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.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Reforms coming in Federal Sentencing?
Judge William Sessions, who was nominated Monday to be chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, hopes to continue reforming federal sentencing guidelines to address prison overcrowding. "We're at a particular point in history where prisons are incredibly overcrowded," Sessions said. "We're also at a particular point in time in which there's a potential for real change."...
Options other than standard incarceration should be used more to address prison overcrowding, Sessions said. That includes drug treatment courts, placement in home confinement or community confinement, and split sentences in which part of a sentence is served in prison and part is served in the community.
Sessions also hopes to make rehabilitation a higher priority in federal sentences. "For the last 15 years there's been little interest in rehabilitation," Sessions said. Instead, punishment has been the priority. "A person commits a crime, and they get X," he said. "We're going back to, 'How do we get these people rehabilitated so when they get out of prison, they're not a danger?'"
Options other than standard incarceration should be used more to address prison overcrowding, Sessions said. That includes drug treatment courts, placement in home confinement or community confinement, and split sentences in which part of a sentence is served in prison and part is served in the community.
Sessions also hopes to make rehabilitation a higher priority in federal sentences. "For the last 15 years there's been little interest in rehabilitation," Sessions said. Instead, punishment has been the priority. "A person commits a crime, and they get X," he said. "We're going back to, 'How do we get these people rehabilitated so when they get out of prison, they're not a danger?'"
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Treat the Mentally Ill--Don't Incarcerate Them
The current system for dealing with mentally ill people who commit crimes is, by all accounts, broken. And expensive: It costs Florida taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year.
People with schizophrenia or other mental illnesses who get arrested are sent to expensive mental health facilities, where they're stabilized for the sole purpose of appearing in court. Most get released on time served, only to get sick again for lack of medication and treatment. They commit more crimes, and the process starts all over.
Florida spends $140,000 for each of 1,700 of these mental health beds, for a total of $250 million every year. That represents a third of all mental health funding in Florida.
"It's the worst money we spend," said Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon.
Miami-Dade Judge Steven Leifman, tapped by the Florida Supreme Court to help reduce the number of mentally ill in Florida's corrections system, calls it "the insanity of all insanities."
Now, nearly three years after Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger sued the DCF over its lack of mental health beds for criminals, the Legislature is close to overhauling Florida's treatment of the mentally ill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, Florida would become the first state to take such an innovative approach, Leifman said.
And in a recession year when saving money is at the top of lawmakers' priority list, the changes could save the state tens of millions in taxpayer dollars.
"This will save us money, and it will help these people," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. "Because they're not going to get the services they need sitting in the county jail."
The Department of Corrections, the DCF and the Agency for Heath Care Administration all support the proposal (HB7103, SB2018), which would treat and rehabilitate some of Florida's mentally ill in more comprehensive but affordable community facilities.
The latter two agencies would develop a plan for long-term services for the mentally ill who are at risk of ending up in the corrections system. A mentally ill inmate would first go to a locked facility for stabilization, then to a step-down facility that provides job skill training, drug and psychological treatment, and a case manager.
Leifman said the treatment would cost $25,000 per patient. But it would cost Florida less than that because the bill allows the state to apply for Medicaid money to pay for about two-thirds of the costs, which now have to be covered by general revenue.
The changes also would help some of the 4,000 or so people with serious mental illness who are sentenced to Florida's prisons each year. About half of those prisoners reoffend after they're released, so the new system would provide them the treatment they need to be healthy, functioning citizens.
The Pinellas-Pasco Circuit has already changed the way it deals with the mentally ill, and Sheldon considers its success a model for what the proposed statewide overhaul can achieve.
Dillinger a couple of years ago used $80,000 from the DCF to expand its jail diversion program for the mentally ill. Now in its fifth year, the program has diverted over 2,000 people from county jails into community facilities that provide housing, transportation, job transportation and therapy. The sites cost $800 a month per person, compared to $3,000 a month to house them in jail, Dillinger said.
The proposed legislation would create three pilot sites, including one in South Florida and one in Central Florida, to serve up to 1,000 people in ways similar to what Dillinger's program does.
"If you divert 1,000 people this year, you're talking about saving tens of millions of dollars," Leifman said. "This is serious bucks. And you're going to improve public safety because these people are much less likely to reoffend."
The legislation, sponsored by Fasano and Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, is based on recommendations issued by the Florida Supreme Court in a 2007 report that was commissioned after Dillinger sued then-DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi for not moving mentally ill jail inmates to hospitals.
"This is the most important mental health bill since the Baker Act in the 1970s," said assistant DCF Secretary Bill James. "We are talking about changing the system."
The proposal is making its way through the House and Senate, but even supportive lawmakers have expressed some concern over the costs of the pilot sites. Sheldon said the savings are worth any investment. And he said he can gradually get the pilots going by using money that would have been budgeted for new mental health beds.
"Some say, don't do something innovative in a tight budget year," Sheldon said. "I think this is the perfect time. Otherwise, this population is going to bust the bank."
an article by Shannon Colavecchio published in the St. Petersburg Times on Saturday, April 19, 2009
People with schizophrenia or other mental illnesses who get arrested are sent to expensive mental health facilities, where they're stabilized for the sole purpose of appearing in court. Most get released on time served, only to get sick again for lack of medication and treatment. They commit more crimes, and the process starts all over.
Florida spends $140,000 for each of 1,700 of these mental health beds, for a total of $250 million every year. That represents a third of all mental health funding in Florida.
"It's the worst money we spend," said Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon.
Miami-Dade Judge Steven Leifman, tapped by the Florida Supreme Court to help reduce the number of mentally ill in Florida's corrections system, calls it "the insanity of all insanities."
Now, nearly three years after Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger sued the DCF over its lack of mental health beds for criminals, the Legislature is close to overhauling Florida's treatment of the mentally ill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, Florida would become the first state to take such an innovative approach, Leifman said.
And in a recession year when saving money is at the top of lawmakers' priority list, the changes could save the state tens of millions in taxpayer dollars.
"This will save us money, and it will help these people," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. "Because they're not going to get the services they need sitting in the county jail."
The Department of Corrections, the DCF and the Agency for Heath Care Administration all support the proposal (HB7103, SB2018), which would treat and rehabilitate some of Florida's mentally ill in more comprehensive but affordable community facilities.
The latter two agencies would develop a plan for long-term services for the mentally ill who are at risk of ending up in the corrections system. A mentally ill inmate would first go to a locked facility for stabilization, then to a step-down facility that provides job skill training, drug and psychological treatment, and a case manager.
Leifman said the treatment would cost $25,000 per patient. But it would cost Florida less than that because the bill allows the state to apply for Medicaid money to pay for about two-thirds of the costs, which now have to be covered by general revenue.
The changes also would help some of the 4,000 or so people with serious mental illness who are sentenced to Florida's prisons each year. About half of those prisoners reoffend after they're released, so the new system would provide them the treatment they need to be healthy, functioning citizens.
The Pinellas-Pasco Circuit has already changed the way it deals with the mentally ill, and Sheldon considers its success a model for what the proposed statewide overhaul can achieve.
Dillinger a couple of years ago used $80,000 from the DCF to expand its jail diversion program for the mentally ill. Now in its fifth year, the program has diverted over 2,000 people from county jails into community facilities that provide housing, transportation, job transportation and therapy. The sites cost $800 a month per person, compared to $3,000 a month to house them in jail, Dillinger said.
The proposed legislation would create three pilot sites, including one in South Florida and one in Central Florida, to serve up to 1,000 people in ways similar to what Dillinger's program does.
"If you divert 1,000 people this year, you're talking about saving tens of millions of dollars," Leifman said. "This is serious bucks. And you're going to improve public safety because these people are much less likely to reoffend."
The legislation, sponsored by Fasano and Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, is based on recommendations issued by the Florida Supreme Court in a 2007 report that was commissioned after Dillinger sued then-DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi for not moving mentally ill jail inmates to hospitals.
"This is the most important mental health bill since the Baker Act in the 1970s," said assistant DCF Secretary Bill James. "We are talking about changing the system."
The proposal is making its way through the House and Senate, but even supportive lawmakers have expressed some concern over the costs of the pilot sites. Sheldon said the savings are worth any investment. And he said he can gradually get the pilots going by using money that would have been budgeted for new mental health beds.
"Some say, don't do something innovative in a tight budget year," Sheldon said. "I think this is the perfect time. Otherwise, this population is going to bust the bank."
an article by Shannon Colavecchio published in the St. Petersburg Times on Saturday, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Debtor Prisons?
In a little-noticed trend blamed on the state's hard economic times, several courts in Florida have resurrected the de facto debtor's prison — having thousands of Floridians jailed for failing to pay assessed court fees and fines. The shortsighted plan threatens to run afoul of the U.S. Constitution. It appears to generate little additional revenue relative to the misery it causes, and it should be stopped.
A recent report by the nonprofit Brennan Center at New York University School of Law highlights the difficulty of trying to get what one researcher called "blood from stone." In Leon County's Collection Court, defendants who fail to pay their court-ordered costs and fines — often hundreds of dollars — are notified to appear at Collections Court and later arrested if they don't show. In the 12 months studied, there were 838 arrests for not appearing in court or failing to pay what was owed. Most people spent hours in jail, but some were held for a week or more.
At $53 per day of incarceration, it is an expensive way to try to collect from people who generally are struggling to meet the expenses of daily living. The center calculated that those incarcerated cost the system $62,085 to bring in $80,450 in debts.
Jail time for being broke is no way to help people get back on their feet after a run-in with the legal system. Judges should be exercising the option in state law that allows them to convert court-ordered obligations into community service. But with the Florida Legislature looking for revenue to fund the courts and other state services, judges are under pressure to wring every available penny out of those who owe.
The nonpayment problem is only likely to worsen. In Tallahassee, lawmakers are debating raising court fees and fines even further to raise general revenue for the state. Meanwhile, the state's rising unemployment rate will make it tougher for Floridians with a criminal record to find a decent job. Do we really want our jails filled with people whose only "crime" is that they are poor?
About a third of Florida counties use collections courts, but even those without them jail people for their debts. In Pinellas, Hillsborough and Hernando counties, collection agencies are used to extract the overdue fines and fees. But defendants who violate their probation by failing to pay can find themselves in jail if a judge believes they have not coughed up what they can.
Author Charles Dickens familiarized his readers with England's system of squalid debtors' prisons. Dickens' father was imprisoned in Marshalsea for debts and Dickens set Little Dorrit there. But that country saw the light in the mid 19th century and outlawed jail for debtors.
In the United States, it is unconstitutional to incarcerate someone solely for failing to pay a debt. Florida officials get around this by claiming the defendants are going to jail not for their debts but for violating a court order. That is what you would call a self-serving technicality. The truth is that Florida has enthusiastically resurrected debtors' prison. How Dickensian is that?
An editorial from the St. Petersburg Times published April 13, 2009
A recent report by the nonprofit Brennan Center at New York University School of Law highlights the difficulty of trying to get what one researcher called "blood from stone." In Leon County's Collection Court, defendants who fail to pay their court-ordered costs and fines — often hundreds of dollars — are notified to appear at Collections Court and later arrested if they don't show. In the 12 months studied, there were 838 arrests for not appearing in court or failing to pay what was owed. Most people spent hours in jail, but some were held for a week or more.
At $53 per day of incarceration, it is an expensive way to try to collect from people who generally are struggling to meet the expenses of daily living. The center calculated that those incarcerated cost the system $62,085 to bring in $80,450 in debts.
Jail time for being broke is no way to help people get back on their feet after a run-in with the legal system. Judges should be exercising the option in state law that allows them to convert court-ordered obligations into community service. But with the Florida Legislature looking for revenue to fund the courts and other state services, judges are under pressure to wring every available penny out of those who owe.
The nonpayment problem is only likely to worsen. In Tallahassee, lawmakers are debating raising court fees and fines even further to raise general revenue for the state. Meanwhile, the state's rising unemployment rate will make it tougher for Floridians with a criminal record to find a decent job. Do we really want our jails filled with people whose only "crime" is that they are poor?
About a third of Florida counties use collections courts, but even those without them jail people for their debts. In Pinellas, Hillsborough and Hernando counties, collection agencies are used to extract the overdue fines and fees. But defendants who violate their probation by failing to pay can find themselves in jail if a judge believes they have not coughed up what they can.
Author Charles Dickens familiarized his readers with England's system of squalid debtors' prisons. Dickens' father was imprisoned in Marshalsea for debts and Dickens set Little Dorrit there. But that country saw the light in the mid 19th century and outlawed jail for debtors.
In the United States, it is unconstitutional to incarcerate someone solely for failing to pay a debt. Florida officials get around this by claiming the defendants are going to jail not for their debts but for violating a court order. That is what you would call a self-serving technicality. The truth is that Florida has enthusiastically resurrected debtors' prison. How Dickensian is that?
An editorial from the St. Petersburg Times published April 13, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Crime-reduction means changing attitudes and treatment
Of necessity, and with some common sense applied, Florida's way of dealing with inmates is changing.
Rather than build 19 new prisons at a cost of $100 million each over the next five years — the state's projected need — Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil and other highly placed public state officials and the courts are working to change the lives of inmates through education and rehabilitation.
Their cost-saving goal is to build fewer prisons, redirect resources and be able to release those who aren't imprisoned for the most serious crimes with a far better chance of not re-offending and not returning, as about a third now do, to prison.
One avenue for change that's been proving successful here in Leon County emulates this call for change. That's the mental health court, which has for nearly three years been working to re-direct the lives of men and women who are charged with substance-abuse crimes by getting them into rehabilitation settings instead of cells.
Leon County Judge Jonathan Sjostrom told the editorial board of the Democrat on Thursday that the problem of jailing substance-abusers was becoming so undeniably large that law enforcement was first to call for relief. "They told us this is a jail, not a hospital," Mr. Sjostrum said, speaking of the Leon County Jail but knowing the situation is prevalent statewide. "But we'd found that, while there were many resources to fix things, the courtroom was an impediment," he said. Courts use a traditional criminal-justice model of dealing with offenders, he said, rather than recognizing and addressing the complex array of health problems and traumas that lead to the preponderance of drug-related crimes that crowd today's court dockets.
Legislation is being championed this session to continue this impulse to change the system. Mr. Sjostrum, as well as Dade County Judge Steven Leifman, special adviser to the Florida Supreme Court on criminal justice and mental health, are working with Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, sponsor of SB 2018, the Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment and Crime Reduction Act.
"The bill redirects resources from the criminal justice system to community-based care where people can be stabilized with medication and supports," George Sheldon, secretary of the Department of Children and Families, explained earlier this month. A national advocacy group recently gave Florida a "D" for its public mental health care system, which includes our habit of incarcerating people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems, often on minor charges.
The evaluation by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) was worse this year than in previous years, an indication of the steady decline in our approach to not only public safety but public wisdom.
"We need to face the fact that our current mental health system is in need of a major overhaul," said Mr. Fasano. Of some 600,000 individuals with mental illnesses in Florida, about 125,000 requiring immediate treatment are booked into jails and prisons annually and begin a downward spiral that cannot be broken with intervention and treatment.
"Fiscally we have no choice but to act," Mr. Fasano said. "Morally, this course is also the humane thing to do."
Key to the support of this bill, which enjoys bipartisan support, is that it is revenue-neutral, said Mr. Leifman. It moves money from incarceration to diversionary and rehabilitative programs such as the mental health court that being used in Leon County, and it amends the state's Medicaid plan so that 60 percent of the coordinated treatment efforts would come from federal Medicaid funds.
The legislation doesn't provide a pass for hardened criminals, said Mr. Leifman. "It is trying to decriminalize mental illness."
We urge lawmakers to support this exceptionally strong and commendable redirection of state policy.
An Editorial from the Tallahassee Democrat published March 23, 2009
Rather than build 19 new prisons at a cost of $100 million each over the next five years — the state's projected need — Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil and other highly placed public state officials and the courts are working to change the lives of inmates through education and rehabilitation.
Their cost-saving goal is to build fewer prisons, redirect resources and be able to release those who aren't imprisoned for the most serious crimes with a far better chance of not re-offending and not returning, as about a third now do, to prison.
One avenue for change that's been proving successful here in Leon County emulates this call for change. That's the mental health court, which has for nearly three years been working to re-direct the lives of men and women who are charged with substance-abuse crimes by getting them into rehabilitation settings instead of cells.
Leon County Judge Jonathan Sjostrom told the editorial board of the Democrat on Thursday that the problem of jailing substance-abusers was becoming so undeniably large that law enforcement was first to call for relief. "They told us this is a jail, not a hospital," Mr. Sjostrum said, speaking of the Leon County Jail but knowing the situation is prevalent statewide. "But we'd found that, while there were many resources to fix things, the courtroom was an impediment," he said. Courts use a traditional criminal-justice model of dealing with offenders, he said, rather than recognizing and addressing the complex array of health problems and traumas that lead to the preponderance of drug-related crimes that crowd today's court dockets.
Legislation is being championed this session to continue this impulse to change the system. Mr. Sjostrum, as well as Dade County Judge Steven Leifman, special adviser to the Florida Supreme Court on criminal justice and mental health, are working with Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, sponsor of SB 2018, the Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment and Crime Reduction Act.
"The bill redirects resources from the criminal justice system to community-based care where people can be stabilized with medication and supports," George Sheldon, secretary of the Department of Children and Families, explained earlier this month. A national advocacy group recently gave Florida a "D" for its public mental health care system, which includes our habit of incarcerating people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems, often on minor charges.
The evaluation by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) was worse this year than in previous years, an indication of the steady decline in our approach to not only public safety but public wisdom.
"We need to face the fact that our current mental health system is in need of a major overhaul," said Mr. Fasano. Of some 600,000 individuals with mental illnesses in Florida, about 125,000 requiring immediate treatment are booked into jails and prisons annually and begin a downward spiral that cannot be broken with intervention and treatment.
"Fiscally we have no choice but to act," Mr. Fasano said. "Morally, this course is also the humane thing to do."
Key to the support of this bill, which enjoys bipartisan support, is that it is revenue-neutral, said Mr. Leifman. It moves money from incarceration to diversionary and rehabilitative programs such as the mental health court that being used in Leon County, and it amends the state's Medicaid plan so that 60 percent of the coordinated treatment efforts would come from federal Medicaid funds.
The legislation doesn't provide a pass for hardened criminals, said Mr. Leifman. "It is trying to decriminalize mental illness."
We urge lawmakers to support this exceptionally strong and commendable redirection of state policy.
An Editorial from the Tallahassee Democrat published March 23, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Dollars for Death: Executions' moral, fiscal costs burden society
The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent to murder. Jurisdictions with capital punishment see no reduction in the rate of violent crime and the American south, where 80 percent of U.S. executions occur, has a considerably higher murder rate than the northeast, responsible for only 1 percent of American executions.
The death penalty is racially and economically biased. Murderers who kill Caucasians or can't afford private attorneys are more likely to be sentenced to death.
The death penalty creates a potential for irrevocable error. Florida leads the nation with 22 death row exonerations over the past 35 years, and it's almost a certainty that several innocent people were executed before DNA-testing technology became widespread.
The death penalty is barbaric. Most democratic countries have outlawed its use.
For a brief time, the second argument -- that the death penalty is racially biased -- convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw its practice. And the specter of executing people who were potentially innocent convinced then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 2003 to commute the sentences of 167 people from death to life in prison.
But none of these points has ever convinced the average American that the death penalty is barbaric or wrong. And for the most part, their elected state leaders have followed along.
One argument is making headway, however -- and it's the most venal of considerations. Last month, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley told that state's Senate that enforcing the death penalty simply cost too much, with the average death-penalty prosecution and appeals costing three times as much as a murder case bringing a sentence of life in prison. Maryland lawmakers are seriously considering O'Malley's recommendation to drop capital punishment; Montana and New Mexico are looking at similar measures.
Shutting down death row makes financial sense. One analysis by the Palm Beach Post showed Florida spent an average of $24 million apiece for each of the 44 executions the state carried out between 1976 and 2000, and that enforcing the death penalty costs about $55 million a year.
What did the state get for that money? A heaping dose of uncertainty. Last month the state executed Wayne Tompkins, convicted of the 1983 murder of a Pinellas County teenager. But despite the fact that Tompkins' case had dragged on for more than 25 years, the state fought efforts to conduct further scientific tests that might have cast doubt on Tompkins' guilt. Attorneys for the Innocence Project of Florida, which took Tompkins' case, say they aren't even sure the bones identified as those of Lisa DeCarr have been accurately identified.
Society would have been just as safe had Tompkins been kept in prison for life. The state would have had a chance to test his conviction against the latest scientific evidence. And the state would not have spent millions to put him to death -- money that could have, instead, been allocated to more police officers to keep all Floridians safer.
In a time when Florida lawmakers are struggling with billions of dollars in budget deficits, lavishing money on an archaic, ineffective and error-prone means of punishment makes little sense. If lawmakers won't kill the death penalty because it's wrong, they should kill it because it costs too much.
An Editorial from the Daytona News-Journal Corporation. ® www.news-journalonline.com published 3/11/09
The death penalty is racially and economically biased. Murderers who kill Caucasians or can't afford private attorneys are more likely to be sentenced to death.
The death penalty creates a potential for irrevocable error. Florida leads the nation with 22 death row exonerations over the past 35 years, and it's almost a certainty that several innocent people were executed before DNA-testing technology became widespread.
The death penalty is barbaric. Most democratic countries have outlawed its use.
For a brief time, the second argument -- that the death penalty is racially biased -- convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw its practice. And the specter of executing people who were potentially innocent convinced then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan in 2003 to commute the sentences of 167 people from death to life in prison.
But none of these points has ever convinced the average American that the death penalty is barbaric or wrong. And for the most part, their elected state leaders have followed along.
One argument is making headway, however -- and it's the most venal of considerations. Last month, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley told that state's Senate that enforcing the death penalty simply cost too much, with the average death-penalty prosecution and appeals costing three times as much as a murder case bringing a sentence of life in prison. Maryland lawmakers are seriously considering O'Malley's recommendation to drop capital punishment; Montana and New Mexico are looking at similar measures.
Shutting down death row makes financial sense. One analysis by the Palm Beach Post showed Florida spent an average of $24 million apiece for each of the 44 executions the state carried out between 1976 and 2000, and that enforcing the death penalty costs about $55 million a year.
What did the state get for that money? A heaping dose of uncertainty. Last month the state executed Wayne Tompkins, convicted of the 1983 murder of a Pinellas County teenager. But despite the fact that Tompkins' case had dragged on for more than 25 years, the state fought efforts to conduct further scientific tests that might have cast doubt on Tompkins' guilt. Attorneys for the Innocence Project of Florida, which took Tompkins' case, say they aren't even sure the bones identified as those of Lisa DeCarr have been accurately identified.
Society would have been just as safe had Tompkins been kept in prison for life. The state would have had a chance to test his conviction against the latest scientific evidence. And the state would not have spent millions to put him to death -- money that could have, instead, been allocated to more police officers to keep all Floridians safer.
In a time when Florida lawmakers are struggling with billions of dollars in budget deficits, lavishing money on an archaic, ineffective and error-prone means of punishment makes little sense. If lawmakers won't kill the death penalty because it's wrong, they should kill it because it costs too much.
An Editorial from the Daytona News-Journal Corporation. ® www.news-journalonline.com published 3/11/09
Sunday, March 08, 2009
In hard times, a hard calculus for states: Execution more costly than life in prison
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:
Money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection — the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.
"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.
"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."
In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too great and produced no result, lawmakers said. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963. Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person.
Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, at least eight have considered legislation this year to end it — Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas — an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.
"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favors abolition of capital punishment.
The most recent arguments against it centered on the ever-increasing number of convicts cleared by DNA evidence.
Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Gov. George H. Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony. Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."
He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect.
Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts.
Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence — DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.
After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.
In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death — an additional expense that totals more than $60 million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald M. George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews, and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.
"Failures in the administration of California's death penalty law create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law," concluded the 117-page report.
Some prominent Californians have asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to get rid of executions. Especially now, as service cuts and tax increases are pegged to fill a $42 billion budget hole. But it appears that the Republican governor will not abandon capital punishment anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the nationwide number of death sentences handed down has declined over the past decade, from 284 in 1999 to 111 in 2008. Reasons differ significantly, depending on who's providing them: Pro-death penalty activists say it's because crime rates have declined and execution is a strong deterrent; abolitionists say it's because jurors and judges are reluctant to risk taking a life when future scientific tests could prove the accused not guilty.
Executions, too, are dropping. There were 98 in 1999; 37 in 2008.
Still, the costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.
In Kansas, Republican state Sen. Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200 million. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 percent more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.
In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson recently said his longtime support of capital punishment was wavering — and belt-tightening was one the reasons. As the state tries to plug a $450 million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House as a cost-saving measure. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.
In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2 million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186 million to prosecution costs. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, is pushing a bill to repeal it.
There are many, of course, who refuse to change their minds, believing execution is the ultimate wage of the ultimate sin. They also say that death penalty cases don't have to be so expensive.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-capital-punishment group, said, "Having an effective appeals process might very well cost less."
States "calculate the cost as if these people are going to spend their whole lives on death row. We should be revamping the appeals process so that these cases move more quickly," Scheidegger said.
But court systems and their costs vary greatly among states, as does the time it takes to exhaust appeals. It's doubtful that change could come quickly enough to generate savings during this roiling recession.
"It's all about money," said McCartin, the former California judge. "The reasons I changed my mind were between that and how the victims' families just get raped during appeals."
But if convicted killers get life imprisonment instead of death, is that letting them off easy?
Not a chance, says 52-year-old Gordon "Randy" Steidl. He lived on death row and then in the general prison population, after his sentence was commuted to life. He preferred his former accommodations.
Steidl was released in 2004 after being exonerated of the 1986 stabbing deaths of a newlywed couple in Paris, Ill. He had an alibi for the night of the murders, corroborated by others. But he was convicted on eyewitness testimony provided by the town drunk and the town drug addict. Both later recanted.
The state of Illinois spent $3.5 million trying to execute him, "only to end up giving me a life sentence," Steidl said. "And then 5½ years after that, I was exonerated."
He spent 12 years in a tiny cell on death row. Then he was thrown into "gen pop," with its snarling mass of an open cellblock, where the prospect of being stabbed, raped or worse loomed constantly, alongside deafening noise and psychotic cell mates.
"If you really want to kill someone, give them life without parole," Steidl said in an even voice. He speaks of his troubled past as if it was trapped under glass or locked behind bars — visible but no longer able to torture him.
"It's worse than dying."
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer
6:10 PM EST, March 7 2009
Money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection — the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.
"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.
"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."
In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too great and produced no result, lawmakers said. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963. Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person.
Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, at least eight have considered legislation this year to end it — Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas — an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.
"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favors abolition of capital punishment.
The most recent arguments against it centered on the ever-increasing number of convicts cleared by DNA evidence.
Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Gov. George H. Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony. Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."
He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect.
Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts.
Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence — DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.
After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.
In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death — an additional expense that totals more than $60 million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald M. George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews, and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.
"Failures in the administration of California's death penalty law create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law," concluded the 117-page report.
Some prominent Californians have asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to get rid of executions. Especially now, as service cuts and tax increases are pegged to fill a $42 billion budget hole. But it appears that the Republican governor will not abandon capital punishment anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the nationwide number of death sentences handed down has declined over the past decade, from 284 in 1999 to 111 in 2008. Reasons differ significantly, depending on who's providing them: Pro-death penalty activists say it's because crime rates have declined and execution is a strong deterrent; abolitionists say it's because jurors and judges are reluctant to risk taking a life when future scientific tests could prove the accused not guilty.
Executions, too, are dropping. There were 98 in 1999; 37 in 2008.
Still, the costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.
In Kansas, Republican state Sen. Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200 million. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 percent more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.
In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson recently said his longtime support of capital punishment was wavering — and belt-tightening was one the reasons. As the state tries to plug a $450 million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House as a cost-saving measure. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.
In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2 million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186 million to prosecution costs. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, is pushing a bill to repeal it.
There are many, of course, who refuse to change their minds, believing execution is the ultimate wage of the ultimate sin. They also say that death penalty cases don't have to be so expensive.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-capital-punishment group, said, "Having an effective appeals process might very well cost less."
States "calculate the cost as if these people are going to spend their whole lives on death row. We should be revamping the appeals process so that these cases move more quickly," Scheidegger said.
But court systems and their costs vary greatly among states, as does the time it takes to exhaust appeals. It's doubtful that change could come quickly enough to generate savings during this roiling recession.
"It's all about money," said McCartin, the former California judge. "The reasons I changed my mind were between that and how the victims' families just get raped during appeals."
But if convicted killers get life imprisonment instead of death, is that letting them off easy?
Not a chance, says 52-year-old Gordon "Randy" Steidl. He lived on death row and then in the general prison population, after his sentence was commuted to life. He preferred his former accommodations.
Steidl was released in 2004 after being exonerated of the 1986 stabbing deaths of a newlywed couple in Paris, Ill. He had an alibi for the night of the murders, corroborated by others. But he was convicted on eyewitness testimony provided by the town drunk and the town drug addict. Both later recanted.
The state of Illinois spent $3.5 million trying to execute him, "only to end up giving me a life sentence," Steidl said. "And then 5½ years after that, I was exonerated."
He spent 12 years in a tiny cell on death row. Then he was thrown into "gen pop," with its snarling mass of an open cellblock, where the prospect of being stabbed, raped or worse loomed constantly, alongside deafening noise and psychotic cell mates.
"If you really want to kill someone, give them life without parole," Steidl said in an even voice. He speaks of his troubled past as if it was trapped under glass or locked behind bars — visible but no longer able to torture him.
"It's worse than dying."
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
AP National Writer
6:10 PM EST, March 7 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Montana Senate Passes bill Abolishing the Death Penalty:
With a 27 to 23 vote, Montana State senators on Tuesday approved a bill that would abolish capital punishment. Montana is one of 36 states that currently has the death penalty and bill sponsor, Democrat Dave Wanzenried of Missoula, hopes that will change. His bill would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In addressing the Senate, Wanzenried said the death penalty is costly and cumbersome, with appeals of the sentence wearing on a victim’s family.
“Life without the possibility of parole, on the other hand brings about an immediate sentence: life in prison without the possibility of parole, away from the public eye no publicity.”
Wanzenried says the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder and cited neighboring state North Dakota having a lower homicide rate with no death penalty.
Republican Dan McGee of Laurel opposes the bill and says the state needs to have an ultimate form of punishment.
“For those people who have done something so egregious in society that society has a bounded duty to take that person out of society forever.”
Republican Gary Perry of Manhattan says he’s spent his entire life believing in the death penalty.
“A sentence of life without parole with the only means of leaving the prison being a body bag and a toe tag is a life sentence, but according to God’s time table. And the only avenue to freedom is through death.”
Perry says for those who are against abortion voting for the bill shows consistency in those beliefs. Perry voted for the bill.
Montana currently has two people on death row. The bill must pass another vote before heading to the House.
Natalie Neumann is reporting from the state capitol for the University of Montana’s Legislative News Service.
In addressing the Senate, Wanzenried said the death penalty is costly and cumbersome, with appeals of the sentence wearing on a victim’s family.
“Life without the possibility of parole, on the other hand brings about an immediate sentence: life in prison without the possibility of parole, away from the public eye no publicity.”
Wanzenried says the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder and cited neighboring state North Dakota having a lower homicide rate with no death penalty.
Republican Dan McGee of Laurel opposes the bill and says the state needs to have an ultimate form of punishment.
“For those people who have done something so egregious in society that society has a bounded duty to take that person out of society forever.”
Republican Gary Perry of Manhattan says he’s spent his entire life believing in the death penalty.
“A sentence of life without parole with the only means of leaving the prison being a body bag and a toe tag is a life sentence, but according to God’s time table. And the only avenue to freedom is through death.”
Perry says for those who are against abortion voting for the bill shows consistency in those beliefs. Perry voted for the bill.
Montana currently has two people on death row. The bill must pass another vote before heading to the House.
Natalie Neumann is reporting from the state capitol for the University of Montana’s Legislative News Service.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Is it time to end the death penalty in Florida?
Florida is facing the worst budgetary crisis of our lifetime. Essential services like education, health care and law enforcement are facing tremendous cuts in the upcoming legislative session. It is estimated that each year, the State of Florida spends an extra fifty million dollars to pursue the death penalty in a small number of cases. The alternative to the death penalty under Florida law is life in prison without possibility of parole. If in these lean budget times, every governmental program is truly on the table, shouldn't we consider eliminating one of the most expensive and least effective? For further information, please go to a new web-page: http://www.sensiblesolutionsforflorida.com/index.html
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Montana Senate endorses bill to abolish death penalty
After a 90-minute, emotionally charged debate, the Republican-controlled state Senate today endorsed a bill to abolish the death penalty in Montana.
Supporters of Senate Bill 236 said the death penalty is a costly, imperfect penalty that doesn't deter crime and does more harm than good for the families of those who are horribly murdered.
"In order for punishment to be effective, it must be swift and it must be sure," said Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, the sponsor of SB236. "The death penalty is neither."
Opponents argued just as passionately that Montana should maintain the harshest penalty for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
"This state needs to have an ultimate form of punishment for those people who have done something that is so egregious to society that we have a bounded duty to take that person out of society," said Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel.
Yet by a 27-23 vote, supporters of the bill carried the day, setting up a final, binding vote Tuesday that would send the measure to the House, which is split evenly between the two parties.
Six Republicans joined 21 Democrats in the Senate for SB236, while 21 Republicans and two Democrats voted "no."
By MIKE DENNISON
Gazette State Bureau
Supporters of Senate Bill 236 said the death penalty is a costly, imperfect penalty that doesn't deter crime and does more harm than good for the families of those who are horribly murdered.
"In order for punishment to be effective, it must be swift and it must be sure," said Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, the sponsor of SB236. "The death penalty is neither."
Opponents argued just as passionately that Montana should maintain the harshest penalty for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
"This state needs to have an ultimate form of punishment for those people who have done something that is so egregious to society that we have a bounded duty to take that person out of society," said Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel.
Yet by a 27-23 vote, supporters of the bill carried the day, setting up a final, binding vote Tuesday that would send the measure to the House, which is split evenly between the two parties.
Six Republicans joined 21 Democrats in the Senate for SB236, while 21 Republicans and two Democrats voted "no."
By MIKE DENNISON
Gazette State Bureau
Thursday, February 12, 2009
New Ideas on Prisons
Florida's budget crisis may bring a modicum of reasonableness to the debate over criminal justice policy. Instead of the "tough on crime" mantra that politicians spout to win elections and that usually leads to more prison beds, suggestions are cropping up for alternatives as a way to save big bucks. These ideas are not percolating up from liberal sources alone. Some of the most ardent supporters for a more measured approach to crime and criminals include a conservative Republican lawmaker and a fiscal watchdog group.
Florida houses 100,000 inmates in prison and expects to house another 15,000 by 2014. Three new prisons are on the drawing board. This fiscal year $340 million was allocated for prison construction, and much more will be required in the years to come.
State Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, is deeply concerned about the way the prisons are eating up Florida's revenues when the state has pressing priorities in education, public health and elsewhere. As chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, Crist's ideas would eliminate the need for thousands of prison beds. And these ideas have the added benefit of being sensible criminal justice reforms.
In "Ideas for Fiscally Responsible Justice," Crist has laid out options intended to conserve spending on corrections and reduce recidivism while not jeopardizing public safety. They include:
• Establishing an experimental diversion program at buildings vacated by the Department of Juvenile Justice to give nonviolent felons access to substance abuse programs and life-skills training.
• Giving judges discretion to sanction probation violators to more appropriate settings than a maximum security prison bed when their infractions are minor, including the option of expanded electronic monitoring.
• Creating a "community-based incarceration" program for select inmates who are serving the last year of their sentence and have successfully participated in a work-release program.
This program, Crist says, would cut in half housing costs per inmate. Offenders would live in a supervised facility in their home cities. During the day they would be electronically monitored and employed in a job they could potentially retain after release. Crist points out that the program would give soon-to-be released prisoners a way to reintegrate themselves into society, putting them near family with a way to support themselves.
These are good ideas that deserve serious attention. Crist's ideas on expanded work release are similar to those offered by Florida TaxWatch, a fiscal watchdog group that recommends doubling the capacity of work-release programs to include an additional 3,000 inmates.
The organization also has endorsed the reintroduction of "gain time" for good behavior for nonviolent offenders. That would reduce overcrowding and offer another tool to maintain order in prisons. Just these two steps alone, Florida TaxWatch says, would eliminate the need for new prisons.
Florida's budget crisis offers the state an opportunity to move beyond the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" rhetoric that has substituted for criminal justice policy for far too long. A more nuanced, pragmatic approach to nonviolent offenders of the sort that Crist and Florida TaxWatch are proposing would save money that would otherwise be spent on prisons and would provide inmates a better opportunity to stay out of trouble when they are released. Every dollar saved by building fewer prisons is a dollar that can be used to spare public education and social services from deeper spending cuts.
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial published February 12, 2009
Florida houses 100,000 inmates in prison and expects to house another 15,000 by 2014. Three new prisons are on the drawing board. This fiscal year $340 million was allocated for prison construction, and much more will be required in the years to come.
State Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, is deeply concerned about the way the prisons are eating up Florida's revenues when the state has pressing priorities in education, public health and elsewhere. As chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, Crist's ideas would eliminate the need for thousands of prison beds. And these ideas have the added benefit of being sensible criminal justice reforms.
In "Ideas for Fiscally Responsible Justice," Crist has laid out options intended to conserve spending on corrections and reduce recidivism while not jeopardizing public safety. They include:
• Establishing an experimental diversion program at buildings vacated by the Department of Juvenile Justice to give nonviolent felons access to substance abuse programs and life-skills training.
• Giving judges discretion to sanction probation violators to more appropriate settings than a maximum security prison bed when their infractions are minor, including the option of expanded electronic monitoring.
• Creating a "community-based incarceration" program for select inmates who are serving the last year of their sentence and have successfully participated in a work-release program.
This program, Crist says, would cut in half housing costs per inmate. Offenders would live in a supervised facility in their home cities. During the day they would be electronically monitored and employed in a job they could potentially retain after release. Crist points out that the program would give soon-to-be released prisoners a way to reintegrate themselves into society, putting them near family with a way to support themselves.
These are good ideas that deserve serious attention. Crist's ideas on expanded work release are similar to those offered by Florida TaxWatch, a fiscal watchdog group that recommends doubling the capacity of work-release programs to include an additional 3,000 inmates.
The organization also has endorsed the reintroduction of "gain time" for good behavior for nonviolent offenders. That would reduce overcrowding and offer another tool to maintain order in prisons. Just these two steps alone, Florida TaxWatch says, would eliminate the need for new prisons.
Florida's budget crisis offers the state an opportunity to move beyond the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" rhetoric that has substituted for criminal justice policy for far too long. A more nuanced, pragmatic approach to nonviolent offenders of the sort that Crist and Florida TaxWatch are proposing would save money that would otherwise be spent on prisons and would provide inmates a better opportunity to stay out of trouble when they are released. Every dollar saved by building fewer prisons is a dollar that can be used to spare public education and social services from deeper spending cuts.
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial published February 12, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Singing the prison blues: Incarceration rate has direct impact on Florida Finances
Everyone in Florida government is singing the Budget Blues. But underlying the melody is a drumbeat many state leaders profess not to hear: The sound of countless prison doors slamming shut. Like it or not, the state's incarceration policies have a direct and growing impact on the current budget crisis.
AN EXPENSIVE HABIT
Florida's prison system is growing faster than that of any other state. According to a report by the Pew Charitable Trust, corrections (which includes state prisons and probation) consumed 9.3 percent of the state budget in 2007. The only states to allocate a greater portion of their budget were Oregon and Michigan.
And that only accounts for direct prison and probation spending -- it doesn't encompass increased public support for the families prisoners leave behind, or the burden on city and county governments that have to build additional jail space and employ more public-safety workers. Meanwhile, the state -- whose daily average prison population is projected to top 100,000 this year -- will need to build new facilities this year or face overcrowding. Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has requested $439.2 million in the coming budget year to add capacity.
Few people are pushing for dangerous murderers and rapists to be released. But neither can they dispute that Florida's incarceration spree occurred at a time when crime rates were actually trending downward. Florida hasn't become a more dangerous place to live, it's just become one that has become politically addicted to the idea of increasingly harsh punishments.
HANDCUFFING JUDGES
One of the more important checks against legislative excess has been hobbled. Lawmakers have significantly eroded the ability of judges to determine fair, justifiable sentences for a wide range of crimes.
Florida, like many states, adopted sentencing guidelines as a way to keep sentences relatively fair across geographic and racial lines. After sentencing guidelines passed in 1983, courts used a "score sheet" that added points for the particulars of an offense, the criminal background of an offender and other relevant considerations. The resulting score was then matched to a "guideline" range of prison and/or probation time -- but judges could depart from the guidelines if they found good reason to do so. That approach used fairness as a base line, giving judges the ability to tailor sentences to circumstances.
That changed in the mid-1990s, when the Legislature passed a series of laws aimed at stripping discretion from judges. There were "minimum mandatory" laws that demanded specific sentences for specific crimes, regardless of circumstances. Habitual offender statutes added more prison time, again taking away judges' discretion and resulting in cases like that of a burglar who received a life sentence for stealing a handful of children's videotapes.
In 1997, the Legislature erased the "ceiling" for guideline sentences; judges were not allowed to sentence a defendant to a sentence lower than the guidelines called for, but were permitted (even encouraged) to levy the statutory maximum sentence even if the guidelines called for a much lower penalty. As a result, the state could see a dramatic growth in sentencing disparity, with more politically minded judges levying unnecessarily harsh sentences in an attempt to appear tougher.
A final change -- setting zero-tolerance policies for many prisoners on probation -- has pushed thousands more people back behind bars, often for relatively minor offenses.
FINDING A SOLUTION
Restoring the intent of Florida's sentencing guidelines, and returning discretion to judges, would be a good start. The state also can ease the burden on prisons by matching offenders with programs that reduce the chances that they will commit more crimes. Specialized courts -- such as drug or mental health courts -- generally operate outside sentencing guideline requirements. And these programs work, significantly reducing the number of offenders who are rearrested.
Last month, the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard about other measures that could reduce prison population -- such as a controlled release program or prison diversion measures. These are worth exploring, but they would be no replacement for a careful, analytical approach to each case that a judge could offer.
Undoing these dubious reforms would restore equity to sentencing in Florida, and help restore the emphasis of the state's correctional mission -- to reform prisoners and turn them away from a life of crime -- and reducing the burden on Florida's taxpayers, who are feeding ever-increasing sums of money into a prison system that doesn't make them any safer.
By The Numbers
· 9.3 percent -- portion of Florida budget (2007) spent for corrections (prison and probation)
· 100,000 -- state's projected daily average prison population for 2009
· $439.2 million -- requested in coming budget year to add capacity
An editorial from the Daytona News Journal published February 8, 2009
AN EXPENSIVE HABIT
Florida's prison system is growing faster than that of any other state. According to a report by the Pew Charitable Trust, corrections (which includes state prisons and probation) consumed 9.3 percent of the state budget in 2007. The only states to allocate a greater portion of their budget were Oregon and Michigan.
And that only accounts for direct prison and probation spending -- it doesn't encompass increased public support for the families prisoners leave behind, or the burden on city and county governments that have to build additional jail space and employ more public-safety workers. Meanwhile, the state -- whose daily average prison population is projected to top 100,000 this year -- will need to build new facilities this year or face overcrowding. Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has requested $439.2 million in the coming budget year to add capacity.
Few people are pushing for dangerous murderers and rapists to be released. But neither can they dispute that Florida's incarceration spree occurred at a time when crime rates were actually trending downward. Florida hasn't become a more dangerous place to live, it's just become one that has become politically addicted to the idea of increasingly harsh punishments.
HANDCUFFING JUDGES
One of the more important checks against legislative excess has been hobbled. Lawmakers have significantly eroded the ability of judges to determine fair, justifiable sentences for a wide range of crimes.
Florida, like many states, adopted sentencing guidelines as a way to keep sentences relatively fair across geographic and racial lines. After sentencing guidelines passed in 1983, courts used a "score sheet" that added points for the particulars of an offense, the criminal background of an offender and other relevant considerations. The resulting score was then matched to a "guideline" range of prison and/or probation time -- but judges could depart from the guidelines if they found good reason to do so. That approach used fairness as a base line, giving judges the ability to tailor sentences to circumstances.
That changed in the mid-1990s, when the Legislature passed a series of laws aimed at stripping discretion from judges. There were "minimum mandatory" laws that demanded specific sentences for specific crimes, regardless of circumstances. Habitual offender statutes added more prison time, again taking away judges' discretion and resulting in cases like that of a burglar who received a life sentence for stealing a handful of children's videotapes.
In 1997, the Legislature erased the "ceiling" for guideline sentences; judges were not allowed to sentence a defendant to a sentence lower than the guidelines called for, but were permitted (even encouraged) to levy the statutory maximum sentence even if the guidelines called for a much lower penalty. As a result, the state could see a dramatic growth in sentencing disparity, with more politically minded judges levying unnecessarily harsh sentences in an attempt to appear tougher.
A final change -- setting zero-tolerance policies for many prisoners on probation -- has pushed thousands more people back behind bars, often for relatively minor offenses.
FINDING A SOLUTION
Restoring the intent of Florida's sentencing guidelines, and returning discretion to judges, would be a good start. The state also can ease the burden on prisons by matching offenders with programs that reduce the chances that they will commit more crimes. Specialized courts -- such as drug or mental health courts -- generally operate outside sentencing guideline requirements. And these programs work, significantly reducing the number of offenders who are rearrested.
Last month, the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard about other measures that could reduce prison population -- such as a controlled release program or prison diversion measures. These are worth exploring, but they would be no replacement for a careful, analytical approach to each case that a judge could offer.
Undoing these dubious reforms would restore equity to sentencing in Florida, and help restore the emphasis of the state's correctional mission -- to reform prisoners and turn them away from a life of crime -- and reducing the burden on Florida's taxpayers, who are feeding ever-increasing sums of money into a prison system that doesn't make them any safer.
By The Numbers
· 9.3 percent -- portion of Florida budget (2007) spent for corrections (prison and probation)
· 100,000 -- state's projected daily average prison population for 2009
· $439.2 million -- requested in coming budget year to add capacity
An editorial from the Daytona News Journal published February 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Letting Go of the Death Penalty
Most states are facing drastic cuts in vital services because of the recession. Schools, health care, and law enforcement will have to get by with less. Death penalty cases, however, stand out, demanding more money even as executions become less likely. In this economic climate, they may be a luxury we can no longer afford.
According to a recent report released by the Death Penalty Information Center, the death penalty is being used less and executions are being carried out in only a few states. Yet the costs are becoming more of an issue as the pressure to avoid the mistakes of the past has grown. There were 37 executions in 2008; 95% of them were in the South and almost half were in just one state -- Texas. Executions and death sentences have been steadily dropping throughout the current decade. But millions of taxpayer dollars have to be spent to keep the vast apparatus of capital punishment in place.
California, for example, has 670 people on death row. Each one of them costs the state about $90,000 per year over what it would cost to keep them in prison if they were condemned to permanent imprisonment instead. In total, the state is spending $138 million per year, but only executes less than one person every two years, according to a recent state commission report. In fact, it's been almost three years since the state carried out any executions. California is now planning a new death row that will cost an additional $400 million. At the same time, the state is facing an unprecedented deficit of billions of dollars and is cutting many vital services. The state commission called the death penalty system "broken," "dysfunctional," and "close to collapse." Only more expenditures, they said, could possibly save it.
Almost every state is facing a financial crisis and 36 states have the death penalty. In Maryland, a state commission heard testimony that the costs of the death penalty over the past 28 years amounted to $37 million per execution. In Florida, home to the second largest death row in the country, the cost estimates are $24 million per execution. The Los Angeles Times estimated that California spends $250 million per execution, when all the system's costs are taken into account.
There is no easy solution to this problem. Speeding up the appeals process or not paying lawyers adequate fees will end up costing states even more as trials will have to be done over a second time, or worse, result in the execution of innocent people. One hundred and thirty people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, including four in 2008. It took over 9 years on average between the conviction and the exoneration in these cases.
With all of these mistakes, the death penalty system has become slower and shows no signs speeding up. The average time between sentencing and execution increased to 12.7 years for those executed in 2007, the third year in a row in which the time has been over 12 years. For some cases in California, it took 25 years for a capital case to be completed, according to the state commission.
All of this expense and delay might be justified if there were some tangible benefit resulting from the death penalty. But for many victims' family members and representatives of law enforcement, the frustration and uncertainty of the death penalty make the option of a sentence of permanent imprisonment more reasonable. Only about 1% of the murders committed in this country result in a death sentence, and only a small percentage of those sentenced to death are ever executed many years later. Such a system makes little sense financially, or even retributively.
In the past, people were often scared into believing that the death penalty was needed to be tough on crime. Today, the death penalty is more like a bridge to nowhere--an expensive government program that does not advance the general good. It may be time to let this extravagance go.
By Richard Dieter Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center
This post first appeared on the Huffington Post at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-c-dieter/letting-go-of-the-death-p_b_157597.html
According to a recent report released by the Death Penalty Information Center, the death penalty is being used less and executions are being carried out in only a few states. Yet the costs are becoming more of an issue as the pressure to avoid the mistakes of the past has grown. There were 37 executions in 2008; 95% of them were in the South and almost half were in just one state -- Texas. Executions and death sentences have been steadily dropping throughout the current decade. But millions of taxpayer dollars have to be spent to keep the vast apparatus of capital punishment in place.
California, for example, has 670 people on death row. Each one of them costs the state about $90,000 per year over what it would cost to keep them in prison if they were condemned to permanent imprisonment instead. In total, the state is spending $138 million per year, but only executes less than one person every two years, according to a recent state commission report. In fact, it's been almost three years since the state carried out any executions. California is now planning a new death row that will cost an additional $400 million. At the same time, the state is facing an unprecedented deficit of billions of dollars and is cutting many vital services. The state commission called the death penalty system "broken," "dysfunctional," and "close to collapse." Only more expenditures, they said, could possibly save it.
Almost every state is facing a financial crisis and 36 states have the death penalty. In Maryland, a state commission heard testimony that the costs of the death penalty over the past 28 years amounted to $37 million per execution. In Florida, home to the second largest death row in the country, the cost estimates are $24 million per execution. The Los Angeles Times estimated that California spends $250 million per execution, when all the system's costs are taken into account.
There is no easy solution to this problem. Speeding up the appeals process or not paying lawyers adequate fees will end up costing states even more as trials will have to be done over a second time, or worse, result in the execution of innocent people. One hundred and thirty people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, including four in 2008. It took over 9 years on average between the conviction and the exoneration in these cases.
With all of these mistakes, the death penalty system has become slower and shows no signs speeding up. The average time between sentencing and execution increased to 12.7 years for those executed in 2007, the third year in a row in which the time has been over 12 years. For some cases in California, it took 25 years for a capital case to be completed, according to the state commission.
All of this expense and delay might be justified if there were some tangible benefit resulting from the death penalty. But for many victims' family members and representatives of law enforcement, the frustration and uncertainty of the death penalty make the option of a sentence of permanent imprisonment more reasonable. Only about 1% of the murders committed in this country result in a death sentence, and only a small percentage of those sentenced to death are ever executed many years later. Such a system makes little sense financially, or even retributively.
In the past, people were often scared into believing that the death penalty was needed to be tough on crime. Today, the death penalty is more like a bridge to nowhere--an expensive government program that does not advance the general good. It may be time to let this extravagance go.
By Richard Dieter Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center
This post first appeared on the Huffington Post at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-c-dieter/letting-go-of-the-death-p_b_157597.html
Monday, January 05, 2009
Know Your Rights: A Student Civil Liberties Forum
Be sure to tell your High School student to attend this important forum on Wednesday, January 7 from 3:30 -5:00, at the Selby Library. Panelists will include Sarasota Police Chief Peter Abbott, criminal defense attorney Adam Tebrugge, ACLU attorney Becky Steele, and others. Pizza will be served!
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Florida Criminal Justice System Needs Reform
That Florida's prison population has now reached 100,000 inmates is not a point of pride. It is, quite likely, a designation that should give all thoughtful people Floridians a chance to consider whether there is a way to turn things around and reduce the need to keep building more prisons.
As Department of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil describes them, the state's 137 facilities could almost be described as having revolving doors. That's because incarceration in and of itself does not do much to change behaviors, habits or crime rates.
The emphasis has absolutely got to shift to rehabilitation programs and education that will alone or together have a chance of sending inmates back into society equipped to live self-sufficiently, without the need for larceny and worse.
"Sometime in the next 20 or 30 years, some 80,000 of those 100,000 prisoners will be coming back to our communities," the former longtime Tallahassee police chief said. "That's why we want to emphasize reentry and rehabilitation, to protect our citizens against them re-offending and preying on society."
This is, clearly, no soft-on-crime approach; it is a realistic, if not easy, way to change one riveting statistic: Of the 40,000 prisoners released each year from the state's 60 prisons, work camps, halfway houses and other lock-ups, roughly 13,000 are back in custody within three years. More than 40 percent come back into the system two and three times.
This revolving door effect, coupled with the current incarceration rates, would mean the state would need to build another 19 prisons of 1,300 inmates each over the next five years.
Taxpayers cannot afford to endlessly build prisons, nor are they really protected by this current system that almost ignores the possibility of reform, rehabilitation and life going forward.
Virtually all leaders in key state agencies, from corrections to juvenile justice to the state judiciary have expressed their support for more alternative programs for substance abusers who turn to crime, and education for those who may prey on society because they are not educated or trained to earn a legal living.
Lawmakers have $2.3 billion worth of worries on their minds, all involving how to cut the costs of government. One abundantly obvious one is to reduce the need to build prisons endlessly when there are cheaper, more effective ways to keep the public safe.
An editorial from the Tallahassee Democrat
As Department of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil describes them, the state's 137 facilities could almost be described as having revolving doors. That's because incarceration in and of itself does not do much to change behaviors, habits or crime rates.
The emphasis has absolutely got to shift to rehabilitation programs and education that will alone or together have a chance of sending inmates back into society equipped to live self-sufficiently, without the need for larceny and worse.
"Sometime in the next 20 or 30 years, some 80,000 of those 100,000 prisoners will be coming back to our communities," the former longtime Tallahassee police chief said. "That's why we want to emphasize reentry and rehabilitation, to protect our citizens against them re-offending and preying on society."
This is, clearly, no soft-on-crime approach; it is a realistic, if not easy, way to change one riveting statistic: Of the 40,000 prisoners released each year from the state's 60 prisons, work camps, halfway houses and other lock-ups, roughly 13,000 are back in custody within three years. More than 40 percent come back into the system two and three times.
This revolving door effect, coupled with the current incarceration rates, would mean the state would need to build another 19 prisons of 1,300 inmates each over the next five years.
Taxpayers cannot afford to endlessly build prisons, nor are they really protected by this current system that almost ignores the possibility of reform, rehabilitation and life going forward.
Virtually all leaders in key state agencies, from corrections to juvenile justice to the state judiciary have expressed their support for more alternative programs for substance abusers who turn to crime, and education for those who may prey on society because they are not educated or trained to earn a legal living.
Lawmakers have $2.3 billion worth of worries on their minds, all involving how to cut the costs of government. One abundantly obvious one is to reduce the need to build prisons endlessly when there are cheaper, more effective ways to keep the public safe.
An editorial from the Tallahassee Democrat
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
It's Time to Expand Drug Court Programs
The New York Times reports that drug courts have been a successful experiment. They reduce prison populations and recidivism by substituting treatment and supervision for incarceration in prosecutions of drug offenders.
Experts say drug courts have been the country’s fastest-spreading innovation in criminal justice, giving arrested addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight and addiction treatment. Recent studies show drug courts are one of the few initiatives that reduce recidivism — on average by 8 percent to 10 percent nationally and as high as 26 percent in New York State — and save taxpayer money.
Although there are about 2,100 drug court programs providing treatment at any given time to about 70,000 offenders, that number represents a small percentage of the addicts who are charged with drug crimes. Drug courts have high up-front costs, but they save money in the long term by keeping offenders out of prison and by reducing crime. We need more of them. [more ...]
This criticism of drug courts isn't particularly worrisome:
Some lawyers also say the courts can infringe on the rights of defendants given that offenders usually must acknowledge guilt to enter the court, or in some places have already agreed to a plea bargain and sentence. Thus an addict might opt for drug court to avoid prison or with sincere intentions of going straight, but if treatment fails and he is expelled from the program, he must serve a sentence without having seriously fought the charges. His total time in court custody, between drug court and then prison, may be longer than it would have been otherwise.
True, but defendants who go on probation and get revoked often serve more time than they would have served if they opted for a straight sentence in the first place. That alternatives to incarceration don't always work out is no reason not to provide alternatives.
Nobody compels drug defendants to enter drug court. If they have a strong defense, they should opt for a trial. If they know they can't succeed in a treatment program, they should bargain for the best sentence they can get. Drug court isn't for everyone. Defense lawyers are capable of assessing the offender and the evidence and advising a client whether drug court is right for him or her. After a thorough discussion of the risks and rewards, the defendant can make an informed choice whether to try a drug court program.
Another criticism:
Critics also worry that the courts can monopolize scarce drug-treatment slots at the expense of other addicts seeking help.
That's not an indictment of drug courts, but of the lack of adequate funding for treatment programs.
Mark Kleinman suggests a modified alternative:
Dr. Kleiman advocates a slimmed-down system that does not initially require costly treatment, as drug courts do, but simply demands that offenders stop using drugs, with the penalty of short stays in jail when they fail urine tests. Such an approach has shown promise with methamphetamine users in Hawaii, he said, and because it is far cheaper, it can be applied to far more offenders.
True addicts aren't likely to stop using drugs without treatment, and even then lapses are nearly inevitable (a fact that most drug courts recognize). On the other hand, not every person arrested for a drug crime is an addict who needs treatment to stop using drugs. For those, Kleiman's suggestion (which seems similar to probation with a condition of mandatory urine testing) makes sense.
There isn't a "one size fits all" solution to crime, but incarceration should always be a last resort, reserved for violent or incorrigible offenders. Many alternatives don't work well because they lack the resources to be effective. Studies like those cited in the Times article teach us that funding an expansion of drug court programs is change we can all believe in.
From the Blog "Talk Left"
By TChris, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Wed Oct 15, 2
Experts say drug courts have been the country’s fastest-spreading innovation in criminal justice, giving arrested addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight and addiction treatment. Recent studies show drug courts are one of the few initiatives that reduce recidivism — on average by 8 percent to 10 percent nationally and as high as 26 percent in New York State — and save taxpayer money.
Although there are about 2,100 drug court programs providing treatment at any given time to about 70,000 offenders, that number represents a small percentage of the addicts who are charged with drug crimes. Drug courts have high up-front costs, but they save money in the long term by keeping offenders out of prison and by reducing crime. We need more of them. [more ...]
This criticism of drug courts isn't particularly worrisome:
Some lawyers also say the courts can infringe on the rights of defendants given that offenders usually must acknowledge guilt to enter the court, or in some places have already agreed to a plea bargain and sentence. Thus an addict might opt for drug court to avoid prison or with sincere intentions of going straight, but if treatment fails and he is expelled from the program, he must serve a sentence without having seriously fought the charges. His total time in court custody, between drug court and then prison, may be longer than it would have been otherwise.
True, but defendants who go on probation and get revoked often serve more time than they would have served if they opted for a straight sentence in the first place. That alternatives to incarceration don't always work out is no reason not to provide alternatives.
Nobody compels drug defendants to enter drug court. If they have a strong defense, they should opt for a trial. If they know they can't succeed in a treatment program, they should bargain for the best sentence they can get. Drug court isn't for everyone. Defense lawyers are capable of assessing the offender and the evidence and advising a client whether drug court is right for him or her. After a thorough discussion of the risks and rewards, the defendant can make an informed choice whether to try a drug court program.
Another criticism:
Critics also worry that the courts can monopolize scarce drug-treatment slots at the expense of other addicts seeking help.
That's not an indictment of drug courts, but of the lack of adequate funding for treatment programs.
Mark Kleinman suggests a modified alternative:
Dr. Kleiman advocates a slimmed-down system that does not initially require costly treatment, as drug courts do, but simply demands that offenders stop using drugs, with the penalty of short stays in jail when they fail urine tests. Such an approach has shown promise with methamphetamine users in Hawaii, he said, and because it is far cheaper, it can be applied to far more offenders.
True addicts aren't likely to stop using drugs without treatment, and even then lapses are nearly inevitable (a fact that most drug courts recognize). On the other hand, not every person arrested for a drug crime is an addict who needs treatment to stop using drugs. For those, Kleiman's suggestion (which seems similar to probation with a condition of mandatory urine testing) makes sense.
There isn't a "one size fits all" solution to crime, but incarceration should always be a last resort, reserved for violent or incorrigible offenders. Many alternatives don't work well because they lack the resources to be effective. Studies like those cited in the Times article teach us that funding an expansion of drug court programs is change we can all believe in.
From the Blog "Talk Left"
By TChris, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Wed Oct 15, 2
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
"An enlightened system of justice"
Nobody’s home at the Pitkin County jail.
On Thursday there were just three full-time inmates and five people on work release in a facility that can hold as many as 30.
Inmate numbers in recent months have been some of the lowest since a lull of just two inmates some 20 years ago, jail officials say.
Police Chief Richard Pryor said there have been about 65 arrests in Aspen since early June, but most are misdemeanors and minor charges, including drunken driving, public disturbances, domestic violence and warrant arrests.
“They are mostly charges that people are able to easily bond out on, so they don’t end up staying in jail,” he said. “It’s probably the reason why there aren’t so many folks in jail.”
Jail administrator Don Bird, however, chalks up the low numbers to what he called an “enlightened system of justice” in the upper valley. From law enforcement on the street, to the district attorney, courts and the jail, there is communication and a common goal of rehabilitation, not just human warehousing and punishment, he said.
Bird, who goes to regular conventions of the American Jail Association, said Pitkin County’s situation is unique.
“Everybody’s bursting at the seams except us,” he said.
Jail officials in other counties often write off Pitkin County as being a “boutique jail,” Bird said.
He admits that the local criminal caseload is low, but stressed that “this jail is real. We just have the luxury of not being overwhelmed.”
And the local philosophy of treating the causes of an inmate problems, not just punishing the symptoms, pays off, he said.
Nancy Reichman, professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, agreed.
Without knowing specifics about Pitkin County, Reichman said that there are two major factors that empty or fill a jail: the amount of criminal activity, and how law enforcement officials funnel people into custody.
“The behavior of law enforcement is determinative of how the jails fill,” Reichman said.
She suggested looking farther “downstream” to see why things are so quiet behind bars in Aspen. And treatment in jail also is a factor, she said.
“To understand the jail population, you also need to understand the suite of services available to inmates,” she said, such as substance abuse and mental health help.
Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who was instrumental in getting the downtown jail built in the mid-1980s, said that while there are reliable trends to local crimes — such as spikes in theft in offseason or drunken driving in high season — there are no reliable statistics for the inmate population in Aspen.
Like Bird, Braudis chalks up low inmate numbers to a different mentality of law enforcement.
“An empty jail is a perfect jail,” Braudis said. “The reason we have jails is to separate predators from their prey.”
Thanks to the upvalley district attorney’s office and the courts, nonviolent criminals and misdemeanor offenders are able to bond out on charges where, in other parts of the state, they might be stuck behind bars in what he called “the most punitive criminal justice system in U.S. history.”
Most inmates in Aspen are pretrial detainees charged with crimes but who have not yet been tried, Braudis said.
Braudis and others in law enforcement work with judges to ensure a “flexible and fair” bond level that does not simply punish the poor, he said.
“I don’t want a guy to spend days or weeks in jail because he doesn’t have $100,” Braudis said.
He believes in legislative forms that would end mandatory minimums that limit a judge’s ability to find creative solutions for nonviolent offenders.
Meanwhile, Pitkin County’s jail is designed to take the stress off of inmates, Braudis said. Instead of just “tiers and catwalks,” the facility more often sees Bird and inmates sitting down to lunch.
“If you treat someone like an animal, you release an animal,” Braudis said, adding that the jail’s mission is to return people in as good condition, or better physically and mentally, to the community as they were before.
“Other than their freedom, an inmate in my jail should be deprived of nothing else,” Braudis said.
And while jail administrators in other counties are becoming “increasingly punitive,” Braudis said things are just done differently in Aspen.
Bird said inmates in more “relaxed” condition in Pitkin County have a chance to get off of the controlled substances which many abuse. Some are able to see who they really are for the first time.
“The real person is someone that the guy himself doesn’t even know,” Bird said, pointing to cases of recent inmates who cleaned up and prospered during long stays in Aspen.
“We don’t see bad guys in here; we see guys who’ve made bad choices and face consequences for what they did,” Bird said.
On Thursday there were just three full-time inmates and five people on work release in a facility that can hold as many as 30.
Inmate numbers in recent months have been some of the lowest since a lull of just two inmates some 20 years ago, jail officials say.
Police Chief Richard Pryor said there have been about 65 arrests in Aspen since early June, but most are misdemeanors and minor charges, including drunken driving, public disturbances, domestic violence and warrant arrests.
“They are mostly charges that people are able to easily bond out on, so they don’t end up staying in jail,” he said. “It’s probably the reason why there aren’t so many folks in jail.”
Jail administrator Don Bird, however, chalks up the low numbers to what he called an “enlightened system of justice” in the upper valley. From law enforcement on the street, to the district attorney, courts and the jail, there is communication and a common goal of rehabilitation, not just human warehousing and punishment, he said.
Bird, who goes to regular conventions of the American Jail Association, said Pitkin County’s situation is unique.
“Everybody’s bursting at the seams except us,” he said.
Jail officials in other counties often write off Pitkin County as being a “boutique jail,” Bird said.
He admits that the local criminal caseload is low, but stressed that “this jail is real. We just have the luxury of not being overwhelmed.”
And the local philosophy of treating the causes of an inmate problems, not just punishing the symptoms, pays off, he said.
Nancy Reichman, professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, agreed.
Without knowing specifics about Pitkin County, Reichman said that there are two major factors that empty or fill a jail: the amount of criminal activity, and how law enforcement officials funnel people into custody.
“The behavior of law enforcement is determinative of how the jails fill,” Reichman said.
She suggested looking farther “downstream” to see why things are so quiet behind bars in Aspen. And treatment in jail also is a factor, she said.
“To understand the jail population, you also need to understand the suite of services available to inmates,” she said, such as substance abuse and mental health help.
Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who was instrumental in getting the downtown jail built in the mid-1980s, said that while there are reliable trends to local crimes — such as spikes in theft in offseason or drunken driving in high season — there are no reliable statistics for the inmate population in Aspen.
Like Bird, Braudis chalks up low inmate numbers to a different mentality of law enforcement.
“An empty jail is a perfect jail,” Braudis said. “The reason we have jails is to separate predators from their prey.”
Thanks to the upvalley district attorney’s office and the courts, nonviolent criminals and misdemeanor offenders are able to bond out on charges where, in other parts of the state, they might be stuck behind bars in what he called “the most punitive criminal justice system in U.S. history.”
Most inmates in Aspen are pretrial detainees charged with crimes but who have not yet been tried, Braudis said.
Braudis and others in law enforcement work with judges to ensure a “flexible and fair” bond level that does not simply punish the poor, he said.
“I don’t want a guy to spend days or weeks in jail because he doesn’t have $100,” Braudis said.
He believes in legislative forms that would end mandatory minimums that limit a judge’s ability to find creative solutions for nonviolent offenders.
Meanwhile, Pitkin County’s jail is designed to take the stress off of inmates, Braudis said. Instead of just “tiers and catwalks,” the facility more often sees Bird and inmates sitting down to lunch.
“If you treat someone like an animal, you release an animal,” Braudis said, adding that the jail’s mission is to return people in as good condition, or better physically and mentally, to the community as they were before.
“Other than their freedom, an inmate in my jail should be deprived of nothing else,” Braudis said.
And while jail administrators in other counties are becoming “increasingly punitive,” Braudis said things are just done differently in Aspen.
Bird said inmates in more “relaxed” condition in Pitkin County have a chance to get off of the controlled substances which many abuse. Some are able to see who they really are for the first time.
“The real person is someone that the guy himself doesn’t even know,” Bird said, pointing to cases of recent inmates who cleaned up and prospered during long stays in Aspen.
“We don’t see bad guys in here; we see guys who’ve made bad choices and face consequences for what they did,” Bird said.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Manatee to try a new alternative to jail
MANATEE -- The county's final property-tax revenues, a bit higher than expected, will go mostly into contingency accounts and for a pilot program to allow nonviolent criminals to pay to stay out of jail.
Manatee officials Wednesday spent much of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on next year's $531 million budget. Specifically, they rehashed a list of topics that were "flagged" for more information during a series of budget talks in June.
A slight jump in property values led to an additional $743,000 for the county. Almost half of it will go to the Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency because that city had much of the higher values. A new set of probation fees will net another $200,000 for the county.
The additional revenues enable the county to spend $155,000 to begin an offender work program. Nonviolent offenders could avoid jail time by agreeing to pay a daily amount or by performing manual labor around the county.
"They're paying to stay out of jail as long as they're doing everything they're supposed to," said Commissioner Ron Getman. "The theory is to reduce overcrowding at the jail without putting a financial burden on the county. It will reduce the number of prisoners in jail and it's a source of revenue."
Getman, a former Florida Highway Patrol troop commander and a member of the Public Safety Coordinating Council, is championing the program. He said it will help prolong the life of the county jail and stave off expensive plans for expansion.
The county will pay money up front for vehicles and additional guard time to watch over the working prisoners, but in the future, officials think fee-paying criminals will offset annual operating costs.
From the Bradenton Herald published July 31, 2008
Manatee officials Wednesday spent much of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on next year's $531 million budget. Specifically, they rehashed a list of topics that were "flagged" for more information during a series of budget talks in June.
A slight jump in property values led to an additional $743,000 for the county. Almost half of it will go to the Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency because that city had much of the higher values. A new set of probation fees will net another $200,000 for the county.
The additional revenues enable the county to spend $155,000 to begin an offender work program. Nonviolent offenders could avoid jail time by agreeing to pay a daily amount or by performing manual labor around the county.
"They're paying to stay out of jail as long as they're doing everything they're supposed to," said Commissioner Ron Getman. "The theory is to reduce overcrowding at the jail without putting a financial burden on the county. It will reduce the number of prisoners in jail and it's a source of revenue."
Getman, a former Florida Highway Patrol troop commander and a member of the Public Safety Coordinating Council, is championing the program. He said it will help prolong the life of the county jail and stave off expensive plans for expansion.
The county will pay money up front for vehicles and additional guard time to watch over the working prisoners, but in the future, officials think fee-paying criminals will offset annual operating costs.
From the Bradenton Herald published July 31, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Public defenders overloaded
As state agencies struggle under the burden of budget cuts, some public defenders say they cannot adequately handle a growing number of cases with reduced resources.
In Miami-Dade, Public Defender Bennett Brummer is withdrawing from felony cases that don't involve first-degree murder or sexual assaults on children, the Miami-Herald reported. Brummer has said his office can't ethically take more cases than it has time to handle.
Other public defenders in Broward, Pinellas and Pasco counties are considering similar moves, the Herald reported.
Daytona Beach Public Defender Jim Purdy, whose office provides legal representation to the poor in four counties including Volusia and Flagler, says he's working with judges and prosecutors to reduce caseloads for his 57 attorneys.
Although not as drastic as steps taken elsewhere in the state, Purdy plans to expand on a court rule that limits public defender services to those who face jail or prison.
"I believe I will be able to work with the chief judge and State Attorney's Office to find a remedy short of that step," Purdy said. "We're looking at possibly using a court rule that says if the court is not going to impose a jail sentence, then the Public Defender does not have to be appointed.
Reducing the number of misdemeanor cases his attorneys now handle in the 7th Judicial Circuit -- charges like trespassing, disorderly intoxication, petty theft and first-time arrests for marijuana possession -- could reduce his office's caseload by a third, Purdy said.
"We're going to have to come up with some ideas in the way we do business, in order to handle the volume of cases that we have with the number of attorneys we've been allowed," he said.
For the 2007 fiscal year, Purdy's office had a budget of about $8 million. For this year, that amount was reduced to $7.4 million. But the number of cases is growing, now numbered at about 44,166 felony, misdemeanor and juvenile delinquency cases a year. The lion's share of those cases -- 30,558 -- are in Volusia County, Purdy said.
He is also working to get people charged with certain offenses -- like shoplifting -- released from jail with time served.
Other ideas to reduce caseloads could require legislative action, like allowing some people who get their driver's licenses suspended to take a class and get a hardship license. "We're doing what we can as painlessly as we can," Purdy said.
With the national economy weakened by real estate woes, cuts have left public defenders across the country struggling to do their best work for poor clients. The 6th Amendment says the government must pay for legal representation for those who can't afford to hire a lawyer.
In Miami, Brummer has argued successfully three times in the past 32 years that a defendant's right to counsel means that person should get a lawyer who can represent him or her adequately. So a private attorney is appointed.
A hearing on one of Brummer's motions to withdraw from a case is set for Friday.
Virtually no county in Florida has escaped the effect of budget cuts on judicial resources. Purdy says the effects will vary from place to place.
"They will vary from county to county and judge to judge, but it will all take the cooperation of the courts, the prosecutors and the clients," he said.
Local lawyer wants to change rule so only jail cases are served
By JAY STAPLETON
Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH REVIEW
In Miami-Dade, Public Defender Bennett Brummer is withdrawing from felony cases that don't involve first-degree murder or sexual assaults on children, the Miami-Herald reported. Brummer has said his office can't ethically take more cases than it has time to handle.
Other public defenders in Broward, Pinellas and Pasco counties are considering similar moves, the Herald reported.
Daytona Beach Public Defender Jim Purdy, whose office provides legal representation to the poor in four counties including Volusia and Flagler, says he's working with judges and prosecutors to reduce caseloads for his 57 attorneys.
Although not as drastic as steps taken elsewhere in the state, Purdy plans to expand on a court rule that limits public defender services to those who face jail or prison.
"I believe I will be able to work with the chief judge and State Attorney's Office to find a remedy short of that step," Purdy said. "We're looking at possibly using a court rule that says if the court is not going to impose a jail sentence, then the Public Defender does not have to be appointed.
Reducing the number of misdemeanor cases his attorneys now handle in the 7th Judicial Circuit -- charges like trespassing, disorderly intoxication, petty theft and first-time arrests for marijuana possession -- could reduce his office's caseload by a third, Purdy said.
"We're going to have to come up with some ideas in the way we do business, in order to handle the volume of cases that we have with the number of attorneys we've been allowed," he said.
For the 2007 fiscal year, Purdy's office had a budget of about $8 million. For this year, that amount was reduced to $7.4 million. But the number of cases is growing, now numbered at about 44,166 felony, misdemeanor and juvenile delinquency cases a year. The lion's share of those cases -- 30,558 -- are in Volusia County, Purdy said.
He is also working to get people charged with certain offenses -- like shoplifting -- released from jail with time served.
Other ideas to reduce caseloads could require legislative action, like allowing some people who get their driver's licenses suspended to take a class and get a hardship license. "We're doing what we can as painlessly as we can," Purdy said.
With the national economy weakened by real estate woes, cuts have left public defenders across the country struggling to do their best work for poor clients. The 6th Amendment says the government must pay for legal representation for those who can't afford to hire a lawyer.
In Miami, Brummer has argued successfully three times in the past 32 years that a defendant's right to counsel means that person should get a lawyer who can represent him or her adequately. So a private attorney is appointed.
A hearing on one of Brummer's motions to withdraw from a case is set for Friday.
Virtually no county in Florida has escaped the effect of budget cuts on judicial resources. Purdy says the effects will vary from place to place.
"They will vary from county to county and judge to judge, but it will all take the cooperation of the courts, the prosecutors and the clients," he said.
Local lawyer wants to change rule so only jail cases are served
By JAY STAPLETON
Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH REVIEW
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Budget cuts push defenders into corner
If you didn't know better, you would think that Miami-Dade Public Defender Bennett Brummer's response to state budget cuts is an extreme overreaction. Mr. Brummer says that his office will no longer accept appointments to certain noncapital felony cases, such as robbery, burglary, drug possession, grand theft, etc. It's a drastic move that could throw courts into turmoil, and it could end up costing the state more in fees to private attorneys to make up for public defenders' absence than the budget cuts save. The decision is not a bluff or a ploy -- and Mr. Brummer is well justified in taking the action.
No room for trimming
It is true, as Mr. Brummer says, that the public defender's office is underfunded and short-staffed. The state cut the office's 2009 funding by 4.2 percent, and 2008 funding was cut 5 percent. For many state agencies, losing 9 percent funding over two years is painful, but manageable by cutting back expenses, administrative costs, travel, etc. For public defenders -- and for prosecutors and courts, too -- there is little or no room for trimming nonessentials. Ninety-five percent of the public defender's budget is for salaries, the bulk of which is for lawyers. The rest is for investigators, secretaries, clerks and other support staff.
The cuts have forced Mr. Brummer to reduce the number of lawyers at a time when the number of cases is increasing, and on top of cuts made in previous years. In 2004, for example, lawmakers cut funding for 30 of the 82 lawyers the state supported in the office. As a result, some of the 177 lawyers in the office now handle as many as 150 cases each year, including capital (first-degree murder, rape, etc.) and noncapital cases. The problem is not isolated to Miami-Dade, either. Public defenders in Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Duval and counties throughout the state are handling similar caseloads.
Mr. Brummer says that it is his duty as a lawyer and a constitutional officer of the court to handle cases in a professional manner. When that standard can't be met, he believes that he has the obligation to say so. He has taken this position three times in the past -- in 1978, '81 and '96 -- and each time, the court has upheld his position. Actually, in 1981, the Florida Supreme Court -- not Mr. Brummer -- initiated the action.
Brummer is right
State lawmakers who believe that the problem is about better management of budgets have got it wrong. Sen. Victor Crist, R-Hillsborough, said that lawmakers took pains to make sure state agencies could sustain the cuts and still function.
Mr. Brummer is saying that lawmakers got it wrong with year-after-year cuts in the criminal-justice budget. The facts in the courtrooms and on the streets throughout Florida seem to favor Mr. Brummer's position.
A Miami Herald Editorial published June 4, 2008
No room for trimming
It is true, as Mr. Brummer says, that the public defender's office is underfunded and short-staffed. The state cut the office's 2009 funding by 4.2 percent, and 2008 funding was cut 5 percent. For many state agencies, losing 9 percent funding over two years is painful, but manageable by cutting back expenses, administrative costs, travel, etc. For public defenders -- and for prosecutors and courts, too -- there is little or no room for trimming nonessentials. Ninety-five percent of the public defender's budget is for salaries, the bulk of which is for lawyers. The rest is for investigators, secretaries, clerks and other support staff.
The cuts have forced Mr. Brummer to reduce the number of lawyers at a time when the number of cases is increasing, and on top of cuts made in previous years. In 2004, for example, lawmakers cut funding for 30 of the 82 lawyers the state supported in the office. As a result, some of the 177 lawyers in the office now handle as many as 150 cases each year, including capital (first-degree murder, rape, etc.) and noncapital cases. The problem is not isolated to Miami-Dade, either. Public defenders in Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Duval and counties throughout the state are handling similar caseloads.
Mr. Brummer says that it is his duty as a lawyer and a constitutional officer of the court to handle cases in a professional manner. When that standard can't be met, he believes that he has the obligation to say so. He has taken this position three times in the past -- in 1978, '81 and '96 -- and each time, the court has upheld his position. Actually, in 1981, the Florida Supreme Court -- not Mr. Brummer -- initiated the action.
Brummer is right
State lawmakers who believe that the problem is about better management of budgets have got it wrong. Sen. Victor Crist, R-Hillsborough, said that lawmakers took pains to make sure state agencies could sustain the cuts and still function.
Mr. Brummer is saying that lawmakers got it wrong with year-after-year cuts in the criminal-justice budget. The facts in the courtrooms and on the streets throughout Florida seem to favor Mr. Brummer's position.
A Miami Herald Editorial published June 4, 2008
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