IN 2004, STEVEN ALM, a state trial judge in Hawaii, was frustrated with the cases on his docket. Nearly half of the people appearing before him were convicted offenders with drug problems who had been sentenced to probation rather than prison and then repeatedly violated the terms of that probation by missing appointments or testing positive for drugs. Whether out of neglect or leniency, probation officers would tend to overlook a probationer’s first 5 or 10 violations, giving the offender the impression that he could ignore the rules. But eventually, the officers would get fed up and recommend that Alm revoke probation and send the offender to jail to serve out his sentence. That struck Alm as too harsh, but the alternative — winking at probation violations — struck him as too soft. “I thought, This is crazy, this is a crazy way to change people’s behavior,” he told me recently.
So Alm decided to try something different. He reasoned that if the offenders knew that a probation violation would lead immediately to some certain punishment, they might shape up. “I thought, What did I do when my son was young?” he recalled. “If he misbehaved, I talked to him and warned him, and if he disregarded the warning, I gave him some kind of consequence right away.” Working with U.S. marshals and local police, Alm arranged for a new procedure: if offenders tested positive for drugs or missed an appointment, they would be arrested within hours and most would have a hearing within 72 hours. Those who were found to have violated probation would be quickly sentenced to a short jail term proportionate to the severity of the violation — typically a few days.
Alm mentioned his plan to the public defender, who suggested that it was only fair to warn probationers that the rules were going to be strictly enforced for the first time. Alm agreed, and on Oct. 1, 2004, he held a hearing for 18 sex offenders, followed by another one for 16 drug offenders. Brandishing a laminated “Wanted” poster, he told them: “I can guarantee that everyone in this courtroom wants you to succeed on probation, but you have not been cutting it. From now on, you’re going to follow all the rules of probation, and if you don’t, you’re going to be arrested on the spot and spend some time in jail right away.” He called the program HOPE, for Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation With Enforcement, and prepared himself for a flood of violation hearings.
But they never materialized. There were only three hearings in the first week, two in the second week and none in the third. The HOPE program was so successful that it inspired scholars to evaluate its methods. Within a six-month period, the rate of positive drug tests fell by 93 percent for HOPE probationers, compared with a fall of 14 percent for probationers in a comparison group.
Alm had stumbled onto an effective strategy for keeping people out of prison, one that puts a fresh twist on some venerable ideas about deterrence. Classical deterrence theory has long held that the threat of a mild punishment imposed reliably and immediately has a much greater deterrent effect than the threat of a severe punishment that is delayed and uncertain. Recent work in behavioral economics has helped to explain this phenomenon: people are more sensitive to the immediate than the slightly deferred future and focus more on how likely an outcome is than how bad it is. In the course of implementing HOPE, Alm discovered another reason why the strategy works: people are most likely to obey the law when they’re subject to punishments they perceive as legitimate, fair and consistent, rather than arbitrary and capricious. “When the system isn’t consistent and predictable, when people are punished randomly, they think, My probation officer doesn’t like me, or, Someone’s prejudiced against me,” Alm told me, “rather than seeing that everyone who breaks a rule is treated equally, in precisely the same way.”
Judge Alm’s story is an example of a new approach to keeping people out of prison that is being championed by some of the most innovative scholars studying deterrence today. At its core, the approach focuses on establishing the legitimacy of the criminal-justice system in the eyes of those who have run afoul of it or are likely to. Promising less crime and less punishment, this approach includes elements that should appeal to liberals (it doesn’t rely on draconian prison sentences) and to conservatives (it stresses individual choice and moral accountability). But at a time when the size of the U.S. prison population is increasingly seen as unsustainable for both budgetary and moral reasons — the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population and nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population — the fact that this approach seems to work may be its biggest draw.
The HOPE program, if widely adopted as a model for probation and parole reform, could make a surprisingly large contribution to reducing the prison population. In many states, the majority of prison admissions come not from arrests for new crimes, as you might think, but from probation and parole violations. Nationwide, roughly two-thirds of parolees fail to complete parole successfully. Todd Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, estimates that by eliminating imprisonment across the nation for technical parole violations, reducing the length of parole supervision and ratcheting back prison sentences to their 1988 levels, the United States could reduce its prison population by 50 percent.
Some in government are beginning to take notice. In November, invoking the HOPE program as a model, the Democratic congressman Adam Schiff of California and his Republican colleague Ted Poe of Texas introduced legislation in the House that would create federal grants for states to experiment with courts that deliver swift, predictable and moderate punishment for those who violate probation.
There also appears to be a national audience for a broader conversation about new ways to shrink the prison population. Last year, a three-judge panel in California ordered the overcrowded state prison system — the largest in the country, with more than 170,000 prisoners at its peak — to reduce the inmate population by tens of thousands of prisoners within two years in order to comply with constitutional standards for medical and mental health care. Facing a tightening budget crisis in September, California legislators added to the pressure by demanding a reduction in the prison budget of $1.2 billion. In the U.S. Senate, Jim Webb of Virginia is leading a crusade for prison reform, insisting that fewer jail terms for nonviolent offenders can make America safer and more humane, while also saving money. And in the Obama administration, Attorney General Eric Holder is questioning the value of relentlessly expanding prisons. In July, he declared that “high rates of incarceration have tremendous social costs” and “diminishing marginal returns.”
The most effective way to shrink the prison population, of course, is not just to reform probation and parole but also to deter groups of potential lawbreakers from committing crimes in the first place. If, in addition to bringing down the numbers of probation and parole revocations, police officers and judges could also address the core problems of drug arrests and street violence, the United States might even be said to have solved its notorious prison problem. Is such an ambitious goal possible? While it might sound too good to be true, the HOPE-style thinking about deterrence offers a promising road map for addressing all these challenges.
ALTHOUGH HE ACTED on his own, Judge Alm did not design the HOPE program without inspiration. In the mid-1990s, when he was a U.S. attorney in Hawaii, Alm heard a presentation by David M. Kennedy, who is considered the patron saint of the new thinking about deterrence. Kennedy, who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, spoke about Operation Ceasefire, a program he was designing to reduce youth violence in Boston. Along with his colleagues Anne M. Piehl and Anthony Braga, Kennedy worked with the head of the Youth Violence Strike Force, a division of the Boston Police Department. The police officer explained that while conventional deterrence hadn’t worked, he had begun to persuade gangs to behave by issuing a credible threat: namely, that when a gang attracted attention with notorious acts of violence, the entire gang — all of whose members likely had outstanding warrants or probation, parole or traffic violations — would be rounded up.
Kennedy recalls this today as a breakthrough moment in his thinking. Ever since the days of Cesare Beccaria, the 18th-century philosopher and death-penalty opponent, classical deterrence theorists had focused on credibly threatening individuals; Kennedy’s first innovation was to focus on increasing the legitimacy of law enforcement in the eyes of groups. “The legitimacy element has risen in my mind from being an important element of the strategy to the most important element,” Kennedy told me. Convinced that the best way to increase legitimacy was to enlist what he calls the “community’s moral voice,” Kennedy set out to deter the most dangerous young gang members by persuading their friends and neighbors to pressure them into obeying the law.
In May 1996, Kennedy, Piehl and Braga helped to design the first of what came to be known as “call-in” sessions, intended to put gangs on notice that they would face swift and certain punishments. Working with Kennedy, probation and parole officers ordered gang members to attend face-to-face meetings with the police. The gang members were given three warnings. First, they were told that if anyone in their group killed someone, the entire group would suffer consequences. Second, the gang members were told that if they want to escape from street life, they could get help and job training from social service agencies and churches. And finally, they heard from members of their community that violence was wrong and it had to stop. The results of the forums were striking and immediate. Within two years, youth violence in Boston fell by two-thirds and city homicide rates by about half.
Why was Operation Ceasefire so effective? One reason was that the warning hearings gave the gang members a sense of what to expect. Increasingly draconian sentences don’t always reduce crime, and sometimes increase it. (After increasing in the 1980s, crime fell by 25 percent in the 1990s, but states that put more people in jail had a smaller decline than states that imprisoned fewer.) In part, this is because many people actually don’t know the punishments they face.
In addition to offering knowledge, Operation Ceasefire provided certainty. The small numbers of gang members singled out meant they could trust that the police would be able to follow through on their threats. “If you can get people to behave by threatening them credibly, you’ll need less actual punishment than if you let them run wild and punish only occasionally,” says Mark A. R. Kleiman, author of the new book “When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment.” Kleiman, whom Alm consulted soon after initiating the HOPE program, became interested in swift, certain and moderate punishment when he was a colleague of Kennedy’s years before. Lastly, Operation Ceasefire gave gang members an incentive to obey the law by promising that they would get positive reinforcement from their families and neighbors for changing their behavior.
In all of this, Kennedy’s insights were supported by a variety of recent research suggesting that people are more likely to obey the law when they view law enforcement as fair and legitimate. Tom Tyler, a psychology professor at New York University, has found that compliance with court orders is highest for offenders who perceive that they have experienced a fair process. And in a recent book, “American Homicide,” the Ohio State University historian Randolph Roth argues that throughout American history, the homicide rate has decreased when people trust that the government is stable and unbiased and believe in the legitimacy of the officials who run it. Similarly, the legal scholar Paul Butler argues in his new book, “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” that widespread incarceration in the 1980s and ’90s undermined the legitimacy of law enforcement in the eyes of the affected communities by converting a prison term into something heroic rather than stigmatic.
After Operation Ceasefire, Kennedy turned his attention from gangs to open-air drug markets. He set out to change how the criminal-justice system was viewed from the perspective of the offenders and their communities — and how the offenders and their communities were viewed by the police. As Kennedy told me, “I saw law enforcement believing plausible but untrue things about the communities they police” — namely, that the communities were corrupt and didn’t care about the violence that was destroying them — “and the communities believing untrue things about the police” — namely, that the cops were part of a racist conspiracy to lock up black offenders while overlooking white ones.
To correct what he calls a “corrosive and tragic mistake,” Kennedy came up with the idea of a kind of truth-and-reconciliation commission in which offenders would talk to the police accompanied by the people they trusted the most: their mothers. In 2003, working with James Fealy, the police chief in High Point, N.C., Kennedy arranged some preliminary meetings. Although Fealy had been shocked to learn that the community thought he and his officers were almost as bad as the drug dealers, Fealy, in turn, surprised community members by declaring that no one in law enforcement thought the drug war could be won.
These meetings prepared the groundwork for the strategy that followed. After identifying 16 active drug dealers, Fealy arrested four and then prepared warrants for the other 12 that could be signed whenever the police chose. He then called in the other dealers, nine of whom arrived accompanied by their mothers and other “influentials” like grandmothers, and delivered the following message to them as a group: “You could be in jail tonight. We don’t want to do that, we want to help you succeed, but you are out of the drug business.” The mothers and grandmothers, seemingly impressed by the decision not to arrest, cheered on the police. In subsequent meetings, the “influentials” shouted down naysayers, including a conspiracymonger who accused the C.I.A. of having created the crack epidemic to oppress black people. The drug market in the area dried up.
IN ADDITION TO influencing Judge Alm’s probation reform, Kennedy’s efforts to rethink deterrence have also inspired one of the most powerful recent models for national parole reform, which comes from Tracey Meares, a law professor at Yale. (Unlike probation, which involves a sentence instead of prison, parole involves supervision after part of the prison sentence has been served.) In 2002, Meares, who was then a law professor at the University of Chicago, was asked by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, to analyze how best to address crime in the city. She concluded that they should begin on the West Side, in West Garfield Park and the surrounding area, where rates of murder and gun violence were more than four times the city average. Fitzgerald suggested that they might implement a version of Project Exile, a controversial program in Virginia that sought to deter gun violence by threatening federal prosecutions — and a five-year mandatory minimum sentence — for repeat offenders convicted of illegal gun possession. But Project Exile had experienced only mixed success: federal prosecutors could prosecute only a small proportion of the gun cases submitted by the Richmond police. The threat of a severe sentence was, in effect, something of a bluff.
Meares told Fitzgerald that threats of zero tolerance wouldn’t work because they simply weren’t credible. Instead, Meares argued that law-enforcement officials should concentrate on specific groups of wrongdoers in ways they could accept as both reasonable and fair. Using Operation Ceasefire in Boston as a model, Meares identified everyone who had committed violent or gun-related crimes and had been released from prison and recently assigned to parole. She gathered them in random groups of no more than 20 for call-in sessions in what Meares calls “places of civic importance” — park buildings, local schools and libraries — where they sat at the same table as the police in order to create an egalitarian, nonconfrontational atmosphere. They then heard a version of Kennedy’s three-part presentation. The results of the program were drastic: there was a 37 percent drop in the average monthly homicide rate — the largest drop of any neighborhood in the city. Violent crime in Chicago today is at a 30 year low. “All these strategies are a way of signaling to groups of people that government agents view them with dignity, neutrality and trust, which is the best way of convincing them that the government has the right to hold them accountable for their behavior,” Meares told me.
From Kennedy and Kleiman to Alm and Meares, the judges and scholars developing new deterrence strategies are changing the way we think about parole, probation, gang violence and drug markets. But the strategies also present a rare opportunity to persuade the nation’s policymakers that the most urgent case for prison reform is not only economic but also moral and practical. Yes, it’s an outrage that the United States locks up citizens for so long with such uncertain effect; but it’s also self-defeating, because long sentences give rise to a crisis of legitimacy that can lead to more crime, not less.
A crisis of legitimacy may sound like a huge, perhaps intractable problem, but the tantalizing promise of the new deterrence thinking is that the crisis can actually be solved, practical step by practical step. The relative simplicity of the solutions, it turns out, is at the core of their radical potential.
by Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, who is a frequent contributor to theNew York Times magazine. He is at work on a book about Louis Brandeis. Published 1/10/10
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Fatal wounds for the death penalty:
People tend to have hardened views about the death penalty. Me, I'm opposed to it and always have been. But I ask the indulgence of those of you who favor the death penalty to give this a read and see what you think.
The death penalty costs a lot to implement, a side issue to be sure but in these tough fiscal times, a consideration. Florida, for instance, spends about $51 million a year on its death penalty system or about $24 million for each execution. While another broke state, California, spends an estimated $137 million. The high cost is largely driven by the layers of additional court proceedings intended to make sure that due process has been afforded the accused and a guilty person is being executed.
I can hear the cries of "who cares what it costs?" or "let's make it cheaper by cutting out all those extra legal steps." But what should concern capital punishment proponents is that the system, even with these expensive safeguards, gets it wrong. Executing the innocent is a distinct possibility.
Nine men in 2009 who had been convicted and sentenced to death were exonerated of their crimes and freed. The total now stands at 139 since 1973. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, those nine men served a combined 121 years between the time they were sentenced to death and their exonerations, which means that all that extra due process and all the system's delays that pandering politicians always caterwaul about were necessary to avert a tragedy.
And then there are the cases where a convict's innocence emerged too late. In a 2006 case concerning the death penalty law in Kansas, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote with his typical crowing arrogance that there has not been "a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."
Scalia's misguided confidence is troubling considering the infamous Florida case of Frank Lee Smith whose death warrant was signed in 1989 for a rape and murder. It wasn't until after Smith died of cancer while awaiting execution that a DNA test in 2000 proved his innocence and implicated a convicted rapist and murderer.
And there is also Cameron Todd Willingham of Texas who was convicted of killing his three young daughters by arson and executed in 2004. Forensic experts who have reviewed the case, including one enlisted by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, say there is no scientific basis to conclude that the fire that swept through Willingham's home was arson. The original fire investigators, according to these later experts, had no comprehension of fire dynamics.
By all rights this should be the first case where a state formally exonerates a convict after putting him to death. Republican Gov. Rick Perry, a man in a pitched primary battle to win another term against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, refused to grant Willingham a stay of execution even though Perry had before him new scientific evidence disputing the arson.
Perry has so little interest in doing what is right in this case that he's gone out of his way to hamper the work of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Perry denies this. But after Perry replaced three members of the commission including its chair for no apparent reason the commission quickly put on hold further review of Willingham's case.
Another fairly recent action should jar death penalty supporters. The very group that laid out the modern framework for the implementation of capital punishment has now declared that the system is wholly unworkable and broken. In October the American Law Institute voted to repudiate the legal structure it had created in 1962 for death penalty cases as part of a Model Penal Code. According to the group, decades of experience tells us that there is no way to ensure "a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment."
What we have now is not adequate while being extremely pricey. It is likely at least one innocent man has died and probably numbers more. This is why we should abolish the death penalty.
By Robyn E. Blumner,St. Petersburg Times Columnist
Published Thursday, January 7, 2010
The death penalty costs a lot to implement, a side issue to be sure but in these tough fiscal times, a consideration. Florida, for instance, spends about $51 million a year on its death penalty system or about $24 million for each execution. While another broke state, California, spends an estimated $137 million. The high cost is largely driven by the layers of additional court proceedings intended to make sure that due process has been afforded the accused and a guilty person is being executed.
I can hear the cries of "who cares what it costs?" or "let's make it cheaper by cutting out all those extra legal steps." But what should concern capital punishment proponents is that the system, even with these expensive safeguards, gets it wrong. Executing the innocent is a distinct possibility.
Nine men in 2009 who had been convicted and sentenced to death were exonerated of their crimes and freed. The total now stands at 139 since 1973. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, those nine men served a combined 121 years between the time they were sentenced to death and their exonerations, which means that all that extra due process and all the system's delays that pandering politicians always caterwaul about were necessary to avert a tragedy.
And then there are the cases where a convict's innocence emerged too late. In a 2006 case concerning the death penalty law in Kansas, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote with his typical crowing arrogance that there has not been "a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."
Scalia's misguided confidence is troubling considering the infamous Florida case of Frank Lee Smith whose death warrant was signed in 1989 for a rape and murder. It wasn't until after Smith died of cancer while awaiting execution that a DNA test in 2000 proved his innocence and implicated a convicted rapist and murderer.
And there is also Cameron Todd Willingham of Texas who was convicted of killing his three young daughters by arson and executed in 2004. Forensic experts who have reviewed the case, including one enlisted by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, say there is no scientific basis to conclude that the fire that swept through Willingham's home was arson. The original fire investigators, according to these later experts, had no comprehension of fire dynamics.
By all rights this should be the first case where a state formally exonerates a convict after putting him to death. Republican Gov. Rick Perry, a man in a pitched primary battle to win another term against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, refused to grant Willingham a stay of execution even though Perry had before him new scientific evidence disputing the arson.
Perry has so little interest in doing what is right in this case that he's gone out of his way to hamper the work of the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Perry denies this. But after Perry replaced three members of the commission including its chair for no apparent reason the commission quickly put on hold further review of Willingham's case.
Another fairly recent action should jar death penalty supporters. The very group that laid out the modern framework for the implementation of capital punishment has now declared that the system is wholly unworkable and broken. In October the American Law Institute voted to repudiate the legal structure it had created in 1962 for death penalty cases as part of a Model Penal Code. According to the group, decades of experience tells us that there is no way to ensure "a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment."
What we have now is not adequate while being extremely pricey. It is likely at least one innocent man has died and probably numbers more. This is why we should abolish the death penalty.
By Robyn E. Blumner,St. Petersburg Times Columnist
Published Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Prisons and Budgets
The United States, which has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has about one-quarter of its prisoners. But the relentless rise in the nation’s prison population has suddenly slowed as many states discover that it is simply too expensive to overincarcerate.
Between 1987 and 2007 the prison population nearly tripled, from 585,000 to almost 1.6 million. Much of that increase occurred in states — many with falling crime rates — that had adopted overly harsh punishment policies, such as the “three strikes and you’re out” rule and drug laws requiring that nonviolent drug offenders be locked away.
These policies have been hugely costly. According to the Pew Center on the States, state spending from general funds on corrections increased from $10.6 billion in 1987 to more than $44 billion in 2007, a 127 percent increase in inflation-adjusted dollars. In the same period, adjusted spending on higher education increased only 21 percent.
In 2008, the explosion of the prison population ground to a near halt, according to data released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 739,000 inmates were admitted to federal and state facilities, only about 3,500 more than were released.
One factor seems to be tight budgets as states decide to release nonviolent offenders early. This can not only save money. If done correctly, it can also be very sound social policy. Many nonviolent offenders can be dealt with more effectively and more cheaply through treatment and jobs programs.
Michigan, which has been hard hit by the recession, has done a particularly good job of releasing people who do not need to be in prison. As the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project details in a new report, Michigan reduced its prison population by about 8 percent between March 2007 and November 2009 by taking smart steps, notably doing more to get nonviolent drug offenders out, while helping in their transition to a productive, and crime-free, life.
Not every state has gotten the message. Florida, for example, has a state law mandating that all prisoners serve a high percentage of their sentence, which is both dubious corrections policy and terrible fiscal policy.
For many years, driving up prison populations has been an easy thing for elected officials to do, popular with voters and powerful corrections officer unions. The new incarceration figures suggest, however, that in the current hard economic times, strapped states are beginning to realize that they do not have the money to keep people in prison who do not need to be there.
A New York Times Editorial published January 5, 2010
Between 1987 and 2007 the prison population nearly tripled, from 585,000 to almost 1.6 million. Much of that increase occurred in states — many with falling crime rates — that had adopted overly harsh punishment policies, such as the “three strikes and you’re out” rule and drug laws requiring that nonviolent drug offenders be locked away.
These policies have been hugely costly. According to the Pew Center on the States, state spending from general funds on corrections increased from $10.6 billion in 1987 to more than $44 billion in 2007, a 127 percent increase in inflation-adjusted dollars. In the same period, adjusted spending on higher education increased only 21 percent.
In 2008, the explosion of the prison population ground to a near halt, according to data released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 739,000 inmates were admitted to federal and state facilities, only about 3,500 more than were released.
One factor seems to be tight budgets as states decide to release nonviolent offenders early. This can not only save money. If done correctly, it can also be very sound social policy. Many nonviolent offenders can be dealt with more effectively and more cheaply through treatment and jobs programs.
Michigan, which has been hard hit by the recession, has done a particularly good job of releasing people who do not need to be in prison. As the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project details in a new report, Michigan reduced its prison population by about 8 percent between March 2007 and November 2009 by taking smart steps, notably doing more to get nonviolent drug offenders out, while helping in their transition to a productive, and crime-free, life.
Not every state has gotten the message. Florida, for example, has a state law mandating that all prisoners serve a high percentage of their sentence, which is both dubious corrections policy and terrible fiscal policy.
For many years, driving up prison populations has been an easy thing for elected officials to do, popular with voters and powerful corrections officer unions. The new incarceration figures suggest, however, that in the current hard economic times, strapped states are beginning to realize that they do not have the money to keep people in prison who do not need to be there.
A New York Times Editorial published January 5, 2010
Friday, January 01, 2010
"Judges Consider New Factor at Sentencing: Military Service"
The title of this post is the headline of this new article in today's Wall Street Journal. Here are excerpts from the effective piece:
A small but growing number of judges say U.S. military veterans should be treated differently from nonveterans when they are sentenced for crimes.
As more soldiers return home from combat overseas and end up in the criminal-justice system, a number of state and federal judges are deciding to show former soldiers leniency in light of their service. Some veterans are receiving probation coupled with psychological treatment, generally for nonviolent crimes that normally would land them in prison.
That is raising concern among some legal experts, who say singling out veterans for special treatment indulges criminal behavior and risks establishing a two-tier system of justice.
Many veterans returning from war zones develop behavioral and psychological problems, which in some cases leads to alcohol and drug abuse -- and crimes. "We dump all kinds of money to get soldiers over there and train them to kill, but we don't do anything to reintegrate them into our society," says John L. Kane, a federal judge in Denver. Earlier this month, Mr. Kane sentenced an Iraq war veteran convicted of bribery to probation instead of prison.
Most U.S. courts don't have rules on giving veterans special consideration.... But in North Carolina, if a defendant was honorably discharged from the military, judges must use that fact as a mitigating factor at sentencing. And in several states, including Tennessee and Louisiana, courts have ruled that judges are allowed to use prior military service to lessen a sentence.
There are no special courts for veterans in the federal court system.... But momentum for special treatment is growing. Since last year, about 16 counties and cities -- from California's Orange County, to three cities in western New York, have started veterans courts, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Three counties in and around New York City launched similar programs in July, and state legislatures have approved the formation of such courts in places such as Harris County in Texas and the state of Nevada.
The goal of the courts, which serve veterans of any era, is to keep defendants out of prison. Veterans are put into treatment programs for war-related illnesses, among other problems, that aren't available in the prison system. Their probation includes rigorous drug testing. After veterans complete treatment, some prosecutors' offices drop the criminal charges as long as the veterans didn't have a prior felony conviction....
Some legal experts worry the movement could result in special consideration for all veterans, regardless of whether their criminal conduct was influenced by their military service. "What we think goes over the line is the creation of two separate systems based solely on somebody's status," says Allen Lichtenstein, the general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada. "Police are under particular stress -- should there be a court for them?"...
Taking military service into account at sentencing isn't a new tradition. In the Civil War era, members of the military were routinely shown leniency by judges, notes Carissa Hessick, a law professor at Arizona State University. During the World War II and Vietnam eras, certain judges allowed criminal charges to be dropped if defendants enlisted in the armed forces. That practice is no longer allowed.
Sympathy for new veterans aided John Brownfield of Cañon City, Colo. The former U.S. Air Force firefighter pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe as a public official for illegally selling tobacco to federal prison inmates while working as a correctional officer in 2007, two years after he returned from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The federal prosecutor and Mr. Brownfield's lawyer agreed to recommend to the judge that he serve a year in prison. But the judge, Mr. Kane of Denver, instead ordered a psychiatric evaluation and earlier this month sentenced Mr. Brownfield to five years of probation.
In the Brownfield case, Judge Kane wrote a lengthy opinion explain his sentencing decision. The Brownfield opinion can be accessed at this link, and it starts this way:
I have written this sentencing memorandum, which is more extensive than most such findings and conclusions, because this case involves issues the Sentencing Guidelines do not address regarding the criminal justice system’s treatment of returning veterans who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. As I conclude that the Sentencing Guidelines’ advice is not persuasive in the circumstances of this case, I will make specific findings necessary to achieve the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (2006). This memorandum opinion will be published and copies provided to the United States Sentencing Commission pursuant to the implicit suggestion in Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 357-58 (2007).
A small but growing number of judges say U.S. military veterans should be treated differently from nonveterans when they are sentenced for crimes.
As more soldiers return home from combat overseas and end up in the criminal-justice system, a number of state and federal judges are deciding to show former soldiers leniency in light of their service. Some veterans are receiving probation coupled with psychological treatment, generally for nonviolent crimes that normally would land them in prison.
That is raising concern among some legal experts, who say singling out veterans for special treatment indulges criminal behavior and risks establishing a two-tier system of justice.
Many veterans returning from war zones develop behavioral and psychological problems, which in some cases leads to alcohol and drug abuse -- and crimes. "We dump all kinds of money to get soldiers over there and train them to kill, but we don't do anything to reintegrate them into our society," says John L. Kane, a federal judge in Denver. Earlier this month, Mr. Kane sentenced an Iraq war veteran convicted of bribery to probation instead of prison.
Most U.S. courts don't have rules on giving veterans special consideration.... But in North Carolina, if a defendant was honorably discharged from the military, judges must use that fact as a mitigating factor at sentencing. And in several states, including Tennessee and Louisiana, courts have ruled that judges are allowed to use prior military service to lessen a sentence.
There are no special courts for veterans in the federal court system.... But momentum for special treatment is growing. Since last year, about 16 counties and cities -- from California's Orange County, to three cities in western New York, have started veterans courts, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Three counties in and around New York City launched similar programs in July, and state legislatures have approved the formation of such courts in places such as Harris County in Texas and the state of Nevada.
The goal of the courts, which serve veterans of any era, is to keep defendants out of prison. Veterans are put into treatment programs for war-related illnesses, among other problems, that aren't available in the prison system. Their probation includes rigorous drug testing. After veterans complete treatment, some prosecutors' offices drop the criminal charges as long as the veterans didn't have a prior felony conviction....
Some legal experts worry the movement could result in special consideration for all veterans, regardless of whether their criminal conduct was influenced by their military service. "What we think goes over the line is the creation of two separate systems based solely on somebody's status," says Allen Lichtenstein, the general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada. "Police are under particular stress -- should there be a court for them?"...
Taking military service into account at sentencing isn't a new tradition. In the Civil War era, members of the military were routinely shown leniency by judges, notes Carissa Hessick, a law professor at Arizona State University. During the World War II and Vietnam eras, certain judges allowed criminal charges to be dropped if defendants enlisted in the armed forces. That practice is no longer allowed.
Sympathy for new veterans aided John Brownfield of Cañon City, Colo. The former U.S. Air Force firefighter pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe as a public official for illegally selling tobacco to federal prison inmates while working as a correctional officer in 2007, two years after he returned from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The federal prosecutor and Mr. Brownfield's lawyer agreed to recommend to the judge that he serve a year in prison. But the judge, Mr. Kane of Denver, instead ordered a psychiatric evaluation and earlier this month sentenced Mr. Brownfield to five years of probation.
In the Brownfield case, Judge Kane wrote a lengthy opinion explain his sentencing decision. The Brownfield opinion can be accessed at this link, and it starts this way:
I have written this sentencing memorandum, which is more extensive than most such findings and conclusions, because this case involves issues the Sentencing Guidelines do not address regarding the criminal justice system’s treatment of returning veterans who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. As I conclude that the Sentencing Guidelines’ advice is not persuasive in the circumstances of this case, I will make specific findings necessary to achieve the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (2006). This memorandum opinion will be published and copies provided to the United States Sentencing Commission pursuant to the implicit suggestion in Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 357-58 (2007).
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Overtime served: Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality
Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system. Johnson is following the lead of Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker, who claims -- wrongly -- that "Florida is funding prisons less and less" while preparing to release offenders early.
Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.
Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.
At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)
Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.
Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.
Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.
The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.
An Editorial from the Daytona News Journal published 12/29/09
Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.
Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.
At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)
Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.
Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.
Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.
The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.
An Editorial from the Daytona News Journal published 12/29/09
Overtime served Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality
Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system. Johnson is following the lead of Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker, who claims -- wrongly -- that "Florida is funding prisons less and less" while preparing to release offenders early.
Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.
Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.
At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)
Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.
Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.
Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.
The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.
Since 2001, when it was at $1.62 billion, the Department of Corrections' budget has increased by 50 percent. It's at $2.43 billion today, a 5.7 percent increase over last year's $2.3 billion. The department's budget devours almost 10 percent of the state's general revenue to maintain a total payroll of 30,500 that keeps 100,000 inmates in prison -- a 3-to-1 per-inmate ratio. That's about eight times better than the state's teacher-pupil ratio. Despite a crime rate that has fallen steadily through the decade, the inmate population has risen 46 percent since 2001.
Criminals aren't getting more violent or committing more crimes. The state's incarceration laws have been made harsher since the mid-1980s (when Florida abolished parole) and the 1990s (when Florida harshed up mandatory sentences on adults and youthful offenders and ended the release of any state prison inmate before he or she serves at least 85 percent of a sentence). Yet, criminologists cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of harsher sentences, which contradict the principle of rehabilitation. It's called a department of corrections, not a department of punishment.
At its current pace, the Florida prison system will need to build, at least, 15 more prisons in the next five years, a $2 billion expense before the cost of running them kicks in. It would be folly. Legislators are looking for a better way. Texas is their example. Texas sentences mirrored Florida's. So did its exploding population. So, Texas changed its corrections approach, focusing especially on drug rehabilitation and education for inmates and sustained rehabilitation programs after release. (Criminologists point to drug rehab's effectiveness: Just 6 percent of violent offenders who have undergone rehab recommit crimes after their release, compared with 33 percent of those who don't get rehab. Yet, in Florida this year, the prison system's drug-treatment programs were cut by $6.2 million, education programs by $3.4 million.)
Texas' new approach worked. The state's prison population steadied. So did the corrections budget. The state's crime rate didn't spike. Florida lawmakers are introducing bills that would replicate some of those approaches, although the focus is more on reversing harsh sentences (still a worthy objective) than funding rehab programs.
Writing on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, Johnson wants residents to oppose "a particularly bad proposal that would grant early release to certain inmates 50-years-old or older as long as they have already served at least 25 years of their sentence." He is also building opposition to another proposal that "would reduce the sentence of dangerous youthful offenders under certain circumstances" -- offenders 15 or younger who were convicted as adults.
Johnson makes it sound as if violent offenders are never released (or should never be released) from prison. He should have a look at Department of Corrections reports. Better yet, he should encourage his readers to do so. Last August alone, 3,073 offenders were released from Florida prisons. Of those, 814, or 26.5 percent, were violent offenders. On average, those violent offenders served 53 months. Johnson says, "This is not the type of person we want roaming our streets again." But every prison system in the nation eventually releases a portion of its violent offenders for the obvious reason that life terms are rare. Johnson also makes it sound as if the proposals, if enacted, would result in immediate releases. Not so. Prisoners would have to petition for their release and have their cases reviewed one by one. It's a restoration of parole by other means.
The question isn't whether they should be released, but when. For two decades Florida opted for longer sentences and fewer second chances, without appreciable results. Those laws are finally coming in for their own corrections.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Why are innocent persons sentenced to prison?
It took 35 years for the criminal justice system to face the fact that it had wronged James Bain, a man convicted of the heinous crime of raping a 9-year-old boy in Lake Wales and sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. For nearly a decade Bain was denied requests for a DNA test on the evidence. It took a state attorney finally agreeing this year for the test to be done. The results ruled Bain out as the perpetrator.
Bain joins at least 11 other Floridians who were convicted of crimes and imprisoned only to be later found factually innocent of the offense in recent years. The revolution in DNA testing makes it possible to identify these miscarriages of justice with absolute certainty, but it doesn't say anything about how these errors occurred. Florida needs a commission to study these cases, breaking them down to see the system's flaws, just like the National Transportation Safety Board analyzes every plane crash.
On Friday, a group of renowned attorneys that includes former Florida Supreme Court justices, former presidents of the American Bar Association and former Florida Bar leaders, petitioned Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince for the formation of an actual innocence commission. The request is modeled after a similar undertaking in North Carolina that brought together judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates and academics for a two-year review of procedures in the criminal justice system. The commission isolated factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions and recommended changes.
Bain was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness testimony. That sort of account by eyewitnesses has incredible power to sway juries even though it is notoriously faulty. Bain's blood type didn't match the semen found on the victim's underpants. He also had an alibi: Bain and his sister had been at home watching television when the crime occurred. But a jury convicted him anyway. Bain was 19 years old at the time and had no prior criminal record.
An innocence commission would comprehensively evaluate investigatory and court procedures, including those for eyewitness identification in cases like Bain's, and suggest new safeguards. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification contributed to almost 80 percent of the 245 convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide. (The Innocence Project works to find and free innocent people imprisoned in Florida. An actual innocence commission would look at established cases of wrongful conviction to determine what went wrong within the criminal justice system.)
The timing of a commission is important. Florida needs to know why it sends innocent people to prison, whether through individual errors or systemic problems. With DNA testing leading to exonerations of the wrongly convicted with increasing frequency, this is an ideal moment for public acceptance of a commission and its findings.
Once these old cases of injustice proved through DNA testing are exhausted there won't be another opportunity to demonstrate actual innocence with the same level of certainty. But there are still plenty of crimes such as embezzlement, where wrongful convictions occur but DNA is typically not part of the proof. In order to prevent these kinds of injustices, the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system need reform.
Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, former Florida State University president and a former ABA president, is behind the push for a commission. He points out that the state high court has regularly investigated administration of justice issues. Earlier efforts include commissions looking into racial bias in Florida courts, the impact of cameras in state courts and whether attorneys should be required to report their pro bono hours. An innocence commission falls within the court's scope of duties, and its establishment was one of the lead recommendations of a 2006 report from the ABA Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. It's time to get started.
When an innocent person goes to prison it is a tragedy for society as well as for the wrongfully convicted and his family. His life is ruined, taxpayers pay for his upkeep and the real criminal is still at large. Florida needs to know how and why these mistakes happen so another innocent person doesn't spend most of his adult life behind bars.
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial Dec 09
Bain joins at least 11 other Floridians who were convicted of crimes and imprisoned only to be later found factually innocent of the offense in recent years. The revolution in DNA testing makes it possible to identify these miscarriages of justice with absolute certainty, but it doesn't say anything about how these errors occurred. Florida needs a commission to study these cases, breaking them down to see the system's flaws, just like the National Transportation Safety Board analyzes every plane crash.
On Friday, a group of renowned attorneys that includes former Florida Supreme Court justices, former presidents of the American Bar Association and former Florida Bar leaders, petitioned Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince for the formation of an actual innocence commission. The request is modeled after a similar undertaking in North Carolina that brought together judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates and academics for a two-year review of procedures in the criminal justice system. The commission isolated factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions and recommended changes.
Bain was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness testimony. That sort of account by eyewitnesses has incredible power to sway juries even though it is notoriously faulty. Bain's blood type didn't match the semen found on the victim's underpants. He also had an alibi: Bain and his sister had been at home watching television when the crime occurred. But a jury convicted him anyway. Bain was 19 years old at the time and had no prior criminal record.
An innocence commission would comprehensively evaluate investigatory and court procedures, including those for eyewitness identification in cases like Bain's, and suggest new safeguards. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification contributed to almost 80 percent of the 245 convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide. (The Innocence Project works to find and free innocent people imprisoned in Florida. An actual innocence commission would look at established cases of wrongful conviction to determine what went wrong within the criminal justice system.)
The timing of a commission is important. Florida needs to know why it sends innocent people to prison, whether through individual errors or systemic problems. With DNA testing leading to exonerations of the wrongly convicted with increasing frequency, this is an ideal moment for public acceptance of a commission and its findings.
Once these old cases of injustice proved through DNA testing are exhausted there won't be another opportunity to demonstrate actual innocence with the same level of certainty. But there are still plenty of crimes such as embezzlement, where wrongful convictions occur but DNA is typically not part of the proof. In order to prevent these kinds of injustices, the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system need reform.
Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, former Florida State University president and a former ABA president, is behind the push for a commission. He points out that the state high court has regularly investigated administration of justice issues. Earlier efforts include commissions looking into racial bias in Florida courts, the impact of cameras in state courts and whether attorneys should be required to report their pro bono hours. An innocence commission falls within the court's scope of duties, and its establishment was one of the lead recommendations of a 2006 report from the ABA Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. It's time to get started.
When an innocent person goes to prison it is a tragedy for society as well as for the wrongfully convicted and his family. His life is ruined, taxpayers pay for his upkeep and the real criminal is still at large. Florida needs to know how and why these mistakes happen so another innocent person doesn't spend most of his adult life behind bars.
A St. Petersburg Times Editorial Dec 09
Justice for mentally ill must evolve:
It shouldn't require a hero to fix this.
Judge Steven Leifman certainly qualifies for the appellation, leading (or, more accurately, dragging) Miami-Dade away from ineffective, costly, cruel policies that turned the Miami-Dade County jail into the nation's second-largest mental-health ward (after the Los Angeles County Jail) .
Judge Leifman spoke at a symposium Wednesday morning about considerable progress that Miami-Dade has made these past few years, diverting the mentally ill, many of them serial recidivists, out of the criminal justice system.
Miami Police Lt. Jeff Locke talked about the evolution of police policies toward psychotic behavior. Before 1999, police essentially acted as ``goons'' when they dealt with mentally ill transgressors, he said, ready to answer violence with violence. And sometimes deadly force. ``I was one of those cops.''
A BETTER APPROACH
Locke now trains local police officers in crisis intervention. Most police agencies in Miami-Dade County now have trained squads dedicated to defusing these confrontations. Judge Leifman talked about results: Half the subjects of police calls involving psychotic episodes are now diverted into treatment programs.
But it never should have come down to cops and jailers and a heroic judge to fix this medieval system. Leifman and Locke and the criminal justice system have been forced to deal with a massive community failure, 40 years in the making. As Florida closed its mental hospitals, most for good reason, the state failed to provide the outreach to keep the mentally ill treated, sheltered and safe.
We left them to their own devices. Until they became a police problem.
Here's what neglect got us: Some 125,000 of our mentally ill will take up space in Florida's jails and prisons this year, most for minor transgressions. Leifman said that on any given day, Florida houses 17,000 mentally ill prisoners in the state correctional system, another 15,000 in local lock-ups. Yet another 40,000 are on community control, and given the paucity of treatment, twice as likely to flunk probation.
THE FINANCIAL TOLL
Treatment costs behind bars devour budgets. Jails make for massively expensive, utterly ineffective mental hospitals. But for 40 years, Florida has cycled the mentally ill from the streets to jail to the streets to jail. With in-jail treatment mostly consisting of a regime of pills designed to keep them placid, not manage their illness.
Leifman said Wednesday that the fastest growing sub-set of prisoners in the state's corrections system are mentally ill defendants sent to a state institution until they're deemed competent to stand trial. He pointed out that competency training is not about treatment, but only about meeting the legal threshold necessary to try a prisoner. The overwhelming majority (currently occupying about 17,000 beds) finally will be hauled into court, then turned loose, sentenced to time served. And they'll be back.
In the next 10 years, Leifman said, their number will double to 35,000. They'll require 10 new prisons and an annual budget of $3.5 billion in a state that's going broke. ``It's insane,'' the judge said.
Yet a bill to divert these prisoners into community-based managed care, at a fraction of the cost, has languished for two years in the Legislature.
It shouldn't take a hero to fix this.
Posted on Wed, Dec. 09, 2009
By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
Judge Steven Leifman certainly qualifies for the appellation, leading (or, more accurately, dragging) Miami-Dade away from ineffective, costly, cruel policies that turned the Miami-Dade County jail into the nation's second-largest mental-health ward (after the Los Angeles County Jail) .
Judge Leifman spoke at a symposium Wednesday morning about considerable progress that Miami-Dade has made these past few years, diverting the mentally ill, many of them serial recidivists, out of the criminal justice system.
Miami Police Lt. Jeff Locke talked about the evolution of police policies toward psychotic behavior. Before 1999, police essentially acted as ``goons'' when they dealt with mentally ill transgressors, he said, ready to answer violence with violence. And sometimes deadly force. ``I was one of those cops.''
A BETTER APPROACH
Locke now trains local police officers in crisis intervention. Most police agencies in Miami-Dade County now have trained squads dedicated to defusing these confrontations. Judge Leifman talked about results: Half the subjects of police calls involving psychotic episodes are now diverted into treatment programs.
But it never should have come down to cops and jailers and a heroic judge to fix this medieval system. Leifman and Locke and the criminal justice system have been forced to deal with a massive community failure, 40 years in the making. As Florida closed its mental hospitals, most for good reason, the state failed to provide the outreach to keep the mentally ill treated, sheltered and safe.
We left them to their own devices. Until they became a police problem.
Here's what neglect got us: Some 125,000 of our mentally ill will take up space in Florida's jails and prisons this year, most for minor transgressions. Leifman said that on any given day, Florida houses 17,000 mentally ill prisoners in the state correctional system, another 15,000 in local lock-ups. Yet another 40,000 are on community control, and given the paucity of treatment, twice as likely to flunk probation.
THE FINANCIAL TOLL
Treatment costs behind bars devour budgets. Jails make for massively expensive, utterly ineffective mental hospitals. But for 40 years, Florida has cycled the mentally ill from the streets to jail to the streets to jail. With in-jail treatment mostly consisting of a regime of pills designed to keep them placid, not manage their illness.
Leifman said Wednesday that the fastest growing sub-set of prisoners in the state's corrections system are mentally ill defendants sent to a state institution until they're deemed competent to stand trial. He pointed out that competency training is not about treatment, but only about meeting the legal threshold necessary to try a prisoner. The overwhelming majority (currently occupying about 17,000 beds) finally will be hauled into court, then turned loose, sentenced to time served. And they'll be back.
In the next 10 years, Leifman said, their number will double to 35,000. They'll require 10 new prisons and an annual budget of $3.5 billion in a state that's going broke. ``It's insane,'' the judge said.
Yet a bill to divert these prisoners into community-based managed care, at a fraction of the cost, has languished for two years in the Legislature.
It shouldn't take a hero to fix this.
Posted on Wed, Dec. 09, 2009
By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice:
In the next several months, the Supreme Court will decide at least a half-dozen cases about the rights of people accused of crimes involving drugs, sex and corruption. Civil liberties groups and associations of defense lawyers have lined up on the side of the accused.
But so have conservative, libertarian and business groups. Their briefs and public statements are signs of an emerging consensus on the right that the criminal justice system is an aspect of big government that must be contained.
The development represents a sharp break with tough-on-crime policies associated with the Republican Party since the Nixon administration.
“It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The left and the right have bent to the point where they are now in agreement on many issues. In the area of criminal justice, the whole idea of less government, less intrusion, less regulation has taken hold.”
Edwin Meese III, who was known as a fervent supporter of law and order as attorney general in the Reagan administration, now spends much of his time criticizing what he calls the astounding number and vagueness of federal criminal laws.
Mr. Meese once referred to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the “criminals’ lobby.” These days, he said, “in terms of working with the A.C.L.U., if they want to join us, we’re happy to have them.”
Dick Thornburgh, who succeeded Mr. Meese as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and stayed on under President George Bush, echoed that sentiment in Congressional testimony in July.
“The problem of overcriminalization is truly one of those issues upon which a wide variety of constituencies can agree,” Mr. Thornburgh said. “Witness the broad and strong support from such varied groups as the Heritage Foundation, the Washington Legal Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the A.B.A., the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society and the A.C.L.U.”
In an interview at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group where he is a fellow, Mr. Meese said the “liberal ideas of extending the power of the state” were to blame for an out-of-control criminal justice system. “Our tradition has always been,” he said, “to construe criminal laws narrowly to protect people from the power of the state.”
There are, the foundation says, more than 4,400 criminal offenses in the federal code, many of them lacking a requirement that prosecutors prove traditional kinds of criminal intent.
“It’s a violation of federal law to give a false weather report,” Mr. Meese said. “People get put in jail for importing lobsters.”
Such so-called overcriminalization is at the heart of the conservative critique of crime policy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce made the point in a recent friend-of-the-court brief about a federal law often used to prosecute corporate executives and politicians. The law, which makes it a crime for officials to defraud their employers of “honest services,” is, the brief said, both “unintelligible” and “used to target a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”
The Supreme Court will hear three cases concerning the honest-services law this term, indicating an exceptional interest in the topic.
Harvey A. Silverglate, a left-wing civil liberties lawyer in Boston, says he has been surprised and delighted by the reception that his new book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” has gotten in conservative circles. (A Heritage Foundation official offered this reporter a copy.)
The book argues that federal criminal law is so comprehensive and vague that all Americans violate it every day, meaning prosecutors can indict anyone at all.
“Libertarians and the civil liberties left have always had some common ground on these issues,” said Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason, a libertarian magazine. “The more vocal presence of conservatives on overcriminalization issues is really what’s new.”
Several strands of conservatism have merged in objecting to aspects of the criminal justice system. Some conservatives are suspicious of all government power, while others insist that the federal government has been intruding into matters the Constitution reserves to the states.
In January, for instance, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Comstock, about whether Congress has the constitutional power to authorize the continued confinement of people convicted of sex crimes after they have completed their criminal sentences.
Then there are conservatives who worry about government seizure of private property said to have been used to facilitate crimes, an issue raised in Alvarez v. Smith, which was argued in October.
“A joint on a yacht, and the whole thing is forfeited,” said Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush.
Some religious groups object to prison policies that appear to ignore the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption, and fiscal conservatives are concerned about the cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population.
“Conservatives now recognize the economic consequences of a criminal justice leviathan,” said Erik Luna, a law professor at Washington and Lee University.
The roots of the conservative re-examination of crime policy might also be found in the jurisprudence of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The two justices, joined by liberal colleagues, have said the original meaning of the Constitution required them to rule against the government in, among other areas, the rights of criminal defendants to confront witnesses.
“Scalia and Thomas are vanguards of an understanding by the modern right that its distrust of government extends all the way to the criminal justice system,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.
The court will hear another confrontation clause case, Briscoe v. Virginia, in January. It is a sequel to a decision in June that prosecutors may not use crime lab reports without live testimony from the analysts who prepared them.
The conservative re-evaluation of crime policy is not universal, of course. Two notable exceptions to the trend, said Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute’s criminal justice project, are Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
“Roberts and Alito are coming down consistently on the side of the government in these criminal justice cases,” Mr. Lynch said.
Some scholars are skeptical about conservatives’ timing and motives, noting that their voices are rising during a Democratic administration and amid demands for accountability for the economic crisis.
“The Justice Department now acts as a kind of counterweight to corporate power,” said Frank O. Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri. “On the other side is an alliance between two strands of conservative thinking, the libertarian point of view and the corporate wing of the Republican Party.”
Mr. Meese acknowledged that the current climate was not the ideal one for his point of view. “We picked by accident a time,” he said, “when it was not a very popular topic in light of corporate frauds.”
By ADAM LIPTAK New York Times
But so have conservative, libertarian and business groups. Their briefs and public statements are signs of an emerging consensus on the right that the criminal justice system is an aspect of big government that must be contained.
The development represents a sharp break with tough-on-crime policies associated with the Republican Party since the Nixon administration.
“It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The left and the right have bent to the point where they are now in agreement on many issues. In the area of criminal justice, the whole idea of less government, less intrusion, less regulation has taken hold.”
Edwin Meese III, who was known as a fervent supporter of law and order as attorney general in the Reagan administration, now spends much of his time criticizing what he calls the astounding number and vagueness of federal criminal laws.
Mr. Meese once referred to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the “criminals’ lobby.” These days, he said, “in terms of working with the A.C.L.U., if they want to join us, we’re happy to have them.”
Dick Thornburgh, who succeeded Mr. Meese as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and stayed on under President George Bush, echoed that sentiment in Congressional testimony in July.
“The problem of overcriminalization is truly one of those issues upon which a wide variety of constituencies can agree,” Mr. Thornburgh said. “Witness the broad and strong support from such varied groups as the Heritage Foundation, the Washington Legal Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the A.B.A., the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society and the A.C.L.U.”
In an interview at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group where he is a fellow, Mr. Meese said the “liberal ideas of extending the power of the state” were to blame for an out-of-control criminal justice system. “Our tradition has always been,” he said, “to construe criminal laws narrowly to protect people from the power of the state.”
There are, the foundation says, more than 4,400 criminal offenses in the federal code, many of them lacking a requirement that prosecutors prove traditional kinds of criminal intent.
“It’s a violation of federal law to give a false weather report,” Mr. Meese said. “People get put in jail for importing lobsters.”
Such so-called overcriminalization is at the heart of the conservative critique of crime policy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce made the point in a recent friend-of-the-court brief about a federal law often used to prosecute corporate executives and politicians. The law, which makes it a crime for officials to defraud their employers of “honest services,” is, the brief said, both “unintelligible” and “used to target a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”
The Supreme Court will hear three cases concerning the honest-services law this term, indicating an exceptional interest in the topic.
Harvey A. Silverglate, a left-wing civil liberties lawyer in Boston, says he has been surprised and delighted by the reception that his new book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” has gotten in conservative circles. (A Heritage Foundation official offered this reporter a copy.)
The book argues that federal criminal law is so comprehensive and vague that all Americans violate it every day, meaning prosecutors can indict anyone at all.
“Libertarians and the civil liberties left have always had some common ground on these issues,” said Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason, a libertarian magazine. “The more vocal presence of conservatives on overcriminalization issues is really what’s new.”
Several strands of conservatism have merged in objecting to aspects of the criminal justice system. Some conservatives are suspicious of all government power, while others insist that the federal government has been intruding into matters the Constitution reserves to the states.
In January, for instance, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Comstock, about whether Congress has the constitutional power to authorize the continued confinement of people convicted of sex crimes after they have completed their criminal sentences.
Then there are conservatives who worry about government seizure of private property said to have been used to facilitate crimes, an issue raised in Alvarez v. Smith, which was argued in October.
“A joint on a yacht, and the whole thing is forfeited,” said Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush.
Some religious groups object to prison policies that appear to ignore the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption, and fiscal conservatives are concerned about the cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population.
“Conservatives now recognize the economic consequences of a criminal justice leviathan,” said Erik Luna, a law professor at Washington and Lee University.
The roots of the conservative re-examination of crime policy might also be found in the jurisprudence of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The two justices, joined by liberal colleagues, have said the original meaning of the Constitution required them to rule against the government in, among other areas, the rights of criminal defendants to confront witnesses.
“Scalia and Thomas are vanguards of an understanding by the modern right that its distrust of government extends all the way to the criminal justice system,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.
The court will hear another confrontation clause case, Briscoe v. Virginia, in January. It is a sequel to a decision in June that prosecutors may not use crime lab reports without live testimony from the analysts who prepared them.
The conservative re-evaluation of crime policy is not universal, of course. Two notable exceptions to the trend, said Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute’s criminal justice project, are Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
“Roberts and Alito are coming down consistently on the side of the government in these criminal justice cases,” Mr. Lynch said.
Some scholars are skeptical about conservatives’ timing and motives, noting that their voices are rising during a Democratic administration and amid demands for accountability for the economic crisis.
“The Justice Department now acts as a kind of counterweight to corporate power,” said Frank O. Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri. “On the other side is an alliance between two strands of conservative thinking, the libertarian point of view and the corporate wing of the Republican Party.”
Mr. Meese acknowledged that the current climate was not the ideal one for his point of view. “We picked by accident a time,” he said, “when it was not a very popular topic in light of corporate frauds.”
By ADAM LIPTAK New York Times
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Instead of more prisons, less crime:
One of the more encouraging things happening in Florida is the movement for "smart justice." The goal is to reduce the number of repeat offenses by ex-inmates.
This would be a good idea.
No, it would be a great idea.
As matters stand now, almost exactly 33 percent of those released from Florida prison are back behind bars within three years.
This means the population keeps growing, and we have to keep building prisons. They cost $100 million a pop to build, and $25 million a year to run.
We just passed 100,000 inmates in the state prison system. Last year the whole shebang cost us $2.4 billion.
So …
What if we could turn out inmates who were less likely to re-offend? We would save tax dollars, reduce future crime, and maybe even salvage some lives.
There's no single magic wand to do this. But there are several tools that seem to be working, such as:
• "Re-entry" programs that begin to prepare inmates for their return to society as the end of their sentence approaches.
• Treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse, which affect a large percentage of the prison population. This might be the best money spent ever — some programs have dramatically cut that 33 percent, three-year recidivism rate.
• "Character-based" programs based on broad networks of community volunteers working with inmates in a structured curriculum.
You will not be surprised to learn that the Florida Legislature has declined to expand or has even cut some programs in recent years, especially in substance abuse treatment.
This brings us to the group called the "Coalition for Smart Justice," which held a "justice summit" on Monday and Tuesday in Tampa. About 300 people attended.
The coalition has a fascinating array of signers: past state attorneys general and corrections secretaries, social and political leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.
It's interesting that some of the backers are business groups: Florida TaxWatch, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Associated Industries of Florida.
"If we're going to be taxed," Associated Industries chief Barney Bishop told the audience during a panel discussion, "we want to get the most bang for the buck."
Three department heads under Gov. Charlie Crist were there: Walt McNeil of Corrections, George Sheldon of Children and Families, and Frank Peterman of Juvenile Justice.
McNeil said he hopes that by expanding these efforts, Florida can reduce its 33 percent rate by 18 to 20 percentage points by 2014.
The main challenge to the Coalition for Smart Justice is political. It has to prove to the Legislature that reducing future crime is actually more "conservative" than just building prison after prison.
Nobody is talking about throwing open prison doors.
Nobody is talking about hand-holding, mollycoddling or feeling sorry for criminals.
Most of all, nobody is talking about not sending to prison the people who ought to be there.
What they are talking about is whether we can keep more of them from coming back.
Learn more about the Coalition for Smart Justice on the Web site of the Collins Center for Public Policy at Florida State University:
www.collinscenter.org.
By Howard Troxler, St. Petersburg Times Columnist
Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009
This would be a good idea.
No, it would be a great idea.
As matters stand now, almost exactly 33 percent of those released from Florida prison are back behind bars within three years.
This means the population keeps growing, and we have to keep building prisons. They cost $100 million a pop to build, and $25 million a year to run.
We just passed 100,000 inmates in the state prison system. Last year the whole shebang cost us $2.4 billion.
So …
What if we could turn out inmates who were less likely to re-offend? We would save tax dollars, reduce future crime, and maybe even salvage some lives.
There's no single magic wand to do this. But there are several tools that seem to be working, such as:
• "Re-entry" programs that begin to prepare inmates for their return to society as the end of their sentence approaches.
• Treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse, which affect a large percentage of the prison population. This might be the best money spent ever — some programs have dramatically cut that 33 percent, three-year recidivism rate.
• "Character-based" programs based on broad networks of community volunteers working with inmates in a structured curriculum.
You will not be surprised to learn that the Florida Legislature has declined to expand or has even cut some programs in recent years, especially in substance abuse treatment.
This brings us to the group called the "Coalition for Smart Justice," which held a "justice summit" on Monday and Tuesday in Tampa. About 300 people attended.
The coalition has a fascinating array of signers: past state attorneys general and corrections secretaries, social and political leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.
It's interesting that some of the backers are business groups: Florida TaxWatch, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Associated Industries of Florida.
"If we're going to be taxed," Associated Industries chief Barney Bishop told the audience during a panel discussion, "we want to get the most bang for the buck."
Three department heads under Gov. Charlie Crist were there: Walt McNeil of Corrections, George Sheldon of Children and Families, and Frank Peterman of Juvenile Justice.
McNeil said he hopes that by expanding these efforts, Florida can reduce its 33 percent rate by 18 to 20 percentage points by 2014.
The main challenge to the Coalition for Smart Justice is political. It has to prove to the Legislature that reducing future crime is actually more "conservative" than just building prison after prison.
Nobody is talking about throwing open prison doors.
Nobody is talking about hand-holding, mollycoddling or feeling sorry for criminals.
Most of all, nobody is talking about not sending to prison the people who ought to be there.
What they are talking about is whether we can keep more of them from coming back.
Learn more about the Coalition for Smart Justice on the Web site of the Collins Center for Public Policy at Florida State University:
www.collinscenter.org.
By Howard Troxler, St. Petersburg Times Columnist
Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Do justice like Texas. Really
For two days, conservatives and liberals told each other how much they agree on one of Florida's most important issues.
That issue is criminal justice, and the new choir sang Monday and Tuesday in Tampa at Justice Summit 2009. Sponsored by the Collins Center for Public Policy and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the gathering amounted to a pep rally for change that the state has needed for two decades.
What's different? The issues now include money, and Florida's leading business groups care.
For 25 years, Florida's criminal justice policy has been to lock up as many people as possible for as long as possible. The Legislature has approved sentencing guidelines and minimum mandatory sentences. The Legislature has required inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. Even Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, one of Florida's most hard-line prosecutors, says, "We take away a driver's license for durned near everything."
It's the easy political call. No one ever lost an election by being "tough on crime." As more states are learning, however, it's more important to be smart on crime. Lock up only the dangerous. Try to rehabilitate the others. Don't criminalize mental illness or addiction. Treat it. Help ex-offenders reenter society. Turn around a person's life, and you prevent a crime. Smarter. Cheaper. Safer.
Sure, Florida's crime rate is down 16 percent in the past 10 years. But Florida's incarceration rate is up 47 percent, crime has decreased nationally and the tough-on-crime tab has come just when Florida is tapped out.
This year, the Department of Corrections informed the Legislature that Florida would need 19 new prisons. Each would cost about $100 million to build and $25 million to operate. Every year. At $3 billion, the DOC is the third-largest part of the budget. So the big news was that the Legislature approved no new prisons. The Legislature passed no laws that affect who goes to prison or for how long. The price tag was a show-stopper. DOC Secretary Walter McNeil, a former police chief, supports reform.
Most of those in Tampa had seen each other at similar rallies. They run the not-for-profit substance-abuse treatment centers. They serve on the boards of agencies that work to change lives. They minister in faith-based prisons, where the rate of inmates who return to prison — known as recidivism — is lower than for traditional prisons.
The new participants were representatives of the Florida Chamber and Associated Industries of Florida. As speaker after speaker noted, the Legislature, especially the House, listens first to business. AIF President Barney Bishop told the do-gooders not to sound like do-gooders when they lobby legislators next year: "You're business people. You have numbers to show that your business works."
Other numbers show that the status quo doesn't work. One-third of the 30,000-plus inmates released each year go back to prison within two years. Think of all those victims. Think of all that wasted human potential. We could spend a whole other column on the need to keep the Department of Juvenile Justice from becoming just a farm system for the Department of Corrections.
The real star of the show in Tampa was not someone from Florida. It was Jerry Madden, a self-described "hard-line conservative" Texas legislator who sponsored the bill in 2007 that shifted his state away from incarceration at all costs to rehabilitation and treatment where appropriate. "My god, Texas," exclaimed Vickie Lopez Lukis, a Republican who chaired the Governor's Ex-Offender Task Force in 2006. If Texas can be smart on crime, why not Florida?
As Rep. Madden explained: "We didn't touch any sentencing laws. We just started shifting money." In 2008, he survived a primary challenge from a Republican who charged that Rep. Madden was "soft on crime." In 2009, he fought off attempts to undercut the reforms. He's going to run once more in 2010 "because by 2011, we'll have all the numbers to show that it really works."
Florida hasn't done smart for a long time. Here's a good place to start.
By RANDY SCHULTZ Palm Beach Post
Published Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is Schultz@pbpost.com
That issue is criminal justice, and the new choir sang Monday and Tuesday in Tampa at Justice Summit 2009. Sponsored by the Collins Center for Public Policy and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the gathering amounted to a pep rally for change that the state has needed for two decades.
What's different? The issues now include money, and Florida's leading business groups care.
For 25 years, Florida's criminal justice policy has been to lock up as many people as possible for as long as possible. The Legislature has approved sentencing guidelines and minimum mandatory sentences. The Legislature has required inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. Even Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, one of Florida's most hard-line prosecutors, says, "We take away a driver's license for durned near everything."
It's the easy political call. No one ever lost an election by being "tough on crime." As more states are learning, however, it's more important to be smart on crime. Lock up only the dangerous. Try to rehabilitate the others. Don't criminalize mental illness or addiction. Treat it. Help ex-offenders reenter society. Turn around a person's life, and you prevent a crime. Smarter. Cheaper. Safer.
Sure, Florida's crime rate is down 16 percent in the past 10 years. But Florida's incarceration rate is up 47 percent, crime has decreased nationally and the tough-on-crime tab has come just when Florida is tapped out.
This year, the Department of Corrections informed the Legislature that Florida would need 19 new prisons. Each would cost about $100 million to build and $25 million to operate. Every year. At $3 billion, the DOC is the third-largest part of the budget. So the big news was that the Legislature approved no new prisons. The Legislature passed no laws that affect who goes to prison or for how long. The price tag was a show-stopper. DOC Secretary Walter McNeil, a former police chief, supports reform.
Most of those in Tampa had seen each other at similar rallies. They run the not-for-profit substance-abuse treatment centers. They serve on the boards of agencies that work to change lives. They minister in faith-based prisons, where the rate of inmates who return to prison — known as recidivism — is lower than for traditional prisons.
The new participants were representatives of the Florida Chamber and Associated Industries of Florida. As speaker after speaker noted, the Legislature, especially the House, listens first to business. AIF President Barney Bishop told the do-gooders not to sound like do-gooders when they lobby legislators next year: "You're business people. You have numbers to show that your business works."
Other numbers show that the status quo doesn't work. One-third of the 30,000-plus inmates released each year go back to prison within two years. Think of all those victims. Think of all that wasted human potential. We could spend a whole other column on the need to keep the Department of Juvenile Justice from becoming just a farm system for the Department of Corrections.
The real star of the show in Tampa was not someone from Florida. It was Jerry Madden, a self-described "hard-line conservative" Texas legislator who sponsored the bill in 2007 that shifted his state away from incarceration at all costs to rehabilitation and treatment where appropriate. "My god, Texas," exclaimed Vickie Lopez Lukis, a Republican who chaired the Governor's Ex-Offender Task Force in 2006. If Texas can be smart on crime, why not Florida?
As Rep. Madden explained: "We didn't touch any sentencing laws. We just started shifting money." In 2008, he survived a primary challenge from a Republican who charged that Rep. Madden was "soft on crime." In 2009, he fought off attempts to undercut the reforms. He's going to run once more in 2010 "because by 2011, we'll have all the numbers to show that it really works."
Florida hasn't done smart for a long time. Here's a good place to start.
By RANDY SCHULTZ Palm Beach Post
Published Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is Schultz@pbpost.com
Monday, November 16, 2009
Criminal Justice Reform Conference this week:
Florida ranks near the top of the nation on spending for its prison system, according to research by the Pew Center on the States.
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."
Criminal Justice Reform Conference this week:
Florida ranks near the top of the nation on spending for its prison system, according to research by the Pew Center on the States.
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."
A group of stakeholders who want to see that money used in other ways to reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders will spend the next two days in Tampa plotting a path to change.
"Florida has a huge prison system, enormous costs, and yet it isn't seeing anywhere near the crime reduction that it should be getting for all that spending," said Adam Gelb, director for the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew, which drives initiatives to advance state policies that serve the public interest, has its sights set on Florida.
It wants to help the state reform its growing prison system by establishing cost-efficient alternatives for reducing crime instead of building more prisons and jails.
Gelb speaks today in Tampa to several hundred people attending the Justice Summit, a first-time event put on by the Collins Center for Public Policy, which has offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Sarasota.
"What we need in this state is some bold leadership around these things," said Angela Young, vice president for the Collins Center's Criminal Justice Initiatives. "We need a better-informed public that advocates for smarter justice."
Florida now incarcerates more than 100,000 people in state prison. Another 100,000 are under some form of court-ordered supervision, according to the state Department of Corrections. Within three years of release, about one-third of inmates are back in custody. The DOC is the state's largest agency with a budget of more than $2 billion.
"When we don't do transition preparation or some kind of rehabilitation in prison, we make it likely that folks will not be successful," Young said. "We know all that. We don't plan as if we know it. We don't make policy as if we know it. We don't budget as if we know it. We don't cooperate across agencies as if we know it."
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil has acknowledged that prison systems cut programs first when budgets grow tight.
"We stop being the Department of Corrections and start being the 'Department of Incarceration,'" McNeil said.
The state has tried to fight that, he said.
McNeil will be among the those speaking during the summit. Joining him will be Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon for a discussion on the state's perspective and vision.
State attorneys, public defenders and business leaders are also scheduled to speak.
What the partners meeting in Tampa this week ultimately hope to do is get Florida legislators to share their vision, create laws that reflect their approach and shift money to pay for proven programs that work better than incarceration.
"It used to be that the only issue for state policymakers was, 'How do I demonstrate that I'm tough on crime?' " Gelb said. "They're starting to ask a very different question, which is, 'How do I get taxpayers a better return on their investment in public safety?' "
He said state leaders across the country are recognizing that prisons are a government spending program. As such, they should be subject to a cost-benefit test, Gelb said.
"When you can put together a package of policy options that's a win/win, less crime and lower costs, it's not a slam dunk," Gelb said, but "it's very hard to ignore, especially when the economy is in such trouble."
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Let's talk death penalty in 2010 by
Raoul G. Cantero III and Mark R. Schlakman
Three years ago, the American Bar Association released a Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team report that documented numerous concerns about Florida's death penalty process. Since then, neither the government nor The Florida Bar has done much to remedy the problems.
To study Florida's death penalty, the ABA assembled a highly credentialed eight-member team that reflected prosecutorial, defense, judicial and academic perspectives, among others. After almost two years of research and analysis, the team resolved that its findings and recommendations had to be unanimous to be included. Individual members' perspectives ran the gamut, but the final report was intended to promote fairness and accuracy in our criminal-justice system without regard to one's views on capital punishment.
Among the findings was that legal representation of death penalty defendants in postconviction proceedings is often abysmal. The report makes several recommendations, including reinstating the capital collateral regional counsel office (CCRC) in the Northern Region of Florida. This office was disbanded as part of a still-ongoing pilot project launched during Jeb Bush's tenure that, in effect, privatized the northern office of the CCRC, thereby relying almost exclusively upon private registry counsel to handle postconviction appeals in death penalty cases.
Gov. Charlie Crist has expressed support for reinstating the Northern CCRC office.
Another recommendation embraced a unanimous Florida Supreme Court opinion that called upon the Legislature to revisit the death penalty statute. The report, like the opinion, observed that Florida is the only death penalty state (out of 35) "that allows a jury to decide that aggravators exist and to recommend a sentence of death by a mere majority vote."
Despite the court's strongly worded opinion, the Legislature has been unresponsive. It was reported that Gov. Bush said the issue was "definitely worth consideration" and cautioned legislators not to ignore the court. Yet Gov. Crist has voiced opposition to the recommendation.
Another alarming problem with Florida's death penalty is the number of defendants on Death Row who were later exonerated. The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides independent analysis on issues concerning capital punishment, advises that Florida has exonerated more death-sentenced inmates than any other state since 1973. One was exonerated after he died of cancer on Death Row.
The report also expresses concern about socioeconomic and geographic bias, the latter attributable in part to the fact that Florida's 20 state attorneys do not have uniform protocols to decide when to seek the death penalty. When prosecutors from different judicial circuits assess substantially similar criminal cases, prosecutors from one circuit might opt for the death penalty while prosecutors from another might opt for life without parole. This heightens concerns over whether the death penalty is applied consistently.
The report contains many other recommendations.
As the 2010 campaigns for statewide office and the Legislature take shape, conventional wisdom suggests that both Republicans and Democrats will resist taking positions that could be perceived as anything but tough on crime and strong on the death penalty. Circuit judges, who preside over capital cases, while nonpartisan and subject to the judicial canons, are not completely immune from such dynamics, given that they also face the voters periodically.
The challenge for those who hold and aspire to elected office, including Florida's 20 state attorneys, is to ensure that personal perspectives and the public outrage arising out of heinous crimes do not overshadow the fact that Florida's death penalty process is fraught with problems. Floridians expect a system of justice that engenders confidence based upon fairness and accuracy. With regard to the state's death penalty process, in many respects that standard has proven to be elusive.
We hope that this election cycle will provide an opportunity to openly and honestly discuss these issues and to seriously consider possible solutions.
Additional Facts
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
# Raoul G. Cantero III is a former Florida Supreme Court Justice appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. He resigned in 2008, after six years, to return to private practice in Miami. Contact him at raoul41@hotmail.com.
# Mark R. Schlakman is senior program director for Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and is board chair for the Innocence Project of Florida. He was one of eight members of the ABA's Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. Contact him at mschlakman@admin.fsu.edu.
Three years ago, the American Bar Association released a Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team report that documented numerous concerns about Florida's death penalty process. Since then, neither the government nor The Florida Bar has done much to remedy the problems.
To study Florida's death penalty, the ABA assembled a highly credentialed eight-member team that reflected prosecutorial, defense, judicial and academic perspectives, among others. After almost two years of research and analysis, the team resolved that its findings and recommendations had to be unanimous to be included. Individual members' perspectives ran the gamut, but the final report was intended to promote fairness and accuracy in our criminal-justice system without regard to one's views on capital punishment.
Among the findings was that legal representation of death penalty defendants in postconviction proceedings is often abysmal. The report makes several recommendations, including reinstating the capital collateral regional counsel office (CCRC) in the Northern Region of Florida. This office was disbanded as part of a still-ongoing pilot project launched during Jeb Bush's tenure that, in effect, privatized the northern office of the CCRC, thereby relying almost exclusively upon private registry counsel to handle postconviction appeals in death penalty cases.
Gov. Charlie Crist has expressed support for reinstating the Northern CCRC office.
Another recommendation embraced a unanimous Florida Supreme Court opinion that called upon the Legislature to revisit the death penalty statute. The report, like the opinion, observed that Florida is the only death penalty state (out of 35) "that allows a jury to decide that aggravators exist and to recommend a sentence of death by a mere majority vote."
Despite the court's strongly worded opinion, the Legislature has been unresponsive. It was reported that Gov. Bush said the issue was "definitely worth consideration" and cautioned legislators not to ignore the court. Yet Gov. Crist has voiced opposition to the recommendation.
Another alarming problem with Florida's death penalty is the number of defendants on Death Row who were later exonerated. The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides independent analysis on issues concerning capital punishment, advises that Florida has exonerated more death-sentenced inmates than any other state since 1973. One was exonerated after he died of cancer on Death Row.
The report also expresses concern about socioeconomic and geographic bias, the latter attributable in part to the fact that Florida's 20 state attorneys do not have uniform protocols to decide when to seek the death penalty. When prosecutors from different judicial circuits assess substantially similar criminal cases, prosecutors from one circuit might opt for the death penalty while prosecutors from another might opt for life without parole. This heightens concerns over whether the death penalty is applied consistently.
The report contains many other recommendations.
As the 2010 campaigns for statewide office and the Legislature take shape, conventional wisdom suggests that both Republicans and Democrats will resist taking positions that could be perceived as anything but tough on crime and strong on the death penalty. Circuit judges, who preside over capital cases, while nonpartisan and subject to the judicial canons, are not completely immune from such dynamics, given that they also face the voters periodically.
The challenge for those who hold and aspire to elected office, including Florida's 20 state attorneys, is to ensure that personal perspectives and the public outrage arising out of heinous crimes do not overshadow the fact that Florida's death penalty process is fraught with problems. Floridians expect a system of justice that engenders confidence based upon fairness and accuracy. With regard to the state's death penalty process, in many respects that standard has proven to be elusive.
We hope that this election cycle will provide an opportunity to openly and honestly discuss these issues and to seriously consider possible solutions.
Additional Facts
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
# Raoul G. Cantero III is a former Florida Supreme Court Justice appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. He resigned in 2008, after six years, to return to private practice in Miami. Contact him at raoul41@hotmail.com.
# Mark R. Schlakman is senior program director for Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and is board chair for the Innocence Project of Florida. He was one of eight members of the ABA's Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. Contact him at mschlakman@admin.fsu.edu.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Case is among string of bogus convictions
The kid they tried to execute was just 15. An IQ of 67.
The Broward prosecutor demanded the death penalty. But the jury, queasy about killing a mentally deficient teenager with no more evidence than a questionable confession, voted to spare Anthony Caravella's life.
Circuit Judge Arthur J. Franza seemed disappointed. ``I'll tell you this, Anthony: If the jury had recommended death, I would have had you electrocuted.''
Broward was that close to executing an innocent teenager.
Twenty-six years after Caravella was sent off for life, Edward Blake, a leading forensic scientist and a pioneer in DNA analysis, obtained a genetic profile from sperm left by the man who raped and murdered Ada Jankowski behind Miramar Elementary School in 1982. Blake concluded: ``Anthony Caravella is eliminated as the source of the spermatozoa.''
So Caravella's case becomes yet another among the Broward state attorney's string of ignominious convictions of mentally challenged defendants, later found to be innocent.
SHAM CONFESSION
Once again, the deciding ``evidence'' was a sham confession elicited from a feeble-minded suspect after hours of interrogation.
The confession, of course, was the only actual evidence against Caravella. In fact, the cops elicited five contradictory confessions from the teenager, but the last, finally, coincided with the crime-scene evidence.
The new DNA findings suggest the interrogators provided the incriminating information. It must have been easy stuff, manipulating a frightened, mentally deficient suspect into self-incriminating statements. Just like John Purvis, a schizophrenic with the mind of a 12-year-old, who after a rambling, barely coherent confession, did nine years for a murder finally linked to someone else. Jerry Frank Townsend, IQ of 50, served 22 years after confessing to murders committed by Fort Lauderdale serial killer Eddie Lee Mosley. Frank Lee Smith, so mentally disturbed he shouted incoherent inanities at his jury, died of cancer after a dozen years on Death Row before DNA evidence cleared him.
FINE CAREER MOVE
Cops got their bogus statements. Prosecutors got their bogus convictions. And convicting mentally defective innocents proved a fine career move. Prosecutor Robert Carney, who nailed both Purvis and Carvella, now sits as a Broward circuit judge. William Dimitrouleas, who prosecuted Frank Lee Smith, has a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Meanwhile, actual killers went free. Eddie Lee Mosley continued his hideous rape and murder spree. Miramar police never bothered to discover who stabbed Ada Jankowski 28 times.
In 2001, the Broward Sheriff's Office crime lab was persuaded to reexamine evidence from the Caravella case but failed, mysteriously, to isolate any DNA. Blake said Friday he received a ``harassing'' e-mail this week from the Broward state attorney's office indicating that, contrary to public statements about undoing a terrible injustice, the office would try to undermine his lab's credibility. If so, it would be a stunning tactic, given his national reputation. (With a list of high profile DNA cases that runs 51 pages, including the lab work that cleared Allen Crotzer and Luis Diaz, the wrongly accused Bird Road Rapist.)
``It appears they've gone into full scale cover-up mode,'' Blake said Friday. In Broward, we've been there before.
By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
The Broward prosecutor demanded the death penalty. But the jury, queasy about killing a mentally deficient teenager with no more evidence than a questionable confession, voted to spare Anthony Caravella's life.
Circuit Judge Arthur J. Franza seemed disappointed. ``I'll tell you this, Anthony: If the jury had recommended death, I would have had you electrocuted.''
Broward was that close to executing an innocent teenager.
Twenty-six years after Caravella was sent off for life, Edward Blake, a leading forensic scientist and a pioneer in DNA analysis, obtained a genetic profile from sperm left by the man who raped and murdered Ada Jankowski behind Miramar Elementary School in 1982. Blake concluded: ``Anthony Caravella is eliminated as the source of the spermatozoa.''
So Caravella's case becomes yet another among the Broward state attorney's string of ignominious convictions of mentally challenged defendants, later found to be innocent.
SHAM CONFESSION
Once again, the deciding ``evidence'' was a sham confession elicited from a feeble-minded suspect after hours of interrogation.
The confession, of course, was the only actual evidence against Caravella. In fact, the cops elicited five contradictory confessions from the teenager, but the last, finally, coincided with the crime-scene evidence.
The new DNA findings suggest the interrogators provided the incriminating information. It must have been easy stuff, manipulating a frightened, mentally deficient suspect into self-incriminating statements. Just like John Purvis, a schizophrenic with the mind of a 12-year-old, who after a rambling, barely coherent confession, did nine years for a murder finally linked to someone else. Jerry Frank Townsend, IQ of 50, served 22 years after confessing to murders committed by Fort Lauderdale serial killer Eddie Lee Mosley. Frank Lee Smith, so mentally disturbed he shouted incoherent inanities at his jury, died of cancer after a dozen years on Death Row before DNA evidence cleared him.
FINE CAREER MOVE
Cops got their bogus statements. Prosecutors got their bogus convictions. And convicting mentally defective innocents proved a fine career move. Prosecutor Robert Carney, who nailed both Purvis and Carvella, now sits as a Broward circuit judge. William Dimitrouleas, who prosecuted Frank Lee Smith, has a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Meanwhile, actual killers went free. Eddie Lee Mosley continued his hideous rape and murder spree. Miramar police never bothered to discover who stabbed Ada Jankowski 28 times.
In 2001, the Broward Sheriff's Office crime lab was persuaded to reexamine evidence from the Caravella case but failed, mysteriously, to isolate any DNA. Blake said Friday he received a ``harassing'' e-mail this week from the Broward state attorney's office indicating that, contrary to public statements about undoing a terrible injustice, the office would try to undermine his lab's credibility. If so, it would be a stunning tactic, given his national reputation. (With a list of high profile DNA cases that runs 51 pages, including the lab work that cleared Allen Crotzer and Luis Diaz, the wrongly accused Bird Road Rapist.)
``It appears they've gone into full scale cover-up mode,'' Blake said Friday. In Broward, we've been there before.
By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
Louisiana death penalty: an eye for an eye or ineffective?
Eighty-seven got a seat on "Gruesome Gertie" and were electrocuted.
Seven were put to sleep permanently by lethal injection.
In all, 94 people found guilty of capital crimes, such as first-degree murder or treason, have been executed in Louisiana since 1941. Eighty-two more, including two women, sit on death row today.
Their impending executions and those of others punished under Louisiana's death penalty have come under the scrutiny of media, victims, lawmakers, activists and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some say the state's capital punishment law, like those of 34 other states, is bound in the biblical tradition that those who take a life may be killed. The death penalty brings justice to victims' families and deters would-be killers, proponents argue.
"Most people believe that some people ought to get the death penalty — there are some crimes that are so bad that the person who commits (them) ought to be given the death penalty, if convicted," said death penalty expert Burk Foster, a former University of Louisiana-Lafayette criminal justice associate professor now teaching in Michigan.
Others insist the law is distorted and ineffective. Eight Louisiana death row inmates have been exonerated of their alleged crimes. More sentences overturned in recent years paired with fewer executions have all but already abolished the state's death penalty, they say.
"It's not as easy to get a death penalty (verdict) and certainly not (easy to) get one at this point," said Sabine District Attorney Don Burkett, who helped put three men on death row while district attorney for DeSoto and Sabine parishes. "I don't know how effective the death penalty is because there are so few being carried out."
Dwindling executions
The last execution in Louisiana was in May 2002. Leslie Dale Martin was put to death by lethal injection for the 1991 rape and killing of a 19-year-old college student. No other execution is scheduled, said Pam Laborde, Louisiana Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
Of the 27 men put to death since Louisiana reinstated the death penalty in 1979, 18 were executed between 1983 and 1988. Seven more were put to death during the '90s and just two were executed since 2000.
That mirrors a national trend. There have been 1,171 executions nationwide since 1976. The annual number has steadily dropped from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 37 executions last year, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.
"Louisiana was one of the most active death penalty states in the first 10 years after the death penalty was reinstated," Foster said. "Then it began to slow down. When we switched from electrocution to lethal injection it slowed down even more."
The reasons for that trend are varied, but better, more qualified legal representation for death row defendants has contributed to a lull in executions and an increase in exonerations and sentences being reversed, Foster said.
Since 2007, 11 men, not including those exonerated, have been taken off death row for a variety of reasons, the DOC reports. Most have seen their death sentences reversed and were resentenced to life in prison.
At least two men recently taken off death row were put there by Caddo Parish juries. In one case, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled prosecutors made a mistake and ordered a new trial. Robert Coleman, accused of the 2003 slaying of retired minister Julian Brandon during a Blanchard home invasion, is scheduled to again stand trial in April 2010. His girlfriend, Brandy Holmes, also earned a death sentence for her role in the crime.
In the other Caddo case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a sentencing was unconstitutional. Richard L. Davis, who was found guilty and sentenced to death for the rape of a 5-year-old girl, was resentenced to life in prison.
Nationwide, 135 death row inmates have been exonerated, according to Death Penalty Information Center statistics.
Fewer prosecutions
As a result of those and other factors, prosecutors are seeking death sentences less frequently. Faced with higher costs, the need for a unanimous jury verdict and a lengthy, expensive appeals process, they instead are opting for life sentences with no parole. Today there are 4,280 life inmates in Louisiana's state prisons.
An estimated 111 death sentences were meted out in 2008 across the country — part of a continual decline since 1998. In Louisiana, nearly half of the inmates on death row were sent there by three parishes — East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Jefferson. Between 2000 and 2008, those same parishes also had the most death row commitments in the state. Orleans Parish, which has the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, had not sentenced anyone to death in at least 12 years until August.
"There are parts of Louisiana that are very pro-death, but more than half the parishes in this state have never returned a death penalty," said Richard Bourke, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans. "The death penalty in this state is driven by a small number of individually, locally-elected officials."
A colorful history
Hanging was the means of execution in Louisiana until 1941. The last man legally hanged in Louisiana was William Landers, who was executed in 1941 — barely six months after he and three other escaped Arkansas convicts killed a posse man sent to capture them.
Jury selection for the quartet's trial was hampered due to public sentiment against giving the death penalty to all four men when it was likely only one, Frank Boyce, actually was responsible for the murder, according to a 2001 article written by Foster.
That's not the only time the state's death penalty has met societal pressure, according to LSU-Shreveport criminal justice professor Bernadette Palombo.
During the penalty trial of Timothy Taylor, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1999 shooting death of a Shreveport car salesman, defense attorneys and his parents pleaded with jurors to spare his life, Palombo said.
A man whose daughter was one of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh spoke on Taylor's behalf, asking the jury not to give the death penalty. The man, who spoke as a representative of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, also was seeking to stop McVeigh's execution. Ultimately, Taylor was given life in prison. His co-defendant, Michael Taylor, no relation, received the death penalty a year earlier.
Others have expressed satisfaction in the state's death penalty. After the 2002 execution of Martin, the parents of his victim, Christina Burgin, said they were "ecstatic" over his death, news reports at the time stated.
Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain, who was at Martin's side when he died, said he feels compassion for the families of death row inmates but his thoughts focus on the victims and their families.
"I think about the victims," Cain said of what goes through his mind while sharing a last meal and standing by an inmate, sometimes holding his hand, as he is executed. "I wish I could have helped the victims. I wish I could have stopped (the victim's murder)."
After the state's last hanging, Louisiana switched to the electric chair. The oak chair, which was transported to the parish where the execution was to take place for nearly 16 years, was the method of choice from 1941 to 1991. The electric chair found a permanent home at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1957.
In that chair is where the only woman to be executed in Louisiana met her end. Toni Jo Henry, a Shreveporter, was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1940 killing of a 41-year-old tire salesman from Houston. She was executed on Nov. 28, 1942, in Lake Charles.
Two women, including Brandy Holmes, of Shreveport, sit on death row today. Both are housed at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel. Holmes' latest appeal is before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The other woman, former New Orleans police officer Antoinette Frank, saw her pending December 2008 execution for a 1995 triple homicide canceled by the Louisiana Supreme Court just weeks before she would have received a lethal injection.
In 1967, all executions nationwide were suspended pending a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately struck down the death penalty. All death row inmates at that time were resentenced to life imprisonment, according to DOC records.
The state resumed executions in 1983 and switched to lethal injections in 1991.
Cain, who has led six of the seven men executed by lethal injection to their deaths, said the prison's method of execution, which offers the condemned a last meal of choice and time with families, offers dignity. He wishes more could be done for the victims and their families.
"You do what you can where you are," Cain said.
By Alison Bath
alisonbath1@gannett.com
Shreveport Times
Seven were put to sleep permanently by lethal injection.
In all, 94 people found guilty of capital crimes, such as first-degree murder or treason, have been executed in Louisiana since 1941. Eighty-two more, including two women, sit on death row today.
Their impending executions and those of others punished under Louisiana's death penalty have come under the scrutiny of media, victims, lawmakers, activists and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some say the state's capital punishment law, like those of 34 other states, is bound in the biblical tradition that those who take a life may be killed. The death penalty brings justice to victims' families and deters would-be killers, proponents argue.
"Most people believe that some people ought to get the death penalty — there are some crimes that are so bad that the person who commits (them) ought to be given the death penalty, if convicted," said death penalty expert Burk Foster, a former University of Louisiana-Lafayette criminal justice associate professor now teaching in Michigan.
Others insist the law is distorted and ineffective. Eight Louisiana death row inmates have been exonerated of their alleged crimes. More sentences overturned in recent years paired with fewer executions have all but already abolished the state's death penalty, they say.
"It's not as easy to get a death penalty (verdict) and certainly not (easy to) get one at this point," said Sabine District Attorney Don Burkett, who helped put three men on death row while district attorney for DeSoto and Sabine parishes. "I don't know how effective the death penalty is because there are so few being carried out."
Dwindling executions
The last execution in Louisiana was in May 2002. Leslie Dale Martin was put to death by lethal injection for the 1991 rape and killing of a 19-year-old college student. No other execution is scheduled, said Pam Laborde, Louisiana Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
Of the 27 men put to death since Louisiana reinstated the death penalty in 1979, 18 were executed between 1983 and 1988. Seven more were put to death during the '90s and just two were executed since 2000.
That mirrors a national trend. There have been 1,171 executions nationwide since 1976. The annual number has steadily dropped from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 37 executions last year, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.
"Louisiana was one of the most active death penalty states in the first 10 years after the death penalty was reinstated," Foster said. "Then it began to slow down. When we switched from electrocution to lethal injection it slowed down even more."
The reasons for that trend are varied, but better, more qualified legal representation for death row defendants has contributed to a lull in executions and an increase in exonerations and sentences being reversed, Foster said.
Since 2007, 11 men, not including those exonerated, have been taken off death row for a variety of reasons, the DOC reports. Most have seen their death sentences reversed and were resentenced to life in prison.
At least two men recently taken off death row were put there by Caddo Parish juries. In one case, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled prosecutors made a mistake and ordered a new trial. Robert Coleman, accused of the 2003 slaying of retired minister Julian Brandon during a Blanchard home invasion, is scheduled to again stand trial in April 2010. His girlfriend, Brandy Holmes, also earned a death sentence for her role in the crime.
In the other Caddo case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a sentencing was unconstitutional. Richard L. Davis, who was found guilty and sentenced to death for the rape of a 5-year-old girl, was resentenced to life in prison.
Nationwide, 135 death row inmates have been exonerated, according to Death Penalty Information Center statistics.
Fewer prosecutions
As a result of those and other factors, prosecutors are seeking death sentences less frequently. Faced with higher costs, the need for a unanimous jury verdict and a lengthy, expensive appeals process, they instead are opting for life sentences with no parole. Today there are 4,280 life inmates in Louisiana's state prisons.
An estimated 111 death sentences were meted out in 2008 across the country — part of a continual decline since 1998. In Louisiana, nearly half of the inmates on death row were sent there by three parishes — East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Jefferson. Between 2000 and 2008, those same parishes also had the most death row commitments in the state. Orleans Parish, which has the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, had not sentenced anyone to death in at least 12 years until August.
"There are parts of Louisiana that are very pro-death, but more than half the parishes in this state have never returned a death penalty," said Richard Bourke, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans. "The death penalty in this state is driven by a small number of individually, locally-elected officials."
A colorful history
Hanging was the means of execution in Louisiana until 1941. The last man legally hanged in Louisiana was William Landers, who was executed in 1941 — barely six months after he and three other escaped Arkansas convicts killed a posse man sent to capture them.
Jury selection for the quartet's trial was hampered due to public sentiment against giving the death penalty to all four men when it was likely only one, Frank Boyce, actually was responsible for the murder, according to a 2001 article written by Foster.
That's not the only time the state's death penalty has met societal pressure, according to LSU-Shreveport criminal justice professor Bernadette Palombo.
During the penalty trial of Timothy Taylor, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1999 shooting death of a Shreveport car salesman, defense attorneys and his parents pleaded with jurors to spare his life, Palombo said.
A man whose daughter was one of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh spoke on Taylor's behalf, asking the jury not to give the death penalty. The man, who spoke as a representative of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, also was seeking to stop McVeigh's execution. Ultimately, Taylor was given life in prison. His co-defendant, Michael Taylor, no relation, received the death penalty a year earlier.
Others have expressed satisfaction in the state's death penalty. After the 2002 execution of Martin, the parents of his victim, Christina Burgin, said they were "ecstatic" over his death, news reports at the time stated.
Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain, who was at Martin's side when he died, said he feels compassion for the families of death row inmates but his thoughts focus on the victims and their families.
"I think about the victims," Cain said of what goes through his mind while sharing a last meal and standing by an inmate, sometimes holding his hand, as he is executed. "I wish I could have helped the victims. I wish I could have stopped (the victim's murder)."
After the state's last hanging, Louisiana switched to the electric chair. The oak chair, which was transported to the parish where the execution was to take place for nearly 16 years, was the method of choice from 1941 to 1991. The electric chair found a permanent home at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1957.
In that chair is where the only woman to be executed in Louisiana met her end. Toni Jo Henry, a Shreveporter, was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1940 killing of a 41-year-old tire salesman from Houston. She was executed on Nov. 28, 1942, in Lake Charles.
Two women, including Brandy Holmes, of Shreveport, sit on death row today. Both are housed at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel. Holmes' latest appeal is before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The other woman, former New Orleans police officer Antoinette Frank, saw her pending December 2008 execution for a 1995 triple homicide canceled by the Louisiana Supreme Court just weeks before she would have received a lethal injection.
In 1967, all executions nationwide were suspended pending a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately struck down the death penalty. All death row inmates at that time were resentenced to life imprisonment, according to DOC records.
The state resumed executions in 1983 and switched to lethal injections in 1991.
Cain, who has led six of the seven men executed by lethal injection to their deaths, said the prison's method of execution, which offers the condemned a last meal of choice and time with families, offers dignity. He wishes more could be done for the victims and their families.
"You do what you can where you are," Cain said.
By Alison Bath
alisonbath1@gannett.com
Shreveport Times
Monday, August 31, 2009
Senator Jim Webb on criminal justice reform:
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 that I introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.
Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:
With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.
America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.
We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.
Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:
With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.
America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.
We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
A letter to Senator Nancy Detert
This past week I heard Senator Nancy Detert speak at SarasotA Tiger Bay. Following the discussion, members of Senator Detert's staff passed out a newsletter and survery to return to her. Rather than complete the survey I decided to write the Senator abour criminal justice. Here is an except from my letter.
" I thought I would write you a letter about my primary concern, which is criminal justice. I am of the opinion that our criminal justice system in Florida is in need of a complete overhaul. We need to make better decisions about imprisonment, alternative sentences, resources and procedures.
You may be aware that Senator Jim Webb has proposed formation of a national commission on criminal justice to study the federal system. This commission would include members from law enforcement, the judiciary, treatment professionals, prosecutors and defense attorneys. There will be no “scared cows” and everything would be on the table for discussion.
I would encourage you to discuss criminal justice issues with other members of the Florida Senate and see if there would be any support for a similar commission in our state. The commission would be charged with determining the goals for Florida’s criminal justice system, how to best use resources, how to compensate victims and how to rehabilitate offenders. Everything should be under consideration including capital punishment, minimum mandatory sentences, drug offender sanctions and independent forensic laboratories."
" I thought I would write you a letter about my primary concern, which is criminal justice. I am of the opinion that our criminal justice system in Florida is in need of a complete overhaul. We need to make better decisions about imprisonment, alternative sentences, resources and procedures.
You may be aware that Senator Jim Webb has proposed formation of a national commission on criminal justice to study the federal system. This commission would include members from law enforcement, the judiciary, treatment professionals, prosecutors and defense attorneys. There will be no “scared cows” and everything would be on the table for discussion.
I would encourage you to discuss criminal justice issues with other members of the Florida Senate and see if there would be any support for a similar commission in our state. The commission would be charged with determining the goals for Florida’s criminal justice system, how to best use resources, how to compensate victims and how to rehabilitate offenders. Everything should be under consideration including capital punishment, minimum mandatory sentences, drug offender sanctions and independent forensic laboratories."
Monday, August 17, 2009
Getting Smart on Crime:
After decades of supercharged incarceration rates, our bloated prison system is straining under its own weight, and policy makers are finally being forced to deal with the need to shrink it.
According to a study last year by The Pew Center on the States entitled “One in 100: Behind bars in America 2008,” the prison population of the United States has nearly quadrupled over the last 25 years while the nation’s population has grown by less than a third.
We now have more inmates per capita than any of the 36 European countries with the largest inmate populations, and our total number of inmates is more than all the inmates in those countries combined.
This comes at a cost. According to a report published last month by the Vera Institute of Justice, an independent, nonprofit research group, $1 in every $15 from states’ general funds is now spent on corrections. That doesn’t work in a recession.
Much of the rise in the prison population was because of draconian mandatory sentencing laws that are illogical — sociologically and economically.
On the sociological side, as the criminal justice expert Joel Dvoskin of the University of Arizona explained to me, data overwhelmingly support the idea that locking up low-risk, nonviolent offenders makes them worse, not better.
A study from a decade ago that was published in the journal American Psychologist put it this way: “Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them.”
On the economic side, putting nonviolent drug offenders in rehab is cheaper than putting them in prison. A 2006 U.C.L.A. study found that California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, which allowed nonviolent drug possession offenders to go to rehab instead of prison, saved taxpayers nearly $2.50 for every $1 invested in the program. (Unfortunately, funding for the program has been gutted.)
Put them in prison and make them worse criminals, or put them in rehab, possibly make them better, and save some money. Sounds like a no-brainer.
There are encouraging signs that policy makers are moving in the right direction. Many states have moved to repeal mandatory minimums, and there is a bill in Congress to repeal federal mandatory sentencing. Furthermore, Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be thinking about this issue the right way. Speaking to the American Bar Association last week, he said, “There is no doubt that we must be tough on crime. But we must also commit ourselves to being smart on crime. ... We need to adopt what works.”
By CHARLES M. BLOW and published in the New York Times on Saturday, August 8 2009
According to a study last year by The Pew Center on the States entitled “One in 100: Behind bars in America 2008,” the prison population of the United States has nearly quadrupled over the last 25 years while the nation’s population has grown by less than a third.
We now have more inmates per capita than any of the 36 European countries with the largest inmate populations, and our total number of inmates is more than all the inmates in those countries combined.
This comes at a cost. According to a report published last month by the Vera Institute of Justice, an independent, nonprofit research group, $1 in every $15 from states’ general funds is now spent on corrections. That doesn’t work in a recession.
Much of the rise in the prison population was because of draconian mandatory sentencing laws that are illogical — sociologically and economically.
On the sociological side, as the criminal justice expert Joel Dvoskin of the University of Arizona explained to me, data overwhelmingly support the idea that locking up low-risk, nonviolent offenders makes them worse, not better.
A study from a decade ago that was published in the journal American Psychologist put it this way: “Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them.”
On the economic side, putting nonviolent drug offenders in rehab is cheaper than putting them in prison. A 2006 U.C.L.A. study found that California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, which allowed nonviolent drug possession offenders to go to rehab instead of prison, saved taxpayers nearly $2.50 for every $1 invested in the program. (Unfortunately, funding for the program has been gutted.)
Put them in prison and make them worse criminals, or put them in rehab, possibly make them better, and save some money. Sounds like a no-brainer.
There are encouraging signs that policy makers are moving in the right direction. Many states have moved to repeal mandatory minimums, and there is a bill in Congress to repeal federal mandatory sentencing. Furthermore, Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be thinking about this issue the right way. Speaking to the American Bar Association last week, he said, “There is no doubt that we must be tough on crime. But we must also commit ourselves to being smart on crime. ... We need to adopt what works.”
By CHARLES M. BLOW and published in the New York Times on Saturday, August 8 2009
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Breaking Our Addiction to Prison: by General Barry McCaffrey
Our traditional justice system has been inadequate to the task of breaking the cycle of substance abuse and crime. Four out of every five offenses are committed by someone with a drug or alcohol problem; and we just keep locking them up!
In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That's far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time.1 Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol2 and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.
Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime3 and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse.4 And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually.5 On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.
Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there's absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.
Author Judge Dennis Challeen (ret.) said it best about sending the addicted to prison:
We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth
We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility
We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless
We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust
We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them
We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty
We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected
We want them quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof
We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other
We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society
So we make them totally dependent on us
An Investment Beginning to be Realized
The verdict is in on Drug Courts. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Drug Courts work. Drug Courts significantly reduce drug abuse and crime and do so at less expense than any other justice strategy.
That is why the historic 1994 Biden Crime Bill authorized $1 billion for the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program, administered by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. The intent of the Biden Crime Bill at the time was to expand Drug Court funding to $200 million annually by the year 2000. Unfortunately the DOJ federal appropriation has averaged only $40 million and saw its lowest level in 2006 at a mere $10 million.
The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has also supported Drug Courts through its discretionary funding. But it, too, is drastically under-funded with a meager $10 million a year available to enhance treatment services within Drug Court programs.
That is all changing. Earlier this year, Congress approved $64 million for Drug Courts; the highest federal appropriation for the program in its 20 year history. And President Obama has plans to take the ball further up field. In the Administration's budget for 2010, there is potentially $118 million for Drug Courts.
How Much Money Is Needed?
Drug Courts need $250 million per year for the next six years--essentially as was originally envisioned in the Crime Bill -- in order to put a Drug Court within reach of the 1.2 million adult offenders who need it and to truly begin to heal America's number one social problem...addiction.
What Will be the Return on the Investment?
A $250 million annual Federal investment would reap staggering savings, with an estimated annual return of as much as $840 million in net benefits from avoided criminal justice costs alone and another 2.2 billion in savings to our communities. A $250 million annual Federal investment would also substantially reduce the demand for illicit drugs and enable state and local governments to cease over-relying on expensive and ineffective prison sentences for nonviolent, addicted offenders.
If the past is any indication of the future, state and local governments can be expected to follow suit and leverage the Federal investment several-fold. In these down-turn economic times, there is no way to be certain whether the states will be able to continue to leverage Federal dollars at a 9:1 ratio as they have done in the past. But once states began to realize cost-offsets from criminal justice and prison expenditures, state funding can be reapportioned to expand and sustain Drug Courts. Assuming even a modest 5:1 state investment, a $250 million annual Federal investment could leverage as much as $1.25 billion in state funding.
Drug Courts are just good common CENTS! For more information about Drug Courts, go to www.allrise.org.
In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That's far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time.1 Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol2 and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.
Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime3 and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse.4 And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually.5 On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.
Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there's absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.
Author Judge Dennis Challeen (ret.) said it best about sending the addicted to prison:
We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth
We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility
We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless
We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust
We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them
We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty
We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected
We want them quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof
We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other
We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society
So we make them totally dependent on us
An Investment Beginning to be Realized
The verdict is in on Drug Courts. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Drug Courts work. Drug Courts significantly reduce drug abuse and crime and do so at less expense than any other justice strategy.
That is why the historic 1994 Biden Crime Bill authorized $1 billion for the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program, administered by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. The intent of the Biden Crime Bill at the time was to expand Drug Court funding to $200 million annually by the year 2000. Unfortunately the DOJ federal appropriation has averaged only $40 million and saw its lowest level in 2006 at a mere $10 million.
The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has also supported Drug Courts through its discretionary funding. But it, too, is drastically under-funded with a meager $10 million a year available to enhance treatment services within Drug Court programs.
That is all changing. Earlier this year, Congress approved $64 million for Drug Courts; the highest federal appropriation for the program in its 20 year history. And President Obama has plans to take the ball further up field. In the Administration's budget for 2010, there is potentially $118 million for Drug Courts.
How Much Money Is Needed?
Drug Courts need $250 million per year for the next six years--essentially as was originally envisioned in the Crime Bill -- in order to put a Drug Court within reach of the 1.2 million adult offenders who need it and to truly begin to heal America's number one social problem...addiction.
What Will be the Return on the Investment?
A $250 million annual Federal investment would reap staggering savings, with an estimated annual return of as much as $840 million in net benefits from avoided criminal justice costs alone and another 2.2 billion in savings to our communities. A $250 million annual Federal investment would also substantially reduce the demand for illicit drugs and enable state and local governments to cease over-relying on expensive and ineffective prison sentences for nonviolent, addicted offenders.
If the past is any indication of the future, state and local governments can be expected to follow suit and leverage the Federal investment several-fold. In these down-turn economic times, there is no way to be certain whether the states will be able to continue to leverage Federal dollars at a 9:1 ratio as they have done in the past. But once states began to realize cost-offsets from criminal justice and prison expenditures, state funding can be reapportioned to expand and sustain Drug Courts. Assuming even a modest 5:1 state investment, a $250 million annual Federal investment could leverage as much as $1.25 billion in state funding.
Drug Courts are just good common CENTS! For more information about Drug Courts, go to www.allrise.org.
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