A call by Florida’s most powerful business lobby to halt prison construction and reform the criminal justice system is gaining surprising traction among policy makers in the wake of a deepening budget crisis and growing evidence that building new prison beds will not reduce crime.
Four months after the head of Associated Industries of Florida stunned lawmakers with his plea to slow prison growth, a who’s-who of business, religious and political leaders are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to consider alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders, particularly drug addicts.
Crist and state lawmakers this week received an “open letter’’ from opinion-makers calling for a “bold and serious conversation about justice reform.”
The statement was signed by three former state attorneys general — Jim Smith, Bob Butterworth and Richard Doran — along with retired Department of Corrections secretary James McDonough and the heads of the Florida Association of Counties and the Florida Catholic Conference.
“At a time when Florida is in serious recession and facing a deep state budget crisis, the $2 billion-plus budget of the Florida Department of Corrections has grown larger; and without reform, that budget will continue to grow at a pace that crowds out other mission-critical state services such as education, human service needs, and environmental protection,” the group wrote.
Calling itself the Coalition for Smart Justice, the group is asking state leaders to bolster education, drug and alcohol treatment and faith-based and character-building programs both within the state prison system and in community settings as an alternative to prison.
Coalition members also want Crist to “immediately implement’’ a bill passed by the Legislature in 2008 that created “the much needed’’ Correctional Policy Advisory Council to offer new directions for criminal justice administration.
Staying the course, coalition members wrote, will lead to “too many non-violent individuals being incarcerated, too many prisons needing to be built at astounding public cost (and) too many young people moving from the juvenile justice system into the adult justice system.”
At the root of the state’s failures, the coalition says, is the unwillingness of lawmakers to invest in programs — such as job training, education and substance-abuse treatment — that can break the cycle of crime and reduce recidivism.
McDonough, the state’s former drug czar and prisons chief, said Florida can avoid the need to build a new $100 million prison each year by spending one-fifth that amount on drug treatment. “The math is irrefutable,” McDonough said. “That’s $100 million right there that you don’t have to spend immediately.”
That’s an assertion former Manatee sheriff Charlie Wells scoffs at, as a veteran of the debate over the effectiveness of prisons in reducing and deterring crime. Wells said he is concerned the movement to turn the state away from building new prisons will lead to the repealing of legislation he pioneered in the 1990s that mandates inmates serve at least 85 percent of their prison terms.
“I think it is a bad mistake to be flirting with the idea of cutting back building prisons under the guise of looking for ways to cut costs,” said Wells. “If we stop building prisons, overcrowding will force legislators to repeal that law, which would be a serious mistake.”
Wells said advocates of diversion programs for non-violent offenders in lieu of prison time often do not tell the whole story about offenders sentenced to prison.
“That argument has been there since I started fighting this battle. But what always gets lost in translation is the length of someone’s record who is finally is sent to prison. Someone who is going to prison for a so-called ‘minor offense’ has most likely been arrested a significant number of times,” said Wells. “So I think it is absurd to start chipping away at the most significant aspect of crime prevention, which is sentencing and punishment.”
Gretl Plessinger, DOC’s spokeswoman, said the equation is far more complicated in response to the coalition’s claims. Since the prison system runs on a five-year cycle based on “strategic projections,” the corrections agency cannot simply “stop construction on a dime.”
By CAROL MARBIN MILLER
Miami Herald
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Tackle prison overcrowding from the other end
The Florida Legislature passed a ''just in case'' bill that its author, Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, calls a ''passive safety net,'' not a mandate. But the philosophy behind SB 1722, which becomes law July 1, is based on regressive thinking.
It would allow the corrections department to ship inmates to other states in case prison overcrowding forces early releases here.
Fund programs
This is a patchwork solution that misses the point. Florida should be fighting crime at the front end -- not shipping prisoners to be warehoused out of state.
To reduce prison beds the state has to adequately fund programs to reduce school drop-out rates and increase job-training and life-skills classes. It means counseling and access to needed services for troubled families with teens who have strayed but not fallen off the deep end yet.
It also means drug rehabilitation programs, well-resourced drug courts and mental-health counseling for teenagers. In the long run these preventive measures would save the state millions of dollars it now spends housing prisoners who could be contributing members of society.
The irony is that, until budget deficits hit this year, Florida's been on a prison-building spree even as it has cut back on programs to reduce recidivism. The 2010 state budget is the first in a long while with no money set aside for new prison construction.
Enter the private-prison lobbyists who have long urged lawmakers to imitate the 15 states that export prisoners to public and private lockups. Even though Florida's Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil isn't a proponent of sending prisoners out of state, the private-prison lobbyists prevailed in the Legislature.
Besides its regressive thinking, this bill is an example of bad public policy. As Mr. McNeil points out, one method of reducing recidivism is encouraging inmates to build ties to the community they will return to once they're released. It's detrimental to inmates' morale -- and no incentive to go straight -- to be incarcerated hundreds of miles from their families, making visitations rare.
Cutting corners
There are other concerns. The quality in private prisons is uneven, to say the least. Some private operators have been exposed for cutting corners by understaffing and chintzing on inmates' medical care. It would be impossible for Florida to monitor treatment of its inmates in a prison in, say, Tennessee.
Currently, Florida's prison population is stable at 101,000 and even a little below previous projections. The state's total bed capacity is around 106,000, so Florida probably won't be exporting prisoners any time soon. That gives state leaders time to craft a smarter, more cost-effective strategy to prevent prison overcrowding.
It's called crime prevention.
An editorial from the Miami Herald published June 13, 2009
It would allow the corrections department to ship inmates to other states in case prison overcrowding forces early releases here.
Fund programs
This is a patchwork solution that misses the point. Florida should be fighting crime at the front end -- not shipping prisoners to be warehoused out of state.
To reduce prison beds the state has to adequately fund programs to reduce school drop-out rates and increase job-training and life-skills classes. It means counseling and access to needed services for troubled families with teens who have strayed but not fallen off the deep end yet.
It also means drug rehabilitation programs, well-resourced drug courts and mental-health counseling for teenagers. In the long run these preventive measures would save the state millions of dollars it now spends housing prisoners who could be contributing members of society.
The irony is that, until budget deficits hit this year, Florida's been on a prison-building spree even as it has cut back on programs to reduce recidivism. The 2010 state budget is the first in a long while with no money set aside for new prison construction.
Enter the private-prison lobbyists who have long urged lawmakers to imitate the 15 states that export prisoners to public and private lockups. Even though Florida's Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil isn't a proponent of sending prisoners out of state, the private-prison lobbyists prevailed in the Legislature.
Besides its regressive thinking, this bill is an example of bad public policy. As Mr. McNeil points out, one method of reducing recidivism is encouraging inmates to build ties to the community they will return to once they're released. It's detrimental to inmates' morale -- and no incentive to go straight -- to be incarcerated hundreds of miles from their families, making visitations rare.
Cutting corners
There are other concerns. The quality in private prisons is uneven, to say the least. Some private operators have been exposed for cutting corners by understaffing and chintzing on inmates' medical care. It would be impossible for Florida to monitor treatment of its inmates in a prison in, say, Tennessee.
Currently, Florida's prison population is stable at 101,000 and even a little below previous projections. The state's total bed capacity is around 106,000, so Florida probably won't be exporting prisoners any time soon. That gives state leaders time to craft a smarter, more cost-effective strategy to prevent prison overcrowding.
It's called crime prevention.
An editorial from the Miami Herald published June 13, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Restoration of Rights workshop--THIS WEEKEND
Do you know someone who has lost their civil rights, including their right to vote, due to a conviction for a felony? The Sarasota branches of the NAACP and ACLU are sponsoring a restoration of rights workshop at the Selby Goodwill at 1732 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Way, from 10 a.m -3:00 p.m. on Saturday June 13. Please help me get the word out.
OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.
OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Jailing the mentally ill strains justice:
Every jailer in Florida knows the face of mental illness.
County jails throughout the state house thousands of people with serious mental conditions. Some of them can't maintain a life on the outside -- as soon as they are released, they commit a new, usually petty crime and end up back in jail. Counties pay staggering bills for psychiatric medications and treatment. They struggle to house inmates whose illnesses make them vulnerable (or in isolated cases, dangerous) in the jail's general population. And as community treatment centers close, the number of mentally ill people in prisons and jails increases, along with the burden on their families and the taxpayers who pay for fruitless rounds of arrest and incarceration.
Florida lawmakers had the opportunity this year to make a fundamental change in the way local jails and state prisons deal with people who have severe mental illness. But they fumbled, delaying action on a bill that would have created a new system for mentally ill offenders.
A study conducted by the Council of State Governments and published Monday in the journal Psychiatric Services illustrates how badly Florida leaders dropped the ball. Researchers administered psychiatric screenings to more than 20,000 inmates in five jails in Maryland and New York, concluding that 14.5 percent of men and 31 percent of women booked into county jails had at least one serious mental illness. The number includes only people with very serious afflictions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression -- excluding those with lesser (but often debilitating) diagnoses of anxiety disorders or other mental conditions.
The study didn't cover Florida, but the state's own numbers suggest similar concerns. According to a 2007 study, an estimated 15,000 inmates in Florida's jails on any given day have serious mental illnesses -- roughly one in four. And like the national study, the percentage of inmates with mental illness has climbed steadily in Florida.
The national study suggests several factors behind this increase. People with mental illness are more likely to be visible to police because they are less capable of controlling their behavior. They're also more likely to use illegal drugs, especially if they don't have access to treatment and psychiatric medication. The correlation between mental illness and homelessness is significant, and homeless people are far more likely to be arrested. Finally -- and this thread runs through the entire discussion -- the nation's mental-health treatment system is badly overburdened.
Many people believe the public is safer if people with mental illness are confined, even if that means imprisonment in an inappropriate setting like jail. The new study disputes that impression as well, pointing out the "weak correlation" between mental illness and violent behavior. In fact, many behavioral-health specialists believe that imprisonment increases the likelihood of violent crime, by further destabilizing people with certain mental disorders, and making them more likely perpetrators or victims of crime.
Counties are trying individually to confront the problems of mental illness in their jails. Volusia County, for example, recently hired Stewart-Marchman-Act Corp. to oversee treatment in its correctional facilities.
Still, it's not enough. The bill that failed to pass the Legislature this year would have sparked a comprehensive overhaul of Florida's criminal-justice system, setting up better community-diversion programs to keep people out of jail and creating transitions for people with mental illness who are about to be released from prison. But Gov. Charlie Crist shouldn't wait for the next legislative session -- many of the reforms the bill called for can be instituted by executive order instead, and the state Department of Children & Families can start planning others.
DCF Secretary George Sheldon says that the hundreds of millions of dollars Florida spends incarcerating people with mental illness is the "worst money we spend." It's time for a change, and Crist can help to bring it about.
Published in the Daytona News-Journal on June 7, 2009
County jails throughout the state house thousands of people with serious mental conditions. Some of them can't maintain a life on the outside -- as soon as they are released, they commit a new, usually petty crime and end up back in jail. Counties pay staggering bills for psychiatric medications and treatment. They struggle to house inmates whose illnesses make them vulnerable (or in isolated cases, dangerous) in the jail's general population. And as community treatment centers close, the number of mentally ill people in prisons and jails increases, along with the burden on their families and the taxpayers who pay for fruitless rounds of arrest and incarceration.
Florida lawmakers had the opportunity this year to make a fundamental change in the way local jails and state prisons deal with people who have severe mental illness. But they fumbled, delaying action on a bill that would have created a new system for mentally ill offenders.
A study conducted by the Council of State Governments and published Monday in the journal Psychiatric Services illustrates how badly Florida leaders dropped the ball. Researchers administered psychiatric screenings to more than 20,000 inmates in five jails in Maryland and New York, concluding that 14.5 percent of men and 31 percent of women booked into county jails had at least one serious mental illness. The number includes only people with very serious afflictions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression -- excluding those with lesser (but often debilitating) diagnoses of anxiety disorders or other mental conditions.
The study didn't cover Florida, but the state's own numbers suggest similar concerns. According to a 2007 study, an estimated 15,000 inmates in Florida's jails on any given day have serious mental illnesses -- roughly one in four. And like the national study, the percentage of inmates with mental illness has climbed steadily in Florida.
The national study suggests several factors behind this increase. People with mental illness are more likely to be visible to police because they are less capable of controlling their behavior. They're also more likely to use illegal drugs, especially if they don't have access to treatment and psychiatric medication. The correlation between mental illness and homelessness is significant, and homeless people are far more likely to be arrested. Finally -- and this thread runs through the entire discussion -- the nation's mental-health treatment system is badly overburdened.
Many people believe the public is safer if people with mental illness are confined, even if that means imprisonment in an inappropriate setting like jail. The new study disputes that impression as well, pointing out the "weak correlation" between mental illness and violent behavior. In fact, many behavioral-health specialists believe that imprisonment increases the likelihood of violent crime, by further destabilizing people with certain mental disorders, and making them more likely perpetrators or victims of crime.
Counties are trying individually to confront the problems of mental illness in their jails. Volusia County, for example, recently hired Stewart-Marchman-Act Corp. to oversee treatment in its correctional facilities.
Still, it's not enough. The bill that failed to pass the Legislature this year would have sparked a comprehensive overhaul of Florida's criminal-justice system, setting up better community-diversion programs to keep people out of jail and creating transitions for people with mental illness who are about to be released from prison. But Gov. Charlie Crist shouldn't wait for the next legislative session -- many of the reforms the bill called for can be instituted by executive order instead, and the state Department of Children & Families can start planning others.
DCF Secretary George Sheldon says that the hundreds of millions of dollars Florida spends incarcerating people with mental illness is the "worst money we spend." It's time for a change, and Crist can help to bring it about.
Published in the Daytona News-Journal on June 7, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
A New Jail for Sarasota County?
There's been lots of jail talk these days in Sarasota County; The current jail is over capacity. Now some local leaders are trying to find the money and a place for a new one. But not everyone is on board.
From Fruitville Road to Sumter Boulevard...even Buchan Airport in Englewood. Those are just a few of the 15 or so sites submitted and being discussed by a local committee, rating possible new jail sites. "We are moving geographically around the county," says Criminal Justice Policy Holder for the county Wayne Applebee.
The group meets every other week. First criteria is government-owned land or land submitted by property owners. 30 acres are wanted. Then there is the whole location thing. "The access, the ownership, development and construction costs, environmental impacts, costs going into the future by where its location is."
Thursday, Sarasota County and city commissioners were briefed on the latest. While the whole county is being explored, it seems north county might not be the best option. "We are probably looking mid-county or south county...the North Port area," says Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta. Some North Port commissioners have said they're not opposed to the jail there.
One location many have suggested is in mid-county, off Knight's Trail, right next to the dump. It's centrally located with plenty of land. However, there was already an attempt to put a jail near there in the past, says Barbetta. "It was probably the largest planning commission ever. Over 600 people showed up when the jail was proposed. It was at least nine or ten years ago...vehement opposition."
But also Barbetta says he's not sure he wants to spend the estimated $60 million to dump inmates anywhere. "Is something wrong with our system that we keep building these monstrosity-sized jails? Is the problem deeper and is it more social service related?"
The county is also looking for land for a community corrections center. That's different than the jail. "We are in need of a smaller community corrections facility for light to medium security; Somewhere in the county, but we don't want to impact the neighborhoods."
Future site selections that might not be popular when it turns out to be in your back yard. "It's a tough problem for all communities. I just think if we put money in bricks and mortar it's not really the solution."
The current plan calls for enough room to house nearly 1,000 more inmates by the year 2035 in Sarasota County. The group searching for sites says they would like to have their top picks by the fall.
You can go to the site rating meeting for yourself. They are every other Wednesday at the Sandra Sims Terry Community Center in Laurel. The next meeting is June 17th.
As Reported by ABC Channel 7
From Fruitville Road to Sumter Boulevard...even Buchan Airport in Englewood. Those are just a few of the 15 or so sites submitted and being discussed by a local committee, rating possible new jail sites. "We are moving geographically around the county," says Criminal Justice Policy Holder for the county Wayne Applebee.
The group meets every other week. First criteria is government-owned land or land submitted by property owners. 30 acres are wanted. Then there is the whole location thing. "The access, the ownership, development and construction costs, environmental impacts, costs going into the future by where its location is."
Thursday, Sarasota County and city commissioners were briefed on the latest. While the whole county is being explored, it seems north county might not be the best option. "We are probably looking mid-county or south county...the North Port area," says Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta. Some North Port commissioners have said they're not opposed to the jail there.
One location many have suggested is in mid-county, off Knight's Trail, right next to the dump. It's centrally located with plenty of land. However, there was already an attempt to put a jail near there in the past, says Barbetta. "It was probably the largest planning commission ever. Over 600 people showed up when the jail was proposed. It was at least nine or ten years ago...vehement opposition."
But also Barbetta says he's not sure he wants to spend the estimated $60 million to dump inmates anywhere. "Is something wrong with our system that we keep building these monstrosity-sized jails? Is the problem deeper and is it more social service related?"
The county is also looking for land for a community corrections center. That's different than the jail. "We are in need of a smaller community corrections facility for light to medium security; Somewhere in the county, but we don't want to impact the neighborhoods."
Future site selections that might not be popular when it turns out to be in your back yard. "It's a tough problem for all communities. I just think if we put money in bricks and mortar it's not really the solution."
The current plan calls for enough room to house nearly 1,000 more inmates by the year 2035 in Sarasota County. The group searching for sites says they would like to have their top picks by the fall.
You can go to the site rating meeting for yourself. They are every other Wednesday at the Sandra Sims Terry Community Center in Laurel. The next meeting is June 17th.
As Reported by ABC Channel 7
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Restore Your Civil Rights
Do you know someone who has lost their civil rights, including their right to vote, due to a conviction for a felony? The Sarasota branches of the NAACP and ACLU are sponsoring a restoration of rights workshop at the Selby Goodwill at 1732 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Way, from 10 a.m -3:00 p.m. on Saturday June 13. Please help me get the word out.
OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.
OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.
Death Penalty Consequences:
There are many ways to make the case for abolishing the death penalty in Florida.
First, consider the extra $50 million that the state spends each year on death-penalty prosecutions and appeals.
Then look at the deep flaws that the American Bar Association found with Florida's system of capital punishment -- and recognize that those legal inequities haven't been addressed in the three years since the Bar released its review.
Finally, consider the haunting probability that the state has executed innocent people -- mistakes it can never correct.
The last argument is the one that torments former Florida State Penitentiary warden Ron McAndrew, whose duties included participating in the executions (by electrocution) of three men during his tenure at the prison. In an opinion piece written for the Orlando Sentinel's online edition, McAndrew describes a gradual change of heart that culminated in a face-to-face meeting with Juan Melendez, a man who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death row before being proved innocent of a 1983 murder.
McAndrew isn't the only one to express doubts. And Melendez is not the only man to walk free: Florida leads the nation in death-row exonerations. Since 1973, 22 death-row inmates have had their convictions definitively overturned. Two other cases bring Florida's "official" roster of wrongful death sentences to 24: Frank Lee Smith was proven innocent by DNA but died in prison before his conviction could be overturned, and Sonia Jacobs walked free from death row after the case against her fell apart -- though she accepted a plea bargain, her murder conviction was dismissed.
Death-penalty proponents claim the exonerations as proof that "the system works." In actuality, they prove the opposite. Many of Florida's exonerations were only obtained after lengthy defense fights to obtain and test DNA evidence that proved someone else was guilty of a particular crime. But the first DNA exoneration didn't happen until 1993 -- and even after the technology became widely accepted, prosecutors fought hard (and often successfully) to keep DNA evidence from being tested in a contested conviction. In many cases of disputed convictions, DNA evidence either didn't exist, or has disappeared or degraded. And the system is currently set up to protect convictions, requiring extraordinary proof to even request DNA tests. It's likely that Florida has executed several innocent people, including Jesse Tafero, Jacobs' co-defendant, who was convicted on the same unreliable evidence used in her initial conviction.
The American Bar Association called for the state to create a commission to investigate potential wrongful convictions, and a separate commission that would study how Florida came to lead the nation in death-row mistakes. Thus far, lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist have ignored both recommendations, along with other common-sense suggestions that would force more justice on the state's death-penalty machine.
But there's one argument they might not be able to shove aside so easily. The state could save a considerable sum -- a reliable estimate suggests it's more than $50 million a year -- by converting every sentence on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
That financial argument is swaying states away from capital punishment in a way that the possibility of miscarried justice never did. New York, New Mexico and New Jersey have rejected the death penalty in the last two years, citing costs. Last week, the Connecticut legislature did the same, though that bill faces a threatened veto. Maryland, Illinois and Kansas have all considered legislation that would eliminate or greatly reduce death-penalty prosecutions.
If Florida leaders won't kill the death penalty because it is wrong, they should accept that it costs too much. If they weigh that cost with a dollar sign -- rather than the moral burden of taking lives through a flawed, unjust and fallible system -- it should still tip the balance in favor of death-penalty abolition.
An editorial published by the Daytona Beach News Journal on May 28, 2009
First, consider the extra $50 million that the state spends each year on death-penalty prosecutions and appeals.
Then look at the deep flaws that the American Bar Association found with Florida's system of capital punishment -- and recognize that those legal inequities haven't been addressed in the three years since the Bar released its review.
Finally, consider the haunting probability that the state has executed innocent people -- mistakes it can never correct.
The last argument is the one that torments former Florida State Penitentiary warden Ron McAndrew, whose duties included participating in the executions (by electrocution) of three men during his tenure at the prison. In an opinion piece written for the Orlando Sentinel's online edition, McAndrew describes a gradual change of heart that culminated in a face-to-face meeting with Juan Melendez, a man who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death row before being proved innocent of a 1983 murder.
McAndrew isn't the only one to express doubts. And Melendez is not the only man to walk free: Florida leads the nation in death-row exonerations. Since 1973, 22 death-row inmates have had their convictions definitively overturned. Two other cases bring Florida's "official" roster of wrongful death sentences to 24: Frank Lee Smith was proven innocent by DNA but died in prison before his conviction could be overturned, and Sonia Jacobs walked free from death row after the case against her fell apart -- though she accepted a plea bargain, her murder conviction was dismissed.
Death-penalty proponents claim the exonerations as proof that "the system works." In actuality, they prove the opposite. Many of Florida's exonerations were only obtained after lengthy defense fights to obtain and test DNA evidence that proved someone else was guilty of a particular crime. But the first DNA exoneration didn't happen until 1993 -- and even after the technology became widely accepted, prosecutors fought hard (and often successfully) to keep DNA evidence from being tested in a contested conviction. In many cases of disputed convictions, DNA evidence either didn't exist, or has disappeared or degraded. And the system is currently set up to protect convictions, requiring extraordinary proof to even request DNA tests. It's likely that Florida has executed several innocent people, including Jesse Tafero, Jacobs' co-defendant, who was convicted on the same unreliable evidence used in her initial conviction.
The American Bar Association called for the state to create a commission to investigate potential wrongful convictions, and a separate commission that would study how Florida came to lead the nation in death-row mistakes. Thus far, lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist have ignored both recommendations, along with other common-sense suggestions that would force more justice on the state's death-penalty machine.
But there's one argument they might not be able to shove aside so easily. The state could save a considerable sum -- a reliable estimate suggests it's more than $50 million a year -- by converting every sentence on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
That financial argument is swaying states away from capital punishment in a way that the possibility of miscarried justice never did. New York, New Mexico and New Jersey have rejected the death penalty in the last two years, citing costs. Last week, the Connecticut legislature did the same, though that bill faces a threatened veto. Maryland, Illinois and Kansas have all considered legislation that would eliminate or greatly reduce death-penalty prosecutions.
If Florida leaders won't kill the death penalty because it is wrong, they should accept that it costs too much. If they weigh that cost with a dollar sign -- rather than the moral burden of taking lives through a flawed, unjust and fallible system -- it should still tip the balance in favor of death-penalty abolition.
An editorial published by the Daytona Beach News Journal on May 28, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Florida must abolish flawed death penalty:
"Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment." Those were the last words of John Spenkelink, executed 30 years ago today in Starke for murdering traveling companion Joseph Szymankiewicz. Spenkelink was the first person executed in the state, the second nationwide after a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinstated capital punishment.
As a former Florida prison warden who carried out three electric-chair executions and shadowed five lethal-injection executions in Texas, I know that Spenkelink was correct: Most death-row inmates cannot afford experienced attorneys.
Once, I firmly supported capital punishment. Part of my job was to help strap prisoners into the electric chair, and signal the hooded executioner to administer the current. But each execution lessened my support. In Texas, I thought the more "civilized" executions by lethal injection would remove my repugnance. They didn't.
My change of heart was gradual and painful. At night I would awaken to visions of executed inmates sitting on the edge of my bed.
I began studying the reasons behind executions over the centuries. I was appalled to think I had been part of this ceremonial barbaric act committed to appease chest-pounding politicians attempting to appear "tough on crime."
An experience I had this January underscored my transformation. I was a speaker at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's conference in Pennsylvania. In the conference venue one day, a man turned to me as I approached. Shockingly, the last time I saw this gentle soul was inside a Florida death-row prison cell; I was his warden.
We embraced. It was Juan Melendez, an exoneree who had spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he didn't commit. As his warden, I could have taken this innocent man from his cell into the death chamber.
Melendez's case is typical for many on death row. Substandard representation and prosecutorial misconduct are among the reasons for exonerations over the years — 133 men and women since 1973. Three men were exonerated this year. Florida leads the nation in exonerations since 1973 with 22.
Race is a factor in death sentences. According to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund report "Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2009," 41.58 percent of death-row inmates nationally are African-American, although they comprise 13.5 percent of the U.S. The percentage is similar in Florida.
Since the Spenkelink execution, research revealed how capital punishment drains states' financial resources that could otherwise fund better law enforcement, crime-prevention programs, counseling and other support for murder victims' families, and reinvestigations of unsolved homicides. The cost issue figured prominently in several states' repeal bills this year, including New Mexico's, which abolished capital punishment in March. Florida executed 67 death-row inmates between 1976 and 2008 at approximately $24 million per execution.
In 30 years, Americans began realizing that capital punishment doesn't deter homicides. Florida, with 402 death-row inmates — the second-largest death-row-inmate population nationally after California's — has one of the highest murder rates nationally. The rate is 6.6 per 100,000 people, more than the average national murder rate of 5.5 people per capita and higher than the murder rate in states without the death penalty, 3.1 people per capita.
The lesson that I, and all of us, should learn post-Spenkelink is that capital punishment does not ensure public safety, and has no safeguards against wrongful executions. The 35 death-penalty states, Florida included, should abolish it, replace it with life without parole, and apply the savings where they would do the most good — helping homicide victims' survivors and funding effective law enforcement that protects our communities.
By Ron McAndrew, who spent 25 years in Florida corrections before retiring, working his way up from an entry-level corrections officer to a warden in the Florida State Penitentiary. He also served as the interim director of the Orange County jail in Orlando.
Published in the Orlando Sentinel on May 24, 2009
As a former Florida prison warden who carried out three electric-chair executions and shadowed five lethal-injection executions in Texas, I know that Spenkelink was correct: Most death-row inmates cannot afford experienced attorneys.
Once, I firmly supported capital punishment. Part of my job was to help strap prisoners into the electric chair, and signal the hooded executioner to administer the current. But each execution lessened my support. In Texas, I thought the more "civilized" executions by lethal injection would remove my repugnance. They didn't.
My change of heart was gradual and painful. At night I would awaken to visions of executed inmates sitting on the edge of my bed.
I began studying the reasons behind executions over the centuries. I was appalled to think I had been part of this ceremonial barbaric act committed to appease chest-pounding politicians attempting to appear "tough on crime."
An experience I had this January underscored my transformation. I was a speaker at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's conference in Pennsylvania. In the conference venue one day, a man turned to me as I approached. Shockingly, the last time I saw this gentle soul was inside a Florida death-row prison cell; I was his warden.
We embraced. It was Juan Melendez, an exoneree who had spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he didn't commit. As his warden, I could have taken this innocent man from his cell into the death chamber.
Melendez's case is typical for many on death row. Substandard representation and prosecutorial misconduct are among the reasons for exonerations over the years — 133 men and women since 1973. Three men were exonerated this year. Florida leads the nation in exonerations since 1973 with 22.
Race is a factor in death sentences. According to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund report "Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2009," 41.58 percent of death-row inmates nationally are African-American, although they comprise 13.5 percent of the U.S. The percentage is similar in Florida.
Since the Spenkelink execution, research revealed how capital punishment drains states' financial resources that could otherwise fund better law enforcement, crime-prevention programs, counseling and other support for murder victims' families, and reinvestigations of unsolved homicides. The cost issue figured prominently in several states' repeal bills this year, including New Mexico's, which abolished capital punishment in March. Florida executed 67 death-row inmates between 1976 and 2008 at approximately $24 million per execution.
In 30 years, Americans began realizing that capital punishment doesn't deter homicides. Florida, with 402 death-row inmates — the second-largest death-row-inmate population nationally after California's — has one of the highest murder rates nationally. The rate is 6.6 per 100,000 people, more than the average national murder rate of 5.5 people per capita and higher than the murder rate in states without the death penalty, 3.1 people per capita.
The lesson that I, and all of us, should learn post-Spenkelink is that capital punishment does not ensure public safety, and has no safeguards against wrongful executions. The 35 death-penalty states, Florida included, should abolish it, replace it with life without parole, and apply the savings where they would do the most good — helping homicide victims' survivors and funding effective law enforcement that protects our communities.
By Ron McAndrew, who spent 25 years in Florida corrections before retiring, working his way up from an entry-level corrections officer to a warden in the Florida State Penitentiary. He also served as the interim director of the Orange County jail in Orlando.
Published in the Orlando Sentinel on May 24, 2009
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Restore Your Civil Rights
Do you know someone who has lost their civil rights, including their right to vote, due to a conviction for a felony? The Sarasota branches of the NAACP and ACLU are sponsoring a restoration of rights workshop at the Selby Goodwill at 1732 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Way, from 10 a.m -3:00 p.m. on Saturday June 13. Please help me get the word out.
OFFERING:
√ Assistance in preparing documents for re‐enfranchisement (your right to vote).
√ A road map for restoring and protecting your civil rights.
√ Direction to employment and training resources in your community.
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, 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
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Helping Prisoners Re-enter Society
Most re-entry efforts focus on prison inmates, yet about nine million people cycle annually through our country’s jails. This is roughly 10 times the number who leave prisons.
Jail inmates generally return to their communities after short incarcerations, bringing with them a higher incidence of communicable diseases and mental health conditions than exists in the general population.
Left untreated, these problems add to society’s health burden, emergency room costs and municipal budgets. They also increase the likelihood that inmates will commit new offenses and return to jail again, at public expense.
Jails are required to provide health care to inmates. This mandate creates an opportunity to support re-entry efforts. By linking inmates with community-based doctors, whom they can continue seeing after release, jails can stabilize inmates’ health and help improve the health and safety of the community.
The Second Chance Act is a welcome step. We can do more to support jail inmates by remembering that they are part of our communities and by providing them with community-based health care during incarceration.
Keith Barton
South Londonderry, Vt., May 20, 2008
The writer, a physician, is medical director of Community Oriented Correctional Health Services in Oakland, Calif.
To the Editor:
Financing of the Second Chance Act will support useful services to support the transition from prison to community. But these services must also be accompanied by removal of conflicting and counterproductive policies that stand in the way of community reintegration.
For example, while New York State allocated $3.1 million to assist re-entry efforts this year, the same budget projects an estimated $40 million in revenues from fees and surcharges imposed on people convicted of crimes, 80 percent of whom are indigent.
This crushing debt will leave releasees unable to acquire employment and housing, reverting to a life of crime that jeopardizes the community safety.
If New York is truly committed to public safety and reintegration, it must stop using financial penalties that undermine the intent of legislation like the Second Chance Act.
Marsha Weissman
Executive Director
Center for Community Alternatives
New York, May 22, 2008
Letters to the Editor of the New York Times published May 27, 2008
Jail inmates generally return to their communities after short incarcerations, bringing with them a higher incidence of communicable diseases and mental health conditions than exists in the general population.
Left untreated, these problems add to society’s health burden, emergency room costs and municipal budgets. They also increase the likelihood that inmates will commit new offenses and return to jail again, at public expense.
Jails are required to provide health care to inmates. This mandate creates an opportunity to support re-entry efforts. By linking inmates with community-based doctors, whom they can continue seeing after release, jails can stabilize inmates’ health and help improve the health and safety of the community.
The Second Chance Act is a welcome step. We can do more to support jail inmates by remembering that they are part of our communities and by providing them with community-based health care during incarceration.
Keith Barton
South Londonderry, Vt., May 20, 2008
The writer, a physician, is medical director of Community Oriented Correctional Health Services in Oakland, Calif.
To the Editor:
Financing of the Second Chance Act will support useful services to support the transition from prison to community. But these services must also be accompanied by removal of conflicting and counterproductive policies that stand in the way of community reintegration.
For example, while New York State allocated $3.1 million to assist re-entry efforts this year, the same budget projects an estimated $40 million in revenues from fees and surcharges imposed on people convicted of crimes, 80 percent of whom are indigent.
This crushing debt will leave releasees unable to acquire employment and housing, reverting to a life of crime that jeopardizes the community safety.
If New York is truly committed to public safety and reintegration, it must stop using financial penalties that undermine the intent of legislation like the Second Chance Act.
Marsha Weissman
Executive Director
Center for Community Alternatives
New York, May 22, 2008
Letters to the Editor of the New York Times published May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Minnesota becomes second state to offer treatment to veterans who commit crimes
Last week, Minnesota became the second state in the nation to pass a sentence-mitigation bill for veterans facing criminal prosecution who suffer from combat related mental health disorders. Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the bill into law the evening of May 12, meaning courts will now be allowed to consider treatment over incarceration. California passed a similar law in 2007.
The legislation, tucked into the Reentry Omnibus Bill, requires the courts to inquire whether a defendant facing criminal proceedings is a veteran. By establishing military service, attorneys can then order a psychological evaluation. If a veteran is found to be suffering from a combat related mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder, the courts will work with the Department of Veterans Affairs so that treatment can be considered as part of the sentencing.
"I really do believe the judges will consider this, and use it as a condition of probation," says Brockton Hunter, a veteran and current legislative chair of the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Military veterans have a heck of a time asking for help. They're proud and they're trained to believe that they can handle anything."
Instead of seeking therapy, many veterans suffering from mental disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder turn to alcohol and drugs to deal with their problems, says Hunter, who authored the bill with the help of local veteran activist Guy Gambill.
According to a recent RAND report, one in five veterans suffers from psychological problems and many are not getting adequate care. The guerilla insurgency in Iraq and the increased stress of serving multiple tours has led to higher incidents of mental disorders.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," says Hunter. "We need to prepare for the rest as they continue to come home."
In the last three years, Hunter estimates he's defended at least 25 veterans whose military service can be linked to their crime, including Shoreview resident Tony Klecker, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who is now in jail for killing a 16-year-old while driving drunk in South St. Paul.
"This is not the kind of disease that is just going to go away," says Hunter. "Without proper treatment and care this stuff can linger for decades.... Until we get them help, they will continue to present the same problem, the same danger to public safety."
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that veterans accounted for 13 percent of state prisoners and 12 percent of jail inmates, with some 225,700 veterans of the U.S. Military incarcerated.
In 2006, 25 percent of Minnesota's male homeless population were veterans, more than half of them deemed to have a serious mental illness.
"The memories of the Vietnam era haunt us all," says state Sen. Linda Higgins-DFL, who was instrumental in the bill's passing. "Everyone my age can remember at least one veteran of that war who came back and was never quite right again. We can't repeat that."
Besides the personal and often devastating social repercussions untreated mental illness can have on soldiers and their families, the RAND report also warns of the economic costs to society associated with veterans suffering from untreated mental health disorders. "Billions of dollars" of government spending can be avoided with appropriate treatment, its authors argued.
"It makes a lot more sense to give them a break now, rather than just throwing them in the slammer and dealing with it on the other end," says Gambill, a former homeless veteran himself. "I can tell you it would have made all the difference in the world for many men I know who are now quite lost or dead."
Gambill is hoping to get a national version of the bill passed by Congress. He has spent the last few weeks in Washington, D.C., lobbying Sen. Amy Klobuchar's and Congressman Keith Ellison's offices for a congressional resolution drawing attention to the nexus between veterans, mental health, and crime.
"We are creating a permanent underclass here in the United States, bagged, tagged, and set on the shelf to stumble along until the lights go out," he wrote in an email from D.C. "For many, this [legislation] is a welcome respite from the piecemeal, haphazard existence we are forced to live."
By Beth Walton Minneapolis-St. Paul City Pages
The legislation, tucked into the Reentry Omnibus Bill, requires the courts to inquire whether a defendant facing criminal proceedings is a veteran. By establishing military service, attorneys can then order a psychological evaluation. If a veteran is found to be suffering from a combat related mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder, the courts will work with the Department of Veterans Affairs so that treatment can be considered as part of the sentencing.
"I really do believe the judges will consider this, and use it as a condition of probation," says Brockton Hunter, a veteran and current legislative chair of the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Military veterans have a heck of a time asking for help. They're proud and they're trained to believe that they can handle anything."
Instead of seeking therapy, many veterans suffering from mental disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder turn to alcohol and drugs to deal with their problems, says Hunter, who authored the bill with the help of local veteran activist Guy Gambill.
According to a recent RAND report, one in five veterans suffers from psychological problems and many are not getting adequate care. The guerilla insurgency in Iraq and the increased stress of serving multiple tours has led to higher incidents of mental disorders.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," says Hunter. "We need to prepare for the rest as they continue to come home."
In the last three years, Hunter estimates he's defended at least 25 veterans whose military service can be linked to their crime, including Shoreview resident Tony Klecker, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who is now in jail for killing a 16-year-old while driving drunk in South St. Paul.
"This is not the kind of disease that is just going to go away," says Hunter. "Without proper treatment and care this stuff can linger for decades.... Until we get them help, they will continue to present the same problem, the same danger to public safety."
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that veterans accounted for 13 percent of state prisoners and 12 percent of jail inmates, with some 225,700 veterans of the U.S. Military incarcerated.
In 2006, 25 percent of Minnesota's male homeless population were veterans, more than half of them deemed to have a serious mental illness.
"The memories of the Vietnam era haunt us all," says state Sen. Linda Higgins-DFL, who was instrumental in the bill's passing. "Everyone my age can remember at least one veteran of that war who came back and was never quite right again. We can't repeat that."
Besides the personal and often devastating social repercussions untreated mental illness can have on soldiers and their families, the RAND report also warns of the economic costs to society associated with veterans suffering from untreated mental health disorders. "Billions of dollars" of government spending can be avoided with appropriate treatment, its authors argued.
"It makes a lot more sense to give them a break now, rather than just throwing them in the slammer and dealing with it on the other end," says Gambill, a former homeless veteran himself. "I can tell you it would have made all the difference in the world for many men I know who are now quite lost or dead."
Gambill is hoping to get a national version of the bill passed by Congress. He has spent the last few weeks in Washington, D.C., lobbying Sen. Amy Klobuchar's and Congressman Keith Ellison's offices for a congressional resolution drawing attention to the nexus between veterans, mental health, and crime.
"We are creating a permanent underclass here in the United States, bagged, tagged, and set on the shelf to stumble along until the lights go out," he wrote in an email from D.C. "For many, this [legislation] is a welcome respite from the piecemeal, haphazard existence we are forced to live."
By Beth Walton Minneapolis-St. Paul City Pages
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Lean times all around, but Florida prisons are booming
Crime might not pay, but we keep paying for criminals.
Especially for offenders in the never-ending War on Drugs.
In a lean budget year that will put the crimp on public schools, universities and health care, the state's prison system keeps pumping iron. The upcoming budget includes $309 million to build three prisons. That's in addition to the $2.5 billion the Department of Corrections gets for annual operating expenses.
The numbers are startling. Five years ago, Florida's prison population was 77,316. By August, the Department of Corrections expects the figure to top 100,000, an increase of 28 percent from 2003.
That far outpaces the general population growth.
It would be one thing if other big states have had similar prison growth. But the two states with larger prison populations, Texas and California, had shrinkage last year. So did New York.
A March report by the Pew Center on the States found that 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated, one out of every 99 adults, the highest rate among industrialized nations. The report had a subsection on Florida titled "A Case Study in Growth."
With almost 100,000 in prisons and another 64,000 locked up in county jails, Florida's adult incarceration rate is even higher. Florida has an adult population just under 14 million.
"Drug policies over the last 20 years account for the growth more than anything," said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal-justice research organization that advocates alternatives to incarceration.
At 20.7 percent, drug offenders make up the biggest segment of the state prison population, according to the state. Of the 3,307 people sent to prison from Broward last year, 537 (16.2 percent) were for cocaine possession, according to the Broward State Attorney's Office.
Broward sent more people to prison last year than every county except Hillsborough (4,000).
Drop by the Broward County Courthouse on any given day and you'll see a steady stream of defendants put away for nonviolent drug crimes, including possession of cocaine, residue-laden crack pipes and painkillers without prescriptions.
Jeff Marcus, chief of the felony division for Broward State Attorney Mike Satz, said all drug offenders sent to prison have prior felony convictions and first-timers are given the chance to enter treatment programs in drug court or jail.
He said many drug offenders sent to prison also have violent felonies, theft or burglary on their rap sheets.
"These are people who have to be taken off the streets," Marcus said.
Florida's prison population has also grown because of stricter policies. Starting in 1995, criminals had to serve 85 percent of their sentences. And there's been zero tolerance for parole violations.
"Crime in Florida has dropped substantially during this period," The Pew report said, "but it has fallen as much or more in some states that have not grown their prison systems, or even shrunk them, such as New York."
"It's a huge business," said Fort Lauderdale defense attorney Bill Gelin, whose JAABlog Web site has been critical of strict drug prosecutions in Broward. "It's a big employer, and there are powerful interests behind it."
It's also easy politics.
Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein calls the drug war "an abysmal failure" and said it's time Satz shows "better discretion" in certain drug cases. "The easiest arrest for police to make is for drug possession," he said.
Florida spends almost $20,000 a year on each prisoner. Mauer said changing the approach to the drug war to de-emphasize prisons makes long-term economic sense, but it won't be easy.
"It's like trying to close a military base," Mauer said.
"These prisons are mainly in rural areas, and a whole economy sprouts around them."
There's got to be a better way.
by Michael Mayo South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com News Columnist
posted May 13, 2008
Especially for offenders in the never-ending War on Drugs.
In a lean budget year that will put the crimp on public schools, universities and health care, the state's prison system keeps pumping iron. The upcoming budget includes $309 million to build three prisons. That's in addition to the $2.5 billion the Department of Corrections gets for annual operating expenses.
The numbers are startling. Five years ago, Florida's prison population was 77,316. By August, the Department of Corrections expects the figure to top 100,000, an increase of 28 percent from 2003.
That far outpaces the general population growth.
It would be one thing if other big states have had similar prison growth. But the two states with larger prison populations, Texas and California, had shrinkage last year. So did New York.
A March report by the Pew Center on the States found that 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated, one out of every 99 adults, the highest rate among industrialized nations. The report had a subsection on Florida titled "A Case Study in Growth."
With almost 100,000 in prisons and another 64,000 locked up in county jails, Florida's adult incarceration rate is even higher. Florida has an adult population just under 14 million.
"Drug policies over the last 20 years account for the growth more than anything," said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal-justice research organization that advocates alternatives to incarceration.
At 20.7 percent, drug offenders make up the biggest segment of the state prison population, according to the state. Of the 3,307 people sent to prison from Broward last year, 537 (16.2 percent) were for cocaine possession, according to the Broward State Attorney's Office.
Broward sent more people to prison last year than every county except Hillsborough (4,000).
Drop by the Broward County Courthouse on any given day and you'll see a steady stream of defendants put away for nonviolent drug crimes, including possession of cocaine, residue-laden crack pipes and painkillers without prescriptions.
Jeff Marcus, chief of the felony division for Broward State Attorney Mike Satz, said all drug offenders sent to prison have prior felony convictions and first-timers are given the chance to enter treatment programs in drug court or jail.
He said many drug offenders sent to prison also have violent felonies, theft or burglary on their rap sheets.
"These are people who have to be taken off the streets," Marcus said.
Florida's prison population has also grown because of stricter policies. Starting in 1995, criminals had to serve 85 percent of their sentences. And there's been zero tolerance for parole violations.
"Crime in Florida has dropped substantially during this period," The Pew report said, "but it has fallen as much or more in some states that have not grown their prison systems, or even shrunk them, such as New York."
"It's a huge business," said Fort Lauderdale defense attorney Bill Gelin, whose JAABlog Web site has been critical of strict drug prosecutions in Broward. "It's a big employer, and there are powerful interests behind it."
It's also easy politics.
Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein calls the drug war "an abysmal failure" and said it's time Satz shows "better discretion" in certain drug cases. "The easiest arrest for police to make is for drug possession," he said.
Florida spends almost $20,000 a year on each prisoner. Mauer said changing the approach to the drug war to de-emphasize prisons makes long-term economic sense, but it won't be easy.
"It's like trying to close a military base," Mauer said.
"These prisons are mainly in rural areas, and a whole economy sprouts around them."
There's got to be a better way.
by Michael Mayo South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com News Columnist
posted May 13, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
Qualifying concludes for local judicial races
Qualifying for circuit court judicial races concluded at noon today. The following Circuit Court Judges for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, earned new six year terms without drawing any opposition:
Charles Roberts
Rick DeFuria
Andrew Owens
Robert McDonald
Peter Dubensky
Marc Gilner
Deno Economou
Edward Nicholas
Judge Durand Adams decided not to run for another term. Two candidates qualified to run for his position. The election will be held Tuesday, August 26, 2008. The two candidates are:
Connie Medros-Jacobs
Gilbert Smith Jr.
The State Attorney for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit is Earl Moreland. Nobody qualified to run against Mr. Moreland and so he has earned another four year term.
The Public Defender for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit is Elliott Metcalfe. First elected in 1976, and serving thereafter without opposition, Mr. Metcalfe decided not to seek another term in office. On August 26, 2008, two candidates will face-off in the Republican primary. They are:
Larry Eger
Ron Filipkowski
The winner of the Republican primary will then face the Democratic candidate in the November 4th general election. That candidate is:
Adam Tebrugge
Charles Roberts
Rick DeFuria
Andrew Owens
Robert McDonald
Peter Dubensky
Marc Gilner
Deno Economou
Edward Nicholas
Judge Durand Adams decided not to run for another term. Two candidates qualified to run for his position. The election will be held Tuesday, August 26, 2008. The two candidates are:
Connie Medros-Jacobs
Gilbert Smith Jr.
The State Attorney for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit is Earl Moreland. Nobody qualified to run against Mr. Moreland and so he has earned another four year term.
The Public Defender for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit is Elliott Metcalfe. First elected in 1976, and serving thereafter without opposition, Mr. Metcalfe decided not to seek another term in office. On August 26, 2008, two candidates will face-off in the Republican primary. They are:
Larry Eger
Ron Filipkowski
The winner of the Republican primary will then face the Democratic candidate in the November 4th general election. That candidate is:
Adam Tebrugge
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)