and honestly discuss these issues and to seriously consider possible solutions.
Additional Facts
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

# Raoul G. Cantero III is a former Florida Supreme Court Justice appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. He resigned in 2008, after six years, to return to private practice in Miami. Contact him at raoul41@hotmail.com.

# Mark R. Schlakman is senior program director for Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and is board chair for the Innocence Project of Florida. He was one of eight members of the ABA's Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. Contact him at mschlakman@admin.fsu.edu.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Case is among string of bogus convictions

The kid they tried to execute was just 15. An IQ of 67.
The Broward prosecutor demanded the death penalty. But the jury, queasy about killing a mentally deficient teenager with no more evidence than a questionable confession, voted to spare Anthony Caravella's life.

Circuit Judge Arthur J. Franza seemed disappointed. ``I'll tell you this, Anthony: If the jury had recommended death, I would have had you electrocuted.''

Broward was that close to executing an innocent teenager.

Twenty-six years after Caravella was sent off for life, Edward Blake, a leading forensic scientist and a pioneer in DNA analysis, obtained a genetic profile from sperm left by the man who raped and murdered Ada Jankowski behind Miramar Elementary School in 1982. Blake concluded: ``Anthony Caravella is eliminated as the source of the spermatozoa.''

So Caravella's case becomes yet another among the Broward state attorney's string of ignominious convictions of mentally challenged defendants, later found to be innocent.

SHAM CONFESSION

Once again, the deciding ``evidence'' was a sham confession elicited from a feeble-minded suspect after hours of interrogation.

The confession, of course, was the only actual evidence against Caravella. In fact, the cops elicited five contradictory confessions from the teenager, but the last, finally, coincided with the crime-scene evidence.

The new DNA findings suggest the interrogators provided the incriminating information. It must have been easy stuff, manipulating a frightened, mentally deficient suspect into self-incriminating statements. Just like John Purvis, a schizophrenic with the mind of a 12-year-old, who after a rambling, barely coherent confession, did nine years for a murder finally linked to someone else. Jerry Frank Townsend, IQ of 50, served 22 years after confessing to murders committed by Fort Lauderdale serial killer Eddie Lee Mosley. Frank Lee Smith, so mentally disturbed he shouted incoherent inanities at his jury, died of cancer after a dozen years on Death Row before DNA evidence cleared him.

FINE CAREER MOVE

Cops got their bogus statements. Prosecutors got their bogus convictions. And convicting mentally defective innocents proved a fine career move. Prosecutor Robert Carney, who nailed both Purvis and Carvella, now sits as a Broward circuit judge. William Dimitrouleas, who prosecuted Frank Lee Smith, has a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Meanwhile, actual killers went free. Eddie Lee Mosley continued his hideous rape and murder spree. Miramar police never bothered to discover who stabbed Ada Jankowski 28 times.

In 2001, the Broward Sheriff's Office crime lab was persuaded to reexamine evidence from the Caravella case but failed, mysteriously, to isolate any DNA. Blake said Friday he received a ``harassing'' e-mail this week from the Broward state attorney's office indicating that, contrary to public statements about undoing a terrible injustice, the office would try to undermine his lab's credibility. If so, it would be a stunning tactic, given his national reputation. (With a list of high profile DNA cases that runs 51 pages, including the lab work that cleared Allen Crotzer and Luis Diaz, the wrongly accused Bird Road Rapist.)

``It appears they've gone into full scale cover-up mode,'' Blake said Friday. In Broward, we've been there before.

By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

Louisiana death penalty: an eye for an eye or ineffective?

Eighty-seven got a seat on "Gruesome Gertie" and were electrocuted.

Seven were put to sleep permanently by lethal injection.

In all, 94 people found guilty of capital crimes, such as first-degree murder or treason, have been executed in Louisiana since 1941. Eighty-two more, including two women, sit on death row today.

Their impending executions and those of others punished under Louisiana's death penalty have come under the scrutiny of media, victims, lawmakers, activists and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some say the state's capital punishment law, like those of 34 other states, is bound in the biblical tradition that those who take a life may be killed. The death penalty brings justice to victims' families and deters would-be killers, proponents argue.

"Most people believe that some people ought to get the death penalty — there are some crimes that are so bad that the person who commits (them) ought to be given the death penalty, if convicted," said death penalty expert Burk Foster, a former University of Louisiana-Lafayette criminal justice associate professor now teaching in Michigan.

Others insist the law is distorted and ineffective. Eight Louisiana death row inmates have been exonerated of their alleged crimes. More sentences overturned in recent years paired with fewer executions have all but already abolished the state's death penalty, they say.

"It's not as easy to get a death penalty (verdict) and certainly not (easy to) get one at this point," said Sabine District Attorney Don Burkett, who helped put three men on death row while district attorney for DeSoto and Sabine parishes. "I don't know how effective the death penalty is because there are so few being carried out."

Dwindling executions

The last execution in Louisiana was in May 2002. Leslie Dale Martin was put to death by lethal injection for the 1991 rape and killing of a 19-year-old college student. No other execution is scheduled, said Pam Laborde, Louisiana Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

Of the 27 men put to death since Louisiana reinstated the death penalty in 1979, 18 were executed between 1983 and 1988. Seven more were put to death during the '90s and just two were executed since 2000.

That mirrors a national trend. There have been 1,171 executions nationwide since 1976. The annual number has steadily dropped from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 37 executions last year, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.

"Louisiana was one of the most active death penalty states in the first 10 years after the death penalty was reinstated," Foster said. "Then it began to slow down. When we switched from electrocution to lethal injection it slowed down even more."

The reasons for that trend are varied, but better, more qualified legal representation for death row defendants has contributed to a lull in executions and an increase in exonerations and sentences being reversed, Foster said.

Since 2007, 11 men, not including those exonerated, have been taken off death row for a variety of reasons, the DOC reports. Most have seen their death sentences reversed and were resentenced to life in prison.

At least two men recently taken off death row were put there by Caddo Parish juries. In one case, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled prosecutors made a mistake and ordered a new trial. Robert Coleman, accused of the 2003 slaying of retired minister Julian Brandon during a Blanchard home invasion, is scheduled to again stand trial in April 2010. His girlfriend, Brandy Holmes, also earned a death sentence for her role in the crime.

In the other Caddo case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a sentencing was unconstitutional. Richard L. Davis, who was found guilty and sentenced to death for the rape of a 5-year-old girl, was resentenced to life in prison.

Nationwide, 135 death row inmates have been exonerated, according to Death Penalty Information Center statistics.

Fewer prosecutions

As a result of those and other factors, prosecutors are seeking death sentences less frequently. Faced with higher costs, the need for a unanimous jury verdict and a lengthy, expensive appeals process, they instead are opting for life sentences with no parole. Today there are 4,280 life inmates in Louisiana's state prisons.

An estimated 111 death sentences were meted out in 2008 across the country — part of a continual decline since 1998. In Louisiana, nearly half of the inmates on death row were sent there by three parishes — East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Jefferson. Between 2000 and 2008, those same parishes also had the most death row commitments in the state. Orleans Parish, which has the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, had not sentenced anyone to death in at least 12 years until August.

"There are parts of Louisiana that are very pro-death, but more than half the parishes in this state have never returned a death penalty," said Richard Bourke, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans. "The death penalty in this state is driven by a small number of individually, locally-elected officials."

A colorful history

Hanging was the means of execution in Louisiana until 1941. The last man legally hanged in Louisiana was William Landers, who was executed in 1941 — barely six months after he and three other escaped Arkansas convicts killed a posse man sent to capture them.

Jury selection for the quartet's trial was hampered due to public sentiment against giving the death penalty to all four men when it was likely only one, Frank Boyce, actually was responsible for the murder, according to a 2001 article written by Foster.

That's not the only time the state's death penalty has met societal pressure, according to LSU-Shreveport criminal justice professor Bernadette Palombo.

During the penalty trial of Timothy Taylor, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1999 shooting death of a Shreveport car salesman, defense attorneys and his parents pleaded with jurors to spare his life, Palombo said.

A man whose daughter was one of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh spoke on Taylor's behalf, asking the jury not to give the death penalty. The man, who spoke as a representative of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, also was seeking to stop McVeigh's execution. Ultimately, Taylor was given life in prison. His co-defendant, Michael Taylor, no relation, received the death penalty a year earlier.

Others have expressed satisfaction in the state's death penalty. After the 2002 execution of Martin, the parents of his victim, Christina Burgin, said they were "ecstatic" over his death, news reports at the time stated.

Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain, who was at Martin's side when he died, said he feels compassion for the families of death row inmates but his thoughts focus on the victims and their families.

"I think about the victims," Cain said of what goes through his mind while sharing a last meal and standing by an inmate, sometimes holding his hand, as he is executed. "I wish I could have helped the victims. I wish I could have stopped (the victim's murder)."

After the state's last hanging, Louisiana switched to the electric chair. The oak chair, which was transported to the parish where the execution was to take place for nearly 16 years, was the method of choice from 1941 to 1991. The electric chair found a permanent home at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1957.

In that chair is where the only woman to be executed in Louisiana met her end. Toni Jo Henry, a Shreveporter, was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1940 killing of a 41-year-old tire salesman from Houston. She was executed on Nov. 28, 1942, in Lake Charles.

Two women, including Brandy Holmes, of Shreveport, sit on death row today. Both are housed at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel. Holmes' latest appeal is before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The other woman, former New Orleans police officer Antoinette Frank, saw her pending December 2008 execution for a 1995 triple homicide canceled by the Louisiana Supreme Court just weeks before she would have received a lethal injection.

In 1967, all executions nationwide were suspended pending a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately struck down the death penalty. All death row inmates at that time were resentenced to life imprisonment, according to DOC records.

The state resumed executions in 1983 and switched to lethal injections in 1991.

Cain, who has led six of the seven men executed by lethal injection to their deaths, said the prison's method of execution, which offers the condemned a last meal of choice and time with families, offers dignity. He wishes more could be done for the victims and their families.

"You do what you can where you are," Cain said.

By Alison Bath
alisonbath1@gannett.com
Shreveport Times

Monday, August 31, 2009

Senator Jim Webb on criminal justice reform:

The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 that I introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.

Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:

With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.

Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.

Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.

Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.

Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

A letter to Senator Nancy Detert

This past week I heard Senator Nancy Detert speak at SarasotA Tiger Bay. Following the discussion, members of Senator Detert's staff passed out a newsletter and survery to return to her. Rather than complete the survey I decided to write the Senator abour criminal justice. Here is an except from my letter.

" I thought I would write you a letter about my primary concern, which is criminal justice. I am of the opinion that our criminal justice system in Florida is in need of a complete overhaul. We need to make better decisions about imprisonment, alternative sentences, resources and procedures.

You may be aware that Senator Jim Webb has proposed formation of a national commission on criminal justice to study the federal system. This commission would include members from law enforcement, the judiciary, treatment professionals, prosecutors and defense attorneys. There will be no “scared cows” and everything would be on the table for discussion.

I would encourage you to discuss criminal justice issues with other members of the Florida Senate and see if there would be any support for a similar commission in our state. The commission would be charged with determining the goals for Florida’s criminal justice system, how to best use resources, how to compensate victims and how to rehabilitate offenders. Everything should be under consideration including capital punishment, minimum mandatory sentences, drug offender sanctions and independent forensic laboratories."

Monday, August 17, 2009

Getting Smart on Crime:

After decades of supercharged incarceration rates, our bloated prison system is straining under its own weight, and policy makers are finally being forced to deal with the need to shrink it.

According to a study last year by The Pew Center on the States entitled “One in 100: Behind bars in America 2008,” the prison population of the United States has nearly quadrupled over the last 25 years while the nation’s population has grown by less than a third.

We now have more inmates per capita than any of the 36 European countries with the largest inmate populations, and our total number of inmates is more than all the inmates in those countries combined.

This comes at a cost. According to a report published last month by the Vera Institute of Justice, an independent, nonprofit research group, $1 in every $15 from states’ general funds is now spent on corrections. That doesn’t work in a recession.

Much of the rise in the prison population was because of draconian mandatory sentencing laws that are illogical — sociologically and economically.

On the sociological side, as the criminal justice expert Joel Dvoskin of the University of Arizona explained to me, data overwhelmingly support the idea that locking up low-risk, nonviolent offenders makes them worse, not better.

A study from a decade ago that was published in the journal American Psychologist put it this way: “Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them.”

On the economic side, putting nonviolent drug offenders in rehab is cheaper than putting them in prison. A 2006 U.C.L.A. study found that California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, which allowed nonviolent drug possession offenders to go to rehab instead of prison, saved taxpayers nearly $2.50 for every $1 invested in the program. (Unfortunately, funding for the program has been gutted.)

Put them in prison and make them worse criminals, or put them in rehab, possibly make them better, and save some money. Sounds like a no-brainer.

There are encouraging signs that policy makers are moving in the right direction. Many states have moved to repeal mandatory minimums, and there is a bill in Congress to repeal federal mandatory sentencing. Furthermore, Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be thinking about this issue the right way. Speaking to the American Bar Association last week, he said, “There is no doubt that we must be tough on crime. But we must also commit ourselves to being smart on crime. ... We need to adopt what works.”

By CHARLES M. BLOW and published in the New York Times on Saturday, August 8 2009

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Breaking Our Addiction to Prison: by General Barry McCaffrey

Our traditional justice system has been inadequate to the task of breaking the cycle of substance abuse and crime. Four out of every five offenses are committed by someone with a drug or alcohol problem; and we just keep locking them up!

In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That's far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time.1 Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol2 and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.

Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime3 and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse.4 And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually.5 On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.

Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there's absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.

Author Judge Dennis Challeen (ret.) said it best about sending the addicted to prison:

We want them to have self-worth

So we destroy their self-worth

We want them to be responsible

So we take away all responsibility

We want them to be positive and constructive

So we degrade them and make them useless

We want them to be trustworthy

So we put them where there is no trust

We want them to be non-violent

So we put them where violence is all around them

We want them to be kind and loving people

So we subject them to hatred and cruelty

We want them to quit being the tough guy

So we put them where the tough guy is respected

We want them quit hanging around losers

So we put all the losers in the state under one roof

We want them to quit exploiting us

So we put them where they exploit each other

We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society

So we make them totally dependent on us

An Investment Beginning to be Realized

The verdict is in on Drug Courts. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Drug Courts work. Drug Courts significantly reduce drug abuse and crime and do so at less expense than any other justice strategy.

That is why the historic 1994 Biden Crime Bill authorized $1 billion for the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program, administered by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. The intent of the Biden Crime Bill at the time was to expand Drug Court funding to $200 million annually by the year 2000. Unfortunately the DOJ federal appropriation has averaged only $40 million and saw its lowest level in 2006 at a mere $10 million.

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has also supported Drug Courts through its discretionary funding. But it, too, is drastically under-funded with a meager $10 million a year available to enhance treatment services within Drug Court programs.

That is all changing. Earlier this year, Congress approved $64 million for Drug Courts; the highest federal appropriation for the program in its 20 year history. And President Obama has plans to take the ball further up field. In the Administration's budget for 2010, there is potentially $118 million for Drug Courts.

How Much Money Is Needed?

Drug Courts need $250 million per year for the next six years--essentially as was originally envisioned in the Crime Bill -- in order to put a Drug Court within reach of the 1.2 million adult offenders who need it and to truly begin to heal America's number one social problem...addiction.

What Will be the Return on the Investment?

A $250 million annual Federal investment would reap staggering savings, with an estimated annual return of as much as $840 million in net benefits from avoided criminal justice costs alone and another 2.2 billion in savings to our communities. A $250 million annual Federal investment would also substantially reduce the demand for illicit drugs and enable state and local governments to cease over-relying on expensive and ineffective prison sentences for nonviolent, addicted offenders.

If the past is any indication of the future, state and local governments can be expected to follow suit and leverage the Federal investment several-fold. In these down-turn economic times, there is no way to be certain whether the states will be able to continue to leverage Federal dollars at a 9:1 ratio as they have done in the past. But once states began to realize cost-offsets from criminal justice and prison expenditures, state funding can be reapportioned to expand and sustain Drug Courts. Assuming even a modest 5:1 state investment, a $250 million annual Federal investment could leverage as much as $1.25 billion in state funding.

Drug Courts are just good common CENTS! For more information about Drug Courts, go to www.allrise.org.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

New Jails for Sarasota County? latest links

People protest possible jail locations:
http://www.sunnewspapers.net/articles/llnews.aspx?articleID=13805&bnpg=0

Community corrections center comes up empty on site selections:
http://www.pelicanpress.org/content/1233_1.php

(cut and paste links into your browser.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Less crime is better than more prisons:

Something important is afoot on the topic of Florida's prisons.

A growing group of prominent Floridians is questioning whether we can just keep building more of them.

Is this group, the Coalition for Smart Justice, made up of whiny, hand-wringing, soft-on-crime liberals? No.

Here's some who have endorsed the effort:

The president of the business lobby Associated Industries of Florida; the president of Florida TaxWatch; the executive vice president of the Florida Chamber Foundation; at least one former state corrections secretary; three former Florida attorneys general; the executive director of the Florida Police Benevolent Association; the executive director of the Florida Catholic Conference.

They are among the signers of a document titled, "An Open Letter to the Governor, Legislature and People of Florida," urging the state to do more than just build. The group continues to gather more signers.

"Too many ex-offenders (are) going back to prison," the letter says, "because, while behind bars, they received little or no job training, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and the necessary life-skills tools to legitimately re-enter civil society."

About 33 percent of inmates released in Florida are back behind bars within three years. This is costing us a fortune and will cost more.

We have just over 100,000 people in prison. The budget of the Department of Corrections this year is $2.4 billion.

And if we keep zipping along, we'll need 15 or more additional prisons over the next five years (on top of the 60 we have), costing a couple of billion more in construction, not including the money to run them.

Just to be clear here:

Nobody is talking about being "soft on crime" or coddling criminals.

What they're talking about is how to make inmates less likely to commit new crimes once they get out.

Here's an example: Remember that 33 percent of released inmates go back to prison within three years. But for inmates who go through substance-abuse treatment, that figure is 6.7 percent.

The Department of Corrections also is placing a new emphasis on the concept of "re-entry," taking extra steps to prepare inmates for their return to society.

Seven Florida prisons have some sort of "faith and character-based" programs staffed by volunteer citizens, and are reporting recidivism rates below 10 percent.

"A belief in something outside themselves," is how Allison DeFoor, a former sheriff and judge turned Episcopal priest, describes the goal in a recent article in the Journal of the James Madison Institute.

"I suggest God, but it could be Allah. It could be the arts, or secular humanism, or the labor movement."

(Let's skip, for today, the question of how much business a state prison has getting involved with "faith." The point is the recidivism rate.)

The Legislature needs to consider alternatives to building prison after prison. It might save money. It might save some of us from being future victims of crime. It might even salvage some lives.

To learn more about the Coalition for Smart Justice, visit the Web site of the Collins Center for Public Policy at www.collinscenter.org.

For more on faith and character-based education in Florida's prisons: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/faith/

By Howard Troxler, St. Pete Times Columnist

Published Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Florida can challenge the injustice of mass incarceration

Last year Florida hit a disturbing milestone: For the first time, the state's daily prison population topped 100,000, a figure that didn't include people locked up in county jails (about 60,000) or serving probation (nearly 160,000). Florida spends more than 10 percent of its general fund on corrections, and the prison system -- which saw a building boom in the late 1990s -- is again near capacity.

Nobody suggests turning dangerous offenders loose. But a growing number of Florida leaders -- across the political spectrum -- say the state has gone too far in locking up non-violent offenders and probation violators. Gov. Crist and the Legislature should heed the message.

Last week, Crist received an open letter from key opinion makers, including three former attorneys general, the former head of Florida's prison system, the Florida Association of Counties and the Florida Catholic Conference. "A bold and serious conversation about justice reform must begin today," the letter says, pointing out that prison costs have already begun to "crowd out" other priorities such as education, economic development and human service needs.

The letter follows a missive from Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Chamber Foundation and Florida TaxWatch -- the most powerful business lobbying groups in the state -- which said essentially the same thing: Florida can't afford to keep building prisons and filling them indiscriminately.

Collectively, these groups have formed a "Coalition for Smart Justice" recommending immediate reforms that include the creation of an advisory council (mandated by the Legislature in 2008, but never established) that would review Florida's corrections system thoroughly. The legislation -- which passed unanimously in both chambers -- demanded an investigation of mental-health and substance-abuse treatment, diversion for low-level offenders and the impacts of repeated incarceration.

The council could start by looking at effective strategies in other states. Texas made a dramatic change in its corrections policies that focused on alternatives to prison -- including electronic monitoring of probationers and the addition of 6,000 treatment beds both inside prisons and in diversion centers. As a result, that state's prison system -- which was over capacity in 2006 -- should see a slight population decline next year, authorities say. Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are among other states tackling comprehensive corrections reform, with impressive results.

But Crist and lawmakers shouldn't wait on the council, especially when meeting a pressing need: Better mental-health and substance-abuse policies. More than half of all Florida prisoners struggle with addiction or mental illness. Providing treatment alternatives to incarceration could reduce the number of people who cycle through prisons and jails on minor offenses.

Florida also needs better rehabilitation programs for offenders before they leave prison, and support afterwards. Too many inmates are discharged abruptly, lacking the education and life skills to lead successful, crime-free lives.

The state's criminal-justice policy has become too costly, in ruined lives and strained budgets alike. Reform should focus attention on incarcerating truly dangerous criminals, providing meaningful rehabilitation for the 90 percent of inmates who will eventually be released and diverting people who don't belong in prison.

An editorial published June 28, 2009 in the Daytona News Journal

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Coalition pushes for alternatives to more prisons:

A call by Florida’s most powerful business lobby to halt prison construction and reform the criminal justice system is gaining surprising traction among policy makers in the wake of a deepening budget crisis and growing evidence that building new prison beds will not reduce crime.

Four months after the head of Associated Industries of Florida stunned lawmakers with his plea to slow prison growth, a who’s-who of business, religious and political leaders are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to consider alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders, particularly drug addicts.

Crist and state lawmakers this week received an “open letter’’ from opinion-makers calling for a “bold and serious conversation about justice reform.”

The statement was signed by three former state attorneys general — Jim Smith, Bob Butterworth and Richard Doran — along with retired Department of Corrections secretary James McDonough and the heads of the Florida Association of Counties and the Florida Catholic Conference.

“At a time when Florida is in serious recession and facing a deep state budget crisis, the $2 billion-plus budget of the Florida Department of Corrections has grown larger; and without reform, that budget will continue to grow at a pace that crowds out other mission-critical state services such as education, human service needs, and environmental protection,” the group wrote.

Calling itself the Coalition for Smart Justice, the group is asking state leaders to bolster education, drug and alcohol treatment and faith-based and character-building programs both within the state prison system and in community settings as an alternative to prison.

Coalition members also want Crist to “immediately implement’’ a bill passed by the Legislature in 2008 that created “the much needed’’ Correctional Policy Advisory Council to offer new directions for criminal justice administration.

Staying the course, coalition members wrote, will lead to “too many non-violent individuals being incarcerated, too many prisons needing to be built at astounding public cost (and) too many young people moving from the juvenile justice system into the adult justice system.”

At the root of the state’s failures, the coalition says, is the unwillingness of lawmakers to invest in programs — such as job training, education and substance-abuse treatment — that can break the cycle of crime and reduce recidivism.

McDonough, the state’s former drug czar and prisons chief, said Florida can avoid the need to build a new $100 million prison each year by spending one-fifth that amount on drug treatment. “The math is irrefutable,” McDonough said. “That’s $100 million right there that you don’t have to spend immediately.”

That’s an assertion former Manatee sheriff Charlie Wells scoffs at, as a veteran of the debate over the effectiveness of prisons in reducing and deterring crime. Wells said he is concerned the movement to turn the state away from building new prisons will lead to the repealing of legislation he pioneered in the 1990s that mandates inmates serve at least 85 percent of their prison terms.

“I think it is a bad mistake to be flirting with the idea of cutting back building prisons under the guise of looking for ways to cut costs,” said Wells. “If we stop building prisons, overcrowding will force legislators to repeal that law, which would be a serious mistake.”

Wells said advocates of diversion programs for non-violent offenders in lieu of prison time often do not tell the whole story about offenders sentenced to prison.

“That argument has been there since I started fighting this battle. But what always gets lost in translation is the length of someone’s record who is finally is sent to prison. Someone who is going to prison for a so-called ‘minor offense’ has most likely been arrested a significant number of times,” said Wells. “So I think it is absurd to start chipping away at the most significant aspect of crime prevention, which is sentencing and punishment.”

Gretl Plessinger, DOC’s spokeswoman, said the equation is far more complicated in response to the coalition’s claims. Since the prison system runs on a five-year cycle based on “strategic projections,” the corrections agency cannot simply “stop construction on a dime.”

By CAROL MARBIN MILLER
Miami Herald

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Tackle prison overcrowding from the other end

The Florida Legislature passed a ''just in case'' bill that its author, Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, calls a ''passive safety net,'' not a mandate. But the philosophy behind SB 1722, which becomes law July 1, is based on regressive thinking.
It would allow the corrections department to ship inmates to other states in case prison overcrowding forces early releases here.

Fund programs

This is a patchwork solution that misses the point. Florida should be fighting crime at the front end -- not shipping prisoners to be warehoused out of state.

To reduce prison beds the state has to adequately fund programs to reduce school drop-out rates and increase job-training and life-skills classes. It means counseling and access to needed services for troubled families with teens who have strayed but not fallen off the deep end yet.

It also means drug rehabilitation programs, well-resourced drug courts and mental-health counseling for teenagers. In the long run these preventive measures would save the state millions of dollars it now spends housing prisoners who could be contributing members of society.

The irony is that, until budget deficits hit this year, Florida's been on a prison-building spree even as it has cut back on programs to reduce recidivism. The 2010 state budget is the first in a long while with no money set aside for new prison construction.

Enter the private-prison lobbyists who have long urged lawmakers to imitate the 15 states that export prisoners to public and private lockups. Even though Florida's Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil isn't a proponent of sending prisoners out of state, the private-prison lobbyists prevailed in the Legislature.

Besides its regressive thinking, this bill is an example of bad public policy. As Mr. McNeil points out, one method of reducing recidivism is encouraging inmates to build ties to the community they will return to once they're released. It's detrimental to inmates' morale -- and no incentive to go straight -- to be incarcerated hundreds of miles from their families, making visitations rare.

Cutting corners

There are other concerns. The quality in private prisons is uneven, to say the least. Some private operators have been exposed for cutting corners by understaffing and chintzing on inmates' medical care. It would be impossible for Florida to monitor treatment of its inmates in a prison in, say, Tennessee.

Currently, Florida's prison population is stable at 101,000 and even a little below previous projections. The state's total bed capacity is around 106,000, so Florida probably won't be exporting prisoners any time soon. That gives state leaders time to craft a smarter, more cost-effective strategy to prevent prison overcrowding.

It's called crime prevention.

An editorial from the Miami Herald published June 13, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Restoration of Rights workshop--THIS WEEKEND

Do you know someone who has lost their civil rights, including their right to vote, due to a conviction for a felony? The Sarasota branches of the NAACP and ACLU are sponsoring a restoration of rights workshop at the Selby Goodwill at 1732 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Way, from 10 a.m -3:00 p.m. on Saturday June 13. Please help me get the word out.

OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Jailing the mentally ill strains justice:

Every jailer in Florida knows the face of mental illness.

County jails throughout the state house thousands of people with serious mental conditions. Some of them can't maintain a life on the outside -- as soon as they are released, they commit a new, usually petty crime and end up back in jail. Counties pay staggering bills for psychiatric medications and treatment. They struggle to house inmates whose illnesses make them vulnerable (or in isolated cases, dangerous) in the jail's general population. And as community treatment centers close, the number of mentally ill people in prisons and jails increases, along with the burden on their families and the taxpayers who pay for fruitless rounds of arrest and incarceration.


Florida lawmakers had the opportunity this year to make a fundamental change in the way local jails and state prisons deal with people who have severe mental illness. But they fumbled, delaying action on a bill that would have created a new system for mentally ill offenders.

A study conducted by the Council of State Governments and published Monday in the journal Psychiatric Services illustrates how badly Florida leaders dropped the ball. Researchers administered psychiatric screenings to more than 20,000 inmates in five jails in Maryland and New York, concluding that 14.5 percent of men and 31 percent of women booked into county jails had at least one serious mental illness. The number includes only people with very serious afflictions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression -- excluding those with lesser (but often debilitating) diagnoses of anxiety disorders or other mental conditions.

The study didn't cover Florida, but the state's own numbers suggest similar concerns. According to a 2007 study, an estimated 15,000 inmates in Florida's jails on any given day have serious mental illnesses -- roughly one in four. And like the national study, the percentage of inmates with mental illness has climbed steadily in Florida.

The national study suggests several factors behind this increase. People with mental illness are more likely to be visible to police because they are less capable of controlling their behavior. They're also more likely to use illegal drugs, especially if they don't have access to treatment and psychiatric medication. The correlation between mental illness and homelessness is significant, and homeless people are far more likely to be arrested. Finally -- and this thread runs through the entire discussion -- the nation's mental-health treatment system is badly overburdened.

Many people believe the public is safer if people with mental illness are confined, even if that means imprisonment in an inappropriate setting like jail. The new study disputes that impression as well, pointing out the "weak correlation" between mental illness and violent behavior. In fact, many behavioral-health specialists believe that imprisonment increases the likelihood of violent crime, by further destabilizing people with certain mental disorders, and making them more likely perpetrators or victims of crime.

Counties are trying individually to confront the problems of mental illness in their jails. Volusia County, for example, recently hired Stewart-Marchman-Act Corp. to oversee treatment in its correctional facilities.

Still, it's not enough. The bill that failed to pass the Legislature this year would have sparked a comprehensive overhaul of Florida's criminal-justice system, setting up better community-diversion programs to keep people out of jail and creating transitions for people with mental illness who are about to be released from prison. But Gov. Charlie Crist shouldn't wait for the next legislative session -- many of the reforms the bill called for can be instituted by executive order instead, and the state Department of Children & Families can start planning others.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon says that the hundreds of millions of dollars Florida spends incarcerating people with mental illness is the "worst money we spend." It's time for a change, and Crist can help to bring it about.

Published in the Daytona News-Journal on June 7, 2009

Thursday, June 04, 2009

A New Jail for Sarasota County?

There's been lots of jail talk these days in Sarasota County; The current jail is over capacity. Now some local leaders are trying to find the money and a place for a new one. But not everyone is on board.
From Fruitville Road to Sumter Boulevard...even Buchan Airport in Englewood. Those are just a few of the 15 or so sites submitted and being discussed by a local committee, rating possible new jail sites. "We are moving geographically around the county," says Criminal Justice Policy Holder for the county Wayne Applebee.

The group meets every other week. First criteria is government-owned land or land submitted by property owners. 30 acres are wanted. Then there is the whole location thing. "The access, the ownership, development and construction costs, environmental impacts, costs going into the future by where its location is."

Thursday, Sarasota County and city commissioners were briefed on the latest. While the whole county is being explored, it seems north county might not be the best option. "We are probably looking mid-county or south county...the North Port area," says Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta. Some North Port commissioners have said they're not opposed to the jail there.

One location many have suggested is in mid-county, off Knight's Trail, right next to the dump. It's centrally located with plenty of land. However, there was already an attempt to put a jail near there in the past, says Barbetta. "It was probably the largest planning commission ever. Over 600 people showed up when the jail was proposed. It was at least nine or ten years ago...vehement opposition."

But also Barbetta says he's not sure he wants to spend the estimated $60 million to dump inmates anywhere. "Is something wrong with our system that we keep building these monstrosity-sized jails? Is the problem deeper and is it more social service related?"

The county is also looking for land for a community corrections center. That's different than the jail. "We are in need of a smaller community corrections facility for light to medium security; Somewhere in the county, but we don't want to impact the neighborhoods."

Future site selections that might not be popular when it turns out to be in your back yard. "It's a tough problem for all communities. I just think if we put money in bricks and mortar it's not really the solution."

The current plan calls for enough room to house nearly 1,000 more inmates by the year 2035 in Sarasota County. The group searching for sites says they would like to have their top picks by the fall.

You can go to the site rating meeting for yourself. They are every other Wednesday at the Sandra Sims Terry Community Center in Laurel. The next meeting is June 17th.

As Reported by ABC Channel 7

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Restore Your Civil Rights

Do you know someone who has lost their civil rights, including their right to vote, due to a conviction for a felony? The Sarasota branches of the NAACP and ACLU are sponsoring a restoration of rights workshop at the Selby Goodwill at 1732 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Way, from 10 a.m -3:00 p.m. on Saturday June 13. Please help me get the word out.

OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.

Death Penalty Consequences:

There are many ways to make the case for abolishing the death penalty in Florida.

First, consider the extra $50 million that the state spends each year on death-penalty prosecutions and appeals.

Then look at the deep flaws that the American Bar Association found with Florida's system of capital punishment -- and recognize that those legal inequities haven't been addressed in the three years since the Bar released its review.

Finally, consider the haunting probability that the state has executed innocent people -- mistakes it can never correct.

The last argument is the one that torments former Florida State Penitentiary warden Ron McAndrew, whose duties included participating in the executions (by electrocution) of three men during his tenure at the prison. In an opinion piece written for the Orlando Sentinel's online edition, McAndrew describes a gradual change of heart that culminated in a face-to-face meeting with Juan Melendez, a man who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death row before being proved innocent of a 1983 murder.

McAndrew isn't the only one to express doubts. And Melendez is not the only man to walk free: Florida leads the nation in death-row exonerations. Since 1973, 22 death-row inmates have had their convictions definitively overturned. Two other cases bring Florida's "official" roster of wrongful death sentences to 24: Frank Lee Smith was proven innocent by DNA but died in prison before his conviction could be overturned, and Sonia Jacobs walked free from death row after the case against her fell apart -- though she accepted a plea bargain, her murder conviction was dismissed.

Death-penalty proponents claim the exonerations as proof that "the system works." In actuality, they prove the opposite. Many of Florida's exonerations were only obtained after lengthy defense fights to obtain and test DNA evidence that proved someone else was guilty of a particular crime. But the first DNA exoneration didn't happen until 1993 -- and even after the technology became widely accepted, prosecutors fought hard (and often successfully) to keep DNA evidence from being tested in a contested conviction. In many cases of disputed convictions, DNA evidence either didn't exist, or has disappeared or degraded. And the system is currently set up to protect convictions, requiring extraordinary proof to even request DNA tests. It's likely that Florida has executed several innocent people, including Jesse Tafero, Jacobs' co-defendant, who was convicted on the same unreliable evidence used in her initial conviction.

The American Bar Association called for the state to create a commission to investigate potential wrongful convictions, and a separate commission that would study how Florida came to lead the nation in death-row mistakes. Thus far, lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist have ignored both recommendations, along with other common-sense suggestions that would force more justice on the state's death-penalty machine.

But there's one argument they might not be able to shove aside so easily. The state could save a considerable sum -- a reliable estimate suggests it's more than $50 million a year -- by converting every sentence on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

That financial argument is swaying states away from capital punishment in a way that the possibility of miscarried justice never did. New York, New Mexico and New Jersey have rejected the death penalty in the last two years, citing costs. Last week, the Connecticut legislature did the same, though that bill faces a threatened veto. Maryland, Illinois and Kansas have all considered legislation that would eliminate or greatly reduce death-penalty prosecutions.

If Florida leaders won't kill the death penalty because it is wrong, they should accept that it costs too much. If they weigh that cost with a dollar sign -- rather than the moral burden of taking lives through a flawed, unjust and fallible system -- it should still tip the balance in favor of death-penalty abolition.

An editorial published by the Daytona Beach News Journal on May 28, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Florida must abolish flawed death penalty:

"Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment." Those were the last words of John Spenkelink, executed 30 years ago today in Starke for murdering traveling companion Joseph Szymankiewicz. Spenkelink was the first person executed in the state, the second nationwide after a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinstated capital punishment.

As a former Florida prison warden who carried out three electric-chair executions and shadowed five lethal-injection executions in Texas, I know that Spenkelink was correct: Most death-row inmates cannot afford experienced attorneys.

Once, I firmly supported capital punishment. Part of my job was to help strap prisoners into the electric chair, and signal the hooded executioner to administer the current. But each execution lessened my support. In Texas, I thought the more "civilized" executions by lethal injection would remove my repugnance. They didn't.

My change of heart was gradual and painful. At night I would awaken to visions of executed inmates sitting on the edge of my bed.

I began studying the reasons behind executions over the centuries. I was appalled to think I had been part of this ceremonial barbaric act committed to appease chest-pounding politicians attempting to appear "tough on crime."

An experience I had this January underscored my transformation. I was a speaker at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's conference in Pennsylvania. In the conference venue one day, a man turned to me as I approached. Shockingly, the last time I saw this gentle soul was inside a Florida death-row prison cell; I was his warden.

We embraced. It was Juan Melendez, an exoneree who had spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he didn't commit. As his warden, I could have taken this innocent man from his cell into the death chamber.

Melendez's case is typical for many on death row. Substandard representation and prosecutorial misconduct are among the reasons for exonerations over the years — 133 men and women since 1973. Three men were exonerated this year. Florida leads the nation in exonerations since 1973 with 22.

Race is a factor in death sentences. According to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund report "Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2009," 41.58 percent of death-row inmates nationally are African-American, although they comprise 13.5 percent of the U.S. The percentage is similar in Florida.

Since the Spenkelink execution, research revealed how capital punishment drains states' financial resources that could otherwise fund better law enforcement, crime-prevention programs, counseling and other support for murder victims' families, and reinvestigations of unsolved homicides. The cost issue figured prominently in several states' repeal bills this year, including New Mexico's, which abolished capital punishment in March. Florida executed 67 death-row inmates between 1976 and 2008 at approximately $24 million per execution.

In 30 years, Americans began realizing that capital punishment doesn't deter homicides. Florida, with 402 death-row inmates — the second-largest death-row-inmate population nationally after California's — has one of the highest murder rates nationally. The rate is 6.6 per 100,000 people, more than the average national murder rate of 5.5 people per capita and higher than the murder rate in states without the death penalty, 3.1 people per capita.

The lesson that I, and all of us, should learn post-Spenkelink is that capital punishment does not ensure public safety, and has no safeguards against wrongful executions. The 35 death-penalty states, Florida included, should abolish it, replace it with life without parole, and apply the savings where they would do the most good — helping homicide victims' survivors and funding effective law enforcement that protects our communities.

By Ron McAndrew, who spent 25 years in Florida corrections before retiring, working his way up from an entry-level corrections officer to a warden in the Florida State Penitentiary. He also served as the interim director of the Orange County jail in Orlando.

Published in the Orlando Sentinel on May 24, 2009